BY ALEXANDER HANKIN, AVENUE Editor at Large
Some jaded fashionistas whine that New York Fashion Week is tired, even, dare we say it, “over.” Not so. To show his Fall/Winter 2025 collection, Bach Mai has transformed Maison Close in SoHo into a Parisian Café Society salon. I arrive in a leather Saint Laurent bomber, a nod to Bach’s signature look. At my table are a flock of social birds: Lizzie Asher, Anita Saggurti, Alice Berman, Casey Kohlberg, Lauren Levison and Elizabeth Kurpis, all in full Bach Mai looks.
“The OG queen of New York nightlife, Dianne Brill, looking like Jessica Rabbit on Valentine’s Day in a lipstick red gown and cowboy boots, hollers and claps her approval.”
Boom! The lights turn a sexy, deep lipstick red. Karina Precious, a feathered fan in each hand, emerges like a 1950s snow-white peacock in a Moulin Rouge-esque bodice studded with hanging red stones. Madame Precious’ undergarments soon peel off. The crowd cheers and Precious shimmies and vibrates faster. The OG queen of New York nightlife, Dianne Brill, looking like Jessica Rabbit on Valentine’s Day in a lipstick red gown and cowboy boots, hollers and claps her approval. Nearby, my friends Daniel Walters and Jack James Busa a.k.a. The Muses, New York’s reigning musical DJ maestros, sit totally wide-eyed.
Dinner is served. Clutches of runway models sashay into the room like swanky Parisian socialites. I nibble tuna tartar in the shape of a heart and a model in a shimmering beaded black breast plate slinks over to my table then stops to pose for a phalanx of photographers. Influencer Caroline Vazzana, who’s been called a “modern day Carrie Bradshaw” due to her popular blog Making it in Manhattan, wears an iridescent green two-piece evening suit that looks fish scales with cat-eye specs. I can’t tell if Caroline is modeling or just a guest at Bach’s soirée.
The designer, the son of Vietnamese immigrants from Houston, Texas, is draped in a long coat patterned with wispy branches and white birds in flight. “Is it a fashion experiment?” Bach says to me as the fashion historian and Vogue editor Lilah Ramzi, in a fitted black Bach Mai evening jacket over a lacy blouse traipses by. “Is it a fashion presentation? Is it a brand dinner?” he wonders, shifting a lock of foam-green hair off his forehead. “All I know is I want to welcome people into my world and for everyone to have a good time!”
