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On Thursday evening, Omar’s, a members-only dining club on West Ninth Street, was filled to its wood-paneled, mirrored brim with a cross section of New York City actors, models, financiers, socialites, activists, editors and artists.

Mingling among the leather banquettes, tables littered with half-empty glasses of Champagne and vases overflowing with scarlet flowers were Linda Fargo, the director of women’s fashion at Bergdorf Goodman; Edward Enninful, style director at W Magazine; Serena Williams, tennis star and fashion designer in her own right; William Ivey Long, Tony-winning costume designer; and many more.

The magnet who had drawn them? The designer Carolina Herrera. Or rather, “Carolina Herrera: 35 Years of Fashion,” a six-pound tome published by Rizzoli commemorating images and events ranging from Mrs. Herrera’s first fashion show in the spring of 1981 to glossy editorials from 2015.

“I love my book,” Mrs. Herrera said. “Some dresses I forgot I had. Fashion changes all the time, and that’s the way it should be. Social media has put fashion all over the world.”

Witness her international crowd. There, in the back room, on the couch next to Mrs. Herrera’s husband, Reinaldo, sat Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, a longtime friend of the pair and a jewelry designer. The night, he said, was about “celebrating good manners, refinement, elegance. It’s a lost world.”

Next to him was Sonia Nassery Cole, an activist, film director and writer who escaped Afghanistan as a girl during the Soviet invasion in 1979. Ms. Nassery Cole saw a greater imperative to the evening.

“This woman cares about humanity, cares about women, cares about her part of the world and what matters,” Ms. Nassery Cole said. She added, citing the current political climate, “a woman like this should be celebrated.”

Near her, Miroslava Duma, the Russian founder of Buro247.com, a fashion and lifestyle website with outposts around the world, swirled around the room, wearing a glittery, oversize Carolina Herrera jacket with an ’80s feel.

Asked whether she could learn something from a woman who built her brand decades ago, she nodded. “Everything we do is changing, from the way we travel — take Uber — to the way we live — take Airbnb,” Ms. Duma said. “But obviously there are things that always stay the same. If you read Molière about society in the 17th century, you realize people haven’t changed at all.”

Sitting down in a quiet corner, Karlie Kloss, in heels and a black Herrera dress, leafed through the book, stopping to admire a series of Polaroid portraits of Mrs. Herrera shot by Andy Warhol. “I’ve seen these images so many times,” said Ms. Kloss, who has known Mrs. Herrera for nine years and has walked in her shows. “I love images like this, of her in New York in the ‘70s, looking super-flawless. She’s unbelievably graceful, but she has such a wicked sense of humor. ”

Priyanka Chopra, a Bollywood star who has recently made a name for herself in the United States with a leading role in the television show “Quantico,” arrived closer to the end of the night, wearing a Herrera dress made of a material that looked like denim, her hair pulled into a high ponytail. (“I’m channeling the ’90s,” she said.)

“When I started working, I was 17 years old,” said Ms. Chopra, who has more than 15 million followers on Twitter, more than 11 million on Instagram and dozens of films under her belt. “I didn’t know anything about brands, designers, anything about anything, really. One of the first designers that I got to know — because of the perfume, 212 — was Carolina Herrera.”

Thirty-five years of fashion means 35 years (and more) of social events. What was the best party she had been to? “I cannot tell you because I don’t remember,” said Mrs. Herrera, who didn’t sit for longer than a couple of minutes during the entire evening. “But have a drink!”

And then she was off, attention on the next admirer who appeared, quiet and eager, in the dimly lit room.