Ryan Petersen (pictured above)
Writer and DJ, Ridgewood
You look amazing.
I’m working the event, and they dressed everyone who is working the party. There’s also a makeup artist and a person styling the wigs. It’s a full production.
How’d you get the gig?
My friend is one of the party planners. He hired me and my boyfriend to be gossipers or handlers. The job description is really just to be hot and walk around. It’s the perfect job for me.
How has the party been?
It’s kind of like a corporate party with a smattering of gay nightlife people in there as well. There are gay drag-queen–porn-star people, but I also met the woman in charge of privacy for Grindr. I finagled getting Grindr Xtra, which is the premium subscription, for free for a year. It isn’t quite a sexy, sexy party.
What makes a party “sexy, sexy”?
It’s tacky, but there’s a party called Wrecked at Basement, which is more like a shirts-off-dancing, gay sex party. It’s a good place for me and my boyfriend to go and have a good time with a hot guy who’s visiting New York. I’ve unfortunately been several times.
Will Cappelletti
Start-up CEO, Washington, D.C.
Sean Patrick Henry
Product director, Washington, D.C.
Matt “Cayden Foxx” Tobin
Wig dresser, Los Angeles
What were you up to before this?
Mildly having a panic attack because I had a whole suitcase of bits and bobs and jewelry and accessories, and I had to lay it all out and make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. And then I was timing everything in my head — when to do my makeup, when to get dressed. It was a logistical, planned-out day for me.
Gracie J
Nail artist, Brooklyn
Harley Harris
Musician and DJ, Ridgewood
Seen anything weird tonight?
Not really. I mean, besides I guess the weird ways that gay people on alcohol normally behave. But that’s not even weird to me at this point.
Zach Patton
Editor, Fort Greene
Keletso Makofane
Social-network epidemiologist, Harlem
Angie Ta
Brand coordinator, Bedford-Stuyvesant
Frankie Sharp
Event producer, Times Square
Any entertainment tonight?
There’s a person writing beautiful custom poems that are sort of dirty limericks. I told her about my mother, who was a go-go dancer, and my father, who was a sailor — he was her No. 1 tipper, and that’s how they met. After a while, they got married. They’re still madly in love and very embarrassing in public. I adore them.
Sophie Saint Thomas
Author, Hell’s Kitchen
Chet Callahan
Architect, Los Angeles
Justin Swisher
Brand-activation manager, Philadelphia
Tell me about your outfit.
This is actually my plan-B look. My other outfit was vetoed by my friend because I was showing a bit too much skin, so I toned myself down. I pulled these pearls off a mannequin in Rome a few weeks ago when I was there for a wedding. I was like, I’ve got to have these. I have a costume closet, so I pulled some of the other stuff from there and then bought a new pair of boots.
Shane Cahill
Director of AI legislation, Washington, D.C.
Drew Lausch
Comedian, actor, writer, Prospect–Lefferts Gardens
Jacinto Hernandez, Principal at architecture firm, Los Angeles.
CT Hedden
Curator and artist, East Village
Tristan Pineiro
Head of marketing, Los Angeles
Did you take the subway in this outfit?
We got a taxi. However, I failed to realize how big my head was with the wig on, so I had to sit on the floor behind the driver, who was very worried that I didn’t have my seat belt on. Luckily, there wasn’t far to go. I literally fell out onto the sidewalk when I got here. It wasn’t a glamorous entry, but I was fine once I got in.
Yves Mathieu East
Model, singer, and animal rescuer, East Village
Photographs by Frankie Alduino
