Cutler and Gross

Cutler and GroSs
Cutler and Gross
issue 3 — 2013
magazine
£5
issue 3 — 2013
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places
Peter York takes a close look at the
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Maker’s Mark
Simon Crompton investigates
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Visit our online boutique for specially selected frames,
including vintage and collaborations
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Vic Darkwood offers his guide to spending the spondulicks in a splendid manner
Cutler and Gross NYC and the Donald Judd Foundation in sharp focus
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issue 3 — 2013
Features
Regulars
10
4
Foundation Block
Contributors
Donald Judd was one of many pioneering artists who hung out
in New York’s dilapidated Cast Iron District during the 1960s,
helping to preserve and reinvigorate this unique quarter
26
A Very Fine Display
Three art world personalities reveal their style ethos, the
designers they most admire and how they get dressed
30
Ms Wilkinson’s Guide
Marie Wilkinson, design director at Cutler and Gross
for 30 years, explains how to choose the frames that
flatter your face shape
34
How they’ve spent it
Cultural commentator, author and broadcaster Peter York
investigates the no-expense-spared habits of London’s
super-rich residents
42
The Decadent Gentleman’s Guide to
Dealing with Newly Acquired Wealth
Vic Darkwood’s guide to bagging one’s fortune and
flaunting it shamelessly
46
Making our Way Home
As Cutler and Gross celebrates the opening of its London
atelier, CEO Majid Mohammadi tells Simon Crompton why
handmade is best
5
Dear Reader
Majid Mohammadi, CEO
at Cutler and Gross, on
the importance of paying
attention to detail and
adapting traditional
craftsmanship to suit
today’s consumers
6
C&G News:
Welcome to New York
As Anna Komanius reveals
plans for a new shop on
New York’s Mercer street,
we pull back the curtains
of history for a peek at
some of C&G’s glamorous
neighbours
14
London Debonair
Classic tailoring for
contemporary gentlefolk
about town
54
Life Through a Lens
Celebrities in the
Cutler and Gross frame
56
Q&A:
A Gentleman
for All Seasons
Dylan Jones on his
passion for fashion …
and David Bowie
3
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Cutler and GroSs
Contributors
Dear Reader
Cutler and Gross Magazine
209 Old Marylebone Road,
London, NW1 5QT
Tel: +44 (0) 207 569 2680
Fax: +44 (0) 207 723 6115
[email protected]
www.cutlerandgross.com
Peter York
© Andy Barnham
Simon
Crompton
Simon is an award-winning
menswear writer and author.
His blog, Permanent Style,
is a celebrated resource for
all things related to tailoring
and high-end menswear, and
has been recommended in
top ten lists by The Times,
the New York Times and GQ.
Simon also contributes to
the Financial Times: How to
Spend It and The Rake. He is
the author of two books, Le
Snob Guide to Tailoring (2011)
and The Finest Menswear in the
World (2013, forthcoming).
www.permanentstyle.co.uk
www.simoncrompton.co.uk
Peter is an author, journalist, broadcaster
and management consultant whose major
preoccupation is the subject of social
groupings and market segments. His earliest
and best-known description of a social
group came in The Official Sloane Ranger
Handbook (1982), co-authored with Ann
Barr. Over the last 30 years he has produced
a flood of articles – initially in Harpers
& Queen and thereafter in broadsheets,
particularly the Independent – and ten
books (the latest is about the Piccadilly Line,
The Blue Riband, published by Penguin in
March). He has contributed to television
programmes including The Tube and
Newsnight and has also made two series and
a number of single ‘authored’ documentaries,
the most recent of which was The Rise and
Fall of the Ad Man (BBC, 2008).
For Cutler and Gross
Vic Darkwood
Vic (Nick Jolly) is a London-based
writer, painter, slave to the muse
and dabbler in the Bacchanalian.
His past projects include cofounding The Chap magazine in
1998 and co-writing several tomes,
including The Chap Manifesto
(2002), The Chap Almanac: An
Esoterick Yearbook for the Decadent
Gentleman (2002) and Around the
World in Eighty Martinis (2003).
He has also written two solo books:
The Lost Art of Travel (2006) and
The Gentleman’s Guide to Motoring
(2012). You can find examples of his
work at www.artfink.demon.co.uk
or follow him on Twitter
@VicDarkwood or at
www.facebook.com/vic.darkwood
Chief Executive: Majid Mohammadi
Senior Brand Manager: Anna Komanius
Design Director: Marie Wilkinson
Creative Director: Monica Chong
Features Assistant: Emily Huggard
For Cultureshock Media
Publisher: Phil Allison
Managing Editor: Thomas Phongsathorn
Assistant Editors: Rachel Potts
& Rhys Griffiths
Sub-Editor: Juliet Hardwicke
Art Director: Alfonso Iacurci
Design: Alfonso Iacurci & Hannah Dossary
Account Director: Ali Currie
Production Manager: Nicola Vanstone
For advertising sales enquiries
please contact Emily Palmer:
[email protected]
or by calling +44 (0) 207 735 9263
Published twice a year by
Cultureshock Media
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London, SW8 1XD
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Printed in England
© Cutler and Gross
Menswear is an area of fashion notoriously governed by rules, and those rules dictate
details, from buttonholes to pocket squares, jacket vents to trouser pleats. Cutler and
Gross, as you may have guessed, is run by detail-obsessed people, so it makes absolute
sense that this issue of the magazine is themed around men and their ‘togs’.
Of all the menswear writers who concern themselves with fabric, cut and
workmanship, perhaps the most passionate and dedicated is Simon Crompton. His
writing for the Financial Times, The Rake and for his blog Permanent Style marks
him as someone for whom no aspect of clothing escapes analysis. It was therefore a
great pleasure to spend time talking to Simon about our new London-based atelier:
a centre for craftsmanship, with an apprentice scheme that operates in tandem with
our factory in Cadore, northern Italy, to produce the beautiful handmade frames for
which Cutler and Gross is known. We hope it will become the spiritual home for the
detail-obsessed eyewear enthusiast.
Over the last few years, much of what we might call contemporary culture
seems to have looked to the practices of the past, to times when honesty and
integrity were expected, and things were made carefully and responsibly. People –
surprisingly young people – want clothing and products that are manufactured to an
exceptionally high standard by individuals who care about what they are producing.
Craftsmanship and handmaking has an importance in these economically
turbulent times in a way that would have been difficult to predict during the ultraconsumptive boom years of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Things have certainly
changed, but – as Peter York points out in his brilliantly insightful piece on
how wealthy individuals have interpreted and adapted the traditions, habits and
properties of the old British aristocracy – London is a city that never stops moving
forwards. The energy of London is in its eclecticism, in its refusal to rule anything
out. It is a spirit that infuses everything that we do here at Cutler and Gross.
ISSN 2049-7903
Madame
Peripetie
Madame Peripetie (Sylwana
Zybura) is an award-winning
Polish-German photographer
based in London. Her clients
include Bilboa Vodka, Kris
van Assche, Le Monde, Maison
Martin Margiela, Stella Artois
and Swarovski. She is inspired
by Surrealism and Dadaism as
well as by architecture, collage
art and the avant-garde theatre
of Robert Wilson.
4
issue 3
Sarah Gillett
Sarah is a printmaker artist currently studying at the Royal
College of Art. She describes herself as a ‘draw-er’, collecting
stories from folklore and family history to create new worlds
where fact and fiction collide. Her influences include the
Pennines, 18th-century engravers, dictionaries and radio drama.
She has travelled to countries including Georgia, Kazakhstan and
Saudi Arabia to run drawing and monoprinting workshops in
fine art academies and museums. Last year her work was featured
in UK Vogue and she is the 2013 recipient of the Tim Mara RCA
programme award, winning an artist residency in Canada.
www.sarahgillett.com
Majid Mohammadi
CEO, Cutler and Gross
Front cover
Black tuxedo by BLK DNM
Shirt by Pal Zileri
Bow tie by Velsoir
Pocket square by Gieves & Hawkes
Evening scarf, stylist’s own
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 0692
Back cover
Blue printed coat and dress by Holly Fulton
Blue and tan wallet by Cutler and Gross
Vintage blue and gold earrings from
Linda Bee @ Grays Antique
Gold eyewear chain with ‘eye’ motif
by Cutler and Gross
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 0866
5
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Welcome
to
New
York
For 44 years, Cutler and Gross has been a tourist in New
York. But, as Anna Komanius explains, that’s all set to
change this spring as C&G prepares to move into its own
home at 110 Mercer Street
The reasons for opening a New York shop are obvious: the city was built on
entrepreneurial spirit, and today it is a melting pot of creativity, with some of the world’s
most highly regarded fashion designers, artists and film-makers calling it home.
Until now, Cutler and Gross has been hosted in a few key stores across the city, but from
March, we’re thrilled to welcome our loyal New York-based customers to our new home
in SoHo. The following pages offer an introduction to the rich history and current day
glamour of the Cast Iron District, and celebrate the influence of the artist Donald Judd,
who established the area as a creative base in the 1960s.
Welcome to Cutler and Gross, New York.
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W o r d s — R h ys G r i f f i t h s & R a c h e l P o t t s
I l l u s t r at i on ( o p p o s i t e ) — S a r a h G i l l e t t
Mercer
Street
Mapped
Out
Present day SoHo might not offer the cheap and large spaces that attracted artists
like Donald Judd to the area in the 1960s, but there’s still plenty of grit among the
gentrification. Our guide to Cutler and Gross New York’s new home celebrates Mercer
Street’s past as well as its contemporary glitz
Present day Mercer Street is dominated by fashion, as
befitting its mercantile name. Marc Jacobs is located
at 163 Mercer Street, close to Marni at 161. Phillip
Lim has a space at 115 Mercer, Alexander Wang is
on the corner of Grand Street and Prada is at 575
Broadway. A.P.C. has a store at 131 Mercer, Rag &
Bone at 119 and Helmut Lang at 93.
It wasn’t always this way. Mercer Street’s history
touches on great American literature, the birth of disco
and one of American history’s most infamous outlaws.
One of the most famous gunmen in American
mythology, William H Bonney, or Billy the Kid, was
born in New York in 1859. Urban legend has it that it was
at an address between Mercer and nearby Green Street.
Incredibly, Fanelli Cafe – SoHo’s second oldest
bar – predates Billy the Kid. Established in 1847, the
bar is a favourite with locals and stands at the corner
of Mercer at 94 Prince Street.
The home of the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre
(founded in 2001 and sometimes dubbed ‘the original
SoHo theatre’) is at 55 Mercer Street. Indeed, the
street has an impressive theatrical past: in 1821 The
African Grove Theatre, the first African-American
theatre (and the first to perform Othello with a black
lead), stood on the corner of Mercer and Bleecker
until it was forced to close following a mysterious fire
in around 1830.
8
Mercer Street has a place in cinematic history,
too. At the corner of Mercer and Broadway is the
Tisch School of the Arts. Ang Lee, Jim Jarmusch,
Spike Lee and New York’s cinematic laureate, Martin
Scorsese all studied there.
Disco music is indigenous to New York. In 1974,
nightclub owner David Mancuso moved pioneering
private nightclub The Loft to 99 Prince Street,
sparking the popularity of the ‘private party’. Today,
the site is occupied by André Balazs’s Mercer Hotel,
opened in 1997. Before this, the street’s major hotel had
been the Grand Central (or Broadway Central Hotel)
which collapsed in 1973. It had previously been home
to the gangster Arnold Rothstein who found unlikely
fame as the inspiration for Meyer Wolfsheim in F Scott
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Nathan Detroit in
Guys and Dolls.
The Joyce SoHo dance centre, the sister venue
of Chelsea’s Joyce Theatre and one of Manhattan’s
premier dance venues, is located at 155 Mercer Street.
On this site in 1855 two American literary greats – poet
Walt Whitman and thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson
– met for a beer. They weren’t attending a dance show;
the site was originally built as Fireman’s Hall.
And in 1968, Donald Judd found a large, cheap
space on the corner of Mercer and Spring Street in which
to produce and display some of the 20th century’s most
vital art. After renovation by the Judd Foundation, the
landmark 101 Spring Street will open to the public in
summer 2013 – a fitting example of how Mercer Street’s
rich history continues to shape the area today.
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Cutler and GroSs
More than just a building has been saved by the Judd Foundation at the restored
101 Spring Street, the home and studio of Donald Judd. As they prepare to welcome the
public to this SoHo landmark, Flavin and Rainer Judd reveal how important the New York
scene was to their father’s work, and what the artist did to help preserve the Cast Iron District
Founda—
tion
block
issue 3
1. 101 Spring Street, second floor (photo: Mauricio Alejo)
2. 101 Spring Street, fourth floor
(photo: Rainer Judd)
3. Frank Stella artwork on the fourth floor
(photo: Rainer Judd)
4. The third floor library
(photo: Mauricio Alejo)
Wo r ds — R ac h e l P ot ts
i mage s — A l l © J u dd F o u n d at i o n /
P h o t o s : J u dd F o u n d at i o n Arc h i v e
Donald Judd, 1991
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When asked why Donald Judd chose SoHo as the site for his
studio, home and living art experiment, his son Flavin simply says,
‘the buildings were nice, with large spaces, and it was cheap.’
There was no particular love lost between New York City
and the great Minimalist artist; but to be in the art world in
the 1950s and 1960s, you couldn’t afford (in any sense of the
word) not to be there.
Almost unimaginably, by the 1960s the historic district
‘South of Houston’, also known as the Cast Iron District, lacked
occupants once industry had moved out. Many of its mostly 19thcentury buildings, a swathe of which were doomed to make way
for the Broome Street Expressway, were going for a song.
The community that made use of them is now legendary:
musicians, activists and artists – among them, John Cale,
Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Julian
Schnabel, Patti Smith and Andy Warhol – became SoHo
progenitors of movements which were to become known as
Pop art and Minimalism. The early artist inhabitants often
resided on upper floors to evade detection – living, as they
were, in commercial premises – and traded scant heating
and plumbing for space. This community would come to
revolutionise art and culture globally.
Although Judd left ‘as soon as he could’ for remote Texas, he
did keep and use his New York base up until his death in 1994.
It was to become a remarkable legacy, and a testament to his
profound affect on the making and display of art. And 101 Spring
Street is now the only single-use cast-iron building left in SoHo.
‘Don was part of the fabric of the art world in those days,’
says Judd’s daughter, Rainer. Despite her father’s discomfort
in ‘noisy New York’, it was in this city that he got to know his
hero, the abstract painter Barnett Newman, attend openings,
and mingle with the avant-garde at Max’s Kansas City bar.
Judd had studied philosophy at Columbia and, in the early
1960s, actually earned his name as an art critic (with a concise,
deadpan, impassioned style reminiscent of some Hemingway
prose) in parallel to – even slightly prior to – making his name
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2
3
11
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Donald Judd at a seminar on the first floor of 101 Spring Street in
1974. On Judd’s left is Ron Clark, on his right artist Julian Schnabel
‘His example of art
installation was a
direct rebuke to the
commercial art world
and the status quo
of museums’
as an artist. He wrote about Jackson Pollock and others in the
young New York scene, becoming increasingly interested in a
new kind of pared-back abstraction. He felt an affinity to the
painter Frank Stella, the sculptor and experimental artist Dan
Flavin (to whom Judd’s son owes his name), the car-crushing
John Chamberlain and Claes Oldenburg, whose work
bordered on Pop, but packed the kind of simple visual punch
that Judd appreciated.
In a 1966 interview, Frank Stella said in reference to his
own work, ‘what you see is what you see’, which became a
kind of mantra for artists at the time. Illusionism was out, but
so was the old European modernist idea that abstract forms
had real intellectual meaning. Judd had earlier abandoned
painting for its unavoidable hints at illusory space beyond the
canvas; using sculpture, one could make objects that simply
were what they were.
This new American style came to be called Minimalism
(although Judd never condoned the term), and its influence is
clear in art to this day. Judd’s geometric, often repeated forms
although extremely simple, are far from inconspicuous, and
although abstract, rely heavily on the human figure, the viewer.
One of his great beliefs was that a sculpture’s environment
is as important as the work itself; without its setting and the
impact it has on space, a sculpture is not complete.
From a series of large, near eye-height cubes sat on the
floor, to recurring ‘stacked’ boxes like shelves lining the wall
from floor to ceiling, Judd’s pieces used basic materials like
steel, galvanised iron and Perspex. Colour and reflection are
crucial. He was hugely interested in the experience of moving
around or past a sculpture, and in that sense his work shared
much with architectural thinking.
12
By 1964, Judd was exhibiting at places like the Green
Gallery, a hotbed for young Pop, Fluxus and Minimalist work
in New York. In 1968, he became the first of the Minimalists
to stage a solo museum show in New York, at the Whitney.
It was also in 1968, at age 40, that Judd bought the empty
101 Spring Street on the corner of Mercer – a five-storey
industrial structure designed in 1870 by Nicholas Whyte – to be
his studio and home. That he moved his wife, the dancer Julie
Finch, and son in with him to derelict Downtown was a bold
step – loft living meant something quite different then. What
Judd created there was also unique, even for SoHo. ‘An example
of living that was wholly his,’ is how his son Flavin describes it;
‘one that was radically different from the one he inherited.’
101 Spring Street is a perfect example of New York’s
rugged, historic good looks. Its fire escapes alone conjure up
a hundred films and the unmistakable urban character of
this city. It is telling that Judd himself was not a fan of these
external appendages – added to comply with what he viewed
as somewhat hysterical safety codes after a bad fire in 1911 –
because they meant alterations to the building’s fabric.
When Judd moved in, ‘the trash was so much that Arman
[an artist with a fondness for large-scale destruction and
refuse] could have bought the building and left it alone,’ he
noted in 1989.
Judd gave each floor a separate function: eating, sleeping,
making art. But it was more than a live-work space. He said
it should ‘more importantly, more definitely, be a space in
which to install work of mine and of others.’ Over many years
he carefully did this, creating an ongoing exhibition featuring
Carl Andre, Larry Bell, Claes Oldenburg, Ad Reinhardt,
Frank Stella, and many others. The way in which works related
to architecture and light was key. He made his own furniture,
and all was part and parcel – a new mode of living.
Judd rejected some artists’ works, he wrote, ‘because
they were elaborate and took too much space, and so went
against the nature of the building.’ His own actions to make it
inhabitable were minimal, like his work. Leaving the original
features alone, he said, was ‘a highly positive act’. His bedroom
was a lesson in geometric simplicity.
Dan Flavin dedicated a work to his young namesake;
the piece still covers 65 feet on the building’s west wall with
fluorescent tubes. But it wasn’t just scale that mattered. Judd
had carefully set up numerous shows in the USA and Europe,
only to see them dismantled. Now, Flavin Judd explains,
‘he had space to look at larger work and place it with great
deliberation and then leave it there.’
He adds, ‘this example of art installation, and the permanence
of it, was a direct rebuke to the commercial art world and the
status quo of museums.’ And although Judd’s project began nearly
50 years ago, ‘it’s still important for that.’ Over 500 objects – art,
furniture and all – remain as he placed them.
The curator, Cecilia Alemani, recently wrote that 101
Spring Street is ‘almost a secret sanctuary of contemporary art’,
a kind of time capsule, preserving something of the old SoHo.
It was always, in a sense, a sanctuary for Judd, too. ‘While
Don had a lot of friends, he was not all that social,’ Flavin Judd
reveals, though he thinks SoHo’s village feel probably relaxed
him. In the early 1970s Judd began a move to the desert.
He gradually bought properties in two sites in Texas,
continuing what he had started in SoHo on a larger scale:
living with and displaying art in harmony with architecture.
These spaces include another Whyte building, an ex-hotel, an
entire army base, and desert ranches. All remain intact, and
guided tours are available.
It was in the late 1970s that Judd first thought about a
foundation to preserve what he had created and, since his
death, the Judd Foundation has been working to realise his
dream. Flavin and Rainer Judd are both on the board. One
of their priorities in recent years has been the structural
renovation of 101 Spring Street which has not been safe for
public access and has languished under scaffolding for the last
decade due to its unstable façade.
Photo: Andrea Steele
Flavin Judd
The exterior of 101 Spring Street
A three-year restoration project has seen its entire contents
catalogued, moved, and repaired where necessary. Everything
is to be painstakingly returned before June 2013, when the
building opens its doors. In addition to the abundant works
by Judd’s contemporaries, visitors can view art by Marcel
Duchamp and Jean Arp. Rainer rightly thinks it’s much
more than a museum to her father: ‘It is a window into the
community that was once there.’
Despite his tepid feelings about the big city, Judd played
a large role in the Artists Against the Expressway movement,
which had a huge impact on the scheme’s dismissal. His early
artist community not only paved the way for the tremendous
gentrification of SoHo, it literally helped save it from demolition.
The fight is still alive, however, as Rainer laments. ‘In a
city that tore down Pennsylvania Station, we do what we can.
New York City government is not lead by preservationists.’
101 Spring Street’s restoration will safeguard the extraordinary
layers of history in this building.
Flavin Judd calls its second-use history ‘part of an
American art renaissance that is quickly being forgotten.’
Spring Street represents the contribution of ‘one of the few
artists to ever influence writers, designers and architects – as
well as other artists – to such an extent.’
Rainer believes attitudes about SoHo and its preservation
need to change, too. ‘There are so many people who likely
don’t think twice that the architecture is the reason it’s so
beautiful, the reason they are there.’
So what would Judd think of SoHo now? ‘He thought it
was too crowded in 1974 ...’ offers Flavin Judd. Rainer picks
up: ‘I don’t know, but he sure would have liked the Sticky
Bun at Balthazar.’
13
Jacket by Gieves & Hawkes
Shirt by Sand
Tie by Timothy Everest
Pocket square by Canali
Eyewear, tie and eyewear clip,
both by Cutler and Gross
model 0676
For autumn/winter 2013, Cutler and Gross has gone back to its roots,
working with classic and tailored shapes. Inspired by the precision of British
bespoke tailoring, this collection sees the return of the London gentleman –
the dandy – alongside the impeccably dressed gentlewoman
Her
Green dress with beaded capped
sleeves by Jacques Azagury
Vintage rings and earrings from
Linda Bee @ Grays Antique
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 0737
Him
Blazer and knit tie, both by
Timothy Everest
Shirt by Sand, pocket square by Canali
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 0676
Her
White coat by Eudon Choi
White and charcoal dress by
Jacques Azagury
Vintage earrings from
Linda Bee @ Grays Antique
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 0895
Him
Waistcoat by J Lindeberg
Shirt by Sand
Knit tie & pocket square by
Timothy Everest
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 0164
Him
Black tuxedo by BLK DNM
Shirt by Pal Zileri
Bow tie by Velsoir
Pocket square by Gieves & Hawkes
Evening scarf, stylist’s own
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 1105
Her
Green and grey sequinned dress
by Jacques Azagury
Vintage green and blue earrings and
brooch worn as hair clip from
Linda Bee @ Grays Antique
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 1029
Him
Velvet smoking jacket by Henry Poole
Shirt by Pal Zileri
Bow tie by Velsoir
Silk scarf, stylist’s own
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 1080
Her
Black dress by Monica Chong
Vintage tiara from
Linda Bee @ Grays Antique
Eyewear by Cutler and Gross
model 1094
Creative Direction: Monica Chong
Photography: Madame Peripetie
Models: Julia and Ruban from Models 1
Menswear styling: Kenny Ho @ Era Artist Management
Womenswear styling: Monica Chong
Hair Stylist: Robin Pawloski @ DW Management
Make-up artist: Marco Antonio @ DW Management
Menswear assistant: Naomi Gardener
Womenswear assistant: Emma Witter
Photographer’s assistants: Natasha Alipour-Faridani and Ben Reeves
Set Designers: Natalia Mleczak, Maria Nowakowna and Pawl Dziemian
DOWNING LOAFER
HARRYSOFLONDON.COM
INNOVATIVE FOOTWEAR
Photograph by Devin Blair, courtesy Maureen Paley, London
Three leading lights of the gallery and museum world
address the art of personal style
26
Damien Whitmore
Vincent Honoré
Maureen Paley
In t e r v i ew s — T o m P h o n gs at h o r n & R h ys G r i f f i t h s
How would you
describe your style?
Pared-back elegant with a
Gothic twist. I like there to
be a balance and logic to how
I put things together; once
I have established the basics
the expression is in the details,
for example the sunglasses I
choose to wear, or how my
hair and jewellery add flow
and light to my otherwise inky
palette. I’m very loyal to the
brands I like, with regard to
both clothing and accessories.
Maureen Paley established her east London
gallery in 1984. She now represents a range
of contemporary artists, including Wolfgang
Tillmans, Gillian Wearing and Keith Arnatt.
Originally from New York, Paley first moved to
London in 1977 at the height of the punk scene
and is a self-proclaimed NY-LON hybrid: ‘I try to
take from the best of both London and New York.’
What brands do you
like to wear?
I have always admired
Miuccia Prada; both the
Prada and Miu Miu lines
have been in my wardrobe
forever. I also wear Comme
des Garçons, Margiela, John
Rocha, Jil Sander, Alexander
Wang, Acne … There is a
certain imagination and
wit that surfaces in all these
designers that blends well
with my inner vision.
Is there a link between your
professional life and your
sartorial decisions?
As much as I admire colour
and print, I try to remain
neutral and use texture rather
than colour so that I don’t
compete with the art I’m
showing in the gallery.
Do you have any style icons?
When I was a student in the
States I would pour over
pictures of Diana Vreeland,
Georgia O’Keefe and Frida
Kahlo – I liked the freedom
with which they expressed
themselves. And Audrey
Hepburn could be thrown in
for good measure – she seems
timeless to this day.
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Cutler and GroSs
issue 3
Having previously worked at
Tate and the Design Museum,
Damien Whitmore is currently
Director of Public Affairs and
Programming at the V&A
Museum. His professional
role exerts a large influence
on his sartorial decisions: ‘It’s
a contemporary, stylish and
relaxed look. I don’t want to
look too corporate.’
What do you like to wear?
Paul Smith and Joseph are the two I
buy most from. For men it’s essential to
buy clothes that fit. That’s the thing that
men often let slide. I’m athletic, so I like
clothes that show my body off. I like Paul
Smith because the jackets fit well.
Have you any golden rules when
it comes to dressing?
Never overdo it. Never have labels on
show and never be too smart unless it’s a
formal dinner. Understand your frame and
your shape, understand what colours you
should wear and how to combine them.
Is there one item of clothing that
you couldn’t live without?
A fitted tweed jacket. In the summer I
bought a beautiful checked bomber jacket
from Paul Smith that fits like a dream, it’s
absolutely beautiful. I’ll often build my
look around a jacket.
Director and curator at London’s
David Roberts Art Foundation,
Vincent Honoré divides his time
between London and Paris. How
do the cities compare? ‘In Paris
the artists all want to show at
Palais de Tokyo. In London they
want to show at Tate Modern,
DRAF, Cubitt, The Serpentine,
Raven Row, Camden Arts Centre
… there’s a lot more choice.
Oh, and the men in London
are definitely more stylish and
creative than those in Paris.’
What’s your style ethos?
Egoist. My professional life as curator of a
commercial gallery doesn’t really impact
on my fashion choices – I’m more inspired
by the people around me.
What rules do you set yourself
when dressing?
Start with the socks and never forget the
accessories: the frames, the bag, the scarf
(or the perfume) that make a look unique.
It’s essential to always have a good pair
of shoes – Maison Martin Margiela is
particularly good for that.
Courtesy Dom Perrier
What’s your approach
to personal style?
By the time you’re my age, 52, you find a
style you’re comfortable with. I’m at my
most authentic now; when I shop I know
exactly what to look for. I think that when
people are overly styled it just pushes
others away. You’ve got to be stylish but
accessible – it’s about being sexy but in a
way that is age appropriate.
Photograph By A j Numan, Camera Press London
Who are your style icons?
Jean-Paul Belmondo in his early movies
and John Cassavetes are top of my list.
Are there any designers that you
particularly admire?
I’m a keen admirer of Alber Elbaz’s work
for Lanvin in Paris, and Riccardo Tisci at
Givenchy is a particularly daring designer.
Dries van Noten for his silk especially, and
Tom Ford is always right about what a
man should wear – even naked.
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Cutler and GroSs
issue 3
Words — Marie Wilkinson
I l l u s t r at i on s — S a r a h G i l l e t t
Ms Wilkinson’s
Guide
to
choosing
the
right
frames
for your face shape
Marie Wilkinson, who celebrates
her 30th anniversary as design
director at Cutler and Gross this
year, presents her golden rules
for choosing the most flattering
frames for your face
30
Heart
Oval
Long face and
square jaw
Round
Characteristics
Wide forehead and/or cheekbones
taper into a narrow jaw
Characteristics
Width of the face is roughly
2/3 of the length
Characteristics
Angular, with a strong jaw line
Characteristics
Fairly equal in depth and width,
with no pronounced jaw line
If you have a heart-shaped face,
select frames that give the illusion
of fullness at the cheek, thus creating a balance between the forehead and chin. Choose a model
that will divert attention from the
top of the face – an aviator shape,
for instance. An oversized round
sunglass can also be successful, as
long as it does not sit too high on
the face. I suggest avoiding semirimmed glasses, which will accentuate the wider part of the heartshaped face.
Those lucky enough to have an oval
face shape can choose from the widest range of styles. When selecting
optical glasses, make sure that the
model covers the centre of your face.
The frames should follow and emphasise your eyebrows, not the jaw
area. I advise opting for a frame that
is no wider than the broadest part
of the face: a classic cat’s-eye shape
works best for women; for men, rectangular shapes – such as the 1076
optical frame or the 1007 sunglass
model – will balance the proportions
of the face.
Rounded optical frames – such as
the 1094 or 1073 – and narrow oval
models that sit high on the face will
soften the sharpness of the square
jaw-line and be kinder to the features. A rounded frame will also
minimise a broad forehead and the
impression of drastic angles in the
face will be reduced. It is advisable
to avoid square or octagonal shapes,
as they draw attention to the angles;
rather, opt for delicate understated
frames with minimal embellishment
and patterns. For sunglasses, consider the premium 1082 frame, or the
unisex and iconic 0734.
Round faces look best in beautiful
geometric shapes – boxy and octagonal. Also consider 1980s-style
frames, which are more deep than
wide. This will create a balance
with rounder facial features, and
will make your face appear slimmer. If seeking a modern look, try
styles that have temples at the top
of the frame, rather than the centre. The frame should be wider than
the broadest part of your face, with
subtle angles in the brow line. Also,
try a brow bar, which draws the eye
upward. Men wishing to make their
face appear longer should try a
narrow frame shape with sharp angles and high temples.
Optical model1077
Optical model1076
Optical model1073 or 1094
Optical model1076 or 1074
Sunglasses model1107
Sunglasses model1007
Sunglasses model0734 or 1082
Sunglasses model0676
31
‘Frieze Art Fair electrifies New York’
The Wall Street Journal
‘A fixture on the international art circuit’
The New York Times
‘Ground-breaking’
Financial Times
New York
Randall’s Island Park
May 10 – 13, 2013
Buy Tickets Now
friezenewyork.com
How
they’ve
Spent
it
As the international super-rich seek new ways to enjoy
and display their wealth, Peter York finds that the old aristocracy
has made space for the new
34
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w w w. c u t l e r a n d g r o s s . c o m
Jeff Koons, Metallic Venus (2010-12),
installation view in Jeff Koons.
The Sculptor, Frankfurt,
Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung,
20 June - 23 September 2012
‘W
Photo: Brian Harrington Spier
No 94 Piccadilly, built for the
2nd Earl of Egremont
36
ho lives in a house like this?’, as Loyd Grossman used to say
on the threshold of a mystery celebrity’s home at the start of
television programme Through the Keyhole. Easton Neston house
in Northamptonshire belongs to a category whose owners we all
thought we knew. A surviving toff ’s stately – it’s a miniature
palace, so obviously real, so early 18th-century (1702), not a
McMansion or even an early 20th-century pastiche. And it’s lived in; you can see it hasn’t been
converted into a hotel or a school. It’s by Hawksmoor – the architect of all those great London
churches – with a bit of help from Sir Christopher Wren. Everyone agrees that Easton Neston is
a gem. It was built for Sir William Fermor, and remained in the Fermor-Hesketh family for 302
years, most recently as the home of Lord Hesketh, the big Wodehouse-y Tory peer who once had
his own Formula One racing team.
The answer to the question above is a Russian billionaire, Leon Max. (He’s a rather
unusual Russian billionaire, Mr Max, but we’ll come back to that.)
Or uptown, right in the heart of London, who lives in a house like No 94 Piccadilly?
It was built in 1761 for Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, and lived in by a string of
hyper-toffs after that. (It was famously Lord Palmerston’s house when he was prime minister
in the mid-19th century.)
The answer is nobody. It’s empty, being fixed up for sale as a ‘prestige residence’ by billionaire
property developers the Reuben brothers. They paid £150 million for it, and are apparently
expecting to sell it for around £214 million. It will probably be Britain’s most expensive house:
a 21st-century version of Devonshire House, just along the road, the great London home of the
Dukes of Devonshire that was demolished in 1924 to be replaced by a block of flats.
I can safely say no Brit – let alone a Brit toff – will buy it. Very few Brit toffs, with the
exception of the big London landlords, have anything like that kind of money. And none of them
spend it like that. They don’t do bling any more.
No one is suggesting for a moment that they never did, nor that understatement was a
feature of the English aristocratic style. Indeed, when the 1st Earl Spencer – owner of the grand
Spencer House (splendidly refurbished by Lord Rothschild) just down the road from Piccadilly
at 27 St James’s Place – was married in 1755, the diamonds on his shoe buckles cost something like
£3 million in 21st-century prices. But not now.
The time came when British toffs found their huge houses too expensive to maintain – it’s
been happening for nearly 100 years. They’d knock them down, give them to the National Trust or
sell them as schools – or, later, as luxury hotels. (Sometimes they married American heiresses and
kept things going, as in Downton Abbey.) Because if they didn’t have
the money, the staff or the sheer drive to live that way, nobody else
did either. There weren’t many takers, bar the occasional 1960s or
1970s property tycoon.
Then the world got richer. Or, to be precise, more people
have become quite astonishingly rich over the last twenty years.
The world’s billionaire count has shot up. There are 1,226 of them
altogether now, and they come from all over the place. Of course,
there are new American billionaires from Wall Street and Silicon
Valley – there always are – and Western Europe still has lots left.
But now there’s Russian and Eastern European big money, and
billionaires from China, India and other parts of Asia (Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia), from South and Central America – and the
Middle East, of course.
It’s new wealth reflecting the way the world’s money and
dynamism is tilting away from the old West. Huge and very varied
kinds of wealth, but on such a scale and in such numbers that Ben
w w w. c u t l e r a n d g r o s s . c o m
Cutler and GroSs
Elliot, British co-founder of the international concierge firm
Quintessentially – which looks after the super-rich across the
world – calls it ‘an avalanche’.
The super-rich may be varied but they’re united in a few
key respects: in being utterly and fundamentally different from
the other 99.999 per cent of humanity; in being very interested
in each other – their peer group of achievement; and in seeing
London as their favourite international city. In a survey
of the world’s ultra high net worth types by Forbes Magazine,
London came top, ahead of New York and Singapore. And
when asked which city they’d expect to be top of the list in ten
years’ time, London was still up there.
There are many and varied reasons the super-rich live in
London at least part of the time. Of course, the favourable tax
regime for ‘non-doms’ counts hugely, but if that was all, then
they could simply pile into Monaco or Liechtenstein or any of
the other dedicated tax havens.
But there’s more, masses more. London sets out its stall
for the world’s super-rich in practically every way. As William Cash, editor-in-chief of Spear’s
Wealth Management – the magazine for the seriously rich and the suppliers who love them –
says: ‘All the skills the rich uniquely need are here, from tax lawyers and wealth managers to the
great auction houses, and the brokers and dealers in all the asset classes that matter to them.’
There’s the key phrase – asset classes. The super-rich buy things as asset classes, as Monopoly
board investments. Things ordinary people buy to live in (houses) or to furnish and decorate
them (furniture and pictures) are asset classes at their level. And the British upper classes in their
golden years were tremendous accumulators of asset class land, property, jewellery, silver and
gold objects, furniture and pictures. But they saw themselves as connoisseurs and collectors.
Not asset class investors.
The British asset class that most of the world’s super-rich recognise as particularly interesting
is central London property, and – overwhelmingly – property in precisely those areas that most
Brits still associate with upper class London: Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Belgravia and Kensington.
Property in just two boroughs: Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea. There are, of course,
super-rich slices in other areas – Hampstead, Highgate, St John’s Wood, Richmond and other
places too – but the focus and the fame is in the centre. Just walk around the corner from the
original Cutler and Gross store in its charming ‘Old London’ alleyway shop in Knightsbridge
Green and you’re into the new world of the super-rich. There’s the super-priced Bulgari Hotel
and the astonishing One Hyde Park ‘apartment block’ (we used to call them flats …) designed by
Richard Rogers, and allegedly the most expensive apartment building in the world.
To one side of Cutler and Gross is Harrods, the focus of an extraordinary parade of young
Middle Eastern super-money, wearing luxury-brand outfits bought straight out of the windows
on Sloane Street – now arguably the world’s top luxury brand retail parade (let them fight it out
with Bond Street and Rodeo Drive). And famously, since the recent Channel 4 TV documentary
Millionaire Boy Racers, there’s the Knightsbridge urban circuit of young Middle Easterners
revving up the most expensive hypercars ever seen (custom versions of Ferraris, Maseratis,
Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Rolls-Royces).
Harrods itself, once owned by a stodgy British department store conglomerate and devoted
to the local gentry, was bought in 1984 by the controversial Egyptian businessman Mohamed
Al-Fayed, who consciously targeted the Middle-Eastern rich, and sold the business for £1.5 billion
in 2010 to the oil-rich Qatar Holdings. British toffs don’t really feature much in the Harrods
customer pie-chart any more. They say they don’t like it – ‘not our taste’. They certainly don’t
spend the money.
38
© Karma Motorsports
‘The 21st-century
Sebastian Flyte may
be a Hong Kong
billionaire’s son, but
he’ll still be learning
something useful,
not Classics or
History of Art’
issue 3
The world’s rich have been buying property in Knightsbridge for ages, but it has hugely
accelerated this century. According to Yolande Barnes, research director at giant estate agent
Savills, the buyers of prime (£3 million up), super-prime (£6.5 million up) and ultra-prime (£15
million up) houses and flats in central London are overwhelmingly non-doms. ‘The mix will
vary from place to place – Middle-Easterners particularly like Knightsbridge, the French like
South Kensington – but the majority are from overseas.’ As she says, the very richest home-grown
new money Brits have developed a taste for the re-residentialised Mayfair. But increasingly, upper
class Brits have moved either to South London – the Clapham / Battersea / Wandsworth axis
– or the areas just around the super-prime core that aren’t so super-expensive yet. For Eaton
Place, substitute the architecturally similar Ecclestone or Warwick Squares in Pimlico, or the
huge stucco houses of Earls Court Square (when those go to the next wave of French and Italians,
the current residents will join their children in groovy Shoreditch).
The combination of Russian oligarch fortunes (and the rush to place them somewhere
legally and economically stable), the Arab Spring and the European meltdown means that the very
last centrally-located nice houses and flats in the hands of baronets and dowager Marchionesses
have been bought up – and utterly transformed in the process. The world’s super-rich found
them shabby and old-fashioned, short on bathrooms (one house-hunting American investment
banker famously said ‘I’ve seen bathrooms I wouldn’t wash my car in’), and lacking in new
technological comforts: cooling, computer-controlled lighting, super-fast broadband and audiovisual toys. And security. Above all, security.
Those nice old places have had their basements excavated down two or more storeys to
provide pools, gymnasia, media rooms and underground garages with lifts to bring the supercars
up to ground level. The fights with planners and neighbours are legendary. The rich – suggestions
vary as to exactly who – bought the locations and houses, the assets. But they didn’t buy the style.
Once fixed up, those houses and flats would have been unrecognisable to their former
owners. A whole strand of upper class taste – shabby chic, inherited antiques and 18th-century
pictures, the look of things bought from a larger, older country house (real or contrived) or
the full-on English Grand Manner – just vanished, evaporated. In its place – depending on
the origins and age of the buyers – would be either Mark I Dictator Style, Hyper-Bling (fake
Louis-the-Hotel French furniture slathered in gold, giant 19th-century pictures and shiny marble
everywhere), or second generation high tech, with giant TV screens, modern Italian furniture
and strongly branded contemporary art (Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons) – with all sorts of
variations in between. But practically no one’s bothered to reproduce that nuanced old upper
39
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‘Younger super-rich kids will go to the newly artified East End to a
restaurant or an art opening, but with the driver waiting to take them back
to Mount Street or Cadogan Square’
class style, with its curious mixture of museum-quality old things, completely banal modern ones,
and others so knackered anyone else would have thrown them out.
The global super-rich emphatically do not want anything that requires discomfort –that
funny masochistic English thing.
Their approach to charity is different from that of, for instance, the old noblesse oblige.
They like charity events to be glamorous and celebrity-packed. They want billionaires bidding
in high-stakes charity auctions. They want the X thousand-a-plate dinners that Americans have
had for years. They want it professional and effective. If necessary they’ll make their own events …
They’ve cherry-picked the sports, too. They’ll go racing, but to key courses and meetings
(Ascot, not Towcester). They play polo and watch it, but glamour polo like the Cartier, not armyofficer polo in the Deep South. They certainly shoot, some of them; but they don’t usually want
to be too far from London for too long.
And they’re cherry-picking the old upper class education system. They like public schools
– the top ones and the accessible ones (Eton and Harrow are global brands and, among other
things, very near London). Clive Aslet, editor-at-large of Country Life, the bible of ‘trad’ Brit life,
says: ‘They’re hugely competitive about the top public schools. Unlike old Brits, they can afford
the fees ten times over, so they’ve distorted the market. And there are fascinating stories about
boys who have their nannies with them at school. The school values tend to change, and they’re
all in a huge arms race to build millions of pounds worth of new hyper facilities.’
They’re very picky about our universities. The 21st-century Sebastian Flyte may be a Hong
Kong billionaire’s son, but he’ll still be learning something … useful, not Classics or History of Art.
That could mean Imperial College, UCL or the LSE – where Saif Gaddafi got his controversial
PhD – rather than Oxbridge. Sometimes it means international star-rated universities, because
at that level the competition is with hyper-star-rated Ivy League America (which often wins over
the British-schooled Chinese and Indian children of super-achievers; they want the Harvard
MBA so that they can take over dad’s business).
The super-rich, in their various ways and their various groupings, will buy (or buy into)
anything they value in old upper class Britain, meaning – overwhelmingly – London and
those bits of the South East that are really London: the 100-mile city. The regions and nations
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Cutler and GroSs
issue 3
are (mostly) a closed world. Clive Aslet says plutocrats cherry-pick where they buy. ‘They like
Berkshire, for a quick getaway. They want property near London and near Heathrow. Rather like
the newest Brit money, they don’t feel these ties. If they’re in software they won’t want a country
estate. They’re more concerned with your watch and its value than your old school or club tie.’
And they like internationally recognised brands of all kinds – brands their peers understand,
like Warhol or Jeff Koons. ‘They’ll buy some trophy houses, if they’re accessible, but they’re not
interested in the history or the locality. The global rich tend to abolish Rights of Way, because
they’re used to living in gated communities and they’re madly security conscious.’
Great tranches of London are unknown, too. Younger super-rich kids will go to the newly
artified East End to a restaurant or an art opening, but with the driver waiting to take them
back to Mount Street or Cadogan Square. They’ve never heard of, say, Enfield or Croydon, let
alone Hartlepool or Bury. They buy what they’ve seen: a 21st-century version of Chelsea Girls
and rock stars, and old but shined-up Jermyn Street and Claridge’s. Things that look the part
and feel like the latest movie iteration of Swinging London or the Downton world.
Mark Henderson, Chief Executive of the ancient Savile Row tailor Gieves & Hawkes
(founded in 1771) and chairman of the luxury quarter collective of Mayfair retailers, landowners
and estate agents, has been working around Mayfair since 1980. ‘It’s all’, as he says, ‘got much
richer. It’s the world’s luxury capital. It’s got more flagship shops than anywhere.’ In Savile
Row, home of the Prince of Wales’s tailor Anderson & Sheppard (Est 1906) and a raft of other
tailoring houses, the biggest increase has been in Chinese clients, and then it’s smart Americans
and Europeans working in the new Mayfair finance sector (hedge funds and private equity). ‘It’s
shopping, culture, eating and living.’ Henderson is backing Britain with a smart pop-up ‘Brit
crafts’ gallery on Carlos Place (opposite the shined-up Connaught Hotel). ‘Mayfair attracts
Anglophiles,’ he says.
James Ogilvy, founder of the publication and conference platform Luxury Briefing, points
out: ‘Property people have been the drivers in London. In 1996 when we set up Luxury Briefing
we caught a wave that changed the global wealth map.’ As he points out, ‘our goods were cheaper
to them here.’ He says we’re on a roll. ‘The Jubilee and the Olympics showed that Mitt Romney
was wrong and we could do it – it’s OK to be quirky.’
What is inexplicable (and completely unsaleable) is the curious set of codes and values
by which many of the traditional post-war English upper class actually lived – the Totteringby-Gently version of a leisure class life with its fixed rituals and commitment to schedules and
locations (what are private jets for?), its subtle language and references. All that boring history
and all those dowdy people, it just doesn’t compute for most of the super-rich, wherever they
come from (though Old Americans used to like it, up to a point, and some Indians can relate to
shared history).
James Stourton, the outgoing Chairman of Sotheby’s UK, reinforces the notion of
plutocratic cherry-picking. Most of the newest global plutocratic money is, he says, ‘vehemently
Modernist’ in its tastes. So much of what the English aristocracy has to sell, the super-rich don’t
really collect. It’s a small group of mainly Europeans and Americans who buy the definitive pieces
of English furniture and 18th-century pictures now. The newer money from newer places is
interested in the trophies of what Stourton calls ‘Classical Modernism’ and the younger money
wants branded contemporary art. Sotheby’s and Christie’s in London – and a raft of dealers – will
sell it to them, but it won’t have come from the great old houses.
Chinese collectors, understandably, are starting to accumulate their own art and artefacts,
old and new. But ‘whole English collecting fields adored by an earlier generation of Brits and
Americans are languishing.’ The markets in ‘brown’ furniture, English watercolours and porcelain
– the ‘everyday’ stuff of the English country house – have suffered from these huge changes in
taste and money.
Which is why Leon Max, the Russian owner of Easton Neston, is so unusual (he’s actually
a runaway Russian who made his money in America, and not an oligarch). Unlike the owners
of those Knightsbridge apartments, which stand empty most of the time, Mr Leon spends six
months a year here, and he’s got stuck in – to the people (local toffs and others) and to the
sports. Furthermore, he’s been assiduous in the restoring of Easton Neston (he’s got form as an
architectural connoisseur).
And, bridging old and new money, his great guide in that labour of love has been the
English doyenne of decorating in the Very Grand Manner, Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill –
someone with the most resonant of English names who grew up in Blenheim Palace.
41
Cutler and GroSs
1
The decadent gentleman’s
GUIDE
NEWLYACQUIRED
WEALTH
to dealing with
issue 3
2
Acceptable methods of
acquiring new wealth
Investing wisely
The closest most people come to
attaining immense personal wealth is
when they sit feverishly clutching a
lottery ticket, watching the Saturday
night draw; but a decadent gentleman
would rather remain stylishly poor than
attain a fortune in such a grotesquely
vulgar manner. A fellow enamoured
of Madame Chance should instead try
his luck at the gaming tables of Monte
Carlo, or in a winner-takes-all game of
Russian roulette.
Similarly, no gent worth his salt
would attempt to chase affluence
by means of regular employment.
Slaving away at a nine-to-five job is
highly unlikely to provide anywhere
near sufficient funds – or, indeed,
free time – for him ever to revel in a
life of unbridled opulence. If gainful
employment is required it should
instead be something louche and
lucrative, such as gentleman thief or art
forger. However, by far the most suave
method of acquiring sudden wealth
is through inheritance from an aged
maiden aunt – preferably one eased
on her way by an afternoon slice of
Battenberg liberally laced with
fresh arsenic.
Once a fortune has been suitably
acquired it ill behooves a gent to refer to
his enormous wealth ever again. To do so
would only single him out as despicably
nouveau riche. He should hand over the
bulk of his funds to a qualified financial team, retaining adequate resources
to cover immediate expenses such as
supplies of malt whisky, Martini and
laudanum, the buying of objets d’art, the
settling of his most pressing gambling
debts, and purchasing the odd country
estate or two.
If any of his more tedious associates
attempt to probe him regarding his
investments, he should on no account
confuse himself by trying to give them
an accurate answer. Such enquiries must
be greeted by a look of haughty languor,
followed by dark insinuations that a considerable portion of his funds is wrapped
up in ‘something very hush-hush and a
little bit naughty in Burkina Faso’.
”
t
i
w
o
l
b
o
t
“or... how
by Vic Darkwood
42
I l l u s t r at i on s — V i c D a r k w o o d
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Cutler and GroSs
4
5
6
7
issue 3
8
Purchasing status
symbols
Contending with the
envy of others
Employing staff
Luxury holidays
Affairs of the heart
Planning one’s legacy
It is traditional for the likes of pop
stars, Russian oligarchs and lottery
winners to display their wealth through
the acquisition of tawdry status
symbols, such as swimming pools,
fleets of sports cars, trophy wives and
diamond-inlaid teeth.
A gentleman must be extremely
cautious when making his first
purchases lest he appear horribly
arriviste. He should perhaps start
gingerly by buying a selection of pipes
(briar, calabash, churchwarden, opium
etc), a mind-bogglingly well-stocked
cocktail cabinet, an impressive wardrobe
of bespoke tailoring and the largest
collection of cufflinks in Western
Europe. As his confidence grows he may
also wish to acquire more flamboyant
items such as an ocelot with a jewelencrusted collar, a set of obscene
lithographs by Félicien Rops, a clutch
of Fabergé eggs, or a small hovercraft
customised in accordance with his taste
for the Rococo.
As news of a gentleman’s new-found
wealth spreads, it is bound to ignite
feelings of envy and resentment
in others. The only realistic way of
countering this unreasonable reaction
is through a well-planned campaign of
financial inducement. Lavish parties
should be thrown featuring exotic, silkclad nautch girls, performing badgers
and troupes of amusing dwarves with
salvers of canapés affixed to their heads.
Another gift that a gentleman
might consider offering to friends and
acquaintances is treatment at an exclusive
Harley Street cosmetic surgery clinic.
This tactic will not only win the lifelong
loyalty of his plainer associates, but also
has the beneficial side effect of rendering
those around him far less visually
offensive than hitherto. Cajoling hideous
cousin Neville, for example, into being
remodelled as a young Dirk Bogarde,
or persuading the landlady of the Dog
and Duck to transform herself into the
very spit of Gina Lollobrigida could be
regarded as both a compassionate olive
branch and a commendable service to the
wider community.
With wealth comes the burden of
expectation. A man of means can hardly
be expected to perform demeaning
tasks such as buttering his own
crumpets or tying his own shoelaces.
One’s morning newspaper won’t iron
itself. A fleet of vintage Daimlers
needs maintenance. Like it or not, the
newly affluent gent will have to give
some thought to acquiring staff. It is
best to start by engaging the services
of a butler or gentleman’s gentleman
from a reputable agency. He can then
assist in the selection of a housekeeper,
chambermaid, French chef, chauffeur,
Bedouin boy-servant and postilion.
Unless one habitually travels by horsedrawn carriage, the engagement of the
last of these is not strictly speaking a
necessity, his main purpose being to
inspire envy at cocktail parties when
a gent should intone briskly, ‘I can
earnestly say that without my postilion,
life would be too, too unbearable.’
It is well known that the super-rich spend
around 90 per cent of their time on
holiday. Before planning his first vacation
as an international jetsetter, a gent should
insist that his proposed accommodation
has been fully vetted as suitable for
his requirements. Luxury hotels are
accustomed to pandering to the demands
of the obscenely wealthy and will think
nothing of rearranging rooms, installing
Jacuzzis or demolishing a wall or two to
make a stay more comfortable. To keep
staff on their toes, they should be given
challenges they can really get their teeth
into. An imaginative gent will, perhaps,
request – two weeks before arrival – that
all members of staff must speak only
in Mandarin, while at the same time
demanding the services of an interpreter
so that he can understand what the devil
they are all going on about; or maybe,
after his arrival, he will call down to
reception, insisting that the entire room
be rotated 26 degrees to the west, the
better to appreciate the glorious rays of
the setting sun.
A queer thing will happen to a chap
after he has attained a few spondulicks.
No matter how dull or boring he
may be, how closely he resembles a
gargoyle or how flawed or asinine his
temperament, he will discover out
of the blue that he is suddenly God’s
gift to the ladies. Whereas in the past,
relations with the fairer sex may have
been an unedifying business involving
a good deal of subterfuge, boasting and
pleading, he will now experience an
entirely different problem – namely,
keeping the blighters off. A gentleman
should not allow this surfeit of
attention to turn his head; he should
soberly seek out a lady of impeccable
breeding and modesty – preferably one
whose father owns half of Berkshire –
and only then should he allow himself
the luxury of selecting an extensive
harem of speciality mistresses with
whom to while away his leisure hours.
A fellow blessed with limitless lucre
finds himself in the enviable position
of being able to plan minutely how he
will be regarded after his death. How
will he be remembered? How will the
world speak of him once he has shuffled
off this mortal coil? The atmosphere of
sentimentality that lingers after a chap’s
demise is apt to receive illicit glowing
testimonials from friends and enemies
alike of how he was ‘the finest of men’,
‘a great humanitarian’, or – at the very
worst – ‘a bit of a character’. In actual
fact, the genuinely decadent gentleman
will shudder at the thought of such
bland sentiments and will be keen to
preserve his reputation as a hell-raiser,
Satanist and rake. He should make sure
that he bequeaths enough evidence
in letters, hair-raising journals and
photographs of his depravities at the
Hellfire Club to leave the world in no
doubt that he lived his life on a par with
the Marquis de Sade, at the very least.
45
Cutler and GroSs
issue 3
Making
our
way
home
As Cutler and Gross opens its London atelier, Simon Crompton considers the
state of the eyewear industry and the enduring significance of craftsmanship and
materials in the production of frames
47
w w w. c u t l e r a n d g r o s s . c o m
A
pparently, the latest thing in modern security equipment is smoke bombs; as
soon as an alarm goes off, these devices fill the entire building with smoke.
No one can see anything, so no one can steal anything. The intruders have
little option but to stumble back the way they came and make a run for it.
Cutler and Gross’s new atelier in west London might seem like an odd place to
be fitted with smoke bombs: two floors of a fairly anonymous building in Neasden
occupied by a handful of designers, developers and engineers. There is some valuable
glasses-making equipment, but that’s not the reason for the security. The really
important things are the prototypes.
The new atelier opened in February this year and brings together the best elements
of Cutler and Gross design. The first Cutler and Gross shop opened in Knightsbridge
in 1969, and the Italian production facility was established in 2007.
‘Italians are wonderful craftsmen and they are obsessive about what they do,’
says Majid Mohammadi, CEO of Cutler and Gross, ‘though they’re perhaps not as
passionate about management’. As an example, he recalls a moment during his career
as a chartered accountant when he walked past a roomful of Italians having a meeting.
‘Everyone was screaming at each other, trying to make themselves heard. One guy was
even standing on the table, stamping his foot, but no one was paying any attention.’
Majid values Italian craftsmen for their focus, which makes them great technicians.
But London has arguably the brightest design minds in the world, so senior Italian staff
will work in rotation at the London atelier, helping to bring practical solutions to the
new design ideas their British colleagues are coming up with. Members of the London
team will also visit Italy to learn more about how glasses are made.
‘That cross-pollination is crucial to a brand like ours, which needs to remain
innovative yet produce wearable, timeless designs,’ says Majid. ‘Only when a designer
sees the production process does he realise why certain things are made a certain way.’
Adding a fraction of a millimetre to the thickness of an arm, for example, can make a
big difference to how well a frame wears over time.
The centrality of this production ethic is prominently illustrated on the staircase
of the new atelier. Forty different frames are displayed up the stairs, each frozen after
one of the forty stages involved in making a pair of Cutler and Gross glasses. So every
time a designer goes to their desk, they will be reminded of the hand-polishing or the
way the company logo is buried in the arm of a frame.
‘A direct connection to the item and the process is important,’ says Majid. ‘Often
photography is too artistic, and distances you from the object. We want staff to feel an
intimate relationship with the production.’ Ascending the stairs is also metaphorical –
staff witness the gradual development of a Cutler and Gross frame from a rough piece
of acetate into a work of art.
Cutler and GroSs
issue 3
The range of
Cutler and
Gross glasses
will expand
considerably with
the innovations
expected to come
out of the new
atelier
Stuck in the middle
Cutler and Gross is an oddball in the eyewear industry. Most producers fall into one of two
camps: small artisans and mass producers. But Cutler and Gross is somewhere in between.
Every big fashion brand outsources the production – and often the design – of
its glasses. Many turn to China and one of the big conglomerates like Luxottica, a
manufacturer that takes some time and a decent amount of money coming up with a
style, makes a mould and prints out hundreds of thousands of pairs.
Injection-moulded glasses can’t be heated and adjusted to fit in the same way
that a handmade pair can be, and they will not be hand polished, so any scratches
and scrapes cannot be buffed out; they are there to stay. Some very good glasses are
made in China – indeed, some very good copies of Cutler and Gross designs are made
in China (hence the prototype security protection at the new atelier). But fashion
brands expect you to want a new pair in two years; they are not designed to last longer.
At the other end of the scale, there are still artisans in Italy, France and particularly
Japan that hand make frames. They are unique and often highly original, but their
small scale necessarily drives up their prices. Even with slightly larger companies, that
remains a problem.
48
49
w w w. c u t l e r a n d g r o s s . c o m
Although Cutler and Gross makes thousands of frames a year, this is nothing
compared to the millions churned out for the mass market of trend-driven sunglasses.
Each Cutler and Gross frame takes four weeks to make, and their individually crafted
nature means there is a higher proportion of wastage. ‘When the hinges are screwed
in by hand, part of the frame might be scratched. So then it has to go back to be
polished again. You do that enough times and there will be a few that have to go in
the bin,’ says Majid.
Perhaps more unusual than Cutler and Gross’s size is its Italian production. Until
five years ago, the frames were made in several factories in France, Italy and Japan. Then
the company took the opportunity to buy a bigger facility in Cadore, the ‘eyewear
valley’ of Italy. ‘That was a game changer for us,’ says Majid. ‘It finally put everything
in one place and enabled us to exert far greater control over the production.’
Control is a running theme at Cutler and Gross, which does its own photo shoots,
marketing and – most unusually in the eyewear industry – distribution. Cutler and
Gross never has sales; its customers understand the luxury market and buy into the
price point that such exclusivity commands.
A big catalogue getting bigger
The archive of Cutler and Gross frames stands at over 1,000, multiplied by four when
taking into account alternative colours and materials. A fraction of that is in constant
production, while the vintage selection is available exclusively in Cutler and Gross
shops and from the brand’s own website.
Startlingly for a company of their size, it will also readily make bespoke pairs,
varying just the colour or the fundamental shape of the frame itself. As with many areas
of Italian manufacturing such as suits and other menswear, this bespoke or made-tomeasure service is enabled by the fact that all the glasses are created individually. There
are plenty of Cutler and Gross customers who are prepared to invest in an exclusive
design, and who will happily wait for their frames should certain materials need to be
specially acquired.
The range of Cutler and Gross glasses will expand considerably with the
innovations expected to come out of the new atelier. Precursors include models where
two or three layers of acetate have been cut at different levels to leave a textured surface
on the front of the frame. One example, which recreates part of a Piet Mondrian
painting, shouts ‘rock star’.
Another creative development is the Precious Metal Collection, for which Cutler
and Gross employs palladium and silver – as well as 18-carat gold, which gives an
unexpectedly warm and luxurious feel to the frame. And, along with many others
in the industry, the company is working with materials like titanium. ‘It’s all about
quality though, that’s the important thing,’ says Majid. ‘Our normal steel is more
expensive than the titanium most people use.’
He dismisses decorative options, like adding diamonds to a frame. ‘We want to do
something more original, to push boundaries. Someone recently said that the reason
they loved Cutler and Gross was because the brand is so strong; that if we were doing
something, everyone would assume it was the best new thing. He said we could make
glasses out of cork and everyone would follow. I don’t think we’ll ever go that far, but
we certainly want to be innovative.’
With the potential for such game-changing innovation, perhaps smoke bombs are
a sensible choice after all.
50
The Precious Metal
Collection employs
palladium and silver
– as well as 18-carat
gold, which gives an
unexpectedly warm
and luxurious feel to
the frame
shop at pollini.com
www. c u t l e r andg r o s s . com
Cutler and GroSs
issue 3
Cutler and Gross celebrate Elton John’s 40th Anniversary of the
Rocket Man concert, which was sponsored by Puyi Optical and
held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in
December 2012.
Left to Right: Jeffery Yau, Elton John, Margaret Yau
and Majid Mohammadi
Last month in Tokyo, Cutler and Gross celebrated their
collaboration with photographer Jay Carroll at an exhibition
of his work entitled One Trip Pass. Carroll’s images capture
a variety of the creative inhabitants of California’s Bay Area,
and individuals were styled using C&G eyewear.
Cutler and Gross held their Surrealist themed Christmas party at
The Scotch, London in November 2012.
Above: Ghostpoet
Right: Jordan Gene Bowen, Monica Chong and Duggie Fields
Bottom left: Emma Witten and Luke Waller
Bottom right: David Wood and Viktoria Modesta
Photography by Jay Carroll
Life
through
a lens
What’s been happening in the world of Cutler and Gross …
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter too.
www.facebook.com/pages/Cutler-and-Gross
twitter.com/cutlerandgross
54
55
www. c u t l e r andg r o s s . com
You originally studied at Chelsea School of
Art and St Martins School of Art – how did
you become a magazine editor?
I was very lucky. In 1982 I bumped into a
photographer who was doing some work for
i-D magazine and the editor, Terry Jones,
rang me up and basically offered me a job. It
saved me from the dole office and gave me
a career, so I owe everything to Terry Jones.
I then spent the eighties working for and
editing style magazines, most of the nineties
working for newspapers, and then started
working for GQ – which is like a perfect
combination of both.
You’ve been at GQ for over a decade.
How has magazine publishing changed
during that time?
It’s changed enormously. Ten to fifteen
years ago you had what used to be called
‘lads’ mags’. It’s great that that sort of
reductive down-market version of the
men’s magazine, kick-started by the
launch of Loaded twenty years ago, has
disappeared. There are few big commercial
men’s magazines left, but interestingly
there are lots more men’s fashion
magazines popping up.
Is that because more men are taking
fashion more seriously?
Definitely. Men no longer have any qualms
about shopping for clothes. There’s been
a real generational shift. Menswear is
such a huge business now, which it wasn’t
necessarily ten years ago.
What’s behind that growth?
It’s partly because today’s young designers
have a better business sense than ever. You
can speak to a designer fresh out of college
and they’ll have more of an understanding
of how to run a small business now than
they would have had maybe ten, twenty
or 30 years ago. Fantastic creativity and
a good business brain don’t always come
in the same person. I think that the most
important thing that’s happened in the
last few years – particularly in London – is
that we’ve taken the pejorative out of the
word ‘creativity’. In the past, London was
seen as somewhere where there was great
creativity but not great business sense;
that’s no longer the case. And London is
the home of menswear.
You’ve recently returned from Milan Fashion
Week and Paris Fashion Week. What
collections have impressed you?
Photo by Richard Young/Rex Features
I’d have to say that London Collections:
Men, which happened three weeks before
Milan and Paris, had a greater diversity of
designers. You have everything from Savile
Row to emerging designers and big brands
like Burberry and Paul Smith. There’s
more diversity and variety at the shows in
London; they’re just more interesting.
What do the next ten years have in store
for magazine publishing, with the advance
of digital technology?
It’s hard to predict. We are in a climate
where people are moving from horses to
motorcars, and there are some people who
will do it well and some people who will
do it less well. Henry Ford once said that
if you’d asked the public what they wanted
then, they’d have said faster horses. We’re
in a state of complete flux at the moment
and there will be winners and losers.
You have written a David Bowie biography
and are famously a fan, so what did you
make of his surprise comeback?
It’s an incredible record. It comforts all of
us who thought that Bowie would never
do anything creative again. No one knew
about it, so it’s rather a wonderful coup
in this age where everybody’s supposed to
know everything. Like many people from
my generation, I was obsessed with Bowie
when I was younger. I still am obsessed
with him. He’s had more of an effect on
popular culture in the last 40 years than
any other musician.
Do you have a favourite Bowie song?
It changes every five minutes, but ‘Drive-in
Saturday’ is one of my favourites.
What else have you been enjoying recently?
I’m currently writing a book about Elvis
Presley, so I’m immersed in the past at the
moment. But Jake Bugg is a fantastic young
singer songwriter. He’s my pick for the top.
Have there been any trends that you’ve
either really liked or really disliked over
the past decade?
I do find grunge rather boring. It feels
terribly old fashioned, to my mind.
Dylan Jones, editor of GQ, offers his perspective on magazine publishing,
men’s fashion and David Bowie
A Gentleman
for all Seasons
56
In t e r v i ew — R h ys G r i f f i t h s