THE ‘IT’ PARTY

FORGET the front row at Marc Jacobs – this was the hottest place to be during New York Fashion Week.

On Wednesday night, Gucci pitched an enormous tent on the north lawn of the United Nations and threw a party that felt like the Vanity Fair Oscar bash gone East. The evening, hosted by Madonna, was a benefit for the UNICEF Children’s Fund and Raising Malawi, organizations that fight the effects of AIDS on children in Africa. It drew power couples Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, JLo and Marc Anthony, Salma Hayek and François-Henri Pinault, along with Gwyneth Paltrow, Vince Vaughn, Drew Barrymore, Brooke Shields, Gucci creative director Frida Giannini and virtually everyone from the New York fashion scene.

Madonna spoke, surprising everyone with her eloquence. She talked about how she had learned after 25 years in the cutthroat entertainment industry that she couldn’t be the best “when millions of people in the world don’t have a shot at being the best.”

A live auction was led by Chris Rock, with Cruise and Anna Wintour going head to head over a sports package that included private training sessions with David Beckham and Super Bowl XLII victors the New York Giants, and Dita Von Teese casting the final $600,000 bid on a Madonna tour package that included a private dance-aerobics class with the pop star and Gwyneth Paltrow. (Burlesque is apparently quite lucrative.) In all, the night raised $6.1 million.

And if all of that and performances by Rihanna and Alicia Keys weren’t enough, everybody left with a “Gucci Loves New York” handbag, celebrating the label’s new 5th Avenue flagship.

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Booth Moore