The Rake

I have a friend. Probably the only really close friend I met in college. And though we speak at most once a year, and see each other every half-decade, we’ve always picked up effortlessly where we left off. He’s a guy I always admired and was a littl

To paraphrase my twin brother’s best-man speech at my wedding, my wife and I will have a new pea for our pod by the time this magazine is in your hands, dear reader. I’m going to be a dad. At the time of writing (D-Day minus circa four weeks), you ca

In its valedictory round-up of 1968’s most notable people, the magazine Newsweek singled out the year’s headliners: Che Guevara, Christiaan Barnard and Gigi Rizzi. Gigi who? It was a name to conjure with — indeed, it sounded like an unbeatable submis

RAKE COMMENDS There are numerous reasons to visit Mexico, but it’s worth going for the food alone. The nation’s vibrant capital feeds some of its 21 million inhabitants from its numerous street stalls, which are located on practically every street co

Hear the name Rex Harrison and you will surely picture an avuncular, patrician figure in a cardigan or top hat and tails, gently soothing a Cockney waif or some peculiar animal or other. Should your film knowledge predate the 1960s Victoriana of My F

Despite a hideous journey from his native Leicestershire to the east London studio where the photographs on these pages were taken, Tom Hopper — all six-foot-four and Men’s Health cover frame of him — is full of the joys of not-quite-spring when The

HOUND If the expression ‘back, sack and crack’ brings tears to your human retina, thank whichever deity you pray to that you’ve never faced the prospect of being ‘docked and cropped’. The former word (aka ‘bobbing’) refers to the constriction of the

2. In the world of quiet luxury, this unbranded crocodile-leather visiting card case with a silver collar from Bentleys Antiques is a fantastic find. 3. Every thinking man needs the perfect pen. For Simon, that is a pencil from Graf von Faber-Castell

The actress Julie Christie is a writing desk in an orchard, a moon lit with jonquils, a bonfire of beauty, intellect and otherness so potent it unstrung the bones of the sixties. New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane praised her appeal as “maximum radi

Wil Whiting’s background is not what you might expect of a man producing some of the world’s finest bespoke shirts. While it is inevitable that craftsmen, no matter their discipline, are often compared with artists, Whiting invites more parallels wit

Reinventing a car marque is one thing. Reinventing a brand long associated with grunt, functionality and its boxy, behemoth silhouette into one that people associate with aesthetic beauty is another thing altogether. But that’s what Gerry McGovern ha

Mink brown double-breasted linen jacket, Brunello Cucinelli; white linen shirt, Anderson & Sheppard Haberdashery; taupe and white paisley print silk tie, Emma Willis; yellow gold Royal Oak extra thin timepiece, Audemars Piguet. “I was kind of a class

Henry Wotton, a diplomat and statesman who sat in the House of Commons in the early 17th century, asserted: “An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.” But take a close look at the antics of those whose vocational

In 1976, the presiding deity of the art world boarded a plane in New York and headed east, having accepted a commission from another presiding deity. Andy Warhol was on his way to Tehran, to create a portrait of the Shah of Iran’s wife, Her Imperial

While the majority of the world’s luxury brands erect walls between the consumer and their top leadership, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana like nothing more than to tear them down. And nowhere is evidence of this more richly abundant than at their

Olive green linen two-piece suit with double-breasted jacket, white cotton shirt and coral printed linen scarf, all Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Navy and white stitch stripe cotton jacket, Caruso; beige short-sleeved cotton safari shirt, Moncler; ivory

In 1896 the American architect Louis Sullivan coined the phrase “form (ever) follows function” when describing his approach to designing some of the earliest skyscrapers in the U.S. around the turn of the 20th century. His idea was that design should

The blazer has long been a divisive garment. In 1825, the Lady Margaret Boat Club, the rowing club of St. John’s College, Cambridge, caused something of a stir in the university’s undergraduate community. Like most upper-crust sporting establishments

On an annual rummage through my father’s wardrobe, which he uses less and less in his later years, I came across a real treasure. I have become something of a scavenger, and pilfer his well-earned bits and bobs with probably too much self-entitlement

TEMPORAL Lapo Elkann and Luca Rubinacci consider different fabrics Ricardo Guadalupe, the chief executive of Hublot, with Lapo, Luca and Mariano Rubinacci the turn-back cuff of Lapo’s Rubinacci suit is visible alongside his Hublot timepiece. The stre

January is one of the biggest months on the luxury calendar. In four weeks it hosts numerous fashion shows across London, Milan, Paris and New York, but, for watch aficionados, the only event worth paying attention to is the Salon International De La

I am not especially fond of the term ‘curated content’: as well as being mildly pretentious it has become tired through overuse… which is a pity, as it describes the appeal of the newly opened Connolly shop on Clifford Street in Mayfair to perfection

As an Englishman, I am partial to the cross-channel ‘entente cordiale’ that can sometimes include low-level namecalling and sibling-like competitiveness. However, there is one area in which the British must doff their caps to their French friends, an

Howg, Manitou”, or as they say in Lakota, “Hoka Hay”, my friends. De Montague has just returned from the frigid embrace of winter, protesting the insidious construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the 1,172-milelong phallus of Beelzebub, or as he