“Lady Gaga and Donatella, Lady Gaga and Donatella.” Handlers flitted through the Royal Suite of the Waldorf Towers, repeating the warning like rapping hummingbirds. The photographers in attendance were wrangled and waited attentively at the front door of the suite for the august arrival. They were not disappointed.

Wearing a black fur trapper hat that matched her fur bolero and a midriff-baring bodysuit, Lady Gaga waltzed into the room, happily hanging on the arm of her hostess, Donatella Versace. The star posed for photographs for a few moments and then lifted her forearm across her face as if shielding her eyes from a blinding light beam. “I didn’t even get my makeup done,” she groaned. But Gaga was not the only photographer-friendly face at the private dinner for friends following the opening of Versace’s new SoHo boutique: Guests including Princess Charlene of Monaco, Gerard Butler, Narciso Rodriguez, Harley Viera-Newton, Vanessa Traina, and Leigh Lezark settled into conversation nooks around the parlor of the suite.

Sting and Trudie Styler arrived soon after Versace, prompting Gaga to beeline from the buffet table toward the entrance of the suite, “Sting’s here! I have to go see Sting!” she cooed. The crowd parted before her—a latter-day Moses with the Red Sea. The baroque grandeur of the residence that occupies the entire top floor of the building (and the whole length of the block on Fiftieth Street) could not have been more appropriate for the occasion and a brand that is never one for minimalism. A marble-topped Louis XVI console displayed an ormolu candleabra and two tall vases of crimson roses—half their natural red, the rest dipped in wax before being dyed black by hand. No, we weren't in Kansas anymore.

Christopher Kane, who designs the Versus line for Versace, remarked with a colleague, “This is the Wallis Simpson suite; isn't it amazing?" Indeed, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor famously took up residence here during their jaunts in New York City, and it has since housed Hollywood royalty from Elizabeth Taylor to Britney Spears. Models old and new sauntered around the room, from Karolina Kurkova, Linda Evangelista, and Stella Tennant to Doutzen Kroes, Hanne Gaby Odiele, and Kasia Struss. Tali Lennox looked fabulous in a Versus fuchsia hooded shearling coat—Barbie meets Snuffleupagus—and made her way straight to the buffet, helping herself to the cauliflower panna cotta with caviar served elegantly in beheaded eggshells.

Alina Cho guided her mother, Kim, through the crowd. “My mom wants to meet Lady Gaga,” she explained. Her elegant mother nodded a sheepish affirmation. After dinner, Grimes and her similarly Gothed-out entourage entered the suite and prepared to perform. Throughout it all, Versace moved about the room like a glowing comet, her platinum hair its flaming tail, greeting those who had joined her for the occasion. Another store opening, another dinner—she made it seem like the first time. In the words of Wallis Simpson, “For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.”