You don’t get to much shopping in the course of a busy day of London fashion-week shows. But last night, two of the city’s marquee boutiques found another way to welcome fashion weekers to town: Over in Chelsea, Joseph was hosting dinner at the store’s Joe’s Café, and back in the center of town, Browns had set up shop in the Royal Academy vaults to celebrate the store’s launch of Club Monaco in the U.K.

First, dinner. Joseph served up a nicely British repast of beet carpaccio and sea bream, one partaken of by Charles Anastase, Pat McGrath, Tamara Mellon, and Katie Hillier, as well as acclaimed chef and British-cuisine cheerleader Mark Hix. Meanwhile, over at Browns, where the likes of Tracey Emin and Sophia Hesketh could be found, Hix’s team of mixologists from his pop-up Speak Easy were treating guests to high-class cocktails, including a dangerous dark-cherry-flavored concoction. The spirit at Browns was a bit more Frenchified: The party’s host was Lou Doillon (left), and Le Baron’s André Saraiva had hopped the Channel to deejay. Or perhaps the mood was more transcontinental, what with Club Monaco being an American-owned brand, and the after-party going down at London’s recently opened outpost of the Box. Welcome to the global village.

Best to down another cherry cocktail, stop thinking about geography, and start looking at the art decorating the scene. The Royal Academy vaults had never before been opened to a private event, and the sculpture-strewn space may have been the real star of last night’s party. Vaguely creepy and seriously cool was the general verdict, and designer Saloni Lodha, who had presented her collection the previous day, was already making plans to relocate her show to the Royal Academy next season. “You think they’d let me do it?” she mused, staring up at a bank of muscular stone torsos hanging off one wall. “I mean, I don’t even know how Browns managed to pull this off. I didn’t even know this was down here!” As Doillon might have noted, après moi, le deluge.