As I enter the bar of the Nobu Hotel Portman Square, there’s the familiar golden rumble of people about to give themselves up to the night. I’ve been invited to celebrate the release of the maverick jeweller Stephen Webster’s book Cocktales. Moaning about having to go to parties used to be hip on the London party circuit, but not now. All the guests, from Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp to Tracey Emin and Pete Tong, are talking about “energy” — how good it is to feel the energy of a room full of people coming together.
I can probably feel that energy more than most because for the past year I’ve been living in a cave, and I’m not talking metaphorically. When Covid hit last March, I decided to move three hours from my home in LA to a commune in the Californian desert. Living in a cave was a huge step from my previous incarnation as social editor of Harper’s Bazaar. I’d got used to the lounge lizards and snakes of the London scene, but in the desert I’ve had to deal with coyotes, spiders and bats. Still, the rewards have been big, especially the space and the silence.
My previous life was intense, albeit in a different way — from sitting on Al Pacino’s lap at the Venice Film Festival to eating lobster canapés on a yacht in Monaco with Jon Bon Jovi as barefoot guests shrieked in pain because of the Swarovski crystals strewn on the decks. I feel quite vulnerable walking into one of London’s most fashionable bars after 18 months away. But my nerves are just a more extreme version of what everyone in Britain is feeling as party season approaches.
Before going out I’d spoken to the psychotherapist Katerina Georgiou, who advised me to book myself into a hotel near the party venue “so you have a safe place to crash back to”. Luckily one of my London party friends sorted out a room for me. Georgiou also advised that I “start with more casual events that don’t require formal dress”.
Well, that’s not happening. The minute I hit the Nobu suite, my friend makes me take off my desert wardrobe of a Star Wars T-shirt and cut-offs and replace it with a Givenchy LBD and a pair of Chanel heels. Luckily my daily climbs over desert boulders have sharpened my sense of balance, so the change from sneakers to party shoes isn’t too bad.
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Next comes the hair. My party friend sends round her hairdresser buddy Carlos Ferraz, who’s the red-carpet-ready choice for Renée Zellweger. He defrazzles my cave hair as we talk about horoscopes (I prefer a good hairdresser to a therapist); he opines that the London scene is “more open” to spirituality after the shock of Covid. Finally, the welcome surprise of a heated loo seat instead of my usual shovel in the desert, and I’m good to go.
My nerves are forgotten as I sashay, all glammed up, through the slick, double-height lobby. But I still feel shellshocked. “I don’t know if people are ready for this,” says the fashion entrepreneur Noelle Reno, looking round the low-lit room. However, I’ve cast aside any anxiety because I’ve bitten into my first canapé in more than a year, a croquette made with Nobu’s famous black cod.
The next stop is Annabel’s, where there’s a party for the rainforest. Apparently it’s a subject close to the heart of Patricia, the Brazilian wife of the club’s billionaire owner, Richard Caring. I watch Idris Elba and Tinie Tempah getting papped before entering the Georgian mansion decorated with fibreglass crocodiles and parrots to mingle with the venue’s usual high-net-worth individuals. But I’m told that no journalists are allowed in tonight. This door policy strikes me as very un-Burning Man (the party ethos of the desert), where “radical inclusion” is the name of the game. Lots of rich people go to Burning Man too, so maybe London’s haute party venues need to tweak their starchy guest-list policies for the post-Covid party renaissance.
My last stop is much more friendly: a new private members’ club in Soho called Martinez, which is done up like a crumbling mansion in Havana. Oswald Boateng is laughing with a crowd in one corner and people keep springing up from their seats to dance with strangers like it’s the last days of Rome — or the beginning of a new era.
I talk to artist Will Jack, 22, about this year’s unofficial Burning Man, which was free and dubbed the “Renegade Burn”. He thinks the UK party scene is also about to go renegade. “It’s like a catapult. We’ve been pulled so far back, but when you finally let it go it shoots forward.” He’s probably right — there’s a real carpe diem vibe in the air. But I can’t wait to get back to the cave. I love a London party animal, but there’s no substitute for the real thing.
