“Minty! You made it!” Kitty leaned over and gave her an air kiss, as another set of photographers stationed by the front doors clicked away.
“My yoga retreat is practically right next door to you in Moganshan, so I thought it could do no harm to sneak away for just one night!” Araminta replied.
“I’m so glad you did. And now you finally get to meet my husband. Jack, this is my best friend from Singapore—Araminta Lee, er, I mean Khoo.”
“Thank you for coming,” Jack said stiffly.
“Fabulous to meet you! I feel like I know you already!” Araminta tried to give Jack an air kiss, but he tilted back reflexively as he saw the glossy red lips coming at him. Kitty prodded him sharply with an elbow and he quickly straightened up just in time to collide heads with Araminta.
“Aiyoh!” Jack groaned. Araminta appeared to see stars for a second, but quickly recovered and laughed it off.
“Please forgive my husband. He’s just excited to meet you—he gets excited whenever he’s around famous supermodels,” Kitty gushed apologetically.
Araminta moved along into the house, while Kitty shot daggers at her husband with her eyes. “Don’t you know how to do a perfect Euro-fashionista triple-cheeked air kiss? You almost gave her a concussion!”
Jack muttered under his breath, “Tell me why we’re doing this again?”
“Honey, we were specially chosen by Vogue China to host the most exclusive party of Shanghai Fashion Week! This is the party all the most important lao wais*1 are attending! Do you know how many people would sell their servants’ organs for this opportunity? Please stop complaining.”
“What a waste of time…” Jack muttered under his breath.
“Waste of time? Do you even know who my friend is?”
“Some silly model.”
“She’s not just a model—she’s the wife of Colin Khoo.”
“No idea who that is.”
“Oh come on, he’s the heir to the Khoo empire of Singapore. And besides, Araminta is also the only daughter of Peter Lee. I’m sure you know who that is—he was the first Chinese billionaire in U.S. dollars.”
“Peter Lee’s old news. I’m worth exponentially more than him.”
“You may have more money, but the Lees have more influence. Don’t you realize I’m introducing you to the most influential people in the world?”
“These people make clothes. How are they influential?”
“You have no idea. These people control the world. And the cream of Shanghai society wants to be around them. Just think of who has showed up so far—Adele Deng, Stephanie Shi. And now the First Lady is about to arrive—”
“And it looks like Mozart came with her.”
“Oh my God, that’s not Mozart, that’s Karl Lagerfeld. He’s a very, very, very important man! He’s the Kaiser of fashion.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“He is so powerful, he could simply flare one of his nostrils and have me banned from Chanel forever and I might as well be dead. Please, please be polite.”
Jack snorted. “I’ll try not to fart in his general direction.”
After all the VVIP lao wais had been greeted, Kitty made her grand entrance into the house while Jack fled to his screening room until it was time for dinner. (“As long as you show up for my toast and tell Peng Liyuan how much you adore her singing at some point during the banquet, I don’t care what else you do,” Kitty had told him.) The whole party was actually an excuse for Kitty to show off the redesign of the house, and she stood on the top step of the former great hall—which she had renamed the Salon Grande—surveying the scene.
Gone was Colette’s Zen-like Puli Hotel–inspired decor, and in its place, Thierry Catroux had created a look he called “Ming emperor meets Louis-Napoléon at Studio 54.” Ming dynasty urns mingled with rare Aubusson carpets against sixties-mod Italian leather-and-Lucite furniture, while the monochromatic Shikumen gray brick walls were now covered in Tibetan yak hair dyed in shimmering shades of persimmon. The eighty-foot-long east wall had been covered with purple-and-crimson latticework screens—in homage to the Hall of Dispelling Clouds at the Summer Palace in Beijing. Colette’s prized collection of black-and-white Wu Boli calligraphy scrolls had been banished to the museum wing, and in its place were enormous paintings of vibrantly colored canvases by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring in antique rococo gilt frames. Kitty’s guests flocked to her side, gushing about the radical transformation.
“It’s unbelievable, Kitty,” Pan TingTing praised.
“So…original, Kitty,” Adele Deng demurred.
“You’ve really put your stamp on the house,” Stephanie Shi said and smiled.