Tabla de contenidos para November/December 2019 en Esquire UK

RICHARD BENSON A former editor of The Face, Benson’s first book, the family memoir The Farm, was a number one bestseller, shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award and serialised as a Radio Four Book of the Week. His follow-up, The Valley, won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. For this Art and Culture issue, he turns his attention to the seemingly unstoppable rise of the podcast, talking to the key players behind one of the least expected media success stories of recent years. An Esquire contributing editor, Benson also writes for The Daily Telegraph. ALASDAIR MCLELLAN Arguably the most exciting and in-demand portrait and fashion photographer and filmmaker currently working, McLellan brings his very British sensibility and aesthetic — tough yet tender — to magazines including Vogue, Love…

Were someone to ask you to close your eyes and imagine a sports watch, a swivelling Art Deco design on a luxury leather strap may not be the first thing that comes to mind. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Reverso is slim, elegant and classically proportioned. But when it debuted in 1931 it was the original sports watch, its flippable face a clever solution to protect it on the wrists of polo players whacking a ball about in British Empire India. These days it’s considered a dress model, the exposed back an open invitation to personalise it with an engraving. Yet it retains its sporty DNA, prominently so in 2019’s Reverso Tribute Small Seconds with its burgundy dial and matching Casa Fagliano strap from the Argentinian bootmakers responsible for equestrian footwear. It is also…

Opening day of the Venice Film Festival is the Glorious Twelfth of Oscar season. Three of the last five Best Picture winners were first shown here and six weeks after the first-night gala, after subsequent festivals at Telluride, Toronto and New York, the fullest picture possible is painted of the next year’s Academy Awards. Noah Baumbach, the writer and director of Marriage Story, the big show on day two this year, is in his Venetian hotel room, directing Interview Story, laying out the beats of our conversation. “‘At this point, Baumbach paused to argue with the boy who had brought the wrong drink for him.’ You can use that as colour. Or something like that.” He is apologising in advance for forthcoming interruptions as various essentials are couriered to his…

Should you wish to challenge the grand traditions of film and television soundtracks — the soaring strings, the thumping timpani, the heavenly choirs — you probably could not get much farther from the status quo than recording one on a nuclear reactor. And yet, for the much-lauded HBO series Chernobyl, this is exactly what the 37-year-old Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir did. And yes, to be clear, that’s “on”, not “in”. “Music is a very physical experience, and I need to understand things physically to be able to create the narrative for them,” says Guðnadóttir, who lives in Berlin with her seven-year-old son, “so I went to the same plant where the series was shot [Ignalina in Lithuania] with a score producer and a field recording engineer, and we spent hours…

To the red carpet at New York’s Met Gala, that annual coulrophobic’s nightmare of an event, where we find Joe Jonas looking like a “camp torero” and “totally nailing” nu-black tie. Here’s Harry Styles in a sheer, pussy bow blouse, Cody Fern “getting on board the cowboy trend” by painting the bottom half of his face in cobalt blue, and Benedict Cumberbatch, head-to-toe in vanilla cream, perhaps channelling Tom Wolfe’s more flamboyant younger brother. And Lewis Hamilton. The five times Formula One racing champ has decided to dress for the gala, apparently without irony, as Derek Zoolander, complete with op-art headband. His is a cruelly humiliating ensemble that had your reporter choking on his orange mocha frappuccino while quoting Mugatu’s memorable rant: “Doesn’t anybody notice this? I feel like I’m…

There’s a brilliant board book for small children by Nick Sharratt called Ketchup on Your Cornflakes?. Obviously, Amazon haven’t enabled their “Look Inside” feature for this title, because that would instantly devalue any copyright, however, saving Mr Sharratt’s finer financial feelings, I still regard what follows as fair usage: the pages of the book are horizontally divided so as to create various pairings of bold, colourful illustrations and equally strident captions. Thus, “Do you like ketchup…” is paired with “…on your cornflakes?” And then if you turn the top half of the page, it’s replaced with “Do you like custard… on your cornflakes?” Turn again, and the troubling juxtaposition becomes the familiar coupling: “Do you like custard on your apple pie?” Having had many children to amuse in my life…

MY MOTHER’S FAVOURITE JOKE, AND STOP ME if you’ve heard it, is this. What’s pink and wrinkled and lies at the bottom of the ocean? Moby’s dick. She told it to me when I was maybe six or seven and it’s fair to say that on just about every possible level, I didn’t get it. I could sense, though, that it referred to something mysterious. Monstrous. Epic. And (paging Dr Freud!) I never forgot it. A decade-and-a-half later I read Moby-Dick, or The Whale for the first time and, what do you know, my hunch was right. Herman Melville’s 1851 masterpiece is mysterious. Monstrous. Epic. It’s the kind of book that, once read, stays with you forever. You see its metaphors and messages everywhere; you get wrapped in its cosmic…

BEANIE HATS WIRELESS EARBUDS MUSTARDS WINTER BOOTS DRESS WATCHES JEANS RINGS VINYL SOUNDTRACKS QUILTED JACKETS…

A ACNE STUDIOS acnestudios.com ALEXANDER MCQUEEN alexandermcqueen.com ALICE MADE THIS alicemadethis.com ALIGHIERI alighieri.co.uk APPLE apple.com B BAMFORD WATCH DEPARTMENT bamfordwatchdepartment.com BANG & OLUFSEN bang-olufsen.com BEATS beatsbydre.com BELSTAFF belstaff.co.uk BENNETT WINCH bennettwinch.com BOSS boss.com BOTTEGA VENETA bottegaveneta.com BREGUET breguet.com BRUNELLO CUCINELLI brunellocucinelli.com BUDD LONDON buddshirts.co.uk BURBERRY burberry.com C CANALI canali.com CARTIER cartier.co.uk CERTINA certina.com CHURCH’S church-footwear.com CLEER cleeraudio.com COLMAN’S colmans.co.uk CONNOLLY connollyengland.com CROCKET & JONES crockettandjones.com D DAYLESFORD daylesford.com DIOR dior.com DOLCE & GABBANA dolcegabbana.com F FORTNUM & MASON fortnumandmason.com G GANT gant.co.uk GIORGIO ARMANI armani.com GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL glashuette-original.com GRENSON grenson.com GUCCI gucci.com H HAMILTON hamiltonwatch.com HAWKSMILL hawksmill.com HERMÈS hermes.com J JAEGER-LECOULTRE jaeger-lecoultre.com JBL uk.jbl.com K KVADRAT kvadrat.dk L LEVI’S VINTAGE CLOTHING levi.com LOCK & CO lockhatters.co.uk LONGINES longines.co.uk LOUIS VUITTON louisvuitton.com M MARGARET HOWELL margarethowell.co.uk MASTER & DYNAMIC masterdynamic.co.uk MONTBLANC…

It is an intriguing dress, if you can call it that. It could be a cape, or maybe a poncho. Light reflects from its surface, a shimmering, translucent silver with oil-slick pinks and golds seemingly woven into the fabric. Named “Iridescence” it was designed by The Fabricant, a recently founded Dutch fashion house. In May this year, it was bought by a Canadian tech executive called Richard Ma for £7,800 at auction. A gift for his wife, Rachel. Rather than being made from lace, silk, cotton, polyester or any other fabric, natural or synthetic, it is a dress formed out of pixels. A computer-generated garment that is superimposed onto a photograph of its “wearer”. If its creators and a growing band of designers, consumers and professional forward-thinkers are to be…

In the seductive world of Japanese aesthetic ideals, “shibui” describes beauty in a simple, inconspicuous way. Unlike “wabi-sabi” that relates to beauty in imperfection, an object with shibui is clean, simple and pleasing. It could be a chair, bowl or high-performance camera that fits in a pocket and looks great on a Noguchi coffee table. The 11th iteration of Ricoh’s cult GR series since 1996, the upgraded GR III is true to the range’s four founding principles: high-quality images, quick response, portability and evolution. Debuting back then as a film point-and-shoot, the GR III has a 24.24 megapixel lens (up from 16 in the GR II), APS-C superfast sensor and fully touchscreen interface to easily switch from shooting in high-contrast black and white (or Instagram-friendly sepia) to Wi-Fi photo transfer…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH Mercedes-Benz X-Class. First of a new kind. Looking long-term In our longevity panel, three long-time founders discussed what it takes to stay relevant, successful and sane over a sustained period. Frieze co-founder Matthew Slotover, a self-confessed “25-year overnight success”, explained how a mentality of “constant improvement” will pay off and extolled the merits of “amazing mentors — it’s super important”. Jeremy King of restaurant masters Corbin & King has seen the capital’s food and drink scene change beyond recognition, while remaining at the top: “the biggest enemies are complacency and arrogance.” Tom Marchant of luxury travel brand Black Tomato has also seen competition increase but explained “if you spend your whole time looking at competition, you’re never really going to innovate yourself”. The secrets of successful start-ups…

There are many things the British are renowned for – a stiff upper lip, our ‘keep calm and carry on’ demeanour and an unrivalled knack for queueing among them. But there is another, less desirable cliché that continues to blight our good name around the world – and it’s not our penchant for a cup of tea. It’s our supposed lack of oral hygiene. As synonymous with Britain as Stonehenge, and nearly as gappy, our gnashers have long made us a target for ribbing (Austin Powers, anyone?). Admittedly, our dentistry did once leave a lot to be desired: in the Sixties the average teenager had already lost six of his teeth, and during the Seventies one in four adults had none left at all. Thankfully we’ve come a long way…

He stands alone in the stygian gloom, one man against the urban scum. The sleeves are torn from his army jacket, his face hidden by a jet black helmet. Cradled in his muscular arms is a flamethrower, aimed at the camera, spewing out a rage of fire. The Exterminator. “If you’re lying,” growls the tag line, “I’ll be back.” I had no doubt about that. He’d be back for certain and in the most head-cracking, eye-gouging, knee-bustingly violent way possible. Or so I hoped. I dreamed of plucking The Exterminator off the shelf at Forward Video, Corsham, Wiltshire, waiting as they went out back, found the tape, placed it in the bland, generic sleeve wearing its blood-red “18” certificate like a badge of honour. I’d jump back onto my Raleigh…

1. I JUST WANTED TO DO RADIO WITHOUT SOME DOUCHEBAG TELLING ME WHAT TO SAY When, in January this year, Spotify announced that it was spending $340m (£307m) to buy two small podcast companies, it confirmed what a lot of people in tech had suspected for a while: podcasting had hit the big time. Back in September 2018, the multi-billiondollar entertainment conglomerate iHeartMedia had bought podcast publisher Stuff Media for $55m (£49m), and at the end of 2017, Google had quietly acquired the Spotify-for-podcasts-style app 60dB for an undisclosed amount. The latest Spotify deal now sent tech bloggers into a frenzy of next big thing-ing, and in June this year, as if to justify the hype, Spotify revealed it would also be making podcasts with Barack and Michelle Obama’s company…

Fortior Fortior is a London-based, minimalist high-end clothing brand. We take a personal yet practical approach to men’s fashion with premium clothes that let you live your day-to-day life in comfort and style. We incorporate ready-to-wear luxury fashion and bespoke accessories that are selected and designed with you in mind. Pictured below is the Cuban Stripe Shirt. With contrasting vertical patterns on the front and back, this is so much more than just a shirt. Crafted from polyester fabric with a front button closure and short sleeves, it’s lightweight, cool and features a camp collar for a relaxed feel. Retailing at £39.99. fortiorlondon.co.uk Misremembered landscapes Matt Jukes' large-scale, one-of-a-kind monotypes on paper are misremembered landscapes and nearly forgotten memories. Each work explores colour and texture as the layers build over…

Lucian Freud, unlike his grandfather Sigmund Freud, did not indulge in introspection. He was interested in paint itself, its messiness, its texture. Flesh interested him, and the human gaze. Rather than finding the soul of his sitter, he was hunting, as he worked, for the drama he could create by capturing the contours and surfaces of the body. His paintings, including his self-portraits, give the impression of immediacy and roughness, while also being filled with meticulous and precise judgment, created with brushwork that is alert to light and suggests essence. Part of the excitement of looking at one of Freud’s portraits is the mixture of spontaneity in the way the paint is applied and a sense of fierce control in the composition and the vast quantity of detailed work in…

In retail terms, Bond Street (New and Old) is still London’s spraunciest thoroughfare, and Louis Vuitton has a prime spot on the corner of Clifford Street, which runs east to Savile Row. London was home to the boitier’s first outpost outside Paris: in 1885, Georges Vuitton, son of the founder, opened a flagship at 189 Oxford Street, but by 1889 he’d deemed the street to be more of a route to, rather than a destination for, luxury. How prescient he was. Next came a more salubrious spot on The Strand, opposite Charing Cross, but after just a year he moved, finally, to Bond Street, where Louis Vuitton has maintained premises ever since. Since mid-2018, the corner frontage has been shrouded in a vast hoarding secreting the extensive refurbishment within. (The…

It’s my first day aboard the MV Oceana, one of the P&O fleet of cruise vessels Rob Brydon advertises on TV with the slogan, “This is the life”. Although there’s still a week of April left, I’m ready to shout, “Mayday!” I hesitate to use the word “Kafka-esqe” — that favourite cliché of people who’ve never read Kafka — but wherever I wander on this maritime monster always seems to lead back to the same dance floor full of senior citizens learning to salsa. I’m following the well-worn path, or sealane, of authors seeking to escape the solitude of our profession by giving talks on cruise ships. As the Oceana sails the Adriatic, I’ll be holding forth about The Beatles, other celebrities I met during years as a Sunday Times…

THE COTTAGE WAS JUST AS I REMEMBERED. The yellow door and narrow hallway. The same small four main rooms with the kitchen at the back issuing onto a view of the Dungeness Nuclear Power Station. The wood panelling and shelves of books, plus the assemblages made from objects washed up on his promontory of shingle. The only difference was the extension at the back that betrayed the presence of current occupation: comfortable sofas, a coffee table and a modern CD player. Derek Jarman had left this house, Prospect Cottage, a long time ago. The last time I’d been here was for his funeral in February 1994, but on this perfect mid-summer day all was business. I was there with representatives from the Keith Collins Will Trust, established by Jarman’s longtime…