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More from: Nick Foulkes

Style February 2021

FÜRSTEN FOREMOST

She was betrothed at 14, twice-divorced at 25, and now, aged 80, stands as a trailblazer for female celebrities turned cross-cultural influencers. As one critic observed, Princess Ira von Fürstenberg always had the ‘total courage of her modernity’. By NICK FOULKES.
Style February 2021

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

Without Countess Consuelo Crespi, the Italian fashion industry might not be the commercial and cultural force it is today. The irony, writes NICK FOULKES, is that Crespi was not even remotely Italian. She was a Henry James or Edith Wharton heroine updated for the jet age.
Style February 2021

Goss Bros

Igor Cassini — Ghighi to his friends — was a Russian aristocrat with a bloodline to the Tsars who became America’s most influential gossip columnist with a hotline to the White House. Originally published in Issue 39 of The Rake, Nick Foulkes writes that together with his brother Oleg, the dashing immigrants (and playboys) were the forerunners of today’s celeb-centred high society — until, they fell foul of the Kennedys.
Style January 2021

THE ART OF MAKING IT

Originally published in Issue 57 of The Rake, Nick Foulkes writes that, if the Old World’s aristocracy was raised on the feudal system, the New World coined its nobility through banking and industry. From the Rockefellers and Astors to the Vanderbilts and Carnegies, these ‘ungartered’ peers helped forge the myth of America with their astonishing fortunes and lavish spending.
Icons December 2020

BIG-TIME CHARLIE: The Beistegui Ball

One critic likened it to a ‘moral indecency’; those who were there were so consumed by the opulence and theatricality that they had no reason to care. The night in question — September 3, 1951, in Venice — has gone down in history as the party of the century. Originally published in Issue 42 of The Rake, Nick Foulkes delves into the life of Don Carlos de Beistegui, an aesthete of some repute who used his riches to keep the reality of war and sacrifice at bay.
Style December 2020

St Moritz: Top of The World

In its heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, St. Moritz was the hedonistic winter escape of the international jet set, and the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, also fondly known as ‘The Palace’, was where they held court. Originally featured in Issue 37 of The Rake, Nick Foulkes unearths many brilliant anecdotes from the era.
Style November 2020

HOW A PEASANT VILLAGE ROSE UP: Gstaad

In little more than a hundred years, the Swiss town of Gstaad turned its cowsheds and timber yards into deluxe hotels and boutique apartments — and in the process became a winter toy town for the jet set. Orginally published in Issue 67 of The Rake, Nick Foulkes writes, don’t let that mislead you, for time still moves mysteriously through this charming alpine hideout.
Pleasure September 2020

ROLLING BACK THE YEARS

Edward Sahakian emigrated from Iran in 1979 with a dinner jacket and a few kilos of caviar in his luggage. A year later he established a cigar shop in Mayfair — Davidoff of London — and a legend was born. To help Davidoff celebrate their 40th birthday, THE RAKE gathered a few close friends to create a fitting memento…
Style August 2020

COUP DE GRACE: Monaco

Strange to think these days, but Monte Carlo was not always the bright, glamorous refuge of the chichi jet set. In the early postwar years, it took a dynamic young royal and his Irish-American bride to remake the principality in their image. Originally published in Issue 41 of The Rake, NICK FOULKES tells the charming story of Prince Rainier, Grace Kelly, and the birth of modern Monaco.
Style July 2020

Sex, drugs & Moroccan roll

First there was Sodom and Gomorrah, then Babylon – the great cities of vice. But human history is replete with hedonistic hangouts, and in the 1960s, writes Nick Foulkes in Issue 38 of The Rake, Morocco opened its arms to the jet set and famous.
Style July 2020

WHEN EDEN ROCKED

The sun rises on another perfect day in paradise, a day of doing nothing in particular — but doing it terribly elegantly… The golden age of the jet set might have been eclipsed by commercial flight, but if you’re romantic enough you can still see the ghosts of Aly Khan, Agnelli and Cole Porter leaving their glamorous mark on the Côte D’Azur. NICK FOULKES lies back and thinks of summer….
Speed July 2020

OUT OF THE FIRE: Niki Lauda

Niki Lauda, the battle-scarred racing driver and entrepreneur who died in May 2019, epitomised the ideal of a methodical, ruthless champion. But his legend was forged in flames, writes NICK FOULKES in Issue 65 of The Rake.