At the front entrance, we were welcomed by a host of men wearing fez caps and traditional Moroccan attire. After a 10-minute drive, we pulled up to a palatial compound and entered through its gates. We were escorted through Customs and taken to two awaiting Land Rovers. On Saturday, May 13, 2017, we landed in Marrakech. Towards autumn of that same year, Anna told me she was returning to Cologne, where she said she was from, just before the expiration of her visa.Īnna photographed at Paris Fashion Week after party in NYC on September 26, 2013. I saw her on adventure-filled nights out, for drinks and sometimes dinner, usually with a group, but occasionally just the two of us. Anna intrigued me, and she seemed eager to be friends. She was living in the Standard, High Line, not far from my small apartment in Manhattan’s West Village. As a visiting German citizen, she’d explained, she didn’t have a full-time residence. In my line of work, I had often encountered ambitious, well-off individuals, so though her undertaking sounded grand in scale and promising in theory, my sincere enthusiasm hardly outweighed a measured skepticism.įor the rest of 2016, I saw Anna every few weekends. She planned to lease the historic Church Missions House, a building on Park Avenue South and 22nd Street, to house a night lounge, bar, art galleries, studio space, restaurants, and a members-only club. She was hard at work on her art foundation-a “dynamic visual-arts center dedicated to contemporary art,” she explained, referring vaguely to a family trust. It was the quintessential nice-to-meet-you-in-New York conversation: hellos, exchange of niceties, how do you know X, what do you do for work?Īnna told us huffily that she’d spent the day in meetings with lawyers. She said she had interned for Purple magazine, in Paris (I’d seen her in photos with the magazine’s editor-in-chief), and evidently traveled in similar social circles. Pleasantries led to discussion of how Anna first came into our friend group. She greeted me and her ambiguously accented voice was unexpectedly high-pitched. Her features and proportions were classical-almost anachronistic-with a roundness that would suit Ingres or John Currin. She had a cherubic face with oversize blue eyes and pouty lips. The new arrival, in a clingy black dress and flat Gucci sandals, slid into the banquette. I’d seen that (since changed to had 40K followers. I’d seen her on Instagram, smiling at events, drinking at parties, oftentimes alongside my own friends and acquaintances. She was a stranger to me, and yet not unknown.
![2017 dupe away 2017 dupe away](https://www.shefinds.com/files/2017/11/gimme-brow-dupes.jpg)
I can’t remember which arrived first: the expectant bucket of ice and stack of glasses, or “ Anna Delvey”-but I knew that she had appeared and with her came bottle service. two hours before our flight: we were Marrakech-bound. Our errand complete, we climbed back into the car and set off for J.F.K.
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The bellhops at the Mercer helped us to off-load her bags (all but one), and they checked them away to await Anna’s return. hummed along the cobblestones of Crosby Street as we drove from 11 Howard, the hotel Anna had called home for three months, to the Mercer, the hotel Anna planned to move into when we got back from our trip.
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Seemingly everything she owned was packed into Rimowa suitcases and stacked in the trunk, just behind our heads. In her signature black athleisure wear and oversize Céline sunglasses, she sat beside me in the S.U.V., pecking at her phone.
![2017 dupe away 2017 dupe away](https://images.standaloneinstaller.com/images/dupe-away-oPvnfwadvKRo9M4xA0S0_screenshot.jpg)
At the time, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I had a gut feeling about my 30th year: it was going to be special it was going to be good. According to my closest friends and various suspect Internet sources, turning 29 on Janumarked my golden birthday.