IssUE 08 COrrespONDENT SPRING 2015 Y ER LL A D G D ree ims S CASHMERE CRAFTSMANSHIP SimS REED GALLERY SPRING 2015 FashiON N.Peal Bridget Riley Colour Rhythms ST JAMES’S CORRESPONDENT SPRING 2015 ST James’S COrrespONDENT SPRING 2015 20 EDITOR’S LETTER COLOUR RHYTHMS 03 To having friends in all 12 Looking for seasonal fashion the bright places. picks from St James’s? We’re on the same wavelength. RESIDENT’S COLUMN 04 Nicolas Payne Baader OH MAILLE! doffs his cap to London’s 18 A mustard boutique? other square mile. C’est chic. COMMUNITY FRESH PERSPECTIVES 05 Progress is key 20 A little bit of Floris magic says St James’s from the olfactory floor. 11 Conservation Trust. ON GOOD FORM 06 ARCHIVE 22 Luxury joiners reveal 05 Back to the future with more than a grain of truth London’s leading digital on the future of British EDITOR’S Letter Customers return not only for exceptional art gallery. manufacturing. A break for convention goods but for the experience, the expertise and the familiarity. It’s an appreciation N.PEAL OUR NEW WEBSITE of personal service that you will struggle 06 Proving there are 26 Your complete online guide With every break in the clouds, you can to find with such consistent quality as no scapegoats when to St James’s. feel London’s spirits lift. Every ray of in St James’s. it comes to luxury sunshine ignites an exclamation of pure Sometimes it’s easy to forget in the cashmere production. TEAM ST JAMES’S joy as it moves from crowd to crowd. West End that shopping shouldn’t be a 18 27 From shopkeepers to It’s a little touch of kindness; a reminder feat of will power, but luckily St James’s CALENDAR the keeper of shops, that the winter will eventually abate and has a way of turning that quick pit stop 10 Events sure to put meet a new member from we will begin to see our city differently, into a journey of enlightenment. a spring in your step. The Crown Estate. more positively. That’s why we had to change our Over and over again in putting this website. If you’re not aware, there’s a NEW ARRIVALS PROPERTY latest issue together, we’ve been reminded destination website for St James’s – with 11 St James’s shops who’ll 28 Home to The Crown Estate’s how the same power can radiate from up-to-date news, events and new articles soon be just ‘like the boys’. property availability list. individuals and experiences. In the every – which has heretofore been a poor BRIDGET RILEY day, it’s the bright and cheery postman, relation to the newspaper. Taking a leaf 11 Profile on Sims Reed the umbrella lent by a friend, or even that out of the local book, it was time to revisit gallery and their rare event: a warm welcome-back smile our own brand experience. So after a ‘Op’portune new exhibition. from the maître’d. spring-clean and more than a lick of paint, Most recently, it has been the positivity please pop by and make your introduction. and generosity of our contributors. It We also suggest signing up to our was the team from the old family-owned newsletter. For regular visitors and locals, joiners who enthusiastically (and patiently) it is a monthly reminder about exhibitions explained their mind-bendingly complex in the area, some of the best bits from the technical draughts. It was the luxury website to catch up on and places to visit cashmere specialists who let us beg, that may well just make your day. borrow and re-borrow item after item for different photography shoots. It was [email protected] stjameslondon.co.uk the supremely smiley team of mustard messieurs who replied to such bland questions as “so what actually is in Dijon mustard?” with answers of brilliant Dover Street Bond Street insight and pithy piquancy. Completing our second year and eighth stjameslondon.co.uk publication as St James’s local newspaper, Piccadilly Piccadilly [email protected] @_stjameslondon it’s been a timely reminder that we Piccadilly Circus are representing something very special Green Park Commissioned by Jermyn Street here. St James’s is in many ways a Regent Street St James’s Duke Street St James’s Bury Street St James’s St James’s London St James’s StStreet James’s The Crown Estate collection of supremely talented, world- Haymarket 16 New Burlington Place Mason’s revered businesses who have founded London W1S 2HX Yard their company’s model, and found great thecrownestate.co.uk success with the repeat order. Green Park Green Cover photo by King Street Charles II Street Ivan Jones Design and editorial by dn&co. St James’s Square Waterloo Place Pall Mall Marlborough Road Marlborough Carlton House Terrace Charing Cross (5 mins) The Mall St James’s Park Photo: Mariona Vilarós Photo: 02 03 ST James’S COrrespONDENT VILLAGE NEWS Illustration: Lucille Clerc Illustration: Archive guarantee that each would Cybernetic be perfectly happy for an hour Photo: Kate Peters Kate Photo: without you having to lift Serendipity, 1968. a finger to entertain them?” COmmUnitY The piece that caused the It is 1968: Prime Minister biggest stir was by artist Bruce St James’s Conservation Trust Harold Wilson has just Lacey. A participatory piece, delivered his famous “white the viewer climbed into a sort Conservation trusts have often come to building from the usual carbuncle of air heat of technology” speech at of capsule, where they were be associated with typewriter-wielding conditioning units, flues, power plants the Labour Party conference; shown what Lacey called Luddite stereotypes with a vitriolic and the like – to paving stones. Britain’s biggest computer “non-specific erotic images” stranglehold on beautiful places of They championed Jay Jopling with manufacturer ICL has just while being rocked and tilted changing community needs. But, if we’re the construction of White Cube in formed, and the Institute like a fairground, and to take our St James’s Conservation Trust Mason’s Yard, and also fully supported of Contemporary Arts (ICA) massaged and prodded with as an example, not only is this stereotype his bureaucratically-convoluted wish to is devoting their inaugural red rubber rollers and soft out of date but the term ‘conservation’ replace the black tarmac with the beautiful exhibition at their new Nash vibrating objects. According seems woefully inaccurate. cobbles we now associate with the gallery’s House site in St James’s to the to reference from the time, ResiDENT’S COLUmn “Everyone expects us to be NIMBYs. private views and drinks out the back new Computer Technologies. women liked the piece more But our ambitions are clear: protection of Chequers Tavern. Cybernetic Serendipity, than men. Although Princess Nicolas Payne Baader and enhancement. And enhancement They are also at the frontline for curated by Jasia Reichardt, Margaret, on visiting the is equally, if not more, important.” preserving our high quality of life in was a groundbreaking show. exhibition, only dared to Working in and feeling a part of St James’s perfectly formed a St James’s dress code manner, but just where they are still lived, The trust’s secretary Peter Heath is Westminster. As pressure mounts with It introduced the works of watch her then husband Lord is an unusual thing. Despite growing up for men, and that it is actually the dress from shopkeepers who know their products keen to point out that their work is about the number of late license applications, over 130 participants from Snowdon brave the device. in London and being no stranger to the code on which ‘English Style’ is built. back to front – whether they are selling helping create positive change for the they temper helping local businesses around the world, including Since Cybernetic West End throughout my youth, St James’s From the bottom up, it is a perfectly a toothbrush, a Dutch Masterpiece or a progress of St James’s. This is evolution flourish with ensuring that St James’s engineers, artists, Serendipity, the ICA has was an area that I never really frequented polished, very old but amazingly well bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape – to where not conservation. doesn’t turn into an all-night knees-up. mathematicians, composers continued to explore the much. There was the occasional trip or made pair of loafers or English brogues, the visitors book has William Hague below With a trust made up of active residents Heath describes St James’s as “one and poets. The aim was to relationship between art and two down to Jermyn Street, when my suit trousers with hems that perfectly Johnny Depp. and international businesses, most of the country’s most important historical demonstrate and “manifest” technology. Artist Ivan Pope teenage self was convinced that the cravat hover above, never touching, to show off It has been about six months since of their work is actually, perhaps assets”, adding, “it needs care and attention, artists’ involvement with constructed the world’s first was surely due a comeback, and of course an exact centimetre of brightly coloured I last got off my bike on King Street, to unsurprisingly, proactive. With intimate but we’re well aware that keeping an asset science, and scientists’ cybercafé in the ICA theatre the slightly begrudging trips walking woollen sock. wheel it down Crown Passage and through knowledge, vested commercial interests, going means making it viable. Living involvement with the arts. in 1994, while in 2001, uncomfortably slowly with a Great Aunt Up top is a cotton shirt, normally the back entrance of Lock & Co.