INVITED as the special guests of Anna Wintour and Bee Shaffer to the Anglomania ball at the Costume Institute on Monday night, Londons most fabulous designers, Philip Colbert and Richard Ascott of Rodnik (a sure sighting at any see-and-be-seen-at fashion affair with signature parasols in tow), designed a menswear collection specifically so theyd be dressed just right for the event. Here is their report from the inside of the fashion worlds most talked about party:
"We flew in straight from Richs stag weekend in Bordeaux (25 guys in a chateau for the weekend) - jet lag and lack of sleep resulted in 40 winks before the party which nearly led to a full nights sleep and would have meant missing the entire party.
Arrived by chauffeur to the biggest red carpet we have ever seen. It made the Baftas look like a last-minute sample sale for Carpet World. We unsheathed our hand-painted (as if by a five-year-old), Union Jack parasols ?well come on to those later - and tried out our very best "Blue Steel" Zoolander pouts to the hoards of paparazzi.
Immediately the first person we met was Alexandra Shulman who was very friendly and pretty impressed that we were there. Straight ahead was a giant staircase covered in green grass and candles. To the right and left were enormous amaryllis displays. On the right was an English country garden tea party set up with lots of pudding bites. The stone columns of the Met were carved to include air vents shaped like the Union Jack.
An enormous and varied cross section of the British social posse was there including every editor you can think of, Jamie and Jools Oliver, Brian Ferry, Nick Rhodes, Simon Le Bon, Sophie Dahl, Jaquetta Wheeler, etc etc.
The exhibition itself is set in specially imported rooms from well known English country houses ?no expense spared ?and each room was consequently very grand. Fashion from the likes of Richard James and Ozwald Boateng was completely at home in the Landsdowne gentlmens club, while sitting on adjacent chairs were Westwood punks with Mohawk haircuts made of tampons. This was the brilliance of the exhibition and the aspect that made us proud to be British designers ?the fact that there was such a confident history, such a clash of styles and such an exciting future.
The sit down dinner with 60 tables was an equally grand affair - exquisite wine accompanying a rather quirky choice of menu, including meat pie which was merely pecked at by many of the slimmer girls. To follow was a dance performance of Billy Elliot giving the nod to yet another completely different British clash: Newcastle miner meets London ballet.
As young designers we were exceptionally privileged to be rubbing shoulders with fashion giants like Westwood, Galliano and McQueen as well as newer-comers like Giles Deacon and Zac Posen.
A stroke of luck occurred when milliner Stephen Jones proclaimed under the nose of Kate Moss that he loved our style and that our parasols were fabulous.
It was like being in a colonial outpost ?British but not. Following what seemed like a strobe of flashlights, Lily Cole came running up to us, grabbed a parasol and an arm each and posed for goodness knows how many photos ?cheek-to-cheek - giving her latest seal of approval to Rodnik. Among the photographers was the US Vogue photographer who earlier this year captured us backstage with Daria Werbowy at Chanel.
Kim Hersov looked divine in Roland Mouret, our friend Daisy de Villeneuve was wearing a brilliant dress by her friend Zac Posen, Tatlers Richard Dennen was the consummate English gentleman in a razor sharp red velvet smoking jacket - and Rodnik wore Rodnik Homme for the first time. Our jackets went down a storm and an order was immediately placed by, among others, our friend Nicky Haslam.
Then it was on to Bungalow 8 which was packed with a select version of the Met party goers. Here we bumped into Sienna Miller who exclaimed: "Oh hi my parasol boys!" She looked stunning in a short gold sequin dress, with Matthew Williamson on her arm. We then proceeded to bump into a series of big guns including Harvey Weinstein (who we last saw after he invited us to his personal post Bafta party), Philip Green (perhaps a Rodnik-TopShop collaboration?), and then, incredibly, we met one of the hosts of the party, Alexander McQueen - clad in kilt and amazingly charming."
