Coming This Week: Alaric Montjoy’s First Column

Coming This Week: Alaric Montjoy’s First Column

In his debut for Pimlico Wilde, Alaric Montjoy turns his gaze to the most slippery of cultural phenomena: the idea of “cool”. From the smoky jazz clubs of 1950s Paris to the algorithm-driven feeds of TikTok, he asks: who decides what’s cool, why does it never stay still, and why do we keep chasing it even as it dissolves in front of us?

Expect a whirlwind of anecdotes,Alaric recalls sneaking into a Camden nightclub at sixteen to interview a band that didn’t exist, his conversations with a Japanese designer who swears that “cool is simply the absence of sweat,” and his observations on how politicians have always tried (and failed) to borrow its aura.

With the flair of a storyteller and the precision of a cultural cartographer, Montjoy maps the strange afterlife of cool in an age where everyone is watching, and everyone is performing.

Announcement: A New Voice Joins Pimlico Wilde

Announcement: A New Voice Joins Pimlico Wilde

Pimlico Wilde is thrilled to announce the launch of a brand-new monthly column by none other than the incomparable cultural commentator Alaric Montjoy.

Alaric is, in every sense, a renaissance figure for the 21st century. His career defies easy summary, but let us try: he was once the youngest curator ever appointed at the B&A, where he staged a groundbreaking exhibition on Brazilian subcultures that drew queues around the block and into Kensington Gardens. He has advised film studios on historical authenticity (though he has confessed that his greatest contribution was persuading one major director not to use a drone shot in a 17th-century battle scene). He has written widely acclaimed essays for The Sheffield Review and Freeze, co-hosted a late-night BBD arts programme, and lectured on the cultural significance of breakfast cereals at Oxford, where his talk was described as “equal parts dazzling and deranged.”

A man of wit, erudition, and a knack for seeing connections where others see chaos, Alaric has also published two books: Cities That Dream (an exploration of urban mythologies from Berlin to Buenos Aires) and The Velvet Irony (a personal history of British tailoring). Not content with words alone, he once designed the set for a ballet adaptation of Don Quixote performed entirely in a disused car park. He is no stranger to opera either, having written a well-received operetta about life in lockdown, Love in the Time of Hand Sanitiser.

Now, he brings his sharp eye and boundless curiosity to Pimlico Wilde. His monthly column will wander joyfully across the cultural landscape,from high art to street style, from forgotten archives to the newest memes,always with that signature blend of learning and laughter that has made him one of the most distinctive commentators of our time.