Many of my Australian friends actually didn't like him much, thought him a national embarrassment, and wished he'd go away before all Americans believed that Aussie dress consisted solely of khakis, their Saturday-night social life devoted to crocodile-wrestling, and the national vocabulary dominated by quaint exclamations like ``barbie'' and ``crikey

And instead of dress shirts, khakis, and skirts, there was black leather, denim, bandanas, and boots.

Kathy Bronstein, Wet Seal's vice chairwoman and chief executive, has spent the past 18 months breathing new life into the retailer, which took a beating in 1999 when it unsuccessfully took a stab at khakis and polo shirts.