This issue marks The Rake’s 15th birthday, and the party balloons are up. Milestones are always a satisfactory thing, yet the whispering in various corridors over the past decade and a half is that print is suffering from a terminal illness. However,

Growing up with an extraordinary father is a unique experience. It is something that Wyatt Russell — one of the most interesting actors of his generation, and pictured beside his father, Kurt Russell, on the cover of this issue — can relate to. In my

In his memoir, Making Movies, Sidney Lumet, the director of Serpico, tells a lovely story about a conversation with the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Why had he chosen to frame a shot in his film Ran in a particular way? Kurosawa replied th

To quote Elon Musk, with ample tongue in cheek, for it is the epitome of stating the obvious: “You have to make stuff, otherwise nothing gets made.” As far as the tech sector of the United States is concerned, we all take full advantage of whoever bi

The soul of the American playwright Arthur Miller is more tangible than ever. Seventy years after the first performance of his incendiary play The Crucible, there was recently a new production at London’s National Theatre, starring House of the Drago

Ask any man to name the most sizzling celluloid sex kitten of the 20th century, and the chances are that the nominations will be influenced by each respondent’s age. For those who came of age in the 1950s, it’ll be Monroe. In the 1960s, perhaps Bardo

Let’s start with the unavoidable: a mention for the 1989 American comedy Turner and Hooch, in which a Dogue de Bordeaux played one of the title characters (and stole the show from his fellow lead, a youthful Tom Hanks). But more on this later. In the

In horolog y circles, the phrase ‘grail watch’ refers to a highly coveted piece that an individual, for all their contacts and means, has not managed to acquire — thus far. Not so for Matthew Williams. For the Chicago-born designer and founder of 101

DIGITAL TECHNICIAN: DERRICK KAKEMBO MODEL: PAUL SCULFOR AT SELECT GROOMING: GRACE HATCHER ■

Sigmund Freud explained our personalities as comprising three distinct parts. The id is the impulsive pleasure seeker, luxuriating in beauty and repulsed by pain. This was the part that the inhabitants of the wealthy Greek-populated city of Sybaris g

It is a blessing and a curse to trade within the shadow of one’s father. The desire to learn and imitate is as potent as the desire to chart one’s own course and make a success of life in an independent manner. It is worth saying, too, that an intrin

When the legendary film director Billy Wilder was asked about his memories of 1950s Hollywood, his answer was quick, sharp, and owed more than a little to the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. “It was the best of times,” he said.

Ralph Lauren is nothing if not a novel, one that blends fiction and non-fiction seamlessly. We punters merely watch agog as each perfect mannequin is added to a window display, or amused and entranced by the latest collection of Polo Bear sweaters. M

I am rather jealous of Dermot O’Leary. As someone who seems to punctuate every other word with an ‘um’ or an ‘ah’ whenever I converse in public, it’s infuriating to interview someone who speaks so fluently and at length. Britain’s most ebullient pres

“I ’ve seen Mayfair go through many different evolutions. My favourite was nearly 40 years ago, Mark Birley’s time. Mayfair was a place that seemed to celebrate quality, rigour and excellence. It’s a little different now. You look around Mayfair… I’m

DIGITAL TECHNICIAN: DERRICK KAKEMBO WOMENSWEAR STYLIST: ELENA GARCIA HAIR AND MAKE-UP: GRACE HATCHER USING AUGUSTINUS BADER MODELS: DILLON AT NEVS, MAGDALENA AT MILK ■

For readers of this periodical, the increasing ubiquity, and hence the dilution — actually, let’s make that flagrant abuse — of the word ‘bespoke’ is a lamentable blight to what is arguably the most expressive, most nuanced language on the planet. Or

Translating from Spanish to ‘race’, ‘career’ and ‘thoroughfare’, the word carrera is an emotionally juiced homonym, especially for those whose love of horological folklore intersects with a fondness for motorsport and a penchant for existential philo

I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was in the changing room of the Surf Snowdonia centre in Wales, nervously gearing up for my session. I was wearing nothing but a wetsuit and a watch. The fact the watch was a Fifty Fathoms by Blancpain made

Champagne is one of the most successful marketing stories in history. “Champagne has always been well regarded, fashionable and expensive,” the critic Michael Broadbent writes in his 2002 book, Vintage Wine. “Christie’s archives uniquely demonstrate

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Any physicist will tell you that speed equals distance over time. But what of a lesser-known, equally immutable law that states that desirability equals quality over scarcity? It’s a principle that provides an unlikely link between gold, white truffl