The Ritz London served as Andy Warhol’s base on arriving in London on July 6, 1986, after a Concorde flight from New York. The diary presents it as both a place of extravagant comfort and a point of connection: from a large, suite-like room, Warhol received calls that led into the evening’s gathering of artists, fashion figures, and English society.

Arrival and accommodation

Chris collected Warhol early for the trip, and Anthony d’Offay met him after the flight and took him to the hotel. Warhol described his double room as so large it seemed to comprise three rooms. The detail gives the London arrival an immediate sense of scale, while the diary’s practical accounting—limo, magazines, porter, and hotel porters—keeps luxury embedded in the day’s ordinary logistics.

Calls and the dinner

At the hotel, the phone rang: Billy Boy called, and then Tina Chow called to say dinner was arranged. Warhol had told her not to hold a party for him, but she did so anyway. The Ritz thus appears not merely as accommodation but as a hub where personal calls quickly became plans for a public welcome.

A London social gathering

Warhol took a cab from the hotel to Mr. Chow’s, where Tina had assembled a group that included Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Nick Rhodes, and Billy Boy, alongside what he described as English society figures. He recorded that everyone was sweet to the party. The sequence—from the spacious room and its ringing phone to the crowded dinner—makes the hotel the quiet threshold to Warhol’s London social world, rather than the scene of the gathering itself.