BRANT WATCH

Dayton, Ohio-based socialite Priona Davis, of the Sham Wow fortune, poses with a wax dummy of Peter II recently unveiled at New York’s Madame Tussauds. “He almost looks alive,” she shrieked, poking a finger into his unfurrowed brow before asking a museum guard to take this portrait for her 890 Instagram followers. Peter II’s dummy is part of the controversial “Young Lions, Let Us Hear You Roar!” exhibition, which also memorializes Bullett magazine’s Idil Tabanca and John Prillimom Jr., the Tampax heir and founder of HumpScore.com, the controversial website often described as “like Yelp, but for dudes you’ve fucked.” Critics have blasted Tussauds for stretching the definition of celebrity. “Tom Cruise, J-Lo, Beyonce—superstars,” wrote iconic wax dummy gadfly Hilary Bent. “But who the heck needs to see a life-size facsimile of some chick who backed her SUV over a bunch of disabled kids while peeling out of a Hamptons charity fundraiser back in 2011? Not this reporter.” Indeed, vigilante groups have taken to vandalizing certain of the “Young Lions” statues—Harry’s own wax dummy is currently undergoing restoration after being rendered “anatomically incorrect” by a wild-eyed activist, according to a press release.  

Patriarch Peter I discusses the plummeting prices of organic kimchi stocks with Harrius Honeypot, the fabled collector who made his first million as the third caveman in the early ’00s GEICO commercials. They’re photographed at the Gagosian gallery in Los Angeles for the opening of Richard Prince’s “Rasta Mon (Funk Off)” exhibition, which features original Patrick Cariou photographs that have been urinated on by Dan Colen, scanned, and then printed by www.cheapcanvas4u.com. Patriarch Peter I confessed that he’d bought the entire show in advance, with the works to be distributed equally among the Brant compound and the chain of low-carb falafel restaurants he recently purchased in Lebanon. A female rockabilly band composed of former Ryan McGinley models performed at the opening. Peter II and Harry were unable to join their father, as they had previously committed to delivering a joint keynote webcast to the University of Phoenix’s interior design honors program. Richard Prince failed to personally attend the opening, which led to a persistent rumor that he had died, though he had not.  

Harry and Peter I with small-batch pickle maven (and erstwhile Entourage fan club captain) Salvatore Squash and his girlfriend Masha, who wears a bleached rhino skin dress from Cynthia Rowley and a self-made necklace composed of “various charms and amulets, and also old house keys, my baby teeth, a rock from this time I went to Machu Picchu, and other significant items,” she explained. The quartet was photographed taking a break from cruising the Barney’s spring sample sale, where Peter I scored the Takeo Kikuchi couture brooch he’s wearing, sewn from the undergarments of Japanese girls who dropped out of high school. “This place: Goldmiiiiine,” swooned Harry, flapping his arms in the manner of an overexcited baby bird. He later showed off his bounty: “A pair of 2010 corduroy strumpets with pumpkin piping; a Narobi leather-accented cane nubbin with ground espresso filigree; pristine Gherkin loafers and a matching pair of knee-high argyle socks with wart-dimple embroidery dramatics; 2013 unreleased velour Capris with silkscreened Chris Wool inner lining that spells out the phrase ‘Fuck Me’ in thirteen languages, some of them dead; a Delfina Delettrez swickgold-and-splatresin necklace depicting a cockroach crawling out of the eye socket of Napoleon’s skull…” After shopping, Peter I and Harry repaired to the new pop-up tapas shop on Elizabeth Street helmed by Belgian countess Gerrie Fahneart, a DJ. 

Peter II strikes a pose with Russian teen acrobat Slina Prakova during a photo shoot in Kehinde Wiley’s Beijing studio, where the famous artist is preparing material for his latest series of paintings, entitled “Mo’ Money Mo’ Monarch$$$.” The Brants were in China for the week while Patriarch Peter I finalized the acquisition of Zap Zap You’re Dead, an international laser tag franchise. Wiley’s newest canvases, which will be painted by Foxconn workers, are “an examination of white privilege through the lens of a hip-hop vernacular, simultaneously celebratory and defamatory, but drenched in glamor, sex, and angst,” the artist says. Harry was unable to attend the preparatory shoot as he was recovering from complications following an experimental green tea-and-ginseng colonic. After the photo shoot, Peter II and Patriarch Peter I enjoyed an elegant dim sum dinner in the company of Thomas Friedman, who was visiting China to research a new book about how the world is no longer flat, but rather slightly rippled, like a potato chip.  

“The ocean is so over,” drawled Harry, wearing American Apparel Daisy Dukes and a pair of snug-fitting leather Crocs. “I don’t understand the fucking appeal,” Peter II chimed in, re: the ocean. “You know what’s going to happen. The waves keep coming, they crash against the rocks, every now and then a boat goes by, etceteras. I tried sitting here sort of gazing out and contemplating my own mortality, but that got old after like thirty seconds.” The Brants were taking a well-deserved break from the quinceañera-themed 26th birthday of socialite Patti DuLong, heir to the DuLong cement-and-avocado fortune. A marathon 24-hour celebration, the event included a roast pig stuffed with pineapple puree and gemstones; a life-sized piñata depicting Barack Obama as noted Mexican socialist Pancho Villa; a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey using live, anesthetized donkeys; and a fireworks ceremony, organized by artist Cai Guo-Qiang, that spelled Patti’s name out in loving cursive across the night sky of San Jose del Cabo. “Mexicans aren’t nearly as lazy as they’re made out to be,” said Harry, taking a break from the complimentary ‘Aztec Man-I-Cure’ booth. “I mean, they’re lazy, but they’re not nearly as lazy as, like, Guatemalans. We’ve had to fire tons of those in the past year.”

Party guests were handed a gift bag that included mezcal, diamond-studded maracas, and a copy of DuLong’s vanity-published guidebook, Fucking Hot On Instagram. “Let’s hope that she steps it up next year and has a party somewhere interesting,” Peter II yawned. “Like in a volcano.”

Harry at the Steers ‘n Beers Oscars after party, hosted by Western Beef, Budweiser Triple-X Select, and the ghost of Spin magazine. The event was held at the historic ranch of Belvedere Strumpkin, a tobacco scion known for his vocal and financial support of astroturf groups dedicated to “overthrowing the Jew-spiracy known as Hollywood,” according to the Google cache of his former website, StrumpkinVSTheWorld.biz. Most guests were ignorant of the politics of their host—who, wheelchair-bound at 98, watched the proceedings from a specially constructed floating dais, wearing a vintage slim-fitting t-shirt that read PUTTING THE PARTY BACK IN APARTHEID. Harry was joined at the event by Veronica Keister, foreground, an extra in Argo. “They cut my goddamn scene,” the actress lamented. “Do you remember that bit where Ben Affleck is in his hotel room, staring out the window, with the sun sort of shining in and just casually glinting off his perfect abs? Well my character was supposed to come into the room and start applying oil to his back and shoulders, in a subtle and poetic manner. I did great, but ultimately Ben didn’t think the scene made sense within the larger context of the film.” Marnie Stern performed a set of post-hardcore Hank Williams covers at the event. Peter II told fourteen people derivations of an anecdote about the time he mistook Anne Hathaway for a meerkat. 

Harry and Peter II in the audience for Lou Reed’s “hypno-poetic” performative lecture, held at Cooper Union and co-sponsored by Kraft and the personal injury law firm of Schmiller, Sandler, and Whipple. They are joined by Leonard Berkus, the affable star of the FX sitcom Hey Hey, Tomorrow’s Another Day; AsienBoySk8RFace 2000, the sexual horoscope blogger and rising star of the snakeboarding scene; and XR1215, an updated version of Peter II’s slightly inferior doppelgänger from rentaslightlyinferiorlookingperson
tomakeyoulookbetterincomparison.com. Harry wears an Alexander Olch tie in a patented shade of Slippery Pimento; Peter II sports motorcycle pants sewn from parachute material utilized by the elite team that killed bin Laden. “I’m sort of here by mistake,” Harry said, noting that he had inexplicably mistaken Reed for Stephan Jenkins, the frontman of Third Eye Blind. 

The former Velvet Underground icon’s performance began with an a cappella rendition of Poe’s The Raven sung by Rufus Wainwright, who shimmied and flailed above the crowd using technology borrowed from Fuerza Bruta. Afterward, a naked Reed was carried onto the stage by a team of notables that included Cindy Sherman, Antony, Matthew Barney, and, somewhat counterintuitively, Guy Fieri. He was left, shivering ever so slightly under a spotlight, while an orchestra composed of NYU sophomores performed a deconstructed symphony for the tiny viola. As the music swelled to a near orgasmic crescendo, the arts journalist Linda Yablonsky descended from stage left, dressed as an enormous hypodermic syringe; Reed began spasming and Yablonsky, in homage to Jennifer Rubell, dripped honey on his bashful genitalia.

“This is fucked,” said Peter II. “These people are old enough to know better.” The Brants cut a hasty exit before the piece’s finale, which included a donkey show and a cameo from Michael Stipe. 

“It took a few years, but I finally caught the yoga bug,” Peter II explains, rocking a “distended grasshopper” pose in the supply closet for the Valentino NYFW show, co-sponsored by the Army’s recent Collateral Damage campaign. “I’m a fairly inflexible person—if we’re talking physically, and not morally—but I’ve since found that the practice can bring about a great deal of spiritual peace. I’ve also started eating Greek yogurt.” Peter II helped himself to a pair of Kandahar Krush loafers and a limited edition Hey Haji! laptop slipcover. “I love this camo shit,” Peter II swooned. “It’s so ironic. Our gardener’s son served, like, six tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he came back we used to hang out because he had the sickest weed connection in Greenwich. We used to call him Dead Eyes Danny.” The Valentino runway show, one of the most controversial and critically-acclaimed of this year’s Fashion Week, featured eleven gay, partially disfigured war veterans wearing head bandages; the amateur models limped rhythmically down the runway to a soundtrack of dupstep that had been slowed down to 12bpm. “This is my small way of paying tribute,” the designer said.

Harry at the NYFW runway show for SixAsSeven, the Argentine/Canadian collective known for their use of reflective mirrors, silkworm feces, and the experimental stitch pattern known as the ‘Infinity Orgasm.’ The young Brant wears the label’s 2012 shrunken velour jacket, inspired by the bathroom wallpaper of Slovakian pensioners, and a pair of snug oatmeal pleggings (unpictured.) He poses with Carlos Skimpy, fashion blogger and owner of www.fuckyeahscarves.biz, and Michael Hapless, the consultant and tastemaker who facilitated SixAsSeven’s recent collaboration with Chuck Close on a series of Nag Champa-scented wheelchair draperies. In a bold conceptual move that nodded to Yves Klein’s Le Vide, the runway show did not include a runway, or models, or any clothing, for that matter; attendees merely watched an empty, spotlit stage for 27 minutes, while the famed Mongolian pianist Hrv Kntlp performed an atonal composition by banging his Steinway’s keys with a glass dildo. “Anyone who says that fashion isn’t art can, like, shut up now,” Harry said, helping himself to a cocaine-dusted snail ravioli. Peter II told Yoko Ono an anecdote about the time he visited an afterhours Tokyo cat cafe. The evening concluded with a Buddhist prayer.

“This isn’t goddamn physics,” said best-selling self-help speaker and noted leather daddy Kelvin Prunchin, explaining the mechanics of the ‘Silent Duck’ to a visibly squeamish Harry and Peter II. The trio were in the front row at the tents to view the latest collection from Betsey Johnson, inspired by Skittles, Cyndi Lauper, and the rich history of British chav culture. Problems arose from the start, beginning with an amateurish DJ who hadn’t received the memo that ghost-house is dead, having been ousted by acid-grunge and Italo-disco-horrorcore circa January 12, 2013. “You make the duck’s bill,” Prunchin continued, even as the models began flopping down the runway, “and then you just insinuate yourself in there in a very ninja-y manner.” After the show concluded and the casualties were tallied—two broken ankles, four nosebleeds, and an unexplained mini-outbreak of Hepatitis C—the group repaired to Kwanzaa, a new members-only club housed in a former women’s shelter on Avenue D. An Andrew W.K. impersonator performed at the event. Gift bags, surprisingly robust for this year’s NYFW, included copies of Gone Girl, boxes of Kimono’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bareback (TM) prophylactics, and miniature kitten ceramics by Karen Kilimnik. Peter II and Harry managed to evade the aroma of hairgel and despair that is Kelvin Prunchin, even as he continued his unsolicited lesson: “The secret, boys, is plenty of Purell….”