The Jazz Age Lawn Party is the only place in New York where strangers will smile, laugh and Charleston away from you if you bump into them. Here, you travel back in time to the glamour of 1920s jazz age New York — or at least what society’s elite would remember from the era —don your best flapper attire, sip champagne and enjoy a day free from crowded subway cars and an overflowing email inbox.
The timeless event, hosted bi-annually on Governors Island for the past nine years, offers more than 4,000 attendees a much needed respite from the toil and technology of the modern world for one weekend.
“There’s so much to work with, from the performers to the people who show up to the event to the people who work at the event, people are bringing their A-game,” said Jehanne Wyllie, social media manager for the event, as she scanned the colorful crowd.
It's an Instagram goldmine to say the least. Virtually every attendee — from boa-clad octogenarians to infants sporting bow-ties and suspenders — is dressed to the nines in 1920s-inspired garb, the women sporting parasols, feathered headbands and pearls, their mustachioed gentlemen decked out in light summer suits and wing-tipped dancing shoes.
The prohibition era gathering was created by Michael Arenella, and features his Jazz-Age dance orchestra known for its authentic, “faithfully accurate” 1920s and early 1930s sets.
While the musical guests, including Arenella’s Orchestra, jazz vocalist Queen Esther and piano master Peter Mintun, are certainly worth the trip to the island, it is the fashion that really puts the event over the top.
In fact, it’s become a twice yearly destination for New York fashion bloggers and vintage clothing aficionados. Booths sell parasols, vintage clothing and art deco and cloche hats, while women with bobbed haircuts, red lipstick and drop-waist lace and sequined dresses become every fashion photographer's dream.
Kristen and Gin Minsky, who together perform as the Minsky Sisters, a 1920s-inspired tap act wear vintage and vintage-inspired pieces even when they’re not performing. It’s clear that for them, as well as for many others at the Jazz Age Lawn Party, the “Retro Noveau” movement, as the Wall Street Journal deemed it, has become a lifestyle.
“It’s a fascination with re-imagining and remembering something I didn’t actually experience,” Kristen said.
“A lot of us who are part of this vintage scene are old punk rockers, that era, especially the flapper, is really punk rock, it’s rebellion, and it’s defying the norm,” Gin said. “Women were cutting off their hair, hiking up their skirts, dancing to jazz, which was crazy ... it’s very reminiscent of the same attitude.”
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