Who Thows A Better Party, Paris Or New York?

by Chiara Atik · October 4, 2010

    Last week, we mentioned how impressed we were with the parties coming from Paris Fashion Week. So who does Fashion Week parties better, Paris or New York? Let's compare...-

    We've devised a rating system to try to determine which city, in fact, throws the better party. What's a little friendly competition among nations, right?

    We rated the top parties from both cities on a scale of 1-3, in the following categories: Guest List, Entertainment, Venue, and Buzz.

    Here are our results:

    The New York Parties

    Alexander Wang's After Party

    Guest List: Some it-names, especially in the model department (Alessandra Ambrosio, Behati Prinsloo, Agyness Deyn). Terry Richardson and Russell Simmons were there, both pretty big names, but also too ubiquitous to merit a really high score. Score: 1

    Entertainment: Bumper cars, water-gun games, a councy house, and unlimited cotton candy, plus performances by Santigold and Courtney Love! Score: 3

    Venue: A parking lot. Score: 1.

    Buzz: People were having so much fun at this party, tweeting excitedly about the massive line to the bumper cars and the games. The next day, the party got a fair amount of coverage due largely to its novelty factor. Score: 2.

    TOTAL SCORE: 7

    V Magazine Party At Boom Boom/Unofficial Marc Jacobs After Party

    Guest List: Pret-ty good turnout, with representation from the Fashion, TV, and Music industries. Some ubiquitous NYC types made it out, including Leigh Lezark, Derek Blasberg, Marc Jacobs, Dree Hemingway, and Courtney Love. More points are awarded for Leighton Meester, Rachel Zoe and Estelle, who aren't seen quite as frequently. Still, while these stars are famous in the US, not too many of the names on the guest list have international appeal. Score: 2

    Entertainment: Besides watching the ever-entertaining Courtney Love totter around? Not much. Score: 1

    Venue: The Boom Boom Room. Score: 3

    Buzz: Ordinarily, a party like this would have generated an insane amount of buzz. Unfortunately, it took place on a Monday night after a weekend packed with parties. The end result? The usual dissemination of pictures, but not that much buzz. Score: 1

    TOTAL SCORE: 7

    Tommy Hilfiger After Party

    Guest List: Ed Westwick, Jeremy Piven, Neil Patrick Harris, Tommy Hilfiger, Petra Nemcova. No one too impressive, really. Score: 1

    Entertainment: The Strokes. Score: 3

    Venue: The Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center). Score: 3

    Buzz: People were soooo excited about everything Tommy related this year, from the grass on the runway to the novelty of having The Strokes play the Metropolitan Opera House. The buzz was doubly impressive, given the somewhat lackluster guest list. Score: 3

    TOTAL SCORE: 10

    The Pop Magazine Party

    Guest List: Gwen Stefani, Adrien Grenier, Chloe Sevigny, Margherita Missoni. A small but solid celebrity roster of A listers. Score: 2

    Entertainment: Iggy Pop Score. Score: 2 (I know some people are going to disagree with that. But, eh.)

    Venue: Don Hill's. Score: 3.

    Buzz: LOT'S of buzz for this party, partly because it was one of the first held at the widely-popular Don Hill's, and partly because of the rumor that it would be Britney Spears, and not Iggy Pop, to perform. Score: 3.

    TOTAL SCORE: 10

    Calvin Klein Dinner

    Guest List: Katie Holmes, Julianne Moore bringing some movie star power to the festivities, Joe Zee and Meredith Melling Burke to add some Fashion Mag credibility, Kiefer Sutherland and Rachel Zoe to add some pop culture spark. Score: 3

    Entertainment: None.  Score: 1

    Venue: The Lion. Chic, but The Lambs or The Darby would have been more on-trend for this fashion week.  Score: 2

    Buzz: Besides the requiste WWD tweets and write ups? Not too much. Score: 2

    Total Score: 8

    NEW YORK SCORE: 42

    Paris Parties

    Vogue's 90th Anniversary Party

    Guest List: Fashion Royalty (DVF, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Carine Roitfeld, Marc Jacobs, Christian Louboutin) mingled with REAL royalty (Charlotte Casiraghi). Also in attendance, some of the world's top models, including Tyra Banks, Kate Moss, and Gisele Bundchen. Score: 3

    Entertainment: Do masks count as entertainment? Score: 1

    Venue: An 18th century palace on Rue De L'Universite? Can't get more glamorous than that. Score: 3

    Buzz: Tyra Banks' fishnet mask generated quite a bit of buzz, and of course any Vogue party with that much significance, and that many celebrities, is going to get attention. Score: 3

    Total Score: 10

    Roberto Cavalli 40th Anniversary Party

    Guest List: Roberto Cavalli, Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Janet Jackson, Lily Donaldson, Bianca Jagger: A list names from fashion and music worlds. Score: 3

    Entertainment: Kylie Minogue and the dancers from Crazy Horse. Score: 3

    Venue: Ecole National Superieure des Beaux Arts. Degas, Renoir, Monet, Moreau, and Ingres all studied there. Score: 3

    Buzz: Covered in most major fashion magazines, upstaged only by the Vogue ball. Score: 2

    Total Score: 11

    givenchy party

    Andre Dinner For Andre

    Guest List: Andre Saraiva, Andre Balazs, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Olivier Zahm, Irina Lazareanu...the "cool kids" in New York and Paris, big names for those in the know, but still relatively unknown to most of the world. Score: 1

    Entertainment: Stripping other people? Dancing? Score: 2

    Venue: Andre Saraiva's Parisian apartment. Score: 1

    Buzz: Very little. If you weren't invited, they didn't really want you to know about it. Score: 1

    Total Score: 5

    Maria Carla Boscono's Surprise Birthday (The Givenchy Party)

    Guest List: Courtney Love, Julia Restoin-Roitfeld, and...The Cast of the Social Network?? Ok, well, points for being current. Score: 3

    Entertainment: Courtney Love sang, though, as @TheMiszuk points out, "Courtney Love will play an opening of a Kohls if someone would listen." Fair point: she's also performing at the V magazing party on October 5th. Score: 2

    Venue: Ehrm...we're not sure. Can't be that good if we don't know. Score: 1

    Buzz: Due to the amount of phone cameras on hand, this party's getting a lot of Monday morning attention. Score: 3

    TOTAL SCORE: 9

    Fendi After Party

    Guest List: Alessandra Ambrosio, Coco Rocha, Behati Prinsloo--impressive names in the fashion world, but not really international A-listers.  Luckily, Karl Lagerfeld was there to bump up the score. Score: 2

    Entertainment: Duran Duran. Random, yet unique. Score: 3

    Venue: Fendi O'Fete, Fendi's private club. Score: 2

    Buzz: A few tweets from people who were there, but upstaged by Courtney Love at the Givenchy party. Score: 2

    -

    TOTAL SCORE: 9

    PARIS TOTAL SCORE: 44

    Looks like Paris beats out New York by 2 points. Let's get our act together by February, NYC!