Virus reveals fragility of the kiss-kiss party set
Social climbing from the tub. It’s harder than it looks. With the city’s entire party circuit having been grounded for months now — socialite down! — it did not exactly jar me to see women I’m more used to seeing at shindigs posting pics of themselves on social media the other day for something dubbed #TheBathtubChallenge. Dolled up in gala-going garb. Flutes of bubbly in their paws. Feet firmly in basin.
And while, yes, these suspects like Sheila Centner and Tamara Bahry were moved to turn to Instagram to ostensibly help promote the Fitzroy, “Canada’s dream dress rental and styling service” (which, like so many businesses, is in brand-maintenance mode), it reminded me of how precarious the whole society set is today. Note: an elaborate social ecosystem on ice, be it the breadth of charities, and institutions, which depend on the age-old rite of people wanting to dress up and be photographed, at their events, or the sheer wave of caterers, hairdressers, clothespushers, PR-types and varied beauty magicians who depend on their ripple-effects.
If the peacocks cannot go outside … what happens?
With the town square having moved, in large part, to IG (which was happening anyways, but now instead of the online blurring into the offline, there is only online), the jockeying has manifested in several ways. For example: the merger of business and philanthropy, as typified by a new digital initiative by Jimmy Choo, in partnership with sisters-in-law Jessica and Vanessa Mulroney, plus Jane Hanrahan: 20 per cent of all sales going to an effort by the Shoebox Project to help shelters here in the fight against domestic violence during the pandemic.
Likewise, heiress Alexandra Weston, who announced on her feed that she was making possible 15,500 masks for those in need. This, via the alteration teams at Holt Renfrew and in conjunction with local clothing brand Kotn.
Another stab at the new socializing normal? The route that the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery took this week with what is their annual madcap event, the Power Ball, usually drawing an amalgam of hipsters, debutantes, old biddies and banker bros down near the water, in Toronto, for over two decades. This year it went virtual, with a digi-party called Power Up, donors at the Patron Level receiving a boxed dinner from Eataly, complete with wine pairing by Dandurand. At 7 p.m. it’s time for welcome remarks from gallery director Gaëtane Verna. Later, a range of artist show-and-tells. Après, après is “Club Quarantine,” open to all, and described as an interactive virtual queer nightclub, co-founded by four friends, that has become a thing of late.
Where do things stand on the wider social sked, though? Think the title of a certain George Clooney film. With any number of must-attends a no-go recently — everything from the Butterfly Ball to Polo for Heart to Operanation — up in the air, for certain, is the Biblio Bash, an in-vogue gala held each spring in the crevice of the Raymond Moriyama designed Toronto Reference Library on Yonge — one that’s been the place to be seen for fashion plates, power couples and literary flight-takers. After the event was cancelled, a notice was sent out that it was being postponed — to fall 2020. Supposedly, November. But will it? I am not rushing to air out my tux anytime soon.
For some, however, the society blackout has amounted to a nice breather. I confess to putting myself in that category. I like parties just fine, manage to execute myself well at them, have made a career being social and have even been known to be the last person on the dance floor. But, bottom line, it is not my oxygen. Be there, not be there: I am good either way.
Self-content.
Social scribe Bob Morris, writing in Town & Country, hit on some corresponding themes when he mused on the social disruption these days in Manhattan, describing how, in addition, to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) as well as its cousin JOMO (Joy of Missing Out), there is a pandemicadjacent JOSOMO (Joy of Seeing Others Missing Out). Not invited to the party? Well, not to worry. There is no party.
One expert party-hopper told Morris that she was OK sans the red-carpet conveyor belt, a.k.a. the “step and repeat,” a.k.a. the Groundhog Day-like glamster wheel. “I get tired of the posing …” she vexed. “I don’t think anyone has fun at these things unless you get a really good seat.”
Morris, who has had his share of experiences as a seat-filler, continued: “Is there anything worse than being placed next to someone who doesn’t understand the basic social imperative of ‘turning the table’ to talk to you even when they have a friend on their other side? What about pulling a conversation out of someone unable to put down their phone?”
What will parties and galas look like once the dust settles, though? That looms as much as the question of when. People double-kissing each other at benefits? That, for one, is a world hard to imagine returning to.
In the meantime, masked socialites are resting not only on their laurels, but also their bunions.
As one seasoned lady-aboutToronto mentioned to me last week, her feet are not hurting for the first time in YEARS. Not going anywhere has had its benefits.