Today is the first of May: the first day of the bright half of the year, the beginning of summer. Today is a day of life and light, a day of revelry and celebration – a time to gather flowers, a time to laugh, a time to dance…
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The third dispatch from author, printer and dealer in ‘Vintage Fishing Tackle for the Soul’ John Andrews (a.k.a Andrews of Arcadia). John is one of the six working men photographed by Neil Gavin for our spring/summer menswear collection.
The coming of spring prompts a changing of the guard, an audit of the kit that has got me through another winter on the floor of the market. Usually, this is nothing more than a list of repairs given to the Empress, the sewing up of ripped sleeves, the re-tying of buttons, the strengthening of pockets and shoulder straps and perhaps the re-heeling of a pair of boots. In one year it was a call to the scrap merchant to tow away the car whose wheels had seized and whose seats had rotten. A ritual as bruising on the heart as the shooting of a horse. This year it was something almost as significant, a change of shoes…
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Johnny Flynn is an actor, poet, musician and songwriter of extraordinary (but in no way boastful) talent.
Most recently he has played Lady Anne and Viola respectively in Mark Rylance’s all-male productions of Richard III and Twelfth Night – long and very successful runs, first at The Globe and then at The Apollo. His band Johnny Flynn and The Sussex Wit released their first album A Larum in 2008, catching the revived interest in folk at just the right moment; their second album, Been Listening, was released in 2010: their third will be released this summer.
Last year Johnny wrote and recorded the soundtrack for off-the-wall American comedy A Bag of Hammers. He’ll return to the stage at the Royal Court this May in Bruce Norris’s The Low Road, a fable of free market economics and cut-throat capitalism.
In person Johnny is quiet, self effacing, watchful; on stage, something altogether else – and always worth catching. He was born and brought up in Pembrokeshire and now lives in London with his wife Bea and son Gabriel.
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Nico Renson is a songwriter and producer for the likes of Macy Gray and Kelis. He began his life in a distant corner of Belgium, his career in a less remote corner – where he graduated as a film director – whence he moved to London to pursue his ambitions in music. In a pair of skinny jeans he fronted a punk-rock band and played every pub within the M25 at least twice, but became disillusioned with the reality of band life and began writing for a solo album. His debut album, Play to My Own Tune, was released under his stage name, Bunny, in the U.S. and Japan.
Nico is very tall, thoughtful, serious but ironical in a Flemish escapee way, and has startlingly blue eyes. His music can be heard on his website, nicorenson.com
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We’re very glad to have come across Veja, a company who combine high social and environmental standards with contemporary, everyday style. Founded in Paris in 2004 by Sébastien Kopp and François-Ghislain Morillion, Veja was born out a desire for a new kind of fashion – an ethically strong kind that would respect both the environment and human rights.
The company’s back-story is a fascinating one. Childhood friends Sébastien and François studied economics and management before beginning their careers at American banks. After just a few months, they realised that the world they wanted to shape was difficult to grasp from within these organisations. So they quit their jobs and instead offered their services to large French companies, travelling the world to audit corporate social and environmental projects. They visited Chinese factories, South-African mines and the Amazon rainforest looking for solutions to the problems of our times: massive deforestation, exhaustion of natural resources and labour exploitation…
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