Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Fashion statements for the arts Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 16:22:11 EST Message-ID: \SE B;LIFE \HD Fashion statements for the arts \SH Project's in style at 'Happening' \BY Ann Geracimos \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES How many Washington gatherings are hosted by women who have directed Gene Kelly in summer theater? "He was a tap dance teacher in Pittsburgh then - and even older than I am," volunteers hostess Alice Denney at her recent Sunday at-home fete, tagged a "Fashion Happening." Working with Mr. Kelly took place many years before Mrs. Denney began her Private Foundation for the Arts - the afternoon's beneficiary - out of which, in 1975, came Washington Project for the Arts, now an established local "counterculture" institution. The guest list for the fete wasn't ordinary, either. How many Washington men can claim they discovered an unknown self-portrait by Michelangelo 500 feet up in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel? Trinity College art professor and part-time model Gene Markowski, a friend of Alice and George Denney's, did just that two years ago. How many Washington benefit parties are any fun? As "hobbies" go, entertaining with a purpose can use up more energy than ever is given back by the guests. Raising money takes guts and imagination. Mrs. Denney has plenty of both, although she confesses she can dread the whole affair. Instead of roiling up her home, she had wanted to rent the empty Garfinckel's store downtown for her recent party but found insurance costs prohibitive. At another such party years ago, she rented a roller rink; the "entertainment" featured star artist Robert Rauschenberg circling the floor like a wild bird. This year's benefit - more happening than party - had to take place by a certain date or she might lose her nonprofit status and the opportunity of funding artists in need and exhibits of merit for the future. So four days after the close of the Paris spring '93 collections, six days before Halloween and two weeks before her 70th birthday, Mrs. Denney put on another of her "performance art pieces." The fee was $25 in advance or $30 at the door, and nearly everyone in attendance seemed to have brought a camera to record the occasion. * * * You don't have to be in fashion to be of fashion, as Mrs. Denney knows well. Nor do you have to be anti-fashion to be in style these days. Improvising with the old makes a new look that can be just as effective as wearing newly purchased goods. The clothes for sale come from her own closet, selected by whim and wisdom through the decades. It certainly isn't your usual retail merchandise, and not at all your usual setting. Used silk scarves for just $5 are draped over an iron fixture next to a bathroom filled with a display of empty shopping bags, representing stores where many of the clothes were purchased. A black coat with gold hand-embroidery, priced at $650, decorates an entrance doorway. Tables and chairs are piled high with an unlikely assembly of goods, but the walls and furniture are even more inviting. The Denneys' home is a virtual museum detailing the history of the Washington art scene. "Why bother buying clothes that reinvent the '70s when you can come here and get the real thing?" remarks writer-critic Lee Fleming, stand-in hat model and guide, wearing one of the wilder creations for sale by Dutch-born hat artist Welmoed Laanstra. Why indeed? Especially when it is hard to tell what is for sale and what is strictly for show and when models include guests who may or may not be wearing salable goods. A ball gown by artist Catherine Covey made of hand-woven strands of dark-green plastic garbage bags is priced at $4,500, with a matching hat sold separately; artist Gay Glading wears it with her own original free-form headgear - $50 for each design - that twists into various shapes with just a turn of the wrist. "I Think That Hats Are the Uncut Hair of Brains - with apologies to Walt Whitman," reads the card under one of the hat forms. * * * Artist Manon Cleary appears dressed in Mrs. Denney's old snakeskin print exercise leotard and - at the finale of an entirely free-form fashion show - in a clear plastic sheet over a pseudo-nude bodysuit. A Madonna look-alike wafts through the house encased in Mylar and foil. Artist Sam Gilliam strolls around looking less than comfortable with a $300 price tag pinned to his capelike jacket by designer Annette Ames. (His paintings sell for much, much more.) He perks up before a hat bin containing a Javanese man's court cap made of pleated batik and more suitable to his taste. "I just got off the plane from Paris. These are my own clothes," explains Sybil Meyersburg in a gold suede skirt, cowboy boots and hat, silk print blouse and a black-and-gold knit "Midas muffler" scarf around her neck. Mrs. Meyersburg volunteers that she used to be a New York model and pupil of the late Morris Louis of the Washington color school. The scarf is a contribution from her son, who sells sound systems. Marilee Shapiro, a sculptor and friend of the Denneys, wears her mother's 1910 velvet suit, which she says she has put on for the first time. "I'll wear it again for sure if anybody asks me out." Rebecca Kayman is wearing husband Everett's "performance piece" - a hand-sewn shoulder bag made of fabric swatches with pieces of hardware inside, including a rock. "It's yin and yang," Mrs. Kayman volunteers, "but I'm not a bag type of girl. It's up for grabs. It's so vague." Don Russell, head of the Washington Project for the Arts, snatches it up happily. There are a Karl Lagerfeld skirt for $20, a dated Calvin Klein two-piece dress for $30 and a short-sleeved black velvet coatdress by "Narodna Radihost Beograd" at $65. (That's Belgrade to the cognoscenti - capital of what is left of Yugoslavia.) The hostess wears a vest made of ties and a series of cantilevered hats, many of them custom-designed for her by such firms as Eric Javits. She has a collection of 500 headpieces. * * * "Do you think I'm crazy?" Mrs. Denney asks with a flourish somewhere toward the end of an afternoon made fluid with generous supplies of Spanish champagne. Her question has attitude. And so does a bystander's reply. "Yes, probably. Why not?" Crazy like a genius, or someone who knows that a charmed life is the only one worth living. The perennially creative Mrs. Denney always was ahead of her time. The last time she threw such a party she had home furnishings, books and decorative arts - well before secondhand and vintage goods were considered chic the way they are these days. The October party was bigger, and some participants called it better. She made enough to cover costs and more, but cagily refuses to name the sum. Unsold items go back in the attic the next day. "I don't ever want to do this again," she declares - just as she did the last time. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM