Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2021 - Issue 76 i The Rake

I miss travelling. For the first time since the pandemic swept through the world like wildfire, and irrevocably transformed our lives, I have to say, “Seriously, I can’t fucking take it any more”. I choked it down, suppressed it for more than a year, and kept myself happy, buoyant, positive and centred with a steady diet of vegetables, the endorphin rush of blasting through my anaerobic threshold every morning, and gin. A lot of gin. But like Howard Beale says in Network, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more”. While the majority of the world seems to have got to grips with Covid, and people are again able to gather safely and remake their bonds of friendship, on the island nation where I’ve…

Towards the end of 1976, Colin Tennant threw himself an elaborate 50th birthday celebration on Mustique, the Caribbean island he had bought on a whim nearly two decades before. The week-long carousing culminated in a party billed as a latter-day Field of the Cloth of Gold; Macaroni Beach, the island’s finest bay, was decked out like Croesus’s palace. The trees and grass had been sprayed gold, while guests processed through triumphal arches made of plaited gold palm fronds. Princess Margaret, Tennant’s great friend and fellow Mustique resident, sported a gold kaftan and matching turban; Bianca Jagger was resplendent in a gold Scarlett O’Hara-style hooped dress with matching parasol, while Mick, in slashed shirt, cut-off jeans and straw hat, resembled a gilded Davy Crockett. The host presided in a tight satin…

“Introducing the Canine Collection! Be sure to compliment [sic] your summer outfit with a four-legged friend.” So read a tweet, accompanied by pictures of imploringly winsome puppies, from an online fashion store in 2016, prompting animal rights groups including the RSPCA to deplore the practice of turning sentient, carbon-based life forms into fashion accessories. I have no problem with being an accessory, or even a ‘toy dog’. (The word ‘lapdog’ seems to have slipped into obsolescence due to today’s pooch-bearing femmes célèbre generally being documented via paparazzi lenses strolling L.A.’s fashionable boulevards rather than in paint on canvas reclining next to harpsichords.) Some dogs find the latter phrase belittling; conversely, I relish the way it consigns to the dustbin of history our life purpose in centuries gone by — as…

Rolex’s yellow-gold Meteorite Daytona What is it about meteorite that makes it so captivating as a raw material? The romance of a substance being genuinely extraterrestrial — of having undergone an interplanetary journey since the formation of our solar system before crashing into some Namibian lake or Arabian peninsula — is certainly arresting. Aesthetically speaking, it’s the irregular geometry of the criss-crossing lines (or Widmanstätten patterns) created by the cooling of the nickel and iron interiors (a few degrees Celsius every million years or so) beneath meteorites’ ashen, knobbly surfaces. Now, Rolex have used a meteorite dial on a ceramic-bezel Daytona for the first time ever, and time’s molecular tinkering of this alien material has given a trio of new gold Daytonas their own idiosyncratic charisma. Rolex might eschew limited…

While the headline of this story could easily allude to my public penchant for sausage dogs, it in fact references what I believe is one of the most important tourbillon wristwatches of all time. I speak, of course, of the new Chopard L.U.C Flying T Twin that is made in just five pieces in collaboration with Revolution magazine — aka the Chopard L.U.C 1860 Flying T, Special Revolution. If the above seems biased or self-serving, let me explain myself. For the most part, the Swiss watch industry has found itself caught slightly out of step when it comes to the size of their wristwatches. Conjure up your horological Valhalla of the most iconic and desirable timepieces ever created and who appears in those mythical halls? A steel Patek ref. 1518?…

in association with Jenson Button was Formula One’s cheerful yet tenacious underdog who, when he finally got his hands on a winning car, never looked back. On entering the sport in 2000, he was the youngest Briton in F1 history. In 2009, aged 29, he achieved his dream of becoming world champion. Popular throughout his 17 seasons, he developed a reputation for silky-smooth driving (which was kind to the car and its tyres), being quickest in the wet, and for motivating his engineers when they were down. He was also willing to take a huge pay cut when his team was on its uppers, which enabled him and Brawn G.P. to go on and make history. He’s one of only two drivers to have beaten Lewis Hamilton in the same…

If you can declare yourself one of the giants upon whose shoulders Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the English horologist George Daniels stood when devising their most profound masterpieces, you’ve already got a pretty tidy handicap in the game of being a polymath. Throw into the mix achievements as an inventor, musician, diplomat, horticulturist, shipping magnate, engineer, swordsman and revolutionary, and Pierre Beaumarchais might well be wondering from the grave — perhaps with no little relief — why Dan Brown never (mis)named an extraordinarily weak mystery-thriller in his honour. Make no mistake, had the achievements of this son of a clockmaker, born Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais in Paris in 1732, been made on the battlefield, cities and rivers would be named after him, rather than a single thoroughfare running from Place…

Adventure is worthwhile, Aesop says. I have seen giraffes copulate (quite funny) and have been hustled into an apartment in Havana to take a look at fake cigars (less funny). In my spice drawer at home I still have a tub of cinnamon bought from Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakesh six years ago; I bear a scar on my right thigh from an accident with a boat propeller in Canada in 1993; and nine months after my wife and I honeymooned in Mauritius, our firstborn arrived. I would by no means count myself as well travelled, but I have developed the itch to travel that many perpetually hope to scratch. So, with Covid restrictions in various parts of the world finally easing, an issue of The Rake dedicated to the subject…

Had Harrison Osterfield arrived a decade or so earlier, his Surrey accent and floppy hair would have made a fine fit for an English actor in Hollywood. But on his first day at the BRIT School, London’s college for the performing arts, the 24-year-old wondered whether it was all a mistake. “I’d just left my strait-laced boarding school, and here I was, surrounded by extroverts,” he tells The Rake. As becomes evident in our chat, Harrison is more than the sum of his posher parts. He toes the party line (there are people listening in, don’t you know?) but cracks on-point jokes, which help betray the mischief beneath those enviable Bloomsbury looks. An English leading man in the semi-traditional sense of the word — both ‘bugger’ and ‘pardon’ — he…

I envy Mark Cho, or at least I do when I make the cardinal sin of judging my interior by people’s exteriors. Cho, the principal of The Armoury and Drake’s, provides a sense of faultless unflappability. He is a busy man with a calm demeanour. With his videos on Instagram about what to wear and why, he presents clothes available at his haberdashery and explains with erudite precision why he has picked what he has. He loves clothes, they are a lifelong passion, and one he left the family business to pursue. Time spent in London (for work, yes, but he was also born and raised in the U.K.) and China helped him develop a broad understanding of style as well as a certain type of work ethic built, he…

In 2015 The Rake published a fashion story that was shot over two days at the Capri Palace, the five-star jewel in Capri’s crown. It was a major logistical effort to pull off; I know this because I was the fashion assistant for the shoot, and spent days lugging huge reinforced Rimowa cases bulging with designer suits across Europe to get there. The shoot was the culmination of a nine-day business trip to see magazine clients in Paris, Milan and Naples, and our beneficent leader, Mr. Wei Koh, took me and two stylists along for the ride. Six years later, I recall that trip with fondness — not only because it was a jet-set ride through some of Europe’s most exciting cities, visiting grand hotels, eating great food and swotting…

CHARLIE GRAY Charlie Gray is an international fashion and portrait photographer based in London. He is known for his playful, cinematic and intimate photographs that capture his subjects iconically. Gray is inspired by past photography masters Richard Avedon and Terry O’Neill and filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann. Charlie has been a regular in these pages, and we are delighted that he has now shot his first cover for us. With his knack for creating images of warmth and drama, could there be a better subject for Charlie than the spellbinding Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen? See Gray’s cover shoot with Mikkelsen on page 92. NICK FOULKES Nick, the historian, author and Contributing Editor at The Rake — and surely London’s most prominent luxury commentator — writes for periodicals including How…

He looks like just another Hollywood hunk to us now, but Guy Madison was once one of the most familiar faces in America. His role as television’s Wild Bill Hickok in the 1950s made him one of the biggest stars on screen, an icon of undemanding mass entertainment. The tough-but-fair cowboy figure he established in that role was what would keep him in work for 40 years, but in truth that was already his second act. Before then, he had made his name as one of the first male pin-ups of a new era of film, packaged and sold to the public as a sex symbol, regardless of acting talent, in a manner that would help define the next 50 years of entertainment. The studio claimed to have received 43,000…

According to the polar-fleeced nerds at Lonely Planet, the population of Smygehuk — the southernmost town in Sweden — is approximately 1,500. Now imagine if every one of them had seen your mum naked. That was the case for a young Nena von Schlebrügge. It was her mother, Birgit Holmquist, who had posed for the starkers Axel Ebbe statue called The Embrace, which is located at the entrance to the harbour and was installed in 1930. Kind of like a proto-influencer. But classy. Aside from proving once again that there is a certain stratum of aristo ladies who can’t wait to get their kit off in the name of art, Holmquist’s daughter was reportedly a site to behold from the get-go. Born in Mexico in 1940, as the war raged…

In the first half of the 20th century, Loro Piana produced a fabric known as Priest Cloth, which was used, perhaps obviously, in making clerical vestments. The wool was imported from Tasmania, which is to wool what California is to oranges or Ontario is to maple syrup. The cloth had all the hallmarks of fine wool, which is breathability, insulation, water resistance and comfort. What was good enough for the church is generally good enough for the wider public, and an attempt to produce fabric that was slightly lighter, and suitable for year-round wear, resulted in the Tasmanian being born in the 1960s. The advertising for the Tasmanian had a touch of incongruity and irreverence. The imagery placed suits made from Tasmanian fabric in situations one might consider wholly unsuitable:…

Michael Friedman, formerly the official historian at Audemars Piguet and now the watchmaker’s Head of Complications, views horology through a uniquely philosophical lens. For him, the relationship of timekeeping objects to broader civilisation has long been a source of fascination. “I was already deep into this field as a student,” Friedman says. This abiding passion was acknowledged when, fresh out of university in the late nineties, he was appointed curator at the U.S. National Watch and Clock museum before spending several years as vice-president and department head of watches at Christie’s in New York, and subsequently finding a home at Audemars Piguet. Friedman’s hope is that time measurement devices will one day be given their due among the most significant, resonant achievements of mankind. The story of the watch, Friedman…