Ferraris, Glitter, and the Donald

Sunday January 23, 2011

Is it just me or does anyone else get anxiety Sunday night? The weekends always seem to fly by even if they were a 3 day weekend, like I had this week.  And then Sunday night hits, and everything I have to do this week sinks in, and I just wish I could have another Sunday.  This past weekend was a mini vacation as I got to stay at the Breakers in Palm Beach since Giovanni had meetings there.  I took Friday off of work and headed up Thursday night.  We went to Jeff Fisher's private Ferrari Collection Viewing Party, mingling with mostly a much older crowd and of course a very wealthy one.  Many of the cars there were in the millions and collectors items.  It is truly crazy to fathom that a car could cost as much as mansion on the ocean.

We then went to Dolce de Palma for a late dinner, since the small passed apps and the wine didn't quite fill us up.  Annie's new roomate, Kristen manages this restaurant, which her brother owns.  It's a smallish hidden gem, but maybe not so hidden as there was a Ferrari and some other nice cars parked out front.  I had the shrimp and calamari entree, and it was very good! I highly recommend.


Friday was glorious- ordered room service in bed, laid out on the beach for a couple hours, and then the sunny skies escaped, so I got a thai chicken salad, some magazines and headed up to the room for some r & r and to get ready for Giovanni's big night, Ferrari of Palm Beach's Opening Party.

Giovanni started as the General Manager at Ferrari and Maserati of Palm Beach a few months ago.  Ferrari of Palm Beach has been sharing a building with Maserati for the last year, while the gorgeous new state of the art dealership that Ferrari has now moved into was built. Friday night was the first time anyone would be stepping into this beautiful building and the cocktail party was THE party of Palm Beach that weekend.  Below are a few pictures before the party started.

There were people in from all over the country and all over Florida in attendance.  Millionaires and multimillionaires made up more then half of the crowd.  Billionaires were on hand as well, including the Donald himself! He was invited, his people RSVPd, and he flew in from NY and came straight from the airport to the party, complete with his TV crew, filming the 2nd season of "My Fabulous World of Golf." I even got a chance to briefly speak to him and shook his hand.  He is certainly tall in real life and has a presence!  With his height and his hair, you couldn't miss him walking into the party!  Everyone wanted to be on the coveted guest list, people starting lining up well before the doors opened, and in total 700 fabulous people walked through those doors.  Everyone waited in line to be checked off the guest list and luckily almost everyone that showed up was on it.  Once the party ended, no one wanted to go home, and a large group was still there even an hour after the party was over and the alcohol was put away and the bartenders and wait staff had cleaned up. 

Besides Donald's cameras, there was actual press as well, and the party was on the news the next day!  Guests drank champagne, snacked on ceviche, tomato mozzarella skewers, and canollis.

The age of the crowd was mostly 40s-60s I would say, but there were a good amount of successful 20 something and 30 somethings  there as well that either own Ferraris or will soon.  From a distance you couldn't tell the difference between the 27 year old and the 50 year old woman.  I was impressed that almost everyone was dressed to the nines, guys in full suits or at least blazers, and the woman mostly dawned dresses- ranging from wrap dresses to bandage dresses to sequins.  I was debating on 2 dresses myself- a metallic Herve Leger bandage dress, which I almost went with but it just felt weird putting it on when it wasn't dark out yet, so I ended up going with a bright blue fitted non traditional DVF dress- a silk, wool, spandex blend with a waisted belt and sky high nude pumps.  The outfit recieved many compliments, but my feet were killing by the end of the night! Sometimes, or a lot of the time, beauty is pain and we all must suffer for fashion. 

As guests said farewell to the beautiful cars and the beautiful people, they snatched up the gift bags at the end of the night with the Ferrari of Palm Beach hats like they were free diamonds (as if this crowd needed anything free).  Guests kept trying to go back for more, pretending they hadn't yet gotten a bag!  It was quite amusing and of course complimentary to the dealership. The event went swimmingly well and if you are wondering what types of cars were there,  stop in and see for yourself.

Paint this image in your head if you weren't at the event... the showroom filled with Ferraris, another 20 on lifts in Service department, and another 40 or so parked out front- some that were the dealerships and others that guests rolled up in.

Finally, I had two more great Italian dinners at Bice, pronounced "bee-chay" not bice-rhyming with nice, like I initially thought lol) and at Renato's.  Bice had great food, great service, and a happening bar area.  Renatos had a beautiful outside terrace and the food was great as well.  Anyone else have any restaurant recommendations for next time I'm up in Palm Beach?

Signing off on this Sunday night... time to get a little more r and r and get a good night sleep before my 5:30 AM wake up call for Bootcamp.

xoxoxo,
Lauren