NEW LOOK IN CLUBLAND
SAVE THE DATE. Among the many new looks that Fashion Week will bring is the reinvention of the Chelsea nightclub space that famously housed celebrity hotspot Suede in the early 2000s. We’ve learned exclusively that the new 200-person spot, which opens Thursday, will be called Jasper’s Regret, in honor of the artist Jasper Johns, who once lived at the Hotel Chelsea across W. 23rd St. We’re told that one of the venue’s first big acts will be producer and pianist Zaytoven, who will do a rare live performance on Friday. Rapper Cam’ron (inset) is booked to perform. The electrorock band TV Baby is also slated to do a concert there next week. The boite’s owners are trying to decide between doing “a weekly gay party or a hip-hop night on Sundays,” but assure us it will be one of the two. They’re also working with Fun City Tattoo on St. Marks Place to host events for the ink-stained crowd. Nick Bodor is one of the club’s proprietors. His Lower East Side club Cake Shop introduced bands — including Vampire Weekend and the Dirty Projectors — before ending its 11-year run on New Year’s Day 2017. Bodor’s partner is author Ray LeMoine, who created the “Yankees Suck” T-shirts that are ubiquitous in Boston.
It’s no coincidence the bilevel space will open in time for New York Fashion Week. While it’s steering clear of corporate sponsorships for now, Jasper’s Regret is quietly booking after-parties for designers and their model cadres.
The 23rd St. address is well-known to the A-list crowd. In Suede’s heyday,
Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Timberlake were regulars. After Suede closed, its owner Eytan
Sugarman opened a Midtown restaurant called “Hunt & Fish” with a partnership group that included short-lived Trump flack Anthony (The Mooch) Scaramucci.
Bodor and LeMoine had been shopping for a venue space in the East Village over the past couple of months before the Chelsea space became available.