EDITOR’S LETTER

I hope you’re match-ready because it’s that time again. No, I’m not talking about the World Cup — don’t worry, we’ve got that covered on page 29 — I’m on about party season.

You know the drill: it’s Wednesday night and everyone’s suddenly up for a silly o’clock rager. I don’t know about you but this year’s party season already feels hyper-charged, like revenge-level fun. Case in point: mid last week I pinballed between three events, ending up at a roller disco with Usher in Shepherd’s Bush (I’m serious, read all about it on p23). Welcome to the month-long run-up to Christmas — and yes, I did just say the C-word, deal with it.

Cue our Party Edition and who better to front it than superstar DJ, Beyoncé’s go-to producer and trans icon, Honey Dijon? She knows a thing or two about what makes a party pop. Make that 12 surefire things, as Paul Flynn finds out on p34. And those amazing images by Liz Johnson Artur? They were shot at south London’s pleasuredome, Printworks, where Honey has regularly put 6,000 ravers through their paces.

I first met Honey in 2011, backstage at a Kim Jones show for Louis Vuitton, and Michael Costiff, the impresario behind legendary 1990s club Kinky Gerlinky (sorry, this is suddenly very name-droppy) was keen to introduce us. Honey had soundtracked Kim’s show with a sevenminute reworking of the Talking Heads classic ‘I Zimbra’: it was deliriously good and I told her so. ‘Why thank you, child,’ she purred, and so began our friendship. After a decade of globehopping, Honey is finally moving to London and, more excitingly, she’ll be two minutes from my front door (I can’t wait for the house warming!)

To help hotwire you into the party mood, Honey’s compiled her Top 10 mood-enhancing tracks on p40, and for the full Honey Dijon fantasy there’s always her new album, Black Girl Magic. To any readers not into four-to-the-floor hedonism, I apologise and urge you to seek out Honey’s X-rated vegan cooking videos.