Serpent à Plume’s Alexander Rash talks taste
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My personal style signifier – for better or worse – is my tailoring. People in my generation don’t wear tailoring so much any more, but Francesco Mocchia di Coggiola usually dresses me from head-to-toe. You can wear tailoring, but you need to move in it, to not be so stiff. It’s important always to be able to hop over a fence.
And the last thing I bought and loved was a shirt from Francesco: he makes these lovely 9in point collars. Taking a well-ironed shirt out of a drawer is a sort of fetish of mine. You drape it over your body and it feels good – it’s crisp and it’s clean. Go with white or blue.
The place that means a lot to me is Hôtel Drouot, which isn’t a hotel, but an antique marketplace – a labyrinth where you can see centuries of Parisian culture and collecting. It’s fascinating to watch the dealers on their hands and knees, bent over and looking through drawers. You can find everything from old Cartier lighters to the De Sede sofa and Christofle cutlery at Serpent à Plume. One of my favourite finds is a set of mirrored wardrobe doors that belonged to Madame Claude, who ran a famous Parisian brothel in the 1970s. Those mirrors have probably seen so much; now they’re in my dining room.
My style icons are the day-to-day stylish people I see on the Métro. I love the old French woman with strong perfume who gets on the train. That’s really desirable to me. I didn’t grow up in a city – I’m from Minnesota and moved here 10 years ago – so I’m an American in Paris living a dream.
The best things about Paris are its resilience, its stubbornness and its supportiveness of the arts. Paris isn’t going anywhere anytime soon: it’s managed to stay not only a cultural capital, but a fashion one.
The podcast I’m listening to is The Intelligence by The Economist. I also love its series Boss Class from the writer of Bartleby, a whimsical column about managing. I relate it to managing my 20 staff at Serpent à Plume. (My advice as a manager is to be constructive, not to bring negativity and to learn from mistakes. I tell my team that I love errors: they’re a way of becoming a good problem solver.)
My favourite room in my house is my bathtub. Does that count as a room? Kind of. It’s like a room: it can fit six people in it. And I’ve tried, trust me.
The best book I’ve read in the past year is Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, about a young woman who goes to Chicago, has a bunch of sex with random people and becomes quite prominent in society. It’s a great 1900s tale.
The best gift I’ve given recently was a wedding for my sister in the private apartment of Serpent à Plume. My partner Ravenna and I made a wedding theatre: the bar’s string quartet played “Here Comes the Bride” and we had three priestesses play the triangle and officiate the wedding. It was quite the thing.
The last music I downloaded was by Blink-182. I’m a sad, romantic boy, so I’ve been listening to a lot of Blink – I saw them on tour last year – and driving everyone crazy at the bar.
I have a collection of catalogues containing the best things you could’ve bought at Hôtel Drouot – all the way from 1972. I have a lot of art: I particularly love my 1919 painting of Winston Churchill by Eduardo Arroyo, one of the new realist Spanish painters. In front of it is the Joker’s desk from the 1989 Batman film. It’s the form of an aeroplane wing and there’s a little engine you can pull out where I keep my contraband… cigs or whatever.
The one artist whose work I would collect if I could would be either Otto Dix or Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Probably Kirchner, because of the way he lived – that German schade is really strong.
In my freezer you’ll always find vanilla and pecan ice cream by Häagen-Dazs. I have a serious ice-cream addiction, even in winter. Other than that, I have a fridge stocked with various alcoholic drinks, plus my new favourite, a non-alcoholic IPA from Athletic Brewing Company. Great for when you have to lay off the hooch.
I’ve recently rediscovered health – running especially. I’ve joined a team, which helps with moderation because I sign up for races. The best place to run in Paris is along the Seine. I love running when the city is waking up; the idleness of the day that’s about to happen is stimulating.
The thing I couldn’t do without is my rice cooker. I love to cook with Ravenna, and rice is a big comfort food. Once you have the water to rice ratio right – the water should go a fingernail above the rice – let it rip. My grandma and mother had rice cookers, and I’m inherently a crotchety old man.
My favourite building in Paris is not so Parisian: right by my house is the Communist building by Oscar Niemeyer. It’s a wonderful structure built between 1967 and 1980. Back then it wasn’t exactly in the centre of Paris: now it is.
Cook the books!
Rash’s “punk and precious” playlist
An indulgence I would never forgo is nocturnal therapy: I’m a party boy. And while I’ve got better at moderation, it’s important to discover nightlife – rave culture or any hommage à la nuit. It’s always going to be part of me. I love going to Lust and Spectrum, parties hosted by my friends: they’re the perfect mixture of decadence, freedom and creativity. Once you’re in, you’re in.
The last item of clothing I added to my wardrobe was a leather jacket, a Schott 613, from an eBay seller based in Tokyo – the kind of place that might contribute to Elvis impersonators. I guess 2024 has seen the channelling of my inner bad boy.
The grooming staples I’m never without are part of a ritual I’ve been doing for 12 years or more. Wash your face at night with a hot towel: very important. Moisturise – I like Aesop’s Lucent Facial Concentrate – and use sunscreen. One of my friends is the nose at a perfume company: she always has prototypes, so I have mystery bottles from her. People ask what [my fragrance] is, but I actually can’t tell them.
The objects I would never part with are my Smythson diaries. I don’t want to say I’m a diary boy, but they’re great for crossing things off when you finish them – sometimes a double cross if you’re really happy.
The best thing you can buy for €20 is a Lamy Safari left-handed nib fountain pen, which apparently lets the ink out more easily. I identify with being left-handed more than I do with being American. It’s like being in a cult.
My wellbeing gurus are all of the marathoners and runners I follow online: Emma Bates, Molly Seidel, Eliud Kipchoge... I hope they wear sunscreen.
In another life, I would have been a pilot. Well, I’d probably start out as a pilot, but a pilot from the 1950s – drinking whisky and smoking in the cockpit. So I’d probably get fired, and then I’d be an antiques dealer. I’m romantic about flying. I’m going to release a list on how to make flying better, and one of the tips is that you should cry on an aeroplane: very important. Watch a sad movie. It should hurt a little.
The works of art that changed everything for me are by Téa Plume. When I first opened Serpent à Plume, Téa was the head coat check person. She used to write love letters and weird sayings – like, “break up with your boyfriend, let’s hang out” – on the back of business cards and stick them in coat pockets. She drew these really intricate cards that were numbered, and is now the bar’s official illustrator. She has really contributed to its artistic fabric.
The best bit of advice I ever received was something Glenn O’Brien, the original badass preppy man, wrote: “Treat every business project like an art project.”
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