As president of The Society of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Lavinia Branca Snyder heads up one of the city’s most important charity groups.

Everyone loves Dennis Basso, the startlingly talented fur couturier and fashion designer who has an ardent following among the city’s chicest chicsters.

The reason for the millinery tour de force was the now iconic annual spring fundraiser for the Central Park Conservatory, officially called the Frederick Law Olmstead Awards Luncheon, but better known throughout Manhattan as the one and only “hat lunch.”

Firs there was the Met Costume Institute gala and exhibit—spearheaded by UK talents like Met CEO Thomas Campbell, chief curator Andrew Bolton, Apple’s design chief Jonathan Ive, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

The 30-year-old CEO of shoptiques.com, a global indie boutique platform she founded in 2011, came to this country when she was 17, knowing no English and with only $100 to her name. Determined to succeed, Vidisheva got into the super competitive Wellesley College (Hilary Clinton’s alma mater), became a model to help pay tuition, graduated from Harvard Business School, and worked 24/7 as a banker at Goldman Sachs before starting her own firm

The Costume Institute’s opening night gala is all about who was wearing what, but you did want to know what the new exhibit—the reason for all the hoopla–is about, don’t you?

Derek Blasberg, style maven extraordinaire and host of the new CNN Style, gives us the inside scoop on the Costume Institute gala.

You know you’ll want to invite some pretty special guests to join you in celebrating the met gala (particularly when a table at the biggest fashion night of the year can cost up to $250,000)!

Back in the good old days–that’s1981 at least–when a Chelsea or SoHo loft would run you about $200,000, and the tuition at the city’s only Ivy League school came to a little under $10,000—Il Mulino opened its doors on West 3rd Street in the Village.