Rocking the amfAR Gala, And Other Cinematic Play

As in Cannes during film festival time, in Venice the amfAR gala is the party at which one should buy up a table or two — $54,000 and change for a table for ten, mind you. We might say that amfAR rather owns the northern Mediterranean in this black-tie way, and we might also say that, although the amfAR Venezia is somewhat lower key than its sister amfAR Cannes, the events bracket the Med season, as do their concomitant film festivals.

The lion’s share of Sunday night’s jollity came from the ebullient Simon de Pury, the world-class auctioneer and the skipper of the auction house that bears his name, pictured above with one of his delighted victims, the rock star Halsey, who found herself moved to jump into a sudden, vertiginous bidding tussle for one of two Julian Schnabel canvases that were suddenly shoved under the hammer — outside the auction catalogue — by no less an owner than the artist himself. Schnabel is in town with his sons in tow to debut his next film, In the Hand of Dante, this week.

The way it went down was this: Prior to these lots coming up, Jude Law introduced Schnabel from the stage, who was expected to offer a couple of his plate paintings. In that moment at the lectern, the painter generously threw in a couple of portrait canvasses, one of which Halsey pounced on for a robust $586,000. Pictured above, Schnabel, famously no longer impressed by much, clearly thought the moment — and the instant barometric-pressure reading that the sale provided him of his powers of attraction — was worth raising the eyebrows. Cabaret-meister de Pury, ebullient as ever, raised the magic gavel in celebration. But the painter had flung in two portraits at the last moment, no? The other sold for a half-mil-plus as well.

Said another way, that was a cool million plus in a matter of seconds for amfAR. Not shabby work.

For his part, Law, who will premiere his own film this week, provided an excellently convincing argument in the fiery northern Mediterranean man-fashion white-dinner-jacket debate that a double-breasted’s peaked lapels should each properly be the dimension of an aircraft carrier deck. Room for plenty of Royal Navy Harriers on those ample sidings. Law can carry rags of all description, but they key to the rightness of this tough, bespoke white dinner jacket is in the natural shoulder. The jacket screams bespoke in this way: There’s a man under here with real shoulders, get it? So, two aircraft-carrier size flight decks framed by natural shoulders on a double breasted transmits this fashion message: We got guns. Come armed and ready to fight.

Pictured below, singer Ava Max, who performed at the gala later in the evening, arrives in the Arsenale’s great harbor in her lacquered beech-and-mahogany private launch. She gives good, carefree summer platinum with a very, very finely-tuned back-to-school jet black root stripe.

Every major event has a chair, which is to say, ideally, somebody whose life and accomplishments can work as a beacon epitomizing the tenets and raison d’etre of the event. Broadway star, Oscar-winning actor and director Coleman Domingo, pictured below lit up in his grand sea-green jacquard Nehru with Jesse Williams, was amfAR Venezia’s 2025 well-appointed chair.

Good chompers are important for many reasons, including as a key to good digestion, but at an event of the social and professional heft as an amfAR gala, where the eating is quite secondary to the flitting about, fine chompers are the go-to fashion accessory. Pictured below, from left, German model Annika Gassner, German fashion influencer and model Leonie Hanne, and German-born Swiss businesswoman Carolyn Scheufele, the artistic director and co-president of Chopard, teach a master class in how to make a good smile work in formal wear. Ladies are bringing the light to this party. Jewelry ain’t bad, either.

Paris Jackson apparently turned in an acoustic set at the Sunday night gala, and while the reviews are largely out, we can note that the whole autumn-is-upon-us print print on the gown is working.