24.11.17 BRIGHT YOUNG THING… MEET ELLIE BAMBER FLASHBULB! Inside the ES PARTY picture VAULTS
LADBROKE GROOVY
Winning the Scene
Why WEST is where it’s at
How to Party
like a Londoner
The
Party Issue!
EDITOR’S LETTER
Editor in chief Laura Weir
Billy Scheepers; Alamy; Getty Images. Cover: Ellie Bamber photographed by Alex Bramall. Styled by Martha Ward. HALPERN dress, £1,425, at matchesfashion.com. CHANEL earrings, £17,500 (chanel.com)
Here are the ES team’s top five ultimate party venues
Because us Londoners are the coolest people in the world — an unequivocal fact — everyone wants to know how to party like us. We are, simply the best at having a bloody good time. We put the glitter into ball, the pull into pint and the style into late nights, and the inevitably painful mornings after. To find out how to party like a Londoner today, turn to page 31 for the ultimate guide to having it large London style — plus wave your Spotify app’s camera over page 35 to play tracks from our exclusive Kurupt FM’s party playlist. In the Nineties we, the world-leading ravers, set the pace and everyone followed our charge — from the Met Bar to the Atlantic, via Soho and the very best of west London house parties — and James Peltekian, ES Magazine’s 23year-standing, in-house party photographer has been there to capture every snog, shimmy and slip-up in all of its hedonistic glory. I wanted to pay tribute to James and his endeavours to capture the capital’s party spirit frame by frame over the past two decades, so I delved into the vaults to dig out some of his most iconic images: from Kate Moss and Noel Gallagher sharing chats and fags (inside, no less), to London’s It girls working the camera with naughty ease, the city and its fun-seekers seemed more relaxed in front of the lens back then in a filter-free and fabulous world. So turn to page 41 to revel in our Flashbulb: a retrospective in partnership with Moët & Chandon. Thank you to the champagne brand for putting extra fizz into this edition.
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10 DOWNING STREET ‘I love a house party and where cooler than Theresa May’s crib? Cool, you mock? With A$AP Rocky and Stormzy duetting, a smoked negroni luge and a retro foam party upstairs, we’ve got ourselves a knees-up. Brrrrp!’ Nick Howells, deputy chief sub editor
5 THE V&A SACKLER COURTYARD ‘After five years of construction, the V&A’s recently completed Sackler Courtyard is surely London’s most show-stopping new venue.’ Niamh O’Keeffe, office administrator/editor’s PA
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CHISWICK HOUSE AND GARDENS ‘This has to be my dream party venue — it’s one of London’s most beautiful and underrated stately homes. I would love to host a Marie Antoinette-themed fancy dress party and wander around the 65 acres of 18th-century splendour… champagne glass in hand.’ Natalie Salmon, social media editor
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THE TAPESTRY ROOM ‘Not just because The Rolling Stones (left) threw the coolest party ever in the Tapestry Room at the Gore Hotel… Okay, completely because The Rolling Stones threw the coolest part ever in there.’ Hamish MacBain, associate features editor
SKYLIGHT BAR, TOBACCO DOCK ‘Drinking, ice skating and partying while overlooking London — the ultimate venue for my January birthday party.’ Helen Gibson, picture editor
Visit us online: standard.co.uk/esmagazine • Follow us:
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@ESmagofficial
Editor in chief Laura Weir Deputy editor Anna van Praagh Features director Alice-Azania Jarvis Acting art director Emma Woodroofe Fashion features director Katrina Israel Commissioning editor Dipal Acharya Associate features editor Hamish MacBain Features writer Frankie McCoy
Acting art editor Andy Taylor Art editor Jessica Landon Picture editor Helen Gibson Picture desk assistant Clara Dorrington
Beauty editor Katie Service Deputy beauty and lifestyle editor Lily Worcester
Social media editor Natalie Salmon Office administrator/editor’s PA Niamh O’Keeffe
Merchandise editor Sophie Paxton Fashion editor Jenny Kennedy Fashion assistant Eniola Dare Chief sub editor Matt Hryciw Deputy chief sub editor Nick Howells
Contributing editors Lucy Carr-Ellison, Tony Chambers, Richard Godwin, Daisy Hoppen, Jemima Jones, Anthony Kendal, David Lane, Mandi Lennard, Annabel Rivkin, Teo van den Broeke, Nicky Yates (style editor at large) Group client strategy director Deborah Rosenegk Head of magazines Christina Irvine
ES Magazine is published weekly and is available only with the London Evening Standard. ES Magazine is published by Evening Standard Ltd, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, Kensington, London W8 5TT. ES is printed web offset by Wyndeham Bicester. Paper supplied by Perlen Paper AG. Colour transparencies or any other material submitted to ES Magazine are sent at owner’s risk. Neither Evening Standard Ltd nor their agents accept any liability for loss or damage. © Evening Standard Ltd 2016. Reproduction in whole or part of any contents of ES Magazine without prior permission of the editor is strictly prohibited
24.11.17 ES MAGAZINE 7
CAPITAL GAINS What to do in London
1
BY FRANKIE M C COY
3
GET TRUFFLED
Bin the dry high-street turkey on wholemeal: 45 Jermyn St knows how to make a proper festive sarnie, with judicious use of truffle. Its menu, dedicated to our favourite foodstuff, includes a raclette toastie on homemade sourdough, showered with freshly grated truffle. Until 24 Dec (45jermynst.com)
Roll UP
Ice rink overload? Hit the Barbican where Mars.tarrab presents the world premiere of Roller: a totally genrebending, all-female show involving the viciously fun sport of roller derby. Guaranteed to inspire you to get your skates on. Tickets £18. To 2 Dec (barbican.org)
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SOUTH POLE
A winter wonderland for the cool kids living south of the river, Winterville on Clapham Common returns, with a totes hip festive playground of DJs, Backyard Cinema, Street Feast, Sink the Pink and UV-powered crazy golf. To 1 Jan (winterville.co.uk)
Illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas; Hugo Maertens; Perou; Alamy
4 6
SOMEBODY TOLD ME
That ultimate indie band/kings of the 3am cheese floor anthem, The Killers, are playing two nights at the O2. Apologies to all friends, family and colleagues who’ll have to listen to your tuneful wail of ‘I’m Mr Briiiiightside’ from now until Christmas. Tickets from £47.50. 27-28 Nov (theo2.co.uk)
Mime TIME
Panto season kicks off at the Hackney Empire with Cinderella. Cue achingly funny in-jokes, slapstick and, er, a flying horse. Altogether now: it’s behiiiind yooooouu... Tickets from £10. To 31 Dec (hackneyempire.co.uk)
LAST CHANCE:
5 3
SHOP-SPIRATION
Want some seriously original Christmas prezzie inspiration? Head to Christie’s Winter Late with the outnet.com, an evening of jewellery and dinner-table dressing workshops, backgammon played on beautiful bespoke — and buyable — boards and all sorts of gifts you’ll definitely end up keeping yourself. 27 Nov (christies.com)
sack off the latest blockbusters for once and check out something subtitled from the Russian Film Week before it ends on 26 Nov. (russianfilmweek.org)
Seated Nude, 1917 by Modigliani
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Nudes for THOUGHT
The eerily brilliant works of Modigliani go on show at Tate Modern in the UK’s largest retrospective, with a VR feature for those who want to experience the life of the tragic Italian painter whose avant-garde nudes shocked the Establishment. £19.70. To 2 Apr (tate.org.uk)
LOOK AHEAD:
do whatever you have to do to get tickets to the joyous, Tony- and Pulitzer-prize winning musical Hamilton as it transfers to London on 6 Dec. (hamiltonthemusical.co.uk)
24.11.17 ES MAGAZINE 9
upfront Laura Craik on Chranxiety, beef mince pies and Burberry’s nod to Billy Idol
GREET THE MEAT It’s been a contentious week for pastry. First Greggs got into trouble for an ad campaign that replaced the baby Jesus with a sausage roll then C Lidgate, Holland Park butcher to the stars (the Beckhams are fans), raised eyebrows by launching a mince pie made of minced beef as opposed to that weird concoction of raisins and suet that most people favour, which — to my palette — is boggling. I am thrilled at this development on the pie front: like most Scottish people, I was weaned on beef mince pies and consider them a delicacy
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“Like most Scots I consider beef mince pies a delicacy whose absence from London is a culinary oversight” whose absence from London is a culinary oversight. Much as I hate the fruity southern version, I’m tempted by a new spin from Blondies Kitchen (below left), which replaces pastry with cookie dough. Selfridges is predicting they’ll be THIS YEAR’S SALTED CARAMEL PANETTONE — big claims, as that’s the bestselling item in its foodhall. Yes, really. BURBERRY’S IDOL MOMENT Separated at birth: Cara Delevingne and Billy Idol. I was gazing at Cara’s latest Burberry ad (left) trying to think who she reminded me of, and then it came to me... Billy Idol (real name: Billy Broad), aka the man with the best snarl of all time. I’m into this throwback tribute to every child of the Eighties’ favourite pinup. Billy was the Bieber of his day, and ‘White Wedding’ was his ‘Love Yourself’ albeit not quite as catchy. As Cara was born 10 years after ‘White Wedding’ I’m doubting she is a fan, but maybe Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s outgoing president, was. Wherever he is, I hope Billy is laughing at the tribute. Or snarling.
HOT
Drake For interrupting his own gig to berate a male fan for inappropriate behaviour with a swift ‘if you don’t stop touching girls imma come out’.
NOT
TIGHTs SEASON ARRIVES Digging out your bobbly tights from the back of your sock draw as temperatures fall is deeply depressing. Josh Shinner; Rex; Burberry; Alamy
W
hen it comes to that great annual tradition of no longer being able to be in denial that Christmas is round the corner, we all have personal signifiers. Maybe it’s the John Lewis ad. Maybe it’s the Oxford Street lights. For me it’s the first airing of Mariah’s ‘All I Want for Christmas’. It came early this year — 7.57am on 14 /11 / 17 — and I am not ashamed to say that I yelled ‘PUT IT OFF PUT IT OFF NO PLEASE GOD NOT YET’ at the seven-year-old. I love Mariah, but the Chranxiety was just too much. Between now and Christmas Day I have to skate at Somerset House, source a suitably festive lunch spot featuring carollers, take the kids to the Harrods grotto, find some Christmas lights ceremony or other involving mulled wine and a minor celebrity, and somehow secure a booking at Bar Hutte, a new attraction at Winter Wonderland involving copious amounts of booze and a karaoke machine. Sorry, friends and fam, but it’s gift vouchers all round this year: I’m too busy getting pissed in a log cabin. London does Christmas so well that it would be wrong not to throw yourself into it with full commitment. My favourites are the fairs. This weekend you’ll find me manning the hotchocolate stall at my kids’ school next to Primrose Hill (Come down! It’s a state school! We need your money!), which, as well as being all kinds of jolly, functions as a fundraiser. Like most schools in the state sector, cuts mean it will be tens of thousands of pounds worse off this year, and if the hole can be part-filled by a bunch of mums (it’s always mums) making jam to sell at £3 a pot, then make jam we will, as though feminism never happened. We’ve found no minor celebrities to open the fair, but there will be Mariah, mulled wine and drunk parents pretending to be sober — like an episode of Motherland.
Christmas crackers: clockwise from below, Harrods’ grotto opening, John Lewis’s ad and Mariah Carey
THE most WANTED Gold rush: Raise your game on the dance floor with this molten pairing
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Prada shoes £1,040; earrings £385 (prada.com)
PHOTOGRAPH BY natasha pszenicki STYLED BY sophie paxton
24.11.17 es magazine 13
FLASHBULB! Party pictures from around town by FRANKIE McCOY photographs by james peltekian Margo Stilley
Jan De Villeneuve
Esme Drummond
Charlie Casely-Hayford
Amber Le Bon
skates on The Strand
Lorraine Pascale
Stephen Jones
Daphne Guinness
Luke Edward Hall
’Tis the season to sip mulled wine and boozy hot chocolate while Luke Edward Hall and Laura Whitmore pull their best Bambi on the ice, as Skate at Somerset House launched with a brass band, Lou Hayter DJing and glorious piles of pigs in blankets.
Alexander Armstrong Jade Jagger
Laura Whitmore
Dominic Jones and Katie Keight
Kathy Lette
Vanessa Kirby
Eliza Cummings
Eve Delf
changing their spots The City
Lilah Parsons
David Furnish
Lou Hayter Charlotte Olympia
Daisy Lewis
Eve Henderson
Claudia Winkleman
Mary Katrantzou
A fierce roar of approval as the inaugural Leopard Awards, celebrating jewellery and its cultural influence, kicked off at Goldsmiths’ Hall with Gareth Pugh handing Daphne Guinness a Solange Azagury-Partridge-designed trophy and diamonds hidden under desserts for a lucky few. Beats a Christmas-pudding sixpence.
Amanda Wakeley and Kelly Hoppen
Ozwald Boateng
Alistair Guy Donna Air Amanda Cronin
Arizona Muse
Helen McCrory
GO TO eveningstandard.co.uk / ESMAGAZINE FOR MORE PARTY PICTURES
Venetia Scott and Osman Yousefada Katy England and Bobby Gillespie
24.11.17 es magazine 15
FLASHBULB! Party pictures from around town Charlotte Wiggins
Jacquetta Wheeler
Ella Hunt
Sam Rollinson Anna Brewster
Emilia Wickstead Eric Underwood Johnny Coca
merry MULBERRY Soho
Oh Mulberry, how we do adore you — especially when you throw such epic, fairy light-festooned #ChristmasNotChristmas festive parties, where Samantha Barks and Jack Fox canoodled as Harriet Verney DJed and everyone descended on the tombola in the hope of winning a bag.
Billie JD Porter
Laura Jackson
Alice NaylorLeyland
Thomas Cohen
Sophie Simnett
Yasmin Le Bon
epic erin Mayfair Sophie Kennedy Clark Daisy Lowe
Samantha Barks and Jack Fox
Congratulations to Erin O’Connor, now MBE! The supermodel threw a typically elegant dinner at Claridge’s to celebrate with bezzies Laura Bailey and Giles Deacon, where Erin herself inevitably ended up riding the zebra rocking horse before insisting on one last drink at the Fumoir. Our dream girl.
Sarah Mower
Laura Bailey
Tim Blanks Christian Nattiel Gareth Pugh
getting the glossy Soho
Amber Anderson Zen Wilson
Caroline Issa
Raye
Gala Gordon
Tigerlily Taylor
It was a suitably glossy posse for the launch of beauty brand Glossier at its perfectly pink pop-up in Marylebone, with guests including Margaret Clunie, Caroline Issa and some fairly lipstick-wrecking gold nugget eclairs.
Giles Deacon and Erin O’Connor
Annabel Scholey
Pearl Mackie
Margaret Clunie
Melissa Hemsley
Danielle Copperman
Mabel McVey Guest
Lady Mary Charteris
Nell Hudson Pips Taylor
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GO TO eveningstandard.co.uk / ESMAGAZINE FOR MORE PARTY PICTURES
From the sequinned flare to the disco sock, Katrina Israel decodes the new evening wear
ALL RIGHT o
PHOTOGRAPHS BY NATASHA PSZENICKI STYLED BY ENIOLA DARE
MSGM top, £385, at farfetch.com MARTE FRISNES earrings, £76, at matches fashion.com
FILES A PAPA trousers, £575, farfetch.com
HALPERN trousers, £1,391, at matchesfashion.com
FAITH CONNEXION trousers, £895, at farfetch.com
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PRADA top, £945, at matchesfashion.com
No one wants to look like Big Bird out on the town, but there’s something alluring about a hint of plumage finessing a hemline or sprouting from a shoe. And it’s also one of those embellishments that can be worn day or night, dressed up or down. During the TOPSHOP recent shows, Lauren Santo Domingo wore this skirt, £39 elegant Prada top with a pair of jeans, while (topshop.com) autumn/winter’s tweedy feather-trimmed skirts updated the office pencil. So avoid a full feathered bolero and take flight with just a hint of this trim.
Hair and make-up by Dominique Hawkes using Nars and Bumble & Bumble. Model: Yasmin Salmon at W Models
Anyone can rock a beaded camisole or jazzy jumper. If you really want to get noticed this festive season let us introduce you to the sequinned super flares. Michael Halpern must be hailed for reigniting this Seventies disco-diva fi re. And let’s be honest: when you need to make a speedy transition from desk to dance floor, what could be easier than pulling on these bad boys with an oversized jumper and ankle boots? This punchy pair defi nitely won’t stand you up.
T on the NIGHT RAEY socks, £125, at matches fashion.com
GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI shoes, £620 (giuseppe zanotti.com)
VETEMENTS socks, £100, at matchesfashion.com
ACCESSORIZE hair pin, £8 (uk.accessorize.com). GUCCI top, £1,610, at net-a-porter.com
No time for a blowout? Instead of succumbing to a standard pony, distract and dazzle with a fancy hair accoutrement. Go graphic with jewelled bobby pins, contemporary with a molten clip, or designer with a logo comb. Banish that salon addiction — there’s merry help at hand for your mane. OLIVER BONAS set of clips, £9.50 (oliverbonas.com)
CHARLOTTE CHESNAIS circle clip, £200, at net-a-porter.com
GUCCI comb pin, £225 (gucci.com)
MULBERRY shoes, £425; socks, £250 (mulberry.com). GUCCI skirt, £690, at mytheresa.com
Once the sole domain of backpackers and grandads, the socks and sandals combo has become the surprise sartorial hit of the party season. Simply take a pair of velvety ankle strap sandals and team them with some statement socks — think sparkly Lurex, ruffled and even embellished. Alternatively, go all-in-one: brands from Fendi to Nicholas Kirkwood have fallen head over heels for this practical pairing and conveniently united them — so you buy your socks and stilettos combo ready-made.
ZARA shoes/ socks, £55.99 (zara.com)
FENDI shoes/socks, £820 (fendi.com)
24.11.17 ES MAGAZINE 19
MONSE dress, £2,455, at neta-porter.com
PRADA dress, £1,540, at neta-porter.com
ERDEM dress, £1,430 (erdem.com)
CÉLINE bag, £2,050 (020 7491 8200). TOPSHOP blazer, £75 (topshop.com)
ALEXANDER WANG bag, £585, at net-a-porter. com
Clutches are all good and well when you have a bar to lean on, but when you are negotiating a house party or office drinks, said chic envelope will inevitably leave you dry or hungry as you are forced to choose between booze or food. What you really need is a hands-free mini bag. Less glitzy than the cocktail pochette, these shrunken delights will leave you well equipped to effortlessly juggle both canapés and champagne. Cheers to that.
OFF-WHITE dress, £1,070, at net-a-porter.com. ELIZABETH AND JAMES earring, £120 (elizabeth andjames.us)
MAGDA BUTRYM dress, £1,325 (magda butrym.com)
JACQUEMUS bag, £795, at browns fashion.com
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Shelve the knee-length sheath. Mothball the mini. Dress hemlines have shifted and they’re now hovering about the mid-calf — aka the midi. Now meet the season’s new party dress: cutting an hourglass figure she’s far from body-con and therefore fabulously figure-flattering, while sexy flashes of skin, courtesy of cutouts about the décolletage and upper arms, allay any fear of frumpiness. Wear with scrunch leather boots or sandals and sheer black tights — preferably seamed (Agent Provocateur-style) or dotted with spots. De-vine.
The return of the
wild west For a decade, west London has languished while all the cool kids flocked east. But London’s original party zone is getting its groove back, says Michael Hennegan
Getty; Alamy
‘I
was a Haggerston boy through it’s the influx of cool, party types who and through before we opened,’ make their way across the capital for says Chris Denney, 39, the chef Mark Ronson’s annual loft bash, the at 108 Garage — the Golborne soon-coming Soho House at the old Road-based restaurant that has BBC TV Centre in White City or the had foodies swooning more than opening of places like new members’ any other new spot in 2017. ‘Luca club, Laylow, west London feels more [Longobardi, his business partner] really alive than it has in some time. ‘I think had to talk me into coming to the area. When there is definitely a bit more of a party we opened I thought I could stay living east scene, which I’ve noticed spring up and have the best of both worlds.’ over the past six months,’ says Although the life of a chef doesn’t fashion designer Charlie Caselyleave much time to party, Denney has Hayford, 31. ‘There’s always indeed found the Ladbroke Grove area a been an energy here, but I’ve welcome change. ‘There’s a very warm, noticed a lot of friends transitioning chatty community here,’ he says. from east to west.’ ‘From the Moroccan fish guys next Having come of age on the social door to Pizza East to Galicia — they scene in Dalston and moving west East to west: bang on the window and come in and five years ago, Casely-Hayford is Charlie Caselytalk. It feels a bit like the late 1990s familiar with what makes a party Hayford in east London and I think you feel tick. ‘I’ve always been into going out that on the party scene, too.’ and when I moved here I felt a bit Certainly, there is plenty to deprived — but things seem to be suggest that this is the case. Whether kicking off. I think you can always judge
West is best: Portobello Road, above, and the former BBC TV Centre, left, where Soho House is setting up
West end girls: beauty dynamo Sharmadean Reid, left, and Shrimps’ Hannah Weiland
24.11.17 es magazine 23
Old-school westerners: The Globe, above, and Mark Ronson, right
an area by its house parties and a couple I’ve been to recently have been on the level of the ones I grew up with in east London — raw and a lot of fun.’ In many ways, what is happening in the area is completely logical. Where once Hackney and Dalston were all cheap but cha ra cter f u l warehouse spaces, now — after half a decade of ‘luxury’ flat developments springing up — these areas are no more affordable than those at the opposite end of the Overground line. East London rents still generally mean more bang for your buck, but the differential is narrowing. Foxtons says the average rent for a one-bedroom flat in Hackney is £1,600 per month, where as in Notting Hill it’s £1,800 — not quite as big a difference as you might expect. West is also more convenient — an Uber to Soho is just a tenner; from Hackney it’s nearly double that. And let’s face it, the property is nicer. Whereas your onebed flat on Mare Street is probably above a chicken shop, W11 is full of beautiful Georgian terraces that have been split into perfectly apportioned flats. W11 is safer, too. According to the Metropolitan Police website, almost twice as many violent crimes were reported in Hackney in the past year than in Kensington and Chelsea. It is the availability of a bit of luxury and the mix of high and low which is luring thirty-something trendies to the area. Yes, already, there are long established places like the Electric (whose Saturday brunches are among the most star-studded in all of London) and Pizza East (which newly anointed British Vogue editorin-chief Edward Enninful says W11 he visits ‘five or six times a heaven: Adwoa week’), as well as the more Aboah 24 es magazine 24.11.17
Westside hub: the new Television Centre, above
Notting cool: Molly Goddard and the Electric, left
exclusive likes of Casa Cruz (Prince Harry, the Beckhams). Age-old favourites in the area, meanwhile, provide the perfect foil to the influx of new openings — west Londoners love Friday-night dancing at The Globe, Sunday afternoons at The Cow and pints at the newly refurbished Cock & Bottle. You can expect to see local residents such as party planner Fiona Leahy and hip designers Molly Goddard and Shrimps’ Hannah Weiland around the area, plus the occasional glimpse of current Vogue cover girl, Adwoa Aboah. Even former east London girl Sharmadean Reid now lives just off Golborne Road, having been seduced by the area’s community feel. But more of interest to this crowd, it seems, are the likes of the aforementioned 108 Garage (which has a six-course tasting menu for £55). The restaurant has been such a success, in fact, that it spawned a sister restaurant on Golborne
Road — Southam Street, offering a BBQ grill on the ground floor, a raw sushi bar on the first and a speakeasy serving cocktails on the second — within 12 months of opening. ‘There have been a lot of openings recently that mean you can afford to go out for dinner and drinks in the area and it’s not going to cost you £80 a head,’ says Matt Paice, owner of Killer Tomato, another much talked about destination (tacos, burritos) that recently opened on Portobello Road. ‘I think affordability and accessibility go hand in hand and it’s attracting a younger, cooler customer.’ Paice has definitely felt the party vibe starting to drop there, too. ‘The mezcal margarita is the best-selling item on our menu,’ he says. ‘We’re selling gallons of it and lots of tequila. People will come in at 6.15pm and start their evening with a round or two of shots.’
“you can judge an area by its house parties and a couple I’ve been to have been a lot of fun” Ultimately, though, the vibe on this side of town is different. ‘I’m happy to admit I’ve got to a stage in life where I want to go somewhere where they treat you right and you don’t have to shout over people at a bar,’ says CaselyHayford. ‘If that’s in Casa Cruz then so be it. There feels a shift to spending time somewhere that’s perhaps a little swanky but where the lighting and the vibe are just right and it feels like you’re enjoying a lock-in.’ So, listen up, east London. Bored of takeaway boxes, nitrous oxide canisters and empty cans of Stella on your doorstep every Saturday morning? There is another option. It’s time to hop on your fixie and hit the A501, because we’re heading to Notting Hill.
style notes What we love now
ACNE STUDIOS earrings, £360 (acnestudios.com)
EDITED by KATRINA ISRAEL nora kogan ring, £405 (norakogan.com)
Hoop dreams
Jolly jewels
Go big or go home. The supersized costume earring knows how to party hard.
Meet NY bijou designer Nora Kogan — she’s just the gal to bring a little whimsical bling to the party. Check out her precious critters modelled by The Vampire’s Wife’s Susie Cave here. (norakogan.com)
TIBI shoes, £385, at net-aporter.com
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ir
InSTARglam
Take contemporary ‘scripture’ via offbeat aphorisms from Gucci’s favourite slogan scribe @cococapitan
SAM EDELMAN shoe, £125, at veryexclusive. co.uk
Follow us at @eveningstandardmagazine
Illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas; Polly Borland; Juergen Teller
e at 48 Neal stor Str ee
hip gs w Birkensto a ne ck fla of
Aeydē Sylvie mules, £210 (aeyde.com)
Step into party season with a fierce flash of fuchsia. In the meantime, be sure to check out Berlin-based footwear brand Aeydē’s Notting Hill pop-up at Pippa Store until 26 November. 52 Lonsdale Road, Notting Hill, W11
et first: so le n
Paul Smith loves unusual pieces such as Fish Design’s ‘jelly’ vases, which are ideal for house party season. Knock them over and they’ll bounce.
here with the o pe ni
Think pink
t.
Fe
is na va
ZARA shoes, £29.99 (zara.com)
Casting call
Super snapper Juergen Teller has a new exhibition at Fitzrovia’s Alison Jacques Gallery that unites the German artist’s Enjoy Your Life! Junior and Go-Sees series. The latter (pictured) is from Teller’s early career and documents his first meetings with new models. 24 Nov to 13 Jan (alisonjacquesgallery.com)
Fish Design Amazonia vase by Gaetano Pesce, £400, at Paul Smith (020 7493 4565)
ng
AQUAZZuRA shoes, £530, at browns fashion.com
break free
MEN’S STYLE What to buy now
Big Ben’s bit on the side
by TEO VAN DEN BROEKE, style director OF esquire UK
RUSSELL & BROMLEY patent derbies, £195 (russelland bromley.co.uk)
Sho es worth dressing up for
The rules of black tie are relatively rigid. First it’s pretty much a given that you need some kind of tie. Usually black, probably a bow. Second, you should ideally be wearing a tux. Black, navy or burgundy work best. Third? Your shirt should be white, your collar a wing. Fourth, your dress shoes should be made from patent leather (velvet also works) and you should be able to see your reflection in them. Here are three of the best pairs to get you started.
ZARA velvet shoes, £49.99 (zara.com)
SAINT LAURENT smoking derbies, £600, at mrporter.com
A cut above
Jonny Cochrane; Josh Shinner; illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas
Richard James’s bigger, better bespoke boutique
Tailor Richard James celebrates two and a half decades on Savile Row this year. In honour of the occasion, the nicest man in menswear has expanded his bespoke boutique on Mayfair’s Clifford Street. There are two floors dedicated to both made-tomeasure and bespoke tailoring, with a lounge (and, more importantly, a bar) that houses some 15,000 English and Italian cloth samples — which will no doubt come in handy when you finally get round to having that dusty pink silk three-piece suit made. (richard-james.com)
Home-sewn
Fox Brothers & Co has been manufacturing exemplary worsted and woollen clothes since 1772. Now, under the company’s forward-thinking managing director, Douglas Cordeaux, Fox has teamed up with another British institution, Hackett, to create a capsule collection of beautifully tailored pieces. Special Fox fabrics have been used to reimagine winter staples from Hackett’s classic tailoring line, Hackett x Mayfair, including a large-scale Fox Brothers overcoat, £800 glen check overcoat (my favourite), (hackett.com) a smart monochromatic herringbone blazer and a large windowpane double-breasted suit in navy.
Hackett x Fox Brothers suit, £825 (hackett.com)
Ben Machell finds half the fun of a party is just being invited
I
t’s party season and I’m excited. I’m happy to admit this. Some people — bad people — sigh and roll their eyes at the prospect of a solid month of nibbles and drinks, festive gettogethers and office discos. I find this attitude upsetting. Being invited to parties is nice. Drinks and nibbles are nice. Office discos are… fine. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m never going to get bored of being on the guest list for something. Because the alternative? The alternative is basically my life between the months of January and November. Why does this matter so much to me, being invited to parties? I’ve being doing some DIY regression therapy to get to the bottom of this — ie sitting alone on the couch after my family has gone to sleep — and delving into my subconscious. Memories come flooding back. I’m eight years old, at school, when my friend John Cockerill approaches me. He explains to me kindly and gently that, this year, I am not invited to his birthday party. John’s parties were amazing. We’d watch Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. Listen to Michael Jackson. Do Michael Jackson impressions and collapse into hysterical heaps attempting the ‘Smooth Criminal’ anti-gravity lean. But this particular year, I’d failed to make the cut. I didn’t understand. Why? It was my first memory of genuine, deep sadness.
“I’m never going to get bored of being on the guest list for something” A few years later it was the teenage parties. I did okay here, though mainly because my friend, Tim, owned a small strobe light. When you’re 15, nothing is cooler than having a strobe light at a house party, and I did my best to ensure that Tim and I came as a package: if you want the strobe, you have to invite us too. This worked a treat and yet, as the lights flashed and we bopped to the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack, a nagging doubt surfaced: was I popular? Or was it the strobe? I never did get to the bottom of this and ever since, flashing nightclub lights have made me feel a little maudlin. And now? Now I have my own children. And they’re starting to get invited to parties. I know it shouldn’t matter, but I can’t help feeling incredibly grateful whenever they are. Because parties are nice. They’re fun and, no matter how tired or busy you feel over the next few weeks, do your best not to moan about them. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.
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Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell’s iconic NYC nightspot is setting this season’s party agenda. It was the inspo for George Clooney’s recent Casamigos Halloween party on LA’s Sunset Strip and closer to home, we’ve spied disco balls at the Annabel’s bash for Jimmy Choo, gold lamé (yes really) on society beauties in black tie and the cool kids cutting a rug at the Mulberry (almost) Christmas bash. If you’re not already getting louche and loose 1970s-style at Notting Hill’s Casa Cruz, surely the HQ for London’s hedonists, you should be.
How to
party
emilia wickstead ss18
STUDIO 54 FEVER
preen aw17
Ian Schrager’s sumptuous tome for Rizzoli is full of intimate snaps of Studio 54’s starry regulars. ‘Studio 54’, £55 (amazon.co.uk)
NOW
From Willy Wonka dinner parties to the great Sloane comeback, our definitive guide to London partying. Edited by Dipal Acharya Cub, left, and its rare tea stem cocktail; Flavour Bastard, below, and one of its mixes
ROYAL FLUSH
The poshest loos in London Albert’s Hollywood lights fit for new-gen Sloanes. Loulou’s Diana Vreelandworthy interiors. Swoon. Annabel’s Refurbed, rebooted. We can’t wait for this water closet to reopen.
COCKTAIL RESTaurants Take a break from wrestling with the wine list — at the new breed of cocktail-led restaurants, it’s all about raising spirits from starters through to dessert. At Cub, Ryan Chetiyawardana has fused cocktails and food — the garnish becomes the munch as Douglas fir and mint resin marry with Belvedere vodka — while the genre-defying tapas menu of Flavour Bastard pairs with a hard-hitting cocktail list — The Brave (mezcal, tequila, amaro and curacao) is pure party fuel.
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scents of the night My Burberry Black, 50ml for £70 (uk.burberry.com) Throw on your trench and a mist of this jasmine musk before you head out . Marc Jacobs Decadence, 30ml for £49, at feelunique.com Pop this covetable party clutch in your, er, party clutch — saffron, Bulgarian rose and amber.
FANTASTIC FEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM l Add a little panache to your party game, courtesy of
the Bompas & Parr boys. The duo — famous for their immersive food installations, all wobbling jelly towers and G&T clouds — are branching out into catering (everyone from David Beckham to Sadiq Khan has enlisted their services already), so now you can impress your pals with a sumptious Willy Wonkastyle supper at home. (bompasandparr.com) l Michael Richardson first hit the street food scene in 2011, serving up humungous flatbreads filled with seasonal ingredients to hungry south Londoners. Expect the same super-seasonal and generous portions from Mike + Ollie’s catering operation — enormous sharing plates of whole Gloucester Old Spot pork belly with crispy cumin crackling and gooseberries, and stacks of those giant, pillowy flatbreads to soak up the booze. (mikeandollie.co.uk) l On the champagne, haute spiritmonger Clos19 has launched a new ‘Become the Host’ service (left), delivering a festive range of tipples and a mixologist to your doorstep so that you can host a cocktail party for a special 15 guests. From £2,200 (clos19.com)
Bottega Veneta Parco Palladiano IV, 100ml for £190 (bottegaveneta.com) Particularly festive, with the scent of roasted chestnuts.
Well jelly! The Bompas & Parr-style pudding table
chat-up lines…
#MVP
Most Valuable Players
Ladies Violet, Eliza and Alice Manners
Jemima and Quentin Jones
I’m writing a phone book, can I have your number? I couldn’t help but notice that you look a lot like my next girlfriend Nice socks, can I try them on?
Derek Blasberg
Poppy and Cara Delevingne
Lady Mary Charteris
Jaime Winstone and Rita Ora
Nick Grimshaw
Kate Moss
WHAT HANGOVER? Foolproof (well, fairly good) ways to help you the morning after plan ahead Pop a premeditated pill: Biocol Labs’ Something for a Mini Rehab supplements, filled with liver-soothing milk thistle, should be taken before you hit the wine to help prevent dire consequences the next morning. Available to Moody subscribers. (wearemoody.com)
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clean cuppa Get your Bloody Mary fix without further polluting your system with Fortnum’s new Bloody Mary tea: black tea, dried tomato, black peppercorns, chilli flakes and lemon peel. (fortnumandmason.com)
gym and tonic Exercise is out, obvs, but drag your toxin-riddled self to KXU and collapse in its Physiotherm Infrared Sauna for a session that promises purification, pain relief and to generally put you back together in time for pre-drinks. (kxu.co.uk)
bombay brekkie You’ll find the entire ES Mag team curing themselves of last night’s tequila with an existential regret-busting bacon naan roll (or two) at the new Dishoom Kensington most mornings this December. (dishoom.com)
THE kurupt fm MIX
The People Just Do Nothing crew lay down the ultimate party playlist Scott Garcia It’s a London Thing
fiesta after hours
When it comes to partying, there’s one maxim to follow: Be More Mexican. Luckily, the spiritual home of all wild night owls — and birthplace of tequila, the ultimate dancing till dawn drink — has influenced practically every bar worth its salt-rimmed margarita this party season. There’s the Ella Canta bar (above left) at The Intercontinental — it’s all about the ‘calavera’ (tequila, guava marmalade, grapefruit, lime) and the gold-coated grasshoppers. Feeling more Soho? Rave across town to the second Breddos (above right) and its underground mezcal ’n’ margarita den. Up north-east in Dalston, the new Del74 has thoughtfully/perilously introduced ‘pay as you pour sharing mezcal bottles’. And for proper party-starting, Mexican drinking food, hit Tienda Roosteria for its Triple Taco Tuesdays: three tacos and a beer for a tenner, leaving you ample cash for frozitas — its deeply dangerous frozen tequila negronis. Try the recipe (right) at home…
The perfect way to start any party. The tune is nice and smooth, but don’t be fooled — the bass will be sure to tickle ya very so slightly. We in the garage world call this a bubbler.
FROZITA RECIPE
DJ Luck and MC Neat A Little Bit of Luck
Try this from Tienda Roosteria. Multiply the ingredients by how many drinks you want and blend with plenty of crushed ice. Then, naturally, add edible glitter.
KISS ME
Come party season, it’s glitter, glitter everywhere, but Pat McGrath has upped the ante, launching LiquiLUST007, a lip kit that gives your pout the KiraKira treatment IRL. (patmcgrath.com)
25ml tequila 15ml Aperol 10ml Campari 25ml Cocchi Rosa 10ml sugar syrup 10ml fresh lemon juice
So Solid Crew Oh No My all time favourite So Solid dub. Some say MC Romeo’s dark side vocals took a lot of inspiration from Grindah. This tune always makes us move in perfect time to the catchy bassline.
Musical Mob Pulse X This one is what we in the scene call ‘disgusting’, which believe it or not is a good thing for us. This is one of the earliest forms of grime — it has stood the test of time and what an amazing stance it has.
Second Protocol Basslick (VIP remix) The track starts with some mad melodic s*** and makes you think it’s gonna be s***, then BANG, it hits you with the filthiest drop.
The ultimate singalong — this has probably got the best drop known to man, woman or child… in a singing tune.
Heartless Crew Heartless Anthem Heartless invented the word vibes and playing this will bring exactly that to any party. If they don’t react to this one then they don’t deserve to be at your party. Chuck ’em out and delete their number — you’ll thank us later.
Kurupt FM Get Out the Way This is guaranteed to tear up any dance floor or home floor or whatever. Play it right at the end. Don’t blame us if the place gets smashed up — just embrace it and be proud that you were a Kurupt FM ambassador.
To play these tracks scan the codes using the camera in the search bar of the Spotify app
Getty; Rex; Alamy; Rizzoli
GET A ROOM! Can’t face the Uber trek home? Check in to one of these capital crash pads instead
The Pilgrim This is Paddington’s new cool kid on the block. Rooms from £109
The Ned Art deco splendour and a beautiful basement pool. Rooms from £180
The Berkeley OTT luxury — one for the East End set partying out west. Rooms from £550
The Bloomsbury The Russell Square stalwart gets a multi-million pound facelift. Rooms from £295
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The NEW
India Langton and Amanda Sheppard
dinner
party rules Rose Productions — aka India Langton and Amanda Sheppard — are the fairy godmothers of party planning and the duo behind some of the capital’s chicest soirées. From Noel Gallagher’s 50th (right) to the launch of the latest Hermès fragrance, Twilly d’Hermès, they school us in how to throw the ultimate bash.
with a dishwashersafe Sharpie for a placement treat guests can take home — or a personalised handblown graffiti glass from Summerill & Bishop (left) makes for a beautiful name place.
The dream guest list Cover all bases — the young beauties who set the tone (Kaia Gerber), a sprinkling of old-school charm (Sir David Attenborough), a fabulous chef (Skye Gyngell) to curate the food and a party charmer who you can rely on to get everyone dancing on the tables (Poppy Delevingne). Oh, and could we have Stormzy (left) too? The table setting London is definitely going through a more is more phase. Look at Cabana magazine’s current table setting collection at Moda Operandi or head to The Cloth Shop on Portobello Road for divine suzaniinspired fabric for a table runner. Handwrite names on the plates
Chelsy Davy
tonteria
The old-school Sloane fave is back. The Duchess of Cambridge
Pippa Middleton
The menu Always seasonal, always warming in winter. We once created a Vietnamese pho station, where guests ate out of takeaway-style boxes with initialled chopsticks — there wasn’t a scrap left. The after-dinner entertainment Tequila with orange slices, sprinkled with cinnamon, followed by a DJ set from The Postmen — devilishly handsome Preston Thompson and Milo Astaire, who would play late into the night. PS… Word on the street is that the 1980s black tie dinner party at home is back in vogue.
beauty fixes
THE MANI: upgrade your standard file and polish for the Christian Louboutin Ombre nails (left) at DryBy. £85 (dryby.co.uk) THE BLOW-DRY: the fashion set’s favourite. Book a signature 15-minute blow-dry with Gio (right, with ES’s Katie Service). £55 (salonsloane.com) THE FACIAL: fact — a blast of LED light will brighten and tighten sallow skin. Get your hit at the Light Salon at Cowshed. £75 (cowshedonline.com) Roarsome: Leo’s at The Arts Club
CLUBBERS DELIGHT
While a third of London’s live music venues have been shut in the past 10 years, it’s not all grim tidings. Printworks — once home to the Evening Standard printing presses — has been transformed into a mammoth party palace (16 acres to be precise), hosting gigs by some of the world finest DJs and party-starters (printworkslondon. London massive: co.uk). Over in Mayfair, The Printworks Arts Club has enlisted Dimore Studio to design Leo’s. A jewel box-like music and sometime supperclub venue, the vibe here is the glamorous Fifties. (theartsclub.co.uk)
Rafferty Law
SLOANES ARE BACK IN TOWN
Treasure chests at dawn, people: west London is swinging back a decade with an almighty Sloane party-off. In the red-trousered corner, there’s Tonteria — Guy Pelly’s Sloane Square den of decadence, much beloved of Prince Harry, and revamped with snake dancers, paint-slathered naked dancers and ‘Do not Disturb’ latex Fridays. In the blue-blooded corner is Mahiki Kensington, the second branch of the Polynesian-themed club which is Prince Harry’s other fave haunt, set up with the help of Albert’s founders Carlo Carello, Jake Parkinson-Smith and Fraser Carruthers. Mahiki II is more ‘grown-up’ than the original (see its sushi restaurant Pufferfish, reviewed in Grace & Flavour, page 67) but never fear — the treasure chests are still going strong. Time to party like its 2007, eh?
Tess Ward Frankie Herbert
Hum Fleming
mahiki kensington
Names in here
Meet the High Street Ken new gen.
oh, snap!
Those oh-so-overInstagrammed photobooth pictures are starting to feel, well, a little passé. Say cheese instead to the new photo-phenomena THE ARRAY
It might look a little lo-fi for our liking but the Array is actually a snazzy multi-camera system that will capture a moment in 360 degrees. If it’s good enough for the Met Gala...
Say sparkle! Glitter cube photobooths, also inset
THE GLITTER CUBE
Time to think photopods, people. First it was the flower-festooned version that popped at festivals all summer, but now it’s all about the glitter iteration. Be merry and channel your inner Freddie Mercury.
HYPNO EYE
Essentially a handheld selfie ball, which comes with myriad filters and animated overlays, Hypno Eye (left) is a bit like the millennial pass the parcel.
Contributors: Frankie McCoy, Lily Worcester, Katie Service and Darcie Imber
PRESENT AND CORRECT Gifts for the host who has it all
Fee Brothers Rhubarb Bitters Bring a bottle to spice up any drink — its waaay more interesting than wine. £11.95, at masterofmalt.com
LET’S GET TOTALLY TUCKED UP…
the new club nights Lets Go Swimming The monthly party from the eponymous London label that plays the best techno in town. A roaming tune-fest, dive in for the night of your life. The next night is on 16 December at The Waiting Room. Tickets from £5 (waitingroomn16.com) Lobster Theremin Run by the Londonbased record label of the same name that’s known for
its nostalgic rave classics. 1 December, tickets from £5, Corsica Studios (lobster theremin.com) Hyperdub British electronicmeets-Jamaican sound system, they play everything from reggae and dub to grime and jungle — and maybe a surprise set from Björk. 30 November, tickets from £15, Fabric (fabriclondon.com)
Duvet darlings: ES Magazine’s Lily Worcester and Natalie Salmon at Gigi Hadid’s Maybelline launch
Lying down is the new going out, don’t you know? Beds are the ultimate party venue accessory. We say it’s the perfect flirting scenario. Time to practise your pillow talk.
Alex Eagle Monogrammed napkins Personal, chic and practical. From £48 (alexeagle.co.uk) Cire Trudon Ciel Candle This premium candle choice will secure a return invitation. £78, at net-aporter.com
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flashbulb:
James Peltekian and London It girls in the Noughties; right, Noel Gallagher gets a light off Kate Moss in 1998
A retrospective in partnership with Moët & Chandon
ES photographer James Peltekian has spent more than 20 years documenting the capital’s hedonists in our iconic Flashbulb! pages. Here he shares his incredible archive
What a scene! ‘F introduction BY simon mills
amous people doing unfamous things.’ That’s how Andy Warhol used to describe the best party photographs. Caught in the 2am flashbulb crossfire of the paparazzo’s lens, fame is stripped bare and frozen for a hot, raw moment, pieeyed and gobby with night-time naughtiness: Grace Jones and Yasmin Le Bon in a clinch; Boy George and Margaret Thatcher trying to out-pout each other. If New York was party central in the late 1970s and early 1980s, London entered its period of social domination at the end of the 1990s. That 2000 James Peltekian banquette shot of David Collins, Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Matthew Vaughn, William Orbit, Pete Tong and Goldie and the snap of a stogiechomping Courtney Love draped around Sam Taylor-Wood and Janet Street-Porter show a city in a state of kinetic euphoria and Britannic cool. And it was marvellous. Soho was rocking; Mayfair a-buzz; Shoreditch about to become a Thing. Famous misbehaviour abounded at venues such as Chinawhite, Browns, the Met Bar and the Heavenly Social. People went out for fun — for the freeloading, frottaging, hell and hangover. Not for an appearance fee, a goody
bag and a spike in Instagram activity. Premillennial partying in London was a time before social media, fun-filtering selfies and the deathless cold sell of the step and repeat board, before parties became a numbercrunching business of ‘likes’, followers and influencers. Party people in 1998 weren’t so ‘done’ and myopically careerist about the way they looked. People consumed a lot of booze and smoked cigarettes. Inside! At the same time! They were carefree, lairy and loud. A cliquey hot mess — loose about the shoulder straps, knicker elastic on display, shirts sweaty and often very drunk. Women were either totally fabulous or elegantly wasted. Men dressed in black tie or black leather jackets. Or, if you happened to be disco legend Philip Sallon, a collection of artfully arranged plastic carrier bags. There were characters and eccentrics everywhere: Isabella Blow, Alexander McQueen, Patrick Cox and a recently reinvented Robbie Williams. Anyone razzling around the capital at that time would bump into the Gallagher brothers and the Blur boys, who would throw a sweary, lager-flavoured grenade into any social situation with instant, democratising effect. Kate Moss, Kylie Minogue, Elizabeth Hurley and Jemima Goldsmith, each in their
lens-loving prime around 2000, brought the sparkle. Nightclub door staff were need-toknow stars in their own firmament of blag and clipboard culture. Upright dancing and cosmopolitan-fuelled carousing was the thing. Sedentary, needlessly showy table service was for the old and boring. Hedonist-honcho nightclub and bar owners such as Piers Adam, Oliver Peyton, Rory Keegan and Jake Panayiotou became our answer to Studio 54’s Rubell and Schrager. And the world came to London, with the 1997 premiere party for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet movie, a dizzy, four-venue allnighter (and next-dayer) featuring Björk, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nellee Hooper and Claire Danes. The Atlantic Bar and Grill was a flesh pot of supermodels and movie stars. And while the iPhone flashes might pop as much as James Peltekian’s Nikon these days, our party scene still rocks: Louis Vuitton’s Holborn Post Office do with Donna Summer singing ‘Bad Girls’ and Marc Jacobs on backing vocals doing the ‘Toot toot! Beep beep!’ bits back in 2007; Rihanna twerking till 3am at Harvey Nicks last month; Mark Ronson on the decks at the Richard James dinner and dance at Loulou’s just a couple of weeks ago. Our raucous, party-loving, flashbulb city just found its renewable energy…
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Sharleen Spiteri and Erin O’Connor at the Serpentine Summer Party, 2004
Normandie Keith and Lucas White with Tamara Beckwith at her birthday party
Princess Diana at the Sunday Times Christmas Party, 1996
‘Parties were better when people could smoke inside — they were relaxed and intimate’ –JP
Zoe Ball working the room
‘Look — Kanye was taking selfies long before Kim!’ –JP
Donatella Versace and Kanye West at Locanda Locatelli, 2005
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Kate Moss and Noel Gallagher pre smoking ban at Steve Coogan’s party, 1998 Style maverick: Philip Sallon, 2003
Iconic: Victoria and David Beckham at the Versace launch party, 1999
Isabella Blow and Alexander McQueen at the Chapman brothers private view at White Cube Hoxton, 2011
James Peltekian with Caroline Hickman, Lucy Yeomans, Jo Craven, Luli Cordle, Martha Ward and India Waters at Chinawhite, 2000
Marie Helvin, Sir Elton John and Jerry Hall, 2001
Zig-a-zig-ah: the Spice Girls at the Capital Radio Awards, 1997 Yasmin Le Bon and Grace Jones at the MoĂŤt Chandon Fashion Tribute, 2002
James Peltekian and Agyness Deyn in front of a MoĂŤt & Chandon champagne tower at the British Independent Film Awards 2015
99
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David Bailey and Damien Hirst at Gagosian gallery, 2007
Mad for it: Liam Gallagher and Ian Brown
‘I introduced Thatcher to Boy George. They had never met. I got them together — I knew it would make a great picture’ –JP
Boy George and Margaret Thatcher at a charity bash in Battersea Power Station, 1988 Family affair: Leah Wood, Mick Jagger and Elizabeth Jagger at the Enigma film premiere, 2001
Goldie Hawn at the Baftas, 2001
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Muhammad and Lonnie Ali at his 59th birthday party at the
Hilton, 2
Kylie Minogue and Patrick Cox, 2000
Madonna and William Orbit’s party Caroline Aherne and Steve Coogan
at China
ty at the
it’s party
‘Courtney Love was playing the piano at this party — until she fell backwards off the piano stool...’ –JP
Hilton, 2000
Welsh lovlies: Sir Tom Jones and Catherine Zeta-Jones, 2004
Sam Taylor Wood, Courtney Love and Janet Street Porter at The Old Vic gala, 2003
‘Two security guards picked me up and lifted me out of this party. The next day Madonna insisted on approving the photos — this is the only one she liked’ –JP
Gillian Anderson and Cate Blanchett at the Vagina Monologues press night, 1999
at Chinawhite with Guy Ritchie, Matthew Vaughn, Pete Tong and Goldie 2000
and
Katie Price at an awards ceremony
Anna Wintour and Kate Moss at a Topshop party at The Ivy, 2009
Ant, Dec and Cat Deeley
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Elle Macpherson at the Glamour Awards, 2005
Robbie Williams at a British Vogue party
Uma Thurman at the Kill Bill photocall, 2003
Liz Hurley and Hugh Grant at the BAFTAs, 1998
Henry Holland at the ICA, 2007
Horsing around: Frankie Dettori and Marco Pierre White at the opening of Frankie’s Bar and Grill, 2005
Richard Ashcroft at the Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels premiere, 1998
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Damon Albarn and Nick Moran
Americ
‘Diana was the ultimate beauty and my dream subject’ –JP
‘Getting to know celebrities’ wives and mothers is the secret to getting good photos’ –JP Noel Gallagher and Sara McDonald at an Adidas party
Pavarotti and Princess Diana at a Red Cross fundraiser, 1995 Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and James Peltekian at a film premiere
Gwen Stefani at St Martins Lane Hotel, 2002 American in London: Paris Hilton at Il Bottaccio in Knightsbridge, 2005
Liam Neeson, Ruby Wax and Sir Ian McKellen at the Evening Standard British Film Awards, 1997
It girls: Tamara Beckwith and Jemima Khan
flashbulb:
A retrospective in partnership with Moët & Chandon 24.11.17 es magazine 47
All
eyes on
Ellie
She’s loved by critics, directors and fashion designers alike and has multiple films on the horizon. As Ellie Bamber stars in a new play at the Donmar, she tells Anna van Praagh that this is just the beginning
I
PhotographS BY alex bramall stylED BY martha ward
t’s hard not to envy Ellie Bamber, she’s got the killer triumvirate: beauty — think a cross between a young Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore; talent — Tom Ford handpicked her for his thriller noir, Nocturnal Animals; and youth — she’s only 20. Oh, and she’s an ambassador for Chanel. We meet in a private room at members’ club Library on St Martin’s Lane on a chilly afternoon before Bamber’s evening performance of Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea at the Donmar Warehouse. The play, about a lighthouse-keeper’s daughter who is trapped in her marriage and longs for the sea, is directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, who was recently appointed artistic director of the Young Vic. ‘Kwame is wildly intelligent, wildly bright, and just has the most incredible nature,’ she says, grinning. ‘I knew that I wanted to work with him.’ She shares a dressing room with Nikki Amuka-Bird and before they go on stage they dance around to relax. Bamber creates the playlist: ‘I like trap music, but then I like Otis Redding and Ella Fitzgerald, Georgia Smith — she’s really cool — and then I’m a big Stone Roses fan. I like rap music, I like A Tribe Called Quest.’
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‘I don’t really get nervous,’ she says in her soft middleclass voice when I ask about pre-performance nerves. ‘I just get really excited.’ Next year she’s starring on screen in Jason Lester’s substance-infused romance, Taipei, based on the novel by hipster American novelist, Tao Lin, and in Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which also stars Morgan Freeman and Dame Helen Mirren. Former roles include Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and, most notably, Tom Ford’s exquisite thriller, Nocturnal Animals, in which she performed alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams and Aaron TaylorJohnson, playing a daughter who is abducted on a road trip through Texas. Ford famously said of Bamber, ‘I had an immediate crush on her the first time I met her,’ and the feeling is clearly mutual. The fashion designer’s attention to detail is legendary, something Bamber said she loved ‘because they were things that I didn’t have to think about… he had these incredible mood boards. I remember we had meetings with him and I would have an hour’s session with him and talk about things like the accent. Obviously he’s from Texas, so he was able to give me a clear idea of what my own character’s upbringing was like. He was great with the direction, giving me notes. He would say, “Okay,
CHANEL jumpsuit, £11,570; ring, £7,300 (chanel.com)
ALEXA CHUNG dress, £1,195 (alexachung.com)
we need to work on that, we need to work on this. Let’s get that together.” ‘I had a really lovely upbringing, I did a lot of skateboarding down country lanes,’ she says of her childhood in Berkshire. Her father ‘manages people’s private investments’ and her mother is her manager, although not in a scary momager way — ‘The nice thing about Mum is she’s not fullon’ — and she has one younger brother. Bamber was featured in the press in the summer embracing Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden in Ibiza, but says she wants to keep her love life private. We sit in awkward silence for a moment, the sound of an opera singer practising her scales at the English National Opera opposite drifting gently in through the windows. She is keen, however, to talk about the work she is doing for the African Bush Camps Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation work ing with rural communities and wildlife around Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia. ‘The great thing for me is they are helping people and animals simultaneously,’ she says of the charity. She visited Zimbabwe and Zambia in the summer to see the work in action, is starting a blog for them and will be returning to Africa at Easter for a sponsored run. She rents in Russell Square, loves eating out — Balthazar, Kiln and Rosa’s Thai Café are favourites — and drinks at Soho’s John Snow. She loves dressing up — ‘Tom used to call me Barbarella on set because I used to wear these silver boots; there was a Halloween party the other day and I went as her’ — and is a keen shopper. ‘My favourite vintage shop in New York is called Screaming Mimi’s, and whenever I go I’ll spend three hours in there just trawling.’ In London she loves Machine-A, Dover Street Market and Pop Boutique. ‘It’s round the corner from the Donmar, so it’s quite handy.’ And then, of course, there’s always Chanel, which is ‘beyond generous with me’, she says. The Box and The Scotch of St James are regular haunts (the former hinting of a hidden naughty side), but ‘I also like having friends round my house and
“Tom Ford used to call me Barbarella on set because I wore silver boots” getting a bit tipsy at home. I cook a good katsu curry.’ Her friends include Lily James, Douglas Booth and Crystal Clarke. Surprisingly, she’s not naturally a redhead but a blonde. She dyed it for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — ‘I was immediately like, why haven’t I always been this colour?’ As we walk through Covent Garden together after the interview, she tells me she’s reading A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes and how much she loves Bret Easton Ellis. Oh God, she’s clever, too. Ellie Bamber stars in ‘The Lady from the Sea’ at the Donmar Warehouse until 2 Dec (donmarwarehouse.com)
HUISHAN ZHANG dress, £1,050, at selfridges.co.uk. SWAROVSKI ring, £199; earrings, £159 (swarovski.com) Hair by Hiroshi using Kiehl’s Since 1851. Make-up by Celia Burton using Chanel. Fashion assistant: Ella Gaskell. Shot on location at Mark’s Club, Mayfair, W1 (marksclub.co.uk)
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PREEN BY THORNTON BREGAZZI dress, £930, at netaporter.com. CHANEL earrings, £11,250 (chanel.com)
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OSMAN dress, £995, at brownsfashion.com. CHANEL earrings, £6,000 (chanel.com)
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GANNI dress, £715, at net-a-porter.com. SUSAN FOSTER Hoop diamond earrings, £7,200 (susanfosterjewelry.com)
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GANNI dress, £715, at net-a-porter.com. SUSAN FOSTER Hoop diamond earrings, £7,200 (susanfosterjewelry.com)
24.11.17 es magazine 55
Don’t
sweat the small
talk Dreading party season? For years, ‘closet introvert’ Alice-Azania Jarvis did too. Here she explains how she kissed her shy side goodbye and became the life and soul Photograph BY louise haywood-schiefer
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Thursday night in Mayfair and, in the rosy-hued vault of a chi-chi cocktail bar, members of London’s glitterati swirl, performing their nightly routine of small talk and smiles-for-the-camera. In one corner, an up-and-coming actor bears down on the canapés; in another, three dewy-skinned young models pose for a selfie. A few yards away, a famous chef guffaws as the barman — sorry, mixologist — shakes and strains his drink. In the middle of it all: me. Fizz in hand, party dress on, eager-beaver grin plastered across my face, I take a deep breath and, as the kitsch chords of Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ slink out over the sound system, bowl up to
yet another group of people I don’t know from Adam and merrily introduce myself. To outside observers I must look like any other festive partygoer. Sure enough, when, out of the corner of one eye, I catch sight of my reflection in a mirror, I appear the picture of confidence. Inside, however, it’s a different story. As I flit from one guest to another, the thoughts running through my brain go as follows: ‘Don’t be boring’; ‘They won’t want to speak to you’; and, all-too-often, ‘IS IT NEARLY HOME TIME?’. When I finally sink into a cab at the end of it all: sweet relief. Yes, my name is Alice-Azania Jarvis and I’m a closet introvert. Rewind 21 years and I’m standing in the playg round of my new school in Johannesburg, South Africa. Having spent
The art of confidence: Alice-Azania Jarvis at the private view of Art Riot at the Saatchi Gallery
the first decade of my life in Richmond — where my friends were the same half dozen I’d known since nursery — I’m now faced with the prospect of building my social circle from scratch. This is proving difficult, since my speech has become slow and clumsy, and my stomach is performing the sort of acrobatic routine that wouldn’t be out of place at that year’s Olympics. For the first time, I’m aware of a lurking awkwardness. Shyness was not a quality I knew I possessed and now that I do, I dislike it. Slowly (very slowly) I do make friends. Still, the self-consciousness follows me around. Too often, parties are dreaded, then followed by cringing post-mortems. Frequently they are skipped altogether. In this I’m not alone. According to Susan
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Party tricks for introverts Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, studies indicate that 33–50 per cent of the population are introverts, characterised by a preference for small group interactions and a relishing of solitude. Among those who have described themselves as introverts are Emma Watson and JK Rowling. This isn’t a bad thing: research indicates such characteristics go hand in hand with considered decision making and the ability to mediate conflict. What they don’t go hand in hand with, however, is Christmas party season.
“The real secret of the party set is that there isn’t one. no one’s confidence is bulletproof”
Be yourself
‘Authentic statements build intimacy and trust,’ says Jenn Granneman, author of The Secret Lives of Introverts and founder of Introvertdear.com . ‘At a loud party, try, “Are you enjoying this? Because I’m an introvert, and this isn’t really my scene.” You may be surprised.’
Learn from mistakes
Think you made a fool of yourself? Look on the bright side. ‘We need to realise that if one thing doesn’t go so well, we can learn from it,’ says personal and executive coach, Dr Sally Ann Law.
Rest up
If socialising feels like an effort, allow time to recharge betwee n events, says Granneman. ‘To be “on”, I need to go in with a full battery,’ she explains.
And yet, to those who know me now, my Stop worrying secret anti-social bent will come as a surprise ‘We’re not as important as we think we — not least since I spend a good deal of my are,’ says Law. ‘People mainly don’t time putting myself in the precise situations stop to think much about how someone I used to so painstakingly avoid. Rarely a else looked or behaved as long as they week goes by without at least three afterhad a pretty good time.’ work events. Come late November, as the festive invitations pile up, you can make that five. Yes, these are part of my job — but that’s consciousness. I spent most of the night not the only reason I go. Internal monologue hiding in the loo, which proved fortuitous notwithstanding, I’ve come to enjoy them. when an of-the-moment celebrity couple To what do I owe this once unimaginable burst in having a blazing row, an event that turn of events? A sudden epiphany? A also made it into print. personality transplant? Nope. The truth is But over time it got easier. After you’ve simply that I had no choice. Aged 23 and not experienced the hot humiliation of being told long out of university, I began working on to f*** off by a storied fashion designer or been The Independent’s diary page, a mischievous stared down by the scandal-hit businessman mix of political, social and showbiz gossip, you’ve accosted over canapés, there isn’t which I would later go on to edit. My job, much that seems daunting. Party-going, it principally, was to go out every night of the turns out, is like playing an instrument: the week and speak to as many famous and more you do it, the easier it gets. By the time important people as possible in the hope of I graduated from my diary days, I’d come to getting a story. view such gatherings as a kind of Initially it was excruciating. I can entertaining game, and conversations vividly remember the glamorous with new people as points to be jewellery launch where I spent an entire bagged. In many ways, this is how I evening working up the courage to still think of them now. speak to Rosamund Pike (when I The intervening years have eventually did, she was the brought further revelations. epitome of charm, and her denial While most people don’t want to of a rumoured film role made the talk to gossip columnists, being next day’s paper). Neither will one does at least give you an Political party: Sadiq Khan and the glitzy award ceremony — at excuse for approaching perfect Alice-Azania which I arrived hopelessly strangers. These days, attending underdressed, having been parties as my ‘real self’ necessitates dispatched to fill in for a colleague an alternative opening gambit. To — fa de qu ick ly f rom my this end, I find compliments work
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Green for go: Grayson Perry and Alice-Azania
wonderfully (‘I just had to ask you where your shoes/dress/bag comes from’), as do other forms of flattery. After all, who doesn’t like being told how wonderful they are? Tempting as it is to talk about the weather, by far the most interesting topic, to many people, is themselves. In particularly tongue-tied moments I assume an interviewer role: where did they grow up, when did they realise what they wanted to do. And actually, this is how I’ve had some of my most interesting conversations, such as the time a bestselling author gave me the scoop on his forthcoming novel, or an awardwinning artist told me about the inspiration behind his most recent project.
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nother thing I’ve learnt is the transformative effect of clothes. The notion of ‘power dressing’ may be a cliché, but not without reason. Dressing boldly makes me feel bold, so I’ve ditched the head-to-toe black for bright colours and sequins. A particular favourite is a bright-green number by Samantha Cameron’s Cefinn. This has an added advantage: the fact that the wife of the former PM designed it provides a good fall-back topic if chat runs dry. Clothing can be a valuable conversation starter. An upshot of all this party-going is that I’ve had the opportunity to observe the truly sociable up close. And the thing that unites them? They’re all human, too. The real secret of the party set is that there isn’t one. No one’s confidence is bulletproof. I’ve seen gobby television presenters wilt in the face of real-life conversation and seasoned socialites apologise for being boring. So while there are still plenty of moments when drumming up conversation is the last thing I feel like doing, I’ve come to realise that absolutely everyone feels like that occasionally. And so what? To get overly hung up on such things now strikes me as rather egotistic. So, fellow introverts, if the prospect of December’s social merry-go-round fills you with dread, take heart: it needn’t. At any rate, January — that delicious month of staying in with only a book for company — is but a few weeks away. In the meantime, pass the champagne — I’m ready to party.
James Peltekian
INSIDE OUT
beauty by katie service
block party
Sculpt and highlight your face with Rihanna’s new collection of shimmer stix
Fenty Beauty Match Stix Shimmer Skinsticks, ÂŁ21 each (harveynichols.com)
PHOTOGRAPH BY aleksandra kingo STYLED BY lily worcester
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beauty
face off
The iPhone X promises to raise your selfie game with a host of hi-tech settings and cutting-edge lighting modes. But does it work? Professional poser Katie Service and photo-phobe Hamish MacBain put it to the test HAMISH MACBAIN
KATIE SERVICE
Associate features editor
Beauty editor
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iven that I have spent the past decade or so being brilliant in this magazine and others, there is a reasonable chance you will be familiar with my byline. But unless you are a friend or family member, colleague or former colleague, sworn enemy or sworn enemy-slash-former colleague, you will not be familiar with my face because I do not like my face. Well, that is not strictly true. I do like my face (and in fact love my hair), but I detest the way that it looks in photographs. If anyone ever even looks as though they are about to take a photo with me in it, they will find themselves on the business end of a verbal NDA, forbidding them from ever sharing it on any form of social media. And selfies? No. I tried one once in the privacy of a nightclub toilet with my first ever camera phone, bright white light pummelling my every pore. It did not match the image in my mind. And so, long before ‘selfie’ had become the 21st century’s most annoying lexicon entry, I became a selfie-phobe. But time, and mobile-phone cameras, have of course moved on significantly — to the extent that the iPhone X’s professional standarddwarfing spec was last week criticised for being ‘too good’. Which, I thought, is exactly what I’m after. And so, here, with the assistance of ‘Portrait’ mode and ‘Contour Light’ setting, and in a world-exclusive to rival that time we told you Gigi Hadid likes Yorkshire pudding, is my first ever published selfie. When the picture editor asked me if I liked the results, I said I was ‘not displeased’, which — trust me, Apple — is not far short of a miracle. In fact, Apple: should you wish to use the above quote on those massive billboards of yours, you have my blessing. I might even shoot an accompanying image for you.
“I was ‘not displeased’ with the result, which — trust me, Apple — is not far short of a miracle”
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Selfie knowledge: Hamish MacBain and, below, Katie Service
here are few things I enjoy more in life than taking a selfie. Call me vain, call me a narcissist, but I find there’s something intensely satisfying about taking an okay snap of oneself and then spending a good 20 minutes tweaking it until you appear fractionally better looking. I hop between Facetune and VSCO apps to smooth out wrinkles, duplicate freckles or even soften the line of my jaw. Sounds a bit extreme but, hey, I’m not 24 any more and it’s infinitely less scary than Botox. Then came the iPhone X, with its TrueDepth camera and portrait selfie mode, which essentially allows you to ‘photoshop’ your selfie before you even take it. I was an instant convert. I start simply with the ‘Natural Light’ setting and pull a few standard poses (lips apart, chin down and eyes soft...). The clarity of the XL screen is incredible — this phone is all about display, and Apple has a 25 per cent broader true colour spectrum than other smartphones by including true black, which means I no longer have to Facetune my black mascara to make my eyes pop. Flicking to ‘studio light’ I see an instant improvement; my skin looks brighter and my eyes sparkle before I’ve taken the shot. So far so good. But it’s the ‘Contour’ setting that I have the most fun with. In just one swipe — bam! — I have the cheekbones of a Kardashian and a jawline that could cut ice. Admittedly, indoors I look as though I’ve done 15 rounds with Benefit’s Hoola and the bronzer won, but step outside and this shading looks realistic and enormously flattering. I think Hamish is a little frightened by how long I’ve spent staring at my own face. I’m a little frightened too. In the space of 45 minutes I have taken 583 photos of myself. That’s a record even for me. I’m starting to go selfie blind. I’m even starting to look a bit humanoid in some, an avatar of myself — all glass eyes and aerodynamics and, although I’m saving time on the post-editing, I’m definitely pouring it back in by the bucketload in pre-selfie adjustments. Final verdict? It’s a big fat yes from me.
Read your stars by Shelley von Strunckel at standard.co.uk / horoscopes /today
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beauty
You beauty!
ON THE SOAPBOX
The world’s most famous nail expert, Marian Newman, on how to get the ultimate party nails
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Halpern SS18
he mood for party nails is completely OTT for both fingers and toes this season, and it’s all about creating a holographic effect with different textures. Here’s the nail kit you need: Angel paper. This is a see-through holographic cellophane that you find in craft shops (FloristWeddingCraft, £14.95, at etsy. com). Cut the paper into small shards and place on to a clear top coat for a scattered effect. For the Halpern SS18 show I painted a deep purple nail and created a holographic diagonal black stripe MAVALA nail glitter, £4.95, using the angel paper. They were at amazon.co.uk like chic disco party nails. Glitter. Take a colour that matches your outfit, use it as a base and then paint three stripes of different colour top coats down the nail, blending them together while they are still wet. Crystals. I’m completely and utterly obsessed with using crystals on nails. You can get them from Claire’s Accessories but if you really want the best, go for Swarovski’s Crystal Pixies. I’d use a clear geleffect top coat because it’s thicker, and then sprinkle the crystals into the wet layer. Or you can shape some Blu Tack into a point so that you can pick up the individual crystals and place them where you want them. Don’t cover them with a top coat because it dulls their sparkle.
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2
3
Swarovski Crystal Pixies, £15.99 (scattercrystals.co.uk)
S Annabel Rivkin brings her party face to life
Josh Shinner; Natasha Pszenicki
Headspace
Forget a greasy spoon for your morning-after fry-up and get down to Yeotown Kitchen, London’s first mindfulness café in Marylebone, complete with nutritious food, freshly pressed juices and, of course, a meditation station. Chiltern street, W1 (yeotown.com)
o it’s 6pm. And you have a date. Or a party. Perhaps a party where you run the risk of bumping into your ex. Oh God. And you look a bit greige. And this is not the sort of dullness that can be cheated with illuminator and bronzer and blusher. It’s a determined lifelessness. And there is no time for a facial (anyway, they are so expensive and a mediocre one is truly dispiriting) and regular moisturiser just doesn’t seem to want to sink in. It just sits there. So now you’re shiny and dull. How is that even possible? Insult to injury. Like wrinkles and spots. It’s time to wheel in the sheet mask, people. Have some in the secret drawer. Travel with one. Know that help is at hand. A good sheet mask will cool and soothe the skin while infusing it with nutrients. It will brighten and tighten and even things out. And, in doing so, it will give you a kind of invisible armour because you’ve bothered to take 15 minutes to sit the f*** down, calm the f*** down and do this for yourself. Right now I am using Skin Laundry’s Wrinkle Release Facial Sheet Mask. It lifts, refreshes and somehow seems to sculpt the skin into shape. Stuffed with vitality-delivering antioxidants and vitamins (B3, A, B1, B6, C, E, K, P); packed with collagenand elastic-supporting joy; bursting with sodium hyaluronate for suppleness and hydration, this almost feels like a one-night-only filler in fabric form. For those nights when you look in the mirror and despair, these cunning, weighty sachets offer hope. And hope is sexy. Skin Laundry Wrinkle Release Facial Sheet Mask, £12 (£48 for five), at cultbeauty.co.uk
Read your stars by Shelley von Strunckel at standard.co.uk / horoscopes /today
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feast
grace & flavour Grace Dent prefers to leave the partying — and the food — at Mahiki Kensington to the bouji brigade
“Pufferfish sounds like a sexual term millennials might use for something revolting and non-consensual”
Ambience food
Jonny Cochrane; illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas
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his ES party issue requires that I deliver a Grace & Flavour restaurant that not only feeds, but offers frivolity, a place to flirt and somewhere one might feasibly fall out of come 3am with a lovebite from a minor European royal. There was only one option. Allnew Pufferfish at Mahiki Kensington, a mockPolynesian raw bar and sashimi palace, open from 4pm, which transforms into an upscale party palace as the evening progresses. ‘But isn’t there already a Mahiki in Mayfair?’ I hear you saying. Yes, and now there are two, which helps to contain into safe spaces the banter, the boujiness and those birds in Lipsy playsuits who aim to ensnare a footballer or a mysteriously rich body builder type who explains his wealth as ‘owning a garage’. Pufferfish sounds like a sexual term millennials might use for something revolting, surprising and non-consensual that requires wet wipes. Pufferfish does the iconic Mahiki ‘Treasure Chest’ for £140, where a faux-antique box of ‘Mahiki Grog’ (brandy and peach liqueur) is delivered to your table with a bottle of Moët & Chandon and straws. It’s made by a bartender wearing a pirate hat and serves eight. I find it comforting that the classiest of London’s young things have a hankering to behave so déclassé. In a world of spiralised courgetti and po-faced Insta-feed wellness, there are still corners where women drink ‘Bikini Blasts’ until 3am and do the District line shame-run at noon the following day with their thong in their Miu Miu handbag. I like it less that the reservations staff at Pufferfish, or at least a berk called Marisa, is so lost in misplaced arrogance that enquiries to dine
mahiki 2A Kensington High Street, W8 (020 7368 1180; mahikikensington.com)
1
Water
2
Gin and tonics
£18
1
Ultimate mai tai
£15
1
Pina colada
£12
1
Spicy yellowfin tuna
1
Cod tempura
£10
1
Seared salmon sashimi
£10
1
Bottle of white wine
£40
1
Sea bass and prawn dumpling £10
1
Wagyu beef and truffle gyoza
1
Chilean rib-eye
1
Bok choi
£6
1
Steamed rice
£4
1
Spinach
£7
1
Caramel fondant
£7
Total
£4
£11
£9 £22
£185
are replied to with a terse cut-and-pasted demand for a credit card. Why bother being a restaurant if you’re determined to treat potential diners as a mere annoyance getting in the way of the VIP party tables who’ll spend silly money from 10pm. It was like Marisa was trying to put me off. Of course, the viler she was, the more determined I was to eat Pufferfish’s pan-Asian cuisine in its Polynesian paradise setting. I was finally granted a table for two, dining at 8pm, with testy instructions it was to be given back by 9.30pm. Keeping in mind it only offers a few maki rolls, tempura, a limited raw bar and hot meats with a kimchi or miso slant, the minutes felt ample. Pufferfish does offer, bizarrely, a supergreen salad that it makes a fuss of mashing tableside and squirting with jizz-like sauce. The seared salmon sashimi with truffle ponzu was dinner’s highlight. The cod tempura in a squid ink-laced batter resembled lumps of coal but were semi-edible. The beef gyoza arrived swimming in ponzu miso. Some spicy yellowfin tuna maki was unlovable. We ordered a rib-eye that arrived with two lacklustre sides chosen from a list of low-effort sides: a bowl of rice and some bok choi that rumoured itself to have once met garlic and oyster sauce. During the latter part of dinner we began to be ignored, obviously in the hope we’d leave. ‘Can we have the pudding menu?’ I said. ‘There isn’t one,’ a waiter replied, ‘we are, um, experimenting with whether the customers want one. We can make one if you want one.’ ‘Well, I do want one,’ I said. ‘We have sorbet or a chocolate fondant with pandan ice-cream,’ he admitted, sadly. ‘Bring me the second one!’ I said. Forty minutes passed. It was 10pm. No one had ejected us. We could smell the pudding before we saw it. A burnt fondant appeared with a melting inner that felt nontemptingly carcinogenic. We paid our £185 plus £23 service charge, were given the option to leave another tip, and left, as the music began to blare, before we were ejected. It wasn’t exactly a party, but I’ve been laughing about it ever since.
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feast
photographs BY morgane lay & jonny cochrane
The great
festive
taste test
The fizz! The dips! And the best party nibbles. Our restaurant critic Grace Dent gives her (very honest) verdict
Make-up by Yulia Yurchenko
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ookery shows from December onwards will bombard us with dutiful souls slaving away in kitchens, making all their Christmas party food from scratch. Fools will be wrapping their own organically sourced chipolatas in homecured bacon and erecting croquembouche towers. Very festive. So giving and loving. But what a massive waste of time. I have martyred myself for Christmas parties many times, and no one appreciates it any more than the pre-packed, buy-it-and-bung-
it-in genre. Believe me, only virgins, tedious show-offs and women still hoping their mother-in-law will warm to them make their own choux pastry. The little baby Jesus in his manger will not bless you more for missing the first hour of your party as you were hand mashing chickpeas for hummus. Of course, pre-bought party food will upset some of your gang. However, beware anyone with a painfully ornate cooking plan — inserting a bird into a bird, triple-cooking roasties or flambéing Brussels sprouts is generally using this ‘hard work’ as an excuse to hide in the kitchen with a bottle of red
and Paul O’Grady on Radio 2, while you’re stuck talking Brexit with toxic Uncle Ron. Here are four Christmas party essentials, officially tried and tested by Grace & Flavour. Dips, which I don’t generally eat as it’s all a bit regional book club, but I showed willing. Pigs in blankets, which are the best part of the Christmas dinner, largely as they distract from the turkey — which Britain bothers with once a year for good reason. Profiteroles, to serve to the adult-babies and nut intolerants in the house who won’t eat mince pies. And supermarket champagne — or more accurately, sham-pagne. Enjoy.
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“After two of these I wanted to go straight into January detox”
PROFITEROLES ALDI Belgian Chocolate Stack, £1.99
Heavenly, fat, cream puffs of perfection with a thick chocolate coat. Damn the diet. Just buy bigger pants. Oh, you don’t do dairy? Break that rule. Oldschool profiteroles. LIDL Deluxe Croquembouche Tower, £5.99
Like one of Monica from Friends’ mock-o-late recipes. Chewy choux pastry (left). A squandering of calories. SAINSBURY’s Taste the Difference caramel & chocolate, £5
Thickly coated, archly sweet toffee profiteroles filled to the brim with chocolate cream. The wild anarchists of the Christmas profiterole gang. Like a heyday Elizabeth Taylor, brash, beautiful and a bit bloody much. After two of these I wanted to go straight into January detox. MARKS & SPENCER Dessert Menu Collection stack, £8
Who ruined this pretty, traditional profiterole display with Jackson Pollock icing? Otherwise, fresh, fluffy and pleasing with a perfect icing-to-cream proportion.
PIGS IN BLANKETS
DIPS
ALDI Specially Selected, £2 .19
ALDI Specially Selected Topped Hummus Selection Pack, £2 .19
Chunky, salty, smoky nuggets of joy. Not particularly beautiful, but the perfect size to eat with one hand from the fridge on Boxing Day. LIDL Deluxe, £2.49
Pigs in blankets should not be long. It is anti-Christmas. They’d take up too much room on your plate. Perfectly porky and fatty but these dimensions are unorthodox. SAINSBURY’s Taste the Difference, £3
Bullets of sausagey Yuletide happiness (below). Herby and meaty, plump and moreish. Ho, ho, ho. Save some back to eat with Boxing Day bubble and squeak. MARKS & SPENCER, £5
Oddly unappetising. They sat unloved on the tasting table. Bah humbug.
Fancy-schmancy dips with extra zhuzhy bits. I’ll overlook that one is pesto — which all sane people can agree tastes like athlete’s foot — as the beetroot one is the prettiest, most piquant dip on the Christmas shelves. Dips to buy to fake having made an extra effort. LIDL Deluxe Premium Dip Selection, £1.99
Dip-ressing. Pale 1990s-style dips (above) to serve at a neighbour’s get-together if you secretly hope they won’t speak to you for another year. Life is too short to eat drab tzatziki.
WAITROSE, £3.29 WAITROSE salted caramel & dark chocolate, £3.99
The sweetest of sweet-tooths in the family will love these.
The herbiest, punchiest of the bunch. Floppier than I’d prefer, but as we all know, sometimes you have to make do.
SAINSBURY’s Classic Hummus, £1.30; Taramasalata, £1; Soured Cream & Chive, £1.30
The sour cream dip leaves a little to be desired and the hummus is mainly meh,
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“Floppier than I’d prefer, but as we all know, sometimes you have to make do”
but the taramasalata is a joyous, assertive yet at the same time delicate baby-pink pot of loveliness. Probably too good to serve to guests. An ‘in bed with a box of breadsticks, hiding from your mother-in-law’ type of dip. MARKS & SPENCER Classic Dip Selection, £4.50
The kidney-shaped packaging makes it look like a hospital testing kit, but the Cheddar-flecked dip has teeth and would go well with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and some felt antlers.
CHAMPagnE
plonk you get at a book launch when the publisher is about to ditch the author.
ALDI Veuve Monsigny Champagne Brut, £10.99
MARKS & SPENCER Oudinot Brut NV, £27
This isn’t Taittinger, fine, but it’s absolutely drinkable, semi-dry, doesn’t make your breath smell after two glasses and will pair with everything on the buffet table. Reader, I drank the bottle.
The taste of remembering you kissed Keith from the purchase ledger office last night and there wasn’t even any mistletoe to blame it on.
LIDL Comte de Senneval, £10.99
A far more oaky, yellow, brooding fizz than I’d associate with champagne, but still a good welcome drink for a gathering.
WAITROSE creamy dip trio, £1.99
The pecorino and basil is nicely feisty, but the onion and garlic won’t win you many mistletoe kisses.
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SAINSBURY’s Taste the Difference Champagne Brut NV, £18
A bitter, mean-spirited tipple. The sort of
WAITROSE Blanc de Noirs Brut NV, £21.99
The sweetest, most Babycham-like of the bunch, but still definitely do-able. Smart drinking? From left, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose’s festive fizz
feast
tart london Jemima Jones and Lucy Carr-Ellison get themselves into a delicious pickle
Llama drama: it’s feeding time for Lucy’s family herd in Northumberland
Jemima Jones (left) and Lucy Carr-Ellison
Josh Shinner
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here is something very satisfying about pickling your own food. It’s more than just cooking — you are preserving your food for a later date, just in case. Like making your own jam or chutney, pickling simply requires a little time and forethought, and once you’ve filled your jars, you’re left with an overwhelming sense of pride. Every time you open your cupboard and see all those pickles lined up, you should give yourself a pat on the back. We love making a pickle to cut through a dish with a little sour bite. The great thing is that it will keep for a long time, although don’t make too much of it. The first time we made piccalilli for a market stall, we made tons. Sadly not much of it sold and we were left with an abundance of beautiful yellow jars. We had to eat it with everything — and now we can’t look at the stuff. Pickling feels wonderfully old-school, like something your grandmother would have done, and it’s so fun to play around with different spices and brines, especially when ‘fermentation’ is so fashionable right now. Here are two pickle recipes that we use a lot. The mackerel is something we like to keep in the fridge for a quick lunch, with some avocado on rye bread, and the jalapeño relish is simply a great, tasty pickle to pep up any dish.
Serves 2
Pickled mackerel & jalapeÑo relish
For the mackerel 100ml cider vinegar 50ml water 40g caster sugar 3 bay leaves 1 tbsp coriander seeds 1 tsp chilli flakes 2 mackerel fillets ½ a red onion, thinly sliced 3 sprigs oregano
For the mackerel, simmer the cider vinegar, water, caster sugar, bay leaves, coriander seeds and chilli flakes in a small pan over a medium heat for 5 minutes, until the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool. Place the fish fillets, onion and oregano in a dish and pour over the vinegar mixture. Cover and place in the fridge overnight. Serve when needed. For the relish, place the sliced jalapeños in a jar. Put all the remaining ingredients into a small pan and bring to the boil. Take off the heat and carefully pour into the jar. Allow to come to room temperature, cover and refrigerate.
For the jalapeño relish 9 jalapeños, sliced thin on the diagonal 100ml rice wine vinegar 100ml mirin 1 tbsp soy sauce 2 tbsp caster sugar Juice of 2 limes Knob of ginger, crushed 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced 1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 star anise
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FEAST
One too many? The fab Fable at Waeska
Drinking culture
Some of London’s best art is now found in its bars, says Frankie McCoy
Next time you’re sipping a reflective predinner Martinez or taste-testing the 23 artisan gins winking enticingly behind the bar, take a closer look at the walls. London’s bars are home to some superlative artworks from the sort of super-hip artists you become cooler by name-dropping. Even better, it means you can ponder photographic gems over pisco, titter into your gin at fantastical taxidermy, and tipsily wax lyrical about the genius of a Turner Prize-winner with a large glass of red in hand. Here are three drinking dens where you can genuinely justify your booze consumption as ‘culture’. Hassan Hajjaj’s work at Red Rooster
Waeska at The Mandrake
Fitzrovia’s snazziest boutique hotel bar takes its art really, really seriously. Owner Rami Fustok has plastered the walls with much of his own ‘mysterious, mystical and eclectic collection of art and artefacts that I have collected on my travels’. Hunt down Jonas Burgert’s dark, warped figures, then head to the bar and order a La Gloire de Mon Père — gin, Suze, fennel, verjus and ginger soda, all vegetal sweet — under the baleful eye of Enrique Gomez de Molina’s Fable. The psychedelic taxidermy chimera is made up of calf head, deer legs, peacock and pheasant feathers, beetle wings — as wonderfully twisted as it sounds.
Red Rooster
You can hardly see the walls for the artwork at Marcus Samuelsson’s bar and restaurant in Shoreditch, from Turner Prize-winning Chris Ofili’s
Afromuses series to Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj’s kaleidoscopic portrait, framed in upcycled 7-Up and Fanta cans. It’s a right old sensory overload when you add in the cracking playlist and guest bands (or the Sunday gospel sessions) and the groaningly good booze and food options — chase honey-buttered corn bread and devilled eggs with sweet’n’sour Harlem hellfighter (calvados, grapefruit, bitters and beer) or a bottle of New York Pinot Noir.
Coya Mayfair
Tyler Shields is the photographic darling of Hollywood (and a fave of Lindsay Lohan); now he has brought his oh-so-glossy provocative photos to the pisco haven of Coya Mayfair with Provocateur, a series of pictures showing the gleeful destruction of luxury products, such as burning Louis Vuitton trunks (above) and Chanel No 5 poured into champagne glasses. A clever comment on capitalism and celebrity? Discuss over the huge quantities of pisco, the Peruvian brandy that makes such dangerously fun drinks as the pisco sour, pisco royale (champagne-spiked pisco sour) or the wonderful chasca (pisco, coffee liqueur, almond lime and Angostura bitters).
HOMEWORK
Lario Magenta napkin, £7.50 (designers guild.com)
BY lILY WORCESTER
Cube dinner plate by Astier de Villatte, £145, at (summerilland bishop.com)
Champagne coupe by Lee Broom, £85, at selfridges.com
Plate by Bunzlau Castle, £16, at amara.com
Eyes valet tray, £68 (uk.jonathan adler.com)
Nuvola candle by Fornasetti, £150, at selfridges.com
table talk
Full Field linen place mat, £42 (summerilland bishop.com)
Can’t quite face going out? Then bring the party home. This season is all about creating a mood of cosy grandeur. Get the look by pairing opulent pieces with simple low-key textures. The newly opened Petersham Nurseries in Covent Garden is a treasure trove of decadent rustica — ditch the blousey floral centrepiece for an elegant brass girandole, or one of Matilda Goad’s heavenly ribbed wax candlesticks. And use linen napkins and place mats to offset the look — both Designers Guild and Summerill & Bishop have chic, vibrant options.
Bowl by Vanessa Conyers at Seed, £92.40, at trouva.com
Apple place card holders, £175 (smythson.com)
Vintage brass cart, £1,815 (sohohome.com)
Vita tumbler by William Yeoward Crystal, £150, at amara.com
Girandole, £540 (petersham nurseries. com)
Odyssey tray, £35 (liberty london.com)
Monogrammed thankyou notes, £35 for set of 10 (quilllondon.com) Candles, £35 for six (matildagoad.com)
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escape
EDITED by dipal acharya
Inside the Alpaga
For the foodie
Soak it up: the Alpaga’s spa
For the cabin junkie San Luis, South Tyrol
Alpaga, Megève
If there was one hotel all over Instagram last summer, it was the ohso-design-conscious Les Roches Rouges on the French Riviera. Come winter, you’ll want to be posting from the parent hotel group’s mountain retreat in France’s chic Megève. Alpaga has it all, including a Michelin-starred restaurant, interiors with a Nordic sensibility (think lots of cream, natural wood and sheepskin), a hot tub with views over Mont Blanc — and Spa la Colline for those extra bits of pampering. Rooms from £310
Canned heat: Alpaga’s sauna
Luxe logs: the chalets at San Luis
Slope and glory
When you’ve done your share of high-octane partying, there is nothing like escaping to the mountains for high-altitude pampering — where fresh alpine air, stunning scenery and first-class gastronomy collide. From northern Italy to chic Megève via Finnish Lapland, here are the most stylish places to relax, no skiing required. By Kate Lough
For the design enthusiast
Chandolin Boutique Hotel, VALAIS With après-ski indulgence at the heart of its ethos, this typically Swiss grand chalet has been transformed into a design hotel. Forget about perfecting your parallel turns: after a morning in the Altitude Wellness spa’s hamman (the hotel sits at 2,000m, after all), you can move from piste-side fondue and raclette to the mountain-view restaurant, with a roaring fire and meaty steaks from the local valley on the menu. Rooms from £175 including breakfast
Alpine al fresco: on the Chandolin slope-side patio, left; the bar, above
A family-run hotel in Italy’s South Tyrol, San Luis feels like an alpine Soho Farmhouse, with rustic-luxe wooden cabins set around a lake and tree houses dotted throughout the forest. Non-skiers will be right at home here. It’s less about shuttling to the piste, more about saunas in the barn-style spa, sessions in the lake-sunk Jacuzzi and lapping up the views — and tranquillity — from your chalet, which is made all the more picture-perfect by floor-to-ceiling windows. From £260 per person sharing a treehouse or chalet Barn burner: relax beside the San Luis spa’s roaring fire
For the intrepid explorer Northern Lights Ranch, lAPLAND
If you can combine mountain air with spotting the aurora borealis, so much the better. Go off-piste this year and make the pilgrimage to Lapland, 200km north of the Arctic circle in Finland, where the Northern Lights Ranch has added five sky-view log cabins with glass Sky light: a ceilings and chic Scandi design for glass-roofed the new season. The resort sits on cabin at the ranch the outskirts of Levi, Finland’s biggest ski destination, but for those who’d rather stay put there’s hot-tubbing, reindeer-sledding and serious feasting to be done. Sky-view cabin from £350 per person
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MY LONDON
FRAN CUTLER AS TOLD TO LILY WORCESTER
Home is… Islington with my daughter Mercy, 16, and my mum Shirley. I’ve lived there most of my life.
Chiltern [Firehouse] where you can sit in the garden. Biggest extravagance? Everything. Art, clothes, shopping, holidays… I have four walk-in wardrobes… Peter Blake, Gilbert & George, Tracey Emin pieces, you name it… I’ve got quite a few. I’m waiting for the new neon. Which salons do you rely on before a party? Obviously my hairdresser, George Northwood. For nails I go to WAH Nails and I’m not really much of a make-up person, so I do that myself.
Last play you saw? Over a month ago I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Apollo Theatre with Sienna Miller (right) and Jack O’Connell. I’m friends with Sienna and I just went to support her. I was blown away by her performance, it was absolutely amazing. Where do you go to let you hair down? The only club for me was a night called Kabaret that my sister used to do every Thursday in
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The party queen and BFF of Kate Moss lunches at Bellanger, hits WAH Nails before a night out and would love Liberty all to herself Soho. It was just the best place ever. Everyone used to go there, from rockstars to models to my friends — everyone. In one corner it could be someone from The Rolling Stones. It’s just the best place I’ve ever been to in my life. It was legendary. If you had to be locked in a building overnight, which would it be? It would probably be Liberty, so I could secretly shop on my own and try all the
perfumes and the make-up without people asking if I need any help. My favourite scent is Portrait of a Lady by Frédéric Malle. I’ve worn that for the past five years. Where would you recommend for a first date? I always think it’s best if you meet up early evening because then, if it’s not going so well, you can always run away. Maybe Soho, sitting outside a coffee bar (right), or somewhere like
Most memorable night? I could never ever say that. I’ve had so many great nights: there’s not one that sticks out. But you’re only as good as your last party, and my recent Halloween party at Fran Cutler Tramp was the and Kate Moss best ever. Just a great venue, really great DJs. So many different people turned up: from Skepta to Robert Pattinson… You name it, they were there. First thing you do when you come back to London? Wherever I travel around the world I love coming home. First thing I do is get into my bed, order something off Deliveroo and switch on the TV. I’ve just started watching the second series of Stranger Things — I love it. @francutler
Getty; Alamy
Best meal you’ve had? J Sheekey’s fish pie — it’s my favourite. But then saying that, Bellanger (above) has opened in Islington Green, which is right by me. It’s like the Islington version of The Wolseley and we go there for Sunday lunch every week. I usually go for a roast — or a salad if I’m feeling super healthy.