Cool Britannia

Yes, Lola Bute threw a birthday party that broke the internet. But there's a lot more to the young British designer than that one weekend.

- BY VÉRONIQUE HYLAND

“I've literally been planning this party since Iwas five. Most girls are thinking about their wedding. I was like, ‘I don’t want to share the attention with anyone.”

ON HER FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, a young Lola Bute informed her headmaster that he should not, under any circumstances, refer to her as Lola. She preferred to be addressed as Cinderella. “I always wanted to be in character,” Bute says now, “because I think I wasn’t quite sure who I was, honestly, until recently.”

Today, Bute remains a big fan of dressing up and getting into character. “I love an occasion,” she admits. Her 25th-birthday party last year, held on her family’s Scottish isle of Bute, drew guests like Sienna Miller and Princess Olympia of Greece. The event turned into a phenomenon along the lines of the Black and White Ball or Kate Moss's 30th-birthday bash. (When you type Bute’s name into Google, “party” is one of the first suggested terms.)

“I’ve literally been planning this party since I was five,” Bute says. “My mom would dread getting stuck on a ski lift with me because it’s all I talk about. Most girls are thinking about their wedding. I was like, ‘I don’t want to share the attention with anyone.’” Still, she insists she was not expecting the attention the bacchanal brought. Wearing a simple off-the-shoulder black top and a cross necklace, she brushes her buttery blonde hair aside as she remembers the media frenzy that followed. “My mom was like, ‘I think we should say, ‘No Instagram or social media over the weekend.’ I was like, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. No one cares.’ I don’t know what happened, but I went to sleep on Sunday night and woke up on Monday, and it was everywhere.”