Nicholas Storey - History of Mens Accessories: A Short Guide for Men About Town

First Published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Remember When
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Nicholas Storey 2011

ISBN 978 1 8446 811 50
ePub ISBN: 9781848849921
PRC ISBN: 9781848849938

The right of Nicholas Storey to be identified as Author of this Work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Edwardian Florin. Photograph by courtesy of Chard (1964) Lid.

This book is dedicated to True Britannia and to the action and the Spirit of the Phoenix.

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.

From Brahma by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am immensely grateful for the generous help and advice on the draft chapters of this book from experts in the fields that I have covered. In chapter order, as follows:

For reading and advising on .

In relation to .

For reading and advising on drinks in , I thank Alessandro Palazzi, Bar Manager of Dukes Hotel, St Jamess; for reading and advising on sweets I thank Pat Stewart of Maynards Sweets; for reading and advising on tea and coffee I thank Dr Andrea Tanner, Archivist, of Fortnum & Mason.

For reading and advising on , I thank Laurence Mann, gourmet, devoted oenophile and, despite the consequential extra weight, an ardent and accomplished bicyclist.

For reading and advising on . I also thank Anne Bradley, Archivist of the Bristol Records Office, for locating the records of Fribourg & Treyer.

For certain information about the Oriental Club in , I thank Maggie Cook of the club.

I also thank, for looking over and commenting on the draft, Michael Alden, founder of the website the London Lounge (whose comments on my first book of this kind inspired this one) and I thank friends on the London Lounge for their knowledge freely shared. Also for reading over the draft and their helpful comments I thank Dr Marcelo de Araujo of Laranjeiras, Rio de Janeiro, Dr Julian Critchlow and Chikashi Miyamoto.

This book would not have been the same without this generous help and advice but, for any remaining errors, I alone am responsible. Moreover, no one who has rendered help and advice should, necessarily, be taken to agree with any of the opinions (political or otherwise) that I voice.

For kind permission to use other illustrations, in plate order, I thank the following:

John Chard of Chard (1964) Ltd for the picture of Britannia standing on the Florin in the dedication, deriving from the original engraving of GW De Saulles, Engraver to the Royal Mint.

Barry Klein and Paul Chessell of Taylor of Old Bond Street for the illustrations that appear in inclusive.

Luke Eyres for the illustration in .

Kenneth Lim for the illustrations in , taken by arrangement with Mr Rowley and with the kind permission of Sarah Webster of Budd shirt-makers.

Janet Taylor of hatter James Lock & Co for the illustration in .

.

J Delage for the illustration in .

James Smith & Sons for the illustration in .

Liz Johnson for the illustration in .

David Nathan-Maister of oxygenee.com for the illustration in .

C Paul Taylor for the illustration in .

Dmitry Alexandrov of RomanovRussia.com for the illustration in .

Sophie Wootton of Bentley & Skinner (Bond Street Jewellers) Ltd for the illustrations in .

Nikki Share and Jill James, Marketing Director of Genting UK on behalf of Crockfords Club, for the illustration in .

My father, for help with the illustrations in (Brummell at Almacks, the cartoon originally by Grego).

Kieran McCarthy of Wartski, London, for the illustration in , have also been used on the cover of this book, and I extent my thanks to those who allowed their use.

I thank my daughter, Gyvania, for her thoughts on factors relevant in making choices of scent as well as for use of her expression scents of security in relation to the trigger effect of fragrances.

I thank as well Andy Gilchrist, Sator, and friends and colleagues on their internet sites (separately listed).

I acknowledge the usefulness of information to be found on the internet sites of some of the firms that I cover. I also thank Lisa Hooson, Commissioning Editor, Jill Morris, Copy Editor, Helen Vodden, in production, and the whole team at Remember When.

Finally, there is no directory of firms addresses and contact details as this too quickly dates. Most of the firms have websites under their own names and those that do not are in the telephone directories.

Nicholas Storey, Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Let us drink and be merry, dance, joke and rejoice,
With claret and sherry, theorbo and voice!
The changeable world to our joy is unjust,
All treasures uncertain,
Then down with your dust!
In frolics dispose your pounds, shillings and pence,
For we shall be nothing a hundred years hence.

From Coronemus nos Rosis antequam marcescant
[Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither]
by Thomas Jordan (16121685)

C haracters such as James Bond are enduringly popular as fictional heroes because they combine intellectual and physical vigour with a taste for luxury and a yearning for dangerous adventure. This all inspires many of us, so far as we are able, to seek the things that they might have and experience the things that they might experience. This book is about some of the smaller personal possessions and some of the acquired tastes that are within the grasp of successful men. But this is not a book for those who can have absolutely everything (and would wish to have much of it, including their mobile telephones and even taps plastered in gold plate and diamonds). Such people (with the sole exception of Ian Fleming with his gold-plated typewriter) generally lose the yearning to possess anything at all.

This is partly a book of particular things, which I believe to be amongst the best of their kinds. They are often (but not exclusively) British things, or things that Britain has made famous, because I happen to believe that they often truly are amongst the very the best. Also, I harbour a hope that this very fact demonstrates that the real heart and spirit of True Britannia still beats beneath the yoke of the apparent spirit of the age: all the over-regulation (Dont do that, George!), suggesting that our politicians are so ignorant that they have never heard of John Stuart Mill and his treatise On Liberty ; the architectural and environmental vandalism (demonstrated by the loss of some beautiful trees and several great buildings to the developers and those responsible for the so-called regeneration of our old towns); the dumbing-down of many things to the very lowest common denominator (plainly seen in the open sewer of much television and the mass-production of all the highly priced rubbish bearing designer labels); and all the general flummery which, lately and by insidious encroachment, has taken a firm grip and even threatens the spirit of individualism and adventure that marks out the British people, who have gone out (and still go out) all over the world.