Bentleys
IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE there was once a time when international travel – the getting there, I mean, not the actual destination – was anything other than a penance. Yes, it’s miraculous that, from London, one can reach Los Angeles in 11 hours. Sadly, for most of that time, one is liable to be fretting about deep vein thrombosis while wishing that the individual in the seat behind would put his trainers back on.
To be transported to an altogether more gracious era, when luxury liners like the Aquitania and the Normandie plied the Atlantic and flying boats and airships took to the skies, one need only visit Bentleys. Specialising in vintage luggage and travel ephemera of the highest quality, it also caters to what owner Tim Bent calls the ‘gentlemanly vices’: drinking, smoking, motoring, racing and yachting. Small wonder that a significant number of his clients are discerning ladies in search of one-of-a-kind presents for their menfolk. The largest and most evocative items in store are the steamer trunks by Louis Vuitton, Goyard, Hermès and Asprey, some of which still bear the labels and monograms of their original owners. At Bentleys, functionality is no impediment to elegance, as its stock of antique silver, crystal, leather, shagreen, crocodile and tortoiseshell so stylishly attests. Cocktail shakers and shooting sticks, cigarette boxes and globes: never has the non-essential seemed quite so…well, essential.
See also: The Armoury Of St James’s
