Dining With Donatella

Earlier today I was invited into the home of Tina Brown, CEO of The Daily Beast and former Editor-In-Chief of Vanity Fair. The purpose? A luncheon to celebrate the launch and success of Donatella Versace's Art Unites program in collaboration with the Whitney Education Department to aid children in the U.S. and China. Upon entering Tina's beautiful townhouse on the Upper East Side, it was hard not to stare at the gorgeous Christie Brinkley standing in the doorway to the courtyard. I was also delighted to be greeted by Tina's husband, renowned journalist Harry Evans, who was thrilled to introduce me to his new book The Paper Chase launching November 5th. I can't wait to read it having studied journalism myself at Boston University. After mingling for about 20 minutes with the likes of Bruce Weber, Andre Balazs and Susan Lyne, Tina encouraged everyone to take their seats. Tina proceeded to introduce Donatella and talk about the accomplishments of her new global initiative which provided art supplies to 1400 children to create pictures with a friendship theme on squares of canvas. Each of the resulting works of art (along with other submissions around the world) will be made into one-of-a-kind Versace totes and sold for $250 each, with proceeds benefitting Starlight Children’s Foundation and the Jet Li One Foundation. As lunch was served I noticed Calvin Klein, Robin Roberts and Campbell Brown from across the room. At my table, on my left was journalist Bob Morris, who had just finished a story on him and his dog for the New York Times which I loved because I'm a huge dog lover. On my right was Liz Gates, the daughter of well-known Harvard University Professor Henry Gates. Liz and I found that we had a lot in common and before we knew it lunch was over. As I made my way over to thank the lovely host Tina I bumped into Daphne Guinness and Steven Klien having a laugh while enjoying the rest of their coffee. For me, the lunch was complete! The totes are on sale now at Versace boutiques and available at the Gilt Groupe.