Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren at Armani Pre-Oscars Party

BEVERLY HILLS, California — At the height of an intense, month-long Oscars awards season, Hollywood picked up where it left off before the pandemic and became a maskless, glittering free-for-all.

Fashion labels like Saint Laurent, Chanel and Gucci and big talent agencies like CAA competed with tech Goliaths like Apple to score the best restaurants, most elegant party spaces and the rarest of celebrity coterie.

There is no consensus yet on who won the race for the best wing. Some parties were so scrupulously private — like CAAs at the San Vicente Bungalows club on Fridays — that only mega-celebrities like Elon Musk, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Taylor Swift were invited to a buffet of grilled salmon, pulled pork, chicken curry, and mini meringues. to graze.

But Hollywood also hungrily eats its own history, as writer and producer Mitch Glazer once wrote, and often puts the talent itself to the fore.

An example of this was Saturday’s celebration for the reopening of Giorgio Armani’s flagship Rodeo Drive, a glamorous mosh pit in which hundreds of people from the Juvéderm and micro-mini facelift kit thronged to get some breathing room.

They drank Veuve Clicquot champagne or ice-cold limoncello and stared at the various showmen—Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino, Annabelle Wallis, Miles Teller, and Dylan Sprouse—who came out on a cool California evening. Whoever anyone spoke to, all eyes were on the front door awaiting the arrival of Nicole Kidman, the evening’s honored guest.

A ripple went through the room when Ms. Kidman — an Oscar nominee for her role as Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos” — barged in at 5:52 p.m., surrounded by a security phalanx and Kevin Huvane, the CAA’s co-chairman, in fullback form in the lead.

Dressed in a black Armani trouser suit, a plunging neckline embroidered bustier, and flats (“I wanted to wear men’s clothes,” she told this reporter) to compensate for her impressive height, Mrs. Kidman immediately pulled herself up into a corner among a velvet suitcase. claws and a rack of beaded dresses.

With her unlined and porous, bisque-pop complexion and her shocked Dresden blue eyes, she seemed too supernaturally glamorous to fit her characterization of herself, in a recent Vanity Fair article, as a “stranger.”

“Oh, I’m the odd one out,” said Mrs. Kidman just when asked about her self-esteem. “I am an introvert. I think laterally – always done and always will.

Ms. Kidman is 54 years old and first starred in a movie 33 years ago. Such a feat of survival in show business seems hard to top. But 20 minutes after she arrived, the crowd dispersed again, this time for the arrival of Sophia Loren, who made her first film appearance seven decades ago.

Whatever doomsayers say about a crumbling dream machine, the impression these luminescent creatures have on our cultural consciousness is forever. Certainly, changing technologies will change the way fantasy is delivered. The hunger for it will always remain.

Think of a candid scene that erupted when the crowd outside the Armani party saw a two-tone Rolls-Royce in a tuxedo driving up Rodeo Drive, top to bottom and Mark Wahlberg behind the wheel. Suddenly, those in the crowd rushed into the street to surround the vehicle, “The Day of the Locust” style, with smartphone cameras staring at it hungrily.

Mr. Wahlberg grinned like a tanned and benevolent deity taking homage, as the street echoed with the cries of strangers calling his name, “Mark! Marking! Marking!”

Exotic Creatures at Chanel

Depending on one’s vantage point, women either have all the fun or are stuck with the heavy lifting when it comes to Oscars dressing.

Harvey Keitel was happy to enter Chanel’s annual pre-Oscars dinner on Saturday, held in the gardens of the Beverly Hills Hotel and the legendary Polo Lounge, dressed in a simple black jacket and sandals. It was socially acceptable for both Charles Finch, co-host of the star-studded hot-ticket night, and Jamie Dornan to wear white shirts with collars deeply unbuttoned. Chris Pine elicited oohs and aahs in nothing more than a crumpled linen suit from Don Johnson’s “Miami Vice” closet.

Women don’t have it nearly so easy, even with Chanel generously supplying some of them with their festive rags.

“I told my stylist I’m scared of this dress,” said Minnie Driver, referring to a devious creation with a black floor-length skirt, a tight coral-colored beaded top, and stylized pagoda shoulders. “She said to me, ‘You should be scared of this dress! It ups your game.’”

Still, Mrs. Driver looked Instagram-ready, and that was the job.

And so, as female guest after female queued up against a philodendron wall for a photo, the result was a spectacle that probably doesn’t exist anywhere else outside this city during the Oscars.

The scene resembled one of those Discovery Channel specials about exotic reef fish or the snow crane – an influx of exceptional beauties discharging themselves in the most spectacular way.

Here was Kristen Stewart striking out sassy, ​​surly tough guys in her Chanel tweeds. Here was Rashida Jones somehow making a matron dress look fresh. Here was Sofia Coppola demonstrating Coco Chanel’s adage that luxury is not the opposite of poverty, but of vulgarity. Here was Kate Beckinsale with her hair in a tower of what looked like brioches sucking air in little guppy breaths that photogenicly held her lips together.

And here Joan Collins was riding the red carpet in a pair of 10-inch “Dynasty” heels. With a string of appearances queuing for a new memoir that she wrote out loud in diary form, as she explained to this observer, Ms. Collins showed no evidence that she was her hunger for fame, its trappings, or the effort it took to cling to either. to keep, had lost. †

Asked about the secret to her enduring ambition to remain a player, as she approached 90, Ms. Collins paused and slowly lowered her scornful lashes. Moments later, her eyelids rose again and she had an answer.

“I’d say eat life,” said Mrs. Collins. “Or life will eat you up.”