Dior's Dinner Darlings
(LOS ANGELES) The rain may have hindered--but could not keep--guests away from the intimate dinner Dior Beauty hosted at the Chateau Marmont Thursday night, where the makeup, not the fashion, was the focal point. Many of the lovely ladies in attendance, including Rose McGowan, Michelle Monaghan, Angie Harmon, and Ali Landry (who's working on a maternity line), came rushing in fashionably late, echoing the same sentiment Landry expressed to makeup artist Patti Dubroff: "No one in L.A. can drive in the rain here!"
With coats checked and cocktails in hand, however, the ladies trickled onto the raised platform above the fountain in the Chateau's garden, where strangers became friends quicker than a snap of the fingers. Sharon Stone, channeling her sultriness in a red Dior cocktail dress, gushed to Georgina Chapman, with Harvey Weinstein and Edward Chapman in tow, "When I saw one of your designs I thought, 'now there's a dress for a woman--not a girl!" Chapman, obviously glowing, replied with a smile, "When can you come into the studio?" Stone's star power wasn't the only entity that had guests in awe. "I trim my own hair all the time," she explained of her newly shorn locks. "Not with hair scissors, mind you, but with packing shears: you just pull it up and out and snip!"
Gilles Mendel and Mary Alice Stephenson, along with Harmon and Monaghan, were a giggly foursome, having spent much of their night holed up at a red carpet suite the J.Mendel designer co-hosted at the Sunset Tower Hotel. But while the Dior gowns on display that night were sights to behold, Mendel was more taken with Stephenson's dress, which she customized from an oversized Valentino scarf. McGowan, meanwhile, gushed that she was "channeling Doris Day" in her leather Dolce & Gabbana sheath. Over dinner, she gabbed with Jacinda Barrett, the two of them reminiscing over a recent, and crazy surprise party in Las Vegas that shall remain confidential. Saffron Burrows, with Missoni liaison Edward O'Sullivan by her side, wore a vintage Missoni frock--and braved her heels for as long as she could before pulling out her prized Converse sneakers. "Look, they have vintage fabric swatches on them," she said guiltily, as she tucked her Dior by Assouline coffee table book and a train case of Dior makeup underneath her seat. "So sorry Edward, but I've got to be comfortable."
Over at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a crowd worthy of Vanity Fair's cancelled post-Oscar bash sent photographers into a frenzy as they turned out in their best black-tie gowns and monkey suits for a game of good 'ole dominoes--Hollywood style. Sponsored by de Grisogono, benefiting the Art of Elysium, and themed "A Night in Havana Cuba," Penelope Cruz, Ashton Kutcher, Salma Hayek, Kate Hudson, Kate Beckinsale, Molly Sims, Mia Maestro, Donna Karan, Lake Bell, and Rachel Zoe were among the troupe of players who competed in the name of charity. "The 1940s are my favorite decade," cooed Bell of her Elie Saab gown. "They allowed for a boob and a waist then."
Demi Moore proved her A-list worth by focusing intently on her game while others downed champagne and traded compliments. "I play often, and in a regular group," she confessed. "I ate a cheeseburger before I left the house so I wouldn't have any hunger pangs distracting me tonight."
Despite the protein, fellow actress Charlize Theron won, and de Grisogono chairman Fawaz Gruosi promptly handed her a check for $25,000, not to mention his company's new rose gold-and-diamond encrusted "N Uno" watch. Luckily she has a new watchmaker on her side, after her fracas with Raymond Weil last fall.
MONICA SCHWEIGER
