As artistic director and co-president of Chopard, Caroline Scheufele sees it as her duty not only to keep the famed jewellery house’s A-list clientele happy, but also to have a vision of the consumer of the future. She tells LUX why provenance will be everything

Caroline Scheufele

The ultimate luxury is when you really know how your product was produced. I met Livia Firth (Colin Firth’s wife) in Los Angeles, where she was representing Eco-Age, and she asked me, ‘Where do you get your gold from?’ I said, ‘from the bank’, but the minute I answered, I knew what she was really getting at and I admitted that we don’t really know where the banks get the gold from. It is obviously from mines, but the set-up is not at all transparent or regulated, and it made me think.

We started working with the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM), who certified the first mine in Colombia as fair-mined – not fair trade, there’s a big difference. From A to Z the process is transparent; there are no kids working; the workers have a fixed salary; they have insurance. The mine is secure, and although they are still using mercury, they are doing so in very small volumes, always following the guidance set out in the fair-mined standard, which ensures that they’re not putting it in rivers or the earth when separating the gold from the stones, which is the most important issue. As a result, the village where the mine is located is clean for people to live in. It’s a really beautiful project. Recently, a second mine has been certified in Bolivia and there will be another one in Colombia, so things are moving forward. For three years now Chopard has been engaged in what we call ‘the journey’ to reaching our ultimate aim of using only fair-mined gold, but it’s not something you can accomplish in one day.

Read next: Interview with Javad Marandi, global investor 

Palme Verte pendant and earrings

Clients like the story behind the gold. The first piece that we were able to produce was a cuff worn by Marion Cotillard on the red carpet in Cannes, and immediately it was a tremendous success with the media and clients. We sold it the next day. Of course, it is also a beautiful design – that has to come with it. We then made additional pieces, one of which was worn by Cate Blanchett when she won the Golden Globe for Blue Jasmine in 2014, and my brother has recently unveiled the first fair-mined gold mechanical watches. The whole company is behind the project and has to be because we cannot mix fair-mined gold with the other gold – I like to say it goes through the company like a VIP customer.

The younger generation, in particular, seems to be more sensitive to where their products come from. It’s the same as food – when you buy a piece of beef you want to know that it’s really a piece of beef and nothing else. You want to know the whole story. This is a huge problem in fashion, of course, because workers are dying just so that a T-shirt costs five cents less. Fortunately, being more alert and aware of the planet, nature and saving energy seems to be on trend now – or, as we say in French, du temps.

That said, at the highest price level I think people are still looking for something purer. The diamond will always be at the core. The high-end jewellery market is less affected by social media trends in that way. It is more intimate, people want to go into the store and see the quality. Whereas at the lower level, lots of pieces are now getting sold through online boutiques. For real luxury, people still like to get a physical feeling of the brand and be consulted, but when you’re living in a city where you don’t have a boutique and you want to buy a present, for example, that’s when online shopping becomes really useful and practical. Take China: the cities are so huge and there’s so much traffic that online boutiques save a lot of time. Also, people often go to the internet to get information first, visiting different websites of different luxury brands before they choose where they really want to go in person. We’ve got an online boutique in the US now and have just started one in the UK.

We are moving forward as fast as we can. My aim is ultimately to produce all the high jewellery pieces with fair-mined gold, and my brother wants to do the same with all the Luke Chopard watches. The ultimate goal would be for everything to be fair-mined gold.

chopard.com

Javad Marandi, international entrepreneur with investments in the UK and continental Europe, is the first to feature in our new Luxury Leaders series. Here Marandi describes his work in Switzerland, and how the nation retains investment appeal

The first investor featured in this series is Javad Marandi, a London-based entrepreneur with significant investments in the UK, continental Europe and Azerbaijan. Marandi focuses on hotels, commercial real estate, fast-growing retail companies, and blue chip companies in the manufacturing sector.

A UK Chartered Accountant by training, Marandi is also known as a successful second-tier investor in fast-growing British fashion retailers and is the owner of Soho House group’s Soho Farmhouse hotel in Oxfordshire, England. In the first part of our focus, he reveals the secrets of investing in Switzerland.

London-based entrepreneur, Javad Marandi

Key fact bio: Javad Marandi

Born: January 1968, Tehran, Iran
Education: Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Chartered Accountant
Lives: London
Nationality: British
Married to: Narmina Marandi, nee Narmina Alizadeh, daughter of Ali Alizadeh, a prominent oncologist in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Children: 3
Investment strategy: Looking for growth sectors within the more mature stable markets of Western Europe in the small to medium sized industries.

Part One: Investing in Switzerland

LUX: Which sectors did you choose to invest in, in Switzerland?
Javad Marandi: I am a major investor in one of the country’s best-regarded manufacturing companies. I also co-own commercial warehouses.

LUX: What attracts you about Switzerland as a place to invest?
JM: The country is renowned for its highly qualified workforce, excellent education, apprenticeship and training schemes and high-quality infrastructure. Its location at the heart of Europe means it will always be a commercial crossroads, and the highly developed nature of its economy mitigates risk. All of this makes it an attractive environment for the investor.

LUX: How closely correlated is the growth of your investments with the Swiss economy?
JM: Annual GDP growth in the country since 2010 has been between 1 and 3 per cent, in line with my expectations. Growth has slowed a little in the last year, but Switzerland is a mature, low-risk market and there are plenty of opportunities to grow our investments there regardless of the macroeconomic situation. Having said that, the overall economic climate is very positive.

LUX: Has the slowdown in other European countries affected your Swiss businesses?
JM: The sectors we invest in are not highly exposed to economic developments in the rest of the EU. The construction manufacturing business is focused on the Swiss market. The commercial real estate is located in the north of the country on the transport infrastructure hub and yields are exactly as projected by the executives of the businesses.

LUX: How has your construction manufacturing business performed over the past five years?
JM: It has seen compound annual growth of over 5% in both our turnover and EBITDA. This is extremely satisfying performance given the backdrop of the appreciating Swiss currency and the Country’s GDP growth. There are plenty of opportunities to preserve and grow investments in the country.

Switzerland: an effective place to do business, according to Javad Marandi

LUX: Has the recent appreciation of the Swiss Franc affected your investments?
JM: The tourism sector has been affected, as have manufacturers that rely on exports. My investments have not been adversely affected. I think the independence of the Swiss Franc is a positive for the investment climate.

LUX: Do you personally enjoy visiting the country?
JM: I have visited Switzerland frequently over the past 20 years both for leisure and business. My first job was a multinational company near Geneva. I am first and foremost, a family man and the children, my wife and I love the mountains and the skiing! The investment climate down on the plateau, where my investments are based, is a contrast to the chocolate box image of the high mountains. The Swiss are sophisticated, cosmopolitan people who have been trading with their immediate neighbouring countries for centuries. They are multilingual and very adept at dealing with investors from all over the world.

LUX: Do you have any further plans for investment in the country?
JM: We are continually assessing potential investments in Switzerland and all over Europe, to complement our existing portfolio. However we base our decisions an analysis of potential return, rather than focussing on any specific country.

Note: Javad Marandi sold his stake in the Swiss construction manufacturing business in early 2021

Jacky Tsai famously designed the iconic Alexander McQueen skull during an internship placement at the couture house, but the artist is now a name in his own right, as Millie Walton discovers

Millie Walton: What does it mean to be the first Chinese artist signed by the Fine Art Society?

Jacky Tsai: I feel extremely honoured because it’s a gallery with such a rich history. It’s also important for the Chinese art circle in London and Europe. For the past 25 years Cultural Revolution art has dominated the Chinese art market, but I represent a new generation of contemporary Chinese art, which is relaxed, funny and colourful. It’s art which can hopefully be enjoyed by both Western and Eastern people.

MW: How has your art evolved since moving to London?

JT: I trained in China as a graphic designer and I never thought I could actually be an artist. No one thought I was especially talented, but when I came here everything changed and I gained the confidence to enter the art world properly. I’m also influenced hugely by Western pop art, which isn’t a recognised art form in China.

Read next: Exclusive interview with photographer, Tierney Gearon

MW: Is your work received differently in China now that you have gained reputation as an artist?

JT: I don’t really explore my name in the Chinese media. I’m just trying to build up my reputation in western countries and sooner or later people in China will accept this kind of commercial pop art, but I don’t think that will happen right now, probably in ten years time or so.

MW: What’s the most difficult thing about your career?

JT: I’m lucky that my career has been relatively smooth so far, but you have to always be hard working and trust in yourself. Never give up. It’s also important to be extremely clever with managing your time. You have to manage yourself like any other company. In the contemporary art world, I think that it’s the idea you have, which is now the most important thing. So many people have the skill, but different ideas make you stand out.

faslondon.com

Winter 2016

ON SALE NOW 

By Darius Sanai
Editor in Chief

Like art, fine wine and limited-edition watches, classic cars fall into the category of what luxury analysts call “Investments of Passion” – stuff you can enjoy while its value rises. But, leaving aside the question of potential returns, what motivates investors to buy particular assets?

One reason widely cited for the first boom in contemporary art prices, back in the 1980s, was that the new wealthy wanted to show they had earned their money themselves, and not inherited works, or tastes, from their parents.

A generation later, watch guru Jean-Claude Biver cited the same reasoning to me for the taste for contemporary and uber-complicated mechanical watches.

Fashions in fine wine wax and wane: Bordeaux, the materiel du jour just five years ago, is now as out of style as a hipster moustache.

Classic car dealers are fond of telling you that people collect the cars that featured in their bedroom wall posters when they were kids; thus the recent price rises in the likes of Ferrari Testarossas and Lamborghini Countaches, as Thatcher’s children come into serious money.

That’s true up to a point; the advertising creative directors pootling around in 1960s Porsches 911s were surely not born when their cars were.

As to my own Ferrari Testarossa, this was released to the world in a year (1984) when my bedroom posters featured The Clash and the only redhead I was interested in went to the girl’s school next to mine.

Still, one has to abide by cliché, and having acquired three fantastic Ferraris, it was time to target the dream car from earlier in my boyhood. The Porsche 911 Turbo seemed wonderfully glamorous to a small kid in drab 1979 London: a much-faster version of a car that was then a sports car for aficionados, not the daily transport it has now become.

911 Turbos have been made since 1973, and the challenge for anyone wanting to acquire an old, or rather, classic, one, is the slow discovery they are either very expensive, or slightly rubbish, or both. In my search earlier this year I sat inside numerous slightly musty 30-year-old cars, wondering what I was missing. The test drives were no better: old 911 Turbos had no performance at all til the boost arrived, and then what in 1983 was a warp-speed thump, is, in 2015, the acceleration of a fruitily-driven post-nightclub diesel cab which has been chipped. And for a price tag approaching six figures. Hmm.

So, logic led me to a much newer Porsche 911 Turbo which I knew was brilliant, because I had reviewed it when it came out, and was also, by the perverse logic of the classic car market, much cheaper. If you imagine the value curve of classic cars over time describing a V-shape, the 996 model range of the 911, produced between 1998 and 2004, is currently near the bottom of the V.

The “996” model was tainted as a whole by the fact that it was the first 911 with a water-cooled (as opposed to air-cooled) engine, an engine which moreover, proved quite fragile.

But a growing clique of aficionados recently started noting publicly that the engine in the 996 Turbo was unrelated to that in its lesser siblings, and was both hugely reliable and had a racing pedigree. Known as the “Mezger” engine after its original designer, Hans Mezger, it was derived from a design for a Porsche Le Mans car, and is starting to become something of a motoring legend.

So – a brilliant Porsche 911 Turbo, at the bottom of its depreciation curve, with a Le Mans engine. A slam dunk.

The next challenge: finding a good one. Unlike Ferraris, Porsches tend to get driven, so Pistonheads was full of ads for cars with 80,000 miles, or “low mileage” ones with 50,000 miles. “Miles are important” was a mantra taught me by one of my car gurus (a man who has made more out of his car collection than most of us will make in several lifetimes). Low mileage on a Ferrari means less than 10,000 miles; on a Porsche, I decided, it means less than 20,000. And it had to be a manual, not a semi-automatic: I am convinced that as manuals are phased out, they will become ever more desirable.

One day my eye was caught by a very striking newly-advertised car in Basalt Black, with only 17,000 miles, and a host of rather nice factory extras including a carbon-fibre driver zone and Porsche “ruffled leather” seats. It was being sold at a price higher than any other 996 Turbo, by JZM, a renowned specialist in Hertfordshire.

A quick sortie, inspection and drive indicated this was the car. It felt quasi-new, had a full wallet of Official Porsche history, and had plainly lived a pampered life in a garage – even the headlights showed no sign of cloudiness, a hazard of cars living outside. There was a little wriggle room on the price, and Russ Rosenthal, director of JZM, agreed to throw in various bits to make the car absolutely sublime.

One sunny Saturday morning I took the train up to King’s Langley – less glamorous than Barcelona and Rome, where I had bought my previous two Ferraris, but pleasant nonetheless – signed bits of paperwork in JZM’s pristine showroom, and was presented with a very shiny black 2004 Porsche 911 Turbo.

I have driven every recent incarnation of the 911 Turbo extensively, and going back to this model was both a shock and a revelation. What seemed at the time (just over a decade ago) to be an ultra-modern, slick 911 now seems pleasingly old-fashioned. Push it around a fast corner with a bump in the middle, and you are suddenly aware, despite the four-wheel drive, of being in a car for so long known as a ‘widowmaker’ due to its rear-engine exerting extreme centrifugal forces (and spinning the car around).

It’s fast, too – scarily fast at full throttle, full boost acceleration – and unlike the latest models, you can actually feel the road through the steering. It’s an exciting car but with comforts like heated seats, air conditioning and even sat nav.

With perfect timing, 996 Turbo prices have started to rise since I bought mine. I went back to Russ, told him I was writing this for LUX, and asked him for his thoughts. He, in turn, told me that the interest in high-end modern classic Porsches has been a boon for companies like his – they are building new showroom to double the size of their facility – as people invest more money into the best cars. (It’s an old, and true, adage that it’s worth buying the best you can find.)

“There’s a realization that with the latest incarnation of the 911, there’s something that’s basically missing with the more recent cars. There’s a rawness from the 996 Turbo, and as the cars have gotten newer they’ve lost that edge a little bit, they’ve become a little bit softer, a little more refined, they’re not quite as raw and personally, when I jump in a nice manual 996 Turbo now, it just feels edgy and it’s something that’s lost on the later cars. I think there’s a realization, people are starting to understand that.

It applies to the Turbos but also to 911s across the board – with the latest incarnation, there is no low speed fun. I think there’s less feedback, there’s less feeling.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself. Russ says I could already sell my car for 20% more than I bought it; but with both newer and older 911 Turbos costing more, and offering less joy, I am hanging on to it. The 11-year-old me would be delighted.

jzmporsche.com

Once one of the most dangerous destinations on the globe, Colombia is in the midst of a renaissance. Millie Walton discovers the unique charms of the country’s most beautiful city, Cartagena

The sky is a dramatic swirl of pinks and oranges, as we sail into Cartagena, shimmering off the surface of the sea and melting into the blackness beneath. It’s quiet and still, the water looks velvety and bare. Ahead the city glows. It’s not quite what I imagined. I’d seen pictures of homely looking, colourful streets and had expected a seaside shanty, rather than skyscrapers – naïvely, perhaps for Cartagena, I soon learn, is fiercely fashionable and contemporary, bursting with the old world culture I’d hoped for, but with glossy restaurants and luxurious hotels too.

Read next: The green season in the Alps 

Until recently, Colombia was a no-go zone, riddled with stories of violence, drugs and tourist kid-nappings and for many, that image still remains. I was met with wide eyes and warnings when I first unveiled the plans for my trip. As a result, the country has managed to maintain a secret allure and a feeling of wilderness that’s as liberating as it could be slightly bewildering. If you don’t speak Spanish, you’ll find yourself resorting to gestures and broken phrases. Smiling gets you a long way too. Colombians are, in general, the happiest and most helpful nationality I’ve come across; the most endeared to fresh faces and foreign tongues. Fortunately, I spoke sufficient Spanish to find my way to the old town, a Unesco World Heritage site – the place of the cobbled streets, bright blue walls, and balconies overflowing with bougainvillea. It’s particularly beautiful to wander at night when the heat is more subdued and the squares are filled with music and food stands, people dancing and children playing. Or to just sit and watch the night unfold.

This evening, we wind up in Getsemani, an up-and-coming neighbourhood with a rather sketchy past. Now luxury brands are tiptoeing in with Four Seasons reportedly looking at a property and smart dining options opening their doors. It’s a warren to navigate, but that hardly matters if you don’t mind getting lost. We sip sangria on the tiled rooftop of Malagana Café and Bar to cool down, before heading back to our hotel, Casa San Augstin for dinner at Alma, reportedly one of the city’s best places to enjoy costal Colombian cuisine infused with the head chef, Heberto Eljach’s originality.

Read next: An unexpected paradise off the coast of Africa

We ask for a selection of appetisers, too tempted by the menu to be decisive and find ourselves with plates of prawn tempura, hummus – easily the best I’ve ever tasted-, olives and hams. The service is relaxed, perhaps not quite up to fierce and impatient European expectations, but you have to remember you’re in South America. Life has a different pace. I choose fish for my main; plain, steamed with fresh vegetables. It’s not actually on the menu, or something I would necessarily pick as my favourite, but the dynamic chief operating manager at the hotels’ management company, Nicolas Dominguez, insists, telling me I won’t regret it and I don’t. It’s perfect; fresh, light and subtle in flavour, better, as so many things are, without embellishment.

Unsurprisingly, the night leads us to Café Havana, the undisputed favourite spot post 11pm in the city – when the Latin jazz bands start to play and hips sway. Unless you’re British, of course, then the only thing swaying is likely to be your head slightly reeling from one too many shots of the local liquor Aguardiente. It’s a fun place to be, understated and packed with salseros. We find ourselves coerced into an impromptu dance lesson, which leaves us a little flush faced, and exhilarated.

Outside, the streets throb with heat, music and people. We mingle for a while, stretching our Spanish to its limits before slinking back to the calm oasis of Casa San Agustin.

hotelcasasanagustin.com

By Darius Sanai
Editor in Chief

Ozone at the Ritz Carlton in Hong Kong, the highest bar in the world, has a long row of bar stools along its floor to ceiling picture window. You settle on a stool, place your Mojito on the counter in front of you, and stare out at a view of… nothing much. Where is Hong Kong? You lower your sights and, far below you, is a meandering stretch of water lined by buildings. The city that takes your breath away with its architectural glamour from the ground is now so far beneath you, from the 118th floor, that it almost loses impact; I was reminded of looking at Paris from a helicopter once, and pondering that human achievement needs to be appreciated at the scale it was created on.

Why do we so love views, and in particular, bars with views? From London’s Shard, you can gaze down from any of three lively and extensive bars at sweeping views of the city, from floors in the mid-30s: a perfect height for admiring a low-rise city like London. In Dubai, you can head to the Burj-al-Arab’s top-floor bar, and perhaps you will be as disappointed as I was at the tawdry collection of plump men and sad Russian hookers desecrating a surreal vista over the inky Gulf. The Rainbow Room in New York is still the most atmospheric bar with a view in the world, wearing its Jazz Age history on its sleeve (and try drinking Martinis there during an electrical storm for a genuine out of body experience).

Read next: Colombia’s quiet renaissance 

And perhaps that – slipping out of reality – is why views and bars are so intimately attached. For these watering holes are all in the middle of man-made firmaments, cities aching with crowds and claustrophobia and high anxiety; just as a Beluga vodka Martini provides an escape from the everyday, so does a vista stretching along, above and away. Together, they are an irresistible combination.

And so it was at Ozone. Slowly, the eyes adjusted to the relief map of Hong Kong spread out far below. Even in the gallery facing oblivion, the lighting was (correctly) kept low, so you could start to pick out ships and landmark buildings. The crowd was lively: low on suffocating young gents in finance talking about money markets, high on a blend of skin colours and nationalities, out for fun, not for expenses. And, as a slightly disingenuous counterpoint, Ritz Carlton levels of service, which you somehow don’t associate with somewhere so…groovy. Cocktails and champagne whizzed through the crowds with old-fashioned efficiency and deference. My Moscow Mule was refreshing and long, made even more revitalising by a cool breeze blowing in from the open roof. At 490m altitude, it was a discernible couple of degrees less hot than Hong Kong below.

Read next: Investing in a Porsche 911 Turbo

You exit Ozone via the lobby of the Ritz, a surreal interlude of calm elegance, and outside, suddenly, Hong Kong towers over you again.

If Ozone looks down at the view, Aqua is the view. This spot, a kilometre or so from the Ritz, is on the 30th floor, some 88 floors below Ozone. Also in Kowloon, the fast-emerging half of the city across the water from the historic centre, the city centre of Hong Kong – known to locals as Central – is a bristling wall of multi-coloured towers. In the foreground, fishing boats, ferries and old Chinese junks chunter through the water, which is multi-coloured, from the reflections of the buildings facing. It is the urban equivalent of being in the heart of the Alps, except instead of glacier whites and granite greys, green, pink and silver neon light up the cityscape facing you and the water below.

If you can take your eyes off the view, you will note that Aqua takes its cocktails and food quite seriously. Less of a party spot than Ozone; more of a place for an aperitif that turns into a thoughtful dinner, with good friends. The Moscow Mule here packed a punch, with real ginger and a dab of mint, and one of my favourite vodkas, Ketel One, still made in an old gin pot still. It adds texture and class.

The chef’s selection of sushi came with an instruction not to ask for wasabi as it mars the flavour; the lobster, wagyu beef and toro nigiri were indeed delicate, buttery, nutty, gentle. For all the correct international conversation about human beings desecrating the planet, and the follies of modern urbanity, an evening at Aqua may lead you to conclude that humans are still capable of adding beauty, soul, and delight to the world. And that this bar high in the heart of Hong Kong is one of the very best places to appreciate that.

Meanwhile, a good friend tells me that the bars on the other side of the expanse of water are less spectacular, but more edgy. To be continued..

Ozone, Ritz Carlton, Hong Kong ritzcarlton.com; Aqua Spirit, Hong Kong aqua.com.hk