The best things in life are free...
... but so are some of the most pointless and irritating
As with most such productions, indeed with much of what passes for modern life, 'luxury' is here used merely as a synonym for 'expensive'. Seemingly little thought has gone into explaining why the products being hawked are to be considered 'luxuries,' nor much space given over to reflecting the impact upon the retail prices of the manufacturers' marketing budgets, necessitating as they surely do the donation to cob journalists of many such items or services for free.
After one has finished looking at it - you don't really read these things, after all - one is left asking 'Why?' The Spectator is a political newspaper with a well-curated arts and books section. If, for reasons of penury, this sort of consumerist advertorial nonsense must be done, it should at least be done well. Yet far from applying an identifiably Spectator sensibility to the task - say, Charles Moore on tweed cycling capes, Rod Liddle on gentlemen's 'grooming' - it appears to have been dictated by which 'purveyor of luxury goods' could proffer the most attractive freebie and as a result has no discernible editorial character at all. It could have been assembled as a work experience project at any number of journalism colleges, or it could be an upmarket version of the Inventions catalogue. It must be targeted at the same 'space' as the FT's 'How to spend it,' but it lacks the clarity or the production values. Although, mercifully, it contains no insufferaby smug and interminable articles on expensive watches by Nick Foulkes.
We are, however, treated to the views of some breathless ingenue on the craftsmanship or otherwise of Charvet's shirts. True to form, the article merely asserts that Charvet is 'the place' to buy shirts, drawing as it does so exclusively upon the unchallenged opinions of the owner. Its one attempt at argument is the appeal to the celebrity fallacy (the most ubiquitous version of the appeal to authority).
Incidentally, I once owned a Charvet tie. The only time I wore it I was caught in a light shower on Whitehall. The dye - it was a deep red - ran, staining my shirt. I have literally never heard of that happening to a tie. Astonishingly bad.
A light shower in Whitehall
By way of recompense, there is a refreshing acknowledgement of the pointlessness of the exercise in the one genuinely interesting article, on Laver's Law of Fashion, in which the author - Laver's grandson - acknowledges that most Spectator readers are in their clothing decisions more concerned with longevity than 'luxury'. And even then, in the accompanying diagram, the editors manage to fuck up the time-line and the caption, reversing the middle third of the stages.
We are then treated to a criticism of politicians' dress sense from a woman called Celia Walden, whose authority on anything to do with the exercise of judgement is surely undermined by the fact that she is married to Piers Pugh-Morgan.
Celia Walden: Authority and attractiveness
undermined by marriage to Piers Morgan
One other exception to the rule of general uselessness was Damian Thompson's entertainingly waspish review of James Sherwood's recent coffee-table book Savile Row: The master tailors of British bespoke. However, it seems likely that the review was written for the magazine itself - the book was published last month - and has been transferred to the supplement to act as a sort of intellectual ballast, to counter the witterings of the other 'contributing editors' (or 'writers' as they were once known). As Mr Thompson accurately explains, this is intended as a Christmas present for the discerning homosexual man in your life. I imagine the book covers a fair amount of ground that was in Mr Sherwood's earlier book The London cut: Savile Row bespoke tailoring, as there are only so many things you can say about a craft that moves as glacially as bespoke tailoring. Maybe he has had some new pictures taken, but I'd spend the £45 on a cotton pocket square from Hermes.
And Taki's piece on the manners of the nouveau riche, which was quite funny.
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