Sunday, December 19, 2010

Famed fashion designers dressing up fundraiser

Diane von Furstenberg is coming to Denver on January 21 for Max Martinez's Max Fashion Show, marking his 25th year in the business.

She's bringing her spring 2011 line to the Exdo Event Center for a fashion show bigger than anything Martinez has done before. It's a benefit for Children's Hospital.

Von Furstenberg is not bringing along her much-touted new line of hospital gowns that is more behind-friendly than traditional gowns. The outfits got lotsa press when unveiled last summer. "No, no," says Martinez. "No hospital gowns on the runway. Just the spring 2011 line."

Martinez says he started 25 years ago with $10,000. "And I'm still here," he says. He just bought a building at 264 Detroit St. and over the years has raised more than $1.5 million for charity.

"This is the Super Bowl of fashion for Denver," he says. Invitations are just going out — tix range from $1,000 front row to $75 general admission at maxfashion.com.

Domestic goddess.

Colorado's own Roseanne Barr is out with a book that's not at all that jokey. Titled "Roseannearchy: Dispatches From the Nut Farm," the book traces the radicalization of the comic, and it all started in Denver in the late '70s and early '80s.

Roseanne was working in Denver as a cocktail waitress at Bennigan's. And she was thin, she writes, so she made big tips and didn't give anybody change once they got drunk.

Customers thought she was funny and suggested she go to open-mic night in 1980 at the Comedy Shoppe, the predecessor of the Comedy Works that ran part-time where Suite 200 now rocks the night on Larimer Square.

Owners George McKelvey, Edd Nichols and Doug Olson changed the name after one year to the Comedy Works and then moved it across the street to the basement space it still laughs at.

Roseanne went on to work at the Woman to Woman Book Center on East Colfax. She honed her comedy while talking female politics. She got funny and angry at the same time and helped start Denver's feminist newspaper Big Mama Rag.

She can tell you all about it when she returns to Denver for a talk and signing at the Tattered Cover at 3 p.m. Jan. 8.

Foxy lady.

I spotted Kazoo & Co. owner Diana Nelson on "Fox & Friends" this week — and so did a lot of people. It was a 3 1/2- minute feature on how she, a single mother with two kids, successfully runs a toy store in Denver.

"I had a ton of response from everywhere," says Nelson. "I never knew I had so many conservative friends who were up so early."

More good news: She got engaged over Thanksgiving to museum and university security specialist Mark Peterson.

 

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