Ankle Deep in Perfume Tips: A Lot of Dabs Will Do You
Tips on where to dab parfum , that invisible vamp that turns a meat-’n’-potatoes man into a blithering cream puff, were revealed last week at a luncheon for the Fashionables, a support group of Chapman College in Orange.
“On your temples,” exhorted fragrance authority Dolly Briggs. “Behind your ears. In front of your ears. On your neck. In your cleavage. Under your bosom. . . . Behind the knees.”
Well, OK, the Fashionables thought, fashionably gathered as they were, in the fashionable Crystal ballroom of the Registry Hotel in Irvine, we knew that.
Then Briggs hit them with the news. “And your ankles!” Peals of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding laughter filled the room. The group had to admit that was a tidbit. Nobody had thought of sweet-smelling ankles before.
Of such is the stylish stuff found on the let’s-lunch agenda of one of Orange County’s most forthright and fun-loving charity groups. Via lunches with special speakers and ad hoc fund-raisers, the women (and since 1980, a men’s patron committee) have used their frank admiration of fashion to make big bucks for Chapman College. Since the group was founded in 1971 by Mildred Mead, the 100 members have contributed $152,500 to the college for scholarships and special projects. A fashionable fly on the wall would have noticed the following items favored by the ladies of the club: leather anything, fine-knit anything, classic suits, big scarves, lace-edged hankies spilling out of jacket pockets, heirloom jewelry (often a dreamy pin stuck on a lapel or hat) classic pearls with drop-dead jewel clasps, blouses that tie with a pouf, and hats, hats, hats.
Ruth Jensen’s perky bowler was made of jaguar fur. “Oh, people will want to kill me when they read that,” Jensen wailed. “But I had it made at Bullock’s Wilshire in the ‘60s, before they were an endangered species.”
Was Rusty Hood’s hat a pricey Chanel? No, she said, “It’s a . . . I can’t remember!” Hood, who otherwise dripped in Chanel from shoulder-to-toe (gobs of chains and pearls and crystals around the neck, a chic, boxy suit and leather pumps) confessed she’d gone from “Chanel to Abercrombie & Fitch lately.”
Hood explained: “My husband Bill and I are planning a trip to South America. So I’ve been purchasing safari clothes, khaki things, at Abercrombie. For a catamaran trip on the Amazon, I’ll wear culottes or shorts. A big jacket with a big belt. And a wonderful safari hat with zebra trim.” The petite redhead said she would wear simple cotton dresses for her nights in the jungle, but when she kicked up her heels in Buenos Aires, she’d be wearing things- couturier. A red and white Oscar de la Renta, for example, or a black and white Yves St. Laurent. “My color scheme for the trip is black and white and khaki, with a touch of red. And, the cotton dresses I wear in the jungle at night will be the cottons I wear in the city during daytime.”
Before the chicken piccata luncheon, knits by Jane Palmer were modeled by Fashionable members Jo Anne Mix, Ollie Hill, Patty Brennan, Mary Ann Wells and Mead.
Mary Lou Hopkins-Hornsby is chairman of the Fashionables. Also among those attending the group’s 1987 kickoff luncheon were Patricia Allen, Peggy Cotton, Pat Evans, Barbara Freundt, Georgia Haney, Virginia Knott Bender, Ruth Jensen, Emma Jane Riley, Liz Skinner, Jean Tandowsky, Hedda Marosi and Myrna Saftig.
