On a warm August evening in Montauk, the style icon and her team gathered a small circle of tastemakers for a dinner that felt less like an event and more like a long, unhurried summer night
Intimate Dinner Featured Music by Diplo
Montauk, NY – There is a particular kind of magic that settles over the Hamptons in August, when the light goes golden and the evenings stretch long. On Friday night, that magic found its setting at The Surf Lodge, where Rachel Zoe — style icon and essie‘s Chief Color Director — and The Zoe Report hosted an intimate Summer Supper.
The guest list was deliberately small: a circle of tastemakers, creatives and friends of The Zoe Report, gathered not for spectacle but for the quieter pleasures of the season — elevated dining, easy conversation and the simple joy of being by the water as the sun went down.
The night opened with an electric DJ set from Diplo, whose energy warmed the crowd before guests settled in for a sunset dinner overlooking the water. Then Zoe rose to offer a toast, setting the tone for an evening that was carefully considered in every detail.
That consideration was everywhere. The dinner drew its inspiration from Essie’s new Glass Nails collection, and the collection’s vibrant hues rippled through the evening — from the tablescape to the gifting, each touchpoint carrying the color story forward. It was an immersive experience, the kind where the theme isn’t announced so much as felt.
“There’s nothing I love more than bringing people together for a beautiful summer evening, and The Surf Lodge was the perfect setting to celebrate with essie and The Zoe Report,” Zoe said. “We drew inspiration from essie’s new Glass Nails collection to create an experience that felt fresh, colorful, and effortlessly chic, and it was so special to share it with such an incredible group of friends and creatives.”
Among the guests were Kitty Spencer, Emira D’Spain, Ava Dash, Shay Sullivan, Katya Starr Tambor, Dr. Macrene Alexiades, Marcella Hymowitz, Viktoriya Avramchuk and Francesca Keller.
By the time the night wound down, the evening had delivered exactly what a summer supper should: good company, a beautiful setting, and the sense that summer — for one more night, at least — was in no hurry to end.
Presented by essie
Style icon and essie’s Chief Color Director Rachel Zoe and The Zoe Report hosted an intimate sunset dinner at The Surf Lodge, immersing guests in the vibrant colors from essie’s new Glass Nails collection. From the tablescape to room drops and gifting, inspiration from the collection was woven across touchpoints for guests throughout the evening.
Photos by Michael Simon/Getty Images for essie
The Surf Lodge as a Canvas for Coastal Luxury
The choice of The Surf Lodge as the evening’s venue was no accident. Perched at the edge of Fort Pond Bay in Montauk, the property has built a reputation as one of the East End’s most culturally attuned destinations, one where fashion, music, and hospitality converge with genuine ease. Its open-air aesthetic, weathered wood tones, and proximity to the water make it a natural extension of the summer lifestyle that both Rachel Zoe and The Zoe Report champion year-round.
For an event rooted in color and sensory experience, the setting worked on every level. The natural light at dusk shifted the palette of the space in real time, creating a backdrop that felt alive and responsive. The venue’s existing character, relaxed yet refined, meant that the design team did not need to impose an environment so much as build upon one. Lanterns, floral arrangements, and table settings carrying the luminous tones of the Glass Nails collection settled seamlessly into the surroundings, allowing the aesthetic vision to feel organic rather than constructed. It was the kind of venue decision that reflects a sophisticated understanding of how place shapes experience, a principle that has always been central to the Zoe brand’s approach to curated living.
essie's Glass Nails Collection: The Color Story Behind the Evening
At the center of the evening’s creative vision was essie’s Glass Nails collection, a line that brought a new dimension to nail color through its translucent, high-shine finish. The collection draws on the aesthetic of stained glass, capturing light rather than simply reflecting it, which gave the design team a rich and flexible palette to work with across every element of the dinner.
The hues chosen for the tablescape ranged from cool jewel tones to softer, luminous pinks, each shade selected to complement the shifting light of a Montauk sunset. Glassware, linens, and floral choices were coordinated to echo the collection’s visual language, creating a dining environment where every detail reinforced the central color narrative without feeling heavy-handed.
Gifting and room drops extended that narrative beyond the table. Guests left with curated selections from the collection alongside complementary pieces that reflected the evening’s aesthetic, a strategy that transformed the product experience from passive to personal. For essie, the partnership with The Zoe Report and Rachel Zoe in her role as Chief Color Director represented more than brand visibility. It was a demonstration of how beauty, when approached with genuine creative intention, becomes a form of storytelling. The Glass Nails collection did not simply sponsor the evening; it gave the evening its identity.
A Guest List That Reflected the Zoe Report's Creative Community
The intimacy of the guest list was itself a design choice. Rather than expanding the table to maximize reach, the evening prioritized depth of connection, gathering individuals whose work and presence reflect the breadth of the creative world that The Zoe Report has always sought to document and celebrate.
Kitty Spencer, the British socialite and model whose style has long attracted international attention, brought a transatlantic dimension to the gathering. Emira D’Spain, one of the most recognized voices in contemporary beauty and fashion content, represented a generation of creatives redefining influence on their own terms. Dr. Macrene Alexiades, a leading figure in dermatology and aesthetic medicine, brought perspective from the intersection of science and style, a pairing that feels increasingly relevant in today’s beauty landscape.
The presence of figures like Ava Dash, Shay Sullivan, Katya Starr Tambor, Marcella Hymowitz, Viktoriya Avramchuk, and Francesca Keller rounded out a room where conversation moved fluidly across fashion, culture, wellness, and creativity. This was not a crowd assembled for optics. It was a room of people with genuine things to say to one another, which is precisely what sets a Zoe Report event apart from the broader circuit of industry gatherings. The brand has always understood that the quality of a room matters more than its size, and the Sunset Summer Supper was a clear expression of that philosophy.
