Call me a pyro, but I always think it's a great sign when you show up to a fashion week party and the fire department already has the area taped off. Did a gallery owner combust? Is immolation the new black? You'd just have to find out over free drinks and expensive photos at BlackBook's fashion week party at Deitch Gallery.
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BlackBook's hook was to have 25 artists render their version of what is art and fashion. So with 100% humidity and 50-proof drinks (maybe the tastiest free liquor to ever touch our lips) we took in everything from Cynthia Rowley's video art to Terry Richardson's self-portrait of his wang at half mast. Lips ahoy!
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The crowd spilled onto the street and watched as the fire department got ready to demolish a nearby building that had been soaked by that day's rain to the point of hazard...or something. And if the throngs of hipsters standing in rapt attention as the fire department went about its business is any indication, demolition is going to be HUGE for Spring 2005.
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Other highlights included that Polaroid Scene guy having the moxie to corner model Helena Christensen into a photo...and getting one, and the notable lack of Ronsons.
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The afterparty was at $$$ushi hotspot Megu - where (in hipster currency) it probably costs an ipod and a vintage pair of Nikes for a full dinner. Watching the art/hipster crowd run rampant there was akin to teenagers at a kegger in dad's mansion. It just felt like an ibanker was about to come in at any minute, turn off the music and scream "You damn kids, look at what you're doing to my dinner spot! Get your Pumas off the couch! Who the hell in here has an expense account?!"
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More free drinks and winks flowed at Megu as the crowd did it's best to show reverence to the always appropriate life-size ice sculpture of Buddha and other fancy furnishings. We did our best to get into the VIP room. Usually this is a bad idea ("No, I know Mr. Megu!"), but leave it to a sweet PR person (who knew they existed?) to glad-hand us into the VIP room, and then a VIPer room. Sadly, Terry Richardson was elsewhere.
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