Tabla de contenidos para February 2021 - Issue 74 en The Rake

Last year the coolest guy I ever met died. Unlike the two million people around the world who have perished as a result of Covid-19, my friend died in an accident. He was working on his pick-up truck when it must have come off a jack-stand and crushed him. It is my sincere hope that he did not suffer, and that, in his final moments, he was assured of the many people who loved him and looked up to him as the hero he was. He was certainly a hero to me. I met Jason Michael Haivala, known to his friends as Jake, during my existential sojourn into the American west, on the grass plains of the Big Sky Country known as Montana. Here’s how it happened. Upon completing my…

A couple of years ago, Her Serene Highness Princess Virginia Carolina Theresa Pancrazia Galdina von und Zu Fürstenberg, or Ira, as she is (mercifully) known, asked me to write her life story. Ira is just fabulous. I first met her in Marbella; she is unlike anyone I have ever met. If anything, the singular ‘life’ is somewhat misleading, as even by the most conservative of estimates she has led half a dozen different lives. Indeed, given the many personal dramas over 80 years, and the fact she is one of the most engaging, unaffected and clear-eyed witnesses to that halcyon period of the jet set, I am still surprised that Netflix has not been in touch to commission a T.V. series based on her life — what it may lack…

Grace Jones is an intersectional iconoclast whose fluid approach to style, identity and creativity was decades ahead of its time. Transcending national, sexual and racial stereotypes, she has cross-fertilised music, fashion, cinema and her own life into one ceaseless performance. Both quintessentially eighties and timelessly prescient, she often improved on originals and smuggled the vanguard into the mainstream. Born in British Jamaica in either 1948 or 1952 (depending on whom you believe), Grace was the third child of Marjorie and Robert W. Jones, a local politician and clergyman. When her parents moved to the American east coast for Robert’s work, the children were left with Marjorie’s mother and her younger new husband, Peart (nicknamed ‘Mas P’), an abusive disciplinarian whom Grace “absolutely hated”. At the age of 13, Grace moved…

Every watchmaker has their signature house hero, the identifiable brand calling card: there’s Rolex’s robust and bulletproof Submariner, Audemars Piguet’s knockout Royal Oak, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s ultraclassic Reverso. But some brands also produce a selection of unexpected, under-the-radar watches that, design-wise, are often miles away from their bestselling counterparts. This is deliberate: such pieces are reserved strictly for top clientele, where only the finest technical and artistic execution will do, and which are bona fide, one-of-a-kind wonders that won’t be found on any other wrist. At the storied, 286-year-old house of Blancpain, such pieces are its Métiers d’Art watches: exceptional and unique creations that for those more familiar with the brand mascot — the sporty, technically advanced Fifty Fathoms diver — are in for a real, rare treat. Blancpain’s forté are five…

When one thinks of a strong female protagonist in film — an uncommon sight before 1980 — one name comes to mind: Ellen Ripley. Ripley, as she was known to a generation of film buffs, was Ridley Scott’s fictional character in the 1979 sci-fi-horror masterpiece Alien, and, as played by Sigourney Weaver, she heralded a new dawn for women in film. Wind the clock back to ’79: Weaver was an up-and-coming 29-year-old stage actress who had not appeared in any significant films, and certainly not any as culturally significant as Alien would become. Nor could she have envisioned the stardom, praise and wide respect she would garner on the film’s release, including a subsequent Oscar nomination, in 1987, for her reprisal of Ripley in James Cameron’s Aliens. Alien, set aboard…

Since its cornerstone was laid one crisp autumn morning in 1792, the neoclassical residence-cum-seat-of-power that would go on to be named after the blanched Virginia freestone from which it is constructed has become a hotbed of occasionally mawkish anthropomorphism. The first celebrity White House pet was Laddie Boy, Warren G. Harding’s Airedale Terrier, who sat in on cabinet meetings perched upon his own hand-carved chair and was the regular subject of ‘interview’ features in The Washington Star and The New York Times. Herbert Hoover’s Belgian police dog, King Tut, were he scuffing the carpets outside the Oval Office in the glossy publication era, would be the topic of at least as many column inches as Michelle Obama. And let’s not forget that, along with his six offspring, Theodore Roosevelt rocked…

Turnbull & Asser burgundy paisley traditional silk Jacquard gown In his captivating tome A History of the World in 100 Objects, the British art historian and former museum director Neil MacGregor explores the breadth of human endeavour via the prism of various artefacts — from chopping tools found in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge to early Victorian tea sets that offer a wealth of insight into Britain’s imperial exploits. Were a spin-off book to focus purely on the history of fine apparel, this enviable piece of eveningwear from the holders of the first Royal Warrant ever issued by the Prince of Wales, the Jermyn Street outfitter Turnbull & Asser, could spark a conversation that begins with Joseph-Marie Jacquard’s invention of his eponymous loom in Lyon before heading north, to the wine region…

‘Fashion Leader Favors A Lengthened Hemline’, read a headline in The New York Times on November 29, 1961, accompanying a picture of a svelte woman about to cross the road. This, the caption informed readers, was “Countess Crespi in green wool suit with longer hemline by Fabiani, Italian designer. Skirt is approximately four inches longer than popular length.” This was NEWS. “Consuelo Crespi has given New Yorkers who frequent smart restaurants and parties a preview of the longer skirts that are expected to be shown by Paris designers in their spring collections in January.” Prima facie: ‘Posh Italian woman wears skirt that covers the knee’ may not strike one as the most arresting of news. However, seen another way, the moment 60 years ago when Countess Crespi stepped off the…

“What I think we missed most in 2020 was the human contact. Spending time with friends, enjoying their physical presence, their warmth of spirit, their conviviality. For me, 2021 will be a year to remake these bonds, to luxuriate in the company of my fellow man with a full understanding and deep appreciation of their company. These watches created for The Rake and Revolution are meant to be a celebration of this new year of optimism and hope, and filled with friendship, compassion and companionship.” So says Carlos Rosillo, the co-founder of Bell & Ross. He continues: “If you look at the name Bell & Ross, the central motif is the ampersand. This is derived from the ligature for the Latin word et, which expresses a partnership between equals. It…

Mariano, who was born in Lima in the late seventies, travelled the world with his family from an early age before settling down in New Zealand at the age of 10. This is where his passion for art and photography began. Inspired by the scenes depicted in the works of Edward Steichen and Horst P. Horst, he moved to London in 2000 to pursue a career in fashion photography, with his first shoot gracing the cover of Harper’s Bazaar. MARIANO VIVANCO Mariano has published several books, including Ninety Five Chapel Market (2008), Uomini (2010), and Portraits Nudes Flowers (2016). Three of his emblematic portraits are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London. For this issue, Mariano shot our cover star, Gemma Arterton, at the Corinthia Hotel…

It’s a terribly kept secret that we are big fans of dogs at The Rake. That is not to say, however, that the handsome golden retriever Hugo is the selling point for this shoot; he was merely a stipulation. Alessandra Codinha, the Style Director of Departures magazine in the United States, has for the past 10 years trodden the kind of path that any serious fashion journalist and editor might wish to. She began at WWD, and had stints at Harper’s Bazaar, intothegloss.com and Vogue before landing at Departures in 2019. When you’re making a magazine for American Express Platinum card holders, you need a head not only for fashion but the broader lifestyle and culture interests of a worldly client. For that, Alessandra is the perfect fit, as she…

Over the past few decades, Manchester’s fame has most commonly been associated with the beautiful game, in which the town’s two leading football clubs — United and City — have dominated. (Since the Premier League’s inception, in 1992, they have won a combined total of 17 titles.) You’d have to travel significantly further back in time, to the 19th century, to discover the more significant role the city has played in modern history. The extraordinary growth of the United Kingdom’s cotton industry in the 1800s resulted in people turning to Manchester as a place of opportunity, and the resulting revolution secured the town’s position as the world’s first — and greatest — industrial city. ‘Cottonopolis’, as it was often referred to, changed almost everything for the western world, enabling one…

“It takes nine tailors to make a man,” said the Elizabethan writer John Heywood. Well, Mr. Heywood, we have news for you. These days, we think it takes only seven. And not the seven you’d necessarily expect. You see, we men, we simple creatures, can be depressingly narrow minded. If I say to you, “Oh, my tailor’s very good, you know”, I’m willing to bet that nine times out of 10 your mind will jump to a figure of a greying, pinstripe-clad, round-bellied man with a pair of well-worn shears in his hand. But that’s a gross misconception now. In reality, tailoring in London and beyond is thriving in the hands of a young generation comprising as many forward-thinking, creative women as it is men. Savile Row, in particular, has…

Longines’ winged hourglass logo hasn’t graced just aviation pieces: as well as the Army Air Corps and the International Aeronautical Federation, the French Navy is among those to have benefited from the precision instruments of a manufacture founded by Auguste Agassiz in 1832. It is not surprising that organisations for whom precision timekeeping is a matter of life and death have enlisted Longines’ services: the brand that invented, among other horological masterstrokes, crown-wound pocket-watches and the flyback function is as renowned for innovation as it is for the longevity of their eternally elegant, exquisitely made wares. For Matthias Breschan, who became Chief Executive of the Saint-Imier firm last year, having been at the helm of Rado for nine years and Hamilton for seven, advancement of what is deemed possible isn’t…