The Serpentine Gallery's Summer Party
London's A-list Raises the Roof
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Kristin Scott Thomas and Stefano Pilati
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Tim Jeffries and Elle Macpherson
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"Please pick the flowers," read the sign in front of the pink spears lined up on the lawn of the Serpentine Gallery. Had we entered a Diana Vreeland version of a WWI combat zone? "Well, love is a battlefield," Roland Mouret sagely observed. The inspired mise-en-scene was the work of none other than Stefano Pilati. The YSL designer was hosting the annual Summer Party, which this year brought together the worlds of art (Damien Hirst, Matthew Barney), film (Rupert Everett, Kristin Scott Thomas), fashion (Alice Temperley, Francisco Costa), and society (everyone else) to raise funds for one of London's best-loved galleries.
To celebrate "femininity and the power of women," Pilati thought pink. The Rem Koolhaas-designed Serpentine Pavilion 2006—an inflatable white dome—was accessorized with pink furniture, and extremely tall, immaculately coiffed models dressed in pink taffeta, with leggings and towering wedgies to match, wove through the 800-strong crowd all night long. As for the guests, they too were clad in YSL, some straight off the runway. There were hints of the barbaric in the bracelets attached to Tilda Swinton's otherwise-virginal white gown. The ornamentation on Kim Hersov's dress was positively pagan. And a radiantly pregnant Linda Evangelista was a warrior queen in her fierce frock, with its gold neckpiece. She and Pilati (wearing a black tunic top and gold belt from his new menswear collection) were the evening's star couple. Other belles of the ball? Natalia Vodianova in Givenchy, Stella Tennant in YSL, and Camilla Al Fayed in her mother's seventies-era Saint Laurent. And the evening's beau? That would be committee chairman Tim Jeffries, who traded in his usual dark Savile Row suit for a raffish white jacket-and-slim-pant combo by Pilati.
Koolhaas's pavilion glowed pink as night fell. "It lifts four meters, depending on the temperature," Pilati pointed out. So there was a good chance that by the time midnight arrived, the couture-clad lovelies prancing to the Clash had literally raised the roof.
To celebrate "femininity and the power of women," Pilati thought pink. The Rem Koolhaas-designed Serpentine Pavilion 2006—an inflatable white dome—was accessorized with pink furniture, and extremely tall, immaculately coiffed models dressed in pink taffeta, with leggings and towering wedgies to match, wove through the 800-strong crowd all night long. As for the guests, they too were clad in YSL, some straight off the runway. There were hints of the barbaric in the bracelets attached to Tilda Swinton's otherwise-virginal white gown. The ornamentation on Kim Hersov's dress was positively pagan. And a radiantly pregnant Linda Evangelista was a warrior queen in her fierce frock, with its gold neckpiece. She and Pilati (wearing a black tunic top and gold belt from his new menswear collection) were the evening's star couple. Other belles of the ball? Natalia Vodianova in Givenchy, Stella Tennant in YSL, and Camilla Al Fayed in her mother's seventies-era Saint Laurent. And the evening's beau? That would be committee chairman Tim Jeffries, who traded in his usual dark Savile Row suit for a raffish white jacket-and-slim-pant combo by Pilati.
Koolhaas's pavilion glowed pink as night fell. "It lifts four meters, depending on the temperature," Pilati pointed out. So there was a good chance that by the time midnight arrived, the couture-clad lovelies prancing to the Clash had literally raised the roof.
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