Highway Hygiene

Applying your makeup while you drive won’t necessarily get you arrested. But the California Office of Traffic Safety’s new program, Smooth Operator, is bent on discouraging such habits. Police officers say an assortment of beauty feats are performed behind the wheel. “People plug curling irons and blow dryers into their cigarette lighters to do their hair, they paint their nails, change their clothes and even floss and brush their teeth,” says Peter O’Rourke, director of the California Office of Traffic Safety. As part of the monthlong program, O’Rourke sent mailers to 500 local employers, explaining the dangers of primping in the fast lane and asking them to spread the word.

* DRESS UNIFORM: Steve Garvey’s wife Candace hit a home run when she stepped up to Rick Pallack’s store and ordered a certain bow tie and cummerbund for her husband’s Christmas present. Both accessories are covered with baseballs and bats, two things ex-Dodger Garvey knows a lot about. Pallack tells listen that Candace Garvey has since ordered several more sets for friends of the erstwhile first baseman. She wouldn’t want anyone to steal, would she? * SLEEPING OUT: If bustiers, bras and girdles are acceptable public attire, why not pajamas? At the Daily Planet Cafe in Chicago, waiters and waitresses dress in sleepwear designed by California’s Joe Boxer, provided by the manufacturer. And they take 10% off the bill of customers who do the same. Closer to home, at Western Bagel in Woodland Hills, people in p.j.’s pick up bagels for breakfast. And in more intellectual circles, young readers who attend “P. J. Storytime,” at Orange County libraries are invited to wear p.j.’s. Librarian Elke Schriner in La Habra wears a robe over her clothes. and slippers for the occasion. yorks

* CLOTHES CUT: Madeleine Gallay made an interesting New Year’s resolution. She’s adding home furnishings to her women’s boutique on Sunset Boulevard. Ziza Brown, a buyer for several hip interior design shops, will choose silver teapots, dresser items, old wicker, plus chairs slipcovered in such unusual fabrics as organdy and bronze netting to fill a corner of Gallay’s store newly dubbed Southampton on Sunset, a name meant to invoke the eclectic and old money, Gallay explains. This is just the latest division in her divvied-up shop, where there are already special areas for Only Hearts lingerie, Manolo Blahnik shoes, Reinstein/Ross jewelry and Rachael London clothing. “I’m enthralled with this idea of boutique retailing,” says Gallay, who admits that today women have a limited interest in clothing. “That period when our whole identity was wrapped up in what we were wearing--that’s over.”