Derek Lam and Vanessa Getty
Photo By Drew Altizer
Last week, Tod’s creative director Derek Lam headed to his hometown of San Francisco, where he was treated to a little home cooking from his mom, Celine Lam. She prepared her son’s favorite abalone and shiitake mushroom dish for a family-style dinner for 14 on Wednesday night.
The next day, Lam’s pal Vanessa Getty made sure he was equally well taken care of at a tea in the Saks Fifth Avenue shoe department. Guests shopped for his handbags and Tod’s donated a portion of sales to one of Getty’s favorite charities, Orangutan Foundation International. “I met Derek at the [2007] Barneys opening here and we just clicked,” Getty said.
That night, the party caravan moved south of Market to the bohemian Mission District, where Getty and her husband, Billy, threw a dinner for Lam. A group of 30 toasted the designer at Martin Muller’s Modernism West Gallery, including eco-entrepreneur David de Rothschild; local socialites Denise Hale, Kate Harbin, Victoire Reynal and Vandy Boudreau; San Francisco Ballet principal Damian Smith, and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and actress Connie Nielsen.
