Tartan Tuesday

Someone Great (LCD Soundsystem)

Château Tweed

Space Pirate Captain Harlock

"We will not pray for anything. Nor will we seek help from anyone. Never again will we fight under another's flag. We will keep on fighting only for what we believe in, under only our flag, as long as we live! Under my flag!"

Captain Harlock, Arcadia Of My Youth (1982)








Vous n'êtes pas seul

O'Mast: Traditional Neapolitan Tailoring

O'Mast from KidDandy on Vimeo

Corto Maltese in Africa

Tolkien

Spartan Defence League

The Last of the Famous International Playboys (Morrissey)

Evelyn Waugh Collection

Sexy Boy (Air)

The Man in the Crocodile Loafers

When I rang my old chums at Paul Stuart in New York City to order a pair of crocodile loafers and told the girl on the other end to make it snappy, I did not expect to receive the shoes the very next day. But that is exactly what happened. Connections matter. Crocodile loafers, as you know, are widely considered the mark of a bounder or a cad. How appropriate, you may conclude. This is the popular view, I guess, disseminated by pompous bourgeois i-gents on the interweb fora, as shallow and silly as it is. So be it. But I suppose there is a little truth in the view. Crocodile loafers, as you are no doubt aware, are also known as the signature footwear of hard-drinking handsome chaps with no definable function in life apart from being charming, looking smart, and exercising a propensity for getting up to no good. So we must proceed with caution here. With that in mind pairing crocodile loafers with houndstooth tweed coat and trousers with knife-edge crease might be a gesture too far. But they are perfectly acceptable with a damp tweed coat, battered pair of brown worsted trousers, and old OCBD with frayed collar. You might even add an Hermès belt with a large 'H' buckle if you are the kind of man who would do such a thing and expect to get away with it. Crocodile loafers from Paul Stuart provide a touch of cavalier flair to an otherwise typical uniform.

The English Country House

J.Press on Madison

Merci à notre correspondant à New York

Cocktails of Genius

O mio babbino caro (Puccini)

Campo Hobbit

Paul Stuart New York

The English Gentleman: The Old School Tie

The Old School Tie

One of the most distinctive items of a gentleman's wardrobe is his collection of ties. They are always of a quiet design with the exception of the MCC tie if he happens to have been a cricketer. This is the most vulgar of all club ties and he wears it with a certain amount of embarrassment when the Test Matches are on. He always has a black tie to wear on Armistice Day and there is, of course, his regimental tie and his old school tie. Etonians wear their school tie much more frequently and ostentatiously than gentlemen who went to other schools. There is the story of the socially ambitious young man who had not been to Eton, but wished he had, who spotted a man selling matches in the street wearing the coveted tie. To show off his knowledge to his girl friend he stopped and demanded: 'What the devil do you mean by wearing an Old Etonian tie?' 'Because,' replied the other equably, 'I cannot afford to buy a new one.'

Although in the course of his life a gentleman is apt to collect a large number of club and other institutional ties, it is not really done to wear them except when attending the function to which they are appropriate. Bow ties largely went out of fashion with the death of Sir Winston Churchill, just as buttonholes declined in popularity after the Great Greenfly plague.

The English Gentleman, Douglas Sutherland (1978)

Boys Keep Swinging (Bowie)

American Romance: Too Many Brides, Not Enough Wives

Roy Campbell Suit

Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War (Thomas B. Allen)

The American Revolution was not simply a battle between colonists and British. As Thomas B. Allen reminds us, it was also a savage and often deeply personal civil war, in which conflicting visions of America pitted neighbour against neighbour and Patriot against Tory on the battlefield, the village green, and even in church. In this outstanding and vital history, Allen tells the complete story of these other Americans, tracing their lives and experiences throughout the revolutionary period. New York City and Philadelphia were Tory strongholds through much of the war, and at times in the Carolinas and Georgia there were more trained and armed Tories than Redcoats. The Revolution also produced one of the greatest—and least known—migrations in Western history. More than 80,000 Tories left America, most of them relocating to Canada. John Adams once said that he feared there would never be a good history of the American Revolution because so many documents had left the country with the Tories. Based on documents in archives from Nova Scotia to London, Tories adds a fresh perspective to our knowledge of the Revolution and sheds an important new light on the little-known figures whose lives were forever changed when they remained faithful to their mother country.

Beagling: Kentish Pack

Royal Engagement

British Bull Cushion

Tartan Tuesday

Young Fogey: Rory Stewart

Young Fogey: A.N. Wilson

Capri