GOING BANANAS: One of fashion’s most prominent headhunters, Floriane de Saint Pierre was easy to spot Thursday night upon arrival at the Friends of the Centre Pompidou gala in Paris.
“It’s the colors of the building,” de Saint Pierre, president of the organization, said of her blue Dries Van Noten tube skirt and red top, echoing the vivid pipes that define the building by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, inaugurated in 1977.
The soiree, to raise funds for acquisitions, was billed as the final gathering in the beloved art museum before it shuts for a multiyear renovation.
“It’s the last supper. Oh, sorry, that’s not funny,” Laurent Le Bon, president of the Centre Pompidou, told the nearly 900 guests assembled, nearly shouting to be heard over the cocktail-hour chatter.
Wolfgang Tillmans, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Ahn Duong, Johan Creten and Cory Arcangel were among artists who attended along with a smattering of fashion designers, including Anthony Vaccarello, Michael Rider, Jack McCullough, Lazaro Hernandez and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac.
Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran, the couple behind Matières Fécales, gravitated toward Michèle Lamy, the only guest whose extreme platform shoes rivaled theirs. Farida Khelfa, nearly as tall in regular pumps, joined this clump of fashion fabulousness for the endless speeches.
Farida Khelfa
Michael Huard/Courtesy of Friends of the Centre Pompidou
Recent Paris transplants from their native Montreal, Dalton and Bhaskaran had only visited the Pompidou once and remembered seeing “lots of Andy Warhol.” They were dazzled by the scale of the party, with endless rows of rectangular tables set up in what was formerly the Kandinsky Library.
Dinner conversations drifted between fashion, design and art.
Art historian Christine Macel, who logged more than 20 years as chief curator at the Pompidou, said she’s just finished a book about how all those worlds began colliding in the ’90s.
Published by Manuella Éditions, it comes out in September, a month ahead of “The 90s: Art and Fashion” exhibition at the Tate Britain.
The food was as graphic and colorful as contemporary art — the dessert a dead ringer for Maurizio Cattelan’s 2019 controversial “Comedian” sculpture: a banana duct-taped to the wall.
Lamy took a photo of the plate with her phone before tucking in.
Valérie Lemercier and Vincent Darré
Michaël Huard/Courtesy of Centre Pompidou
