Sting and Trudie Styler

Who can say no to a “Skype introduction” by mogul of all things Richard Branson and a host committee that includes Lauren Bush Lauren, Martha Stewart and Tommy Hilfiger? And did we mention that Sting, his wife Trudie Styler and photographer Bruce Weber (hopefully with shirtless male models in tow) are the honorary hosts? It’s all for National Geographic’s film Battle for the Elephants, written, produced and directed by John Heminway. There is a discussion after the heavy film with investigative reporter Bryan Christy, but what we want to investigate is that whole tantric sex thing that Sting and Trudie have mastered. We love elephants (they’re lucky, right?), but a little Sex 101 from Sting would really make our night.

The Explorers Club, 46 East 70th Street, (212) 628-8383; 7pm, by invite only (PR powerhouse Peggy Siegal is in charge).

Marion Cotillard chatting away.

Just when we were sick and tired of cinema screenings and movie premiere parties (Hello nomination-baiting season!), The Cinema Society alongside Dior and Vanity Fair hosted one of its best shindigs yet, at the legendary Indochine restaurant following a showing of the Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard’s 2012 French-Belgian film, which stars Marion Cotillard and dizzyingly sexy Matthias Schoenaerts.

“I’m gonna need eight glasses of Champagne to lift myself up from that one!” one power publicist bellowed to The Observer over the roaring crowd.

“But Marion Cotillard was just amazing!”

This writer unfortunately missed the screening in order to support wounded U.S. servicemen and women uptown for Stand Up For Heroes event, which featured performances by John Mayer, Roger Waters and Bruce Springsteen.

We were hoping for a sighting and perhaps to bavarder with the Oscar-winner.

"Marion had to immediately catch an international flight," one social stalwart dutifully informed us. Of course she had plenty of time to pose for the cameras in her Dior couture, flashing her wondrous baby-bump.

Those that did turn out for the Indochine post-bash made the night memorable. Mischievous attendees included Harley Vieira Newton, Jean-Marc Houmard, Katie Lee, Nan Bush and Bruce Weber, Stefano Tonchi, the mouthy Amy Sacco, Isiah Whitlock and Donna D'Cruz, who off-duty on the DJ gig for the evening.

“I think it’s the food!’ suggested a male model, whose name escaped us.

“These mushroom things and the filet mignon!” he raved between bites.

We schmoozed with model Johannes Huebl and admired Ellen von Unwerth dancing skills. An attempt to question Emma Watson about the premise of the film resulted in a chic pout; her smart phone was of more interest.

The film, which takes place in Antibes, we were told, follows a young man who develops a bond with a whale trainer and traces how their relationship intensifies after a tragic accident. It won critical acclaim at Cannes and the BFI Film Festival. So we shall see how it plays with American audiences. It is en Français.

We got a few words with the Belgian star, Matthias Schoenaerts, but most of it was in Flemish… “I am very excited about the film,” was about all our infantile Nederland skills could reward us.

Nonetheless, the night was about celebration and good vibes. Signature Belvedere cocktails like the Rust and Bone mojitos kept conversation lively and bodies loose until well after midnight.

We told the host of evening and The Cinema Society founder, Andrew Saffir that this was our favorite fête of his thus far. He was unfazed and just smiled politely. With that, we were off to Norwood to continue our foolish, but fabulous escapades.

Cindy Sherman. (Adriel Reboh/Patrick McMullan)

“Look who it is: it’s Edwina, the Edwina,” Isaac Mizrahi exclaimed to The Observer this past Saturday, as he approached Edwina von Gal, the designer who, Ross Bleckner told us, “did the landscaping at my house in Sagaponack.”

We were at Cindy Sherman’s new East Hampton home at a benefit for the Azuero Earth Project, the Panama-based ecological nonprofit of which Ms. von Gal is president. It was a cozy beginning-of-the-end to the Hamptons summer season. Guests sat on benches under a white tent to eat empanadas and watch performances by Suzanne Vega, Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. Children climbed into pendulous bamboo cocoons, stuffed with pillows, that swayed from the trees.

“I live just up the road,” Ms. Vega, who had been asked at the last minute to replace Rubén Blades, told us. “I originally came as a guest of Laurie’s, and I thought I was going to see Rubén Blades!” Wearing a top hat—a “tip of the hat to Marlene Dietrich”—Ms. Vega performed “Marlene on the Wall” and “Gypsy,” written when she was a “folk-singing and disco-dancing counselor” at a summer camp in the Adirondacks. She had M.C. Bob Balaban serve as an impromptu music stand, holding a handwritten lyric sheet for a new Dylan-inspired number about the tarot’s Queen of Pentacles.

“I probably shouldn’t have kissed her,” Mr. Balaban confided to us afterward. “It’s rude to kiss somebody you’ve just met.” Mr. Balaban told us about his upcoming appearance as Lena Dunham’s psychiatrist on Girls, and recommended we visit Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s former home down the road. “It’s just a little hut,” he explained. “They didn’t have any money.” (We read that Ms. Sherman paid $4.65 million for her estate, though we weren’t invited inside.)

Gorgeous in two shades of blue mufti (a baby blue wrap over a navy dress), the chameleonic Ms. Sherman told us that though she had just moved in a month ago, “There’s just a few little things that need to be tweaked, but I’m pretty settled.” Was this party a little housewarming, then? “A big housewarming,” she corrected us. Ms. Sherman also talked about transplanting her career retrospective from New York’s Museum of Modern Art to San Francisco’s MOMA, where it’s currently on view. “The space is different; it was hard to edit out some of the work.”

We watched Gina Gershon and Martha Stewart, both in pre-Labor Day white, run around taking pictures, and stood by as Mr. Mizrahi introduced Mr. Bleckner to his husband, Arnold Germer.

“We’re married, you know,” said Mr. Mizrahi.

“I didn’t know!” Mr. Bleckner replied

“Now we’re moving in together,” Mr. Germer went on.

“That’s exactly what married people do!” Mr. Bleckner pointed out. “Usually it’s the step before, but I guess you’re playing it safe.”

Messrs. Germer and Mizrahi (whose bandana matched that of Bruce Weber, also in attendance) weren’t the only couple at the party to have taken advantage of New York’s new same-sex marriage laws. David Maupin and Stefano Tonchi brought their twin girls, Maura and Isabella.

We asked Mr. Tonchi about changes at The New York Times’s T Magazine, which he left two years ago to edit W, specifically about the recent departure of his successor, Sally Singer. “Oh, please. Old news,” Mr. Tonchi answered summarily.

Mr. Wainwright brought his husband, Jörn Weisbrodt, whom he had married the week prior. He opened his performance with what he called a “really Hamptons-y song about a bored housewife ... which I have become. Love it!” Later, he sang about his own Hamptons domesticity in “Montauk”: “This next song is about my daughter, Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, and also my incredible new husband, Jörn Weis-” he caught himself and laughed. “Jörn Wainwright. Or Rufus Weisbrodt, however you do it. In fact, his name is Weisbrodt, which means ‘white bread’ in German, and what is it, there’s something about a honeymoon? In Dutch, a honeymoon is called a ‘white bread,’ white bread weeks. You can get fat, basically, now that you’re married.”

Lou Reed, married for four years but with his wife for a decade prior, came off a little less enchanted. “Are you done? Jesus. And we’re related,” Mr. Reed muttered jokingly, as Laurie Anderson plugged in her violin next to him, generating a loud electronic buzz.

“I would cut my legs and tits off/When I think of Boris Karloff,” Mr. Reed sang, in a song from last year’s much-maligned Metallica collaboration Lulu. He next performed a monologue in the voice of his mentor Andy Warhol: “Lou Reed got married and didn’t invite me ... you know I hate Lou, I really do.”

Ms. Anderson performed a monologue of her own, about observing the Amish in Western Pennsylvania—“Gee, I wonder what it’s like to live that way,” she mused—which nearly cleared the tent, though her political criticism drew some laughs. “Ever since hearing Clint Eastwood talk about optimism the other night at the Republican Convention,” Ms. Anderson narrated, her voice electronically shifted several octaves down, accompanied by slow synth chords, “I actually became extremely pessimistic about the future. I mean, look at the odds for a second. You have more chance of getting hit and killed in a car crash than dying in a plane crash.” (Here, she lost us again.)

As the wind off of Accabanac Harbor picked up (“I’m getting the best hairdo of my life thanks to this body of water,” Mr. Wainwright joked), guests began to wrap their shoulders in complimentary green picnic blankets.

Patrizia Pinzon, visiting from Panama, bemoaned the absence of Mr. Blades, the one Panamanian who had been scheduled to perform. “Everybody’s here, but they don’t know what it’s about.”

Julie Macklowe. (Patrick McMullan)

“Pretty much every gay man in fashion is here,” a guest remarked at the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America’s “Cocktails at Sunset” benefit on Saturday evening.

And so it seemed. The air was heavily perfumed, and well-fitting white jeans abounded in the backyard of Ross Bleckner’s Sagaponack residence. Despite some wild weather earlier in the week—a smothering heat wave followed by a severe summer storm—the sky had cleared and the beach breeze was cool.

Photographer Stewart Shining expressed his relief at this, telling The Observer that, as the vice president of ACRIA, he’d been running around all day getting things ready and having nightmares about the rain. And with good reason—Kelly Klein told us that she’d attended the annual kickoff at the Bridgehampton Polo Club earlier that day, only for it to be canceled because of Friday’s harsh weather. “But everybody still showed up, so it was a bunch of people with nowhere to go,” she explained, a little exasperated.

But the grass was dry as Jeffrey Bilhuber, Tomas Maier and David Kleinberg milled around the tented lawn, sipping champagne and taking in the silent auction featuring Robert Mapplethorpe’s Fang (1987) and a Robert Longo portrait of Cindy Sherman, which sold for $9,000 and $11,000, respectively.

Mr. Shining assured us he was starting to relax, but his party-organizing duties were not yet over. “People keep texting last-minute, you know, ‘Where’s the party?’” he laughed.

Not long after Mr. Shining’s arrival, Mr. Bleckner strode out his back door and down the lawn, accompanied by his dogs. “My evening’s just beginning,” he told us. “I will say that my dogs seem to be having a good time, though,” he said, gesturing to his three dachshunds.

Stefano Tonchi, the editor of W, was lamenting the summer crowds (“even in my spinning class,” he moaned), when something behind us caught his eye. “Oh my god, you are bright!” he exclaimed. “Wow ... wow!”

A neon-clad Peggy Siegal had just appeared on Mr. Bleckner’s doorstep, where she posed proudly for photographers. “I’m wearing Nanette Lepore,” she informed a throng of admirers, gesturing to her vibrant papaya-colored skirt and revealing a leg through an Angelina Jolie-inspired slit.

“Did you know that neon doesn’t photograph?” Mr. Shining asked his companions. “I keep doing covers for Seventeen magazine—they love neon—and I shoot it, and then it comes up on the monitor and I go, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make it painted,’” he laughed bemusedly.

Jill Stuart arrived with her daughter, Chloe Curtis. Patrick McMullan rushed up to her. “You’re here with your babies!” he exclaimed. “I’ll make you look beautiful.”

Ms. Stewart told us that her daughter, who recently graduated from Cornell, would be moving to London in a few weeks to study at Sotheby’s in the fall and, in the meantime, catch the Olympics. “Chloe and Sophie,” Ms. Stewart said, referring to the youngest of her three daughters. “They’re going to go to the finals of gymnastics,” she added, which she told us was one of her own favorite sports to watch.

We ran into Julie Macklowe, who eagerly gave us a sample of vbeauté—her recently launched specialty skin care line—anti-wrinkle serum. “It’s the best thing you could ever use,” Ms. Maclowe’s companion, Oliva Oluck, informed us enthusiastically. “You will be impressed.”

Yet Ms. Macklowe revealed that vbeauté might not be the entire secret to her own youthful complexion. “This morning I ran eight miles barefoot!” she reported excitedly, referring to her jogging footwear of choice as “condom shoes.”

“I feel like I have some aches and pains going on,” Ms. Macklowe admitted.

“Last night we went to Papa John’s Café for dinner, and I introduced my daughter, much to the chagrin of my husband, to deep-fried mozzarella sticks!” she elaborated.  “Of course, I proceeded to eat half of them. Needless to say, that’s how the eight miles came about.”

Ms. Macklowe was not the only one taking advantage of the weekend to catch up on exercise. The belle of the evening, the young art director Sofia Sanchez Barrenechea, told us she’d been paddleboarding all morning, demonstrating the required motion with her arms. We asked about her plans for the rest of the weekend. “More paddleboarding,” she told us definitively. “And I’ll probably be doing a lot of eating,” she added, unprompted.

We wandered over to speak with Shelly and Vincent Fremont, who came with their daughter, Casey Fremont Crowe, and spent much of the evening conversing with Bob Colacello. “I have a new grandson who’s five months old, so that’s all I really care about,” Ms. Fremont told us. “We took him to the beach today, which was really fun. He just loved it! It was great.”

Bruce Weber told us he’d been busy working most of the weekend, but he’d be taking time later in the summer to head up to the Adirondacks. “So I’ll be swimming in a lake,” he said, explaining why it was preferable to the beach. “I swim, but I swim now with six dogs,” he explained with a crinkly grin. “They try to keep up and I have to carry them.”

Francisco Costa, the Women’s Creative Director of Calvin Klein, had just returned from a trip to Santa Barbara and was eager to tell us about a new hobby he’d discovered. “For the first time, I did—what do you call it, arch?” He mimed shooting a bow and arrow. “And I hit the bull’s-eye every time!” he exclaimed. “It was so beautiful.”

Mr. Costa told us he’d been spending time barbecuing at his house in Bellport but explained this was his last weekend of the summer. “Summer’s over!” he exclaimed. “This is it for me. I’ll be at home all week and then all the way until the end of August I’ll be in the office, working every single weekend,” he explained, alluding to fall’s looming fashion weeks.

We asked how he’d been dealing with the hot weather. “I love it,” he told us earnestly. “I’m Brazilian, so I keep telling people to just enjoy it.”

eschwiegershausen@observer.com

In more fun news, Ms. Ronson's girlfriend, Lindsay Lohan, will dress as Sarah Palin for Halloween! [Full Disclosure]

Gossip Girl's Taylor Momsen assured worried reporters that she is "naturally thin." [US Weekly]

Suri Cruise reportedly gets abnormally excited when she sees kids her own age because she's had "not a lot of socialization." [P6]

Family drama: Photographer Bruce Weber is suing his girlfriend's cousin, the actress Anna Thomson, over money he provided for the care of Thomson's dying mother, shoe designer Beth Levine. [P6]

A drag queen threw a condom filled with "a questionable liquid" at Leonardo DiCaprio at the Box, where he always seems to be. [R&M]

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anothy renewed their vows alongside Mets outfielder Carlos Beltran and his wife, Jessica. [People]

But last week I got blindsided, and my seemingly bottomless pit of advice and trivia proved itself to be otherwise. It all started when a distressed young colleague beckoned me fervently into her cubicle and challenged me with a life-or-death fashion conundrum. "My granny gave me an Hermès scarf," she said. "My mom wants me to wear it. I have no idea what the hell I am supposed to do with it." Instantly I realized that this hitherto modish and confident ingénue had identified an issue of national and international importance: There was no contemporary prescription for the wearing of this famous but challenging accessory. Had the Hermès scarf had its day? Was there a way to wear it without looking like a Kurdish refugee? Was there anything wrong with looking like a Kurdish refugee?

Haunted by the thought of all those gorgeous unworn squares of hand-rolled printed silk festering in drawers and closets all over Manhattan, I resolved to find a way to preppily and hiply integrate the Hermès scarf into your summer 2001 repertoire, and that of my young colleague.

The official Hermès scarf-tying manual (available upon request at Hermès, 695 Madison Avenue) contains 37 bizarrely numbered scarf-tying suggestions, and–no offense–these range from vaguely workable to insanely fiddle-y. The tried and true Audrey-Grace technique (No. 134 in the manual) looks, at this point in history, like some silly, outmoded attempt at appearing incognito; the triangular knotted shoulder drape, No. 192, looks so mumsy not even Barbara Bush would wear it, never mind Barbara Walters or Barbra Streisand. Here are the O.K. suggestions: No. 260, an 80'sSharonStone, Chanel-y headband; No. 220, the fractured arm sling (I'm scraping the barrel); and No. 202, the gathered halter. Most of these official Hermès suggestions involve stuffing tons of excess silk down your knickers and/or lots of constant re-adjusting and re-tweaking. This, I realized in an epiphany, is the root of the problem: A young modern needs to throw on her drag and forget about it.

Here, therefore, are my two solutions for wearing an Hermès scarf. They are the grooviest no-maintenance styles.

Solution No. 1: Find a Boy Scout and steal his woggle. Don't call the authorities! I'm talking about that little ring into which he slides the ends of his neckerchief. Bona fide woggles are only available to those in the Scouting movement. Log onto www.worldscoutshop.org, marvel at the official woggle's unattainable beauty, and then buy the unofficial woven-leather one for $3 (approximately). Fold your scarf into a triangle and slide that woggle right up to your neck. The look is kicky, low-maintenance and shows off just enough of the printed silk. Highly recommended for skinny girls with long necks and hairy, Gypsy-ish men.

Solution No. 2: Take it to Park. No, I'm not suggesting you wear your scarf to the trendy restaurant at 118 10th Avenue (call 352-3313 for reservations). Myung Park is a fantastically vivacious Korean lady who operates a dry cleaner and tailor at 30 East 13th Street. Cross her palm with $150 and Ms. Park will take that unworn scarf and make you a nifty top that actually fits. Natalie Imbruglia–the singer who's dating Josh Hartnett, the Bruce Weber-y hunk in Pearl Harbor –wore one to the London premiere of P.H . F.Y.I.: The good people of Hermès inveigh against this kind of "bastardization" of their product–how French of them.

In the unlikely event that you don't have access to a neglected scarf and you actually need to buy one, avoid at all costs the non-traditional Hermès scarves. What's the point in having an Hermès scarf if it looks like it came from Bea Arthur's closet? The new and gorgeous Hermès scarf of note is the Chevaux Arabes, $250.

Or, for the same price, you can buy three or four "vintage" unworn scarves on eBay. Currently available and highly desirable: the insect print, the circus print and a really Hermès-y number called Les Jardines du Roy.

Hot tip: reduce woggle friction by hand-washing your new scarf until it loses that heinous duty-free, scrunchy feel.

Your wanky fear-of-commitment boy-friend dumped you in the spring, and you've been eating like a horse ever since. You're now officially fat. You have promised yourself that by Labor Day you will be spinning your ass off at the gym, but in the meantime you are medicating your misery with gigantic quantities of food. It's not a big deal; by the time fall rolls around, your rolls will have departed and you will be back on track with your regular eating disorder.

Caution: make sure you don't get stuck with a horrifying Jackson Pollock of thigh stretch marks. Solution: run to the Selph counter at Barneys or A Pea in the Pod (625 Madison Avenue) and pick up a few vats of Eternal Realm ($38). It's one of a whole new range of fantabulosa skin products ingeniously created for pregnant women by Una Cassidy.

Also of note for pregnant ladies and perspiring chubs, the Selph alcohol- and aluminum-free deodorant ($16.50).

Trend-crazed New York spa addicts are abandoning their usual haunts for the Korean authenticity of the Yi Pak New Han Feng Beauty Salon (10 West 32nd Street, second floor). A two-hour session costs a mere $100, and based on what I'm hearing you really get your money's worth. "What those Koreans can do with a cucumber is nobody's business," said one devotee, referring to the traditional Korean beauty mask made of fresh cucumber pulp.

You get two hours of scrubbing, cucumbering, massaging and saunaing, but it's the ambiance that is tickling the fancy of the fashion elite. Barneys fashion director Julie Gilhart told me, "It's all so totally real. One of the Yi Pak girls sits next to a huge pile of fresh cucumbers, washing and grinding them for the face masks. The place was full of Korean ladies running around in their underwear. I love it! The massages were incredible, and they scrubbed my body with a little Oriental cloth. My skin felt like silk."

You will emerge so silky soft, you'll slide right through somebody's woggle. (Call 594-1025, 594-1139 or 868-0851 for an appointment.) You are the chicest link. Goodbye!