People Are Talking About (from Vogue, September 1997)

Depending on whether your host is a pop star, a princess, or the president, "evening dress" can mean radically different things. CHARLES GANDEE checks out four big nights in four big cities.++

May 22, New York City: "Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince and Princess Pavlos of Greece" were the chairmen of this year's New York City Ballet Spring Gala, which added a certain pizzazz to the evening because their royal highnesses are so young, so rich and so perfectly at ease with using their titles. Though it's open to debate whether they are also, as one of the city's most venerable gossip columnist insists, "New York's most beautiful young couple," there's no question that since being very noisily married in London two years ago they have established themselves as one of New York's most high-profile young couples. And this evening marked the debut as players on the benefit-party circuit.

Their implicit assignment was to inject "fresh blood" into the annual fund-raiser, which included a performance by the ballet for 2,800, followed by a seated dinner for 850. And they did it well, stocking the black-tie dinner-dance portion of the evening with his regal family (H.M. King Constantine and H.M. Queen Anne-Marie) and her young/fun friends, many of whom date back to when the princess was simply MC (Marie-Chantal) Miller, the second daughter of Robert Miller, king of airport duty-free shops.

It was clear from the get-go that MC took her new posts as fund-raiser and princess very seriously. Certainly she dressed for the parts- in a lemon-yellow strapless ball gown with a Scarlett O'Hara tulle skirt, courtesy of Oscar de la Renta for Balmain, that took up a lot of room. It was a fairy-tale dress, and with her hair pulled-back in an elegant little chignon the princess conjured up memories of a fairy-tale princess- say, Grace Kelly circa 1956, the year she disembarked from the S.S. Constitution to begin her new life as a princess. In other words, there was something more old-fashioned than modern about this 90s princess, an impression that was confirmed when the moment came for "their Royal Highnesses" to welcome their guests, and the princess stood silently by her man.

Chattier were her young/fun friends, especially the group of girls-about-town who look as if they spend their fays going from Garren and Klinger to Oscar and Bill, stopping in along the way at La Perla and la masseuse. "MC called and said, 'no black,'" said Serena Boardman, who did as she was told- wearing a long strapless mint-green dress by Oscar de la Renta, who also designed the ruffled dress with the see-through bodice that Huntington Hartford's daughter, Juliette Hartford, wore with a white bra. The other two well-married Miller sisters also steered clear of black: Pia Getty wore lavender; Alexandra von Furstenberg wore white.

Among the die-hards who hoisted the flag for basic black were veterans of the benefit circuit Alba Clemente, Veronica Hearst, and Carolyne Roehm. (Though at first glance it looked as if Blaine Trump was also wearing black, she was actually wearing navy). As the society-page assortment of names suggests, this was an Upper East Side sort of night- no matter that the Lincoln Center is on the West Side, or that the newly svelte Isaac Mizrahi, who lives in Greenwich Village, was there with the ever-svelte Shalom Harlow, who also lives in Greenwich Village. Though larger-than-life restaurateur Warner Le Roy's voluptuous date cut quite a swath in va-va-va-voom Versace, as did Baywatch star Yasmine Bleeth in Badgley Mischka, to my eye, the standout of the evening was neither of these curvaceous creatures, nor the demure princess, but Anne Bass, one of the evening's "Diamond Benefactors" (meaning she paid $25,000 for her table). Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed that Bass was determined to show the kids how it's done by waltzing in, with her perfect posture and Mona Lisa smile, in the same show-stopping gown Nicole Kidman wore to the Oscars. True, we've all seen the dazzling acid-green mink-trimmed dress by John Galliano for Christian Dior Couture; on the other hand, it takes a certain kind of woman to wear a dress that costs more than a Diamond Benefactor's table to a party filled with people who can identify that dress from across a crowded dance floor. Bass is that kind of woman. But not only is she self-confident, she also has a way with words. "Why did you wear that dress?" I asked. "Because I wanted to be invisible," said Bass, whose sense of humor is second only to her sense of style.

++I have only included the section of the article regarding Crown Princess Pavlos, since it's a fairly fat article.