Post by QPR Report on Mar 13, 2010 23:05:19 GMT
Dylan Jones/Mail
Who'd want to be a billionaire?
13th March 2010
When he walked into a room, Flavio Briatore always looked as though he was thinking, 'Who are all these ghastly people?'
Flavio Briatore may have occasionally looked like a billion dollars, but always appeared a tad too pleased with himself
Pity the poor playboy. One minute you're lighting Montecristo Edmundos with £50 notes and sipping vintage Krug from Naomi Campbell's Manolos. The next you're a washed-up old has-been with a pot belly and a dodgy toupée who couldn't get a date with a supermodel if your life or hedge fund depended on it.
Pity the poor playboy. One minute you're travelling the world in a Gulfstream V and eating at the right table in Scott's (north-east corner, now that I've got your attention). The next you're reduced to using public transport and eking out the afternoon in Starbucks.
Pity the poor playboy. Once you spent your days living it up on the Cote d'Azur surrounded by the great and the good. The next you're, well, Flavio Briatore.
Having had a glittering career with Benetton and Renault in Formula 1, last year Briatore was forced to resign from the ING Renault F1 team due to his involvement in race-fixing at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix - when he sacked Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr in August, Piquet responded by telling all and sundry how he'd been ordered to deliberately crash his car at Singapore a year earlier in order to assist his team-mate Fernando Alonso in winning the race.
After the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) conducted its own investigation, Briatore was banned from the sport, and although this ban was later overturned by the French Tribunal de Grande Instance, the FIA is now appealing this ruling.
Briatore's contretemps a ffected one of his other businesses, too. In August 2007, along with Bernie Ecclestone, he bought Queens Park Rangers football club, becoming the club's chairman (billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal joined them as co-owner in December).
In two years at the helm he saw ten managers go through the turnstiles, earning him the sobriquet 'the man with the itchiest trigger finger in football'. But worried that the Football League could have forced him out of the club under rules that stipulate a club owner must be a 'fit and proper person', Briatore stepped down from his post last month.
And as if all this weren't enough, recent photographs of the ageing roué have not been flattering. In fact, I think it's fair to say that the Italian playboy is starting to resemble Charlie Drake. For those of you who might not remember the diminutive comedian, Drake looked a bit like Mick Hucknall. Well, more like Mick Hucknall's uglier, slightly portlier, slightly less attractive and slightly older brother.
To top it all, the former F1 tycoon is facing a High Court tussle after a row with his business partner Angelo Galasso over their luxury fashion label, Billionaire. The two Italians launched the brand in 2005, quickly establishing it as a favourite among many of those celebrities who enjoy making a splash with their outfits - David Beckham, P Diddy etc.
Billionaire was where you came if you wanted a crocodile-skin jacket, a pair of monogrammed velvet slippers, a full-length cashmere coat or an ostrich-skin weekend bag. And having enjoyed huge success with the brand - it has consistently been one of Harrods' best performers - the pair have fallen out. Galasso claims that Briatore has reneged on a deal they made to make room for a new investor, stripping him of his shares.
And here we have hubris. Briatore may have occasionally looked like a billion dollars, but always appeared a tad too pleased with himself, a tad too regal. When he walked into a room - and Briatore had mastered the art of entering rooms - he always looked as though he was thinking to himself, perhaps in the manner of a minor royal, 'Who are all these ghastly people?' Allegedly, of course.
As for Billionaire, while it wasn't to everyone's taste, it was obviously the brainchild of Angelo, and Angelo alone. Anyone familiar with the big-collared tailored shirts, tight-waisted linen jackets, extravagant silk handkerchiefs and beautiful chisel-toed shoes that Angelo has created for Interno 8 and his current label knew that its design sensibility was all Galasso and no Flavio.
The acrimonious divorce was always on the cards, however, as I don't know anyone who thought that Briatore's colossal ego could cope with anyone else getting any of his glory. Not for very long, anyway.
So be it. Regardless of the outcome of the litigation - and an out-of-court settlement would probably suit both parties - when the dust has settled, normal service will be resumed. Angelo Galasso will continue to design extravagant clothes for the wealthy and the idiosyncratic (he has a busy new store right now in Hans Road, opposite Harrods), and Flavio Briatore will still look like Mick Hucknall's slightly older, slightly uglier, slightly fatter brother.
No o ffence, mind.
Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1257465/DYLAN-JONES-Whod-want-billionaire.html#ixzz0i6IkR9LY
Who'd want to be a billionaire?
13th March 2010
When he walked into a room, Flavio Briatore always looked as though he was thinking, 'Who are all these ghastly people?'
Flavio Briatore may have occasionally looked like a billion dollars, but always appeared a tad too pleased with himself
Pity the poor playboy. One minute you're lighting Montecristo Edmundos with £50 notes and sipping vintage Krug from Naomi Campbell's Manolos. The next you're a washed-up old has-been with a pot belly and a dodgy toupée who couldn't get a date with a supermodel if your life or hedge fund depended on it.
Pity the poor playboy. One minute you're travelling the world in a Gulfstream V and eating at the right table in Scott's (north-east corner, now that I've got your attention). The next you're reduced to using public transport and eking out the afternoon in Starbucks.
Pity the poor playboy. Once you spent your days living it up on the Cote d'Azur surrounded by the great and the good. The next you're, well, Flavio Briatore.
Having had a glittering career with Benetton and Renault in Formula 1, last year Briatore was forced to resign from the ING Renault F1 team due to his involvement in race-fixing at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix - when he sacked Renault driver Nelson Piquet Jr in August, Piquet responded by telling all and sundry how he'd been ordered to deliberately crash his car at Singapore a year earlier in order to assist his team-mate Fernando Alonso in winning the race.
After the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) conducted its own investigation, Briatore was banned from the sport, and although this ban was later overturned by the French Tribunal de Grande Instance, the FIA is now appealing this ruling.
Briatore's contretemps a ffected one of his other businesses, too. In August 2007, along with Bernie Ecclestone, he bought Queens Park Rangers football club, becoming the club's chairman (billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal joined them as co-owner in December).
In two years at the helm he saw ten managers go through the turnstiles, earning him the sobriquet 'the man with the itchiest trigger finger in football'. But worried that the Football League could have forced him out of the club under rules that stipulate a club owner must be a 'fit and proper person', Briatore stepped down from his post last month.
And as if all this weren't enough, recent photographs of the ageing roué have not been flattering. In fact, I think it's fair to say that the Italian playboy is starting to resemble Charlie Drake. For those of you who might not remember the diminutive comedian, Drake looked a bit like Mick Hucknall. Well, more like Mick Hucknall's uglier, slightly portlier, slightly less attractive and slightly older brother.
To top it all, the former F1 tycoon is facing a High Court tussle after a row with his business partner Angelo Galasso over their luxury fashion label, Billionaire. The two Italians launched the brand in 2005, quickly establishing it as a favourite among many of those celebrities who enjoy making a splash with their outfits - David Beckham, P Diddy etc.
Billionaire was where you came if you wanted a crocodile-skin jacket, a pair of monogrammed velvet slippers, a full-length cashmere coat or an ostrich-skin weekend bag. And having enjoyed huge success with the brand - it has consistently been one of Harrods' best performers - the pair have fallen out. Galasso claims that Briatore has reneged on a deal they made to make room for a new investor, stripping him of his shares.
And here we have hubris. Briatore may have occasionally looked like a billion dollars, but always appeared a tad too pleased with himself, a tad too regal. When he walked into a room - and Briatore had mastered the art of entering rooms - he always looked as though he was thinking to himself, perhaps in the manner of a minor royal, 'Who are all these ghastly people?' Allegedly, of course.
As for Billionaire, while it wasn't to everyone's taste, it was obviously the brainchild of Angelo, and Angelo alone. Anyone familiar with the big-collared tailored shirts, tight-waisted linen jackets, extravagant silk handkerchiefs and beautiful chisel-toed shoes that Angelo has created for Interno 8 and his current label knew that its design sensibility was all Galasso and no Flavio.
The acrimonious divorce was always on the cards, however, as I don't know anyone who thought that Briatore's colossal ego could cope with anyone else getting any of his glory. Not for very long, anyway.
So be it. Regardless of the outcome of the litigation - and an out-of-court settlement would probably suit both parties - when the dust has settled, normal service will be resumed. Angelo Galasso will continue to design extravagant clothes for the wealthy and the idiosyncratic (he has a busy new store right now in Hans Road, opposite Harrods), and Flavio Briatore will still look like Mick Hucknall's slightly older, slightly uglier, slightly fatter brother.
No o ffence, mind.
Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1257465/DYLAN-JONES-Whod-want-billionaire.html#ixzz0i6IkR9LY
