The Dress Off Her Back

Brazil has no shortage of high-fashion exports—need we say more than just "Gisele"? And many of the country's own—including the bombshell supe—turned out last night to support the Brazil Foundation, which held its eighth annual gala at the Met in New York last night. Andrea Dellal, in Dolce & Gabbana; Francisco Costa; and Vik Muniz were on hand for the fête. But the occasion wasn't all play, as it turned out; like any gala, there was business to be done, too. The Brazilian marketing guru Nizan Guanaes, the evening's chair, set a $2 million goal for the night's fundraising, and, lo and behold, the attendees surpassed it. (The final tally was around $2.5 million.)

There's Gisele to thank, at least in part, for that. She contributed $50,000 on her own, and then she took the mic to extemporaneously auction off her floor-length Calvin Klein Collection gown. ("Are you OK with that, Francisco?" she called to her friend the designer, at her side. What was he going to say? No?) "I'm not going to take this dress off here, because I'm a mother now," Bündchen said in Portuguese. "But after the party, I'll give it to the winner." She set the price at $50,000 and said, "If no one pays, Nizan will have to pay!" Nizan did—and his lucky stepdaughter, Helena Bordon, currently an intern at Valentino, is now the proud owner of a Gisele hand-me-down.

Following the Met gala, the party continued at the Boom Boom Room, where Lorenzo Martone hosted a crowd that included Fernanda Motta (an emcee, along with Muniz, at the gala earlier in the evening), Anne Hathaway, Kevin Spacey, and Jim Carrey. The party raged until nearly dawn—just as in Rio.

—Marina Larroude