The graduate show of Central Saint Martins fashion college turned ugly last night when a student and his troupe of models paraded the catwalk with bin bags full of cigarette butts and proceeded to throw them over the audience. They also shouted expletives and lit up cigarettes on the catwalk. Artist Grayson Perry, actor Virginia Bates and Sarah Mower, Vogue’s chief critic, were among those pelted with fag ends.
We hear Mower was “really not happy”. Damian Hurley, son of Elizabeth, was apparently “very, very mad”, one observer told us. The artist, Evilkebab, whose real name is T.J. Finley, told us he spent three months collecting the butts off the street of London and from rubbish depots. “At the after party they were angry with me,” he said, “but if you get rich and famous, they support it.”
“There’s been a lot of backlash,” he said. The show was the culmination of his new collection “Fags Forking the Rich”, an exploration, he said, of queer rebellion against the wealthy. “It’s getting harder and harder to survive, especially with queer identity,” he said, “people get so offended but where is the same energy in the world where your friends are being abused and spat on? In 10 years when a straight person does this, it will be on mood boards.”
“I enjoyed it,” he added, “the one with cigarette butts wasn’t supposed to happen like that, but last minute I thought: no, I’ve got to go full on crazy, why not?”
Chiles shrugs off the haters
Adrian Chiles is proving adept at the art of the literary feud. Last week author Will Self wrote a vicious article about why he hates Chiles, taking issue with the urinal he has in his bathroom. Now Chiles tells Press Gazette he is unfazed by Self’s screed. “I can’t bring myself to be offended by it, although given how abusive it is, I should probably make more of an effort. Might hang it over my urinal,” he mused.
Burger King?
Heads turned yesterday in Soho as a Rolls with an “HRH” plate pulled up outside burger joint Five Guys on Argyll St. The car’s security detail looked busy, leading onlookers to wonder — was a peckish royal on a burger run? Five Guys say they saw the commotion but didn’t serve a burger King yesterday. Just a convenient parking spot next to the Palladium theatre, apparently.
Maitlis bars Hancock from News Agents
Matt Hancock didn’t leave the presenters of the News Agents with a good impression when he appeared last week to tell them “I’m a human being.” Co-presenter Emily Maitlis vowed “we won’t be doing that again” yesterday at The Podcast Show 2023 conference. She also mocked her old employer the BBC, eliciting some tuts from Beeb hands in the audience.
Ballers balling in London and Cannes
As the Cannes festival wraps up, models Winnie Harlow and Lori Harvey and athlete Kyle Kuzma enjoyed the Gala after party last night. Designer Daphne Guinness also attended. At the Natural History Museum, Tom Daley, actor Alice Eve, the ENO’s Niamh O’Sullivan and basketballer Ovie Soko were attending a gala against blood cancer. Mary Charteris browsed Hayley Menzies’ new store.
