Love, Nicolaia: SS24
Wednesday Empathetic savant Mellany Sanchez opened Objects of Permanence at Abrons Arts Center downtown. After peeping my head in, I train up to the dinner that Sophia Wilson and Iza El Nems throw for their new photography show Lovers and Friends. The girls, stunning in Gucci, welcome guests into the recently opened restaurant on the ground floor of Jean’s.
The bouncer at Jean’s recognizes me from giving me a hard time the night before about getting into Annie Armstrong’s Wet Paint Party. I say, get used to this face! I’m coming back! Tomorrow and tomorrow and not the day after but probably next week and then not again for a while. The guests at this dinner are beautiful and we’re served the last days of summer on a plate. I think this is the hottest fashion week event I’ve been to. At this point, I’ve only been to one.
Cassell Ferere, who was featured in the show, sits next to me. He was born in Crown Heights, grew up in Flatbush and lives in Clinton Hill and we talk about transplants, "People who move here need to accept New York for what it is … not a boring New York, but a risky New York. And don’t come here and tell people how to live.”
It’s easy to feel motion sickness during Fashion Week. The carousel of newness encourages disposability of trends, people and objects. Tonight though, was the opposite. Both Objects and Friends and Lovers said, don’t let yourself exist in a vacuum of self-perception. We all have responsibility to our community and what a pleasure it is to be connected.
Thursday Sintra Martins cheerfully ushers me down the stairs into her new studio, “Welcome to the dungeon.” Glassy-eyed I shuffle through the past seasons while Sintra shaves down the jagged corners of her new Invisalign retainer with a nail file so it doesn’t give her a lisp. “I made that skirt for Olivia Rodrigo,” she tells me. Large shoes to fill for a very small skirt. Star Harmony Tividad stops by before a DJ set for Frankie’s Bikinis and it’s dress up time in the dungeon. Liv has to leave because she’s officiating a wedding.
This week I learned collaborations can, and do, come from anywhere – Cash App, Rimowa, and Cosmetic Injectables (Xeomin x Vogue). At Lingua Franca’s event in the West Village my friend and spiritual Stepmom Romilly creates a banquet so stunning it could’ve modeled for Tory Burch. Unfortunately, I’m late and stare in dismay at the ravaged spread. The Lingua Franca collaboration was with a sewing machine which hums in the center of the room as guests pick out text for custom embroidery. I ask about word count so I got a sweater that said, “Nicolaia Rips: Party Reporter on Duty '' to be delivered later. A PR person rushed to intercept as the photographer was about to take a photo of me and said, “There’s a VIP I need you to get a photo of, an A-lister” and they scamper off. The door knob fell off in my hand on my way out, and I got nervous that someone would think I was stealing the doorknob and no one would invite me anywhere again. I stash the door knob in a plant.
I meet back up with star photographer Liv Solomon at the Perfectly Imperfect Party. The Hot Priest is still wearing her starched collar from the wedding ceremony she officiated! The party is a music festival of emerging talent. I’m an avid PI reader – it’s a little like the Yellow Pages, I’m forever thinking, “So THAT’s what you do?” about someone I’ve known for years socially. I nudge Joe Kerwin towards the guy signing and he says, “Oh this is [unintelligible name], he’s a legend.” Tonight all my drinks stay in my glass.
Friday I run into hot girl comedian actress writer Lauren Servideo and “professional plus-one” Emerson Rosenthal at a Marc Jacobs cocktail party at Dover Street that Ice Spice will be playing at. Of fashion week, Emerson jokes, “I can buy my own beer thank you,” as we drink Marc Margs. All the floors of Dover are open, a kleptomaniac affair if you’re freaky. There are giant inflatable legs wearing Kiki boots. Photographer Liv, and friend/HommeGirls coworker Olivia and I, worm our way up and wait for Ice Spice. Her set (In Ha Mood and Deli followed by an enthusiastic, ''I love you New York!”) was a good dream: you wake up and you’re like, “Wait, I was having a good time! I wasn’t done yet.”
After, I graciously explain the Sunken Cost Fallacy to the people in the bathroom line to convince some of them to head to the upstairs restroom, but nobody budges. Dover Street has a fancy Toto Toilet, the Rolls-Royce Sweptail of Toilets, if you will. Drunk, the Olivias and I walk by Billy on the street. He doesn’t know but I don’t like him. I won’t say why either!
A few blocks away from Embodied Spaces, Paul Hill’s new Strada World offering, is the Mirror Palais after-party (in the secret bar at Emilio Balato). Show opener Ella Snyder wears a feather cap and tells me, “Marcelo really has a grasp on a corner of femininity.” The tip jar is magically filled with 20s. Star writer Emily Sundberg, hot off a big Highsnobiety Cover, gives Carolyn Bessette in a baseball cap.
We join star Editor Sahir Ahmed and hit the Highsnobiety Party at my childhood home, The Chelsea Hotel. North of 14th, I’m seized with the anxiety that I need to call my parents. At the party I ran into my neighbor growing up who used to throw sex parties. He looked fantastic, really youthful, and was with an excruciatingly sexy woman lounging on the couches. This is the most fun night ever with the Olivias, and I feel amazing! Waiting for a cab under the glowing lights of the Hotel, I remember fondly the weeks when the T E L went out and the sign just spelled Chelsea Ho.
Saturday It’s morning and I feel terrible. I’m back at the Chelsea Hotel for Stylist Chelsea Zalopany’s baby shower. Chelsea does everything with panache. The tables were filled with silver plates of cigarettes and a pink cake that said “Oh Baby” with glittery cherries.
Onward to Anna Sui in the screening room of The Crosby Hotel. Set in front of a beautiful aquatic animation by Jeannie Sui Wonder, the mermaid inspired collection closed out by Amelia Gray said, “It’s no fun being the most fun girl at the party. It’s actually very hard work!” And also, “the sexiest thing a girl can do is be a little like her grandmother.” There’s a fun candy buffet with Swedish fish that glued my molars shut so I couldn’t say anything dumb like, “I loved your Tiktok,” to Sofia Coppola’s teenage daughter.
At Khaite, I said “Nicolaia Rips" and the PR door girl said “Nicole?” and pointed at the top person on the iPad in a line of first name N, last name R’s, which happened to be Nicole Richie. Khaite inspired me to own a black gown that swings around my hips and also to have smaller boobs (I felt depressed after). The most exciting part was the return of the Apothecary Bag. There’s something fab about a woman carrying a bag that fits just enough – knowing exactly what her priorities are is a type of genius. She can’t schlep her computer and she doesn’t need to but she definitely has a copy of Mating by Norman Rush in there.
I attempt to take a photo of an Eckhaus Latta model with a Miffy tattoo but my camera was sweaty from my back pocket so all I got was an exquisite smudge. Anyway, I was behind the escalator so I missed a lot of the jazz of the models ascending (descending? I was behind the escalator). Eckhaus’s front row had a generationally diverse crowd comfortably and casually wearing Eckhaus, not on loan, people living in their clothes which I think is all you can want from a brand. Friend Annie Hamilton, exposing a strip of her very flat belly, said dryly when I asked for a quote, “Nicolaia, it’s me. I’ve got no opinions on this kind of thing.” Chic.
Roman, the bouncer at the Pebble Room litigiously guarding the Eckhaus afterparty door, braided his hair to fit with the agenda and god, he looked amazing. Apparently, the elevator door there has no sensor so if you stick your hand in while it’s closing it’ll lop it off. Outfit change in a port authority Taco Bell and down to meatpacking.
Saw a guy front row at Dion Lee who once started painting immediately after we had sex. We met because he was volunteering at the Javits center when my dad got the COVID vaccine. Good for him, moving up in the world! I appreciate Dion Lee pioneering what I’m going to term slutty utility — enough with scraps of fabric and nonfunctional bags, if there’s anyone who should be prepared for what life throws at them it’s The Hot Girl. Who but the Hot Girl needs high black leather boots with rows of pockets for five lipsticks in the same shade and maybe a gun. On the runways there are models again instead of cool Downtown friends. Sometimes there’s a mix and I think that’s bullying to the non-professional models who had the luck of having once had a couple drinks with the designer.
Speaking of models, I met model Mase at the Dion Lee afters. It was his first time at the Boom Boom Room because his recent “ex-girlfriend who cheated never wanted to go.” Dion Lee throws a good party. Ice Spice played — guess what, In Ha Mood and Deli followed by an enthusiastic, “I love you New York!”
Sunday I wake violently to torrential rain. Bad day to be in ballet flats. Went to bodega and got a coffee with sugar in a Styrofoam cup. On the subway up to the Cooper Hewitt Museum I read my book, The Pure and The Impure by Colette.
At the Cooper Hewitt museum on 91st, the biannual bow consortium is happening and we are all tied together by strands of ribbons. Things are so cute that it’s dangerously cute, gothic bride Rachel Sennott tells me, “I just want to squish people I don’t know!” The shoe choices are ballet flats, ballet heels, loafers with white socks, and then, who is that lost man in New Balance? The museum reminds Isze Cohen of “the chocolate palace in Willy Wonka where the ceiling starts dripping on you.” As the show starts, Jessica Testa from the NYT Shazams the opening song — I Am So Lucky And Nothing Can Stop Me by Harmony Tividad.
A single pearl belt. Shells printed on a shirt. A bow on the sleeve. Low riding capris. A massive black satin bow clutch. A buttery cardigan. This Sandy Girl is underwater, not because she’s a mermaid but because she’s the main character in a coming-of-age movie and she’s suspended there, swimming with her thoughts. Her cheeks are pink. Her skin is damp. In fact, everybody at the Sandy show is damp from the rain, and everybody’s cheeks are pink. Here at Sandy, bows are wings.
There’s a tiny collared bridal dress so precious it makes Linmick want to get married again. Lumia Nocito tells me the show “always feels like a dream.” Elizabeth de La Piedra is the epitome of personal flair, wearing full metal grills (!!) to the Sandy Liang show.
I get a text from The Dare: “Did the Downtown Shawty Fashion just change forever?” Liv and I decamp to NoGlu to nibble a blueberry muffin and decide. Girlhood has a whole economy which is NOT experiencing a recession! But I do think we may have hit diminishing returns on cuteness. Ultimately, this fashion week has not changed Downtown Shawty Fashion forever so don’t burn your bows.
Back home I stare at my framed photo of Paris Hilton tied up in microphone cable wearing Galliano Dior heels. What would Paris do, I wonder? I know what she wouldn’t do, which is microwave a handful of baby potatoes until they explode. If you microwave a potato for only five minutes, it cooks it but the downside is then you have a microwaved potato. I pass my roommate on my way out the door, she’s brushing her teeth. She tells me my right eye is twitching.
I’m in the elevator going up to the 30th floor of a waterfront sky in FIDI. The other two passengers up are a gorgeous girl with a BBL and a guy wearing a tee-shirt that has a pink heart with a waxed p*ssy inside. I ask who makes his shirt and he said, “I did.” And then he kissed his girlfriend, with tongue, and said to her, “Imma f*ck you later.” And then we all got off the elevator.
Gaultier x SSENSE x KNWLS made fashion week horny and somebody had to do it. It was Mad Men meets Mad Max, corporate dystopia at its best. People were complaining about being “soooo tired from fashion week” and “it’s a Sunday,” but everyone despite the griping danced, and the complaints dried up because the party was just FUN, it was dark, gritty, loud, sexy and fun. Stop thinking so much, they said, enough with the seeing and being seen. You couldn’t see anything here, especially if you were The Dare who was wearing sunglasses the entire time.
If you could see, there were holes punched in the drywall! There was an office building used for a rave! A single moist towel passed around to everyone at that party to put on branded temporary tattoos! A fire alarm sound going off every 30 seconds (someone tells me that at the restaurant on the floor below somebody ordered a dessert with sparklers and set off the alarm but why were the sirens in tempo?) A bathroom line so long people discussed peeing in ferns. A girl draped in barbed wire! A VIP section and a VVIP section within it! I was standing around nursing my drink when four security guards importantly raced through the party holding barricades and quickly penned Doja Cat and Ice Spice in, creating a spontaneous new tinier VVIP section where the girls danced with their entourage. Free Ice Spice!
Taylore Scarabelli, senior editor at Interview, impossibly chic owner of a haircut that makes me think about ducking into the bathroom with scissors, tells me “It’s Grannies night out.” Matty Healy chaperoned Gabbriette and her mother. Liv Solomon the Beautiful got stuck at the VIP barricade (she was saved). Harmony Tividad thinks Tina Fey and Timothee Chalamet have the same face. Alice Longyu Gao dispenses party wisdom: “Don’t go so hard that you don’t have fun.” Friend Chloe Wise and I talk Ancient Aliens. A fan approaches an unnamed musician and says casually, “next time you’re in LA, we have to f*ck. You know, squirt fest vibes” like one musician might ask another to collab.
Monday My sweater from Lingua Franca arrives, they’ve spelled my name wrong. My name is Nicola in the lingua of Franca.
Tuesday Star writer Madeline Cash and inimitable it-girl and friend Isabelle Rea throw a party for the new magazine Nuts from Civilization creator Richard Turley. The first time I met Isabelle we were nineteen and she was wearing three pairs of underwear she shoplifted from Urban Outfitters.
Wednesday I am a puppet and Carly Mark holds the strings. I recorded this show like I was an iPad kid at a Wiggles concert: details like the ribboned Puppet heels had me enthralled as did a model doglike carrying her red dress in her mouth. There was a mesh dress with bikers all over, wide khaki pants with deep puckered pockets, a single ripe banana strung around a model in a leather harness, a silly riff on the PNP lodestar cookie bag. Recently I watched a clip from the OG Gossip Girl where a girl’s choir does an acapella version of Glamorous and that’s how PNP made me feel: in total adoration of the world built for me and somehow in a high school auditorium. I think Carly is the most exciting designer around and if anyone had a brain they’d tap her to head Alexander McQueen. “Saw paparazzi outside mobbing someone and it was literally a dog in a sequin cape,” said Friend Mary Russo.
Back home I put away all my clothes solemnly until I can see the floor again. There’s been a lot of whining about who belongs where, and who should be allowed to enjoy oneself at Fashion Week but I am so lucky and no one can stop me! I’ve seen Ice Spice so many times her security detail has me listed as a person to monitor. Ultimately, though, it’s time for me to go pay for my own beer again.
Yours,
Nicolaia
