Well – I have finally done it
24 July 2009
Well – I have finally done it …or rather Charles has made me do it …I have entered what I believe is called the blogosphere. I have not always been sure about the internet – a marvellous research tool for sure and I am assured by my esteemed colleague Tom Stubbs that if I require encyclopaedic information about training shoes or forensic detail on bicycles without gears then there are fabulous men’s style sites to visit – I think he mentioned hypersnobmaniatrainersrus.co.uk.org.
However Mr Stubbs seemed rather shocked when I evinced a lack of interest in ‘logging’ on to ‘check out’ the latest plimsols and ‘fixies’ – you see I already have a fine collection of shoes made by the likes of Eric Cook, Edward Green, Olga Berluti and Pepe of Marbella; and the only sports footwear I am interested in acquiring is a pair of sure measure leather lined shooting boots. As regards bicycling my Pashley has three gears – I am not sufficiently macho to be able to get by on less. And on that basis I have no place on the internet; besides the World Wide Web has got along perfectly well without me adding to the billions of words that currently clutter it up.
However in the end it all came down to money, apparently the chap from the Sartorialist has just made 190 odd million (it might be dollars, could be Swiss francs, maybe euros but even in dear old devalued pounds sterling that is a lot of dosh). As far as I can tell the Sartorialist’s success has been predicated on ‘uploading’ pictures of Rubinacci pere et fils for people with access to the internet to look at. Once again the Sartorialist was not created with me in mind, I am in the happy position of being able to toddle along Mount Street and visit Rubinacci in person.
But I was told that this was missing the point, and this is where Charles comes in, his razor sharp ever alert business mind spotted what I believe are called ‘synergies’; which as far as I can determine means that if the Sartorialist chappie has made a few million by running pictures of the beautifully dressed Rubinacci clan on line, then two can play at that game – I keep telling Charles he ought to teach at the Harvard Business School.
Now at last I saw that limitless wealth and riches beyond the dreams of avarice could be mine through the alchemy of running pictures of Mariano and Luca Rubinacci. As it happens I am working on a book about the history of Neapolitan tailoring with my old friend, FQR creative guy (which means that he wears a skinnier tie than me and Charles) Tristram Fetherstonhaugh. Tristram and his brother the unmarried Patrick Fetherstonhaugh (I understand that mail-order spouses are a big thing on the internet) have hundreds of pictures of Mariano. So I have asked them to ‘post’ an image of me and the godfather of Neapolitan lightweight tailoring sharing a joke at his Neapolitan palazzo. Mariano is the good looking guy standing up and I am the one sitting at the desk, which by the way belonged to Louis Philippe, the last king of France, who was unseated in the political upheaval of 1848, if you ware wondering what his desk is doing in Naples, the answer is that his wife was the daughter of King Ferdinand of Naples and the Two Sicilies… that’s probably the vitally important sort of detail that you wouldn’t find on from the Sartorialist.
May I have 190 million now please?
