Patrick McMullan reports from New York

It was the cultural event of the season - An Evening with Stella McCartney in Conversation with Jerry Seinfeld  at the Alice Tully Hall.

All her closest friends came to support her big night, Liv Tyler, Drew Barrymore, Kate Upton, Carolyn Murphy, Seth Meyers and dozens more. It even brought in a little The Beatles reunion with her father, Sir Paul McCartney, Dhani Harrison & Yoko Ono. The sublime soiree left virtually everyone on cloud nine.

Yasmin's Influence

Sydney born and bred fashionista Yasmin Sewell has just been named as one of London's most influential style setters.

In the London Evening Standard newspaper's list of London's 1000 most influential people, Sewell has appeared on the list for the first time and is the only Australian in London to feature. She joins names like Kate Moss, Stella McCartney and Victoria Beckham.


Yasmin runs a fashion consultancy business advising a raft of prestige clients like Browns, Mulberry, Hermes and Libertys as well as representing Australian designers like Scanlon & Theodore and Tsubi .

 She regularly makes the Best Dressed Lists and has been a judge for the British Fashion Awards.

Check out her fashion forecasts here on her own blog and the one she writes for Vogue

Bad News for Baz

Jay McInerney is one of America's most celebrated writers having published many best sellers including the legendary Bright Lights Big City and The Last of The Savages. Bright Lights was made into a movie in 1998 and starred Michael J.Fox. A re-make of the film is underway.

Amy Fay Collins & Jay McInerney in New York

McInerney contributes to prestigious publications like Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and does book reviews for The New York Times and the Times Literary Supplement. He's the sort of hip writer that defines the new American urbane author- sophisticated, connected, knowledgeable and in demand.

He's just contributed a piece to the UK Guardian titled : "why Gatsby is so great". It's an ode to the great F.Scott Fitzgerald and his brilliant novel The Great Gatsby. McInerney is clearly a Fitzgerald fan and enthuses over the book and the extraordinary eight hour West End play Gatz which is receiving rave reviews. He likes Gatz because it presents the book in it's entirety and he clearly loves the poetry and mastery of Fitzgerald's writings.
It seems then he would be looking forward to the upcoming Baz Luhrmann production The Great Gatsby (in glorious 3D) to be released in early 2013.
Alas, no. As Jay says:

This is just one reason why I avoided the 1974 version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, with a screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola. And why I will almost certainly be skipping Baz Luhrmann's film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, much as I would love to see Isla Fisher in the role of Myrtle Wilson, the floozy mistress of Gatsby'

 Read more at The Guardian here  and see Jay McInerney's website here
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Andy Warhol once famously said of New York photographer Patrick McMullan " If you don't know Patrick you should go out more".

McMullan at work

Along with 81 year old Bill Cunningham he is a regular fixtures on the New York social, party and fashion scene. McMullan even has his own TV show and online magazine PMc Magazine. If you have party in New York and Patrick isn't there (or at least one of his snappers) it's a dud!

Sydney publicists could probably learn a few things from a night out with Patrick. There are probably three of the old guard snappers left in Sydney (Melbourne prs are far more civilised) who really know what it's all about, know the new and old faces and aren't bedazzled by the latest X Factor contestant.
The above snap of Jay McInerney is by McMullan who has worked on projects with the writer- here are a few of his latest pics from New York:

Anne Hathaway & Jim Carrey at Stella McCartney's fashion show.

Dita Von Teese

Bill Cuningham

Naomi Watts at The NYC Ballet

                               With photographs by Patrick McMullan www.patrickmcmullan.com

When actors Attack! Naomi Watts & Sarah Jessica Parker go for each other's throats

WHILE  her co-star from the film Edgar, Leonardo DiCaprio is winning hearts and minds in Sydney on the set of The Great Gatsby, Aussie actress Naomi Watts has been hitting the social circuit in New York. Last week she attended the world premiere of Paul McCartney's Ocean Kingdom for the New York City Ballet 2012 Fall Gala, McCartney's first original orchestral score for dance.

Stella McCartney, Naomi Watts, Sarah Jessica ParkerJessica Seinfeld

Apart from Edgar ( a surety for Oscar nominations ) due for release in 2012, Watts has two films due around the same time -The Impossible and Movie 43 a comedy with Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet and Uma Thurmann.

Critics haven't been too kind to McCartney with his first ballet score. The Huff Post says it's "a ballet not much worth cheering" and of the A-List opening night crowd "Every single person in that theater ... is there for one reason -- not for the ballet, because of Paul ".

Paul McCartney & Nancy Shevell

The New York Time's says “Ocean’s Kingdom,” is in no way an important addition to the corpus of ballet music, but it deserves a better staging than the one it’s been given by New York City Ballet."

The New York Observer says : "Ocean’s Kingdom is a fairy story with no subtext, no resonance—it’s not about anything except its water-logged plot. " Ouch!. 

James McCartney & Lorne Michaels

Still, the after party was great fun from all reports and that's what matters to us here on the Shuttle.

Dylan Lauren, Ralph Lauren, Ricky Lauren, David Lauren

The event was a family affair with Paul's kids  Stella McCartney and James there to cheer on their dad's show as was soon-to-be bride Nancy Shevell.
 Also on hand, a host of Laurens with the newly married David Lauren and his dad Ralph Lauren.

Paul McCartney takes a bow at the opening night of Ocean Kingdom

All photographs by Patrick McMullan (C) www.patrickmcmullan.com