Fashion Kids Around for a Cause

Cindy Crawford, Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Carrie Fisher must have found it hard to compete with the adorable kids who stole the spotlight--and the audience’s heart--at the Macy’s and American Express Passport fashion show Saturday in Santa Monica.

Jamming down the runway to DJ Jay-R’s beats, the young boys and girls in puffer coats and skater pants by Tommy Jeans made the fourth annual star-studded HIV/AIDS fund-raiser feel like a rockin’ schoolyard party.

And it proved that the evening was really “fashion theater,” as producers called it, an entertainment that raised more than $2 million for charity.

The clothes presented by designers Cynthia Rowley, Julie Chaiken for Chaiken and Capone, Marithe and Francois Girbaud and others were fall designs, mostly already in stores. But many were plenty outrageous, carrying through the show’s “Extreme” theme. Men donned kilts, women balanced on gravity-defying elf-like booties and headline athletes from the extreme-sports circuit walked the runway.

Celebrities Marilu Henner, Fran Drescher and DJ Ryan Seacrest, among others, also took to the catwalk. Johnson, dazzling in a winter-white Cynthia Rowley cashmere coat and pants, strutted up to join the Rev. Yvette Flunder and the City of Refuge Restoration Gospel Choir for the last choruses of “This Little Light of Mine.”

Joe Boxer’s outrageous designer, Nicholas Graham, brought up the rear of the show, presenting underwear from Adam’s famous leaf to today’s jersey boxers. The pageant passed through bra and panty history with queens and dandies in ruffled briefs and stockings and a New Year’s Eve glow-in-the-dark finale complete with confetti.

The event drew more than 2,000 to Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Air Center. The preshow VIP dinner included a live auction that featured Johnson’s offer to play one-on-one with the winner at the new Staples Center. As bidding neared $50,000 and narrowed to two guests, Johnson thrilled the crowd by offering to play both to bring in nearly $100,000 for the cause.

Events in Los Angeles and San Francisco and retail promotions in stores have raised more than $8 million for HIV/AIDS programs since Passport began in San Francisco in 1988.