Sandra Bernhard presumably warning Diane Von
Furstenberg about the pool.Photo: Patrick McMullan
Diane Von Furstenberg’s literally shiny new flagship store in the meatpacking district may have mirrored ceilings and a staircase lined with Swarovski crystals, but it was a hard-to-spot pool, decorative and flush with the floor, along the back wall of the lobby, that garnered the most attention at last night’s opening party. By night’s end, that little body of water had claimed ten very embarrassed victims, including this reporter, and one very drenched laptop.
We first heard of the pool while standing in the bathroom line. The woman ahead of us warned us she’d be a while. “I just stepped in the pool,” she said, showing off a wet pant leg. We offered our sympathies — “Your poor shoes!” — but had no idea what she was talking about. We should have paid more attention. Moments later, we were circling the room when we spotted someone we had to talk to. We cleverly maneuvered left to avoid the crowd, our eyes on our friend. There was no one in our way! We were sailing! And then we were plunging.
It’s hard to say what’s more embarrassing about walking right into a pool of water amid a slew of fashionistas including Anna Wintour and Ellen Barkin: getting wet or wearing shoes so cheap it doesn’t matter if they get wet. All we know is that everyone in the room suddenly got a foot taller and was staring at us.
Luckily, the person we’d been trying to reach was the store’s PR rep and she kindly took us downstairs to dry off on a gorgeous orange and white patterned beach towel. “We don’t mess around at DVF,” she said.
Men with mops, obviously already on high alert, had arrived on the scene seconds after we exited the pool, and when we came back upstairs, they were there again, tending to a much larger puddle, one that required squeegees to clean up. This time, the victim was a man who’d gone over to the wall to look at the art and fell in. “It was so sad,” a witness told us. “He stood up and he was wet up to his chest. Then he opened his bag and pulled out his laptop, and it was just dripping.”
“Oh, we’ll fix that,” DVF herself said when we told her our tale. “We debated about putting a little rail there and we weren’t sure, but we’ll deal with it.” By then, a security guard had been posted by the pool; he touched our back every few seconds to guide us away from the edge. On his way out, Project Runway alum Daniel Vosovic told us he’d nearly fallen, too. “But then Sandra Bernhard stopped me,” he said, “and she was like, ‘Watch out. That’s water.’ It was so weird. ‘Thank you, Sandra Bernhard!’” But Bernhard couldn’t take care of everyone. As the bar was shutting down, we saw the men with mops on the scene once again. “This is ten,” one guy said. Then he went back to mopping. —Jada Yuan
