The three-course dinner from the culinary team at Mandarin Grill was a joy to savour from start to finish, which began with an amuse-bouche of Spanish octopus with golden potato and arbequina oil. The starter is a light torched hamachi, which is followed by a main course of truffle crusted beef tenderloin or Atlantic black cod and finished with a cherry bomb. There was also a separate menu available for our vegan and vegetarian guests.

Each meal is carefully paired with handpicked wines courtesy of Moet Hennessy Diageo, as presented by its wine representative, Ronan de La Morlais.

Our keynote speaker for the night was two-time Generation T lister and managing director of Teach for Malaysia, Dzameer Dzulkifli.

He took the floor to talk about why he chose the path of social entrepreneurship through education. He is joined in this talk by volunteers William Sin and Denise Chiew, who went with him back to school for our May 2018 cover story.

Must read: Dzameer Dzulkifli Of Teach For Malaysia On Building A Better Nation

With the dinner wrapped, the party spirit continued at our ensuing launch party—where our dinner guests joined another 200 guests for our official launch party. Upon arrival, there are more opportunities for photo-taking for our guests; from a photo wall at the registration to a freeze cam photo booth.

But a really popular photo-taking spot is at the bold BMW X2 on display, with the word "Be The One Who Dares" boldly emblazoned on its exteriors. Clearly, this must have struck a chord because guests like Vincent Tan and Shaine Wong were among the many who flocked to the car snap a pic for their social media.

Generation T lister for 2017, Zee Avi, thrilled our guests when she came onstage to perform.

She started out with Honey Bee. This was followed by Julie London’s Cry Me A River with legendary guitarist AZ Samad stepping in to riff with her. Last but not least was a performance of Kantoi, a tongue-in-cheek Manglish song, that had guests clapping along at the nostalgic tune.

Must-listen: 7 Malaysian artists who should be on your radar (and Spotify playlist)

That night, we also announced that we have raised RM105,000 for Teach For Malaysia from the Tatler and Generation T community.

This is achieved thanks to the generosity of these following donors: Dato’ Sri Jeffrey Raymond, Dato’ Jaime Chan Abdullah, Dato’ Kevin Yong, Datuk Radzali Hassan, Datuk Kelvin Tan, Berjaya Corporation, Datin Usha Nair, Dato’ Simon Foong, Datuk Raziah Mahmud-Geneid, Datuk Ruben Gnanalingam, Diani Lee and Law Wai Cheong.

To add to the cheer, CIMB Islamic will be adding in their own contribution of RM105,000, rounding up the total figure to RM210,000 for the night.

The highlight of all highlights for the night was the unveiling of Generation T List for 2018.

For a dramatic effect, we installed two rotating structures that showcased the listers’ portraits exhibited on coloured lightboxes. After the unveiling, our listers then went onstage to receive a customised portrait in an acrylic frame, in recognition of being a part of our curated list.

Tatlergram alert: The Generation T 2018 party through our guests' eyes

The unveiling of the list also allowed us to reveal six exclusive portraits that we have done with six individuals chosen by Swiss Watch Gallery and IWC Schaffhausen for a special feature: Suhaili Micheline, Dahlia Nadirah, Arzumy MD, Awal Ashaari and Timothy Tiah.

Guests also took the time to browse through the beautiful timepieces from IWC Schaffhausen, which included the brand's Jubilee collection for 2018.

Must-read: IWC Schaffhausen's 150 years of fine watchmaking exhibition in Singapore until 13th May

To keep our guests entertained, our sponsor Clé de Peau Beauté installed a claw machine that had people lining up for a chance to win a gift home for the night. During the celebration, we would occasionally hear excited cheers and shouts signifying our guests have won something.

Every year, we always expect the best cocktail concoctions from Hennessy X.O and mixologist Henry Tan and boy, do they deliver. To add to the fun factor, they even brought in a pong table, which was a crowd favourite all night long.

Watch this video of Henry in action below on our Instagram account, recorded by a Samsung S9.

For a touch of fun and whimsy, guests were invited to test out Samsung S9’s latest AR emoji feature—where they could create avatar emojis of themselves to express their mood and personalities. These AR emojis are then specially printed and presented in a tag for our guests to bring home as a gift.

We also took the Samsung S9 for a spin, where we filmed guest Lynn D Ong having a go at cocktail mixing at the Hennessy cocktail bar.

Our guests proved they knew how to have a good time; even as we wrapped up for the evening—some of them made their way to Kyo KL for an after party. As guests kissed us goodbye with excitement for more parties to come, we can’t help but wonder, how do we top this off next year? Only time will tell.

Want more #GenerationT stories? Visit our Generation T section of the website to discover more about our annual event and list.