Obscene City: The Summer Camp Issue
Pinky Swears
Flaunt
loves the spring time. We were an early bloomer, a late bloomer, and when the night’s in full bloom, we tend to bring the ruckus. So now, as the sticky summer falls upon us in hot cars and hotter beddings, we reflect on the spring that was.
At our spiritual home—the Chateau Marmont—we genuflected and paid penance on a Wednesday at the MCM Pre-festival Style Studio Party. Our sexy pal Jena Malone was there, and with her blessing we flexed our fashion muscle, and gave L.A. just the littlest taste of our indomitable festival style.
From a taste to a banquet,
Flaunt thought about the stops, terminated the stops with prejudice, buried the stops, scrubbed away all trace of the stops, and pressed Go at our pre-Coachella Freak-Fest. The night began with a wander through Millie Brown’s visceral Rainbow Body exhibition, which was hosted in collaboration with Nicole Ehrlich, Nathaly Chamia of Natology, and Jay Luchs. We savored the delights of Casamigos Tequila and Caliche Rum cocktails, whilst intermittently sipping some delicious Scribe wine, and some o-so-refreshing Tiger Beer. Kim Anh brought the jams, and Serato provided the sound equipment that made it all sound glorious. The night ascended to Blind Dragon in West Hollywood on wings of steel and with nostrils of flame. Absolut Elyx kept our singing voices hydrated so that our Karaoke booth recital of “Living on a Prayer” drew gasps while Sebastian Chenut, The Range, and Mauro Remiddi drove management to hysteries in the main room.
Our next stop was a stellar one at the Griffith Observatory for the Burberry “London in Los Angeles” runway event. There was pomp, ceremony, Grenadier Guards, the Beckhams and Cara Delevingne. We wore a kilt the right way, drank ourselves to oblivion on warm beer and dry gin, then recuperated the following morning with a full English breakfast, destroyed whatever went on at the following day’s festival.
A week and a colonic detox later, we donned our sharpest denim and partnered with Cult of Individuality for the release party of The Location Issue at Hakkasan Beverly Hills. Cover star Norman Reedus was the guest of honor, and our star-studded dinner evolved into a night-long knees-up of important conferences, reckless abandon, dancing in the daylight and mysterious disappearances.
But Dumbledore-like—with a swirl of silk and a poof of smoke—we reappeared in Italy, descending from our Gulfstream V straight into the heady mix of the 56th Venice Biennale.
Flaunt co-hosted a dazzling four night dinner series on the cusp of the festival with producer Laura Alfieri and PallazinaG—the Phillipe Starck interiored jewel the Venice Canals. Our friends at Le Baron provided of delicious ear candy that we savored each night with relentless grooving.
Night one we joined with
Le Dictateur magazine in presenting Nico Vascellari and Julia Kent’s MAN performance, and Federico Pepe and Jacopo Benassi’s COCO video project. We relished several Belvedere Shibuyas and applied our life maxim of starting as strongly as you intend to finish ©.
Our second dinner saw us partner with the happy-snappers at Tumblr, and the gallery Hauser & Wirth, to honor the late-and-great Fabio Mauri, and his foundation.
Night three saw us host a glittering dinner with Diesel and Tumblr for directors, curators, and artists (and a bevy of fashion publishers who were obviously last to leave). At the after-party, international contemporary art magazine CURA, introduced our ears to the sounds of Anal House Meltdown—and yes, we are too sophisticated to make a joke about that (because we take our house music very seriously).
At our final dinner—the Friday eve before the opening of the festival proper—we celebrated Taryn Simon’s participation in the fair with Gagosian Gallery, and Hublot, who fortunately provided us with one of their masterful timepieces, so that the next day, as we found ourselves in deep water, adrift in an errant gondola, we were able to apply our summer camp survival skills, point the little hand towards the sun, and navigate westwards back to shore.
Westwards, and onwards, a quick saunter back across the Atlantic, to New York, for The Kitchen Spring Gala, this year honoring our recent Location Issue cover artists Dan Graham and Kim Gordon. The Feeties and The Raincoats laid it down and Stephen Malkmus picked it up while Farmer’s Organic Gin, Tuffe, Santa Marina, Michter’s, Crop Organic Vodka, Chatham Imports, and Lagunitas IPA kept us on our feet.
Returning in triumph to L.A. we were drawn inexorably towards the grand opening of the new 11,000 square foot penthouse at The London West Hollywood, design-inspired by our long-time crush Vivienne Westwood. The views were panoramic, and we taunted a crisp May breeze with a double serve of the ice cream cones on offer.
After our recent week in the gondolas, we were able to put our newly minted sea-legs back on for the G-Star RAW dinner in celebration of the Raw for The Oceans—a stylish assembly of recycled plastic woven into cloth under the curator’s eye of Pharrell Williams. The intention is to turn the floating continents of plastic ocean waste into wearable garments. From waste to waistline we drank port until we swayed to starboard.
In a final farewell to the springtime, we donned a floral garland for the MOCA Gala at the Geffen Contemporary, presented by Louis Vuitton. Under the Frank Gehry designed canopy we mused on the fall of the blossoms and decided that while it ain’t no summer, spring-time isn’t half bad.
Photo: David Livingston/Getty Images, Donato Sardella/WireImage for The Museum Of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, Stefanie Keenan/WireImage for The Museum Of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Crosby Harbison, Stephanie Berger, SGP Italia, Preston Thalindroma, Kyle Jeffrey, Lloyd Galbraith, and Max Montgomery.
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