Sofia Coppola was Thinking Pink for Les Arts Décoratifs Ball

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17 hours ago

Before guests stepped into the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris on Sunday night for the inaugural Bal d'Été, stickers were affixed to the lenses of their smartphone cameras so they wouldn't take pictures of the potted palms and crystal chandeliers decorating the central nave; of the round tables set with flickering votives and gobsmacking arrangements of flowers and fruit; of the chrysanthemums frozen into the ring of ice used to ferry oval scoops of strawberry ice cream to the strawberry tarts for dessert; or of Sophia Coppola, a vision in Chanel haute couture and bouncy hair, arriving at a party completely art directed by her, from the fiery rose dinner napkins to the blistering after-party set by pop band Phoenix, fronted by her husband Thomas Mars.
It was lovely, evoking a pre-Instagram era where you simply had to savor how stunning Diane Kruger looked in her pale, fluttering Alberta Ferretti gown; the spectacle of Jordan Roth arriving in a Valentino couture gown that required four men to manage the train; and the surprising ingredients that went into Total Madness, a vodka-based cocktail created by Colin Field, the famous bartender from the Hemingway at the Ritz.
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'I just stepped in. It looks gorgeous,' Kirsten Dunst, the star of Coppola's 'Marie Antoinette' and 'Virgin Suicides' said as she shimmied between the closely spaced dinner tables in a silver sequin gown.
'It's stunning,' concurred makeup artist Pat McGrath, eying the dense, pink and red table arrangements by Belgian florist Thierry Boutemy. 'There's a lot of lipstick inspiration, and also perfume inspiration here,' she enthused.
Penelope Cruz, Keira Knightley and a host of fashion designers including Pieter Mulier, Zac Posen, Julie de Libran and Gabriela Hearst piled into the party, pausing for official portraits amid carefully arranged greenery and copious delphiniums.
'I glammed up for once,' said Hearst, wearing a strapless blue gown of her own design and singing the praises of Les Arts Decoratifs.
'The recent Christofle exhibit that they did was mind-blowing,' she said. 'There are very few places in the world were you can visit the treasure chest of how beautiful things are made.'
'Everything can be looked at for its esthetic beauty – toys, shoes, flowers, chests of drawers, cookware,' Roth concurred.
'My favorite show here was the Maharaja show, it was to die for,' said Betty Catroux, referring to the 2019 exhibition at Les Arts Décoratifs that shed light on the life of art patron Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar II, who became Maharaja of Indore in 1930.
Opera singer Pretty Yende, who performed 'O mio babbino caro' to the rapt room, said 18th-century interiors are her favorite, and she was relishing the opulence of the dinner decor. 'It's colorful, it's beautiful. It's so warm in the room. I love it.'
Told that the Paris museum's collection spans from furniture, tableware, textiles and jewelry to toys, advertising, drawings and photographs, Knightley exclaimed: 'Maybe I should visit the chairs!'
The English actress, also in Paris to attend the Chanel haute couture show, said she would start work on season 2 of the spy thriller 'Black Doves' in about a month. 'We're filming in London and around, I should imagine.'
No summer holidays yet either for Kruger, who has about 10 days of filming left in Spain for 'Each of Us,' a drama about the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp during the final days of the Second Word War. 'So this is quite a departure,' she commented.
Paloma Picasso fondly recalled a trawl through the museums's archives a few years back when she was working on the scenery a theater production set in the 1910s. 'They didn't have the cushions, but they had the drawings of the cushions,' she said.
The Bal d'Été, which helped kick off Paris Couture Week, helped raise funds for upcoming exhibitions, which will include '1925-2025: One Hundred Years of Art Deco,' slated to open on Oct. 22.
Launch Gallery: Inside Sofia Coppola's Grand Bal Opening Couture Week in Paris
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