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Long before the trek of the emperor penguins was immortalized on film, a similarly attired and rarefied species migrated to the ancestral breeding ground of New York high society: the Plaza Hotel. On November 28, 1966, roughly 500 chosen ones arrived at the Black and White Ball, a now infamous throwdown hosted by the illustrious literary lush Truman Capote. His feathers still fluffed from the triumph of In Cold Blood, Capote strutted around the Plaza's Grand Ballroom in a dapper Dunhill tuxedo, tailored perfectly to his by then quite rotund frame.

"Even in Dunhill, if you're shaped like a pear, you're going to look like a pear," jokes Capote's friend Joanne Carson from her Sunset Boulevard home in Los Angeles, where the childlike author flew kites and dabbled in the flower beds before he passed away in 1981. The sprightly Carson—who is still in possession of Capote's original Dunhill—remembers her time with him in New York in the late sixties as "the best finishing school a girl could want." The two met at a dinner party hosted by Random House cofounder Bennett Cerf and became fast friends. "He'd call me up and say"—her voice changes now to a high-pitched impersonation that could give Philip Seymour Hoffman a run for his golden statue—" 'We're going to do the three B's today: Bonwit's, Bloomingdale's, and Bendel's.' "

Carson put a high reserve of $4,000 on the tuxedo for the November 2006 Bonhams New York auction of Capote's belongings, fearing she wouldn't be able to part with it. Nobody bit. Now, in hopes of finding a good home for something that brought her friend such joy, Carson has reconsidered. "It is for sale to somebody who would really appreciate it and cherish it," she says. (Click here for details)

Not included in the offering: the 39-cent F.A.O. Schwarz mask Capote wore with the tux when he entertained the Vanderbilts, Kennedys, and Rockefellers. "He knew exactly how to present himself for any occasion," says Deborah Davis, author of Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball. "A lot of the opinions he had about style hold true today." Indeed, more than 40 years have passed, and a well-tailored Dunhill is still the best a gentleman can do.

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