After a Fashion

Good food, good friends, and good cheer -- Kirk Haines, Claudette Murphree, Mark Ashby, and Chris Krager share a festive Thanksgiving

THANKSGIVING ALFRESCO My friend Mark Ashby called saying he had a dream that he'd invited me for Thanksgiving dinner and that I'd accepted and it made him very happy. Opting to make his dream come true, I graciously attended. We dined under dappled sunlight and a cool breeze on the terrace of his and Tony Senecal's home in Travis Heights, sharing the feast with an assortment of creative types -- designers of homes, interiors, clothing goods companies, good cheer, and good food, enough to make the Waltons jealous (thank you Charles). As the line of guests with plates in hand snaked through the kitchen and out the door, Toy Joy manager Claudette Murphree said, "It looks like a shelter in here." But that was where the comparison ended. It was so stylish, even Lulu the Dog was wearing an Isaac Mizrahi T-shirt (alternately, Chicken, the Chihuahua, had chosen a more subdued outfit: a J.Crew-ish turtleneck sweater in charcoal gray). The spread of food was gorgeous and a reasonable facsimile of a classic Thanksgiving dinner, very modern touches, of course, courtesy of the aforementioned creative types. Several of us decided it was Thanksgiving Through the Queer Eye. Said actress/filmmaker Amy Grappell, "It looks better and tastes better. ... That says it all for me." It was then that I realized that cooking is the only area where saying that something looks "homemade" is a compliment. Kirk Haines, owner of menswear store Service (110 W. Elizabeth, behind Güero's, 447-7600), and I gossiped at the end of the table and bonded over a funny story he told of going through some clippings of design inspirations from magazines and finding a photo that he'd kept all these years of a vest I had designed in the early Nineties. We were both in the New York trade magazines regularly at the time and dished the dirt about what a nightmarish business it is to design clothing in New York. Kirk moved there in 1983, designing and wholesaling T-shirts to such stores as Amalgamated and Little Ricky's, as well as (I love this) a line of scuffies for men -- you know, little fabric slippers. Seeking relief from the rat race of Manhattan, he moved to Austin and founded his store nine years ago. At the Elizabeth Street location for the past two years, Service is infused with a spirit of an era past, but with a totally contemporary edge. Kirk resurrects vintage T-shirt designs from the Eighties and combines them with various other collections, usually with a retro touch. His sweaters make wonderful Christmas gifts, as do the jewelry and accessories. We also visited with Chris Krager, the American Institute of Architects award-winning, hot, young, residential architect whose current projects include a swank duplex in Hawaii, a home on Rainey Street, and a private gallery at the home of Plan B's Brian Bowers and JD DiFabbio. With a future so bright, he has to wear shades and sunscreen. The work he does for KRDB can be seen at www.lividpencil.com. Other attendees included Adam Berlin, James Newman, Tyrone Soares, Stephen Blais, the reluctant socialites Patrick Roberts and Charles Saenz, and others too fabulous to mention. A favorite moment was hearing Claudette as she explained Texas to her visiting father, "Dallas is the prettier but brainless sister that gets lots of dates. She has no soul, but she's very popular. Houston is the brainier sister -- a much better catch but she's slightly overweight and has a hard time getting dates. San Antonio is like the exotic cousin from a far away land, and Austin is the wild sister that just got out of rehab." A rather astute and not inaccurate observation, I'd say.

MIRACLES AND TRAGEDY Miraculously, Austin designer and UT graduate Catherine Swanson, along with her two sisters and brother, were pulled from the wreckage of a plane crash in Florida on Thanksgiving Day with only minor injuries. The crash killed Catherine's father, Dr. George Swanson, a prominent surgeon from Port Arthur and president of the Jefferson County Medical Society, who was piloting the plane. It touched down in a wooded area, one mile short of the runway in heavy fog. Dr. Swanson's mother and brother, awaiting his arrival at the Jacksonville airport, heard the crash. I met George at the opening of Catherine's studio downtown. He was the gregarious, devoted, and proud papa who financed Catherine's debut collection -- presented on the catwalks of New York during Fashion Week -- thereby launching his beloved daughter into the design business. Dear Catherine, I know what it's like to tragically lose your father when you're young, and I ache for you.

HOLIDAY DRAG Whup out your Mrs. Santa Claus finery and get yourself over to Big Red Sun (1102 E. Cesar Chavez, 480-0688) on Saturday, Dec. 6, for their Mrs. Claus contest, part of the Santa in the Garden benefit for Project Transitions. See Community Listings, p.79 for more info, or go to www.bigredsun.com.