CITYist

There is no juxtaposition of luxury brands I find more drool-inspiring, no premium collaboration more certain to reduce me instantly to a state of quivering Pavlovian lust, than this ridiculously gorgeous Leica x Hermès camera. And of course, with the Parisian house being the epitome of timeless elegance, their magic has been worked on the M7 model, the most recent of the 35mm film models, rather than one of the newer digital appareils. As CITY’s Fashion Director Allan Kennedy (an M7 owner) says, you can’t take a bad picture with one of these. The lens is a gorgeous silver-anodized 35mm f1.4 with a hood that’s unique to the Hermès models. The body and the carrying strap of the camera are of Swift calfskin, “a drummed leather with extreme suppleness,” says my release, and they come in étoupe and orange. As Jessica Simpson almost said in The Dukes of Hazzard, I don’t even know what étoupe is but I wawn it. There are 200 of these made in each color, and while my information doesn’t include the price, I would hazard a guess that fairly decent cars can be had for less. Not the point, of course; if you need to ask then like me you obviously can’t afford it. But hey, as Karl Marx said, salivating all down your shirt front, puce with class envy, is one of life’s better (free) diversions.