Patti Smith, whose friendship with the Jimmy Choo company was forged over a pair of beaten-up biker boots—more on that in a minute—was on hand to help make the luxury label’s first NYFW event in many years even more memorable. On Thursday evening, creative director Sandra Choi and newly-minted face of the brand Chloë Sevigny took over Jean’s on Lafayette Street to host an elegant dinner and late-night after-party to toast to her spring-summer campaign.
Sevigny, being the arbiter of cool that she is, rolled in the big guns to celebrate with her. Ahead of dinner, Martha Stewart arrived in a flurry of flashbulbs, leopard print, and gold. Lisa Rinna had landed in fresh from walking the Jane Wade runway. Amanda Lepore and Cole Escola were seated at a banquette and swapping beauty notes as Evan Ross Katz and Alexander Fury snapped pictures of the duo. Actors Britt Lower and Daryl McCormack (stars of the hit Apple TV shows Severance and Bad Sisters, respectively) caught up in a corner. And at the bar, actress and model Dree Hemingway was reunited with a photographer, Steven Sebring, who’d shot her first-ever fashion campaign over 20 years ago.
Once sat at the candle-lit, lily-laden dining tables and tucking into seafood towers, attention was suddenly drawn to a keyboard at the top of the room. In a surprise addition to the evening, Patti Smith had agreed to perform for the crowd. Despite choosing to sing her 1979 track Dancing Barefoot, Smith was fast to point out her motorcycle boots and speak to their origin story.
Like all New Yorkers, Smith is not immune to the temptations of the legendary Bergdorf Goodman end-of-season sale. “I found these boots, and the buckle was a little messed up but they were so cool so I got ‘em.” After wearing them on stage in London many, many years ago, a picture of Smith in her shoes ran in the newspaper and caught the eye of the Jimmy Choo team. “I got a call at my hotel from Jimmy Choo—not Jimmy Choo himself,” she said as the crowd laughed. “They congratulated me but said, your boots look a bit worn.” Not thinking much of it, Smith was floored when a big white box arrived later with replacement boots. Ever since, each time she has a show in London, the team will make sure she’s greeted with another pair to add to her collection. “I’ve never taken it for granted,” Smith said.
Although feeling slightly under the weather, she performed two songs accompanied by her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith. “I’m not at my absolute strongest, but I’m strong enough to be here. As a performer, I know there’s nothing more healing than the benevolent energy of the people who are listening to you.” Fittingly, she sang a song called Grateful to a room full of people who watched her in real time and not through the lenses of their cell phones.
After a full feed of dry-aged burgers, spaghetti pomodoro, Long Island sea bass, and the eatery’s famous giant chocolate chip cookie dessert, most people headed off into the night in their Choos. Although there was also the option to put the stilettos through their paces downstairs on the dancefloor, where a thumping after party DJd by The Dare awaited.
