Category Archives: Color tips

“I love this party because you have a sense that what you’re doing is important. You don’t feel indulgent,” Kenneth Cole told Style.com at last night’s amfAR Inspiration Gala. “Except maybe tonight’s a little indulgent because we’re at the Plaza.” After cocktails in the Oak Room, guests were led, by drummer boy, to a military-inspired men’s fashion show off the lobby. The whole affair was topped off with dinner in the Grand Ballroom. Liza Minnelli exclaimed, “I feel like Eloise!” And well she should, of course. Minnelli’s childhood in the famous hotel is said to have inspired her godmother, Kay Thompson, to pen the popular children’s books.

The Inspiration Gala, as amfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost explained, is the night when amfAR honors the people who might not be HIV/AIDS activists but whose work informs amfAR’s mission nonetheless. The evening’s honorees were Alan Cumming, Valentino (he couldn’t make it, so Iman accepted the award on his behalf), and Jennifer Lopez. A date with Lopez when she accepts her Walk of Fame star in Hollywood later this year was a highly coveted auction lot, especially after Lopez upped the ante by offering not one, but two dates. Dsquared²’s Dean and Dan Caten secured the first, and another bidder got the other, each for a cool $90,000.

— Todd Plummer

Soho’s Greene Street has become quite the retail destination of late (Saint Laurent’s and Warby Parker’s new stores come to mind, and Proenza Schouler is moving in later this year). Last night, designer Clare Waight Keller was the guest of honor at Chloé’s new shop on the block, which opened in February. “Soho is back!” shouted DJ Mia Moretti over the cocktail-hour chatter. Later, at the Locanda Verde dinner, Waight Keller said, “I think it’s all happening right here. It’s like a two-mile radius of all of Paris coming together.” Asked about her summer plans, Waight Keller told Style.com that she’ll be splitting her time between Europe and California. “We’re doing all the surfing areas, so we’re going to the beach in Malibu.” So is there a surf range in Chloé’s future? “I need to do one!” Waight Keller said. “But we’ve got great swim. I can tell you that.”

Waight Keller was far from the only designer being feted on this busy Tuesday. At Omar’s La Ranita, in Greenwich Village, Jens Grede and Erik Torstensson toasted their Frame Denim collaborator Karlie Kloss, who has added designer to a résumé that includes model and cookie entrepreneur. The styles in the Karlie Forever line are inspired by Kloss’ difficulty finding jeans long enough to fit her endless legs. File under #supermodelproblems. Uptown at Bergdorf Goodman, meanwhile, Roland Mouret was in from London and sitting down to supper with loyal stateside fans such as Maggie Gyllenhaal, Linda Fargo, and Leslie Fremar. It turns out customers don’t just come to Mouret for clothes. At his trunk show earlier in the day, Mouret had bumped into a client who had recently bought two paintings from an exhibition the designer had hosted at his Carlos Place store.

And on to Chelsea, where Barneys’ Mark Lee was celebrating the store’s ten-year partnership with Proenza’s Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough. At least one editor in the crowd, Glamour‘s Anne Christensen, was wearing a piece from the designers’ first major show, in 2003. “The clothes hold up,” Hernandez said. “You know, we made them all ourselves. We had cutting parties, where we’d invite our friends over and hand them a pair of scissors.” It was champagne and small plates that were being passed around on Lee’s balcony.

— Katharine K. Zarrella and Staff

Not even a natural disaster could prevent the annual Whitney Gala and Studio Party from taking place—Sandy might have delayed the festivities, but last night’s “Do Over” was every bit the philanthropic fête the original was expected to be. After announcing that the event had raised over $2.7 million for the museum, with a third of that going to relief for artists affected by the storm, chairman Leonard Lauder thanked co-chairs Allison Kanders, Amy Phelan, and Lizzie Tisch for essentially having to organize the event twice. Designer Pamella DeVos of Pamella Roland, Whitney board member and a sponsor of the evening, admitted the reschedule had left her a bit harried. “I live in Michigan with my family still. I’m only here part-time, so today I had a fashion show uptown and then a board meeting and now this, all on one day.”

After dinner, the uptown charity set was replaced by the late-nighters. Nate Lowman deejayed—”I actually did this in the nineties. Tonight I’m back on the turntables; nothing but vinyl tonight,” he said—while designers Thakoon Panichgul and Timo Weiland, with their pre-fall lines all wrapped up, let their hair down on the dance floor. “I’ve been coming here since I was 18,” said Weiland. “So many great memories.” And with pre-fall behind him, what can we expect for Fall 2013? “Peplum, but it’s a bit more gathered—I love how architectural it feels.”

— Todd Plummer

As anyone who got stuck in traffic on Atlantic Avenue outside of the newly erected Barclays Center in Brooklyn this weekend knows, the Rolling Stones are in town kicking off the U.S. leg of their “50 and Counting” arena tour. Mick and company will make appearances at Madison Square Garden’s Sandy relief show on Wednesday and at the Prudential Center in Newark on Thursday. But first came dinner at the Carlyle hotel last night to celebrate the debut scent from Jagger’s girlfriend, L’Wren Scott.

“L’Wren is always game for a new project,” Barneys CEO Mark Lee said of the designer. Scott is the first collaborator in what will be a full collection of Barneys New York Designer Fragrances, and apparently it took very little arm-twisting. “This is a really exciting dream come true for me,” she told the crowd, which in addition to Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood included Ryan McGinley, Daphne Guinness, and co-host Rachel Feinstein Currin and her husband John Currin, as well as latecomers in the form of Lorne Michaels and Martin Short. (“We were just across the street at the Portlandia premiere,” they revealed over a plate of frites, no steak.)

Earning her “hostess with the mostest” cred, Feinstein Currin was effusive about the new fragrance. “I’m wearing it right now,” she said of the chypre eau with the surprising absinthe top note, explaining that she’d come across the large bordeaux flacon in a glass case at the Stones’ after-party this weekend. “It’s very sexy,” she continued—a point on which her husband seemed in complete agreement as he took a deep whiff of his wife’s neck. “There is no minimalism with L’Wren,” Feinstein Currin concluded. “It’s all about pleasure and life.”

— Celia Ellenberg

Miami Beach might not seem like the obvious location to fête a brand best known for its down jackets, but with so many stylish visitors in town, it really was the only choice for Moncler’s 60th anniversary.

The Friday night festivities were focused around a seated dinner in an unpredictable setting: a seventh-floor concrete parking lot at the end of Lincoln Road, the high altitude providing expansive views of South Beach. White sofas and projected lighting were added to give the raw space the feel of a massive, elegant, but somewhat apocalyptic living room. “This is like Blade Runner,” the actor Stephen Dorff said. “This is awesome.”

The party, hosted by Moncler’s Remo Ruffini, attracted the likes of Uma Thurman, Giambattista Valli, Bruce Weber, Scott Schuman and Garance Doréacute;, and Waris Ahluwalia, who has been coming to Art Basel on and off for years. “There are so many more parties,” he said. “Just because there are more doesn’t mean I’m going to more of them, but Moncler always does something spectacular.” It also did something clever: Sprawled on the sofas were white duvetlike down capes, which came in handy as the evening got breezy. “It’s always good to have a little cover-up for girls—we always get cold,” Karolina Kurkova said. After dinner, partygoers headed to Le Baron, held at Nikki Beach for the evening—to continue celebrating.

— Rachel Felder