In the summer of 2010 Jho Low, a legendarily big-spending nightclub aficionado and financial dealmaker, rocked up at the doors of an expensive St Tropez nightclub, Les Caves du Roy, with Paris Hilton on his arm.
Surrounded by women, including dozens of fashion models, Low and his brother Zhen engaged in an extraordinary display of wealth as they got into what was billed as an “East v West bottle war” against Winston Fisher, scion of a New York real estate family (the Lows are Malaysian) to see who could order the most Champagne.
As each side ordered more and more expensive and lavish bottles, the club owners initiated a well-oiled orgy of celebration, a formula replicated in nightclubs around the world; each new bottle of Champagne would be delivered borne aloft by a “bottle train” of fashion models, the bottles would be adorned with sparklers, special music would be played; and more and more attractive young women would flock to the tables of the rich men doing the ordering.