Young and trendy clothing launch is full of surprises

Its good to be pleasantly surprised by a party and that`s what happened at the local launch of Europe`s oldest brand of jeans on Thursday.

I`d expected a noisy gaggle of Jozi`s young, beautiful and trendy and, yes, we got that the curtain up on Lee-Cooper jeans was held at Jonathan Gimpel`s interesting (though hot) old Atlas Bakery (now mostly TV studios) in Milpark, where Leanne Haynsman and Debbie Rakusin put on a great fashion show with every top model and four great dancers on the ramp, and the food was nothing short of brilliant.
Levanna Atari, the clever entrepreneur who is to import the jeans (much cheaper than rivals Levi`s and Diesel, I hear), hosted the party.

Guess included young schlebs galore: Ursula Stapelfeldt, Catriona Andrews of snitch, Emmanuel Castis from Isidingo, Heinz Winckler and pretty Catherine Constantinides, who`s everywhere these days and seems to have lived an extremely full life for a 22-year –old

She tells me she studied law briefly at Wits, survived a white-slave-trade attempted kidnapping in Saudi Arabia while modeling, runs a small arts magazine called SA fusion, was recently elected Miss Earth, an environmental beauty title, and is also the SA youth ambassador to the world peace Summit. Would you believe.

SUBLIME SNACKS

AND the jeans? Great, though one thing worried me. Every rear on every pair was stone-washed white, which will result in just one answer to that perennial question: “Does my bum look big in this?” And now for that food.

The caterers were Heinz Brunne`s Gham Gourment and we were served, among other delights, bowls of Thai chicken curry, creamed chicken livers, prawns with a sauce and little salmon steaks, followed by, wait for this, sweet sushi and awesome crème brulee with a chocolate, basil and sugary nut topping.

So does this food cost more than meatballs and kebabs? No, says Heinz, who is the Ned bank caterer (where party food is always awesome), though setting up with items like crockery is a tad pricey. Clothes? Unusual show-stoppers were ferhana and Hajira Loonat and Saadiya Motara in beautiful Muslim outfits bought in Lens and Saudi Arabia.

Food: 8.5/10 – second-highest mark I`ve ever awarded, and now want to eat a Gham three-course, sit-down meal to check if it`s the same high standard.

Flowers:8/10 - funky flowers with daisies in a glass vase filled with rainbow jellybeans.

MC: None, just a few introductory words from Dion Chang.

VIBE: 7/10 – noisy, fun and young, with a slick fashion show.

HOW VERY RUDE

AT THIS point you should be reading an account of a fundraiser for the Uplands School in White River – and you have Top Billing to blame because you can`t.

Last Saturday`s charity do was a gala champagne book dinner, along the lines of a similar literary event organized by Layra Bush in Texas, and featured two favourite local authors, Pam Jooste and Diane Awerbuck with Heinz Wincler entertaining.

For weeks, the organizers and Top Billing, which was to cover the event, begged (and I do mean begged) me to come too. It sounded fun, so I said yes.

I even made a plan when my late colleague Joe Sefale`s funeral was organized for early that same day to leave the Soweto church early and catch an 11:30am plane because they were so keen for me to be there.

But on my way to the airport my cell rang. It was the party`s embarrassed organizer, Ethne Cameron, saying Top Billing refused to have exclusivity.

Imagine my surprise when I heard that guests were told that I had been the one to drop out because of the funeral not a word about Top Billing unpleasant role. And only when I objected to that excuse did I get apologetic calls from a Top Billing executive. It`s sad when people you respect show such bad manners.

But later in the week I spent time with people who really wanted my company. Two months ago Russell Lobser, CEO of the JSE, bid R5 000at Noah fundraiser to have dinner with me, and the date was set for Wednesday.

Russell, his wife Alma, deputy Nicky Newtown-King and her husband Eckhardt, Park Hyatt owner Marshall and Lynette Finlay and our marketing general manager, Susan Russell (who first offered me for sale) had a great meal at the Hyatt`s Zafferanos.

Thanks Russell and Co. Glad to help the charity and delighted to have had your company.

And may I say it was made even more sweet by the fact that three weeks ago at the Imperial Ball, the gorgeous Miss Pretoria fetched a mere R500 for a dinner date.

• Tickled to hear that Heinz Winkler demanded two bodyguards for his trip to deepest Mpumalanga (though he didn’t seem to need any in seedy Milpark on Thursday). What was he worried about – the local girls ripping his clothes off?