The History of the Costume Institute

Speranza

"The sponsors" -- CHANEL AND CONDE NAST had paid the estimated $2 million cost of that year's party -- "give a lot of money," Rafferty told the NEW YORK magazine, "and we make sure they're satisfied."

Anna's party -- as it would henceforth be known -- struck a new balance between Art, Commerce, and Society.

"At the Costume Institute Ball, it is real taste that counts," NEW YORK wrote.

So, "in the end, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is happy to overlook the implicit or implicated commercialism. After all it gets to play host to a lot of those super-rich benefactors. And amid all the bedazzlement and air-kissing, who would be so crass as to mention a little thing like commercialism?"

Certaintly not Montebello or the de la Rentas, who knew that their producdt, too was being sold.