“Bananas” was an apt description for the party itself, where clothes flew off the racks and revelers shot each other dirty looks when they inevitably bumped each other with their huge shopping bags. We spotted Mena Suvari being ushered in by several handlers as she looked longingly toward a rack of bathing suits and protested, “But I want to shop!” The VIP area wasn’t much of a refuge, and Michelle Trachtenberg stormed out past us exclaiming, “I mean, do people not wear deodorant?”
Model-turned-designer Coco Rocha gave Posen a huge hug and chatted about the wedding dress he’s making for her. “I’ve never been a girl that knew her wedding dress — you know how girls plan their wedding dresses? That wasn’t me. So I showed him one thing that I loved, but that was it. I never imagined myself in a dress like that. And he put it beyond — he just went for it. And he collaborated with James [Conran, her fiancé] — James does paintings, and so James is helping a little bit to make the sculpting ideas.” Her dress was actually the last thing she thought about when planning her nuptials, which will take place in France in June. “And he still needs to find a suit,” she said, pointing toward her fiancé.
Zac Posen himself could be seen flying back and forth to the dressing rooms with hangers full of clothes and various guests on his arm, but when he disappeared for about twenty minutes, we finally found him giving an interview in the building’s only quiet spot: the stairwell. His publicist was on the verge of a coronary (“People are leaving and he needs to get back out the party!”), and security was unprepared for the lockdown measures that became necessary when news spread of Posen’s location. When several paparazzi crowded into the emergency-exit doorway and started snapping pictures, Posen’s publicist snapped and lunged at their cameras. “Get out! You can’t be here!” she yelled, swiping at their lenses. Put off by the fierce affront by a slender, designer-clad blonde, the photographers slunk away. Back inside the party, Posen breathlessly exclaimed, “We live in the souk! Listen, this is my quote for the night — we live in the souk. We work, we play, we create, we pay, we get paid. It’s all part of the hustle and bustle that builds our country, and it starts in New York.”
