Last Friday, when I texted Emily Dawn Long to ask what I should wear to the party she was throwing in SoHo that night, she replied with a simple brief: “Things ur down to sweat in.”

The party, dubbed “No One Dances Anymore,” was smack in the middle of New York Fashion Week, but Dawn Long—one of the buzziest designers among the downtown style set—wasn’t all that pressed about the timing. “Really, this has nothing to do with Fashion Week,” she told me. “It has nothing to do with my collection. I’m showing a collection, and you can come see said collection. But this is just, like, fun for the homies.”

Though Dawn Long was dismissive about the connection between the fête and her latest line, her designs do include plenty of options for social sweating. In the years since she rose to prominence via her Kendrick-cosigned crocheted hats, Dawn Long has expanded her purview to include, as my colleague Samuel Hine recently noted in his newsletter, “a perfectly boxy button-up shirt, a pleasantly cropped blouson, and cheeky screen-printed vintage tees.” She once famously brought Kiera Knightley’s iconic going-out top from Bend It Like Beckham to life, and sells an array of mesh-y and cotton wares one might imagine a chicer version of the Skins UK cast wearing to the club. In fact, that sort of sleazy, youthful, euphoric energy seemed to be exactly what Dawn Long was asking her guests to bring to (Sub)Mercer, the swanky lounge underneath the Mercer Hotel, last Friday night.

The ground rules for the evening were laid out in a post the designer shared via Instagram story in the hours leading up to the event: “We aren’t here to catch up. Or chat. Or network. Dancing only. Phones will have stickers on them. Daniel Arnold pics only. And myself. I repeat. DANCING ONLY.”

As I entered the cavernous, thumping club, I found myself pressed against a sea of glamorous bodies. The music was loud, bass-heavy, and nostalgic—the lineup of DJs cycled through hits ranging from Donna Summer disco classics to LMFAO’s “Yes” (a classic in its own right). I overheard Maude Apatow ordering a Cosmopolitan at the four-person-deep bar, while a smattering of somebodies tore it up on the dance floor. Artist Chloe Wise danced with actor/editor Blake Abbie; I Love LA stars True Whitaker and Jordan Firstman clinked champagne flutes; stylist Ian Bradley held court at a table while girls-about-town Ella Emhoff, Gutes Guterman, and Ali Royals took turns trying to spin on the pole that stood stationed as a sort of a challenge, right in the middle of the action. At some stage in the night, I heard Jack Harlow was about to be escorted in through the back.