A Rakish Evening At Rubinacci

Last night saw the launch of issue five of The Rake magazine at the London branch of Rubinacci on Mount Street. Copies of the issue, with Luca Rubinacci sitting nonchalantly on the cover, were liberally distributed and a blow-up image of Luca adorned a poster in the corner. In the circumstances he was rather modest, as indeed were father Mariano Rubinacci and his twin sister, all anxious to extend their most generous hospitality to the great, good and (most importantly) stylish of London that attended.

After a brief introduction from The Rake’s Editor-in-Chief, Christian Barker, Nick Foulkes gave the keynote address. Nick wrote the cover story for this issue of The Rake, profiling Mariano and Luca, and he was full of bon mots to describe Rubinacci’s tailoring elegance, as well as anecdotes describing occasions where a knowledge of Rubinacci has come in most useful. As each name dropped with a (self-confessed) clang, Nick described his conversations with Luca di Montezemolo and the British Royal Family, both of which were saved by a reference to Rubinacci and his soft, elegant lines. It’s the international language of style, don’t you know.

The guest list was a testament to how far The Rake has come in just under a year (particularly given the sheet rain coming down outside). Most of those present knew and liked the magazine, agreeing it was a breath of fresh air in a magazine market dominated by lad’s mags and fashion quarterlies. Those that didn’t know it were instantly impressed when they picked it up – testament to the photography of Munster (also present) as much as anything else, in my opinion.

The sheer exuberance of colour and texture in the Rubinacci store makes it a perfect backdrop to social occasions, and many of those present remarked what a great idea it was to have such launches in locations like this. Indeed that drew the most comments of the evening – after those referring to the massive block of Parmesan cheese.

As a regular contributor to The Rake, I am of course biased. But it is still true that no magazine or website gives me such a sartorial thrill as reading this magazine. Hopefully my contributions go some way to giving that pleasure to others.

The Rake is still only available outside Asia by subscription, but plans are afoot to change that. In the meantime, Lodger on Clifford Street is selling a limited number of copies of issue 5 at the moment – priced at £10.

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How China Changed The Silk Industry

The British silk-weaving industry has changed immensely over the past 50 years. Some can still claim to be among the biggest and best in the world, but many smaller weavers and artisans have gone out of business.

The biggest reason for this, of course, is China. But it’s interesting talking to someone in the industry, such as Andrew Henry, sales director at Vanners in Suffolk, about exactly how that industrial behemoth has changed the dynamic. Henry was kind enough to talk me through his experiences during a site visit last week.

The companies that suffered most from China were those in the mid-market – neither mass nor niche producers.

When China first began its industrial growth, weavers in Europe found they could source much cheaper product from China and offer it very efficiently to existing clients. But that often meant that clients had a choice between cheaper Chinese product and relatively expensive European alternatives – most took the cheaper option. The weavers then found it harder to sell the premium product, and slipped down quickly down into the mass market.

Selling anything in volume is a numbers game, and one where it is hard to remain consistently competitive. As more weavers entered this part of the market, and China began exporting its own (quickly improving) cloth, margins shrank and many of Europe’s best-known weavers went out of business.

Italian mills often suffered more because their industry is less consolidated, with many aspects like dyeing outsourced. (Italy is still probably the biggest weaver of high-end silk, with the UK second and France a bit further off in third.)

“When I used to go to Como 20 years ago to see weavers, it was almost impossible to get a hotel reservation,” says Henry. “Now relatively speaking it is a ghost town. So many have gone.”

China’s reaction was opportunistic. Some of the managers at Europe’s defunct mills were hired by Chinese operations, to help them improve quality and production processes. As a result, Chinese silk weaving has come on immensely in the last 20 years.

“To be frank, the standard of some of the stuff out of China is OK these days,” says Henry. “They’ve come on a long way.”

The problem that Chinese mills face today is that they often don’t have the experience or market knowledge to produce silks that will appeal to the high-end European, Japanese or American audience. They can’t design a range for a client, or know what will sell in a particular market and why.

“I suppose that’s one way in which outfits like Vanners are unique and will continue to be so,” says Henry.

(By the way, you will see boxes labelled ‘China’ around the Vanners weaving shed. But that’s because the silk itself comes from China and always has. Few other climates in the world can support its production – Brazil is probably the second biggest producer.)

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GAP Losing The Battle With Inditex

It was fitting that the new Pull and Bear and Massimo Dutti stores, both part of the gigantic Zara-powered Inditex group, should have moved into the same relatively pretty, white-façade building on London’s Oxford Street that GAP used to occupy. Although GAP now occupy, and have done for some time, a rather glassy flagship a little way down the road, the polishing of this West London gem of a building – a rarity on mostly modern Oxford Street – by the company that overtook the GAP group as the world’s largest clothing retailer is so suitable that it reminded me of those stories of conquest and colony; when triumphant soldiers marched through the palaces of the conquered.

When I had last entered the building, the GAP store had occupied two rather dingy levels. Light wooden floors, hopelessly outdated, rarely creaked with the tread of constant custom – the newer, larger and lighter GAP store on the street was attracting more business. I only really ventured in for the sale stock, which was usually plentiful; racks and carousels of shirts in my rather unpopular XS size and the odd jumper and jacket. Aside from that it was a rather depressing affair; hoodies, masses of socks and jersey gym wear. It was only a matter of time, I thought, before this GAP is sacrificed. The irony of the sacrifice is that in giving up their lease, GAP handed the prime property, and therefore greater presence in the English capital, to their fiercest rivals.

Inditex have splashed on this retail space in characteristic fashion; Pull and Bear, a trashy, unappealing-but-bound-to-be-successful retailer of denim, printed t-shirts and other flotsam, occupy one half of the building. Inside there is a dark, industrial atmosphere – something between a factory and a theme park ride. It’s well laid out, spacious, offers seating (shock, horror) and, from my time lurking around the entrance, was drawing a good deal of interest from passing shoppers.

The same was true of the gleaming Massimo Dutti store; staff were conspicuously obsequious, racks were not unattractively loaded with stock and overall there was the sense you were entering a store of grander pretensions. In addition to the improved interior, the white façade has been well maintained and the promotional stickers and signage have been kept to a tasteful minimum.

Inditex, far from playing catch up with the older and more established GAP group, are consistently one step ahead. Although as behemoth retailers they are constantly compared, aesthetically, there is little comparison. GAP offers rather simple, functional clothing; chinos, jeans, knitwear, functional shirts, gym wear and the occasional belt. Inditex, through all of their outlets, do their damndest to offer ‘design’ at a lower price; they take more risks with their stock.

Why has Inditex come out on top? Analysts often point to their quick and aggressive expansion (which contrasts to GAP’s absurdly ponderous methods), their strategy for locating stores on the best streets in town and, in Zara, their rapid stock turnaround. Others also cite the improved store experience, the appeal of a European brand and the successful, internal manufacture-to-distribution process.

The thing that doesn’t get mentioned as often in reference to this retailer war is that Inditex has managed to capture the imagination of the GAP-weary shopper. We’ll always need chinos but once we have them, is there anything else in the store that draws us in? The lifestyle sold in GAP is, and has been for a long time, far too ‘young’ for the way we live now. I have a friend who told me he shopped once at GAP last year for ‘bumming around clothes’ – Zara he looks in almost every other week. The reason? ‘Bumming around clothes’ hardly require constant replenishment. Another friend, who boasts he hasn’t crossed the threshold for five years, quipped ‘Don’t mind the GAP.’ The shopping public have fallen out of love. And it shows.

GAP menswear, now relegated to the top floor of the Oxford Street flagship, is very often rather empty on a Saturday afternoon. It looks tired, worn and, like an old heavyweight title holder, rather slow and deliberate. GAP fans of my acquaintance champion the fact that their clothes last. Inditex, by comparison, have said, rather unblinkingly, that Zara clothes are really meant to be worn ‘a few times.’ Both of these assertions are somewhat inaccurate as I have Zara clothes that are well-used and in excellent condition and some GAP clothing that has, in my opinion, had to be placed prematurely on the scrap heap.

There is no doubt that as Inditex’s tentacles have spread far and wide, and its grip on the high street clothing market has strengthened, it has moved into the Primark/H&M realm of increasing supply, reducing price and declining quality but GAP has lost the laurels it once rested on. It needs to rethink its flagship brand. While it still has the muscle, and the greatness of its name, it should try to recapture the great portion of the market it has lost.

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But The British Are No Better…

At the beginning of June I wrote an across-the-pond view of North American wedding wear customs. I wrote of the ‘contradiction’ of the wedding couple’s attire, and how ‘inappropriate’ it was to wear evening clothing to morning and afternoon ceremonies.

My thoughts appeared to resonate with some of the readers: one remarked that the clothing choice was partly to do with the ‘utilitarian’ theory; that a wedding requires a ‘dressed up’ choice and black tie = dressed up. Another commented that the origins of the American nation (“We are almost all descended from the European lower class”) are partly to blame.

I have thought that, on reflection, I have been a little bit rough on this point. I do not retract my view that black tie at daytime weddings looks wrong to me but I do feel that one who resides in a glass house should not throw such stones. As immaculate and appropriate as some are attired in the UK for a wedding, a huge number of the ceremonies and receptions that take place in churches and marquees, between Land’s End and John o’Groats, are a far cry from the image of sartorial perfection that this nation often likes to portray.

The average British wedding is utterly depressing. The people are generally wonderful but the ghastly clothing that the seemingly uncaring grooms’ parties choose to don is astonishingly awful. Why is this? For what possible reason could a nation of such history in cut and cloth be clothed in such cardboard-waistcoats, synthetic tailcoats, vomit-inducing matching cravats and, usually, inappropriate accessories and footwear? Wedding hire. The sad fact of the matter is, most people rent their wedding clothing and while this is perfectly acceptable, and by no means a modern practice, it does mean that for one of the most formal occasions in your life, a major turning point and a new beginning, you’ll be wearing the most generic of the generic; a suit made for a market, not for a man.

How many times has the wedding-going Brit seen that lilac, burgundy or golden cravat? That matching brocade waistcoat or those overly long trousers with one too many breaks? I for one have seen these things too often. It’s hardly surprising, given Moss Bros. market dominance, that on wedding days churchyards and chapels up and down the country are littered with their coats, trousers, waistcoats and accessories.

However it is not just ubiquity which I find rather distasteful. My biggest gripe with this practice is that the aesthetics are entirely off. The jackets are not only made for someone in your chest size category but usually for men of varying heights, arm sizes and shoulder width. Even on the photogenic models in the catalogue, on whom a mankini would look partially flattering, they look utterly rigid and shapeless.

The ‘cardboard’ waistcoats are exactly that; as stiff as a board. The pattern is almost always a woven paisley or brocade – something akin to grandmother’s bedroom curtains – and the sheen is breathtakingly vulgar. The cravat, now so hackneyed, is no daub of elegance but a blob of tack that looks more like a used napkin. A pocket square that matches the cravat and the waistcoat in colour and texture sits in a contrived, starched fashion in the breast pocket. The worst thing about such a common combination? Better options are available at the renters. Although there is great variety available, it seems that most wedding parties in Great Britain end up choosing the same damn thing.

If I were advising a groom and his party on attire I would instruct him to hire one of the classic (non-Edwardian) cutaway morning coats, if he does not wish to purchase his own, and nothing else. He should always purchase his own trousers (cut to his length), his own waistcoat – single or double breasted – and his own tie or Ascot (which doesn’t have to be plain) and pocket square.

The waistcoat should not be of a high break or have any woven pattern. Dove grey is the most classic and masculine choice. The groom should also differ slightly from others in his party; a different tie, pocket square or colour of waistcoat would make him stand out from the rest. Finally, it is likely that he and his party possess better shirts in their own wardrobes than the wing-collared things they try and foist at the renters; always a turn down collar for ties and always a wing collar for Ascots.

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