Off The Cuff
14 September 2009
I had not intended to compose a weblog this week as I have been busy cobbling together…sorry carefully editing and proofing…the next issue of Finch’s Quarterly Review, which, all being well, should struggle into print in the next week or two.
And now, having been back from Marbella a whole week, stopping by Geneva on my return to pay my respects to the Stern family of Patek Philippe, I am about to head back to southern Spain to take a well earned rest from my Herculean labours (during this time I also managed to taste the Trinidad Robusto…I simply don’t know how I fit it all in). But before being reunited with the Marbella Club and its fabled buffet, I had to make a detour via Venice, to catch up with Jerome Lambert CEO of Jaeger LeCoultre, sponsor of the Venice film festival, and the fabled Amanda Bross, known to those who know such things as the hardest working woman at Finch and Partners.
While I was there at dinner on the roof of the Danieli I bumped into talented photographer Astrid Munoz who also happens to be one of the world’s most beautiful women. She was in Venice with her beau, a charming Argentine called Eduardo, a polo god who is almost as good looking as she is…sitting with two such beautiful people in Harry’s Bar, while thoroughly enjoyable, is not entirely good for one’s self image. Astrid will be contributing a photographic essay on the tango for the Christmas number of Finch’s Quarterly Review…should we ever get round to bringing it out.
I also caught up with Wei Koh. Wei is a publishing tycoon in Singapore, the local panjandarum of taste and, as far as I can tell, he is about the closest thing that Asia has to James Bond. I always cheer up when I see Wei and this time was no exception, we greeted each other with unalloyed delight across the rooftop terrace of the Danieli and providence was indeed smiling on us as Wei’s photographer (he travels with his personal photographer much as you or I may travel with a valet) was on hand to record this meeting of Rubinacci garments for posterity.
Ah yes…Rubinacci…it wouldn’t be a proper blog without the Neapolitan master creeping in somewhere somehow. As is required by Italian law I dutifully alerted Mariano on arrival in Venice and was told that his son Luca was holding court on the Lido and I would have gladly taken the trip out there had I not been waylaid by a pair of links that were in a jeweller’s tray and are now in my Budd cuffs.
Nevertheless I will be seeing the Rubinacci clan soon enough as Wei is throwing a party in Mariano’s London shop this week where guests will have the dubious pleasure of my presence as ‘keynote speaker’. I am assured by Wei that this is an absolutely fabulous idea. I am not so sure. Moreover it means that I will only be able to spend five days in Marbella collecting my thoughts and ransacking my thesaurus for new superlatives with which to garland the Rubinaccis.
