A Forties Flop And Halloween Chic

ELEGANZA

A Forties Flop And Halloween Chic

by

Lisa Robinson

Let me tell you — unless it’s an integral part of your lifestyle, or you’re going to a Mardi Gras, there is just NO WAY that people can get dressed up in campy costumes anymore and attempt to make something An Event without appearing damned foolish. It doesn’t work anymore — (it hasn’t worked since way back in 1971 at the Kinks’ Party the week the Cockettes were chic) — and The Pointer Sisters’ recent auspicious New York debut will do just fine as a perfect example.»

The ads for the general public as well as the press invites urged “Elegant ’40’s Dress-Optional.” After all, the performance was held at the elegant, fortyish Roseland Dance Ballroom. So. .C there was this line, all the way down the block to Ninth Avenue, and every department store window trimmer and New York City hairdresser who wasn’t in on the beginning of Bette Midler’s career was determined to show up for this one. You know — much in the same spirit as people who go to see Baba Ram Dass or Guru Mahara-ji. To Be There.

Don’t get me wrong — some of my best friends are hairdressers. It’s just .if you lived in New York, you’d know what I mean. This crowd was full of what the Divine Miss M would describe as Ramona Paranoia; big floppy hats, ankle straps, padded shouldered serge suits, floral print dresses, porkpie hats, gabardine slacks, gardenias. Filling up all of Roseland, all the way down to the — pardon the expression, — ladies’ lounge. Plus some people in gold body paint and lame bikinis who seemed mighty confused. Costumes galore. On Parade*5

I ask you — what’s left after they’ve done the thirties, the forties, and fifties, the — god forbid, I just know it’s coming, do we have to start shlepping out the tie-dye? — sixties?? Your favorite person in history? Your favorite comic book character? Bar mitzvah drag? S & M? Huh?

1 know the invitations said elegant forties... but still — no one came dressed as a Nazi. No one came as a soldier either. Craig Karpel didn’t come at all. He didn’t have an optional forties dress. Dave Marsh threatened to drool all over anyone wearing a forties outfit, and Fran Lebowitz* wondered if the promised/‘forties food” meant Spam and K rations.

“This isn’t the 1940’s,” mumbled Dave Marsh darkly, “it’s the West 40’s.” Looking around at all the tacky high dragqueen chic he added, “It used to be that people wished every day could be Christmas. Now they want Halloween once a week too.”

“The Pointer Sisters are the most famous people here,” remarked a disappointed Steve Paul who, like many of us, had longed for something fabulous and truly-elegant.

As far as The Pointers themselves are concerned — Well, what you see really is what you get. They certainly seem to have put together a commercially successful style; sort of a combination of dragqueen chic and a little “Lady Sings the Blues” and it’s making them a bundle. No one would dare say that they didn’t bring out all the New York scenemakers en masse that evening. But perhaps Clean Records’ Earl McGrath summed up the Pointers best when he said, “Well, they’re,very cute. I’ve seen, them in pictures, they’re cute in pictures, and they seem to be doing everything that they do in pictures.”

There really is a difference between elegance, and costumes. Just because The Sixties Are Over is no reason to let yourself go.

The night after The Pointers performed in New York City — coincident*.^ ally — female impersonator Jim Bailey opened at the Waldorf Astoria’s Empire Room to an actually semi-elegant gathering (all right, so there were alot of teased hairdos arid Leonard’s of Great Neck gowns) that included Alexis Smith, Billy Eckstine, Margaret Whiting, Jackie Susann, Ethel Merman; Earl Wilson and ED SULLIVAN:; “Now this is the 1940s,” said Sue Rolontz. Really.

Denim As Big Business Marches On: Serendipity, one of Manhattan’s East Side original creative boutiques, sponsored — along with the Denim Council {the Denim Council?) and GrumbacherHyplar Paints —/ a “Denim Art Show.” Held during October, Upstairs at Serendipity’s East 60th Street store, the show was (in the words of their press release) a “salute to the \ marvelous creativity evinced by today’s denim apparel.” Some of the items on display were “Alice Cooper’s wildly 'painted battle jacket, Dyan Cannon’s jeans from The Last of Sheila, Paul Newman’s dungarees from Hud, Tab Hunter’s denim bedspread, David Bowie’s rhinestone studded jockstrap, and Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper’s varied color, leathertrimmed and lined, personally designed, hand embroidered with her own autograph shoulder bag!” At press time they were still awaiting word on what Marlene Deitrich, Penelope Tree, Lee Radziwill, and Zandra Rhodes would send in. And there are plans to take the exhibit on the road to department stores around the country with a “Paint Your Own Jeans” kit; the kit will also be displayed and sold at the Serendipity show and is made up of Hyplar acrylics. The Smithsonian institute is reported to be interested in the exhibit as well. . . Just kind of makes you think about denim more seriously, doesn’t it? Did you know that the Wright Brothers covered the wings of their first airplane with denim?? And Hugo Guernsback used a denim cloth to wipe the screens of the TVs he invented? And:.. the Mona Lisa was actually painted on denim????