Smelly people. (PMc)

“It’s not like a lesbian movie—it’s a fun movie.” In retrospect, this conversation, overheard by The Observer Thursday night at The Hole gallery, may not have actually been in reference to “Intense,” the film collaboration for DKNY’s “Be Delicious Intense” fragrance championed by Beatrice Dupine, Veronique Gabai-Pinsky and Enrique Badulescu, but, frankly, we will never really know.

The somewhat spasmodic images of a beautiful blonde, mouth occasionally agape, biting (kind of necessarily, given the advertised scent) into a large green apple, that were projected onto nearly every surface of the gallery were certainly to blame for any potential confusion here. Words like “tense,” “bite” and “intuition” also kissed the walls. The rooms were packed full of surprisingly bad-smelling people, including Kelly Killoren Bensimon and Fern Mallis (though The Observer knows they smelled just fine), and most stared, if not at their phones, then at something else besides the images blinking around them. This further confounded the nature of the event and the film at its center.

Ms. Dupine, the project’s creative director of sorts, explained to The Observer in a thick French accent, flapping her hands constantly for emphasis, that Estée Lauder (the licensee for the potent mixture) had come to her to help develop an “alternative movie for the young.” She said that she went with “happiness” as its overarching theme, but also with wanting to “touch, grab and squeeze ... all of that.” However, if this is happiness, we wonder if the lovely Ms. Dupire is not secretly a pubescent boy. Estée Lauder spokesmodel Hilary Rhoda, slightly lost as to how respond, simply said, with unexpected humor and maybe even a little sarcasm, “Well, I love happiness!” when asked about this take. She was much more comfortable when we told her we really just wanted to ask about her boots, which where thigh-high Burberry. While visually interesting and (as described to us by another guest) socially “electric,” the event on the whole stayed rather confused. The Observer was reminded before leaving to “write about the Free Arts angle.” The charity (Free Arts NYC), on whose board of directors Gabai-Pinsky sits, was also to benefit from the event that evening, and, “happy” to take advice from a stranger, we did.

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In the Web site’s clip, Ms. Tomei looked to have a major beef with the unnamed man, yelling at him to stop talking “bullshit” all the time. Finally seeing the camera catching the exchange, the actress flashed a mega-watt smile at the lens.

In reality, however, the Academy Award-winner was anything but miffed with the publicist. We just spoke with one of his colleagues, who was also at last night’s event, and he told us that the two are actually close friends.

“It’s just an inside joke between them,” the eyewitness explained. “They’re really, really old friends. They go way back.” He also confirmed that, by all accounts, Ms. Tomei was in a great mood at the celeb-stacked shindig.

Socialite Arden Wohl arrived punctually at 7 PM, goosing an unprepared line of paparrazi. About an hour later, actress Ali Larter showed up looking glam in high suede Marc Jacobs boots and—how appropriate!—a short DKNY dress. Asked what, in her view, a delicious night would entail, Ms. Larter, 31, who famously donned a whip-cream bikini in Varsity Blues, said that tonight was sure to be delicious. Do tell ... After leaving the party, she and a few girlfriends planned to head over to Graydon Carter’s nearby Waverly Inn, where they would “sit and eat oysters and drink champagne till dawn!” Oh.

Inside, Christina Ricci (sporting a short, light-brown bob haircut), socialites Dabney Mercer, Olivia Palermo, and Margarita Missoni, Vanity Fair's Alexis Bryan, and Zoe Kravitz, were all huddled in a roped-off VIP area in the center of the room, while hip-hop artist Common performed about ten feet away. Demi Moore and Bruce Willis' daughter, Rumer, wearing a revealing black dress that showed off a bird tattoo on her right shoulder blade, seemed more interested in texting on her iPhone.

Male socialite Derek Blasberg arrived late with a few friends, including his paramour, former Vogue assistant, Lyle Maltz. They were joined by Chessy Wilson, Donna Karan, Ingrid Sischy, Lily Cole, Marisa Tomei, DKNY CEO Mark Weber, Melissa George, Michelle Barish, Rashida Jones and William Lauder.