The first time I came to Soho I was nineteen years old and a student at UCL. I had made friends with some Sicilians who lived in a flat above a brothel in Hanway Street and life was one long party. Even then I knew that Soho attracted misfits like flypaper and felt at home. I remember it clearly; trundling out of The Milk Bar with glitter running down my face, huddling outside Bar Italia puffing on cigarettes until it was light. ‘My life has begun’ I thought to myself, ‘I’m never going home’.

Twenty years on and Soho is my home now. I live with piles of snoring dogs, surrounded by French antiques and run my businesses from cafes and bars. The best of them is The Society Club. Like all great Soho establishments The Society Club is almost impossible to describe and has an enigmatic host at its heart. Babette, the club’s owner, has been compared to Brigitte Bardot and it’s easy to see why; she glides around social events like old Hollywood leaving people misty-eyed and enchanted. The space that she’s created with art-deco chandeliers and chequerboard flooring seems to have taken on a life of its own too, appearing in Italian Vogue, Aaron Taylor-Johnson draped in the doorway.

Part bookshop, part gallery and part cocktail bar, The Society Club draws people back for different things. People pop in for dirty martinis, for vintage erotica or simply to see and be seen.

Images courtesy of The Society Club