Happy Land

Jeremy Scott‘s designs are many things, but subtle is not one of them. The quirky fashion designer created the interior of the strangely named club Happy Valley on East 27th Street, and the decor practically screams,

“I was designed by a super-fabulous, downtown, ultra-gay fashionista!” Or it could be screaming, “Gay! I’m really fucking gay! Gay! Gay! Gay!” I dunno, I couldn’t tell, I’m deaf.

Having missed the pre-preview during Fashion Week, I finally got a gander at it on Wednesday for the official preview party, along with Heatherette’s gorgeous publicist Amy Phillips and Paper‘s Mickey Boardman.

For most people, going to a club is ultimately about getting laid, so Scott decided to hammer that home with a mural behind the bar that depicts a woman’s legs in thigh-high stockings and high heels, spread-eagled. From any angle, anyone getting a drink appears to have his head in a woman’s crotch. Nice one! And since we are all stars—or wanna be stars—what better way to make everyone feel famous than to have the walls plastered with big gold stars? I couldn’t decide which design I liked best: the Saturday Night Fever lighted disco floor serving as the entrance to the bathrooms, the toilet seats and sinks adorned with disco ball mirrors, or the DJ booth—a gargantuan floating disco ball in the sky. The only thing that would have made the DJ booth more perfect would be if it rotated—which wouldn’t be very fun for the DJ stuck inside, but would be fantastic for the rest of us.

Said DJ stuck inside on that particular night was Tommie Sunshine, this month’s DJ Times cover boy and next month’s Urb magazine cover boy (along with A-Trak and Kaskade), who displayed that long-lost skill—beat-matching electronic dance music. His GF, Kat, who I like just for her name alone, is one of the event planners for the spot, along with Poull, who has never succeeded in getting me to come to one of his celeb-filled upscale parties at swanky venues like Marquee, until now. Later he showed me the basement, still under construction, which will serve as the scuzzy counterpoint to the fancier upstairs. (Poull quipped: “We’re not gonna finish it. We’re going for the ‘deconstructed look.’ ” I warned him that there are New Yorkers stupid enough to believe him and who think that’d be brilliant. Thankfully, he was joking.

Upstairs I ran into my old pal from Seattle Andy Salzer, of a local menswear label, Yoko Devereaux. I greeted him as per usual: “When are you gonna make me some pants!” Salzer wisely ignored me and instead filled me in on his busy schedule. He just dressed all the boys in the brazilian girls for aGQ-sponsored event at Saks. He’s designing the uniforms for Seattle’s Ace Hotel, and is in negotiations to create the staff uniforms for a certain New York hotel chain. After he finished telling that story, I had only one last question: “When are you gonna make me some pants!”

I can only hope that whatever pants he makes me aren’t of the short, hot variety the poor barbacks were made to wear, along with knee-high socks and sweatbands. One employee looked so irritated to be in this outfit that I couldn’t stop giggling whenever I passed him. Unfortunately for us, the lovely DJ (and one of the club’s promoters) Christine Renee was not made to wear the hot pants; she already had the problem of fending off elderly gentlemen who kept trying to get me to take their pictures with her, even going so far as to wave bills in my face. Try taking it up with the “lady” behind the bar, buddy. Her legs are already open.

Overheard last Saturday at Scenic for the smashing relaunch of Theoand Michael T‘s “Rated X: The Panty Party”—Tha Pumpsta a/k/a Jeremy Parker of Kill Whitie! notoriety: “I can’t get booked in this town! Everyone thinks I’m a white supremacist!”