Back in MIA, sort through the inbox filled with Evites and party announcements. Delete the tired and tried. Narrow the evening itinerary down to a peek into the world of sex, dance music, and the barely clothed. Let's take in a fashion show.
Sounds like a new twist to clubbing. Totally fresh and unconventional. Never before done or even witnessed by Clubbed. Always slinking down low on the hip radar. Gotta stay alert and always keep looking to reinvent the party wheel and find something ripe with energy. Yeah, tonight is like no other, right? It's gonna be different.
Ruling bohemian king of eccentricity and enigmas Marcus Blake plays host for the evening couture. He calls requesting Clubbed's presence at the F22 Studio fashion show at B.E.D. for the new F22 clothing line, Thic. Why not? There are certain to be scantily clad women and we can bet the property up in Freehold there will be people-watching follies. And booze. Always booze.
Outside B.E.D., doorman Fabritzio Brienza is playing it cool as though mastering his own Right Said Fred ("I'm too sexy for my B.E.D.") catwalk behind the velvet ropes, imperturbably directing traffic into the Michael Capponi-produced regular Wednesday-night hang.
It's the same ol' pileup. There may be no place like home, but Auntie Em lives in Kansas, not Miami. And this Dorothy isn't all too thrilled about seeing the same Cowardly Lions and Tin Woodsmen -- not to mention fashion Scarecrows. If they only had a brain.
There's the usual clawing to get inside. It must be said that Capponi deserves credit for knowing how to put together a great circus act. Selling ice to Eskimos, Capponi can still draw after all these years, managing to get some of nightlife's classiest and hippest to crawl all over each other to get into a club in search of ...
Designers Cara Pastore and Jana Bistrong sit with their handpicked one-named models (the only way to do it, baby) waiting for the right moment to spring the "Concrete Jungle" line onto the crowd of size ones anticipating a glimpse.
For Clubbed the scene conjures memories of Milan, Paris, and Johannesburg. Okay, okay, it conjures memories of sitting on the futon at three in the afternoon and channel-surfing past Fashion TV. But we are here now experiencing our very own fashion show. Finally in real life. So there.
To Clubbed's surprise there is no last-minute rush of pin-sticking alterations or scurrying for shoes that fit. Not even a finger down the throat to bring that size one down to a negative two. Instead calm descends upon the impromptu press room while our soon-to-be supermodels chomp on ziti and sip vodka drinks to get ready to be "so sexy it hurts."
In the meantime, F22 Studio seems to be making a name for its house of fashion. Quite a few attendees don the line, which looks kind of urban shipwrecked on an island with the Flintstones: Lil' Kim and Trina meet Wilma and Betty meet Ginger and Mary Ann. But then, a T-shirt and clean underwear are about as fashion as Clubbed knows.
The lights go up and shipwrecked models strut like driftwood at high tide. Island music pulses through the regular thrash of house. Presumably these lovely matchsticks are castaway in the Caribbean, mon.
Percussionist group the Tribe pounds out rhythms over the reggae-house tracks, as the models take a turn on the platform. Cameras roll and click. Applause, whistles, and cheers. Just like Clubbed always imagined it to be in Tokyo.
Shredded shirts, dresses and pants, ribbons and twisted tie-dye hang off the sashaying models like tattered sails. Michael Capponi does his best Herb Ritts impression with his digital camera.
For a moment the show is invaded by an overenthusiastic and overinebriated piratess seeking her own fifteen minutes. Swooping onto the stage, she bumps into a strutting model. But to make matters worse, this swashbuckler is wearing a black dress that is so yesteryear. Hasn't she seen FTV? Take off that eye patch, whydon'tcha?
B.E.D.'s own bonnie Anne Bonny (look her up at piratesinfo.com) puts on a little burlesque romp of her own and momentarily turns the fashion show into a slight striptease. Finally the drunken buccaneer is coaxed down after runway strutter Mara Kelle serves up a little "cattitude" for the party crasher.
Pirate subdued, the designers take to the platform with their models for their curtain call. This presumably signals a successful showing of the new line. The assembly line should be cranked up and orders start pouring in, right?
At least Clubbed found another source of simulated sex, dance music, and sightings of the barely clad. Next stop, Milan.
