My father-in-law once told me about attending house parties in Brixton in the 1970s, where the rented magnolia walls would get smears from rub-a-dub dancing; bodies squashed and gyrating in steady circular motions against the walls to lover’s rock: Janet Kay and Dennis Brown. After they ended, the residue of these get-togethers was left behind – maybe the indigo dye from a pair of jeans, or the scrape of a belt as people pressed against each other. Houses are transformed by the people inside them, after all.
The history of the music that emerged from house parties thrown by immigrant communities is much documented; the architecture and furniture of these spaces less so. It was in living rooms that thousands of dances took place as an act of resistance and refuge: from the Southampton shebeens (underground gatherings that provided respite from racist club policies) in the 1970s and 80s, back to the rent parties of the Harlem Renaissance, hosted with a small entry fee to help residents avoid eviction. In Mabel Dwight’s 1929 painting Harlem Rent Party – which depicts both a party that I want to attend and the type I have attended – bodies are seen undulating and free. A sign that reads ‘Home sweet home’ suggests the sense of the house as a sanctuary, away from the surveillance of police, or forcible exclusion from public life. One woman is bent over dancing, arms outreached as if she is flying.
The architecture of domestic spaces, more so than public clubs or festivals, shapes the way your body behaves. Different interior layouts produce different experiences. Hurrying upstairs to use a bathroom, say, might require one person to follow another on a narrow staircase, seeing the arch of a back and a bum wiggle. A wider staircase might see both of you talking in (literal) step as you climb them, noticing how space is shared and manoeuvred, how a hand looks grasping a handrail and how it might grasp you, how someone manages the stop and start of people-traffic. Corridors often become exhibitions where a person might comment on a piece of art on the wall – both guest and home owner unwittingly revealing a part of themselves.
Kitchens become sites of a different kind of intimacy; when else would you find yourself in one with a stranger? The mock-marble sideboards, that toaster, microwave, or linoleum, the washing machine against which you might end up sitting cross-legged at the end of the night, accidentally pressing buttons and giggling with a potential lover about how to quieten it – all might invite a fantasy of domesticity. When a man you’re flirting with washes a cup so he can pour a drink for you, it might conjure the idea of sharing a kitchen, of seeing his body hunched over a Belfast sink.
At house parties I’ve thrown, been invited to and just turned up at, falling in as a friend of a friend of a friend, I’ve had the best times of my life in the living room. This is often the most transformed space, where breakables are removed but traces of the home’s occupants remain. In the context of a party, there are no inhibitions or, on the other hand, politely asking for a cup of tea. Objects and furniture suddenly serve different functions. An Ikea carpet, seldom a site for people expressing and exchanging lascivious looks and pressing their bodies together, might in these occasions be transformed by a new narrative layer (the place where one person met another; where this person spilled a drink or the DJ parked his decks). Desire is curated by controlling levels of darkness with fairy lights or low lighting and lit scented candles; people might investigate surroundings together, opening an alien freezer to look for ice like two explorers on a mission. My mum had a radiogram as a child – a crucial piece of furniture to play Asha Bhosle records – then later a hi-fi system in a glass cabinet that played Mariah Carey. Technology and furniture styles have changed, but the desire to transform domestic spaces through music, dance and community has not.
House parties have always had a power to spark connections. Historically, in the asphyxiatingly heteronormative Regency era, ‘house parties’ were where young people met each other and danced in a controlled environment, under the watchful eye of chaperones. A century on, decadence-on-display was the order of the day (think Jay Gatsby and, later, Holly Golightly’s entrances to monied society, both with the backdrop of an over-the-top house party). After the youthquake, a deliberate move away from the stuffiness forged over decades, where parents weren’t present and young people set the agenda, these events acquired a new air of freedom and romantic danger, most notably constructed and depicted in the teen-focused films of the 1980s and 90s, such as Sixteen Candles (1984), House Party (1990) and 10 Things I Hate About You (1999).
But in real life, the romance set piece of meeting a partner on a dance floor – or indeed in someone else’s kitchen or living room – is an increasingly rare occurrence. Is this a result of a screen-based dating culture, astronomical rent prices, or landlord terror? The rising cost of living, stricter tenancy agreements, restrictive new-build layouts, flatshares with strangers? All are factors that restrict the ability to host house parties for a generation who has yet to experience them. And yet an appetite for the form remains; Stormzy’s House Party, launched in 2024, attempts to recreate, in club format, a quintessential house party – perhaps catering both to partygoers who remember them and a new generation yet to discover them. Still, such contrived experiences tend to feel like a clinical facsimile of the real thing.
One key component of a house party is the messiness that comes with the unexpected; the community that comes from a post-party clean-up (broken things, whatever they may be, need fixing by people present – we have always known that things that fall should be picked back up); finding ways to navigate the requirements of landlords or the needs of flatmates (avoiding neighbour noise complaints requires communication). In this way, these events are a conduit for transformation, both of homes and the people in them. In an era where any kind of physical touch is at a premium, domestic spaces in which to interact, communicate and let go are more crucial than they’ve ever been.
This essay accompanies ‘Top Shelf’, a one-off limited-edition publication devoted to sex and erotica in design, published alongside The World of Interiors’ body-themed issue of September 2026. To purchase a copy, visit shop.worldofinteriors.com
