Retrospective means looking to the past, but it doesn't mean you don't have a future.

Not in the case of Alexander Julian, honored this past summer for marking three decades weaving his colorful patterns into the daily lives of men and women -- and the homes in which they live.

And, by the way, he likes us "older folks." He's catching up to us, age-wise.

"Seniors," he says, "are the most valuable mind trust asset that exists in the world today, and I think we all have to work together to share the knowledge."

He's relatively young at 58. "Truthfully, I think I am currently doing the best work I have ever done in menswear," he says.

There's a smile on his bearded face, the beard a trademark he has not shaved for 35 years. It's just trimmed closer since he lost 20 pounds on the South Beach Diet.

Maybe that's why he looks like a college professor and often uses big words in thoughtful, long explanations of the work he does, and the work he loves.

"I think I would have chosen a different name if I had it to do over again," he says of his Colours label on the popular-priced line of men's clothing introduced in 1981.

"It kind of painted me into a corner, where people think of me for just the colorful things I have done, not all the simple things I love just as much as the colorful ones."

No matter, color and his use of color is what most people recognize most about Julian. He introduced color when most men were afraid of it.

His exhibit at Briggs Robinson Gallery in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood earlier this year was aptly titled, "Uncommon Threads."

In his talks to editors attending his showings, he took great effort in explaining that what appeared to be a solid color tweed sport jacket was created with dozens of colored threads.

I didn't realize how young he was (29) when I first met him in the late 1970s.

"I was sort of a child star in fashion," he says, "getting my first Coty [a top fashion award] at age 29, and being inducted into its Hall of Fame when I was 33." He went on to win four more Cotys and the Cutty Sark Career Achievement Award when he was just 40.

But he didn't rest on his laurels.

He added furniture to his design table and in 1999 designed basketball uniforms for the NBA Charlotte Hornets, the UNC Tar Heels and Mario Andretti (and his car for NASCAR).

Julian painted the Charlotte Knights' baseball stadium with 14 colors, an exaggeration of the textile design he had done for the players' uniforms.

His womenswear line is sold exclusively at Little New York stores in Japan, in case you are headed there any time soon.

"My parents have been described as 'the godparents of preppy' [they started Julian's College Shop, Chapel Hill, N.C.] but I have tried to combine the best elements of traditional American menswear with a worldwide sense of fashion."

He was managing his parents' store by age 16 and opened his own, Alexander's Ambition, when he was 21.

Lifestyles and needs are changing, but he has peeves, fashion-wise: "too much tearing and distressing and too many navels."

Julian has a sense of humor and describes his wife Meagan as "self-appointed" to keep his ego in line, especially after he lost those 20 pounds.

Five children, ranging in age from 11 to 37, keep them busy.

As for Pittsburgh connections, he recalls he and Lynn Swann, former Steeler now running for Pennsylvania governor, co-hosted a TV fashion show here during one visit and it was on that show that Swann was swept away by a model named Charena, who would be his future wife.

On another visit he appeared for a fashion benefit at Carnegie Music Hall, where sexy singer Julio Iglesias would perform.

Julian says he got top billing over Julio and the singer was somewhat miffed.

There is another grin behind the beard as he tells me that story.

To access her columns on the Senior Class Web page, visit www.post-gazette.com/lifestyle/senior.