The fabulist and convicted felon co-hosted a rooftop party at her East Village apartment Monday, September 12, 2023, at 12:15 p.m. EDT. Anna Delvey, under house arrest, hosts a Fashion Week party at her apartment building on Monday. (Calla Kessler)
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NEW YORK — If you can’t go to Fashion Week — because, say, you’re being surveilled by an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and unable to leave your East Village apartment building — you bring Fashion Week to you. Which is how about 100 guests found themselves at Anna Delvey’s apartment on Monday night for a fashion show for the designer Shao Yang, co-hosted with Kelly Cutrone, the reality TV star, fashion show publicist, and producer.
Yes, the Anna Delvey: real name Anna Sorokin, convicted of larceny for defrauding friends and financial institutions when she famously posed as a fake heiress. After she served two years in prison, Delvey was released into home confinement under the condition that she wear the ankle bracelet and not use social media while awaiting a decision in a pending immigration case for overstaying her visa.
And, yes, the Kelly Cutrone: the PR maven whose name is instantly recognizable to elder millennials who watched “The Hills” on MTV in the aughts. She was the no-nonsense boss of Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port before getting her own spinoff show; she also judged “America’s Next Top Model.”
Together, for one night only, Delvey and Cutrone decided to form the OutLaw Agency. (Hold for applause, groans.)
“We’re two very controversial people,” Cutrone said in an interview the week before the show. They knew that if they partnered, they could get attention. And if they got attention, they could elevate the profile of Shao Yang, a Taiwanese-born, Brooklyn-raised designer whom Cutrone represents.
To say the gambit worked might be an understatement. There were so many photographers, so many reporters. More press than guests, really. People magazine, CNN, the “Today” Show, the New York Post. A downpour did not stop them, though it did delay the show, which was planned for the roof of Delvey’s building. People waited out the rain in the pizza shop next door to Delvey’s place and spilled onto the sidewalk when it reached capacity. An ice cream truck promoting DeuxMoi, an Instagram gossip account, parked outside and handed out treats.
As the rain let up, a massive party bus parked in front of Delvey’s building. Cutrone and a bevy of models streamed out onto the already-clogged sidewalk, each model mugging for the photographers in Yang’s genderless tailored suiting as they descended the stairs. One model carried a tiny Pomeranian with its fur dyed pink. The dog’s name was Pritney – “Like Britney, with a P,” her owner shouted over the din.
What was the bus like? “A lot of champagne and dancing,” another model offered.
Security carried Yang, the last to emerge from the bus, over a massive puddle. A pedestrian carrying a large pack of paper towels tried in vain to make his way through the impromptu fashion show that had materialized on his block. Pritney blinked her beady eyes and took in the scene.
It was time to go up to Delvey’s roof. A five-story walk-up in five-inch heels. Photographers hauling gear huffed their way up the stairs. When they got to the top and opened the door, an automatic warning sounded out in a robotic voice: “Danger zone. Keep Away.”
“There’s some liability issues,” Cutrone acknowledged the week before the show. The roof was small, and quickly filled beyond what any fire marshal would likely consider safe. There was no railing on the roof, so anyone who stood too close to the edge risked making a bigger headline, on First Avenue. Asked in a phone interview beforehand if her landlord had consented to the show, Delvey replied, “No comment.” She added: “We’re not doing anything bad. And I always clean [after] any event I’ve ever done.”
So, yes, it was an OutLaw show. Though her guests were seated, Delvey hadn’t yet made an appearance, so the crowd used the excellent lighting to take selfies. “Anna, you need to get up here right now!” said a woman in a puff dress, seemingly to no one. “We’re all waiting for you.” The minutes ticked by, and guests busied themselves by taking videos of the scene, which was composed of other people taking videos of the scene.
“Could you tell me what collection we’re seeing?” one man asked us. “I’m a pal of Anna’s. She neglected to mention who we’re seeing.”
Yang knew this was going to happen. She was at peace with it. “Anybody who knows me, I like to stay in the back,” she told The Post a few days before the show. “I like to be behind the scenes.” The stories might be mostly about Delvey and Cutrone, but the photos of her beautifully tailored clothes are paired with them, too. The 44-year-old designer is getting more attention for a debut collection than she could have ever dreamed was possible.
One of those outfits was worn by Delvey, who finally emerged onto the roof at 7:45 p.m. in a black suit with jeweled and beaded shoulders. “We are the OutLaw agency,” said Cutrone by way of introduction, while Delvey stood silently beside her, “and we have no respect for the law.”
The models began to emerge from the floor below, walking the narrow path between the aluminum-sided stairwell and a concrete pillar, through a cloud of cigarette smoke. It turned out to be the perfect backdrop for the clothes. Yang, a Parsons graduate, has been doing custom tailoring for years, but this is the first collection she has made under her own name. Each look was equal parts masculine and feminine: elements of corsetry, traditional men’s suiting, streetwear and athleisure, in equal parts. Black and white with pops of highlighter neon yellow.
“Anybody can wear it,” Yang had told us. “You could be a man or a woman, nonbinary, anywhere on the gender spectrum.”
The final look was a banker-striped suit that Delvey had embellished with paint and her drawings. (She made and sold art from prison, with originals commanding as much as $25,000.)
The suit “has a couple elements of what I included in my jail drawings,” Delvey said after the show. “It’s pretty hard to draw on fabric.”
It was Delvey and Cutrone, not Yang, who emerged to applause after the models did their final walk. The duo would spend the next 30 minutes posing for photos and taking questions.
“So happy we pulled this off,” said Delvey.
What was it like working with Cutrone?
“She’s nonstop,” said Delvey.
“A massage,” quipped Cutrone, who noticed a model getting a little too close to the edge of the roof. “Colton, no no no, come over here.”
Cutrone and Delvey posed for another set of photos. The crowd closed in, forcing the duo closer to the ledge.
“What if we both died right now?” Cutrone said, glancing at the five-story drop. “How awesome would that be?”
Delvey is interested in breaking into the fashion business. “I’d love to design something eventually,” she says. “I’m kind of like, figuring everything out, trying to get off house arrest and get my social media back.” A photographer asked her to lift her pant leg and show her ankle monitor. She obliged.
Yang was corralled into a photo. “It’s her moment,” said Cutrone, who then noticed two beams of light shooting up from Lower Manhattan. “Oh my god, let’s get this in our background,” Cutrone said of the Sept. 11 tribute. “Shoot us this way.”
An hour and a half later, after a neighbor called in a noise complaint, two NYPD officers arrived to shut down the party. The OutLaw Agency complied.
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