February 1, 2012 By SFW SF Wire
Dashing San Francisco host hosts drawing-room favorite Fashion Illustrator for a soigne evening of book signing, champagne sipping, and Rat Pack swinging (no, not THAT kind,) in an after-hours incarnation of his Peep Show shop. It all started when designer/impresario/man-about-town Ken Fulk decided to commission a David Downton portrait of his friend Denise Hale in honor of her KQED sponsorship of the PBS Series Downton Abbey. No, there is no relation between the riveting and somewhat magisterial Downtons, but the conflation was too perfect to resist. And the result is nothing short of superlative – a freehand, free-spirited close-up that captures all the spunk, style and sparkle that becomes the inimitable Madame P.C. Hale. (The portrait is such a vivacious likeness, one of DH’s friends inquired if something was uptown with Downton, much to the amusement of both.) So when Downton planned a subsequent visit from his native London, Ken Fulk hosted a small-ish soiree and subsequent supper to introduce the illustrious illustrator to more of his SF socials, who were all to happy to have the author lavishly inscribe their names into the flyleaves of his “Masters of Fashion Illustration,” and “Pourquoi Pas?” tomes.