I’ve just been at Monocle magazine’s’s third birthday party. It wafted past (as I bumped around) in paired-down sophistication – the kind of style that money can’t buy and that can’t – easily – be self-taught. Whole, unctious reblochon cheeses with rye bread, a leg of ham being carved onto Hoxton sourdough bread, champagne and oysters served by impeccably groomed waiters to many, many pairs of tortoise-shell thick-rimmed glasses, side-partings and v-neck jumpers crammed into a gently beating library (aka office) lined with design tomes and red-lipsticked belles.
I had a chat to the owner of Drake’s – one of the last real bastions of British tie-making. They’re one of the only companies I can think of still operating out of a premises in central London – from their stitching to their pr, it’s all done out of Clerkenwell.
We chatted spotty scarves, cocktails and the sad lack of a men’s fashion showcase, as Fashion Week is to women. He rolled off the droll Adams – or was it Addison? – quote when we started talking about my writing job at the Standard: “there’s three sides to every story – your story, my story and the truth.”
There’s only one side to the Monocle story, as far as I can tell: they’ve nailed it. As I overheard founder Tyler Brule quip in reply to a question about how business was doing, “It’s booming. We wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t.” Quite.
notes from a newsroom 