“You’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Remembering Alexander Wang’s Infamous Gas Station Party, 10 Years Later

It’s rare to get a proper, seasoned, pronounces Milan as Milano and Paris as Paree fashion person to raise her or his voice in public. Remembrances of fashion’s sepia-tinged glory days are often delivered in the most hushed of tones, with slight sighs as veteran editors hark back to, say, Kate Moss’s twirling hologram at Alexander McQueen’s Fall 2006 show or those early, almost stuck-in-time salons John Galliano hosted in the ’90s. In the decade I have reported from the sidelines of this industry—a decade that has coincided with the meme-ification of fashion and its corresponding hyperbole—subjects I have interviewed have only screamed with joy on one occasion: in honor of Alexander Wang.

The story goes like this: Way back in the pre-Instagram days of September 2009, Alexander Wang threw a party in a gas station. The young designer took over the Chelsea Car Wash outside of Milk Studios for an event cohosted with Love magazine to celebrate his Spring 2010 show. Every subject interviewed for this piece started off our conversation with a high-pitched scream, an exclamation that the gas station shindig was, definitively, “the best party ever,” or else they just laughed, prompted by all the memories of things they wouldn’t—absolutely couldn’t—tell me on the record.

And then there’s Alexander Wang—Alex to friends and confidantes—who speaks, always, in the excited cheer of a Californian. “This is a topic I care so deeply about!” he proclaims with the self-awareness that his gas station takeover will forever be one of the high points of his career. To some, going down in history as a partier would be considered a negative. For Wang, it’s his calling card. In the years since, he has thrown parties where one could spray-paint a Lexus, nosh on McDonald’s fries, watch strippers writhe while eating Hooters chicken nuggets, and jump on a bouncy castle with Dunkin’ Donuts before Ja Rule and Ashanti performed.

The act of bringing people together, shocking and surprising them—and getting them pretty inebriated—is his gift, and it has gone on to inform his design aesthetic and the very core of his brand. It’s all WangGang, WangFest, and WangOver—though if you’re like Alex, you do a healthy dose of milk thistle and Pepcid AC before a night on the town.

But even Alex has plenty of stories he won’t tell: “That night, gosh, I can’t tell you how many things went crazy. Things that I probably shouldn’t be saying because it’s a liability!” Here are the things he and his closest friends and partners will share about the fateful night 10 years ago that “changed everything.”

Long before Alexander Wang became fashion’s party president, he was a Parsons undergraduate who had made a splash with a student collection of innovative, grungy knitwear. His first presentation was held in The News showroom in SoHo in 2005; he went on to stage his first show for the Fall 2007 season.

ALEXANDER WANG: From the very beginning, I’ve always thought about how to create a really unique experience where people can connect with each other and connect with our brand beyond just looking at it through the singular lens of a fashion show. Creating beautiful clothes and products, and making people look good and feel good, has been my mission, and bringing people together has always been the glue in that. The first presentation that I had when I launched the collection was in The News showroom. I remember I was like, “I want to turn this into something buyers, editors will enjoy.” I brought in a cotton candy machine and a popcorn machine, and I had girls hanging out on the couch. I wanted to create an environment and a vibe that allowed for people to participate, and it wasn’t just the typical showroom appointment.

I think the idea of partying or bringing people together became more of a sensibility, a way of how I think about who I design for. It’s always been about people coming together of all different cultures, and aesthetics and being able to enjoy a place in time that isn’t so hierarchical. And that way has, I think, definitely helped define the sensibility of who we are as a brand.

As Wang evolved into a buzzed-about brand on the New York scene, so did his parties grow. Some of the late aughts events included basement raves and a surprise performance by Foxy Brown.

ALEXANDER WANG: One of the first big parties that I had when I started the brand was in an empty office building in the Garment District. I remember we took it over, and there was no air conditioning, and everyone was just sweating profusely that night. We had kind of a high school prom theme with a photo booth, and we had a band come in from Brooklyn to play. Steve Aoki deejayed, and it was probably one of the first times I threw a party that was beyond just my friends and my family, and it was so much fun. I think that really kicked it off.

ERIN WASSON, MODEL, FRIEND, and FORMER STYLIST: Alex’s shows are notorious for being very upbeat, with incredible music and it was always a really great place to run into the NYC kids from downtown that you hadn’t seen in a while. Those early parties—and the ones today, too—just felt like a really fun family coming together to celebrate Alex, who always kind of brought the funk into the room.

WANG: It really came from a place where I was such a fan. Moving to New York, I started as a fan of fashion. I always felt that there was this, especially in Fashion Week parties, a bit of this air of people not actually being able to let their hair down, have a drink, and dance. You’re quite, like, on observation and there are so many cameras there. At that time, it was like there was a line drawn between being able to like actually party versus feeling like “this a photo opportunity.” I wanted to be able to create events where people could come, let their hair down, have a good time, and disappear a little bit. And it didn’t matter if you were an intern, or a celebrity, that you could all just enjoy it at the same pace.

September 2009 was a turning point for Wang and his brand. The designer had won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2008 and cemented himself as the star of New York’s new wave a year later by winning the CVFF Awards’ emerging designer prize. Around this time he launched his menswear operation and his T by Alexander Wang collection, which distilled his going-out looks into more affordable—and clingy—minidresses and tees for younger fans. For his Spring 2010 show, held on September 12 in New York, throwing a party was a given, but how was he to one-up his past events?

WANG: The gas station party, it actually came about because I was part of Milk when I first started showing. I remember [Mazdack] Rassi asked me, “Hey, do you want to do a party?” I was like, “I’d love to do a party.”

MAZDACK RASSI, FOUNDER MILK STUDIOS and MADE FASHION WEEK: Alex has always been a big part of Milk’s culture. . . . We had a lot of amazing young, talented creators, designers, and musicians that we worked with as a next generation of creatives, so Alex has always been a part of our culture. This was, I think, the first party we came together on.

WANG: I think I’m constantly, and still to this day, always on the hunt for the perfect location. I remember Rassi was closing down the gas station, and I asked, “Hey, would it be fine if I had a party at the gas station? We’ll just all gather around, put fences around the gas station, and we’ll set up.”

RASSI: What people don’t realize is that Milk actually owned the gas station. We bought the Milk Studios building in 1996 and next door was a parking lot. At some point, I don’t know why, my partner and I looked at each other and said, “I think it would be great to do a really cool gas station, car wash, detailing center, and market.” So we built this thing; it was called the Chelsea Car Wash. We were operating for a while. Then fashion week rolled around. I always wanted to do something really, really different and not just utilize Milk [Studios] again, so I kind of threw this idea to Alex, “What if we throw it in our gas station/car wash?”

WANG: I think we actually threw it together pretty last minute. Probably, I’d say, we took two months to plan it out. We were just walking through all the details, it was very low-fi in a way. I remember even just the way that we had to enclose the space: It was just chicken wire fences. We threw a table up for a bar, and we had a little stage, steel deck stage. But it wasn’t fancy at all, by any means.

RASSI: I remember meeting with the security team, and they thought we were crazy.

RYAN KORBAN, INTERIOR DESIGNER and FRIEND: When Alex shared the idea of the gas station party with me, I thought, Wow. I think Alex is always striving to do something that has never been done before, something that really is iconic. It was something I had never heard of anybody doing before. I definitely had high hopes for it knowing what the concept was.

But before Courtney Love could strum a chord, Wang and Rassi had to figure out exactly how to turn a gas station into a functional party venue.

RASSI: I remember eight hours before we were about to throw the party, we’re going through the fire safety check. The head of the fire department comes out, and he’s like, “Let me get this straight: Are these gas tanks full?” I said, “Yep.” He’s like, “And you’re going to throw a party around eight gas tanks? Not going to happen.”

We had to get a tanker to come and empty all the gas out of the gas station. On that night, you could look over and see the entire fashion industry smoking, standing in front of gas pumps. I would walk up to them and go, “Are you out of your minds?!” as a joke. [laughing] It would have been like that scene in Zoolander where they just go up in flames.

SANTIGOLD, MUSICIAN: I remember wondering, because I think people were smoking, How is this okay around the gas pumps? But they had drained the gas pumps. It was just so well thought-out!

WANG: It was so funny because everyone had come up to me, like, “Is it okay to smoke? Because I’ve seen people smoking and I’m freaking out right now. Like, am I going to die?” They thought the gas station was going to blow up. I was like, “No, we asked to take all of the oil out of the pumps.” It was just kind of like another hilarious moment.

Once the tanks were empty and the final model had walked at the designer’s Spring 2010 show, Wang and his friends got ready to arrive at the venue.

WANG: Our shows for a lot of the first couple seasons were at 5 p.m., so then people would have to come back, because the party would be starting at 9 p.m. at another location … When I got there it was probably half-an-hour, 45 minutes after the party started. I remember there was a huge line of people waiting to get in. This party was full on going already, and it was crowded, packed. When I went in, I just remember I spent the first few minutes in awe of everyone that showed up, and saying hi to everyone.

KORBAN: I arrived with Alex and everybody. Whenever we go to his after-parties, we’re normally going with him as a group. The party bus has always been there, but this was when [arriving on] the party bus was becoming known. Definitely Erin [Wasson] was on the bus for sure. There’s always a big group of friends, family, and people who have inspired him and his work. It’s a gang of people, I don’t remember specifically who was there this time, but it’s definitely grown over the years.

The Wang Gang of models, artists, celebrities, and fashion industry collaborators infamous at this point—mostly for their inability to look any worse for the wear after a night of all out partying.

WANG: I always say to my friends, it’s all mental. If you drink with the notion that you’re going to wake up all hung over and whatever, then that’s what’s going to happen. I, fortunately, just go for it.

KORBAN: I would just say this [to anyone attending an Alexander Wang party]: Know that whatever footwear you’re going to wear that evening will be destroyed. I have a graveyard of Wangfest shoes. I know now not to wear anything I will miss. I think that’s a struggle for people, because they want to show up in nice footwear, because it is a fashion party, but they need to know that by the end of it they may not ever be able to wear those shoes again.

Once the designer and his crew were inside the gas station’s de facto fence, Courtney Love and Santigold performed.

SANTIGOLD: This was the first party I ever went to that Alex threw, and I was inspired by it for many years after. I think I have a similar goal as an artist to try to think outside the box and come up with experiences or visuals that people have never seen or done before. A lot of times I think how can I approach this differently, how can I create music that takes a different approach?

WANG: I remember how Courtney came about performing. I was talking to the stylist Panos [Yiapanis], and I was just saying, like, what would be the most insane thing in terms of having someone perform at a gas station? Panos, at the time was working with, Courtney—I think he still is—and he brought her to the showroom. I remember we talked all night, probably for like three hours. Courtney is actually one of the biggest historians of fashion; she just knows so much. She has such an incredible memory, and references, and we ended up just talking all night and connecting on so many different things. The party just kind of came up through that.

RASSI: We sent a car to get [Courtney Love], she shows up, and she won’t get out of the car. I’m like, “Courtney you’ve got to go on stage, there’s like a thousand people here!” And she won’t get out. We realize she doesn’t have any shoes on … so we had to run around and find her shoes … It was just the craziest mayhem. She went up there with a guitar and performed a cover of “Bette Davis Eyes” and it was unbelievable. She is such an incredible musician. She did a few more songs and then Santi came on and just brought the house down.

At the time, I think BMW was our partner. We put four BMWs in the Lube Center and that was the VIP room. Outside the Lube Center was the stage, where we had Santigold and Courtney Love perform. It was just insane … The cars were going up and down, because we had them on hydraulics, right behind the stage. It was crazy. How did we get away with that? I don’t even know.

SANTIGOLD: As a performer, it’s always exciting for me to be in an environment that feels fresh. Especially now. Back then, performing was new for me as Santigold, but now it’s like you’ve done so many fashion shows, so many fashion parties. It makes it feel fresh and exciting for everyone to feel like I’m just standing on some makeshift stage in a gas station.

If Santigold and Love’s performances set the party in motion, the free convenience store—where everything from M&Ms to potato chips to unlimited soda was available—kept guests fueled to rage all night long.

SANTIGOLD: Everything in the store was free! [laughing] I don’t know what he did to arrange that, but you could go in the store and eat any junk food, take any drinks, take any candy, and just walk out. That was actually the most amazing part.

WASSON: Who gets to say that they took over a gas station where literally everything inside was free?! People were drinking Slurpees and eating candy, grabbing drinks out of the refrigerators. It really was a moment in time. That gas station isn’t even there anymore.

RASSI: When we were planning the party, we thought, “What if we just buy everything in the market? I’ll find out how much inventory is actually in the marketplace between the refrigerators, drinks, Gatorade, gum, cigarettes.” I went, and I realized it was like $20,000, so it wasn’t that crazy. We had a big sponsor and I said to the sponsor, “Will you buy everything in the market?” They looked at us like we were nuts.

KORBAN: People were running amok in the convenience store, grabbing anything. It was so funny to see these high profile people, grabbing all this stuff because it was free. … Setting the mood up to feel that way, to let people act that way, is not only entertaining, but it’s liberating. You’d see models running around with bags of potato chips and Laffy Taffy. Whatever anyone could get their hands on [was taken] for no one reason other than that they would never be able to do this again.

RASSI: You’ve never seen anything like this. There was serious fashion looting going on. [laughing] It was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen!

WASSON: That was my memory, that we were all just posted up at that gas station market. Everyone was really having a hang. That’s the essence of what I think people need to capture more, I think. Instead of going all over-the-top and creating a space that’s so outlandish and getting all these beautiful flowers, getting crazy people to arrive, and everyone is wearing these crazy frocks... That party was just a proper New York hang. It was grassroots. Everyone was happy to hang out at the gas station. And that was the beauty of it.

Because of its outdoor location, the party was governed by noise variances, meaning that it had to shut down long before sunrise—even if everyone was still dancing by the lube stations.

WANG: I don’t remember it being as late as some of the other parties that I’ve had, just purely because of the location.

RASSI: It was so cool, it was so natural, and it was so unexpected—and no one left. The place was completely packed until, I guess, 2 a.m. People had looted the whole place. We’re just lucky no one died! [laughing]

The next day, hangover free, Wang was left to contend with the press coverage of the event, though it wasn’t until years later that the full impact of the party was evident.

WANG: I don’t remember specific press coverage that stood out to me, but we did get a lot of people talking about it. The video that we made of it, I remember every once in a while I’ll still go back and watch it, just because it brings back so many happy memories. It was just funny when you requested to do this interview, though, because within the last couple of weeks I’ve been getting texts from friends, randomly, like, “Oh, that gas station party was so iconic.”

SANTIGOLD: I’ve talked to Alex about this party basically forever since. A lot of people have a company plan their party to make sure that there’s the right people there and whatever. Honestly, I find it a bit boring. You can go, do your networking, dance a little bit, whatever. It’s not as fun to me. With Alex’s parties, there’s always something. A lot of times he tries to find performers that aren’t performing everywhere at a current moment, he will think, “Who is somebody, even from a while back, that would be exciting and interesting, that people love and would be happy to see because they don’t perform a lot?”

WASSON: I have yet to be at a Fashion Week party in New York that felt, sort of, so magical and so New York. It was almost like he set everyone free and showed people how you can have fun in a different context.

RASSI: It’s gone down in the history books because there is little documentation. People have to remember it, people have to talk about it. I think that is what’s gone today; everything is so consumed, done, and off to the next. When we talk about all the stories, people are blown away that we did this. I think social media and that instant gratification [of today] would have just cheapened the whole experience. Today, everyone is just competing for the next, the next. It’s also very shallow. That’s one of the reasons at Milk, after MADE Fashion Week and the whole run we created there, we don’t do any more shows. We just stopped. It just doesn’t feel the same. Back then, it was about people being in the present and now you don’t have to physically be anywhere. I don’t know, maybe we’re just dating ourselves by talking this way [laughs], but I think there’s truth to it. Here we are, all these years later, and we’re raving about this party. If it was so saturated and we had a thousand cool kids blowing it up instantly, I don’t think you’d need to go back and memorialize it.

SANTIGOLD: I’m such an advocate for living life in real time. I have a moment where I bring people up to the stage to dance during my show, and the amount of times that someone steps up on stage and puts their phone directly in front of my face while I’m singing! I always say put your phones down and enjoy yourself. Most people can’t do it now.

WANG: This party was in the days before Instagram and social media, so I can’t say that you can completely replicate it because it’s different now. But you try to just think about how to evolve. How to evolve the experience in a way that still can feel unique and memorable and create something that people want to engage with.

One last question: When did the gas station reopen?

RASSI: The next day we put the gas back. We had about a thousand cars lined up, waiting for gas. If you’ve ever seen someone pull up to a gas station for gas and be told, “I’m sorry, we’re closed today we’re doing a private event,” well, people were livid. We had to close all the streets around the station [to take the gas out and return it]. Back then, Meatpacking was so different. We could shut streets down. Today it would be impossible. Everything’s changed.

Originally Appeared on Vogue