R S V P : The Food Was Fine--the Cause, Divine
What photographer Herb Ritts called “a swap meet with class” ended with an equally classy dinner Sunday night when Divine Design ’94 came to a close.
The five-day fund-raiser at the Pacific Design Center brought in $1.5 million for the AIDS charities Project Angel Food and DIFFA/LA (Design Institute Foundation for AIDS). It featured a marketplace of heavily discounted designer clothes (Barbra Streisand was one of the thousands looking for bargains), an interior-design showcase, a “flea market” of upscale merchandise and the extravagant tented dinner for 1,200 catered by Rex, Louise’s Trattoria and Alto Palato where five leaders in the fashion/design field were honored.
“The whole thing really made me proud,” said Joie Davidow, founding editor of the now-defunct L.A. Style. “When I walked through those rooms, it gave me a renewed sense of what Los Angeles has to offer as a design community.”
One eye-catching example of what L.A. has to offer was on Kelly Lynch. The actress wore a form-fitting, blue satin and lace Richard Tyler 1930s-style gown that turned heads. “When I put this on,” she said, “I feel like a movie star.”
Gay activist Barry Krost caught a glimpse of Lynch in the gown and said, “Even I had a vague heterosexual thought.”
Lynch arrived with Tyler as the dinner began at what fashion designer James Galanos called “the very accessible” hour of 5 o’clock. “This is very modern,” Galanos said. “It makes for a very relaxed evening. If it had started at 9, people would be out of here in an hour.”
The early start left plenty of time for a three-course dinner of lasagna, filet of beef and an apple strudel dessert, plus the presentations of the awards. Honored were Tyler for his fashion work, CNN’s Elsa Klensch for broadcast journalism, Tiffany’s Elsa Peretti for jewelry, Rose Tarlow (for whom Faye Dunaway accepted) for interior design and Tim Burton (whose award was accepted by Martin Landau) for film direction.
Following the awards was a “fantasy auction,” presented by Kathy Najimy, Teri Garr, Margaret Cho and Judy Tenuta that included everything from a round of golf with Clint Eastwood to a week in Bali. The high bid was for a half-hour ride with Tom Cruise piloting his two-seater plane. At $25,000 this might be the most anyone has ever paid to get out of Santa Monica airport.
Among those on hand were co-chairs Mel Lowrance, Michael Smith and Stephen Stoner; emcee Harvey Fierstein; plus Liza Minnelli, Joel Schumacher, Bob Mackie, Karen Eways, Lester Persky, David Dart, Fred and Rikki Rosen, Suzanne Marx and designer Mossimo Giannulli, who arrived with 10 staffers dressed a la Bugsy Siegel in ascots and wide-lapeled suits.
If the early start had a flaw, it was that it left too much time for the awards (and for everyone under the sun to be thanked). Still the evening was, as Tyler said, “a great example of people in Los Angeles really pulling together. We’ve been through riots, fires and earthquakes. This is a community that’s really getting stronger.”
