Houston’s Beautiful Bayou Bend Gardens Become a Fashionable Paradise — a $400,000-Plus Afternoon

What: Bayou Bend Fashion Show & Luncheon presented by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Where: Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens

PC Moment: While the focus of the event was the Akris Fall 2022 Collection, the first runway presentation in the United States, it was the ladies themselves in flowery spring frocks that garnered the bulk of attention. Since its inception, this luncheon has attracted a high-style mix of Old Guard, Brahmins and popular nouveau sophisticates — a stylish set for certain. Both museum patrons and fashion enthusiasts alike. For the fifth consecutive year, The Galleria/Simon Properties was presenting sponsor of the glorious luncheon.

The turnout for the fifth such event, chaired by Anne Chao and Carolyn Chao Sabat, was attended by 260 and raised $423,000 for the Bayou Bend operating budget. As has been tradition since its founding, principal underwriter was The Galleria/Simon Property Group.

The designer’s very geometric fall presentation was inspired by the 2019 painting Interior (Abstract) from German artist Reinhard Voigt.

“Rare is the season that Albert Kriemler doesn’t choose an artist collaborator, but rarer still is the one that he nominates someone as closely aligned to his own aesthetic as Reinhard Voigt,” Vogue writes about the collection. “A German artist, Voigt reduces his landscapes and portraits to grids.

“He’s a man who sees the world in squares.”

Akris vice president of marketing and communication Marcie Haley jetted in from New York with the collection and provided an introduction to the grid-inspired fashions. MFAH director Gary Tinterow joined the luncheon chairs in welcoming the colorful throng.

The City Kitchen catered luncheon began with golden gazpacho with chive oil and moved on to feature poached Skuna Bay salmon with caper-dill sauce and duck breast with apricot mostarda. Dessert was a trio of passion fruit, coconut and basil sorbets with mixed berries and a candied lemon cookie.

PC Seen: Nancy Abendshein, Jenny Elkins, Bobbie Nau, Kathy Goossen, Dr. Yvonne Cormier, Courtney Sarofim, Elyse Lanier, Laurie Morian, Janet Hobby, Terry Smith, Eliza Stedman, Lindsay Holstead, Sima Ladjevardian, Franci Neely, Linda McReynolds, Laura Arnold, Martha Long Wade, and Sharyn Weaver.