For many New Yorkers, popping from the Financial District midday to Harlem in the afternoon to an evening out in Midtown would be a lot. When you’re British royalty making your first trip to the United States as heads of state, it’s protocol.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla capped their whirlwind trip to New York City on Wednesday night at the auction house Christie’s with a celebration hosted by the King’s Trust, formerly the Prince’s Trust, a charity founded by Charles in 1976 to expand opportunity for young people. The event raised $3 million, according to the trust.
It was the royal couple’s final, big night out during their official state visit to the United States. Anna Wintour, Donatella Versace, Iman and Stella McCartney walked a small red carpet in New York City’s Rockefeller Center before sipping on champagne and gin martinis with lemon twists that were shaped into fascinators.
McCartney, standing in front of a Damien Hirst spot painting on the red carpet, said she was at the gala to “support everything good” that the king does.
“We are very aligned in our ways of thinking about saving the planet and all of its creatures and loving and respecting nature,” said McCartney, who emphasizes sustainability in her work as a fashion designer.
Wintour, who will reign over her own red carpet at the Met Gala on Monday, was asked what she likes to chat about with the king and queen.
“I don’t chat,” she said. “I listen.”
The King’s Trust Global Gala came on the third day of a royal tour of Washington, Virginia and New York. Earlier on Wednesday, the king and queen had visited the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan. The king had also met with children in Harlem who are part of a youth program that runs an urban farm, and the queen spoke about the power of literature at the New York Public Library’s main branch alongside luminaries including Sarah Jessica Parker.
Martha Stewart, holding court over the red carpet, complimented the king’s gardening talents and remarked at their shared passion. (Her tulips were doing exceptionally, she added.)
Would she count herself as American royalty? “Oh, I would never presume,” she said.
In a gallery around the corner, the actress Meghann Fahy begged to differ.
Martha as American queen? “I’d like to see that,” she said.
The British actor Leo Woodall (and Fahy’s partner) agreed, and suggested a counterpart for Queen Martha: King Snoop Dogg.
While guests mingled in a crowded gallery, trying not to bump into the artwork on the walls, Karlie Kloss and Iman huddled in a corner.
Inside the gallery, Wintour spoke with King Charles alongside Mark Guiducci, the global editorial director of Vanity Fair, and Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath and a cast member in the Bravo series “Ladies of London: The New Reign.”
Security began to clear a path, corralling Stewart, Tilbury and Nina Dobrev to the side of the gallery.
As the king and queen finally entered the auction, passing walls of art, a wave of curtsies began behind a lane of velvet ropes. First came Queen Camilla in a leopard-print dress, followed by King Charles in a blue suit.
The king was met with enthusiastic applause as he took his place behind the lectern, a David Hockney painting to one side of him and a Childe Hassam on the other.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity, if I may say so, apart from anything else, that at this reception we can celebrate both my King’s Trust and the enduring cultural bond between the people of the United Kingdom and the United States,” King Charles said. “Which is of course a relationship rooted in shared creativity, enterprise and value, reminding us that we are truly greater together.”
King Charles thanked the co-chairs of the event, which included Charlotte Tilbury, the beauty mogul, and Lionel Richie. The musician toasted the king but stopped short of a performance, much to the king’s chagrin.
“I’m really mad that he isn’t singing this evening, I don’t know how he does it, he must gargle with port or something,” the king said.
Addressing the room, Christian Turner, the British ambassador to the United States, discussed the “extraordinary engine of collaboration and partnership” between the two countries.
He also contrasted the royals’ visit this week with a very different one by King Charles’s grandfather King George VI, who, when visiting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, was fed hot dogs.
Instead of hot dogs, guests on Wednesday night dined on asparagus salad, filet mignon and petit fours.
King Charles and Queen Camilla left Christie’s just before the dinner portion of the night, with a full schedule of events awaiting them in Thursday in Virginia. But their departure was met with a light display on the JP Morgan Chase building flashing the Union Jack.
Remy Tumin is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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