It’s 6pm on a Sunday evening and I type this missive, sniffling in front of a log fire, wearing a dressing gown and sheepskin slippers. Dear friends, it seems, to quote ‘Withnail,’ I have drifted into the arena of the unwell. With a temperature over 39 degrees, there’s been more perspiration and sighing than in…
DetailsHeading into Leeds this morning on the train, I surveyed my fellow passengers with an air of melancholic despondency. To a man, everyone was dressed in Anoraks. More like a ski lift than a railway carriage, this huddled mass of high tech, zip-infested, shapeless Gore Tex smocks and goose down ‘puffer’ coats, left me mourning for the…
DetailsThis month welcomed the Jet2Ski Snow report back into my inbox. As a young boy, I first strapped on skis at a dry ski slope in Queensbury. Howling winds, driving rain, and not a clue what I was doing, left me bundled into the passenger seat of the manager’s Triumph Spitfire, heading to the Bradford Royal Infirmary with…
DetailsWhat better way to spend a grey, wet Sunday with family, than a trip to the cinema to see The Lion King. Snuggled into our seats, we contentedly munched away on popcorn, as Mufasa proudly presented his cub Simba to the animals of the Pride Lands. How many fathers have stood on the touch line,…
DetailsHaving just returned from a wonderful break in Runswick Bay on the East coast, I have to admit I’d gone rather feral. Whilst most of my customers assume I relax in velvet smoking jacket, embroidered slippers, silk cravat and fez, my downtime is marked by a far more casual approach to dress. The pleasure of…
DetailsThis month, the Michelsberg social calendar hit a serious purple spot, when my friends, Paul & Jo Flynn, invited my wife and I to attend Royal Ascot. The first, and indeed last time, I wore my bespoke morning suit was at my wedding, eleven years ago. Cut and sewn by three tailors based in North Leeds, they were…
DetailsMy entry-phone buzzed, a mournful, ‘it’s Tim Parr,’ bewailed down the line, then the plod of heavy footsteps, culminating with a groan as he trudged into the Michelsberg showroom. Partner at the financial services firm RSM in Leeds, and owner of several Michelsberg bespoke suits, I could see pain and anguish, etched all over his…
Details“Kaiser” Karl Lagerfeld, head of the fashion house ‘Chanel’ for 36 years, died last Tuesday. His high, white collared shirts, black frock coats, swishing silver ponytail, dark sunglasses and cut-off leather gloves had all the dramatic swagger of a modern day Mozart at a steampunk festival. The self-declared, “fashion nymphomaniac who never gets an orgasm,” was…
DetailsEight days to go and ‘Dry January,’ penance for my considerable sins in December, will soon be over. It’s not been easy. Last week, I took Lindsay Taylor and Nicolas Guilbaud, directors of Savile Row cloth company, Holland & Sherry, out to lunch at Sous le Nez. Watching Nicolas and their sommelier discuss the wine…
DetailsLast week, my time had come to take one for the team, as family Michelsberg headed off to Disneyland, Paris. As we entered the park for the first time, my cup was, uncharacteristically, half-empty, dreading the prospect of horrendous queues, bad food and surly Parisians. Fast forward two exhausting days later, and I can honestly…
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