Manolo Blahnik did the same the night before to get his getup, which he paired with his own bespoke Anderson & Shepherd double-breasted jacket. "My feet are killing me," he moaned, pointing to his cowboy boots after doing some cha-chas on the sidelines. Why didn't he just design his own? "No time, so I bought these at some shop in town, along with everything else. I've always admired John Wayne."

But proving more than anything that the night was all about fashion, Blahnik had his own twist on the Western theme: "It's all vintage, honey — vintage. I insisted."

"Finally, a party where we're all not dressed like penguins," said Piazza Sempione's Enrico Morra.

The next night, they all were, en masse — 2,000 guests at the flagship celebration that not only drew the designer crowd, but Dallas society and Hilary Swank to support The Dallas Center for Performing Arts. "This is the hottest ticket in town," said Tansky. "We had to turn plenty of people away."

Inside, the store was all gussied up with 24 designer gowns created specially for the event as a nod to the future and theatrically spotlit on revolving platforms above the crowd. There was also a 10-foot-tall glass "fashion diva" mannequin lined with decades of ads; green home furnishings; futuristic and interactive artwork including a walk-in-and-around video cube honoring the Chanel camellia, and a retrospective on "The Jetsons" and the Space Age concepts the animated series introduced.

Neiman's even broke through a wall of shoe displays to some vacant storage space to create Club 100, although the second-floor children's department that was transformed into a disco drew the most inspired dancing well past the witching hour.

"It's all beautiful people, and nobody is trying to outdo anybody else," said Lawrence Marcus, son of Neiman's co-founder Herbert Marcus. "They're all dressed in Neiman Marcus style, and one of the things that we always stood for was a certain look in clothes.

The entire centennial celebration was three years in the making.

"It's like a graduation for me," said Stephen Dweck. "I grew up with them. You both want luxury, and each encourages the other. You see a $39,000 tie, you want to make an $89,000 necklace."