The Party Guild

Other guests had their faces airbrushed on-site. Amanda Brooks flitted by, one eye done up in a lace motif. Alex von Furstenberg’s shaved head was tricked out with flames, while Boykin Curry went enigmatic with a left ear painted blue.

And some simply let their Versace do the talking. Instead of worrying whether her dress was too see-through, Liz Cohen relied on her inner Donatella. "If Naomi Campbell is a publicist," she said, "then I’m a supermodel for the night."

The cranky in the crowd complained that Sindi had thrown one party too many, but they came. They glittered. And they hit the dance floor. After all, even if they’re bored by each other, Sindi herself is fascinating. "I’m so in love," she cooed, clinging to new boyfriend Tico Mugrabi. By the end of the night, Sindi and Mugrabi would tiff and reunite to cling together once again.

So how would Jacobs’ and Sindi’s efforts have measured up to the revelries of the Gilded Age? Back when the Vanderbilts were nouveau, New York’s original Mrs. Astor rallied against her hard-partying peers, such as hostess Alva Belmont, who gave a breakfast for Consul, a chimp dressed in a frock coat, and the Cleweses in Newport, who threw a Servants’ Ball, where guests came as their help. Eric Homberger chronicled her distress in his book "Mrs. Astor’s New York: Money and Social Power in a Gilded Age." "I hope my influence will be felt in one thing, and that is in discountenancing the undignified methods employed by certain New York women to attract a following," Caroline Schermerhorn Astor said. "They have given entertainments that belonged under a circus tent rather than in a gentlewoman’s home. Women of this stamp are so appallingly active!"