After four hours at the fair, I feel I've barely scratched the surface, but my retinal cones are burned out. I’m exhausted and overstimulated at the same time, and like any self-respecting V.I.P. fairgoer, I have at least a half-dozen events to attend tonight. I went to at least that many parties last night. The Raleigh hotel, owned by the irredeemably debonair hotelier André Balazs, a longtime collector himself, is party central for the week, hosting two or three events a night, including one tonight for Deitch Projects that will feature the glam-punk band Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, with some members performing topless. The big opening-night UBS reception, for a thousand or two V.I.P. guests, is held in a huge tent at the nearby Delano, which is where I start my night, grazing from the numerous buffet tables laden with stone crab and lobster claws, before moving back to the Raleigh in the company of Lady X and Lady Y, two fun-loving English aristocrats of my acquaintance, for a party featuring the work of physically and mentally handicapped artists, after which we jump into a cab to find the Pucci party, which is being held at a private estate a few miles from the Collins Avenue action.

The ballroom of the faux Mediterranean mansion is filled with little dresses hanging from big helium-filled balloons covered in candy-colored Pucci fabric. Although they weren’t actually invited to the dinner, Lady X and Lady Y find many of their friends in the courtyard. It’s a very Euro crowd. Everyone smokes. French and Italian are the predominant languages. The party is hosted by Pucci grandes dames Laudomia Pucci Castellano and Delphine Arnault-Gancia, the statuesque, eight-foot-tall daughter of LVMH honcho Bernard Arnault. Larry Gagosian is chatting with fellow dealer Arne Glimcher and Balazs. I hear my first art joke—a critic reporting the reaction of a rival when he heard about the death of the prolific artist Ed Kienholz: “I certainly hope this won’t slow down his production.” I greet new friends from last night’s Cartier dinner, Lacma director Michael Govan and his wife, Katherine Ross. Formerly with Dia Art Foundation and the Guggenheim, Govan is a genuine art historian, and Ross is a major figure in the LVMH global empire. The union of these particular incredibly good-looking people feels emblematic of the Miami Basel weltanschauung—the marriage of art and luxury-retail branding.

“Art Basel Miami has become the ultimate cross-marketing platform,” says publicist Nadine Johnson, one of the organizers of tonight’s event and an expert on the subject. The fair is devoted to conferring the prestige and historical legacy of the art world—its brand—onto brands of fashion, liquor, jewelry, automobiles. On the other hand, you wonder if the conferring doesn’t go both ways. Murakami, who has created handbags for Louis Vuitton, recently had a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which actually displayed and sold the handbags right there in the museum, alongside the artwork. When it comes to glitz and hustle, I’m not so sure that the Christie’s and Sotheby’s contemporary-art departments have anything on LVMH.

Although the Pucci invitation was for 9 p.m., we’re still standing around at 10:30. Some of us are grumbling about missing the Iggy Pop concert on the beach. When we finally sit down, a German count named Carl von Bismarck is furious to discover that his ex-wife is seated at a better table than he and his current wife. “She’s not even a countess,” sniffs one of the guests. Carl von Bismarck throws a tantrum, yells at ­Arnault-Gancia, storms off, comes back, yells again, and leaves again. Not quite Iggy Pop, but entertaining nonetheless.

The next morning, Mera and Don Rubell are hosting a breakfast at the Rubell Family Collection with their children, Jennifer and Jason. Mera was among the driving forces in bringing Art Basel to Miami, and her daughter, Jennifer, seems to have inherited her uncle Steve Rubell’s flair for entertaining. She has prepared a breakfast of 2,000 peeled eggs, 2,000 croissants, 2,000 strips of bacon—and no utensils. Guests are advised to don the surgical gloves laid out at the tables, and many do, digging into the trough of bacon. It has to count as one of the better moments of the week: hundreds of wealthy, cultured Babelites eating breakfast with their hands.