The Beaux Arts Ball (in French the Bal des Quatres Arts) is the annual costume ball traditionally given by the students of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the spring, in the École building on the rue Bonaparte overlooking the Seine. Elaborately allegorical floats circled the room at midnight and were judged by a panel. "It is a riot, a revival of paganism, known elsewhere only in Italy. It is also, in its way, a hymn to beauty, a living explosion of the senses and the emotions," wrote E. Berry Wall in Neither Pest Nor Puritan. On-line quote Its reputation for fabulously designed nudity, louche antics, cross-dressing and high style encouraged imitators in American cities. In 1931, in New York, famous architects dressed up as their buildings.

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