A Black and White Night
The theme was black and white but ultimately it was “anything goes” last Friday night at the Black and White Ball, San Francisco’s flashy, splashy block-party-to-end-all-block-parties.
More than 13,000 men (some in gowns) and women (some in tuxedos) twirled on half a dozen dance floors to the swingy strains of the Harry James Orchestra or the down-home Western boogie of the Texas Tornados or the miscellaneous music of dozens of other bands.
Socialite Daru Kawalkowski showed off goose bumps in the nippy air along with her jagged-hemmed, beaded, sequined and feathered Michael Casey confection. Another woman did a purple passion thing in Victor Costa, “just to be a little different.”
Short and tight was one rule; long, full and Cinderella-like was another. Secondhand elegance was big too, as were tacky and wacky. It was deja vu all over again, with at least five women wearing a black and white, short, big-sequined checkerboard number from Nordstrom.
Tents were set up at the Civic Center, and rooms were thrown open in Symphony Hall and the Opera House for the biannual fund-raiser for the San Francisco Symphony. All told, the symphony waltzed away with about $1 million.
Amid the festivities there was even a wedding on the Opera House steps. The bride wore black, natch.
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