Jawdance is a powerful blend of poetry and protest at a venue in east London. Image courtesy of Apples and Snakes

LUX’s Contributing Poet Rhiannon Williams discovers street poetry and protest is alive and thriving on the fringes of the international urban art scene.

As a young poet living in London, I have come to know the many hidden faces of our contemporary poetry landscape well. But nothing has struck home in the way that Jawdance has.

In the heart of Shoreditch, in East London, there is a dark stage. Feel an insistent bass, which picks up pace to keep time with an energy that builds and builds and doesn’t stop building. From the stage comes a spiky, eclectic hybrid between music, hip hop, art and poetry – and a rare glimpse into the soul of an arts scene which is uninhibited and so, so alive. Unseen, and yet bursting at the seams from a small room with a small stage full of big voices.

This is spoken word poetry, a poetic hybrid that speaks of and to people who are otherwise unheard. The talent of the poets you’ll find here is home-grown, full of heart, and iridescently free. Free from the dust of astringent commerciality which can so often choke artists. Free from the inhibitions of so-called ‘sensible society’; day jobs are all forgotten for tonight. As free as the rhymes which are so full of life they seem to transcend their meanings to reach a vivid corporeality. Oh, and it’s free to enter too, which leads to the creation of a rare welcoming charm, something lacking in a world where so many precious things are valued primarily by their marketability and not originality.

Always passionate, spoken word can be personal or political. Image courtesy of Apples and Snakes

It strikes you as reminiscent of the kind of golden poetry you would have found in San Francisco during its sixties scene, or Harlem during the Revival time of Langston Hughes; the real beauty is in the spontaneity. Spoken word as an art form has evolved since its first explosion onto the scene in the early 20th century primarily through the prisms of political change. Since then, its use as a form of protest and experimentation as well as just for a riot of a good time, bringing together a collective consciousness and feeling, has been a powerful influence over young creatives all over the world. And this characteristic of the genre is just as potent today. More than ever, the urgency is palpable, getting bigger and louder often in forgotten corners of our urban landscapes, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Read next: Grayson Perry’s political pots at the Sepertine Gallery

At Jawdance, presenter and poet Yomi Sode MCs the evening’s electricity. The creative mastermind behind the evening is an event in himself in the way he merges stand-up comedy continuity with his mastery of the at times very profound issues being laid bare. He calls up act after act to the microphone to infuse the air with a poetry that bites, that shocks, that electrifies. Whether the act is the whip-smart all-female poetry collective Octavia or an open-mic first-timer who has wandered in from the humdrum of the city, the quality of performance is staggeringly high – and what they have to say is important. Because in the poetry at Jawdance there is a sense, from a social and cultural perspective, of something moving. Raw at moments, hilarious at others, a common theme is for a poetry that is plugged in and almost cruelly receptive to the times. You are left breathless from listening, but enthralled to be so, as the candle is held up to the intimacies of life, the social and political issues that trouble so many refracted into words. It is thanks to platforms like Jawdance that there is still a space for this passionate, immediate self-expression in cities where those who may feel themselves to be voiceless can soar.

So if there’s one thing you take away from Jawdance, it is that poetry is willing itself to be heard every day. So grab a craft beer from the bar, let yourself be absorbed into the crowd and lie back for the ride, because to quote from the night, if the true Prime Minister of London is gigs then Jawdance is without a doubt the Woodstock in the cabinet.

Jawdance, every last Wednesday of the month at Rich Mix, Bethnal Green Road, London

Grayson Perry, Installation view, Serpentine Gallery, London. Photograph: Robert Glowacki.

British artist Grayson Perry refers to himself as a “communicator”, one who is aiming to “communicate to as wide an audience as possible”, which means, at this time, bridging the gap in Britain between a divided society. As such, the centrepiece of “The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!”, at the Serpentine Gallery, are the Brexit pots (provocatively titled “The Matching Pair”), which were created with the help of the British public who were invited, through social media, to contribute ideas, images and phrases. From across the room, these huge blue vases look remarkably similar; look closer and the images reveal not only two opposing view-points, but the artist’s own political sway. The Leave pot has Nigel Farage, Big Ben, Winston Churchill and ketchup, whilst the Remain pot is a collage of romance and literature, with a portrait of Shakespeare and kissing couples.

‘King of Nowhere’, 2015, Cast iron and mixed media, Photography: Stephen White.

Elsewhere, Grayson pokes fun at fat cat art collectors with one liner quips scrawled across his ceramics, such as “flat whites against racism”, and “luxury brands for social justice”. The bronze sculptures are perhaps the most striking, delving deep into the modern psyche and issues of identity: “King of Nowhere” is a wide legged, cap-wearing drunk with scissors and knifes plunged into his skin, surrounded by miniature bottles of whisky. It’s an overwhelming and chaotic insight into Grayson’s mind, a whirlwind of contrasting words and images that confront the viewer from even the most mundane of objects. Amusing on the surface with ominously aggressive undertones, it seems to me, to be a fairly accurate reflection of the current state of British society.

Millie Walton

“Grayson Perry: The Most Popular Art Exhibition Ever!” runs until 10th September 2017 at The Serpentine Gallery, London 

Rebecca Louise Law’s cherry blossom canopy at Sake No Hana

Mayfair’s Sake No Hana restaurant by the Hakkasan Group celebrates the Japanese ‘sakura’ season with an installation of intertwining cherry blossom branches and a limited-edition menu. LUX enjoys Hideki Hiwatashi’s contemporary take on hanami – the Japanese feast that celebrates cherry blossom season and the start of spring – beneath the seasonal blooms.

Sakura begins in the south of Japan around February and finishes in the north at the end of May. Fortunately, the 24,000 flowers carefully installed by East-London artist Rebecca Louise Law at Mayfair’s Sake No Hana are hand-dried and preserved to last forever. However, they’ll only be visible on the restaurant’s wooden beamed ceiling until the end of June, providing the ideal backdrop for a contemporary hanami feast.

Read next: Tailoring for the modern gentleman 

Traditionally served at a Japanese cherry blossom picnic, Head Chef, Hideki Hiwatashi has dreamt up a new take on the traditional feast; a culinary reflection of the season’s celebrations and the transient beauty of the blossoms.  The special hanami cocktail blends lavender bitters and Akashi-tai honjozo, whilst the culinary offerings are typically innovative of the brand.

The sakura sushi platter

Our highlights were the bamboo leaf wrapped sea bass nigiri, tied prettily with a golden wire (it looks almost too good to eat), and the char-grilled rib eye beef with chilli ponzu. The most decadent option is the salmon served with a reach champagne yuzu miso sauce and pickled carrot and celery, which resemble pink blossoms. And for desert, a bitter chocolate, cherry delice that melts in the mouth. Enjoy the transient tastes while they last.

The sakura menu and art installation will be available at Sake No Hana until 18th June
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Labassa Woolfe’s Fitzrovia boutique

Fitzrovia’s latest opening, Labassa Woolfe is the brainchild of Johan Labassa, an antiques dealer, and Joe Woolfe, previously Retail Director at Savile Row tailor Spencer Hart, and a celebrity stylist in his own right. The boutique melds their passions to create the ultimate retail experience for men, with a collection of curated antiques, a bespoke tailoring service and a menu of Armagnac and foie gras sourced from Johan’s family farm in the southwest of France. Kitty Harris speaks to the duo about styling the stars, what makes perfect tailoring and the modern gentleman.

LUX: How do antiques and tailoring relate? Or are they mutually exclusive?
Joe Woolfe: I think this is a concept people aren’t used to. They’re not used to a tailoring business with an antiques element; they didn’t understand what it was about. They thought the back of the shop was our private salon. It’s just about letting people know what it’s all about. We try to communicate across our media platforms and in interviews and slowly people are getting it.

LUX: How is your shop different to Savile Row tailors, independent of the fact you sell antiques and fois gras?
Joe Woolfe: I think on the tailoring side I am different. My other business, or my day job if you like, dressing iconic men, and having to sort and source perfect outfits, I always try to find something a bit different. Hence the buttons (all sourced in Paris) and the cufflinks and the extra bits we can do to an outfit. I don’t know if there is another brand on Savile Row that does what we do. I’ve worked with them all, because obviously not all of my clients are going to wear Labassa Woolfe. Benedict Cumberbatch wears Thom Sweeney, he wears Richard James, Kilgour, all kinds of products. Someone came in the other day and said they needed a top hot so I worked with Lock Hatters to get them one. My styling side really works well with this.

LUX: Joe, you mentioned being Benedict Cumberbatch’s stylist? Is there more pressure working with a celebrity?
JW: I think all clients are demanding especially when they are spending a lot of money. I think from my Spencer Hart days there was a mistake in how we ran the business whereby we concentrated far too much on the celebrities and it didn’t go down very well with our other clients. They felt the celebrities were more important than them so now I am aware not to go on and on about celebrities. I like to keep that discreetly on the side and concentrate on the person I’m with.

Joe Wolfe, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johan Labassa

LUX: Why did you decide to set up shop on your own?
JW: I think it was an inevitable step. I work in menswear and I love tailoring and I’ve never been able to get quite what I want out of other brands. I was reluctant to set up a tailoring business. But when me and Johan started talking about what we could do together it really excited me. It was obvious we were going to produce something that was unique and made a lot of sense to me. I couldn’t of done this without Johan and vice versa and it’s worked out really well.

Read next: Hotel Byblos’ owner, Antoine Chevanne on the allure of St. Tropes

LUX: Joe, what makes good tailoring?
JW: Fabric, fabric is really important. I’ve learnt a lot about fabrics because after I left Spencer Hart I went and work with Scabal who are probably one of the best cloth manufacturers in the world, alongside Loro Piana, and they do have an amazing business. They have a £60 million cloth business and 5,000 cloths. It was like going into a kitchen with the best ingredients in the world and being able to use them. Cloth is really important and the people who make the suits. I know a lot about tailoring and the construction of a suit and how that translates onto a person. It’s all about the architecture in a garment and how the garment is built. Anybody who has worn good tailoring, and you then try and put something on them that isn’t well built or manufactured they’re not going to feel good in it. It’s about education, about what people expect. It’s like once you’ve been in an AMG Mercedes you don’t want to go back in a cheap one. Fabric, cut, manufacturing, details. Sometimes less is more. I don’t like people looking like peacocks or like clowns. I like my guys to be really sophisticated, really cool and elegant. Quite often it’s about textures rather than lots of different colours or lots of loud things. We have a few contradictions in the shop, like the black jacket with the coloured Sophie Hallette lace. But there aren’t many people who would wear that.

LUX: How do you think the world of tailoring has evolved in recent years?
JW: Guys know so much more about tailoring than they did. You can walk into Topman now and get a made to measure suit, or into Massimo Dutti. All of the highstreet brands have followed what was going on on Savile Row fifteen years ago. We’re really up against it. There are incredible online tailoring businesses that produce a really good product for a couple of hundred quid. It’s crazy. I know a lot of the cutters on Savile Row who have gone and worked with huge Chinese manufactures and they’ve brought their expertise over to China and over to India. They are producing really good product at a really good price. I’ve felt I’ve had to work harder. Haute couture is always copied onto the highstreet even with womenswear, so it was inevitable that it was going to happen with men’s tailoring as well and it has. But I think the people who are at the forefront of men’s tailoring are always going to be producing better product than highstreet brands.

LUX: How would you describe the modern gentleman?
JW: The modern guy is more educated, they read magazines that inform them on what they need to wear and how they need to wear it. You’ve got iconic men like Oliver Chesire, Jack Guinness, David Gandy who inform every guy on what’s cool and what’s not. GQ is a big supporter. We’ve got men’s fashion week that has a huge visibility so I think most guys know what they’re looking for a lot more than they used to. They have staples in their wardrobe. They often come and know exactly what they want. Some don’t get it quite right. What is a modern guy? A modern guy wants to look cool and sexy…but is that just a modern guy? I think all guys have always wanted that. Even back to the 1850s, everyone says that the One Button Narrow Notch Suit is a new thing, but it’s not. It was around 150 years ago.

Oliver Cheshire and Jack Guinness

LUX: What’s the ultimate men’s accessory?
JW: I think watches are really important which surprises me in this digital age, that guys are so into having something mechanical on their wrist. The amount of money that people spend on watches just blows my mind, it’s phenomenal.

LUX: Johan, your speciality is antiques – is there a particular period you prefer? Which has been your most exciting discovery and where did you find it?
Johan Labassa: Yes, mostly Louis XV, Regency, Directory. But I don’t really have a favourite period. It depends on the furniture and what I find. As for my favourite piece I’ve found…I like them all but I found a great desk from a French family near Paris. It was very hard to get because they were not ready to sell so I had to deal with it long term but at the end of the day I got it and I love it.

Read next: Bill Bensley’s Art Deco palace in Bangkok 

LUX: Do you think there’s an increasing demand in luxury to offer the client more than just the product?
JW: I’m actually bored with retail, because with what I do on the branding and styling side I have to spend a lot of time in luxury stores. There are very few retail experiences that I enjoy. They all have this mono brand feel to the and the staff are quite controlled in what they can and can’t do. We don’t have a huge online presence, you can’t get our candle online or our fragrance or Fois Gras. It’s pointless because unless you come here, see, touch and feel and get looked after by us you’re not going to experience what this brand is about. I think what this brand is about is proper old school retailing experience. All the little things that are bespoke to this business even down to the packaging, the bags and the covers; we’ve worked hard to get unique pieces. We want people to come here and experience us.

LUX: What are the “quintessential elements of French and English style” that are the fundamentals of the brand?
JW: It’s just a bit decadent.

JL: It’s just not normal. We’ve done something that isn’t done, it’s different.

JW: If we serve you a glass of Champagne, A) it’s French, B) We’ll add a little something to it, armagnac, syrup, orange, vanilla and coffee – it’s something Johan has manufactured. C) the foie gras is beautiful, the shoes are beautiful (all custom made in Italy), the art deco chairs are beautiful. It’s all an extension of our home, of who we are.

labassawoolfe.com

Breakfast is served alfresco at Glenburn Tea Estate on the terrace. Image by James Houston

The Himalayas are one of the few corners of the earth that remain unconquerable by humans. Many of the world’s highest peaks are yet to be summitted and much of the range is still a mystery. In the first leg of a journey from North East India to Nepal, Digital Editor Millie Walton ascends to the colonial city of Darjeeling to experience life at high altitude from the luxurious view point of Glenburn Tea Estate.

Life on the mountains begins at sunrise. The curtains of our suite are drawn at 6am with the delivery of “bed tea” ( a china teapot of the estate’s finest brew) and biscuits. The room glows pale yellow, a light which will soon turn bright and icy. We have been told that this is when the Himalayas are at their most magnificent as the sun slides down the edges of the mountains, and the snow blushes pink, then gold. This morning, however, nature won’t oblige voyeuristic eyes and the mountains are concealed by layers of puffy, white clouds. Set against, the vibrant green of Glenburn’s surrounding tea plantations, it’s still beautiful, but not quite Kanchenjunga.

Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, sits opposite Glenburn

“You may need umbrellas. It rains almost every day here,” Jemima, our Scottish hostess warns us as we set off on a morning walk down to the Sikkim river. In the hot sun, it’s hard to believe, but the weather at high altitude is volatile and necessarily so for the healthy growth of tea. “Most people don’t realise that there are only two types of tea: Chinese and Assam. We grow both here at Glenburn,” our guide explains to us, as we stroll through the neatly combed lines of tea plants. Today is Sunday so there are no pickers at work, but there are over 1,000 employees on the estate who contribute in some way to the production of the tea. The estate, originally established by a Scottish family hence the Celtic name, is now owned and run by one of the most respected tea families in India, The Prakashes, not just as a business, but as a community. There are five villages, five schools, shops, hospitals, mosques, churches, Hindu and Buddhist temples on Glenburn’s hillsides. Lives are created and lived on the same soil from which the tea grows. It’s not something you tend to think about when you sit down for a cup of afternoon tea, but of course, most of the brands we are familiar with don’t have that kind of heritage, in fact, we’re told, a large percentage of the tea bags we dip into boiling water are stuffed with the leftover scrapings of leaves, the bad, cheap stuff. Unwittingly, our tastebuds have been dulled into acceptance of mediocre.

Read next: Hotel Byblos owner, Antoine Chevanne on intimate luxury

The Glenburn estate isn’t actually in the town of Darjeeling, and whilst it’s only 6 km away (as the crow flies), it’s a painful hour’s jeep ride along mountain roads and down dirt tracks to reach the pretty green and white cottages that sit on a well kept, mountainside shelf (each morning the postman makes the journey to deliver the daily newspaper). So it’s remote enough not to see or hear the deafening horns of India’s jostling traffic, which somehow still manages to infiltrate the lower parts of Darjeeling. Walking down an increasingly steep track to the river, the only sound is the singing of birds. The lower we descend, the more jungle like the landscape becomes – the mountains here are so vast that they support multiple ecosystems – and we arrive at the riverside campsite glistening. Here more adventurous guests can camp for a night in the basic, comfortable lodge, but compared to the four poster bed in our bright and spacious floral suite, we decide lunch will suffice.

Tea pickers on the estate

The river, flowing fast with ice cold, glacial mountain water, is the border between West Bengal and Sikkim, and whilst Indians can move freely between the two states (we meet two men returning to a Glenburn village later on with baskets of beer hanging from their foreheads, as alcohol is cheaper across the water), foreigners require a permit to cross the bridge so all we can do is peer through the distant trees. The journey back is by jeep – luxury travel gives guests the option to choose the intensity of their adventure – and the clouds are still stubbornly blocking our view, smouldering with coming rain. Come nightfall though, the mountains around us are blinking with thousands of lights revealing the isolated communities that are hidden during the day. At a higher level, the sky seems even more black and endless filled with the vibrations of cicadas.

The Singalila Suite

Views from the bathtub. Image by James Houston

Dinner is served formally at 8pm, following colonial tradition, round a communal dining table after drinks in the drawing room. On the first night, guests timidly trot round the edge to find their place name, smiling shyly at their neighbour, but conversation flows freely after a few glasses of wine; the remoteness of Glenburn appears to attract a more worldly and relaxed type of traveller in comparison to city smart hotels. The menu is themed each night according to the produce the estate has been able to source, and whilst it’s not quite Michelin star quality gastronomy, the chefs do well with the limited resources, often incorporating tea into dishes in innovative ways. It’s a languid, indulgent and homely evening. The very charm of Glenburn lies in its unpretentiousness and eccentricity; each room is furnished with beautiful, “lived-in” antiques, battered board games are stuffed onto shelves amongst well read books, there are no locks on any doors and guests are free to wander without butlers pouncing on them to ask if they’d like another drink. It’s a nostalgic world that could not exist anywhere else, but the foothills of the Himalayas.

Read next: Haute cuisine at high altitude in Zermatt

That night, I’m awoken by the reverberating drumming of an insect calling out hopelessly into the darkness for a female. It’s almost 2am, hours from sunrise and yet… I draw back the curtains and in the silvery light of the moon glimpse the jagged edge of a luminous mountain, just visible for a moment before a shadow moves across the sky. There’s something reassuringly calming though, just knowing that the mountains are and always will be there.

glenburnteaestate.com

Groupe Floirat’s first property, the legendary Hotel Byblos, Saint Tropez

Hotel Byblos and its nightclub Les Caves du Roy are French Riviera legends, hosting celebrities, old wealth, young Bohemians and new wealth for rest, play and partying since the Swinging Sixties. As the Byblos celebrates its 50th anniversary, Antoine Chevanne, CEO of the family-run Groupe Floirat, which owns the Byblos, the Caves, and owns two other French resort hotels, talks to Nathalie Breitschwerdt about running a family business, discreet luxury, and the enduring allure of St Trop.

Antoine Chevanne

LUX: Your great grandfather founded Groupe Floirat back in 1967, how has the business evolved since then?
Antoine Chevanne: Groupe Floirat has grown, starting with our flagship property Hotel Byblos in St Tropez, 50 years ago. It now comprises of three properties including La Réserve in St Jean De Luz and Les Manoirs De Tourgeville in Normandy. Although the group has expanded, I have strived to maintain the spirit of the group that my grandfather first implemented, a feeling of home away from home, a personalized experience and intimate luxury.

LUX: From your experience, what are the challenges facing family run businesses today?
Antoine Chevanne: I think both the challenge and reward for a family run business is to maintain its own values and not lose sight of the company’s ethos. It’s finding a balance between adapting to the latest trends in luxury and technology, whilst continuing the legacy of the company’s founders.

Rosita Missoni at the Byblos 50th anniversary

LUX: Byblos St Tropez continues to thrive after 50 years. What is the key to its success?
Antoine Chevanne: The key to Hotel Byblos’ success is personalized luxury to create a unique experience. We like to give freedom to our clientele, whilst providing impeccable service. We want our guests to feel at home, but in the most immaculate conditions. The breakfast at Le B by the pool is open until 1pm, and guests can eat dinner at any time after a night at Les Caves Du Roy – these are just examples of what I like to implement to make my guests feel special. As a ratio, we allocate on average 3 members of staff per room.

Read next: Bangkok’s Art Deco palace, The Siam 

LUX: In our rapidly changing world, how important is it to emphasise traditions and stability?
Antoine Chevanne: It’s very important to emphasise the company’s values in order to prove you are not getting swept away with the rapidly changing world. The challenge is to remain unique, whilst growing with our times.

Anna Cleveland, Catherine Baba, Elie Top and Joana Preiss at the Byblos Party

LUX: How do you define luxury within hospitality?
Antoine Chevanne: Time, Space, Freedom – we want to make our guests feel relaxed. Many of our guests lead busy lives so we want them to feel free, independent as if they were in their own home. For example we serve breakfast until 1pm to give our guests time to relax and get up at whatever time they wish in the mornings.

LUX: In this sense, how has Groupe Floirat separated itself from other hotel groups?
Antoine Chevanne: By creating these bespoke and unique experiences for our guests. In order to do so, we partner with like-minded brands, who share the same beliefs and values of the group. For instance, this year for Hotel Byblos 50^th Anniversary, we partnered with a range of luxury brands that share a similar mindset: Rolls Royce, Audemars Piguet, Goyard, Sisley, Missoni Home and Dom Pérignon. By creating these affiliations, we ensure guests are delivered any service to the highest standards, always in a similar spirit. Even our staff is now family, with certain members who have been with the group for over 20 years.

The 50th anniversary party at Hotel Byblos

LUX: How do you see luxury hospitality evolving over the next 5-10 years?
Antoine Chevanne: I don’t predict luxury will change immensely over the next 5-10 years. An experience can’t be replaced by virtual reality, an emotion can’t be replaced by an application, a feeling can’t be replaced by social media… Luxury will continue to be the ‘crème de la crème’, which is what guests seek when they travel to a 5 star property. May it be the gastronomy, beauty, or wellbeing, all of our properties will continue to deliver optimum, innovative and exclusive services to guarantee we remain ahead of the game. With this in mind, we seek to predict the change of expectations with the change of generations.

Read next: The star studded launch of Dom Pérignon P2 Champagne

LUX: Which of your experiences have been most helpful in leading Groupe Floirat?
Antoine Chevanne: Being the General Manager at Hotel Byblos for 5 years before becoming CEO in 2006, this really taught me the power of observation. Being aware of my clientele, receiving feedback and implementing solutions. Being on the ground at the beginning of a career, is key to successful leadership.

Rivea restaurant by Alain Ducasse at Hotel Byblos

LUX: In which ways has St Tropez changed over the last few decades? If at all, how have you responded to those changes?
Antoine Chevanne: The beauty of St Tropez is it’s never changing, legendary atmosphere. Byblos has maintained its prestigious reputation not only due to our services, but also thanks to our loyal customers and long standing relationships.

LUX: When not at Byblos, where is your favourite holiday destination?
Antoine Chevanne: My family house in South West of France in a village called Ahetze, where I can enjoy some quality time with my friend and family.

groupe-floirat.com

Bill Bensley’s Art Deco palace, The Siam

Why should I go now?

Thousands of tourists flock to Thailand every year to take part in intensive wellness and meditation retreats in monasteries round the country, but whilst most of these tend to involve at least degree of comfort deprivation, The Siam is offering its own luxury holistic programme throughout 2017 with visiting artisans running classes to help guests restore a sense of balance into their hectic lives. Think aromatic essential oils, cold towels, soft, fluffy dressing gowns and slippers. In other words, pure, indulgent bliss.

What’s the lowdown?

A treatment room at the Opium Spa

Designed by renowned architect and interior designer, Bill Bensley, The Siam is a contemporary Art Deco palace with traditional Thai elements, but whilst Art Deco architecture is usually known for its heavy facades and oppressive detailing, the hotel is light and airy with stark white walls and a glass roof atrium. Unlike most of the city’s other luxury hotels – towering skyscrapers, glinting on the skyline – The Siam is more like a creative home with a well curated art collection and original antique furnishings as well as cosy communal spaces where you can curl up in an arm chair listening to one of the hotel’s vinyls; the library area can also be transformed into a private cinema room, on request, complete with popcorn. As such, it attracts a stylish and refined crowd who value aesthetism over elitism. The Opium spa is seductively sultry and Thailand’s Princess  trains regularly in the hotel’s gym, which feature its own miniature Muay Thai ring. The real charm here is in all the thoughtful details; free water bottles to keep you hydrated in the humidity, umbrellas in case of sudden downpours, cards specially printed with Thai instructions for guests to hand taxi drivers, even a guard standing by to stop the traffic when you cross the road for a lunch time street food snack. If you must venture further into the city, The Siam’s sleek yacht transports guests up and down the river from its private pier. It’s as James Bond as it sounds.

One of the hotel’s sumptuous Pool Villas

Read next: Minjung Kim’s contemporary ink paintings at Aloft,  Hermès, Singapore

The sprouting glass atrium

Getting horizontal

Our suite was a sensual chamber of cool Art Deco black and white, with enough mirrors to satisfy the most vainglorious of guests and smooth jazz set as the default soundtrack. The room came with a butler, who took personal responsibility for all our needs and was fitted with its own bespoke smart phone programmed with city guides and useful hotel information.

Flipside

The only window in the room was behind the bathtub, but in Bangkok that’s not necessarily a disadvantage. It’s one of the few cities in the world where people actually avoid the views unless you’re into mazes of futuristic skyscrapers. Plus, since most of the hotel is glass and full of exotic plants, it’s easy enough to find natural light when you need it.

Rates: From THB 17,971 a night inclusive of breakfast, excluding tax and VAT (approx. USD $ 500/ €500/ £400)
Millie Walton

thesiamhotel.com

Mountain, 2017. Ink on mulberry Hanji paper

Close up of Mountain,-2017

Korean artist, Minjung Kim is the first of two artists this year to be invited to the Aloft art space at the Hermès boutique, Singapore. Exploring the gallery’s 2017 theme of reflection, Kim’s contemporary ink paintings depict vast, hazy mountainscapes that roll endlessly into the distance. The artworks are painted onto mulberry hanji paper (the traditional Korean medium) and created in line with Taoist tradition, which demands the artist seeks a state similar to meditation so that she is able to apply thin, detailed lines with a steady hand. Yet, Kim’s paintings, though delicate, are dreamy rather than precise, flowing and undulating almost like water. The fading mountains could just as easily be waves of a colourful sea disappearing into the horizon; look at them for long enough and you will almost begin to sway. It’s an intensely relaxing and hypnotic viewing experience. The artist’s state of mind at the point of creation runs through and from the ink, just as the ink bleeds into the paper.

‘Oneness’ runs until 30th July 2017 at Aloft, Hermès, Singapore

The breathtaking views of the Matterhorn are worthy of any postcard and a million selfies

Above Zermatt, Switzerland’s most spectacular mountain village and home to the Matterhorn, high-altitude restaurants like Chez Vrony combine tradition with chic, and put the haute into cuisine, as Darius Sanai discovers

All-round views are breathtaking

Mountain hut cuisine will be familiar to anyone who has skied the Alps; raclettes, fondues and other dairy confections. Fresh in the best sense of the word – sourced locally, recently – but rarely sophisticated.

We were looking forward to a little mountain cuisine as we approached Chez Vrony, in Findeln, high above the resort of Zermatt. It was a clear, warm summer’s day, and we had been hiking down from Fluhalp, a hut positioned high above a former glacier I enjoyed gazing at in my childhood in the 1980s (now melted, due to global warming, Mr Trump). The hike had taken us through a fantastical rock wonderland – where part of the mountainside above had simply collapsed into several football fields of Mini-sized boulders. We strode along the side of Stellisee, a lake whose reflections of the famous Matterhorn, facing us from across the broad Zermatt valley, have featured in a million postcards. We edged along a narrow path, a sheer drop to our left, as the glacial valley disappeared into a stream far beneath us; we could just make out the sound of a stream, a distant, constant swirl, like a giantess shushing its infant.

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Descending, we walked past the highest trees, stumpy starter Christmas trees that had the temerity to grow above the otherwise uniform treeline; and skirted around another lake, this one more green, where children splashed and a thousand tiny frogs appeared and vanished into the grass on its edge.

The restaurant’s idyllic terrace, above the Findelnbach stream

Past a rock ridge, we gazed down and saw the hamlet of Findeln, home to Chez Vrony; only another ten minutes of descent down the well-made, sand-covered path and we were there. Chez Vrony is a wooden village hut from the outside, a sophisticated terrace restaurant from the other side. Ushered in by a lady who knew everyone (was this Vrony? Her daughter?), we were whisked past groups of well-dressed hikers (a curiosity in itself) and sat on sheepskins atop benches by a broad wooden table. The Matterhorn stared down, a world of ice, rock and snow, across a forest and a valley. We could have been served supermarket sandwiches and would have declared it the most wondrous refuge in the world.

But Vrony has other ideas. The menu was haute cuisine in both meanings: ingredients plainly sourced from the mountains, like the ‘pink-roasted entrecôte of Swiss lamb served with a port-steeped fig and hazelnut potato purée’, but with real panache and delicacy. (For a simpler option, the beef in the Vrony burger was sourced from the pasture above the hut.) We could have stayed all afternoon; indeed I think we did.

Vrony serves mountain cuisine with a sophisticated touch

Afterwards, it was 45 minutes’ rapid downhill hike through a scented forest as dusk approached, to the outskirts of Zermatt. The Matterhorn, changing angle and mood, always there with us, always a reminder that, however civilised the food, and however much we melt the glaciers, above Zermatt, this greatest of all Alpine villages, is a wild world, not our own.

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