By Ethlie Ann Vare
BEVERLY HILLS, CA (The Hollywood Times) 3/2/25 – Gavin Keilly, CEO of GBK Brand Bar, has been running celebrity gifting suites for 20 years. They call him the Godfather of Gifting, he says, and winks that GBK stands for Gift Bag King. “But this year, it stands for Giving Back Kindly. In addition to it being a gifting suite, it’s a giving lounge.”
For the second time during the 2025 awards season, the GBK celebrity gifting suite has used its muscle to help out victims of the Los Angeles wildfires.
When we first caught up with GBK back in early February, they had already postponed their Critics Choice Awards gifting suite twice because of the fires. It ended up being held just in time for the Grammys, and Americares set up a huge table where more than 1500 emergency relief kits were assembled and donated to the Dream Center for fire victims.
It was a crazy time, and it struck me as appropriate that a number of the vendors then focused on sleep. There were silky-smooth cool-tech sheets and comforters from Rest, as well as the latest in pillow design from Imbibe Lifestyles. The most exciting for me personally was the breakthrough Neurovalens’ Modius Sleep technology for non-medication sleep therapy, since I sleep like a baby… that is, I wake up screaming every two hours. I will try anything.
They joined GBK’s presenting partners, Bodywell (tech that helps mitigate electromagnetic radiation) and MEND (stem cells and nanoparticles for skincare) in a gift package that could add up to $60,000 for the right celebrity in the right place at the right time. Some of the names that attended that two-day event where actors Angela Bassett, Viola Davis, Casey Affleck, Mekhi Phifer, Katja Herbers, Adina Porter and Jai Rodriguez, as well well musical artists Maxine Ashley, Gorjira, Ricky Dillard, Lalah Hathaway, and Ricky Bell & Johnny Gill of New Edition.
Only a few weeks later, we were back at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for the Pre-Academy Awards Luxury Lounge. Bodywell and Mend were again presenters, this time joined by jewelry line KC Chic, and once again Americares benefitted. “We want to honor celebrity achievement. And gifting suites are fun,” says Keilly,” even in a crazy year.”
“A lot of brands here are donating goods and money for wildfire relief,” noted roving photographer Alex Headley. Some were returnees from the earlier event (Rest was back with a line of sleepwear, and the Modius gang said “The response was extremely positive last time”) and some were new to the game. Event co–sponsor KC Chic had only done one gifting suite before, back east in the Hamptons.
I asked schoolteacher-turned-jewelry designer Klarisa Crespo how the events compared. “We’re from New York,” she cried. “You can’t put me on the spot like that!”
There were a number of new companies founded by women presenting their products. Ingrid Lavon just launched her Tequila for Women this year. “We decided, what better way to launch than to go big? Go bold. Why not the Oscars gifting suite? This is a megaphone,” said Lavon.
Funny story: After she had a baby, Lavon’s doctor said if she was going to drink, tequila was her best choice. “But I remembered what tequila did to me when I was 20!” So, she set about making a more filtered tequila that was less likely to do that to her.
Along the same lines, Eve DeMartine founded Popilush shape- and swimwear after she had twins, “because after you have twins, your body is just not the same anymore.” And yet another: Cristin Hegle came up with Petty Pout sunscreen lip gloss because with a toddler (and another on the way), a complicated makeup routine was out of the question for her.
Turns out, there’s nothing like intimately knowing your market. DeMartine says Popilush went from zero to $100 million in sales in a year. Petty Pout’s Hegle hopes for a similar result: “It’s hard to compete with these huge brands, so the way to get in front of a lot of people in a short amount of time is to do stuff like this.”
Derek Duchesne, founder of Better, felt the same way. “I come to this from a Hollywood background, as a writer and an actor,” he said. He spent 5 years developing and licensing Better’s ketamine therapy after his own terrifying bout of suicidal depression. After one session, he said, “I was 90 percent back.”
Another good business idea coming from a challenging place, just like Americares brilliant go-bags, with everything from a pill caddy to N-95 masks, which were being assembled by celebrities, press and participating vendors. We saw actress Tia Carrere and wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud III heading over there at lunchtime. Expected later in the day were Thelma’s fabulous June Squibb, veteran comedian George Wallace, and reality TV’s Tom Sandoval.
I asked all the vendors who they were rooting for in the upcoming Oscars, but no one wanted to play favorites. At least, not on the record. After all, they might be back for another Celebrity Gifting Suite in the future, and you never know what celebrity you might be gifting.
