Pat Brown (top center, with plumes) with members of “Pat’s Party Krewe” at the annual Fat Friday event at the Angel Orensanz Foundation
Photo by Bob Krasner
There’s a good reason why the mayor of New Orleans declared the Fat Friday Foundation‘s annual fundraiser “NYC’s most authentic Mardi Gras party” back in 2016, and there’s an even better reason why Pat Brown returns to it with her friends every year.
Brown, a veteran of the fashion industry with a penchant for wearing fabulous costumes, has been a regular for years with the Kostume Kult in NYC and Burning Man world in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. This Fat Friday celebration, started in 2006 by civil rights attorney Wylie Stecklow to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, featured fabulous music (Circus Mind, Demolition Brass Band, Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir), a wonderful venue (the Angel Orensanz Foundation on the Lower East Side), great food (Corinne’s Concepts in Catering) and an open invitation to wear whatever makes you happy.
Even on an ordinary day, Brown is most likely wearing something snappy. She’s done everything from dressing models for Sears TV commercials to street photography for fashion merchandisers to launching her own jewelry line to teaching non-English-speaking tailors in foreign countries how to sew their products. And she worked for several years as a licensed art therapist with both children and the elderly.
Somewhere along the way, she met Steve Rifkind, a lawyer from New Jersey. They were friends at first, and as it gradually became romantic, he jumped right into the world of costumes.
“He wasn’t into it before, but when we started costuming, he just took to it,” Brown said. “All I had to do was tell him the theme, and he would put something together. He really liked the monster themes.”
Pat Brown in civilian mode, shot in the East Village at the No Nazar Cafe 
Pat Brown holding a centerpiece that pictures her with Steve Rifkind the year that they won the costume contest 
Fat Friday’s Big Chief Wylie Stecklow—a civil rights lawyer by day—honors the press photographers who have been documenting ICE activities at 26 Federal Plaza. “Their work ensures these moments are seen, remembered, and historically documented”. says Stecklow 
The fabulous Angel Orensanz Foundation was the perfect venue for the Fat Friday celebration. 
Pat Brown (R) with one of her Krewe
Unlike some people who wear costumes for the chance to be someone else for a night, Brown says that she “feels like a heightened version of myself. I feel like a million bucks!”
The Fat Friday event was a no-brainer for the pair, who made it an annual date with their friends. Not surprisingly, one year, they won “Christopher’s Fat Friday Fashion Show & Costume Contest,” created by Christopher Hardwick.
“Pat Brown is engaging, enthusiastic and a great participant who always dresses for the occasion!” says Hardwick.
“The picture that was on the table this year was of us winning,” says Brown. “We’re holding some gigantic bottle or something we won. And the glow in his face is just, you know, priceless.”
While Rifkind’s spirit was there, sadly, he was not.
After six years of their relationship and many more years of friendship, Rifkind was one of the early victims of COVID.
“You don’t think your friends are gonna die, you know?” Brown muses. “You’re feeling despair. … I realized I was feeling despair. I realized that I was sending out negative energy. So I printed up all kinds of fun pictures of us, smiling, glowing, and I put them all around.”
L-R: Guy Smith, Rob Montenegro , Christopher Hardwick, Pat Brown 
Pat Brown strutting her stuff in “Christopher’s Fat Friday Fashion Show & Costume Contest” 
The event benefits the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, among other charities 
Fat Friday revelers dressed for excess 
There was no lack of sparkle at this year’s Fat Friday celebration 
Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir revving up the crowd
The Fat Friday party had shut down due to COVID, but when it reopened, Brown bought a table for her and her friends.
“It just seemed right,” she explains. “It’s a little bit like Steve was there with us. I mean, I know that he’s not actually there with us, but there’s that way that the energy of him is there. That’s the last party that we went to together, and it was an event he loved. He loved the colors, he loved the dress up, the music, people’s creativity.”
And, we have to note, the friends that surrounded Brown at the most recent fete did not disappoint on any of those levels.
There’s a tradition in New Orleans that’s known as the “second line” in a funeral procession. At first, the marching musicians play a somber dirge, but that gives way to joyous tunes that invite bystanders to dance and whoop it up in the streets, as the mourning of death turns into a celebration of life.
In her own way, Brown has done the same, inviting friends each year to celebrate with her — New Orleans-style — as a tribute to her lost love.
The Fat Friday celebration benefits a number of charities, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, The New York Civil Rights Project and others. More information about donating and upcoming events can be found at fatfriday.nyc.