Obscene City: [CTRL-C]+[CTRL-V]
It is said that imitation is the best form of flattery, but Flaunt loves flattery, and we’re still yet to find anyone who’s capable of imitating our penchant for the party. We can’t be copied, but we were born to get pasted, and The Dial-Up Issue was outgoing calls only.
We kicked off our first Dial-Up event with a scrumptious dinner at A.O.C. in West Hollywood, where Ashley Benson joined us in celebrating the release of Nicole Miller’s wonderful new holiday collection. With fine food and fabulous friends, we listened for the dial tone, and didn’t mince our modems.
We found a higher gear (and remembered what it was like to drive manual) when we weeded out our roots, and threw a party with NEXT Model Management at Tenants of the Trees to celebrate our friends The Big Pink’s residency at The Echo. Material Vodka kept us watered with yummy cocktails, as we put the all the busy and none of the monk in “monkey business.”
Bespoke in the best pastels from our (jaw-droppingly immodest) wardrobe, and dying to smoke a few Cubans, we packed our toothbrush and jumped a jet to Miami to survey all that was painted and plastered at the Art Basel Fair. Flaunt hosted an intimate dinner and atomic after-party to preview our [CTRL-C]+[CTRL-V] Issue—mysteriously in a counterfeit format—at the Nautilus, a Sixty Hotel, in partnership with those fine purveyors of dope denim and thrilling threads, Guess. In on-point Miami perfection Bacardí put the magic in our mojitos, while Spotify prepped the sound system for a punching performance by Pusha T, followed by a scintillating set by The Martinez Brothers. Miami Event Photography provided a top-notch booth for us to capture some memories of a night that faded into the Rothko haze of a Miami sunrise.
Next we zipped across town to the Mondrian South Beach where we donned our media-partner-hats for ART AT GEN ART, featuring works by William Mackrell, and Dawn of Man. Not the first attendant at Art Basel to put his lips in questionable places, Mackrell engaged in a pouty live performance whereby he kissed a wall repeatedly with paint spattered lips as a continuation of his LipSync series.
Back to L.A., our carry-on cramped with cropped canvas, we loaded up the color and set our bottles to pop, as we joined ColourPop in celebrating Haiz—the debut EP of our good friend, and shimmering Elixir Issue cover star Hailee Steinfeld. Dirty Laundry was the crisp and well-ironed venue courtesy of Houston Hospitality, and FoxTales provided us with another of their foxiest photobooths, which we entered with our tails anywhere but between our legs.
From shaking tails, to exotic tail-feathers, we visited the Ketel One Vodka 325th anniversary dinner, where 11th-generation distiller Carl Nolet Jr. introduced us to his new special edition batch, before a-few-vodka’s-the-wiser we jumped a short Uber to French Montana’s birthday party, where we envied the rapper’s red silk suit, and wished him a happy birthday alongside Jamie Foxx, and Snoop Dogg.
We never need an excuse for 30 days of indul- gence, so we added citrus to our margarita and put the lime in lime-light for Red Bull Sound Select’s 30 Days in L.A. Our highlights included Nicki Minaj’s secret show, Toro Y Moi, and Tinashe, as well as artists previously featured in Flaunt, like Grimes, Vince Staples, and Moses Sumney.
We then decamped to the Sheats-Goldstein residence to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of maestro Jeremy Scott’s collaboration with Longchamp. Next we found ourselves at the August Getty SS16 Collection launch, which took place in a vivacious theatrical installation at Universal Studios designed by our CALIFUK Issue cover photographer, and long-term friend and collaborator David LaChapelle.
Our next bounce had us land at Milk Studios for the amFAR Inspiration Gala, where we sipped on a Belvedere martini, a beacon of 007 sauve, much like Belvedere who are in the midst of their shaken-not-stirred Spectre spectacular.
From there it was on to Rodeo Drive for the opening of the brand new IWC Schaffhausen store, where over champagne we discussed the renminbi’s prospects as a reserve currency with Patrick Stewart and Emily Ratajkowski, before continuing the conversation at a celebratory dinner at Spago. Boomerang-like, we then returned to the Sheats-Goldstein Residence for the screening of Louis XIII Cognac’s 100 Years film project alongside our 9 Lives Issue cover star Emma Roberts. The film, starring John Malkovich, was locked away in a safe, and will not be screened for 100 years—expect our review in The Jetpack Issue.
To the sonorous melodies of a 56K modem, the Dial-Up Issue reminded us of simpler times, when you had to ask your crush’s parents to put them on the phone, and when going camping was the only time you needed “Tinder for hard wood.”40 But now we must give our keyboards a light disinfect, and prepare to [CTRL-C]+[CTRL-V].
Photography: Courtesy Kevin Wong, Kelsey Stanton, Alex The Brown, Catie Laffoon, Misha Vladimirskiy, Chris Weeks, Red Bull Sound Select, and Content Pool.
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