Family Affair

A major profile of Dior and Raf Simons, a feature on the fast-ascending Hood by Air line starring Joan Smalls, a spread of photos shot in L.A. by Hedi Slimane, a rare interview with Stefano Pilati—there's more than enough in the latest edition of Style.com/Print to justify a little celebrating. And so editor in chief Dirk Standen gathered the troops and headed down to Tribeca last night, where he hosted a swinging little party at Paul's Baby Grand. (The swinging part owed more than a little something to the very generous support of Absolut Elyx.) "I wish I could say we've been planning this for months, but we pretty much made a spur-of-the-moment decision to do something to thank the people who've supported us, who worked on or appeared in the issue. It's very much friends and family," said Standen. "The whole issue, in a way, is about these self-created families. The Raf story was shot by Willy Vanderperre and Olivier Rizzo, who have been his closest collaborators forever. Shayne [Oliver] and Hood by Air are all about family. And Phillip [Lim] too has surrounded himself with a core of people he trusts. It's very important in fashion, this notion of family."



Issue 05 was the latest raison de fête at Paul Sevigny's raffishly elegant new spot—the tropical-themed lounge was the site of Alexa Chung's 30th birthday bash a week ago. Phillip Lim was at that one, and he was in the house last night as well, straight from a trim. "Actually, I get a haircut every five days," he confessed.



The designer flies to Singapore next week, to speak at the annual Luxury conference hosted by Suzy Menkes, then onward to Beijing, to cut the ribbon at his new shop there. Things are moving along nicely for Lim these days, which is one reason he's profiled in the magazine. Writer Chris Wallace shadowed him last fashion week, pretty much right up to the moment the designer sent the models down the catwalk. "He even came for a drink after, too," Lim noted. A true embedment, then.



Meanwhile, the likes of Dree Hemingway , Joseph Altuzarra , Saskia de Brauw , and Shayne Oliver , along with his HBA crew, filtered in. Liveried waitstaff installed a disco ball just before the clock struck 9:30, and Public School's Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne claimed a dance area in the corner. It was their first night out since the duo's big CFDA win on Monday night. In the intervening days, they'd been working on Pre-Fall and Fall, slowly returning congratulatory e-mails, and "trying to figure out where to put the flowers," Osborne reported. Will their elevated profile mean more going out, or less? "Probably a little less," Osborne concluded, "because now there's a lot harder work ahead." Take it from us, gents: You seize the disco-ball moments when you can.

—Darrell Hartman