Night on Earth

Jessica Alba and Cash Warren   
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The American Museum of Natural History dance is typically aglow with New York's golden youth, but this year it added a dash of green to the mix. In line with the institution's new Climate Change exhibition, the evening's theme was eco-chic: soy candles, cardboard set pieces, and enough shrubbery (to be repurposed later by the museum's landscapers) for a pack of giraffes. Even if the sea bass wasn't local, the glam guests (including Jessica Alba, Tinsley Mortimer, and Leigh Lezark) were feeling earth-friendly vibes.

After dinner, the party moved to the Cullman Hall of the Universe, where 21-year-old Dior Beauty girl (and, appropriately, Egyptology major) Harley Viera Newton spun dance tunes. Alba, en route to Yale with husband Cash Warren for his secret-society reunion, chatted with Milla Jovovich in the corner. Fabiola Beracasa, one of a half-dozen event chairs outfitted by Stella McCartney, explained her see-through pants. ("That's my underwear!") And Katie Lee Joel learned from a museum scale what she'd weigh on the moon. "It's probably fake," she said. No one was busier, though, than de facto point woman (her dad's the museum's Board of Trustees chairman) Claire Bernard, who, between making the rounds and overseeing a very thoughtful cake delivery for birthday girl Maggie Betts, shared some museum lore. "Did you know that three floors underneath us, there are these DNA labs? They have scientists doing the craziest stuff," she confided. "There was a rumor that one lived in an elevator shaft here for three months." No sign of mad scientists last night, of course.