Modern Gentleman’s Masterclass

What do you need to be a gentleman? Or more importantly, what do you need to be a modern gentleman?

It is getting increasingly difficult to define contemporary masculinity and therefore how to act as a gentleman. Fortunately, providing the answers this week was Smirnoff Black’s Modern Gentleman Masterclass, which combined three elements of what every gentleman needs to perfect. It did help that the event was held in Sketch, a restaurant that is both swanky and raffish.

According to Smirnoff the three disciplines that every modern gentleman needs to perfect are: grooming, dressing well and the ability to make a good cocktail. I started on the sartorial side of things, conversing with the people from Ted Baker. I learned that the key to dressing stylishly is to keep it simple but also to try and allow your clothes to express yourself rather than simply covering you up. I left with a lot to think about.

The cocktail making class, led by top mixologist Daryl Haldane, was definitely in line with my interests. Everyone knows how to make a decent enough Martini but a gentleman should know how to provide a twist to an established favourite. So we were led through how to make an apple Martini, incorporating vodka, honey water and apple juice. Very simple, very tasty and all carried out with panache and a knowing sense of ‘yes, this is rather cool’.

Moving onto the grooming stall, I settled down for a wet shave from Paul dos Reis from Sharps Barbers. He passed on several tips such as shaving towards the chin and to use hot towels before shaving to open up the skin’s pores. However, most interestingly was the idea that it is best to shave at night, thereby allowing the skin more time to recover.

Yet, although the presentations and the treatments were all very thorough and entertaining, I was left a little unsure of their necessity to a modern gentleman. Even if this event had been put on in the 1930s and the assembled crowd was being shown how to make the perfect cocktail and how to dress themselves, there would still have been a few looking on wondering whether this was all a bit old hat.

The event felt more like an indulgence rather than a masterclass. Perhaps a modern gentleman masterclass should have focused on how to clean up baby sick or detailed instructions on how to put together a decent Bechamel sauce. After all, your girlfriend hasn’t got time after being called into Linklaters to finish off the finer points of the new European directive and its application to current working standards.

The Modern Gentleman’s Masterclass was held on June 1 and 2 at:

Sketch
9 Conduit Street
Soho
W1S 2XG

Tel: 020 7659 4500