HILARY hosts an intimate NYFW listening dinner at N°BETWEEN
HILARY brought its latest Artists + Aperitifs edition to N°BETWEEN in Chelsea during New York Fashion Week, taking over the Tokyo-style listening bar for an evening built around food, music and close conversation. Presented through (AUX)HILARY c/o HILARY, the event gathered 50 artists, designers, DJs, founders and cultural figures for a family-style dinner that moved gradually into a late-night listening session. The format remained intentionally small, placing guests around shared tables instead of separating dinner, performance and social time into different parts of the night.
A curated menu of shared plates established the pace early on, while the tablescapes gave the dining area a clear visual identity without turning the setting into a staged presentation. Betty Dawl and Mellow Domingo handled the first part of the music program, followed later by a back-to-back set from Nebula Star and Hu Dat. The transition happened naturally as guests finished dinner and conversations became less structured, allowing the soundtrack to change with the room while still remaining connected to the social character of the event.
For HILARY, Artists + Aperitifs is closely tied to the idea of social listening, where music is experienced collectively without needing the usual conventions of a club or performance venue. N°BETWEEN offered an appropriate setting for that approach because its identity as a Tokyo-style listening bar already places sound at the center of a communal experience. Here, the DJs were part of the environment, not isolated from it, and the music worked alongside dinner and conversation instead of competing with them.
The Chelsea location also gave the event a different position within the usual NYFW calendar. Fashion Week often moves quickly between shows, presentations, dinners and brand events, but HILARY kept this gathering deliberately contained. With only 50 guests, the evening gave people enough time to stay at the table, speak at length and move through the room without the pressure of a large-scale event. That limited capacity became one of the most important aspects of the night because it supported the sense of proximity HILARY wanted to create.
AIAIAI, Not Your Mother’s, Soto Sake and Galacta Melanin supported the event, while Visual Atelier 8 joined as official media partner. Their involvement sat within a format that connected hospitality and music through one continuous experience instead of treating sponsorship, dining and entertainment as separate layers. The result was a setting where the visual details, the guest list, the food and the DJ program all contributed to the same atmosphere without becoming overly programmed.
As the evening continued, many guests remained around the tables while the music carried on around them, giving the final part of the night a more informal and open character. HILARY used the NYFW edition of Artists + Aperitifs to show that listening can work differently when it is placed inside a smaller social setting. At N°BETWEEN, that meant a room where dinner could continue into music without a hard transition, and where the most important part of the event was the time people were given to stay.
Photography by Katya Prihod / Lexmerico
