Metal Lust Object No.1

Hermès aluminium suitcase with leather straps, designed by Gabriele Pezzini

Doctorin' The Proms - The BBC National Orchestra of Wales Plays Murray Gold

   Music For Time Lords:

Inspiration Illustrated

Via Esquire

   Thanks to the diligent dandiacal detections of Matt and Charles at Fine And Dandy, I recently learnt a little about a favoured illustrator of mine, John E. Sheridan, who produced a cornucopia of fashion plates for Hart Schaffner & Marx during the Gilded Age, as well as covers for the Saturday Evening Post and propaganda imagery for the United States' World War I campaign

   Although his male subjects were less openly dandified than those of his contemporary and my favoured sartorial sketcher, JC Leyendecker, they connoted the fine tailoring ideal that HS&M wished to impart upon the world with a rarefied aplomb. These fictional men were depicted as carrying themselves with a certain perfection, as well as an athletic gait; unsurprising given Sheridan's background in college sports advertisements. And pleasingly, some of the 1920s designs look covetous today, as evidenced in places like Junya Watanabe Man's Spring/Summer 2010 Paris presentation

   A little sporty elegance goes a long way

Leather Lust Object No.3

Henry Maxwell bespoke leather and suede brogue detailed loafers

Dynastic

"Eduardo [Agnelli, upon his decease in a plane crash, 1935,] left a wife and seven children. His lady was Virginia Bourbon del Monte, Princess of San Faustino - because once the Agnellis made all that money, only the bluest blood would do. The princess, half American and thus relatively emancipated, indulged her own appetites with the ease that comes from an abundance of domestic help, and this with a clear conscience, given her husband's amorous adventures. Ten years after Eduardo's untimely demise, Virginia died in a car crash in the company of a male friend. The Agnelli family let it be known that she was strangled like Isadora Duncan of old, whose scarf had caught in the wheels and choked her to death. In fact she was amusing the trouser-less driver, who lost control in the wrong place and at the wrong time"

Out-Side

The Out Group - 18th July 1967

Back Row: Tom Maschler, David Benedictus, Nicholas Tomalin

Centre: Cathy McGowan, Jonathan Aitken, Tom Hustler

Front Row: Christopher Gibbs and Lady Mary-Gaye Curzon

   Revisiting the theme of Luminaries United, this counterpart portrait to The In Group was also commissioned by Jocelyn Stevens, then the publisher of Queen Magazine, to take place on 18th July 1967

   Don't be fooled by the veneer of respectability this photograph uses to juxtapose itself with its sibling: former Conservative MP Mr. Aitken, for one, is not known for his aversion to a little indelicacy. One should also take note of Chelsea Set leader, designer and dandy, Christopher Gibbs - we have him to thank for giving velvet ties their moment under the club lights

   It's been said that Lord Lichfield's gift lay in eliciting an air of relaxation from his subjects (and let it also be said that his gift was certainly not in lending his name to transient menswear brands). Nowhere, I feel, is this more aparent than in his group portraiture and his more candid work at country piles, Hollywood homes and ambassadorial residences

   But as I said, he had a way with the human reaction. One only has to observe the subjects in this Studio-set shot to notice that

Cutting Class

   I'd planned to secure an interview for Mode Parade with world class tailor Edward Sexton before exiting London, but alas, this did not materialise in time. His cutting talents remain pleasingly sans pareil in your author's eyes, as well as in those of the people that respect and patronise his creations

   Below, Finch's Quarterly Review style editor Tom Stubbs demonstrates the second stage fitting and the finished article of a bespoke Edward Sexton commission that is not flagrant enough to have him removed from Annabel's but immediate enough to elicit commentary and, I should hope, approbation. Personally, I think he should be pictured with it in a private study with gilded and gilt festooned 19th century French furniture, hand blown Cartier crystal desk adornments and a bikini-clad model on each armrest:

Peculiarly, Mr. Fish

Michael Fish (centre), shirtmaker, Turnbull & Asser alumnus, In Group member, "high priest" of the Peacock Revolution (as described by Hardy Amies) and creator of the kipper tie, with his staff at his 17 Clifford Street, W1 haberdashery in the late 1960s:

... A holocaust of see-through voiles, brocades and spangles and mini-skirts for men, blinding silks, flower printed hats... all the surface mannerisms and mouthings of hippy, but none of the intent

Nik Cohn on Mr. Fish's shop and output

   Very much my sort of shopping experience, then 

   Mr. Fish's work can be seen at the Victoria & Albert Museum

   Cigar to Sharp Dressed Men

Sergei Rachmaninoff - 'Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14' (1912)

   Whenever I'd like a feeling of equanimity, this sort of piece normally helps. It is particularly notable for containing no words other than "ah"

   This performance was conducted by Leopold Stokowski and sung by Anna Moffo