Heeeere’s Jennifer!

“The best thing about being in fashion is that I don’t have to lie about my age anymore,” says Jennifer Nicholson. After a short string of small roles, the 38-year-old daughter of Jack Nicholson and his first wife, Sandra Knight, has given up acting to launch an eponymous clothing line.

A lifetime vintage collector, Nicholson takes her inspiration from the fanciful ‘50s. Short skirts are fashioned from a country club tennis racquet print or delicate pink dotted swiss, and have layered lace rears. “Waitress shirts” are each emblazoned with the name of one of the designer’s five dogs (Ruby, Pablo, Lola, Trixie and Gus). And ladylike jackets with three-quarter-length trumpet sleeves, in blue seersucker, pink baby corduroy or denim, fasten in front with oversized safety pins.

Nicholson describes her style as “1950s debutante on acid.” Although not an actual debutante, she offers that she did go to the Marlborough School for Girls and join the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority at USC. Still, “I was always on the fringe,” she says with that devilish grin that is all Jack.

Pieces range from $250 to $1,000, and Saks Fifth Avenue has placed an order for fall. Until then the collection is available at Pearl, Nicholson’s newly opened store on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, which also carries clothing from As Four, Fake London, Fausto Puglisi, Henry Duarte, Imitation of Christ, James Coviello, Mayle and Wink.

The store is named after yet another pet. Pearl the bulldog is dead, but her portrait hangs above the cash register near a cabana that serves as the changing room.

Nicholson, who has also worked as an interior designer (she decorated her father’s Mulholland Drive mansion), designed the beachy space herself.

Her dad’s reaction? “Proud papa,” she says. “He loves clothes.”

Ties: The Condensed Version

Steve Valentine had hoped to get his Demi-Ties--a cross between a necktie and an ascot--around at least one famous neck on Oscar night. Didn’t happen.

But the neckwear newcomer isn’t discouraged. After all, the former public relations flack knows a thing or two about the highs and lows of pitching a peculiar product, which is what he did just before the Academy Awards. He schlepped across town, knocked on doors, took meetings and did his best to put his ultra-cropped, Edwardian-inspired ties in the hands of the handlers of Hollywood’s leading men.

“This is all new to me,” says Valentine, 42, who operated his namesake public relations firm for more than 10 years before shutting it down.

His dream to design “a different necktie” became a reality last summer. “I had nice suits and great shirts, but my ties were just too traditional. I wanted a bolder look,” he says. “I wanted to take it up a notch.”

So with shears in hand, he whacked off the bottoms of his ties and began wearing his creations to clubs and restaurants. The geek-chic look drew lots of attention. Months later he bought a $100 Kenmore sewing machine and learned to stitch his shrunken silhouette of a tie--5 inches wide and 6 to 8 inches long, or slightly above the shirt’s third button when worn.

Soon people “were following me into elevators to find out where I got the tie.” Made of raw silk, rich brocades, damask, upholstery and vintage fabrics, the ties are adorned with buttons, tassels, fringe and beading. Others are hand-painted by L.A. artist Miguel Angel Reyes with images from sculptures such as “The Thinker” and the Venus de Milo. Valentine, who lives in Marina del Rey, also hopes to add vests and belts to the line.

His ties may not have made it to the red carpet, but they are still getting out and about. Waiters at Chaya Venice and Confete Latin Brasserie in West Hollywood are donning them, and they are soon to be worn by waiters at downtown restaurant Cicada and the staff at the Hotel Sofitel. Demi-ties, $75 each, at Traffic Men in the Beverly Center; www.demi-tie.com.