Pants Optional: Identity Theft Networking at the Supper Club One-Year Bash

Supper Club -- “It Brit” Tamsin Lonsdale’s mobile members club -- celebrated the one-year anniversary of its New York chapter last night with a gin-fueled jam at tony Haven in the east 50s. Young socialites with big rocks and posh frocks cavorted with upwardly mobile cats in crisp suits; everyone bopping along to the blaring big band music while sexy Josephine Baker look-alikes slinked among the crowd in nothing but throw-back pasties. Haven is a dapper spot, especially when both floors are packed to the rafters with people who’ve actually dressed up for the bygone era the club seeks to conjure.

I was, as usual, one of the most under-dressed people at the event, along with my friends Matt Butler, the Reckless Sons frontman, and artist Shelter Serra; preferring to conjure Greenpoint circa 1997 in our jeans, t-shirts and worn out kicks. I will mention that the very freely-flowing cocktails were made from Plymouth gin not because I seek to ingratiate myself with the classic English spirit maker (please note shipping address below) but because the booze was phenomenally abundant and, as it’s been known to do, making those in attendance go apeshit on the perilously overloaded balcony, as well as the extremely popular photo booth, and on the plush couches in the club’s faux, leather-bound library.

A downtown model type who’d joined us for the evening wondered what exactly the Supper Club entailed—and after some discussion we concluded that it was, among other things, a (cringe) networking event of sorts—at which point she pulled out a tiny business card with a picture of a half-naked girl pointing a gun at her face (her, presumably) and handed it to me. Caught out by her Patrick Bateman worthy one-upmanship, I handed her the card of a Spanish real estate tycoon I’d met recently, passing it off as my own, and offered to whisk her and her friends to my opulent Marbella estate. For the rest of the night, I posed alternately as a fashion photographer, marketing guru, Miami club promoter, boutique hotel manager, and a shoe designer until I ran out of other people’s cards, then headed back home to Chinatown to meet some friends (also rocking Greenpoint circa 1997’s hottest look) for cheap beer and more high-level networking.