With the sad loss of The Duke of Edinburgh also comes the loss of one of our finest cricketing royals. Steve Pittard salutes Prince Philip’s marvellous contribution to the princely pastime. The Corfu Compton first gave notice of his sporting prowess at Cheam prep school. The blue-blooded biffer – ‘highly unsympathetic to stonewalling’ – crashed … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple spoke to Australian hat maker Blake “Blakesby” Canham-Bennett, who has expanded the colour and shape of men’s headwear, while holding on to classic styles and manufacturing methods. You seem to have broken the mould when it comes to men’s hat styles, while adhering to traditional blocks and techniques. Was this what you set out to … Keep Reading
On the bicentenary of Sir Richard Francis Burton’s birth, Chris Sullivan gallops through the extraordinary life of the notorious explorer, soldier, translator, writer, cartographer, orientalist, ethnologist, spy, diplomat, poet, geographer, expert fencer and sex obsessive. Can you imagine that, in the not too distant past, a thoroughgoing rogue might stand up in his club in the Haymarket … Keep Reading
CHAP Spring 21, out now, looks back at the Roaring Twenties and compares that thrilling decade to the 2020s. There has been much talk recently of the imminent dawning of a golden, post-pandemic cultural explosion in the arts and a return to the hedonism of the Roaring Twenties that came just after the First World … Keep Reading
This special collection of recent editions of The Chap includes: CHAP Summer 20: The Summer of Lockdown edition, CHAP Winter 20: the Adventure Edition and the special 20th anniversary 100th edition. Packed within these 500 pages you will find interviews with Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Leslie Phillips, Rita Tushingham and Nicholas Lezard. You … Keep Reading
Chap Spring 21 delves into the explosion of music, dance, literature, art and cinema that came just after the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, starting with the force of nature that was Josephine Baker, who took Paris by storm in 1925 as an exotic dancer and went on to serve the nation … Keep Reading
A mini spray atomizer containing 2ml of The Chap's Flaneur Eau de Cologne: on a masculine base of amber, patchouli, vetiver and vanilla are sprinkled middle notes of violet, iris, geranium and rose, lifting the scent heavenwards to its top notes of bergamot, verbena and pink pepper. The overall ambience is of elegance with … Keep Reading
For those not quite ready to commit to a full bottle of Raffish Eau de Cologne, this 2ml sample comes in a mini spray atomizer, giving you the opportunity to try Raffish out a few times before deciding if the scent is for you. Raffish is a heady blend of dark spices and elegant … Keep Reading
Paul French, author of City of Devils, takes us on a walking tour of Old Shanghai, recounting the tales of decadence, opium and freebooting of the 1930s and what remains of that era in modern Shanghai In its heyday, Shanghai was the real deal when it came to anonymity – a chap could walk down … Keep Reading
Kentucky is regarded as the first of the Southern states, sitting south of the Ohio River on the eastern side of the United States. It is a green and pleasant land, literally. There are miles of gently rolling hills, clean air and plentiful amounts of fine pure mineral water. All these elements play a large … Keep Reading
One of the fourteen countries that straddle the Equator, Ecuador took its name from that imaginary line and offers an engaging place for the traveller to explore with much historical interest, museums and art galleries but, more significantly, it’s the best place in the world to buy a Panama hat. I took a trip out … Keep Reading
Gustav Temple nosedives into rums that don’t come from where they used to come from, because they are either made or refined right here on these craggy shores. Over the last decade or so, rum has been slowly shaking off its old reputation as something to swill in discotheques mixed with Coca-Cola. But only recently has rum begun to be seen as a ‘serious’ drink such as single malt whisky, bearing the unique imprint of the distillery and year of production. Unfortunately, the very brands that first exported rum to Britain from countries like Cuba and Jamaica are proving rather…
Liam Jefferies meets the doyenne of Stanley Biggs, a menswear company with one foot set firmly in history. For some, there is no beating vintage. A vintage duffel coat found in the back of a surplus store will invoke a greater sense of worth than a similar model churned out by the thousands in some overseas sweatshop and destined for the high street sales rail. It is rare, however, to find brands which embody the same notions of design, craftsmanship and longevity of the apparel of yesteryear. One such brand is Stanley Biggs. Located in the Midlands, Biggs is a…
CHAP Spring 21, out now, looks back at the Roaring Twenties and compares that thrilling decade to the 2020s. There has been much talk recently of the imminent dawning of a golden, post-pandemic cultural explosion in the arts and a return to the hedonism of the Roaring Twenties that came just after the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic. Our new edition delves into this first flowering of music, dance, literature, art and cinema of the 1920s, starting with the force of nature that was Josephine Baker, who took Paris by storm in 1925 as an exotic dancer…
Sophie Gargett of The Dilettante explores the concept of the flâneur and asks what we can learn from it during the age of walking in lockdown “My former ennui had returned and I felt its weight even more heavily than I had before. I doubted whether further attempts at sociability would ever relieve me of it. What I required was not exactly solitude, but the opportunity to roam around freely, meeting people when I wished and taking leave of them when I wished.” – Gerard de Nerval “We have become a nation of urban ramblers!” a friend recently bemoaned to…
