Paloma Faith Danced on Tables
The Double Club was not much to look at from the outside. It was situated in a disused Victorian warehouse down a grimy north London cul-de-sac, the pavements pitted with pigeon feathers and greying blobs of chewing gum. There was a constant rattling thrum of traffic from the main roads around Angel tube station and the entrance was marked only by a discreet black-and-white sign. Occasionally visitors would get confused by a long queue of black-clad teenagers waiting to get into the goth club next door.
Inside, however, it was a different story. Designed by the Belgian artist Carsten Hller, funded by the Prada Foundation and hosted by Mourad Mazouz, the founder of Sketch and Momo, the Double Club opened its doors for six months in November 2008 and soon became the hippest place in town without even trying.
Harvey Weinstein had a post-Bafta party here, where guests included Penélope Cruz and Mick Jagger. During London Fashion Week, Jefferson Hack hired out the restaurant and threw a dinner in honour of the actress Tilda Swinton where Kate Moss sat next to Lucian Freud. The club promoter Richard Mortimer ran a Friday night event that regularly attracted 900 people and, 10 days before the Double Club closed on 12 July, Bryan Ferry played a private concert, complete with pulchritudinous backing dancers shimmying in red-sequined dresses.
On that hot summer’s evening, artist Tracey Emin mingled with television presenter Trinny Woodall and interior designer Nicky Haslam. Towards midnight the singer Paloma Faith climbed on top of a table and performed an impromptu cabaret in the restaurant, resplendent in a floor-length shimmering white dress, her dyed red hair piled up on top of her head like a modern-day Edith Wharton heroine. There were preppy men in tailored shorts and oversized spectacles behind the bar and beautiful long-limbed women with large Afros serving trays of lychee cocktails. It was the sort of scene you could not imagine happening anywhere else.
