Statuesque
On Jan. 8, the day before he was to turn 39, Fullerton fashion designer Michael Nusskern died of AIDS. To remember him and fight the disease that took his life, his friends have organized “A Star Still Shines” benefit for the AIDS Services Foundation/Orange County (ASF). Fittingly, the tribute to Nusskern will revolve around the thing he loved most: fashion. Current collections from young designers at the Michael Nusskern boutique in Fullerton, as well as Nusskern’s original creations, will be modeled at the benefit, to be held at 6:30 p.m.
Sunday at the Richard M. Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda. The ASF hopes the event will attract more than 750 people and raise $100,000 for its client services.
“North County has never done anything of this kind to heighten the awareness of AIDS,” said Patrick Jager, director of development for ASF.
Nusskern’s death has mobilized a community that had been apathetic to the AIDS epidemic, he said.
“There’s a whole arena of people getting involved in AIDS that I never dreamed would get involved,” Jager said. “People have crossed the threshold from saying, ‘They have AIDS’ to ‘We have AIDS.’ ”
Friends who have rallied to the cause describe Nusskern as a warm, creative person whose design talents would have taken him far in the fashion field.
“I’ve known him since I was 16, and I’m 35 now,” said Sally Waranch, event co-chairwoman and owner of the Sarah Bain Gallery in Brea, which will oversee an art auction at the gala.
“My gallery used to be next to (his boutique). He’s probably responsible for the woman I am today. He shaped me--how I look, how I dress. He was also the kindest man I ever met. He was on his way to becoming a top fashion designer before he was taken ill, yet he treated everyone the same.”
The boutique that bears his name still carries the kind of fashion-forward clothes Nusskern loved and created. Wakim Kivorkian, buyer and manager for Michael Nusskern, will choose from collections by Anna Sui, Todd Oldham, Chantal Thomass, Marina Spadofora and other forward designers for the show. He’ll also show a half-dozen of Nusskern’s original creations that have been rounded up from past clients.
“Michael always dressed a secure woman. He was always forward,” Kivorkian said. “He was doing a tapestry suit with lace and ruffles coming out of it back in 1988, and now they’re here.”
Among the Nusskern originals that will be shown: a simple black jersey dress with peacock feathers at the bottom and an open crisscross back; a long flowy slip dress of ivory lace “that just hangs on you and looks sensational”; a fitted black jersey dress covered in silver rivets with a high neck and fishtail back, and a black velvet coat embellished with black jet beads.
“He loved rich-looking fabrics and tapestries,” Kivorkian says. “He did a collection in black with jet beads, and now Anna Sui and everyone else is doing jet beads.”
Most of the show will be devoted to the new collections, with plenty of velvets, ruffles and bows reminiscent of the Edwardian era. There will be Anna Sui’s long riding jacket of black velvet in a rosebud print ($350), which Kivorkian likes to pair with a high-neck lace blouse ($350) by Bonnie Strauss that would look Victorian if it weren’t see-through.
Other creations by Anna Sui include a long vest in black and green striped wool gabardine that reaches to the knees ($250) that can be worn over a ruffled blouse, and a military-style jacket of black and purple velvet with rows of brass buttons on the lapels ($250) with black velvet pants that button up in front and along the sides ($230).
“Every jacket has buttons all over it,” Kivorkian says.
Romantic, vintage looks will be seen throughout the show. Kivorkian favors wispy lace vests, beaded jackets and flowy embroidered pants. Models will wear them with black choker necklaces adorned with jet beads that look like antique store finds.
To complement the women’s fashions, men’s collections by Jhane Barnes, Gianni Versace and other designers from Art’s Tailoring & Fashion For Men in Brea will also be shown.
Tickets for the show are $75 each. Because the event has been underwritten with a $50,000 donation from Mary Moore-Young, a friend of Nusskern’s, all proceeds will go to ASF. The money will be used to open a satellite office in north Orange County that will be named after Nusskern.
“We should be going to the client instead of them coming to us,” Jager said. ASF has headquarters in Irvine and an office in Laguna Beach.
The foundation provides a variety of services for people with AIDS, helping with their medical, housing, transportation, food, financial and other needs.
In Orange County, more than 2,300 people have been diagnosed with the AIDS virus since 1985; only 800 of them are still living, according to the ASF. An estimated 15,000 county residents are HIV-positive.
“Sometime in the next 10 years all of them will be diagnosed with AIDS,” Jager says.
For ticket information to “A Star Still Shines,” call Sally Waranch at (714) 257-1440.
There’s a whole arena of people getting involved in AIDS that I never dreamed would get involved. People have crossed the threshold from saying, ‘They have AIDS’ to ‘We have AIDS.’
