Saturday in the Park with Ralph Lauren

It's been a year of major fashion anniversaries, what with Valentino celebrating 45 years in business last summer in Rome, and the house of Dior feting their 60th the same week at Versailles. But last night Ralph Lauren topped them all with his elegant and spectacular 40th-anniversary show and black tie dinner in Central Park's Conservancy garden. To the strains of the score of My Fair Lady, guests — over 400 of them — floated down the garden stairs into a pristine white tent edged in crisp black. The structure could have been a harbinger of Lauren's Spring 2008 show which opened with a graphic black-and-white theme — a Lauren favorite. The designer touched on many of his favorite motifs in this sprawling show, including crisp menswear tailoring, sportif silhouettes (in this case jockeys) and bright primary colors.

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The star-studded front row appeared gobsmacked by the presentation. And believe me, it was a jaded crowd. There was Diane Sawyer, Martha Stewart, Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Donna Karan, Diane Von Furstenberg, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and ubiquitous billionaire Steve Schwartzman. Was that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly tapping his foot to Frank Sinatra's "The Best Is Yet to Come" as Ralph strolled the runway, taking in the standing ovation and embracing friends and family? You bet. And the best was yet to come: as Lauren grabbed his wife, Ricky, and headed off-stage, the painted backdrop — a reproduction of a Jean-Gabriel Domergue painting, "Barbara Au Derby" — lifted to reveal the evening's real masterpiece, a twilight garden scene complete with chandeliers, fountain, waiters in white tie and clouds of hydrangea. "This is my idea of New York," Lauren said as he greeted the television crews. Indeed, like the WASP world he evokes so well in his flagship stores, the evening appeared to take a page right out of a Belle Epoque Astor ball.

Later, as dinner guests drifted up to their tables, Martha Stewart and Charlie Rose jockeyed for camera time behind a box-hedge where entertainment reporter Jill Rappaport had set up some lights. There were very few details left unattended to, from the perfectly cooked pink lamb chop main course to the black-edged white linen dinner napkins that matched the runway theme. And little details tell the tale. Because beyond all of his branding and focus, it's nailing the little things that has gotten Ralph Lauren, 40 years after he started, to the top of the heap.