The Rake June 2018 - Issue 58

I grow old. To quote from one of my favourite Rake contributors, Warren de Montague, “like the semi-desiccated grape Corvina, just one of the multiple varietals blended together in the palimpsest elixir that is Amarone, I grow more wrinkled but intense and potent”. O.K., maybe not, but the truth is that as someone trying to stave off the ravages of time as he rapidly reaches his mid-century mark, I try my best to remain relevant. As such, I’ve adopted Instagram as a communication tool. Though what you don’t see is that I am in almost constant pain. My back hurts. My legs hurt. My shoulders are contorted in a rictus of misery and my glutei maximi feel like they are frozen in agony. Anyone following my Instagram stories knows that…

I recommend that all of you play me at poker — in fact, any game with a stake. If you hear I’m involved, buy in, as I am completely rubbish and greatly admire the patience and technical skill required to succeed in such pursuits. I once won at the races: I put £20 on a horse at 20-1; I liked the colours and the name, and I got lucky. What followed can only be described as a momentous thrill that addicts chase for the rest of their lives, risking — and often losing — their livelihoods in the process. So I did what any proud Englishman should do — cash-in, and not go near a bookmaker’s again. Actually, this has no historical accuracy when it comes to the grand British…

MICHAEL SCHWARTZ Michael Schwartz is a Floridian turned New Yorker, and a photographer. He began his career in the fashion industry as an agent for models. While developing and maintaining the careers of some leading models, Michael had a desire to get back to his lifelong goal of capturing still and moving images. Since changing career he has not looked back, having shot for several iconic brands, including Hugo Boss, Victoria’s Secret, Vogue and GQ. Michael lives in New York with his girlfriend and his badass Pomeranian called Biggie. In this issue Michael photographed Ed Harris for the cover and accompanying story (page 82). CHRISTOPHER MODOO Christopher Modoo is our Sartorial Guru. He has more than 25 years’ experience in classic menswear, and has designed collections for contemporary Savile Row tailors Chester Barrie…

The issue of Life magazine that hit the newsstands on July 6, 1959 bore the image of an almost excruciatingly handsome man, then 27 years old, staring into the middle distance: dash-of-salt, tousled hair; lips puckered rakishly; and eyes fixed in a gentle squint towards some unseen object of conquest (a cricketing nemesis’s middle stump, one might assume, given the raised right arm and cream V-neck sweater, had the man in question hailed from the other side of the Atlantic). A strap at the bottom of the cover referred to this enigmatic Adonis as “actor, athlete, artist”, which now comes across as a rather cursory summary. Had the cover been published in the latter stages of Gardner McKay’s life, the magazine may have needed to accommodate other accomplishments, including sailor, basketball…

Asterisked items available at www.TheRake.com I have been spending some time in Tuscany lately — primarily in Florence a couple of times a year, in particular when the men’s fashion world descends on the city for Pitti Uomo. Florence (and all of Tuscany, for that matter) is one of those magical places, but it always seems to be filled with more foreign tourists than Italians. More often I hear English or Japanese when I am walking down the street rather than Italian. I was delighted to hear, then, that there was a place on the coast that still felt undiscovered. Well, to be clear, it has been discovered by Italians. Tuscan insiders, old Florentine families like the Corsinis, and the fashion elite have been going to a place called Maremma for years,…

“The Child,” Wordsworth wrote, “is father of the Man.” This apparently oxymoronic truth explains much about Taki Theodoracopulos. As a schoolchild in America after the war, and while his fellow pupils were preparing for life at university, Taki was reading for the university of life, learning Tender Is the Night and A Moveable Feast by heart. “As soon as school was over, I headed for Paris, the south of France and the Alps in hot pursuit of Dick Diver and Papa Hemingway,” he says. Thus it was at an American prep school that he plotted the coordinates of one of the most colourful voyages through life of the last 60 or so years, during which time he has become both Hemingway and Fitzgerald while remaining very much himself: war correspondent,…