In a Dream of Tulle and Lamé, New York City Ballet Debuts Costumes by Zac Posen and Anna Sui

“This is an idea that Sarah Jessica Parker had eight years ago, and it turned about to be a pretty good one,” announced the New York City Ballet’s executive director, Katherine E. Brown, to a black tie–clad audience seated for dinner. “Over the past eight years, this event has raised over $20 million.” Parker, radiant in a Zac Posen dress dyed a shade of pink that packed a punch, humbly accepted the applause.

The “event” was the ballet company’s Fall Fashion Gala, an annual fundraiser that invites contemporary fashion designers to collaborate with the ballet’s in-house wardrobe team (led by the talented Marc Happel) on costumes. The resulting creations are debuted at the ballet’s splashy opening-night gala and are worn throughout the subsequent season.

SJP’s idea was indeed a good one, but one with great historical precedence as the worlds of dance and fashion are as intertwined as Romeo et Juliette—think of Isadora Duncan swirling onstage in her diaphanous Madeleine Vionnets and the Ballet Russe’s Chanel-costumed jaunt to sea in Le Train Bleu. The Fall Fashion Gala has continued with such collaborations, giving us tulle-and-feather confections from Valentino (in 2012) as well as edgy and avian-like black-and-white getups from designer Giles Deacon (in 2018). Care for a full trip down memory lane? A recap of all the previous fashion partnerships just so happens to be on view in a special exhibition titled “Design in Motion: A New York City Ballet Fall Fashion Gala Retrospective” at Intersect by Lexus in the meatpacking district through October 20.

This year’s chosen designers were Zac Posen and Anna Sui. For inspiration, the former, who, in addition to Parker, dressed Laverne Cox and dancers Unity Phelan and India Bradley, delved deep into City Ballet’s treasure trove archive for inspiration. “The starting point was getting original Karinska costumes from Balanchine works brought from the archives to my studio,” Posen explained. “I wanted to play with them, seeing the soul of the pieces, turning them inside out, and also listening and interpreting the music to help tell the story that Lauren [Lovette] wanted to tell.”

Lovette choreographed “The Shaded Line,” a piece for which Posen designed his “messed-up Degas” costumes. In Posen’s tutu-ed leotards—which, at first glance seemed traditional but gradually revealed powdery-colored skirts ever-so-slightly subverted with off-kilter orientations, uneven like the earth on its axis—dancers brought composer Tan Dun’s music to life. The world premiere for “The Shaded Line” opened the night, followed by another premiere, by choreographer Edwaard Liang, titled “Lineage.” His piece featured Eastern European–folksy looks by Sui that would have looked just as fitting on her catwalk as they did onstage at Lincoln Center.

The third and final act was sourced from City Ballet’s grand repertory, Balanchine’s masterful “Symphony in C.” It’s a dance that calls upon over 50 dancers to execute fancy footwork in various vignettes across the stage and its four acts. It’s a balletic paradox of choice—with graceful movements coming from every limb on stage, one finds oneself unsure where to look.

After the final curtain fell, gala attendees—including Andrew Garfield, Prabal Gurung, Brooke Shields, Jordan Roth, and Lizzie Tisch (a cochair of the evening)—made their way to a gala dinner on the first ring floor in the atrium of the David H. Koch Theater for a dinner of braised beef and beet salad. Clustered on the tables draped with velvet cloths were dahlias as big as a dinner plate; Posen whimsically indicated he was finished with his plate by draping a flower atop it.

Midway through dinner, Brown took to the microphone to congratulate everyone involved in the evening, announcing that close to $2.6 million had been raised that night. She invited dancing legend and current associate artistic director of the company Wendy Whelan to the podium.

“I just want to thank and congratulate Lauren Lovette and Edwaard Liang on some beautiful choreography tonight,” she said. And with an eye to the future—and full knowledge that a dance (especially a new one) should continue to leave its mark long after the applause ends—Whelan added, “thank you for your contributions to our repertory.”