It was certainly an unusual scene at the Wemyss Bay ferry terminal, 40 minutes west of Glasgow airport, on Friday afternoon.
It’s not often, after all, that over 100 of the global jeunesse dorée—including Cara Delevingne’s sister Poppy, Sienna Miller, Charlotte Tilbury, and Princess Olympia of Greece—descend on the windswept Scottish coast.
But this weekend, they very much did, en route to Bute Island for the most fabulous and exclusive event of the year so far, the two-day birthday party of Lady Lola Bute (below with her boyfriend, the Dutch model Parker van Noord).
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Lola is the 25-year-old sister of the present 8th Marquess of Bute, and a leader of an emerging social-media savvy, fashion-powered posh set which might be dubbed the New Glamocracy.
While the frolics of the landed nobility and gentry used to be unimpeachably private affairs, these days they are all over social media.
Photographs of the lavish party at the Bute family homestead, Mount Stuart House, which has been in the family since 1157, have been whizzing around Instagram for the past few days—along with some eye-opening glimpses of the house’s art collection.
They paint a picture of an extraordinary event—a sit-down dinner in the great hall, a traditional Scottish pipe and drumming band greeting the guests outside the big house, and a mushroom-themed rave in the basement—with a remarkably glamorous and fashion-forward guest list.
The model and influencer Lady Mary Charteris (seen above)—the daughters of dukes, marquesses, and earls have the title of “Lady” prefixed to their forename—who is resident DJ to the new Glamocracy, was in charge of the music, along with her husband, Robbie Furze lead singer of The Big Pink (most famous, perhaps, for their very un-PC hit ‘Dominos.’)
Other notable Glamocrats who attended included Jack Guinness (a scion of the wealthy brewing family and founder of queer culture and history website the Queer Bible), actress Sienna Miller and her designer sister Savannah, make-up millionaire Charlotte Tilbury and her husband, the producer George Waud (currently staging a revival of Cabaret in London featuring Cara Delevingne), the actress Jazzy de Lisser (Lola’s half-sister by their mother’s first marriage), and Princess Olympia of Greece.
Presiding over it all was Lady Lola’s mom, fashion designer Serena Bute, the dowager marchioness who lost her husband, Lola’s father, the impossibly glamorous racing driver Johnny, to cancer in 2021 when he was just 62. A further reminder that the rich are not immune to tragedy was the death by suicide of Lola’s boyfriend, Kai Schachter, in 2020.
Lola has been sober since 2019 and drank the sugary Scottish soft drink Irn-Bru throughout the celebration. (Charteris, who is also a distant cousin of Lola’s, is also sober.)
One friend of Lola’s who was at the party told The Daily Beast: “It was an amazing few days at an amazing place. There weren’t sponsors or anything like that, it was just a proper old-fashioned party. After everything Lola has been through in the past few years, it just felt like the most amazing celebration of friendship and the power of never giving up. She is incredible, and she partied harder than anyone—fueled by Irn-Bru!”
That the birthday girl had a good evening is incontestable. One picture circulating on social shows Lola being lifted up on partygoers’ shoulders in an underground cellar decked out like a nightclub with a huge glowing mushroom in the background (a wry nod, perhaps, to the increasing popularity of magic mushrooms and other “natural” highs among the narcotoff crowd these days.)
Other key members of the new Glamocracy who attended were the set’s go-to party organizers India Langton and Amanda Sheppard. A source said their company Haute London had “helped out informally” with the party planning. The Daily Beast reached out to Lady Lola for comment.
Of course, not everyone can make every party. But even if your face isn’t one of the ones circulating around the Glamocracy’s social media feed this week, it’s still possible to let the world know you were invited. Fran Cutler, the event organizer whose parties were legendary among London’s Primrose Hill set in the 1990s replied to one message, “So sad to have missed it.”
Which just leaves one question. How was the ferry back to the mainland on Sunday?
Said one employee of ferry firm Cal-Mac at Wemyss Bay, when reached by phone by The Daily Beast, “Oh, they were very quiet.”
Let’s hope the crossing wasn’t too bumpy.
