Chanel Celebrate's Its Ephemeral Boutique In East Hampton

While the summer Hamptons scene has been in full force since Memorial Day, on Saturday night Chanel marked a mid-season arrival in East Hampton: its ephemeral boutique.

The French luxury house welcomed an intimate group of friends out east for a celebration of the seasonal store. The evening kicked off with cocktails inside the boutique, which was unveiled in late June and will remain open through the end of the summer season. Guests including Sydney Chandler, Jessica Seinfeld, Rachel Zoe, Athena Calderone, Lizzie Tisch, Gucci Westman, Destiny Joseph and Reign Judge dropped by the store’s landmarked gray-shingled building (the work of Grey Gardens architect Joseph Greenleaf Thorpe) at 26 Newtown Lane before making their way over to the nearby Baker House, where the evening continued with an outdoor dinner.

Jimmy Chin’s career as a pro-climber, skier, and adventure documentarian has taken him to some of the world’s most inaccessible landscapes. On Saturday, his career landed him in the VIP Chanel crowd with his wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. “Jimmy was trying to buy everything [at the boutique], and I was trying to hold him back,” said Vasarhelyi. The married filmmaking duo, who codirected the 2019 Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo,” live in Wyoming but have a house on Long Island and happened to be in town for the party. “It’s nice to celebrate a brand [Chanel] that does so much to support artists, so of course, we love to be here,” she added. “I’m just an accessory,” quipped Chin.

Chin and Vasarhelyi recently wrapped their first fiction project, a biopic about long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, and are finishing up a documentary about their close friends Kris and Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face and Esprit, and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. “It’s kind of a love-adventure story, but they became some of the greatest conservationists of our time,” said Chin.

“[Kris Tompkins] found the love of her life in her 40s, and then she left everything. She’s the first chief executive officer of Patagonia — she built that company for 23 years, then she runs away and flies to the real Patagonia. It’s a romantic story, but also about how we live with intention,” Vasarhelyi added.

Chin also stars in the docuseries “The Edge of the Unknown,” coming out this fall on National Geographic and Disney+. “It’s a show in response to all the shows I see about adventure and skiing and snowboarding. I wanted to get behind it all and look at really what the motivations are of these athletes, the sacrifices they’ve made, and their pursuit of transcendence that I didn’t feel like I was seeing in other narratives,” he said.

Lola Tung, the lead of Amazon Prime’s hit series “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” had just flown into town from North Carolina, where she’s filming the show’s second season. The coming-of-age teen drama, rife with a love triangle, is set in a fictional upscale summertime beach community — a world many in the dinner crowd were familiar with. “I flew in with Jenny Han — the creator [of the show] — today, and now we’re here,” said the exuberant 19-year-old actress, standing poolside as she glanced around the lush grounds. “For some reason, [Chanel] wanted me here; I’m very excited to be here. This is my first event like this, and it’s beautiful, and there are a bunch of lovely people here,” she added. “It’s stunning, it’s beautiful, everyone looks fabulous, and I can’t believe I’m wearing Chanel. It’s pretty cool.”

Tung linked up with Han shortly after her arrival; the popular young adult-lit author captured content of her young star for Instagram en route to the dinner tent, where guests had their pick of steak or whole lobster as they dined surrounded by fresh flowers and draped greenery.

After the dessert course (blueberry cobbler) hit tables, the evening concluded with a musical performance by Gracie Abrams, the 22-year-old daughter of filmmaker J.J. Abrams. “I’ve loved Chanel with my entire heart since I was a very small child, so this is surreal,” said Abrams, who was decked out in embroidered velvet pants and a glittered tweed top from the brand’s fall collection. “If I seem shaky, it’s because i can’t believe I’m lucky enough to wear these clothes right now,” she added, before launching into her romantic ballad “Friend.”