“Astonishing,” said Nicky Haslam as he leaned against an elegant wood-and-iron railing on the staircase of the grand home where Jay Jopling and Hikari Yokoyama hosted a rollicking house party on Thursday night.
“You don’t get parties like this in London — or in New York,” he said, as Seventies dance music pulsated from the room next door, and guests — including Keira Knightley, Erdem Moralioglu, Bella Freud, André Balazs, Lillian von Stauffenberg, Karen Groos and Jopling — squeezed past him on the landing and offered their greetings. “We’re doing the art scene!” said Thomas Tait as he shuffled past the dapper Haslam.
The house was packed with art — no surprise there — and a mix of designers, socialites and generally fun people, who gathered to celebrate Tory Burch and her ongoing collaboration with the online auction house Paddle 8. Yokoyama said the Georgian mansion was only occasionally a party house. “You’ve got to keep it special,” said Yokoyama, one of the founders of Paddle8.
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Lia Ices and her twin brother, Eliot, performed earlier in the evening, while the designers talked about their holiday plans.
Mary Katrantzou is heading home to Athens. “My mother pulls out all the stops on Christmas,” she said. “She usually doesn’t cook, so it’s a special occasion, with turkey and stuffing.”
Moralioglu is headed to the English seaside, where he won’t be doing the cooking — friends have volunteered instead — while Burch, who was at the party with Pierre-Yves Roussel, is off to hot climes.
There’s much to be done in the meantime. During this trip, she plans to check out her new Milan boutique, and the site for a new Paris outpost. “Then I’m doing nothing, in Mustique,” said Burch.
Earlier in the evening, Ali Hewson and Danielle Sherman hosted a dinner to mark Edun’s first pre-fall collection. It was an intimate, candlelit affair at the Alison Jacques Gallery, not far from Oxford Circus, with guests that included Noel Gallagher, Lily Cole, Daisy Lowe, Polly Morgan, Mimi Xu and Lady Laura Burlington.
Hewson, who was there with her two daughters, Eve and Jordan, said Christmas — like every year — would be in Dublin, with her husband, Bono, and their four children. “It’s a sacred time — family, children, turkey, a tree,” she said. “And then we usually go away to mark the new year.”