Tom Chamberlin: Editor-in-Chief of The Rake – Wealth Whisperers, Being a Gentleman, Style Codes, & The Spirit of Savile Row

0:28Have you seen Disney's Tarzan? You're a much more charming version of the Tarzan villain. We're about to find that out. We're about to find that out. Around the world with your host, the Stardguy. We welcome you back to the Stardguy podcast, sharing stories of excellence with those in the know for those who just know. Thank you for having me here, by the way. Thank you so much for being here. Why am I here? You are here. I like these questions. You're here because I think you are the quintessential English gentleman. I think you are one of a few of a dying breed, which is a real mensch. Well, I hope I'm not dying.

1:10You're not dying. You're not dying, but your breed is. Very well postured, very firm handshaking, very well groomed, very well dressed man. Well, thank you. It's a funny one. I think that my mother would squirm if she heard me being referred to as a gentleman. The only thing that would be worse than that is me referring to myself as well. And, you know, I think that you're right to the extent that it's sort of rare to see. You walk down the street, even in London, and there's a sort of a kind of dearth of people who clearly want to make a real effort in terms of how they dress. and how they present themselves.

1:58And I think when you do pass someone like that, there's a sort of, it's a bit like if you own a Land Rover Defender, there's like a code. If you pass someone in a Land Rover Defender and you're in one, there's a single finger that goes up in the steering wheel. Did you know this? They put one finger up to each other and it's like the Land Rover Defender salute. No way. It's a real thing. My father-in-law has a Land Rover Defender and I've driven it and I went past someone and my father-in-law was like, remember you must do the single finger salute and it really was a thing wow even with the new ones yeah i mean you know i mean you know it's really the proper ones actually no the new ones actually i quite like although i'm so interested in how uh suvs in general or kind of off-roading cars have become the sort of nappy valley car for mainly for mothers and i mean i where i do the school runs and i take my children to school and there are a lot of defenders well cars are you sort of associate with the military or the countryside or farming and they are driven kids to school it's amazing and they're very playing on the roads very practical lovely cars i mean i do absolutely yeah um but i mean so uh there's so you do sort of you know doff your cap so to speak to guys who are clearly making an effort and um i do the same with tall people do you we understand each other we do i spoke about this before when i see someone who shares my hat on the street like you yes we do this little little head nod we should make up an official one though that everybody does like the single finger yeah we should do that a pinky finger um it's a good one i um i think that there's a uh a through line however to to the extent that the the sort of people who dress i get i guess to a sort of an i won't say an elevator level i just think who's sort of a very conscious of of putting the way they put things together isn't too dissimilar to the way men want to present themselves i.e let's you know look at back at James Bond or the kind of classical codes of men's style a jacket and trousers and a shirt is kind of the uniform for most men if you meet most men they they will want to have that and have it in their uniforms separates now come into it so you have like like what I'm wearing a sort of a different pair of trousers to the jacket um and you know that allows things to be slightly less kind of corporate um but the the uniform for men uh has a has a sort of a kind of a common red thread throughout any level of formal casual whatever and so i just i just sit somewhere within that but i so i that's that's all it's really and the tie is there do you make a conscious decision today's a tie day or a non-tie day i don't wear a jacket and shirt without a tie i just don't like how it looks and often like the collar can pop off now we're getting into kind of mitigative like me being quite self-conscious um and various sort of things might happen that sort of take away a kind of a sense of perfection a sense of neatness which i enjoy i enjoy neatness in in my in my looks and i think that may be a kind of a compensating for not being particularly neat with like tidying up at home or my desk or something like that I don't know um or not feeling neat inside or something psychological who knows uh we can explore that today yeah yeah really deep and but the sense of being well-dressed has always given me a great feeling of confidence goes right back to when I was a teen and I was underage drinking at pubs where I had a pair of my father's shoes that I stole from his cupboard.

5:52My father's wonderfully dressed and he had this amazing cupboard and you open it and this smell of polish and leather kind of, I loved it. I fell in love with it from a very young age and I would steal a pair of his shoes and I would go to the pub dressed in like a leather jacket and a t-shirt and jeans. But wearing those shiny, beautifully made shoes, I felt like I was the smartest person in the room. And from back then, that felt important. And I can't really distinguish why it felt important by then. But I think it instilled a level of confidence that I didn't have if I was just wearing Vans or like, you know, Chacabees or something.

6:33Take it till you make it. Exactly that. Exactly that. And, you know, we should all do that. I think that the body language is part of the outfit as well, because it's not just the way you look. It's also the way you act, the way you hold yourself, the way you carry your body, the way you speak. It fits in the whole... Bearing is what you're talking about here. Is that what it's called? Bearing.

7:01It entirely depends. I mean, it really depends on the situation. and I'm 38 now so I'm more confident than I was and I had better bearing now than I did when I was in my mid-twenties and trying to kind of figure myself out. And funnily enough, this is part of the kind of secret behind The Rake is that the idea is that it was a magazine that appealed to men over a certain age because the argument was that actually these are the guys who are way more confident and have sort of established the sense of themselves at their sort of, you know, the most ultimate level. So, yeah, I think it gets better now as you get older.

7:49You agree? I agree. Okay. Things age beautifully over time. Yeah. As of you. i guess i literally am about to go pick up um some suits from the tailor that i've had to have let out so i don't know if that's necessarily true but that's very sweet of you fine well tom chamberlain am i saying your last name properly you are tom chamberlain but the thing is that most people spell my name incorrectly i am not spelt like neville chamberlain uh or emma chamberlain l-a-i-n um uh i'm spelt just l-i-n oh yeah lin lin which feels like the sort of you know phonetically the more you know that makes more sense but it doesn't make a bit more nobody spells it otherwise everyone spells it l-a-i-n lane yeah well tom chamberlain editor-in-chief of the rake great publication thank you it's uh you seem like the rake man in real life is that is that a byproduct of the role or is perfect fit how did that happen i think i was probably hired um uh because i fit a particular mold um however if you met the founder of the rake who's a man named way ko who is a uh singaporean american guy you know thick american accent but singaporean covenant tattoos oh wow you know often wears like a hawaiian shirt with you know he is very much the rake at the same time so it's a funny and interesting dynamic where um the pair of us if we're standing next to each other we would kind of have very different looks uh and yet it all kind of would make sense and so i think the old idea of um uh the rake is is is that it doesn't have to be one particular sort of prescribed look it can be lots of different things i think lots of different people who all share a passion for obsession from what i've seen yeah i mean the idea behind it in the first place was that that that when we started was that he didn't feel like there were magazines out there that were or that made men above a certain age feel relevant and he when you grew up he his heroes were Paul Newman Cary Grant Humphrey Bogart and you don't think of Paul Newman Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant being cool in their 20s you think of them being cool in their 40s and 50s that's when they really were amazing so as a man who was just turning 40 as he was he was like where's the magazine that kind of reflects that and so that's why he started the rake and that's kind of what i try to continue to do today and so uh at the same time where all that is grounded is is within the kind of classic codes of men's style and really ground zero for that is tailoring and artisan craftsmanship you know all those sorts of things and so really the rake does it's meant to be a martinet for that world you know we we are flag waivers not bearers so we kind of tell come look at us or come look at this lot really my job is not to be excellent it is it is to point out the people who are that's really it and so you have to be obsessive about that you have to be passionate about it um but truly um it's not about me or us at the rake.

11:22It's about the people that we talk about. It's not about products. It's about people behind products. So, you know, the watchmaker or the tailor or the shoemaker, you know, these are people who commit their lives vocationally to a particular set of skills that are for your benefit as a consumer. and often it's not a particularly lucrative life, but they will spend their entire lives doing it, perfecting it, and make it better and better. So you've met a lot of people that are very obsessed with what they do, that have dedicated their lives to those obsessions.

12:06Do they usually look like the customer or the person they're building for? That's a very difficult question, because ultimately what we're talking about here is aesthetics in the sense of like people's personal style to people's personal look. And there's a lot of collectors of watches who have terrible style in general. But, you know, any of them could have cash and want to collect watches. I met a guy in America just recently. Andy Rosenfield is his name. A very impressive man, a very successful man. He's the president of a company that owns the L.A. Dodgers. You know, amazing looking. beautifully dressed has been collecting watches all his life but I've met other watch collectors who don't look like him um so I I don't really know how to sort of answer that succinctly um and satisfactorily for you uh because you know I find that obviously if you're a tailor you kind of have to be an advert for your work uh and same with shoemakers my problem with shoemakers is that they seem to be dreadful at looking after their shoes and shoe majors is just one of my absolute bugbears um you need to be able to look after your shoes uh but these guys sort of click clop around in shoes that probably need a new polish and need looking after but they are you know at the the coalface as it were with kind of you know dust and and sort of you know you know it's a workshop and so of course it's going to be a little bit scuffed around there and usually sort of is a pretty confined place there's a lot of guys out workers for shoes work in their garden chairs so i think that there's a uh i mean you've met a lot of these people yeah and so you know that everybody you know what it draws in is the kind of microcosm of the world's wealthy but at the same time it's such a broad church you know it's nobody's quite the same there it's not a sort a homogenous unit of people there's a uh there's a real um uh people come from lots of different uh you know weights heights aesthetics jobs um sort of personal styles you know you know they are either wealth whispers or they're dandies or that you know they're all sorts of different people i mean you yourself have this wonderful wealth whispers sort of look you know head to or a piano it's all rather wonderful um but it's a subtle thing it's not necessarily uh you know it's not loud tailoring there are some details in here which i think you know particularly nice i think the lapel is nice and broad which for a tall person is good because you're you know it doesn't make your head look too big you know all this stuff i think about but you know it doesn't mean that everybody thinks about it but at the same you know it's it's a it's a sort of solemn crispy nice fabric that looks comfortable to wear and doesn't have any logos anywhere for people to understand where it's from which is a good thing i appreciate that thank you that's okay thank you speaking of outfits yes i see something attached to your lapel which i've never seen before the lapel pin lapel pin yes this is my grandfather's and it is a 1950s dunhill and if it'll work yeah there you go so it still works and um you're not a smoker yeah i do i don't smoke cigarettes i like my wife's cigarettes with this okay um when i'm feeling particularly sort of pretentious but um really it just sort of sits there my dad wears a lapel chain and it's actually it's a it's an interesting thing it's a sort of swizzle stick for champagne so you use it to kind to de-fizz your champagne because sometimes champagne can be quite fizzy overly fizzy and so you know that just kind of helps get the fizz out so he's always had one and i i just quite like it i don't have a huge i don't accessorize too much um i like to sort of have bits and bobs and i think accessorizing is actually a sort of cheat code for dressing nicely i think if you if you manage to get some accessories in that's what sort of elevates your look would you categorize yourself as old-fashioned i'm an old soul yeah um and i have that sort of innate uh english habit of nostalgia where we think of england and in a or i think of england in a very particular way that perhaps isn't realistic but i sort of wish it were so um and i uh you know i i i'm not particularly hip if that's really the question you know if it was oh are you old fashion versus are you kind of very modern i don't think i could really i don't think i could pick up that particular mantle um so uh so yes i would i would say so i think a old-fashioned gentleman from italy france england would have a lot in common in terms of their values and the things they find value in, but they look very different.

17:19Yeah, see, this is an interesting conversation. I think that, you know, values, I hope, are a kind of classless thing. I sort of hope that, you know, we find that various things are associated with gentlemen or sort of various classes in England, you know, certain types of manners or certain amounts of forks and knives on a table setting. but really i think there are there are lots of values in life that are available to everybody you know good manners you know uh respect for women a a kind of a a a sort of um a value in uh in family or in or you know i don't know there's all sorts of these sorts of things that that you can kind of tap into without necessarily needing any money to do it and so so yes i think they are different throughout the continent i think that british style just from a clothing point of view it's very rooted in britain because you have to think back to um the late 18th century where what you have is something called the great male renunciation and the great male renunciation was when we used to, as men, wear breeches.

18:35So they would stop at the knee and they'd be made a... We'd wear lots of embellished silk and we'd like gold stitching and all these sorts of things. That's how men used to dress. And they decided around then to not do that anymore. And that's when you saw that kind of austere, Victorian, heavy woolen dress come into play, which was very much the case in France, because in France, as you may remember, the uh the the the the rebels in the in the french revolution 1789 were known as the sans culotte no underwear commander no trousers oh sans culotte sorry well sans culotte sorry sorry they were because because they wore trousers sorry so the sans culotte culotte were were as as it were britches right with a word for britches so um so they wore trousers because that was you know if you wore trousers that meant that you weren't bourgeois and so um uh you know the hat wearing of britches could actually be the difference between life and death back then uh less now although it'd be odd to wear it unless you're shooting the uh the then in came in that that that sense of english style and there was a a writer called nicholas von heidloff who was from the continent who yeah he was in germany he used to say if you were dressed as an englishman if you dressed in the english style you were well dressed anywhere on the planet or on the continent actually but as far as they were concerned europe back then so then was the planet yeah so so there was a sort of there was a sense that the english gent especially the english country squire was the zenith style that was really could be all over um europe if they wanted to come across as classy they wanted to look like the English gender.

20:21There was a lot of morning dress coming in and, you know, tweeds and things like that. And remember the riding habit was like, it was the most popular style of clothing available. And that is where tailoring all came from back then, because, you know, riding habits had to be tailored, morning coats had to be tailored. And, you know, you saw the rise of tailoring back then. And it was all to sort of supply this emerging new style post, the great male renunciation um and so so british style quite early on was kind of bleeding into you know as you say italians and french and and germans what are some quick things to look out for and notice to know that's german that's french that's italian and that's english uh italian is a couple of quite simple things so uh there's something called spallic amicia which is a type of shoulder um where uh it's actually neapolitan tailoring that does this you can find in uh in milanese tailoring they go really far on the rope um uh but uh if if the jacket is tucked in to the which yours is not yours is placed on top but if it's tucked in to the jacket that's known as spallocomitian that's a that's a telltale sign of uh neapolitan tailoring so anything from Rubenacci or anything like that you or Elia Caliendo things like that you'll notice it which gives a nice soft silhouette and and really good for kind of unstructured tailoring so in France you don't what we have is a kind of couture tradition rather than a tailoring tradition you only have two bespoke tailors really true bespoke tailors in Paris which is Camps de Luca and you have Schifinelli and Schifinelli is much easier to spot because it has a sort of pagoda shoulder.

22:13Karl Lagerfeld was a great fan of theirs and said he could spot it from a mile away. He's actually accused to wear it. Like a great tailor. Ralph Lauren was a big fan of Schifnelli too. Lorenzo and Massimo still run it and they're a terrific pair and they make beautiful suits. But it's very sweeping, six by one button stances so you can kind of spot it from quite far away because as I say, it's about couture there rather than sort of English drape, which the Brits define themselves by sort of having nice looking but comfortable clothing whereas the french it's like they they care less about that it's much more about them you you walk into a room wearing one of their suits and everybody just notices it and it looks wonderful um germans well that's a difficult question to really if it's a telltale signs of germans uh because germany is actually a very a well-dressed country i find when i meet germans do you find that too i find also the spanish actually shouldn't mention spanish in general are quite chic very chic but i think that germany is underrated in terms of they but i think that i think that that's a sort of slightly kind of catholic traditional thing where because i think they all still wear morning dress for baptisms which i think is marvelous and so the german sensibility is i think just generally more formal when it comes to picking outfits um quite british to an extent in the sense of like you know nice shirt and you know nice nice jacket and trousers and smartly polished shoes or whatever like it's it's it's not too dissimilar um like off top man i can't figure out something that would really point it out except for if it's like you know loading jackets or something they don't like collars in germany they're in their jackets they like they like narrow collars there you go okay and english uh i mean there's all sorts of things i mean english uh english tailoring uh i mean strong military shoulders bearing around you know so so like this for example this is actually considered a naturally cut jacket but it still has a sort of you know strong shouldered military bearing um you got uh they liked a lot of canvassing so the jackets like to sort of sit potentially sort of loose but look like kind of solid you know like armor um is tom ford kind of like that so okay so well okay the history of the so i don't want to talk too much about this stuff but you kind of set me off with these questions so tom ford based his looks on something called the hacking jacket uh which is basically which well that's that goes back a bit further so he based it on what tommy nutter did so tommy nutter opened uh valentine's day in 1969 on Savile Row and uh the cutter for uh Tommy Nutter was and these guys were considered the great revolutionaries of Savile Row they were the first to have an open window that people could actually look into and see Taylor and going on this was a hugely revolutionary thing for Savile Row and it was seen to be sort of reinventing it because they you know they dressed the Beatles and lots of musical figures and they were seen to make Savile Row cool again but the cutter for it was a a guy called Edward Sexton, recently departed, I'm afraid.

25:27And he cut, I mean, the shoulders were, it was like a 90 degree shoulder. And the way it kind of cut and then flared out at the skirt, amazing looking. I mean, when you look back at the archive imagery of Tommy Nutter clothing, I mean, it really was extraordinary. But it was all based on the tailor across the road, which is a tailor called Huntsman, which you may have heard of course. The Huntsman, so they basically, well, I mean, they didn't get to Savarrow until 1919. And then they brought in a guy during the Second World War as an apprentice called Colin Hammock. and colin hammock uh was a kid during the blitz and he got uh sent away like a lot of the kids during the blitz into the countryside and he was put up with a family who were a family of tailors and he loved it and he came back and he apprenticed in uh literally as soon as he was able to come back and this is during the war still and he he came back to london because he was of age and he apprenticed at Huntsman and then didn't leave until the mid 90s so he stayed there his entire life until his retirement but he was the man who brought back the idea of the hacking jacket and the hacking jacket was so hacking as a as a verb is the type of riding that you do that is not competitive okay so if you're riding or hunting so if you're riding just to sort of and the countryside just on your horse that's hacking and so this jacket was single button, slightly higher up because when you're in the saddle it needs to be higher up, otherwise it's lower down it would be uncomfortable high arm hold, strong shoulder and also you'll notice the pockets will be slanted because when you're sitting in the saddle it means you can get your hand in the pocket easier otherwise this is tough so what you'll see with Tom Ford suits.

27:36There's a lot of slanted pockets. And this all goes back to the hacking jacket. Okay. And I was lucky enough to... And Huntsman was open in 1849. So, you know, it's an old tailor, only really beaten by Henry Poole, which is sort of next door, more or less. And I was very lucky to have written the book on Huntsman. So this is why I know sort of random trivia. so let me ask you this you have um tapped in obviously from a a kind of um uh satirical point route into this world you've been able to therefore you know make observations on this world you have to make observations on this world the luxury industry has a million entry points so food yachting watches clothing i should say tailoring um accessorizing grooming like a lot all those sorts of things what's your where do you find your comfort zone is in terms of sort of your your kind of your passion your knowledge your interest you know where is it that you find yourself you know going down rabbit holes i like a question it's a great question um I'm a journalist too, so I'm afraid.

28:54It means I'll get one in and the rest are going to be crap. No, no, I won't believe that. I think I'll backtrack a bit because you're talking about all these different categories. And I think it's important to acknowledge why all those categories are important spokes of the same wheel. There's a marketeer I love and he says the core of great marketing and storytelling is people like us do things like this. and defining who people like us is, the archetype, what those things are, and how they all fit hand in hand. So people like us of a real-life shtad guy, a real-life connoisseur, someone who's obsessed with excellence in all categories of their life, they have deep obsessions across all those categories.

29:38They're usually rarely changing their mind about things, married to certain ways of living, ways of consuming, and they always want the best of the best in those categories. So that's the people like us of a connoisseur and the do things like this have some things that are tangible like items or also some ways of being like acting like a gentleman, having good manners, having the certain presence in the room. And I think the ways of being versus the ways of consuming and looking is what I actually have always obsessed over. It's what I mentioned earlier in this conversation. If you weren't dressed the way you are, you'd still be the gentleman that you are.

30:20Because I don't think you, although your outfit does elevate you, your way of acting, your way of being, your way of speaking, I think that's actually what makes you the gentleman that you are. And that's something I observed as a kid with my parents, friends, at school. I sometimes see someone dressed very well, but they'd act not so well, and it actually makes them look out of place. But when someone looks polished and they're polished with their words, they're careful with the words they use, they're kind, they're well-mannered, they're well-raised, they're mindful of the consequences of what they do.

30:56I think that just elevates the whole thing. I mean, I'm trying to avoid referring to myself as a gentleman, but let's say it's not an outfit. it is a uh you know they call people talk about gentlemanly conduct it's conduct uh you know and i went to a school and it's all the thoughts of people who've taught me i mean i've i've been very fortunate in in sort of my sort of male influences in life and you know my dress for example is very informed by my mentor a guy called nick fowkes who's one of the great um writers and journalists and editors and and just you know know it all's when it comes to the men's luxury industry like he wrote the book on passe philippe he wrote the book on uh you know gambling mania in the 1800s like you know the guy has such a huge breadth of knowledge and i was so lucky to work for him for many years and learn from him but he's also one of the best dressed men in the world i would say the best best dressed man in the world um and uh you know so from that side you know my my just sort of inspired by him but like my headmaster of my prep school for example you as far as he was concerned a good forward defensive stroke and cricket was the most important thing in life if you knew how to do that then nothing else mattered and i still love that i still think that's great you know except for you know loving the queen and uh you know god bless her soul and you know all this was that that is that is what's important in life you know yes we we've all got different academic skill sets and and and the levels of achievement but you know if you knew how to you know keep a fastball away from the stumps then you really got it made that's that was how I was educated so it's it is about conducts about values and you know we are in a world today where certainly men have been I think terribly misled in in the way that they think that good behavior is or old-fashioned behavior is and this is what i hate but this sort of not to go down to political path but sort of you know the kind of red pill manosphere stuff is that they think they're being old-fashioned you know by having kind of trad wise and always they think that it is a an old-fashioned way of being a man but can you imagine i mean you know do you think andrew tate is anything like paul newman or anything like humphrey bogart do you think those guys with sims anything other than just a total scumbag no they wouldn't but these you know you know paul newman fought in the second world war um and you know and you know he he spent his life kind of being charitable but also racing motor cars and just being the coolest guy who ever lived and so you know it's the the sort of skewed idea of what i think who men are i think i think you know we are at a sort of slight odd moment with all this and i think that um uh you know if if if if i can sort of in one way or another sort of not not sort of try and force people down a particular path of behavior but but at least be something that people might look at other than you know what currently people are looking at on on youtube and and social media then and i hope i hope that's helpful um but let's see you know this podcast is brought to you by poubelle by the stand guy allowing you to express all the things you love and all the things you may question on interchangeable charm jewelry that can be combined to create bracelets necklaces handbag accessoires and much more from iced matcha and reformer pilates to sauna buckets and a pair of skis all the things you love and even the things you question can be expressed through poubelle why do you think it's trending so much to be this aggressive angry version of a man being outraged feels good being sort of I mean also I think that there's a sort of everyone wants a sense of belonging it's funny we talk about the world of the luxury industry there's people around the world every day who make 10 million pounds a day someone somewhere around the world makes 10 million pounds a day one of the first things they do pretty much is buy a house in London because it's a good investment but also there is a sense that that is where the people go you know build us and they will come well london was built a long time ago and when it comes to the sort of luxury establishment people people want to join in and they want to come and they want to kind of feel a part of uh and that that habit doesn't drift away whether people are making you know a million 10 million pounds a year or um you know 100 000 50 000 20 000 everyone wants a sense of belonging it's why you know there is is why there is gang culture you know and and i and and i don't think it's i i think that needs to be understood before it should be um uh you know people should be sort of um made to feel stupid for wanting to belong i think that that's a perfectly normal human feeling uh but this is this is i mean this is not necessarily my wheelhouse it's purely an opinion but i think that uh the um the red pill manosphere stuff is is is purely because guys have uh there is a sort of insecurity around what what being masculine means and also an importance attached to the idea of being masculine you know people using the word i'm an alpha and there's nothing more there's nothing less alpha than saying i'm an alpha i I mean, can you imagine, let's say again, can you imagine these, you know, Burt Lancaster saying, I'm an alpha?

36:56No, you can't. Can you? I mean, it is an absurd notion. Anyway, this is too much clickbait. That's good. I'm going to get in trouble. Have you seen the movie The Blind Side? The American Football one? Yeah. Yes. I love that movie because I love how the main character is so gentle. Yes. And I love when someone who has the physical power and disposition to not be gentle, extremely gentle. And I think the word gentle man is often misused and mislabeled these days as like this sort of alpha, like testosterone machine. Yeah. Well, first and foremost, the word gentle is there. And I think something I've spoken about before is being mindful in the way you behave is not doing things you can do because why is not to do those things?

37:57Yeah. So it's like being in great shape and not walking around with your shirt off all day, you know? And being a gentle man is that. It's having the ability to, of course, spread rage and be aggressive and be this testosterone machine who's swearing and throwing things around because that's what our ape tendencies make us want to do sometimes. But staying gentle and staying mindful of the things we do is the first step, I think, of actually being a gentleman. And I think it's more and more rare these days because people feel judged by being gentle and they feel like they might have to fake being aggressive or angry to be perceived as men.

38:51How do you feel about the way men are perceived these days and the perception of being gentle versus being aggressive and that push and pull?

39:06i think that um i think that i know less about this than a lot of very interesting people like scott galloway um i think that i think the men i think the men are a fairly simple folk who um who have really complex feelings and i think that we aren't you know it's it's and i say this with regards to specifically with regards to you know our our sort of you know the things that kind of can make us happy you know yeah i i i read sort of in a load of data that you know there's one thing that men really thrive on and this is interesting i think uh one thing that really men really thrive on is is being educated.

39:59Men love to learn stuff because they love to go to the pub with their mates and they love being around their mates. Men love being around their mates. It's a great feeling. But they love to sort of show off, did you know, hey, guess what I learned today? And there's like a sharing fun facts with each other. You know, we aren't sort of intellectually stunted. That is not who men are. You know, we love kind of picking up random bits of information. And I feel like, you know, if my accidental success on TikTok, has any um uh kind of rationale behind it it is that it is it is that i just sort of say things that people um might find interesting and may not have known before and so um so i think that there is so many aspects to to sort of men and the things we like and the things we find joy from um that uh you are right is made to seem somehow uh uh beta or like or or or not cool or um uh you know everything is you know wired around this whole idea of you know from when we were teenagers of who was snogging the best looking girl at school kind of thing like you know that was sort of who that the guy who was snogging the best looking girl at school he was the coolest guy in school or if you were the first 15 captain um and and i think that there's you know we we we often find that difficult to pull away from it but i think society sort of often says that men who are you know um uh as you say gentle kind considerate and i would say if you if you like american football films like that you should watch remember the titans it's a perfect example of this that um you know it was about this wonderful sort of friendship between two guys and that sort of went from being aggressive down to not and if anybody watches that and thinks god that's the opposite of what we should do then then i fear for you but um there is a uh you know there are people on the on the web who say you know what there's been years and years and years of you being told that everything that you consider traditionally masculine is toxic um and so here's the solution to it you know be just as bad on the other side of things but you know again i should declare that this is not my wheelhouse um uh i'm not uh and i'd love to read more about this stuff and get to know it better um because i'm curious curiosity is is you know i love being curious about this stuff but i i like to think that part of my job with the rake is to sort of give people a little bit of escapism from all that shit um so be away from needing to people needing to feel like they need to justify the things that they like so they go to the rake and they'll read about things that are hugely indulgent and often frivolous um but a beautiful you know what we talk about with with with the luxury world is for me it's the applied arts you know it's it you know a beautiful watch is an artistic expression um but at the same time it's also a scientific one uh and you know these things are meant to be sort of looked at and people feel a sense of of joy just by kind of being in proximity to whether it's on the page or or on youtube or whatever just it the the stuff the fact that this stuff exists means the world is actually quite a nice place um the world is full of horror too and there are lots of people that cover that my my job is to um just be a constant reminder that there there is a certain level of beauty in this world that uh everyone can can look at and enjoy and understand better just by a bit of education um so um uh whether that kind of is a sort of antidote to uh the red pill thing i don't know but it's maybe it's a start as well as being the editor-in-chief of the rake you're also a father of two yes my favorite thing and sharing information is part of your day job and your after hours yeah job with your sons are they on social media yet no they're six and eight i mean And they are little.

44:29And you know it's coming over the horizon. You know that there'll be a conversation fairly soon. Are you optimistic about the information that they'll be inundated with or worried? How do you feel about the generation they're born into? There's no lack of books. And, you know, there is an abundance of phones and stuff. But, you know, there is no lack of books. So, you know, the content can also come from lots of different mediums. And so, of course, I worry about all this stuff because it can turn dark quite quickly if the algorithm wants it to. At the same time, you know, you yourself, let's say, you know, they go on and you're the first thing they get sent to us.

45:23What they're being sent to is a fairly positive thing. You know, you bring, I guess, a kind of a sense of humor, but also an education and also a kind of, you know, you'll teach my sons about satire. Satire is a very important thing. We're in a world where, you know, you want to hold powerful people accountable. The satire is what does that. Satire is the greatest form of kind of political protest because it's, you know, it comes from powerful places sometimes. and and and that's terrific uh and so i think you know if they if they learn about satire through you through social media then great i just don't want them to be sort of you know you know you know where i can go um but i love my boys they're wonderful love being a dad i'm sure it's beautiful yeah you mentioned holding powerful people accountable through satire yeah do you do a bit of that you find through the rake i take the piss out of people a lot um i think i think it's not really my role i think that and i think that there are people who i mean look okay one of my great heroes is graden carter he's currently the editor of airmail um he was the editor of antifair for 25 years and he was the one who called donald trump the short-fingered vulgarian you know he coined that thing at spy magazine and uh you know really is you know rattled the president of the united states uh he doesn't like it um but grayden has always been just supremely brave about this stuff because he is never he's always if there's a story to be told he'll tell it and um that i think today is a very difficult thing to do if you don't have terrific backing you know with great sort of teams behind you you know big powerful publishing houses also you know creating a readership that wants to access this kind of thing nobody reads the rape because they want sort of striking political satire it's not like a print version of you know have i got news for you but it is uh but it is got some things in there that that is irreverent i want to be irreverent at the and i think that you know my um my feeling is that the the the the audience like it too they like a good blend of the sort of sentimental and the satirical and so i i try to do these sort of little snippets of it um but i don't think it's really my role okay where your readership is is mostly english america by far is our biggest market wow god bless you why do you think that is um it's my biggest market too for short guy well firstly it's a it's just it's just a consumer market i mean these guys are just rabid consumers and we love them for that it's a great it's a great thing um so we want i think i think americans you know when you go around to the 50 states each state is a is a is a country of its own that has its own culture it has its own flag has its you know there's something about each one that has its own dish as you know all these sorts of things so america is jam-packed with culture but it's a curious country it has a real interest in in other things and for some reason i think they are attracted to the whole old-fashioned british thing and they are um which is super i mean marvelous you know and long may that last because uh you know it's it's very good for business um and uh and and i hope i hope that they they they are sort of quenched in their curiosity for that stuff through the through the rake or through through my social media or whatever you know they get that i mean it's over 50 percent of the people who watch my videos on on social media that they're all from they're from america so 55 percent usually it's mad but they are they are just curious bunch and and you know i think that there's a a real sort of snobbiness around Americans that they are sort of uneducated you know most of them don't have a passport and you know and I just think actually nothing that I've experienced about America bears that out and I think that they are a people who are just endlessly curious about the stuff outside of America and it's luckily British style and old-fashioned Britishness the royal family and so forth, lands very much within their collective Venn diagram of stuff they're interested in.

50:04I heard there's more Americans than ever moving to London. You're very welcome. They're very welcome. But I heard that also what I hear the chatter on the street is a lot of London's not what it used to be. We're leaving London. And there's also all this conversation around more millionaires than ever have left the UK and left London. You've been here for a long time. You are observing the world around you in London, particularly for a living. Have you seen London change?

50:42No, I think London's quite an evergreen tree. I think everyone likes to say, you know, disparaging things around London but generally it's kind of a conveyor belt so some people leave other people arrive you just said it loads of millionaires going but more Americans coming than ever there's a lot of bloody millionaires in America the most yeah it's like people talk about the death of magazines they've been saying that since the 80s uh or the death of Savile Row you know it's kind of you know there's always sort of gloom and doom I've never really I've never felt too worried i think i think london uh i actually did get asked this and when i was in la i was like people moving to milan it's like no people aren't because the lingua franca across the world is still english and london is that central gmt sort of sweet spot that everybody is you know is happy to be at and so you know i i i don't fear london in the way a lot of people do I think if I was a young man curious to elevate my style and my way of being and grow into a Tom Chamberlain approved gentleman what a thing what a thing where would I start my journey

52:05well interestingly enough I started my journey at Reese okay I was working for a tv show called the x factor well and i was earning you you weren't money weekly there so i was only 300 pounds a week and i was living at home so for me there was actually quite a lot i was fine with that i was very happy with that because i was living at home and i was a runner i was making tea for simon cowell and lighting a cigarette so that was basically my thing wow and i would spend my money trying to kind of i i walked past a reese and i found that like they had this three-piece suit and they had this sort of trench coat and i thought oh they look quite fun and so so you know so i started there okay um and then i gravitated towards ralph lauren and then i grabbed you know i gravitated towards places that knew in lingwood and so you know so so i mean it's if you're a young man and you're not earning much it's very difficult to necessarily i mean polo is actually fairly well priced to be fair um but it's complicated to find something really classic and if you if you want my genuinely controversial opinion about things Uniqlo do amazing sweaters and they're really classic clean sweaters How's the sit on you?

53:20It's a sweater, it's knitwear, it's fine The sleeve length is good? Yep, it's all fine And you know the shirt sleeves poke out just enough, just as you want It sits nicely on the chest it's all you know it's all fine um so uh there are places you can go not necessarily for a full outfit but there are always places you can go um and i you know i would not recommend a 21 year old decide you know what i'm going to go all in on something incredibly expensive right away start building your wardrobe well firstly get the classic get a navy blazer and go from there well scratch that reverse it as willie wonka would say it starts with the shoes okay very much starts with the shoes bad shoes is i hate it and and there are a lot of poorly made shoes and there are a lot of poorly made shoes at a high price point too yeah don't ask me to say which ones I shock you quite my philosophy on all this stuff is that it's like they're giving a reference if someone asks you to give a reference you can either decline to give a reference or you can give a good reference that's the rule in this country so it's a bit like that but the shoes once you've got nicely polished classic shoes like a pair of black penny loafers or cap-toed oxfords I would suggest loafers for taller guys with bigger feet because it's less leather and lots of leather for guys with big feet can look quite clunky um but either way um you start with that you build your wardrobe around that because black especially if you've got black or brown or burgundy shoes because you can't wear certain things of black shoes you can't wear certain things of brown shoes and so you build your wardrobe up from that but a navy blazer is key um and once you get those in you can then start to slowly adding um and it doesn't matter if you begin with tm lewin you know anyone anyone who who who sort of sniffs at a 23 24 year old who's just started in in a professional life not going straight to turnbull and assa i you know i think that's an absurd way of looking at life and an unrealistic one just just just create your own passion for it by building your wardrobe decide what's missing and save up for that kind of thing you know for the tie or for the the new pocket square or you know at one point you'll end up going to Paris to Chave to get a boutonniere.

55:54I'm sure, as my friend who's a brigadier in the army, his great Christmas treat for himself is he goes to Paris and he gets a Chave boutonniere. And that's sort of what you gravitate up to. But wait until you're a brigadier in the army to do that. I love it. How do you feel about the new tech chic suit with sneakers, like the Swiss on trainers with a full suit? uh i um refer back to my previous answer where i said that i don't give bad references i only decline to give references um uh the size the answer that's all i had to hear i think look i i i it is it is it is it would be so silly for me to go through life thinking that everyone needs to dress like me that is just not how my philosophy in life yeah i feel i feel like i dress like you know something that is true to myself and then if it's not true for you you shouldn't you shouldn't do you should dress how you feel comfortable and it you know you talk about gentlemanly conduct it's very very ungentlemanly to look down on somebody because of their choice of clothing um you know if they're if they're being true to themselves um but clearly the tech thing is a sort of fad do you know what i mean it's like this is how i need to dress to look like i'm part of that set i mean you know it's it's it's it's it could be better are there any non-negotiables for you in the way people act or dress or hold themselves.

57:39I hate people who are rude to waiters or service people of any kind. I hate it. Ala puvel. Yeah, very much ala puvel. Terribly ala puvel. Like, you know, that is, that is, people who are rude, like openly rude, who think that it's okay to go through life being openly rude to people. I mean, it's one thing, I had a situation at home where people filled my house with gas recently. It was not a fun, it was very dangerous, very frightening. No, no, no. uh it was it was an accident in in the pavement and people drilled into the hole to do like maintenance work and they hit my gas pipe my house was filled with gas um i i wasn't rude to them i was stern with them but like to be like to feel like you have the right to be like nasty and rude to people i mean that is a very i mean i have no idea how anyone can really justify especially if they're people who are just trying to like serve you food like i hate that sorry i was ranting i appreciate that are there any others any other a la poubelle's that we can show the audience so i'm a bit like the if if you want me to get a little snobby i'm a bit like the uh queen elizabeth ii in this one which is that her thing she really couldn't bear was pre-tied bow ties okay um it's really hard to tie a bow tie it's not hard to tie a bow tie and and i and as soon as you know you will know because can you tie your shoelaces yeah mr summer walk okay i can't tie my shoelaces then you can tie a bow tie it is the same time it's the same thing there is you make a loop you loop the other thing around and feed it through that's how it's the same thing okay just practice and you get it right i usually get someone else to do it for me fine marvelous great get your valet out it's usually it's usually a friend uh or my dad or stand on the chair exactly um yeah it's it's a very straightforward thing to do and i saw was it cluny recently i saw a picture of cluny sort of side and he was wearing a pre-tie bow tie you can tell them from and i was like you can tell because they look so disappointing right they look very clean yeah they're not as perfect you can't get that when you're tying it like you can't I've seen some imperfect pre-tied bow ties they're pretty good they might slip past you I know you don't approve but you may it may be imperfect enough just learn how to tie your tie you only have to do it a couple times just pre-tied bow ties a la poubelle rude to waiters a la poubelle very much so

1:00:15and

1:00:19referring to yourself as alpha very much so I think probably referring to yourself as a gentleman as well I don't think that's particularly a gentleman you think to do complimenting yourself very much so I mean I think it's better to spread kindness than just sort of lavish yourself with it that's very true I agree okay what about things that are fantastique my wife and children love that but otherwise um uh people who write thank you letters i i agree they are fantastique i mean yeah very fantastic there i don't know if that's how you say absolutely fantastic um i think recognition gratitude is such a such a small effort that goes such a long way it feels really good yeah it feels good for someone to say but you know the difficult thing with thank you letters nowadays is they're so rare that if you send one it means it's going to be like a day or two before it arrives at that person's house and they probably like haven't had a text from you despite the fact they've got you up for a nice dinner they think you're rude so you have to send like a pre-thank you let a note to say just say no thank you for the rest i've got a thing coming your way the other thing to do is always just say the way around that really is to text them and say thank you for last night what's your address yeah and that's that's a good way around that so um uh other things that are fantastic other things that are you don't see as often as you'd like to see well polished shoes well polished shoes are fantastic like yeah because the opposite is very much a la pabelle yeah um uh i think you know people should really look after shoes um uh and um yeah that's those are sort of my my majors everything else is sort of minors lunch at harry's bar where we met that was fantastic that's always fantastic lovely place um you know mayfess and james in general it's just it's about my tailor terry haste um he's He is fantastic.

1:02:26The sound of a wood pigeon in the English countryside is fantastic. What's a wood pigeon? It's a wood pigeon. It's a nice-looking pigeon. Basically, you'll see them in London so often, and they make a very soothing call, them and them. It's a sound when I hear it, I feel like I'm very much in the countryside. Even if I hear it in London, I feel like, oh, gosh, have I escaped? Oh, very cool. I'll look for some wood pigeons. It's a marvelous sound. It's a very British sounding. Yeah? Okay. or the kind of crackle of a pheasant. Beautiful. Well, Tom, thank you so much for being here. I still don't understand why you asked me on here, but I am delighted.

1:03:05It's very, very kind. I think that your content, the breaking out of your persona to actually explore more of the world, I think is a really fascinating thing to choose to have done. That's exactly why I've asked you to be here, to learn more about you, how you see the world. And I also love learning from you. Whenever I speak to you, I learn new and cool things. Good. Thanks for asking you along. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Stad Guy podcast. If you're keen to learn more, please follow along by engaging with our social channels on Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube, and Apple podcasts.

1:03:50And we look forward to seeing you next week. Merci beaucoup. A la prochaine and a big hug from the start guy.