A Note About The Translation:

This translation was done mainly by Babelfish. I have revised a lot of it, but there are a few chunks I'm still polishing up.

COSTUME INSTITUTE GALA

Once again this finery fulfilled slogan that it has catalogued it like "the" celebration of the year. The glamourous dresses, magnificent jewels, (rutilantes) figures of the art and the social life animated this average evening that reunited a million and of dollars for the Museum of Metropolitan Art of New York.

As you travel the almost fifty steps that separate the Fifth Avenue of the formidable front doors of the Museum of Metropolitan Art, in New York, were used for most dramatic, the most romantic and glamorous appearances, guests of the annual Costume Institute Gala of the Museum talk about the extraordinary celebration in Manhattan as "the celebration of the year ". In those steps, Willem Dafoe jumped, jumped, ran and smiled for the press. Claudia Schiffer , spectacular in a long and fitted dress fucsia with a green chal on his arms, put time and time again for the cameras and the photographers next to David Copperfield who, as he is not strange between the inhabitants of the Upper East Side of New York, seems to see more young every year.

Barbara the Walters raised as if outside an empress, a queen mother, surrounded in the most complicated adjustment of tafetas and embroiders, with the golden hair and the perfect smile, demonstrating that glamour and intelligence are not, for a woman like her, enemy. A little more back, laughing like an adolescent, gorgeous and ultrachic, appeared Anna Wintour , publisher head of " Vogue ", with flat a long and ample dress of silver-plated, a short jacket of mink, sandals, the nails of the very red feet and an extraordinary diamond necklace.

Her adversary in " Harpers Bazaar ", Liz Tilberis , arrived next to her husband, Andrew, with a so simple and elegant blue dress of flat, that she bordered on boredom. The arrival of the Tilberis was offset by the presence of Sarah Ferguson , who with his good natured and amused character, its good disposition to stop itself a flash, any flash, and its compulsive tendency to say exactly what thinks without measuring consequences, has become one of the favorite prey of the North American press. And that night the present journalists did not undergo a disillusionment. The Duchess appeared radiating, accompanied of the photographer Patrick Demarchelier and his woman Mia , with a black dress column that not only left its pale ones and (pecosos) shoulders at sight but that, in addition, made clear that the spokeswoman of Weight Watchers has been a surprising success with her regime. The Ferguson, with her sensational pómulos, her green eyes and the reddish hair a blonder, long and smooth tone, was simply seen as spectacular. And, like Anna Wintour , her nails of her feet were shown under her provocatively red dress, the unequivocal proof which shows that the revolt of the Duchess has been only domesticated, but not eradicated.

Youngest

The temperature record of that night of December, with almost 25 degrees and one smooth and spring breeze that nothing had to do with the winter which the New Yorkers are accustomed to, allowed that the present stars and celebrities could shine with more skin and less covering than in previous years. Sigourney Weaver , that with almost fifty years continues being one of the most beautiful women of Hollywood, seems arranged to take revenge itself of the publishers of " People ", who some months ago chose it between " stars worse dressed the year ". Good, now Sigourney appeared in a long dress of Prada with applications of acrylic that caused that that journalistic injustice acquired epic dimensions.

Liv Tyler, also arrived with discovered shoulders and a pair from hoops and a bracelet from diamonds that she had acquired, that same afternoon, in the jewelry shop of Fred Leighton . " What wonder to have a young and pretty girl here! ", Leighton exclaimed when he saw her enter, " would have to see some of the women who enter ". The most beautiful actress, with the short and dark hair and his very commented lips in pale coffee, was probably the glamorous European publisher of " Vogue ", always dandy Hamish Bowles , in a flaming beige Scottish smoking in tones and coffee. The smoking comprises of the dozen of suits that Bowles ended in " Sotheby?s " in London in last January, all pertaining to the wardrobe of the legendary Bunny Roger that used to visit famous sastrería Watson, Fargerstrom & Hughes in that city.

Three Chic

This year, the Costume Institute celebrated the version number 50 of this fabulous celebration originally created by energetic and dictatorial Diana Vreeland and the opening of its sample " Fashion and Cubism ", that was opened to public the past 10 of December. During years, the finery had like only host to Pat Buckley , but for some time, when the Buckley decided that the responsibility was too great and that the celebration had acquired sufficient publicity, the task has been distributed between important figures of the fashion, the finances and the social life. Also, of course, the roll has become the ideal springboard for whatever it tries to raise the highest steps of the anxious and strict social life of the city. The last year was the turn of Julia Koch , the attractive wife of the multimillionaire David Koch , who since then has disappeared to dedicate himself to his new born daughter and the decoration of his apartment, the same one that until years ago occupied Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

In this occasion, the hosts were Miuccia Prada, not only because she is one of the most influential designers of the decade, but because her "maison" paid for a great part of the costs of the celebration; Pia Getty, the oldest of the Miller sisters, married to the heir Christopher Getty; and the widow of the missing Mexican tycoon Emilio Azcárraga, Paula Cussi, who was presented/displayed by the executives of the museum like "collector of contempory art" and is the founder of the Center Cultural/Contempory Art".

Of course, whatever í is him do although it is a column with respect to the Cussi, she knows that its history goes m much á s all á. Extraspilled Mexican conoci or to Azcárraga when he was a potent financier due 6n or, among other things, of the Television chain. Paula ten í to 18 to 6n and worked to you reading the weather report in the reporter of Echo. " to quer í In the beginning an that read the news, but like mov í to much the head when him í when teleprompter, decided to give me to the hor or scopo because the phrases were short ms á s ".

The romance commenced just a short time after, causing great Scandal in Mexico. Azcárraga was twenty to 6n you greater than she, and puts í to a fortune that with time lleg either to both billion of d or lares. Worse to ú n, Azc á rraga was married. Both lived together during 18 to 6n you; finally they married, s either to divorce seven to 6n you despu é s. the tycoon abandon or, like no, by a smaller woman. During their life in com ú n, the Azc á rraga dedicated to great part of their time and its money to the arts. In the offices of Television in New York, the employees they joked saying that when Paula DEC í to " I go of shopping ",volv í to with bags of " Christie?s " and " full Sotheby?s " of Picasso and Mir or. With time, the millionaire cre either its cultural center the one that convirti or in one of the important ms á s of rich Latinoam é, obtaining international recognition and organizing samples of Mexican artists like fot or graphs Lola and Manuel Brave Alvarez, or the painter Sea í to Left. The Cussi tambi é n cre either a magazine of art, " Knowledge To see ", and particip or actively in and particip either actively in exhibition "México: splendor of thirty centuries", in the Museum of Metropolitan Art. Nevertheless, neither their cultural center nor his collection survived the death of Azcárraga, in 1997. Soon after the son of the industralist, Jean, in an attempt to reduce the costs of the empire of his father, cerr either the center and sold the works. Single Paula qued either, without m own á s compa 6n í to that its Cezanne, Mir or, Pollock and other important paintings pertaining to his private collection. Surely the 400 million dollars obtained by the sale of his participation in Television.

The night of the finery, with Miuccia Prada to a side and Pia Getty to the other, Paula Cussi parecí to list to initiate new and shining stage in its life. The guests watched it with a mixture of curiosity, sympathy, and admiration, as if an extra bird had landed in the garden. The supper took place in a garden of European Sculptures decorated by Robert Isabell with French black roses and aubergine tulips fixed in octogon art deco vases. There were also candles and candelabra throughout.

They menú consisted of in tricolor caviar, smoky cake of salmon and vodka; zapallo stuffed with foie gras and quails accompanied with rice and cranberries; and a dessert of sorbet of mandarin and chocolate pieces with sweetened leaves of mint and violets. At ten o'clock the museum doors reopened so that the guests to the dance whereupon sigui entered either the evening that, in cuesti or n of hours, logr or to collect mill or n and means of d or lares for the museum.

Manuel Santelices, correspondent. Photos M. Santelices and agencies.