Audrey Gelman and Lena Dunham last week at Capitale, from Ms. Gelman’s Instagram account.

Audrey Gelman first appears in season two of Girls—which premiered Sunday night—coming out of the bathroom. She is carrying a tallboy that dwarfs her tiny frame, scolding her clingy boyfriend, Charlie, and looking for some weed. “Hi Audrey,” Marnie Michaels (played by Allison Williams) says, shooting daggers at her rival. Ms. Gelman’s role as Marnie’s headband-wearing foil, however, is an extended inside joke.

In real life, Ms. Gelman, 25, is close friends with newly minted Golden Globe winner Lena Dunham, and, by most accounts, is the model for Marnie herself: driven, serious, tightly wound.

These qualities serve her well by day as the spokesperson for Scott Stringer—Manhattan borough president, former mayoral hopeful and shoo-in for comptroller—as she walks reporters through wonky white papers on everything from Silicon Alley to economic abuse as a form of domestic violence. But she is equally comfortable downtown, where she lives with roguish fashion photographer Terry Richardson, mixes with young Hollywood and is a fixture at Cinema Society screenings and fashion shows.

“She doesn’t get a lot of time off, so the fact she can do all that is really extraordinary,” said Mr. Stringer, noting that Ms. Gelman generally sends him the day’s news, with commentary, by 7 a.m. The night before we spoke with him, she had also been out with him until 9:30. “That’s a hell of a work week,” he said.

Mayor Bloomberg once gushed about how Girls might inspire young women to pursue Hannah Horvath’s New York dream, but Ms. Gelman might be a better advertisement: Holly Golightly with a career. “Local politics is a pretty grubby, unglamorous scene, and she is like a bolt of lightning in that scene,” one veteran City Hall reporter told The Observer.

Ms. Gelman, who is a dead ringer for The O.C.’s Rachel Bilson, has large, brown eyes that can turn from sympathetic to sharp in an instant. Reporters who work with her say she can be nitpicky and tenacious on Mr. Stringer’s behalf. A total Marnie, in other words, though unlike Ms. Gelman, Marnie would never have a barrio-style tattoo inside her lower lip that says, “Let’s Go Mets.”

Another of Ms. Gelman’s five tattoos matches one of Ms. Dunham’s: a single word—“staunch” on her left tricep—an homage to Little Edie of Grey Gardens fame. Ms. Gelman and Ms. Dunham have been friends since they first met as high school students in Manhattan, becoming besties when they arrived at Oberlin together. Ms. Dunham told The L Magazine earlier this year that no one other than Ms. Gelman has “a cultural/emotional vocabulary I understand so well.” The accompanying scrapbook shows them in their campus days, a little less poised but not much younger, so quickly have they ascended the ranks of Manhattan’s power players.

Unlike Ms. Dunham—whose parents are both established artists—Ms. Gelman wasn’t born into Manhattan’s creative class. Her father is a microbiologist (and a fourth-generation cantor). Her mother is a psychologist. Raised on the Upper West Side, she attended the public Lab School and Bard High School.

Ms. Gelman dropped out of Oberlin after two years to work inside the high-pressure D.C. press shop for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “In every campaign, there are a few interns and junior staffers who manage to stand out, and she was one of those,” said Howard Wolfson, who ran the Clinton campaign and now serves as deputy mayor. “The staff was impressed with her.” She went to work for Mr. Stringer in May 2010 and quickly rose to lead spokesperson—purportedly the youngest in city government, though this fact is surely cited more frequently than it is checked.

At a recent Stringer presser in Riverside Park on a chilly Sunday afternoon, Ms. Gelman could be found at the borough president’s elbow in a stylish bubble coat and enormous tortoiseshell glasses.

Mr. Stringer has done a lot with his modest post—turning the borough president’s office into a white-paper factory. The topic this Sunday was reform of the city’s animal shelters, and Ms. Gelman hustled armloads of press releases and staple-bound studies through the small crowd amid constant baying from the nearby dog run. Later, she posted an image of the TV coverage of the event to her personal Instagram account, alongside snaps of her cat, Lyle, and her French ombré manicure.

Ms. Gelman serves as a refutation to stiff social media gurus everywhere. Their advice is for outsiders. Use your real name? Her Twitter handle is @grumplstiltskin. Post a representative picture? Her avatar is Cam’ron in pink fur. Don’t post compromising images? She appeared in a light boudoir video for DKNY Intimates. Don’t date Terry Richardson? Well, that’s not social media advice, but her 18-month relationship with the whipping boy of feminist blogs seems to confound all but their intimates. (Complex magazine is in full-blown denial about it, having named Gelman the 21st “most desirable bachelorette in NYC” as recently as September.)

“I think they are actually a very interesting match,” downtown publicist Gina Nanni told The Observer. “People have the wrong impression about Terry, that he’s this guy living this debauched life, but he’s the nicest, sweetest guy. He’s a teddy bear.”

“Having your most public aide dating Terry Richardson, that can’t be great for you,” said one veteran city hall reporter of Mr. Stringer. “It’s distracting.”

But the borough president, who has been photographed with Mr. Richardson on more than one occasion, shrugs off such talk. “I view her differently because of the work she does here,” Mr. Stringer told The Observer. “The focus of her life is to be a government professional. The rest is extracurricular.”

The rules are changing. Can you feel it? Not so long ago, 20-somethings had to choose between promising City Hall careers on the one hand, and tattoos, lingerie ads and dangerous boyfriends on the other. Now “the rest is extracurricular.” Public and private are being renegotiated and Ms. Gelman stands at the frontier.

At last week’s after-party for the season two premiere of Girls, she could be seen agilely policing these shifting borders.

Mr. Stringer had just zipped back from Albany and Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address to arrive at Little Italy’s chic party space Capitale, which was shoulder-to-shoulder with celebrities, from ?uestlove to Cindy Sherman. Ms. Gelman waved Steve Buscemi over to meet the beep and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum.

“I live in Brooklyn, so you’re not my borough president,” Mr. Buscemi said winningly as he pumped the pinstriped politician’s hand. “But you’re a very good borough president.” The Boardwalk Empire star pivoted to Mr. Richardson, who stood nearby, and Ms. Gelman snapped a picture of the pair.

Is Gelman, like lightning, a true anomaly, or is she a sign of things to come in a world where social media launders influence between divergent spheres—as long as you speak all the tongues?

“You know you are fluent in a language when you can think in that language and you don’t have to translate from one to the other,” Mr. Wolfson observed. “And that is her ability, to think fluently in social media.” Interestingly, before Ms. Gelman arrived, Mr. Stringer’s office suffered a social media scandal when an aide derided President Obama on her personal Facebook page. Ms. Gelman would be too cagey for that, and is canny enough to know that the answer is not to become invisible, but to appear as one wants to appear—professional, connected and recently manicured.

Witness her divide-crossing work with Downtown 4 Democracy, an alliance of creative professionals that formed around Howard Dean in 2003 and raised $1.5 million for John Kerry in 2004. The group had been largely dormant, but was rebooted in support of President Obama under Ms. Gelman’s direction, with a book, events and conspicuous support from Mr. Richardson and Ms. Dunham, who—at times—has also supported Mr. Stringer’s causes.

“The things that are an asset to her now might not have been an asset 10 years ago, when politicians hadn’t figured out how to speak to people like me,” observed Ms. Nanni, a founding member of Downtown 4 Democracy, discussing Ms Gelman’s unique position at the crossroads of many worlds.

After Mr. Stringer and his wife departed the Girls premiere, Ms. Gelman and Mr. Richardson held court before a passing parade of young celebrities like Aziz Ansari and Jonah Hill, whom Ms. Gelman air-kissed as fluently as she had the local TV reporter who’d arrived late to the Stringer presser earlier in the week. She sat and texted as a friend sketched her portrait, which would later appear on Vogue’s website.

A few minutes passed and Ms. Gelman turned to a reporter, whom she had allowed to linger for a moment. “I’m going to go back to my personal world now,” she told The Observer, shutting things down like just another press conference.

]]>

Audrey Gelman and Lena Dunham last week at Capitale, from Ms. Gelman’s Instagram account.

Audrey Gelman first appears in season two of Girls—which premiered Sunday night—coming out of the bathroom. She is carrying a tallboy that dwarfs her tiny frame, scolding her clingy boyfriend, Charlie, and looking for some weed. “Hi Audrey,” Marnie Michaels (played by Allison Williams) says, shooting daggers at her rival. Ms. Gelman’s role as Marnie’s headband-wearing foil, however, is an extended inside joke.

In real life, Ms. Gelman, 25, is close friends with newly minted Golden Globe winner Lena Dunham, and, by most accounts, is the model for Marnie herself: driven, serious, tightly wound.

These qualities serve her well by day as the spokesperson for Scott Stringer—Manhattan borough president, former mayoral hopeful and shoo-in for comptroller—as she walks reporters through wonky white papers on everything from Silicon Alley to economic abuse as a form of domestic violence. But she is equally comfortable downtown, where she lives with roguish fashion photographer Terry Richardson, mixes with young Hollywood and is a fixture at Cinema Society screenings and fashion shows.

“She doesn’t get a lot of time off, so the fact she can do all that is really extraordinary,” said Mr. Stringer, noting that Ms. Gelman generally sends him the day’s news, with commentary, by 7 a.m. The night before we spoke with him, she had also been out with him until 9:30. “That’s a hell of a work week,” he said.

Mayor Bloomberg once gushed about how Girls might inspire young women to pursue Hannah Horvath’s New York dream, but Ms. Gelman might be a better advertisement: Holly Golightly with a career. “Local politics is a pretty grubby, unglamorous scene, and she is like a bolt of lightning in that scene,” one veteran City Hall reporter told The Observer.

Ms. Gelman, who is a dead ringer for The O.C.’s Rachel Bilson, has large, brown eyes that can turn from sympathetic to sharp in an instant. Reporters who work with her say she can be nitpicky and tenacious on Mr. Stringer’s behalf. A total Marnie, in other words, though unlike Ms. Gelman, Marnie would never have a barrio-style tattoo inside her lower lip that says, “Let’s Go Mets.”

Another of Ms. Gelman’s five tattoos matches one of Ms. Dunham’s: a single word—“staunch” on her left tricep—an homage to Little Edie of Grey Gardens fame. Ms. Gelman and Ms. Dunham have been friends since they first met as high school students in Manhattan, becoming besties when they arrived at Oberlin together. Ms. Dunham told The L Magazine earlier this year that no one other than Ms. Gelman has “a cultural/emotional vocabulary I understand so well.” The accompanying scrapbook shows them in their campus days, a little less poised but not much younger, so quickly have they ascended the ranks of Manhattan’s power players.

Unlike Ms. Dunham—whose parents are both established artists—Ms. Gelman wasn’t born into Manhattan’s creative class. Her father is a microbiologist (and a fourth-generation cantor). Her mother is a psychologist. Raised on the Upper West Side, she attended the public Lab School and Bard High School.

Ms. Gelman dropped out of Oberlin after two years to work inside the high-pressure D.C. press shop for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “In every campaign, there are a few interns and junior staffers who manage to stand out, and she was one of those,” said Howard Wolfson, who ran the Clinton campaign and now serves as deputy mayor. “The staff was impressed with her.” She went to work for Mr. Stringer in May 2010 and quickly rose to lead spokesperson—purportedly the youngest in city government, though this fact is surely cited more frequently than it is checked.

At a recent Stringer presser in Riverside Park on a chilly Sunday afternoon, Ms. Gelman could be found at the borough president’s elbow in a stylish bubble coat and enormous tortoiseshell glasses.

Mr. Stringer has done a lot with his modest post—turning the borough president’s office into a white-paper factory. The topic this Sunday was reform of the city’s animal shelters, and Ms. Gelman hustled armloads of press releases and staple-bound studies through the small crowd amid constant baying from the nearby dog run. Later, she posted an image of the TV coverage of the event to her personal Instagram account, alongside snaps of her cat, Lyle, and her French ombré manicure.

Ms. Gelman serves as a refutation to stiff social media gurus everywhere. Their advice is for outsiders. Use your real name? Her Twitter handle is @grumplstiltskin. Post a representative picture? Her avatar is Cam’ron in pink fur. Don’t post compromising images? She appeared in a light boudoir video for DKNY Intimates. Don’t date Terry Richardson? Well, that’s not social media advice, but her 18-month relationship with the whipping boy of feminist blogs seems to confound all but their intimates. (Complex magazine is in full-blown denial about it, having named Gelman the 21st “most desirable bachelorette in NYC” as recently as September.)

“I think they are actually a very interesting match,” downtown publicist Gina Nanni told The Observer. “People have the wrong impression about Terry, that he’s this guy living this debauched life, but he’s the nicest, sweetest guy. He’s a teddy bear.”

“Having your most public aide dating Terry Richardson, that can’t be great for you,” said one veteran city hall reporter of Mr. Stringer. “It’s distracting.”

But the borough president, who has been photographed with Mr. Richardson on more than one occasion, shrugs off such talk. “I view her differently because of the work she does here,” Mr. Stringer told The Observer. “The focus of her life is to be a government professional. The rest is extracurricular.”

The rules are changing. Can you feel it? Not so long ago, 20-somethings had to choose between promising City Hall careers on the one hand, and tattoos, lingerie ads and dangerous boyfriends on the other. Now “the rest is extracurricular.” Public and private are being renegotiated and Ms. Gelman stands at the frontier.

At last week’s after-party for the season two premiere of Girls, she could be seen agilely policing these shifting borders.

Mr. Stringer had just zipped back from Albany and Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address to arrive at Little Italy’s chic party space Capitale, which was shoulder-to-shoulder with celebrities, from ?uestlove to Cindy Sherman. Ms. Gelman waved Steve Buscemi over to meet the beep and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum.

“I live in Brooklyn, so you’re not my borough president,” Mr. Buscemi said winningly as he pumped the pinstriped politician’s hand. “But you’re a very good borough president.” The Boardwalk Empire star pivoted to Mr. Richardson, who stood nearby, and Ms. Gelman snapped a picture of the pair.

Is Gelman, like lightning, a true anomaly, or is she a sign of things to come in a world where social media launders influence between divergent spheres—as long as you speak all the tongues?

“You know you are fluent in a language when you can think in that language and you don’t have to translate from one to the other,” Mr. Wolfson observed. “And that is her ability, to think fluently in social media.” Interestingly, before Ms. Gelman arrived, Mr. Stringer’s office suffered a social media scandal when an aide derided President Obama on her personal Facebook page. Ms. Gelman would be too cagey for that, and is canny enough to know that the answer is not to become invisible, but to appear as one wants to appear—professional, connected and recently manicured.

Witness her divide-crossing work with Downtown 4 Democracy, an alliance of creative professionals that formed around Howard Dean in 2003 and raised $1.5 million for John Kerry in 2004. The group had been largely dormant, but was rebooted in support of President Obama under Ms. Gelman’s direction, with a book, events and conspicuous support from Mr. Richardson and Ms. Dunham, who—at times—has also supported Mr. Stringer’s causes.

“The things that are an asset to her now might not have been an asset 10 years ago, when politicians hadn’t figured out how to speak to people like me,” observed Ms. Nanni, a founding member of Downtown 4 Democracy, discussing Ms Gelman’s unique position at the crossroads of many worlds.

After Mr. Stringer and his wife departed the Girls premiere, Ms. Gelman and Mr. Richardson held court before a passing parade of young celebrities like Aziz Ansari and Jonah Hill, whom Ms. Gelman air-kissed as fluently as she had the local TV reporter who’d arrived late to the Stringer presser earlier in the week. She sat and texted as a friend sketched her portrait, which would later appear on Vogue’s website.

A few minutes passed and Ms. Gelman turned to a reporter, whom she had allowed to linger for a moment. “I’m going to go back to my personal world now,” she told The Observer, shutting things down like just another press conference.

]]> http://observer.com/2013/01/meet-audrey-gelman-shes-like-marnie-only-successful/feed/ 0 jhanasobserver Audrey Gelman and Lena Dunham last week at Capitale, from Ms. Gelman’s Instagram account. http://observer.com/2012/11/big-apple-idolatry-tlcs-extreme-cougar-wives-is-a-thing-that-is-real-video/#comments Fri, 16 Nov 2012 14:47:15 -0400 http://observer.com/2012/11/big-apple-idolatry-tlcs-extreme-cougar-wives-is-a-thing-that-is-real-video/ Drew Grant http://observer.com/?p=277680

Extreme Cougars (TLC)

http://youtu.be/LG3OK0W0PlQ
At this point, TLC is just basally fetish pornography without the sex...yet.

-Marc Jacobs might not be able to move back into his super swanky apartment in a condo on West 12th St. because of flooding. Will someone please think of the misplaced designers and open your wallets so he can buy a new place on a co-op board?

- Yes. Terry Richardson, Lindsay Lohan, and James Franco made an R.E.M. music video. What, did you think that his casting notice for a "Lindsay Lohan" and "James Franco" "type" was just for funsies? These two definitely have bigger, more awful plans up their sleeves.
http://youtu.be/GvI_U8PJ-4Q

- In honor of the possibly box office-breaking trajectory of Twilight: Breaking Dawn -- Part II, here is the history of all things Twihard.

- In sad news, Lucille Bliss, the voice of Smurfette from the original series has died at age 96.

Scott Stringer (left) and Terry Richardson (via terrysdiary.com)

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is a busy guy--dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and gearing up for the 2013 mayoral race--he's considered among the frontrunners to succeed Michael Bloomberg. But there's always time for a quick photo op.

Fashion photographer Terry Richardson (who's worked with the likes of Harper's Bazaar and GQ, with infamous shoots including the Glee stars "Gone Wild" and model Kate Upton licking a popsicle) posted a photo to his blog of himself and the Beep; Mr. Richardson gives his usual thumbs-up, while Mr. Stringer looks composed.

The connection between these two unlikely pals--besides celebrity? (Mr. Stringer's other supporters include Scarlett Johansson, who's hosted fundraisers for him.) Mr. Stringer's press secretary, recent Vogue profile-ee Audrey Gelman, is dating Mr. Richardson, as first reported by The Observer.

Given that one of Mr. Richardson's favorite gambits is to make subjects try on his oversized glasses, we'll be waiting eagerly for any future photos.

Jeremy Scott with candy colored clown models (Getty)

"That's Cobrasnake," Valentine replied. "He's taking picture of Terry Richardson sitting next to Joe Jonas."

If you've never seen a Jeremy Scott show, imagine the world's best rave...which of course would take place in Tokyo. Add some nostalgic symbolism (The Simpsons, old Apple icons), a whiff of PCP, a soundtrack by Dov Charney's former houseboy Jonny Makeup, and voila! You're basically there. We were lucky enough to go backstage after the show to talk to Mr. Scott, who was being swarmed by fans, interviewers, and 20th Century Fox. And that's when things got really weird.

Sunday afternoon at the Tents is always a scene. The climax is when legendary designer/aristocrat, Diane von Fürstenberg takes the stage. CFDA President-regnant; she is fashion royalty and attracts a fitting crowd:

Olivier Zahm from Purple magazine carried on with Terry Richardson…

"Could we get a word with you, Mr. Richardson?" we asked.

"No!" was the tart response.

All the same faces—no one fresh and inspiring. We're running out of options this Fashion Week. Clothes can't entertain and inform forever!

Ah-ha! Barbara Walters! She would be stupendous. The Observer stealthily began meandering past chic throngs of French editors and buyers. We weren't more than a few steps from our target when—"We're done!" snapped a KCD Gestapo.

Humph, back we dashed to our seat in A-6-1.

"A rendezvous is a meeting with suspense and expectation…" stated Ms. von Fürstenberg and creative-head Yvan Mispelaere. "Glamorous at a moment's notice, she is alive with anticipation," the program read.

The lights dimmed and Brigitte Bardot’s seductive voice purred sweetly. Out sashayed 48 ravishing looks: Parisian elegance worked in rich hues of scarlet, sea foam, lapis and glossy obsidian. Wrap dresses hugged the body with sophistication, but exuded a confident sexiness. There were DvF prints on crepe satin, including puzzle pieces, which had also decorated our invitations.

Was that a scowl from Cathy Horyn? We can't tell when she's pleased or horrified. But we love her and The New York Time’s, Eric Wilson (juste à côté), all the same!

While a few outfits would have been cozy on the dance floor at Studio 54, the majority of looks suggested an elegant femme fatale, who is a tad more timeless.

As applause filled the Tent, von Fürstenberg (guided by Mispelaere) greeted her guests with much aplomb, waving to her subjects and giving double-cheek kisses to her VIP pals...

Oh quelle chance, Lorenzo Martone!

“What are you wearing?” The Observer prodded, “is it vintage?”

“No it’s Marni,” the man about town laughed.

“Very nice! So are you going to Diane’s dinner at Indochine tonight?” (More like: can we be your date?)

“Yes…. I think I am!” Martone dished.

“Do you have a date?” we wanted to know.

“Yes I’m bringing my friend, she’s an artist…”

“What happened to Studio 54? Where is the Studio 54 of today?” we pressed on.

“I actually went to an event last year that recreated studio 54—it was great!”

…and no, we didn’t attend DvF’s intimate feast.

Photos: Patrick McMullan

Don’t mess with Alexander Wang. This message was more than clear. KCD guarded their most sought-after invite with a check-in process worthy of the North Korean border. Street photography happened 20 yards from entry gates. Photo I.D. required.

Once inside Pier 94, we discovered a smoky hall of mirrors. Sure enough, the entire fashion world was present to take in the spectacle. Varsity Voguettes, Carine Roitfeld avec sa fille, Terry Richardson, model Liya Kebede, Paris Vogues’ Emmanuelle Alt, Shala Monroque, Garance Doré, Zoe Kravitz… this could take all year!

A closer look at the program smelled even more of recently-earned success; reaffirming Wang’s domination of Fashion Week (beware Marc Jacobs!): Interview’s Karl Templer styling, Guido Palau on hair; Anja Rubik slated to walk in a black Nappa-backed shearling hoodie and crêpe pant with bonded leather panel... Has Wang gone kinky and street? we wondered.

“Who the hell is that?” we asked Refinery29’s Annie Georgia Greenberg.

“Die Antwoord [Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser]!” She yelled. “… South African… They’re in the new ad campaign.”

“The one in the golden hoodie looks like an alien,” The Observer grimaced.

Frederic Sanchez’s booming soundtrack gave the impression that we were under attack. It’s not just Mr. Wu that has warriors—Wang has a masked army too!

Techno fabrics, fishnet knits, and vinyl placket-embellished outwear were severely structured. Move out of Wang’s way!

The Observer would commit a felony to score a pair of Daga’s ion laminated panel trompe-l'œil pants; or Abby Lee’s peroxide smocked leather tank dress and black Kolfinna boots! Pony up quick! They’ll sell out for sure.

After 31 impressively haunting looks, the program read: “PLEASE STAY SEATED…”

That’s a first.

Another tempest began (cue Sanchez): Alexander Wang then sent out an additional dozen or so looks on a cast of models that had us hurling obscenities in disbelief!

“Was that Giselle? That was Gisele Bündchen!” Screeched Carly Leach, also in section A.

“Are you sure? Well that’s definitely Joan Smalls and Karolína Kurková,” The Observer replied.

Confirmed. The biggest names in modeling were now masked, in stunning Wang urban couture, facing individual mirrors. They collectively unmasked before filing out.

Had a new King of New York fashion been crowned?

Wang bounced through the haze to take an enthusiastic bow, leaving us all to debate. We say yup—“All hail Wang!”

Vice

By contrast, it includes a knowing dig at The New York Times food section ("Like all recipes you get from the Times, it takes at least six hours to marinate and another six hours to cook.") and dishes about drinks with fellow Fox News guest Ann Coulter ("I remember Coulter saying, 'What’s with all your tattoos? Have you not always had a high IQ?' but not much else.").

It also reveals that photographer Terry Richardson's signature sandwich recipe:

"Around noon I had some “Terrys.” It’s a dish created by Terry Richardson that involves slices of tomato, avocado, mayo, and cheese on top of toasted English Muffins (by the way, if your sandwich doesn’t involve bread that’s toasted, I ain’t interested). I like to add some banana peppers and salt and pepper into the mix. After two of these, I had some “Gavins,” which is my own recipe and involves dipping salt and vinegar chips in sour cream."

We all have to grow up sometime.

Illo: Peter Oumanski

“I don’t recognize you,” said a man in a black negligee, black corset, black heels and two stuck-on circles of black mesh, one covering his mouth and another covering his crotch. It was early Sunday evening, Halloween eve, and he was talking to a man in a dress, with pink hair.

Somehow, he managed to nestle a cigarette into the small indentation in the spandex oral wrapping.

“I don’t recognize anyone.”

And how would he? Sprinkled along the charming stretch around 39th and Eighth were androgynous men in rubber-skin lady masks stumbling around on mermaid legs, models with their dainty cheekbones shattered by ballistics, beetle-eyed priests, monks, monarchs, morticians and their corpses, blacks swans, white swans, baseball stars, David Bowie, cops, criminals, African Queens.

But at La Escuelita, a gay bar, heavy on baile funk, which snuggles under the Port Authority’s vagabond-packed bus terminals, perhaps every night is Halloween. It doesn’t have to be the last day of October for a man to become “Jasmine International” and then have Jasmine International become Jennifer Lopez. Those men and women shuttled into town on Greyhounds just a few feet away—they could be men, they could be women. They could come to La Escuelita and be whomever they wanted.

The Observer was not sure whom we wanted to be. We had a red scarf pluming from a ratty tweed jacket, and round spectacles that profoundly limited our ability to see what was happening.

All this reinvention made for an appropriate place for Terry Richardson and V Magazine to host a Tea Dance and Halloween Revue, with models Joan Smalls, Candice Swanepoel, Sui He, Hanaa Ben Abdesslem and Bambi Northwood-Blyth in tow. A costume was required—Mr. Richardson couldn’t be himself, but anyone else at the party could without much trouble. All they needed were the large-framed Moscots.

“It is kind of odd, isn’t it?” the photographer’s girlfriend, Audrey Gelman, said to The Observer as we sidled up to the bar for two vodkas. A female model with brushed-on stubble and Mr. Richardson’s signature glasses had just walked by.

“He’s sort of everywhere.”

“Where’s he now?” we asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But he’s dressed as a Hasidic Jew.”

There was a quick compliment about our glasses, but she didn’t inquire further as to whom we were dressed as. So we slipped them an inch down and could finally see the scene unfolding—mostly a blur of zombie makeup and garish shoes, all of it spinning and reflecting off the mirrors and black glass. There was V editor Stephen Gan as a pharaoh. There was PS1 director Klaus Biesenbach smothered in silver glitter. “I went to Ricky’s and I said, ‘Hi, do you have any of these street performers’ outfits?’” he told The Observer, referring to the tin men who mime on the street for money. “And they didn’t have it in the Halloween costumes—they had it in the regular costumes.”

Ms. Northwood-Blyth, whose visage pranced around the room on multiple TV screens, stood near the stage in a long and lacy white wedding dress.

“It started out as a twisted bride and ended up Madonna—‘Like a Virgin’ Madonna,” she said. “What are you?”

We shrugged and adjusted our glasses.

“Oh, well, how about”—she grabbed our notebook and pen, scribbled a circle and little rectangle on the back cover, and held it like a camera—“you can be Bill Cunningham, and take a picture of me!”

We took the notebook to our face, she curtsied, and the fake shutter of the fake camera made a fake pop.

One person not in costume was Lady Bunny, though she did a pretty good impression of herself. We asked if Lady Bunny had a favorite costume, and then a woman dressed as Lady Bunny walked up to us.

“I’m her favorite costume!” the woman said.

Ms. Bunny ignored her and sized up the room.

“I host nights here at La Escuelita,” she said to The Observer. “Usually it’s reggaeton at 2 in the morning, with 18-year-old Latino and black kids. This is a little more fashion-y.”

“I want to get my picture with you!” the woman in a Lady Bunny costume yelled.

“And a little more white,” Lady Bunny said.

The bouffant-bearing-one’s main responsibility for the night was hosting the Halloween Revue, which showcased La Escuelita’s top-shelf lineup of drag queens pretending to be their idols. The Observer took a position by the edge of the stage, next to men in bondage gear with wads of ones in their palms, ready to slip the bills into the G-strings on display. (“They all have crack habits to support,” Ms. Bunny reminded the audience.)

“Is that a man, or a woman?” wondered a giant rabbit suit beside us.

We slipped down our glasses and stared at the silky rendition of J.Lo’s “On the Floor” that was exploding right in front of us.

“They’re all men,” we said.

With that, the performer’s robe came off and only pasties covered the naughty spots.

“My god,” said the rabbit suit, who would identify himself only as a British tourist. He was pointing and booing.

“It’s a man!” he yelled. “It’s a man! Get off! Get off! This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

But he stayed until the end, when Ms. Bunny closed the revue with some not-too-classy Amy Winehouse jokes. With the main event over, The Observer went upstairs and out into the world on the streets near Port Authority—everyone oblivious to the rampant performance below—where we ran into a friend sporting red lipstick and bunny ears.

“Who are you supposed to be?” she asked.

“Well,” we said, taking off the glasses. “Whoever you want me to be.”

nfreeman@observer.com

Although it was officially a surprise party, Mr. Lipps was not caught unawares when he came to the club last night. Nur Kahn, the owner of Kenmare, took to Twitter yesterday afternoon exclaiming the party could no longer be kept under wraps.  “Cant keep One model management honcho @Scottlipps birthday at @KenmareNYC a secret anymore...happy birthday bro!!.” A surprise birthday for Mr. Lipps was also held at Kenmare last year.  Mr. Lipps’ agency has represented some of the largest names in the industry, including Bar Refaeli, Claudia Schiffer and Iman