Some Weird Hoppenings on the Playboy Bunny Trail
It promised to be the fantasy dream party for every heterosexual male. But in reality, Saturday night’s benefit fashion show at the Playboy mansion was a wacky twist on the Hugh Hefner dream world from days of yore.
“The Hoppening,” produced by New York club diva Susanne Bartsch and Playboy Enterprises, was a veritable den of bunnies--99% of them men. Drag queens from both coasts, it seemed, couldn’t wait to see the evening’s piece de resistance --a competition among designers from all over the world to create the ultimate ‘90s bunny suit.
Among the judges were Phyllis Diller, a very pregnant Cassandra (Elvira) Paterson, Debi Mazar, Cheech Marin and James McDaniel. But the top three bunnies made us wonder about the future of politically incorrect attire.
The Bondage Bunny, by Los Angeles genius leather designer Abel Villarreal, featured a corseted, 18-inch-waisted model, Heather Sweet, who was carried onstage in what looked like a leather mermaid outfit. She hopped down the runway, her feet buckled together and a carrot stuffed in her mouth.
Second place went to two stylists-turned-designers from New York, Mathu & Zaldy.
And the winner was . . . Roseanne. That girl certainly gets around! She wore a gray silk taffeta Bunny costume created by L.A. designer Richard Tyler.
And you thought “Baywatch” babe Pamela Anderson shoulda won? Sorry, wrong crowd. At any rate, the evening raised $600,000 for AIDS charities.
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The Timing Couldn’t Be Worse: On the eve of the Italian ready-to-wear collections, some of the fashion world’s finest are being questioned in that country’s ongoing corruption scandal. Santo Versace, brother and business head of Gianni Versace’s fashion empire; Mariuccia Mandelli, alias Krizia, and luxury jeweler Gianmaria Buccellati are among those queried, the Associated Press reports.
Like other businesses under investigation, the fashion industry is accused of paying tax inspectors to overlook bookkeeping infractions. “In a short while,” quipped Gianni Versace in Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper, “they even will be investigating the saints.”
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Comeback Kid: After a four-year hiatus, the California Mart is back in the fashion show and trophy business in a grand way. And despite recent financial travails at the Downtown apparel center, organizers say the shows will go on.
David Dart, Leon Max, Bonnie Strauss and the design team of Maggie Barry and Ty Moore for Van Buren will compete Oct. 11 for 1994 California Designer of the Year at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. Vying for the Rising Star award will be Pamela Barish, Jonathon Hoenscheidt for Freewear, Janet Howard for misc., Doris and Michael Lew for Imaginary Concepts and Fati Moschery for Moschery.
The awards evening will cap two days of fashion shows by more than 50 California designers. The California Collections, as the event is called, attracts buyers, store personnel and press nationwide.
Tickets for the awards night (cocktails, dinner, fashion shows and award presentations) are $100 each. Proceeds will benefit the AIDS charity L.A. Shanti. For more information, call (213) 239-9311.
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Batter Up: We haven’t exactly been crying into the Pratesi sheets every night because the baseball season has been canceled. But a patch we spotted on a baseball jersey at the local mall was cause for pause. It reads: “For the brothers who played and never got paid.”
All of a sudden, sports apparel had some appeal. Spending $28 for a heavy-duty T with smashing graphics that herald the defunct Negro Leagues seemed to make perfect sense. The shirts, caps, and shorts (available at Broadway, Champs and Foot Locker stores) are made by Underground Railroad, a company owned by former L.A. Ram Ivory Sully. A football player making money off unpaid baseball players--imagine that.
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Good News, Ladies: We put our trash in bins at the curbs, bundle our newspapers, crush our cans and still we don’t do enough. What about the waste we make every month, at that time of the month?
Well, we found a way to redeem ourselves. Deep in the pages of Transitions for Health (subtitled: A catalogue of natural health & quality of life products by women for women of all ages) we found 100% breathable woven cotton menstrual pads, tastefully named “Glad Rags.”
Delightful, no? It gets better. We can wash and wear them for up to five years, the catalogue says.
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Catalogue? Magazine? Or Just Plain Old Self-Promotion?: If it’s editorial, it has credibility. If it’s advertising, it doesn’t--or so they tried to tell us in journalism school. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to tell the difference.
First, Neiman Marcus, in its self-promoting “commemorative” InCircle Magazine, ran a little item on the catalogue-length ad insert it had Helmut Newton shoot for the September Harper’s Bazaar. Now comes Saks Fifth Avenue with a big fall catalogue containing a six-page, black-and-white spread on “Schiano Style.”
At least Allure, when it shamelessly ran a story last year on its own Polly Allen Mellen, the longtime Conde Nast fashion editor, explained who she is. Saks apparently thinks Marina Schiano, whom retailing and publishing insiders know for her work as Vanity Fair’s style director and as a longtime executive of Yves Saint Laurent, needs no introduction. But the little spread, with its candid-seeming photos and type burned over the pictures, looks like a magazine.
So let’s see: If it’s a store magazine article about ads the store put in a real magazine, it’s. . . . No, wait: If it’s in a catalogue but looks like a magazine and promotes someone who does styling for Conde Nast, it’s . . . oh, forget it.
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Social Agenda: Giorgio Armani, who hasn’t paid an official visit to Los Angeles since ‘88, has agreed to serve as honorary chairman of the upcoming Fire & Ice ball, Dec. 7 at Fox Studios . . . Chanel will present its new fine jewelry collection Oct. 4 in a setting very few Angelenos have had a chance to see: the Ennis-Brown House, a Frank Lloyd Wright landmark built in the mid ‘20s. French architect Thierry W. Despont will create the setting for the exhibit, hosted by Chanel President Arie L. Kopelman and benefiting Center Theatre Group Volunteers.
* Inside Out is published Thursdays.
