december 2011 preview
DESCRIPTION
Gerard Butler: Failed Lawyer. Reformed Hooligan. Man of Action. The Sharp List: 71 Gifts For Men. A Canadian War Hero in Afghanistan. How To Break The Rules in Style.TRANSCRIPT
16 S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M | D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2
SHARP » CONTENTS
TUXEDOS, INCREDIBLE CARS AND 71 THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED
99 60 81
FOR MORE CARS, WOMEN AND OTHER MANLY PURSUITS, VISIT SHARPFORMEN.COM
ENTERTAIN LIKE A CHEFServe your guests in style
with the help of some
great Canadian chefs.
Plus, tips on getting in
shape from a professional
gastronomist.
THE SHARP AUTOMOTIVE AWARDS Don’t buy another
automobile until you read
our list of the year’s best cars.
THE INSIDE MENThe truth behind the largest
insider trading scandal in
Canadian history—involving
over 100 crimes, spanning
14 years, and ten million
illicit dollars.
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60
68
99
12276
115
WAR HEROA story of heroism above the
call of duty. How a Canadian
serving in the US Special
Forces risked his life to save
an injured Afghan soldier.
FORMALWEAR ON ICEOpportunities to wear a tux
don’t come up often. All the
more reason to look good
when they do.
WINTER WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS From bags to gloves to
scarves, here are the must-have
accessories of the season, and
how to wear them.
GERARD BUTLERThe star of Machine Gun Preacher and the forthcoming
Coriolanus teaches us a thing
or two about manliness.
WINTER FASHION
CANADA’S GUIDE TO FINE TIMEPIECES131
81
18 S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M | D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2
SHARP » CONTENTS
SOMETHING TO TALK A’BOOTPut away your galoshes, this
is the best casual boot of
the season.
SHARP WOMANClaire Coffee considered
being a nurse. Instead, she’s
an actress. We’re happy
about that.
FILM Before Oscar season forces
you into seeing the same five
films everyone else is, here are
some award-worthy movies
you haven’t heard of.
MUSICIf Led Zeppelin drummer John
Bonham was a rock god, what
does that make his son, Jason?
We find out. Plus, this season’s
must have discs. Yes, discs.
BOOKS There’s still time to read the best
books of 2011 before the year
is out. Especially the one about
zombies.
THE TRAVELING MAN:HAVANAThere’s more to Cuba than
cigars, beaches and waning
communism.
GUIDE
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GROOMINGIf there is nothing more manly than
a hearty shot of booze, then these
are the manliest grooming products
around.
STYLEDesigner sweatpants that are so nice
you could almost wear them outside
your home. Almost. Plus, how to stay
warm with layers.
MEANT TO BE BROKENWhen it comes to fashion, rules are
more like guidelines. Having true
style means knowing when to follow
conventional wisdom, and when to
throw it out the window.
30 32 34
38 40 46
STANDARDS 14 Editor’s Letter 22 Letters 24 Man About Town 128 Where to Buy 130 Man Of Style
40 S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M | D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2
SHARPGROOMING
ESSENTIALPRODUCTS
For the most part one should be wary of alcohol as a skincare ingredient. While it’s an effective cleanser, it can also dry out your skin, which in winter can be especially unpleasant. These booze-inspired grooming solutions, however, contain bold, traditional fragrances and botanical ingredients that won’t damage your skin. In terms of grooming, there aren’t many substances more rugged, manly, or superbly old-school than splashing your mug with a dram of whiskey. Take that, tea tree oil. – GREG HUDSON
BOTTOMS UP!Five great ways to incorporate booze into your morning routine.
MALIN + GOETZ
RUM BAR SOAP
Infused with the
New York-based
apothecary’s own
rum eau de
toilette, this has
been specifically
formulated to hy-
drate any skin type,
while leaving just
a trace of sweet
spicyness. $10
CLUBMAN VIRGIN
ISLAND BAY RUM
While it seems like it
should be an aftershave,
this all-purpose fragrance
works as a total-body
toner. It packs a cooling,
refreshing, exotic punch.
Resist the urge to mix it
into your mojitos. $14
PORTLAND
GENERAL
STORE,
WHISKEY
AFTERSHAVE
Smoky,
unfiltered,
complex, and
like the best
whiskeys, this
bold-smelling
aftershave is
made in small
batches. It may
or may not put
hair on your
chest. $16
PASHANA BAY RUM HAIR TONIC
With the essences of clove, bay oil and patchouli,
this keeps your hair nourished, conditioned and
smelling exotic—in a good way. It’s an invigorating
addition to your daily hair maintenance. $15
CAUDALIE
CRUSHED
CABERNET
SCRUB
Decidedly less
rugged, but none-
theless intoxicat-
ing, this body
scrub—inspired by
vinotherapy (which
harnesses the
beneficial proper-
ties of grape seeds
and skins)—exfoli-
ates, refines, and
nourishes your
skin. $30
More walk-in humidor than airport smoking lounge, consider these wintery fragrances a sophisticated and unexpected accent to your winter wardrobe.
THE SMOKING SECTION
PORTLAND GENERAL
STORE TOBACCO EAU
DE TOILETTE
Made from a recipe un-
earthed from the 1930s,
this bold fragrance is
softened by notes of
flowers and freshly
mowed hay. $70
TOM FORD
TOBACCO VANILLE
Part of a growing trend
of luxury fragrances
designed for both men
and women, it comes off
more sweet than smoky,
which isn’t a bad thing
at all. $215
WEST THIRD BRAND
TOBACCO 1812 TONIC
BODY SPRAY
A sultry, masculine winter
scent based on tobacco,
and infused with cocoa,
honey and dried fruit. $30
Pleats have long been recog-
nized as an effective a way to
help streamline the more portly
man’s physique, but this has
caused younger, slimmer men
to shy away from the style, in
favour of the more casual flat
front pant. Recently, however,
many designers have show-
cased more tailored slim-fitting
pleated pants that can look
good on anyone. One thing
to bear in mind: fit. The pants
don’t need to be skin tight—or
even slim—to streamline your
physique. Just make sure they
sit properly at your waist and
don’t bunch around your shoes.
A.P.C. WOOL DOUBLE PLEAT
FRONT PANTS, $280; BRIONI
SHIRT, $595; POLO RALPH LAU-
REN TIE, $115; CANALI SUEDE
BELT, $195; LOUIS VUITTON
“INSIDE-OUT” SHOES, $990; PS
BY PAUL SMITH OVERCOAT, $910.
46 S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M | D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2
SHARPSTYLE
BREAKING THE RULESRules of style generally exist for good reasons: logic (don’t wear socks with sandals), aesthetics (don’t wear a brown belt with a black suit, or vice versa) or general decorum (don’t wear sweatpants out of the house unless you’re jogging). Some rules, however, are more flexible, and with the right amount of aesthetic judgment, can be broken to great benefit. Much like the following.
RULE #1 PLEATS AREN’T FASHIONABLE
76 S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M | N O V E M B E R . 2 0 1 1
Gerald Butler’ s tough guy persona takes a m
orally complex turn
ManlinessTHE ART OF
Gerard Butler’ s tough guy persona takes a m
orally complex turn
P . 7 7
ManlinessTHE ART OF
TEXT BY JOSHUA NEUMAN • PHOTOS BY KURT ISWARIENKOTEXT BY JOSHUA NEUMAN • PHOTOS BY KURT ISWARIENKO
erard Butler is exhausted. After spending nearly the entire morning and afternoon training for an upcoming role, he finds himself wandering around the back nine of a country club in Half Moon Bay, Califor-nia—as if in a daze. His body aches, his muscles are sore and he’s on his cellphone, so focused on the conversation he’s having that he doesn’t notice the three elderly men about to tee off in his direction. I know this because I’m the one on the phone with him talking about his two latest films.
The spectacle of three men aiming their projectiles in Butler’s general direction is an apt metaphor for Butler’s career at the moment. After 30 some-odd films that have regularly generated impressive box-office numbers, Butler’s recent turn towards more complex roles has left him vulnerable to critics lining up like the golf-ers waiting to tee off at him. In Machine Gun Preacher he portrays Sam Childers, a former drug-dealing criminal who finds his unexpected calling as the protector of hun-dreds of kidnapped and orphaned children in war-torn Sudan. In Coriolanus, he plays Tullus Aufidius, the opportunistic guerilla leader with whom the title character joins forces in Shakespeare’s story of vengeance. But the reviews have been kind. As Scot-tish countryman Craig Ferguson recently joked with the 42-year-old actor: “I knew you were hunky, but I didn’t know you were this good.”
The “hunky” label has tailed Butler throughout his career. His breakthrough role as Leonidas in 2006’s Zach Snyder-helmed 300 did for Butler what Spartacus did for Kirk Douglas almost a half-century
before: define him to a generation as the classic warrior ideal. Since then, Butler has done a couple of thrillers (Shattered, Law Abiding Citizen), romantic comedies (The Ugly Truth, The Bounty Hunter) and even family fare (Nim’s Island, How to Train Your Dragon), but more often than not these roles have left Butler competing with his own abs for critical attention. With the morally complex roles he’s taken on in Machine Gun Preacher and Coriolanus, Butler is showing that there’s more to him than rugged charm.
Not many people know that you had a
brief stint as a litigator before you be-
came an actor. Yet, you seem to have a
knack for portraying battlers even when
it is the battle of the sexes. Do you ever
wonder whether your law degree pre-
pared you for your acting career?
Obviously, everything that I’ve done, deal-ing with people along the way, has shaped me to become the actor I’ve become. It was at law school where I really became a man—where I learned to have fun and, at the same time, to reach my true ambi-tion. I don’t know if law school taught me “battling,” however. It taught me how to work, how to focus and how to strategize. In a sense, it made me less warrior-like and more cerebral—less Sam Childers than Tullus Aufidius. It’s where I first developed my mental muscles.
You broke up law school with some
time in America—cross-country road
trips, partying and trouble with the
law. What did you learn about America
during that period?
I ended up there twice, earlier in my life: once, when I was 17, when I worked at Sea World and then the second time, which was more troublesome and out of control when I went all over the country. America was the land of adventure where I could be irresponsible, where I could climb moun-tains or jump off ships. I was free. You grow up and every movie is American, the world is American. It was before I knew I was going to be an actor and before I knew I’d ever have to grow up. I felt like I was getting a lot of it out of my system. I found it to be warm and welcoming, and I was coming with a fun-loving attitude so it was a good match. I feel very much at home in America. I have the same energy as the Americans.
P . 7 8
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P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y A D R I A N A R M S T R O N G
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1A WARM BLANKET
This represents a collaboration between Hudson’s Bay and Caroline Fur. Combin-ing coyote pelt and the classic striped Hudson’s Bay blanket, it’s the perfect thing to accent your new brown leather sofa. It’s also a good way to keep a woman warm. $2,185
HBC BLANKET
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2A MINI-BAR THAT'S A WORK OF ART
THE AEROPODDesigned and custom-built by Toronto master craftsman Dean Jackson, the Aeropod was inspired by classic auto-mobiles, and is guaranteed to elicit envy from all who see it. Make sure you fill it with something nice. $9,500 at Aeropod.ca
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3-8 LUXURIOUS LIBATIONS
A $20,000 BOTTLE OF SCOTCH
MAKER’S MARK 46An extra-special bourbon with subtle notes of spice and woody caramel. $50
GLENLIVET XXV This carefully aged 25-year reserve is as balanced and nuanced as they come. $350
STOLICHNAYA ELIT Smoother than typical Stoli, Elit is a sipping vodka designed to be savoured neat or over ice. $70
MOUNT GAY 1703 CASK RUM A luxurious blend of 10–to 30-year-old rums that brings out flavours of orange, tamarind and brown sugar. $125
COURVOISIER 21 COGNACThe only cognac to definitively give its age, it has a subtle fruit beginning and a luscious finish. $350
BACCARAT SPIN TUMBLERS, $125AND DECANTER $715 at Williams-Sonoma
Opposite page, left to right:
This limited-edition Lalique decanter is filled with 60-year-old Macallan small batch, single malt Scotch, which is some of the finest they’ve ever made. Compared to the most expensive bottle of Scotch sold in the world last year, also by Macallan (and at a price of almost half a million dollars), this bottle is practically a steal.
Styl
ist: A
licia
Sim
pson
(Plu
tino
Grou
p); M
odel
: Kel
ly B
rads
haw
(For
d); H
air a
nd M
akeu
p: N
icole
Har
rison
.
9 TO HAVE A DRINK WHENEVER HE DAMN WELL PLEASES
There is a disturbing trend in our society towards not drinking surreptitiously in public. That trend needs to stop. A good flask will help.
DUNHILL CHASSIS LEATHER HIP FLASK $180
11-12A (REALLY) GOOD CIGAR AND ASHTRAY
RAMON ALLONES SUPER RAMON $45
S.T. DUPONT DIAMONDHEAD ASHTRAY $450
Both at La Casa Del Habano
THINGS EVERY MAN NEEDS (THAT MONEY CAN’T BUY): 13 One good—mostly harmless—vice.
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S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M 115
D R E S S W E L L F O R A N Y
W I N T E R O C C A S I O N W I T H
T H E S E C H I L L - B L O C K I N G
S C A R V E S , G L OV E S , H AT S
A N D C OAT S .
WE AT H E R P R O
OF
SL
ICK
AC
CE
S S O R I E S F O R T H E F O U L DA
YS
AH
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D
P H O T O S :
V I N C E N T L I O N S
P . 1 1 5
ST
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IST
: D
ON
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WH
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JU
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IN
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MA
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UP
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: D
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(J
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OD
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(E
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116 S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M | N O V E M B E R . 2 0 1 1 KE
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$32
5; B
ELS
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$20
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$26
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1,67
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S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M 117BE
LSTA
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$99
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160
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118 S H A R P F O R M E N . C O M | N O V E M B E R . 2 0 1 1 ZE
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4,69
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345;
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370
; BE
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; MO
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S H A R P P . 1 2 2
Canadians have shaken the dust of Kan-dahar off their boots. The last combat unit came home in July, while the men and women packing up the leftover war materiel were due to complete their job this month (December). Kandahar has—for most Canadians—been consigned to the history books. The roadside bombs, the blood and the horror of five years of guerrilla war are a mere echo in the pub-lic consciousness, something regarded with the hazy consistency of a bad dream. Yet, the truth is: Afghanistan is not over. Canada has 950 troops in Kabul who are training the Afghan National Army. And there are Canadians, such as Ottawa na-tive Grant Derrick, who’ve chosen to serve in relative anonymity with U.S. forces. Derrick, who received both a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for valour, spoke with Sharp about the unfinished war on the other side of the border.
Grant Derrick was lying prone in the open, shielding a wounded Afghan platoon ser-geant on a stretcher, as machine gun fire showered both of them from a series of razor-topped ridges.
“It was literally coming down like rain-drops,” the retired Special Forces staff sergeant recalled. “I’d never seen anything like it.”
It was May 4, 2010.The Taliban and a group of foreign fight-
ers controlled the high ground around them in the isolated village of Hendor, way up in the folded mountains of Laghman province, east of Kabul.
“They were in caves and spiderholes. We had basically walked into people waiting for us,” Derrick said.
It was a pre-dawn raid with 70 American and Afghan commandos blowing in out of the
darkness in three CH-47 Chinook helicop-ters. But from the moment they stepped off the ramp, they knew something was wrong.
“The whole town; there was nobody there. They knew before we actually arrived there.”
How they knew was anybody’s guess.Early in the assault, an Afghan platoon
leader—Sgt. Sami Ullah—had been shot in the face and, to treat him, his body armour was stripped off, leaving him vulnerable but lighter to carry.
That’s what Derrick and several other commandos had been trying to do when they crossed an open space amid the jumble of ancient mud walls and huts. They’d called for a medevac helicopter and had been try-ing to reach the landing zone. A furious bar-rage of fire saw his Afghan stretcher-bearers scatter for cover, leaving the medic and the wounded platoon sergeant exposed.
“He was just this guy wrapped up in this litter and he’s got no protection at all,” said Derrick, who’d long had a love of both sol-diering and medicine.
Alone, he had dragged the litter towards the only cover, a dilapidated one-metre-high wall that was no more than a pile of rocks.
But the Taliban snipers were good. They had already killed two Afghan commandos. They were agonizingly cool and precise, and determined to pick off the wounded man. A bullet smashed into Ullah’s left hip.
“I knew that he got hit. I could feel the jolt in the litter,” Derrick said with a trace of disbelief in his voice.
“I thought to myself, at first, there’s no way this guy got shot again. Poor bastard. He already got shot in the face, now he gets shot again.”
There was blood everywhere. Bursts of machine gun fire kicked up spouts of dust around them and a bullet grazed Derrick’s ankle.
“It wasn’t painful. It was just like fifty bee stings in one part of your body,” he said. “It was more my nerves being rattled than pain.”
As the staccato rush of fire reached a fe-verish height, he focused, hunkered down and treated Ullah’s hip wound, all the while keeping the young Afghan breathing, and shooting back at his tormentors.
They were cut off from the main assault force and pinned down with nowhere to move.
The dusty, remote, Bronze Age village, high in the mountains of eastern Afghani-
stan is about as far as you can get from the red brick, leafy, suburbs of staid, old Ottawa while still remaining on the same planet. How a guy who considers himself a Cana-dian kid—born in Florida of a U.S. father and a Canadian mother—journeyed the distance between the two says much about the relaxed, easy-flowing nature of the Ca-nadian-American experience.
Ottawa in the 1990s was Jean Chretien’s town, and the capital was still effused in the sunset of the liberalism of the 1960s, with all the subtle, smug anti-Americanism that came with it. For the generation still in high school, the one that would fight the coming war, poli-tics was the least of their concerns. It mattered little that the Canadian military had been dis-graced and gutted in the wake of the Soma-lia torture scandal and Paul Martin’s drive to dismantle big government. The military as an institution almost disappeared from public view, to the point where Derrick had no idea that the country had elite special forces. It was only after he joined the U.S. military that he found out units like JTF-2 existed.
The events of Sept. 11, 2001 propelled both countries into the Afghan war.
S H A R P P . 1 2 4
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The World's Most Expensive Cellphones
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41 PA
GES O F TH RE E-P I E CE S UITS COOL DENIM KILLER
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TS
T H E
STYLE I S S U E
41PAPAP
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BOOT
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T H E
STYLEI S S U E
ADRIANA LIMA:USHERING BOYS
INTO MANHOOD SINCE 2000
BEST AND WORST: WE SELECT CANADA'S POLITICAL FASHION
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SHARPHUGHJACKMA
NDANCING, SINGING TOUGH GUY
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