Gotham Guide: Lauren Servideo
Gotham Guide: Lauren Servideo
The funniest girl in New York picks her favorites at Gotham.
When I first stumbled upon Lauren Servideo's Instagram account in the summer of 2019, I was stuck on the couch for hours until I had watched literally every single video. Her ability to craft and bring to life ultra-specific, ultra-relatable characters is uncanny. She's perhaps best-known for Anubis, a character Vogue aptly described as a "downtown clotheshorse vampire who takes the concept of vocal fry to epic proportions," but to only appreciate her greatest hit runs the risk of missing the forest for the trees.
There's Victoria, the always frustrated, always inconvenienced Pittsburgh woman who will have you wondering if Lauren moonlights as a dialect coach. Then there are the characters who are so fleshed out and timely that you can't believe she turned them around so quickly. Right around the time that Eric Adams appointed the city's first ever "rat czar" to address the city's infestation, Greg Finkel, rat lobbyist for the New York City Chamber of Commerce appeared on Lauren's account. As you might suspect, Greg Finkel is very in favor of making outdoor dining a permanent fixture in NYC. There's something for everyone in Lauren's ouevre. If you've felt annoyed by a large group of Australian women blocking the sidewalk during Sunday brunch hour - she's got something for that. Or maybe you've asked yourself that most common of questions: What if Clint Eastwood was a woman? Here you go.
Beyond being an icon of character craftmanship, Lauren is a tastemaker in her own right. Pittsburgh native Victoria even launched her own fragrance last year. I took Lauren on a walk through the store to see what jumped out at her and why.
- Rachel Bell, Head of Content & Social
"These remind me of when I was younger and would leave tea cups in my room for weeks (some would say months…) in the dead of summer and they’d get all moldy. But the mold was beautiful in his/her own way. Like a shade of green your body intuitively does not want to eat or ingest at all."
“'What Joan She Didion Means' - Sorry, I know this isn’t the title but I obviously have to read it out loud like this every time. Is this meant to explore what she means to us, the audience? Because her writing is pretty clear to me. I will have to buy the book and find out. Recommending it blindly because Joan rules."
"This is smell proof (thanks to a Velcro closure, waterproof zipper and carbon lining)! Obviously stuffing it with weed nugs to save for later."
"I would put these in a candlestick and light them - duh - but I would also love to just like…gnaw on them. Hope that’s ok!"
"Ate these with my mom instead of having actual boxed wine and we were so giggly all night long."
“Heavy fig situation! My personal tie to this is that my grandma and I used to go into Henri Bendel to try on all the expensive makeup and then dip without buying anything. In the middle of the cosmetics section there was a table, and on it was a huge vat of Henri Bendel’s in-house brand of lotion and one of the scents was 'Wild Fig' - anyone could pump it and use it so we would lather ourselves in it and smell rich as hell. This further reminds me of when I would work closing shifts at the Clinique counter and when I was done counting the money, I’d take my makeup off and then wash my face with the Chanel products since their counter was right near ours. Ok sorry, tangent. But I think Debaser will be so delicious when it mixes with sweat and sunscreen in the summer, just as figs are ripening. Sicilians love fig trees so I think I have some sort of genetic predilection for liking it. And also that I am a huge Pixies fan.”
“And they've been making these since 1952? Have you ever seen a more elegant lighter? (No.)”
“This stuff ROCKS and I’ll keep it a part of my skincare routine forever. I’ve been using it for a few years. Mostly on face at night after I put on moisturizer, but sometimes on my wrist and then I’ll spray Debaser (see above) on top to make it last longer.”
Follow Lauren on Instagram here. Have someone in mind who you think would do a great Gotham Guide? Slide into our DMs, too.