Fashion / Style

A Dallas Store Transforms Into a Treehouse, Sharon Stone Poses and the Partying’s Crazy: A Look Back at PaperCity’s Start

BY // 08.14.16

Since PaperCity first whirled into Dallas in 1998, it has been at the center of everything — the parties, the people, the zeitgeist. As we bid farewell to our longtime broadsheet format (we invented it, you know) for a posh perfect-bound magazine that debuts in September, we gathered PaperCity Dallas editors of past and present and set out on a mission: Find the most unforgettable stories, photographs and memories printed in 18 years’ worth of our glossy pages.

Here, the best of the best from the beginning. (Look in this space next week for more PaperCity history.)

1998
• Were you there? Neiman Marcus throws our launch party, transforming its Downtown store into a “luscious garden,” we report — treehouse included. Stephan Pyles had Star Canyon, Avner Samuel had Bistro A, Ultimo rocked Highland Park Village … We report backstage from New York’s Fashion Week and laugh out loud at freelance writer David Rudduck and his “Gimlet Eye.”
Escada, The Greenhouse and Al Biernat’s all open.
Party pics fly across our desks of these popular party people who were always on the town: Angus Wynne, Jan Strimple, Lisa and Kenny Troutt, Betsy and Richard Eiseman, Jackie and Peter Stewart, Gigi Potter, Nancy Hamon.
Stories are filed via fax and floppy disk (no joke). Party pics are shot and developed via film (can you imagine?).
“I could not go to enough parties,” says Brooke Hortenstine in hindsight. “I’d go to five a night.”

1999
Gentlemen, please. We give the definitive guide to gentlemanly behavior — naturally.
Nancy Hamon turns 80. Celebrates with an Imperial Russia-themed Birthday Gala hosted by Roxanne and Gene Phillips.
LeVar Burton makes it into PaperCity — yes, the Reading Rainbow guy.
New to town! Preston Center welcomes Taco Diner. Still a see-and-be-seen spot for Park Cities fams, the social ladies and business lunches.
Sharon Stone poses with Howard Rachofsky for the second year of TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art.
Tiffany & Co. flounces into NorthPark. Michelle Nussbaumer opens Ceylon et Cie.

2000
A model climbs atop stacked-up furniture for a sky-high shoot inside a penthouse at the Villa D’Este Luxury Residential High Rise in Houston, making for a most memorable July issue cover.
We survive Y2K and must have the following, as described on the cover of our February 2000 issue: Burberry string bikini. Absinthe. Tickets to the film Valley of the Dolls. William Wegman’s dogs wearing Dolce, Gucci and Gaultier. The Philips Model # 13PT30L television.
What legends are made of: Forty Five Ten opens at the hand of Brian Bolke and Bill Mackin. Shelly Musselman swoops into co-ownership shortly thereafter.
We shoot fashion in Marfa. We hardly know where that is.

“The most memorable PC event was our Dallas launch party in 1998 on the first floor of Neiman Marcus Downtown — which, of course, the incomparable Ken Downing orchestrated. Hunter Sullivan and his big band played all night, and everyone danced to Frank Sinatra covers. Hunter and his then-wife Monique de Mers were an incredibly glamorous young couple.” – Rebecca Sherman

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