© Michael Sinclair Does the St Clement have the greatest view in London? I think the new hotel makes good on the claim. I was lucky enough to have one of the first looks at the new venture by Nick Jones, Mark Wadhwa and interiors firm Eagle & Hodges on a hard-hat tour last year. Much of the holding was still a concrete shell, but the outlook across the Thames struck me right away. The site sits at a vantage smack between Westminster and Tower Bridge. Pitched opposite the South Bank, it offers a view I’ve never previously encountered – a breathtaking portrait of the capital. Following the inevitable run of delays and lags that accompany such projects, the St Clement is soft opening next month. It’s the first major project by Jones since he stepped down from the role of CEO at Soho House. “If Claridge’s and the Chiltern Firehouse had a baby, it would be the St Clement,” he says of his latest. His objective? “I want [it] to be a kerfuffle-free zone.” 
© Michael Sinclair This marks a new career phase for the entrepreneur, who (should you be in the market for a Scottish idyll) is also selling Inchconnachan island, in Loch Lomond, a 103-acre plot that has been listed for £3mn. It’s part of a Jones rethink, perhaps inspired by his experience of illness (he is now cancer-free), which has seen him refocusing on an independent project that allows for a more hands-on approach. Moreover, the St Clement adds new zest to an area that has seen a total reinvention under Wadhwa. In the past decade or so, he has nurtured the complex as a cultural destination, which now includes the library Reference Point (featured in our last menswear issue), art-world restaurant Toklas and Corner Shop, a bougie convenience store on the south-east corner by the Thames. It’s helped transform an unused enclave of central London; the dream would now be to make more of the “time capsule” that is Aldwych station, the defunct Underground stop whose hidden entrance sits across the road.  <img width='1' height='1' style='display:none;border-style:none;' alt=' src='https://images.passendo.com/t/2/8448/npxlpxnaph@niepodam.pl/2385986104634018/0/0'><img width='1' height='1' style='display:none;border-style:none;' alt=' src='https://images.passendo.com/extt/2/8448/npxlpxnaph@niepodam.pl/2385986104634018?pid=1'><img width='1' height='1' style='display:none;border-style:none;' alt=' src='https://images.passendo.com/extt/2/8448/npxlpxnaph@niepodam.pl/2385986104634018?pid=2'><img width='1' height='1' style='display:none;border-style:none;' alt=' src='https://images.passendo.com/extt/2/8448/npxlpxnaph@niepodam.pl/2385986104634018?pid=3'><img width='1' height='1' style='display:none;border-style:none;' alt=' src='https://images.passendo.com/extt/2/8448/npxlpxnaph@niepodam.pl/2385986104634018?pid=4'> |  |
Inside the technicolour world of Jack White | | | | 
© Whitten Sabbatini Jack White is best known as a musician: the Detroit native exploded into the public consciousness with The White Stripes nearly 30 years ago. In the decades that have followed he has released a further six solo studio albums, acted (in Cold Mountain and Killers of the Flower Moon) and made furniture, art and sculpture – the continuation of a practice that began in adolescence while working for the master upholsterer Brian Muldoon. This month White makes his debut at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery in London, with These Thoughts May Disappear. He invited Jay Cheshes into his studio in Nashville to talk pop art, his Third Man empire (which incorporates everything from publishing to guitar pedals) and his passion for dada. The $100k smile – it’s not as perfect as you think | | | | 
© Zoe Kovacs/Studio Mimi. Make-up by Amélie Moutia A very different shade of white is explored by Lauren Mechling, meanwhile, who goes in search of the USA’s most prized veneers. Less the lurid, tombstone gnashers seen at Mar-a-Lago, the look now promoted by the top cosmetic dentists is to make an art of “perfect imperfection”, with an emphasis on gaps or quirks that express the personality. As to how white to make them, client Chris Constable puts it most poetically. He describes his own as looking like “clean white sheets that have been in the wash over a few summers, versus the set that was bleached to bits”. @jellison22 | 
