Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1521218
Letter from the Editor Illustration Russel Gandy G uess what — you are that friend that I'm talking to at the end of an evening. An evening that was two parties (thankfully not three, which has been par for the course this spring). You're the confidante that I call after I've loosened my tie (Thom Browne) and taken off my brogues (yes, also Thom Browne) to have a virtual drink and a dish session about what we've seen and heard. I share with you that I just got a text from one of my besties that her husband is out with Simon Le Bon and John Taylor!?!?! [Hopefully you know Duran Duran, but more than likely if you read PaperCity, you do.] Yes, they were in town for a concert at WinStar Casino. But somehow I can't rally enough to go "bump into" them at Georgie — even though another friend (Brian Bolke, if you must know) texted: "Just order some takeout and when you see them, say you were hungry like the wolf and act completely nonchalant." In case you're wondering, the two events that closed my season's frenetic schedule were a Wimbledon-themed cocktail party on the roof of Hôtel Swexan for British bespoke Clements & Church (which had me drooling over a field jacket suit that's being done next season in navy) and a fundraiser for an in-production LGBTQ+ documentary. Alas, no wind was left in my sails for a casual encounter with the boys who sang of Rio. The finish line has finally been crossed for one of the most boisterous and bodacious spring social seasons since … I don't know, perhaps the heady 1990s in Dallas. That's an era I have heard about time and time again. In fact, Robin Wilkes (co-creative director at Forty Five Ten) and I had lunch recently, and she had found some vintage pics of the early 1990s. I was intrigued to see shots of Jan Showers and Shelle Sills looking as glamorous then as they do now. How I wish I had lived here then. As I prepare to close my laptop, I'll leave you with this. My parlor-game question of late has been "What was your drink of choice in college?" It's elicited some fabulous replies that have been so enlightening, and you'll read some of the answers in my coverage of The Conservatory's fifth-anniversary dinner party at Marguerite Hoffman's home. Yes, youthful libations seem to be the common denominator. On that note, I feel like it's last call for this season of cocktail-fueled parties. If you've read my missives of late, you know that I've haven't been trapped in my usual 1980s time loop, but rather reliving the 1990s (wink-wink Sex and the City). One of the cool girls of that decade was Janeane Garofalo. I like to call her the Dorothy Parker of the grunge moment — her street cred being the decade-defining films Reality Bites and Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. In an utterly brilliant 1995 stand-up set I found on YouTube, she ponders last call and poignantly remarks: "And I become like a bartender at 2 am, and it's like, 'Okay, people let's move it out … you don't have to go home, but you can't say here … out … out …'" In that vein, I now channel a jaded barkeep at 8.0 in The Quadrangle (if you were part of the scene in Dallas in that era, you know it — or at least that's what Robin Wilkes, Ann Hobson, Jennifer Karol, and Julie Butler tell me) and say, "Time to head out." Meaning see you upon your return in early September from Martha's Vineyard … Aspen … East Hampton … Jackson Hole … XO Billy Fong Dallas & Fort Worth Editor billy@papercitymag.com 12