On December 27, The Christmas Night Opera filled Carnegie Hall with an audience made of longtime opera enthusiasts, devoted fans, and first-time listeners drawn by the holiday program. Set inside the Stern Auditorium, the evening brought together world-renowned vocalists and the American Symphony Orchestra for a concert that felt both celebratory and focused, offering a year-end gathering rooted in tradition rather than spectacle.
On Wednesday night, GoingDry.co celebrated the close of 2025 with a Nordic-inspired recalibration. Inside NRTHRN Strong’s Flatiron studio, guests gathered for a low-impact, full-body workout rooted in Nordic movement principles, followed by nonalcoholic cocktails and herbal-forward bites that extended the experience beyond fitness.
NRTHRN Strong is a studio that highlights restraint: clean lines, reflective surfaces, soft blue lighting, and a deliberate focus on breath-led strength. The atmosphere felt transporting without tipping into discomfort. The room glowed cool and calm, a stark contrast to the red-lit intensity that defines so many boutique studios in the city. The workout alternated between time on the studio’s custom ski machines and functional work off the platform, targeting the abs, glutes, and lower body with resistance bands and dumbbells through seamless transitions.
Coach Tyler, who led the class, embodied that same sensibility. A steady guide, he moved easily between instruction and encouragement. The class opened with long, grounding inhales and simple coordination drills that gradually built into a series of movements inspired by cross-country skiing. Instead of sprints or circuits, we moved in rhythmic glides that mimicked ski strides, switching between balance holds, diagonal reaches, and sliding lunges. It looked calm at first, but by halfway through the workout, everyone’s pulse had clearly quickened, and the room glistened with sweat.
One moment we were driving through a controlled ski interval; the next, we were grounded on the floor, working through slow, deliberate core sequences or banded leg work designed to stabilize the hips and protect the joints. Low-impact movements didn’t feel like low effort, but rather a shift toward efficiency. Each movement recruited multiple muscle groups while minimizing unnecessary strain, particularly on the knees and lower back. The rhythm and retraction of the ski poles kept you focused, with breath acting as the anchor. Ultimately, the class felt disciplined and balanced, immersive and energizing, built for endurance rather than aesthetics.
After class, the experience shifted naturally into recovery and connection. Tables were laid with healthy bites like roasted eggplant and tomato crostini, cauliflower bites, and other warm, plant-forward snacks provided from Breads Bakery. Alongside them, nonalcoholic cocktails were poured featuring herbal tinctures from WishGarden Herbs, a leading liquid herbal supplement brand of plant-powered formulas.
The mocktails were customized with tinctures tailored to specific needs. Fruity spritzes were paired with immune-support herbs. A ginger-forward tonic offered warmth and balance, while a softer botanical blend leaned calming and aromatic. We opted for an immune activator with respiratory and immune supporting herbs like Elderflower, Baptisia Root, and Yerba Santa leaf. The drinks were functional and well-balanced, designed to complement the physical work while supporting recovery and a lifestyle built for endurance in New York City.
The Nordic influence carried through to the locker rooms, which featured Dyson hair dryers and a Swedish skincare line rooted in organic botanicals and minimalist formulations. The experience felt holistic in movement, nourishment, and recovery.
The event marked the final GoingDry.co gathering of the year, curated by founder and author Hilary Sheinbaum, whose work has reframed sobriety and mindful consumption as lifestyle choices rather than restrictions. Through her books The Dry Challenge and Going Dry: A Workbook, she has built a community that values balance, presence, and sustainability. Together, the workout and the herbal cocktails explored what a healthier lifestyle can look like in New York, prioritizing social rituals that leave you clear-headed rather than depleted.
On Tuesday night, TAX Magazine took over Music For A While, the subterranean listening bar in Chelsea, to celebrate the release of its sixth issue, Diverge. The crowd was a mix of actors, designers, nightlife icons, and digital creators.
If TAX has a signature, it’s the ability to turn underground energy into something collectible. The Fall/Winter 2025 issue, spanning 370 pages, continues that idea. Designed in Paris, printed in Ghent, published in Los Angeles, and distributed in London, it’s an object that crosses borders but keeps an independent pulse. Diverge explores what happens when instinct takes over instruction and how queer culture, fashion, and intimacy create their own paths and rewrite the rules as they go.
The New York launch came first, followed by an L.A. event the next night. The pace felt right for TAX: fast, global, and slightly chaotic. Inside the warm wood-paneled space, the crowd filled out quickly. Peter Do and Amanda Lepore, both featured in the issue, anchored the night. Lepore arrived in a neon-lime latex dress and yellow gloves that shimmered under flashbulbs while Do kept it understated, moving through conversations with quiet focus, talking about the issue’s evolution and the publication’s widening reach.
The night’s soundtrack came from DJ Evan Kline and DJ P_A_T, who shifted seamlessly between glossy pop and hard electronic cuts. Cocktails flowed courtesy of Gay Water, Superbird Tequila, UME Plum Liqueur (our favorite), and Ten to One Rum, a lineup that matched the magazine’s mood: bright, independent, and a little indulgent.
Across the room, conversations blended fashion, film, TikTok and design. Among the guests were Haley Kalil, Ian Paget, and Peter Demas, alongside editors and reporters from Billboard, WWD, Page Six, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, and The Knockturnal. Photographer Anneliese Horowitz caught the details that mattered: Lepore commanding the room, Kalil in a red sweater mid-laugh, and a sea of phones lighting the space like a low-lit constellation.
TAX’s events always feel less like parties and more like moving editorials. The lighting was cinematic with streaks of red and violet reflecting off glasses and latex, creating pockets of motion that looked staged but weren’t. The energy was fluid, part club, part gallery, part social experiment.
Diverge marks a turning point for TAX. It’s their largest and most visually ambitious issue yet, built with the kind of design precision usually reserved for fashion houses, not independent magazines.
On December 2, the American Austrian Foundation hosted its Music for Medicine fundraiser event among a mix of supporters, artists, and medical leaders.
Last Wednesday, inside the Glasshouse at Bryant Park, Gilead Sciences hosted All The Feelings, a deeply personal and visually striking health awareness campaign. Created to spotlight Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC), which is a rare, chronic autoimmune liver disease, the event merged storytelling, fashion, and community.
The Ludlow Hotel’s penthouse came alive Thursday night with the second edition of Ludlow Live Sessions, a rising downtown series focused on spotlighting next-generation talent in an immersive and intimate environment.
Last Tuesday night in the East Village, Tax Magazine gathered its community for the launch of Issue [5]: Continuum. Hosted at POST, a minimal, gallery-style space on East 3rd Street, the event blended fashion, queerness, and independent publishing into a scene that felt more like a living moodboard.
On Saturday, May 17, as part of NYCxDesign Week, the Lower East Side played host to a gathering that felt less like a typical launch and more like a creative salon.
On Wednesday, May 14, the House of Mienne debuted its provocative new brand at The Box, one of New York City’s most infamous nightlife venues. Kicking off at 9 p.m. and carrying on into the early hours, the launch party was a sensory plunge into Mienne’s world of “everyday eroticism.”
On February 20, 2025, the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York City hosted a captivating evening of music and storytelling titled Interwoven Melodies: Mieczysław Weinberg’s World in Music and Words.