The Chap Broadens its Horizons: Please Support on Kickstarter

I have the great privilege of contributing a regular column to The Chap, a quarterly magazine that helps men become gentlemen and women become ladies. The magazine's editor, Gustav Temple, wants to broaden the publication's horizons by offering a range of clothes and accessories, including a Harris tweed jacket and forties-style dresses for the ladies. He has launched a Kickstarter campaign to achieve this aim and I urge you to support it, if only for the goodies on offer. 

In this video Gustav explains what he wants to achieve, I must apologise the he appears to have forgotten to remove his titfer indoors, but I expect that in his excitement this slipped his mind. See also The Chap website for more on the magazine and Kickstarter for details of the campaign and to sign up.

The Holborn Magazine: The Ideal Christmas Gift

The Holborn Magazine is an independent bi-annual publication that celebrates style, craft and design. The latest issue celebrates successful creative women; a tailor, blacksmith, gin makers, bartenders etc etc. Well-written and beautifully produced and illustrated, this is an ideal gift at any time of the year for those of a discerning nature.

One year's subscription is £18 and back numbers are also available. See The Holborn.

This post is not sponsored and not an ad. This is a good magazine and it deserves our support.

Ernest Journal - for the curious, adventurous and creative

The print media are having a hard time under the onslaught of digital. To be successful, periodicals must have outstanding content, appeal to a wide readership and have an online presence offering extra and linking with social media. The Ernest Journal does all these things.

Ernest Journal aims at curious, adventurous gentlefolk who appreciate craftsmanship, which sounds like most interesting people I know. It succeeds: it's full of good writing and excellent, fascinating information. It's for the traveller and lover of history, science and tradition. 

It offers a daily online blog, a bi-monthly online iPad journal, a bi-annual printed edition and a shop where you can buy limited edition prints and more. This is a periodical for everyone and I highly recommend it. Ernest Journal.

The Rake - a magazine for older men of style

The only print men's style magazine that I subscribe to is The Rake. Once only available from Asia at great expense, The Rake is now more readily found in the UK, and at a  lower price than before.

The most obvious attraction is the superb images, often of older men of style. The focus is international with an Asian emphasis, but this is diluted (from a European or US perspective) by the magazine's recognition that menswear is mainly influenced by classic Italian and British styles with their US variations.

At first glance, some of the writing can appear pretentious, but this should be taken as a subtle form of humour and not taken too seriously. The excellence of the information makes it a worthwhile buy; you'll learn a lot about classic and newer menswear labels. These tend to focus on luxury brands and, inevitably, there's a degree of advertorial, but less so than in many men's periodicals.

The Rake is available either in good shops or by subscription from Exquisite Trimmings here - from whom I obtain mine. [Edit January 2015 - please note that I can no longer recommend Exquisite Trimmings as a reliable source of the magazine and I suggest that readers go direct to The Rake for a subscription, click here].