Style council
Neil Clark
The past 20 years have not been happy times for lovers of pure, unadulterated glamour. The global hegemony of Anglo-Saxon culture has done to style what the Crusades did to Arab-Christian understanding — as any glance at the baseball-capped hordes marauding down a British high street on a Saturday afternoon will show.
How can we begin the fightback? Some might prefer a national demonstration for the reintroduction of glamour. But if two million people shouting 'Stop the War' failed to persuade the PM of the folly of invading Iraq, it is hard to see how two million shouting 'Stop the Grunge' could he any more successful. The ancient Chinese philosophers advise us to begin any great enterprise with a small step. The single most effective way for us to begin the battle for a more colourful, exciting and stylish world is to head down to St James's and buy a cigarette holder.
By smoking with a cigarette holder, you are doing two things. First, you are enjoying the pleasures of tobacco in the safest way possible: a silicon filter inserted in the holder reduces the intake of tar and other carcinogens by up to 30 per cent. Secondly, you are cocking a snook at the puritans and grunge merchants determined to eliminate the last vestiges of style from our lives. Surely there is no single item known to man more stylish, sophisticated or downright sexy than a cigarette holder. There is also, in this age of corporate-induced uniformity, no item more subversive.
Cigarette holders first appeared on the scene in the 1920s, the essential fashion accessory for any flapper or self-respecting bohemian. An early populariser of the habit was Edith Nesbit, poet, Fabian and author of The Railway Children. For Nesbit, a long cigarette holder 'became part of the picture she suggested — a Raffish Rossetti, with her long full throat and luxuriant hair, smoothly parted'. Unsurprisingly. Nesbit always found herself 'surrounded by adoring young men', dazzled by ter magnificent appearance'.
The cigarette holder entered a new golden age with the invention in Germany of the Denicotea filter in 1932. Described as 'the ultimate means to reduce tar and nicotine and avoid yellow fingers', the so-called DA cartridge meant that smoking with a holder was not only drop-dead sexy but could be healthier, too. As a supreme irony, a few months after the breakthrough, the most tabaczophobic government in history came to power in Germany. Berlin, spiritual cigarette-holder capital of the world in the 1920s, became, in 1939, the first city in the world to ban smoking in public places. In the free world, things were thankfully still done differently.
In those glorious, smoke-filled days of the 1930s and 1940s, almost anyone who was anyone could be seen smoking with a cigarette holder. World leaders and politicians from across the political spectrum: FDR, Pandit Nehru, Josip Broz Tito; mill
tary men like Douglas MacArthur; gangsters like Al Capone. Britain's bestselling writer of the interwar period, Edgar Wallace, made the cigarette holder his trademark, as did its most famous composer of musical plays, Noel Coward. For Hollywood or Elstree starlets of the age, smoking with a cigarette holder was almost de rigueur. Today's 'stars' hold wedding parties where guests are issued with matching pink tracksuits and are served with hamburgers. Sixty years ago, they sat in nightclubs, sipping pink champagne and exhaling nonchalantly as the band played on.
In Britain, cigarette holders survived postwar austerity and remained in vogue for many years. Princess Margaret did her bit for the cause, when, at the age of 19, she was first seen in public with her three-inch holder; sales rocketed again after Audrey Hepburn's unforgettable portrayal of Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Nyree Dawn Porter, Peter O'Toole, Terry-Thomas and Anne, Duchess of Westminster — owner of Arkle, the greatest racehorse of the period — were other postwar icons who must be mentioned in dispatches.
Thirty years on and the sad march of health fascism and political correctness means that while FCUK T-shirts are two a penny in the high street, it is rare to spot a cigarette holder in use. Anti-smoking fanati cism becomes more hysterical by the day: in the recent Thunderbirds film. Lady Penelope was not only deprived of her strings but of her cigarette holder too, on the grounds that it would not set a good example. Forget the bad language and casual violence that pepper most of today's films, clearly it's the use of a smoker's accessory which represents the greatest social evil.
For those determined to resist this insidious nonsense and to help initiate a new golden age for the cigarette holder, Davidoffs of London, on the corner of St James's and Jermyn Street, must be the first port of call. The store stocks a wide selection of Denicotea and two-and-a-halfto three-anda-half-inch Dunhill holders (ranging from l8—£26) into which silicon filters can be fitted, as well as individually made meerschaum holders, without filters, which come in their own boxes and cost £24.50. Headturning telescopic holders ranging from five to 18 inches long are available from £12.50, and for those who like to get every last ounce of pleasure from their cigarette, a 12-inch gold-tipped ejector model (f14.95) is both an elegant and practical option. Dainty five-inch 'trumpet' holders (fl2.50) are perhaps the call for those having to do the majority of their smoking in confined spaces, but if he/she's buying, then one of Davidoff's exquisite lacquered enamel-, silveror goldplated holders (03) is highly recommended. For cigarillo smokers wishing to take up the holder habit, Davidoff's has a collection of rodium-plated holders from £75 to £90: if you've never smoked a cigarillo before in your life, one look at these beautiful pieces of workmanship will make you want to light one up pretty quickly.
Down the road at Alfred Dunhill, 48 Jermyn Street, the holders on sale range from £12.90 models to three-inch holders made of briar (£75). There is also a good selection of 'trumpet' holders. All the holders in the Dunhill 'White Spot' range come equipped with filters — further details can be found on www.whitespot.co.uk.
A good collection of meerschaum holders, ranging from £12.95 to £17.95, can be found round the corner at J.J.Fox & Robert Lewis, 19 St James's Street, as well as a range of Lucite holders, which cost from £4.55. For those unable to get to London, or who find their nearest tobacconist does not stock holders, there are various possibilities on the Internet. The Gothic Shoppe (www.thegothicshoppe.com) has a mouthwatering variety, including a new four-andhalf-inch model which fits cloves and slimmer cigarettes.
Wherever you do buy your holder, be sure to use it in public. Only when cigarette holders are as common a sight in our streets as FCUK T-shirts are today will we know that the fight all against the mind-numbing ugliness is well under way. Yesterday's subversives used petrol bombs. Today's need only a cigarette holder.
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