Fashion 88 : Fergie’s Look in L.A.: Flair Without Fuss
Let it be recorded in the fashion annals that at one point during her regal rounds of Los Angeles, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York wore clothing from Marks & Spencer, the budget British department store where middle-class housewives shop.
Before lunch (yes, it was salmon) at Bullocks Wilshire on Monday, the former Sarah Ferguson, otherwise known as “Fergie,” revealed that her black lacquered hat was made by Englishman Graham Smith, her shocking pink blazer bore the made-in-France label Yves St. Laurent, her black reptile shoes were designed by English designer Manolo Blahnik.
And the skirt? “Marks & Sparks,” chirped the duchess, uttering the nickname all British folk use to identify the famous low-price store.
It figures. Fergie is the “down-to-earth” duchess, as Bullocks Wilshire President Terry Lundgren described her. Anyway, of the queen’s two daughters-in-law, Sarah was never known as the fashion die-hard.
“She’s not about fashion,” Nancy Vreeland allowed during a reception Tuesday evening for the duke and duchess, hosted by the Blue Ribbon of the Music Center. “Her enthusiasm and dynamism,” Vreeland said, override anything she wears.
“She looks absolutely wonderful, but it comes from inside,” Annette O’Malley observed.
“She has a wonderful glow. Her focus seems to be on the mission they’re on, the trade between the United Kingdom and L.A.,” Joanne Kozberg added. “They seem to be taking their responsibilities very seriously.”
Still, the Fergie fashion show continued all week, and her wardrobe wasn’t always a plug for the British.
Two evenings in a row, Sarah, who travels with a dresser and a hairdresser, wore gowns by Yves St. Laurent: the black-and-orange one with the “whopping great sleeves,” as one British press attache described it, worn to the UK/LA Gala at the Biltmore Hotel Sunday, and the black dress and bolero donned for the reception given by the British Consul General at the Four Seasons hotel Monday.
The Fergie show also included two daytime suits by British designer Nicole Farhi and one--for the welcoming ceremonies at City Hall Saturday--by Britain’s Lindka Cierach.
Surely you remember Cierach. She designed the duchess’ wedding gown in 1986, the frilly, bowed affair that was copied the world over.
For Sarah’s one “young” night-- the hour or so Tuesday evening she spent viewing a British/Los Angeles fashion show at the downtown Stock Exchange nightclub--Cierach also made the short (well, just to the top of the knee), magenta-and-black, one-shoulder dress bedecked with roses.
Of the latter ensemble, L.A. designer Michele Lamy glanced at the duchess, frowned and said: “I wish she had worn leather, like she does in all those pictures you see when she’s flying an airplane.”
But British designer Jean Muir, whose women’s boutique officially opened this week at Bullocks Wilshire, gave the duchess her high-fashion score. “I think she looks wonderful, I mean wonderful,” said Muir, who says she believes Fergie, like Princess Diana, has purchased her designs from time to time.
As for the knee-top hemlines Fergie wears, Muir said, they are “neither too short nor too long”; they’re young, yet respectful of her position. “I think it’s sort of just right.”
And what of Sarah’s first trimester-maternity wardrobe? Nobody does dressing-for- pregnancy better than the royals, Muir suggested. “I can’t even remember noticing when the Princess of Wales was enceinte. It’s coped with very well,” she said.
The real fashion fussing was not about the English or maternity clothes, and instead came from this side of the Atlantic. At times, the locals seemed at loose ends trying to figure out what would be correct to wear, particularly for daytime affairs.
Only Ruth Koch, wife of producer Howard Koch, went the full route and wore a hat and gloves the day she lunched with the couple at Bullocks Wilshire. Actress Joan Van Ark came hatless, but wore gloves, “because I understood a lady was not to touch royalty unless she has a gloved hand.” Fergie said that wasn’t necessary, and the duchess wears gloves only because she shakes so many hands.
Betsy Bloomingdale held onto her gloves. And just about everyone else was both hatless and gloveless.
“This is California ,” Terry Stanfill said.
In case anyone cared, Prince Andrew is no stuffed shirt when it comes to fashion. He doesn’t merely favor traditional, tailor-made British suits.
During the couple’s rounds of Bullocks Wilshire, where they viewed merchandise by British manufacturers Alexon, Jaeger, Ballantyne, Burberry, Jean Muir, Wedgwood and Asprey, Andrew’s eye landed on a black suede jacket.
Later, at lunch, Bullocks Wilshire’s Lundgren (in a Jaeger suit) surprised the prince with a gift of the jacket.
The next night, Lundgren asked Andrew: “Was that the one you liked so much?”
In response, the duke “very politely hinted,” Lundgren said, that he actually had preferred a more contemporary navy suede bomber jacket (bearing the store’s private BW label). And so the switch was made.
