You can’t buy the usual holiday trappings at Nammos, the ultra-exclusive beach club on the south-west coast of the Greek island of Mykonos.

No buckets, spades, or ice lollies here – far too pedestrian.

If you feel like being edgy, you could drop a cool €250 000 on a piece of graffiti art.

After that, take a stroll through Nammos Village, an enclave of 20 luxury boutiques including Gucci, Burberry and Louis Vuitton.

Kate Moss DJed at the opening party last year, so we’re talking fancy here.

Welcome to the island that The Guardian calls “the party island of the super-rich”.

Nammos is a destination of choice for some of the world’s wealthiest and most famous people – from Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan and Ariana Grande to Philip Green, Wayne Rooney and Usain Bolt. Their spending has upended the local community, transforming it from a fishing village into “Kings Road-on-Sea”…

Others papped at the bar or included in the 113-page Nammos magazineinclude Lewis Hamilton, the models Bella Hadid and Heidi Klum, the singer Nicole Scherzinger and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Bookings at the restaurants are required weeks in advance. Once you’ve secured a reservation, you’ll pay roughly €200 for a plate of sushi.

An attempt to have a beer at the bar – where, without exception, all the customers, young and old, are dancing on the tables to thumping R&B – is thwarted by a team of six security guards in black polo shirts and shorts.

George, one of the guards, explains that only those who have booked a table are allowed to join the party. “It’s like a normal restaurant until 6pm,” he says. “Then the party starts, every night. People spend huge amounts – €50,000 to €100,000 isn’t unusual.”

George is working there for the summer. His job is to prevent the common folk from trying to mingle with the rich and famous.

Tonight, George is guarding the table of Australian YouTube influencer Shani Grimmond, whose 1.4 million followers are frequently treated to shots of her in swimwear in exactly this sort of location. On her table, adjacent to the one she is dancing on, are 34 bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne. Each bottle of VC, as the clientele refer to it, costs €1,000. Grimmond declines to speak to me.

In 2017, one-time-billionaire Green was caught on Instagram at Nammos smashing plates and spraying champagne with property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, the Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner and the US designer Tommy Hilfiger:

 

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There ain’t no party like a GREEK party…. champagne showers #mykonos styleeeee

A post shared by Sarah Nazari1 (@sarah_nazari1) on Aug 9, 2017 at 12:09pm PDT

Looks like a vibe. A tacky vibe, but a vibe.

Obviously, privacy comes at a premium:

For extra privacy, famous faces can rent a cabana, complete with an outdoor jacuzzi and butler: a snip at €5,000 a day. Cabanas at an equally pretty but far from glamorous beach a 10-minute drive away are €10.

Mykonos has been attracting tourists since the 1920s, when archaeologists and antiquity hunters used it as a base to visit the ancient Greek ruins on neighbouring Delos. It came of age in the 60s when the former US first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis [below] visited with her second husband, the shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

Following her lead came Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren. There are two bars and a hotel dedicated to Jackie O on the island. The island became a destination for gay visitors in the 70s, when the Italian-American painter Pierro Aversa and a local fisherman, Andreas Koutsoukos, set up Pierro’s, an LGBT-friendly bar.

Where celebs go, the rich will follow. And where the rich go, you’re sure to find superyachts.

There are 11 of them at anchor when I visit, including the Maltese Falcon, a $300m (£240m) three-mast sail-powered superyacht built for the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins. The six-cabin yacht is available to charter for €480,000 a week including jet skis and water jet packs. It has reportedly been hired by Google’s co-founder Larry Page and the actors Tom Hanks and Hugh Jackman.

Let’s get a look at the Maltese Falcon:

If you don’t like yachts, you can charter a helicopter – or bring your own.

Then there’s the “art” at the Eden Art Gallery, where you can pick up work by graffiti artist Alec Monopoly (who would be lynched if he ever came into contact with real street artists).

The first work seen upon entering depicts the banker from Monopoly at the helm of a yacht with Disney’s Scrooge McDuck in the background. The price is €250,000.

Here’s a video of Monopoly selling his soul. He’s the one in the black surgical mask which he wears to hide his shame.

Good times.

Other works in Eden Mykonos include a giant black and silver American Express credit card embossed with “Your Name Here”. Mehta says there is no hidden meaning to the works – they’re simply “about money, with Monopoly characters and [themes] showing the aspects of life of the wealthy”.

Classy. It’ll look great in the summer house.

In usual gentrification style, there are no fishermen left in Nammos, having been edged out by property developers.

Some locals complain that the influx of wealthy holidaymakers has pushed up the prices of all homes on the island, making it difficult to find an affordable place to live.

…“There have been tourists coming here for ever, but there are a lot more now and they are a lot richer and spend a lot of money. Local people want some of it, so they put their places on Airbnb, which means there are fewer houses for us to rent and the prices are going up.

Hey, if you guys want to start a revolution, you have my full support.

[source:guardian]