COLUMN: Ah, the good old days... when midtown traffic control was in the bag
Does anybody remember when the surest sign of the end of season was not the Empty Your Pantry Food Drive or the discreet "Sale" signs in the Worth Avenue windows, but the bag that would cover the stoplight at Worth and County?
Once season was over, vehicles were so rare that the intersection didn't need traffic control. That bag ― first burlap, then weatherproof plastic ― stayed there until Labor Day.
Used to be that the day after Easter (and Passover, in the years when those holidays overlap or are contiguous) meant the end of season. It is a time of jubilation for the year-rounders who rhapsodized ceaselessly of the joys of available parking and packing away the dancing shoes.
But don't stash those dancing shoes yet. The social season waltzes on.
Here it is a full week after Easter, and there are two events tonight: the MOUF and the Il Circolo dinner dances. (You'll need those dancing shoes for those.)
Also in the chute? The golf luncheons, flower shows, cocktail receptions and parties for all kinds of causes ranging from children's hospitals to shelter animals. Straight through May.
Let's face it: Our monied Mayberry is no longer a paradisiacal winter resort. It's a paradisiacal year-round resort. We'll never see that burlap bag agin.
And that's not a bad thing.
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The New Forty: Natalie Mackey sure knows how to celebrate the Big Four-Oh. The founder of Winky Lux cosmetics took a whole weekend to let it sink in.
The bender ... er, "weekend" kicked off at Al Fresco for dinner and drinks on Friday night, and led into a private celebration of Natalie at the alice + olivia Palm Beach store the next morning. The alice + olivia team have been long time friends and partners of Winky Lux, and celebrated Natalie at their store with special floral cocktails honoring its newest viral product launch for their Cheeky Rose Liquid Blush. Local fashion and beauty influencers Kim Lloyd and Holland Paterno were among the celebrants at the event, which benefitted the Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida, Natalie’s favorite charity, with every purchase.
Saturday night, Natalie’s friends at The Colony Hotel helped her host the main event, where the guest list was bulging with names from the worlds of fashion, beauty and food. There: Debra Perelman, president and CEO of Revlon, Tower 28 founder Amy Liu, James Beard Foundation CEO Clare Reichenbach, Kitsch founder Cassandra Thurswell, Billie founder Georgina Gooley, Briogeo founder Nancy Twine, Eighth Day CEO (formerly of TULA) Savannah Sachs, LIVELY lingerie founder Michelle Grant, Thrive Causematics founder Karissa Bodnar, Dormify founder and president Amanda Zuckerman, and a bunch more successful female founders and CEOs.
Every table a power table that night, for sure.
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Seen ... The invitation for last night's "Trump47 Inaugural Leadership Dinner" that John Paulson and Alina Almeida hosted to raise money for Donald Trump. Got $814,600 to spare? You could have been a chairman. Only able to scrape up $250K? You could have joined the committee. Among the ante-uppers were "co-chairs" Andrea and Steve Wynn, Hilary and Wilbur Ross, Jamie McCourt, Caroline and Omeed Malik, Suzanne and Woody Johnson, Hannah and Duke Buchan, and Emilia and Pepe Fanjul. For that ticket price, we're guessing the champagne wasn't domestic.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Society: Billionaires gather to rain green on Donald Trump
