From Vanity Fair · Kenneal Patterson · · 3m
Five years of the Caring For Women Dinner
Inside the Kering Foundation night where jazz, feathered gowns, and a $5 million raise met a hard message about violence against women.
In brief
Inside the Kering Foundation night where jazz, feathered gowns, and a $5 million raise met a hard message about violence against women. Awareness alone is cheap; the Kering Foundation dinner is built to convert star power and a room of donors into money for groups already doing the work. Originally reported by Vanity…
Candlelight and A-listers
Colman Domingo, Pamela Anderson, and Simone Biles gathered at The Pool in Manhattan on a Thursday night, all there for one cause: ending violence against women and children.
Five years of hosting
Salma Hayek Pinault and her husband Francois-Henri Pinault have hosted the Kering Foundation's Caring For Women Dinner since 2022. This year marked the fifth.
Awareness is boring
Hayek Pinault has no patience for campaigns that stop at visibility. The night raised more than $5 million for organizations she says actually deliver.
“Awareness is important, but I really think it's a little boring. You gotta do something.”
The guest list
Benicio Del Toro, Paris Hilton, Rita Ora, Alex Consani, Camila Morrone, Julianne Moore, Dakota Johnson, and Martha Stewart all filed into the historic restaurant.
Legacy in the room
Domingo, hosting with a Tommy's margarita in hand, said timing it to New York Fashion Week put the right eyes on it.
“This room is very important because people leave their legacy and what they do behind.”
Gowns that fought back
Moore arrived in feathery black draping, Consani in cobalt Gucci feathers she kept getting tangled in. Biles, four-foot-eight in a floor-length strapless, kept tripping.
“It's giving me aura, but I keep getting tangled.”
An invitation from Paris
Carter Reum cornered Biles to pitch the 10,000-square-foot longevity center he and Hilton built at home. He saved his number in her agent's phone as "Paris Hilton's husband."
Meeting them for real
It was Biles's first year at the dinner, and she said the appeal was the room itself: women she knew only from a distance, suddenly standing in front of her.
“Parasocially, you know [the guests]. But I'm meeting them in person.”
Why Kering picked this
Francois-Henri Pinault started the foundation in the mid-2000s as the philanthropic arm of the group behind Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga. It now works across six countries.
“What drove me to choose that cause for the group was that it was taboo.”
The new front is online
Pinault told the crowd that one in three women and girls will face physical or sexual violence, and that tech-enabled abuse has climbed sharply in the past year.
“This can lead men, especially young men, to believe that misogyny is simply part of manhood.”
Who got the money
The 2026 honorees: Activating Change, for deaf and disabled survivors; Fondo Semillas in Mexico; The New York Women's Foundation; and JBWS, a New Jersey domestic violence nonprofit.
Tarana Burke reframes it
The MeToo founder said the movement should be measured by what it opened up, not what it finished, and that the grim mood is not the same as losing.
“It feels like the world is on fire. But I'm really clear that we are in this moment because we are winning.”
Bidding, then dancing
Three Lorna Simpson collages went for $165,000 and a diamond necklace for $130,000. Rita Ora opened with "I Am Woman," Hilton DJ'd, and Hayek Pinault danced in the booth.
“Go get those horses!”
The short version
Awareness alone is cheap; the Kering Foundation dinner is built to convert star power and a room of donors into money for groups already doing the work.
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