In London – and forget those extra public pressures on politicians – the lovely old Sloane world of manor houses simply hasn’t cut it since Big Bang in 1986, the point at which Mrs. Thatcher really started to achieve her ambition to make this country more like America – its ambition, economy, it’s very tangible measures of success. Peter York Read Quote
I’m certainly not a person who spends their every waking moment soaking themselves in signs and signals of the sort that cult studies people study; and it’s partly, I suppose, because some of those signs and signals aren’t worth bothering about. You have to be selective about these things. Peter York Read Quote
Marmite – like that other little black-jar job, Bovril – is so much a Mark 1 staple-of-Empire brand, so much part of the Edwardian world of enamel advertising signs, the history of grin-and-bear-it industrial food. Peter York Read Quote
I cling to the basic set of tenets laid out in Tom Wolfe’s ‘New Journalism’ – to get out there like the great French novelists of the 19th century and study life. I am a Tom Wolfe fan of the first order. Peter York Read Quote
Haagen-Dazs (a clever Scandi-sounding name invented by Americans in 1961) was bought for its Euro-sounding sophistication by the kind of Americans who first bought those Mercs and Beemers, while Ben & Jerry’s (now owned by Unilever) brought a post-hippy sensibility to bear. Buyers saw the brand as saying ‘all-natural, organic and Fairtrade.’ Peter York Read Quote
For me, wearing a tie is a pleasure, a recherche one but a pleasure nonetheless. You could say that I’m avoiding tie avoidance. My own gorgeous collection runs into hundreds and I buy them the way I buy books – I simply can’t pass a shop. I have loved them since I could spend my own money on them. Peter York Read Quote
Socially smart people have always mocked the threateningly mobile, and anti-branding is a central strand of high-end status conflict now. Peter York Read Quote
Men turn to formal wear when they want a new job or when they think their current one is in danger. They try to present themselves as powerful and successful. Peter York Read Quote
Selling scent is a key job for celebrities. At any one time, there’ll be hundreds of them at it, going on the world’s talk shows, doing photo-shoots, providing employment for thousands. Celebrities are instant brands. Peter York Read Quote
When you get inside a literary novel you feel that the author, more often than not, just doesn’t know enough about things. They haven’t been around enough – novelists never go anywhere. Once I discovered true books about real things – books like ‘How To Run a Company’ – I stopped reading novels. Peter York Read Quote
