A High-Fashion Strut for the Junior League
Leaders of the Junior League of San Diego say that they are eager to shed the young matrons-in-white gloves-and-pearls image acquired through decades of community service, and, to prove the point, the group celebrated its 60th anniversary Saturday by hosting a black-tie gala and fashion show.
The San Diego Marriott catered to a half-dozen major groups that evening, but it was easy to spot the Junior Leaguers among the swarms of party-goers (including 850 Little Caesar’s Pizza conventioneers in tomato sauce-colored ties and 250 roistering Mack Truck guests) who streamed through the hotel’s broad corridors like schools of salmon heading home.
The 550 League members and spouses gave the definite impression of folks stepping out for a dandy night on the town, and, as the evening unfolded, “A Shimmering Diamond Jubilee” seemed to meet the expectations of all of them.
Third in Series of Galas
Saturday’s high-fashion strut was the third in a string of annual galas that began as something of an experiment in 1987, since, up to that time, the group never had gone the black-tie route, preferring to restrict its fund-raising activities to its famous annual rummage sale and other less-splashy events.
However, the gala approach has proven a sure money-maker for the League, which, true to form, has made volunteerism the focus. In the case of Saturday’s gala and its predecessors, the volunteerism included not only the event committee, but those League members and their families who stepped forward to step down the runway in one of the calendar’s only homespun--and thus eminently enjoyable--fashion presentations.
The participation of 71 members, spouses and children in the show served, in a way, to take the group back to its roots, since the local Junior League came into being after the Junior League of Pasadena put on the entertainment that opened the 1927 Charity Ball, at that time San Diego’s peerless social event. The Junior League idea was relatively new at the time--it was founded in New York in 1901 by heiress and socialite Mary Harriman--and was intended to give young married women of means an opportunity to perform useful community service. Community service remains the centerpiece of the League’s purpose, but the membership has changed with the times to reflect the new roles of women.
Those new roles, and the way they affect League membership and activities, were a chief concern of gala chairman Ann Davies.
Change in Membership
“Our membership has changed significantly in the last 10 years,” she said. “Then, it was young mothers who had time to volunteer, but now 70% are professional women. The League reflects the new places of women in society, and a lot of them no longer have the discretionary hours to give the community. This situation is one the League will have to seriously address.”
Because the hours available for volunteerism have shrunk, fund raising has become more important to the League, Davies said. She expected her gala to raise more than $80,000, which she described as a “remarkable sum” in light of the fact that tickets were $100 each. Underwriting made up the balance of the earnings and covered the party’s expenses.
Co-chairwoman Gretchen Colachis emphasized the League programs that will benefit from the gala, including co-sponsorship of the National Convention for the Prevention of Teen-Age Dropouts, to be held in April at the Town & Country Convention Center.
“I don’t think the public is aware of how hard the League works on its projects--we do a lot of community outreach programs, and they take a lot of money,” Colachis said. “The League has changed. It’s not a lot of unemployed dilettantes whiling away their free hours. Now we work with troubled teens and drug abuse, and I’d like to disabuse the public of its image of us as young matrons in pearls. Most of us work, and work hard.”
The League’s 450 active members did in fact contribute 65,000 hours to volunteer projects in 1988, but lest the members seem like so many bees eager to inject a little sweetness into the community, be assured that they do know how to enjoy themselves. “A Shimmering Diamond Jubilee” focused on enjoyment, beginning with the Neiman-Marcus fashion show of contemporary people--including a toddler who predictably stole the show--in contemporary fashions.
The members and their families looked thoroughly at home on the ramp, and the show closed, as always, with a bride, although on this occasion the moment was taken as a tongue-in-cheek gesture, since she wore see-through black crepe that ended well above the knee.
The dinner of chicken stuffed with apples and baked Alaska (a great favorite of the Marriott catering staff, this ice cream cake appears at many functions) concluded, the party returned to the pursuit of amusement by jamming onto the dance floor and wailing along with the Mar Dels.
A short formal interlude honored six honorary chairmen, all sustaining League members who helped guide the group toward its status as a major force in San Diego volunteerism. In the group were Liz Jessop, Jane Fetter, Alison Gildred, Kay Porter, Yvonne Larsen and Alice Miller. All contributed reminiscences to the program, and Miller’s suggested that the League long has been closer to its present ideals than many current members may suppose. She represented the group at its national meeting in Seattle in 1940, and emerged from the conference to hear the shouts of news vendors announcing that Germany had invaded Holland. A few months later, she retired as president of the Junior League of San Diego and went to work in an aircraft factory.
The committee included Kathleen Baczynski, Hilary Gauntt, Jane Sexton, Marcia Younie, Laurie Petter, Mary Davidson, Eleanor Navarra, Kim Woolley, Beverly Stenderup, Vicki Goyet, Myra Beare, Mary Kaye Burns, Libby Levine and Susan Taylor.
Among guests were League president Susan McClellan and her husband, Craig, John Davies, Alice and Richard Cramer, Chris and Craig Andrews, Mary and Dallas Clark, Gus Colachis, Judi and Richard Freeman, Cheryl Ayers and Ron Kendrick, Karon and Gordon Luce, Trisha and Don Worley, Robin and Peter Jovanovich, and Maureen and Charlie King.
