Spring Break at Cannes

CANNES, FRANCE — Dollars. Euros. Dollars. Euros. By 11 p.m., the bids were coming in so fast that Sharon Stone, who was handling part of the auction, couldn’t even keep the currencies straight.

It was Thursday night, and the Cannes Film Festival was nearing its close with the gala to cap a week of glittery galas: amfAR’s annual Cinema Against AIDS dinner, where movie stars and supermodels show up en masse in bedazzled designer gowns, and the seriously rich come to bask in their reflective glow and part ways with their money for a good cause.

One minute, a person near the tented stage at the legendary Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc was offering 100,000 euros for 42 red designer dresses that had just appeared in a runway show organized by the magazine editor Carine Roitfeld.