The Met Costume Institute Gala, Continued...

DAHLINGS -

That stupid intern...I will write about him on the morrow, but for now, there's much to catch up on.

At the Metropolitan Museum Gala celebrating "The King of
Fashion," Paul Poiret, there were the usual contingent of hideously scrawny models (oh, pardonnez moi...small-boned women with high metabolisms).



Note how the poor dears have to hold each other up. The haute monde showed up in force, dressed in all manner of outfits. Diane Von Furstenberg designed her own dress, and to moi it was a toss-up whose forehead was higher, hers or Barry Diller's.



To add a touch of John Wayne-style masculinity, costume jewelry king Kenneth Jay Lane stopped in:



Not all of the women there were fleshless wonders. Here is the ever delightful Marjorie Gubelmann Raein, in Carolina Herrera.



My only criticism is that Marjorie is attempting the same effect with a healthy bosom that the clavicle crowd obtains sans breasts; that is, no apparent cleavage. Next time, Marjorie, let your decolletage BREATHE! This young man--I assume he was a cross-dresser--was quite impressive, no discernible soft tissue at all.


(For the record, he is wearing Burberry.)

A number of my favorite people were there, including Oscar de la Renta, Anne Grausso, the spectacularly beautiful America Ferrera, the Yurmans, and oh, so many others! Cocktail hour was spent in the European sculpture garden, where I remember so many happy hours as a child. Then four trumpeters blew--what else--trumpets, and we were ushered in to dinner inside the Englehard Court. I admit, I was none too pleased to be seated by Conde Nast's Chuck Townsend, because all he likes to talk about is himself, but I merely nodded, smiled, and sipped champagne.

Here is Chuck with two unidentified women, the one to his left illustrating why women over the age of twelve should not wear babydoll dresses. Renee Zellweger sat next to Andre, and she has also become frighteningly thin...what on earth is happening in Hollywood? A famine? The Zone Diet gone berserk?



What a beautiful dress. If only there was a body in it.

Well, it was the evening was all jolly good fun, and hard on the feet. Here are my nominees for the two worst dresses at the Gala. First we have Kirsten Dunst, who must have been smoking a tremendous amount of weed (or snorting peacock poo) when she chose this babydoll-style nightmare, complete with headband:



Second, Fabiola Berascara, in Givenchy Haute Couture (!). Words fail me. A bubble dress covered with netting and hemmed with those sort of paper streamers they hang at children's parties, only in brown. Good Lord. Oh, and look, in the background in white, another of those amusing cross-dressers. Admirable muscular definition, nçest pas?



Feel free to vote here for your choice, or any other sartorial choice that violated your senses.

And don't forget, dahlings - Meg Cabot will be visiting here ere long! I shall devote a special blog to your questions.

Ciao,
Elisa and Bucky the Wonderdog

Apologies - The Met Costume Gala, Trés En retard!

DAHLINGS -

To my absolute horror, while thumbing through my diary, I discovered that I had entirely forgotten to write about the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Gala honoring their new show, "King of Fashion," celebrating the work of Paul Poiret, on May 7th! (I suspect that Bucky, who was not allowed to go in the wake of his defense of moi from Andre Leon Talley, hid the diary...it does look slightly chewed.)

But better late than never, say I. And while this might not have the freshness of the dew on the rose (unlike myself), I promise it will be most informative.

For those not in the know (and that included 90% of the guests and possibly Anna Wintour, our hostess), Paul Poiret was the self proclaimed "King of Fashion" prior to World War One, and reigned supreme among couturiers until late in the 1920s. His greatest achievement is thought to be freeing women from corsets, creating sinuous garments that celebrated the female form, rather than squashing it into various unnatural shapes.



Not that it had much influence on most of what the guests were wearing. One walked up the red carpet amidst a swarm of screaming paparazzi, to where huge gilded cages held four peacocks looking quite miserable, amid a hedge of red roses. I wore a self-designed Poiret-inspired frock of red silk, heavily trimmed with red and black bugle beads, and plunging in the back.

Along with darling Anna, Cate Blanchett was our co-hostess. Anna looked quite marvelous in Chanel (she is shown here with some lackey from the Institute), but CATE--the horror! The horror!





It is quite obvious that Cate is taking this clavicle idea too far! (Not to mention the fact that she looks like she might have been snorting some of the peacock poo...one has heard it has quite a buzz.)

My dear, darling friend Andre Leon Talley was there, all hugs and kisses. He has completely forgiven me for having Bucky attack him. Even if it was in self-defense. And I've had to pay mountains of medical bills AND buy Andre a new suit.

We embraced like the long-lost comrades we were, and I bit my tongue rather than say anything about the rather ridiculous long blue cape he was wearing. (My first thought was, that since he was with his protege' Jennifer Hudson, perhaps their arrangement is that one of them has to look ludicrous. But she was absolute perfection in Michael Kors.) My second thought was either Andre is up for the lead in a remake of "Blacula", or he has always secretly wanted to be Sherlock Holmes. But I merely smiled.



More to follow in a subsequent post...my assistant has just informed me that an intern from "Haute Cou-Poor" at FIT is calling, wailing something about misspelling all of the diplomas.

Ciao,
Elisa and Bucky the shamefully neglected Wonderdog