Make-Believe Shopping
Today Show hostess Jane Pauley is showing off the sites of Los Angeles this week, but she saved one just for herself. Between takes in various Melrose Avenue stores for grown-ups, the diminutive mother of three ducked into Kids In Costume and loaded up on Indian and clown suits, butterfly wings, mermaid scales and a Southern Belle outfit with a hoop skirt for her three kids. Wanda Fudge of the store says Pauley has had her eye on it from afar, ever since her daughter’s Manhattanite playmate started parading around in a “Kids” mermaid suit.
Calvin’s Tennis Togs
Calvin Klein has a new racket--a tennis racquet. Listen’s New York spy found him at the Midtown Tennis Club where other fashion designers, among them Mary McFadden, also play ball. Calvin’s taking beginning lessons, but what Listen learned has more to do with his backside than his backhand. The report from the locker room is that nothing comes between Calvin and his tennis shorts--except his own, signature briefs.
A Reborn Blonde
We don’t know how anyone would dare, but someone turned Brigitte Neilsen into a dishwater blonde while she was in Arizona. Neilsen called the Umberto salon in Beverly Hills, looking for help from hair stylist Bruce Wayne. But he was on location in New Jersey’s Rahway prison, tending to the locks of Nielsen’s ex-husband, Sylvester Stallone, who is making a movie there. Neilsen reached Wayne there “and begged him to fly out,” we’re told. He did, and now she’s solid platinum again.
Fred, Italian-Style
It was Dom Perignon and caviar time at 273 N. Rodeo Drive for the unveiling of retailer Fred Hayman’s signature collection of handbags and leather goods. The usual fashion suspects were on hand--Zsa Zsa Gabor (who quickly purchased one of the satin evening bags), Judith Krantz and Contessa Cohn. And then there was the handsome dark-haired Italian working the room, Nicola Minelli, better known as the manager of the Rodeo Drive Gucci shop for 20 years. Hayman cut short Minelli’s retirement by putting him to work as chief designer of his new leather collection. The emphasis is on accessories and handbags made of cappuccino- colored vinyl imprinted with an FH motif, a la Louis Vuitton, and trimmed in leather. Also available: Brightly colored satin evening bags with jeweled clasps and a luggage line, due out this fall. Prices start at $165, but reach as high as $5,000 for reptilian handbags. With Minelli at the helm, everything, of course, is made in Italy.
Purple Reign Continues
Prince (a k a the Purple rock legend, because grape is his favorite color) was spotted cooling his spike-heels at Vertigo, the Downtown club, the other night. Maybe he, like the rest of us, was waiting for the release of his new song, “Bat Dance.” It’ll be on the “Batman” movie sound track, and Prince’s tune includes lots of quotes he took from the Joker (Jack Nicholson’s) character in the upcoming, campy flick.
Who Dressed Zemeckis
While “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” director Robert Zemeckis was working on sequels to “Back to the Future,” his wife went shopping for his birthday suit. And it didn’t take long. Sami Dinar says Mary Ellen Zemeckis spent all of 15 minutes in his Brighton Way menswear store selecting a black rayon, six-button, double-breasted suit; two shirts; a sterling lapel pin, and a terry cloth robe. We hear the suit, worn with a linen-cotton T-shirt, went down very well at Zemeckis’ birthday celebration attended by pals Steven Spielberg, Michael Douglas and Jack Rafferty.
B Is for Bikini and . . .
Actress Amy Steel of “The Guiding Light” fame is launching a second career this summer, as a fashion designer with just one product to sell: the B-string bikini. B is for baby, and the string doesn’t even begin to cover a baby’s backside. But Steel and her fashion partner, comedian Claire Berger, whom she met at a prenatal exercise class, describe their design as a liberated suit. Steel’s mother-in-law, Lily Pulitzer, the designing socialite whose flower print dresses were required wearing 20 summers ago, served as fashion consultant for the B-string. Steel says her best advice was this: “When people say you can’t do it, don’t listen, just keep going.” No doubt that helps explain why the cute little suits are now available (for $13-$18) at children’s stores around town, including Fred Segal Kids, This Little Piggy and Bam Bam.
Stars in the Pink
The Pink, a little theater in Santa Monica, turned out to be a magnet for rock stars the night that Listen stopped in to see a production of “The Rhythm of Torn Stars.” It’s a dramatization of poetry by New York’s Lower East Side writers. Rocker Billy Idol was there to see his friend, actress Perri Lister, perform in the show. Hard to tell if Billy actually caught much of her act. He kept his shades on throughout the evening. Other music men on hand that night were Peter Case of modern folk music fame, and John Lydon (a k a Johnny Rotten), the ex-Pistol now lead singer for PIL (that’s Public Image Limited).
The Big Picture
Roberto Mitrotti, who used to have a branch of Madonna menswear shop in Beverly Hills, and still does in New York, has decided that canvas is his favorite fabric. He’s been devoting himself to painting for the last year and recently opened a one-man show at the Bruce Lurie Gallery in Manhattan. Not surprisingly, several of Mitrotti’s works depict men in colorful ensembles that might have come right off the rack of his Madonna shop. He plans shows for Los Angeles and Europe in the fall.
