ONE ‘ELL OF A DINNER PARTY: Elle U.K. is continuing to celebrate its 40th anniversary with a lineup of cocktail and dinner parties around London.
Following the magazine’s “40 for 40 Women in Film” power list in February, its next iteration “40 for 40 Women in Music” took place on Tuesday night in partnership with Fendi and a musical crowd that included Kelly Rowland, Rita Ora, Hēir, Keisha Buchanan, Jamelia, Grace Carter, Pip Millett and Chloe Qisha.
Music was on the brain and the talk of every table at Italian restaurant Nipotina.
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The singer-songwriter Hēir was filled with excitement as her new single, “Black Limousines,” was being released at midnight.
“It’s a very beautiful song about basically trying to distract yourself from heartbreak, a layover before you deal with the heartbreak and just wasting your nights with glitter, partying, black limousines and running around with other boys when you know where your heart is, but they’re not calling you back, so you’re just waiting on them and in the meantime, you’re just having fun,” she said.
“Black Limousines” is part of a bigger project that she’s working on, but in the meantime, she will be releasing new music every two months.
Contrary to Hēir’s summer party track, she will be spending her summer with family and friends in her hometown of Naples, Italy.
Growing up, her parents had a musical influence on her.
“My parents are classical musicians and I leaned a lot more towards cinematic sounds when I first started out. I used to do a lot of seven-minute songs starting out because I just needed to have that pace. For me in general, it’s about creating something very ethereal that moves you, especially in the production,” said Hēir.
She’s very much involved with the production process of her music, as well as the visuals.
“I like to create very cinematic images and there’s a girl stripping in my video for ‘Black Limousines’,” she added.
Ora was also in the mood for the summer with her new track “Heat.”
“It’s a ‘Heat’ summer and I’m putting out more music. [The vibe of the song] is just crazy, sweaty dance,” she said.
The British-Albanian singer recently celebrated the anniversary of Typebea, a hair care brand she cofounded with Australian entrepreneur Anna Lahey.
The brand has just expanded its categories by launching a three-in-one dry shampoo.
“We’re just constantly trying to evolve and the dry shampoo is about being able to grow your hair while styling it. Everything for us is about the scalp and hair health. We’re really trying to become skinification for hair,” said Ora.
Summer is the one season where London’s creatives come alive and don’t take time off.
British visual artist Rachel Jones said she was juggling several projects — one of them being taking “Hey Maudie,” an opera she developed with the Roberts Institute of Art, to opera houses and festivals.
“It was very much rooted in thinking about how to tap into the experience of Black women and bring that story to the form of opera, which is quite Western and classical. We brought in elements of jazz, gospel and blues,” she said.
Jones is a busy woman and this week she opened her art exhibition “Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons” at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which will run until Oct. 19.
“It’s a bit of a mini retrospective using new artwork that was made for the space, as well as work from my time at the Royal Academy school,” she added.
Kenya Hunt, who has been editing Elle U.K. since March 2020, played host for the night. She joked in her opening speech that her “vocal cords can only stretch so far” and toasted the women in the room “who can sing better than I can.”
“They say it’s during periods of upheaval that artists create and this is a wonderful opportunity for us to celebrate all the women in our world, but it’s also our 40th anniversary — these women will be defining the next 40 years for us across film, music and art,” she said in an interview.
“Music in particular has an incredible power to be a mirror and a form of resistance. It can take on so many shapes and forms. It’s a form of joy,” she added.
The night concluded with seat swapping and comparing Fendi Baguettes outside the smoking area.