Designer scores with Magic, other black celebrities.

It's nearly lost among the storefronts of South Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills, but the Dion Scott shop is becoming familiar terrain for a growing number of African-American athletes and entertainers.

The clientele includes athletes Shaquille O'Neal, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Tyson; actors Will Smith and Eriq LaSalle; and musicians Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr. Dre and the members of Boyz II Men. Magic Johnson wears Dion Scott suits on his nightly talk show, as does comedian Steve Harvey on his sitcom on The WB network.

"Being a black designer helped me, in my circumstances, because there weren't a lot of well-known black designers serving clients," said Dion Lattimore, the firm's president and chief financial officer, who started the business with his partner, Scott Torrellas.

Revenues have grown from $1.5 million in 1995, the company's first year of existence, to $3.5 million in 1997. Debt has been reduced from $500,000 at the beginning of 1997 to about $180,000 today.

"They have a sensibility I'm looking for when I'm looking for a style in my suits," said Harvey, who has been wearing Dion Scott lines for two years. "I think they listen better to what I say." The custom-made suits run between $1,000 and $3,500, depending on which fabric is used. Their style harks back to the 1940s - a "very Desi Arnaz look," according to Lattimore.

Among the most popular items is a six-button, single-breasted suit coat with a square-cut bottom. Also in demand is a five-button, single-breasted coat with a wide "butterfly" collar. All the coats have "surgeon cuffs" - that is, cuffs with actual buttonholes, rather than the imitation buttons found on most suits.

Other features include silk linings, felt collars, tortoise-shell buttons and trousers cut baggy in the hips and the bottom. They often are flamboyantly colored, such as a fuchsia-pink suit for Baltimore Orioles star Eric Davis. "You probably wouldn't see that on a Bill Gates," Lattimore said.

He noted that his suits appeal more to an African-American clientele because of their baggier trousers - a style popular among many black entertainers and athletes - and their flashier look. "They're looking for more fashion-forward things. We tend to be on the cutting edge of what they wear, and they have the confidence to pull it off as well," he said.

Non-black athletes and entertainers are also taking note. New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada, who has worn Dion Scott suits for two and a half years, cites the personal service offered by Torrellas. "He comes to the hotel and he measures me up," Posada said.

Lattimore got his start as a model for clothing designer Johnathan Behr, from whom he also learned the fashion design trade. He then went to work for upscale men's clothier David Rickey & Co. in Costa Mesa. A year after Lattimore joined Rickey & Co., Torrellas, who had been in real estate, joined the company as a salesman, and the two started working together.

In 1989, Lattimore met his first big client - Magic Johnson. At the time, Johnson, still with the Lakers, was spending $80,000 on suits and other clothing. "That's when I knew the business was for me," Lattimore said.

They spent the next several years building up a large celebrity clientele, most of them black athletes and entertainers - and many of them referred by Johnson. Lattimore and Torrellas left Rickey & Co. in 1994, took their last paychecks and started their own design firm - initially working out of the living room of Lattimore's Fountain Valley apartment.

A number of Lattimore and Torrellas' clients from Rickey & Co. followed the two. "It was just a matter of taking care of our existing clients we already had. then getting new clients," said Torrellas. Dion Scott's vice president.

One method Lattimore and Torrellas used for getting new clients was taking their designs and swatches to hotels where a sports team was staying, and pitching their suits to athletes. Their first big break came in early 1995, when the Minnesota Timberwolves and Houston Rockets were in town to play the Lakers and Clippers, and both visiting teams were staying at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey.

Lattimore and Torrellas wound up selling $40,000 of clothing - with players forking over $20,000 in deposits. They used the money in mid-1995 to set up their shop in Beverly Hills - a location the two felt would help establish their credibility and allow them to more easily focus on the entertainment industry.

The firm is planning later this year or early next year to introduce a new ready-to-wear line that Lattimore and Torrellas hope to sell through such stores as Nordstrom. The suits in that line will be more conservatively cut than many of Dion Scott's custom-made suits and will sell for less than $1,000.