SWINGING AWAY 'DOWN WITH LOVE' SPARES NO EXCESS TO CREATE CLOTHES WORTHY OF THE FILM'S COLORFUL SETTING.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

When we first see Renee Zellweger's Barbara Novak on the bustling cosmopolitan sidewalks of 1962 Manhattan in ``Down With Love,'' she's swimming in candy pink.

Her pastel outfit has hand-embroidered squares that line up perfectly front to back, and she's sporting coordinating white hat and gloves.

As Zellweger points out, ``She really embraces her femininity, this girl.''

Matching handbags and shoes, coifed do's, false eyelashes, big, splashy Hollywood-style entrances in satin jewel-colored capes - the fashion, like the rest of this film, winks at the suggestively titled, double-entendre sex comedies of the late 1950s and early '60s that starred Doris Day and Rock Hudson.

Think ``Pillow Talk.''

``That was the space age and everything was new and everybody was going forward and it was optimistic,'' says Daniel Orlandi, whose 100 or so designs are worn by the ``Down With Love'' cast. ``That's what movie clothes were about.

``And,'' he adds, ``we wanted all the clothes to always have surprises.''

The surprises abound from the moment Zellweger's up-and-coming advice author sheds her big white hat and candy pink jacket to reveal her suit's other incarnation: a dress.

In another scene, Zellweger and Sarah Paulson, who plays Barbara Novak's stylish editor, burst into a restaurant in black hats and coordinating canary yellow and black-and-white checkered coats. When the coats come off, the women are in short dresses in the opposite fabric.

Airline stewardesses wear Pan Am blue uniforms and pillbox hats, topped with felt-covered pins. One group, the Dancing Astronettes, are outfitted to resemble something out of ``The Jetsons.'' Zellweger glides like Ginger Rogers in a flowing salmon robe, black lingerie and a beige garter belt.

And it's not just the girls who are playing dress-up.

Taking his cues from Tony Randall, who has a small role in the film, Orlandi transforms David Hyde Pierce into the lovelorn men's magazine publisher Peter McMannus with tweedy English-inspired tailoring.

``I still think his clothes are kind of fun and sexy,'' Orlandi says. ``But it's that tight silhouette on Ewan (McGregor) I love because it almost looks like the suits are a size too small.''

The inspiration for McGregor's Italian-style suits, meanwhile, was Steve McQueen, who Orlandi says ``was very masculine but always wore beautifully tailored clothes.''

McGregor's hotshot journalist Catcher Block wears skinny suits that are streamlined and jazzy, and they are made of all the great fabrics of the '60s, including sharkskin, mohair and silk.

While he lounges in swanky suits and silk pajamas, Zellweger gets to frolic in a pink romper shorts combo, feather capes and slinky, white sequined gowns.

And those are just a few pieces of the eye candy.

``Let me tell you, that's a hell of a closet to get to go through,'' says Zellweger, describing her search for the perfect gown to wear to an after-hours cocktail party on set with friends of the cast and crew. ``Daniel Orlandi really outdid himself because he styled (the clothes) with the tailors and the seamstresses who did some of the greatest work for some of the greatest designers of the era.

``We had (Oleg) Cassini's people in there ... we had people who did Yves St. Laurent's first lines. I mean, I talk about it with enthusiasm because I appreciate the great skill that is required to put something like that together,'' adds Zellweger. ``It's not just a couple pieces of material, but it's about understanding it. It's art, you know?''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Costume Designer Daniel Orlandi hand-stitches the squares on Renee Zellweger's pink tweed suit so the lines on the jacket, with white collar and pocket flaps, match the lines on the dress she wears underneath. He coordinates the outfit with a straw hat and matching full-length gloves.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Zellweger, near left, means business in this black-and- white checkered coat and yellow wool dress, the exact opposite of the ensemble worn by Paulson. Both women accessorize with matching black gloves and shoes, as well as hats that completely hide their hair. Orlandi says he wanted the clothes to deliver many of these kinds of little surprises.

(4 -- color) In an entrance worthy of vintage Hollywood, Renee Zellweger, far right, throws off her big, bubbly Barbie-pink evening cape in sync with co-star Sarah Paulson, whose wrap looks identical save for the iridescent plum color. When the capes come off, Zellweger stands posed in a clingy black lace gown, while Paulson goes classic velvet.