Powering alongside at Gale force

Still sleek, still feisty, Honor Blackman hasn't lost the lethal charm of that Latex Accessoires-clad sixties heroine. Ann Donald meets the first feline Avenger.

The mark is late. One hour late. We - the photographer and that i - stand in a dimly-lit bar. The barman crooks a finger and calls us over. The topic has called via her agent. There has been a change of plan. We must rendezvous at her secret hideaway nearby. We glance furtively about and check out her entry -phone. A Rolls-Royce-tuned voice commands: "Listen carefully. Navigate to the first floor and wait from the second door." We obey. A good start rattles. A disembodied voice shouts down: "Hello? Where are you?" The lift rattles about, zooms between floors, then shudders to some halt. The luxurious voice is vexed: "Oh Jesus Christ," it sighs, exasperated. More shunting, rattling, and posh sighs.

Suddenly, the subject appears, glaring down from the floor above. Sleek, blonde, looking 2 full decades younger than her 72 years. "I mentioned to attend through the lift door," she scolds. Ehh . . . Hello! Honor Blackman? "Yes, yes. Come up, come up." Miss Jean Brodie meets Miss Penelope. Profuse apologies extended. One-hour wait's forgiven.

Because of the clandestine - albeit botched - activities from the preceding five minutes, I half expect Cathy Gale to chastise us which has a karate chop. Gale, of course, was Blackman's unforgettable creation in the sixties TV spy adventure, The Avengers. So that as any lady knows, Gale was the supercool, blonde potentate inside the leather catsuit who regally high-kicked her solution to Queen of Girl Power once the Spice Girls were nowt but a distant marketing irritant.

Gale, and by proxy Blackman, oozed oodles of attitude, action, and sex appeal. Still does, if our brief encounter is any gauge. Diamonds - tasteful, mind - sparkle on fingers. Nowhere eyes turn their lighthouse beam on / off based on the concentration of animated conversation. (On, generally.) Slacks, three-inch heels plus a figure to die for. Minimal make-up permits the classic bone structure to stand out. I produce a mental note to acquire a copy of her book, How you can Appear and feel Half Your actual age Throughout Your Life (Hodder Headline $ 14.99).

Alas, no matter how glowing the septuagenarian, Hollywood decreed that American temptress Uma Thurman should forge ahead role in the movie version of The Avengers, alongside Ralph Fiennes as Steed. The film is released in great britan next week.

"That's why you're here. Isn't it?" queries the blonde, bobbing through from your kitchen in the midst of tea making. Yes. What exactly are her expectations of the film? "Well, I am not sure the actual way it work really with an American in the role," she ponders diplomatically. "The Avengers is definately an English concept. Americans can't really play English and vice-versa." And because the archetypal feisty English rose, Blackman contents herself while using knowledge that she'll be reviewing Thurman's performance for that BBC. Catsuits at dawn?

Draping herself through the settee, Blackman launches into prompted reminiscences with the TV series that made her name from 1963-64. Inside a voice that rumbles from 40-Rothmans-a-day cackle to husky 4am-niteclub, she gleefully recalls the evolution of your character who had previously been to inspire the memorable ditty Kinky Boots.

"Cathy was an antidote to the women you saw in the news at the time," she purrs. "You were either the wicked brunette within the black stockings or even the wife by the sink. Cathy was the initial woman in the media to protect herself and not get into those roles."

Kicking BUTT Inside a CORSET

It's hard to kick butt in the corset, but slinky six foot blonde beauty Uma Thurman managed it - so successfully that she's poised to kick butt again, now in skin-tight leather.

Thurman, who played Poison Ivy within the bat movie, may be cast as Mrs Peel inside new Avengers movie, Latex Catsuit bringing towards the big screen the role that Diana Rigg so famously created on 1960s television.

"It's the best woman's role that's appear in 25 years," boasts Avengers producer Jerry Weintraub. "Sure, there may be a Mr Steed, (played by Ralph Fiennes) however it is the Emma Peel role which will be the stand-out."

The truth is, although Hollywood is currently looking to hush the very fact up, Thurman wasn't the initial option for the film version in the cult 1960s TV series.

Surprisingly, the project did the rounds in Tinseltown more than 10 years, and Thurman was picked for that role after Elizabeth Hurley, Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow declined first reason or any other.

"I discovered the project a few years ago" admits Thurman, "so when it returned around, it appeared like it absolutely was returning to me for a reason."

Since she ran away from school and appeared in Kiss Daddy Night at 16, her career have been such as the proverbial roller-coaster ride.

She was praised for her daring bi-sexual role in Henry and June, slaughtered by critics for her performance inside movie Even Cowgirls Obtain the Blues, nominated to have an Oscar on her behalf role in Pulp Fiction and slaughtered again on her acting in the sci-fi thriller Gattaca.

Notwithstanding fame, beauty all night . appeared in additional than 16 films, Thurman still isn't an A-list superstar. This fact, she claims, doesn't bother her whatsoever.

"Honestly, I've never seriously considered a show star. That's not me prefer that, really. I've stood a handful of films, but I never did these things to get famous.

"Dangerous Liaisons set it up the type of hot and fast flush that comes from being young and new to the picture. But that kind of cheap success doesn't represent me at all.

"The truth is, I've tended to generate fairly obscure movies so I haven't really courted commercial success".

What did circulate at the beginning of her career were reports of Thurman's unusual intelligence. Her Dangerous Liaisons co-star John Malkovich known Thurman's 'horrifyingly great brain' as there are without doubt that the actress (who never went along to college) is extremely well-read.

Finding a script when a woman character carries a high IQ is but one reasons why the role of sexy scientist Emma Peel was particularly attractive to her, Thurman explains.

"Emma is a great character - positive, intelligent, witty. She's a no cost spirit, and somewhat unconscious of her draw over men."

Thurman can hardly boast of being unconscious of her own draw over men. Her slender figure, blue eyes, porcelain skin, pouty lips and blonde hair a lot more than qualify her for that role of Hollywood babe, that is not her style.

Catsuits as well as Sparkling wine

Reviewed by Carolyn Banks, who writes mysteries plus owns a mare named Emma Peel.

Ascholarly book about "The Avengers"? A novel the location where the author -- and not using a single twinge of irony, mind you -- tweaks academics for "licensing their very own pleasures as professional acts of theory plus critique"? A book that delights in utilizing 50-cent words (like narrativize, actants, alterity, problematise, plus -- what definitely seems to be the author's fave -- diegesis) when 10-cent ones could have done but that we nonetheless adored reading? Yes, Toby Miller's The Avengers could be the very one.

This one thing should suggest how powerful the niche a few a magazine can be. Miller's, a tribute for the enduring 1960s British television group of exactly the same name, has a lot of fun stuff inside besides. Plus Trekkers please note: One of the several Avengers websites had 154,939 hits between June 1995 as well as August 1997.

But there's more. Diana Rigg's character's name, as an example, is considered to get come from a publicist who wrote that this female character who followed Honor Blackman's portrayal of Mrs. Gale, an earlier cohort from the John Steed character played by Patrick Macnee, should have "Man Appeal." In her notes, the publicist shortened this to "M Appeal." Then when she make out the print aloud . . . well, there you go. "This is my favourite creation myth," the writer says.

Plus where did those Latex catsuit rubbersuit overall with hat come from? "Three months before miniskirts appeared in British boutiques, one was purchased from Courreges for [Rigg] to put on on the watch's screen . . . the mini drew protests from the U.S. networks plus was soon displaced by the emmapeeler, a ribbed jersey . . . jump suit."

Did Diana Rigg get fan mail? So much so that her mother evidently delivered a form letter that read: "My daughter is much too old in your case and what exactly you need is a great run around the block."

Rigg's own take on the series? Miller quotes an invisible Times interview when Rigg said, "Thank God the first is remembered for something -- also it wasn't absolute rubbish."

The quotes from television columns that Miller resurrects are some of the book's best features. One from your 1984 TV Guide pronounces Rigg "too smart to fool herself into believing that [appearing within the play 'King Lear'] will ultimately stop people from thinking about black leather whenever her name is mentioned."

Are you getting the feeling that Macnee's portrayal of John Steed is in fact ignored? Well, it really isn't so. Steed is, Miller lets us know, part of the gentleman spy tradition that emerged inside post-Victorian era. Miller cites a long list of Steed's predecessors to prove that espionage had become "an acceptable part of ruling-class amateurism." Macnee is said to possess copied his portrayal of Steed from your 1939 Ralph Richardson film role, "down towards the umbrella." Steed, with the vintage Bentley which he drove through most of the series, has been said to represent tradition, whereas Mrs. Peel, when driving of her Lotus, stands set for modernity.

Because I FELT as though I did so

Her natural warmth and easy-going manner, her sheer niceness, shone through the screen.

You could easily imagine her walking into your living-room, pouring herself a glass of vino, flopping down on your sofa, starting her shoes and telling you exactly what a hard day she's had, but heck, it's better than working.

You sensed instinctively that everything you saw with Jill Dando was whatever you got.

Men came total silly in her presence, because she was slim and blonde and overwhelmingly attractive for the reason that typically English, freshly-scrubbed, captain -of-the-college-netball-team way.

But women latched onto her, too, because she didn't flaunt her sexuality or take part in the predator.

During that figure-hugging black Latex catsuit rubbersuit overall with lacing where she was plastered, legs akimbo, on the cover of Radio Times, she didn't look remotely threatening.

It absolutely was a pose. A tale. She wasn't fooling anyone.

"Whatever she did, she was so good and so NICE," said one of the many callers to this particular office, as shattered and bewildered through the news when i was.

FRIENDS in television who had worked with her used the words "perfectionist" and "professional", again and again. "Jill very rarely made mistakes, but she'd get quite angry with herself over some fairly minor slip-up," said a former colleague.

"She couldn't stand sloppiness." Cruelly and wrongly, one newspaper lumped her along with all of the brainless, twittering, self-adoring, publicity-craving, blonde-haired, semi-literate bimbos and airheads who prance, pout and prattle on our TV screens, seemingly on all channels each day, underneath the headline "Blonde Ambition".

Well, yes, she was blonde. And he or she had comfortably achieved certainly one of her ambitions - to pull off that most difficult trick of making popular, quality television. Entertaining or informative programmes such as Holiday, Crimewatch and Antiques Inspectors.

Various other ambition was to find and marry the Mr Right who had eluded her during hundreds of years when she am busy throwing herself into her work. "He also wanted me to find yourself in a large quanity of positions that you simply normally see those who do yoga in. He said I used to be very flexible."

SID was flying home the following day and Bonnie took taxis back to her Magaluf apartment. A couple of hours later, Sid's brother Mark arrived at her flat and said Sid planned to say goodbye...and desired to collect his jogging suit. "Sid was waiting in his car," she recalled. He was quoted saying we'd keep in touch.

"I asked him whether he also wanted his socks back but he explained: 'No, you can keep them.' "I wouldn't mind definitely back now. They don't really fit my feet particularly well." In Alan Farthing, finally, she had found him. Now he's lost her.

The next time you hear some moronic footballer or jumped-up nonentity of an actor describe missing a penalty or just being axed from the TV soap like a "tragedy", stop and consider Jill Dando

Face of waking time

Pop trivia quiz time: what's Alvin Stardust's real name? Award yourself nul points in the event you said Shane Fenton; that's only the other from the great Latex Leggings vaudevillian's noms des disques. Folks who wants wait for answer then look in that area, off to the underside right, in which the truth is laid bare in all their awful majesty.

You cannot fault Mr Stardust for trying. His career, because he admits himself, is a overcome the fickle tastes with the record-buying public - as well as a triumph of application over ability: "My one wish is that I really could sing. I have made a good career - and lots of money - from as an average vocalist. I would love to have a voice like Pavarotti or Stevie Wonder." Don't most of us, Alvin, don't all of us.

Alvin's urge to have high on stage and belt 'em out might be traced to your night in 1959 in the Cock, a bar in Ripley, when Alvin, then 15, stood up and sang Teddy Bear, along with the applause convinced him he'd found his vocation. At 16 he previously adopted the persona of Shane "Moody Guy" Fenton together a couple of rock'n'roll hits regarding his band the Fentones. However, if The Beatles arrived Fenton's old -style rock pastiche was finished, at least as far as the charts were concerned. He eked out an income for the rock'n'roll cabaret circuit while using the Fenton moniker before the early seventies, when he was reincarnated because the leather-clad rock god we see today.

Alvin Stardust - the name was worked up from Elvin, to get a few of the reflected glory of just about being called Elvis (cautious Elvises on the market today, named in a very flurry as soon as the King? And is also the plural Elvii?), and Starr, as with Ringo - has been in the business since 1973. He enjoyed four hits in rapid succession: My Coo Ca-Choo, along with the others. We've what they are called before me, but I doubt you'd remember them unless you're one of several Stardust faithful who've allowed him to generate a decent living around the nostalgia tour circuit alongside such other seventies relics as The Rubettes and Mud.

Stardust, indomitable, revived his career inside eighties and had even more hits. It was returning to touring civic halls and

small-town arenas with other entertainers who never quite parlayed their chart success into the big time.

His black leather guise was based on Jack Palance in Shane; plus it almost killed him. One of his first Stardust memories was of your catsuit that covered him from throat to ankle, topped off with an unpleasant black syrup: "The only location for heat to flee was from my face, so three-quarters of the way from the show I just collapsed. They'd to reduce off my catsuit inside the ambulance. My manager was saying: 'Not the suit!' I quickly stopped breathing, in order that they fed a pipe down my throat. All my manager could say was: 'You know he's got to sing tomorrow, right?"'

Recently, Alvin missed a stage cue at Peterborough in 1994 and located himself too at the fireworks while they discontinued. He was rushed to hospital, fearing injury to his eyes; hearteningly, he recovered.

Stardust is thrice married, famously to Liza Goddard for 12 many currently to Welsh actress and singer Julie Paton, that is 26 years his junior and younger than his eldest son - "We attempted to split at the outset of the connection, but couldn't," according to him, fully cognisant of the difficulties such an age difference would bring.

He's also enjoys a healthy standing like a stage villain, and it has performed privately for that Queen and family at Windsor.

He was given birth to Bernard Jewry: you can view why a nascent rocker should change it, can't you? Godspeed you, Alvin Stardust.

The pair were dying to possess sex there after which but Shaggy was required to do a string of interviews

Alicia told us: "We returned to his hotel overlooking the park, the Metropolitan, and freshened up. I'd been wearing this white Gucci dress but I turned into an extremely sexy black Latex Catsuit . Shaggy loved me in it and kept growling at me like a tiger. "We went to dinner in Knightsbridge with a few guys from his band and in the end returned to the hotel around 11pm. By that point we couldn't wait to have our practical each other. Shaggy whisked me as much as his room and the man lived up to all his earlier promises.

"He unzipped my catsuit so I was left just during my white knickers and bra. And then we shared a shower. His hands were all over me, touching and caressing. He earned feel so alive. "We stepped from the shower and began kissing passionately from the bathroom sink and then on the ground. I'm able to remember fondly the chill from those tiles on my back. "Still dripping in the water, he took me and led me to the sofa. We made love there, about the carpet and also briefly against a cupboard prior to it on the bed. Shaggy used to be a marine in america military and the man still keeps fit, so he's got a wonderful body. It turned out like being with Tom Cruise from Top Gun.

"He plays approximately his image being a bit of a lad but deep-down he's an incredibly lovely sensitive guy, intelligent and caring-not whatsoever how he appears when he sings his song. "Like everybody in the Caribbean he's incredibly relaxed and chilled. He was quoted saying he just liked spreading good vibes. "All I'm able to say is if you might bottle that vibe you'd make millions-because all women on earth would believe it is impossible to face up to."

Shaggy-real name Orville Burrell-first topped the British charts with Oh Carolina in 1993. He followed it with Boombastic and also a cover of Mungo Jerry's During the summer time. But it all went wrong and the man was dropped by record label Virgin. Signed by MCA recently, he bounced back with megasmash It Wasn't Me, which includes sold 1.2 million copies in Britain alone.

The follow-up Angel was another No 1 and his awesome album Hot Shot is massive, topping the charts here and selling over eight million worldwide. He got his nickname because his hair was this type of mess he looked like the cartoon character Shaggy from Scooby Doo. When he discovered it had a saucier meaning in great britain, he laughed: "I hated that name until I came here-but suddenly I liked it! "These days when chicks ask generate an income got my name, I only say, 'Because that's what I am-want me to show you?' Heh, heh. I do believe it's a cool name. I'm good at it, too. And I'm a good foreplayer!"

Alicia's had some experience, too, dating Man utd striker Dwight Yorke and EastEnders star Dean Gaffney, who plays Robbie Jackson. But she rates Shaggy easily the nicest. "He's coming back to Britain in October and i also can't wait to find out him," she beamed. "I have to get butt-naked with him again-on the bathroom floor, of course." Have you got a story in regards to a star? Ring us every day, 10am to 6pm, on 020 7782 4444. Don't get worried concerning the cost, we'll ring straight back.

I'd love to be caught red-handed sleeping with all the blonde from the park. Picture this, we are both butt naked banging on the bathroom floor. We had been at in the bedroom...it was me. We had arrived banging on the sofa...it had been me. I even had her within the shower...it turned out me.

FASHION Consumers: LIKE JILLY, IIKE Princess

Listed below are The Stunning Pictures Which Show That Jilly Johnson And Her Only Child, Lucy, Are really Like Mother, Like Girl. The Pair Model Their New Selection of Clothes, And Tell Steven Smith Why They're Keeping It In The Family...

HE long blonde hair, the famous cheekbones and pout all look familiar. Here's model and actress Jilly Johnson showing her new business partner - stunning girl Lucy.

They have teamed up to launch their very own fashion Latex Jeans range - which they're modelling here, to the very first time that.

Jilly, a shapely 47, says: "The inspiration originated some of those mum- and -daughter chats about getting older. Lucy said she didn't want me joining the twin-set and pearl brigade yet, but I told her how hard it really is to dress young without looking ridiculous.

"It suddenly dawned on us we should just design our personal range. I cannot be the only mum out there who still proceeds dates but still wants to feel good. But I'd hate to wear anything that would embarrass my personal daughter - she's so sensible that we joke we're like Edina and Saffy in Ab Fab - although naturally I do not actually DRESS like Edina!"

Lucy, 26, says: "Mum has always was able to maintain elegance but nonetheless look sexy. That has been our inspiration behind launching LUJI. We wanted our own distinct affordable clothes that would suit anyone it doesn't matter what what their ages are."

Mother and princess recently shared their biggest day yet - Lucy's marriage to Anthony Lyons, 34, online resources his or her own commercial property company.

Jilly recalls: It will need to have been my most terrifying assignment ever! I became a bag of nerves - in fact my litttle lady was having a wedding and starting a whole new life by herself. It rained marriage ceremony but nothing could dampen our spirits, and that we had a magical time.

"Brian, my ex-husband, gave Lucy away i were built with a handbag filled with tissues ready, but I did not need one. I'd been on this type of emotional roller- coaster within the weeks around the marriage i didn't shed a tear - I used to be all cried out.

"When I saw my litttle lady sitting on her very own on the altar I had been so proud of her. I would not think she's ever looked so beautiful before - there she was, surfaced finally."

And what did Jilly wear? "I selected a pale gold sheath dress with bronze beading, included in a corset using a big gold wrap. It had been designed by Bourhan Basma so it had lots of elegance in addition to sex appeal."

Then she added, having a smile: "The mother of the bride continues to have to check sexy too, you already know..."

"It was hard, I didnrrrt realise why everyone was cruel or would say disgusting items to you, I did find it hard and i also still believe it is very frustrating." After shedding the catsuit, Kelly comes back into her denim jacket and black pants and heads for the following stop with Trowsdale, Versace at Crown. On the way Kelly pauses briefly in a shop selling girly street fashion, all gingham pleat skirts and plastic handbags.

12.30pm: Along the way into the Crown complex several men in suits nearly trip over their particular tongues while they gawk at Kelly. That she cannot walk across a footpath without this sort of leering must be rather irritating, but Kelly has the capacity to appear oblivious, safe, somehow, behind her psychic shield.

Eliza: Satisfying my fetish!

Hi guys I've updated my website www.themaskedslut.com with loads of new content.

Loads of masks have been used to satisfy my fetish including, gas masks, lycra mask and a skin tight bondage hood.

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Hot Pop Babes Give A Lovely Rubbery Taste Of Their Sin-Sational New Video

Girls of hot pop act Liberty X are actually living as much as their new name during these Xrated outfits.

The tasty babes slipped into this raunchy rubber gear to pose for their favourite newspaper.

The group - Michelle Heaton, 23, Jessica Taylor, 21, Kelli Young, 20, Tony Lundon, 22 and Kevin Simm, Latex Clothing Store 20 - were instructed to add the "X" for their name after a legal wrangle with another band called Liberty.

Their next single, Slightly, is defined heading to the shops on May 13 - and the video can be a sensation.

Within it, girls wear sexy rubber catsuits to experience high-kicking diamond thieves.

And they were pleased to give Daily Star readers a unique treat by posing for all of us of their saucy rubber outfits.

Singer Jessica says of these hot pop vid: "It certainly is the sexiest we now have complied far. The catsuits look wonderful, but wearing them for just two days wasn't a lot of fun.

"They are pretty hot. And also you can't wear anything under them, so you just feel naked."

Michelle agrees: "I felt so glamorous and sexy making this video, but it was actually hard work and it got really hot and sweaty in those rubber outfits."

Kelli loved the action sequences. She says: "I needed to pretend to kick some guy hard and accidentally made contact a few times, but he said it didn't hurt."

Liberty X were formed a year ago with the five singers who made it to the final of telly talent show Popstars, but merely missed out on a place within the winning group, Hear'Say.

While Hear'Say have since seen their fortunes fade, especially considering that the departure of member Kym Marsh, Liberty X have gone from strength to strength.

Their singles Thinking It Over and Doin' It shot up the charts, and their latest is tipped to accomplish exactly the same. Next to your skin an album on May 27.

What exactly do they think they need that Hear'Say appear to be lacking today?

Michelle says: "We weren't forced into working together. We became friends pursuing the show and chose to make up the band, so our working relationship is based on friendship."

But Jessica reckons their Popstars rivals could be in for a revival. "I think people are writing Hear'Say off prematurily ., " she says. "I think if we lost a member it would be difficult to carry on."

So what have been the highlight of these pop career up to now?

Michelle says: "We went along to the Britney Spears film premiere and yes it was amazing being there with all of those stars.

"I also love doing TV performances - especially The top of Pops, because I dreamed about it while i was little."

When it comes to love, the girls enjoy playing it quiet. Michelle have been connected to Footballers' Wives star Gary Lucy, but insists they aren't a specific thing.

"We took a few dates and Gary's great, but it was nothing serious, " she says.

Jessica can be fancy-free at this time. Kelli is said to experience a longterm boyfriend, but won't talk about her romantic endeavors.

If they won't discuss themselves, what about the boys in the group - have they got any saucy secrets?

Jessica says: "I'm not revealing that, because they'll dish the dirt on me."

But Kelli is happy to reveal the awful truth: "Tony has smelly feet!"

What kind Underwear is women's Favorites

Underwear and cosmetics will often be impulse purchases, ''a magic pill for ails you,'' said Linda Barbanel, a psychotherapist devoted to women's attitudes toward money. ''You do not have to test it on, you know the size, it makes you really feel pretty. If work isn't so hot or your life isn't so hot, you can always try hot pants.'' Golden Front Zip Latex Catsuits  changing fortunes -and styles - may also be still quite definitely a function of the transformations in fashions over everything, however. ''The strapless dress was there prior to strapless bra,'' said Mrs. Coleman of Maidenform.

An even more recent example: the racer-back bra, whose straps meet down the middle of the rear, in lieu of using the back. The brand new bra's origins spring from last year's summer fashion shows, which featured outer fashions with larger armholes that expose a traditionally styled bra. Last December, Vanity Fair introduced its V-Back bra and shipped 2 million to stores within half a year. Other companies followed making use of their own versions of the Vanity Fair style. In accordance with Mr. Mulrenan of Warner's, racer-back bras will are the cause of 11 percent from the $1.6 billion bra business during the first few months of the year.

That days, a must respond, as well, on the mixed blessing of changing technology. In December, for instance, Wacoal announced intends to introduce underwire bras which can be tossed in to the washer and emerge unmangled. A nickel-titanium alloy used for the wire might be bent or twisted but regains its original shape when it reaches room temperature.

The particular could mean new customers for Wacoal. However the industry's new technologies, which include result-oriented fibers and manufacturing methods, also imply that Catsuits Lingerie items go longer. Task for your market is to keep customers buying new undergarments.

''They don't need replacing anymore,'' said Maidenform's Mrs. Coleman of today's Catsuits Lingerie. ''Those situations are indestructible. So we have to make sure they are more pleasurable.''

Fun isn't the only thing that people are demanding - in addition they apparently want more service. Wacoal, that charges about $30 for the bra in comparison with the average of $15, believes that customers will pay more for sales-clerk attention. Keeping that in mind, it has opened 100 boutiques in shops during the last 3 years, says Sada Noguchi, Wacoal's corporate vice-president. Fifty more boutiques are planned with this year.

Staffing Wacoal's service unit are 40 clerks, who, after having a one-week training seminar distributed by the company, travel from store to store and advise customers regarding how to find a very good fit. They determine physical stature, provide sizing charts, and urge women to try on bras before choosing. Often they poke their heads in the dressing room to check the fit - but only, they are taught, after a discreet knock. The approach helped make $25 million in domestic sales a year ago.

Warner's is just one of several manufacturers following Wacoal's lead. It is testing the thinking behind company-trained sales help out with the Catsuits Lingerie departments of Macy's and Bloomingdale's in New York. If your pilot programs succeed, the concept might be expanded to stores nationwide.

''I imagine 15 years ago, a bunch of individuals were saying 'What do the Japanese learn about making cars?' '' Mr. Mulrenan said. ''We shouldn't be saying that about Catsuits Lingerie 15 years from now.''