Big Ball Gowns in Ball Town

This weekend, all over Manhattan, there are women, getting their hair high lighted, faces misted with oxygen, readying their jewels, having a final fitting and waiting for their gowns for Monday night's Met Gala celebrating Charles James. 

Not much has changed since Kitty, the Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina readied herself for a ball...

And this years dress code calling for white tie and decorations will be a beautiful step into the past, with the men in tails and the women donning some serious silk.

From Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and a view onto Monday evening's Met gala...

THE BALL was only just beginning as Kitty and her mother walked up the great staircase, flooded with light, and lined with flowers and footmen in powder and red coats. From the rooms came a constant, steady hum, as from a hive, and the rustle of movement; and while on the landing between trees they gave last touches to their hair and dresses before the mirror...

Although her dress, her coiffure, and all the preparations for the ball had cost Kitty great trouble and consideration, at this moment she walked into the ballroom in her elaborate tulle dress over a pink slip as easily and simply as though all the rosettes and lace, all the minute details of her attire, had not cost her or her family a moment’s attention, as though she had been born in that tulle and lace, with her hair done up high on her head, and a rose and two leaves on the top of it.

It was one of Kitty’s best days. Her dress was not uncomfortable anywhere; her lace berthe did not droop anywhere; her rosettes were not crushed nor torn off; her pink slippers with high, hollowed-out heels did not pinch, but gladdened her feet; and the thick rolls of fair chignon kept up on her head as if they were her own hair. All the three buttons buttoned up without tearing on the long glove that covered her hand without concealing its lines. The black velvet of her locket nestled with special softness round her neck. That velvet was delicious; at home, looking at her neck in the looking-glass, Kitty had felt that that velvet was speaking. About all the rest there might be doubt, but the velvet was delicious. Kitty smiled here too, at the ball, when she glanced at it in the glass. Her bare shoulders and arms gave Kitty a sense of chill marble, a feeling she particularly liked...

I can imagine Kitty in this Dolce e Gabbana Alta Moda dress made of tulle and handmade silk flowers... 

love, kisses and tulle, ribbons, lace and flowers, Juliana