Peaches by the dozen

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Cosy: intimate but funky club Punk packs in the celebs

Up for it: the crowd at Punk is full of uber-cool Peaches Geldof lookalikes

Hot ticket: Peaches Geldof likes to party at Punk

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If it wasn't already the hottest ticket in town, it certainly is now. Kate Moss has given Punk - the small, but perfectly formed club in Soho Street - her seal of approval. She hired the whole place out for her epic, star-studded birthday bash on Wednesday night, but mere mortals can party there too. Fingers firmly on the pulse, six days before the Moss posse head down, we pay Punk a visit.

As we arrive, Peaches Geldof is screeching orders into her mobile, "HURRY UP! You've gotta get down here by 9.30!" and swigging from a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

It's 8.55pm and we're just in time to make it in for free. We clatter gleefully downstairs and take up residence on velvet sofas in a roped-off section at the back.

It's possibly a VIP section but no one seems to care, and we dispatch the boys to the bar for £12 bottles of house white wine. Just 40 minutes later, the club is almost full - I pop outside for a cigarette and see the queue is hundreds deep, snaking around onto Oxford Street. At 9.35pm, on a Thursday night in early January. What's going on?

What's going on is one of the most fashionable weekly club nights in London - Smash And Grab - dedicated to (in the words of its promoter Zoniel Burton) "dancing, kissing and getting smashed".

Punk's capacity is just 280 - and from the looks of it, about half that number are some sort of celebrity.

Since it began last summer, the night, hosted by the Queens Of Noize and the female trio G.O.D. (girls on decks), has been packed out with gossip page favourites including Kate Moss, Kelly Osbourne, Mark Ronson, Mary Kate Olsen, Lily Allen, Alex Turner and Alexa Chung and even Courtney Love.

Tonight The Diamond Hoo Haa Men - aka Gaz and Danny from Supergrass - will be playing a live set.

Back inside, the place is teeming with very young things in very cool outfits. Half the girls look exactly like Peaches. Even my cousin - age 24 - reports that she feels quite old. Perhaps that's why Kate Moss (now 34), hired the place out exclusively for her party. The girls are in tiny hotpants with tights or Eighties prom dresses, while the boys wear skinny jeans, skinnier ties and bizarre hairdos. Deborah - who knows a thing or two about fashion - wails in horror: "I don't even know where you'd go to buy clothes like theirs." Porkpie hats appear to have been made compulsory. It's as if a little piece of Shoreditch has been snapped off and lobbed into the middle of Soho.

While the outfits are edgy, the music is anything but. We shimmy to Transvision Vamp's Baby I Don't Care and Dancing On The Ceilings by Lionel Ritchie. It's unashamedly retro and pop, and the crowd is very friendly.

I bump into super- hip designer Henry Holland. "It's like being at the best family wedding you've ever been to," he says. "Without the Kerry Katona- style relatives."

I don't spot Peaches again, but there are plenty of other young celebs: in the loo queue Daisy Lowe is recounting her Christmas to a friend and It girl Alice Dellal is strutting around.

At midnight, there's a rush to one end, where Carl Barat of Dirty Pretty Things is introducing the Diamond Hoo Haa Men. People are clambering on tables and chairs to get a better look at their famed sideburns.

At 2.45am, I drag my remaining friends away, with promises to take them back again soon. Just try to keep me away - coming up in the next few weeks they've got car crash karaoke and an Easter bonnet workshop and parade. I can't wait to see those boys fashion porkpie hats out of papier-m‚ché.

Smash And Grab, Punk, 14 Soho Street, W1. Thursdays, 8pm-3am, free before 9pm, £5 after, £8 after 11pm

 

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