On a day of freezing rain—why isn't this snow? Snow is pretty!—with despair pouring from the television set, it is fascinating to take a break from bitter reality and stop in for tea at the presentation by Milanese designer Luisa Beccaria.

The event, held in a mansion on the Upper East Side, two blocks from the 86th Street subway station but a universe away, offers clothes that appear to exist out of mere time: striped linen frocks that would have suited the tragic heroine of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis; scoop-necked black velvet fantasias embroidered with flores de campo; a vast swath of blush chiffon ablaze with dragonflies, for a bride who eschews white (she wore white for her first wedding, eons ago!) for something far less conventional.

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Source: http://www.vogue.com/