Stalking Details for the Beastly Ball
Beastly hot temperatures haven’t deterred Virginia S. Milner from chairing the 16th annual Beastly Ball on Sept. 13 for the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. She’s in a jungle of detail, working out arrangements with Howard E. Varner, chairman of trustees, and Marcia Wilson Hobbs, zoo president. Garb is “creative attire,” so that will draw lots of safari khaki for cocktails and the buffet dinner. Proceeds this year are earmarked for “Adventure Island,” the new Children’s Zoo. They’ll be ample at $200 per person.
No one is saying yet which couturier, but one of haute couture’s most prominent and successful French designers will bring his collection to Los Angeles on Oct. 30 for a black-tie “A Salute to French Fashions.” It will be a fashion show extraordinaire produced through the cooperation of la Chambre syndicale de la couture Parisienne (composed presently of 21 high fashion houses) and the Los Angeles French Trade Commission. The affair on the stages of the Beverly Wilshire will benefit the Costume Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Additionally, it will kick off a major, unprecedented exposition of French home furnishings, fashion and accessories to be held from Oct. 30-Nov. 2 in the Los Angeles Convention Center. The exposition is supposed to be the largest of its kind ever held in the United States. It will feature more than 200 manufacturers and designers of French apparel, cosmetics, costume jewelry, home furnishings and home accessories.
French trade commissioner Alain Galliano invited about 50 council members for a little soiree in his Westwood home the other day to inform them that all Paris couture is excited about the collaboration. “Southern Californians are very style-conscious; it is particularly appropriate that the Costume Council is the beneficiary,” he said.
Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Oppenheimer will be honorary gala chairmen. They have been major contributors to the museum’s Doris Stein Research and Design Center for Costumes and Textiles.
Los Angeles will host top officials from the French Ministry of Foreign Trade in Paris during the exposition week, along with French Ambassador to the United States Emmanuel de Margerie, who will come from Washington.
Nelly Llanos will serve as benefit chairman, assisted by Ann Johnson. More on the gala committee are Mrs. Thomas Vreeland Jr., Mrs. Grant Theis, Mrs. Michael Wallace, Mrs. Elliot Horwitch, Mrs. Brian Corbell, Mrs. Vernon Underwood, Mrs. W. Clark Smith, Patricia Kennedy, David Jones, David Narva, Mrs. Melvin Schlemenson, and Mrs. Donald Pennell.
Today, Ann Shaw gets a treat. She’s being feted at a luncheon by former YWCA Athena Award winners Judith Harris Murphy, Anna Bing Arnold and Caroline Ahmanson. Officially she’s to be informed she’s the 1987 Athena nominee for the Y’s Los Angeles Leader Luncheon XIII on April 23. YWCA president Virginia Tanzmann and executive director Winifred Hessinger will be there, too.
Then, Sept. 12, official plans for the luncheon will be kicked off with a big splash at the Brentwood home of luncheon chairman Mary Anne Dolan. Now a syndicated columnist, Dolan is the former editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and a past YWCA Silver Achievement award winner.
It won’t be a snow job, we’re sure. But, “WinterFest,” a Music Center concert, is about to be a first. A big, big fund-raiser in December, which, it is hoped, will become a tradition. Anne Johnson, Chardee Trainer and Lili Zanuck will host their benefit committee at a meeting Sept. 11, and then tell all at a kick-off luncheon in The Founders of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
Hermes and the Dance Gallery Guild struck a common denominator this week over high tea at Trumps. The occasion was the announcement that Hermes’ United States launch of its amber floral fragrance (simply lovely!) Parfum d’Hermes will coincide with the ground breaking of the Dance Gallery building in downtown Los Angeles. The gala cocktail reception Oct. 9 will be a double soiree. At Trumps, Chrysler Fisher, president of Hermes, and Mary Kay Rafferty, director of fragrance, received a warm welcome from Barbara Bain, Dance Gallery co-chairman, and the Gala Committee including co-chairs Judith Stark, Mindy Caplow and Jeanne Fond. Guests such as Helen Roth, Wendy Garrett and Bobby Geller were raving over the scent (it will retail for $195 per ounce and $70 per one-quarter ounce only at the Hermes salons), and co-chair Lenny Steinberg admired the packaging. Guests also received pretty peach Hermes scarfs and Francine Bardo, manager of the Beverly Hills Hermes salon, gave Shelby Kirsch tips on various ways to tie hers, while Fisher explained the intricacies of manufacturing--30 silk-screen processes for each scarf.
Upcoming: Mrs. Ralph H. Ruud heads the ARCS Science Awards Luncheon on Nov. 17. . . .
Los Angeles Country Club will be the setting to welcome new members to the National Arts Assn. on Sept. 11. Jeanne Johnson, president, is arranging the coffee. Some of the new: Pamela Addison, Christina Childs, Ruth Gross, Beverly Lenz, Ginny Lukasik, Jean Nelson, Mollie Qvale and Ola Smith. . . .
Morey Amsterdam is honorary chairman and master of ceremonies for a celebrity auction dinner Sept. 13 at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills. Proceeds go to the AMC Cancer Research Center. . . .
Ruth Kraft in Malibu is shaking the beach mats for the Golden Key Foundation’s beach party Saturday to honor its angel donors.
About 600 of the Peninsula/South Bay friends of Torrance Memorial Hospital Medical Center will feast on “Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses” at their “An Evening of Music” featuring Henry Mancini’s music and 37-piece orchestra Sept. 13 at the Torrance Marriott.
The Back Alley Theater’s first doodle auction fund-raiser last fall was a success. Three hundred bid on doodles by celebrities, including Charlton Heston. Thus, a sequel Sept. 14 at the Sherman Oaks estate of Jerry and T. J. Berns. Jim Goodman once again will serve as auction pro. Event chairmen Vivian Forbes of Tarzana and Dr. Stanley Lavine of Sherman Oaks are seeking a tantalizing list of doodlers. The $35 admission also assures a tour of the Spanish revival home, a City of Los Angeles Cultural Heritage landmark. The estate is at 13242 Magnolia Blvd., Sherman Oaks.
