Inside the Opening Night Gala of the San Francisco Fall Show

On October 12, the San Francisco Fall Show—the West Coast’s longest running and most anticipated fine and decorative arts events—returned for its 40th anniversary with a sold-out Opening Night Gala benefitting the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Every one of the nearly 1,500 collectors, connoisseurs, designers, and arts patrons who packed Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture’s Festival Pavilion got the royal treatment—literally—with the show’s honorary co-chair, Emma Manners, Duchess of Rutland, holding court during the Ruby Jubilee celebration. The former interior designer-turned-noblewoman who oversees the business of Belvoir Castle—a stand-in for Windsor Castle on The Crown—enchanted the design savvy crowd and took her duties seriously; Her Grace nonchalantly picked up the slack when fellow honorary co-chair Hamish Bowles found himself unable to attend.

Making their way through the Grand Entry Hall, revelers were treated to four vignettes composed by designers from the Show’s Design Council—Emma Burns and Philp Hoopper from Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, David Oldroyd of ODADA, and Cathy Kincaid and Alex Papachristidis on behalf of their respective eponymous design firms. The colorful quadrants included pieces borrowed from among the 44 internationally recognized dealers who set up shop for the four-day showcase, as well as bespoke wall coverings from show sponsor de Gournay.

Featuring a series of lectures, conversations, and a book signing—with an all-star cast of more than 20 authors of major architecture, design, and decorative arts tomes including Show Chair Suzanne Tucker, Jonathan Rachman, Ken Fulk, Orlando Diaz-Azcuy, Emily Astor, Jiun Ho, Mark D. Sikes, and Maria Hummer-Tuttle—the well-rounded program was a master class in aesthetics. And the exhibitors—ranging from London’s Charles Plante Fine Arts, Kyoto, Japan-based Eocene Arts, and Paris’s Steinitz Gallery to stateside favorites Guy Regal NYC, S.J. Shrubsole, and C. Mariani Antiques—are always a test to the credit limits of serious buyers.

Among those at the opening night celebration: Lady Eliza Manners, Trevor and Alexis Traina, Dede Wilsey, Rachel Cecil Gurney, Dominic Evans-Freke, Denise Hale, Libertine designer Johnson Hartig, Darren and Samantha Bechtel, David and Mary Beth Shimmon, Lisa Zabelle, Allison Speer, Dean Rhys Morgan, Christine Suppes, Elisa Stephens, Jack Calhoun, Carl and Yuri Pascarella, Adrianna Pope Sullivan, Lindsay Bolton, Paul Wiseman, Catherine Kwong, Stanlee Gatti, Geoffrey De Sousa, Jose Manuel Alorda, and Madeline Stuart.