Entertaining With
How to Throw a Party Like a British Fashion Designer
Comfort food, colorful dresses and unlimited cocktails are among Molly Goddard’s tips for hosting a memorable evening.
“Food and wine are just the best things in the world, aren’t they?” the British designer Molly Goddard says with a laugh. Dressed in a matching cardigan and skirt in a kaleidoscopic poppy print, she’s surveying the party she’s throwing at the newly opened Russell Square restaurant Neptune during London Fashion Week. A D.J. is spinning dance hall tracks at a bar festooned with strings of multicolored balloons and draped with rose-pink metallic fringe. At intimate tables of two or four, hungry guests tuck into what Goddard calls “speed” dinners, in which three courses are served within a 40-minute sitting, to allow guests to either stay on and party or head home for an early night. The rest of the 200-strong crowd — a mix of friends, fashion editors, loyal fans of Goddard’s eponymous brand and models fresh from her recent runway show — are dancing to Sean Paul’s “Get Busy.” “We’ve got buckets of beer, wine, prosecco, cocktails. Whatever anyone wants, we have it,” the designer adds with a smile.
While Goddard is used to hosting low-key dinners for close friends at her home in East London, this party, held last Saturday night, is the first big event the 29-year-old designer has hosted since launching her namesake line in 2012; Goddard wanted to showcase her brand’s playful spirit on a larger scale than her usual post-show trip to the pub with her team. Earlier in the day, Goddard had presented her spring 2019 collection in Covent Garden, where models walked down the runway in frothy polka-dot party frocks and psychedelic flower-print cardigans, carrying oversize cabbages against their hips. Food and drink are as much a constant on Goddard’s runways as her signature voluminous tulle dresses, and often used as props or as part of set pieces: During her spring 2016 show, models stood at steel work tables with loafs of white bread and jars of jelly, making sandwiches; her fall 2017 show at the Tate Modern took inspiration from a drunken dinner party, complete with bottles upon bottles of red wine. “I like to see my clothes in the habitat that they’d be worn in,” explains Goddard.
At this most recent celebration, many of the guests — including the model Edie Campbell — are wearing favorite Goddard pieces from past seasons. Goddard’s fanciful gowns, often constructed from hundreds of meters of ruched and ruffled tulle or cotton, are designed for twirling around a dance floor. In the restaurant’s main dining area — tables and chairs now cleared away to make space — partygoers move in flounces of turquoise, shocking pink and blush. That most of Goddard’s pieces can be thrown in the washing machine after a night of festivities also plays into her lively and fuss-free approach to entertaining. Here, she shares her recipe for an elegant but fun-filled evening.
Share Hosting Duties With a Friend
Goddard is putting on her party with the help of Margaret Crow, a co-owner of Neptune, whom the designer met six years ago at the birthday party of a mutual friend. Crow was the perfect choice of co-host: She shares Goddard’s laid-back, nonprescriptive approach to entertaining. “We like our parties to feel more like house parties,” says Crow, who also set up the famed (and much mourned) Dalston pub called the Richmond, which closed last year. “We don’t have waiters walking around with trays of canapés,” she says. “Everything is very D.I.Y. and relaxed.” Crow also enlisted Goddard’s childhood friend Tom Travis to D.J. and oversaw the décor. “We wanted it to feel a bit like a kid’s party, but not twee,” she says.
A (Comfortable) Party Dress Is Always a Good Idea
While she would never insist on a dress code for a dinner, Goddard is known to wear her candy-colored cloudlike gowns at the parties she hosts at her home. “There’s something comfortable about the dresses,” she says of her creations, which don’t have zippers but elasticated-ruched bodices that make them perfect for overindulgence. “I want to make clothes you’d feel happy dancing in or sitting and chatting for a few hours in,” says Goddard, who wears a big dress on most days. “I wear them everywhere, even just to the pub.”
Cook Generously Sized, Unfussy Dishes
“I spend a maximum of two hours cooking, if I’m entertaining,” says Goddard, who sticks to staple dishes like roasted chicken or pasta — in large quantities. “I’d never want anyone to leave hungry.” At the fashion week party, guests are served a choice of “simple comfort foods” that include burrata with tomatoes and melon, and spaghetti with cockles. “For me, it’s more about the people and being together than savoring food that’s taken all day to make,” she says. One formality she does insist on, however, is serving three courses. “It’s over too quickly if you have any less.”
Don’t Start Too Early
Goddard starts her parties at 8 p.m. “I don’t think it’s good to invite people over too early,” she says. “You eat around nine, which isn’t too late but late enough that if you want to then party, there’s still time for that.” For Goddard — who usually invites six friends over for dinner — the main purpose of entertaining is relaxation. “Sometimes you want to dance and sometimes you don’t, it’s good to let the night decide. I hate the idea of controlling something in any way by hosting.”
Bring Out the Cheese Board
“Burrata is one of my favorite things,” says Goddard. “But I love all kinds of cheese, especially stinky cheeses like Stilton.” Producing a cheese board at the end of a dinner party is a favorite ritual for Goddard. She serves her selection with crackers and says it always makes entertaining at home feel like Christmas Day, “only with a bit less food.” She adds, “Sometimes it’s nice to sit around feeling really full and lazy.”
Have a Personalized Drinks Menu
“I have quite a big alcohol cabinet at home,” says Goddard. “It’s full of random things like Baileys and port.” The designer also favors bringing out a digestif such as limoncello after dinner. “It’s a bit of a change in pace,” she says. “It’s nice to break the evening up with something that will probably make you feel terrible the next day.” At the party, guests enjoy a custom cocktail, a Paloma Fizz made with thyme-infused vodka, lime juice and cloudy apple lemonade; Goddard wanted to serve a cocktail that wasn’t “sickly sweet.”
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