ISSUE 97
AUTUMN 2018
EXPAND YOUR MIND, REFINE YOUR WARDROBE
Dandy Wellington “Dandyism is about being the best gentleman you can be; as educated, conscious, politically aware, well-read, accepting and inclusive as you can be.”
TIMOTHY SPALL
The actor on his new film Stanley, a Man of Variety, in which he plays all the roles
OLD SHANGHAI
Paul French on the days when decadence and opium ruled the Chinese city
CHRIS SULLIVAN
The 1980s Blitz club scene from a style setter at the centre of it
£5.99
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THE CHAP MANIFESTO 1 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WEAR TWEED. No other fabric says so defiantly: I am a man of panache, savoir-faire and devil-may-care, and I will not be served Continental lager beer under any circumstances. 2 THOU SHALT NEVER NOT SMOKE. Health and Safety “executives” and jobsworth medical practitioners keep trying to convince us that smoking is bad for the lungs/heart/skin/eyebrows, but we all know that smoking a bent apple billiard full of rich Cavendish tobacco raises one’s general sense of well-being to levels unimaginable by the aforementioned spoilsports. 3 THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE COURTEOUS TO THE LADIES. A gentleman is never truly seated on an omnibus or railway carriage: he is merely keeping the seat warm for when a lady might need it. Those who take offence at being offered a seat are not really Ladies.
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4 THOU SHALT NEVER, EVER, WEAR PANTALOONS DE NIMES. When you have progressed beyond fondling girls in the back seats of cinemas, you can stop wearing jeans. 5 THOU SHALT ALWAYS DOFF ONE’S HAT. Alright, so you own a couple of trilbies. Good for you - but it’s hardly going to change the world. Once you start actually lifting them off your head when greeting passers-by, then the revolution will really begin. 6 THOU SHALT NEVER FASTEN THE LOWEST BUTTON ON THY WAISTCOAT. Look, we don’t make the rules, we simply try to keep them going. This one dates back to Edward VII, sufficient reason in itself to observe it. 7 THOU SHALT ALWAYS SPEAK PROPERLY. It’s really quite simple: instead of saying “Yo, wassup?”, say “How do you do?” 8 THOU SHALT NEVER WEAR PLIMSOLLS WHEN NOT DOING SPORT. Nor even when doing sport. Which you shouldn’t be doing anyway. Except cricket. 9 THOU SHALT ALWAYS WORSHIP AT THE TROUSER PRESS. At the end of each day, your trousers should be placed in one of Mr. Corby’s magical contraptions, and by the next morning your creases will be so sharp that they will start a riot on the high street. 10 THOU SHALT CULTIVATE INTERESTING FACIAL HAIR. By interesting we mean moustaches, or beards with a moustache attached.
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CONTENTS 8 AM I CHAP?
Those who dare submit themselves to the ultimate sartorial assessment face admiration or opprobrium
14 T HOMAS MACE-ARCHER-MILLS
The New Yorker who posed as a British royal commentator and got away with it
18 P EACOCKS AND MAGPIES
The Chap’s antiques experts, Peter Gosbee and John Minns, give insider tips on acquiring objets d’art
FEATURES 22 KING OF THE UNDERWORLD
Chris Sullivan on how wearing monocles, Edwardian suits and spats made as much sense in the 1980s as it does now
28 D ANDIZETTE
Doctor of Dandyism Sunday Swift on 1980s style icon Princess Julia
34 I NTERVIEW
Gustav Temple meets Timothy Spall to discuss his new film Stanley, A Man of Variety
ISSUE 97
•
AUTUMN 2018
34 SARTORIAL FEATURES
LONGER FEATURES
44 PROFILE
100 B LITZ KIDS
47 FASHION PHOTO SHOOT
107 J ACK BUCHANAN
We raided the voluminous Hornets collection to photograph their tweeds, city wear and teddy bears in their natural surroundings
60 T HE CASE FOR THE MINIMAL WATCH
Liam Jefferies looks at two new British watch brands that have pared back timepieces to their purest form
65 S HOOTING CLOBBER
How to dress for a shoot that does not involve models or cameras, but does require an understanding of the rules
70 U NDANDY SHOES
A new footwear company that lets you design your own shoes from scratch is put through its paces
72 H OUSE OF NUTTER
Gustav Temple meets Tommy Nutter’s biographer to discuss the state of Savile Row then and now
Olivia Bullock on the emergence of a new kind of dandy during the 1980s nightclub culture at Billy’s, the Blitz and The Wag Club
Matthew Lyons on the man variously described as the Best Dressed Man in London, Mr. Mayfair, England’s Maurice Chevalier, the Richest Man in the Theatre and the Male Greta Garbo
112 D RIFTING WITH DEBORD
Ferris Newton wanders around Paris in search of the spirit of Situationist alcoholic Guy Debord and asks – what’s all the fuss about?
116 ENGLAND SPARKLES
Olly Smith visits the Sussex vineyard of Breaky Bottom to find out why British sparkling wine is a contender for Champagne
120 F IERCE TONIC
The herbalist who went from making herbal remedies in her apothecary to creating a whole new type of tonic
122 R ESTAURANT REVIEW
Gustav Temple and Alexander Larman visit the wilds of Eastbourne for lunch at The Mirabelle at the Grand Hotel
82 S TOCKINGS FOR SPIES
127 THE CHAP OLYMPIAD
84 G REY FOX COLUMN
REVIEWS
Wiggy Bamforth on how maps printed on silk during the Second World War ended up as lingerie for the Home Front David Evans dons suitably light attire to travel to Florence for Pitti Uomo and then back to Walsall to visit a leather factory
88 S TYLE ON THE NILE
Pandora Harrison joins a crew of immaculately clad voyagers to travel down the Nile in search of ancient treasures and a stiff gin and tonic or two
96 G ET THE LOOK
Matthew Geraghty on how to assemble the outfit of a country gentleman
A sartorial report from the best-dressed event of the year
136 B OOK REVIEW
Alexander Larman meets Anthony Quinn, plus reviews of King Con, The Overstory, The Colour of Time and City of Devils
144 O LD SHANGHAI
Noir novelist Paul French takes us back to the opium-steeped days of Shanghai in the 1930s
152 DANDY WELLINGTON
Darcy Sullivan meets the New York dandy, bandleader and impresario during his whistle-stop tour of the UK
162 CROSSWORD
Cover photograph: © Rose Callahan
Bill Hornets, ‘The Godfather of Style’ and doyen of London’s three best gentlemen’s vintage outlets
Society
THE COUNTERFEIT ARISTOCRAT Gustav Temple on Thomas J Mace-Archer-Mills Esq, the posh royal commentator who turned out to be Tommy Muscatello from New York
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uring the royal wedding this May, a face kept popping up on television screens to pass expert commentary on the proceedings. Billed as Thomas J Mace-Archer-Mills Esq, the fellow cut the mustard on television, with his upper class accent, traditional British society attire and air of authority on all things royal. He was one of the most frequently seen faces on TV during the run-up to the wedding, giving insightful comments such as
“I think I encapsulate Britishness and have taken to the country in a way all people should when they want to come here and be part of society. It’s something positive” 14
why Meghan Markle was right not to wear a shoulderless dress during the ceremony: “You are in a chapel which is a royal peculiar, which means it is not under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Canterbury, it is directly under the jurisdiction of Her Majesty the Queen. So therefore protocol must be adhered to at all times.” He concluded one broadcast with: “Mwah my darlings, clinkies to you all.” But after some research, the bloodhounds of the gutter press dug up some background on the royal expert. His real name is Tommy Muscatello, an Italian-American who grew up in upstate New York. He developed a passion for all things British while still at school. He played Mr. Sowerberry in a school production of Oliver Twist, and took the role rather more seriously than most pupils, adopting Dickensian British as his own accent thereafter, moving to the UK twenty years ago aged 18. Since then, Mr. Mace-Archer-Mills has fomented his love for the British royal family by founding the
British Monarchist Society and Foundation, described as “the leading organisation for not only British, but international Monarchists”. He is also editor-in-chief of Crown and Country Magazine, a bi-annual royalthemed luxury periodical, and the author of a book Their Majesties’ Mixers: A Royal Drinkology, subtitled ‘When they reign, they pour.’ During his twenty years in Britain, Thomas has racked up even more than a reputation as a royal expert. While loitering outside Buckingham Palace during the early years of his stay here, he struck up a conversation with one George Mills of Canterbury, who agreed to ‘be’ his grandfather. He later met, at one of his British Monarchist Society events, a woman named Mervyn Redding of Essex, who agreed to let him call her ‘granny.’ Redding doesn’t mind in the least, in fact pronounces Thomas to be “perfectly normal.” Once he was revealed as a fake toff in American and British tabloid newspapers, Mr. Mace-Archer-
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Photo Š Derek Ridgers
I turned up in a three-piece Edwardian suit, spats, gloves, cravat and walking stick to underground gay club The Paradise Garage in the summer of 1980. The largely black and Hispanic clientele were dressed in shorts and slashed T-shirts, even headbands, for goodness sake.
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Feature
KING OF THE UNDERWORLD Chris Sullivan founded and ran Soho’s Wag Club for two decades in the 1980s and was frontman for Blue Rondo A La Turk. He explains how his chappish look evolved during the 80s, at odds with the fashions of the time
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while back, purely because I was very prominent in the 1980s and ran landmark clubs during the so-called New Romantic era, some chump on that social media malarkey would not accept that, at that time, I was not wearing copious amounts of make-up. I, of course defended my corner as, being 6 foot 2 and 14 stone with a noticeably broken nose and a few facial scars to boot, blusher and eyeliner were not entirely ideal. He also said that I must have sported frilly shirts and big shoulder pads. Luckily for us both, I didn’t know where he lived. Yet this is a common misnomer about the 1980s: many pundits who were not there think that that utterly ridiculous portmanteau was de rigueur for anyone who went to any groovy club in the early eighties but, if truth be told, it was anything but. And yet, I don’t blame said inconsequential for assuming such untruths, as the epoch was defined by a few outrageous camp and entirely overt queens
who grabbed the limelight, struck a pose at the drop of a hanky and thus tarred us all with the same mascara brush. The truth however is that, the likes of yours truly sported a look that was entirely ‘chap’ and
“VHS meant you could pause the recording at pivotal moments and check out the kit. You could check whether the jacket had a bi-swing or Bayer back, whether the pants had regular or reverse pleats and so on. Now you could get it 100% correct” 23
had no truck with such ladylike adornment. At times, I sported a monocle, jodhpurs, three-piece New Edwardian suits, spats and a boater (but not at the same time) and garnered influence from Bertie Wooster, D.W. Griffiths, Erich Von Stroheim and Fritz Lang, as well as Robert Mitchum, Yves Tanguy, Frank Lloyd Wright and James McNeill Whistler. Indeed, I had no time for futurism, as I was still very busy dealing with the past, purely because there is so much of it. I also emulated characters from British comics, throwing in a Desperate Dan or a Buffalo Bill from time to time, and on an off day I will admit to having recreated Plug. In fact, my whole raison d’etre came from a few years previously in 1977 when I and a few friends from Wales – Mark Taylor and Mark Stevenson, who lived in London – were so appalled by the uniformity that punk had become that we embarked on a style dictate we christened Boys Weekly Rockers, whereby we dressed as our favourite characters from British comics like the Hotspur and The Valiant. Of course, taking the Michael 100%, I’d turn up at punk gigs dressed as Biggles in flying jacket and helmet, goggles, breeches and boots, Mark Taylor dressed as Sinbad the sailor in flowing Eastern robes, while Stevenson looked like Dennis The Menace on rather strong LSD. Everyone thought we’d lost the plot. Fast forward to the Blitz Club in 1979. I still had the kit. I still liked the look. And so I persevered. But what was so useful back then was that, to further my endeavour, all I had to do was visit jumble sales. I’d buy the Ham and High and The Camden Journal and methodically hit every jumble sale in the vicinity. Lest we forget, this was 1979, so much of the mufti had belonged to men who had recently passed away aged, shall we say 75, so the kit was, if you were lucky, from the thirties, possibly postwar and almost definitely from the fifties and sixties. We’d chance upon military wear worn in India during the Raj, duffel coats sported in WW2 and collarless shirts that we’d marry up with stiff starched collars from Denny’s in Soho. On a good day we’d find Huntsman suits, Hawes and Curtis shirts and Lobb footwear, and on a bad day we’d get properly elbowed by old ladies, a prehistoric scone and a cold cup of cha. Coming from Wales, where the riches were few and far between, I was overwhelmed by the sheer quality on offer, but the richest haul we ever had was when one of my fellow students at St. Martins announced that his mother – who worked
Left to Right: Chris Sullivan, Christos Tolera, Ceryth Wynn Evans, Robert Elms, Daryl Humphries
Photo © Rupert Phillips
at Charles Fox the theatrical costumiers near Charing Cross – had told us they were having a sale of ‘everything.’ So, as one would expect, we all – most of us St Martins Fashion Students resident at a Warren Street squat – went down there en masse and bought the bloody lot. Kim Bowen bought a floor length white fur coat; I, a complete Argentine Gaucho outfit plus many items that didn’t fit, Christos Tolera a beautiful Edwardian lounge suit, while George O’Dowd bought their whole supply of Leichner face paint, in an array of colours that kept him going for a decade. Shortly after this day of days, the Blitz Club started going downhill, purely because too many blusher and lace types were getting in and dancing like simpletons to electronic music. It was the silly season. My reaction was to start my own night in the St. Moritz, where we played music that was deliberately old and decidedly decadent: Marlene Dietrich, Lotte Lenya, Billie Holiday etc, and it took off. Before you knew it, futurism was dead and looking like a silent movie star wasn’t. I recall two regular patrons who dressed like 17th Century English Puritans and sat nursing their bibles and water all night, while certain ladies dressed 100% Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box or Theda Bara in La Belle Russe. I was big on the look sported by the King of the underworld played by Gustaf Gründgens in M directed by Fritz Lang, which was bowler hat, leather
gloves and a leather coat. Undoubtedly, we were all hugely influenced by movies that we saw at The Academy Cinema in Oxford Street, as afternoon screenings were less than the price of a half of lager. Then in 1980 I spent the summer in Manhattan and, thoroughly disenchanted with this camp two blokes in make-up behind a synthesizer nonsense, decided to start a big band that used real instruments to play funk and Latin, and I designed these big suits that I had made by tailor Chris Ruocco of Kentish Town. I grew a goatee, pulled out the beret and the pork pie hats and listened to jazz and Latin. Soon I saw a similarity between my suits and zoot suits and, considering that said suit had sparked riots and disorder in 1941, decided that I would sport them for the band that I named Blue Rondo a La Turk. A year later I signed a £500,000 deal with Virgin, had a Top 30 record, appeared on the cover of The Face, the NME, Sounds and every other music mag in the country, sparking a nationwide trend for 40s kit and all that went with it, causing Armani to copy it and make himself a fortune. But films were an even bigger influence for that look, especially after 1982, when VHS recorders became affordable. I checked the likes of Vincente Minnelli’s Cabin in The Sky, Andrew Stone’s Stormy Weather and film noirs like The Glass Key and The Big Combo. Now, not only could you could record great movies, but also you could pause the recording at
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pivotal moments and check out the kit. You could check whether the jacket had a bi-swing or Bayer back, whether the pants had regular or reverse pleats and so on. Now you could get it 100% correct. Another big effect on us UK style mongers in the early eighties was the cheap flights to the US of A. I’d fly to LA for a few hundred pounds and pick up hand painted ties for a buck apiece, Pendleton shirts for $5 and Eisenhower jackets for a score. Noone wanted them. Now, the supply of large-sized classic Californian leisure wear of the early fifties has almost dried up, apart from at huge gatherings like the Rose Bowl, where the likes of me almost pass out in delirious excitement. Of course, one always remembers certain occasions when one was dressed to the nines. My favourite was when, in the middle of August 1980, I turned up dressed in a three-piece Edwardian suit, spats, gloves, cravat and walking stick to thoroughly underground gay club The Paradise Garage. The largely black and Hispanic clientele were dressed in shorts and slashed T-shirts, even headbands, for goodness’ sake. Thus, dressed as I was, I brought the place to a complete standstill. And then the legendary DJ Larry Levan played Do What you Wanna Do by T Connection and I took to the dance floor, pulled out a selection of my best moves, as perfected in Wigan Casino or the Soul Boy clubs of mid-70s London – fast steps sixteen beats to the bar, eight
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spins on the run, a back drop, the splits and back up for more absurdly fast footwork. While I was on the verge of a coronary, the crowd erupted into applause. Later as I, sweating like Giant Haystacks, sat down to nurse my thumping heart with a fruit juice and a downer, Levan came over with Frankie Knuckles and sat and just looked at me. I could see in their eyes that they thought that someone might have spiked their drink and I was just yet another apparition. Levan, perhaps lost for words, said, “I never knew Sherlock Holmes could dance like that!” “Never judge a book by its cover,” was my reply but I instantly regretted saying it, as one really should. As Confucius said, at 3.37 am on the 22nd April 502 BC, “There is no greater giveaway than a chap’s kit and especially his footwear!” I still carry the torch, wearing the clothes that I always want to wear, and have never felt the need to be either fashionable or trendy. This attitude has stood me in good stead through the years running my club, The Wag, as a style pundit and even now as I lecture at St Martins. As far as clothing is concerned, I have only one motto which is, ‘To Thine own self be true,’ while Oscar Wilde’s comment “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months,” still has a place in my soul. n Rebel Rebel: How Mavericks Made the Modern World, by Chris Sullivan, will be published by Unbound
Interview
TIMOTHY SPALL Gustav Temple met actor Timothy Spall, to discuss his new film Stanley, A Man of Variety, playing grotesque characters, the existence of ghosts and the actor’s admiration for Terry-Thomas, expressed via a spontaneous impersonation of the bounder
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n Stanley, A Man of Variety, you play a range of British comedy legends such as Max Wall, Tony Hancock, Max Miller. Were they your comedy influences? They are people I grew up with, watching on the telly. There were only two channels when I was a kid. On Sundays it would be The Big Picture, and some of them were 40 years old. As a child you don’t know that, but you know there’s something odd about it. So in the film it ties in with a sense of the feeling of those characters, as well as their performances. We wanted to portray the connection between so-called affable, charming, unusual, eccentric British characters, but a subversion of that and showing something more underneath. A connection with a period of isolation; the kind of world that postwar Britain was.
You did Alistair Sim but not Peter Sellers? Were there any characters you originally wrote in and then ditched? We did the ones I thought I could have a crack at. When Stephen and I sat down and started to try and build this film, those characters introduced themselves. As the picaresque journey of the story evolved, the characters turned up to take Stanley on to the next thing. We didn’t want it to be a series of turns, like the Mike Yarwood Show. The story is about a man with no sense of humour, actually, and a man of very little character. A nobody who has all these people in him. The comedy characters are all part of his own guilt, his confusion.
They don’t seem like impersonations, more like interpretations of each comedy character? Yes, all the stuff we wrote was inspired by the essences of their character. For instance, Tony Hancock talks about how he killed himself through drink, and Margaret Rutherford puts him on trial for killing John Wilson with a chamber pot. In real life, Margaret Rutherford’s father killed his own father with a chamber pot. There’s a bending of the affability of those characters.
I suppose the Indian doctor is the best example, as Stanley’s version of him verges on racist and the doctor then challenges him on that. Indeed. He started as a kind of Peter Sellers in The Party, which now would be completely unacceptable but was very entertaining at the time. But we made him much milder, and when Stanley sees him, he accuses him of what he thinks he’s feeling, which is what he’s feeling himself. I’m glad you got that. It’s
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We wanted to portray the connection between so-called affable, charming, eccentric British characters, but a subversion of that showing something more underneath.
Hor nets
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SARTORIAL •
Hornets Profile & Fashion Shoot (p44) • Minimal Watches (p60) • Shooting Clobber (p65) • Undandy Shoes (p70) • House of Nutter (p72) • Stockings for Spies (p82) • Grey Fox Column (p84) Style on the Nile (p88) • Get the Look: The Country Gent 43
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PETER WEARS: VINTAGE TWEED COACHMAN’S COAT EDWARDIAN RIDING COAT, ORIGINALLY BLACK FADED TO GREEN EDWARDIAN SWALLOWTAIL RIDING WAISTCOAT WITH MOTHER-OF-PEARL BUTTONS 1920S DUNN & CO TWEED FLAT CAP 1961 BREECHES MADE BY THE GREAT-GRANDSON OF A CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE SURVIVOR 1920S BROWN BOOTS
JOHN WEARS: VINTAGE BURTON TWO-PIECE TWEED SUIT STRACHAN BROWN MOLESKIN WAISTCOAT WITH MOTHEROF-PEARL BUTTONS CROCKETT & JONES BROWN SUEDE SHOES VINTAGE SILK CREAM SPEARPOINT-COLLARED SHIRT
LADY ECCENTRIK WEARS: DRESS BY FENN WRIGHT MANSON ACCESSORIES BY SPLENDETTE HANDBAG BY TRUE VINTAGE (GIFTED BY @BUBBLESARAH87) SHOES BY SHELLY LONDON VINTAGE HAT FROM EBAY
PETER WEARS 1950S DRESS SHIRT 1940S HARRIS TWEED KNICKERBOCKERS VINTAGE GREY BRACES ENGLISH 1920S CORESPONDENT SHOES DUNN & CO TWEED FLAT CAP JOHN WEARS VINTAGE BLADEN TWEED JACKET STRACHAN BURGUNDY MOLESKIN WAISTCOAT 1960S CREAM CHINOS CROCKETT & JONES BROWN OXFORDS
Horology
THE CASE FOR MINIMAL WATCHES Liam Jefferies on two new British watch brands that look back to classic, simple watches for inspiration
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“If you pilot a submarine or aircraft, you have licence to deck your wrist out like an air traffic control room. However, for most folk, knowing the correct time should suffice”
here are a variety of aesthetic devices which frequently ebb and flow in the world of menswear. Classic staples such as the tie bar, the trilby and the pocket square, always a permanent part of a chap’s wardrobe, every so often reappear on the ever-spinning wheel of fashion. It seems odd, then, that this trend has taken so long to come into effect for one’s choice of wrist wear. While mid-century style European tailoring continues to dominate the high street and off-thepeg fashion houses, with slim lapels and ever-tighter cigarette-cut trousers, the golden age of style sees its influence sadly lacking in the world of horology. There was a time when a wristwatch was a thing of necessity, and, as such avoided any extraneous accoutrement or distracting features.
Nowadays, however, the prevailing trend seems to be towards voluminous, bulky beasts akin to the pressure gauge on an ocean-going submersible. If one does pilot a submarine, aircraft or other such feat of modern engineering, then one does have a certain amount of licence to deck one’s wrist out
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ago, he ran (and still runs) AMS Design Studio, a watch design and production studio. He and his business partner Anneke Short spend as much time on The Camden Watch Company designs as when they work for high-end Swiss brands. Camden Watch Co. takes a vast amount of inspiration from their namesake, with Jerome and Anneke paying homage to the area’s Victorian heritage of horse hospitals, steam train yardsturned-gin warehouses, bareknuckle boxers and dead elephant circus owners. The watches are named after bus and Underground routes which run through London. The seconds hand on the No.88 is based on the iconic Camden Lock Bridge, in the same turquoise hue. The dial’s design is informed by those of historic steam trains, which by necessity had large, easy-toread indications, increasing the legibility of the dial. The impression of turn-of-the-Century railways is reinforced by the crown, resembling the pushers found on steam trains. At a modest 39mm, the casing retains its old-world charm while rendering the watch a genderless appeal. The construction of the No.88 is inspired by the very first wrist-mounted timepieces, which had fixed wire lugs comprised of a single wire soldered at either end of the case, with a gap for the strap, making them interchangeable. The straps themselves, available in genuine leather or nylon, are inspired by the NATO strap, a design first debuted in 1973 in the Ministry of Defence Standard (DefStan) 66-15. The strap has since been seen on many a timepiece, from Armyissued field watches to the Rolex Submariner, and even on a certain Mr. Bond in Goldfinger (although, as any film buff will tell you, his watch is not a true NATO). The reverse engraving on the watch reads Non Sibi Sed Toti (Not For One But For All) – the motto on Camden’s town crest and the ethos by which the business is run: wellmade, quality timepieces
like an air traffic control room. However, for most folk, knowing the correct time should suffice. The most common watch case size of yesteryear was a modest 35mm. However, recent ostentations have seen cases grow to in excess of 40mm, which, in this writer’s opinion, is the diameter of no return, and only suitable for the wrist of a hip-hop sonneteer. Thankfully, due to the resurgence of vintage menswear styles, the smaller, simpler watch is returning to the forefront of contemporary fashion. Two new horologists purveying what we believe is a ‘minimal’ – or ‘normal’ – size and style of wristwatch are The Camden Watch Company and Harvey James.
The Camden Watch Company The Swiss may be connotative with watchmaking these days, but it was Great Britain who brought about some of the most important innovations in the field, and that is what the Camden Watch Company pay homage to in their designs. Cofounder Jérôme Robert was born and bred in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the watch valley of Switzerland, and has had watches in his blood from birth. Before launching the Camden Watch Company four years
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Camden Watch Co. No.88 Steel and Brown Leather £89
They say clothes maketh man. At Undandy we know it’s the shoes.
WWW.UNDANDY.COM
Sartorial
SHOOTING CLOBBER
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“Never fasten breeks over stockings – always under. An etiquette nono but alas a common misdemeanor. Another mistake is not to tie garters correctly – too often Guns are spied with tassels flapping and dragging through the mud”
ressing appropriately for the shooting field can be a minefield. There are dozens of different styles to choose, all with subtle but important nuances. Get it wrong and you could look a fool. When your first shooting invitation lands in your inbox, you want to be able to hold your head up high on the field, knowing that you are dressed correctly. As a general rule, the shooting field welcomes flamboyance. In fact, peacocking is positively encouraged. Lurid pink stockings, matching gaudy v-neck and a novelty silk ties are a wonderful way of brightening an overcast day – as long as you can shoot like a demon. If, however, you are a newbie and shoot like a drain, steer well clear of this garish get-up and opt for more muted tones. Otherwise, the dreaded cries of ‘…all the gear and no idea’ will more than likely ensue. Shooters are a bit like nerdy military battle reenactors. Essentially, they dress up in Edwardian clothing but with a modern edge. The main core of this quintessentially English outfit – a tweed suit complete with stockings and garters – has not
changed a jot since the early 1900s. Sartorial elegance on the shooting field is as important now as it was back then, and turnout is almost as critical as how many high birds (clay or otherwise) you fell on each drive. Not only is it imperative that you choose the right garments to begin with, but you then need to understand how to wear them. For instance, one
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Photography © Sarah Farnsworth
Selena Barr provides a guide for the uninitiated as to how to dress for the shooting field
Mature Style
THE GREY FOX COLUMN David Evans dons suitably light attire to travel to Florence for Pitti Uomo and then back to Walsall to visit a leather factory
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“The Italian look remains unchanged for some years, while British style has, over the last year or two, embraced vintage-style looser fits, high-waisted trousers and more classic cut jackets – looks which owe much to The Chap”
owadays I find that I wear hats a lot more. Whether it’s the thinning crown that demands protection, or the development of a new-found sartorial sense that requires me to wear a headpiece, I don’t know. While I sometimes wear a linen or light cotton cap (never a baseball cap of course) I find that a brimmed hat such as a Panama is more effective at keeping the sun off. While age has given my skin a certain leathery toughness, I have a horror of looking like a fake-bronzed antique dealer. Two hours a day walking Harry, my exercise-loving Labrador, exposes me to all weathers and even overcast days seem to top up the tan. A brimmed hat slows this process, helped by a splash of sunscreen of course.
My latest acquisition is a Laird Hatters Alfred snap-brim Panama, made in the UK from toquilla palm. With a rather tasty coffee-brown ribbon, it goes well with my W. Bill tobacco linen suit, now completed by cutter Tristan Thorne at Dege & Skinner. Made in Irish linen from W. Bill, the suit has
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proved to be ideal for the heat, especially in Florence where I was earlier this summer (more in a moment) and the Panama hats completes that rather satisfying ‘British gentleman abroad’ look, which I like. I mentioned the suit in my last column, so I won’t bang on about it here, other than to say that linen is an ideal and comfortable cloth for warmer climes. Its loose weave makes it cool and the rather crumpled effect is perfect for holidays and the more relaxing summer days. While on the subject of linen and that gentleman-on-holiday look, my longstanding hankering for a cream suit was at last satisfied by a two-piece Edmondton suit from New & Lingwood. They describe the linen as ‘exactly as used in suits worn for The Grand Tour by gentlemen travellers in the 1920s and 30s. The cloth has a reassuringly luxurious weight which give an elegant drape but remains cool in wear’. It is too, and wearing it (above) I feel I should be strolling along the Promenade des Anglais on my way to play croquet. So to Florence, where I spent a few days at menswear trade show Pitti Uomo, as a guest of Ettinger, who make very fine leather goods in their workshops in Walsall. They kindly asked me to do some social media work around the launch of their first goatskin range for many decades, but I had the
chance to look round the show too. This was my second visit to Pitti. You may have seen images of improbably dapper men on the walls of the piazza in the Fortezza da Basso, the operatic backdrop to the event. They range from the showy, through the dandyish to the supremely well-dressed. However, they are a side-show to the wonders on display in the halls of the Fortezza. Most of the brands showing menswear and accessories are, of course, Italian, but this year the second largest contingent was the British, with 104 brands showing; ahead of the French in third place. Walking around Florence is a feast of dashing dapperness. Italians dress very well indeed. As a reader of The Chap, you may not like short, brightly coloured blazers, slim, ankle-length chinos or brogues worn without socks: structured tweed or linen jackets and thick woolly socks will be more your style. However, Italian men wear their clothes with panache and confidence. Italian style has influenced modern tailored menswear, because its softer lines and unstructured shapes are more acceptable in these casually comfortable times. However, ask any Italian and they will quote British tailoring style as a major influence. This has meant a certain movement of each style towards the other, but there is still much that distinguishes Italian style from British style. The British brands at Pitti Uomo bring fresh
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Vintage style menswear
air, in the sense that they offer a stylish alternative to Italian dash. More restrained certainly, and less derivative, and perhaps more creative and original. I say that because the Italian look of short blazers with slim-cut trousers rolled up to reveal bare ankle with brogues or loafers has been around unchanged for some years now, while British style has, over the last year or two, embraced vintage-style looser fits, high-waisted trousers and more classic cut jackets – looks which owe much to The Chap (I suspect our editor would be surprised to learn that his journal were at the cutting edge of men’s style, but it certainly is influential). Moving reluctantly from Florence and back to Walsall where Ettinger is based, this area of the English Midlands has a long tradition of leather working. Most of it was the manufacture of horses’ bridles and saddles, and many factories were needed to supply the tens of thousands of horses working in town and country until well into the 20th century. The Ettinger factory was originally in London but moved up to Walsall some years ago to tap into the leather skills of the area. The company’s workers had to refine their skills, as making the finest luxury bags and wallets is different to the coarser work needed to make horses’ bridles. I was shown around the factory recently and everything from the selection of the best quality hides to the cutting, stitching and final detailed checking of the products is carried out with the greatest care. Their products sell well in Japan where the most sophisticated and demanding consumers anywhere in the world are to be found. An out-of-place stitch or slight imperfection of the leather and the product is rejected. To sell well in Japan suggests that you make the very best available. Before I sign off, I want to tell you about a couple of recent finds, both manufacturing interesting clothes in the UK. I mentioned the benefits of linen earlier. A new and young business, Flax London, makes shirts from slightly heavier weight Irish linen. I wore one in Florence and found it cool and
comfortable and, being heavier weight than most linen shirts, less crushable. They are beautifully made in a well-known shirt factory in Gloucester and I highly recommend you take a look. The second brand, Yarmouth Oilskins has, unlike the very new Flax London, been around for many years, since 1898. You may not be surprised to learn that it’s in Yarmouth and, yes, it used to make oilskins for local fishermen and sailors, and they manufactured other clothes as well. They now make cotton twill workwear and I particularly like their Driver’s jacket (above left). While I believe it’s based on a bus driver’s coat, in its navy version it reminds me of an engine driver’s jacket. What red-blooded man wouldn’t want to wear one and dream that he’s pushing Mallard to her limit on the East Coast route to Edinburgh, while the fireman furiously shovels the best Welsh coal into the firebox beside him? Cotton twill is a robust cloth that only improves with age as it softens and the colours rub and fade slightly. You can’t beat a good patina. n Laird Hatters www.lairdlondon.co.uk For a slightly different twist on the Panama, try Tom Smarte Hats www.tomsmarte.com Dege & Skinnerdege-skinner.co.uk New & Lingwood www.newandlingwood.com Ettinger www.ettinger.co.uk Yarmouth Oilskins www.yarmouthoilskins.com Flax London flaxlondon.com
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Sartorial
STYLE ON THE NILE Pandora Harrison joins a crew of immaculately clad voyagers to travel down the Nile in search of ancient treasures and a stiff gin and tonic or two
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he moment I heard of an expedition to the Pyramids and down the Nile, reminiscent of the golden age of Thomas Cook Nile Tours, I immediately entertained thoughts of robbing the nearest financial institution to fund my participation in such an excursion. A rather extravagant way of commemorating one’s 20th wedding anniversary I know, but I’m worth it. The expedition is the dreamchild of veteran adventurer Matthew Moran of Goodspeed and Bach (New York based bespoke travel consultancy) and was designed with the assistance of renowned Egyptologists Profs John and Colleen Darnell (The Vintage Egyptologist). We would follow in the footsteps of the likes of Agatha Christie and Howard Carter, experiencing transportation and accommodation in a similar vein, while enjoying the expertise and personal touch of the Darnells. A rare opportunity indeed and one not to be missed. There follows a highly edited version of our travel diary.
“Ms Faith and her DJ chums serenaded us till the wee hours, causing our bed to vibrate like a Magic Fingers 25-cent massage in a Motel 6. How do I know? Don’t ask. I delighted in wishing ‘Pharaoh’s Revenge’ upon Paloma” Egypt Air to meet our fellow adventurers flying in from New York. Our group, consisting of 22 souls, was as great a cross-section of lifestyles as that of the SS Minnow’s manifest in Gilligan’s Island. We, however, benefited from having no less than three professors, an author doing research for her latest novel (a less boozy Salome Otterbourne) and in place of a movie star we had the alluring burlesque artist Miss Dandy Dillinger. Behatted, brogued and immaculate in linen, we started as we meant to go on, and by the time
TUESDAY 8TH MAY 2018 Our adventure began with my husband Andrew and I travelling direct from London to Cairo with
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1944
IN 1940 THE LUFTWAFFE DESTROYED OUR FACTORY. 4 YEARS LATER OUR FACTORY HELPED DESTROY THE LUFTWAFFE.
A 250kg bomb dropped from 10,000ft can cause unimaginable damage in a watchmaker’s workshop. In fact, the Blitz reduced Vertex’s Hatton Garden HQ to a smouldering ruin. Fortunately, nobody was on the premises at the time and so together with his trusty horologists our founder, Claude Lyons, quickly set about rebuilding the business. It wasn’t long before Vertex was fully operational again, and the timing could not have been better. When the Ministry of Defence sent an urgent call out to any companies willing and able to manufacture a new military spec field watch, Vertex was the only British supplier capable of fulfilling the order. And so the legendary Caliber 59 WWW (Waterproof Watch Wristlet) came into service. Issued to special units whose precise calculations and timings would prove decisive in the final stages of the War. No doubt Claude felt a great sense of pride that Vertex was able to play a small part in hastening an end to the war. And, a quiet satisfaction that he’d contributed to the demise of the regime that had bombed his beloved factory. To mark a century since Vertex was founded, we have created the M100. A faithful re-issue of the Caliber 59 WWW with over 70 years’ worth of material and mechanical advancement. Find out about the Vertex story and the M100 at Vertex-watches.com
2017
Biography
JACK BUCHANAN Matthew Lyons on the man variously described as the Best Dressed Man in London, Mr. Mayfair, England’s Maurice Chevalier, the Richest Man in the Theatre and the Male Greta Garbo
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“Fred Astaire, for one, was captivated. Buchanan’s was the first show he saw on his first trip to London, in 1923. “Jack was always an idol of mine,” he later wrote. “He had a style and method all of his own. I was captivated by his personal charm”
t’s February 1954 and the Sunday Express has a scoop. Sir Laurence Olivier is learning to dance. More, he is planning to dance with a partner as part of a charity event at the Palladium, organised by Noel Coward. His dancing partner – and teacher – is Jack Buchanan, who the paper finds putting Olivier through twelve hours of rehearsal for what will be a two-minute routine which Buchanan last performed with Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon, released the previous year. “Fred Astaire and Jack make it look so simple, but it’s not in the least,” Olivier complains to the reporter. “Playing Hamlet is easier.” Buchanan, a few weeks short of his sixty-third birthday, is immaculate as always: pearl grey trilby, double-breasted suit, Malacca cane. He has been making style look simple since around 1917 – it is, in large part, what he is famous for. And famous he
is; it’s his name that leads the paper’s headline, not Olivier’s. But who was Jack Buchanan?
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Holly Rose Swinyard, adapting well to the heat
Our host and master of ceremonies, Mr. Ben Shires
Telombre, currently in Saint-Moritz
Eva Leigh (left) and Bethan Garland, events mistress for The Chap Olympiad
REVIEWS •
Author interview: Anthony Quinn (p136) Book Reviews (p140) • Travel: Old Shanghai (p144) • Music: Dandy Wellington (p152)
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OLD SHANGHAI
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Paul French, author of City of Devils, takes us on a walking tour of Shanghai, recounting steamy tales of decadence, opium and freebooting of the 1930s. City of Devils is published by Riverrun the Pacific began. But that was later… in the 1930s Shanghai was a must for any chap on a tour of the Far East, an essential disembarkation for Orientalbound sojourners, at a time when Hong Kong was nothing more than a garrulous and pestilential Navy
n its heyday, Shanghai was the real deal when it came to anonymity – a chap could walk down the gangplank from his ocean liner, step onto the majestic sweeping Bund waterfront, stroll nonchalantly over to the disinterested customs man and proffer any name he cared to. No-one in Shanghai wished to see a passport, nor did they require a visa, nor could they care less if you gave a false name. The supposedly visa-free Casablanca of popular legend is largely a Hollywood invention; the International Settlement of Shanghai was actually the most open city in the world during the 1930s. Secured by gunboat-enforced treaty from China after the First Opium War in 1842, Shanghai grew and prospered for 99 freebooting, cosmopolitan years, until the Japanese occupied the city moments after their attack on Pearl Harbor and all-out war in
“1930s Shanghai was a must for any chap on a tour of the Far East, at a time when Hong Kong was nothing more than a garrulous and pestilential Navy town and Singapore a notoriously boring place under the sway of prim missionary wives” 145
explore the Bund and the streets close by, but we won’t be short changed for choice and sights to see…
THE SHANGHAI CLUB
“The Long Bar at the Shanghai Club was the world’s longest continuous bar – Noel Coward, visiting in 1930, wrote of the Long Bar at the Shanghai Club that as he lay his cheek on it, he could see the curvature of the earth” town and Singapore a notoriously boring place under the sway of prim missionary wives. By contrast, Shanghai stood for modernity, boasting world-class hotels with lifts and central heating, movie theatres, motorised taxi cabs and art-deco cabarets on nearly every street corner; neon light, jazz, opium. It was a city that attracted the raffish adventurer as well as the chap-on-themake and the chap on-the-lam. It was cosmopolitan beyond belief, inhabited by over three million Chinese with several hundred thousand foreign residents – “Shanghailanders” – as well as 140,000 White Russian émigrés from the Bolshevik Revolution and a newly arrived 40,000 Jewish refugees from fascism in Europe. It was the world’s fourth largest city (after London, Paris and New York) in 1936 and by far the most densely packed. Shanghai’s legal light touch meant closing hours were never even considered and bordellos licensed. You could, literally, drink and dance till dawn. We don’t have long, just a night ashore to
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A man of distinction, of some standing in life, a degree of wealth and success (real or imaginary) would not consider anywhere else but the Shanghai Club for their first drink after disembarkation. The Shanghai Club was a couple of minutes walk from the Customs House at No.2 Bund. Upon entering, he would take his place at the famous Long Bar (above and right). Where exactly he stood along the L-shaped bar (111 feet long and then a further 39 feet to form the L-shape) would be determined by his status. New arrivals were customarily served at the far end of the main length of the bar; those with some social rank and time served in the East closer towards the entrance; the veteran Shanghailanders and tai-pans (big bosses) of the largest foreign firms sat at the shorter arm of the bar facing out over the riverfront. It was the world’s longest continuous bar – Noel Coward, visiting in 1930, wrote of the Long Bar at the Shanghai Club that, as he lay his cheek on it, he could see the curvature of the earth. Wherever a chap found a space at the mahogany bar, the drink he would order would invariably be a ‘stengah’. The stengah features regularly in Somerset Maugham’s Far Eastern tales and derived its name from the Malay word for “half ” – half whisky and half soda. Famously the beggar boys of Shanghai cried: "No mama, no papa, no whisky soda..." Locally brewed beers were never much cop; wines invariably spoiled on the long hot voyage via Suez and so spirits and cocktails were de riguer. Whisky was the spirit of choice; the stengah was helping to fuel Shanghai’s reputation as the Paris of the East. In 1941 the Shanghai Club, like the rest of the city, was occupied by the Japanese. They cut down the legs of the billiard tables to better suit their height. After the communist revolution in 1949, the mahogany bar was put in storage, the Shanghai Club became an austere Maoist International Seamen’s Club and then, in 1990, it was turned into Shanghai first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant – the very definition of how the mighty have fallen. However, it’s a riches to rags to riches tale. The
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The Bund, Shanghai today
Shanghai Club is now the Waldorf Astoria, which has restored the Long Bar with seafood flown in from France, live jazz and a suitably excellent whisky collection. The Long Bar is back – though sadly considerably shorter than originally – but well worth a visit.
carvery, the Chop Chop Club; Canton Table serving dim sum; the renowned Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s eponymous Jean-Georges, mixing classic French dishes with Shanghai twists; and, for the discerning late night tippler, the excellent cocktail bar Whisper (below), where you can settle in among the original 1916 fireplaces. The distinctive cupola of the building, accessible only by a winding staircase features a table for two, a fantastic view down the Bund and across the river, a private butler and one’s own chef – it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Shanghai’s most celebrated place to pop the question.
THE BUND Nowadays the Bund is less commercial than the 1930s but offers some excellent dining for the visitor. No.3 was once home to a host of insurance companies but is now “Three on the Bund”, a building which contains a number of places to dine and gaze down on the old Bund or across the Huangpu River towards the futuristic skyscrapers of Pudong on the other side – a vista that has spurred so many Blade Runner comparisons that to mention it would be a social faux pas, marking you out as a newly arrived hick among today’s Shanghailanders. In the 1930s the view would have been across to a few one-storey warehouses known as “godowns”, endless chicken farms and market gardens as far as the eye could see. Three on the Bund today includes the brasserie Pop, celebrating Shanghai’s art-deco heritage; long time Shanghailander French chef Paul Pairet’s new
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The Bund, Shanghai in 1935
Auden and Christopher Isherwood sipped cocktails at the nightclub in the hotel’s tower, the Tower Club. The hotel became the “Peace Hotel” in the 1950s after the Chinese revolution. It got a bit run down during the dark days of Maoism but has now been completely refurbished. Today the famous Jazz Bar, replacing Sir Victor’s Hare and Hounds, is going strong, with a jazz band of aged Chinese musicians who learnt their instruments pre-1950s before jazz become verboten under the no-fun communists. The hotel’s premier Chinese restaurant Dragon Phoenix is a great place to sample a proper banquet of classic Shanghainese dishes, while the Cathay Room offers French cuisine in chic surroundings that Sir Victor would have heartily approved of. Sassoon married his nurse “Barnsie” in later life and built the largest collection of Chinese ivory carvings, which he then donated to the British Museum. The House of Roosevelt is housed in No.27 Bund, the former Shanghai HQ of Jardine Matheson (the biggest British opium dealers in nineteenth century China), now beautifully restored. The roof
THE CATHAY HOTEL Today No.20 Bund is the Fairmont Peace Hotel; back then it was The Cathay Hotel. The building stands mid-way along the Bund, occupying an entire city block and with marvellous river views. It was built to the specifications of Shanghai’s most legendary chap – Sir Victor Sassoon. Sassoon was the genuine article – born into a Baghdadi Jewish family of enormous wealth (thanks in part to the opium trade) he walked with a limp sustained while serving in the Royal Flying Corps in WW1. He was Shanghai’s most prolific property developer and many stand out art-deco buildings were owned by him. He hosted the best dinner parties in town, where guests included Emily “Mickey” Hahn, socialite and New Yorker correspondent in Shanghai, who always attended with Mr. Mills, her pet gibbon, on her shoulder. But he is best remembered for building The Cathay, Shanghai most luxurious hotel that dominates the Bund skyline still. Noel Coward wrote Private Lives in The Cathay; George Bernard Shaw drank in the hotel’s basement pub, the Hare and Hounds; in 1939 WH
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SHANGHAI COCKTAILS DD’s Downtown on the old Bubbling Well Road (now Nanjing West Road) was once the place to go for cocktails. Sadly it was closed in 1941, never to reopen. But they left behind their famous cocktail recipe book, published in 1939. Shanghailanders worshipped the cocktail and liked to mix them strong. Here are three local recommendations from DD’s bar staff, entirely made up from emigré White Russians, with an original illustraton above from the book itself.
Sir Victor Sassoon and friends at The Cathay Hotel
top bar provides an excellent night-time view of the Bund and the skyscrapers of Pudong opposite. It also houses the library of the Royal Asiatic Society in China (easy to visit by appointment) and the city’s largest wine cellar. It would be churlish to leave the Bund without visiting the old British Consulate at No.33, the last building along the Bund before you cross Suzhou Creek via the Garden Bridge. The former building remains but is now incorporated into the Peninsula Hotel Shanghai, which is the best place for afternoon tea, while the rooftop terrace, Sir Elly’s (named after Sir Elly Kadoorie, another dapper chap, Baghdadi Jew and multi-millionaire of old Shanghai) provides great cocktails and a vast selection of whiskies. And that’s the Shanghai Bund. Its dockside once teeming with ocean liners newly arrived from San Francisco, London and Marseille and a million rickshaws vying for trade along its length, now the river frontage is crowded with tourists, but the rooftops of the Bund provide an unparalleled view of this once most famous street in the Far East. n
•D D’s
Shanghai Cocktail – place one lump of sugar and the juice of a half lemon in a cocktail shaker, add a double shot of Canadian Club and a dash of grenadine. Throw in some ice and shake. Pour into a cocktail glass and add a piece of orange peel.
•T he
DD’s Special Cocktail – a measure of vodka, half a measure each of French vermouth and Italian vermouth, a teaspoonful of grenadine and the same of white Curacao. A dash of sugar syrup, ice and a good shake. Serve with a cherry.
•T he
DD’s House Cocktail – a measure of brandy and another of Italian vermouth, a dash of absinthe and another of Angostura Bitters. Ice and a shake before squeezing a piece of lemon peel on the top.
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Photo: © Nina Galicheva
Music
DANDY WELLINGTON As he took to the London stage in Club Swizzle this summer, the jazz bandleader and style icon spoke to Darcy Sullivan
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“For many, dandyism a sort of layabout elegance, a self-centred decadence, not a political statement about anything other than your own self-obsession. To me, dandyism is also about being the best gentleman you can be”
hen you think of dandies and dandyism, you probably don’t picture a smile, and there’s a reason for that. As exemplified by Beau Brummell — and codified by French writer Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly — dandyism was as much about attitude as about clothes, and that attitude was sangfroid. Dandies stood apart from society, from their fellow men and women, even from love. They turned a critical monocle on life, and found it disappointing. There is, however, another kind of dandy. One who finds dressing well, or dressing up, to be a celebration of life. One who, unlike Mr. Darcy, dances. Dandy Wellington is this kind of dandy. Ever
since Rose Callahan photographed him for the Dandy Portraits blog, and he appeared in her book I Am Dandy, his Instagram feed has been a pick-me-
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Photo: © Jane Kratochvil
up for style-watchers. A jazz singer and bandleader, he aims to delight his audience, whether they’re listening to him or looking at him. “A big portion of jazz music is escapism,” Wellington says. “It had its youth in the ‘20s when things were great. Then the Great Depression hit. But when times are tough you can either fall prey to that or you can look to optimism and better days. The fashion of the times reflects that.” This month, Wellington brings his happy feet to London as part of the cabaret revue Club Swizzle at the Roundhouse. British audiences have the chance to see an American original whose joyous approach to entertainment is needed now more than ever. “I’m a performer, an event producer, a singer, a dancer, and someone who appreciates style and tries to be the best person I can be to those around
“A big portion of jazz music is escapism. It had its youth in the 20s when things were great, then the Great Depression hit” me, whether I know someone or don’t,” Wellington says. “In this weird, often shitty time, where leaders are just going a little crazy, we all need to have a reason to smile and be kind to each other.”
BECOMING DANDY WELLINGTON Both jazz and style were in Wellington’s blood. His mother was a jazz fan from Jamaica, her mother a seamstress and tailor. Born in Harlem, Wellington
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