Annabel’s: A String of Naked Lightbulbs

In June 1963, Mark Birley, son of society portrait painter Sir Oswald Birley, opened a nightclub in a dusty, disused basement underneath No. 44 Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London. He named it for after his wife, Annabel. It had been more than a decade since the Second World War and there was a sense of renewal and rebirth to England. The 1960s were an extraordinary time to be in London, an era of decadence, freedom and sex. The city was quickly becoming the capital of the world, seeing the transformation of London into a social, political and cultural global leader. At the centre of that was Annabel’s – standing for the old world, but also representing the new. Mark Birley sent a letter to some five hundred people who he thought would support and enjoy a new kind of nightclub in London. From then on, the venue grew to become the greatest club in the world, frequented by the social elite and iconic Hollywood stars, as well as becoming the only such establishment the Queen ever visited. The rest, as they say, is history…