“I’m building ... the most exclusive and fabulous club of
its kind. It will be the pinnacle of the global art world and
I will stand at the top of it,” Anna Delvey declares in Net -
flix’s Inventing Anna, pitching her fictitious foundation in
stirring tones. Why was the fake heiress so successful in
scamming Manhattan’s one-percenters, taking them for
millions to fund a project that was never close to getting
off the ground? Was it her icy charisma, her stellar ward-
robe, her speculate-to-accumulate approach to tipping?
I don’t think so actually. Her genius move was erecting her
own velvet rope, beckoning the glitterati behind it and
then politely inviting them to get out their chequebooks.
That’s the power of a private club (even one that would
never actually open). A restaurant, hotel or gallery would
never have done the trick: it had to be a members’ club,
because there’s nothing more appealing to the power
classes than the exclusivity, the cooler-than-you cachet,
the unparalleled secrecy they have to offer. I should know
— for a while I was editorial director at Soho House and
I have honestly never been as popular. Influencers whose
posts I’d once liked popped into my DMs to see if I could
bump them up the booking system for Babington House
(afraid not). Someone I met at a dinner party begged me
for an invitation to the opening of Soho Farmhouse (that
was a no too — it was literally the most coveted invitation
of that year, with the top tier of members invited to the
Cotswolds for the traditional “sleepover”). One fashion
editor who struggled to remember my
name when I was in a previous job was
suddenly extremely keen to grab a coffee
to see how I was. (“So fabulous to see you
— while we’re here, could you ask when
I might hear back about my application,
it’s been months? Perhaps you could just
fast-track me, darling?”)
The answer was no. It was always no. At Soho House
every application goes through the same process.
“People do try to jump the queue but nobody makes it in
just like that,” someone who worked on that team tells
me. “You could be an Oscar winner and you’d have to
wait until the next committee meeting for the nod, and
that happened every three months. We read every single
application, looked into every prospective member, and
then we gave each a rating. I can’t tell you the lengths
some went to. People who did noncreative jobs would
invent entire fictional careers to get in, paying to have
someone design a website for their made-up businesses,
usually some sort of interior design firm, creating fake
LinkedIn profiles. The best was the guy who literally
filmed a music video to make us believe he was an artist
when he was actually an accountant.”
Groucho Marx — who famously said he wouldn’t want
to join any club that would have him as a member —
would be turning in his grave. But private members’
clubs are among the few places Marx wouldn’t be
accosted by a fan with a phone or papped on the sly and
the picture DM’d to DeuxMoi, the cult Instagram
account that runs constant Spotted Stories (check it out
if you’re keen to know where Jamie Dornan buys a pint
of milk or Kaia Gerber gets her nails done).
You can see the appeal for a certain celebrity stratum.
It’s probably why the number of private clubs that have
opened in London recently or will do so
in the next few months is creeping into
double digits, from the super-wealthy
Reuben Brothers’ the Twenty Two to
Maison Estelle, launched by the Hoxton
hotel owner Ennismore. There’s serious
money to be made too (as well as social
currency to be banked) if you get theYour
name’s not
What really goes on behind the velvet rope
of private members’ clubs? From the BB
(that’s code for bad behaviour) to the A-listers
who break the rules, Collette Lyons, who
spent years working at one, reveals all
These homes
away from
home can be
hard to police
down
...
The Sunday Times Style • 23