Inside The Dior-Filled Guggenheim International Gala Honoring Richard Armstrong

Nora Jones

Sansho Scott/BFA.com

For the past 10 years, Dior has helped the Guggenheim host a spectacular fundraiser benefit each fall. The partnership between the French fashion house and the global art authority was forged in part by Richard Armstrong, the outgoing director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation—so Wednesday’s Dior-hosted International Gala was a bittersweet one.

The event is called the International Gala not because the room is filled with many accents—although that is true, owing to the stylish executives attending on behalf of Dior—but because the museum is not merely a New York institution. Its various outposts can famously be found in Venice, Bilbao, and soon in Abu Dhabi—a passion project of Armstrong’s, who masterminded the ongoing Frank Ghery-designed project—and the gala raises funds for them all.

Guests gathered at 6:30 to tour the art on view, notably “Alex Katz: Gathering” (on view through February 20, 2023), which wraps the museum’s spiral walls in the artist’s figurative masterpieces. The likes of Alexandra Daddario, Thuso Mbedu, Rachel Brosnahan, Isabela Merced, Christian Serratos, Nina Dobrev, and Maye Musk were spotted among the spectators—most dressed in Dior—and if there was a color of the night, it was crisp, classic, black.

“Dior has been an amazing partner these last 10 years. It's rare that you have a partner who has an even higher aesthetic demand than you have in an art museum,” said Armstrong to his guests, who sat in the rotunda of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum. Unsurprisingly, the wondrous space was populated with patrons of the arts, and more than a few creatives—Jeff Koons, Mickalene Thomas, Rashid Johnson, and Nick Cave (who has a show of his own opening there on November 18) among them. In his final thank-you to all those individuals he encountered during his time helming the Guggenheim, Armstrong said, “To the artists, so many of you here, I deeply, deeply admire your stubborn wisdom, what you add to our lives—joy and puzzlement—and your welcomed non-conformity.” Also on stage to thank the room were Dior’s senior vice president of communications and image, Marisa Pucci, and the Guggenheim’s deputy director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator, Naomi Beckwith.

All the while, guests dined on a meal of dry-aged beef with potato pavé curated by chef-on-the-rise Rōze Traore—the perfect lead-in to the night’s very special performance. Wearing a caped dress, Norah Jones took her seat on a piano bench at the bottom of the rotunda, her honeyed melodies floating up through the building. As far as evenings go, it felt a suitably graceful swan song for Mr. Armstrong.