THE REAL WORLD / PASSPORT : Funk, Punk and Sequins

Overworked sequined dresses, painted-on velvet gowns and saggy sack suits were plentiful. But the crowd that hung out at Universal CityWalk Tuesday night before moving on to the Passport function--a Bay Area transplant that’s billed as the world’s largest fashion show--had some funk and punk too.

Skullcaps, nose rings and skin-tight leather pants, some worn with matching leather vests over bare chests, shared the style stage with fitted blazers, spandex pants and biker boots.

“The L.A. crowd is much more casual, and a little crazier (fashion-wise) than the audience we had in San Francisco,” said Ray Willis of Bullock’s/Macy’s, the show’s sponsor.

The runway show was as much about what the audience didn’t see as what it did. Male models dressed in somber gray suits, Birkenstocks and black hats outfitted with Hasidic curls were part of an immigrants theme that was scrapped because of last-minute concerns about political correctness; calendar boy Fabio declined to wear his assigned skimpy underwear and instead paraded in black leather pants and matching jacket, and a segment called Kaleidoscope, which featured “real people” in the San Francisco show, was recast with local celebrities to boost ticket sales.

The event benefited AIDS Project L.A. and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.