Category Archives for Uncategorized
Friday Night Lights
Donatella Versace and Christopher Kane teamed up with Joy Bryant, Sara Moonves, Bee Shaffer, and Nicole Vecchiarelli on Friday night to host New York’s second annual Bright Lights dance party benefiting the Art of Elysium. The Los Angeles-based charity does serious work, encouraging actors, artists, musicians, and other creative types to volunteer with young people suffering from debilitating illnesses, but the strobe lights, smoke machines, and Margherita Missoni‘s outfit—a kind of Proenza Schouler-at-Burning Man mash-up—made Milk Studios feel like a giant rave party.
Estelle, who agreed to perform when Florence & the Machine had a last-minute conflict, had to tell a crowd that included Naomi Campbell and Janet Jackson they were getting too rowdy. That, however, didn’t stop the likes of Lily Donaldson, Dasha Zhukova, and Lauren Santo Domingo from dancing practically until the lights came up. Versace, meanwhile, took a moment to reflect on the Art of Elysium’s impact. “I have spent enough time in hospitals,” she said, “so I know firsthand the power these people can have on a sick child. It is an honor to support this organization.”
—Derek Blasberg Continue reading
King of the Drape
If the ghost of Halston dropped by New York on Friday, it wasn’t because of some elaborate séance at Liza Minnelli’s pad. It was for a premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. The movie on view was Ultrasuede, Whitney Sudler-Smith‘s new documentary about the late designer’s life and times, and it brought out a mix of Halston’s friends—among them Bob Colacello and Naeem Khan (who got his start as the designer’s assistant)—and modern acolytes, including Marc Jacobs, Georgina Chapman, and Sarah Jessica Parker, who’s designing the brand’s new Heritage line.
As the doc points out, Halston’s dramatic rise in the seventies and his eighties fall is in part a tale of licensing overreach. At the after-party at the new Trump Soho’s ground-floor restaurant, hosted by the Cinema Society, Ambrosi Abrianna, and Vanity Fair, one guest insisted there had been Halston toilet paper. But the room was full of people who could attest to his enduring appeal: Mad Men actor Bryan Batt, for one, remembered swooning over Halston looks in the fashion magazines he read growing up. “I think I had the Z-14 cologne,” he recalled.
Rachel Zoe paid homage by turning up in a vintage Halston Ultrasuede trench. “I feel like I’m in a bathrobe right now,” she said, adding that she’d bought it in Paris without trying it on. “It actually has a skirt that came with it, and I’m not wearing it because it was probably on a six-foot model, and I’m nowhere near six feet.” Zoe, who was briefly linked with the label’s creative team when Harvey Weinstein and co. took over in 2007, has been collecting the house’s offerings since she was 16—with one rule: “I only own vintage Halston, because I want what he touched.”
—Darrell Hartman Continue reading
The Out-of-Towners
Tonight’s Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum is often referred to as “the party of the year,” but that doesn’t mean the fashion flock took the weekend off preparing. On the contrary: Sunday afternoon found Stefano Pilati, Cecilia Dean, and Chloë Sevigny mingling with art types like Francesco Vezzoli and Chuck Close in Beacon, New York, for Dia’s spring benefit.
At lunch, museum chairman Nathalie de Gunzburg claimed that she couldn’t have asked for a better day, a better performance, or a better crowd. The tour de force she was referring to was Trisha Brown‘s rare appearance in one of her dance company’s pieces, after which the choreographer led the crowd to the museum’s Bruce Nauman-filled basement for an encore.
Post repast, guests were invited to take in exhibitions ranging from a Sol LeWitt drawing series to a Blinky Palermo retrospective. Pilati was particularly charmed by the four Richard Serra sculptures at the rear of the museum, explaining that he admired the “power in the peace” of the works. We hope he soaked up as much as he could: The Met is many things, but peaceful it won’t be.
—Derek Blasberg Continue reading