It just wouldn’t be quite right to kick-start December’s global party marathon without dipping one’s toe in the annual pool-party revelry that is Art Basel Miami Beach. As usual, there was a feast of nocturnal happenings to compete with – or enhance – the art, depending on which way you look at it. This year’s award for avant-garde nightlife has to go the Delano Hotel, which hosted the lavish Visionaire soirée at surface level while concealing Andre Saraiva’s after-hours Parisian pop-up, Le Baron, in its underbelly Rainbow Room.
Those still standing at dawn (and who hadn’t ravaged their vocal cords by belting out karaoke classics at Chi Chi Menendez’s decadent Parisian cabaret at the Shelborne) tiptoed to the Standard Hotel’s beachside plunge pool for the best view of the sunrise and to partake in a round of ping-pong.
Participants who weren’t wise enough to skulk off for a restful post-ABMB sojourn in the Bahamas nursed sore heads with lobster tagliatelle at the Cecconi’s outpost at Soho Beach House (incidentally the same venue where the beautiful Dasha Zhukova, shimmering in Christopher Kane, hosted a barefoot starlit beach party to celebrate the launch of her new tech-art brainchild Art.sy), before hopping on planes to forge ahead through the pre-Christmas party gauntlet… It’s probably a good thing this only happens once a year.
