Philadelphia Inquirer November 8th 1993

 Nancy Reagan had Adolfo.

Barbara Bush had Scaasi.

For John Kruk - at least when he's on the field - it's Anne Bender Occi.

And Rizzo the Rat (as in Muppet) has Polly Smith.

Designing for the stars has never been easy, but some have it tougher than others.

Occi, who brought new meaning to the phrase "fashion plate," when she designed the new uniforms unveiled by the Phillies in 1992, has to take into account not only how her uniforms will look on the players, but also how they will look on TV and whether you can animate the logo.

Smith, costume designer for Jim Henson Productions, has to make clothing for everything, from pint-sized rodents to loquacious dinosaurs with 60-inch necks.

Both designers are Moore College of Art grads, who were in town yesterday to tell students about their experiences in the "real world" of the art professional. Also on the podium was West Chester University professor and artist Donna Usher, a painter who makes large ceramic spheres that emit various sounds when rolled.

Smith, 42, who lives in New York, got the biggest reaction from the several hundred students and parents at Moore's annual Family Day. They laughed and aahed over the slides of all the Muppet characters she has designed for, from endearing bears to otherworld characters of the movie The Dark Crystal.

And, yes, Miss Piggy, although not many orders have been coming in these days for the Divine Porcine. She has been in "semi-retirement" (possible translation: a major snit fit?) for the last half decade or so.

No matter. The celebrated moi is a tyrant anyway. "Let's just say she has figure problems and is temperamental," Smith said.

The rest of the Muppets, on the other hand, "look good in everything I make for them and are easy to work with," she said.

One of Smith's favorite characters is Gonzo - the buzzard-like creature with Ping-Pong eyeballs - and she showed slides from his various roles, from turbaned raja to a Spanish serenader. Then there were the tiny crocheted gloves Yolanda, Rizzo's mate, wore to Miss Piggy's wedding. And Miss Piggy herself, plus "a couple of her many, many wedding dresses."

Occi, 38, who lives in North Jersey and works for Major League Baseball Properties, said that during the World Series, one new design was the jacket worn by some of the managers, with one sleeve a different color from the rest of the jacket.

She and her two assistants also did the uniforms for the Expos, Rockies, Marlins, Angels, Athletics, Mets, Reds and Mariners - plus "seven significant changes" that she can't talk about just yet. Wait till next season.

In coming up with the new uniforms, she found she had to deal with more tradition and protocol than if she were designing for Queen Elizabeth. All baseball shirts these days, for instance, have button-down fronts. (Twenty years ago, they were all pullovers.) Writing the team's name in script is another tradition.

As for colors, the Marlins may look good in teal and orange, but for the Phillies, there is "no other choice" but red, white and blue. And no designer would ever tamper with Detroit's Old English "D" or the Cubs' bull's-eye.

You'd be surprised what you can get away with, though. Occi's grandfather, now 99, remembers the 1911 Giants uniforms: Black! The idea, apparently, was to look intimidating to their opponents.

A uniform, however, can do only so much. The idea with the new Phils uniform, if you recall, was to reclaim the feeling of the Whiz Kids era in the early '50s. The day the new duds were unveiled, however, the Phils lost to the Chicago Cubs, and they wound up their 1992 season in the basement.

Credit: Sandy Bauers, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER