PRETTY IN PUNK

When Gwen Stefani, lead singer of Anaheim-based band No Doubt, shows up on stage wearing her customary pigtails, crop tops and boyish hip-huggers, Orange County girls recognize her as one of their own.

Stefani’s Gidget-goes-punk style originated here, in the land of the Magic Kingdom or--as No Doubt would have it--Tragic Kingdom.

Local young women had been into the hard-edged girlie look even before No Doubt’s “Tragic Kingdom” album scaled the pop charts, but it’s Stefani who is bringing the style to the masses.

Girls everywhere are copying the look: bleached blond tresses done up in girlie styles such as pigtails or barrettes; black nail polish and garish makeup; vintage-style glamour dresses paired with heavy-soled creepers and, of course, baggy boy pants with midriff-baring tiny T-shirts.

With the Grammy awards airing Feb. 26, and the band up for two awards (best new artist and best rock album), an even broader audience will be exposed to Stefani. You can bet girls will be watching what she wears. Heathyr Lawrence, who designs a hip and humorous line of clothes and accessories for women called Mantrap, based in Newport Beach and Los Angeles, says she would love to create a gown for Stefani to wear on the big night.

“I’d love to get ahold of her,” she says.

Lawrence has the credentials. She designed Daryl Hannah’s dress for last year’s Oscars.

“I saw Gwen in concert last summer, and her whole thing is oranges,” Lawrence says. “I’m dying to make her a ball gown that has something to do with oranges. I’m into oranges and how to wear them. Maybe I’d make her a little orange purse with a zip top. We’d have green leaves in her hair.”

Lawrence met Stefani at a small club in Costa Mesa when No Doubt was still a local phenomenon and gave her one of Mantrap’s Cherry Bomb T-shirts. She says she likes Stefani’s style.

“She dolls up, but at the same time she has this dude-boy sense. She’s a stud muffin girlie girl,” Lawrence says. “For her generation, she’s a leader.”

Yet Stefani isn’t the style maverick that Madonna is. She’s “Just a Girl” (as the No Doubt song goes) who best captures the feminine-but-fierce look that’s part of the local club/rave/street scene.

“Gwen’s a really good example of what we see day-to-day at the local high schools, beaches and nightclubs,” says Holly Sharp, design director for GirlStar in Costa Mesa. “I’m not sure she’s influencing people’s style as much as she’s part of the influence.”

The part-tomboy, part-glamour-girl look is a product of the punk movement of the early ‘80s, Sharp says. Many underestimate just how deeply punk took hold in Orange County.

“We were in the thick of it. A lot of those kids who were 13 or 14 back then have grown up, but they’ve kept that London influence with the creepers and the [body] piercing.”

Now they’re young women wearing feminine styles, but they’ve maintained their punk/street roots.

“A lot of people in the garment industry don’t understand the girlie look,” Sharp says. “Young women aren’t saying ‘We want to wear pink baby doll dresses.’ It’s not girlie girlie or all pink and blue. It has an edge that’s rooted in the punk scene mixed with Hollywood glamour.

“I saw a video where Gwen wears a ‘40s polka-dot dress, but she has this bleached white hair and harsh makeup. She brings a hard street look to it.”

The GirlStar line emulates the kind of tough-and-tender style that Stefani wears. Sharp has created styles that celebrate glamour and strength, including pink satin board shorts, girlie dresses made of the same nylon found on guys’ board shorts, cropped message Ts and hip-huggers that bare the midriff.

“The [crop top exposes] a beautiful part of the body,” Sharp says. “It says youth and rebellion. At a certain age, you can’t wear it.”

Showing off her “six-pack stomach muscles” is Stefani’s way of saying “I’m in shape,” Sharp says. That power-girl image departs both from the “battered and tattered” look of Courtney Love and the seemingly calculated chameleon styles of Madonna. Stefani is no boy toy.

“She’s not Madonna trying to influence what’s cool. She isn’t a poster girl; she’s one of the girls. She’s so real,” Sharp says. “You know she wears those clothes on weekends. It’s not a costume.”

Designers at Girls’ Club in Irvine also recognize a kindred spirit in Stefani.

“I can see our looks on Gwen but not on Courtney Love,” says Kelly Ellingson, the line’s brand manager. Girls’ Club is doing ‘50s-inspired nostalgia pieces such as narrow-legged capris and cigarette pants, the kind Audrey Hepburn would have worn, as well as midriff shell tops.

That she’s-one-of-us attitude toward Stefani reflects what Sharp describes as a kind of girl-power movement. Women--especially female surfers, snowboarders and athletes--are proving they’re not afraid to go where the men go while maintaining their femininity. Hence the popularity of tomboy/girlie styles such as pink satin board shorts.

Real girls look at Stefani and say “I look like that,” not “I want to look like that,” Sharp says. She’s not the unobtainable goddess.

“Gwen can sweat. She’s not afraid to let people see the makeup roll down her face. The message here is ‘I can be one of the boys but still be a girl.’ Gwen is for us.”