Amber D’Amelio, Connie Brown, Boo Menestrina and Michelle Skupien at the Rose Garden Party

Lisa Simons, Arreen Andrew and Jeanne Osborne at the Rose Garden Party

Mayor Martin J. Walsh at the Rose Garden Party

Madeleine Capino, Garry White and Joyce White at the Rose Garden Party

Nothing says summer quite like a cocktail party in a beautiful garden, and when you throw in gorgeous people in elaborate hats, it’s like Cecil Beaton designed the whole thing. That was the case at the Rose Garden Party, a visually arresting, unfailingly fabulous evening to benefit Park Arts, held in the Kelleher Rose Garden in the Fenway.

Hosted by Mayor Walsh and Lorrie Higgins, the feast for the eyes began with a hat contest disguised as a cocktail hour among trellises of every imaginable variety of rose, while the judges—yours truly, genius milliner Marie Galvin, fashion historian Kathleen McDermott and walking Met Gala Elisha Daniels—struggled to identify the most elegant, creative and DIY hats, fascinators and headbands. Among those being judged: hat addict Maggie Ahearn, scratch golfer Lisa Simons, sexbomb interior designer Steven Favreau, the naturally carbonated Jodi Wolin, fashionista Candice Wu, the seriously gorgeous Amber D’Amelio, raven-haired beauty Molly Dunne, NEC rainmaker Janet “Countess Marabucci” Goff, BSO babe Kim Noltemy, blond bombshell Adrienne Camire, Trustees factotum Ed Wilson, Fenway head honcha Beth Krudys, BC booster Ingrid Calder and one woman who said, “I enjoyed gala season a little too much, so the only thing I fit into is pajama bottoms.”

The evening’s best compliment, bestowed upon Elisha Daniels: “I saw Amal Clooney in that dress, and it was too short on her. It looks much better on you.” Meanwhile, the evening’s most amusing remark was this: “I don’t wear hats. They make me look like a toadstool.”