There are just 5,000 residents who live in the 70 streets of leafy, ultra-luxurious Mayfair. But its resonance in culture is far greater.
The old corner of London, hemmed in by the grand sweeps of Piccadilly, Oxford Street, Park Lane and Regent Street, has overtaken Knightsbridge as London’s top luxury neighbourhood, he claims. While developers built One Hyde Park, the Bulgari apartments and now Chelsea Barracks on the south side of Hyde Park, they have also turned their sights more centrally.
“Since the war, when the rich moved out and businesses moved in, Mayfair has been a shadow of its former self,” says Alex Michelin, the founder of luxury developer Finchatton. “A new identity is evolving for the area, and it’s about high fashion, the best restaurants, contemporary style and an international buzz.” Wetherell describes this as a psycho-geographical effect, that the environment changes the way you feel when you live within it.