'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' is set in 1760s Paris, but in the Huntington production, the costumes have a dash of 21st-century couture

Erin Chainani is sitting in one of the fitting rooms at the Huntington Theatre Company's costume shop, surrounded by gorgeous, vibrant costumes on mannequins.

Look closely, though, and the exact time period of the clothing is hard to determine.

"We wanted to make it a collision between the 1760s and modern couture," says Chainani, costume designer for the Huntington production of Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," which is currently in previews.

That means period silhouettes like the wide bustle, but also plenty of leather and influences from modern designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood, Chainani says. "Very fantastic, rule-breaking, couture designers."

Chainani just got her MFA in theater design from Yale University School of Drama. This is her first job as costume designer for a major regional company, though she's had design experience at the Globe Theatre in San Diego, Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, and Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she and "Liaisons" director Daniel Goldstein were interns in 2000.

"She is incredibly smart, incredibly adept at storytelling with costumes," Goldstein says. "I felt it was very important to use her."

After all, Goldstein knew he wanted a fresh take on this tale of love, lust, and tragic games of humiliation and betrayal set in 18th-century Paris.

"I felt like, who really needs another production of 'Liaisons' with a whole lot of chiffon and white flowy material?" Goldstein says. "We've seen that. The play has a lot of modern resonance, socially and politically, but I didn't want to totally update it and put it in full modern dress. So we thought of putting it in a historical context and allowing modern influences to come in."

In the play, based on the novel by Choderlos de Laclos, La Marquise de Merteuil (Tasha Lawrence) persuades her old flame and the king of seducers, Le Vicomte de Valmont (film and TV star Michael T. Weiss), to deflower a young girl betrothed to Merteuil's old lover. In the course of much plotting, Valmont seduces the virtuous Madame de Tourvel, but then finds himself falling in love with her.

It's got all the intrigue you might find on any reality show. And to highlight its contemporary resonance, Goldstein combines contemporary and traditional elements throughout the production.

The music is harpsichord, but with a modern, jazzy feel, he says. "Period French music meets Thelonious Monk." The set, while it has the de rigueur sconces and Louis XV chairs, also features an abstract two-level staircase.

But it's in the costumes that this vision is most apparent.

When Chainani and Goldstein began to talk about the costumes, he says, "we looked at modern designers, because they're so incredibly rich. We wanted to look at what the really, really rich are wearing now. A lot of it is very much based in other centuries' fashions. We took their lead and did our own version of it."

So Chainani borrowed elements and fabrics from modern couture designers to create 27 costumes that blend both eras. When Merteuil enters wearing a long blue gown, for example, she'll look fairly decorous from the front; it's high-necked and long-sleeved. But when she turns around -- gasp! -- it's backless.

"I'm using lots of modern elements, sleeker shapes on the men than would normally be seen in the period," Chainani says. "A little more fitted in the arms, a little more modern tailoring. Some modern menswear fabrics. And the women, too. It's all modern fabrics, leather. Merteuil has this crocodile leather jacket."

Chainani also gained inspiration from such off-the-rack items as wrapped sweaters from Victoria's Secret and an Anthropologie blouse with pin tucks. And one character, the young girl, Cecile, takes to her seduction with such eagerness that she dispenses with any costume at all.