Gucci Brings Bungalow 8 Back to New York — for One Night Only
“I just got a club Oscar — the Italian club Oscar.”
Nightclub impressario Amy Sacco was back inside of her Aughts hotspot Bungalow 8 for one nostalgic pre-Met Gala Saturday night, thanks to none other than Gucci.
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“Only Gucci, I’m telling you,” said Sacco of fielding a call from the brand about collaborating several weeks ago. “I thought they wanted me to host a little opening at the store, and two weeks in they’re like, ‘no — you do realize we’re building a club for you?'”
Bungalow 8’s iconic “No Vacancy” neon sign was hung outside the entrance on Little West 12th Street, but the pop-up club’s presence was best marked by the VIPs streaming inside. The room was decorated to reflect Gucci’s newly opened Meatpacking boutique around the corner, with purple flooring, pink lounge furniture, and grid lighting design on the DJ booth.
“I’m still so gobsmacked,” added Sacco, surveying the room, which continued to fill out with guests including Tom Sturridge, Sienna Miller, Chris Rock, Cara Delevingne, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Alexa Chung, Teyana Taylor, Jeremy O. Harris, and Charlotte Tilbury. Phoebe Bridgers could been seen catching up with Beanie Feldstein and fiancée Bonnie Chance Roberts early in the evening, as waiters passed around artfully decorated Jello shot cubes and cocktails from the original club’s menu.
“It is so exciting to see all these amazing faces, and some new faces for me, but fun people,” added Sacco. “We all needed a good night out and a good night to dance; there couldn’t be a more perfect trifecta of Gucci, Amy, and the Met Ball. And then you add the cherry on top: I know everyone’s really here to see Idris, but I’ll pretend that it’s for me. Idris and I go way back.”
“All right, tonight we’re going to have a lot of fun,” Idris Elba instructed the crowd at the start of his DJ set. The actor had been a regular at Bungalow 8 in London before its 2011 closure. “I want you to have some fun, taking you back to some memories. I want the lights down real low, all these guys in the front turn the lights down — because Bungalow 8 was sexy.”
The Pinault family — Salma, Francois-Henri, and daughter Valentina — held court in a side lounge with Iman and Bethann Hardison as guests packed the dance floor.
“Heck yeah, that was a moment in New York,” said Hardison, asked if she had stopped by the original Bungalow 8. “It was wonderful to be able to be downtown when it was still changing; the Meatpacking District was changing,” she added. “In those days, you went to certain places just because it was the place to go to.”
Launch Gallery: Inside Gucci’s New York City Bungalow Party
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