marthajefferson:history meme : 05/?? moments | the Night of September 3rd, 1951The night in que

marthajefferson:history meme : 05/?? moments | the Night of September 3rd, 1951The night in question has gone down in history as Tʜᴇ Bᴀʟʟ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Cᴇɴᴛᴜʀʏ , an orgy of luxury and excess - and those who were there were so consumed by the opulence and theatricality that they had no reason to care.Taking place in his Venetian Palace on the Grand Canal, the host, Count Carlos de Beistegui, was apparently too eccentric to have many friends, but that hardly stopped the upper crust from gossiping about the upcoming Italian fête for months leading up to it. “At the time, Beistegui’s fête seemed like a moral indecency,” David Herbert, the British socialite would later write. Perhaps Cocteau put it most neatly when he said of the half a billion francs Beistegui was spending: “It costed about as much as a warplane, and I prefer a ball.”Venice never had and never would again see anything like it. Over the coming days the city would witness the sort of grandiosity, imperious behaviour and outrageous displays of opulence not seen since the days of the doges. A thousand guests attended, including Salvador Dali, Christian Dior, Gene Tierney or Orson Wells, and many that weren’t invited arrived by yacht, desperately anchoring at the Venice Lido in the hopes of an invitation or a way in. Everyone dressed as “retro aristocrats”, and arrived via gondola, in an almost surreal atmospher, reminiscent of the Venetian life immediately before the fall of the republic at the end of the 18th century. Every window in the palace was lit the same way it would have been in the 18th century, and not by electricity. Even the private detective who screened each guest on arrival was in period clothes. Anyone who did not adhere to the dress code was quickly whisked out of sight, though most people had invested months and huge sums in their costumes.A night that will live long in the memory of each of the guest… -- source link

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