From FWD

Leave it to the French, with a little help from their Italian neighbors, to fête a generally celebrity-less couture season with something they know how to do better than anyone else -- great dinner parties.

Pierre Berge, as president of Arcat SIDA, held a dinner for some 500 revelers in the Pre Catelan Wednesday, which raised 230,000 Euro for the French AIDS charity. The night before, Ferré hosted a supper for 300 of the socially significant in the Jeu de Paume, and on Monday night Valentino held an intimate post-show dinner for clients and friends.

Held in the sumptuous Left Bank apartment of Valentino's partner Giancarlo Giametti on the Quai d'Orsay, guests from the world of fashion and film - Ashley Judd, Joan Collins with husband Percy Gibson in tow, Tamara Mellon and Juicy Couture designers Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor - worked their way through an Italian menu under the watchful eye of couture veterans Susan Gutfreund and Nan Kempner.

At the Arcat SIDA dinner, a troop of singers with tiny mikes serenaded the tables with opera classics accompanied by a piano and cello, as guests eagerly eyed the prizes from a lottery. One lucky winner got a Renault Mégane, and a newly blond Olympia Le Tan cycled her prize around the dining room. "I'm sure it will disappear in two minutes if I ever actually rode it on the streets of Paris," she said, smiling from atop her Hermès leather-clad bike.

With some 110,000 people suffering from AIDS in France, the evening was a pensive affair, yet the event did inevitably raises competitive egos, as certain folks competed to attract beauty and fame to the tables they booked.

Hair colorist to the stars Christophe Robin turned heads with Kristin Scott Thomas, Fendi did well with rival actress Elodie Bouchez and Isabella Blow, and Kenzo Takada invited Ed Tuttle, architect of the elite Aman hotel chain, to his side. Berge's table was a thespian get-together, with Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Hupert dining alongside French stage's greatest voice Jean Claude Brialy,

Some were politically correct (Marc Jacobs sat across from his boss's son Antoine Arnault), some sought beauty (Chloe's Phoebe Philo entertained the ever lovely model Angela Lindvall with her new beau), and others wit (Yohji Yamamoto had Italy's most dazzling sisters, Carla and Franca Sozzani, on either side).

Several score of designers also showed up, including Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier, Giambattista Valli, Albert Elbaz, Viktor Horsting, Rolf Snoeren, Christian Louboutin, Sonia Rykiel, Ines de la Fressange, Silvia Fendi, Jerome Dreyfus and Ferré.

Ferré cut a swathe through Paris this week, opening a 4,000-square-foot store at 51 Ave. Montaigne, the city's priciest shopping street, staging a successful catwalk show of his ready-to-wear collection and wining and dining 300 in spectacular style.

After the models strutted their stuff, guests sat down to dine off custom-made organza tablecloths with floral arrangements created by master florist Christian Tortu. The meal itself was a reminder that France is the only place where they can cater superb food for hundreds. Potel & Chabot, the finest caterers in fashion, prepared scallops on a bed of creamy white beets, which was served with an unforgettable Riesling, and a main course of delicate lobster served in tiny, and tasty pumpkins.

Fresh from losing 30 kilos, a newly trim Ferré greeted his impressive guest list of princess and muses: Prince Pierre d'Arenberg, Princess Anne de Bourbon-Siciles, Prince Louis-Albert de Broglie, Prince Michel de France, Countess Ruy Brandolini, Naomi Campbell, Olivier and Sydney Picasso, Cécile Zilkha, Mouna Ayoub, Anouk Aimée, Ivana Trump, Ines Sastre, Andrée Putman, gallery owner Thaddaeus Ropac, film maker Danielle Thompson and TV star Daniella Lumbroso.

Ferré, who spent seven years in Paris as couturier for Christian Dior, said graciously but briefly, "It's nice to be back," before departing on the arm of San Francisco social maven Denise Hale.