09.06.17
menswear edition grace wales bonner
The woman shaping men’s fashion
Barre flies
Hanging out with London’s ballet boys
Curiouser & bi-curiouser
Charlie Gilmour’s sexual awakening
Plus: The modern dandy’s little
black book and how to wear this season’s trends
jared leto An intimate audience with a counterculture icon
contents HAVAIANAS espadrilles, £30 (havaianas-store.com)
7 Menswear, Moriarty and makes-ya-think art in CAPITAL GAINS 8 Laura Craik on holiday dressing down in UPFRONT 10 Our MOST WANTED are Camper’s kicking trainers 12 Alexa Chung can do no wrong in FLASHBULB 15 From tartan to skatewear, the MEN’S TRENDS to know 21 Designer beats and grooming treats in MEN’S STYLE 22 Just JARED LETO: Oscar-winner, fashion muse, rock climber COVER Jared Leto photographed by Cedric Buchet. Styled by Jenny Kennedy. DIOR HOMME blazer, £980 (020 7355 5930). VERSACE top, £430 (versace.com). CARRERA sunglasses, £116, at eyewearbrands.com
30 London’s hottest BALLET BOYS take a bow
GRACE WALES BONNER , menswear maven 38 What it means to be HETEROFLEXIBLE 43 Your essential grooming guide in BEAUTY 45 GRACE & FLAVOUR embraces salad days
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at Maple & King’s
Here are the ES team’s top five summertime men’s fashion must-haves
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the shoes ‘These classic espadrilles are perfect to hide the toes away during the warm weather.’ Eniola Dare, fashion assistant
47 Viva la España with TART’s chorizo stew
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49 Sensible sipping in DRINKS 50 Dermot O’Leary’s MY LONDON
the bag ‘Red alert — this rucksack by Dior Homme is a must-have for the season.’ Jenny Kennedy, fashion editor
Belstaff sunglasses , £165 (belstaff.com)
the sunglasses ‘Belstaff has just launched eyewear and these lightweight aviators are handmade in Japan and fitted with premium Zeiss lenses.’ Katrina Israel, fashion features director
DIOR HOMME Newave rucksack, £1,150 (dior.com)
2 etro straw Panama hat, £155, at mrporter.com
the hat ‘The Panama is a classic holiday essential, and this one with a sunny peach and red trim transports me to central Havana before I’ve even stepped on the plane.’ Andy Taylor, acting art editor
Visit us online: standard.co.uk/esmagazine • Follow us:
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the shorts ‘From morning workouts to lunch in the sun, the Orlebar Brown + Bodyism collab Gym to Swim shorts are possibly the most versatile men’s holiday piece to pack.’ Wendy Tee, acting art director
orlebar brown Bellamy Gym to Swim shorts, £125 (orlebarbrown.com)
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Editor Laura Weir Acting Editor Charlotte Ross Deputy editor Anna van Praagh Features director Alice-Azania Jarvis Acting art director Wendy Tee Fashion director Nicky Yates Fashion features director Katrina Israel Commissioning editor Dipal Acharya Beauty editor Katie Service Associate features editor Hamish MacBain Features writer Frankie McCoy Lifestyle assistant Lily Worcester
Art editor Jessica Landon Picture editor Helen Gibson Picture desk assistant Clara Dorrington Social media editor Natalie Salmon Office administrator/editor’s PA Niamh O’Keeffe
Merchandise editor Sophie Paxton Fashion editor Jenny Kennedy Fashion assistant Eniola Dare Chief sub editor Matt Hryciw
Contributing editors Lucy Carr-Ellison, Tony Chambers, James Corden, Hermione Eyre, Richard Godwin, Daisy Hoppen, Jemima Jones, Anthony Kendal, David Lane, Annabel Rivkin, Teo van den Broeke, Hikari Yokoyama Group client strategy director Deborah Rosenegk Head of magazines Christina Irvine
ES Magazine is published weekly and is available only with the London Evening Standard. ES Magazine is published by Evening Standard Ltd, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, Kensington, London W8 5TT. ES is printed web offset by Wyndeham Bicester. Paper supplied by Perlen Paper AG. Colour transparencies or any other material submitted to ES Magazine are sent at owner’s risk. Neither Evening Standard Ltd nor their agents accept any liability for loss or damage. © Evening Standard Ltd 2016. Reproduction in whole or part of any contents of ES Magazine without prior permission of the editor is strictly prohibited
09.06.17 es magazine
capital gains What to do in London by FRANKIE McCOY
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To see or not to see
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Well see, obviously — if you can get tickets for Robert Icke’s production of Hamlet, which transfers to the Harold Pinter Theatre and stars Andrew Scott (above) as the Danish prince, alongside Juliet Stevenson and Jessica Brown Finlay. Tickets from £10. 9 June to 2 September (almeida.co.uk)
Fashion FREEBIE If your FROW ticket for London Fashion Week Men’s has got lost in the post, strut instead to St James’s free LFWM Jermyn Street catwalk show, where 25 local menswear brands will be showcased and you can buy clothes straight away. Free registration. 10 June (stjameslondon.co.uk)
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Exhibitionism rules
Prepare your best knowing nod for the 249th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, with more than 1,200 works from UK and international artists on display for investors to snap up and the rest of us to ponder. £15.50. 13 June to 20 August (royalacademy.org.uk)
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An exercise in philanthropy
Illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas, Manuel Harlan, Hassan Hajjaj, Eileen Cooper/Royal Academy of Arts
Work out for charity without hassling colleagues by signing up to Strong Women 4 Strong Women — HIIT sessions with top PTs across London, with all proceeds going to support the education of girls in Uganda. Bootcamp tickets are £10. 10 June (strongwomen4strongwomen.com)
GRAB your seat
What’s a dinner without superstrength cocktails, top London DJs and dancing on the tables? Head to Hoi Polloi’s Super Hot Sitting Spot every Friday from 8pm-1am at the Ace Hotel for all of the above, with next day’s hangover thrown in for free. Free entry. Every Friday (hoi-polloi.co.uk)
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last chance: Get snap happy at The Photographers’
Gallery in Soho before the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize comes to an end on 11 June. (thephotographersgallery.org.uk)
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Streets ahead
Get up close and personal with some of photojournalist Neil Libbert’s revealing black-and-white images, taken on streets around the world and documenting radical social changes in the Fifties and Sixties, at the Michael Hoppen Gallery. Until 21 July (michaelhoppengallery.com)
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24-hour party people
Not a fan of collapsing tents or gurning punks? Head to Finsbury Park for the London debut of the one-day Southport Weekender Festival, known as ‘the world’s friendliest party’, where headliners include Kerri Chandler and DJ Jazzy Jeff (left). Tickets from £47.50 10 June (southport weekenderfestival.com)
look ahead: Smoke & Salt takes the place of Kricket at Pop Brixton, with all manner of smoked, cured, fermented and pickled goodies, on 19 June. (smokeandsalt.com)
09.06.17 es magazine
upfront Laura Craik on men’s fashion fails,
honeymoon no-nos and female modesty
I
jog on, pippa Aahh, honeymoons. The beaches. The cocktails. The staying in bed until noon. The… jogging? Isn’t that the thing you do before the wedding, then never do again until your firstborn is six months old? Now that Pippa Middleton has aced it as a bride, you would hope she’d cut herself some slack. But no: she and her new beau have been spotted jogging around Sydney. But beneath her beatific smile, the questions are forming in her mind: ‘Why can’t we just have a lunchtime beer like normal people?’ That’s the problem with marrying a self-made billionaire: relaxation doesn’t come easy. Faced with shagging,
es magazine 09.06.17
Nailing it: clockwise from left, Orlando Bloom, Liam Hemsworth and Brooklyn Beckham
10/ 10: Tinie Tempah, right; 0/ 10: Boris Johnson, above
“Man’s holiday look = sandals with Velcro fastenings + pink shorts + polo shirt with a number on the back” sunbathing or climbing a 134-metre bridge (as Pippa and James Matthews did earlier in their Sydney trip), they’ll choose the bridge. Still, you know what they say: the couple that jogs together, stays together.* *They don’t. I have never heard anyone say this, ever. Nonetheless, I hope that it’s true. TELL IT LIKE IT IS ‘People were fine with me as an actress, but with Goop it was like, “stay in your lane”,’ said Gwyneth Paltrow in a recent interview. ‘Women in general get a lot of pushback, especially if you’re successful and attractive… I’m not saying I’m attractive. I mean when you’re considered attractive.’ Like, WTF? Seriously? The pictures with this interview are ravishing. She manages to pull off a triangle bikini. In mustard. Her hair sets new standards for Ultimate Summer Blonde. Yet here’s a beautiful woman forced into tedious self-effacement mode for fear of… what? Being accused of having too high an opinion of herself? Say you’re attractive, Gwyneth. Own it. If someone as hot as you can’t say it, it puts the rest of womankind in a very strange position.
HOT Voting If you’re reading this on Thursday, YOU HAVE UNTIL 10PM!!!
NOT Not voting Repeat: YOU HAVE UNTIL 10PM!!!
Josh Shinner, Photoshot, Getty Images, Eroteme, Alamy
type this with tanned hands, for I have been on holiday. Twice. Just in case you missed it on Instagram. No, really, have a look. The pics are as dreary and irritating to all except my immediate family as everyone else’s holiday pics. They’re also as painstakingly curated. Although it wasn’t just the mosquito bites and family arguments that were edited out. It was the menswear. Every time I tried to snap a pretty view, a man would stroll into the frame, in shorts festooned with lobsters. It started at the airport — a twenty-something bloke in a floral dress and pink, fluffy slippers — and got worse from there. Slipperboy was clearly on a stag do: what was everyone else’s excuse? Blindness? Sunstroke? Boris Johnson as a sartorial role model? I’m not even talking about the usual ‘oh God, men’s sandals — aren’t they awful? Put your hobbit feet away before I barf’ schtick. Plenty of women (okay, me) have hairy toes, and often forget to shave them. Besides, if women will insist on wearing ‘cold shoulder’ tops, they’re hardly in a position to slag off mandals. Holiday dressing is rarely anyone’s finest hour. That said, if you cast your eyes over a group of women on holiday, you will at least glean some sense of what year we’re in. With men, it’s often hard to tell the decade. Woman’s holiday look = pool slides (ideally with a wedge, for extra leg length) + jaunty beach bag + white broderie anglais to show off the tan. Man’s holiday look = sandals with Velcro fastenings + pink shorts + polo shirt with a large number on the back, presumably to convey some sort of rugby prowess. It’s the same look — possibly the same garments — they’ve been wearing since circa 1996. They need to google these guys (above right) to stop them blighting the horizon with their strange, off-duty estate agent ways.
THE most WANTED
OVER THE LINE Camper steps up with its graphically good Drift trainer Camper Drift trainer, £110, from late July (camper.com)
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PHOTOGRAPH BY john gribben STYLED BY sophie paxton
FLASHBULB! Party pictures from around town
Dame Natalie Massenet
by FRANKIE McCOY photographs by james peltekian Hannah Weiland Tallulah Harlech
Fern Bain Smith
Lady Frances von Hofmannsthal
Good vibrations Marylebone
Charlie Siddick
Paul Simonon
Wouldn’t it be nice if more fashion shows were presented like the summer collection from new label Alexachung: in the beautiful Danish Church of Saint Katharine with the Capital Children’s Choir trilling Beach Boys tunes? Pixie Geldof and actress Natasha Lyonne watched the confetti-peppered finale before Chung jumped in a rickshaw to The Aviary Bar, for a dance-off with Noel Fielding and The Kills.
Grace Wales Bonner
Pam Hogg Suzy Menkes
top hats Bethnal Green
Looking good for a century, eh Stephen Jones? The milliner — wearing a hat made of newspaper — hosted a ‘Stephen Jones 100th Birthday Gala Duggie Dinner’ at Bistrotheque to celebrate Fields both his 60th birthday and his 40 years in hat-making with oceans of Perriet-Jouët and a crew of friends, from Giles Deacon to Katie Grand. Hats off to you.
Alexa Chung
Lili Sumner
Hamish Bowles
Emilia Wickstead Stephen Jones
Harriet Longhurst Pixie Geldof
Katie Grand
Henry Holland
Patrick Grant
Tom Parker Bowles
Nick Grimshaw Grace Dent
Camilla Kerslake
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Anouska Beckwith
Sam McKnight Lucinda Chambers
Stephanie Omorojor
Jack Whitehall
Giles Deacon
FoodIE FUN The City
Fergus Henderson
Too many chefs made for one hell of a party, as Angela Hartnett, Nuno Mendes and Claude Bosi toasted London Food Month’s launch at Banking Hall. After speeches from Tom Parker Bowles and Grace Dent, Fergus Henderson made a French exit behind the Jaffa Cake puds, while Jack Whitehall partied among the posh pork pies with Nick Grimshaw.
Isaac Carew Angela Hartnett
GO TO eveningstandard.co.uk / ESMAGAZINE FOR MORE PARTY PICTURES
TRENDWATCH Street deluxe
TIFFANY & CO cuff, £470 (tiffany.co.uk)
EDITED BY KATRINA ISRAEL
PUMA x THE KOOPLES trainers, £150 (thekooples. co.uk)
APC coat, £330 (020 7729 7727) SMYTHSON backpack, £995 (smythson.com)
OAMC trousers, £343, at matchesfashion.com
Jason Lloyd-Evans
LOUIS VUITTON AW17
POLAROID camera, £145, at mrporter. com
Louis Vuitton’s super-hyped Supreme collaboration elevates skatewear to cult status, while Berluti dresses up denim and Gucci unbuttons classic shirting. Casual Fridays beware
GUCCI shirt, £290, at mrporter.com
TOMMY HILFIGER cap, £25 (uk. tommy.com)
BELL & ROSS watch, £2,450 (020 7629 6464)
BAMFORD headphones, £499, at Dover Street Market (020 7518 0680)
RON DORFF trainers, £275 (rondorff.com) BERLUTI jacket, £1,580, at mrporter.com
CARHARTT WIP jacket, £130 (carharttwip.com)
HERCULIE T-shirt, £65 (herculie.com)
09.06.17 ES MAGAZINE 15
BULY 1803 comb, £33, at mrporter.com
TRENDWATCH Modern dandy
GARRETT LEIGHT sunglasses, £250, at brownsfashion.com
ETRO trousers, £355, at matchesfashion. com
LIBERTY LONDON shirt, £130 (libertylondon. com)
RUSSELL & BROMLEY loafers, £225 (russellandbromley.co.uk)
TOPMAN belt, £12 (topman.com)
OAMC shirt, £360, at matches fashion.com
CHRISTOPHER SHANNON EDP, £38 (christophershannon. com). Available from 11 June
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Traditional tartan, Liberty florals and colourful embroidery lead a beatnik charge from Paul Smith to Givenchy. This season’s prints are definitely charming
GIVENCHY shirt, £570, at mrporter. com
TOM DIXON bookmark, £15 (tomdixon.net)
LONDON UNDERCOVER umbrella, £125 (london undercover.com)
FENDI bag, £720 (fendi.com)
Jason Lloyd-Evans
DIESEL shirt, £100 (uk.diesel. com)
PAUL SMITH AW17
GUCCI jacket (part of suit) £1,790, at mrporter.com
TRENDWATCH Undone tailoring NEW LOOK top, £9.99 (newlook.com)
ACNE STUDIOS shoes, £410 (acnestudios. com)
KAZUYUKI KUMAGAI trousers, £575, at browns fashion.com
CANALI top, £260 (canali.com)
COS jacket, £99 (cosstores.com)
LARSSON & JENNINGS watch, £1,195 (larsson andjennings.com)
ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA COUTURE AW17
TOMORROWLAND trousers, £475, at matchesfashion.com
TOD’S top, £390, at mrporter.com
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G-STAR RAW RESEARCH II cap, £90, at Dover Street Market (020 7518 0680)
CARTIER glasses, £410 (cartier.co.uk)
BOGLIOLI blazer, £600, at mrporter.com
KURT GEIGER boots, £120 (kurtgeiger.com)
SUNSPEL polo, £75 (sunspel.com)
VALEXTRA briefcase, £1,780 (valextra.com)
Ermenegildo Zegna Couture, Jason Lloyd-Evans
Casual blazers and contrasting trousers define Alessandro Sartori’s debut at Ermenegildo Zegna Couture, while fine-knit polos and neutral shades prevail at Canali, Cos and Acne Studios. Time to relax the suit
MEN’S STYLE What to buy now by TEO VAN DEN BROEKE, style director OF esquire UK
cottweiler ss17
HOME COMFORTS
Male grooming brands are two-apenny these days, so it takes something special to stand out. British line Heath is one of the best (and best-priced) I’ve seen in a while. The just-mattifying-enough Moisturiser contains Soliberine NAT, which protects against harmful blue smartphone light (who knew?) while the citrus-scented Hair + Body Wash contains energyboosting creatine to strengthen and soften hair. (heathlondon.co.uk)
This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of London Fashion Week Men’s: a showcase of the cream of London’s menswear crop. Here are my top three designers to watch: • Nicholas Daley, who launched his brand in 2015 specialising in contemporary, workwear-inspired menswear. • Cottweiler, loved by everyone from Skepta to FKA twigs, which pulls off smart streetwear with a twist. • Edward Crutchley, a Fashion East alumnus whose SS17 line has been picked up by Brown’s and does brilliant oversized, embroidered shorts and patterned shirts.
Sounding ON
CRAIG GREEN jacket, £490, at Dover Street Market (020 7518 0680)
CRAIG GREEN anorak, £840, at matches fashion.com
Illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas
green party
The big name at LFWM, British designer Craig Green is known for his poetic, patchwork men’s clothing. For those of us not brave enough to carry off Green’s more avantgarde main line (who can forget AW13’s ‘Man with Plank’?), good news comes with the launch of his Core Collection: a selection of superbly made wide-legged trousers and padded worker jackets, finished with Green’s trademark strings.
For high-quality headphones, German brand Sennheiser is the go-to. Unsurprising, then, that Dior Homme has collaborated with the company on a new sonic collection comprising headphones, earphones and a home sound system. Dior Homme X Sennheiser Finished in signature PXC 550 Wireless, black and red, the noise£880, at Harvey Nichols (020 cancelling headphones are 7235 5000) perfect for long-haul flights.
known unknown
CRAIG GREEN trousers, £364, at Selfridges (0800 123400)
Into The Unknown is the summer showstopper at the Barbican, and it’s well worth being sucked into its orbit. Highlights include a Nasa mission control by Territory Studio (the creative agency that worked on The Martian) and manuscripts and models from Jules Verne and Ray Harryhausen. Tickets £14.50. To 1 September (barbican.org.uk)
NICHOLAS DALEY SS17
LONDON CALLING
EDWARD CRUTCHLEY shirt, £750, at brownsfashion.com
COMMON PROJECTS desert boots, £385, at mrporter.com
Jimmy Choo chukka boots, £525 (jimmychoo.com)
CLARKS desert boots, £95 (clarks.co.uk)
Just DESERTS
First worn by soldiers and defined by a crepe sole and a high-top suede upper, desert boots offer an understated way to tackle summer in style. This season’s best can be found at Jimmy Choo, cult New York brand Common Projects and, naturally, Clarks Originals. Just be sure to invest in suede protector before heading out.
09.06.17 es magazine 21
LOU DALTON jacket, POA (loudalton.com). SUNSPEL vest, £30 (sunspel.com). GUCCI necklace, £220 (gucci.com)
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do not dive lightly ‘Iinto the abyss any more’ Oscar-winner. Rock star. Style icon. Is there anything Jared Leto can’t do? Richard Godwin visits the multi-talented star at home to hear about getting clean, hanging out with Leo and why he doesn’t want children PhotographS BY cedric buchet stylED BY jenny kennedy
J
ared Leto made a three-word resolution for 2017. ‘Don’t. Waste. Time.’ He raps his fist on the table to emphasise each word. He has been reading a book by the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca on the ‘shortness of life’, he explains, his turquoise eyes shimmering under the California sun. ‘It’s incredible that this guy lived a couple thousand years ago and you read it and it sounds like someone who’s alive right now. We’re on borrowed time. We only have so much energy. It’s important for me to spend it really wisely.’ If Leto, 45, has been pissing around up to this point, you worry what he might accomplish when he gets serious. He has spent a career diving head first into roles — as teen idol, oblivion-seeking hedonist, method actor, emo frontman, rock-climber, start-up founder, fashion plate — and always landing on his feet. He won an Oscar for his turn as an HIVpositive transgender woman in The Dallas Buyers Club in 2014. Soon, he’ll add Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited Blade Runner sequel to a CV that includes Fight Club,
PRADA jumper, £1,375; trousers, £595 (prada.com). CARRERA 130/S sunglasses,£141, at redhotsunglasses.co.uk
American Psycho and Requiem for a Dream. His most acclaimed roles arrived after he disregarded all Hollywood counsel and spent four years touring with Thirty Seconds to Mars, the band that he started with his brother, Shannon, back in 1998. It stands out among actor side-projects in not being embarrassingly crap, selling 15 million records of pleasingly histrionic arena rock and entering the Guinness World Records for performing 300 shows in one tour. He’s currently mixing their fifth album. ‘It’s easy to write four songs a day, the real work is editing it all down,’ he laments. Leto also serves as chief Instagram muse and confidant to Gucci creative director
Alessandro Michele, and managed to pull off a lilac violet dressing gown at its recent cruise collection show. Today he’s in Carrera ski shades (he’s the brand’s 2017 ambassador) and a ripped T-shirt by the cult Parisian label Enfants Riches Déprimés. He was an early investor in Uber, Airbnb, Nest and Reddit, and in 2011 founded the live-streaming service VyRT. He scales 3,000ft cliff faces in Joshua Tree National Park to wind down from this. And even his tomfoolery is nextlevel — he once sent some anal beads and a dead pig to Margot Robbie and the rest of his Suicide Squad castmates to get in the zone to play The Joker in the twisted superhero film. You might put his industriousness down
09.06.17 es magazine 23
to his veganism or his recent disavowal of stimulants. ‘I do not dive lightly into the abyss any more,’ he says. He mostly credits his artist mother, Constance, who raised Leto and his brother with help from her own parents after their father walked out when Leto was a baby (he committed suicide when Leto was eight). His grandfather was in the US Air Force so the family moved around a lot — and Constance later joined various artistic communes. ‘She encouraged me that a creative path is a worthy one. It was really brave of her to do that. The creative path is one that is fraught with imbalance and uncertainty, self-consciousness, fear and doubt.’ It was also as a child that he first read Frederich Nietzsche. ‘The Will to Power is such a fascinating thing,’ he says. ‘I think we’re probably more responsible for the definition of ourselves than most of us would think. Probably. A great deal of the world thinks that… they may not have as much… authority in their own lives as they do.’ He chooses his words with exquisite care. ‘But I have found that we are… very responsible for our stories. Yep.’ We are talking by his swimming pool under the shade of a jacaranda tree at his home in the Hollywood Hills. I say home. Leto resides in a 50,000 sq ft disused Air Force base nestled into the mountains. It was built as an air defence compound during the Second World War and features a deep bomb shelter, weapons vaults and radar station. Once the Pacific had been made safe from Japanese invaders, it served as a military film studio, producing the public information f ilms that told Americans what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Head to Jared Leto’s place. That’s what you should do. It was his mother who sent him the link to the property; perhaps it seemed homely to her. Leto told her, ‘You’re crazy,’ but fell in love when he saw it. There is more than enough space to house a tech start-up, a recording studio, various recuperating friends, meditation rooms, etc, and to host wild parties. In fact, it’s so voluminous, Leto hasn’t managed to decorate most of the rooms, so it’s monastic in its bareness. Still, the Air Force did have surprisingly good taste: mid-century window fittings, Spanish revival f loor tiles, white washed walls. Is it true they faked the moon landings here? ‘God knows what they did here,’ he says. ‘But it talks. We’ve already had ghost sightings reported by my housekeeper. A
GUCCI cape, £1,610; necklace, £220 (gucci.com). SUNSPEL vest, as before. ALEXANDER McQUEEN trousers, £420, at mrporter.com
“The creative path is fraught with imbalance and uncertainty, fear and doubt”
09.06.17 es magazine 25
handyman quit the project as he had an encounter. But I feel quite at home up here. It’s like a refuge. You’re at the top of this mountain. There’s this breeze coming through. It’s hard to leave.’ Did I tell you how captivating Leto is? I mean really quite dreamy to look at, even behind his straggly beard (a relic from the Netflix movie The Outsider, in which he plays an American prisoner of war who falls in with the Japanese Yakuza in jail). I once spent a long time contemplating that face as it was Blu-Tacked to the wall above the bed of an ancient girlfriend of mine, who fell for Leto in his breakout role as Jordan Catalano in the never-bettered mid-1990s teen drama My So-Called Life. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he says. ‘If you were in the bed with her then it could have been worse I guess.’ But it’s not really just those elfin features. It’s a spacey intensity that you only usually find in cult leaders and people who have done a lot of hallucinogens. He chooses his words carefully, as if he has a hard time translating his thoughts into Earthling. He is a Capricorn, he tells me, which would correlate with his goat-like fondness for mountains as well as a solitary nature. He is currently single (he dated Scarlett Johansson and Cameron Diaz many moons ago) and has no plans to reproduce. ‘I think it’s really important to be present if you have children. I have a lot of… things to take care of,’ he explains. He is close to Alessandro Michele, whom he considers a ‘wonderful man’, and they hang out in Rome when they can. ‘He’s a really kind person. Unaffected. Creative. Talented. He’s a legitimate good friend of mine, not just a business or a showbusiness friend. I don’t have many friends so I do enjoy spending time with the few that I have.’ He counts Leonardo DiCaprio in this small coterie, too. ‘He’s really funny. I’ve known him for a very long time. But he’s usually busy. There are people I’m really enamoured with but it’s hard to find time to spend with them.’ Still, he has things to fall back on. The critical acclaim he received for Dallas Buyers Club was a vindication for Leto, whose musical sabbatical was until then seen as an eccentric career choice. He reflects that times have changed and holding down twin careers in music and movies isn’t so unusual (see Janelle Monae, Justin Timberlake, Mos Def). His next film is Blade Runner 2049. ‘I play a character called Neander Wallace — to be honest they had me at the name,’ he says. In the trailer, he appears as a black-eyed medium, murmuring a monologue to
BALENCIAGA shirt, £225; tie, £135 (balenciaga.com). CARRERA 130/S sunglasses, as before
“I think it’s important to be present if you have children. I have a lot of things to take care of”
09.06.17 es magazine 27
With, from left, Viola Davis, Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Joel Kinnaman at the Suicide Squad premiere
Jared Leto with then girlfriend Cameron Diaz in 2002
With Scarlett Johansson in 2004
With Margot Robbie
The cast of the 2000 film American Psycho
Harrison Ford. ‘I read the script and fell in love with the character. But I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about it — I may have already got in trouble for telling you the name...’ He pauses. ‘I can tell you that the experience of making it was one of the highlights of my film career.’ He rates seeing Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner as one of the seminal moments of his childhood. ‘Throughout my life I’ve always gone back to that film. There was something in it that really touched me and taught me a lot about cinema. There’s a level of craftsmanship and beauty that’s unparalleled.’ You might say the same about Leto’s own methods. To prepare for his role as a junkie in Requiem for a Dream, he spent a couple of weeks with actual junkies (shooting up with water, he insists). For Dallas Buyers Club, he arrived on set dressed as a woman and then got changed into character. To play The Joker, he spent hours watching violent crimes on YouTube and then delighted his cast mates by sending them live rats and used condoms to ‘create an element of surprise, a spontaneity and to really break down any kind of walls that might be there…’ The Atlantic wondered if he had ‘ruined method acting for good’. He smiles. ‘I don’t think I need to do it for every role. I mean if I was in Baywatch II, I don’t think I’d need to do it. That would be so much fun, to be in a movie as fun as that. But everyone’s got to do what works for them. Some people can be eating chicken nuggets with a stripper on their lap and then jump right into it. I’ve always just done what I have to do in order to do a good job — and I feel I do a better job when I give a
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bigger commitment. The shows that stand out with Thirty Seconds to Mars are the ones where I’m willing to cross the line and step into that uncomfortable place of imbalance, where I don’t understand what’s going to happen next. The same is true of climbing.’ Climbing rock faces is now his drug of choice; he appreciates nature more as he matures. ‘The act of climbing itself is really a deep, introspective conversation with yourself about your limitations and your ability. There’s a lot of success and failure involved. And you learn a ton. I’m enamoured with it.’
“The great thing about death is that it allows new life. it’s an inevitable and important part of evolution” He pushes himself pretty hard, too. ‘I almost died recently,’ he says, matter-offactly. ‘I’ve been close a few times in my life. There was a moment in Yosemite where I was hanging off Taft Point, which is about 3,000 feet, overlooking the valley… I remember having a very direct conMatthew versation with myself.’ McConaughey and Leto with About what? ‘About their Oscars the inefficiency of in 2014 losing my mind. About how impor-
Leto with Gucci’s Alessandro Michele
Leto with his mother Constance and brother Shannon at the 2014 Oscars
tant it is for survival, it was to stay as calm as I could.’ He is, on balance, fairly cool with death. ‘The great thing about death is that it allows new life. It’s an inevitable and important part of evolution. You have to say goodbye so that new ideas, new thoughts, new people can evolve.’ He smiles. ‘I studied very old people for a film project once, and they were generally pretty happy to say goodbye.’ He is, however, psyched about the ‘biomedical revolution’ we’re going to witness over the next 10 years. As a tech investor, he would be — Silicon Valley is currently pumping billions of dollars into lifeextension, genetic editing, nootropics, bionic limbs and artificial intelligence. Leto is particularly taken with the Singularity, the quasi-mystical belief among technologists that one day we will all merge consciousness with an omniscient artificial intelligence and upload ourselves into the cloud. ‘It’s inevitable that will happen at some point.’ You think? ‘Of course! You’d have to be a monkey not to realise that. The difference between ourselves and our technology will be hard to decipher and determine. I mean, this is a long time in the future, but we are going to become an interplanetary species. Culture and society will advance. And we will become indistinguishable from the technology that gets us there. If you refuse you are going to be left behind in the Dark Ages. You won’t even be able to talk to people, you’ll be grunting compared to the language that they speak.’ He tries to reassure me. ‘It’s far away but I don’t think it’s science fiction. I think it’s reality. Haven’t you had that thing, where you dream something and it sort of... happens?’ Less often than Jared Leto, I imagine.
Getty Images; Alamy; PA; Rex
On stage with Thirty Seconds to Mars
Raising the barre Modelling this season’s hottest trends, London’s top male ballet dancers talk to Dipal Acharya about power breakfasts, Netflix addictions and the songs that get them on the dance floor PhotographS BY ELLIOT KENNEDY stylED BY ROSE FORD
thiago soares
Soares’ rise to principal at The Royal Ballet has been a colourful one. The 36-year-old Brazilian began his training not at the barre but at circus school in Rio where he ‘learnt all the basics of movement and acrobatics’. A brief stint with a local hip-hop crew followed, during which a choreographer encouraged him to apply to Rio’s Centre for Dance. Since then, Soares has performed with St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet and the Bolshoi — ‘My first big role was Solor in La Bayadère. I was full of energy. I was like a little animal.’ He eventually joined The Royal Ballet in 2002, where he partnered with Marianela Nuñez — both on stage and off — becoming one half of the RB’s golden couple (the pair divorced in 2015 but remain on good terms). Next up, Soares is the subject of a new HBO documentary by director Felipe Braga, which is out later this year. What’s your pre-performance ritual? ‘Eating bananas. On show day it can be as many as eight. I’m like a monkey.’
DIOR HOMME trousers, £530 (dior.com). Jewellery, Soares’ own
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e isaac hernandez
Having come from a dancing family — both his parents were dancers in Guadalajara, and of his 10 siblings his brother Esteban now dances with the San Francisco Ballet — Mexican Isaac Hernández is at the vanguard of a wave of talented Latin American dancers who have taken the capital by storm (and is rumoured to have stolen fellow ENB star Tamara Rojo’s heart). ‘To have an internationally known career at my age has created a lot of opportunities for me to raise the profile of dance back home,’ he says. To prove this point, Hernández has curated a show this summer in Mexico City, which will bring together 14 companies and perform to a crowd of 10,000 people. Does it ever feel daunting? ‘It’s been three years since I’ve been back in Mexico City, but it’s home so I felt it was important to go back.’ What’s your one indulgence? ‘I love a good burger — perhaps the result of living in America for 10 years. The one at Burger & Lobster is my favourite.’
DRIES VAN NOTEN coat, £1,000; shorts, £300 (driesvannoten.com). HOMME PLISSE ISSEY MIYAKE top, £135 (020 7851 4620)
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“last time the royal ballet was in Sydney, I was an extra in swan lake”
alexander campbell
Australian Alexander Campbell has a Netflix problem, having recently ‘burned through six seasons of Homeland in a weekend’. He’s allowed a little downtime, though, given that he was appointed principal at The Royal Ballet in 2016, dancing Prince Florimund in The Sleeping Beauty opposite Francesca Hayward. This summer will be a little like a homecoming for him as The Royal Ballet heads on tour to Brisbane (although Campbell’s own family come from Sydney): ‘It’s a big deal for me personally because The Royal Ballet haven’t performed there for 15 years. The last time they were in Sydney, I was an extra in the production of Swan Lake, just in the background providing a bit of scenery. It’s quite surreal to be going back.’ Who are your dance heroes? ‘Mikhail Baryshnikov was the first one, but then David McAllister and Mark Cassidy at The Australian Ballet always stood out, too.’
JOSEPH sweater, £325 (joseph-fashion.com). COS trousers, £69 (cossstores.com)
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ryoichi hirano
Osaka native Ryoichi Hirano has been dancing since the age of three (his mother was a ballet teacher) but his big break at The Royal Ballet came when he had to stand in last minute to play the Prince in Kenneth Macmillan’s revival of The Prince of the Pagodas. ‘I’d already performed in the matinee but got the call as I was heading home. I was exhausted but the show had to go on.’ Now marked out as one of the ballet world’s rising stars, Hirano, 33, has had to adapt to a strict daily regime. There’s the power breakfast that kicks off each day — ‘bacon, eggs and beans’ — followed by rehearsals from 10.30am until 6.30pm. ‘We lose so much energy from the long hours and physical stuff, that we have to eat a lot more than people think.’ Tell me something not a lot of people know about you? ‘I love walking. At the moment I’m walking down the Thames to its source. I’ve got about 16 miles to go.’
“we lose so much energy. we have to eat lots more than people think”
SALVATORE FERRAGAMO shirt, £355; trousers, £825 (ferragamo.com)
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“Bruno Mars’ Marry You always gets us on the dance floor”
The next six months are going to be big for Yonah Acosta. Having recovered from major knee surgery, the Cuban ballet star — and nephew of Carlos — makes his return to Covent Garden’s English National Ballet, and is also preparing for his summer wedding to fellow dancer Laurretta Summerscales. To get into shape for both that and the ENB’s summer tour of Japan, Acosta has been hitting the gym before a gruelling eight-hour daily rehearsal regime. He’s ditched his convalescent diet of ‘pizza, with everything on, even pineapple’ for a more tour- (and wedding-) friendly regime of chicken salads and fresh fruit. As for the wedding prep, all is in hand — apart from the first dance. ‘We’re not fans of a big choreographed number, but Bruno Mars’ Marry You always gets us on the dance floor.’ What’s your secret hobby? ‘Golfing, near my home in Woking, although I’m nowhere near proficient.’
DIOR top, £290; trousers, £530 (dior.com)
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Grooming by Sam Basham using Nars
yonah acosta
coup de grAce Her elegant tailoring and famous fan base have catapulted her into the fashion A-list. Katrina Israel meets Grace Wales Bonner, the woman taking menswear by storm Photograph BY Louise Haywood-Schiefer
M
ost fashion designers finish a show season and make a quick exit for the sandy shores of Tulum or Tahiti. Not Grace Wales Bonner. A couple of days after her last London Fashion Week Men’s show Britain’s most exciting menswear designer flew off to Sierra Leone, a country better known for civil war and blood diamonds than for its beautiful beaches, to shoot a portfolio with British singer Sampha. But such extracurricular, inter-disciplinary activities — often in far-flung locations — are Wales Bonner’s thing. Indeed when we meet, the designer, whose collections are a study of European and African identity, race and gender explored through demicouture fabrications, hand-crafted African embellishments and traditional Savile Row tailoring techniques, has just returned from Johannesburg. She was there working with acclaimed fashion photographer Harley Weir on the pair’s third short film together. Tracing dance traditions across South Africa and starring teenage ballet sensation Leroy Mokgatle, it premiered at the ICA last week. ‘I have created this job where I need to travel,’ explains the petit 26-year-old over carrot cake in Hackney’s Wringer + Mangle restaurant, located below her bite-sized studio. ‘It’s really important for me to do these kinds of research projects; it always informs the work. In fact it brings it.’ These projects have also helped fuel her swift, albeit considered, ascent. In 2015 the Central Saint Martins graduate presented her first men’s collection at Fashion East before taking home the Emerging Menswear Designer nod at the British Fashion Awards. Six months later she made her London Fashion Week Men’s solo debut, before being awarded 2016’s LVMH Prize (along with a £260,000 grant and a year’s mentoring) by a panel that included
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Karl Lagerfeld, Riccardo Tisci and Phoebe Philo. Incredibly, in such a time frame, her show this Saturday evening at LFWM is London’s most anticipated. Wales Bonner’s unique gift is her ability to unpack references from times gone by and cultures long forgotten to inspire luxury garments that possess a currency that feels contemporary. There’s an inbuilt elegance and intensity to everything she touches, and to the delight of men’s and womenswear buyers from Dover Street Market to matchesfashion.com, her pieces — priced from £190 to £1,825 — blur the gender divide. (FKA twigs and Kelsey Lu are female fans.) ‘It is about empowering men, and also bringing a femininity to menswear,’ explains matchesfashion.com co-founder Ruth Chapman. ‘It was clear even at her BA Central Saint Martins show that she was an exceptional student,’ says Fashion East director Lulu Kennedy MBE. ‘The mood of her shows is captivating: the rigour of her research and attention to detail, the bravery and sensitivity of her casting. There is no one like her.’ Wales Bonner’s AW17 show brought men swaggering down the
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while the eldest is a writer. ‘I had a really joyful childhood,’ she says. ‘We’re all quite creative and my parents have always been super encouraging of us. My mum was always interested in vintage clothing and my dad plays the piano, but he’s also very academic so he’s shown me the other side, too.’ Her paternal grandfather was, in fact, a tailor who emigrated from Jamaica as part of the ‘Windrush Generation’. ‘I guess for better opportunities for their children.’ Wales Bonner went to Graveney secondary school in southwest London, which she credits for her early autonomy: ‘I always had to travel quite a long way, which I think made me quite independent.’ Was it that independence which encouraged her to start her own business at such a young age? ‘I think there’s something about Saint Martins which I’ve noticed in all my friends in that it does give you this real sense of confidence and self-worth,’ she says. ‘The confidence is almost a bit unrealistic because everyone has it. When you leave you have to come down to earth and have a bit of a reality check. There are not that many jobs. I guess that’s why a lot of people do their own thing.’ That said, on the whole she’s found the industry to be nurturing. ‘People do go out of their way to be supportive and recognise when something is good, and send nice emails,’ she smiles. ‘That may be something that is quite special about the British fashion industry.’ One such supporter is Vogue UK’s incoming editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful OBE. ‘He’s shot a few things before, and I met with him about six months ago when he was still at W,’ she says. ‘He’s really sweet and hilarious. It’s really exciting,’ she adds of the announcement. ‘[He will bring] ambitious and unique editorials with an international focus.’ SS17
“it’s weird that it’s so conservative now. there are many examples in history where men have been able to be more expressive than women”
AW17
SS17
AW16
runway in capes, mules and Stephen Jones headgear, finished with a pair of hoop earrings that somehow felt soigné rather than swashbuckling. ‘I remember when I was starting my degree and looking through all of these history books and even at the Seventies and thinking: “Wow, guys dressed way more sexy or bodyc on sciou sly then a nd thei r masculinity was not questioned!”’ she says. ‘It’s weird that we’ve come back to this point now where it’s so conservative, whereas there are so many examples in history where men have been able to be more expressive than women.’ Today, with delicate hoops bejewelling her ears and her hair pulled back into a low ballet bun, she’s sporting Céline trousers along with her own silk shirt and Grace Adidas Stan Smiths — a working Wales uniform that’s pure sports luxe. Bonner at her Aside from seminal cultural Dalston figures such as SS16’s muse Malik showroom Ambar, the 16th-century Ethiopian former slave who became a military ruler in what is now India, she’s largely inspired by the sartorial flair of the streets of London, Dakar, Kingston and Paris. That inspiration extends to her inner friendship circle, which includes stylist Tom Guinness (with whom she also shares her studio), singer-songwriter Dev Hynes, musician Elysia Crampton, and the Turner Prize-nominated artist Lynette YiadomBoakye, who wrote a poem for the last show. As a woman dressing (mainly) men she says: ‘It’s about character, not really so much about a specific idea of beauty but a quality that goes across different races and ages.’ The studious daughter of a business consultant English mother and a Jamaican lawyer father, Wales Bonner grew up between Dulwich and Stockwell, the middle child of three sisters. Her younger sibling works at M&C Saatchi
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The Wales Bonner AW15 presentation
But for now her attention is concentrated on the transition from the label of a ‘rising star’ to a bankable business, while remaining independent and supporting her staff of four. ‘I wasn’t really expecting it, so it was kind of a shock, really,’ she says of last June’s LVMH Prize nod that’s afforded her a monthly meeting with a group mentor. ‘It’s been really amazing to get me to the next level, but they’ve also been really understanding about what I’m trying to do with Wales Bonner. They understand my path and how I want to do things.’ She won’t be pushed on which way she is voting, but from a business perspective, Brexit is looming large. Much of her production is done in Italy while fabrics are sourced from France. ‘In terms of importing and taxes I’m still waiting to hear how much it’s going to affect us,’ she says, visibly nervous. Like many of her east London fashion peers she frequents Bistrotheque and the odd gig, but she also meditates, does yoga twice a week and has recently taken up running in London Fields near her home in Haggerston, which she shares with her art director boyfriend and a friend. It’s no surprise that instead of chasing the Insta-revellers to Ibiza post-show, she has plans to visit Documenta — the travelling German art fair — in Athens this summer. All of which sounds like the groundwork for another culturally charged collection from a seriously ambitious young talent.
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I kissed a boy. . .
can’t explain exactly why I snogged Paul. Perhaps the heat had gone to my head: on the top floor of the east London tower block where our lips met, the sun was streaming in from all directions. We were drenched in it. The Thames, eight floors below, glittered in all its snake-like glory. And there was a glint in his eye, too: a challenge and an invitation. ‘I wonder,’ I thought as I leant in, ‘what my wife will think of this.’ It might seem like an odd time, aged 27 and very happily married to an incredibly beautiful woman, to start playing around with my sexuality. It probably helped that we
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both happened to be at Togetherness, a festival of love, sexuality and openness held last month in Docklands and featuring a series of workshops, talks and events exploring human relationships. And that Paul, a lawyer in his early 30s with sandy hair and pale blue eyes, was classically good looking in a quiet English sort of way. Still, until last month, I’d never had a proper kiss with another man — and until recently I always assumed that I was entirely straight. But last spring something happened which made me question that assumption and set me on a journey that would take me to that sunny skyscraper kiss. I was in Paris, writing about the fashion world and spending
a lot of time with male models. One in particular caught my attention. His name was Omar. He looked like he’d walked straight out of a Caravaggio painting. He had dark ringlets, rude lips and eyes like charcoal. He was in his early 20s, half Moroccan, half French. I realised I had it bad when I was woken up in the middle of the night by a frightened squeal. I was staying in a very cheap auberge, and had been made to share a double bed in a dorm. I’d been having a dream about Omar and had clasped the poor lad I was top-andtailing with in an affectionate (and undoubtedly terrifying) bear hug. The intensity of my feelings shocked me. This was
Jason Purple, togetherness.com, Instagram
I
Happily married, Charlie Gilmour assumed he only fancied women — until a crush on a male model in Paris changed his mind. He shares his journey of sexual experimentation, and why his wife is cool with it
It’s a guy thing: Charlie and Paul at a Togetherness festival workshop
something I’d never experienced before: a proper man crush. ‘Maybe boys don’t count?’ I wondered, guiltily, when I thought of my wife, Janina. I did my best to push my feelings away, but more crushes followed. There was Roman, a tousle-haired, sharpcheekboned Adonis with piercing blue eyes (another model); Jacob, an unnaturally pretty PhD student with a taste for silk Gucci shirts who I knew of old; and others, too. It didn’t make me doubt my love for my wife, and I didn’t act on any of them, but it did make me realise there were hidden depths to my sexuality. I didn’t immediately fess up to Janina — perhaps I reasoned that it was just a phase. But one evening, when we were chatting about loves gone by, I was relieved when she asked if I’d ever had any dalliances with men. She is a fantastically openminded and compassionate person, and wasn’t shocked or even especially surprised when I told her about what happened in Paris. She was curious to see the Instagram accounts of the men I had crushes on, and admitted that they were all exceptionally
attractive. If I had feelings, she said, I was free to explore them. Still, the whole experience — from Paris to the kiss with Paul — has left me asking questions. Why, after so many years of perfectly happy heterosexuality, has all of this struck now? And how many other ‘straight’ men harbour similar secret desires? According to Professor Ritch Savin-Williams, sexologist at Cornell University and author of the upcoming Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity Among Men (Harvard University Press, published October 2017), more and more men — especially among the millennial generation — are coming to the same realisation as me. While carrying out interviews with hundreds of young men, Savin-Williams discovered what he believes should be a distinct sexual orientation: ‘mostly straight’. ‘Two to four per cent of men will say they’re “mostly straight” if you give them that option,’ he says. ‘But I think that’s only the tip of the iceberg.’ There are, believes Savin-Williams, many more who aren’t so forthcoming. The heteropatriarchal society in which we live tends to tip the odds in our favour most of the time, but it very occasionally oppresses us too. Heterosexuality is the ‘gold standard’ to which we are all expected to try to conform. Expressing — or even acknowledging — other desires is made prohibitively hard. In England and Wales, there are 20 homophobic hate crimes every day. Women, as Katy Perry’s famous song suggests, seem freer to experiment. In one US survey, 17 per cent of women reported having had a same-sex encounter, compared with 6 per cent of men. Human sexualities may move on a spectrum, but most men make do with monochrome. Things, however, are changing. Call us what you want — heteroflexible, fomosexual, mostly straight, partly gay or bi-curious — we’re everywhere. ‘More young men identify or describe themselves as mostly straight than identify as either bisexual or gay combined,’ Savin-Williams tells me. Indeed, according to a poll carried out by YouGov in 2015, 49 per cent of British 18-24-year-olds described themselves as not entirely heterosexual, of which only 6 per cent say they are completely homosexual. Why now? ‘It’s really the cultural zeitgeist,’ says Savin-Williams. ‘Mostly straight guys have always existed. But I think our culture now has allowed the
recognition and the awareness that these young guys have that this is okay.’ Celebrities such as The Hunger Games heart-throb Josh Hutcherson (who has said ‘I think defining yourself as 100 per cent anything is kind of near-sighted and close-minded’) and Ezra Miller (quoted as saying ‘I’m open to love wherever it can be found’) epitomise this new attitude.
“why, after so many years of perfectly happy heterosexuality, has all of this struck now?” Perhaps I just missed out on this new age of openness. As a kid, I don’t remember same-sex desire being anything other than something to be feared. At school in Sussex, the word ‘gay’ was only ever used as an insult — and not a single pupil was out. Indeed, according to Stonewall, 99 per cent of LGTB pupils hear ‘gay’ used pejoratively. The process was more insidious than simple bullying. A hetero-normative ethos pervaded everything from school rules about when and where members of the opposite sex could interact to games of spin the bottle. No wonder so many men — myself included — have been occluding their desires for so long. After Paris, my crushes didn’t fade away. I still carry tiny candles for Omar and Roman and Jacob. I enjoyed kissing Paul. My wife thinks it’s sweet. We married a Charlie and Janina’s wedding-day dip year ago and she knows that my heart is hers — so if it brings me joy to occasionally flirt with and kiss men, then why not ? My f a m i ly’s reaction was telling: the older generation were shocked that casual kissing outside of a marriage could be a conflict-free thing; my teenage sister gave an indifferent shrug. I’m still not exactly sure what being ‘mostly straight’ or ‘heteroflexible’ or, to put it starkly, being occasionally attracted to men, means for me. The first step was simply coming to terms with the fact that those feelings exist. Now I have to work out what to do with them. I keep on thinking about that spinning bottle. It whirrs away and then slowly comes to a stop, pointing to someone at random. You briefly entwine and then off it goes, stringing you along behind it. I think desire works that way, too. It’s unpredictable, irrational and often irresistible. It doesn’t always respect the rules. It spins and it spins.
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beauty by katie service
secret agents Perfect for men, these colourless primers will shrink pores and soften lines discreetly
SHISEIDO Ibuki Smart Filtering Smoother, £20, at houseoffraser.co.uk. THE HERO PROJECT Double Blur HD Ready Skin Perfector, £24 (theheroproject.co.uk). HYLAMIDE Finisher Pore Delete, £18 (hylamide.com). 3 CONCEPT EYES Pore Silky Balm, £10, at cultbeauty.co.uk Set: LITTLE GREENE paint in ‘canton’ and ‘whitening’, £42 for 2.5L (littlegreene.com)
PHOTOGRAPH BY william bunce STYLED BY lily worcester
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grooming
Dial D for Dashing
From treatments to therapists, Katie Service opens her address book for the boys The Manicure
Men’s Manicure at Ned’s Barbershop (Bank, EC2) It’s 2017 guys, and in 2017 manicures maketh the man. Nip in for a file, tidy and moisturise at The Ned’s newly launched Barbershop between City meetings. £30 for 30 minutes (thened.com)
rich plasma, a protein that makes up your blood) to help damaged hair follicles heal and to optimise growth. From £3,000 (theplasticsurgerygroup.co.uk)
The Cranial Osteopath
The Meditation Space In Here Studio (Monument, EC3) This teacher-free, drop-in meditation space with cocoon-like decor (above), is perfect for a pre-meeting brain power-up. From £2 for five minutes (inherestudio.com)
The Man with Magic Hands Fran Kehoe, The Massage Centre (Turnham Green, W4) Slow, rolling and technical, Kehoe’s myofascial massage is designed to release trapped tension in the various levels of your fascia, the fibrous film that coats your muscles and organs, holding them in place. £70 for 60 minutes (tmc-chiswick.com)
The Receding Revolutionary Mo Akhavani, The Plastic Surgery Group (Harley Street, W1) Cosmetic surgeon Mo Akhavani is pioneering a new type of hair rejuvenation procedure in the UK, which uses PRP (platelet-
Amanda Tizard Tizard has the healing touch, there’s no doubt about it. She uses a combination of sports massage, pressure-point work and craniosacral techniques (gentle massaging of the skull), during which you may experience a sense of weightlessness and floating. And, best of all, she’ll travel to you. £120 for 60 minutes (07967 300806)
The BRotox Derm Dr Suha Kersh, 23MD (Chelsea, SW3) Grooming editors flock to Dr Kersh for her virtually undetectable approach to ageing. Consultation £250 (23md.co.uk)
The Nutritionist Gabriela Peacock, Grace Belgravia (Belgravia, SW1) Tired of cumbersome supplement bottles rattling around in your bag? Nutritionist Gabriella Peacock (left) packages up her nutrients in smart gel and powder sachets that are easy to slip in your wallet, gym bag or hand luggage. £27.50 for a seven-day supply (gracebelgravia.com)
The Shop Beast (Covent Garden,WC2) No more searching for serum in the ladies make-up aisles.
Beast (above) is the one-stop grooming destination stocking everything from rare aftershave brands such as Odin to highperformance skincare such as Bad Norwegian. Think Space NK for blokes. (shop-beast.com)
The Turkish Barber Haks Oscar (Chelsea, SW3) Chelsea’s best-kept grooming secret, Haks Oscar (left) is famed for its hot towel shaves and brilliant haircuts, during which you’ll get a head, neck and shoulder massage and be plied with Turkish treats. Cuts from £36 (haksoscar.co.uk)
The headmasters Aveda Institute (High Holborn, WC1) Nothing says ‘I’m on my A-game’ better than a good haircut and Aveda does the sharpest cuts in Covent Garden. From £48 (avedainstitute.co.uk)
The Gym Spa Cavendish Clinic, Third Space (Soho, W1) Third Space Soho has opened a branch of the brilliant Cavendish Clinic, offering GentleMax Pro laser hair removal. From £65 (cavendishclinic.co.uk)
The Fresh (H)Air Expert Sibi Bolan, Josh Wood Atelier (Holland Park, W11) Book in for Bolan’s City Detox treatment, which you can bolt on to your trim or root cover-up. It cleanses hair and scalp of environmental build-up for up to six weeks. £55 for 30 minutes (joshwoodcolour.com)
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feast
grace & flavour Grace Dent follows the tech set to discover the wholesome delights of Maple & King’s
“Due to the exciting way we do equality in 2017, men can freely be as obsessed with staying slender, youthful and shaggable as women”
Ambience food
Jonny Cochrane; illustration by Jonathan Calugi @ Machas
F
or a long time, men’s main involvement with the healthy-eating industry was standing, beaming, with one thumb in the baggy waistline of newly enormous trousers in Weight Watchers adverts. ‘I’m Trevor and I used to weigh 200 pounds!’ they’d say before letting us in on the untapped, blubber-shifting alchemy of swapping six pints of Carlsberg at lunchtime for a 97-calorie mug of Mediterranean vegetable gruel. If, during the 1990s, a man ate salad at his desk of his own volition, a sort of Greek chorus of colleagues would appear to add amused commentary — then mark him down, behind his back, as clearly having an affair. Still, happily, due to the exciting way we do equality in 2017, men can freely be as obsessed with staying slender, youthful and shaggable as women. So many men nowadays view carbs in a similar manner to kryptonite that it’s no happy accident that when I go to Adria Wu’s Maple & King’s, it’s full of men. Happily for her, Wu has opened her second health-centric café in the shadow of the new Google HQ in Pancras Square, King’s Cross. No one at Google has eaten a trans fat or ridden an MSG high for aeons. There’s a running track inside the building as well as free massages and MetroNaps sleep pods. There’s no reason, I can see, to ever leave the building once you’re in there as all earthly needs are catered to. But when one’s reckless, vagabond spirit calls, I suppose you can go out briefly into the fresh air to the adjacent healthy, locally produced, sustainable juice and salad spot. And as these sort of wellness places go, Maple & King’s is about as good as it gets.
Maple & King’s Unit 1, 3 Pancras Square, King’s Cross, N1 (020 3479 1988; mymapleandco.com)
1
Maple porridge
£3.90
1
Brownie
£2.95
1
M&F Granola
£5.95
1
Apple crisps
£2.20
1
Matcha latte
£3.20
Total
£18.20
For me, of late, only Pret is really nailing the on-the-go salad game. I am a slave to its teriyaki salmon salad with a cup of green tea. The new veggie boxes stuffed with greens, edamame and chipotle chickpeas are a godsend. The growing Maple & Co group, first in Fitzrovia (Maple & Fitz) and now in King’s Cross, clearly aims to have a good punch at this market. At lunch, there are half a dozen good, ambitious salads, like the Bi Bim Bap which is shredded carrots, courgette, mushrooms, pickled cucumber, spring onions, toasted sesame seeds, red and brown rice, and spicy Korean gochujang dressing. The Miso Healthy comes packed with vermicelli noodles and a miso star anise dressing. The Mexican Stand-off is a glorious bowl of bulgur wheat with black beans and a coriander-lime dressing. Choose a salad then add a protein, if one desires, such as tahini chicken, halloumi with herbs, poached eggs or five-spiced tofu. There’s a soup called Take My Broth Away and myriad cold-pressed juices with things like ‘anti-inflammatory’ and ‘detoxifying’ written beside them as their ostensible aim. I’m a fan of the breakfasts here, as upstairs after about 9am it’s gloriously quiet. The maple chia porridge with toasted walnuts was sweet, stodgy wonderfulness. I enjoyed it too much for it to be healthy. There’s also a miso porridge with spring onion and almond, but not being certifiably mad I’ve not had that yet. The dark chocolate, gluten-free brownie was perilously good. Rich and packed with salted caramel. I took two of those to Cumbria in my handbag last week for my brother, who was incensed that us Southern muppets will pay £3 a pop for a salty brownie and drink it with a matcha latte that is basically a cup of caffeinated swamp. I also took him a bar of dairy-free, sugarfree chocolate that he declared tasted of Marmite, plus some apple crisps, which I am not entirely sure he didn’t dropkick into the neighbour’s garden. Maple & King’s is rather lovely. Its wellness schtick will annoy the hell out of many and befuddle passing tourists but that’s why London is brilliant. Even our salads rip up the rule book.
09.06.17 es magazine 45
feast
tart london Jemima Jones and Lucy Carr-Ellison dish up a light summer stew inspired by the flavours of Spain
Puppy eyes: Frida and Olive wait impatiently to snap up their share of a Tart food shoot
Jemima Jones (left) and Lucy Carr-Ellison
Josh Shinner
S
tew normally conjures up thoughts of cold, dark evenings — but not this one. It’s a comforting, happy bowl for the warmer months, inspired by many trips to Spain and Mallorca. We’ll stroll through the markets, filling our baskets with different homemade cured meats, such as chorizo and sobrasada. Like a softer chorizo, sobrasada is a cured sausage from the Balearic Islands, made from pork, salt, paprika and other spices. Some kinds are mild, other are super-spicy. It’s delicious spread on bruschetta as a nibble with drinks, or you can add it to the base of a dish, as we’ve done here. If you can’t get your hands on sobrasada, use extra chorizo sausage instead. Make sure you get the good-quality, all-natural stuff that doesn’t contain preservatives or any other nasties. This is one of those wonderful, quick and easy one-pot dishes that can be made well in advance and will last a good few days in the fridge. It’s great for feeding large numbers as you can easily multiply the ingredients. We often serve it when catering for fashion shoots on location. When a crew has been up since the crack of dawn, this vibrant, robust stew does the trick for satisfying hungry tummies. Another fun way of serving this, especially for kids, is to serve it Mexican style alongside bowls of sour cream, guacamole, grated cheese, rice, coriander and tortilla chips. This is how we once served it on a shoot for One Direction. We’re happy to say it was a hit!
Serves 4-6
Spanish chorizo stew
200g almonds 400g fresh chorizo 200g sobrasada (or extra chorizo) 2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, diced 2 celery sticks, chopped 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 3 sprigs of thyme 2 red peppers, deseeded and chopped into small chunks 4 big plum tomatoes, roughly chopped 1 tsp smoked paprika 200ml white wine 400ml vegetable stock A large handful of kale, woody stalks removed and roughly chopped A bunch of parsley A handful of basil leaves Sour cream, to serve
Heat the oven to 200C. Place the almonds on a tray and toast for 5-10 minutes. Leave to cool. Cut the chorizo into rounds, or squeeze the meat out of its skin. Spoon the sobrasada out of its skin. Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the chorizo and sobrasada and cook for 2 minutes until browned. Turn down the heat and add the onion, celery, garlic and thyme. Stir to coat in the oil and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the peppers, tomatoes and paprika. Pour in the wine and stock then simmer for 20 minutes. Blitz the almonds in a food processor until finely chopped. Stir into the stew with the kale and simmer for 3 minutes. Taste and season if necessary, then serve in bowls, sprinkled with parsley and basil, a dollop of sour cream and a chunk of toasted sourdough on the side for dipping. Tip: to make this heartier, add in pre-cooked shredded chicken or a can of chickpeas along with the kale
09.06.17 es magazine 47
In the MIX
FEAST
Get the LOW DOWN
You can drink for longer and they taste great, too. All hail the new low-ABV cocktails, says Frankie McCoy
W
Jonny Cochrane; Alamy; glassware available at waterford.co.uk
hether you’re in the depths of an existential black pit of hangover or are simply doing that sensible modern thing of not getting blotto, sometimes you’re after a low-alcohol drink: something only Merchants Tavern’s vaguely alcoholic to sip that Ba’Barolo won’t blow your socks off Americano (or cause untold emotional trauma in the morning). ‘There are plenty of benefits to low-ABV cocktails,’ says Brian Calleja, bar manager at Dalloway Terrace in Bloomsbury, which has just launched a menu of low-ABV and low-sugar cocktails. ‘One being that people can drink more, for longer.’ Because once you’ve secured your precious alfresco drinking corner, you want a proper session rather than a three-Martini sprint. Plus, as Calleja points out, while ‘alcohol does tend to dehydrate you normally, drinking low-ABV cocktails reduces that risk. We have hosted many events with skincare and beauty brands, which love our low-ABV cocktails as they are kinder on the complexion.’ He recommends its gentler take on a G&T, the Elizabeth, a blend of Chase Elderflower Liqueur and the 0% spirit Seedlip Garden, with cucumber, dried peas and soda.
“Something only vaguely alcoholic won’t cause trauma in the morning” Dalloway Terrace also offers the I Love You (Richard Dalloway) cocktail, a lowABV blend of the 0% spirit Seedlip Spice, pink grapefruit shrub, agave, egg white and Kamm & Sons, the London-distilled spirit that comes in at 33% ABV, rather than vodka/gin’s 37.5-45% standard. Alex Kammerling, inventor of the spirit, says Kamm & Sons was ‘designed to be a “healthier” version of gin by reducing the
H Queen of cocktails: the Elizabeth at Dalloway Terrace
ABV’. Like gin, it’s distilled with botanicals: 45 of them, including ginseng, goji berries and grapefruit peel, which Kammerling points out makes for ‘a punchy-tasting cocktail, but without as much of the alcohol’. Even better, ‘ginseng helps to metabolise alcohol from the bloodstream’. Kammerling’s favourite way to sip his more sober spirit is a Brit Spritz: 35ml Kamm & Sons, 15ml elderflower cordial, 50ml English sparkling wine and 50ml soda water, served over ice in a wine glass and garnished with a grapefruit wedge and slice of cucumber. Two or three of those on a terrace in Saturday afternoon sun is pretty much all you could want from a British summer. Kamm & Sons is also a big part of the Highs & Lows menu at Merchants Tavern in Shoreditch, which is drenched in lower-ABV aperitifs like Aperol and vermouth. Bar manager Tom Noller introduced the menu, which also includes the super-refreshing Ba’Barolo Americano — Cocchi Barolo Americano, Aperol, grapefruit and soda — as a counterbalance to its classic, strong offerings. ‘They are great at lunchtimes,’ he says, ‘something light to have The ‘healthier’ with your lunch, leaving gin alternative you refreshed, but not going to affect your afternoon work.’ Sold. Slide on your sunglasses and head over for some sensible(ish), summer afternoon sipping.
Douglas Blyde discovers why truffles and sparkling wine grow together
is name is Rodolfo il Caricatore del Tartufo. Rudi, charger of the truffle!’ exclaims silverhaired James Liddell of the shaggy lagotto romagnolo dog galloping into the horizon. ‘A good boy, like his father, Valentino.’ We trek Hampshire’s upper River Anton valley beside sappy vines sown by Liddell’s son, Hugh, grapes of which are destined for Cottonworth’s tense sparkling wines. Liddell long suspected truffles existed within this landscape of maples, hazels, beech and oak trees on account of the chalky soil’s high pH. ‘Rudi found his first truffle at 14 weeks,’ he recalls. ‘Suddenly he started digging. I thought he’d got a mouse, gave him grief, then saw what he’d got and said, “Well done, rascal!”’ Rudi leads us to a ‘nest’. ‘You know when there’s mycelium around the trees because nothing else grows.’ We stoop to the clawing canine. Stirred by rain, truffle scents rouse Rudi to such excitement that his tongue blackens from the earth it churns. ‘He’s found two!’ Dug by the same sort of trowel that, Liddell jokes, ‘campers use for their business’, the largest specimen smells simultaneously ugly and beautiful. Back at the snug farm kitchen, James and wife Rachel weigh the morning’s treasure on some antique scales. ‘Just shy of 200g.’ ‘Although rubbish for conventional farming, high pH is also the magic ingredient for quality sparkling wines,’ says Hugh, uncorking supple, Early Windsor apple-like Classic Cuvée (£28, cottonworth.co.uk). To my surprise he adds a whole flute to a pan of onions and garlic which he reduces, adding cream and nutmeg before smothering roast chicken in it. He then blankets the breasts in fresh truffle slithers. Awakened by the pheromonal perfume, Rudi appears tableside. Meet Rudi and the Liddells at Cottonworth for the fifth Vineyards of Hampshire Festival, 23 July (vineyardsofhampshire.co.uk)
09.06.17 es magazine 49
my london
dermot o’leary as told to lily worcester
Home is… The front garden is Primrose Hill and the back garden is Camden. My wife and I have been there for five years and I love it — it’s got a sense of community, but in that London ‘mind your own business’ way.
Most romantic thing someone has done for you? My wife once got me a ride in a Spitfire (above). What would you do as Mayor for the day? I’d give all Uber drivers the day off on full pay. Earliest London memory? I was five and running down my auntie’s street in Queen’s Park and the elastic in my shorts gave out and my pants fell down... it was awful.
Last play you saw? Recently I’ve seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Imelda Staunton, above, is such a great actor) and Hamlet — Andrew Scott was something else, I love watching that guy work.
Favourite London discoveries? Camden Coffee Shop, a tiny little hole in the wall run by a guy called George. You can only buy beans and the machinery is as beautiful as the coffee. Best meal you’ve had in London? I love eating out. I don’t care about how expensive or hip it is, it’s all about authenticity for me. For fish I go to Bentley’s or J Sheekey, I’m loving Temper at the moment and Bocca di Lupo is an old favourite.
50 es magazine 09.06.17
The TV presenter gets pasta from Lina Stores, plays football in Brixton and heads to Milroy’s basement bar for late-night whisky Last album you bought? Billie Marten’s Writing of Blues and Yellows; it’s this beautifully written, melodic piece of work. Which shops do you rely on? Wow… this is an ‘open a bottle of red and have a chat’ sort of a question. Lina Stores (below) the Italian deli in Soho, does great pasta; my barber Joe and Co; and the fishmonger La Petite Poissonnerie in Marylebone. I cook a lot so this place is a lifesaver and Nic who runs it is a legend.
Who do you call when you want to have fun? Moonman (Neil McCallum) or Joe and the gang — they’re my oldest friends in London. We hold seasonal supper clubs and the stakes are always so high. It’s my turn to host the summer one shortly; I’m quietly confident! Where would you go for a nightcap? The downstairs bar at Milroy’s of Soho whisky shop is a terrific spot.
Where do you go to let you hair down? I’ve had some of my best nights out in the Brixton Academy. I also play football once a week in Brixton and have just started Psycle in Fitzrovia. There’s nothing like getting a good sweat on. Best piece of advice? From my old boss Phil EdgarJones: ‘Turn up on time, don’t be a dick.’ Best thing a cabbie has said to you? Desmond, I loved you on that show... Ever had a run in with a policeman? Only to pet his horse. 24.hr Grooming for Men by Dermot O’Leary is available exclusively at M&S (marksandspencer.com)
Alamy; Getty Images
First thing you do when you arrive back in London? There’s something about Soho that always draws me in; it’s Mayfair and Fitzrovia’s naughty cousin. I’m a TV boy, so I’ve spent most of my working life there.
Biggest extravagance? Thom Sweeney suits and Arsenal season tickets.