In the last year of the dragon, designer Sandy Liang was 20 years old. At the time, when the Parsons junior wasn’t working on her thesis, she was hanging out at the top of The Standard High Line with her friends. Twelve years later, she and co-host chef Danny Bowien crafted a similar scene at last night’s Lunar New Year celebration at the Boom.
Last year, Liang and Bowien hosted the festivities at her father’s restaurant Congee Dim Sum House. Revelers will remember a rowdy crowd and a now infamous trash fire outside on the Bowery. “It was so packed. And it was just not the right venue,” Liang told Vogue. “But it was right and perfect in all the necessary ways. Oh my god, it was rowdy, and I feel like this year it’s cute. But it’s also funny because I’m always like ‘nostalgia, nostalgia’ and this is where I used to hang out.”
DJ and friend of Sandy’s Parker Radcliffe was spinning tunes plucked from a playlist inspired by that era (and probably once stored on a late model pink iPod Nano). Anyone who takes Parker’s beloved SoulCycle class knows last night’s setlist was hardly different from what he plays for his loyal downtown riders every Saturday morning–think everything from Interpol, Peaches, and The Killers to Slayyter, Ice Spice, and Troye Sivan. Something for everyone!
Across the room was a sea of signature Sandy Liang silk bows—as bags, in hair, on dresses, on shoes. Is the bow trend here forever? “I don’t know,” said Liang. “I feel like it just depends on how I feel. It ebbs and flows and I use it in different ways. I feel like the heart and the star and the moon and the bow and the flower are like the childhood icons that you grew up drawing and they never go away.”
Customary for Lunar New Year festivities, most guests chose to bear a dash of red—a symbol of good fortune in the year ahead. Red and pink lanterns transformed the nightlife institution, which was recognized for its gold tones and New York nightlife heyday vibes. At the core of it all was a dragon egg flower installation/shrine by Miguel Paolo Yatco.
Friends of Sandy and Danny in attendance include Chloe Wise, Aliyah Interlude, Bella Banos, Kelsey Soles, Clara Perlmutter, Pierce Abernathy, Gabrielle Richardson, Ashley Rous, aka BestDressed, The Young Emperors, and Sara Hiromi.