The cat(eye) is out of the bag! Olivia Palermo and Westward Leaning have been keeping their collaboration under wraps, but last night marked the summer sunnies’ debut with a dinner at The Gander. Palermo designed eight new styles with the San Francisco-based brand’s founder and creative director, Robert Denning. The style icon has been a loyal brand ambassador since Westward Leaning’s launch in 2012. She, along with other style stars like Jessica Alba, Emily Blunt, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, have made the brand a fashion set fave. The collaboration’s premiere also coincides with an e-commerce launch on OliviaPalermo.com, where each pair retails for $210. A donation of $10 will be made with each purchase to ADCAM’S Maasai Project. Palermo’s favorites—gold accents and lenses, sea foam green sea glass—all in the brand’s signature universally flattering wayfarer shape are the hallmark of this pairing. “When we first collaborated I had an immediate idea of what we were looking for with OliviaPalermo.com. With spring and summer coming we wanted to keep it soft and pretty,” Palermo told the Daily at the collab’s intimate dinner.
The descent to The Gander’s private event space was candlelit; glowing votives adorned each step and every place setting created a stunningly romantic ambience. Promptly arrived fashionably late with her fiancé Johannes Huebl, who promptly rearranged the table’s designated place settings. Mixed bouquets of white and pink roses and hydrangeas in modern, rectangular vases decorated the length of two long dining tables. The guest list included Palermo’s pals and editors, like Elle’s Danielle Prescod, Vogue’s Edward Barsamian, Interview’s Miguel Enamorado and Aquazarra founder/creative director Edgardo Osorio. On the menu was a succulent summer selection: a chopped salad with hazelnuts, beet ravioli and rotisserie chicken, with a side of pommes frites. A feather-light poppy seed angel food cake topped with fresh berries was a sweet finish to an even sweeter evening.
JULIANNE ZIGOS
