by Glistening seas and unrestrained debauchery – it’s the perfect summer cocktail many of us are after and for 2024, Bodrum is the place to find it. This chunk of Turkish coast, dotted with luxury resorts by the turquoise Aegean Sea, has already proven itself as much, long before the season gets into full swing.
All the signers are there: in April, Roman Abramovich’s Solaris superyacht was spotted at anchor at Yalikavak Marina, and last month Kate Moss joined her for the first Med Bodrum festival, where she was pictured hand-in-hand -hand with headline act Skip Marley, Bob’s grandson. They join a long list of Bodrum fans, from Cleopatra and Mark Antony – who were enchanted by the landscape and visited on their way to Rome – to Mick Jagger, Princess Margaret and Michael Caine, who made a great place for ‘the singing of the late seventies. .
Today, that allure is coming back full throttle. The Maxx Royal, a sprawling 11.4-hectare hotel that has just opened (“Bodrum is Turkey’s brightest riviera,” said the brand’s executive director, Banu Akan), joins other ultra-luxe spots with familiar names on them. Bodrum’s glittering renaissance began 10 years ago with the opening of Mandarin Oriental, followed by Aman, Six Senses and EDITION posts. The latter, from the co-founder of Studio 54 Ian Schrager, has gained a taste of New York’s louche party scene since it opened in 2018. It is located in Tilcicik bay, at the western point of the peninsula, the smell of Le Labo and slabs white marble welcome to come in. For the season opener last month, these included a suitable (well-tweaked) mix of 24-hour party people from Istanbul and London.
“As one of the first luxury hotels to open in the area, The Bodrum EDITION has long known Bodrum’s allure for the rich and famous,” Mustafa Bulmus, the hotel’s general manager, told me. “The picture-perfect coastline, the crystal clear Aegean Sea and the privacy our bay offers have attracted everyone from Kate Moss to Jeff Bezos. The cutest jet setters in the world are choosing to spend their summers in Bodrum, and for good reason.”
Sitting on a sun lounger, as the cream of the top E1-property-impact-boy dipped into the water, I began to understand the appeal. One of the resort’s three restaurants, KITCHEN, has just received its first (richly deserved) Michelin star. The beach attendant service, dishing out EDITION branded coconuts and baklava flavored ice cream, is superb. But Bodrum is best known for what goes down after dark. Tatler named it the “hedonistic hotspot” in its 2024 travel guide, and after Friday night, with its 108 guest rooms, suites and villas filled to capacity, I was about to find out why…
Arriving with a complimentary golf buggy, the DJ’s thudding bass grew louder, before the oceanfront dance floor filled with silk slip dresses and floating linen shirts, came into view. The champagne was poured like tap water and the maître d’ type went towards the Turks who were well present, explaining that Bodrum is like the Hamptons. The city’s main residents come here for relaxation and fun — “think of it as ‘Istanbul on the sea’,” they said. The British contingent had flown in thanks to model Oliver Cheshire, Pixie Lott’s husband, who was opening his menswear shop and Toby Watkins, CHÈ Studios, down by the beach.
I find Cheshire in a corner, wearing one of his own knitted polo designs. He explains over a margarita that Bodrum is “the perfect choice for CHÈ’s first holiday boutique because it feels undiscovered, fresh and new compared to other summer destinations, which reflects the ethos of our brand. It lacks the luxury of ease so it felt like the perfect match for us.” Later, the drag queens of Paris met with applause as they dressed the bar with a feathered head, as they hit Like a Prayer into the ocean. One of them felt that these scenes were common occurrences.
Bodrum has been attracting the one percent since the mid-seventies, when its lucrative sponge diving industry declined and the 650 sq km area turned towards tourism – aided by landmarks including the ruins of the Mausoleum (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), and Bodrum Castle from the 15th century. International glamazons were first seen in Macakizi, now a five-star extravaganza that welcomes everyone from Bill Gates to the Delevingnes. It started life as a B&B in 1977 and quickly became a late-night hangout for the guests of Ahmet Ertegun, the American-Turkish co-founder of Atlantic Records, who had a villa nearby, and which included Jagger, Bette Midler and Chuck Berry. on a regular basis. . By 1979 the famous Halikarnas Discotheque nightclub opened its doors to Sting, Yves Saint Laurent, Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock, and Bodrum’s name was established among the upper echelons.
After a drop in quality, 2017 returned to form with the opening of Yalikavak, Turkey’s brightest yacht marina. That year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle escaped “undetected” on a trip to Bodrum before their wedding, according to the 2020 biography Finding Freedom, where they stayed five nights in a private villa with views over Yalikavak bay, and they made a trip to Markle Kismet Jewelry with favorite Milka, who has a job out by the boats. The current waterfront today has a restaurant offering of Nobu, Zuma, Bagatelle and Novikov – think of it as the Mayfair of seafood.
Turkish photographer Mert Alas, the first choice for supermodels and David Beckham alike, as well as the man behind Jeremy Allen White’s shoot for Calvin Klein, must be credited with raising Bodrum’s credentials – he posed for Moss and Naomi Campbell familiar with the scene, both of them have fallen in love with The LifeCo detox retreat. He’s also invested in the area now, and his brand Seventy One Gin (which is endorsed by Madonna) is serving up many epic parties.
You can be sure to find it, along with A-list holidays 2024, at The MAINE Bodrum – the Hanover Square haunt with spiders in Dubai and Ibiza, which also opened at The Maxx Royal. “We’re introducing ‘dining’ and more nights to Bodrum,” says founder Joey Ghazal. “There are already plenty of daytime options like Lucca Beach and Macakizi that are pulling in the trendy boating crowd along the coast, but nowhere for the crew to go for a night out – that’s going to change.”
Catch you in the hammam – or, more likely, on the dance floor.
