My personal style signifier is jackets. When I was in my 20s living in New York it was all about leather jackets – I loved Rick Owens and Carol Christian Poell. But now, being in the countryside in Dorset, I’m much more drawn to technical, warm outdoor gear. A brand I really like at the moment is ThruDark. The founders have a special-forces background, so you trust that they know what good gear needs to be. I also love shirts by Geoffrey B Small, who does unique stuff – the stories of how he sources his fabrics and tailors really make it feel like you’ve got an item that has had a lot of love put into it.
Ashley-Cooper’s Rick Owens jacket © Emli Bendixen
The last thing I bought and loved was a handmade analogue sound mixer by Condesa Electronics called the Lucia. It’s made in Australia by a guy called Mehdi El-Aquil who’s a DJ and a big music fan. His mixers are beautifully made from wood and metal and have a lovely warm sound. They also take a reassuringly long time to make – I waited almost a year for mine. I started DJing under the name Nick AC around 1994. I managed Vinyl [later Arc], a club in New York, and set up something called Robots with a couple of friends – we had a radio station and did shows across the city. The music that changed everything for me was techno – Sven Väth, Richie Hawtin, The Orb. Back then it was all new and very freeing – you could tell the producers and artists were genuinely pushing each other creatively. It felt like the whole world opened up for me experientially.
