This Luxe Italian Lunch Brings Overseas Fashion Power Players and Plenty of Garden Style: It’s Another MFAH Coup

It was a brilliant move when the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston first partnered three years ago with the Galleria/Simon Property for a spring fashion show luncheon at Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens. Creating an extra fundraising resource by adding an event in the elaborate party tent, put up each year for the beloved Bayou Bend Garden Party, has proved a midday cash cow for the MFAH house museum. The most recent bringing in $380,000.

Just shy of 300 ladies and a sprinkling of gents turned out for the luncheon fête that featured the luxe Loro Piana fall/winter collection. The show, underwritten by the Galleria, was a first for the company, the significance of that brought home by the fact that Aldo Moschini, president of Luxury Goods for Loro Piana, flew in from New York for the event. Tempting the crowd further was the post-lunch Loro Piana pop-up shop that opened on the side of the tent overlooking the Diana Fountain.

MFAH director Gary Tinterow and luncheon chair Eliza Stedman welcomed guests and set the stage for the fashion presentation. In planning the annual event, The Galleria allows the chair to select one store from its stable of luxe retailers. Stedman acknowledged being a huge Loro Piana fan, loving the cashmeres and remarkable woolens, and made her choice accordingly.

City Kitchen did the honors with a crowd-pleasing menu that included avocado stuffed with jumbo lump crab ravigote; faro salad with smoked chicken breast; charred wax beans with zucchini and baby carrots; and baby kale with burrata, tomatoes, and pesto. A dessert, that few could resist, of lemon and ricotta tarts with raspberry sorbet followed.

Lunching ladies: Anne Chao, Michelle Hevrdejs, Aliyya Stude, Courtney Sarofim, Laura Arnold, Martha Long, Jennie Segal, Nancy Abendshein, Jenny Elkins, Linda McReynolds, Elise Joseph, Isabel Lummis, Polly Bowden, Carmen Knapp, Martha Long, Kelli Kickerillo, Carol Linn, Elyse Lanier and Lindsay Holstead.