They Want Their QVC : Consumers love the show and its brethren. Shoppers can buy--and schmooze--without ever leaving their living rooms.

WEST CHESTER, PA. —  It is 10 a.m. on a recent Saturday and Diane Von Furstenberg is rhapsodizing about her riotously colored silk separates on QVC Network, a cable shopping channel.

“I don’t think you can get something like this for less than $200,” she purrs, running her slender fingers along the rope embroidery of her oversize lime shirt, the TVC (Today’s Special Value) being offered for $49.88.

She chats with call-in shoppers Brenda from Turnersville, N.C., and Nancy from Davenport, Iowa; changes from her lime silk outfit (which has sold out) into a fuchsia version (which also sells out); demonstrates the versatility of her $40 camp shirt on a trio of perky models and reclines on a couch beside hostess Jane Rudolph Treacy while confiding that Dustin Hoffman once complimented her for wearing hot pink instead of black (“I need color in my life”).

Two hours later Von Furstenberg, having discarded her citrus silks for a cream shirt and cocoa pants, breezes into the green room, snatches a carrot stick from the crudite tray and casually glances at the numbers skipping across the computer “cash register” that totes up the designer’s up-to-the-second sales: $1,140,869 and climbing (the final haul for the segment exceeds $1.2 million).

“Pretty amazing, huh?” she remarks.

In today’s dismal retail climate, in which department stores are drowning in red ink and designers are going out of business by the week, home shopping (a.k.a. shopping by tube) is being embraced as the savior of the apparel industry.

“For retailers, it’s salvation,” observes Alan Millstein, publisher of the Fashion Network Report. “It’s less expensive than signing leases in new shopping malls and, for designers, it’s less risky than opening their own stores or going into off-price malls, which does nothing to enhance their image.”

Adds comedian and talk-show host Joan Rivers, whose jewelry, accessories and clothing lines have rung up more than $60 million in sales on QVC: “If you bought from catalogues, you’ll buy from television. Television is today’s talking catalogue.”

Once considered the medium for carnival-barker hosts pushing Veg-O-Matics and tacky collectibles to the beer-and-burger crowd, television shopping has gone a bit up-market, at least at QVC (“Quality, Value, Convenience”).

While rival Home Shopping Network relishes a frenzied, hard-sell format for its ersatz ruby rings and Vanna White dolls, QVC prefers a softer, less-pressured style with themed segments such as “Ideas for the Cook” and “Big, Bold Gold.” There is also a monthly program guide so you won’t be out weeding the garden when the “Star Trek Collector’s Special” is on. And though QVC still has its share of frying pans and cheesy gemstone jewelry, it has augmented its roster of famous hawkers under CEO Barry Diller, the former Fox Inc. chairman who is chummy with a galaxy of designers and stars.

Among QVC’s haute hustlers are designers Arnold Scaasi, Nolan Miller, Bob Mackie, Liz Claiborne, Jessica Mitchell; actresses Susan Lucci (hair-care products) and Victoria Principal (skin-care products); Joan Rivers (jewelry and clothes); chef Paul Prudhomme, and socialite/gardener C.Z. Guest. Last month, author Barbara Taylor Bradford did a little drumbeating for her new book, “Angel” on a “Gifts for Mother’s Day” segment. Her 10-minute appearance generated 5,000 book sales.

“It’s unbelievable the volume of sales you do on television,” exults jewelry designer Kenneth Jay Lane, who hawks his baubles on QVC. “In one hour, I sold $400,000. Where else can you do that?” QVC executives won’t reveal which power brokers have trekked to the network’s headquarters in an industrial park outside Philadelphia to discuss future projects. (Calvin Klein and Disney’s Jeffrey Katzenberg are rumored to have made pilgrimages; Roseanne Arnold is reportedly planning a line of plus-size clothes.)

Says Von Furstenberg, “everyone wants in. It’s the future. More and more, people will become used to shopping by television. I’ve bought Elvis Presley records, cookware for my daughter and gardening stuff from TV. The first time you do it, it’s a little odd, but then, it’s just another convenience.”

Rivers agrees. “If something is gorgeous, a good price and you don’t have to run out to Bergdorf’s to get it, you’d be a fool not to,” says Rivers, whose channel shopping has yielded a bread maker, dishes and a Halloween sweater, among other items.

Three weeks ago, television shopping got a big boost in prestige when Saks Fifth Avenue made its QVC debut, a historic merchandising moment that had the apparel industry abuzz. In the course of an hour, the tony emporium sold $570,000 worth of private-label silk sportswear, priced from $50 to $150 (the same as in Saks stores across the country).

“The show exceeded the expectations of both Saks and QVC,” says Diller. “I think it demonstrated to the apparel industry that we could do a program in which ‘mainstream’ apparel of a sophisticated nature could be done justice to visually and that there were customers to buy it.”

Indeed, other department and chain stores are eager to slice a piece of the television-shopping pie, which has mushroomed into a $2-billion-plus industry in the past decade. (See accompanying story.)

But Millstein says “the jury is still out” on QVC. “Despite the hoopla over Saks, they (QVC) still haven’t proven they can sell anything at regular pricing. Just about everything (else) is at discounted prices. They’re the Filene’s Basement of cable TV.”

He adds that there are two huge audiences that won’t be seduced by one-zap shopping: teen-age “mall rats” who live at the Gap and the Limited, and men, few of whom “have the patience to sit there endlessly watching some guy modeling a golf shirt.”

As for gilt-edged designers like Donna Karan and Giorgio Armani taking to the airwaves, Millstein quips: “Donna doesn’t cut a pattern above Size 12, and QVC’s best-selling sizes seem to be large and extra large.”

Diller readily concedes that “there will be plenty of rocks in the path” of his embryonic network but is confident they can be overcome. “I think there are biases against it (home shopping), but if we do our work well, over time they’ll fall away,” he insists.

QVC, the brainchild of Joseph M. Segel, the Pennsylvania financier who founded the Franklin Mint, took to the airwaves in 1986. It reaches about 50 million homes through its two channels, the QVC shopping channel and the QVC Fashion Channel. Each month about 100,000 viewers place their first orders with QVC; 70% of purchases are made by women.

Since Diller’s arrival, QVC has gone international, entering into a joint venture with Grupo Televisa, S.A. de C.V. to form an electronic retailing program service to serve Mexico, Spain and Latin America.

What’s more, QVC has undergone a little sprucing up, not so stylish as to turn off core fans from middle America but classy enough to attract the wine-and-sun-dried-tomato set. Models are prettier and more professional (though nothing like the high-cheekboned waifs in Vogue); sets have been remodeled and the QVC logo and graphics have been streamlined.

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Nestled in the rolling hills of West Chester, QVC’s unpretentious headquarters is a model of high-tech efficiency. The studio includes a revolving “pie” stage divided into four wedgelike sets--a permanent living room and kitchen and two empty stages that can be transformed into a den or a garden at a moment’s notice. Some celebrity hawkers have their own signature sets, such as Von Furstenberg’s pearl-gray living room and Kenneth Jay Lane’s replica of his Manhattan drawing room.

A row of four to six robotic cameras faces the stage and behind them, in lieu of an audience, is a bank of more than 100 operators sitting in front of computer screens taking orders. (Phone calls are also answered by operators in San Antonio, and Chesapeake, Va.) From a nearby command post, a producer monitors a computer to see how a product is selling so he can pace the show. Backstage, clothes are hung on rolling racks and a long table is laid out with merchandise for upcoming segments: camcorders and cameras for “Picture Perfect,” campaign buttons and posters for the “Collector’s Corner” and so on.

There’s also a research library to ferret out factoids, like the history of Valentine’s Day, so the 26 program hosts have something to natter about in between pushing products. The hosts, who include former salespeople, broadcasters and teachers, don’t use scripts or TelePrompTers. “It really takes skill to convey all that information to the viewer in a very conversational way,” says Kathleen Holliday, senior vice president of marketing.

Von Furstenberg, like a number of star schmoozers, doesn’t do any special preparation for her appearances. Why should she? With her high cheekbones, throaty European accent and candid fashion advice, she presents the sort of chic, self-confident image that customers go crazy for. If Von Furstenberg, with her Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet and Manolo Blahnik mules, wears a $28.75 silk tank, well, that’s good enough for Laurie from West Hollywood.

“I have always believed in cheap chic,” insists the designer, curled up barefoot in a chair and nibbling potato chips in her hotel suite after the show. “I absolutely wear my clothes. Of course, I wear other things as well, like a Saint Laurent jacket from couture. But underneath, I put one of my blouses.”

Von Furstenberg, 46, who became an overnight fashion star in the ‘70s with her jersey wrap dresses, visited QVC headquarters last year “to see what this television shopping is all about.”

“After meeting with some people, I walked down the corridor and thought, ‘This is amazing. I don’t even think these people know what they have here,’ ” she recalls.

She agreed to do a line of colorful silk coordinates called Silk Assets. She chooses the fabric, designs the line, and oversees its manufacture, after which the inventory is turned over to QVC for storage and distribution. She receives a percentage of the sales. In August, she’ll begin promoting “Surroundings,” a line of home and bath fragrances including candles, air freshener and shampoo.

On her first show last year, the designer sold $1.2 million worth of merchandise in two hours. Diller, a longtime friend who had accompanied her to QVC headquarters, watched, mesmerized, in the green room.

“When Barry announced to me he was joining QVC, I said, ‘You’re not doing this for me, are you?’ ” says Von Furstenberg, who received 29 loose diamonds in a Band-Aid box from Diller for her 29th birthday. “Because it’s a big thing. I mean, Barry Diller, this amazing power, suddenly is selling toasters? It was a big step so I was kind of nervous about the whole thing. But now that he’s getting all this acclaim, I say, ‘You know, it was my idea.’ ”

Diller, former head of prime-time television for ABC Entertainment, former chief of Paramount Pictures and former chairman of Fox Inc., is aware of the perils of the media hype surrounding himself and QVC.

“My experience in entertainment has resulted in a big spotlight being shone on this emerging business,” he says. “That’s not necessarily bad, but it has raised expectations. So we’re being very careful, as careful as you can be while still trying to be enthusiastic. We have a tremendous amount of work to do to lay down the tracks and infrastructure of this business, but we may not do it in the timetable expected.

“I’ve read in a couple of places, ‘Oh, Barry’s been there four months. What has he done?’ ” he continues. “I just read it and smile.”

STEVEN FALK / For The Times