FORGET the Cannes Film Festival: the hottest party on the Riviera this weekend is being thrown by a fiftysomething businessman from Croydon with a penchant for togas.

Philip Green, the wealthiest and quite possibly most flamboyant man in British retailing history, has flown more than 200 guests to the South of France for his son’s bar mitzvah.

The Grand Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, perched on a private peninsula between Nice and Monaco, is understood to be hosting the lavish three-day party, which will feature a special performance by Beyoncé and her platinum selling group Destiny’s Child, The Times has learnt. Justin Timberlake is also rumoured to be appearing at the bash, estimated to have cost Mr Green £4 million.

The ceremony itself is expected to take place in a temporary synagogue in the hotel’s 14 acres of sweeping lawns and fragrant pines.

If Mr Green’s last extravaganza, in Cyprus, is any sort of benchmark, one of the three “theme evenings” planned is certain to be Roman. His 50th birthday party in 2002, which also lasted for three days, cost a reported £5 million and climaxed with a toga party where Mr Green dressed as Nero and Tom Jones and Rod Stewart provided the entertainment.

“Philip loves Roman kit, and usually expects everyone to throw on a toga for at least one day,” said a source close to the man whose acquisitions of Bhs, Miss Selfridge and Top Shop have helped to build a personal fortune of £3.3 billion.

“Everyone will be told to strip down to their smalls and the costumes will be handed out. Philip’s party is going to be the biggest and the best; the surprises will be non-stop for those lucky enough to attend.”

If the party upstages the film festival along the coast, where Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson and Salma Hayek have all been soaking up attention this week, then so much the better.

“Philip is planning a spectacular and he doesn’t care who else is about. If they’re not invited they can go somewhere else.” Mr Green declined to comment on the celebrations himself.

With its £1,000-a-night suites, ornate terraces, beautiful gardens and breathtaking views across the Mediterranean, the Grand Hotel du Cap has played host to generations of VIPs from the daughter of Queen Victoria and Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill and Picasso to Sir Elton John and Elizabeth Taylor.

During the film festival, the hotel is normally crammed with A-list movie people but unless they are on Mr Green’s guestlist, the cream of Hollywood will have to find somewhere else to stay for today, tomorrow and Monday.

Their places have been taken by a very British assortment of ageing celebrities, who are expected to include the television hosts Jeremy Beadle and Michael Aspel, Sir Stirling Moss, the former topless model Jilly Johnson, and the singers Tom Jones and Demis Roussos. The football pundit Terry Venables and the restaurant critic Michael Winner are also Green favourites.

One man who has not been invited is Stuart Rose, the chief executive of Marks and Spencer, who fought off a £9.1 billion takeover bid from Mr Green last summer and famously tussled with him on the pavement outside the store’s head office.

Piles of Louis Vuitton luggage were arriving at the hotel yesterday and there was a marked increase in the number of dark-suited security guards in sunglasses.

Mr Green, who was born in Croydon and left school at 16, is believed to have spent around £100,000 to charter a plane for his guests and has also put his £20 million Gulfsteam G550 jet on stand-by. The hotel has its own landing stage and it should be a short cruise for the Greens in their £7 million yacht from their £8 million villa in nearby Monaco.

YOU'RE INVITED

• Guests are thought to include Tom Hunter, the Scottish millionaire owner of the Office shoe shop chain and one of Britain’s biggest philanthropists, Harold Tillman, the owner of the Jaeger fashion brand, and Allan Leighton, boss of the Royal Mail, and Jeff Randall, the BBC business journalist
• Stuart Rose, above, the Marks & Spencer chief executive, was not invited. Formerly a friend of Mr Green and a guest at the Bhs owner’s 50th birthday party in Cyprus, the pair fell out last year when Mr Green’s attempt to buy M&S was foiled by Mr Rose and the pair tussled in the street

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