A bit of posh

The thing PLT loves most about posh people — and there are many, many things PLT loves about posh people — is their unrelenting enthusiasm for parties. PLT witnessed this first-hand last week at Tatler’s 300th anniversary celebration in a Georgian mansion with a Tolstoyan ballroom, the walls of which were lined with ancient covers featuring the Queen. “It’s the old crowd,” sighed one guest. Indeed it was.

There was Nicky Haslam — memoirs out soon! — there was Manolo, there were Robert Hanson, Tamara Beckwith and Tara P-T, plus a smattering of politicos, minor aristos and the odd reassuring ruffle of taffeta. So many friends, in fact, it was almost overwhelming. “Shall we just piss off to Annabel’s?” said one guest to PLT. “Bryan Ferry’s doing a perfume launch for Brioni, and I hear that fox Lily Cole is going to be there.”

The following evening, PLT witnessed another fine example of posh spirit against the odds. We were caught in a crush on the stairs of the house where Alex Dellal was launching an exhibition called The Embassy. At one point, PLT felt that we might die. “What’s the hold-up?” squawked honorary posh person Jo Wood, who was dragging her Strictly partner, Brendan Cole, behind her, Lily Allen and her possibly-posher-than-we-realise builder boyfriend, Sam Cooper, having just squeezed past. “I’m actually rather enjoying this,” said a sloaney boy in a trilby, spread-eagled against the balustrade. “It’s a damn good way to meet people.” PLT was so impressed.

The look: monochrome

We stumbled upon the photographer Suaree Molodkinat, decked out in classic black and white, at London’s Frieze Art Fair. Molodkin lives in Paris with her husband, the Russian conceptual artist Andrei Molodkin. “I’ve never been to Frieze before, and I like it,” she said. “Although people here are dressed more conservatively than I expected.” To the untrained eye, Molodkin’s monochrome palette could seem conservative, too. You and I know different of course — the look has “strong woman” written all over it.

You can dance

Now dance music is back, PLT is thinking of updating her moves from the 1990s. A happy coincidence, then, to have met Nicholas Taylor, part of Madonna’s inner circle before the biceps. “We would be at [New York nightclub] the Mudd Club and would dance in a circle,” said Taylor, whose photos of the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, another member of that circle, are on show in London at St Martin’s Lane hotel. “Madonna would do ‘the Smurf’. It was a kind of la-di-da-di kind of groove. Every once in a while, she’d get some frantic energy. When hip-hop arrived, she started doing a mix between modern and jazz, and street moves.” And there you have it: how Madge got into the groove.

Guilty pleasure

To a cocktail party in Southwark Cathedral, and a theological discussion with the Tory candidate for Mid Norfolk, George Freeman. The Archbishop of Canterbury (right) had just lectured on climate change for the environmental charity Operation Noah. It left PLT feeling viciously guilty about being a fashion person. “The question you need to ask yourself,” said Freeman, sipping a glass of merlot, “is, if you’re a moral degenerate, can you still lead a moral movement?” Ouch! It was one PLT had already pondered many times. “I think you can,” he said. How very Conservative of him.

How to do art-show chic

At the Frieze Art Fair private view, PLT to the transvestite potter Grayson Perry: “What’s the perfect outfit for looking at art in?” Grayson: “Dirty tracksuit bottoms and trainers”

The red-hot hangout during Frieze Art fair was Nick Jones’s new Shoreditch pizza joint, Pizza East

Times recommends

• Think yourself slim with our hypnodiet podcast
• Why British children are pushed too hard
• So, what really makes you happy?