39th Ebony Fashion Show will be a dream come true

Kimberley McGee

Friday, March 30, 2001 | 5:02 a.m.

Information

What: 39th Ebony Fashion Show.

When: 2 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Palace Station convention area, second level.

Cost: $51.

Information: 684-4444.

For one model it's a dream come true.

Dereka Hendon saw her first Ebony Fashion Show in Las Vegas nearly 20 years ago.

"I knew I wanted to be up on that stage since I was 10 or 12," Hendon said. "Here I am."

She is one of 11 models who will wear the latest designer fashions from Paris and New York at the 39th Ebony Fashion Show in Las Vegas Sunday at Palace Station.

The show, produced by Ebony magazine, features runway fashions by Bob Mackie, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent and Kevin Hall for Halston.

The annual traveling fashion show begins in New York City and travels to 180 cities from September to May. New models are chosen each year for the show. This is Hendon's year.

Hendon grew up in Las Vegas and modeled in commercials for businesses such as the Rio and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, as well as in fashion shows and print ads.

Modeling was her hobby, but it didn't pay all the bills. Two years ago, at age 27, she moved to Chicago for a systems analyst position with a large company.

She missed her family and Las Vegas, but most of all she missed modeling.

At the encouragement of her mother, Hendon reluctantly sent a portfolio of her modeling work to the Ebony show's producers.

She was stunned when she was one of 50 models asked to audition from the 2,000 who applied. She never thought she would get that close to living her dream.

"The room was filled with the most beautiful African-American women I've ever seen and I knew there were only 12 spots," Hendon said. "I was happy to get that far, though."

Her modeling dream came full circle when she was chosen to walk the runway for Ebony. She left her full-time job to travel with the show from Canada, through the United States and eventually to the Bahamas.

"I was itching to do something different and the time was just right," she said. "I knew I was walking away from my normal 9-to-5 life to live out of a suitcase on a bus but I thought, 'Why not?' "

Unlike other fashion shows that she had worked in Las Vegas and New York, the Ebony show is more about flair and entertainment.

The models know the audience has not just come to see the latest fashions, she said. They want a show.

"It's more fun than a regular fashion show because you can go out there and play with the audience," Hendon said. "And the clothes."

Each outfit has a different personality, she said. A large pink skirt, 4 feet in diameter and made of plastic bubbles, brings out her playful side while a red pantsuit calls for sophistication -- and confidence.

"When I wear it I want to strut," she said.

The 30-foot-long stage at the Palace Station will allow the models to stretch out and show off the clothes, she said, as well as the models' talent.

"You can dance and move and slide on a long runway, which makes it fun for us and the audience," Hendon said. "There will be singing, interaction with the models. It's a big show."

The event is the largest fund-raiser for the Las Vegas Alpha Rho chapter of the Gamma Phi Delta sorority, which hosts the show.

"This is one of our best and biggest events, and we so look forward to all those fabulous clothes," Marie Ray, chairwoman of Alpha Rho, said. "It's more than just the fashions, it's a really great show."

The clothes are hand-picked by Eunice Johnson, producer and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair show since it was created in 1959.

Johnson has traveled to Europe and New York every year since the show's inception to personally peruse the designers' new collections and take home styles she thinks women want to see and wear.

"I get to pick out some of the most outstanding show pieces of the season from different designers," she said.

Johnson chooses clothes that will show off the season's best colors and cuts straight from the runways. The outfits can cost up to $200,000 each. That does not include hats, accessories and shoes. She spends $2 million on clothes each year.

The clothes may be the center of the event, but the value of the show lies deeper than its glamorous facade.

The proceeds from the show have netted $48 million for education programs such as the United Negro College Fund.

In the past the proceeds from the Las Vegas show have benefited community causes such as Home of the Good Sheppard and the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. For the third consecutive year proceeds will benefit local radio station KCEP 88.1-FM.

Sherman Rutlidge, general manager of the station, said the fashion show has contributed $3,000 each year to KCEP's community causes.

"Their funds support a lot of our youth programs and projects," Rutlidge said. "They have been very supportive."