BARGAIN-HUNTERS BATTLE DURING DR SALE

Attila and his Huns had nothing on the hordes that swept down Brattle Street yesterday. But the Cambridge conquerors weren't out for blood--they were bargain-seekers heading for the opening of the annual three-day sale at Design Research.

The crowds began to gather at 7:30 a.m., huddling miserably under umbrellas. One man carried a little wicker stool to wait out the long hours. By 9 the line stretched a block long.

Then the doors opened, and the dripping masses poured in. Divide and conquer was the rule. The women stormed the stairs to the Marimekko dresses. The patient wicker stool-sitter triumphantly claimed a $969 sofa, reduced to $700. He had a brief scuffle with a parvenu female customer who arrived at 9, but she quickly yielded before such obviously superior expertise.

Upstairs, the war of the Marimekko raged. A male spectator might have thought that Dior--not DR--was holding the sale. Few 'Cliffes--but almost every other Cambridge lady--armed themselves with the gaily colored Finnish shifts and mounted to the third floor, where the vice-president's office had been hastily converted into a mass dressing room.

It was the battle of the bulge. Plump matrons tried to slither into snugly-fitting skirts. Grandmothers preened themselves before the mirrors as they donned dresses more suitable for their pregnant daughters-in-law. There were trades and fights as customers grabbed different ends of the same dress.

Down below, two law students were shopping for dresses for female friends. "She's got bright red hair. What color should I buy?" one asked a salesgirl.

"Blue or green," came back the answer.

The young man browsed throuh the rack of dresses and held up one that caught his eye.

"Hey, Lacey, what d'ya think of this? Think it'll fit her?"

"How big is she going to get--that's the question," his friend replied helpfully.

Meanwhile, as the Jownstairs began to empty out, transfusions of fresh blood poured in off the street. Two children in a red dump truck wove in and out of the forest of legs. A middle-aged businessman sat twiddling his thumbs as he stared off into space, waiting for his wife to emerge from the Darwinian struggle.

At the door was posted a thin, erect policeman, looking like one of the tin soldiers off the toy shelf. He munched on a donut as he serenely contemplated the war of all against all