NICHOLAS FOULKES By AND CLUBSOF ATELIERS BUT INTHE SCRUFFY EDGES THE CITY’S ISN’T AT LONDONER STYLISH BREED OF FOR ACERTAIN THE NEXUS AND SUDDENLY, ENCLAVE— OLD-SCHOOL STALWART LONDON’S MOST CENTRAL UPENDING DEALERS ARE AND ART RESTAURATEURS, OF TAILORS, A NEWGUARD

MAY REBORNFAIR ADRIAN GAUT y b raphs Photog

MATT HRANEK by Produced

CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER TRAVELER NAST /CONDÉ MAY 2016 2 a thriving luxury-goods market that skews more heritage than hipster has attracted a new generation of tailors, retailers, restaura- teurs, and art dealers. Today, it has emerged as a glamorous hub of suddenly modern gentle- men’s fashion and contemporary art. “May- fair,” Jefferies observes, “is now the ground zero of the capital city of the world.”

MARK CHO is a chieftain of Mayfair’s young, globally minded new guard. The 33-year-old entrepreneur is never in one place for long, but if he has a home it is Hong Kong, where in 2010 he opened the Armoury, an artisanal FOR THE clothier. Soon after, Cho heard that Michael Drake, the founder of renowned British tie LAST maker Drake’s, was thinking of retiring. A tie collector, Cho bought the house and has TWENTY since gently stretched it to offer a full mens- wear line, while opening a flagship Drake’s on YEARS Mayfair’s Clifford Street. “Had I been look- ing to open a shop five years earlier, I might Previous page, it has felt like the British capital has been in a centrifuge—everything of have chosen somewhere like Spitalfields,” from left: Co- owner Mark Cho, cultural and retail interest spun out from the center to what used to be says Cho, who got to know Mayfair when he right, with creative the suburbs, as far-flung “villages” sprout in Hoxton, Hackney, worked for HSBC in his 20s. “But today, you director Michael Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Shepherd’s Bush, and so on. With their in- have the tailors, you have the art dealers, you Hill in front of Drake’s, on triguing shops and restaurants and cheerful hipster café-bakeries, have the bankers all intersecting in Mayfair.” Clifford Street; these often scrappy hinterlands have come to define twenty-first-cen- If there is one man who straddles this inter- Antony Gormley’s tury London—as much as Belgravia, with its stuccoed town houses section of money and creativity, it’s art collec- sculpture at The Beaumont (which lining garden squares, defined Victorian England. Meanwhile, the tor Pierre Lagrange. His hedge fund business contains the patrician heart of old London—that bastion of privilege known as is on Curzon Street, in south-central Mayfair; hotel’s signature Mayfair, the most expensive property on the British Monopoly board— he also presides as chairman and owner of the suite, called simply Room). At languished seemingly forgotten in the giddy rush to the fringes. storied tailor Huntsman, at No. 11 Savile Row, left: Shirtmakers Appearances to the contrary, Mayfair’s slow decline reaches back on the neighborhood’s eastern edge. The at the 167-year-old nearly a century. Built on a boggy field in the early 1700s by the wealthy long-haired financier’s business moved to tailoring house Huntsman. landowning Grosvenor family, this 150-acre swath between Piccadilly Mayfair 16 years ago to be near clients. “It was and Oxford Street, Regent Street and Hyde Park, had by the 1760s be- the beginning of hedge funds, and the people come London’s most coveted address—think Manhattan’s Upper East investing were mostly large families, wealthy Side, but with earls and viscounts. After the First World War, however, individuals,” he recalls. “Where did they go many aristocratic homeowners could no longer afford their massive when they came to London? To Mayfair, to houses, which were knocked down to make way for flats and hotels. the big hotels, to Bond Street, and to the pri- It was here during the Roaring Twenties that the dapper “Bentley vate banks.” Since taking over 167-year-old Boys” would tear through the streets: As W.O. Bentley (the company’s Huntsman three years ago, he has hired a founder) said, “the public liked to imagine them living in expensive new creative director and converted the back Mayfair flats with several mistresses and, of course, several very fast of the shop into a speakeasy with a tweed-cov- Bentleys, drinking champagne in nightclubs, playing the horses and the ered pool table and private dining room. Stock Exchange.” In the post-war years, Mayfair gradually slipped into “I am totally obsessed with Pierre La- a cultural coma—and while its elegant town houses still commanded grange and Huntsman,” says Mayfair watch some of London’s highest prices, by the millennium it had become, in customization king George Bamford. A the words of Mayfair-based gallery owner Tim Jefferies, “a sleepy back- scion of the JCB manufacturing dynasty, water filled with antiques shops that nobody seemed to visit.” George Bamford started treating watches But a funny thing happened on the way to the ash heap. This most with a black carbon coating in 2003. “Bam- central of London neighborhoods—older than Buckingham Palace and ford black” became something of a cult fa- with a demographic to match—has found itself lifted by an unexpected vorite among watch lovers, and while still revival of interest (and investment) in legacy British labels and tradi- best known for blackened Rolexes, Bam- tionally posh addresses. Wealthy intercontinental nomads attracted to ford’s now offers all manner of new finishes the district’s cachet have restored many of its chopped-up residences and colors. The Bamford Watch Department into family homes, while the ensuing influx of hedge fund riches and recently relocated from Knightsbridge to a

MAY 2016 / CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER 4 Opposite, five-story South Audley Street town house, most recently opened the glittering Berkeley Square pleasure dome clockwise from top left: A lineup behind the genteel facade of which Bamford Sexy Fish. Meanwhile, Robin Birley has shown his father Mark’s flair of vintage sports has created a space known as The Hive that is for scenemaking, opening member’s club 5 Hertford Street, which has cars at JD half man cave, half Bond villain lair. helped drive the gentrification of Shepherd’s Market, a little tangle of Classics; Carlo Brandelli, That Huntsman —the grandest of Savile streets once famous for its brothels. 5 Hertford’s, with its subterranean creative director Row tailors—is attracting the veneration of discotheque Loulou’s and courtyard with roaring fire, is Mayfair’s top of minimalist a hip brand like Bamford’s signifies how the spot for enjoying a cigar from the rarity-stuffed humidor room. menswear brand Kilgour; once-stiff threads of British tailoring have While Robin Birley regenerates the southwest corner of Mayfair, the facade loosened. It wasn’t so long ago, after all, that Chris Corbin and Jeremy King are doing the same for what used of Drake’s; one needed a letter of introduction to a tailor to be a stretch of no-man’s-land in the northwest. Corbin and King Bamford Watch Department on the Row. “It’s a renaissance, a chance for have been behind the most talked-about London restaurants of the founder George the Savile Row brand to reclaim its rightful last 25 years, including Colbert and The Wolseley. Then in 2014, in a Bamford. place in menswear,” explains Jason Basma- backwater between Grosvenor Square and Oxford Street (in a former jian, who until last year was creative director Selfridge’s parking garage), they opened the Beaumont hotel, where of the 245-year-old house Gieves & Hawkes. on a typical night one might see Mr. and Mrs. Beckham dining with “We’ve seen London pushed to the forefront Gordon Ramsay in its stylish Colony Grill Room. King’s vintage 1973 of global fashion and culture, and I think Bristol 411 Series 3 is typically parked outside the hotel, and a huge there’s room for newness in an old-school Antony Gormley sculpture protruding from the facade is a visual ex- way.” For that, one need look no further pression of the importance of art in the revival of the new Mayfair. than Carlo Brandelli, who could be dubbed the “Gerhard Richter of the Row” and who is deconstructing the suit to its sculptural essentials at minimalist boutique Kilgour. Mean- while, classic men’s clothier Hardy Amies—once known as Dressmaker to the Queen—has been reinvented as WHEN THE a chic menswear emporium. The style surge ripples through WHOLE every thoroughfare. Clifford Street, which abuts Savile Row, is now a YBA THING destination, with a hit list including Anderson & Sheppard’s excellent TOOK OFF haberdashery, Drake’s, and soon- to-open luxury leather-goods shop Con- in the 1990s, the British art market flirted with edgy cool, and East nolly. Arguably the biggest transformation London’s Hoxton Square, dominated by Jay Jopling’s White Cube gal- has struck Mount Street, where only a few lery, soon became the center of the city’s creative scene. But with both years ago you could find parking at any time art prices and the capital’s traffic exploding, big-money international of day. Today, it’s a logjam of shiny black li- collectors have neither the time nor the inclination to flog out to some mos inching past luxury emporia that rival obscure, insalubrious district, no matter how hip it is supposed to be. the tony storefronts of Bond Street, whether “I have witnessed a client set off to East London to see an exhibition you’re looking to shop a favorite brand (RRL, and then, halfway there, ask the driver to turn back,” says Simon de Balenciaga, Céline), commission an over- Pury, the veteran auctioneer. “At one time the ‘location, location, loca- and-under shotgun from Purdey, or pick up tion’ rule did not apply to the art market, but in the new art market it is a ring from rock-star jeweler Stephen Web- crucial.” De Pury’s former auction house, Phillips, has set up a gleam- ster. Around the corner, on Mount Row, is JD ing new headquarters on Berkeley Square, and in 2013, both Sothe- Classics, a rare-model vintage car showroom by’s and Christie’s opened market gallery space in Mayfair as well. where modern-day Bentley Boys can buy an “In the same way that the tendency has been to go back to the Upper early 1960s Ferrari or an Aston Martin DB5. East Side in New York, there is the tendency for all the major galleries to Mayfair’s dining and drinking scenes are relocate to Mayfair,” De Pury explains. On his fingers, he counts off the likewise keeping pace. The clubs founded by blue-chip art dealers with a presence: Blain Southern, Simon Lee, Larry the late impresario Mark Birley—Annabel’s Gagosian, David Zwirner, Sprut & Magers, Thaddaeus Ropac, Nicolo on Berkeley Square, George, Harry’s Bar—are Cardi . . . the list is long and includes De Pury himself, who opened his still packed, and hyper-exclusive Mark’s Club own art-advisory and acquisition service on South Audley Street. has just undergone a total refurbishment. “It helps having all the best art galleries and the top auction compa- These are all now owned by business tycoon nies within a few steps,” De Pury says. “What’s more, you have all the Richard Caring, who, since also acquiring best restaurants, the best parks, and the best stores. Come to think of the beloved old-school oyster bar Scott’s, has it, you could have a great life without ever venturing outside Mayfair.” u

5 CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER / MAY 2016 The New Old Mayfair

PICK UP A MINOR A classic WHERE TO SUIT UP 5 Anderson & Sheppard is a 10 A fixture on Mount Street since Mayfair paradise of cashmere, Shetland wool, 1968 (Ian Fleming was a regular), MASTERPIECE Georgian- 1 Huntsman’s single-button coat silk, and casual clothing—with 11 Scott’s was relaunched in 2006 as a style (never “jacket”) is a sartorial trouser styles cut by its bespoke neo-traditional brasserie serving top- 14 Tim Jefferies’Hamiltons Gallery facade. signature akin to a Chanel suit. Long tailors. 17 Clifford Street tier fish and oysters, the latter from a is known for curating an impressive favored by royalty and the likes of gleaming marble crustacea bar. 20 range of international photography icons, from Irving Penn to Richard Gianni Agnelli and Gregory Peck, the 6 Under creative director Nick Mount Street recently revitalized house is a clubby Ashley, Private White V.C. (named Avedon, and for the exclusive lunches he hosts with select clients at the warren of stag’s heads and deep for a World War I hero) deals in style- 11 London’s most heralded opening sofas in front, with a speakeasy-like conscious early-twentieth-century this year, Sexy Fish specializes in back of the gallery. 13 Carlos Place dining room in back. 11 Savile Row gentleman-biker-style pieces with Asian-inflected seafood, but eating is military accents. 73 Duke Street hardly the main attraction at this 15 What Savile Row is to tailors, Cork Street is to art galleries, and the Helly 2 Founded in 1771 as a military tailor, extravagant lair with shimmering lamps Nahmad Gallery is one of the most Gieves & Hawkes has dressed 7 Custom watch guru George by Frank Gehry and a mermaid panel everyone from Winston Churchill to Bamford has been blackening vintage by Damien Hirst. Berkeley Square inventive (its movie-set-like booth at Michael Jackson (that gold braid!). Rolexes for years; today, Bamford the annual Frieze Masters Fair always These days it’s a full-service Watch Department is a go-to for the SCORE A MEMBERS-ONLY generates buzz). Shows have included menswear house offering everything world’s top collectors, who score a INVITE TK and TK. 8 St. James Square from morning suits to pony-skin biker visit by appointment. 80 South Audley 16 At Ordovas, Christie’s veteran jackets. 1 Savile Row 12 Robin Birley is single-handedly Pilar Ordovas often shows pieces 8 Whether it’s a Patek 2499, a Paul revitalizing southwestern Mayfair with that haven’t been seen in decades, by 3 The place to pick up a bit of tweed, Newman Daytona, an obscure IWC his ultra-exclusive 5 Hertford a Fair Isle knit tie, or a cheerful pocket from the 1970s, or an Art Deco Street, combining a restaurant, bar, artists such as Calder—or Freud’s square, Drake’s—founded by Michael Cartier pocket watch, the elegantly nightclub, sushi bar, and excellent paintings of his first wife, Caroline Drake and co-owned and run by modern Watch Club shop inevitably cigar shop under one roof. Blackwood. 25 Savile Row businessman Mark Cho—opened its carries it. 28 Old Bond Street 17 At the rare-model car showroom flagship here in 2010. 3 Clifford Street 13 Newly renovated by acclaimed EAT AND BE SEEN interior designer Tino Zervudachi, JD Classics, kick the tires (or 4 In its airy, granite-and-glass Mark’s Club is a slice of historic pretend to) on a heritage Bugatti or Rolls. 26 Mount Row showroom, overseen by creative 9 The first hotel from restaurateurs Mayfair brought gloriously into the director Carlo Brandelli, Kilgour Corbin and King—the duo behind present—the cigar terrace is among offers a sleek contemporary take on Colbert and The Wolseley—The London’s finest. 46 Charles Street English tailoring. 5 Savile Row Beaumont continues their hot streak with its celebrity-packed Colony Grill Room. Order the pot pie and end your night with a Beaumont Punch at The

ILLUSTRATION PETER BY OUMANSKI American Bar. 8 Balderton Street

7 CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER / MAY 2016