Sabrina Kay, chief executive of Fashion Umbrella LLC, kicked off a Young President’s Organization event last week with a private fashion show at Versace in Beverly Hills.
Young Presidents is a networking organization made up of businessmen and women who are running companies as chief operating officers, presidents or the equivalent and make more than $1 million in salary. “Young,” as specified in the group’s membership criteria, means less than 45 years of age.
Kay, a self-described fashionista who founded California Design College, managed to persuade Versace-USA President Roberto Lorenzini to allow YPO members to model Versace clothes and dip into their wallets to add to their collections.
Several of the male models strutting their new looks included Charles Koones, president and publisher of Variety, Bob Ruth, senior managing partner at Trammel Crow, Sean Hunter, president and chief marketing officer of Anschutz Entertainment Group and Jonathan Rosenthal, managing partner at Saybrook Capital LLC.
About 80 people attended the event. Bright-colored Versace plate chargers, trimmed in gold, matched rose pedals strewn on each table.
Other attendees included Alex Cappello, founder of Cappello Capital, City Councilman Mike Antonovich, former District Attorney Gil Garcetti, Barry Porter, managing general partner of Clarity Partners, and California Fashion Associations’ Ilsa Metchek.
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Steve Fifield, president and founder of Fifield Companies, is sparing no expense for the Californian, the 80-unit, 23-story high-rise on Wilshire Boulevard. Fifield had been commuting from Chicago to oversee every detail at the Californian, where celebrity buyers are paying up to $9 million for custom-built bathrooms and wine cellars.
Fifield, whose wife, Randy Fifield, is vice chairman and principal of the company, has now moved his family of five children to the Pacific Palisades to be closer to the action in California.
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Abdul Mallick, the lobby ambassador at Bank of America Plaza in downtown Los Angeles, spent 32 years standing on his feet, opening the giant building’s door for thousands of visitors. Workers at the building knew his traditional greeting well: a slight nod or short bow.
Recently, Mallick retired to his native India to work at the Insan Mission, an educational and humanitarian facility founded by his brother, who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Price in 2003.
“Working at this building every day has been a dream come true for a man like me,” Mallick said to a gathering of the building’s employees on his final day at work.
Staff reporter Kate Berry can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 228, or by email at
[email protected]
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