(FORTUNE Magazine) – DRIVE UP the Chrysler Freeway north from Detroit, and you'll reach the offices of an Italian-American chief executive who is inspiring employees, exciting Wall Street, and dramatically reshaping a down-at-the-heels corporation. Look out, Lee, you've got local competition: K mart Chairman Joseph Antonini, sometimes called the Iacocca of retailing. Antonini, 47, laughs off the label and says, ''I think it's just because we're both Italian.'' Since becoming CEO in 1987, Antonini has been purging K mart of its ''polyester palace'' image. He moved quickly, adding more expensive merchandise to low-priced lines and recruiting a covey of celebrities to hawk the goods. Race car driver Mario Andretti endorses K mart's automotive products, while golfer Fuzzy Zoeller touts its sporting equipment. Antonini's unlikeliest coup was signing Martha Stewart, the caterer who writes expensive books about entertaining lavishly at home, to plug K mart's kitchen, bedroom, and bath products. ''There's no consumer loyalty today,'' he explains. ''You have to make the shopping experience delightful.'' Antonini figured out the secret of delighting K mart shoppers in 1984 when, as president of the apparel division, he launched the Jaclyn Smith line of women's clothing. Smith's clothes did for his career what Ford's Mustang did for Iacocca's. Her TV commercials -- ''It's not the K mart of ten years ago or even five years,'' says the former Charlie's Angel -- and her moderately priced line have helped turn the $6 billion apparel division into K mart's fastest-growing business. Now Antonini exults, ''What we did with Jaclyn in apparel, we can do with the whole store.'' Polishing K mart's image has burnished its bottom line. Profits for 1987 rose 19% to $692 million, on revenues of $25.6 billion, and Morgan Stanley analyst Walter Loeb expects earnings to grow 15% annually over the next five years. Says Bernard Fauber, Antonini's predecessor as chairman: ''If I learned anything from Joe, it's that I should have moved more aggressively, more quickly in making changes.'' The folks who watched Antonini grow up in Morgantown, West Virginia (pop. 27,475), aren't surprised that he is reshaping K mart with energy and style. Being short (he claims he is 5 foot 8) did not prevent young Jo-Jo from becoming the star guard on Morgantown High's basketball team, or from attracting the prettiest girls. Even then Antonini was shrewd about marketing. He formed a rock-and-roll group, the Bonnevilles, to help pay his tuition at West Virginia University. But the band did not have sound equipment that could compete with the stuff other groups had. Not to worry, Antonini told his bass player David Coombs, ''We're going to pick out the songs that people want to hear and make more money.'' Today, with fast-growing Wal-Mart hot on his heels, the do-it-all kid doesn't have time to do more off the job than play golf twice a month (it shows in his 18 handicap) and see his family. He and wife Kathleen have a son, John, 12, and a daughter, Kara, 9. Antonini's strategy remains the same as when he led the Bonnevilles: He'll pick the merchandise people want and make more money.