Fashionably Late

1. Marie Davis, fashion journalist at Drapers, and Rob Nowill of Oki-ni. Absolutely Fabulous. 2. Fabiola Arias, wearing one of her own designs and who designed the attire of co-chair Michelle Klein….and Daniel Feld, who snuck in.

CAPITALE was the scene of last night’s BOMB gala, a party so hot I almost didn’t get in. Luckily, the fates (and Paul Morris) were on my side and I eeked out an invite at the last moment. But I was running late and, rushing from my day job, and I had to change into cocktail duds in the backseat of my car on Orchard Street. Then I teetered over to Bowery and Grand and suddenly, I found myself surrounded by the beautiful people (see picture 1). You’d be hard pressed to find a rumpled writer in the bunch and in fact, art dealer Derek Storm had informed my husband as he waited for me to arrive, we had just missed Kim Cattrall.

Perhaps, then, I was the rumpled writer.

This year marks the 30th Anniversary of BOMB. The quarterly magazine was conceived in the early Eighties when visual artists, writers, and filmmakers who were then living in downtown Manhattan decided to take the discussions they were having on street corners, dinner parties, and bars and put them to page. In that spirit, the crowd was a nice soup of writers, artists, actors, musicians, and to make the party uber-fabulous, Fashion People.

Marie Davies and Rob Nowill were in town from London “attending several parties” and swung by BOMB. Nowill works for Oki-ni (http://www.oki-ni.com/) and looked quite stunning in his leopard print. Davies, a fashion journalist who writes for Drapers, had the most amazing shoes I’ve seen in awhile. Unfortunately, I didn’t get pictures of them because a woman with white spiky hair kept shoving into me, but trust me, they were to die for, Sartorialist-worthy.

1. From L to R: Artist-types Ian Cooper, Jessica Lin Cox, Kamrooz Avam and Rachel Foullon (whose art has been featured in BOMB). 2. Wallace Shawn. A true gentleman.

In all fairness, most of the people at the party could have been candidates for Sartorialist coverage (okay, okay, I’m currently addicted to the blog). Even the artists looked not of the starving variety but of the chic Chelsea gallery variety. Jessica Lin Cox and friends met up at the party and were enjoying the free-flowing cocktails when I found them. Cox works at James Cohan gallery and was on hand to support Fred Tomaselli, an artist repped by her gallery and featured at last night’s gala.

I’d met the fashionistas and the artists but I hadn’t found any writers yet and I was on the lookout when I ran smack into Wallace Shawn. Now I know Shawn primarily as Vizzini in The Princess Bride, but Shawn is also an accomplished playwright and has written political commentary for The Nation. And he’s also the voice of Taotie in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness. Needless to say, I find him the picture of awesomeness.

1. Frances Corry and Katy Gray, who work at BOMB.

My celebrity and writer quotient fulfilled, I wandered over to the worker bee table where I stuck up a conversation with Frances Corry and Katy Gray, two ladies who work at BOMB. Gray, who is the Associate Web Editor, came to work at BOMB because the work is meaningful and creative, and as an approach to journalism she loves the conversational style. In the efforts of full disclosure, I first heard about BOMB because one of my own mentors, Minna Proctor, is a former editor. I told Gray as much and she said she had come to BOMB because she loved the poetry of Monica de la Torre, a current editor. “You know, when you’re out in the world, you just have to find your kindred spirits and follow them,” Gray told me. Beautiful venue, beautiful people, beautiful sentiment.

–Cassie Hay is a regular contributor to Electric Dish.