“When we opened the doors of the first fair, it was quite a shock,” says Amanda Sharp, who together with Matthew Slotover launched the Frieze Art Fair, the now-mammoth annual jamboree of high-end art sales, in a tent in Regent’s Park in 2003. “We were worried because there were huge queues outside and we hated that people were stuck outside in the rain. We thought we had messed up and that everyone was going to have a terrible time.”
They needn’t have worried. Visitors happily rolled down the grassy hill artist Paola Pivi had installed in the middle of the fair, while Jeremy Deller-designed bags were given away and Jarvis Cocker performed a secret gig with his new band Relaxed Muscle. Celebrities have been a staple at the fair ever since: Ellie Goulding, Kate Moss, Claudia Schiffer, Bianca Jagger, tennis player Maria Sharapova, Jared Leto, Peter Gabriel and Benedict Cumberbatch just a few of the musicians, actors, sporting figures and fashion set to have graced its aisles over the years – alongside the less-familiar but often considerably wealthier collectors who fly in for the fair.
