For the second year running,
Donatella Versace lent her party-hosting skills to the
Whitney Museum of American Art's fall gala. And once again, she
brought a little bit of everything in the door, from big-presence
pop stars (Jennifer
Hudson, Shakira) to leading men
(Gerard Butler) to just-wanna-have-fun blondes
like Lindsay Lohan and
Taylor Momsen.
"She's just cool, everyone knows that. She's got that
sexy vibe and she lives it," Mischa Barton
explained. Of course, the big-name artists who dropped by
(Chuck
Close,
Ellsworth Kelly) would probably be supporting the
Whitney either way. But
Marilyn Minter, for one, was thrilled to see the
museum partnering with the bombshell designer—she shot her first
commercial work for Versace, after all. "I was very scared,
but they were happy," the photographer and video artist
recalled. "I had Devon Aoki spewing water like a fountain and
putting her hands in nail polish, playing with it like it was
gum."
After dinner, Versace joined a younger crowd that included
Leigh Lezark and Alexa Chung in
the lower gallery. It didn't involve tubs of polish, but her
choice of escort for the evening, Jet Li, was also
an inspired experiment of sorts. How many designers out there swan
into a party on the arm of a Buddhist teetotaler action-movie star?
"He's such a gentleman, such a calm person. It makes you
feel secure," Versace cooed, adding that she hadn't picked
up any of Li's famous martial arts skills. "I think
it's difficult," she mused. "You need a discipline
that I don't have." Too bad, because we'd line up for
a movie that featured Donatella executing a few killer aerial
kicks.
See all the images from the fall Whitney Gala here
By Darrell Hartman
MORE FROM STYLE.COM
Learn How to Shop the Trends from the Runways
The People Who Made It a Fashion Week (or Weeks) to Remember
Mix Up Your Leggings This Fall with Studs, Sequins, Leopard Spots and More
All the Shows and Reviews from the Spring 2010 Runways
Style.com’s Picks for the Top 10 Collections from Fashion Week
