Royal fashion designer dazzles breast cancer luncheon
British fashion designer Jenny Packham is perhaps best known for her most famous client.
When Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (or Kate Middleton, to adoring fans), stepped out in one of Packham’s designs for her first royal engagement, post-wedding to Prince William, the world took notice. The duchess has since worn Packham’s dresses to depart St. Mary’s Hospital after giving birth to each of her three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
“That’s the only maternity wear I’ve ever done,” Packham quipped during a recent trip to Houston.
And though she was game to dish on her royal customers, the fashion designer’s sophomore Bayou City visit was for a much-less-discussed topic: her family’s history with breast cancer.
“My mother had breast cancer when I was young, but I didn’t know until she died 30 years later,” Packham said in an interview before Memorial Hermann’s 2018 Razzle Dazzle Luncheon. “It wasn’t mentioned in my house. She recovered, but now breast cancer is such a more open subject.”
The health care system’s ninth annual fundraiser embraced a “Goes Royal” theme for the occasion, evidence that our town’s recent British popculture invasion is still alive and well. This year’s chair, Bobbie Nau, honored the legacy of Eileen Campbell and raised a record-breaking $500,000 toward early detection and outreach programs at the Bobetta C. Lindig Breast Care Center in Memorial City.
There, at the Westin, some 600 survivors and supporters packed into the deliciously pink ballroom for the midday fundraiser filled with little English touches.
“We cannot fit anybody else in this room,” emcee and KTRK-13 anchor Gina
Gaston Elie said of the sold-out crowd. Donna Vallone delivered the invocation before Memorial Hermann Foundation CEO and executive vice president Anne Neeson introduced breast cancer survivor Mia Trevillion-Barney.
Barney, a fitness instructor whose zest for life knows no bounds, got a diagnosis of Stage II triple negative invasive ductal carcinoma on her 47th birthday.
But Barney’s story has a happy ending.
“Memorial Hermann’s staff devised a treatment plan that worked with my lifestyle, which was incredibly important to me. This allowed me to follow the mantra, ‘I have cancer, but I’m not sick.’ ”
Unfortunately, Campbell did not her survive her own breast cancer diagnosis. Daughters Meghan Leggett and Kathleen Becraft joined their father, Doug Perley, on stage and spoke passionately of their mother.
Later, Packham and journalist Clifford Pugh switched gears with a lighthearted Q&A, as models showed off wow-factor eveningwear.
“Houston is a great market for me because women here really enjoy dressing up,” Packham said. “It’s not like that in the UK, where women buy one or two formal pieces. Texans are into vibrant color and texture. You might have to put those clothes away for awhile, then bring them back out again.”
Looking over the sea of blush, bubblegum and fuchsia, Razzle Dazzle’s target audience happily invests in a closet full of pink for a good cause.