On Friday evening, The Frankie Shop and Unemployed brought their fourth annual Halloween party to Manhattan’s East Village, where 250 guests arrived dressed as Dolly Parton. The event honored the late country music icon, and the crowd was filled with platinum-blonde bouffants, exaggerated bust lines and pink outfits.
By 10:30 p.m., attendees moved into the basement club beneath Ella Funt, an East Village bistro serving as the party’s late-night venue. The room featured wood paneling, hot-pink walls and a soft rosy glow, with a sunken black-and-white checkered dance floor at its center. The space was large for a downtown Manhattan club, and the dance floor was largely obscured by the costumed crowd.
Past editions of the collaborative party asked guests to dress as Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Diana and Uma Thurman’s Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction. Unemployed co-founders Cecile Winkler and Sophie Tabet said the appeal is seeing how each guest interprets the same theme. Winkler told Vogue that being in a room where everyone is dressed as one figure but in different ways “brings you together” and “feels so absurd,” adding that guests lose their friends because everyone looks alike.
Interpretations ranged from Rita Ora in a double-denim Tennessee Tuxedo to guests channeling Parton’s 1978 Playboy cover. Others took more imaginative routes: one attendee appeared as Salvador ‘Dolly,’ while Saltburn actor Archie Madekwe and Dorian Grinspan came as a pair of sheep, a reference to Dolly, the first cloned sheep, born in 1996 and named after the singer. Some guests improvised with a powdered barrister’s wig or balloons stuffed under T-shirts in place of wigs and prosthetics.
Outside, the line wrapped around the block well past 1 a.m. as word spread about the party. Inside, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” set off the dance floor before a run of Parton’s greatest hits. Gaëlle Drevet, founder of The Frankie Shop, described her approach to the night simply: “Life is short. Have fun with it.”
Sources: Vogue.