[Surely, there are better ways to grow your
audience. I decide to hire a supercar.
In February, an upmarket app to rival Uber
was launched in London. Miwhip says it owns a
£1.5 million fleet of gold-wrapped supercars and
offers the tantalising promise that out of 100 taxis
ordered for a standard cab fare, one will be a
Lamborghini, a Rolls-Royce or a Ferrari. I down-
load Miwhip, turn on the ‘supercar’ setting and
order a cab, sitting back in my swivel chair,
watching from the window for my pimped-out
ride to arrive. My supercar turns out to be... a
BMW. Incensed, I cancel and call another com-
pany, Supercar Experiences, to demand a Bentley.
It costs £180 an hour to be driven around in a
blue, convertible Bentley Continental GTC V8
S. Minimum lease: four hours (retail: £190,000).
‘Drivers never let you out when they see
you’re in a supercar,’ sighs Richard, chauffeur
and co-owner of Supercar Experiences, as I loll
in my leather seat, the massage setting activated.
‘Cabbies especially. It’s like they’re making a
point. I hate driving in London.’ We roam
around the suburbs instead, the growl of the
engine reassuringly loud as pedestrians stop to
steal glances. We pull up to a giant red-brick
house, so I can get out and get a snap for my
Instagram, posing as though I live there, when
in fact it’s part of Verulam Golf Club in St
Albans. Incidentally, Supercar Experiences
receive weekly emails from influencers vaguely
offering ‘collaborations’ in return for a go on
one of their 70-strong fleet.On Tuesday morning, I emerge from
Oxford Circus station in head-to-toe
designer: pink jacket (rental: £199;
retail: £2,900), wide-brimmed black hat (rent-
al: £99; retail: £500), pendant earrings (rental:
£40; retail £450) and a tight red dress (rental:
£180; retail: £2,000) – Eighties Working Girl
eat your heart out. The Extinction Rebellion
protestors are occupying the crossroads, making
plain their objections to mass consumerism. A
man who’s handing out flyers about how we are
destroying the planet takes one look at me and
withholds his leaflet. I weave through the crowd
to get to the office. ‘Join us,’ croaks a woman
who looks like a druid. Little does she know I have
already joined them: in my rented garb I am a
well-heeled ecowarrior: Gwyneth Paltrow in-
carnate. A clip-on earring breaks loose and
bounces along the pavement in front of me.
I stagger off in hot pursuit.
By Wednesday, I’m in a black jacket in classic
tweed with woven-gold thread, paired with a
chain-link gold belt and jeans. The blazer is
from Front Row, which bills itself as the UK’s
first luxury rental service and offers five-day
loans on an wide array of designers, from jack-
ets ablaze with logos to dazzling, gold-plated‘The Bentley pulls upto a giant house soI can pose as if I livethere – in fact it’s partof Verulam GolfClub in St Albans’88 Tatler July 2019 tatler.comdepending on the model and route. A sample
fare on its site: London to Cannes on 28 July
in a Citation XL is £5,995. For just a seat, it’s
£450 and upwards. (JustJet’s Instagram page is
a collection of artful black-and-white images
of celebrities reclining in athleisure on jets for
inspiration.) I speak to one British company
that has a mock-up of a private plane in Maid-
enhead, which, at £3,000, is often a backdrop
for films and adverts. I’m told they’ve been
fighting off near daily enquiries from young
people looking for a five-minute lavish shot
inside a plane.
Friday’s outfit comes courtesy of Girl Meets
Dress, which does both a pay-as-you-rent and
a membership service. Its range, from boutique
to big-name designer, is divided into categories- everything from ‘Office Work Event’ to ‘Hen
Night’ and, morbidly, ‘Funeral’. I opt for ‘Day
Dress’ and a candy-cane pink wrap dress by
Dodo Bar Or (rental: £49; retail: £450) arrives.
In the street no fewer than six people stop me
to ask where it is from. ‘Nice dress!’ says one
mother I pass. ‘Yes,’ agrees her appraising four-
year-old, who adds: ‘And nice bag’ (snakeskin
mini bag, rental: £120; retail: £800).
Of course, the week comes to an end,
and my empress’ new clothes are inevitably,
reluctantly, returned. The Audemars Piguet
watch is packed away in its case and given back.
All I’m left with are photographs and a 100
per cent increase on my Instagram interactions.
Some will say that this new mode of living is
vacuous, but I’m all for it. It does indeed lead
to sustainability, but mostly it’s a good thing
because it offers mere mortals a morsel of the
good life. For £1,796, I’ve experienced £218,650
worth of super-rich lustre. And why not bask
it in? We live in a world where the culture
of faux has reached dizzying heights – where
the #ad tag on Instagram is a coveted status
symbol, a sign that you’ve been noticed and
anointed by a brand. A world in which Sorokin,
the fake heiress, is as romanticised as the failed
Fyre festival – another Netflix hit – with its
promise of bikini-clad models, condos and live
music, and its deliverance of disaster relief
tents along with a limp cheese sandwich for
sustenance. It was a bust, but to have attended is
to wear a mythic badge of honour: ‘You were
there, man?!’
Sorokin’s series may be a little while in the
making. And in the meantime her fans – and
there are thousands on Instagram – delight in
the fact that she hired a stylist for her trial. An ac-
count has been set up in her honour called
Anna Delvey Court Looks. Sample entry: ‘27
March: Michael Kors shift dress. Choker:
homemade’ – to which her followers exclaim,
‘Our Queen crushes it.’ It’s just another case
of life imitating artifice. (
jewellery. I post a picture of myself having dinner
in Mayfair on Instagram with the brattish cap-
tion: ‘Dinner in designer, obvs.’ 40 likes. Must
do better. On the plus side, in shops, where I’m
usually ignored for the first 10 minutes, the as-
sistants now surge towards me.
I fear the elite life is rubbing off on me, but at
least I’m not as entitled as the millionaire’s son
who hired a manservant for the day. In March,
amateur boxer Harry Taroni earned widespread
condemnation in the press for hiring a Romanian
man to be his ‘servant’ at Cheltenham Festival.
He posted pictures and videos to Instagram
with the tags ‘Cigarette holder, beer grabber &
coat holder’ and called him ‘Employee of the
Month.’ Of course, if you wanted, you could
try it yourself on TaskRabbit – and get someone
to take on life’s minutiae for you: queuing for
concert tickets, reorganising your wardrobe,
running errands – they’re all bookable. But I
decide to go glitzier: I hire a paparazzo.
On Thursday, Giulia arrives from Instabuddy,
Perfocal’s newly launched service dedicated toachieving the perfect shot for your social media.
These instant shoots can be booked as easily as
a Deliveroo. Find yourself in a picturesque park
on a beautifully sunny day and want to capture
the magic? For just £140 an hour, a professional
will turn up to take your photo and suggest
filters, captions and shoot an Instagram story
for you. (In my case, catwalking stiltedly on the
roof terrace of Vogue House, while Giulia, my
photographer, shouts, ‘Yes! Love it!’)
In Russia, there are photo shoots on offer in
grounded private planes, so people can feign a
jet-set lifestyle for their social media. It costs
£185 for a two-hour photo shoot, extra for
hair and make-up – extra, too, for a video.
Meanwhile in Britain, the private jet experience
is airborne. JustJet, which launched late last
year, operates as a host site for private listings,
offering people the chance to book empty legs
of journeys in private planes at bargain-base-
ment prices. Essentially, if someone truly rich
has flown by private jet and the pilot is heading
back in an empty plane to London, then they
may as well take a hitchhiker on board. To
rent a whole plane, prices start around £5,000,07-19WELL-LifeforRent.indd 88 03/05/2019 14:30