THEY HAVE DESIGNS ON YOUR INTERIOR.

Byline: Barbara De Witt Daily News Staff Writer

This being a decade in which designer purses are out and cocooning is in, it's no wonder that high-profile fashion designers have moved out of our closets and into our living spaces, with everything from picture frames to paint.

Designs for the home are a natural extension of fashion, said Michel Benasra, designer and president of Guess? Home Collection. ``In the '90s, people are spending more time and money at home ... so we're trying to reach the same people who are comfortable in our jeans and T-shirts with prewashed sheets that have a soft, worn feeling like our clothes,'' he said.

Guess?'s new bedding, rather than being packaged in plastic, comes in a matching fabric sack. The Los Angeles-based company also has tabletop designs, throw pillows and tie-dyed towels, and has plans for flatware and dishes, too.

Guess? will be in good company. Ralph Lauren, Eddie Bauer and Calvin Klein already have dished up their own line of tableware to match their customers' tastes at home.

Just like Eddie Bauer's rugged athletic styles, the Eddie Bauer home shops are outdoorsy in theme, filled with rough-hewn bed frames, denim sofas, sturdy dishes, garden-themed candlesticks and an assortment of wooden clocks all painted a weathered hunter green and sporting a laid-back ambience.

Calvin Klein, king of minimalist fashion design, has made an equally understated foray into the home-furnishings department with his new Calvin Klein Home Collection, available at Bullock's/Macy's West stores. Klein said he designed the collection because he wants to live with it all - all the luxury he's accustomed to, right down to cashmere blankets which are fringed and made in classic Calvin colors like beige.

Also in the new home collection are chalk-colored stoneware, indigo sheets, clean-lined stainless steel flatware, glassware and china. Even his streamlined chairs and tables found in his new New York store are unmistakably CK, without curves or cabriole legs.

And that's left plenty of room for Ralph Lauren's nostalgic furniture, which the designer thinks should be as personal as clothes but look like family heirlooms.

Lauren recently introduced a signature hallmark line of fine china that's banded with gold to establish what Lauren calls a tasteful balance of understated elegance and glamour.

In the home decorating business since 1983, he's far from finished.

The way Lauren sees it, ``American homes are the most exciting in the world. Eclectic and diverse, each interior tells a unique story about who lives there.''

He wants to be his customer's only storyteller. To keep customers from straying into Calvin territory or elsewhere, Lauren introduced several new looks that include Denim, an Americana line with denim patchwork chair covers, chambray sheets, madras blankets and American flags on towels; Serape, an urban vision of the Southwest with a cowboy boot reading chair, tooled leather furnishings and serape-print sheets; and an over-the-top group called Desert Hollywood, with a velvet tiger ottoman, bald Persian rugs and snakeskin-printed sateen sheets.

To complete your Lauren-esque home, Lauren has introduced matching wallpaper and Ralph Lauren paint, set to make a splash in local hardware stores this summer.

The new paint line, already available in Northern California and on the East Coast, is produced by Sherwin-Williams in color palettes designed to match each of Lauren's furniture collections to avoid any decorating disasters. Lauren also will have a separate collection of whites and a texturizing glaze called Historic Crackle to create that vintage look he loves in furniture.

Although it may seem like Lauren and others from Bill Blass to Liz Claiborne have already covered the home market, it's still an untapped territory that Linda Allard, designer for Ellen Tracy career fashions, is just now exploring.

This month, look for her dainty sheets, towels, shower curtains, rugs, ceramic decorative accessories and window treatments by Fieldcrest at Bullock's/Macy's West stores.

CAPTION(S):

6 Photos

Photo: (1) Guess? offers soft new denim sheets, from $49 , that come in a matching fabric sack.

(2) Flowers and seersucker combine in Ralph Lauren's nostalgic approach to home decor.

(3--Color) RALPH LAUREN

Fans of designer Ralph Lauren can slip into his new yellow leather jeans, $1,350, left, and paint their house the same shade of yellow with his new latex house paint collection. Coming to local hardware stores this summer, the paint will be priced at $22.99 a gallon and up. To order paint by phone, call [phone]; for general information, call [phone].

(4--Color) Ralph Lauren is best known for elegant European-inspired furnishings, but he has tapped into the casually chic trend with a chair slip-cover made from a patchwork of faded blue jeans, $4,335 at the Ralph Lauren Boutique, 444 Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills.

(5--Color) GUESS?

Famous for jeans and T-shirts, this Los Angeles-based company recently expanded into the home decor department, with equally hip denim and tie-dyed sheets and towels. The towels, left, are $16 each at department stores.

(6--Color) CALVIN KLEIN

From minimalist menswear, left, to the home department, Calvin Klein has you covered. His sleek flatware, above right, is $60 a place setting at Bullock's in Sherman Oaks. Clothes and home furnishings, including the chair at right, can be found in Calvin Klein's new store, which opened in New York recently.