Fashion designer Sue Wong opened Los Angeles Fashion week with the Pre-Code Hollywood-themed “Glamour Goddesses” party and fashion presentation at her historic Wilshire Center Atelier on Friday, October 15, 2010. Guests, who included fashion editors, stylists, and celebrities such as Brooke Burns (“Melrose Place,” “Baywatch”), Bridget Marquardt (“The Girls Next Door”), Melinda McGraw (“Mad Men,” “The Dark Night”) and Charlotte Ross (“Glee”), roamed the loft-like space where the Sue Wong Spring 2011 Collection was presented on live models and installed mannequins surrounded by the designer’s expansive modern art collection. Event sponsors included Napoleon Perdis, Matt Adams for Sally Hershberger, Famous Cupcakes, PAMA Liqueur, Hpnotiq Liqueur, Hansen’s Soda, Vita Coco, Icelandic Glacial and Michael Antonio.
A tribute to the iconic glamour goddesses of the Silver Screen, the evening was a decadent celebration of Hollywood glamour and fashion. Many guests rose to the occasion and arrived in period attire or dressed in Sue Wong as their favorite Pre-Code screen legend including Bella Thorne (“Wizards of Waverly Place”, “Shake it Up”) who played with a fun Marie Prevost flapper look, and Brooke Burns who resembled Ava Gardner in her Sue Wong feather gown. “Sue Wong never fails to make a woman feel glamorous and feminine in her dresses, and tonight was no exception. … However; I never wanted to take this feather dress off!” said Burns.
Pre-Code Hollywood preceded the Hayes Code of censorship which was officially implemented in 1934, and was the free wheeling creative period at the dawn of the motion picture era, noted for its adventurous exploration of subject matters, including provocative takes on sexuality, challenges to authority, and a rejection of Victorian era traditions. “At a young age I became enamored of films such as Blonde Venus, The Tarnished Lady, and Dangerous Curves and the scandalous glamour goddesses of the Pre-Code silver screen, such as Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Tallulah Bankhead and their independent strength, their embrace of feminine sensuality and their sexually frank libertine spirit,” said Sue Wong, who cites these iconic screen legends as the inspiration for her Spring 2011 Collection.
The Sue Wong Spring 2011 Collection features dramatic gowns and flirtatious cocktail dresses with intricately wrought hand details such as beadwork, applique, and embroidery and novel trim including leaves fashioned from taffeta, scalloped tiers of Battenberg lace and skirts of ostrich feather. “I wanted to evoke the chic elegance and cool mystique of Greta Garbo, the irreverent and indomitable spirit of Mae West, and the seductive sensuality of Jean Harlow,” said Sue Wong, whose designs are sold in fine boutiques and department stores such as Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom and in more than 27 countries globally.