Putting well-known names on invitations and tip sheets is a standard way of publicizing a charity event in New York. The promise of clinking glasses with an actor or a socialite brings out a larger crowd to bid on whatever is being auctioned off, and ultimately brings in more money for the cause. Everybody wins.

But then there is the shameful practice of advertising glittering guests who have not in fact confirmed that they’re attending.  read more »

When Park Avenue Peerage posted an item about the Young Fellows of the Frick Collection gala yesterday, the site’s commenters went a little nuts.  read more »

Today’s—air quotes—1 p.m. Rebecca Taylor show in the Salon at Bryant Park had three distinct, carefully orchestrated parts. One involved folks sitting in chairs and watching Ms. Taylor’s clothes go back and forth. Another section was comprised of models wearing the clothes and stomping on a gold-sequin runway. And the third component, of which we were an integral part, included some 50 people holding meaningless purple flashcards for 45 minutes in a fountainside corral.  read more »

On a sunny Tuesday morning in early January, a strange noise was echoing through Ally Hilfiger’s apartment, a one-bedroom condo located in the faddish badlands of SoHo’s western frontier. “It’s the tailor,” said Ms. Hilfiger, motioning toward a closed door from her cozy perch on a white Art Deco love seat.

Before the interruption, Ms. Hilfiger, the 22-year-old daughter of the designer Tommy Hilfiger who herself dabbles in design and fine arts, had been describing a sentiment she shares with a small subset of female New Yorkers: women who are born of wealth, committed to various charitable causes and creative pursuits, but who claim they are weary of the flash of Patrick McMullan’s cameras, in search of a more … bohemian sensibility. These are not Upper East Siders with pageboys and pearl chokers, sitting on museum boards but living below 14th Street, in their own Petit Hameaux replete with easels, dress forms or turntables.  read more »

Like a mighty rainstorm over the parched Sahara, yesterday’s Page Six Magazine profile of Byrdie Bell offered sweet promise to Manhattan’s socialite landscape, which has grown decidedly athirst for new blood. And though Ms. Bell’s been around, smiling for Patrick McMullan at glittery galas for a few years now, our understanding of her was just that—rather two dimensional. Not so anymore. In just three short pages, Gawker’s soon-to-depart Joshua David Stein gives us exactly what the social doctor ordered.

Leave it to the Post to title the piece “Byrdie of Paradise,” whose pictures of the 22-year-old are attended by—what else?—exotic birds. But beside the photos, readers learn not only that Ms. Bell understands that affection is often expressed with puke, but in the lyrical styling of her musical-social boyfriend, James “Bingo” Gubelmann, too: “Bella was bored to death at South Beach/Not one celebrity spotted in days/She was tired of her mood/Lunchin’ on vegan food.” The article even goes so far as to compare the “youngest in an almost Biblical line of society jewels” to Brooke Astor, Mona von Bismarck and Lauren Hutton.  read more »

At the Carlyle Hotel on Monday, ubiquitous New York socialites Marjorie Gubelmann, Jennifer Creel and Byrdie Bell celebrated the launch of Rodial’s Glamatox—a skin cream that calls itself “the glamorous alternative to Botox.” (Katie Holmes, Gisele Bundchen and Uma Thurman have all succumbed to the charms of Rodial skincare products, which use "Pomegranate Ellagic Tannin, with its natural anti-ageing, firming and collagen-boosting properties" to get results.)  read more »