Tabla de contenidos para June 2025 - Issue 100 en The Rake

The 100th issue of The Rake has been in the diary for a while now. From a dot on the horizon we watched it grow bigger and bigger until it obscured all peripheral vision, like the dog that wakes you up and shows its disrespect for your personal bubble. There have been other landmark issues along the way, which I have been lucky enough to be involved with. I arrived at the magazine in 2014, in time for issue No. 36, and I have since helped celebrate the 50th issue, the 10-year anniversary issue, the 15th anniversary issue, and now edition number 100. It is, in truth, only an occasion for slightly raised champagne flutes — with the acknowledgement that the work goes on — rather than a clashing of…

To boldly go to the outer fringes of human experience — from trauma to grief via joy and wonder, dread and guilt, awe and ecstasy, loneliness, hope and pride — has been Hackney-born David Ajala’s raison d’être since he began an acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2008. Ajala’s stage appearances range from Shakespeare (Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream) to more contemporary fare, such as playing the NFL legend Jim Brown in One Night in Miami. His big-screen breakthrough, meanwhile, came in the teen drama Kidulthood in 2006. Appearances in The Dark Knight, Fast & Furious 6 and Jupiter Ascending followed, while small-screen roles have included portrayals of Manchester Black in Supergirl, Captain Roy Eris in Nightflyers, and — the role for which he is most widely recognised…

Hirsute Oktoberfest revellers; pretzels; oompah bands; castles with Disney-esque turrets; lederhosen; midsize executive saloons driven with simmering passive-aggression… The cliché list, when it comes to stuff emanating from Bavaria, is laced with frivolity, and admittedly my breed’s name sounding rather like a lewd euphemism for impressive male genitalia does nothing to add gravitas to the inventory. Which is ironic, given the sombre dignity — reminiscent of a canine Mr. Murdstone in an anthropomorphic adaptation of David Copperfield — that we Giant Schnauzers exude from every dense black follicle. The genetic cocktail behind that Dickensian menace, as well as our cropped ears, docked tails and 90lb, 30-inch-high frames (we’re only really ‘giants’ in comparison to our Standard Schnauzer and Miniature Schnauzer cousins), was first shaken into being by cunning canine breeders…

In a world in which motorsport often plays out in bursts of speed measured in nanoseconds, the F.I.A. World Endurance Championship (W.E.C.), a marathon among sprints, has emerged as a test of engineering, elegance and endurance that elevates racing from spectacle to symphony. While Formula One dazzles with precision and glamour, and Nascar roars with working-class grit, W.E.C., established in 2012, offers something altogether more rarefied: a global stage where man, machine, and time itself are the true adversaries, with races stretching from six hours to 24. And they do so on iconic tracks, from Le Mans and Spa to Imola — each a setting where legend and lore interweave to create dynasties that petrolheads will wax lyrical about for decades to come. “The thing that’s amazing for me with…

kim lang Kim, a Luxembourg-born photographer, had his first taste of the medium at an early age, as he travelled around the world with his grandfather, a filmmaker who made animal documentaries. Moving to London in 2010, at the age of 20, set Kim on his path into the world of art, portraiture and fashion photography. Since then he has worked for independent and commercial publications, crafting eclectic imagery that evokes classic and conceptual art. His work has been shown in Paris and London, and in October last year he launched a solo exhibition of his ongoing project ‘Odyssey of Reconnection’ at the French Alliance in Cali, Colombia, marking an expansion of his work beyond fashion and portraiture. As The Rake’s Art Editor, Kim has been a long-serving custodian of…

Has anyone worn a tuxedo with more presence than Marlene Dietrich? Perhaps Cary Grant or David Bowie — but did they exude the same charm and charisma? The same sensuality and allure? When Dietrich, sporting a suit with a top hat, improvised the first lesbian kiss on screen by a leading actress in a Hollywood film — in Josef von Sternberg’s Morocco (1930) — she cemented herself as a cultural icon to rival any man of her time. My first parasocial encounter with Dietrich came from a photograph. Like many, I came across the famous picture of the star dressed in her aforementioned tuxedo and top hat, smoking a cigarette — a photograph that featured in the V&A’s 2022 exhibition Fashioning Masculinities — and was instantly mesmerised. In fact, I…

The Agent doesn’t so much live by the sword but by the pen, understanding that its mightiness is made manifest by the wielder rather than the ink. What a mysterious and misunderstood breed the Agent is. His job is to let others shine in a world in which luminescence is at a premium and everyone wants their time in the spotlight. Often the Agent is represented on screen in a way that makes Jordan Belfort seem affable. To be fair, I am sure there are plenty who like to think they live up to the unflattering archetype, and feel like it’s something they can market themselves on. Our Agent is different, and if our agent has mastered the dark arts, he has aligned it with charm and the sort of…

You can keep your Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson and Laurence Olivier. None casts a greater shadow than Angela Lansbury. There are those who adored her from her 1940s films, such as Gaslight, National Velvet (she was the one with the face longer than the horse), and The Picture of Dorian Gray. There was her blistering turn in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). And others gawped at her sequinned prowess in Broadway productions of Mame, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd, and The King and I. Then there were the Disney collabs. In 1971 she charmed her way through Bedknobs and Broomsticks, then returned two decades later to voice the role of Mrs. Potts in 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. Which brings us to the trophy cabinet: six Tonys, half a dozen Golden Globes, a…

As this is the 100th issue of The Rake, it seemed appropriate to profile characters from the car industry who were born exactly a century ago — and the duo we alighted upon could scarcely have been more different… John DeLorean Tall, handsome and always impeccably attired, John Z. (for Zacharay) DeLorean was the consummate rake — but also what the comic actor Terry-Thomas would certainly have referred to as “an absolute bounder”. DeLorean was born in the U.S. to a Romanian émigré foundry worker and an Austrian mother. His looks were matched by a level of intelligence that enabled him to secure a master’s degree in engineering from the Chrysler Institute before he helped to revive the dusty Packard marque during the early 1950s. Moving to General Motors, he…

I arrived in Guatemala City in the dark. It was stormy and the roads were flooded. The locals drove their mopeds through the deepest sections — flip-flops on, hoodies on, lights on, if you’re lucky. As my driver tried to keep up with the 20 or so bikes making their way out of the city, I nodded off, and it wasn’t until we hit the cobbled streets of Antigua Guatemala, west of the capital, that I was roused from my slumber. I was dropped off outside a large door and a sign that said “no knives or guns”. This was Casa Santo Domingo, a former monastery founded by Dominican friars in 1542. At 11pm, after 15 hours of travelling, I felt that little about it gave the impression of ‘former’,…

Centenarians are, by their enduring nature, old troupers. Think of Kirk Douglas, cutting his 100-candle cake amid the luxe confines of the Beverly Hills Hotel, or Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, at a Guildhall lunch in her 100th-birthday honour, snatching back a glass of wine mistakenly purloined by the Archbishop of Canterbury with a tart admonition of, “That’s mine!” Or even of this magazine, as determinedly dapper and fleet of (well-shod) foot as it was 99 issues ago. But perhaps the most venerable of showbiz super-troupers was the American comedian George Burns. Well into his nineties he announced with his customary brio that he’d booked the London Palladium for a 100th-birthday gig on January 20, 1996. His reasoning: “I can’t possibly die before then. I’m booked.” In the event, he…

Ebs Burnough is, by his own admission, a lapsed politico, although ‘lapsed’ might be doing a lot of legwork there. His political instincts and connections are as sharp as they were when he was a White House adviser during the Obama administration. He is a jack of many trades, and a master of them, too. Public policy, presidential speechwriting, documentary filmmaking, cultural programming — you’d be hard-pressed to find a room in which Ebs is not the most interesting, and interested, person present. He is a quiet but potent force. Book in a conversation with him, or accost him at a drinks party, and be prepared to discuss a multitude of topics, from art and literature to moviemaking and politics, current affairs and history. There is also, of course, the…

One hundred issues of The Rake. One hundred amazing editions of the world’s greatest men’s style magazine. Each one of them perfection. Which means its record stands at 100 per cent. A perfect score. We humans love perfection. It’s something most of us strive for and something we appreciate when we encounter it. A warm, sunny day. An evening with friends. A fantastic meal. A great article about style. And a perfect cocktail. When I was a kid I took guitar lessons and got into classical guitar, but I wasn’t very good at it. My guitar teacher taught me a song that was not as difficult as other classical guitar songs but still quite challenging. I practised it over and over again, and got pretty good at it. But not…

Rolex Perpetual 1908 in 18ct yellow gold with Settimo bracelet Notwithstanding Rod Stewart’s leopard-skin transgressions, a phrase he helped popularise — “You wear it well” — has euphonic resonance in The Rake’s world. It speaks to our belief (borne of experience wearing soft English drape and deconstructed Neapolitan tailoring) in the correlation between comfort and the kind of effortless sartorial chutzpah that one ought to consider a basic life requisite by one’s mid twenties. The fact that a watch sits flush against such a tiny portion of the human form does not exempt it from this universal truth, which is why we regard Rolex with no little awe when it comes to their incredible work with the look and feel of watch bracelets. The story begins with the Oyster bracelet,…

Aptronyms don’t come more apt, so to speak, than ‘Sunspel’, a name that conjures up the breezy sartorial yen one feels charmed into adopting when the mercury rises. In fact, the company took on the name only in 1935, which was 75 years after it was founded as an underwear and hosiery business in Nottingham and then named, rather more drily, Thomas A. Hill Ltd. During the second world war, Sunspel (hitherto providers of underwear to outposts of the British empire) furnished those on the frontline with utility garments. In 1947, John Hill, the great-grandson of its founder, brought boxer shorts across the Atlantic (he’d discovered them during his honeymoon in the U.S.), then honed their design for British wearers. It was Sunspel who, in the late 19th century, turned…

In horological circles, the Trinity — or ‘big three’ — refers to Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin. Ask a group of seasoned oily-rag-sniffers to settle on an equivalent triumvirate for luxury British-founded car marques, and you can expect a ‘wigs on the lawn’ scenario within minutes. Scotch whisky? On the strength of their top-end expressions, Glenfiddich, William Grant and the Glenlivet, for our money — although, again, debate among elite sippers would rage. And let’s not get into wine regions, for fear of inducing what the French call rester en travers de la gorge on an industrial scale. Here’s another peach of a parlour game for connoisseurs of the finer things in life: what is the holy trinity of London hotels? For our money the big three was…

The ‘best Bond’ bar-room debate is beyond threadbare. But what about the ‘best Bruce Wayne/Batman’ conundrum? It is a perennial matter of dispute, no doubt, among the geekerati, but it deserves more unpacking by the rest of us, for the Caped Crusader’s movie adaptations offer versions whose brushstrokes are vastly more varied in size, shade and texture than those between iterations of Ian Fleming’s creation. Tim Burton, attempting to bring some psychological gravitas to the role (with Michael Keaton donning the mask), went for an introverted recluse with a little too much of the Norman Bates about him for viewer comfort. Joel Schumacher’s version, played by Val Kilmer then George Clooney, steered back somewhat to the original comic-book’s debonair heartthrob — with eye-wateringly hammy results. Zack Snyder’s sporadically Caped Crusader…