It was an age of excess, and at the center of it all was a party promoter named Susanne Bartsch. For each of her parties—from her monthly parties at venerable Midtown club Copa in the late 80s to her annual Halloween extravaganzas at Palladium in the 90s—the tall, thin, angular Swiss-born Bartsch would spend hours assembling a unique look. Her outfits—which invariably included an outsized headdress, makeup, corseted body armor, and matching shoes—would combine threads from her designer friends with bits of so-called "found fashion" she discovered lying around ...