Call it beginner`s luck–or the work of a talented committee. The newly formed Women`s Board of the Five Hospital Homebound Elderly Program hoped to raise $40,000 at its first benefit dinner-dance in the Drake Hotel`s Gold Coast Room. It raised that–plus $25,000 more.
Proceeds will go to a program designed by the staffs of Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Augustana, Columbus, Grant and St. Joseph hospitals to care for elderly people in their own homes. The program prevents some
hospitalizations and premature nursing home admissions for elderly in the Lincoln Park and Lakeview areas. Fees are based on a sliding scale for social and medical assistance services provided in clients` homes.
Lady Wedgwood, nee Jean Quinn, the inaugural benefit`s chairman, attended the party without her husband, Lord Wedgwood. Piers had had to rush back to Philadelphia to attend to a problem at their new home there. (New to them, that is. It`s a Federal period house.)
”He got me a date, though,” said Wedgwood, as she awaited her escort, John L. Haas, a Chicago real estate developer, and a man Piers Wedgwood apparently trusts.
”We sold $6,000 in raffle tickets at the party,” said Shirley Stratton, president of the new board, a few days after the benefit. ”We had sold raffle tickets outside our group of 300 guests, but the nice thing about it was that everyone who won was in the room.”
Except, of course, for the elderly who will win an extra share of dignity and independence through the Five Hospital program. SOURCE: Margaret Carroll.
ALL ABOARD TO PLAY HOOKY
The going got tough the other day, so we got going–out of the office, into the incredibly beautiful summer afternoon, down the street and onto the Wendella.
Actually, any of the big tour boats will do. And what they do, they do so very well: A little patter, an occasional splash of mist in the face, a cool breeze, some sun and the best view of the most beautiful city on Earth.
There were three businessmen in suits, a few grandparent-grandchildren gaggles, a score of foreign tourists and several young couples–one snuggled in the stern, stealing smooches as the boat slid past Navy Pier.
The kids were mesmerized as the boat went through the river locks. The shutter bugs clicked away at the astonishing skyline. A few people even laughed when the tour guide hit his big line: ”. . . And the revolving restaurant on that building is called the Pinnacle. It turns 360 degrees in an hour, so you can get high in the sky and watch the world go by. . . .”
And go by it did: Streeterville, the filtration plant, Big John, the breakwater, the planetarium, Buckingham Fountain, Sears Tower.
Gulls and swifts went by, too.
At one point, a visiting Englishwoman said with awe (and with tears in her eyes): ”This is the loveliest city I have ever seen.”
The clouds didn`t hurt a bit, rolling across the sky like fat sheep on wheels.
Things got a little drowsy on the rocking wait to go back through the locks, and at least one passenger dozed a bit–awakened just before the boat docked by the scent of Billy Goat cheeseburger on the wind.
The phone was ringing when we got back to the office, but we answered it with a smile.
SOURCE: John Teets.
IT`S BEENE A LONG TIME
The first time–and the last time–that Geoffrey Beene came to Chicago for a fashion show, he and a handful of other young designers were featured at a Fashion Group gala as ”promising innovators on the rise.”
That was 24 years ago.
Last week, Beene returned for his second fashion show here, this one featuring his fall collection, which has variously been called ”the work of a genius.”
Leave it to Chicago`s Fashion Group to call the right shots–at least in Beene`s case. Though his colleagues from that long-ago fete in the Great Hall of the Congress Hotel have since faded from the fashion world, Beene has gone on to become one of its international stars. He was guest of honor last week when Saks Fifth Avenue hosted a black-tie dinner-dance at the Casino to benefit the Costume Committee of the Chicago Historical Society.
Normally a rather reticent gentleman who has retained his soft Louisiana accent and Southern demeanor through decades of life in New York, Beene was on the verge of beaming as he discussed his brief encounter with Chicagoans: ”I am so impressed. It is so refreshing to see people who genuinely enjoy themselves, who are congenial, happy with their lives. The delightful evening, the exquisite ambience, so affected me. In New York, we think we know it all; but you have to leave it to know that`s not true.”
The locals were pretty pleased with Beene also, along with his creations. Though there were some comments about the unusual music (Philip Glass) and a few gasps and whispers (”They`re sooooooo short!”), Beene received an enthusiastic standing ovation, enjoyed by the designer as well as the fashionables present who had donned their shortest in his honor.
Novelist and socialite Sugar Rautbord pleased onlookers with her brief and ruffly silver Krizia (”someone told me it looks like a black
artichoke”), as did model and socialite Shelley MacArthur, with her brief, second-skin white-with-black Giorgio Sant`Angelo, and the Apparel Center`s fashion director, Susan Glick, wearing white-peplumed organza top with knee-baring black skirt by Jackie Rogers.
Also on the short side, but with flirty silhouettes, were Stanley Korskak executive Jere Scott Zenko in strapless black-and-white-dotted and tiered Carolyne Roehm, and Saks fashion director Nena Ivon, appropriately wearing a Beene signature dress–meaning above-the-knee, full-skirted and in a combination of fabrics, including lace. It was in black, of course, which
–along with gray, white, black with white, white with black, plus a smidge of gold–was a hallmark of the evening.
Small wonder, then, that the fashion show`s biggest applause-getter was Beene`s floor-length, form-fitting jersey evening gown in sizzling firecracker red.
Men do manage to clap loud and clear. SOURCE: Genevieve Buck.
SO YOU MISSED YOUR PROM . . .
Proms, like youth and beauty, are wasted on the young.
A prom-age kid is too young to do half the things he`d like. But once past the age of consent, the only way to get close to a prom without risking arrest is to become a chaperone.
Well, there`s no need to leave all the fun to the underaged. ClubLand, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave., presents Adult Prom Week (actually three days, Thursday through Saturday) for those who want to re-create those days of youth, even if it means borrowing a truly ugly tuxedo. (Couples in formal attire get in for $5–half the non-formal price.)
There will be prom decorations, punch bowls, chaperones, the works. A photographer will snap prom portraits. Free corsages while they last. And a deliberately wretched three-piece band will appear hourly to plod through such de rigueur prom ballads as ”Stairway to Heaven,” ”Color My World” and
”We`ve Only Just Begun.”
ClubLand`s famed pyrotechnics will come into play each night at midnight, when the bloody prom sequence from ”Carrie” is re-created live, complete with exploding props.
Suitable attire should be easily obtainable; this is tux-rental season. For you ladies: Remember the bridesmaid`s dress you were told you could wear again later? This is later.
SOURCE: Phil Vettel.
HARTMARX MAKES HISTORY — TIMES 100 SOURCE: Text by Sharon Stangenes, Photos by Michael Budrys.
One official dubbed it Hartmarx`s ”senior prom.” But the nearly 850 people at the Field Museum of Natural History the other night were far more glittering than any school crowd.
The occasion was the 100th birthday of the nation`s largest manufacturer of tailored men`s clothing, known until a few years ago as Hart Schaffner & Marx.
Among Hartmarx`s galaxy of design stars, Pierre Cardin and Nino Cerruti flew in from Paris for the evening; Sal Cesarani, Henry Grethel and Allyn St. George checked in from New York.
Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D., Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, took time from congressional duties to attend–and delighted Cardin by saying, ”I splash you on my face every morning.” Mayor Harold Washington did a few whirls on the dance floor with Mary Ella Smith.
The fashion folk mingled with leaders of the corporation`s far-flung operations, plus suppliers and such retail friends as Marshall Field`s chairman Philip Miller and Hartmarx directors, including former White House social secretary Tish Baldrige and Bud Ruby of Jaymar-Ruby Sansabelt fame.
Over dinner, Cardin chatted most excitedly about his plans for a new Maxim`s Hotel on 55th Street in New York. Cerruti said he would travel on to Boston to talk shoes with the Converse Shoe Co. Rostenkowski commented on the surroundings.
”I found myself in an unusual setting,” he quipped to the crowd in the great hall of the museum, ”with a healthy elephant on one side and a bone-dry donkey (the dinosaur skeleton) on the other.” —
