After a four-year hiatus, thanks largely to the pandmeic, model Nancy Donahue and hairdresser Harry King finally resumed their annual fashion reunion parties for models, hairdressers, photographers, makeup artists, and bloggers who start sites showing pictures of gorgeous women and who particularly dig fashion models (that is, me). Now, before I get to the party, let me explain a little about the venue in which the party was held.
Slate NYC, along West Twenty-First Street just west of Fifth Avenue, is a bar and restaurant with different rooms with all sorts of games in it - bowling, table tennis, Connect Four, what have you - that functions as sort of place for the kid in every adult. And yes, it has a slide to the lower level, which I rode down once, but that was the extent of my child's play while I was there. To be honest, the pictures look better than the actual place, but it wasn't bad. The reason Nancy and Harry held their party here this time s because it was where they'd planned to hold their 2020 shindig, which the pandemic of course shut down. I was happy to see that they were picking up where they had left off.
Alas, many of the models who had attended earlier parties and who are now among my friends - Alva Chinn, Shanti Patty Owen, Dawn Gallagher, Jennifer Brice - were absent this time, and I don't know how much the four-year hiatus had to do with that. But I'm happy to say that Yasmine Guenancia was there, and she gave me a really big hug, and it was good to see art and fashion director Fred DeVito and photographer Stan Wan again, as well as model Jany Tomba. But I was in for a big surprise!
Yes, that's Patti Hansen above, Mrs. Keith Richards herself - still looking eternally youthful and beautiful in stark contrast to her husband! Unlike the last time she was there, this time I actually got to talk to her! Not that it was easy, as I not only had to get close enough to get her attention, the music - the very sort of late-1970s disco that Keith Richards famously hates - was excruciatingly loud, making conversations with anyone virtually impossible. But I did get to tell her to let Keith know that I loved what I thought had been a Bill Wyman bass introduction that was actually her husband's on the Rolling Stones song "Live With Me." It didn't matter how good or bad the party ended up; meeting and talking to Patti Hansen and being two handshakes away from her absent husband (remember, he hates disco) made my whole night.
Along the way I also met Debbie Dickinson. You remember Janice Dickinson, supposedly the first "supermodel" for doing print ads, commercials and runway shows? Debbie's her sister and she was also a model, She now works as an art curator.
The first four of the five pictures here are my own. I regret that I was unable to get more pictures this time, largely because it turned out that my battery power was low (and then it petered out entirely) nd the lighting at Slate NYC was terrible. But I did manage to get a picture of our gracious and beautiful hostess . . .
No, I was not about to kiss her. I was saying something silly in trying to project a tooth-bearing smile when the camera clicked, and, well, I'll just say my idea didn't work out. That's the bad news. The good news? The good news is, who cares - I got another picture taken with Nancy Donahue!
All in all, it was a good night, except for the music, of course - all those late-'70s disco songs get on my nerves, though some of the worst disco records of that era thankfully didn't get played - and even though I don't dance, I had a good time hobnobbing with fellow guests and nursing a few Diet Cokes. And I look forward to doing it all again next year.
So long as there isn't another pandemic.
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