Exclusive interview

MAGGIE
GYLLENHAAL
An honourable woman

THE MACHIAVELLIAN
MACHINATIONS OF
PRINCE RAINIER III
RALLYE DES LÉGENDES:
RICHARD MILLE’S
AUTOMOTIVE ASSEMBLY ISSUE 68 £7.50

BILLY JOEL
ALESSANDRO SARTORI
AURO MONTANARI
 contents
18 FOUNDER’S LETTER
20 EDITOR’S LETTER
22 CONTRIBUTORS

44
arbiter
32 WHO IS THE RAKE?
Is Billy Joel a great-but-flawed entertainer
or forever just a Bronx Joe made good?

38 RAKE-IN-PROGRESS
With a bloodline that runs through British stage and
screen, how could Freddie Fox resist the lure of acting?

44 FOLLOW SUIT
Michelangelo Antonioni was notorious for
taking existential inquiry to another level.

50 HOUND
A Wire-Haired Dachshund clambers onto
the soapbox to relate a not-so-tall story.

52 BOULEVARDIER
Wei Koh turned 50 — naturally, an epic two-day
celebration appropriate to the milestone followed.

60 POCKET GUIDE
Auro Montanari has a peerless wrist game. But what
of his wardrobe? We were curious to find out…

62 CHERCHEZ LA FEMME
The best thing about Elle Macpherson is that she
knows her way around a joke — even if it’s on her.
GETTY IMAGES
 Since 1772
www.foxflannel.com

Illustration by Fab Gorjian

 contents

70
atelier
66 INVEST
Investments can be unpredictable,
but not so with these four winners...

70 RAKE BESPOKE FEATURE

It is high time the Buckinghamshire-based leather
goods firm Tusting is given the credit it deserves.

74 CUSTOM
Nick Foulkes has created three tweeds so distinctive that
only he will wear them. At least, that’s what he reckons...
 contents

96

articles
82 THE GOLDEN AGE
The star of The Deuce talks to the rake about her
next daunting challenge: her directorial debut.

96 THE SUNLIT UPLAND

Prince Rainier III had a plan to transform the world’s
second smallest country. (Spoiler: he kept the climate.)

104 MANORS MAKETH MAN

In winter’s waning weeks, the mercury may still be low,
but the opportunities for your wardrobe are bounteous.
ALAMY
 contents

shop the rake

126 RAKE CREATION
Inspired by the Cairngorms in Scotland, we travelled to Braemar
to create a wardrobe that captures the palette of the landscape.

126
GERARDO JACONELLI
 contents

compendium
140 TEMPORAL
The adventurer and photographer Cory Richards explains
the need we have as humans to push ourselves to the limit.

144 TEMPORAL
Kevin Pietersen, in collaboration with Hublot,
is leading the fight to save the endangered rhinoceros.

148 WISDOM
Alessandro Sartori is trying to intuit what menswear
will look like a generation from now… 140
152 JAUNT
The Rallye des Légendes by Richard Mille provided
a rare escape from the pressures of ordinary life.

162 AFFAIRS
End-of-year festivities with Cifonelli and Hackett, and our
own convivial thanks to our partners and advertisers.

168 RAKE INCARNATE

The literary character Nick Charles was no life-weathered
bruiser — and he is all the more compelling for it.


  
 

F or the majority of my life I’ve been underestimated. And I
wouldn’t have had it any other way. I vividly recall, when I was
a child, my grandmother inviting a fortune teller to divine the
potential trajectory of my life. In particular, I remember that after
a great deal of amateur dramatics, joss-stick throwing, I Ching
consulting, palm reading and star-chart mapping, the fortune teller
resoundingly declared that I would probably not amount to much.
That’s exactly what I needed to hear. Because in the ensuing half-
century I would wake up every morning seething with the unbridled
desire to prove him wrong. I wanted to pulverise and decimate his
prediction into nothingness. Initially, his words seemed to ring
true. Each time I applied myself to something, I was met with doubt
or scepticism. Whether in my leisure activities, such as cycling
(too fat, too top heavy, no sense of balance), or in my professional
activities, such as writing (no formal training, terrible at spelling,
creatively unoriginal) — initially it stung. But then I got used to it
and figured it out. Since I had little natural aptitude for anything, I
realised that, at first at least, failure was an inevitable and necessary
part of learning and improving. Once I got out of the childish
mindset of being discouraged by failure, and I understood that I
enjoyed the physical or mental exhaustion brought on by trying to
improve, I felt an immense liberation. Because it boils down to this:
for anything you lack, there is invariably a solution. As long as you
are not crushed by failure, you can recognise your inadequacies
and overcome them. Not as strong as your friends? Make intimate
friends with the weight pile. Not as clever and well-spoken as your
peers? Read up on world events, work your way through the classics
in literature, and learn a second language. Can’t keep up with the
peloton? Mainline EPO until your haematocrit level feels like
Bjarne ‘Mr. 60%’ Riis. O.K., that last one is a joke.
In this issue of The Rake I wanted us to tell the story of Prince
Rainier III, who was often overlooked, underestimated and
underrated despite being, in actual fact, an extraordinary, bad-
ass motherfucker. (I use this term as the highest form of praise
I know.) Indeed, he was often discounted as the somewhat
diminutive and nebbish ruler of Monaco who was lucky enough to
marry the woman widely considered the world’s most beautiful,
Grace Kelly. But in reality, Rainier was a brilliant tactical genius
on the level of Machiavelli. He was educated in England and at Le
Rosey, and during the second world war he enrolled in the Free
French army and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his actions
18
against Hitler’s forces in Alsace. He was also given the rank of
Chevalier in the Légion d’honneur. His mother renounced her
right to the throne on his 21st birthday and he suddenly found
himself the ruler of a small country (really, a city by the coast with
few prospects besides the dwindling gambling trade decreasingly
supported by the now broke European aristocrats). But he
envisioned something else. He transformed his country into a
tax haven (Boris Johnson, pay attention), making it the home of
the world’s financial elite. Along the way he butted heads with
General de Gaulle, who was so incensed by the potential exodus
of rich French citizens that he threatened to turn off the power
that France supplied to the principality. Needing someone to help
build Monaco into a shimmering example of romance, glamour
and gambling, Rainier called on Aristotle Onassis, duping him
into thinking that the Monaco he was building would become his
personal plaything. But Rainier turned the tables on Onassis in
1964, diluting the value of his shares in Société des Bains de Mer,
which owned the Monaco casino and the Hotel de Paris, among
other things, so that Onassis had no choice but to depart the city-
state in defeat. It was said that he was so grief-stricken that as his
yacht, the Christina (festooned with its signature whale foreskin
bar stools), pulled away from Monaco’s harbour, he could not
bear to look back at the coastline that he had helped develop.
Thereafter, to attract the world’s wealthiest tourists — the
Americans — Rainier married Hollywood’s most beautiful and
adored ingénue, Kelly, placing Monaco in the crosshairs of every
American with a fistful of dollars in search of upward social
mobility. In so doing Rainier seems to have forever affected his
genetic bloodline so that any female descendant with his last
name will be among the most beautiful women on Earth.
My point is that Rainier could not have pulled off the great
transformation of Monaco, of a sleepy coastal principality into
the mecca for the world’s uber-loaded, if along the way he had
not been underestimated. And so, for those of you who, like me,
have been similarly overlooked, trust me, this is the greatest
advantage we could possibly have. Keep those expectations low
until you show those motherfuckers that guess what… actually,
you’re Keyser Söze, bitches.
—Wei Koh, Founder & Editorial Director
@wei_koh_revolution
 TOURBILLON RM 58-01
WORLD TIMER - JEAN TODT
© Didier Gourdon

www.richardmille.com
They say the grass is always greener on the other side. In my case
the maxim is literally true, as I was brought up in asphalt- and
petrol-scented London, which means I first got my hands dirty
when I changed my firstborn’s nappy. Every time I pluck up the
courage to leave the security blanket of the M25 (for our majority
readership not based in the U.K., the M25 is a circular highway
generally considered to be the border of London), the green of
the countryside matches my envy for those who get to wake up
every day to the cooing wood pigeons and fresh-lunged milkmen
whistling their cheery tunes in charming idylls with great names
like Bourton-on-the-Water, Boggy Bottom and Mousehole.
It is only when I go to the countryside that I think of rural
Britain’s role in developing the country’s cultural template. In
1904, the German writer Oscar A.H. Schmitz called England
Das Land Ohne Musik (the land without music), and he was
probably right. Opera houses and orchestras had seasons that
were filled with Italian and German compositions, but there
was nothing homegrown. It wasn’t until shortly afterwards that
a small band of merry men known as the English Pastoralists
figured out that an ‘English sound’ could be fostered within
the fertile and vigorous soil of English folk song and rural
evocation. Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst would
take walking trips in the countryside and use the landscape and
cultural heritage nestled within as inspiration. From this sprung
what the world now recognises as our cultural soundtrack — as
British as a cow looking over a gate.
In the U.K. general election at the end of last year, this
influence was flexed once again out of nowhere (and to the
surprise of all metropolitans) as the country voted decisively for
something that, for many people, was a leap into the unknown
— a political party they had never before considered voting for.
They did so assuming the grass was greener on the other side.
A recent trip to Constable Burton Hall, the inspiration for
Kenneth Grahame’s Toad Hall, to visit the ancient and noble
Yorkshire family the Wyvills — for what was most definitely a
straightforward shooting weekend — gave me the chance to
speak to several Yorkshiremen and listen to their frustrations
and justifications for voting as they did.
20
It is too soon to tell if they will regret their choices. But perhaps it
is fate that I am writing this letter through one eye open late on New
Year’s Eve in 2019. The backbone of The Rake, our Chief Subeditor,
Stephen Wood, requested I file nice and early, to give him breathing
space to write his first cover story for the magazine — an interview
with the actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, who becomes the second woman
(after Julianne Moore 12 months ago) to feature on the front of the
magazine. So here I write, aware of the tick-tocking of another year
slipping away, making room for glorious chances anew. A new year,
a new decade — the roaring twenties; big shoes to fill. Will the grass
be greener or are we destined for disappointment? If this issue is
anything to go by, we can feel positive.
When you dive into the stories by James Medd and Stuart
Husband, on Billy Joel and Michelangelo Antonioni respectively,
you will hopefully feel uplifted from the beginning. What can be
more inspirational than learning about the talented, the iconic
and the somewhat wayward? Then again, they don’t hold a candle
to the polished opportunism of Prince Rainier of Monaco, whom
our founder, Wei Koh, has dubbed the Keyser Söze of the jet set.
You can find the profile of Rainier on page 96.
Nick Foulkes has eschewed the customary gongs and coats
of arms that the country bestows upon its most illustrious
contributors and has instead opted for something even more
noble and edifying: a family tweed that has been turned by the
great Terry Haste into three-piece finery for state occasions.
Read about the design process on page 74.
As you will be reading this letter when the issue is published in
early February, I realise chitchat about the new year might come
across as old news. But 2020 marks an exciting moment for The
Rake, and our February issue is the drive off the first tee with our
1-wood. The game is afoot, and the plan is to take a leap of faith
into this decade with all the confidence and hope that you, as an
audience, have given to us through your allegiance to our cause.
We believe that the pastures of these new twenties will prove
verdant and luscious, and offer plenty more to come.
KIM LANG
— Tom Chamberlin, Editor
@tfchamberlin

Michael is a Floridian turned New
Yorker who began his photography
career in the fashion industry as an
agent for models. While developing
and maintaining the careers of some
leading models, he had a desire
to get back to his lifelong goal of
capturing still and moving images.
Since changing careers he has not
looked back, having shot for several
iconic brands, including Hugo Boss,
Victoria’s Secret, Vogue and GQ. He
Contributors
With two decades’ experience
covering style, entertainment,
entrepreneurship, travel and
luxury, the Singapore-based Barker
was The Rake’s founding Editor-
in-Chief. Today he serves as the
magazine’s editor for the Asia-
Pacific region and special projects.
The promiscuous wordsmith
also contributes to Forbes Asia,
Robb Report U.K. and Australia,
Tatler Hong Kong, CNBC, and
Don’t trust the appearance. Frédéric
Brun may look like a classic Parisian
townsman, always wearing a suit
and tie, but his roots are in the
countryside in Provence. Born
in Marseille and raised between
Avignon and Aix-en-Provence, this
graduate of political science studies
and law was once involved in politics
and diplomacy. But at the same
time, the former speechwriter began
publishing stories in magazines and
Charlie Gray is a British international
fashion photographer based in
London. His iconic, playful style
emerged organically from his timeless
celebrity portraiture and intimate
behind-the-scenes photography
on film sets. Last year he had the
pleasure of shooting some of the
most interesting actors of our time,
including Robert De Niro, Jessica
Chastain, Harvey Keitel, Ewan
McGregor, Jon Hamm and Sir

YIAN HUANG

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ CHRISTIAN BARKER FRÉDÉRIC BRUN CHARLIE GRAY

lives in New York with his girlfriend
and his badass Pomeranian called
Biggie. In this issue Michael
returned to The Rake to photograph
Maggie Gyllenhaal for our cover and
accompanying profile (page 82).
the Financial Times’ How To Spend
It supplement, among others. In
this issue, Barker gleans wisdom
from Ermenegildo Zegna’s Artistic
Director, Alessandro Sartori (page
148). “I first interviewed Ale more
than 10 years ago and must’ve done
another half-dozen since,” Barker
says. “Not only is the man a style
savant, he’s also one of the loveliest
fellas you’ll ever meet. The success
he’s experienced over the past
decade? Couldn’t have happened to
a nicer guy. Or more deserving.”
books, and after he resigned his Anthony Hopkins. Working with
official duties he threw himself into young actors is something Charlie
journalism, becoming the Editor- thrives on, so he was delighted when
in-Chief of Montres watch magazine we asked him to profile the talented
and writing for French publications and charming Freddie Fox for this
such as Monsieur and Point de Vue issue of the magazine (page 38).
about all he appreciates: literature,
cars, watches, boats, horses,
tailoring, men’s lifestyle, travelling
and cigars. For this issue of The Rake,
Frédéric took part in the Rallye des
Légendes Richard Mille and filed an
exclusive report (page 152).

Cover photographer michael schwartz

fashion direction grace gilfeather

Camel Loro Piana wool Naphill greatcoat, Kit Blake; burgundy

Reverso One Duetto timepiece, Jaeger-LeCoultre.

22
 Model, HJP802 050 © 2020 Hackett JPH. All rights reserved.

Shop: therake.com
 THE RAKE PTE LTD

FOUNDER & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Wei Koh

EDITOR
Tom Chamberlin
tom@therakemagazine.com

DIGITAL EDITOR ART DIRECTOR FASHION DIRECTOR

Ryan Thompson Rob French Grace Gilfeather
ryan@therakemagazine.com rob@therakemagazine.com grace@therakemagazine.com

EDITORIAL ASSOCIATE CHIEF SUBEDITOR STYLIST

Aobh O'Brien-Moody Stephen Wood Veronica Perez
aobh@therakemagazine.com veronica@therakemagazine.com

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER & PHOTOGRAPHER ART EDITOR FASHION ASSISTANT

Rikesh Chauhan Kim Lang Amelia Hudson
rikesh@therakemagazine.com kim@therakemagazine.com amelia@therakemagazine.com

COPYWRITER EDITORIAL ASSISTANT DIGITAL IMAGING ARTIST

Rachel Marie Walsh Freddie Anderson Kok Haw Koh
rachel@therakemagazine.com freddie@therakemagazine.com

EDITORS-AT-LARGE CONTRIBUTING EDITORS SARTORIAL CONSIGLIERE

Nick Scott Nick Foulkes Shary Rahman
Christian Barker Matt Hranek

SARTORIAL GURU RAKE AMBASSADOR RAKE HOUNDS IN VALHALLA

Christopher Modoo Alexander Kraft Brando & Gracie Koh

The Rake is published six times a year by The Rake Pte Ltd.
All rights reserved, copyright © 2014 by The Rake Pte Ltd.
The Mill, 5 Jalan Kilang, 04-01, Singapore 159405, Tel:+65 6535 0079.
36 Upper Brook Street, London W1K 7QJ, +44 203 752 8880.
Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is strictly prohibited. All prices and credits are accurate at time of going to press but are subject to change. Opinions
expressed in The Rake are solely those of the writers and are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher and its editors. Editorial enquiries should be directed to the Editor via email
(tom@therakemagazine.com). While every reasonable care will be undertaken by the Editor, The Rake cannot be held responsible for any unsolicited material. All unsolicited materials will
not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed envelope and sufficient return postage.
MCI (P) 116/01/2019 PPS 1830/03/2014(025559) ISSN: 1793-7914

GETTY IMAGES
VALSTAR.IT

MARKETING DIRECTOR
Drew Laidlaw Hoare
drew@therakemagazine.com
MARKETING COORDINATOR
Maeve McGuire
maeve@therakemagazine.com
CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER
Rahil Ahmed
rahil@therakemagazine.com
WAREHOUSE MANAGER
Antonio Diaferio
antonio@therakemagazine.com
SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER
Matteo Barni
matteo@therakemagazine.com
PROCUREMENT MANAGER
Lorenzo Viglietti
lorenzo@therakemagazine.com
THE RAKE JAPAN CO. LTD
PUBLISHER
Shigetoshi Oshiro
oshiro@therakejapan.com
THE RAKE JAPAN CO. LTD.
JAPAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Kentaro Matsuo
matsuo@therakejapan.com
THE RAKE PTE LTD
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Alain Gafundi
alain@therakemagazine.com
MANAGING DIRECTOR
David Goodman
david@therakemagazine.com
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS DIRECTOR
Anne Petermann
anne@therakemagazine.com
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Arabella Boardman
arabella@therakemagazine.com
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
Maria Lim
maria@therakemagazine.com
CIRCULATION & SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER
Birute Kaluzeviciute
birute@therakemagazine.com
PRODUCT MANAGER
Hugo Possner
hugo@therakemagazine.com
INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC COORDINATOR
Christina Koh
christina@revolutionmagazines.com
FINANCE MANAGER
Jay Wong
Internationally Licensed Editions
THE RAKE MIDDLE EAST
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR APP
Sue Holt
sue.holt@itp.com
APP MEDIA GROUP
DUBAI EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Jola Chudy
jola.chudy@appgulf.com
FINANCE AND OPERATIONS MANAGER
Francesco Lunardon
francesco@therakemagazine.com
HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Riccardo Zambon
riccardo@therakemagazine.com
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Mike Hughes
mike@therakemagazine.com
BUSINESS DEVELOPER
Pablo Gomez Jul
pablo@therakemagazine.com
JUNIOR BUSINESS DEVELOPER, E-COMMERCE
Fritz Unützer
fritz@therakemagazine.com
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER
Royce Siew
HUBERT BURDA MEDIA
RUSSIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Alexander Rymkevich
a.rymkevich@burda.ru
MATHIEU BONNEVIE
THE RAKE RUSSIAPUBLISHER
Denis Peshkov
d.peshkov@burda.ru
 E X T R A O R D I N A R Y WA T C H E S A N D J E W E L R Y

AU D E MA R S P I G U E T - B E L L & RO SS - B L A N C PA I N - B R E G U E T - B R E I T L I N G - BV LGA R I - CA R L F. B U C H E R E R

CHOPARD - CHRISTOPHE CL ARET - DE BETHUNE - DE GRISOGONO - DEVON - DEWIT T - DIOR - FABERGÉ

FRANCK MULLER GENEVE - GIRARD-PERREGAUX - GL ASHÜT TE ORIGINAL - GRAND SEIKO - GREUBEL FORSEY

H. MOSER & CIE - HARRY WINSTON - HAUTLENCE - HERMÈS - HUBLOT - HYT - LONGINES - MB&F - MESSIKA

NORQAIN - OMEGA - PURNELL - ROLAND ITEN - TAG HEUER - TUDOR - ULYSSE NARDIN - URWERK - ZENITH

 N Rodeo Drive  Prospect St  Sunset Blvd  South Miami Ave
westime.com Beverly Hills, CA La Jolla, CA West Hollywood, CA Miami, FL
.. .. .. ..
Fabrics that bestow
naturalness upon elegance.
Since 1663.

The Original Woollen Flannel is a

must-have in any gentleman’s wardrobe.
The warm softness of pure wool finds its
full expression in light greys, as
in this check.
 For more than 350 years, Vitale Barberis Canonico fabrics have been worn by gentlemen
of style all over the world. The care taken when choosing the best wools, the creativity of our
designers and the innovative manufacturing processes all carried out in Italy create a style
and a quality unbound by time.
Wearing a suit made from Vitale Barberis Canonico fabrics is the pleasure of acquiring for
oneself a natural elegance.
arbiter
BILLY THE GOAT; FANTASTIC MR. FOX;
ACTION STATIONS; DOGGED DETERMINATION;
GOLDEN JUBILEE; YOU BETTER WATCH OUT;
BODY CONSCIOUS.
FIRE IN HIS BELLY
Billy Joel’s best songs are an intriguing, genre-defying mixture of melody, musicality and lyrical brimstone.
What’s with the attitude? Is he a great-but-flawed entertainer or forever just a Bronx Joe made good?
by james medd
Y ou think you know Billy Joel, but you don’t know Billy
Joel. There’s an easy way to prove it: go to YouTube and
search for ‘Attila’. You’ll hear a cacophonous late-sixties
version of heavy metal led by over-amplified organ and see a
picture of two longhairs in armour standing in an abattoir. One
of them is the organist, and he’s Billy Joel.
Most musicians have a past they’d rather forget, and this is
Joel’s. He went through a succession of cover bands and failed
beat bands, then the terrible Attila, and all of it to show that he
wasn’t made for his times. In truth, though, he wasn’t really made
for any times, which is both a blessing and a curse for an artist. The
songs that made his name — Piano Man and Captain Jack, released
in 1973 — were character sketches that might have been excerpts
from a Broadway show. The big ballads that made him a bit of
a joke for a long time, such as Just the Way You Are, were equal-
parts Sinatra-ready tributes to the Great American Songbook
and seventies soft-rock schmaltz. With them came punchy little
numbers, like Only the Good Die Young, that veered into Springsteen
epic territory, and the rock ’n’ roll and doo-wop pastiche of It’s
Still Rock and Roll to Me and Uptown Girl. And that’s before we get
to We Didn’t Start the Fire, which could have been the work of some
eighties alternative-rock band contemporary of R.E.M.
It’s partly down to the fact of writing on the piano — Elton John
is equally hard to place, and even Coldplay have the same confusing
effect — but Billy Joel really is a curious figure in pop, a collision
of nature and nurture, contradicting impulses and unusual driving
forces. For a start, as his return to the form in later years reinforced,
he’s really a slumming classical pianist, a proper child prodigy who
started playing at four. His half-brother, Alex, is a prominent
European conductor, his father an equally gifted musician, and his
mother the daughter of a long line of English intellectuals.
Billy, however, was born in the Bronx, and raised in the
perfectly named Long Island suburb of Hicksville. That father,
originally from Nuremberg in Germany, left in his son’s teens
for Vienna, and Billy turned from chess and piano to small-time
hoodlumry: sniffing glue, petty theft, leather jackets. Picked on for
his Jewish roots, he briefly took up boxing, which left him with a
broken nose that never set properly. Things might have gone badly
for him, but he was lucky: this was the sixties, and pop music saved
him. He saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and realised
there was a place for a guy like him. “That was it,” he reminisced
to Q magazine in 1987. “They didn’t look like Hollywood, they
weren’t all gleamy. You couldn’t take away the fact that they were
these working-class guys. And they were smart arses.”
By the time he noticed that playing in bands, even his cover
groups The Echoes and The Hassles, made the girls look at him
differently, he was all signed up. Then he hit a wall with the arrival of
32
psychedelia. The drugs didn’t work for him, and he suspected there
was nothing behind the mind-expanded lyrics. The failure of Attila
was a sign that he was not going to succeed by following fashion,
and a first solo album was a disaster, so he retreated to a piano bar
in California and plied his trade under the name of Bill Martin.
Either he found himself there or he was lucky enough to be
found, but his second album, Piano Man, distilled during his
time playing for passing trade, was a proper success. As much as
anything in his career, it defined the parameters of his talent: lyrics
that tell a story but above all a focus on melody and melancholy,
equal parts Cole Porter and Ray Charles. And if you could hear
the musical virtuosity and sheer prettiness of Paul McCartney,
there was also the attitude of John Lennon sitting just behind it —
an edge of anger that was a vital part of all he did. It’s not hard to
find reasons for that suppressed rage in a broken home, poverty
and racial abuse, but much of it, according to the man himself,
came from growing up in the suburbs. “You’re a nothing, you’re
a zero in the suburbs. You’re mundane, you’re common,” he said
in that 1987 interview. The dissatisfaction seeps out in all his
best songs, and it’s his secret ingredient, the edge that makes the
sweet, catchy tunes so resonant. It’s in the contempt for his bar-
room characters in Piano Man, in the put-downs of Big Shot and
the “leave me alone” of My Life, even in the underdog chippiness
of It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me and Uptown Girl.
It’s seeped out in other ways, too. In 1970 he had a spell
in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt, either with pills
or drinking furniture polish, depending on whom he’s talking
to. He likes to laugh it off as career doldrums, but then he also
blames his problem drinking in the 2000s on 9/11, and three
car crashes around the same time on issues in his marriage.
There were two attempts at rehab for alcoholism, in 2002 and
2005, then an intervention by friends in 2009. He fell out with
long-time touring partner Elton John after his fellow piano
man spoke in public about Joel’s drinking.
Apart from an incident in Moscow in 1987, filmed for a
documentary, where he reacted to a lack of control by upending
his piano and smashing his microphone stand repeatedly on the
stage — while, ever the professional, continuing to hit his lines
— Joel has kept any outbursts in private. It’s possible the rage
became the drive for his career, because he seems to lack the
usual ego and ambition that underpins a star of his level. He’s
always painted himself as just another guy from the suburbs,
an entertainer rather than a star, an ordinary man with an
extraordinary talent, so much so he may even believe it. This
GETTY IMAGES
despite the fact that, on paper, he’s been through almost every
one of the rock-star rites of passage.
Most famously, there was his marriage to Christie Brinkley,
 WHO IS
THE RAKE

Billy Joel in 1983.

 Clockwise from top left: Joel with first wife
Elizabeth Weber Small; messing about with
second wife Christie Brinkley, 1983; with
Brinkley in 1987; at his wedding to Alexis
Roderick in 2015; with his ex-girlfriend
Trish Bergin, left, and his daughter Alexa
Ray Joel, in 2000; with Brinkley in 1983;
and with his third wife, Katie Lee.
GETTY IMAGES

34
 WHO IS
THE RAKE

Clockwise from top left: Daryl Hall, John Oates, Cyndi Lauper and Billy Joel
in 1988; photographed by Richard E. Aaron in 1970; with Ozzy Osbourne in
1980; with Mariah Carey in 1991; waving from the window of a plane while
on tour in the Midwest in 1980; at a party for the 42nd Grammy awards
with the then Puff Daddy (now Sean Combs), Jennifer Lopez and Donny
Osmond; with daughter Alexa and wife Christie Brinkley at the Hampton
Classic in 1993; at the 14th annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction dinner
with Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney; Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and
Joel attend the second annual International Rock awards in New York
in 1990; and in his home’s music studio in 1978.

35
 WHO IS
THE RAKE

GETTY IMAGES

Brinkley and Joel in 1983.

36
 Billy Joel performs on stage
in Rotterdam in 1990.

possibly the most famous model in the world, and that line much of the eighties retrieving royalties embezzled by lawyers
about “giving hope to every ugly guy in the world”. It’s true that and managers, including his former brother-in-law — but as it
he’s small, pop-eyed and broken-nosed: in his words, “I look stands he’s up there with pop’s biggest all-time earners. All this is
like the guy who makes pizza”. Brinkley called him Joe, because without releasing a pop record since 1993’s River of Dreams (he’s
that’s how he looked to her, but he was still a Joe she met around pretty outspoken on his contemporaries spoiling their legacy
a piano on St. Barts, with Elle Macpherson (whom he dated first) with substandard releases) and restricting composition to purely
and Whitney Houston. He’d already been married, to Elizabeth, classical pieces. In the meantime, he plays the hits to stadiums of
variously the wife of Attila’s drummer, the waitress mentioned adoring baby boomers, racking up a run of residencies at Madison
in Piano Man, the subject of Square Garden, a convenient
She’s Always a Woman, and his helicopter hop from home.
manager. After Brinkley, he
He’s small, broken-nosed and It’s a happy career autumn,
married the television food pop-eyed: in his words, like but then time has been kind
presenter Katie Lee, 23 to his the guy who makes the pizza. to almost all musicians of
then 55, and since 2009 he’s Joel’s generation, for whom
been with the former financier Alexis Roderick. He’s always the money and the reverence increase every year. He always
denied being a ‘jet setter’ but his version of staying close to his said it was the songs that were important, not (to paraphrase
roots is a series of ever-increasing mansions in Long Island’s the spleen-venting It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me) the clothes that
rather un-suburban neighbourhoods, overlooking Oyster Bay he was wearing, and it turns out he was right. His perspective
or in East Hampton or Martha’s Vineyard. His passions beyond on his own legacy is measured: he doesn’t like playing Just the
music are working-class but on a millionaire’s scale: he loves Way You Are, for example, and when talked into it he’s prone
motorbikes, so he has a garage of 100 of them, and commissions to undercut it with a line like, “And then we got divorced” —
mechanics to customise them for him. He’s into boats, so he the hoodlum’s fist inside the elegant white glove again. But for
designs and builds his own, including a 57-foot powerboat. anyone over 50, even that song has lost its old-people-music
It’s the kind of indulgence that looks silly on paper, but fustiness, long ago become just another pretty memory, like Hey
then Joel has made a vast amount of money from his music over Jude or Tiny Dancer, further evidence of Noël Coward’s potency
five decades. Admittedly it should have been much more — he of cheap music. Perhaps Billy Joel’s great secret is that he never
signed a typically punitive contract for his first album and spent fooled himself that it was any more than that in the first place.

37
 RAKE-IN-
PROGRESS

Brown cashmere and wool

herringbone overcoat,
B Corner at The Rake; brown
wool jacket, Lardini; cream
cotton shirt, Alessandro
Gherardi at The Rake; blue
and brown silk tie, Rubinacci;
brown and grey cashmere
scarf, Emma Willis.
ANIMAL ATTRACTION
With a bloodline that runs through British stage and screen, how could Freddie Fox resist the lure of acting? And with several
projects released this year, including the dark drama White House Farm, how are we going to get him out of our minds?

by aobh o’brien-moody photography charlie gray fashion direction veronica perez

Freddie Fox was born to act. The 30-year-old scion of the thespian Fox dynasty that includes his father, Edward, his sister, Emilia,
and his cousin Laurence dabbled in other fields in his youth, but was never able to resist the allure of the dramatic arts. Spurred on
by his family’s support and inspired by the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Alec Guinness and Paul Newman, Fox attended the Guildhall
School of Music and Drama before throwing himself into a slew of roles in theatre, television and film.
Now he is playing Jeremy Bamber in the television series White House Farm, a drama based on the chilling true story of the fatal
shootings at White House Farm in Essex in 1985, in which Bamber was convicted of murdering his family. It’s a challenging role,
but that’s exactly why Fox was drawn to it. “I would never have dreamt that I would have got to have played a complex psychology
like Jeremy Bamber’s,” he says.
Fox’s enthusiasm for his craft is refreshing, especially given that he has been entrenched in this world his whole life. “It’s so much
fun, and you meet wonderful people,” he says. “You get to pretend… to live lives that you find really interesting, that you would never
otherwise get the chance to do.”
His passion gives him an unbelievable energy and assiduous work ethic that, in turn, has led to his spinning multiple plates.
This year he will star alongside Maxine Peake and Charles Dance in the period film Fanny Lye Deliver’d; in the comedy Higher
Grounds; on the small screen in a two-part miniseries called Invisible; and in the second season of the hit satirical sitcom Year of the
Rabbit. Suffice to say, free time is a foreign concept for Fox, but he insists he wouldn’t have it any other way.

What do you look for in a character when you’re seeking roles
or reading scripts?
Layers and levels, something three-dimensional and vivid.
Something that immediately speaks to you, [and] not because
you identify with the character necessarily. You just need
to go, ‘Oh my gosh. This is a person and personality I find
gripping and interesting, and I could do something with this’.
Oftentimes you are given scripts where the stories might be
good, but the characters are underwritten or two-dimensional,
and you have to do an awful lot of work to try and rescue them.
But with what we’re talking about, White House Farm, with very
complex psychology, what really appealed to me was, My God,
there’s so much here and I can really do something with this. It
lives in three dimensions.
Did the role of Jeremy Bamber intimidate you? It’s quite a
sensitive case, and the people involved are real people.
Initially, no. I didn’t arrive with any trepidation, only because I
didn’t really know about it. I’d heard the name Jeremy Bamber,
and then of course I read the scripts and was like, Oh… this is
a true story. I became more aware of the absolute paramount
importance to get details right and be respectful of the subject
matter when we were on set doing it. And suddenly, the weight
of it, the importance to get it right, hit me there, more so than it
did when I was first reading the script.
How did you go about familiarising yourself with Bamber’s
character?
Some roles, they arrive almost immediately. Others take a great
deal more work. I think in the case of this character, it was a
combination of fairly intense research into the facts of the matter
and of the man, combined with my own imagination, because
there isn’t an awful lot of video footage of Jeremy Bamber. It
was quite an all-consuming and long process of reading books,
source material, interviewing officials connected with the case,
and a criminologist I spoke to. And listening to Jeremy Bamber’s
voice and ingesting as much of that as I could.
This is quite a dark, dramatic role, but you’ve also done
comedy and other dramas. Is there a specific avenue you want
to go down or are you happy keeping it broad?
I want to keep doing all of it as best I can. That’s where I have the
best possible time, and I feel most fulfilled and most challenged.
I would also like to direct more films.
You directed your first short film in 2017. How was that?
It was a really joyful and informative experience, learning about
how films get made. I think all actors should do that, just because
I feel it made me a better actor, knowing what I could contribute
to the overall picture, rather than just my little part of it. I think
every director has a certain avenue towards filmmaking: some

39
This page:
Light grey virgin wool Marbeuf
single-breasted jacket, Cifonelli
at The Rake; white cotton shirt,
Lardini; green cashmere tie, Emma
Willis; green linen Manny trousers
and olive cashmere print scarf,
both Rubinacci at The Rake; grey
cotton socks, Pantherella at The
Rake; tan leather penny loafers,
Edward Green at The Rake.

Opposite page:
Charcoal grey pure cashmere polo,
Luca Faloni; navy wool trouser,
Anderson & Sheppard.

come from cinematography, some from editing, some from
producing. And mine will be from acting. I’d love to think that
by the end of my thirties I’ll have made a feature film. I’m going
to work hard towards doing that.
Do you know what sort of film you’d want to make?
I have one that I’m writing. Making films is such a dicey business.
The chances of it getting made are slim, but it’s a story rooted in
where I grew up, which is Dorset in the West Country, on the
Jurassic Coast — a place I have a great affinity for. So I hope to
tell a story in and around that area. Stay tuned in 10 years’ time.
You come from a well-known and highly regarded family of
actors. How do you think they have influenced your career?
Of course, being surrounded by actors, family, friends of family,
who are actors all my life, you develop an understanding and
RAKE-IN-
PROGRESS
taste for the business and the interesting characters within it.
I imagine for a lot of people who want to be actors, but whose
families don’t really understand it, it can feel like it’s a sort of
distant dream that is impossible to achieve. That was never
a problem for me, given that once I decided I wanted to go to
drama school and train, my parents supported me. They couldn’t
very well not, otherwise they would be terrible hypocrites. And
knowing that it was possible, that actually it’s not just a dream
job in a dream world, my parents never discouraged me from
doing it, and I really thank them for that.
Do you have a favourite piece of advice that your parents
have given you?
Usually, try and go to bed early and have a cup of tea, and then
don’t worry too much. It’ll be O.K. Similarly, particularly when
you’re out of work and you doubt yourself and think, I’m never
41
going to work again, and you see your parents suffering from the
same feelings in their own way and you go, Well, they’re 80 and
70 and they’re still doing it, and they’re O.K… So chances are
I will be, too. My dad often says to me, ‘Don’t worry. It’s like
you’re going down a dark country lane and you’re weaving in and
out of bends, and there’s no light anywhere, and you think, This
is it, I’m lost. And then suddenly lights come into view — you
don’t know around which bend and you don’t know what time
it’s going to happen, but it will happen. Just keep faith.’
Were there any downsides to growing up surrounded by actors?
No, not really. I mean, there was occasionally uncertainty and
tension surrounding money issues. But that’s every actor’s
household, really, except for Hugh Grant’s. I suppose the
drawback comes a little bit later, when you enter the business
and it opens a few doors at the beginning, for which I will be
forever grateful. But really, if you haven’t done the work and
you’re not determined or driven, people remember your name
very quickly and they write you off and make assumptions about
what you’re like on the basis of your surname and what your dad
or mum did. But look, I’m not complaining. I see the positives
outweigh the negatives.
Has acting always been what you wanted to do?
I tried other things. I did work experience. I worked in a
42
bookshop, but I suppose literary retail wasn’t going to be
my calling. I’ve been given work by a barrister. And then I
shadowed a couple of DOPs [directors of photography] on
film sets. I loved that. Again, the machinations of the film
world, I found that fascinating. I still find photographers and
cinematographers really interesting. I love making friends
with them on set and interrogating them, and pretending I
know all of the equipment. And I guess I did loads of plays at
school. I loved that, too. I directed some stuff at school. I was
lucky enough to go to a school that offered facilities for that,
and opportunities, and encouraged extracurricular drama. I
had some great teachers, and the rest is history.
Do you think that that sort of education is important for
people who want to act but don’t necessarily have the family to
support them?
Fundamental. Our education system is so angled towards
academics and very little towards social and domestic
responsibility and cultural, enlightened exploration. That’s a
shame. We look at children around us — what do they do all the
time? They play. They love playing and investigating and being
curious. And that’s what acting is. It’s an extension of that. If
you don’t allow young people to explore life in that way, you’re
denying them possibilities, great careers and the joy that those
careers can give.
 RAKE-IN-
PROGRESS
GROOMING: PETRA SELANGE AT THE WALL GROUP
PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT: JAMES DAVEY

This page:
Beige cashmere single-breasted jacket,
FASHION ASSISTANT: AMELIA HUDSON

B Corner at The Rake; brown and white

stripe cotton club collar shirt, DAKS;
charcoal grey wool trouser, Anderson &
Sheppard; navy and brown medallion
silk tie and gold print silk pocket-square,
Rubinacci; black cotton socks, Pantherella;
black leather Oxford shoes, Edward Green.

Opposite page:
Brown cotton houndstooth Foxham jacket,
Oliver Spencer at The Rake; ivory pure
cashmere roll-neck, Luca Faloni.
MICHELANGELO AND THE YEARNING FOR TRAGEDY
‘We lived in silence. He has only one way of expressing himself: his work.’ So said Michelangelo Antonioni’s first wife,
Letizia Balboni. It’s true, the Italian director was notorious for taking existential inquiry — and his own artistic
purity — to another level. But what a legacy of film he left behind…
by stuart husband

O n a balmy evening in spring 1960, an audience of as her character’s motivations slipped definitively out of view;
cinephiles at the Cannes film festival were getting hot her co-stars, including Marcello Mastroianni (in La Notte) and
under their dress collars. Boos, exaggerated yawns, Alain Delon (in L’Eclisse), wore a sharp besuited and bequiffed
loud jeers, and even derisive laughter attended the screening proto-mod look that chimed with Antonioni’s highly formalised
of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura. Described by its framing shots. “No Italian film director more than Antonioni
director as “a type of film noir in reverse”, the picture told the has had such a knowledge of, and sensibility for, fashion,” says
story of a socialite on a boat trip with haute-bourgeois friends Eugenia Paulicelli, the author of Italian Style: Fashion & Film From
who vanishes on a remote island. Or, to be more exact, it didn’t. the Early Cinema to the Digital Age. He also had an architect’s eye
Not only was the central ‘mystery’ never resolved, the character for the language of planes, angles and heights, and invested
simply evaporated from proceedings while her erstwhile concrete objects and desolate cityscapes with a kind of latent
boyfriend and best friend embarked on their own listless love emotive power. Would-be interviewers, meanwhile, found
affair. For the restive audience, this wasn’t so much delayed Antonioni himself to be as concertedly abstruse as his films.
gratification as indefinitely With his high forehead, beetle
postponed gratification. With his high forehead, beetle brows and mournful eyes, he
However, later that night, resembled an irredeemably
Roberto Rossellini and a group
brows and mournful eyes, he gloomy cardinal. “Even when
of influential filmmakers and resembled an irredeemably he is telling stories about
critics drafted a statement gloomy cardinal. himself, Antonioni’s face
announcing that they were remains set in its habitually
“appalled” by the hostility, and expressing their admiration for serious expression,” Melton S. Davis wrote in a 1964 profile for
Antonioni. Thus were two traditions born: the noisome Cannes The New York Times Magazine. “Precise in manner, conservative
cause célèbre and a certain kind of ruminative, opaque, usually in dress and quiet in speech, he could be taken for a banker
European movie that felt to some like art-house homework and or art dealer recounting an unfortunate business deal.”
to others visionary modernism — but that provoked long nights Statements such as, “I believe the tragic sentiment dominates
of smoky argument in raffish cafes either way. all of contemporary life” further ensured that he would never be
With his next two films, La Notte (a chilly portrait of an mistaken for one of the Chuckle Brothers.
entropic relationship) and L’Eclisse (in which an emotionally Antonioni had been born in 1912 into a well-to-do family of
exhausted couple never quite manage to connect), Antonioni landowners in Ferrara, northern Italy, “a marvellous little city on
came to exemplify this disdain for the niceties of plot, pacing the Paduan plain”, he said approvingly, “antique and silent”. He
and clarity. The novelist and screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet began to design puppets and build model sets for them when he
may have put it best: “In a Hitchcock film,” he said, “the was 10; he was a founder of the University of Bologna’s theatrical
meaning of what you see on the screen is constantly delayed, troupe while studying for his economics and commerce degree
but at the end of the film you understand everything. With there in the mid thirties, as well as, less predictably, one of its
Antonioni’s films, it’s the exact opposite.” Antonioni was the leading tennis champions. He wrote scathing reviews of American
emperor of existential ambivalence, the pope of ennui. and Italian genre films for the local paper, and did a stint of
But what gorgeous ennui! All three films starred the luminous military service during world war two, but his own first effort at
GETTY IMAGES

Monica Vitti (“an Italian Garbo,” reckoned Italy’s not-entirely- directing — a documentary about the local insane asylum — went
non-partisan press), whose angular cheekbones, intense stare, awry when the activation of his floodlights caused the unfortunate
stark white shirts and belted trenchcoats remained in focus even inmates to go into convulsions. This mishap may or may not have

44
FOLLOW SUIT

Michelangelo Antonioni
on set, circa 1965.
 Clockwise from top left: Posters from two Antonioni
features, Blow-Up and Deserto Rosso; checking
a strip of film; the iconic photoshoot scene from
GETTY IMAGES

Blow-Up; in the desert filming The Passenger; and

checking the weather during the filming of Blow-Up
while Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemmings kiss.

46
 FOLLOW SUIT

Left: Antonioni gives notes to

Vanessa Redgrave during the
filming of Blow-Up in 1966.
Right: Arriving at the Cannes
film festival with Monica Vitti.

turned him against the neo-realist movement in post-war Italian much-discussed ending of L’Eclisse features a montage of 58
cinema championed by Rossellini and others; at any rate, he unpeopled shots on and around a street corner where Vitti and
endured some penury — he recalled once being driven to steal Delon’s characters habitually met, including water seeping from
a steak from a butcher’s shop — before, at 38, he found backing a barrel, the screech of a bus’s brakes, and the roar of a passing
for his first feature, Cronaca di un Amore (‘Story of a Love Affair’), airplane: Antonioni said it was intended to show “the eclipse
which set the diffuse, alienated template for his future oeuvre. of all feelings”. Following the film’s U.S. premiere, the director
Another inside-out noir, the ostensible plot — a man and woman took the opportunity to visit the abstract expressionist Mark
conspire to kill her husband — Rothko. “Afterwards,” recalled
is abandoned after the latter’s If Antonioni’s formal daring Antonioni’s second wife, the
unexplained disappearance model Enrica Fico, “he wrote
(did they actually do him in?
reached its height during his Rothko a letter in which he
Was it suicide? An accident? imperial phase, so too did his said, ‘You and I have the same
We’re none the wiser) elliptical imprimatur. occupation. You paint, and I
in favour of the couple’s film, nothingness.’”
enervated anomie. Here were the flourishes that cineastes All of which suggests that MGM would have had some inkling
would come to recognise as Antonioni-esque: stark settings; of what they were getting into when they signed Antonioni to
fussily composed scenes; shots that were held a few beats longer a three-picture deal in the mid sixties. The first fruit of that
than necessary; dislocation; unease. When, in 1954, his 12-year deal, 1966’s Blow-Up, is often cited as a cultural lodestone for
marriage to the actress Letizia Balboni fell apart, she revealed London’s Swinging Sixties (by cheerleaders and detractors
that the gap between art and life was, for Antonioni, fittingly alike) due to David Hemmings’s portrayal of a Bailey-esque
opaque: “We lived in silence. We reached the point where we fashion photographer zapping from studio shoot to impromptu
communicated with each other only through the characters he orgy in a soft-top Rolls-Royce. But the film’s air of heightened,
created. He has only one way of expressing himself: his work. if not deranged, reality — Antonioni ordered whole areas of
What he does is have his actors live out emotional crises in his Woolwich to be spruced up for the shoot, with grass painted a
films, by proxy living out the crises in his own life.” greener green and pigeons dyed to look more pigeon-y, and the
If Antonioni’s formal daring reached its height during film’s central murder mystery is inevitably jettisoned in favour of
his imperial phase, so too did his elliptical imprimatur. The a concluding game of imaginary tennis with a group of drugged

47
 FOLLOW SUIT

GETTY IMAGES

Antonioni at the release of his

film L’Avventura in Paris, 1960.

48
 Antonioni photographed in
Rome during the shooting
of the film L’Eclisse.

students in alarming clown make-up — means it takes place in no nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.” (Which, it has to
other realm but Antonioni-land. Similarly, his ‘American’ movie, be said, sounds like the Platonic ideal of an Antonioni film.)
1970’s Zabriskie Point, ostensibly deals in student radicals fighting No matter. By this time, Hollywood’s less mainstream
the despoliation of the Death Valley desert by developers, but denizens, along with the wider creative community, had
the Easy Rider/Bonnie & Clyde ambience loses out to a 15-minute begun to take notice. Antonioni’s slippery influence can
closing sequence of slo-mo explosions of modernist homes and be felt in the work of directors as diverse as Wim Wenders,
their consumer durables (including, at one point, what looks Andrei Tarkovsky, David Lynch, Bruno Dumont, and Nuri
suspiciously like an airborne Bilge Ceylan; in Nouveau
frozen chicken) set to a Pink He said: “Hollywood is like Roman authors such as
Floyd wig-out that is the equal Robbe-Grillet and Nathalie
of the cosmic light show that
being nowhere and talking to Sarraute; and even in music
caps 2001: A Space Odyssey nobody about nothing.” Which (what is Björk’s line, There’s
(it’s no surprise that Stanley sounds like an Antonioni film. definitely definitely definitely
Kubrick, another chilly, no logic/To human behaviour if
exacting auteur who seemed to prefer camera movements to not a précis of the Antonioni oeuvre?).
people, was a big fan of Antonioni in general and Zabriskie Point in Antonioni directed only intermittently through the 1980s
particular). Finally, 1975’s The Passenger, perhaps the director’s and 1990s, before dying in 2007 aged 94, but his reputation
most approachable film, finds Jack Nicholson (never better) had grown in the interim: he was presented with a Lifetime
as a godforsaken journalist who attempts to escape his life by Achievement Oscar in 1995, and his champions included David
assuming the identity of a corpse he stumbles across in a hotel Thomson, the author of The Biographical Dictionary of Film, who
bedroom; unfortunately for him, the body is that of a gun-runner. wrote: “I suspect that Antonioni’s best films will continue to grow
The film concludes with a 10-minute bravura tracking shot that and shift, like dunes in the centuries of desert.” And like many
— in possibly a first for Antonioni — unites all the characters of those films, Antonioni remained gratifyingly recondite to the
and narrative threads, though this wasn’t enough to save it, or end. “In a world without film, what would you have made?” one
Zabriskie Point, from flaming out at the box office. They would interviewer asked him. One can imagine him arching his brows
benefit from subsequent critical reappraisal, though too late for with Olympian hauteur before delivering his sonorous reply.
Antonioni, who declared at the time: “Hollywood is like being “Film,” he said.

49
THE SHORT AND THE SHORT OF IT
A Wire-Haired Dachshund — once known in America as the ‘liberty hound’ — clambers onto
the soapbox to relate a not-so-tall story of height-related propaganda… HOUND

by manfred as told to nick scott

G erman is a charmingly literal language — as anyone who

has ever felt a little lebensmüde (life tired), switched
on their scheinwerfer (shine-throwers) before
pulling away in the dark, or experienced the desperation of
erklärungsnot (‘explanation poverty’, or finding oneself bereft
of plausible excuses) will understand.
Animal names are no exception to this, with European peoples
from South Tyrol to Berlin referring to the marsupial as Beuteltier
— literally, ‘bag animal’ — and various breeds of us dachshunds as
‘badger dogs’, a reference to our having been bred to scent, pursue
and flush out burrow-dwelling creatures. The wire-haired sub-
genre, the last of the various types to come into being, was bred in
the late 19th century, possibly via the genetic intervention of hard-
coated terriers and wire-haired pinschers such as the Schnauzer.
The ‘wire-haired’ part of our appellation, albeit manifestly
an English phrase, is also pleasingly literal, referring as it does to
the harsh, short follicles that require hand-stripping (to clip a
Wire-Haired Dachshund is akin to stirring Bond’s martini) two
or three times a year. But it is the shortness of our legs, rather
than that of our fur, that has meant the adjective ‘diminutive’
has traditionally stalked us as doggedly as it has certain Aussie
pop queens and Argentinean Ballon d’Or winners.
And, more importantly, history-forging French emperors. For
there is an intriguingly rich correlation between my breed and the
Gallic military leader who caught the world’s attention during the
French revolution. Post-Waterloo, the notion that Napoleon was
short became so ingrained in the public psyche that he has had a teaching the German language, Baumgartners changed their names
psychological complex named after him. In fact, Napoleon was to Bumgardner (touchingly expecting this to reduce ridicule for
around 5’ 7” — taller than the average height of a Frenchman at their descendants), while sauerkraut, in a move that preceded by
the time. To a small degree, this strangely resilient fallacy has been almost a century the House of Representatives’ cafeterias serving
attributed to the French inches of Napoleon’s era being a fraction ‘freedom fries’, was renamed ‘liberty cabbage’. Us dachshunds, of
longer than those in England (an anomaly since eradicated, as all varieties, were duly renamed ‘liberty hounds’.
anyone in possession of a Paris-made bespoke suit by Cifonelli will As with Napoleon, our modest statures were caricatured
attest). In fact, though, ‘Boney’ becoming a punching bag for British by political satirists in the English-speaking world in a spirit of
newspaper satirists (particularly cartoonists) in the latter part of the jingoistic propaganda, and the similarities don’t end there. Like
Napoleonic wars did far more to turn a falsehood into a truism. the military titan who died on the remote South Atlantic island of
A century and a bit later, political cartoonists in the U.S. St. Helena, what we lack in height — far less than is universally
commonly used the image of the dachshund — a rather squat assumed — we more than compensate for in power. Our muscular
version, most resembling the wire-haired variety — as a symbol builds have more than a little of the golden ratio about them,
to ridicule Germany, so much so that during the first world war, and our bite is considerably worse than our proverbial bark.
GETTY IMAGES

the breed’s popularity in America plummeted because of the Napoleon, of course, conquered most of Europe: say the word
association. This was an era, remember, when that nation’s klitzeklein — literally, ‘teeny-weeny’ — in our presence, and you’ll
orchestras eschewed Bach and Beethoven, schools stopped discover in us a similar strain of bellicose misadventure.

50
FIFTY SHADES OF PLAY
When the rake’s founder, Wei Koh, turned 50, his friend and Rake Ambassador Alexander Kraft invited half a
dozen of Wei’s closest, most rakish friends to Kraft’s country bolthole in Provence for an epic two-day celebration
featuring an exhilarating mix of fine wines, white truffles, potent Negronis, vintage cigars, cars, watches,
naturally exquisite countryside — and some splendid eveningwear...
photography jamie ferguson

Alain Gafundi, François Pourcher, Mo Coppoletta, Shary Rahman, Alexander

Kraft, Tommaso Melani, Hani Farsi, Wei Koh and Bertie Wooster Kraft.

52
BOULEVARDIER

53
54
BOULEVARDIER

55
56
BOULEVARDIER

57
 BOULEVARDIER

58
59
A HIGHER CALIBRE
Naturally enough, Auro Montanari — aka John Goldberger, or the doyen of watch collecting — has a peerless
wrist game. But what of the rest of his wardrobe? the rake was curious to find out…
by tom chamberlin photography kim lang
1 2
4 5
1. It is inevitable that the first thing one
does when meeting Auro is look at his
wrist — and even the most casual
horophile is unlikely to be disappointed.
Complementing both his outfit and his
understated elegance, this Ralph Lauren
platinum designed by Giampiero Bodino
was bought by Auro six years ago.
The tan leather strap is Hermès.
2. A masterclass in informal chic, this
vintage polo from Ballantyne seems
not one jot out of place against his
bespoke suit. He says: “I bought it in
a flea market in Palm Beach. I love
comfortable shirts. I am not a big fan
of ties.”
3. Here is a playful Gucci wallet that Auro
particularly likes. “I like the snake logo
outside a money ‘container’; it is fun,”
he says. Accessorising needn’t be any
less interesting even though the item is
concealed in your breast pocket.
4. The most stylish people in the world
are always masters at coordination. As
with the polo, watch strap and shoes,
this pocket-square from Marinella ties
everything in a neat bow. Tiny details
like this have the capacity to make all
the difference.
60
5. Again, the seemingly incongruous looks
right at home here with a beautiful slip-
on from Car Shoes — made in Italy but
with leather by the very British Connolly.
6. A classic Italian double-breasted suit
made 30 years ago in Bologna has
aged as stylishly as Montanari, and
has retained as much relevance and
cool as well. “I love to wear double-
breasted suits,” he says, “buttoned up
at the last button.” This button stance
is more common in mainland Europe
with brands such as Cifonelli, who use
it as a house style; it has a touch of
insouciance that the more military-
reliant Brits could learn from.
3
T o paraphrase Vesper Lynd, there are watch collectors
and watch collectors, and Auro Montanari is the latter.
From his books on Patek Philippe, Rolex and Omega
(under the pseudonym John Goldberger) to the seal of approval
lent to any watch auction he attends, Auro is the watch world’s
senior statesman, and he brings with that an old-school charm
and sophistication that is often lacking in much of today’s luxury
industry. I first met him in New York, at the Phillips watch auction
on which The Rake and Mr Porter collaborated, and the reverence
in which he is held was palpable in the room — from the joy of old
friends to the tension of hard-working auctioneers who want to
impress people such as Auro. However, like the most chic among
us, he didn’t seem to notice; as my mother says, those who mind
don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.
The internal elegance of the man is matched externally as well.
Auro is not a flamboyant man, but, by Jove, is he stylish: whether
in black tie or jeans and a cardigan, his height and imperious
demeanour is carried by well-coordinated, properly fitting attire,
and on one of his whistle-stop trips to London I managed to take
a closer look at his personal style and what it means to him.
POCKET
GUIDE

61
THE NATIONAL TREASURE
Elle Macpherson embodies everything good about her Australian homeland — natural beauty and a gregarious
character underpinned by uncompromising toughness. But the best thing about her is that she knows her way
around a joke — even if it’s on her.
by david smiedt
I t takes something special to become known by the definite
article. Frank Sinatra, a flawed human being but the interpreter
nonpareil of the Great American Songbook, was known as The
Voice. His dulcet-ness encompassed the brittle dreams, secret
longings and guarded sentimentality of a generation. Probably two.
Evincing not-so-secret longings was another ‘The’. In 1988,
Time magazine christened the Australian model Elle Macpherson
‘The Body’. And with good reason: she is the only person to make
the cover of Sports Illustrated’s vaunted swimsuit issue five times.
In an era long before Victoria’s Secret Angels (R.I.P.)
and all the explicit online pornography you could throw a 5G
router at, these images were the ultimate blend of titillation
and taste, an exercise in damp arousal that left just enough to
the imagination to be truly electrifying.
Eleanor Nancy Gow was born in Sydney in 1964 and rose on
the city’s radiant northern beaches like a tanned sylph. One of
the more visceral elements that marked out Macpherson from
her fellow catwalk strutters was an undisguised — and frankly
erotically charged — athleticism. This was, after all, a woman
who had clocked a four-minute, 27-second mile as a teenager.
Here was the quintessential Antipodean version of the girl
next door: strapping, sun-kissed, natural and — despite the
apparent contradiction in terms — wholesomely sexy.
It was hardly surprising, then, that European and North
American casting agents fell hard. At one stage she was such a fixture
in Elle magazine that she featured in every issue for six straight years,
a fact that was completely separate from her being married to the
publication’s creative director for at least some of that period. She
was so beloved globally that in 1999 the twin island nation of Antigua
and Barbuda put Macpherson on a series of postage stamps.
Nowhere else had a model appeared on legal tender.
Like many of her countryfolk, beneath the laidback veneer
and easy smile there is an opalescent durability and edge. Case
in point: when Macpherson did some nude scenes for the 1994
film Sirens, she found that some of the more unscrupulous
sections of the media were searching for more private naked
images, even hitting up ex-boyfriends.
Fuck that, she thought, and picked up the phone to Playboy
magazine. If anyone’s going to see me in all my glory, the
message went, it’s going to be on my terms and shot by Herb
bloody Ritts, if you don’t mind.
Because she found fame in an era in which supermodels could
do no wrong — perhaps with the exception of Naomi Campbell
— Macpherson had several film projects thrown at her. Perhaps
the most ludicrous was 1997’s The Edge, in which audiences
were asked to believe that she was plausibly married to Anthony
Hopkins as they battled various life-and-death situations on
a remote mountain. She fared better in comedic situations,
62
where an innate sense of humour glimmered through the veneer
of glamour. There was a five-episode run on the mega sitcom
Friends, as Matt LeBlanc’s roommate/girlfriend, but it was on
February 24, 1996 that the world glimpsed a different side of
the polylingual model (who speaks immaculate French plus a
smattering of Spanish). Hosting Saturday Night Live with a warmth,
gregariousness and self-awareness that would be beyond the likes
of other supermodels — imagine Claudia Schiffer telling jokes —
she was clearly in on the gag. While she gave a monologue about
Brâncusi, Carmina Burana and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man, the camera panned down her never-ending legs,
a cast member wandered by to check out her arse, and a fictional
commentator typed words on the screen about how smoking hot
she was. Macpherson was making a cogent statement about how
women are viewed, how their intelligence is so often subjugated
by the male gaze. There was another sketch in which she made fun
of her size-12 feet — another sign that she is well acquainted with
Australia’s national sport of taking the piss.
Where Macpherson really shone, however, was in
branding. As early as 1994, she gave the uber-agency Ford
Models the flick to establish Elle Macpherson Inc. Her image
would be hers and hers alone.
The inevitable exercise videos followed, but where
Macpherson struck the motherlode was in lingerie. Teaming
up with the Bendon marque, she launched Elle Macpherson
Intimates in 1990. With who else as the face and body of the line,
it became the bestselling lingerie in Britain and Australia. Such
licensing and collaboration agreements are common these days,
but at the time it was nothing short of liberating and revolutionary.
It was not for nothing that Macpherson qualified to study law at
the University of Sydney, and always had an eye for the fine print.
It was no commercial flash in the pan, either, with the
mother of two and Unicef ambassador also spearheading dual
lines of successful beauty products and a supplement business
called WelleCo, which sells alkalising powders at Mr Porter and
makes a nice change from models often being associated with
other types of ingestible powders. Rock on, Ms Moss!
Macpherson is now 55, and yes, she still looks In. Cred. Ible.
The mind is as sharp as the cheekbones and abs, and all with a
libertarian attitude. Especially when it comes to matters of the
flesh. She is based in Miami, and she has noted, “I’ve always found
it very difficult to understand the laws as far as nudity in America
[is concerned] — how some things are pornographic and some
things are not pornographic. It’s against the law to go topless on
the beach, but you can go buy a gun. That just seems so absurd to
me.” And then there’s this: “I don’t have a problem with nudity. I
never have. I was born naked. I’d like to be buried naked. It’s a way
of life in Australia.” To which we can say only: Good on ya, mate.
 CHERCHEZ
LA FEMME
GETTY IMAGES
atelier
INVESTMENT HANKER; LUSTING FOR
TUSTING; TWEAKING ON TWEED.
KIM LANG
INVEST
Investments can be unpredictable, but not so with these four winners, which we have handpicked
to provide you with sound and secure appreciation — aesthetically, spiritually and financially.

by nick scott and rachel marie walsh

Breguet Classique Tourbillon Extra-Plat Squelette 5395

Extra-thin. Skeletonised. Tourbillon movement. The fact that
we’re finding this trio of terms in the same sentence shows how
rapidly haute-horological technology is progressing. And, with
this piece, another major stride has been taken.
Breguet have been at the vanguard of the ultra-thin crusade for
some time, with both the Classique Tourbillon Extra-Thin Automatic
5377 and its sequel, an enamel version, the 5367, enriching the
canon. This iteration is arguably the house’s most elaborate piece
to date, in more ways than one, and historians will have their eyes
fixed on how the tourbillon — an innovation invented by Abraham-
Louis Breguet in 1795 — has been made to fit into a three-
millimetre-thick case by the maison’s modern-day technicians at
the Breguet manufacture in Vallée de Joux, Switzerland.
So intricate a task it was, the rotor had to be placed on the
periphery of the plate, shaving nanometres from the width but still
allowing an unobstructed view of the watch’s mechanism at work.
The titanium carriage, meanwhile, eschews both pinion and base,
instead bonding directly with the wheel train. Monsieur Breguet
would also marvel, we’re confident, at another befuddlingly brilliant
space-saving ruse: the angled shape of the silicon escapement.
Skeletonisation essentially turns the mechanics and aesthetics
of a watch’s interior into miniature stagecraft, and here the direction
and production values are way beyond scrupulous. The lead
protagonists, perhaps, are the gold plate and bridges, which have
been hollowed out to better showcase the movement’s anatomy
— a task that requires eliminating precisely as much material as
possible without compromising structural or technical integrity,
an even trickier undertaking when the material in question is gold.
(Even more remarkably, perhaps, despite this streamlining of the
movement eliminating about 50 per cent of its bulk, thanks to a high-
energy barrel, the movement still offers a power reserve of 80 hours.)
Elsewhere, many of an ensemble cast of 325 tiny parts have
been guillochéd using the Clous de Paris method, a process
administered with a diamond-tipped tool. All sharp edges have
then been hand-chamfered to create a 45-degree bevel and an
utmost smoothness throughout. Atop this expertly honed cast of
hundreds is the theatre’s scenery: a pair of traditional blued hands,
and, framing it, a sapphire ring with blued gold hour markers.
Whether you opt for a grey movement in a rose-gold case or
a rose movement in a platinum case, this is a piece that elevates
haute horology to plus-haute altitudes, both technically and
decoratively speaking. The watch is as light as it is elegant
(even the 53-component tourbillon cage tips the scales at 0.29
grams), and yet this piece could one day become your weightiest
investment to date. NS
www.breguet.com

66

Alps & Meters chocolate shearling Patrol bomber
Skiing’s military pioneers inspired the Alps & Meters Patrol
bomber, a flight jacket grounded in the snow. This chocolate
sheepskin is the Boston brand’s homage to the U.S. Army’s
10th Mountain Division, trained for service in the second
world war by the National Ski Patrol. Deployed in the Northern
Apennines in 1944, the unit operated for just four months, but
had one of the conflict’s highest casualty rates and endured
some of its most hostile conditions. Veterans went on to shape
recreational skiing in post-war America, developing some of
the country’s most popular resorts and rooting both the sport
and their heroic tales in cultural history.
The design team has a special reverence for the National Ski
Patrol founder, Charles Minot Dole, who petitioned President
Franklin D. Roosevelt for the 10th Mountain Division’s formation
(unlike European armies, the U.S. had no ski combat-ready unit
before 1940, which made the ski safety expert understandably
leery). Dole, a Massachusetts-born insurance broker, was moved
to found the National Ski Patrol in 1938 after a close friend died
in a ski accident that would not have been fatal were a trained
assistant present. Ski patrollers were a vital part of the 10th
www.TheRake.com
INVEST
Mountain Division, and Dole’s service was recognised with a
War Department citation in 1946. Alps & Meters set out to create
a jacket fit for extreme conditions, a design that was ruggedly
handsome without compromising on Alpine-standard protection.
The 10th Mountain Division, remember, lived in the mountains
for weeks, working in altitudes of up to 13,500 feet. Alps & Meters
reimagined the classic shearling pilot’s bomber as a ski jacket in
full grain waterproof leather with a deep shearling lining. “The
pilots who wore these jackets and the early ski patrollers share
common traits: a spirit of adventure, dedication to service, and
embracing the risk of the unknown,” co-founder Nick Sapia says.
The menswear classic has never looked better. The style allows
for flexibility while also providing maximum warmth, breathability
and protection during the most dangerous of operations. It
includes an extra-high collar and ski-specific features like a
detachable powder skirt and temperature-regulating underarm
zippered vents. It is made to last generations, with shoulders,
elbows, pocket flaps and cuff tabs all reinforced by full grain
leather that looks better with age. “We feel it’s a product worthy
of honouring men like Charles Minot Dole,” Sapia says. RMW
67
 INVEST
Paul Stuart gold and green plaid wool Paul sport coat
It is almost unfair what a well-tailored sport coat can do for a
man. A female director of a New York investment bank recently
told the Financial Times that having myriad options makes
smart-casual dressing harder for women, while Paul Stuart’s
chief executive, Paulette Garafalo, said soft-shouldered,
unstructured staples like this are strong performers with
the bankers she calls “core customers”. Clothes do not make
the money, of course, but perhaps, as Mark Twain said,
they make a man. In this green plaid jacket you could be
a lifer at the Hurlingham Club, a look clients surely find
reassuring and familiar.
It does help that Paul Stuart’s intention is to make a man
look dapper yet not so dapper it seems contrived. The Paul
Stuart man does not care for fashion or nouveau-riche flash
— the old codes are the best, and he looks handsome from his
neatly combed hair to his highly polished shoes, thank you.
The inspiration for the collection was “a modern country
gentleman”, the Design Director, Ralph Auriemma, tells The
Rake, and who’d look out of place strolling an estate in this
lean-waisted wool jacket?
www.TheRake.com
68
Country pursuits aren’t all about Barbours, shooting and
ferret wrangling: a modern country gentleman understands dogs,
mixes a mean martini, and can hold forth on every tree and flower
on a property. He impresses a woman indoors as well as out. To
that end, this jacket has a lean waist, shoulders that gently sculpt,
and a torso-lengthening line. And the plaid? Well, plaids only
usurped tartan in his wardrobe once the patterns became popular
with British and American manufacturers who created tartan-
like fabrics without the same centuries of symbolic meaning. Paul
Stuart has chosen instead to use the country colours — green,
earthy brown and wheat gold — to make their inspiration clear.
They are still versatile enough to work in the city.
Dress codes are much less emphatic about suits now, and a
sports coat really does look good in most settings — the increasing
acceptability of luxury sportswear hybrids outside the gym having
made casual jackets without a zipper seem even smarter. Paul
Stuart even set the suit-inclined at ease by choosing flap details
and a welted breast pocket over the patch pockets on traditional
sport coats. A modern country gent in a single garment, this jacket
can bend the rules because it’s already establishment. RMW
Bell & Ross’s New Military Triumvirate
When you consider the requirements of military endeavour,
and the attributes they demand be brought to the table — from
robustness to legibility via serviceability, reliability and the sheer
elegance of parsimoniously functional design — it’s little surprise
that R&D departments working with armies, navies and air forces
in mind have contributed so much to the world of horology.
Bell & Ross — who admittedly count astronauts, pilots,
divers and bomb disposal experts among the professionals who
cherish their products — have, traditionally, created pieces
whose aesthetics mirror the analogue instruments of military
aircraft, hence the square cases and large numerals that make
up the distinctive aesthetic of most of their output. Now, though,
Bell & Ross have launched a trio of watches that reference all
three realms of combat: air, land and sea.
All three are driven by a Swiss mechanical movement with
automatic winding, and all have a NATO Stretch strap with an
ultra user-friendly closure system; all might be described as ‘neo-
vintage’. Apart from the fundamentals of haute watchmaking,
though, that’s pretty much where the similarities end.
Part of an ongoing series of watches appealing to 21st
century globetrotters, both professional and civilian, the BR
V2-93 GMT Blue — as that initialism in its name suggests —
can display two time zones at once. Its 41mm round steel case
has echoes of Bell & Ross’s Vintage series, while atop the dial
— one that seriously deepens the gene pool when it comes to
watch buyers’ current penchant for blue — sits a second-hand
counterweight styled, subtly so, in the shape of an aircraft.
The time in the owner’s alternative time zone of choice is
www.bellross.com
impressively legible thanks to the GMT hand taking the form
of a just-shouty-enough red arrow. More legibility boosts:
the anodised aluminium bi-directional rotating bezel, grey
during daytime, turning blue at dusk, and the photoluminescent
coating in white Super-LumiNova on the four faceted hands,
the decal indices and the numerals.
The BR V2-92 Military Green model — a triumph of the
essential over the superfluous — is a tribute to the first ground
troops ever to use a wristwatch as an essential tool of warfare.
Legibility here is seriously bolstered by the green-coloured
Super-LumiNova C3 treatment, which, as with Bell & Ross’s
‘LUM’ collection, maximises luminescence. Its 41mm round
steel case has a glass dome and a black bi-directional rotating
bezel in anodised aluminium, while the date is displayed subtly
between the four and five markers.
The third watch in the trio pays homage to Bell & Ross’s
Vintage BR Aéronavale collection. A limited-edition release
(999 examples), the BR V2-94 Aéronavale Bronze has a unique
appearance thanks to its 41mm case’s 91 per cent copper, 7 per
cent aluminium and 2 per cent silicon composite, a recipe that
will ensure the metal’s hue changes over time. Completing the
aesthetic, beneath the ‘glass box’ sapphire crystal are an ocean-
blue dial, gilt-metal indices and numerals, baton-shaped
skeletonised hands in white Super-LumiNova, and two sub-dials
that evoke the ‘bi-compax’ chronographs of the sixties.
All in all, and apologies to non-British readers for a potently
domestic reference, it’s a release that sees Bell & Ross keep the
proverbial match ball. NS
69
 RAKE
BESPOKE
FEATURE
HIDE TO SEEK
Big in Japan but under the radar in the U.K., it is high time the leather goods firm Tusting is given the credit it deserves.

by ryan thompson

N estled in the postcard-perfect village of Lavendon, in A great many shoe factories sprung up in the area along
the English county of Buckinghamshire and close to the the Nene and Ouse valleys east of Northampton, in large part
borders of Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, are the because of the abundant supply of fresh, clean water flowing
leather goods makers Tusting. You may not have heard of Tusting, through the area. As more tanneries began to thrive, an
a family run business that first opened a tannery in this delightful ambitious young labourer by the name of Charles Pettit decided
corner of Britain in 1875, but you may have owned a Tusting he wanted a slice of the action. With the temerity of youth and
creation. For a long time, the company has been supplying hides the audacity of ambition, Pettit set up his own tannery and began
and leather goods to some of the most recognisable names in sourcing part-tanned ‘crust’ leather from Indian tanneries and
shoemaking and fashion, such is their expertise, which has been finishing it to the exact requirements of the shoemakers.
passed down through five generations. There’s a high chance The Tusting name took another generation to become
you’ll have stepped out with Tusting leather on your feet or established, but its evolution was not without its twists and
Tusting leather in your hand, only by a different name. turns. Pettit had only one child, a daughter named Eliza, who
Now, however, Tusting’s naturally grew up around
own creations — the ones “Before, it was a case of, the tannery and shared her
that bear their name — are father’s passion for it. Eliza
becoming known as some of
‘If you know, you know’, but met and married a local
the most outstanding bags we can’t keep this company haberdasher by the name of
and small leather goods on the a secret any longer.” John Tusting and went on to
market. Before, it was a case of, have a child, also called John
‘If you know, you know’, but we can’t keep this company a secret (but who went by the name of Jack). Like his mother, Jack spent
any longer. With a huge fan base in Japan, where their customers much of his childhood at the heart of the family leather business
are sticklers for artisanal quality of the highest level, the brand is and would naturally, one day, hope to become the steward of the
now acknowledged for its quintessentially British designs, blessed company. But in 1914, Jack turned 17 and his path into commerce
with equal parts form and function. Amazingly, Tusting exports took a dark detour as Britain’s troops were called into action
about 60 per cent of its products, mostly to Japan and China or in the first world war. Jack enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps
via its private label clients, which shows you just how under- and was on active duty in Egypt when his grandfather, Charles,
appreciated this British heritage brand is on its own shores. passed away. If that wasn’t tragedy enough, Pettit’s second wife
When I visited the factory recently, I was blown away by the decided to sell the tannery on a whim, so when Jack returned
wonderful hospitality of everyone I met, not least Alistair Tusting, home in 1919 he found that his livelihood had been taken away.
the director, and his wife, Gillian, who are both inspiring and Perhaps it was this dual injustice that spurred Jack on, because
charming and were proud to tell me about Tusting’s intriguing it wasn’t long before the determined young man established
history. Founded in 1875 by Alistair’s great-great grandfather his own state-of-the art tannery, achieving a position as one
as a tannery in the nearby village of Harrold, Tusting became of the country’s foremost suppliers of leather to the trade, and,
one of the chief suppliers of hides to the nearby shoe industry importantly, becoming the first at the helm to carry the Tusting
in Northampton (and still is to this day). The industry was family name. For decades the tannery would continue to produce
catalysed by the timely invention of the modern sewing machine, fine leather, but with seismic changes in the tanning industry
which revolutionised the craft of leather making, allowing the globally, the tannery shut its doors in the eighties, allowing the
shoemakers to work with an array of leathers and designs that family to focus solely on its leather-goods manufacture.
would not have been possible before. As Gillian showed me around the Lavendon factory, the

71
 Scenes from the factory floor,
where rolls of leather pass
through many key processes on
the journey from hide to hand.

72
 RAKE
BESPOKE
FEATURE

From hammers to hand finishing,

an average of nine pairs of hands
play a part in creating every piece.

passion with which she described each of the many processes was
full of contagious enthusiasm. Down on the factory floor, an array
of machinery is manned by a local workforce, some of whom have
been with the company for more than 20 years. At the entrance, one
is greeted with a huge wall of graded leathers, roll upon colourful
roll stacked high and wide. Every piece of leather, be it for a bag or
wallet or laptop case, is cut by hand by locally made knives. Once
the panels have been cut, the pieces with visible edges are stained
and sealed before ‘splitting’, which is the process of making the
leather a uniform thickness. Teams of two then bench and flat-bed
the panels, which is essentially creating the shapes for the leather
before they are sewn together on large flat-bed sewing machines.
Once the finishing has been completed, the item is ready for a final
once-over, but given that quality control happens at every single
stage, any defects are highly unlikely. It was a delight to feel the
bags for myself, having been told by a number of industry friends
just how good they are. Of course, Tusting create many different
styles in many different leathers, but I was impressed by some of
the heavy wax duffel and weekend bags, which age magnificently.
Naturally, The Rake is thrilled to be able to bring you a brand
we champion for its artisanal pedigree, but Tusting have also
made great efforts to become as sustainable, environmentally
friendly and ethical as possible, which is no small feat in the
leather-working business. It’s for these very reasons that
the brand has such a loyal following in the notoriously tricky
Japanese market, and it’s exactly why you should get behind
British heritage. You won’t be disappointed.

73
THE DEVIL WEARS KENT, HASTE & LACHTER
When the master tailor Terry Haste asked Nick Foulkes to come up with the designs for three new tweeds,
the rake’s Contributing Editor was in his element. Now, surely, Foulkes had reached his life’s destination:
to create a pattern so distinctive — indeed, exclusive — that only he would wear it…
by nick foulkes photography kim lang

M uch in the way that others have a drink or drugs More recently I have used Huntsman’s bespoke tweed-
problem, I have a tweed problem. I have a problem designing software, introduced by Pierre Lagrange, to create
getting hold of enough of it, because more is never a fabulous check, and before then I admit to having employed
quite enough. In fact, more is never anything like enough; you tactical voting in the annual Huntsman tweed designing
can never have enough tweed. I would go as far as plundering competition to ensure that even if I did not win, the result
Boswell’s Life of Johnson and observe that when a man is tired went the right way. With Terry it is altogether less formal: he
of tweed, he is tired of life. plants the seed of an idea in the mind much in the manner that
Part of its beauty is its total redundancy. It might have been Leonardo DiCaprio did in the sci-fi film Inception, and then
a cutting-edge performance fabric if you were climbing Everest allows one to believe that the notion was all one’s own and that
circa George Mallory’s era, or stalking circa Queen Victoria’s and he is merely happy to help as an amanuensis, a sort of sartorial
Albert’s favourite ghillie, John Brown. But these days, unless you midwife. It is quite brilliant, really. (Given that Terry does
work as an extra on Downton Abbey or Peaky Blinders, you have no not have the hyper-modern software to modify checks with
need of tweed. So, when Terry Haste asked if I fancied designing the click of a mouse or the flick of a cursor — Kent, Haste &
a tweed, I said, “Why do just Lachter’s I.T. division is still
one — surely that is a little I would go as far as trying to work out how the fax
pusillanimous?” I reckoned plundering Boswell’s Life machine operates — it was a
that if we were going to design little more old school and a
one we might as well do half a
of Johnson and observe lot less precise.)
dozen; in the end he talked me that when a man is tired The creative process —
down to a mere three. of tweed, he is tired of life. if we can dignify with such
I like to think I know a a name my popping in to
bit about designing tweed. Almost 25 years ago I designed give guidance and find pictorial references on my iPhone —
a range of tweeds in collaboration with Country Life: a light was frustrating enough for me, so I can only imagine how it
moss green with heather windowpane overcheck and a slightly affected Haddon James Pratt and Suyamba Kumaresan, Terry’s
more elaborate Glen check using the same palette. Mirabile understudies whom he assigned to handle this project. Once a
dictu, the weights were about 21oz and 17oz respectively — in week for about five months I would waltz in, express a desire for
those distant pre-Thunberg days, the U.K. could still be a bit a more duck-egg blue here, a less intensely ferrous rust there,
nippy in winter, and so a three-piece suit in a bullet-stopping a more lichen-like mossy green elsewhere, and demonstrate
fabric only slightly less cumbersome than roofing felt was still huge areas of indecision everywhere else.
a viable proposition. Those tweeds were ordered from the old Coming in and acting like the star of ‘The Devil Wears Kent,
Hunters of Brora mill and made up at Hackett, where Terry Haste & Lachter’ was, of course, the real heavy lifting, and I let
had just opened the bespoke department. others convey my fevered ramblings in the most appropriate
When Terry moved to Huntsman in the late 1990s, I got my manner to the Lovat Mill, which was weaving these fabrics. The
eye in on various coat-lengths of vintage tweeds left knocking breakthrough came when we ascertained that they had actually
around in the basement — exaggerated windowpane checks woven the Country Life tweeds 25 years earlier (presumably they
with monstrous repeats about the size of a paperback book. were subcontracted), and said we wanted the same background
These were supplemented with finds from the bowels of Savile but with rust and mid-blue overchecks. As regards the width of
Row, otherwise known as W. Bill, then a subterranean warren of the check, we opted for a vertical five ply by a horizontal three
fabrics that brought to mind the descriptions of Mr. Suddaby’s for the rust (a ratio chosen to avoid the checks looking like
bookshop in Howard Springs’s 1940 novel, Fame Is the Spur. hoops when made up) and 3x2 for the blue.

74
CUSTOM
 Terry Haste marks the tweed for cutting
using Nick Foulkes’s paper patterns. The
pair have worked together on myriad
designs and cuts in the past 25 years.

76
 CUSTOM

Details at first fitting, including

the fishtail-back trousers
and adjustment of the back
balance in the waistcoat.

77
 Some details at the second
fitting, which took into account
the fact that Nick likes to
have his suits a bit looser and
longer than everyone else.

78
 CUSTOM

The two other Foulkesian tweed

designs: a 16oz grey-brown with
blue check and six-inch repeats;
and the 16oz ‘Anthony Eden at
church’ blue basketweave.

I wanted to reprise the old Country Life weight, but I was Utterly non-plussed and, to be frank, slightly disappointed
dissuaded from specifying a 21oz fabric on the grounds that it to have lumbered Terry with such a robust exoteric commercial
would be hard enough to sell in the first place. However, I was success, I apologised and redoubled my efforts to create something
not prepared to drop below 16oz. None of your gossamer- truly impossible to sell: I said I wanted a Prince of Wales check
weight super 400s here: had suffrage been extended to tweed, of the sort John Shaft would have worn had he been invited to
this one would have voted for Brexit. Sunday lunch in Paris by Sir James Goldsmith during the autumn
Eventually, after five months of to and fro between Sackville of 1973. The cloth was a triumph: 16 ounces and fairly classic —
Street in Piccadilly, Shepherd’s Bush in west London, and Hawick viz. grey-brown with blue check — except with six-inch repeats.
in the Scottish Borders; In other words, a beast of
16 samples; and near daily None of your gossamer-weight mythological proportions.
visits to the post office (you I immediately bespoked a
can’t rely on digital images to
super 400s here: had suffrage sports jacket with single
convey the correct intensity, been extended to tweed, this one button, deep vents, slanted
or at least that is what I told would have voted for Brexit. patch pockets and lapels
Haddon and Suyamba), the size of spinnakers. To
the day of reckoning was here. A piece of cloth arrived, and I my mind individuality was assured, so I was appalled when the
immediately ordered a nine-piece shooting suit: coat, waistcoat, editor of this magazine sauntered into Kent, Haste & Lachter at
braced trousers with turn-ups, slant bottom trousers with side 5pm one day (lunch having ended earlier than usual) and said he
adjusters, plus sixes, shooting waistcoat, cap, and two gunslips. knew a man who had been looking for a suit in just such a cloth.
I did this more out of charity, you understand, safe in the By now it was a matter of honour to come up with something
knowledge that my taste is so peculiar that no one was going so unlikely that it would rest on the shelves of Kent, Haste &
to order it anyway and Terry would be stuck with 50 metres of Lachter, slumbering gently, until discovered by generations
the stuff. Imagine, therefore, my surprise when Terry returned unborn. For this masterpiece Terry and I collaborated on a
from a trip to New York with orders for three suits, two sports beautiful, and I mean beautiful, blue basketweave of the sort that
jackets, and even a dining suit (don’t ask) in this new tweed. Anthony Eden might have worn to church in the country during
What is more, the names he mentioned were among some of the the early 1950s. It is exquisite, and I am delighted to report that,
most stylish on the Upper East Side. at time of writing, not a single length has been sold.

79
articles
DEUCE; MICROMANAGEMENT;
WHO LIVES IN A HOUSE LIKE THIS?
GETTY IMAGES
 THE
GOLDEN AGE
It has been nearly 20 years since Maggie Gyllenhaal walked into
our lives — with a twinkle in her eye and an interesting line in
office wear. Now, writes stephen wood, she is embarking on a
new phase in her career — as a director. Prepare to be challenged.

photography michael schwartz fashion direction grace gilfeather

 Opening spread:
Navy wool roll-neck and navy
wool trouser, Ralph Lauren;
navy Merino and cashmere
cardigan, Anderson &
Sheppard at The Rake;
black and gold silk
printed scarf, Rubinacci.

Gold-frosted Royal Oak

timepiece, Audemars Piguet.

This page:
Grey cashmere jumper,
New & Lingwood.

Burgundy Reverso One Duetto

timepiece, Jaeger-LeCoultre.
M aggie Gyllenhaal is catching her breath. “Sorry,” she a few frames, Gyllenhaal — her shoulders square and her pout
says, and a mild sense of exertion is discernible in insecure — inhabits Sherry with astonishing physical clarity.
her speech. “I just ran up a bunch of stairs.” There’s When she does speak, it’s to put the world to rights:
banging in the background, a blessed pause, and another clatter
of hammer or debris or domestic rearrangement. Maggie has “Hey, sir, you just bumped into me… Rude motherfucker.”
the builders in — the Gyllenhaals moved into their new house,
in Brooklyn, less than a week before our telephone conversation (To be clear, no one working in film or television today delivers
— and she is trying to find a room with a bit of peace and quiet. the F-word like Maggie Gyllenhaal.)
“There’s still a lot of work going on,” she tells The Rake. “Basically, And the beginning that was the beginning of the rest of
it was a total wreck [when we bought it]. So we cleared out the Gyllenhaal’s life? Her 2002 role in Secretary, of course, when she
ghost: that’s the way we put it. There was a kitchen here that sashayed on to screen manacled to a frankly disturbing industrial
the owner told us hadn’t been redone since 1974, which is older dog collar, made coffee for her boss, and slammed the office door on
than me. I mean, it had a certificate of occupancy, but I think it the viewer without so much as a by-your-leave. She was the sexually
really wasn’t safe. We had to redo all the electricity, almost all submissive Lee Holloway — the inviolable sexually submissive Lee
the plumbing. It’s the same thing we did with our first house, Holloway. Gyllenhaal made the film when she was 23.
which is a great feeling: to take something that needs attention It seems fitting, then, that nearly two decades later, a new
and give it the thought and year presents Gyllenhaal with
care it needs.” “Often I learn something a new challenge — to direct
There is a renewed energy her first feature film. She has
in Gyllenhaal’s voice: she has
about myself in the world adapted The Lost Daughter,
become animated by talk of through my work first — a novella by Elena Ferrante,
the new home, and what it before I learn it in my life.” and shooting starts in the
means for her, her husband, U.S. this summer. “For me it’s
the actor Peter Sarsgaard, and their children, Ramona, 13, and such an interesting moment,” she says. “Because, yeah, I just
Gloria Ray, seven. “We moved so we could walk our kids to turned 42 and I’m moving into a new house and starting work
school,” Maggie says, “which is kind of a life-changing thing, as a director for the first time, and have also completed work
if you have kids. This house is very different [to our first]. It’s as a professional writer for the first time. So a lot of things feel
light and white, and I think it represents a change in us. I was new to me and very exciting… ” She seems to be striving for
pregnant with my first daughter when we bought that house and the meaning in the moment, but her words come thick and fast
fixed it up, and we’re just so different now.” nonetheless, and her voice, while occasionally dipping in tone,
Gyllenhaal has a thing for beginnings. Take, say, her remains nothing less than vital — a vitality that mirrors her
opening scenes in three of the productions that have helped work and that other fortysomethings (ahem) might, in a purely
forge her reputation as one of Hollywood’s most courageous, theoretical circumstance, trade their offspring for. “Although,
indomitable and inquisitive actors. In the pilot episode of The yes, everybody once you turn 40 wants to talk to you about
Deuce, HBO’s dramatisation of the rise of the porn industry, ageing,” she continues, in no way trying to make me feel bad, “I
Gyllenhaal’s Candy — from beneath a blonde wig, and with actually feel like there’s a bright, fresh element to my life.”
her lovable heart-shaped face glistening in the lights of Times We discuss The Lost Daughter — a bracing, tensely calibrated
Square — gives would-be pimp Rodney (played by Method tale of maternal ambivalence that, indirectly, also poses
Man) the brush-off with a monologue as funny as it is fearless: questions of modern fathers — some more. At The Rake’s
prompting, Gyllenhaal dwells on the experience awaiting her
“Nobody makes money off of my pussy but me. I’m gonna keep what this summer. She’ll have to lead a crew for the first time, coax
I earn; I don’t need you, I don’t need anybody else to hold my fucking performances from a cast that will look to her for answers, make
money for me. Now let me do my thing, you’re busting on my groove.” budget, and ensure her creative vision comes together in the
final cut. In other words, she will assume ultimate responsibility.
In Sherrybaby (2006), the camera finds Gyllenhaal, as the She suddenly confesses: “I think I’ll have to be able to tolerate
guileless but hopeful Sherry Swanson, riding a bus through feelings of fear. That’ll be the challenge. Because they’re not
the grey, rain-swept paradise that is turnpike-New Jersey. comfortable, those feelings.”
Sherry illuminates the landscape in weather-inappropriate
miniskirt and yellow braless halter-neck, and as she listens on ‘Like a path through my mind’
an old Walkman to the perfectly pitched Some Kind of Heaven, Gyllenhaal has been called idiosyncratic, maverick, non-
Gyllenhaal, without speaking, captures all the pathos of Sherry’s conformist, unorthodox, bohemian, and, doubtless once too
situation: our anti-heroine is minutes out of prison and often, quirky (“Describing someone as quirky is a way of erasing
determined to be reunited with her daughter. In no more than them,” she has said. “It doesn’t sit comfortably with me”). She

85
calls herself a storyteller, which at first sounds banal but on did not — did you really just fucking say that out loud?’ Did you
examination captures well the essence of her motivations and the really put on screen this thing I didn’t even know I was thinking,
achievement of her career. From Lee Holloway, Sherry and Candy that I didn’t even know I was feeling, because I’ve hidden it so well
to Nessa Stein (the broken baroness in the 2014 BBC miniseries inside myself because I thought I wasn’t allowed to consider that…
The Honourable Woman) and Lisa Spinelli (who exploits a child My experience, if I read a book, if I see a film, and I see something
prodigy in 2018’s The Kindergarten Teacher), it is hard to think of like that expressed, something I thought was perverse or broken
another actress this side of the millennium who would have played or too painful, and I see someone else express it truthfully, that
such complex, troubled or morally compromised women with as comforts me. I go, Oh, I’m part of a community of people who are
much rigour and sensitivity as Gyllenhaal. She even lends Rachel, complicated and have a whole spectrum of feelings.
Batman’s doomed on-off lover in The Dark Knight, more agency “I think art [can change people]. To be honest, that was my
than a character variously described as a ‘woman in peril’ might initial pull to Ferrante. I read her Neapolitan novels, all four of
expect. And in Crazy Heart in 2009, for which she was nominated them as they were coming out, and my feeling was, This character
for an Oscar, she gives the journalist Jean Craddock a delicate is so fucked up… and then two seconds later I thought, Oh no,
mix of tenderness and strength opposite Jeff Bridges. I completely relate to her, am I so fucked up?! Then it resolves
For Gyllenhaal, “the process of watching the performance very quickly into, Wait, maybe this is the universal experience.
is also the process of watching somebody change” — and that Maybe, in fact, it’s a universal feminine experience that hasn’t
somebody is her. “I’m usually had the space to be articulated
looking for parts to play that “The feeling I really like is before because there hasn’t
are in some ways, or every way, been much encouragement of
expressions of things that I’m
the feeling of, ‘Oh my god, an articulation of an actual,
considering, struggling with, you did not — did you really true feminine experience
and thinking about at each just say that out loud?’” not bounced off of a male
moment in my life,” she says. experience. So when I read
“And it’s not always conscious what draws me to something. Ferrante and felt that, I was changed, and I think many people
“Often I learn something about myself in the context of the were changed. You asked me if people weren’t looking for a hard
world through my work first — before I learn it in my life. So I enough artistic experience as audience members: I actually
guess the through-line [of my career] has something to do with think people are hungry for that.”
me and my experience of the world. If I look at the work I’ve done
when I was able to express something about myself — and look, The family business
there were projects where I wasn’t able to do that, where I took a Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal was born in Manhattan in 1977. Yes:
job for money or I made a mistake, and I was like, O.K., this is a Margalit. Only when she was 35, when her parents dug out her
dead-end — the ones where I was really able to express something birth certificate, did Maggie become aware of her given name
I was interested in — it’s like a path through my mind over the past (which means ‘pearl’ in Hebrew). Gyllenhaal folklore doesn’t
20 years. Which is such a wonderful thing to be able to say.” end there, either. Her father, Stephen, can trace his lineage to
But that is the personal, and if you’re a storyteller there has Henry I of England and Swedish nobility — the translation of
to be more to it than that — an external connection. What sets ‘Gyllenhaal’ from Swedish is ‘golden hall’ — and the heritage
Gyllenhaal’s best performances apart from the churn of mass of Maggie’s mother, Naomi Foner, reaches back 3,500 years
entertainment is that, in laying down the glories and tragedies to Ancient Judea.
of human behaviour, they make it possible to believe in empathy But if Maggie didn’t know her formal name until recently, it
as a live concept, which, in turn, gives them the power to change seems likely that her path to the artistic life was set before she could
misconception, prejudice, and the status quo. In other words, us. even say, ‘action!’ Her parents are both in the business: Naomi, a
(The effect was felt within her own family recently: she has talked screenwriter and director, was nominated for an Academy Award
about how her elder daughter, Ramona, queried her decision for best original screenplay for the 1988 film Running on Empty
to play the sex worker turned pornographer Candy in The Deuce. (starring River Phoenix), and Stephen, a director and poet, has
Gyllenhaal explained to her daughter that she was seeking to make a earned several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations in a career
person otherwise marginalised by society relatable and accepted.) spanning more than 40 years. They moved the family from New
“I do think there’s a place for both [challenging art and its York to Los Angeles when Maggie was young, and she says they
opposite],” she says. “I’m not very good at the, like, ‘you’re the encouraged her to pursue a career in acting. “I think I was good
good guy, you’re the bad guy, now I can just space out and I don’t at it,” Gyllenhaal told Humanity magazine. “And I think in my
even remember the name of the movie’ — that’s not for me in house it was important to be good at things, which is kind of a
terms of what I want to act in. There are times when I want to shame, because if you’re not good at something immediately, or
watch that — although, to be honest, not really all that much. it doesn’t come easily to you, there wasn’t a lot of space for that in
“The feeling I really like [is] the feeling of, ‘Oh my god, you my house, really. I think interesting things can happen when you

86
 Camel Loro Piana wool
Naphill greatcoat, Kit Blake
at The Rake; ivory silk
shirt, Emma Willis; camel
virgin wool trousers and
brown leather belt, both
Brunello Cucinelli; tan
calf leather tassel loafers,
Grenson; burgundy felt
fedora, Lock & Co.

87
Camel Loro Piana wool Naphill
greatcoat, Kit Blake at The
Rake; ivory silk shirt, Emma
Willis; camel virgin wool
trousers and brown leather belt,
both Brunello Cucinelli;
burgundy calf leather Prince of
Wales check brogues, Cheaney.
 “I don’t think it’s a
coincidence that The Deuce
aired and was shot just before
Trump was elected and the
MeToo, Time’s Up and Harvey
Weinstein stuff exploded.”
 Emerald green velvet suit,
The Deck; olive green felt
fedora, Lock & Co; grey
Olympie bodysuit in stretch
jersey and bobbin mesh lace
trim, ERES; black leather
shoes, Jimmy Choo.

Classique wristwatch in
rose-gold, Breguet.

90
struggle with things, but acting, it just kind of came naturally to done it because to have held her tongue would have felt like a
me. It was fun and easy, and I liked the kind of trance it would betrayal. She’s also been sure to get her hands dirty. In 2004,
put me in when I was young.” in support of John Kerry’s presidential election campaign, she
She moved back to New York in 1995 to study English at helped drive voters to the polls in Florida; she asked the tough
Columbia University, a decision she says she doesn’t regret. (and controversial) questions of American foreign policy in the
Though at times the family business appears to have pressed upon wake of 9/11; she’s spoken out in support of Chelsea Manning
her: Jake, her younger brother by three years, made his film debut and Pussy Riot; she’s lent out her home in aid of progressive
in City Slickers aged 11; 10 years later he gained critical acclaim for causes; she’s been a leading figure in the Time’s Up movement;
his breakout performance in Donnie Darko. Maggie had a role in and in January 2017 she attended the march for women’s rights
that cult classic, too (she played the elder sister of Jake’s Donnie, in Washington, the day after Donald Trump was sworn in as
and even got to call her brother “a dick” on screen), but it was a president. With similarly exquisite timing, just two nights after
small part, and she seemed to acknowledge some years ago that Gervais’s latest performance at the Globes, Gyllenhaal stood
Jake’s early success wasn’t, at the time, easy for her to handle. in the crowd at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn to listen to the
Her progress through Hollywood’s finishing school was of a Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren speak.
steadier pace. She made brief appearances in her father’s films “I was very moved by her,” she says. “She was very, very
in the early nineties (including, as a 14-year-old, Waterland, smart, bright, funny, and I felt hopeful. I mean, I think I cried
Stephen Gyllenhaal’s a few times, and laughed out
adaptation of the Graham “I’m inclined to go with the loud.” She tells me she’s almost
Swift novel), and has since ready to endorse Warren
even declared her antipathy
powerful, undeniable truth, for president — and then
towards film sets as a child especially in the face of apparently decides, what the
(“Movie sets work like the insanity and chaos and lies.” hell. “No. You know what, it’s
army. Everyone has a job. If a good sign: I do endorse her. I
you’re extra, you’re in the way”). Her parents, she has said, have think she’s great. Instinctively. I think she’s my woman.”
“big personalities”, and she “definitely went through a period Whether Warren could beat Trump in November’s election
where I made a separation and needed to be independent”. — let alone secure the Democratic nomination beforehand — is
Her decision to play Lee Holloway in Secretary, alongside less easy to call. “I’ve had a lot of conversations about this,” she
James Spader — no, the way she played such a risky role says. “Basically, [Warren’s] refrain in the speech was that there’s
— provided the breakthrough Gyllenhaal had been looking something broken that’s deeply systemic, and so we have to take
for. Now, with the benefit of two decades’ perspective, it is on the system, as opposed to nibbling at the edges. I have to say
possible to see the family influence in another light. “I knew the I really, truly agree with that. So it’s a question of, What’s your
difference in my parents’ lives and some of their friends’ and method? Is your method nibbling around the edges or is your
colleagues’ [lives] when they had made a movie that was very method, ‘Let’s go in fiercely with the total truth and see where we
successful versus when they had made a movie that wasn’t,” she get’? I’m naturally inclined to go with the powerful, undeniable
told The Observer. “You intuit that stuff as a kid. I’m sure there truth, especially in the face of insanity and chaos and lies.”
are things I completely take for granted that I learnt from my There is a sense in which every slimy tentacle of ‘the system’ is
parents about this world of making movies that has probably being challenged today. The Deuce, which reaches its finale in the
been both helpful and hurtful. I don’t have that kind of blinding U.K. this month, targets the sexual exploitation of women in the
sparkle of, ‘Hollywood! It’s so amazing!’” late 20th century, and misogyny in general. It is a subject that has,
not surprisingly, touched a nerve with Gyllenhaal, professionally
‘What’s your method?’ and personally. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that The Deuce
Gyllenhaal’s mom and dad, she once joked, are politically “to aired and was shot just before Trump was elected and the MeToo,
the left of Trotsky”. (We presume she was joking.) But even as a Time’s Up and Harvey Weinstein stuff exploded,” she says. “What
natty piece of hyperbole, the comment helped contextualise the was on everyone’s unconscious mind was a kind of deep, perverse
order of Maggie’s own political engagement. And she is engaged. inequality in our culture that had to do with sexual politics, and it
At the Golden Globe awards in January, Ricky Gervais recorded was put on display really clearly, for example, when Trump said
another rant for posterity, telling the assembled Hollywood you can grab women’s pussies if you have power and they let you
luminaries they knew “nothing about the real world… So if you do it, and then there were no consequences for saying that out
win, right, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, loud. I think when that happened, something that had been latent
and your god, and fuck off.” Well. Here’s one thing Gyllenhaal and sleeping inside all of us got woken up.
cannot wisely be accused of: knowing nothing about the real “There’s this great scene in season three [of The Deuce] when
world. And historically she hasn’t thrown herself into America’s Candy basically says, ‘What men want, what men will pay for,
social and political currents to try to appear virtuous; she’s becomes the world’. And then she says, ‘We’re all whores from

91
 Opposite and this page:
brown double-breasted block
stripe flannel suit, Edward
Sexton; white silk blouse,
Zimmerman at Matches; gold
leather shoes, Malone Souliers.

Burgundy Reverso One Duetto

timepiece, Jaeger-LeCoultre.

93
this’. What Candy comes to, and what I came to also… was that it’s eternally grateful, but an increasing amount of art and debate is
a very apt way to look at many of our — women’s — interactions dedicated to taking the shame out of a more honest accounting,
in society: how much is sex a commodity for all women all the and Gyllenhaal, a mother of two young girls, is at the vanguard.
time? I mean that in a subtler way — very few people I know (Example: she told the UnStyled podcast last autumn that
have literally sold sex for money — but we’re being asked to “falling apart is a part of being alive”.)
do tiny little versions of that all the time, and that is what was But if women are not to ruinously fall apart from the burden
brought to light two and some years ago. I think it’s incredible of motherhood, the obvious question is whether men will step in
to have it all out on the surface.” to share the sacrifices. Naturally, Gyllenhaal hopes they will at
In 2015, Gyllenhaal, then 37, said she had been told that least give The Lost Daughter a chance. She says: “Think about it
she was too old to play the love interest of a 55-year-old male in the most simple way: usually the most interesting characters
character; early in her career she was told she wasn’t hot enough are men. We [women] got good at exercising a little muscle in
for a part in a “bad movie with vampires”; and even after Secretary, our hearts and minds [when we watched something] that went,
with her acting stock rising, she was told she still didn’t mean O.K., this isn’t exactly the way I see the world, but I’m just gonna
enough “money-wise” for certain projects. So it is understandable use this muscle and make it into something I can relate to… I
when she says that in the past she “figured out a way to do a backflip think if there’s more work made by women that requires men
around that messed-up thing and keep surviving and doing what to exercise that muscle, and think, O.K., this is fundamentally
I wanna do”. She acknowledges coming from a new point of
the improvements there have “I know many men who are view — well, I know many men
been in society’s treatment of who are deeply interested in
women, and from Hollywood
deeply interested in women, women, men who are curious
specifically she has cited two men who are curious and and excited by a feminine
examples: the decision of excited by a feminine mind.” mind who will probably be
the team behind The Deuce very compelled by seeing a
to appoint an intimacy co-ordinator, to ensure actors were story told that way. And probably some who won’t.
supported through sex scenes, and HBO’s move to offer her pay “But I think it will feel new. Just because it’s directed by a
parity with the show’s leading man, James Franco. woman and written by a woman doesn’t mean it’s going to have
Twelve months ago Gyllenhaal also said there had to be a feminine perspective.”
“consequences for disrespecting women sexually, or at all”. Perhaps it is a subconscious irony — or simply a byproduct
Now she says: “I do feel there’s evidence of that, yes. I think the of the historically male domain of filmmaking — that when
rules have changed, and that’s a really hard thing to do.” But she Gyllenhaal lists a number of directors past and present who might
cautions: “I think we have to be really careful that we use our influence her debut piece, only two of them are women. She says:
subtlest, most intelligent minds in terms of what we do now.” “It has an element of thriller to it, The Lost Daughter, so I would
What we could do now — what the hell — is propose say Haneke, Polanski, even Hitchcock. Jane Campion is always
Gyllenhaal for president. Seriously: the designation of ‘most an influence on me. Maybe Tarkovsky… I mean, these are just
powerful woman in the world’ still needs claiming. Or perhaps gods. I actually think there’s an element of Godard as well, and the
she’s interested in running for some form of public office one day. stillness of the camera. There’s David Lynch in my mind. And I
“Er, no,” Maggie says, like I’ve lost my mind. “I think I’d be really love Alice Rohrwacher, the Italian filmmaker.”
bad at that. Truly, I was watching Elizabeth Warren the other She says she has an idea of what The Lost Daughter will look
night, not just on stage but backstage, taking selfies and talking like on screen — “there are some images that keep replaying very
to everyone. I was like, This is so far beyond my capacity. I don’t strongly in my head”. All that remains is the fear of the unknown.
think I could get a lot of people to vote for my position — I’d just “There’s always something scary about doing something for the
like to have a chat. You know what I mean?” first time,” she says. “But I can rely on the fact I have a lot of
experience. I can say, ‘I’m scared, but I’m always scared — and
Falling apart I can do it, you know? I can function; I can get through the day.’
Ah, but all of Gyllenhaal’s work is political — as Maggie herself “The other thing that’s really interesting about it is that even
points out. And her directorial debut with The Lost Daughter this though I’m a beginner, I’m a beginner as a 42-year-old woman,
summer might be the most political yet. It tells the story of Leda, which is very different to being a beginner as a 22-year-old
a middle-aged divorcee facing up to the difficult choices she woman, as I was going in to play Lee in Secretary. I’m a much
made as the mother to two young girls. It is, among other things, better listener, I’m much less defensive, I’m curious, and I’m
about the subject of female — maternal — escape, though don’t more knowledgeable. And I really am grateful for the things
be fooled: in tone it is no Shirley Valentine. It has long been taboo I’ve learned in those 20 years, because they have served me as a
for women to describe motherhood — in public, at least — as beginner in this job.”
anything other than a divine experience for which they are Her opening take awaits.

94
 FASHION ASSISTANT: VERONICA PEREZ
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: EVGENY POPOV / JULIUS FRAZER
DIGITAL TECH: DALLAS RAINES
HAIR: JILLIAN HALOUSKA @ THE WALL GROUP
MAKEUP: MATIN @ TRACEY MATTINGLY
SET DESIGN: CHRIS GASKILL
PRODUCER: HENSTOOTH PRO

greatcoat, Kit Blake; burgundy

Camel Loro Piana wool Naphill

Jaeger-LeCoultre.
Reverso One Duetto timepiece,
Grace Kelly’s father,
John Kelly Sr., and mother,
Margaret (far left), congratulate
Prince Rainier III and Grace Kelly
at the Philadelphia Country Club
after the couple announced their
engagement in January 1956.
 THE SUNLIT
UPLAND
Monaco was once regarded as a seedy bolthole — “a sunny place
full of shady people”, according to the writer Somerset Maugham.
Enter Prince Rainier III, the stocky, pencil-moustached monarch
who, from his palace on the Rock, had a plan to transform the
world’s second smallest country. (Spoiler: he kept the climate.)

by stuart husband
GETTY IMAGES
 Clockwise from top left: Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh with Rainier on a
visit to Monaco in 1951; the official
portrait of the newlyweds; and
the exchange of rings during the
ALAMY

wedding ceremony in 1956.

98
A mong the intriguing historical what-ifs — suppose Onassis also making a contribution. But all went beatifically on
Archduke Franz Ferdinand had decided to bypass Sarajevo the day, with MGM filming what was invariably described as the
that day? Suppose Hitler’s early watercolours had received ‘fairytale’ ceremony and broadcasting it to 30 million viewers
such praise that he’d opted for the quiet life as a Sunday painter? across the world. If this was an astute social move on Rainier’s
— one is especially diverting: what if Prince Rainier III of Monaco part — the perception of Monaco was almost immediately
had won the hand of Marilyn Monroe instead of Grace Kelly? transformed from somewhat seedy bolthole to ‘playground of
The idea of Princess Marilyn isn’t as fanciful as it seems. the rich and famous’ as Kelly’s Hollywood set flew in on their
It was Aristotle Onassis, keen to invest in the principality, who private jets — he also proved himself a canny political operator.
first had the idea that Rainier should improve Monaco’s image Through the decades of his reign, he prevailed against a putative
by marrying an American film star. Monroe was informed, power grab by Onassis, a near-existential threat from French
but declared herself nonplussed. “Give me two days alone President de Gaulle, and the machinations of his own National
with him and of course he’ll want to marry me,” she said, but Assembly, transforming his tiny fief into a steel-and-glass
her demurral was perhaps coloured by her misapprehension corporate banking, convention and tourism centre, and earning
that Monaco was in Africa. It left the way clear for Kelly. She’d the sobriquet the ‘Builder Prince’ as he did so.
fallen for the Côte d’Azur while filming Hitchcock’s To Catch Monaco has always been an anomaly. Americans like to say its
a Thief with Cary Grant in 482 acres would fit snugly into
1954, so when she turned up The wedding of Rainier and Central Park (the British prefer
the following year for a photo to say it would occupy a corner
session at Rainier’s salmon-
Grace Kelly was described as of Hyde Park). Those acres have
coloured palace, perched a ‘fairytale’ and broadcast to been in Grimaldi family hands
atop Monaco’s mountain 30m viewers across the world. since 1297, when Rainier’s
known as the Rock, she was ancestor Francesco Grimaldi,
predisposed to fall for the man who lavished attention on her, leading a group of men dressed as monks, appeared at the front
initiated a fervent correspondence, and cajoled his Irish- gate of the Rock, then a Genoese territory near today’s French-
American chaplain, one Father Tucker, to write to her: “I want to Italian border, and told the guards they were tired and hungry and
thank you for showing the prince what an American Catholic girl needed shelter. Once inside, they drew their swords from beneath
can be, and for the very deep impression this has left on him.” their robes and slaughtered their hosts. Grimaldi went down in
Rainier had assumed the throne — and the 140 or so titles that history as Francesco the Spiteful, and to this day the family’s coat of
went with it, among them the Duke of Valentinois and the Count arms displays two monk-like figures brandishing blades.
of Carladès — in 1949. He was stocky, high-foreheaded, raven- It was Charles III, Rainier’s great-grandfather, who
haired and pencil-moustached, and Kelly’s immediate sizing- established Monaco as a gambling centre, introducing a casino
up of her intended would surely have placed him in the Robert in 1857 and establishing the Société des Bains de Mer to run
Taylor-esque, character-player-elevated-to-leading-man it. By 1880 there was so much Belle Époque money flowing
mould. He’d inherited a faded gambling resort, a preserve of the into the principality, easily outdoing the fleshpots of Nice and
idle rich attracted by its fabled casino and even more exalted tax Cannes, that it was decided the Monégasques could forego the
advantages. Somerset Maugham, a decade earlier, had dismissed inconvenience of paying income tax. This didn’t go unnoticed by
it as “a sunny place full of shady people”. Europe’s over-monied and underemployed, who soon fancied
The wedding of Rainier and Grace Kelly, on April 19, 1956, taking up residence on one of those 482 acres themselves.
took place in the full glare of media attention. There’d been Being Monaco’s constitutional monarch was not a role to be
some hiccups along the way — Grace’s father, Jack Kelly, a taken lightly. The reigning prince is said to derive his power from
brick manufacturer and self-made millionaire who’d also won God, and should expect to be addressed as ‘Serene Highness’,
two Olympic gold medals for sculling, bridled at having to while embodying the point at which all legal and constitutional
provide a dowry (“My daughter doesn’t have to pay any man to bucks officially stop. When Prince Rainier Louis Henri
marry her”), though he eventually stumped up $2 million, with Maxence Bertrand became the 31st Grimaldi to run Monaco,

99
 Prince Rainier dances
with Grace Kelly at
an event marking
the opening of a
renovated casino in
Monaco in 1969.

at the age of 25, it wasn’t immediately apparent that he’d grasp to define the modern image of an engaged princess — setting
those God-given reins and drag the principality, belatedly, into up foundations, founding ballet schools, building convalescent
the 20th century. He’d been sent to an English prep school, homes, and keeping to herself any unhappiness over her
Summerfields, in St. Leonards in East Sussex, where he was husband’s effective ban on her appearing in more films —
known — affectionately? — as ‘Fat Boy Monaco’. He went on to Rainier now set about becoming a proactive C.E.O. of the family
Stowe, from which he ran away, and earned a Bachelor of Arts business. His first test came in 1958, when a newly elected and
degree at the University of Montpellier, before serving in the Free restive National Council sought constitutional reforms. Rainier’s
French army during the second uncompromising response was
world war as an intelligence Rainier earned the Croix de to suspend the constitution,
officer. He received the claiming that the council had
Croix de Guerre for bravery
Guerre for bravery under fire, “hindered the administrative
under fire in Alsace, and was and was made a Chevalier de and political life of the
made a Chevalier de Légion Légion d’Honneur. country”. Had there been
d’Honneur. He also developed Monaco Inc. shares, they
a taste for all the classic playboy-princely things, from fast would have taken a dangerous dive at this point, but stability was
cars (his hundred-strong collection, including a 1903 De restored when the prince appointed a new legislative body.
Dion Bouton and a Hispano-Suiza, is on permanent display Almost immediately, however, he faced a more consequential
at Monaco’s Palais Princier) to mistresses (the French actress problem: agitation from De Gaulle’s France. Under the terms of
Gisèle Pascal; he left her after medical tests determined that she a treaty signed in 1918, France had guaranteed the independence
couldn’t have children), and outdoor pursuits (skiing, motor and territorial integrity of Monaco “as long as the principality
racing, piloting speedboats, and spear-fishing in the Red Sea, acts in accordance with the interests of France”. De Gaulle failed
leading his subjects to refer to him — fondly? — as Le Prince to see how increased French use of Monaco’s status as a tax haven
Sportif). But the licentious image was misleading, according advanced the latter cause. He established customs checks on all
ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES

to Steven Englund, author of the biography Grace of Monaco. roads in and out of the territory, and informed Rainier that he was
“Rainier was the opposite of fancy-free in character,” he wrote. prepared to “asphyxiate” Monaco to get his way. Rainier hastily
“He was striving to fill his life with something of value.” introduced a convention stipulating that all French citizens who’d
That something was Monaco Inc. While his new wife came moved to Monaco in the past five years would be liable to full

100
 Clockwise from top left: Rainier and Aristotle
Onassis applaud the latter’s wife, Maria Callas,
at the curtain call for Poliuto at La Scala; Grace
and Rainier arrive at the Casino Ball, 1968;
Jacques Cousteau is introduced to Rainier’s
son and the current prince of Monaco, Albert;
and Rainier with Elizabeth Taylor.

101
 Clockwise from top: Rainier
with Aristotle Onassis in 1961;
Rainier and Princess Grace
leave Onassis’s yacht; and
another of Rainier’s adversaries,
President Charles de Gaulle, at
the Élysée Palace in 1959, soon
after their entente cordiale.

GETTY IMAGES

102
French taxes; De Gaulle, pacified, called off his hounds, and the policemen, while phones of suspicious characters were tapped,
showdown was considered a victory for Rainier. crime and unemployment were virtually nonexistent, and even
There was one more adversary to tackle, and the outcome of the social security system made a profit). The economy flourished
their tussle would set the principality’s future course. Through as a result. At the beginning of the 20th century, the casino had
the 1950s, Aristotle Onassis had been building his own Monaco accounted for 95 per cent of Monaco’s revenue; by the 1980s it was
fiefdom, not only acting as a one-man Tinder for Rainier but also producing only three per cent, dwarfed by V.A.T. proceeds.
investing millions in the impoverished Société des Bains de Mer, The royal marriage, too, remained solid, defying a matrimonial
to the point at which he owned 52 per cent of the stock, as opposed curse said to have been laid on a renegade Grimaldi ancestor in
to Rainier’s two per cent. He wanted the territory to remain a the 13th century. Rainier and Grace had three children, Caroline,
decadent enclave. “Monaco,” he said, “will always be prosperous Stephanie and Albert, though Kelly also suffered two miscarriages,
so long as there are 3,000 rich men in the world.” Rainier, and, in later years, would often seek Parisian sanctuary. Still, it was
however, was determined to open up the place to the middle a bitter blow for Rainier when, in September 1982, Grace’s car
classes and to businessmen seeking tax havens for themselves burst through the barriers on the Corniche road near La Turbie
and their companies — a little more Mandarin Oriental, a little – in the same hills where she’d once motored with Cary Grant
less Hotel du Cap. To thwart Onassis, he persuaded his biddable in To Catch a Thief — and plunged down a steep embankment;
National Council to create she died the next day without
600,000 new shares in the Rainier, who described his regaining consciousness.
Société des Bains de Mer, Rainier, who described his
to be purchased and held
position as a ‘solitary job’, position as “a solitary job”,
by the government, causing remained single for the two remained single for the two
Onassis’s holdings to plummet decades he outlived Grace. decades that he outlived her,
to less than 33 per cent. His his ‘family business’ now
masterstroke, however, was his decree outlawing pigeon shooting consisting chiefly of ameliorating the reputational damage caused
in Monaco, a sport that Onassis and his roué set often wagered on by his daughters’ unfortunate romantic entanglements (playboys,
(as a smackdown clincher, Rainier added, piously, that Princess elephant trainers, butlers, trapeze artists — perhaps that curse
Grace found the practice “ghastly”). Onassis, his feathers still carried some weight after all) and his inability to abdicate
definitively ruffled, sailed away on his yacht Christina in 1965, his in the face of his son’s apparent reluctance to marry (and, it was
humiliation somewhat assuaged by the $10 million he received whispered, the apparent lack of iron in his character).
from the Treasury of Monaco for his shares, which had increased Albert was by Rainier’s side when he died, aged 81, in 2005,
tenfold in value under Rainier’s assiduous management. having suffered heart and kidney problems; his own family has
Rainier was now free to construct the kind of Monaco he since burgeoned, thanks to the intercession of Princess Charlene,
wanted to see. Never happier than when poring over architectural a former Olympic swimmer for South Africa. The birth of their
blueprints, he personally oversaw many of the mega-developments twins in 2014 means the Grimaldi succession is locked down.
(including Loews Hotel and Conference Centre, wedged into The Builder Prince’s mini-lopolis has also gone from strength
the cliff below the old casino, which, in a final cock-snooking at to strength. Yes, it can feel a little antiseptic; yes, it is one of the
Onassis, occupied the site of the old pigeon shoot). He attracted most densely packed countries in the world. But in 2019 it was
multiple banks, businesses and corporate H.Q.s, reclaiming home to more than 12,000 millionaires who enjoyed the world’s
some 50 acres from the sea in the 1980s for high-rise apartment second highest G.D.P. per capita ($165,420) and the highest
complexes (there was so much construction, according to John life expectancy in the world, at 85.8 years. “The miracle — that
Glatt, the author of The Royal House of Monaco, that nobody noticed after 700 years the family is still there — shows that there’s been
when an earthquake struck one day), and turning Monaco into a unity between my family and the population,” Rainier said in an
shiny, concrete-clad Singapore-on-the-Med (the comparison interview with The New York Times in 1997. Monaco may not have
held socially, too: Monaco’s 30,000 residents, only a sixth of them got Princess Marilyn, but Rainier’s decades of deft stewardship
native Monégasques, were served by 300 ubiquitous white-gloved continue to give it abundant a-boop-boop-be-doop.

103
 MANORS
MAKETH
MAN
The mercury may still be low in the waning weeks of winter, but the
opportunities for your wardrobe are bounteous and there to be seized...

photography nick thompson fashion direction grace gilfeather

Special thanks to Cliveden House, Berkshire

105
Previous:
Tobacco linen double-breasted
jacket, blue cotton shirt and grey
wool tie, all Hackett; gold metal
eyewear, Cutler & Gross.

This page:
Cream cashmere jumper and brown
suede jacket, both Ralph Lauren
Purple Label; white cotton trouser
and brown leather woven belt, both
Brunello Cucinelli; brown acetate
aviators sunglases, Persol.

Bellytanker Bronze with black

calfskin strap, Bell & Ross.
 This page:
White denim jacket, blue
chambray shirt and navy linen
and cotton trouser, all Brunello
Cucinelli; tan leather boots,
Grenson; brown acetate
aviator sunglases, Persol.

Opposite page:
White denim jacket, blue
chambray shirt, both
Brunello Cucinelli; green silk
neckerchief, New & Lingwood.

108
Grey houndstooth wool double-
breasted Kosmo overcoat, Lardini;
pale sky brushed cotton shirt,
Emma Willis; navy linen and cotton
trouser, Brunello Cucinelli; mustard
cotton neckerchief, Anderson &
Sheppard: ivory canvas Pursuits
Hurlingham overnight bag, Ettinger.

Gloves and watch, model’s own.

This page:
Beige cashmere and silk
roll-neck and brown cotton
trousers, both Cifonelli;
brown suede jacket, Hermès.

Opposite page:
Navy wool peacoat, Private
White V.C.; purple and cream
cashmere print scarf, Anderson
& Sheppard; white cotton
trouser, Brunello Cucinelli;
brown felt fedora, Lock & Co.
113
114
 Grey brushed cotton shirt, Budd
Shirtmaker; light grey cashmere
cardigan, Connolly; brown flannel
trousers, Kit Blake; brown cotton
sock, Pantherella; tan suede loafers,
Crockett & Jones; grey tortoiseshell
eyewear, Cutler & Gross.

Bellytanker Bronze with black

calfskin strap, Bell & Ross.
Grey brushed-cotton shirt,
Budd Shirtmakers; taupe
cashmere jumper, Johnstons
of Elgin; olive suede jacket and
white cotton trouser, both Brunello
Cucinelli; gold metal frame
sunglasses, Cutler & Gross.
This page:
Olive wool fawn Covert coat and
blue and yellow silk dotted scarf,
both New & Lingwood; cream
cashmere jumper, Ralph Lauren
Purple Label.

Bellytanker Bronze with black

calfskin strap, Bell & Ross.

Opposite page:
Cream cashmere jumper,
Anderson & Sheppard; brown
flannel trousers, Kit Blake; brown
cotton sock, Pantherella; brown
suede loafers, Crockett & Jones.
119
120
 Opposite page:
Navy cashmere roll-neck,
Private White V.C.; navy felt
fedora, Lock & Co.

This page:
Brown wool single-breasted
check coat, Lardini at The
Rake; taupe cashmere jumper,
Johnstons of Elgin; white cotton
trouser, Brunello Cucinelli; grey
and cream checked cashmere
scarf, Anderson & Sheppard;
tan leather boots, Grenson.
FASHION ASSISTANT: VERONICA PEREZ
1ST PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: BENJAMIN KYLE
2ND PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: ANDREA PARPERIS
PA: ALEXANDRA OLEY
GROOMING: EMMA WHITE TURLE @ THE WALL GROUP
WWW.CLIVEDENHOUSE.CO.UK
 This page:
Navy cashmere roll-neck,
Private White V.C.; brown
cotton trousers, Cifonelli; navy
felt fedora, Lock & Co.
 shop the rake
TAKE THE HIGH ROAD.
GERARDO JACONELLI
HIGHLAND MIGHTY
Inspired by the rich, earthy tones of the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland, the rake travelled to The Fife Arms in Braemar
to create a wardrobe that captures the palette of the landscape and the eccentric Victoriana of the Hauser & Wirth hotel.
photography gerardo jaconelli styling lauren mcletchie
with special thanks to the National Trust for Scotland, The Fife Arms in Braemar, Scotland, and to Maserati GB
 RAKE
CREATION

Contents page:
Charcoal grey cashmere flannel suit, New &
Lingwood; chambray shirt, 100 Hands x The
Rake; tartan cashmere tie and brown cotton
pocket-square, both Anderson & Sheppard.

Section opener:
Olive green cashmere blazer, Gaiola;
chocolate brown Irish linen shirt, 100 Hands;
maroon floral tile print tie, Drake’s; brown and
copper silk contrast edge pocket square, Budd
Shirtmakers.

This page:
Beige check double-breasted coat,
New & Lingwood; brown cashmere
roll-neck, Larusmiani; chocolate brown wool
Manny trousers, Rubinacci.

All available at TheRake.com.

Wellington boots courtesy of The Fife Arms;

blanket by Araminta Campbell.
 This page:
Navy blue velvet smoking
jacket, 18th Amendment;
maroon Merino wool roll-neck,
Edward Sexton; brown and
grey herringbone Manny
trousers, Rubinacci;
pocket-square, Cifonelli.

Opposite page:
Olive green cashmere blazer,
Gaiola; chocolate brown Irish
linen shirt, 100 Hands; maroon
floral tile print tie, Drake’s;
brown and copper silk contrast
edge pocket square, Budd
Shirtmakers.

All available at TheRake.com.

128
 RAKE
CREATION
 RAKE
CREATION

This page:
Tobacco beige countryside jacket
and green Merino cable knit
crewneck, both Larusmiani.

Opposite page:
Beige bracken Donegal tweed
bomber and ginger brown
Donegal tweed gurkha trousers,
both Lucan; brown houndstooth
wool trenchcoat, Gaiola; black
merino roll-neck, Edward Sexton;
grey brushed cotton slim-fit shirt,
Budd Shirtmakers; tan grain
Brady hiker boots, Grenson.

All available at TheRake.com.

131
 RAKE RAKE
CREATION
CREATION
 This page:
Green Merino cable knit crewneck
and brown cashmere cotton
corduroy trousers, both Larusmiani;
slippers, Stubbs & Wootton; orange
checked socks, The London Sock
Company.

Opposite page:
Green and blue tartan holiday blazer,
18th Amendment; black satin bow
tie, Turnbull & Asser; bottle green
and Plum silk contrast edge pocket
square, Budd Shirtmakers.

All available at TheRake.com.

133
This page:
Grey Prince of Wales check double-
breasted overcoat, Lardini; cashmere
Arran scarf, Begg & Co.; charcoal
Donegal tweed gurkha trousers, Lucan;
tan grain Brady hiker boots, Grenson.

Opposite page:
Grey and blue houndstooth double-
breasted Kosmo overcoat, Lardini;
grey wool flannel Hollywood trousers,
Edward Sexton; navy cotton crewneck,
Anderson & Sheppard; black leather
Rutherford hiking boots, Grenson.

All available at TheRake.com.

134
 RAKE
CREATION
 RAKE
CREATION

136
 This page:
Grey windowpane check
flannel suit, New & Lingwood;
geometric print tie, Drake’s;
white cotton pollen slim-fit shirt,
brown and Navy silk contrast
edge pocket square, both Budd
Shirtmakers; Grey socks, The
London Sock Company;
black calf leather Belgravia
loafer, Edward Green.

Opposite page:
Black Merino roll-neck, Edward
Sexton; off-white Merino
wool flannel trousers, 18th
Amendment; silk box cloth
braces, Budd Shirtmakers.

All available at TheRake.com.

compendium
CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN; DEFENSIVE STROKE; WHAT A PIECE
OF WORK IS MAN; HARD DRIVE; AFFAIRS OF THE SMART; I SPY.
 TEMPORAL

Cory Richards, the American

photographer, explorer and
Vacheron Constantin talent,
attempts to climb Everest via
Tibet’s north-east ridge.
THE ASCENT OF A MAN
Cory Richards, the climber, photographer and Vacheron Constantin talent, talks to the rake about the need we have
as humans to push ourselves to the limit — and how that act of exploration is inextricably linked to the concept of time.

by nick scott

C onquering Everest is, for many people, the literal and of adventure and travel thanks to an interchangeable strap/
figurative peak of their life’s achievements. Doing so via bracelet system, enabling the owner to adapt it to their surrounds.
Tibet’s north-east ridge is, as accomplishments go, on A version with an ultra-thin self-winding tourbillon movement,
another plane altogether. But that’s the mission improbable that providing an 80-hour power reserve, was presented with a
the American professional photographer and long-distance stainless steel case at SIHH last year.
explorer Cory Richards embarked upon with his climbing It is difficult to think of a high-profile brand associate who
companion, the Ecuadorean Esteban ‘Topo’ Mena, last has a more authentic relationship with their timepiece than
year. After climbing for 12 hours on the first day, the weather Richards — and it is one that mirrors his intimate relationship
conditions forced them to pause, and they had no tents; having with the rugged terrains he traverses. “Time is one of the most
endured a night of frigid temperatures, they pushed on for three essential factors when you are trying to execute high-level
hours — despite suffering from profound exhaustion — before mountaineering or Alpine objectives,” the 38-year-old tells
the weather and common The Rake. “One component of
sense intervened again and how time relates to climbing
put an end to their quest.
“Mountains have their own is understanding that
There’s little doubt rhythm. You have to be aware mountains have their own
Richards will attempt the of this in order to stay safe.” rhythm. You have to be aware
climb again, and likely with of this in order to stay safe.
success. It is this singular, indefatigable spirit of derring- “The other important component is that, when you’re
do that makes him such an appropriate talent for Vacheron putting your body through these kinds of endeavours and taking
Constantin’s ‘One of Not Many’ campaign. Before the climb, yourself to these extremes, you only have a certain amount of
Richards collaborated with the manufacture to create a watch time during which your body can operate correctly before it
that would endure the hostile conditions he was about to ends up failing. That’s just the nature of the beast. The longer
expose himself to, as well as enabling him to keep track of time you are at high altitude, the more danger you encounter. Timing
in Nepal and his home in the United States. yourself, understanding the rhythms of the mountains —
The result is the Overseas Dual Time Prototype, a titanium when avalanches are coming down, following rock falls — are
piece whose structural integrity is reinforced with underneath essential for your safety and hopefully your success.”
tantalum and whose grey-and-bright-orange hues make it When it came to creating the prototype, Richards had three
look as sporty as it does robust (it also features an oscillating main criteria in mind. “I was looking for a timepiece with the
weight engraved with a design based on one of Richards’ Everest maximum efficiency, utility and comfort,” he says. “The key to a
photographs). The piece isn’t up for grabs — it was sold for great design is the simplicity and usefulness of the object. In this
$106,250 at Phillips’ ‘Game Changers’ watch auction in New York instance, the idea was to create a timepiece that could withstand
in December, with proceeds going towards a National Geographic the temperature, the altitude and the working nature of hard
Society project that focuses on education and cultural preservation exploration. There’s a lot that can happen to the watch during
— but the Overseas collection birthed in 2016 conveys the spirit such an expedition, so you need to make it very resistant.”

141
 TEMPORAL

Clockwise from top: A brief

moment of calm during Cory
Richards’ 2019 Everest attempt;
Richards surveys the next leg of
his expedition; and the Vacheron
Constantin Overseas Dual Time
Cory Richards Prototype.

142
 Top and bottom left: The
Vacheron Constantin Overseas
Dual Time Cory Richards
Prototype, featuring an
oscillating weight engraved
with a design based on one
of his Everest photographs.
Right: Christian Selmoni, the
Heritage & Style Director
of Vacheron Constantin.

The second time zone, meanwhile — the U.S. — held a thrown into the mix, too — but Richards insists that gruelling
broader existential meaning. “Overseas dual time holds a experiences serve only to sharpen his focus when it comes
special place for me as it reminds me of all the other components to experiential striving. “Suffering and endurance create
of my life,” Richards says. “These elements are important a lens through which we can view the human experience in
to have in mind when you’re putting yourself out there and a more holistic and appreciative way,” he says. “Indeed, for
when the highest consequence is ultimately death. The dual- me, climbing, alpinism or exploration are all forms of art,
time feature reminds me creativity and action. This is
that these expeditions, while “The dual-time feature directly translatable to the
they are worth trying for, are reminds me that these design of timepieces such
very rarely worth dying for. as the Overseas Prototype.
The dual time was a simple
expeditions, while they are They are allegorical and
and beautiful solution to worth trying for, are very symbolic of one another.
something that needed to be rarely worth dying for.” Great exploration requires an
minimalistic and meaningful.” absolute stripping down of all
Meanwhile, the ‘One of Not Many’ initiative — whose that is unnecessary, and I believe that great design echoes that.
slogan, of course, refers to the limited number of pieces made Without the hurdles or the occasional failure, you couldn’t
by Vacheron’s workshops in the firm’s 265-year existence as understand the beauty that is held in the accomplishment,
well as the extraordinary humans who personify it — is, for whether that involves the completion of a timepiece or the
Richards, a call to self-betterment. “It’s about simply trying completion of an exploration or a climb.
to go beyond what I would normally be called to do,” he says. “I think one is always reminding me of the other — one is
“I’ve been given the chance to try to be the best version of always telling the story of the other, and in that way they work
myself in every way. I think that ‘One of Not Many’ exemplifies hand in hand, minute by minute and second by second. They
that drive: it celebrates the incredible experience of being are a creation of themselves and onto themselves — one that
human and hopefully celebrates what humanity is capable of.” echoes the creative spirit that is inherent in humanity.”
There’s a fine line between endurance and suffering — How long ago it seems that a brand associate was merely
and on that recent Everest mission, disappointment was a model for heavily photoshopped subway advertisements.

143
CALL OF THE WILD
Kevin Pietersen is building another formidable partnership — one that transcends sporting triumphs and disasters.
In collaboration with Hublot, the former England batsman is leading the fight to save the endangered rhinoceros.
by nick scott
T o cricket buffs he’s best remembered for a maiden Test
century at The Oval in London that helped ensure the
return of the Ashes to England in 2005. But, six years
after hanging up his batting pads, Kevin Pietersen is on an
altogether nobler mission: to save endangered rhinos from
suffering and extinction, with the help of Hublot and SORAI
(Save Our Rhino Africa and India).
This new chapter in his life began when the South African-
born Pietersen, whose mother is English, joined fellow cricketers
Mark Boucher, Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis on a rhino
relocation exercise in 2013. What he encountered was the brutal
drama being played out behind a horrifying set of statistics: just
28,000 rhinos remain worldwide, 23 times fewer than there are
African elephants; in 2018, three African rhinos were poached
every day for the fifth successive year; and it is predicted that in
our lifetimes two-thirds of rhino species will be lost.
In case anyone is asking why, it’s because these graceful
herbivorous mammals’ horns are believed to have a status-
boosting factor as well as healing properties, when they pack
precisely the same amount of keratin
— for they are composed of the same
substance — as a person’s toenails.
Attempting to make this reality
more widely known, in order to
suppress demand, would be a very
steep mountain to climb. “When
you’ve got leaders of the free world
saying that climate change isn’t
a problem, how are you going to
change the mindset of the whole of
Chinese medicine and mythology?”
says Pietersen, who is working with
teams of specialists to relocate
and care for abandoned, injured
or orphaned baby rhinos in places
such as South Africa’s Kruger
National Park, where the majority
of poaching incidents take place.
“The only thing we can do is
protect the animals and empower
the people who live around the
144
[problem], to make them know that by protecting the
animals they’re basically providing for themselves,
their families and for future generations.”
The ruthless side of economics is exacerbating the issue,
Pietersen says: “Because the numbers are going down, people
are stockpiling. They know that… if we don’t get this sorted by
around 2025, the rhino will be gone, which means the rhino
horn they have is more valuable. When they’re gone, the value
will obviously increase. Even now it’s fetching around $60,000
to $80,000 a kilogram on the black market.”
Indeed, it’s all about money — and it’s an issue that money can
do much to alleviate, too. “When I was shooting the documentary,
one of the locals said to me, ‘We don’t understand why you rich
white people come to take photos of our food’,” Pietersen says.
“That struck a chord in me — all these guys want is water and food
to live a happy life. Now, if money was no object and we were able
to build schools, give them running water, educate them, empower
them to make sustainable arrangements bordering the Kruger
park, we could also engage with them and say, ‘Listen, these
animals here are raising significant
amounts of local funds — you need
to protect them both for you and
for future generations. The human
fence is something that is desperately
needed around the Kruger park.”
Meanwhile, literal fences — like
the highly sophisticated electric one
protecting the Sabi Sands reserve,
adjacent to Kruger National Park,
which is peopled by security staff and
has thermal imaging cameras and
sniffer dogs — could also be erected
with the help of hard cash. Pietersen
also points out that helicopter
support with infrared technology for
night patrols would be beneficial.
All of which is why Pietersen is
focused on the money-raising aspects
of rhino conservation. “Every year I put
on experiences for very, very wealthy,
influential people who can make a real
 TEMPORAL

Kevin Pietersen in the Kruger

National Park wearing his
Hublot Big Bang Unico SORAI.
 Clockwise from top left: The white rhino
motif on the Hublot Big Bang; Hublot’s
C.E.O., Ricardo Guadalupe, Petronel
Nieuwoudt, the founder of the Care for
Wild Rhino Sanctuary, and Pietersen at the
sanctuary; baby rhino; Kevin inspects the
timepiece; rhinos grazing; feeding time at
the rhino sanctuary with Ricardo and Kevin;
and the Hublot Big Bang Unico SORAI.

146
 TEMPORAL

The 45mm Hublot Big Bang

Unico SORAI with ceramic
dial, camouflage rubber
bracelet and white rhino motif.

big difference,” he says. “Next year is my third event. I want to give them the story, what Hublot are doing, and it adds so much value
them that spiritual journey, that emotional attachment. You watch to the cause.” It’s a cause about which, ultimately, Pietersen is
the news and you see somebody gets shot outside their hotel in optimistic, and with poaching losses at Kruger National Park
Buenos Aires… climate change… you see bullying in schools. But declining from 504 in 2017 to 421 in 2018, he has every reason
until you’re actually in that situation, it doesn’t emotionally attach to feel things are moving in the right direction. “With more
itself to you and you don’t engage on an emotional basis. That’s why awareness and assistance from big brands like Hublot, with
I put on these spiritual journeys in the bush.” the continued growth in our spiritual journeys that we take
Meanwhile, Hublot’s involvement in the SORAI programme, people on in Africa, with the awareness that is being raised,
he says, is a massive boon to I do feel, looking at the
the cause. “They’re a major “Until you’re in that situation, numbers, that we are making
luxury watch brand, which it doesn’t attach itself to you, a difference. However, if
means they get major global one animal gets killed for its
traction and their voice
you don’t engage. That’s horn, it’s too many.”
can reach areas I cannot,” why I put on these spiritual And what of this most
Pietersen says. “To give you journeys in the bush.” dramatic of career changes
an example, when we put out — from a limelight-showered
news of the partnership, the announcement was at midday, and life at a well-kempt crease to altruistic endeavours in the wild?
by 12:10 Hublot Vietnam had plugged the story through their “It’s been the greatest part of my greatest journey,” he says.
networks. Vietnam is a huge issue for us, like China. A cricketer “It’s also the most emotional journey because, unfortunately,
wasn’t going to access Vietnam by any stretch of the imagination. I do see a lot of dead animals. But in terms of fulfilment, I had
I was jumping around, like, ‘Dude, this is amazing’.” so many highs in my cricketing career, so many lows, and I
Naturally, he’s a proud owner of one of the 100 watches love the fact that I can now just retire into the bush and be
made to celebrate the collaboration — the Big Bang Unico completely subservient to these majestic animals. They don’t
SORAI, a piece that takes on the sandy hues of the sumptuous care who I am, what I’ve done, whether I’ve played 100 Test
African bush and has a 45mm ceramic dial and a camouflage- matches or scored whatever or been on the front page for
style rubber bracelet, as well as an image of a white rhinoceros. naughty things. All they care about is their food and all I care
“Every time I wear it, somebody says to me, ‘What is that?’. I tell about is protecting them.”

147
 WISDOM

Alessandro Sartori,
the Artistic Director
of Ermenegildo Zegna.
2050: A STYLE ODYSSEY
What a decade it has been for Alessandro Sartori. The Italian designer transformed Berluti before enjoying a triumphant
‘homecoming’ at Ermenegildo Zegna. But neither complacency or self-congratulation is in Sartori’s nature. Instead,
the rake discovers, he is trying to intuit what menswear will look like a generation from now…
by christian barker

I first interviewed Alessandro Sartori nearly a decade ago, for a but also recognise his more human, vulnerable side. What is
cover feature in the eighth issue of The Rake. It was Sartori’s important is that you are true to yourself.
debut turn as a magazine’s principal subject, but it proved
a prescient choice, as he would go on to become one of the most As a personal opinion, I think that women wearing menswear,
important menswear designers of his generation. Moving from the from shirts to pants to coats, is fantastic. Whereas when a man
Creative Director’s role at Z Zegna in 2011 to join the newly LVMH- wears women’s garments, it’s different — that’s a very specific
acquired Berluti, Sartori presided over the Arnault family’s successful style related more to a brand like Gucci. But a woman wearing
transformation of the house from a recherché shoemaker and leather a tailored jacket? Yes! I am much more into that aspect of
goods atelier to a full-service, ultra-luxury menswear brand. After gender fluidity. As you know, Zegna’s new campaign addresses
five spectacular years shaping modern masculinity and what
the Berluti man — a globetrotting Sartori’s strengths are his makes a man. The reaction,
bohemian peacock with an ease at the drawing board overall, has been fantastic.
eye for detail and a taste for Engagement has been much
sumptuous materials — Sartori
and in Zegna’s advanced higher than usual, and
returned ‘home’ to Ermenegildo R&D laboratories — what overwhelmingly positive,
Zegna, in an expanded role as he calls “the kitchen”. although of course there
the group’s Artistic Director. have been some detractors,
With degrees in fashion design and textile engineering, one of perhaps 10 per cent of people saying, ‘Shut up, you’re a fashion
Sartori’s strengths are his ease both at the drawing board and in brand. Why do you speak about masculinity? We just want to
Zegna’s advanced R&D laboratories (what he calls “the kitchen”). see beautiful clothes.’ Fine. You can’t please all the people,
Today, by marrying design and technology at Zegna, Sartori is helping and not only that, but today, if you try to please everybody, you
to define the new sartorial paradigm, though he’d shyly deny it. don’t please anyone because you are unclear — you’re ‘grey’.
Humble, softly spoken, and a true gentle man, Sartori was incredulous
and refused the comparison when I once likened his hybridisation Every individual brand has its own layers and stories,
of athletic apparel and classic tailoring to the dramatic change in different ideas, but if you don’t communicate the real identity
menswear wrought by Beau Brummell. Nevertheless, I firmly believe of your brand, you are only linked to your customer through
that this designer who once dreamed of what men would wear in 2050 the style of the product, which is a bit light as a connection.
will turn out to be pivotal in shaping the masculine style of tomorrow. Whereas if you engage in a meaningful conversation with your
Here, one of my most frequent (and favourite) interviewees discusses clients, you’ll create a much more stable relationship. We
the nature of man and menswear — past, present and future. see this particularly in our bespoke atelier, where the tailor
is becoming not only your adviser but like a valued friend, a
The concept of the macho guy with the sports car that came brother — if you speak to someone about your defects or about
out of Italy in the 1960s was very important for all the fashion the problems you have, or about how to hide this or hide that,
brands for a long time. Zegna was more into the perfect family actually, you invite them to enter your private life.
style, with settings like a Monferrato villa, Tuscan vineyards,
with guys confidently wearing pastels, emboldened — that was a More and more we visit our customers at their homes.
different form of machismo. A man can be classically masculine Understanding what a customer already has in his wardrobe and

149
 This page: Mahershala Ali
photographed for the ‘What
Makes a Man’ campaign
by Ermenegildo Zegna.
Opposite: Nicholas Tse, the actor,
martial artist, singer, songwriter
and entrepreneur, who is also
a face of the campaign.

what he needs, what he’s missing, that’s when we can do the best
job of advising him and help him to build unique silhouettes.
People are shopping more carefully and more consciously.
Our sales associates are becoming more like stylists. We don’t
tell them, ‘You have to sell five suits today’. No, that formula is
finished. Today we encourage them to engage customers and try
to understand their lifestyles, try to build unique relationships
and help customers create unique outfits, help them style the
old with the new — that is very important. This is what we give
as the objective.
Back when I was a student, I always thought about what would
be the ‘uniform’, if we can call it that, of a man in 2050. I
wondered, what will we be wearing in the future? I don’t like
a vintage approach, recreating army garments from the 1940s,
let’s say, just re-elaborating a pocket here or a collar there,
that’s not me. That’s too literal.
I like to look at what will be happening tomorrow. I have
TechMerino garments I can run in, sleep in, wear on the plane
or to meet you here today. They’re easy to wash, easy to pack,
you don’t worry about wrinkles. You can travel, be chic and
comfortable. That’s modern.
I do love vintage clothing as far as techniques go — what is
interesting with vintage clothing is to open the pieces to see
the construction. Those garments were designed to last for
a very long time, so all the technical solutions inside vintage
pieces, the way that the garments were assembled — fantastic,
really fantastic!
I encourage people to be conscious of what they buy — invest
in garments that they can wear in multiple ways and that will
last for a long time. You may not wear it every week but if a
garment can remain in your wardrobe for 10 years or more, I
like this approach.
To me, a very important part of the job of being a designer is
about helping to develop new paths to the future, in technology,
fabric construction and techniques. We are working on the
process of upcycling natural fibres, that’s really something
important. You can recycle a plastic bottle 20 times, easy, but
what about a Merino fibre? That’s much more complicated.
Around a quarter of fabric is currently lost on the cutting
table. If we can give a new life to those Merino, cashmere,
angora and mohair fibres, 20 per cent of our needs could be
covered by upcycling. And that is incredible.

150
WISDOM

151
A DIFFERENT PACE OF LIFE
The exclusive Rallye des Légendes in Andalusia in Spain last year, hosted by the watch designer
Richard Mille and featuring some of the most desirable vintage cars, provided a rare and
incomparable escape — from the pressures of ordinary life and the oppressive constraints of time…
by frédéric brun photography mathieu bonnevie

152
JAUNT

153
T ime is the master factor. As soon as the engines are
switched off after we arrive at La Finca de los Alburejos
— underneath the protective shade of the old palm
trees — everyone understands how important the notion is.
Established by the renowned Domecq family, and led now
by Álvaro Domecq Jr., a powerful politician, businessman
and winemaker, the Alburejos estate has for decades been
dedicated to the art of bull breeding. While many people
focus on the last 15 minutes of a fighting bull’s life, Álvaro
Domecq prefers to explain the very long and careful selection
process that goes into their breeding, which is guided by
tradition and the love of animals. It can sometimes take six to
eight years to perfect the training of a bull.
After a magnificent private equestrian show and a
breathtaking tienda demonstration — an exercise of bravery,
facing a courageous and combative heifer — having lunch in
the private garden of the Domecq family is quite an immersion
in Andalusian culture. Only a few of the thousands of tourists
who visit the south of Spain every year can pretend to have had
such an immersion in the local history and traditions. As a long-
time collector of sports cars — and not solely as a successful
watch designer — Richard Mille values the moment. He has just
emerged from behind the steering wheel of his 1964 Ferrari 250
GT Berlinetta Lusso. He takes a minute to look at the gorgeous
shape of the car, which was created by the Turin coachbuilder
154
Pininfarina. With its hazelnut brown dress, one is reminded of
Steve McQueen’s beloved version, and it is a fantastic machine
to drive on the sinuous but empty roads of Andalusia.
During this special week, speed is not the question: most
of the cars involved are true racing machines or sports models.
How powerful is the V12 engine? Enough, as every gentleman-
driver should say. The real question to ask the 25 teams is how
often do they get to drive their cars? Answer: Not enough!
Most of the time, a classic car rally bears almost no
relation to our modern, highly regulated way of living. And
the Rallye des Légendes Richard Mille is even more special,
because the aim is to offer an unforgettable tour of Andalusia
to active people who have almost everything but time. The
programme is a subtle cocktail of roads, culture, gastronomy
and fun. We pass through some of the most beautiful scenery
in Andalusia, including the Road of the White Villages and
the famous and dangerous el Caminito Del Rey (‘Little King’s
path’), with the King Alphonso XIII bridge that was used to
inaugurate an impressive dam in 1921. We enjoyed visiting
Ronda’s ancient arenas, which captivated Hemingway, and
the old fortress of Antequera. We also appreciated the long
roads surrounded by olive groves, a unique landscape in
which the most perfect olive oil is produced.
A fine tasting session with the famous starred chef Maria
José San Román was organised for us during one of the private
JAUNT

155
 JAUNT

Frédéric Brun, centre.

156
Richard Mille.

157
158
 JAUNT

dinners. And one of the most exotic and surprising places engine from the Porsche 906. The 1953 Aston Martin DB 2-4
was Setenil de Las Bodegas, a troglodyte village with the main is one of only three cars produced in the Competition Spyder
street unfolding beneath overhanging mountain rock. It was line by the Italian coachbuilder Bertone, and the amazing 1955
quite an interesting challenge for the Bugatti Type 57 Stelvio Aston Martin DB3S was driven by his owner in many major
and our comfortable but large Alvis TD21. classic car events, such as the Mille Miglia or the races at
An obligation to cover no Goodwood Revival.
more than 450 miles in five Details matter here. Indeed, To experience them in
days means no stress — a different ways, the programme
precious gift to these active
true petrolheads would also included a stop at the
people who, in their public recognise what makes this Ascari car circuit. The circuit
life, are influential and busy. classic rally so special. was inspired by the greatest
The rally’s organising team corners of Silverstone,
of Peter Auto, headed by Patrick Peter, recommended not to Nürburgring, Brands Hatch, Le Mans, Daytona and Spa, and
overuse social media, in order to keep the event as private the man behind it is Dutch engineer-inventor and tycoon
as possible. It gave the meeting a different feel to the other Klaas Zwart, the amateur F1 racing driver and creator of Ascari
great events Peter is used to organising, such as Tour Auto, cars. The circuit was the proper arena for the wild animals of
Le Mans Classic, the Classic Endurance Racing challenge, the Rallye des Légendes and a great opportunity to look at the
and the prestigious Concours d’Elegance Chantilly Arts and awkwardness of the Shelby Cobra 289 racing against a Ford
Elegance at Chantilly castle, near Paris. GT40 and some of Maranello’s beauties, such as a competition
Details matter here. Indeed, true petrolheads would version of the 275 GTB or the 250 GT Berlinetta, also known as
recognise what makes this classic rally so special. The Porsche the Short Wheel Base by Ferrari enthusiasts in the streets.
356 is not just a Speedster but a rare 1959 GT version. The But, finally, one of the most exceptional moments we enjoyed
letter R on the tail of the white Porsche 911 stands in German was the private visit to the Alhambra at sunset. After the noise of
for Rennen (Race), so it is one of the most desirable executions the racing engines, it was a privilege to hear the fountains of the
of the famous 911, the racing version with the Carrera 6 Flat-6 gardens — the kind of luxury only time can offer.

159
160
JAUNT

161
 AFFAIRS

David Brownlie-Marshall Karen Bendell

and Ashley Woodfield. and Carla Bicknell. Guests and Pablo Gomez Jul.

Jo Chauveau, Gilles Greenwood and Anne Petermann.

Mike Price and Martin Masson. Annie White and Gillian Tusting. Katie Goldblatt, Natasha Hendry and guest.

Natali Zdravkova, Arabella Boardman and Lina Zayeri. THE FRANKLIN

x
THE RAKE
11.12.19
the rake thanked its collaborators and
partners at a Christmas drinks party at
The Franklin Hotel in Knightsbridge.
Matthew Rapport, Jessica Leimanis
and Natasha Hendry. Jay Anaya and Laurent Feniou. Nancy Johnston and Chris Modoo.

Francesco Lunardon Marta Bobes, Alexandre Houyvet, Jay Anaya,

and James Massey. Willem Pinçon and Harry Mills. Natali Zdravkova and Julian Moore. Pauline Harris and Anne Petermann.
KIM LANG

Zeina Dekak, Ryan Thompson,

Mo Azam, Benedict Browne and Joslyn Clarke. Will Field and Ryan Hubble. Claire Selby and Jessica Gaffney. Elisabeth Parte and Tom Henry.

162
 Chris Burt Allan. Kevin Pabel. Toby Huntington-Whiteley. Charlie Teasdale.

Steve Wallington. Shane C. Kurup. Frédéric Brun. Jeremy Hackett.

HACKETT
20.11.19
Savile Row welcomed the British menswear
icon Hackett to the family with a new
bespoke emporium at No.14.

Shaun Gordon and Ben St. George. Sam Claflin.

Max Irons. Nick Carvell. Tom Stubbs. Bill Prince and Boniface Verney-Carron.
ROBERT SPANGLE

Nick Foulkes. Tom Chamberlin. Jack Guinness. Darren Kennedy.

163
 AFFAIRS

Tony Brand, Joe Morgan and Emily Lowe.

Alexander Kraft and Wei Koh. Caroline Andrew and Shaun Gordon.

Adam Rogers, Elizabeth Anderson and Joe Morgan.

CIFONELLI
14.11.19
the rake helped celebrate one of the more
significant overseas arrivals to British
shores, the Cifonelli store on Clifford Street.

Alexander Kraft and Yves Denis.

Massimo Cifonelli and Ryan Thompson.

Roberto Biffi and Shaun Gordon. Oliver Cross, right, and guests.

Roberto Biffi and guests.

CHRIS POLLARD

Massimo Cifonelli and Anne de Champigneul. Chris Modoo and Daisy Rolfe.

164
Tony Brand and Lorenzo Cifonelli. Alistair Guy and guests. Guests.

Tom Chamberlin, Massimo Cifonelli, Lorenzo Cifonelli, Wei Koh and Johnny Allen.

Alexander Kraft, Romain Le Dantec,

Louise Forissier and François Pourcher.

Mo Coppoletta.

David Ferguson
and Amin Jaffer.

Massimo Cifonelli, Mr. and Mrs. Papagiannakopoulos, and Lorenzo Cifonelli.

165
 DIRECTORY
ADRIANO MENEGHETTI – www.adrianomeneghetti.com
ALBERT THURSTON – www.albertthurston.com
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN – www.alexandermcqueen.com
ALICE MADE THIS – www.alicemadethis.com
AMI – www.amiparis.fr
AMOUR LUX – www.armorlux.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
AUDEMARS PIGUET – www.audemarspiguet.com
AUDI – www.audi.co.uk
BALLY – www.bally.com
BAMFORD – www.bamfordwatchdepartment.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
BERLUTI – www.berluti.com
BERRY BROS. & RUDD – www.bbr.com
BLACKHORSE LANE ATELIERS – www.blackhorselane.com
BLANCPAIN – www.blancpain.com
BORSALINO – www.borsalino.com
BREGUET – www.breguet.com
BRIONI – www.brioni.com
BROOKS BROTHERS – www.brooksbrothers.com
BRUNELLO CUCINELLI – www.brunellocucinelli.com
BULGARI HOTEL – www.bulgarihotels.com
BUDD SHIRTMAKERS – www.buddshirts.co.uk
BULGARI – www.bulgari.com
CALABRESE 1924 – www.calabrese1924.com
CAMOSHITA UNITED ARROWS – www.united-arrows.jp
CANALI – www.canali.com
CARMINA SHOEMAKER – www.carminashoemaker.com
CAROLINA BUCCI – www.carolinabucci.com
CARUSO – www.carusomenswear.com
CERRUTI – www.cerruti.com
CHELSEA BARRACKS – www.chelseabarracks.com
CHESTER BARRIE – www.chesterbarrie.co.uk
CHITTLEBOROUGH & MORGAN – www.chittleboroughandmorgan.co.uk
CHOPARD – www.chopard.com
CINABRE – www.cinabre-paris.com
CLAIRE GOLDSMITH – www.olivergoldsmith.com
CIFONELLI – www.cifonelli.com
CLARIDGE’S – www.claridges.co.uk
CONNOLLY – www.connollyengland.com
CORNELIANI – www.corneliani.com
CORTHAY – www.corthay.com
CORUM – www.corum.ch
C. QP – www.c-qp.com
CRAZY PIG DESIGNS – www.crazypigdesigns.com
CROCKETT & JONES – www.crockettandjones.com
CROMBIE – www.crombie.co.uk
CROMFORD LEATHER CO. – www.cromfordleather.co.uk
CUTLER AND GROSS – www.cutlerandgross.com
DALCOURE – www.sartoriadalcuore.com
DAVIDOFF OF LONDON – www.davidoff.com
DEAKIN & FRANCIS – www.deakinandfrancis.co.uk
DE PETRILLO – www.depetrillo.it
DIOR – www.dior.com
DIOR JOAILLERIE – www.dior.com
DOLCE & GABBANA – www.dolcegabbana.com
DRAKE’S OF LONDON – www.drakes-london.com
DUNHILL – www.dunhill.com
DURAVIT – www.duravit.com
EDWARD GREEN – www.edwardgreen.com
EDWARD SEXTON – www.edwardsexton.co.uk
ELLIOT RHODES – www.elliotrhodes.com
EMMA WILLIS – www.emmawillis.com
EMMETT LONDON – www.emmettlondon.com
ENLIST – www.enliststyle.com
ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA – www.zegna.com
ETTINGER – www.ettinger.co.uk
FALKE – www.falke.com
FAR AFIELD – www.farafield.uk
FAVOURBROOK – www.favourbrook.com
FENWICK – www.fenwick.co.uk
FOLK – www.folk-clothing.com
FRANCESCO MARINO NAPOLI – www.francescomarinonapoli.it
GAZIANO & GIRLING – www.gazianogirling.com
G.J. CLEVERLEY – www.gjcleverley.com
GIEVES & HAWKES – www.gievesandhawkes.com
G. INGLESE – www.store.g-inglese.com
GITMAN VINTAGE – www.gitmanvintage.com
GIORGIO ARMANI – www.armani.com
GLOBE-TROTTER – www.globetrotter1897.com
GLOVERALL – www.gloverall.com
GRENFELL – www.grenfell.com
GRENSON – www.grenson.com
H. MOSER & CIE – www.h-moser.com
HACKETT – www.hackett.com
HALF MOON BAY ANTIGUA – www.halfmoonbayantigua.com
HAMILTON AND HARE – www.hamiltonandhare.com
HARRODS – www.harrods.com
HARRY WINSTON – www.harrywinston.com
HARRY’S OF LONDON – www.harrysoflondon.com
HEMINGSWORTH – www.hemingsworth.com
HENRY POOLE & CO. – www.henrypoole.com
HERMÈS – www.hermes.com
HOLLAND & HOLLAND – www.hollandandholland.com
HUBLOT – www.hublot.com
H. HUNTSMAN – www.h-huntsman.com
IWC – www.iwc.com
JAEGER-LECOULTRE – www.jaeger-lecoultre.com
JAN LESLIE – www.janleslie.com
JAQUET DROZ – www.jaquet-droz.com
J.M. WESTON – www.jmweston.com
JIMMY CHOO – www.jimmychoo.com
JOHN LOBB – www.johnlobb.com
JOHN SMEDLEY – www.johnsmedley.com
JOHN VARVATOS – www.johnvarvatos.com
JOHNSTON OF ELGIN – www.johnstonsofelgin.com
JOSEPH CHEANEY AND SON – www.cheaney.co.uk
KAPITAL – www.kapital-webshop.jp
KENT & CURWEN – www.kentandcurwen.co.uk
KENT HASTE & LACHTER – www.kenthaste.co.uk
KING & TUCKFIELD – www.kingandtuckfield.com
KITON – www.kiton.it
LARDINI – www.lardini.it
LIVERANO & LIVERANO ATELIER – www.liverano.com
LOCK & CO. – www.lockhatters.co.uk
LONDON SOCK COMPANY – www.londonsockcompany.com
LORO PIANA – www.loropiana.com
LUCIANO BARBERA – www.lucianobarbera.it
LUDWIG REITER – www.ludwig-reiter.com
MACKINTOSH – www.mackintosh.com
MAGNUS & NOVUS – www.magnusandnovus.com
MANOLO BLAHNIK – www.manoloblahnik.com
MAROL – www.marol.it
MONCLER – www.moncler.com
MONKS OF DOVER ST – www.moncksbrasserie.com
MOTOLUXE – www.masonandsons.com
MR HARE – www.mrhare.com
MR PORTER – www.mrporter.com
NAKED CLOTHING – www.therake.com
NEW & LINGWOOD – www.newandlingwood.com
NIALAYA – www.nialaya.com
NIKE – www.nike.com
NORWEGIAN RAIN – www.norwegianrain.com
OLIVER GOLDSMITH – www.olivergoldsmith.com
OLIVER PEOPLES – https://oliverpeoples.com
OLIVER SPENCER – www.oliverspencer.co.uk
OMEGA – www.omegawatches.com
OMEGA SRL – www.omegasrl.com
ORAZIO LUCIANO – www.orazioluciano.com
ORLEBAR BROWN – www.orlebarbrown.com
PAL ZILERI – www.palzileri.com
PANERAI – www.panerai.com
PANTHERELLA – www.pantherella.com
PANTALONI TORINO – www.pt-pantalonitorino.it
PAUL SMITH – www.paulsmith.co.uk
PATEK PHILIPPE – www.patek.com
PERSOL – www.persol.com
PIAGET – www.piaget.com
PRADA – www.prada.com
PRINCIPE DI ELEGANZA – www.principedeleganza.it
PRINGLE OF SCOTLAND – www.pringleofsctoland.com
PRIVATE WHITE V.C. – www.privatewhitevc.com
RALPH LAUREN – www.ralphlauren.com
RAY-BAN – www.ray-ban.com
REBUS – www.rebussignetrings.co.uk
REDA SLAOUI – www.redaslaoui.com
RICHARD JAMES – www.richardjames.co.uk
RICHARD MILLE – www.richardmille.com
RIMOWA – www.rimowa.com
RIVA – www.riva-yacht.com
ROKIT – www.rokit.co.uk
ROLEX – www.rolex.com
ROSEWOOD LONDON – www.rosewoodhotels.com
RUBINACCI – www.marianorubinacci.net
SABINA SABAGE – www.sabinasavage.com
SALLE PRIVÉE – www.salle-privee.com
SALVATORE PICCOLO – www.salvatorepiccolo.com
SANDRO – www.sandro-paris.com
SANTONI – www.santonishoes.com
SCHOTT – www.schottnyc.com
SELFRIDGES – www.selfridges.com
SCABAL – www.scabal.com
SCIAMAT – www.sciamat.com
SERÀ FINE SILK – www.serafinesilk.com
SIHH – www.sihh.org
SLOWEAR – www.slowear.com
ST. JAMES’S HOTEL & CLUB – www.stjameshotelandclub.com
STEFANO BEMER SRL – www.stefanobemersrl.com
SUKI – www.sukilondon.com
SUNSPEL – www.sunspel.com
THE BESPOKE DUDES EYEWEAR – www.thebespokedudeseyewear.com
THE CONNAUGHT HOTEL – www.the-connaught.co.uk
THE FRANKLIN HOTEL – www.thefranklinlondon.com
THE GIGI – www.thegigi.it
THE GREAT FROG – www.thegreatfroglondon.com
THE KOOPLES – www.thekooples.com
THOM SWEENEY – www.thomsweeney.co.uk
TIMOTHY EVEREST – www.timothyeverest.co.uk
TOD’S – www.tods.com
TOM BAKER – www.tombakerlondon.com
TOM DAVIES – www.tdtomdavies.com
TRUNK – www.trunkclothiers.com
TUDOR – www.tudorwatch.com
TUMI – www.tumi.com
TURNBULL & ASSER – www.turnbullandasser.co.uk
UDESHI – www.udeshi.co.uk
UNITED ARROWS – www.united-arrows.co.jp
URWERK – www.urwerk.com
VACHERON CONSTANTIN – www.vacheron-constantin.com
VALENTINO – www.valentino.com
VALSTAR – www.valstar.it
VAN CLEEF AND ARPELS – www.vancleef-arpels.com
VILEBREQUIN – www.vionnet.com
VITALE BARBERIS CANONICO – www.vitalebarberiscanonico.it
WESTIME – www.westime.com
WHEELERS. V – www.wheelersv.com
WILLIAM & SON – www.williamandson.com
THE WOOLMARK COMPANY – www.woolmark.com
WOOYOUNGMI – www.wooyoungmi.com
WRANGLER – www.wrangler.com
ZENITH – www.zenith-watches.com
 SUBSCRIBE TO

Subscribe to The Rake and receive your regular consignment

of artisanal luxury and elegant, classic men’s style.
Visit www.TheRake.com
DAVID ROEMER
AN ALL-ROUND GOOD EGG
Nick Charles, the retired detective at the centre of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man,
was no life-weathered bruiser — and he is all the more compelling for it.
by nick scott
D ashiell Hammett, a Pinkerton
National Detective Agency
gumshoe turned author,
was described in his New York Times
obituary as “the dean of the… ‘hard-
boiled’ school of detective fiction”.
Dorothy Parker once described Sam
Spade, the anti-hero in Hammett’s
most famous book, The Maltese Falcon,
as being “so hard-boiled you could roll
him on the White House lawn”. Writing
about the eponymous character in The
Continental Op, a critic wrote: “It is a
long step from Holmes pondering the
significance of a flake of cigar ash to
Hammett’s Op, who, on one occasion,
stuffs a length of copper wire into his pocket because it’s
just the right length to go around somebody’s neck.”
Hammett wasn’t a novelist who served up three-minutes-
on-the-hob runny yolks. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say
that without Hammett (whom another U.S. broadsheet called
“the Prometheus of the private eye”), Raymond Chandler
would not have come up with Philip Marlowe, meaning that
the existentially jaded detective, routinely referred to as hard-
boiled, would be conspicuously absent from the cultural canon.
And yet with Nick Charles, the non-eponymous narrator
of The Thin Man, Hammett created a new character for a new
era: a post-crash, semi-retired private eye, the son of a Greek
immigrant whose name was anglicised in a cursory moment at
an Ellis Island arrivals desk, living (hedonistically and blissfully
contentedly) on his wife Nora’s considerable dowry. A fresh
spin on the deliciously evergreen ‘pulled out of retirement for
one last job’ trope, the plot’s founding layer is that Charles
has headed east from San Francisco with his aforementioned
glamour-wife and hyperactive dog, Asta, in tow, dead-set on
boozing and socialising his way through the Christmas period
in tail-end-of-Prohibition-era New York.
But Charles is drawn inadvertently into an enigma involving
protagonists from his east-coast past on the first page of the
book, when he is approached by the alluring young daughter
of a missing former client while standing — dressed in a dark
pinstriped three-piece, three-button single-breasted suit
with peak lapels, if the costume department for the 1934 movie
starring William Powell got it right — at the bar of a speakeasy.
168
RAKE
INCARNATE
A murder enters the mix by page six,
and Charles’s tacit involvement in the
investigation becomes inextricable when
he takes a bullet from the gangster Shep
Morelli, who has burst into his hotel
suite (although his attention towards it
never really goes beyond three-quarter-
arsed (“[It’s] putting me way behind in
my drinking,” he asserts at one point).
The murder mysteries — the young
speakeasy girl’s father, the main suspect,
later takes a hit — make for a gripping
enough narrative, but for many readers
serve mainly as a vehicle for the book’s
stardust-coated dialogue, notably the
interaction, bristling with repartee
and good-natured bonhomie, between Charles and his wealthy
heiress wife. (Case in point: “You got types?”; “Only you, darling
— lanky brunettes with wicked jaws”; “And how about the red-
head you wandered off with at the Quinns’ last night?”; “That’s
silly. She just wanted to show me some French etchings.”) That,
by the way, is just one of the moments in the text in which an open
relationship, possibly one-sided, is hinted at.
The dialogue in question is pretty well-oiled: libations in
Charles and Nora’s realm begin shortly after a mid-morning rise,
and invariably continue until dawn. A popular university drinking
game in Britain entails trying to keep up with Withnail (and ‘I’, too,
if feeling particularly hardy) during that particular cinematic grog-
stock, and those attempting to do the same with the 1934 adaptation
of The Thin Man would do well to stock up on gin and vermouth.
Indeed, it’s Charles’s penchant for the bottle that proffers
one of the character’s finest moments, as portrayed in the
aforementioned movie version. The context? Charles has
decided to give a speakeasy bartender a demo of how drinks
should be mixed: “The important thing is the rhythm,” he says,
clutching a shaker, his body starting to shimmy rhythmically.
“Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now, a Manhattan you
always shake to foxtrot time; a Bronx to two-step time; a dry
martini you always shake to waltz time.”
Even if it weren’t for all the wit, wisdom and jammy-yoked
insouciance on display throughout the narrative, with that
GETTY IMAGES
one 20-second routine alone — one blending perfectionism,
epicureanism, hedonism and humour — Nick Charles earns his
place in the annals of the Rake Incarnate.
 Be part of the unmissable show where
novelties are revealed and trends are set

APRIL 30  MAY 05, 2020

BASELWORLD.COM