At a fashion fundraiser, the quality of donations determines everything. At PURR, the donations were extraordinary—and understanding how that happened requires understanding who Vanessa Getty is in the fashion world.
The PURR Sale didn’t succeed because of recognizable names on a press release. It succeeded because Getty had built genuine relationships across the fashion industry over decades, and those relationships translated into donations that buyers actually wanted. A piece from Chanel is different when the person who secured it has a real connection to the house. The credibility traveled with the inventory.
Getty’s fashion network was not strategically assembled. It grew from a culturally engaged upbringing in San Francisco and from decades of genuine participation in the fashion world—as a patron, a longtime presence on the social circuit, a Vanity Fair Best-Dressed honoree, and eventually as a campaign model for Judith Leiber, which she accepted specifically to raise funds for SF Bay Humane Friends. These were real relationships. That mattered when she called to ask for contributions.
The donor roster for the two PURR events reflected that reality. At the first event, in 2008, contributions came from Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, Judith Leiber, and Oscar de la Renta, alongside Nicole Kidman and a wide network of San Francisco’s fashion-connected community. At the second, in 2015, the list expanded significantly: more than 68 celebrities and designers contributed, including Portia de Rossi, Maria Bello, and major houses including Dolce & Gabbana, Christian Dior, and Chanel.
Each of those contributions required someone asking and someone saying yes. The yes happened because the person asking had standing—not as a charity organizer, but as someone those donors knew, respected, and trusted to steward their contributions well.
The formula Getty built for PURR was ultimately about alignment: donors who wanted to give meaningfully without friction, buyers who wanted access to genuine luxury at real prices, and a cause concrete enough to justify the effort. The celebrity and designer participation wasn’t decorative—it was the inventory that made the event worth attending, and the inventory that generated the $150,000 raised in the first hour, and the $350,000 at the second.
That kind of network doesn’t appear on a balance sheet. It took decades to build and can’t be replicated without the relationships at its core. What PURR demonstrated is what those relationships are actually worth when they’re directed toward something that matters.
The mobile spay-neuter clinic those events funded has delivered more than 9,500 free surgeries to Bay Area communities. Fashion made it possible. The network behind the fashion made fashion possible.