Madonna, Stella McCartney and Sharon Osbourne at Scott's
Mount Street, Mayfair, London · 2026
I am Charles Pycraft, a London photographer. Nineteen years ago tomorrow, on Wednesday 7 November 2007, my camera has Madonna and Stella McCartney arriving at Scott's on Mount Street in Mayfair at 21:27, a few seconds apart, and Sharon Osbourne leaving the same restaurant at 23:52. The Evening Standard and London Lite both ran the dinner the next day. This piece keeps to what the files show and what was reported at the time. The anniversary lands in a big year for Madonna. Confessions on a Dance Floor: Part II, her return to the dance floor with producer Stuart Price, came out on 3 July 2026 and went to number one in the UK, the US and more than a dozen other countries. In September it won her seven MTV Video Music Awards, including Artist of the Year.
The pavement
The arrival frames are taken within four seconds of each other. Stella McCartney comes first, in a dark trouser suit, glancing along the street. Then Madonna, in a long black coat with a deep fur collar, her hair in soft blonde waves, smiling as she walks past the potted olive trees by the door.
By the camera's clock, Stella is next out at 23:24, alone in the doorway. Sharon Osbourne follows at 23:52, in a fitted black frock coat and leather gloves, her hair in its familiar deep red, turning to look back as she is guided to the kerb.
Scott's was the right room for it. Founded in 1851 as an oyster warehouse, it moved to 20 Mount Street in 1967, counted Ian Fleming among its regulars and turns up in the script of The Great Escape. Richard Caring's Caprice Holdings bought it in 2005 and it reopened at the end of 2006 after a refurbishment by Martin Brudnizki, so in November 2007 it was one of the newest old restaurants in London. Reports at the time also placed Tom Ford, Donna Air and the interior designer Kelly Hoppen at the bar that evening.
Who was at the table
Madonna was in the middle of changing her whole working life. On 16 October 2007, three weeks before this dinner, she signed a ten year deal with the concert promoter Live Nation covering her tours, records and merchandise, ending 25 years with Warner Bros, which was still owed one last album. That album, Hard Candy, made with Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams, was coming together at the time and came out in April 2008. She had also spent May 2007 shooting her first film as a director, Filth and Wisdom, on location in London. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008.
Stella McCartney had run her own label since 2001, after four years in charge at Chloé in Paris. 2007 was a busy year: she launched CARE, an organic skincare line, kept expanding her adidas by Stella McCartney sportswear collaboration, and was named Best Designer at the Elle Style Awards. She was also among the guests at Madonna's Confessions launch night at Koko two years earlier, which I photographed in November 2005.
Sharon Osbourne was in the middle of her fourth series as a judge on The X Factor on ITV, alongside Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and Dannii Minogue, with the live shows running every Saturday night that autumn.
What was going on that day
In Trafalgar Square that Wednesday, Ken Livingstone unveiled the new Fourth Plinth commission, Thomas Schütte's Model for a Hotel 2007, a coloured glass architectural model that replaced Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant.
At the top of the singles chart was Leona Lewis, the previous year's X Factor winner, with Bleeding Love, on its way to seven weeks at the top.
Where they are now
Madonna is back with Warner, the label she left in that autumn of 2007. Confessions II, 16 tracks including Bring Your Love with Sabrina Carpenter, is the sequel to the 2005 album I photographed her launching at Koko, and it has given her one of the biggest years of her career.
Stella McCartney showed her Spring Summer 2027 collection, Beneath the Blue, in Paris on 30 September 2026, marking 25 years since her first show under her own name there. She was made an OBE in 2013 and a CBE in 2022.
Sharon Osbourne is an executive producer of Ozzy and Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning, the film of the July 2025 farewell concert at Villa Park, in cinemas around the world from 28 October 2026, and she has announced that Ozzfest will return at Villa Park in 2027. Ozzy Osbourne died in July 2025, weeks after that last show.
My own work has moved a long way from the Mayfair pavements. My photography years ran from 1999 to 2014, and that archive is now licensed through Backgrid UK.
More from the archive: Madonna's Confessions launch night, Koko, 2005.
The pictures
Five frames from a body of work I made in London between 1999 and 2014, all from outside Scott's on the night of 7 November 2007.
Credit: Charlie Pycraft / BACKGRID. Licensing: Backgrid UK Sales, backgrid_uksales@shutterstock.com