Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 2, 1995                   TAG: 9504050010
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RECYCLING IS FASHION STRATEGY, TOO, FOR THIS WOMAN OF THE '90S

The platforms and clogs you tossed in the late '70s rear their ugly treads - and actually demonstrate some staying power - in the early '90s. Cropped tops (translation: midriffs) grace nearly every page of the Victoria's Secret summer catalog and lots of fashion magazines.

Some see a link to interest rates. Feminists see backlash in the absurdly form-torturing fashions that keep trying to make their way off the runways and into our closets.

Laura Wasko sees recycling.

But that doesn't mean the recycling coordinator for the city of Roanoke hangs onto a little bit of everything in preparation for every shift in the fashion winds. The best defense, she says, is to adopt a classic look with some subtle variations. Clothes have to be comfortable and fit right, and for the sake of our pocketbooks and the use of future generations they ought to be good quality.

Wasko, who likes to look for clothes in the better consignment shops in Washington and Northern Virginia, swears by the virtues of "good makes." "Truly, good clothes do last longer. Even if you don't wear it that long, you can pass it on to someone," she says.

At 5 feet 8 inches and 117 pounds, Wasko's shopping complaints don't match those of the average Josephine. She looks for a little more room in shirts for her broad shoulders, a little more length in the leg. When she's not slipping into hose and pumps to get suited up for a meeting, she's lucky enough to have an excuse to be low-heeled and comfortable in blue jeans or pants. Her office is at the Public Works Service Center, where most of the floors are concrete, trucks roll in and out, and her co-workers are mostly men in city uniforms.

That is not to say that Wasko is a lonely female in an overwhelmingly male profession. That was once true, she says, but environmental planning is attracting a growing number of women. In fact, it's become a highly technical, fast-changing profession - a business so lively that there is now a pilot project to trade recyclables at the Chicago Board of Trade.

"Just like pork bellies," Wasko says, with genuine excitement in her voice.

Do Wasko's work and philosophy, then, make her the quintessential '90s woman? Probably. And so we put her in her element - well, one of her elements - in an Armani suit.

"The Armani suit exemplifies [the look of the '90s],'' Wasko agrees. "The suit is all silk, really soft and really comfortable. Clothes have got to fit and feel good."

Maybe not quite the thing she'd ordinarily wear to the scrap yard. But she could.