Night at the Museum: The Wallace Collection Christens Its Young Benefactors Gala With a Party

Daphne GuinnessDave Benett/Getty Images

Earlier this week in London, fabled Anglo-French perfumers, The House of Creed, took over the Wallace Collection on an uncharacteristically warm summer evening in London. The white-tie dinner in the museum’s galleries, which sport one of the world’s strongest collections of rococo art and furniture, marked the culmination of the inaugural year of the Wallace’s Young Benefactors program.

Dr. Xavier Bray, director of the Wallace Collection, the Honorable Daphne Guinness, Marc Quinn, Adot Gak, and Nicholas Cullinan OBE dined on filet of beef and white chocolate mousse dispersed across three rooms: The Back State Room, dedicated to Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour, and The Dutch Galleries, seated under priceless work by Rembrandt, Jan Steel and Gerard ter Borch. Fleurissimo by Creed was Grace Kelly s scent of choice in her lifetime, and the gala marked an expertly chosen direction for the fragrance house and its 250-year-old legacy, returning to its rich heritage and fabled past.

The Wallace Collection’s Young Benefactors, led by jeweler and collector Quaid Childers and Nada Bayoud, Head of Patrons at the Wallace Collection, was launched in October 2023 to cultivate a new community of multifaceted, illustrious young art patrons united in their love of the Wallace Collection. The white-tie Young Benefactors Gala is the first of its kind, created with the vision of returning one of the world’s leading house museums to its original function for one night.

The Young Benefactors Gala committee, which included Childers, Bayoud, Alexander Hankin, Joseph Spieczny, Priya Carmichael-Jack, and Anna Maj Madsen, worked with Tiger’s Eye, one of London’s leading strategic creative agencies. Led by Sophie Goodwin and Chiara di Carcaci, Tiger’s Eye specializes in pairing cultural institutions with luxury brands to create spectacular events.

Impressive herbaceous border-like floral arrangements in an array of all-white flowers by Pinstripes and Peonies gave a woodland-like feel, and Casamigos served up never-ending Palomas and margaritas throughout the night under the revered work by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing.

After the feast, Yinka Ilori MBE, Philip Colbert, Nick Hornby, Jerry Gogosian and Dilara Findikoglu disappeared into the night clutching Creed bags full of scent, Love In White and Neroli Sauvage, as the future patrons and biggest Wallace supporters Alissar Wynn, Quinn Martinelli, Polina Proskina and Samantha McManus, headed to private members club the Twenty Two for yet more Casamigos and dancing at the after party which went on until the early hours.