SPIRIT OF UNITY
International Women’s Day saw Bazaar and a host of inspirational guests celebrate solidarity at two uplifting events
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Harper’s Bazaar and Chanel came together to host two glittering gatherings. Gemma Arterton, Helena Kennedy and Josie Rourke, the director of Mary Queen of Scots, were among the headline speakers at an exclusive gala dinner at the Connaught. As guests sipped Laurent-Perrier Champagne in the mirrored Mayfair Room, Arterton applauded the rise in complex female film roles since the start of the #MeToo movement, while Justine Picardie, Bazaar’s editor-in-chief,
discussed the empowering links between fashion and feminism. ‘Even in the darkest hour,’ she said, ‘women have defined themselves with the mark of courage, whether it be
a red lipstick or a Chanel little black dress.’
The following day, friends of the magazine gathered in the
private salon above Chanel’s Bond Street store for an
intimate lunch. Among those seated at the long table, which was beautifully adorned with white anemones, roses and lilacs, were Emilia Wickstead, Laura Carmichael and Stephanie Phair, the chair of the British Fashion Council. Jessica McCormack, sparkling in her own jewellery, shared a warm embrace with the Flowerbx entrepreneur Whitney Bromberg Hawkings, and Roksanda Ilincic discussed her triumphant London Fashion Week show with the actress Gala Gordon. The model and activist Arizona Muse rose to her feet to share her memories of working with Karl Lagerfeld
and to speak movingly of her hopes for her new baby daughter, before the elegant assembly raised their glasses ‘to mothers, daughters, sisters and friends’. ella phillips