Daily Front Row

2012 February 8

Sandro's Bleecker Street and Le Baron Double-Hitter!

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Rose Byrne and Dree Hemingway
Patrick McMullan View Gallery

(NEW YORK) The Sandro invasion of NYC has officially begun, thanks to last night's store shindig on Bleecker, followed by a swank soiree at the (finally open) Le Baron. First, the Parisian goods got their fair share of fondling and window shopping, champagne in hand.  "I started first with Sandro," explained a beautiful and bang-ed Rose Byrne of her LTR (that's long term relationship, obvi) with the sister brands. "I bought my first pair of leather shorts at Sandro, and I still wear them!" A saucy staple indeed. P.S. The brand's designer and founder Evelyne Chetrite sported the chicest of white blazers (avec beau Ilan Chetrite). A Sandro topper, we hope/wonder?

"It’s tricky to design things you want to wear, and that other people will want to wear, too," explained the eve's co-host, Dree Hemingway, of her design process on a special capsule collection for the label. "It's not as easy as I thought it would be." As for culling inspiration from her younger years in Idaho, the lithe, wry blonde looked to the flora and the fauna in lieu of the fashion flock (because, err, the great state was devoid of the latter, Hemingway said with a smile). 

We're not in Idaho any more, cheri! Well, actually, no one really knew where they were upon arriving at Le Baron. How does one find the red-walled, smoke-licked, kinda-sultry den that soft opened this month, and will undoubtedly be fielding party crashers and aggressive NYFW soiree-hoppers galore all week? Via a gratis bus from the West Village store for those with lucky and/or savvy timing; by foot for the intrepid and stubborn pedestrians, eager (slash curiously weary?) to explore new depths of Mulberry Street; or by cab for the adept at direction-giving. 

The band broke out with some raucous, tuba-peppered, migrating band action when the clock struck 12, which was just about the time that Penn Badgley and Zoe Kravitz wandered in to join the pre-NYFW hearty partiers like Waris Ahluwalia, Brad Goreski, Gilles Bensimon, Mickey Boardman, and Annabelle Dexter-Jones (beau of Le Baron baron, Andre Saraiva). Besides the jams, there were petite merguez sausages, tiny crepes, platters of macarons, and other French nibbles befitting the ambiance. But the fizzy, potent, citrus-addled Sandro limonades kind of rendered the sustenance useless. How many Sandro-themed sips does it take to have a hangover before NYFW? Nobody likes to Le Baron and tell...
ALEXANDRA ILYASHOV