A BALL FIT FOR DALI

In the 1930s, Caresse Crosby was the socialite talk of the town — known not only for co-inventing the modern bra but for throwing the most talked-about parties in New York. The crown jewel was the Bal Onirique, held at Le Coq Rouge in Midtown for Salvador and Gala Dalí. Guests from high society were required to arrive in costumes shaped by Dalí’s own vision. “It was an experiment to see how far New Yorkers would respond to a chance to express their own dreams,” Dalí told The Mirror. “Only a dozen or two actually succeeded in this expression. The others may think they are expressing themselves, but, really, they have betrayed themselves.”

Dalí and Gala attended dressed as the Lindbergh baby and his kidnapper — a stunt that provoked such outrage it required a public apology in the newspapers. Crosby was a remarkable figure by any measure: married multiple times, a correspondent with Henry Miller, close friends with Dalí, Ezra Pound, and Max Ernst, and rumored to have had affairs with Henri Cartier-Bresson and Buckminster Fuller. Dalí also wrote part of his autobiography at Crosby’s Hamptons estate. She split her time between Manhattan, the Hamptons, and a 15th-century castle north of Rome that she converted into an artists’ colony.

Location: Le Coq Rouge, 65 East 56th Street, New York, NY 10022