More from: Stuart Husband
Icons July 2021
Patrick Swayze: The Miracle Dude
Patrick Swayze combined macho swagger and fluid elegance in a unique way, and his acting style — a kind of artless sincerity — helped turn movies such as Dirty Dancing and Point Break into pop-culture classics. Yet what remains of Swayze’s life and work is more significant still: an unfashionable sense of joy.
Style June 2021
THE WILD WHIRLWIND OF MUSTIQUE
Colin Tennant was the mercurial British aristocrat who, with a little help from Princess Margaret, made the island of Mustique a byword for high-society escapism. His character earned him comparisons to Prospero — and a reputation for controversy.
Style June 2021
IT WAS A WONDERFUL LIFE
Truman Capote famously called them ‘swans’ — for their combination of looks, sophistication and long-necked hauteur. Babe, C.Z., Slim and girlfriends personified America’s post-war splendour, and they did so with elegance, style and restraint. Compared with today’s Insta influencers, theirs was a radical beauty, writes Stuart Husband.
Style May 2021
L’ART DE VIVRE
He is one of the world’s leading interior designers, commissioned by various Rothschilds and potentates. She is Yves Saint Laurent’s muse, androgynous and enigmatic. Together, writes Stuart Husband in Issue 44 of The Rake, François and Betty Catroux blazed a trail through post-war Parisian style, defining as they did the ‘art of living’.
Style May 2021
Serge Gainsbourg: Master Provocateur
Originally published in issue 57 of The Rake, Stuart Husband writes that Serge Gainsbourg was a Gallic colossus of the 20th century, writing songs for, and having affairs with, some of the era’s most beautiful women, and his gift for shocking the bourgeoisie was nonpareil.
Style April 2021
SUSPENDERED IN TIME
Larry King, who died in January, became the sharp-angled, arch-shouldered king of the big-name interview during 25 years at CNN. His style was unorthodox but winning (most of the time). ‘I’m really curious,’ King once said. ‘I listen to answers and leave my ego at the door.’
Style April 2021
BREW GOD
When he died 10 years ago, Julio Mario Santo Domingo was worth more than $8bn. He was Colombia’s dashing merchant prince, writes STUART HUSBAND, the head of a family whose financial and social eminence has flowed on a river of amber nectar…
Style March 2021
THE SUMMER OF ’68: Gigi Rizzi
Originally published in Issue 51 of The Rake, Stuart Husband writes that Gigi Rizzi was the leader of a group of Italian gigolos who lived out a kind of Fellini fantasia on the Cote d’Azur in the late sixties. ‘It was ’68,’ he once wrote, ‘and I was dancing barefoot on tables, always out to win, never worrying about tomorrow.’ His charms were not lost on Brigitte Bardot…
Style March 2021
THE SHEER GAUL
He possessed — still possesses, in fact — an acerbity that makes Liam Gallagher look like Nick Drake. Originally published in Issue 43 of The Rake, Stuart Husband writes that Jacques Dutronc, the Mod dandy with a singular place in French rock history, oozes so much charm and savoir-faire that even when he’s mocking you, it feels all right …
Style March 2021
Pamela Harriman: Of Vice and Men
Could the man after whom this magazine was named have a female equivalent? Originally published in Issue 40 of The Rake, Stuart Husband writes that Pamela Harriman, a woman of aristocratic stock, blazed a trail through the international scene of her era, enticing powerful men like moths to a particularly feisty flame.
Icons February 2021
Single Minded: The Women of Warren Beatty
He couldn’t even commit to dinner, Shirley MacLaine once said of her brother, Warren Beatty. Thirteen thousand women — an estimate of the number of Beatty’s sexual conquests — might concur. Originally published in Issue 40 of The Rake, Stuart Husband writes that it’s a wonder he had time to become one of the most important figures in Hollywood, the man who bridged the gap between the old studio system and the freewheeling seventies.
Style January 2021
‘THE DREADFUL THINGS I LONGED TO SAY ... ’
Before the Beatles and the Stones there was Cole Porter: decadent and headstrong, witty and transgressive. Originally published in Issue 42 of The Rake, Stuart Husband writes that Porter rejected the convention of family to pursue the only thing he knew — music — and by the time he made way for rock‘n’roll, the leading lyricist of the Jazz Age had expressed himself a-plenty.
