The quality of prime time TV may leave a lot to be desired, but girl's wear retailers are not complaining. With the "Blossom" cast, the crew from "Full Housec and the rest of Hollywood's pint-sized stars changing from one hip outfit to the next in the course of a 22-minute show, girls are becoming increasingly tuned into fashion.

At retail, merchants overseeing the girls' size 7 to 14 area report that fashion is driving the business. Over the last eight months, the percent of fashion to basic and traditional has been climbing, with trendy merchandise accounting for 50% of the assortment.

"Girls see the clothes on TV and they've got to have the same look," says Alan Spiegelman, divisional merchandise manager at Certified Youth Fashion Guild, a New York-based buying office representing more than 800 stores.

Not surprisingly, mass merchants are planning to give fashion top billing for back-to-school. Plans call for driving the size 7 to 14 business with a broad assortment of trendy tops. Forecasts of sales increases remain conservative, however, ranging from five percent to 10 pecent annual gains.

"I think the potential is there to increase this [girls' wear] business by up to 8 percent, and that's on top of nice growth last year," says Don Rodgers, divisional merchandise manager at Troy, Mich.-based Kmart. "There are a couple of different fashion statements -- there's a romantic story and there's an outdoorsy look -- and we feel we can get significant mileage out of each."

At Target, senior buyer Jeff Silverman's objective for back-to-school is "to offer our guests (a.k.a. customers) every trend out there." He's convinced that their biggest opportunity lies in offering more wear-now product.

"We used to transition in July and August to long sleeves and long pants," explains Silverman, who is looking for a 10% increase in the children's 4 to 16 business. "For back-to-school we'll offer new merchandise in fall colorations, but we won't go too deep into long sleeves and warmer weight goods until September."

Committed as merchants are to showcasing fashion, they're still taking the market's pulse to determine the life expectancy of trends.

Romantic looks, typified by poet blouses, embroidered shirts and beaded or crocheted vests are expected to sell through. Other items of note for BTS include overall, blazers with suede collars and patches on the elbows, black dropwaist knit skirts, slim mini skirts, riding leggings, corduroyy bottoms and anything color-blocked.

These are expected to augment current supplies of flannel, thermalis and brushed goods, which form the basis of a modified, downsized second generation grunge movement. Inside out sweats could help revive the fleece business. Hoods are still a question mark.

"Polar fleece is going to be a very imporant for BTS and should continue through holiday," notes Kurt Penney, senior account executive at Andover Togs, licensee of Sasson separates. "Our interpretation will be primarily in prints. We think the kids will like it because it's new, and the moms will go for it because it's warm."

With so much interest in flannel and thermal, there are a handful of merchants suggesting the reemergence of a unisex trend, "particularly in outerwear," says Spielgelman. But Laura Russell, divisional merchandise manager of girls and boys at Hayward, Calif.-based Mervyn's, says she'll pass. "We've tried this [unisex] look before and it just hasn't worked," she says.

Pleased as merchants are about the prospect of driving BTS business withh trendy merchandise, they're well aware that fashion can be risky. Some are alternating their buying strategies to chase trends more aggressively; many are placing a higher premium on testing.

"We've cut back on plan buying," says Bob Greenwald, general merchandise manager of soft lines at Secaucus, N.J.-based Jamesway. "It enables us to be more on target with the trend merchandise we buy, and it allows us to provide the customer with better value."

At Kmart, Rodger is testing new items, fabrics and colors at least once a week. "We took our cue from the women's and juniors areas." Rodgers was particularly glad and he tested some trendy pants last fall. "I was out in California last August and everywhere I turned I saw bell-bottoms and palazzos. So we tested 500 dozen during the fall. By December, we'd had a 10% sell-through. Thank goodness we tested before jumping in. We could really have shot ourselves in the foot."

Target is using a combination of aggressive testing and buying closer to need to raise its fashion-right percentage. Explains Silverman, "As long as we stay liquid, test trends for customer response and find resources with shorter lead times, we'll be able to capitalize on most trends."

Price doesn't seem to be a deterrent.

"Our strategy is every day low price, but when it comes to trends, we'll buy and sell at much higher prices than expected," says Tom Via, divisional merchandise manager at Hills. Via found this to be the case with $15 to $17 coordinates he stocked from California Concepts, a California-based resource. "If you think about it we were asking the customer to pay in excess of $30 for an outfit, and she did it without batting an eye."