So Much Fun! So Much Beauty!

Are Johnston women more “in vogue” than others?  (Are we setting up a challenge here?)  At Saturday’s fashion show, the Johnston Woman’s Club hosting and Mercy Me! contributing the clothes, everyone had spring fashion in mind – coming from all parts of the county.  And Johnston women were spotlighted as they modeled what one club member called, “the best show of clothes ever.”

Suzanne O’Neal joined her granddaughter (Caroline) and daughter-in-law (Susie O’Neal) to show similar color combinations for three different ages – and in one family.  Then another trio was Bobbie Pullon, mother of Susie O’Neal and the “other grandmother” to Caroline, all three in harmony through color.

The “Family Affair” got repeated when Betty Dowd and daughter Jewel Carpenter walked the “ramp” (so to speak, in the Johnston United Methodist Fellowship Hall); then along came Melanie Gibson and her daughter Jessica, again in harmony.

The theme of Southern Belle touched on all ages and in several phases of the event: from the social “tete-a-teting” starting at 10:30; then the show itself, in the middle; and then a very special lunch which filled the rest of the morning, when, close to 1:00 p.m., guests drifted out the door, still ‘catching up” with friends and neighbors.

Guests came from far and near – there was a grandmother from Ireland who got to see her granddaughter pull names from the cut glass bowl (oh, so Southern) to choose door prize recipients.  And of course, Edgefield, Trenton, Ridge Spring and Saluda were well represented.

There was something for everyone: fine dining on real china and silver (members set individual tables with their company china) for the gourmet; table arrangements of magnolias in glass globes for the artistic; smashing outfits for the clotheshorse; catching alliteration in the emcee’s (Caroline Bland) delivery, for the English teachers; and gifts for chosen guests whose tickets were drawn – the “opportunists.”

It is the alliteration that that we will dwell on for a moment.  How is this? “Escapada palazzo pants” were flowing on Constance Bess; “a bold bauble” as seen on Shirley Lott’s ensemble; “the fashion forward pop of peach color” on Suzanne O’Neal; “especially fashion forward and fun” was a spring jacket.  “Pop” of a certain color was used throughout Caroline’s descriptive introduction of the clothes, a fresh, new way to note color in an ensemble that is mostly navy or black and white.

Woman’s Club membership might point out: “Next year as late winter winds howl and you are wanting spring to hurry in, that ‘s the time to get a ticket from club members – don’t hesitate because tickets are limited.”  They have been working on this event all year long and it runs so well they could hire out their membership as professionals.  Indeed, they probably are!

And all that in order to present a scholarship to a high school senior in the county.  True philanthropy with a flair.