When Terence Koh co-hosted the Whitney Gala recently, Fendi lent him an outrageously priced (as in $165,000) fur coat, which the elfin artist was so enchanted with that he hated to give it back. “I couldn’t return it,” he says. “When I wore it, I felt like the last Chinese emperor.” As he contemplated the coat, Koh came up with a solution: a contract with “a secret art collectress who understood my needs.” The deal Koh and his benefactress entered into was that Koh would embark on a period of indentured servitude and produce art for his patron until he had given her an array equivalent in value to the price of the garment. “We might make it many, many pieces, over the years,” he predicts. “I want to make it like a love diary between me, her, and the coat.”—Ana Finel Honigman

Photo: Courtesy of Terence Koh