Another Fashion Reunion Party!

Summer may have begun on June 21, but things were really hot a couple of days earlier in New York City, and I'm not talking about the weather.  Yes, I attended yet another fashion reunion party hosted by model Nancy Donahue and hairdresser Harry King, a party not just for models and hairdressers but also for photographers, modeling agents, magazine editors, and . . . me.  I got invited, as always, because of my diligent work in preserving the work of the models of the 1970s and 1980s on my beautiful-women picture blog, which a couple of these models somehow managed to discover back in the waning days of the two thousand zeroes.  Nancy and I have been friends on Facebook since December 2009, making my friendship with her one of my longest of any model I've connected with online. :-)

And here she is with two of her peers, both of whom I met for the first time at her 2018 party, my sixth.  (In fact, I saw a lot of people I'd never met before at this party, and I enjoyed meeting all of them.)

Nancy is joined here by Barbara Neumann, at left, and and Joy Bell, both models themselves. Barbara Neumann was a top model in the late seventies and worked a lot in Paris, and she's since worked as managing modeling agencies, serving as a director of the men's divisions of the Ford and Wilhelmina agencies in Florida.  Joy Bell worked in Italy, France, England the the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, working with photographers like Irving Penn and doing editorials for many fashion magazines.  She took a break from modeling before returning to the profession to do assignments aimed at women of her generation.  One of those assignments was for a Time cover article on - wait for it - female midlife crises.   I met both of them, and they are very nice women.  Joy Bell has a personality as bright and clear as her name. :-)

The party was well attended, no doubt in thanks to the new location - the Soho Grand Hotel on West Broadway in Lower Manhattan.  The room appeared to be bigger than the space in the old Parlor nightclub, which meant more room for dancing for these veterans of the 1970s and '80s fashion scene to the music of their time, courtesy of a DJ named Delphine Blue - which meant lots of Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Ha ha!  I am kidding, of course, as no one who liked Zep and Skynyrd back in the day would have been considered cool enough to hang out with models, fashion photographers, hairdressers and makeup artists.  But of course, even though this was a '70s and '80s fashion party, fashion icons from other periods were welcome too.   

The evergreen Linda Morand, who's been modeling since the sixties, was also there, and I was happy to see her.  We actually managed to exchange words - hard to do when there's a combination of a din and loud music! :-D - and she was pleased to see me again.  A seventies model who was also pleased to see me again was Jany Tomba (below), whom I got a picture of while she was posing for someone else.  It was that kind of party.    

A familiar and familiarly beautiful face I am always glad to see at these parties is that of Yasmine Sokal Guenancia, whose auburn hair made for a stunning and arresting presence in ads and editorials in the fashion magazines of the late 1970s.  Here she is below - still looking stunning and arresting in a black dress - with Bonnie Pfeifer Evans.

And who, you may ask, is Bonnie Pfeifer Evans?  She's a one-time model who has also worked as a fundraising consultant in New York, specializing in charities fighting AIDS.  I've seen her at many of Nancy and Harry's other parties, but I found out a little more about her that blew my mind.  She was married to New York businessman Charles Evans until his death in 2007.  And while that name may not sound familiar to you, perhaps you've heard of his brother - film producer Robert Evans.

So, Bonnie was, or is, Robert Evans's sister-in-law.   But her tireless work in the fight against acquired immune deficiency syndrome - a disease that is not, in fact, in decline - ought to make it clear that she deserves to be identified as someone other than a wife, widow or in-law.  She's doing very well carving out a distinguished identity on her own.

And then there was one of my all-time favorite models, Beverly Lee, who has a very formidable persona herself, having been the first major American model of Asian origin.

Beverly Lee remains as exotically beautiful as ever, and she's become a regular at Nancy and Harry's annual party.  She even looks great in horn-rimmed glasses! Here she is talking and laughing with Alva Chinn, another pioneering model of color and a dear friend of mine, while Bev's husband Robert Muscovite checks his smartphone.  

And here's Beverly Lee with makeup artist Pam Geiger, the two of them somehow managing to have a conversation while DJ Delphine Blue spins some platters in the background.  ("Funk #49" by the James Gang, maybe?  What do you think? :D )  

And while Madame Blue went over her request list (my request for "Green Grass and High Tides" by the Outlaws was denied), Bev chatted with a model I'd never heard of before I met her at this party.  Shailah Edmonds (above) is a veteran of the New York and Paris fashion scene, having done numerous assignments that took her all over the world.  She is now pursuing her career as a jazz vocalist, and she also coaches young models who are making their way in the business.  Both she and Beverly Lee are alumni of Ford Models, which is the premier modeling agency in the world of fashion and beauty. 

So you would have to assume that Ms. Lee and Ms. Edmonds look even more lovely in person, yes?  Absolutely. :-)

Of course, when I got to the Soho Grand, I was hoping to stay as long as possible so I could still be there WHEN DAWN ARRIVED!  No, I don't mean I hoped to stay until 5:30 in the morning.  New York fashion parties, legendary as they are, don't last that long.  I mean Dawn Gallagher, of course.

Dawn Gallagher is a nice Irish girl from Buffalo who was discovered by a fashion photographer in The City That Never Thaws and given his business card, which she promptly . . . put in her desk drawer and forgot about.  That is, until she later saw his name in a photo credit in a fashion magazine and realized he was legitimate.  And that's when she called the number on the card, and the rest is history. To think . . . she could have just as easily never seen this photographer's name in a fashion magazine and never known he was for real, then she never would have called him and become a top model . . . and then she would have missed the pleasure of meeting me! And she would have also missed the pleasure of posing for me in the picture above. :-)

And then I would have never gotten this picture.

Here's Dawn, dancing to Molly Hatchet's 1979 classic "Flirtin' With Disaster."  Ha ha, I caught you - no, Delphine Blue wouldn't have played those lead-foot stompers either, and I don't remember what was playing at this particular moment, but Dawn probably was dancing to a song from 1979 . . . just not the kind of song I could play air guitar to.

I don't dance. Fortunately, my dear friend Shanti Patty Owen - whose new memoir you already know about - does, and that I'm grateful for, because it produced this wonderful action shot! :-)

She liked this shot too. :-)

I'd gotten tipsy on Scotch and Coke without the Scotch, so I was a little taken aback when someone out of nowhere recognized me as she arrived; I didn't know I was that popular! :-D It was Kim Charlton, the lovely blonde model from the early 1980s who's now a real estate agent.  Also as happy to see her as I was was Joey Hunter, a legendary modeling agent who now works for a company providing software services to the modeling profession.  Kim couldn't help but go soft on him at the party.

Some guys have all the luck.

I mean, what could be better than to be kissed by a beautiful woman and greeted with a smile like that? 

I stole a couple of hugs and kisses from many a lovely lass at the Soho Grand. Who?  Sorry, I don't kiss, hug and tell. ;-)

But I can tell you this: Geoffrey Saunders, Nancy Donahue's public-relations man, got this photo of me standing next to one of Delphine Blue's speakers, which was not playing Deep Purple's "Highway Star." :-D  

Okay, Steve, you're asking me now, how do we know you were even there?  How do we know that all those other pictures are yours?  There aren't any pictures of you with a beautiful model or anything.

You asked for it. :-D

Yes, that's me with Beverly Lee, whom I had developed a crush on back when I was a teenager.  I don't know what prompted her to offer me to pose with her - and of course I said yes without hesitation - but it might have been because I'd taken all those pictures of her. :-)  After we looked at the photo on her smartphone, she turned to me and said, "You're very photogenic!"  

Oh my God, one of the most beautiful women of all time called me photogenic!  I was so floored - I don't think I could have possibly thanked her adequately for that compliment! 

There were several other famous faces at Nancy and Harry's get-together, including French model Anne Bezamat, who I regrettably missed this time - I think she got there after I had to leave to get the bus home.  But, as you can see from the image above, I don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. :-)  And posing with Beverly Lee was very good indeed. :-) 

As with ever other fashion reunion party I have attended, it was a night to remember, even if the music was to be forgotten. ("Got To Be Real"?  Get real!)  Okay, Delphine Blue did play the Rolling Stones from the Some Girls / Tattoo You era, so I really can't complain.

I was with beautiful women.  Do you hear me complaining? Until next time, of course. :-)

(And I was only kidding about requesting a record from the Outlaws.)