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Alternative Style Icon: Babar the Elephant

August 27, 2018

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.   It wasn’t until I read The Story of Babar as an adult, to a young child who loves elephants, that I realized how jarring Jean de Brunhoff’s charming childhood story is.

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On Protection

August 09, 2018

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.    The American government’s recent rush to offer billions to farmers harmed by the trade war that same government has threatened reminded me, as do all things, of #stee...

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Alternative Style Icon: Oetzi the Iceman

August 02, 2018

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.   To quote the TV dub of The Big Lebowski, “This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps.” He’s been called Europe’s oldest celebrity. But a style icon?

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Outpost of Self

July 04, 2018

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.   Long, long ago your correspondent dreamed of an ideal rootless world of a jetsetting lifestyle, ideal for the shock troops of capitalism among whom he daydreamed himse...

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Tom Wolfe, 1930 - 2018

May 20, 2018

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.   His voice was unique, a one-off as individual as his trademark white custom suits.  His politics and hangups, however, could be as run-of-the-mill and factory-manufact...

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Book Review: Patrick Grant's Original Man

May 15, 2018

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.   Any shop that’s had a nameplate on London’s Savile Row or its neighboring tailoring streets (Old Burlington Street, Conduit Street, Clifford Street and the like) for m...

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Style and the Damme

January 17, 2018

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.  Late in his new series Jean-Claude Van Johnson, Jean-Claude Van Damme, in tailored suit and open-collared white shirt, gestures up from his Aston Martin to his secret h...

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Alternative Style Icon: The American Friend

December 19, 2017

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans.   “What’s wrong with a cowboy in Hamburg?” Nothing, if you’re Tom Ripley.

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