Childhelp champion Patti Edwards has devoted a serious portion of her life to aiding abused and neglected children through the various programs of Childhelp in both the U.S. and abroad. Edwards will join fellow dedicated women in Orange County, Katherine Meredith and Diana Miner, in co-chairing the upcoming 40th annual Childhelp Fashion Show and Luncheon. Produced by South Coast Plaza, the runway presentation is arguably considered the most exciting and trend-setting fashion show on the Orange Coast.
Honorary Chair for the 2026 Childhelp Fashion Show and Luncheon Patti Edwards, from left, Fashion Show co-chairs Diana Miner and Katherine Meredith, and Childhelp President Julie Thornton-Adams are overseeing the March 19 event.
(John Watkins)
It all unfolds March 19 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine beginning with a 10 a.m. Champagne reception. South Coast Plaza’s Debra Gunn Downing and team have created a fashion exhibition featuring Bally, Balmain, Camilla, Eres, Lanvin, Monique Lhuillier, Stella McCartney, Weekend Max Mara, presented with informal event modeling from Roger Vivier.
Front and center in support of the Childhelp’s mission will be Orange County Chapter president Julie Thornton Adams along with important donors and volunteers Eileen Saul, Debra Violette, Joyce Simon, Patricia Ford, underwriters Jacquie Casey and Beverly Cohen and others. Also supporting the cause will be Pam Pharris, Gina Van Ocker, Mary Allen Dexter, Susan Hill, Tracy Abel and Tami Smith to name only a few.
Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami has been named the recipient of Childhelp’s 2026 Children’s Friend Award and will be honored March 19.
(Courtesy of Childhelp)
A highlight of the afternoon will be the presentation of the annual Children’s Friend award going to Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami, who has worked for years seeking justice for victims of child sexual abuse. For information on tickets and sponsorship visit bidpal.net/childhelpocfashionshow2026.
Sophie Calle exhibition
The UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art (UC Irvine Langson Museum) on Jan. 31 opened “Sophie Calle: Overshare,” the first North American exhibition to explore the full range of the artist’s practice across the past five decades.
The show will be on view at its Costa Mesa location at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts museum through May 24.
“Traveling from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the survey exhibition captures the ways in which Calle’s early work anticipated the rise of social media as a space to shape and present lived experience,” stated Emma Jacobson-Sive, the museum’s media consultant. “Featuring photography, text-based works, video, and installation, the work highlights the artist’s efforts to probe the boundaries between public and private; truth and fiction; control and chance.”
The show was curated by Henriette Huldisch, the Walker’s chief curator and director of curatorial affairs in close collaboration with the artist. The UC Irvine Langson Museum’s presentation has been produced by Courtenay Finn, co-chief curator and director of programs.
Calle has been working in multiple artist mediums since the late 1970s, and has come to be recognized for her unique approach of pairing photographs and text. She uses her own surveillance and voyeurism to examine the complex nature of human relationships; love, trust, intimacy, and power, according to Finn.
The exhibition unfolds across four themes, titled “The Spy,” “The Protagonist,” “The End,” and “The Beginning.” It includes a selection of acclaimed, iconic works, including “The Sleepers” (1979) and “Suite Vénitienne” (1980), which capture Calle’s early fascination with the real and imagined stories of people’s lives. At the core of the exhibition are Calle’s “Autobiographies,” an ongoing series that the artist began in the late 1980s. Each two-part work includes a framed photograph alongside a framed descriptive text.
The exhibition also includes two large-scale installations, “Voir la mer” (2011) and “On the Hunt” (2020/2024), both distinct in subject matter, dealing with underlying feelings of longing.
UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art (UC Irvine Langson Museum) brings together the collections and legacies of the Orange County Museum of Art and UC Irvine’s Langson Institute and Museum of California Art under a shared mission of public access, scholarship, and cultural engagement. It operates across two sites: a 53,000-square-foot facility at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa and a 6,000-square-foot interim museum space in Irvine. Admission is free.
For more information, visit uci.edu/langson-museum.