Recession Chic: If You’ve Got It, You Don’t Flaunt It
Julia Roberts arrives at a major Hollywood do wearing a shapeless frock, no makeup and hair that looks as if she cut it herself. A wealthy socialite confides to a reporter that her husband’s business has seen better days. At a recent charity dinner, celebrities eat rice while sitting on the floor. A radio deejay designs a line of “recession clothing for the ‘90s.”
It’s no secret that the recession, layoffs and other economic bad tidings have forced millions of Americans to scale down their lives. In a city where appearances count, even if you can afford the trappings of success, it doesn’t look good anymore to flaunt them.
The livin’ large that took place during the party-till-you-drop ‘80s now seems like a bad dream awash in sequins and bugle beads. Malcolm Forbes’ monumental Moroccan birthday bash and Donald and Ivana Trump’s weekend parties at Mar-a-Lago were the kinds of over-the-top, let-them-eat-cake fetes that characterized the decade.
Hollywood can still pull out a glitzy stop when it wants to, and the standard hotel ballroom black-tie benefit is probably in no danger of extinction. But the newest parties are casual, low-cost, reality-in-your-face benefits drawing socially conscious guests who are careful not to wear furs or arrive in limos. The point here is not just to hear about people suffering, but to represent it.
Oxfam America did that with its annual celebrity-studded Hollywood Hunger Benefit. The Boston-based nonprofit group, which funds development and disaster relief around the world, has been staging the dinners for 18 years; this was its second year in Los Angeles. At the dinner held last fall, 60% of the guests sat on the floor and ate rice, 25% ate rice and beans and 15% ate a typical, catered dinner--the point being to dramatize inequality of world food distribution.
Stars like Cybill Shepherd, Lou Diamond Phillips, Ed Harris and Jackson Browne donned jeans and cowboy boots, arrived via van car-pools and fuel-efficient autos and did indeed eat rice with their hands.
“I think people are embarrassed by the ostentations of the Reagan era,” says Phillip Martin, Oxfam’s national projects director, “and they should be. . . . They weren’t trying to emulate the poor, they came with empathy for the poor. The most important thing was not to sit down and eat rice on the floor, but to read the letters of the people we work with overseas, people whose stories are not heard--all of a sudden they were.”
Hosts may be scaling back parties for economic reasons, but at the same time, some are discovering how wasteful and tacky elaborate meals and overstocked buffets seem when news of layoffs and the homeless grab headlines.
“There’s always a need to socialize,” offers David Corwin, co-owner of the Ambrosia catering company. “There will always be parties and entertaining. So what if they’re scaled down? So what if half the lighting is cut and the band has been traded for a deejay, or if you go from 30 dishes down to 12? There isn’t the need to show off.
“There’s definitely a sense of relief I’m seeing, of not having to keep with the Joneses or maintain the facade,” Corwin adds.
Most caterers and party planners report many of their clients--nonprofit groups, companies and individuals--are scaling down or cutting out events because of the recession, although there is still a segment that has the bucks and has no qualms about spending on opulent festivities.
Debra Stevenson, president of the Los Angeles Party Designs special-event company, says: “We’re seeing companies who are saying ‘We can afford to have a party for our employees, we’d like to do it, but we feel it would not appear appropriate.’ ”
If the look of parties is changing, so is the look of the guests. Being coiffed and coutured to within an inch of one’s life used to be de rigueur . At the height of the “Dynasty” rage, few women would have been caught dead without pounds of jewels and linebacker-size designer shoulder pads.
But all that’s changed with the new crop of Hollywood trendsetters. Actresses like Julia Roberts, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Daryl Hannah and Meg Ryan often parade in front of paparazzi at premieres and events wearing ripped jeans and T-shirts, oversize baby-doll dresses, combat boots, uncombed hair and not a spot of makeup. Even at formal events like the Academy Awards they opt for low-key chic, like a dark pantsuit or plain sheath worn without jewelry.
“It’s what we call the ‘ECG’ syndrome,” say Lance and John, a.k.a. the Hollywood Kids, those catty commentators on celebdom. “That’s the ‘Extreme Celebrity Guilt’ syndrome. We just came out of this ‘me decade’ of glitz, and now we’re going through a recession and faced with homelessness and crime and layoffs, and here are these girls getting their agents to get them $5-million-per-picture deals. What they’re saying is, ‘I’m just like you. I go work out in my Reeboks and leave in my Jeep with my Evian bottle wearing no makeup.’
“The ‘90s is non-glamour,” they add. “By doing this, they’re creating this new Hollywood look. I don’t think they intentionally said, ‘I’m going to go out and get a bag-lady look.’ But I think when they go out they don’t want people to know they’re a big star, but they still want to get the best table at Morton’s.”
Julia and Michelle and Winona may want to check out the clothes Jim Trenton designs. Trenton, better known to listeners of KROQ-FM as the Poor Man, has come out with a line of “Poor Wear,” described as “Recession clothing for the ‘90s,” daring those suffering under a rotten economy to broadcast it to the world.
His line of black, gray and white T-shirts, sweat pants, sweat shirts and hats have logos such as a fly-ridden “Poor Wear” can, a man in a top hat and tattered tails kicking up his heels and a diapered baby. They’re being sold at selected Nordstrom stores for approximately $12 to $26.
“The Poor Man has always been into the inexpensive bargain,” Trenton explains. “We refer to this as non-attitude clothing for all ages, wealthy or poor. We’re showing that you can still be cool and not have to spend $40 for a T-shirt.’ ”
As the recession has forced the loss of life’s little luxuries, at least one person has found something gained in the process.
“Some of the things my peers and I have been thinking about,” says a highly placed studio executive, “are getting out of our expensive car leases, trying to eliminate credit card debt, looking into courier flights instead of flying first class and spending fewer weekends at the Canyon Ranch and more at Joshua Tree. We’re still doing the same things, but downscaling it and having more fun. It’s like being back in college, being hungry; it makes you more creative, and it tests you a little bit more.
“Ironically,” he continues, “I’m making more now than I was last year, but I’m just looking at where I want to be in a year, making sure that I have enough money in the bank--God forbid something should happen. There are so many white-collar layoffs. And it doesn’t matter how good you are.”
Realities of the economy, such as trimmed expense accounts and cutbacks on business trips, have also had an effect.
“Before, there were unlimited dinners at the Ivy and at Morton’s. Now we go to Musso and Frank’s or Angeli. Why spend $300 on two dinners at an expensive restaurant when you can spend $50 on six dinners somewhere else?. . . . There’s the crowd that always goes to Aspen, but I’ve never been into that. The heads of studios still need to go to Morton’s to prove they belong to the club, but my generation is secure enough to know that it’s about work, and not about appearances.”
