Roger Farah, president and chief operating officer of Polo Ralph Lauren, also mixed it up, displaying what he called cowboy boots — although they tied — with jeans and a lumberjack-style shirt. Didn't he want to go more Western? "This is as Western as I get," Farah said, "given how big I am."

Ron Shamask showed up in red-and-white-striped J. Crew pants and a borrowed Western shirt, and said when he comes to Dallas, it's all about trunk shows, meeting clients and staying in stores. "I never go out, but this is amazing. We're all cowboy wannabes. I've seen a bull, and we're standing on grass, for God's sake."

As the cocktail hour wore on, guests wandered between pig races, dressing goats in tutus and wigs (yes, it's true) and posing for pictures with a longhorn steer. A few brave souls signed waivers and rode the mechanical bull. As Andrew Rosen was climbing aboard, Carmen Marc Valvo cried, "Take off your glasses! Everyone says it's slippery. This is crazy. There's no seat." After Rosen took a tumble, Valvo took his turn and hung on for 25 bucks of the bull before being flung. "I'll take it. That was fun. Now let's go look at the pigs," he said.

Many others would do the same after the buffet dinner of almost every meat imaginable, potato salad, corn bread, beans, corn on the cob and pecan pie. "There is a counter to the right serving Lipitor — and one for Viagra," joked Neiman's chairman and ceo, Burt Tansky, as he greeted the crowd with Karen Katz, head of Neiman's Stores. "Oh, that was a Freudian slip," Tansky added, while Katz interjected, "You know what they say: Everything's bigger in Texas."

Over at one of the several bar stops, Josie Natori clearly felt out of her element. "This is just my style — very me," she said.

"Come on, Josie. How about I pour you a beer and we pretend it's Champagne?" injected Neiman's Steve Kornajcik.

As Chris Isaak played through his repertoire — thanking Neiman's for inviting him and his band because "we really didn't have anyplace else to go. Well, I mean, we do have other places to go, but it's great to be playing Neiman Marcus. We could have been playing Sears Roebuck" — guests continued to discuss business, the balmy weather and their own clothing. British jeweler Stephen Webster, who's been on a tour of Neiman's throughout the U.S., landed in Dallas that morning and, like many, headed directly to a Western gear store to grab his cowboy hat, boots and cowboy shirt. "It seemed like the right idea," he said, before adding: "Although I don't know when I'll wear it again."