Princess Caroline’s Social Package

Princess Caroline of Monaco is following in the footsteps of her late mother, Princess Grace, supporting cultural events and drawing tourists to that tiny principality.

At the moment the princess is totally involved in an important social package anchored by the Bal de la Rose, which this year honors the Japanese Samurai Rose on March 9 and the Chanel Gala on March 16, a black-tie champagne affair where Chanel’s entire haute couture spring-summer collection will be shown for the first time in Monte Carlo.

It’s going to be one little excursion after another followed by luncheons and dinners. The serious socializing begins March 8 when Princess Caroline opens the Needlecraft Exhibition and then it’s cocktails in the Hotel de Paris and the Monegasque Night of dinner and dancing. The next day the princess and her group (a lot of them from Texas) visit the Old Town of Monaco, watch the changing of the guard at the palace and lunch in the Old Town up on the rock. That evening it’s the Bal de la Rose, an event that’s second only to the annual Red Cross Gala in glamour.

Sunday there’s a Japanese lunch at the Hotel Ermitage and the next day a dinner at the Chevre d’Or in Eze-Village. And after that there’s an excursion to the flower market in Nice, to the famous Colombe d’Or in Saint Paul de Vence and to a perfume factory in nearby Grasse. The following day the itinerary includes a stop at the Exotic Gardens of Monaco, a backstage visit to the Opera House and dinner plus a show at the Casino’s Cabaret. A day later they’ve planned a trip into Italy, to the market in Ventimiglia and lunch in San Remo. Back in Monte Carlo that afternoon there’s a visit to Sotheby’s Decorative Arts Exhibitions Salon, a cocktail party also at Sotheby’s and a dinner dance at the Hotel de Paris.

Saturday it’s the Chanel Gala in the Salle des Etoiles. And on the last day the schedule calls for lunch in the Hotel Ermitage’s Salle Belle Epoque and a chance to take in the Sotheby’s auction.

That will be more than enough for the visitors. But the princess goes on to plan the performing arts Spring Festival in April. This year she has condensed the festival into two weeks of concerts and ballet.

The advisory board and staff of the Rape Treatment Center has invited members of SHARE to brunch at Santa Monica Hospital on Wednesday. And as their thank you, SHARE president Sandra Moss and board chairman Judy Feder and the rest of the SHARE ladies present will turn over a check for $60,000 to the center’s founder-director, Gail Abarbanel. The money is slated to be used for the playroom where the experts supervise play therapy for sexually abused children. We’re told Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner plans to be there when the dollars change hands.

Up in the open space dining room at the Temporary Contemporary, Richard Koshalek, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, hosted yet another of his irregular little luncheons. This one was for Count Giuseppe Panza de Biumo, the famed Italian collector of contemporary art, and his wife, Giovanna Rosa. The festive affair also helped remind everyone that Panza’s collection opens with parties on Saturday and Sunday and is part of a three-collection exhibition at the Temporary Contemporary. (The exhibit opens to the public Wednesday.) Dr. Panza has designed and is supervising the installation of his collection. The luncheon, a work of art itself, was catered by Tout Sweet and included prosciutto and buffalo milk mozzarella on a bed of spinach and watercress and grilled eggplant. The lucky guests included MOCA trustees Lennie Greenberg and Bea Gersh; MOCA senior curator Julia Brown; art patron Laura Lee Woods; Sherri Geldin; Progressive Architecture’s senior editor Pilar Viladas; Julia Lazar, curator for media and performing arts at MOCA, and Alma Ruiz, assistant to MOCA’s director.

The Social Scramble: Mrs. Arthur Carlsberg and Mrs. George Peeke host the Americana Associates luncheon Feb. 27 (at the Carlsberg home) where artist France Assetto will speak about artistic things and Neiman-Marcus will put on a spring fashion show.

Sybil Brand, California Secretary of State March Fong Eu and Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson, the Palmstead Theatre Society and the James M. Nederlander Organization are all hosts for Sunday night’s dedication of the Henry Fonda Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

Philippe Venet, the French designer who just won the Golden Thimble Award in Paris, and Gerard Riveron, partner and designer for Geneva’s Eric Bertrand Joallier, will both be at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel next week with their collections.

Dr. Jim Bonnoris and his wife Lucy Zahran and Laurance Rockefeller and his wife Mary were all relaxing last week at Little Dick’s Bay, the Rockefeller-owned Caribbean resort. And now that vacation time is over, Lucy has plunged, as only she can, into plans for her second Lucy Zahran table-top shop (crystal, silver, porcelain, etc.). The new shop will be ready to open sometime in late summer at the Beverly Center, right alongside Bullock’s.

Liza Minnelli is giving a little dinner party Feb. 28 to celebrate her father, Vincente Minnelli’s 82nd birthday.