“Turn left at Michael Caine.” It’s become an often-overheard line at Arlington, used by our team members to direct ladies to the washroom. And with a come-hither look like that, it’s impossible to take your eyes off him. David Bailey’s close-up of a jaunty, almost confrontational Michael Caine was taken in 1965, the same year he first played the cockney spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File.
“One of the many attributes of Bailey’s photographs is that the images are strong even at a distance despite the lack of specialist lighting,” says Jeremy King, who selected this image for Arlington. “The end of the room needed the strongest of images and this presented the perfect location for both Michael Caine and indeed Man Ray. Caine has held court there, just like in the days of tailor Dougie Hayward’s Mount St Salon, since 1982.”
