The seventies and eighties were epic decades in New York City. Art, fashion and self-expression were de rigueur to the scene and being seen. And there was always something to see, which meant absolutely nothing you wanted to miss. At least in hindsight - and, if you lived to tell it.
After all "Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you," Andy Warhol famously mentioned. "Someone's got to take care of all your details,"
Details aside, the 70s were filled with glitter and doom. Hindsight when it comes to those decades weren't always as glamorous as the editorial pictorials in Vogue captured. The veracity and velocity in which Warhol and later Patrick McMullan shot their candid snapshots, recording the fleeting good times of the influential, influenced and under the influence. Alas, many of the most noted and notorious have passed. AIDS, cancer, suicide, overdose. But like any battle - brutal or glorious - there are the survivors to recall the glamour - bittersweet and not - but certainly also a lot of fun.
Desmond Cadogan was there for plenty of laughter and tears. The former Joffrey ballet dancer arrived in Manhattan to dance and discovered a world of excitement outside of the studio. In no time he was smitten with famed Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, dated Keith Haring, and walked Paris runways for designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Yves St. Laurent and Thierry Mugler. Desmond was the inspiration for an expanded color palette by Vivienne Westwood. Jean-Michel Basquiat painted him. Robert Mapplethorpe photographed him. German artist Rainer Fetting used Desmond as his muse. When he wasn't sitting still or walking some runway, he could be found, arms linked with Warhol, or, snubbing an undiscovered Madonna. Desmond can be credited for telling Naomi Campbell off and then living to tell it. He survived the 79, 80s, 90s and 00s in New York. And was there to work it, love it, and hate it. He's one of the lucky ones. At 47, he lives to tell about it.
Desmond's journey from his hometown of Ottawa, Canada via Toronto to The Big Apple was a precarious one. It was 1979 and he was just 17-years-old and with only $200 in his pocket. He'd run away from home at age 14 after coming out to his conservative Jamaican family, existed in foster care and briefly lived homeless. Like most New York transplants Desmond had his eyes set on something much better. Ballet, it turned out was the first answer.
6'5 and gangly, back in Toronto ballet had been suggested to get him comfortable with his body. His quick success in Toronto got him an audition with The Dance Theatre of Harlem. He was one of two chosen from 200. Shortly after, Desmond switched to the Joffrey Ballet where he danced alongside Ronald Regan Jr.
Ballet first made New York happen for Desmond, but it certainly wouldn't be the only thing. The combination of his good looks and vibrant personality were enough to take the Big Apple and all it's personalities by storm.
"I was on track to be the next black lead soloist," he recalled, stretching out his long, athletic legs inside my apartment. (FULL DISCLOSURE: We first met as neighbors in the East Village. Desmond lived five floors up from me. We later got to know one another better as I became a massage therapy client and we'd end up trading stories.) Today, his body is still a work of sculpted art where yoga and his bodywork practice help maintain his look. "But after six years I was sort of over struggling as a dancer to make it in New York, I was tired of being squashed in an apartment with a bunch of bun heads. I was losing my passion for it and I was going out a lot."
Ponytail: That was 1970s in New York City, what was the city like for you then?
Desmond: I was focused on stalking Nureyev, a Russian ballet dancer at this seedy gay club called The Anvil on the West Side Highway. He was beautiful. I'd go to The Anvil but never met him. I didn't realize he was really short so I'd always be looking around for this tall, Russian beautian. This was before AIDS, when people were just carrying on everywhere. I never found him, but I did see A LOT people having sex all over the place: in trucks and on decaying piers. It was shocking at the time. I was this preppy Canadian boy and I was seeing trains of people connected having anal sex in public in abandoned warehouses. I had never seen anything like that before.
Ponytail: How did this preppy Canadian boy end up hanging around Keith Haring and Andy Warhol?
Desmond: This one day I was walking down the street when I caught this cute nerdy looking guy staring at me. He turned out to be Keith Haring and he was just becoming famous. He got my phone number. A couple of days later he called to invite me to a party at his house. So I went and it was sort of during the new wave era where people wore all sorts of kooky vintage clothing and seemed to try to make themselves look a little nerdy or less attractive then they actually were. I'd see all these people who were kind of Andy Warhol lookalikes on the streets that would wear the blond wig that he used to wear. When I went to Keith's party, I opened the door and my friend Benjamin was right there sitting on this guy's lap. He introduced me, but it was really loud. So I said: 'I'm sorry. What is your name again?"
He laughed and seemed shocked. He said his name was Andy. That was how I met Andy Warhol. He thought it was so funny that I didn't know who he was. I think he was charmed that he thought I didn't know who he was. I sort of went along with it for a while. But really I knew who Andy Warhol was, I just didn't know if he was the real one.
The thing with Andy was that he was pretty much always very obvious despite his painful shyness. He was calculating. He was always very visible. We became friendly and would chit chat when I'd see him around. I would do most of the talking.
Ponytail: And after that party you ended up dating Keith Haring for a while.
Desmond: I was briefly a "mistress" of Keith's. It was fun. I was 19. He had a very sexy and fit body. He was very, very excitable -- very into sex.
Ponytail: So was it Keith, Desmond and Andy - friends forever?
Desmond: No. But when Limelight opened, I was Keith and Andy's date. Gossip and good looks were all you pretty much needed to sit at Andy's table. Andy's table meant free drinks all night. So I would TRY always had good and funny stories for him.
Ponytail: You had your first magazine cover around that time.
Desmond: Free booze and to be on the list of the best clubs was what everyone wanted. There was a party for a magazine called "Straight to Hell The Manhattan Review of Unnatural Acts" at the Pyramid Club. [Someone] suggested I enter the strip contest when I was trying to get in for free. [I was] coaxed into it with the offer of free drinks.
Everyone went to the Pyramid back then. Madonna, John Waters, Cookie Mueller and whomever else was cool and in town. I entered the contest and was slightly pickled by the time it is my turn to get on stage. They asked me who my favorite sex idol was. I said: "Ethel Merman." Then they asked me if I wanted to take something off. All the other boys were taking off their shirts and flexing their pecs and stuff. I dropped my pants and did The Helicopter. It is a dance that only men can do. I never expected to win. I was doing it as a joke. The other competitors were very serious. I tied to win that competition. The prize was to be on the cover of the magazine. We were shot by Christopher Makos.
Ponytail: What did landing that cover do for you?
Desmond: I was kind of an "It" boy for a moment after that. People recognized me and it got me into clubs everywhere. No more lines. I autographed hundreds of those magazines. You would go to 42nd Street and there would be windows full of them.
Ponytail: So modeling began to take the place of ballet?
Desmond: After I stopped dancing I got a job as the men's bathroom attendant at the TriBeCa nightclub, Area. It was my first club job. Andy would hang out next to me almost every night. These were co-ed bathrooms and people would come in and do their drugs and make-out, or whatever. Yuppies with lots of cash flying around. People were very extravagant. They would kind of go and do their bumps in the bathroom and then they would hangout in there for hours. There was no VIP at Area so people would just hang in these huge bathrooms. That was where all the action was. I was hired to keep it clean and I sold cigarettes. I'd buy a pack for 50 cents or less and I'd sell them for $3. I sold gum and condoms, stuff like that. So Andy would just sit there all night with me. [He] would say to me: 'I hope you are writing all of this down, Desmond.'
When a good song would come on I'd go dance and drink and ask Andy to watch my station for me. He sold a pack of cigarettes for $200 for me once and he gave me all the money, shockingly. He wasn't known for his generosity. But it was fun for him.
Ponytail: Was this where some of Andy's famous candid shots came from? And why was he so willing to sit around with you at a club?
Desmond: We never used to think there was actually any film in the camera. He would point the camera at us all the time, and we would pose but we all kind of thought it was empty and that he was full of shit. He was always manipulating people. We thought he was just doing it to get people to sparkle for a second. But it turns out there are bazillions of pictures. There is a picture of me in the first catalogue in the Pittsburgh museum of me manning my little station at Area in the bathroom. I popped up in several books of his after he died.
Ponytail: What was your sense of style then?
Desmond: There is a designer called Zoran. [He] is a minimalist who uses cashmere and silk. He noticed me and started dressing me. I'd be sitting in the bathroom at Area in head to toe cashmere. People started putting clothes on me like Commes de Garcon because of my visibility. That is how I met the Gaultier people. Jean-Paul noticed me in there in 1983. Then I was cast for his huge New York show. I was pretty well featured in Gaultier's first New York show. I walked with Iman and other big supermodels. We used to jokingly call her Imonster. I was cast as her groom in some of those shows. She was already a legend, so the first time we were to model together, I asked her if there was anything special she needed me to do. I was sucking up to her and she said: 'Oh, please, just slow.' I was like, OK, just slow. I had no idea what she meant. We got out there on the runway and we're literally inching down the runway and she's just sucking up all this time. I was there, just looking and feeling strange. I could see people in the front row giggling. It was so awkward. About halfway down the runway without warning she suddenly dropped into this tango dip kind of thing. I barely caught her just before she hit the ground.
Ponytail: Besides runway modeling for fashion icons in New York and Paris, you were also doing your share of art modeling too.
Desmond: I've done a lot of work with the German artist Rainer Fetting. He was an art star by the time I met him. All the German Neo-Expressionists were very popular at that time. He was also really gorgeous. I started modeling for him [after I was] booked to appear with him in a photo where it [was to] look like he was painting me. [After that] I began to model for him for real. We became friends and then lovers for a while. He lived in the same building as Julian Schnabel.
Ponytail: Did you meet Basquiat via Schnabel?
Desmond: I first met Schnabel with Rene Ricard, a Warhol film actor from the 60s. He is a writer and now an artist too. I was out with him and Cookie Mueller and we partied all night. I met Julian while he was having dinner with Roy Lichtenstein at Il Cantinori. I actually met Jean-Michel through Rainer. He saw me hanging out with Rainer and then I'd run into him around town and at the Fun Gallery where he showed for a while. He lived in a place on Great Jones Street that Andy Warhol owned. While hanging out he asked me to stand a few times for him. I remember once standing for him at 6am trashed off my ass. He did that one portrait of me which was at Mary Boone's gallery. The portrait of me was the first painting to go up for auction at Christie's about two months after he died. It sold for $275,000, which was a lot of money at that time and it was the most his paintings had sold for at that point. We always thought of him as a poet that found a brilliant way to make money by incorporating it into his painting.
Ponytail: You also modeled for Robert Mapplethorpe.
Desmond: My modeling for Mapplethorpe came from a person I met on the street. He said, 'I know an artist who would probably like to photograph you." People were saying that I should be a model often. Maybe it was my height and the fact that I was wearing form-fitting fashion a lot then. I contorted my body and tried to make interesting shapes for him. He was the first one I modeled nude for. Robert never paid money. He'd shoot you and then present you with ten large prints of which you get to pick one to keep. I shot with him a few times [in] black and white, and once for a color shoot, which he was just beginning.
Ponytail: Your work with Rainer really spans the decades.
Desmond: I sat a lot for Rainer. There are a lot of sculptures, paintings and photographs of me. He has documented my life. There are at least ten sculptures that I have modeled for over the past 25 years many are in places all around the world in private collections and museums. The first one Rainer did with me as "Man in a Bathtub" in 1986 took about six or seven months to pose for. I sign autographs when I go to exhibition openings with Rainer. It's weird because while the works are of me, all I really did was sit there. It is his work. Little old ladies to real art world types to the gallerists will have me sign his books. Rainer encourages people to ask for my autograph. I posed for these Rainer pieces, but they really don't have anything to do with me. It's his work and his interpretation. My favorite is the three-meter bronze 'Desmond Standing.'
Ponytail: How much did living in Paris influence your style?
Desmond: In the 80'S I was really into wearing little glass frames with no glass in them. It was pretty ridiculous. I had a flat top - it was very Grace Jones. Designers I worked with gave me clothes so I started getting fancier.
Ponytail: What was it like to be a male model in Paris?
Desmond: I was initially with the best men's agency at the time, Bananas, or something like that. At first they sent me to a lot of shitty castings because so many clients didn't' want to see any black men at all. They were specific in stating " pas de noir" ("no blacks"). Being a black model it was difficult for me because in America they were using light skinned models with Caucasian features. In Paris it was the opposite. They were using really dark-black models. I was somewhere in the middle. So they weren't really using people of my skin tone often so I didn't make much money in Paris.
Eventually I booking Japanese designers like Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamato, the others started using me too. One of my first gigs in Paris I booked was with French Vogue. It was twenty pages with Lord Snowden. It was all nude. It was a bummer that I barely got my face in those pictures. It was often like that. It was a little degrading to always doing underwear and funky, or, what they called "sophisticated" modeling.
Ponytail: Speaking of degrading and underwear, lets talk Madonna.
Desmond: Madonna and I met for the first time at the Roxy. Everybody would go there on Friday nights. She would perform and we'd always be like "Blech, what is that shit?" and then we'd all just go get a drink because it was, 'Ugh, that chick Madonna who was on stage again.' I thought her music was really naf back then. I hated it. I thought it was shit. She would do "Holiday" and she'd have two back up dancers, who were my friends and they'd do what I thought were silly little awful routines. It was very twee. Whenever she'd go on stage it was the cue to hit the bar. I remember she was having a little affair with a girlfriend of mine. [We] were hanging out and [my friend] was flirting with me on the stairs of the Roxy. Madonna sort of just showed up and she tried to rudely dismiss me. She said: "Do you mind, I need to have a private conversation.' And so I said back, "Uh uh, no, I was here talking to her first.' I reminded her about that a few years ago at dinner and she was playfully nasty again asking, "Oh, did I read you?" And I said," Um, you tried to read me."
Ponytail: Besides Gaultier, you also modeled for extensively for Thierry Mugler. How did that relationship happen?
Desmond: While I lived in Paris I ended up getting a lot of work with Jean-Paul. We were friends, but I think he was hoping something more would happen that never did. I wasn't interested in him in that way. Then when I started doing work for Thierry Mugler Jean-Paul stopped booking me. Jean-Paul even did a show where all he only used black men and I was asked, "Jean-Paul you're doing a show using only black guys, why aren't you booking me?" He was very huffy: "Oh, well you're zee star of Mugler now. You don't need me."
Ponytail: You also have the rare honor of having a color on Vivienne Westwood's swatch palette named after you for your skin tone.
Desmond: Vivienne created "Desmond Brown." I worked with her a few times before she asked me to send her samples of my skin tone. She wanted to match up a fabric so I sent her fabric, thread and a penny that matched exactly to my skin. Then I went to Paris to do her show. There were these big huge ball gowns in Desmond brown silk taffeta and I had a Desmond brown wool suit, as well as teeny tiny Desmond brown hot pants that my butt cheeks popped out of. She wanted my butt popping out. [While] it was certainly a huge honor for me (to have a color named after me), I didn't get paid at all to do her shows. She never paid. It was supposed to be an honor. She was legendarily cheap. It was flattering, but still she didn't even organize me a place to stay in Paris during fashion week when I flew there only to do her show.
Ponytail: Was that show where your famous Naomi Campbell confrontation happened?
Desmond: Yes! In that show they didn't have a perfect line up so they put me with Naomi to do a passage together on the runway. She was like: "Oh, I do solos, I'm not doing any doubles." She didn't want to walk with me I thought down the runway. So this model called Kirsten McMenamy said "I'll do it. I'll do it." She was way cooler than Naomi. And so I just turned and looked at Naomi and said: "You know Naomi, everyone likes a good bitch. But nobody likes a stupid bitch. And you NAOMI, are a stupid bitch." She was like: "Fuck you, Desmond!" and then she went out and did her solo. You could see THE ANGER on her face. She was so pissed. It was awesome. She looked amazing. She's grown up a lot, but she was a handful to deal with. I've known her since she was fourteen. She was a really sweet and a cute little girl. At some point she just switched into spoiled monster mode.
Ponytail: At some point you also became a nightclub promoter.
Desmond: When Thierry and other [designers and artists] came to New York, I'd take them out clubbing. Promoters would see me with him or Jean-Paul to whatever was happening at the time, Limelight or whatever. Steve Lewis approached me and said: "You know all these famous people. You should do parties for them.' So I stopped modeling and started promoting parties. I didn't really like modeling and there wasn't really enough work for me. My first weekly party I did was called POOP at the Supper Club. It was a swanky place. We thought it was funny to call it POOP. We thought if it ended up a shitty party we could say, 'Well we told you it was going to be poop.' Everyone came to that party, even Cher. RuPaul did his first record launch there. We got written up in Vanity Fair. It was 1990 and I was living in the Christadora Building on Ave B. Rainer had the penthouse there and I moved in with him. He also had a studio where he worked on the third floor. It was next door to Iggy Pop's apartment. Jimmy is Iggy's real name and he's a super cool and nice guy. You could always just sit and chat with him whenever you saw him in Tompkins Square Park or wherever.
Ponytail: Your life sounds so fun and exciting; did it feel that way as it was happening?
Desmond: "There's a photo book 'So80s' that Patrick [McMullan] did of those years. When people look through it at the images I imagine they think, "Oh wow, that must have been so fun." I look back on the 80s and remember those years as really dark. There were many people in their twenties dropping off like flies. You would see people suddenly walking around with Kaposi sarcoma scars all over. When I look back it all it gives me an icky feeling. I don't look back fondly on the 80s. I was very lucky. I wasn't super promiscuous. I was more of a voyeur. A lot of people I had affairs with are now dead. Being in a relationship with Rainer at that time really saved my life.
Ponytail: Having made it into the 90s, how then did your sense of style evolve?
Desmond: I learned everything I know about fashion from Zoran. Less is always more. I started wearing Helmut Lang who was also a friend and clothing like that. I've always been really simple through it all - except when I wear Mugler, or, one of my corsets. I like simple clothes that are well made with beautiful fabrics. The late 80s I was dating Chris Martin. He was considered a male supermodel at the time in France and [because of him] I began working a lot for Mugler and [even did] a campaign for his menswear with Naomi. When I was [back] in New York, I worked at a club called USA in Times Square. (Desmond also headed up promotions at Twilo and Life.) It had a room called the "Thierry Mugler Room" which he designed. I hosted a night there and wore mostly Mugler. It was all about big shoulders bring colors, bold prints, and very sculpted suits. Thierry made one-of-a-kind special suits for me. I was also wearing Mr. Pearl corsets. Mr. Pearl made corsets especially for me. He would take my waist down to 23 inches.
Ponytail: We've talked often about how after a decade in the club business it started to get really old for you.
Desmond: It became just me with sixty drink tickets buying people drinks and getting wasted with them. I would be personality bankrupted the next day. Sure, we did have a lot of fun and threw some fun parties. We were throwing parties for Jocelyn Wildenstein, Grace Jones, artists, modeling agencies, record labels and movie premieres, but I grew tired of it.
Ponytail: And it all came to an end though with the famed 'Helicopter' dance.
Desmond: I was doing my own parties at Chelsea Piers. I called it "Surrender the Pink" because the skies would be incredible pinks at sunset plus it has a sexy meaning as well. We'd start at 7pm in Sunday evenings. I hired Amanda Lepore and another beautiful transsexual called Sophia Lamar to be there. They came in wearing pretty much just dental floss. We always walked this fine line with the conservative policies at Chelsea Piers. One night after I'd had a little bit too much to drink I decided to push the envelope -- maybe it was my cry for help. Amanda was dancing there in her super high stilettos and her dental floss. I said to her: "Why even bother wearing anything? You should just take it off."
So she got completely nude dancing at a party for Playboy. Then I was of the mind that if I could ask Amanda to be nude, then I could be nude as well. So then of course I started to do "The Helicopter." Suddenly all these flashes went off and the next day in Time Out Magazine there was this big huge picture of me dancing with Amanda Lepore naked at Chelsea Piers. That pretty much ended my promotion career just as [the party was] starting to get very popular.
Ponytail: You dabbled a bit in PR working with Paul Wilmot and Diesel, before totally changing direction to become a licensed massage therapist, right?
Desmond: I was working on a fashion week party for Diesel with Paul Wilmot's company. The party was to take place the night of September 11th, 2001. After 9/11 a lot of those PR opportunities were no longer. I would do some freelance work here and there but I hate it. It was kind of fate that I walked by the Swedish Institute and went to an introductory session [when] I did. In 2004 I decided to go to school and studied intensely for 18 months full-time and became a licensed massage therapist. After all those years promoting, I started promoting myself, and got a client base - many of my old contacts are now some of my clients. I get a lot of referrals and work with a lot of fashion, television and film people.
Ponytail: How is it to now be in such a different place with a different career and lifestyle three decades later?
Desmond: I absolutely love this work and it's so gratifying. I do things now to help people feel good and better in a less toxic way. My other career was such a big lie and it was killing my soul. So many people think I've moved away from New York because I am rarely out in club or at fashion events, but I'm still here.
Those of you wondering about Desmond can find him here.