Despite moving from the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall to the La Plata County Fairgrounds – a much bigger venue – once again, this year's Do's and Don'ts Luncheon and fashion show was standing-room only.
Fashion Do's and Don'ts is notorious for presenting reporters with difficulties – from start to finish, its contents are so ribald as to be largely unprintable in a family newspaper.
Happily, at least for attendees, this year was no different, because aside from the menu, few elements of the event fell unambiguously within the bounds of good taste. In the spirit of this year's Snowdown theme – fairy tales – the appetizer whimsically provided to guests was “Golden Eggs, fresh from the Goose that Laid Them”; the dessert, gingerbread men or poisoned apples.
Most guests seemed to eschew offers of Alice's Magical Mushroom Tea in favor of wine and beer. Thanks to these flowing libations, by the event's end, several red-cheeked attendees indeed appeared to have fallen down the rabbit hole.
Many of Do's and Don'ts' 581 attendees – 456 seated, and 125 standing – interpreted the fairy-tale theme literally, dressing as leprechauns, disco Snow White and Mad Hatters.
But others took a more figurative approach.
One woman, dressed in a bright orange wig and a blue Broncos jersey, said her fairy tale was a Broncos victory at the Super Bowl.
Another man, wearing a dark suit and red tie, explained that the fairy tale he had chosen to embody was Reaganomics.
After the White Rabbit trumpeted a clarion call, the show itself, “Lost in Durango Fashion-Land,” began with Gene Pool Gaultier – a caricature of the French designer Jean Paul Gaultier – ascending the runway.
Gaultier, played with droll self-assurance by Jeff Mannix, informed the crowd with perfect Parisian condescension: “It's just so nice to come to a frontier town and see all you people – you don't see people like you in New York! Anyway, it's great to be here in Durango – or is it Durungo?”
Gaultier concluded, “This is the 99 percent!” to peels of laughter.
In all, 25 fairy-tale parables walked the runway. “Rapunzel Out on the Town” showed Rapunzel bringing everything a young woman needed for a night of debauchery on Main Avenue – champagne, pepper spray and an electro-mechanical device that was first developed in Victorian England to relieve women of tension.
Though the program credits Kristi Lee Zink with playing Rapunzel, it is possible that Zink's scene-stealing décolletage deserves separate billing.
While Do's and Don'ts tends to derive humor from the burlesque over the scatological, in “The Queen of Farts,” Linda Mannix, the event's organizer, mixed things up. The Mad Hatter tried to carry the train of her long gown before recoiling, seemingly overwhelmed by the fumes billowing up from Mannix's derrière.
Suzan Lane, the master of ceremonies, explained that the Queen's flatulence was a consequence of her recent trip to the Durango Farmers Market.
“Since then, she has been eating bran muffins and tomatoes,” said Lane sympathetically.
The crowd's response to “The Emperor's New Cloak,” in which Kirk Komick – sporting a crown, a cloak and a wildly popular bare chest – gyrated down the runway, seeming to suggestively dance with his scepter, was reminiscent of the final scene of the film “The Full Monty.”
The catcalls of one older woman, who was dressed in a princess skirt that was inadequate to the task of covering her thighs, became so loud that they drowned out Lane's narration. Lane quickly resigned herself to the noise – swallowing an ample amount of what might have been water – with the gallantry of a consummate professional.
Tegan Corlies and Mary Chandler took the stage in “Durango's Sexy Steeze” to feverish applause. Corlies, whose outfit was convincing as a sartorial imitation of Eve before the fall, framed her face with a sign that read “Durango High School Year Book.”
Chandler, sporting a shirt that said “Viking Mom,” and touting a protest sign that read, “We Will Not Be Intimidated By Unsexiness,” grinned as Lane impishly explained that in the patois of Durango's youths, “Steeze” – which incidentally rhymes with “Spies” and “sleaze” – was in fact slang for “style and ease.”
Events were interrupted only once. After a tense exchange with an organizer, Lane asked all Toyota owners to raise their hands. About 40 shot into the air, before swiftly declining, when Lane said there was a Toyota in the fire lane, causing a sheepish looking man to beeline for the door.
The show concluded with Lane yelling, “We'll see you next year!”
Amid the ensuing explosion of cheers, an attendee turned to her table, sighing.
“That seems like a long time to wait,” she said.
