Annual fashion show keeps the League in green
By Peggy Bourland-Madison
INCLINE VILLAGE – The annual Oscar de la Renta and Saks Fifth Avenue Lake Tahoe benefit for the League to Save Lake Tahoe is a tradition that started in 1969.
Oscar de la Renta with fans at the annual fundraiser on Aug. 3 for the League to Save Lake Tahoe. Photos/Peggy Bourland-Madison
San Francisco-Tahoe philanthropist and socialite Diana Dollar Knowles conspired with a few of her notable friends, some still very involved today, to bring American designer and pal Bill Blass to Lake Tahoe for a benefit fashion show to support the work of The League to Save Lake Tahoe. Back then the show took place at a private residence on the West Shore’s “Gold Coast”, with a small number attending and tickets at just $15. Now in its 44th year, the sold-out event accommodates 600, with a wide range of ticket prices. The event attracts fashion lovers from near and far, with the added appeal of helping to protect the lake.
In 1995, after 20 years of dazzling fashion events on the shore of Lake Tahoe, Blass at age 73 announced he would be retiring and would no longer be taking his fall collection to Lake Tahoe. This news was not entirely unexpected and with his help a replacement was quickly found. Blass convinced a friend and fellow designer that coming to Lake Tahoe was too much fun to miss and thus the Oscar de la Renta era began.
Though he calls New York City his home, de la Renta clearly has developed a fondness for Lake Tahoe. His shows, presented by Saks Fifth Avenue, have raised millions to benefit the League.
This year the event returned to the extensive grounds of Kern Schumacher’s 5-acre lake front estate in the tony village of Incline. With de la Renta “in the house”, excitement was high as guests arrived and passed through the gates to a live band and a hosted bar serving Tahoe’s own Tahoe Blue Vodka that was swizzled into libations that set a festive mood.
Many of the guests’ images are often found on the society pages of the San Francisco Chronicle and the Nob Hill Gazette. Last Saturday they were in Tahoe providing plenty of fashion diversion long before the runway show began. The hats, the dresses, and the bags were what you would expect to see at a fashion event. In spite of their best intentions, there were a few “fashion misses”, but it was all good fun and highly entertaining.
This year’s fashion show and luncheon was dedicated to the memory of Diana Dollar Knowles who died in 2013, at the age of 96. Knowles and the many blue blood families that have deep roots in Tahoe as summer home residents dating back to the early 1900s have made preserving Tahoe’s clear blue waters a responsibility to restore some of the impacts their ancestors may have left behind.
Looking the part at the fashion show.
Lunch was served at noon and the first part of the live auction begins. Bidding is very competitive and items included the coveted New York Fashion Week with de la Renta. It was now time to settle into your seats to enjoy the show. Sixty designs are revealed worn by 19 stunning runway models. While this flotilla of $10,000 couture dresses and gowns float down the runway, there is a flurry of activity back stage. South Shore’s 25-year veteran, Mary Ann Werley is in “the tent” with her crew of 20 dressers getting the models in and out of the 60 costume changes. Saks has their hair and make-up teams making last minute touch ups before each model steps onto the runway. The final showing is the evening gown finale.
De la Renta’s designs did not disappoint and are met with wild applause.
Designs by Oscar de la Renta.
Before audience members can rush backstage to order items from this 2014 Resort Collection, part two of the live auction begins. League Executive Director Darcie Goodman Collins is on stage to introduce the League’s newest project — Eyes on the Lake. Eyes on the Lake is a volunteer aquatic invasive species monitoring program. Volunteers are trained to identify and document evidence of aquatic plant species considered to be one of the leading causes of Lake Tahoe’s clarity loss. In just a few minutes more than $30,000 is raised to fund this program.
Collins stated, “The real significance of this event is being able to fund the League’s new programs that include tangible hands-on projects that will help improve water quality. Funding raised at this benefit makes that research possible.”
In the end it is all about The League’s iconic motto: Keep Tahoe Blue.
Gosh, all those folks sure look like Tahoe locals…
What a poor joke this “event” is, IMHO.
People from all over the world visit and are interested in Lake Tahoe and its preservation. Not every event has to be a “locals event” and,despite what you see in the photos, many people there were, indeed, locals.
I fail to see how anyone who loves Lake Tahoe can support the TRPA. I certainly didn’t even suggest that every event has to be a “locals event”. My point has far more to do with the lack of local input to the process. But that is just my opinion from a lifetime of living in Lake Tahoe. I have watched the organization since it started. They started with wonderful ideals and quickly devolved into just another hungry and self-serving bureaucracy. Remember the host home for this event with the continuing history of violations of the TRPA rules? That event alone cast a shadow of impropriety across the entire organization. Big buildings, big salaries, pseudo-science and inconsistency mark their entire existence. Again, just my opinion.
Pseudoscience eh?
The Pipe Club are the only group of pseudoscientists I know of around here.
that’s quite an event. It says they raised 30,000$ just for the new invasive species program, I wonder how much total to go mostly to Court Battles?
This event demonstrates the close connection between the glitterati of SF and Lake Tahoe. To the locals, this lake is YOUR lake. But Lake Tahoe is a treasure for all of us. Our families may go back several generations of summertimes spent at Lake Tahoe. Or we might just be campers who fight the Friday evening traffic out of the bay area to be renewed on the shores of Lake Tahoe.We ALL have a stake in preserving the Lake. This fashion show raises badly needed funds for the League while reminding a wider audience of the need to preserve our lake.
Dumbfounded,
Check the story, this was not a TRPA event.
dumb—- this was not a TRPA event and you are obviously searching for some reason to be down on this event as well as the League. While it isnt “my cup of tea” and id never pay money to go to a fashion show for the environment, it does bring a crowd of folks that are willing to invest in the health of the lake and our region.
Tahoe has a global identity for its beauty. As a local, I am grateful to anyone on the planet who wants to financially contribute to any effort to preserve the lake and its clarity.
The fashion show is certainly an upscale event and it raises upscale dollars for an upscale cause. Locals especially are the beneficiaries of all that effort. Bingo.
So what’s the problem?
Waterlover, the problem is that the money doesn’t actually go to any conservation projects. It goes to Bay Area based lawyers and regulatory agencies to fight each other and make silly people think they are accomplishing something.
Dogula, exactly.
Dogula:
You’ve got a ditto from me too. I think their moniker, “The League to Save Lake Tahoe,” has actually been a subterfuge misnomer to trick well-meaning donors into thinking they were doing something to environmentally help Lake Tahoe. It certainly seems that throughout former Executive Director Rochelle Nason’s tenure all the “League to Sue Lake Tahoe” did was initiate lawsuits to prevent anything and everything from taking place, whether environmentally beneficial or not.
It’s still not known to those who actually live in the Tahoe basin whether the League’s new Executive Director Darcie Goodman Collins will be an improvement over Nason, but without a doubt she has an uphill climb to convince many Tahoe area residents that anything the League does is to actually benefit Lake Tahoe. I think the general consensus has been that they exist merely to collect donations to pay exorbitant salaries to employees and exorbitant fees to Bay Area lawyers to initiate lawsuits. Since Lahontan and the TRPA are focusing on mid-lake clarity issues I’d like to see the League direct some attention to the near-shore problems, such as milfoil and other invasive aquatic species that are making areas of the near-shore look disgusting and are spreading throughout the remainder of the lake.
‘ I’d like to see the League direct some attention to the near-shore problems, such as milfoil and other invasive aquatic species that are making areas of the near-shore look disgusting and are spreading throughout the remainder of the lake’
They aren’t?
cosa pescado:
“League Executive Director Darcie Goodman Collins is on stage to introduce the League’s newest project — Eyes on the Lake. Eyes on the Lake is a volunteer aquatic invasive species monitoring program. Volunteers are trained to identify and document evidence of aquatic plant species considered to be one of the leading causes of Lake Tahoe’s clarity loss.”
While the introduction of a new volunteer program may be encouraging it still remains to be seen how this program and its eventual evolution, and the League under Ms. Collins’ direction will progress. Like I said before, Ms. Collins has an uphill climb to convince many Tahoe area residents that anything the League does is to actually benefit Lake Tahoe. Their historical litigation track record and impressions of obstructionism remains fairly prevalent in many people’s minds and their future actions will be on what their efforts are gauged going forward. It is my hope that the League uses their funding and influence to work collaboratively with Tahoe’s various agencies and with the public toward some positive outcomes.
all of you “finger pointers” live here for the same reason that the supporters of LTSLT live here. Because its a beautiful place with amazing outdoor splendor and opportunities. Id much rather the money goes to lawyers in SF that will fight for the Lake than to the KOCH brothers or Chevron or some developer that is trying to get richer. If that is where my money goes than im all for it. If it wernt for those lawyers fighting to keep our Lake safe than it would be just like lake Arrowhead, or Clear LAke, just another polluted body of water. And we would all be argueing about something different…
Nature, what percentage of LTSLT members do you think actually LIVE here?
Does one need to live in Tahoe to care about it’s future? I don’t live in Yosemite, yet I donate to The Yosemite Conservancy. Many LTSLT members are Tahoe property owners that live here part time. BTW 70% of the private property in Tahoe is owned by people that do not actually live here. Lake Tahoe is a national treasure and I say thank you to anyone that donates financially or with their volunteer time to improve the ecology of Lake Tahoe.