This year's Fashion Cares fundraiser represented a changing of the guard, so to speak, with retailer Jeffrey Kalinsky's annual benefit for New York AIDS charities going down not in some run-of-the-mill event space but aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid, the aircraft carrier commissioned in 1943 and now moored on Manhattan's west side, serving as a museum.

Despite pouring rain, more than 1,200 guests turned out to bid on auction items (Equinox gym memberships, Broadway tickets, a plastic surgery "transformation package") and take in a multi-designer runway show. As usual, the swimwear went over quite well.

Given the location, more than a few of the evening's attendees were feeling a military vibe—in particular Kalinsky, who's been sporting a jarhead cut since December. "I was hanging out in Charleston a lot, and there's a military college there. I kept seeing cadets, and I was like, 'Oh, I think I want to do that,' " the South Carolina native explained. Peter Som, meanwhile, expressed concern about the hangar deck's apparent lack of air-conditioning. "What if a sailor's curls start coming out?"

The evening's roll call wasn't all gents, though. Sessilee Lopez, Hana Soukupova, and Candice Swanepoel somehow managed to fold their endless legs into three adjacent front-row seats. "It was amazing," Swanepoel said on her way out, adding that she hadn't cast so much as a glance at the historic fighter planes on display. "As a girl, I'm not too interested in that."

— Darrell Hartman