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RSVIP: The Palace Regrets to Inform

Filed under: Events

When a Prince touches down in the socially ambitious Hamptons, snagging an invite can be a slippery slope indeed.

First of all, author Jay McInerney and his wife, Anne Hearst McInerney, who feted HSH Prince Albert of Monaco this weekend, are sensational hosts, they support the arts and the environment in an enormously generous fashion, and in person, they are nothing but nice. And, especially after this regal shindig, they are the center of social swirl on the East End of Long Island.

If Truman Capote, having published "In Cold Blood," was at the zenith of his society status when he gave the black-and white-ball in 1966 at the Plaza Hotel with Katharine Graham, McInerney, who married Hearst on November 21, 2006, at 21, the former society speakeasy, is now enjoying a longer-term embrace by New York society in Manhattan and the Hamptons.

And Mr. McInerney, a wine expert and world-famous author, doesn't lord his social cachet over others, the way, say, Capote used to drop names while in a glassy-eyed stupor on "The Merv Griffin Show." Mrs. McInerney's grandfather was William Randolph Hearst, founder of the Hearst Corporation and the alleged subject of the Orson Welles classic film "Citizen Kane." During the brutally warm summer of 2010 on the East End of Long Island, Jay McInerney has quietly become a kind of Jay Gatsby.

Idyllic Setting for Princely gathering

While William Randolph Hearst was known for his zoo-like menagerie at San Simeon, the Hearst McInerneys entertain at idyllic Ashgrove Farm in Watermill, where the couple keep an emu (like an ostrich in a ballgown drape of feathers), presentation hens, and two 3-foot-tall geese, out of a fairy tale, that appear to weigh over 100 pounds each. Sadly, their pet Llama succumbed, possibly to Lyme disease, over the winter.

The sprawling shingled main house, designed by Peter Cook in the style of the original farmhouse at San Simeon, includes stone fireplaces, centuries old, collected in Europe by Mrs. McInerney's grandfather. The guesthouse is a modernist structure, recently built, with colorful 1960s-themed art, including bright squares within squares by Frank Stella.

Tags: anne hearst, Charlene Wittstock, jay mcinerney, prince albert, prince albert fiance, Prince Albert of Monaco, rsvip

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RSVIP: Patricia Clarkson in "Cairo Time"

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events

Cairo Time is the lyrical film potrait of Juliette Grant, Patricia Clarkson, the sophisticated wife of a UN official langushing in a luxury hotel in Cairo, waiting for her husband's return from a flair up in Gaza. Alexander Siddig (Syriana), as Tareq, plays an elegant bachelor and former employee of her husband, who steps in to guide Juliette through the sunswept vistas of the ancient city and ever closer to his heart.

Monday, July 26, guests of a "Cairo Time" screening mill through Bar Seine at Manhattan's Plaza Athenee hotel. Tall ceilings, long, dark curtains in the doorway, and a Fortuny-style chandelier overhead suggest the luxury of the Near East.

Documentary film director Ken Burns is hosting a dinner for the film at Arabelle, the chichi restaurant in the next room. Creamy yellow walls are flanked by heraldic brass bars that support Venetian glass lighting on chains. The floor of the restaurant is a pool of linen-covered tables and gold ballroom chairs.

Our host, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, is a busy man. "We just finished a film on prohibition," he told Luxist. "After that, it's The Dust Bowl, The Roosevelts, The Central Park Jogger, and Vietnam."

"There were 50,000 speakeasies on the island of Manhattan during Prohibition," Burns offered. "It was a phenomenal reaction to an ill-conceived law."

Burns also mentioned that he filmed at 21, the famous society boite on the Upper East Side. "21 was a speakeasy," he said. "The password changed all the time. That was a part of the glamour. If you knew the code, you got in."

Tags: Alexander Siddig, cairo time, patricia clarkson, rsvip

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RSVIP: Party Paradise at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art

With a blonde upsweep, Sharon Stone appeared angelic in a backless white gown with thin black spaghetti straps during the 17th Annual Summer Benefit for Watermill Center on July 24. Stone then busted a few oddly spastic moves. "I think a bug just flew up my dress," she offered at the mike. "What an awkward moment . . . for the bug." Shades of "Basic Instinct."

Watermill Center, an endless rectangular modernist structure, began as a 30,000-square-foot Western Union research facility on a former outpost of the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Robert Wilson, considered a key figure in experimental theater, spearheaded the summer art colony and museum on the East End of New York's Long Island. He is best known for his 1976 piece "Einstein on the Beach," with music by Philip Glass.

In summer, Wilson and the Watermill Center host artists from around the globe who join the kibbutz-like arts community, where artists not only create, but also wash plates and prune trees.

During cocktails, tiki torches lit a path to dancers that decorated a maze of outdoor art installations in the woods. Created by 70 artists from 12 nations, including Kuwait, Russia, and Thailand, the vignettes interpreted the evening's ethereal "Paradiso" theme.

Tags: alec baldwin, jay mcinerney, rsvip, rufus wainwright, sharon stone, watermill center

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RSVIP: Schmuck-Free Dinner for "Dinner for Schmucks"

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events

A welcome blast of air conditioning from an open door at the Ralph Lauren Rugby store on Main Street in East Hampton cooled an abbreviated red carpet at the East Hampton UA theater during arrivals for the Vanity Fair and Cinema Society screening of "Dinner for Schmucks" on July 17.

On his way inside, James Lipton, of the Actors Studio, with his scruffy black goat beard, mentioned that he has likely been the schmuck at a dinner party or two. "I suspect that people who had dinner with me felt they were having dinner with a schmuck," he offered in a modulated monotone. A "good seat" is what an excellent dinner partner is called in heady social circles. "But I think I suck," said Lipton. "I am not very good at it. My wife is superb. Everyone wants to know about the actors I've met, but that's the last thing I want to talk about."

Meanwhile, at the head of the red carpet, "SNL"'s Lorne Michaels glad handed Howard Stern, who wore fatigues with cargo pockets and a shirt that read "Star USA" on the back. Broad faced beauties Christie Brinkley and Candice Bergen Cheshire cat-smiled down the carpet. Lucy Punch, who plays Paul Rudd's crazy, sex-obsessed ex-girlfriend in the film, wore a dress by Christian Cota and Sergio Rossi shoes. "I've had a lot of dates with schmucks," she said. "They go on and on, complete disasters. Moronic. I think I attract these idiots."

Has Paul Rudd, wearing a suit by Marc Jacobs though the event was in part sponsored by Hugo Boss, dined with schmucks? "I'm sure somewhere along the way. . . . ," he admits after hemming and hawing politely. "I'd say yes."

Tags: ahn duong, dinner for schmucks, howard stern, james lipton, jay roach, katie couric, kyle maclachlan, paul rudd, rsvip, ShoshannaLonstein

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RSVIP: Parrish Museum Honors Beth DeWoody, a Latter Day "Peggy Guggenheim"

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Unlike the legendary art patroness Peggy Guggenheim, Manhattan real estate family scion, Beth Rudin DeWoody may not have rebuilt a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice, where lions once roamed, and Jackson Pollock didn't urinate in her fireplace, but DeWoody has packed three sizable domiciles from Southamton, New York to West Palm Beach, Florida and likely a great deal of storage with the quirky highlights of contemporary art.

On July 10, DeWoody and the world famous painter Ross Bleckner were honored at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York, during the annual Parrish Midsummer fete.

"She's so open-minded," said Carlton DeWoody, Beth's son, like his father, Beth's first husband Jim DeWoody, a gifted artist. "That had a big impact on me growing up."

At the entrance to DeWoody's Southampton cottage, a key site in the original Southampton Art Colony, hangs a deer trophy head in an S&M-style leather hood that zips up the side. Lift a small magnifying glass on a book, as Luxist did on a previous visit, and a tiny man magically appears as a holograph, projected in 3-D.

"Beth is my partner in crime," offered designer Richard Mishaan with gusto, "my personal Auntie Mame. She has educated me, guided me into buying some of the best pieces I have, like a Peter Dayton surfboard last week."

"She's the Peggy Guggenheim of our time," pronounced Debbie Bancroft, chair of the tony Southampton society benefit, sporting a dress made with python skins for Calypso. "Everyone loves Beth and Ross . . . and there is nothing like having beloved honorees."

"She is the most welcoming person, with the most eclectic taste in friends, art, and furniture," added artful party photographer Patrick McMullan.

Tags: hamptons, olivia chantecaille, parrish art museum, peggy guggenheim, ross bleckner, rsvip, southampton, stuart weitzman

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RSVIP: World Premiere of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events

During one of Manhattan¹s hottest evenings on record, our invitation to the world premiere of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" read:"Experience the coolest job ever in the heart of Times Square." The temperature on July 6, the afternoon of the screening, hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit, and it didn't feel any cooler standing in the breath of 42nd Street traffic beside the red carpet. Hence, Luxist decided to seize the sizzling day and ask VIP celebrities what the coolest job they could ever imagine would be.

"I like anything to do with the water . . . the ocean," said Nicolas Cage, star of the film, standing with his beautiful wife, Alice Kim, his hair tinged blond. "The deadliest catch," he added. "I have a lot of respect for the snow crab fishermen, Alaska king crab... for anyone out there trying to help the environment. Those are my dream jobs."

"Right now," answered Kelly Choi, the sexy hostess of "Top Chef Masters," inspired by the outdoor sauna, "I should be a pool tester. I should be testing whether they are cool enough or not."

"Oh, being a hairdresser," quipped Helen Mirren, also on the carpet. She had sported a particularly severe coif when she played the title role in "The Queen."

A somewhat stout Cedric the Entertainer also replied to our query. "A coveted NBA player like LeBron James, though I know I'm a little short for that one," he said, laughing. "I can't dunk. I don't know if I could even do a layup right now."

Jay Baruchel, of "She's Out of Your League" fame, who stars opposite Cage in the movie, said that he would simply like to "direct horror movies in Montreal . . . that's all I've ever wanted." Why Montreal? "That's where I live," he explained.

Tags: alice kim, danielle staub, jill zarin, Kelly Choi, nicolas cage, Roxy Olin, rsvip, Sorcerers Apprentice

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RSVIP: Kim Kardashian Brings Sexy to the FIFI Awards

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Cosmetics and Fragrance

An Oscar is to film and a Tony is to Broadway what a FIFI Award is to fragrance.

On June 10, the 38th Annual FIFI Awards commandeered New York's Downtown Armory, adding a sniff of glamour to the behemoth brick Army post. Kim Kardashian appeared vacuum-packed into a gown by Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad. The double breasted scoop in the front, with six large buttons, added gravity-defying lift to Kardashian's ample cleavage. Like everyone at the event, she spoke Fragrancese. "It's basically all my favorite memories in a bottle," said the reality-show star of her eponymous scent, aptly subtitled in the sexy ads, "The voluptuous new fragrance."

"The gardenia [note] is for the family vacations with my dad in Hawaii," she said. "Tuberose reminds me of my mom. All my favorite scents happen to be white florals. I added a bit of orange blossom for citrus," she told Luxist.

Usher, honored as the FIFI's 2010 Fragrance Celebrity of the Year, wore a padded black waistcoat by Alexander McQueen that resembled fencing garb. He called his move into fragrance "the branding of Usher," and speaking of his scent "VIP," he told Luxist, "This will be my fifth fragrance. I wanted intelligence; I wanted elegance. If you look at the advertisements, the weight of the bottle, the essence, it's all top-shelf."

"When everything else comes off," he quipped, "the fragrance stays on."

"I was happy to find my new love, new passion, which is fragrance," he said, then posing with a soldier in fatigues.

Tags: celebrity fragrance, fifi awards, fragrance foundation, kim kardashian, leelee sobieski, michael kors, rsvip, Sofia Vergara, usher

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RSVIP: Warhol Lives Through New Photo Exhibit

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art

Andy Warhol and his arty, edgy world rises like a phoenix in a comprehensive exhibit of vintage photographs which opened on Saturday, June 5, at the Eric Firestone Gallery, 4 Newtown Lane in East Hampton, New York. Entitled "Warhol: Dylan to Duchamp," the gallery's inaugural exhibit features images that stretch from Warhol's Silver Factory days, to the set of his film "Lonesome Cowboys," to the VIP lounge at Studio 54.

By the front window of the gallery, two monitors display screen tests filmed by Warhol, one starring a youthful Bob Dylan and the other, an ancient Marcel Duchamp. In an endless tight headshot, Duchamp wears a checkered shirt, and his white hair is pushed back. The father of Dada sips from a glass, and his eyes dart to the side uncomfortably as the unceasing lens takes in every wrinkle.

Tags: andy warhol, annie leibovitz, Edie Sedgwick, eric firestone gallery, hamptons, hamptons art, rsvip, taylor mead

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RSVIP: Taste of Summer Benefit in Central Park

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining, Events

On a balmy evening, Wednesday, June 2, 2010, a white tent with multiple peaks sprawls out next to the bandshell in New York's Central Park. Inside, rows of stations manned by chefs, their well-known names inscribed on their kitchen whites, dole out amuse-bouche and larger bites.

Well-heeled guests generously shelled out $350 ($400 at the door) for the endless banquet, as the proceeds benefit New York's beloved Central Park. In stilettos, reed-thin social Somers White Farkas towers next to a dance floor where her pal Muffy Potter Aston mixes it up to Michael Jackson's "ABC."

"We'll raise over $600,000," says Gillian Miniter, president of the Central Park Conservancy Women's Committee. Miniter sports a dress by designer Lela Rose, Manolo shoes, and jewelry by Fulco di Verdura, an Italian duke favored by Coco Chanel. "All of it goes directly to the park," she says. "The conservancy provides 85 percent of the [$26-million] budget for the park each year."

At station 19, Austrian chef Marcus Glocker of Gordon Ramsay at the London NYC tells Luxist that he met the Brit TV foodie when he was 19 years old. "I knocked on his door to get a job in London," says Glock while spraying white foam into plastic cups from a silver canister to prepare white chocolate ganache, coconut foam, and fresh mango. "The yogurt powder in the chocolate makes it a bit tangy, very airy, no dairy, nice and light," he says. And does Ramsey, famous for knocking everyone in the kitchen down to size, wreak havoc when he visits New York? "He checks flavors," says Glock, who claims that no f-bombs are dropped. "He just mentions a few nuances."

Tags: blt market, central park, central park boathouse, central park conservancy, new york city, Palm Court, red eye grill, rsvip, serendipity 3, taste of summer, telepan

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RSVIP: Warhol Muse Sachiko Goodman Opens Her Greenwich Estate to Bruce Museum Patrons

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events

In bucolic Greenwich, Connecticut, attractive women, meticulously restored estates, and top wines miraculously improve with age.

Japanese-born beauty Sachiko Goodman, the legendary real estate agent, and her husband, Lawrence, a retired businessman and philanthropist, opened Hickory Hill, their storied estate in the Belle Haven section of Greenwich, Connecticut, for the Annual Bruce Museum Patron Party on Thursday, May 20. The event toasted the Renaissance ball benefiting the Bruce Museum, which takes place on June 5 this year and is generally considered a centerpiece of the Greenwich social swim.

On a pillared terrace, an exacting chef assisted by a woman in traditional Japanese dress fills boats with fresh sushi. Past the kitchen and down a thin, modernist corridor, in an open white space, hang multiple Warhol images of Sachiko Goodman. "They were my birthday present when I was 30 years old," says Mrs. Goodman, wearing a white Givenchy safari dress and appearing equally as fresh as in the renderings on the wall. "But I was never pleased with the way my face looked, so I never really wanted to display them until just recently."

Goodman describes her dear, now late friend, Andy Warhol, who would become so very famous. "I just loved him as a person," she says. "He was a very shy guy, a little weird but very nice. He was very good to my daughter. Every time he visited me, in this house or my previous home in Greenwich, he always brought sweet gifts."

And did Warhol take Polaroid images of her to create the portraits? "I have hundreds of them," answers Goodman. "I keep them in an album. Now that I'm older, possibly more mature, I appreciate that I'm very, very lucky to have these things."

Tags: andy warhol, bruce museum, connecticut, greenwich, rsvip, sachiko goodman

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RSVIP: Jewelry Scion Evan Yurman Shines at Glittering Sloan-Kettering Gala

by Jeffrey Slonim (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry, Events, Celebrity Shopping

While classic jewelry purveyor David Yurman sponsored The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering spring gala in New York on Tuesday, his son Evan carried the torch in person with New York's sparkling social set.

America may find the vacuous catfights between Bravo's "The Real Housewives of New York City" entertaining, but meanwhile, the true socials of New York quietly continue fund-raising for worthy causes such as The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. On May 18, in the ballroom at the Pierre Hotel, they did so with great style, brightened by considerable gems.In fact, the hosts of this third annual gala, designer Tory Burch and her close pal Jamie Tisch, proved so popular that the event sold out before invitations were posted in the mail. Wearing chunky, rosy-red Rubellite chandelier earrings, sunny blonde co-chair Shelley Carr spoke of Yurman's support. "He started as a sculptor, and now his son Evan just helped to open a fabulous townhouse store on Madison," she offered. "I told them I was wearing blue, so they wanted to go with pink Rubellite earrings and ring and bracelets from Yurman's new lattice series."

Evan Yurman, who loaned the statement jewelry, acted like a star magnet in the ballroom. "I studied Italian Renaissance literature and photography," said Yurman's strapping son, also trained as a blacksmith, filling in for Dad that night. The artisan with reddish facial scruff, a skinny straight black tie, and unruly natural curls, told Luxist, "I love analyzing the historic apparel of decadent eras, the wants of jewelry patrons. Rubellite can come from the U.S., Nigeria, and Afghanistan, depending on the different colors of pink that you're looking for . . . [designing with them] can be like painting."

According to young Yurman, co-chair Heather Leeds had on "Prasiolite drop earrings. . . part of our couture collection." Leeds kept her hair up that night to reveal the luminous stones. "I was trying to pick jewelry created with our spring ball colors, either green or purple," she said. "And there were so many beautiful choices."

Mary J. Blige, who performed at the event, wore her golden hair freshly snipped into a honey-striped bob. According to Evan, Blige had on a Yurman's signature Albion ring that matched her hair. "She owns that one," he said of the ring. "She's one of our greatest clients."

"I have a lot of David Yurman chains and rings that I bought at Neiman Marcus," added Blige. And she enjoys mixing in the work of other jewelers; she also had on large cuff with a flower created in sparkling stones, by her friend Lorraine Schwartz.

Tags: david yurman, evan yurman, mary j blige, pierre hotel, rsvip, Sloan-Kettering

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