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.
Pre-Summer Swanning at ABT
By wearing white to the American Ballet Theatre’s gala opening night on Monday, the town’s most fashionable women preempted both June brides and that stodgy little rule about wearing white before Memorial Day.
“I’ve never worn white before, I always wear black,” Tara Milne said, “but I fell in love with this dress.” As for wearing the color before the holiday that unofficially marks the start of summer: “I didn’t think of that. Does it matter? It doesn’t matter to me,” she said.
Mrs. Milne and her husband, John, a private equity fund manager, gave $1 million to support the ballet company’s new production of Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” which will have its world premiere on June 1. Excerpts of that production and others from the company’s season were danced at the gala.
It was clear the Memorial Day rule was made to be broken: In a crowd of 1200 guests, more than two-dozen women wore white or champagne, among them actress Lynda Carter, best known for her role as television’s “Wonder Woman,” and Upper East Side boutique owner Nina Griscom.
One of the lovely things about this fashion moment was that it seemed like serendipity: there was no directive on the invitation to wear white, and the co-chairwomen of the event — Susan Fales-Hill, Sloan Lindemann Barnett, and Tory Burch — did not wear white.
Ms. Fales-Hill, in fact, seemed most concerned with the color of money.
“We raised $4.6 million tonight,” she said. Yet she wasn’t satisfied. “Someone at my table reminded me that the Robin Hood Foundation raised $73 million in one night. Well, I have a cup. It says, ‘Brother, can you spare $10 million?”
Ms. Fales-Hill’s remarks reminded all that this wasn’t just a party, but an occasion for charity. She cited the aphorism, “You make a living by what you get, you make a life from what you give.”
Her words may not have been out of place at a wedding, but, thankfully, none of the women wearing white looked like wannabe brides. Young women wore their dresses short to avoid any confusion.
“‘Swan Lake’ is one of my favorite ballets, and I’m very inspired by costumes, so maybe subconsciously that’s why I wore white,” an interior design student at Parsons, Danielle Mastrangelo, said. This summer, she added, she will work for American Ballet Theatre dancer Ethan Stiefel’s program in Martha’s Vineyard.
By then, no one will question the propriety of an alabaster-hued frock.
