Welcome to THE KLUB!
There’s a new club in town, or rather in Cascais. It’s aimed at HNWIs and big shot entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to combine business and networking with pleasure and relaxation.
THE KLUB is not your average suited affair, neither is it a Lisbon lunchtime guest speaker kind of club. And you won’t find an overwhelming splash of ‘B’ list soap stars and wannabes; the kind that usually grace or rather displace the pages of café society magazines.
The mood at this Business Chillout Sunset is one of light, casually luxurious, understated influence, peppered by people ‘in the know’ who are, by nature, low profile. The kind of place that has a late 1960s inner circle south of France chic feel to it, populated by those who are definitely not the ‘in crowd’ and wouldn’t be seen dead being part of it.
In short, THE KLUB – Business & Lifestyle Club is a contemporary lifestyle, business and philanthropy club that conjures up that kind of Cannes exclusivity and vibe that once existed in the 1960s and has been relegated to James Bond films.
Located right on the Cascais Marina, above the restaurants and swanky and elegant yachts moored below, it has a well appointed lounge and a meeting room where the right people can connect with the smart money.
“We are creating a distinct and eclectic space where men and women from different professional backgrounds and cultures share excellence in common,” says president and founder João Pestana Dias who has had bags of experience sitting on the boards of clubs and chambers of commerce and also has arguably Portugal’s most exclusive and glamorous events organisation company, Fadus Special Events.
There were one or two faces from other clubs, equally prestigious in their own right, but with a different purpose. There was also a scattering of colourful and larger than life characters, the kind you’d find in Harold Robbins and Jojo Moyes novels.
The marine theme of the party inevitably meant putting suitably pretty, leggy girls in sailor outfits with short skirts as hostesses, pouting purposefully for photos with the guests even if it was rather cliché. For the ladies there were two handsome sailor boys pouring enticing red cocktails.
But for an outsider looking in on a world in which most people will almost certainly never belong, it was refreshing, fun and a breath of fresh air compared to the hallowed and occasionally stuffy suited Lisbon hotel lunches I am more used to attending. In an uncertain world dominated by end-of-days catastrophising, it appealed to a nostalgia for another place and time, another era in which the world had standards and all was well in the world, and although that world never really existed for most people beyond the realms of Sean Connery and 007, it was pleasantly comforting and reassuring. I loved it!
CHRIS GRAEME
