The Crowd:

This was not your mother’s fashion show!

The Friends of Dorothy, a support guild of the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County, gathered in an Airway Avenue warehouse off the runway of the John Wayne Airport last week for an evening of food, conversation, fundraising and a runway fashion show (adjacent to the JWA runway).

But that wasn’t the real show-stopper.

First came the young gents showing off the latest menswear from Brooks Bros., South Coast Plaza.

Then came the slinky gals adorned in the trendiest of trendy fashions from the extremely popular boutique known as Mi Place, Newport Beach and Laguna Niguel.

And then, the Brooks Bros. boys returned, music pulsating, sans wardrobe, modeling men’s underwear from Macy’s Men’s Store, South Coast Plaza.

Appropriately, the catering company was called Billy’s Naked Chicken, and the wine came from Barefoot Wine and Bubbly.

Women screamed. Men hooted. Dorothy Chairwoman Barbara Venezia, dressed head to toe in hot pink including 6-inch tall platform wedge shoes by Ellie, teased the crowd with plenty of shtick, ultimately raising $50,000 for local O.C. AIDS Services. Everything at the party was underwritten, allowing the total amount of the proceeds to benefit the cause.

Major donors in the party crowd were Kevin Coleman, Al Roberts, Ken Jillson, Michael Miner, Phil Brandt, Peter Baro, Tim Dunn, Brian Kraft, Keith Coplen, Tom Ray, Mike Vaillencourt, Eve Kornyei, and the Alice Hamilton Trust, which gifted Venezia a $10,000 check while she was parading the fashion runway.

Maria Marquez, president of AIDS Services, delivered heartfelt thanks joining Phillip Yaeger, executive director and chief executive of the foundation, sharing with the crowd that while progress has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, there are still alarming rates of infection among previously unlikely victims, including younger teens and women older than 50.

Funds raised by the Dorothys to date exceed $350,000 in two-plus years of existence.

The money will go to an array of services, “including care management, family programs, mental health services, health education, housing services, nutrition services, transportation and HIV prevention.”

VIP guests and donors also included Rocky Coglietti, Sal Tereza, Steve Bond, Guy Babusek, Tim Stoaks, James Rust, Mark Eskander, Jill Lloyd, Monica Mazur, Loren Blackwood, Richard Moriarty, Jeanne Moriarty, Sarah Veitch, Christine Petersen, Patti Gordon, Karen and Doug Gifford, Bunny Clark, Casey Lesher, and Venezia’s better half, Stan Tkaczyk.

THE CROWD runs Thursdays and Saturdays.