Stuart Husband

Oct 16, 2024 | therake.com | Stuart Husband

Not long ago, Georgia Fanshawe, a scion of the Guinness dynasty, was recalling her first trip to the Caribbean. “It was 1974, and we were on our way to Mustique,” she said. “We stayed overnight in Barbados at Oliver Messel’s house, Maddox. We had dinner by candlelight in his beautiful garden. There were monkeys running about in the branches above us. After dinner, Oliver suddenly emerged through the undergrowth.

Sep 20, 2024 | therake.com | Stuart Husband

In 1927, a most singular automobile glided out of the doors of a factory in Molsheim, in present-day Alsace. The Bugatti Royale was the ultimate in luxury conveyances, as envisioned by the celebrated Italian engineer and designer Ettore Bugatti. Reportedly inspired when Ettore was goaded by the remarks of an Englishwoman, who compared Bugattis unfavourably to Rolls-Royces, the Royale cut a suitably imposing figure.

Aug 18, 2024 | therake.com | Stuart Husband

Who is the most swooningly romantic of movie directors? A case could be made for Jean Vigo or Wong Kar-Wai, whose poetic-erotic offerings, from L’Atalante to In The Mood For Love, are equally adept at the shimmer and the simmer.

Jul 28, 2024 | therake.com | Stuart Husband

In its valedictory round-up of 1968’s most notable people, the magazine Newsweek singled out the year’s headliners: Che Guevara, Christiaan Barnard, and Gigi Rizzi. Gigi who? It was a name to conjure with — indeed, it sounded like an unbeatable submission in the porn-star name game — but Rizzi had done something more momentous and epoch-making than, say, foment Marxist revolution across Latin America or perform the first human-to-human heart transplant.

Jul 24, 2024 | therake.com | Stuart Husband

There’s a photograph taken in Palm Beach in 1955 that seems to encapsulate the breezy allure of post-war America. The Vogue model and socialite Patsy Pulitzer, unscrubbed but poised in pleated shorts and a print blouse, poses nonchalantly on a seaplane.