Prince Dmitri of Yugoslavia

The cutesy-named “Purses and Pursenalities” luncheon benefits the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club, and this year it honors five fabulous and oft-photographed faces: Betsy Pitts, Claudia Overstrom, party vet/party snapper Patrick McMullan, Susan Meyer of preppy shoe line JP Crickets and socialite/jeweler HRH Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia. The master of ceremonies is decorator Thom Filicia, who became famous on the reality show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and there are of course handbags by designers such as Stuart Weitzman, Cole Haan and Douglas Hannant to buy at the silent auction, so make sure your Gucci coin purse is well stocked with credit cards.

The Metropolitan Club, 1 East 60th Street, (212) 838-7400, 11:30am, tickets start at $275 for a “Friend.”

Patrick McMullan.

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, and we beg you to avoid the Blarney Stone at all costs. Start your day with a big bowl of Lucky Charms cereal, which is naturally magically delicious—and those neon-colored marshmallows will help soak up any day-drinking you plan on doing. Later that night, the already-inebriated St. Paddy’s Day chic set will be swigging Guinness—the beer, not the otherworldly dressed socialite Daphne—at Patrick McMullan’s 30th annual extravaganza at XL Nightclub. Party photographer and nightlife legend Patrick knows everyone in NYC, and if he doesn’t snap your picture at his party, it’s like you weren’t even there, as your party photo count on the PMc website is used by PR people as a social thermometer of just how hot you are. DJ Lady Bunny will be spinning records, and there will be lots of pretty people not wearing green, we hope.

XL Nightclub, 512 West 42nd Street, (212) 239-2999, 10pm.

Michael Musto and Randy Jones of the Village People. (Patrick McMullan)

It’s a well-known adage that if you are old enough to remember Studio 54, you’ve probably aged out of any knockoffs of the infamous Midtown debauch-party. But all rules were suspended on Sunday night, when Michael Musto—The Village Voice’s answer to “What would Oscar Wilde have said if asked to comment on the ’80s for VH1?”—held his ’70s Disco Extravaganza at 54 Below.

The venue 54 Below is located, as the name might lead one to expect, directly below the former Studio 54. Walking into the gilded underground hall, the Transom found it hard to discern what sort of patrons were attending the evening. Not drag queens, exactly—there was one man wearing a giant fur stole and some kind of 12-gallon hat—though it was certainly a flamboyant crowd. And why not? Accompanying the host of the evening was the ’70s cover band Elektrik Company, along with two individuals named Snooky & Tish, billed as Mr. Musto’s “glittering sidekicks.” (No, it wasn’t that Snooki.) And this was all before the evening’s special guests!

Taking the stage, the usually reserved Mr. Musto jumped up wearing a suit of glitter, roaring, “Everyone is on Zoloft now. Boring!” Which may have been an out-of-context punchline, but we missed the joke. “I’m going to sing ‘I Will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor,” Mr. Musto announced. So far, so good.

“But what if her name was Gloria Gain-more, and she had a weight problem? It would go like this ...”

As surprising as it was to hear the caustic columnist do his best Weird Al puns regarding food—“I spent oh so many nights feeling sorry for myself / I used to cry / When I ran out of pizza pie!”—the bigger surprise was Mr. Musto’s sonorous voice, which, if not Broadway-perfect, was definitely a notch above live-band karaoke.

But wait, we weren’t even halfway through! A duet of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” brought Tony nominee Orfeh (Legally Blonde) to the stage, and that was followed by the grande finale of “Y.M.C.A.,” sung by ... who else? The cowboy from the Village People.

Sure, he has a name: Randy Jones. He’s aged well, too. Looks like Burt Reynolds. Dancing through the audience, we were able to catch up with Mr. Jones for a picture. After sussing out our publication, he started pitching us on a Village People musical, apparently in the works.

“It will be all songs from the Village People, but with a plot,” he assured us, “like ABBA and Mamma Mia!” As we racked our brains trying to think of a plausible narrative that would involve lyrics like “Funky with his body / he’s a king, call him Mister Eagle / dig his chains,” Mr. Musto beckoned us to his upstairs dressing room.

“Oh, I totally think the Village People musical is going to happen,” he said, waving away our question as he flipped through an inordinate number of backup costumes. “They’ve been working on it forever.”

As for himself: “I used to have a ’60s Motown band. That was in the ’80s.” So it’s three decades later, and he’s only moved up to ’70s disco?

“Ha, right. I would love to have an ’80s cover band, you know, like New Wave, British stuff.”

But unfortunately for the packed room—which included VIPs like Paper Magazine’s Mickey Boardman, Patrick McMullan and legendary New York DJ Anita Sarko, among others—Mr. Musto is keeping the affair a one-off, for now.

“I’ve been asked to host a monthly party, but it just seems like so much work,” he said. “Not just the rehearsing, but all the promoting I’d have to do.”

We found it hard to believe that Michael Musto, the mahatma of Manhattan parties, would have to put much effort into getting people through the door to watch him perform. Especially if it involved parodies of diva classics, not to mention the promise of Broadway stars and kitschy boy-band members.

It’s like that famous movie line: “If you bill it, gays will come!”

Niki Cheng and Shaokao Cheng at their Chelsea BoConcept store. (PMc)

The first time The Observer met Niki and Shaokao Cheng, it was July, during the opening night of Julio Gaggia’s art show. Mr. Gaggia, the boyfriend of the plastic surgeon Mark Warfel, was preparing his work “Living Art: Chelsea Boy Apartment,” during which he would live for five days as a window display model at the BoConcept furniture store on West 18th Street. He spent the week eating, sleeping, working—and performing other, less-mentionable activities—in a showroom that divided him from gawkers outside with a pane of glass.

While we lounged about on the display furniture, socialite photographer Patrick McMullan brought over a petite woman with short, pixie-cropped hair.

“Niki is one of the few Power Asians in New York society,” he loudly whispered, flourishing Ms. Cheng before us. She smiled shyly and posed for a photograph before excusing herself.

It would be two weeks before we realized that Ms. Cheng and her husband owned the store where we had dropped more than one canapé between the cushions of a $3,000 couch.

In fact, the couple owns all five locations of the Danish furniture store in New York City, and another two in New Jersey. But the stores themselves aren’t the reason Mr. McMullan calls the Chengs “Power Asians.” Rather, it’s the couple’s seemingly innate social instincts, their ability to leverage a fairly cookie-cutter, mid-market design base into a celebrity-filled social whirl. One might say “Only in America,” or (even worse) “Only in New York,” but this wouldn’t exactly cover it. There is a certain type that thrives in Manhattan no matter what they’re selling, no matter where they’re from, no matter how few resources they have upon arriving.

If Darwin were alive today and researching the survival of New York species, he would do well to study the Chengs. They’re not social climbers, per se, but social movers—Gladwellian “connectors” who know everyone from celebrities to the guys with the best drapes in the city. They share their knowledge strategically with other key additions to their ever-expanding Rolodex. For Niki Cheng, 39, and Shaokao Cheng, 41, life is not about climbing a ladder. It’s about traversing the monkey bars that crisscross Manhattan.

“Niki and Shaokao have a wonderfully progressive view of New York society,” said Village Voice scribe Michael Musto. “They mix into their social circle drag performers, club holdouts, top celebrities and the corporate crowd. It’s all-inclusive.”

Last Friday, we met Ms. Cheng for a second time—again at the Chelsea store. While we were there, actress Faye Dunaway came in and had what one could only call a fit of method acting for a sequel to Mommie Dearest. The recently evicted Academy Award winner had come in two weeks ago and bought a piece of art from the store, and now she wanted Ms. Cheng’s help on a new design project.

“I adore this store. I’ve raved about it; they really need to get some of this stuff to London,” Ms. Dunaway told The Observer. “They don’t have anything like it there now.”

Unable to find a confidentiality agreement for us to sign, she stormed out shortly thereafter. (We didn’t get to tell her that there are actually 13 BoConcept stores in the U.K.) It was the kind of scene that no one wants a reporter to witness while writing a profile, but if there was any bad blood, Ms. Cheng didn’t show it.

“Really, don’t be upset,” she told The Observer, rubbing our arm soothingly. “She’ll call back. Anyway, where were we?”

The Chengs are adept at pleasing their celebrity clients, a skill that has come in handy while designing P. Diddy’s home, Jay-Z’s office (bed included), Mary J. Blige’s entire apartment and Estelle’s closet. Susan Sarandon, Lil’ Kim and Patti LaBelle have also used the duo’s interior design services, and Ms. LaBelle sang at the BoConcept flagship store for a Lance Armstrong benefit. They count designers Vivienne Tam, Asher Levine and Zang Toi among their closest friends.

Not that everyone in their circle is a brand name. After Ms. Dunaway left, we rushed over to Astor Place, where BoConcept was sponsoring a tent for a Christmas tree stand run by a Brit named Marco Romero, his girlfriend and his brother. Though he runs a jewelry shop in Greece most of the year, Mr. Romero spends three weeks in December living out of a van selling holiday firs, and Ms. Cheng took it upon herself to decorate the tent that the trio takes shifts in.

Despite a franchise that traffics mainly in large-scale items, Ms. Cheng has a burgeoning obsession with “micro-units”—apartments that are between 250 and 300 square feet.

She wanted to prove that it was possible to use BoConcept furniture to decorate a very small space, and the Romeros provided her with an interesting challenge. Their tent was about seven feet long and seven wide, and the guys had to hunch over even when standing at its tallest point. Empty, the space seemed minuscule. But after Ms. Cheng put down an orange rug, a short shelving unit, an ottoman, a table and two chairs (as well as several well-placed decorative objects), the tent looked like a living room on the Lower East Side.

It’s never quite clear why Ms. Cheng decided to treat Romero and his tent like VIPs, but when it was revealed that a $3,000 lamp from the store broke on the ride over, Ms. Cheng gasped, then turned to Mr. Romero. “We’ll have to get you another one.”

Shaokao Cheng, Cienna Cheng and Niki Cheng. (Patrick McMullan)

Perhaps the random act of kindness was a viral marketing ploy, or stemmed from her own back story of struggle. (Probably a bit of both, if we’re being honest.) Niki Cheng—née Chong—was 25 when she moved to New York in the mid-’90s. She had an architecture degree from the University of Malaysia and a visa that was only good for one year. She was scraping by as a coat-check girl at Von when she met Mr. Cheng, a young banker whose father had given him a $90,000 loan to buy a single-bedroom apartment on Madison and 32nd.

The two were introduced by a restaurant co-worker of hers, and she began relocating her belongings to his apartment after the first date, she said. After a heady three months of dating, Mr. Cheng invited her to move into his place permanently. “He didn’t realize I already had,” she laughed.

But there was a catch: his apartment in Murray Hill would be undergoing extensive renovations for two years. They made a pact: if they could live through the 24 months without breaking up, they would become a pair in the business sense as well. Mr. Cheng also pushed his girlfriend to get a job at a furniture retail outlet that would give her a three-year visa.

One day while working there, Ms. Cheng came upon a catalog that featured a coffee table identical to the type she sold. Except that Ms. Cheng’s outlet was selling her model for $2,000, and this unheard of Danish brand was selling its at $299.

The brand was called BoConcept, and its international franchise operation was just getting off the ground. The Chengs approached the company with the idea of opening a New York store on Madison Avenue, but were turned down. BoConcept’s owners thought that space in the city was too expensive and there wouldn’t be enough room to show the big items. In their view, New Yorkers were not the target market for their oversized aesthetic.

But the duo were undeterred. “We had spent a year putting together research that proved that this store could be opened in New York,” Ms. Cheng said. They also showed their plans to a friend they met at Bungalow 8.

Their friend turned out to be designer Max Azria, who spent 10 minutes calculating the figures the couple had acquired during their research, sketched a number down on his pad, and told them to go for it.

In 2003, BoConcept agreed to let the couple try their hand at a New York flagship for $300,000. “We had everything to lose,” Ms. Cheng said. “They had nothing to lose.” Niki was 28 and Shaokao 30. They had recently gotten married in Hawaii after three years of dating because, as Mr. Cheng put it, “My wife went to three different psychics who told her that marriage would bring us good fortune.” Mr. Cheng and his father remortgaged their houses to pay for the initial investment.

They barely survived the first two years; they couldn’t figure out the computer systems, and there were issues with shipping. Their business model might not have actually worked had Mr. and Ms. Cheng not been so socially ambitious.

With his degree in engineering and hers in architecture, they were able to use their conjoined home-decorating skills for seemingly un-BoConcept-related purposes. When one big-name celebrity client called, nothing from BoConcept would fit in their closet, so Ms. Cheng happily suggested shelves and fixtures that did. Soon, the singer was calling the couple to redesign her living room, and this time they used items from their Dutch catalog.

The fact that BoConcept’s furniture design is somewhere between IKEA and West Elm is somewhat beside the point. What the Chengs have done was take a relatively bland furniture store from a not especially popular Danish franchise and parlay it into a personal calling card.

When the two aren’t peddling 12-piece sectionals, they can often be found at yoga or otherwise getting fit. At 12:54 a.m. Saturday morning, The Observer received a text from Niki, who asked if we wanted to attend a 10 a.m. Bikram session with her. (We pleaded out.)

Later that morning, Ms. Cheng was at the Madison store, dressed from head to toe in brown Juicy velour. She helped hunk real estate agent Ryan Serhant from Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing find items for his move from Pine Street to Chelsea ... which of course will be documented on Bravo’s website. After he left, Ms. Cheng rushed out herself for a private second yoga session of the day, but not before inviting The Observer over for a home-cooked meal the next night with “some friends” that included Ms. Tam and Mr. Musto.
http://youtu.be/JjI2SwrGnHs
A 2010 BoConcept commerical featuring Mr. Musto and Ms. Cheng.

In 2006, the Chengs moved with their baby daughter Cienna from Murray Hill to a $1.7 million, 2,200-square-foot artist’s loft with 12-foot-high ceilings on Fifth Avenue at 29th Street. This is the space, apparently, where you can keep two six-foot ottomans without it feeling cluttered.

Cienna is now 6, their son Eden 3; when we arrived Sunday evening, their mom was running around the gigantic apartment, scooping them up for bed. Ms. Cheng looked ready to fall asleep herself, after making a feast: home-cooked dishes with pork belly, chicken, eggplant and fish, and a lotus soup for dessert. Ms. Tam was there, and Mr. Musto showed up for dessert. Mr. Levine wasn’t able to make it, but the table was more than full.

Mr. Cheng explained that she had rescheduled her meeting with Ms. Dunaway, but was too busy cooking to make it down to the store. So she had the actress come up to her apartment and multitasked.
As we were leaving, Mr. Cheng asked sincerely if we would come back and have dinner when we weren’t on the job. Ms. Cheng had already invited us to their Christmas party and a luxury garage sale they were co-sponsoring this week. They were so nice! How could we decline when they were so generous?

Another rung added to the monkey bars.

Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper at 1stDibs gallery. (Patrick McMullan)

While Fashion Week was winding down at Lincoln Center Wednesday night, Diane von Furstenberg was sequestered on the 10th floor of a nondescript Lexington Avenue building. Across the giant storeroom of the mostly digital antique dealer 1stDibs, Patrick McMullan was snapping Bill Cunningham as he took a picture of a small watercolor on the wall. Nearby, Anderson Cooper hovered around his mother, who, in a stunning red kimono, greeted guests to her first solo art show since 2001.

While most people might associate Gloria Vanderbilt with her fashion prowess--her jeans commercials in the ’80s helped define a culture of denim, after all--she demurred at any questions about the fashion world that was teeming nearby. "My work involves all my time," she told The Observer, referring to her current exhibition, "The World of Gloria Vanderbilt: Collages, Dream Boxes, and Recent Paintings." With images that included a doll on a crucifix alongside bright, whimsical portraits of Angelina Jolie and Joyce Carol Oates, "The World" is open to the public starting today, and will be going till mid-October. Proceeds from donations will be going to the Huntsville Museum in Huntsville, Ala., where New York Magazine’s Wendy Goodman (also in attendance that evening) held a party for the release of her biography, The World of Gloria Vanderbilt.

"We wanted to do something nice for the Huntsville Museum in return for their warm hospitality," she said. "And what better way than suggesting the opening of my show be a benefit for the museum?" She also praised 1stDibs founder and president Michael Bruno for his attention to detail while organizing the event.

Mr. Bruno was equally deferential. "Gloria has always been very forward-thinking," he said of the 88-year-old heiress. "Ever since I went to her studios to see her paintings, I've been obsessed."

And he had put his money where his mouth was, purchasing one of Ms. Vanderbilt's paintings himself: a large, brightly colored piece called Tenacity that hung near the center of the room.

On the way out, The Observer ran into Joyce Carol Oates by the elevators. We inquired if the author had seen Ms. Vanderbilt's painting of her.

She shot back, "You mean there's only one?"

At the landing, visibly breathless and sweaty, their eyes lit up. They had entered the penthouse loft of Edward Scott Brady, the boyishly handsome world traveler, former classical cello virtuoso and “retired entrepreneur,” who was throwing a “Welcome Back Bash” to honor his return from his seventh trip around the globe.

(Jason Seiler)

Demonstrating a generous spirit, he had posted news of the party to Facebook and Guest of a Guest, luring in hundreds of friends and friends-of-friends, the more the merrier, and plying them with premium booze.

The apartment had all the trappings a wayfaring bachelor requires: the cello, a relic from Mr. Brady’s days playing at the Kennedy Center and Avery Fisher Hall; the African ceremonial masks, collected on his jaunts to the subcontinent; the large antique globe; the red-felt billiards table; the framed photos of Mr. Brady from his journeys.

It was, in the estimation of one female guest, “shit-tastic.”

“He’s, like, famous dude,” said Dmitry Astafev, a Russian entrepreneur who learned about the party through his girlfriend, who had been forwarded a Facebook invite and actually didn’t know Mr. Brady, either.

No matter. Sooner or later, it is safe to say, we will all know Mr. Brady.

“My boyfriend met him in the Hamptons,” said a blond-haired woman in her early 20s.

“I met him at Cyril’s,” claimed another woman.

The place was packed with bros in suit-coats and more babes in slinkier-than-thou dresses, in the appraisal of Justin Ross Lee, than one could shake a stick at.

“Unfortunately for these ladies, I’ve already shaken my stick at most of them,” he added with a wink.

Mr. Lee is an entrepreneur and shameless self-promoter, whose reputation, like Mr. Brady’s, preceded him.The day before, he had been the subject of of a comical New York Times Styles Section profile that depicted him, among other things, tussling with a doorman at The Dream Downtown and bragging about his first-class travels to the Middle East and Europe (“Jew Jetting,” as he proudly refers to it on his Facebook page). Mr. Lee hadn’t made Mr. Brady’s acquaintance either—not yet—though their meeting seemed preordained.

“Unlike me, Edward seems to be very well-liked and a lot less controversial, which means he sleeps better at night than I do,” Mr. Lee quipped.

Then Mr. Lee went over to greet Tabber Benedict, a slick-haired attorney whose khaki suit and classic looks gave him the appearance of an attendee at a convention of Patrick Bateman impersonators. If you squinted, he even resembled a clean shaven Clark Gable, or a more avuncular upgrade of reality TV-rake Scott Disick.

Edward Scott Brady (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

As the two stopped to pose for a Guest of a Guest photographer, people in the crowd discussed the size of Mr. Brady’s loft. “This loft is, like, biggest loft in New York City,” said the impressionable Mr. Astafev.

Still, was one loft—whatever its size—big enough for all three men, for their grandiose personalities? The presence of the trio, all in one place, seemed to signal a small if meaningful shift in the city’s cultural history: After a long, dire post-Lehman cold snap, during which ostentatious displays of wealth, social bravado and dandyish fashion gambits were put into deep hibernation, something was stirring. Wall Street was no longer occupied. The impassioned battle cries of the stringy-haired sleeping-bag brigade, fulminating about the ample chasm separating the 99 and 1 percents, had faded. A socially ambitious lad no longer had to hide his Cartier cufflinks or Stubbs & Wootton slippers under a bushel. Suddenly it was okay again to venture into the limelight, okay to aspire to notoriety and social prominence.

Not everyone was ready to put it all out there, of course, but this was the vanguard. Call them the Gatsbabies: three dandyish gentlemen—but straight, mind you, very, very straight—who seemed to come out of nowhere. In this, they were not unlike the former James Gatz himself, on whom they unconsciously styled themselves, the emperor of West Egg, the subject of a million high school book reports and any minute now, a glistening slice of Oscar bait starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Baz Luhrmann.

“They’re products of the zeitgeist right now, and that zeitgeist is one of social media and ability to be your own kind of publicist,” said Rachelle Hruska, the founder of Guest of a Guest, which has helped cultivate the personas of both Mr. Lee and Mr. Brady.

“I think never before have people been able to kind of be their own publicist,” she added. “You can just get a Facebook page and just put basically anything you want on it about yourself all day long, and I think that’s what these three people excel at, is using social media to pump up their brand.”
Photographer Patrick McMullan agreed. “They want to be known, they want to be out there, they want to use their profiles to get more work and more girls,” he said, “and more fun.”
Mr. Brady stood amid the throng, holding a magnum of Cristal in each hand, his long hair slicked-back and his dark tailored suit hugging his athletic form. He greeted his female guests with a kiss on the cheek, often pausing to give a Guest of a Guest photographer a cocksure smirk as the ladies struck poses with him.

Like Gatsby, he seemed a little too good to be true. The open bar and free canapes for his hundreds of guests? The National Geographic-quality photographs? The crowd of beautiful and seemingly available women? Surely there was more to this guy than met the eye—or less. We turned to Mr. Benedict and asked if the scene was real or illusion.

“Being in the industry that you’re in, you of all people should understand,” he said. “Perception becomes reality.”

Tabber Benedict (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

A few days after the party, The Observer received a terse text from Mr. Brady asking us to call him. We had been reaching out to those who RSVP’d for his party, asking how they knew him, and word had come back to him that we were snooping around. In a faltering, nervous tone, he said he was caught off guard by it.

We explained to him that this was just simple reporting. We were doing our due diligence.

“I guess I have to get comfortable with what this media thing is,” he said with a sigh.

We found his response curious, given his highly visible activities. We had seen snaps of him surrounded by a gang of Indian women in their native country, shooting the breeze with the Hmong on the China-Vietnam border, posing casually with a cheetah somewhere in the African Sahara. Downtown Magazine dubbed him “The Most Interesting Man in The World.” His life was like a Tina-era issue of Vanity Fair. Why so shy all of the sudden?

The son of Edward Alden Brady, a former ship captain and Chevron salesman, he was raised in the Larchmont section of Westchester. They shared a name—Mr. Brady goes by “Scott” to help differentiate himself—and a talent for the cello. They also shared a wanderlust: the elder Mr. Brady traveled extensively for work (“He’s been around the world on a boat four times,” the son recalled).

Mr. Brady’s talent for the cello landed him at Oberlin College’s Conservatory of Music, where he studied under Norman Fischer, a noted classical music teacher. The brawny Mr. Brady said he also played on the hockey team, eventually bowing out to protect his hands from potential injury.
When Mr. Fischer left Oberlin for a new position at Rice University in Texas, Mr. Brady followed him there and received the Fondren scholarship, earning his degree in in 1995.

At 25, he was awarded the 1998 Panasonic National Young Performers prize. At 27, he became one of the first Americans ever invited to a residency with a Russian orchestra at the Moscow Symphony. There, Mr. Brady endured 15-hour bus rides, eight-hour practices and a measly diet of canned food and scraps while somehow maintaining his sturdy physique (his fellow students, according to a 2000 Times article, nicknamed him Arnold Schwarzenegger).

The next year he returned to New York and started Musika, a private-music tutoring service that targeted wealthy areas in Westchester County and New Jersey. Musika grew from 15 teachers to 800 nationwide, becoming profitable enough for Mr. Brady to retire at the age of 33. He would not comment on Musika’s annual profits. “I can do pretty much whatever I want at this point,” he said. “I can travel, I’m able to lead the life I want to have.”

On Musika’s website, his biography elaborates on his “World Most Interesting Man” pedigree, noting that he is a member of Mensa, “an organization of people with high-level IQs.” (A spokeswoman for Mensa confirmed that an Edward Brady from New York was a member in 2003–2004, but said that his membership had since lapsed).

After his retirement, Mr. Brady set out to travel the world. His travel itinerary reads like a list of locations for a Bond film: playing polo in Abu Dhabi, surfing in Bocas del Toro, Panama; traveling across Madagascar in an ox-led transport.

The photos of his travels are sweeping and sensational in composition and tone, which has led some to believe that he hired a photographer to document his adventures.

“Everyone’s so curious about who’s taking the photographs,” he told us with a laugh. “I have a tripod, I have a Canon 5d Mark II, and there is a device called the Giga T Pro.” The device, he explained, acts as a remote release that can be activated from a quarter of a mile away. He uses it to capture himself in tender, social moments, like speaking with the female members of the Maasai tribe, which he then posts to his Facebook page.

“That’s why I identify with Scott,” said Mr. Lee, while seated in his Murray Heights office. “There’s no accidental postings. He’s methodical and I’m methodical.”

Perhaps, although that’s not the first term one might apply to Mr. Lee, who likes to say there are three things he never pays for: “parking, publicity and pussy.” His borscht-belt schtick and enormous bravado has brought him infamy (if Page Six still counts), sponsorships, and more publicity for Pretentious Pocket, his line of pocket squares, than might seem reasonable.
The day after his Times profile went online, he claimed he did three months worth of business in one day.

Justin Ross Lee (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

“I mean, I had them working through the Sabbath,” Mr. Lee said, nodding toward a quiet and severe-looking intern who was typing on a MacBook air. “I said, ‘No shul without drool.’”
He admitted that he played up his feud with the doorman at The Dream Downtown to provide some material for Bob Morris, the Times reporter who was following him around for the evening.
“I never would have gone to The Dream Downtown,” he said. “I was going there because I had a New York Times reporter behind me. I set him up and he’s stupid enough to walk right into the lion’s den.” [UPDATE: After this story was published, Mr. Lee wrote to say that he "misspoke and was referring to the stupid doorman," not to Mr. Morris. "Bob is a brilliant writer and journalist whom I respect."]

Such behavior is all part of the schtick. So is the peacockish attire—stylish and garish, in equal measure—guaranteed to draw glances. The Gatsbabies are not particularly concerned with how others see them, as long as they’re being seen.

“People look at me and they’re like, ‘That spoiled prick,’” said Mr. Benedict, a 35-year-old attorney who recently launched his own practice, Benedict Advisors LLC. He didn’t seem too concerned about that. Although there is one oft-made comparison he can’t abide.

“Don’t tell him he looks like Scott Disick. He hates that,” said one female friend. We brought up his resemblance to Clark Gable, and the woman paused. “I don’t know what Clark Gable looks like,” she said flatly.

Mr. Benedict says he has earned his pinstripe C. Oliver Custom Suits. At Mr. Brady’s party, he recalled a hardscrabble childhood in upstate New York, working lousy jobs at grocery stores and McDonald’s throughout high school while being raised by a single mom.

“I literally was using foodstamps,” he said. “Justin never did that. He wore nice Brooks Brothers clothes that his parents bought him, you know what I mean?”

He won a scholarship to Colgate while working in the school library, then went to Columbia Law School and put in time at White & Case and The ACE Group before eventually launching his own firm.

Mr. Benedict was at one time engaged to a woman he met through taxi driving matchmaker Ahmed Ibrahim (their pairing was featured in a 2008 Wall Street Journal article). He said he adopted the name “Thomas Pink,” a pseudonym he uses primarily on Facebook, in the interest of personal safety—to protect him from his now ex-fiancée.

“Girls would post on my [Facebook] wall funny things, and she would take it the wrong way,” he recalled.

There was also the enterprising stalker who broke into his Upper East Side apartment as he was attending a charity event. “She called and said, ‘I’m inside your apartment, Tabber. It’s really nice! My friend Tyrone is here, who has brought me some party favors,’” he said.

Nonetheless, he noted that getting his face out there as much as possible—attending the Seeds of Africa charity event, co-hosting the First Annual Post-Walk Celebration to Benefit Breast Cancer Victims—helps to shore up business.

“You don’t meet people in your bathroom, or like on your sofa, watching Game of Thrones,” he said. “I meet people out, and that’s how I meet my clients.”

Mr. Benedict and Mr. Brady (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

We were at 286 Spring Street for the launch party of TheCityStreet.com, an “exclusive” global directory of bankers founded by former investment banker Vana Koutsomitis. Mr. Benedict did not know Ms. Koutsomitis, but as the party lagged, he pulled her aside and offered to call a photographer from Patrick McMullan’s agency. Within 30 minutes, the photographer arrived, Ms. Koutsomitis happily posed with friends and colleagues, and the vibe picked up considerably.

“He sort of looks like Scott Disick,” Ms. Koutsomitis whispered to us.

The night was a success for Mr. Benedict. He had walked in virtually a stranger, and had left with a few business cards of prospective clients. However, as he has learned, the more public the face, the less understanding the girlfriend.

“The last time I checked, I want my lawyer to be as discreet and dorky and smart as possible, not some philandering playboy,” said Elizabeth Stockton Howard, his blue-blooded, Princeton-educated paramour.

When asked what it’s like dating an internet personality, she replied, “It’s awful! I think about breaking up with him everyday because of that!”

Edward Scott Brady does not have a girlfriend to take issue with his activities. But he blanches at the idea that he is aggressively self-promotional.

“I never think I am actively necessarily promoting myself,” he said, sipping from a beer at the rooftop bar at the James Hotel. “I am just doing what I want to do, and traveling, and that is what I am becoming, and what people see me as. Why am I am traveling around the world? Because I want to do it. I’m not thinking about packaging.”

“Edward Scott doesn’t have the same media focus that Justin does, obviously,” said Mr. Benedict. “That’s Justin’s life. I would of course argue that I have a different focus than Justin, too. My focus is on more of the high-end charity events, because that’s what I care about. Justin does a lot more club parties.”

Differences aside, all three of them owe a debt of gratitude to Scott Fitzgerald’s indelible playboy.
“That was one of my nicknames,” Mr. Brady admitted. “‘Gatsby, what are you doing tonight?’ Especially in the Hamptons.”

“We tickle people’s curiosity,” Mr. Lee said. He’s found that, as it was for Gatsby, a certain air of mystery can be useful. “The first question I get is ‘What do you really do?’” he said. “And that’s how I know I’ve garnished their attention, and that’s how I know it’s a three-pointer.”
drosen@observer.com

Because it’s not a party without Bachmann’s Party Mix.

I made sure to grab a window seat because I was determined to keep an eye on the road. It was time for me to figure out where exactly the Hamptons were. The last time I ventured a guess, it was deemed so clueless that my publicist, R. Couri Hay, had to step in, spinning my ignorance as some kind of adorable party trick.

“Drew, guess where the Hamptons are!” he would exclaim, shoving me in front of a group of strangers.

“Um, upstate?”

“No, tell them what you said before! About New Jersey!”

You see, I was a Hamptons virgin. Everything I knew about the area came from my somewhat sketchy memory of reading The Great Gatsby in high school, which took place on the North Fork (yes, I know), but close enough. At one point I leaned over to my seatmate and asked her where the Dr. T.J. Eckleburg sign with the big eyes was going to be.

The young lady, bless her heart, didn’t miss a beat. “Those were in New York,” she whispered. “Also, you have orange crumbs on your shirt.”

After some sort of time distortion—a common occurrence on the LIE I’m told—I arrived in Bridgehampton, where I was to rendezvous with my guide for the weekend, Cassandra Seidenfeld, whom I had met through Mr. Hay. Here is what I knew about her: she was an actress, she would almost definitely be on Real Housewives this season, and she had offered to host me for the weekend.

“I’m not mad that you’re late,” Ms. Seidenfeld chirped, heaving my gigantic Yankees beach bag into the trunk of her Audi SSL (which had a Ferrari engine, I was reminded frequently). “The Jitney has been terrible,” she said. “I saw a pile-up of six cars. Someone probably died today.”

We got into the Audi. “Okay, we’re going to Pierre’s!” she suddenly announced.

With that, we were off.

Ms. Seidenfeld then hung a left and parked her car just 50 feet from where she had picked me up.

Over mussels, the restaurant’s owner Pierre Weber, a dashing, older Frenchman in a white open shirt and yellow slacks came over to greet us. Mr. Weber made it clear he did not want me writing a review of his restaurant. He told us an anecdote about how he’d once had to banish Gael Greene, lest she write about the food.

“Don’t worry, Drew’s writing is off the charts!” Ms. Seidenfeld vouched.

I promised not to write a review, although he didn’t have anything to worry about. The food was spectacular! And the service? Doting. Pierre kept coming over to flirt in that European way, you know, holding my hand, stroking my tattoos, and offering that old-fashioned remedy, “kissing it better,” after I literally bit my lip during a particularly racy joke.

“You seem nervous,” he told me. “We have to get you to loosen up.”
“You have to stop flirting with Pierre!” Cassandra scolded on our way out.

We then drove two and a half blocks to the Bridgehampton Inn, which had some connection to Matt Lauer and his wife, although I’m not exactly sure what it was.

Saturday morning I found Ms. Seidenfeld downstairs at the Inn, conferring with Seren, one of hotel’s employees. Seren was also a fortune teller, and Ms. Seidenfeld had some questions. Out of courtesy to the woman upon whose kindness I was completely reliant, I had promised not to write about her affairs d’amour, which were...complicated.

Seren was in the middle of telling Ms. Seidenfeld that she would meet a guy like [REDACTED], and his name would be a combination of [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].

You read it here first.

Lobster cum lobster

And then, finally, it was time for the beach! Actually, first it was time to buy big floppy hats at TJ Maxx, which Ms. Seidenfeld did while having me circle the lot. “The police here have no sense of humor, so watch it!” she told me before dashing off and leaving me in charge of a Ferrari engine.

Of course, my first thought was: Do any cops have a sense of humor?
The second being: I don’t have a driver’s license on me.

After the hat excursion, we drove to Montauk, stopping on the way for lobster rolls at The Clam Bar. This was the first of three lobsters I would eat in under 24 hours.

Once situated on the beach, we somehow downed two bottles of Domaines Ott, which was probably not the best idea since we were planning to attend a party for God’s Love We Deliver at the home of interior designers Randy Kemper and Tony Ingrao at 6.

Things got blurry, naps were taken, and before we knew it, we were late.

Cassandra Seidenfeld, Randy Kemper, and someone trying not to fall over. (Patrick McMullan)

The estate was an incredible labyrinth of topiaries. I soon learned that Mr. Kemper and Mr. Ingrao have done homes for Kim Cattrall, Howard and Beth Ostrosky Stern and Suzy and Jack Welch, in addition to designing this insane palace of shrubbery. My heels kept getting stuck in the mud—dead giveaway of a Hamptons newbie, I soon learned. (Real women wear wedges.) Since the party ended at 9, we scrambled around the maze looking for our hosts. We needed a picture with our hosts! Due to our tardiness, we’d already missed a bevy of celebrities: Donny Deutsch, Aviva Drescher, Ford Huniford, Marjorie Gubelmann, and every socialite in the entire world.

Cassandra was on a tear, desperate to have Patrick McMullan take my photo with Mr. Kemper. Finally, a beleaguered Mr. McMullan came over and I traded him a cigarette for a snap.

And then it was off to the Hamptons Players Club, where partner Frank Cilione sat us at a prime table and I ordered a lobster stuffed with lobster and topped with lobster bisque (sounds redundant but it wasn’t).

The next morning, after I devoured Ms. Seidenfeld’s leftover lobster for breakfast, she and I and our floppy hats braved the traffic back to Manhattan.

Dropping me at my apartment, Cassandra insisted I come to Jean Shafiroff’s party next week. With that, she hopped back in her Audi with a Ferrari engine and peeled away.

“You bet your [REDACTED],” I mumbled, sliding into my cool sheets, already counting the sheep that would graze on the lawn behind the high privet hedge in whichever Hampton I would one day have the good fortune to live in.

Olivier Zahm is French. Can you tell?

In the wake of last Saturday’s Purple Magazine party, we were left with several questions: What is it about Fashion Week mag soirées that seems to whip everyone into a frenzy? What mysterious gravity does Olivier Zahm carry that sucks the clothing off of so many stunningly beautiful women? How is Lindsay Lohan even still alive?

Our prospective evening began unfolding with an incoming text from Natalie White, former muse of photographer Peter Beard and current item of lust on Purple’s website: “Will I be seeing you at Purple Magazine tonight?” Of course, we replied, “but Natalie, how will we spot you?” Seconds ticked by, and came the response, “I’ll be the one wearing a see-through dress, darling.” With that image firmly lodged in our mind, we began to wonder what kind of party were we getting ourselves into.

We mulled the question as we hoofed it over to the Standard, a fittingly unglorified way to approach what would be a fittingly glorious event. Refinery29’s Kristian Laliberte—on full Fashion Week tilt—and his posse spotted us a block out. After a ritual passing of the flask, the group rolled over to the (suspiciously quiet) entrance.

“Sorry baby, it don’t start ’til 11,” deadpanned an Amazonian doorgirl. “You gonna have to go wait in the lobby with the rest of ’em.” Mr. Laliberte and our newly formed crew shambled into the appointed holding area with our tails between our legs—joining what more than one person referred to as “The Ellis Island” of the Purple party.

Our attempt to be fashionably late was unfashionably thwarted.

“O.K., let’s head back over there so the line won’t be too long” suggested Mr. Laliberte after a short time.
In the eight minutes we stood in the lobby, approximately 60 people had crowded the door, jostling for invisible spots on an invisible list that we were reminded would be “referred to as gospel” by the Amazonian.

(At this point, an aspiring—if misguided—partygoer was overheard remarking to his date, “I think we can sneak in. I’ve been here before.” Raised eyebrows and knowing glances were exchanged among the on-the-list set.)

The extent of the door difficulty was underscored when Patrick McMullan, nightlife photographer and fixture extraordinaire, sidled up to the wrong side of the gate. “Yes, I’m Patrick McMullan, I’m here to shoot the Purple Magazine party,” he informed her flatly.

The Amazon sized up the late-night veteran, thumbed through her clipboard and said: “Sorry, baby, you ain’t on the list, and if you ain’t on the list, you ain’t getting in!”
Whoa.

The be-guestlisted mob waiting behind the velvet ropes noticed the martyr having a hard time, and began a rallying cry: “LET HIM IN! LET HIM IN!” The solidarity of New York party people can be a beautiful thing.

Once inside, The Observer took our post on the railing and waited to see who trickled by. First up: Writer Bennett Marcus, nightlife veteran that he is, gave us a few pointers on what’s going to be what at this circus of an evening.

Peter Davis already seemed to be having a significantly better time than we, posing with the always-striking Anh Duong. We make a quick stop by the DJ booth to check in with the Misshapes, who reminded us that the evening might get a bit messy. (What was everyone so afraid of?) They neglected to mention, however, just how much of their set would be dedicated to the late, great, Whitney Houston. As a camouflage scarf-wearing Hamish Bowles strutted in, an onlooker remarked, “You almost kind of think that he’s always listening to Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ in his head.”

Spying Derek Blasberg, with his hand wrapped around Sofia Vergara, we thought of Woody Allen’s remark that he would like to be reincarnated as Warren Beatty’s fingertips.
We ran into Alexander Skarsgard, whom we urinated next to a few nights prior. “It’s good to see you again, Alex. Are you enjoying yourself this go around?” we asked, already knowing the answer.“Yes, of course!” he enthused. “Look around you! Everything, everyone is so beautiful.”

We looked around us. Everything and everyone was, indeed, beautiful. But even through the temporarily borrowed eyes of an international heartthrob, we had questions that were largely unanswerable: Who were all of these people? Where do they go between Fashion Weeks? Where were all of the promised see-through dresses?

Beyond a few standout characters, a few regulars, a few club kids and a few DJs, we noticed that even at this party, one of the most exclusive of the weekend, the froth that filled the gaps between celebrities was largely made up of people who don’t seem to exist outside of party photo websites. People who snuck in by knowing a guy who knew a guy who knew a PR girl. Extras on the backlot of downtown nightlife.

As we reached the peak of our vodka-soaked state of reflection, we grabbed Waris Ahluwalia to gather his thoughts on what we were all doing here, and why: “What do you make of all this, Waris?” we asked. “Well, you know, Olivier Zahm does what he does, and you know, this is what it is.” Hmm, elliptical.
Back into the froth.

Our photography degree was tingling, is that Juergen Teller? It was. We followed him for a bit, hoping to pry him away for a quick comment, but suddenly found ourselves in front of Russell Simmons: “You hangin’ in there, man?” Looking out below the brim of a Yankees cap, a slightly weary Russell demurred, “Yeah, yeah, you know how these things go.” We did.

Then it happened. Here we were in a fit of evening weltschmerz, and now confronted with the visage of the fast life’s most cogent cautionary tale—the Go Ask Alice of the corner banquette—Lindsay Lohan.
Fresh from what appeared to be a bit of a spat with world-renowned gentleman (cough, cough) Brandon Davis, LiLo looked surprisingly good.

Staring into the void, we thought it prudent to introduce ourselves. “Evening, Lindsay,” we said. “It seems we’ve gotten swept up into your posse!” A look of mortified disgust washed over her as she regarded our extended hand. The void was staring back into us.

We were swatted away by Ms. Lohan, as she made the most adorable “get the fuck out of my face” motion with her own little hands. We obliged, warm with the knowledge that we were back among the living.