At the Purple Party, Everyone Follows Everyone (on Instagram)
“You are such a Bogart,” says Georgia Ford, daughter of Harrison, beautifully catlike in a black latex dress, bumming me a cigarette last night at the Purple magazine dinner. Full disclosure — because, like any girl who lives on the Lower East Side, I’ve gone dancing at Paul Sevigny’s Baby Grand one too many times in the past year — Olivier Zahm, “Fashion’s Most Libidinal Editor,” took my photo for the new issue of Purple, for which this party was thrown. And Georgia follows me on Instagram. But back to the fake grass in the backyard of Narcissa, the restaurant tucked into the Standard, East Village, where we’re squatting and smoking with an ex-Vogue girl. “Last year I had a confrontation at the bar here,” says Georgia. “I don’t think the other person knew I was having a confrontation.” We nod knowingly, us women. No one, for the record, had any fights last night that I could see. Only table-hopping and fraternizing.
I head downstairs for the bathroom line. It’s me and Kim Gordon. “Are you in line?” I say. “I’m in line,” she says, and checks her phone. I don’t know why I expected Kim to be above checking her phone, but I did, and so debunk her mythology now. Whatever.
“We want all the generations to mix and dialogue,” says Olivier to me, upstairs in the restaurant, as an introduction to Kate Bowman, an angelic full-lipped undergraduate at Bard who wears Gucci in a spread in the new issue. I follow her on Instagram. “I’m really glad I’m in school,” she says. I agree that it’s a good idea not to just be a scene girl, because they have expiration dates. She nods and smiles, all dimples. “You’re so young,” I say. She nods again, then leans in. “If they could snort me, they would,” she says, laughing. “Youth is the future.” Yes and no, I think but don’t say. Anyway, we part, but not before she follows me on Instagram. India Menuez, a redhead actress/model/downtown person who is Kate’s age but maybe not in college, puts glitter on my eyelids from a small vial. (We met once at a brunch thrown by Knight Landesman, of Artforum.) “This will help your look,” she says, seriously. These young people are so considerate, you know? I forget to credit them for things.
Olivier flits away, hugging or greeting a series of people: the artist André Saraiva, the stylist Camille Waddington, fashion person Michel Gaubert (who, when I thank for his brilliant Instagram a half-hour later, we shake-hold-hands for a moment and it’s probably my favorite time all night). Olivier comes back. Karley Sciortino, Vogue’s sex columnist — and full disclosure, one of my best friends, who’s been naked in quite a few issues of Purple — and I are texting. “I leave you for one second and you look at your phones like average millennials,” he says. “We just get so lonely here in America,” says Karley. She’s droll. He asks us if we’re wearing underwear, and takes photos of us.
“I’m addicted to toothpicks,” says a girl with a toothpick in her mouth. “I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. If I can get it down to one stick of wood …” I nod. “I’ve thrown up more than I’ve jerked off,” says Alex Shulan, a downtown person I know from downtown who is about to open a gallery. “Are you trying to ruin my art career?” We go off the record. I ask the ex-Vogue girl who the girl is sitting on Tom Sachs’s lap. “Um, his wife,” she says, laughing at me. His wife is wearing Versace. “Guitars are over,” says Donald Cumming, boyfriend of Georgia Ford, formerly of the band the Virgins. “I just really like guitars,” he says, shrugging. We agree though that New York in 2015 is fine. Maybe even more than fine.
I go outside again. The “It” model Hari Nef bums me a lighter. She’s casually wearing a black hoodie. Chloë Sevigny’s boyfriend, that guy who works at Supreme, is outside, but no sign of Chloë. Cece, a girl I met yesterday at Lucien, tells me that she had matching tattoos with the male model — now an artist, also a friend — Cole Mohr, “because we shared a best friend.” Where is the tattoo, I want to know. “You know the dots on his face?” I do (a triangle of three colors near his right eye, maybe?). “I had dots on my face. They faded because I got purple ones. It was fun for two years.” Things are fun until they aren’t, everyone agrees.
Olivier shuttles Karley and me to the after-party in the basement of the Mercer Kitchen. They’re giving people a hard time at the door, but we get in because it’s his party. I sort of recognize everyone from Instagram but not from anywhere else. And some models.
“New York is getting a bad rap,” says a gay man to me an hour later, as we’re drinking vodka sodas and they’re playing generic ‘80s music. “But honestly you can just get fucked all the time, which is fabulous. You get fucked for free.” I nod.
