This oversized, embellished Polaroid of swashbuckling photographer Peter Beard holding one of his iconic portraits of Out of Africa author Karen Blixen is expected to fetch up to $14,000 at Sotheby’s Photographies sale in Paris on May 10. Also included in the auction is a Beard portrait of another old friend, Jackie Kennedy.
Courtesy of DRIVENCary Grant’s daughter Jennifer is publishing a new memoir of her father this week entitled Good Stuff (Knopf). In celebration DRIVEN takes a look at the book and offers this classic snap of the iconic actor perusing a script while filming Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief in 1955. A study in stylish khaki-wearing to be sure.
This weekend Boston Harbor Auctions is offering a number of nautical treasures from the Corsair, the massive steam yacht built for J.P. Morgan in 1890 by Neafie & Levy of Philadelphia.
Morgan, who was for a time Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, entertained great men of the day from Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Edison to Mark Twain aboard his floating mansion fitted with every possible luxury.
Read more at A Continuous Lean.
Here’s a peek inside the hallowed portals of Hunstman of Savile Row, established 1849. Over the decades Huntsman has made suits for the likes of the Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor), the Maharajah of Jaipur, Rudolph Valentino, Laurence Olivier, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck and painter Lucien Freud.
The famed tailoring firm is undergoing some updates as part of the Row’s attempts to attract new customers. “Once widely regarded as one of the stuffiest companies on the Row – by itself, and proudly so – [Huntsman] has acknowledged that ‘you have to embrace new ideas or get left behind because younger customers want something different’”, its head cutter Patrick Murphy tells The National.
The updates include “more welcoming, modern retail windows” and a younger staff. “But the biggest change has been in attitude,” says Murphy. “Before it was ‘our way or the highway’ – very dictatorial about what the customer could have. The modern consumer wants what he wants.”
Hopefully they won’t change a thing that we can see pictured here however. We can think of nothing better than whiling away an afternoon selecting a new three-piece by the fire.
In honor of his recent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, we present the only man alive who should ever sport a soul patch.
Released in 1972 for one year only, the Rolex Commando, a Spartan version of the Explorer, was the cheapest model in the famed Swiss watchmaker’s catalog at the time.
Today, of, course, it is extremely rare, desirable and all-but-impossible to find, though find one we have – this perfectly-patina’d number, from California’s Fourtané, will set you back a cool $25,000. Read more at DRIVEN.
Courtesy BonhamsUK auction house Bonhams is staging a sale in London on April 20 dedicated solely to the work of David Hockney, including several important paintings. To our way of thinking however of equal appeal are the many portraits of the artist himself, an oft-neglected icon of eccentric style, including this Cecil Beaton photograph from 1969. Dig that flowing pocket square….
A brisk wind is blustering down from the snow-capped Rockies as Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, clutching a Bloody Mary, shifts his red Chevrolet Caprice Classic convertible into high gear….
Thus begins our reminiscence of the good doctor on the eve of news that the big screen version of The Rum Diary, based on his novel of the same name set in 1960s San Juan, will finally be released this fall. Johnny Depp will reprise the role of his late, lamented (and somewhat demented) friend. Read more at Driven.
The last time we were at the Harvard Club in New York we had lunch with our old pal Whit Stillman. Over at A Continuous Lean you can see some pix we dug up of the club from 1940. There aren’t as many dead animals hanging about, there are cute girls at the bar and the swimming pool is gone, but otherwise the place hasn’t changed all that much in the last 70 years. Thank god.
Over the years we’ve spent a considerable amount of time at the famed ’21′ Club. The photo above, from our days on the gossip desk of a disreputable daily, is but one of many from a number of Scotch-soaked occasions at the storied watering hole. For a while we even had something of a regular salon going in the lounge; on those nights it was not uncommon to find the likes of George Plimpton, Whit Stillman and Jay McInerney mingling with supermodels and such, bringing a much-needed breath of fresh air to the admittedly stodgy surroundings.
Steve Garbarino, our co-conspirator at many of these bacchanals, has just written an entertaining piece in the Wall St. Journal detailing the decline of the dress code at ’21′ and other establishments, with quotes from sartorial sages ranging from Tom Wolfe to Gilt MAN‘s Tyler Thoreson. Occasionally one of the guests at our shindigs would be quietly diverted upon arrival and pointedly offered the use of the club’s store of loaner jackets and ties. The latter is no longer required at ’21′ as Steve notes, part of a growing trend toward more casual dining at even the best of restaurants. We can’t help but think it’s not a good thing.
