Taking Flight

Will the women-only co-working club the Wing, and its plucky brand of neofeminism, translate across the Atlantic? Chloe Malle follows its founders to Paris.

Audrey Gelman climbs the curling marble staircase of a stately Haussmann address in a vintage paisley sundress, the clap of her Gucci mules kicking up a thin layer of dust. It is the longest day of the year, and she and Lauren Kassan, cofounders of the women’s social-and-co-working club the Wing, have been touring Paris real estate since 9:00 a.m. They will visit eleven locations by the end of the day.

This one is a corner building on the Champs-Élysées with exquisite marble work in the stairwell and Rococo wall murals in the conference rooms. The first-floor tenant is Ladurée, the megalith macaronier whose pastel hues match the Wing’s decor. There was a time when a box of the meringue cookies was a coveted gift from France; now that Ladurée is everywhere from Baku to D.C.’s Union Station, they feel decidedly less special. I ask how the Wing, a phenomenon since the first club opened in Manhattan’s Flatiron district in October 2016, can avoid that fate as they gear up to go global.

“It’s a delicate balance,” concedes Kassan, a HER WAY OR THE HIGHWAY T-shirt peeking out under her jean jacket.

“I mean, we are ambitious,” says Gelman unapologetically. “The goal is to create spaces that women have never had before and to do it all over the world. From Detroit to Abu Dhabi.”

She slips her cat-eye sunglasses back on as we emerge into the throng of tourists on the boulevard. How many Wings will there be by the end of this year? Gelman tallies outposts on her fingers, her nails painted a bright-yellow gingham: Flatiron, SoHo, Dumbo, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In 2019, they will more than double that number, with openings planned in Williamsburg (Brooklyn), Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Toronto, London, and here in Paris.