Heading to Scotland, UK’s most exclusive VIP club (and you never know who you’ll bump into!)
IT is the favoured haunt of leading artists, film stars, musicians and even royalty. Now Soho House is set to launch for the first time in Scotland.
The Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal the exclusive private members’ club – which has played host to the likes of Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Jude Law as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – is to open a venue in Glasgow.
A city-centre site close to George Square has been chosen and celebrity Scots have been approached to become founder members.
One insider said: ‘Soho House is an international brand and it’s a recognition of Scotland’s growing influence in the world of the arts and media that a branch is set to open in Glasgow.’
The club was founded in London in 1995 by Nick Jones, who is married to Scots broadcaster Kirsty Young. It now has 39 ‘houses’ in 15 countries and more than 142,000 members worldwide, with further openings in Europe, Asia and North America in the pipeline.
Mr Jones said in a recent interview Soho House is all about the service and the people who go there.
Speaking to Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Stephen Bartlett on his The Diary of a CEO podcast, he said: ‘I love people connecting with each other. I love people enjoying themselves and we want them to flourish socially.
‘They all have a creative soul and you put them in one house and they talk to each other. I’ve seen businesses created, I’ve seen relationships created, friendships created, ideas created. That is pretty special.’
Membership costs around £1,200 a year although those under 27 get a 50 per cent discount until they turn 30. Young fashionistas mingle with designers, filmmakers, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, musicians and movie stars. Supermodel Ms Moss and her trendy Primrose Hill pals made it one of their regular hangouts in the 1990s and stars such as Kristen Stewart, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber enjoy the no cameras or autographs policy.
Soho House is said to be where Prince Harry and actress Ms Markle met on a blind date. The club’s ethos values creativity over wealth – with financiers and flash bankers not welcome. Not even A-list celebrities are guaranteed access with Kim Kardashian famously denied membership of Los Angeles’ Soho House. In 2002, English actor Law and his wife Sadie Frost made headlines there after their two-year-old daughter swallowed a discarded ecstasy tablet during another child’s birthday party at the club. She was taken to hospital but suffered no long-term damage.
The New York Soho House featured in Season 6 of the TV series Sex and the City in the Boy Interrupted episode where Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) pretends to be a member by using a stolen membership card.
The hotspot was also given a namecheck in Netflix drama Inventing Anna, where Anna Delvey is asked if she was rejected by Soho House. She replies: ‘I’d rather hang out at a McDonald’s or start my own club and reject their members.’
Plans for the Glasgow venue were drawn up last year during lockdown. The Scottish Mail on Sunday has seen the planning application for the club and visited the building site where work has started near George Square.
Soho House said it was not prepared to comment on the venue.
‘I love people connecting and enjoying themselves’