Libby’s Naked Wines diary: this week, City AM’s wine columnist Libby Brodie is with Mayfair’s art set
It was one of those events where everyone is the most interesting person in the room. A small gathering of London’s fashionable and fascinating to wish farewell to Stephen Webster’s Mount Street Salon, as he moves his London boutique to Burlington Arcade. Webster has been designing jewellery for 50 years next year, starting in art college at the tender age of 15. Now he is celebrated as an “unexpected British heritage brand” and will be launching his new store in mid-May, with a bar in the basement and “the wonderful world of Webster” located above.
Lit by red neon art displays and lined with cases of dazzling, original pieces, the walls were hung with photographs by Richard Young. I was particularly drawn to a large image of a cat-like Jack Nicholson above the marble fireplace, where I indulged in some people watching and shoe envy. Prada passed Manolo Blahniks, and Louboutin stopped to chat with Alexander McQueen. The ladies wearing them were no less brilliant. It had been many years since I had seen Erica Bergsmeds, who told me she was soon off to New York.
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Now creative director and editor-in-chief of Blow Out Magazine, she is also a director and producer and a film she has just made with Sadie Frost has been nominated for the Socially Relevant film festival. I turned into the warm embrace of artist Lorna May, who I had bonded with over Sunday lunch at the Devonshire.
Currently working on a millinery exhibition reinterpreting the Greek Muses, I was thrilled to learn she had got through to the second round for the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery. Every change of conversation led me into the path of another dynamic, friendly woman, from the superbly chic Sophia Lorimer, a sustainable stylist aiming to empower women, to Kylie Olsson, whose US TV show Life in Six Strings sees her travel around America being taught to play rock by famous musicians.
“I’ve been publicly embarrassing myself for years, but we won an Emmy, so it paid off,” she laughed. This is not the event to come to if you are feeling like an under- achiever. Soon Stephen Webster himself arrived, looking effortlessly cool with his tousled hair, jeans and chunky jewellery. Having heard he was a fan of red wine, I had brought a bottle of Jen Pfeiffer The Diamond Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 (Naked Wines, £22.99; Angel Price, £16.99). Pouring him out a glass, I ask where he gets his inspiration.
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“After 50 years it doesn’t come from one place and fortunately for me, jewellery has taken me all over the world,” Webster tells me. “I have stores from Mongolia to Nashville and everywhere I go I bring back something. It’s not necessarily direct inspiration. It’s people you meet, places you go. Last week I was hiking a mountain in Arizona and came back full of ideas”. It certainly seems London’s stylishly entrepreneurial elite are all fans. I am drawn to the Rebelles Collection, a set of showstopping cocktail rings made to honour the personality of legendary women from across history, and a Tracy Emin scrawl of “More Passion” which is £4,000 off in the sale.
Still too rich for this writer’s blood, so I satisfy myself with a different kind of diamond in Pfeiffer’s Cabernet Sauvignon. The richly dark, sophisticated wine is a perfect complement to all this finery, and I take comfort that though the No Regrets Entwined Armour Ring (£27,500) may be out of my price range, I can still take pleasure in this little sip of luxury.
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