Resort Affair

Twenty-Five Years of 'Alex'

Presenting Crockett & Jones

Allow me a few words on shoes. In the exclusive photo (at left) I'm wearing a lightweight Brooks Brothers suit in a glenplaid pattern and a pair of Crockett & Jones shoes, the 'Westbourne' model to be precise. I acquired them last year and since then they have worked their way up my list of favourites. Among the most comfortable shoes I own, they rival even my bespoke Cleverleys and Lobbs if it can be believed. The elongated toe box is such that in retrospect I could have gone down half a size. Their unusually attractive aspect, I've noticed, draws the attention of style-concious young women. Why should you be surprised? Ninety per cent of success in the office--and with the ladies--can be attributed to looking good. And looking good means, in large part, wearing proper clothing and shoes.

Spanish Villa

Chatwin of Persia

Italian Sense Of Style

Corneliani

As you know, over the last few years my personal style for the office has been gravitating ever so slowly to a more Italian model. This is in large part due to the lighter cloths offered by the Italian houses, fabrics that are more suitable for the Mediterranean climate of Southern California. It's just absurd to go around in 14-15 oz. suiting in 85 degree weather; only on the chilliest days here can one wear flannel, Tweed, and thicker cloths, and fortunately there aren't many of those. But my growing preference also comes from the fact the Italians simply get it right. They know the form. To show you what I mean, the image (above) of the gents from Corneliani depicts what I consider the ideal template. Here is Boyer on Italian style:

"The Italian sense of style is hardly to be argued. Whether it's furniture, sports cars, architecture, kitchen utensils, or clothing, the Italians have made their mark. And it has, interestingly enough, often been said that style is what Italy is all about. Italians nurture it, and cultivate it, wallow in it, and of course export it. It is, to press the point, their stock in trade and it flowers so magnificently in Italy because no other country is so fiercely individualistic."

G. Bruce Boyer, Elegance (1985)

Lies To Tell Lefties

Surf Photography Of The 1960s And 1970s

Contemplation Of The Sword (Robinson Jeffers)

Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol.
...

Robinson Jeffers, Contemplation Of The Sword (1938)

Persol Protector

Yachting Days

Blue Rubinacci

I may not be feeling blue, but increasingly I feel like wearing blue. The photo (at left) shows one of my favourite neck ties, from Rubinacci. I have paired it with a white dress shirt with spread collar and Brooks Brothers chalk stripe flannel suit. In the last few years I have gradually added to my tie collection items in various shades of blue: navy, sky, royal, sapphire. Not only does it accentuate my blue eyes, but it also advertises the cool detachment and persistent calm for which I like to think I am known, qualities prized, I might add, in financial circles. In fact it is quickly becoming my signature colour. Do you have one?

Modern Diagnosis

"The liberal professes to do all he does for the sake of the people; but he destroys the sense of community that should bind outstanding men to the people from which they spring. The people should naturally regard the outstanding man, not as an enemy but as a representative sample of themselves.

Liberalism is the party of upstarts who have insinuated themselves between the people and its big men. Liberals feel themselves as isolated individuals, responsible to nobody. They do not share the nation’s traditions, they are indifferent to its past and have no ambition for its future. They seek only their own personal advantage in the present. Their dream is the great International, in which the differences of peoples and languages, races and cultures will be obliterated. To promote this they are willing to make use, now of nationalism, now of pacificism, now of militarism, according to the expediency of the moment. Sceptically they ask: “What are we living for?” Cynically they answer: “Just for the sake of living!”
….
Liberalism has undermined civilization, has destroyed religions, has ruined nations. Primitive peoples know no liberalism. The world is for them a simple place where one man shares with another. Instinctively they conceive existence as a struggle in which all those who belong in any way to one group must defend themselves against those who threaten them.

Great states have always held liberalism in check. When a great individual arose amongst them who gave the course of their history a new direction, they have been able to incorporate him into their tradition, to make his achievements contribute to their continuity.

Nations who had ceased to feel themselves a people, who had lost the state-instinct, gave liberalism its opportunity. The masses allowed an upper crust to form on the surface of the nation. Not the old natural aristocracy whose example had created the state; but a secondary stratum, a dangerous, irresponsible, ruthless, intermediate stratum which had thrust itself between. The result was the rule of a clique united only by self-interest who liked to style themselves the pick of the population, to conceal the fact that they consisted of immigrants and nouveaux riches, of freedmen and upstarts. They did not care whether their arrogance and new-won privilege was decked out with the conceptions of feudal or of radical ideology, though they preferred a delicate suggestion of aristocracy. But they found it most effective and successful to style themselves democrats."

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Germany’s Third Empire (1934)

A Question Of Time (Depeche Mode)

Waugh Study

Tartan Tuesday

N. Tuczek

Afrikaner Blood

Wilfred Thesiger: A Charmed Existence

I met Wilfred Thesiger for the first time in June 1964 at his mother's top-storey flat in Chelsea. He was then aged fifty-four. He was sunburnt, tall, with broad shoulders and with deep-set grey eyes. As we shook hands I noticed the exceptional length of his fingers. He wore an obviously well-cut, rather loose-fitting dark suit. I remember clearly that he smelt of brilliantine and mothballs. He spoke quietly, with an air of understated authority. His voice was high-pitched and nasal; even by the standards of that time, his rarified pronunciation seemed oddly affected. He had a distinctive habit of emphasising prepositions in phrases such as 'All this was utterly meaningless to me'. He moved slowly and deliberately, with long ponderous strides; yet he gave somehow the impression he was also capable of lightning fast reactions. Later, I heard that he had been a source of inspiration for Ian Fleming's fictional hero James Bond. Whether or not this was true, Thesiger, like Bond, was larger than life; and, like Bond, he appeared to have led a charmed existence.

Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer, Alexander Maitland (2007)

Laguna Sunset

Hussar Style

Moskau (Rammstein)

In The Garden: Peregrine Worsthorne

The Raider Wolf: Officers' Mess

Achter

Brooks Brothers Style

un-buttoned end of day

Gaziano & Girling TG73

What I'm Reading (And Drinking) Now

Russian Gulag Tattoos

Right Ordering