After Dark! Inside the best of the late summer bashes

She was a good’un - generally of a sunny disposition, although prone to a few dark clouds. Bird in Hand Wine gathered the great and good to take a look back over the season and celebrate the closing of their annual takeover of the Scott’s summer terrace garden and have a sneaky preview of their 2023 Bird in Hand rosé. Various peeps had flown back into London for the lunch including stylist Rose Forde (from Nice - very nice), male supers James Yates and William Goodge, and hottest designer on the block Nensi Dojaka and Jack Guinness, who pretty much summed up everyone’s collective mood; “I blinked, it was Glastonbury and now suddenly I’m in Long Johns, crying over a pot noodle and watching 90-day fiancé. What happened?!” Well, quite.

In the “Naughty Room” or The Renoir Room as it’s formally titled, the world’s number one sommelier Clément Robert caught up with a London institution in the form of Claridge’s matriarch Paula Fitzherbert (legend), Fortnum and Mason’s Simon Thompson about the latest and greatest in restaurants in London, under not one but three Renoirs and a Miró and Pissaro. Not too shabby for a lunch spot.

A quick pit-stop at stylist Georgia Medley’s 30th next, where Patrón had upped the ante for gifts all round with an actual, functioning, real-life, Barbie pink, paloma fountain trolley (kudos - but where to keep it at home?!) before our final stop to wrap up our summer shenanigans; The Big Yellow Mothership - Selfridges.

There we celebrated the culmination of artist Yinka Illori’s collaboration with drinks brand Courvoisier and their takeover of the Wonder Room. Still very much buzzed from Carnival it was very much a ‘back to school’ crew or as one of our number called it, “a s**t, we’ve got to get back to work party”… fair. Will.I.Am stood dancing outside the wonder room buying a watch and dancing to Audio Coming Soon, while talk inside the room turned to where everyone had spent their summers, ‘I’ve just got back from a solo trip to Ravello, “eat pray love vibes” Betty Bachz told us, “I don’t need no man.” Innit. Henry Holland; “Estelle Manor, amazing interior, fab outdoor pool. The dog loved it.” And pretty much everyone else - France. Ibiza is too expensive and Greece to overpopulated, apparently. Go figure.

Anyway, September beckons — see you on the school run.