tacky,’ remarked Lara as she and Fabrizio entered the enormous, stiffly formal white and silver art-deco living room. ‘This is completely inappropriate for the Saint-Tropez lifestyle.’ She looked irritably around as they stood in line to greet their host, Monty Goldman. A self-made British billionaire and ex-barrow boy, he had worked his way up from selling fruit from a stand on Church Street to the largely Muslim population of Edgware Road and its environs, to running a secondhand clothes boutique in Marylebone High Street. As several down-on-their-luck actresses lived nearby, he started bringing in some of their finery from their glory days in the 1940s, fifties and sixties. Monty paid them a pittance for these beautifully constructed clothes and elegant costume jewellery, then managed to sell them for a hefty profit to an upmarket vintage boutique in Notting Hill, often featured in
Vogue
and
Tatler
and frequented by young trendsetters of the 1970s and eighties.
By the late 1980s there was a huge market for the elegant clothes of past eras, and with well-placed ads in
The Lady
and the back pages of fashion magazines, Monty’s business boomed. Every young model and actress worth her salt shopped there, as did the stylists, a new phenomenon that no young starlet could live without.
Monty sold his business for a fortune in 1994, then joined forces with one of the canniest top retailers of the day, Nate Kowalski. Nate the Greek, so known because of his Peloponnesian heritage, had a fantastically successful string of shops and boutiques throughout the UK and US. Looking to branch out into Asia and the Middle East, Monty seemed the top man for the job, and within a few years the two partners had become bosom buddies and regularly featured in the
Sunday Times
Rich List.
Monty stood in his mirror-covered foyer to greet his guests, stocky and mahogany-faced, his thinning thatch artfully combed to cover an incipient bald patch. By his side stood his faithful trophy wife of twelve years, Chantelle.
Impossibly thin after four children, she spent three hours a day honing her taut, tummy-tucked body in the vain expectation that Monty wouldn’t dump her for a younger model, as he had done to wives number one and two. But Monty already had his eye on wife number four as he surveyed the throng of expensively dressed and bejewelled guests who were clustering around and admiring his novelty bars. In two clear acrylic coffins, young girls wearing fishnets, suspender belts, corsets, masks and jewelled nipple guards writhed in simulated ecstasy, while the shirtless bartenders nonchalantly mixed exotic drinks and poured vintage wines and champagne on the mirrored bar tops.
Carlotta had gone shopping with Maximus, who had taken her to Dior on the Rue François Sibilli, the main shopping street in Saint-Tropez. He had insisted that she buy a spectacular full-length gown for the evening.
‘A bargain at twenty-five thousand euros,’ he persisted, winking at the manager, who would have to turn over 10 per cent to him, ‘and because it’s couture and fresh from the A/W collection, no one will have anything like it.’ It was indeed a fairy-tale dress that, despite having seven inches cropped off the length, fitted Carlotta’s petite figure to perfection.
‘I wish I wasn’t so short,’ she said.
‘You are deliciously petite,’ said Max, as Carlotta twirled in front of the three-way mirror, while the seamstress struggled to pin up the hem. ‘The models today are all beanstalks, some even quite ugly. You are a divine package.’
‘You don’t think it’s a bit too brash?’ she asked.
‘My dear, you are gorgeous. It is a “look at me” dress, so everyone will look at you tonight, and so they should.’
‘Well . . .’ Carlotta surveyed the deep, somewhat revealing décolleté on the pale pink chiffon, which was sprinkled with a million glittering paillettes. ‘I hope I won’t be too overdressed.’
Max snorted with
Vogue
and
Tatler
and frequented by young trendsetters of the 1970s and eighties.
By the late 1980s there was a huge market for the elegant clothes of past eras, and with well-placed ads in
The Lady
and the back pages of fashion magazines, Monty’s business boomed. Every young model and actress worth her salt shopped there, as did the stylists, a new phenomenon that no young starlet could live without.
Monty sold his business for a fortune in 1994, then joined forces with one of the canniest top retailers of the day, Nate Kowalski. Nate the Greek, so known because of his Peloponnesian heritage, had a fantastically successful string of shops and boutiques throughout the UK and US. Looking to branch out into Asia and the Middle East, Monty seemed the top man for the job, and within a few years the two partners had become bosom buddies and regularly featured in the
Sunday Times
Rich List.
Monty stood in his mirror-covered foyer to greet his guests, stocky and mahogany-faced, his thinning thatch artfully combed to cover an incipient bald patch. By his side stood his faithful trophy wife of twelve years, Chantelle.
Impossibly thin after four children, she spent three hours a day honing her taut, tummy-tucked body in the vain expectation that Monty wouldn’t dump her for a younger model, as he had done to wives number one and two. But Monty already had his eye on wife number four as he surveyed the throng of expensively dressed and bejewelled guests who were clustering around and admiring his novelty bars. In two clear acrylic coffins, young girls wearing fishnets, suspender belts, corsets, masks and jewelled nipple guards writhed in simulated ecstasy, while the shirtless bartenders nonchalantly mixed exotic drinks and poured vintage wines and champagne on the mirrored bar tops.
Carlotta had gone shopping with Maximus, who had taken her to Dior on the Rue François Sibilli, the main shopping street in Saint-Tropez. He had insisted that she buy a spectacular full-length gown for the evening.
‘A bargain at twenty-five thousand euros,’ he persisted, winking at the manager, who would have to turn over 10 per cent to him, ‘and because it’s couture and fresh from the A/W collection, no one will have anything like it.’ It was indeed a fairy-tale dress that, despite having seven inches cropped off the length, fitted Carlotta’s petite figure to perfection.
‘I wish I wasn’t so short,’ she said.
‘You are deliciously petite,’ said Max, as Carlotta twirled in front of the three-way mirror, while the seamstress struggled to pin up the hem. ‘The models today are all beanstalks, some even quite ugly. You are a divine package.’
‘You don’t think it’s a bit too brash?’ she asked.
‘My dear, you are gorgeous. It is a “look at me” dress, so everyone will look at you tonight, and so they should.’
‘Well . . .’ Carlotta surveyed the deep, somewhat revealing décolleté on the pale pink chiffon, which was sprinkled with a million glittering paillettes. ‘I hope I won’t be too overdressed.’
Max snorted with
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