Old Money

Old Money is the quiet one, and it exists because not everybody wants a crown.

There are no logos in this portrait, no bright colour, and nothing that announces itself. Your pet wears a softly draped camel overcoat with a rolled collar and a single strand of heavy ivory pearls, or a navy velvet smoking jacket with a cream silk cravat. The background is a warm pale sweep with no detail in it whatsoever. The light comes from one large soft source off to the side, the way daylight arrives through a tall window on an overcast afternoon.

The reference is the campaign photography of the quiet luxury houses, where the whole strategy is to look expensive by refusing to look expensive. No hard highlights. No saturated colour. A palette of camel, oatmeal, ivory and soft grey, and enormous attention paid to the way cloth falls.

What makes it work on an animal is composure. The pose is three quarters with a level, unhurried gaze, and because there is no joke in the styling, the portrait reads as genuine rather than as a costume gag. It is the one in this line designed to sit in a room where adults sit, rather than to get a laugh.

It is the style to choose for someone with taste who would be faintly embarrassed by a novelty gift, and it is the easiest of all of these to live with long term.