Big Money and Micro Bikinis: Taylore’s Miami Art Week Diary

Our senior editor Taylore Scarabelli documents the overhyped parties and expensive outfits at Miami Art Week.

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WEDNESDAY 3:15 PM, MIAMI

We’re stopped in the median after a near-collision. I love chaotic Florida energy but I’d also like to survive long enough to experience my suite at 1 Hotel courtesy of Chase Sapphire Reserve. I take a selfie and share it to my stories. Art Basel number two-thousand and forty three.

4:47 PM 

I leave my husband at the hotel and head directly to SCOPE for a VIP preview of the Chase Sapphire lounge. “It’s Miami outside,” I text him as I watch a bunch of stiletto-clad women hobble towards a giant beachside tent. When I arrive I‘m directed into a dark tunnel where a Chase-sponsored refracted light ray is pulsing and vibrating like a physical incarnation of rainbow capitalism. I linger. People love to hate on experiential art but I like dark rooms and money. 

4:57 PM

I make it to the lounge just in time for opening remarks. Chase Sapphire’s handsome executive Samuel Palmer is feeling passionate about this year’s collabs and I’m feeling passionate about the prospect of a snack. I line up at a golden bar where Grass Fed Culture staffers are concocting cryo-infused dry olive martinis. A beaker smokes and swirls and I decide it’s a metaphor for the week ahead. 

5:42 PM 

Four hors d’oeuvres and half a martini later and it’s time to head to the Design District for a Fendi store re-opening. An electric LED-covered Cinderella carriage blasting “Getting Jiggy With It” breezes past. It’s supposed to be art week but all I see is fashion. 

5:58 PM 

My Lyft app lets me know my driver is hard of hearing and offers a link to learn American sign language. Two minutes later, a minivan with a Marine sticker pulls up. R.E.M. is playing on a YouTube app. 

6:42 PM

“Five miles in 52 minutes!” the driver curses. I answer some emails and try to ignore the fact that we still haven’t left South Beach. 

7:07 PM 

We’re midway across the causeway when I notice a glimmering LED Mona Lisa staring down at me. Finally some art. 

8:20 PM 

I arrive at the Fendi store nearly two hours late, but I’m right on time. We weren’t the only ones stuck in traffic. I circle the shop and snap photos of the influencer I’m supposed to interview. He hides behind potted plants and embraces a mannequin wearing the same outfit he is. Tell me TikTok isn’t performance art. 

9:22 PM

My husband arrives and we meet a few friends who’ve been loitering in a nearby courtyard after attending a Margiela cocktail party. We’re all writers working on rival Art Week diaries, which is embarrassing but so is the art world so none of us care. 

11:oo PM 

We enter one of the 500 parties being hosted by J. Balvin this week. My husband spots him while the rest of us hunt for Nami Nori hand rolls like party girls in search of bumps at an afters. The bartender agrees to charge my phone but has to ask his manager permission to take my 20. We talk about cute cater waiters and pose for a BFA photographer who once uploaded photos of my [REDACTED]. 

12:o4 AM 

People are going to Twist but we’re wading through a crowd of black cars and bedazzled women outside of a party for Casablanca. It’s a waterfront rent-a-villa situation but that doesn’t stop us from prying our way in. If media girls are good at anything, it’s gaining access to overhyped events. 

WEDNESDAY 12:05 PM 

I wake up with an undeserved headache and decide it’s best we do breakfast on the beach. We sit behind a middle-aged Versace-clad couple and a tiny white Pomeranian named Gucci. 

1:50 PM 

I spot a woman in frosted lipstick selling micro bikinis and suddenly I forget all about feeling bloated. “It has good energy in it,” she tells me while I fumble with my Zelle account. 

4:20 PM 

I file my Fendi story and my friend comes over. We’re supposed to go to NADA but I stall and suddenly we’re waiting forever for an Uber. As the sun sets and lights from a tow truck flash in front of us, I have a minor bout of PTSD. I’m too fabulous for all this traffic. 

6:28 PM 

It takes two hours to get to the city so we skip NADA and go straight to the Miu Miu party. I have anxiety from the car ride over and I wonder if Gigi Hadid’s manager, whose head hovers directly over mine while I interview her, feels the same. I spot Garcelle Beauvais and accost her like a crazed Bravocon attendee. 

8:29 PM

At the PAMM opening, a police officer escorts us out because we don’t check in properly. The PR people in the parking lot are apologetic but I think the expensive hotel is getting to my head. 

9:46 PM

We’re the first people at the Harmony Korine Edgelord party but a creep my friend has beef with shows up so we only stay for two vodka Redbulls. 

11:20 PM

At the PIN-UP event in the basement of the Edition we befriend some bald Europeans who I think are lovers but are actually just straight men on molly. My friends fuck in the bathroom and then we Uber to twist.

FRIDAY 9:30 AM 

I wake up feeling better than yesterday so I work and then beach and then put on a slutty dress and hard-to-walk-in Phoebe Philo heels. I know this is a mistake but I care about fashion and fitting in more than I care about comfort. 

4:58 PM 

My husband and I speed through the aisles at Art Basel and fawn over weird outfits and freaky art. We both like the booth with Juliana Huxtable self-portraits and uncanny images of cats. He points out a man holding a demented fish and I stop at a sparkly wall sculpture that looks like a compact. I love a giant mall more than anyone but a lot of the work is just ugly. 

7:02 PM 

We order two martinis with blue cheese olives while we wait to be seated at Joe’s Stone Crab. My feet are throbbing but I look like rich man arm candy and the waiter treats us like the characters we’re putting on—wealthy. I suck on a crab carcass while my husband tries to convince me that I don’t need to go to the Chase event in order to write about it for my diary.

9:48 PM 

There are a lot of circle hats in the Chase Sapphire Reserve lounge but like Gigi Hadid, I appreciate anyone who commits to the bit. Disclosure comes on and cameras go up and we talk about sex and Tyler Perry. 

11:44 PM 

Black Coffee hit the decks and a man in thick rimmed glasses passes out molly micro-dose gummies to his sensibly heeled girlfriends. I’m jealous because my feet hurt and I want someone to feed me but clearly I’m vibing already.

SATURDAY 11:30 AM 

It’s supposed to be our day to do nothing and it’s starting to rain. I abandon our beachfront chairs and take refuge in the 1 Hotel hot tub. My feet are still aching from last night. 

2:24 PM

We shower and walk back to Basel to see the rest of the show but end up staring at the same shit we saw the day before. Outside, Chiquita is giving out six-million-dollar bananas for free. 

4:38 PM

There’s a lot of chairs at Design Miami but nowhere to sit. “Everything is so low,” a woman complains. I understand why she’s annoyed and wonder if that means I’m getting old. 

8:05 PM

Chase Sapphire is putting on a farewell dinner at the Faena Mammoth Garden. The Sapphire Reserve members are overwhelmingly young and gay and fun. Not what I was expecting. 

8:58 PM

Alan Faena makes a speech about art and accessibility and community but I’m focused on his white feathered hat and the gold dipped Damien Hirst mammoth bones behind him. 

10:36 M

Dinner ends and I hear “No uglies allowed.” The drag show has begun. We lift feathered fans in the air and gyrate in our seats and I tell my husband that maybe this is as good as it gets.