style

The sewing machines sit idle.  Fabric remnants don't litter the floor and the gossip around the Rancillo is non existent.  It's August in Italy and it seems the entire country is on holiday including the...

  It caught your eye didn't it? Perhaps you thought it a bit much at first, thinking "not for me- best left to someone else".  Is it an acquired taste like your early days with Scotch? That Durian...

 Farm to table or the slow food revolution has become a part of our lexicon for quite some time now. Your grandmother knows about it, your children know about it. Eager foodies all.  We seek out the latest...

 As you know we are a bit of a sucker for an interesting woman.  Add a wealth of travel, a penchant for vintage Pucci, the work of Slim Aarons, and a knack for showing up at just the right bolt hole in just...

Slim Aarons always had a knack for chronicling just the right people in just the right sort of places. Perhaps this can be seen nowhere better than the storied Lyford Cay. A glimpse at what goes on behind...

Our recent first-hand dealings with heists had talk in the Imperial Black workshop turning to favorite films of the genre. All are in agreement that we want a bit of humor, an interesting cast of characters...

Luxury men's shirts, the Carabinieri, Polizia, and a ring of Northern Italian thieves. How the hell did we get muddled up with this lot? Look, we know that Imperial Black shirts are run in the most limited of...

1961 in England and the Avengers are on the television, the Jag E-Type is launched, Fleming's Thunderball is on the book shelves, and John Le Carre introduces a spy of a very different sort in George Smiley....

While heist movies tend to center around the interplay between men in the gang lets not forget the women of the genre. Sometimes set pieces, at times partners in crime, other times criminal masterminds. These...

It’s August and the lads at the Italian workshop have packed it in for the month and are hitting the islands down south or cooling their heels in the Dolomites. Before everyone became decidedly...

Security at Heathrow and the handsome, sixtyish woman in the piped jacket has had it.  She glances up at the guard who is having her re-pack the ziplock for a second time.  Out goes another tube of a...

  Is there a better place of refuge than the garden shed?  Could it be the grown man's answer to the tree houses and secret forts of our youth? At the youngest of ages I would seek my...

At Imperial Black we chose our partners carefully.  The luxury of a long heritage gives a certain confidence, an obsessiveness to detail leads to a beautiful quality, a willingness to relentlessly pursue...

Today is my father's birthday. He would have been seventy. Try as I might I can't see him at this age just as I can't seem to picture myself at seventy. Then again, I'm not sure anyone can really picture...

It's easy to say that McQueen was and still is the quintessential king of cool but it's easy forget that he was a pretty simple man living an extraordinary life.  1963 found McQueen at the top of his game and...

Fashion brand Ted Baker’s surprise entry into serious audio continues apace. Its sweet-sounding and beautifully retro Rockall headphones, which I featured in September, were greeted with near swoons by many...

It's been 50 years since the great man's death and still his legend and philosophy live on and show no sign of slowing down.  School children can spout his witticisms and his visage is one of the most well...

  We know its cold out but put yourself in the mind of adventurers from the golden age of Polar exploration who somehow managed without all fleece and DWR technical fibers.  Charting new ground in...

Paint it Black: 12 MODERN HOUSES WITH BLACK EXTERIORS By Marni Katz It was once about a modernist cube with weathered vertical siding. Or a clapboard Colonial complete with white picket fence,...

  I have always said that we never set out to sell shirts and were more than quite happy to go about our travels in our own manner.  Picking some absolutely top notch things up along the way and working with...

Watch whisperer Max Bernardini chimes in on the time-honored tradition of introducing one’s son to the world of vintage watches. When the Marquis d’Arnesano Max Bernardini, better known as Max, turned...

The pleasures of a quick fix It's cold out again with a sky the colour of wet aluminum.  I slip out under the guise of an errand.   In less than half an hour I've left the overly heated house with...

The not so quiet American: Lee Marvin Lee Marvin was no softy. He was a man who held his own in war pictures, westerns and action-soaked media from the 1950s all the way to his...

  Imperial Black Chamonix: Forget absolutely everything you know about flannel. We've spent more than our share of time in mountain towns but there is nothing like the Chamonix valley.  Our...