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Book Review – ‘Palaces of Pleasure’ – Lee Jackson 

By Robin Dutt 

It has been a year of deprivation of many things. And it has to be stressed that, although we might be emerging into the light, we are not there yet. Sociability, shopping, conversation, imbibing and, basically, all aspects of what we knew as normal behaviour pre-Covid have been and will be effected for a time to come.

And it’s a sure bet that if one were able to crystalise exactly what we all were missing in one word, that word would be pleasure. At first, a full Lockdown, then variations of the same by way of a partial one, we all know what it is to be starved of pleasure to such an extent that this goes way beyond the actual pleasure of pleasure itself!

A dearth of fun and joy breeds depression, lethargy, introspection, negative thoughts, boredom – and much worse. Artificial diversions are simply that. Nothing can take the place of the real thing.

So, Lee Jackson’s latest book on the subject is one we can enjoy for its rich detail and its focus on what pleasure meant to our species in specific environs two centuries ago and of course how this has changed – if it has, in essence, at least. Venues may come and go but that human expectation to enjoy life is still the same – increased though in our age, by so much choice of venue and experience.  But this throws the effect of the pandemic into sharper focus. Take away our pleasure, our enjoyment and we become less – in every way.

Palaces of Pleasure highlights everything from the Gin Palace to the Music Hall, the Dancing Room to the Pleasure Garden, the Exhibition Room to the Seaside. For our twenty-first century, read pubs, theatres, nightclubs, parks and galleries. But then, as now, the seaside is a huge British tourist draw and one so many of us missed in this last year, unless you happen to live by it. And how we took our scepter’d isle with its countless resorts for granted.

All of these diversions are essential to the well-being of the human psyche and how we came to value that taken for granted coffee in a cafe with a friend as opposed to having to book a time slotted table and sit socially distanced and don the mask when you needed the loo. And what of sport?

As a football-loving nation, we were all quickly reminded that it is not simply watching two teams battle it out. The ‘society of the stands’ is crucial and that feeling of ‘being there’.

Jackson’s book could not have been better timed, for we are still in the grip (though lessening) of the Covid crisis but with a less than sure vista regarding certain beloved pleasure palaces of our own, perhaps never to open again and which we all thought would be there forever. By the end of all of this, everyone will have lost a favourite establishment.  Will we ever take pleasure for granted again? Knowing what we are as a species, we forget – and adapt.

But one thing is for certain, pointed out by D.J.Taylor, writing in the Wall Street Journal – ‘pleasure is, at bottom, a deeply serious business’.

Palaces of Pleasure’ by Lee Jackson is published by Yale University Press. £10.99 

Image shows: A busy gin palace bar with customers buying drinks. Coloured etching by G. Cruikshank, c. 1842. Wellcome Collection

 

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Book Review - 'Palaces of Pleasure' -

News

A co-creation between Rolls-Royce and Maison Hermes has resulted in the bespoke Phantom Oribe, described by its owner as a ‘land jet’, writes Robin Dutt.

The vehicle’s rich green and tempered cream hues match the glazes of antique Japanese Oribe ware, of which Yusaku Maezawa who commissioned the project, is a dedicated collector.

Perhaps the opposite in appearance to kintsugi (the breaking and expert mending of pottery adored by many Japanese as symbolic for the beauty is imperfection, Oribe is a masterclass in perfection –  even though this ‘perfection’ can involve purposefully deformed shapes to emphasise the unique.

But there is nothing deformed about the Phantom Oribe. It is quite simply perfect – if such a thing exists.

Torsten Muller-Otvos, Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars says: “This magnificent expression of our pinnacle product represents a landmark for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, bringing together two houses with more than three centuries’ combined experience and heritage.”

And Michael Bryden, Lead Designer, Rolls-Royce Collective, believes that this car is “a fusion of East and West, ancient and modern, serenity and exhilaration”!.

Hermes leather, something the company has been associated with since its inception in 1837, is proudly on display and also features in less visible surfaces in the form, for example of, linings and the decanter stowage compartment.

In addition this revered French house commissioned an artwork based on a design by artist and illustrator, Pierre Peron (1905-1988) which runs the length of the car’s fascia. Monsieur Peron was responsible for creating several of Hermes’ signature silk scarf designs, known and collected internationally.

And, as one might expect with this exemplar of Rolls-Royce innovation, there is a good deal of shining, gleaming silver metal bodywork to further emphasise the undoubted element of unmatchable streamlined chic and sleekness.

The late guitarist, Pete Overend Watts of the sensational glam rock group, Mott the Hoople whose outlandish dress sense is still memorable said of his also unusual locks, that he originally used “Ford silver car paint on my hair and went on to Rolls-Royce silver. Image is everything!’”

It certainly is.

The E-Type Jaguar – 60 years of a motoring icon

 

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A co-creation between Rolls-Royce and Maison Hermes

Art & Antiques

Stephen Appleby-Barr is a skilled painter of costume and still life subjects. He brings the lushness of the capture of materials and fabrics to life with an unashamed sense of luxe and the exotic.

He certainly stands comparison with other masters who have a way with the depiction of fine and indeed, stately dress, such as Boldini, Sargeant and the recently and sadly departed Howard Morgan.

These fine painters were inspired by epochs of clothing caprices in gowns and frock coats – in both relaxed and more formal ways.

And, Appleby-Barr shares their love of light and dark and the deliberate staginess that looks alluring and dramatic, inspired by fine velvets, crisp shirting, degage cravats and vivid prints.  His technique has been described as ‘the concept of life arrested in stillness’.

The show, in collaboration with Carolyn H Miner, reminds of the artist’s confidence with fantastical, never poised or perfect environs, deliciously sueded in purposeful gloom. These images expose lush treasure troves of thought. It is refreshing to see a new master inspired by the past’s sartoria.

Until 14 May at Robilant + Voena, 38 Dover Street, London W1 4NL. (By appointment. 020 7409 1540) – Robin Dutt 

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Stephen Appleby-Barr is a skilled painter of

Motoring, News

Twenty-twenty-one marks three-score years since the sleek, iconic Jaguar E-Type, dubbed the most beautiful car ever made, was launched, Robin Dutt opines.

Unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in 1961, it was perhaps no surprise that this model with its plainly seductive and sensual lines would become an instant classic. A dear friend of mine pushed the boat out and purchased a glossy red example to celebrate his 50th birthday – and didn’t regret the cash expended.

In fact, a picture of him next to it shows an unashamed boy-racer glee. Took years off him!

There is something rather oceanic about the E-Type, with its suggestively adventurous “eyes” for headlights and a grill more like the mouth of an exotic deep water fish, somehow knowing it is rare indeed.

With a price tag of £45,000 in today’s money, the E-Type was an out-of-reach motoring luxury for most but a tangible reality for so many others who fell under her spell. Those who were on the usual £7 a week salary in the 1960s could only dream but somehow one suspects that so seductive was the model that some might have tried to save up or wait for a second or third hand example.

And, so iconic is its name that Bo Martin Erik Erikson the musician, chose to call himself, ‘E-Type’.

Perhaps another reason, apart from its soignee aesthetics, the model was produced only between 1961 and 1975 and again apart from its appearance, it was a high-performance vehicle for its time – the leader in the sports car stakes.

The colours most associated with this member of the Jaguar family are black, silver, red, green and the occasional flash of yellow – nothing that suggests trend. And as in perhaps many other cases of beautifully designed cars, shape does dictate possible colour. Some colours would look so wrong on an E-Type. In today’s vehicular world where almost industrial steel grey as a car hue seems a dull, given the E-Type’s restrained palette from the start, was all about the longevity of classicism.

The car has featured in several films – most ironically, perhaps, with Mike Myers where the name Shaguar was bound to stick. But there was also the classic red example in Car Trouble featuring Julie Walters and one, beautifully converted into the most elegant hearse imaginable, for the equally one-off cult classic, Harold and Maud.

So, you might just want to fall in vintage love with an E-Type today and if so, E-Type UK will sell you your dream.

But you won’t, perhaps, have much change for celebratory strawberries and cream.

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Twenty-twenty-one marks three-score years since the sleek,

News

It has been five years (there’s a Bowie song there, somewhere) since this grandmaster of musical and performance creativity died and about 50 years since he stole the show with the lilting and strategically seductive, ‘Starman’, writes Robin Dutt.

So many people (d’un age certain) will remember this moment with fixed fascination and awe, when he burst through the TV screens – for most in black and white (but there seemed to be colour) and sung – ‘I had to ‘phone someone, so I picked on you – oo, oo’.

And accompanied by that camera-pointing index finger, almost fencing foil targeting, everyone surely thought, he was speaking about them and them alone whilst at the same time, knowing or at least, hoping that there were others out there who felt exactly the same. Ian McCulloch of Echo & the Bunnymen saw Bowie’s performance as a 12-year old and recalled ‘The presence of it.’ Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet calls it ‘my seminal moment’.

Robert Dimery’s livre de poche entitled simply, ‘David Bowie’ in a series of ‘Lives of the Musicians’ reminds in cogent detail, Bowie’s extraordinary originality and versatility. The star knew that to stay the same was to atrophy and so,  ‘Ch-ch-ch Changes’ were the way forward and the only way to establish longevity.

Although we may know much of the detail of Bowie’s life (or lives) Dimery’s is a welcome and not obtrusive presence throughout, as a guide

”Look out all you rock and rollers’ is one of the lines in that song which is surely a somewhat cheeky warning. Perhaps, it is even self- referencing too. And yet, when other ‘stars’ reinvent themselves, it is usually done mechanically and as a result of the force of fashion. He might have been a chameleon but he was reacting not to prevailing trend but his personal environ.

Bowie was able to counter the moment and the circumstance. Dimery reminds also just what a great wearer of tailoring Bowie was – of course unconventional and sporting the sharp and sculpted cuts of such visionaries as Thierry Mugler and Kansai.

The photographs in this book – some will be unfamiliar to perhaps even the most ardent Bowie fan – show in those mismatched eyes of his, one thing: steely determination. Whether as a colt of a youth in early band incarnations such as the Kon Rads or Feathers to the sexy-terrifying look of ‘Droog’-style Spiders from Mars, or the impossible sleekness of (HRH!) The Thin White Duke, Bowie’s reinvention of himself was intentionally honest and much more than about image alone.

Perhaps a humble background is essential for superstardom and Dimery is cogniscant of painting the dull background drab to the explosion of future colour – from nothing to everything, one might say.
The author’s painstaking (but evidently, enjoyed) research is here from start to finish and although we may know much of the detail of Bowie’s life (or lives) Dimery’s is a welcome and not obtrusive presence throughout, as a guide.

A ‘warts ‘n’ all’ account of the phenomenon that was/is Bowie (hard to say which) is not necessarily for most fans, undesirable. But through the author’s strident prose, one does perceive the performer’s almost manic intention to be music’s ultimate hero.

It was obvious, Dimery recounts, that Bowie had to turn his attention to America to be truly global

And with the press fascinated to the point of mania itself, having also identified the electric deliberately camp allure of Bowie’s friend, Marc Bolan’s ‘T.Rextasy’, the one time Mr. David Jones was predicted to be, as Rock Magazine stated, ‘to the 70s what Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Dylan were to the 60s’.

Indeed, by 1973, Bowie had become Britain’s best-selling rock star. But if the concept of being a ‘Hero’ and the concept of ‘Fame’ were turned into songs, it was obvious, Dimery recounts, that Bowie had to turn his attention to America to be truly global.

And whilst his old friend, Bolan, remained a glam god – yet fading all the time, Bowie embraced and indeed, made change. He understood the concept of the fragility of created empires. He knew that people tire even of the things they love.

It is curious perhaps to realise the truth of the word ‘star’ applied to anyone from musicians to painters, couturiers to writers and indeed, anything to anything, when it comes to recognition, mass adulation and of course, sizeable fortune and iconic beauty.

For a man who perhaps knew that an actual star is not a living but a dying entity, the cold irony of the fact could not have escaped. He wrote the love-soaked ballad, ‘The Prettiest Star’ for his then wife, Angie Bowie (originally with Marc Bolan on lead guitar).

But so many think that it was actually a song about Bolan. Indeed, it could have been.  And Bowie was the last star to appear on the television show ‘Marc’ which was to be Bolan’s last performance before his car crash in that purple Mini.

But that’s another story. Stars feature in Bowie titles and in the contents of his songs – ‘Starman’, ‘Ziggy Stardust’, ‘Lady Stardust’ – so is his choice of title for what would be his final album, was, ‘Blackstar’. And so…Ladies and Gentleman…a star had left the universe.

I never met David Bowie (or Bolan, come to that) but there is a personal story to share. I was invited so long ago, to one of London’s celebrated private galleries for the birthday of the gallerist and Bowie was guest of honour. He was charm itself, mingling happily with the delighted crowd and shaking hands. The star had come to town. But with champagne flowing and the baffling beauty of so many extraordinarily interesting guests, each time he sallied into my eyeline, I moved out of the way – and out of eye contact.

Julie Burchill once trenchantly wrote in an article about being wary of meeting someone you admire. ‘Never meet your Hero’ was the sentiment.   And I never did.

David Bowie by Robert Dimery (Lives of the Musicians) is published by Laurence King Publishing £12.99.

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It has been five years (there's a