Hippie, Hippie Chic
When Gucci’s Tom Ford sent models bounding down the runway in Milan earlier this month wearing witchy-looking silk jersey gowns and black crucifixes, the image was unmistakable. It was vintage Stevie Nicks with the music (“Rhiannon,” “Edge of Seventeen”) to match. But there was another reference, to the standard-bearer of L.A. style in the 1960s and ‘70s, fashion designer Holly Harp.
When Ford was still in diapers, Harp was one of the original purveyors of the rich hippie look. Nicks, Grace Slick and Janis Joplin flocked to her Sunset Boulevard boutique, ditching their jeans for tie-dyed chiffon ponchos, fringe vests and asymmetrical matte jersey gowns that were seductive in a rock ‘n’ roll sorceress kind of way.
Harp studied fashion at what is now the University of North Texas in Denton. After graduating and marrying her English professor, she moved to L.A. and opened her shop in 1968. She was always a bit of a fashion maverick, deciding in 1978, after 10 years of presenting her collections biannually in New York, to quit showing altogether.
“I don’t think women want to change their look twice a year. I don’t think they want to change it that much every five years. They want something that makes them look slim, feminine and chic. As a designer, I can do this for them much better if I don’t have to face a tankful of barracudas wearing press badges,” she told The Times that year.
Her designs grew up with her customers--Barbra Streisand, Linda Rondstadt and Faye Dunaway--whom she described in 1978 as “women as opposed to girls.” By the late 1970s, she had abandoned the gypsy fringe and lace of her early years in favor of more subtle designs, including off-the-shoulder peasant tops, tunics and halter dresses in carrot, cassis and curry-colored jersey and matte crepe.
Harp died of cancer in 1995, but her clothing continues to inspire. This week, actress Chloe Sevigny chose a white 1969 Harp gown to wear to the Vanity Fair Oscar party. On April 5, Melrose Avenue vintage emporium Decades will host a Harp retrospective in its upstairs gallery, which runs through April 19.
“Harp is our L.A. equivalent to Ossie Clark,” Decades owner Cameron Silver said, referring to the 1960s British fashion designer. “Anyone who lived here in the 1970s or ‘80s wore Holly. She championed that luxe version of the counterculture movement.”
Collaborating with Harp’s first husband, Jim Harp, Silver assembled a collection of her designs from the 1960s to early 1980s, including the first dress she sold, a brown cotton voile mini-dress with a slip.
The majority of the collection comes from Ann Hoover, Holly’s house model, and Pam Paul, her first client. Additional items come from Julie Belafonte, a lifelong Harp fan.
Ten percent of sales from the retrospective collection will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer.
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A Trio of Sweet Little Bunnies
The best solution to the Easter bunny bulge? Forget the sugar and opt for candy jewelry instead. New York jewelry designer Jennifer Kellogg fashions Peeps into a pink necklace, a blue ring and yellow pin. The silver and confection bunny pieces ($160 each) have a light protective coating, so they aren’t edible (www.jenniferkellogg.com ).
