FASHION : Top Health Issues? Sex, Food and Fun

“We don’t do shows about ‘A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody’ ” or the season of the waif, said Grace Mirabella, setting the tone for this fashion happening.

The scene: Saks Fifth Avenue, Beverly Hills.

The event: “Inside Out,” a reception, fashion show and discussion of women’s health issues.

The hosts: Saks and Mirabella magazine.

The cause: The John Wayne Cancer Institute.

The concept for last week’s event, Mirabella explained, grew out of her magazine’s discovery that “women can handle a couple of subjects all at the same time--this thing of style and this thing of health.”

Style-wise, there were corporate, very corporate and non-city fashions by the likes of Giorgio Armani, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.

Health-wise, Susan Scrimshaw, UCLA professor of public health and anthropology, led off, drawing laughs when she said she would focus on such health issues as “sex, food and fun.”

But her message was serious: Cut the dietary fat. Know that, with HIV, “your sources of risk are primarily heterosexual (sex).” Reduce stress. Exercise.

Panelists fielded questions about sugar substitutes, estrogen replacement therapy, vitamins, passive smoke and cancer, and stress.

Not your ordinary fashion show.