Last week I attended a party for iconic watch company Vacheron Constantin. While I was thrilled to go with my friend (a big time watch editor) and very excited to see the famed I.A.C. Building, I have to admit that overall, the party fell flat. Sure it was cool eyeballing Salman Rushdie and his hot new female companion, and it was fun to check out Kate Bosworth and see just how skinny she is in person (very!), and I felt honored to be in the same room with the architect Richard Meier, who designed, among many other famous building, the very building the party was housed in, but the general atmosphere of the party was one of snobbery and those who aspire to achieve it.
Designer extraordinaire Yves Saint Laurent once said, "We must never confuse elegance with snobbery." and while I agree wholeheartedly, the organizers of this event should have realized that the same is true in reverse. The reason for the party was the launch of the "un-knock-off-able" Quai de L'ile watch, which was fabulous, so this is not a critique of the company, I know nothing about them other than they've been making highly respected watches for hundreds of years, but there had to be a way for the organizers of the event to shuffle us nobodies past the red carpet line without being so blatant about the fact that they think we're nobodies. And I know for a fact, because I've done it myself, that there is a way to tone down the backstage chaos when you're in front of house--it makes people nervous and anxious when some stressed out PR girl is pushing through the crowd screaming into her headset, even if it is about getting Kate to go through the photo line. Behavior like that doesn't make you look important, it makes you look rude.
I guess the bottom line is, having famous people attend your event and ignoring everyone except them does not make your event fabulous. While the wait staff were in general pretty friendly, the tone is set from the top, by the people making the decisions. Those people should remember that everyone at the event is a potential customer, fan or foe. While a regular person's endorsement of a brand might only reach 20 of his closest friends and a famous person's can reach millions, the two do not have to be mutually exclusive. And besides (and maybe this is the naive midwestern girl in me) how hard would it be to just be nice?