To the manner born
James Sherwood discovers a new meaning to the phrase ‘fashion house’ It is both blessing and curse for luxury goods brands that they largely appeal to cads and parvenus. Would a true gentleman wish for a £15,000 white alligator attaché-case or oversize sunglasses whose frames could accommodate a Velázquez? Such frivolities, to quote Lady Bracknell, ‘seem to display a contempt for ordinary decencies which remind one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution’. The men who these brands aspire to dress flee from their flagship stores like wits from a dinner party bore.
It is not without irony that the revival of the English gentleman aesthetic has caught the big brands on the back foot. All of a sudden heritage and quality, not fashion and luxury, are leading menswear. The prestige brands need authenticity and exclusivity to lead emerging markets such as China, Russia and India by example. This cannot be achieved with identically branded, soulless temples of Mammon peppered across the globe from the Ginza to Geneva.
The answer is to get one’s house — or more specifically home — in order. This month Alfred Dunhill, purveyor of quality gentlemen’s requisites since 1893, opens its new London Home at Bourdon House; a Grade 2* listed Mayfair mansion built in 1720 and occupied by the Duke of Westminster, that combines brand showcase, townhouse and exclusive private gentlemen’s club with rooms.
The wrought-iron gates of Bourdon House sell the illusion of Dunhill as part of Mayfair’s private aristocratic playground. In short, the house is proffering a duke’s life in 21st-century London: a concierge, in-house barber, bespoke tailor, humidor, reserved cellar space for wine, customised Bentley Continental Spur on call and ‘dishonesty bar’ to drain in the restored Duke of Westminster bedroom when one’s in town.
This audacious leap from shop front to palatial Mayfair townhouse was three years in the making and a rumoured £15 million investment for the property, not to mention the exorbitant costs of restoration under the watchful eye of English Heritage. Few dukes could or would set up such a lavish London home today. The club rooms, including the original first-floor staterooms and bedrooms, are probably finer than they were in 1917 when the Westminsters moved to Bourdon.
‘We’ve always viewed and embraced quality over quantity,’ says Dunhill CEO Christopher Colfer. ‘When you buy a building like this, you have to honour it and respect it with the highest of standards. We have worked closely with the Duke’s Grosvenor Estate and his blessing was paramount. We made a promise from the outset to restore Bourdon to its original grandeur. This has been both painstaking and rewarding. It is a truly magnificent property.’ Equally magnificent are the diplomatic residences in the French Quarter of Shanghai that Dunhill have acquired to extend their empire to join Tokyo and London.
Of course, Ralph Lauren is the past master of mansion-as-selling-space; dressing his monolithic (and invariably detached) townhouses with all the artistry and guile he gave to The Great Gatsby in 1974. Lauren has exported his glamorous new-world/old-money look worldwide and it still travels well. After achieving global domination as creative director of the Gucci group, Tom Ford’s first eponymous venture is a fine example of the townhouse approach to selling suits.
Instead of inking a deal to sell his debut collection worldwide, Ford chose instead to open a Hollywood movie set of a soigné gentleman’s mansion on New York’s Madison Avenue. Milan, London, LA and Las Vegas will follow over the next two years. When Manhattan opened in 2007, Ford described his townhouse to me as ‘a Hollywood version of a Savile Row bespoke tailor’s shop’. Ford was being modest. His fur-lined, gold-plated, ocean-going gin palace of a gentleman’s townhouse is arguably the most glamorous men’s boutique the world has ever seen.
Ford’s $5,000-plus suits are displayed in glass vitrines, while white-gloved butlers and liveried maids straight out of an MGM musical pander to the man who will drop £10,000 on his seasonal wardrobe. ‘Like most men, I hate shopping,’ says Ford. ‘I hate the process of trying on clothes. That’s why my new store operates more like a sophisticated gentlemen’s club. I wanted to create a place that a man could go to once or twice a year and order everything from his tuxedo to his tennis shorts in one hit.’ The landmark townhouse with interiors particular to the host city is a welcome and natural progression from ‘McLuxury’ streets worldwide where, admit it, the usual suspects such as Chanel, Dior and Gucci line up with all the glamour and predictability of Boots, W.H. Smith and Tesco. ❑
Home of Alfred Dunhill at Bourdon House, 2 Davies Street, Mayfair, London W1 www.dunhill.com
www.ralphlauren.com www.tomfordinternational.com
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