Kendall’s Night

On Tuesday night in New York, Trevor Noah arrived at Tao Downtown a couple of hours after a taping of The Daily Show. One of the perks of the job is invitations to the kind of wild, awesome parties he only fantasized about as a boy, and now, here he was at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show after party.

“I’ve always wanted to see one live,” he said longingly. It was like Shangri-La. Around him, the world’s most beautiful women danced to music by Questlove and guys like him – mostly finance types with slicked-back hair and too much cologne and actors Tyson Beckford, Kellan Lutz, Anthony Mackie and Matt Czuchry of The Good Wife – stood by mesmerized. This party, more than any other, is one where the men always outnumber the women. It sure beat watching the Republican debate, that much was clear.

“More entertaining and more classy,” Noah said.

In one corner of the club, Selena Gomez, who’d performed during the show, huddled with her gaggle of models in one booth. Elsewhere, Kendall Jenner strolled in, appropriately, to Gwen Stefani’s “Rich Girl.”

The Jenner materfamilias finally turned up a little after 11 p.m. Save for an assistant and bodyguard, Kris was unaccompanied and she sauntered the grounds for a while with no clear direction in sight. Her daughter was nowhere to be found.

Settling in an alcove by the DJ’s booth, Kris looked out into the crowd, texted furiously, danced – in her way – to the looping oontz oontz, and returned to the matter of finding her daughter. Where could Kendall be?

Finally, she saw her – the model was holding court in the center of it all with her cohort, Joan Smalls, Lily Donaldson and Gigi Hadid. Kris strutted over, raised her hand for assistance, and climbed over black leather couches to find her place in the inner circle. At last, she’d found her spot in the limelight.

Tuesday was a big night for the family. Kendall walked her first Victoria’s Secret show, a benchmark for any aspiring top model, and both Kris and Caitlyn showed up for moral support.

In the front row, it looked for a minute that the drama between the two parents would upstage whatever strutted down the runway. But media savvy as they are, Caitlyn and Kris defused the situation by chatting casually, all before a phalanx of photographers, of course. For the daughter’s sake, there seemed to be peace at last in the house of Jenner.

“She was extremely proud of her daughter,” said Czuchry, who sat next to Caitlyn during the show. Beckford, meanwhile, was Kris’ seat-mate. “In the end, it’s father and mother,” the model said. “I asked her, ‘How proud are you?’ She said, ‘C’mon.’ She’s very proud.”