Kuhne in December.Photo: Patrick McMullan
“Page Six” reported yesterday that designer Kai Kuhne had been ejected from the Soho club Sway, and the news came as no surprise to night owls who’ve seen the beleaguered designer boozing it up all over town lately. At a Fashion Week blowout at the Anchor, Kuhne was thrown out for ripping the bathroom door off a stall, startling a nearby Olsen twin. Indeed, Fashion Week was generally a mess for Kuhne, most notably at his own show, at Gramercy Park’s National Arts Club. People’s Revolution was set to produce the show, but they either dropped Kuhne or were fired by him, depending on whom you ask. It went on anyway — but not so smoothly.
Slated to start at 3 p.m., the Kuhne circus actually began shortly after four, twenty minutes after a seemingly random guy announced, “The show will be starting.” With no organizers on hand, fashionistas and vagrants alike sat where they pleased, with curious passersby sporadically straying onto the “catwalk” only to be shooed away by mortified onlookers. The soundtrack seemed to come from a muffled boom box in the corner, and confused models’ only direction through the underlit four-room spread of intersecting walkways came from the photographers calling “Stop!” and “Over here!” On top of that, the late start allowed news to circulate that Anna Nicole Smith had just died, thus upstaging his disastrous show. So perhaps the Sway suspension wasn’t such a bad thing: At least it got him some press.
The Crack-Up — and Future — of Downtown’s Kookiest Fashion Collective [NYM]
