Far be it from me to be a Debbie Downer drizzling disapproval over the hedonistic partying of the beau monde just because I didn’t get an invitation, but I’m feeling troubled by the giddily glamorous photos emerging from Lady Lola Bute’s 25th birthday bash at her family pile, the Gothic Revival-style Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute, in the Firth of Clyde.
Actress Sienna Miller, make-up queen Charlotte Tilbury and Princess Olympia of Greece were among hundreds of celebrity guests flown in to the party-cum-festival.
Poppy Delevingne, Lady Mary Charteris and members of the Guinness family were also present at the dazzling, decadent event which featured giant inflatable mushrooms (nope, me neither), a banquet worthy of a medieval monarch, bagpipes, Irn Bru and enough Moët to drown the Loch Ness monster.
Comparisons have been made with the decadent excesses of the upper crust satire Saltburn but I’ve been mostly distracted by the dress code-central heating disequilibrium. All that diaphanous sparkle and sheer frockage. In Scotland. In April.
When fashionistas declared Claudia Winkleman had “cracked” baronial Scottish style as presenter of Traitors, the hit BBC whodunnit set in a castle north of Inverness, it was down to her Harris tweed, Brora cashmere and Argyle sweaters. She wasn’t wearing fingerless gloves for fun, you know.
I’ve pored over the pictures of Lady Lola’s daringly dressed dramatis personae – incidentally a bunch of celebrities so random as to conjure flashbacks of Meghan & Harry’s wedding, when baffled ushers were left wrestling with where to seat the A-Listers who were neither friends of the bride nor of the groom – and there’s not a goosebump or a blue limb to be seen.
What on earth were they burning to keep that huge palace of a place warm? Sheep? Highland Clearance tenants?
The estate is owned by her half-brother, the current Marquess of Bute, Jack Dumfries. You can visit the house and gardens for £17 a pop. I’m sorely tempted to jump on a train and a ferry (unless I can cadge a lift on someone’s plane?) to go check the radiator situation.
It is said it was the first home in Scotland to install electric lighting so maybe there are clever underfloor as well as ceremonial pipes? If this is how Lady L celebrates turning 25, Lord knows how she will mark her 29th, much less 30th, milestone. And all stone cold sober, as she runs a charity battling addiction.
I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of her before. I doubt I’ll ever forget her now. She may have single handedly fomented an upswell in public support for another referendum on Scottish independence.
And not only has she put her own name on the map, but for good or ill, Mount Stuart shall hitherto be known in popular parlance as ‘Saltbute’.
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