Once again, this year's Snowdown Fashion Do's and Don'ts Luncheon raised deep questions about existence in Durango.

For instance, should local reporters forced to cover the event – which is so lewd that next to none of its happenings are printable in a family newspaper – ask their editors for a raise before or after filing the impossible story?

Perhaps of greater curiosity: How many jobs – where employees leave work at 11 a.m. to get blitzed during lunch only to return to the office in the late afternoon with slurred speech, smudged lipstick and someone else's husband – can one mountain town possibly support?

(Answer: about 480, judging by the crowd packed inside the Exhibit Hall at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.)

Indeed, clad in pith helmets, faux fur, khaki, dog collars and this year's must-have staple – full-body animal-print leotards – residents lined up to attend this year's Do's and Don'ts.

There, with the help of a full bar, Durangoans' insatiable appetite for theme parties and sexually explicit humor predictably triumphed over killjoy middle-class sensibilities such as modesty, good taste or the virtue of sobriety.

The only bittersweet moment came at the outset, when the event's longtime organizers, Linda Mannix and Suzan Lane, announced this year's Safari-themed fashion show would be their last.

Then Gene Pool Gaultier (a caricature of French designer Jean Paul Gaultier), played by Jeff Mannix, alighted the runway, began – as is his ritual – berating Durango for being the “worst-dressed town in America” – and the show was off.

Lane, the show's master of ceremonies, introduced Joan and Melissa Rivers' PETA collection of fur stoles.

“Joan will wear anything as long as it was once alive. ... Guard your kittens!” she said.

As in previous years, at first, Lane's MC-ing was a model of acerbic comedic perfection. But as the show wore on, her interest in sticking to the script appeared to wane just as she was redoubling efforts to stay hydrated.

“Someone get me a drink,” she called out, as a young woman in a revealing safari get-up started dancing on the runway. Lane remarked about the woman's costume – which involved antlers extending out of her shoulders, “I have to tell you, I'd kill for a rack like that.”

When Linda Mannix took to the stage, dressed as Katharine Hepburn's prim character from “The African Queen,” Lane said Hepburn struggled getting to Durango from the Congo.

Mannix – nailing Hepburn's inimitable patrician lilt – said she'd been traveling on the Animas River until someone told her she couldn't use her inner tube in Oxbow Park – getting a big laugh while delivering one of the show's few child-friendly jokes.

When Nor List and Laura Catton walked the runway as “Trophy Wives,” bedecked in snug dresses and wigs straight from Cher's personal collection, Lane advised the audience, “When your trophy wife gets old and tired, you can hang her on the wall and get a new one.”

As usual, the sheer amount of flesh displayed by the audience was more newsworthy than anything on the catwalk.

Several women wore Spandex leggings so tight they merited a surgeon general's warning about the dangers of restricted blood flow to the lower extremities.

Though it seemed unimaginable, breasts – a historic area of strength for Do's and Don'ts costumes – rose to new prominence this year. Many bosoms refused to be repressed by the civilizing influence of fabric or the strictures of gravity, instead opting to spring forth, proud and free. Apparently eager to put a safari twist on Baywatch's unique combination of plunging décolletage and life-saving heroism, some chests ballooned upward and outward so miraculously, they'd float in water – a useful quality should their small-boned owners fall into the Nile.

But it was men's bodies that provoked real health and safety concerns.

When “Jungle Gym Jane,” a jungle dominatrix played by Darlene Redmond, walked out with two nearly naked men in tow, the applause was deafening.

On stage, the men – Aaron Coats and Drew Malhmood – made a good show of flexing their rippling muscles, but when they attempted the return journey, older, female members of the audience brayed at them so aggressively, a predator attack seemed imminent.

When a giraffe snatched at Coats' leg, it seemed like an oversight that no sign was posted, warning attendees – in the manner of safaris – “please don't approach the wildlife.”

A musical band of male elephants – who played jazz on their blue, half-erect trunks – brought down the house, while Kirk Komick's indescribable gyrations placed an exclamation point at the end of the proceedings.

As the show approached conclusion, the drinking became more flagrant.

One zebra started walking around, taking deep swigs from the open bottle of white wine she held in her right hoof, while a jaguar pounded beers in the corner of the room.

“You have to give these models a lot of credit,” Lane told the crowd. “They've all spent a lot of time and money on alcohol to come up with these ideas.”

Everyone clapped, while one man's hip-hugging khaki shorts fell down, exposing half his buttock. A blonde lion photographed his wardrobe malfunction. He didn't care.

cmcallister@durangoherald.com

An earlier version of this story misidentified the movie Katharine Hepburn appeared in.