In the spirit of arts, fashion and giving, Town & Country and Highland Park Village partnered up to benefit TACA the first two days of the month.
The two-day fundraiser started with a “Style Spy” breakfast on Tuesday, October 1, in HP Village’s Mockingbird Room. Initially it appeared to be more of a mother-daughter fest with Event Co-Chair Heather Washburne with her mom Vicki Howland and Billie Leigh Rippey and daughter Paige Baten-Locke. And, like most gatherings where the gals are gabbing, the program was delayed for a while.
But once T&C publisher Jennifer Levene Bruno welcomed the group, the ladies got down to finding out the T&C predictions of the season’s trends from Beauty Director Jamie Rosen and Style Director Stellene Volanes. Sorry. Cannot share the secrets, but you can find them in T&C. OK, so we’ll share one, but don’t tell anyone. One of the new trends is brow extensions. Yup, you heard it. They’ve come up with a product that adds itty-bitty hair-like materials to your brows in case you’re follicle-ly challenged in that area.
Afterwards, the guests had a jolly good time touring the various HP Village boutiques to apply some of their newly-learned education to use.
The next night, Montage: A Celebration of Art and Fashion started off in the HP Village Theater. Co-Chair Heather was joined by her sister/Co-Chair Elisa Summers and their husbands, Ray Washburne and Steve Summers.
To “kick off” the production, Jan Strimple had Dallas Youth Repertory Project dancers perform a song about TACA and the Dallas arts. So, that may not sound like a big deal, until you realize that while the youngsters were singing, they were also keeping tempo with clapping and stomping Jimmy Choos on the floor as they sang.
After the Summers and Washburnes welcomed the guests, TACA Board Member/VP of Grants Tara Lewis thanked all for filling the theater and adding to the coffers of TACA.
As lively music played in the background, fashions were presented from Hadleigh’s, Lela Rose, Scoop NYC, Ralph Lauren and Carolina Herrera New York. One or two of them caught Nancy Rogers’ eye and she snapped it with her smartphone.
Breaking up the fashion presentation was another group from Dallas Youth Repertory who sang and danced with Proenza Schouler handbags from Five and Ten.
Guests headed to the Mockingbird Room for a post-performance reception. Coley Clark in his Hadleigh suit said Hadleigh co-owner Ed Sheikh was “the best.” Asked for a capsule review of the show, Coley said, “There was a lot of wearable stuff; not too much crazy stuff.”
Ray Washburne, who in addition to his HPV duties is the finance chair for the Republican National Committee, was just back from D.C., where he had put together a private dinner for about 50 big donors at the Willard Hotel. At the last minute he got senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson to show up and talk.
Across the way were Dallas Youth Repertory Project students Taylor Hennings, Kaitlyn Hennings and Addy McFarland. Over on a couch, DYRP student Ellie McFarland joined DYRP choreographer, Michelle Gibson, calling her “the best teacher in the world!” She must be, because the dance routines, like the fashions, were simply fabulous.