The Rake

When I started The Rake, almost a decade and a half ago, Lorenzo Cifonelli was already a mythological figure to me. So it is with immense gratitude that today I consider him one of my closest friends. Sometimes, often while in my cups, I imagine a Va

It is Monday, July 12. Football seems to be locked out and unable to return home, and I find myself locked in and unable to get out. Why? Well, as for the former, who can say? The latter, on the other hand, is straightforward: I am having to selfisol

A while ago I was invited to a black-tie Christmas bash for the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace. After the initial thrill of being waved through the gates and gliding across the quadrangle into the hallowed environs, the incongruities started to

Nikesh Patel recalls one of the moments that inspired him to become an actor. It was during a play at his school in London. While sitting in the audience, he was surprised to see a pupil several years his junior appear on stage. “It was a Sri Lankan

Acerbic newspaper columnists who wish to distil a human subject’s existence down to a nugget of scorn can always rely upon a fail-safe formula: hyphenated-descriptor + reductive noun form [h-d+rnf]. Whether it’s a veteran football manager being reduc

A camel has equatorial winds and their weathering of Cretaceous sandstone down to sand to thank for its cometo- bed eyelashes and valve-like nostrils. Were it not for blood-sucking horseflies’ inability to decipher the aperture effect, zebras would n

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Like so many other nameless British aristos (unless you’re counting Debrett’s), India Hicks could have coasted through a very comfortable, low-key life. A footnote in history as one of Diana’s bridesmaids. All gumboots and tweed on ancestral lands, c

Breguet, architects of trailblazing mechanisms, are best known for their haute horology watchmaking, which includes the first ever tourbillon. The French-Swiss watchmaking genius Abraham-Louis Breguet patented his mechanical coup in 1801, 26 years af

‘Ghost distillery’: even in the rarefied, mystique-soaked world of fine whisky, it’s an enthrallingly emotive phrase. For the uninitiated, it refers to a whisky facility whose productive life came to an end long ago but for which a finite supply of s

To indulge in a rather moth-eaten phrasal template, there is little doubt that green, in the world of haute horology, is the new blue. Breitling’s Premier B09 Chronograph, with its gorgeous pistachio dial; Patek Philippe’s verdant take on the Nautilu

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” So runs one of the famous passages from Walden, a tome written by Henry Dav

I have some peculiarly vivid memories of my childhood. Being bollocked by the vicar for messing around with my twin brother at church, hiding in the laundry bin while playing hide-and-seek with my siblings — normal childhood stuff. Another memory tha

In late 1966, the most lauded act in popular music history were suffering serious ennui. The staples of rock music — guitars, drums, twin-track recording gear, punishing touring schedules, three-minute chorus-and-verse singles, vacuous album concepts

special thanks to the Martinez hotel, Cannes, and Riva Yachts Matt Damon operates from a place of joy — his words — and it is pretty infectious. There is but a small handful of actors who are known for their work and their capacity to inspire cheerfu

While he has constructed the Maldives’ most talked about new resorts, situated on three reclaimed islands in a private atoll — reclaimed using the lowest-impact methods and comprising, at this stage, 190 villas as well as 20 studios — Evan Kwee is in

VIDEOGRAPHER: MARS WASHINGTON PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT: KANE HULSE ASSISTED BY: VERONICA PEREZ GROOMING: EMMA WHITE TURLE @WALL GROUP USING BOY DE CHANEL ANTI-SHINE TONING LOTION AND CHANEL HYDRA BEAUTY CAMELIA GLOW CONCENTRATE. ■

Luca Rubinacci’s family are not simply masters of the alchemic métier that is Neapolitan tailoring, which reconciles the seemingly disparate elements of effortless comfort with immaculate style. The fact is, they created it. Indeed, it was Luca’s gra

Before unveiling Lorenzo Cifonelli’s new, exclusive collection for The Rake, there is an issue I need to address, and that is that we were late on the deliveries for our first collaboration with Lorenzo. In some instances, inexcusably late. As the fo

Trust our friend Alexander Kraft to do things differently. This summer, Pitti Uomo took place for the first time since the Covid pandemic began, and Kraft used the opportunity to present the Alexander Kraft Monte Carlo collection to the fashion and l

It was a building. But it was also a monument to his faith. To his unyielding, indefatigable belief that one day his beloved country would be united as a single nation. That he died just four years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when human being

Bang & Olufsen are nearly 100 years old. In that time, the Danish company has designed some of the most original, ingenious and downright beautiful electrical products the world has seen. The brand, founded in 1925, has always placed great emphasis o