Graydon Carter, the wispy-haired Canadian journalist and famed party host, has always had a talent for bringing the literati and the glitterati together. He did so again on Tuesday evening with a cocktail party at Langan’s to launch The London List, his new selection of 25 young Londoners “lighting up the scene”.
Is Carter, who edited Vanity Fair magazine when it was good and now runs media start-up Air Mail, trying to make London swing again? Perhaps, but he says it’s nothing to do with Keir Starmer. Tony Blair championed the “Cool Britannia” wave in 1997 when he won a landslide election victory and invited celebs like Noel Gallagher for champagne in No 10. Dour Starmer is unlikely to repeat it.
Carter, who has been a dominant social force in New York for the past 30 years, is testing out London as his new base. If his nemesis Donald Trump becomes president again, he says he will move here permanently. Trump has previously called Carter a “sissy”, claimed his parties were “no longer ‘hot’” and said he was an “owner of bad food restaurants”.
The inaugural London List included restaurateur Tomos Parry, classicist Honor Cargill-Martin and New Statesman journalist Will Lloyd. It was inspired by the Downtown Set, Carter's list of influential young New Yorkers published annually by Airmail.
It wasn't all young folk at Langan's. Stalwarts of the London social scene like interior designer Nicky Haslam, Wolseley founder Jeremy King and Evening Standard columnist Rachel Johnson were there to check out the new blood
Waspish Haslam told us he was recently surprised by "the rather uppity reaction" of some to his now traditional tea towel of things he finds common.
