Costumes Worth Collecting
Marilyn Monroe’s air-cooled dress from “The Seven Year Itch,” Judy Garland’s blue pinafore from the “Wizard of Oz” and a few other choice items from Debbie Reynold’s 9,000-piece costume collection made a rare appearance at a weekend fashion show. The event was a fund-raiser for a motion-picture museum that would be housed in the Santa Monica beachfront estate once owned by Marion Davis, where the show was held. Reynolds says she would consider loaning part of her collection to such a museum. “I probably have the largest private Hollywood memorabilia collection,” she says. “Everyone thought I was crazy to buy so much. . . . Now they realize that we tear down too much of our history. We should save it so younger generations can enjoy it.” She purchased many of her prizes at large studio auctions, starting with the MGM sale in 1970.
* HOLLYWOOD GOES TO 7TH AVENUE: Murray Moss, the New York designer behind the M.W. Moss collection, says he has been commissioned to do the costumes for Columbia Pictures’ “Father and Son,” which begins shooting on the East Coast this month. Moss, whose collection of better men’s and women’s sportswear is sold at Maxfield and Fred Segal, says he is dressing Roseanna Arquette, Natasha Wagner (daughter of Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood) and Jeff Goldblum for the film, in wool jersey and gabardine tailored separates from his current spring line. Moss’ other movie credits include “Rules of Attraction” and Spike Lee’s “Jungle Fever.”
* BRIGHTER LIFE IN THE BIG CITY: Two movers in the Los Angeles design community have formed a nonprofit organization called Brighter Life for Children. Tereje Arnesen, marketing director for the Eastern Columbia building, and fashion show producer Yvette Crosby, provide fashion fund-raisers for children’s charities. They work for free and ask participating designers to help cover the costs so more proceeds go directly to the cause. Their first event on Feb. 24 featured L.A. lines Andrea Vincent, Van Buren, Rated R and Martionii and raised more than $8,000 for Women in Show Business, a group that helps fund reconstructive and restorative surgery for needy children.
* STRIKING PORTRAITS: Rene Gruau looked like a painting himself Sunday night at the opening of an exhibition of his oils and lithographs. The 82-year-old artist--whose fashion illustrations captured the high style of the ‘40s and ‘50s--was as elegant as any of his subjects. Gruau noted that all the works on exhibit at the Circle Gallery, Beverly Hills, are “fantasy drawings.” During his long career, however, the Paris-based artist has painted portraits of Claudette Colbert, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall and the Duchess of Windsor. He plans to slow down his commercial output for magazines, such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and “do only what I want to do.” One reason for the cutback is Gruau’s disenchantment with a fashion scene that he says “is not as elegant as it used to be, which I deeply regret.”
