He’s Pumping Up the Wardrobe Wattage

Michael Jackson wasn’t kidding when he named his upcoming music extravaganza the “Dangerous Tour.” He’ll be packing costumes with enough electrical volts to short-circuit a small city. The wardrobe trunk will include two 40-pound outfits lined with 35,000 fiber optics and a coat fitted with 36 strobe lights juiced with 3,000 volts of electricity. The batteries are concealed in a belt. For these designer originals, Jackson hired Angelenos Dennis Tompkins and Michael Bush--to the tune of millions. They’ll create the light suits as well as 297 “rock ‘n’ roll/Renaissance-silhouetted street” outfits, Bush says. “Michael wanted things that have never been done and never been seen.”

* Headlining Labels: Tour wardrobes are supplying brisk business for other designers, too. Isaac Mizrahi will style costumes for Twyla Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov to wear on their fall dance tour. He’s done costumes for the San Fransisco ballet in the past. And Giorgio Armani will outfit Eric Clapton for the European leg of his world tour. Armani’s rival, Gianni Versace, will dress Elton John, who is touring with Clapton.

* Waste Not: Geena Davis knows how to make those trendy long, floral dresses fit a little snugger. At Ice in the Beverly Center, she bought a pink, green and cream version then added a flower-decorated jacket clip in back. Store manager Elisbeth Rubin says Ice has been trying to phase out jacket clips, which were beginning to seem old-fashioned. But they’ve found a new life. “With these dresses, they make sense,” Rubin says. “They’re not fitted. And so many women who work out want just a hint of a waist.”

* Listen to the Fashion Message: Children’s recording artist Craig Taubman has put a rock ‘n’ roll spin behind his song “Haircut.” The lyrics were inspired by his son Noah’s first visit to the barber shop. Singles of the song are being handed out to tykes who come in for their first haircuts at Estetica in Tarzana, Ella’s Hair Design in Chatsworth and Wiggle Worms in Encino. Canadian songstress and performance artist Meryn Cadell has composed several odes to pivotal fashion moments. Among the notables on her CD “Angel Food for Thought” are “The Sweater,” a piece about teen Angst and wearing “his” sweater, and a song about dreaming of winning the lottery in ba Maidenform bra.

* Active Imaginations: The New York Post reports that the international glam squads are all atwitter over the recent three-day shoot in Paris for George Michael’s “Too Funky” video. Those in the know say it contains a scene in which Guess model Shana Zedrick (the brunette temptress) eyes Linda Evangelista seductively, then rips open her jacket to, as one source put it, “fondle a breastplate” that Evangelista is wearing. The $1-million video, co-directed by Michael and French designer Thierry Mugler, depicts a fashion show in which backstage antics are something out of “the Marquis de Sade’s living room.” The single will be the first off the “Red, Hot & Dance” album to benefit AIDS.