Mind the Gap

Those Monday nights still appear to continue to be anything but sacred it would seem. We had a night in planned with a classic Almodovar flick and some rather nifty Gap jimjams that should never be worn in daylight for fear of causing a major traffic pile-up but it was sod's law that our friends at Gap held a presentation of their Autumn Winter collection last night and we just couldn't resist a little nose to see what Patrick Robinson, their Creative Director, had been up to in the scented surroundings of the Flower Market in Covent Garden.

On first glance we thought he'd been still popping those lumberjack pills as with previous season what with those heavy knits in a host of rural-rugged patterns, a dark green plaid shirt and boots...big boots teamed with thick socks underneath, you almost need a moose in the garden and a clapped-out out Cheverolet Pick-up truck to complete this look. But it got a lot less rural and all the more urban, the tones got darker, the tailoring sharper and those boots became more subtle. A very nifty black leather jacket caught our eye...nothing like an investment piece during trouble & strife...there was also plenty of the 'DD' look that might well be back..that's Double Denim to those who aren't jean addicts. Then there were some fine winter coats being paraded about like a dressage horse strutting its stuff. A long black affair with detailing on the cuffs and all the time layered under more outerwear so cue leather and denim jackets under the more heavier coats.

After the winter we're emerging from those folks at Gap are certainly going to keep us suitably warm for the next one.

www.gap.com

Yeah Baby

What are we listening too right now????

The new Yeah Yeah Yeah's track is today's melody of the moment, with Karen O's tones and some tip top backing we just can't help but tap or feet or dance like Turkey before Christmas...in private of course...

Poor Form

It was with a sad face that our loyal steed for such Man about town action suffered some coughs and splutters at the beginning of the year, yes The Established Man Vespa, fondly known as Grand Tabitha had a little set back and was off the road for quite some time. We left her on the pavement hidden away whilst the Kenyan bush kept us occupied and she still has not forgiven us!

A mere youth in her scooter years she refused to start and had a loose wire and a funny this and that when the breakdown expert arrived on the scene. All this was within a frisson of being serviced previously by London scooter garage BMG who royally rippped us off when we sent our GT in for a service. Now in true style we penned a powerful letter in outrage at their uselessness and surprise surprise no reply! So two-wheeled riders beware the only thing BMG stands for is Bloody Money Grabbers!

Bon Maman

We've gone all rural here at The Established Man HQ and decamped to the country for a few days. However not before sending all our Mum's some love and no we do not mean the advert heavy magazine of the moment! Thanks to our great friends at Laduree at Harrods for their last minute fabulousness! With their pastel pretty macaroons to entice us like a bunch of salivating Alsations we're sure our Ma's are loving those rose, praline, passionfruit, pistachios mini-feasts like a child at the Pick and Mix before Woolworths closed its doors forever....

www.laduree.fr

Hey Big Spender

As we do every afternoon Monday here at The Established Man Towers, yesterday we rifled through the invitations for the coming week and sorted through the social diary, carefully plotting our course across London of an eve whilst trying to spend some time in our homes. Last night there were several options that were laid out on the boardroom table, we told you these Monday nights are no longer sacred. Had Air-Force Established Man been waiting at Northolt we'd have popped to New York for a party at Barneys in honor of Burberry and Christopher Bailey but this being pressing times we've cancelled our Netjets membership and swapped it for a Vintage Pashley bicycle, the savings we're making are enough to take breakfast at The Wolesely for the rest of our lives!

No last night was a London soiree with a dashing of Italian glamour to spice things up. Now we were far to young to have been invited Chez Gianni Versace during his reign in the Eighties hence why we never made it to his pad in Lake Como. We thought it only right we make up for it and pop along to an exclusive preview at Sotheby's on New Bond Street where much of Versace's posessions including art, furniture and collectables will go under the hammer on Wednesday. Those aproned Sotheby's specialists have taken great time to reassemble the objets as they were in that Lakeside mansion, hell its not like they've been busy of late so we're sure they relished the opportunity!

If such things as a pair of life size plaster-cast nude wrestlers, a bargain at $29,500-$50,000 estimate or some gilded bookcases belonging to a 17th Century Princess are on your shopping list then you better get bidding.

The Return of Jil

Jubilation amongst The Established Man team this morning, since her departure from fashion and her own label in 2004, a rather messy one with Prada....we've rather missed Jil Sander and now the perfect pairing has been confirmed, Jil Sander will act as Creative Director for our favorite high street store Uniqlo with her first collection debuting this Autumn. Bring it on we say!

The Ripest Berries

Burberry Brown Leather Bag

Mulberry Taylor Tote

Mulberry Eliot



All this talk of credit-crunch, recession, failing stocks and shares, Madoff and Stanford-esque cons, looming mass unemployment and doom in the retail sector has created a less than perky Spring season so far. It's certainly clear that there's something serious going on when the Financial Ministers of the world's G20 countries gather to discuss the issues and choose to meet in the small, suburban commuter town of Horsham in West Sussex. Their pockets have been clearly hit as badly as the British public if they're having to endure what must be one of the most boring and uninteresting places in the country; yawn-inducing doesn't do Horsham justice, it's as grey as the paintwork on a sea-worthy Naval vessel. Sadly for certain members of The Established Man Office it features on their Friday night train journey to the more rural and charming areas of West Sussex, thank God for ES Magazine to distract one from the monstrous commuter belt territories!

But this got us all thinking on the fashion desk at Established Man Towers yesterday afternoon, what might all these ministers be carrying their expensive suits in? Luggage is a serious issues for us frequent fliers and if its not the great spaces in Terminal 5 we're traversing then let it be that fortnightly trip to the country for some quality hermit time. In the past old favorites have been Longchamp, a huge navy weekend bag that thankfully bears little resemblance to those Longchamp bags certain echelons of the Sloane community like to patronise. The other option is an iconic Paul Smith weekend bag, perfect for hand-luggage on those well-known budget airlines us peasantry's travel by...Ryanair anyone? With it's heavy canvas printed livery of old suitcases one might unearth in a Brocante in Provence it almost tells its own story of discovery after finding it under a pile of clothes at New York store Takashimaya for a minute sum...we do love a bargain. Along with that we're a big fan of the Tote Bag and there's nothing like a goody bag that we can use and use again, thank you Frieze Art Fair for those Jack Spade bags way back in year dot, they're still going strong, unlike the truffles contained within!

So bag options aplenty but what with constant office gallivanting both on the domestic and international front our luggage options Chez The Established Man are looking a little tatty around the edges and its got us thinking about what might fulfil our Summer travels whilst being a good investment, we must do those G20 ministers proud down in delightful Horsham, obscene spending will be frowned upon and this must be an 'investment piece'. Thankfully such dilemmas can be solved on home turf...phew...for a moment there we thought we might have to decamp to Paris and a trip to Goyard! But no, our favorite kind of Berries have some freshly picked varieties and we're ready to gorge on them like an overweight child at a pick-your own on the finest of summers day.

Burberry aren't synonymous with their men's accessories when it comes to large bags but good old Christopher Bailey, he's not old at all we just mean we can rely on him for good things constantly, has come up with a small capsule collection of fine car-boot candy for the stylish gentleman traveller. We were drooling after the Spring Summer 09 Prorsum collection only the other day in the Bond Street Store, inspired by the garden and currently plastered across every magazine in Mario Testino's shoot at Petersham Nurseries and we think the Brown Leather Bag is the perfect match yet will last until eternity and surely get better and better with age like a fine wine, it's Dairy Milk shade of brown will never appear ostentatious and would be as happy in the melee of Mumbai to the manicured boulevards of Monaco. Other options feature the infamous Burberry check in an over sized sort of way, much like those over sized plaids for A/W09 we love and what with the revival of the Burberry house check at the Prorsum show in Milan last month snap up one of these and you'll be right on trend before the trend even hits.

Bin those Goji berries, enough of the super anti-oxidant properties of the Acai berry and do just shut up about the power of Blueberries. There's only one other berry we want right now along with a bowl full of Burberries and that's the Mulberry. Another great British brand, the arm-candy of many a stylish yet understated female and also a loyal male following for its men's bag options. With the departure of former Creative Director Stuart Vevers to Loewe a while back we were unsure the success of this very English setup would continue to roll on like a hamster in a cage. Of course Mulberry came up trumps and carefully placed accessories superstar Emma Hill in our Stu's position and hasn't the girl done good. In the old days the usual cravings at about 3pm in The Established Man offices would be for a chocolate hobnob, a Hummingbird Bakery red-velvet cake if we were feeling really greedy, a slice that is..not an entire cake! However with the gymkhana of men's accessories to check out on the Mulberry Website we now get a daily dosage to curb our lustings for a Mulberry Green Taylor tote, with its casual undertones, nothing like a bit of the grass-green and some fine leather there just for good measure this is one way to splurge like a fashionista yet appear like a recessionista and carry all that crap in some seriously stylish get-up. For those who need a little more of the enclosed feel then meet Eliot. No No not the bloke to sort out the boiler..that's Derrick, no our mate Eliot is another fine choice for some airport action. We love the woven canvas handles paired with leather and that Navy Blue colour way has Biarritz written all over it, understated glamourama, nothing we like more here. We better get saving for some serious manbag spending.

Motormouth

Aston Martin DBS Volante

Audi TTRS

Audi A4 Allroad

New VW polo

Alfa Romeo Mito GTA



A trip to Geneva is not on our list of regular routes. Unlike New York, Paris, Berlin and Milan to name but a few there's just not much to tempt us there. Perhaps if we had a Swiss bank account as opposed to an imaginary one and the need to stock up on rare Swiss timepieces we might be there more often, but the only item we can really afford to enjoy there is the finest Swiss Chocolate, not a bad thing to purchase but there's little need to jump on a flight all the way when one can walk to the local Sainsbury's and purchase as much Milka delights as you can carry and even guzzle down a few of those purple bars whilst browsing the isles.

We'd forgotten here at The Established Man Towers that Geneva is the place to be at this time of year for the world's motoring minds convene to swoon over new models, both cars and women... and swap car-chit-chat, we like to call it chitty-chatty-bang-bang! Just beware replacing the C with an S in that little rhyme and you've a very different statement!

Arriving in Switzerland amid Geneva and its great lake it was easy for one to forget the fact that the motor industry is in meltdown worldwide and our expectations for the Geneva Motor show were dismal to say the least. We've been offered so many press loan cars over the course of this year we were wondering if car manufacturers had run out of space to keep all these cars and were palming them off onto us...we'll take a Range Rover Vogue TDV8, a Mini Cooper S convertible and an Audi RS4 thank you very much! But walking into the great halls of Motorville things seemed to be ticking along and whilst there weren't a huge number of exciting, wacky, 'never going to be made' concept cars there were vehicles to keep the motoring public happy and perhaps swoon over.

Audi's an office favorite here and there was a lot of excitement over the new Audi TT RS. After the success of the RS4 and RS6, in Avant form is the best we'll have you know, this pocket rocket has a lot to prove and we're chomping at the bit like a racehorse at Cheltenham to get in one and take it for a drive. We love the styling with its aggressive grill, led running lights and silver wing mirrors. Add to that a 2.5 litre turbocharged FSI engine producing 340 horsepower and this is car nirvana! Of course this being Audi expect quattro, so handling one can only dream of. Order one NOW!

On the subject of Audi and it's quattro technology we were impressed by the new A4 Allroad, a smaller sister to the Allroad based on the A6 Avant. Perfect for those whom might have a weekend retreat yet inhabit a more urban pasture during the week and don't want a full on off-roader. If it's anything like the bigger Allroad then this might just be the perfect car to get all those Battersea mothers out of their gas-guzzling BMW X5's and Mercedes M-Classes and realise how much of an easier city life it is with one of these...you can actually park them for a start! If Audi take the plunge and launch this in the US...do it Audi do it..go on...then they might just get the American public out of their Hummers and into their Audis.

City cars are something we monitor very closely here, since the birth of the Mini, Audi A2 and Mercerdes A-class the sector has gotten plusher and plusher over the years with people downgrading yet not willing to lose the gizmo's and luxury of big plush saloon cars. Volkswagen debuted its new Polo, the size of the Mark II Golf we must hasten to add, and its hard to spot the different between it face on and the just released new Golf. It's a smart car though and no doubt people in London postcodes commencing with an SW will be clawing each others eye's out for one and University car parks ("Daddy please") in St. Andrews, Bristol, Newcastle and Edinburgh will be awash with them in Navy Blue Black and silver..need we say any more!

For those who want something a little more fiery and unpredictable then until the Polo Gti emerges and we get the chance to drive the thing put your money into an Alfa. Italian's can be tricky and Alfa-Romeos are not spared from this statement but their new Mini-eating Mito is hot on the heels of the Mini Cooper S in its GTA form...with yet more aggressive styling, big spoilers and a 240 bhp 1.8 litre engine this will get you around the streets of Milan quicker than Concord with a stick of dynamite up its arse. For a gentler pace there's always Fiat for the beach car of the year. Yes the Fiat 500 is becoming as commonplace on the streets of London town as the Mini and the summer heralds the launch of the 500c, a sort of halfway house to being a convertible, with a retracting fabric roof that sits on the back of the car like ramblers rucksack we think that the Cote D'Azur will be awash with them, small enough to actually park on one's yacht don't you know!

After all this meandering around the stands and the deluge of brochures, goody bags and models cavorting with cars, we mean young women paid to pose by the cars...it was time to return to London town in the realisation that the time has come for everyone to perhaps trade down as opposed to up but still enjoy motoring from time to time..Aston Martin DBS convertible anyone?

Eau de Fantastic

We're partial to a flick through many a men's style biannual; the now defunct Arena Homme, GQ Style, Man About Town, Another Man to name a few...no doubt there's plenty more hiding in the wings somewhere but its the one that does what it says on the tin, much like that of a tin of Baked Beans, that pleases us and has us leafing through with intrigue the most. Yes Fantastic Man, the Dutch based style bible with a cultural edge established by Jop Van Bennkom and Gert Jonkers a while back has been something of a collectable. If its not profiling Rupert Everett then its Tom Ford or perhaps Helmet Lang shot on his Hampton's Farm with the chickens. Thank the Lord for this different and more intelligent take on men's style and substance.

One would think that Jop and Gert had their hands full compiling quite such a book every six months but nothing seems to be beyond their reach and finally we can all actually smell Fantastic. A cheeky collaboration between Byredo Parfums and the original concept store in ever-chic Paris, Colette, has resulted in Fantastic Man having its own cologne. With hints of Bergamont, Caradmon, Star-Aniseed and Patchouli someone really has been sniffing around to create the perfect mix.

So who would've thought, now when someone asks the common question posed to many an Established Man staffer, "What are you wearing?" in reference to whatever Eau de Cologne one might have had a quick spritz of, the answer can simply be "Fantastic".

Culture Vulture

Rebecca Warren
'Loulou' 2006
Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York and Maureen Paley, London.



Carla Borel
'Even a Stopped Clock Tells the Right time twice a day' 2005


Back in the day it was a certainty that a Monday evening would be a definite night in for The Established Man staff. We'd all be sent home at a reasonable hour, turning off the Apple Macs before 6pm and saunter home with a distinct amount of glee across our faces knowing that one might able to catch up with close friends Ben & Jerry and any developments on the product portfolio in Vermont...Oatmeal Cookie Dough and Peanut Buttercup being office favorites. But alas no such luck has prevailed so far for 2009. What with fashion weeks galore, if we've not been in Milan then we've been in Paris and if its not been New York then its been here on home-turf... heavens knows why its called 'home-turf' as home barely featured during a packed out London Fashion Week. Thankfully the fashion pack are in Paris for the women's shows and London has returned to a vague sea of calm. Or at least we thought so, but then the invites continued to fly through the letterbox like something out of a scene of Bedknobs & Broomsticks and to our horror those sacred moments of utter Hermit-dom...a Monday night...are not spared.

So it was with a slight amount of huffing and puffing this evening, think schoolboy not actually wanting to go to school, that we boarded the loyal steed that is the office Vespa and took to the streets of London town as we seem to do every evening after a day in office. However tonight it was with a cultural air that The Established Man traversed the streets. Our first stop being the much-anticipated show at The Serpentine Gallery by British artist Rebecca Warren. As part of the YBA generation its no surprise to read that Warren is Goldsmith's educated, a Turner Prize nominee in 2006 and Saatchi was, and might still be, a protagonist. It was at the former Saatchi Gallery in County Hall that we really came to look at Warren's work in closer detail and found it hard to absorb; her reworkings and misappropriations of works by artists who are known for their figurative sculptures such as Degas and Rodin are harsh, aggressive forms that are only exaggerated further by the lack of them being fired in a kiln, suggesting that they might change and a sense of the process being somehow unfinished.

On the other hand there are Warren's vitrine works which are a totally separate entity in relation to the clay pieces. Here are carefully assembled wall works that contain detritus from in and around Warren's studio. It appeals to the inner hoarder and one questions the relevance of each object and its particular placement within these boxes. Seeing them juxtaposed with the works on plinths makes for a very different interaction with Warren's practice and after catching up with the art world fresh in from The Armory and dodging the bank of photographers gathered in the gallery spaces this is a show definitely worth seeing.

Now for most people that would be quite enough for a Monday evening and rest assured we were lusting for mushroom and rosemary risotto and a holey cashmere sweater but this was not the end. A brief ride through Mayfair, a nod to Sean on the door at Scott's...one of our favorite lunching establishments....and through the backstreets of Soho to the infamous French House for an exhibition of works by photographer Carla Borel. This colourful area of London is in Borel's blood and her series of intimate Black and White portraits of 'writers, flanneurs and bon viveurs' as she puts it displays a distinct affection towards her subjects. It only seems fitting that an exhibition reliant upon strange and tender encounters be held in such a venerable Soho establishment...a former workplace of Borel's. With their filmic quality and Borel's wonderful take on life this really is a very special show and this young lady is set to go far.

Rebecca Warren
The Serpentine Gallery
10 March - 19 April 2009
www.serpentinegallery.org

STILLSOHO
Photographs by Carla Borel
10 March - 5 May 2009
French House, 49 Dean Street, London, W1D 5BG
www.mypsace.com/carlaborel