Inside the most debaucherous party of the year: RICHARD KAY reveals the inside story of aristocratic model Lady Lola Bute's 25th birthday party that caused an extraordinary social media storm

In the glossy magazine world they inhabit, aristocratic model Lady Lola Crichton-Stuart and her Dutch boyfriend Parker Van Noord look the ideal couple — frivolously glamorous, seemingly rich and oh so very beautiful.

Their lives appear a constant round of parties and premieres, fashion shows and festivals, private yachts and ski resorts where they are photographed wrapped in each other's arms.

Somehow there's always someone on hand to record these moments of decorative togetherness.

This week their matching good looks and good fortune saw the impossibly gorgeous couple alight on the Scottish Isle of Bute, where Lola's ancestral home, Mount Stuart House, a spectacular Gothic revival pile, was host to yet another decadent and exclusive gathering.

It has seen some spectacular jamborees over the years: at Stella McCartney's wedding, starry guests included Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. 

Aristocratic model Lady Lola Bute poses on the dancefloor as she celebrates her 25th birthday in her ancestral home in Scotland

Among the VIP guests at the event were Sienna Miller, Annie Doble and Camille Charriere

Guests invited to the event sat at long, lavish and beautifully decorated tables

And older islanders still recall the celebration that marked the birth of Lady Lola's late father, John Crichton-Stuart, the 7th Marquess of Bute — better known as the racing driver Johnny Dumfries — when a 30ft bonfire was lit to spread the news that an heir had been born to one of the wealthiest landed estates in Britain.

Estate workers gathered round the fire to celebrate with tankards of free beer.

How tame, however, compared with the black-tie hedonism of the several-day 'How Lola can you go' themed affair — a general invitation, it appeared, to see who among the women could display the most flesh. The occasion was the young aristocrat's 25th birthday, and what a party it was.

Giant inflatable mushrooms and tepees implausibly sprouted throughout the vast baronial mansion. There was techno music and flashing lights, dining tables groaning with lobsters, oysters and local beef, a marching band of pipers and fireworks lighting up the skies above the Firth of Clyde.

Friends, from Hollywood stars to fashion icons and royalty, sipped champagne through straws straight from the bottle, every one of them as dazzling as the birthday girl and her beau.

This was Ibiza colliding with Saltburn, the arch satire about the debauchery of the upper classes. Even the music that the 100 guests danced to was a nod to the dark film, including as it did Sophie Ellis-Bextor's hit Murder On The Dancefloor, which was the closing track to the homo-erotic psycho-thriller.

No wonder one partygoer hailed the glamour of it all as being 'like a movie'.

Perhaps it was the extravagance or simply the sheer vulgarity of all the shenanigans posted on social media by Lady Lola — who wore the shortest, barely-there, thigh-skimming silver mini-dress by designer Annie Doble — but the event has triggered an extraordinary outpouring of online vitriol.

'Ladies Day at Aintree,' was one of the kinder observations. 'Harry Potter and the Party of Despair', mocked another.

Others described the hard-partying excess as catnip for the Scottish National Party.

Lola poses for a photo on the shoulders of a guest at her party as the night wore on

New Zealand model Jessica Clarke and Mary Charteris, a daughter of the eccentric Earl of Wemyss and known for her outrageous dress sense, were also in attendance 

Lola's ancestral home, Mount Stuart House, a spectacular Gothic revival pile, was host to the decadent and exclusive gathering

As for the guests, one wrote: 'Tacky, ghastly people.' The verdict on the women, many of whom were described as 'influencers' and 'fashion bloggers' was especially acerbic. One wag labelled them 'Pashmina Talks-Loudly'.

Was it really as bad as all that or is such criticism merely snobbery and cheap envy? It is certainly true that once upon a time frolics for the lairds and their lasses were impeccably private affairs. Thanks to Instagram and other media channels that has all changed.

This party was accompanied by copious photographic commentary, from the moment the guests arrived via the car ferry (A-listers preferred to arrive by private plane on the island's grass-strip airfield) to the lavish dinner, the dancing, the snogging, the bedroom and even the bathroom.

Among the dozens of guests were the actress Sienna Miller, stunning New Zealand model Jessica Clarke, Princess Olympia of Greece, the make-up mogul Charlotte Tilbury with her West End producer husband George Waud and the ubiquitous socialite Poppy Delevingne.

Sienna particularly turned heads. For a woman of 42 who gave birth to her second child only months ago, she looked sensational in a sheer floor-length cobweb pearl gown that, thanks to the penetrating flashlights of the revellers' mobile phones, may have displayed more than she intended.

Nothing or no one could out-do the birthday girl, though.

In countless pictures and videos, she is either gyrating wildly on the dance floor in a daring dress that struggles to contain her cleavage, being lifted into the air by the chiselled Van Noord or even sitting on someone's shoulders oblivious to the fact that she is flashing her underwear.

At one point someone hands her a pair of dark glasses. Carefree she certainly was — and still the life and soul of the party the following day when she posed in a white feather coat while hopping on a local bus. Later still she donned a shaggy pink jacket, matching pink sunglasses and provocatively skimpy top with WET written across it.

Lola's half-sister Jazzy, an actress who appeared in Game Of Thrones, enjoys an oyster at the lavish event

The music that the 100 guests danced to was a nod to the dark film Saltburn, including as it did Sophie Ellis-Bextor's hit Murder On The Dancefloor, which was the closing track to the homo-erotic psycho-thriller

Bute parties tend to be riotous family affairs. Lola's half-brother Josh de Lisser who ran London restaurant Boom Burger was in charge of the kitchen and her half-sister Jazzy, an actress who appeared in Game Of Thrones, oversaw the whole weekend, along with fashionable party-planning company Haute London who said they had 'helped out informally'.

Presiding over it all was Lola's stylish mother, 64-year-old fashion designer Serena Bute, the dowager marchioness, who lost her husband and Lola's father to cancer in 2021.

There were some familiar celebrity guests. Upper crust Lady Mary Charteris, a daughter of the eccentric Earl of Wemyss known for her outrageous dress sense and married to rocker Robbie Furze of The Big Pink, was on DJ duties; flamboyant model and writer Jack Guinness, author of The Queer Bible and scion of the brewing family; and Ella Richards, granddaughter of the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

Other members of this new 'glamocracy' included party organisers India Langton, daughter of Chelsea property man Andrew Langton, the willowy Amanda Sheppard, ex-wife of crooner Bryan Ferry, and well-connected sports agent David Gardner, who is said to be the best friend of David Beckham. On Scotland's outer limits, drink plays a significant part in the social life.

And while whisky is often the preferred lubricant, for this weekend, cocktails such as dirty martinis were all the rage.

No alcohol, however, passed the lips of Lady Lola Crichton-Stuart, who has been teetotal since 2019. Instead, sticking to her Scottish roots, she swigged cans of the sugary fizzy drink Irn-Bru.

Even sober Bedales-educated Lola has joked that she has 'never been subtle'. But nor is she an empty-headed It-Girl.

For behind the façade of party-loving privilege lies a backstory with more than its fair share of pain and misfortune.

In 2019 she revealed how she had 'lost all hope' after her long term boyfriend Kai Schachter-Rich, the son of a New York art dealer, took his own life. Her heartbreak was compounded months later when her best friend, Ila Scheckter, the daughter of Formula 1 champion Jody Scheckter, was found dead from a drugs overdose.

It drove her to not only give up alcohol but to set up a charity, Eternity Movement, that helps to break the stigmas surrounding suicide, addiction and mental health. In the four years since she has raised more than £1.2 million for its endeavours.

Writing of her experiences in her book, Loss And Hope, she said: 'I was on a destructive path and I made a decision to show the people I've loved and lost that their lives aren't in vain.'

Of her former boyfriend, she movingly wrote: 'You were my first kiss and I was your last. Our love will never be gone.'

She went on: 'When we lost you I lost all hope. I was angry, confused and broken. You forced me to deal with all the demons I had ignored for so long. I truly believe that was your last gift to me.'

Tragedy, however, was not over. The death of her beloved father John from leukaemia, aged 62, was a devastating blow.

The loss of the self-styled 'modest marquess', who for years turned his back on his aristocratic heritage, is still keenly felt in his youngest daughter's life.

Tall and lithe like her father, she dedicated the party to him and her social media profile is sprinkled with pictures of the 7th Marquess's handsome face.

He was enormously proud of the way his daughter confronted tragedy and turned her life around. For it demonstrated she had inherited his resilience and the unconventionality that is part of the Bute family tradition.

The third marquess, for example, despite owning vast chunks of the British countryside, didn't hunt, shoot or fish and banned the use of traps on his estates. He campaigned for a Scottish parliament — highly unusual for a 19th-century landowner — and as rector of St Andrews University called for women and Jews to be admitted to its medical faculty.

Lola's father was equally independent of mind. At 15 he dropped out of Ampleforth, the Roman Catholic public school, and worked as a labourer on building sites in London before becoming a painter and decorator.

Later he landed a job as a mechanic, opening a way to pursue his dream of motor racing.

The former champion driver and friend Damon Hill observed of him: 'He spent his entire life trying to live down the fact he was descended from Robert the Bruce. I always got the sense he hated the very idea of people thinking he only got anywhere because of his background.'

At 19, he began racing under the name Johnny Dumfries, a name taken from his courtesy title the Earl of Dumfries. He progressed to F1 in 1986, partnering the late Ayrton Senna at the Lotus team. It turned out to be his one and only F1 season, and he picked up just three points. 

Instead he went on to endurance car racing and in 1988 had his greatest success as winner of the Le Mans 24-hour race before quitting in 1991 due to the illness of his father.

Two years later he succeeded to the marquessate and took over the 300-acre Mount Stewart estate but he struggled psychologically with his new responsibilities, refusing to use the title for several years.

In 2012 he was named as the richest sportsman in Scotland thanks in part to selling off the other family home, Dumfries House, and its collection of Chippendale furniture to the then Prince Charles for £45 million.

His first wife was former nanny Carolyn Waddell, with whom he had three children, two daughters and a son Jack, now the 8th Marquess. Lola's mother was Bute's second wife, Serena, like her daughter something of a wild child in her early years. She too was a model and fell into drug use.

She later revealed that drugs were almost certainly responsible for passing on Hepatitis C, the infectious blood-borne virus, to her elder daughter Jazzy.

After getting clean, Serena began her own fashion design business and met her first husband, Jamaican Robert de Lisser.

The marriage did not last and her ex-husband remains something of a mysterious figure. Accused by U.S. authorities of being at the centre of conspiracy to import cannabis from the Caribbean to America, he later absconded from the Cayman Islands while on bail.

Jazzy's decision, meanwhile, a few years ago to go public about her infection and living with Hepatitis C was to inspire her sister in her campaigning.

All in all, perhaps that criticism of Lady Lola's partying is a little uncharitable.

'She's incredible,' says a friend.

'She partied harder than anyone fuelled only by Irn-Bru.'