The V-Man party at Chelsea Piers’ Sky Rink was pure spectacle. Zac Posen emerged from a golden Escalade and breezed through the velvet rope wearing a broad-brimmed hat, a long suit coat, a lilac scarf, and a brocaded shirt, and that was before he took a graceful lap on the ice.
Hamish Bowles took to the rink in his outfit from earlier in the day, though he held on to the ring for dear life. Later on in the night, after lamenting a sore coccyx, he explained to us that this was only his second time on the ice, the first being sometime in the seventies, when John Curry won the Olympic gold for Britain.
A Zamboni had just prepared the rink for the night’s star, Johnny Weir, when a drunk German model took to the newly smoothed ice, much to the dismay of the staff. He skated backward before wiping out in a tangle of blades, ice chips, and blond hair. (The Ford models we talked to, meanwhile, told us that they were worried about spilling on the ice because they had to get up early for the Ralph Lauren show.) But at midnight the lights dimmed, and Weir was suddenly in the middle of the ice, kneeling, wearing all black with thick crystal bracelets. He then vogued, hard-core, like House of Ninja.
Skater Oksana Baiul made an appearance, and although she told us she always wears comfortable clothing on the ice, we’re not quite sure how she pulled off a body-hugging, knee-length dress. (She never even slipped.) Byrdie Bell told us her outfit was inspired by Brian Boitano, which explains the out-there chiffon shirt she paired with a shaggy fur coat. But hands down the best outfit belonged to drag queen Brenda A. Go-Go, who showed us her bejeweled green underwear, which she told us was her protection from showing off the goods should she fall on the ice in her miniskirt-and-fishnet ensemble (finished off with a larger-than-life pink wig).
Kanye West walked in with Amber Rose, and we couldn’t take our eyes off his mullet-nub as he chatted up Carine Roitfeld. We had to ask: What was the deal with this nub, and was he planning on letting it grow even more? He looked at us in befuddlement and shrugged his shoulders, telling us he didn’t know.
