[Night Out] Civil Twilight @ Yuna Yang Afterparty (9/7/2012)

Night OutReviews

Sep 12

Written By kibbe

credit: @sproutdrOther than a Fashion's Night Out or two I've never really been one to actively participate during New York Fashion Week. It may be my desire to mostly wear rock band t-shirt, hoodies and flip flops that I do not particularly think that I am one of "their people". Imagine my surprise when we received an invite to come out to Yuna Yang's afterparty in celebration of her latest collection that was shown earlier on Friday evening. I was admittedly a little confused about the invite at first until I realized that South African rock band Civil Twilight was perfoming. I was really hoping it was because I had successfully started the trend of wearing flip flops in 50 degree weather, but no. *Sigh* Sprout is more of a fashionista than I am and I have enjoyed the handful of songs from the band so we headed above 14th Street for the first time in months to see what kind of trouble we could get into.

Having not gone to Yang's fashion show earlier in the evening, I missed out on #1- hearing Civil Twilight's music featured in her show and #2- having my memory refreshed of what Yuna Yang looked like so I didn't make a fool of myself. Within 5 minutes of Yang being in the building, two excited fans of hers approached me and asked if I would take a photo of them with this other woman (who ended up being Yang) on their iPhone with a crappy screen protector on it. Being a Florida native and used to tourists making this request, I happily obliged. After directing them to stand in better lighting, I snapped a photo. I turned the phone towards the fashionistas to confirm that they were happy with the photo when one of the girls makes a face and says, "Um, could you actually take one and make it more....vertical?" You could tell by the looks on their faces that I was rocking a confused expression until all of my synapses finally fired and it occurred to me that in the fashion world they want photos of their full outfits. This rarely happens when you're out with music people because we don't want to show off how bloated we are from all of the excessive drinking. Either way I felt pretty silly for not knowing any better, but I guess it was better that I got the NYFW N00b-ness out of the way nice and early. I got over it pretty quickly by making fun of the fact that they only had the two Justice full-lengths to hold everyone over till showtime.

It wasn't too long after that awkward moment that the room filled up nicely and the band took to the stage. For it just being a semi-impromptu set inside a gallery, the sound was amazing. I should have walked over to the sound guy and shook his hand. Civil Twilight was great. I think I actually like them better as a live band. They had killer energy and it was totally infectious, even with the fashion elite in the crowd. They were really feeling it, too. No doubt it was a spillover of the love fest that happened during the fashion show. Speaking of love fest, I loved watching Yuna Yang during the set. She was doing her very best to retain her coolness all the while cheerfully dancing around amongst other party goers. Considering their music inspired her so much that she based the collection she showed on their music, I'd say she was free to do whatever the heck she felt like. I had to fight the urge to go dance up next to her, since she already had such a wonderful impression of me as previously mentioned.

I also want to point out that of how ever many hundred people who were squeezed into the gallery for the event, as far as I could tell I was the ONLY person who had ear plugs in during the set. Do fashion people really not know that there's no point in looking really good if you can't hear people tell you how good you look? It was good and loud in there, too, so it's not like people weren't going to be speaking extra loudly over their temporary tinnitus in addition to the usual buzz of a crowded room. If you don't wear ear plugs to shows, you totally should be. It makes a HUGE difference.