The difference between the galas at Tanglewood and the Parrish Art Museum this weekend can be summed up in the napkin rings.

In Southampton Village on Saturday, the president and chief creative director of Coach, Reed Krakoff, placed green leather cuffs with silver clasps around the linens – a sophisticated extravagance (and strategic product placement) that was emblematic of the Manhattan and Hamptons lifestyles.

In the Berkshires, a simple band of twigs held together that essential table accessory, which also perfectly fit the summer music venue, tucked away in the woods.

It wasn’t how the napkins looked on the table that counted. It was what happened when the rings came off. The napkins inevitably headed to guests’ laps. The twigs, more or less, were cast aside. The green cuffs were vigilantly stashed away for safekeeping. Indeed, most guests at the Parrish gala were scouting for extra cuffs. Throughout the first course, conversation turned to negotiations over who would get to walk away with a complete set for the dinner table at home. Those who lost out made sure to secure the jumbo Coach canvas bags, hanging on the backs of the chairs, that were specially designed for the Parrish Art Museum.

The game of “Gimme” seemed thematically appropriate for the museum, which is embarking on an ambitious plan to build a new home for itself. On Friday the museum announced that for $3.8 million it had purchased 14 acres in Water Mill, where it plans to build an 80,000-square-foot structure. The museum currently occupies a one-story red brick structure of 17,000 square feet.

The museum’s director, Trudy Kramer, said that the Parrish has already raised almost $40 million for the new building and that the board was very close to selecting an architect.

The new home will have better climate control and more room for the museum’s collection of contemporary art.

During dinner, Ms. Kramer and the museum’s chairman, the famed advertising art director Alvin Chereskin, introduced a slide show featuring famous artists who have painted in the Hamptons, such as Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner, Jane Freilicher, and Larry Rivers. The content was serious but the music played during the presentation was lighthearted: the “Peanuts” theme song.

The cooks in the tent served up another winning Glorious Food meal: beef, grilled asparagus, and corn pudding – very similar to the entree at the New York Botanical Garden’s Conservatory Ball.

With the meal under way and all the napkins rings accounted for, guests turned their attention to the overall design of the tent by Mr. Krakoff. In the middle of a tent was a real tree poking out through the ceiling. White cloth draped the ceiling, and the walls were covered in garden lattice. The color scheme was green and white, including a white dance floor with a green trim around the border, and dozens of topiaries in white wood planters. Even the table numbers were white signs with green printing for the numbers.

“The idea was crisp and clean, a classic Southampton garden party. So you have the hedges, the boxwood. It’s inspired by our own house,” Mr. Krakoff said.

Mr. Krakoff’s wife, Delphine, is due with a boy in four weeks. For this formal affair, she wore a dress designed just for her by the Manhattan maestra of maternity wear, Liz Lange. “She doesn’t do formal wear, but I just adore her, and she was kind enough to make me some dresses,” Mrs. Krakoff said.

The event’s chairmen were Marc and Andrea Glimcher; Will Ameringer and Gordon Avard, and Franz and Bettina Burda. Honorary chairwomen were Beth Rudin DeWoody, Deborah Bancroft, and Katharina Otto-Bernstein.

The crowd was a mix of art and social figures, including the sisters who run the East Hampton gallery the Drawing Room, Victoria Munroe and Emily Goldstein (who are mounting a Jack Youngerman exhibit to coincide with the Parrish’s own exhibit of his work later this summer); Tinsley Mortimer, who’d spent the day filming a fashion segment on wedges for the Plum television network; the interior designer Richard Mishaan, who in two weeks is throwing a party with a Playboy mansion theme, and the architect Campion Platt.

The party went late, with hundreds of guests arriving after 10 p.m. for dessert and dancing.

By the way, the Coach napkin rings can be purchased, but only as part of a picnic basket priced at $2,000.