Inside the Frick Collection’s Young Fellows Ball

Allison Ecung von Arnim (pictured above)
Baroness, Upper West Side and Berlin, Germany

Can you tell me about your dress?
Well, during the pandemic, the Frick Young Fellows had this book club that was about Madame du Barry, Louis XV’s lover. At the museum, there are these panels called The Progress of Love that Jean-Honoré Fragonard made for her. She commissioned them, but when she went to pick them up, she was like, “I don’t like them.” They stayed with Fragonard a long time. I’ve always loved them, so when Bach Mai designed my dress, he imprinted one of the panels on the front. It turns out when he was in school, he did one of his thesis projects using a print of this Fragonard. So I was…