Royal Fashion Show Rewards Childhelp USA

Murray Arbeid of Knightsbridge, designer to Princess Diana, came to lunch Tuesday at the Irvine Hilton. He brought with him his latest ready-made couture collection, and 850 friends and supporters of Child help USA came to see it.

Luncheon chairman Eileen Saul said the event raised close to $50,000 for Childhelp programs designed to assist abused and neglected children and their families.

Those who expected Arbeid’s fashions to reflect a conservatism in keeping with the royal image were in for a few surprises: bare-midriffed, gaily printed “rumba” culottes, for instance.

“People seem to suffer from what I call premature speculation,” Arbeid said after the show. “I do what I want, not necessarily what a client would want. I admit I’m slightly astonished at how well the culottes have sold. One client, quite staid, bought two--she’s going to Acapulco this week. They’re not to be worn in Europe unless you’re talking about the Cote d’Azur--it’s got to be hot. Of course the hats pull the whole thing together.”

The imaginative hats--in one creation, a tilted brim becomes a veil--were the work of Frederick Fox, the royal milliner who, according to Arbeid, designs for “everybody from the Queen down.”

Arbeid explained with pride that each of his dresses is given over to a single seamstress, who’s then responsible for workmanship from beginning to end (in contrast to, say, the Pierre Cardin assembly-line approach to quality control). They ranged from softest pastels to strong “citrus” colors, from evanescent chiffons to all manner of glittering ornamentation and clear sequin overlays.

“I specialize in very constructive things--there’s a whole corset going on underneath the dress. So you just put your panty hose on, and you’re ready to go out. Or you needn’t put your panty hose on, and you can still be ready to go out.”

Before the show, Childhelp co-founders Yvonne Fedderson and Sara O’Meara presented the Children’s Friend Award to Dr. Deborah Stewart, assistant professor of adolescent medicine at the UC Irvine College of Medicine. Stewart, one of the few physicians willing to examine and treat alleged sexual assault victims, is considered the leading expert witness in the county for such cases.

“There’s a great reluctance (on the part) of physicians to get involved with child abuse,” explained Stewart, “particularly sexual abuse, and for a lot of reasons.

“First, because we know almost nothing in the field. Physicians, myself included, don’t like to go on a witness stand, swear to God, be asked questions and then be only 70% sure of the answer.

“Second, there’s a general uncomfortableness with sexual issues. When I stand up and give a lecture, and talk about what the kids go through, and use the kids’ words and graphic detail, I watch the physicians--they’re squirming.

“Third, it’s a hassle to be on call for the court. Just think of (a doctor’s) schedule. And some docs are embarrassed, understandably, about being handed subpoenas wherever they happen to be.”

Psychological Impacts

Stewart said that one out of four children in the United States is a victim of sexual abuse.

“The most serious consequence, of course, is not physical at all. I tell children, especially adolescents, that it’s very important to understand that even though they’ve been sexually molested, they’re not damaged. They’re still virgins. Molestation is assault. It has nothing to do with sex.”

Earlier, during the reception, Linda Wiley, national Childhelp board secretary, talked about the organization’s diagnostic centers in Los Angeles and Denver and the Village, its model research and treatment center in Beaumont, Calif. (The 120-acre facility currently houses 76 “hard-core abuse children who cannot make it in foster homes,” Wiley said.)

“Where there’s a chance for reunification, parents come to the Village to work on how to parent,” Wiley explained. “These people don’t wake up and say, ‘Today I’m going to beat the holy Hades out of my child’--they just don’t know how to cope. Often they don’t know what’s normal.

“If you don’t know what’s normal for a 2- or 3-year-old, and what to expect, you get paranoid. We’ve had so many people who thought that the child who took off his diaper and smeared everything all over the wall was just out to get them, to teach them.”

National Hot Line

She also mentioned the national toll-free hot line ((800) 4-A-CHILD). “We handled 123,460 calls nationally last year,” she said. “If only General Telephone knew how many people we’ve reached out and touched.”

Childhelp co-founder Sara O’Meara said statistics released Monday indicate that about 40% of those calls are from people in crisis, “which means we can intervene right then to stop prospective child abuse.

“We’ve had people call and say, ‘I have the water on boiling. I’m going to put my child in it. What are you going to tell me to stop me?’ We have Ph.Ds, not just volunteers or people who can talk well, answering the hot line full time.”

Don Fedderson, husband of Childhelp co-founder Yvonne Fedderson, received the Inspirational Service Award. “We kept it a secret six months,” said chapter vice president Wicki McDonald before presenting the award. “This is indeed a shock,” said Don Fedderson, genuinely enough, though the honor was printed right on the invitations.

Honorary chairman for the event was Jack Youngblood, defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams for 14 years. “Hey, they just decided to go with the best-looking man they could find,” he said.

Also there were Connie Olsen, Childhelp’s Newport Beach chapter president; the show’s fashion coordinator Billur Wallerich of Saks Fifth Avenue in South Coast Plaza, and Laural Chirico of Allen Edwards Salon of Newport Beach, who reported that $6,000 was raised for Childhelp on Sunday during a “Cutathon” at the salon’s Long Beach location.

The California Angels didn’t quite make it from home plate to fashion plate Saturday night.

Back stage at the black-tie affair, a benefit at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel for St. Joseph Hospital of Orange, the baseball players-cum-models had fun. On stage they proved more than slightly reticent.

“They were a little bit afraid,” admitted Saks Fifth Avenue fashion director Billur Wallerich. “You know, right foot in front of the left foot, left in front of the right? But after their first appearance, the ice was definitely broken. Then they didn’t want to get off.”

Wallerich assembled an amazing hodgepodge of clothes--from barbecue aprons to bathing suits to tuxedos, from athletic wear to mink coats--for the receptive crowd of 450, a mix of St. Joseph doctors, nurses and friends and girlfriends and wives of the players.

Angel models and wives included Don and Patty Sutton, Doug and Kristi DeCinces, Bob and Sue Boone, Mike and Lisa Witt, Donnie and Tonya Moore, Ruppert and Wanda Jones, and Brian and Cheryl Downing. Also modeling were Angels Ron Romanick, Kirk McCaskill, Craig Gerber, Jim Slaton, Gary Pettis, Dick Schofield and newcomer Gary Lucas. Sportscaster Stu Nahan of television station KNBC was emcee.

The event raised $25,000 for an ultrasound system for the hospital.