The Champions League—celebrated here in the past—is the tournament for the best club teams in Europe. The final, Saturday at the Bernabeu in Madrid, pits two classic sides against each other: the German stalwarts Bayern Munich against tenacious Inter Milan.
Bayern Munich's Arjen Robben
This is the second in an ongoing series of interviews by David Coggins.
Andy Spade’s arc of success is well-documented and yet it remains a cause for satisfaction. The simple, utilitarian design exemplified by Jack Spade seems straightforward, but like a good bistro or garage band, the key is the execution. It turns out that’s not so easy after all. Jack Spade also worked because it was at home in any neighborhood, dressed up or down. And yet it never took itself so seriously it couldn’t release a frog dissection kit. The case of Andy Spade is a reminder that just because something feels inevitable doesn’t mean it isn’t visionary.
We met at Bemelman’s Bar at the Carlyle Hotel.
David Coggins: You live up here by Bemelman’s?
Andy Spade: Right, just around the corner.
DC: And you’re drinking a Vodka Southside.
AS: Right. It’s a southern summer drink with vodka, simple syrup, a little lime juice and soda water. Usually it’s made with gin. That’s my favorite light drink. This is what I order in a bar, at home we drink wine. We spend our summers in California, so we drink a lot of wine, mostly red. I love this Alexis cabernet is by the Swanson family, who are friends of ours.
The first in a series of interviews, ACL contributor David Coggins joins The Style Guy Mr. Glenn for a chat and a cocktail AT THE BAR.
Over the course of his career, Glenn O’Brien has been all things to all people. Writing for GQ, he dispenses sartorial gospel and incisive wit as The Style Guy. Before that he was a columnist at Artforum and Details. He’s at home writing about I Claudius, cufflinks, or John Coltrane. As an adman he was responsible for the image of Barneys, Calvin Klein, and Island Records. He’s also been an editor: perhaps you heard about his tenure at Interview magazine. Through it all, O’Brien still makes time for his hobbies: golf and housekeeping.
Ultimately, Glenn O’Brien excels at being Glenn O’Brien—he brings his personal style to bear on every endeavor. What is that style? Curious, urbane, unafraid of the profane. In short, he’s an iconoclast at home everywhere.
We met at the bar at Il Buco, his local Italian.
Friday’s Times ran a photo of Lloyd Blankfein, chairman of Goldman Sachs, who’s perhaps the savviest, most well-connected money man in the country. The news was Goldman’s ice cold $3 billion third quarter profit, but what struck us was the sight of Mr. Blankfein leaving the last button of his suit cuff unbuttoned. Long favored by Italians all the way up the corporate chain of command, the deliberately unstudied style was embodied by Gianni Agnelli, the iconic head of Fiat. Though we’ve long felt that American CEO’s should learn at the Agnelli altar, the sight of Mr. Blankfein roused certain sartorial misgivings.
The case for the custom suit is well-known and irrefutable: It’s the last frontier of superior craftsmanship, entirely built by hand. The knowledge that goes into a Savile Row suit can rightly be deemed historic. Your cutter might have been taught by the man who cut suits for Winston Churchill. The sheer range of fabrics is just as astounding. You may think you know everything there is to know about tweed—think again. Some sheds in Scotland make only a handful of bolts of fabric a year. One of those bolts can be the yours.
That doesn’t make it any easier when the reckoning comes: it’s going to cost north of $4000, and you’re going to take it like a man. Once indoctrinated, however, there are few complaints. Rare is the man with only one handmade suit—he’ll do everything in his power to buy another.
That money does not go into an advertising campaign or a cologne destined for duty-free stores. Instead, it returns, as is right, to tailors who’ve apprenticed for years to become expert at what they do. In fact, the profit margins at Savile Row tailors are surprisingly small, and many have closed or left the Row. It takes clear thinking to run a traditional tailor in the modern age. Enter Patrick Grant of Norton & Sons. Grant purchased the venerable tailor (established 1821), in 2006, while still in his thirties. The Norton space at 16 Savile Row is a classic, but not everybody can be in London for the three requisite fittings. So Grant dispatches his head cutter, David Ward, to the US four times a year. ACL recently met with Mr. Ward in a midtown hotel, where he had taken a suite of rooms to conduct fittings.
Norton & Sons shop at 16 Savile Row
Unsolicited thoughts is a recurring column of assorted musings from ACL’s most cultured friend Mr. David Coggins.
May is a fine time in the sporting world unless you support a team that plays in Madison Square Garden. The mediocrity of regular season basketball gives way to the intense playoff march, and hockey players grow their post-season beards while pursuing the Stanley Cup. In baseball parks, on the other hand, it’s too early for true believers to abandon improbable dreams of October success. If you’ve still got room in your life for more sporting distraction—and you do—consider another definitive contest: the UEFA Champions League.
