Designer’s Show and Tell Debut

NEWPORT BEACH — Sandra Harvey watched closely as a makeup artist put the finishing brush strokes on a model’s pale complexion.

“Darken her mole,” Harvey said, before heading off to critique another model’s out-of-control bouffant hairdo.

For Harvey, a Newport Beach fashion designer, no detail, not even a beauty mark, was too small to escape her notice for her first fashion show to premiere her fall 1991 collection of women’s sportswear.

A crowd of 150 or so guests, including buyers from major stores, recently assembled in the Lahaina Galleries in Fashion Island for Harvey’s debut. While they nibbled on shrimp and drank iced tea, Harvey bustled back and forth between the Allen Edwards Salon where her three models were undergoing last-minute touch-ups on their hair and makeup to a back room of the gallery where she sorted through the racks of clothing.

“I don’t know if it’s nerves or I’m just sick,” said Harvey, holding her stomach a half-hour before show time.

The show marks an important turning point in Harvey’s fashion career. Her designs have been described by one of her friends as “Chanel with a kick” because of her penchant for boxy little jackets, round Peter Pan collars and fine touches such as bound buttonholes with fabric-covered buttons.

A striking brunette wearing a long black stretch-velvet dress with a low square neckline that she had whipped up in two hours, Harvey had no idea how the collection would be received by the public and left nothing to chance. She worked frantically throughout the show.

“Who wants M&Ms;?” she asked when her models were finally coiffed and squeezed into the stuffy back room to don their outfits. One model ate the candy out of Harvey’s hand so she wouldn’t muss her lipstick.

Harvey helped the models put on gloves, step into their shoes and struggle into stirrup pants.

“Sandy, give her a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on these,” said an assistant, putting a pair of cat-eyed sunglasses on one of the models.

“Yes,” Harvey said without hesitation.

She delivered last-minute instructions to the models the way a director might coach actors in a movie.

“You’re the ‘smiley’ one. You’re the little Audrey Hepburn. You’re the attitude,” she told them.

Harvey sent off the first model, Jenny, in a black wool knit spectator jacket edged in cream-colored piping with a round collar, big fabric-covered buttons and matching black shorts also adorned in piping.

“You are unbelievable,” she said. “Strut.”

Another model followed in a black A-line mini-dress with long sleeves and a scoop neck that Harvey calls her “market dress.”

“You should be able to just throw it on and do your shopping,” she said.

When Harvey heard the audience applauding the first of her designs, she began to relax--a little.

“This is so exciting,” she said, pausing only briefly to savor the idea that these were her clothes being shown on a runway.

Models hurriedly slipped in and out of the clothes: a tight black halter top and matching skirt that drew whistles from the crowd; the “Morticia Cat Suit,” a black knit number with bell-bottom legs, long sleeves and a low scoop neck, and a short A-line dress of charcoal-colored jersey knit with a black bow around a low pointed collar and black cuffs on the long sleeves.

When the show ended and the time came for Harvey to go onstage to acknowledge the crowd, she showed the first signs of being a novice designer.

“I don’t know if I should go out there,” she said, hesitating.

“Do it,” said her assistant. “You have to.”

While this was her first official fashion show, the 31-year-old designer has been making clothes for as long as she can remember.

“When I was a little girl I used to design clothes for my Barbie doll,” she said.

She grew up in a family that instilled in her a sense of style.

“I was taught by my relatives that your look is more important than anything else.”

Her paternal grandmother once told her the only two things that matter in life are Chanel and “sexy legs.” Her 18th birthday gift to Harvey was a Chanel jacket.

Harvey first learned about design by watching how her mother would improvise with wardrobe.

When her mother had nothing to wear, “she’d take a dress from her closet, cut off the skirt, take off the sleeves and maybe add fringe to the hem.”

By the time she was a teen-ager, Harvey was making her own clothes to compete with the expensive outfits of her wealthier high school friends.

Later, while working as a fashion consultant in Orange County, Harvey would be asked to make clothes for her clients. She soon put together her own line of clothing with the help of her husband, Dana Harvey, a native of New Zealand and son of a seamstress who assists with her designs and production.

Harvey designs the clothes at home, draping the fabric into the shape she wants, then sewing a prototype garment (the finished garment is turned over to a professional pattern maker).

She calls her style “very chic with a French edge.”

“My favorite era is the ‘20s. I can’t get enough of the history and I read all of the books from that period. But my clothes have a more ‘40s look to them,” she said.

Her work as a fashion consultant has turned Harvey into a strong believer in mixing and matching clothes to stretch a wardrobe. Her jackets can be worn with stirrup pants, velvet hot pants or a short miniskirt.

At her show, she showed her teal wool jacket with the round black velvet collar and matching buttons with a pair of teal stirrup pants, then later paired the jacket with black velvet hot pants. Her black velvet jacket with leopard fur collar and cuffs turned up three times in the show--with a black velvet skirt, black pants or a leopard miniskirt for a wilder look.

Black is a predominant color in her line.

“I live in a black T-shirt and Levis. Black is chic and it’s clean.”

She also favors double-knit wool, jersey, crepes and silk organzas.

“I like soft fabrics that move with your body,” she said.

Her clothes are manufactured in Los Angeles and sell in boutiques such as Flora Luna in Newport Beach, Mi Place in Fullerton, Ecru on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and Whistle in La Jolla. Jackets sell for about $500, suits for about $600 and dresses for $200 to $300.

“This season I had to knock on doors. I barge in and bring a piece of my clothing to show the buyer,” she said. Events such as the fashion show are designed to help her to attract attention in a competitive business.

“I’m new. I have to make a lot of noise,” she said.