Inside Chanel's Tribeca Dinner, Where Blake Lively, Role Model, and Sofia Coppola Meet

Walking into The Odeon on Monday evening, I was blinded. First, by a flash of lightbulbs; then the bright blonde hair that had incited them: Blake Lively had arrived.

It’s a welcome and somewhat standard hazard of the evening: Chanel’s annual Tribeca Festival Artists Dinner, a standing Monday night affair that turns an already buzzy downtown haunt (the event previously occurred at Balthazar for many years, before moving a few blocks South last year) into the buzziest — and busiest — address of the night (if you are still dying to get into The Corner Store, Monday was probably a good time to try).

Lively was hardly the first, or last, major star to attend this year’s dinner, the 18th iteration honoring, as is customary, visual artists who have contributed original artwork to the festival award-winning filmmakers. At pre-dinner cocktails in the courtyard, you could find several sub-sects of Hollywood and beyond. There were the Legends (led largely by Robert DeNiro and Jerry Seinfield); the Directors (Sofia Coppola; Celine Song; Darren Aronofsky); the Young Musicians (Laufey; Role Model); the Young Meryls (daughters Grace Gummer and Louisa Jacobson); and of course, just about all of Young Hollywood, including Havana Rose Liu, Molly Gordon, Whitney Peak, Lola Tung, Imogen Waterhouse, Maude Apatow, Chase Sui Wonders, Nico Parker, and Maisy Stella.

At Chanel, however, the whole “Hollywood is high school” cliche does not apply. Inside, the groups mixed and mingled. Lively sipped sparkling water at the bar with her date for the evening, her teenage niece, while she chatted with A Simpler Favor co-star Allison Janney. Wonders and Apatow, my seat mates for the evening, chatted warmly with old family friends (Coppola and Seinfeld, respectively), as Liu and Hailey Benton Gates, directly acrosss, debated the best condiments for their steak frites. A few tables over, Role Model and Junia Lin, the identical sister of Laufey, stayed close together, chatting with newly-published author Tommy Dorfman; a little ways down, Jonas found himself in-between Gummer and Jacobson. Tied for the most popular of the night? Mariska Hargitay, a perennial New York staple; and Celine Song, whose latest film, Materialists, had premiered just two days prior.

Here, a closer look inside the event, including exclusive portraits by artist JR.