The Anam Vietnam hotel
The Anam vietnam

Beach front villa with private pool

Why should I go now?

Monsoon season is one of the most beautiful times to go to Vietnam. The landscape is lush and green, and whilst the showers are fierce, it makes the periods of blue skies and blazing sunshine even sweeter. Nestled within a forest of palm trees on a peninsula of white sand, The Anam is a vibrant, tropical paradise.

What’s the lowdown?

The Anam five star resort in vietnam

Image by James Houston

The Anam opened in April this year as the first and only World Luxury property in Vietnam, and whilst it should still be in the teething stages, there’s very little to suggest this is a new face in the luxury world, apart from a few bare walls where local artworks are due to be hung. The design is colonial with traditional Vietnamese detailing, handmade lanterns and ornate, tiled floors with columns allowing the cool sea breeze to flow through the spaces.

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The food, in all three of the restaurants, is superb, but really exceptional at the recently opened Indochine Grill. It’s European fine dining, intimate and elegant with a live pianist creating an almost Parisian mood. We tried the taster menu and each course was as delicious as the next. During the daytime, there’s a complimentary activity schedule of yoga, kayaking, fishing, volleyball and mini tennis tournaments or you can just lounge on the beach or by one of the three swimming pools, which are open all hours, so that at night you can float on your back whilst listening to live music in the Saigon Bar.

The Anam Nha Trang Vietnam

The Indochine European fine dining restaurant.

Getting horizontal

Our villa opened out onto a manicured lawn leading straight down to the sea; lying in bed we could hear the calm, continuous rolling of the waves and glimpse a sparkling line of blue when propped up on pillows with the curtains open in the mornings. Interiors were bright, homely and simple with dark wood furniture contrasted against white walls and linens. The bathroom, at the back of the villa, featured a light well with tropical plants growing up alongside the bathtub. It was quietly luxurious, but in no way overdone, allowing the view to take centre stage.

The Anam Vietnam hotel

The Anam. Image by James Houston

Nitpicking

The Anam is everything you could possibly want from a beach resort. Where so many resorts fail, it manages to blend the highest-level of sophistication with a laid-back island kind of attitude. The villas are hard to compete with so the the hotel building at the back of the resort inevitably falls short in comparison. Whilst the rooms here mainly have sea views, the multilayered building feels dark and imposing where the rest of the resort is bright and elegant.

Rates: From USD $215 (approx.€200/£150)

Millie Walton

 

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Chiang Mai hotel
Ancient temple in Chiang Mai

The ancient chedi at Wat Chedi Luang temple, Chiang Mai. Image by James Houston

Chiang Mai is fast becoming Asia’s most appealing tourist destination with its verdant scenery, glorious temples, thriving arts scene and seductively bohemian mood. Digital Editor Millie Walton ventures to Northern Thailand to discover the secrets behind the city’s allure.

Thailand’s never really appealed to me. I shunned the backpacking, full moon party scene for trekking in the Himalayas, safaris in Zimbabwe and little known rural villages where I could still feel traces of culture that elsewhere have been mowed over by skyscrapers and shopping malls. Yet, on a recent trip I found myself making a detour to meet a friend who’s recently moved to Bangkok, a city which she cheerfully describes as “the ugliest place in the world,” but for a day or two it’s fascinating to be wide-eyed in an Asian supercity.

By contrast, Chiang Mai is the kind of place you could stay for weeks, months or like many artists from around the world, years. We arrive on Sunday morning in early June, when monsoon season is at its teething stage. The showers are short, but extremely powerful and in response, the surrounding landscape shines vibrantly green. The city, for many, is Thailand’s adventure capital; within a few kilometres radius, there’s trekking, zip lining, white water rafting and multi-layered waterfalls cascading through the jungle, but it’s also slowly establishing itself as an artistic hub with live music venues, art galleries, yoga, studios artisan coffee shops and a collection of swanky boutique hotels.

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Chiang Mai city

A suite at 137 Pillars

We check in to 137 Pillars, one of the most architecturally interesting five-star establishments in town, built around a grand restored Lana style Thai house. It’s a small hotel, just a few metres back from the Mae Ping River and a short walk from the city’s walled old town, but the spacious layout of suites in a collection of traditional style houses, clustered around the main wooden house and gardens, makes it seem almost like a mini village. As the first downpour of the day hits, we sit on our terrace watching the huge raindrops run down the palm leaves and soak into the earth. It’s over in less than ten minutes and we make our escape to the old town.

Chiang Mai hotel

137 Pillars, Chiang Mai’s most stylish boutique hotel

Technically, the old town is the tourist hub of the city, but its also where most of the art galleries reside and the most beautiful temples. Compact in size with picturesque hidden alleyways, it’s perfect for exploring on foot. We begin at the Chiang Mai House of Photography, a sky blue wooden building hidden alongside the more dominating presence of the Lanna Folklife Museum. Downstairs is the room for lounging on sofas and armchairs with a photography book selected from one of the glass cabinets, whilst upstairs is the gallery space. As elsewhere in Thailand, the imagery here is currently dedicated to the recently deceased King. It’s an interesting and intimate exhibition examining a nation’s collective mourning, featuring four walls dedicated to the work of young photographers.

Read next: Guy Bourdin’s seductive world at Maison Chloé

Artist, Chumpol Taksapornchai

Whilst Chiang Mai isn’t home to any big-name galleries, as you dip in and out of the artist studios and cosy, colourful art spaces that line the streets, there’s an exciting sense of discovery and experimentation. Last year, the Chiang Mai Art Conversation (CAC), a four-year-old collective that aims to consolidate information about the city’s art spaces into a central database, issued its first Chiang Mai Art Map paving a route for visitors to explore the best of the local arts scene. One of the favourites is Matoom, run by artist Chumpol Taksapornchai. Filled with his large scale, dreamy water colours of imaginary landscapes and his mother’s colourful mobiles, it’s like wandering into a creative cave. “A lot of artists live here because we’re surrounded by nature and old culture. It’s an inspiring place to be!” Chumpol says of the city, “You have the smell of the countryside whilst being in a modern city at the same time.”

Chiang Mai temple

Wat Chedi Luang temple. Image by James Houston

At 6pm we make our way to Wat Chedi Luang temple, in time to watch the monks gathering inside for evening meditation. We sit for a while at the back listening to the chanting before circling the courtyard to admire the towering Lanna-style chedi built in 1441. When we leave, we find the streets lined with stalls for the Sunday night walking market. Here you can find local crafts, cheap souvenirs and sample the street food and whilst it can get crowded, it still manages to feel relaxed and soft. The people are gentle and smiling, eager for you to see their products, but never aggressive or pushy.

The market sprawls in a kind of maze and we’re lost for a while before we find our way back to the hotel for a late, but very welcome treatment at the spa. I opt for the 90 minute signature, combining Swedish massage techniques, with hot herbal compresses and Thai stretching. It’s a deeply relaxing and indulgent experience that seems fitting with Chiang Mai’s sensual aura, followed by an even later dinner and cocktails in the sultry, open air Dining Room restaurant that, on a balmy evening, feels almost Mediterranean.

Chiang Mai is one of the few destinations in Thailand, which manages to cater to the modern lifestyle without compromising ancient culture and traditions. Sadly, it probably won’t be long until that changes, but for now the city remains one of Asia’s most intriguing.

 

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Reading time: 4 min
Chloe women
Fashion photography by Guy Bourdin

Guy Bourdin, Paris Vogue 1975, Chloé autumn-winter 1975 collection ©The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017 / Courtesy A + C

Most people aren’t aware of Guy Bourdin’s close relationship with the fashion house Chloé, but between the late 50s and late 80s, the brand was interpreted through the lens of the French artist and photographer more than anyone else. The inaugural exhibition at the newly opened gallery space, Maison Chloé in Paris celebrates Bourdin’s wild and seductive world through a collection of emotionally charged images that challenge both stereotypes of femininity and fashion photography.

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Chloe women

Guy Bourdin, Paris Vogue 1970, Chloé spring-summer 1970 collection ©The Guy Bourdin Estate, 2017 / Courtesy A + C

In one image women lie draped languorously across a bed playing cards, whilst another depicts a hotel room cocktail party with a man in his underwear being chased out by a policeman in a background. Rather than pouting, staring with glassy indifference into the camera, the models are dramatically engaged in the scene creating an atmosphere that’s cinematic and completely captivating. Alongside the prints are the clothes and accessories Bourdin photographed as well as copies of the magazines the images originally appeared in, most often Vogue Paris, and a curation of Bourdin’s photographs for other fashion campaigns, including for French shoemaker Charles Jourdan. It’s an interesting insight into the development of Chloé’s dreamy, bohemian aesthetic, Bourdin’s creative vision and perspectives of mid-century women.

Millie Walton

Femininities—Guy Bourdin” runs until 6th September 2017 at Maison Chloé, hotel particulier on 28 Rue de la Baume, Paris and re-opens during FIAC and Paris Photo from 18th October until 18th November 2017.

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Reading time: 1 min
Brainchild arts and music festival
poet and founder of brainchild festival

British poet and co-founder of Brainchild festival, Bridget Minamore. Image by Suki Dhanda

LUX’s Contributing Poet Rhiannon Williams puts the spotlight on British poet Bridget Minamore this month, exploring her unique portrayal of love and her vision for Brainchild festival.

Bridget Minamore′s poetry is red hot. Addressing race, feminism and popular culture in verse that scalds, this epic young British poet appears to be everywhere at once these days – the poetic version of a catchy new tune. However, her star has truly been accelerating in its ascent since the publication of her pamphlet ‘Titanic‘ (Out-Spoken Press), a collection of poems which hilariously and hauntingly dissect what it means to love another. In ‘Titanic’ she uses the most famous disaster story in history as an analogy for a rocky relationship, writing with a spotless humour and style that tangos with your emotions. The excerpt below shows how Bridget portrays the way the violence of doomed love can be transfigured into dark humour, which nevertheless calls out to our deepest fears of being bereft – or shipwrecked – in love, desperate for the beloved to stay:

I want to cut your legs off

not so you can’t walk away,
more in the hope you’ll stay
exactly where I want to put you.

Her talent for a sentence that can leave you floating on pure emotion has done exactly the opposite of the doomed ship, buoying her up and into a stratosphere of significance, and marking her out as a striking new voice of a generation. When I asked what drew her to using this imagery of the ship, Bridget shared her thoughts: “I always felt so embarrassed writing or reading poems about love or heartbreak, and the imagery gave me two things: a crutch to hide behind, but also a level of humour that made everything easier. I’ve always loved being near water, whether its canals or the sea, and back in Ghana my Dad’s whole family live right next to the largest man-made lake in Africa. But I have this real fear of it as well – I can swim, but I get nervous when I’m actually in open water. So subliminally there must be a part of me that compares the open water of the ocean to love: home and comfort, sure, but also terror. The Titanic sums all of that up for me.”

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Although the symbolism of the distressed ship is one that has been used by poets throughout history – Horace’s ‘The Ship of State in Troubled Waters’, Rimbaud’s ‘Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Ship)’, Bridget guides this metaphor firmly into modernity by using popular song lyrics in her transitions between poems, and colloquial language. The overall effect is ground-breaking…or should we say ice-breaking?

Brainhild music and arts festival

Brainchild festival. Image by Hollie Fernando

Not just a poet however, Bridget has her fingers in all of the creative pies; she has worked with the National Theatre, the Royal Opera House, represented the UK at the International Biennale in Rome and has even masterminded an incredible music and arts festival, Brainchild. And through her journalism she tackles burning issues that many are afraid to speak out about – for example the concept in fashion of the colour ‘nude’ and the unrecognised problem that it causes for women of colour who just want to find a pair of skin-coloured tights – something which should be guaranteed for all women.

Furthermore, her writing invariably leans towards promoting those who are in need of a spotlight, for example she champions the (long overdue) rise of black female DJs, such as Jordanne of GCDJ (Girls Can’t DJ). This is also where her Brainchild Festival comes in. Because instead of just talking about change, Bridget does. “The answer lies in visibility,” she wrote in a piece for ‘The Debrief‘, and at Brainchild each July, Bridget provides the vital visibility that up-and-coming music, poetry and dance stars need.

Bridget was one of the founders of Brainchild, a quirky festival in the United Kingdom – it is very literally her brainchild. Nestled among the grounds of the Bentley Motor Museum in rural East Sussex, the chilled out setting comes with a surreal wildfowl park and miniature railway in tow. In addition to running it, Bridget took to the Brainchild stage this year to perform her poetry, as well as run a discussion about the housing crisis in Britain – and this combination of acts acutely captures the feel of the entire festival; subtle, cerebral and important, the achievement is a melange of conference and intellectual discussion in addition to the vibrant festivities.

Read next: Sydney Lima’s model of the month, Darwin Gray

Brainchild is volunteer-run, and yet endlessly inventive, even more so than the giants of festival Britain like Glastonbury and Reading which are simply too crowded to be truly intimate or different. In contrast, there seems to be no end to what Brainchild puts on, from silent discos made hot by the cutting edge GCDJ group, to the on-site art installations which also created a centre of gravity this year, such as the out-of-this-world geometric playgrounds of Kristi Minchin. There was even an act called 5 encounters on a site called Craigslist featured on the line-up this year. When asked about her vision for Brainchild, Bridget discussed how it evolves with each run: “Each year it’s got easier to know what our vision is—these days, I’m pretty sure we all want to create an inclusive space for as many people as possible, a place that’s fun but also engaging enough to make you think. But also fun. Retaining the intimacy is probably the next most important thing, as it’s something we’re really conscious of the larger we get.”

Brainchild festival

A yoga class at Brainchild. Image by Jerome Toole

Bridget Minamore’s work with Brainchild is a testament to her talents. Playing on the word ‘brain’, the festival describes itself as ‘a meeting of minds’, a network and safe haven for people in the arts to push their talents to the forefront of the stage – and it is because of Bridget that this creative network has become so strong. It can sometimes seem that the options available for young people to forge a career from artistic abilities are diminishing every day in Britain, due to lack of funding and the troubling expectation that they will work for free. However, Bridget’s work demonstrates how this is not necessarily true. I will be looking out for more of her presence in the future, as I am sure that the name Bridget Minamore will continue to be trailblazing, taste-making and trendsetting in the poetry world; she shows us how it can be done.

bridgetminamore.com

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Reading time: 5 min
Model of the month

Model and photographer, Darwin Gray. Image by Robert Binda

Unique design title model of the month

Sydney Lima

LUX contributing editor and Storm model, Sydney Lima continues her online exclusive series, interviewing her peers about modelling life and business.

THIS MONTH: Soon after 20-year-old Darwin Gray signed to London’s Storm Models he was spotlighted as the one to watch in the fashion world, walking catwalks for the likes of  Burberry, Tom Ford, Louis Vuitton and Vivienne Westwood, shooting campaigns for Jack Wills and editorials for Harpers Bazaar and eventually singing to agencies globally from Tokyo to New York. Now Darwin is developing his skills as a photographer, working on a portrait series whilst he is based in Korea.

Sydney Lima: How did you first get into modelling?
Darwin Gray: I was scouted at my cousins wedding by his best man, it was all a weird situation, he came up to me and said I should think about modelling, I just thought he’d been at the bar a bit too long! Then I met Storm a few weeks later and the rest is history.

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SL: What has been your favourite team to work with to date?
DG:My favourite team to date would probably be the Jack Wills team. I was part of two of their campaign shoots, both of which were just as fun as the other. Not at one point did it feel like work, the team were all really nice and good fun- I also met my girlfriend while shooting it so that’s a plus!

Image by Robert Binda

SL: What inspired you to first start taking photos?
DG: I had been modelling a few years before it became something I concentrated on. I was always taking lots of photos and I’ve loved looking back at them because each photo has a little memory it takes you back to.

SL: What’s your favourite subject to take photos off?
DG: My favourite subject would be my girlfriend Lottie, every day I’ll take photos of her either on my phone or camera. I probably have over 10,000 photos of her…

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”25″ gal_title=”Darwin Gray”]

Above: A selection of Darwin’s photographs. Courtesy of Darwin Gray

SL: When did you get your first camera?
DG: I got my first camera about 3 years ago. I bought it in Tokyo as the prices were better. It was a Canon EOS Kiss X7.

Read next: Mayfair’s legendary member’s club, Annabel’s reopening

Sydney Lima: Do you find you learn a lot through working with other photographers?
Darwin Gray: I’m always watching what other photographers do, I find it interesting how people all work so differently. I’m always asking questions. I feel lucky to have the opportunity to learn from within the industry.

SL: Who’s your favourite photographer?
DG: Tom Mitchell is one of my favourite photographers because his work is so clean and he portrays natural beauty in a subtle way.

SL: Do you have any projects planned for the year?
DG: I’m working on a few things, but right now I’m concentrating on a documentary photo series whilst I’m in Korea.

instagram.com/darwingray

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Reading time: 2 min
contemporary african art
Peterson Kamwathi contemporary african artist

Peterson Kamwathi, Medical Establishment-from the Sitting Allowance series, 2009, Courtesy of The Heong Gallery

Robert Devereux, former partner of the Virgin empire, served as chairman of the board of Frieze, the Tate Africa Acquisitions Committee and as an advisor to 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair. Kitty Harris caught up with the African contemporary art collector at The Heong Gallery at Downing College Cambridge for the exhibition of his Sina Jina collection: ‘Where the Heavens Meet the Earth’ to discuss the evolution of the art world, the importance of museums and his long African walk.

Kitty Harris: After completing your degree in History at Cambridge University you went into to publishing and then to work for your then to be future brother in law, Richard Branson. How did this journey lead you to the arts?
Robert Devereux: I got into the arts primarily because of my family. My mother, who particularly loved literature and my dad who had a great love of the visual arts and artefacts. We spent a lot of our summer holidays in Italy which involved going to museums and art galleries. Every year for my mother’s birthday and Christmas present, from the age at which I had pocket money, I brought a reproduction of a Tallantyre piece from Morpeth where we lived. She loved Bruegel’s work so our house was full of them; sadly, none of them were originals.

KH: And why did you start buying art?
RD: It’s so long ago now, I’m not sure if I can remember the answer. I started buying in the late 70s and early 80s when my wife had an art gallery. I don’t suppose I would have become a collector if I hadn’t started in order to support the gallery, maybe not. I started because Vanessa [Branson] had a gallery in Notting Hill. Interestingly, she had three or four African artists in her stable which was highly unusual and completely coincidental, because that was before my engagement in Africa.

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KH: What draws you to the art you do buy?
RD: Like all creative endeavours, an emotional response. Be it excitement, intrigue, interest. I wouldn’t buy a piece if it didn’t move the hairs on the back of my neck – not an intellectual approach I know, but then I begin to try to understand the works. I am fascinated by the thought process – why? Does it mean anything? And if so, is it purely pictorial, sculptural or is there some other significance?

KH: You’ve expressed an aversion to being called a “collector”, preferring the term buyer…
RD: A supporter. Often people say a Patron, I suppose there is nothing wrong with being a Patron but it does also have the connotation of patronage. I would like to think that both my collecting and my creation of the The African Arts Trust are for the support of the artists.

KH: How do you think the purchasing of art has changed since you began in the 70s and 80s?
RD: It’s changed out of all recognition. I was collecting mainly British art then and buying from London galleries, mainly Vanessa’s. The number of collectors, certainly of contemporary art, you could count on the fingers of one had. There were practically none of us. And now, it’s a huge industry and there are hundreds of collectors. There’s been an extraordinary snow balling effect. The creation of the Tate Modern, which has nothing to do with collectors, but it’s interesting that contemporary art has become a huge contemporary cultural phenomenon. The Tate Modern is one of the most visited institutions in the world and that’s amazing given what its content is.

African contemporary art

Aida Muluneh, No. 7 from the 99 series, 2013. Courtesy of The Heong Gallery

KH: Museums seem to have become the attraction of cities…
RD: Yes. Take the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. Now everybody knows that if you want to create social and economic regeneration you do it with an arts project, which is great. I had an interesting conversation with some older artists the other day who said, “When we left art school the thought of being a full time practising artist and earning our living from it never occurred to us. We went to teach or went to work in a museum.” And whilst they would have said it is definitely better now, there is something missing from that period when artists never had to think about selling work, or creating art for gallery deadlines or commercialising. Which is not to say that I think all artists do commercialise because I think most don’t. I think the commercial marketplace does have an effect on the art produced.

Contemporary african art

Lynette Yiadom Boakye, High Power, 2008, Courtesy of The Heong Gallery

KH: Do you think that the role of ultra-high net worth’s in purchasing art has changed the art world? Do you think there is a disconnect between creators and consumers? Or that perhaps artists create for consumers?
RD: I think we live in a very mixed ecology. I think all of the above. It happens in places where there is no real art market where an artist finds that they do something and the local tourists buy it and so they continue to do that because they know it will sell. And then there are artists who completely ignore that phenomena. One thing I find unattractive is art as a fashion and there is a strong element of that in the art market. Of art having become just a display of wealth, a sign of good taste (whatever that means) and a status symbol. I’m not going to name names but suddenly artists take off and it’s very clever artist manipulation by galleries and a few collectors.

KH: You served as Chairman of the board of Frieze, what do you think of the term ‘Fair Fatigue’ and what future do you see for art fairs?
RD: I think they will remain undoubtedly. I don’t say this to support Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp [the founders of Frieze]. There are as many art fairs as there are because they serve a valuable purpose. Are there too many of them? Maybe there are, maybe there aren’t. I think there will be ups and downs and peaks and troughs. I don’t have any doubt that art fairs will be a critical part of the future of the art world. They are wonderful and dreadful at the same time.

african art collecting

Nandipha Mntambo, Enchantment, 2012, Courtesy of The Heong Gallery

KH: You sold your 416 works of post-war British art in 2010 with Sotheby’s to start The African Art Trust. Was it hard to part with those works?
RD: I should probably say it was. Not at the time, it actually wasn’t. Partly because I got to the point where I needed to do something and inevitably as any collector does, you end up with work in storage which I think is most unfortunate. I had come up with the notion of The African Art Trust and the only way I could afford to fund it was to sell the works. I think that made it relatively simply because I think I felt I was doing it with clear and worthwhile purpose. Now, six years later, there are probably parts of that collection that I miss more now than I did then. I don’t really miss them. I miss them in the sense that I still think about them and they are in my imagination. That’s great because in a way I haven’t lost them.

Read next: The rebirth of Annabel’s, London’s most glamorous club

KH: The funds went to establish The African Arts Trust, a body that continues to fund grass roots organisations in expanding opportunities for artist. Why Africa? And what was your priority with this organisation?
RD: Africa because I had spent a lot of time there and I had been collecting African art for seven or eight years. I suppose I felt with a relatively modest sum of money, it was possible to make, hopefully, an impact there. Whereas if I’d have spent that amount of money in the UK it would have been a drop in the ocean. Also, I think the need there is much greater, which is not to pretend it’s not tough being an artist wherever you are; even in an extremely bright developed economy like ours. I do support The Showroom here, but in a much more modest way. I recognised there were lots of wonderful artists there who could do with a leg up, or some help or some support or some recognition.

Zanele Muholi, Miss D’vine II photography

Zanele Muholi, Miss D’vine II, 2007, Courtesy of The Heong Gallery

Kitty Harris: Tell us more about your Sina Jina Collection?
Robert Devereux: I’ve got a house in Lamu, an amazing Muslim community on the North coast of Kenya. And the house which I brought years and years ago, unusually had no name because it’s very old house and all of the houses in Lamu have a name bestowed upon by the families that own them. So I called the house ‘Sina Jina’ which means the house with no name. The collection never had a name until quite recently and for reasons that I can’t really remember I thought it better have a name. I prefer not to use my name if I possibly can. I called it ‘Sina Jina’ and there are probably 400 works; I’m not sure how many there are.

‘Where the Heavens Meet the Earth’ was a lovely title for the recent exhibition at The Heong Gallery, Downing College Cambridge and there is a certain spirituality of wonderful art – the earthly nature of the pieces connects them. The use of recycled materials: paper and wood. They are dis-proportionally from Eastern and Southern Africa because that’s where I spend most of my time, but there is lots of Western African art in there too; it’s all sub-Saharan. It doesn’t lose significance coming to London, it may change the context or meaning or just have a different significance. It’s medium agnostic. Photography is something I didn’t really collect when I was collecting British art, which is partly because I don’t think I’ve got a very good eye for photography. But there is quite a lot of photography in the collection, which I think partly reflects that there is a very strong practice of it in those countries.

KH: You’re not a gallery, how do you coordinate an international art collection?
RD: I don’t really! There’s not a plan. I do it myself. My girlfriend happens to be my art assistant as well. She does the archiving and tracks things as they move around the country. I haven’t got a curator and I think to me that would be a slightly weird thing to do, For me, the main enjoyment and what I get most out of it personally is exploring the artist’s world, meeting with them and engaging with them. I understand if you have big ambitions as a collector why you would have to do that. I would rather it subject to a random degree of subjectivity and was kept very personally.

Rotimi Fani Kayode,

Rotimi Fani Kayode, Grapes, 1989, Courtesy of ABP and The Heong Gallery

KH: What’s next for you?
RD: I went for a long African walk at the end of 2015/16. I walked the length of the African Rift Valley. I spent six and half months walking and the reason I mention it is that one of the reasons I did it was to clear my decks. So that I could come back and think about the last twenty years of my life (which are probably the last twenty active years of my life) and decide what I wanted to do. Before I went away I stopped collecting about six months before I left and haven’t really started again. I’ve bought one or two things. One of the things the walk made me think about, which I think about continuously anyway, is what am I doing as a collector? I’ve got a relatively small resource and how is it best used and applied? Is the best way of spending what I have got to collect? Or should I use that money in different ways? Anything I buy now goes straight into storage, which is ridiculous. I’ve got to the point in my life, I’m an old man, where I ‘m beginning to think where is it going to go eventually? In an ideal world, I would love to gift it to an institution, ideally to an African one. It would be wonderful if it could go back to Africa, but there’s nowhere obvious that I know of where it could go to. Then of course my children, in many way it’s as much theirs as it is mine. Quite what they would wish to do with I’m not sure. I’m trying not to start buying again until I’ve solved some of those issues.

KH: Which piece of art would you save in a fire?
RD: There’s always two ways of asking that question which is either: which is your favourite piece? Of which I don’t have one. Or to do what you did, which my cunning son asked. My answer: the one nearest to me. I really don’t have a favourite. I’m now trying to imagine myself in the fire and running out and it would be whatever I could realistically get out.

 

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Reading time: 11 min
London member's club
Annabel's London

Image by Chris Tubbs

Re-launch of exclusive club Annabel's

Elizabeth Taylor, Annabel’s 1985

To those of a certain net worth and vintage, the name Annabel’s has for decades been synonymous with the finest type of decadence. The nightclub in the heart of Mayfair was host to generations of bright young things, lascivious old things, the super-rich, Hollywood and music celebrities. Whether you were stopping off in London between homes in the Hamptons and St Tropez, or you were a Chelsea debutante interested in meeting the private jet-set, the canopy on Berkeley Square was where your dreams began.

In recent times, though, Annabel’s was overtaken by hipper venues of the new London crowd: the Arts Club for dining and schmoozing, 5 Hertford Street for drinking and clubbing at LouLou’s. A standalone nightclub seemed a bit 1983.

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Now, under the aegis of new owner Richard Caring (owner of The Ivy Collection of restaurants, as well as Scott’s on Mount Street and other private clubs including Harry’s Bar and George), the nightclub is being reborn, a few metres along from its original location, but accompanied by an extensive private member’s club space that will look after its well-to-do guests from early-breakfast to late-clubbing time.

Exclusive member's club in Mayfair

Image by Chris Tubbs

Dubbed an “all day and all night experience”, the new Annabel’s will feature restaurants, including a year-round terrace, a spa, members’ lounges, a cigar fumoir, a bar in which to warm up your date, and a new, bigger, better nightclub in which to seal the deal – financial, romantic, or both.

The various areas are being designed and curated by a who’s who of uber-celebs in their fields including Mario Testino, Charlotte Tilbury and Martin Brudnizki. Former members will be invited to rejoin, but there will also be an influx of the young, beautiful crowd; all in a location that beats any other Mayfair members club into a corner.

Read next: LUX’s medical expert says eat salt, avoid sugar

Location and the place itself, are, of course, only part of the equation that makes up the world’s best members’ clubs: the members themselves are the most important draw, as Nick Jones has demonstrated with his global Soho House group (in which Caring is a shareholder) which caters to a totally different crowd.

London member's club

Cigar Terrace. Image by Chris Stubbs

But, a few months before its grand reopening, Annabel’s has everything going for it, including a matchless brand, ready to be passed between generations. Watch this space, and, if you want to get onto the new membership, start sweeping through your contacts list and make some pleading calls with your best-connected friends. Or you could try them direct, at [email protected] – but be prepared for disappointment unless you have some well-connected backers.

annabels.co.uk

Darius Sanai

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Reading time: 2 min
Medical blog by Leyla Sanai
Uncertainty in medicine
Launching our new online series, LUX medical columnist Dr Leyla Sanai discusses two medical books revealing why patients should be aware of the risks and benefits of treatments, and why sugar is our real enemy

Most people believe that there is little uncertainty in medicine. Evidence-based trials show doctors what works, and from there it’s a simple matter of either recommending X or not – where X could be a screening test on a healthy patient, a test on an ill patient, or a treatment. But it isn’t as simple as that, as Steven Hatch’s new book Snowstorm in a Blizzard (Atlantic Books, £14.99) shows.

In this lucidly written account, Dr Hatch, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, reveals to the reader how to liaise with your doctors to ascertain if the benefit of the proposed procedure or treatment is worth the risk. Of course, the benefits and risks vary from individual to individual based on a whole host of factors such as age, gender, smoking history, family history, and many other variables.

One of the elegant examples Hatch talks us through is the value of routine screening for prostatic specific antigen (PSA), a blood test carried out to detect the presence of prostate cancer. In the years following the popularisation of this test in the early 1990s, the number of cases of men diagnosed with prostate cancer doubled compared with the incidence 15 years earlier. Yet the death rates remained almost the same.

This is because many men have prostate cancer that is never diagnosed and never causes them any harm. In one study, 40% of men who died had evidence of prostate cancer that had not been diagnosed and that had not contributed to their death. In the oldest age group, the incident was around 80%.

In fact, out of every 1000 men over fifty years old screened for PSA, only one life will be saved because of the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer as compared to 1000 men over 50 who are not screened. And yet, of 1000 men screened, more than 200 will be found to have an increased level of PSA. These men will all be referred for biopsy. Of the men biopsied, 90 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. In comparison, in an unscreened group of 1000 men over fifty years old, 70 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, either because they present with symptoms or because of a chance finding of a hard prostate on rectal examination for some other reason.

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All of those diagnosed will be given the option of treatment for prostate cancer, which comprises one or more from the list of surgery, radiotherapy, and hormone therapy. But note that 20 more men have been diagnosed with prostate cancer in the PSA screened group then in the unscreened group. Which means that 20 more men in the screened group than the unscreened group will receive treatment for prostate cancer – a cancer that might never have come to light if they had not been screened, and might never have caused them any harm. So twenty men out of the 1000 screened will be put through all the risks of treatment of prostate cancer – a treatment that carries risks such as surgical blood loss, or the small risk of incontinence or impotence – and yet only one of them will have their life saved as a result of the screening picking up a cancer.

And yet – although the doctor in me recognises the distress, effort, side effects, and expense that 1000 patients have to be put through in order to save one extra life from prostatic cancer, the patient, or patient’s relative, in me, screams ‘go for it!’ to my husband and my brother. Because the truth is that although the abstract concept of 1000 patients having to be screened in order to save one extra life might seem excessive to the doctor, to that one patient, that screening test has been – well, life-saving. And this is why the vast majority of patients will choose screening for themselves and their loved ones even if the chance of personal gain is very small. Because what’s a bit of discomfort or even a serious side effect like anaemia or infection compared to the difference between life and death for yourself or someone you love? Only when the risks of screening become so serious as to potentially cause life threatening disease themselves do most patients baulk.

The answer to uncertainty in medicine is education, education, education. If the patient reads up about the risks and benefits of procedures, they can have discussions with their specialists. And of course, much depends on individual preference. One individual may be adamant that they want their PSA checked, even though screening only saves one life in a thousand compared to a nonscreened group. Another may prefer not to undergo the psychological distress of a test and discomfort/risks of a biopsy that, even if positive, may simply be diagnosing a cancer that would never have caused their death anyway. This excellent book does not try to dictate answers – it merely seeks to raise awareness that even with all the technological and pharmacological advances in medicine, the correct answer is not always black or white, but various shades of grey.

* * * * * *

Eat Salt, Not Sugar

The general public has long been chastised to lower their salt (sodium chloride) intake. Some of us forgo a sprinkle of it on food, and, as a result, eat bland and unseasoned meals. In The Salt Fix (Piaktus, £13.99), Dr James DiNicolantonio, a cardiovascular research scientist and doctor of pharmacy in Kansas City, Missouri, tells us that we have been demonising the wrong white crystal. Sugar is far worse for our health than salt. In fact, he explains to us that low salt diets actually cause all sorts of harmful physiological effects. They increase the heart rate, which puts more strain on the heart. They increase triglycerides, and increase insulin secretion, since insulin helps the kidneys to retain sodium. Insulin stimulates the laying down of fat, and it lowers blood sugar, leading to sugar cravings. In addition, when the body over-secretes insulin, cells can develop resistance to the effects of the hormone, paving the way for the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus, with its attendant risks of heart attack, stroke, and poor leg circulation, and problems in kidneys, eyes and nerves.

We are constantly told that salt raises blood pressure, but approximately 80% of people with a normal blood pressure are not sensitive to the blood pressure-raising effects of salt at all. Of those with borderline raised blood pressure, still 75% will not increase their blood pressure if they ingest salt. And even of those with full hypertension, 55% of them are totally immune to salt’s effect on the blood pressure. The author’s message is that in most people, eating normal levels of sodium is not harmful. In fact, studies suggest that eating between 3 and 4 g of sodium a day does not cause a problem in individuals whose kidneys are working properly, since any excess is excreted, and the high levels protect against the aforementioned risks of low salt diets.

Read next: A slower pace of life in the Nepalese Himalayas 

But national guidelines are slow to follow research. In fact, nutritional guidelines have consistently lagged so far behind research over the past few decades that sugar has had a free pass, despite the many trials showing its deleterious health effects. Risibly, as recent as 2000, US guidelines assured the public that sugar did not predispose to type 2 diabetes. And in the UK, it wasn’t until July 2015 until the government reduced the maximum percentage of daily calories that it recommended could be taken in by free sugars from 10% of total calories to 5%, following consultation with the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition. In fact, the best percentage of free sugars to ingest if you have a sedentary lifestyle is 0%.

Why has it taken so long for public guidelines to match what research has shown for decades? Perhaps it’s because the sugar industry sponsors a lot of research. In 2013, a systematic review of studies published in PLOS Medicine showed that in those studies which were partially or wholly funded by the food industry, or had other similar conflicts of interest with it, 83.3% found no link between sugary drinks and obesity. By contrast, in those studies which have no conflict of interest with the food industry, 83.3% of them showed a definite connection between sugary drinks and obesity. It seems remarkable that even in the 21st-century, research can become befuddled by the influence of industry and politics.

While I would be more circumspect about recommending a dietary intake of salt as high as that which the author recommends, it certainly seems as if very low salt diets do more harm than good. And it is clear to see that it was sugar, not salt, that was the bogeyman at the banquet all along.

Dr Leyla Sanai MBChB MRCP(UK) FRCA(Lond)
Retired consultant anaesthetist

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Reading time: 7 min
Mexico city shoppping street
Joe Sitt interview

Joe Sitt, President and CEO of Thor Equities

Joseph Sitt, President and CEO of Thor Equities, sits atop a luxury property, retail and advisory empire that straddles the western hemisphere. His company owns and develops prime retail property throughout the US, as well as Latin America and Europe. The portfolio and development pipeline of the New York-based company, which he founded in 1986, is in excess of US $18bn.

He is also known as something of a luxury visionary: unlike many property companies, his firms (he also runs Thor Retail Advisors, a leading retail agent and consultant; and others) work closely with fashion and luxury brands to ‘place make’, transforming the areas they are based in. Like LUX, he also believes in mixing high luxury with creative emerging brands to create an atmosphere of discovery as well as indulgence. LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai caught up with Sitt on one of his whirlwind visits to London about the rise of LA, Mexico, and the future of luxury retail.

LUX: Tell me about the rise of LA as a destination.
Joe Sitt: There is physically no more room in San Francisco for office space and for homes, for rental buildings and retail. So, much of that industry is migrating to LA because it’s also on the coast and it’s got better weather. It’s also got more culture and things happening, so there is a lot of migration there, and a lot of wealth being created in LA. And you are getting a lot of second home owners (from the San Francisco area) who are buying in LA.

Between the businesses migrating their technology and the second home owners there, the revitalisation and reactivation in LA is tremendous. You can see also that new restaurants are incredibly successful. And it’s not just coming into LA proper. It’s also coming from down below for example into Santa Monica and Venice Beach. You have tech companies like Snapchat whose headquarters are based over there.

The other aspect of it is the creative industries in LA. Some real fashion is coming out of there for the first time in quite a while. Secondly, the movie industry. For the first time the movie making business is a real profitable business for film makers, writers – salaries are going up tremendously for all of them and for anybody affiliated with the industry.

The tech industry has so much wealth and power and it has the “funny money”, because their stock prices are so high; for example the FANGs – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google – their stock prices are so high that they are throwing money very aggressively at almost anything. And that is crossing with the fact that the biggest thing that all of those tech companies need, and that they don’t have the ability to do within their tech shops, is actually content.

So now what you have is, if someone is making movies in LA you actually have a shot at a bidding war between Amazon, Netflix, etc. Even Snapchat have announced that they want to be buying and delivering content. That’s creating a really exciting time for the LA market for the people in all forms of the creative industry. A combination of wealth and creatives.

LUX: And in parallel the visual arts has revived there in the last 10 years.
Joe Sitt: Yes. For example, my friends at the [Helly] Nahmad gallery, who are the largest owners of Picassos in the world, now see how many people are coming from the West Coast to consume their products in New York. So they are opening their third outpost: they’ve got London, New York and are now looking to the West Coast. You’ve got [Larry] Gagosian who’s got his New York Gallery, he sees where the zip codes are where he’s shipping his product to. So while people are opening up shop in San Francisco, to get to the wealth proper a lot of them are really looking to the arts district in LA.

Read next: Japanese restaurant, Sake No Hana brings blossoms to Europe 

LUX: Do you see the emergence, despite Donald Trump, of LA and Mexico emerging as one entwined retail and luxury zone?
Joe Sitt: Very much so. I look at Mexico as a big new frontier in luxury fashion. A tremendous amount of wealth has been created in that country. In terms of those people who think that Donald Trump’s policies are going to hurt Mexico…I will throw you a curveball and show you how he’s actually getting the opposite result from what people think would happen and perhaps what he intended. I will give you two examples.

One, is in terms of the border in terms of trade as well as in in terms of immigration and how they actually play out. Sometimes when you shoot a bullet when it comes to policy you don’t know who the victim is going to be. The trade announcement forced a tremendous amount of devaluation in the Mexican Peso. The Peso went from around ten pesos to the dollar ten years ago to twenty two recently; so about half. The net result of doing that was making Mexico as a country and as an exporter more competitive.

As a result of making them more competitive from their currency it increased America’s trade deficit with Mexico dramatically over the last quarter. The opposite of what everyone expected to happen in that first quarter. The second thing that occurred with regard to the second policy, immigration, also had an unintended consequence; which is as a result of being tighter on the border for immigration, US companies have started to create tech centres in Mexico. In Guadalajara, and in Tijuana for those companies in San Diego who just want to be able to cross the border and travel 45 minutes to their foreign teams.

So now you’ve seen an incredible resurgence of business and activity in both Guadalajara and Tijuana in Mexico for the tech industry as a result of those tough policies. It’s a place so close to the United States and you can house all of the greatest foreign minds in the world.

Mexico city shoppping street

The Ferragamo store on Masaryk street in Mexico City

LUX: Mexico has been seen as an outlier in terms of luxury retail.
Joe Sitt: It takes time for a market to react to some of things I’ve mentioned. It’s now waking up. I feel that the entire luxury market has been sleeping at the wheel regarding the Mexico opportunity. And so now they are just waking up to it. Those who are waking up to it are finding success in the market place. But it takes time for them to mobilise.

LUX: Can you tell us your vision for what you’re doing there, because it’s a long term play.
Joe Sitt: We are attacking it from multiple prongs. One of course is just bringing luxury retail there, and creating a platform for it to come to, for the first time. We sparked the revitalisation a street called Masaryk and in an area called Polanco, in the heart of Mexico City. In the old days it was an Upper East Side kind of marketplace that was starting to become abandoned and is now revitalised.

LUX: And is that now going to be the Rue St Honoré of Mexico?
Joe Sitt: Yes exactly right. You’re starting to see it. Hermès, Ferragamo, Gucci and Goyard just opened there. So you’ve got some great brands already.

LUX: Was this through you?
Joe Sitt: We were the spark that brought it all together.

Thom Sweeney

Thom Sweeney SS17

LUX: Integrating investment in emerging fashion brands and developing districts seems pretty for a property company. What’s behind it?
Joe Sitt: Candidly, it’s more of a passion. Yes, there are financial benefits of being on the ground floor of some of the most exciting brands and investing with them or representing and aiding them. Yes, there will be financial reward, probably in years to come when a Thom Sweeney explodes and goes next level or a Drakes or an Edward Green or a Maison Bonnet. But for me, more than anything else, at this stage in my career I am looking for things that I enjoy personally. And I enjoy young and exciting luxury brands and helping them achieve their potential. I get my personal thrill vicariously through their success.

Read next: Labassa Wolfe on the contemporary tailoring experience

LUX: Is your ideal scenario that they grow up to be the next Moynat, Vuitton, Hermès?
Joe Sitt: In some cases yes, in some cases no. For some, Maison Bonnet, the eyeglasses company, we are going to help them make the move from Paris’s first and only little artisan shop to executing in London. It’s about growing the business but not necessarily overgrowth or creating a Goliath.

LUX: And is the long term that you are buying, building and selling them?
Joe Sitt: I have to be careful in terms of conflict so I can’t say which ones I invest in. Other than to say when I do make investments in them I am focused on very very long term. It’s not to buy and sell. It will go wherever the visionary wants to take it, who’s owning the business, will we ride with this vision. In terms of our advisory business, our goal for these companies is to help them reach whatever their potential is, or is meant to be. Some of them it’s meant to be a very large business, some of them it’s not. We do the same thing with tech related businesses. I mentioned Warby Parker [an eyewear company], we were with them from the start, opening all of their first locations. Helping them understand the challenges of physical retailing versus internet retailing.

LUX: You are a property person. But is retail moving online?
Joe Sitt: There will be challenges in terms of distribution for people to buy things online for many years to come. And buying direct is not a new invention. We had catalogue prior, it was just a different medium for doing it. Someone would get the catalogue to their house and then they would order by telephone; or later order through emaiI. I look at online as another modem to deliver a product to a consumer. When it comes to commodities, it’s easy enough push a button and buy it on the internet. But does the internet mean that Nike should not open up more stores? We’ve found the opposite. I worked with Nike in New York, myself and a partner, for the first flagship store in Soho on the corner of Spring Street and Broadway. They are doing two incredible flagships that are costing them mega millions of dollars to build. Why are they doing that in the year 2017 with all the talk of tech and internet sales? Because they realise for a brand, it works arm in arm. People want the experience of a brand. The same way people are talking about restaurants and experience and enjoying that aspect of it, it’s the same thing when it comes to a brand. I want to go to Nike and not just see pictures on the internet. I want to touch the product, I want to try it on I want to interact with it.

Maison Bonnet

Maison Bonnet’s Palais Royal Salon in Paris. Image by JYLSC

LUX: You have done some transformative retail schemes over the years. What are the challenges when you have an area like this that has got great potential but you need to change things? Do you get resistance?
Joe Sitt: There is always resistance. I always say that the secret to knowing when a project is going to be great is the greater amount of resistance. We enjoy both. We like doing things in established high profile tourist destinations as well as cool emerging areas like Wynwood in Miami, Venice Beach in California, and all of these creative markets all over the world that we think need and deserve luxury exposure as well.

Read next: Luxury in the foothills of the Himalayas

LUX: Do you think that monolithic luxury malls as are opening in China and elsewhere, where everything is a luxury brand and nothing else, will change? Will people want more of a mix in there?
Joe Sitt: Yes. That’s boring. Even if it’s great luxury brands it’s not what the consumer wants. As a consumer it gets more and more sophisticated. You see that in their taste they want something that is more eclectic.

LUX: A bit of discovery?
Joe Sitt: Yes. It could be restaurant discoveries, specialty shops, boutiques, perfumeries, candle shops etc. Intermixed with the luxury brands and that’s what creates the most successful environment for a luxury brand.

LUX: What’s the most exciting area of luxury and fashion for you?
Joe Sitt: Menswear is so exciting, much more exciting than womenswear, still very much an untapped market, with brands we’ve referred to today, Thom Sweeney for example, in years to come that could explode. I think that food, F&B, restaurants etc. have tremendous potential. Look at a market like London, if you were here 15 years ago the restaurant scene was horrific. It’s come along light years. I think other markets are going to expand to a much greater degree.

Last, but certainly not least is destination. I think people are remaking what the word ‘resort’ is, as hospitality and a destination. I think people are stating to get really creative. People crave creative.

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Reading time: 11 min