The shopping extravaganza at The Dubai Mall on Thursday night might have boosted sales for the hundreds of retailers inside, but over on the other side of the Dubai Fountains, a different kind of spending was taking place.
“Giving away is the new luxury,”said Franca Sozzani, editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia, as she led the charge at an auction in the gardens of the Burj Khalifa in aid of Dubai Cares.
Over a dinner of Canadian lobster with fava beans, herb-crusted beef tenderloin and white chocolate cheesecake, eased with Italian beverages, hundreds of Dubai VIPs and a generous handful of celebrities pulled out their luxury wallets to help bring education to the children of Ethiopia, raising a total of Dh5million from 10 fashionable lots. “There’s a reason we called it Vogue Dubai Fashion Experience said Sozzani. “We are auctioning experiences tonight.”
The $100,000 (Dh367,000) was the target amount for each lot on the night, Sozzani told the crowd, which included Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci, Roberto Cavalli and wife Eva, Donatella Versace, French actress Clotide Courau and Canadian designers Dan and Dean Caten of DSquared2, but clearly as the night wore on, the purse strings were loosened enough to surpass expectations.
Encouraging them was British supermodel Naomi Campbell, looking as statuesque as ever in a lacy, see-through Roberto Cavalli dress accessorised by waist-length hair. The charity’s aim is especially close to her heart, she told tabloid!.
“I think this fashion experience tonight that Franca created is an amazing event. I’m here because I very much support Africa and have done for many, many years and what’s important tonight is everyone understands that the money raised tonight will go especially towards Ethiopia, education and health and empower women and children.”
Campbell said she’s been a regular visitor to the UAE for decades.
“I think Dubai, since I’ve been coming here since the 90’s, it’s always been a place where they want fashion, they love fashion, they create fashion. I think now there are so new many places that have amazing fashion weeks and Dubai is one of them.”
On the auction block were the kind of experiences money usually can’t buy, such as invitations to fashion shows — Versace, Armani, Chanel and Roberto Cavalli — or a shopping day in Milan with Vogue Italia fashion editor Enrica Ponzellini. For the men, Burberry offered to make a custom suit and invites to the men’s fashion show in January.
Another hot ticket was entry to a celebrity-studded party for IWC Schaffhausen in New York, with flights, hotel and an escort in the form of model Karolina Kurkova, who gamely got on stage and proved herself a born auctioneer, raising $100,000 for the lot. Perhaps her promises of making introductions to the likes of Robert De Niro helped.
Also among the lots were a weekend in the glamorous Swiss resort of St Moritz, with private skiing lessons and skiwear by Moncler, and the experience of having a red haute couture dress made (a three-month process) by Valentino.
