Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
It’s already spring at the top fund-raising parties of late. Floral prints and gowns in purple, pink, and orange are perennial favorites, but the fresh look this year is green.
“I think green is becoming something. It’s not the new black yet, but it’s popping up because it’s underused,” one of the chairwomen of the American Museum of Natural History’s Junior Council Winter Ball, Claire Bernard, said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Ms. Bernard, who is studying for an MFA in fiction from Columbia University, wore a turquoise-green Versace gown to the ball, which had a “desert oasis” theme – also the theme of the ball’s sponsor Versace’s spring collection.
There’s a business logic to being a few months ahead sartorially. “It’s what’s in stores now and also, the fashion magazines that photograph these events want to see us in the spring collections,” she said.
Wearing spring and summer greens is also a psychologically uplifting fashion strategy.
“I feel like spring is around the corner,” the director of the Frick Collection, Anne Poulet, said at the opening Tuesday of the Goya exhibit.
“Green symbolizes hope,” Stephanie Hebes,a guest at the Frick opening, said.
Green women included, at the Natural History museum, Amanda Hearst, Tinsley Mortimer, and Minnie Mortimer, who looked ready to jump into the famed dioramas; Anne Baker, Ros L’Esperance, and Phoebe Gubelmann at the Museum of the City of New York ball, and New York City Ballet dancer Melissa Barak at the School of American Ballet gala.
For the ladies who aren’t ready to dress forward on the calendar, dark shades of green have strong appeal right now.
“There is a richness, a sophistication, an intensity in a deep winter green that comes through no matter the textile, from charmeuse to velvet,” designer Lyn Devon said. A wonderful example was a blouse worn by Julia Stiles to Ms. Devon’s fashion show earlier this month.
“Emerald green seemed like the perfect color to wear in a season when everyone is wearing black. It felt fresh, so new,” the accessories editor at Harper’s Bazaar, Ana Maria Pimentel, who wore Gucci to the Natural History museum’s party, said.
There’s another reason why green is a fitting color to wear to these events – the fact that they all raise money for the institutions that organize them.
