I bumped into an old friend last week and she invited me to a screening of the Oscar winning The Red Shoes (1948). The film was restored this year, which was made possible by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation and partners the Hollywood Foreign Press Association along with the UCLA Film and Television Archive. I hadn’t heard of the shoe designers shop that it was being held in, nor had I heard of the film but it sounded like a good evening (champagne, canapés and popcorn).

We arrived at 6.30, very unfashionably early and I was offered a glass of prosecco or a belini and I replied ‘ooooh, I’d like both please’ to which I received a blank look and a ‘what, you want both?’. Yes, I had mistaken the glass of peach juice and champagne they were offering me for a blini (I was thinking, yum smoked salmon and cream cheese blini). I was delighted to see the old fashioned pop corn machine, the smell of fresh popcorn conveniently wafting my way.

I’m a fan of canapés and sampled the whole range, even the prosciutto covered fig, which made me gag slightly. My favourite was a courgette and smoked salmon jelly, shaped in a small dome. The biggest surprise of the evening was, I have to say, rather boringly the celery salt that I heaped on to my popcorn (served in Rupert Sanderson branded cones). I’m not a fan of salted popcorn or celery and I have never had celery salt before but I was pleasantly surprised in taking the first few bites. Of course, I went back for a second helping before we entered the cinema.

They had taken every last little bit of furniture out of the shop and replaced it with 20 chairs to make it look like a cinema, we were served a small pot of Loseley vanilla ice cream upon entry and on our seats lay pretty name cards. We received a speech from Rupert before the film started explaining the nature of the event. The shop is 5 years old and it seemed appropriate to celebrate with a screening of this film as his wife’s great granddad won an Oscar for the original version in 1948 and the film is quite fittingly about shoes, ballet shoes, but shoes at that. The lights went down and we heard a shout of ‘are you going to turn the Oscar off?’ I turned to the right and the original Oscar was sat on a plinth all lit up. The film was captivating, a fantastic love story and had stunning visual features. Two hours later the famous red shoes were taken off and we were on our way to the tube. An unexpectedly delightful evening.

Sarah

Rupert with designer Roland Mouret at the event