Sophie Ellis-Bextor swoops into the restaurant looking so Sophie Ellis-Bextor, so disco diva, that it almost makes me laugh. She is wearing a gold‑trimmed, blusher-pink, kaftan-style caped dress and has a wide smudge of neon-blue eyeshadow streaked across her eyelids. She could have freshly twirled off the dancefloor at Studio 54. It is a strong look for a late afternoon chat in a quiet hotel, but then I remember that she has been at a photoshoot all day, and assume she must still be wearing one of the outfits. “These are my own clothes,” she says, as if that should have been perfectly obvious.
To be fair, Ellis-Bextor is throwing a party later, so she has made an effort. She’s hosting a playback of her new album Perimenopop, which is also very disco, so much so that Chic’s Nile Rodgers is on one of the tracks. During the Covid lockdowns in 2020, the pop star hosted a weekly Kitchen Disco, broadcast live on Instagram from her family home, with her husband, the musician Richard Jones, and with occasional cameos from her five sons. People must think she’s pretty good at throwing a party. “Well, I am capable,” she says, drily. There will be a photo booth. Aptly, the bar already has a giant glitter ball hanging from the ceiling.
