Esquire - December 2017 UK PDF
Esquire - December 2017 UK PDF
Esquire - December 2017 UK PDF
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COVERS
CONTENTS
Newsstand
Oscar Isaac
64
Photograph
REGULARS
David Slijper
Grey Shetland wool coat, £2,450;
grey lambswool V-neck jumper,
WILL SELF
£385; grey wool trousers, £525,
all by Prada P33
The award-winning
writer’s monthly
Subscribers’ anatomical check-up
Dark brown leather touches on nipples
jacket, £2,065; camel
cashmere roll-neck, £880, GILES COREN
both by Prada P37
In his latest dispatch
from the driving seat of
fatherhood, he ponders
his son’s love of motors
OBJECT OF
STYLE DESIRE
P41 P194
Evening wear, plus cocktails to Stylish eyewear from
spill down your bib; Audi’s vision Cutler and Gross
of the future; take a sock out of
Jacko’s drawer; Russell Norman’s
roast chicken; smell like a Viking;
a brand-new retro watch; cartoon
fashion; boots that make a point;
arty food; isn’t it Byronic?; shave
like 007; dress like Serpico; go
bananas for the Bahamas; coats;
Jeremy Langmead’s cold front;
a go-faster phone; ski yourself fit; 56
SUBSCRIBE
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@ukesquire 102
13
CONTENTS CONTRIBUTORS
Tom Dyckhoff
Stephen Bayley
16
CONTRIBUTORS CONTENTS
Giles Coren
80
The Esquire editor at large
was never a car fancier,
much to his late father’s
FEATURES WHAT I’VE LEARNED:
disappointment. What to do SIR PAUL SMITH
now that his son is showing P162
signs of petrolheadishness? WIRED The British fashion legend on
“I’ve always thought that P154 hippies, marriage and why he
anyone who is really into As the demand for luxury doesn’t have a private jet
cars must be either four headphones explodes,
years old or a retard Johnny Davis meets the man
of some sort,” says Coren. behind Master & Dynamic M&M’S WORLD
“At the moment, my son can
P164
claim the first excuse, but
what if his vroom vroom A new coffeee table book collects
obsession pushes on into the best work of photographers
adulthood?” Coren is Mert and Marcus
a TV presenter, author and
columnist for The Times.
Peter Ainsworth
Miranda Collinge
19
Subscribe to
Alex Bilmes
editor-in-chief
editors-at-large
Giles Coren Andrew O’Hagan Will Self
WORTH esquire.co.uk
£55
digital editor deputy digital editor
Sam Parker Nick Pope
contributing editors
+ RECEIVE tim adams / ben anderson / tom barber / richard benson / kevin braddock
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December 2017
Editor’s Letter
Why don’t men’s magazines cover Alex Bilmes Is it because men don’t care about their
interior design? surroundings? I stroked my chin. No, it
Not long ago I received an email from can’t be that. I don’t pretend to any dec-
Tom Dyckhoff, the architecture and orating expertise but I am as susceptible
design expert, asking that question. We’d to beauty, and ugliness, as anyone I know.
never met or corresponded before but I definitely care what stuff goes in my
I knew Tom from his stuff in the papers house. And so do plenty of men I know.
and on TV, where he enthuses about cities We just don’t talk about it. (Except for the
and buildings and the people who make graphic designers, Tom pointed out. And,
them. Now he’s writing a book about men of course, he was right about that.)
at home and he was curious to know why Is it because, even among supposedly
it is that that subject is almost entirely urbane men who will happily chew your
absent from magazines such as Esquire. ear off about their diets and where they
Tom’s email gave me pause. Why get their hair cut and their exercise rou-
don’t men’s magazines cover interior tines, the idea of admitting to an interest
design? I mean, it’s true that in the less in interior design is still somehow wussy?
sophisticated publication for the more Like confessing to making Pinterest
simple-minded chap, one does still occa- mood boards or touring country churches
sionally see a page devoted to how to or reading Jojo Moyes, instead of going
construct (not decorate, “construct”) the “ulti- to the football and the pub and playing Call of
mate” bachelor pad, all black leather and pol- Duty: Infinite Warfare? I stuck my finger in my ear
ished chrome, and sad and lonely empty space, and wiggled it violently, as if clearing a blockage.
with a fuck-off TV (the “ultimate” fuck-off TV, I suppose that could be the case, but surely we’re
probably) and no books, as if we were all still Pat- past all that, us 21st-century men of the world?
rick Bateman wannabes, and it was still 1991. But Tom and I kicked all this around for a bit — or
that’s about it. Even in the grand bazaar of lux- perhaps we sensitively arranged all this in an ele-
ury lifestyle shopping options that is Esquire, gant display for a bit — and then I suggested that
one rarely sees so much as a rug or a lamp or even he write about it. You can read his thoughts on
a decent chair. We just don’t seem to be at home to the “weird taboo” of men taking an interest in our
ceramics or embroidery or tableware. homes on page 126.
Where’s the interiors porn? That’s what Tom Tom’s story, I hope, acts as an attractive cen-
Dyckhoff wanted to know. And he must have trepiece for this special issue, where masculine
thought he’d come to the right place, asking me. design classics — an Anglepoise lamp, an Eames
But I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t a clue. chair, a vintage Aston Martin — jostle for space
Oh, I tried to mount some sort of defence, of Even in the with products that are perhaps more unexpected,
course I did. I pointed to The Big Black Book, our given what we know about men’s mags and inte-
grand bazaar of
biannual publication about all things design. rior design: a fruit bowl, wooden dolls, a jug, and
And I sent Tom some issues of that organ, full of luxury lifestyle a rather fetching Balenciaga purse-thing.
Q&As with Brutalist starchitects and still-lives of shopping The purse-thing, perhaps, is a step too far for
minimalist vases and essayistic examinations of you. It wouldn’t work with your own Aston. Or
options that is
obscure Benelux architecture practices. But while perhaps you’re a Tesla man? It’s all a question of
it’s certainly a magazine, and it is primarily aimed Esquire, one taste, isn’t it? Stephen Bayley has recently pub-
at men, the BBB is not really a men’s mag at all, rarely sees so lished a book on that subject and here gives us
at least in the sense the term is commonly under- his top 10 moments that taste forgot. (Look away
much as a rug,
stood. So I was baffled. At length, Tom and I met now, Donald J Trump.) The rest of the issue,
for tea, and continued the conversation. or a lamp, or you’ll agree, displays only the rarest discernment,
Is it, he wondered, because furniture and inte- even a decent from the properties sold by The Modern House to
riors companies don’t generally advertise in men’s Haider Ackermann’s designs for Berluti.
chair. We just
mags, in the way that fashion labels and watch Next month, I suspect, normal service will
brands and car marques and fragrance houses don’t seem to resume: beer, burgers, ballgames and not even
do? I scratched my head. I didn’t think so. We be at home the sniff of a man-candle to brighten up your base-
cover lots of areas where there’s no ad money on ment. Or maybe the genie is out of the bottle now,
to ceramics or
the table, as of course we should — sport and pol- and it’ll be antique chaise longues and occasional
itics and books and TV and art and music and embroidery tables and five ways to add some sparkle to your
more — so that can’t be it. or tableware sideboard. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Will Self
Self Examination
Each issue, Esquire commissions an unsparing
inspection of Will Self’s body. This month: nipples
Self Examination
34
Giles Coren
38
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Style
THE FOP
A velvet jacket in a jewel
shade teamed with a silk
shirt, flowing trousers and
patent loafers is every bit
Style
the dress code for a second
night on the trot.
Comfortable, elegant and
a bit sleazy (in a good way),
throw on a classic bow tie,
and slink into the party like
well-dressed syrup.
Emerald velvet blazer,
£2,530; cream silk shirt,
Fashion / Grooming / Tech / Food / Cars
£1,065; black viscose/satin
Edited by Teo van den Broeke
trousers, £900; black patent
leather loafers, £890, all by
Tom Ford. Black silk bow tie,
£60, by Richard James
Dirty Martini
Recipe: Agostino Perrone,
director of mixology,
The Connaught;
the-connaught.co.uk
Ingredients: 60ml
Tanqueray No 10 Gin; 10ml
homemade dry vermouth
(equal parts Martini Extra
Dry, Gancia Bianco and
Noilly Prat); 10ml olive
brine; olives to garnish
FASHION
Formal service
will be resumed
Event season is back and conventional
black tie just won’t do. Get the parties
started with elegant, modern evening
wear and a classic cocktail to hand
— the rest is down to you
THE MAVERICK
↖
Old Fashioned
Recipe: Ali Reynolds, World Class
GB 2015 winner
Ingredients: 60ml Bulleit Bourbon; 5ml
2:1 sugar syrup (2 parts caster sugar;
1 part warm water); dash of Angostura
bitters; ice; orange zest to garnish
Gimlet
Recipe: Jamie Jones, World Class
GB 2017 winner
Ingredients: 60ml Tanqueray No
10 Gin; 25ml lime cordial; ice; fresh
lime slice to garnish
A white tuxedo jacket worn with a classic poplin shirt and a satin bow tie in Silk jacquards, bold patterns and statement jackets are not for the
a dark shade is an easy enough look to pull off; but pair the aforementioned faint of heart, but worn correctly, with a smart roll-neck, for instance,
jacket and shirt combo with an on-trend Western bow tie, and the look you will be the talk of the party (in the best way). Savile Row stalwart
suddenly makes a whole new level of statement. Gieves & Hawkes, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the place to start.
Cream silk sports coat, £1,395; black silk Western bow tie, £105; white poplin Red silk jacket, £1,495; black wool trousers, £245, both by Gieves
shirt, £105; black silk trousers, £580, all by Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Black & Hawkes. Black merino wool roll-neck, £150, by John Smedley.
velvet slippers, £480, by Ralph Lauren Black patent leather-satin loafers, £475, by Jimmy Choo
42
Style
↖
Negroni
Recipe: Dustin MacMillan,
↖
MONSIEUR MINIMAL
brand manager, Hix;
hixrestaurants.co.uk Bloody Mary
Ingredients: 25ml No 3 London Recipe: Brian Silva, bar manager,
Dry Gin; 25ml Antica Formula Balthazar; balthazarlondon.com
Vermouth; 25ml Campari; 1 large Ingredients: 50ml vodka; 250ml
round, clear ice ball or sphere; V8 juice and passata mix (combine
1 half (moon-shaped) slice 2l V8 and 250ml passata); 2 lemon
of blood orange to garnish wedges; 1 lime wedge; 1 tbsp of
Worcestershire sauce; 1 tsp green
Tabasco sauce; ½ tsp celery seed;
fresh horseradish; bacon (optional)
and a celery stick to garnish
Digital operator: Oliver Birta | Photographer’s assistant: Kai Cem Narin | Styled by Charlie Teasdale and Teo van den Broeke | Stylists’ assistant: Andrew Mallett | Grooming: Kristina Vidic @ Stella Creative Artists |
Mixologist: Dustin MacMillan | Model: Kesse Donkor @ Premier Model Management | See Stockists page for details
In these days of tie-free dress codes and tracksuits at the pub, it’s It might seem perverse to suggest doing black tie without a tie, but a beautiful
hardly surprising that it’s more acceptable (even encouraged) to team velvet tuxedo with a T-shirt and matching waistcoat can look louche, Gallic
a tux with sporty separates. So long as the suit is cut immaculately, and a little bit dangerous (for all the right reasons). If it’s minimal Parisian savoir
a knitted polo worn buttoned up with trainers can look the business. faire you’re after, look no further than Berluti.
Black wool tuxedo, £2,200; black wool long-sleeved polo shirt with Midnight blue velvet smoking jacket, £3,250; midnight blue velvet waistcoat,
orange striped ribbing, £580; black leather-suede trainers, £470, £500; black cashmere T-shirt, £420; midnight blue velvet tuxedo trousers,
all by Dior Homme £870; black leather boots, £1,350, all by Berluti
43
Style
CARS
THE DRIVE
by Will Hersey
↖
↖
Future proofing: an A8 on the Audi assembly
45
Style
FASHION
Moves like
Jacko
↖ White socks are back —
here’s the three best
Back seat driving:
besides AI motion ways to wear them.
systems, the Shamone!
latest A8 has a TV,
touchscreens and
a foot massager
46
Style
FOOD
ROAST
CHICKEN
For excellent results, turn
this favourite dinner on
its head using our man’s
elementary, failsafe trick
Style
↖ GROOMING
FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
How to smell
like a Norse god
consistently good results
A powerful, ultra-masculine new
until I came across
fragrance takes no prisoners
Simon Hopkinson’s
method. He requires According to James Craven, the
that you use a saucepan man behind specialist perfumer Les
with a glass lid. You put Senteurs, those who wear Viking need
to be man enough that it “doesn’t end
the eggs into the pan
up wearing them”. So, we wore it
with cold water, and around the Esquire office to gauge our
when it starts to boil, masculinity. One female colleague
you remove the pan said “it reminded her of love’s young
from the heat. Keeping dream”, while another said it was
“quite gentlemanly”. None tore our
the lid on, you wait
clothes off, but equally none said “get
for three-and-a-half Russell Norman is
away from me you foul smelling simp”,
the founder of Polpo
minutes, and then take and Spuntino; either. So we’ll chalk that up as a win.
them out. Perfect soft- Instagram: The fragrance combines dense
@russell_norman; masculine notes of patchouli and
boiled eggs, every time.
↖
Ingredients Method
• 1 free-range chicken, 1. Peel the potatoes 2. Rub the chicken all over 3. Roast for 30mins then 5. Turn the oven up to
about 1.5kg and cut them into large with olive oil and season turn. At the same time, put 225˚C. Give the tray with
• 2kgs Maris Piper potatoes bite-sized pieces. Boil in generously with salt and goose fat into the roasting the potatoes in a shake,
• 1 lemon a large pan of salted water pepper. Cut the lemon in tray and, when smoking, adding a scatter of
• 1 large bunch mixed herbs: for about 5mins until just half and stuff it into the add potatoes. Coat well salt and the rosemary
thyme, oregano, sage starting to soften. Drain cavity, then plug with before returning to the oven. leaves, and roast for
• Large handful rosemary, into a large colander and the mixed herbs. Place a a further 15mins while
leaves picked off let them stand for 5mins. large roasting tray on the 4. Roast the chicken for the chicken rests. With
• Olive oil Shake the colander bottom shelf of the oven a further 30mins. Next, a sharp carving knife,
Hearst Studios | Ben
• 2 heaped tbspns goose fat vigorously to bash up the and then put the chicken remove the chicken, placing distribute the meat evenly
• Flaky sea salt potato edges. Pre-heat directly onto the middle it breast up, onto a board among four plates. Serve
• Black pepper the oven to 200˚C. shelf, breast-side down. and loosely cover with foil. with the golden potatoes.
50
Style
WATCHES FASHION
DRAWING
War time inheritance ATTENTION
This winter, designers are
History, heritage, presence and a low-level price: channelling Nineties ’toon stars
salute the military-styled Vertex M100
LOOK
SHARP
Pointy shoes are back
FOOD
daylight-hours-only café at the Monday between 11am and 11pm).
Capital culinary arts Rochelle School artists community The menu, unsurprisingly, is
London’s ICA now houses the at east London’s Arnold Circus. the star of the show. Esquire ate fat,
latest Rochelle Canteen Now Margot and business deep-fried sprats with homemade
partner Melanie Arnold open a new tartare sauce; a squash, wild
Everyone wants to be part of Fergus outpost of the Rochelle Canteen at mushroom and barley broth (which
and Margot Henderson’s gang. London’s Institute of Contemporary soothed the soul as gently as any
The doyen and doyenne of London’s Art. The space is clean and bright, chicken soup), and melting braised
foodies, Fergus is the mind behind and the hours far more social than rabbit. Just be sure to leave space
Clerkenwell hotspot St John, while those of the east London sister for pudding.
Margot oversees the Rochelle restaurant (the ICA Rochelle The Mall, St James’s, London SW1;
Canteen, the working week, outpost is open every day except arnoldandhenderson.com
FASHION
HE WALKS
IN BEAUTY
Make Lord Byron your winter style icon
Burberry
AW ’17
↖
↖
1 | Blue/green/gold
tapestry printed
silk-wool scarf,
£245, by Drake’s
Sir Robert
Peel (1850)
↖
3 | Black doeskin-cotton
peacock embroidered
jacket, £7,475, 61
by Alexander McQueen
Style
DRINKS
↖
↖
collars. Other Regency style stars included prime
minister Robert Peel and the future King George IV: A potent, rare cognac worth
the former had a rakish way with shirt collars; the crossing the Atlantic for
latter had dreamy tousled hair.
The Regency look was first aped by London
clubbers the Blitz Kids and bands led by Visage and Not really a cognac
person? Then this is the
Spandau Ballet in the Eighties. The movement was
cognac for you.
gender-fluid, dandyish and deeply fashion-oriented. Hennessy’s Master
This time around, there’s a more understated take Blender’s Selection No 2,
on the look — we first noticed it at the Paris and as the workman-like
rectangular bottle might
Milan menswear shows a few seasons ago —
imply, tastes more
and for AW ’17 the trend has distilled into like a bourbon; think
day-to-day wearability. vanilla, nutmeg and
At Burberry, oversized Regency dress coats, cut warming spice but with
high in the arm, were teamed with tie-neck cotton a luxuriously long finish.
It’s a limited, one-off
shirts and featured brooch detailing on the lapels.
production, but no-one’s
At Korean label Wooyoungmi, models wearing shirts going to stop you if you
rippled with oversized ruffles and enormous collars, sip it from a flask.
single earrings, velvet sweatpants and close-cut hennessy.com
King George
IV (1810)
4 | Tartan cotton
baseball cap,
£195; white
cotton riding 5 | Midnight blue velvet
shirt with waistcoat, £600, by Berluti
detachable brass
pin, £495; navy
pinstripe wool
trousers, £495,
all by Burberry
6 | Navy/brown
wool-cotton
shearling-lined
coat, £4,900,
by Armani
62
Style
GROOMING
FACE
TIME
A smoother shave is
closer than you think
— allow us to sharpen
your technique
64
Style
The best
“Look at your hair closely in the new apps
mirror and plan your shave direction,”
suggests Tucker. “You want to shave
this month
in the same direction your hair grows.
It’s easy until you get to your neck
where the hair can grow upwards
or downwards or sometimes both.
And don’t shave over the same spot
repeatedly! If you’ve got sensitive
skin, you’re going to get razor burn.”
Gboard
No phone has become
a laptop killer due to the
limitations of the keyboard.
05. THE TIME Gboard gets you closer:
letting you drag words using
“glide typing” and dictate
According to a Braun shaving study, large slices of text into
the average man uses 300 razor whatever app you’re using.
strokes per shave, but if you do it Android/iOS; free
right, you won’t need that many.
“If just starting out then give yourself
20–30mins shave time but if you’ve
been doing it for a while, you’re
looking at 15mins max. It’s important
not to let your skin dry out during the
shave. I recommend re-prepping the
skin if you take longer than expected.” Enlight Videoleap
The hugely popular
photo-editing app has
launched a video
companion. There’s
a tonne of high-end
Tucker says: “I advise using Jagen Rinse your face with cold water to refresh the features, including
green screen use,
Tech words by Johnny Davis | Illustrations: James Graham | Photographs: Graham Walser
David’s E01 double-edge safety skin and help pores close, then apply a light
razor.” Braun’s Series 5 electric moisturiser or aftershave balm. “Some people colour correction and
layering. Try for free,
shaver can be used with cream, or in recommend cologne as the alcohol in it will kill
though the best options
the shower, and it “reads” your beard bacteria. But what about all the other chemicals
are paywall-protected.
density and adapts during the shave. in it? Unless you love pain, you’re only going
iOS; free + IAP
— to make your skin flare up and look sore.”
Series 5 shaver, £250, by Braun; —
braun.com; E01 razor, £13, by Post Shave Repair Gel, £24/125ml, by Kiehl’s;
Jagen David; amazon.com kiehls.co.uk
SpaceHub
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space-enthusiast to
track astronauts, rovers
HARRY’S and space stations while
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blade cover. Android; free
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a strip of aloe vera for improved lubrication.
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DORCO
A service offering three shaving head options; one with three blades,
one with four and, for the especially hirsute, a heavy-duty one with six.
From £1; razorsbydorco.co.uk
66
The Big Watch Book
FASHION It was at the beginning of the 19th century wearing one in 1975’s Three Days of the
when the Dutch navy first started issuing Condor. Like all great menswear items,
Naval gazing:
Al Pacino and
Robert Redford
in pea coats
↖
&
&
TRAVEL
HARBOUR ISLAND
The tiny Bahamian island is making a big name
for itself thanks to its promise of rum, relaxation
and Instagram-ready beaches
See Harbour
Island’s sunset
from Pink Sands
Beach, left, with a
Goombay Smash
cocktail, right,
DINE
to hand — the Queen Conch (on Bay Street north
official tipple of of the dock) was another formerly
the Bahamas
lunchtime institution, famed for its
conch salad, but is now open for
supper. Conch curry is the evening
Alamy | Getty | Hearst Studios | See Stockists page for details
72
Style
SEE DO
Tropical fish, turtles and eagle rays Try catching a bonefish. To many
when snorkelling on either the anglers, it is the ultimate wet dream,
amazing reef a couple of hundred fly-fishing in saltwater shallows
↖
feet offshore from the wonderful for the large (3–7lbs), fierce,
↖ beach, or further afield at the mirror-scaled fish that fight like
Devil’s Backbone, a treacherous blazes when hooked. The Bahamas
Explore quaint (for larger boats) reef that keeps is world famous for it and Harbour
Donmare Town,
left, by land
yachties and cruise ships at bay. Island is a top habitat of the species.
before a spot
of bonefishing,
right, in the
island’s crystal
clear waters
WHAT
TO PACK
WHEN IN…
Arthur’s Bakery makes famously good banana
pancakes, key lime pies, pastries and breads
served by utterly charming husband and wife
Robert and Anna Arthur. It’s next to Dake’s
Super hydrating face cream, Shoppe (see “Shop”), so shop afterwards,
£41/118ml, by Hampton Sun
or you may need to return for a larger shirt.
WHY NOW
Because Boxing Day and New
Year’s Day sees the islands
celebrate Junkanoo, the National
Festival of The Bahamas, an
all-round carnival-style excuse
Blue/white linen beach towel, £95, to party hard everywhere.
by Frescobol Carioca
Obviously, it’s a popular time
to visit the island, so get booking.
PARTY
Daddy D’s caters for locals and AVOID
clued up off-islanders. But don’t Calling it “Harbour Island”,
miss Gusty’s for the chance to or worse, “Harbour”. Locals
dance on a pink sand dancefloor, use their truncated, island-style BROADEN YOUR
become truly “Goombay Smashed” why-use-four-syllables-when- HORIZON
and flip a coin into the DJ’s tips you-can-use-two? vernacular
Blue lens tortoiseshell sunglasses, Ever see 360° holiday photos
bucket when he plays a good track. £255, by Tomas Maier “Briland”, rather brilliantly.
and videos pop up in your
Facebook feed and wonder,
SHOP How do I make those? With
Dake’s Shoppe sells a range a camera like the Samsung
of funky artisanal men’s shirts Gear 360. Capturing a moment
from Indego Africa, designed GET THERE in 4K is as easy as pressing
in NYC and handmade in Africa. BA flies non-stop to Nassau, a button and holding it up in
Be warned, your better half may capital of the Bahamas, and it’s
spend several hours here during then a Bahamasair onward flight
the air or sticking it on a tripod.
Grey suede-trimmed cashmere travel
which time you can head next pillow, £745, by Loro Piana to Eleuthera Island followed by For the ultimate in sharing,
door to Arthur’s Bakery (See a water taxi across. britishairways. use it to broadcast live.
“When In….”) dakesshoppe.com com; bahamasair.com £175; samsung.com
73
Style
FASHION
ROLE Padded
↖
MODEL i -
ill
le
Jack Rowan:
MY
Rising star Jack Rowan eo hf STYLE
weighs in with the season’s ree ny
most versatile coats a , Your favourite
ol l places to shop?
,£ e Second-hand shops
d e s, , all like Rokit, but I also
You might recognise Jack Rowan like Urban Outfitters,
c s t a e
from Channel 4’s chilling drama Born n Fred Perry and Farah.
to Kill, in which he played a psychotic
teenager. Or perhaps it’s his latest What items catch
role as a fighter in the new BBC your eye?
I buy scruffy kinds of
series of Peaky Blinders (20-year-old
jumpers or coats. If
Rowan is a real-life amateur boxer, I wanted a raincoat I’d
so the show’s pugilistic action is want it worn-in. I like
a convenient fit for him). Here, he the messy look.
takes on three of the season’s best
outerwear styles from high street Best thing you’ve
stalwarts Topman, which won’t bust bought recently?
I found an amazing
your budget (or your jaw).
Brooks Brothers coat.
It’s warm, you can
wear it with anything,
and was only £20.
tasselled loafers.
Over contrastingly I’ve been through
refined layers — think three pairs.
ESQUIRE silk pyjama-style tops
RECOMMENDS — a shearling coat Any style
Photographer’s assistant: Wil B
↖
and snow-repellent.
Snow patrol: a WWII It has a shearling collar
B-24 Liberator bomber
crew target the cold,
(tick for current trend) but
Labrador, Canada, 1942 it is detachable if too warm
(tick for conundrum sorted).
As for accessories, well,
she would be expected to personally I feel we already
open the passenger door have enough to carry without
on the move and jump out. having to remember clothing
“Tuck and roll!” her dad clobber, too. Without wishing
would shout,“Tuck and roll!” to bring back the onesie, the
— as she landed “splat!” in more functions that one item
the snow each morning. of clothing can cover the
But will it get cold better. There is nothing more
enough to make us buy all depressing than losing
these winter clothes and something that also cost
accessories? I love a good a fortune. It almost — almost,
statement coat (sorry, I stress — helps you realise
I know that sounds wanky), why your mum used to make
but all the other bits and you wear those knitted gloves
bobs that go with winter tied together with a piece of
FASHION outerwear are fiddly, easy string threaded through your
to lose (umbrellas) and coat sleeves.
THE STYLE COLUMN either age you (leather And remember that it is
by Jeremy Langmead gloves) or make you look equally important to avoid
like a tosser (fedoras). looking like lamb dressed
On the first conundrum as mutton as it is mutton
— the cold, or lack of — dressed as lamb. Swagger
the latter. After all, this is the where the winters were cruel
December issue — where, in and time spent outside in FOOD
the biting cold was kept to
the magazine world, we all
pretend to be in a festive a minimum. It was so cold,
Star quality
L’Enclume mastermind opens bijoux experience in capital
mood — and if you take she says, that the school run
a peep at what’s in the stores was a complex operation. Chef Simon Rogan turned the results go into Roganic, in
Cumbrian village Cartmel into Marylebone, a former pop-up
this month, the menswear Not only did she have to
a culinary destination with that gained cultish status back
designers seem convinced wrap up like an Inuit, but her his two Michelin-starred in 2011 and returns as a
it’s going to be a big freeze. dad’s car took a long time to restaurant L’Enclume. Now restaurant. Think of it as a raw
There are rows and rows of start and was too risky to let Rogan returns to London with L’Enclume for city folk and
two new openings. Tucked into expect dishes such as
big, down-filled puffer coats, stop again on the journey.
↖
79
Style
FASHION
Take a load off
Light but tough boots to take the
slog out of winter
TECH
With Apple and Samsung controlling more the Huawei Mate 10, Huawei Mate 10 Pro
than 75 per cent of the UK’s smartphone and Porsche Design Huawei Mate 10.
market, it’s sometimes easy to forget other All have Android Oreo, are powered by
brands even exist, let alone take a second a chip dubbed the “AI processor” (designed
look at their offering. But anyone dithering for “AI-related tasks”) and feature dual-
over dropping £1,000 on the iPhone X camera set-ups by Leica. As you’d expect,
this Christmas might want to do just that. the flagship Porsche Design model is the
Apple’s 10th anniversary product is daddy, packing 3D curved glass and an
stunning, but so are three high-end almost-borderless display into an exclusive
smartphones just unveiled by Huawei, the diamond finish. It’s arguably the smartest
Chinese company giving the Californians smartphone on the market, and certainly Black leather-suede Brady boots,
a run for their (not inconsiderable) money: a beautifully designed object in its own right. £240, by Grenson
HEALTH
Round-the- Jumping squats into Weighted sumo squat Single leg deadlift Static wall squat
clock lunges jumping split-squats Assume a sumo stance and hold with dumb-bell Lean in a seated position with
Lunge with the left leg to every One jumping squat followed by a dumb-bell in each hand, letting Standing on one leg, perform the your back flat against a wall with
point on an imaginary clock, then one jumping squat-lunge on them hang between your legs and deadlift with a dumb-bell in each a 90° bend in your knees. Try
back the other way with the right. each leg. perform full-range squats. hand. After 45secs, use other leg. and hold this for the full 90secs.
William Gilchrist
A lifetime’s travel tips from The Rolling Stones’ stylist,
lover of all things nautical and champion of Cuban sushi
If Paris and Mumbai were to have a love There are certain things I’ll
child, they would spawn Naples. The always have with me. A wireless
decadence, the beauty, the pile on pile of speaker, a room fragrance — Fico
history: it doesn’t get much better than that. d’India by Ortigia — and kikoys,
the Kenyan scarves. They work
as a towel, a mop-your-brow, as
a bag. And one goes straight over
the TV in the hotel room. I can’t
stand TVs, they’re incredibly ugly. I’ve had turbulence where a chap didn’t
have his seatbelt on and knocked himself
out on the ceiling, and I’ve had an engine
fire as we were landing. But nothing
too significant. I’m a believer that if
there’s nothing you can do, do nothing.
ACCESSORI
EYES FRONT
A new store offers a clear vision for Londoners
Good eyewear is everything, and if you live in Different to its four other stores, this atelier
London you’ll be glad to hear the spectacle will focus on the premium collections, and offer
scene is 20:20. A new Oliver Peoples opened a bespoke service, which features from-
in Knightsbridge a few months back, and the scratch bins handmade to order in Kings Cross.
first Finlay & Co store will open in Soho at 68 Jermyn Street, SW1Y; cubitts.co.uk
the end of November. But it’s the new Cubitts —
on Jermyn Street that’s perhaps most exciting. Tortoiseshell acetate frames, £125, by Cubitts
THE LIST
David A Flinn
The New York artist and photographer covets old school trainers,
Saint Laurent, Tokyo, after-hours pizza and big-feet 4x4s
FASHION
Getty | Hearst Studios | See Stockists page for details
89
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6
Style
HEALTH
When do I take it? Best protein source? Is too much protein bad?
“For maximum “Dairy, eggs and lean meat “Excessive amounts can risk
benefit, consume contain the nine essential displacing essential
within an hour of amino acids. Supplements carbohydrate intake, which
exercising to enhance can offer a practical gives energy during training.
Getty | Hearst Studios
muscle protein alternative but may contain Too much protein intake has
synthesis and growth excess sugar in sweeteners also been linked to an increased
in the body.” and flavourings.” pressure on the kidneys.”
93
Style
Put on a
Jagger, 1964
brave front
Seven of the season’s strongest 2
statement jumpers, for when a navy
crew neck simply won’t cut it
1. Burberry
Green/blue mouliné
6 patchwork wool,
3
£995
2. Prada
Multicoloured
angora wool with
book print detail,
£765
3. Pringle of
Scotland
Brown/white/black
wool, £1,595
Getty | Hearst Studios | See Stockists page for details
4. Stella
McCartney
Brown/blue/green
plaid wool, £690
5. Calvin Klein
4 205W39NYC
Black/yellow/beige
wool, £650
6. APC
Brown/cream
jacquard knit
wool, £270
7. Richard
5
James
Multicoloured
wool, £625
95
Style
FASHION
History in briefs
Are you a Churchill, a Cousteau, a Hemingway —
or a Wallace? Find out with Esquire’s only slightly
sketchy Icons in Their Underwear wallchart
Five issues
for just
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To subscribe, visit:
esquire.co.uk/dec2017
or call 0844 322 1762 and quote offer code 1EQ11175
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Film / Music / Books / Television / Art
Culture
100
Wrestle mania: Emma Stone and Steve
Carell, left, play out the 1973 Riggs versus
King match, below, in Battle of the Sexes
Are we
being
served?
Battle of the Sexes
re-enacts a famous
moment in the fight
for gender equality.
Does it go far enough?
102
Culture
Actors. A bit soft, right? it all again tomorrow…” since it first aired back in
Not Joe Cole though, when But fist-fighting with 2013 — returns to the BBC
he tells you about shooting murderers in a Thai prison this month. For those who
A Prayer Before Dawn, out is better than what Cole was live off-grid, it’s about the
next year. Filmed in part in doing a few years before. Shelby family, gangland
a Thai prison with He was in Kingston, Surrey, anti-heroes operating in
thousands of real prisoners in a rut. “I felt like the world the underworld of
for extras, it tells the was against me,” he says. Birmingham following WWI.
true story of Billy Moore, “There were points in my It is a certified hit and
a British boxer who fought teens when I said, ‘OK, more seasons are planned,
his way through a three- I need to do this, because but Cole seems ready for
year stay in Bangkok’s right now I’m selling new challenges. “It has
Klong Prem prison. “I carpets, I’m being cheated been fantastic to grow up
learned Muay Thai boxing,” on and I’m a mess. I’m not and work on a show that is
says Cole, 28. “I was going to be this person.’” so incredibly popular. It’s
sparring for real with prison And now he isn’t. In a joy, man,” he continues.
boxing champions. One of addition to A Prayer Before “The thing is, I’m just busy.”
the guys had killed three Dawn, the new season of He’s busy on projects
people. I’d go to sleep and Peaky Blinders — the such as an episode of Black
dream that they’d lost the period drama in which Cole Mirror, though other than
footage and I’d have to do has played John Shelby saying it’s about a dating
app that maps out all your
Earlier this year, North: relationships, he’s
tight-lipped.
Fashioning Identity, an So far, Cole has had
exhibition which has just lots of fist-wielding, macho
roles (even his cross-
opened at Somerset House dressing Connor in 2014
in London, showed at Open short film Slap was
Eye Gallery in Liverpool. a boxer). But, inspired by
actors such as Blinders
Will it play differently in co-star Tom Hardy, he
the capital? Instead of being won’t be pigeon-holed.
a paean to home-grown “I think he’s bold, which
for me is exciting,” Cole
creativity and innovation says of Hardy. “Not playing
in art, photography and by the rules and doing
the most obvious thing:
fashion, will it become an I find that interesting.”
exercise in exoticism (“Look —
Jemima, a shell-suit!”)? Black Mirror: Season 4
launches later this year
The show features more on Netflix
than 100 photographs,
artworks and togs from
Joe Cole words by Charlie Teasdale | Ken Grant | Jason Evans | Alice Hawkins | Getty
103
Culture
Dark side of
the moon
In a new sci-fi novel, a lunar utopia is beset
by earthly corruption
104
Culture
105
Culture
Face book
106
Culture
107
Dark brown leather
jacket, £2,065; camel
cashmere roll-neck, £880;
grey wool trousers,
£525; black leather belt,
£310, all by Prada
109
High
flyer
From an acclaimed Prince of Denmark on stage in New York
to Poe Dameron, X-wing pilot and hero of the Resistance in
the new Star Wars movies, Oscar Isaac is fast (very, very fast)
becoming his generation’s most accomplished leading man
December 2017 Oscar Isaac photographed exclusively for Esquire in Brooklyn, New York, August 2017
110
On 21 August 2017, the Great American Yet there is another upcoming celestial and, one can imagine after meeting him,
Eclipse caused a diagonal swathe of dark- event that will have a reasonably significant with no small amount of steely charm —
ness to fall across the United States from impact on Isaac’s life. On 15 December, Star seems to have served Isaac well so far. It’s
Charleston, South Carolina on the East Coast Wars: The Last Jedi will be released in cin- what also saw him through the casting pro-
to Lincoln City, Oregon on the West. In Man- emas, which, if you bought a ticket to Star cess for his breakthrough role in Joel and
hattan, which was several hundred miles out- Wars: The Force Awakens — and helped it Ethan Coen’s 2014 film Inside Llewyn Davis,
side the path of totality, a gentle gloom fell gross more than $2bn worldwide — you’ll about a struggling folk singer in Sixties New
over the city. Yet still office workers emptied know is a pretty big deal. You’ll also know York, partly based on the memoir of near-
out onto the pavements, wearing special paper that Isaac plays Poe Dameron, a hunky, ly-was musician Dave Van Ronk. Isaac, an
glasses if they had been organised; holding up wise-cracking X-wing fighter pilot for the accomplished musician himself, got wind
their phones and blinking nervously if they Resistance who became one of the most pop- that the Coens were casting and pestered his
hadn’t. Despite promises that it was to be lit ular characters of writer-director JJ Abram’s agent and manager to send over a tape, even-
up for the occasion, there was no discernible reboot of the franchise thanks to Isaac’s tually landing himself an audition.
twinkle from the Empire State Building; on charismatic performance and deadpan deliv- “I knew it was based on Dave Van Ronk
Fifth Avenue, the darkened glass façade of ery (see his “Who talks first?” exchange with and I looked nothing like him,” says Isaac.
Trump Tower grew a little dimmer. In Central Vader-lite baddie Kylo Ren: one of the film’s “He was a 6ft 5in, 300lb Swede and I was
Park Zoo, where children and tourists bran- only comedic beats). coming in there like… ‘Oh man.’” But then he
dished pinhole cameras made from cereal And if you did see Star Wars: The Force noticed that the casting execs had with them
boxes, Betty, a grizzly bear, seized the oppor- Awakens you’ll know that, due to some major a picture of the singer-songwriter Ray LaM-
tunity to take an unscrutinised dip. father-son conflict, there’s now an opening ontagne. “Suddenly, I got some confidence
Across the East River in Williamsburg, for a loveable, rogueish, leather-jacket-wear- because he’s small and dark so I said to the
Brooklyn, Oscar Isaac, a 38-year-old Guate- ing hero… “Heeeeeh!” says Isaac, Fonzie-style, casting director, ‘Oh cool, is that a reference?’
malan-American actor and one of the profes- when I say as much. “Well, there could be, And they were like, ‘No, he just came in here
sion’s most talented, dynamic and versatile but I think what [The Last Jedi director] Rian and he killed it.’” Isaac throws his head back
recent prospects, was, like Betty, feeling too [Johnson] did was make it less about filling and laughs. “They literally said, ‘He killed it.’
much in the sun. It was his day off from play- a slot and more about what the story needs. It was so good!”
ing Hamlet in an acclaimed production at The fact is now that the Resistance has been In the end it was Isaac who killed it in
the Public Theater in Manhattan and he was whittled to just a handful of people, they’re Inside Llewyn Davis, with a performance that
at home on vocal rest. He kept a vague eye on running for their lives, and Leia is grooming was funny, sad, cantankerous and moving.
the sky from the balcony of the one-bedroom me — him — to be a leader of the Resistance, as The film was nominated for two Oscars and
apartment he shares — until their imminent opposed to a dashing, rogue hero.” three Golden Globes, one of them for Isaac
move to a leafier part of Brooklyn — with his While he says he has “not that much more, in the category of “Best Performance by an
wife, the Danish documentary film-maker but a little more to do” in this film, he can at Actor in a Motion Picture — comedy or musi-
Elvira Lind, their Boston Terrier French least be assured he survives it; he starts film- cal” (he lost to Leonardo DiCaprio for The
Bulldog-cross Moby (also called a “French- ing Episode IX early next year. Wolf of Wall Street). No cigar that time, but
ton”, though not by him), and more recently, If Poe seems like one of the new Star Wars in 2016 he won a Golden Globe for his turn
and to Moby’s initial consternation, their firmament now — alongside John Boyega’s as a doomed mayor in David Simon’s HBO
four-month-old son, Eugene. Finn, Daisy Ridley’s Rey and Poe’s spherical drama, Show Me a Hero. This year, and with
Plus, he’s seen this kind of thing before. robot sidekick BB-8 — it’s only because Isaac peculiar hillbilly affectation, Vanity Fair pro-
“I was in Guatemala in 1992 when there was willed it. Abrams had originally planned to claimed Isaac “the best dang actor of his gen-
a full solar eclipse,” he says the next day, sit- kill Poe off, but when he met Isaac to discuss eration”. It is not much of a stretch to imagine
ting at a table in the restaurant of a fashionably him taking the part, Isaac expressed some that, some day very soon, Isaac may become
austere hotel near his Williamsburg apart- reservations. “I said that I wasn’t sure because the first Oscar since Hammerstein to win the
ment, dressed in dark T-shirt and jeans and I had already done that role in other movies award whose name he shares. Certainly, the
looking — amazingly, given his current theat- where you kind of set it up for the main people stars seem ready to align.
rical and parental commitments — decidedly and then you die spectacularly,” he remem-
fresh. “The animals went crazy; across the bers. “What’s funny is that [producer] Kath- Of course, life stories do not run as
whole city you could hear the dogs howling.” leen Kennedy was in the room and she was neatly as all that and Isaac’s could have gone
Isaac happened to be in Central America, he’ll like, ‘Yeah, you did that for us in Bourne!’” quite differently. He was born Óscar Isaac
mention later, because Hurricane Andrew had (Sure enough, in 2012’s Bourne Legacy, Jer- Hernández Estrada in Guatemala City, to
ripped the roof off the family home in Miami, emy Renner’s character, Aaron Cross, steps which his father, Óscar, now a pulmonologist,
Florida, while he and his mother, uncle, sib- out of an Alaskan log cabin while Isaac’s char- had moved from Washington DC in order to
lings and cousins huddled inside under acter, Outcome Agent 3, stays inside; a few attend medical school (having escaped to the
couches and cushions. So yes, within the spec- seconds later the cabin is obliterated by a mis- States from Cuba just before the revolution)
trum of Oscar Isaac’s experiences, the Great sile fired from a passing drone.) and where he met Isaac’s mother, Eugenia.
American Eclipse is no biggie. This ability to back himself — judiciously Five months after Isaac was born, the family →
December 2017
112
— also including an older sister, Nicole, and played at a talent show. They chose to per- held his ground. “It was just to spur me to do
later joined by a younger brother, Michael form “Rape Me” by Nirvana. “I remember better I think, but I definitely argued.”
— moved to America in order for Óscar Sen- singing to the parents, ‘Rape meeee!’” Isaac He stayed for the full course at Juilliard,
ior to complete his residencies: first to Balti- laughs so hard he gives a little snort. “Yeah,” though it was a challenge, not only because
more, then New Orleans, eventually settling he says, composing himself again, “we didn’t he’d relaxed his own non-drinking rule but
in Miami when Isaac was six. win.” But something stuck and Isaac ended also because he was maintaining a long-dis-
Miami didn’t sit entirely right with him. up being in a series of ska-punk outfits, tance relationship with a girlfriend back in
“The Latin culture is so strong which was first Paperface, then The Worms and later Florida. “For me, the twenties were the more
really nice,” he says, “but you had to drive The Blinking Underdogs who, legend has difficult part of life. Four years is just… mas-
everywhere, and it’s also strangely quite con- it, would go on to support Green Day. “Sup- ochistic. We were a particularly close group
servative. Money is valued, and nice cars and ported… Ha! It was a festival…” says Isaac. but still, it’s really intense.” (Among his fel-
clothes, and what you look like, and that can “But hey, we played the same day, at the same low students at the time were the actress
get sort of tedious.” Still it was there, aged festival, within a few hours of each other.” Jessica Chastain, with whom he starred in
11, that he took to the stage for the first time. (On YouTube you can find a clip from 2001 of the 2014 mob drama A Most Violent Year,
The Christian middle school he attended put The Blinking Underdogs performing in a bat- and Sam Gold, his director in Hamlet.) He
on performances in which the kids would tle of the bands contest at somewhere called says he broadly kept it together: “I was never
mime to songs telling loosely biblical sto- Spanky’s. Isaac is wearing a “New York City” a mess, I just had a lot of confusion.” He got
ries, including one in which Jesus and the T-shirt and brandishing a wine-coloured Fly- himself an agent in the graduation scrum,
Devil take part in a boxing match in heaven ing V electric guitar.) and soon started picking up work: a Law &
(note the word “loosely”). For that one, Isaac Still, Isaac’s path was uncertain. At one Order here, a Shakespeare in the Park there;
played the Devil. In another, he played Jesus point he thought about joining the Marines. even, in 2006, a biblical story to rival his
calling Lazarus from the grave. “So yeah,” he “The sax player in my band had grown up in early efforts, playing Joseph in The Nativity
laughs, “I’ve got the full range!” a military family so we were like, ‘Hey, let’s Story (the first film to hold its premiere at the
He enjoyed the mixture of the attention work out and get all ripped and be badasses!’” Vatican, no less).
and the “extreme nature of putting yourself he says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do combat pho- By the time he enrolled at Juilliard he had
out there in front of a bunch of people”, plus it tography!’ My dad was really against it. He already dropped “Hernández” and started
gave him some release from stresses at home: said, ‘Clinton’s just going to make up a war for going by Oscar Isaac, his two first given
his parents were separating and his mother you guys to go to,’ so I had to have the recruit- names. And for good reason. “When I was
became ill. His school failed to see these as ers come all the way down to Miami where in Miami, there were a couple of other Oscar
sufficiently mitigating factors for Isaac’s sub- my dad was living and they convinced him Hernándezes I would see at auditions. All
sequent wayward behaviour and, following to let me join. I did the exam, I took the oath, [casting directors] would see me for was ‘the
an incident with a fire extinguisher, he was but then we had gotten the money together to gangster’ or whatever, so I was like, ‘Well, let
expelled. “It wasn’t that bad. They wanted record an album with The Worms. I decided me see if this helps.’ I remember there was
me out of there. I was very happy to go.” I’d join the Reserves instead. I said I wanted a casting director down there because [Men
Following his parents’ divorce, he moved to do combat photography. They said, ‘We in Black director] Barry Sonnenfeld was
with his mother to Palm Beach, Florida, where don’t do that in the Reserves, but we can give doing a movie; she said, ‘Let’s bring in this
he enrolled at a public high school. “It was glo- you anti-tank?’ Ha! I was like, ‘It’s a liiiiiittle Oscar Isaac,’ and he was like, ‘No no no! I just
rious, I loved it,” says Isaac. “I loved it so much. different to what I was thinking…’” want Cubans!’ I saw Barry Sonnenfeld a cou-
I could walk to the beach every day, and go to Even when he started doing a few profes- ple of years ago and I told him that story —
this wild school where I became friends with sional theatre gigs in Miami he was still toy- ‘I don’t want a Jew, I want a Cuban!’”
so many different kinds of people. I met these ing with the idea of a music career, until one Perhaps it’s a sad indictment of the enter-
guys who lived in the trailer parks in Boynton day, while in New York playing a young Fidel tainment industry that a Latino actor can’t
Beach and started a band, and my mom and Castro in an off-Broadway production of Roge- expect a fair run at parts without erasing some
my little brother would come and spy on me lio Martinez’s play, When it’s Cocktail Time in of the ethnic signifiers in his own name, but
to see if I was doing drugs or anything, and Cuba, he happened to pass by renowned per- on a personal basis at least, Isaac’s diverse
I never was.” forming arts school Juilliard. On a whim, he role roster speaks to the canniness of his deci-
Never? asked for an audition. He was told the dead- sion. He has played an English king in Ridley
“No, because I didn’t drink till I was, line had passed. He insisted. They gave him Scott’s Robin Hood (2010), a Russian security
like, 24. Even though I stopped being reli- a form. He filled it in and brought it back the guard in Madonna’s Edward-and-Mrs-Simp-
gious, I liked the individuality of being the next day. They post-dated it. He got in. And son drama W.E. (2011), an Armenian medical
guy who didn’t do that stuff. Maybe it was the rest is history. Only it wasn’t. student in Terry George’s The Promise (2017)
the observer part of me… I liked being a lit- “In the second year they would do cuts,” and — yes, Barry — a small, dark American
tle bit detached, and I wasn’t interested in Isaac says. “If you don’t do better they kick you Jew channelling a large blond Swede.
doing something that was going to make me out. All the acting teachers wanted me on pro- But then, of course, there are roles he’s
lose control.” bation, because they didn’t think I was trying played where ethnicity was all but irrelevant
When he was 14, Isaac and his band-mates hard enough.” Not for the first or last time, he and talent was everything. Carey Mulligan’s →
Right:
Isaac in the title role
of Sam Gold’s off-
Broadway production
of Hamlet, at New
York’s Public Theater
December 2017
116
ex-con husband Standard in Nicolas Wind- it has the ambiguity of the Bible where you can over I don’t know how those things will live.”
ing Refn’s Drive in 2011 (another contender look at one line and it can mean so many dif- He pauses. “I’m a little bit… I don’t know if
for his “spectacular deaths” series); mysteri- ferent things depending on how you meditate ‘concerned’ is the right word, but as there’s
ous technocrat Nathan Bateman in the beau- on it. Even when I have a night where I feel not only two weeks left of doing it, I’m curious to
tifully poised sci-fi Ex Machina (2014) written particularly connected emotionally, it can still see what’s on the other end, when there’s no
and directed by Alex Garland (with whom he teach me. I’ll say a line and I’ll say, ‘Ah, that’s place to put it all.”
has also shot Annihilation — dashing between good advice, Shakespeare, thank you.’” It’s a thoughtful, honest answer; one that
different sound stages at Pinewood while Hamlet resonates with Isaac for rea- doesn’t shy away from the emotional com-
shooting The Last Jedi — which is due out next sons that he would never have foreseen or plexities of what he’s experiencing and is still
year). Or this month’s Suburbicon, a neat black have wished for. While playing a young man to face, but admits to his own ignorance of
comedy directed by George Clooney from an mourning the untimely death of his father, what comes next. Because, although Isaac
ancient Coen brothers script, in which Isaac Isaac was himself a young man mourning is clearly dedicated to his current lot, he has
cameos as a claims investigator looking into the untimely death of his mother, who died also suffered enough slings and arrows to
some dodgy paperwork filed by Julianne in February after an illness. Doing the play know where self-determination has its limits.
Moore and Matt Damon, and lights up every became a way to process his loss. What he does know is happening on the
one of his brief scenes. “It’s almost like this is the only frame- other end of Hamlet is “disconnection”, also
Isaac is a very modern kind of actor: one work where you can give expression to such known as a holiday, and he plans to travel
who shows range and versatility without intense emotions. Otherwise anywhere else with Lind to Maine where her documentary,
being bland; who is handsome with his dark, is pretty inappropriate, unless you’re just Bobbi Jene, is screening at a film festival.
intense eyes, heavy brows and thick curls, in a room screaming to yourself,” he says. Then he will fly to Buenos Aires for a couple
but not so freakishly handsome that it is dis- “This play is a beautiful morality tale about of months filming Operation Finale, a drama
tracting; who shows a casual disregard for how to get through grief; to experience it about the 1960 Israeli capture of Adolf Eich-
the significance of celebrity and keeps his every night for the last four months has defi- mann which Isaac is producing and in which
family, including his father, who remarried nitely been cathartic but also educational; he also stars as Mossad agent Peter Malkin,
and had another son and daughter, close. it has given structure to something that felt with Eichmann played by Sir Ben Kingsley.
Photographer’s assistants: Lloyd Stevie, Sloan Laurits | Digital technician: Kenny Aquiles Ulloa | Grooming: Amy Komorowsk | See Stockists page for details
It’s a testament to his skill that when he takes so overwhelming.” At some point after that he will get sucked
on a character, be it English royal or Green- In March, a month after Eugenia died, into the vortex of promotion for Star Wars:
wich Village pauper, it feels like — with the Isaac and Lind married, and then in April The Last Jedi, of which today’s interview is an
possible exception of Ray LaMontagne — it Eugene, named in remembrance of his late early glimmer.
could never have been anyone else. grandmother, was born. I ask Isaac about But before that, he will unlock the immac-
the shift in perspective that happens when ulate black bicycle that he had chained up
Today, though, he’s a Danish prince. To you become a parent; whether he felt his outside the hotel and disappear back into
say that Isaac’s turn in Hamlet has caused own focus switch from being a son to being Brooklyn. Later, he will take the subway to
a frenzy in New York would be something of a father. Manhattan an hour-and-a-half or so before
an understatement. Certainly, it’s a sell-out. “It happened in a very dramatic way,” he curtain. To get himself ready, and if the
The Sunday before we meet, Al Pacino had says. “In a matter of three months my mother mood takes him, he will listen to Venezuelan
been in. So scarce are tickets that Isaac’s own passed and my son was born, so that transi- musician Arca’s self-titled album or Sufjan
publicist says she’s unlikely to be able to get tion was very alive, to the point where I was Stevens’ Carrie and Lowell, light a candle,
me one, and as soon as our interview is over telling my mom, ‘I think you’re going to see and look at a picture of his mother that he
I hightail it to the Public Theater to queue him on the way out, tell him to listen to me as keeps in his dressing room.
up to be put on the waiting list for returns for much as he can…’” He gives another laugh, Then, just before seven o’clock, he will
tonight’s performance. (I am seventh in line, but flat this time. “It was really tough because make his way to the stage where, for the next
and in my shameless desperation I tell the for me she was the only true example of four hours, he will make the packed house
woman in front of me that I’ve flown over from unconditional love. It’s painful to know that believe he is thinking Hamlet’s thoughts for
London just to interview Isaac in the hope that that won’t exist for me anymore, other than the very first time, and strut around in his
she might let me jump the queue. She ponders me giving it to him. So now this isn’t happen- underpants feigning madness, and — for
it for a nanosecond, before another woman ing” — he raises his arms towards the ceil- reasons that make a lot more sense if you’re
behind me starts talking about how her day ing, gesturing a flow coming down towards there which, thanks to a last-minute phone-
job involves painting pictures of chimpanzees, him — “but now it goes this way” — he brings call from the office of someone whose name
and I lose the crowd.) his arms down, making the same gesture, but I never did catch, I was — stab a lasagna. And
Clearly, Hamlet is occupying a great deal flowing from him to the floor. then at the end of Act V, when Hamlet lies
of Isaac’s available brain space right now, Does performing Hamlet, however perti- dead, and as lightning staggers across the
and not just the fact that he’s had to memo- nent its themes, ever feel like a way of refract- night sky outside the theatre, finally bring-
rise approximately 1,500 lines. “Even tonight ing his own experiences, rather than feeling ing the promised drama to the Manhattan
it’s different, what the play means to me,” he them in their rawest form? skyline, the audience, as one, will rise.
says. “It’s almost like a religious text, because “Yeah it is,” he says, “I’m sure when it’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi is out on 15 December
December 2017
120 Sebastian Bergne, product designer
Drop jug by Sebastian Bergne
“My everyday table is populated with many
things I use and love. The crockery design
range. To wash it all down, water or wine is served
in one of my own creations: the Drop jug. It first
£90; sebastianbergne.com I’ve been enjoying for 20 years is the Montefeltro appeared as a prototype for testing and has since
stoneware range designed by Franco Bucci. The become a regular. I’ll let you judge it for yourselves
tools are from Achille Castiglioni’s Dry cutlery but the fact that it is still there says something.”
December 2017
122 Margaret Howell, fashion designer
Leonardo table by Achille Castiglioni
“I bought this table in the Seventies when I started
out designing from home and needed a bench-
table height for dinner parties). Whenever I’ve
moved, it’s come with me. I never tire of it. I still
£2,195; twentytwentyone.com height worktop to draft my patterns. The keep the thoughtful booklet on how to look after
functional flexibility and adjustable height of the various materials that came with the table —
Leonardo was perfect (it works equally well at a mark of respect for good design made to last.”
wi
, l
i ,
ton
l
r .
,
a l
December 2017
124 Sir Paul Smith, fashion designer
Type 75 mini desk lamp by Anglepoise + Paul Smith
“The Anglepoise Type 75 is a design
classic. The perfect lamp for everyone
times over. My Type 75 sits pride of place
in what I call my ‘jet lag‘ room which is the
£145; anglepoise.com from a student for their first desk to corner of my house where I slip off in
a grown-up for their office. It’s been such the middle of the night to do some work.”
an honour to recolour the lamp several
December 2017
126
By Tom Dyckhoff
‘A man yearns for quarters of his own. More lay their head down after a hard day’s work in
than a place to hang his hat, a man dreams of a home. But the home was not theirs. The home
his own domain, a place that is exclusively his’ was the woman’s domain, as it had been for
— Hugh Hefner, Playboy, September 1956 two centuries. Men were just lodgers (though,
admittedly, they did rule the rest of the uni-
Say what you like about Hugh Hefner, verse beyond the front door, so let’s not feel too
RIP, but there was a man who understood the sorry for them).
importance of a well-plumped cushion. For In 1956, remember, America was in the
amid the obituaries and hullabaloo that fol- throes of a suburban revolution, its cities bal-
lowed the death of the Playboy tycoon, one looning by the minute with picket fences and
small contribution to world culture Hefner “ideal homes” lived in by bored housewives
made has been left unnoticed: interior design. hooked on Valium and, usually late home
In its September 1956 issue, Playboy mag- from the office, their equally bored husbands,
azine ran its first feature on the perfect man’s hooked on bourbon. Don and Betty Draper.
home. It was a pad, of course, for “the urban The American Dream.
bachelor,” wrote Hefner, “a man who enjoys Hefner, like Don Draper, had another
good living, a sophisticated connoisseur of the dream, a dream of freedom, for men at least.
lively arts, of food and drink, and congenial Wives would still be tethered to the pills and
companions of both sexes. A man very much, the kitchen sink for some time, but men were
perhaps, like you.” In 1956, men — certainly offered an escape, a new kind of home — a play-
heterosexual men, certainly playboys — were ground. Hefner’s perfect bachelor pad was
not supposed to have opinions about interior in the city. It had no “cell-like rooms” (words
design, not ones they actually voiced, let alone pointedly chosen), like the suburban detacheds
published. They were not really meant to have his playboys were escaping, but an open plan of
opinions about the home at all. They (rarely different “zones”, in which the bachelor could,
their wives) might own a home. They might in Hefner’s words, “perform for an admiring →
December 2017
128
audience”, act out different versions of himself only briefly in a domestic setting for sex, an
other than the standard roles on offer to him Old Fashioned and, if I must, maybe an hour
at the time: the adulterous husband, say, the or three of sleep. Basically, James Bond (pub-
Marlboro Man, DIY dad. lished four years before the Playboy pad). Or,
He could, for instance, cook. Cooking, like a decade later, Alfie.
taking an interest in soft furnishings was, in
1956, not something a real man was meant to The very idea that an aspiring man,
do, unless French. In the Playboy pad, though, “a man very much, perhaps, like you,” might
he could dazzle his audience with crêpes want to enjoy not escape their home was hardly
flambées. He could take an interest in design, new. From Ancient Rome through to the
too, for the playboy was allowed to shop, at golden age of the British stately home in the
least for some things, like shelving systems 18th century, men usually lived and worked at
and designer chairs, not loo rolls and coast- home, if they were lucky to have a home at all;
ers. Not that you’d guess it from the look of and those of means spent fortunes on and took
this apartment’s “unique kitchen stool”, “con- interest in making that home look amazing.
structed from a rugged, contoured tractor Their home was an extension of their selves.
seat” (ew, no thanks). But the playboy was at Even in the classic stately home, though, there
least acquainted with Charles and Ray Eames. were gender rules, as any keen observer of
He had read his Le Corbusier. Why? Because Downton Abbey can see.
this man also reads something other than the The drawing room was a woman’s space,
sports pages. His perfect apartment has at its decorated in pale “feminine” colours (pinks,
heart a study, “the sanctum sanctorum”, wrote yellows) and prints (florals), where women
Hefner, for the studying of Corbusier, Saul Bel- “withdrew” after dinner to drink tea and
low and pornography. exchange significant looks. The dining room
There are gadgets — of course there are — was a man’s space, decorated in geometric
though the stereotype of a geek glued to tech in prints and dark “masculine” colours (reds,
his man cave is still novel in 1956. My favourite: and, if you can call it a colour, brown), where
an “ultrasonic dishwasher”, which “uses inau- the men stayed after dinner to smoke cigars,
dible hi-fi sound to eliminate manual wash- discuss grouse shooting and stiffen their upper
ing.” We’re still waiting for that particular lips. And so began centuries of stereotypes.
gizmo to hit Currys. This apartment, though, Women = flowers. Men, you can have any col-
does have built-in speakers, remote-controlled our so long as it’s brown. Maybe black. Fab-
hi-fis and buttons that “control every light rics for the ladies. Horny leather and wood for
nature of Like it was 1956. ies like Peter Saville and Rem Koolhaas, and
takes a particular interest in where he lives, in
gender identity. But I know this is a lie. Why? I have the sta- the manner of an 18th century aristocrat. In
tistics. International Wallpaper Week took one of his early homes, an apartment in Man-
But taking an place in October. You didn’t know? See how hattan, he went full-on minimalist, employing
December 2017
130
December 2017
132
Right moves
How two former magazine journalists rewrote
the rulebook on estate agency, not to mention
property porn
By Tim Lewis
December 2017
134
Eglon House landed like a tasteful No one entirely knew what to make but there were no takers. So this summer,
modernist spaceship on a mews in Lon- of Eglon House. At 13,154sq ft, it is prac- the owner of Eglon House — who prefers
don’s Primrose Hill sometime towards tically the size of an aircraft hangar. to remain anonymous — placed a call to
the end of 2015. The response, mainly, Your neighbour on one side will be the The Modern House estate agency to see
was bemusement. The site had previ- Al-Fayed family; on the other are coun- if they could sell it. The Modern House,
ously been a shell-casing factory during cil tenants, who hang washing outside founded in 2005 by Albert Hill and Matt
WWI, a dairy for the cattle that grazed their front doors. After it was put on the Gibberd, prides itself on a very differ-
on the local fields, and latterly a museum market in December 2015, The Daily ent approach to most estate agents. You
and a recording studio where Ultravox Telegraph asked: “Is it a home, an office, will never have seen its shops on the high
made “Vienna”. In its latest incarna- a work of art or a tax wheeze?” street, because there aren’t any. Since
tion, the land has been developed into A spokesperson for Savills, the the beginning, it has been online only.
two distinct buildings set around a cob- upmarket estate agent instructed to sell It specialises in properties it decides are
bled courtyard: an Art Deco five-bed- Eglon House, outlined who they thought architecturally arresting or allow living
room townhouse; and a double-height, would be interested: “The successful “in a modern way”.
museum-grade art gallery. It’s a live- buyer will no doubt be globally nomadic It used to be said the search for prop-
work lair for the family-oriented Bond with multiple homes in America and erty was all about location, location,
villain. The sections are connected by elsewhere in Europe, spending time in location. Hill and Gibberd wouldn’t
a subterranean floor that has this bizarre key cities around the world.” Early on, agree with that. To them, contentment
property’s most fantastical feature. With there were murmurs that an art founda- is most likely to be found in a beautiful,
a whir and a whoosh, the floor sinks tion and a famous musician were seri- considered house that allows for open-
from beneath your feet, fills with water ously considering it. Oh, yes, the price: plan living. And that means you might
and becomes a swimming pool. At one £24m. Twenty. Four. Million. Pounds. have to be flexible about where it is. The
end is a three-metre-wide cinema screen There was an initial flurry of view- Modern House is predicated on the idea
— waterproof, naturally — one of the ings, but nothing came of them; it was that many estate agents fundamentally
largest, HD LED displays ever made. offered for rental, at £130,000 a month, do not understand design and lifestyle.
Matt Gibberd and Albert Hill, founders of property sales website The Modern House
cent on the previous 12 months. Its care- the iconic glass blocks that Chareau cre- the cracks between things and access a
fully curated Instagram feed, which ated for the exterior of his building; the very unique and powerful network of
features images from houses for sale sofas, light fittings, even the exact shade people. With a house like that, when the
alongside motivational quotes from mod- of blue that was used for the master conventional route hasn’t worked, that’s
ernist icons such as Ludwig Mies van der suite’s carpet in Paris have been pains- what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to think
Rohe, now has over 90,000 followers. takingly reproduced. more laterally on the marketing as well.” →
December 2017
136
In late October, Eglon House dropped on staircases that twist like helixes. Lub- made contact with a school friend, Matt
The Modern House website, now a steal etkin believed that climbing any set of Gibberd, who had previously been a sen-
at £21m. stairs should be “a dance”. ior editor at The World of Interiors mag-
Albert Hill was not even an estate azine and had just started in the first
The first property The Modern agent when he first saw Six Pillars in year at the Bartlett School of Architec-
House marketed was also an unusual 2005. He was a journalist, primarily an ture. There was an element of destiny in
house that traditional estate agents were editor at Wallpaper*. But he was very his gravitation towards that career: Sir
struggling to bend their heads round. familiar with Lubetkin, one of the defin- Frederick Gibberd, his grandfather, was
Six Pillars in Sydenham Hill, south-east ing modernist architects, and he couldn’t a modernist architect who designed the
London, is not especially welcoming believe that this house — one of the rare Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral with
or exciting from the front: it is a white private homes in London that Lubetkin its distinctive crown of thorns (you might
rectangle set back from the road, with had worked on — had been on the market know it as “Paddy’s Wigwam”) and the
a thin horizontal strip of window. The for months and hadn’t sold. London Central Mosque on the edge of
main materials are London-stock brick “So I got the number of the guy who Regent’s Park; his father, too, is an archi-
and reinforced concrete, which has been owns Six Pillars and phoned him up,” tect. Gibberd agreed to start work on
used to fashion the half-dozen pilotis that says Hill. “This was off the back of noth- The Modern House — the name came
lend the house its name. And it’s these ing. I said, ‘I’ve got this specialist estate from a book written in 1934 by FRS Yorke,
pillars that make this building, com- agency.’ He was very well-spoken and a friend of his grandfather’s — while also
pleted in 1934, so revolutionary. Because he said ‘Fantastic, I’ve been waiting for continuing his architecture studies.
of the strength they provide, the interior someone like you to come along.’” Hill and Gibberd used their contacts
can be open and flooded with light. The Was Hill completely riffing? “Yeah, to get press coverage for Six Pillars, but
architects, Valentine Harding and Bert- just making it up,” he laughs. “And he results were not instant. This, after all,
hold Lubetkin, the latter best known for said, ‘I’m going away on holiday for three was the era of the Foxtons Mini, ubiqui-
the spiral-ramped penguin pool at Lon- weeks but let’s talk when I get back.’” tous in central London, and glass-fronted
don Zoo, had been liberated to create In those three weeks, Hill created branches full of aggressive, shiny-suited
balconies that nod to Le Corbusier and a website for his new company, and he “negotiators”. “I remember in particular
December 2017
138
“I remember when we first spoke to called Ornament is Crime — and the desks and Gibberd want to bypass the “game face”
clients they’d be talking about things and meeting table have been designed for people bring to these situations and discover
like exchange of contracts,” says Hill, them by Louis Schulz of Assemble, the if an applicant has the key qualities they
smiling. “So I’d look up ‘exchange of con- Turner Prize-winning architectural collec- look for, especially empathy. “We realised
tracts’: what does that mean? But the tive. None of the employees wears a suit and we couldn’t hire estate agents, because they
beauty of it was we had no entrenched you feel such a trope of estate agency could have been so ingrained to just sell, sell, sell,
wisdom. We could literally start afresh. be a sackable offence. sell,” says Hill. “And we couldn’t hire people
Being an estate agent was so unglam- I ask Rosie Falconer, the sales man- from architecture and design because they
orous, and there was such negativity ager, whether Hill and Gibberd have a sim- were used to hiding behind a computer and
towards them, and I think that’s one of ilar approach. “Sooo different,” she replies. spending a day tweaking one little thing. You
the reasons we managed to do a land “Matt’s the aesthetic driver of the company, need clients to want to deal with you and who
grab in this space. The bar was set pretty while Albert has a brilliant, abstract way of like you.”
low for us really.” thinking. If it was just him in charge, the The other major change in The Modern
website would be bright orange and pink or House model was how they paid employees.
The Modern House office in Canon- something. But really, I can’t imagine one Most estate agents operate on straight com-
bury, north London, doesn’t receive without the other.” mission: if you make the sale, you get the
many visitors, but it is, as you would Before The Modern House, Falconer, an bonus. Hill and Gibberd decided early on
expect, restrained, refined and painted English and politics graduate, worked in they would pool the commission and share it
predominantly white. The back wall has journalism and advertising. This classifies between the entire sales team. “So none of the
floor-to-ceiling shelves, and the books as a pretty typical background in the com- staff are fighting over themselves for deals,”
and magazines are ordered by colour. pany: only one of 16 members of staff had says Hill, “which is just crazy.”
Obvious thought has gone into the floral any experience of estate agency before. One In an effort to streamline every element
display on the table in the waiting area. appraiser used to manage comedians; many of their offering, Hill has gone deep into the
There’s not much in the way furniture of the others studied or worked in art. latest thinking on disruptive innovation. He
— Gibberd and Hill’s recent book about All have come through three interviews is particularly taken with the Growth Mind-
their favourite modernist buildings is and a psychometric test to land a job. Hill set theory from Carol Dweck, a professor at
Below and right: artist Dinos Chapman’s 7,500sq ft former home in Harrietsham, Kent
December 2017
140
The journey
is the destination
I can’t remember why, but Haider Ackermann and latest move in a decades-long strategy to transform the
I are talking horses. He’s a big fan of riding, which is 122-year-old French shoemaker into a byword for luxury
odd considering he’s been on a horse only once. “I was menswear. The transformation dates back to LVMH’s
in Colombia recently, and they had this beautiful stal- acquisition of the company in 1993, followed by
lion,” the 46-year-old designer tells me as we sit down Arnault’s hiring of designer Alessandro Sartori in 2011
at the Berluti offices in Paris one warm summer after- and the expansion into ready-to-wear in 2012. Over the
noon. “I’d never ridden, so when I got on, he and I just past five years, Berluti has increased annual sales by
turned and took off. We rode into the jungle, me just more than £130m, but though the gap is shrinking, the
hanging on. It was near an area controlled by Farc company has yet to turn a profit. Ackermann’s ascent
[Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia], so when could mark a turning point for the fashion house, as
I signed the insurance waiver before, they said, ‘Don’t the designer injects the traditionally elegant Berluti
go there!’ Of course, the horse and I went there.” man with some modern-day swagger.
This moment sort of sums up Haider Ackermann. Ackermann’s journey has had its share of twists and
He’s new to this. He’s a bit unpredictable. And right turns. Born in Bogotá, he had a barnstorming child-
now he’s saddled up for an exhilarating, and poten- hood that saw stints in Nigeria, Algeria, Iran, Chad
tially risky, ride. and the Netherlands as his family followed its cartog-
In September 2016, Berluti CEO Antoine Arnault rapher patriarch. It was during these formative years
(part of the family behind French luxury titan LVMH) that the future designer mapped trends and traced
hired Ackermann as its creative director. It’s the the styles that serve as the inspiration for his “modern →
Above:
Green wool-cashmere coat, £5,700;
khaki cotton top, £730; white cotton
T-shirt, £200; black wool trousers,
£550, all by Berluti
December 2017
144 Diving watches
Stainless steel
36.3mm Ahoi Neomatik
Signalrot on light grey
textile strap, £3,070,
by Nomos Glashütte
December 2017
148 Dress watches
Platinum 38.5mm Lange
1 Moon Phase on brown
leather strap, £44,700,
by A Lange & Söhne
Stainless steel 42
x 25mm East West on
black alligator leather
strap, £3,525, by
Tiffany & Co
December 2017
150 Aviation watches Satin-polished steel
41mm BRV2-24 Black
Steel chronograph on
black calf skin strap,
£3,350, by Bell and Ross
Titanium 43mm
Chronospace Evo B60
on black leather strap,
£3,230, by Breitling
December 2017
Stainless steel
152 Driving watches 44.25mm Speedmaster
Racing Co-Axial
Automatic Chronograph
on black rubber strap,
£6,240, by Omega
Black DLC-treated
steel 41.5mm Octo
Maserati GranSport
Mono-Retro on black
calf leather strap,
£12,480, by Bulgari
DLC-coated stainless
steel TimeWalker
Chronograph UTC on
black rubber strap,
£4,290, by Montblanc
December 2017
155
Photographs by
Jeremy Liebman
Wired
By Johnny Davis
December 2017
156
On the seventh floor of an office block “And actually paying attention?” chuckles Aston Martin, Bamford Watch Department
in midtown Manhattan a meeting is tak- Levine, who has been fiddling with his laptop and Ermenegildo Zegna. In 2017, it launched
ing place. Sales and marketing co-ordinator throughout. “Sort of.” a wireless speaker for the home, co-de-
Sarah Dominguez is showing half a dozen of signed with the British architect Sir David
her colleagues photographs for a new adver- The story goes that Levine, a former Adjaye. Made of proprietary concrete com-
tising campaign, one that will take their brand Wall Street commodities trader turned suc- posite and cast in a slab-like “new geometric
through the important holiday season, from cessful entrepreneur, whose previous busi- form”, it forewent the traditional box-shape of
Black Friday to Christmas Day. nesses include making a plug to convert DC almost every other speaker, weighed 16kg and
“It’s Bigfoot. It’s Sasquatch,” suggests to AC current from car cigarette lighters to retailed for £1,600.
someone. charge phones, power tools and battery-oper- “I didn’t enter this business with a golden
“It’s a modern-day… what’s that Sesame ated LED lighting, turned to headphones after Rolodex of connections in the industry,” the
Street character?” asks Jonathan Levine, the building a recording studio in his office so he boyish, likeable Levine tells me. “I’m not the
founder and CEO. could spend more time with his music-mad former CEO of another audio brand. I’m not
“The Grouch,” says someone. son Robert, following a divorce. Robert had from the music industry, like other famous, or
The photographs are of a six-foot man in handed down his Beats by Dr Dre headphones well-known, entrepreneurs. And I’m not the
a ghillie suit, emerging from a subway station to his younger brother Justin, finding them former CEO, founder or head of marketing for
and wandering around SoHo, the shopping both sonically underwhelming and too ubiqui- another luxury brand. My only connection to
district known for its designer boutiques and tous for DJing. (Justin subsequently gave them luxury is being a luxury consumer. But some-
fancy chain stores. The camouflage charac- away.) Levine, who studied architecture and how at this age, I’ve been able to synthesise
ter has been chosen to tie-in with a new prod- has an eye for luxury and design — he favours it all together, and connect the dots. Luckily,
uct line, camo-patterned headphones. We are Common Projects trainers, Ermenegildo I have a lot of energy. That’s important for any
in the offices of Master & Dynamic, the high- Zegna shirts and watches by A Lange & Söhne, entrepreneur. And I enjoy meeting people.”
end audio brand, who in three years have Rolex and IWC, and keeps a Twenties coin-op- This is true. During our time together
broken into a hugely competitive market to erated football table in his office — chanced Levine mentions, in passing, friendships with
become one of the most distinctive and talk- across a pair of WWII aviator headphones in the president of Rolex North America, the
ed-about names in designer tech. It is the first a Washington DC museum. Because they were boss of Moncler, the head of British design stu-
time they have launched an ad campaign to made from leather and metal, they had aged dio Andrew Winch and the CEO of Baccarat
speak of, one that will go under the slogan “A well and, to Levine at least, looked modern, Crystal. One morning I arrive to find him on
World Apart”. The new headphone collection even timeless. the phone to the marketing director of Fead-
is called Greene Street: this afternoon people Melt down most sets of headphones and ship, Dutch makers of custom superyachts.
employed on SoHo’s actual Greene Street will you’re left with a tennis ball-sized lump of plas- Not long ago he found himself in Abbey Road
be photographed wearing them. tic. Nothing very luxurious about that. But Studios, watching Frank Ocean. Back in New
“There’s some really cool brands there,” what if you went the other way, Levine won- York he chanced upon Paul McCartney pro-
someone says. “Stone Island, Acne…” dered, and constructed them from lambskin moting something in a department store.
“Some of our competitors are on Greene and anodised aluminium? Could this be a gap Levine introduced himself and showed him
Street, like Devialet and Sonos.” in the market? In 2013, Levine asked his fledg- the photo he’d taken in The Beatles’ famous
“Beats used to be,” Levine says. ling team to forget they were starting a head- recording studio. He’d welcome the oppor-
Talk turns to a pop-up shop, to be designed phone company: if they were a camera, watch, tunity to make some headphones for McCa-
by Green Fingers (“This is like a triple-enten- luggage, car, coffee or fragrance brand, who rtney. Macca thanked him but being vegan,
dre”), the Tokyo creative company that spe- would they be? (They settled on Leica, IWC, lambskin wasn’t for him. Levine duly went
cialises in designing concrete-and-foliage Rimowa, Aston Martin/Tesla, Nespresso and off and partnered with Alcantara, producers
environments for trendy fashion retailers, Frédéric Malle.) of the suede-like synthetic material found in
including Mr Porter and Adidas. Master & Dynamic was launched in May Formula One cars, to make an animal-friendly
“I’ll share with the team the rough social 2014 with an initial product line compris- version now in Master & Dynamic’s range.
calendar,” says Dominguez. “But we’re really ing two headphones and one earphone. The In addition, Levine is a fixture at events
trying to push that super-visual element. The flagship model MH40s were distinctive: they such as Salone del Mobile Milano, the Milan
bigger umbrella of not just having an Ins- looked like WWII aviator headphones. Mar- furniture fair. When we meet he has just got
tagram calendar, but Twitter, blog, Face- keted to the creative community as “sound back from the Monaco Yacht Show, not, as one
book and emails. So: all together. Hopefully, tools for creative minds”, and sold into fash- member of staff explains, because he wants to
November will be a good roll-out.” ion boutiques like Opening Ceremony in buy a yacht but because this is where the high-
Apart from Levine and his co-founder New York and Colette in Paris, they retailed net worth people hang out and because he
Vicki Gross, the meeting is comprised of casu- for £370 and received universally positive wants to get a feel for where he should be and
ally dressed millennials, and the mood is reviews from the audio and tech press. Where whom he should talk to.
upbeat and jovial on both sides. the market was split into performance prod- “He has big dreams and his enthusiasm is
“Anyone else want to compliment me?” ucts for at-home audiophiles and fashion-led infectious,” a former employee who worked on
asks Levine, after someone thanks him for set- lines for a younger, out-and-about crowd, Mas- the brand’s launch tells me. “He’s a real people
ting up some brainstorms with retailers. ter & Dynamic hit a note right in the mid- person and he’s got a real knack for connect-
“Well done for attending a meeting?” sug- dle. They satisfied geek and chic. The brand ing with a broad spectrum of characters.”
gests Gross. has subsequently collaborated with Leica, That includes his customers. Anyone
December 2017
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December 2017
160
thinking caps”, a fairly horrendous phrase, but one-off for a special customer, or a fashion pen or a Lichtenstein tea towel, after all.
they were onto something. While others tar- collaboration.” “It’s cool,” he says. “We’re in “Yeah,” Levine grins. “We made the world’s
geted a young, sporty, clubbing crowd, Mas- uncharted territory right now.” most non-portable, portable speaker.”
ter & Dynamic went professional. Offices had After the talk, we walk round the exhi-
become more open-plan and informal: head- In the Master & Dynamic offices, PR bition of 111 designs MoMA deems to have
phones are accepted, even necessary, to con- Christine Doh is known as “the gifting god- changed fashion. These are listed on a wall-
centrate. (And that’s if your office is an office, dess”. Master & Dynamic have never done sized display at the entrance: Adidas Super-
and not a Starbucks.) A professional-looking a celebrity endorsement. They don’t do prod- stars, Bucket Hat, Biker Jacket, Little Black
set of cans you can keep at your desk is a nice uct placements. You won’t find famous people Dress, Loafer, Swatch, Tracksuit, and so on.
thing. There are few more distressing sights in in their Instagram feed. Instead they rely on Gross spots one other: “Headphones.”
modern life than a grown man wearing a suit what Levine calls “strategic word-of-mouth”. We predict which headphones. There, in
and a pair of bright red plastic headphones. This translates as supplying the right people a case, opposite Hermès’ Birkin bag and Yves
and events with the right product and believ- Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking tuxedo, is Sony’s
In the corner of Master & Dynamic’s ing they’ll do the rest. One musician both original Walkman, plus foam headset.
offices is “The Lab”, where it develops new Levine and his sons agree on is André 3000 (“I “They’re beautiful in their simplicity,”
products. One afternoon, Levine sits down created a playlist with my eldest son and he’s, Levine marvels. “One day. I mean, all things
for a meeting with Drew Stone Briggs, chief like, Jay-Z and Kanye, and I’m, like, Van Mor- are possible, right?”
product officer and an early recruit from rivals rison and Warren Zevon,” Levine says) often
Bose, and product designer Thomas Wilson. photographed out and about with his Master & Master & Dynamic employs around 35
They have a number of projects on the go. Dynamic MH40 over-ears. But Levine has for- people (Beats has some 700). It was started
But first, conversation turns to a rival’s latest bidden his PR department to make anything with Levine’s money, having never raised
release, reviews of which have been published of this. It seems a little counterintuitive. a penny of outside capital. Was that scary?
that morning. They have not been kind. “It does. But people in the luxury world, “It’s still scary,” he says. “But I remem-
“Another one for those guys, huh?” says CEOs of luxury brands, actually say, ‘That’s ber going to [business] conferences and see-
Levine, behind his laptop. exactly what you should be doing, that’s actu- ing a company who were very proud, they had
“Two mediocre reviews and one that was, ally cooler, that’s the right thing.’ If you look banners that said, ‘We’ve raised $135m from…’
wow, brutal,” says Wilson. at the feeds of some these brands that we love, with five very prominent VC investment com-
“PCMag was just… yeah,” says Stone Gucci, Moncler, they’ve earned the right to do panies listed, and their thinking was almost
Briggs, shaking his head. that. But I cringe to think we’d use that in our like, ‘If you raise a lot of money from the right
“How do you make a small fortune?” says marketing. I think it’s better for these people people, you’re guaranteed success.’ That’s
Levine, teeing up the joke with the punchline to be seen, and to market ourselves privately. complete nonsense. Why we love working with
“start with a large one and invest poorly”. It almost becomes an inside secret. Like, ‘Oh, brands like Zegna or Leica, and we’re starting
“Start a headphone company?” teases how did you get those?’” to do stuff with the watch industry and avia-
Stone Briggs. That’s a long-term strategy. tion, too… it’s great for co-branding, but you
They whip through the update, presenting “And I’m a guy, at 55, thinking long-term,” also get to learn from these people. How they
mock-ups on a screen. First, some new tech- Levine says. “But if you look at the companies built their brand, and how they treat it. I think
nology to incorporate into an existing line. I wanted to compete against early on, these are if we’d taken on early investment from VCs it
The design alterations required are impercep- companies that were started between 1945, probably would have pushed us in the wrong
tible to me, but Levine is forensic. Sennheiser, and 1964, Bose. Those brands are direction. Because what happens is, you have
“Black on black might work,” he frowns. still strong and relevant and have a healthy a grand plan and sometimes that doesn’t go to
“But I feel there’s a lot going on there.” business. So if I can build Master & Dynamic plan, the market is changing, retail is chang-
“Yeah,” agrees Stone Briggs. “It’s messy.” into a brand that is still important in 50 years, ing, and then investors say ‘Wait a minute,
Next, a modification to the Sir David that’s what I set out to do. To create a product, you’ve got to do this now, so that you can grow.’
Adjaye speaker. Its concrete composition that in 50 years, someone would buy on eBay, All of a sudden you have a very different com-
might be groundbreaking, but it also exposes or their version of eBay, and say ‘Oh my God, pany from what you started with. So being pri-
its woofer and tweeter — the latter being a 1.5in look at those things.’ And put them in their vate is absolutely part of our magic.”
disc of woven kevlar that some have found too office, or their home. As an object of beauty.” Levine’s father died when he was four. He
irresistible not to prod. “Even for adults it’s, took his role as the eldest son, the male of the
like, ‘What is that shiny…?’” says Stone Briggs, That evening, Levine and Gross have house making his own way and supporting
before presenting some options for a thin tita- arranged to attend a talk at the Museum of his family, seriously. “A hustler all the way,” he
nium guard. Modern Art. It is by Paola Antonelli, curator of smiles. “All legitimate.”
Finally, there is a new product, at the func- an exhibition called Items: Is Fashion Modern? “Every time I go places, there are oppor-
tional prototype stage, which in 2018 will which has just opened. They invite me along. tunities I’ve created, just by meeting people.
solidify Master & Dynamic’s commitment to “She’s been good to us, so we should sup- It’s that curiosity, and a bit of scrappiness. We
wireless. They pass around design options. port her,” Levine explains. “They took our know we have to work harder in this compet-
“We’re thinking this is quite feminine speaker in the MoMA gift shop. Do you know itive world where we are competing against
and unique, and this can be quite masculine how difficult it is to get something in there?” giants. We have to think and act like under-
and also interesting,” says Drew Briggs. “And Have they sold any? A 16kg concrete dogs. You have to be out there. And it’s never
this could be, like, out there. Maybe a special speaker is a different proposition to a Warhol failed me.”
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162
I wanted to be a racing cyclist. My dad was more like, Do you know about the person that’s
bought me a racing bike, and I rode compet- been sending me things for over 40
itively from the age of 12 until I was 18. One “How would years? A completely unknown person. A chair,
day, looking extremely gorgeous on the bike, a robot, a ski, a stepladder. But they never
wearing some Buddy Holly glasses with these curtains arrive in a box. They come with the address
a big, thick rim, I crashed into a car, because written directly onto them, and the stamps
I couldn’t see where I was going. I ended up in look on me?”’ stuck on. The postman arrived the other day
hospital for three months. with an Austrian cowbell around his neck.
The Brits have always been so brilliant I’ve got a Mini. That’s fine for me. There’s
at self-expression through non-violence. The One night at a party I met this girl who no private jet. Where would I park it?
punks, the New Romantics, the goths, the Mods, was very nice. She turned out to be a married
hippies. In France, they were burning cars. In lady with two dogs, two cats and two kids, Where a lot of designers get it horribly
England it was more like, “How would these which was slightly confusing, and I was 21 and wrong is they do things just to get attention
curtains look on me?” she was 27, and she lived in London and from the press. That does a huge disservice
I lived in Nottingham with my mum and dad. to our industry, and it doesn’t do any good for
The first little collection, I think it was But we fell in love. Suddenly I had an instant themselves most of the time, because people
two shirts, two pairs of pants, two jackets, two family. And that was Pauline. It was 1967. just think it’s silly.
pieces of knitwear, and one suit. I didn’t marry her until the year 2000. I wasn’t
sure. It takes a while, you know? I could go round the world 50 times on
When I started, the whole idea about being air miles. My secretary told me the other day.
a designer is that you have an idea in your It’s about learning to give and take,
head and your heart, and you hoped some- learning to be interested, and interesting, One of the joys of a bespoke suit is the lit-
body liked it. Now it’s all about, “Prada are learning to not just talk about yourself, tle gathers you get on the shoulders, which is
doing this, Gucci are doing that.” And every- listening to how their day has been, as well such a nice symbol that it’s made by hand. It
one’s nervous. And it used to be just about: as your day. It’s just keeping your feet on the will be imperfection because one thread will
this is what I do. ground. Do the washing up. Wipe the tops. be pulled slightly harder than the other, and
I love that. It’s so therapeutic. that’s joyful. It’s lovely.
I got my first camera when I was 11. You
were taught to look and see. Now you use a Don’t you think we overuse words, in Pauline doesn’t have a phone, and we
phone: delete, delete, delete, delete. But back commerce, now? You know: Limited edi- don’t have an answer machine, and we have
then, when you look through a viewfinder, tion. Vintage. Luxury. Loo rolls have “luxury” no computer. I’m not saying it’s a good thing
you have to get your picture lined up really written on them… As long as it’s not “vintage”, or a bad thing, we just don’t.
well because you only have 24 exposures, or I suppose.
36, and they’re very costly to print. So it’s very If you want to be in business for a long
much about looking and learning to see. There’s a man called Carlo Scarpa, an time, you can’t be snobby or stuck in the mud.
architect from Italy. He passed away You have to just flow with the river. So many
I remember walking down Byard Lane in many years ago. One of his specialities was people get formulaic. They’re so proud that
Nottingham one day and a lovely old ex-sol- modernising an existing old building. He’d they won’t change: “I do it this way.” No, you
dier quite rightly said, “You look like a bloody take a beautiful old villa in Treviso, say, and don’t. You did do it that way, but now you need
girl!” I said, “You’re right, sir. Sorry.” And tot- put a bronze and steel shelf onto a wall that’s to do it this way.
tered off in my high heels. been there for 200 years. I like that a lot.
I’ve been here a long time. We’ve never
A lot of fashion is about having a car- I don’t like confrontation clothes. I like gone like a rocket. Never borrowed money.
rier bag that has a particular branding on it, clothes you feel comfortable in. We’ve always done it very gently and very care-
something that says “I am rich”, or “I am fash- fully. And slowly, slowly, you build it up.
ionable”, or “I am part of this club”. In my opin- The first time I went to Japan, in 1982,
ion, that’s linked to insecurity. I was on a train going from Kanazawa to Osaka My dad died when he was 94, and he wore
and I walked the whole length of the train, a tie every day of his whole life. He wasn’t
It’s a difficult word, isn’t it, “style”? and there was no other foreign person on fashionable, but he was very, very smart.
December 2017
164
M&M’S WORLD
Kate Moss
Playboy, London, 2013
r o
, ndon
167
Lara Stone
W, London, 2012
If by chance you saw last fashion’s favourite photographic sexual confidence. Madonna, J Lo,
month’s edition of Esquire, with duo long before Esquire showed up Gaga, Rihanna, Naomi, Cara,
a smouldering Penélope Cruz on — fashionably late to the party as Kate, Linda, Angelina, Gisele,
the cover, then you will already be ever. Even if you didn’t know their Björk: Mert and Marcus have shot
familiar with the work of the pho- names you’d seen their photos. them all, often as well as they’ve
tographers Mert Alas and Mar- Mert and Marcus don’t merely ever been shot. It’s quite a feat, that,
cus Piggott. Or Mert and Marcus shoot campaigns for the most to take the most photographed
as they are known by their fel- famous names in fashion: Giorgio women in the world and see them
low inhabitants of the fashion fir- Armani, Fendi, Miu Miu, Gucci, anew, make them look even more
mament, across which they have Saint Laurent, Versace, Givenchy. glamorous, even more seductive.
blazed a starry trail since the turn They are a brand in their own right, Of course, their rise coincided
of the century. (Once you com- with their own distinctive style almost exactly with photogra-
mand the attention and admi- — glossy but hard-edged — and phy’s switch from film to digital,
ration — and budgets — of the a subject to which they constantly and the opening of the Pandora’s
biggest designers, stylists and cre- return: the female form. Mert and box of Photoshop, but that’s hardly
ative directors, you can safely drop Marcus’s women are beautiful and the only reason for their success.
the surnames.) powerful, often nude or semi-nude, Many fashion photographers have
But who are we trying to kid? their skin glistening, eyes flashing, become slaves to the airbrush and
You were well aware of the work of and they project a kind of cosmic the retouch, and their subjects, →
December 2017
168
The opening sequence of Orson Bad taste, they say, always involves hugger-mugger with so much refined
Welles’ greatest film has Charles Fos- an aesthetically lethal cocktail of swag- Renaissance beauty?
ter Kane contemplating a snowglobe: ger, facsimile, fakery, replication, Bad taste presents itself as a cal-
little shards of porcelain or non-solu- bogus emotion and excess. It often culated affront. It is surely willed
ble soap replicate snowfall over a nas- involves fuss as well: in an observa- and meaningful. Charles Baudelaire
tily cute and miniaturised scene. Why, tion which deserves a special entry in thought: “What is exhilarating in bad
Welles seems to be prompting us to ask, any anthology of poisonous snobbery, taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giv-
is a great mind bothered with trash? the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm ing offence.” Bad taste is aesthetic
It is reckoned that the first snow- once remarked that the less educated head-butting, a reminder that we get
globe appeared in Paris in 1889 and the society, the greater the inclination our word “ugly” from the old Norse
held a little Eiffel Tower ridiculously towards decoration. word ugga which means “aggressive”.
captive. Their great rival, the chunky, This might be true of Romford, but An ugly customer is not someone ill-fa-
vitreous paperweight with ferns or fos- does not apply to Versailles. In fact, voured in looks, but a rebarbative and
sils suspended in glass, appeared 50 judgements about taste are always argumentative twat. Very likely, he has
years before. So very much of what we equivocal. The groundrules of taste are bad taste. So what follows interests him.
consider bad taste had its origins in the never stable. To understand taste, you It’s easy to make jokey additions
19th century. always need to appreciate context. One and another time I would also argue
Or the 20th. Take Jayne Mansfield’s of the only certainties is that discussing for: stretch limos; Dolly Parton’s Dol-
Pink Palace on Sunset Boulevard. The taste is a very satisfying way to start an lywood resort in the Great Smoky
actress, whose IQ actually exceeded argument. People today are fearless in Mountains, Tennessee; any form of
her bust measurement expressed in their frankness about sex and money, wrestling; Peperami or any meat snack;
centimetres, bought the Hollywood subjects that were once taboo in polite Jeff Koons; anything with sequins;
property in 1957. Ignorant, perhaps, of conversation. But taste is different to white high heels; fur; Philip Johnson’s
erotic Freudian associations, she sex and money, although both the lat- AT&T Building (now empty); Terry
promptly painted it pink with cupids, ter are usually involved in the former. Farrell’s MI6 Building (still full); dried
a heart-shaped bath and rose-hued Because to an extent you are what you flowers; Frieze Art Fair; the Madonna
furs. A fountain tinkled Champagne. wear, eat, drive and where you live, your Inn at San Luis Obispo, California;
The Pink Palace was eventually taste betrays you. Often cruelly. It is the coloured candles; gold-foiled Ferraris;
bought by Ringo Starr. last frontier of shame. So to be accused fairy lights; Christmas decorations….
The list is endless. In his pioneer- of having “bad taste” is to suffer a dam- So who’s to blame? Samuel Beckett
ing 1969 study, Kitsch: the World of aging assault on the soul. thought the great thing about bad taste
Bad Taste, Gillo Dorfles, one of Milan’s In Thomas Mann’s 1957 novel Con- was that the people who had it did not
great intellectuals and a confidante of fessions of Felix Krull, Confidence realise. That’s an amusing half-truth
all that city’s leading designers, made Man, you know the man’s a scoundrel because, despite the evidence that
some interesting suggestions which because his garden has earthenware people make terrible choices, there is,
I’ll one day adopt into my own ency- gnomes and toadstools, a disco ball on objectively speaking, no such thing
clopaedia of bad taste: Mona Lisa- a pedestal and a pneumatic device that as bad taste. There is your taste and
branded cheese, a Giorgio Morandi plays Johann Strauss’s “Freut euch there is my taste. I like this, but you
painting turned into terrazzo, John des Lebens” when the door opens… as like that. I would not wear sequinned
Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls-Royce, gon- well as grottoes. Grottoes are always double denim, but you may do so
dolier ornaments, celebrity masks, any a problem to the taste investigator as with pleasure.
sort of porno-kitsch (but specially sub- anyone who has seen Bernardo Buon- Or to put it this way, as art historian
types involving Jayne Mansfield) and talenti’s grotesque efforts in Flor- Bernard Berenson did: “Taste begins
the sleeve art of The Moody Blues’ 1968 ence’s Giardino di Boboli must have when appetite is satisfied.” Food, you
album In Search of the Lost Chord. thought. How can such hideousness sit see, for thought. →
December 2017
172
‘The Chamber of Horrors’, 1852 more the Night King than the it is impossible not to recollect at the excess of the actual
Sun King: a favourite occupation Søren Kierkegaard’s observation automobile. Designed carelessly
Henry Cole, an over-busy was travelling across Linderhof’s to mash molecules of air and
that “the best demonstration of
Victorian civil servant, put the subterranean lake in a boat towed the misery of existence is by the with no regard whatsoever for
surplus of The Great Exhibition by a team of rapidly paddling contemplation of its marvels.” efficiency, the environment or
of 1851 on display in Marlborough swans. Twelve electrical dynamos safety, the classic pink Cadillac
House in London. Although The provided power to illuminate was The American Nightmare.
Great Exhibition of the Works of Disneyland, 1955
Ludwig’s Venus Grotto. Harley Earl, its designer, seduced
Industry of All Nations had been the public with epic vulgarity
The year after the Fontainebleau,
conceived as an imperial synopsis Disneyland opened in Anaheim, while garbling English
of contemporary possibilities, Fontainebleau Hotel, 1954
California, securing for the West magnificently. One of his finer
Cole and others were so horrified Sixty-three years ago, the world’s Coast of the United States a instructions to a cowering
by the majority of the rubbish biggest hotel (with 1,504 rooms) monument to bad taste at least as underling was: “I want that line
on display that he created opened in Miami Beach, Florida. dismaying as Lapidus’s leviathan to have a duflunky, to come across,
“The Chamber of Horrors” to A local newspaper wrote, hotel. The signature castle of the have a little hook in it, and then do
demonstrate what he called “false “Gigantic? There must be a bigger Magic Kingdom was modelled on a rashoom or a zong.”
principles”, or bad taste, in design. word.” The designer, Morris another of Swan King Ludwig II’s
Thus, a stuffed stoat holding Lapidus, specialised in what commissions, Neuschwanstein,
a parasol was presented as a
Astroturf, 1965
he called “woggles” [ameboid itself an ignorant architectural
reprimand. Cole’s initiative shapes], an architectural feature fiction. Ever since, to describe Short-pile synthetic turf (favoured
was one of the great conceptual unknown to the ancients since something as “Disneyfied” — for the expedients of low cost and
generalisations of his age, they had a finer vocabulary all The National Trust, for example high durability) was a feature of
providing a basis for Victorian their own. The dining room could — is to say it is founded in false the Houston Astrodome, once the
design theory as well as seat 800 and featured a floor understandings and world’s biggest enclosed sporting
The Modern Movement which which ascended and descended unsubstantiated retro fantasies. venue. Grass would have been
evolved from it. with hydraulic assistance. Visitors better, but more expensive
sometimes described a sense of and less hardy: in the same way
Cadillac, 1959
euphoria excited by the flambé cashmere is not as tough as nylon.
Schloss Linderhof, 1886
parades in the restaurant. Despite The ’59 Cadillac Eldorado Facsimile effects have been
Mad King Ludwig II was it being a bad taste landmark, Brougham Seville is the most condemned by aesthetes ever
infatuated by Louis XIV and the hotel has appeared in both extreme product ever produced since Henry Cole’s “Chamber
decided to imitate Versailles in Goldfinger and The Sopranos. by industrial civilisation. The of Horrors”. As if to confirm the
Bavaria. But Ludwig was rather Considering the Fontainebleau, sesquipedalian name merely hints Astrodome’s institutionalised bad
From left:
A small slice of the 800-
capacity dining room
at the Fontainebleau
Hotel, Miami Beach;
Disneyland’s Sleeping
Beauty Castle takes
its inspiration from
Neuschwanstein Castle
in Germany; a Fifties
pink Cadillac designed
by Harley Earl; ‘The
Swords of Qādisīyah’
arch in Baghdad, built
to commemorate the
Iran–Iraq war; currently
under construction, the
Al Wakrah Stadium in
Qatar will host matches
for the 2022 Fifa World
Cup; Donald Trump
golfing at his Mar-a-
Lago resort, 1993
taste, its largest attendance from the Iran-Iraq war. Despite the whole successful, assault slave labour, she designed a
(68,000) was for an event called Desert Storm forces bombing and on good manners. “Steal, copy, stadium which, when seen from
Wrestlemania X-Seven in 2001. invading the Iraqi capital in 1991, collage” might be his motto. the air, appears to be inspired by
The Astrodome closed in 2008 Saddam’s arch has been restored Perry, who was born in gaping labial folds. Accused thus,
and current plans are to re-purpose and still stands today. Chelmsford, says his house is Hadid replied that if you think
it as a parking garage. Astroturf “a homage to the single mum anything with a hole in it is a
has, however, survived as a in Dagenham, hairdressers in vagina, then that’s your problem.
‘Duplitecture’, 2004
bastard medium. Colchester and the landscape and
In 2004, the Chinese built history of Essex”. This fiction is
Mar-a-Lago, 1924 — present
a perfect replica of Le Corbusier’s now so popular that it has caused
McDonald’s, 1971
majestic chapel at Ronchamp… paralysing traffic problems on The original Palm Beach
When he saw the first Tokyo but in Zhengzhou. Ten years later, Wrabness’s Black Boy Lane, haciendaburger (in Spanish
McDonald’s at the Mitsukoshi as fast as contractors could build and Essex Highways has agreed Mission style) was built by
store on the Ginza in 1975, Andy Zaha Hadid’s Wangjiang Soho to install new road signs and breakfast cereals heiress Marjorie
Warhol declared it “the most complex, pirates were copying markings to discipline the Merriweather Post and acquired
beautiful thing in the city”. it on another site. “Duplitecture” admiring crowds of Mondeo Men by a crass, but ambitious, property
Warhol was, of course, is the Photoshopping of who want to worship the Essex developer called Donald Trump
a connoisseur of crap. architecture: new building cult legitimised by the Turner in 1985. Not content with the 118
technology allows the rapid Prize-winner Perry. rooms, the future President of the
imitation of anything, anywhere, USA immediately added a 20,000sq
Saddam’s Victory Arch, 1989
regardless. There is now an ft ballroom. At one point in the mid-
arrondissement of Paris in
The Al Wakrah Stadium, 2022
Dictators normally have bad taste. Eighties, Trump recognised that
On the site of the Museum of Gifts Hangzhou, a pastiche Amsterdam The late Zaha Hadid, in defiance architecture was a useful tool for
to the President in Baghdad, Iraq’s near Shanghai. After Isis of all sound principles of naval self-expression. The purchase of
leading sculptor, Adil Kamil, built destroyed Palmyra’s Arch of architecture and hydrodynamics, Mar-a-Lago was synchronous with
“The Swords of Qādisīyah” in 1989. Triumph in 2015, a scale model once designed a superyacht from the decision to build Trump Tower.
The heroic schema was sketched repro appeared in London’s Hamburg shipyard Blohm+Voss They say the President likes hard,
by none other than Saddam Trafalgar Square six months later. (builders of the WWII battleship shiny things.
himself, while Kamil modelled Bismarck) which was modelled,
Saddam’s own muscular and hairy apparently, on a cycling helmet.
A House for Essex, 2015
forearms. The points of the swords Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things
Alamy | Getty
December 2017
174
Balenciaga
Nothing to declare
Photographs by Styled by
Daniel Stier Catherine Hayward
December 2017
176
Gucci
Louis
Vuitton
December 2017
178
Fendi
Antique red
leather doctor’s
bag, £1,995,
by Burberry
December 2017
180
December 2017
182
FRANK GEHRY
Starchitect, 88
Esquire Design Special
183
I took karate with Chuck Norris and got two girls. Problems with the wife shortly after,
all the way up to brown belt. I have the broken ‘Designing is and then leaving when they were aged 12 or
ribs to prove it. I haven’t kept in practice, but 13. All the things that rain upon you from that
I could still do 40 push-ups in one shot. Maybe like pulling kind of experience, which are mostly bad. The
a few more. kids hate you, the mother… you know, all that
a rabbit out stuff. The new batch is great. One of them’s
You’re more inclined to jump in the working with me — he’s an architect — and
water with a bunch of characters when you’re of a hat. It the other one’s a painter. I think we hang out
younger. I don’t mean that literally. You go to together more than I did with the first group.
places for no other reason than that’s what all comes
all your friends are doing. It’s about being Thirty per cent of the construction
together, feeling part of a gang and meeting together and industry is waste. If the budget is $100m,
interesting people. That goes away. And a lot then $30m is for nothing. Lost. With the tech-
of those friends are no longer here. I’m living —voila! — it nology we’ve developed, a lot of that waste has
longer than I’m supposed to. been cut down. I take real pride in budget con-
looks good. trol. If you ask somebody if the Guggenheim
I’ll have a glass of wine or a tequila maybe Museum in Bilbao was an expensive build-
twice a week. I don’t smoke cigars any more. I don’t know ing, then 90 per cent of people would put up
No drugs. I don’t even take painkillers. I’m their hands. It was built for $300 per sq ft. It’s
nervous about that for some reason. how that a really inexpensive building. Nobody believes
that. Is this true? Could this be true? It’s fuck-
I’m very bad with clothes. I hate shopping happens’ ing true!
for them. When I was out with the boys dat-
ing they used to drag me over to Beverly Hills I wouldn’t say I’m a fully-fledged,
and get me all duded up. I’d wear a Borsalino card-carrying atheist, but on the other hand
hat and I looked cute as the dickens — I think. Wexler, who was a psychoanalyst. He treated I don’t really think much about God. I went to
Now I’ve got enough clothes to wear some- many Hollywood people. I had private ses- Hebrew school and I had bar mitzvah in Can-
thing different every day for a couple of weeks. sions for a couple of years, and then started ada and up until that point I was quite reli-
Guess what? I pick two or three things and all in a group of 15 people. This was in the early gious. A friend and I shared a physics class
the rest of my stuff is just hanging there. Eighties. The miracle of it was that if they and we decided to prove there was no God.
turned on you, it was 14 people against one We went through the Bible and found 130 or
A British critic once said, “He’s a one- and you couldn’t dismiss what they were say- 150 — I forget exactly how many — contradic-
trick pony’s one-trick pony.” My daughter was ing. It really worked. Before that I was not able tions, wrote them all out, made this little book
dying when that happened [Gehry’s daughter, to give speeches. It made me more confident and delivered it to our teacher. We were both
Leslie, died of cancer in 2008], so my defences and loosened me up. declared atheists and none of the girls in the
were down and I didn’t take it very well. I’ve school would date us. That was terrible.
never had somebody that I respect say some- I used to go sailing by myself. It clears
thing really biting. Not yet, anyway. You can your mind and you come back feeling like I have two books by my bedside: Don Quix-
be the first. everything’s going to be OK. Now I go with ote and Alice in Wonderland. You can find
friends, mostly architects or artists. We gossip today in Don Quixote: the miscommunication,
I grew up in Toronto. At the time, slot about everybody: “Did you see what Norman the misunderstanding. It’s all there. Cervantes
machines were legal in Canada, so my father Foster did this week” was on the money.
had maybe 40 or 50 of them placed in restau-
rants and he would collect the money from All of us sit around and fester over what- The challenge of designing and making
them. That didn’t last long. He did a lot of ever it is that makes us angry. The control is something is like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
things but never very successfully. One thing inside you — you can change it at the flip of Somehow it all comes together and — voilà!
he did that was quite special was dressing win- a switch, but you don’t do it because for some — it looks good and everybody likes it. I don’t
dows for a grocery store. I think he would have reason you enjoy feeling sorry for yourself. know how that happens.
liked to have worked more on the artsy side,
but he didn’t have the education. My mother I had a cousin who was a chemical engi- I love ice hockey but I can’t play any more.
always wanted to go to law school, but women neer. They were looked up to in our family, I have what every old guy has: back problems.
didn’t go to college in those days. so I thought I wanted to do that, too. In high
school, I went to visit a laboratory for chemi- Don’t overload all your problems on
My favourite thing to watch on television cal engineering and that was terribly boring. other people. Most of the problems you’ve got
is Foyle’s War. They were preparing paints for automobiles. are usually stupid things you build up in your
The guy that took me there, at the end of it he own head, and aren’t really that relevant. Real
I was having trouble with the first said, “I don’t know what you’re going to be, but sickness — when you lose a kid — that was hor-
wife and probably drinking a little and run- this ain’t for you.” rible. I spent almost every day at the hospital
ning away from things. One day a friend of with my daughter for three or four months.
mine said, “I’m taking you somewhere and Did I feel ready for fatherhood? The That was really hard. Except for things like
I want you to shut up.” He took me to Milton first time around it was complicated. We had that, I think we’re lucky to be here.
December 2017
184
A SPECIAL
BOND
The last of 007’s
famous Sixties Aston
Martins was the DBS
— no bullet shield, tyre
slashers or machine
guns, but four seats
and a striking,
muscular Seventies-
heralding redesign.
Will Hersey raises his
Martini to the iconic
car’s half century
Photographs by
Christoffer Rudquist
Esquire Design Special
185 This 1967 DBS is finished in Dubonnet Rosso paint with a beige leather interior and carries chassis number 61
186
December 2017
December 2017
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