All Aglitter for the Holidays : Fashion: Some of Hollywood’s biggest names pull out all the stops to create glamorous designs for the season.
If the men who have dressed Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Cher, Linda Gray and Joan Collins can’t give you a drop-dead outfit for the holiday season, who can? After all, when it comes to an extra dollop of embroidery, gold lame, ruffles, rhinestones or pearls, no one does it better than designers with a Hollywood connection.
Among designers known for their glamorous ready-to-wear collections and Tinseltown costumes, Bob Mackie has to be the titleholder. His skin-tight, body-baring gowns for Cher have made it all the way to the cover of Time magazine. And even with three retail lines and six licensing arrangements, Mackie continues to turn out stage clothes.
He divides his time between Los Angeles and New York. But for a long time he didn’t want store executives to know he was doing any retail designing here. “There were certain buyers who thought I was just going to do Cher clothes, which I’ve spent a lot of time living down,” Mackie explains as he takes a break in his costume-design headquarters on Melrose Avenue. But despite the Cher connection, Mackie insists: “I don’t do an excessive amount of bareness.”
Carol Burnett is a different story. Mackie often turns the concepts he uses for her television shows into mass production. The little black dress under a beaded or embroidered jacket is just one example of the Burnett influence on his ready-to-wear.
As usual, there is plenty of glitter in Mackie’s fall collections, priced from $250 to $12,000 in stores such as Fred Hayman and Neiman Marcus. “It’s what I’m expected to do,” he says. But he also adds some functional touches, such as pockets, whenever he can. In his eyes, “a woman has a wonderful attitude when she stands with her hand in her pocket.” And on a more practical level, he sees them as a place to stash “a handkerchief, a lipstick, even a note from an admirer.”
Nolan Miller received so much admiration for his “Dynasty” costumes, he ran into trouble when he launched his retail line last year. “It’s very difficult to be taken seriously in another medium,” he complains. “The New York press and designers say, ‘Oh well, he’s a costumer.’ ”
Miller, whose private clients include Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor, tried to shake his Hollywood image with his first collection. “But I made a mistake,” he admits, sitting on one of the peach-colored love seats in his sumptuous Beverly Hills salon. “I made subtle, understated clothes and every store, even Bergdorf Goodman, wanted sexy dresses for women with perfect figures.”
Having learned his lesson, Miller’s latest holiday offerings, carried by Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus in Southern California, are dramatic and sexy in that Carrington and Colby way. To his credit, not every garment is for the woman with a perfect body. Miller proudly points to a chiffon gown and lame coat and says the $3,700 ensemble has been ordered in Sizes 16 through 20 by the Forgotten Woman chain.
The Hollywood connection is less obvious for Luis Estevez, who recently added the Hispanic Designers Lifetime Achievement Award to his laurels. During a black-tie gala in Washington, D.C., Estevez was honored along with fellow Latino designers--Oscar de la Renta, Fernando Sanchez and Manolo Blahnik.
Born in Cuba and Paris-trained with Jean Patou, Estevez opened his own business in New York in 1955. Twelve months later he had won the prestigious Coty Award and was hailed by Life magazine as the “One Year Wonder.”
After Estevez moved to Los Angeles, the entertainment industry came calling and he costumed films such as “Hurry Sundown,” with Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway, and a television series, “The Survivors,” starring Lana Turner. But the designer has pretty much turned his back on Hollywood, “unless something special comes along.”
He has also taken his couture garments, costing $1,000 to $6,000, out of specialty and department stores. Three years ago, he opened an elegant establishment on Melrose Avenue, which is where he designs, where the garments are made and where women, including Cyd Charisse, Barbara Sinatra, Ginny Mancini and Rosemarie Stack, come to buy his concept of glamour.
For the festive season, it’s business as usual for Estevez. “Dressy is what I do best,” he says. “I think I do holiday clothes 12 months of the year.” And he does them his way: with little embroidery and no glitter. Luxurious fabrics are cut in clean, architectural lines (a la his idol, Cristobal Balenciaga) and adorned minimally.
At the other end of the spectrum is Leon Paule, an Australian designer who immigrated to Beverly Hills 10 years ago. He specializes in custom-made evening wear, intricately hand-jeweled and embroidered in Los Angeles to his specifications. In addition to a Hollywood clientele that includes Rhonda Fleming, Paule says he has cut and sewn “hundreds of garments” for big-time costume designers to use on television shows.
Until this fall, his brand of glamour was available only from his gracious, old-world salon on Beverly Drive. But now there is a collection created exclusively for Amen Wardy’s Beverly Hills store. The elaborate pieces--ranging from crystal-jeweled cocktail suits to gold-embroidered ball gowns--are perfect for the holidays, if you can afford the price: $2,000 to $14,000.
Bill Travilla, who died of lung cancer on Nov. 2, was considered “Mr. Hollywood” by many during a star-studded career that began in 1948. In what proved to be his last interview, Travilla discussed his approach to glamour (“A woman should look pretty, not strange and weird”), recalling he had designed costumes for “at least 100 films, including 10 with Marilyn (Monroe).”
His retail business will continue in the downtown offices where he worked, surrounded by dozens of trophies, including an Oscar for Errol Flynn’s wardrobe in “The Adventures of Don Juan” and a framed copy of a nude Marilyn Monroe. The breathy inscription reads: “Please dress me forever. I love you, Marilyn.”
After his Emmy-winning wardrobes for “Dallas,” Travilla cut back on Hollywood projects. Instead, he put his mark on sparkling after-five dresses, cocktail suits and gowns that retail for $950 to $7,000 in stores such as I. Magnin and Nordstrom.
His current holiday collection reflects what he expressed in words: “A woman should wear the brightest and most glittering,” he said as he watched a model twirl in a festive dress. “You should make yourself a present to the world.”
