Innehållsförteckning för December 2025 - Issue 103 från The Rake

There are certain phrases that reassure even the most cynical soul that the year has tipped towards its most enchanting chapter. For some, it’s the opening swell of Once in Royal David’s City; for others, it’s Mariah hitting those notes as if summoned by papal fiat. For me, it’s the simple but highly aspirational notion of ‘comfort and joy’. December has that effect: it slows the frantic pace, softens the elbows in the crowd, and reminds us that life is best when it is lived with a little ceremony. This is why, for all the justified cynicism about commercial Christmases and their tinsel-laden churn, I hold this season in unabashedly high regard. It is the time of year when we willingly revert to our more generous selves. We light fires…

Ah, the holidays! The sweetest time of the year. Two weeks off work (hopefully), and time with family, friends, food and drink. It’s a time to navigate your best and worst desires — the desire for love, happiness, celebration and relaxation (the best desires), and the desire for excess, gluttony, overindulgence and sloth (the worst desires, or so we have to say in order to sound like responsible adults). Each of us most likely has at least one vice we try to tamp down during the holidays that threatens to overtake our otherwise measured good times, and I am no exception. While I enjoy overimbibing cocktails and wine during the holiday season, I find that the biggest temptation my usually disciplined body wants to indulge in is sweets. During the…

It’s hard to think of an educational background — a degree in microtechnology engineering plus an MBA and a master’s in luxury management — more conducive to the formation of a major player in the modern watch industry than Gregory Kissling’s. Born, like Breguet’s founder, Abraham-Louis Breguet, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Kissling, following an early stint at Cartier as a movement designer, joined Omega in 2004. There, he was product manager, then head of product management, then (from 2022) Vice-President — a role in which he was a major protagonist in the development of watches including the Seamaster No Time to Die anniversary edition, the Speedmaster Snoopy and the Chrono Chime, as well as the revival of the legendary Calibre 321. All of which makes Kissling the ideal candidate to forge…

There are fictional captains, and then there is Jack Aubrey — an elemental force of seamanship, appetite, pride and deeply felt honour carved by author Patrick O’Brian into one of literature’s most vivid creations. What makes him rakish is not his uniform or his charisma — though both are formidable — but the alchemy of his contradictions: a man governed by discipline yet driven by impulse; a servant of the Crown who nonetheless lives by a private code; a warrior who finds his truest joy in music and friendship. Aubrey’s best traits operate in paradox. He is, first, a technocrat, the sort of commander who reads the wind the way a banker reads markets, who carries the geometry of cannon fire in his head, and who can tell the mettle…

Brian, who was born and raised in New York, became a professional photographer via a less-thantraditional route. He caught the eye of Herb Ritts while performing as a pro athlete in a print campaign, and the legendary photographer became a friend and mentor to Brian, helping him find his personal photographic style. He has been working steadily ever since, shooting for countless publications and commercial clients as well as publishing two books and focusing heavily on his fine art photography. Brian lives in Los Angeles with his wife and young son, and when he’s not working you’ll find him surfing, snowboarding or riding his motorcycle. Now unofficially Our Man in L.A., he has for this issue of The Rake photographed our cover star, the remarkable Russell Crowe, at the Beverly…

Who remembers signs on front lawns stating, ‘Beware of the dog’? Astoundingly — and prepare for a stark reminder of the overtly litigious times we live in — you no longer see them, because lawyers and insurance companies advise against that wording. It’s seen as an admission, the logic runs, that you know your dog is dangerous, and can thus increase your liability if a comedy skit involving a postman and canine incisors (reminiscent of a plot in The Beano) plays out in real life. Extrapolate that logic, and my visceral, breezeblock-shattering growl, prompted by even a minor infringement on my razor-sharp territorial instincts, ought to be a defence lawyer’s professional bête noire. Because no owner, knowing how the walls shake when this primal war cry emanates from my considerable…

Thom Sweeney are part of a new generation of tailors carving out their own style. Instantly recognisable for their soft, natural shoulder lines and preference for equally soft, textured fabrics, the brand started small, in 2007, making bespoke tailoring for dedicated clients. But in a short space of time the house’s uniquely contemporary style and the savvy of its founders, Thom Whiddett and Luke Sweeney, enabled it to expand into four shops in the U.K. and U.S. Having recently opened up in Miami, Thom and Luke are planning their next venture: a move from their existing premises in New York’s Soho neighbourhood to Madison Avenue. They will be the first British tailor to do so, marking another step forwards for what is surely one of Britain’s great 21st-century style exports.…

T here I was, on a train to Paris, buzzing with excitement. Vacheron Constantin were celebrating the climax of their 270th anniversary, and from what I’d been hearing on the grapevine, they were about to unveil something special. Here’s the thing: nobody had told me what was happening. I mean, I knew it was going to be big, but the details? Those were kept under wraps. Walking through the Louvre’s iconic corridors, past all the masterpieces that have served as witness to centuries of human history, I couldn’t help but feel a heightened sense of anticipation. The Louvre itself is mind blowing. It is a temple dedicated to humanity’s greatest artistic achievements. I’d been to Paris a few years earlier, when Vacheron announced their partnership with the museum, but this…

For hundreds of years, since the invention of the mainspring, the world of portable timekeeping has spun away happily in its own orbit, largely impervious to the swirling cosmic forces surrounding it. Seismic shifts have been plentiful: inventions such as the mainspring, the hairspring, the lever escapement, the self-winding mechanism and the tourbillon are all good examples. Some of those seismic shifts have even been tremulous enough to spawn new genres — as was the case when waterproofing and shockresistance developments enabled the emergence of the tool watch. But only one major-impact event (if my geophysics analogy isn’t becoming too laboured) has shifted its axial tilt significantly: the migration from pocket to wrist. Recovery from the briefly devastating wobble caused by the quartz crisis is beyond complete, and the arrival…

In Hollywood’s golden age, when style was substance and charisma currency, few men embodied intellect, elegance and defiance quite like Robert Vaughn. He could wear a suit like armour, deliver a line like a dagger, and challenge the establishment with the conviction of a statesman. Vaughn was not merely a star, he was a standard. I first met him at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. I was taking tea with the veteran actress Gloria Stuart, remembered for her James Whale classics The Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933), and soon to enjoy a career renaissance as Old Rose in James Cameron’s Titanic, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. After spotting Vaughn, Stuart went over, introduced herself, and waved me across. Within minutes we were swapping stories:…

Between the 1940s and seventies, there wasn’t a great deal of cultural representation going on when it came to western pop culture. By which we mean English-speaking. This was especially true when it came to glamorous female stars. It seems that only one of any given species at a time was allowed by the priapic gatekeepers of screens big and small. There was the hot Italian one: Sophia Loren. The hot Scandi one: Britt Ekland. The hot Latin American one: Carmen Miranda. Even Margarita Carmen Cansino had to shed her nomenclature skin to become Rita Hayworth. As a result of this distinct lack of artistic cross-pollination, actors and musicians that were giants throughout vast swathes of the world were virtually unknown in others. Case in point: Ms. Montiel. A signwriter’s…

It takes me about 50 minutes to get from my place on the Côte d’Azur to Saint-Tropez in my J Craft Torpedo, and about two hours, 50 minutes in a Ferrari,” says Jacques Sicotte. He should know. As the owner of one of the world’s largest Ferrari collections, and one of only 200 Ferrari ambassadors worldwide, this Canadian nuclear engineer has tried the route into town a few times and discovered that it is a traffic magnet. Not so the open sea. Sicotte keeps his J Craft Torpedo, called Temptation, in a marina near his house and garage in the south of France, and uses his yacht as a daily runaround. “We go on trips as a family, of course, but we also use it for shopping and even collecting…

You have so many touchpoints in the brand’s heritage and storytelling. How do you ensure the brand is not pigeonholed, and you keep it dynamic? That’s very true — that the big and incredible magic about Omega is having brands within the Omega brands, like Speedmaster, Seamaster, De Ville, that are icons for themselves. But you know what is very interesting, and we have [this] sometimes in the watch industry: we’re not a museum brand. We’re not a brand that because we have a very long history just [talks] about the past. I think what is very important is the whole story about Omega, how it was created and why we are so strong again. It’s just because we’re innovative, just because we want to have innovation in everything we…

When I boarded the flight to Puglia, Italy, I had no idea I was about to embark on one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. Sure, I’d signed the medical forms and received the cryptic training protocol weeks earlier, but nothing could have prepared me for what Panerai had orchestrated in partnership with the Italian military. This wasn’t just another press trip or brand event. This was something entirely different — an immersion in the world of Italy’s naval and air forces, reserved exclusively for collectors who had purchased the Submersible Chrono Marina Militare Experience edition watch. As one of just three journalists among roughly 30 participants from around the world, I was about to witness luxury redefined not as material excess but as access to the inaccessible.…

Anyone who has kept an eye on the motorcycle scene in the past few years will probably agree that things have changed a bit. Biking is now less about haring around on plastic-clad race replicas and more about casually throwing a leg over a cool-looking custom build in search of slow-speed adventure on roads less travelled while dressed in dapper clothing. Plenty of people have cottoned on to the business potential of the café racer/bobber/street-scrambler trend, and are making good money out of its various aspects, from building bikes to setting up locations and events at which enthusiasts can gather. Notable examples include the annual (and global) Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride fundraiser and the thriving Bike Shed club, restaurant and coffee shop, which has bases in London’s Shoreditch neighbourhood and on…

A dense mist lies over the valley as my father and I clamber down from the high point of the tor to the river, passing over the scree of granite boulders that litter the slope beneath us. A mizzle of rain is falling, drenching the lichens and mosses, and reducing visibility to perhaps 50 feet. The forest has an ethereal and folkloric quality. At the river we stop and fall to our knees to drink deeply from the pure waters of the Bedalder, the waterbody that flows from the top of Bodmin Moor through this rainforest and out to the sea at Fowey. Rainforests are the rarest habitat we harbour in the United Kingdom. Defined by their high annual rainfall, native species of trees (predominantly oak), and an abundance of…