Hanging with the A-list on Hollywood’s glitziest night

At one of the most exclusive afterparties in Los Angeles, Kevin EG Perry soaks up the atmosphere and plenty of margaritas) with billionaires, superstars and Oscar winners

- Kevin EG Perry

I’m standing at the bar talking to Jon Hamm about Anora sweeping the Oscars The right film clearly won,” the Mad Men star is telling me) when we’re both distracted by a vision in white. Lauren Sanchez literally pirouettes into our eyeline, wearing a strapless bridal dress with a mermaid skirt and a train trimmed with feathers. She has an emerald necklace around her neck, while her hair cascades in waves. She looks, to put it bluntly, like a quintessential Bond girl.

As an accessory, Sanchez is accompanied merely by the world’s third richest man, Jeff Bezos, who stands watching her spin in a black satin jacket paired with a white bow tie. At a guess, I’d say his outfit cost several times my monthly rent. Still, I spy a rare opportunity to lean over and ask the question a good proportion of the planet has wanted to put to him for the last week and a half. “Jeff,” I say, “What are you planning to do with James Bond?” Bezos scans the vicinity, as if checking for clandestine listening devices, before delivering a succinct answer. “We’re going to make great movies,” he says.

This is the Vanity Fair post-Oscars party, in full swing at a purpose-built venue next to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. Hollywood’s biggest awards show wrapped up a little over two hours ago and now the A-list are here, rubbing shoulders with the whatever-comes-beforethe-A-list. Chris Rock is on the dance floor, chatting to Olivia Wilde and slapping palms with Diplo. Sofía Vergara is ordering tequilas with Michelle Rodriguez. Sacha Baron Cohen is hanging out with Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom. On the other side of the room, Timothée Chalamet has just arrived with Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian in tow. Their presence has created a sort of celebrity vortex, a huge traffic jam that forms as the freeflowing party gets sucked inexorably into their orbit.