Mr David Niven’s French villa
Now summer is officially over and everyone nestles into their Autumn coats as they return to work, we have a little look at what Team Murdock got up to on their hols.
The gentleman behind it all, Mr Brendan Murdock holidayed on the Côte d’Azur in Cap Ferrat, where he visited La Fleur du Cap, the former French home of actor Mr David Niven (star of one of the Most Murdock Man Films Of All Time Ever – ‘A Matter of Life and Death’). With one of the most elegant men in the history of film as the host, his Italianate villa with its own harbour was a prime focus of the glamorous party scene of the French Riviera that orbited around Princess Grace Kelly during the 50s and 60s, and which had begun a few decades earlier with the American writers of Fitzgerald, Hemmingway and co. The essence of which is the inspiration behind Murdock’s Avalon scent.
Mr David Niven
Laura Madewell of Murdock HQ, took this picture from her villa in the coastal Sicilian town of Castellammare del Golfo.
This Murdock Man blogger travelled to the Marche region of Italy and visited one of the country’s most famous cafés – Caffè Meletti in Ascoli Picena. Here I had one of the most marvellous iced coffees to ever cool my mouth and keep my heart pumping through the southern Italian summer heat. A lemony dollop of cream on top of a and bitter coffee. Perfect balance. A Starbuck’s Frappuccino it certainly wasn’t. Never mind the high quality of their low temperature caffeinated drinks though, I was most taken by the turquoise table and chairs on their outside seating area.
I also browsed through a tiny percentage of the hundreds and hundreds of stalls at Europe’s biggest flea market, the annual Braderie de Lille (which unsurprisingly takes place in Lille, France. )
Braderie de Lille
Alongside the rather fetching embroidered picture of a pipe-smoking elderly fisherman that I bargained for with a grumpy French Monsieur, I noticed a lot of barber shop bits and bobs such as Belmont barber chairs and this beautiful porcelain barbershop quartet. (For some reason I didn’t feel the need to part with my Euros for this one.)
I also came across this box of old strops and nasty looking razors.
And while we’re on barbershop based odds and ends found at markets, I also found this advert for Pears’ Shaving Cream in the back of an old Penguin book when browsing the fine second hand wares of Goldsmith Row Bookmarket in Hackney last weekend.
Mr Matthew Jessop
Barber Matthew Jessop of Murdock at Liberty, took his two young chaps to Wareham Forest on Dorset coast to do man stuff like hiking and sailing boats. Hemmingway would be proud. (Hemmingway also had great hair and a beard at various points of his life. So we like Hemmingway at Murdock.)
As well as attending the Olympic Torch Party in Hyde Park, Mr Luke Barkley-Young, Murdock’s Operations Manager spent a week of debauchery in Las Vegas to match the exploits of a certain ginger prince.
Head Barber of Murdock at Liberty, Mr Alex Glover, took in some of the capital’s cultural highlights that were taking place parallel to the games such as the BMW art car collection in Shoreditch. He was also lucky enough to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games.
The hardy Murdock festival goers of Murdock Shoreditch’s Josh Mihan and Murdock at Liberty’s Mr Gavin Sharp didn’t let some of the most welly-swallowing mud the world has ever seen stop them from having fun at boutique festival Secret Garden Party. While Aussie Josh, all excited about the exploring the many of isles of Britain, also took himself off to last weekend’s Bestival on the Isle of Wight.
Bestival 2012
And being an Australian fresh to London in the summer, Mr Mihan, of course, had to go and support Aussie tennis players at Wimbledon.
And finally, Mr David Sturgeon, Head Barber at Murdock Covent Garden was lucky enough to have tickets to the Olympic Stadium on the night that Mr Usain Bolt cruised home to be crowned the 200m Olympic champion for the second time.