Made in Britain Apr'14

A chronicle of luxury, style & culture

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR In the pages of AIR we often celebrate heritage and tradition, whether it be chanelled through luxury, people or culture.

It got us thinking about particular countries and what they have introduced to the world at large; their artisans, iconic figures and the luxury brands they gave birth to.

And that, inevitably, led us onto the idea of creating a series of bespoke, countryfocussed supplements that chronicled this.

Welcome, then, to the first supplement in this series: Made in Britain.

Made in Britain is a statement that carries some serious kudos around the world. Captured between the covers here is an in-depth look at the people, products, brands and styles that have helped define Britain’s status as an innovator. From the most iconic automobiles ever made on UK soil, to the most exclusive products granted the royal seal of approval, if it’s British and exceptional then it’s featured here.

Managing Director Victoria Thatcher Editorial Director John Thatcher Business Development Director David Wade Editor Tracey Scott Deputy Editor Richard Jenkins Features Editor Lara Brunt

Tracey Scott tracey@hotmediapublishing.com

Senior Designer Adam Sneade Designer & Illustrator Andy Knappett Production Manager Chalitha Fernando Advertisement Manager Rawan Chehab Advertisement Manager Sukaina Hussein To contact any of the above people, email firstname@ hotmediapublishing.com

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Twenty Two

Life Through A Lens

Brit of a Do

Britain’s most iconic photographer David Bailey invites us into his studio.

From Royal Ascot to Goodwood, England’s quintessential social season is about to begin.

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Twenty Four

By Royal Appointment

Best of British Since 1893

Our pick of the luxury brands to receive the Royal seal of approval.

We head to the heart of dunhill’s leather craft.

Thirty Nineteen

The Magnificent 7

Jermyn Street From Bentley and Jaguar to Land Rover and RollsRoyce, get behind the wheel of Britain’s most iconic automobiles.

Why Jermyn Street has been the go-to place for bespoke apparel for centuries.

Thirty Six The Beat Goes On Why the worlds of fashion and music are intrinsically linked in Britain.

Forty Two Well-Heeled Northamptonshire’s history of high-end shoemaking continues to evolve.

Forty Six Shine Bright Like A Diamond Britain’s high jewellers shine brightly.

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LIFE Through A

LENS

Britain’s most iconic photographer David Bailey invites Mark Hudson into his studio

They’re the most peculiar women,” says David Bailey, looking at his photographs of Jean Shrimpton and Kate Moss. “I’ve never understood why everybody likes them so much. There are many more beautiful girls.

But they’ve got this universal, democratic appeal. It’s like Dietrich and Garbo in movies, they’ve just got this thing that makes them stand out.”

You can’t help feeling that Bailey is indulging in a kind of inverted selfdeprecation in his description of these two women, who might be considered the defining British beauties of the past half-century, both of whom he has been closely involved with: Shrimpton, the hugeeyed Sixties It girl; and the enigmatic, yet ordinary Moss, who dominated the Nineties and Noughties, and still exerts a formidable influence. Bailey has photographed Moss many times, was Shrimpton’s boyfriend for four years and is generally credited with creating her as a fashion icon, while working as a Vogue photographer at the dawn of the Swinging Sixties.

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Image: Mick Jagger by David Bailey, 1964 © David Bailey 07

“I think we created each other,” says Bailey in his slightly croaky East End voice.

“You can’t create a portrait by yourself.

I always tell people it’s them taking the photograph, not me. For me it’s always about the people. I’ve never been interested in trees or mountains much. I admire Ansel Adams, but I’ve never been a big fan of what he does. Really it’s just another tree, isn’t it?”

Bailey’s passion for people gets a dazzling showing in Bailey’s Stardust, his biggest exhibition to date, 250 portraits filling the whole ground floor of London’s National Portrait Gallery, a dizzying array of faces from the super-famous to the utterly unknown. On the one hand there are the habitués of rundown East End pubs, Indian sadhus and Australian Aboriginals; on the other, definitive images of Bailey’s “mates”, including “Mick [Jagger], Jack [Nicholson] and Damien [Hirst]”. Bailey claims he could have mounted 10 such exhibitions of portraits, and the sheer density of celebrity in this microcosm of his work is astounding.

The Bailey image bank is in our DNA. Anyone even slightly acquainted with the Sixties has Bailey’s images of Shrimpton, Jagger, Lennon & McCartney and the Kray twins somewhere imprinted on their consciousness. It’s impossible to look at them without feeling the presence of their creator at your shoulder. Bailey, the quintessential wide-boy photographer whose rise exemplified the period’s social revolution, who was, proverbially, as famous, glamorous and sexy as the people he photographed, and who bedded, and in some cases wedded, some of the beauties of his era: Shrimpton, Catherine Deneuve, Penelope Tree, Marie Helvin, Catherine Dyer (the fourth and current Mrs Bailey) and by his own admission, very many more.

Bailey, the embodiment of twinkly-eyed geezerdom made good. Tucked away in a mews not far from King’s Cross, Bailey’s studio is at first sight just what you’d expect: littered with picturesque bric-abrac, but not too much, the lavatory walls

1. Mick Jagger 2. Damon Albarn 3. Roy Shaw

brac, but not too much, the lavatory walls lined with certificates and gold discs, a naked photograph of his third wife, Marie Helvin, prominent above the cistern. In the long open-plan room upstairs, the lighting stage stands at the far end, while young assistants work intently at desks.

Slumped in a corner on a sofa, in a lumberjack shirt, a Russian hat perched on his thinning barnet, Bailey himself presents a crumpled, rather worn figure; unshaven, his sallow skin mottled and marked.

“Luck?” he says. “It’s that corny thing about the harder you work, the luckier you get. I’ve got no complaints.”

He seems slightly nervous, his light-toned voice disconcertingly youthful, belying his 76 years, his wheezing cackle of a laugh peppering the conversation as frequently as his numerous expletives. Leafing through the exhibition catalogue, I tell him that the many portraits of great photographers – André Kertész, Bill Brandt, Henri CartierBresson and others – feel like a moving and generous tribute to his fellow professionals.

“I’ve never thought of it like that. They’re people I admire, people with a passion for what they do. I’m not really interested in them as photographers. I’m not really interested in photography, I’m only interested in what it can do.”

Bailey has never wanted to be seen simply as a photographer, but as a total creator like his idol Picasso. Yet while he’s made films and exhibited his paintings – in a broadly pop idiom – they’ve failed to make anything like the impact of his photographs, the best of which retain extraordinary freshness and power.

I point to a picture of Jagger, his

androgynous, rubber-lipped features protruding from a furry eskimo hood. That’s an incredible image, isn’t it? “Pretty good, yeah. I knew Mick before he was in the Stones. He was just a bloke I met because he was going out with my girlfriend’s sister [Chrissie Shrimpton].”

I tell him a lot of photographers only interact with their subjects for the moment before they press the shutter. But Bailey’s people seem to really mean something to him. “I don’t know what you mean by photographers,” he protests. ‘“I don’t give a monkeys about composition and all that crap.”

But that’s an amazing composition, I say, pointing to Brian Duffy’s mask-like visage, seen against blank white, a finger pulling at his forehead.

“Yeah, but it’s not painful, is it?” Bailey chuckles. “That’s my finger, pulling his eye open a bit wider.”

The crucial elements in Bailey’s life are not his celebrity friends and parties but his East End upbringing and his dyslexia.

“You used to get the cane at school, because they thought you were taking the p---. When you got older it became embarrassing because you couldn’t write a cheque.”

Born in Leytonstone in 1938, Bailey grew up in East Ham. His parents were in the rag trade, his father a tailor’s cutter, his mother a machinist. He was sent to a private school, Clark’s College, in Ilford, but repeatedly truanted and left on his 15th birthday, effectively illiterate. He went on to various dead-end jobs: selling shoes and carpets, window dressing, debt collecting.

“There was a sense of humour in the East End. That was how you got out of trouble.

If the other guy was bigger than you, you’d use humour to break the tension. That was the East End trick.”

That must have served him well when he came to photograph the Krays in the early Sixties.

“Not really,” he says. “They were just East End guys to me. But I think they did my

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Image: Damon Albarn by David Bailey, 2007 © David Bailey

father. He was cut right around here [he points from ear to mouth] – 68 stitches. I was 12 at the time. I was told it was them, but much later. They would have been 19.”

So his dad was in the underworld? “Not just him – everybody was!” At 16 he was beaten up himself by a gang called the Barking Boys, for dancing with the wrong girl. “They left me in the doorway of the Times Furnishing Store, really smashed up.

I woke up and I could hear the blackbirds singing.”

By then, he was experimenting with photography, developing his own pictures – the only thing he learnt at school, he reckons – in his mother’s coal cellar. “There was something magic in the way the image appeared. I’d always done a lot of drawing and painting. When you’re dyslexic, that’s all you could do at school. But I hadn’t put the two things, photography and art, together.

“Then, when I was about 17, I saw a picture by Henri Cartier-Bresson in a magazine, four girls overlooking the Kashmir mountains. The girls themselves looked like mountains. I didn’t know anything about surrealism, but it was surreal. That was when I realised photography could be more than a recording mechanism.”

His East Ender’s sense that life is a comedy, that the straight world is an absurd spectacle, must have served him well on his return to civvy street after National Service in Malaya. He worked as an assistant to the photographer John French, then went on to Vogue aged 21, turning that hallowed institution on its head. “When you’re that age, you don’t think about things like that, you just go along with it. If you’ve got nothing to lose you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

‘You can’t create a portrait by yourself. I always tell people it’s them taking the photograph, not me’

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Bailey has said that when he first went to Vogue, the “debby” models would pat him on the head and comment on his “cute” voice, while he thought, “I’ll give you cute.”

I tell him that sounds quite angry. Being a dyslexic East Ender must have given him quite a chip on the shoulder.

“Yeah, course. If everyone treats you like you’re an idiot ’til you’re 30, you think, ‘F--you’.”

And has he still got that chip? “Not really.

But it’s probably the best advantage I’ve got. When you think that Michelangelo, Einstein and Picasso were dyslexic, it doesn’t feel so bad.”

Bailey has a way of fixing his dark eyes on you, and asking sudden questions. At one point he grabs my arm. Am I lefthanded? How long have I been married?

What does my wife do? Like his laugh it’s a way of breaking down your resistance, of

‘I’m not interested in photography, I’m interested in what it can do’ putting the situation on his footing, a variant on the old East End trick. Bailey has said that he has to fall in love with his subjects to fully capture them. And you can quite see that many of them find themselves reciprocating.

Which brings us to the subject of his wives and partners. A whole section of the exhibition is devoted to the current Mrs Bailey, dark, willowy model Catherine Dyer, 23 years his junior. The others, though, are less present than you would expect.

Deneuve appears only once, sharing a frame with David Bowie. “It’s about portraiture, not models,” he says, then scrutinises the image of Deneuve for a moment. “She was great,” he says, sounding almost wistful. “I loved her. I still love her.

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Image: Roy Shaw by David Bailey, 2002 © David Bailey 11

Just because you can’t live with someone, doesn’t mean you don’t love them.”

Over the decades since his Sixties heyday, Bailey has become a fixture in British culture. He’s directed commercials and documentaries, featured in advertising campaigns, seen his lifestyle used as the inspiration for Michelangelo Antonioni’s seminal 1966 Swinging London film Blow Up, and his early life with Shrimpton portrayed in the 2002 BBC film We’ll Take Manhattan. The cachet of his name has never waned. Yet through all this he has remained an essentially pop figure. The NPG exhibition presents the opportunity to lift him to the level of high art photography, alongside some of the photographers who inspired him, such as Cartier-Bresson.

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t buy this idea. “It’s not about comparisons, because CartierBresson couldn’t do what I do, and I couldn’t do what he does. And anyway, I knew him.”

What was he like? “Horrible. An uptight, petit-bourgeois Frenchman. Incredible someone so talented could be like that.”

Given such an assessment it might seem surprising that Bailey is a great admirer of Margaret Thatcher. “She was smart, Maggie. I photographed her a few times. I loved her. I loved the other one too.”

Who, John Major?

“Tony Benn.”

After two hours with Bailey it comes as no surprise to be told that this great photographer of glamour has “no interest in glamour whatsoever”. “I’m interested in people,” he says, “and whatever you see in the photograph, whether you call it glamour or drama or edge, it’s already in that person.

I can’t put it there. It’s finding it and bringing it out. I can see the moment when they look the way I want them to look, or the way I think they should look or they don’t want to look, or whatever. It’s the moment that counts. It’s the only thing we’ve got in life really, and nothing captures it the way a stills camera does.” Bailey’s Stardust, sponsored by Hugo Boss, National Portrait Gallery, London, ‘til June 1. npg.org.uk

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BY

Royal

APPOI NTMENT Since the Middle Ages, suppliers to the sovereign have received formal recognition. Made in Britain looks at five British brands given the ultimate seal of approval

ver the centuries, British kings and queens have bestowed royal warrants on thousands of individual tradesmen and companies. Henry II granted the first royal seal of approval to the Weavers’ Company in 1155, but it was under Queen Victoria that they really flourished. During the monarch’s 64-year reign, more than 1,000 warrants were presented to suppliers such as Fortnum & Mason and Twinings, which still hold the prestigious mark today.

Royal warrants are granted on the recommendation of the Lord Chamberlain

to firms that have supplied goods or services to the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh or the Prince of Wales for a minimum of five years, however some date back more than a century. Reflecting the traditional tastes of the British royals, warrant holders include luxury marques such as Burberry, Barbour, and Bentley.

Once granted to sword cutters and coal merchants, warrants have more recently been awarded to a cyber security consultancy and a golf buggy firm. Today, there are around 800 warrant holders, which cover virtually every type of goods and service imaginable, from biscuits to brass and gunmakers to silversmiths.

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James Lock & Co. Established in 1676 in St. James’s Street, Mayfair, James Lock & Co. is reputedly the oldest hat shop in the world. The family-owned business has supplied hats to the Duke of Edinburgh since 1956 and, in 1993, was also granted a royal warrant from the Prince of Wales. lockhatters.co.uk

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Turnbull & Asser For nearly 130 years, the master shirtmaker has produced bespoke shirts for Britain’s most stylish gentlemen. The Prince of Wales also has the firm to thank for his sartorial style, awarding it one of his first royal warrants in 1980. Available in a rainbow of colours, the shirts are all made in England. turnbullandasser.co.uk

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Purdey Gunmakers to the current Queen, consort, and heir to the throne, James Purdey & Sons has been handcrafting bespoke guns and rifles for two centuries. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, granted his Royal Warrant in 1868, an honour that has been replicated by every monarch since. purdey. com

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Smythson The purveyor of luxury stationery and leather goods that counts Samantha Cameron as a consultant is the proud holder of three royal warrants. Established in 1887, Smythson of Bond Street produces products ranging from the iconic Panama Diary to modern classics such as iPad cases and passport covers. smythson.com

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Fortnum & Mason Founded in 1707, the Piccadilly emporium famous for its food hall is the official grocer to both the Queen and Prince Charles, and also supplies tea to the future King’s household. Fortnum’s recently opened a store in Dubai, its first international outpost in over 300 years. fortnumandmason.co.uk

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For stylish gentlemen, Jermyn Street has been the go-to place for bespoke and made-to-measure apparel for centuries.

Made in Britain takes a walk down this eponymous London road and discovers a fusion of history and unstoppable style

ready-to-wear, including DAKS, which this year celebrates its 150-year anniversary; Hawes & Curtis, which sells its clothing from two stores at number 33 and 82; and Alfred Dunhill, a brand which has mastered quintessential British style.

Shoe collectors, too, are catered for here, with luxe shoemakers Church’s, Crockett & Jones, Barker Shoes, and John Lobb all present along this one-way street.

Curated and named after Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans in 1664, this charming street has clung to its fashionable ideals through centuries of ever-changing styles and buying habits. Here, bespoke is, nown, admired and and always has been, order of the day. visited for the medley And while in its early days it was more of gentlemen’s retailers residential than commercial – Sir Isaac and specialist stores Newton, William Pitt and Sir Walter Scott peppered along its were all residents at some point – it has pavements, Jermyn always played an important role in British Street is iconic for many reasons. Perhaps fashion. the most notable, however, is its fashion.

When Henry Jermyn founded the street To this day, it boasts the highest number of 300 years ago – a move which formed luxury shirtmakers on one single shopping part of a wider plan to develop a residential street. neighbourhood in the London area known For sartorial-savvy gentlemen looking for as St James’s Field – the street’s shops made-to-measure shirts you’ve got options. outfitted the aristocracy at The Court of St Lots of them. There’s Turnbull & Asser, James’s with bespoke shirts, suits, boots which opened in 1885 and holds a royal and hats. And still today, shirts are hand warrant; New & Lingwood, which has been cut, with their collar, cuffs, buttons, shape making bespoke shirts since 1865; and and fit customised for the most discerning Hilditch & Key, which occupies two plots on gentlemen; shoes are handcrafted and fit the street. For the see-it-want-it shopper, like a glove; and men’s luxury goods are there’s a number of classic stores selling made using the finest leather and flair.

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Jermyn Street

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1. DAKS

2. Crockett & Jones 3. Church’s

4. Hawes & Curtis 5. Hilditch & Key

6. New & Lingwood

7. Turnbull & Asser 20

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The Street’s Speciality Stores Paxton & Whitfield, No.93 Britain’s oldest cheese shop, which opened more than 200 years ago.

Floris, No.89 The oldest English retailer of toiletries and accessories, having opened in 1730.

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Bates, No.73 One of London’s finest makers of gentlemen’s hats and caps.

David Bowie and Tom Jones are fans.

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Taylor of Old Bond Street, No.74 Manufacturer of luxury grooming products for men since 1854.

Beretta, Corner of Jermyn Street and St. James’s Master gunmaker since 1526 and suppliers of hunting and competition guns.

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BRIT OF A DO From rowing to racing, ‘the season’ has been a quintessential part of English society for centuries. We look at six summer highlights Glyndebourne

Royal Ascot

Wimbledon

May 17 – August 24

June 17 – 21

June 23 – July 6

The opera at Glyndebourne, an historic country estate in East Sussex, became a fixture of the season in the 1930s when landowner John Christie and his opera-singer wife Audrey Mildmay established the festival to stage Mozart’s extensive repertoire of operatic works.

Now in its 80th year, the festival is as celebrated for its elegant picnics on the lawn during the 90-minute Long Interval as it is its world-class performances.

The famous five-day Royal Meeting has been a cornerstone of the season since the early 19th century, although it was Queen Anne who first established horse racing at Ascot in 1711. The current Queen has attended every day of Royal Ascot since 1945 and has enjoyed great success with her own racehorses.

The meeting is renowned for its pomp and pageantry – the Queen arrives each day in a horse-drawn carriage.

As tennis replaced croquet as the fashionable sport of choice in the last quarter of the 19th century, the inaugural Lawn Tennis Championship was held in 1877.

Today, the world’s oldest major tennis championship – and the only one still played on grass – sees rock stars and royalty flock to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in south London. The Royal Box provides 74 of the best seats in town. Invitations come from the Chairman of the club.

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Goodwood Festival of Speed June 26 – 29 Racing at the Duke of Richmond’s bucolic West Sussex estate has been a focal point of the season for over 200 years, first with horses and more recently with motorcars. While Glorious Goodwood remains one of the season’s best-loved events, the Festival of Speed – dubbed “the Ascot of the motor racing world” – has become hugely popular.

Henley Royal Regatta July 2 – 6 Presided over by the Royal Family and first staged in 1839, the picturesque hamlet of Henleyon-Thames is the setting for one of the world’s most prestigious rowing events. Unlike multi-lane international competitions, the five-day regatta consists of knockout races over a one-mile 550-yard (2.11-km) course, with up to 90 races on the busiest days.

While spectators line the riverbank, the action on the water is somewhat secondary to socialising.

Cowes Week August 2 – 9 Traditionally held between Glorious Goodwood and the Glorious Twelfth (the first day of the grouse shooting season), the annual Isle of Wight regatta has been a highlight of the social calendar since 1826. Today, the eight-day regatta sees around 8,000 competitors, ranging from Olympic yachtsmen to weekend sailors, compete in races.

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Best of British Since

1893

For over a century dunhill has set the standards for exceptional leather craft

The leather craftsmen of London had an impact on the young Alfred Dunhill back in 1893, when he transformed his father’s London saddlery into a global luxury brand.

Those traditional techniques are still honoured over a century later at dunhill’s London workshop, where the brand’s craftsmen are still defining the world of luxury with their hands.

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Items from dunhill’s Tradition Leather range are available to buy from dunhill’s UAE stores.

Jaguar E-Type Described by Enzo Ferrari as “the most beautiful car ever made�, the E-Type was manufactured between 1961 and 1974. The archetypal sports car is a musthave for collectors and becomes more valuable by the day.

Rarity rating 3/5

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The

Magnif icent The most iconic automobiles ever made on UK soil

Words: Richard Jenkins

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Morgan Plus 8 First designed in 1968, the Plus 8 perfected the sports models that Morgan had been

tweaking since 1910. A top speed of 155mph put the Plus 8 at the very forefront of sports car performance. Rarity rating 3/5

Austin Healey Sprite Announced in Monte Carlo in the spring of 1958, this two-seat roadster was destined to become the sports model of the people.

A further three iterations of the Sprite went on sale over the next decade, cementing its enduring popularity. Rarity rating 2/5

Image: Bonhams and Pawel Litwinski

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Land Rover Nobody would have thought, when the first Land Rover appeared in 1948, that 60 years later the brand would be synonymous with luxury through the high-end Range Rover marque. The original is rugged, tough and these days, increasingly rare. Rarity rating 4/5

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Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I Hewn from a steel body shell, the Silver Cloud I was a two-tonne masterpiece. The first of Rolls’ post-war models was a departure from their previous work, and signaled a new approach to extravagance. Rarity rating 4/5

McLaren F1 Before the Veyron, there was the F1. The previous title holder for the fastest production car in the world, only 106 were ever produced. Scissor doors and a terrifying front grille added looks to the monstrous engine, and a legend was born. Rarity rating 5/5

Bentley Continental During the post-war automotive heyday of the 1950s, Bentley sought to marry grand luxury to sports car performance.

This Bentley icon is still being produced today, albeit in a much more contemporary form – although the Mulsanne uses the same V8 engine as its forbears. Rarity rating 5/5

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Mayfair is the heart of London.

Brown’s is in the heart of Mayfair.

Brown’s Hotel personifies modern British luxury, with outstanding personal service, elegant rooms and suites, award-winning afternoon tea and a relaxing spa.

The Donovan Bar and HIX Mayfair celebrate British art and cuisine, offering the perfect London experience.

Albemarle Street, London, W1S 4BP Tel: 020 7493 6020 Fax: 020 7493 9381 E-Mail: reservations.browns@roccofortehotels.com www.roccofortehotels.com Luxury Hotels and Resorts

Berlin, Brussels, Edinburgh, Florence, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Munich, Rome, St Petersburg, Sicily.

Future Openings: Cairo, Jeddah, Luxor, Marrakech

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THE

BEAT GOES

ON The worlds of fashion and music are irresistibly linked. Made in Britain explores how style has influenced some of England’s greatest melody makers, and vice versa Words: Richard Jenkins

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‘The biggest fashion icon of the 70s was David Bowie’ in more and more outrageous ways. The biggest fashion icon of the 70s, with a legacy still felt today, was David Bowie. Androgynous, edgy, with a face painted in make-up and an endless capacity for selfinvention, Bowie married stagecraft with innovative musicianship to create a legend. Over the course of the decade Bowie slowly transformed himself from the glam-punk Ziggy Stardust to the stylish, sharply tailored Thin White Duke. His elegant manner with a three-piece suit, a Bowie staple, led him to be named the best-dressed Briton in history in a 2013 BBC History Magazine poll. In 2006, Gucci’s Frida Giannini dedicated her A/W collection to him and other style heroes like David Byrne and super-suave Bryan Ferry owe a debt to him.

The counterculture to Bowie’s ornate style in the 70s was punk. Positioning themselves as outsiders to the ‘established’ glam-rock scene, punk was a shot in the arm and a slap in the face for music lovers. Bands like The Clash, the Sex Pistols and The Damned made statements with their clothing as much as their music. Unkempt and understated outfits were the antithesis to the colourful, garish clothes in the disco and glam-rock scenes.

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Image: Foto de capa do álbum Aladdin Sane Crédito Brian Duffy © Duffy Archive & The David Bowie Archive.

hart music as we know it began in 1952, when Percy Dickins of the New Musical Express found 52 record stores willing to report on their week’s sales figures.

On November 14 of that year, Al Martino’s ‘Here in my Heart’ made history as the UK’s first ever number one.

The British singles chart has been a mainstay of popular culture ever since. Britain has a worldwide reputation for producing timeless music, from the Beatles to David Bowie and beyond. One thing these musical pioneers all had in common was that they understood the value of style.

For much of the 1950s, designers from Paris or London traditionally dictated style to the people of the UK, and most of these fashions were out of reach of the common man on the street. But then popular music exploded in a way that would change history. Five of the top ten best-selling singles of the 1960s came from The Beatles: The Fab Four were at the absolute peak of their powers and were more influential than any band had been before, or ever would be again. Britain in the ‘swinging sixties’ was a raucous, iconoclastic time and The Beatles summed the era up. At the start of the decade they would be found in sharp, matching suits and Chelsea boots. By the time Abbey Road was released in 1969, they’d turned military tailoring on its head (and then spun it round and kicked it on the seat of the pants a few times for good measure) with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and embraced shaggy hair, loud colours and patterns, and the onrushing psychedelic seventies.

The Beatles’ transition to Douglas Millings-tailored shirts and ties in the early 60s was down to manager Brian Epstein. He recognised the importance of a uniform to cement a band’s image, and styled the group accordingly. In The Beatles’ early days, they might never have become as popular as they did without this unifying device. Wearing suits based on Pierre Cardin’s hugely influential designs gave the band an upmarket appeal: men the world over rushed out to imitate the look, and of course the trademark “mop top” hairstyles.

As the 70s wore on, fashion and music became even more inseparable. Inexpensive, man-made materials heralded the popularity of disco and glam rock, and artists began expressing themselves

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lied Images: Corbis / Arabian Eye; Supp

‘Bands like The Clash made statements with their clothing as much as their music’

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These stripped-back ensembles were reflected in the straightforwardness of punk music. Guitars, drums, bass and very little in the way of studio trickery put punk’s message across in the most direct way possible. Today designers like Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier use punk influences in their work which separates them from the rest of the mainstream fashion world.

Straddling the line between glam and punk was the band that laid the blueprint for style in rock and roll. The Rolling Stones experimented with various looks, from fresh-faced preppy kids through to typifying ‘Swinging London’ and onwards to bohemian glam. Mick Jagger may have been the charismatic frontman but legendary guitarist Keith Richards has stolen the show as the band’s style icon. Since, Roger Vivier designed an accessories collection with Richards in mind, and the Stones stalwart has had a lasting influence on men’s style. His signature skull motif, skinny jeans and bright headscarves are the go-to for any man trying to exert sexuality with a hint of aggression into their look.

In 2014 the fashion landscape is dictated by music in a different way.

Acclaimed designer Stella McCartney is the daughter of a Beatle. Georgie May and Lizzie Jagger, two of the most in-demand models around, are the offspring of Mick. Keith Richards is working the runway for Yves Saint Laurent, while his daughter Theodora is also making waves modelling worldwide.

From tailored, mop-topped teenyboppers to Paul Weller’s mod revolution through to the glam excesses of the 70s and beyond, fashion cannot be mentioned without music being part of the conversation. These styles will be with us always – just like the melodies.

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A handsome shoe gains character as it ages, like antique furniture or a good wine. For that you need quality that lasts,” explains Euan Denholm, head of brand and business development at high-end shoemaker Edward Green. Since 1890, the company has been making handcrafted, Goodyear-welted gentlemen’s shoes in a factory in Northampton, 110-kilometres northwest of London.

While Goodyear welted construction was developed in late 19th-century America, it has become synonymous with high-quality English-made shoes. “It means the shoe is made by sewing the sole to a band of leather called a welt, which is in turn sewn to the upper. It’s durable, can be easily remade time and again, and is very comfortable with a midsole of cork resin that shapes to your foot,” explains Denholm. “The Italian shoe tradition is

W e ll-h ee l e d High-end shoemaking in Northamptonshire has a long and proud heritage that continues today, writes Lara Brunt different – shoes are typically made by sewing the upper directly to the sole.”

With a ready supply of skins and oak forests containing bark perfect for tanning, the county of Northamptonshire has been the heart of British shoemaking since the 15th century. Over the centuries, large Victorian factories replaced small individual cobblers’ workshops. During the war years, the factories were kept busy producing boots for the armed forces, and by the 1960s the region had 100,000 people producing 200 million pairs of shoes a year.

Like many British manufacturing industries, shoemaking started to decline in the 1970s, as production began to move overseas. Despite this, some heritage brands have survived, thanks in part to the ever-growing number of discerning international customers. While a shadow of its former self, today Northamptonshire is still home to the largest concentration of high-end shoemakers in the

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world, including venerable names such as Edward Green, Crockett & Jones, Joseph Cheaney and Sons, Hermès-owned John Lobb, and Prada-owned Church’s.

Although production processes have evolved since the early days, the manufacture of ready-towear Goodyear-welted footwear remains incredibly labour intensive. From the cutting out of the leather through to final polishing of the finished product, the eight-week process involves highly skilled craftsmen carrying out more than 160 separate operations. A

churned out from a great conveyor belt far away,” he says. “But with shoes it’s more than that. Globally, Northampton really is a centre of excellence for shoemaking. Savvy buyers internationally appreciate that, and so for shoes, ‘Made in England’ really has a special meaning.”

Having consolidated their positions at the top of both ready-to-wear and bespoke shoemaking, Northamptonshire’s remaining factories are full and the industry is even seeing new players emerge.

Founded in 2006 by Tony Gaziano and Dean

‘Northamptonshire is still home to the largest concentration of high-end shoemakers in the world’ pair of bespoke shoes, completely handmade on the customer’s own last (the wooden form on which the shoes are made), take around six months to produce, with a number of test fittings throughout.

“The key skills of reading leather before ‘clicking’ – cutting – it, or sewing with a pig’s bristle needle are almost immutable. They are about eyes as much as hands, and meticulous attention to detail,” says Denholm. Many craftsmen have followed in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers, passing skills down from one generation to the next. “They are fiercely loyal and proud,” says William Church, joint managing director of Cheaney and Sons, founded in 1886.

The businessman has equally illustrious shoemaking heritage: his great-great grandfather was the founder of Church’s, which was sold to Prada in 1999. A decade later, Church and his cousin Jonathan staged a management buy-out of Cheaney (owned by Church’s since 1966) with a commitment to continuing the production of high quality shoes made entirely in Northamptonshire.

“It is difficult to compete on price when retaining all operations in the UK, but we very much compete on ‘Made in England’ without compromise – we do not import or semi import any part of our production,” says Church. Customers opt for English-made shoes because they believe they are “buying the best that’s available,” he says.

Euan Denholm agrees. “Generally, there’s an interest in things having a provenance and not only

Girling, Gaziano & Girling opened its first factory in Kettering, Northamptonshire in 2009. “We’re the only shoe factory to start up in the last 100 years, as everything has just gone the other way,” says Girling, a second-generation bespoke shoemaker. “We employ around 20 craftsmen and we’re looking to double that over the next two years to increase our manufacturing capacity.”

The young company also makes shoes for prestigious brands such as Ralph Lauren and Paul Stuart New York, and is due to open its first flagship boutique on Savile Row this month. “Tony is half-Italian so we like to think we create a classic English shoe with a contemporary twist,” says Girling.

“We still make a lot of classic, cap-toe Oxfords, but we’ve added a little bit of flair as well.” Evolution is important for Edward Green too. “Colours and textures bring a new interpretation to classic styles.

Presently, we are really enjoying mixing similar colours of suedes and calfskins or patterned country calf,” says Denholm.

While sales are strong, the biggest challenge facing the industry is a lack of young apprentices to carry on the centuries-old tradition of English shoemaking. “There’s actually no shoe college in Northamptonshire so it’s very difficult to get craftsmen these days,” says Girling. “We’re doing in-house training, as are some of the other manufacturers, and we’re trying as an industry to reintroduce a shoe college to Northamptonshire. It’s needed to keep the industry alive.”

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Shine bright like a

1.

DIAMOND Britain is home to some of the world’s finest jewellers, as you’re about to discover or centuries the upper echelons of British society have called on a notable – home-grown – few for their fine jewels and precious stones.

Take the country’s diamond devotees, who have gravitated towards Backes & Strauss, the world’s oldest diamond company, ever since it first started cutting and polishing sparklers in 1789. And while today it is perhaps best known for its high-end diamond and jewel-encrusted watches – timepieces made in conjunction with Swiss luxury watch brand Franck Muller – its Ideal Cut diamonds continue to capture the attention (and wallets) of the world’s richest.

For standout pieces fit for royalty, then

former Royal jeweller Garrard has been the go-to place for the upper classes for centuries. Said to be the world’s oldest jeweller – with Queen Victoria once a loyal customer – Garrard set up shop in London in 1735 and was charged with the upkeep of the British Crown Jewels from 1843 to 2007. Such an association meant Britain’s elite sought – and still seek – a piece of the maker’s jewels. Another exclusive for Garrard is the Eternal Cut™, designed

by Gabi Tolkowsky, the master cutter renowned for having fashioned the largest diamond in the world. Then of course there’s ‘that’ ring, the sapphire engagement ring given by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge to his wife Catherine – the ring once belonged to the late Diana, Princess

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of Wales. And while the brand might be cloaked in history, its head designer Sara Prentice – former creative directors include Jade Jagger and Stephen Webster – is creating collections which have catapulted the brand into the 21st century: wings sculptured into hoop earrings, diamondencrusted bows knotted into a ring, Tudor roses elegantly fitted to a necklace.

In a similar vein, the sixth generation family-run Boodles, which opened in Liverpool in 1798 as Boodle and Dunthorne, has spent centuries designing bespoke pieces for its discerning clientele.

Britain’s top museums, too, have been captivated by Boodles. Today, you’ll find its Raindance ring in the permanent jewellery collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. More broadly, however, expect to find in its current high jewellery collection pieces inspired by Chinese embroideries, the rich tapestries of Samarkand and Tchaikovsky’s enchanting ballet, Swan Lake.

Asprey, which merged with Garrard in 1990 then demerged in 2002, has also contributed to Britain’s position as a first-rate jewellery producer since its

2.

1. Garrard 2. Theo Fennell 3. David Morris

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foundation in 1781. Like Garrard, Asprey’s slavish attention to detail sees a constant stream of unique pieces adorn the ears, necks and wrists of the world’s wealthiest shoppers.

Earlier this year, Asprey was the jeweller of choice for the BAFTAs, with Dame Helen Mirren sporting diamonds from the Storm Suite of Jewels.

Moving into present day and a new (in comparison to the aforementioned) breed of jewellers, such as Theo Fennell and David Morris, are giving classic jewellery a contemporary twist. The former, known internationally as the king of bling due to his ornate and flamboyant creations, has made pieces for Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley. The latter, meanwhile, has created exclusive pieces for some of the most high-profile individuals on the planet: from Beyoncé to the Beckhams, Oprah Winfrey to Barbara Streisand. It too is the jeweller to the Bond films and maker behind the magnificent turquoise and diamond crown worn each year at the Miss World contest. During a recent interview with AIR magazine, Jeremy Morris, son of jeweller extraordinaire David Morris, said: “The perfect jewel is, and always has been, about relationships, and most crucial, and elusive of all, is the relationship between the designer and the craftsmen or jeweller.”

Hear, hear.

3.

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Images: Supplied

‘The perfect jewel is, and always has been, about relationships’

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