Male Bonding
Kylie Minogue and Pals Fondle the Scenery at amfAR's Menswear Celebration
There wasn't a book in sight last night at amfAR's Inspiration Gala at the New York Public Library, but there was plenty of studying going on. That's because the charity enlisted a whole bunch of male models to liven up its inaugural celebration of men's style. Lounging around in archival Gaultier sailor outfits during cocktails, then trotting out Piaget watches and nearly 50 black-tie and black-leather looks during the runway show, the Wilhelmina men (including Tyson Ballou and Jon Kortajarena) were the objects of some, er, pretty close reading.
Kylie Minogue, who clearly prefers the interactive experience, couldn't resist reaching out and touching Spanish mannequin Andrés Segura. Then again, she's dating him. "I thought the boys did splendidly," she concluded at dinner downstairs. "One in particular. But I'm biased."
With the air-conditioning situation a bit iffy, Minogue and her fellow spectators spent a good deal of the show fanning themselves (we might have been back at Cannes, site of the AIDS research organization's other spring bash, only it was warmer here). Simon Doonan went around asking the likes of Marc Jacobs and Cyndi Lauper (who later took the stage with Kelly Rowland) to sign his white Band of Outsiders jacket, which he planned to auction off later—"if I haven't sweated it up too much," he said. One guest not having a problem with the New York heat was Queens native Zoe Saldana. "I choose humidity any day over dry weather," she said. "You wrinkle, you're more prone to skin cancer, your lips are chapped, your hair's dry, your nails are breaking. I can't deal with it."
A bit too hot for black tie, perhaps? "I think it's too hot to wear anything," Jean Paul Gaultier joked. But the Frenchman's a trooper. Even if it wasn't apparent, he was being true to the evening's leather theme. "I didn't forget," he insisted. "You just cannot see it. It's underwear."
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