Roundup of Fashion’s Night Out: Downtown Edition

Our own Lori Greenberg filed the following report from Fashion’s Night Out after gallivanting all over the Lower East Side.  And changing footwear twice in the process.

It was a big night of events at stores all over the city to celebrate Fashion’s Night Out.

Roaming around the neighborhood, we saw packs of impossibly-thin, well dressed, chain smokers spending money at local businesses – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

We encountered many creative promotions hoping to lure people into the stores. Standouts included a cotton candy setup on the street, barbequing outdoors and, of course, loads of free liquor. (What, you thought there would be actual food at a fashion event?) Oh yeah, and ONE velvet rope. Ironically, in spite of crowds at other places, these ropes didn’t have any lines of people to wrangle.

Which begs the question – if a velvet rope falls on the sidewalk, does anyone hear it? Or care?

[Moschino Jacket]

Our favorite stop of the evening (even more so than snagging some primo goody bags), was a visit to vintage mecca Resurrection at 217 Mott Street, where legendary punk rock icon and DJ, Howie Pyro, was spinning one of his killer sets.  Pyro co-founded D Generation, and earlier on, The Blessed, a band which this Boogie contributor would often sneak off to see as a young teen.

The music, featuring vintage Bowie, X-Ray Spex, Suicide, and others, provided a backdrop for an exhibit of surreal clothing by the late 80′s designer, Franco Moschino. Alas, the famous jacket with a Roy Lichtenstein print, had already sold for thousands of dollars by the time we got there (dammit!).

[Howie Pyro]

On a side note: we also visited local flea market Hester Street Fair earlier who, as part of Fashion’s Night Out, had taken over an entire floor at Henri Bendel’s (a definitively non-Lower East Side locale). Fifty local vendors usually spotted in tents off of Essex Street set up shop for the day, bringing a bit of extra class uptown.

-Writeup and Photos by Lori Greenberg