Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 - Issue 51 i The Rake

In its valedictory round-up of 1968’s most notable people, the magazine Newsweek singled out the year’s headliners: Che Guevara, Christiaan Barnard and Gigi Rizzi. Gigi who? It was a name to conjure with — indeed, it sounded like an unbeatable submission in the porn-star name game — but Rizzi had done something more momentous and epoch-making than, say, foment Marxist revolution across Latin America or perform the first human-to-human heart transplant. That summer he had become the most envied man on the planet as the playboy consort of the ultimate French bombshell, Brigitte Bardot. Photos of the time show Bardot and Rizzi cutting a swathe through various palmfringed rivieras — Saint- Tropez, of course, where Bardot held court in her villa, La Madrague, but also Capri, where she had shot…

Despite a hideous journey from his native Leicestershire to the east London studio where the photographs on these pages were taken, Tom Hopper — all six-foot-four and Men’s Health cover frame of him — is full of the joys of not-quite-spring when The Rake meets him one dreary day in March. And so he might be. Just over a decade after graduating from the Rose Bruford drama school in Kent, the 32-year-old has become a respected actor, mostly thanks to roles as Sir Percival in the British fantasy-adventure Merlin and Billy Bones in Black Sails, a critically acclaimed U.S. pirate drama set 20 years before Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. With his star set to soar a few more light years thanks to a role in season seven of Game…

The actress Julie Christie is a writing desk in an orchard, a moon lit with jonquils, a bonfire of beauty, intellect and otherness so potent it unstrung the bones of the sixties. New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane praised her appeal as “maximum radiance meets minimum vanity”. Of her rootless Englishness, she once said: “I’m not sure I really come from anywhere.” Born in India to a tea planter father, young Julie was sent back to England to attend a convent school, where she developed a habit for letter-writing and from which she was eventually expelled for making a “puny joke about penises”. Having studied in Paris and at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, she first caught the imagination of the times in John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar (1963),…

While the majority of the world’s luxury brands erect walls between the consumer and their top leadership, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana like nothing more than to tear them down. And nowhere is evidence of this more richly abundant than at their trans-global, multi-cultural, pan-national panjandrum of transcendent hedonism coupled with visionary creativity that is the Alta Moda/Alta Sartoria — or, in more traditional language, the haute couture of women’s and men’s bacchanal outer-body experience and inner-mind journey that celebrates unabashed creativity and its uplifting and edifying capabilities. And during these amazing happenings, in destinations such as Portofino, Naples, and most recently at La Scala in Milan, which seem to rise spontaneously out of the winds and from the earth and are born of the unique terroir of Italy’s fabled…

I am not especially fond of the term ‘curated content’: as well as being mildly pretentious it has become tired through overuse… which is a pity, as it describes the appeal of the newly opened Connolly shop on Clifford Street in Mayfair to perfection. However, it does Connolly a disservice, in that, as a relatively new term, it might imply Connolly is a new shop, whereas the truth is that Connolly was a concept store selling curated content long before either of those terms had made their way into the retail marketing manager’s book of clichés. Connolly, as we know, provided the upholstery for all the best automotive marques in the golden age of motoring (whenever that was), and I still feel slightly guilty when I think how many cows…

To paraphrase my twin brother’s best-man speech at my wedding, my wife and I will have a new pea for our pod by the time this magazine is in your hands, dear reader. I’m going to be a dad. At the time of writing (D-Day minus circa four weeks), you can usually find me in one of two camps. Camp one is the excitable-but-serene camp, rearing its head occasionally at the sight of an angelic child behaving impeccably. Camp two is eerily similar to that scene in Zulu when Chard and Bromhead fall silent against a terrifying noise heading in their direction, which prompts this response from Michael Caine’s Bromhead: “Damn funny, like, like a train in the distance.” Regardless of the pros and cons, it’s an exciting time. It’s…

HOUND If the expression ‘back, sack and crack’ brings tears to your human retina, thank whichever deity you pray to that you’ve never faced the prospect of being ‘docked and cropped’. The former word (aka ‘bobbing’) refers to the constriction of the blood supply to our tails with a rubber ligature — the dubious sexual connotations alone bring tears to my eyes — until eventually, after a few days, the tail falls off. The latter refers to the pruning of our pinnae and auricles, a fashion-dictated abomination that not only inflicts horrific pain on us (only the most hapless of organised football hooligans, among humankind, ever experience anything like it, I’m given to understand) but also makes us resemble a silhouetted child’s drawing of Batman. Both are acts of barbaric…

Wil Whiting’s background is not what you might expect of a man producing some of the world’s finest bespoke shirts. While it is inevitable that craftsmen, no matter their discipline, are often compared with artists, Whiting invites more parallels with scientists. With degrees in computer science and a C.V. that lists various roles crunching numbers, it’s fair to say he is — perhaps atypically for his craft — a little more leftbrained than his fellow artisans. But that’s not to say it’s to his detriment; quite the opposite, in fact. Poring over patterns in his studio in Clapham, south London, Whiting starts from the beginning. “My father strongly influenced my interest in tailoring, as he always was strict on presentation, thus requiring me to be smart and dressed appropriately for…

In 1896 the American architect Louis Sullivan coined the phrase “form (ever) follows function” when describing his approach to designing some of the earliest skyscrapers in the U.S. around the turn of the 20th century. His idea was that design should not be dictated by aesthetic tradition but by the intended purpose of the building, meaning his designs placed high importance on usable, practical space while keeping a somewhat pared-back aesthetic compared to his contemporaries, who readily borrowed more classical Greek and Roman elements. It could be argued that some of the most effective menswear of the last century was also designed using this mantra. Garments that are routinely categorised as staple items today, including the pea coat, the chino trouser and the bomber jacket, all served a purpose once…

As an Englishman, I am partial to the cross-channel ‘entente cordiale’ that can sometimes include low-level namecalling and sibling-like competitiveness. However, there is one area in which the British must doff their caps to their French friends, and that is their skill with the grape. How they take this dusty vine fruit and without the addition of sugar turn it into a drink of infinite complexity and deliciousness is beyond both my palette and comprehension. It reaches beyond wine, of course, from armagnac to champagne, but perhaps the most august is cognac, and the house of Rémy Martin is perhaps the finest of them all. They have, by their own admission, been somewhat under the radar until recently. The launch of the members’ pop-up in London’s Wardour Street, La Maison…

As well as The Rake, Nick — a historian and author and surely London’s most prominent luxury commentator — writes for periodicals including How To Spend It, Financial Times, The Independent, Vanity Fair and The Daily Telegraph. Among his many published tomes to date are the Count d’Orsay biography Last of the Dandies (2005), Dunhill by Design (2006), TAG Heuer (2009), Cigar Style (2008), Gentlemen and Blackguards: Gambling Mania and the Plot to Steal the Derby of 1844 (2010), and Swans, Legends of the Jet Society (2013). Last year, Bernard Buffet: The Invention of the Modern Mega-Artist was released to great critical acclaim. In this issue, Nick combines his personal affection for, and his encyclopedic knowledge of, the venerable leather brand Connolly in documenting their return to the retail stage…

Hear the name Rex Harrison and you will surely picture an avuncular, patrician figure in a cardigan or top hat and tails, gently soothing a Cockney waif or some peculiar animal or other. Should your film knowledge predate the 1960s Victoriana of My Fair Lady and Doctor Dolittle, you might envision a very British matinee idol, overcoming an Empire-conquering well of reserve to declare his passion to some lovely girl. Neither of these images, however, come close to the great actor’s true nature. In life, rather than on the screen or stage, he was a bounder and a cad, his undeniable charm and considerable talent barely disguising a misanthropic streak a mile wide. Married six times, with countless affairs and a number of scandals to be taken into consideration, he…

Reinventing a car marque is one thing. Reinventing a brand long associated with grunt, functionality and its boxy, behemoth silhouette into one that people associate with aesthetic beauty is another thing altogether. But that’s what Gerry McGovern has achieved during his 13 years spearheading a success story that could go down as one of the most remarkable in British business history. McGovern’s long-term mission — to induce visceral consumer desire for all vehicles coming off the Land Rover production line — has reached a new level with the introduction of the Range Rover Velar, the marque’s new, ready-to-pounce piece of modernist artistry, which is named after a pre-production development model built before the company’s official launch in 1970, and which slots into the range between the Evoque and Sport. It’s…

In 1976, the presiding deity of the art world boarded a plane in New York and headed east, having accepted a commission from another presiding deity. Andy Warhol was on his way to Tehran, to create a portrait of the Shah of Iran’s wife, Her Imperial Majesty Empress Farah Pahlavi. They had met at a White House dinner given for the Shah by President Gerald Ford. “The Shah was cool to me,” reported Warhol afterwards in his typical zoned-out, gee-whizz tones, “but the Empress was really, really kind and sooo beautiful.” A dozen schoolgirls in gold brocade greeted the Warhol entourage on their arrival at Tehran airport and pinned pink roses to their lapels. “Then we were whisked off in a limo to the InterContinental Hotel,” said Bob Colacello, the…

The blazer has long been a divisive garment. In 1825, the Lady Margaret Boat Club, the rowing club of St. John’s College, Cambridge, caused something of a stir in the university’s undergraduate community. Like most upper-crust sporting establishments of the time, a uniform was a prerequisite, but unlike many dreary buttoned-up uniforms of the early 19th century, the members of Lady Margaret’s opted to cut informal short jackets in shockingly bright crimson flannel. The rationale behind this remains unclear, but one suspects a spot of sartorial one-upmanship was the motivation. Whatever the case may be, these bright red boating coats came to be known as blazers, such was their vivacity. Love or hate them, the trend caught on, because some 60 years later a priggish letter submitted to The Daily…

January is one of the biggest months on the luxury calendar. In four weeks it hosts numerous fashion shows across London, Milan, Paris and New York, but, for watch aficionados, the only event worth paying attention to is the Salon International De La Haute Horlogerie. Having transformed Geneva’s Palexpo exhibition centre annually since its first show in 1991, the SIHH is now home to 30 brands showcasing their latest creations. The mainstays, including Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC, Audemars Piguet, Montblanc and others always impress, but this year the fair expanded with the addition of 13 independent watchmakers in their own dedicated show-space. There was also a day open to the public, which was a first for the fair. There was an overall feeling of constraint at this year’s event, with many…

AFFAIRS…

Howg, Manitou”, or as they say in Lakota, “Hoka Hay”, my friends. De Montague has just returned from the frigid embrace of winter, protesting the insidious construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the 1,172-milelong phallus of Beelzebub, or as he is also known, Donald Trump. Feel free to use the names interchangeably. If you’re not aware of this egregious panjandrum of corporate greed, the pipeline connects the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota with a refinery in central Illinois. The problem is that said pipeline has been routed through Sioux tribal land promised in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie, but was then forcibly taken back. However, thanks to the obvious ‘generosity’ of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the pipeline was allowed to bisect the existing Big Sioux River…

RAKE INCARNATE Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Alexandre Dumas’s Three Musketeers can be reduced to Spice Girl-style thumbnail archetypes. Athos, in this line-up, is Moody Musk, the nobleman with dark secrets who’s morose, sarcastic and prone to moues of sullen silence. Porthos is Party Musk, a vain blowhard who boasts of his prodigious conquests; a codpiecegrabbing cousin of Blackadder’s Lord Flashheart. And Aramis? He’s Enigmatic Musk, a still-waters Sphinx who conceals his prowess — as a lover, fighter, and much else besides — behind a serenely spruce façade. Dumas makes much of the latter. When Aramis first appears, he’s a young buck of 22 or 23, with “an open, ingenuous countenance, a black, mild eye, and cheeks rosy and downy as an autumn peach”. Furthermore, “his delicate moustache marked…