Dracula, St. Moritz, Switzerland

DRACULA
St Moritz, Switzerland - 2023

There is a strong collective who would vote Dracula Club in St Moritz as the best night club in the world. If they are out voted, they will ascribe the loss to demographics and ignorance and will hold out on their conviction to their dying day. I think I may be one of those unflinching disciples and I have been to a few night clubs in my life. I am not a member, but I have the context to admit that there are truly no places quite like it. The famed devotees of St Moritz may just be right.

The cavernous and yet cohesive chalet is a microcosm of St Moritz, a town known from the outside for its prosperity and glamour, but from the inside for its frivolity and loose governance. If there is a decadence in town, it is dwarfed by the lightness of touch. Dracula is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang meeting Studio 54 and when I see 85-year-olds dancing energetically and in time with their grandson’s girlfriend and no one batting an eyelid, I know I have found an antidote to oppressive woke culture.

It was Gunter Sachs who put St Moritz on the party map. When he moved there with his wife Brigitte Bardot, he wanted to have his own club and so Dracula was born. On his passing, the club’s governance passed to his son Rolf - a man of great charm, formidable intellect and creative sensibility. It was Rolf who gave me permission to bring a film crew into this most exclusive of clubs and I was determined to reward his faith - there would be no second chance. Dracula doesn’t do film crews.

When I am asked about the vibe in St Moritz, many are looking for the negative angles that come from observing privilege and excess. But I simply applaud those living life to the full.

As Confucius said in 550 BC: “We have two lives; the second begins when we realise we only have one.”
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