Friday, October 25, 2024 : Catching up is hard to do in this town at this time of the year. The Last Quarter of The Calendar is jammed with all kinds of activity. Not a small amount of it is very social and also very commercial.

Earlier this month — on the 8th — admirers went to the Core Club at 711 Fifth to mingle, sip a Bowmore single malt-based cocktail christened “The Hamilton,” and enjoy time spent with the man himself. Hamilton. George. 

I’ve met the man at dinners, but I’ve never had a conversation with him, but conversations aren’t important when you meet the guy because that alone is interesting.

It’s the persona. He looks like the same man you met, or saw on the screen forty years ago: bright, handsome, smiling face, silver white hair, just come in from the Sun, a young executive in the most glamorous business in the world. Or, the obvious: a movie star.

I’m making this up trying to express the visual phenomenon of the man. And he’s had a very long career. Maybe the longest. I don’t know if he works much anymore but it doesn’t matter because his image remains the real Star.

This all came to mind at the Core Club because of an event co-hosted by Paolo Martorano Bespoke and The Bowmore, dubbed An Evening of Substance and Style. The evening included a wide-ranging conversation between Air Mail’s Michael Hainey and George Hamilton. It also featured the debut of a short branded-film featuring George and Paolo which was followed by a lively Q&A session.

I have the privilege of possessing one of Paolo’s blue blazers which was tailored by Paolo, for me. It makes me stand up straight because I want to look as good as the blazer looks and feels on me. There’s comfort in all that. It’s not vanity but flattering to your own eye, which is your most critical.

Paolo’s clientele is hush-hush because his studio is by appointment-only. But when I heard that George Hamilton was a client, it made sense. His seven-decades long career encompasses nearly every show business medium and is peppered with performances that have earned him BAFTA, Golden Globe nominations, and a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and it includes films ranging from A Light in the Piazza, Where the Boys Are, The Victors, Love at First Bite, Zorro, The Gay Blade, to The Godfather, Part III.

But George’s offscreen life is perhaps even more glamorous and remarkable than any Hollywood script. He’s instantly recognizable for his charming self-deprecation, perpetually perfect tan, and impeccable sartorial presentation. And it’s all true; not an act.

George discovered Paolo Martorano in 2022, and the two have closely collaborated on George’s personal style ever since. Paolo summed up his relationship with George: “… I’m dressing a guy who has been an icon my entire life. George Hamilton takes the stuffing out of a suit, and he makes it relaxed and he makes it his own.”

Hainey closed the evening with a quote from Joan Collins:  “George was so vain and charming by the time I met him when he was twenty years old; perfectly dressed, and able to make you laugh — you can’t say that about many people.”

Ms. Collins appears to have it right, there simply aren’t many people like George Hamilton.

Article first published on newyorksocialdiary.com, October 25, 2024
Photo credit: Paolo Martorano