Gentry style

Celebrities have a long standing relationship with advertising. That is to say, they have a long standing relationship with money. From John Wayne’s wheezy endorsement of Camels, to Orson Welles’ slurred campaign for Paul Masson to Scarlett Johansson’s winsome Eternity ad, star power has always attracted the marketing men for that instant, orgasmic hit of recognition.
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A retrospective at London’s NFT celebrates the film career of Frank Sinatra. While he may have been Mr. Smooth on record, he was one of the fiercest and most intense of screen actors. Below, Gentry look back at the greatest movies of a true performer.

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Half the fun of leaving one’s flat in LA is ‘celebrity’ spotting. Admittedly, that’s usually like shooting fish in a tank, although on this trip, the celebrity pickin’s have been thinner that usual. Maybe it’s because everyone is back to work now that the writers’ strike is over, putting in a dishonest day’s labour? Maybe it’s because I don’t recognize the lowlier echelons of American t.v. celebrity who practically beg to be noticed in the cafes of Los Feliz? Whatever, my only star spottings have been a person who goes by the unlikely and cartoonish name of Lance Bass (he’s the gay one from N’Sync, and his eyes are beady and he’s spooky as hell) and Judy Garland in sexy black shorts and a white t-shirt.

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The first Saturday in May heralds the beginning of good times. Not only do we have the venerable Kentucky Derby – America’s most famous horse race, the first in the Triple Crown – but also the beginning of Mint Julep season, which extends throughout the steamy summer of the American south. Let’s hope that when the Queen visited Churchill Downs last weekend, fulfilling a lifelong ambition to attend the Derby, she was treated to this most potent and genteel of cocktails.

Mint Juleps are to Kentucky what vodka is to Russia. It’s as much a part of the culture as bluegrass, and on Derby day, the whole of America, from the Pacific Northwest to New England, sips this sweet bourbon treat in a nod to the old south. The winner of the Derby is officially toasted with a Mint Julep, though most of the onlookers will have done plenty of toasting long before the winner crosses the line.

According to lore, the Mint Julep was served on the Kentucky plantation of Senator Henry Clay, who brought the drink to Washington, D.C. in the 1850s, where it was – and happily still is – served at the wonderful old Willard Hotel, still an institution in the capitol.

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I was heartbroken to find out Lenny Kravitz has been celibate for three years. Time was, I could go to sleep at night comforted by the fact that Lenny would be working over any one of Natalaie Imbruglia, Lisa Bonet, Natalie Portman, Penelope Cruz or Kylie Minogue. If you can’t trust Lenny Kravitz, who can you trust? To be fair to him, he’s probably worn his most valuable instrument down to a harnmless nub. But he’s setting a bad example and he’s not alone in this wilfull abstinence, there is a whole rash of sex-misers on the celebrity circuit. Gentry asks the question on everyone’s lips: why, oh why?
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Back in the mid-90s, before Russell Brand was born, before reality television had increased the volume of the nation’s drool, Portishead were laying down a kind cruelly suggestive sound that almost single handedly coalesced a ’scene’. Their shimmering music - trapped somewhere between malignant rock and a bashfully meditative drum n bass - was expansive, experimental pop, of a kind that hasn’t heard for some time. Radiohead’s more propulsive tunes are a distant relation, but achieve proximity by default. Their classic albums ‘Dummy’ (1994) and ‘Portishead’ (1997) tripped out such memorable and unsettling tracks such as ‘Glory Box’, ‘Sour Times‘ and the irresistibly epic ‘All Mine‘.
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Not too many years ago in London, I went in search of beach towels to take with me to France. Or maybe Italy. It was a long search and one that didn’t bear much terry-veloured fruit. I finally found a couple at SCP, but, nice though they are, it doesn’t seem quite right to buy beach towels in Hoxton, at the epicentre of contemporary UK furniture design. So, while dossing in LA, where beach accessorizing constitutes serious fashion, I’ve been stocking up on beach towels, beach blankets, beach towels and…lip moisturizer (my favourite LA-based Brave Solider’s Lip Defender keeps your sunsmacked lips in good health). Here’s my pick of the best beach towels on offer, cheap and cheerful via online shopping (all under $30 and some under $20).

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One of the cinema’s most beguiling and enthralling genres, the gambling movie is always a wild ride, sometimes taking the audience to the the thrilling heights of the winner’s circle and, more often than not, to the lonely lows of the loser’s personal hell. There is something vicariously sumptuous in gambling movies, it’s all about the minutiae, the resplendent details, the simple pleasure of ‘the game’ to be found in the turn of a card or the roll of the dice. It’s a strange kind of cinema, one of direct experience and implied meaning. Below Gentry look back at some of the best gambling movies ever made…

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A pair of shades is a pair of shades. that’s the way it tends to be nowadays with the woolly mass market coin-devils squeezing out the more innovative, idiosyncratic designers. However, fighting back the constrictive market forces like courageous members of the style justice league, intriguing new outfit CoLab have handed global vibe doyens Eboy, Geoff McFetridge and Rockin Jellybean a free-hand over a new line of eye-catching sunglasses. The limited range (just 1000 of each type) of handmade specials. Insect-light and with a touch of wit (such as the geek specs with worn leather tabs on the bridge to replicate the elstoplast effect) these modern classics are the perfect touch to summer, at home or abroad. Striking the right vintage notes for the modern gent, don’t be surprised to see the high street yoink the designs for their own ranges later in the year.

One of the great pleasures of LA life is driving around looking at the fabulous houses which were part of the Case Study House programme, after World War II. A far cry from the hideous McMansions that are a plague upon canyons from east to west, many of these sleek, elegant, modest homes are modernist masterpieces.
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