The Rake

The magazine you hold in your hands is 10 years old today. And the fact it exists at all is something of a minor miracle. The Rake is, on the surface, a magazine about clothes. But actually it is about far more. If you’ll bear with me and join me on

The 10-year anniversary of The Rake is a good time to reflect. This may come as a bit of a shock to anyone who has had the misfortune of spending a few minutes in my company, but, unlike my learned friend and boss, Wei Koh — who grew up with the most

by nick scott Becoming a creative force’s muse is no faint endorsement; it is an apportioning of huge responsibility. Being the muse to Ralph Lauren, the most successful and influential clothing designer of his era — a man who has redefined not just

by wei koh photography jake walters fashion stylist jo grzeszczuk We all fantasise about inventing a time machine that would allow us to reach through the miasma of decades past, march into a Ferrari dealership in 1963 and lay down a deposit on one o

by nick scott “I have always been inspired by the rugged beauty and romance of the American west,” Ralph Lauren once remarked, and the designer’s emotional affiliation to that part of the world has more than influenced his work over the decades. Now,

by stuart husband Not long ago, I was in Dallas on business. I made the requisite pilgrimage to Dealey Plaza and viewed the world’s most infamous grassy knoll, but I also discovered one of the more striking monuments among the thousands to John F. Ke

by wei koh Sitting imperiously at 12 o’clock, burning as brightly as Prometheus’s torch, cleverer than a Border Collie with spectacles, casting aside all martini-induced temporal miasma and capable of speaking 26 different languages, is the day of th

When it came time to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this magazine, I knew there was only one man who could be on our cover. And it didn’t bother me that he had graced the front of The Rake twice before, because each of those covers created some of

by wei koh photography sidney teo Do you remember the scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when the monolith appears before the apes accompanied by the stirring refrains of Richard Strauss’s musical interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s

by james medd We get him now, of course, but in September 1984, Bruce Springsteen must have felt like the most misunderstood man in America. Every musician wants a hit, but the success of his album Born in the U.S.A., then on its way to selling 15 mi

This article was first published in Issue 36, October 2014 The pioneer spirit burns vast and bright in the heart of Ralph Lauren. And because of this, he’s risen from a humble upbringing, transcended geographical boundaries, and shaped the world’s cu

by jessica beresford photography rachell smith fashion direction jo grzeszczuk When she was 19, Hermione Corfield appeared on the cover of Tatler, not necessarily as herself but as the physical manifestation of the ‘New Sloane’, a younger generation

by wei koh photography sidney teo I have always cherished masters of self-invention, from David Bowie to Archie Leach. But what do Ziggy Stardust and the irrepressibly suave Cary Grant have in common with the watch brand Bell & Ross? They never let h

by wei koh This article was first published in Issue 19, December 2011 Amusingly, David Lauren, the third and youngest child of Ralph and Ricky Lauren, learned the extent of his father’s influence on American culture only when he went to college. He

by mr. polo bear as told to nick scott As an ursine gatecrasher into a traditionally canine zone, I may have united many readers’ eyebrows with my presence here. I’m confident, though, that my testimony will more than justify my having mounted this f

by alexander kraft In the past two decades, the term ‘luxury real estate’ has been, like almost any phrase with the prefix ‘luxury’, (ab)used beyond the limits of credibility. Just like ‘luxury menswear’ is used to describe not only the timeless clas

by wei koh photography jamie ferguson All clothes property of Alexander Kraft It’s always a risk sharing a vintage car with another individual for three days. Choose correctly and the experience is bucolic charm. Choose incorrectly and you are plunge

by tom chamberlin It would be unusual for anyone involved in the making of this magazine not to have their interest piqued by the opportunity to interview the first person to make a purchase at the Anderson & Sheppard Haberdashery. That man, John Dem

by nick scott photography shu tomioka All clothes property of Mark Large Mark Large’s wardrobe space, it’s fair to say, has adopted an expansionist policy that makes the efforts of Lord Wellesley, the British governor-general of Bengal from the late

by charlie thomas photography by pip fashion direction jo grzeszczuk Joe Dempsie is used to intense fanfare surrounding projects in which he’s appearing. He first encountered it when playing Chris in the acclaimed British teen comedy-drama Skins. The

photography steve schofield styling joe woolfe “I’d seen Benedict on British television before and really sought him out.” This is not an excerpt from a conversation that The Rake’s founder and I had about putting Benedict Cumberbatch on the cover. W

by ralph as told to nick scott Is there any more rugged way of life than mustering and droving? That’s rounding up livestock and moving it long distances, for those Pommy readers (not to mention the sooks in Sydney and Melbourne) who haven’t been int

“Christie’s has been selected as the global auction house for the collection of David and Peggy Rockefeller. This vast collection will be offered for sale in May 2018 at our flagship auction rooms in Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City.

by charlie thomas photography kim lang Nick Ashley isn’t your average fashion designer — though to label him as such is perhaps inaccurate to begin with. Nick doesn’t do fashion. Rather, he’s spent the past 40-odd years applying his expert eye to fun

Since the financial crash of 2008, our fascination with the super-richest of the banking class — and their perceived crimes — has expanded like a trader’s algorithm. Fortunately, like the mobsters of The Sopranos or the advertising pioneers of Mad Me

By the time you’re reading this, The Rake will have embarked on the next chapter of its e-commerce evolution: watches. Why watches? Well, to begin with, everyone at The Rake, yours truly in particular, adores them. Amusingly, I was speaking to my fri

While unofficially, and perhaps unintentionally, the subject of legacy has a strong influence in this issue, perhaps part of The Rake’s raison d’être is to emphasise not only the great men and women of history and the impressions they have left on th

by david smiedt Diane Lane wouldn’t give you the time of day. Although her parents’ families are from Georgia — dad was a drama coach and mom a delightful slashie (centrefold/nightclub singer) — Lane, a New Yorker, has forever radiated a coolly detac

by nick scott photography baard lunde fashion stylist jo grzeszczuk The American essayist’s rather pious aphorism does not, of course, refer to the garments or accoutrements found on and about the person of globe-scouring voyagers of the age: his obs

by stuart husband In a recent interview, Jane Birkin described her first date with Serge Gainsbourg. They met on the set of the 1969 movie Slogan; he was 40, she was 22. “He barely spoke to me and I thought him terribly arrogant and unkind,” she reca

by nick scott Around the time that Stephen George Holland and Frederick Sherry opened a fabric merchants at 10 Old Bond Street in 1836, specialising in woollen and silk cloths, men’s coats featured long tails at the back and were cut much higher at t

by nick scott In his twilight years, a second world war hero who once walked nine miles to safety with severe bullet wounds to his intestines and lungs — a man who took part in a string of Reapergoading missions as a weapons trainer and saboteur, par

by matt hranek & benedict browne It has been a while since my last visit to Palm Springs, California. In the late 1990s a group of friends would travel to this idyllic desert community from Los Angeles for the holidays. It is about 110 miles from Hol

by wei koh “Ciao, come stai? Tutto bene. Fammi un Martini secco, per favore! Grazie!” If you’re bellowing this through a loudspeaker to the staff at the Capri Palace as they watch in slack-jawed awe as you — still resplendent in your silk shantung di

by ben st. george In 600 B.C., when Greek settlers on the south-western coast of what we today call Italy founded a settlement in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, they called it Neapolis — the new city. It was to be new not just in location but in philo

by benedict browne Since September 2016, Stefano Gaudioso Tramonte has played a crucial role at the helm of Corneliani. That said, he hasn’t had his hands on the tiller in the way one might assume. He’s not the creative director or the art director,

by nick scott In 1932, a nine-year-old boy from a devout Muslim family living in London — his father was a diplomat and legal adviser to Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish republic — was taken by his elder brother, Nesuhi, to see the Duke Ellingto

by christian barker In his late teens, Mike Horn recalls, “I was in the South African Special Forces, fighting the war in Angola”. As a soldier during the final years of the two-decades-long South African Border War, “I led a very exciting life. Alth

by jessica beresford The seductive and scantily clad women who have made the Pirelli calendar famous over the past five decades have, in the last three years, been replaced by imagery designed to develop the pin-up beyond the male gaze. The latest ca

by tom chamberlin photography kim lang The more I get to know William & Son, the more profound my understanding is of their existence in luxury retail. While it is to be expected that the people behind a brand of such vibrancy and sophistication will

by nick scott He was known as the quintessential Svengali — a word derived from George du Maurier’s 1895 novel, Trilby — in which the title character, a singer, is entranced via hypnosis by the roguish antagonist, making her unable to perform without

by ben st. george photography kim lang A truly noble fibre is luxury made manifest. There is a richness, a suppleness, an opulence to the handle of pure cashmere or vicuña that has a transportive quality, an ability to reassure and empower. When it c

by charlie thomas photography david goldman fashion direction jo grzeszczuk Why settle for one profession when you can excel at three? That’s what Nathaniel Martello-White has done. He began his career as an actor, but has since become a successful p

by ludoas told to nick scott There are now packs of Goldendoodles, Yorkiepoos, Cockapoos, Schnoodles and Puggles roaming the developed world’s parks and greens. Indeed, my owner spoke the other day of a Bullshihtzer she had met at a Malibu beach part

photography kalle gustafsson fashion direction jo grzeszczuk Special thanks to the Corinthia Hotel Among the more ambiguous archetypes of the celluloid age, that of ‘leading man’ is perhaps the least defined. Far from the specific criteria of commedi

by tom chamberlin As a committed cheerleader of menswear and its prosperity, the popularity of Mr Porter is rather gratifying, largely as it proves one inalienable fact that is often lost in stereotyping, which is that men have an interest in how the

“But what about our editorial integrity?” Thus was the chest-rending bleat of protestation from some of the younger journalists when it was announced that, as we move forwards, our website, our social media and, yes, even our magazine would synergist

by sarah ann macklin I grew up in Hampshire, where meal times were always a family matter. I am the youngest of three children. My parents made supper time an essential and social evening routine, when every member of the family would come together t

So often letters like this begin with some sort of anecdote — “I was sitting in a bar one day” or “I bumped into a friend of mine recently” — that inspires a fun little analogy. My life is rarely this exciting, so it is hard to do something quite as

“I suppose that the greatest moment in the life of any revolutionary is when he walks through the royal palaces of the freshly deposed monarch and begins to finger his former master’s possessions,” wrote the freshly deposed King Farouk of Egypt in th

An island named after an insect infestation is surely no one’s first idea of paradise. Yet since the 1960s, Mustique has been just that: a privately owned, reassuringly inaccessible castaway retreat for the jet set. This tiny landmass in the Caribbea

by david smiedt The 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High carried the tagline ‘At Ridgemont High Only the Rules Get Busted!’ That’s pretty much all you need to know to surmise that the plot centred around barely legal Californian sex, dope dabbling,

I’ve chosen to adapt this recipe to a vegetarian chili, to help increase our vegetable intake and reduce the consumption of red meat. An overconsumption of red meat has been proven to increase our risk of bowel cancer. It is also much harder to diges

by ed cripps The most important American film of 2017, and the worthiest successor to Moonlight’s best picture Oscar, was Get Out, a psychological horror-satire about a white woman who brings her black boyfriend home to meet her parents. It is a mast

by nick scott While the hoverboard and the jet-pack have been confined to the more risible realms of sci-fi, one gravity-cheating device has not only stood the test of time but remains a technological marvel in 2018: the tourbillon, for which Abraham

by nick scott photography baard lunde fashion stylist jo grzeszczuk Among the many unsung heroes of menswear — and their number includes a range of figures, from needle-wielding artisans on Savile Row to the technical wizards who maintain giant decat

Asterisked items available at www.TheRake.com by matt hranek Miami Beach has been one of America’s pre-eminent resorts for almost a century. Before that it was a strip of mangroves on a small barrier island that was cleared in the 1800s to make way f

Comfort and joy wouldn’t be the nouns we’d associate with the current tidings. To paraphrase Tiny Tim, “Will we have Christmas after all?” On the whole, by the time I reach Christmas, my mood is lifted by the melodrama of chestnuts on an open fire, S

by nick scott In his 2008 book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell proposed that 10,000 hours of practice are required to make someone world-class in their field. It seems likely that, when it comes to playing polo, Pablo Mac Donough has clocked up that tally

by nick scott Here’s one for trivia buffs: it’s distinctly possible that the backpack was invented before the wheel. At least, we know for certain that Ötzi the Iceman — whose remains were found by snow hikers in 1991 — set off across the southern Au

In October, sitting opposite Ralph Lauren in his extraordinary office, filled with photographs and mementoes of his life and creations, a thought came to my mind. Ralph Lauren is not the president of the United States. But he should be. Because he re