Financial Times UK November 21 2020

This failed putsch set in motion a chain of events president’s protégé as the damat – meaning son-in- Albayrak wipes his brow during a 2018 currency crisis
that allowed the Turkish leader to create a new law or bridegroom – and held him up as the ultimate
presidential system of governance, granting him example of AKP nepotism. Foreign investors a former official. The one-time business execu-
unprecedented powers. It accelerated a hollow- complained that he was out of his depth. The wider tive built up huge clout across government and
ing-out and politicisation of national institutions, public never warmed to him. Even within the ruling beyond, from foreign policy to the judiciary to
thanks in part to a vast purge that has led to 95,000 party, many bristled at the power and prominence the media. “He’s like an octopus,” one govern-
people being jailed and at least 130,000 sacked or that this man with family ties to the centre of ment official complained last year. “His tentacles
suspended. Hundreds of journalists and human- Turkish politics had achieved. are everywhere.”
rights campaigners were also arrested. So were two
co-leaders of the country’s main Kurdish opposi- Yet his father-in-law seemed to hold him in the He also worked to appoint loyalists to key posi-
tion party as Erdogan teamed up with the rightwing greatest esteem. Erdogan liked that he was fluent tions in the state and the AKP machine and clashed
Nationalist Movement party, which supports the in English and had earned anMBA from New York’s frequently with cabinet colleagues, including
death penalty and is hawkish on the Kurdish issue. Pace University. Most importantly, he was a family the country’s macho interior minister, Suleyman
member he could trust. The decision to grant such Soylu, who was seen as the finance minister’s main
Today, the upper echelons of the Turkish state prominence to his son-in-law appears to have been rival to one day take over the party.
are stuffed with loyalists, many with close per- at least partly driven by the question of his own
sonal connections to the AKP. Internal critics have future and legacy. The 66-year-old leader still has Albayrak and his older brother, Serhat, were
largely vanished, leaving the president surrounded millions of admirers, who revere his tough-guy widely believed to be linked to a group of social-
by yes-men and oddballs. One of the president’s demeanour and his efforts to assert Turkey’s role media attack dogs known as the Pelican group
economic advisers, Yigit Bulut, is famed for saying on the world stage. In theory, he could serve as pres- that launched co-ordinated assaults on oppo-
that he believed unnamed enemies were seeking to ident until 2033 if he keeps finding a way to win nents of Albayrak, the president and their allies.
kill the president using telekinesis. Another, Cemil elections. But support for his party has been gradu- Aydin Unal, a former AKP member of parliament,
Ertem, vowed in 2018 to do the “exact opposite” ally eroding since its electoral zenith in 2011. has described it as an “insidious” parallel struc-
of advice from the IMF. “His advisers are idiots,” ture within the ruling party that “brands every
laments a government official. “We need Erdogan… Most analysts believe that Erdogan wants to con- friendly warning as treachery and obstructs any
But he should leave some of the technical decisions tinue for as long as possible, driven partly by a deep voice that is different”. Albayrak did not respond
to people who know what they’re doing.” to questions on his alleged links to the group and
‘THE REGIME’S other topics.
The president himself is notorious for believ- LEGITIMACY HAS BEEN
ing, contrary to mainstream economic thinking, WEAKENING… PEOPLE Lawyers acting for the minister, whose father
that high interest rates cause inflation rather than ARE TALKING ABOUT A spent nine months in the notorious Silivri Prison
acting as a brake on it, referring to high interest as POST-ERDOGAN WORLD’ for his writing in the early 1980s, responded
“the mother and father of all evil”. He has long railed heavy-handedly to journalists who reported
against what he calls the “interest-rate lobby”, a SINEM ADAR, GERMAN INSTITUTE FOR about allegations of corruption and tax avoidance
shadowy group of speculators that he believes are INTERNATIONAL AND SECURITY AFFAIRS against him and the company he used to head.
seeking to stifle Turkey’s growth prospects for their These were denied by Albayrak.
own financial gain. sense of ideological purpose but also a fear of losing
power – and the prospect that he could face prose- Throughout his time in government, the young
It was against that backdrop that Albayrak, cution after leaving office. However implausible it minister was dogged by accusations of arrogance
who married Erdogan’s daughter Esra in 2004, was that Albayrak, who lacks the strong charisma and an unbridled sense of entitlement. “He’s
was placed in charge of the world’s 19th largest of his father-in-law, could successfully take over, a very difficult person,” says a powerful busi-
economy in 2018. He was then just 40. Turkish that fear explains why many political observers nessman who has a close relationship with the
opposition parties mockingly referred to the entertained the idea that the president was groom- president – but never got on with his son-in-law.
ing him as part of a handover plan. “The legitimacy “He thinks he knows everything.”
In 2013, Turkey was rocked by the Gezi Park protests of Erdogan and his regime has been weakening and
[the question of succession] had become very sali- Like so many before him, it was that hubris that
ent,” says Sinem Adar, a researcher at the German was at the root of his downfall. “If he had stayed
Institute for International and Security Affairs in at the energy ministry, right now he would be a
hero,” argues one government official, pointing
ABerlin. “More and more people are talking about a to Turkey’s discovery this year of a multibillion-
dollar gas reserve in the Black Sea that was a
post-Erdogan world.” win from Albayrak’s stint as energy minister.
lbayrak – whose father, an “He would have been the guy who devised and
Islamist writer and intellectual, implemented this policy of energy independence.”
had known Erdogan for decades
– entered parliament in 2015 But Albayrak wanted to run the country’s econ-
and joined the cabinet the same omy. In July 2018, after Erdogan took the helm
year. His first brief was energy, of his new presidential system, he stunned the ▶

but from the outset he refused to allow himself
to be constrained by his official portfolio. Albay-
rak came across as “very, very ambitious”, says

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 25



Albayrak meeting Jared Kushner in Ankara, 2019 eign currency debt and fuelling rising inflation in Then, in the early hours of Saturday Novem-
a country heavily dependent on imported goods. ber 7, a notice in Turkey’s official gazette
◀ international finance community by granting announced that the president, for the second time
his son-in-law his wish. He merged the treasury Yet even as economists, investors and figures in just over a year, had sacked the central bank
and finance ministries and put Albayrak in charge within the AKP grew alarmed, Albayrak contin- governor. He replaced him with Naci Agbal, a critic
of the combined brief. The lira fell as much as 3.8 ued to insist that everything was fine. He argued of Albayrak’s policies who party and government
per cent on the news. One foreign investor who that the cheaper lira, which lost 46 per cent of its insiders claim had helped Erdogan to understand
met Albayrak during the early weeks described value against the dollar during his 28 months as the true scale of the challenges facing the coun-
the encounter as “the worst minister of finance finance minister, would make the country more try. “Naci Agbal briefed him,” says one senior AKP
meeting in my career”. competitive and support a shift towards an export- official, that “the ship had run aground.”
focused economic model.
His two-year stint in the role was marred by According to their narrative, the president,
crises and characterised by unconventional, even His critics countered that ordinary people were who last year publicly attacked the Financial
coercive methods of managing the economy. paying a heavy price, with a rise in unemployment Times for revealing how the central bank was
and a decline in living standards. Gross domestic hiding the scale of its reserve losses, finally real-
After a dramatic depreciation in the lira product per capita fell to $9,000 last year, down ised that the coffers were not just empty but, in net
in August 2018 caused soaring inflation, he from $12,500 in 2013. Having built much of its terms, negative – the bank owed more foreign cur-
announced a campaign asking retailers to hold early success on the back of rising economic rency than it possessed.
down their prices. He interfered in the running of prosperity, the AKP suffered the consequences
private banks, according to several former bank- of the decline. In local elections last year, it lost Albayrak appears to have been furious. The
ers, pressuring them to lend in order to support control of Ankara, the Turkish capital, and next day he posted a resignation announcement
a drive for credit-fuelled economic growth and Istanbul, where Erdogan began his political on Instagram that even his closest advisers had
meddling in their hiring and firing. And, under career. A disastrous decision to rerun the Istanbul no idea was coming. He said that he was standing
his watch, authorities imposed curbs on trading contest, which backfired when the opposition down for health reasons; the message gave
the currency – driving vital foreign investors out candidate won by a landslide, is blamed by many only cursory mention of his father-in-law and
of Turkish stocks and bonds as Albayrak declared in the party on Albayrak. pointedly said that he planned to spend more
that he didn’t want their “hot money”. time with “my mother, my father, my wife and
ONE FOREIGN my children”. Many Turks viewed the statement
The most contentious policy of all was his INVESTOR DESCRIBED as veiled criticism of Erdogan. It alluded in coded
approach to managing the lira. In 2019, the cen- THE ENCOUNTER AS terms to internal conflict before signing off with
tral bank embarked on a drive to cut interest rates. ‘THE WORST MINISTER a phrase that, loosely translated, means: “Good
The bank was acting under orders from Albayrak OF FINANCE MEETING luck to us all.”
and the president, who sacked its governor that
July because he “wouldn’t follow instructions”. IN MY CAREER’ The message was followed by 27 hours of silence
Experts warned that, if they went too far, it would from the president and a surreal media black-
put fresh pressure on the currency and trigger the In recent months, as the currency spiralled out as state-owned and pro-government outlets
need for rates to rise again. But instead of halting and Turkish citizens struggled with the economic chose to ignore the fact that one of the country’s
or reversing the rate cuts, Albayrak set out to defy fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, discon- most important officials had declared his inten-
the laws of economics. As the lira came under pres- tent within the AKP had been mounting. Yet still tion to stand down. In the vacuum, with no one in
sure, the central bank began burning through tens Erdogan did nothing. “I know many MPs who were charge of the country’s economy, the lira enjoyed
of billions of dollars of foreign currency reserves. very, very disturbed because of the economic situ- its best day of trading in two years. Erdogan even-
“It was all Albayrak’s idea,” says a former official tually announced that he had accepted Albayrak’s
familiar with the inner workings of the scheme. Wation,” says Davutoglu, the former prime minister “request to be relieved of his duties”. Albayrak
failed to turn up for the traditional handover
This September, the rating agency Moody’s who last year established his own party. ceremony where departing ministers wish their
sounded the alarm, warning that the country’s FX ith hindsight, some in the successors well.
reserves were at a 20-year low and that its institu- corporate world believe
tions seemed either “unwilling or unable” to take that there were signs in Some are sceptical that the president could
the steps needed to avert a full-blown crisis. Gold- recent weeks that all was really have been unaware of the true state of the
man Sachs estimates that, over the past two years, not well between Albay- country’s foreign reserves. “Erdogan has a very
Turkey has spent $140bn on currency interven- rak and Erdogan. Speaking good memory and he likes to micromanage,” says
tion. But the initiative ultimately failed. From one defender of Albayrak. “He follows the euro
August onwards, the lira tumbled its way through at the Istanbul headquarters of the media group and the dollar every day but not the central bank?
a succession of record lows. By early Novem- run by his brother late last month, the finance That just doesn’t make sense to me.” ▶
ber it had lost 30 per cent of its value against the minister told business executives about a series
dollar since the start of the year, piling pressure of planned projects that he said he was excited Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s largest
on Turkish businesses that were saddled with for- about, whether he was there to see them into fru- opposition party, earlier this year
ition or not. Some of those present interpreted it
as an allusion to the fleetingness of life by Albay-
rak, who friends say is deeply religious. But others
thought he was hinting that he was on his way out.

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 27



REUTERS; AFP/GETTY IMAGES; CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES; SYGMA/GETTY IMAGES; ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES ◀ But several government and party insid- investors and said that the country would “swal- A tank is abandoned after a failed army coup in 2016
ers insist that the president was getting much of low a bitter pill” if necessary to set the economy
his information from his son-in-law, who lives back on track. He has appointed a market-friendly those people.” Odeabank did not respond to a
in the same Istanbul compound and had unique former bureaucrat to fill his son-in-law’s shoes. request for comment.
access to him. Atilla Yesilada, a high-profile Turk- Investors were expecting the president to allow
ish commentator, believes the finance minister the central bank to raise interest rates at a critical Opposition parties see the recent drama as a
had convinced the president that everything was meeting on Thursday. sign that the Erdogan regime is crumbling. Mustafa
under control. “It had been said to me that Albay- Yeneroglu, a former AKP MP who quit the party in
rak actually had fenced Erdogan off and people While Koru argues that future elections are 2019, wrote on Twitter last week that the “end of
could not get through to him,” Yesilada says. “If likely to be even less fair and less free than previous the road is in sight”.
you control who people see, you control their votes, he says that the economy still matters for
information. I think Albayrak was pulling the wool a president who he believes is “not quite popular Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s larg-
over his eyes.” enough to win in a competitive political landscape”. est opposition party, insists that the president will
be defeated at the next election, currently sched-
Babacan, the former economy minister who Others warn of the danger that, after a brief uled for 2023, and will have no choice but to stand
recently quit the AKP to establish his own party, pivot, Erdogan will return to his default setting of down. “For the first time in our history, we are going
says that whether Erdogan was aware of the eco- putting pressure on the central bank to slash rates. to bring down an authoritarian regime through
nomic reality or not, either prospect is astonishing. “Rather than interpreting this as a shift towards democratic means,” he declared last month.
“There are two scenarios here,” he said last week. central bank independence, I view it more like
“The first is that he really is not aware of how bad Erdogan giving his blessing for a rate hike in an Others take a gloomier view, arguing that the
the situation is and is being presented with a com- attempt to contain the financial crisis,” says Selva departure of Albayrak puts the president in more
pletely different picture. If that’s the case, then Demiralp, director of the Koc University-Tusiad of a quandary than ever. “He’s not going to be voted
we should be very worried. The second is that he Economic Research Forum. “Once the exchange out,” says Sinan Ciddi, a political scientist based at
rate stabilises, he will most likely return to low- Marine Corps University in the US. “There is no sit-
Iknows what was going on but is giving a different interest policies to stimulate growth.” That would uation under which Erdogan will hold some kind of
risk propelling Turkey into yet another crisis. electoral process, lose and say, ‘Here are the keys to
story to the public. That is also a calamity.” the country.’” With the Albayrak project now over,
n the days since the implosion of Albayrak’s ‘ERDOGAN WILL he adds, “Erdogan is probably in a bind in terms of
political career, some of his supporters have NEVER LOSE AND who can be appointed in his stead… It’s not clear to
tried to keep alive the idea that he could SAY: “HERE ARE me that there is a grand strategy in terms of how to
reinvent himself. Others believe that a transition power and to whom.”
return is impossible. “By now, it’s become THE KEYS TO
very clear to everyone that the Erdogan THE COUNTRY”’ Erdogan, who has survived countless crises over
his 18 years in power, has put on a brave face in the
family isn’t going to be a big factor after Erdogan,” SINAN CIDDI, POLITICAL SCIENTIST aftermath of this month’s debacle. The episode is
says Selim Koru, a non-resident political analyst at a reminder of the ruthless pragmatism of a man
Tepav, a think-tank in Ankara. While Erdogan also promised judicial reforms for whom holding on to power still seems more
to improve human rights and the rule of law, it is important than anything. But that pragmatism
It is possible that Erdogan has bought him- unlikelythatanymeaningfulchangewillbeenacted was only necessary because of the gamble he took
self some more political room for manoeuvre by by a man who needs to keep pressure on opposition in appointing Albayrak in the first place – one of
overhauling his economic management team parties and the media in order to retain his grip on several decisions in recent years, most notably the
and showing himself willing to sacrifice a family power. The same applies to Turkey’s bellicose for- calamitous Istanbul rerun, that demonstrate that
member. In a striking change of tone, the president eign policy, which he has used for domestic political the savvy political operator is far from infallible.
last week vowed to work to win back the trust of purposes in recent years, although some diplo-
mats are hopeful of at least a short-term softening Some AKP figures are sympathetic to the
Erdogan will next face voters in 2023 in rhetoric following Joe Biden’s victory in the US. uniquely challenging aspects of a political crisis
that was also a family one. “This is a very difficult
As the dust settles from Albayrak’s departure, situation for the president,” says the senior party
Kerim Rota, a former banker who suspects that official. “He [Albayrak] has your daughter. Your
Albayrak blocked his appointment as chief four grandchildren.” He praised the president for
executive of the private Odeabank in 2017, doing “the right thing” in the end and insisted that
argues that the Turkish corporate and finance Turkey would come through this crisis, as it has
community should examine its own role in the others in the past. But he adds: “He should never
country’scurrentpredicament: “Ipersonallythink have had a family member in that position in the
the banking system and businessmen have some first place.”
responsibility for Turkey becoming such a family Laura Pitel is the FT’s Turkey correspondent
state,” he says. When Albayrak meddled in hiring
and firing at private banks, “none of the bank
owners or CEOs said anything”, adds Rota, who last
year became a founding member of Davutoglu’s
new political party. “They just said yes and fired

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 29

All by Recently I watched a woodpecker hunt for to learn how to fry an egg was weirdly touching.
myself insects along a tree trunk outside my window. No, I reserved my fury for commentators who
The wind tossed the boughs, mostly swept clean bloviated that this would lead to some new
Like millions of others, except for a few clinging yellowed leaves, as the dawn of connection and community, because
Claire Bushey lived sun faded, barely clearing the low-slung roofline I knew it wasn’t true. I was also angered by the
with loneliness long of the apartments across the street. I was individuals – in print, on air and in my social
before Covid-19. Will the sitting at my desk, finishing another day. This circle – who gulped down a few weeks or months
pandemic help society to woodpecker hopped up and down the trunk of loneliness only to pronounce it unbearable.
beat this modern curse? for several minutes, hammering its red-capped As if I hadn’t been here all along, bearing it.
head into the wood, prospecting for dinner.
Lonely as a cloud? I am as lonely as an
The scene was so delightful and mesmerising iceberg, an egg, a half carafe of wine. I am
that I wanted to holler to someone in the next lonely as the body is hungry three times a
room, “Hey, come see this!” I live alone, though. day, hollowed again and again by an ache that
I considered snapping a photo and posting it does not ease except with the sustenance of
online, but distance would have transformed connection. The feeling differs from the peace
bird to blotch and, really, who cares about of solitude, which many enjoy, including me
my avian neighbours? The charm would not at times. Instead, it is a gnawing sadness.
have translated. Perhaps I would remember to Even before the pandemic, a combination of
mention it when I next spoke with my parents, circumstance and choice left me with fewer
or even a friend. But that autumn evening it close ties than I wanted. Every day I forage for
seemed most likely the small, golden moment connection, and some days I go hungry.
would, like much of my life, go unshared.
I am not, of course, alone in my loneliness.
When you’re lonely, lockdown doesn’t end. A 2018 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation
Rather horribly, the isolation the pandemic found that more than a fifth of US and UK adults,
has imposed this year is not that different from and 9 per cent of Japanese adults, said they
my normal life. I live alone, I work alone, I’m always or often felt lonely. Experts describe a
hundreds of miles from my family. There’s panoply of negative consequences: deteriorating
no real difference between not making plans health, diminished productivity, even dangerous
(because of a virus) and not having plans political fallout as the disconnected turn to
(because last-minute cancellation is now extremist politics for meaning and belonging.
socially acceptable). All of which feels shameful Loneliness is our modern curse, and yet who
– these admissions leave me frantic to declare admits to the affliction? For all the news stories
that I am hilarious, smart and quite fun to have about the pervasiveness of loneliness, rarely
a drink with. is anyone identified by name. The shame
of loneliness feels like the shame of hunger, of
The world emerged by degrees from want, of admitting you cannot feed yourself.
lockdown over the summer. Now a fresh surge This is not an epidemic, but a famine.
of infections is leading to new restrictions in
Europe and some US states. I only hope there How did it get this bad, for me and for all of
is less wailing than in March, when so many us? All the lonely people; where do they all come
reacted as if sentenced to some medieval from? First, ditch the stereotype of the lonely
interdict. The grieving didn’t lack my sympathy, pensioner. The 2018 study found that across the
nor did the frightened patients in hospital beds three countries more than half the adults who
fighting for air or the newly unemployed. Even reported loneliness were younger than 50. They
the plight of takeaway addicts suddenly forced were more likely to be poor and uncoupled. ▶

30 FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020

Observations

Illustrations by Annabel Wright

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 31

Observations ◀ They also, importantly, were struggling with
changed circumstances, like recent job loss
‘I was angered by those or a new living situation. They weren’t lonely
who gulped down a few because they had horrible personalities.
months of loneliness only Certain questions about my loneliness are
to pronounce it unbearable. easy to answer. I have been the archetypal
As if I hadn’t been here rootless professional. I moved to Chicago from
all along, bearing it’ Delaware when I was 18 and have lost track
of my changes of address since then. This has
32 resulted in interesting work and a satisfying
number of adventures, while that most humble
of technologies, the telephone, has kept me
anchored to home. Still, there are limits.
My family started a new tradition of digital
Sunday dinners during the pandemic, but the
13 hours I drove cross-country to see my parents
in August reminded me that geography matters.

Location matters for work too. I started
working from home in January when I joined
the Financial Times, leaving the Chicago
newsroom where I counted several journalists
as close friends. No amount of group texting can
replace the closeness that comes from seeing the
same people every day, from gossiping with a
confidante or going out for “just one drink” that
turns into a hazy journey home three hours later.
I tell people that I hated remote working two
months before everyone else, and they laugh,
because I am smiling. I am not joking. Loneliness
feels shameful, but often it is simply structural.
I was spending less time with people, full stop.

So that’s work and family. What about
friendship? A delicate and confusing question,
because an observer might laugh at this idea
that I feel lonely. From the outside, I look like
way too much of a social butterfly to ever ache
for companionship. I am the person always
proposing a drink, a show, a festival, brunch. My
apartment is the place where people gather, or
at least did before the pandemic. I throw parties
and cook dinners, and I love every minute of it.

The value of friendship has been and remains
unequivocal for me. But the place I turn for a

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020

‘It’s hard to say at this
point that there’s a single
person who knows the
minutiae of my life’

lot of my emotional nourishment is the same but the perception of it. The late neuroscientist meet.) That’s useful, in theory, but translates
place where many are inclined to cut corners. John Cacioppo, known for his groundbreaking into more time alone. So be it.
This corner-cutting is necessary too, because work on loneliness, said in a 2016 interview that
there are only 24 hours in a day and, with an “disconnection is differentially painful. Some But a better question than “Why isn’t she
increasing share devoured by work, less time people it hardly bothers at all, some people it married?” is “Why is marriage the only model
remains for family, meaningful hobbies or disturbs so much as to become a pathology.” for long-term, caring, adult relationships?”
friendship. To make matters worse, friendship For me, the care of others can feel like starlight: Writers Jessa Crispin and Briallen Hopper have
often falls outside the routine of daily adult life. visible, yet too far away for warmth. explored this, unearthing alternative models
People plough through their 40-and-counting- from the past. In the late-19th and early-20th-
hour work weeks because employers demand A wide circle of acquaintances, which I have, century, women in New England lived together
it. They see their spouses and children because cannot deliver a person from loneliness. The in partnerships in a practice nicknamed “Boston
they live with them. (Not that family life wholly pandemic showed me that for most people, I marriage”. In the medieval Low Countries,
inoculates. Isolation among one’s intimates is am a “nice to have”, not a necessary part of their women known as beguines lived together in
a special hell, and the Kaiser study says 29 per emotional infrastructure. We retrenched in separate sections of the city. They could work,
cent are living in it.) But friendship is scheduled, March, turned inward, turned to those who live keep their own money and live without men,
and the cheapness of friendship is made plain in our homes and, like I said, I live alone. Though but they were not nuns. They did not take vows
when you consider how easily and breezily plans I am friendly with many – I talk to neighbours, of poverty, chastity and obedience, and they did
fall away. to fellow parishioners at church, to all kinds not always stay in the beguinage for a lifetime.
of strangers – it’s hard to say at this point that We don’t need to reconstruct this on a grand
Countless stories have been written in the there’s a single person who knows the minutiae scale, but a lonely world would be better served
past few years outlining how to cancel plans of my life. Novelist Ann Patchett wrote in 2003 if there were more models and more visibility for
without seeming rude or extolling the joys that real intimacy was “not the person who calls cohabitation between non-romantic partners.
of ditching in favour of Netflix. When the to say, ‘I’m having an affair’; it’s the friend who
pandemic hit, wags on Twitter joked that calls to say, ‘Why do I have four jars of pickles Isolation that preceded the pandemic cannot
they missed having plans to cancel. Of course, in my refrigerator?’” The person who listens to be lifted with the ease of a stay-at-home order.
another perennial trend story is why it’s so your story about watching a woodpecker. But the pandemic, in its obvious externality,
hard to make friends as an adult. The collective Contemporary US society tries to solve usefully illustrates how loneliness so often arises
obliviousness is remarkable. that problem with marriage. A boyfriend or from conditions divorced from our personal
a husband – why don’t I have one of those? worth. I may endure the consequences of living
I get it. I do. I have, at times, committed the I’m financially stable and have my own teeth. in a society that values working 10 hours a day
same offence. It looks silly, or maybe just petty, (Mostly.) Alas, I have yet to find someone I want and fetishises marriage at the expense of all
to attach so much significance to keeping plans. to marry, who also wants to marry me, which other relationships, but just because it’s my
But really this is about the allocation of a scarce saddens me. The sexist response is that I should problem doesn’t mean it’s my fault. It doesn’t
resource, time. All relationships require time have secured a wedding ring on any terms – a have anything to do with me at all.
and presence, and no amount of Facebook response I would happily burn in an oven right
status updates can substitute for showing up. alongside the Cookies of Traditional Femininity. Suddenly, the possible solutions to the famine
Or even just answering your phone for a chat Loneliness is terrible, but I’d rather be alone look different. Maybe we ask more of ourselves
not scheduled a week in advance. than compromise on the basics: someone I fancy, and show up when we say we will. Maybe we
whose company I enjoy, who does housework ask more of our employers, staking a claim to
There’s the friend I talk to on Saturday and doesn’t assume his career comes first. Two our time. Maybe we ask less of our spouses and
mornings, trading stories about our week, and decades of romantic experience have made me no longer expect one relationship to bear the
the one I call when I melt down at work, and the faster at figuring out who isn’t a match for me. weight of our entire emotional lives.
one I talked to for hours recently as we looped (Willing to date a woman 15 years younger but
around a Chicago park. Those interactions not even two years older? You and I shall never Maybe if loneliness is not my fault, then I
are fun and meaningful. It all helps. It’s just don’t need to feel so ashamed. Maybe none of
not enough. I’m not sure what “enough” is. us do.
Loneliness is not about objective isolation, Claire Bushey is the FT’s Chicago correspondent

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 33

‘Bolsa Chica #4’, 2017. The site of FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020
a gun club established c1900. They
dammed the wetlands, preventing
tidal flow, and at some point planted
eucalyptus trees along the roadway.
In 2006, the dam was removed
as part of a restoration project;
eucalyptus do not like salt water.
I have photographed these beautiful,
dead, silvery trees many times.
34

LA THROUGH
MY EYES

FROM COAST TO DESERT, VIA URBAN SPRAWL,
LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHER MARK RUWEDEL
HAS DOCUMENTED LOS ANGELES FROM ANGLES
MOST PEOPLE WILL NEVER HAVE SEEN. THE RESULT

IS AN INTIMATE PICTURE OF THE CITY

I had little to no interest in
photography when I went to
college in the mid-1970s. I was a
painting major, and introduction
to photography was a required
course. The rest, though, is
history. Ultimately, being in the
world with a camera was more
attractive to me than being in a
studio with a canvas.
Later, through my graduate studies in
Montreal, I began to define my practice as
landscape photography. I was both influenced and
inspired by the New Topographics photographers,
particularly Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz, whose
art looked at landscape as a place we actually
live in, rather than an academic construct. I was
also inspired by what was then known as Photo
Conceptualism, where the picture is evidence,
a document of an artwork that was elsewhere.
For the past 30-plus years, the majority of
my work has been made in decidedly non-
urban locations: the American West, especially
its deserts and, to a lesser extent, the Pacific
Northwest of both the US and Canada. A few
years after moving to Long Beach, Los Angeles ▶

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 35

◀ County, I began to consider how to photograph 1
within the city.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020
As an undergraduate, I had been fascinated
with the idea of “artists’ books” and was
particularly taken with the ones that Ed Ruscha
had made in the 1960s; driving around my new
home, I recognised buildings that appeared in
his. When a colleague gave me a camera of the
same type that Ruscha had used, I embarked
on what became a trilogy of works based on his
books: We All Loved Ruscha. The project presented
a method of navigating the city by following

Nprescribed paths, a technique for making art

which inspires me.
igel Raab’s epic four-day walk
across Los Angeles provided
another path, or map, 72.5 miles
in length. Nigel, a transplanted
Canadian and an avid urban
hiker, wanted to see Los

Angeles up close, rather than from the car, as
most Angelenos do, so he mapped a route from
his house in Westchester to the Metro station in
San Bernardino that crossed as many geographic,
economic, political and cultural boundaries as
possible. It also avoided the parts of LA most
familiar to those whose understanding of the city
comes from movies and television.

After his epic trek, he asked me if I would be
interested in photographing his route. Although
I began with some hesitation, I soon became
addicted to following his map, a designed path
through the city that left me with questions of
what and how to photograph, rather than where.

His four days turned into a two-year project for
me (mostly by car). The photographs represent
two overlapping visual conceits: views and sites.
Some depict the route itself. The others show
things that he might have noticed.

Readers of the book may spot that there are few
images that include people, but many with cars:
that is not a strategy on my part but rather the
reality that is Los Angeles. (Almost) no one walks.

I always use film; I do not care for the “instant
feedback” digital cameras provide and prefer the
distance between the experience of working with
the camera and evaluating the results as pictures.

1. ‘Mile 2’, 2011. Not far from Mile 0,
Nigel’s house, is my favourite Googie-
style diner. I love the large white
rectangle of the blank sign. The road
sign on the left suggests a choice –
Nigel took La Tijera.
2. ‘Mile 48’, 2012.
3. ‘Mile 18’, 2011. An almost empty
parking lot, a hint of the pandemic
landscape yet to come. The sign with
the fox image advertises a photo-
finishing plant, now defunct. I have
a thing for photographing dead
palm trees.
4. ‘Mile 36’, 2012.
5. ‘Mile 72’, 2011. This image was
taken not far from the San Bernardino
train station where Nigel got the light
rail back home. A typical Southern
California house bracketed by a
billboard and a palm, complete with
a citrus tree on the side.
36

2 3
4

5 37

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020

Above: ‘Sunken City #1’, 2017. FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020
A landslide in 1929 caused a San Pedro
neighbourhood to fall into the ocean.
The rail seen in this image is from
a streetcar track. The area is fenced
off and somewhat difficult to get into
with heavy camera equipment.
Opposite: ‘Paramount Ranch Fire #4’,
2019. Almost a movie still: a lone
equestrian passes through a fire-
ravaged landscape. Paramount Ranch
was a movie location owned by
Paramount Pictures that included
a fake western town. It burned to
the ground in a 2018 fire.

38

MARK RUWEDEL, COURTESY THE ARTIST; LARGE GLASS, LONDON; MACK BOOKS

I n 2014, I received a Guggenheim commonly known as Los Angeles. Most “wild”
Fellowship, a charitable grant for artists spaces here exist either because the city is
and academics, to begin work on a designed to include them or, more likely, because
series of landscapes within Los Angeles. they do not yet have commercial value. There are
As I worked, I gradually identified a surprisingly large number of such spaces.
four overlapping landscape “systems”: And that’s part of what the work is about.
The Rivers, The Western Edge (the coast),
The Hills and Canyons, and The Eastern Edge Los Angeles enfolds wild terrain in a complex
(transitioning from basin to desert). fashion; it is a place where, as Mike Davis points
The images presented at Large Glass Gallery out in Ecology of Fear, natural history and social
were selected from The Western Edge and include history can sometimes be read as inverted images
landscapes of recent fires, which contribute to all of each other. Culture’s relationship to the land
four parts of my epic. Fires, floods, earthquakes, is complicated and contradictory, and my work
landslides – the landscape of Los Angeles is has always attempted to address this: the land is
dynamic: it has agency, it does things. These are both a stage for human endeavour and an agent of
landscapes of tension, where the natural meets historical change.
the social in dramatic fashion, where the land is “Seventy-Two and One Half Miles Across Los
an active determinant in the history of the city. Angeles” by Mark Ruwedel is published by Mack.
Although many of the depicted places “Mark Ruwedel Los Angeles” runs at Large Glass in
seem “wild”, they are all within the megacity London from December 11 to February 19 2021

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 39

Rowley How many ovens do you need? I have four.
Leigh I don’t need four ovens, of course, but two
are set at very low temperatures, good for
Finding Dory proving the sourdough and holding the roast
beef at a nice medium rare. The other two
Photographs by Andy Sewell I try to maintain at kiln temperatures.
40 Two hundred years ago, if your household
ran to just one oven, it would be a smelly
little hole stuck in a coal-fired range. The temperature would
fluctuate wildly but it could probably muster up a meringue if
you didn’t mind a bit of soot on it. Things improved over time,
but thermostatically controlled gas or electric ovens did not
arrive until the early 20th century. Forget the age of the dictator
or the age of the motor car, the last century was the age of the
oven. (The current era is perhaps the age of the “oven ready”.)
Before the range oven, you mostly roasted meat on a spit.
And you baked by the side of the fire in a heavy “Dutch” oven,
which had to be kept turning for an even bake. However,
some households – great houses and big farmhouses – would
have had a cavernous wood-burning oven, the ne plus ultra of
contemporary kitchen status symbols, where the bread would
have been baked. Once the baker had finished, the chef would
be allowed to put in his tray of pies to cook in the residual heat
of the oven.
Every village in France has at least one baker. And there is
a whole canon of French – and Italian – dishes that were made
to be cooked by the baker once he had finished his own baking.
The Alsacien bäckeofe, for example – a robust and curious
mixture of lamb, beef and pork marinated in Riesling and
layered with potatoes – was traditionally prepared on a Sunday
night so that the housewife could concentrate on her Monday
washing, while the dish cooked gently in the baker’s oven.
Pommes boulangères is a better-known variation. This dish of
potatoes and onions, layered and moistened with stock, may
have originated in the baker’s oven but has graduated to every
kitchen in France. A joint – often a shoulder of lamb – might
be buried in the middle or simply sat on top. John Dory, having
a peculiar affinity with potatoes, is the only fish to have been
regularly given the same honour.
Traditional recipes suggest submerging the whole fish in raw
potatoes and leaving it to take its chances with the baker. It has
always seemed to me that the fish would be cooked to rags by
the time the potatoes were soft. I may be wrong but since I am
not prepared to waste one of my favourite fish in the interests
of research, I have deconstructed the dish a little. In either case,
one oven is sufficient.

More columns at ft.com/leigh Recipe overleaf

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020



Rowley John Dory boulangère
Leigh
Recipes If you can’t get a large 2 — Lift off two-thirds of
John Dory, use two. Brill is the potatoes, attempting
This dish of potatoes and onions, an excellent alternative. to keep the top layer
layered and moistened with Serves three or four. intact. Season the fish
stock, may have originated in the • 3 onions inside and out and place
baker’s oven but has graduated • 1 tbs olive oil it on the remaining
to every kitchen in France • 1kg large potatoes potatoes. Replace the
• Few sprigs thyme removed potatoes around
42 • 75g butter and on top of the fish.
• 500ml light chicken Dot the surface with a
little more butter and
stock (not essential) return to the oven. The
• 1 John Dory weighing fish should be cooked
after 30 minutes but
at least 1.5 kg, gutted should be tested regularly
and spiny fins removed by plunging a skewer or
1 — Peel and slice the probe down into the flesh.
onions thinly. Stew these If the only resistance is
in a heavy frying pan bone, the fish is cooked.
with a tablespoon of 3 — Serve with a green
olive oil, not letting them salad. The dish can be
colour, until they have held in a cool oven for
softened completely up to half an hour.
– perhaps 20 minutes. Wine
Peel the potatoes and The bold simple flavours
slice them thinly (roughly suggest a full-bodied
as thick as a one pound white with no bar to a
coin). Rinse them very bit of oak. There are
well in cold water and other options but this
then drain. Place a layer is a perfect opportunity
in an ovenproof gratin to bring out that
dish, season well with mature white Burgundy
salt and pepper and then from the cellar.
add a layer of onions and
thyme. Dot with a little
of the butter. Repeat the
process, finishing with
a layer of potatoes, well
coated in butter. Pour in
the stock, if using, and
bake at 180C for one hour
or until the potatoes are
tender. Leave to cool.

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020





WRJaonibncieins son
Bright young Burgundy

Something strange happened As imagined by Leon Edler used to sell 40 per cent of its wine
when I arrived to taste to restaurants, now shuttered or
the 2019s at Meursault’s a bottle of Domaine d’Auvenay’s shattered, has also forced a change
most famous wine cellar, 2013 Bourgogne Aligoté, the most in the way it sells its burgundies,
that of Domaine des Comtes humble of all white burgundies, which cost up to £4,500 a bottle.
Lafon. Dominique Lafon had to go priced at €490 in a Paris “We’ve moved from collectors in
searching for a spittoon. Normally shop window. their seventies to 30- to 40-year-
at this time of year it would be olds, who have a wine fridge and
overflowing, but 2020 has seen “Burgundy is at a very critical buy only here and there,” said Liger-
a distinct shortage of tasters phase in its evolution,” said Colin- Belair. “DTC [direct to consumer] is
in Burgundy. Morey. “We’re all waiting for people so much more important now, and
to buy again. We have to put up our sales network could be global.
Sorting out my Côte d’Or tasting with this stage and wait for it to We were already working on it but
schedule towards the end of the year pass – but it’s got to pass!” Covid has pushed us to accelerate
– prime tasting season – is usually a that programme.”
nightmare. Vignerons’ diaries are Louis-Michel Liger-Belair of
jam-packed with importers and Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair, in Liger-Belair is already selling
commentators from all over the the village of Vosne-Romanée, saw more proactively than most of
world and I have to juggle and adapt 2019 as “like 2009 but with better his peers. He is releasing mature
like mad. But in the second week acidity”. His domaine usually makes bottles with perfect provenance, in
of September, when I decided to go the allocations of its wide range of packs of three or six, to restaurants
and get a feel for the 2019 vintage in wines in March and, in previous
early October, I sent out emails with years, has been swamped by emails ‘The 2019 vintages
a suggested day and time to 24 wine and calls from potential buyers were charming, full
producers and got 23 immediate anxiously enquiring how many of fruit yet with
and unqualified acceptances. bottles they could expect. This year great energy too’
(A combination of Covid-19, that didn’t happen. And the fact
building work and racking led that Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair straight from his cellar. In order to
Jeremy Seysses of Domaine Dujac to discourage reselling the bottles on
decline politely.) the open market, the restaurants
have to send back their corks in
It was eerily quiet when I got to order to get replacements. The
Burgundy and often I was tasting scheme is so far confined to France
with producers for whom this was but Liger-Belair may extend it.
their first tasting of the range.
There was the odd whisper that He is currently offering his 2012s
wine writers Neal Martin and to restaurants – not exactly fully
Allen Meadows were expected too, mature but at least more evolved
but there was no sign of any wine than most burgundies you find on
merchants. As Pierre-Yves Colin- wine lists even in Burgundy itself.
Morey of Chassagne-Montrachet Alex Moreau of Domaine Bernard
put it: “Last year we had too many Moreau in Chassagne bemoaned
visitors. This year too few.” the fact that “people don’t know
what mature burgundy tastes like
On this recent trip, Colin-Morey nowadays. You go to restaurants in
was one of several producers who Beaune and there is just 2016 and
expressed fears that the Burgundy 2017 on the wine lists.”
bubble may be at the point of
bursting – or might even have But what is the 2019 vintage
burst already. Around 2012, the like? I loved most of the wines
world’s wealthiest wine collectors I tasted – but I tasted almost
began turning their attention from exclusively at the best addresses.
Bordeaux to Burgundy, where The wines were charming, full of
quantities of individual wines are fruit yet with great energy too.
much more limited. As a result, A warm 2019-20 winter possibly
prices have risen extraordinarily. hastened the development of the ▶
During a visit to his cellar in
Marsannay, an incredulous Sylvain 45
Pataille showed me a picture of

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020

Over-performing 2019 Bourgognes ◀ 2019s languishing in barrels ‘Producers expressed
in the cellars of the Côte d’Or. fears that the Burgundy
These are all appellation WHITES They are the product of a bubble may be at the
Bourgogne, the lowest official • Dom Arnaud Ente Aligoté particularly hot summer – even point of bursting’
rank/appellation of burgundy, • Dom Arnaud Ente hotter than 2020, though not as dry
but they all taste really good. • Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey and not picked so early – so it’s a bit This may not be the longest-
It’s too early to be precise about • Dom Michel Lafarge, Raisins of a mystery how they seem to have lived vintage – but then, as Moreau
value because prices have not hung on to their acidity, which pointed out, present demand
yet been released, but it’s very Dorés Aligoté usually plummets in such heat. means that burgundy is being
likely they will be relative • Benjamin Leroux drunk younger and younger
bargains, being the cheapest of • Dom Marquis d’Angerville When I discussed 2019 with the anyway. No one I spoke to thought
any producer’s range, and will • Dom Sylvain Pataille, various talented micro-négociant Benjamin that the 2019s would “close down”
certainly cost a fraction of their Leroux, he asked rhetorically, and go through the “sullen phase”
grands crus stablemates. handcrafted Aligotés “Why did they keep their that can bedevil some vintages.
• Dom Guy Roulot freshness, especially the whites,
If no grape is cited the whites which seemed to cope with the More good news. As Freddy
are Chardonnays and the reds REDS heat super-well? For the moment, Mugnier of Chambolle-Musigny
Pinot Noirs. In these hot • Dom Denis Bachelet I have no idea.” The general theory observed happily: “We’ve
summers, Aligoté is coming into • Dom Arnaud Ente is that everything, including eliminated mediocre wine – the
its own. • Dom Michel Lafarge acidity, was concentrated in the average quality is so much higher
• Dom Marquis d’Angerville, distinctly non-juicy grapes that than it used to be.” I would concur,
characterised 2019. and I’d also suggest that the biggest
Passetoutgrains improvement has been at the
• Dom Marquis d’Angerville Leroux’s whites were bottom end of the quality and price
• Perrot-Minot, Gravières des exceptionally successful. And if I range. I lost count of the delicious
absolutely had to say which colour 2019s carrying the lowly Bourgogne
Chaponnières I favoured from 2019, based on all appellation that I tasted, and these
• Dom Georges Roumier the wines tasted so far, it would seemed so much better value than
• Fanny Sabre probably be white, whose yields the Grands Crus that demand
• Dom Cécile Tremblay, were generally much lower than the three- or even four-figure sums
reds, often shrunk by frost. That per bottle and many a long year
Bourgogne Côte d’Or said, Meursault classicist and white of ageing.
wine specialist Jean-Marc Roulot
Tasting notes on Purple Pages confessed he was no great fan of his Once the UK merchants make
of JancisRobinson.com. own white 2019s, which he likened their offers over the next few
to the 1990s – “too rich”. weeks, I hope to see some examples
from very respectable addresses
By contrast, Roulot’s neighbour for as little as £25 a bottle.
and great friend Dominique That, believe me, is a steal in a
Lafon seemed delighted by how Burgundian context.
approachable the 2019s are More columns at ft.com/
and teased stereotypical British jancis-robinson
burgundy lovers who always seem
deeply suspicious of any young
wine that tastes good. And it’s true
that certain 2019 reds will strike
some palates as too sweet.

4 6 FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020

JANINE‘S GUESTS, FROM LEFT: RUPERT MURDOCH, MARK ZUCKERBERG, MISS MARPLE, OPRAH WINFREY, LORD REITH ruthlessness. Rupert Murdoch
has been dropped by helicopter
FANTASY DINNER PARTY in Alba to source some truffle,
which Yotam has demanded.
JANINE GIBSON (Not me, you understand, my tastes
are very simple, but if Chef insists
CHARLIE BIBBY; HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; AFP/GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY; GETTY IMAGES The FT’s head of digital the nature of power and the control Happily, the martinis from that tomorrow’s scrambled eggs
platforms and projects of the means of communication. Bemelmans at the Carlyle are in should be just on the cusp of being
makes her alpha guests Like a Evgeny Lebedev party, but train. Actually, let’s just transport overwhelmed by shaved fungus,
compete for their without the risk of running into the Bemelmans in its entirety, who am I to demur?) The PT
twice-cooked chicken prime minister. So, join me please including the crunchy cheese Barnum of news must accompany
on a reality TV show for my one-off reality show Dinner straws as snacks. So martinis plus a specially trained boar while it
for the Winner (working title). their very dry vodka with a twist snuffles out the precious delicacy,
As much as I love restaurants will be served in Manhattan’s and then snatch it away for profit
and spend all disposable Restaurateurs Chris Corbin and greatest bar – now somewhere in and personal glory.
and some non-disposable Jeremy King have been working on Herefordshire – with Beyoncé at a
income in them, I wish to the venue in secret. It is somewhere baby grand singing standards. Meanwhile, in France, the
achieve more from a perfect dinner I have never been, believing there ‘Murdoch has been BBC’s founder Lord Reith – who is
party than good chat, a bit of flirting was all the time in the world to dropped by helicopter puzzling over the words “scripted
and delicious comestibles. travel… Let’s say Herefordshire. to source truffles, which reality” – is charged with sourcing
Babbling brooks, atmospheric Ottolenghi has demanded’ the wine: a Puligny-Montrachet,
My party is a murder mystery weather, trees, ruined castles and… quite a lot of Louis Roederer and
weekend in a country house hotel. many hidden cameras to make the Right, guests. I have, in the definitely pudding wine. His service
Guests will set out from different format work. manner of Potus-enabler and reality ethic and principles are sound and
locations and complete a quest svengali Mark Burnett, scattered he is approaching the task with
to win their dinner. It will all be Chris and Jeremy have allowed them around the globe with a series rigour, but wait! In an intervention
televised and the vibe should be me to bring my own chef. I try to of bespoke quests to complete we’re calling “Government Licence
competitive – I want my alpha guests cook Ottolenghi food myself but before they can win their dinner. Fee Review”, every 10 minutes
to burn off some ferociousness and vastly prefer it to come from one No one wants to watch them eat, his budget goes down in inverse
expose themselves with as little of his kitchens, so I’ve kidnapped we just want to watch them sweat. proportion to the demands of
decorum as possible. Yotam and locked him in with the guests. How is he to meet this
90,000 of his favourite ingredients. If we’re going to get to the volume without compromising on
Welcome! I am the Philip I will not insult Chef by dictating heart of power, we’re going to the expectations of an elite crowd
Seymour Hoffman of this Hunger the menu, but there must be piles need a Murdoch, so close-up on for bingeable booze of the finest
Game and I will produce it into of it in steady supply. That said, 1990s vintage Rupert, please. quality? As guest commentator,
something fit for ITV4, maybe even I do want that sweet, crispy, twice- Full of righteous fury at the Netflix CEO Reed Hastings will
Sky One given the thinness of the cooked chicken from Nopi and British establishment and not patch into his earpiece at regular
schedules in this eternal lockdown. the broccoli thing with the roasted yet omnipotent enough to intervals to offer helpful tips.
Our remit is rigorous exposure of garlic. Oh, and that rice salad and have smoothed over his visible
the pavlova and, yes, the seeded In Moscow for an unrelated
crackers and maybe the one with business meeting, Mark
the aubergine and the yoghurt and Zuckerberg has to pick up some
the pomegranates. The short rib? Of cruelty-free caviar (Yotam! You
course. OK,we must press on. really must rein it in!) before a quick
hop to the UK. He is hampered,
though, by another mission – he
must pass a test on applied ethics
before boarding his flight.

With Zuck trapped in his own
moral hazard, our attention
can now turn to the final guests,
Oprah Winfrey and Miss Marple.
For I need someone to talk to
while the moguls and misfits
compete for their dinner and the
viewer will need a compass in
the form of the only person left
in media we can still admire.

And Miss Marple? She’s there
to work out who stuck the knife
in when we discover the body of
Donald Trump in the library in the
early hours of Saturday morning.
How did he get there? Did he choke
on an Ottolenghi green bean? Did
Oprah really make them all pray for
forgiveness? Yes, yes, we know they
all did it, but we need a three-day
event of backbiting and gaslighting
to maximise the streaming
potential. The reveal will be served
with coffee and Torroni Baci in
the drawing room in primetime.
Subscribe now.

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 47

Restaurant Insider
Nicholas Lander

Reporting for duty NICHOLAS LANDER WITH CHEF MARTIN LAM AT HIS RESTAURANT L’ESCARGOT IN 1984 the basement kitchen. So the
most depressing reading in the
Beyond the menu and the This is followed by a section that ‘One EOD report I read morning, usually in the form of a
wine list, two pieces of records the smoothness of service. featured the intriguing scribble in the reservations book,
paper are fundamental Restaurant kitchens can cope with comment that a former before the use of EODs, was: “Lift
to the long-term success a large number of customers and prime minister had been breakdown – engineers called.”
of any restaurant: the lease their orders but they cannot cope a guest in the restaurant’s Other familiar sources of anxiety
and the alcohol licence. Both with a significant number of orders private dining room’ for any restaurateur will include
documents come into their own landing at the same time. Part of a blockage in one of the lavatories
should the business fail or the the task facing anyone answering or a major breakdown in the air
restaurateur decide to sell: the the phone, therefore, is to dissuade circulation in the kitchen or dining
lease may restrict to whom the customers from booking at the room. Such situations must be
restaurant can be sold, while its most popular times of 1pm or 8pm. dealt with swiftly and invariably
licence hours will influence any Yet guests still tend to arrive when prove costly.
potential buyers. it suits them and this can lead to
Today there is another set of bottlenecks and even a disrupted Finally, there is space for more
documents that might affect a service. Chronicling such events general comments. It might be
future sale. These are known as and what can be done to prevent noted, for example, if last night’s
EODs – end of day reports or “shift their repetition forms a key part of manager had heard a dismal
notes” in the US. any EOD. weather forecast for the following
These are usually completed day and immediately texted terrace
by the general manager as the The third section is devoted staff not to come in – thereby
restaurant is closing, and aim to to maintenance. Plenty of things cutting down the restaurant’s
give the senior management, as can go wrong in any restaurant. running costs.
well as those coming on duty the At L’Escargot 30 years ago, we
following morning, a snapshot depended on a series of electric EODs are a crucial source of
of the past 24 hours, recording lifts to bring the food up from information for any well-managed
four different aspects of that head office. For Sunaina Sethi,
day’s service. Their absence the group operations director at
definitely indicates a badly JKS Restaurants, which runs 15
run restaurant. establishments across London,
The first is the financial side, the importance of them starts
with details of how busy the as soon as the company opens
restaurant has been. Sales figures, a new restaurant. “During an
both for food and for alcohol, opening, we debrief every night
will be given for the lunch and and we use the service feedback
dinner service. There will be the to summarise problems that may
average spend for each service have arisen, possible solutions and
with a record of anything unusual even some positive points… If there
– such as someone ordering an are any issues that arise from a
exceptionally expensive bottle particular service, it is very useful
of wine – as well as the number to have these EODs to hand, so we
of no-shows. Notes will be added have all the facts as a first point
about any special guest and what of reference.”
action was taken.
One EOD report I read featured I asked Simon King, who has
the intriguing comment that a worked as general manager for
former prime minister had been both Heston Blumenthal’s Fat
a guest in the restaurant’s private Duck and for Danny Meyer’s USHG
dining room. It noted that the two in New York, about the origins
bodyguards who waited outside of EODs. “I believe that they
were rewarded with a loaf of the entered the restaurant world a few
restaurant’s homemade bread. years ago, and probably from the
Indeed, the names of better- hotel industry, which has always
known personalities are always had a more formal approach to
noted, even if not necessarily their record-keeping.”
behaviour or what they ate or
drank, together with the names of Whatever their origins, EODs are
the staff working. here to stay. They are as essential
to any well-managed restaurant as
48 the menu or wine list. Just not as
well publicised.
More columns at ft.com/lander

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020



Voyage of discovery in a dashi broth from large copper
mugs. It tastes great but none of us
Tim Hayward journeys to a mysterious island in Essex can see a thing.
for an exceptional experience at Native
We are led into a dining room
Acouple of days before the a small village, down a dark lane – From top: the water taxi that ferried and sat at a good social distance.
reservation, I get an email and then suddenly, “Jesus Christ. diners from the island; Maldon oysters The room is a bit like a school gym
requesting my presence in What is that?” with bog myrtle cream or possibly a dance hall and soon
a car park at 17:00. This is the food begins to arrive – fish
already unnerving. It’s starting toWILLIAM TISDALL-DOWNESA tree trunk decorated with skin with herb emulsion, a delicate
feel a lot like one of those Nordic dozens of votive images of children chicken liver parfait. A chicken
murder dramas in which I’m nailed to it… with what appear wing stuffed with pheasant
somehow going to end up floating to be human teeth. It’s the most sausage and a buttermilk-fried
in the harbour with half my terrifyingly macabre thing I’ve pheasant thigh are brought to the
internal organs missing. ever seen. table by chef Ivan Tisdall-Downes
– who is also revealed as our
On the day itself, a couple “It’s a prop,” says the driver. masked driver.
of small cars turn up and we “Set dressing. Did you not
tentatively flash our lights at each know they filmed that Jude Law I have somehow managed to
other. A large and disreputable- thing here?” wangle my way into Native, freshly
looking Range Rover pulls up. relocated from London, when it
A tall man, inscrutable between I did not. But last autumn, isn’t really fully open, on its last
his beanie hat, huge coat and Sky and HBO moved everybody night before the island closes
mask, loads us in and we head off off the island and repopulated it down for a month, with a bunch
into the Essex night. with a crew of several hundred to of strange locals. And perhaps the
shoot The Third Day, an extremely oddest part of all is that nobody
By daylight, the causeway to expensive horror show. has thought to mention how we are
Osea Island across the Blackwater supposed to get home.
estuary must be challenging. In the distance, people appear
Lit solely by headlights, it’s truly to be milling around a fire. We five ‘Perhaps the oddest part of
scary, but we make it to the far diners leave the car and are led all is that nobody has
side of the island, weave through across a vast field to a fire pit, thought to mention how we
where we stand around while a are supposed to get home’
50 chef serves us small pieces of fish
About an hour later, we have
been driven to an exposed
beach. A night wind is picking
up and diners are starting to
nervously mention words like
“choppy”. The headlights of the
car illuminate a sort of landing
strip to the beach over the freezing
water, but Clint the Boatman isn’t
answering his mobile and people
are starting to get tense.

After about 20 minutes, we
spot a tiny red light, the only thing
glowing on the water tonight.
It rounds the tip of the island
and follows the headlights in.
It’s the smallest water taxi that
I have ever seen, an aluminium
dory with a ladder over the front,
a door through the screen and a
tent-like cabin covering. We pack
inside and head across the estuary
at high speed. When we reach
the car park 15 minutes later, it’s
kind of hard to believe the entire
evening has really taken place.

The quality of the food at Native
is, unquestionably, going to be
exceptional. And I imagine the
process of getting to and from it
will never be less than totally mad.
What is perhaps most charming is
what a perfect combination that
is and how appropriate to this
mysterious corner of Essex.
[email protected]

@TimHayward

FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020





Games

A Round on the Links The Crossword
by James Walton No 515. Set by Aldhelm

2012 – making it the 123 45 6 7 8
longest-running TV
show anywhere in 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
the world to have had
the same presenter? 9 10

6. Which war gave 00 00 00
rise to the Paris
Commune? 11 12

7. What was the 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Village People’s (left)
follow-up single 13 14 15
to “Y.M.C.A.”?
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 16
8. At which venue
was the Miss World 17 18 19
contest held from
1969 to 1988? 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 21 00 00

9. What is Canada’s 22 23 24
most popular
All the answers here the chemical formula spectator sport? 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
are linked in some Mg3Si4O10(OH)2?
way. Once you’ve 10. For which film did 25 26
spotted the link, any 3. The bounty hunter John Schlesinger win
you didn’t know the Rick Deckard is his only Best Director 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
first time around the main character Oscar in 1970?
should become easier. in which novel by
Philip K Dick? 27 28
1. Earlier this month
a video – made by 4. Who was the The Across clues are straightforward, while the Down clues are cryptic.
the South Korean Liberal party leader
educational brand during the 1988 ACROSS DOWN 16 Disturb one
Pinkfong – of which merger with the 1 Three-ply (6) 1 Old way to twirl badger’s home by
song became the Social Democrats? 4 Ludicrous (8) old weapon (8) lake’s edges (8)
most watched 9 Respond (5) 2 Endlessly crazy 18 For instance, tin
YouTube video ever? 5. Which still-existing 10 Stationery romantic embraces a soldiers get allowed
BBC programme fastener (9) top-class girlfriend (9) outside after end
2. Which common was hosted by the 11 Supply (7) 3 Starts to like of playtime (7)
bathroom item has same man from 1957 12 Female former adventurous travel by 20 Puts up with
until his death in students (7) way of this country (6) alternative state
13 Work flint (4) 5 Stars’ ritual played of shock (6)
The Picture Round 14 Board member (8) out with panache (5, 8) 21 Container with
by James Walton 17 Sufficient (8) 6 Course for one in broken LED light (6)
19 Portent (4) credit reduced 23 Old writer tweets
Who or what do these pictures add up to? 22 Wearing no upper inward investment to an audience (5)
garments (7) initially (7)
+ = 24 Oblivious (7) 7 Pass over part Solution to Crossword No 514
25 Spiced sausage (9) of the body (5)
Answers page 8 26 Move aimlessly (5) 8 Fell walkers finally AAHAPPENS TANCEA
27 Winners’ badges (8) pedal madly (6) CAAA I ALA I AVALAD
FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020 28 Hunting dog (6) 10 Perhaps APRONACAMP AN I L E
diamond’s pure RADAUA I APA I ANAA
GETTY IMAGES section’s reworked BACKP EDALAL I GHT
around ring (8, 5) OAOA A A A A E A A A A AH
15 Rooting around for HAV E ARE S T ABOGUS
strange periodical YAEABA I AOAL AOAE
without spirit (9) DART SADANDE L I ON
RAAAOAEAAAAAT AT
APPAL AREP L I CAT E
T AHAVADAOABAL AN
EMO T I CON S AS T O I C
S A T A N AWA E A E A N A E
A SONGANDD ANC E AA

53

TGEILTLTIAN few days ago, Takeshi Niinami, frequent complaint among people who are work-
chief executive of Suntory, the ing from home is that it is so hard to separate
PARTING SHOT Japanese drinks group, joined a leisure from the office.
virtual Financial Times confer-
Why men are ence with other corporate leaders That flexibility makes it very different from
leaving ties in the to discuss environmental issues. other symbols that a man might (or might not)
20th century As I watched him talk about want to invoke on a video call. Take beards. As I
single-use plastics and water recy- noted in an earlier column, I suspect one reason
cling, I had a nagging feeling that that so many beards appeared on the faces of nor-
something looked odd on my com- mally clean-shaven men during the early weeks of
the first Covid-19 lockdowns was that they were
A puter screen. Finally, I worked it being used to signal that we were in a “liminal”
out: Niinami was wearing a tie. moment, a strange point of transition. Sporting
Once, that would have been unremarkable;
after all, the necktie was a defining symbol of ‘Most executives know it
20th-century business culture. But one conse- pays to look flexible right now.
quence of the Covid-19 lockdown is that it seems A slip of silk associated with
to have largely killed off ties. hierarchies does the opposite’

I spotted another one last month on the a beard told the world that you did not consider
computerised image of Punit Renjen, the chief this to be normal – or permanent. It was a sarto-
executive of consultancy Deloitte. However, most rial gesture of defiance.
middle-aged men on video calls in recent months
have worn open shirts – albeit sometimes with But you cannot put on or take off a beard at will,
blazers or suits, despite speaking from home. unlike a tie. So why are men turning their backs
on them? I suspect the issue lies in what once
Even some politicians appear to be abandoning made the neckwear so potent: that connection to
the tie. US president Donald Trump sometimes 20th-century corporate life. Ties are often linked
sports an unfeasibly long red one, and Boris in people’s minds with corporate hierarchies.
Johnson wears them too (when he is not self- They invoke a sense of convention, deference and
isolating). However, Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s order. Open shirts, by contrast, look young and
former taoiseach and a GP before he entered pol-
itics, is more in tune with the times. In April, he Tflexible; they are not quite as scruffy as a Silicon
announced plans to “burn the tie”, which he said
he hated because they “grab your neck” and are Valley-style T-shirt but are certainly less formal
an infection-control risk. Since then, few Irish than a tie.
politicians have been seen wearing one.
he key point about the corporate
Varadkar was not alone in his corona- world is that most executives know
reasoning. In March, Ralph Northam, the it pays to look flexible, open-minded
governor of Virginia (and another trained and relaxed right now. The economy
doctor), said he was abandoning the tie because is not like a laptop that can be simply
they can “harbour contagious pathogens”. This is shut down and restarted, with all its
clearly not a problem for someone on a Zoom call programs intact, to get rid of bugs
in their bedroom. or to overcome a crash. When the
business world fully restarts after
So perhaps a more interesting issue is what the Covid-19, things will be different.
symbolism of that bit of fabric does – or doesn’t The winners in this post-pandemic
– do. One defining trait of the tie is that many world will be those who swiftly
associate it with a sense of professionalism: it can adapt to a fluid, 21st-century digital economy.
confer instant authority and emits a seriousness It pays to signal that, whether consciously or not,
of purpose – it shows that the wearer wants to and wearing a strip of silk associated with 20th-
uphold public values. century hierarchies may do the opposite.
Of course, there will always be some tie hold-
Why then aren’t people donning ties more fre- outs, particularly in more formal office cultures
quently, not less? The obvious answer might be such as Japan. Niinami, for example, tells me he
“because I am not in the office”, and thus under likes wearing a blue one to signal his company’s
less pressure to conform. But that does not support for water conservation. But I suspect that
entirely hold up: if you were to invent a symbol if the FT holds another big conference in a year’s
that a man could use on a video call to show he time, whether face-to-face or virtual, there will be
is professional, it is hard to imagine something even fewer ties on display. Consider it yet another
quicker and easier than a tie. Most men have sign of how Covid-19 is unleashing subtle cultural
cupboards full of them. They can express both shifts, even when it comes to neckwear.
status and individuality through colour or quirk- [email protected] @gilliantett
iness. And on Zoom, they can even be worn with
pyjama bottoms.

Moreover, if men were to put on a tie for
video calls, they could do something else: draw
a clear boundary in their own minds between
“work” and “home”. This matters, given that one

54 ILLUSTRATION BY SHONAGH RAE FT.COM/MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 21/22 2020





21 NOVEMBER
2020

EtGerLnAalMOUR

BULGARI GOES BAROQUE
THE SUPER-GALLERIST WHO PUTS WOMEN
IN THE PICTURE
THE NEW POWER POLO
HELI-SKIING HEAVEN – IN TURKEY
MEET THE MILLENNIAL DRAM BUSTERS

"CAMÉLIA" NECKLACE IN WHITE GOLD, RUBY AND DIAMONDS
"CAMÉLIA" RING IN WHITE GOLD AND DIAMONDS

CHANEL.COM



TOWARDS A DREAM

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CONTENTS

21 NOVEMBER 2020 24

REGULARS THE FIX 22 40

15 EDITOR’S LETTER 21 PAEAN TO THE POLO

Jo Ellison on beauty at a Why a piece of men’s sports
time of urgent innovation apparel is the perfect shirt for
now. By Matthew Garrahan
17 THE AESTHETE
22 CLASP OF 2020
French musician and
music-video director Buckle up with the season’s
Woodkid talks taste waist-cinching belts. By
Marianna Giusti
28 THE FIND
24 SOFT POWER
Brush up any surface
with painterly tiles Velvet accessories to crush
on. By Raphaëlle Helmore
31 THE KUDOS PROJECT and Clara Baldock

Charlene Prempeh meets 26 GRAPE CRUSADERS
the twin sisters with
specs appeal Why the latest trend in
skincare is something to
32 DOUBLE ACT wine about. By Alice Lascelles

Harriet Quick on the 27 COLD SPRAY
friendship uniting a holy
trinity of graphic artists Lauren Hadden picks out
winter scents to savour
53 TRAVELISTA
29 KEEP YOUR KNITS
Stately homes and
fantasy camps, selected ABOUT YOU
by Maria Shollenbarger Loungewear, Loro Piana-
style. By Aleks Cvetkovic
55 TECHNOPOLIS
61
What’s brewing in tech?
By Jonathan Margolis

57 CULT SHOP

Victoria Woodcock on a
New York yarn sanctuary

59 DRINK

Alice Lascelles meets
new-gen whisky
dram busters

PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF THE DESTINA FOUNDATION, NEW YORK, AND ALISON JACQUES GALLERY, 61 FOOD
LONDON, © ARTIST’S RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK, AND ADAGP, PARIS. JENNY ZARINS. LARA ANGELIL
Vegan fast food that
delivers. By Ajesh Patalay

62 HOW I SPEND IT 21 FEATURES
34 BAROQUE STARS
V&A fashion curator
Claire Wilcox on the beauty Beautiful architecture meets
of being a Borrower Bulgari high jewellery in Rome.
By Jessica Beresford. Styling by
21 NOVEMBER ON THE COVER: Isabelle Kountoure. Photography
2020 Photography by by Alessio Boni
ALESSIO BONI
EtGerLnAalMOUR Styling by 40 XX VISION
ISABELLE KOUNTOURE
BULGARI GOES BAROQUE Model PENELOPE TERNES Why gallerist Alison Jacques is
THE SUPER-GALLERIST WHO PUTS WOMEN wears MUGLER technical putting overlooked artists back in
IN THE PICTURE scuba harness jacket, POA, the picture. By Francesca Gavin
THE NEW POWER POLO matching corset, POA, and
HELI-SKIING HEAVEN – IN TURKEY wool trousers, £750. DIOR silk 48 COLD TURKEY
MEET THE MILLENNIAL DRAM BUSTERS canvas shirt, £1,550. BULGARI
High Jewellery pink-gold, Tom Robbins finds out why insiders
All travel, exhibitions diamond, tanzanite, are heading to Ayder for a heli-ski
and events are being aquamarine, emerald and adventure in the wrong direction
disrupted by the spread sapphire earrings, and Barocko
of coronavirus. pink-gold, diamond, tanzanite,
Information published aquamarine, emerald,
in the magazine may be amethyst, rubellite, sapphire,
susceptible to change. turquoise and chrysoprase
Peacock necklace, both POA

All products in the magazine are available to buy from each brand’s website or store, unless otherwise stated FT.COM/HTSI 11





CALIBER RM 67-01

RICHARD MILLE BOUTIQUES
GENEVA PARIS LONDON MILAN MUNICH MONACO ISTANBUL
ABU DHABI DUBAI DOHA RIYADH KUWAIT MOSCOW BEIRUT

www.richardmille.com

EDITOR’S LETTER

HTSI A s we went to press with this
week’s issue, much of the UK
EDITOR went into another lockdown,
joining France and Germany
Jo Ellison ( [email protected]) in an attempt to curb infection
spread. This time around, it
DEPUTY EDITOR seems especially gruesome: to see non-essential services
go dark is particularly hard when hoteliers, restaurateurs
Beatrice Hodgkin ([email protected]) and retailers have worked so heroically to crank their
business up again. I had become used to the small
CREATIVE DIRECTOR freedoms that had been afforded us in our co-pandemic
lifestyle, and relished the rare treat of going out. I am so glad
Rasha Kahil ([email protected]) I took the opportunity to eat, drink and be merry while we
were allowed to, and can’t wait until we can do it once again.
STYLE DIRECTOR The tremendous energy of brands and
businesses to keep on trucking through
Isabelle Kountoure ([email protected]) this nightmare can only be applauded.
Whether it’s restaurants refitting
FEATURES their operations, brands moving
to online business platforms or
EXECUTIVE EDITOR entrepreneurs using this opportunity
to initiate new services, this year has
Tim Auld ([email protected]) not suffered from a lack of innovation or drive to a claim for exceptional
overcome. Likewise the efforts by brands to craftsmanship in this issue.
ASSISTANT EDITOR protect specialised industries. “Made in Italy”, a In “Keep Your Knits About You”
mantra long used to promote that country’s (page 29), we unveil Loro Piana’s latest
Jackie Daly ([email protected]) manufacturing interests, has this year evolved to become collection – a magnificently spoiling loungewear
an urgent battle cry. Italy accounts for more than 40 per line. Ostensibly these hoodies, track pants and
FASHION FEATURES EDITOR cent of global luxury-goods production, according to sweaters have been designed as menswear, but
McKinsey, but the vulnerabilities inherent in its supply I would warn anyone so fortunate as to be able to enrobe
Jessica Beresford ([email protected]) chain have been critically tested by this disrupted year. themselves in Loro to make sure their wardrobe boundaries
In the most extravagant gesture of its imprimatur, the are very clearly demarcated – or be prepared to share.
COMMISSIONING EDITOR LVMH-owned Bulgari unveiled its high-jewellery collection Elsewhere, the gallerist Alison Jacques has commanded
in July with an event that placed the pieces at the centre of this year with projects that have offered both quite beautiful
Lauren Hadden ([email protected]) a narrative championing Rome’s artistic and architectural distraction and food for thought. In a career in which she
wonders, as well as highlighting the atelier’s extraordinary has championed female and often underappreciated artists,
EDITORIAL RESEARCHER skills. In “Baroque Stars” (page 34), the house’s charismatic Jacques has emerged as a gallerist to watch. Francesca
creative director Lucia Silvestri talks about the expressive Gavin meets the art-world dynamo determined to give the
Marianna Giusti ([email protected]) decorative style that has shaped the Eternal City, while unheard voice its due (“XX Vision”, page 40).
Isabelle Kountoure and photographer Alessio Boni To which end, I would also like to take this opportunity
EDITORIAL COORDINATOR capture the highlights of a 120-piece collection described to introduce The Kudos Project, a column we created with
by Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin as “the richest writer Charlene Prempeh earlier this summer to shine a
Clara Baldock ([email protected]) we have displayed”. light on black-owned businesses we should support.
Bulgari is not the only Italian Having first launched online, Charlene is now building a
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS brand (by way of LVMH) to make THIS YEAR directory of talents that represent businesses from all sorts
HAS NOT of different fields – from farmers and biologists to tech
Rosanna Dodds ([email protected]) SUFFERED entrepreneurs and perfumers. This issue sees the column
Baya Simons ([email protected]) FROM A LACK make its print debut with a feature about the Brooklyn-
OF DRIVE TO based eyewear makers Coco and Breezy (page 31). Identical
FASHION OVERCOME twins, and spectacle-makers to Lady Gaga and Beyoncé,
PHOTOGRAPHS: LARA ANGELIL. MARILI ANDRE. COURTESY OF ALISON JACQUES GALLERY the pair are also philanthropists and musicians: they have
JUNIOR FASHION EDITOR just released their new song “U”.
And lastly, enormous thanks to the FT
Raphaëlle Helmore ([email protected]) news editor, Matt Garrahan, who managed,
somehow, to disengage himself from the
ART day job to write a paean to the polo shirt
(page 21). OK, it’s not quite in the same
ART DIRECTOR league as reporting on the latest Brexit
negotiations or happenings on Wall Street,
Carlo Apostoli ([email protected]) but in HTSI-land, the renaissance of this
classic piece of men’s sports apparel is the
DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR very definition of breaking news.
@jellison22
Darren Heatley ([email protected])
Inset top: Bulgari’s new
DESIGNER high-jewellery collection
(page 34). Above: Brazilian
Morwenna Smith ([email protected]) artist Lygia Clark in her
studio (page 40). Right: Loro
PICTURES Piana’s latest menswear
collection (page 29)
PICTURE EDITOR

Katie Webb ([email protected])

PICTURE RESEARCHER

Paula Baker ([email protected])

SUBEDITORS

CHIEF SUBEDITOR

Kate Chapple ([email protected])

SUBEDITORS

Helen Bain ([email protected])
Robert Cook ([email protected])
Alexander Tyndall ([email protected])

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Vivienne Becker, Simon de Burton, Delphine Danhier,
Aimee Farrell, Kate Finnigan, Maria Fitzpatrick,

Nick Foulkes, Chloe Fox, Alexander Fury, Julian Ganio,
Francesca Gavin, Fiona Golfar, Alice Lascelles,
Giovanni Dario Laudicina, Jonathan Margolis,
Nicola Moulton, Michelle Ogundehin,

Ajesh Patalay, Charlene Prempeh, Tamara Rothstein,
Fergus Scholes, Victoria Woodcock

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Lucia van der Post ([email protected])

TRAVEL EDITOR

Maria Shollenbarger ([email protected])

US CORRESPONDENT

Christina Ohly Evans ([email protected])

PUBLISHING

GLOBAL DIRECTOR, LUXURY & WEEKEND ADVERTISING

Dorota Gwilliam ([email protected])

PUBLISHING MANAGER

Jo Thompson ([email protected])

ADVERTISING COORDINATOR

Natasha Simpson ([email protected])

PRODUCTION

Denise Macklin

ADVERTISING PRODUCTION

Daniel Macklin

WWW.FT.COM/HTSI
TWITTER.COM/HTSI

INSTAGRAM.COM/FT_HOWTOSPENDIT

EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES 020-7873 3203
ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES 020-7873 4208
How To Spend It magazine is printed by Walstead Group for,
and published by, The Financial Times Ltd,
Bracken House, 1 Friday Street, London EC4M 9BT

ORIGINATION BY Dexter Premedia

FT.COM/HTSI 15



THE AESTHETE

Woodkid THE LAST THING I BOUGHT AND LOVED was
The French musician and music-video director a drone. I’m addicted to it already. I took it
collects All-Clad cooking pans, baseball caps – and with me while scouting video locations in
Norway recently. It’s a cool thing to have as
Catherine Deneuve’s compliments a director because you can use it instead
of a crane and it makes it easier to anticipate
WOODKID’S INTERVIEW BY C L A R A BA L D O C K camera angles if you’re moving from one
ETUDES PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX CRETEY SYSTERMANNS spot to another. DJI Mavic Air 2; £769
CAP THE BEST GIFT I’VE RECEIVED is a series
MY PERSONAL STYLE of ceramic plates that my mother made
SIGNIFIER is a baseball for me, specifically for the tortellini Top: Woodkid with his DJI Mavic
cap. I always wear dishes I like to cook. Air 2 drone. Above: 1954 Pierre
one because I’m bald ON MY WISHLIST is a sun holiday with my Paulin desk, 1972 Ettore Sottsass
and I still haven’t friends, somewhere far away. I’d like to go chair and 1960s lamps by Joe
really dealt with my where I can scuba dive; you can’t really do Colombo and Gino Sarfatti
complex about that. it in France or the Mediterranean because
I change them all the time – I have a cute it’s pretty cold 30 metres down and there is
Ami cap made in collaboration with no more coral in the sea.
LGBTQ media-monitoring organisation
Glaad, for Pride Month, and a timeless, MY PARTY PLAYLIST ALWAYS INCLUDES
black leather one by Louis Vuitton that
I wear with more formal tailoring. “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé – everyone
loves it. I’m a single lady, so I identify a lot.
I LOVED COLLABORATING WITH Nicolas
Ghesquière. Making music for his shows

FT.COM/HTSI 17

THE AESTHETE has influenced my work. The way he thinks THE GADGET I COULDN’T DO WITHOUT
about fashion – colliding and clashing
Below: Woodkid’s beloved All-Clad opposing ideologies and themes – has is the projector in my house. I love
pots and pans. Right: a 1958 Gino given me a sense of freedom I’ve never watching things on a big screen.
Sarfatti 2098 lamp had before and I’ve injected a lot of what
I learnt from our collaborations into my AN UNFORGETTABLE PLACE I’D LOVE
Above: a Børge Mogensen chair. Right: current record, S16. woodkid.com
a series of ceramic plates made by his TO RETURN TO is Babylonstoren hotel
mother. Below: a bronze whale that MY STYLE ICON is playwright Jeremy O in Franschhoek, in South Africa’s
featured in the video Woodkid directed Harris. His style is fun, elegant at times, Western Cape. It looks like the Garden
for his song “The Golden Age” pretty genderless and very unexpected. of Eden. You can drink wine from the
vineyard, pick vegetables from the huge
18 FT.COM/HTSI MY FAVOURITE ROOM IN MY HOUSE is the permaculture garden and eat seasonally
living room area. My house is one big at its farm-to-table restaurants. There’s a
room really but I particularly love the great chef there who cooks in a very raw
space around my sofas, which are George way. It’s such a beautiful place.
Nelson originals from 1954. There’s also a babylonstoren.com; double rooms
black-and-white Pierre Paulin carpet that from about £465 per night
was designed around his drawings for the
Palais-Royal; it’s thick and comfortable, A RECENT “FIND” is a restaurant in ONE OF
perfect for sitting on with my friends Paris called Café des Ministères. It THE BEST
and playing Mario Kart. Sofas from serves a spinach vol au vent – a very BOOKS
christinediegoni.fr traditional French dish – and it’s the HE’S READ
best thing in the world.
IN THE
PAST YEAR

THE LAST MUSIC I BOUGHT was the THE GROOMING STAPLE I’M NEVER
newest album by Yelle, called L’Ère du
Verseau. Their music is smart, uplifting, WITHOUT is L’Eau d’Ambre
electronic pop. I directed a video for them Extrême by L’Artisan
back in 2007 and we’ve been friends ever Parfumeur. It comes in
since. I’m really proud of them for making the perfume house’s
this record – it’s touching and beautiful. signature octagonal
bottle and smells great
THE PODCAST I’M LISTENING TO is Reply All. – Catherine Deneuve
It’s about internet culture, from when it was even told me so when she
created right up to the present. One episode once kissed me on the cheek. £124
for 100ml eau de parfum

interviews the guy who invented pop-ups MY FAVOURITE WEBSITE is a French cooking
– remember a time when you couldn’t open website called 61°Degrés. It’s orientated
a window without one appearing? We’ve towards the technical side of things and
since developed tools to block them but has great fusion and avant-garde recipes.
he explains how it felt like opening I’m also a fan of masterclass.com. I got a
Pandora’s box when he created the code, subscription and took cooking classes
spreading all over the with Thomas Keller, a screenwriting
PLAYING THE VIDEO GAME FINAL internet like a virus. course with Aaron Sorkin, and singing
FANTASY VII TAKES ME BACK TO with Christina Aguilera.
MY CHILDHOOD. GEEKY, I KNOW
I HAVE A COLLECTION OF THE OBJECTS I WOULD NEVER PART WITH

cooking pans – I have are my shoe insoles. I’m pretty short so
tons of them. I used to I always use them – they don’t work with
go to a great kitchen shop in New York and sneakers though.
buy everything, and then have to find an
extra suitcase to bring it all home. It’s sadly
since closed down, so now I go to La A CAUSE CLOSE TO MY HEART is Utopia 56.
Bovida in Paris. All my pans are by It’s a monitoring organisation in several
All-Clad – they make the best ones. French cities helping exiled men, women
and children from all over the world who
I’VE RECENTLY REDISCOVERED the video have been put in camps in France or have
game Final Fantasy VII – geeky, I know. been moved on by the police. It sends out
I used to play it as a kid and the remake alerts when boundaries have been crossed,
was released this year. It takes me back and raises money for clothes, tents and
to my childhood. accommodation. utopia56.com

Centre: Woodkid on a 1954 George THE LAST ITEM OF CLOTHING I ADDED TO THE BEST BOOK I’VE READ IN THE PAST
Nelson sofa. Above: L’Eau d’Ambre
Extrême by L’Artisan Parfumeur MY WARDROBE is a map-print shirt from YEAR is A Brief History of New Music
Etudes Studio, which I wear tucked into my by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artistic
pants. It’s so beautiful and comfortable. director of the Serpentine Galleries.
It’s a highly technical and inspiring
THE ONE ARTIST WHOSE WORK I WOULD conversation about contemporary music,
made up of a collection of interviews
COLLECT IF I COULD is Wolfgang Tillmans. with musicians such as Karlheinz
I’m obsessed with his work, I think he’s one Stockhausen, La Monte Young, Yoko Ono
of the most inspiring photographers of his and electronic music pioneer Pauline
generation. And I’ve actually started to Oliveros. I also love How Music Works by
collect some of his pictures now – one David Byrne – I found it fascinating to
of them is a portrait of Frank Ocean. read about the evolution of music in
relation to performance space.
IN MY FRIDGE YOU’LL ALWAYS FIND lots of
cheese. I’m French, don’t forget. I always I’M NOT SURE if I’ll make any New Year’s
have scamorza or smoked cheddar; I also resolutions. Last year I was in LA and
love Appenzeller, Shropshire and Sainte- said to my friend, “I think 2020 is going
Maure de Touraine. I often have pickles, to be a good one…”
truffles and sauces too.