Vera Wang's Party Prosecco

Enjoy it at your Met Gala/Yom Hazikaron party

Hello designers.

I’m writing this appropriately timed to fashion’s biggest night out. So get your Blackberries out! I can’t wait to open up the NYT slideshow and declare whether Sydney Sweeney has done black dandy right.

Vera Wang has made dresses for every A-list actress, fictional socialite and autocrat’s wife. Listen, I am no Vanessa Friedman and I don’t usually perceive what a woman is wearing (too busy loving their personalities) but I can say confidently that Vera Wang is known for designing great gowns, beautiful gowns. Her brand had been independent since she founded it in 1990 but she sold it last year to WHP Global, which sort of owns every mall outfitter: Bonobos, G-Star, Express, Toys R Us. The price of the sale was undisclosed but people estimate it at something like $650 million.

Vera Wang the person is quite different from her label. She reminds me of my favorite octogenarian Michelle Lamy. They both have a really strange, youthful glow to them, kind of like that optical illusion where one half of the face looks like a young girl and the other like an old crone. Vera, 75, has decided not to enter the Sak’s Off Fifth of life and to instead maintain her rail-thin truth. She subsists on a Barlow-ian diet of McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts (which I actually believe she eats) and dresses in clothing that makes her look like she is in that Balenciaga child exploitation ad.

MOTTHHHHHER, a lesser gay Substack writer might call her. She’s so New York she orders Le Bernadin the Ocky Way. She’s the kind of person who felt conflicted over who to vote for because she was friends with both Donald and Hillary.

Her Park Avenue apartment, which she grew up in and then renovated over nine years. It’s so evil, in a good way.

The idea of her releasing a cheesy Prosecco may or may not come as a surprise. I can’t seem to find anything where she expresses an interest in wine. She’s actually much more of a Vodka drinker, and collaborated on a bottle with Chopin a few years ago. This Prosecco seems to be more about the packaging.

“First and foremost, I am a designer, but I am also an entrepreneur and brand builder. I've dedicated my entire life to designing how people celebrate, and not just their weddings – from what they wear to how they entertain, from their tableaus and tablescapes, to how they live at home – and now, what they drink!” she said in a press release when the wine was released in 2021, essentially delivering the Cerulean blue monologue.

Much of the promotion I have seen for this wine is targeted towards brides. Specifically, to brides who are having their bachelorette parties in greater Nashville. Which is to say all of them. This threw me off, given Vera’s chic-scary style. I have never in my life been a single degree of separation away from a private workout class called ‘Pushups and Prosecco.’ Really, this wine seems to be marketed towards the 29 year old Chicago woman who will throw herself off The Bean if the Microsoft Teams meeting ends at 5:02.

Even stranger than the marketing is the fact that this Prosecco is kosher. Although it is made in Veneto using Glera grapes, it is imported by Royal Wine, a New Jersey-based manufacturer that also makes Kedem grape juice. Let’s be clear: a wine cannot just accidentally be kosher. As Jay Buchsbaum, the marketing director for Royal Wine said, "from the crushing of the grapes to the sealing of the bottle" everything must be supervised and conducted by Sabbath-observant Jews. This means a Rabbi has blessed each and every bottle of Party by Vera Wang. Baruch Hashem!

So how was this orthodox woman’s wine? Not good :( The problem is, it’s just very sweet. It tasted like a green apple gummy ring. I like Prosecco that is light and effervescent but this just felt thick and heavy and lacked any tartness or bitterness. Do you know anyone at 770 looking for an open bottle of kosher wine?

Anywho. If you’re designing for the Met Gala this year, make it work. And remember, please only throw plastic forks at your assistants.