JW Anderson and Saks’s Joe’s Pub Party Spills Over Into a Classic New York Night

“I always try to smell like a rich old whore!” purrs Justin Vivian Bond as they reach a long, polished arm with a prodigious starfish bangle at their wrist towards the bar at popular East Village gay haunt The Boiler Room. No, no, no, this isn’t how the JW Anderson and Saks Fifth Avenue dinner to celebrate Anderson’s cute new Bumper Bag already beloved by Dua Lipa started, but like any respectable or worthwhile event, the dinner became a drinks that became a dancing, culminating with gin and tonics and cheeky noshes of gossip traded between friends. “The shoes are actually really good for dancing,” a guest winked on the walk between Joe’s Pub and The Boiler Room—seven minutes, 0.3 miles, though others queued up their drivers—as a cluster of metal ringlets fell off a JW Anderson dress and onto the sidewalk. Mid-stride, Anderson picked it up, pressed it into my palm, and laughed, “Quality control!” a dangly bauble to try to compete with Bond over most compelling arm movements. (They win, hands up, hands down.) No photos emerged from the bar—the telltale sign of a really riotously good time.

So I won’t tell you all the excellent morsels traded over Budweisers in one hand. Sorry! They just don’t make fun like they used to—even after nearly three straight days of pre-parties and after-parties, Anderson knows how to put together an evening of intimate surprises and old-fashioned hijinks.

Instead, let’s rewind by about two hours, and you find fashion’s coolest—and those with lots of post-Met Gala stamina—sat around long tables at The Library at Joe’s Pub. Richie Khan and Tommy Dorfman, clad in JW Anderson, traded Met Gala afterparty tales. Ella Emhoff admired the tinsel knitting on her dress. Meadow Walker crushed into her husband’s arm. Before dinner, Saks’s Roopal Patel stood for a toast, tearing up as she honored Anderson’s decade-long career. “I can’t look at you, actually, or I’m going to cry!” she whispered to her designer seatmate.