If Beau Brummell were alive and kicking today, wandering the streets in pre-syphlitic glory, his shoes sparkling from a bubbly-polish, a dandy-rific smile on a roguish face, he'd have fled the shopping parlours of Mayfair long ago to find a home instead in English Laundry. He'd swagger in, sit down and meet his 21^st Century doppelganger, Christopher Wicks, the brilliantly eccentric madman genius behind the line.

I met Wicks in his Downtown Los Angeles offices, his face a big bowl-full of smiles, his hair tussled, dressed impeccably in an English Laundry coat, shirt and jeans, a scarf wrapped cravat-like round his neck, presenting himself as every bit the personification of his line's mantra, "Elegant. Arrogant. English."

He whisks through his show-room, a large presence, a bigger force, spouting his fashion truisms, "We dress to attract - we're all peacocks - fashion is about sex."

It's very difficult to look bad in an English Laundry design, so long as the wearer has enough confidence to lose their anonymity amongst a crowd whilst in full bloom in peacock regalia. The embroidery shimmers in the sun, the built-in patterns juxtapose to the shirts themselves, the buttoned cufflinks don the EL logo, stolen from the Queen herself. I have a closet lined with these peacock feathers; they are indeed my favourite shirts.

I feel as though in wearing English Laundry I'm sporting a piece of Wicks' personality: the Mancunian son of a coal-miner who grew up in the glow of swinging 60s London, his perspectives altered and evolved through the music of the times. It's the music that's most inspired him and has given way to shirts that once upon a time would have been worn by John Lennon or Ray Davies. Fashion, says Wicks, is "the closest thing [there is] to rock ‘n roll without the guitar."

And Wicks is very much the fashion rock star. At 57 he works a twelve hour day, sleeps for no more than five hours, and yet he carries on with more energy than I - thirty years his junior and an avid eight hour sleeper - possess in a week. He collects cars and watches, spends his nights on-the-town and actively designs for five lines in addition to English Laundry: English Rose, Clean Laundry, Fender, Jimi Hendrix and his new eco-friendly line People's Army. (Each line, by the by, as intricately amazing and unique as his signature English Laundry.) And through it all, he maintains, "I feel fucking brilliant."

Whether you be Beau Brummell or Ray Davies, one of the Carnebetian army marching on or a Los Angeles gentleman-about-town, the uniqueness that is English Laundry sets it apart from the other designer garb lining store windows. It is, in my fair opinion, the singularly most inspired men's line to come out of this country, and all from the clever noggin of that Dedicated Follower of Fashion himself, Mr. Christopher Wicks.

THE DETAILS: English Laundry
7519 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90046
www.englishlaundry.com

Story by Jeremy Tarr.
Photos courtest of Global Rebels Inc.

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