Putting on a fashion show, Hollywood style
They clamored outside the Palace in Hollywood on Thursday night -- 1,200 of the fashion faithful, all pleading to be let in -- but, at 8 p.m., it was still an hour before the start of the show, designer Jeremy Scott’s tongue-in-cheek take on celebrity.
Publicists and security guards barked orders at one another to keep the crowd back. Model China Chow, her hair in pins, ran outside to ensure her friends’ entry. Actor Alexis Arquette was inexplicably banned at the door. “Communication breakdown?” he asked the woman holding the list, publicist Kelly Cutrone, who ignored him.
Meanwhile, tucked away from the hoopla was Scott’s star model and Donatella Versace’s latest fashion partner in crime: Christina Aguilera. The show was delayed 30 minutes while Aguilera received reporters. She wore a hot-pink satin confection designed by Scott and inspired by show sponsor Gillette’s Passion Venus razor. (In return for her appearance, the company donated $50,000 to a women’s shelter in Aguilera’s hometown of Pittsburgh. “It’s in honor of my mother and of what we endured while I was growing up,” she said. In interviews, Aguilera has said she grew up in a violent home.)
The 5-foot-2 flaxen-haired pop star, a regular on “worst dressed” lists and once derided by Mr. Blackwell as “a flash-fried Venus stuck in a Miami strip mall,” will soon earn some legitimacy in the fashion world. Two months ago, Versace flew Aguilera to Milan and booked her to star in her fall ad campaign.
“I can’t wait to see that billboard of me being a model!” she said, losing herself in the image. “On Sunset Boulevard!”
Aguilera agreed to the campaign, she said, because Versace appreciated her “bold” style.
“I do tend to go as overboard as I want to,” said Aguilera. “I love pushing the envelope and making people go, ‘Oh. My. God.’ I really don’t pay that much attention to trends or what’s in .... She kind of loved me for that.”
Inside the club, the crowd was growing restless. It was showtime.
Models wearing satin gowns spray-painted with words like “icon” and “bombshell” and bulky athletic shoes with elevator heels walked a red carpet at the entrance, while Scott and a camera crew acted as “reporters,” showering each with compliments. Inside, guests viewed the campy arrivals on a movie screen in real time. Unfortunately, the sound was sometimes bad, and the picture often flickered, making it impossible to see the clothes. After their “interviews,” the models walked casually through the darkened room.
The show was a bit too much for some in the crowd. “It’s insulting!” said one man, a stylist, as he stormed out. “You can’t even see the clothes. He really blew it with the presentation.”
The concept for the show, Scott said, was “Oscars through the decades.” A 29-year-old Kansas City, Mo., native known for his mullet haircut and for channeling the ‘80s in his designs, Scott moved from Paris to Los Angeles last year and is trying to reinvent himself as a film director. (Later that night, he showed his new short film, “Starring,” a “Dynasty” spoof featuring Chow, Tori Spelling, Lisa Marie, Liz Goldwyn and Amber Valletta.)
By the time Aguilera, the last model, took the carpet, it was already 11 o’clock. A moment after she began her strut, the screen inside the club went blank, one more technical glitch in an evening beset by them. The audience booed. Outside, Scott kept up the charade, interviewing and fawning over her. Seconds later, a 10-member entourage whisked the petite singer out a side entrance, leaving the crowd a bit deflated.
