Less than 24 hours after taking part in what might be the most LA scene imaginable–a James Bond-themed 70th birthday for a freshly face-lifted Kris Jenner, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Beyoncé, and Jeff Bezos–Hailey Bieber touched down in London to celebrate the launch of her Rhode beauty line at Carbone. (She’s not the only American transplant drawing in crowds, here.)
She appeared to have an authentic London experience, cheering on a fleet of black Rhode-grey cabs in a drizzly Westbourne Grove before stopping by Found and Vision on Portobello Road. The store–home to everything from ’70s Laura Ashley dresses to John Galliano-era Dior–has become a cult destination for fashion insiders, including Bella Hadid, Kate Moss, Alexa Chung, and FKA twigs since its doors first opened a decade ago. Even this magazine’s fashion editors are regulars, once memorably dressing Timothée Chalamet in a brandless fringed leather waistcoat from the shop for the October 2022 cover.
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What Bieber unearthed on the rails remains to be seen, but perhaps it was the sleeveless, sequin-dusted skirt suit from Chanel’s spring 1995 collection that she wore to slurp on imaginary tea and vodka pasta later that evening. The vision, I suppose, was to LARP as a quintessential lady of leisure, frozen in the amber of a Mayfair dining room. It was, after all, where Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel opened her Queen Anne-style townhouse on Davies Street in 1925–and where, as legend has it, the Duke of Westminster immortalised their romance on the city’s lampposts, inscribing them with interlocking Cs.