Haute Couture Evening at Music Center

Chanel, the Paris couture, ready-to-wear and fragrance house, is the newest Music Center benefactor. That fact was confirmed Monday night at a glamorous gala hosted by the Music Center’s Amazing Blue Ribbon in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion when Michael Newton, president of the Performing Arts Council, presented a Robert Graham sculpted benefactor’s plaque to Chanel chairman Alain Wertheimer and to Kitty D’Alessio, president of Chanel Inc. The ties between Chanel and the Music Center (both, Newton said, are concerned with creativity) may grow stronger. “We’ll be back,” Kitty D’Alessio promised. “I love California.” (The next day she was off to receive an award from I. Magnin in San Francisco.)

Chanel underwrote the evening, brought a staff of experts to supervise every detail and imported 18 of its Parisian models including Ines de la Fressange, the tall and ultra thin “face” of Chanel in the print media. And then the company also gave the Music Center Unified Fund $150,000.

For the fashion show a 75-foot runway had been created in front of the Pavilion’s tall windows and the models, wearing the fall couture collection, stepped through a cutout in the shape of the Coco perfume bottle (the latest of the Chanel perfumes is just being introduced to Los Angeles).

You would have expected many women to show up wearing Chanel designs. And you would have been wrong. There were plenty of black dresses and plenty of pearls--the late Coco Chanel’s standbys--but surprisingly few of the real McCoy. Brigitte Wertheimer, wife of the Chanel chairman, did wear a black lace off-the-shoulder Chanel, claiming, “I am very loyal.” And Mrs. John Hotchkis of Pasadena wore the Chanel suit her husband bought for her last year in Paris with this year’s gift, a jeweled necklace tucked into the neckline. “The only thing Chanel about me is my nail polish and my perfume,” smiled Van Venneri, who was accompanied by Bob Hix.

“My makeup is by Chanel,” claimed Mrs. Leonard Goldberg, who wore a black Galanos and Chanel sling-back satin pumps with jeweled tips. Mrs. Aaron Spelling brightened up her black Galanos with her husband’s birthday present a multitiered diamond necklace with a pear-shaped diamond pendant. “Her birthday isn’t till Friday,” explained her husband, the television producer with the golden touch. “But this is the only black-tie affair we’re going to for a while.” Here and there in the Grand Hall were touches of red. Event chairman Nancy Vreeland wore Bill Blass’ long red silk crepe dress with a Chanel necklace. Honorary co-chairmen Mrs. Alan Livingston (she’s Blue Ribbon’s chairman) wore Hanae Mori’s red chiffon gown and Mrs. William Kieschnick, Blue Ribbon’s new executive president, wore black and white striped chiffon. More in red, Giney Milner and Peggy Parker who wore a Valentino costume. Mrs. Harry Wetzel was in white, a good choice.

The fashion show was snappy and fast-paced. The speeches--by Nancy Vreeland and Keith Kieschnick--were short and to the point. And the menu--smoked salmon served with aquavit, lamb chops, coconut-chocolate truffle ice cream--was a revelation for the Pavilion. “Is this Hungry Tiger food?” Rob Maguire asked his wife Sue, referring to the Pavilion’s food concessionaire. The answer was “yes.” At $250 per ticket, the evening, Mrs. Livingston estimated the next day, would earn “around $250,000.”

Tom Wachtell, president of the Music Center Opera Assn., had another suggestion for raising money. “Have all the women here wear muslin and give the money they spent on their dresses to the Unified Fund. We’d never have to worry again.” Among those who did not find Wachtell’s suggestion amusing was his wife Esther.

Catherine Oxenberg, daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia and a member of the “Dynasty” cast, was the new girl (read movie star) in town. She was escorted by Warren Cowan. Howard Koch, there with his wife Ruth, said he was getting ready to shoot “Hollywood Wives--Part II.” Marianne and bearded Kenny Rogers strolled about. Pale-faced Carol Matthau was with husband Walter, Janet De Cordova with her husband Freddie who produces the “Tonight” show, Barbro Taper with Gordon Freshman. Mrs. Garry Marshall, wife of the producer, stood talking to attorney Marco Weiss and his wife Joan and Neil Bazier and his wife Joanne. Joan and Joanne wore their Blue Ribbon hostess badges discreetly pinned to their designer gowns. Mrs. Armand Deutsch, Mrs. Earle Jorgensen, Mrs. Thomas Trainer, hostesses all, were stationed upstairs where the main event took place after the reception in the lobby.

Watching us people watching (and noting names in our notebook) Tim Vreeland, husband of the gala chairman and son of fashion doyenne Diana Vreeland, offered a suggestion. “It would be easier to list those who aren’t here tonight.” He was right, of course. But we carried on, anyway.

Waving, kissing, hugging, table-hopping all through the night, Northrop’s Tom and Ruth Jones, Erlenne and Norman Sprague, Betsy Bloomingdale, Jayne and Henry Berger, Gwyn and Natalie Robinson, Rose Narva who flew in from Washington to attend the party with son David, Flora Thornton, Lyn Kienholz, Diane and Harold Keith with daughter Suzanne, Madame Sylvia and King Wu, Mrs. Peter Bing, Kathryn (Klinger) and Rudy Belton, Lisa and Robert Bell. Plus Dr. and Mrs. Franklin Murphy, the Martin Gangs, Rupert Allan, Francisco Kripacz, Luis Estevez with New York’s Nancy Ittleson, Lois and Bob Erburu, Mort and Lita Heller who flew in from Aspen for the party, Bill Frye just back from Dallas, Jim Wharton, Francie Brody, Frank McCarthy.

Architectural Digest’s Paige Rense invited some decorative people to fill two tables--Tamara Asseyev, Jack Lowrance, Mimi London, Rose Tarlow, Nancy Reagan’s favorite decorator Ted Graber, Arch Case, Louise Danelian, Val Arnold, Kalef Alaton, Tony Machado. Still more who said the evening offered the kind of dazzle you get at New York charity affairs--Dr. Jim Bonorris and his wife Lucy Zahran, Chase and Ralph Mishkin, Ruth March with Dr. Jim Blake. And Suzanne Marx, Max Eckert, Ethel and Irving Axelrad, Wallis Annenberg with Gary Pudney, Howard and Diane Deshong, Hamburger Hamlet’s Marilyn and Harry Lewis, Jacques Camus with Doris Fields Heller, Arpad and Kati Domyan, Adrienne and Vernon Underwood (they celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary Saturday at the California Club), Mrs. Charles Luckman, La Vetta King, Georgia and Dominic Frontiere, Walter Grauman, Peggy and Sam Grossman, Merle Kingsley with George Page, Della Koenig with Robin Plunket, Mary and Brad Jones.

All in all, there were more than 600 guests admiring the black and white decor and the overwhelming array of more than 2,000 flowers from Holland, France and Hawaii artfully arranged by the Flowers That Bloom in the Spring Tra La. Upstairs in the Pavilion’s third floor, Clark Keen played for dancing and quite a few crowded onto the dance floor.

The Social Scramble: It was one of those record-breaking days at the Bistro Garden where the Friday lunch bunch included Peggy Parker with Hillevi Schine, Andra Stein, Barbro Taper and Ingrid Ingram (in town for a week); Suzanne Pleshette with Eva Gabor and Barbara Davis; Fran Stark with Nancy Ittleson, Erlenne Sprague, Natalie Robinson and Marion Jorgensen; Midge Clark and Louise Good, Frances Skipsey, Dee Cramer, Coco Viault and Mary Jones; Eileen and Norman Kreiss with son Tom and Jim Northrup, the interior designer; Marje Brandeis with Paquita Machris; Jacques Camus and Baroness Eva Pusta; Margo Hirsh with Rita Cruikshank; Evie Johnson with decorator Alan J. Murphy; Sidney Poitier; Sidney Korshak; Ruth Batchelor; Eleanor Moscatel; Jean Stuart.

No one, says Estee Lauder, the beauty queen, “can write my story the way I can.” After all, she insists, “I lived it. I made it. I wrote it.” The autobiography, “Estee: A Success Story,” took her four months to write and will be in the book stores soon. Random House is publishing the tome, which will have about 150 pictures recording her life from childhood to business success and to social stardom. “I tell all,” the well-dressed business executive (her company is family owned) says. “Even my best friends will be surprised at what they read in it. Men will learn a lot about how to start a business and how to get to the top.” Her own secret? “You get there by working hard.”