The Rakes Of The Year: Part Three

Our annual Rakes of the Year list is bigger than ever for 2017, with a number of luminaries in the sartorial, horological and cigar worlds featuring heavily. Click through to discover the individuals who made the cut, many of whom both inspire and help to define The Rake.

It shouldn’t be a big deal that tailoring has a cadre of brilliant women running it. Perhaps it is the path we must take to get where we need to go: applaud those who have had less of a voice until it becomes so normal that women are industry leaders that it is no longer a talking point. Here we have five women who have defied the odds and risen through various levels of achievement and authority in the male-dominated world of tailoring, women who are as passionate about the source material as the men who would buy and wear it. This quintet represents the leaders in the business, and we are proud to feature them and celebrate everything they do. From left to right: Anda Rowland is the proprietor of the grand old house of Anderson & Sheppard. She has been in charge since 2005 and has found a balance in the brand between its traditional sensibilities, which appeal to the loyal clientele and international tailoring obsessives, and pushing innovation so that it might realise its potential as a modern-day outfitter. Carolyn Springett is the C.E.O of New & Lingwood, which has had a complete — one may almost say revolutionary — turnaround. It is a tricky one to put your finger on, because when speaking to Carolyn it is clear she is committed to New & Lingwood’s visual and sartorial tradition and idiosyncrasies… When you go into the Jermyn Street store (at the top of Piccadilly Arcade), it bears out that commitment, but there is something in the air that has revived the brand at a time when its contemporaries have struggled to the point of closing. A rich heritage is desirable in any brand, but it needs a fine strategist to guide it to relevance, and Carolyn seems to be just the woman for the job. Emma Willis is the eponym behind the 66 Jermyn Street shirt shop. She has built her brand from the ground up through graft and determination, from door-to-door sales all the way to receiving an MBE at Buckingham Palace for her services to entrepreneurship. On top of all this, she makes regular visits to Headley Court in Surrey, where injured soldiers receive treatment for wounds sustained in battle, and fits them with bespoke shirts as part of her Style for Soldiers charity. How she manages to combine everything is impressive, and she is, despite forgoing suits, a core part of Britain’s bespoke industry. – Tom Chamberlin

Daisy Knatchbull is a new addition to the world of classic style, but that won’t bother her in the slightest. She is Communications Director of Huntsman, which has been enjoying a renaissance under the ownership of Pierre Lagrange. She arrived at a time when Huntsman’s international strategies were in motion: a pied-à-terre in New York City; trunk shows all over the world; tweed competitions; and ready-to-wear clothing, which includes collaborations with The Rake. Daisy has been a driving force for all this, and we are now at a point where Huntsman is the most innovative and exciting brand on Savile Row. Kilgour and Hardy Amies have attempted to renew themselves in different ways, but I think the message that a Savile Row brand can remain relevant without having to change its clothes is Huntsman’s greatest achievement. This narrative is what Daisy highlights so well, and it has helped Huntsman achieve their renaissance without losing any authenticity or compromising for commercial benefit. Her arrival at Royal Ascot in bespoke morning dress (the first woman to do so) is a lesson to us all that if we are going to break the rules, do it in style. Audie Charles, of Anderson & Sheppard Haberdashery, is as close to royalty as it gets without discussing her namesake’s patronage of the brand’s bespoke house. Everyone in the industry knows Audie, and, most importantly, listens when she speaks. Her haberdashery on Clifford Street is a work of stylistic art, it is a benchmark for all outfitters around the world to compete against, and there is something ethereal about wandering through the perfectly curated selection of coloured jumpers and trousers and scarves and shoes. When you are a step ahead of the competition, you tend to determine the trends, and so it is with the Haberdashery. Its holistic approach — that is, one that means you are compelled to buy a whole look rather than a single item — has moved other men’s outfitters to try to emulate them, and all the while there is something of the Apparel Arts illustrations on the mannequins that invoke a sense of drama, excitement and romance in the clothes in a way that others fail to achieve. This is Audie’s great gift, one that we can only hope she passes on, as that is the problem with being one of a kind: the next generation often fails to match up. – Tom Chamberlin

One of the most exciting things The Rake discovered this year was that Michael Browne was setting up his own shop. Needing little introduction, Michael, a regular face in this magazine, is without doubt one of the most talented and promising creatives working in the sartorial world today, and his latest move has got many tailoring enthusiasts incredibly excited. Formally a disciple of Chittleborough & Morgan, progenitors of exemplary British structuralist tailoring, Michael is in some ways cut from an entirely different cloth compared to his peers. The leader of the next generation of artisans, his workshop on Berkeley Square in London is testament to his ambition for paving a new way. Monochromatic, minimalistic and contemporary, Michael’s domain couldn’t be further away from the steadfast, traditional workspaces of Savile Row. And, being the new kid on the block, so it should be. The space is as modern as possible and in an environment that Michael himself would be happy to be in as a consumer. One can easily argue that Browne is revolutionising the art of bespoke tailoring, but rather than sticking to the confines of jacket and trouser making, he has bigger ambitions. A self-proclaimed “menswear couturier by appointment only” — as his Instagram profile reads — he was a teenager when he nurtured his obsession for high fashion and craft. Michael spent his formative years searching for someone or something that was able to meld the worlds of craft and slick branding — like Dior and its offering of the highest standards of couture. Michael has already shaped himself as a brand, and now, with this new lease of life, he has high hopes of building on the foundations laid in the past 10 years. Because of his love of menswear, he’s always going to do a variety of things within the industry, including collaborations. So he’s working with esteemed shirtmakers 100Hands, as well as Gaziano & Girling. But Michael has no intention of maintaining the same structuralist aesthetic that he perfected at Chittleborough & Morgan. His set of skills can create anything for anyone, executed with supreme standards of finishing and handwork. From Downtown New York artists needing a new wardrobe, financiers in London requiring new boardroom armour, and high-rolling playboys in Hong Kong demanding silk facing jackets with which to entertain, the spectrum of those happy to invest and place their trust in Michael is wide, and his future is bright. – Benedict Browne

It is hard to be impartial when writing about friends; in fact, I find it hard to be impartial on pretty much anything, so I have largely given up trying. But just because I am not impartial does not necessarily mean that Terry Haste isn’t among a tiny handful of cutters who are the very best in the world, perhaps even in the history of men’s tailoring. The man is a genius. I still enjoy the first tweed sports jacket he made me in an old Hunters of Brora 21oz Cheviot with a sky-and-white overcheck on a mustard ground. In the past 25 years or so I have had it re-lined, altered, and the buttonholes re-sewn… but it keeps getting better. Having one’s own old bespoke clothing is one of the very few compensations offered by the otherwise disagreeable process of aging. I enjoy clothes, but I am not one of the modern breed of tailoring trigonometrists who treat a garment as a quantity surveyor might a building project — I find such an approach suggests what life might have been like had I chosen to read double-entry bookkeeping at university. Instead I prefer to regard tailoring as a branch of the applied or decorative arts, combining skill, a sense of proportion, an eye for detail, and creativity to bring about an effect — to conjure beauty from a two-dimensional length of cloth. To do so with such a lamentable raw material as the decidedly non-Gandyesque body shape that I possess surely makes Terry a very great artist. Haste, the man, wears as well as the clothes he makes. I met him a little over a quarter of a century ago, when he had just started working at Hackett as the in-house bespoke tailor. He looked then pretty much as he does now (lucky man). Terry was about 40 years old then but already had a quarter-century of experience. He was 15 years old when he began his apprenticeship at Anderson & Sheppard. Just how long ago that was becomes clear when you hear that the major incentive they held out to the young tailor-to-be was the opportunity to wear a bowler. “They said to me that once I made it as a cutter, I would be able to wear a bowler hat to work, and they were serious,” he says. He did also have an interview at the Oxford of tailoring, Huntsman, and things went well enough. “But they told me I had to go for elocution lessons, and I’d had enough of school by then,” he adds. Terry is a man of what his friends call resolute temperament, and what you and I might call an aversion to bullshit. He is unafraid to tell it like it is — do not ask him if you have put on weight unless you can bear to hear the truth. He worked at Hawes & Curtis and Savoy Taylors Guild before making a name for himself at Tommy Nutter, making clothes for Mick Jagger, Elton John, George Harrison and Jack Nicholson (Terry tailored Jack’s outfits in Batman). After working at Huntsman as Head Cutter and Managing Director he went into private practice and then joined the Court tailor John Kent, who makes for the Duke of Edinburgh. Terry, of course, has his own dukes, including the Duke of Richmond, who, like me, has been a wearer of Haste-tailored clothing since the Hackett days. The Kent, Haste & Lachter premises on Sackville Street in London have all the charm of a down-at-heel Harley Street waiting room, and that is just in the polite bit at the front: customers do not come here for the decoration but for the expertise and the badinage. KH&L is like the Stoa of Attalos in Ancient Greece, in that it is where learned men gather to discuss the merits of a natural shoulder, debate the benefits of a crescent pocket, and praise the perfect shooting waistcoat. Such is Haste’s skill, he can turn his dextrous hands to anything. For example, when it comes to trousers he can do either a 13-inch bottom (as he made for the founder of this magazine) and up to 25 inches (as he did for me), but he is always clear in giving a health warning that while a bespoke suit can last a lifetime, a fashion is for a season at most. “People regret those silly little jackets they had made a few years ago,” he says with a shrug. It was a point encapsulated in an old waistcoat I saw in the shop the other day: it was made for the Duke of Edinburgh in 1948, and he had sent it in to be altered. I sincerely hope that I reach an age when I have garments in my wardrobe that were made for me 70 years earlier — with Terry crafting them, the only thing I need to do is make sure the wearer proves equally long-lived. – Nick Foulkes

In 1981, Joe Morgan and Roy Chittleborough founded their esteemed eponymous tailoring house, which is one of the few establishments on Savile Row that still strictly embodies and practises bespoke-only work. Not long ago I dropped in to say hello, and Joe, as friendly as ever, showed me a jacket he was working on. The stitching in the chest pad he was sewing had the outline of a cat in a colourful array of thread-splendour for a client with a feline penchant. One could argue that it’s an unnecessary detail, but it reminded me that it’s the little things that no one knows about that make bespoke tailoring such a wonderful craft. Furthermore, it proved that Joe’s passion and dedication has only increased in his years practising as a master craftsman. I spent more time in the studio and less in the office than I intended because of Joe’s loquacious, endearing and informative company. I wasn’t complaining. The Hackney-raised virtuoso left school aged 15 well aware of the path he wanted to tread. He started out as a jacket maker before switching up his workspace to the front of house by training as a cutter at Dennis Wilkinson in Soho. In 1970, Joe joined Nutters of Savile Row, the first tailoring house to open on the Row in 100 years, which shook its steadfast foundations. Spearheaded by Tommy Nutter and Edward Sexton, the duo injected some flair, glamour and style into the traditional atmosphere of Savile Row and nurtured some exemplary talents, including Joe. During his tenure at Nutters, Joe cut for everyone from the Rolling Stones to Diana Ross, and it was there he mastered his craft. Despite their youthful existence in comparison to their neighbours, Chittleborough & Morgan are equally revered. Roy Chittleborough retired in 2011, and now Joe employs a small group of young, eager and talented apprentices, all of whom are attuned to everything Joe says and does. It takes a special kind of person to engage a younger generation like that, and thanks should be given to Joe for his habit of passing on skills that have for some time seemed under threat. – Benedict Browne

Humble’ is the first word that pops into my head when thinking of Davide Taub, the Head Cutter at Gieves & Hawkes. When we took his photograph there wasn’t an opportunity to talk openly, as it was busy on the cutting-room floor. Also, Davide didn’t want to make a spectacle of our visit among his friends and colleagues, whom he holds in the highest regard. While there is, of course, a hierarchy at No.1 Savile Row, it’s built upon a respect for equality. So we met again, and in private he waxed lyrical on tailoring, architecture, functional design, and his background — from growing up in a family of tailors to punk music — in a methodical and honest manner. Davide is at least the fifth generation in the Taub family to cut cloth, but he didn’t set out to continue the family trade. He holds an architecture degree — no surprise, in some ways, when reflecting on the house’s structuralist aesthetic — and worked for a tech company in Sweden — which did come as a surprise — before learning to become a coat maker at the military tailors Kashket. He then trained as a cutter at Maurice Sedwell and developed his craft at Edward Sexton before a brief return to Sedwell prefaced his taking of the helm at Gieves & Hawkes in 2012. Since then he has achieved terrific things, and can be credited for reconnecting modern menswear with its early 20th century heritage. He doesn’t see himself as a maverick for doing so, and insists, humbly, that his success in this area is not profound. He shows me an example: a conceptual forest-green quilted sports jacket that’s cut in a technical cloth with removable suede gilet lining, exceptional trimmings, hand-finished buttonholes, and details that make it closer to couture than bespoke tailoring, yet looks more like a design by Moncler or Stone Island. The possibilities are endless at Gieves & Hawkes, and there is no denying the quality of bespoke work has increased tenfold under Davide’s tenure. While talent can get you so far, the team that surrounds you is just as important, and Davide is well aware of that. He is its noble and wonderfully self-deprecating captain. – Benedict Browne

Street-style photography is a nomadic, sometimes isolated, art form. You travel all over the world following the annual calendar of fashion weeks and get-togethers, where the international fashion cognoscenti descend in their finery. There is no dress code for these kinds of things, so people use them for experimentation, expression and, of course, to get snapped by the 30 or so photographers who hover outside and wait for the arrival of someone demure and iconic (see Sarah Harris) or colourful and outrageous, like GQ Style’s Gary Armstrong. The payoff for the photographer is unclear, but they can find themselves with a pretty impressive social media following. Take Thousand Yard Style, for example. It is the pseudonym of a great man, Robert Spangle, a former U.S. marine and one of the leading documenters of style in our time. He is reliably at all the fashion weeks, but if you follow him on Instagram, what you see is someone eager to tell stories — and, boy, does he tell them well. A recent trip to Tokyo captured everything from the style-savvy middle-aged man to the traditionally dressed five-year-old. He gives an insight into cultures and people, the photographs dictating the story and leading his followers through the journey as each image is uploaded. There is a richness without a need for heavy filters; you can see that in the photo essay we ran in The Rake with the father-and-son team of Bernard and Nick Fouquet. So, too, did he represent with considerable aplomb the elegance and sartorial nous of Hollywood director Paul Feig in our December issue last year. Perhaps street-style photography is a means to a more illustrious and notorious end. Robert can often be seen in front of the camera, too. His style has a distinct motorbike theme, with an adept use of army surplus chic, likely to be much of his old stuff, having left the military — everything from DPM smocks to webbing, pieces that are not designed for civvy street, though somehow Mr. Spangle makes them all look relevant, practical and stylish. Keeping abreast of the way people are dressing is becoming less and less the job of magazines. When you realise that artisans such as Robert, a man who is his own boss, can document style with just the kit he is carrying, it is clear he is one of the more important assets for magazines such as ours in understanding and communicating relevant modern style and celebrating it in the same way that we celebrate him. – Tom Chamberlin

Can the shoot highlight the family element of the two of them? Don’t make it too serious, it’s not like them, let them be playful with one another and juxtapose what they are wearing.” This was (more or less) the brief I gave Karl-Edwin Guerre (or just ‘Guerre’), our man in New York for all things photographic, when he shot George Glasgow Sr. and Jr., Guerre’s fellow Rakes of the Year. Cut to a few days later and I see a video on Instagram of Guerre and the Glasgows standing in the middle of Park Avenue with traffic racing past them, getting the shot. And it was fabulous. That is Guerre’s gift: he is an explorer who exudes the values and enthusiasm contained in the style he represents. He is an ambassador for classic style, evident in his modelling for Sciamat and inherent in his rakish goings-on in New York City, from parties to cigar gatherings. He is a gentleman, too, softly spoken and kindly, and he delivers on time. Perhaps this is the reason his work is not limited to The Rake and social media but also includes titles such as U.S. Esquire. His insouciance and predisposition to wearing well-tailored clothing sets him apart. The subjects of his images tend towards the peacocks and the dandies, which is interesting, as his somewhat pared-back personal style tends to be more nuanced and understated — lots of dark, subtle checks, well-chosen ties and, of course, a signature hat. I think it is fair to say he lives the life that he documents in others, and through a more intimate knowledge of that world he can come closer to capturing its essence. What has elevated him into this year’s collection of Rakes of the Year? Much like Robert Spangle, his west coast counterpart in the previous spread, Guerre is a dying breed. Photographers are many, but the ability to comprehend classic style like Guerre does, and the ability to articulate the confidence and beauty that comes through in the greatest clothes in the world, is rare. It is not a matter of point and shoot: you must draw out an energy in other people. This requires a special talent, and Guerre is special. – Tom Chamberlin

I was once staying in Scotland, at a pretty grand house — the kind in which a grand piano does not look out of place. Walking down the stairs to breakfast, I was greeted by the crystalline notes of what might have been Schumann (I am no expert) floating on the still morning air. It is one of those moments that sticks in the mind, a glimpse of perfection and tranquillity that demonstrates the power of music when interpreted by a virtuoso. It was not a recording but an extemporaneous breakfast time recital by a fellow guest, Sir David Tang. Celebrated Anglophile, Olympian socialite, entrepreneur, restaurateur, champion cigar smoker, man of taste, caustic wit, and, to my ears at least, concert-level pianist, David Tang, who died in August, became known to a wider public through his column in the Financial Times. Week after week, disguised as an agony uncle, he dispensed his world view, voicing his concerns on everything from urban planning to the design of contemporary Ferraris. He had a gift for dropping the most unusual of names with true finesse: talking about discussing Chinese food with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin one evening; commenting on the desert lunch he’d had with Gaddafi, saying that the tassels from his epaulettes would not have looked out of place on Barbara Cartland’s drawing-room curtains; and then there was the time he took tailoring tips from Kim Jong-un. It was the mark of your status as a world leader to say that you’d been Tango’d. – Nick Foulkes. I first got to know David Tang when I went to Hong Kong in 1992. It was my first visit to the Crown colony, and in those pre-email days I went armed with letters of introduction (or had at least asked for one or two people to put a good word in for me with Tang). He could not have been kinder to me: his convertible Bentley, with driver on loan from the villain of a Sean Connery-era Bond film, was at my disposal; he invited me to the China Club, which he had then just opened; we had drinks at his apartment; and he threw a very jolly Sunday lunch at his house in the New Territories, where I had my first 60 ring gauge — I think — cigar (bear in mind this was 1992) that he’d had rolled especially for him in Havana. At that time he had also just opened his Cohiba cigar divan at the Mandarin Oriental, making the most delightful use of the sort of space that someone else with less imagination (i.e. most of the rest of us) would have turned into a storage unit. I also toddled over to his other then-newish venture, Shanghai Tang, and got myself measured for one of his sumptuous mandarin collared silk suits. Having met the man and experienced his kindness, I took a personal interest as he charmed his way through British society, with that mixture of wit, generosity and taste that won him so many friends. He was a perfectionist; the only man I know to have had his shooting boots made at Lobb. He was the importer of Havana cigars to the Asia Pacific, and I would often see him in Cuba. During one lunch at the sprawling mansion he’d rented, replete with London-speed wi-fi (in itself a magic trick in Cuba), I remember him becoming enraged with the way the chef was turning the lobsters on the barbecue and took charge of preparing lunch himself. He was not afraid of giving offence, if he felt offence needed to be given, and as a master of obscenities he was inventive and instructive. If one disagreed with one of his opinions, one had to be prepared for a robust defence. Given his presence at the best shooting parties and in the grandest enclosures, I suppose that many might have thought he would have liked to have been reincarnated as an English duke, and he would have made a good one. But music was his great love, as he told one of his correspondents, who wanted Tang’s advice on what erotic classical music to play on the piano (to impress his girlfriend). “On reincarnation,” Tang said, “I would, without a heartbeat, want to be an outstanding concert pianist, because I know that it is the most extraordinary life one could have.” To be honest, I find it hard to imagine a life more extraordinary than the one David Tang lived. - Nick Foulkes