A Night in the Life of Rachelle Hruska
By Whitney Spaner
Photographed by Sunny Norton

"Honestly, I don't think that much happens after midnight," says Rachelle Hruska, co-founder and editor of scoopy New York nightlife and society site, GuestofaGuest.com. She's more of a six-to-nine kind of girl, meaning she frequents a distinct block of pre-dinner parties (often fashion line and magazine launches), where glasses of champagne and tuna tartare on bite-sized sesame crisps are dispersed to socialites and media-types, aka the boldfaced names who populate her site. For 27-year-old Hruska, the line between work and play is very blurry -- just how she likes it.
Tonight, for example, I meet Hruska around 8 p.m. at 1Oak in Chelsea for a party celebrating the latest collection by her friend, designer Minnie Mortimer. She's brought along a cameraman who will be taping footage of the party to post on GuestofaGuest the next day. Dressed in a fitted black cocktail dress and oversized sparkly earrings, she chats with guests like Mortimer's husband, Oscar-winning director Stephen Gaghan, about their summers and occasionally pulls out her iPhone to show photos of the bulldog, Stanley Stuyvesant, that she owns with her boyfriend, hotelier Sean Macpherson. They've been in Montauk and abroad for the past few months so she's happy to reconnect. "I feel like everyone leaves the city in the summer. Fashion Week falls right after Labor Day, so it's a really fun chance to see people," she tells me later. "It feels like you're part of something."
After the party, we head downtown for dinner at Peels, the new restaurant on the Bowery from Freeman's mastermind Taavo Somer. She passed on the wine at 1Oak, but now that her friend, jewelry designer Danielle Snyder, has joined us, Hruska decides it's time to relax with a dirty Ketel One martini. Finishing off our scallops and swordfish, we start to feel a bit sleepy but we're determined to make it to Le Bain, New York's club du nuit at the Standard Hotel (famous for its late-night hot tub romps), where her friend and former Patrick McMullan photographer Billy Farrell is having a party. Le Bain is dark, crowded and smells distinctly like chlorine, and Hruska is careful to explain that this is very much not her scene. We don't even make it one lap around the club before we head to The Jane, one of Macpherson's hotels, for a nightcap. The Jane's party-thrower-in-chief, Carlos Quirarte, tells us things are just getting started in the Ballroom, but we're not staying. Fashion Week is one of the busiest times for GuestofaGuest, and Hruska has to be up early to start manning the site. Since we both live downtown, we decide to share a cab home and she drops me off at my doorstep. It's exactly 12:01.
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Favorite places to party in New York:
I don't "party" much really. I prefer dinners with interesting people and conversations, but if I do go out, I tend to go to The Jane.
Best night to go out:
Any night I'm not feeling tired after a glass of wine at dinner.
Times a week you go out:
I go out to dinner most every single night. After that it's very rare to find me out past midnight.
Favorite DJ:
My L.A. editor, Emily Green, is getting into DJing.
Drink of choice:
Ketel One dirty martini
Favorite party jam?
Anything by Lady Gaga...
Tonight, for example, I meet Hruska around 8 p.m. at 1Oak in Chelsea for a party celebrating the latest collection by her friend, designer Minnie Mortimer. She's brought along a cameraman who will be taping footage of the party to post on GuestofaGuest the next day. Dressed in a fitted black cocktail dress and oversized sparkly earrings, she chats with guests like Mortimer's husband, Oscar-winning director Stephen Gaghan, about their summers and occasionally pulls out her iPhone to show photos of the bulldog, Stanley Stuyvesant, that she owns with her boyfriend, hotelier Sean Macpherson. They've been in Montauk and abroad for the past few months so she's happy to reconnect. "I feel like everyone leaves the city in the summer. Fashion Week falls right after Labor Day, so it's a really fun chance to see people," she tells me later. "It feels like you're part of something."
After the party, we head downtown for dinner at Peels, the new restaurant on the Bowery from Freeman's mastermind Taavo Somer. She passed on the wine at 1Oak, but now that her friend, jewelry designer Danielle Snyder, has joined us, Hruska decides it's time to relax with a dirty Ketel One martini. Finishing off our scallops and swordfish, we start to feel a bit sleepy but we're determined to make it to Le Bain, New York's club du nuit at the Standard Hotel (famous for its late-night hot tub romps), where her friend and former Patrick McMullan photographer Billy Farrell is having a party. Le Bain is dark, crowded and smells distinctly like chlorine, and Hruska is careful to explain that this is very much not her scene. We don't even make it one lap around the club before we head to The Jane, one of Macpherson's hotels, for a nightcap. The Jane's party-thrower-in-chief, Carlos Quirarte, tells us things are just getting started in the Ballroom, but we're not staying. Fashion Week is one of the busiest times for GuestofaGuest, and Hruska has to be up early to start manning the site. Since we both live downtown, we decide to share a cab home and she drops me off at my doorstep. It's exactly 12:01.
__________________________________________________________________________
Favorite places to party in New York:
I don't "party" much really. I prefer dinners with interesting people and conversations, but if I do go out, I tend to go to The Jane.
Best night to go out:
Any night I'm not feeling tired after a glass of wine at dinner.
Times a week you go out:
I go out to dinner most every single night. After that it's very rare to find me out past midnight.
Favorite DJ:
My L.A. editor, Emily Green, is getting into DJing.
Drink of choice:
Ketel One dirty martini
Favorite party jam?
Anything by Lady Gaga...
Your Comment
Posted at 10:03 on Oct 06, 2010
Awesome. A party girl. And we should care because? What a bimbo! And what a sad place NY has become.
Posted at 1:57 on Oct 07, 2010
I defy anyone to come up with a lamer q&a exchange