February 2012
4 posts
LAST FEW DAYS OF THE SALE
Untipped Woven Shantung 7cm Silk Tie
Navy with red, green and gold stripes
Code: BQBH.01140.001
Was £105.00 NOW £75.00
Woven 7cm Silk Tie
Navy and white micro square motif
Code: WFBW.01224.003
Was £95.00 NOW £65.00
Vintage Norwegian Ski Motif Scarf with Hand Knot Tassels
Navy, grey, red,chalk
Code: RW01.11034.001
Was £95.00 NOW £65.00
100% Cashmere Woven Check...
S/S 2012 Sports Jackets
This is admittedly a bit of a brash commercial, but we’ve had such an enthusiastic response to our Fall and Winter sports jackets we wanted to toot our own horn about our Spring and Summer range. We’ve done two new models, a double-breasted and a single-breasted, both in thoroughly classic styling, exquisitely light construction, and the finest fabrics we could find. Simple and elegantly...
Our Collaboration with Adam Dant
Today we’re moving our new Spring collection into Clifford Street. We’re also hanging internationally acclaimed, Jerwood prize winning artist Adam Dant’s ‘The Dissolution of the Call Centre’, 2009!
Here Adam explains where the idea for this series of drawings came from:
‘I purchased The Book of Revolutions, for a few pounds from a homeless man who had laid it out,...
Spring/Summer '12 coming soon...
January 2012
2 posts
Jazz Singing
Jazz musicians never play anything the same way once.
Shelly Manne
When it comes to jazz singing, scat is one of those things that quickly divides people: you either love it or you find it an irritating, incomprehensibly stupid waste of talent and time. I fall into the former group for two reasons.
Firstly and most importantly, I simply find the...
Sixteen Stylish Maxims for the New Year
Style and taste are a particular sort of intelligence, and vice versa.
Aesthetic judgments rarely transcend the culture of the judge.
The style of studied nonchalance is the psychological triumph of grace over order.
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things. Which is why Fashion is shallow, but taste is deep.
There’s no right or wrong about style. Like a poem, it simply is what it...
December 2011
5 posts
Untipped Handrolled Ties
Neckwear seems to have been around forever. Tied scarves are worn by the legionaries decorating Trajan’s column in Rome (113 AD), and each of the 7,500 soldiers in the Shih Huang Ti terracotta army ( 221 BC) so recently discovered in China is wearing a carefully tied silk neck cloth. Over the ensuing years needless to say we’ve found any number of ways to make and tie pieces of cloth around...
Formalwear
As we’re getting into the holiday season, we thought we’d say a few words about formalwear, specifically the dinner jacket. The dinner jacket and its attendant accessories are the most restrained and prescribed attire usually found in a gentleman’s wardrobe (not counting formal academic attire and other uniforms, you understand).
As occasional evening dress of a celebratory or festive nature,...
Small Leather Goods
We wanted to take a minute to mention a somewhat neglected subject in a man’s wardrobe: small leather goods. You know, wallets, card cases, business envelopes, weekend bags, that sort of thing.
Our philosophy has always been that it’s these small appurtenances, these oft neglected touches of style that make such a large impression on others, and the man who dismisses these details does so at...
Gary Cooper
There’s just no other way to put this. I’ve just published a book about film legend Gary Cooper, Gary Cooper: Enduring Style (and this is very much a plug), and the good folks at Drake’s have allowed me to talk about it a bit here. You can’t ask for better than that. And not entirely irrelevant either, since Cooper was one of those leading men of the Golden Age of Hollywood when style mattered....
Suede Shoes
The incomparable Mr Barnes, courtesy of The Sartorialist
Since autumn’s here it seems a good time to talk about suede shoes, a stalwart of the tweed-flannel wardrobe. Suede isn’t a recent innovation in the production of leather, we really don’t know who first decided to use the reverse side of the hide. Most often the outside of the animal’s skin – the “hair” side – is used for the outside of...
November 2011
3 posts
Vintage Jewellery (and other paraphernalia)
We usually leave most of the jewellery to the ladies. Gentleman’s needs in that department are few: a good watch (wrist or pocket), discreet ring (monogrammed or wedding), and perhaps a bit of what we like to think of as shirt jewellery. A collar pin, tie bar, cufflinks, and of course a stud set for formal occasions. Smoking is so politically incorrect these days that cigarette and cigar...
Dressing Gowns: The Short History
Nobody talks much about at-home leisure wear. But since homes seem once again destined to become more and more places of refuge, as well as entertainment centers, it’s an important part of the wardrobe. I’m putting my money on the dressing gown: it’s both comfortable, infinitely capable of variation from simple to ornate, and easily fitted.
From the Middle Ages until well into the...
On Craftsmanship
An Old Chinese Proverb “When you buy the best, you only cry once.”
I’d like to say a few words on the nature of CRAFTSMANSHIP, not in the technical sense, but in the spirit of the endeavor. When he was a young man, the 19th Century German romantic poet Heinrich Heine took a tour of the French cathedrals with a friend. They saved the great cathedral at Amiens...
October 2011
2 posts
Drake's and Bruce Boyer
It’s no secret that I’ve been associated with Drake’s for a while now. My interest and subsequent friendship with Michael Drake and Michael Hill began several years ago when I first saw their handsome ties and scarves at a trade show in Manhattan. Since then I’ve looked forward with great anticipation to each new season’s offerings, and become a member of that unofficial club of collectors who...
Drake’s Jackets: Easy English Elegance
Actually, our step hasn’t really been audacious at all. We’re not ones to rush into things, so we’ve been thinking about jackets for a while now. Our idea was to do a small, special selection of sports jackets with a decidedly British aesthetic of nonchalant elegance, but with an Italian sensibility for meticulous construction and soft tailoring. Since we didn’t want to foist our experiments on...