The Tinder of the Eighties

"The Mirano was Facebook before Facebook": Paul Sterck repeated it in several interviews. At a time when neither the Internet nor mobile phones existed, the club was the place where people agreed to meet, certain to run into each other, without ever having had to call first.

There was even an in-house messaging system. At Momo's cloakroom, Monique Van der Weehe, you could pick up a notepad and write a few words for someone: a boy trying to charm a girl, a girl a boy, a boy a boy. The note then travelled to its recipient, hand to hand or through the cloakroom.

The taglines printed at the head of these pads were signed Philippe Thito, a Belgian copywriter who worked at HHD Ogilvy & Mather, DDB, McCann Erickson, Y&R Brussels and Grey Brussels, and is now creative director at Mostra. Lines such as "Si vous m'ignorez, je prends mes jambes à mon cou, le voile, 3 kilos" set the tone: you did not leave a message, you sent a witty line. The cloakroom telephone number ran along the foot of the page.

Tinder before Tinder, in a way: a paper social network of fleeting messages, backed by a venue. These pads enjoyed a second life in the 1990s, reissued for Carl De Moncharline's nights, from Tokyo Party to the great themed parties, with new texts always signed by Philippe Thito.