High life | 21 January 2012

Gstaad
‘Mick Flick invites you to the Roaring Twenties’ read the invite, a black-and-white stiffy with a flapper and a Rudolph Valentino type in white tie and tails, flirting in the old-fashioned manner, she dreamlike, flapping her eyes upwards, he looking swarthy and passionate and standing over her. In the background, a roomful of swells in their finest are tripping the light fantastic.

It is rare for a party to live up to expectations, especially one to which people come from very far away. I’ve given a few in my life and none of them has ever truly clicked. Perhaps it’s a matter of luck, but mainly it has to do with preparation. I haven’t got the patience, but Mick is German, a Mercedes-Benz heir, and very thorough. I have rarely experienced the pleasure I did when walking into the great room of the Palace Hotel, transformed into a kind of Twenties speakeasy, with nothing to remind me of today’s brutal culture: no oiks, no cheap celebrities, no publicity-seekers, no freaks. Everyone was dressed to the nines, the women in flapper dresses, the men in white ties, dinner jackets and white striped suits à la Chicago gangsters.

Maya Schoenburg, Mick’s ex-wife and mother of his three children, had the brilliant idea to have tables for only two or three or four people, like nightclubs tend to do, and the trick worked. Two great bands played their hearts out, can-can girls danced and ooh-aahd throughout, and 290 of us quick-stepped Gatsby to shame.

The main ingredient for a successful party is and always has been one’s guests. In this case, half of them were Mick’s children’s age, in their twenties. Alexander Flick is a talented documentary-maker while his younger brother Moritz works for the best and only reliable and responsible newspaper in Israel — by far — Haaretz.