CO-HOSTS Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman and Karl Lagerfeld brought in a roll call of all the world's most gorgeous and glamorous from fashion and film for the annual gala at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art last night. Claire Danes, Elle Macpherson, Naomi Watts, Sheryl Crow and Marcia Gay Harden were among the stars who turned up to the $150,000-a-table event, which this year celebrated the launch of the new Chanel exhibition at the museum. Lagerfeld himself, who has acted as creative director at the house of Chanel since 1983, has always shrugged off suggestions of retrospective exhibitions in the past. For this one, which is hailed as an open dialogue between Coco Chanel and her modern-day successor by the museum's curator, Harold Koda, Lagerfeld admitted that due to a fractious relationship with the museum he had nothing more to do with the preparation of it than approving the outfits used and contributing to the catalogue. "I like today," the designer told reporters last night. "I am not interested in the past. My task is to anticipate for Chanel what will be in fashion tomorrow." (May 3 2005, AM)
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