Tabla de contenidos para December 2021 - Issue 79 en The Rake

It’s just about possible to date the point at which Charlie Watts became everyone’s favourite Rolling Stone. In the sixties, Mick Jagger had been the focus of attention as the skinny, hyperactive frontman with an almost cartoonish beauty. In the mid seventies he gave way to Keith Richards as the embodiment of wasted rock cool, a position the guitarist occupied for around two decades. But in 1997, when the four remaining members of the band gathered to announce their Bridges to Babylon tour under Brooklyn Bridge, it was as if everyone simultaneously realised that actually Charlie had been the one all along. This was a photo opportunity, so it’s no shame that the deciding factor was appearance. While the others were dressed in the firmly established uniform of the millionaire…

I am reliably informed that there is a lady in Scotland — a nation that, readers will know, is replete with cottage-industry textile makers — who spends her days outdoors at her mist-shrouded spinning wheel, weaving what might be called ‘canine couture’. I’m not referring to the emetically twee phenomenon that is doggy apparel: you see, the fruits of her labours are spun not from Merino yarn but Samoyeds’ clippings — those sent by adoring owners from all over the country who adhere to the rule that our breed needs a good going over using a steel-toothed comb every other evening. There’s more appeal to this eccentric artisan’s endeavours than just the bonding experience entailed with taking your pooch for a walk wearing precisely the same coat as them. The…

Jersey is a misjudged fabric. It is a cultural misunderstanding: we have designated its name to a sweatshirt and have almost forgotten its medieval origins from the eponymous island. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a garment without sartorial merit — as Gene Kelly showed when he wore one in those wonderful pictures in Life magazine — but the jersey has never broken free of the shackles of leisurewear, and the fabric has been under similar scrutiny. Coco Chanel, in her trailblazing way, upset everyone by wearing jersey, as it had hitherto been considered only appropriate for undergarments. Comfort in tailoring is not essential. Any kind of couture is looking to produce something sculptured and fantastical, the angles taking conventional tailoring tropes (shoulders, lapels) and creating a form that…

Hani Farsi puts other people before him: it is as simple as that. I have seen his generosity too many times to think it could be some kind of sales tactic or façade. His presence soothes and his intellect stimulates. He rejects mediocrity in himself but is patient with others. As a father he knows the value of patience and the benefits of showing love and seeing it returned. It is also as a son to an extraordinary man that he engages with life, ready to support and help where he is needed. This year has been one that, when spelled out, doesn’t seem possible. He had five films (yes, five) show at Cannes; manufactured gin; began the process of creating a miniseries; helped negotiate the further expansion of his…

Over the past two years, no one has done more to restore my faith in humanity than Amo Völker. How else could you characterise a woman who, at the height of her success as a model, decided to fulfil her life’s ambition and become a certified paramedic amid the throes of a pandemic? Völker came to my attention when she starred in the maiden campaign for The Deck, the Savile Row-based women’s tailoring brand created by Daisy Knatchbull, her fellow Rake of the Year. “I had just created The Deck when Amo reached out to me,” Knatchbull says. “She believed in what I was doing. What was amazing was the way she set the tone of the shoot, demonstrating to the other models that wearing a suit could be feminine…

I should probably declare an interest. I have known Daisy’s cousin Kelly since we were children. Apparently — though I cannot imagine doing something so beastly — my twin brother, Joe, and I broke Kelly’s dollhouse. So the cynical among you might say that residual guilt now plays a part in Daisy’s inclusion in our Rakes of the Year. Well, actually, no. No, it seems Daisy is insistent on cementing her credibility by doing very good stuff. We have waxed lyrical about her tailoring brand, The Deck, before; indeed, Daisy has previously been named on this list because of the fortitude she showed in opening on Savile Row during the pandemic. This is, of course, to be lauded and praised in perpetuity. Women’s tailoring should be supported as much as…

Anthropomorphic rakes? Discuss. Felines have an excellent showing in the cultural canon, possibly thanks to the word ‘cat’ entering common parlance during the 1940s jazz scene. Make-believe ursines, conversely, tend to lean towards mawkishness — see Pooh, Paddington and Rupert, to name just three. But what if a fictional bear could embody innocent, benevolent charm as well as boundless cool and stylistic nous? Welcome to the stage, then, the Polo Bear. The Polo Bear entered the world of high fashion in 1991. The story begins with Jerry Lauren, Ralph Lauren’s brother and the Creative Director of Men’s Design, and his assortment of 30-40 teddy bears made by the German firm Steiff. Noting their boss’s fondness for the furry animals, staff at the label had Steiff kit out two bears in…

If a bespoke tailoring hall of fame were to be established, saluting the legends who have shaped the history of garment making, it’s a safe bet that one of the first names on the list of inductees would be that of Lorenzo Cifonelli, the great-great-grandson of Giuseppe Cifonelli, who created the eponymous house in Rome in 1880. Lorenzo, a master tailor, helms the family business today with his cousin Massimo. Lorenzo would cite his grandfather Arturo and Cary Grant (in North by Northwest) as his personal style icon, but the truth is, he has carved out a sartorial niche all of his own, becoming a key protagonist in the stylistic narratives of all who have entered the atelier at Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris (Cifonelli’s clientele, to date, includes…

Emmett J. Scanlan appears with an intense stare, a warm Dublin accent, and a dark beard so perfectly formed that he looks like one of Leonidas’s mighty Spartans. The actor is speaking to us from his home in Cheshire, where he is proudly describing his one-year-old son. “Look at him there,” he says, showing a video on his phone, a wide grin over his face: “… that’s my boy, Ocean-Torin. It means ‘Chief of the Ocean’!” Having finished filming the next season of Peaky Blinders, in which Emmett plays an even bigger role, as well as the police drama The Tower (written by Homeland scribe Patrick Harbinson) and the Irish gangster series Kin, the actor is looking forward to spending more time with his family. “There’s nothing as important,” he…

When it came to marketing an actress in the 1960s, there were few more compelling narratives than ‘convent girl gone bad’. Born in 1939 in Graz, Austria, Marlies Theres Moitzi would eventually play the part with knee-weakening, stomach-flipping, throat-tightening aplomb. Before that, however, she would change her name to something less challenging for non-Teutonic tongues, and the world would come to know her as Marisa Mell. It was by all accounts a tough upbringing: dad left early and mum was granted housing within the school complex where she worked. Education was at the hands of women whose first name was Sister, but it was celluloid that proved the real teacher. While her mother smothered her only child, the image of Greta Garbo promised liberation — most notably in Garbo’s 1936…

“I’m a bit OCD about six-sided boxes,” says Simon Wolf. “It’s very hard to provide them with interest to the eye. And that’s essential, because we hope they’ll be around for a long time.” Wolf is the fifth generation to run the company that gave him his surname, even if his mother insisted that — unlike the previous four generations, dating to the founding of the company in 1834 — he would not be named Philip. Back then, in Germany, the first Philip Wolf had spotted an untapped human proclivity and catered for it. “Why does anyone need a nice garage for their car, or shoe bags for their footwear?” asks Wolf (full name: Simon Philip Wolf V) today. “It’s because if something is of value to us, maybe of…

The following anecdote serves to illustrate the character of Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, the gentleman, entrepreneur and watchmaking pioneer. In 2017, an awkward moment beset the jury of Geneva’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie. Nick Foulkes, the author and jury member, says, “We were assessing the finalists for the grand prize when it came time to examine Chopard’s Full Strike.” The watch was a tour de force representation of Chopard and, in particular, Karl-Friedrich’s spirit of groundbreaking innovation. But it just so happened that Scheufele was part of the jury that year, as he had won the grand prize in 2016 for a constant-force tourbillon from his second brand, Ferdinand Berthoud. Foulkes continues: “The tradition is that the winner becomes part of the jury the following year. No one really knew what to do…

Shary is not a stranger to The Rake. We gladly and vocally regard him as a close friend who possesses the values and qualities we associate with and aspire to. Everyone cites a different aspect of his character that they most admire. His unerring generosity, an undiminished smile, formidable energy and endurance — you will be the first to go home on a night out, trust me. I have told this story a million times, though not in print. When I started at The Rake, in 2014 (in fact, it was before I had signed the contract), I went to one of the magazine’s legendary parties in Claridge’s penthouse. During the festivities this ebullient chap with strikingly framed spectacles congratulated me on my new appointment. This same gentleman (Shary, if…

Kirby Allison’s story is whiplash inducing. For a while he was known for selling the world’s most luxurious hangers. This idea has merit: after all, you spend a vast amount of money on clothes, so they should be held in your wardrobe on great hangers. What apparently didn’t convince people was the Texan’s second act, in which he used YouTube to attract the sartorial cognoscenti and followers who wished either to be informed or to spectate on all things “quality, craftsmanship and tradition”, as Kirby puts it. But, boy, were the naysayers wrong. Not only has Kirby consolidated that crowd, he is making every blogger, podcaster, writer and journalist kick themselves that they didn’t think of the idea first. The 12m views that were recorded for Eddie Sahakian’s one-minute cigar-cutting…

Through the precarious tempest of the Covid pandemic, and despite the political insurrection and chaos that has beset his home city of Hong Kong, Mark Cho has been the very model of a gentleman who seeks to inspire, uplift, edify and charm the world. Cho possesses various qualities in inordinate measure to complement his ineffable and irrepressible style. To say that dressing immaculately comes effortlessly to Cho would be like saying the world’s fastest fish (the sailfish, at 68mph) is not too bad at swimming. Like British officers of a bygone era shaving and polishing their livery until it gleamed before facing a final charge against the enemy, Mark Cho reminds us that elegance is a tremendously effective weapon against fear and anxiety. And for this we love him. At…

“You are not what you wear — you wear what you are.” So the Sicilian style maven Sergio Guardì — one third of the triumvirate behind Barbanera, alongside his brother, Sebastiano, and their friend Alessandro Pagliacci — once told The Rake. And, beholding any portrait of the Guardì brothers, including the one featured here, the veracity of that notion — that style is an internal force, expressed externally — becomes more profound with each passing second. Barbanera were founded in 2011 as shoemakers devoted to Italian artisanal tradition. Here, though, the unquestioning devotion to the past ends. The brand’s motto is ‘truth and culture’, and the second part of that maxim has many tributaries: the antiques and vintage furniture around which the brothers, whose father was an artist, grew up;…

O.K., so maybe at 78.2 grams, as opposed to last year’s steel watch at 110.6 grams, with a total weight saving of 32.4 grams, our latest collaboration is still not the most featherweight timepiece in the world when compared, for example, with such horological exotica as the Richard Mille RM 027. But what I can say is that it is the lightest watch with a full metal bracelet I’ve ever strapped on. And that is what is so cool about the Airweight Cover Girl. It looks like it will possess substantial heft on the wrist until you put it on, and you have a genuine, ‘Oh shit, that’s light’ moment, and that’s the very appealing dynamic contrast between how the watch looks and how it wears. This is probably aided…

Dan Jago’s press coverage over the years, perhaps to his annoyance, has referenced one poor naval pun after another. Yes, he served in the Royal Navy for nine years, but that doesn’t mean a journalist needs to talk of ‘plotting a course’ in his career or ‘navigating tricky waters’ when he starts new roles. Time in the military is not exactly a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta; instead, it applies skills that the broader luxury industry would do well to employ more often. Dan is the Chairman and Chief Executive of Purdey, the most august of not just the country sports labels but British heritage brands. Before that he was the chief executive of the wine merchants Berry Bros. & Rudd, so he has a comprehensive understanding of brands whose history precedes…

KATHRYN BOYD BROLIN Kathryn Boyd Brolin is a photographer, designer and business owner based in Los Angeles and Atlanta, Georgia. She studied photojournalism at the University of Georgia’s prestigious Grady College of Journalism in Athens, Georgia, and photography at the Santa Reparata School of Art in Florence before graduating in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from UGA. Shortly thereafter, she began working in Atlanta’s growing film industry before moving permanently to L.A., where her creative talents would eventually collide, resulting in the genesis of her business, Midheaven Denim, for which she serves as founder, head designer and photographer. Kathryn is now an ambassador for Leica, and she joined us in South Carolina, Leica in hand, to capture Paul Bettany for the cover, taking the assignment by the scruff…

The best actors disappear into their roles; the most transcendent come to embody the archetypes they portray. Thus, John Wayne became inseparable from the image of the granite-jawed, bow-legged, morally righteous cowboy, and Joe Pesci’s bug eyes and tightly wound demeanour inevitably come to mind whenever the spectre of a homicidal mobster is summoned. And the down-on-his-luck samurai, equal parts arrogant and bemused, who wanders into a lawless village and sets matters right? Look no further than Toshiro Mifune. Look no further, in fact, than the scene in 1961’s Yojimbo, one of the many samurai epics that Mifune made with the towering Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, where Mifune’s man with no name, sword poised in his kamishimo, stares down a bunch of goons on a dusty street before dispatching them…

Laurent Ferrier x Revolution & The Rake Classic Origin and Classic Micro-Rotor Regular readers will know how zealously we value collaborations. When creative entities of a different ilk come together, a crosspollination of ideas takes place whose effects can be alchemical. Here, below, are the latest fruits of one of the creative alliances we’re most proud of to date: The Rake and Revolution’s partnership with the independent Swiss watchmaker Laurent Ferrier. This is our second collaboration, following one last year inspired by a watch co-created by Aurel Bacs, the legendary ‘master of the hammer’, and the horological author Auro Montanari (better known by his pseudonym, John Goldberger), which was itself inspired by scientific-dial chronometers from the 1930s and 1940s. This time round, the two steel case models our friends in…

How ‘smart’ Marco Polo was — that is, in terms of his cerebral acuity — is debatable. On the one hand, the Venetian explorer and his family foresaw the overthrow of Crusader rule in late 13th century Constantinople, and accordingly diverted their commercial efforts towards the jewellery scene at the western reaches of the Mongol Empire; on the other, he mistook rhinos for unicorns. As for how ‘smart’ the adventurer was in the sartorial sense, a surely hyper-romanticised interpretation exists in the form of Netflix’s globe-spanning dramatisation Marco Polo. The Oscar-winning costume designer Tim Yip (of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame) delved into museum archives, history books, films, and the knowledge pool of various Venetian tailors when fine-tuning the character’s heavily dashing, if occasionally Star Wars-esque, wardrobe. Now, though, the…

El Jefe, Generalissimo, Presidente, Boss, Head Boy… whatever title you think befits Nick Foulkes this year, it cannot be considered hyperbole. It almost feels like the universe is willing him into high office all over the place. His appointment to the post of president of the jury for the 2021 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève felt like a vindication. For those of us who know Nick, we have never really made up our minds about a watch (or anything tasteful, for that matter) without knowing how he feels about it. If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, a yearning for Nick’s input must come a close second. Why Nick? Well, he was the first to write about this stuff, in the eighties. Back then, people got overexcited about the…

I believe in marriage. It is easily pooh-poohed as merely a piece of paper, something that gives you a new tax status with the government. Any mention of a spiritual aspect is infra dig to the largely secular society in which we live. Clinging on to vague ideas of what marriage can be is lovely, but seeing it work out in real life is the best way to foster optimism and hope. Which makes my knowing Paul and Laurie Feig that much more gratifying. You may remember that when Paul featured on the cover of the magazine last year, I asked whether he had learnt anything valuable during Covid. His response: “That my marriage was really strong.” Plenty of people, me included, would probably have come up with something much…

I have no tattoos; it would, perhaps, be a bit off-brand for me. I think my wife might find it sexy, but I remain bare and unaltered by the precision of a tattooist’s needle. When I started at The Rake, Wei, the magazine’s founder, said he thought it might be interesting to document a tattoo being designed and made by a consummate artist — with me as the cadaver. The artist he had in mind for the task was Mo Coppoletta, the founder of The Family Business in Clerkenwell, north London (the old Little Italy of the Big Smoke) and Coppoletta Designs. As any decent Englishman would in this scenario, I got flustered and hoped it would go away. For several years thereafter, when I saw Mo at an event,…

As a young man I first travelled to Venice in the company of my boss, the film director Kathryn Bigelow, who was part of the jury at the Biennale, the city’s famous film festival. Though we stayed at the now defunct Grand Hotel des Bains, the fabled hotel where Thomas Mann wrote Death in Venice, and where Luchino Visconti set his film based on the novella, one evening we ventured to Venice proper and had dinner at the Gritti Palace. I was ignorant of the Gritti’s extraordinary history, as the location where Hemingway wrote Over the River and Into the Trees and where Somerset Maugham would often be found. But what I knew immediately was that I was in love with the place. At the time, in my early twenties,…

Luciano is a debutant in our Rakes of the Year celebration, but that is our fault, not his. To many people Luciano is a heroic figure. He is the unassuming master of elegance, hospitality and sophistication in W1K (to the uninitiated, this is the nicer part of Mayfair), where you will find Harry’s Bar, Luciano’s fiefdom, his sanctum sanctorum. Those fortunate enough to be allowed in will know new horizons in civility when dining, and can be assured they are among fellow members of the highest calibre. My two latest dinners there had contrasting outcomes, but both were equally as enjoyable. One was spent on the terrace smoking cigars and playing a full 11 rounds of backgammon (which left me battered, bruised and discombobulated but ultimately victorious). The next night…

David Gandy has always gone at his own pace, often leaving others bobbing about in his wake. He has managed to untether himself from the well-trodden career path of a model to become a brand in his own right. Yes, Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue commercial in 2007 ignited his career, but there are plenty who might not have been able to run with the opportunity that gave them. There is always, don’t forget, the next hot model around the corner. So let’s not underestimate what Gandy has achieved in the 14 years since. A series of good decisions — such as the patronage of Battersea dogs home, a cause close to his heart as a muscular dog lover (figuratively speaking), and his support of men’s fashion and craft —…

Baltic is the story of a watch brand. But it’s more than that. It’s about a father and a son who, in some ways, never knew each other. Etienne Malec, the founder of Baltic — the watch world’s hottest micro-brand — is to me one of horology’s most brilliant designers and future stars. He is also remarkable in that he is not motivated by money. Otherwise, he could have done thousands of collaborations or simply launched innumerable configurations of his salmon-dial HMS and Bicompax created with Worn & Wound. Instead, he’s kept his focus relentlessly on the watches themselves. And when it comes to watches, he scrutinises every detail. The process of my collaboration with him on what I consider to be a pretty stunning salmon sector-dial chronograph with a…

I have always been fascinated by small things that make big differences, like the addition to a cigar of the elusive medio tiempo leaf, or polishing one’s shoes to a high shine. There is a lot in life, like exercise, where the benefits need an awful lot of work and are too easily stripped away, so the quest of finding joy and comfort in a game of backgammon or in socks that don’t roll down is advice I am willing to part with gratis. This is why I love candles, and consider them the ultimate gift for the home. Especially at this time of year, there is nothing more seasonal than Christmas aromas mingling with a scented candle, with the flames dancing a merry jig (an essential component). Having been…

ADRIANO MENEGHETTI – www.adrianomeneghetti.com ALBERT THURSTON – www.albertthurston.com ALFRED RIFUGIO – www.alfredrifugio.it ALICE MADE THIS – www.alicemadethis.com AMOUR LUX – www.armorlux.com ANDERSON & SHEPPARD – www.anderson-sheppard.co.uk ANDREA POMPILIO – www.andreapompilio.it 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 CARUSO…

He’s the über shape-shifter. He’s changed his guise more times than any other figure, fictional or factual, in history. We’re talking Bowie’s habitual metamorphosis to the power of several thousand. But where did the legend of Father Christmas — or Pelznickel, Papá Noel, Kris Kringle, Père Noël, Weihnachtsmann, Christmas Baba, Fùqin Shèngdàn Jié, or Joulupukki, depending on where infants are gazing at the night sky and listening for sleigh bells — begin? His eldest descendants — his equivalent of our chemicals, swirling in the primordial soup — were pagan spirits who prowled the midwinter skies over Europe. Meanwhile, in fourth-century Turkey, Saint Nicholas of Myra (in what is now Turkey) was laying down his own foundations for the Father Christmas legend, as the patron saint of children. And sailors. And…