Life's one big night out for the cream of teen society

Kalida Ghazar has been a professional model for two years. On Monday evening, she arrived at one of London's larger nightclubs in a chauffeur-driven limousine. Jetting off to California at the end of the week, Kalida wanted to have "a big night out" in London before she left. The only snag was that she had to be up early the next morning. For school.

Welcome to a phenomenon which marketing executives are clambering over each other to buy into – the under-age "It" crowd.

Kalida, 15, was one of 850 partygoers between the ages of 13 and 16 attending an event designed specifically for the cream of teen society. The first function of the summer season, it was filled with the country's adolescent movers and shakers – the offspring of the rich, famous and influential.

Most of the larger public schools were represented – along with families ranging from the Windsors to the Attenboroughs, the Churchills to the Geldofs.

The event organisers, Capital VIP, have been running parties like this for nearly nine years, but over the last 12 months they have seen the market value of the adolescent pound soar.

Big name sponsors including Pepsi, Tommy Hilfiger, Kookai, Nivea, and Wonderbra have all been keen to plough money into the phenomenon over recent months – in the hope that they are influencing the opinion-formers of tomorrow.

According to the organisers, sponsorship revenue has increased by more than 50 per cent over the last two years alone, and is now worth more than £100,000. It's an impressive figure when coupled with ticket sales – up to 1,500 teenagers attend each event, paying £35 a head.

"The parties have got really big over the last year – I'd estimate they've roughly doubled in size," said Capital VIP's operations manager Lucy Allen. "We're emailing and texting regular members now, which has helped, but it's still largely word of mouth. We don't advertise – it's just a case of the coolest kid in school coming down and everyone else following. Big companies are keen to get on board because they've realised that some of these kids are the society crowd of tomorrow."

So popular has the phenomenon become that Capital VIP has recently been forced to relocate its permanent operation to the 2,200-capacity Po Na Na night club in Hammersmith, west London. But it's not just the big consumer brands who have latched onto the popularity of Capital VIP as a means of tapping the celebrities of tomorrow. The company has also signed a recent deal with a major modelling agency – Premiere Model Management – which now has exclusive access for its talent scouts to mingle with the teenagers at the events.

Carole White, Premiere Model's managing director, described the events as "a fantastic resource for us to discover new faces".

At Monday night's party, the rules were simple, but strictly adhered to. All tickets had to have been bought in advance by parents, nobody under the age of 13 or over the age of 16 was permitted entry, and alcohol was strictly prohibited. Aside from this, the teenagers were free to dance, smoke and mingle with members of the opposite sex until 1.30am.

While society parents appear to be happy for their teenagers to attend events like this, experts were more critical about the implications of Capital VIP and the culture surrounding it.

Dr Linda Papadopoulos, a London-based psychologist specialising in celebrity, described events like those run by Capital VIP as "disturbing".

"Puberty is coming down in age – in both social and biological terms," said Dr Papadopoulos. "Children today are much more attuned to sexual politics than any previous generation and it's sad – it's not just the loss of social innocence which is disturbing, but the aspiration to lose it."