The Diary

Diary: The Brioni x Gentleman’s Journal Drinks

To celebrate the latest issue

Words: Gentleman's Journal

A brigade of waiters in handsome white jackets greeted guests at the Brioni townhouse in Mayfair last night, each of them armed with a bottle of large-format champagne. “I seem to have a never-ending drink!”, one attendee soon exclaimed, as he became aware that his glass had been topped up for the 47th time that hour. One certainly didn’t dare to put a glass down anywhere, even if the vast marble mantelpieces of this exquisite pile were perfectly inviting — not even when one began to jive unconsciously to the three-piece jazz band strumming away in the corner. All that exquisite cashmere! Imagine if something was to go awry! In fact, things stayed pleasingly un-awry all evening, as it happens — though the theme of “very good champagne” (thank you very much to Louis Roederer) and “very good tailoring” was maintained throughout. After drinks and mingling and “gosh such a busy time of year and yes I’ll have another Portofino Gin negroni thank you”, a smaller bunch of friends and entrepreneurs headed for a rather lovely dinner on the townhouse's upper slopes — where a burrata lounging in a miraculous, almost korma-grade pumpkin puree met them, followed by a very good roasted halibut and then a treacle tart.

Here, guests (including Joe Kennedy, Brioni CEO Federico Arrigoni, Oliver Proudlock, Lawrence Van Hagen, Sean Teale, Kydd Boyle, Brioni CMO Flavio Cerbone, and Sam Webb) all thoroughly enjoyed a very good Italian red — and were only interrupted when Harry Jarman stood up to show off the new lastest issue of Gentleman’s Journal, adorned as it was by Jesse Burgess, Caspar Lee, and Harry Stebbings, each of whom were in residence. Their presence as entrepreneurs-about-town was a nifty link back to Brioni, actually — the brand that has outfitted the successful and the tasteful for 80 years now, and has always been something of a pioneer in its own right. Did you know that Brioni was the first menswear brand to do a runway show, way back in 1952? And the first tailoring brand to offer ready to wear? And that they invented the trunk show? Well, you do now, and so do I — even if that, and other jolly factoids, have been greatly clouded by an unaccountably fuzzy head this morning. Doppio espresso, pronto!