Don’t judge me, I just got off the plane from London 20 minutes ago,” Sofia Sanchez Barrenechea announced at last night’s 20th annual ArtWalk NY fundraiser to a crowd of friends that included Laure Heriard Dubreuil, Zani Gugelmann, Jennifer Fisher, and Athena Calderone. The night before was Mario Testino’s 60th birthday party across the pond, and despite missing her scheduled flight the morning after, Barrenechea made it back to New York just in time to scope out the tail end of ArtWalk NY’s silent auction at Chelsea’s Metropolitan Pavilion. “I had to get changed in the car from the airport; I was putting on eyeliner at the red lights,” she said.
While most of the women wore Dolce & Gabbana—the party’s title sponsor for two years in a row—Jennifer Connelly stood out in a jacket and skirt from Spring ’15 Louis Vuitton. She’s been a Nicolas Ghesquière devotee for years—she starred in his campaigns at Balenciaga and, as she explained to Style.com, happily followed him to Vuitton: “It feels strange when I see Vuitton now. So many of the pieces are like things I’ve always loved. They’re entirely new, but there is something very familiar about it. Nicolas always works with those opposing forces, and it’s really beautiful.”
ArtWalk benefits the Coalition for the Homeless, and Connelly and her husband, Paul Bettany, were last night’s guests of honor. This year, he wrote and directed and she starred in Shelter, a film that draws attention to today’s historic levels of homelessness. Some 57,000 people, including 24,000 children, sleep in shelters in New York City every single night. Isn’t that something worth catching a flight from London, putting on a dress, and bidding on some art for?
Over at the Hammerstein Ballroom, where Alicia Keys was hosting the 11th annual Keep a Child Alive Black Ball, the cause was young people living with HIV. Nas, David Byrne, and Angel Haze all performed, and Riccardo Tisci received the evening’s Humanitarian Award for the way he’s challenged discrimination in his life and in his work. The ballroom was packed with Givenchy-clad bold-facers who had turned out to cheer him along, Marina Abramovic, Kanye West, and Madonna included. The selfies were flying.
Big Night
