Blake Lively Charms The Room At Chanel's Tribeca Artists Dinner

Good things come to those that wait. And on June 10, that came in the package of a 5-foot-10 blond movie star in a neoprene pantsuit.

“I’m so sorry, you guys; I got stuck at work,” says Blake Lively, breezing into the fauna-decorated tent temporarily erected on New York’s Thomas Street and greeting the dozen or so photographers waiting dutifully to take her picture. “I should have brought you Shake Shack or something.”

Lively was the last — but by no means late, especially by celebrity standards — megastar to arrive at Chanel’s 17th annual Tribeca Festival Artists Dinner, held this year at The Odeon (a switch-up from the usual Balthazar). By the time she swooped in to charm the waiting photographers with enthused delight over her double-C-emblazoned suit (it had pockets!) and on-theme manicure (more C’s!), the beloved Tribeca restaurant was already packed to the brim with celebrities ranging from Dianna Agron and Natasha Lyonne to Jude Law and Robert DeNiro (the last making an early exit because “he had a 5:30 a.m. meeting tomorrow”).

During cocktail hour, you could find the ingénues — Lucy Hale, Ella Hunt, Victoria Pedretti, Camila Mendes, hand-in-hand with boyfriend Rudy Mancuso — milling about the bar with martinis and Aperol spritzes in hand. (The traditional Balthazar seafood towers were gone but not forgotten.) Outside, the more tenured Chanel crowd lingered about, including Mark Ronson and Lily Allen smoking their respective vapes until the dinner bell beckoned them inside to sit.

The annual event, honoring the artists who have contributed original artwork to the festival’s award-winning filmmakers, is consistently one of the brand’s most star-studded events. This year’s iteration also saw the likes of Katie Holmes, Trevor Noah, Grace Gummer, Selma Blair, Colman Domingo, Chloe Fineman, Olivia Munn, Hannah Einbinder, Hari Nef, Darren Aronofsky, David Harbour, and Lizzy Caplan, among many, many others. The Wenner brothers (Gus and Theo) held down a corner of one table, while at another, Eva Chen compared art books — it’s a tradition for each guest to receive a different coffee-table book at their seat — with her seat mate. Not everyone stayed in their assigned seats. Hale jumped up middinner to catch up with Lively (Hale used to be repped by Lively’s long-term publicist Leslie Sloane, who also joined in the huddle), while a post-entree-arriving Bee Carrozzini made the rounds to say hi to friends.

As plates of steak frites were cleared and platters of sugared donuts with raspberry jam and maple dipping sauces began to appear, Jane Rosenthal — the co-founder, CEO, and executive chair of Tribeca Enterprises — invited guests to migrate over to Spring Studios to see that year’s art collection. “Are you going to walk over?” one tweed-clad attendee asks her tablemate. “Yes,” they reply. “But let’s get one more martini first.”