Alexander the Great

The CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund celebrated its fifth anniversary at Skylight Studios on Monday night at a moment when its five- and six-figure prizes mean more to fledgling designers than ever. Fittingly, work—and plenty of it—was the theme of the evening. Without it, Narciso Rodriguez said at the cocktail hour, he never would have gotten to the point where Michelle Obama wore his dress to the election-night rally in Chicago. “Resilience helps, too,” he noted. And after dinner in a keynote speech that touched upon everything from his Central Saint Martins graduation collection to the support of Anna Wintour and the “American fashion bible, Vogue” to his first meeting with LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, John Galliano—in top hat, vest, and pearly pants—admonished, “If you want easy, don’t pick fashion.” The crowd must have contained plenty of workaholics, because they were quickly on their feet to applaud him.

After his standing O, Charlize Theron joined Galliano on stage to reveal the evening’s winners. Vena Cava’s Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock, who were finalists for the second year in a row, and the milliner Albertus Swanepoel took the $50,000 runners-up prizes. “He’s the guy working in the background making things happen for other people,” said Lazaro Hernandez, who has successfully collaborated with Swanepoel on Proenza Schouler collections. “I’m so happy it happened for him, he really deserves it.” The fund’s top prize, $200,000 and a year’s worth of mentoring, went to Alexander Wang. “Four years ago I was reading about this award in my dorm room in a magazine,” said the 24-year-old, smiling through his tears. As his date, Alice Dellal, dragged him outside for a cigarette, Wang said he thought he deserved a night off. And why not? Fun and youthful exuberance are as much a part of fashion as hard work, or as Wang put it: “I’m going to call up all my friends, order a pizza, and go dance my ass off.”

More: continued here

No Reservations

More: continued here

Drinking at the Guggenheim

Recent auction results may suggest that the art bubble has burst, but at least the bubbly’s still flowing. The Guggenheim laid on plenty of Champagne for the downtown art types who slogged their way up to 89th Street on a wet Thursday night to discover who won the $100,000 Hugo Boss Prize. “After a few of these, you forget the hem of your dress is wet and that your hair’s a mess,” said gallerist Melissa Bent. The free-flowing booze kept most of the party guests on the museum’s main floor. That, and the lack of art on display. Although the work of the finalists, including that of the winner, Palestinian-American artist Emily Jacir, was projected on a screen in the middle of Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, the institution’s famous spiral walkways were bare. Also hidden from the masses was Julianne Moore, who spent her brief visit sequestered behind a shimmery VIP curtain and three big guards. Smuggling a glass of Champagne out into the rain, legendary supermodel Pat Cleveland was much more chatty. “I love being here at night and being able to drink out of something that’s not in a brown bag,” she said. “That’s how it used to be back when everyone lived up here. We used to drink at the Guggenheim all the time, right out of paper bags.”

More: continued here

Next Page »