Pulling Back : Fashion: Rumors aside, friends say designer Carolyne Roehm walked away from Seventh Avenue in an effort to strengthen her marriage to financier Henry Kravis.

NEW YORK —  It would be easy to assign some kind of symbolism to the fate of fashion designer Carolyne Roehm and her husband, Henry Kravis, the king of Wall Street acquisitors. As the Gatsbys of their time, they epitomized the roaring ‘80s and the newly moneyed set known as Manhattan’s “Nouvelle Society.”

They had the homes: four, including the $5.5-million Park Avenue apartment and the pre-Revolutionary Connecticut getaway with the $7-million barn.

They had the art and antiques: the Louis XV furniture and the $14-million Renoir. Or was it a Sargent?

There were parties: one so lavish that they flew in 6,000 flowers from Europe, and one so large that it was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And, of course, there was Pookie the dog.

Even before their 1985 marriage, Kravis established Roehm in her own fashion house, fleshing it out with his own millions and personally advising her on her debut show, which included a series of expensive evening gowns. Kravis, the sawed-off mogul from Tulsa, Okla., sat in the front row with tears in his eyes as his tall, willowy wife floated down the runway and the crowd applauded the young designer wildly.

All this and more became legend in the 1980s as Roehm and Kravis ascended Manhattan’s social ladder--posing for paparazzi, chitchatting with the glossy magazines and all the time grumbling about the burdens of so much going out.

And so when Roehm announced earlier this month that she was closing her 6-year-old design business, the I-told-you-so’s rose with a great clamor that this was yet another sign that what was flying high in the ‘80s--whether it was Donald and Ivana’s marriage, Michael Milken’s empire or the leveraged buyout industry--was going bust in the ‘90s.

But while Roehm and Kravis embody many of the myths of the old decade, pegging the changes in their lives to the transition to a new decade may be too facile.

“Carolyne and Henry are stereotypical of something, “ says a friend who has known them since they met in 1981, “but their mythical qualities are far less important these days than their very human personal problems.”

Although Roehm, 40, is leaving Seventh Avenue amid rumors that her sales are weak and her marriage is teetering, underlying her decision to close up shop is something far more personal--and tragically real.

In late July, Roehm’s 19-year-old stepson, Harrison, her husband’s beloved alter ego, died in an automobile accident in the Colorado mountains. The death devastated Kravis and, according to one friend, “fostered that rare event, a woman falling in love with her husband again. She saw how he handled it all so well, and clearly, her priorities changed.”

But, according to friends, Roehm also was savvy enough to realize she needed to pay more attention to her marriage, amid rumors that both were seeing others. After all, without Kravis, her chief financial backer, Roehm never would have had her own fashion house in the first place. She had cut a swath on Seventh Avenue using financial clout, beauty, graciousness and an unexpected willingness to work 12-hour days.

“ ‘Something’s got to give, and I’m not giving up Henry,’ ” designer Josie Natori quotes Roehm as saying as long ago as last winter when discussing the strain her job put on her marriage.

One former associate says he believes Roehm simply decided to cut her losses.

“She wasn’t getting pleasure out of what she was doing,” says the ex-associate, asking to remain anonymous. “Although she was afraid of looking bad to her public, she had to give it up now or face having to fold later if she lost Henry.”

Associates describe a series of lunches and meetings she had earlier this year as she groped to find a new direction. Apparently she even considered designing clothes for women who can’t afford $2,000 dresses. And in June she hired Kitty D’Alessio, a former executive at Chanel, to help resuscitate her company.

But Oscar de la Renta, her mentor, says Roehm has been professionally frustrated for too long. “Carolyne has not had the attention she expected or wanted,” he says. “She took it hard if she got a bad review of a collection.”

De la Renta, who has known Roehm since the early 1980s, when she worked for him as an assistant and model, says “it was a huge, emotional decision for her” to walk away from a dream that she spent a lifetime nurturing.

In the end, the decision left the reed-thin designer 10 pounds lighter and fragile--though not so destroyed that she withdrew from the society pages: After all, the Kravises aren’t exactly broke. Business at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.--maestros of the $25-billion RJR Nabisco takeover--remains just fine, thank you.

Still, Carolyne Roehm, pragmatic Midwestern girl that she is, doesn’t seem ready to let the foibles of her business also overwhelm her marriage. She’s decided to temporarily rein in.

To many, it is myth that is called for when describing Carolyne Roehm. She has been compared to Eliza Doolittle and Madame Bovary.

Born 40 years ago in Kirksville, Mo., the daughter of teachers, she was known as Janie Smith until she came to New York for her first job at Kellwood, a manufacturer of misses’ dresses for chain stores. It was there she began using her first name, Carolyne (pronounced Caro-LINE); she later became Roehm after a brief, disastrous marriage to a German businessman.

In 1981, she encountered Henry Kravis, who like herself was emerging from a messy divorce. They met at a pre-Christmas party and, as the story was told over and over again, were “just friends” for a very long time. But in November, 1985, they were married in their 16-room Park Avenue apartment by a rabbi from Tulsa, in front of 101 of their closest friends.

After her business began drawing attention in the fashion trades, Roehm often told stories about her existence as a struggling young designer and her up-from-the-Peter-Pan-collars-and-pearls life. Her first tiara came from a Sears catalogue, and she designed dresses in polyester.

In fact, her friends and former associates describe two very different Carolynes.

There is Janie Smith, the wonderful, dewy-eyed romantic, a lovely girl from Missouri who grew up in a little house dreaming of frilly dresses. She’s kind, funny, considerate to friends and not quite comfortable with being a famous person. She likes to chow down with a cold beer and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and is concerned for her stepchildren and employees. And in a way she is naive, thinking that by being herself she can overcome all adversity and overwhelm all criticism.

And then there is Carolyne Roehm, the czarina of Nouvelle Society, the second Mrs. Henry Kravis, who tells a caterer that the sorbet better hold its shape or he won’t be paid. She works in a mirrored office and can often be caught glancing at her reflection. (Says one friend, “Carolyne can go a little over the top in her society-lady role.”)

She easily cancels appointments and, as one detractor put it, “Carolyne can drown in her own narcissism--and that’s no act.”

In her six years on her own in the fashion world--in contrast to the decade she spent toiling for others--there was reason to write her off as a dilettante, and some people did.

“A real designer would not have her husband for an investor,” says Karl Lagerfeld, creative director of the Chanel fashion empire. “You can only ask others to invest in you when you believe in yourself.”

Lagerfeld met Roehm last spring when she accompanied De la Renta to Paris, to present his collection there for the first time. Lagerfeld now refers to her as a handsome woman. But he says he had been less impressed by her fashion ads, in which the dark-haired, fine-boned Roehm modeled her own creations, posed in intimate corners of richly appointed rooms.

If anything squelched the dilettante theory, no doubt it was when she helped orchestrate “7th on Sale,” a fund-raising sale of designer clothing last November that raised $4.7 million to fight AIDS. For her role, Roehm is being honored at a Council of Fashion Designers of America dinner Nov. 4.

“She gave more than 100%,” says Donna Karan, a co-chairwoman of the sale.

Despite her whirlwind social life, she put in her time at the office, according to people who worked with her. “We were both there early in the morning and late at night,” says Don Friese, her first company president. “She paid as much attention as she could to the business without losing sight of the creative side.”

The clothes were carried in major stores across the country, including Saks, Neiman Marcus and I. Magnin in California. The company claimed about $10 million in annual sales.

Friese left three years ago, to start a new business, Shirchio Friese, representing lower-priced, up-and-coming designers. He left, he says, “because I could see the handwriting on the wall.” The market for Roehm’s couture-like clothes, priced from about $500 for a simple daytime dress to $3,000 or more for evening gowns, was shrinking.

By the time Roehm closed her business this month, Kravis had reportedly invested $20 million. Business analysts say he may have pulled the plug, but friends and detractors alike insist Roehm made the decision herself.

Designers say it was something else that bought her down: perfume. And licenses for other products. She didn’t have enough of either.

“Designer lines do not make money,” explains Karan, whose lower-priced collection, DKNY, along with licenses for shoes, hosiery and handbags, pays the bills on her pricey signature collection. “It costs an extraordinary amount to produce a designer line. You need some other income to feed that business.”

But the real curse, the tragic flaw in what promised to be a perfect world, seems to hinge on Roehm’s talents as a designer.

Her own intention, friends recall, was to make “pretty clothes.” And at their best, they have been pretty--but not daring, original or remarkably creative. And not consistent. She seemed always to be dressing the limited number of women in the world like her--very slim, very tall and very rich. Billowing sleeves, baby-doll shapes and horizontal stripes don’t work on most figures.

But none of it seems important now.

“She just wants to walk away from all of it,” says De la Renta. “I think she realized Henry needs her more than ever now.”

The Kravises were at a dinner party for 40 in July at the home of designer Mark Hampton when Henry was called away from the table. Then Carolyne was called away, and the guests heard a bloodcurdling cry. It was Roehm.

Harrison Kravis, who just had completed his first year at Brown University, had been killed in a jeep that skidded off the road. Henry Kravis flew by private jet to Colorado to comfort the boy’s devastated friends and bring back his son’s body. There was a moving funeral at which long, loving letters, written to the boy by both Henry and his first wife, Hedi, were read.

When Roehm mentioned her stepson’s death and a desire to work on her relationship with her two other stepchildren as part of her reason to close up shop, friends of Hedi Kravis were appalled. Said one, “How crass can she be?”

But supporters of Roehm say her reasons might have been misinterpreted.

“If she had an extraordinary business, where her company was making a great deal of money, it may have been a different decision,” says De la Renta. “Not that Harrison’s death made her close the business. But it was an influence. And I think Henry wanted her to quit so he could have more of her time. But he told me it was her decision.”

No one expects Carolyne Roehm to stay away for long. It has been suggested that she will continue designing but on a very small scale, that she will go into other aspects of the fashion business. Some of friends say she might give herself over to the typical chore of the ladies-that-lunch crowd: charity work.

“She’s an unfinished chapter,” says one admirer. “I hope she’ll come back and continue. She’s a talent.”