A few years ago, it was just about impossible for a fashion newcomer like Byron Lars to get a foot -- let alone a dress -- inside a major store. Lars? Who had ever heard of him? But last winter the 26-year-old designer packed up the eight samples that were his entire spring line, marched into Henri Bendel and walked away with an order for 80 pieces.

Now his second collection, for fall, is in 10 stores around the country, including Bloomingdale's in New York, which put his witty clothes in its Lexington Avenue windows in July. ...

At Bloomingdale's, Byron Lars received the most lavish promotion of any new designer since Isaac Mizrahi. Although Mr. Mizrahi beat the odds by attracting major retailers to his first show three years ago, he had the advantage of the contacts with store executives that he developed as an assistant designer for Perry Ellis and Calvin Klein. Mr. Lars, a native of San Francisco with limited experience as a freelance designer, was an unknown quantity.

"We don't normally do windows and ads for a new talent," said Kalman Ruttenstein, Bloomingdale's vice president for fashion direction. "This is the first time since Isaac Mizrahi that we pulled out all the stops for a new designer. But we think our customers will respond to Byron. His clothes have a street humor, but they're also very sophisticated and cut beautifully."

What sets the designs by Byron Lars apart is his way of adding an ironic twist to the classics. He uses striped cotton for a shirtdress, adding a man's necktie but also a seductively draped skirt, and he cuts rustic buffalo plaid into feminine full-skirted shapes for coats.