Richard Lawton has a hunger for adventure. Not content with trekking in wildernesses as far apart as Nepal and South America, he’s recently challenged himself to become an ultra runner, running up to 100 miles in one go. So what drives a man to do such a thing?
Features
‘I want to see how far I can go’
Ultra runner Richard Lawton
Thursday, 29th July 2010
‘I want there to be a kind of elegant simplicity’
Piers Faccini, singer-songwriter
Thursday, 8th July 2010
You may never have heard of Piers Faccini, but you’ve probably heard of people who are fans of his. Jack Johnson, for instance, or Ben Harper. If you’re into your African music, you’ll have heard of people he’s toured and performed with, like Amadou and Mariam or kora player Ballake Sissoko. And that will begin to give you an idea of the range of influences and sounds that Piers Faccini embraces.
‘Terrifying? No, it’s fantastic’
London firefighter Mark Aitken
Tuesday, 29th June 2010
Mark Aitken, 38, is a firefighter and a Sunspel wearer. We spoke to him about rescuing cats, just how frightening it is to find yourself facing a big fire, and what attracts him to Sunspel.
Read full article »
Julian Firth: aviator, adventurer, style aficionado
Bringing a design classic back to life
Tuesday, 20th April 2010
Julian Firth is an unusual mix: a man of action and a fan of great British design. But when you see the kind of design he loves – that cool modernist style from the 50s and 60s – it all makes sense. This was an era when men of action looked sleek and stylish (and so did their aircraft). Read full article »
Changing the habits of a generation
Robert Elms on the Levi’s launderette ad
Wednesday, 24th February 2010
How did a jeans ad become the most famous boxer ad ever? Robert Elms, style journalist, author and broadcaster, looks back at that iconic launderette moment.
Before the boy in the launderette nobody wore boxers. Back in the 1980s, baggy Y-fronts and skimpy briefs, probably in inflammable manmade fibres, were the male underwear order of the day. Then one day this fabulous ad appeared on our TVs and changed all that.
Levi’s were famous for making iconic commercials, but the one which really captured the public imagination, when it appeared back in 1985, not only gave a great boost to classic denim but also changed forever what guys wore beneath their jeans. The scenario was simple: a great looking young male model with a brooding early Elvis/James Dean style wanders into a 50s washateria and then proceeds to sensually but casually disrobe down to his underwear, to the dismay of some and the excitement of others, before washing his new Levi’s and watching them spin round in just his shorts.
A word with William Gilchrist
Dandy and stylist to the stars
Friday, 12th February 2010
Benicio del Toro, Jude Law, Charlie Watts: these are men with authentic style, and William Gilchrist has the nerve to choose clothes for them all.
He is sometimes referred to as stylist to the stars, other times celebrated in style blogs as a London dandy. The truth is William knows his clothes, whether he’s picking them for other people or wearing them for himself. So when the Rollling Stones last set off on a record-breaking two-year series of gigs, William Gilchrist was the man who told them how white their shirts could be.
Here he talks lessons from Mick Jagger, gives hints on how to avoid looking like a slob and shares his style tips.
Behind the scenes on a Sunspel photoshoot
A glorious summer day with Leo Gregory, Lorenzo Agius and Tom Stubbs
Wednesday, 7th October 2009
We’ve wanted to take some great new photographs of our clothes for a while – photographs that give a really good sense of what they look and feel like when you see them up close.
Because our fabrics are unique (the way they are actually knitted together) they don’t always look like what you’re used to.
The differences are subtle though – for example, the 007 polos have a matt, textured fabric that looks more rugged than the smooth look you get from a standard pique polo shirt.
Apart from anything, we wanted people to know more about Sunspel and more about what they are buying.
Ben Saunders
Polar explorer who takes Sunspel with him
Wednesday, 15th July 2009
When you’re skiing alone, without a single soul within five million square miles, and nothing but a flat white horizon ahead, you have a lot of time to think about your identity – if only to ponder, when things get really tough, what in God’s name am I doing here?
So who, or more specifically, what, does Ben Saunders think he is? To be honest, he’s not quite sure how to describe himself. ‘Adventurer’ has rather too many dodgy connotations. But ‘explorer’, especially ‘polar explorer’, seems to set his teeth on edge.
‘Returning to the city after months on the ice is like watching TV with the volume up too far’
It’s all down to Saunders’ relationship with his celebrated antecedents. He has clearly studied them closely: he knows just about everything about past polar expeditions: right down to who financed Captain Scott, or how many dogs Scott’s arch Norwegian rival, Amundsen, took when he won the race to the Pole in 1912 (for the record, he began with 52, ended with 16 and many of the casualties ended up on the dinner menu).