Tabla de contenidos para October 2022 - Issue 84 en The Rake

If you polled my friends, the consensus would be that I have a penchant for what is colloquially known as the ‘French exit’ or ‘Irish goodbye’, both of which mean the same thing: the departure from a social event without announcement or farewells. To me, it has always felt simpler to head for le petit coin, hang a left, and make a beeline for the exit than to endure the shaking of hands, the kissing of cheeks, and the accompanying small talk. But at the same time I’ve always admired those with the capacity to enact the perfect goodbye. Bogart in Casablanca comes to mind, when he says to Ingrid Bergman: “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little…

I support the New York Jets, which is a statement met consistently with a slew of ‘whys?’ and ‘poor yous’. We are perennial losers. The worst team in New York state sports, with a litany of crazy head coaches, terrible luck and bad draft picks, offering us nothing we can hang our hat on. Except one thing: Joe Namath. After guaranteeing victory in a press conference before he led the Jets to their first — and to this date only — Super Bowl championship, in 1969, Namath ran off the field at Miami’s Orange Bowl with his finger pointing to the sky, declaring, “We did it!” It is considered one of the most iconic images in American sports history. With shaggy hair, sideburns and pink flared trousers, a lot of…

He is not one to leave the house with matutinal croissant crumbs caught on his tie. Time not spent wearing a highly considered outfit is spent considering what the next one will be. If the best clothes and shoes that money can buy need maintenance and care, then he is to his clothes what the guards are to Buckingham Palace, or an ageing duke is to his stately home — dutiful, loving, and unafraid to do the necessary. It is unnecessary to own museum pieces if you are not prepared to be the caretaker. Like everyone, personal preferences evolve over the years, and so the proportions of the clothes may have changed, but he will still trust the advice of only a handful of people, which preserves his reputation for…

Brunello Cucinelli biker jacket It was the Fourth of July weekend of 1947 in a small city in central California, and things had got a bit out of hand. “The diminishing roar and crackle of the last of an estimated 2,000 departing motorcycles today ended the ‘worst 40 hours in Hollister’s history’,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported of the infamous Hollister riots. A number of gangs had descended on the city, drinking beer, racing through stop lights, wearing leather double-rider jackets and generally causing carnage. It was perhaps the first time the biker jacket was associated with rebellion, but it wasn’t the last. The riots inspired the 1953 film The Wild One, in which a brooding 29-year-old Marlon Brando wore a black leather biker astride his 650cc Triumph Thunderbird. So…

It was reassuring for me that the first person I saw wearing Bulgari’s aluminium-cased wristwatch — some 20-plus years ago — was, indeed, a rake. Put it another way: if a Japanese audio genius who could get away with sporting embroidered Nehru jackets, hand-printed silks and a man bun into his seventies isn’t a rake, then I need to be given a new definition. Yet there was the legendary Ken Ishiwata sporting a first-generation aluminium-cased Bulgari watch at a time when the horological hordes were stampeding towards Panerai. As a watch casualty obsessed with mechanical movements and steel cases, I was fascinated to learn what stimuli would lead my mentor — the man who taught me not just about sound but about sake vintages, Nikon rangefinders, and maki-e lacquered pens…

I’m just going to come right out and say it. I love Nivada Grenchen. They represent everything the world needs right now: magnificently designed watches rooted in a cool history and with incredibly ethical and accessible pricing. Nivada Grenchen is one of those brands that has flown under the radar yet possesses a rich, authentic and compelling story. It was created by Jacob Schneider in 1926 and soon developed a reputation for handsome, accessibly priced, hard of use, extremely reliable, purpose-built, badass timepieces. In 1930, Nivada found their stride when they decided to focus on the creation of automatic watches. This led to the release of their first waterproof automatic watch, the Antarctic, which was used by the U.S. Navy’s Deep Freeze I team during their expedition to the South…

If Ric Flair didn’t exist, America would have to invent him, so perfectly does he embody the populist mindset of the nation. “I’m a Rolex-wearing. Diamond-ringwearing. Kiss-stealing. Wheeling, dealing. Limousine-riding. Jet-flying. Son of a gun. And I’m having a hard time holding these alligators down. Wooo.” These are the immortals words, called down like cerebral lightning from the Mount Olympus of the mind, of one Richard Morgan Fliehr, better known by the name he assumed, like a mantel of glory, to entertain millions of wrestling fans the world over: Ric Flair. So perennial is his appeal, so everlasting is his legend, that this year, at the age of 73, he stepped into a ring to do battle one last time, making him the world’s oldest wrestler ever to perform in…

Shubham Saraf is having a well-deserved break. He is in India spending time with his family when The Rake catches up with him, following his lead billing in the National Theatre’s production The Father and the Assassin (by Anupama Chandrasekhar). Shubham played Nathuram Godse, the man who murdered Gandhi, in a thrilling character study that drew resounding critical acclaim. Then to India, and… well, who knows? “I never like to stay in one place for too long,” Shubham tells us. “London is the base, but I was born in India and spent parts of my childhood all over the world, and to tell the truth, I find it hard to lay down roots.” Shubham has a thing for adversity. He describes a mountainous trek over four days in Georgia (the…

Britain and France have long squabbled for superiority. The French author José-Alain Fralon summed up the relationship perfectly, describing Britain as “our most dear enemies”, while those rosbifs continually, and wrongly, mistake our refined insouciance for Gallic arrogance. It is only right that they look across the Channel with disdain. The Brits, after all, lack a certain je ne sais quoi, most notably when it comes to their cuisine, of which tea might be their finest export, and they didn’t even invent that. I wouldn’t lift a paw out of my kennel for anything less than a 42-month Comté or a perfectly cured saucisson, and yet the Brits are quite happy to consume boiled chicken, soggy lettuce and watered-down gravy as integral parts of their diets. Yet while our nations…

There are a select few occasions in my life about which I like to reminisce. They include a birthday celebration when a tiny table was crammed with friends and family, and a room filled with inspiring, artistic visionaries. In these moments there is a thread that helps connect my memories: a provocative crystal decanter filled with its eau de vie, that of Louis XIII cognac. So when The Rake was invited to Cognac to visit the brand’s august premises — something only a handful of fortunate folk have been able to do — I threw on my linen suit and boarded a flight to Bordeaux. We were welcomed at the airport by one of the most elegant vehicles ever assembled on French soil — a vintage Citroën DS in pristine…

In recent times, watchmaking bosses have become like rock stars, their auras and magnetism burning as brightly as their brands. Cue hotshots such as Richard Mille or MB&F’s Maximilian Büsser, or the maverick Chief Executive François-Henry Bennahmias, who in 10 years has helped turn Audemars Piguet (AP) into a business worth more than one and a half billion Swiss francs. Indeed, the family-owned watchmakers have a reputation, like their designs, for rakish leaders. Among the most notable is the late Georges Golay, AP’s charismatic Managing Director who helped mastermind the 1972 Royal Oak, the groundbreaking, octagonal-bezelled, hand-finished steel watch that spawned the luxury sports watch genre as we know it today. Golay’s visionary entrepreneurialism, entwined with his passion for Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux, watchmaking, and all who worked in it,…

O. K., let’s be honest here. For many years, until August 30, 2021, Parmigiani Fleurier was a brand that, from a technical and quality perspective, I admired more than most. And yet I felt absolutely no desire to own one of their watches. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The staggering horological firepower they brought to the table was not lost on me. In no particular order, this included the first industrially produced 30-second tourbillon; an in-house 5Hz chronograph; an in-house 5Hz split-seconds chronograph (yes, this is the base of Richard Mille’s movement for the RM 65-01); a dual time-zone movement with retrograde date; a perpetual calendar with retrograde date; an insane wandering hour orbital display watch with minute repeater; a Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève-winning Hijri perpetual calendar; and, yes, I have…

When it comes to luxury destinations, few houses can top Asprey. Founded in 1781 by William Asprey, the company began as a silk-printing enterprise before expanding into all manner of luxury goods, from the rarest and most intricate jewellery to leather bags and watches. Asprey was the place for those seeking only the finest “articles of exclusive design and high quality”, as early adverts put it. Anyone who was anyone shopped there, from Queen Victoria (who bestowed the brand with its first Royal Warrant, in 1862) to Frank Sinatra, Ian Fleming and John Lennon. The world may have changed since the house’s founding, but Asprey haven’t. Always ahead of the luxury curve, they were quick to embrace the digital world. They adopted e-commerce before many of their competitors, and more…

KURT ISWARIENKO Kurt, a photographer born in the blue-collar creative breeding ground of Akron, Ohio, and raised in Argentina and Mexico, was influenced by the eclectic cultural and geographical contrasts he experienced as he travelled as a young boy. He picked up a camera for the first time while working as a lighting technician on film sets in Hollywood, and his cinematically driven eye found its creative niche working within the static frame. Known for drawing emotionally charged narrative performances from his subjects, and a visually sculpted lighting style, he has photographed everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Brad Pitt, and created media campaigns with a number of diverse brands. This issue’s cover shoot — of the actor Chris Pine, for the story on page 74 — is the third time…

The YouTube clip is a bit grainy, and the sound quality a little fuzzy, but it leaves an indelible impression. Jacques Brel takes to the stage of Flanders’ Casino de Knokke, in 1963, to perform his breakthrough hit Quand on N’a Que l’Amour (‘If We Only Have Love’). He starts by strumming a guitar, looking rapt as he sings of love’s exhilaration (“Pour qu’eclatent de joie/Chaque heure et chaque jour”), but the fervour builds over two and a half minutes to a defiant and explosive climax in which Brel’s gritty, breathless, anxious voice is pitching love against war in a kind of mortal combat (“Quand on n’a que l’amour/Pour parler aux canons/Et rien qu’une chanson/Pour convaincre un tambour”). As he relinquishes his instrument, a torrent of sweat is pouring down…

Imagine yourself an American G.I., a long way from your Idaho hometown in the Hürtgen Forest between September 19, 1944 and the denouement of battle on December 16. You’ve endured sub-zero temperatures, shelling that has reduced comrades to stains in the mud, and soulshredding fear that this could be your last Christmas. There is someone, however, who for a few delicious moments can make all that go away. A reminder that somewhere there is still beauty and fun and sex and perfumed necks. Better still, she lives folded in your pocket. For this generation of warrior, Anne Gwynne needed no introduction. Gwynne was as ubiquitous in her day as Kim, Kendall and the rest of the Ks (we’ve lost interest, tbh) are in the here and now. Born as the…

Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Bucherer BLUE What do you get — to borrow a joke construction that’s older than time itself — if you cross the creative laboratory belonging to one of the biggest watch retailers in the world with a Swiss fine watchmaking manufacturer whose place in horological history was assured when its tourbillon with three bridges won a gold medal at the 1889 International Exposition in Paris? The answer is the unique creation you see before you: the Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Bucherer BLUE, only 18 pieces of which will be available worldwide. One for horological connoisseurs, as well as savvy collectors, the piece’s ultra-skeletonised movement means that the piece of horological theatre contained within its two sapphirecrystal-glass boxes — the ‘levitating’ movement (the…

Switzerland is breathtakingly beautiful. I fear the country’s inclination for neutrality has fostered a sense of modesty about the extraordinary drama of its topography. Though a large number of you will be there in the winter months, for ski season, I am afraid you are short-changing yourself if cinematic landscapes are your thing. The optimum moment to go is when the white slopes reveal their grass and buttercup wildflowers, and the pine trees dust off the snow. Only then can it be understood exactly what ‘verdant’ means. I was fortunate enough to visit in July this year, and not just fortunate to be in Gstaad — or to stay at the superb Alpina hotel — but to get a first look at Chopard’s new Alpine Eagle collection, which enhances the…

When my elder son was six months old, I was asked to go to the Dominican Republic on a trip with Hublot to discover more about their collaboration with Arturo Fuente. Fuente was the first non-Cuban cigar brand whose story and product I was familiar with. Carlito Fuente is the current steward of the brand, which is as iconic as Cohiba, and, regarding several of their cigars, as coveted. Opus X is a colossally successful sub-brand of Arturo Fuente, and has teamed up with everyone from Dupont to Elie Bleu to produce collaborative accessories and further drive the brand. It is worth noting for all Cuba snobs that an Opus X is a fine cigar that does not hide behind its label. It is subtle, sweet, earthy and delicious, and…