That touch of back-to-school cool air was unmistakable on Wednesday evening, when—just before New Yorkers skipped town for the long weekend—they gathered for a block party in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Once known for its nightclubs and—as its name implies—wholesale meat processing and packing, it’s now a retail hotbed anchored by a DVF boutique—von Furstenberg was a pioneer of the neighborhood, after all—and a Breitling showroom.
It was here that silver-screen fixture Austin Butler, the new face of Breitling’s campaign touting the Top Time B31 timepiece, was holed up in the shop’s basement as throngs of fans waited for him to emerge. Outside, in a tailgate setup complete with a kitschy inflatable helmet and a turf football field with Breitling-yellow end-zone cocktail bars, the fashion set mixed with football fanatics—the latter seemingly most excited by the watchmaker’s NFL capsule collection and the many real-life players on hand. Among them: Eli Manning, who gamely posed with fans alongside the shimmering Vince Lombardi Trophy, which required a security detail of its own.
“This is really a gathering of the entire Breitling family,” Thierry Prissert, the brand’s U.S. president, explained to Vogue as guests enjoyed New York-centric tailgate bites from Katz’s Deli and Scarr’s Pizza. “It’s not often that we’re able to take over an entire city block like this, but the fact that we’re the first official timepiece partner of the NFL, and that we’re hosting Austin, our global ambassador, certainly warranted a party on this level.”
In due time, Butler emerged to much fanfare, joining NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for a moment that made hundreds of unsuspecting commuters stop in their tracks: a surprise performance by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. On the heels of their newfound stardom outside the football arena thanks to Netflix’s docuseries America’s Sweethearts, the squad stormed the stage in their on-field uniforms to do their signature routine set to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” and—as a traffic jam swelled around the celebration—they closed out the evening with a flawlessly executed kick line; their white cowboy boots flying high.
