Parties: Claudia stands tall for Dom

Some celebs will go to the opening of a ringpull. Others save themselves for a champagne crate. The beau monde welcomed Dom Perignon's 1995 "Oenotheque" vintage into the world at the Langham hotel's Landau restaurant.

Black, black were the surfaces, the majority of the clothes, and even the champagne flutes (making it harder to tell if your glass was half-full or, more likely, given it retails at £60 per glass, half-empty).

Standing on a special platform a foot above everyone else, Claudia Schiffer, the host, chatted to the model Jade Parfitt – though closer inspection revealed it was not a platform, just a leggy genetic advantage. Could Ms Schiffer truly tell the difference between this vintage and another? Her wide eyes widened: "Yee-ah! Of course!"

The crowd thronged with starlets such as Talulah Riley (fresh from playing an alien in Torchwood) and Ruth Wilson (far friendlier than the average megastar in the making), and as the Gorillaz soundsystem kicked in, former Stone Rose Ian Brown stopped loitering in the corner and shook some limbs instead, while the actress Camilla Rutherford, gorgeous in vintage red, toasted the DJ,

Kelly Brook and Billy Zane departed early, clasping one another. (Overheard: gossip columnist – "What's your latest project, Kelly?" Billy Zane - "Leaving this party.") And as Sophie Ellis-Bextor joined them in slipping away, her husband, The Feeling's guitarist Richard Jones, attempted a rock'n'roll gesture by kissing his middle finger to the paparazzi outside.

The chef Tom Aikens arrived last, his wife Amber having dragged him "straight from the kitchen". It was an advantage in a way, he said, as "I wouldn't want to drink more than two glasses. Sends you pie-eyed." Ah, Dom Perignon: everyone's best friend in the evening, but not so nice the next morning.