'Troy Hawke' bestows perfect poise and exquisite manners upon bewildered British shoppers - whatever the occasion. In splendid attire, Milo McCabe's "non-consensual employment" antics have salvaged the Smoking Jacket from stag party shenanigans. And tawdry Hugh Hefner homage! The Smoking Jacket suffered a calamitous decline over the past century. Yet it survives... with subtle grace and red-carpet character. Moreso, when sported outside the entrance of B&Q and other august retail outlets. So how did the Smoking Jacket become so strident and stylish a garment in the first place? Origins of the Smoking Jacket The delights of partaking a pinch of snuff gave way to the dour ritual of actually smoking tobacco by the Victorian era. This brought with it the hazards of ash smudges, singed fabric, acrid odours and other unbearable insults to evening wear. Indeed, Smoking Caps even became part of an ensemble to ensure a whiff-free head of hair. Existin...
Something about this couple invokes the dolour of Sebastian Horsley 's day of reckoning: "The day of the wedding dawned foul. Slowly and silently I got ready. I dressed all in white. I looked like a glass of milk. But inside I was black. Walking through the graveyard towards the chapel I felt about as hopeful as one of the tombstones. "The priest was waiting outside the church, like a ticket tout at the gates of heaven peddling his wares for four times their real worth. I shook his hand. He had a soft pale grip. I walked up the aisle. My soles clipped against stone like the tick of a death-watch beetle. "Ev was late. I passed the time she made me linger there at the altar listing all her faults. I could have done with another hour... " Okay, you get the picture. And can always pursue several pages of the sorry charade... in the much-missed Mr Horsley's 'unauthorised autobiography' Dandy in the Underworld (Hodder & Stoughton, 2007). In time, ...
(The mobile version of this feature got rather tipsy - there's a more moderate helping here:https://medium.com/@nuromanca ) “ Do you realise, Harold – please pay attention to this – that you and I are going to have a rather famous career at Oxford?” It could so easily have been a line from Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. And so distinctly attributable to Blanche – should a prequel scene at Eton have arisen. However the pledge was conveyed from one impending member of Waugh’s social set (and fodder for future novels) to another. An elegant pair who would converge to form “an aesthetic bugger who sometimes turns up in my novels under various names.” (1) They were Harold Acton and Brian Howard: both of whom led a relatively rebellious sixth-form existence. At a particular theatre performance: “ Brian and Harold walked into the stalls, in full evening dress, with long white gloves draped over one arm, and carrying silver-topped canes and top-h...
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