Veteran Fashion Consultant Says She Shoots From the Hip : From a ‘Nine o’Clock Mass’ Production to a Toga Show, Kitty Leslie Is Known for Her Feisty and Irreverent Style
Backstage in a conference room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach, models in various stages of dress sift through piles of clothes, makeup, shoes and jewelry.
Away in a nearby ballroom, members of the Hoag Hospital Auxiliary finish their desserts and await the start of their annual fashion show.
It’s a scene that fashion show veteran Kitty Leslie has played over and over.
She’s standing among the models, a recognizable figure with her cropped brown hair and large glasses, steering the action like a film director on a Hollywood set.
“Kitty, do you want the plain navy pump or this spectator?” asks a lanky model holding up two shoes.
“The spectator--it goes well with that nautical look,” Leslie says.
“Do you want my hair up or down?” asks a blonde with a curly mane.
“I want it to be very Gatsby-ish,” Leslie says, wrapping a scarf around her forehead.
“Kitty, how do I get these pants to fit?” asks a male model from behind a screen.
“Roll them,” she says.
Just before show time, Leslie coaches three models she has dressed in leopard spots for her opening safari number.
“When you get out on stage, look like animals,” she says. “I really mean it. Ham it up a little.”
As the fashion consultant for Fashion Island in Newport Beach, Leslie produces about 40 fashion shows a year for philanthropic and cultural organizations. She will juggle seven shows this month, a typical load for the busy spring season.
Her big productions, such as the Laguna Philharmonic Committee’s fashion show this afternoon at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point, have all the trappings of a Broadway musical.
She has lights and music, dancers, a cast of models, and her costumes--clothes she pulls from Fashion Island stores. Leslie narrates the shows herself, without a script.
“Hey, I invented the show. I know where the clothes came from. If I didn’t, I’d fake it. But I do know.”
Leslie’s shows always have a theme.
“A fashion show needs a gimmick. It needs some reason for being,” she says.
She hates the idea of bunching the clothes together by color.
When she did a show for a Catholic church group, for example, she found “a bunch of dumb dresses” that did not fit in with the overall theme. In an inspired move, she called the segment “Nine o’Clock Mass.” Her Catholic audience loved it.
“It’s not just a parade of fashion,” she says. “My shows have a definite story. I don’t just show merchandise. Every group relates to the group in front or back. It must have a theme, whether it’s to launch a fragrance or highlight a movie or a tune.”
Often she plays off a theme chosen by the charity group. The Laguna Philharmonic selected “An Affair to Remember” for its fund-raiser and specified that the show have 15 models and “no young, funky clothes.” So Leslie decided to base the show on “Casablanca,” with a Moroccan set, wafting music and romantic suits.
In fashion circles, Leslie is known for her feisty, irreverent style. She’s her harshest critic.
“I tend to shoot from the hip, and that’s unfortunate,” she says. She tore up her check after one show when she inadvertently insulted a model wearing a large-sized dress.
“I’m not a deadly serious commentator. I’m likely to say, ‘Where the hell do you think she’d wear that?’ or ‘Those stripes are optical illusions--this model actually weighs 300 pounds.’ ”
Leslie, 64, discovered her affinity for fashion early. She left college to work as a Girl Friday and then copywriter for Bullocks Wilshire in Los Angeles.
“I was 18 years old and drunk with power,” she jokes.
She later jumped from store to store, learning all phases of marketing and promotion along the way. She produced fashion shows for Bullock’s in South Coast Plaza and Neiman Marcus in Fashion Island before becoming a fashion consultant for Fashion Island seven years ago.
Since then, she’s been so swamped with requests for shows that the center formed a committee to determine which shows it would sponsor. The Laguna Philharmonic, for instance, represents the Orange County Philharmonic Society, and proceeds from its show will help sponsor music-related activities for children.
Leslie’s eye for fashion helps her choose an artful blend of conservative and trendy clothes for her productions.
Two days before the Hoag show, she makes her rounds at the mall with a clothes rack in tow. At Red Haute Couture, she spots a collection of leopard tops and leggings.
“Here’s my safari opening!” she says.
At Mondi, she finds exotic vests, harem pants and wrap jackets in curry and raspberry colors, then she’s off to Robinson’s to pick up a Ralph Lauren collection that features a long tan suede skirt, jodhpurs and a colorful Navaho vest.
“The older women will hate the jodhpurs, but they’ll love the long skirt.”
Merchants don’t like to loan out merchandise more than two days before a show, so she often rushes around gathering clothes with her assistant Lois Flynn.
“Sometimes I just eyeball it and grab it the night before.”
As she organizes the clothes into groups, the show takes shape in her mind.
“A good show begins with good merchandise. The lighting, the music, the staging is fluff. If you have good merchandise, you can’t go wrong. You can put it on bad models and get away with it. The opposite is also true. You can put a bad outfit on a great model.
“Certain girls I know will sparkle.”
The models respect Leslie as much for her professional attitude as her dry wit. Some have worked with her for more than 20 years.
“What happened to you?” she asks a model who shows up late to the Hoag show.
“I was partying too much,” the woman says sheepishly.
“You don’t have my sympathy--you have my envy,” Leslie responds.
She relies on a team of backstage dressers, most of them volunteer students from Saddleback College, who help get the models on the runway on cue.
For a big show like the Laguna Philharmonic, she works with a producer, Carlton Burnett, to prepare an opening dance number. The pair have launched elaborate productions, borrowing ideas from musicals such as “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Cats.”
Leslie frequently surprises. At a Bill Blass trunk show for Bullock’s, she hired a team of models before discovering that the designer wanted to show his sheets and towels.
“So I wrapped togas around the models and we used shower rings for bracelets,” she says.
Blass, who was initially appalled at the idea, loved the show and so did the audience. The sheets and towels sold out.
Theatrics come naturally to Leslie.
“I was born in a film can,” she says.
Her father worked as a publicist for silent film director D.W. Griffith before becoming publicity director for 20th Century Fox. Her mother worked as Griffith’s private secretary. Lillian Gish is her godmother.
“I feel I’m as much in show business as they were,” Leslie says. “Only my shows never close.”
