Picture This

How's this for functional fashion? Clothes and accessories that slyly mimic instructional diagrams -- think airplane emergency cards or educational manuals -- are taking off. Andre Wiesmayr, creative director of the Tokyo-based design house Final Home, says the ''phoniness'' of air emergency cards inspires (and amuses) him: ''They're such extreme situations, and everyone pictured seems so calm.'' Brad Pitt and Beck are fans of the line, which includes T-shirts with cheeky postmodern ''How to Use Final Home'' diagrams. Word is Drew Barrymore snapped up items from NYC-based Loop's travel-inspired Transversion line: vinyl accessories and bags that designer China Young says evoke ''nonsense scenarios.'' (No kidding. One vignette shows a woman stuffing sacks of money into an overhead compartment.) Young, who sells to high-end boutiques like NYC's Henri Bendel and L.A.'s Fred Segal, says his goods also take a potshot at mass production. ''Technology these days moves so fast.... People relate to these IKEA-like diagrams. A lot of times [they] don't make any sense, so you have to poke fun.'' Best of all, there's no assembly required.