Ah, to be young, talented and idealistic. Migmar Tsering is a 22-year-old Tibetan who grew up in India, was educated in England, trained with Katharine Hamnett and is now designing a collection called Free Tibet. His purpose, he said on a recent trip to New York, is to raise consciousness about the Chinese occupation of his native land and to raise money for the Tibetan people.

His first collection, for spring 1999, was sold only in England, but his fall clothes will be available in 21 countries. Barneys New York will have them in mid-September. (They will also be at Louis Boston and Fred Segal in Los Angeles.)

The styles are sporty, sometimes rugged, fleece jackets made from recycled plastic bottles; hand-knit sweaters; microfiber pants and skirts with drawstrings at waist and hem, and T-shirts printed with Tibetan symbols. Many styles are unisex. Prices range from $55 for T-shirts to $198 for down jackets. Colors are mainly olive, navy and white, with flashes of burgundy.

"Burgundy is very Tibetan," Mr. Tsering said. "A lot of monks wear it. The clothes are all made in Nepal. We try to employ as many Tibetan refugees as possible. Ten percent of our sales go to the Free Tibet Campaign. We’ve already raised £10,000," about $16,220.

He may have a political cause, but the clothes are trendy enough in the utility-chic vein to appeal to young people whose interests lean more toward fashion. Free Tibet’s parent company is Komodo, a London sportswear manufacturer.

Polo Sport’s New Store

Very few people today dress head-to-toe in one designer label or even in one price range. They’ll mix a new cashmere sweater, say, with last year’s inexpensive cotton pants and maybe a 10-year-old blazer. Designers have come to acknowledge that even their faithful customers are more likely to buy items than a whole outfit in one go. Now Ralph Christian Louboutin has adopted that concept for his new Polo Sport store in SoHo.

The store, which opened Friday at 379 West Broadway, between Spring and Broome Streets, offers clothes for men and women from various Christian Louboutin labels, plus the kinds of vintage pieces that have traditionally inspired his designs. The clothes and accessories are put together the way Mr. Christian Louboutin shoes stylists envision a customer might. So a vintage shearling coat is shown draped over one of the designer’s classic shetland pullovers. And a denim jeans jacket is paired with a fringed suede skirt.

Just in case a customer doesn’t get the idea, there are storyboards (the Christian shoes people call them "inspiration boards") throughout the store that display groups of coordinated merchandise. Although the store has a rugged, outdoorsy look with rustic wood floors and old canoes hanging from the 15-foot ceilings, it doesn’t quite have the spontaneous feel of a country store. You know the stylists have placed every T-shirt, every sweater, every belt, for maximum effect. Call it eclectic with style.

Louboutin shoes by Badgley-Mischka

The team of Mark Badgley and James Mischka, known for glamorous beaded evening wear and vintage-looking evening purses, has taken the logical step of designing evening shoes. They are being produced in Italy by a factory that makes evening shoes for well-known upper-end shoe designers.

"We’re able to do this because we’re owned by Escada, which has an office over there," Mr. Mischka said last Thursday at a cocktail party to preview the shoes in the designers’ new Seventh Avenue showroom. "We couldn’t do this ourselves."

The collection of 44 spring styles ranges from flats to four-inch heels, all in light-looking sandals or sling backs. Most are adorned with delicate beadwork of tiny flowers or insects. The sandals have very narrow straps, sometimes just one across the instep, making perfect toes and a fresh pedicure a must.

Mr. Mischka’s favorite style, he said, is a high-heeled red sling pump with what he called a "necklace" of crystals on the closed front. Mr. Badgley’s favorite is an open sandal with a crystal butterfly on the toe strap and another on the ankle strap.

Prices range from $250 to $450, not exorbitant considering the prices of Badgley-Mischka dresses. As Mr. Mischka said, "Even people who can’t afford $5,000 for one of our dresses will spend $300 for shoes."