Macy’s Puts Eclectic Spectacles on Runway

Macy’s annual AIDS fund-raiser fashion show, Passport, is as much a spectacle for spectacle’s sake as it is a fashion show in the traditional sense. This year, the runway setup in Santa Monica Airport’s massive Barker Hangar supported such larger-than-life elements as a trotting show horse and rapper-turned-obsessive-name-changer Diddy emerging from behind fiery hoops in a smart Sean John suit. Macy’s West manager of special productions David Miranda oversaw the show and the preshow gala—as he also does in San Francisco, the city that is home to the department store’s Union Square flagship as well as its corporate headquarters—with show producer Larry Hashbarger. With Along Came Mary handling the catering and decor, the event raised more than $1 million for HIV and AIDS organizations, and will be donated to 60 local organizations.The preshow party featured abundant hors d’oeuvres from local eateries like Angelini, the Fairmount Miramar, Michael’s, Locanda del Lago, Morton’s, Café del Rey, and Chaya Venice, and bartenders poured cocktails and wine from sponsors Level vodka and Longboard Vineyards. Female servers, dolled up in vintage waitress costumes and pin-up-girl hair and make-up, passed trays and carts with 1950’s-style offerings like deviled eggs to match the retro look of their costumes. (We’ve seen deviled eggs everywhere these days, including at the chichi Social Hollywood. Comeback catering choice?) Models dressed like showgirls meandered about the tented space in brightly colored, barely-there costumes.

Afterward, the main event gathered 2,200 guests into the hangar, where Sharon Stone (clad in a Gucci dress with cutouts that likely tempted more than a few buyers to place bids) kicked things off as the auctioneer in a high-energy live auction that featured a Mexican cruise and a trip to New York to pick out a wardrobe of Oleg Cassini fashions from the label’s new collection. Brooke Shields and Liz Taylor talked about the impact of charitable AIDS giving before the show—complete with horse, as well as a pyrotechnically enhanced rapper, and a roller skating Richie Rich from Heatherette—began its hour-long course (off the scale of standard runway shows, which typically hover around 10 minutes).

—Alesandra Dubin

Disclosure: We should let you know that this writer, our west coast bureau chief, once worked in Macy’s West's communications department with some of the folks who worked on this event.

Posted 10.05.06

Photos: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Related Stories

GM Sends Cars Down Catwalk

5 Smart Ideas From Fashion Week