Alexander McQueen loathes fashion parties. And who can blame him? So while Joy Bryant, China Chow, Eve, Tracee Ellis Ross, Anthony Kiedis and the usual L.A. fashion fete brigade turned out to toast his new flagship on Melrose Avenue, last night’s bash was anything but business as usual. For starters, Lee, as pals know him, didn’t sequester himself from his guests (hello Ghesquiere!). He rocked with the rest and best of them during the raucous set by The Gossip, which had uber singer Beth Ditto--clad in a sparkling red sequin jumpsuit custom-made by her host—slicing the crowd, handing her mike off to various guests for the chorus, and gamely snatching a giant camera off a party photographer and snapping pics of the scene. In all her corpulent splendor and with that soulful voice, she's an antidote to the hungry celebutantes who populate that end of town. Thank the rock gods for Beth Ditto!
And God love McQueen, too. The guy knows how to throw a party as brilliantly as he realizes a dress or a store, for that matter. The 3,100-square-foot flagship is a stone’s hurl to the Marc Jacobs campus and boasts a Will Russell-designed interior resembling the inside of a spaceship, down to the purplish glow illuminating McQueen’s masterful gowns. Adding to the otherworldly aura is the 9-foot metal sculpture of a naked man, arms outstretched and anatomically correct, soaring through the skylight in the foyer. The aptly called "Angel of the Americas" is by British artist Robert Bryce Muir, and alone worth a visit to the store.


Most of us kept outside the shop, however, during the evening, the back parking lot having been transformed into a club under the stars. An oversized screen flashed film of McQueen’s genre-breaking season presentations, while the rest of us—a mad mix that included Balthazar and Rosetta Getty, IO Echo’s Joanna Gikas, Vidal and Ronnie Sassoon, Brigette Romanek, Jacqueline Bisset, Lady Victoria Hervey and the Juicy gals Pam Skaist-Levy and Gela Taylor--clinked drinks and caught up on details other than those of our day jobs.
And never mind Ms. Jackson. The standout guest had to be the Archbishop Don Magic Juan, no doubt there because of one of this town’s coolest gals, Lisa Eisner--who likely had a hand in ensuring her friend Lee had a party he would love.