First official portrait since coronation is unveiled, painted by Jonathan Yeo

 

King Charles: First official portrait since coronation is unveiled, painted by Jonathan Yeo

By Katie Razzall,

Culture and media editor

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-68981200

 

The first official painted portrait of King Charles III since his coronation has been unveiled at Buckingham Palace.

 

The vast oil on canvas shows a larger-than-life King Charles in the uniform of the Welsh Guards.

 

The vivid red work, measuring about 8ft 6in by 6ft 6in, is by Jonathan Yeo, who has also painted Tony Blair, Sir David Attenborough and Malala Yousafzai.

 

Queen Camilla is said to have looked at the painting and told Yeo: "Yes, you've got him."

 

In the new portrait, the King is depicted, sword in hand, with a butterfly landing on his shoulder.

 

Unveilings are always a little nerve-wracking, both for the sitter and the artist, but particularly when one of them is a King.

 

Yeo jokes: "If this was seen as treasonous, I could literally pay for it with my head, which would be an appropriate way for a portrait painter to die - to have their head removed!"

 

In reality, Yeo isn't going to lose his head of course - no executions for a badly received portrait of a monarch, in modern times anyway.

 

Fortunately, he has also already had a nod of approval from a key royal figure.

 

The Queen dropped in during the final sitting and said the artist had captured the King well. Yeo says the best judge of a portrait is someone who knows your sitter really well because they have instant recognition of whether it feels familiar.

 

The King also got a glimpse of it, says Yeo, in its "half-done state… He was initially mildly surprised by the strong colour but otherwise he seemed to be smiling approvingly".

 

It is a vibrant painting.

 

The King was made Regimental Colonel in the Welsh Guards in 1975. In the picture, the red of the uniform fades into the red background, bringing the King's face into even more prominence.

 

Yeo says he wanted the painting to be distinctive and a break with the past. He was aiming for something personal.

 

"My interest is really in figuring out who someone is and trying to get that on a canvas."

Yeo decided to use some of the traditions of royal portraiture - the military outfit, the sword - but aimed to achieve something more modern, particularly with the deep colour and the butterfly.

 

He says he's referencing the tradition of official royal portraits but suggesting that's something "from the past and what's interesting about them is something a bit different from that".

 

"In history of art, the butterfly symbolises metamorphosis and rebirth," he explains, fitting for a portrait being painted of a monarch who has recently ascended to the throne.

 

The butterfly is also a reference to the King's long held interest in the environment, causes "he has championed most of his life and certainly long before they became a mainstream conversation".

 

Yeo says it was Charles' idea after they talked about the opportunity they had to tell a story with the portrait.

 

"I said, when schoolchildren are looking at this in 200 years and they're looking at the who's who of the monarchs, what clues can you give them?

 

"He said 'what about a butterfly landing on my shoulder?'".

 

Yeo began the portrait when Charles was still Prince of Wales, with the first sitting at Highgrove in June 2021.

 

 

The King sat four times in all, for about an hour at a time, with the final sitting at Clarence House in November 2023. Did the artist notice any obvious change in the man after he became King?

 

Yeo says he's spotted "a physical change" in politicians he's painted in the past. "They physically look and feel different when they're in high office or out of it."

 

Yeo adds the King "had already been gaining presence and stature by the time I started it, and it went up a level again when he became King, as you'd expect".

 

The sittings ended before the King's cancer was diagnosed. He had a lot going on, says Yeo, with an upcoming speech at the COP Summit, but "didn't seem like someone who was physically exhausted".

 

He was "in good spirits", the painter adds.

 

King Charles posed in his full Welsh Guards uniform and had to stand leaning on his sword for around 40 minutes each time.

 

"He stood impressively still, and didn't get distracted like some sitters do."

 

Yeo won't reveal much of what they talked about during sittings, although he says Charles III has "a great sense of humour" and is a "very engaging person".

 

His interest in art meant Charles wanted to discuss the process of creating the work and the brushes being used. They also talked about "how he'd learned to paint and about some of the pictures on the walls".

 

But Yeo says "there's a sanctity to the portrait process". Your sitters "need to believe what goes on is between the two of you because that way I think they feel more comfortable about opening up".

 

Royal portraits in the past have had an important role to play in signifying power and projecting an image. They were part of the tools used to ensure the survival of the monarch. Some of the most memorable include Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger. The Tudor king employed Holbein as court artist, although only two portraits survive.

 

But Yeo says our relationship with royalty has shifted since those days.

 

"On the one hand, we know they're real people with quirks and personality traits. We've seen that much more of them. On the other hand, we still want to buy into the mysticism and the fairy tale that they're different from us, that there's a bit of magic there."

 

In his portrait, he was "trying to figure out how to do both at once".

 

Painting a portrait of this size was "quite an operation", says Yeo. Having used his first sittings with the king for photographs and sketches, he did most of the painting between the third and fourth sittings.

 

He then had to hire a truck to transport the canvas and his equipment to Clarence House for the last time he saw the King.

 

As well as easel, painting tables and lighting, they had to "cover all the carpets in sheets so we didn't damage these priceless carpets".

 

 

Yeo also brought "a dias, a sort of platform, for me to stand on so I was up high enough to paint his face and one for him to stand on so that he's on a level as well".

 

The artist claims not to have been interested in getting involved in the "rigid formality" of royal portraiture previously. But as he turned 50, he began to think about how "you have to see how you measure up against the works of the past".

 

The portrait was commissioned by the Drapers' Company, the City of London livery company which has been collecting royal portraits for centuries.

 

His painting will go up in Drapers' Hall in London surrounded by "a dozen other fabulous, similarly huge portraits of Queen Victoria and various other kings and queens".

 

For him, painting Charles III was different from most previous commissions, where you start from scratch.

 

"All my life I'd known who he was and what he looked like so it was really just a case of deciding what to show and trying to slightly channel who he seems to be now."

 

He deliberately minimized the visual distractions in his portrait to "allow people to connect with the human being underneath".

 

There's a great deal of sympathy for the King, Yeo adds. The portrait "reflects exactly who he is, everything he represents and what he's been through".

 

The portrait will go on public display at the Philip Mould Gallery in London from 16 May until 14 June. It will be displayed at Drapers' Hall from the end of August.

Proper People | Jojo's General Store at Rag Parade - Sheffield

Jojo's General Store

Shops

Jojo's General Store, 553 Ecclesall Road, S11 8PR

Open Monday-Saturday 11am-6pm

https://www.ourfaveplaces.co.uk/where-to-go/jojos-general-store/

 

To the untrained eye, Jojo’s General Store is a musty Victorian store with rails upon rails of jackets, stacks of shoes, sunglasses, hats and other odds and ends. There’s an old-fashioned cash register, a selection of boxing gloves hanging from the stairs and an assortment of military paraphernalia. But it only takes a few minutes chatting to proprietor Jojo Elgarice to realise that his shop on Ecclesall Road is actually a treasure trove of the finest vintage sportswear and workwear, curated carefully for a loyal list of customers who reach as far as Japan.

 

Opened in 2016 as the flagship shop for Jojo’s Rag Parade brand, Jojo’s General Store is a hotspot for collectors of iconic menswear with unique vintage finds from brands like Barbour, Belstaff, Grenfell, Stone Island and CP Company. There are new pieces too from Sanders shoes and Club Stubborn Clothing. During my visit a regular customer pops in to discuss everything from his favourite Berghaus jacket to the ills of social media and a Stone Island hoodie he has spent years searching for (Jojo promises to source one). This is typical conversation for Jojo, who has built his business on a blend of expert fashion knowledge and expert chat.

 

Here Jojo speaks to Our Favourite Places about how he became a recognised menswear specialist.

 

Let’s start at the beginning – why open a shop selling vintage workwear and sportswear?

I was sick of going into shops where it was full of the same stuff – like a rack of checked shirts or denim jackets. I don’t necessarily think there is anything wrong with that that style of shopping, but I wanted to set up something that was a bit more unique and based on the individual piece. So I started selling off my old skateboard t-shirts and music t-shirts and old bits and bobs in Syd & Mallory’s in the Forum. And then when Syd & Mallory’s moved to Devonshire Street, they said I could have the room upstairs.

 

Why did you decide to make the leap and open your own shop?

Syd & Mallory’s was getting knocked down to be developed, so I had to find another shop. I had seen this shop and I’d always loved the old curved glass windows on the shopfront. When I got it, I didn’t tell anyone. I worked through the dead of the night and on the Friday the sign writer came and, on the Saturday, I just put it on Instagram. The window display was done, everything looked perfect and polished, and I ripped the paper down at 10 in the morning and said “shop is open from 10am, party from 6pm”. Everyone was like: “what the hell!?” People turned up at six and I think they were a bit shocked because it was a shop full of gear. It was a massive risk because although Ecclesall Road is busy it is not necessarily commercially good for retail. But we have always been a destination type shop anyway, because we are specialists. It has now finally paid off.

 

Can you tell me about the interior design of the shop?

When we got the shop it was all brand new, so we made it looked knackered. We had to make the floor look old and the walls look old, and then the beams were all boxed in perfectly, so I got the sledgehammer and smashed the RSJs out. I wanted it to look like it has been here 100 years – because this building was built in 1899 – and one rusty old shopkeeper keeps putting out one new piece every month. I think we have achieved that. I didn’t want people to be scared to come in because – it doesn’t look like it – but we do sell some quite expensive gear. We are not that kind of shop where people feel like they don’t deserve to be in here. We sell stuff that is like two quid and a fiver as well, because we want to make it for everyone.

 

How did you develop an audience for such a specialist range of clothes?

I had an audience from Syd & Mallory’s and through people that knew me, but I also started selling to Japan quite early on. I’d sell a lot of British workwear, British military and sportswear to Japan. Without that I would have struggled because they buy 30 or 40 items rather than one or two. The gear got better, and my knowledge got better so I knew what I was buying more. Through things like Instagram you meet people, which has been great. Because of my Japanese clients I got chance to go and do a pop-up shop in a big department store in Ginza. It was like Harrods but probably 30 times bigger and we nearly sold out, which was unreal.

 

How would you explain your style?

We try and educate people because the shop can be quite daunting. Rag Parade is all about heritage; everything in here is authentic. When I am sourcing, I ask things like, "will this item stand the test of time in 20 years? Is it good fabric? Where is it made? What is the fabric like? Will it wash well?" Everything has been tested – it has all been hung up, washed and repaired. Even some of the leather jackets have been through a washing machine and rehydrated. It all has the Rag Parade seal of approval. We generally sell stuff that has been made in England, Japan or the USA and then also some European stuff. Our ethos is: would we wear it ourselves? We have been very conscious not to sell something that would make a quick buck. The gear has always come first.

 

Can you pick one item in the shop that encapsulates what you are about?

We always like pullover smocks. We sell lots of different models of smocks, like 1990s iconic Barbour designs and Japanese ski smocks from the 1970s. Growing up I watched films like Heroes of Telemark where they have all got these amazing jackets on. It defines menswear for me. We are well known worldwide for selling this shape of jacket. In winter they are surprisingly warm, you can wear a cashmere jumper under one and be really warm because there is nothing letting any air in the whole way up.

 

What do you like about being based in Sheffield?

I like not being in London just because all my competitors are in London. It is good because I think people in London are a bit tunnel vision and think that there’s nothing outside of London in the UK. There are a lot of people who collect clothing across the country. People do pigeon-hole London as being the only cultural hub in the UK but actually it is bit boring. The clothing shops there are great but they aren’t doing anything different, they are all just looking at each other and copying one another. I think Sheffield has got a good edge and I love the location of the shop because we are ten minutes from the town centre and ten minutes from the middle of nowhere – it couldn’t really be any more perfect.

 

Words by Hannah Clugston

Images by Will Roberts

What does a royal warrant mean for businesses?

The granting of royal patronage or royal charter was practised across Europe from the early Medieval period. Initially, however, royal patronage was mainly granted to those working in the arts. Royal charters began to replace royal patronage in around the 12th century. The earliest charters were granted to the trade guilds, with the first recorded British royal charter being granted to the Weavers' Company in 1155 by Henry II of England.

 

By the 15th century, the royal warrant of appointment replaced the royal charter in England, providing a more formalised system of recognition. Under a royal warrant, the Lord Chamberlain appointed tradespeople as suppliers to the royal household.The printer William Caxton was one of the first recipients of a royal warrant when he became the king's printer in 1476. One of the early monarchs to grant a warrant was King Charles II of England.

 

A royal warrant sent a strong public signal that the holder supplied goods of a quality acceptable for use in the royal household, and by inference, inspired the confidence of the general public. At a time when product quality was a public issue, a royal warrant imbued suppliers with an independent sign of value. By the 18th century, mass market manufacturers such as Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton, recognised the value of supplying royalty, often at prices well below cost, for the sake of the publicity and kudos it generated. Royal warrants became keenly sought after and manufacturers began actively displaying the royal arms on their premises, packaging and labelling. By 1840, the rules surrounding the display of royal arms were tightened to prevent fraudulent claims. By the early 19th century, during the reign of Queen Victoria, the number of royal warrants granted rose rapidly with the granting of 2,000 warrants. Since 1885, an annual list of warrant holders has been published in The London Gazette.

 

Food and drink manufacturers have been some of the most important warrant holder suppliers to the palace. High-profile food and beverage suppliers with a royal warrant include Cadbury; Twinings of London; Bollinger; Fortnum & Mason; Heinz; Tanqueray Gordon & Co and Schweppes.

 

Non-food suppliers with royal warrants include Aston Martin; Land Rover; Jaguar cars; Boots; Axminster Carpets; Paragon China; The Irish Linen Company and Yardley of London.

Becoming Karl Lagerfeld | Official Trailer | Hulu / Karl Lagerfeld and Pierre Bergé, the story of the ‘cruelest hatred’ in the world of fashion

In March 2023, it was announced that a television series around the life and career of famed fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, was in production for the streaming service Disney+, with Daniel Brühl starring as the titular character. Also joining the cast were Théodore Pellerin as Jacques de Bascher, Arnaud Valois as Yves Saint Laurent, Alex Lutz as Pierre Bergé, Agnès Jaoui as Gaby Aghion, and Sunnyi Melles as Marlene Dietrich. Jérôme Salle would direct the episodes one, two, and six, while Audrey Estrougo would be directing the other three episodes.

Karl Lagerfeld and Pierre Bergé, the story of the ‘cruelest hatred’ in the world of fashion

 

The legendary designer and the businessman behind Yves Saint Laurent maintained a personal feud that would last for decades. On the occasion of the upcoming premiere of ‘Becoming Karl Lagerfeld’ — the miniseries about the German designer, which addresses this confrontation — EL PAÍS looks at the reasons for his staunch hatred of Bergé

 

STEPHANE CARDINALE - CORBIS (SYGMA VIA GETTY IMAGES)

CARLOS MEGÍA

MAY 11, 2024 - 05:40 CEST

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-05-11/karl-lagerfeld-and-pierre-berge-the-story-of-the-cruelest-hatred-in-the-world-of-fashion.html

 

The iconic fashion editor Suzy Menkes was the first person who dared to outline an epic rivalry. She established a simile about it, using one of the great (and frequently denied) historical legends of artistic envy: “Karl was Salieri going up against Mozart, who was Saint Laurent.” Exchanging the imperial Vienna of the 18th century for the Paris of the 1970s — and swapping out music for fashion — the truth is that the recent history of style cannot be understood without the well-documented antagonism between Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent. The two fashion geniuses crossed paths when they were almost teenagers: in 1954, they both shared first prize at the International Wool Secretariat (IWS). Although Lagerfeld — popularly known as “the Kaiser,” due to his German roots — maintained that they had been friends for a long time, the truth is that the dazzling success of the Algerian-born Saint Laurent starkly contrasted with Lagerfeld’s discreet beginnings. Each man had an ego as big as his own work, which helped separate their trajectories.

 

 

However, along with their differences, there’s one person who played a key role in creating distance between the two designers and whose influence had a big role on their respective lives. In the upcoming Hulu miniseries Becoming Karl Lagerfeld — which focuses on the designer who, for a time, was the creative director at Chanel — the figure of Pierre Bergé is revealed. For years, he was known as the “pitbull of French fashion.”

 

“Karl’s problem is the following: it’s like two starlets in the theater or cinema, when one becomes Marilyn Monroe and the other is a nobody. I like Karl a lot — I’ve known him forever. He’s really cultivated and very intelligent. Karl’s big problem is that he’s never been successful with his own label. And he hasn’t been able to reach the same level of success as under the name of Chanel. It’s sad,” Bergé told Vogue in 2015.

 

The man who was Saint Laurent’s right-hand man — co-founder of the eponymous brand and the designer’s romantic partner for decades — was never a friend of political correctness. The auditions to succeed Yves as creative director of his own firm offer evidence of Bergé's severity and dogmatism: after describing Tom Ford’s tenure as a “fiasco” and “pure marketing,” he went on to dismiss Stefano Pilati, calling his time at the fashion house “nothing at all.”

 

Bergé was lying when he said that he liked Karl. The antipathy between them was such that — according to the Kaiser himself — they went 40 years without speaking a word to each other. “He’s from another era,” Lagerfeld told WWD, in response to the accusations leveled against him by the businessman. “The times aren’t the same. He has to adapt to the times. The times don’t have to adapt to him. If he doesn’t like them, he should shut up and retire.”

 

Comparisons with Saint Laurent always gave Lagerfeld a complex. When he finally managed to succeed in the industry, he attacked him without remorse: “That particular Yves I don’t like, because I know another one. He’s one of the funniest people alive, with an incredible sense of humor… but he only had one desire: to be rich and famous.”

 

“Lagerfeld and Bergé started out as friends. They shared Bergé's love of books, but their relationship deteriorated over time. Bergé saw Yves Saint Laurent as an artist and a genius, but not Lagerfeld. And he made him feel that way. He also despised his German roots, in contrast to Yves’s French taste. Karl told me that he felt that his friendship with Yves had been destroyed by Bergé and that he probably played a role in his estrangement from him. For Bergé, there was only one place at the top of the pyramid… and it was for Yves,” explains Marie Ottavi, a journalist and biographer of Lagerfeld, in an interview with EL PAÍS.

 

The main reason for their enmity is a love triangle that Bergé never approved of, with the dandy Jacques de Bascher at the center of it. For two decades, this Parisian aristocrat maintained a platonic relationship with Lagerfeld, until his death from AIDS in 1989. They were two opposite personalities: while the couturier was a working man — a puritan who was allergic to parties — the enthralling De Bascher enjoyed alcohol, drugs, and orgies on a daily basis. “He was the funniest and most different person I’ve ever met. Wild, chic, and fun. He had all the flaws and all the qualities. For me, he was divine… but others found him diabolical,” the German designer alleged.

 

During one of those nights of hedonism and debauchery, De Bascher would meet Saint Laurent, a tormented genius who also made excess his way of life. This was much to the chagrin of Bergé, who broke off his romantic relationship with Yves when he found himself unable to “channel” the designer. In her book The Beautiful Fall, Alicia Drake wrote that Yves had a brief affair with Jacques de Bascher (with the full knowledge of a non-possessive Lagerfeld). And it was precisely Lagerfeld who realized that Bergé always thought that he had been the instigator behind the union of two souls with a tendency towards self-destruction. “I had been close friends with Yves for more than 20 years — Pierre smashed that to bits. He said I engineered their liaison to destabilize the house of Saint Laurent,” the German told W Magazine.

 

“The relationship between them was devastating, because Yves fell madly in love with Jacques. It had an impact on his work,” Ottavi adds, underlining the extreme vigilance that Bergé exercised over Yves’ excesses, so as to protect his textile empire. “If the romance had become serious, it could have disrupted the entire YSL [fashion] house, and also Bergé's authority. But the story was purely sexual. Although Bergé thought that Lagerfeld had orchestrated everything, seeing him as the organizer of the romance is going a bit far. He just found it amusing to see the chaos he caused,” Ottavi shrugs. Be that as it may, the friendly relationship between the creatives perished forever when De Bascher joined the equation.

 

This passionate episode will be one of the dramatic pillars of the Becoming Karl Lagerfeld series. Actor Daniel Brühl plays the Hamburg-born designer during the years he spent struggling to reach the top of haute couture and become head of Chanel. His relationships with Saint Laurent, De Bascher and Bergé — the axes of that professional journey — are also depicted.

 

Even after the death of the first two, Bergé and Lagerfeld didn’t bring an end to their long confrontation. “That their mutual hatred became public only accentuated the resentment between them. In my books, I describe the atrocities that were said… it was very cruel,” Ottavi notes. “Yves Saint Laurent was a pioneer and invented pieces that will go down in fashion history. Yet, his genius closed on him like a trap. Karl remained connected to the times: he reinvented himself and breathed new life into Chanel, that sleeping beauty that he managed to modernize. Each one had their own strengths…”

CARMEN CURLERS | OFFICIAL TRAILER / Carmen Curlers voted best European Series at La Rochelle

18 SEPTEMBER 2023

Carmen Curlers voted best European Series at La Rochelle

WRITTEN BY: ANNIKA PHAM

Carmen Curlers voted best European Series at La Rochelle

18 SEPTEMBER 2023

https://nordiskfilmogtvfond.com/news/stories/carmen-curlers-voted-best-european-series-at-la-rochelle

 

DR Drama’s hit series is the first Nordic show to receive the top prize from the European competition of the French TV drama festival which closed September 16.

 

Nordic series were out in force at the 25th Festival de la Fiction de la Rochelle, with five out of 10 titles vying for best European series - see our story - Nordic series make up half of La Rochelle TV Festival European competition.

 

Carmen Curlers’ coveted award from the oldest French TV drama festival, comes on top of a flurry of national kudos at the Robert awards (including best series), TVprisen, and a nomination at the 2023 Nordisk Film & TV Prize for writer Mette Heeno.

 

DR Sales’ Camilla Maria Saasbye said due to the strong interest from French speaking territories, her company is creating a French dub for Tele Quebec, RTBF & BETV in Canada and Belgium. In France the AVOD platform 6Play from M6 Group will be showing the series, but DR Sales is hope to close a deal with a major French broadcaster, on the back of the top prize in La Rochelle.

 

DR Drama is due to unveil season 2 of the Carmen Curlers’ saga mid-October.

 

18 SEPTEMBER 2023

 

According to Heeno, the returning season focuses on the booming business of the 60s electric hair curlers, under the aegis of entrepreneur Axel Byvang and his dynamic partner Birthe, and Axel’s dream to conquer America.

 

A total of 59 series were showcased at the 25th Festival de la Fiction de la Rochelle where French industry delegates discussed the need to regulate the use of AI, to both support the technology while protecting the rights of content creators. The French TV industry celebrated the new signing of minimum salaries for directors of drama series.

 

Among the five Nordic series selected for the European competition, The Orchestra produced by SAM Productions for DR received strong reviews in the French press and is available on French pubcaster France Television's platform France.tv from September 18.

Garrick Club votes to accept female members for first time

 

Garrick Club votes to accept female members for first time

 

Members back dropping men-only rule in place for 193 years, after Guardian revealed details of membership list

 

Amelia Gentleman

Tue 7 May 2024 19.17 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/07/garrick-club-votes-to-accept-female-members-women

 

The men-only Garrick Club has finally voted to allow women to become members, 193 years after the London institution first opened its doors.

 

The vote was passed with 59.98% of votes in favour at the end of a private meeting where several hundred members spent two hours debating the merits of permitting women to join.

 

The meeting was closed to non-members, and a warning was made by the club’s secretary before the vote that details of the occasion were confidential and should not be discussed with non-members.

 

Hundreds of Garrick members, many of them wearing the club’s pink and green striped tie, had gathered inside the Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden in the late afternoon to cast a vote. Most were hoping the vote would end six weeks of intense scrutiny of the club’s inner workings triggered by the Guardian’s publication of a list of about 60 names of the club’s most influential members.

 

The Garrick’s closely guarded membership list revealed that the club remained a bulwark of Britain’ still male-dominated establishment. Listed alongside the king were the deputy prime minister, scores of leading lawyers, dozens of members of the House of Lords, 10 MPs, as well as heads of influential thinktanks, law firms and private equity companies, academics, senior journalists and the head of the independent press standards organisation.

 

It showed members were overwhelmingly white and the majority older than 50. Many theatre directors, producers and actors, from Benedict Cumberbatch to Brian Cox, are also members.

 

The club’s management revealed it had received letters and emails from more than 200 members informing them that they would resign if the vote had gone against women. The musicians Sting and Mark Knopfler and the actor Stephen Fry wrote saying they would resign because “public controversy over this issue” had put them in an untenable position, jeopardising their relations with female colleagues.

 

Campaigners for greater diversity in politics and greater representation of women in public leadership roles had responded with dismay in March to the revelation that Simon Case, who as cabinet secretary is the leader of more than half a million civil servants, and Richard Moore, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, were members.

 

Moore and Case had repeatedly spoken about the need for increased diversity in their workforces, and both resigned from the club days after their membership was made public. At least four judges also resigned their Garrick memberships amid intense media focus on the large number of senior lawyers who were members of a club that has previously voted on several occasions since the 1980s to block the admission of women.

 

Women working in the arts had also expressed frustration over the past few weeks at the high numbers of their colleagues who were members of a club where women have only been allowed to visit if men accompany them around the premises as guests. Jude Kelly, the theatre director and founder of the Women of the World Foundation, described feeling “humiliated” on the occasions she had been invited to the club for theatre-related events.

 

“I’m glad that men who were previously comfortable with the club being men-only have thought again and decided that they are now uncomfortable with that arrangement,” she said. “These clubs were created as places for people who were given superior privileges. This is not the same as having an all-girls picnic or a boys-only cricket club. This is a place that sustained male power.”

 

The decision to let women in rests on a legal technicality rather than representing a profound desire by members to associate with women. New analysis of the club’s rules by several of Britain’s most senior judges, including two former supreme judges, concluded there was nothing to prevent women from being allowed to join, because the 1925 Law of Property Act advises that in legal documents the word “he” should also be read to mean “she”.

 

Pro-women members have already drawn up a list of seven women they now plan to nominate for membership: the classicist Mary Beard, the former home secretary Amber Rudd, the Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, the new Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika, the actor Juliet Stevenson, Margaret Casely-Hayford, who chairs the trustees of Shakespeare’s Globe and is chancellor of Coventry University, and Elizabeth Gloster, formerly an appeal court judge.

 

The club’s admissions process is notoriously complex and slow, requiring names to be written in a red leather-bound book, seconded by two pages of signatures, before prospective members are invited in to dine at the club, and their membership is discussed by committee members, with an opportunity for unpopular nominees to be blackballed.

 

Despite Tuesday’s vote, there may not be a radical change in the club’s membership any time soon.

Men-only Garrick Club to vote on admitting women as members

 

Men-only Garrick Club to vote on admitting women as members

 

Meeting on Tuesday evening will debate the issue after new legal analysis of 193-year-old rulebook

 

Amelia Gentleman

Tue 7 May 2024 13.42 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/07/men-only-garrick-club-vote-admitting-women-members

 

The men-only Garrick Club will vote on Tuesday evening on whether female members should be allowed to join, after decades of controversy over the London club’s refusal to admit women.

 

Members will meet at a Covent Garden venue at 5pm to debate the issue. They will then vote on a resolution inviting them to confirm that a new legal analysis of the Garrick’s 193-year-old rulebook suggests there is actually nothing in it preventing women from joining already.

 

The club’s membership of about 1,500 includes a roll-call of high-profile names from Britain’s still largely male-dominated establishment, including dozens of high court, supreme, appeal and circuit court judges, hundreds of senior barristers, dozens of politicians, heads of arts organisations, well-known actors, journalists and King Charles.

 

If busy members – such as the musician Sting, the actor Brian Cox or the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden – are unable to make their way to the venue, the event will also be broadcast online and members who cannot be there in person will be able to vote remotely.

 

It is not certain that the vote will comprehensively resolve the bitter disputes about whether the club should admit women. After the vote, all members have been invited to a dinner at the club’s greying, Italianate stone building near Leicester Square for a standup meal (there are expected to be more members than available chairs).

 

A stream of men wearing the Garrick’s signature salmon pink and cucumber green ties may be visible making their way through Covent Garden to the club shortly after 7pm. Members include politicians such as Jacob Rees-Mogg or Michael Gove, the BBC reporters John Simpson or Clive Myrie, the actors Matthew Macfadyen or Benedict Cumberbatch.

 

One pro-female member (asking for anonymity, because club convention requires members not to speak about the club) said: “It’s not clear whether the dinner will be a celebration or a wake.”

 

Members will be asked to vote to confirm a resolution “that the rules of the club allow the admission of women members”. The new interpretation of the rules rests on a legal technicality, not considered during earlier votes on the matter, suggesting that the club’s rules should be read with the 1925 Law of Property Act in mind, and consequently the word “he” should also be read to mean “she”, meaning there is nothing preventing women from being allowed to join, and that it was a mistake not to let them in earlier.

 

The vote confirming this resolution requires just a 50% majority, although previous votes on the question of female membership have always required a two-thirds majority.

 

This argument has been made by a handful of Britain’s most senior lawyers and judges (many of them members of the club) who have offered different bits of legal advice on the matter over the past year. Non-member David Pannick KC reviewed the club’s rules earlier this year and concluded there was nothing to stop women from becoming members immediately.

 

The former president of the supreme court David Neuberger and former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption (both members) have written to the club supporting Pannick’s interpretation. Other lawyers disagree and members have been invited to consider nine different pieces of legal advice before voting.

 

Several amendments, believed to have been proposed by members who are not in favour of female members, will be voted on before the main motion. The first states that given “the outrage caused to many members by the attempt on the part of some members to use an unofficially procured and contested legal opinion to bypass the club’s long-established agreed practice of treating a proposal to admit women members as requiring a change of rule by a two-thirds majority”, it is very important that “every member of the club is given the opportunity to vote on a matter which has proved so controversial”. The amendment suggests the vote should in fact be a postal vote. If two-thirds of members voting agree, then today’s vote will be cancelled and a postal vote will follow.

 

Another amendment requests that the voting threshold is switched back from a 50% majority to a two-thirds majority.

 

Pro-female members have indicated that if members refuse this evening to approve women’s admission they will seek further legal advice, and will begin to nominate women as members anyway, in the belief that the rules suggest they can already join.

France boasts robust network of second-hand clothing shops • FRANCE 24 E...

One man’s trash: EU pitch to tackle textile pollution riles second-hand sellers

 

Tougher export rules risk hurting countries with major second-hand markets.

Kenya — whose second-hand trade generates millions in revenue — has been rallying support from industry groups in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique. |

 

MAY 3, 2024 9:00 AM CET

BY MARIANNE GROS

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-countries-pitch-to-tackle-textile-pollution-some-countries-warn-harm-second-handle-sellers/

 

EU countries want to stop their discarded clothes from clogging landfills outside the bloc — but a number of countries, including Kenya, warn that doing so will harm the local trade in second-hand fabrics.

 

France, Sweden and Denmark are asking the EU to back their call to change global rules on textile exports under the Basel Convention and thereby tackle the bloc's growing textile pollution problem. The amount of used fabrics exported from the bloc has tripled over the past two decades, reaching almost 1.7 million tons in 2019.

 

Under the proposal, companies in the EU looking to export textile waste — clothes deemed too degraded or stained to be resold — would have to give more information about the content of shipments, while importing countries would have to prove the waste is being disposed of correctly.

 

But traders in used textiles in developing countries, including Kenya, are warning that the stricter rules are too broad and will also limit exports of high-quality textiles — hurting local businesses that resell the clothes on second-hand markets outside the EU.

 

“We are talking about 2 million people employed in this trade, and 6.5 million households depending on this trade in Kenya alone,” said Teresia Wairimu Njenga, chair of the Mitumba Association — Kenya’s main second-hand trade industry group, which has been lobbying Brussels to dismiss the proposal.

 

Njenga said Kenya — whose second-hand trade generates millions in revenue — has been rallying support from industry groups in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and Mozambique.

 

Other countries, including Pakistan and Chile, which are among the largest importers of Europe’s used clothes and act as regional hubs for the second-hand textile trade, will also likely be affected by any change in export rules.

 

Mountains of trash

The aim of the proposal is to improve how EU countries manage their waste by boosting collection, sorting and recycling — and by encouraging producers to make clothes that last longer.

 

Currently, about 46 percent of EU exports of used textiles end up in African countries; the lower the quality of fashion products, the more likely they are to end up in landfills.

 

In Kenya, for example, the Changing Markets Foundation estimates that about 300 million unusable items of clothing end up in landfills each year, representing anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of the country's total textile imports. 

 

As part of the proposal, France, Sweden and Denmark say textile waste should be subject to the same rules as plastic or electronic waste — meaning countries that import it must explicitly consent to do so and must prove they can dispose of the waste in an environmentally friendly way.

 

 

In Kenya the Changing Markets Foundation estimates that about 300 million unusable items of clothing end up in landfills each year, |

 

They also suggest that exports of “hazardous” textile waste — fabrics stained with chemicals or paint, for example — should be banned altogether. Several other EU countries support the proposal, including Finland and Austria.

 

“What is exported as being second-hand textiles must be just that, and not sheer worthless, unusable, textile waste,” Sweden’s Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari told POLITICO.

 

Sweden also wants to create a traceability system for textile waste to stop “the abuse of the second-hand textile market by those who are trying to avoid paying the full price of fast fashion,” she said.

 

A spokesperson from France’s environment ministry said “the aim is not to put an end to the second-hand clothing trade but to create a truly circular economy and help developing countries.”

 

The problem, as Kenya and others see it, is that there is currently no distinction between textiles that cannot be reused and clothes than can be resold on the second-hand market — at least when it comes to shipments.

 

Under the international system by which goods are categorized for import and export, there is one category for worn clothes and another for used rags and textile scraps, but there is no separate code for textile waste that is too damaged to be resold.

 

As a result, all textiles — used, scrap and damaged clothes — get bundled together when shipped. Export restrictions would prevent unusable fabrics from ending up in landfills, but would also limit exports of second-hand garments. That would damage the local second-hand economy in Kenya, which has already enacted measures to guarantee it only imports high-quality textiles, said Njenga from the Mitumba Association.

 

“The reason we are being so vocal is because these people are trying to bring in new protocols when we have already been doing this for 40 years and have already developed our own,” she said.

 

Ola Bakowska, circular textiles strategist at the Circle Economy Foundation, noted that the real problem is the sheer amount of textiles being produced. “The conversation on import bans should not deter from the main problem — which is addressing production volumes,” she said.

 

The textile sorting and recycling industry has also cited flaws in the proposal, saying it would add "administrative and financial burdens" to an already struggling sector, as they would be responsible for notifying and getting consent from importing countries.

 

For the plan to become reality, the European Commission would have to put forward a legislative proposal and the Council of the EU would need to adopt it, allowing the EU to formally request the Basel Convention be amended. The parties to the convention would then have to agree.

 

The Commission "welcomes the intention behind the initiative of France, Denmark and Sweden" and sees "merits in initiating such a discussion," a spokesperson for the EU executive said, adding that the Basel Convention is "the right context to discuss the issue of global trade in used textiles."

 

This article was updated to add a statement from the European Commission.

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Bitterly divided Garrick Club prepares to vote on female membership again

 

Bitterly divided Garrick Club prepares to vote on female membership again

 

Tuesday’s debate on whether the existing rules do not in fact bar women comes amid rising resignations and threats

 

Amelia Gentleman

Sat 4 May 2024 06.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/04/garrick-club-vote-women-female-members

 

In May 1924, the Manchester Guardian revealed a “recent innovation in the Garrick Club to admit ladies to one of its rooms” meant that the queen of Romania would be lunching at the club during her visit to London. “What would Queen Victoria have said about such a notion!” the article wondered.

 

A hundred years later, the club’s lethargic advance towards allowing women into the building on equal terms with men continues. On Tuesday, members will once again vote on the matter.

 

Before the vote, at least nine of the UK’s most senior judges and barristers have parsed the club’s rules to assess whether they do or do not already permit the admission of women.

 

The former president of the supreme court David Neuberger and the former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption (both members) have separately written to the club’s chair to inform him that they agree with the legal advice given by the senior lawyer David Pannick KC, who recently concluded that there was nothing in the rules preventing women from becoming members.

 

Another club member, Edward Henry KC – who is meanwhile representing some of the falsely accused post office operators at the public inquiry into the scandal –disagrees, advising the club: “Unfortunately, David Pannick’s opinion is flawed.”

 

Members say festering disagreements over the issue are poisoning the atmosphere within the club.

 

Resignations and threats to resign are rising steadily, with members on both sides of the argument declaring that they will give up their memberships if the vote does not go their way.

 

The club’s general committee is split, with 13 (the majority) recommending that women should be admitted; this group has written to members warning if the vote fails to admit women they believe “the number who would feel obliged to resign is some 200, and quite possibly more”.

 

John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, a member since 2001, tweeted on Wednesday morning: “Various Garrick Club members including Sting, Mark Knopfler and leading actors and producers have reportedly written to the Club chairman saying they’ll resign if the membership doesn’t vote to accept women next Tuesday. Many others like me would also find it impossible to stay.”

 

Within 24 hours his post had attracted 1,800 responses, many bemused, many ironic (“We would welcome you at the Drones Club. Just the sort of person we need!”; “Just find it weird none of you chaps noticed the absence of women before”; “Why all the fuss about something that only affects 0.000000001pc of the population?”; “What news of the Women’s Institute?”; “Is the Garrick Club like Fight Club!”; “Budge up, Rosa Parks, there are some new changemakers in town” etc.)

 

The Garrick has come under scrutiny since the Guardian’s publication in March of the names of about 60 high-profile members from the club’s closely guarded membership book. The list includes scores of leading lawyers and judges, heads of publicly funded arts institutions, dozens of members of the House of Lords, the deputy prime minister, 10 other MPs, as well as heads of thinktanks, law firms, private equity companies, academics, prominent actors, rock stars, senior journalists and the king.

 

Details of the strong concentration of senior British establishment figures inside a club that has become notorious for repeatedly blocking moves to admit women drew anger from campaigners for increased diversity in the arts, business, politics and the law.

 

The letter from 13 committee members noted that the media’s “unfair and unwanted spotlight on the Garrick” had already prompted numerous resignations, including “a number of senior judges, Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, Sir Richard Moore, head of MI6, John Gilhooly, chief executive of Wigmore Hall, and many others, including Downton Abbey producer Gareth Neame, who also resigned as chairman of the Garrick Charitable Trust.”

 

In his letter to the club chair, Neuberger wrote that he too would resign if women were not admitted, describing the issue as a “running sore” that was becoming a “reputational problem”.

 

Sumption wrote he had no intention of resigning whatever the outcome, but noted that the ban on women was “indefensible now that women occupy prominent and distinguished positions in every walk of life”.

 

The arguments of men opposed to the admission of women were “frankly difficult to understand”, he wrote, adding: “I have certainly never heard it said even by opponents that women are, as a group, incapable of being good company. One sometimes hears it said that men are more inclined to show off in female than in male company, but speaking for myself I have never observed that.”

 

Tuesday’s vote will rest on whether or not members agree that the club’s rules should really be read with the 1925 Law of Property Act in mind, which suggests that the word “he” should also be understood also to mean “she”, in which case there would be nothing stopping women from joining.

 

A general meeting of the club will be held at a venue in Covent Garden from 5-7pm where members will debate the issue and vote on whether to confirm a resolution “that the rules of the club allow the admission of women members”; a simple majority of more than 50% will be enough for the vote to pass but several amendments have been tabled aiming to block or postpone a decision to welcome women.

 

Senior club members opposed to the admission of women have also written a letter, arguing that even if the Garrick was accused of being “old-fashioned or even misogynistic”, members have “the right of free association under the law”.

 

“It is obvious that, however equal men and women are on every level of intellect and achievement, there are differences between them. It is the most natural thing in the world that both should, from time to time, seek out the special kind of companionship to be enjoyed in places reserved for and, most importantly, run by themselves,” their letter states.

 

Critics stress that their unease about the Garrick is not based on opposition to men gathering in single-sex spaces, but focused on the high number of powerful men in one organisation that has consistently closed its doors to women.

 

In a letter to members sent at the end of April, the club’s chair, Christopher Kirker, said the recent media focus had taken its toll and was “very much to be regretted”, but added that he hoped the club would find a “route through the morass that brings us together so that we can return to what makes the Garrick so special: good fellowship, friendship and fun”.

 

The club has been contacted for comment.