Expensive Free
A postcard from Ibiza; the isle of abundance, on the other side of August.
This was the villa party of the summer.
Hidden in a high-priced valley, stern-faced security are everywhere. It takes five minutes to walk from the guest-list checkpoint up to the actual house. Inside, most of the furniture has been cleared to make room for the decks, dance floor, and drink-pouring. It’s just ticked past midnight and the adjacent patio already teems with early-party anticipation.
Spanish actor turned musician and fashion week front-row frequenter Aron Piper is our host. Paloma cocktail in-hand, he surveils the fast-swelling turn-out with tequila-infused glee. I met Aron back in 2020, when interviewing him for his first cover story in Spanish GQ. Back then, he sat paradoxically on the brink of launching a music career right as the world was doom-forecasting the forever-death of concerts and clubbing. On this warm summer’s night, he’s celebrating a very different future: having recently-inked a studio record deal and enjoying all the additional brand money that seems to steam-power the subsequent fame train. Here in Ibiza, it’s Patrón who’s bank-rolling the night’s Balearic banger.
Everyone who's anyone seems to be here. Leonardo Dicaprio and his 30-person entourage plus eight-man security detail drift around the property in unison like a hive-minded drone constellation. Kendall Jenner makes a brief cameo, setting into motion a future thunderclap of high-fives in the Patrón boardroom (in celebration of their in-house ‘coup’ because Kendall’s 818 Tequila is technically industry competition). Algerian boxer and beautiful-man-of-Instagram Younes Bendijima wanders around nonchalant, possibly the only person not thirsting in the vicinity of two cocktail bars, which miraculously never seem to run out of anything.
Aron has insisted on an all Ibiza-based DJ line-up, which makes the dance floor more about music than the hype-machine. In Ibiza, both the super-clubs and the private parties of paranoid one-percenters feel either too industrial or too-controlled to the point of confection. Aron's loose Spanish touch throws the pretension or postureo to the wayside in favour of a messier, abundant, free-for-all. Security stays at the perimeter fence, allowing everyone's individual chaos to its own devices. Thankfully people aren't glued to their handheld devices either, translating into more flirting, dancing, and uninhibited madness.
All this flows until a close just after 7am. It's hands down one of the best nights of the summer. And it’s all been for free.
At some point in the night, someone whispers that the budget for this branded bonanza was actually 250k.
Okay: "expensive free".
This has been the theme of my entire summer. Lavish and extravagant; obscene wealth being splashed and flashed all around me, but never by me. Proximity to a bubble of privilege intent on splurging, disassociating, and summering to its hearts' content. Whether it's complimentary bottles atop friendly footballer Vinicus Jr's club table, eating caviar-sprinkled sushi with his Japanese highness Nobu San under the stars, or the open bar at Charli XCX's pre-BoilerRoom sunset mash-up at El Silencio (and no, I won't find a clever way to inject that chronically misunderstood, overused, four-letter word into this paragraph), I've been bottom-feeding from the top all summer long.
And I'm not going to lie to you: it's been fucking great.
Some people might label this as freeloading. Others might feel their nerves prickle; indignant at so much tone-deaf expenditure as the rest of the world burns or buckles under the silent struggle of making ends meet. But one thing I've learnt to accept about living in the mirror-world of Ibiza is that you always seem to be caught in the jet stream of someone else's grand designs for a good time.
This is one of the playgrounds where the super-rich gather to make sense of their money simply by spending it. And in Ibiza someone always seems willing to oblige; converting finance into fantasy. Most of the time this comes alive through over-priced bottles at the clubs, opulent nine-course dinners, or parties overflowing with elaborate canapés. Trickle-down economics has been proven as fallacy – a recent study even showed the world's top 30 billionaires under 30 are all benefactors of inherited fortunes - but take it from someone who’s seen plenty of oysters shucked at the complimentary buffet: there’s a solid case to be made for trickle-around gastronomics. But, like most economic paradigms, this one is mainly an invitation-only type equation, too.
The 100-pax dinner for the Ses Dotze Naus Foundation to coincide with Ibiza's art fair Can Art was an early-season highlight. The flashy catering at the Maison Soleille Gallery launch served as figurative popcorn for the spectacle of a 12-year-old DJ and his 'Dad-ager' living vicariously behind the booth. PR princess Nikoleta hosted her 31st at El Silencio's Japanese pop-up 'Urusai' for 60 influencers and influentials - all comp'd of course. There were occasional invitations to beautiful houses to dine with worldly guests, many of whom I may never see again, but appreciated the momentary laughs and entertaining stories nonetheless. A six-course cactus-themed dinner by a conscious cactus-focused start-up founded by an American robotics entrepreneur turned out to be one of the tastiest meals of the summer thanks to the two-weeks of foraging and impassioned food-prep by 'El Xabi Chef.'
More than one endless train of all-things-free, this summer has been a non-stop luxury locomotive of "expensive free". Perhaps the most serendipitous example of this feast of abundance was when my summer housing arrangements collapsed only to be remedied by a timely PR-invitation that shoe-horned me into a four-figure-a-night hotel.
Having lived through all of this. Having loved all of this. I want to take the time to say a genuine, heartfelt thank you.
To the PR people dishing out the invitations. To the restaurants setting their tables. To the chefs filling the plates and the bar staff mixing the cocktails. To the millionaires throwing parties and the production crews bringing them to life. To the brands brave enough to do IRL events. To the hotels who hosted, the DJs who guest-listed, and all the August Leos who put on worthy birthday bashes – thank you, thank you, thank you.
Caught in the gravitational pull of fame and celebrity, another paradox of plenty comes into play. Sudden wealth and success can open the floodgates to all sorts of offers, invitations, and access. But the inertia of getting so much, so easily, can gild the road to entitlement. Which is why one must always remember that somehow, somewhere, someone is still footing the bill.
To those people – to those who pay the way – I also want to say thank you.
Gratitude is said to be the highest vibration in the universe. Entitled brat energy (ok, there, I said it) is no doubt one of the lowest. So, while it's easy to get lost in the fumes of affluence or blinded by all the iPhone perma-flashes in the DJ booth, I'm under no illusions about why living in the middle of this Disneyland of hedonistic distraction continues to be an amazing gift.
While none of this superficial fanfare drives me, nor balms my soul, I am still forever grateful.
In Ibiza, at the peak of summer, time becomes a bit of an abstraction, speeding up but also seeming to stand still, every day begins to feel like a Friday. In this haze, it's easy to lose sight of what matters, especially when you're surrounded by so many people swatting away any inkling of reality like an irritating insect.
This August, I made a deliberate decision to flow in tune with the island’s current, clutching onto the belief that having fun and embracing joy is radically important in life. But enjoying life doesn’t have to be zero sum or a detour into complete disassociation. You are allowed to live life abundantly rather than apologetically.
Now that we've moved into September, I am taking some time to express gratitude for all the good times. All of them.
Again: thank you.
With August survived, I also want to share three of my observed lessons from the summer.
The first is that people seem to have a stronger sense of reckless abandon than ever. My survival technique - to protect myself from all this energetic anarchy - has been to navigate it surrounded by people I trust, who add rather than subtract energy, and also possess the ability to observe the unfolding (shit)show with a sense of humour and healthy comprehension of the human psyche. I call this the 'amiable energetic shield' and if you get it right, you can take it and make it anywhere.
The second is more sobering. So much of the world's extractive and exploitative tendencies seem to come home to roost in a Mediterranean amusement park like Ibiza. Yet, when you observe the culprits of late-stage capitalism more closely, you begin to realise that most of them don't even seem to actually be enjoying themselves. It's almost like they've reached the apex of the wealth pyramid only to realise that material abundance is merely a superficial sweetener that doesn’t sate their much deeper spiritual yearnings...
Which brings me to my final observance... In Ibiza, what all of these celebrities, gazillionaires, and retired finance-bros seem to have in common is an existential desire for deeper human connection. All the boats, the VIP tables, the private dinners and five-figure restaurant lunches, are just overpriced opportunities to meet people, resonate with loved ones, create memories, hopefully feel something, and possibly discover some meaning along the way. Sure, there are definitely some other primal drivers at work here, too (the urge to impress peers, show-off to strangers, or simply get laid), but ultimately, what they're all seeking deep down (being present, real human connection, good conversation, an enlivened spirit) is all freely available and accessible to everyone else – as long as they truly want it.
After all the splurging and purging, cash splashing and flashing, the essence of “expensive free” is actually freely available for free, even as an entire industry of sensory-teasers and people-pleasers peddle pre-packaged dreams that promise otherwise.
I recently stumbled upon a meme with another playful paradox by American writer Mark Twain. It’s one that both billionaires and bottom-feeders could benefit from, if only they learnt to ground their summers with more authentic intentions:
"If you want love and abundance in your life, give it away."
A big thanks - in advance - to everyone who puts this one into practice.