Condé Nast Portfolio
Home > Views > Blogs > Fashion Inc. > Yet Another Collaboration: Fashion + Writing
EMAIL
PRINT
RSS
SHARE
TEXT SIZE:
SHARE
Send a copy to me

Separate multiple email addresses (max 20) with commas.

0/1500

Main
Details Bucks Cover Convention   Fashion Breakfast
Jan 4 2008 3:24PM EST

Yet Another Collaboration: Fashion + Writing

Thomas Pink has commissioned writer William Boyd to pen a 700-word essay on Jermyn Street for inclusion in their Fall 2008 look book. In it Boyd talks about how he wrote the line, "But I have to buy some shirts in Jermyn Street!" to get Uncle Theodore, one of the characters in the film version of Evelyn Waugh's Scoop into London. Of course, Thomas Pink wasn't on Jermyn Street in Waugh's day -- it didn't get there until 1989. But never mind that. Most of the Pink customers probably don't know that either, so successful was the brand under Irish founders James, Peter and John Mullen at establishing itself as so very old and so very English when it launched in 1984. The brothers sold the company to LVMH in 2001 and I don't think the Pink managers there could be more happy with the fantasy in Boyd's closing image.

Its vivacity and diversity bring back an older London to me, London between the wars, and it seems more to cater for men, with its barbers (still offering cut-throat hot shaves), its tailors and bootmakers and its famous gentleman's clubs close by in St James's and Pall Mall. On my last visit, I had a coffee in Fortnum & Mason, bought some cheese in Paxton and Whitfield, and paused to look at the hats in Bates's window. They are all gratifyingly named: the Burlington, the peach bloom Trilby, the leather Gatsby, the Fedora, the Grafton, the Sandown and, to my astonishment, the Jermyn. There's a hat called a Jermyn -- I had no idea -- but it's clearly the hat to wear as you stroll along Jermyn Street, looking around you and thinking, like Uncle Theodore, about the shirts you're going to buy in Thomas Pink.
See more in

Loading...
Add Your Comment
View
 

Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.

Create Your Public Profile


Archive

Previous
Jul
2009
Next


Also in Portfolio.com
Most Read
Most Emailed
Recently Commented

Newsletter Sign-Up
Inside Portfolio.com
In This Issue
Subscribe
Newsletter Sign-Up
Inside Portfolio.com
In This Issue
Subscribe