The exodus began sometime after Gordon Getty's 70th-birthday bash, five days before Christmas. After the relentless pace of holiday parties (no recession here!), social San Francisco emptied out for Europe (Denise Hale, with her "tribe" of lawyer, hairstylist, and secretary, fled for Paris; Marsha Monro Wright for Berlin), Mexico (Dede Wilsey), or ski resorts such as Sun Valley (just about everybody else, including the couple of the moment: guv Arnold Schwarzenegger and California's first lady, Maria Shriver).

Away from the snow, a postcard of sorts ("Warmest greetings from Paradise!" it read) came from the folks at Villa del Sol, a favorite haunt of Wilsey's in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Included in the letter was a snap from their New Year's Eve gala, which Wilsey attended with Lord Kelly de Ballsbridge and Lady Diane Kelly. Meanwhile, in the cold gray of Paris, Tatiana Sorokko, on her biannual pilgrimage to the couture shows, hosted a party along with Lee Radziwill, Deeda Blair, and Glenda Bailey for fave designer Ralph Rucci. Sorokko then decamped for Washington for a White House reception, where she met the President, who was "incredibly charming," she says. "I'm not usually shy, but I was almost at a loss for words."

With many of the socialables out of town, and public galas as scarce as the hairs on Willie Brown's head, those remaining in town stuck to more private affairs. Most notable among them was the Getty blowout, entitled MGM (Mrs. Getty's Movie), for a "come as your favorite Hollywood star" costume party. Most everyone complied, naturally, because if there's one thing more enticing to the social set than to be in a sumptuous room full of other boldfaced names, it's to have an excuse to dress up. A psychologist (or even a postmodern wonk) would have a field day deconstructing the costumes. Social truth one: Society women love to have a respectable reason for wearing fishnet stockings. "What's with all the fishnets?" one partygoer snorted.

To wit: Sally Debenham was spotted wearing them for her Marlene Dietrich. Then there was the Zeta-Jones-in-Chicago look favored by such young women as Cecilia de Quesada (who finally married Wil Harris a few weeks later). Social truth two: Irony is more humorous when leavened with decadence. That was a point not missed by the artful Norman Stone, who came as Al Pacino in Scarface (or Bob Evans, as some guests assumed), complete with a gigolo blazer, wide tab collars, and white powder on his nose.

All told, approximately 500 guests attended the bash, which featured endless bales of food, searchlights (this during a blackout that left a third of the city in the dark), and specially edited films on view.

The younger swells headed to Paul Price's New Year's party in his Twin Peaks house, which, in a strangely un-San Francisco coup, mixed the uptown and downtown sets. Guests such as Vanessa and Billy Getty, Nic and Kimberly Bini, and J.P. Thieriot tore it up with rock star couple Vanessa Carlton (nominated

for three Grammys last year) and Stephan Jenkins in a house party that was crashed by a gang of hipster kids. This led to the odd juxtaposition of Chris Bass (son of the Texas billionaire Basses) and two of his buddies—all dressed in blue blazers with pocket squares—in the same room with club kids dressed in tricked-out, '80s-retro fashions.

Of the hipsters, everyone kept asking, "Who are these people, and where did they come from?" But in the end, no one cared, for they knew that without the uninvited guests helping get things festive (dance party on the second floor!), it could have been yet another civilized (read: boring) society party.