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Jingle Belles
Adding a store opening to the party schedule this time of year is like putting a fat man down a chimney—it’s a bit of a squeeze. But that didn’t stop AllSaints from christening its new shop in the Meatpacking District last night. The rapidly expanding U.K. brand got some help from Tanteo tequila and Florence and the Machine’s scarlet-maned front woman, Florence Welch, who closed the bash with a very danceable DJ set. Formerly the home of an art foundation, the 8,000-square-foot space is now outfitted with Turkish looms and shelves upon shelves of Singer sewing machines—and, this night at least, catwalkers like Alek Wek and Coco Young. What’s on Maryna Linchuk‘s holiday wish list? “Just my boyfriend and my family happy—and some diamonds. I got a new piercing in my ear, so I need some,” she said, adding that she’ll be leaving the catwalk herd to spend New Year’s in Brazil with her beau. “Kate Moss, everybody else is going to Tulum,” she noted. “It’s model central.”
A few blocks downtown, Opening Ceremony was throwing a late-night holiday party that was more naughty than nice at Westway, the (slightly) revamped strip club from the team behind the Jane Ballroom. Spike Jonze, Claire Danes, and Hugh Dancy braved the crowds to ogle some flesh, and Chiara Clemente noted with approval that the performers were working the stripper poles: “If they can do great acrobatics, it’s worth it,” she declared. “If they’re just shaking their ass, it’s not.”
The skin-baring continued at Chandelier Creative’s Christmas extravaganza. “How genius is it to have Amanda Lepore as Santa,” Todd Selby mused before getting in line for his own shot with the nightlife doyenne. St. Nick was gussied up in a cleavage-flaunting, skimpy red sequin number, but she wasn’t the only one underdressed for the chilly weather. Ten dollars bought curious voyeurs a ticket to a naked peep show, featuring none other than Chandelier’s own interns. Redemption-seekers could find solace in the fact that all the proceeds went to support the New Museum.
—Darrell Hartman (AllSaints; Opening Ceremony) and Bee-Shyuan Chang (Chandelier Creative) Continue reading
The Evening Jumpsuit: Hot Or Not?
—Brittany Adams Continue reading
The Year in Love
—Alison Baenen Continue reading
Blow by Blow
This year’s Oscars campaigns are well under way, but it looks like there’s a late-round contender. David O. Russell’s The Fighter is slated to open nationwide this Friday, and the industry is buzzing about performances by Christian Bale, who dropped 30 pounds to play the prizefighter-turned-crack addict Dicky Eklund, and Mark Wahlberg, who portrays his half-brother, the title-winning boxer Micky Ward. “He’s one of the biggest sports heroes from Boston,” Wahlberg explained at the Cinema Society and Men’s Health-hosted screening on Friday night. “Boxing is the most difficult sport; you’re in there on your own. There’s nothing more dangerous.”
To get into ring-ready shape, Wahlberg went through grueling training, but the Boston native had some experience as backbone. “Oh yeah, I fought many times—in home and out of the house,” he said of his childhood. “Being the youngest of nine and growing up in a bad neighborhood, it was just part of it.” The actor and successful producer (of Entourage and Boardwalk Empire, for starters) has since glammed up his style; a starry set including Owen Wilson, Val Kilmer, Harvey Weinstein, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, and even Florence Henderson all stopped in.
En route to the after-party at the Top of the Standard, model Noah Mills and pal Tyson Ballou recounted the film blow-by-blow. “Wow, I loved it,” Mills said. “It was really physical. The closest I’ll probably ever come to that is putting on boxing gloves at a shoot.” Amy Adams, who throws a vicious-looking on-screen punch as Ward’s steely girlfriend, echoed the sentiment. Clad in a Roland Mouret frock (a far cry from her role’s tummy-baring tops and fishnets), she said, “The last time I did any sort of martial arts workout was Tae Bo, and it was too hard on my knees.”
—Bee-Shyuan Chang Continue reading
Train Show
As socials dressed in their best winter whites arrived at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx on Friday evening, flurries began to fall from the sky. “Every year, it snows on this particular night,” said gala chair Cristina Greeven Cuomo. “It’s the Winter Wonderland Ball; what could be better?”
Inside the grand rotunda of the garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, there were model trains on view, but most of the ladies were too busy ogling each other’s trains to notice—Fendi and Saks Fifth Avenue sponsored the party. The general consensus: Lauren Remington Platt‘s enormous Giambattista Valli gown took the prize. That is, until it came to after-dinner dancing, when Byrdie Bell looked like a winner in her flares: no ripped hems.
Eventually, guests grabbed their furs and a cup of hot chocolate for the road. While they shivered and waited for their cars, some talked about continuing the festivities at the Boom Boom Room, but others, like Phillip Lim, were already dreaming of their holiday vacations.
“I’m going to do a college-style road trip from Los Angeles to Big Sur,” Lim said. “That’s the ultimate luxury—to try to keep it real.”
—Kristin Studeman Continue reading
Diners Club
Donna Karan has visions of Mali’s Festival au Desert dancing in her head. “We’re going to Parrot Cay with the family for Christmas and then, hopefully, I’ll go to Mali for the music festival,” the designer said last night at the 15th annual holiday dinner for the AIDS charity ACRIA. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Bruce Weber had a more accessible treat in mind. “I love this John Dugdale piece and I always like to buy one thing for myself at Christmas,” said the photographer, looking at a cyan blue image of a peach that was part of the evening’s silent auction. Although Francisco Costa had already done most of his holiday shopping (he’s gifting Elyssa Dimant’s Minimalism and Fashion: Reduction in the Postmodern Era), he welcomed the retreat from a busy week of pre-fall appointments. “After we take care of everything and all of this work, this evening is perfect,” the designer said.
Not everyone was feeling so relaxed—Prabal Gurung still had work on his mind. “It’s two months before the show…I definitely want this one to be an evolution of what’s happened these past two years,” he said.
—Kristin Studeman Continue reading
Diners Club
Donna Karan has visions of Mali’s Festival au Desert dancing in her head. “We’re going to Parrot Cay with the family for Christmas and then, hopefully, I’ll go to Mali for the music festival,” the designer said last night at the 15th annual holiday dinner for the AIDS charity ACRIA. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Bruce Weber had a more accessible treat in mind. “I love this John Dugdale piece and I always like to buy one thing for myself at Christmas,” said the photographer, looking at a cyan blue image of a peach that was part of the evening’s silent auction. Although Francisco Costa had already done most of his holiday shopping (he’s gifting Elyssa Dimant’s Minimalism and Fashion: Reduction in the Postmodern Era), he welcomed the retreat from a busy week of pre-fall appointments. “After we take care of everything and all of this work, this evening is perfect,” the designer said.
Not everyone was feeling so relaxed—Prabal Gurung still had work on his mind. “It’s two months before the show…I definitely want this one to be an evolution of what’s happened these past two years,” he said.
—Kristin Studeman Continue reading