Page 88 - Cosmopolitan - UK (April 2020)

t’s 4pm on a
Saturday afternoon.
Clouds of weed
surround me, the
smoke catching
in my throat.
I’ve already been
standing for an
hour and I have
around three more
hours of waiting
ahead of me. It
could be longer
t. I don’t dare ask.

By 7pm, as the sky turns
pink,descending into night,
everyone around me has
fallen silent. We are united
by one mission – the door
in front of us. The silence
is punctuated by a woman
with an afro bob and
Bouncer
purple lipstick ordering Saskia has
those closest to her to “no” tat tooed
keep smiling or they’ll be on her palm
rejected. I am afraid that
when we eventually get
close to her, she will simply Germany. It also set off to the city, and locals wanted Berghain, Sven Marquardt,
look us up and down and a chain of events that led to keep the atmosphere the man to impress (it’s
say“no”That all this waiting to Berlin becoming the created sacred. Berlin’s rumoured Berghain once
.
is, ultimately, pointless. clubbing capital of Europe: nightclub door policies got turned away Britney Spears
I’m in the queue for one of the end of the divide so strict that they became for wearing the wrong
the world’s hardest-to-get- between the East and the almost as famous as the shoes). Yet Berghain is just
into clubs. This woman West created a new sound clubs themselves. one of a network of clubs
is the bouncer who decides – and a new way to party with strict door policies,
which of us succeeds and – that brought everyone and although Marquardt
who goes home. together. Week-long parties “I began and his male colleagues are
began to burgeon at full the ones who dominate
Party people speed. Clubbing became a to lose all newspaper columns and

Two months later, it’s 1am, lifestyle, music a religion – empathy. I documentaries, there’s a
and I’m standing in front and it garnered worldwide group of women who wield
of an iconic club, only this attention. Once The Wall started work just as much power. They’re
time I’m wearing a bullet- fell, several East German super-secretive and their
proof vest. The only way businesses closed down, pissed off” world is hard to penetrate
for me to find out the leading to soap factories – it took over a month of
answer to that much- and power plants being club-hopping, day and
Googled question “how revamped into illegal Today, endless online night, to get to know them.
exactly do you get into clubs. Over the years these forums detail what to say, Mostly I was shunned and
Berlin’s superclubs?” was forbidden parties gave way what to wear and how to told that journalists are not
to guard the doors myself. to venues with permits – but act in order to get in. The trusted until, with some
When the Berlin Wall fell many retained the grit that bouncers have become persistence, a few party
in 1989 it marked a new made them so special in the celebrities, with head promoters took me aside
political beginning for first place. Tourists flooded doorman of the club to whisper their names