1992 Nominated for "BEST PARTY" ·
PAPERmag's NIGHTLIFE AWARDS · PEOPLES CHOICE !


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With Love,
1992

New York club night 1992, might have a
nostalgic music-policy but it's clientele is
positively progressive.

AS ANY HIP HOP HEAD KNOWS,
1992 was a seminal year for rap and
R&B. The Queen of hip hop soul took
her place on the throne with
the eponymous What's the 411, Dr. Dre
joined the Death Row and introduced the
world to Snoop Dogg, while classic
tracks dropped from SWV,
Blackstreet, Wrecks-N-Effect, En Vogue,
The Ragga Twins, Ce Ce Peniston, Jade
and TLC. Kriss Kross rocked their jeans
backwards, kids went low to show
their Calvins while the bogle was the
dance to bust on the floor.

It was the year that immediately came to
mind when friends Oscar & Vashtie
decided to put on a night in New York.
Bored by the brand-sponsored events
littering the city, they wanted to take it
back when times were good and kids
were rocking the illest in Polo and Jordans.
"It was all so much fun then" reminisces
Oscar. "People were creating music
about living life to the fullest"

The BFF's who met six years ago via
Va$hties ex-boyfriend put a loose
idea into solid form 18 months ago
with a night called 1992. Since then
they've held monthly parties all over
NYC and even an old fashioned block
party in the Lower East Side where Oscar
brought down a double dutch crew and
got his mum to sell chicken gizzards
and lemonade.

With no dress code and a mere 5$
cover charge, 1992 attracts all manner
of fashion fiends, throwback kids, nerds
and knuckleheads; on any night expect
to see Jay-Z, kids from the bronx and
downtown punk rockers wearing the
finest in North Face, Cross Colours
and coogie. And Ralph Lauren. Lots
and lots of Lauren. "1992 was a really
important year for Polo because they
plastered it on so much clothing,"
explains Oscar. "But we don't limit
ourselves just to that year," he continues.
"We focus on '87 to '92 but we play up '97
cos you have all the Bad Boy hits. You'll
hear hip-house, freestyle, dancehall,
new jack swing....." Adds Vashtie: "We
wanted to have a party that was just about
great music and having fun. I feel like
when you come to our
night, you come to our house and I always
want to people to feel welcomed."

Adding art into the equation, the Oscar
and Cleofus designed flyers have quickly
become collectibles, as have the Vashtie
made 'zines and shades. Taking things into
the next century, Vashtie has also done a
number of YouTube invites that depict key
people and events from both the year and
the night. At the club itself you can expect
to see old MTV Raps trading cards and
plenty of bubble-written sticker freebies.

During the day B-boy Oscar is a
graphic designer who acts as a creative
director for this season's Hood By Air
and even has a small role in the forthcoming
Sex And The City film. Sometime photographer
and aritst Vashtie meanwhile is working on
a clothing line Violette and recently lent her
cutting-edge cool to consult for Def Jam
artists like Rihanna and Kanye West.
A budding video director who has lensed
for Beans and Armand Van Heldon, Vashtie
really made heads turn when she directed
the Kanye, Lupe and Pharrell track, Us Placers.
"It wasn't commissioned, but I wanted to do it
and I knew getting those artist involved
would be impossible, so I put my own money
in." Once she posted the video online, bloggers
weren't the only ones going crazy. "Within
hours of me posting that video, all three of
those guy saw it and now I'm doing a video
for one of Kanye's new artists, which is
really exciting."

Having already done a night in Paris with
Colette's Nadege, next up is hopefully a
party in London and maybe even a clothing
line or a TV show. "We could be doing so
much more to cash in but it was never about
that," insists Oscar.

"With 1992, I want to make it more than a
party or a brand that a clothing or alcohol
company can jump on. Who knows, it
could be a book, a clothing line, a film
festival.... the possibilities are endless.

By: Hattie Collins
Photography by: Flora Hanitijo

Taking it back to the days when high tops
fades and the Fresh Prince rules the pack,
1992 celebrates a golden year in hip hop.

1992 was a very good year. Andre Agassi rules the world of professional
tennis with a style and flare never before seen, the Stadium series, and
Redman presented the first of a classic trilogy of LP's, Whut? Thee Album.
So when Va$htie and Oscar aka O-skee first came up with the idea of
throwing a series of 90's themed parties, 1992 seemed the most fitting
of years.

Va$htie, often referred to as "downtown's sweetheart" because of her
numerous affiliations with taste-makers of lower Manhattan, made her
mark in the retail scene, while studying film and visual arts. "There's always
that really well-known girl, who everyone feels comfortable with," Va$htie
says "I took the nickname, just in fun, because I kind of represent that for
downtown" The party culture of the Lower East Side gave this daughter of
Trinidadian parents an outlet to explore her own creativity and discover a
community of like-minded scenesters. After some travel, and signing with
a small production company as a director, Va$htie was offered a gig in Def
Jam's creative service department, finding favor with the industry, but still
maintaining strong ties with her beloved downtown set. Va$htie met Oscar
through an ex-boyfriend who also happened to be a b-boy. "Me and my
boyfriend broke up and i won Oscar in the settlement," she says, jokingly.

Oscar, a Dominican break-dancer from East New York, wears many
hats (literally and figuratively). With a background in graphic design (check
for his colorful party flyers, featuring icons of hip hop's golden era), and a
decade of perfecting the b-boy aesthetic, Oscar boasts a sick collection of
crowns - "I was the first one rockin' the Sherlock Holmes hat!" - and an
even sicker collection of dance moves. "Even as a little kid, my father was
like 'Every time you dance I'll give you a dollar' and i made $8 that night! So
from that point my fear of dancing in front of people was taken care of...now
I just had to find a scene of people who actually wanted to go out there
and dance."

Now, much more than a series of parties, 1992 presents a cross
section of cultures, contributing to a common movement. A 1992 party list
reads like a who's who of the downtown street fashion and music scenes,
but you can expect to rub shoulders with a diverse range of characters.
"I wanted to be able to invite just random kids, and make them feel
comfortable. I didn't want to be like ego-tripping," says Oscar. Va$htie
echoes the sentiment. "We know such an array of people. Yuppies come to
our parties with button ups and Dockers, and they just like the vibe. It just
naturally mixes up, because we know so many people and invite everybody.
I think because of the vibe, we could eventually flip 1992 into something
else, and not just be about the parties." For now, if you want a monthly
fix of 90's hip hop, reggae, house, and pop keep an eye out for the next
1992 venue.

- Devin "PAN" Barret

Thank you papermagTV!!

By BEN DETRICK
Published: December 9, 2007

THE party took place on a recent Tuesday night at R Bar, a midsize nightspot in downtown Manhattan with comfortable banquettes, four stripper poles and large framed photos of scantily clad models on the crimson walls. The lounge is on an emerging stretch of the Bowery that looked very different 15 years ago. The people inside? Less so.

In tribute to the year 1992, an elevated D.J. segued through records by erstwhile hip-hop artists like K-Solo and Apache and into dance music by Color Me Badd and Bobby Brown, while members of the crowd swarmed the bar and contorted in dated dance steps. Some participants took the theme particularly seriously, wearing vintage Polo sweaters, retro Air Jordan sneakers and chunky gold door knocker earrings.

A celebration of the urban culture of the early 1990s, the monthly party is known simply as 1992. Bouncing around downtown Manhattan clubs since August 2006, it has attracted celebrity guests like Jay-Z, the producer Jermaine Dupri and the music mogul Andre Harrell. Europeans, hankering for a slice of retrograde Americana, have taken the party to Paris and Amsterdam.

"If you don't know the past, you'll just follow the trends that are going on now," said Stephen Barr, 26, of West Hempstead, N.Y., a designer of T-shirts that coordinate with Nike SB skateboarding sneakers. Tall, burly and bearded, he wore a vintage Polo ski jacket with a "1992" patch on the breast pocket. A party regular, he said, "It's more about camaraderie than meeting girls and all that stuff."

While the shimmering synthesizers, leg warmers and asymmetrical New Wave haircuts of the 1980s have been alternatively ridiculed, revered and replicated, the early 1990s have remained an untapped source of retro lodestone. In 1992 the cold war had ended, Bill Clinton was on his way to the White House and Euro Disneyland was being panned by the French. But in urban circles, it was distinctive for different reasons — hip-hop culture was teetering at the departure point between its past as a street-level phenomenon and its future as a global powerhouse.

"The '90s felt very, very underground, and not everyone really heard it," said Oscar Sanchez, 30, a break dancer who put together the first 1992 event at the meatpacking district club Lotus. While contemplating themes for a new party, he opted for the music he cherished as a Brooklyn teenager: besides hip-hop and R&B, popular mutations like new jack swing, hip-house and dance hall reggae. "I picked 1992 because it was the pinnacle of fashion and that whole sound," he said.

Maya Arulpragasam, the British singer who performs as M.I.A., chanted "Where were you in '92?" on her recent album, "Kala." She described the appeal of the early 1990s as "instinctual." In the video for her single "Boyz," American fashion abominations like Cross Colours jumpsuits and zebra-striped overalls were featured prominently.

"We collected every piece of clothing that, at the time, was embarrassing," she said in a telephone interview.

The organizers counted on the idea that the primal desire to reconnect with adolescence — minus the agonies of acne and fourth-period earth science — extends beyond those who listened to Bel Biv DeVoe and wore fluorescent spandex.

"That was the age when you're leaving your preteens and experimenting with clothes and music," said Vashtie Kola, 27, a founder of the 1992 parties. "I think even kids who weren't in an urban area who grew up at that time can relate to that period and that year."

But to the hip-hop cognoscenti, the early '90s are considered a golden era. "I don't know how to characterize it any further than saying it was the best time ever," said Danyel Smith, the editor in chief of Vibe magazine. "Everything just seems special and etched in stone as the most beautiful, incredible, smart, super post-modern moment in the history of this music."

Such a stance may smack of crusty ageism, but 1992 marked a stylistic crossroads; within a year, the synchronized dances and whimsical clothing would be bludgeoned into obscurity by the gritty sound and military-style gear of choleric rappers like Wu-Tang Clan, Onyx and Boot Camp Clik.

By resuscitating music that tumbled from the Billboard charts, the 1992 party draws many who find contemporary fare too abrasive. "It's what I think really represents hip-hop; it was creative, fun — it wasn't all that 'shoot 'em up, bang-bang,'" said Maxwell Dixon, who as a rapper called Grand Puba released the solo album "Reel to Reel" in 1992.

Invited to host a 1992 party last April, Mr. Dixon was pleased to see thick gold dookie rope necklaces and high-top fade haircuts. "The Rolling Stones been around forever, but they seem to exist generation after generation after generation," he said. "That's how I think it should be with hip-hop," he said.

Just as Mick Jagger's skin-tight pants were resurrected as skinny jeans, fashions of the early 1990s find new life at the 1992 party. Revelers in their late 20s and early 30s in head-to-toe Ralph Lauren Polo mix with recent Fashion Institute of Technology grads in neon-colored jeans.

Retro-oriented scenes often wink at the cartoonish aspects of the era they celebrate, but there is little irony here. "The early '90 was the last good style moment in the past 10, 15 years," said James Filsaime, a 20-year-old from Brooklyn who wore a pink, orange and green Sergio Tacchini windbreaker and turquoise jeans he admitted were "actually from 1991."

For many in the crowd, the 1992 party is less a costume party than a chance to reinterpret trends from the past. Gaudy jewelry, retro sneakers and bug-eyed sunglasses are as ubiquitous as they were 15 years ago.

"It's like taking the aesthetic of the '90s and putting it on garments we feel and understand and are willing to wear," said Jahream, 27, of Harlem, who goes by his first name. He wore white Cazal 704 sunglasses, a vintage Washington Redskins starter jacket customized to read "Blackskins" on the back, and a Haile Selassie medallion. "We might not put on a polka-dot silk shirt, but the polka-dots were hot — we'll put them on a hoodie and rock that," Jahream said.

Of course, not everything from the past can be updated. "There are certain things I'll bring back," said Shyvonne Sanganoo, 22, a marketing assistant at Def Jam Enterprises who was attending her first 1992 party. "But fanny packs? I got bad memories, I can't do it."

yes! In the beginning of 2007
1992 was handing out souvenirs
check them out below:

- Oscar managed to get 3 boxes of original "yo mtv raps" trading cards.
we decided to hand them out at the 1992 parties.
People were buggin and were actually trading cards at the party!
- Legendary graffiti artist COPE 2 hooked us up with the 1992 sticker.
we officially made the 1992 sticker our logo!


these Jumbo "on the go" stickers and "on the go" magazines were also
given out at a 1992 party, shout out to Ari.
(stickers on the left, zine on the right, Ari sticker below):




Vashtie put in serious work for this ultra clever funky fresh 1992 zine.
She made it especially for the 1992 miami (march 07) trip for the
winter music conference. The zine was full of previous party pics, 90's
celebrity photos and ads by absurd, irakny, king solomon and baden baden.



Vashtie also got these custom made 1992 sunglasses.
people almost jumped vashtie for them, they were a winner !!


(until further notice, we are all out of sourvenirs)

See you at the next 1992 party!!


With love,
the 1992 crew!

Vashties 1992 video invites!

(If you never seen the video invites vashtie had done for the very first
1992 parties, check them out here!)

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mad points to vashtie for this funky fresh dope idea !

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