TIMOTHY EVEREST MBE LAUNCHES NEW PODCAST CLUB FLANNEL

Renowned bespoke tailor and designer, Timothy Everest MBE launched his very own podcast this week called Club Flannel. The inaugural episode saw Timothy paired with his partner in crime Danny Kellard about the relaunch of Grey Flannel on Chiltern Street and Tim asks the question, Where is Timothy Everest now?

The show Club Flannel promises to become an eclectic mix of conversation and interviews on anything from style, fashion, art, cars, food, music, film and much more.

In the second episode I'm told there will be a discussion on Steve McQueen to coincide with an event with the Cooler King in early December at the Grey Flannel store. Pete Brooker from the There Will Be Bond podcast joins him and plays an old interview with Steve McQueen's recently deceased son, Chad McQueen. Timothy also goes on to discuss how he has been inspired by Steve McQueen along with his client base.

Steve McQueen is a great inspiration not only to my customers, but myself. In the early days of the business, where you couldn't just go and google something, I found it easier to illustrate how things went together by referencing film or art and so on. I'm not particularly academic, but I think I'm quite visually literate. I was brought up with a lot of films. Steve McQueen was a big influence. I used to race karts with my uncles, and films like Le Mans were on my radar when I was quite young. And then during the 80s, the Armani years I started looking back to the late 60s. I loved that period. One of the films that I was really inspired by, was The Thomas Crown Affair. It resonated with me. There was a young man who was basing all his world on tradition, but he was subverting it.

His suits were tailored by a very good tailor, Doug Hayward, who happened to be on Mount Street, not Savile Row. But they were more contemporary cuts. He drove a Rolls Royce, but it was the modern one. He had the townhouse with the butler, and then he eventually started dating the insurance investigator, and then he had the latest beach buggy. So it very much was in the now, but a lot of the reference points were quite traditional. And I think that was very, very important to me.

McQueen wouldn't lend himself to that sort of character typically. That role would have better suited a Sean Connery or a Cary Grant perhaps. But the interesting thing was someone like Steve McQueen, he had natural style. He could put anything on and it would look very, very good. I mean, if you look at Bullitt, he's wearing that corduroy jacket and not a very nice roll neck jumper, but he still looks cool driving around that Mustang.

You can follow the Club Flannel show on Spotify now, be sure to check out the Grey Flannel store as they will be having some Steve McQueen inspired merch that is focused around On Any Sunday, a Documentary on motorcycle racing featuring stars of the sport, including film star Steve McQueen, a racer in his own right.