High Frequency: The Bespeaker
The Bespeaker is a sartorial and horological raconteur, but he lets the goods do the talking. The question is: are you listening?
The Bespeaker is captivated to the point of obsession by beautiful, entrancing and wonderful things. Nothing is too authentic to this man: his eye is drawn to beauty and imperfection alike, so his is a discerning and exacting custom. If a craftsman relishes a challenge, consider our man to be the ultimate setter.
The Bespeaker has an existentialist outlook, understanding that the afterlife is necessarily worth worrying about more than the minutes he fills in this life. He is therefore careful to fill the space and time around him with that from which he derives joy — from the children he has and the wife he loves dearly to the job to which he dedicates himself and, of course, the items he collects. The clothes are an expression of his elegant eccentricity. He is, above all else, a sartorial and horological raconteur, but he lets the items do most of the talking. There isn’t a finance bro or German estate agent who cannot summon the humility to understand that in standing beside a Bespeaker, they are support acts when it comes to taste and refinement. This is perhaps the one downside of being this man — it’s lonely at the top.
Unlike the Aesthete, the Bespeaker is not afflicted with as much caution and is willing to try things to know just as well what he doesn’t like as what he does. One cannot be a Bespeaker without understanding how the Italian concept of spalla camicia shoulders, tucked into the armhole rather than placed on, as is the British way, may do less for sloping shoulders than a more structured fit. Or how a tweed holds shape over time against regular worsted wool, but that you need Fresco II from Huddersfield Fine Worsteds if you wish to be sartorial in more tropical weather — and that Fresco III picks up much more lint on darker colours than its elder brother.
You need to be able to say, without resorting to a notebook, that while the Patek Philippe 5320G-001 may be the best Patek on the market, the best of all is the Perpetual Calendar 3450G, challenged only perhaps by the 39mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, made from platinum and tantalum, from the late nineties. A true Bespeaker will have seen F.P. Journe coming from a mile away and have an original piece that will have appreciated tenfold — though the love of the item will mean it is not up for sale, for there are things in life that are just too precious, and our man prioritises this. He knows that while the Cohiba Robustos
Supremos from 2014 may have tasted like vaporised vinegar when first released, 10 boxes were worth getting for two reasons: one, the cigar is now an exceptionally nuanced and balanced smoke; and two, the initial price tag, of £40 per stick, is now £650, so it was an investment worth making. He who makes a Padrón or Trinidad Vigia as a breakfast cigar is a smoker worth knowing.
The Bespeaker is as generous to those around him as he is to himself. A friend of his will always feel cherished and heard; he is an agenda-less man and is fast to compliment and display acts of thoughtfulness and care. There is, he finds, nothing more enjoyable than surrounding himself with people he loves and who can keep up with his encyclopaedic knowledge and insight.
Here is the bad news: of all the character types we have mentioned in these pages in the past few months, the Bespeaker is the rarest. Yet when he appears, he can change your life.
