It’s the tail end of fashion week, and model and actor Hari Nef is busier than ever. In the past few days, she has walked for Carolina Herrera, Proenza Schouler, Eckhaus Latta, Dion Lee, and Staud. In the midst of the madness, she also found time to dine at the Golden Swan to celebrate the launch of CULTURED’s September issue, where Nef appears on the cover dressed head-to-toe in Rick Owens.
Last night, Nef arrived at the West Village outpost in a glittering, gold mini dress to greet guests including singer Moses Sumney, Collina Strada founder Hillary Taymour, actor Yvonne Orji, photographer Ethan James Green, model Jessie Andrews, writer Nate Freeman, and artist Jack Pierson. Friends of the magazine, such as designer Ella Emhoff and photographer Gillian Laub, stopped by for drinks while producer Marcos Fecchino, photographers David Toro and Solomon Chase of Torso Solutions (for whom Nef once interned), and stylist Malcolm Mammone—who all worked on the cover shoot—sat for dinner.
Nef spoke with her friend and fellow fashion-lover Troye Sivan for the cover feature, reflecting on the year she snuck into her first fashion shows and watched Alexander McQueen runways streaming online. “At this point, I’ve been in fashion longer than I was out of it,” Nef told Sivan. “But the core of my fashion knowledge comes from being far outside of it as a suburban high schooler on the Internet at the dawn of Style.com and fashion LiveJournals.”
Guests were treated to cocktails before dinner, sipping on Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley's Brother's Bond Bourbon while flipping though pages of Nef submerged in water and faux fur coats, or stripping down to Balenciaga pantaleggings on a rainy Fire Island evening. Of the issue, CULTURED Editor-in-Chief Sarah Harrelson said in a toast, “Hari, you have so genuinely and deeply inspired both the fashion world and the art world, and I just want to thank everyone for taking time out of a busy week to come celebrate her today.”
Nef then took the floor, adding, "It means the world to me to be here during this chaotic week where you don't quite feel like yourself, among people around whom I feel like myself. I've been thinking a lot about the way the personal intersects with fashion as an industry, and I feel super lucky to be doing this with people who have been in my life since the very beginning ... I get to play with my friends, I get to work with my friends, and not a lot of people in fashion get to say that."
