Mary Portas arrived hand in hand with her pregnant partner Melanie Rickey as London held its first women-only “lesbian ball”.
The Queen of Shops and fashion journalist Rickey, who admitted this week that she was “pregnant enough to make getting out of a car a three-point manoeuvre”, were among 200 guests at last night’s Tatler party at the Quintessentially HQ club in Portland Place.
Rickey said the night was “brilliant, wall-to-wall glamorous lesbian fabulosity”. Other guests included Gillian Anderson, presenter Sue Perkins and Clare Balding.
Tatler editor Kate Reardon said: “What I hoped we achieved with this party was to begin to normalise lesbianism in ‘high society’. Last night was us saying, ‘This is it — we are crossing the Rubicon’.”
Today, the gay rights rainbow flag was raised over Whitehall for the first time to coincide with tomorrow’s Gay Pride festival at the request of Nick Clegg.
