Kering keeps widening its network of influence — and donor base — in its longstanding battle against gender-based violence, inviting the public to participate in an online auction in tandem with the Caring for Women fundraising dinner, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year.

Up for grabs are such unique cultural artifacts as the crystal-studded leotard Simone Biles wore while winning the 2021 U.S. Classic; an unseen 1992 nude portrait of Madonna by Steven Meisel, and the chance to attend a Saint Laurent fashion show in Paris, with all the trimmings.

Bidding is already open ahead of the fundraising dinner on Thursday at The Pool, with founding cohosts François-Henri Pinault and Salma Hayek Pinault welcoming the likes of Pamela Anderson, Benicio Del Toro, Nacho Figueras, Dakota Johnson, Lorna Simpson and Colman Domingo, who will serve as emcee.

All those bold-faced names help raise awareness and resolve around a persistent, alarming reality: Roughly one in three women were victims of gender-based violence in 2008, when the Kering Foundation was established, and “the prevalence is roughly the same today,” said Céline Bonnaire, its executive director.

What’s more, “there is a rise in online violence,” she related in an interview. “Also, there are lots of crises, and when there are crises, women and girls are the first victims, and there’s a backlash on gender equality everywhere. So it is really the time to work collectively to keep on fighting.”

Ewa Abrams, president of Kering Americas, shared another worrisome statistic from UNESCO: “Three out of four female journalists face online abuse while doing their job, and over 40 percent of online attacks lead to offline abuse or real-world harm.”

The Caring for Women dinner is one of the Kering Foundation’s tentpole events in the U.S., having raised more than $15 million to date, distributing proceeds to 14 organizations and leveraging media coverage of the event to further raise awareness of the problem and mobilize a broader community around the cause.

“Gender-based violence touches every part of society, so addressing it requires voices from across culture,” Pinault told WWD. “By bringing together leaders in fashion, art, film, music, sports and philanthropy, the Caring for Women Dinner extends the conversation to new audiences and helps make an issue too often kept out of view impossible to ignore. The event harnesses the energy and influence of New York Fashion Week to turn that visibility into action and much-needed funding.”

Violence against women was something of a taboo topic when Pinault thrust it into the open nearly 20 years ago, and now the foundation is widening its mission to protect children, too.

“If you think about domestic violence, it’s one woman out of four who is a victim of domestic violence, and 80 percent of them are mothers. So children are also victims of domestic violence,” Bonnaire said. “One girl out of four and one boy out of 13 are victims of child sexual abuse, and 80 percent of this abuse comes from the family or someone close to the family.”

Hence, among the beneficiaries of this year’s event are two organizations that also support children: Jersey Battered Women’s Service, or JBWS, operating in Morris and Passiac Counties in New Jersey, and The New York Women’s Foundation/The Girls and Young Women Fund, which offers a range of services, leadership development and advocacy.

The other two are Activating Change, billed as the only U.S. nonprofit focused on ending violence against people with disabilities and the deaf, and Fondo Semillas, a nonprofit organization in Mexico that funds, trains and supports an array of women’s groups.

“There are systems in place to prevent and solve gender-based violence. The frontline organizations know how to do it. What they need are resources,” Bonnaire said.

Kering chose the fundraising dinner format given “this amazing philanthropic approach in the U.S. that you cannot find anywhere anywhere else,” along with the magnetic pull of its brands and their network of celebrities and talents, she explained.

Abrams noted that during pandemic lockdowns and quarantines, “there was this alarming increase of domestic violence cases around the world because of the isolation, because of the stress factors that could contribute to that type of environment in the home.”

In the aftermath, it became “the right moment to launch this type of event, to lean into the pillar of influence in the United States, and to leverage this ecosystem of philanthropy and talent and create a platform,” she said. “It’s really become a defining moment during New York Fashion Week.”

Organizers settled on a meadow landscape in bloom as the decor for the dinner as “a visible expression of this entire living ecosystem,” Abrams noted.

Having done four Caring for Women dinners, Abrams and Bonnaire have attracted an array of supporters, not only Kering brands like Gucci, McQueen, Brioni and Pomellato but also private donors and commercial partners.

“Even our clients participate,” Abrams enthused. “I can’t underscore enough how much the media is an important ingredient in this ecosystem by raising awareness around this epidemic, and highlighting the risk factors that drive violence.”

Abrams stressed the event is intentionally small, which makes it unique. “We have 200 attendees, so tickets are really scarce,” she said. “We cultivated a really powerful community of authentically dedicated supporters to fund raise and to raise awareness.”

The new online auction is an extension of the live auction on the night, offering bidders such rare experiences as a weekend with legendary polo player Nacho Figueras at his private ranch in the Argentine countryside; a Balenciaga Couture experience in Paris, and privileged access at the Las Vegas Grand Prix in 2027, when Gucci enters Formula 1 as title partner of the Alpine Formula 1 Team.

Hosted on the Caring for Women website, it went live on Sept. 1, and will close after the IRL event, “so we’re going to be able to capitalize on a totally different audience,” Abrams enthused.

Both women stressed that the resolve and the work does not end after the dessert plates have been cleared and Paris Hilton hits the decks to DJ the after party.

Battling gender-based violence is also a mission for Kering’s 44,000 employees.

“We really aim to take this a step further beyond providing direct funding and support to the NGOs for certain programs, but leveraging our corporate organization to support these ambitions as well,” Abrams said. “I cannot tell you how committed and authentically interested our corporate teams are. They ask for more year-over-year.

“We create volunteer opportunities with our corporate teams here in the U.S. to connect them with our NGO beneficiaries. We do things like clothing drives and résumé- and interview-building workshops for survivors and partnerships with our NGOs. And we’ve participated in law clinics for eligible Violence Against Women Act beneficiaries,” she related.

“For a group like Kering, whose houses speak to millions of women and whose success depends on the talent of women across our organization, taking a stand was a clear responsibility,” Pinault said, stressing that the commitment has “changed Kering from within.”

“Our domestic violence training has helped thousands of employees and leaders recognize signs of abuse, understand its impact in the workplace and know how to support a colleague,” he said. “We have also instituted a global policy to support employees affected by domestic violence, ensuring that our commitment is reflected in how we care for our people.”

Bonnaire noted that in Europe, Kering has also established a network of 53 committed companies, including L’Oréal and Air France, to share best practices and tools to address violence against women within the workplace. “And two years ago, we also cofounded the first Italian network of companies engaged into that topic,” she added.

Since its inception, the Kering Foundation has supported more than 1.2 million survivors through 130 organizations, working in France, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S.