Fashion moves to the Hamptons Style-makers get a rare vacation.

The fashion business doesn't grind to a stop in August, it simply relocates to the beach.

Summertime always brings a haze of calm to cities like Washington and New York. The lucky denizens head to more pleasant surroundings: the mountains, the shore, the family compound in Maine. And even if it's called a working vacation, everyone knows that business reading doesn't feel quite so grueling when you're stretched out in a hammock with a glass of something ice-cold at hand.

But people in New York's fashion industry typically leave the city only to congregate in a few nearby beach communities on Fire Island and in the Hamptons.

So prevalent is the run from the city that much of the fashion community simply assumes that everyone goes to the Hamptons or some similar locale. That bias influences the way the industry operates.

Fashion fundraisers -- scenes of much networking and schmoozing, hosted by companies like Louis Vuitton and Donna Karan -- regularly take place on the weekends in these resort towns. The hosts do not expect city-dwelling guests to spend six hours driving to and from the Hamptons. No, no. They assume everyone will be at the beach anyway. When such events are listed in formal industry calendars, one can't help but be struck by the insularity of the business. It's as if Congress had called an emergency session and held it at the beach in Rehoboth, Del.

Betsey Johnson is debuting her spring 2003 collection and celebrating her 60th birthday Saturday at her home in East Hampton. It will be the only presentation of the collection. It should be a splendid event, but one geared toward a limited segment of the fashion industry -- which does not include retailers west of the Hudson River.

Designers are so accustomed to using lifestyle to sell their fashions that they've come to the conclusion that their rarefied lives are the norm. Doesn't everyone summer in a town that looks like Madison Avenue with sand? The most visible fallout from this particular aspect of the industry's isolation is the way designers envision women dressing in the summer. When the fashion industry leaves Seventh Avenue, it doesn't mix and mingle with fresh faces; it rubs sweaty shoulders with the same old crowd with the same ideas about style, comfort and glamour. Everyone has the same fantasies.

And so designers envision women in swimsuits and matching head wraps and starlet sunglasses. They see floppy hats that match silk coverups. They find some logic in spike heels and a bikini - a combination that is appropriate only if you're walking down a runway wearing a sash that says Miss Congeniality. Their high-priced sundresses have to compete with the inexpensive summer frocks from Target. And their getaway clothes look fussy and overwrought. Is there a soul alive who brings a steam iron on vacation? It's always disconcerting when designers return from a holiday in some far-flung location and start to display an obsession for djellabas or harem pants.

But at least they've shaken off the routine, at least someone else has begun whispering in their ears.

The new fantasy may be no better than the old one, but at least the scenery is different.