In terms of great-looking attendees in great outfits (women and men), amazing weather, inspiring runway fashion, and an absolute air of excitement, last Thursday’s FACE fashion show was a smashing success. Ditto that enormous success in terms of generating much-needed funding for the Seattle chapter of Sunflower Children. Ticket sales and other line items are still being tallied, but the preliminary bottom line is hovering around $30,000. 100% of that 30k goes directly to two schools, one in Nepal and one in India, that serve and support orphaned and homeless children.

As Sunflower Seattle President Johnnie Anthony is fond of saying, it’s as pure a relationship as any she has ever witnessed; the Seattle fashion and art community shares what it has, and these wonderfully sweet and deserving children benefit from each and every donated penny, dollar, minute, and day. As you might imagine, $30,000 does a lot of hard work in countries ravaged by natural disasters, poverty, and famine.

One of the super-exciting auction items sold on Thursday night (no small thanks to auctioneer John Curly) was a private screening for twenty of the brand-new, yet-to-open fashion documentary, Valentino, The Last Emperor.

The film debuts in Seattle on May 8 at Pacific Place, but last night, I got to watch it with Johnnie Anthony, Anne Smith from downtown’s Barneys New York, (whose store graciously allowed FACE organizers to borrow just about every gorgeous Spring piece for the runway show) and other amazing FACE volunteers. These folks pooled their resources to raise the winning bid and witness the haute couture, red, white, and pink frothy exuberance of the flick at the Northwest Film Forum. What fun.

Last Emperor, a celebration of 45 years in the life of a groundbreaking couture designer, has all the elements of a great fashion doc; wise bon mots from the likes of Cathy Horyn, old stills of Liz Taylor-types in the designer’s prime-era best, bickering behind-the-scenes stuff, tiny pets, and lots of lessons regarding the pit-falls of 90s-era designer licensing and big, bad corporate take-overs.

Jamie Fish of Heffner Management tells me that Seattle Models Guild co-owner and Seattle Sunflower sponsor Kristy Peterson procured the loan of the film from its producers who were, by all accounts, nothing but psyched to contribute to such a worthy cause and stylish event.

There’s our Seattle again, making its name bolder and brighter on globes, maps, and Google earth pages all over the planet.

I’ll probably be shunned for saying it (as I was when I mentioned, post-credits, that while I certainly get that perfume and fragrance lines carry many a designer brand, I just don’t know a single soul who regularly spritzes themselves with the stuff … my circle o friends is more apt to dab on pure essential oils, I guess), but in terms of the documentary form, I prefer 2007’s glossy, hilarious, and surprisingly philosophical Lagerfeld Confidential.

Still, there’s no arguing about subject matter.

Sigh. As Jamie puts it, Long live Valentino!—and Seattle Sunflower Children, too.