Monday, October 3, 2011

Your House Is Burning. What Do You Take?


Name: Sean Crowley
Age: 30
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Occupation: Neckwear Designer

This list is to “the bare essentials” what Wellington’s-army-on-campaign is to a camping trip, but I suppose we all have a different idea of which things are “essential.” *Note: The carpet underneath is not merely decorative as the idea is that all these bits would be rolled up in it and carried out the front door in one go.

List: (Anti-clockwise from top left)
Striped college scarves (to secure the rolled up carpet and because I like them)
Leather collar box and stiff wing collars
Loose organic Assam BOP tea in silver caddy (which goes in the blue pot to the right)
Royal Lancers mess dress (and why not?)
Green silk formal waistcoat of the Porcellian Club with jacquard boar’s heads c.1931
Apparel Arts No.1 Christmas 1931
Paper silhouette of my royal consort, Lady Meredith
Johnnie Walker Black c.1950s (from a case found in an uncle’s basement)
Old Thurston braces
Carved wooden school placque
Pour le Merite medal given to me by a WWII veteran friend
Coldstream Guards Colour Sergeant’s scarlet coat
Old striped ties
Wedgwood plate c.1870s and RAF crested officer’s mess cutlery
French 1930s military-style hairbrushes (use ‘em every day)
Royal Artillery zig zag needlepoint slippers
Black silk Fox umbrella
English purple leather suitcase c.1930s
Grey topper (every inch of the silk lining is covered in autographs and witty handwritten sayings from various garden parties c.1932-1934)
Smith Woodhouse vintage 1977 port (part of a mixed case of vintage port my uncle gave me when I graduated college)
Equestrian mounted leather pouch with fitted sandwich case and flask (don’t ride, but it comes in useful for a ramble)
Wedgwood (huge) mug marking the investiture of Prince Charles c.1969
Silver toddy/punch ladles c.1750s (the handles are twisted whale bone and the bowls are fashioned out of George II silver shillings)
Gold Krugerrand given to me by an uncle on graduating college
Topsy Turvy Criterion dvd
Christ’s College, Cambridge carved wooden box
Battle Creek Sanitarium silver souvenir spoon
Ancient Order of Froth Blowers silver pin for the rank of “Blaster” in the shape of a foaming mug
Musket ball I dug up in Fort Greene Park
Gold monogrammed cufflinks (worn by 3 generations of Burbidges before me—with the history written on a tiny piece of paper—each owner wore them during a momentous occasion in their lives
Pipe, tobacco and a humidor my brother made for me for Christmas (matches are from an old hunt club near where I grew up—they have Polo and fox hunting)
Old English molds for making fancy meat pies
The Gentleman’s Companion: Around the World with Beaker and Flask

Click link to see more: Your House Is Burning. What Do You Take?

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