XAVIER BRAY IN PROFILE

The director

of

The Wallace Collection on loaning artworks, battling bugs and broadening the gallery’s appeal

Words: Emily Jupp

Images: Julian Calder, Thierry Bal

“The Wallace Collection was the greatest gift ever made to the nation, and I guess my mission is to make people realise that.”

Xavier Bray’s ambitions for the institution he leads are clear. Within the cultural landscape of the UK, The Wallace Collection is currently something of a hidden gem, but he wants it hidden no longer. Based in Hertford House, a large townhouse in Manchester Square, the collection comprises over 5,000 objects and artworks amassed in the 18th and 19th centuries by the first four marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace, the illegitimate son of the 4th marquess, and bequeathed to the British people by Sir Richard’s widow in 1897. “And the thing about it is that it’s all top quality,” enthuses Xavier, who became the Wallace’s director in 2016.

One reason for the gallery’s ‘hidden gem’ status (it pulls in a respectable but by no means enormous stream of about 400,000 visitors a year) is that the board of directors at the Wallace have always refused to lend its objects out. Until now. Xavier explains: “In Lady Wallace’s will, she said that the collection should remain together and unmixed with other objects, and the trustees had always chosen to interpret that as meaning nothing could enter or leave the museum, which basically prohibited loans in and loans out. But in their own lifetime, Lady Wallace and Richard Wallace were extremely generous. They loved to be part of the London cultural life. They lent to the Royal Academy, the V&A and lots of other places.”

Like many cultural institutions, the Wallace has to raise 60 per cent of its running costs itself, with the rest coming from government funds. For most galleries and museums, loaning can be a highly effective form of networking – forging relationships with other institutions across the world and exploiting the benefits of the subsequent publicity, which in turn helps generate an income. This Wallace was consistently hamstrung by its own interpretation of Lady Wallace’s words.

Then, in 2019, for the first time in the collection’s long history, the board made the landmark decision to lend a painting on a temporary basis. That first loan, of Titian’s Perseus and Andromeda, was bestowed upon the National Gallery for a major exhibition, Titian: Love, Desire and Death. The six key works that made up the show, reunited from galleries in Boston, Madrid and London, all depict stories from Classical mythology about love and desire; sometimes euphoric, often fatal, with figures expressing the full gamut of human emotion. Forget once in a lifetime, this was a once in 400-years chance to see them all together in one place. A very big deal indeed.

“For the Wallace, it was amazing to be part of that, making history – or at least making art history,” Xavier jokes, “and really being talked about.” Starting off by loaning to the National made sense, not only because of its status as the nation’s art gallery but also because of Xavier’s knowledge of the institution – he was the gallery’s assistant curator in the late 1990s and early 2000s. When the loan was announced, Gabriele Finaldi, the National Gallery’s director, spoke on the momentous news: “Unthinkable until today, for the first time in over four centuries, thanks to The Wallace Collection’s loan of the Titian Perseus and Andromeda, all of the artist’s late poesie mythologies for the King of Spain will be seen together, as he intended.”

While the loan marked a significant departure from the Wallace’s previous insularity, Xavier believes the move to be entirely consistent with the spirit and intentions of the institution’s founders. “Richard Wallace lent his whole collection to the Bethnal Green Museum in 1872, and crowds of people came,” he says. “It was the first blockbuster exhibition, about 3.5 million people went to visit. He was actually going out to people and sharing, and that’s why I think Richard would have been so proud and pleased. You know, collectors are proud. They love showing off what they’ve bought and seeing it being appreciated by others, and that’s exactly what happened at the National.”

Appreciated the painting certainly was – but not by nearly as many people as had been presumed. When Covid-19 forced the doors of the National Gallery to shut on 18th March 2020, it meant that this eagerly anticipated exhibition, years in the making, had to close after just three days. “It has to be said, the trumpets were certainly muted in terms of this great moment,” says Xavier, wryly. The Wallace, too, suffered an unprecedented hit. Before the first lockdown, the gallery was on the verge of attracting 500,000 annual visitors – an all-time high. Needless to say, this record was never achieved. “People did come back, but before lockdown we were at over 5,000 people a week, then after lockdown it went down to 800. It was pretty awful.”

While Hertford House was closed, Xavier still came in every day to check on the collection, his steps echoing through the empty rooms, occasionally exchanging words with the security teams who remained on site 24 hours a day to protect the gallery’s priceless treasures. “In the deepest moment of lockdown, it was only me, the security, and the senior management team really,” says Xavier, “I did feel a bit like Richard Wallace wandering around my house, so although it was a sad and gloomy time, there was one part of it that was actually, in a very selfish way, highly enjoyable!”

Xavier, it’s safe to say, is inclined towards positivity, and that can clearly be seen in the Wallace’s response to the pandemic, which offered some unexpected opportunities. Rather importantly, a lot of the collection got cleaned for the first time in a century. Ninety-six per cent of The Wallace Collection is on display, which means routine cleaning is often a difficult task to undertake. The first lockdown offered a perfect opportunity to spruce things up, with a lot of brushing, waxing and polishing. According to Xavier, he’s never worked so hard in his life. He wasn’t alone. “The Wallace team is small and dedicated and everyone was keen to undertake all kinds of work that would have been really difficult and expensive to do while we were open. We did a deep clean, we repainted the entrance hall, we did a lot of relighting of the gallery. Now, when you go up the stairs and drop into the 18th-century gallery, it just looks... something,” he says.

The iconic Rococo painting The Swing, by JeanHonoré Fragonard, which until recently had a thick, tarnished yellow varnish, has been restored to its former glory in “one of the greatest restorations I’ve seen in my career”. The girl at the centre of the work now leaps out from the painting, her facial expression one of pure delight. “It’s as if she was painted yesterday; it is astonishing,” Xavier marvels.

Less obvious projects included the introduction of a pest management system, which was set up to combat the annual nuisance of bugs – the cloth webbing moth, carpet beetle and woolly bear beetle were identified as particular enemies of the art. Xavier and his team also developed and launched a free digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects app, which provides virtual cultural experiences. The guide features video shorts and support for deaf and visually impaired visitors.

The loans programme got back on its feet too. The Titian has travelled on – to the Prado in Madrid and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston –and another of the Wallace’s most famous paintings, A Dance to the Music of Time, appeared last year in the National Gallery’s Nicolas Poussin exhibition. There are plans in place for further significant loans, including the collection’s Louis XV commode – among the most famous pieces of furniture in the world, acquired in 1865. It’s a fine example of Rococo furniture, but the story that goes with it is what makes it so interesting. Xavier tells it with relish: in Louis XV’s bedroom, the commode was facing the fireplace and the flickering firelight reflected on its gilding, playing tricks with the king’s mind as he lay on his deathbed, leading the monarch to declare that he was already dead and among the flames of hell.

The period of reflection enabled by the pandemic resulted in some ambitious plans for exhibitions at Hertford House. The recent Frans Hals show, The Male Portrait, which brought together the 17th century Dutch painter’s portraits of men who look like people – not mannered or grave, their features not moulded to fit the fashion of the day – was a major critical success. It was accompanied by an audio guide, for which Xavier worked with the contemporary artist Grayson Perry, who talked compellingly about masculinity and what it means to be male. In testament to its broad appeal, Xavier confides that he persuaded his 14-year-old son to come to the exhibition with the enticement of listening to Grayson Perry – plus a burger afterwards.

Vivid proof of Xavier’s desire to make the collection as broadly accessible as possible is apparent in the theme of the exhibition that will follow in Hals’ wake, entitled Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts, which opens on 6 April. “Walt Disney loved The Wallace and loved the 18th-century French decorative arts and paintings,” says Xavier. In fact, the fascination endures, with The Swing featuring in Disney’s Frozen and in concept art by Disney artist Lisa Keene for the film Tangled, with Rapunzel kicking off her shoe. A large section of the exhibition is devoted to that most Rococo of films, Beauty and the Beast. When the liveaction remake was filmed in 2017, “the studio was set up near Warren Street and the creative team would come to the Wallace to seek inspiration,” says Xavier.

The Wallace Collection’s wide hallways and welcoming cafe – and the fact that it’s permanent galleries are free to visit – have long been attracting parents with small children to the Wallace, and this is something Xavier keenly wants to encourage. The Disney exhibition should help with that plan. “Children love going to the Wallace because it’s like a dollhouse,” he says.

Xavier’s dream is to see banners everywhere proclaiming what’s on next at the Wallace, and a constant stream of engaged visitors making their way to the gallery. “That I would be proud of.” He feels that museums and galleries, in general, are sadly underused and their benefits undervalued. “The Wallace is a place where people should come at least three times a year for their medicine,” he says. “The French prescribe going to a museum once a week for their wellbeing. It’s true – there are moments you look at something and it just fills you with aesthetic satisfaction and pushes away depression.”

The Wallace Collection

Manchester Square, W1U 3BN wallacecollection.org

The Journal pays a visit to the characterful New Quebec Street boutique and studio of John Boyd Hats, where milliner Sarah Marshall makes and sells her skilfully handcrafted creations

Words: Clare Finney

Images: Orlando Gili

“The more weddings you go to,” my editor once observed, “the more you remember them like episodes of Friends.” There’s the one where the father of the bride’s speech described, in graphic detail, his daughter’s birth; the one where a bridesmaid broke up with her fiancé over the breakfast; and – my personal favourite – the one where the mothers of the bride and groom inadvertently wore the same outfit, right up to and including their hats.

“It does happen sometimes,” laughs milliner Sarah Marshall, when I recount this story over coffee in her small, enchanting shop on New Quebec Street. “Not the mothers of the bride and groom – I’ve never had that before! – but people who’re going to the same wedding being drawn to the same style of hat. I had it the other week with a bride, her sister and mum.”

Of course, the chances of their choosing matching hats is infinitely lower if they’re shopping here rather than in say, Accessorize, where hats are off the peg and manufactured in their thousands – but there are occasions which require the milliner to “very tactfully steer a customer. When I realised their mother had been here and bought a very similar hat to the ones they were trying on, I said: ‘You’d better take some pictures and show them to your mum.’”

Mercifully, no two hats are exactly the same, so even if Sarah hadn’t clocked that the three were related and attending the same wedding, the fallout would have been minimal. “You might have a similar style, but one person will go for a different colour, or a smaller brim, or add a flower.” The flowers – soft and deceptively natural, a far cry from the stiff artifices gracing most mass-manufactured hats – are handmade, either by Sarah or by an elderly couple in Germany. Each hat is crafted by hand at the back of her shop and tailored precisely to fit both its owner’s head and their outfit. “I am a craftsperson, first and foremost,” she explains, “but I love meeting customers and helping them find their hat, and the two elements of the work go hand in hand. How can you have any idea if your hats will suit if you’re making them in a separate place from the people you’re making them for?” Besides, she continues, “customers love to see where we make them. It’s an unusual thing.”

It certainly is, I think, feasting my eyes on the wooden hat blocks lining tall shelves at the back of her shop; on the pinboard, stuck with scraps of fabric and pictures; the tall drawers of flowers. The blocks in particular are compelling, varying in size, shape and colour: from light, amber and shiny to dull, dark and riddled with tiny holes. These holes are not woodworm, Sarah explains, but pin marks from where they’ve been worked on over decades gone by. “The darker they are, the older. Some could be 100 years old – even older.” Most of them come from Luton. Though better known today for its airport, Luton has long been the national centre of millenary, she continues. “Even today, that is where our lace comes from, and any new blocks if we want them. We make our own shape, using canvas and wires, and the blockmakers carve it so you have your own new style.”

For the most part, though, Sarah draws upon history; the vintage styles of the 20th century when hats were not just for royalty and races but were par for the course for most people. “That’s the sort of hat you’d have put on if you were going for cocktails with a girlfriend,” she smiles, as I don a black beret with a dainty net veil. In fact, it’s a John Boyd original, she continues, designed by the founder himself soon after he began his business in post-war London. “That’s his signature look, which we’ve been making since he started. It’s simple, not-too-showy, and you can see how the line draws attention to your eyes.”

John Boyd opened his shop in Knightsbridge in 1947, after an inauspicious start making wellington boots at the British Rubber Company. By 1960, word of Mr Boyd’s eye-catching hats had reached the be-pearled ears of Princess Anne, “a real fashion leader at the time,” says Sarah. In the 1980s, the trend for big hairdos put hats on hold until Diana Spencer’s mother decided her daughter’s image needed smartening up if she was to secure her prince charming. She took her to her milliner, John Boyd, who went on to make the hats for several of Diana’s most iconic outfits, including the peach tricorn she donned for her ‘going away’ outfit after her wedding.

Understandably, Sarah is discreet when discussing today’s VIP clients, though they “have made a few for the Duchess of Cambridge – and are always open to making more!” she adds, should the duchess happen to pick up a copy of the Marylebone Journal. Princess Kate’s custom exemplifies the loyalty many families feel toward John Boyd Hats, which in many cases is now onto its third generation of customers. “Mr Boyd’s clients grew old with him, and their children and then grandchildren started seeing us,” says Sarah, who inherited the business upon his death in 2018. “It was a huge surprise,” she recalls. “I’d worked with him for 17 years, loved the business, and was running it toward the end – but I didn’t have any idea that was going to happen. It was a real honour to

MADE-TO-MEASURE IN MARYLEBONE

ANGLO-ITALIAN

English style and Italian construction, with made-to-order jackets and shoes.

57 Weymouth Street, London W1G 8NP angloitalian.com

ANNA VALENTINE

Hidden-away atelier housing curated capsules of couture and ready-to-wear.

15 Cross Keys Close, W1U 2DN annavalentine.com

CASELY-HAYFORD be able to carry his name forward.” Yet no sooner had Sarah taken up this precious millinery mantle, the pandemic hit, and every conceivable reason for hats disappeared.

Stylish tailoring by Charlie Casely-Hayford, including bespoke and made-to-measure.

3 Chiltern Street, W1U 7PB casely-hayford.com

CROMFORD LEATHER CO

“Weddings, Royal Ascot, the Grand National – all those things were cancelled, of course, so there was no custom. It was difficult for all milliners.” The pandemic did yield a silver lining, however – without it Sarah would perhaps never have wandered the empty streets of London and alighted upon New Quebec Street, John Boyd’s new home.

Long-established designer and maker of bespoke leather clothing.

56 Chiltern Street, W1U 7QY cromfordleather.co.uk

DASHING TWEEDS

Colourful tweeds for the 21st century, with a made-to-measure tailoring service.

47 Dorset Street, W1U 7ND dashingtweeds.co.uk

ENGLISH CUT

Tailored suits with a slim-cut silhouette and a soft, comfortable make. 58 Chiltern Street, W1U 7QZ englishcut.com

GREY FLANNEL

Marylebone menswear institution with made-to-measure and bespoke services.

7 Chiltern Street, W1U 7PE greyflannel.co.uk

JAMES TAYLOR & SON

Makers of beautiful bespoke shoes and boots for over 150 years.

4 Paddington Street, W1U 5QE taylormadeshoes.co.uk

SUZANNAH – THE ATELIER

Couture and made-to measure womenswear from Suzannah Crabb.

20 New Quebec Street, W1H 7RZ. suzannah.com

TALIARE

Savile Row tailoring tradition paired with modern styles and fabrics.

2 Seymour Place, W1H 7NA taliare.com

WILLIAM CRABTREE & SONS

Storied made-to-measure tailoring brand with roots in 19th century Yorkshire.

15 New Quebec Street, W1H 7RT williamcrabtree.co.uk

“I inherited the business from Mr Boyd – but I didn’t inherit the building, so I needed to find somewhere else,” she explains. “I used the time in lockdown to wander the city. I fell in love with this area, with its pretty streets and independent businesses –and it works well being near Suzannah [the luxury and formal wear boutique] and the Alterations Boutique. They send their clients to us, and we send our clients there.”

If fashion is art (and many argue it is) then milliners, like jewellers, are more like sculptors than painters. Their craft is fundamentally three dimensional –which is important, says

Sarah: “I rarely sketch designs out. I get my inspiration from a flower, or material, or the shape of the block, and I work from there.” As she works, she can see how the material stretches, how the flower or veil drapes, how the shape comes together as a whole – and make adaptations accordingly. Crucial to her designs, as it was to John Boyd’s, is the line of the hat– that is, the angle the viewer’s eye is first drawn to. “You want to draw their attention to the wearer’s eyes. Mr Boyd’s main thing was about flattering a woman, making her feel beautiful and comfortable; about putting the woman, rather than the hat, first.”

This, to me, is a strong selling point. The main reason I don’t wear hats is that I invariably feel like a hat’s support act. “I’d like to introduce you to my hat,” is what I feel like saying when I’m wearing one – so as a result, I almost never do. This idea of the line – of a milliner prioritising my face above their creative flair – makes me feel more at ease with the idea than I have ever done, to the point where I’m even tempted to try some. “I don’t make anyone try on hats if they feel awkward about it – but I do believe that those people who say they don’t suit hats just haven’t tried the right hat,” says Sarah. “I often have people come into the shop who say they hate hats, and by the time they leave they’ve tried everything on and I’ve helped steer them towards a hat that looks really good.”

This is easier said than done. As a gay man, John Boyd could deliver lines like “your chin looks big in that” or “that doesn’t work with your nose” with a directness Sarah cannot get away with. “He was brutal, and people loved it. I have to find a more tactful approach,” she laughs, “but you do have to be super honest. The worst thing you can do for your business, as well as for customers, is let people go off in the wrong hat.”

The more you wear a hat, the better it looks, she goes on –citing as an example the trilby, “which never used to have a dent in the top. That’s come about from people holding them at the top, and the dent being incorporated into the design because it looks good.”

Sarah wants her hats to last a lifetime; to be more than another hat on a hatstand. Nothing gives her greater pleasure than a customer bringing in a John Boyd hat from 50 years ago and asking her to repair or update it. “These aren’t throwaway objects. I want people to love their hats and pass them on.”

Of course, this isn’t just a question of Sarah’s professional satisfaction, but of the environment. “I’ve always been interested in sustainability, and actually, millinery can be amazingly sustainable.” The majority of her materials are recycled or vintage; every single scrap is saved, as evidenced by the motley pin board; and if Sarah is making a hat to match a particular outfit, she will ask the atelier for their fabric cuttings so she can incorporate them. “Milliners are notorious for being economical with materials, and saving and using all sorts of scraps.” By offering a lifetime care guarantee, under which customers “can bring their hats back free forever and I’ll repair or adapt them to different occasions”, Sarah has woven sustainability into the heart of her business and into hats customers can cherish for decades. It’s almost enough to persuade me that the next wedding I attend could be the one where I finally wear a hat.

JOHN BOYD HATS

16A New Quebec Street, W1H 7RU

johnboydhats.co.uk