The ladies who lunch

Young Chang

Give Dianne Felton an occasion to cook dinner and she’ll throw a

lavish little party with decorated tableware to match whatever theme the

season demands.

Ask Felton to choose where to dine out and she’ll pick a restaurant

she’s never been to, one that’s known to be lovely and mood-setting and,

of course, savory.

Surround her with a waterfront Newport Beach home and a family full of

men and she’ll sprinkle the life with flowers and colors and other

pretty, feminine touches that start with a large, well-kept garden and

end with the tiniest crystal drops on the dining room chandelier.

Felton loves to have fun. She finds reason to celebrate whenever she

can and rejoices in the things that are taken for granted -- loved ones,

teatime, being 57.

Her friends choose “ambience” to define Felton in a single word.

As the founder of the Vintage Vixens, Felton has chosen a colorful and

playful ambience to celebrate being older than 50.

She and 14 other women are the official, newly-formed Newport Beach

chapter of the national Red Hat Society. The Vixens meet every two months

to lunch somewhere nice and have “Literary Tea” at a member’s home. There

are no rules to this club and no goals except to have fun. You just have

to be older than 50, wear a purple outfit and don a red hat.

“It’s sophisticated and silly at the same time,” said Felton, the

chapter founder. “It’s the freedom to do whatever you want and not have

to worry about what other people think. And you make such a statement

when you’re in a group.”

BECOMING A VIXEN

Last month, during a luncheon at the subtly-decorated Napa Rose

restaurant in Anaheim, heads turned as the Vixens made their way in and

out of the dining room with their flamboyant red heads and purple

clothes.

Felton wore a red straw hat with violet flowers and a purple suit

lined with satin purple prints. Paula Croswell also wore a purple suit

but with a bluer, satin button-down shirt and a red hat that sprouted

blue and red flowers. Linda Sutherland layered a purple dress over a

white shirt and topped the ensemble with a red felt hat fluffed up with

an Angora trim.

The Vixens were poster women for fun.

“It’s a wonderful stage of life,” said 58-year-old Becky Coleman, one

of the original five members.

Felton thought to start the Vixens two years ago, after reading an

article about the Red Hat Society in an issue of “Romantic Homes

Magazine.”

The story chronicled the origins of the group. In the late ‘90s, a

Fullerton woman named Sue Ellen Cooper gave her friend a red fedora and a

poem by Jenny Joseph titled “Warning.” The first few lines of the poem

read: “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple / With a red hat that

doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me / And I shall spend my pension on brandy

and summer gloves / And satin sandals and say we’ve no money for butter.”

The hat and poem gesture caught on and Cooper’s circle soon began

going out for tea in purple outfits and red hats. The Fullerton chapter

spread nationally and women in different cities formed a following.

“It’s just amazing how it’s blossomed,” Coleman said. “Women have just

taken to this idea with wild abandonment.”

Having just been diagnosed with breast cancer at the time she read the

Red Hat article, Felton took a year and some months to undergo a

lumpectomy, chemotherapy, grow her hair back, fully recover and then

start the group.

“Each of us find a way to cope to make it better,” the former school

teacher said. “For me, it’s planning and looking forward to things. I’m

very motivated by fun and things that are pretty.”

Last December, she held the first meeting of the Vixens with four

close friends who’ve celebrated birthdays together for more than 20

years. Each person invited a guest and so the group numbered 10.

They decided on the chapter name Vintage Vixens because the American

Heritage Dictionary defines “vintage” as “characterized by excellence,

maturity and enduring appeal,” noted Susan Rinek, a Vixen.

Last month, each guest from the first meeting invited five new members

and 15 women met at the Anaheim restaurant. The expanded group decided to

keep the membership at 15, and everyone jokingly calls Felton the Queen

Mum.

They chatted and giggled through the afternoon about where and how

everyone got their red hats and purple outfits. Rinek had the best hat

story, as she found hers at a consignment store for $2 and then bought

flowers to adorn the rim. Felton found her hat at a Palm Desert swap meet

and the suit at a store called the Dress Barn.

“I was on my way to TJ Max and I noticed it in the window,” Felton

said. “My eyes have just been going to anything that’s purple.”

After the Sunday champagne brunch, the group, which includes

accountants and school teachers and artists and even a pilot, had a

literary tea at a member’s home to discuss Nicholas Sparks’ “A Bend in

the Road.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with the Red Hat Society,” said

Rinek, a graphic designer and Newport Beach resident. “But Dianne thought

it’d be really fun to have a book assigned each time and have that be the

second part of each day.”

Rinek admits that before she joined the group, she wondered for a

second whether she wanted to officially celebrate something “you kinda

wish you didn’t have to celebrate.”

“But I was only slightly torn because the real enthusiasm was Dianne’s

joy and delight in putting this together,” said Rinek, who has been

friends with Felton for about 25 years. “Dianne’s approach was like a

little girl planning a tea party -- really tongue-in-cheek seriously.”

FAR FROM 106

The two friends spent the early years of young motherhood as neighbors

in Lido Sands. They swapped kids to baby-sit and took turns taking time

off from work when all the little ones caught chicken pox, and took more

than three weeks to collectively recover.

Through the decades, Rinek painted couch cushions for Felton while

Felton threw fun dinner parties for their two families. They became best

friends through being helpful neighbors, both resulting today in good

health and with enough peace of mind to just have fun being the ages they

are.

Lately, the 55-year-old Rinek has spent her afternoons painting,

sometimes in Felton’s garden, and looking for a more chic red hat and

purple outfit to wear to the April meeting of the Vixens.

She found both recently. The hat came from Michael’s -- a wide-brimmed

straw number that cost $1.98 but is meant more for decorating and hanging

on the wall than for wearing. She also bought -- she giggles at this -- a

can of red spray paint for $4 and some fake flowers to turn the plain

blond straw surface into an accessory worthy of the Red Hat Society.

She found her outfit at Ross Dress for Less -- a whimsical, chiffon

purple dress paired with a light jacket -- for the discounted price of

$19.99.

“I’m going to look like a lady at tea,” Rinek said of her April

outing. “I will try to look less frumpy. Just because I’m wearing weird

purple and red hats doesn’t mean we have to look 106 years old.”

Felton also looks anything but 106.

She spent part of her past week getting her nails done by a

professional manicurist who regularly visits her home. With Spring

approaching, she opted for hot pink hands.

Wearing large red earrings that matched the red stripes on her

button-down shirt, Felton even sported a big gardening hat as she planted

yellow flowers.

In the shadow of her wide straw brim, Felton’s blond hair jutted out

in trendy, layered wisps. Since getting radiation therapy last year, her

hair’s begun to grow and is on its way to the shoulder-length bob it once

was.

“It’s just fun to get haircuts and have bad hair days,” Felton said.

Her definition of fun includes surprising her husband with a birthday

party at an old estate in a desert, decorating gingerbread houses with

her two sons and their girlfriends on Christmas Eve and having lunch with

friends in a beautiful garden.

While wearing red on the head and purple everywhere else, of course.

Rinek agrees. When it comes to being a Vixen, the number one goal is

to have a good time being vintage.

“It’s to find the lovely and fun things,” she said.