Lily Allen: Sex Toys, Butt Plugs, Lube Inside

After debuting his SS27 collection at the COOC – a private members club, buried in the basement of the Mandrake Hotel – Leo Prothmann opened up the elusive venue to “friends and family” for an after-dark celebration of unfiltered, unfilmed debauchery. The invite-only soirees revel in the salacious forbidden.

Free Grey Goose tokens and camera black-out stickers are handed out by the concierge on arrival. From here on in, no recording. No wide shots of the venue. Seeing what goes on inside might be dangerous for the untrained eye. You walk down the stairs, a feat in heels, to be hit with the undeniable scent and sight of pure sex. You begin to realise why you were told, more times than you can count, about how strictly video-documentation is off limits. Models prance around with eight extended limbs, offering no method of discernment between one body and the next. 

My first acquaintance in Sin City is Roda, an androgynous alternative model from Prothmann’s presentation. They roll me a cigarette in pink papers as we wait in the hallway for the roped off smoking area to clear. The second time around, an angel in aqua entices me from the velvet sofa. Darling, let’s slink back to the dancefloor. Let's get wrapped up between the most beautiful people we’ll ever lay eyes on. 

The second room, the second DJ set, was a brief mystery; tucked inconspicuously behind a curtain between the staircase and the bar. I find the entry as I tail a lone soldier through the hidden hallway. Lounge chairs and dressing tables scatter the floor and the whispered myth of the indoor smoking area confirms itself at the far side. A haven of relaxation. In one corner, an arachnoid model wearing a chain-and-bone exoskeleton lures half the party into their web. They weave their limbs through the air and cling to the one-man DJ booth as though the party belongs solely to them. 

My photographer arrives and it begins to dawn that we aren’t supposed to be here. Everyone is making out. Models crawl over one person and onto the next, draping over one another like silk scarves. Where are we? An unmasked desperation for the erotic creeps over the room as the hours slip by. 

A gorgeous blonde berates me for staying beyond the last drag of my cigarette. Curfew creeps up on the outdoors, and time warps. Everyone is finished. Back inside.

Leo takes centre stage behind the DJ booth, not to perform or make a speech but to bask in the night with his friends as the rest of us drunkenly butcher the macarena. I leaned over the desk for a quote, sweating like I’d done a full day of pilates, and after some deliberation all he could comment on was the closeness of the crowd. There was a lot of love in that room, that night, beyond the sensual degeneracy that could be caught at first glimpse. 

DJ Lots is a tattooed snake charmer, a master of hypnosis. The melodic obsessions of the self-proclaimed “nostalgic melomaniac” intoxicate the indulgent room into moving with a complete freedom from thought. Hedonic empty-mindedness consumed the otherwise-intelligent. A charming and euphoric sensation. Escapism for the sweet-toothed.  

As the dancefloor emptied itself we returned to the indoor smoking area. Two in, two out. The party still moved in pairs. We sing happy birthday in the early hours of the morning and the woman of honour spends her wish on ensuring “that nobody ever does that for me, ever again, in my whole life”. Champagne spills in my lap and it gets blamed on my “vibrations”. Where am I?

The last people standing still dance for a vacant room.