The Chap Issue 104

ISSUE 104

SUMMER 2020

EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE

Honor Blackman “I’ve only seen Goldfinger twice.

I’ve turned down parts in the past because they required a sexy woman and I always wanted to play the secretary”

FELLINI’S ROME A tour of the city via Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita

MATADOR STYLE

Spanish dandyism, from eccentric counts to modern-day tailors

EURO DANDY

The flourising of peacock style from Hungary to Luxembourg 04>

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ISSUE 104

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O N E F A M I LY

F O U R G E N E R AT I O N S

136 YEARS OF KNOWLEDGE

FOLLOW THE STORY OF OUR UNIQUE HANDMADE JEWELLERY MOODYS1883.COM

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Editor: Gustav Temple

Art Director: Rachel Barker

Picture Editor: Theo Salter Circulation Manager: Susan Brennan

Sub-Editor: Romilly Clark Subscriptions Manager: Jen Rainnie

Contributing Editors: Chris Sullivan, Liam Jefferies, Alexander Larman, Sophie Gargett

CONTRIBUTORS

OLLY SMITH

LIAM JEFFERIES

CHRIS SULLIVAN

ALEXANDER LARMAN

Olly Smith is an awardwinning wine writer and broadcaster. He has been International Wine and Spirits Communicator of the Year, and Drinks Writer of the Year at the 2017 & 2016 Great British Food Awards.

He is a regular on Saturday Kitchen and BBC Radio 2.

Olly hosts his own drinks podcast www.aglasswith.com

Liam Jefferies is The Chap’s Sartorial Editor, in charge of exploring new brands, trends and rediscoveries of forgotten gentlemanly fashions. Liam’s expert knowledge covers the dark heart of Savile Row to the preppy eccentricities of Ivy Leaguers. You can follow him on Instagram @sartorialchap

Chris Sullivan is The Chap’s Contributing Editor. He founded and ran Soho’s Wag Club for two decades and is a former GQ style editor who has written for Italian Vogue, The Times, Independent and The FT. He is now Associate Lecturer at Central St Martins School of Art on ‘youth’ style cults and embroidery.

Alexander Larman is The Chap’s Literary Editor.

When neither poncing nor pandering for a living, he amuses himself by writing books: biographies of great men (Blazing Star) and examinations of greater women (Byron’s Women). His book about Edward VIII’s abdication,The Crown in Crisis, is published this year.

DAVID EVANS

SOPHIA CONINGSBY

David Evans is a former lawyer and teacher who founded popular sartorial blog Grey Fox Blog eight years ago. The blog has become very widely read by chaps all over the world, who seek advice on dressing properly and retaining an eye for style when entering the autumn of their lives.

Sophia (pronounced to rhyme with ‘a fire’) is a writer and cigar expert from Devon who likes shooting guns, smoking cigars and nature. Sophia spends her autumns and winters hunting with a sparrow hawk and her springs and summers fly fishing on the Devon rivers.

Office address The Chap Ltd 69 Winterbourne Close Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1JZ

DARCY SULLIVAN

GOSBEE & MINNS

Darcy Sullivan writes about comic books, aesthetes and algorithms. His articles have appeared in The Comics Journal, The Wildean and Weird Fiction Review. He is a proud member of the Oscar Wilde Society and the curator of the Facebook pages ‘The Pictures of Dorian Gray’ and ‘I am Mortdecai’.

Peter Gosbee is a jeweller, antiques purveyor and keen disciple of the sartorial arts, often to be found at markets, briar in hand and suitcase brimming with treasures.

John Minns was brought up in what is commonly known as the rag trade. He cut his sartorial teeth working with ‘the King of Carnaby Street’ John Stephen.

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DE WINTER & STURM Marie de Winter and Ferdinand Sturm have been editors-in-chief of the German 1920s magazine Le Journal of the Bohème Sauvage since 2019. They travel through time and space to report about international vintage movements and bring together birds of a feather in joint activities.

NICK OSTLER Nick Ostler is an Emmywinning and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter of family-friendly entertainment such as Danger Mouse, Shaun the Sheep and the upcoming adaptation of Tove Jansson’s classic Moomin novels, Moominvalley. He is also co-author, with Mark Huckerby, of the British fantasy adventure trilogy Defender of the Realm, published by Scholastic.

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THE CHAP MANIFESTO 1 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WEAR TWEED. No other fabric says so defiantly: I am a man of panache, savoir-faire and devil-may-care, and I will not be served Continental lager beer under any circumstances.

2 THOU SHALT NEVER NOT SMOKE. Health and Safety “executives” and jobsworth medical practitioners keep trying to convince us that smoking is bad for the lungs/heart/skin/eyebrows, but we all know that smoking a bent apple billiard full of rich Cavendish tobacco raises one’s general sense of well-being to levels unimaginable by the aforementioned spoilsports.

3 THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE COURTEOUS TO THE LADIES. A gentleman is never truly seated on an omnibus or railway carriage: he is merely keeping the seat warm for when a lady might need it.

Those who take offence at being offered a seat are not really Ladies.

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4 THOU SHALT NEVER, EVER, WEAR PANTALOONS DE NIMES. When you have progressed beyond fondling girls in the back seats of cinemas, you can stop wearing jeans.

5 THOU SHALT ALWAYS DOFF ONE’S HAT. Alright, so you own a couple of trilbies. Good for you - but it’s hardly going to change the world. Once you start actually lifting them off your head when greeting passers-by, then the revolution will really begin.

6 THOU SHALT NEVER FASTEN THE LOWEST BUTTON ON THY WAISTCOAT. Look, we don’t make the rules, we simply try to keep them going. This one dates back to Edward VII, sufficient reason in itself to observe it.

7 THOU SHALT ALWAYS SPEAK PROPERLY. It’s really quite simple: instead of saying “Yo, wassup?”, say “How do you do?”

8 THOU SHALT NEVER WEAR PLIMSOLLS WHEN NOT DOING SPORT. Nor even when doing sport. Which you shouldn’t be doing anyway. Except cricket.

9 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WORSHIP AT THE TROUSER PRESS. At the end of each day, your trousers should be placed in one of Mr. Corby’s magical contraptions, and by the next morning your creases will be so sharp that they will start a riot on the high street.

10 THOU SHALT CULTIVATE INTERESTING FACIAL HAIR. By interesting we mean moustaches, or beards with a moustache attached.

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CONTENTS 8 AM I CHAP?

Photographs of readers’ sartorial attempts to survive the coronavirus Lockdown

12 EXTREME BUTLING

Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth addresses sartorial and etiquette matters, and other disciplines

16 SARTORIAL THUG

Diary entries from a chap who dedicates his time to loafing about, coddiwompling and well-mixed cocktails

FEATURES 22 HONOR BLACKMAN

Gustav Temple’s tribute to the recently passed star of The Avengers and Goldfinger

30 T HE CHAP TAROT

andora Harrison creates a special Chap Tarot deck to help readers P gain insight, wisdom and enlightenment

36 T AMARA DE LEMPICKA

unday Swift on the art deco dandizette who used painting as S a way to fund her lavish lifestyle and cocaine addiction

•

SUMMER 2020

22 SARTORIAL FEATURES 44 FASHION PHOTO SHOOT

We combed the literary salons, cocktail bars and pavements of Europe to find some notable chaps who cut the sartorial mustard

52 EUROPEAN STYLE: SPAIN

Esperanza Ruiz on dandyism in Spain, from eccentric aristocrats to contemporary bullfighters

60 G ET THE LOOK

Detailed instruction on every component of the Lounge Suit

64 E UROPEAN STYLE: GERMANY

Marie de Winter and Ferdinand Sturm conduct an exhaustive search for the rare species of dandy in The Rhineland

72 GEOFF STOCKER

Liam Jefferies on the menswear brand producing signature silk styles influenced by Japanese and mediaeval art

76 E UROPEAN STYLE: HOLLAND

Alice O’Connell scours the streets of Amsterdam in search of the elusive Lowland Dandy

82 E UROPEAN STYLE: HUNGARY

Dennis Merry meets three Hungarians who actively champion the clothes, manners and historical precedents of dandyism

88 G REY FOX COLUMN

David Evans of @Greyfoxblog turns his attention, briefly, across the Channel to highlight some noteworthy European mens and womenswear brands

LONGER FEATURES 94 FELLINI’S ROME

Chris Sullivan roams the sights of Rome that featured in the films of Federico Fellini, in search of La Dolce Vita

102 DRINK

Olly Smith, haunted by the ghost of Ollie Reed, crosses the Irish Sea in search of the greatest pub on Earth

107 RESTAURANT REVIEW

Gustav Temple and Chris Sullivan’s last meal before Lockdown, at Hix Oyster and Chop House

110 BIRDING

Nick Ostler turns his binoculars to the avian species that have set up home in the UK from regions as far-flung as Eastern Europe

114 T RAVEL

Darcy Sullivan travels to Romania in search of Vlad the Impaler and Count Dracula in their various castles

114 FRITZ LANG

Chris Sullivan on the German director whose name has become synoymous with futuristic neo-noir dystopian film-making

REVIEWS 128 A UTHOR INTERVIEW

Alexander Larman meets legendary bon vivant, author and journalist Nicholas Lezard

132 BOOK REVIEWS

A book about the books that influenced David Bowie

134 BEAT THE DEVIL

The timely re-release of John Huston’s curious noir satire

138 ANNA KARINA

Sophie Gargett on the life of Jean-Luc Godard’s muse and wife

147 CIGAR BASICS

Sophia Coningsby on the essential tools of the dedicated cigar smoker

152 LOCKDOWN LIP WEASEL

The winners and runners-up in our moustache-growing competition

157 MINNS & GOSBEE

Our antiques experts delve into the history of the pocket watch

160 CROSSWORD

Cover photo: © Rex Features/Shutterstock

ISSUE 104

INSTEAD OF THE USUAL SCABROUS COMMENTS ON READERS’ CLOTHING, WE ARE PUBLISHING THE RESULTS OF READERS’ ATTEMPTS TO MAINTAIN SARTORIAL DECORUM WHILE SELF-ISOLATING DURING THE CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN

Ferdinand Sturm was the only respondent to our call for Lockdown photographs to display the correct sartorial response to self-isolation: the Nöel Coward approach.

Timur Masautov went to rather extreme measures to protect himself from the unpleasantness, and we can only imagine he was entirely successful.

Tweed has been identified as the sturdiest fabric capable of withstanding even the most virulent viruses.

Edward Marlowe survived the global pandemic by hiding in a lift disguised as Che Guevara with an asthma attack.

Johnny Haart’s outraged expression is not because he had to wear a surgical mask while travelling on the Underground, but because he was snapped without permission by a photographer from the Guardian, who then published the photograph to show how well-dressed Londoners are coping with the pandemic.

James Baillie coped with self-isolation by drinking gin from a chipped mug and playing with his toys.

Fleur de Guerre showed that, with deft adaptation of a Chap Pocket Square, one may remain utterly glamorous even without one’s lipstick on display.

People went a bit stir crazy during selfisolation. Benoit Zimmer decided to become Scottish and stare into a mirror during the whole lockdown period.

“While being confined to your own premises during the pandemic, the problem to be solved is not what to wear but what to drink next.”

Whereas Oliver Dütsch became completely sane.

Bradley Bordiss found a solution to worldwide panic and quarantine by hiding in his conservatory and turning all his teapots into plant holders.

Gareth Hunt went for a walk during Lockdown.

There wasn’t much to see.

Charlie Walters was so desperate to purchase a hat that he decided to sit it out outside the charity shop until it opened, which turned out to be longer than he expected, and he had not brought enough wine.

Gavin Bultitude did an excellent job of covering his breathing organs to prevent the virus from gaining access. Unfortunately coronavirus loves a gap between shirt and cravat, and leaving that second button undone was perhaps a mistake.

Paul Lawford simply carried on drinking during Lockdown, but in a dressing gown instead of clothes. The bars in his native Jerez de la Frontera took the opportunity of his absence to restock their depleted cellars.

Mari Jasper spent her time making an embroidered mask to celebrate something she called "Fabulous Quarantine". The books behind her are all in Russian so we get the picture. Presumably, like Paul Lawford, she drinks Smirnoff.

Richard MacFarlane took the bold decision to wear the suede shoes he’s never dared to don before, for fear of public opprobrium.

He needn’t have worried, as nobody saw him.

Extr eme

Butling

Our erstwhile butler Mr. Bell has moved to the outskirts of Amsterdam to become a tulip farmer and goat fancier. He left us in the capable hands of his factotum and personal assistant, Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth, who is here to offer readers advice on social, sartorial and etiquette matters. Send your queries to gimpley@thechap.co.uk

Embarrassed railway guard of Durham: I come to you on a delicate and embarrassing matter. I have let the hair on my upper lip grow for some two years now. The fact of it being ginger is bad enough (as is the hair on the rest of my head, before eyebrows are raised), but owing to a relatively large philtrum, there is a pronounced gap, leading to jibes from colleagues that I am not happy with one moustache and instead have two, a witty riposte which leaves me without any immediate retort to save face. Do you have any sartorial guidance to spare my blushes, other than a rather awkward looking ‘comb-over’ between the two, or should I instead embrace my two ginger upper lip slugs?

Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth: Everyone has a bit of ginger in them, so they say. Oddly enough, I did last night. Some chums from the Highlands popped over for their annual whisky tasting, which got slightly out of hand, as indeed it was supposed to. Johnnie Walker Black Label will never taste the same again.

Nevertheless, I hear your plight, Master! We must fight the good fight against this absurd prejudice towards the Carrot Munchers. In our dungeon,

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shared with Brian Blessed on Thursdays, we reserve a special chamber for the orang-u-tache breed of chap, and you would be most welcome to join (not on Thursdays) the other Cherry Pickers, who twirl their luxuriant ginger plumage while listening to the music of Simply Red and Rod Stewart.

benefit, especially as it leaves a large expanse of naked waistcoat where one’s watch chain would otherwise be.

Should you ever wish to visit the Gimpley residence, we have a number of chains which you are welcome to use at your leisure, though they are made for sturdier items than pocket watches, and they are affixed to the walls.

Tony Carpenter: I have several pocket watches and would like to wear them, one at a time, of course, and in the proper manner. Please explain pocket watch chains, including variations for single-breasted, and double-breasted waistcoats and even the modern idea of keeping the watch in a top pocket.

Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth: Master, you raise an interesting and highly pertinent query! One’s credo should always be informed by the great Beau Brummell, who averred that only three links of one’s watch chain should show outside the waistcoat pocket. However, the more modern waistcoat (and by modern I mean from the early 20th century) has a lot more space for watch chain display. The important element is that you do not insert the bar any higher than three buttons from the bottom of the waistcoat, and that the watch itself goes into the pocket opposite the hand you normally use to take it out.

As to the breast pocket insertion of a watch, this was used by Hugh Laurie in his portrayal of Bertie Wooster and, in my humble opinion, has no real

Alexander Fairweather: I have fallen, tragically, to that malady which affects the middle-aged man, namely fallen arches. Can you suggest any form of footwear that would assist this, while precluding the need to wear any form of abominable flat-soled shoe? I do not wish to put the Northampton shoe industry out of business.

Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth: Never succumb to the flat-soled shoe, so used to say my Master Mr. Bell (who ironically ended up in exile in the flattest country in the world, Holland).

As with most sartorial matters, Master, we must look back far in history for the solution. Foot binding was a noble

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Charles Pringle: I am afflicted with a burning desire to acquire a pair of buckshot brogues, their random broguing seeming a rather racy alternative to the traditional brogue. Where can I get a decent pair, sir?

Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth: Master, these splendid additions to the brogue range are only made by a few brave bootmakers, and www. cheaney.co.uk are one of them.

Alternatively, feel free to pop over to my dungeon in a pair of plain brown Oxfords, and I’ll make you dance for me with my blunderbuss.

practice in ancient China, reducing ladies’ shoe sizes by several inches to produce a more elegant shape. I suggest reviving this practice by binding your trotters in silk scarves until the fallen arches have been straightened.

A more extreme solution would be deliberately to accentuate the fallen arches by entirely collapsing them into a pair of shoes such as those pictured above. It must be admitted they have a certain louche flair in themselves, Master!

Gavin Lawrence: I am cognizant of the strict rules regarding gentlemen’s headwear indoors, but my question is this: if one is afflicted, as am I, with a hairless pate, can the rules ever be bent, to allow one to maintain élan among the more fulsomely coiffed?

Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth: Once again, I am at great risk of a flogging from my editorial overlords for condoning the breaking of such rigid sartorial rules as men not wearing hats indoors. Which is why I am openly suggesting you do so, Master. On a more personal note, I am firmly of the belief that, while headwear indoors is verboten, the wearing of a full head and face covering indoors is entirely acceptable, and can in fact enhance the enjoyment of indoor pastimes. n

David Ambleton: When it comes to nightwear, are traditional pyjamas correct, or is an old-fashioned nightshirt more ‘the thing’ for a chap? And if the former – silk, cotton or wynciette?

Mr. Gimpley-Spankworth: Silk is the only suitable material for nightwear, for other fabrics do not adhere tightly enough to the bedposts, Master. However, when actually wearing nightwear, the primary concern with traditional pyjamas is the trouser riding up during the night, displaying a vulgar section of ankle in the morning, which can frighten the servants delivering one’s breakfast. For this reason, I always insist my employers sleep in the nude, and allow me to fasten them into their beds securely with leather straps on all sides. If modesty is a concern, the addition of what is known in my trade as a ‘ball gag’ keeps them from protesting too much.

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Diary

SARTORIAL THUG

S

artorial Thug is a fortysomething (although he looks much younger) gentleman, described by some as a bounder, rascal and rotter, and by others as a disgrace and reprehensible miscreant. He currently resides in the beautiful joy-filled city of Nottingham and dedicates his time to loafing about, coddiwompling, searching out well-mixed cocktails and deplorable indulgences with trollops and strumpets. A chap who appreciates the finer things in life but struggles with some of the ways of the modern world, in

particular the extraordinarily bad dress sense of ‘lads’ and the general unnecessary hipsterisation and wokeness of society. Should the need arise, he is not afraid of a spot of old-school fisticuffs – on the cobbles, no weapons, although his attempts to goad celebrity chefs into a fistfight has so far fallen on deaf ears. When he is not sipping negronis and martinis in a sex dungeon, he can be found on Twitter and Instagram @SartorialThug giving words of wisdom, telling you how it is, and regaling tales of debauchery.

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Sartorial Thug’s diary entries from earlier this year

21st January

26th January

The restraint I show by not leaving a trail of injured buffoons behind me on a daily basis is a constant surprise. Just today I have managed to stop myself from windmilling into: a chap who was talking too loudly on his mobile device, someone in skinny pantaloons de Nîmes and no socks ordering a coffee that he had clearly made up in his head, and some absolute sociopath who tried to confabulate with me on a locomotive.

Where is my Nobel Peace Prize?

I am still suffering, so I have spent the day resting as opposed to my default position of loafing.

6th February I have been trying to break my record scrabble tile tower, currently at 80 tiles. I am starting to think the laws of physics mean this is as high as one can possibly get, but I’m no Stephen Hawkins so don’t quote me on that. Additionally, I lost an E and an M down the back of my bureau, so if I’m wrong about the laws of physics the highest I could go would now be 98 tiles. Unless I retrieve the E and M (not likely), or send a subordinate to purchase another game of Scrabble (more likely). I sometimes think I have too much time on my hands.

25th January I am suffering this morning following a debauched evening of outrageous rascality. It started with martinis and negronis and ended with a private display of exhausting unmaidenly conduct from my debutante. I think I have slipped a disc, but at least I managed to find my pants this time.

10th February Started on the ponce juice early doors. Might try to goad someone into throwing the first punch in a bar scuffle by having a contrary opinion on politics or religion.

17th February Vegans. Now, I’m not going on a rant about vegans. I enjoy a tomato or bit of rocket with my victuals as much as the next chap. What I don’t like are the aggressive obersturmbannvegans. Today whilst on my coddiwomple, I happened across a group of these specimens holding television sets showing scenes of animal suffering; you may have seen something similar in your town. I stopped to record the scene by way of a photographic image, as one does, and was accosted by a fella with quite offensive hair and shocking habiliments who demanded to know how I felt about the images on the screen and why I stopped to take a picture.

I liked his tone even less than I liked his shoes, and my reply of “I’m taking a picture in order to say something sarcastic and mildly cutting on Twitter” didn’t go down well. I was eventually ushered away by my companion before I could finish giving him advice on how he might want to rethink his wearables and attitude.

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19th February

passion fruit plopped into it, which mainly appear to be consumed by ladies with too much fake tan and strange pouty lips. I’ll stick to the classic gin martini, negroni or old fashioned from now on.

These new fangled concoctions are not for a chap like me.

Finally got round to sorting out my OXO cubes.

22nd February A bacchanalian evening of cocktails and cleavage with an amply bosomed harlot was slightly spoiled by the music (none of which I knew) being too loud and the bar offering 2-4-1 cocktails, which seemed to attract the worst kind of ‘oi oi banter wankers’, one of whom wore meggings and pixie boots that seriously tested my twitching bollockbooting foot. I will not respond to rumours that Les Dennis lobbed his negroni at the barman and had to be escorted from the building, after I refused to let him have a selfie with me because my tie had become dishevelled. Thankfully the night was saved by some beastly soap based indulgences at the home of my admirably serviceable companion.

25th February Found my 8th best Nice and Spicy Nik Nak ever.

26th February On a train and the chap opposite has been bouncing his leg for the last ten minutes GMT. I can’t work out if it is an anxiety/mental illness thing or if he is just an annoying socially inadequate psychopath. To make matters worse, he is wearing noisy nylon sporting strides that are making a chhh, chhh, chhh sound. I am concerned he might combust. I have loudly sighed twice and tutted more times than I can count but he isn’t taking the hint. Finally caught his eye, I gave him a disappointed look and glanced down at his legs while almost imperceptibly shaking my

23rd February I can still taste the awful ‘porn star’ martini I had last night. Sweet sickly rubbish with half a

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head. He got the message and stopped. Job jobbed without the situation becoming unsavoury.

1. Don’t cough or sneeze into people’s faces.

2. Wash your hands.

3. Try to keep two metres away from the general public.

All standard Sartorial Thug behavior, although number 3 can be difficult when on a bimble or in a gin palace. Luckily I have a special stare that says, “don’t come near me, poisoning the air that I breathe with your pestilential vapours of wet digestive biscuits”.

On the subject of the coronavirus, it is important that we do what we can to protect the elderly from contracting this awful illness. If Mary Berry or Joanna Lumley need somewhere to selfisolate, I can put them up at Thug Towers. I could probably squeeze Helen Mirren in too.

29th February There has been a thing going around Twitter where you have to name ten things that most people like but you don’t. It was almost impossible to stop at ten. I didn’t include superhero (and other childish) films or anything to do with science fiction or ‘talent’ shows or sports cars or James Corden… you get the gist. Try it; it’s cathartic.

February ended with a visit to my loud, casually racist aunt in Norfolk. I have to put up with her sneering disapproval of my rascal-like lifestyle two or three times per year, but the ‘top nephewing’ points I score by making time for her should be enough to secure my inheritance. Colin the cat (menacing bastard) didn’t attack me, I put up a cabinet in her ablution room, I didn’t flirt (too outrageously) with my aunt’s friends over luncheon and I pretended to like the biscuits.

Thankfully, this time I didn’t have the indignity of having her friend’s daughters thrust at me as potential suitors. I think I will take a paid-for companion next time, to give the pretence that I have “found a nice girl to settle down with”.

2nd March One thing I have learned from watching Antiques Roadshow (my favourite TV programme) tonight is that there seems to be an abundance of quite hot older ladies in Battle. I shall instruct my valet to book a hotel suite for a visit

7th March Lewis Hamilton (above) is a prime example of someone who should listen to his valet. Any manservant worth his salt would have advised against those trainers. Same goes for Mr. Wenger.

1st March I’ve been hearing tips about avoiding the Coronavirus Outbreak:

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For 20 years, satirical gentlemen’s quarterly The Chap has been providing chaps all over the world with crucial advice on sartorial rectitude and anarcho-dandyist etiquette.

Best of The Chap brings together, in one 300-page hardback volume, all the features from the last 100 issues that have defined the publication’s manifesto.

BEST OF THE CHAP is available in all good bookshops and directly from www.thechap.co.uk at the reduced price of £9.99

Features •

Honor Blackman (p22) Chap Tarot Cards (p30)21• Tamara de Lempicka (p36)

Tribute

HONO R BLA CK M A N Honor Blackman died this April aged 94 after a long career in film, television and theatre. Gustav Temple reflects on the many reasons why Ms Blackman ranks so high on the chapette-ometer

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“Practically every script contained the line, ‘Cathy Gale reaches into her handbag for a gun’.

Well, you and I know that we’d all be dead if we had to find a gun in our handbag!”

just knew I liked the character and I enjoyed the fighting, and it was when the fighting really began that The Avengers clicked. In those days it wasn’t possible to edit videotapes, so it had to be right first time. I used to go out to kill. I remember Patrick Macnee saying, ‘Darling, you don’t have to be quite so hard!’ Oh yes I do! I said, and meant it.”

Honor Blackman’s arrival on the set of The Avengers in 1962, with a pistol in her garter and a full programme of Judo training under her belt, had taken a lot of meetings, discussions, agonising and resistance from the top brass at ITV. When original leading man Ian Hendry left the series, a new sidekick for Patrick Macnee’s John Steed was needed.

It was producer Leonard White who suggested a female sidekick, backed up by series creator Sydney Newman, though according to Patrick Macnee,

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“ITV bosses shook their cynical heads”. The two men ignored channel resistance and forged ahead with developing the character of Cathy Gale.

Newman was inspired by the tale of an expat lady in Kenya whose house had been besieged during the Mau Mau rebellion, and had fought off the attackers with a pistol in one hand and her baby in the other. Her husband and other children were slaughtered, while she and her baby survived.

Other sources of inspiration for Cathy Gale were daring photographer Margaret Bourke-White and anthropologist Margaret Mead.

a gun in our handbag!” The problem was partially solved by adding a holster to her garter where the pistol could be stored, but when Judo instructor Douglas Robinson was brought in to train the two stars, along with Rene Burdet, former head of the French Resistance in Marseilles, more wardrobe problems arose.

“I noticed that Honor appeared to be unhappy,” Patrick Macnee wrote in his autobiography.

“Whenever the scene called for Cathy Gale to take a tumble in a fight scene, the audience would see the tops of her stockings. I’m not sure what inspired me to telephone my old friend Peter Arne, but possibly thinking that Peter had the answer to some of life’s more interesting problems.” Mr. Arne certainly did, and suggested a wardrobe change that would go on to create an icon. His idea was to put Cathy Gale in black leather trousers with a matching black leather jerkin. Honor did not object, though she did say, “Oh God. Don’t the two of you realise what you might be starting?”

Frederick Starke, the man responsible for the all-new leather look, claimed that “Honor started the most tremendous boom the industry has ever known when she first wore leather. Cathy is meant to be a fashionable woman. She can wear anything so long as it isn’t fluffy. She is a beautiful girl with a lovely figure, but an unusual bone structure makes her difficult to fit.” The ‘problem’ with Honor’s 36-24-37 figure, apparently, was that she had big bones with broad shoulders, but was so slim from front to back “that she almost disappears.” (Frederick Starke).

Once she was put in leather trousers, Blackman approached the fight scenes with more gusto: “I had to go in with all my strength if I was going to throw those great big men about. I’d have looked a right Charlie if I’d tried and not been able to manage it. I didn’t break anyone’s neck, but I accidentally knocked out all-in wrestler Jackie Pallo.” Journalists at the time who dared to question her genuine yellow-belt status in Judo were treated to a quick demonstration, ending up on the floor.

All the preparation, Judo training and wardrobe alterations proved successful when the first episode of The Avengers, series Two was aired on ABC Television on 29th September, 1962. “Mrs Gale was known from the first for her clothes,”

“She had the only violet eyes Bond had ever seen... and they looked candidly out on the world from beneath straight black brows. Her hair was worn in an untidy urchin cut. The mouth was a decisive slash of deep vermilion. Bond thought she was superb.”

Ian Fleming, Goldfinger Cathy Gale was envisaged as a sanguine blonde with a combination of martial arts training, sophistication and high moral standards, with a doctorate in anthropology and also handy with firearms. Persuading ITV bosses to accept this new character took many rows and persuasive meetings, and eventually they caved in. Sydney Newman’s first choice was Nyree Dawn Porter, but when he returned from a holiday, he found to his surprise that Honor Blackman had been cast, to which he eventually agreed.

Next came Cathy Gale’s wardrobe. Fashion designer Michael Whittaker dressed her in kneelength boots, floppy hats and svelte suits, with a pistol in her handbag. Honor Blackman recalled, “Practically every script contained the line, ‘Cathy Gale reaches into her handbag for a gun’. Well, you and I know that we’d all be dead if we had to find

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wrote Toby Miller in the BFI’s 1996 tribute book, The Avengers, “designed by Michael Whittaker with a view to being six months ahead of women’s fashions. Guns were kept at different moments in a garter under her culottes, in her armpit, and then in a compact. She wore knee-high boots, tailored leather suits and a trench coat, at a time when such outfits were only seen in porn magazines and fetishist outlets. Mrs Gale was straightforward and virtuous as well as sensual. Unlike Mrs Peel, Mrs Gale is a Monica Seles avant la lettre, squealing and screaming as she does battle with assailants in ways that made a few male viewers anxious.”

Anxious or not, Cathy Gale proved a huge hit with male fans of The Avengers, though also with female viewers. Blackman later claimed she had as much fan mail from women admiring her portrayal of a tough, educated, no-nonsense female character as she had from men asking her to come round to their place in her kinky boots. Before Cathy Gale, most female television parts portrayed either a dutiful wife or a woman in danger waiting to be rescued by a man. There were even those who nominated Cathy Gale as the spearhead of the ‘second wave’ era of the feminist movement in the 1960s.

When Decca Records approached Blackman and Macnee in 1964 to record a spin-off single, Kinky Boots, they clearly didn’t have feminism in mind.

Blackman handled the recording easily, but Macnee was tone deaf and had to speak his lines, and only after Blackman had got him drunk on brandy in a pub opposite the studio. The song did not chart on its release, but later became a hit when it reached number 5 in the charts on its re-release in 1990.

When Blackman’s contract on The Avengers came up for renewal, she faced a tough decision.

A £10,000 offer had been made from Albert R Broccoli to star in the next James Bond film, Goldfinger. She took the role and walked out of The Avengers, later regretting the decision, though the Bond girl role brought her to much bigger audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

She brought, on the producers’ insistence, much of Cathy Gale to the role of Pussy Galore. She was the first Bond girl to resist the spy’s charms, initially, and at 39 (older than Sean Connery) the oldest actress to play a female foil in a Bond movie, as

well as one of the closest to Ian Fleming’s original portrayals in 1958’s Goldfinger novel, in which he described her thus: “She had the only violet eyes Bond had ever seen... and they looked candidly out on the world from beneath straight black brows.

Her hair was worn in an untidy urchin cut. The mouth was a decisive slash of deep vermilion. Bond thought she was superb.”

Blackman was keen to break the mould of the traditional Bond girls: “I consider Bond girls to be those ladies who took one look at Bond and fell on their backs,” she said in 2012. During one of their early encounters in Goldfinger, Pussy Galore says to Sean Connery’s Bond, “I am immune to your charms” and judoflips him into a haystack.

“Sean is the best Bond as far as I am concerned,” said Honor. “He has the distinct advantage of being the first and the prototype. But he was a stupendous figure of a man, and terribly good-looking. Of course I fancied Sean, he was the sexiest man I’ve ever met. He was Mr. Universe, with a body to die for, had those twinkly eyes and was great fun. Yes, if I hadn’t been married, I would have gone there.

“I think he was underrated as far as playing Bond was concerned, because he had been a milkman and there he was playing a suave, sophisticated creature.

But he was one of the few people that you could accept. Bond wasn’t a very nice character. He was a misogynist. He picked up women and threw them away. Until he got to me, of course.”

Cathy Gale, though replaced to great acclaim

by Diana Rigg as Miss Peel in The Avengers, was still remembered fondly by the show. In an episode from 1965, Steed receives a Christmas Card from Cathy.

“A card from Mrs Gale!” he exclaims, adding, with a reference to her role as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, “Whatever can she be doing at Fort Knox?”

Honor Blackman’s influence on Pussy Galore didn’t end with Goldfinger. A virtual version of the character later appeared in two video games, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (2004) and 007 Legends (2012), heavily based on Honor Blackman’s physique and style, though voiced by different actors.

Bigger roles were expected for Blackman after Goldfinger, but at 40 she was considered too old for

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Queen did play ball, but she surely didn’t enjoy the opening ceremony. She was bored to tears because there were no horses.”

She also revised her glowing opinion of Sir Sean Connery in 2012, unimpressed by his tax exile status: “I disapprove of him strongly now, because I don’t think you should accept a title from a country and then pay absolutely no tax towards it. He wants it both ways. I don’t think his principles are very high.”

Honor Blackman clearly had strong principles, which she maintained while playing a sexy female lead in an iconic television programme and a Bond film. And all this combined with unexpected modesty for an actress, as she displayed in a 2015 interview: “I never considered myself a sex symbol.

I’ve only seen Goldfinger twice: once at the premiere and once at the 50th anniversary. I’ve turned down parts in the past because they required a sexy woman and I didn’t think that was me. I always wanted to play the secretary. I know it’s extraordinary, but it’s the truth.” n RIP HONOR BLACKMAN 22nd August 1925 – 5th April 2020

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Photo: Guy Bell/Shutterstock

female leads, and returned to working in theatre.

She also launched a very successful production company, Six-Star Entertainment, with John and Hayley Mills, Richard Attenborough and Herbert Lom. Honor’s next big part on television didn’t come until 1981, when she appeared in sitcom Never The Twain with Donald Sinden and Windsor Davies.

She then appeared in four episodes of Doctor Who in 1986, but it wasn’t until she was old enough to play grandmothers that more roles were offered. She played Laura West in 1990’s The Upper Hand, then Rula Romanoff in Coronation Street in 2004.

Until her death on 5th April this year, Blackman was still being offered parts, something which, in her 90s, she found “ridiculous”. Her last part was in a 2015 episode of television’s You, Me and Them, in which she played Anthony Head’s mother. She devoted much of her later life to her grandchildren, the scions of her two adopted children Lottie and Barnaby, moving to Lewes from Spain to be closer to them. Blackman was also a tireless supporter of the LibDems and a vocal Republican, turning down a CBE in 2002. Her views were voiced during the 2012 Olympic Games, in which she observed: “The

Arcana

The Chap Tarot Pandora Harrison delves into the arcane mysteries of the Tarot and creates a special Chap version to help readers gain insight, wisdom and enlightenment

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elcome, dear reader. Thank you for parting the bead curtain, venturing into the parlour and crossing my palm with silver. Be comfortably seated and allow me to spread the cards before you as I guide you through the Chap Tarot.

A little history first, if you please. It is widely known that playing cards originated in China, but it is thought that the Crusaders brought Arabic gaming cards called Mamluk to Europe from North Africa by way of Egypt. The deck had 52 cards consisting of 4 suits (polo-sticks, coins, swords, and cups), each with 10 numbered or ‘pip’ cards and three court cards representing Knight, Queen and King. In 16th century Italy, the Mamluk cards were further developed by the addition of a 5th suit

“The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was first published in 1909 by the Rider Company, named after the arts and crafts movement artist Pamela ‘Pixie’ Colman Smith, who illustrated the cards based upon instructions given to her by Golden Dawn occultist Arthur Edward Waite”

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of 22 trump or picture cards to play a bridge style game called Tarocco or Tarock. The picture cards featured Renaissance allegorical images and held no occult associations at the time. The Marseilles Tarot deck became the most popular of these early Italian style decks that could be easily mass-produced by the new printing press. The popularity of the card game spread across Europe, with each culture developing their own stylised decks. In Germany the four suits became shields, roses, bells and acorns, for example.

To this day the French Tarot, or jeu de tarot, is the second most popular card game in France.

In the late 18th century, the hobby of cartomancy (the use of playing cards for divination) had developed into an art form and flourished, particularly in France. The Marseilles Tarot deck became the deck of choice after Antoine Court du Gebelin applied interpreted meanings of esoteric wisdom to the trump cards in 1781. The deck was also appointed its two distinctive parts: the Tarock cards, being the first 22 picture trump cards, became known as the Major Arcana or ‘greater secrets’ and the remaining Mamluk pip cards, consisting of 56 suited cards (Batons, Swords, Cups and Coins), became the Minor Arcana or ‘lesser secrets’.

The ‘purpose built’ tarot deck most commonly used today is the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

This deck is universally easy to read, despite borrowing heavily from the Marseilles deck with added esoteric symbolism, Kabbalistic theory and numerology. This deck was first published in 1909

Pamela Colman Smith

by the Rider Company and is named after the arts and crafts movement artist Pamela ‘Pixie’ Colman Smith, who illustrated the cards based upon instructions given to her by Golden Dawn occultist Arthur Edward Waite. Tens of thousands of decks have been produced in various forms ever since, even including one based upon the characters from the Harry Potter books.

Why not a Tarot deck from a chappish angle?

Well indeed why not, but I beg you, dear querant, please understand the Tarot is not really for telling fortunes in an end-of-the-pier crystal ball gazing sense. It is best accepted as a guide to inner wisdom and spiritual development. It helps to discover weaknesses/strengths and to identify problems/ possibilities. Readings give a person insight to past, current and future events based on the person’s current path at the time of the reading. There a several layouts for the cards when performing a reading, and I shall discuss a few of these in a further article while introducing more cards, but in the meantime let us start with discovering the chappish meanings and representations in the major arcana’s first few cards. Please note that the original tarot card names are noted in brackets.

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#0. THE FLANEUR (THE FOOL)

#1. THE INVENTOR (THE MAGICIAN)

The Flâneur is the very essence of the card known as the Fool and is best embodied by Charles Baudelaire’s flâneur, a chap on life’s journey who finds himself always at a beginning with infinite potential and a lack of fear. He is a well-dressed poet who wanders the modern metropolis in his Laudanum haze, and is therefore likely to turn in any direction that suggests a change is forthcoming. He is willing to take chances and leaps of faith, thus making his decisions based upon feelings and instinct. His is a free-spending urban explorer and a connoisseur of the street. He is faith, courage and optimism idly detached from society; a man of leisure wandering with no purpose. Reversed, the Flaneur/Fool is a failure to follow your instincts or take a chance at an appropriate time. Thinking too much, depending heavily on planning and practical advice. Also, recklessness and crazy schemes.

The Inventor is a scientific representation of the Magician card. He is Nikola Tesla, a meticulously groomed boffin, a creator and a man who can make things happen. He gets what he wants through the masculine element of taking action or being an active force. Like Tesla, he possesses great will power and has an outer awareness of himself.

His power is to influence through the channelling of energy towards a goal and success. Traditionally he is depicted on the card with a wand (lightening rod) in hand raised to heaven drawing down energy (spirit/inspiration) and the other hand is pointing to the ground channelling the energy through him and into the ground (reality). Tesla’s electrical engineering success brought power to the people and he once claimed he could channel energy wirelessly through the earth; an early vision of today’s wi-fi.

Reversed, the Inventor/Magician symbolises a

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flow of energy disrupted or blocked. A loss of will, inertia, not to act, lethargy and apathy. It can also mean power abused, to be a destructive influence on others, panic, anxiety and madness. Later in his life Tesla certainly walked the fine line between genius and madness.

herself away from outer struggles and realities of life, experiencing depression, apathy and fear. In the 1960s Aretha moved into the rhythm and blues genre. Her anthem became Otis Reading’s Respect and through her powerful rendition the message is clear, be it civil rights or feminism. The Chanteuse can see the possibilities not realised and requiring action, but this can only be understood by the card’s position and its relation to the cards around it. She can also indicate clairvoyance, psychic power or a natural sixth sense. Reversed, the Chanteuse loses her voice, she can denote a fear of life or of other people, withdrawn and an inability to communicate.

#2. THE CHANTEUSE (THE HIGH PRIESTESS) The Chanteuse is the High Priestess using the medium of song to express her femininity. More specifically, the feminine elements of religious beliefs: compassion, love and mercy. From a very young age The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, grounded herself in gospel solos within the Baptist Church.

Through spiritual music the Chanteuse possesses an inner knowledge or truth and understands what is hidden. She is the inner voice to be heeded or reflected upon but, beware, she can retreat into

#3 MRS. ROBINSON (THE EMPRESS) Who else but Mrs. Robinson could be the Empress card? Mrs Robinson is possessed of all the benign aspects of the female archetype (as opposed to the

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cerebral, represented by the Chanteuse/High Priestess), motherhood, love and gentleness. She is Mother Nature and the Natural World, but do bear in mind that they can sometimes be cruel.

She is also sexuality, emotionally charged and a mistress. Ultimately, she is the spirit that fills us with a hint of hedonism. Mrs Robinson, in the film The Graduate is, yes, a mother but she is also a seductive older woman who is a self-professed alcoholic, a chain-smoker, and a world-weary housewife disappointed with the way her life turned out, which makes her ruthless, bitter, and vengeful.

She approaches life through feelings and pleasure and not through thought; she can be stubborn while refusing to consider facts, thus leading to chaos. Reversed, the card represents a retreat from feelings and to reject emotions, supressing desires.

It could also be the solving of a complicated emotional situation through rational thought.

“The Godfather of the Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra is the Emperor card.

This card is mainly about power, control and being judgemental” #4 KING RAT (THE EMPEROR) The Godfather of the Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra is the Emperor card. This card is mainly about power, control and being judgmental. The Chairman of the Board was not only renowned for his dress sense and performing presence but also for being fanatically obsessed with perfection. He would drive himself and everybody around him relentlessly, possibly to show off his power over others. This card also represents the Father, but in a strict ‘Victorian Dad’ sense, much like a Don in the Cosa Nostra.

Sinatra was no stranger to the workings of The Mob, having been investigated for years by the FBI for his alleged relationship with them. This card is also Society and he who upholds the laws of a just society by possessing all the powers to enforce them. If the Las Vegas Sands Hotel is ‘society’ then Sinatra held the law over fellow performers in the Rat Pack. The card is aggression and Sinatra also had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements, not to mention

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his turbulent affairs with women. Yet King Rat can be remote and repressed, as demonstrated when he released the album Where Are You?, a collection of melancholy songs, upon his divorce from Ava Gardner in 1957. In a spread this card can mean involvement with the law or authority – possibly a spouse or boss, and the problem that the querant may have with them.

It can also mean a time of stability and rational thought, dependent upon the surrounding cards. Reversed, King Rat is his opposite, benevolent, compassionate or with an inability to make harsh decisions and carry them through. n In the next instalment, we shall look at a few more major arcana cards and explore the suits of the minor arcana ‘pip’ cards.

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Dandizette

TAMARA DE LEMPICKA Sunday Swift on art deco dandizette and artist Tamara de Lempicka, who used painting as a way to fund her lavish lifestyle and cocaine addiction

Oscar Wilde defines Dandyism as “an attempt to assert the absolute modernity of beauty.” Tamara de Lempicka was, in so many ways, the epitome of what Sarah Grand referred to as the ‘New Woman’

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ou may not know her face or her name, but you’ve probably seen Tamara de Lempicka’s art. We know her today primarily for portraiture, but in her day, she was as well known for her high-octane life fuelled by sex and cocaine as she was for her art.

She remains, in many ways, the epitome of art and artifice.

When he created Google art based on Lempicka in 2018, Matthew Cruickshank explained, “Few artists embodied the exuberant roaring twenties more than Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka. Her fast paced, opulent lifestyle manifests itself perfectly into the stylised Art-Deco subjects she celebrated in her paintings.”

She was born Maria Górska into an aristocratic family in Moscow in 1989 – or was it Warsaw in 1902? The answer seemed to depend on Lempicka’s mood. In perfect dandy fashion, Lempicka valued surface over substance. Allowing

others to view private letters or diaries might contradict the mythologies that she created of herself – and so, as biographer Laura Claridge says, “since critics could find nothing else to rely on, they repeated her provocative stories as fact, unaware that she had fabricated everything, even the country of her birth.”

Dandies always re-write their own history to fit their own mythology, but Lempicka was particularly good at it – so much so that Claridge would lament that “reconstructing, or even attempting to interpret, the life of Tamara de Lempicka has thwarted would-be biographers because of the almost total lack of letters, journals, diaries and other documents that typically support personal histories.”

If we can trust her own recollections (we can’t), Lempicka’s family was part of the St Petersburg glitterati following the decadent lifestyle of the Tsar. For a while, Lempicka kept up with

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appearances – she was wholly devoted to lawyer Tadeusz Lempicki from her teens. In 1916, she married him, and he was able to keep her in the luxurious life she was used to. She gave birth to her daughter, Kizette, though she was hardly what one might call the maternal type.

Politics impacted this happy life, however.

They married just before the Russian Revolution and her husband was arrested by the Bolsheviks.

Lempicka offered sexual favours for his release, and the small family decided it was time to leave the country. The Lempicka family travelled around and finally settled in Paris – just in time for the salon culture. Anyone who was anyone in France had a de in front of their name, and Tamara took on this trend in order to engage with high society.

Oscar Wilde defines dandyism as “an attempt to assert the absolute modernity of beauty.”

Lempicka was, in so many ways, the epitome of what Sarah Grand referred to as the ‘New Woman’. Tamara was used to a certain quality of life; her husband wasn’t bringing home the money, so, as a Modern Woman, she was going to have that lifestyle with or without his help. She began painting and, within only a few short years, she was exhibited in various galleries in Paris.

Her days were dedicated to painting, stopping only for a bath and a glass of champagne. Her evenings, however, were dedicated to partying.

Whether it was in salons with the aristocrats or in slums having sex with sailors, she was hardly

“Her sexual drive stoked by a near constant supply of cocaine, she would engage in group sex among a rough assortment of types, including sailors, college students, male and female, and one or two upper-class women.

She returned home and in a near frenzy painted until six or seven am” 38

the representation of the upper-class aristocrat.

As Claridge notes, “Her sexual drive stoked by a near constant supply of cocaine,” she would engage in “heavy drug use and group sex among a rough assortment of types, including sailors, a few college students, male and female, and one or two upper-class women. […] she returned home full of confidence and insight – and cocaine – and in a near frenzy painted until six or seven a.m.”

Tamara was educated, rich, independent, career-minded and fashion conscious. She was the breadwinner of the family, was sexually liberated, and it didn’t occur to her to apologise for her wild nights or for having constant affairs to her husband – men did it all the time, so why shouldn’t she? Biographer Claridge recalls that Lempicka “flaunted her liaisons… she almost bragged about her conquests and then she was truly shocked when he ran off [back to Poland] with another woman.”

Lempicka went to Poland to beg for him to return to her three times, but returned alone every time.

Once she accepted his departure, she sent her daughter to boarding school. Now she had time fully to immerse herself in the European avant-garde – the culture that was founded on

the very idea of shocking the bourgeoisie. But of course, Tamara was from the bourgeoisie. Although many of the Left Bank artists were from well-to-do families, Claridge explains “there was a need to present themselves as living on the outside, so they had the right to comment, therefore, on society.

And Lempicka absolutely refused that… I cannot think of a more assured way not to be included in the artist’s world pantheon than to have chosen that identity at that time.”

Unlike many of her peers, she was also unapologetically commercial, creating not art for art’s sake, but for consumption. She acquired wealthy patrons like Doctor Pierre Boucard, who provided her with a stable income, allowing her to commission an artist of her own, Robert MalletStevens, the French modernist designer, to fit out her house and studio. In setting herself apart from the Parisian avant-garde, Lempicka was able to distinguish herself, remarking, “I live life in the margins of society, and the rules of normal society don’t apply to those who live on the fringe.”

According to Charles Baudelaire, “Dandies are all representatives of what is finest in human pride, of combating and destroying triviality. It

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is from this that the dandies obtain that haughty exclusiveness, provocative in its very coldness.”

Coldness is a word that can also be applied to her artwork. Ghislaine Wood, curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, explains that “Lempicka’s work doesn’t convey emotions, they are emotionless.

They’re rather frigid and cruel, almost, but they are startling for their distance and reserve.”

Lempicka once declared that all her paintings were self-portraits. She tended to paint primarily women in various poses, such as Four Nudes (1925).

Art historian Joan Cox says of this painting, “She invites the female viewer in as a lover, rather than creating an experience for a male viewer as a distant voyeur into this all female public space.”

Alexander Graham-Dixon sees a “cold glamour and sexuality in her art; a combination of modern styles and more classic styles like the Renaissance but updated for the Jazz age.”

Claridge comments that “Tamara justified her reluctance to answer questions about her past by claiming that her art was all that mattered: people should not confuse the personal life with the creative product.” Lempicka took what was a

design and architecture style and translated it into canvas – something no one had ever done before. It was distinctly modern, but with a classic inspiration.

Initially, she rejected the label of ‘Art Deco painter,’ but eventually came to embrace this mantle.

Graham-Dixon argues that “in fact, she’s the only artist about whom you can say she’s an Art Deco painter.”

As expected of a dandy, Lempicka was also acutely aware of the fashions of the day, and this influenced her work. Wood notes that there is a strong influence of fashion photography within Lempicka’s work as well: “The style, the compositions, the very precise designs are clearly influenced by fashion photography. She is looking at Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, these popular magazines at the time.” One of her most famous paintings (above right) depicts herself in a green Bugatti sports car wearing gloves and a scarf. It was commissioned for the front cover of Die Dame (1925), a German magazine promoting the concept of the Modern Woman. “My goal is never to copy, but to create a new style, clear luminous colours and feel the elegance of the models,” she explained.

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Unfortunately, she was not always able to maintain this attitude after the start of World War II. In 1939 she took Kizette and her second husband, Baron Kuffner, whom she’d married in 1933, to live in Beverly Hills, California.

The following year, Lempicka made the questionable decision to visit a friend in Poland without a permit. Her friend insisted they go to the police. The Nazi chief looked over her paperwork, which most certainly would have declared both hers and her husband’s Jewish background. The officer asked if she was in fact the artist who painted the cover for Die Dame, and she replied that she was indeed. She was lucky. Tamara recalls that he came to shake her hand, telling her, “I am so pleased to meet you. My wife is most fond of your paintings; in fact, we have collected all of your covers from the magazine. I will let you pay the fine, the lightest punishment, and you may go. But you must never come back to Germany.’ And I didn’t.”

Unlike Europe, America had no appreciation for her work. They dismissed her artwork and Lempicka herself, snidely referring to her as the “Baroness with the Brush.” Lempicka had only started painting to fund her lavish lifestyle. But the art world in America had no interest in her original Art Deco creations, and she was obliged to change her style to try to maintain it. She went with the commercial styles at the time – fruit bowls. She was forced, despite herself, to copy rather than create.

Without a proper artistic outlet, Lempicka was prone to Baudelairean bouts of depression.

The family moved to New York, hoping for a change. With the rise of postwar Modernism and Abstract Expressionism, her Art Deco style was starting to look more and more dated. She finally embraced the palette knife and abstract style, but just like her still lives, her heart just wasn’t in it.

Very little is publicly known about her last chapter in life – and this was the way Tamara designed it, obviously. We know the Baron died in 1961, and two years later, Lempicka moved to Houston, Texas to be closer to her daughter. We also know she later moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico.

She retired from professional art and continued to repaint her earlier works – at least she was copying her own creations, then. She died in Mexico, in her sleep, in 1980.

Tamara de Lempicka may have had a quiet second act in her life, but at least she made sure she went out with the style and flair expected of a dandy: she left instructions that her daughter was to scatter her ashes over the volcano Popocatepetl

in Mexico. Of course, her death isn’t the end of Tamara de Lempicka’s story. In the late 1960s, there was a rediscovery of Art Deco. In 1972, her best work was shown at the Luxemburg Gallery in Paris, to great acclaim, leading to a resurgence of appreciation from the public in the 1970s and 1980s. Despite these quiet later years, Lempicka deserves to be remembered not only for the place she holds in the Modern Art pantheon, but also for the place she holds in establishing the image of the Modern Woman through dandyism.

As Paula J Birnbaum notes, “ironically, [the] public consumption of de Lempicka as a kind of perverse or decadent female painter continues today, as Hollywood types from Madonna to Jack Nicholson and Barbra Streisand have collected her work, precisely because of its ability to confront sexual fantasy and desire from multiple perspectives.”

Tamara de Lempicka once declared, “There are no miracles, there is only what you make.” As a dandy, she created for herself not only art for public consumption, but also an image of herself for public consumption that has lived long after her death. n

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The Dandy Breton @misterdandybreizh

SARTORIAL •

Euro Dandy Photoshoot (p44) Spanish Dandyism (p52) • Get The Look: The Lounge Suit (p60) • Deutschland Dandy (p64) • Geoff Stocker (p72) • The Dutch Dandy (p76) • Dandies, Chaps & Quaintrelles Hungarian Style (p82) • Grey Fox Column (p88)

Sartorial

EURO DANDY We combed the literary salons, cocktail bars and pavements of Europe to find some notable chaps who cut the sartorial mustard. Here you will find representatives of Spain, Germany, Hungary, France, Luxemburg and Holland; other countries that also have dandies could not be reached due to the Coronavirus Lockdown THIS PAGE: : PAUL GARCĂ?A DE OTEYZA, MENSWEAR DESIGNER, SPAIN

LUXEMBOURG: PASCAL ZIMMER, TAILOR

GERMANY: BORIS JURIC, PIPESMOKER PHOTOGRAPH: SNJEZANA JEZILDZIC

HOLLAND: AMIDE STEVENS, MENSWEAR DESIGNER PHOTOGRAPH: FABRIZIO DI PAOLO

SPAIN: MORANTE DE LA PUEBLA, MATADOR

FRANCE: MASSIMILIANO MOCCHIA DI COGGIOLA, FASHION DESIGNER WWW.MOCCHIADICOGGIOLA.COM

SWEDEN: ERIK ROTH, BARBER

GERMANY: PROF DR. RUDOLF B. HEIN, PROFESSOR PHOTOGRAPH: JEAN-PAUL KOWITZ

Sartorial

SPANISH DANDISMO Esperanza Ruiz, with the assistance of Juan Pérez de Guzmán, outlines the origins and development of dandyism in Spain, from eccentric aristocrats to contemporary bullfighters. Translation from Spanish by Consuelo del Val

“Morante is postmodern dandyism of classical purity and depth, like his bullfighting. He holds his muleta (cape) with the rigour of an artist.

Morante does not belong to this century; he is not uncomfortable being antediluvian and misunderstood, both in his dandyism and in the trade of livestock”

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self-explanatory statement to get us started: each and every nation owns a good amount of quirkiness. Spain could never rely on a Colbert of their own to tell their King that fashion was as meaningful to France as the Peruvians mines were to Spaniards.

17th and 18th century Iberians were into much more painstaking matters than appearance, something that, funnily enough, would eventually take its toll on us as centuries went by.

Yes, it is true that we never had a roue quite as classy as the 17th century Duke of Lauzun, who annoyed Louis XIV by pursuing his cousin, the Duchess of Montpensier. It may have been that every Spaniard of that time harboured in them a tiny bit of a Lauzun that would determine a very particular way of being and living, but let us

curb ourselves and not hasten. Paradoxically, the fact that Spain was not a ‘fashion’ country does not mean it has not had a significant influence on contemporary fashion. Mariano Fortuny and Cristóbal Balenciaga are proof of this – the latter sadly transformed into a brand though, and eventually absorbed by a French industrial conglomerate in the luxury goods sector.

But what about our historical dandies and the sartorial influence we have wielded? We know of the elegance the Duke of Infantado sported prior to the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, and we have a dandy as it should be mandated by Law, Mariano Téllez-Girón y Beaufort, XII Duke of Osuna.

His was one of the most fabulous fortunes in our History, which was followed by squandering and an equally fabulous ruin. His patrimony, made up of

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La Niña de los Peines and amigos

hundreds of thousands of acres spread across Spain and abroad, represented 1% of the national wealth in the first third of the 19th century.

Ambassador in Saint Petersburg to Alexander II, who admired the Duke and his eccentricities, the Duke of Osuna was initiated into Dandyism in London and was friends with Lord Byron. Legend has it that the aristocrat arrived late to a diplomatic conference with the Tsar and sat on top of a sable fur cloak, decorated with diamonds and precious gems. Once the session had concluded, Osuna got to his feet and prepared to leave. A solicitous butler of the Tsar, upon realising that he was forgetting his cloak, approached the Duke to him to let him know.

The duke declared that it was not customary for a grandee of Spain to take his seat with him after a meeting. It was an anecdote well worthy of one of Barbey d’Aurevilly’s stories.

Among the ranks of Spanish dandy ambassadors we also had a less theatrical chap, and a playwright to boot. Let us call Ángel de Saavedra to the stage, better known within the literary universe by his title of Duke of Rivas (right). Professor Diego Martínez Torrón maintains that Rivas proposed “stoicism in the face of one’s own destiny, and Andalusian hedonism as a way of life.” This weltanschauung seems to us somewhat

paradoxical, and we are unable to explain how stoicism fits with a sunny afternoon, a glass of sherry, a portion of Iberian ham and the sound of a guitar in the company of a gorgeous brunette.

Rivas could easily be seen as the godfather of a particular creature: the Andalusian señorito.

The señorito is surrounded by a mysticism that is difficult to understand, even for a Spaniard who lives above the mountain range of Despeñaperros, the Northern border of Andalusia. They may own haciendas and cortijos, which formerly used to be small towns on vast tracts of land, they may be engaged in raising wild cattle, wine production, hunt, or none of the above, and may lead a bohemian lifestyle that feels particularly inclined to local folklore. They tend to be identified with the cultural manifestations of the popular classes, especially with the most paradigmatic in the surroundings. That is, the gypsy.

Between the 1820s and 1830s, Andalucia witnessed the boom of Cafés Cantantes, nightclubs where attendees sipped their drinks while enjoying a musical show. These would be the forerunners of flamenco, and would also serve as an artistic cradle to renowned figures such as La Niña de los Peines, portrayed in 1918 by the Spanish painter Julio Romero de Torres. This roguish and smutty art

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Angel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas

Portrait of a Dandy (artist unkown), Barcelona circa 1845

Spanish contemporary literature does not treat the figure of the señorito from southern Spain very well. For example, their depiction in the verses of Agustín de Foxá’s fountain pen – who was a diplomat and writer and whose brother was the best shotgun hunter of the time during the height of the Count of Teba, are not favourable. We should also mention the character of señorito Iván in the novel

by Los Santos Inocentes by Miguel Delibes. And the poet Pemartin declared: “I am home to a lord and a gypsy/…./ This, my cape, is the most threadbare cape,/and my tailcoat is the most elegant tailcoat.”

The Andalucian señorito could be vaguely connected to British dandyism, but the truth is that this figure, typical of Western Andalucia, is more comparable to the Neapolitan when it comes to clothing, only in a more rustic mode and adapting hunting and field garments to civilian life.

What Italians call the spezzato style could be a hallmark of the elegant Andalucian: grey light wool or even cotton trousers, completely unstructured tweed or knit jackets, country-style British plaid shirts, v-neck pullovers, shoes made by saddlers, hair pomade. If the occasion demands, there are three tailors in Seville who enjoy a certain

“Rivas proposed “stoicism in the face of one's own destiny, and Andalusian hedonism as a way of life.”

We are unable to explain how stoicism fits with a sunny afternoon, a glass of sherry, a portion of Iberian ham and the sound of a guitar in the company of a gorgeous brunette” aroused the interest of Andalusian señoritos, often from illustrious families bearing noble titles, and they became sponsors to Flamenco cantaores, whom they sought to perform at their private parties. As the anecdote goes, the American military stationed at their air base in Morón de la Frontera financed flamenco singers such as Joselero during the 1960s and 1970s, and a result of this they were considered the “last Andalusian señoritos.”

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has not changed things that much. At least until recently, when the tailors have decided to associate and even launch a club that gathers the most representative names of this noble profession. Our tailors continue to improve their style and do not cease studying what is done beyond our borders.

Soon, we hope that names like Puebla, Serna, or Cordova will resonate more abroad, and their establishments will be a stop for sartorial tourists or seekers of good clothing.

However, the future of our elegance is somewhat discouraging. In the good old days, its hallmark was men whose lives were linked to art, the bohème, and the international jet-set, such as José Luis de Vilallonga, aristocrat, writer and actor, who had a memorable cameo in Breakfast at Tiffany’s; or Luis Escobar Kirkpatrick, Marquis of Las Marismas (left). In La Escopeta Nacional, the great film by Luis García Berlanga, Escobar interprets himself as the fictitional marquis of Leguineche, owner of a hunting estate, and nails the caricature of a bewildered aristocracy before the regime changed, one that seemed unable to adapt to the new political landscape.

The current diplomats and aristocrats are not as they once were, and the elegant universe is a world dominated by consultants who work for large international firms, and office workers who, despite their tailored suits and their contribution to national crafts, forget that the elegant or chivalrous spirit goes beyond clothing and has much more to do with a way of seeing and living life. Perhaps there is an impossibility of reconciling our modern existence with certain values, nobility of spirit and particular experiences.

An attempt to find biographies like that of the Count of Villapadierna (1909-1979) today would indeed prove futile, as he was “the last dandy, who enjoyed and squandered three great inheritances, whose passions, horses, greyhounds and cars had the reins of his life, and who was a gentleman of proverbial demeanour, with a special international touch in the Spain of his time.”

The world of the Matador, already fading from popular culture, is perhaps the last bastion of true Spanish dandyism, in particular the flamboyant style of Morante de la Puebla. Morante is postmodern dandyism of classical purity and depth, like his bullfighting. He holds his muleta (cape) with the rigour of an artist. Morante does not belong to this century; he is not uncomfortable being antediluvian and misunderstood, both in his dandyism and in the trade of livestock. n

popularity and can keep one out of trouble.

Andalucian surnames such as ‘Osborne’ or ‘González-Byass’ fail at covering up a British ancestry, but an Andalucian señorito from Seville could not be compared to one from Jerez (right), just as an elegant man from the central plateau is not to be compared in the same terms to one from northern Spain. Sartorially speaking, in Spain we can look to France, England or Italy. It all depends on where we are located in the peninsular map.

The Spanish style can mislead an expert fashion blogger of the ‘X’ or ‘Y’ generation, but not a gentleman with a good eye. Jackets with generous, rounded lapels and a wide cran, long curves and a reasonable padding on the shoulders.

Trousers stay away from showiness and exaggerated waistbands, although the debatable Pitti style seems to be altering this matter. Logically, given the benign Spanish climate, basic fabrics of a lower consistency are favored. Were we to associate our style with Savile Row tailoring, we would say that it closely resembles Huntsman, but staying a pinch less rigid. Where is Madrid to be placed in the tailoring spectrum then? Midway between Naples and London, presumably.

We admire indeed the drape cut and the transalpine sartoria, since they have created a recognizable style, a way of life. Cutters, tailors, and sarti have managed to rise to the category of artists, something necessary and admirable. The Spanish tailor has been more modest. Too hidden have they been for decades. The fact that Dalí used to describe tailor Antonio Puebla as “divine”

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Sartorial

Get The Look

THE LOUNGE SUIT In a new regular feature, Digby Fairfax outlines the essential components of specific dress codes

T

his broad sartorial term sometimes confuses those in receipt of a wedding invitation, who panic and think they have to go and buy a new suit – when in fact they already have several in their wardrobe.

A lounge suit is simply an informal business suit and can be anything from a plain two-piece to a pinstriped three-piece. Also known, rather pejoratively, as a ‘City Suit’, the most important attribute is that

it should be dark in colour, but this can range from charcoal grey, via all the shades of blue, to jet black.

A lounge suit can be plain, striped or checked and it can be single- or double-breasted, two- or threepiece. It cannot be made of tweed; that particular fabric will catapult you into the Countryman category and would not be suitable for a wedding.

Lounge Suit is a dress code all of itself and includes footwear, accessories and headwear.

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FOOTWEAR

£135.00

We are assuming the suit itself (see below) is dark in colour, and therefore only black shoes are appropriate. The failsafe choice is the black Oxford, a plain shoe with a single seam across the toe cap and no broguing. A half brogue is acceptable but may be considered rather racy in certain quarters. The ideal design is closed, rather than open, lacing, as with this inexpensive example (£135) from www.herringshoes.co.uk.

A pricier version is available from reputable Northampton shoemaker www.cheaney.co.uk at £299.

SHIRT You may wear any long-sleeved shirt you wish with a lounge suit, within £49.00 reason. Buttondown gives rather an American appearance, but apart from that any collar shape is suitable, as long as your tie fills the gap between the points adequately. So wear a narrow vintage tie with a spearpoint collar, such as those from Chester Cordite www.chestercordite.com (£70), and a fatter, contemporary tie with a spread collar.

One of the finest examples of a classic white cocktail shirt with a wide collar comes from Mason & Sons www.masonandsons.com, who own the patterns bequeathed by legendary James Bond shirtmaker Mr. Fish, and it retails at £125. At the other end of the budget is a more dashing blue striped shirt from Hawes & Curtis www.hawesandcurtis.co.uk with a white collar and French cuffs for only £49, and often reduced in their sale.

SINGLE-BREASTED SUIT You might think that this item was the easiest to buy, but you’d be wrong. The choices are vast, but once you’ve sifted out the ‘slim fit’ (only for the 22-year-old estate agent) and the Polyester/viscose mix (ditto) you’ll be heading for the nearest tailor – and that is probably the best option. But if you’re short on readies, we’ve saved you an exhausting search. Very few contemporary outlets offer a lounge suit in a standard fit, made from proper fabric. One of the few is Brook Taverner, whose two-piece Dawlish Charcoal Birdseye Super 110’s Suit retails for £400.

It is also available in grey sharkskin, navy herringbone and navy birdseye (a pattern made up of thousands of tiny dots, and rather fetching).

For those on an even tighter budget, shirtmaker T.M. Lewin’s Westminster Charcoal Infinity Suit is made from 100% Merino Wool and costs only £249 for the whole two-piece ensemble. Plus the trousers are flat-fronted (see below). Should you prefer to venture into bespoke and live in London, one of the better off-Savile Row tailors is W.G. Child and Sons www.childandsons.co.uk who will make you a bespoke lounge suit for around £2,400. The fabric to request is an 11-13oz pure wool. A vintage lounge suit may be acquired for £200-400 from Savvy Row, and if it doesn’t quite fit, a tailor such as WG Child will remodel it to fit you perfectly for around £100.

£400.00

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DOUBLE-BREASTED SUIT

TROUSERS If you’re buying a two-piece suit you won’t have much choice in the trouser department, but the first alarm bells to ring should be if they are not flat-fronted. Trouser pleats have their place and will come as standard on most vintage items from the 1950s and 60s, but for a new suit they simply spoil the line of one’s waist, whether it goes in, out or sideways. You are highly unlikely to find a contemporary menswear brand that provides braces buttons, but these can be applied by a tailor or dry cleaning emporium. Turn-ups are generally de rigeur for double-breasted suits, but can add a dash of élan to a single-breasted suit too, and these can be added by a tailor when you have the trousers hemmed – which will come unhemmed from any decent establishment.

TIE When wearing a dark lounge suit, the only place for a splash of colour is below your neck and sprouting from your breast pocket (see below). Diagonal stripes will always cut £120.00 the mustard, though remember that, as with driving, if you are British they should go from left to right; Americans the other way round. At the top end of the market is the hand-made silk variety of tie, with new kid on the block Shaun Gordon www.shaungordon.co.uk producing some rather innovative takes on traditional stripes, florals and paisley motifs, retailing at £120, but he often has a half-price sale on. Ditto Turnbull and Asser www.turnbullandasser.co.uk (the sale part) though vintage T&A often beat their own current crop on style. At the other end of the market is the once-market leader in men’s neckwear, Tootal www.tootal.co.uk, who now produce a much more modest range than in their glory days of the 1950s and 60s, but are still reliable for simple polka dots and knitted ties, available for around £20.

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Even trickier to find on the open market is a not-too-ridiculous double-breasted suit.

The majority of those available are deeply flawed, either in the lapel department (not wide enough), the pocket department (patch pockets – really!) or the overall cut and length. Double-breasted suit jackets usually have six buttons, two of them working – and the lower of the two can be left unbuttoned, though the more formal approach is only to unbutton it when sitting down. Revival Vintage www.revivalvintage.co.uk have plenty of double-breasted original suits from various periods, and they make their own version of a classic Monty Burton pin stripe DB jacket (below) for £400, with the full two-piece suit at £600. The suit is hand tailored with original 1940s details, such as wide peak lapels with buttonholes on both, working cuffs and no rear vents. Chester Cordite, a reputable tailor specialising in the 1930s and 40s, produces sharply cut double-breasted suits for around £500. All have high-waisted trousers for braces and some have an action-back, allowing for fuller flexibility when dancing or carousing.

£400.00

£45.00 POCKET SQUARE

HEADWEAR

There are no rules regarding pocket square selection when wearing a lounge suit, except that it should be fabulous and should in some way complement (but definitely not match) your tie.

We start with Seaward & Stern’s www.seawardandstearn.com range of pocket squares, priced at £55, in a nice range of subtle patterns in bright colours, while Geoff Stoker www.geoffstocker.com approaches pocket square design as an artist, drawing inspiration from art and exotic travel. www.furiousgoose.co.uk produce pocket squares (at £75) whose visible portion hints at darker depths beneath (i.e. lots of skulls and guns on the designs).

When wearing a lounge suit, one’s headwear options are limited to four £149.00 choices: Homburg, Bowler, Fedora or Trilby.

A Homburg, as popularized by Prime Minister Anthony Eden in the 1950s, should only be black and only worn with a black suit. Christy’s Hats make a fur felt black Homburg for £149, while a much cheaper option is from www. cotswoldcountryhats.com at £38.95. The same brands offer Trilbies and Fedoras at similar prices, and a budget 40s-style Fedora is available for £32 at www.revivalvintage.co.uk But when it comes to the bowler (or Coke Hat, to be precise) corners must never be cut.

Either get the true original from those who invented it, Lock & Co (£300-400), or seek a vintage example from Messrs E. Bay & Co.

OVERCOAT

UMBRELLA An indispensable accessory for the lounge besuited gentleman is an umbrella. By umbrella we mean a ‘stick’ brolly and not – under any circumstances – a foldable or telescopic umbrella. The handle should either be wood or whangee (a type of bamboo) and the canopy colour should be black. The oldest umbrella maker still going is Fox Umbrellas www.foxumbrellas.com, and they will furnish you with a black whangee-handled umbrella for £142.50. For a plain wooden handled umbrella, London Undercover charges £115 for a decently made one with a Malacca Wood Handle and a Beech £142.50 Wood Shaft, and silver cup, ferrule and spokes. londonundercover.co.uk

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A velvet collar can add a touch of élan to a man’s coat, and the ne plus ultra of this type of coat is the Crombie, with a racy red lining, fly fronted with added darting, horizontal flap pockets and of course a velvet collar. For some unfathomable reason Crombie themselves, who invented this coat, now list the classic iteration as the ‘retro’ design.

Either way it will set you back £895. Head over to Savvy Row for a vintage overcoat at half that price. A Covert Coat is similar to the Crombie, though with the velvet £895.00 collar as optional.

Cordings of Piccadilly www.cordings.co.uk make the best ones for £595 and they can add a velvet collar in a variety of colours for an extra £45.

Gernot Klawunn

Sartorial

DEUTSCHLAND DANDY Marie de Winter and Ferdinand Sturm conduct an exhaustive search for the rare species of dandy in Germany

“As a former dancer of the Weimar National Theatre, the ageless Berliner has, as a public figure, long been accustomed to the curious glances of passers-by. Today, he works as a furniture restorer and is proud to own an intact bedroom suite made of birch veneer in the Neue Sachlichkeit style”

F

rom a historical point of view, dandyism is not something that the German was born into. For two centuries, it rather seems to have been the case that – beyond the borders of Great Britain – an unknown number of people have been possesed by this rare, benign fever, even in Germany. Can we therefore speak of a dandy scene in our country?

“I think the term is somewhat paradoxical,” says passionate pipe smoker Boris Juric (pictured overleaf), who lives near Frankfurt. “In history, a dandy has never been part of a scene. From a historical perspective, a dandy has been a scene, a certain staging of himself. He was followed by the people who felt comfortable in his surroundings.

Dandies were contemporary diagnosticians in opposition, aesthetes with irony, who, with their way of being, represented the critique of society.

This personal view can also be transferred to today’s society.” Boris is graduate in philosophical-

theological studies and collects antiquities from the early 20th century.

Mr. Juric is one of nine dazzling personalities whom we interviewed in our search for clues across the whole of Germany. To find out more about the stylistic self-image of our interview partners – in the midst of the mainstream zeitgeist of the 2020s – we provoked them a little bit with Charles Baudelaire’s famous bon mot: “The dandy should aspire to be uninterruptedly sublime.

He should live and sleep in front of a mirror.”

“It’s a nice quote by Baudelaire, definitely,” says Don Esteban, “but I don’t have time for this. In my everyday life I am practical, and in this case good style means that on the way to my workshop I wear a simple suit and a shirt without collar, and of course my beret. But when I go to a ball or a soirée, I take the trouble to celebrate the narcissist in me.” As a former dancer of the Weimar National Theatre, the ageless Berliner has

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Boris Juric © Fotostudio Loeffler

– as a ‘public figure’ – long been accustomed to the curious glances of passers-by. Today, he works as a furniture restorer and is proud to own an intact bedroom suite made of birch veneer in the Neue Sachlichkeit style.

“I sometimes see young guys in modern suits on the street and think that something is wrong. And it’s not that they’ve forgotten to get a manicure. It’s about something else: good manners and education.” Incidentally, Don Esteban says that he still fits into his first suit, which he bought in his hometown Santiago de Chile in the 1980s. We bow not only to his discipline, but also to the obviously excellent quality of the vintage fabric.

The tattoo-enthusiastic Sarah Settgast from Berlin (“Don’t ask a lady’s age”) also goes to bed at night stylishly – would you believe it – in a nightdress from the 19th century. “The dandy does not have to live and sleep in front of a mirror, but he should not have any problem to look at himself in it at every moment of his life.” The Berlin illustrator, owner of a children’s and art book publishing house and selfregistered picture and word mark, probably found it worthwhile to look in the mirror at the tender age of seven: on her first day at school, she appeared in a pinstriped suit and tie, leaving the other girls in their pink tulle dresses in astonishment.

Max Geilert (22) from Bochum, who considers

it pretentious to call himself a dandy, still finds Baudelaire’s words true today, and adds: “Whoever directs all his striving for being ceaselessly sublime, becomes a dandy.” For the student of art history and Russian culture, who also calls himself a ‘spice eccentric’, good style is a process of learning, and the dandy is a never-ending work of art. “And that’s perhaps the best part of it: observing how one gains an increasing understanding of style while slowly ‘growing into the suit’. For me, my wardrobe is one, albeit a truly important one, of many aspects of the constant quest to be the best version of myself and to develop a little from day to day.”

An exciting verbal exchange between the young student Mr Geilert and Prof. Dr. Rudolf B. Hein (52) would have certainly been expected if we had invited them to a personal round of talks: Professor Hein, who lives in the Duisburg/ Ruhr area, as well as a ‘shoe tic’, has a weakness for British and American pocket watches. The theologian is struggling with the self-portrayal culture of our time: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled,” he cites from the Gospel. “Whoever feels himself exalted or thinks he has to be exalted, very quickly slides into a haughtiness or boastful bearishness.” He criticises Baudelaire and explains his personal mission: “Of course there is a certain satisfaction in drawing a line between oneself and

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Don Esteban

Pascal Dominik Mesecke Š Detlef Berghorn

Sarah Settgast © Stephan Zwickirsch/Karoshiphoto

people find each other, what exactly connects them – and in wich way do they live out their dandyism together?

Pascal Dominik Mesecke (36) from Hanover, whose heart is also set on Berlin, sees it this way: “They often meet in special fashion shops, at flea markets, at concerts or on social media. In Berlin there is a circle of really great people who are getting into their beautiful heads, minding their individual appearance in historical style a lot. Some of them are my friends, which makes me very happy. Whether it’s a visit to a silent film, a museum or a trip dressed in tweed; with these special views I live on in the diaspora. They even know each other across national borders, send Christmas cards or comment about a photo.” But the paper and artists’ supplies retailer can also be alone with himself stylishly, as he proves – among other things – in his own garden: “I like to garden in tweed, which initially horrified my neighbours. The robustness of these clothes, which are easy to repair by me, is enormous.”

Gabriele Drechsler (60) from Berlin is a stylist for men’s accessories and has a special preference for extraordinary men’s wardrobe. She likes to meet with friends or a few like-minded people, but also spends a lot of time on her own, “perhaps also due to the lack of people who are willing to share my special way of life.” Since her early 20s, inspired by

“There is a certain satisfaction in drawing a line between oneself and others by way of details, but without ever wanting to let them feel that. There is something arrogant about this kind of sublimity, and it can only be purified if one helps others, in all modesty, to pay attention” others by way of details, but without ever wanting to let them feel that. There is certainly something arrogant about this kind of sublimity, and it can only be purified if one helps others, in all modesty, to pay attention to details as well in order to improve their own appearance.” For the professor who enjoys touring in a vintage car, the celebration of style should always be a community experience that tolerates the freedom of each other.

A joint experience – aha! So is there possibly a dandy scene in Germany after all? How do these

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Gabriele Drechsler

Marlene Dietrich, she has been dressing “exclusively for about five years in what can perhaps be called the dandy style. I am not interested in copying a dress style of previous epochs as exactly as possible.

What I wear must be coherent, elegant, suitable for my person and always applicable in my everyday life.” Mrs Drechsler opines that people are not dressing well when they are up-to-date and in line with the taste of our times. “To set a mark: since the mid-1960s. Elegance is a very important aspect.

Creativity and taste is another.”

In contrast to Mrs Drechsler, Gernot Klawunn (41) has stylistically commited himself to two decades.

The gastronome and host from Hamburg (bar, coffee and cigarettes) particularly admires the fashion of the 1920s and 1930s. “Nothing else than living it – not just disguising oneself – as authentically as possible!

The small details became more and more important, like the beard (which I love to wear in the 1920s style, called menjou). The handkerchief, the hairstyle with the side cut and pomade, the clothes. Everything I’ve researched and bought over the years.” If time allows it, the collector of old cameras and shellac records also spends his spare time among like-minded people.

“If you’re interested in football,” says graduate designer Leif Simoerson (“middle-aged”) from the Ruhr area, “you can find like-minded people in

the next pub. But you can find a man who is also interested in stiff collars and sock holders through Instagram hashtags on the other side of the world.”

Mr. Simoerson (@the_vintagearian) himself does not perceive a so-called dandy scene in Germany, but rather individuals who come together to share their hobby-horses, such as fashion, lifestyle or culture.

All in all, our dandies and dandizettes reported a consistently positive public response to their extraordinary appearance. Only the Vintagearian knows of a single disrespectful comment from the social networks: “When are you coming back from the past?” “Never again!” He replied. “I like it here very much.” As much as opinions may diverge at one point or another, all our interviewees agree on this: a selected wardrobe alone does not make a dandy; good manners, a certain level of education and mastering cultivated conversation are naturally as much a part of it.

So let us take note: dandy fever is completely harmless and you are welcome to be infected by it! The authors, too, are pursuing the noble goal of bringing together like-minded people who want to indulge in good style within joint activities in western regions of Germany. Take a look at www.wintersturm.jimdofree.com n

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Leif Simoerson

Sartorial

GEOFF STOCKER Liam Jefferies on the menswear brand producing signature silk styles influenced by Japanese and mediaeval art

A

“The “Byzantine” dazzles like a pyrotechnic display over old Istanbul, whilst the “Icarus” presents overlaid asymmetrical feathered wings”

t the time of writing, dear reader, your faithful menswear reporter is confined to his home, contemplating taking up indoor polo to pass the time between canned meals and tomorrow’s hour-long allotted sojourn to the park. In these hours of trepidation and (hopefully) periodic isolation within the homestead, a certain glaring dearth has been brought to one’s attention.

While readers of this publication’s previous issue (#103) may now be adequately shod in their velvet slippers, the now lounge-confined chap is forced either to parboil in the heat of their centrally heated hearth, or don a splendid outdoors outfit knowing it will be borne no witnesses, a crime if there ever was one in sartorial circles.

Enter Geoff Stocker, a British brand launched in 2014, producing a range of acutely archetypical silk goods, including pocket squares, ties, scarves and dressing gowns. Geoff Stocker’s gowns were inspired from a trip to Kanazawa, Japan, home of the traditional Kaga Yuzen silk dyeing industry. After

toying with the idea of a kimono, Stocker thought better and set to work creating a rendition of the traditional men’s silk dressing gown, with transposed influence from the 300-year-old Japanese process.

Though the silk dressing gown dates back as far as the 17th Century, Mr. Stocker’s signature compositions are as contemporarily fluid as they are aesthetically compelling, with influences ranging from Art Deco, Cubism, Mediaeval and ethnic art – the result of a previous long-standing career in digital abstract painting. While having created digital artworks for the past 24 years, including works exhibited at the prestigious Royal Academy

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Summer Exhibition, Geoff has since transferred these skills to textile design.

All of Stocker’s designs originate in his Sussex design studio, before being assembled across the UK. The pocket squares are printed, rolled and hemmed

by R.A. Smart of Macclesfield, Cheshire, where the silk for ties and dressing gowns is also procured, before being manufactured in Kent and London respectively.

the ‘Constellation’ scarf – alight with the star fields of the night sky, the ‘Avebury’ pocket square, with Henge motifs echoing our Druidic past, and of course the collaborative collection between the brand and our own David Evans, the Grey Fox, featuring his pet Labrador, Harry.

Amongst Mr. Stocker’s range of exquisite breast pocket accoutrements, there is such a wealth of design that one is hard-pressed to proffer any preference, so permit us instead a presentation of the brand’s latest offering for SS/20 – the ‘Solstice’ collection, which raises its arms in salute to the sun with an eclectic mix of pattern and geometry. The ‘Byzantine’ dazzles like a pyrotechnic display over old Istanbul, whilst the ‘Icarus’ presents overlaid asymmetrical feathered wings. The ‘Sonar’ features oscillating ripples of latticed colour, while the ‘Derringer’ features filaments of engraved gold shot through with pops of colour; and the ‘Formula for Life’ presents a mathematical symbology sure to confound and delight in equal measure.

So drop the towelling robe, which, while absorbent, brings to mind images of overweight Bond villains, and evoke your inner Sultan, Rajah, or dare one say it, playboy. n

“The ‘Sonar’ features oscillating ripples of latticed colour, while the ‘Derringer’ features filaments of engraved gold shot through with pops of colour; and the ‘Formula for Life’ presents a mathematical symbology sure to confound and delight in equal measure”

The dressing gowns are composed of threeand-a-half metres of lightweight 15oz silk twill, thus having the properties of retaining heat in the cold and keeping cool in the heat, while also proving durable enough likely to outlive its wearer – compacted silk has been known to stop a bullet.

Construction consists of a wide shawl collar, matching sash belt and rile cuffs with hip pockets and the addition of a breast pocket, should one wish to accessorise with a pocket square. Chap favourites amongst Geoff Stocker’s wares include the splendiferous ‘Sunburst’ gown, swathed in golden mandalas, the ‘Saxon Hoard’ tie, with arrangements of rings, stones and interwoven chains reminiscent of Sutton Hoo and certainly as worth treasuring;

www.geoffstocker.com

@sartorialchap

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Theo Upt Hiddema is a Dutch lawyer, media personality and politician serving as a member of the House of Representatives for Forum for Democracy since 2017

Sartorial

THE DUTCH DANDY Alice O'Connell, doyenne of Wool & Water, an Amsterdam-based Bow Tie, Braces and Tie maker, shares her views on Dutch dandyism

“The Dutch have a very popular expression, ‘Doe maar normaal, dan doe je al gek genoeg!’ loosely translated this means, ‘Just act normal, that is crazy enough!’”

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hen asked if I could suggest any Dutch dandies for an upcoming Chap feature, my mind went directly to my regular customers, swiftly followed by the realisation that many of them are not actually Dutch. Many of the dapper array of gents that occurred to me instead originate from a variety of countries, but have been calling The Netherlands home for a significant tally of years.

In my humble opinion, a dandy is a celebration of eccentricity, the subculture of one.

A person for whom style is a self-expression, often carefully selected traditional tailoring details being their personal language of choice. With that in mind, and for several reasons, it is a particular challenge to find a dandy in Amsterdam, unlike, say, London, my own place of origin.

Appearing casual and wearing what is uniformly accepted seem to be the key when it comes to interpreting style in The Netherlands.

The Dutch have a very popular expression, Doe maar normaal, dan doe je al gek genoeg! Loosely translated, this means, ‘Just act normal, that is crazy enough!’ When you consider that phrase alongside the peacocking street style of London or Paris, it proves to be a fascinating insight into the sea of practical, all-weather appropriate outfits which one sees bustling alongside the canals, cycling down winding streets and filling the bars and cafes here in The Netherlands.

When you also throw in the fact that the word, ‘Dapper’, actually means ‘Brave’ in Dutch, a robust understanding begins to form. To grasp the origins of that expression and its impact on the Dutch relationship with personal style, you need look no further than Calvinism, the religious heritage of the Dutch. With this Protestant foundation comes a set of socio-cultural norms, which when breached will invoke the phrase quoted above. These infractions include: bragging, discussing your wealth, showing too much personality, making an overt display of affection and acting or being perceived to be odd, different or strange.

And yet there are vital lifelines of the dandy spirit coursing through this country. Bridegrooms are increasingly choosing to wear a bow tie and braces for their wedding day and, in my experience, choosing to have those custom made too.

Additionally, bespoke waistcoats are being added to their tailored suits, and fabric choices are slowly getting bolder. Personalised details, not necessarily designed to coordinate with the colour scheme of their wedding but to serve as an expression of the groom’s unique personality, even if just for one day, are growing in demand.

Interestingly though, when it come to the attending guests and their anticipated outfits, invitations often include a firm but polite request to refrain from wearing denim for the ceremony and party. This can only be a good thing.

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When it comes to wedding guests and their anticipated outfits, invitations often include a firm but polite request to refrain from wearing denim for the ceremony and party. This can only be a good thing.

A small group of dapper chaps in Amsterdam, photographed by Lord Ashbury, lordashbury.com

While cycling around Amsterdam’s pretty canals and narrow streets, the dandy trait of eccentricity can often be spotted through the choice of a bright trouser paired with a blue or checked jacket, or brown leather shoes with vividly coloured laces; but, alas, even these vibrant expressions have become an almost stereotypical sight when it comes to Dutch style. The concept of individuality is expressed, contradictorily, through mainstream participation. If you spot one unique blazer on the Herengracht, you suddenly spot several of its counterparts on the Kinkerstraat.

France and Germany are both strong style influences on The Netherlands, determining what is an established and therefore accepted wardrobe for the man-about-town. However, their style trends are then expressed through the distinctly casual Dutch filter. Being seen to make an effort in one’s outfit is guaranteed to be remarked upon; the idea of appearing to take yourself too seriously, a constant concern among the Dutch, whether they are a practicing Calvinist or not. It is simply ingrained in the culture.

Lest I be viewed as that expat who forms an opinion based solely on my own cultural viewpoint, be assured, dear reader, that before writing this piece,

I spoke to three different Dutch designers. Each of them told me the same story and used the ‘doe het normaal’ expression to summarise their point.

Appearing casual is integral, shirts are worn almost dangerously open, blue jeans are a go-to when an occasion requires a jacket and shoe to be donned. And yet the dandy approach to detail does exist, evident in the choice of vividly dyed snakeskin shoes, teal or yellow laces, a flash of bright sock. Unfortunately, this also sometimes includes a meticulously specific Japanese denim or an exclusive limited edition plimsoll.

But Amsterdam and a lot of The Netherlands is a cosmopolitan arena and there are, among the crowds of cyclists, the groups of dog walkers and the various patrons of pop up restaurants, brown cafes and bars, a few wonderfully creative gentle eccentrics to be discovered, going about their day in a three-piece suit, bow tie and with a beautifully waxed moustache. I swear I glimpsed an ivorytopped cane being swung in Vondelpark one day last year, or was it the year before? As to whether they are Dutch or not, well does it really matter?

Aren’t we all Europeans now? (whether you choose to embrace that is frankly another conversation). n

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Dandy in Interior (1940) Charles Gaupp

Erik Rรณth of @hungariandandyproject

Sartorial

DANDIES, CHAPS & QUAINTRELLES, HUNGARIAN STYLE Dennis Merry meets three Hungarians who actively champion the clothes, manners and historical precedents of dandyism

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wo of my friends are not only strong representatives of Dandy tradition, but are also Hungarian. Ferenc Krebesz, maintenance engineer for a pharmaceutical company, hails from Tiszaújváros in the North Eastern region of Hungary, and has lived in Brighton for 51/2 years. His appreciation for the dandy aesthetic is firmly rooted in a belief that the true dandy must exhibit impeccable taste and manners and live by the conviction that ‘virtue, not clothes, maketh the man’. “You can be dressed immaculately but still be the world’s biggest jerk”

“You can be dressed immaculately but still be the world’s biggest jerk” Ferenc says with some force. “Clothes are important, but being welldressed is no substitute for refinement of character and style” 83

“The Dandy is the heritagekeeper of the last century.

His tool of expression is his wardrobe, like his predecessors, but without creating social classes. In his wardrobe everything has its place, from the illfitting baggy suit, bought out of financial necessity from budget tailors, to the finest vintage pieces money can buy”

his father used to smoke only Czechoslovakian pipes with latticed tops. When asked if his look has been specifically cultivated, and when it was that he started, his answer is immediate and precise:

“It began four and a half years ago. I had to go to a cousin’s wedding and needed a suit. A good friend of mine, with an extensive vintage wardrobe, sold me a brown 1960s three piece suit with ivory stripes, made, ironically, by ‘Dandy’ of the Kings Road, Chelsea. I actually began wearing it before the wedding and liked how it made me look and feel. Since then I’ve bought more suits and quite a few accessories such as cufflinks and collar pins. I’ve developed a better understanding of clothes and what works and what doesn’t work for me. My preference is for the Edwardian style of clothing, mixed with some Victorian pieces. Of course, given the considerable growth of interest in vintage style in the UK, authentic items are becoming harder to find for a reasonable price.”

One of the ladies who is part of Ferenc’s circle is Mariann Meszmar (above), who says that a female dandy is referred to as a quaintrelle. Numerous definitions sum up the quaintrelle as ‘A woman who emphasises a life of passion expressed through personal

he says with some force. “Clothes are important, but being well-dressed is no substitute for refinement of character and style”.

According to Ferenc (right), the Chaps and dandies scene in Hungary is not as big as it is in the UK, and tends to be predominantly focused on clothes, facial hair and smoking pipes. He recalls that

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style, leisurely pastimes, charm and cultivation of life’s pleasures’. “For me”, she says, “It’s all about a particular approach to living which has to do with principles and manners and the pursuit of gentle qualities, so often missing in 21st century life. It’s about being able to express yourself with originality and style; not the slavish adherence to some kind of set dress code, but the genuine expression of who you are inside”.

Mariann is originally from Galgaheviz, in Hungary’s capital’s Pest County, and has lived in Brighton since 2007. For Mariann, certain elements in her family background made it more than likely that she would have a strong leaning towards being stylishly original. Her maternal grandfather’s great grandfather fought in the Napoleonic wars and was honoured by the King of Hungary for services rendered, by being given lands and a family crest.

Her paternal great grandfather fought under the command of Miklós Horthy as a Hussar, and a very stylish Hussar’s uniform is in the possession of Mariann’s father’s family.

I asked Mariann how this led to her current style: “From when I was about 12 years old, I used to watch old black and white movies of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and later on Agatha Christie’s Poirot. I just loved the grace and elegance and style of that period. Not so much icons as people I admire as being original and stylish were women like Mae West, Coco Chanel and Kathryn Hepburn. Over the last decade it’s been interesting to see a growing trend towards resurrecting some of the old traditions and going back to our Hungarian roots. The last time I was in Budapest it was noticeable how many more women were wearing old-style dresses and Victorian clothes, and many were wearing some of the old folk dresses. One old folk pattern called Kalcsoa, found in cushions, covers, napkins, table runners and pottery, is becoming so fashionable that it’s starting to appear in clothes. The Olympic Team has it in their uniforms and certain Formula One drivers use it. It’s very good to see this resurgence of appreciation for typical Hungarian culture”.

Having looked through Erik Róth’s ‘Hungarian Dandy Project’ on Instagram, it became clear that here was a potential seam of insight to be mined.

The dapper, immaculately turned-out gent positively oozes the charm and quirkiness of the modern-day dandy, certainly in dress and approach. Erik is 26, an apprentice barber in Budapest, and a quintessentially inveterate pursuer of the dandy aesthetic. An interview via email, enlisting the aid of Ferenc’s translation skills, yielded an interesting picture of Hungarian style.

Erik, is there a strong Dandy movement in Hungary; are many people into vintage clothing and lifestyle?

Whilst the dandy is known about in Hungary, most people have a limited view and there are few people who actually know what it means. The reason for this is that Hungary’s culture before the war was completely erased from our collective memory. The politics of the 1930s, siding with Germany in the war, and more than three decades of communism, have all contributed to the disappearance of these values.

So there aren’t any big dandy communities or 20th century civil tradition and heritage groups. There are small events celebrating our traditions, but there are only a few focusing on the 1920s and 1930s.

One of these was the Tweed Run in Budapest, but very few people were really interested in dandy values, and then, only at a superficial level. Besides me, no-one wears these clothes in their everyday life.

The Hungarian moustache has a great tradition and has its own associations, and members of Hungarian moustache clubs have won many competitions. But in general, this society is mainly focusing on folk and peasant culture.

Did you actively set out to become a dandy?

Absolutely! Ever since I was very young I loved history, but my main focus was always on objects and how they were used, not dates and events. I’ve always loved classic elegance and I used to go to high school wearing a top hat and a suit. I watch lots of period films and TV shows and that’s probably why I fell in love with the 1920s and 1930s. Boardwalk Empire was the first one that really drew me in to the whole scene; I wanted to look like them. Then Peaky Blinders was just oil to the fire. I’ve always wanted to belong somewhere, but never felt that I quite fitted into any existing sub-cultures; nothing out there attracted me”.

How would you define the dandy?

The Dandy is the heritage-keeper of the last century.

His tool of expression is his wardrobe, like his predecessors, but without creating social classes. In his wardrobe everything has its place, from the ill-fitting baggy suit, bought out of financial necessity from budget tailors, to the finest vintage pieces money can buy; everything is designed to make his appearance memorable. He thinks about how he dresses; he carefully adheres to the rules of etiquette, but still puts something playful in there. He likes to mix patterns and fabrics just as much as dressing in perfectly authentic period attire. For me, role models are very important and that’s where Instagram helped me

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a lot. The greatest inspiration for me was Yoshio Suyama. One day I would like to have as rich a wardrobe as his, and to be a successful barber like him.”

entertainment and culture point of view, but my best friends live here and we do have a little gem called the ‘Petz Pub’. It’s a bit like an Irish pub, with Guinness, Czech beers, homemade food and numerous cultural events.

There are poetry nights and musical gigs, and this is where I conduct my vintage sales. With my like-minded friends we are trying to organize more 1920s and 1930s events in Budapest. Last year we organized an event called ‘Deco on the Yellow Tram’. It was a nostalgia ‘tramming’ event on the 2nd tram line along the River Danube.

Afterwards we had a picnic in front of one of the most beautiful Art Deco buildings on Margaret Island. With only six of us, it was a small beginning, but we’re determined to organize more events, and introduce more people to the fine art of dandyism.”

With such appreciation and commitment to the values and expression of dandyism, these young Hungarian aficionados are in the vanguard of promoting elegant style and graceful living, at a time when such values are most needed. They represent a refreshing departure from the dumbeddown norms of the modern era, and I for one salute them. n

Is the ‘Hungarian Dandy Project’ just a vehicle for self-expression, or are you on a mission to ‘convert’ other people?

Yes! Both! Instagram is a really good tool to show Hungarian people dandy values, and to encourage them to guard these values. It’s also important to show people in other countries what kind of values we have here in Hungary from those earlier periods. My goal is to promote Hungary, and especially Budapest, to foreigners as a tourist destination for the vintage scene. I’d also like to show the hidden gems of Budapest, not the usual tourist attractions.

Is there an element of the ‘Avant-Garde’ Bohemian-type lifestyle and values among your friends?

I live in Székesfehérvár, the city where the old kings were crowned. Budapest is 60 kilometres from me to the west. There isn’t much here from an

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Mature Style

THE GREY FOX COLUMN David Evans of @Greyfoxblog turns his attention, briefly, across the Channel to highlight some noteworthy European mens and womenswear brands

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normally write about British brands, by which I mean those who manufacture in the UK. There are of course many who are British in the sense that they are based here, but make their products outside Britain. Sadly we no longer have the resources and skills to make everything we need, as we did in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A lot of the clothing sold in this country that isn’t made here or in Asia is made in Europe – Portugal in particular, where there is a high quality and high-tech clothing industry that makes everything from shirts to suits.

I’m no expert on European brands because a major theme of Grey Fox Blog has been British manufacture. I have a few favourite brands from outside the UK, so to help me with this column, I decided to ask the @greyfoxblog Instagram audience for suggestions of their favourite

“I like Curzon Classics’ British style with a Spanish twist. Their Teba jackets personify the fusion of British country style and European flair” European men’s and womenswear brands. Those I mention below are not in any comprehensive, organised or logical order, but I hope to give you some material to find stylish clothing made by our neighbours across The Channel.

As a first stop I asked friend and menswear personal stylist, Sarah Gilfillan of Sartori-aLab, for her suggestions. She works with men and

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women, advising them on wardrobe edits, style and shopping and has her favourite menswear brands.

She suggests three European companies that have a high street presence in the UK: Slowear, which she describes as ‘slightly offbeat with beautiful textures’; Oscar Jacobson, ‘effortless European chic with a retro feel’; and Barba Napoli, whose clothes she sees as ‘understated modern classics’. Slowear and Barba Napoli also sell women’s clothing. If you prefer to visit shops to buy, these are three to start your hunt for Euro-style.

Looking at a personal favourite, I have clothes from Spanish-based Curzon Classics, a brand that has appeared here in The Chap before. I like their tweedy British style with a Spanish twist. Their Teba jackets personify the fusion of British country style and European flair. Coming in wool, tweed and, for summer, linen, the Teba has become a classic of European style. I see Curzon Classics as a sort of Spanish Cordings of Piccadilly, and I mean that as a huge compliment.

Other Spanish brands to look are Massimo Dutti – affordable but not always the best quality, in my experience – and a brand called Man 1924, which I’ve long admired from afar but not been able to try.

Have a look at them on Instagram @man1924 and

you’ll see why I like their offering: classic, comfortable and even the odd grey hair on their models. At the affordable end, Zara (owned by the same group that owns Massimo Dutti) offer men’s and womenswear with a classic, if slightly young, look (but they still sell skinny fits, for heaven’s sake; I also worry when I see clothing quite so cheaply priced).

For simple Scandinavian style, try another favourite of mine: Swedish menswear company Melka. They sell the sort of wearable classics that form the basis for every wardrobe and can be mixed and matched with great style. The advantage of straightforward clothes like these is that they can be slotted into any clothing collection and worn with anything; a simple grey polo shirt looks as good with chinos as it does with a blazer and flannel trousers.

I have a parka from Norwegian brand, Serac.

It’s one of the best designed and engineered outwear coats I know of. Not cheap, but worth it for the quality.

Other Scandinavian brands that have been suggested for you to explore are Hansen Garments, Norwegian Rain, Michael T and Jernvirke. For women, Becksöndergaard looks excellent.

I haven’t mentioned Italy yet. We all know how irritatingly and effortlessly stylish Italian men and women look. This is partly due to their ability

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“For Italian tailoring there are still many small tailors in Italy and I know men who save on the costs of Savile Row by flying to Italy for their bespoke suits. Italian tailors Rubinacci have a store in Mount Street in London if you prefer not to travel”

Yves Salomon for clothing and Moynat for luxury handbags. To finish, I should mention an Irish brand, Inis Meáin, who make the most gorgeous knitwear (right) you’ll ever see.

Sadly I simply don’t have the space to highlight all the brands suggested when I canvassed views on the topic. All I can do is to thank those who sent in their thoughts and add a few to the list at the end of my column below.

I was contacted by a reader, Mark, after my last column and he told me about another British manufacturer of cycling shoes that I knew of, but had forgotten to include. Rufflander, or William Lennon & Co, are based in The Peak District of England and have been making footwear (in particular work boots) for four generations.

to wear their clothes with great panache and confidence. It’s also a result of the flattering shapes of Italian clothes. Living in a country that gets so hot, unstructured and unstuffy tailoring is the order of the day and this all somehow oozes style – maybe sprezzatura is the word I’m after.

Italian tailoring now influences even Savile Row, with unlined or semi-lined coats and jackets taking over from the very structured style of English tailoring – or maybe I should say blending with it, because English tailoring is still loved and we simply make its classic silhouettes more wearable with elements of Italian construction.

For Italian tailoring there are still many small tailors in Italy; I know men who save on the costs of Savile Row by flying to Italy for their bespoke suits. I’m not sure I approve on either sustainability or ethical grounds, but the option is there for you to consider. Tailors Rubinacci have a store in Mount Street in London if you prefer not to travel. Excellent Italian clothing can be bought off the peg from Brunello Cucinelli (left), Canali, Boggi and all have stores in the UK. I’ve had some very good shirts made by ordering from Apposta online.

I realise I’ve majored on just a few European countries – those with established clothing industries.

Turning to shoes allows me to mention Austrian Ludwig Reiter, who makes excellent quality Goodyear-welted products (above right), and French Paraboot sell robust shoes and boots for men and women. French luxury brands for women include

Here are a few more recommended brands and websites not mentioned above: Pomella Napoli – Trousers from Italy Not Just A Label – Contemporary fashion brands F5 Concept Store – Norwegian design Mes Chaussettes Rouges – French shoe seller Sezane – womenswear from Antwerp Berry on The Drums – Swiss cotton products Del Giudice Roma – Leather goods Atelier Bomba Roma – exquisite womenswear Arpenteur – French menswear A Kind of Guise – German brand Geysir Iceland – Icelandic men’s and womenswear Knowledge Cotton Apparel – Danish clothing Meermin – Spanish footwear Yves Salomon – French womenswear n

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LONGER FEATURES •

Fellini's Rome (p94) • Olly Smith (p102) The Chap Dines (p107) • Birding & Butterflies (p110) • Travel: Transylvania (p114) • Fritz Lang (p120)

Travel

Fellini's Rome Chris Sullivan searches for La Dolce Vita among the sights of the Eternal City that featured in the films of Federico Fellini Colour photos by Eliza Hill

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“The name Paparazzo is derived from the Italian ‘pappataci’, meaning sandfly, but is used to describe any flying, biting, plasma pilfering, sneaky, silent, parasitical dipteran horrors – as good a moniker as any to describe such revolting smudgers”

s the esteemed Italian film director Federico Fellini once said, “My mother wanted me to be a doctor or an architect but I’m quite happy being an adjective.” Felliniesque now refers to any film that is quirkily surreal yet eminently stylish. And although the director wasn’t born in the Eternal City, it is his Roman films that have allowed him this reputation: The White Sheik (1953), the Oscar winning Nights Of Cabiria (1957) La Dolce Vita (1960) and Satyricon, portraying life in first century Rome and the autobiographical Roma (1972), an homage to the city.

To celebrate the centenary of the great au-

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teur’s birth and the 60th anniversary of La Dolce Vita, I paid a visit to Urbs Aeterna AKA Roma to offer you, dear reader, a tour of the locations used in Federico Fellini’s immortal oeuvre.

Much of what we see in the The White Sheik remains the same. Fellini’s wife Giulietta played Cabiria, the prostitute dancing late at night near the Pantheon which, today, at 1am, with all the cafes closed and the tourists absent, looks exactly the same, while, nearby is an establishment that Federico would certainly have visited.

The Michelin starred Armando al Pantheon is a cosy little restaurant that opened in 1961 and was

a smash from day one. I went for the rather splendid Stracciatella Romano, which is egg in a broth with stringy melted cheese, followed by an astonishing, spaghetti carbonara (Roman style with pancetta and eggs but no cream) while my secondi piatti was Guinea Fowl with Porcini mushrooms and black beer. We broke with tradition and accompanied our lunch with a bottle of Brunello de Montalcino from Tuscany, the favoured red of Italian mobsters and politicians.

After this, in search of La Dolce Vita, it was off to St Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican. The former is undeniably magnificent and

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Fellini also featured the Dome of St Peter’s in La Dolce Vita but recreated it in Cinecitta Studios on the outskirts of Rome. We took the 8-euro deal that allows one to get a lift up the first 231 steps, and then walked the precipitous single-file 320-step staircase, and eventually used the rope provided to ascend the steepest gradient that led to the open-air dome, some 450 feet above sea level. The view from here is really most astonishing and just as it would have been back in 1952, 1960 or 1973 – although in The White Sheik we see a largely deserted St Peter’s Square but today, due to cheap flights, millions of tourists flock to Capit Mundi and St Peter’s in particular.

As we’d walked for almost five hours (the Vatican museum is huge) we were hungry and thirsty but refused to pay £17 for a slice of pizza and £4 for a bottle of water from a Pizzeria near The Vatican.

Instead, we followed Fellini’s lead and went to his favourite restaurant, Otello alla Concordia. Situated in the courtyard of Palazzo Ludovisi Boncompagni,

“Marcello Mastroianni doesn’t make a sartorial gaff, in immaculately tailored single-breasted suits, Persol 649s worn day and night and oversized cufflinks, while Nico (later of the Velvet Underground) is crucial Beat Girl fabulous in black Sloppy Joe jumper and leggings” would explain why many poor folk went home to the four corners after seeing it, believing in talking snakes, blokes rising for the dead and seas parting on a whim. Simply put, St. Peter’s Basilica is one big PR job.

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Š Rko/Kobal/Shutterstock

www.herring.co.uk

“Whenever one thinks of La Dolce Vita, we inevitably conjure up that image of Ekberg and Mastroianni in the waters of the Trevi Fontana at dawn”

near the Spanish Steps, it goes way back to the 18th century. But it’s still most relaxed, very Roman, unassuming and inexpensive. We had a Vongole and Spaghetti all’Otello and a carafe of wine for less than 50 euros, and walked away as happy as Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg.

Up the Spanish Steps, it is but a ten-minute walk to Via Veneto, the most visible location of the director’s magnum opus, La Dolce Vita, and where he and his pals certainly chewed the fat. In the fifties, sixties and seventies, its roadside cafes and bars were the main hangout for the city’s Beau Monde and its many paparazzi. It was Fellini who coined said term, by naming his lead character Marcello Rubini’s (a chic fashionable gossip columnist) camera-wielding sidekick Paparazzo (Walter Santesso), whose name has since been filched in the plural to label any and all aggressive photographers of celebrity. The name

Paparazzo is derived from the Italian ‘pappataci’ – meaning sandfly: ‘pappa’ (food) and ‘taci’ (silent) but is used to describe any flying, biting, plasma pilfering, sneaky, silent, parasitical dipteran horrors. It’s as good a moniker as anyone might ever have conjured up to describe such revolting smudgers.

La Dolce Vita tells of a week in the life of said scribe, Marcello, who has ditched his literary ambitions to become a well-paid snitch who inveigles his

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way into posh parties, to reveal the exhilarating extra curricular endeavours of the affluent epicureans who sashayed around the then tremendously groovy Via Veneto and its numerous bars and cafes. This allows the director to assemble a cast of the most incredibly elegant and remarkably contemporary style mongers ever gathered in a movie. Federico pulled in a crew of extras from dubious parvenu theatrical types and their toadies, intercontinental

aristocracy and their acolytes, alongside gangsters, heisters, shysters and young and beautiful models.

Marcello himself doesn’t make a sartorial gaff, driving about in his 1958 Triumph TR3 convertible, sporting immaculately tailored single-breasted suits, Persol 649s worn day and night and oversized cufflinks, while Nico (later of the Velvet Underground) is crucial Beat Girl fabulous in black Sloppy Joe jumper and leggings.

The film was inspired by a real event in 1958, when Ava Gardner, the world’s biggest star at the time, was in Rome filming The Naked Maja, and got into a proper punch-up with paparazzi, aided by her co-star Tony Francioso at the club Brick Topo. Indubitably, Anita Ekberg was playing Ava, who was as much of a freewheeling sybarite as was Ekberg in the movie.

But Via Veneto today, as the addition of a Hard Rock Café ably testifies, is but a shadow of its former self. The only place worth a look is the famed Harry’s bar, the favoured watering hole of Burton, Taylor, Welles, Sinatra, Brando and Fellini.

And it was novel to sit where such luminaries sat and imbibed and, even though I liked the kitsch, cheesy Italian pianist and the even cheesier female vocalist more than I should.

“Before we left, we followed Giulietta’s lead in Nights of Cabiria and walked down the river Tiber and settled down for dinner at one of Fellini’s favourite restaurants, Antica Trattoria de Carlone, dating back to the 19th Century and serving the most incredible pasta”

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Giuletta Masina in Nights of Cabiria

However, even though the film’s title translated into ‘The Sweet Life’, there is a bitter pill under the candy coating. No scene illustrates this more than when Marcello and his married wealthy society gal pick up a rather sad streetwalker in the early hours in the thoroughly grand Piazza del Poppolo (which is still exactly the same). They then take her home to her squalid, flooded basement and, without a by your leave, slope off to copulate in the poor lassie’s bedroom, while she sits forlornly on a step.

But whenever one thinks La Dolce Vita, we inevitably conjure up that image of Ekberg and Mastroianni in the waters of the Trevi Fontana at dawn. We visited it at 3 am and thankfully nothing has changed, apart from the Polizia standing on its edge stopping people from getting into the water.

We were staying not far from the fountain, at the splendid and rather reasonable Palazzo Montemar-

tini Hotel, built in 1881, and fielding the finest buffet breakfast I have ever eaten, bar none.

Before we left, we followed Giulietta’s lead in Nights of Cabiria and walked down the river Tiber over the wonderful Ponte Sisto to Trastevere (which is a lot less touristy than over the water) and settled down for dinner at one of Fellini’s favourite restaurants, Antica Trattoria de Carlone, dating back to the 19th Century and serving the most incredible pasta. And while Miss Hill enjoyed a ridiculously tasty carbonara and a magnificent roast lamb, I had fettuccine with fresh porcini mushrooms, followed by ossobuco, after which we sat back and, with another bottle of Brunello 2014, toasted Fellini and his wonderful city. n Chris Sullivan stayed at The Plaza Montemartini Hotel www.radissonhotels.com and flew with Easyjet to Fiumicino

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Drink

The Greatest Pub on Earth Olly Smith crosses the Irish Sea in search of the finest pint in the finest pub with the finest people

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liver Reed is once reputed to have drained a pint in Guernsey’s Jamaica Inn with the words, “Bugger it, I’m going to buy the Moon”. Apparently it was his momentary intention to build the greatest pub in the galaxy on the lunar surface and ensure sole admittance via space rocket to serious drinkers, raconteurs and those who, as Oliver demonstrated that evening, could do press ups on the bar. I think I may have found an even better place than the Moon to make Oliver’s fleeting dream come true. And thankfully you don’t need a spaceship to get there.

There are a number of pubs which I hold dear.

The Jolly Sportsman in East Chiltington, Sussex, has

“In days when legendary landlord Oliver manifested behind the bar, his powerful eyes distilling you deep into his thrall, his suit never less than impeccable, I often thought of him as a star in whose hot firmament I was glad occasionally to orbit” 102

animation Song of the Sea. I certainly can’t resist the warm welcome of the local pubs. Tigh Ui Mhurchu, Tigh Ui Chathain, Tigh an tSaorsaigh, Ceann Sibeal Hotel – for such a small village, the choice of watering holes is nothing short of a total marvel.

Head into Dingle itself and you’re never short of treats. Live music at the Courthouse, ice cream at Murphy’s, Foxy Johns for hardware as well as hard drinking. But stroll past the Dingle Bookshop down the hill to Dick Mack’s and you’ll find one of the greatest pubs in the world.

I first started drinking on and off in Dick Mack’s around twenty years ago, when my motherin-law settled on the peninsula. There has never been a single occasion when the experience has fallen short of utterly epic. In days when legendary landlord Oliver manifested behind the bar, his powerful eyes distilling you deep into his thrall, his suit never less than impeccable, I often thought of him as a star in whose hot firmament I was glad occasionally to orbit. West Kerry’s riposte to Oliver Reed. You’ll still see his portrait on the wall, but these days behind the bar his nephew Finn is the incumbent. And I think he may be the greatest landlord yet. There’s the charm, presence (he has his own gym and exhibits the fitness of a part-time

long been a favourite, as much for its excellent drinks as its terrific food and delicious pub garden. Kay’s Bar on Jamaica Street in Edinburgh I’ve haunted for years, for a dram of ace whisky and to admire the waxed moustaches and sartorial definition of the gents behind the bar. You can find me in The Holborn Whippet in London of a quiet afternoon and if the music’s loud enough, I’m often swimming in a pint at The Swan in Lewes. Failing that, I’ll probably be in The Patch in the centre of said town for some of the greatest craft beers on the planet. In summer, The Square and Compass in Worth Matravers is where I’ll be, waltzing into Charlie’s unbeatably brilliant cider (pint of Eve’s Idea for me). But on Ireland’s west coast, there are several pubs which vie for the best on the planet.

My in-laws live just outside Ballyferriter in County Kerry on the Dingle Peninsula, affectionately known as ‘the home of Star Wars’ since the middle one of the recent three movies was partially filmed there. Local legend was made when Peter Mayhew apparently turned up at the local school in full Wookiee costume. Movies, it seems, cannot resist the dramatic backdrop of the roiling ocean of cascading skies, from Ryan’s Daughter to Far & Away and even the inspiration for the Oscar nominated

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good. But back on the beers, Aussie has a serious mind when it comes to nurturing his brews. Forget world domination, you need to go to Dingle to taste how good these local beers are – and Dick Mack’s is pumping out kit that’s well worth travelling for. Just order a pint of his Coffee Stout, and your palate will fly all the way to the dark side of the Moon where Oliver Reed is waiting to serve you. The Session IPA is decent, Pale is magnificent and specials such as Honey & Hemp Ale well worth splashing around in. All you need to keep you company is a copy of In The Wake of St Brendan by local poet Danny Sheehy, beautifully translated by my mother-in-law Camilla Dinkel (pop in to bag your copy at The Dingle Bookshop) and your day in the pub need never end.

The only word you really need to murmur occasionally as you look up is Sláinte, as you raise your glass to the merry ghosts sailing around the bar, with the gentle sound of tides moving and stars silently rolling overhead. Oliver Reed will be right with you, sending benedictions and blessings via your next sip. And if you feel his spirit moving, remember to leap on that bar and start doing press ups. It’s cheaper than buying the Moon. n

“Just order a pint of his Coffee Stout and your palate will fly all the way to the dark side of the Moon, where Oliver Reed is waiting to serve you from the bar of his lunar lair” sprinter and full time wrestler), but the kicker is his keen knowledge. Dick Mack’s has won a clutch of awards for having one of the best collections of Irish whiskey – and Scotch whisky – anywhere on the planet. Finn took me through a tasting of Irish whiskey which was as insightful and instructive as it was delicious, including some bottles from distilleries long lost, liquid as deep and rare as a rook in a coalmine. Dunville’s PX 12 Old Irish Whiskey, Cill Áirne Single Cask 0006 Oloroso (bottle 47) distilled in March 2001, bottled 13/11/16, was a roaring festival of deep delight, boasting a growling 57% alcohol. Bottle 44/47 of Celtic Cask 21 (cask 1899), bottled on my birthday (18th September) 2017 delivered special glory, reminding me that Irish whiskey is just as awesome as other global offerings. Redbreast Single Pot Still Cask Strength, Method and Madness Single Grain and Connemara 12-Year-Old Single Malt both brought to life by Finn’s passion for Irish distilleries and determination to get people to see beyond the shores of their regular dram, in favour of wading more deeply. I was more than happy to oblige. With live music in the bar, it’s easy to stride in and forget to move for many days, weeks and even lifetimes from Dick Mack’s. But we’ve barely scratched the surface. Of course there are locals and visitors alike to engage with, but the prime reason for your visit, once your whiskey thirst is slaked, is for the impeccable beers brewed on site.

Aussie is your man, with his team of brewers who’ve teased an ancient outbuilding behind the pub into a state-of-the-art brewing facility with a tasting room a stone’s throw away. And what blew me away is the town’s readiness to pour the beers in other establishments – praise indeed. I also found this with the brilliant beers of the West Kerry Brewery pouring out of Bhric’s Pub which I’m also a fan of – check out westkerrybrewery.ie and book yourself a visit next time you’re out there. And while you’re at it, go to dingledistillery.ie too and make sure to immerse fully in their gin, which is mind-bendingly

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The Chap Dines

HIX OYSTER BAR AND CHOP HOUSE 36-37 Greenhill Rents, Cowcross St, London EC1M 6BN T: 020 7017 1930 Reviewed by Gustav Temple

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“An enquiry as to which cut of beef to order resulted in the presentation, seconds later, of an enormous wooden board lined up with every cut of steak on offer, from Glenarm Estate rib steak on the bone to hanger steak with bone marrow�

onday 16th March 2020 was an auspicious day for a long lunch with Chris Sullivan. Coronavirus fever was about to hit London, and full lockdown was imminent, with deserted streets and nearly empty Underground carriages. This could be the last time we met for quite some time, and possibly the last chance anyone had of enjoying a civilised meal in a restaurant, or indeed any kind of meal in any kind of restaurant, before they were all forced to close for a period.

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We had chosen our location well for this significant repast. Hix Oyster Bar and Chop House is a discreet establishment tucked away at the top of Cowcross Street in Farringdon, founded by Mark Hix in 2008 on the back of a stellar career as head chef at Le Caprice and the Ivy. Situated right behind Smithfield Market, the focus is naturally on British meat, though, as we were to discover, Mark heads slightly further afield for some of his choicest cuts of beef.

We are attended to by the charming and knowledgeable Harriet, who does a lot more than simply deliver the food to our table. An enquiry as to which cut of beef to order results in the presentation, seconds later, of an enormous wooden board lined up with every cut of steak on offer, from Glenarm Estate rib steak on the bone to hanger steak with bone marrow. The beef all comes from Peter Hannon of the Glenarm Estate in Northern Ireland, who ages all his meat in a Himalayan salt chamber.

“Excuse me?” comes the response, wine glasses frozen in mid sip.

Harriet shows us a chunk of this mysterious pinkish salt, imported from the Himalayas and used as bricks to construct an enormous fridge, where

the meat is hung for up to 42 days. Cold air is filtered through the salt, adding gallons of extra flavor. Hix and Fortnum & Mason are the only two places in London to import this prized Glenarm beef.

But before we approach the Himalayan saltcured beef, we must focus on the oysters. Hix offers four choices of bivalve: Native from Colchester, Rock from Cumbrae and Jersey, and crispy fried rock oysters with Scotch bonnet mayonnaise. We selected from either end of this tempting spectrum, and turned our attention to the starters. Chris chose some River Teigh mussels with Burrow Hill Cider and wild garlic, while I, feeling reckless, opted for the steak tartare, partly to try and help Chris overcome his fear of this delectable dish.

“The first and last time I ever had steak tartare was at the Devil of Lombardy in Paris with Steve Strange in about 1979. At that time, the French weren’t as friendly as they are now, and if you didn’t speak French they thought you were an imbecile, which we probably were. We didn’t have much money, so the only thing I saw on the menu that I could afford was steak tartare, and when it came I thought they were taking the piss, and we made an enormous fuss.”

I resolved to heal this wound with what was

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bound to be the best steak tartare available this side of the 1980s club scene.

Harriet encouraged us to break free of the tradition of only taking oysters with white or sparkling wine, and we washed down our brace of bivalves with a glass of Tonnix Grand Crew 2014 Quinta de Bandeiras, the rest of which was on hand when the starters arrived. The steak tartare was uncooked to perfection and I managed to persuade Chris to try a forkful, throwing caution to the wind on this coronavirus Monday. The egg yolk had been completely separated from its white and quickly smothered the glorious raw beef with a sumptuous yellow coating; the meat itself peppered and spiced to just the right degree of piquancy.

None of these fulsome starters had prepared us for the Glenarm Estate Porterhouse Steak (for two), presented by Harriet on a board, which she then set to expertly with carving knife. It looked like enough for three, but since Steve Strange (RIP) couldn’t join us, we decided to finish it all in his honour. I won’t claim to have tasted the Himalayan salt, but the 42-day curing process had certainly given the beef a rich succulence. Cooked mediumrare, it simply oozed blood and flavor, served in two-bite portions smothered in béarnaise sauce.

This was the food of the gods, providing the perfect repast for a temporary farewell to the city, whose citizens were already disappearing in their thousands from the streets. Having squeezed in the very last mouthful, we felt it our duty to sample the puddings and some of Mark Hix’s splendid cellar of Julian Temperley’s Somerset Cider Brandy – which in France would be called Calvados.

We chose a three-year-old and a five-year-old to accompany a Steamed Kingston Black and marmalade pudding with custard, and a Yorkshire Rhubarb Buttermilk Pudding, both of which were concentrations of such wonderful flavour that we had no difficulty dispatching them.

Post-prandials at a deserted pub on Cowcross Street were devoted to ruminating on the impending lockdown, already visible around us. Everyone seemed to be heading for home rather hurriedly, which would have been normal in London at rush hour, but this was three o’clock in the afternoon.

Since writing this, the Hix Restaurants Group has sadly closed permanently, but it is inevitable that Mark Hix and his fabulous cuts of beef will resurface in some other form in the future. n www.hixrestaurants.co.uk

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Birding

The Europeans Are Coming!

Nick Ostler turns his binoculars to the avian and lepidoptera species that have set up home in the UK from regions as far-flung as Eastern Europe

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t the beginning of Robert Harris’ latest ‘alternative history’ thriller, The Second Sleep, there is a clue that all is not as it seems when it comes to the apparently medieval setting:

The Ring-necked Parakeet (above), as I’m sure Harris knows, did not become a noisy fixture in the parks and gardens of London and Southeast England until the 1970s. Some have credited escapees from the set of The African Queen, or even deliberate release by Jimi Hendrix, but one thing is for sure – they didn’t make it here from their home on the Indian subcontinent under their own steam. Other birds that we now take for granted as part of our native avifauna did colonise the UK independently. The ubiquitous cooing of the Collared Dove was not heard in Britain until 1955, when an extraordinary explosion in their population brought them here for good from Turkey and the Balkans. The fact is that the make up of no country’s wildlife is static. As well as the seasonal movements of migration, there are longer-term changes of personnel brought about

“Something shrieked and flashed emerald in the gloom, and his heart seemed to jump halfway up his throat, even though he realized almost at once that it was nothing more sinister than a common parakeet” 110

by a host of factors. Then there are the species that we have chosen to bring back to our shores long after they went extinct, through expensive and carefully planned reintroduction schemes.

In recent years this has been most successful with some of our larger birds of prey: Red Kites are flying far and wide once more; after their successful reintroduction in Scotland, the majestic Whitetailed Sea Eagle looks set to become a regular sight in the skies over the Isle of Wight for the first time since 1780.

“The Ring-necked Parakeet did not become a noisy fixture in the parks and gardens of Southeast England until the 1970s.

Some have credited escapees from the set of The African Queen or even deliberate release by Jimi Hendrix, but one thing is for sure – they didn’t make it here under their own steam”

As our climate warms, birds for which Britain is at the southern end of their range, such as the Purple Sandpiper, Dotterel, Snow Bunting and Slavonian Grebe, are retreating north and may disappear as breeding species. But others are flocking here in increasing numbers from southern Europe as they find our longer, hotter summers to their liking. Many of these are large, wetland-dwelling cousins of the Little Egret, rather than smaller, farmland and countryside birds like the Red-backed Shrike and Wryneck, both of which used to breed in this country, and still thrive in Eastern Europe.

That’s because there is more to colonization or re-colonization than just the temperature. Each bird species requires a large critical mass of pairs living on interconnected areas of suitable habitat to survive. Post-war intensive farming in Western Europe has made this impossible for many species, putting our Turtle Doves and Nightingales, among others, on a fast track towards national extinction.

Today there are more European newcomers flocking to our shores, especially our interconnected wetlands, and there follows a brief selection.

NIGHT HERON As the name suggests, this diminutive heron is unusual in being a nocturnal hunter of frogs and fish. But if it is hard to spot, it’s easy to identify with its black crown and red eyes. Breeding in very small numbers since 2017, the fact that it’s doing so at all is testament to the habitat created by conservationists in the Somerset marshes.

BLACK-WINGED STILT Droughts in southern Europe have encouraged this unmistakable wader to set up home in our saline marshes from Norfolk to Kent and West Sussex, where it now seems reasonably established, albeit still in small numbers.

RSPB Cliffe Pools and RSPB Medmerry are the best sites.

CATTLE EGRET The Little Egret is no longer the only member of its family to call the UK home, so it’s time to learn to ID its more unusual cousins. The Cattle Egret has a yellow beak and legs in contrast to the Little’s black beak and legs (with yellow feet). And yes, it can often be found picking through fields in the shadow of livestock.

RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset is its stronghold, but it’s being seen all over the south and east with increasing regularity.

GREAT WHITE EGRET The towering Great White has been breeding in the UK since 2012, again mainly in Somerset, but I’ve also seen them at Holkham in North Norfolk, and these days they can turn up anywhere. Its sheer size – as big as a Grey Heron with an absurdly long neck – makes it easy to differentiate.

BLACK KITE Taking a break from the waterbirds for a moment, the Black Kite is another increasingly frequent visitor from the continent. Although there are no records of it breeding yet, its French population is rapidly increasing and some believe it’s only a matter of time before it takes up residence here, perhaps by a reservoir in southern England.

BEE-EATER It is perhaps wishful thinking to imagine this most multi-coloured of European birds becoming a regular feature of the British summer. But warmer temperatures have encouraged some to raise young here a handful of times in recent years, in sandbanks as far apart as Nottinghamshire and the Isle of Wight.

At the very least they seem set to become an occasional breeder.

GREAT BUSTARD Thanks to a groundbreaking reintroduction scheme using chicks from Russia and Spain, the world’s heaviest flying bird is now back on Salisbury Plain nearly two hundred years after it was hunted to extinction in the UK. With nearly a hundred birds, it is now close to establishing a self-sustaining wild population.

BLUETHROAT This little gem has bred in the UK in the past – the northern redspotted race in Scotland and the southern white-spotted race perhaps in Norfolk.

But while a serious recolonisation seems unlikely, Benedict Macdonald cites the return of breeding Bluethroats as one of many potential prizes of long-term rewilding.

GLOSSY IBIS This most un-British sounding wader has reached the UK in increasing numbers from its Spanish breeding grounds in recent years. Its iridescent plumage is an increasingly familiar sight on our southern and eastern wetlands, and the smart money has to be on the Ibis becoming the UK’s next breeding bird.

WHITE STORK This majestic giant may still have been common in the UK at the time of the English Civil War, and now, thanks to a reintroduction project at the Knepp estate near Storrington (appropriately known as Estorchestone or “homestead of the white storks” in the Domesday Book) it seems likely to become a wild British bird once more.

DALMATIAN PELICAN Twitchers were stunned when the first accepted record of a wild British pelican spent the summer of 2016 travelling around much of Devon and Cornwall. But archaeological records tell us that they were native to our wetlands in the Middle Ages, and some believe that with the continued expansion of the Somerset marshes, the pelican could well be reintroduced by the middle of this century.

EURO BUTTERFLIES As with birds, there are winners and losers from climate change when it comes to the UK’s butterflies and moths – and habitat loss or repair is even more important when it comes to their future. But like the birds, there are European species that could soon become new fixtures in British gardens.

QUEEN OF SPAIN FRITILLARY A rare migrant to our shores and highly prized by butterfly enthusiasts, there is good evidence that this regal butterfly (below left) has bred before in West Sussex. It seems likely that it will become a regular breeder on the south coast in the long-term.

LONG-TAILED BLUE This dainty little migrant from Europe is not only reaching our southern coastline with increasing frequency, but has already been known to lay eggs and produce a home-grown autumn generation. It seems such a dead cert to be a regular British breeder in years to come that I’m planting its favourite food plant, Broadleaved Everlasting Peas, in my Sussex garden.

CONTINENTAL SWALLOWTAIL The UK subspecies of Swallowtail, our largest native butterfly, has a small but stable colony in the Norfolk Broads. And now its larger, lighter continental cousin seems to be attempting to colonise the south coast. Butterfly Conservation’s Michael Blencowe has said that it could be regularly brightening up British gardens in twenty years time.

CLIFDEN NONPAREIL Otherwise known more simply as the ‘Blue Underwing’, this large, stunning moth (above) was a favourite of Victorian collectors before becoming extinct as a UK resident. Now happily it seems to be recolonizing from the continent, with increasing records from southern counties.

ROSY UNDERWING Previously an exceedingly rare find in British moth traps, this crimson-winged stunner is now appearing much more often along the south coast, and the hope has to be that it is now breeding somewhere in the UK.

Travel

Dracula's castle Darcy Sullivan travels to Romania in search of Vlad the Impaler and Count Dracula in their various castles

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s the carriage rattled up a twisty Transylvanian trail, my fellow passengers begged me not to go to the castle. I smiled at their superstitions, but out of politeness accepted a crude wooden crucifix thrust in my hand by an old woman in black. “For keep safe,” she pleaded.

In my imagination, the trip to Castle Bran, once billed as Castle Dracula, always played out like this. And in real life this year – before COVID-19, lockdowns and self-distancing turned the world into a different kind of horror story – the journey was

“Transylvania is one of those places in the world – like Tombstone or Tintagel – synonymous with a legend. In the case of Transylvania, that legend was imposed on it by a foreigner who never even visited the country” 114

Suit of armour for both rider and steed in Peles Castle

almost identical. Just replace the carriage with a well-appointed superbus, superstitious peasants with curious tourists, and a gnawing sense of dread with an anguished prayer that the castle would have a loo.

Just as Jonathan Harker did, we found Dracula in the castle. And all around it. You approach the castle through a maze of souvenir stands selling Dracula plaques, T-shirts, figurines, ashtrays, spoons and other curiosa. Some depict the medieval Wallachian voivode Vlad II, some the iconic Dracula with dinner suit, fangs and widow’s peak. A few T-shirts put fangs on Vlad, which is cheating.

Welcome to Transylvania, land of myth and mistruths. Transylvania is one of those places in the world – like Tombstone or Tintagel – synonymous with a legend. In the case of Transylvania, that legend was imposed on it by a foreigner who never even visited the country. Bram Stoker’s Transylvania put the real one on the map, but as a shadowland.

“Dracula depicts Transylvania as a backward region inhabited by wild animals and superstitious peasants,” wrote scholar Elizabeth Miller. “What an ap-

propriate residence for a monster who emerges from his lair to threaten Victorian England!”

So what do you do when the legend is bigger than the place? Fight it or embrace it? Both, it turns out, as my wife and I discovered on a trip to Bucharest and Transylvania in search of the Dracula who was real and the one who wasn’t.

“Welcome to Transylvania, land of myth and mistruths. It is one of those places, like Tombstone or Tintagel, synonymous with a legend. In the case of Transylvania, that legend was imposed by a foreigner who never even visited the country” 116

Most European capitals have a mixture of old-world charm and modern additions, but Bucharest feels like unfinished business. A few blocks away from the city centre, there are houses that look as though they’ve been bombed, demolished by time and despair, reclaimed by vines and dust. As we walked through one of these neighbourhoods, we wondered whether we were headed into a slum.

We then noticed that literally every block had an art supplies store.

We had read that Bucharest is a book-lover’s city, but I’ve been seduced by that siren call so many times only to find the bookstores have been wiped out by Amazon. Not so Bucharest – it’s positively rife with them, quite a few stocking English or French books as well as those in Romanian.

Some stores also sell antiques, everything from war medals to furniture. I saw a bronze plaque for the French playwright Alfred De Musset that I wish I’d had the gumption to ask the shopkeeper to fetch from the window and price for me. (Note to self: Pack more gumption.)

THE OBSCURE BEAUTY OF BUCHAREST Bucharest is haunted by its own demon, Nicolae Ceaușescu, who ruled Romania with an iron fist in the 1970s and 80s. His brutal regime ended with a popular uprising, and guide books say you can still see bullet holes in the buildings around Timișoara Square in Bucharest. We looked but didn’t find any.

Ceaușescu wanted to remake the city into a communist utopia, so demolished a lot of the older buildings, replacing them with the ugly modernist cubes that looked like the future for about 15 minutes in the mid-20th century. Fortunately, he didn’t strip down the Old Town, a few square blocks of picturesque Europe. Throughout the city there are beautiful buildings, including the Stavropoleos Monastery Church, sometimes in abrupt proximity to new constructions. The most striking example is the National Architects Union Headquarters (above), which looks like a spaceship landed on The Grand Budapest Hotel.

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As for that most Chappish of concerns, fashion, there’s good news and bad news. Bad news first: Bucharest isn’t a mecca for street style, or classic menswear. You don’t pass chaps who look like they’re in training for Pitti Uomo. (My friend Dan, a publisher who lives in Bucharest, told us a funny story about spotting an elegant man on the streets, and following him in curiosity until the man entered a church. “Then I knew he wasn’t a true dandy,” Dan said, noting that “a true dandy worships only himself.”)

The good news is that, after seeking out and immediately departing several small vintage shops, we came across a real gem. Check Vintage & More, on the Strada Mihai Vodă, has a remarkable stock of upscale men’s clothing at bargain prices. I bought a brown Harris Tweed jacket with suede elbow patches and horn buttons from Mario Barutti for £40. The store also has a good range of sizes, probably because it’s less a vintage store than a consignment store.

would have heard of Vlad if it weren’t for two books. The first is Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, which doesn’t use Vlad’s real name or any details about his life. However, Stoker changed the character’s name from Wampyr to Dracula after coming across the name in An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia by William Wilkinson, which he found in the Whitby Public Library.

The second book is 1972’s In Search of Dracula,

by Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally, who promoted the idea that Stoker modelled Dracula on Vlad. Experts still debate this, but most have deduced otherwise. “As for the theories about the connections between the Count and Voivode, they are based on circumstantial evidence, some of which is quite flimsy,” wrote Miller, who concluded that such theories “do not withstand the test of close scrutiny.” Of course, that hasn’t stopped filmmakers from gluing the two together, as in the recent Dracula Untold.

Still, when tourists came looking for a place like Dracula’s castle, Romanians pulled a Baker Street. With no real Castle Dracula for tourists to visit, they made one. Correction: they made three:

THE DRACULA DILEMMA “We’ll now be heading to Bran Castle – but don’t worry, Dracula isn’t home,” teased our tour leader, Stephania, as we started the drive through the Carpathians into Transylvania. She knows – as everyone here knows – what’s drawing people here from around the world (our group was from Spain, Italy and Israel). But she was careful not to say that the castle had any but the thinnest connection to the Count.

Despite the saturation of the souvenir shops, the Romanians have a conflicted view of both Draculas. The real Dracula, Vlad III, who lived from 1431-1476, was a voivode (ruler) of Wallachia, now part of Romania. Vlad did actually go by the name Drãculea, which means son of Dracul (devil), the name used by his father (also Vlad). Dad Vlad was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a sort of Knights of the Round Table devoted to protecting Christianity.

Vlad III was also known as Vlad Țepeș (pronounced Tze-pesch), or Vlad the Impaler, because he thought that was a fun way of punishing people that also struck fear into his enemies, in particular the Turks. Despite his intimidating rep, he was still little more than a historical footnote, until Ceaușescu himself took up the cause of championing Vlad III as a national hero and defender of the realm in the 1970s.

However, it’s certain that no Westerners

• Castle Bran. This is the one that for some time billed itself as Castle Dracula, despite being more a medieval bolt-hole than a ruined palace. Vlad never lived here, though some sources say he was imprisoned here for a short time.

• Poenari Castle. Vlad built this one as a getaway fortress. Because it’s in ruins, and requires a steep climb (you don’t build a getaway on the main road), it’s not visited as much as Bran and isn’t promoted as heavily.

• Dracula’s Castle Hotel. Want one you can spend the night in? Clever Romanians built one in the 1980s, on the Borgo Pass popularized by Stoker.

If you come to Transylvania looking for Dracula, you’ll want a tour guide who’s going to help you separate fact from fantasy. I recommend TravelMakers, which offers a day-long excursion to both Castle Bran and the much more impressive Peles Castle (right). Peles Castle has no reputed connection whatsoever to any revenant. Built and inhabited by a succession of Romanian kings, it’s a jaw-dropping display of wealth and privilege, with a world-class collection of weapons, including a suit of armour for rider and steed. It’s the kind of castle Count Dracula would have wanted had he lived here – or, indeed, anywhere. n

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Film

FRITZ LANG Few directors have grasped the mastery of creating a genre from their aesthetic vision, but the name Fritz Lang has become synonymous with a certain film making oeuvre, as Chris Sullivan explains

“When Hitler offered him the leading post in the German film industry, Lang claims that he told Goebbels the truth – that his mother was Jewish – in order to dissuade him from the appointment, to which Goebbels responded, ‘We’ll decide who’s Jewish!’”

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ritz Lang’s nomadic adventures in filmmaking, from fin de siecle Vienna and 1920s Berlin to the Hollywood hills, underlines the importance of the cross polarisation of ideas from country to country, while his rise to become a veritable giant of the cinema saw the director weather fascism, movie moguls and prejudice.

“My life goes on and my films are the most direct expression of what I have seen, of what I have learnt and felt,” he told film writer JeanClaude Philippe in 1973. And just as his films were extraordinary, so was his life’s own tale.

Fritz Lang was born on 5th December 1890, in Vienna, Austria. His father, a municipal architect and devout Catholic, was keen for his son to follow in his footsteps, but young Fritz was drawn to the arts and soon decided to become a painter. At the turn of the 19th century, Vienna was enjoying a

radical period of art known as the Secession, with painters such as Klimt and Schiele heading up the movement as two of the most newsworthy, radical and divisive artists of their day. These extravagantly dressed, long haired, drug taking radicals were perhaps more akin to the movie stars we know today, with teenagers drawn to their notorious ways. Fritz was no exception.

He was soon attracted to the racy Viennese cabarets of the time, and for a while involved himself in this risqué demi-monde by creating posters for shows and occasionally appearing on stage, but when his father discovered this double life he hit the roof. “So I ran far away from home,” said Lang.

“Something that every decent young man should do.” His wanderings took him to Belgium, and then further afield to North Africa, Turkey, and Asia.

Eventually, he found himself in Paris, earning a

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Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, 1923

living by selling hand-painted postcards, his own pictures and occasionally creating cartoons for newspapers.

While in Paris, Lang attended art college and visited the cinema daily. Smitten with what he saw, he described film as ‘the art of the century.’ He stayed in the French capital until the outbreak of WWI, when he returned to Vienna and was thrown into a midst of chaos on both Romanian and Russian fronts. As the leader of a renowned scout patrol, whose main task was to go behind enemy lines and be shot at, he received several medals, but ended up in military hospital for both his wounds and shell shock. In 1918, Lang was declared unfit for further front line service and discharged.

While in hospital he wrote the first script of his career, part of a Joe Deebs’ detective serial titled Wedding In The Eccentric Club. Much to Lang’s annoyance, producer-director Joe May sneakily omitted his credit; however, it was a useful experience that would later influence his penchant for the noir genre. Disappointed, Lang set to retreat from the film world, but his luck was soon to change.

“Set in the year 2000, Metropolis established the tone for all sci-fi movies to come. The evil genius, Rotwang, created the silhouette for all future mad scientists, while the hypnotic, lifelike robot False Maria inspired the replicants of Blade Runner and CP3PO in Star Wars to name a few”

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False Maria and her doomed creator Rotwang in Metropolis (1927)

He was spotted while sitting in cafĂŠ in all his finery (monocle, three-piece suit and spats), by acclaimed producer Eric Pommer. Promptly cast as a lieutenant in Der Hias (1918), he was offered a script editing contract with a film company in Berlin, and a year later Lang made his directorial debut, The Half Caste (1919).

Later that year Fritz wed Lisa Rosenthal, but the marriage was short-lived. During production of Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922) Rosenthal found her husband in bed with the Prussian aristocratic writer Thea von Harbou, and immediately shot herself dead. The incident inflicted much suspicion on Lang, but in 1923 he made an honest woman of von Harbou, and they began to collaborate on scripts. The relationship would prove prosperous; inspired by a trip to New York, the couple together wrote the mighty Metropolis (1927).

Set in the year 2000, Metropolis established the tone for all sci-fi movies to come. The evil genius,

Rotwang, created the silhouette for all future mad scientists, while the hypnotic, lifelike robot False Maria inspired the replicants of Blade Runner and CP3PO in Star Wars, to name a few. An overwhelming cinematic experience, the film explores themes that are as pertinent today as they were in the Victorian age, including commercial exploitation, dehumanisation and the ever expanding division between rich and poor.

The most expensive movie ever made at the time, Fritz employed enormous sets in which 25,000 extras ran wild. He used astonishing, hitherto unseen special effects to create two disparate worlds: the lowly underground city, where the impoverished workers toil away in a factory, and the metropolis which, with its lofty skyscrapers in the sky, is home to the wealthy powers that be.

Undeniably the movie is the apogee of German Expressionist cinema and is pure Langian ‒ the cinema of the nightmare, the fable and the

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his later anti-Nazi film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) put Nazi slogans into the mouth of a pathological criminal and was banned.

Bizarrely, Lang was soon sent for. “I was called to see Dr Goebbels,” he explains in his autobiography. “Not, as I feared, in order to be called to account for the film, but to be told by the Reichspropaganda minister, to my surprise, that Hitler had instructed him to offer me the leading post in the German film industry.” Lang claims that he told Goebbels the truth ‒ that his mother was Jewish ‒ in order to dissuade him from the appointment, to which Goebbels responded, “We’ll decide who’s Jewish!”

By this time he had divorced Von Harbou (who had enthusiastically joined the Nazi Party), and skedaddled out of Berlin with whatever cash he had in his wallet. After a short time in Paris he was offered a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

“It was the fashion then for Hollywood studios to

philosophical dissertation. However, he refused to class himself as an Expressionist filmmaker: “I don’t know the difference between an Expressionist and a non-Expressionist mise en scene,” he told critic Jean Claude Philippe. “I am always classed as an Expressionist, but I think I am a realist.”

Lang would prove this fact with M (1931), the first and most important film in German cinema with sound. Inspired by a story Lang saw in a newspaper about a serial child murderer, the film features the great Peter Lorre as a killer hunted down by the city’s crooks. For these parts, Lang chose to use real criminals, and the production was riddled with incidents. The set was besieged by coppers looking for felons and 24 arrests were made during production.

M would also cause the first dalliance between Fritz and the Nazi Party. Initially titled The Murderer Among Us, the film parabolically warns of the fascist undercurrent within Germany at the time, while

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collect European directors like trophies,” recalls the director at the end of his memoir. “So I left France for America and never spoke German again.”

A year of inactivity followed, whereupon Lang digested every bit of American slang, idiom and colloquialism he could find. He doggedly read books, newspapers and comic strips and travelled the country talking to cab drivers, shop assistants, bartenders and their customers. He then went to Arizona for two months to discover what made the Native Americans tick.

Fritz then made his move into Hollywood, and dabbled in a variety of genres over the next two decades. He particularly enjoyed the simple values of the Western – an incongruous choice for the monocled European sophisticate, yet, however much Lang excelled in other genres, it was his film noir movies that truly distinguished him. Lest we forget, he had pioneered the then unnamed form back in Germany. Noir was in his DNA.

Lang’s final film as a director was a return to familiar pastures. A fast-paced thriller, The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960) warns of the world’s dependence on technology and how the benefits of science can turn into a menace. It certainly does not look like the work of a 70-year-old and is more pertinent now than ever. Lang was now almost blind in both eyes, sporting both eye patch and monocle. In 1971, still full of surprises, he married his long-suffering assistant Lily Latte, who had been in his service for 40 years. When Lang died in Beverly Hills in 1976, aged 86, he left her everything.

Fritz Lang was not only a unique director but a highly unusual man. It is only right, then, that he should have the last word: I believe in artist rebellion. I think new approaches, new forms are needed to reflect the changed world we are in.

But I don’t think the only alternative to sugar is poison...

All I have to say I have said in my films, and they speak for themselves. n

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REVIEWS •

Author interview: Nicholas Lezard (p128) Book Reviews (p132) • Film Review: Beat The Devil • Anna Karina (p138) • Cigars (p147) • Lockdown Lip Weasel Competition (p152) • Peacocks & Magpies: Antiques (p157)

(p134)

Author Interview

NICHOLAS LEZARD Alexander Larman meets the legendary bon vivant, author and journalist to discuss what bitter experience has taught him

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“There was a silly atmosphere of pomposity at the Modern Review – ‘How are we going to respond to Richey Manic’s disappearance’ – and Charlotte Raven and I sat giggling at the back like schoolchildren as she wrote ‘4 Real’ on her arm in felt-tip pen”

ondon literary society has, of late, thrown up fewer interesting characters than it used to. The glory days of Christopher Hitchens and Kingsley Amis are long since behind us, because many of the best-known critics and writers working today are far too parsimonious and sober to be able to enjoy the joys of a really good lunch. Regular readers may be disappointed to hear that not since an enjoyably bibulous session a couple of years ago with Matthew de Abaitua has an interviewee fully embraced The Chap’s preferred style of dining: that is to say, with enough wine to sink a battleship and with conversation that darts nimbly from the profound to the scabrous while never once setting foot in the mundane.

Thank God, then, for Nicholas Lezard, perhaps the last true heir to the Amis and Hitchens style of bon vivant writers-who-drink. A regular literary critic for any paper or magazine worth reading, he also has had a brilliant column in the

New Statesman for the past decade, ‘Down and Out in London’, which has been compiled into two similarly excellent books, Bitter Experience Has Taught Me and It Gets Worse. I wrote in my Observer review of the latter that ‘I doubt any English writer has written so wittily

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and recognisably about the absence of readies since Lezard’s hero Orwell’. He is commonly, and rightly, acknowledged to be the most engaging company, and, as we settle in for a suitably boozy lunch (gin, white, red, dessert wine, brandy) at the excellent Coal Shed by Tower Bridge, Lezard, resplendent in waistcoat and neckerchief, proves himself to be quite the Chap incarnate.

was for The Spectator, because I’d read an Elmore Leonard novel, which I thought was great, and I was associating with Jeffrey Bernard, who was one of their columnists, so I sent in a review on spec to the then literary editor, and they published it and paid me for it. That was very different to the New Statesman back then, which operated in a closed shop mentality.

CHAP: How did you begin your writing career?

LEZARD: After I left Cambridge, where I drank myself silly (1983 is gone) but still got a 2:1, I was stinking up the family home for about a year and had to think of something to do. At university, there was an attitude that literature had a moral calling, and how dare you even think of writing a novel?

How dare you think that you could be as good as Henry James? Which was fine by me, as I didn’t want to write like Henry James. And my peers – who were taught by the brilliant Eric Griffiths – didn’t go into novel writing as a result, except for one, and he was a bit mad. As for the others, you have Anthony Lane, the New Yorker’s film critic, the journalist Giles Smith, me… none of us novelists.

I began my career at the Folio Society, doing bits and pieces of copywriting for them, and then that led me into journalism. One of my first reviews

CHAP: You ended up at the Modern Review for a time. How was that?

LEZARD: Toby Young – who was my editor there – was crazily ambitious then, like he always has been. Everyone there was off their tits on coke all the time, and Young used to defer to me. It perhaps helped that my attitude was that of not giving a fuck, not least because I was being paid £400 an issue, for which I commissioned four writers, wrote a column and did a bit myself. I was hardly going to exert myself for that money. However, I did, masochistically perhaps, take on the difficult commissions, such as reviewing Julie Burchill’s ex-husband’s novel. I was horribly rude about it, but more the stiletto than the axe. There was a silly atmosphere of pomposity there – earnest discussions of ‘how are we going to respond to Richey Manic’s disappearance’ – and my friend Charlotte Raven and I sat giggling at the back like

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of The Observer, about Northern Ireland which I suggested was so bad that it might yet result in a terrorist outrage. Funnily enough, that one doesn’t appear on his ‘also by’ biography, either.

schoolchildren as she wrote ‘4 Real’ on her arm in felt-tip pen. If there was any great seriousness there, I certainly didn’t experience it.

CHAP: What are you like as a critic and reviewer?

LEZARD: I haven’t given many bad reviews.

Everyone thinks of me as a hatchet man, but I try to be fair and balanced. Sometimes unexpected things happen; I reviewed one writer’s book badly, but when he became a literary editor, he started to commission me, which I thought was a classy action and which put me on the back foot. There was no way that he couldn’t have read it, which has always made me ill at ease in his presence. He knows I know, and I know that he knows I know. But we’re both too gentlemanly to say anything about it.

I take some small credit for stopping one thing, though. Andrew Motion wrote a novel a few years ago, Famous for the Creatures, which he believed was going to be the beginning of his Dance To The Music Of Time series. I reviewed it and was caustic, and so it now no longer even appears on his ‘also by Andrew Motion’ page. I’ll give it this, though; when he concentrated on creatures and nature, it was fine. It was the human stuff that was no good. And then there was the novel by a former literary editor

CHAP: How has your ‘Down and Out in London’ column been going?

LEZARD: I’ve been doing it for ten years, or just longer. Most weeks, it’s actually difficult to fit in all the things that have happened to me in it, and then of course I have to omit some of them. As I say, like Sherlock Holmes and the adventure of the giant rat of Sumatra, they are stories for which the world is not yet prepared.

CHAP: What do you think of the state of publishing and the literary world today?

LEZARD: It’s all changed quite a lot since the old days, when I was hanging out with Jeffrey Bernard in the Coach and Horses. But some things have never altered all that much. Bad books were published before the internet was invented, and it’s always been hard to make a living from it. Look at Gissing and New Grub Street, and that was the Victorian era. As an occasional literary editor myself, I always tried to look at everything – books and reviews alike – on merit. But it’s amazing how many critics and writers

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just can’t write. Which makes one’s discoveries, such as the journalist Charlotte Raven, all the more exciting. And I claim a footnote in Grub Street history for my part in one of the most scandalous journalistic affairs in the Nineties; I introduced Charlotte to Julie Burchill. The rest is history.

CHAP: How did your friendship with Chap hero Sebastian Horsley come about?

LEZARD: I was sent his memoir Dandy in the Underworld to review, and as I said at the time, ‘I did not come to this book with high hopes – except for the hope that it would be rubbish’. But it was brilliant, and Horsley became a good friend of mine very quickly, and then he went and bloody died. I wrote in the Statesman that ‘I had considered him to be a bit of a desperate, attention-seeking prick, but reading his memoir changed all that. He was a desperate, attention-seeking prick, but it was clear that he was very winningly aware of his own limitations, and in his ruthless flaying of himself he also laid bare the hypocrisies of others.’

which I read religiously. Auberon Waugh said that reading it was an essential way of understanding the British psyche, and it never fails to make me laugh.

The most recent issue, as usual, is a corker; there is the character of ‘Mrs Brady, Old Lady’, who is dealing with the Meghan Markle saga, and keeps saying ‘we brought her into our hearts, despite… everything….she’s not like…us’. It is utterly sublime.

CHAP: That’s a terribly fine waistcoat that you’re sporting. What are its origins?

LEZARD: The waistcoat was handmade in Nepal; I’d been there before with the wife and been impressed by their waistcoats. The girlfriend – the Best Girlfriend ever in the book – was going there and asked if she could get me anything, so I said ‘a waistcoat’. They were much rarer 10 years ago.

I clearly started the fashion. She asked me for my measurements and I said ‘just tell them I have the body of a Greek god.’ I had no say in the colour, though Nepalese waistcoats are usually gaudier, but she chose well, didn’t she?

There is more – much more – in this vein, some of which must never be heard. There is discussion of Lezard’s idol Christopher Hitchens, with whom he once misspent an eventful night before Hitchens was taken to appear on breakfast television with David Frost (‘and if you had to say which of them was coming off a brandy bender, you wouldn’t have said Hitchens’). There is talk of literature, and tailoring, and the unfortunate state of the world today. And as we eventually part, refreshed and in fine fettle – Lezard to the British Library prior to a meeting with John le Carré at the German embassy, and me to the Academy hotel to sample a cocktail – he stops me at the Underground so that he can inscribe a copy of It Gets Worse. I look at it later, and it says, with typical charm and flair, ‘Many thanks for a wonderful lunch’. Mr. Lezard, the pleasure and the privilege was ours. n

CHAP: What are you enjoying reading at the moment?

LEZARD: More than anything else, Viz magazine,

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Book Reviews

BOWIE’S BOOKS

extraordinary intellectual breadth and interest from an unusual, even oblique perspective. Had this been done as well as it could have been, it would have been the literary equivalent of Chris O’Leary’s magisterial, definitive song-by-song Bowie blog, Pushing Ahead of the Dame.

It has not been, but this is for two distinct reasons, one of which is O’Connell’s fault and one of which is not. The failing on his part comes from an inability to probe as deeply into some (admittedly obscure and difficult) texts as the reader would like, and the necessity of relating the books to specific songs in Bowie’s oeuvre. When he succeeds – as in the comparison between James Baldwin’s 1963 essay collection The Fire Next Time and the title track of Bowie’s 1993 album Black Tie, White Noise – the results are thrilling and convincing, as O’Connell marshals a close reading of the book with a new appraisal of Bowie’s lyrical richness.

When he fails, the results are either perfunctory – a friend believes it was ‘highly likely’ that Bowie continued to read Private Eye when he was exiled to New York – or frustratingly superficial. Nabokov’s Lolita, for instance, is rich in black humour, sexual transgression and graced with an unreliable narrator whose charm and erudition seduce the reader, until they realise that they are dealing with a psychopath. This gulf between image and often sordid reality was a key one throughout Bowie’s work – one thinks, for instance, of Life on Mars? – but O’Connell describes the major similarity between Bowie and Nabokov being that they both lived in Switzerland at one point, and his suggestion for further listening is Bowie’s 1967 song Little Bombardier, a sad tale of a lonely war veteran being chased out of town when he forms a friendship with two children.

It would, of course, be impossible to go into lengthy detail about every book covered, but Bowie’s Books often gives a potted summary of a plot or argument, makes a tendentious comparison to some aspect of Bowie’s life or work, and then moves swiftly onto its next subject. It all but screams ‘Will this do?’

The other problem with the book is nothing to do with O’Connell’s efforts, but an inevitable flaw of attempting to treat song lyrics as literature,

By John O’Connell (Bloomsbury, £16.99) Reviewed by Alexander Larman

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he idea behind John O’Connell’s Bowie’s Books is a truly terrific one; its execution, less so.

All the same, there is enough insight and perception here for this to be a must-buy for anyone interested in the intersection between music and literature, or indeed the army of Bowie aficionados, which seems only to have grown in number and commitment since his death in January 2016, at the age of 69.

While Bowie was still alive, but withdrawn entirely from public life, he was asked for an interview to support the touring exhibition David Bowie Is. He refused, but offered something that was in its own way more useful: a list of 100 books that he loved and that had inspired him, albeit without any further context or explanation. Some of the references were obvious; Orwell’s Nineteen EightyFour was the inspiration behind his 1974 album Diamond Dogs, which in turn arose from his pique at being refused permission by Orwell’s widow Sonia to adapt the novel into a musical, and A Clockwork Orange was one of the major cultural influences on his Ziggy Stardust character. Others were more obscure. Why, for instance, did Bowie cite Rupert Thomson’s 1996 fourth novel The Insult, Tom Stoppard’s 2002 Russian drama trilogy The Coast of Utopia and The Beano as being his favourite books?

It is easy to see why O’Connell, a music critic who interviewed Bowie in 2002, was drawn to this particular subject. Although he does not refer to it explicitly, he is following in the footsteps of Thomas Wright’s Oscar’s Books, in which the author attempted to piece together an alternative biography of Wilde’s life through his library, both catalogued and speculative. The subject offers O’Connell the chance to approach Bowie’s

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rather than an indivisible part of the creation.

When one hears the words ‘It’s a god-awful small affair’, ‘I, I will be king, and you, you will be queen’ or ‘I’ve heard a rumour from Ground Control’, there is a thrilling, Pavlovian rush of excitement as one thinks of the magnificence of the music that brought these stories and characters to life, in thrilling, widescreen glory. Without the music, and the indelible efforts of those who were responsible for creating some of the twentieth century’s most indelible songs, one is left with poetic musings of varying levels of profundity, often beautiful and brilliant themselves. But as a great man once said, ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’, and Bowie’s Books proves that no amount of analysis can really replace the sheer joy of listening to the music once again.

unnecessary.’ We are introduced to Carp, his putupon mother and his vile father, the inhabitants of Mon Repos in Camberwell.

Augustus is not a handsome man. ‘It is true that I have suffered, and still do suffer, apart from the indigestion previously referred to, from several forms of neurasthenia, a marked tendency to eczema, occipital headaches, sour eructations, and flatulent distension of the abdomen.’ There is some good news, however. ‘But from small-pox, although entirely unvaccinated, I have always remained singularly immune.’ He makes his way in the world through a combination of priggishness, intolerance and blackmail, ensuring that his ‘Xtian’ magnificence is recognised by those around him, and if anyone does not, then they are liable to find themselves in a dire situation.

Eventually – blessedly – Carp overreaches himself. Just as Ignatius P. O’Reilly patronised cinemas with particular interest in the ‘obscene’ films, Carp finds himself drawn, along with his hapless sidekick Ezekiel Stool, to the Empress Theatre and its beauteous star Mary Moonbeam.

He intends to take her in hand in a most Xtian fashion – ‘She has so much to learn,’ I said, ‘so much to understand. But it transpires that Miss Moonbeam has other intentions in mind, revolving around the liberal application of ‘Portugalade’ to Carp, which leads to a drunk scene to rival the great ‘Merrie England’ set piece of Lucky Jim.

The book would probably be entirely forgotten were it not for Anthony Burgess, who championed the novel in the 60s, and also for the eventual revelation of the anonymous author. It was written by Henry Howard Bashford, a distinguished doctor who eventually became Honorary Physician to George VI, and whose other works included the no doubt rib-tickling Vagabonds in Périgord and Doctors in Shirt Sleeves.

Augustus Carp, Esq remains his masterpiece. I can seldom remember having been overcome with such giddy hilarity. Page after page, written in the same knowingly solemn, ostensibly humourless style, contains some of the best comic writing of the twentieth century. To read Augustus Carp is to come across the bastard relative of Diary of a Nobody and A Confederacy of Dunces, and like those two comic masterpieces, it is embarrassingly and hilariously entertaining. (Even the chapter headings are brilliant.) I envy anyone reading it for the first time, for they are in for a sublime treat. n

LOST CLASSIC

AUGUSTUS CARP ESQ

By Himself (Penguin) Reviewed by Alexander Larman

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his year marks 40 years since the initial publication of John Kennedy Toole’s comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces. Many already know the story of how Toole, depressed by constant rejection, killed himself before the book was published, and how it came to be eventually brought into public view thanks to his mother’s tireless efforts, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. But what virtually nobody has ever pointed out is the debt Toole owes to an obscure British comic novel from the Twenties, Augustus Carp, Esq, by Himself.

Augustus Carp is one of English comic literature’s great horrors, and hilariously, constantly devoid of any sense of how he comes across.

He presents himself from the beginning of his saga as a truly pompous, absurd figure, writing ‘It is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is manifestly

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W E I V E R M FIL

BEAT THE DEVIL (1953) BFI BLURAY/DVD

Gustav Temple reviews the timely re-release of John Huston’s curious noir satire, poorly received on its release but worthy of a chap’s attention for many reasons

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“Another notable highlight of the film is the scene where Bogie, while waxing lyrical about British lawns, ties his bow tie in the mirror, in full view of the spectator. A lesson from Humphrey Bogart on how to tie one’s bow tie is reason enough to watch this film”

artorially, we are offered a rich opening scene, as a group of ne’er do-wells await the boat to Africa from Porto Benno in Italy: Humphrey Bogart in floral dressing gown and paisley cravat; Peter Lorre in dandy attire with foppish watch chain and bow tie; Robert Morley in pin-striped baggy linen; and the galloping major (Ivor Barnard) in three-piece tweed suit and black bowler.

Filmed in Ravelo, off the Amalfi Coast, the protagonists’ aimlessness and confusion reflects what was going on behind the scenes – there was

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Film

Image Courtesy of BFI

no script when they arrived on set. John Huston was vaguely planning a satire on his own The Maltese Falcon, and Bogie had put some of his own money in the project, but they had rushed to Italy for principal photography without a script.

It wasn’t until Truman Capote, then aged just 25, was drafted in to shape up the story, adapted from a novel by Claude Cockburn.

Edward Underdown and Jennifer Jones play a British couple who drift into the purview of the ragtaggle gang, who believe Jennifer Jones’ tangle of lies and Edward’s fake aristocratic credentials. The

original version of the film featured a voiceover by Bogie, but this was ditched in favour of telling the whole story from the point of view of the English couple.

Gina Lollobrigida is the exotic second love interest, playing the wife of Billy Dannreuther (Bogart). This was her first English-speaking part, having only performed in low-budget Italian films until then, along with some modelling. She gets a good opening speech, as the villains seduce the British couple with Möet in Bogie’s Bentley: “Emotionally, I am English. I serve tea every afternoon with

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crumpets, and always keep up my subscription to Country Life and Tatler.”

“The trouble with England,” interjects Bogie, “is it’s all pomp and no circumstance.”

“Ah, Gloucestershire,” continues Gina, now

on a roll, “the cathedral towns, trout fishing, garden parties. What a beautiful life!” La Lollo’s accent, though richly Italian, was passable enough for Huston. But all the other Italian actors couldn’t manage the English, and their lines were all reputedly overdubbed by Peter Sellers.

Peter Lorre had styled himself on Truman Capote when the writer joined the crew. He bleached his hair platinum blonde and affected Capote’s natty double-breasted waistcoats and bow ties, giving his hunched gait a foppish air. “I come from a culture,” he announces to Bogie, “that is so much older than yours. In my country a child of six years is older in heart than you’ll be at sixty.”

Bogart sneers: “It smokes, it drinks, it philosophises. At this rate I’ll be 60 before you get to the point.” According to Capote, everyone on set was half drunk at midday and dead drunk all night.

“Peter Lorre had styled himself on Truman Capote when the writer joined the crew. He bleached his hair platinum blonde and affected Capote’s natty double-breasted waistcoats and bow ties, giving his hunched gait a foppish air”

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Film

This, if anything, enhances the mood of the film, giving the impression that the actors are having a whale of a time while filming in this exotic location.

Huston was notoriously decadent himself and probably led the charge when it came to boozing.

Another notable highlight of the film is the scene where Bogie, while waxing lyrical about British lawns, ties his bow tie in the mirror, in full view of the spectator. A lesson from Humphrey Bogart on how to tie one’s bow tie is reason enough to watch this film.

Beat the Devil rated poorly when it was released in 1953, confusing audiences with its message and its tone. Not sufficiently hard-boiled to be a film noir, but not funny enough to be a comedy, it fell uncomfortably between the two stools. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the book’s author, Claude Cockburn, had published it under the

pseudonym of James Helvick, considering the novel a potpoiler not worthy of his name. He went on to found left-wing magazine The Week and was later blacklisted in Hollywood.

However, with the fullness of time Beat the Devil has gained a new appeal, partly due to its stellar cast. Even Bernard Lee (M in the Bond films) makes an appearance at the end, as a British MI6 agent. It’s full of snappy dialogue, including a bizarre pro-fascist speech by Ivor Barnard as dapper assassin Major Jack Ross. Gina Lollobrigida lends the film a languid, Latinate sexiness, which led her into a long acting career and a constant rivalry with Sophia Loren. Edward Underdown plays the uptight, clipped fake aristo with perfectly icy reserve, and was later favoured by Ian Fleming for the role of James Bond, though this view was not shared by Albert Broccoli. n

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Film

ANNA KARINA:

AN ACTRESS IN 6 SCENES Sophie Gargett uses a Godardian structure to examine the life of the director’s muse, Anna Karina, 22nd September 1940-14th December 2019

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ince the inception of celluloid, French cinema has been an influential force in filmmaking, boasting some of the earliest cinematography, an impressive ratio of picture houses to inhabitant, and an unrivalled style. In the post-war era, as the youth culture of the swinging sixties emerged, actress Anna Karina was at the forefront of the French Nouvelle Vague, an innovative era of film-making that set out to challenge the established ‘classical period’ of cinema and transform it forever.

“In 1959, an advertisement was posted in La Film Francais: Director Jean-Luc Godard seeks young woman, 18-27, to be his leading lady and girlfriend” 139

a performative streak, and dabbled in modelling, acting and singing. She longed to find work in the movies, and in 1954 appeared in a short Danish film. At age 17, after an argument with her mother, Hanne packed her bags and hitchhiked to the bohemian melting pot of Paris. With just 10,000 francs to her name and no talent for the native tongue, she lived modestly, picking up modelling jobs and learning to speak French by visiting the local cinema.

“There I was in Paris,” Karina recalls in a 1967 documentary, Qui êtes vous, Anna Karina?

1. H ANNE BECOMES ANNA. DENMARK. PARIS. ANNA MAKES HER ESCAPE. Hanne Karin Bayer was born in Solbjerg, a small Danish suburb, on 22nd September 1940. Her childhood was a turbulent one. Her father having walked out shortly after she was born, Hanne spent her early years living with maternal grandparents.

Her mother, a dress shop owner, remarried, but the relationship was abusive and Hanne dreamt of escaping the family home.

Despite her gentle, quiet nature, Hanne had

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Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina in 1961 © SAUER Jean-Claude

take form, with François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, Alain Resnais's Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and Jean-Luc Godard’s À Bout de Souffle bringing international attention to new styles of French filmmaking.

Adopting a sincere, almost documentary ambience, unconventional editing techniques, handheld cameras and on location filming, New Wave took the spontaneity and discomforts of daily life and transformed them into stunning cinematic snapshots.

They applauded the more offbeat French directors of cinema’s golden age, such as Jean Vigo, Robert Bresson and Jean Renoir, and adopted the recently established auteur theory, which proposed that a director’s personal artistic vision should be reflected in a film. Playful, self-aware and utterly transformative, the movement would go on to influence generations of directors up until this day, from Tarantino to Scorsese.

(Who are you, Anna Karina?) “Since I was a bit naive, everyone seemed beautiful and fabulous.

I couldn’t tell cruelty from kindness.”

It was after a fortuitous encounter with Coco Chanel during a photoshoot for Elle magazine that Hanne was convinced to adopt a new name. Taking a twist on the Tolstoy heroine, Anna Karina was born.

2. L IFE IN LA NOUVELLE VAGUE. TRADITION. REBELLION. THE DEATH OF THE CLASSIC. When Anna arrived in Paris in the late 50s, French cinema had arrived at a critical juncture. A new generation of film buffs was beginning to emerge in Paris. Centred around influential film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, this fresh set of young directors rejected the tired techniques of ‘Cinéma de papa’ with its seamless storytelling and Hollywood endings. They longed to tear up the rules, to inject the tired language of film with energy and invention, and to be noticed.

Cahiers du Cinema first coined the term Nouvelle Vague, or New Wave, in 1954, but it wasn’t until the late 50s that the movement truly began to

3. A NNA FINDS HER DIRECTOR. AN ADVERTISEMENT. THE MUSE. GODARD. In 1959, an advertisement was posted in La Film Francais: Director Jean-Luc Godard seeks young woman, 18-27, to be his leading lady and girlfriend. Despite

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Karina was reluctant, but reception to À Bout De Souffle was beginning to establish Godard as one of the hottest emerging directors in the industry, and Karina agreed to a leading role in his next picture.

The 1961 comedy drama A Woman is a Woman told the story of a love triangle, featuring Karina as an exotic dancer who yearned to have a child.

Romance blossomed between Godard and Karina during the production, and by the time the film was released, Karina had become pregnant and the pair were married.

It is evident that their marriage had a great influence on Godard, as he began to blur art and life in his forthcoming scripts. Karina was

never having spotted the ad, it would go on to taint Karina’s reputation in the early years of her career, as the pair would soon meet, marry and make eight films together as one of the most iconic directoractor partnerships in cinema.

That same year, previous to their paths crossing, Godard had seen Karina enjoying a bubble bath in a Palmolive soap advert and offered her a small role in his upcoming picture, À Bout De Souffle. But Karina was not interested in completely baring her skin on screen. She rejected the part and promptly forgot all about Godard. Months later, she received another invitation: “Miss, this time it may be for the main role. Signed, Jean-Luc Godard.” Again

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a melancholy, monochrome aesthetic. Considered one of the pivotal films of the New Wave era, Vivre Sa Vie tells a poignant tale of Nana, a young Parisian ingenue whose life descends into poverty and prostitution.

One of the first directors to reference cinema history within new work, Godard styled Nana with a twenties bob, a clear nod to Louise Brooks in 1929’s Pandora’s Box, which also explored promiscuous female sexuality. Karina’s magnetic gaze and performance as forlorn coquette charmed audiences, and the film was the fourth most popular movie at the French box office that year.

“As actor JeanClaude Brialy once proclaimed: “Since Garbo few actresses have kept that mystery, kept their personality…

Anna is like a plant.

She moves. She loves life. She’s alive”

By 1963, the couple’s marriage had become troublesome. Goddard had a tempestuous personality, often absent for weeks on end, leaving neither explanation nor money for his young wife.

That year he released Le Mepris, starring Bridgitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Michel Piccoli. The lead character’s baneful relationship drew even more parallels to Karina and Godard, with many of Karina’s own expressions written into the character of Bardot’s Camille. In 1964’s Bande à Part, Karina’s performance is uncomfortable, visibly reflecting the emotional difficulties she was experiencing off screen. In 1965 Karina and Godard split, but continued to work together for two more years, completing a canon of eight films.

never averse to the controversially passive title of director’s muse and found their working relationship harmonious. She was ten years Godard’s junior and receptive to being moulded by his worldly knowledge and directorial skill. “It was like Pygmalion, you know?” She told the Guardian in 2016. “I was Eliza Doolittle and he was the teacher.”

5. D ISTINGUISHING THE MYSTERY. A CAFE. THE DANCE SCENE. RESPITE. Along with her natural grace and frankly devastating beauty, Karina’s on-screen magnetism lay in her enigmatic presence. Manifesting melancholy and mischief, flitting from loner to flirt, and portraying victims and desperados, she’s as much a mystery to the audience as she is a star. As actor Jean-Claude Brialy once proclaimed: “Since Garbo few actresses have kept that mystery, kept

4. HER LIFE TO LIVE. REFLECTION. STRUGGLE. SUCCESS. Prior to filming their next picture, the stunning Vivre Sa Vie, Karina had suffered a traumatic miscarriage.

The heartbreak and grief of this period saw the comedy and colour of their first picture drain into

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Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou (1965)

their personality… She’s like a plant. She moves.

She loves life. She’s alive.”

Karina’s magic shines brightest in the dance sequences that punctuate her films. In the dance scene from Vivre Sa Vie, wonderfully sountracked with Michel Legrand’s big band hit Swing! Swing!

Swing!, Nana shimmies and twirls her way around a bar room, thoroughly unphased by the disinterest of her fellow patrons.

The iconic madison dance featured in 1964’s Bande á Part sees Karina’s Odile momentarily shake off the unease that absorbs her character throughout the film, while in the 1967 musical comedy Anna, Karina exuberantly soars around a bedroom singing hit song Roller Girl (donning knee socks and an oversized red shirt) before collapsing into a depleted heap when her song concludes.

legendary French artist, Serge Gainsbourg. The musician was enamoured, producing a number of songs for Karina, including the hits Roller Girl and Sous le Soleil Exactement. As Serge explained in an interview at the time, “I’m an ornery cuss. I wrote twelve songs – I was hooked.”

Karina continued her film career, making her directorial debut in 1972 with Vivre Ensemble. She went on to act in British, Hungarian and German cinema over the next 20 years while also writing four novels, but by the early 2000s, Karina’s career had begun to wind down. In 2008 she made her final film, Victoria, a road movie which she wrote, directed and starred in herself. Just over a decade later, at the age of 79, Anna Karina passed away.

Despite the diversity of her later career, Karina remains most well known as the face of the Nouvelle Vague. Rightly so perhaps, for few other stars have epitomised an epoch in cinematic history with such a beguiling on-screen presence. Adorned with a cinematic mythos that few modern stars are blessed with, Anna Karina lives on as an icon of both cinema and style. n

6. K ARINA THE STAR PREVAILS. MUSIC. GROWTH. THE LEGACY. When the Godard years came to an end, Karina expanded her repertoire. After working together on 1967’s Anna, she began to collaborate with another

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Smoking

CIGARS: THE BASICS Smoking a cigar is pleasingly ritualistic and the tools of the trade are vital to making it a thoroughly satisfying experience, as Sophia Coningsby explains

“Whatever you use to store, cut and light your cigars, make sure they’re all something that you like the look of as well as knowing they’re doing a good job, because they all add something to the perfection of the rituals of cigar smoking” 147

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keep them away from anything decent, because they’ll make all your cigars smell like a sweet shop. When you come to smoke the cigar you’ve chosen, remember that each third of the cigar will change gradually in flavour. Take time to notice the flavours. And take the time to smoke a cigar in its entirety; it’s a bit of a shame to put the cigar away (due to limited time) before you’ve had a chance to enjoy its true colours. But if you really are forced to set the cigar aside, remember never to stub it out because then you really will have ruined it. Let it go out naturally.

HE HUMIDOR Treat your cigars like your baby or something else you hold precious. House them as befits their status and don’t let them get stressed or tired. Humidors come in all shapes and sizes; you could buy one that looks like a grand piano, or you could have something elegant and understated. But all that matters is that they maintain the correct level of humidity for your cigars and they’re large enough for the amount of cigars you intend to keep. Your humidors will generally be cedar wood lined, but within that box you need to keep your cigars in tip top condition, and that’s where the essentials come in.

You need a hygrometer in your humidor at all times, to make sure the humidity levels are correct.

All the hygrometers in my humidors are digital nowadays, but you can use analogue (like a little clock with a moving needle) ones too. Inside your humidor you’ll need a humidifier, to add moisture.

Humidifiers come in various forms too, from sponges soaked in distilled water, to crystal gel, to humidipacks (easily bought from any cigar retailer and incredibly easy to use).

The humidity level of your humidor should be between 65-70%. All this might sound complicated, but I get easily muddled by anything scientific, so, if I can do it, you can too. Basically, if your cigar becomes too wet it won’t smoke properly.

If it becomes too dry it will taste harsh. And don’t put your cigars in the fridge, Mrs Worthington, it will do them no good at all! And finally, if you buy cigars in tubes, take them out of the tubes before you put them in your humidor.

CUTTING THE CIGAR There are many ways of cutting a cigar. However you cut it, the cut should be made just above the line where the cap meets the wrapper. The point of cutting a cigar is to create an aperture broad enough to ensure an unobstructed draw, but retain enough of the cap to stop the wrapper from unravelling. You don’t want your aperture to be too large, or your smoke will be too loose. So, what do you use to cut your cigar with? I favour a V cut, although it has been said that these can tear the cap (which has never happened to me).

CHOOSING YOUR CIGAR Let your cigars sit in your humidor for a couple of weeks before you smoke one, if you want to get the best out of it. If you choose a claro (light in colour) or a maduro (dark in colour) it should be even coloured and there should be a sheen on the leaf. Tiny white spots or little green patches are alright; theses are natural beauty spots and won’t affect the quality of your smoke. Choose your cigar and feel it between your thumb and index finger gently, sensuously. It should feel firm and springy to the touch; what you don’t want are hard lumps because then you’ll have a blockage when smoking it.

Smell the cigar, take your time and take it away from the others, for the smell is a promise of flavour. I’ve spoken before about cigars infused or sprayed with flavours; if you like such things then

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Smoking

I use a ‘Cobibri’ V cutter. It looks good, feels solid, makes a pretty shape in the cigar and doesn’t cut off too much cigar (because I’m a greedy smoker). But you can also use a single- or doublebladed guillotine (straight cut), cigar scissors, or a cigar punch (which basically just puts a decent shallowish hole in the cigar). Don’t push something sharp and intrusive into the cigar, as this will just compress the filler and make it more difficult to smoke.

Whatever you use, make it something that you like the look of as well as knowing it’s doing a good job, because it all adds to the perfection of the rituals of cigar smoking.

is not a cigarette. Becasue I came to cigars from cigarettes, I naughtily carried on inhaling. Your cigar should be smoked slowly and unhurriedly.

Smoke it like a dragon and you’ll harm the flavour.

Draw the smoke into your mouth and hold it there, play around with it in your mouth so you experience all the flavours. Don’t take a puff and then let it out right away; you may as well burn a £20 note. If you’re a chatterbox (as I am) and your cigar goes out, that’s fine, just relight it (after you’ve tipped off any loose ash). There is another piece of snobbery regarding the length of the ash (but I think that’s a bit like a fast car being a substitute for something more exciting!). The ash will fall off when it falls off (preferably into the ashtray).

I spoke in a previous article about the personification of cigars. You don’t stub out your cigar when you’ve finished with it; you lay it to rest where it will go out on its own. You ‘allow it to die with dignity’, which sounds excitingly camp to me. Your cigar is your friend. And at this time of coronavirus, when we’re not allowed to see our friends, make the most of the organic ones nestling in cedar-lined boxes in your home. You can still buy them online (see my recommendations below), and although you can’t go to a cigar lounge or sit in the sunshine outside a pub, nobody can stop you smoking them in your home and dreaming of better times to come. n

LIGHTERS This is another contentious issue. If you’re a purist you will use a long match. If you’re practical, you’ll use whatever you have to hand. If you’re outside a great deal, you’ll use a jet/torch flame. It is said that if you use a petrol lighter or a wax match or candle the scent will permeate the cigar, but I think this is a piece of unscientific snobbery. Since I’m outside a great deal, there are few things more frustrating than a match going continually out, or a flame from a lighter that keeps disappearing in any sort of breeze. A torch/jet flame lighter has that extra oomph and reliability; personally I like the American Vector lighters for their rigorous durability. Torjet do brilliant disposable jet lighters too, which you can refill and don’t cost an arm and a leg. But if you’re smoking within the confines of a wind-free house, then you can use a soft flame lighter, which is less aggressive inside a building.

To light your cigar, hold the foot of it at a 90-degree angle to the flame and rotate it until the surface is evenly charred. Then you can pop it in your mouth and draw gently until the flame hops onto the foot, continuing to rotate the cigar to get that even lighting. Once I think it’s lit, I always take it out of my mouth and check it; if you blow on the foot you can see if it’s evenly lit. What you don’t want is for it to be burning unevenly, because that’s a blasted nuisance.

www.mysmokingshop.co.uk www.robertgraham1874.com www.cubancigarclub.co.uk

SMOKING YOUR CIGAR Don’t inhale! I do, but I’m not a good role model when it comes to being good or healthy. A cigar

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e s a e W

With the entire population confined to their homes, what is any decent chap to do with all that spare time? Grow a moustache, of course. In conjunction with Captain Fawcett, we offered first, second and third prizes to the most impressive lip weasels grown during Lockdown. Top prizes went to those who had not had a head start – ie didn’t already have impressive moustaches – while all runners-up received a tin of Debonair Moustache Wax.

FIRST PRIZE Captain Fawcett Double Edged safety razor Captain Fawcett Shave Cream Captain Fawcett Post Shave Balm Captain Fawcett Shaving Towel Debonair Moustache Wax Flaneur shaving soap Flaneur after-shave balm Best of The Chap Annual subscription to The Chap SECOND PRIZE Chap Shaving Brush Debonair Moustache Wax Best of The Chap THIRD PRIZE Chap Safety Razor Debonair Moustache Wax Best of The Chap

FIRST PRIZE Russell Massey “For some ‘tache inspiration, I’ve always been a fan of the style of Wyatt Earp, with his steely law stare and handlebar cascading off his top lip, furthermore how his look has been portrayed on film by Sam Elliot (another moustache icon of mine).”

First prize goes to Russell Massey, cultivation of whose superlative upper lip shrubbery was clearly assisted by regular consumption of that most exquisite of cocktails, the negroni.

SECOND PRIZE Patrik Johansson, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care “What once was a handlebar moustache sadly had to be trimmed down to fit properly under the face mask I use at my work as a consultant at the ICU. Please see the attached photos of pre-corona moustache and the trimmed down version (and note the rather sad look in my eyes post trimming).

Also attached is a photo of me wearing the protective gear under which the moustache has to fit.”

Patrik Johansson made huge sacrifices in the line of duty, in his native Sweden, and for that he wins a Shaving Brush, Best of The Chap and Debonair Moustache Wax.

Dr. Alexander Ma, General Practitioner in York “My wife, a Nurse of the Intensive Care sort, jumped on the excuse to force my hands at the razor (lately fully barbate). Shrewdly, I devised a style to conform to protective mask wearing standards whilst maintaining as much facial hair as I could. Although, I have to be wary of length of the tips!”

For the sacrifice of graspable extremities in the line of duty, Dr. Ma wins a safety razor, Best of The Chap and Debonair Moustache Wax. Who’d have thought that Covid-19 would present, among inumerable other problems for the medical profession, severe limitations on the profusion of one’s facial hair?

THIRD PRIZE

RUNNERS UP

Jason Haynes

Aidan Rothnie

Gordon Stoker

Chris Zoias

Graham Fry

Spike Reid

Andrea Civalleri

Eric A Ott

John Carr

Peter WĂźsten

Christopher Marion

Dustin Dollar

Joly Braime

Ste-fo

Mark Stretton

Howie Kinderman

Paul Hockley

All runners-up received a tin of Debonair Moustache Wax

Stay on top of your Beard Game 100% Natural & Handmade Beard products www.beardpilot.com

Roving antiques experts John Minns and Peter Gosbee turn their expert attention to pocket watches

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Pocket Watches

he first known recorded portable mechanical timepiece dates from around 1430 and was the possession of Phillipe the Good, the Duke of Burgundy (1396-1467). ‘Portable’ is a slight misnomer, in the same way that Philippe was not actually ‘Good’ (for example, by imprisoning Joan of Arc and being rather beastly to her).

‘Portable’ does not refer to something being wearable, but is a reference to the clock mechanism that worked by winding it, as opposed to an internal weight system similar to the pendulum clock, which was invented much later. Winding to advance the mechanism made it work correctly even when it couldn’t be kept perfectly upright.

There is another early portable clock reference. In a letter recorded by the 15th-century clockmaker Bartholomew Manfredi, sent to Manchese Di Manta in 1462, he offers him a '“pocket clock better than that belonging to the

Duke of Modena�. However, the oldest known pocket watch in existence was designed and made

by Peter Henlein, a lock maker from Nuremberg, Germany, in 1510. These early watches, although now reduced in size, were still rather bulky and too cumbersome to be kept in a coat pocket. They were often worn around the waist using a chain, ribbon, or cord to hold it in place. As time and technology moved on, these timepieces became much more compact and refined. They ceased to be merely functional pieces and became works of art in themselves. They incorporated the skills of the silver and goldsmiths, enamellers and jewellers who had honed and passed down their skills over the centuries.

Apparel was changing too, in ways that would impact on the wearing of pocket watches. In 1660, Charles II introduced the waistcoat to the royal court. Now the timepiece could be easily accessed in its true and natural residence, the waistcoat pocket. You needed to be incredibly wealthy to own a pocket watch in these early days, and it was therefore not available to the masses.

By the late 19th century, the blossoming and development of modern machinery and further advancements in technology meant that pocket watches were able to be mass-produced and affordable to all. By the time of the Edwardian era, virtually every man in the western world owned a pocket watch. But by the mid to late 1930s, the

A TRUE STORY

pocket watch had been superseded by the wristwatch. Along with the waistcoat, it was now deemed old fashioned and dated and not suitable for a gentleman.

By 1941, two years into the Second World War, clothes rationing came into force.

Civilian clothing became less of a priority than producing clothing for the armed forces.

Waistcoats were officially singled out as items not to be manufactured at this time. They became surplus to requirements, creating the final death knell for not only the waistcoat, but also for the pocket watch.

Over 50 years ago, a friend of mine was apprenticed to a leading jeweller in St James’, London. He was asked one day to leave his workshop in the basement and take over the front of house, as the shop manager had been urgently called away.

My friend was quickly told by the departing manager, “If you need to know anything, just ask Mr. Franks.”

Mr. Franks was the concierge, a former Sergeant Major who stood inside the shop by the front door.

My friend busied himself around the shop, not knowing quite what he was supposed to be doing, when the front door opened and in came a very old and dishevelled man, saluted by Mr. Franks. He shuffled up to the counter and placed a small chamois drawstring bag on it, saying, “I find myself in a most impecunious situation. I wonder if you could help?” The apprentice looked at Mr. Franks, who nodded.

“I will do what I can, sir”, said the apprentice.

The old man began. “Now, it was January the 30th, 1649, and a very cold day. Apparently His Majesty Charles I requested a further shirt to wear, as he did not want people to think that he was shaking with fear. One of my ancestors was Aide-de-camp and confidante to His Majesty. Just before being led out for his execution at the banqueting house in Whitehall, His Majesty gave this to him as a parting gift.”

The old man opened the bag and took out the object. It was shrouded in a cream silk pocket square bearing the kings’ monogram. He opened it to reveal Charles I’s pocket watch (made by great English watchmaker Edward East).

“I wonder,” said the old man, “If I could borrow £20 till the end of the month, and leave the watch as a deposit?”

THE FLUMMOXER This brass device dates from the First World War – but what is it? One lucky provider of the correct answer receives a pair of watch mechanism cufflinks made by Mr. Gosbee.

Send your answers to chap@thechap.co.uk

Paul Dixon correctly identified last issue’s Flummoxer as a fastening that ladies might use to attach their stockings to their undergarments.

CROSSWORD 1

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