Saturday, 22 February 2025
Thursday, 20 February 2025
Hermès’s Birkin Bag and Gucci’s Horse-Bit Loafer.
15.
Hermès’s Birkin Bag, 1984
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/t-magazine/most-influential-shoes-bags-fashion-accessories.html
The actress Jane Birkin with her namesake Hermès bag in London, 1996.Credit...Mike Daines/Shutterstock
Introduced
by Hermès in 1984, the Birkin might be the world’s most in-demand handbag, with
an origin story that’s fashion legend. Earlier that year Jean-Louis Dumas, the
French luxury house’s executive chairman, was seated next to the actress and
singer Jane Birkin on a flight from Paris to London and witnessed her straw
basket bag tumble to the floor, its contents scattering everywhere. Birkin
complained about how hard it was to find a good, practical weekend bag; the two
began exchanging ideas, and her namesake was born. Its briefcase-like design
looks simple enough, but it can take Hermès artisans from 15 to 20 hours to
hand-stitch each one. And although it was originally priced at $2,000, current
styles — which vary in size (from about 8 to just under 16 inches), color (from
classic saddle brown to bright orange) and material (from ostrich to alligator)
— can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, famously, there have been
waiting lists just for the opportunity to buy one. Last year, a similar bag showed
up on the Walmart website for less than $100. Dubbed the “Wirkin,” it sold out
in no time. — E.P.
Doonan: The
Birkin was an exclusive item that not many people knew about until the ’90s,
when it became the signifier of glamour. Suddenly, this bag, which was
relatively obscure, started showing up on every celebrity and fashion maven who
entered every room purse-first.
Bradley:
Yeah, it used to be, like, an undercover bag — the type a model would get after
having a good season. And then it was everywhere.
Doonan: It’s
interesting to note that prior to this bag’s existence, Jane Birkin carried
everything in a rudimentary, rustic basket, which is what girls used to do.
Before the handbag revolution, which happened in the ’90s and into the aughts,
hip girls used to carry their stuff in a paper bag or shopping bag. A designer
bag was [seen as too] conventional.
Kim: Its
evolution is interesting, too. Jane wore it with all those charms and ribbons
on it; that’s how that trend came about. The “purse-first” thing is so funny
because women at the time were always carrying such big bags. They preceded
you. Now it’s all about how small it can get.
7. Gucci’s Horse-Bit Loafer, 1953
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/t-magazine/most-influential-shoes-bags-fashion-accessories.html
In 1953, weeks after the death of Gucci’s founder,
Guccio Gucci, who’d started the company in 1921, three of his sons — Aldo,
Vasco and Rodolfo — traveled to Manhattan for the opening of the brand’s first
store outside of Italy. While abroad, Aldo noticed the popularity of the penny
loafer among American men and decided that Gucci should make its own version.
Rather than having a coin slot, Gucci’s leather slip-ons — which were cut, sewn
and hammered by hand — featured a horse bit, a motif introduced a few years
earlier by Guccio, who had an interest in equestrian style. Francis Ford
Coppola wore them while directing the first two “Godfather” movies in the
1970s, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art added them to its permanent
collection in the ’80s, and by the ’90s they were so ubiquitous on Wall Street
that they were known as “deal sleds.” When Tom Ford took artistic control of
the brand in 1994, the loafer underwent a series of makeovers, emerging with a
square toe one season and a logo print the next. Future creative directors
followed his lead, with Alessandro Michele reinterpreting the shoe for fall
2015 as a shearling-lined slide and Sabato De Sarno, who stepped down earlier
this month, adding platform heels to his spring 2024 version. — M.O.
Bradley: I’d say that Alessandro’s greatest
achievement at Gucci was doing the horse-bit loafer slide. He brought a classic
into the modern age by making it a fur-lined slide.
Doonan: When Alessandro was working his magic at
Gucci, I was in heaven. It was so orgasmic and fabulous. Anything felt
possible.
Brazilian: But since the shoe was first designed in
1953, I think we should do the original.
Doonan: I agree.
Wednesday, 19 February 2025
REMEMBERING : The Yorkshire Vet S14E01
Review of
'James Herriot's Yorkshire'
James
Herriot's Yorkshire by James Herriot
james_herriots_yorkshire.jpgI have always enjoyed James Herriot's (James Alfred Wight) Yorkshire vet series of books and the original 1978-1980 television series. It was his compassion for the animals and love of Yorkshire that really came through in the writing along with a healthy dose of humour and good nature. Seeing the countryside in the television series really added to the appreciation of his stories. In this coffee-table book Herriot guides us through the various areas of Yorkshire that featured so prominently in his live accompanied by photographs by Derry Brabbs bringing together the stories and images of the landscape that surrounded them. Sure, now a bit obviously dated with the photographs but the sentiments are very real and the book does give us an idea of the region.
Though much
of book is filled with fond memories there are also bittersweet ones too as the
images of Yorkshire spark Herriot's memories. It is as if we are listening the
great author informally chatting to us as we look over the wonderful pictures.
There are references to slightly less known areas such as the Buttertubs,
Coverdale and his home in Thirsk (now featuring a museum to the famous man) as
well as the more familiar such as York and Harrogate. For all he has something
to say, providing insights to not only the countryside but also the writing of
his books and his real life as a vet.
Great for
fans of the famous Yorkshire vet as well as those who love Yorkshire. Easy to
read with some beautiful, if not spectacular, photos.
Our last meeting and interview with the great man, Robert Hardy CBE FSA // Cahillane remembers ‘All Creatures Great and Small’
Cahillane remembers ‘All Creatures Great and
Small’
By JIM
CAHILLANE
Published:
9/26/2017 7:28:48 PM
Recently,
we’ve been watching “The Yorkshire Vet” on Acorn TV. Skeldale Veterinary Centre
is a fine successor to that run by Alf Wight (known by the pen James Herriot).
The new
show’s vets are Julian Norton and his partner Peter Wright, who trained under Wight.
In a respectful choice of casting, the new show’s narrator is actor Christopher
Timothy who played Herriot in the series, “All Creatures Great and Small.” This
new practice is more of a documentary than Herriot’s, which can cause a few
winces in the watching.
Herriot’s
dog stories and other books about life in the Yorkshire Dales have sold in the
millions. Starting in 1978, through 1990, 90 episodes of “All Creatures Great
and Small” became a Sunday night television staple in our house.
In 2007 we exercised
our love for the show to the max and booked a holiday week in Askrigg, a
Yorkshire village in the heart of Herriot country. Our two-bed apartment was at
the rear of The King’s Arms public house. It was called The Drovers in the “All
Creatures” scripts and we found a welcome there. Its wall featured photos of
Christopher Timothy, Robert Hardy and Peter Davison enjoying a pint of
Yorkshire bitter, which isn’t how it tastes.
Across High
Street was Skeldale House, the TV home for veterinarians Siegfried Farnon
(Hardy), his trainee brother, Tristan (Davison), and our hero Herriot
(Timothy).
In the
opening scenes, Herriot arrives in Yorkshire fresh from college in Glasgow. He
was to be apprentice vet to Farnon, a demanding boss with the softest of
hearts. His calling-card saying was “You must attend!” reminding me of my Irish
father who famously wanted everything done yesterday. As a country vet,
Farnon’s guiding rule was that when the phone rang he responded. Soon his
apprentice, James, shared that load.
I, Maureen,
son Matt and his wife Karen walked in the footsteps of that famous vet and his
television family of true-to-life professionals and country folk. We had lived
inside so many “All Creatures” shows that we felt a kinship with the actors,
their realistic characters, and the unchanging sheep-filled Dales.
Herriot
wrote truth about his fellow workers, his love life, animals encountered, and
how tight-fisted farmers tested his patience. His first novels were “If Only
They Could Talk,” and “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet.” The book’s stories were
slice-of-life tales that transferred easily to the small screen.
Nonetheless,
Hardy had doubts about the show’s appeal. He worried that it would “bore the
townspeople and irritate the country folk.” Hardy’s analysis turned out to be
spectacularly wrong, but his opinion made sense. Early on in his career, Hardy
performed in Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Hardy’s
varied acting life spanned 70 years. Yet, his winning role of an irascible
television vet became his legacy.
It became
easier and easier to care about each character in “All Creatures Great and
Small.” Young James Herriot learned how to navigate Yorkshire farmers and their
singular personalities.
One, Mr.
Biggins, would corral James in the pub and try to get free vet advice rather
than pay for an official visit. In one scene he had the whole pub smiling at
his demonstration of an odd hitch in a cow’s back leg. The camera took
lingering views of the farmer’s rear end, as a smiling James asked for repeat
performances.
James drove
up and down the hilly stonewalled roads that we tackled 10 years ago. The
actors drove a succession of cranky vintage vehicles in order to match the
1930s and onward settings. In lambing season the vets might find themselves in
a cold shed as spring snows quieted the scene around them.
In Acorn’s
modern version, Peter Wright says of a new lamb nestling up to its mother,
“After 35 years I still think that what’s life is all about.”
During the
show’s run James Herriot had two actress wives. Carol Drinkwater was unaware
that her part as Helen, a farmer’s daughter and James’s girlfriend, had turned
her into a sex symbol until she was mobbed wherever she appeared. Before James
got around to asking for her hand, Siegfried told him not to wait. Helen, he
observed, nearly stopped traffic just by walking in the town.
James had
rich competition from an upscale young man who drove a beautiful car and chased
Helen about. The broad humor of difficult courtships found James a bit worse
for drink at a dance as her boyfriend looked down his nose at a floored James
while Helen laughed. In vino veritas, so they say, but all came well.
Their
unique honeymoon saw James testing cows across the Dales even as he was showing
off his new spouse to kind farmers’ wives. Helen was one of them.
The show
was once critiqued as a “cup of cocoa drama,” meaning it’s the perfect nightcap
leading to a good night’s sleep. Compared to far too much of today’s television
entertainment, watching “All Creatures” I never had occasion to moan or throw
objects at the TV screen because of language “that would make a sailor blush”
to quote Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady.”
Robert
Hardy passed away last month at age 92. Like most of us he played many roles in
life. Siegfried Farnon, was just one. In six films he was Winston Churchill!
Yet, in his
obituary his canny, often grouchy vet was held out to be his legacy. The good
news is that “All Creatures” lives on in colorful bucolic videos borrowed from
a local library, seen on YouTube or purchased from a bookstore.
In these
harrowing times, being vetted as “a cup of cocoa” is praise indeed. May Robert
Hardy rest in peace and may a godlike Siegfried Farnon continue caring for
animals — like and unlike us — for eternity. Amen.
Jim
Cahillane, who writes a monthly column, lives in Williamsburg with creatures
wild and domestic, including Liddy, a fairly odd cat.
Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Lady Pamela: My Mother's Extraordinary Years as Daughter to the Viceroy of India, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Wife of David Hicks– English edition by India Hicks (auteur)
Lady Pamela: My Mother's Extraordinary Years as
Daughter to the Viceroy of India, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Wife of
David Hicks– 30 Sept. 2024
English edition
by India Hicks (auteur)
India Hicks’s affectionate tribute to her beloved
mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, and her extraordinary life surrounded by dazzling
people, places, houses, and history.
For years designer India Hicks has been sharing
anecdotes about the life of her mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, or Lady P, as she is
affectionately known.
This new visual biography is an extraordinary
chronicle of Lady Pamela’s life. Daughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma,
the last viceroy of India, Lady Pamela was a first cousin to Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, and served as a bridesmaid and lady-in-waiting to Queen
Elizabeth II, before marrying legendary interior designer David Hicks. Sifting
through her parents’ archives, India has uncovered a trove of material about
her mother. This beautifully illustrated personal history includes ephemera such
as letters from the Queen; images of the houses and gardens where she grew up
and made her wonderfully elegant home; details of her extraordinary work during
Indian independence, her marriage to David Hicks and the homes he designed for
them, the assassination of her father in Ireland, and later life in the
country, as well as the lessons India has learned from her mother having had a
front-row seat at so many historical events.
An exemplary life, captured in beautiful images―for
lovers of history, royal watchers, and all style enthusiasts.
In Lady
Pamela, India Hicks Tells the Remarkable Story of Her Mother
Lady Pamela
Hicks was in the shadow of Queen Elizabeth her whole life. Now, her daughter is
bringing her into the spotlight.
By Emily Burack Published:
Sep 3, 2024
Lady Pamela Hicks has served as witness to key moments in
British royal history. The daughter of Lord Mountbatten and a first cousin of
Prince Philip, Lady Pamela was a bridesmaid at Queen Elizabeth's royal wedding,
a lady-in-waiting for the Queen, and joined her on many overseas tours of the
Commonwealth.
Now, her daughter, India Hicks is telling her full story in
a brand-new illustrated biography: Lady Pamela: My Mother's Extraordinary Years
as Daughter to the Viceroy of India, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Wife of
David Hicks (out today). "People perhaps see a very privileged life, which
indeed it was," she tells T&C about her mother's life. "But there
was a lot of extraordinary moments of darkness in there. We should not ever
judge before we have a little further look into the lives of people."
Ahead of the publication of Lady Pamela, Hicks spoke with T&C about her
mother's remarkable life and her thoughts on the royals in 2024.
What inspired you to work on Lady Pamela?
When I began to have my own life and my own children and I
became a mother myself, I saw her differently; I suddenly realized how
extraordinary she was—not just as a mother, but as a person. What I recognized
was she had always been in the shadows. She was in the shadow of very great
parents who were very famous and did a lot of good and did many extraordinary
things and also much criticized, but they were always in the limelight. She was
in the shadow of her older sister, who was a remarkable woman, very hardworking,
became a judge. She was very much in the shadow of my father, David Hicks, who
was a whirling dervish of design and ideas and a passion for life. And she was,
of course, in the shadow of the Queen—as she should have been, as a lady in
waiting. And I just realized that actually her story now, particularly that
she's 95, the combination of all of that is very remarkable.
One thing that struck me was that your mother admits she
wasn’t “immediately enamored” with being a lady-in-waiting, but she had no
choice. Can you tell me more about this?
Her time in India had been very dramatic. Going out to
India, when my grandfather [Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma]
was there as the Viceroy, she was 17 years old and had no understanding of what
she was going to—it was a country on the verge of civil war and she watched the
birth of two nations through these very young, immature eyes. That also is an
extraordinary thing: a front row seat at Indian independence. She sat with
Gandhi at prayer meetings, and I always think, 'how many people alive today
have actually sat beside Gandhi at a prayer meeting?'
When she comes back to England, her set of friends have all
been coming out balls and getting married to Dukes of large estates—it was a
world that my mother, by then, didn't feel particularly comfortable in.
Suddenly, she's asked [to travel] around the world, and it is work. You are on
duty a lot of the time. You are two steps behind in the shadow. She says it was
a real privilege, but I think she was looking for a little bit of peace and
quiet.
Your mother was lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth for many
years, and joined her on two Commonwealth Tours, which you write extensively
about. What is something most people don’t know about what goes on behind the
scenes of a royal tour?
People underestimate how much work it is for the member of
the royal family, for the Queen and Prince Philip to do seven months on tour,
and day in and day out to be scrutinized in every possible way. And, to shake
the hand of everyone—my mother said that that was very important; the actual
human touch made a huge difference. You go to all these countries that are part
of the Commonwealth and know the Queen as a face on a stamp. To actually touch
and to realize that she's human again, my mother said was extraordinary for
people and the crowds. The love for her was incredible. For the Queen, it came
very naturally to her; she was the ultimate diplomat. She knew exactly what to
say to whom. Prince Philip was a little bit more of a loose canon, but as a
result, people adored him when they met him, because he said exactly what he
thought and what he felt. What my mother always says is the combination of the
two of them is what was so brilliant and so powerful and so strong.
One of the most moving chapters in Lady Pamela is when you
write about your grandfather Lord Mountbatten. What are your recollections of
that day he was killed? What was it like for you to watch those events
recreated on The Crown?
I didn't watch that episode of The Crown. Of course, I have
very vivid memories. They're childish in many respects, and now I look back and
see it very much through my mother's eyes. That was my first experience of
witnessing the world's press. It was very alarming for me as a young girl. My
mother was used to that, but she was just navigating on so many fronts.
"Up until that point we had enjoyed many blissful
holidays in beloved Ireland. My father had fun designing feathered hats, kilts,
and tartan jackets, apparently not for the oldest or youngest members of the
family."
She was really the only adult on the ground. Her beloved
sister was on life support. My uncle, who she's incredibly close with, was very
near to death, her father had been murdered in the water immediately. One of
the twins was in the hospital, the other twin also had died. The lad who helped
us every summer on the boat had also been killed. We were all there; we all
heard the bomb; we all suffered the trauma. But I often think that for my
mother, particularly, it must have been really, really difficult. Of course,
because she is of a certain generation and a certain upbringing—being very
English—she never showed any of it ever. There's this extraordinary, I think,
inspiring story about resilience and about how we should all perhaps pay little
attention to that older generation who have lived through war and do very, very
strong.
What Lord Mountbatten's Real Funeral Was Like
There is much criticism around my grandparents, but they
certainly instilled in my mother and the wider family the sense of duty and
service. And so whatever one can say or people want to rewrite history to suit
them, that was definitely this idea that you were there to serve others. My
mother absolutely has felt that. So she felt it was her duty to go on the
Commonwealth tour. She felt it was her duty to take on all these charitable
causes and be the patron of all these foundations later in life.
Lady Pamela ends with three funerals: of your grandfather,
father, and then Queen Elizabeth. You also write you learn you heard of Queen
Elizabeth’s passing that she had a stroke– this was news to me, I’m just
curious to learn more.
When I called my mother, I was getting on an airplane and
the news [about Queen Elizabeth's health] came through. Someone I was traveling
with had had some inside information, so called my mother to say, 'This is
what's happening and the Queen has had a stroke.' I said, 'Should I come back?'
And she said, 'Darling, the poor Queen's had the stroke, not me. You must go on
with what you are doing.' Just no fuss. When I came back from where I had been
for the weekend, the Queen subsequently had died. When I arrived back to the
house, my mother was dressed in black, and she remained dressed in black for a
period of mourning. And I don't know what the official court mourning is, and
she remained dressed in black, even though she lives quite alone in the
countryside.
Your mother was obviously at Queen Elizabeth's coronation,
but what was it like for you to watch King Charles's coronation last year?
There was a lot of conversation around my mother and others
who were not included in that ceremony in the Abbey. My mother says that was
the right thing to do. Why would you fill those seats when with the old family
members, when you could fill them with people who have done incredible worthy
good causes more recently, who would gain so much more from that? It never
occurred to her that she should have had a seat there at that coronation. In
fact, she said she saw so more from sitting with her feet up and a cup of tea
watching it fascinated on television.
As King Charles's goddaughter, how does it feel be an
extended member of the royal family in 2024? How does it impact your life?
I felt great pride and great privilege of having had
experiences of standing on that incredible balcony at Palace. But the
cleverness and the correctness of the royal family slimming down to just very
small working group is very important and very sensible. So I am certainly not
a member of the royal family now, but I do feel great privilege of having been
a part of some of those more historical moments.
It's been quite a tumultuous year for them. And I'm not sure
if you have any updates on how King Charles is doing in terms of his health or
any insight you can provide there.
With the rest of the world, we watch with such sadness that
he finally gets into the role of a King—and [he gets sick]. He is a very
different sovereign to his mother. We had this very exceptional Queen who was
our rock and our guiding light, but my god, has Charles proved himself. This
man—who's dedicated himself to service of love and has worked so hard all of
his life—to then find yourself ill, it must be just exhausting. Exhausting
because you've got so much you want to do and so many places you need to be in
so many things you have to attend. And his workload is crippling. And he's not
someone who says no. He works very, very hard, is very, very diligent in
everything he does. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for him.
As one of her bridesmaids, what do you make of Princess
Diana's continued influence on fashion and pop culture?
Clearly, she was a remarkable and very unique person in the
fact that she was very brave in the way she tackled a very complicated role, as
Princess of Wales, of then being a single mom. She was very remarkable in the
way she was fearless with the way she would reach out and touch people. She was
fearless in the way she walked amongst in live war zones. So she was
extraordinary. It's slightly disappointing that people focus on the fashion.
It just comes back to people misunderstanding quite how hard
the royal families do work. They do need modernizing for sure, times change,
and we are moving forward. But I think that the fantastic four of Charles,
Camilla, and William, and Kate, when she recovers, is a very powerful thing.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town
& Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a
wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing
editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and
Instagram.
Lady Pamela Hicks / VIDEO:Interview with Lady Pamela Hicks Mountbatten - Edit 1
 |
Lady Pamela Carmen Louise Hicks (née Mountbatten; born 19
April 1929) is a British aristocrat. She is the younger daughter of the 1st
Earl Mountbatten of Burma by his wife, Edwina Mountbatten. Through her father,
Lady Pamela is a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a great
niece of the last Empress of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna. She is the last
surviving child of Louis and Edwina Mountbatten.
Lady Pamela is the widow of interior decorator and designer
David Nightingale Hicks (25 March 1929 – 29 March 1998), son of stockbroker
Herbert Hicks and Iris Elsie Platten. They were married on 13 January 1960 at
Romsey Abbey in Hampshire. The bridesmaids were Princess Anne, Princess
Clarissa of Hesse (daughter of her cousin Sophie), Victoria Marten
(god-daughter of the bride), Lady Amanda Knatchbull and the Hon. Joanna Knatchbull
(daughters of the bride's sister Patricia). Upon returning from honeymoon in
the West Indies and New York, Lady Pamela learnt of the death of her mother in
February 1960.
|
Saturday, 15 February 2025
Miles, Chet, Ralph, & Charlie tells the story of the Andover Shop, Edited by Constantine Valhouli
Miles,
Chet, Ralph, & Charlie tells the story of the Andover Shop, and how our
co-founder
Charlie
Davidson transformed a tiny store into an unlikely literary and cultural salon
that brought together musicians like Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Bobby Short,
as well as writers like Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray. Yet the story was not
who he dressed, but why. This book explores the unexpected role that Charlie's
particular style of patrician clothing played in making people visible in the
years before full civil rights.
The book
is an "oral history" told through interviews with three of the
leading voices in American style writing: G. Bruce Boyer (a former editor at
Esquire and Town & Country), Alan Flusser (who dressed Gordon Gekko for the
Wall Street movie, and who has written several of the canonical style books),
and Richard Press (the former CEO of the iconic American menswear firm, J.
Press).
https://www.theandovershop.com/products/untitled-sep14_11-29
Author Interview: Constantine Valhouli
Posted on July 24, 2024 by Byron Tully
https://theoldmoneybook.com/2024/07/24/author-interview-constantine-valhouli/
Recently, I had a moment to sit down with
Constantine Valhouli, author of Miles, Chet, Ralph & Charlie, which details
the fascinating history of The Andover Shop in Boston.
If you were ever wondering how Old Money Style
clothes intersected with jazz, politics, and American history, read on…
And thanks again, Constantine.
BGT: Hi Constantine. Thank you for making the
time to sit with me today. I know you’re promoting Miles, Chet, Ralph, &
Charlie here in Europe as well as in the US, in addition to the other book(s)
you’re working on. So, time is precious.
CAV: Those clever fellows at CERN tell me that
time and space are infinite quantities, but my attorneys still bill by the hour
…
BGT: Ha! Okay, first, let’s address the title.
Who are the people you refer to?
CAV: Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Ralph Ellison … and
everyone thinks the eponymous Charlie is Charlie Parker but it’s the founder of
the Andover Shop, Charlie Davidson. One of main voices in the book, the tailor
Mor Sène, said that Miles, Chet, Ralph & Charlie was a brilliant title
because Miles Davis embodies east coast jazz while Chet Baker is west coast
jazz personified, and Charlie Davidson bridges the two. I nodded and said that
was exactly what I was thinking (but of course it wasn’t) and I’m happy to take
credit for that accidental insight after the fact.
BGT: And Charlie Davidson comes across in the
book as quite a character…
CAV: He was fascinating, complex, complicated,
generous, ornery, and volatile. And sometimes contradictory. If you asked two
people their opinions of him, you’d get such different answers that you’d
wonder if they were even discussing the same person. Which makes for great raw
material for a book.
BGT: Of course, The Andover Shop is a legendary
clothing establishment that defined what we call Old Money Style, or Ivy Style.
Can you give us a little background on the store—I wouldn’t call it a
boutique—to provide a some context?
CAV: The look was very much an insider’s thing
until it was democratized by the GI Bill and jazz, in roughly that order. Until
the GI Bill after the Second World War, there were fewer colleges and even less
financial aid. The students at these schools developed a distinctive look ––
navy blazers and tweed jackets; corduroy and grey flannel trousers (khaki
wouldn’t be introduced until after the war, but that’s another story). It was
very much a look of privilege. Each of the major colleges had a shop serving
the campus: J. Press at Yale and Princeton, The Andover Shop at Harvard, and so
on.
Alumni from J. Press went on to start many of the
defining clothing companies, and one of these was The Andover Shop. Each store
had something they did very well, something which reflected the founder’s
interests. For Charlie, it was jazz. He met Miles Davis and Chet Baker (as well
as other influential figures like the legendary jazz columnist and bon vivant
George Frazier) shortly after starting the shop. He began dressing them when
their sound was changing, and this called for a different look than the uniforms
of black tie or zoot suits. These musicians were playing on college campuses,
and saw how the members of their privileged audiences dressed. It was
fascinating to see how outsiders, in a time before civil rights, adapted the
look of consummate insiders.
BGT: So this is about music, a collision of
cultures, people who don’t ordinarily mix together getting to know one
another…but it’s still about clothing, right?
Clothing is central to the story of The Andover
Shop. Aspects of the story would be the same if it were a restaurant (a similar
focus on, literally, taste) or a music venue (I’m thinking of the ones founded
by impresario George Wein, which broke racial barriers by integrating
audiences). But Charlie’s kind of clothing is loaded with meaning: what we
aspire to, how we see ourselves, how we wish to be seen.
He understood the Boston Brahmin and how they saw
themselves, and sold clothing that appealed to that crowd and those in their
orbit. The details are very specific to New England. It’s Anglophile, but not
British, Italian-accented but not Italian. Over the years, I’ve visited similar
clothiers in places like London, Naples, and Stockholm, each reflects something
deeply local in its aspiration –– a nuance which I, as an outsider, am unable
to read. But for New England, Charlie understood how the traditions of Boston’s
aristocracy were codified into taste.
BGT: ‘Codified into taste’, that’s a phrase. But
this book is different from what readers might expect. It’s not a straight
nonfiction title detailing the names, dates, and events surrounding the
principal characters involved in The Andover Shop. You’ve compiled an ‘oral
history’. Why did you opt for that format in order to tell this story?
A: One of my favorite books is Nelson Aldrich’s
George, Being George, an oral history of his friend and Paris Review colleague
George Plimpton. Nelson and I ended up unexpectedly working together on The
Master of Eliot House, a book about a legendary Harvard figure named John
Finley. I mentioned to Nelson that I’d
gathered all these interviews for a book on Charlie Davidson, but didn’t want
to do a traditional narrative nonfiction approach. Almost everyone I spoke with
was a natural raconteur; Nelson suggested doing it as an oral history to
foreground these wonderful storytellers and preserve their distinct voices.
BGT: So the book’s a biography. It’s a tribute.
It’s about music. It’s about a changing America. And how The Andover Shop
contributed to and participated in all those. Was it difficult to maintain a
focus while putting the book together?
A: Heh. It’s difficult for me to maintain focus
in general. Especially before coffee. But Nina MacLaughlin of The Boston Globe
rather generously described the book as “kaleidoscopic,” which I think may be a
kind way of saying that I have the editorial focus of a ferret on amphetamines.
When I began, I had no idea where the book would
take me. Oral histories offer a parallel to documentary filmmaking, in that the
story emerges in the interviews and editing. The individuals in the book were
fascinating, and the deeper I got into the research, connections emerged among
these people. I tried to highlight the overlaps among the narrative threads,
and how Charlie and the shop were the nexus for many of these connections.
Miles Davis, sporting an oxford cloth button down
shirt in the studio.
BGT: Your contributors are a veritable pantheon
of men’s style icons—I wouldn’t call them ‘fashion’ icons, but men who’ve made
some tremendous contributions to the way we think about clothes and the way we
dress. How did their participation come about?
CAV: Bruce Boyer is a former editor at Town &
Country and Esquire, and has written several of the definitive books on
traditional men’s style. Alan Flusser is an author and clothier who may be best
known for dressing the characters in the Wall Street movie –– and in turn
influencing how actual financiers chose to dress. And Richard Press is the
former CEO of J. Press, and the grandson of that firm’s founder, so he has a
direct connection to how this look began and how it evolved in relation to a
changing America. I think this book may be the first time they’ve all appeared
in such depth in one volume.
Their participation? It was during the pandemic,
so we were all bored and I just reached out to mention the project, and what
followed was a wonderful, ongoing conversation.
BGT: Charlie Davidson spots a young Barack Obama
from a mile way—and a few years ahead of his time—proclaiming that the young
senator would eventually be president. How did owning The Andover Shop put
Charlie— and so many other players in your book—at the epicenter of politics?
The shop is in Boston, not Washington DC. What was going on there?
CAV: Malcolm Gladwell described Charlie as one of
the most connected people in the United States. It helped that the shop was
across the street from Harvard, and next to the “final clubs” on Mount Auburn
Street. The shop drew a cross-section of professors, students, and
distinguished guests who were all deeply immersed in their fields. It’s no
surprise that he’d know of Barack Obama long before the public did.
BGT: And for some reason, this same man and this
same store were neck-deep in cutting edge culture.
CAV: Towards the end of his life –– and he lived
past ninety –– Charlie was getting into rap music. But his first love was jazz,
which we now think of as serious, something to be studied. But at the time, it
was pop culture. Instead of Jazz at Lincoln Center imagine “Heavy Metal at
Lincoln Center” in fifty years, and you get a sense of the arc that jazz has
traveled from the cultural margins to a place in the American pantheon. (I
should add that the two Andover Shop figures were closely involved with Jazz at
Lincoln Center: social critic Albert Murray, and his protégé Quincy Jones.)
Al Murray and Ralph Ellison understood that jazz
was never just entertainment, it was always political. It reflected, and was
part of, the struggle for civil rights. Clothing was, too, which is why it
played such a central role in jazz. Clothing made status visible, and was a way
of claiming space publicly. After doing this book, I’m no longer surprised that
a clothier would find himself at a nexus of the cultural and political
spheres.
BGT:
Yankee patricians and jazz musicians, trying on sport coats in the same
shop. This just seems like a soap opera or a novel that no one would believe.
CAV: The marvelous Bruce Boyer described both
this book and The Master of Eliot House as “having a cast of characters that
would be improbable in a work of fiction.” I think back to Twain’s dictum that
“fiction is constrained by what’s plausible but reality only by what’s
possible.”
BGT: Was it just Charlie’s personality that held
it all together? Or was it just a particular time in history—and a particular
man and place—that might never come around again?
CAV: Yes. A number of people tell stories of
Charlie kicking people out of the store if they couldn’t handle being in a
racially integrated space. And it was his personal interests that drew these
people together in the first place. He loved jazz, literature, history, and
politics and had a rare opportunity to turn his shop into a salon where those
subjects were discussed on a daily basis by some of the leading minds. And then
he’d sell them a sweater or some socks.
I feel that there was always, will always be, a
Charlie of some sort. He’s almost an archetype. When I was in Copenhagen, there
was a museum exhibit about clothing of the royal court. I sent Charlie a note
saying that one of his collateral ancestors had probably put those together ––
and combined technical skill with the knowledge of the social dynamics of the
royal court. He was amused.
BGT: One of the chapters of your book bears the
title, “When Substance Had Style”. That really resonated with me, and left me a
little sad. Were there any points during the final review of the manuscript
that you felt a little depressed? Like we’d lost something we might not get
back?
CAV: Oh! That was a particularly melancholy
chapter, but I think it reflected the price that Charlie –– and all of us who
try to gather remarkable circles around ourselves –– must pay: the eventual
death of all these friends. The gradual tightening of that circle, and the
ever-present question of whether we’ve made some small difference in the lives
of the people around us.
The short answer to your question is an emphatic
yes. Those decades were certainly not a golden age for everyone, but there was
an elegance to them that seems impossibly distant now. The majority of people
aspire towards something very different, one which I find much less compelling.
BGT: I know you’re very private, but can you
share with us your own personal experience at The Andover Shop?
There was this one time involving the volleyball
team, a sloth that escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo, and an open bar, but my
lawyers have advised me not to discuss it until The Andover Shop’s insurance
company settles the claim. But I think the damage to their building has finally
been repaired, and there’s talk of putting up a historic plaque to mark the
memorable (if unfortunate) events.
BGT: Very diplomatic! And what’s next for you?
When is the next book going to be published?
The Master of Eliot House comes out, in limited
edition, in September. And in the meantime, I look forward to catching up on
sleep.
BGT: Very much looking forward to that. Rest a
little, and we’ll talk again soon.
Miles, Chet, Ralph & Charlie can be found
here:
Cambridge, MA: The Andover Shop (LINK: https://www.theandovershop.com/products/untitled-sep14_11-29)
New York, NY: J. Mueser: https://jmueser.com/
Stockholm: Tweed Country Sports (https://countrysports.se)
Stockholm: The English Bookshop (bookshop.se)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Miles-Chet-Ralph-Charlie-history-ebook/dp/B0CH6HZ8Q9/
