Raffles Celebrates New Campaign With Fashion Week Dinner

On Tuesday night at Indochine, everyone was talking about the butler.

Luxury hospitality brand Ruffles hosted a dinner during fashion week to celebrate the release of its new campaign, “The Butler Did It,” that highlights the butler service at their properties worldwide. Images from the campaign were set at every dinner seat, and the team behind the imagery were on hand to detail their creation.

“When I met first with Claudia [Kozma Kaplan, global head of brand] and Omer [Acar, chief executive officer], I said, what’s the one thing that makes Raffles different than all the other fabulous hotels? They’re like ‘our butlers. They take care of everything before you even realize you need it,’” said Trey Laird, who led creative on the campaign. “It’s like, oh — ‘the butler did it.’ So I thought, I want to make it this eccentric thing that these crazy, stylish, amazing guests go and the butler takes care of everything — their wildest requests.”

He cast model Tim Easton in the role of the butler, and Waris Ahluwalia (“he makes everything like a movie,” Laird said) and Robert Rabensteiner in the role of the campaign guests.

“Dylan [Don] had done this great shoot with Waris that I loved, and so I called Dylan to shoot it, and we all went to Singapore,” Laird added.

“We started with the Singapore Raffles Hotel, which is one of the most chicest hotels in the world — architecture wise, class wise, service wise, it’s one of the most over the top,” said Rabensteiner, who also styled the campaign.

Guests at the dinner also included Natasha Lyonne, who Ahluwalia described as a “brand new friend,” Wes Gordon, and Hannah Bronfman.

During cocktail hour, a magician worked the room, stopping guests including Athena Calderone and Carolyn Murphy to show off a few tricks. Outside, a parrot and toucan were stationed in large cages along the sidewalk, riffing on the Singapore vibe. (The birds were driven up from Pennsylvania for the gig; fashion week does tend to draw model talent from all over.)

Inside, the cocktails continued to flow as guests recapped the past week. Collectively, we all did it.