Alexander Wang may be the princeling of fashion week parties. But last month, in lieu of his typical extravaganza, Mr. Wang chartered a school bus, filled it with 100 close friends, including Miley Cyrus, and drove to a remote warehouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
There, the night-life sorceress and fashion eccentric who goes by the name Ladyfag was hosting one of her secret, invitation-only revelries called Lowbrow Despicable. In the event the city’s nocturnal denizens had not heard of the party before, they certainly did another morning, when photos of Ms. Cyrus, with her top off and pasties in, were all over Instagram.
“When Alex asked if he could crash my event as an after-party for his friends, I was like: ‘Of course. That’s just what friends are for, ’ ” Ladyfag said the other night in her house in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which she describes as “a Russian dollhouse” filled up with Mexican antiques and cabaret-style flourishes. Wearing a men’s Spanish chapéu, any Hungarian black silk apron and a vintage lace bodysuit that exposed the woman rear end, she was preparing for 11: 11, a popular Friday gay party on the Open House bar on the Lower East Side.
Much like her madcap clothing, the soirees she hosts are motley affairs. “Her parties never think that a specific scene, ” Mr. Wang said. “There is this feeling that everyone can do what they want. ”
As bottle-service playpens and watered-down mixologists always drain New York night life of its hedonism, Ladyfag’s inclusive and gleefully risqué circuit of parties has made her a bright light in the city’s late-night sparkle. In addition to Lowbrow Despicable and 11: 11, Ladyfag, who is 38, arranges Shade, a high-production rave that is rarely in the same location twice and will take up to three months to plan, she said. (The most recent one, inside June, was held at a cavernous industrial space in outer Brooklyn and had above 2, 500 attendees. )
There is also Holy Mountain, a monthly party inspired from the 1973 cult Alejandro Jodorowsky film that takes place at Slake, a two-story club in Midtown that houses eight D. J. s in several rooms.
Part of her appeal is the assortment of characters she draws. “It’s super-mixed as far as musical styles, gay and straight, male, female, old, young, matches and drag queens, ” she said with a laugh.
Her inner round includes a cadre of gay men, including the event producer Josh Wood and also Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci. “Night life has changed a lot: less freedom, less encanto, less expression, ” Mr. Tisci said. “The parties of Ladyfag are just like how partying used to be. ”
And her wardrobe evokes a bygone time - a flamboyant Frida-Kahlo-meets-Mad-Max style that echoes old-guard eccentrics like Ould - Piaggi and Lynn Yaeger, a contributing editor at Vogue, beloved for their artistic, Kewpie-doll look.
“Both of us are self-created creatures, ” said Ms. Yaeger, who counts Ladyfag as a rare compatriot against the commercialization of fashion. “Nobody would like to see multibillion-dollar-company-clone clothes all the time. ”
Her shape-shifting exhibitionism also suits the particular camera-ready nature of Instagram. “There’s more than one of me, ” Ladyfag mentioned.
Although she has been featured in style magazines like V and Paper (she wrote the magazine’s current cover story on Mr. Tisci), it would be completely wrong to dismiss her as a mere peacock.
In 2012, she was the keynote speaker at the opening of “¡Viva la Vida! Celebrating the Extraordinary Art and also Life of Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera” at the Art Gallery of Ontario. (Ms. Kahlo is a personal hero of hers. ) In April, the lady was a host of “Neverending Nights: Stories From New York City’s Nightlife, ” a panel discussion at the Standard Hotel.
There is an activist bent as well. Consider her armpit hair, which she said she hasn’t shaved since the lady was a 16-year-old “young hippie feminist in Toronto, ” she said.
To a few, her hirsuteness is symbolic of her transgressive beauty. “I instantly became adoringly obsessed with her - I remember adoring her look, a beautiful vintage dress and the woman armpits, ” Mr. Tisci said. It also has the potential to unsettle. “You must see me on the subway in the summer, ” she said. “I put up our arm on the hand rest, and the whole train starts laughing. ”
In any event, being unshaven helped put her on the night-life map. Soon after moving to be able to New York from Toronto in 2005, she was discovered by the storied doorman Kenny Kenny, who hired her as a go-go dancer for a party he or she hosted at Happy Valley. A couple of months later, the night-life columnist Michael Musto, an occasional contributor to The New York Times, cemented her arrival in his Village Speech column. “In clubland, it’s been one long journey, man, all probably toward the girl with the hairy armpits, ” he wrote.
Every once in a while, any clueless person on social media wonders out loud if her bushy underarms and also Rossy-de-Palma-esque femininity mean that she is actually a man in drag. “If people consider I am so woman that I look like a man performing hyper-feminine drag, then I can take that as a compliment, ” she said.
Ladyfag, nee Rayne Souverain, grew up in the 1970s in Toronto in a “very nice Jewish family, ” the lady said. (Her father, rather fittingly, designs wardrobe closets. ) After developing a reputation for her eclectic manner of dress while working at a vintage clothing retail outlet in Kensington Market, she was approached by Sook-Yin Lee, a ex - MuchMusic V. J., to participate in an art show about outsider culture.
“Sook-Yin said to me, ‘You’re this woman, but you’re always out with gay and lesbian men - you’re not really a gay man, you know, ’ ” she mentioned. Using that as her inspiration, she created “Ladyfag: A Love History, ” a cabaret performance-art piece that explored her burgeoning identity. “The name itself - I’m not a lady; I’m not a gay man, ” she said. “I’m a bit of everything. ”
She rolls her eyes when someone objects to her use of the derogatory word, saying that she is appropriating this a sign of affinity with gay men. “I do more to promote gay privileges by introducing myself as Ladyfag proudly than half of those ‘straight-acting’ homosexuals in Chelsea, ” she said. (It should be noted that she is hermafrodita. )
Occasionally, she said, she encounters patrons at highbrow social capabilities who “don’t get it and immediately turn the other way. ” It has furthermore cost her night-life bookings and even an advertising campaign that featured real Fresh Yorkers.
But Ladyfag said she is proud to suffer for her individuality. “I’m a certain kind of a woman that definitely gets put in the ‘other’ box, ” the lady said. “And you know what? I’m O. K. with that. ”
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