Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2018 - Issue 57 i The Rake

Time for a change By the time you’re reading this, The Rake will have embarked on the next chapter of its e-commerce evolution: watches. Why watches? Well, to begin with, everyone at The Rake, yours truly in particular, adores them. Amusingly, I was speaking to my friend William Roberts — who I believe is not just a consummate gentleman but also the world’s most knowledgeable and accomplished Omega Speedmaster collector (his website, Speedmaster101.com, is an invaluable resource) — and his 92-year-old mother at their farm in Surrey, and Mrs. Roberts posited the question why it is the two of us love watches so much. For me it is because there is no object that represents a greater miracle of micro-engineering meeting magic. The watch on your wrist has a tiny…

In a recent interview, Jane Birkin described her first date with Serge Gainsbourg. They met on the set of the 1969 movie Slogan; he was 40, she was 22. “He barely spoke to me and I thought him terribly arrogant and unkind,” she recalled, “so the director suggested we go out for the night. We went to dinner, then to a club, where I dragged him onto the dancefloor. He trod all over my toes, and I realised that under the rashness and the mauve shirt, he was devastatingly unsure of himself, and that made him terribly intriguing. Then he whizzed me off to the Rasputin club, where he made all the musicians play Sibelius’s Valse Triste while he threw 100-franc notes at them, saying, ‘C’est des putes, comme moi’…

Joe Dempsie is used to intense fanfare surrounding projects in which he’s appearing. He first encountered it when playing Chris in the acclaimed British teen comedy-drama Skins. The fans, he says, “were a demographic [that would] run over to you and say something or just scream in your face and run away”. The show gained a cult following among Britain’s youth, but, more interestingly, it provided a springboard for several actors: Nicholas Hoult, Dev Patel, Daniel Kaluuya and Hannah Murray all starred alongside Dempsie. That was more than a decade ago, though, and in that time Joe managed to find his way to Westeros and bag a spot on television’s biggest global stage, Game of Thrones, whose fan base is perhaps the most passionate there is. Joe plays Gendry, a…

Few people, on meeting Max Poux, would believe themselves to be in the presence of a ‘typical banker’. Eclectic in taste and impervious to the rigid conventions of his professional milieu, a besuited Poux may well be spotted skateboarding to the office, then playing backgammon in one of Paris’s oldest gentlemen’s clubs that evening. Tattoos, tassel loafers, racing cars, vintage watches and his knife collection also count among Poux’s interests, but perhaps his greatest passions are motorcycles. Having purchased a Norton, Poux decided to tear apart his “new baby” and rebuild it from scratch, gradually building a dream model he’d sketched. One Instagram post later, orders for the exact same design began to flood into Norton’s Paris dealership. An encounter with Charlie Stockwell, the Head of Custom and Design at…

“Christie’s has been selected as the global auction house for the collection of David and Peggy Rockefeller. This vast collection will be offered for sale in May 2018 at our flagship auction rooms in Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. The sales will be conducted in keeping with David Rockefeller’s pledge to direct the majority of his wealth to philanthropy, and provide for the cultural, educational, medical and environmental causes long supported by the couple.” It is a bald statement, but there is nevertheless, in those words, a world of pride and satisfaction. And so there should be. It is a once in a generation, perhaps once in a lifetime event. Topping the list of these museum-quality works is what is described as a Matisse that will…

In his late teens, Mike Horn recalls, “I was in the South African Special Forces, fighting the war in Angola”. As a soldier during the final years of the two-decades-long South African Border War, “I led a very exciting life. Although war is not a game” — Horn says he hates armed conflict — “there’s a little bit of excitement in it. You get an adrenaline rush when you feel afraid, uncertain. I kind of started liking those feelings. I asked myself, how can I get that in a more productive way, where I don’t have to hide from people who want to shoot me?” After leaving the military, studying and subsequently taking up a job in sports science, Horn’s day-to-day existence became rather pedestrian. “I was working for a…

While unofficially, and perhaps unintentionally, the subject of legacy has a strong influence in this issue, perhaps part of The Rake’s raison d’être is to emphasise not only the great men and women of history and the impressions they have left on the world, but also how, today, people nurture a legacy and keep it secure for future generations. I’ve always liked ‘signatures’, the small identifiers that become unmistakable to the enlightened, and the subtler the better. For centuries the greatest artists, artisans, musicians and writers have left thumbprints in their work through which we recognise them. Ralph Vaughan Williams had his pastoral whimsy, the ultimate expression of the English soul in music; Rubens had big bottoms; Joyce had his hieroglyphic level of obscurity; and Edward Sexton has those shoulders.…

It has been a while since my last visit to Palm Springs, California. In the late 1990s a group of friends would travel to this idyllic desert community from Los Angeles for the holidays. It is about 110 miles from Hollywood, and we were drawn there by the old-school Rat Pack flair, the pedigree modernist architecture, the resale shops filled with fifties and sixties furnishings, and designer thrift deposited by East Coast snowbirds escaping the cold for warmer climates. There were not many cool places to stay, and the food was more shtick than savoury. There were medieval-themed prime rib restaurants, red sauce mafia-style Italian joints, and dark bars with watered-down cocktails. And we loved it all. We loved it so much my wife and I eloped there 20 years…

Is there any more rugged way of life than mustering and droving? That’s rounding up livestock and moving it long distances, for those Pommy readers (not to mention the sooks in Sydney and Melbourne) who haven’t been introduced to it by that sappy Hugh Jackman movie named after my native land. And, I’m proud to say, it’s as Aussie a way to make a buck as shifting rubble in a Holden Commodore run on refined Vegemite. Originally bred from Collies imported to Australia for stock work in the early 19th century, us Kelpies are happy to share four per cent of our genes with an indigenous dog, the Dingo. This happens to make us far more qualified to make the, ‘We grew here, you flew here’ claim found on bumper…

Diane Lane wouldn’t give you the time of day. Although her parents’ families are from Georgia — dad was a drama coach and mom a delightful slashie (centrefold/nightclub singer) — Lane, a New Yorker, has forever radiated a coolly detached East Coast soignée. Decades before the likes of Lana Del Rey jumped on the preppy bandwagon, Lane was mainlining the kind of J.Crew imperiousness and hauteur with which, at best, she’d mistake you for a valet and toss you the keys to her car before turning on a Sergio Rossi heel, making her way into a party you’d never be cool enough to be invited to. And we love her for it. She first came to prominence as a 13-year-old in 1979’s A Little Romance. The bravura performance was so…

In 600 B.C., when Greek settlers on the south-western coast of what we today call Italy founded a settlement in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, they called it Neapolis — the new city. It was to be new not just in location but in philosophy, a haven for those who were free of spirit and thought. It attracted minds such as the Roman poet Virgil, who asked to be buried there, and whose tomb, in the words of his contemporary Horace, “ennobled this elegant retreat, which attracted the lovers of repose and study from the noise, the smoke, and the laborious opulence of Rome”. Over the centuries, Neapolis came to function as something of a pleasure resort for the well-to-do; opulent villas dotted the coastline where emperors and the wealthy…

In his twilight years, a second world war hero who once walked nine miles to safety with severe bullet wounds to his intestines and lungs — a man who took part in a string of Reapergoading missions as a weapons trainer and saboteur, parachuted twice into occupied France, bombed German naval vessels, and helped stockpile weapons in preparation for D-Day — would tell people that he was a former accountant who’d retired at 66. Bob Maloubier’s aloofness about heroics that saw him cited three times for the War Cross between 1939 and 1945, and receive a Distinguished Service Order in 1945, had nothing to do with fending off dark, Proustian infiltrations into his consciousness: he would later describe his years in German-occupied France as “the most wonderful” of his life…

Since September 2016, Stefano Gaudioso Tramonte has played a crucial role at the helm of Corneliani. That said, he hasn’t had his hands on the tiller in the way one might assume. He’s not the creative director or the art director, nor is he the managing director or even the C.E.O. Instead, he resides as the Italian heritage brand’s Style Director, though his position goes far beyond shaping the house style. It’s an unusual role in the sense that it places heavy demands on both sides of his brain. For many of us, the ability to utilise both sides — the creative and the analytical — and perform at a high level is a function that’s simply not possible. Still, Tramonte’s new role is providing dividends, and it could become…

7 FOR ALL MANKIND – www.7forallmankind.com 3.1 PHILIP LIM – www.31philliplim.com A.B.C.L – www.abclgarments.com A.CARACENI – www.a-caraceni.it A.P.C – www.apc.fr A. SAUVAGE – www.asauvage.com ABBEYHORN – www.abbeyhorn.co.uk ACNE STUDIOS – www.acnestudios.com ADIDAS – www.adidas.co.uk AL BAZAR – www.albazarmilano.it ALBERT THURSTON – www.albertthurston.com AGENT PROVOCATEUR – www.agentprovocateur.com AGNONA – www.agnona.com ALEXANDER MCQUEEN – www.alexandermcqueen.com AMI – www.amiparis.fr ANCIENT GREEK SANDALS – www.ancient-greek-sandals.com ANDERSON & SHEPPARD – www.anderson-sheppard.co.uk ANDREA POMPILIO – www.andreapompilio.it AQUASCUTUM – www.aquascutum.com AQUAZZURA – www.aquazzura.com ASPREY – www.asprey.com ASSOULINE – www.assouline.com AUDEMARS PIGUET – www.audemarspiguet.com BALLY – www.bally.com BARBANERA – www.barbanerastyle.com BASELWORLD – www.baselworld.com BATES – www.bates-hats.com BEGG & CO. – www.beggandcompany.com BELL & ROSS – www.bellross.com BELSTAFF – www.belstaff.co.uk BENSON AND CLEGG – www.bensonandclegg.com BERLUTI – www.berluti.com BERRY BROS. & RUDD – www.bbr.com BLANCPAIN – www.blancpain.com BLK DNM…

STEVE SCHOFIELD Steve Schofield is an award-winning English photographer. He has a number of portraits in the National Portrait Gallery London’s permanent collection. He recently returned to the capital after spending the past six years living in Los Angeles, where he worked with Hollywood’s A-list for editorial clients including Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire and Empire, as well as a range of advertising clients. Known for his narrative, sometimes cinematic, approach to portraiture, his personal work has been exhibited across Europe, and has been written about in The New York Times, The Times, The Guardian and Creative Review. Some of Steve’s subjects include Jon Hamm, Christoph Waltz, Harrison Ford, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Adam Driver, David Hockney and David Lynch. He is currently working on a short film, which is…

In 1932, a nine-year-old boy from a devout Muslim family living in London — his father was a diplomat and legal adviser to Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish republic — was taken by his elder brother, Nesuhi, to see the Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway orchestras at the Palladium theatre. “I’d never really seen black people except pictures of great artists like Josephine Baker,” the boy in question, Ahmet Ertegün, later said. “And I’d never heard anything as glorious as those beautiful musicians, wearing great white tails playing these incredibly gleaming horns with drums and rhythm sections unlike you ever heard on records.” The childhood epiphany sparked by this cultural ménage à trois would go on to change the course of popular music. As teenagers, the family having moved…

Bamford x Revolution, ZENITH Cronometro Tipo CP-2 In construction circles, the family name Bamford is best known for the excavation vehicles bearing the initials JCB. In horological circles, the name belongs to George Bamford, and it conjures images of a hyper-innovative maverick whose marvellously disruptive foray into the world of watches began when he decided to soup-up a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona he’d received for his 21st birthday using a “diamond-like carbon” process that rendered it an achingly cool kind of deep battleship grey. Around 25 friends requested — no, demanded — he metamorphose their timepieces in a similar fashion, and Bamford Watch Department was born. Once to the watch world what Banksy is to the art world, Bamford was welcomed into the luxury watch establishment fold last summer, when he…

“I’d seen Benedict on British television before and really sought him out.” This is not an excerpt from a conversation that The Rake’s founder and I had about putting Benedict Cumberbatch on the cover. While the sentiment is the same, the source of the quote is Steven Spielberg, when talking about his casting process for the first world war epic War Horse. The film came out in 2011, and by then Cumberbatch had established himself as Britain’s nonpareil actor in a career spanning theatre, television, radio and film. Within a chamber troupe of young British actors, including Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston, Cumberbatch has always had an X factor that has kept his trajectory more or less vertical ever since. He possesses a potent mix of highly tuned talent and…

Special thanks to Patrón Tequila…

“Ciao, come stai? Tutto bene. Fammi un Martini secco, per favore! Grazie!” If you’re bellowing this through a loudspeaker to the staff at the Capri Palace as they watch in slack-jawed awe as you — still resplendent in your silk shantung dinner jacket and soft-collared tropical-weight Marcella evening shirt — enact a perfect 10-point swan dive from the skid of your helicopter hovering above the pool, in homage to Gianni Agnelli’s famous entrance to the legendary Hôtel du Cap, then this watch is for you. If this summer you plan to live libidinously to an internal soundtrack of Renato Carosone’s Tu Vuò Fà L’Americano and on a steady diet of Aperol Spritzes, Cohiba Talismáns, vitamin B12 injections and the open-mindedness of dewy-eyed haut monde demoiselles, then this watch is for…

The seductive and scantily clad women who have made the Pirelli calendar famous over the past five decades have, in the last three years, been replaced by imagery designed to develop the pin-up beyond the male gaze. The latest calendar, of which a selection of photographs has been released, is its most challenging yet, providing further proof of the publication’s change in direction. Photographed by Tim Walker, a veteran of the fashion industry, the new work depicts an all-black cast in a context that has, historically, been portrayed largely by white characters: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Walker said the Pirelli calendar had always provided a snapshot of a particular period in time, and that this theme felt relevant for today. “Alice has been told so many times,” Walker…

It is technically a rom-com, but A Little Romance — a 1979 basement-cinema treat, directed by George Roy Hill, of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fame — couldn’t be more removed from any saccharine, Kleenex-sponsored Anne Hathaway vehicle. The first character we encounter, Daniel Michon, is a contender, like Holden Caulfield before him, to be considered an adolescent Rake Incarnate. A truanting film buff with a precocious intellect (on reading Heidegger: “Not any more — he bores me”), he boasts Gainsbourg-esque poise, ample collars and a propensity for intoxicating the teenaged love interest he met on a film set at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte with pilfered champagne. But taking the back-page podium this issue is the character who enchants these two young lovers (the girl, Lauren, played by Diane…