Table of contents for September/October 2020 in Esquire UK

Photographer SIMON EMMETT’s long list of subjects for Esquire covers includes Idris Elba, Tony Blair and Michael Caine. This issue, he trains his cameras on Josh O’Connor, star of Netflix’s The Crown, for the magazine’s first photo shoot since lockdown. As well as being one of Britain’s leading portrait photographers, Emmett is an acclaimed film-maker. He is currently finishing a documentary about the rock band, The Darkness. ANDREW O’HAGAN is among the UK’s leading writers of literary fiction and journalism. An Esquire editor-at-large, his work also appears in The London Review of Books and The New York Times. His new novel, Mayflies, excerpted in this issue, is published by Faber on 3 September. Award-winning writer MARK O’CONNELL’s first piece for Esquire is a column for our Journal section about a…

When Guy Bove, product director at Tag Heuer, came to mark the brand’s 160th anniversary with special editions of its Carrera watch, he wanted to achieve a couple of things. “We’ve got two different messages,” he says. “First of all, a wake-up call for people who don’t necessarily know about Carrera. And then we have creative applications, for the aficionados.” An all-silver version of the chronograph came out in June, designed to be “outside of any time period” and to satisfy the first objective. This was followed in July by the “Montreal-inspired” red, blue and white version, a limited edition based on the white Heuer Montreal from 1972, a long-discontinued watch that should satisfy the second. There are also four new editions, with dials in blue, green, black, and black…

Breitling’s Chronomat dates back to the mid-Eighties. Launched at a time when skinny digital watches were all the rage, the formidable mechanical chronograph was proudly out of step. A mixture of pilot and dive watch styles, it was born out of a collaboration with the Italian Air Force aerobatics team known as Frecce Tricolori. With its weird name, flat case and chunky screw-on markers at noon, 15, 30 and 45 minutes, the Chronomat was unlike anything else Breitling had produced. The rationale behind these “rider tabs” was that the bezel could be converted into a countdown timer, once they were unscrewed and swapped out. How many people actually did so — and here Breitling sensibly recommended taking it to one of its official boutiques — is a moot point. In…

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Unless you somehow avoided lockdown, you’ll have likely been enthralled by the superhuman feats on display in The Last Dance, the Michael Jordan/Chicago Bulls Netflix documentary that was watched by tens of millions around the world this summer. While the dunks, crossovers and locker room drama made for compelling television, it was the clothes that truly captured the imagination of style-watchers. Short shorts, sporty sunglasses, hoop earrings and souvenir jackets worn with superstar swagger. It might be 20-plus years on, but the late Nineties look is bigger than ever. Oakley has brought back the Eye Jacket and M Frame shades rocked by Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman; The North Face has released a block-colour-heavy collection inspired by the decade’s big mountain skiers, and Nike has seen great success with…

“The Lipstick Index” is a phrase coined by Leonard Lauder, chairman of the board at Estée Lauder, the cosmetics company: one he used to describe increased sales of cosmetics during the 2001 recession. That autumn, lipstick sales in America grew 11 per cent: the theory being that during tough times, women forgo big ticket items for smaller, everyday luxuries. Lipstick, then, became an economic barometer. Recession looms over us once again but don’t expect high-fives at the cosmetics companies this time round: there’s presumably less call for lipstick when you’re wearing a face mask. Still, other “recession fashion” findings from downturns in 1982 and 2010 are more nuanced than you might expect. Shoppers certainly displayed more caution than usual but it wasn’t all sackcloth and ashes. Mid-market shops selling replacement…

Time was when a style icon needed to tick certain boxes: he had to have a square jaw, piercing eyes, look great in a white T-shirt and drive cars really fast, while smoking. Actually, whatever he was doing — fighting bad guys, chasing women, swilling cocktails — he had to be able to do it while smoking. Fast-forward to 2020 and a new generation of style icon has arrived. He bears not even a passing resemblance to his brooding forebears. There’s Shia LaBeouf, atypically handsome with an art school layer of dust and scuzz: torn tracksuit bottoms stuffed into his socks; obscure crab shack T-shirt and retro dad hat, backpack slung across an arm. There’s Jonah Hill with his Regular Joe appeal, albeit with extra tats and pink hair. There’s Timothée…

THERE’S AN INSIDE JOKE in Melbourne real estate circles that the key to selling an expensive house in the Australian city is to make sure a bottle of Aesop’s signature hand wash, in its distinctive brown livery, is always in clear view. If a prospective buyer remains unmoved by mid-century furniture, marble kitchen worktops and floor-to-ceiling windows, then a sweet-smelling container of vetiver soap in the bathroom will, undoubtedly, seal the deal. Fancy Australian hand wash and estate agent humour aside — and, yes, both sound like oxymorons — there is an increasing intersection between the worlds of luxury grooming and aspirational interiors, fuelled in part by the coronavirus (lots more time to spend at home… and washing your hands) but also, apparently, a burgeoning desire, among men as much…

A A-COLD-WALL* a-cold-wall.com ACQUA DI PARMA acquadiparma.com ADSUM adsumnyc.com AIMÉ LEON DORE aimeleondore.com ALEX ORSO alexorso.com ALIGHIERI JEWELLERY alighieri.co.uk ALLIES OF SKIN alliesofskin.com AMI amiparis.com ARPENTEUR arpenteur.fr AUSTIN AUSTIN austinaustinorganic.com B BALENCIAGA balenciaga.com BARENA VENEZIA barenavenezia.com BAXTER OF CALIFORNIA baxterofcalifornia.com BEAST shop-beast.com BIRKENSTOCK birkenstock.com BLANCPAIN blancpain.com BLEUE BURNHAM bleueburnham.com BODE bodenewyork.com BOTTEGA VENETA bottegaveneta.com BRAIN DEAD wearebraindead.com BREITLING breitling.com BRUNELLO CUCINELLI brunellocucinelli.com BULLFROG bullfrogbarbershop.com BURBERRY uk.burberry.com C AFE DU CYCLISTE cafeducycliste.com CANALI canali.com CASABLANCA casablancaparis.com CASIO casio.co.uk CHURCH’S church-footwear.com CONVERSE converse.com CROCKETT & JONES crockettandjones.com D DIOR dior.com DIPTYQUE diptyqueparis.com DOLCE & GABBANA dolcegabbana.com DRAKE’S drakes.com DS & DURGA dsanddurga.com DUNHILL dunhill.com E EMPORIO ARMANI armani.com END CLOTHING endclothing.com F FENDI fendi.com G GIORGIO ARMANI armani.com GOGORO EEYO eeyo.bike GUCCI gucci.com H HAECKELS haeckels.co.uk HEATH heathlondon.co.uk HERMÈS hermes.com J JAEGER-LECOULTRE…

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF IT IS A MEASURE, NO DOUBT, OF MY NEAR-TOTAL absence of emotional intelligence, my frightening out-of-touchness with my own feelings, that, for all the vicissitudes of the past months, much of the time I remain convinced that I am unaffected, an island of insensitivity in a sea of suffering. Then I catch sight of my feet. At the risk of sounding like the froth-mouthed bumpkin from The Fast Show — look it up quick, kids, before they take it down — this summer I have been mostly wearing a pair of Nike Tailwind running shoes. They have the retro Nike waffle tread on the sole, while the upper is nylon and suede, in competing shades of cry-for-help burgundy. They have a tangerine swoosh on one side, and a royal…

“Twenty-eight is really the death of youth,” says Samuel Ross, 29-year-old founder and creative director of the clothing label A-Cold-Wall*. “My last frivolous purchase was this necklace, and now it’s just bond shares and ETFs [exchange-traded funds].” Those who have followed Ross’s career to date will not be surprised by the designer’s attitude: his is a serious-minded approach. A-Cold-Wall* is regarded by many in the fashion industry as the exemplar of a modern brand, Ross the embodiment of a modern designer. It is a commercial business, selling products; an art happening defined by its occasionally unsettling live fashion shows; and a platform for Ross’s vocal stance on social inequality, all rolled into one. Founded in 2015, the company’s high-low fusion of technical sportswear, utility clothing and classic menswear has met…

Small but mighty, The Pie Room is where you go in London, pre- and post-lockdown, if, funnily enough, you want a decent pie. Of course there are bountiful envelopes of buttery pastry to be found across the capital but, since its opening in 2018, The Pie Room has become regarded by many as the best in the city. Located on the side of the Holborn Dining Room, within the Rosewood London hotel, the compact workshop-cum-cookery school is led by executive chef Calum Franklin. It supplies the restaurant, also overseen by Franklin, hosts masterclasses, and can be booked for private dinners but, more than that, it is a hub of research and experimentation that draws diners from across the world, along with chefs keen to learn pastry skills, and keeps @chefcalum’s…

With its eye-catching marketing (“Feel like you’re riding a bike, not a battery”), head-turning design (your choice of “cloud blue” or “lobster orange”) and focus on agility over utility, the Eeyo 1 is a new e-bike that has more in common with a Roadster than a Raleigh. Indeed, manufacturers Gogoro call it “the sports car of e-bikes”. “It’s designed to be super-sporty,” says vice president of communications Jason Gordon. “Up to this point, e-bikes have been these cargo-haulers, for families to go to the grocery store. A lot of people want a more aggressive, fun ride.” Previously known for its colourful electric scooters, the company’s first foray into the booming electric bike market comes in two versions. The Eeyo 1 uses carbon fibre for its frame and aluminium for the…

It’s 8am on a Monday morning. You are caffeinated, breakfasted, Headspaced and caught-up on your socials. You have walked the dog / PB’d your 10k / watered your house plants / Zoomed your mother. Soon you will sit down at your desk, or your kitchen table, or on your deck chair, for a hard day’s WFH. Question: WTF are you wearing? It’s a problem many of us have faced, with varying degrees of puzzlement, over the past months, since the world went back to front and upside down, like an avant-garde sweatshirt. (An avantgarde sweatshirt? For work? Hmm… maybe not?) At Esquire, we’ve always thought hard about what to wear — for work, and play — because that’s part of our job. But even chaps who feel they have little…

It’s a long way from Savile Row but it’s an aesthetic that, in its way, is every bit as stylish, elegant and handcrafted. It is exemplified by Emily Adams Bode, the New York designer known for her one-off, handmade clothes using antique fabrics, Victorian quilts, grain sacks and more besides, crafted in her workshop/store in Chinatown. Send an email and she’ll make you a pair of cord trousers, hand-painted or embroidered (or both!) with whatever you wish. Or a matching jacket, or just the jacket, or just a T-shirt. P Johnson, is an Australian tailor with a neo-Neopolitan aesthetic who’s big in London, Sydney and New York. He’ll make you a fishing vest out of whatever material tickles your fancy. And Small Talk Studio, the one-man operation (label and workshop)…

They are worn by tennis players, obviously. Also by suburban dads on summer holidays, paired with polo shirts and New Balance. And waifish models with chunky sandals or chunkier derbys. Plus, skaters and birdwatchers, Preppies and Parisians in pinstripe trousers and penny loafers. The white sock is the people’s accessory: a cheap, accessible fashion item that’s once again increasingly prevalent and relevant. They’ve been seen beneath the trousers of teddy boys, greasers and mods, but today the white sock is an accessory for all ages, all persuasions. The most reasonable and ubiquitous are by Uniqlo, or Nike’s classic Dri-Fit. But our favourites are by Gucci, as pictured here.…

For an artist who says he likes to explore “the clutter of daily life”, you’d be right to think that the lockdown period has suited 27-year-old Louis Fratino rather well. “It’s funny that before all this started, I was starting to paint still lives, making a lot of images of objects and my interior spaces,” he says from his sunny apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “Now it will be interpreted that I’ve just been spending all my time at home. Which is true, to a degree,” he laughs, “but also kind of a coincidence.” Fratino is one of the most exciting painters to have emerged of late, though it wasn’t paintings of sourdough that first caught the art world’s attention. (And anyway, he’s avoided painting any lockdown clichés: “When you’re someone…

Occasionally, a brand will pop up claiming to have been forced to create the “perfect” white T-shirt, having been unable to find anything on the market that did the job. They can’t have been looking very hard: the white T-shirt was “perfected” 70 years ago, in the East Midlands, by Sunspel, established in Nottingham in 1860. Founder Thomas Hill’s ambition was to elevate simple, everyday clothing, especially undergarments, with luxurious fabrics. Its MO has changed little since then. Sunspel still makes simple, luxurious clothing from simple, luxurious fabrics at its Long Eaton factory. The product range is wider now; one could dress entirely in Sunspel if one so desired. And then there’s the T-shirts. Sunspel’s Q82, a classic crew-neck, first appeared in the Fifties, around the time Marlon Brando indelibly…

“He was one of the pioneers,” says Kim Jones of the late Judy Blame. “He was just a really amazing, ground-breaking person. After he died, I wanted to do a tribute to him, in Paris. I wanted it to be like a couture show, for him. The kind of thing where there wouldn’t have been a single piece left on the rack, because he would’ve taken it all home.” Jones’s autumn/winter collection for Dior is just that: a celebration of the legacy of Blame, the extraordinary British stylist, art director, jeweller, dandy, iconoclast and pop-culture provocateur, who died in 2018, at 58. Best known for his work with musicians, at crucial moments Blame styled and art-directed Boy George and Massive Attack, put Björk in mohair for the cover of her…

HOW DOES AN ADVANCED SOCIETY, wealthy, cultured and cosmopolitan, become lost? How does it become polarised by class and race, perverted by extremism, governed by the dishonest and the wicked? How does a civilisation cease to be civilised? Stefan Zweig’s autobiography, The World of Yesterday, is subtitled Memoirs of a European. It details the death of a world that occurs all of a sudden, and apparently by accident, and then the death of a second world, the replacement for the first, that happens slowly, and deliberately. “I have seen great mass ideologies grow before my eyes and spread,” Zweig writes. “Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Bolshevism in Russia, and above all the ultimate pestilence that has poisoned the flower of our European culture, nationalism in general.” Published in…

Allow us to caveat the following by saying that Rolexes, Pateks, Omegas and the like will always be our first loves. It’s just that the pool of cool watches has expanded. We’re talking about the rise of the so-called “beater” watch: an inexpensive timepiece that you’re proud to wear but it wouldn’t mean the end of the world if you left it in a locker at the gym. That is to say, it does the heavy lifting of your main Swiss squeeze and looks almost as good. A Seiko 5 Sports watch is a fine example of what we’re getting at — something stylish and well-made that doesn’t come close to breaking the bank. Timex, Swatch, Unimatic and Merci also offer serious wrist kudos for a modest price.…

BOGO n. Portmanteau term amalgamating “box” and “logo” to describe instantly recognisable brand identity, eg Supreme, North Face, Nike. Commonly used in reference to Supreme’s box logo — “bogo” — T-shirts and hoodies. DRIP, THE n. Variation on “dripping”/“dripping with”. Derived from the comical notion of a man wearing so much “ice” (diamond-studded jewellery), he is literally melting, or “got the drip”. Can also be loosely applied to any sharply attired male, jewellery-wearing or not: “Harry Styles got the drip in that rhinestone Gucci.” EXTRA adj. Now a singular, camp exclamation (rather than former use, “extra special”, “extra charge” etc). Describes anything sartorially dramatic, an outfit/person that is OTT, colourful, flamboyant: “Dude, those platform sole Rick Owens boots are extra.” Can be both compliment and arch disapproval. FIT n. What…

HAND WASH CYCLING TOPS CHAIN NECKLACES SUEDE BOOTS ROCK ’N’ ROLL BOOKS SALT ’N’ VINEGAR CRISPS…