“Mr. Coviello, 36, likes to think that they are the future of fashion. His modern, romantic designs for women look like outfits worn by heroines in Zola or Hugo (occasionally Dreiser or Cather) trying to get into clubs in the East Village or to be seated at good tables at the right bistros in Paris.”

“To look at James Coviello's reindeer knits and faded plaid kilts (worn with L. L. Bean boots) is to imagine a girl going over the edge and telling her friends she's opening an antiques shop in Hudson, N.Y. There's a fantasy life about Mr. Coviello's clothes, an eye cast enviably to the almost granny eccentricity of a camisole dancing with folk patterns and fat ribbons, or a tweed suit with an alluring strap just under the fanny. Well, some granny. But you want the dream.”