All posts related to Society on Guest of a Guest for Society.
It's time to play "Picking At PMC." Here's my top pics today:
PMC aka patrickmcmullan.com is a site that can, in many ways, be compared with World of Warcraft. Either you have heard of it and you are obsessed with it, or you have no idea what it is and don't really care to find out. For 99% of the people in this city that work in the following industries: fashion, pr, media, beauty, and advertising, PMC is where it's at. Just ask NY social diary, or Park Avenue Peerage, or any social magazine for that matter, who have all made their business off of taking Pat's photos.
[Image via Essentially Emily]
Go HERE for more photos from this event.
While, sadly, we weren't able to make it to the Whitney Art Party at Skylight last night, Essentially Emily did--and she had lots to say about the event. It seems that unlike yours truly, Emily doesn't get too starstruck, even in the presence of the Gossip Girls themselves. Other celebrities included Ivanka Trump, first daughter Barbara Bush, and event hostess Rachel Bilson. But aside from the star-stalking recap, Emily gets down to business talking fashion: she notes that the Gossip Girl cast members...
Today's Fame Game Match Up is between two equally known New Yorkers:
Anna Wintour vs. Graydon Carter. One has provided us with numerous fashion tidbits over the years, not to mention a blockbuster movie based around her name, and the other one? Well he's responsible for the best grilled cheese in town.
SO...how do they match up? While it seems that they have both attended an equal number of events (86), Wintour comes up ahead with more connections, mentions, and rank!
Her top connections include Karl Lagerfeld and Roger Federer, while he has Michael Bloomberg and Katie Holmes at the top among others....
Click HERE to get the full synopsis!
BBC World recently reported on the newest player in the NY dating scene: PocketChange, a company dedicated to satisfying the whims of the uber-wealthy. Without missing a beat, PocketChange seizes every opportunity to capitalize on the superficiality, insecurity and pretension (“Nothing is out of bounds. Except, of course, anything outer-borough.”) of New York and L.A.’s elite. This now includes a speed dating service that specializes in finding young blood for rich cougars. The project, Natural Selection Speed Date II: Sugar Mamas & Boy Toys, is the feminized sequel to PocketChange’s oft talked about Rich Guys & Hot Girls.
Last night marked the 100th Anniversary of the famous Plaza Hotel. Before the Gossip Girls were hosting brunches in the Oak Room there, the hotel was the background for some of the most famous events and guests of our time. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt was the hotel's first guest on October 1st, 1907, Truman Capote hosted his famous black & white ball there in 1966, and remember when throngs of teenagers gathered around the fountain out front to welcome the Beatles in 1964 for their first visit to America to make an appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show"? Architect Frank Lloyd Wright lived there for five years while he was building the Guggenheim Museum, and Author Kay Thompson wrote the famous children's series Eloise based around the building. It also was depicted in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and served as the venue for an important Kennedy speech. The Plaza has been in North by Northwest, Barefoot in the Park, Funny Girl, The Way We Were, Arthur, the first two Crocodile Dundee movies, It Could Happen to You and Almost Famous and on multiple episodes of the Sopranos and Sex and the City.
The Plaza Then and Now:
Aerial view of last night's celebration:
The celebration last night included a 50-piece orchestra, a big screen slideshow of memories, a fireworks display, and a 12-foot high, 1-ton cake, baked as an exact replica of the hotel by famous baker Ron Gen-Israel. Cake pictured below:
Elad Properties, under Isaac Tshuva bought the building in 2004 for $675 million, and after a $400 million renovation converted 800 hotel rooms into 181 condos, 152 pieds-a-terre hotel-condos and 134 traditional hotel rooms. David E. Monn was the event's planner and put to rest any doubt about the changes of the hotel being detrimental in the Times saying. "From what I know of the owners, they want all of that beauty and elegance and stature that the Plaza holds to be the Plaza in its new form. The new form is very much the old form.” And it is indeed a grand one.
As if you needed any more assurance that snorting snow in this city was safe, Radar's cutting edge experiment has given us some pragmatic evidence. They sent their own Neel Shah to various places around the city "armed with a baggie of confectioners' sugar and our lawyer's phone number." First stop was Starbucks where Neel snorted it up in line and was completely ignored, and even got a chuckle from the guy he offered it to at the milk counter, saying he would love to partake but was "scheduled to deliver a presentation at his ad agency in 20 minutes." Next, at the New York Public Library, Neel spent time setting up and blowing lines while asians were trying to study. He met some resistance but noone made any threatening remarks. He ended his journey at Carter's Waverly Inn where Diane von Furstenberg and Jay McInerney were both enjoying dinner (seperate tables). He was caught snorting up the powder around many a wait staff and, not surprisingly, didn't even get a glare. Well, there you have it folks, huff away. At least you have something to look forward to after those 80 hour work days.
[photos from Radar]
Because we can help you with that.
[Erik Wachtmeister, founder of asmallworld]
“If anyone is looking for a private island, I now have one available for purchase in Fiji.”
This was just one of the posts on the forum of asmallworld.net, the exclusive online community that we have written about in the past and that the Times did a piece on yesterday. Titled "A Facebook for the Few", the article is going to finally make "average" people aware of the fact that there is just one more thing in place to keep THEM in their place. While being "just a few clicks away from Mr. (Harvey) Weinstein, a member, or boldface names like Naomi Campbell, Quentin Tarantino and Frédéric Fekkai", certainly makes us smile, we are also aware, as the article pointed out, that time is the most valuable thing that the truly weathly seek, and they are NOT going to be spending it on an online social network talking about hot spots in Turkey, they are going to actually BE there (with girls like the one with Erik above). So that leaves the publicists, party promoters, and the randoms that got a lucky ticket invitation. However, even being well aware of this knowledge, we still log on about once a week...we're getting too old to get validation out of getting into Bungalow and with this we don't even need to leave our apartment.
...Literally
Leona Helmsley's dog Trouble just inherited $12 Million from the late hotelier's estate. That's right, the "Queen of Mean" decided to give millions to her dog while cutting out 2 of her own grandchildren as reported by the AP and on the cover of today's NY Post. This bitch was even crazier than we thought. How can someone who was part responsible for things such as the Empire State Building, 230 Park, Tudor City, and numerous high end hotels be so off of their rocker? Not to mention, why the hell didn't her lawyer urge her to seek some help? (On second thought he's probably in charge of running this pooch's estate). While we absolutely love dogs, there's just no excuse for people that dress them in outfits (see NY Pet Fashion Week), request to be buried next to them, or include them in their will. Throwing them birthday parties we are 100% okay with.
Brooke Astor, the matriarch of New York Socialites and a truly wonderful philanthropist has died at the age of 105. No one in recent history has brought such a generous and wonderful spirit to the city, smiling as she gave away hundreds of millions of dollars to one worthy cause after the next.
Mrs. Astor was a dynamic figure, who had a great dislike for snobbery and all things affected, and who despite having grown up in the Gilded Age of New York Society, managed to bridge the gap between the closed society of old and the more open, relatively merit-based society of new. We will certainly miss her warm and graceful presence in what can otherwise be a superficial and empty realm, a realm which seems to need her now more than ever.
JCrew...wants to be WASPy.
First there was the Fifth Avenue store's window display celebrating the "Priviledged Life" of the American WASP:
Then came the promotion of the book it was all based on:
Finally sophisticated invitations were mailed out to a select group of highly social WASPs (though many really were Jewish) individuals (including socialgay Kristian Laliberte, Emma Snowdon-Jones, Olivia Palmero, Edward Barsanian, Elizabeth Meigher, Cindi Cook, and Paige Ryan).
And what did all of the hooplah lead to? The party last night of course:
...where vodka and caviar was served and Kristian felt the need to wear his sunglasses indoors. If this party is any indication of what the "priviledged life" entails, we are beginning to wonder what the unpriviledged have to offer.
Interview With Creative Time's Anne Pasternak Who Is Changing The Way We View Our Public Art
We sat down with Anne Pasternak for a few questions about Creative Time's past and future, as well as the importance of having an awareness about public art in the city.
