Fashion week extends far beyond the runway. An electric reunion of the industry, it’s just as much about the storied gatherings (and the conversations happening at them) as it is about the latest collections — and having the right drink in your hand will be your best accessory. From New York’s uptown elegance to London’s nocturnal theatrics and the layered decadence of Parisian nights, SEVENTY ONE Gin is the culture-transcending spirit that ties them all together.
In celebration of fashion week, SEVENTY ONE Gin presents Gin à la Mode: an eccentric, rare, and unapologetically nocturnal tour of fashion’s enchanted nights. As you touch down in each fashion capital, you’re invited to follow our Insider’s Guide through each city to learn where to sip your first 71 cocktail, where to pause among the city’s rhythms, and where to immerse yourself in its rituals.
New York
“In New York, fashion week always feels like a rush of youth and diversity,” SEVENTY ONE’s founder Mert Alas explains. “It’s the city where I can land and instantly call up old friends, jump into the night, and just go.” Follow his journey for celebrating fashion week à la mode.
Where to Start
Begin with a 71 Golden Martini amid a hush of quiet wealth at Fasano Fifth Avenue. Service moves as smoothly as the crowd: investors, tastemakers, and the city’s discreetly powerful moving sans fanfare.
Downtown, the lobby at The Mercer is written into the city’s mythology. Start with a drink in the loft-like lobby, and if you feel so compelled, follow it up with a late dinner and dancing downstairs at SubMercer. The elusive mini bar is rarely photographed, but always buzzing. Expect off-schedule designers, editors between shows, and the occasional uptown expat.
Stops Between Shows
Come to moody, dimly lit Midnight Blue as a refuge during fashion week’s quiet interludes, but stay for the soft jazz and blue velvet seating that invite you to vanish between shows. Parisian transplant Printemps is already defining downtown’s cocktail circuit, while Jac’s on Bond is an East Village classic where bartenders and designers lean across the same counter to share a chic martini ritual. A stop at subterranean dream Undercote (located beneath the Michelin-starred Cote) punctuates runway theatrics with a surreal haunt for the senses.
Where to Eat and Drink
Cabaret energy with salon intimacy await at Ella Funt, where models, artists, and editors gather by candlelight for just the right amount of chaos. Step into a humming dining room with waves of fashion week arrivals, flashes, and toasts at midtown sushi spot Zuma, or indulge in old-school chophouse decadence with late-night music at Vinile Italian Chophouse. Leather banquettes, dark wood, and a menu built for excess make it an irresistible stop for fashion week’s night owls.
Late-Night Destinations
Where SubMercer remains an impossibly cool underground, Zero Bond stands on the opposite pole of the after-hours spectrum. The modern members’ club is polished, discreet, and buzzing with quiet power. For a futuristic club that runs on secrecy and electric pulse, Nexus is the whispered-about spot between shows. Sloane’s, tucked inside The Manner, is the new downtown insider bar. Low ceilings, sharp playlists, and a room that feels like a private club without the door politics, it’s always perfectly crowded.
London
The enigmatic London scene is “like slipping into a hidden universe,” says Alas. “Every night out is an adventure,” and the Gin à la Mode London itinerary strives to capture this spirit. The perspective you bring along with you will determine its success.
Where to Start
Your first 71 on the rocks is best ordered at the Donovan Bar, a reborn icon in Mayfair, where velvet banquettes and wood-paneled walls frame London’s most fashionable martini hour. No one understands the ritual better than Salvatore Calabrese, London’s “Director of Mixology” and Federico Pavan, master of the Donovan Bar.
Where to Linger
Closed since February after a fire, Chiltern Firehouse is reopening for fashion week and reclaiming its place in the front row of London’s after-hours. The birthplace of SEVENTY ONE Gin and the city’s most fashionable stage, you’ll be among editors, models, and musicians as they slip in and out of the courtyard, humming with reunions. For this week alone, Chiltern reignites its nocturnal ritual, serving 71 Golden Martinis until dawn.
Where to Eat and Drink
The Maine is a townhouse that manages grandeur with an edge: supper upstairs, martinis humming below. For steakhouse indulgence delivered with Mayfair polish and slow, deliberate service, opt for Mr Porter in the heart of London, and for an ideal backdrop for dealmaking or a lingering meal, go for the silk-lined whispers and lacquered wood at Shanghai Me.
A Stop Between Shows
Think of the lobby of The Edition as a catwalk of culture: arrivals, reunions, and cocktails on loop.
Late-Night Destinations
A new spot for the discreet and powerful, At Sloane is a salon where the night takes shape. For one of the city’s most seductive rooms, the hidden salon of Nikita brims with mirrored decadence, or duck into London’s eternal nightclub Tramp for gilded chandeliers, velvet shadows, and a dance floor that ignores the clock.
Paris
Paris nightlife, according to Alas, is like “stepping onto a beautifully frosted cake and dressing up to match the city’s opulence.” After a day of shows, the founder and photographer finds himself back in his hotel with music and SEVENTY ONE on the rocks, “getting ready for a night that feels like a reunion of friends in the most glamorous place on earth.” Below, suggestions for a terribly fashionable week.
Where to Start
Still the city’s chicest constant, Costes is the unofficial Parisian headquarters of fashion week. Sip your first 71 Golden Martini on the terrace, the week’s unofficial front row.
Where to Eat and Drink
No fashion week is complete without a stop at Lapérouse, an 18th-century Paris legend where scandals and celebrations linger in the gilded mirrors. (Make sure to mention Gregory, the new guard of hospitality, whose modern touch keeps it alive.)
For an experience at fashion’s current dining room, pop into Sugaar, curated by Joaquim. Chic crowd, electric tempo, unrelenting hours. Prunier is a temple of caviar on Avenue Victor Hugo, recently revitalized under Antoine Arnault’s eye.
Stops Between Shows
Red banquettes and chandeliers abound at Fouquet’s on the Champs-Élysées, a theater for Paris’s golden set. On the Left Bank, Art Deco grandeur and history are distilled into every glass served at Lutetia. Enter a couture townhouse where mirrored salons turn cocktails into spectacle at Maison Champs-Élysées, and pay a visit to Bar Sotto, the sunken refuge beneath Carboni’s that glows with candlelight and secrets. Insiders call it their private salon — away from the cameras.
Late-Night Destinations
Raspoutine is still the city’s velvet-draped legend where the dance floor runs until the chandeliers flicker with first light. For the couture palace, go to Plaza Athénée for Avenue Montaigne’s most fashionable nightcap before lights out.
From Fifth Avenue to Mayfair, and Montaigne to the Marais, the real fashion week happens in rooms where the night unfolds. 71 Golden Martinis poured, whispers exchanged, rituals repeated — this is where style and spirit meet. Across New York, London, and Paris, one constant remains: SEVENTY ONE Gin, golden in the glass, carrying the fashion crowd from first toast to final dawn.
