London 2018: Mayfair - Shopping Arcades, Fortnum & Mason

Located immediately east of Hyde Park, Mayfair is one of the most expensive areas in London, named after a two week fair held every May in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the U.K. version of Monopoly, Mayfair holds the prestigious honour of being the most expensive property in the board game, equivalent to Boardwalk in the American version. Today, Mayfair is home to luxury residential properties, upscale hotels, restaurants and shops. In particular, there are several long, covered shopping arcades that date back to the 17th Century

Built in 1819, the Burlington Arcade runs north-south along Bond Street from Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens and is one of London’s oldest shopping arcades. It is the prototype for the Galerie St. Hubert arcade in Brussels, which we visited last year.  At the northern entrance of the arcade sits a beautiful bronze sculpture by Lawrence Holofcener titled “Allies”, depicting the comradery between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Mayfair in general and specifically the Burlington Arcade are a mecca for vintage mechanical watch lovers and collectors like my husband Rich.  Burlington Arcarde has over a dozen stores selling rare time pieces from all of the high-end brands.  The Vintage Watch Company specializes in old Rolexes, with their gimmick being that you should pick a Rolex made in your birth year.  We found ones reflecting each of our birth years, but they were not appealing to me. Dan Henry had a collection of old pocket watches from the late 1800s to early 1900s as well as a 1960 18-carat gold Movado Emerto travel clock.  The Omega Boutique had a collection of Speedmaster chronographs and Seamaster Diver watches dating from the 1960s-70s, as well as a very interesting rectangular quartz watch from the 1970s that had both an analog and a digital display.  Another unique Omega watch was a 1952 square-faced watch made of 18 carat yellow gold that features a triple-date moonphase which means that you can tell the day, month and date on the watch, as well as the moonphase, which shows where the moon currently is in the sky (why you would want to know this information is another story…).  The interesting thing about this watch for me was the fact that the day and month seemed to be displayed in a foreign language that was not recognizable to me.

Rich’s favourite watch was the 1980 Jaeger LeCoultre Memovox with the blue face, which is a mechanical alarm watch that he spotted in the shop David Duggan and just had to try on.  I hardly know anything about watches myself and am not able to appreciate the mechanics or functional complications that make a timepiece interesting to Rich.  Instead, I am attracted to ones with weird shapes or colours in terms of the watch case or even the strap.  One of my favourites was a rectangular Jaeger LeCoultre gold dress watch with a unique mustard-coloured watch face and a curved crystal that reminds me of a car windshield.  While it didn't have all the mechanical complications that appealed to Rich, I liked this one because it looked so different from all the other watches.  In addition to the plethora of watch stores, there were also high end clothing, footwear including a Manolo Blahnik shop, accessories, art, antique, silver, glass and jewelry stores.

The Royal Arcade was built in 1879 and runs between Old Bond St. and Albermarle St.  The ornate mall features a saddled glass roof, curved windows, ionic columns, decorative stucco arches and outer façade, painted with a peachy orange hue and adorned with carvings of flora and reclining goddesses.  It became known as the “Royal” Arcade after shirtmaker H.W.Brettell was patronized by Queen Victoria, while Charbonnel et Walker held the royal warrant as official chocolatiers to the Queen.  The movie “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool” (which Rich watched at the Toronto International Film Festival last year) was filmed in the arcade.  At one of the watch stores, Rich spotted a 1945 IWC Miltary Mark X watch that was nicknamed the “Dirty Dozen”.  Inspired by the 1967 movie of the same name, in the watch world this refers to the 12 Swiss manufacturers who were commissioned by the British Ministry of Defence to create utilitarian waterproof military watches to be used by soldiers during World War II.  In front of the Piccadilly Arcade (1909) stands a sculpture of Beau Brummell, an arbiter of men’s fashion and style, who was a close friend of the future King George IV.  There weren’t any watches of interest in this arcade but we did find some quirky cuff-links shaped like skulls dressed in top hats, pirate gear, football helmets, Viking horns and more.  At the Patek Phillipe store, Rich tried on a 5146J annual calendar watch, which can detect which month has 30 vs 31 days, which is an impressive feat for a purely mechanical device.  However, it needs to be manually reset at the beginning of March, since it cannot handle the 28 or 29 days of February.  You would require a perpetual calendar to be able to handle February months, even for leap years. 

While we saw a small outlet inside Harrods Department Store, the flagship exhibition spaces for Halcyon Gallery are located across the street from each other on New Bond Street in Mayfair.  Founded in 1982, the Halcyon Gallery specializes in modern and contemporary art by international artists.  When we visited, the special exhibit on display was “Early Illustrations of Andy Warhol”, which gives a rare glimpse into early sketches by Warhol before he developed his famous silk-screen process.  The style of these drawings were quite different from any of the works that Warhol later became known for.  One collection was titled “25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy”, which ironically consists of only 16 colourful sketches of various types of cats, each inscribed with the word “Sam” plus one of a blue cat titled “One Blue Pussy”.  These were cats actually owned by Warhol and for some reason, he named them all Sam, except for the one named Blue Pussy.  Another collection called “Wild Raspberries” was turned into a tongue-in-cheek cookbook, mocking French haute cuisine.  Warhol created it in partnership with interior decorator and renowned hostess Suzie Frankfurt.  Suzie came up with the recipes which Andy Warhol illustrated, and his mother Julia Warhola (Warhol’s real last name) wrote out the text in her cursive handwriting.  The recipe for “Omlet Greta Garbo” includes the final instructions that it should be “always eaten alone in a candlelit room”, in reference to Garbo’s famous line “I vant to be alone”.  Both the sketches of the cats and the recipes were turned into self-published books.  The other gallery space across the street possibly houses Halcyon’s permanent collection, including more works by sculptor Lorenzo Quinn, which I was quite taken by when I saw them in Harrods.  I particularly like his Gravity series which shows a seated character hanging onto the arms of a vertically dangling second character.  In variations of this piece, the characters alternate between male and female, and are constructed with either bronze or aluminum, while the surrounding frame for the work could be aluminum or marble.

We came across the Lalique Glass outlet which sells crystal art pieces, vases, glassware, jewelry and perfume by various artisans and designers including vintage works by Rene Lalique himself.  We were surprised to find some crystal pieces designed by renowned British contemporary artist Damien Hirst including a pair of scissors which he titled “Eternal Cross”.  I didn't realize that Hirst worked in this medium, but I guess he works in all mediums.  He also created crystal versions of his famous skull sculpture titled “For the Love of God”.  The crystal versions, which come in clear, satin and black crystal sitting on a corian base, are called “Eternal Sleep”, linking them thematically with his other glass works made for Lalique.

Another fun store to visit in Mayfair is Hatchards, who are booksellers established in 1797 and reputed to be the oldest bookshop in the U.K.  Hatchards holds three Royal Warrants including the Royal Coat of Arms that proudly hangs above the entrance to the five-storied building.  The beautifully decorated shop offers both new titles and older works including out of print books and first additions.  Comfortable chairs and couches are available for sitting and browsing some titles before making your selection.  There is an excellent section dedicated to mysteries, which is Rich’s literary genre of choice, including a large selection of works by Agatha Christie, one of our favourite mystery writers.  Christie is celebrated in London with a huge 2.4 metre-high bronze memorial located near Covent Garden.  Shaped like a book with Christie’s profile in the middle, the memorial includes the image of a typewriter, her two most famous detectives—Hercules Poirot and Miss Marple, and a train that might reference one of her most well-known books, Murder on the Orient Express.

For our lunch in Mayfair, we chose the Indian restaurant GymKhana, whose name and décor is inspired by Indian “gymkhana clubs”.  These clubs are where members of high society socialize, dine, drink and play sports, which may include cricket and tennis based on the photos hanging on the restaurant walls and the images found on the menus.  On our first trip to London in 2000, we found the food merely passable and the concept of “fine dining” did not really exist.  Things have changed in the intermittent years and there are many more good and even great dining options.  GymKhana is the first of three restaurants on our trip itinerary that actually received a Michelin star, so we were quite excited for our meal.  It started off well enough when we ordered the Garlic Chilli Thetcha Soft Shell Crab sitting on a bed of Bombay Bhel (puffed rice and vegetables mixed with a savory sauce) and South Indian fried chicken wings served with tomato chutney.  We enjoyed both these appetizers, especially the crab which was perfectly breaded.  Unfortunately the main courses did not match the quality of the starters. Rich’s order of Kid Goat Keema (meaning minced meat) was nothing special and I thought that the Indian dishes we could get back in Toronto were superior.  My choice turned out to be even worse.  I ordered a wild mushroom, asparagus, morel and truffle rice pilau, since mushrooms and asparagus were two of my favourite foods.  What I received was a bowl of rice that contained such a small amount of mushrooms that I had to dig through looking for them, and there was no asparagus to be found at all!  I also did not taste any truffle flavour.  How disappointing!  Oh well, at least we had very good appetizers that were quite filling on their own.  We just hoped that our next two Michelin-star restaurants would turn out better (... and they did!)

Fortnum and Mason is a high-end department store which started as a grocery store established in 1707 by William Fortnum, who was a footman in Queen Anne’s court, and Hugh Mason.  Located at 181 Piccadilly Ave., the store made its reputation by supplying quality food through the Victorian era, focusing on exotic, specialty, as well as basic provisions.  It is said be where the Scotch Egg was invented, and the first emporium to stock Heinz baked beans.  Today this main location also sells housewares, fashion accessories and gift items.  We always like looking at the creative display windows in department stores and were not disappointed by the ones at Fortnum and Mason.  The windows right in front of the main entrance on Piccadilly had a teapot theme, with a variety of representations of teapots including one formed by stacking tea cups and saucers to produce the shape of a teapot.  The windows around the side of the building featured whimsical gift boxes in the trademark Fortnum and Mason green with gold ribbon, as well as protruding arms and legs.  The boxes are shown in various vignettes including dancing ladies, a mother and child with ice cream, and two lovers in an embrace.  I found it amazing how lively and animated these boxes appeared, and how well they conveyed their scenes and elicited an emotional response without the need for facial features on the boxes.

Above the main entrance is a 4-ton automaton clock with bells created from the same foundry as Big Ben.  The clock was commissioned in 1964 by Fortnum and Mason’s owner at the time, W. Garfield Weston.  At the top of each hour, a pair of 4-foot-high models of William Fortnum and Hugh Mason emerge from the compartments on either side of the clock, turn and nod to each other, then retreat, all while chimes and 18th Century-style music plays.  The model of Mr. Fortnum (dressed in green) is holding a tray while the one of Mr. Mason (dressed in red) is holding a candelabra.  Inside the store, a similar pair of figures guard the entrance to the grand food hall on the ground floor, and lead the way up the staircase to the upper levels.