Inside W Magazine and Bloomingdale’s Star-Studded New York Fashion Week Party at Eleven Madison Park

Most fashion week parties require a few rounds of drinks before anyone starts dancing. At W Magazine & Bloomingdale’s New York Fashion Week party on Thursday, September 11, dancing started almost immediately thanks to Tory Burch, who arrived early and went straight to the dance floor as DJ Ross One played Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls.” The event, hosted by W Editor in Chief Sara Moonves and Bloomingdale’s CEO Olivier Bron at Eleven Madison Park, jump-started fashion month. Guests, from Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen to Dwyane Wade and his wife, Gabrielle Union, chatted and swayed beneath bouquets of disco balls. Meanwhile, the legendary model Pat Cleveland asked to take a photo with Tessa Thompson.

“I wish Zora was on the dance floor,” said the actor Chase Sui Wonders, referring to W’s Editor at Large Lynn Hirschberg’s dog, who accompanies her to photoshoots. Zora wasn’t there, but the collection of actors who came—among them, Molly Gordon, Kaitlyn Dever, Olivia Wilde, and Imogen Poots—made beelines to greet Hirschberg.

Under the direction of Eleven Madison Park’s chef Daniel Humm, the party’s food wasn’t regular finger fare. The Michelin-starred restaurant has been vegan for four years but just announced it would bring back meat later this fall. Guests enjoyed the last hurrah of Humm’s animal-free dishes: tomato tartar on dainty crackers, tempura mushrooms, and sake pickles served on small spoons.

Around 9:30, Mark Ronson—whose half-sister Annabelle Dexter-Jones recently married Humm—took to the DJ booth wearing thigh-high Yves Saint Laurent boots. Guests received copies of his new memoir, Night People, a chronicle of 1990s New York nightlife, along with copies of W’s Fall Fashion Issue, which includes a feature about Ronson’s Life in Parties.

The fashion establishment turned out. There were designers, like Emily Bode, Joseph Altuzarra, Wes Gordon, Alexander McQueen’s Sean McGirr (who chatted about his upcoming runway show with the model of the moment, Betsy Gaghan), Christopher John Rogers, Sergio Hudson, and Rachel Antonoff. And, of course, models: Emily Ratajkowski, Paloma Elsesser, Lila Grace Moss, Meadow Walker, Lulu Tenney, and Grace Burns. Photographers and frequent W contributors—Ethan James Green, Quil Lemons, Tyler Mitchell, Pamela Hanson, Inez and Vinoodh, and Juergen Teller, along with his partner, Dovile Drizyte—gabbed with industry stalwarts, including Grace Coddington, Guido Palau, Phyllis Posnick, and Sally Singer.

New York’s social establishment, from both uptown and downtown, parked themselves in booths. Where else can you see Michael Musto, Lady Fagg, and Amanda Lepore—wearing nothing but bright blue latex and bedazzled nipple covers—eat pickles next to Lauren Santo Domingo, Derek Blasberg, and most of the Wasserstein clan?

“I can’t believe they let me in here!” said the actor Owen Thiele as he took a sip of a martini. “I feel at home.”

“Glamour is back!” said Michael Grynbaum—a media correspondent for The New York Times and author of Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty that Reshaped America. Condé’s new guard showed up: Mark Guiducci, the newly appointed Global Editorial Director of Vanity Fair, and Chloe Malle, Vogue‘s new Head of Editorial Content.

Towards the end of the evening, Ronson, who turned 50 last week, was presented with a large sheet cake by his mother, Ann Dexter-Jones. The entire room sang happy birthday. “Leave it to Sara to win New York Fashion Week,” said Nick Brown, the co-founder of Imaginary Ventures.