Fit to Be (Black) Tied - Part 1

Last night I attended the first of two black tie events I'll attend in as many weeks. This one, an awards dinner for the World Monument Fund, was held at the Plaza Hotel. The WMF is an organization that collects money and uses it to arrange for the preservation of important cultural monuments around the world. They also organize trips, lead by historians and architects, designed to expose people to some of the incredible buildings and works of art in need of protection and reconstruction. Ed's grandmother get involved in the organization in the late 1980's. Her first trip was to Cambodia immediately after the Khmer Rouge toppled. Ed described for me a photograph of his Texan grandmother standing in front of a temple, sharply dressed, elegantly coiffed, and closely followed by a tiny Cambodian personal bodyguard holding a machine gun. Everyone on the trip was required to have an armed escort back then. Far from being deterred, she maintained involvement in the WMF, which Ed's mother has taken over. Ed's been on three trips with them (China, Cambodia, and Turkey) and he says that they're great but exhausting. An expert, usually a professor or historian, accompanies them throughout the trip, giving lectures and leading them through various important sites. 

The Grand Ballroom where we had dinner. It was too dark to get a good picture, so this one is from a website. We had long tables instead of small, round ones, and there were screens set up on either side of a stage at the front of the room where we watched film clips and slideshows during dinner and the presentations.

Ed's mother provided our very expensive tickets for last night's event. She told Ed it would be a good networking opportunity. First on the agenda was a cocktail hour, where we chatted with the president of Tiffany and Co.'s outreach programming and her husband, an international journalist. Out of the corner of my eye, I kept an eye on the crowd. The room was slowly filling with women in furs and floor-length gowns and men in tuxedos. It was all very glamorous. We were told that the former secretary of the UN was wandering around somewhere, and Bill Cunningham, eminent fashion photographer for The New York Times, was darted in and out of groups of people taking pictures. Ed had predicted that we'd be the youngest people in the room. I kept spotting people who looked to be about our age, but as the evening progressed, it became clear that they were all either photographers or WMF employees. 

Marcela Pérez de Cuéllar

Dinner in the Grand Ballroom followed. The room was absolutely opulent. The Watch Award was given while we ate our salads - artful piles of beets and green beans garnished with a few olives and some sort of leafy thing. Its purpose is to honor someone remarkable for their "individual preservation advocacy and activism." Marcela Pérez de Cuéllar was the recipient. She is the former first lady of Peru and is married to the former UN secretary (which explains his presence at the cocktail hour). She was very graceful and classy.




Dinner followed. Having noted that the main course was to be beef, I flagged down a waiter, who attentively listened to my concerns and gravely told me that I needn't worry because he was going to be certain to take care of it. I got a huge piece of salmon with some sort of cabbage on the side, while everyone else cut into succulent-looking pieces of steak, a mushroom medley, and what looked like a layered piece of puff pastry. We were seated next to the head of the South American WMF division, a tiny, very nice Peruvian woman with a degree from Columbia in preservation architecture who spent the dinner trying to sell us on a trip to Peru. We talked about Africa and some of Ed's travels, as well. 

Mr. and Mrs. Lauder

The Hadrian Award was presented over dessert - pieces of a chocolate torte with raspberry puree. It recognises "international leaders who have advanced the understanding, appreciation, and preservation of the world’s art and architecture." Ronald and Jo Carole Lauder - Ronald is Estee Lauder's son - were the recipients. They were introduced by Alma Powell, otherwise known as Mrs. Colin Powell, apparently an old friend of theirs. They each gave speeches and we watched a brief film about their accomplishments. Then suddenly everything was over, so Ed and I crowded into the coat room, then an ornate elevator, and went to the after party. It was held at a Peruvian restaurant called La Mar, which, we were told, has fantastic ceviche. We tried to order martinis but were handed sour, frothy Peruvian cocktails instead. There were a few representatives from the dinner at the restaurant, but mostly it was a younger crowd. After some obligatory mingling, we decided to call it a night.


It was an interesting and enjoyable evening. I have certainly never before had the chance to rub elbows with so many of New York's elite, and in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza no less. And of course it is always fun to get dressed up. I was sorry that we didn't get to meet more people because of our table assignments for dinner, but I'm not sure what I would have found to talk about with most of the crowd anyway. Next Thursday, Ed and I are going to a formal event at the Metropolitan Museum. A friend of his is coming with a date, so already we know more people going into it than we did for the WMF gala, and it should be a younger crowd in general. Aside from that, there's something enormously appealing about getting donning formal wear and sipping cocktails in a museum.