It’s a morning commuter rush hour with a difference.
As the spring sunshine alights on Venice’s Grand Canal, vaporettos slosh by carrying locals to work as La Serenissima wakes up and draws back the damask curtains on the day.
Hours before I’m scheduled to meet Steven Moore, the antiques impresario who has a place on a particularly spellbinding nook of this famous waterway, I happen to catch a candid glimpse of him unawares as I whizz by on a water taxi (it’s a tough life).
He sits in a dressing gown, regal as a doge, on his private terrace in the shadow of the Ponte Accademia, taking his morning coffee with the view that inspired Canaletto acting as backdrop. Not a bad way to greet the day.
It’s a long way from Newcastle, where 58-year old Moore also lives, but the auctioneer and creative director of Burleigh Pottery (who also happens to be writing his debut novel) has been an unofficial Venetian resident for almost thirty years.
“It’s hard to tell what first ignited my passion for this magical place,” he says later over a potent wild fennel martini on the terrace of the Gritti Palace; his local of sorts.
“There’s something particular about the light, because it’s always playing on the water, and the discovery of something new every time I come. It’s a renaissance city that’s still exactly as it was.”
Readers of a certain era will know the charismatic Mr Moore from the Antiques Roadshow, where he is the self-professed ‘David Attenborough of teacups’, sifting through miscellaneous porcelain to find the Meissen jewel in the rough.
In recent years, Moore has become known to a whole new generation thanks to his Instagram account, which has amassed 350,000 followers thanks to his joie-de-vivre, cultural insights and the quizzes that he conducts every Friday.
A recent post comparing Met Gala looks to antique porcelain objets garnered 3.6m views on Tiktok. “It’s come as something of a surprise, but I’m delighted that people have engaged and that it creates this sense of community,” he tells me.
Thanks to his singular take on style, he was also invited to the most recent Loewe show during Paris Fashion Week. “Jonathan Anderson (creative director of Loewe) is passionate about craft and historical references, and loves 18th century Chelsea porcelain,” Moore explains.
He merrily sported a Loewe bag at the show that was designed to look like an asparagus tureen from the 18th century. “It was a wonderful experience, sitting alongside Catherine Deneuve,” he says. One of his many Gen Z fans bustled through the crowd to tell him how much he liked his Instagram account; it was Shawn Mendes, the American pop star.
It helps that Moore himself is wickedly charming – the naughty uncle you want to be sat beside at the dinner table – with a razor-sharp eye for detail and an encyclopaedic knowledge of historical motifs and design.
That parlays splendidly into how he dresses; 18th century Austrian jackets, 19th century shawls slung over an evening jacket and a 1920s teddy bear coat that he found in a charity shop for the princely sum of 16 euros. “I like to treasure hunt. Everything has become so homogenised and boring these days that there’s so much more pleasure in finding the unexpected.”
His motto for getting dressed? “Anything’s an accessory if you’re fabulous enough.”
By way of rather splendid illustration, he attends a Venice Biennale event that evening with an ikat scarf re-imagined as a cumberbund, worn under his classic raspberry pink jacket and shirt, alongside a Murano glass rose re-imagined into a brooch.
Moore’s social diary dictates a certain degree of La Dolce Vita splendour; one of his most exuberant finds was an 18th century priest’s cloak in rather dowdy black wool, which happened to have a rather joyous, canary yellow silk lining.
He took it to a local seamstress and had it turned inside out, and promptly wore it to a St Petersburg ball years ago. “Suddenly it became rather Imperial Russia, and all through a little ingenuity.
“Men used to be expressive in how they dressed, and led the way with their peacockery. We need to return to that sense of dress up,” says Moore, no stranger to making an impact.
Of course, it helps that the uniquely ornate grandeur of the city almost demands a sense of occasion, style-wise. “Venice knows how to dress. You can go to the supermarket in a scarlet cape and no-one bats an eyelid.
“The other day I was wearing a silk shawl with an evening jacket, catching the vaporetto to a party, and it’s noticed with appreciation rather than anything else. It’s a culture that appreciates quality and history.”
Moore isn’t one for the signature Venetian furlane slippers, although the city’s warrens of independent shops inform how he dresses; shirts from the now defunct La Camicia San Marco shirting emporium, scarves from Barbieri and brooches and trinkets from the local artisans he’s got to know over the years.
For all the soirees in sumptuous palazzos, Moore’s steadfastly pragmatic in his approach. “We need to get back to buying things built to last. I have shoes that are twenty years old that are just as good as when I bought them. I’m a great supporter of British and Italian-made garments; both countries are textiles specialists. I wear old fur, because it’s more sustainable than the fake varieties that are made of plastic. Have less things, and do more with them.”
For grooming, Moore’s as steadfastly old school; “a Kent badger hair brush and a tub of shaving soap from Taylors of Bond Street” and he’s passionate about his cologne.
“I wish men would understand fragrance more. It’s an accessory, like a tie. It can compliment a look, and it’s seasonal too – summer needs a lighter touch, winter requires something more earthy and heady. Favourites include Caron and Cuire de Russie by LT Piver.
Can we expect an Eau de Moore scent any time soon? He raises an arched eyebrow as the moonlight dances across the Grand Canal and church bells of the Basilica Santa Maria Salute chime midnight. “If only you could bottle it.”
Inspired by Steven
Cape, £1,250, New & Lingwood; Foulard, £25, Cordings; Lapel pin, £111, Michael Michaud; Shawl, £69.95, The House of Bruar
Four personal style rules
Be brave
there’s no reason that men shouldn’t dress up and enjoy doing so. Embrace your inner peacock.
Buy things built to last
Look for the markers of quality: a silk pocket square with a hand-rolled edge, for example. I have Gucci shoes that have lasted me 30 years.
Shop local and look at second-hand
I’ve picked up the most remarkable finds for next to nothing.
Pay attention to the little things
Distinctive accessories and good grooming go a long way.
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