Mayfair Dandy

In no other district does London present itself quite as flippantly exquisite as here: Mayfair inspires with luxurious shopping arcades, world-famous bespoke tailors, high-end art galleries and discreet private clubs. It is the stomping ground of those who can afford to live the good life and want to do so as style-consciously as possible.

Not infrequently, they are guided by the thoughts of a man who has made it a speciality to find parallels between social trends and history, to wring a bookful of content from even ephemeral topics and to comment on them as a mosaic of the times: there is no denying that Nicholas Foulkes is a style icon. And that in London, where a certain extravagance is a sign of good taste. As the charisma of the district has grown, so too has Foulkes’ name; each has lifted the other. Put another way: when Foulkes began writing about the work of the tailors on Savile Row in the nineties, the street was known to London’s bourgeoisie but not to the big wide world that now reveres it as synonymous with the best tailoring.

FROM OXFORD TO SAVILE ROW

“In those days, the tailors’ shop windows consisted of a grey, drawn curtain,” Foulkes recalls over an espresso. “Discretion was interpreted in such a way that one would have preferred to make the whole building invisible.” The Oxford graduate was one of the first to write about what goes on behind these curtains, what a good shirt needs to do, how an impeccably fitted suit works, what features shoes must have so that you’ll never want to take them off. And about where which tailor deserves to be elevated to the peerage and why. “GQ”, “Vanity Fair”, “British Vogue”: the leading magazines fought to get their hands on the articles, which were penned as boldly as they were packed with expert insight. Foulkes wrote just as expertly and perceptively about life’s other beautiful things, especially cigars – and watches.

The latter are the reason Nick Foulkes is sitting with René Beyer at Oswald’s, one of London’s most exclusive private clubs, on this spring morning. They had met as members of the jury of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève and hit it off immediately. Each is regarded as a walking encyclopaedia of watch history in his own way. Foulkes has also written the only authorised Patek Philippe biography, a nearly four-kilo tome that is required reading for every watch enthusiast. Now Beyer accepted Foulkes’ invitation for a tour d’horizon. “I love London – especially by taxi,” he says and laughs. “Why I went along with a shopping trip on foot remains a mystery to me.”

For Foulkes, Oswald’s makes a small exception. There is actually a strict ban on photos here, even for members and their guests who meet in the artfully opulent décor to discuss (and shape) politics and society, eat well and search for truth in wine. But as we’ve already said: Foulkes is Foulkes, and doors open wide for him that remain closed to others. And so the photographer (in a tight corner in front of an enormous flower arrangement) is permitted to press the shutter release exclusively and take pictures of the protagonists of the tour, which begins a little later in dazzling sunlight and stormy gusts of wind.