When Mark Birley opened Annabel’s in the heart of in 1963, it quickly became famed and fêted. Named for his then-wife Annabel - younger daughter of the 8th Marquess of Londonderry and a renowned society - the London club was the epitome of the place to be. It was the only nightclub the late Queen ever visited, liked it, and somehow maintained its reputation for hedonism.
Birley would the world in the 1970s with a glamorous crew, including American aristocrat Howard Cushing Senior. Birley and Cushing Sr. became fast friends through the latter's former wife, Caroline, the great English beauty who became involved with Robert Frost and was immortalised by Rebecca Hall's performance in The men shared many similarities, including their love of , passed down to Birley through his father, portraitist Sir Oswald Birley.
The glamorous pair were amongst a new generation of fashionable, international set of people, taking trips to far-flung places via the Orient Express and retreating from City in the hot summers to the glamorous seaside town of Newport. The enclave became renowned for attracting the very rich, with Cushing among those who would invite his family to town to enjoy summer holidays by the sea. As a gifted amateur photographer, Cushing enjoyed taking pictures of his friends, as well as being a bonafide member of the world Slim Aarons loved to capture (Aarons’ immortalized Cushing in the iconic photo surfing with his elder brother Freddie and friends at the Private Beac.
