Owner: gentrystyle URL:www.murdocklondon.wordpress.com Join Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2007 10:26:21 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A blog/ magazine for the discerning gentleman, covering everythign from fashion, style, travel, the arts, culture & style Site statistics:Click here
Monocle: for the ‘most interested and interesting people in the world’ 2007-03-30 14:58:15
Monocle the new global, European based brand launched in February. Founded by Tyler Brule (founder of Wallpaper) the core of Moncles output is a monthly magazine delivering the most original coverage in global affairs, business, culture and design. Alongside the magazine there’s a web-base broadcast component covering the same areas through a variety of bulletins, mini-documentaries and talk formats.
We welcome Monocle, at last there is a new magazine with depth and integrity that focuses on serious businss and cultural subjects. What is brilliant about the magazine is the sheer diversity of subject matter; articles on John Smedley, H&M, an interview with Crown prince Haakon of Norway and a Q&A with the CEO of Lego were in the recent issues.
Read more:lsquo
, interesting
, people
Skiing in London 2007-03-29 16:52:11 As the ski season winds down…..some people make the best of it.
Read more:Skiing
The shave 2007-03-29 16:03:29 Martin Scorsese made this film long before he became famous.
We watched this for the first time today (yes we should be ashamed of never seeing this short!). Apparently the Big Shave is representative of America’s reckless involvement in the Vietnam War, particularly its self-destructiveness, its still as relevant today as it was then.
If you need advise on shaving, or in a total state of shock, visit Murdock for the ten steps to the perfect shave
.
LA: America’s new cultural capital? 2007-03-28 15:34:48
Over the last few decades we have witnessed Los Angeles establish itself as one of the world’s leading cultural capital
s. For a long time the city struggled with its identity, Hollywood dominated and thrived whilst the urban landscape around the city declined. For years LA born artists would up-sticks and head for New York, few artists would seek to settle in the city and even fewer cultural tourists would visit. But this has all changed.
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times desribes how new centers of gravity have emerged in the City of Angels for contemporary art and artists, that had suffered for years because of its lack of a central arts district. Now there is not one such geographic center but several: downtown, where a thriving gallery district operates in what used to be a nighttime ghost town, as well as in former industrial areas in Culver City and Santa Monica. And a new generation of curators have been lured to the Read more:America
The awkwardness of the British Gent. 2007-03-28 15:34:34 British
men have certainly come of age in the last few decades. Whilst our personal style, grooming and cultural outlook has improved, one thing lags behind, our ability to say hello and goodbye to our male friends.
This week Nick Angel in The Times investigates the ritual of the male-to-male greeting that men are most at sea. The fact is this: there is no accepted form for one man to greet and bid farewell to another man. With women it is relatively simple: a handshake if you don’t know them very well, and a kiss on one or both cheeks if you do. Sometimes a hug is appropriate. (more…)
A Rakish history of menswear 2007-03-08 11:38:53 Our favourite building in New York is the Public Library.
The library is probably the greatest Beaux-Arts building, Carrère & Hastings the architects of the Library won a competition to design it, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and they were very familiar with French architectural ideas.
And they took the ideas of the Opéra and other public buildings and adapted them for New York to create this great masterpiece.
The Library currently has an exhibition ‘A Rakish History of Men’s Wear’ (showing until April 07) it provides an opportunity for viewers to trace the social, cultural, political, and aesthetic influences that have shaped the development of men’s fashion,” said Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. “The Library’s rich trove of historical costume and fashion plate materials are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in understanding the forces that have shaped styles of dress from antiquity to today
The Return of the Bow Tie 2007-03-08 11:23:06
We believe that the bow tie is essential neckwear and long ignored. Whilst our friends in America have always favoured the silk tie, in London it has fallen out of favour.
The Duke of Windor often wore the bow tie with an ink blue velvet dinner jacket, ‘My brother and I started to wear it often with a plain dark red carnation in the lapel’ said Edward, you don’t necessarily have to wear it with a formal dinner jacket, we suggest a linen suit at the races, a classic look for spring / summer.
At London store Murdock they are pioneering the return of the bow tie with their spring/summer of ties by Turnbull & Asser. This exclusive London store has a long history as shirtmaker to Royalty and international men of refinement (including James Bond himself). Turnbull’s main store is located on Jermyn St, the home of Mr Brummel.
(more…)
Read more:Return
Beau Brummel style icon 2007-03-08 10:40:35 We like to celebrate and honour the great style icons of history.
George Bryan Brummell is one such man, better known as Beau Brummell, was an arbiter of fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent. He led the trend for men to wear understated, but beautifully cut clothes, adorned with elaborately knotted neckwear.
Brummell is credited with introducing and bringing to fashion the modern man’s suit worn with necktie; the suit is now worn throughout the world for business and formal occasions. He claimed to take five hours to dress, and recommended that boots be polished with champagne. His style of dress came to be known as dandyism. He was arguably the first modern celebrity. The classic blue blazer which should be in every mans wardrobe was invented by Mr Brummel.
BBC4 recently screened an adaptation of this icons life starring James Purefroy, here the contemporary Brumell stars in his own rock video.
The Green Jacket 2007-04-03 01:09:29 Although we once saw a man wearing a green blazer with some aplomb – sported with a blue Oxford cloth shirt and Argyle striped tie, gray flannels and penny loafers – it was on the body of a very old headmaster of a very old boys’ boarding school in rural Virginia. With a green blazer, context is everything. Our advice is: don’t try this at home.
The only green blazer we endorse whole-heartedly is the coveted ‘GreenJacket
’ worn by the winner of The Masters at Augusta. It’s not every sporting event that asks you to get dressed up once you’ve won, and it’s to the credit of golfers the world over that no one especially laughs or pokes fun at the winner, who almost always looks a little bit foolish, sartorially speaking.
As we gear up for the Masters 2007 (the competitive rounds begin on Thursday, 5th April, so plan your sick days accordingly), it’s worth knowing something about the tournament’s most striking feature. (more…)
Wilkommen, Bienvenu 2007-04-03 01:09:15 Cabaret is back, and we don’t mean the musical (though there’s a fun, raunchy production of that show currently on in London, but we digress already.) No, we mean the return of high-kicking, can-can dancing, burlesque meets grotesque, fag cum drag, absinthe-fuelled cabaret NIGHTLIFE. Not since Weimar Berlin has cabaret managed to be so pervasive, so radical and so much fun. (Times of war tend to bring out the darkness in us all.)
For those in the know about downtown scenes from Sydney to Soho, cabaret acts have had something of a revival in recent years. The most triumphant and subversive artists out there are, of course, KIKI AND HERB – whose shows on Broadway, Carnegie Hall, and London have brought to a wider public the unique, politically engaged, angry and emotional work of Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman. Currently based again in New York (though they tend to pick up and move abroad without much notice, so keep an eye out), they continue to terrorize audiences in shows at Joe
The Moderns: Le Corbusier in Stuttgart…Aalto in London…Gaudi in New York 2007-04-03 10:51:37 It’s never been easier to get in touch with your inner Modernist. Exhibitions in New York
and London, plus a new museum in Stuttgart, make Modernism a must for spring 2007.
Let’s start in Stuttgart, with the new ‘Weissenhof Museum’, devoted to the architecture of the father of the International Style, Le Corbusier
. The Weissenhof Museum is actually two recently renovated semi-detached houses designed by the modernist master. They were built in 1927 as part of an exhibition showing the very latest in modernist domestic design:
The Weissenhofsiedlung is one of the most significant landmarks left by the movement known as “Neues Bauen”. The development was erected in 1927 as a residential building exhibition arranged by the City of Stuttgart and the Deutscher Werkbund. Working under the artistic direction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, seventeen architects created an exemplary residential scheme for modern urban residents.
(more&hellip
;)
The Green Jacket 2007-04-03 01:09:29 Although we once saw a man wearing a green blazer with some aplomb – sported with a blue Oxford cloth shirt and Argyle striped tie, gray flannels and penny loafers – it was on the body of a very old headmaster of a very old boys’ boarding school in rural Virginia. With a green blazer, context is everything. Our advice is: don’t try this at home.
The only green blazer we endorse whole-heartedly is the coveted ‘GreenJacket
’ worn by the winner of The Masters at Augusta. It’s not every sporting event that asks you to get dressed up once you’ve won, and it’s to the credit of golfers the world over that no one especially laughs or pokes fun at the winner, who almost always looks a little bit foolish, sartorially speaking.
As we gear up for the Masters 2007 (the competitive rounds begin on Thursday, 5th April, so plan your sick days accordingly), it’s worth knowing something about the tournament’s most striking feature. (more…)
Wilkommen, Bienvenu 2007-04-03 01:09:15 Cabaret is back, and we don’t mean the musical (though there’s a fun, raunchy production of that show currently on in London, but we digress already.) No, we mean the return of high-kicking, can-can dancing, burlesque meets grotesque, fag cum drag, absinthe-fuelled cabaret NIGHTLIFE. Not since Weimar Berlin has cabaret managed to be so pervasive, so radical and so much fun. (Times of war tend to bring out the darkness in us all.)
For those in the know about downtown scenes from Sydney to Soho, cabaret acts have had something of a revival in recent years. The most triumphant and subversive artists out there are, of course, KIKI AND HERB – whose shows on Broadway, Carnegie Hall, and London have brought to a wider public the unique, politically engaged, angry and emotional work of Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman. Currently based again in New York (though they tend to pick up and move abroad without much notice, so keep an eye out), they continue to terrorize audiences in shows at Joe
Monocle: for the ‘most interested and interesting people in the world’ 2007-03-30 14:58:15
Monocle the new global, European based brand launched in February. Founded by Tyler Brule (founder of Wallpaper) the core of Monocle’s output is a monthly magazine delivering the most original coverage in global affairs, business, culture and design. Alongside the magazine there’s a web-base broadcast component covering the same areas through a variety of bulletins, mini-documentaries and talk formats.
We welcome Monocle. At last there is a new magazine with depth and integrity that focuses on serious businss and cultural subjects. What is brilliant about the magazine is the sheer diversity of subject matter, including articles on John Smedley, H&M, an interview with Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and a Q&A with the CEO of Lego, in the first two issues.
Read more:lsquo
, interesting
, people
Skiing in London 2007-03-29 16:52:11 As the ski season winds down…some people make the best of it.
Read more:Skiing
The shave 2007-03-29 16:03:29 A 1967 short film by Martin Scorsese about shaving?
We watched this for the first time recently and were blown away. An apparently simple film which shows a man shaving, ‘The Big Shave’ is most frequently interpreted by critics as a comment on America’s reckless, doomed involvement in the Vietnam War, particularly its self-destructiveness. (It’s still relevant today, of course.) But you also get a glimpse of things that would become part of the Scorsese cinemagraphic style, especially his use of violence to confront his audience. ‘The Big Shave’ turns an everyday banal ritual into the stuff of prophecy.
Now, we hope your everyday shave
doesn’t end up like the man in Marty’s film. To ensure you avoid those pesky nicks and cuts, visit Murdock for the ten steps to the perfect shave. (No blood here, we promise.)
LA: America’s new cultural capital? 2007-03-28 15:34:48
Over the last few decades Los Angeles has established itself as one of the world’s leading cultural capital
s. For a long time the city struggled with its identity, Hollywood dominated and thrived whilst the urban landscape around the city declined. For years LA born artists would up-sticks and head for New York, while few artists would seek to settle in the city and even fewer cultural tourists would visit. But this has all changed.
Edward Wyatt of the New York Times desribes how new centers of gravity have emerged in the City of Angels for contemporary art and artists, that had suffered for years because of its lack of a central arts district. Now there is not one such geographic center but several: downtown, where a thriving gallery district operates in what used to be a nighttime ghost town, as well as in former industrial areas in Culver City and Santa Monica. And a new generation of curators have been lured to the major Read more:America
The awkwardness of the British Gent. 2007-03-28 15:34:34 British
men are as sophisticated and cosmopolitan as they next, but we still don’t know how to say hello and goodbye to our male friends without feeling a little foolish.
This week Nick Angel in The Times investigates the ritual of the male-to-male greeting that men are most at sea. The fact is this: there is no accepted form for one man to greet and bid farewell to another man. With women it is relatively simple: a handshake if you don’t know them very well, and a kiss on one or both cheeks if you do. Sometimes a hug is appropriate. (more…)
A Rakish history of menswear 2007-03-08 11:38:53 One of our favourite buildings in New York is the Public Library at 42nd Street. It’s one of the great Beaux-Arts buildings, designed by Carrère & Hastings who won a competition to design it when studying at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and they drew heavily on French architectural ideas.
Borrowing themes and ideas from such iconic Paris buildings as L’Opéra, the architects adapted these for New York to create this a masterpiece.
Currently on exhibition at the Library is ‘A Rakish History of Men’s Wear’ (showing until April 07). It provides an opportunity for viewers “to trace the social, cultural, political, and aesthetic influences that have shaped the development of men’s fashion,” according to Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library. “The Library’s rich trove of historical costume and fashion plate materials are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in understanding the forces that have
The Return of the Bow Tie 2007-03-08 11:23:06
The bow tie is essential neckwear and you ignore it at your peril! Whilst our friends in America have never turned their backs on the bow tie, especially in the sleepy south, in London it has fallen out of favour despite having a noble place in the history of British men’s style.
The Duke of Windsor frequently wore the bow tie with an ink blue velvet dinner jacket. ‘My brother and I started to wear it often with a plain dark red carnation in the lapel’, Edward has said, but you don’t necessarily have to wear it with a formal dinner jacket. It looks striking with a linen suit at the races (or anywhere else), giving you a sharp classic look for summer.
At London store Murdock they are pioneering the return of the bow tie with their spring/summer ties by Turnbull & Asser, an exclusive London men’s clothier with a long history as shirtmaker to Royalty and international men of refinement (including James Bond himself). Turnbull’s main store is located o Read more:Return
Maserati or Aston Martin? 2007-04-05 20:28:51 This is a game we like to play every now and then. It’s purely hypothetical and likely we’ll never need to make the difficult choice, but given that you can’t walk down Cheapside in London these days without spotting either a Maserati
GranSport or an AstonMartin
Vanquish S, it’s not a completely irrelevant question to pose.
Let’s agree that both are good cars. They’ll both get you from A to B, and they’ll both do it stylishly and quickly. (Here’s something we’ve come up with that could well be true: If A happens to be half a mile from B, you can get there in about 6 seconds in the Vanquish S.) But they are very different in almost every other way.
Maserati’s GranSport would appear to be the car of choice for the bonus-boys this year – no sooner had record earnings in the City of London been announced than orders were being placed in Mayfair. (more…)
Read more:Aston Martin
Cool Hunter 2007-04-25 18:36:30 Here’s an article from TimesOnline by James Collard that we liked and thought we’d share. Discreet, laid back bars are where it’s at…
‘There comes a point in nearly every life when being comfy becomes more important than trying to be cool. Of course, some people instinctively have their priorities right from the get-go; they’re born in their carpet slippers. For the rest of us, the comfy factor hits us late, and like an epiphany. From teenage years onwards, the herd instinct has exerted a mightily powerful pull, dragging us to dodgy dive bars simply because they’re fashionable, and making us queue up for some big club night (or suck up shamelessly to the gorgon on the door). Then once inside, we get drenched in sweat and spilled drinks and deafened by whatever din happens to be the sound-du-jour.
The realisation that it doesn’t need to be that way is bliss. Perhaps we’ve got older, wiser, more jaded. Perhaps we’re married with kids (kids who d Read more:Hunter
Tennis Thighs Are Back 2007-04-23 13:45:14 You may not have noticed – though if you haven’t, then you soon will – tennis shorts are a style must this season. See ya, big-butted baggy cargo shorts. Farewell, the absurdity of the ¾ length trouser-short. If your inseam is longer than 4.5 inches this summer, you’d better be a skateboarding teenager or find a better tailor. Life is cruel, but so are most shorts on men.
Tennis
shorts first made their cheeky appearance in 1932 when the audacious, fashion-forward British tennis player, Bunny Austin, chose to wear shorts rather than the conventional flannel trousers at Forest Hills and then at Wimbledon. (more…)
Read more:Thighs
LIVING THE MODERNIST DREAM 2007-04-30 13:48:18 The name of a legendary architect—Oscar Niemeyer—compelled Michael and Gabrielle Boyd to fly to L.A. from New York to inspect an airy white stucco house on the edge of Santa Monica Canyon. Was the house they were inspecting that day in 2002 really a Niemeyer—the only one in North America? … Michael Webb in the LA Times investigates.
Niemeyer, who is still creating brilliant buildings in his 100th year, is the father of Brazilian Modernism, the chief architect of Brasilia and, in collaboration with Le Corbusier, of the United Nations headquarters in New York.
(more…)
Tom Ford takes Manhattan 2007-05-08 00:01:45
Few launches have been as hotly anticipated as Tom Ford’s new flagship men’s emporium, which opened on Madison Avenue last month. The most important story in global fashion in the 1990s, Ford’s tenure at Gucci is already the stuff of fashion legend. He recast a brand whose best years were well behind it (the 1970s) with a combination of selling sex, celebrity and great designs (mostly). Furthermore, he did so seemingly with an extraordinary amount of charm. Real charm is a rare trait in fashion, so Ford’s combination of discretion, elegance, and old-world masculinity (unusual for a Texan) made the world fall in love with him and his brand.
All that’s behind him now, and while reports suggesting that the post-Gucci Ford was going to take on Hollywood and manufacture dreams in another medium, that hasn’t yet panned out. Instead, he’s worked on bijoux projects – designing for Ermenegildo Zegna, collaborating with Estee Lauder, launching a fragrance – waiting to make his Read more:Manhattan
The Perfect Mint Julep 2007-05-07 22:00:52
The first Saturday in May heralds the beginning of good times. Not only do we have the venerable Kentucky Derby – America’s most famous horse race, the first in the Triple Crown – but also the beginning of Mint Julep season, which extends throughout the steamy summer of the American south. Let’s hope that when the Queen visited Churchill Downs last weekend, fulfilling a lifelong ambition to attend the Derby, she was treated to this most potent and genteel of cocktails.
Mint Juleps are to Kentucky what vodka is to Russia. It’s as much a part of the culture as bluegrass, and on Derby day, the whole of America, from the Pacific Northwest to New England, sips this sweet bourbon treat in a nod to the old south. The winner of the Derby is officially toasted with a Mint Julep, though most of the onlookers will have done plenty of toasting long before the winner crosses the line.
According to lore, the Mint Julep was served on the Kentucky plantation of Senator Henry Clay, who broug Read more:Perfect
Brooks Brothers: The Golden Fleece Turns Black 2007-05-09 01:12:04
It wasn’t long ago that you wouldn’t touch clothing from BrooksBrothers
, let alone buy it. Unless, of course, you happened to find wonderfully soft, worn old Oxford cloth button-downs and baggy Bermuda shorts at your local thrift store. But since a re-launch in 2002, the brand is back on form and has gone some way to redeeming its fine old name.
True, in this world of mail order and online shopping, we can never fully reclaim the past and relive the good old days when all clothing in the Brooks Brothers catalogue was illustrated rather than photographed. Those were fun times. But at least some of their signature clothing is still to be found, without much restyling. You can still find a classic blue blazer with gold buttons for under $500 (just), the seersucker remains more desirable than the de rigueur designer stuff that’s so prominent this season, and every so often they bring back a classic tattersall poplin shirt that you should snap up and wear until you die. Oh, and thei Read more:Golden
, Fleece
, Black
Fash-ism Comes to London 2007-05-17 00:01:54 You have to give Abercrombie and Fitch credit for sheer audacity. Launching a London flagship store of what is essentially an American mall shop between Bond Street and Saville Row takes steely nerve. With neighbours representing the history of bespoke British tailoring on one side (Kilgour, Henry Poole, Gieves and Hawkes), and international designer power-brands on the other (Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Hermes, Gucci and friends), A&F had a lot to prove.
For those of you lucky enough not to know about A&F, it is one of the great American retail success stories of the 1990s and early 2000s. (That is, if you call peddling distressed, faux-vintage t-shirts and cargo shorts to the middle-classes a success.) In its previous incarnation, Abercrombie, founded in 1892, was a brand that sold high-quality outdoor gear to the well-to-do. I can just remember the last gasp of its Georgetown store, where you could still find a decent loden wool crewneck, before it finally died out completely in t
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