There are photographers who document New York society, and then there are photographers who become part of the society they document. Annie Watt belongs firmly in the latter category.

Sometimes a photograph does something far more important than document who was in a room. Walking into Watt’s 20th anniversary photography exhibition at The Consulate, hosted by owners Kiril and Miki Mihajlov, one photograph on the wall stopped me. There was Annie with Judy Gilbert and my friend Errol Rappaport, who passed away last year. For a moment, Errol wasn’t someone I was remembering. There he was again, caught in a living moment among friends. That is the peculiar magic of a photograph: it can collapse time. Someone who is gone can suddenly walk back into the room.

Prince Mario-Max

Nearby were photographs of Prince Mario-Max, another familiar figure in New York’s social and philanthropic world, among the many faces Watt has captured during a career chronicling New York—and, during the season, Palm Beach. Taken together, the walls weren’t simply displaying photographs. They held pieces of lives, friendships and celebrations, a social history preserved one shutter click at a time.

Rod and Judy Gilbert

On September 16, Watt turned the camera back on her own remarkable journey with a one-night-only exhibition and fundraiser celebrating 20 years of the Annie Watt Agency, 2006–2026. But the evening wasn’t simply about looking backward. Net proceeds benefited scholarship programs at the School of Visual Arts, helping promising young artists move forward.

For two decades, Watt has been a familiar presence at galas, benefits, openings and celebrations. Her ability to make people comfortable in front of a camera, coupled with her celebrated eye for posing, turned what began as the work of one independent photographer into the far-reaching Annie Watt Agency. As her bookings grew beyond what one photographer could handle, Watt began sharing assignments with other photographers, eventually building an agency whose work now extends from New York and the Hamptons to Palm Beach and beyond.

Highlighting other photographers work

The Consulate proved a natural setting for an exhibition built around people. Guests mingled over wine and delicious hors d’oeuvres while live jazz played and Watt’s photographs transformed the restaurant into a temporary gallery. The people in the room weren’t simply looking at photographs; many were part of the world those photographs preserve.Even better, guests were encouraged to take their portraits off the wall and bring them home, allowing the exhibition itself to disappear piece by piece as the evening progressed. What had been part of the gallery became a personal keepsake.

G.H. Harding

BACHARACH FOR SURE — Regular readers of this column know that I hold a special place in my universe for Burt Bacharach. His music, from “Alfie” to “What The World Needs Now” are just exquisite works. Each one totally special but fused with Bachrach’s complex chord structures and time signatures. More often than not, you can spy a Bacharach-tune immediately.

 At the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater on NYC’s West Side, located in a YMCA no less, there’ s majestic show going on called Going Bachrach. 

With a terrific band led by Adrian Galante, and singers Ava Locknar, Meecah and John Pagano, they tackled Bacharach songs that are simply delightful to hear. Be it “Alfie,” or “Don’t Make Me Over,” these are just timeless classics in the Great American Songbook. They also did another personal favorite, Burt’s own “This Guy’s in Love With You.” A classic for sure from 1968!

I am a Bachrach fan, but the album he did with Elvis Costello in 1998, entitled Painted From Memory, is my all-time favorite. It’s even the album I’d take as a Desert Island Disc. Costello said that when the pair decided to team up, the songs they would create would be about lost love. Each and every song on the album is joyous and bittersweet. My favorite track on the album is “God Give Me Strength” and the team performed it. Just incredible. Take a listen:

Burt Bacharach and John Pagano

Pagano, who toured with Bacharach for decades, paused at one point to introduce a special guest in the audience, Burt’s widow Jane.

One of the best shows I’ve seen this year. Bacharach’s art was his marvelous songwriting. Staggeringly sensational show.

GOIN HOME — Enroute to my Going Bacharach show, I arrived in midtown a bit early to see what if anything had changed since I worked there some 11 years ago. I got off at 49th and 7th and walked uptown, passing the just re-opened Carnegie Deli. Now it sits about two blocks south from where it originally opened. At 5:15 PM it didn’t look all that crowded, but impressive nonetheless.

I continued on 7th to see the decades-old Wellington Hotel gone, and I suspect a new condo is in-store.

Nordstrom now occupies most of 57th and Broadway, TJ Maxx still occupies 57th and 8th, but Lee’s Art Shop and Salon Ziba are gone forever. Also, the Red Eye Grill is empty too, but the wonderful Trattoria Dell’Arte and sweet-shop Myzel’s,still stands.

I said to Tom Cuddy, after a brief, but satisfying dinner at the Astro on 55th and Sixth and who would join me for the show, it’s amazing what’s new, but also amazing what has stayed. It felt basically the same, but the foot traffic as well as the actual traffic has increased substantially.

I guess you can go home again!

SHORT TAKES – RIP Duncan Sheik. Loved his “Barely Breathing” and Broadway’s Spring Awakening. So sad. Take a read here: https://www.ocregister.com/2026/09/18/duncan-sheik-obituary/?utm_email=5484F4615516C44984F46420F6&g2i_eui=03856d5b039d3c9a315bd8ce19c296fb5da104b4694ec00c727ed48a7a8ae1ea&g2i_source=newsletter&active=no&lctg=5484F4615516C44984F46420F6&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.ocregister.com%2f2026%2f09%2f18%2fduncan-sheik-obituary%2f&utm_campaign=scng-orange_county_register-newscycle&utm_content=curated …

Micky Dolenz at Ameoba/West Hollywood

Here’s Micky Dolenz’s at last week in-store appearance at Amoeba Music in Hollywood tub-thumping his new EP Timeless … Happy Bday Donnie Kehr; Mark Bego; Richard Branciforte; and Suzan Kressel!

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Jarvis Cocker; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; John Boulos; Tony King; Pete Bennett; Allan Steckler; Cori Gardner; Roger Clark; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; John Sykes; Keith Sherman; Bill McCuddy; Tony Bennett; Bill Maher; Cindy Adams; David Fricke; Ken Sharp; Tone Scott; Mark Simone; Herb Rosen; Judy Kaufman; and CHIP!

Images on this page have been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

There are fashion show locations, and then there are locations that become part of the story. On September 15, Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin staged Makers, Moguls, and Muses inside Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Terminal—the landmark her family helped bring into existence more than a century ago. For a New York Fashion Week presentation celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, it would be difficult to imagine a setting with more history embedded in its walls.

Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin

I loved this show.

Presented by Vanderbilt & Seewald Global Studio and Signet Fashion in collaboration with House of Vanderbilt, the evening brought together fashion, technology, art, history and commerce before approximately 300 fashion industry leaders, investors, buyers, media and VIP guests. Actor and Access Hollywood host Mario Lopez served as emcee, but the real host was Grand Central itself. There was something wonderfully full-circle about a Vanderbilt bringing a new generation of creators into Vanderbilt Hall—not simply to celebrate the past, but to ask what comes next.

That question is at the heart of Vanderbilt & Seewald Global Studio, co-founded by Vanderbilt Costin and media entrepreneur Michaela Seewald. The new venture combines fashion investment, media distribution, technology and commerce with the goal of helping designers grow without surrendering their creative identity or ownership. The studio grew from recognizing a very real problem in the creative world: enormously talented independent people can remain unseen, underfunded and sometimes unpaid simply because they don’t have the machinery of a major agency or corporation behind them.

Mario Lopez

For its runway debut, the studio presented three designers with strikingly different aesthetics: Mexico City’s Lorena Saravia, Dustin Glickman’s Stockholm-based DSTN and French couturier Nabil Hayari of Hayari Paris.

The outfit I covet

For me, Lorena Saravia was irresistible. I would have bought practically every outfit that came down the runway. Working in earthy colors and fabrics that included crepe, jersey and beautifully light leather, Saravia played continually with structure and movement—dresses layered over fluid trousers, architectural draping floating over the body, fabrics that changed character as the models walked.

Still photographs don’t quite capture these clothes because movement is part of the design. They were chic, timeless and sensual, but also looked extraordinarily comfortable. Saravia understands something I increasingly want from fashion: clothes can be sophisticated without looking tortured. These were clothes designed for women to actually inhabit their lives in—and I wanted virtually every damn thing she sent down that runway.

Dustin Glickman’s DSTN took the room somewhere entirely different. At just 22, Glickman has developed a vocabulary rooted in sharp tailoring, leather and a rebellious rock-and-roll edge. Fringe, lacing and Gothic influences gave the collection its attitude, but there was discipline underneath the rebellion. It was darker, younger and deliberately tougher than Saravia’s effortless sensuality—a little rock star, a little dark cowboy, and very much aware of the power of a beautifully controlled silhouette.

Then came Nabil Hayari, and suddenly we were firmly in the world of couture. Hayari Paris brought glamour, workmanship and that particular French understanding that excess works beautifully when someone knows exactly when to stop. His made-to-measure work has long been associated with red-carpet dressing, and on this runway it provided the evening with its most unabashedly glamorous chapter.

Hayari

Hayari’s presentation also connected fashion to art through a collaboration with photographer and visual artist Karen Bystedt, whose work includes her celebrated images of Andy Warhol. The evening incorporated a tribute to Warhol, adding another distinctly New York strand to a show already layered with the city’s history.

Hayari

But Makers, Moguls, and Muses wasn’t interested in nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. The runway also served as the debut of Vanderbilt & Seewald’s Click-To-Buy technology, designed to allow people in the room and watching remotely to purchase looks directly from the runway. AEXA’s interactive AI hologram technology brought members of Vanderbilt history into the experience as well, creating an almost surreal collision between old New York and the increasingly technological future of fashion.

Famed Photographer Patrick McMullen

There was also a civic dimension to the evening. In recognition of America’s 250th anniversary, 25 members of the U.S. military, FDNY and NYPD were honored, with the presentation opening with the Color Guard and the national anthem. It gave the evening a sense of occasion beyond Fashion Week and connected the idea of American legacy not simply to wealth or famous names, but to service.

Hayari

That distinction matters because the Vanderbilt name inevitably arrives carrying history. Costin isn’t pretending otherwise. House of Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt & Seewald Global Studio are using that history as capital of another kind: access, visibility and the ability to put people into rooms they might otherwise struggle to enter.

Hayari

That is ultimately what made Makers, Moguls, and Muses so much fun. This wasn’t three collections being marched through an anonymous white box. The setting meant something. The clothes were genuinely worth seeing. The designers had distinct identities. Technology was being used to connect the runway directly to commerce, rather than being attached merely because somebody thought Fashion Week needed an AI gimmick.

Most importantly, I wanted the clothes.

After a week of seeing collections that ranged from inspired to inexplicable, there was enormous pleasure in watching Lorena Saravia send look after look down that runway and thinking, yes, I would wear that. And that. And definitely that.

Fashion can carry history, technology, cultural ambition and an entire family’s legacy on its shoulders. But eventually somebody still has to want the dress.

At Makers, Moguls, and Muses, I did.

Andrew Scott is returning to Sea Wall, the Simon Stephens play written specifically for him, but this time the performance will exist somewhere between theatre, cinema and documentary.

Scott will perform the intimate monologue for 19 performances at Studio Seaview, 305 West 43rd Street, from October 16 through October 30. Yet the audience walking into the theatre will not simply be attending a limited theatrical engagement. They will also become part of a feature film being created around the performances.

Directed by Peabody Award winner Tina Satter, the project is conceived as a film about the creation and experience of theatre itself. Cameras will capture not only Scott performing Sea Wall, but everything surrounding the performance: backstage, onstage and inside the house. Most unusually, the audience at each of the 19 performances will become an essential part of the finished film.

It is an intriguing idea because theatre and film usually approach performance from opposite directions. Film can stop, repeat, edit and choose exactly what the viewer sees. Theatre disappears the moment it happens. Even when a stage production is professionally filmed, what remains is generally a record of the performance rather than the complete ecosystem around it.

This Sea Wall appears determined to capture something more elusive: what happens before an actor walks into the light, what happens in the room while he is speaking, and what happens between performer and audience that cannot be recreated in an empty studio.

Scott is an ideal actor for the experiment.

Few performers understand stillness quite as well. His work can be remarkably quiet while remaining electrically alive, which matters enormously in Sea Wall, a piece that depends less upon theatrical machinery than upon the relationship between one man, his story and the people listening to him.

Andrew Scott

Stephens wrote Sea Wall specifically for Scott, creating an intensely personal monologue centered on Alex, a photographer speaking about family, love and a devastating event that fractures the life he believed he understood. Its power lies partly in its apparent simplicity. One actor. One story. Almost nowhere to hide.

That simplicity should make the filmmaking experiment particularly revealing. Instead of attempting to turn the play into a conventional movie, Satter and her creative team are making the theatrical act itself the subject. The performance remains at the center, but the camera will be allowed to look beyond the frame normally imposed by the stage.

The theatrical creative team includes lighting designer Isabella Byrd and sound designer Ben Williams. For the feature film, Paul Yee serves as director of photography, with Parker Lutz advising on production design.

The production also brings together an extensive producing team. Sea Wall will be produced onstage by Seaview, Spencer Ross, Steven Demmler, Mickey Liddell and Pete Shilaimon, Linden Productions, Both/And Productions and Pam Hurst-Della Pietra and Stephen Della Pietra, with Wessex Grove and ATG Productions serving as executive producers.

What ultimately makes the project exciting is that it is not simply filming theatre. We already know how to do that. This is attempting to capture the strange living organism surrounding theatre—the preparation, the waiting, the audience settling into its seats, the performer entering the space, and the invisible exchange that occurs once everyone agrees to believe in the same story for a little while.

And because each audience will be different, no two performances can produce exactly the same film material.

That may prove to be the most fascinating part of the experiment. Theatre audiences are usually treated as witnesses. Here, they become part of the work itself.

Andrew Scott will perform Sea Wall at Studio Seaview from Friday, October 16 through Friday, October 30. Tickets are now on sale. Details regarding the feature film’s eventual release will be announced at a later date.

For a play built around one man standing before an audience and telling the truth as he understands it, turning the people listening into characters of their own feels strangely appropriate.

Theatre has always depended upon the audience.

This time, the camera intends to prove it.