Opening Season

THE RETURN OF FALL HERALDS CHARITY BALLS, POLO MATCHES, PHEASANT SHOOTS, AND MORE THAN ENOUGH EXCUSES TO START COCKTAILING AT NOON. KRISTINA STEWART WARD ROUNDS UP THE SEASON'S INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL CALENDAR

September 3, Scotland

The Braemar Gathering. For 900 years, large Highland men in kilts have been competing in a testosterone-filled day of Scottish-clan sports. Tossing the caber, throwing the hammer, putting the stone, sprinting, and long leaping are among the offerings taken in by guests—including members of the royal family, who show up in native attire and grimace through a day set to an interminable bagpipe soundtrack.

September 8-11. Blenheim Palace, England

London may have just nabbed the 2012 Olympic bid, but the British horsey set has the jump on hosting an international sporting crowd. For the first time in eight years, England will preside over the European Eventing Championships, allowing local nabobs to take in world-class dressage, show jumping, and cross-country racing.

September 18. Greenwich, Connecticut

The whistle blows at the annual Harvard-Yale polo game at Conyers Farm. Any players wishing to trash-talk must do so in iambic pentameter.

September 19, New York City

The preppy set, including a number of Rockefellers and Roosevelts, dress up in slinky gowns and crisp tuxedos and discuss trust funds and winning the genetic lottery at New York's most blue-blooded of fund-raisers, at the Museum of the City of New York.

September 21, New York City

Melissa Etheridge performs at the New Yorkers for Children gala, which this year honors Russell Simmons and is chaired by Oscar de la Renta and Jerry Seinfeld.

September 30, Los Angeles

Cartrude Stein has nothing on the ladies' luncheon that the Natural Resources Defense Council's Elizabeth Wiatt has made into an annual event.

October 1-9, Saint-Tropez

Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez is the classic sailboat regatta created by Patrice de Colmont, owner of celebrity-soaked Club 55 and a man not afraid to tell Jack Nicholson he'll be waiting an hour for his favorite table to be vacated by King Juan Carlos of Spain. Patrice uses his considerable pull to gather international mogul-sailors for this annual event.

October 15, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Ironman is the punishing half-day competition comprising a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 26.2-mile run. It was dreamed up in 1978 by a group of Hawaiian runners who were debating which category of athletes—swimmers, cyclists, or runners—was the most fit. It seems that they decided all of the above. About a dozen "Half Ironman" races now play out worldwide over the course of the year.

October 15, the Plains, Virginia

Washington, D.C.'s denizens mix it up with 30,000 others at the International Gold Cup horse race, where Thoroughbreds compete for the crownshaped trophy donated to the event in 1903 by King Alfonso XIII of Spain.

The Catwalk

Fashion reigns for 40 days and 40 nights on the five-city tour of ready-to-wear collections: •New York (September 9-16) •London (September 18-22) •Milan (September 24-October 2) •Paris (October 3-11) •Los Angeles (October 16-25)

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October 22-23, Boston

Hunky Ivy League rowers converge on Boston's Charles River for the Head of the Charles, a weekend of Preppy Handbook without irony. On the sidelines, corduroyed young men hook up with girls in pearls; think of it as America's version of European royal-family inbreeding.

October 26, New York City

Monaco's Prince Albert succeeded his father earlier this year as monarch of the pint-size principality and, in so doing, justified the intense social climbing that has long fueled his family's New York-based charity event, the Princess Grace Foundation Awards. Mothers with eligible daughters have been pawning off their spawn to the newly enthroned prince for years now, and they think it's high time Monaco crowned a new American princess.

October 31, Hollywood

Jacqui Getty's annual Halloween party set the stakes high last year, with the SoCal society swan cajoling 400 guests, most of them celebrities, into dressing in stageworthy costumes. Heather Graham went as Wonder Woman, Lisa Eisner as Phyllis Diller, Kirsten Dunst as an Amish girl, and no fewer than two Johns and Yokos staged bed-ins.

November 6, New York City

Two million New Yorkers line the streets for the ING New York City Marathon, which takes over the city with 30,000 runners pumped up on carbs from the Tavern on the Green pasta dinner the night before. P. Diddy famously ran the race two years ago (DIDDY RUNS THE CITY), and sponsor ING—in an effort to make sure nobody upstages this year's event in the flash department—has added fireworks to the pre-race evening roster.

November 19-December 10, Palermo, Argentina

Argentina's most famous exports (those rakish heartthrob polo players) take time off from the paycheck polo circuit to return to the motherland and trounce one another in the sport's premier annual competition: the Argentine Polo Championship. (No fat-cat patrons are allowed to muck up the game; this is for real players only.)

Late November, Paris

The Debutantes Ball at the Hotel de Crillon seems to have cornered the global market on the patrician auction block most commonly known as the debutante ball. About two dozen teenagers are presented in couture ball gowns before a handpicked crop of 300 suitable suitors and the girls' boldfaced-name parents. This year's offerings are rumored to include Ashley Bush, sister of Lauren Bush, who debuted in 2000, as did daughters of Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, Mariel Hemingway, Silvio Berlusconi, I. M. Pei, Patty Hearst, David Tang, and Anna Wintour.

November 26, London

Scottish reeling season (yes, there is such a thing) runs from September through May, with the London Reels, PGT Reels, and Hampshire Reels all bowing to the St. Andrew's Ball, at Banqueting House, as Lord of the Dance. Unless you already know the Inverness Country Dance, the Strip the Willow, and the 15 other regimented dances, you ought to stay on the sidelines or buy the unintentionally hilarious cribnotes: The Swinging Sporran Reel Guide.

Figaro, Figaro, Figaro

The fat lady sings and skinny, couture-clad women listen during six opening-night opera performances, all of which have gala parties: New York (New York City Opera, September 7; Metropolitan Opera, September 19) •Los Angeles (September 10) •San Francisco (September 10) •Chicago (Lyric Opera, September 24) •Houston (October 22)