How to Buy Your Way into High Society

So you've made your millions but still lack respectability? Well, old chap, you can't purchase a blue-blood heritage, but you can clean up your image. You'll have to throw some money around, but be sure to do it with urbanity, style and grace. Anything vulgar and your plebeian roots will show.

Things You'll Need

• Newspapers
• Opera Tickets
• Theater Tickets
• Image consultants
• Theater tickets
• Opera tickets
• Public-relations expert
• Homes in desireable locations

Instructions

1. Read the society pages in the newspaper and regional magazines to get to know the names of local movers and shakers.

2. Update your image with the help of a consultant. Your hair, makeup, clothes and accessories must look classy, not gaudy.

3. Observe and emulate the manners and behavior of the highborn. When in doubt, adopt a stance of mysterious understatement.

4. Buy the highest-priced season tickets to the opera, theater and ballet to be privy to exclusive events and openings. If necessary, enlist someone to brief you on the finer points of the events you'll be attending. See How to Buy or Rent a Tuxedo.

5. Join private country clubs with steep membership fees and attend members-only social events. See How to Join an Elite Golf Club.

6. Publicly distance yourself, if necessary, from any distasteful business dealings. If you made your money by "harvesting" baby seals, for example, slip a few subtle comments to the press about "the need for change" and a "new business era" while being vague about specifics.

7. Adopt a noncontroversial cause (preferably one that lends itself to gala events) and give, give, give from the bottom of your wallet. Better yet, host a fund-raising party at your estate. (First, buy an estate.)

8. See and be seen at exclusive restaurants, polo matches, fashion shows and the hottest parties of the season. An image consultant will know which events are the most strategic. See How to Buy a Personal Jet.

9. Hire a public-relations expert to get your picture into the society pages.

10. Network, network, network. Befriend influential people and make yourself indispensable to them through generous favors and an utterly discreet nature.

11. Increase your social value by purchasing homes in desirable locations. Pieds-a`-terre in Paris, New York, London and the Hollywood hills will make you popular and mysteriously unavailable during certain seasons.

12. Disdain riffraff. It's essential to choose your acquaintances wisely.

Tips & Warnings

• Take etiquette and image improvement courses if you lack the social graces needed to interact easily in high society.

• Your alma mater might be a good route to high society. Alumni clubs are an excellent source for career and social networks.

• Develop expensive hobbies and tastes so that you'll have plenty in common with society swells. Race sailboats. Ride horses. Collect art, wine or rare autos.

• The woods are full of people eager to separate you from your money. Exercise due diligence before you hire an image consultant. Have them sign a confidentiality agreement.