PLEASE WAX AND TUBE to FASHION.--end tube : Italian Menswear Designers Parlay Classics Into News

If anyone doubts that men are starting to dress up again, just ask Vito Artioli.

President, owner and designer of a men’s shoe factory bearing his name in Tradate ,Italy, Artioli reports that in Italy, young men who once wore rubber-soled boots as dress shoes are now back to fringed and tasseled moccasins.

“People now seem to understand that they have to put the right shoe with the right clothes,” he says. “They are returning to the classical items.”

With one espresso machine in tow, Artioli and 73 other Italian men’s clothing and accessory manufacturers showed their wares for fall and winter 1985/86 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The event, called Uomo Moda West, sponsored by the Italian Trade Commission, attracted some 1,000 buyers from the Western states, twice as many as were expected.

Italian trade commissioner Mario Castagna explains that Americans are attracted to Italian quality and style as well as the favorable rate of exchange, adding that $522 million worth of Italian apparel was sold to the United States in the first 11 months of 1984, an increase of 107% over 1983. Menswear accounted for about half of it.

The buyers come as much for classical items, such as Artioli’s moccasins, as for the new and different, such as dark paisley dress shirts, antelope leather slacks, even plaid, two-button boxer shorts.

Retailer Lina Lee Lidow, who was buying for her men’s store in New York’s Trump Tower, said what she liked best was what she called the “country gentlemen’s look,” combining jackets and slacks in different tweedy textures and adding a chunky sweater-vest underneath.

At Valentino Uomo, suits were sold in mixed patterns, shown with a sweater of a third pattern underneath.

Women’s fashion designer Laura Biagiotti, who introduced her first collection for men called Biagiotti Uomo, showed a tuxedo in mixed patterns and textures, starting with a white paisley Jacquard shirt, paisley silk vest, striped wool pants, gray flannel jacket and topped off with a gray cashmere cape.

Actually, some manufacturers seemed to be aiming their clothes directly at the U.S. market. The great American sportsman was alive and well at Henry Cotton, where shirts are printed with hunting themes, and on Cantarelli’s sweaters, which were enlivened with golfers.