Spiegel Stuff: Studio 54, Truman Capote’s Bash, and Royal Balls: All the Parties You Need for Oscars 2020

Friday, February 7, 2020

Studio 54, Truman Capote’s Bash, and Royal Balls: All the Parties You Need for Oscars 2020

Plus, Party Tips From Pippa Middleton
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Since 1994, Vanity Fair's annual Oscar party has celebrated Hollywood's power players—and become the hottest ticket in town.

Ahead of this weekend, take a trip to the Plaza, Studio 54, or, hell, a 500-room Bavarian palace, and revisit some of history's most decadent galas and gatherings. Be our guest—we've unlocked these stories from the V.F. Archive.

The Only Place to Be

At V.F.'s annual Oscar-night bash, the effect is sheer magic as stars from very separate universes collide and then revel in the reflected dazzle. Yet, as Frank DiGiacomo revealed in 2013, there's nothing accidental about it. Here's how the party got started, took off, and quickly became the hottest (and toughest) invite in town.

A Night to Remember

If you weren't invited to Truman Capote's black-and-white dance in honor of Kay Graham, you simply left town. On the 30th anniversary of the ball in 1996, Amy Fine Collins recaptured the fabulous collision of social, art, fashion, Hollywood, political, and literary stars that lit up the Plaza's Grand Ballroom for a legendary night.

Let Them Eat Lobster!

Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis's costume ball at her 500-room Bavarian palace was aristocracy's most flamboyant anachronism since the Bourbons tumbled; reported Bob Colacello in 1986. Marie Antoinette would have loved it.

Paris, When It Sizzles

Paris really comes alive twice a year, charged by the grand, fabulous folly of the couture shows, the triumph of $250,000 dresses by Yves Saint Laurent. Karl Lagerfeld, and Valentino, among others. There was the endless parade in the Ritz lobby, Diana Ross and the Miller sisters applauding John Galliano's decadent Dior "happening," tea with Adnan Khashoggi, and clothes, clothes, clothes—so went Dominick Dunne's whirlwind debut at the collections in 1998.

Anything Went

For 33 months, Studio 54 was the giddy epicenter of 70s hedonism, a disco hothouse of beautiful people, endless cocaine, and every kind of sex. Its co-owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager kicked off the age of the one-name celebrity—Cher, Andy, Bianca, Halston— and rode a miraculous wave of power and pleasure until it brought them crashing down under charges of tax evasion. Coming on two decades after the velvet rope went up, in 1996 Bob Colacello remembered the greatest club of all time.

Wild Parties We Have Known

A synopsis of the lowest forms of social intercourse.

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