The Snoopy Look: Dressing to the Canines

Linus has never stopped worrying about the Great Pumpkin, Lucy about how to make Charlie Brown look foolish and Charlie Brown about unrequited love and almost everything else.

But Snoopy, who, along with the rest of the Peanuts gang, celebrated his 35th birthday this month, has moved on to more sophisticated matters.

Like what to wear, for instance.

Not that his closet is exactly threadbare: In fact, the Snoopy International Designer Collection, “Snoopy in Fashion,” on display at the Cal State Fullerton Visual Arts Gallery through Nov. 17, makes it clear that Snoopy and his sister, Belle, are far and away the best-dressed beagles in the world.

The pair enjoy the ultimate in fashion success--clothes created specifically with them in mind by more than 100 of the world’s greatest designers, from Giorgio Armani to Mitsuhiro Matsuda, from Givenchy to Willi Smith.

Snoopy and Belle are ready for any occasion.

They’ve got shoes, knapsacks and suspenders by L.L. Bean for that hike in the woods. Gucci sweatbands are part of the cuddly pups’ tennis best. Snoopy’s the picture of Antarctic chic in his fur by Fendi.

And when the stylish bowwows want to, pardon the expression, put on the dog, Belle can trot out her gown by Fabrice, and Snoopy his matching muffler, both with bugle-beads, or her Oscar de la Renta: Oscar’s given Belle a ruffled hem and bodice and Snoopy, appropriately enough, a ruffled ruff for those special evenings that demand dressing to the canines.

The exhibit has just returned from a tour of Europe and the Far East; next stop is Sacramento, then on to six months in Australia.

The show is not without a degree of controversy.

In the flurry of creativity, for instance, some of the designers seem to have forgotten that Belle is Snoopy’s sister. British designer Emanuel has the pair getting married. And what are we to make of Issey Miyake’s vignette, in which Snoopy and Belle wear matching one-piece bathing suits?

Snoopy cross-dressing?

“I just unpacked them and installed them,” said gallery technician Gene Karraker, who, with assistant gallery director Marilyn Moore, keeps a watchful eye on the exhibit. “What can I say?”

Karraker pointed out that some of the designers weren’t above a little cosmetic surgery: Here Belle’s got a radical tummy-tuck, there she’s been given a definite bust.

“People who are real connoisseurs of Snoopy get pretty upset,” Karraker noted.

The fashions, which at this time are for display only, look to yesterday, today and tomorrow: Franco Trancredi’s silks at once seem medieval-inspired and timeless; Teddy Paez has the pair in heavy metal-inspired leathers; Thierry Mugler, the first to oblige with a Snoopy design, jumps forward with futuristic jump suits (which the designer himself wears).

The project began about three years ago, according to Connie Boucher, president of the San Francisco-based Determined Productions, which introduced the first Snoopy doll in 1968. The company had done more than 50 outfits--an engineer, a doctor, an astronaut, that sort of thing--when Boucher decided it was time for Snoopy to become “very fashionable.” The designers’ reactions to her idea were mixed.

“The very first question they all asked was: ‘Who else is doing this?’ ” recalled Boucher in a phone interview from a branch office in Hong Kong. “Some would say, ‘If I’m the only one, I’d love to do it,’ while others would say, ‘Well, if so-and-so is doing it, then I’d feel secure, too.’ Still others asked how much they’d be paid. (Participants donated their work.)

“But a lot of them felt it was an extremely funny, wild thing to do. It took them out of the everyday things they were doing. Creating for Snoopy was more complicated, more difficult, a challenge.

“The amazing thing that happened was that each of the designers really did something that represented their sort of all-time, one ‘look.’ So even if you know only a little bit about designing and designers, you can easily distinguish whose outfit is whose.

“(Peanuts creator) Charles Schulz was amazed designers would want to do this kind of thing. Everybody was. Who’d think designers like these would want to design for Snoopy? It was a wacky idea. But it’s grown; it’s taken on a whole different aspect.”

Schulz, reached at his office in Santa Rosa, said he found the exhibition extremely flattering.

“It proves two things,” Schulz said. “First, the designers must kind of like Snoopy to want to put in this kind of work. Second, that they’re a very competitive bunch. They all really got caught up in what the others were doing.

“But I suppose there’s one more thing, too. It proved how much more versatile Snoopy is than the other characters. Looking back on those 35 years, it turns out Snoopy can do almost anything.”

The gallery is at 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Hours are Monday through Friday, noon to 4 p.m.; Sunday, 2 to 5 p.m.

A Sparkling Wine Festival--a showcase of champagne styles featuring all major producers of the bubbly in California--will take place Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. in the Marina Ballroom of the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

The event, which will include strolling violinists and hors d’oeuvres, is the Southern California Restaurant Writers’ 10th winter wine tasting. Admission is $20. For details, call (714) 962-0517.