This is What You Missed Last Month (According To Linux), in which nightlife it-girl Linux takes us behind the velvet rope and into the VIP section of Scene-City. Through her extreme (sometimes exaggerated) lens, Linux gives us the tea on what really happened at every party-of-the-century that floods our Instagram feeds. (A note from the author: don’t take what she says too seriously — she’s just a club kid after all).
It’s that time of the year again: Fashion Week. However, Fall/Winter Fashion month is a lot different than the glamorous days of Spring/Summer. Unlike NYFW in September, the five look changes for nonstop daily shows and after parties are a lot less... comfortable. Gone are the long, 70 degree sunny days and present are the blisteringly low temperatures that come with February territory.
Looking for your driver outside Spring Studios feels a lot less Carrie Bradshaw when it's too cold for even the streetstyle photographers to be out. Changing last minute from Coach to Prabal Gurung doesn’t seem soKim Kardashian when the designers forget to give you coordinating winter-wear, leaving you frostbitten. And having conversations with Emma Chamberlain on a rooftop in Times Square is a lot less star-striking when with each word spoken, you’re reminded of winter by how visible your breath is.
Being the selfless New Yorker that I am, I resisted the urge to stay warm at home, where I could be watching the action from the solace of my iPad. Instead, I scammed countless invites and guest lists in order to attend each and every NYFW moment that happened this February. But I don’t do this for me; I do it for the sole purpose of being able to tell you, my dear readers, about all the tea that happened at them. Oh, the arrows I take for you!
February 11: Aquaria's Birthday Party at Webster Hall
After a boring first week of February, Fashion Week had finally started. The first show of the season was Christian Cowan, who broke records by throwing the "highest fashion show in history" (and no, he wasn’t talking about coked out models!) The show took place on the top floor of One World Trade Center. The dress he gave me didn’t zip up all the way, so I just left it unzipped with my thong showing in the back.
I was seated front row with a shit ton of gaylebrities and all anyone was talking about was, "Where are we going to party after the show?"Lucky for them, I had the answer. My best friend, Aquaria, was celebrating her birthday at Ty Sunderland’s seasonal party at Webster Hall, Devil’s Playground. I added everyone sitting front row at the Cowan show to the guest list and hopped in a taxi with Gigi Goode (it was the first time she’s ever seen anyone hail a cab! I probably looked like such a New Yorker!)
We got to Webster Hall by 11 PM and skipped the line-around-the-block with ease. Once inside, we hung out at the Linux Lounge and green room. From upstairs, we watched as a sea of gays enjoyed DJ Sets by Aquaria and Ty. At one point in the night, Gossip Girl’s Thomas Doherty drunkenly climbed over the barricades and jumped on stage to take a selfie with the DJ, before getting tackled by security and kicked out of Webster Hall altogether.
Around midnight, internet pop star Slayyyter performed a few of her hits. (Yes, we stan Slayyyter in this house!) By 1 AM, it was finally time for the big Happy Birthday moment. If you know anything about Aquaria, the bitch loves raw seafood. Her obsessive taste for sashimi, oysters and caviar is her main personality trait at this point. Earlier that week, I had placed a custom order for a giant cake resembling of a piece of sushi. While the entire crowd sang Happy Birthday, The House of Avalon and I carried the sushi cake out on stage for all of Webster Hall to gag.
We spent the rest of the night carrying on stage and devouring cake until confetti cannons covered the venue. I had an 8 AM call time the next morning, that I missed. Sorry!
February 12: Christian Siriano After Party at The Blond
Thanks to Aquaria’s birthday party the night prior, I woke up the following Saturday afternoon still drunk and truant from my favorite fashion show of NYFW, Christian Siriano. I may have been too late to sit next to MJ Rodriguez at the Project Runway host’s fashion show in the basement of the Empire State Building, but that only meant I was right on time for the after party. (And that’s what we really care about, right?)
The party took place at 11 Howard’s upstairs cocktail lounge, The Blond. (For those unfamiliar, 11 Howard is where Anna Delvey squatted in the majority of Inventing Anna.) I arrived with it-boy Indochine GM CT Hedden, who had lent me a pulled Christian Siriano suit and synthetic hair for the party. (I told you, I was a mess this day!)
Once I arrived, Christian and his team cheered. I had been MIA the whole day, after all. After making myself a cocktail and getting settled, I scanned the room to see who was all there. Right next to me was a 5’1" redhead and I knew immediately it was Ava Max. Ava and I both took a shot of tequila and bonded over us both being from Milwaukee. I love other girls from Wisconsin because we don’t go out to be seen, we go out to get sloshed! The party went strong until 2 AM and then I rounded everyone up to go to Paul’s Casablanca, where Christian's celebrity friends and I spent the rest of the night ingesting alarming amounts of alcohol and talking shit about whoever didn’t make it past 4 AM.
February 14: Paul's Dolls at Paul's Baby Grand
It's every nightlife girlie’s biggest dream to throw their own successful weekly party in New York City. I’ve thrown one-offs and monthlys, but I’ve yet to pull off producing my own consistent weekly party that I felt confident enough in the day of the week, venue and theme to go through with it. That was, until this Valentines Day. Let’s face it, the best kind of Valentine’s Days are the ones spent with our friends. And if you’re not spending Valentine’s Day with your friends, then you better be spending it making money. I thought to myself, Why not do both? So, I got all my sisters together and decided to throw a party for all my fellow tranny hookers.
I texted every t-girl and sugar daddy I knew, and told them all to meet up at Paul Sevigny’s downtown lounge, Paul’s Baby Grand for the ultimate sugar daddy, sugar baby Valentine’s Day celebration. I called it "Paul’s Dolls." When organizing it, I didn’t consider two key factors: it was Fashion Week... and I’m extremely clouty. Before I knew it, every New York designer, visiting celebrity and nightlife it-kid was hitting me up trying to get into my party. The lounge, however, can only hold 100-125 people at most.
I got there at 11 PM to a line down the block — something the venue has never seen on a Monday night. It was only a matter of time before the night got totally out of hand (in the best way possible). While trans girls went from daddy to daddy receiving Venmos for kisses on their cheeks, fashion industry elite smoked cigarettes and passed around bottles of 1942. Amanda Lepore was at a table meeting and greeting every Gen Z tranny that grew up idolizing her. At midnight, Euphoria breakout star Angus Cloud walked in with a crew of 15 people, including Rina Sawayama. (I had just spent the afternoon with him and Megan Thee Stallion at the Coach show, so we were all old friends at this point.) They bought a table next to mine; he really does support the dolls! Twenty minutes later, NBA Brooklyn Nets player Blake Griffin and heiress Ivy Getty walk in and buy the other table next to me.
What was going on?! Without even trying, Paul’s Dolls became a conglomerate of dolls, sex workers, sugar daddies, celebrities, basketball players and fashion designers. (On a Monday!) We all celebrated Valentine’s Day, the right way, until 7 AM that morning, when Angus' posse stumbled out of Paul’s Dolls together with mine, knowing we had to go home and get some rest as tomorrow was a whole new day of fashion chaos. Since then, Paul’s Dolls has become my very first successful weekly, happening every single Monday at Paul’s Baby Grand. I’ll see you there!
February 25: Greg K's Indie Sleaze Birthday at The Jane Rooftop
You’d have to be living under a rock to not hear about the internet’s newest word for an aesthetic that already happened: "indie sleaze," it’s called, referencing the fashion and culture movement that happened among millennials roughly between the years 2008-2014. (So, when I was in middle school.) A perfect example of the hipster-disco movement would be anything that went down in Lady Gaga’s "Just Dance" music video.
Notable staples of the indie sleaze life in New York City is the DJ trio The Misshapes, who in the aughts consisted of Geordon Nicol, Leigh Lezark and Greg Krelenstein. Together, The Misshapes produced and DJ'd at the hottest fashion parties and kept New York Nightlife alive at a time many consider to be the dark ages. Greg, or as we know him today as Greg K, is still one of the coolest it-people in the city. To celebrate his XXth birthday (literally, no one knows how old he is! Alexa Demie tease!), he gave all the new kids of today a taste of Manhattan in 2008.
The birthday party took place on the rooftop of the legendary venue, The Jane Hotel. The bar actually used to be RuPaul’s old apartment in the late '80s! From 10 PM til 2 AM, Dese, o2o9 and S0ber Brat (yes, those are their names!) played an indie sleaze dream set list of electroclash garage, house and disco-pop straight out of the year 2009. To make things even more full circle, Greg K hired Gen Z indie sleaze queen, Meg Superstar Princess, to snap photos of the party all night with her quintessential Nikon Coolpix we all stole from our big sister’s room in middle school.
The night ended at 2 AM with all of us smoking cigarettes on the Jane Hotel’s terrace, talking shit and overlooking the West Village, just as I’m sure RuPaul did in 1987.
Photography: Megan Walschlager
Art direction: Christ Correa
Dress: Halston