Remember 1985? While the rest of us were prancing around in our Flashdance hair, spandex tights, and legwarmers, a small group of Los Angeles artists and clothing designers were combining art, performance, and fashion into a hip new form of self-expression.
December 8, 2013
One such artist/designer with a
vision was Carol Booton, who was
then the owner of a custom clothing design studio in Hollywood.
Twenty-eight years after the show, I tracked Booton to her digs in
Portland, Oregon, where she is a self-employed marketing research consultant.
She laughed when I told her I wanted to talk about the Weddings Without Rules
event at the Park Plaza Hotel. “That was a million years ago!” she said, but
she agreed to email me photos and scanned images of the event materials. My
inbox filled up with batches of jpegs. A dancing wedding cake! A
jewel-encrusted mermaid! Eventually we connected again by phone, and I got the
scoop on Weddings Without Rules, straight from the visionary creator herself.
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| Susan Nininger wrapped up the sold-out 1985 Weddings Without Rules art-fashion performance with a jewel-encrusted mermaid by Connie Parente and an entourage of fish-headed ushers. (Location: Park Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles. Models and photographer unknown) |
In 1984 Booton had produced Fashion Without Rules, an art-fashion performance at Hollywood venue Club Lingerie. Flush with the success of that event, Booton devised a grander vision, focusing on the theme of weddings. “I was working through some relationships issues,” she laughed. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” She used the same format as her first production, calling upon her designer friends and acquaintances to contribute wedding-related vignettes.
The participating designers were Barbara
Benish, Nadia Evasu, Georgia Gilliam, Mel Grayson, Harrington Keisch,
Carolyn Krause, Kate Lindsay,
Susan Nininger, Connie Parente, Patti
Ratcliffe, Jennifer
Q. Smith, and Warren Thomas. Each designer had artistic control over his or
her own presentation, including choosing models, music, and choreography. Most
of the garments were designed specifically for this event.
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| Artist and producer Carol Booton designed a wedding ensemble entitled "Look but Don't Touch," for her Weddings Without Rules Art-Fashion Performance, held September 29, 1985, at the Park Plaza Hotel. (Model: C. Felix, photographer unknown) |
In the program notes, Booton wrote, “The theme of weddings
is intriguing for a variety of reasons. People tend to take weddings very
seriously. There are rules governing every facet of the event, rules that are
begging to be stretched and broken. Everyone agrees that the weddings we like
most are the ones where the performers take chances, whether that means taking
vows during a sky dive or wearing the ‘wrong’ color.”
Booton added, “Weddings offer an exciting combination of
art, theater, fashion, style, performance, and costume. This show was intended
to be a showcase for clothing designs that transcended the dull perimeters of traditional
wedding clothing, in hopes that people’s ideas of what is ‘proper’ wedding wear
would be stretched and broken, too.”
Weddings Without Rules, an art-fashion performance produced
by artist-designer Carol Booton, entertained audiences at the Park Plaza Hotel
in Los Angeles, California, on September, 29, 1985. Thirteen California
designers and artists presented art costumes and fashions related to weddings
and marriage. Booton said, “These artists and designers were all interested in
creating something beyond the tradition we used to call wearable art.” Some of the work was anything but wearable,
according to Booton, who noted that in some cases the models were barely able
to walk. Yet the designs had one thing in common: They required a human body in
motion to be showcased properly. “There is a fine line between fashion and
art,” she added. The Weddings Without Rules art-fashion performance was
intended to expand our notions of which is which.
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| Carolyn Krause showed a wedding gown made of woven and stitched celluloid film for the 1985 Weddings Without Rules art-fashion performance. (Models and photographers unknown) |
The performance attracted approximately 400 spectators, most
of whom paid $7.00 for advance tickets. The doors opened at 8:00 p.m. so guests
could mingle and linger at the bar before the show began at 9:00 p.m. Each
guest received a 20-page magazine-style program containing full-page ads placed
by sponsors of the event. Sponsors included Barbara Benish (who was selling
hand-painted t-shirts in Venice, CA at the time); Freehand, a gallery of hand-made jewelry,
clothing, and crafts on West Third Street in Los Angeles; Deborah F. Lawrence, an eclectic artist
selling hand-made calendars; Art Resource Technology, Joanne Warfield’s art
consulting firm; Kate Lindsay’s
line of custom clothing designs; Dianne
O., hair and makeup artist; Elisha Shapiro, offering
his long-running Nihilism
Calendar; Linda Albertano,
advertising a performance at the now-defunct Lhasa Club with Henry Rollins; Cake and Art, a bakery still creating
edible art in West Hollywood, California; and Cointreau, who catered the event
with liquor-flavored chicken wings and other goodies. Other advertisers
included Elizabeth Wamsley, Steps into Space, Stella & Bessie Beading, and
Park’s Tuxedos and Bridal.
A press preview was held on Thursday, September 12, 1985, in
the lobby of the Park Plaza Hotel. Pre-show publicity included an article by
Rubin Carson in the September 1985 issue of Los Angeles Magazine and an article
by Liz Blackman in the Style section of the L.A. Weekly, issue September
27-October 3, 1985. Before the event, KNBC News ran a short segment focusing on
the notion of wedding apparel that breaks with tradition. Members of the press
were invited to meet the designers before the event. After-show publicity
included a video segment on Channel 18 for Japanese audiences. An article by
Mary Rourke ran in the L.A. Times on December 6, 1985.
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| Carol Booton's tongue-in-cheek commentary on the wedding rituals, designed for her Weddings Without Rules art-fashion performance, held September 29, 1985, at the Park Plaza Hotel |
Carol Booton spent 20 years in Los Angeles, where she
dabbled in custom sewing. Besides making way too many wedding gowns, bridesmaids’
frocks, Easter, prom, and cruise dresses, and costumes for commercials and
television, she also designed barely-wearable apparel—her “art-fashion.” She flogged
her sewing business for a good ten years before deciding she hated to sew too
much to continue and escaped to the corporate world of marketing research, where
she remains as of this writing.
The Park Plaza Hotel, an historic landmark across from the
famous MacArthur Park was designed and built by architect Claud Beelman in 1923-24
for the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks. After the Elks were done
with it, the building was converted into a swanky hotel. No longer a hotel, it
is often used as a set for movies and television. But you can still rent its
ornate Art Deco ballrooms for a wedding.
—Artemis Taft
The Seamier Side of Sewing blog
Theseamierside.blogspot.com
From the producer’s post-show photo album:
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| Mel Grayson, designer. (Model and photographer unknown) |
- Barbara Benish showed three brides displaying Latin origins and religious influences.
- Carol Booton showed three couples wearing ensembles based on wedding night rituals, choreographed to Aretha Franklin’s Respect.
- Nadia Evasu presented a bride in white lace and tulle.
- Georgia Gilliam created a bridal gown of handmade paper, lace, net, and Christmas tree lights, and presented it on a mannequin in the auditorium foyer.
- Mel Grayson invited a modern dance troupe to perform before he presented a collection of high fashion brides in black.
- Carolyn Krause presented her “Hollywood Bride,” wearing a dress made of interwoven strips of celluloid film.
- Harrington Keisch showed Death, wearing a long black robe, interacting with a bride in a beaded black gown.
- Kate Lindsay showed a high-fashion ensemble of white leather, presented to a Judy Garland lip-synch.
- Susan Nininger presented the grand finale with an underwater wedding fantasy, complete with an entourage of fishhead ushers carrying a mermaid bride ensconced in a bed of jewels, designed by Connie Parente.
- Patti Ratcliffe modeled a dress shaped like a three-tiered wedding cake, flinging cake in all directions with Barbie and Ken dolls perched atop her wedding cake hat.
- Jennifer Q. Smith delighted the audience with a playful hand-painted satin gown, presented to the tune of “Going to the Chapel.”
- Warren Thomas showed a high fashion bride in chiffon and tulle.
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| Barbara Benish designed a wedding group for the Wedding Without Rules art-fashion performance, held at the Park Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles on September 29, 1985 (Model and photographer unknown) |
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