Party with the 1%

https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle/preview?article=1671811051711 What I learnt photographing the parties of the one per cent By Jessica Craig-Martin • ft.com • December 16, 2022 The first event Jessica Craig-Martin was hired to photograph was a high finance firm’s office Christmas party. It was the early 1990s, and she couldn’t believe what she saw. “There were secretaries having their asses grabbed by drunk men in tacky Christmas ties and pinstriped suits,” she says. “It was like time travelling to the 1950s.” It was also like being exposed to “a tribe I’d heard about but never seen” — and it provoked a range of visceral emotions in Craig-Martin. “Having been raised in the art world” — her father Michael is a well-known artist — “where sexism and power dynamics absolutely exist but are very differently manifested, I was unprepared for such exuberantly sexist clichés,” she says. “I was horrified, but a part of me — the photographer part — loved it.” In 1997, Craig-Martin was hired by Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor, to document the charity galas, opening nights and private parties that sustain high society. While working at these events, she also continued to capture tightly cropped details of hand gestures, sartorial embellishments, flesh and a lot of food. These photographs have been widely exhibited and Craig-Martin’s work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim, among others. She is currently completing a memoir (to be published next year) which takes its working title from an RSVP she once sent by mistake: “I Regret I’ll Be Able To Attend”. Food has been central to her work, particularly for what its gaudy presentation and conspicuous consumption tells us about wealth and those who wield it. Here she shares some lessons learnt from watching the one per cent feasting — or fasting — with their tribe. By Harriet Fitch Little Fresh oysters in a half shell with a dollop of caviar on top ‘Oysters, Caviar, Snow’ (Private Party, Gstaad), 1999 © Jessica Craig-Martin The first thing I do when I arrive at a party is to check what the salmon is wearing. You can always tell a lot about an event from the sartorial choices of the fish. It’s wise to approach with caution — might that be halibut draped in a glistening full-length cream sauce? Yes! And what are these shiny nodules that decorate the sauce? On closer inspection, they turn out to be caviar. A lot of caviar. Because, at these parties, overdoing it is merely the starting point. The photo “Oysters, Caviar, Snow” was taken on New Year’s Eve 1999 in Gstaad, where the Italian fashion designer Valentino was hosting a star-studded party at his palatial Alpine chalet. Female guests had been carried from their SUVs to the door by liveried valets, their red-soled Louboutins raised high above the snowdrifts. Oysters were flown in specially on a private jet, and sumptuously arrayed on a bed of fresh Gstaad snow. At the last moment, however, it was decided that these delicacies looked underdressed. A quick stop at the caviar station provided the solution — caviar. A mantle of the best endangered fish roe conferred instant glamour — a tip worth remembering if your outfit just isn’t working. Woman wearing a black beaded dress ‘The Party’s Over’ (Rita Hayworth Benefit for Alzheimer’s, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York), 1999 © Jessica Craig-Martin In the other photograph, “The Party’s Over”, the subject is festooned with intricate black beading. Her dress clings to her re-made and remodelled figure, glistening like thousands of tiny Beluga eggs. The wearer confided to me that her garment was a $250,000 couture Dior which, now that it had been seen on her in Paris and New York, would be retired permanently. I wondered which would cost more; the Dior, or a dress actually made using the world’s best caviar? A waiter carrying a tray of mini grilled cheese sandwiches ‘Tiny Grilled Cheese’ (Cancer Benefit, Southampton), 2006 © Jessica Craig-Martin One trend I have noted while photographing luxurious parties and galas is the proliferation of fast food being served — with one crucial difference. It is never at the traditional size. Hot dogs, hamburgers, fish sticks, fried chicken and pizzas — usually shunned in such image-conscious circles — become gasp-worthy exotic delights when served at doll size. Whether miniature meatballs, Lilliputian grilled cheese sandwiches (as seen in the photo) or tiny dumplings served with mini-chopsticks — they are scooped up with glee by manicured hands weighted with Breguet watches and snarling Cartier leopard rings. The hand of a man being served a glass of champagne from a be-gloved bartender ‘Safe Champagne’ (Southampton Hospital Benefit Gala, New York), 2007 © Jessica Craig-Martin In the summer of 2007, there was an inexplicable outbreak of rubber gloves in the Hamptons. This was long before Covid and there was no discernible reason for this sudden epidemic of caution. Yet everywhere you looked, latex-clad hands loomed out of the summer dusk, offering corn on the cob or butter-lubricated red-and-white fleshed lobster rolls at grand charity galas, tented garden parties or clambakes on the beach. The photograph “Safe Champagne” shows a man being served by a be-gloved bartender. The picture was taken at the most prestigious event of the Hamptons’ “season”, The Southampton Hospital Benefit Gala. The competition for invitations to this event is famously Darwinian, and I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. On arrival, it looked pretty much the same as the myriad other white-tent events of summer in the area — stilettos on the lawn, hors d’oeuvres on crackers turned instantly limp by the humid Southampton air, the usual chit-chat about the price of mooring yachts in St Barths at New Year or dismay at the gaucheness of some newly admitted member to the country club — from the usual guests who’d all seen one another too recently at other events to even feign excitement. I concluded that this must be one of those galas that relies exclusively on its exclusivity. One must attend in order to prove that one can. A table setting for Ms Bass, showing bread that’s been torn, but the cutlery untoched ‘Ms Bass’ Bread’ (Brice Marden Retrospective Opening, MoMA, New York), 2006 © Jessica Craig-Martin “You can never be too rich or too thin.” This quote, attributed to Wallis Simpson, the American socialite who caused King Edward VIII to abdicate, seems to sum up existence for many women at the upper echelons through the ages. It sounds a tad flippant but speaks to the cruelty with which women at the top of any social or financial pile are judged by everyone, but in particular by their peers. In this world, the need to be thin is not about being attractive in a traditional sexual sense; it is a show of power through asceticism. Anne Bass was thrown into the social spotlight when, in 1965, at the age of 23, she married Texan oil tycoon Sid Bass. She lived most of her life under intense scrutiny, which she navigated with a grace and self-discipline that must have irritated her would-be detractors. A life-long champion of art, Bass’s characteristic restraint is on display in this picture of her place setting at the dinner for Brice Marden’s MoMA retrospective in 2006. The bread roll has been toyed with. She has broken and rearranged it in order to participate in the ritual of the meal. I imagine the courses she was served were treated similarly. Bass has just left the party, her cutlery apparently untouched. A hand dipping a shrimp into a bowl of sauce ‘Pollock Shrimp’ (Jackson Pollock Retrospective, MoMA, New York), 1998 © Jessica Craig-Martin Shrimp cocktails do not require utensils. There my understanding of shrimp as a party food ends, since they are unquestionably one of the smelliest foods in existence. I am mystified that party guests will, within seconds of arriving, ruin hours — or days — of hard-earned pulchritude and preening in order to binge on a pretty common crustacean. Over the years, I have been air-kissed by thousands of overdressed shrimp-eaters to the point that I am now incapable of eating catered shrimp — or almost anything served on a tray. Call it PPPTSD or “Party Photographer’s Post-Traumatic Shrimp Syndrome”. In my book, party shrimp should be abolished. Then again, so should air‑kisses. Follow @FTMag on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first