Larissa Abramova, a Ukrainian violinist, thought her red dress was lovely. But apparently it offended Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki - and got him out of a gala dinner attended by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Abramova said on Friday she was wearing a red, sleeveless dress with long matching gloves coming up past the elbow and a red scarf draped over the low-cut front.
She chose the ensemble especially for Thursday's dinner for dozens of the world's top diplomats at a beach hotel where she plays every night - because, she told the Associated Press, she knew she would "look beautiful in it."
Mottaki stayed away from the dinner, held in a restaurant on the hotel's beach. He later told reporters later the dinner fell short of "Islamic standards." US officials said he complained the hotel violinist was dressed too revealingly.
The long-haired, attractive Abramova said she couldn't believe her dress was to blame. "I think the problem [is] not in me and not in my dress," she told the Associated Press, speaking at times in English and at times through an interpreter. "It was some other reason because he left the party." Mottaki never made it to the actual party. He only went as far as the lobby, where Abramova was playing at the bar, entertaining the dozens of diplomats passing by on their way to the beach restaurant.
Abramova said she saw many diplomats in suits passing by, but didn't recognise Mottaki or notice him sitting. She said she felt "a little bit embarrassed" by the attention but she was "OK."
Abramova, who has been working in Egypt for three years, said she was born in Russia, but her family later moved to Ukraine, where she gained citizenship.
