Dear Daily! Live from ACRIA's Cocktails at Sunset benefit

(NEW YORK) Dear Daily,

This summer, Daniel [Benedict] and I made a pact--no deadly boring Hamptons benefits! Why traipse along a soggy lawn in velvet slippers and the requisite navy blazer for a chicken dinner and big band music? Nah. The one exception we do make, though, is Cocktails at Sunset, a rip-roaringly fun and chic and hip benefit if ever there was one, thrown by ACRIA, the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America.

Calvin Klein Collection and Vanity Fair sponsored this year's bash, and I was lucky enough to be included as a host among the illustrious committee members (who included Ingrid Sischy & Sandra Brant, Bob Colacello, Francisco Costa, Linda Evangelista & Peter Morton, Aerin Lauder, Craig McDean, Astrid Munoz, Elizabeth Saltzman, Natalia Vodianova & Justin Portman, Bruce Weber, Italo Zucchelli and moi). Photographer extraordinaire Steven Klein (he of the Madonna photos and famed Hamptons showing last month that had the gallery owner taken away in cuffs for serving wine without a permit--jeeesh!), hosted the party at his chic Bridgehampton home. Daniel was away on business, so I nabbed Kelly Bensimon as my date. We pulled up (in her super-cool pick-up truck) and partied the night away with Padma Lakshmi (who just arrived from Wimbledon), Carol Alt, Daphne Guinness, Calvin Klein, Rachel Zoe (gearing up for her Bravo TV launch in September), Joy Bryant, Karolina Kurkova, Olivia Chantecaille, Mary Alice Stephenson, Lipstick Jungle's Rob Buckley, Jessica Stam, Sessa von Richthofen, Ferebee Taube, Zani Gugelmann, and Calvin Klein's Malcolm Carfrae. Some persnickety town officials shut down the fun at 11:00 pm, so Kelly and I hopped back in her pick-up. On our way home, Donna Karan called me and asked if we wanted to join her for a late night supper at Tutto Il Giorno (beyond yummy restaurant co-owned by her daughter Gabby & Italian hubby Gianpaolo), so Kelly and I beelined to Sag Harbor for a late night pasta pomodoro with Donna until close to 1 a.m.--and thankfully made it through another Hamptons Saturday without a stuffy benefit and rubber chicken.

Until next time!
Andrew