A Time of Gloves, Scones and Fab Hats
It looked like an open casting call for a remake of “Easter Parade.” Hats of feather, fur and straw; orange hats, black hats, purple hats and green, a veritable palette of hats, bedecked in jewels and tulle and lace and jet and tiny stuffed birds. Fancy and plain, they sat on the heads of almost 500 women who gathered recently at the Wilshire Ebell for a tribute to Bullock’s Wilshire.
That’s a lot of dames in hats.
The annual spring benefit of the Juniors of the Ebell, the event sought to re-create the white-glove glamour of the fabled department store, which closed in 1993, leaving the lunching ladies of L.A. without a downtown tea room.
“Bullock’s Wilshire was so much a part of my life,” says Suzanne Banx, who chaired the benefit. “When I was a little girl, my mother took me to the tea room in my little white gloves.”
Banx is an interior designer and event planner, and it showed--there was a lot going on. An attempt to re-create Irene’s boutique (the first boutique in a department store) looked like a high-end church bazaar--tables covered in aromatherapy pillows, tennis oddities, handbags, handmade jewelry and assorted obligatory tchotchkes lined one room. But the ladies loved it, loved it, with words like “adorable” and “darling” piercing the general soprano-pitched din (the ceilings of Ebell are high but not that high). In another room, various authors, including Betty Goodwin, the Haizlips and Margaret Leslie Davis (author of “Bullock’s Wilshire”--the book), chatted and signed just feet away from an alarming collection of Bullock’s memorabilia (really, the hatboxes and vintage handbags were worth the price of admission).
It was a day honoring a certain era, for ladies of a certain age. A concert by Armadillos on the Half Shell, a humorously classical quartet, and slide show paean to the toujours-glamour world of Bullock’s-gone-by in the theater, preceded a luncheon in the two main rooms. Given the demographics of the crowd, the festivity required possibly a few too many stairs.
“I used to tap dance up and down stairs like this,” chirped one woman, resplendent in emerald as she gamely tackled her second set.
“Well, Emily,” observed her companion dryly, “that must have been quite some time ago.”
The lunch was tea-room appropriate--and though the chicken salad was roundly praised for having “lots of white meat,” some ladies were observed eyeing the soon-empty scone baskets with longing. Until dessert presented itself. Coconut cream pie--a tea room tradition, yes, ma’am.
As was the fashion show that rounded out the day. Imagine the oohs and aahs when the likes of Eleanor Donahue (“Father Knows Best”), Raul Rodriguez (award-winning Rose Bowl float designer), Jane Keene (Trixie, yes, Trixie, from “The Honeymooners”) and Bruce Willis’ mother, Marlene, modeled stunning styles and fabulous fashions.
Kitty Leslie, former BW fashion show coordinator, narrated the show and was an impeccable commentator--”Isn’t she beautiful, ladies? And I wish I had her figure”--and she cut quite a figure herself.
Out-dazzling the lovely rooms of the Ebell, it was the women linking arms, effortlessly hoisting industrial-sized purses filled with compacts and bobby pins and packets of tissues, who were the stars.
“When we first advertised looking for Bullock’s memorabilia and former employees,” says Banks, “my phone started ringing endlessly. Everyone wanted to come. And bring all their friends.”
And, of course, the hats.
