The Humane Society is not a hypocritical organization — and so the cuisine served at its benefit gala Wednesday night was, fittingly, vegan. (Munching on seitan chops, The Observer barely missed the meat and cream.) The event packed 525 animal lovers, including Topper Mortimer, Prince Dimitri Of Yugoslavia, Hunt Slonem, Sharon Bush, and co-chairs Amanda Hearst and Anne Hearst Mcinerney, into the Pierre’s Grand Ballroom and raised over over one million dollars to stop the operation of puppy mills.
When we happened upon the Mayor’s youngest daughter, 27-year-old Georgina Bloomberg, we congratulated her on another formidable equestrian season — Ms. Bloomberg took home $30,000 last month after winning the Bluegrass Festival Grand Prix in Kentucky. Did she have any time to follow the midterm elections between horse shows?
“I follow it as much as I have to, but I tend to stay out of politics as much as I possibly can,” Ms. Bloomberg said. “I think as a politician’s daughter, I have more of a sensitive side to it, and I sympathize a little bit more with them as people, not politicians. And it’s hard to kind of watch that and see the negative ads, and things like that — I don’t just see the politicians, I see their families, and I see the way it affects their kids or their wives.” Sounds reasonable to us!
In the spirit of the cause, multiple notables came prepped with their best doggie tales. American Ballet Theater principal Marcelo Gomes, who took the stage later in the evening with his dachshund, Lua, told us a slightly harrowing one: “I once pulled on my dog’s tail really, really hard, and it broke. Well, it fractured,” he said, which didn’t seem much in keeping with the night’s program. How long ago did this happen? “I was very, very young. I didn’t know my strength at that moment. But it healed, thank God, and we’re all very happy,” Mr. Gomes said. “I was crying for about, like, a month or so.” Thank goodness he’s channeling his strength more productively these days.
Socialite and Interview magazine contributor Fabiola Beracasa currently owns three “death-row” dogs, whom she rescued from being euthanized at the eleventh hour. She promised to tell us a lighthearted anecdote about one in particular, Savannah, but it started out on a rather sobering note: “His temperament is, he’s just the nicest dog in the world. And he had been shot in the mouth,” she explained, then insisted, “This is a funny story!” And it was, eventually! Apparently Savannah needed to have a metal fixture put into his jaw for a few months to stabilize it while it healed. “So I’m walking down the street with my dog Savannah, who looks like Lady Gaga, because he’s got this thing, right?” Ms. Beracasa continued.
“And I run into Terry Richardson, who I know… and he’s like, ‘Do you mind if I take a picture of your crazy Lady Gaga dog?’ and I said sure. And then I’m flipping through French Vogue a few months later, and there’s my crazy Lady Gaga dog, in French Vogue!” Ms. Beracasa laughed. “I told you it was worth it. So I run into Terry and I’m like, ‘So listen. I’ve been trying to get into French Vogue my whole life!'”
French Vogue, listen up: it must be noted that Ms. Beracasa looked stunning in a knockout silver-spangled Valentino minidress with a bolero blazer covering her shoulders. “It’s like a really strapless dress, and I believe in only showing one body part at once, at a time, you know?” Ms. Beracasa said. “A long sleeve, a short skirt, or vice versa. You know who taught me that? Margherita Missoni‘s a really good friend of mine, and her grandmother told her that.” (Margherita’s grandmother is Rosita Missoni, who co-founded the eponymous clothing line in the 1950s with her husband, Vittorio. We’d take her sartorial advice, too.)
The musician and committed animal-rights activist Moby, who emceed the event, insisted he had the best dog story of all. “When I was about ten years old, I was walking by my town dump in Darien, Connecticut… And I heard a little mew. And I looked in a box and in this box were five dead kittens who were about ten days old, and one barely-alive kitten,” Moby explained. “So I picked up this barely-alive kitten, eyes closed, just mewing, and I ran home. My mom and I took it to the vet, and the vet said, ‘Look, don’t get attached to this cat, because he’s very young, he’s very sick, he won’t survive.’ And so we took him home, prepared for the cat to die. And our dachshund, George, became the mother to the cat and nursed the cat back to health… Where literally like, the cat would pee and poo all over itself, George would clean it up.”
“So George became the cat’s mom, and the cat lived to be 19 years old,” he finished triumphantly. Awww.
