knee socks, and a Bermuda tie he took more than his colleagues by surprise.

"I remember thinking, `Jack looks very nice today. What gives? He doesn't usually wear a jacket and tie. I guess he has fallen back into the more formal way of wearing clothes','' fellow commissioner Cary Keno recalled. "For a while I didn't realise what he was wearing because when I arrived he was sitting down.'' The natty outfit also caught the eye of Selkirk TV's ever-rolling camera and Sun-Sentinel reporter Ms Tao Woolfe, who promptly summoned a staff photographer to cover the unusual spectacle.

As a result, Bermuda's traditional summer corporate attire received prominent coverage on the lead page of the daily paper's Local section, which carried the centrally-placed story with a full colour photograph of commissioner Latona.

But why all the fuss about one man wearing shorts in a climate as hot as Florida's, and where visitors dress a good deal more casually than in conservative Bermuda? The answer begins in 1993 when the New York-born attorney began a one-man campaign to change the way Florida's business people dress.

"I thought it was totally ridiculous that, despite the heat and humidity here, men went to work in suits and ties, and women wore pantyhose and heels,'' he fumed. "That dress code is a tradition brought down from the northern United States. It has no place here. It's time we dressed to suit the natural climate.'' He's right, of course, but why does it still persist? "The common perception is that you're not a serious business person if you don't look like a Wall Street Journal businessman. It finally dawned on me that it just doesn't make any sense,'' the attorney explained.

Which is not to suggest that Mr. Latona advocates donning any old casual attire. Rather, he simply believes that people can dress for success in tune with the natural world.

"We've got to reorient ourselves back to the environment we're in,'' he stressed. "We are trying to make some real changes because in the long run we have to. We've got to stop being a slave to the automobile and we've got to stop dressing this way.'' And in Florida that means ditching any clothing which doesn't allow the body to breathe in soaring temperatures and wilting humidity.

The fiftysomething city commissioner began his personal crusade by throwing off his socks and tie, wearing instead comfortable linen shirts and trousers with slip-on shoes.

"The minute I took off the socks I felt cooler,'' he said of the transformation.

(He does, however, keep a jacket and tie in his spiffy red sports car for court appearances, where judges still frown on informal attire).

Later, Mr. Latona got the attention of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce by peeling off his jacket, tie, business suit and trousers to reveal running shorts and a T-shirt underneath during a speech.

Today he wears (and dispenses) citrus coloured "Dress Light in Tropical Florida'' buttons, which have a tie motif slashed by a diagonal line in a circle -- the international symbol for "no.'' As the word began to spread, on what he describes as "a slow news day'', Jack Latona's "dress light'' campaign made the Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale's daily paper, and before you could say "phew,'' wire services had picked up the story and carried it around the world.

The city commissioner began getting calls from as far away as Australia. As a result, he has done live interviews with disc jockeys in Sydney, New South Wales and Seattle, Washington. Stories have also appeared on CNN Headline News and in many US newspapers.

The Miami Herald commissioned local fashion designers to come up with a Floridian male corporate outfit, and Mr. Latona has also been approached by businesses searching for a similar answer.

Yet it is not only for personal comfort that the Ivy League attorney and partner in Latona & Eisenberg is pushing for a new corporate dress code.

Sharp-witted and energy-conscious, he points out that his campaign makes good sense in other ways.

For one, lighter dress would reduce the need to have air conditioners running at full blast to keep the power-dressers suitably cooled; for another, people would be more willing to use public transport or walk a few blocks at lunchtime instead of cluttering the streets with their air-conditioned cars.

In Bermuda, the wire story about Mr. Latona's campaign caught the imagination of this Royal Gazette reporter, who immediately saw the possibilities of Florida adopting the Island's most popular dress. Mr.

Latona was contacted and indicated his willingness to try it out.

When Government's Tourism Department declined to donate the appropriate shorts, tie and knee socks, the writer successfully approached local merchants, who were only too happy to co-operate.

The result was free publicity for the Island.

Not only was Mr. Latona's story seen by anyone purchasing the Sun Sentinel on April 6, but during the previous day's City Commission meeting, which was held before the public and televised in its four-hour entirety, Mr. Latona stood up and explained his outfit, thanking this Bermuda reporter for an opportunity to try it out, and the local merchants for their generosity.

Later, accompanied by the writer, Mr. Latona wore the outfit during a water taxi tour of Fort Lauderdale's famous network of canals.

So how did he look? To the manner born! Without doubt, he cut a very smart figure and would have fitted into the Bermuda scene in an instant. Perhaps the fact that he has visited the Island as a member of Yale's Alley Cats singing group helped.

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT! -- Mayor Mr. Jim Naugle (right) sticks to long trousers while city commissioner Mr. John (Jack) Latona samples Bermuda shorts in a meeting with Royal Gazette reporter Miss Nancy Acton in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

SHORTS HAUL -- In his search for an outfit suited to Florida's tropical climate, Fort Lauderdale city commissioner Mr. John (Jack) Latona tries the Bermuda solution to soaring temperatures as he commutes by water taxi. Mr.

Latona's shorts were donated by A.S. Cooper & Sons, the tie by the English Sports Shop, and the socks by H.A.& E. Smith Ltd.