Party Wraps : Pacesetters Choose Fashions: Blockbusters, Subtle Silhouettes

Holiday weather forecast: mostly warm, due to a flurry of hot parties blanketing the region. Chestnuts and open fires predicted at points north, south, east and west, decreasing after Jan. 1.

Time for dazzle dressing.

But what to wear? For some of Orange County’s fashion pacesetters, it has to be a blockbuster, a dress that triggers an explosion at first sight.

Others look for subtlety, a silhouette that whispers: “See me, not only what I wear.”

The difference is something Kitty Leslie, fashion director at Newport Center/Fashion Island, calls “fashion courage.”

“There are women who don’t mind if every head turns when they walk into a room,” she says. “And there are women who want to look wonderful but don’t want to be stared at.”

In general, Orange County women like to look very dressed up when they go out, Leslie says. “But the Newport Beach woman has the most fashion courage. You’ll see a dressier crowd at a Newport Harbor Art Museum party, for example, than you will at one in the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.”

Leslie knows. For years she has staged fashion shows from Fullerton to San Clemente.

But whatever their preference, Leslie says, Orange County women have a glow of health unmatched by women in any other part of the country.

And others lack the fashion resources Orange County women have, declares Worst Dressed List author Mr. Blackwell, who frequently appears at local benefits. “Orange County has some of the most aggressive, independent stores in the country.”

As for how local women dress when they step out, Blackwell says: “I don’t think they are going to make any first fashion statements for some time. The younger women are going to be dominated by the grand dames of yesteryear, and they’re still wearing minks with mothballs.” But in 20 years, Blackwell predicts, Orange County may be the leading retail fashion center in the country.

In the meantime, women such as Judie Argyros are turning their holiday closets into fashion centers in their own right. Dangling from hangers in her commodious walk-in on Harbor Island are seven new gowns. “And I may very well be wearing a different one every night,” says Argyros, who is active in fund raising for Chapman College and Orangewood.

She hadn’t planned to purchase so many. “I’d been recycling old gowns all year--fluffing them up with different accessories,” she says.

But then November rolled around and the party invitations started coming. And coming.

“Suddenly, there were a bunch of black-tie events. I don’t ever remember having so many dressy things to go to during a holiday season.”

Among the events were the Children’s Home Society Debutante Ball in Newport Beach, the President’s Ball at the Vintage Country Club in Palm Desert, the American Cinema Awards Foundation benefit in Irvine, the opening of the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles and the site dedication for the new Newport Harbor Art Museum. Not to mention a slew of private bashes and the hectic dance card Argyros and husband George keep in Sun Valley before and after Christmas.

“I didn’t know how I was going to take those dresses I’d been fluffing up all year and do another fluff,” she says with a laugh.

So Argyros zipped over to Amen Wardy in Newport Center and picked out an entrance-maker--an amethyst satin by Victoria Royal--and a subdued black Mary McFadden. Then she attended Saks Fifth Avenue’s fashion show for the Orange County Philharmonic Society and flew backstage when it was over, selecting five more glamour gowns: a bow-bedecked Bill Blass; a black-silk charmeuse by St. Martine topped with a jet-encrusted, poinsettia-red bolero; a multicolor silk by Ann Lawrence (Argyros calls this her “explosion dress--it sends off gorgeous light reflections”); an emerald green by Ricco Antonio and a fox-caped black wool pants ensemble by Anne Klein.

How does she choose? By the way a dress makes her feel, says Argyros, who spends an average of $1,200 per ball gown. The deep-purple Victoria Royal, for example, “made me feel alive. The minute I saw it I was attracted to its color and energy.”

Sandra Beigel of Newport Beach felt the same way about the clingy red jersey by Bob Mackie she bought at Amen Wardy (on sale at half of the original $1,000-plus price), the one she will pack for a trip to Paris this month with her husband, Jerry.

“But the dress wasn’t quite there,” says Beigel, chairwoman of a recent holiday benefit brunch for Chapman College. “Something was not working.”

So she whisked it over to Gildas, a can-can dancer turned couture designer who operates among hills of bugle beads in Newport Beach. For about $350, Gildas added a splash of glitter here, another there. “He is totally fantastic,” Beigel gushes. “I use him all of the time. The dress had just one star burst at the waist. Now it has one on a sleeve and one on a shoulder.”

What would Bob Mackie do if he knew? Turn over in his salon?

Gildas thinks not. “I kept the balance and the idea of the dress,” he says. “And the spirit. I don’t feel guilty, not at all. I love Mackie. What he does is magnificent.

“But he does so many . I think if he saw the dress, he wouldn’t even notice. Or he might look at it and say: ‘Oh! I don’t remember putting so much beading on that.’ ”

Gildas not only spruced up the Mackie, he made Beigel pear-shaped red earrings to match. He also dyed a silk tassel the same shade so it could dangle in perfect harmony from her evening bag . Beigel will top off her dazzle-look with red shoes, red hose, red lipstick and red eye shadow. “I feel fabulous in the outfit now,” she says. “Absolutely glowing--like a movie star!”

Tina Schafnitz, who will chair the American Heart Assn. gala in February, adores dressing up any time of year. She has several dresses from which to choose for the holiday season, she says. “Gildas made me four and I bought others off the rack, so I could scatter them through 1988 and the beginning of 1989.” She purchased them very early this year for stepping out with her husband, Matt. “Right now, I’m working on buying for 1989,” says the Newport Beach resident, who doesn’t like to spend more than $2,500 per gown.

For the Christmas Tree Ball at the Balboa Bay Club, Schafnitz will slip into one of her drop-dead looks, a brilliant blue silk whipped up by Gildas last January. “I wanted something royal looking and strapless,” she says.

Schafnitz eschews disguising her form with “nine layers of gauze.”

“I don’t believe in it. I feel a woman’s greatest asset is the way she is able to take care of her body and then let it shine through. But I won’t wear anything that is not senator’s-wife material. I like to have a little fun, but I won’t wear anything too revealing, anything someone would talk about.”

For Judy Fluor Runels of Santa Ana, the party of the year is the one her parents toss on Christmas Eve in their Corona del Mar home. “I’ll be attending a few parties for the city of Santa Ana,” says the titian-haired woman who sits on the board of Bowers Museum and is active in the Santa Ana Assistance League. But the party that makes her count the days is the one with her family. “It’s not black tie,” she says, “but it’s very elegant.”

When Runels gathers around the family table with her husband, Dick, she’ll be wearing the streamlined tuxedo dress she purchased for about $600 last year at Ellesse in Newport Center. “I think less is best,” she says. “I don’t like to be overdone. It’s not that I don’t like to see other women looking very dressy. I do. But it’s not for me. I like understated elegance.”

Barbara Glabman agrees. “I am much more comfortable being a tad under-dressed,” she says. Glabman is planning her party-going with husband Jim around two new ensembles. One is a peau de soie by Fabrice that features black palazzo pants and a berry-red jacket trimmed with “subtle glitz,” says Glabman, who lives in Newport Beach. The other is a “very sophisticated” silver-gray silk damask by Norma Walters. Glabman is mum about cost. “That’s a taboo subject,” she says, smiling. She purchased the Fabrice at Neiman Marcus in Los Angeles and the Walters at Nordstrom in South Coast Plaza.

Glabman wore the Walters to the Christmas Carol Ball, the benefit she helped organize for Hoag Hospital. The Fabrice may go to a posh private party.

But wherever they go, each outfit will be accessorized in a way that is individual. “I don’t like to see everything matching,” says Glabman, who will accent her black-and-red Fabrice with South Sea pearl ear bobs. “I like to see different elements put together that work correctly. It’s like hanging a painting on a wall. I don’t buy a piece of art to match my furniture. For me it’s too set, unsophisticated.”

For one of Orange County’s most romantic galas, the Christmas Candlelight Concert that benefits the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Martha Green will don the $5,000 velvet Valentino she spotted last year at Bergdorf Goodman in New York. “I loved it when I saw it,” Green says. But she never buys Valentino retail, she says. So after she spotted the same gown at Amen Wardy, she waited until it went on sale and plucked it off the rack for $1,200.

When Martha and her husband, Malcolm, attend the New Year’s Eve bash at the Center Club in Costa Mesa, the Newport Beach socialite will wear the silk jacquard she bought on sale at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. “It is very simple and elegant,” she says of the $1,500 Ungaro that was marked down to $800. “People call me an elegant lady, and I strive for that.”

“Kicky” is the word Diane Kemple uses to describe the $1,800 polka-dot Scaasi she’ll sport at the New Year’s Eve bash at Crystal Court for the Center 500, a group of young professionals who help support the Performing Arts Center. “It’s strapless, fitted at the waist and has a short circle skirt.”

Kemple, also active in the Theatre Guild of South Coast Repertory, loves Scaasi, she says, because he creates fashion that is “playful and young.”

“My New Year’s Eve dress has a playful, yet sophisticated look,” says Kemple, who is single and lives in Huntington Harbour. She will accessorize the couture dress with black silk pumps, a fox boa and hoop earrings dangling with tiny black crystals. “The hoops coincide with the polka dots,” says Kemple. “I am a stickler for accessories. Everything has to match perfectly or I don’t go out the door. You can mix accessories, but the whole presentation has to coincide.”

All fashions for this story photographed at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel.