Krista Krieger is obsessed with Africa. She has been to the continent three times since January and stopped counting after more than twelve trips. In 2007, after funding the renovation of a preschool she had visited, Krieger joined the board of the Africa Foundation which works with its corporate partner &Beyond to raise money for basic necessities in the war-torn and economically desperate African villages. “Africa Foundation does a lot of brick-and-mortar type projects, so it’s easy to show donors where the money has gone,” Krieger explains. “This is one of the main things that attracted me to the organization—the transparency of where the funds have gone.”

This summer, Krieger gathered a group of friends from New York’s art world and high society to experience safari adventures at Phinda Private Game Reserve—a luxurious, eco-friendly lodge on 56,800 acres of prime wilderness (aka “the bush”) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Nina Griscom came, as did art patron Beth Rudin DeWoody (who funded a garden and water tank in the area) and her fiancé photographer Firooz Zahedi (having a world class photographer is always a plus on safari) and her creative children Carlton and Kyle DeWoody. Also, there was artist Ryan McGinness who made a print to benefit the Africa Foundation that will be sold through The Pace Gallery. “I found the timing serendipitous because I was working on a body of African art,” McGinness says.

Safari is not for the lazy socialite who likes to sip vino on the beach in St. Tropez. Leave the jewels at home. “Pack clothes that you don’t care if they get destroyed,” advises Krieger with a wink. Every morning we were up at 5 a.m.—it was still dark out. A guide meets you in your sleek and comfortable “Zulu Zen” house and escorts you to the main lodge. (If you dare go unaccompanied, you could be attacked by a leopard, no joke!) After coffee, you hit the terrain. Within days we had spotted the big five: lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino. We even saw a kill (involving a pride of lions and an unlucky male nyala) that left us less hungry at the gourmet breakfast spread that awaits guests after every morning drive. To say that witnessing the immense amount of wild animal life is astounding is an understatement. After two days, seeing herds of zebra and enormous giraffes starts to feel like home.

We also visited a local school where McGinness hung his African-inspired prints. On the last night, we held a costume party (I went as Peter Beard, sarong and all, while Carlton did African Dictator and Kyle was a Zulu princess) that ended with a dance-off as monkeys and zebras literally watched us loopy Americans boogie to old-school disco.
Safari in Africa is a total yin and yang. You tough it, kind of, on treks through the bush, then kick-back in the luxury of Phinda’s amazing resorts. You visit a local village that survives on nothing, and then eat the most amazing meal at Phinda’s traditional African boma under the stars. But make no mistake, the Africa Foundation is about helping, and one dollar goes a long way. On October 9, the organization is hosting a safari-themed fundraiser in New York where they will recreate a bush dinner. Time to bust out the Zulu fabrics I scored in Johannesburg. To get your ticket, go to www.africafoundation.org and start planning your safari chic look today. If you need a beaded bracelet, I have some I can loan you.

Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld and Ingrid Sischy and the Gordon Parks Centennial Gala. (Leandro Justen/PatrickMcMullan.com)

We strolled into the Museum of Modern Art last Tuesday, for a gala honoring the centennial of the birth of the renowned photojournalist Gordon Parks, who passed away at 93 in 2006.

A quick nod to the door guy, and then promptly to the bar. Still off the sauce, we grabbed a seltzer and turned around to survey the scene, only to be immediately interrupted by a bronzed figure that had surveyed our less than macho bar order. “Did you just order a sparkling water, m’boy?” photographer Peter Beard asked us.

“Regrettably so,” we admitted to the man whose legendary life-long bender makes Bowie’s Thin White Duke phase look like rehab.

“Very sorry to hear that,” he said, extending a hand, the very one that he touched Cheryl Tiegs with so many years prior.

Mr. Beard spoke to us about the Gordon Parks Foundation. “I’ve been involved with it since before you were born, but it’s my wife Nejma who’s on the advisory board,” he replied proudly.

We noticed a wrinkle in the space-time continuum out of the corner of our eye. It was the monochromatic septuagenarian sun god of fashion: Karl Lagerfeld. He cut a swath through the crowd in his calculated yet effortless way that we’ve come to know and love, signaling that it was, in fact, time to sit down.

As we climbed the stairs to the second-floor atrium, it became clear that the seat-to-guest ratio was a bit off.  What should have been a subdued sit-down process quickly becomes a game of sudden-death musical chairs, but this wasn’t a pack of snotnose asthmatics in an elementary classroom. We were playing with Sarah Jessica Parker, Russell Simmons, and Anna Wintour.

Waiters and busboys frantically searched for extra chairs as more than a few tables, who’d paid big bucks for plates of filet, found themselves short a seat or two.

While extra chairs maintained a holding pattern above the heads of the rich and famous, we’d been cleared for landing. We sat next to James Murphy, of LCD Soundsystem, who was serving as the evening’s DJ. He admitted that he’s been a bit overworked lately, despite his retirement from the band.

“Originally we had no intention of filming the four-hour ‘last’ concert at Madison Square Garden, but at the eleventh hour we did. I’m still editing the thing together.”

We noted that the last concert was pseudo-religious evening for us, and Mr. Murphy hinted that was the idea behind the film, titled Shut Up and Play the Hits, which will be playing in theaters across the globe July 18, one night only.

“It’s for the people who didn’t get to experience it the way it was meant to be,” he said, seemingly still apologetic for the online ticket-sales debacle that caused the band to add three additional shows before the final performance last spring.

Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt who was a long-time friend of Mr. Parks, took the stage and cued up the rest of the evening with a few anecdotes the man of the evening: “The guy made Shaft, people!” he exclaimed, leading into a heartwarming recounting of his interactions with the photographer as a young man.

Clive Davis, Annie Leibovitz, and John Legend followed, giving speeches laden with anecdotes, professional and personal, about Mr. Parks, whose body of work was expansive and will continue to touch many.