Apparently the recently retired Valentino isn't ready to put down his sketch pad just yet. "I'm thinking about making dance costumes," announced the designer at the New York City Ballet's Wednesday-night gala. "I just love the ballet so much." Holding a bronzed hand at knee level, he added, "I've been going since I was this high." Coincidentally, that was roughly the height of some of the ballerinas in the night's performance, a company-wide tribute to the late NYCB choreographer Jerome Robbins. His ever popular The Four Seasons, set to Verdi, was bookended by West Side Story Suite and Igor Stravinsky's Circus Polka, which featured the aforementioned "tiny dancers" (students of the School of American Ballet) doing their best pliés and pirouettes. "Gala night is really important because you get people who don't usually come to the ballet," said event chairwoman Charlotte Moss. "So if you can give them a good mix, maybe they'll be in the theater more." Or, at the very least, open their wallets (this year's party raised $2.2 million).

After the last of many encores, social types like Fe Fendi, Nina Griscom, Frédéric Fekkai and Shirin von Wulffen, Alexandra Lebenthal, and Peggy Siegal filed out of the theater and into Lincoln Center's cavernous Promenade for a grand banquet that was as smoothy choregraphed as the performance itself. The only brief hiccup occurred when Lauren Bacall learned of her seat assignment. "I'm at table 108," she said. "Where is that? The boondocks?" Actually, it was on the terrace. Next to Valentino.

— Evelyn Crowley