(Burbank, CA ­ April 3, 2003) Fashion and design in Los Angeles will come together when Woodbury presents its 2003 fashion show, Metropolo: a mid-century night's dream.

The 39th annual gala fashion show will be held Sunday, May 4 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, 506 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. The event will begin at 5:30 p.m., with a cocktail and dinner reception for fashion show sponsors to follow at 7 p.m. The theme of the event, Metropolo: a mid-century night's dream, will showcase the outstanding work of Woodbury's fashion design students against an evolving background of urban landscape.

Coty Award-winning designer Gustave Tassell, whose contributions to Jacqueline Kennedy's wardrobe are now on exhibit in Paris at the Louvre in Jacqueline Kennedy: the White House Years, will receive the Woodbury Design Award. Woodbury will honor the creative collaboration of Hutton Wilkinson and the late Tony Duquette in interior design, jewelry, sculpture and painting with the Style Award. Architectural photographer Julius Shulman also will lend his famous image of Pierre Koenig's Case Study House No. 22 for the Woodbury show. Amber Benson, who plays Tara in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, will emcee.

General admission is $50, with a VIP package that includes the show, cocktails and dinner available for $150. Proceeds fund scholarships and benefit Woodbury's vintage fashion collection. To order tickets, please call Woodbury University at 818.767.0888, ext. 213.

The fashion show represents the interdisciplinary resources of Woodbury's School of Architecture and Design. Metropolo is the story of the City of Angels coming into its own as America's other great city. In the new climate of a media savvy Camelot at the dawn of the 1960s, Los Angeles would emerge unchallenged as the nation's media capital and the embodiment of mid-century values and Modernist style.

Founded in 1884, Woodbury University is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Southern California. An accredited, nonprofit university, Woodbury is located on a 22-acre residential campus in Burbank and offers bachelor's degrees from the School of Architecture and Design, Business and Management, and Arts and Sciences. Woodbury also offers a master of business administration as well as weekend and evening study for working adults. A San Diego campus was established in 1998 to offer bachelor of architecture degrees.