A Trip to St. Vincent’s Souvenir, Diletta Lobuono

A TRIP TO ST. VINCENT’S SOUVENIR

BY DILETTA LOBUONO

A new, slightly unusual, cocktail bar opened last Friday, November 22nd, in 6a Langley Street, Covent Garden. Sure, it was only open for two days, and thus very easy to miss, but for those who didn’t, it was an incredible couple of nights. I’m talking about Souvenir, a cocktail bar created by the Grammy-winning American songwriter and guitarist St. Vincent, real name Annie Clark, in collaboration with Veuve Clicquot, the world-famous French Champagne house.

12 If you know and love the St. Vincent as much as I do, you will also be very familiar with her eccentricity and peculiar creative vision. Suffice to say, during the last leg of her tour, she kindly asked her musicians to play with their faces completely covered, leaving the crowd wondering how and if they could even breathe. Humans dressed as aliens, deformed faces and surreal interviews were all part of the videos and promotion of her last album, Masseduction. For this project, Clark wanted to give life to a place where everyone would immediately step into another, parallel dimension and multisensory experience, and, I have to say, she absolutely succeeded. To do this, she worked with a collective of new creators, designers, and mixologists who helped her to achieve the desired result. It is true that Souvenir bar

was a group effort, but you could easily tell that every detail, from how the drinks were presented and served to the music played by the DJ, was born out of her unique mind.

Driven by curiosity, and ready to be faced with weirdly dressed waiters and creepy art installations, I decided to drop by on the Friday around eight o’clock. After a couple of wrong turns, I finally found the place, hidden in one of the many side streets of the maze that is Covent Garden. I walked in what seemed to be a very dark and slightly disturbing place. “Here we go”, I thought. Fortunately, my friend came to my rescue and together we went downstairs where the party was already happening. Here, I found someone that I definitely didn’t expect to see: St. Vincent, usually very private and shy, now serving free cocktails to astonished customers (mainly over-excited and shaky fans handing her questionable hand-made gifts that she pretended to like). Candidly admitting to everyone approaching that she didn’t have a clue how to make cocktails whilst pouring huge amounts of champagne and random combinations of drinks into glasses, she affably smiled and talked to everyone, surrounded by cameras, phones and LPs asking to be signed. By her side was Pippa Guy, a champagne cocktail expert and mixologist, helping her, which was probably the only reason why no one was poisoned that night.

After a short, hopefully not too awkward, conversation with the special host of the evening, I ventured around and started to notice all the details of the place; from the delicious smell permeating the whole room and the warm pink and orange lights to the carefully picked tunes, everything seemed to fit perfectly, and the athmosphere, relaxed but sophisticated, was simply incredible.

The waiters, although not as weirdly dressed as I had expected, wore fashionable outfits matched with red eyeshadow. Unique clothes and extravagant makeup are an essential part of St Vincent’s artistic world and these three nights - including the VIP opening night on the 21st - weren’t an exception. To create the perfect outfits for this special event, Clark worked with the visionary fashion designer Matty Bovan and the London-based makeup artist Sarah Reygate, her faithful collaborator, who she repeatedly thanked on her Instagram profile before and after the event.

Clark also collaborated with the design collective Rotganzen, giving life to two beautiful art installations for the upper floor, and with the plant-based Food Studio Plates London. Food – in reality a few miniscule snacks - wasn’t great in itself, but the way it was served... to say that it was surprising would be an understatement. Intrigued by the large group of people hanging around the right side of the room, I approached it with its futuristlooking white wall and stood there waiting for a few minutes. At first nothing was happening, just yellow lights going on and off. All of a sudden, gloved hands reached out from the holes, offering us tiny portions of food and not retracting until someone took it.

Then, out of nowhere, a guy dressed in black appeared and started singing an opera version of ‘Common People’, providing the visibly tired St. Vincent with an opportunity to slip away through the back door undisturbed and unseen. The place unsurprisingly emptied little by little, as ‘regular’ barmen were now serving cocktails and started charging for them, but the vibe stayed the same. Everyone had fun until closing around midnight. My friends and I left around half past eleven, still asking each other “what the hell just happened?”