“Big Spender” played just as cocktail hour began on Thursday, perhaps a bit of musical encouragement for the crowd to open their wallets later in the evening at the Pool restaurant in Manhattan.
The gala, the Kering Foundation’s Caring for Women Dinner, was about to welcome plenty of would-be big spenders, a roster of actors, models, athletes and artists including Julianne Moore, Karlie Kloss, Pamela Anderson, Simone Biles, Benicio Del Toro and Dakota Johnson. Tables would soon also be filled with less well-known but perhaps even wealthier guests bidding hundreds of thousands of dollars on auction items like a bejeweled necklace and a day playing polo in Argentina.
The bash is helmed annually by Salma Hayek Pinault and her husband, François-Henri Pinault, the chairman and former chief executive of Kering, the luxury behemoth that owns brands like Gucci and Saint Laurent. This year’s event was the fifth iteration of the fund-raiser, for organizations working to end gender-based violence against women and children.
Colman Domingo, M.C. for the evening, said Hayek Pinault could be very convincing.
“Salma is about many causes and she rallies her friends,” he said, adding that the two became friends after they hit it off presenting an award last year at the Golden Globes. “She was like, ‘take my number,’” he said, pantomiming Hayek Pinault repeatedly, gently hitting him.
Hayek Pinault arrived in a voluminous black Balenciaga gown and dramatic red Boucheron earrings. (You can guess who owns those brands.)
“I don’t do awareness,” she said about her commitment to getting actively involved with the evening’s causes rather than just lending her name. She described an early phone call to her now-husband while they were dating during which she told him about her work in Guatemala helping educate people involved in sex work about condoms.
Waiters in bow ties circled the room carrying trays of Champagne and tequila passionfruit cocktails in tall glasses topped with sprigs of mint. Martha Stewart, swathed in pearls, remarked that she used to dine at the Four Seasons Restaurant, which previously occupied the Pool’s space in Midtown.
The event, held during the U.S. Open and New York Fashion Week, meant guests had been making the rounds in recent days.
The gymnast Simone Biles was headed to a fashion show the following morning and then west to watch her husband, Jonathan Owens, play for the Indianapolis Colts.
“We’ll have to see,” she said, when asked about competing in the next Olympic Games. She was auctioning off a signed leotard for the evening’s cause.
The Olympic skier Lindsey Vonnsaid she’d been on a whirlwind trip, between catching tennis matches and shooting a commercial. “My grandfather always said you can sleep when you’re dead,” she joked.
Before dinner, the event’s co-hosts and honorees gathered in a room for a group photo. It looked like something out of a star-studded high school yearbook.
Hayek Pinault called out for somebody to bring her a margarita. (A tequila, straight up, as well as the requested cocktail quickly appeared.) Pamela Anderson cheek kissed Paris Hilton, whose team kept brushing her platinum tresses between photos. Leaning against the bar across the room, the singer Rita Ora said she would later perform “I am Woman” by special request of Hayek Pinault. She discussed horoscopes describing herself, a Sagittarius, as “an attention-seeking fire hazard.”
The group made their way to dinner where the celebrity guests were seated at a long, U-shaped table surrounding an installation of pampas grass; Anderson and Julianne Moore chatted near their seats.
“It’s too bad no one bothered to dress up this evening,” Domingo said to the black-tie-wearing crowd as he kicked off the night’s programming.
Pinault gave a short speech, taking a moment to honor Gloria Steinem, who co-hosted the inaugural gala in 2022. “Change is possible,” Pinault said, but stressed that the “scale of the challenge remains immense.” He noted that one in three women and girls will experience physical or sexual violence, or both, in their lifetime.
He also briefly indulged in a proud grandfather moment to mention the recent birth of his first grandchild. The arrival, he said, had made him more committed than ever to making the world a better place.
The table settings were from Ginori 1735, another Kering brand, and guests were served kale salad and filet mignon. Figs and honeycomb on silver platters dotted the velvet tablecloths, wedged in between quenelles of butter and wine glasses.
The auction, which included artwork by Lorna Simpson, another co-host, and a trip to an A.I. art museum, raised more than $5.2 million.
After petit fours, guests made their way back into the lobby for Ora’s performance. Hayek Pinault, now in a lacy, black gown, danced with her husband near the stage.
Paris Hilton followed Ora with a bass-thumping D.J. set, though the crowd was visibly absent of seemingly all the celebrities who had graced the step and repeat earlier in the evening.
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