A Man In A Red Tutu

Among the great pleasures to be found in the New York Times are the often witty photo essays by Bill Cunningham. He rides 'round town on a bicycle, taking pictures on the street and at various benefit parties.

Last week, I got an invitation* to the opening of the Design on a Dime benefit for Housing Works. Housing Works is a dual purpose organization, "committed to ending the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness", and they run some fabulous thrift shops in support of their mission. The Design on a Dime event gathered designery types, and let them loose to create stylish "room vignettes" with materials gathered from the thrift shops.

It was all very entertaining, and there was plenty of wine, and enough food, and at least 90% of the men were gay, and Peter claims they all go to his gym, and they were all very beautiful, and it's too bad for Peter that he had to be my walker, and even the staffers in t-shirts were fabulous, like this bald man in a red tutu and fishnet tights and high-heeled boots, but none of that is the point.

The best part of the night was spotting Bill Cunningham tap a woman on the shoulder. She demurred, and turned away, but then came to her senses (after conferring with a friend) and followed him. We watched as he asked her to sit on the arm of a chair, a wing chair covered in a black fabric with gold squiggles, a chair that well matched her black jacket with gold squiggles. It was entirely charming to watch him in action, and I was sorely disappointed that the lady and the chair didn't make it into Sunday's Evening Hours.






*BlogHer's doing something with Kmart, and Kmart was one of the underwriters of the benefit, and BlogHer got them to invite the NY-metro area bloggers, or that's what I was led to believe. I checked in at the press table. Where's my press pass?