Stanley Weisman and
Michèle Gerber Klein |
Catherine Malandrino and
Bernard Aidan |
Jill Brooke and Lauren Thierry |
Marie-Monique Steckel |
Allison Weiss and
Valesca-Guerrand Hermès |
FRENCH INSTITUTE
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
A Celebration Of
All Things French
Story by Roger Webster
Photos by Joe Schildhorn/Patrick
McMullan
 VEN though
Doubles Club in the Sherry
Netherland was decked out for Chinese New Year,
Michèle Gerber Klein,
Valesca Guerrand-Hermès and Ruth Stanton hosted a
chic cocktail party to launch the French Institute Alliance Française’s
La Nuit des Étoiles festival dinner and celebrate Rendez-Vous
with French Cinema at
Lincoln Center.
Guests included
the French Institute Alliance Française’s President Marie-Monique
Steckel, Stanley Weisman, Edmée Firth, Beatrice
Pei, Wendy Carduner, Elizabeth Kabler, Dana Ackerman,
Diane and Allison Weiss, Charles Cecil,
WB11 anchor Jim Watkins and his wife Lauren Thierry,
Devon Darcangelo, Royce Pinkwater, Jill Brooke and Gary
Goldstein, Randall Stempler, MSNBC’s Jennifer Kay,
Robin Massee, Neri Castner, Sophie Taubertgehan,
Rodhe Noah, Karen and Masha Leon, Dan Rattiner, and Chris
Wasserstein.
Sharon Bush, ex-wife of
President Bush’s brother Neil told Diane
Dunne of the New York Sun, “Just as Condoleezza
Rice called on
France
an
Europe
to put aside differences with the
United States
, I’m here tonight to help this cause.
I love the
United States
and
France
, and I play tennis with Condoleezza
Rice who, by the way is a very good tennis player.”
Fashionistas and art world
insiders Catherine Malandrino, there with her husband Bernard
Aidan, Maggie Norris, Joe Cheng, the Marlborough
Gallery’s Janis Cecil, and I-20 Gallery’s Alice
Judelson discussed Fashion Week’s interesting art connection
– Christo and
Jean Claude’s The Gates project in Central Park.
They also talked
about Peter Norton’s amazing art collection in his
apartment, overlooking
Columbus Circle
on the 54th floor of the Trump Place, the night before at a party for the
Bronx
Museum
of the Arts.
Catherine Verret-Vimont, executive
director of the French Film Office, spoke about the 10th annual
French Film Festival, dubbed Rendez-Vous with French Cinema,
which opened March 11 with André Téchiné's 2005
Berlinale Golden Bear competition love drama Les Temps qui
Changent (Changing Times), starring Catherine Deneuve
and Gérard Depardieu, at the Walter Reade Theater in
Lincoln Center. Vive la
France
and le cinema!
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