Category Archives for Uncategorized
Sweet and Loewe
LVMH’s “Magic Room,” located high up in the company’s New York headquarters on East 57th Street, was candlelit and decorated with fresh peonies and tulips last night for a dinner in honor of Loewe’s creative director, Stuart Vevers. An Englishman, the designer was in town from Madrid, where he’s been based since taking the reins at the storied 164-year-old Spanish leather goods brand a few years ago. “I’ve fallen for it,” he told us. “Madrid’s quite a wild party town. People eat late and stay out late, and there’s a great mix of socialites and what you’d call downtown cool kids.”
With Kenneth Jay Lane and Fe Fendi seated at one table and Terry Richardson and Jen Brill at another, that about summed up the party’s vibe, too. But the only scandal was a pair of “who wore it betters”: Lisa Marie Fernandez and Fiona Scarry, both in Fernandez’s body-cleaving black neoprene minidresses, and Bazaar‘s Kristina O’Neill and Paul McCartney’s better half, Nancy Shevell, in matching Balenciaga frocks.
In the center of the room was a display of Vevers’ cheeky takes on Loewe’s 35-year-old-and-counting Amazona bags—fluorescent orange patent-leather straps, anyone? Heritage is a big buzzword for the brand. The company’s new CEO, Lisa Montague, reported that her first task was hosting a retirement party for a craftsman who’d been in the atelier for 51 years. “He started when he was 14.” Her other talking point? Jennifer Lopez. The superstar was photographed carrying an Amazona in Paris earlier this week.
—Nicole Phelps Continue reading
Saluting SAMO
Jean-Michel Basquiat arrived in Manhattan at 17, sold his first painting to Debbie Harry for $200 when he was barely 20, and by age 25 was a millionaire and a celebrity. At 27, he was dead. Pretty much anyone with a passing interest in twentieth-century art or the downtown New York City scene in the late seventies and early eighties knows the basic story already. The boy from Brooklyn who helped introduce street art to museums and galleries is the art world’s James Dean or Kurt Cobain, its shooting star. Last night, at a special preview screening of Tamra Davis’ documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, the audience got a chance to peer beyond the Basquiat bullet points and meet the man.
For many in the theater at MoMA, it was a reintroduction. Julian Schnabel, Jeffrey Deitch, Fab 5 Freddy, Glenn O’Brien, and Kenny Scharf—all of whom appear in the film—knew Basquiat back when. Ditto director Davis, who framed her doc around old, unseen footage of an intimate interview with Basquiat she shot not long before he passed away. Plenty of new fans turned up at the NOWNESS-sponsored screening, too—notably Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, model Lily Donaldson, Another editor Jefferson Hack, and comedian Chris Rock, who had the theater in stitches when, during the post-film Q&A, he cut short a rambling questioner’s disquisition on the mystery of “What killed Basquiat?” by heckling, “Long questions kill people, too.”
Off to the party, then. Rock and a host of downtown demimonders new and old showed up at the Club Formerly Known as the Boom Boom Room (Formerly, for short) to raise a toast to director Davis and her subject. “It’s really incredible, the people who came out for this tonight,” noted Hack. “It’s really a testament to Basquiat’s life and the relevance of his work.” That was a notion seconded by NOWNESS editor Zoe Wolff and by the film’s producers David Koh and Lilly Bright. “Any film like this is a labor of love,” commented Bright, as she rubbed elbows with partygoers like Leigh Lezark, Elise Øverland, and Hope Atherton. “But you don’t always get this much love back.” Still radiating, in other words.
To see NOWNESS’ exclusive Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child trailer, click here.
—Maya Singer Continue reading
Parsons Project
“The question really is, What am I doing here?” asked William K. Fung at last night’s Parsons benefit, where he was honored for his contributions to the design industry. “The only models I get to interact with are business models.” Fung may not be as high-profile as attendees like Jason Wu, Julie Gilhart, and Patricia Field, but he probably should be. His company Li & Fung Limited is a global manufacturing giant, and its U.S. subsidiary just made a $250,000 gift to the school to establish a pair of new scholarships, bringing the gala’s total tally to $1.2 million.
The evening’s other honoree, Vera Wang, was in a serious mood. “The need to nourish talents is more necessary now than ever,” the designer said. She drove the point home with a reference to the late Alexander McQueen: “His imagination was surpassed only by his skill.” Following the student fashion show, Parsons seniors Niloufar Mozafari and Dylan Taverner were named Womenswear and Menswear Designers of the Year.
—Johnny Misheff Continue reading
A Velvet Goldmine?
—Romney Leader Continue reading
Movable Feast
The art world’s eyes were as big as its stomach last night, with a pair of major museums throwing over-the-top spring fundraisers that put the food front and center. In lieu of traditional cocktails and canapés, the Brooklyn Museum had spigots protruding from blank canvases and a heap of potato chips that guests were free to drizzle with vegetable paste. Wildest of all, suspended heads made of Fontina cheese melted slowly (and pungently) onto a mound of crackers. Everyone from Diane von Furstenberg to Zac Posen stopped and gawked at that one, although to Chloë Sevigny, it was more art than appetizer: “I don’t know if I want to eat that!” she said.
Dinner, inspired by the minimalism of Donald Judd, consisted of meats and vegetables piled high on plywood boxes. The feast’s curator, Jennifer Rubell, left it up to guests to divvy up the 150 rabbits, 30 turkeys, and two whole pigs she’d provided, giving artist John Currin a chance to show off his carving skills. Mario Batali circulated in his signature orange Crocs, picking at snap peas and encouraging anyone who was hacking away at a carcass: “Bravo!” Opening Ceremony hosted the carnival-themed after-party in the lobby, and dessert in the form of Hostess pastries spilled out of a 20-foot-tall piñata of Andy Warhol’s head.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the river, the New Museum and Interview magazine served up a cornucopia of their own: caipirinhas and meaty skewers of “nuevo churrascaria” at a Brazilian-themed bash atop 7 World Trade Center. What with the yellow parasols, palm fronds, and two actual Brazilians—actress Alice Braga and Calvin Klein’s Francisco Costa—as honorary co-chairs, the proceedings had a certain Carnaval flavor, even if the festive dress code (“anything but black”) wasn’t exactly taken seriously. Ruffian’s Claude Morais showed up wearing chaps and a biker jacket. Why, pray tell? “When I go gala, I’m usually in leather,” he said.
—Darrell Hartman Continue reading
Earth in the Balance
You’d have to have been living under a rock—or perhaps in one of the rain forests cherished by the cause’s supporters—not to know that yesterday was Earth Day. There were green initiatives all over New York last night; Christie’s got in on the action with an evening of eco-fundraising, moderated by Chevy Chase and attended by the likes of Salma Hayek, Ted Danson, Miranda Kerr, and John McEnroe.
The Green Auction: A Bid to Save the Earth raised $1,387,000 for four environmental organizations: Conservation International, Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Central Park Conservancy. Susan Rockefeller, who hosted with her husband, David, said the sale was one way for the art world to help science combat the many challenges facing our environment. “Scientists give facts,” she said. “And artists give dreams.”
Those dreams didn’t go for cheap. After Chase’s introduction—probably the first time in the auction house’s 244-year history that opening remarks included the word “ass”—the bidding took off. A day of golf with President Bill Clinton went for $80,000, a Damien Hirst work jumped from $14,000 to $92,000 in about 15 seconds, and Daphne Guinness got in a bidding war for David LaChapelle’s The Rape of Africa. Don’t worry, she took it home for a cool $45,000.
—Derek Blasberg Continue reading