The Host Committee for the event included: Muna Rihani Al-Nasser, Jacqueline Weld Drake, Patricia Kluge, Ann Nitze, Susan Pillsbury, Sana Sabbagh, Dame Jillian Sackler DBE, Barbara Tober and Smithsonian’s Freer| Sackler Galleries.
Guests included: Mona Aboelnaga, Reem Acra, Muna Rihani Al-Nasser, Judy Auchincloss, Mariam Azarm, Anait Bian, Catherine Petree-Biron, Noreen Buckfire, Karen Burke, Alyson Cafiero, Melba Ruffo di Calabria, Giosetta Capriati, Isabel Carden, Lila Castellaneta, Joan Hardy Clarke, Samia Faroukl, Montgomery Frazier, Nawel Gergi, Susan Gutfreund, Cathy Hardwick, Ingie Hassan, Kathleen Hearst, Marlene Herring, Ranya Idilby, Irene Moscahlaidis, Maxine Janes, Jaime Jimenez, Nina Junot, Michèle Gerber Klein, Meriel Lari, Benjamin Le Hay, Jonathan Marder, Sylvia and John Mazzola, Clara Menaldino, Ben Mindich, Katy Mundell, Ann Nitze, Pam Owens, Corinne Plumhoff, Lee Robinson, Kathryn Rotella, Joanna Roth, Sana Sabbagh, Judith Schlosser, Stephanie Stokes, Barbara Tober, Evelyn Tompkins, Diana Tsao, Susan Zaro, and Katie Ziglar.
A percentage of everything that was sold during the event was generously donated to The Smithsonian’s Freer| Sackler Galleries
About The Freer and Sackler Galleries at The Smithsonian Institution: The Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery provide visitors with inspiring encounters with Asian art and culture, free of charge, 364 days a year. An integral part of the largest museum and research complex in the world, the Freer and Sackler Galleries are prominently located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Freer Gallery of Art, which opened to the public in 1923, houses a world-renowned collection of art donated to the country by industrialist Charles Lang Freer. It includes exceptional works from India, China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and the Islamic world, in addition to a fine selection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American art. Its sister museum, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, was established in 1987 to house a gift of some one thousand works of Asian art bequeathed to the Smithsonian by Dr. Sackler. The Sackler’s collections have since expanded and now include important Indian paintings; Islamic manuscripts; Japanese prints from the eighteenth to the twentieth century; Chinese, Japanese, and Korean paintings; contemporary Chinese ceramics; and photography.
One staff serves both museums. In addition to presenting work from its collections, the Freer and Sackler operate the largest library devoted to Asian art in the United States; produce educational activities for the public, including the groundbreaking ImaginAsia family program; and offer a full roster of performances, films, and lectures to the public—free of charge.
About Designer, Reem Acra: Reem Acra’s designs epitomize global glamour by offering women her innate fashion sense, European style and understanding of what looks and feels beautiful. Interlaced with her sense of luxury, her regal designs are developed with a modern aesthetic. The ready-to-wear and bridal collections evoke an ethereal quality, which appeals to a discerning clientele, including personalities, royalty and style-setting women from all over the world. Her personal vintage archives, which she has been collecting since her childhood in the markets of Lebanon, span years and centuries of garments.