Throughout the year The Standard hotel acts as one of New York's beating social counterpoints. During fashion week, AnOther caught up with doorman Ian Bradley to get the insider secrets...
Throughout the year, The Standard hotel acts as one of New York's beating social counterpoints. Its towering rooms command stark attention along the west side skyline as well as within the creative community for its role as a venue for many fashion and art industry events. Fashion week is no exception and The Standard's presence is in fact amplified, particularly focused on the small side door entrance leading up to its clubs Le Bain and the Boom Boom Room. The clubs play host to several fashion week events including the Purple Magazine party, which comes with a guest list the size of a novel and an ever radiating network of stars that all beam straight down to the door for a night of decadent fun.
Ian Bradley, guardian of the gates to the Le Bain underworld has been hosting door for the past six years while finishing school at FIT and also working as a stylist. Fashion week can be a particularly brutal time at the door, with the influx of foreign press and celebrities not regularly attuned to the eyes of the listkeepers. "We get here early and we discuss strategy for the night. There's a team of us so we'll have people that just stick to lists and then we'll have somebody go around and spot people like celebrities and our VIPs. Most of the time, especially during fashion week, I know most of the names from the list because some of them are my peers and a lot of them I look up too."
This means dealing with a line of expectant extras that linger around Le Bain's door until 3 a.m. fighting to get in. It's not a particularly unfamiliar scene for a hotel club, but fashion week can be grating for even the most seasoned of door hosts. "We're busy a lot, and we do a lot of events each week but it's the consistency of four days in a row of lines and aggressiveness and self entitlement that's challenging. I've got a good sense of reading people and I feel like I know when somebody's bullshitting. Good manners go a long way, and if somebody's polite in an interaction you'll have a much easier time getting in. If you come difficult and are being really unpleasant towards me, I will make it longer and more difficult even if you are supposed to be in here."
"Good manners go a long way, and if somebody's polite in an interaction you'll have a much easier time getting in"
The Standard will also supplement the PR list with a select group of their own, in order to make sure its fashionable and influential guests in high places aren't subjected to the screaming pit at the door. "If they come we send them up right away, especially because a lot of them are friends of Andre [Balazs]'s and he wants them to have the best stay possible. Those, again, are always the most polite people; they are the ones that will go to the end of the line and you'll say 'no no, come right this way, you don't have to wait.' They are the most gracious people that come to the parties." The complexities of curating a party lie outside the lists, when the hopefuls are clamoring for their golden ticket of recognition or acceptance to the glories beyond the door. When asked if many people get in without being on the list, Ian replies that there are few exceptions to the rules that are beyond his control, though fashion week provides some opportunities for label based leniency. "Sometimes if you're wearing a sick pair of Alaïa booties I might let it slide. I'm also a sucker for anything Miu Miu so that can maybe sway me sometimes."
Click here to contact The Standard Hotel, New York.
Text by Paul Wagenblast
