Fashion / Style

Lynn Wyatt’s Cheerleader Past, Trump Mania in Houston and After-Hours Party Pics: Time Travel Through Texas (and PaperCity) History

BY PaperCity Staff // 08.26.16

Since whirling into Houston in 1994 and Dallas in 1998, PaperCity has been at the center of everything — the parties, the people, the zeitgeist.  As we bid farewell to our longtime broadsheet format for a new perfect-bound magazine that debuts in September, we gathered 22 years of PaperCity issues and set out on a mission: Find the most memorable stories, photographs and memories printed in our glossy pages.

This is the best of the best from PaperCity Houston in the mid 2000s,. Click here and here for more great look backs into the PaperCity archives, and pick up the new PaperCity Magazine on stands everywhere September 1.

2004

André Leon Talley comes to town for Society for the Performing Arts and Saks Fifth Avenue, wearing an Oscar de la Renta black cape with a train “longer than Princess Diana’s wedding veil,” says Frenchy Falik. Bob Lanier gives André the key to the city, and Elyse buys a chain for it at Tiffany & Co. He wears it.

Rob Brinkley jets to NYC for the Bill Blass auction. We give him lists. He comes home empty-handed,

 Beautiful artist Anh Duong is on our cover.

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 We publish after-hours party pics and take flack. We still think they are funny.

 Opening-night gala at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, of the Cartier blockbuster exhibition curated by Ettore Sottsass.

 It’s hot. We’re bored. It’s Camp PaperCity in the August issue. Camp motto: “Camp PaperCity … where everybody knows your name … and who you’re wearing.” Arts & Crafts include: spin art with Robert McClain, camp coiffure with Ceron, s’more-making with Robert Del Grande, karaoke with Harold Farb. Who are our campers and what’s in their camp trunks? Jackson Hicks packs “a chef, a waiter and two porters, and a limousine driver’s phone number for my great escape.” Peter Marzio packs “a lightweight backpack. The above would allow me to run as far away from camp as possible.”

 Many Trump sightings in 2004 issues of PaperCity: Donald Trump launches Trump Ice bottled water… a half-liter at Rice Epicurean is $1.19. Ivana Trump comes to Houston for Catwalk for a Cure. Ceron does her hair.

 Laurann Claridge begins her Standing Reservation column and has a crush on Jean-Georges Vongerichten and his restaurant, Bank, at Hotel Icon. Rande Gerber’s The Whiskey bar and Opium Room simmer upstairs.

It’s Time for Social Soup! Highlights: Lynn Wyatt’s cheerleading pic from when she was a San Jacinto Bear and Franklin Rose’s vanity plate, M-Plant.

 PaperCity Atlanta launches with a third swell party at Neiman Marcus.

 We finally succumb to print party pictures in color … against our better judgment and to our everlasting regret.

 PaperCity is the first to photograph the restored Menil House, the first residence designed by Philip Johnson, and couturier Charles James’ only interior-design commission.

 Tom Ford creates the book that you spot in every design photograph. Photog Matthew Rolston shoots Tom in L.A. for PaperCity‘s cover. Rob Brinkley insists he must be there. PaperCity co-hosts Tom at Neiman Marcus Downtown Dallas.

We were more than just a staff who belabored over every word and party picture, churning out a jam-packed broadsheet issue every four weeks. With ball gowns (and a tux for Rob) to be thrown on at a moment’s notice hanging on the backs of our office doors, we were and are a family that has gone through work and life together, crying and laughing the whole way through. If PaperCity has taught us anything, it’s that life can be a well-staged party with your favorite people if you want it to be, and I’m excited that the next perfect-bound chapter is about to begin. — Brooke Hortenstine, Co-editor/Contributing Editor, 13 years

2005 

• The New Old Rich: “I’m thinking of redecorating this whole @**&##! house,” we state on the January cover (as does Glenn Close as Sunny von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune, our inspiration).

• We travel to Art Basel Miami Beach to shoot the Art Issue. Catherine Anspon runs into — and wrangles — Jenny Holzer and The Clayton Brothers into a photo shoot.

• Tony’s new restaurant on Richmond opens, designed by Shafik Rifaat.

• “Philippe Starck’s Sexy Delano Hotel Opens on Kirby Drive,” shouts the headline. “Everyone was there!” says the PC April Fool’s party page. Yes, people called to see why they were not on the invitation list.

• Houston Grand Opera’s 50th Anniversary Gala chaired by La Lynn Wyatt, with Elton John, Sir Roger Moore as emcee, Renée Fleming, Philip Glass, Sarah Ferguson Duchess of York and Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia.

• Ellsworth Kelly is at The Menil Collection.

• New decorating darling Kelly Wearstler is the cover. Laurann Claridge hotfoots it to L.A. to style the shoot.

• We photograph possibly the last untouched interior by ’70s decorator Billy Francis — a 1988 Tanglewood home, architect Charles Tapley.

• Lily Tomlin is at  Alley Theater’s Steel Magnolias Ball. Edith Ann and Ernestine the telephone operator make an appearance. At the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts’ “A Night at the Regency” gala, Michael Feinstein and — surprise! — Liza Minnelli perform.

• In Social Soup: Twin Peeks are Celina Brener and Slim Keith, Lynn Wyatt and Lauren Bacall.

• We probe the legacy of Catherine Weiss Law (and that fabulous Warhol!), who passed away on Christmas Eve 2003. The surprise in her will? The majority of her $450 million estate was left to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as 54 important works, to make Law one of the largest donors ever to an American museum (as of 2005).

EPHEMERA: Bulgari and Giorgio Armani open in The Galleria. • Tony Curtis is in town for Joan Schnitzer Levy’s pre-escape cocktail at her River Oaks home. • PaperCity co-hosts Elizabeth Hurley, who heads to Saks Fifth Avenue to tout her new swimwear collection. • Bar Annie launches at Café Annie. Sigh. • In town: Zac Posen for Best Buddies at Chez Thrash; Oscar de la Renta at Neiman’s. Jade Jagger at Mix: Modern Clothes.

2006

• April Fool’s! Mohamed Al-Fayed insists that Harrods open a five-story store in Houston, built completely underground and connected by tunnels beneath the Westheimer and Kirby intersection. Patrons enter by way of an English (above-ground) garden and through a British-style red telly booth turned elevator. Fact or fiction?

“We literally had people calling saying they were at the corner of Westheimer and Kirby and couldn’t find the red telephone booth!” recalls Laurann Claridge of the recurring series of April Fool’s spoofs PaperCity plays on its dear readers.

2007

Hotel Zaza opens.

• We have a discussion with Paloma Picasso.

• We photograph the homes and studios of Christian Eckhart, Sharon Englestein and Aaron Parazette, and the late Bert Long Jr., the Rome Prize talent who carves an ice sculpture for PaperCity and shares his shotgun home and studio.

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2008

PaperCity’s first book, Domestic Art: Curated Interiors (Assouline), co-edited by Holly Moore, Rob Brinkley and Laurann Claridge, hits stands October 5. Debuts with a party at Neiman Marcus Dallas and Houston and a bash at The Carlyle Hotel in NYC. Greg Fourticq Jr. and Becca Cason Thrash throw the after-party.

• We photograph fashion in artist Hunt Slonem’s bird-and-bunny-filled NYC studio.

• The Pope comes to the U.S. and we have a “Pope–Arazzi — How to Get That Benedict Look.”

• The first Liaisons Au Louvre takes place, the biennial trek to Paris where Becca Cason Thrash famously throws a ball in the Louvre preceded by three days of cocktails and parties. Who is there, aside from the many Houstonians? Prince Albert of Monaco, Duran Duran, Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, Kip Forbes, Hubert Hermes, Bianca Jagger, Diane Kruger, Baroness Ariane de Rothschild, US Ambassador to France Charles Rivkin and many, many designers.

• Our Pompeii Posh party with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to coincide with the blockbuster exhibition

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