Fashion Photography – SOME people come to New York to achieve fabulousness; some come and find fabulousness thrust upon them.
Going Gaga
In the summer of 2008, Destiny Pierce, Sarah Van Buren, Nick Schiarizzi and Stina Puotinen were not looking to become club kids, party promoters, performers, members of a video collective or any combination thereof. They were four artsy friends in Brooklyn who liked to dance. Finding the clubs and parties of Williamsburg uninspiring, and bored of dancing in their living rooms, they decided to try a night of their own at the Royale, a local dive bar. They had a name for their night: Cheryl. They had a dance: the Cheryl. And they had a look: very Cheryl. The week before their debut, they went to hand out fliers at a concert at McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg. Then they saw the line to get in.
“We were like, ‘Forget it,’ ” Ms. Pierce said. “But we were all done up with face paint on, so we’re like, ‘What the heck?’ We just started doing the Cheryl outside, and people walking by were like, ‘What are you doing?’ We had all these bags of hair extensions we were giving out, and at one moment we looked around, and we had, like, 25 people Cheryling, and we thought, ‘This is a good sign.’ ”
Less than 18 months later, the Cheryls and their infectious brand of dime-store dementia have moved to a bigger club and taken on mind-bending if not head-scratching themes like “Arctic Fury” and “Pizza.” And while it is safe to say that the Cheryls are unique (who else would have had a party this month called the Cherylimpix?) their embrace of glitter, glamour and dress-up to amp up their nighttime shenanigans is not. There are signs that young people are again dressing up to go clubbing, and having fun doing it.
“There was a time when, as long as you brought the party, nothing else mattered,” said Charlie Brown, a hairstylist who, despite his own crew cut, often coifs his friends to go out clubbing. “That’s what’s changed about night life. People got jaded and bored with what was going on. You need to get people excited, and dressing up is something that can get people going.”
Despite their devotion to fashion, the party hoppers of the last decade who went to club nights like Misshapes were pretty low-key; their signature look was skinny jeans, a designer T-shirt and bangs in their eyes. Now, with even middle-of-the-road young people dressing more smartly, that look is changing. The last year saw rumblings of a return of club-kid finery and the kinds of madcap outfits that were a mainstay of the 1980s and early 1990s nightclub scene.
The looks that Lady Gaga has made famous can be spotted every Sunday at the Susanne Bartsch clubs Vandam in West SoHo and Bonbon in West Chelsea. Just as the new clubs themselves are increasingly done up — they are far from the bare-bones black boxes where the Misshapes held forth — and with the highly produced sound of the early ’80s gathering steam (with popular acts like Hot Chip and La Roux), riotous looks are once again becoming a key part of going out, separating the true believers from the passers-by. Read more »
