PRESS
HINTMAG: CHIC HAPPENS – JUNE 2001
DOWNTOWN SMACKDOWN
Ben Widdicombe and Horacio Silva
New York fashion feuds that normally simmer deep below the surface broke into a violent brawl in Chinatown this week. PAPER Magazine style writer Mr. Mickey led the fight card at Crouching Bitches, a “fashion-freak wrestling party” at downtown nightclub FUN. Mickey stripped down to wrestle on the mats at the event which was refereed by designer Kitty Boots, and also featured combatants from Modem magazine and artnet.com. Paper publisher David Hershkovits joined a fashion and art crowd to watch from the sidelines as Mickey cruised to an easy victory in the no-holds barred bitch fight. The event organizer, who goes by the nom de guerre “Call Me Audrey,” says she hopes Crouching Bitches will become a regular fixture on the fashion calendar. We like the idea, and look forward to the prospect of “Stone Cold” Glenda Bailey giving her soon-to-be-ex Harper’s Bazaar staffers a fighting chance to keep their jobs.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: FASHION DIARY – SEPT 10 2001
AS USUAL, THE EXTROVERTS GET THE SHOW ROLLING
Guy Trebay
Where’s the fun? Saturday it was at Deitch Projects on Grand Street, where Paper played host to a “fashionpalooza” of artists, cartoonists, hairdressers, oddballs and visionaries whose approach to fashion is no less serious for being a hoot.
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At the rear, groups of fully, and fashionably, dressed women in pairs and trios hourly leapt into a ring to perform “fashion wrestling.” The show this writer saw was won by the event’s creator, “Call Me Audrey”, who claimed an advantage that Stone Cold Steve Austin might envy. “I’m wearing the Yamamoto boots,” Audrey said. “I won before I entered the ring.”
VILLAGE VOICE – JULY 24 2001
LA DOLCE MUSTO
Michael Musto
The fake fur was flying over at Crouching Bitches, the sort-of-monthly Tuesday-night event hosted by a woman known as Call Me Audrey at Fun, the mod little club in a picturesque spot under the Manhattan Bridge. The uniquely nutty bash encourages fashionistas to wrestle each other before a screaming throng, their tangles underlining the potential viciousness involved in being gorgeous…
WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY – AUG 31 2001
PAPER MAGAZINE SEEKS
FASHION’S HIDDEN FREAKS
by Peter Braunstein
The most directional event associated with the “Paper Project” is the “Fashion Fight Club” put together by a collective known as the Crouching Bitches. The concept is essentially WWF-meets-7th on Sixth: downtown fashionistas in designer wear wrestling in refereed matches. “We’re taking the aggressive look in fashion that’s so big this season — punk, athletic, paramilitary — to its natural endpoint,” says Audrey, the leader of the Crouching Bitches, whose stage (or, more accurately, ringside) name is Call Me Audrey. Call Me Audrey insisted that fashion wrestling, which will take place throughout the day, is in no way linked to John Galliano’s “Fight-Club”-inspired Christian Dior Fall 2001 line. “It’s a very Galliano event, and he’s certainly welcome to participate, but it’s not his idea,” Audrey told WWD.
PAPER MAGAZINE – DECEMBER 2001
TERROR WON’T STOP DOWNTOWN ACTION PARTIES
by Michael Martin
… But Warhol never got as high-concept as Crouching Bitches, a bi-monthly “fashion wrestling” party. Call Me Audrey staged the first Crouching Bitches party in a Brooklyn loft last March. She had scheduled the next party for September 12 [2001] at Chinatown hotspot Fun, but was forced to cancel for obvious reasons.
At the last Crouching Bitches party, an aspiring designer named Tom Fraud, who leads a group called the Gucci Youth, showed his fall line before hitting the mat. Designer Genevieve from Gaelyn Designs and Firepussy Fetish wrestled in a see-through latex wedding gown of her own design. “Being able to get out your aggressions is more important than ever,” says Call Me Audrey. “I hope people will rise up and get even crazier.”