If you’re not a fan of Sherlock — shame on you — or have not seen the edge-of-your-seat finale, I suggest you look away. After the BBC scored a huge triumph in 2010 with the first series, as a television season known in Britain, fans became joyfully dizzy with anticipation regarding its follow-up, which took close to a year and a half to unspool due to a lengthy filming schedule. Now that that has come and gone, a third one has been commissioned, presumably picking up where the last episode, “The Reichenbach Fall,” left off. Again, the wait should be well worth it.
In the meantime, I’m basking in the afterglow of everything Holmes. First, there’s the incredible look of the crime drama. It’s rare to see well-dressed male characters on the small screen and the consulting detective has a very sharp wardrobe. Brought to life by Benedict Cumberbatch, a 35-year-old Harrow-educated Londoner, the sleuth is as rakish as he is arrogant; the slim-cut Spencer Hart suits and tailored Dolce & Gabbana shirts he favors dovetail with the show’s tight plots and impeccable photography.
Sleuth Style
All of these pieces — especially the sweeping Belstaff coat that “looks great against the London skyline,” as costume designer Sarah Arthur told British GQ — have nudged me to reimagine myself as less of a boy and more of a gentleman. These days, you’d probably see me in variations of gray, navy, tan, and black and it’s all because of Sherlock Holmes. I’m even considering a deerstalker.
Aside from soaking up sartorial inspiration, I’ve also gleaned quite a few ideas for the home from 221B Baker Street. From its skull-themed artwork and flocked wallpaper to heirloom silver and old Persian carpets, the rented flat Sherlock shares with John Watson is a prime example of eclecticism at its most intellectual and most English. (I’ve done a bit of snooping myself and discovered that the dark chocolate wallcoverings in the living room are called Navarre — from Zoffany’s Nureyev Collection — and cost £98, or $150, per roll. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that designer Ali Miller’s bone china teapot set sold out after being featured in the last episode.) I’ve stored these images in my memory palace in the hopes that one day I too will, like the Aspergerish Conan Doyle character, draw delicate finger arabesques in the air to access them.
Rolling With The Holmes
Speaking of the Victorian author, I once stumbled upon The Conan Doyle, a pub at the east end of Princes St. in Edinburgh, while waiting for the next bus to a friend’s house. Catching the trade that comes off the thriving Royal Mile, the place is cozy, almost like you’re dining in a tiny library, and is a stone’s throw from Picardy Place, where its namesake Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in 1859. A life-sized bronze statue of his greatest creation, Sherlock Holmes, is also nearby to the benefit, doubtlessly, of the Scottish capital’s heritage industry.
In Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows, Robert Downey Jr., in the title role, utters: “I see everything. That is my curse.” I happen to share the same passion for incidental details and so I have plunged head first into Nick Rennison’s Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography, first published in 2006. An account of the life and times of a fictional individual may sound superfluous and nerdy, but to a budding Sherlockian such as myself, the mix of history and literary criticism — peppered with facts that are inaccessible to the general reader — is a terrific concept. “To follow Holmes through the twists and turns of his career in the 1880s and 1890s is to watch the Victorian era battling with its own demons,” writes Rennison. Now, armed with more knowledge about the master detective, I’ll definitely be ready for series 3. Non-fans may call it nerdy. To me it’s simply The Sherlock Effect.
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