Culture crowd

One of the collaborative creations of the Art Meets Fashion show

The San Diego international Airport isn’t the perfect backdrop for a runway fashion show, but it worked for last Thursday night’s Art Meets Fashion VIP event.

Save for a few interruptions from the airport’s intercom and the occasional showering of dust balls coming down from a suspended antique airplane, it was a well-executed affair, complete with food, wine and familiar faces of San Diego artists and designers who teamed up and worked for months to create the interesting clothing that made its way down the runway.

“You’ve got to take a picture like you’re having sex,” said Anjela Piccard, a sultry young designer, as she posed for a photo with her N-Gom teammates, artists Katherine Sweetman and Guy Lombardo, after the show.

Lombardo later told me he might buy a house in Murrieta. Since so many houses have been foreclosed in Riverside County, he said excitedly, more artists should join him in building a new, more affordable art community there.

I caught up with Patricia Frischer, one of the organizers behind Art Meets Fashion, and asked her what she thought of the show.

“It was better than I could’ve ever imagined,” said a breathless Frischer. “I think combining the art and fashion really pushed people to higher levels.”

Constance White, art program manager at the airport, made her way through the mingling masses as she rushed toward the DJ booth.

“Oh, they’ve got to turn that down,” she said, referring to the DJ who was drowning out the airport sounds with his thumping house music as confused commuters looked on.

Meanwhile, planes were flying overhead, but the scene at the San Diego Museum of Art’s Art Alive Champagne Patron’s Reception was very different. A young crooner from the band Impresario covered Frank Sinatra as sequin- and-tux-donning museum members sampled fancy food, stimulated their olfactory organs at the Art Alive floral exhibition inside and hung out in the turf-and-tent-covered parking lot in front of the museum.

Looking like a party scene ripped from the pages of The Great Gatsby, the museum goes all out for its biggest fundraiser of the year. The silent auction included a “High Tea for 20” at a private Rancho Santa Fe estate starting at $700, and patrons happily penned in their bids.

Timken Museum director John Wilson scooped up a dessert from the Bertrand at Mister A’s table as he headed toward the exit.

“We’re going to go see the Winona Ryder portrait projected outside the Timken,” he told me, promoting the museum’s big Robert Wilson exhibition even in his off time.

By the end of the affair, the crooner got feisty and teased the mostly gray-haired crowd.

“I see too many people sitting down,” he said. “What, did you just have hip surgery? Most of you probably did.”