My first pour-up with London’s well-heeled was an occasion: Chris Black and Jason Stewart were in town for a live taping of the head-turning talk show How Long Gone. Dressed for the editor’s attention I duct-taped the Timberlands and moved to Mayfair, where the money stay.
Rich visuals of wet marble. I snapped three photos, cracked a gin-soda and checked out the crowd. Real dressers. They made us queue outside until six-thirty, enough time to bin the gin, bum a cigarette and pop a mint on my tongue. Good evening—your name?
In the foyer three skaters bat their eyes—champagne or pétillant? Thank you nephew. The place was a palace, the House of Carlos V. As showtime approached I complimented a Cartier on a writer’s wrist. Like me he was cut from different cloth and penning his own piece, which sounded better than mine in many ways. Stewart and Black looked sharp and the anecdotes amused: I think I’m gonna vomit pass me the Hermès waste bin, also send over makeup to fix my ashy knees.
After the show I got a martini and spoke to fifty people at once. I produced fire for a silver-haired art director who just split with her boyfriend; she could either pay the full rent (two thousand pounds), or move to Berlin. Natürlich. I dipped my toes into fashion photography with a stylist of French tendencies. My last sighting of a beret had been deeply moving—in Arles, on a guy in leather gesticulating hilariously on FaceTime. Okay Héctor Bellerín!
Around martini number four we made a move for the after-party at The Standard. A real night out. I paid enough for a negroni and said hello to some ladies, in London on business, staying at the hotel. Were they sleeping, I inquired, in three bunkbeds in the same room. Clearly they were down to clown, with a sinister twist: if I had to kill someone in here right now, how would I do it. I looked up at the chandelier—LOCAL GIGOLO CRUSHED BY DISCO BALL.
The following morning news broke that Black and Stewart had signed with CAA, teeing up big opportunities across film, television and publishing. Hollywood.
I do not expect next year’s door policy to be so generous.