Girls dance with their backs against poles wrapped in tutu dresses adorned with crystals, the Hollywood glitterati are strewn across white beds surrounding a pool whilst bursts of fire shoot out into the night’s sky, a gold hummer limousine waits outside the door, this is one of Hollywood’s hottest night spots, Friday night at Drai’s nightclub.
At Drais with my friend African supermodel, Joyce Mandi
Amongst the star scattered sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevards sits the club that’s nestled into the Hotel W, bouncers guard every edge of the rope separating the streets from the Aladdin’s cave inside.
A guy called Sunny walks up and down ordering doormen to lift the rope when people reach the owners expectations and are approved entry into the club, those who get in are usually beautiful young women or very rich men who have ordered table service.
Once through the sacred rope guests ascend to the club in elevators and pay a $20 cover fee, the clientele are composed of mainly women with a few men with large wallets scattered throughout, they are seated at tables covered in expensive drinks.
Girls flock around them awaiting the men’s approval so they can attempt to climb onto the first rung of the Hollywood ladder giving them a chance to soar high enough in the future to live the American dream.
Fire thrusts around attempting to escape the grasps of its bell jar.
Every time a table orders a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, cocktail waitresses put on a show with the liquid being brought out by two females, one holds the bottle above her head whilst the other has her hand raised in the air holding onto a glass vessels containing lit sparklers, as they walk through the crowd the fire thrusts around attempting to escape the grasps of its bell jar.
The club is composed of a large rectangular room, three females dance on podiums dressed in beautiful white dresses with full bodied skirts and corset tops encrusted with crystals. The DJ spins R&B and a rapper with dreadlocks occasionally takes to the podium and tells guests to stick their middle finger in the air.
The dance floor is small and centrally located between the DJ booth and some tables, dancing guests can expect to be nudged as people attempt to walk to the bar. This faux pas on the clubs front has been bypassed by allowing club goers to dance on the tables and podiums.
The music occasional skips outside the realms of social norms as dirty gangster rap slips into the mix, with lyrics composed of words more likely to be heard escaping from a prostitutes mouth than that of the LA in-crowd.
Guests are seated around a bonfire
Outside the main room is a patioed rooftop terrace with a pool in the centre, white outdoor furniture sits perfectly around the edge of the water and a few large beds are dotted around. Flames are enclosed in black metal cages and a small gas bonfire provides a feature for guests to sit around.
Men approach the clubs women, for me this entailed conversations with a car dealership owner, a Jewish grad student, a Boston based businessman and a group of Kazakhstan millionaires who work in the oil industry.
As the night draws to a close the girls surrounding rich men become more and more intoxicated, a pair give lap dances to their beverage buyers, and another girl makes an epic fail as she falls from the pole whilst trying to seduce her money men.
We take this as our cue to leave, as we descend in the elevator and through the doors we are brought heavily back down to earth by a Mexican man who gave me a sob story in an attempt to steal my phone by asking to make a call, he scurried off when I told him I would make the call for him and not actually hand over the phone.
The dusty car park across the street and the dirty pavement slabs are a million miles away from the sparkling pool, pristine furniture and crystal clad dancers, but sadly until another night the dream is over.
How to get in:
Girls: Wear sexy dresses team with stilettos, flawless makeup and glossy hair.
Guys: Order table service to avoid the line
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