Utsava Kasera at the Glenfiddich distillery

LUX’s Contributing Whiskey Editor, Utsava Kasera, shares his six top whiskies to celebrate big or small achievements, raise a toast to milestones or just to savour the moment

Macallan James Bond 60th Anniversary release

This one is to have your own Bond moment when you take a trip to the Scottish Highlands or simply whilst watching any Bond film. It was created to celebrate 60 years of Macallan’s association with James Bond and is done in distinct Macallan sherry style, with a touch of suave. A very hard whisky to get hold of, but if you do, it’s a treat.

www.themacallan.com/james-bond-60th-anniversary-release

Deanston Organic Barley

Deanston is one of my favourite distilleries in terms of creativity and unique whiskies. This special limited edition is made from certified organic barley and the whole whisky making process from start to finish is organic. At cask strength, it packs a punch and is maturated in organic bourbon casks giving it their signature waxy character. The organic sherry finish rounds up the whisky nicely with a hint of spice and cream.

deanstonmalt.com/deanston-organic-2000-whisky

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Glenfiddich Cognac Cask

There is a lot of experimentation going on with finishing the whiskies in various casks in recent years. Finished in French Oak casks for last 2 years, this 26 year old limited edition Glenfiddich is a shining example of a cognac cask whisky done to perfection. It has an aroma of oak, dried fruits, plums and a sweet finish of honey layered toasted nuts with brown sugar and cream.

www.glenfiddich.com/grande-couronne

Yellow Spot 12 years

The spot whiskeys from Ireland have made a name for themselves in the whisky world amongst serious drinkers. The barrels at the distillery are spotted in the colours Blue, Green, Yellow or Red indicating the age they will be matured for. Yellow spot on barrel was aged for 12 years and it is perhaps my favourite of the lot. The finish in Malaga cask does the trick for the beautiful sweet finish with honey sweetness, red apples and peaches that lingers on throughout the palate. This whisky is a must own for all connoisseurs or even people starting their journey in whisky world.

www.spotwhiskey.com/yellowspot

Redbreast 27

This is another gem from Ireland which has won several accolades from experts around the world and is becoming very hard to source, due to limited availability and skyrocketing demand. It is the oldest Redbreast in the regular range, with tropical fruit flavours from the Ruby port casks and a very long finish with fruits and spice which tell the story of its three decades of maturation.

www.redbreastwhiskey.com/redbreast-27-year-old-whiskey

Read more: Four Seasons Ten Trinity Square, London, Review

Glenturret 7 year Peat Smoked

Glenturret is the oldest distillery from Scotland and has been recently revamped, following its takeover by Lalique. They are the only distillery to have a Michelin star restaurant on site. This peat smoke is a perfect balance between American sherry sweetness and the peat smoke. Either neat, with a dash of water or in an old fashioned cocktail, this is dangerously delicious.

www.theglenturret.com/7-years-old-peat-smoked-2022

The Whiteley Members Club

Neil Jacobs, CEO at Six Senses

Neil Jacobs is CEO of the iconic hotel and residencies group, Six Senses. Here, he speaks to Samantha Welsh about the brand’s wellness model

LUX: How far are your wellness beliefs rooted in your personal values and lived experience?
Neil Jacobs: It started after studying Hotel Management at the University of Westminster, French Civilization at La Sorbonne University and Italian culture and art in Florence, knowing I wanted to travel and use the languages I’d learnt; I figured the hotel business was a great way of incorporating it all.

My personal passion and love for wellness, sustainability, and travel then played a part in my next steps to joining Six Senses and, naturally, my aim has been to elevate the brand in terms of responsible design, green initiatives and wellness programming. By broadening the company’s global footprint, we’ve been able to create these wonderful spaces and opportunities for people to live and create their own experiences with these things, in a plethora of environments.

Having the opportunity to apply my skills and experience to this unique brand, whilst leading a group of dedicated and likeminded professionals on a daily basis, is a personal joy.

Six Senses Kaplankaya, Turkey

LUX: What is the approach to embedding sustainable values from ground up through every resort? How do you measure their impact?
NJ: Sustainability is embedded into the very fabric of every resort, something we can only achieve if it is the first thing we think about when we approach a new project.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Our eco-conscious approach to real estate starts with thinking about how we preserve, celebrate and enhance the local and global environment, as well as the local community and cultural heritage of the location. Naturally, this means taking a bespoke approach to each resort. We make smart use of our land topography and use renewable building materials, and use local materials wherever possible to reduce our environmental impact.

The Forestias in Bangkok

We undertake rigorous analysis to ensure we can successfully and accurately measure the impact of each project and continue to learn for future projects. For example, in 2020, the renewable electricity that was generated across our resorts reached an amount powerful enough to power fifteen world cup football pitches.

To us, sustainability doesn’t just mean our buildings are sustainable, it’s also about encouraging residents and guests to live sustainably long term. Many of our resorts and residences now feature Earth Labs, where otherwise discarded materials are recycled and reused. Guests and residents can join workshops and sessions to learn how to reduce their own consumption and re-use materials, the aim of which is to instil long-lasting sustainable mindsets.

The Forestias is made up of 27 residences, set in a purpose-grown forest in Bangna, Bangkok

Over the coming years, as we learn more and more from our existing projects, sustainability will continue to show up more meaningfully through in-resort environmental impact reduction, including passive cooling of the properties, electric transport options for guests and the use of biodegradable cleaning products.

Across our resorts, we are already working hard towards being fully plastic free. Resorts have never used plastic bottles or miniature plastic amenities, and plastic straws were eliminated before 2016. For example, in 2018 alone, more than 5 million plastic items were eliminated, including over 1,200,000 coffee capsules, over 52,000 plastic bags, over 26,400 toothbrushes and over 460,000 bits of packaging.

LUX: How does your vision for the Residences’ portfolio translate into screening macro market opportunities and micro-locations, masterplanning site assembly, partnerships, local collaborations?
NJ: Because the approach to each project is so individual, we make decisions on a case-by-case basis as to whether we incorporate residences into new resorts, as buyer motivations can differ greatly to those that drive people to stay in resorts as guests.

The Penthouse pool at the Six Senses Residences, The Palm, Dubai

We aren’t afraid of delivering resorts in remote locations, but sometimes this isn’t the right fit for residences, and vice versa in other locations. Thanks to our teams and their knowledge and understanding of the local market and global appetite, we can make fully informed plans and decisions on what we build and where we build it.

It’s key that the project and location is innately right for us, and an important initial step is getting onto the land to make sure it is speaking to us, and we can feel the connection. We like to conduct meditations or rituals, and in the past have bought in a sacred geometer to analyse the energy of the land.

The Whiteley Six Senses Hotel is opening in London in 2023

Once we’ve made these decisions, we begin conversations with potential development partners. With such strong company values, we’re highly selective with who we choose to work with and always ensure our partners share our vision and values.

For example, we are working alongside Finchatton for the first UK Six Senses Residences at The Whiteley. This was a significant milestone for us; to expand into one of the world’s most iconic gateway cities, and we wanted to wait for the perfect opportunity and partner. Finchatton’s hallmark quality matches our own, and the opportunity to collaborate and transform a significant architectural landmark was too good to miss.

LUX: Where did your idea come from, to bring nature, wellness and healing to the global metropolis?
NJ: If you look at the history of people who come to our resorts, it would typically be for a short getaway – a couple of weeks maximum. They’d immerse themselves in the wellness programming, enjoying the facilities we have on offer, resetting in our beautiful and remote locations but then quickly return to their fast-paced lives back in their home cities.

We wanted to find a way to connect the dots, and create these retreat-like spaces, offering relaxation and reconnection, in a location that is much more accessible for everyone: the awareness that often the global elite, while they have the means, don’t always have the time. This is where the migration into urban locations began for us.

Each residence at The Forestias comes with a private pool, rejuvenating onsen and organic gardens where seasonal fruits and vegetables can be grown

When we are considering bringing a residential component to our urban locations, it is almost a no-brainer. Alongside our exotic, rural and alpine locations, we want to be in gateway cities, located in the prime neighbourhoods of the best urban communities in the world. The market for this type of home for the ultra-high-net-worth is very strong, which meant there was also a clear and compelling business decision to grow our portfolio here.

LUX: What is the membership model? How is it differentiated from other hospitality Groups’ super prime residences?
NJ: We offer a unique experience to our residence owners; combining the luxury and sought-after amenities of resort life, but with the privacy and personal touches of owning your own space. Owners benefit from exclusive resident savings, as well as VIP status recognised across all Six Senses hotels and resorts around the world.

At Six Senses, we pride ourselves on offering a best-in-class service, and our level of care and attention to detail is what sets us apart from other luxury developments. This unparalleled level of service is in part thanks to our hospitality roots, extended so that all of our owners can fully enjoy the privileges of a hotel or resort, with every aspect taken care of.

At the core of the Six Senses Residences The Palm, Dubai is Six Senses Place, providing residential owners unique space purely for mental and physical wellness

Owners have the option of placing their home into hotel rental portfolio, which opens up an additional income opportunity via renting their homes when they are not staying there. As properties are wholly managed by Six Senses, it’s a completely hassle-free process.

Read more: Coworth Park, Ascot, Review

Owners who place their home in our rental programme automatically take advantage of our furniture packages as standard – with each home inspired by, and designed in line with, the nature of its environment and local community. Dependant on the resort and stage of construction, there are also sometimes opportunities for owners to personalise design details, such as material choices.

LUX: What is next for U/HNWs who seek multi-based sustainable superluxury living? And do you have your personal capstone?
NJ: The Six Senses brand was born from the desire to help people reconnect with themselves, others and the world around them. One of our core goals, is to continue to create a global footprint and allow people to experience our brand in different environments.

The exterior of the Whiteley Six Senses

Looking ahead at 2023, we are expecting a continued increase in the philanthropic buyer across the branded residences sector. High-net-worth buyers are increasingly seeking a home that has been created in a socially and environmentally mindful way, rather than just investing in purely bricks and mortar.

We are already well placed to respond to this rising demand, thanks to our responsible approach towards all projects through our thorough and sustainable practices.

In terms of a personal favourite of mine, I couldn’t quite say. That being said, part of the richness of my job is the opportunity to interact with our hosts around the world and the buy-in to the brand that shows up in each location. So, my favourite tends to be the project I’m visiting at the time!

Find out more: sixsenses.com/residences

Views of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge surround the residence

Our hotel of the month has grandeur, a high-energy Japanese-Chinese restaurant, jazz under an Imperial dome and much more, right next to the Tower of London

What drew us there?

Arriving at the Four Seasons, Ten Trinity Square, is a monumental experience. Literally. The building, in the city of London, and directly facing the Tower of London, is the former headquarters of the Port of London Authority. Walking up its entrance steps you feel as if you are due to be summoned inside for a meeting with the First Sea Lord about the Imperial Fleet in the South Pacific.

Mei Ume offers traditional Chinese and Japanese dishes with a modern approach to the cuisine

Those days have long gone, but fortunately, the building’s new incarnation as a Four Seasons hotel is rather more user-friendly. After checking, in, waft into the domed lobby area with its bar at the far end, the former rotunda at the heart of the orginal building, and you feel you are in a different world to the busy city outside. This is the only true luxury hotel in the city of London, and given that it is also a souvenir’s throw from the Tower of London, it offers an excellent location for an alternative view of the British capital.

The Experience

Our rooms, or should we call them chambers, with vast and high ceilings, were on the ground floor, with a palatial bedroom, connecting into an equally palatial living room, cupboards the size of small apartments, and a bathroom that looked like it might have been a bank vault in a previous incarnation.

Decor is rich, dark and masculine, and you feel you are secure in the heart of the establishment – in this case, the luxury hotel establishment. The Four Seasons also has a significant pool, running across a large portion of its footprint downstairs, with a bank of wellness pools and an adjoining spa.

The bedroom in the Heritage Suite

We were staying one night, it was hard to decide whether to eat light bites in the Rotunda bar under the dome of the lobby, which featured a live jazz band, or go for a more celebratory dinner in the Mei Ume Chinese and Japanese restaurant beyond.

We went for the latter, a vibey place with groups of slickly dressed people in their 20s and 30s looking highly photogenic for their instagrams. The Negronis were cutting edge, and we loved being able to dip into both cuisines: a signature beef rice bowl (with wagyu sirloin, egg and fried rice) along with some Har Gu and Chiu Mai dim sum, ginger and spring onion chicken buns that were just the right puffiness and bite, unagi and cucumber uramaki…it was not fusion cuisine, rather two distinctive cuisines in one high-energy restaurant. And then, we mellowed out with a digestif glass of champagne and some piano jazz in the bar. Beautiful.

The indoor swimming pool at the Spa

Anything else to know?

For business travellers, the hotel is super convenient for the city, and pretty close to Canary Wharf. For tourists, it is right next to the Tower of London had a short walk along the riverbank promenade to the Tate Modern. However, it is a little further from the traditional sites of the West End.

Rates: From £700 per night (approx. €795/$875)

Book your stay: www.fourseasons.com/tentrinity/

Darius Sanai

The exterior of Coworth Park, originally built in 1776

The Dorchester Collection’s country hideaway near London combines serenity with spa and some brilliant cuisine

Country factor:
15 minutes from Heathrow Airport, less than an hour from central London, this country house is set in a sprawling estate of parkland, lakes and polo fields. You feel like you are in the deepest rural idyll.

What to do?
A more pertinent question is, what not to do. There is, just across the way from the main house, an extensive spa with a swimming pool and hydrotherapy. There is an equestrian centre linked to the polo fields – come at the right time of year, and you can see the British royals play their favourite sport. Otherwise, you can ride. There is an all-weather tennis court, archery, and extensive grounds to get lost in doing long walks. In short, all the benefits of an English country house hotel without having to take a helicopter or drive several hours to get there from civilisation.

The Spa which works in collaboration with Germaine de Capuccini

What to eat?
Not so long ago, the cuisine was the question mark hanging over almost any British hotel outside London. Michelin-starred chef Adam Smith shows at Coworth Park how things have turned full circle.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Particularly admirable is what we would call his concept and execution platform. Across the menus in the different venues, it seems the dish is conceived, and can then be executed in different ways: traditional, vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free.

The Drawing Room terrace which overlooks the grounds

There is no primacy of any style. Ingredients are piercing and local. It’s thoughtful and contemporary. Cooking thought leadership at its best. The main restaurant, Woven, has a delightful, classic modern feeling in its decor: no tablecloths, but as formal as you want it to be, with clever and expensive lighting.

Read more: Waldhaus Sils, Switzerland Review

The other restaurant, The Barn, is a more informal, but still highly polished and sophisticated offering. We would go to the former for dinner, and the latter for lunch. Or perhaps the other way round. Who knows.

Mansion House Junior Suite bedroom

Lying in
The decor in the rooms is perfectly judged, for where we are: not trying to be deepest wooden beam country style, but not city imposed on a rural dwelling either. Bathrooms are huge, beds almost as huge, and there is all the glitz you would expect of a luxury hotel.

Rates: From £570 per night (approx. €654/$700)

Book your stay: dorchestercollection.com/ascot/coworth-park

Darius Sanai

An aerial view of Waldhaus Sils with Lake Sils behind

It has long been a source of inspiration to poets, artists and philosophers – and Sils, in the high-altitude valley of Engadine in the Swiss Alps, still proves a haven of luxury and creativity

Arrival
Waldhaus – house in the woods. To an English speaker, it sounds pretty; to a German speaker, there are centuries of myth behind the forest legend. Sitting on a bench, in the larch forest in the grounds of Waldhaus Sils, we pondered this. To one side, the hotel’s terrace restaurant – a terrace dissolved in forest – was finishing up lunch service. Immediately below us, two clay tennis courts lay empty after a family session had finished – a daughter narrowly beating a father, awash with glee; a family that looked as if they had been playing tennis in the woods for generations.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Beyond, the mountainside dropped down and you could glimpse the valley floor through the trees: a flat glacial meadow and a blue-black lake containing a couple of islands, thick with pines. Beyond, a steep, largely treeless mountainside, grass, rocks, scree, peaks.

Waldhaus Sils is at the highest point of the Engadine, the wide, high-altitude valley that carves through the east of Switzerland like a scratch in the Alps. St Moritz is 10 minutes down the road, but the village of Sils has its own character and history. Nietzsche and Hermann Hesse lived and visited here; generations of artists came here for inspiration, and some, such as Gerhard Richter, 90 years old and widely considered the greatest living artist, still do come to stay at the Waldhaus.

The Waldhaus interior is a triumph of 20th-century modern design

The Experience
The hotel is on a rock just above the village, and what seems at first to be another in the mould of excellent palace buildings in the mountains, turns out to be rather more special.

To walk through the Waldhaus is like walking through a living museum of 20th-century design – when we say living, we mean it’s like a home, rather than curated for the benefit of others. There is a window in one of the drawing rooms that looks directly out at a rock face a couple of metres behind: the rock looks like an artwork in the frame of the window. Everything, from the wood panelling to the chess tables to the signage and the way the keys are arranged behind the reception desk, speaks of indulgent artistry.

Take a room with a balcony and it is as if you are in a tree house, only the balcony also as dramatic views across and along the Engadine and Lake Sils. The rooms themselves continue the theme of being in a home: no nouveau-riche over design here. If you crave three tons of marble in your bathroom, a Toto automatic toilet and Jacuzzi, you would be better to look elsewhere- but as a coherent and relaxing take on classical luxury, it feels wonderful to be in.

Val Fex, high above the Waldhaus, photographed by Isabella Sheherazade Sanai

Eating and Drinking
Most of the residents of the Waldhaus (and it feels like a community of residents, rather than hotel guests) dine at the hotel in the evenings. The dining rooms, high-ceilinged and table-clothed, have huge windows directly into the forest, as if you are in a nest. Each evening brought us a different variation on consommé, a broth made with the stock-variously-of forest mushrooms, local vegetables, corn-fed chicken or Swiss beef; one was made with hay stock, and was sublime.

Otherwise, expect Swiss mountain cuisine, precisely prepared, and a treasury of a wine list that virtually compels you to try the wines of the Büdner Herrschaft – the warm, sunny, bijou wine-growing region in the Rhine valley of eastern Switzerland, over the mountains. There is also the terrace restaurant, overlooking the tennis courts, serving salads and grills for lunch.

Activities
Woodland-walks, lakeside-walks around Lake Sils – inspiration to poets and philosophers – rock climbing, mountain hikes to the hidden Val Fex above the hotel…And that’s just the hiking and climbing, most of which begins on a path directly from the hotel’s back door.

Read more: Bittescombe Lodge and Deer Park, Somerset, Review

You can kite-surf and paraglide nearby, or stroll down to the village of Sils and see Nietzche’s house; or stay in the hotel grounds and swim (indoors), play tennis (indoors or outside in the woods), sunbathe amid the trees – or get a cavas and paint.

waldhaus-sils.ch

The conversation between Durjoy Rahman and Sam Dalrymple took place over Zoom. We have used artistic licence to create the photo montage above

In the third of our series of online dialogues, Sam Dalrymple, Activist and Co-Founder of Project Dastaan, speaks with philanthropist Durjoy Rahman about cultural reconnections post-partition, the importance of multi-cultural artists across borders, and the rapid shift in popularity away from the West and towards the East. With an introduction and moderation by Darius Sanai and created in association with the Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation.

Raghu Rai is a Magnum Photographer who chronicled the Independence war of Bangladesh in 1971 when the territory that was East Pakistan gained independence from what is now Pakistan. The Indian army ultimately came to the aid of Bangladesh after an enormous refugee crisis ensued. We present a selection of his works within this article

LUX: Sam, could you tell us firstly what sparked your interest in Partition and inspired you to create the ground-breaking ‘Project Dastaan’?

Sam Dalrymple: Project Dastaan began when my friends Sparsh, Ameenah and Saadia were at University chatting about the fact that everyone’s grandparents had migrated from somewhere in the Sub-Continent, and how bizarre it was that in the UK you could have the easiest conversations about this.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

When you are in India, it is difficult to chat to a Pakistani, when you’re in Pakistan it’s difficult to chat to a Bangladeshi as these walls have been built up in the Sub-Continent, so that it is actually in the former colonial power where it is easiest to talk.

There were conversations about how Sparsh’s grandfather had migrated from near Islamabad, in Pakistan, and here was Saadia who was from near there and could easily go and take pictures of his old house or temple which had been impossible for Sparsh’s family for 75 years. They had no pictures of it, no idea where they were from. The ease from a London standpoint to re-connect triggered the whole thing.

Ayodhya, india 1993

The partition that is the cause of this fragmentation in India was, simply put, the largest forced migration in human history. In the course of a year what had been British India, was divided into two territories, which is now three – India and Pakistan, which later became Pakistan and Bangladesh. This was 75 years ago and for most of that time, most of the migrated people have never been able to see their homes again.

So it began as an attempt to use virtual reality to re-connect Partition survivors across borders, so if you came from Lahore and had migrated to Delhi, we would go out and find your old Mosque, your old school, your old house and, if we can, find any friends who you knew before 1947.

Chawri Bazar, old Delhi, India, 1972

We additionally wanted to translate some of these stories that we were hearing, into animations with a cross-border, collaborative studio in Bangalore and Lahore, which was in itself an attempt at cross-border with team members scattered from Bengal to Punjab. Then, we finally made a film called ‘Child of Empire’, which just premiered at Sundance. It is a VR mini-movie, a 15-minute animated journey through the Partition based on Sparsh’s grandfather’s story and another man who did the opposite journey. It is about these two men 75 years later chatting to one another and the therapeutic discussion of their two journeys which mirror each other in so many ways but, obviously, have been polarised so much over time.

LUX: In the context of Partition, what does Partition and its consequences mean to you Durjoy?

Durjoy Rahman: I come from a generation where it was my parents who had seen the displacement, twice. They were born during this time and have seen the consequences and the aftermath of partitions first hand. I grew up hearing everything that happened in 1947, the riots and so on. So between me and my parents we have seen the largest displacement in the history of these civilisations that happened in this region. These experiences have influenced me to do activities surrounding Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation heavily.

Mother Teresa at her refuge of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, during prayer, India, 1979

LUX: Do people have a strong sense of national identity currently? Would you say that this is down to cultural or religious differences?

SD: It is many differences and culture definitely plays into it. I think the memories of both ’47 and ’71 play into how people remember their pasts, but it is also a generational factor. The national identities are harder for the younger generation who never knew the other side of the border, whereas for a lot of people who migrated at the time nationalism was firing up these independence movements.

Art definitely plays into how we create a nation, with national anthems and the flag which of course crystalise these ideas of nationhood. What we’re seeing now is the crystallising of losing the generation who knew undivided India as undivided.

Imambara, Lucknow, India, 1990

DR: Nationality has always been an important element in the subcontinent. We always talk about India and Pakistan, but I would also include Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan in this context. Everyone holds their own nationalistic value to identify themselves and where they are from. But culture and religion, these two determined factors were also a factor when the British divided the subcontinent with the Muslims in Pakistan and left India where it was. A lot of people said ‘well, religiously you are all the same’ but religion is not the only deciding factor. We were culturally different so that was also important.

We are Bengali as Sam just said – we were never Pakistani, maybe we were all Muslims, but we were culturally different. So culture is a very important factor in defining borders and nationality. How you possess your cultural identity, this is what I believe defines you, and no matter how younger generations perceive themselves as a global citizen with a global identity, the identity borders will remain in our lifetime.

Indira Gandhi at a Congress session, Delhi 1967

LUX: Sam, Project Dastaan is ultimately a unifying project taking people virtually across borders. How has it been received among the people you deal with?

SD: It has touched people because it was something they thought was impossible, to see their old homes. The key thing has been not trying to look at the big and complex questions of Partition – We’re trying to show conflict through the eyes of an 8-year-old child. The generation that is still alive were mostly 12 or younger 75 years ago. We’re trying to show it through the eyes of the generation who’s still around. One of the things they would want to see is their old playground, their old houses, and the things that everyone can relate to. I think addressing the conflict and the great divide through these memories and nostalgia can be very healing.

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (the Toy train), India, 1995

LUX: Durjoy, you wish to promote the art of people who may not have had a voice, without borders. How does that relate to the very definite borders in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India?

DR: Since DBF was established in 2018, our projects have been based on the concept of art without borders. We never considered ourselves a foundation that had originated from Bangladesh. We started working with creative personalities regardless of whether they were visual artists, musicians, literature backgrounds, performance artists and we did not consider which region they are from. We have always identified if their practice relates to the mandates that we are trying to highlight; displacement, disadvantage, ethnicity, some kind of challenge which probably obstructs their creative development. So, art without borders was our primary goal.

Woman pushing cart Delhi 1979

LUX: Sam, with Project Dastaan, what will make you feel like you have achieved your aim, what will you be doing in 5 years, 10 years?

SD: Who knows, is the answer! The big thing we’ve been working on is this particular year as it’s the 75th anniversary, and I think the aim has always been to raise awareness about what happened – the aim has always been to try and get people to record these stories, because they are disappearing rapidly. The foundation of our project has been oral history, and the contemporaneous generation is rapidly disappearing. I think we also have a particular aim within Britain, to get Britain aware of its role in the events.

LUX: Regarding artists and the film-making that you employ, was that something that you had conceived from the start that is not just a means of storytelling, but something that you want to focus on and encourage?

SD: With Project Dastaan, the aim has always been cross-border collaboration. For our animation teams, one of our animators had a family who fought in 71, another family was part of the trading diaspora across the Bay of Bengal. I think one of the interesting things is, and I’m not sure how deliberate it was, but the types of animators and the team we built around ourselves, seems to have brought in people whose stories kind of corroborate the stories we are telling.

Hand building highway – Hydrabad, India, 2004

LUX: Durjoy, with regard to the next generation that you’re supporting in terms of art and culture, do you feel that there’s a role for creative practitioners to break down these borders?

DR: I would say that I am not only very hopeful, but I am very optimistic. In this post-covid scenario, in this globalised atmosphere, I personally believe that we were in the right moment where we could take the entire South Asian art movement to the next level. Now the West has started looking at the East. Of course, our foundation and activities focus on promoting artists from South Asia, but we have seen a massive global increase in interest for South Asian artists. I also believe that these artists will take great advantage from the rising virtual scene within the context of the more active online and digital art scene within the past two years.

SD: I think what you said then is exactly right. One of the most interesting pieces that I’ve read recently was by Fatima Bhutto in her book ‘New Kings of the World’, which talks about the shift in the past 20 years. The biggest film industry is Bollywood, the biggest TV industry is Turkey now and the biggest music industry is now South Korea K-Pop. I think there is a lot of hope and a lot of growth in the artistic sphere here. I don’t think that will necessarily mean the borders themselves disappear; I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think there’s going to be more collaboration, more interesting art pieces and more embracing of technology for it.

Local commuters at Church Gate railway station. Mumbai, 1995

DR: Would you ever choose another region as your beaming point, other than India?

SD: I think the idea of virtual reconnections is something that you can use in an array of different countries, but we are so focused on areas affected by the Partition as that is where the personal connections of the team lie and a very specific area of interest where we can enact real memory connecting change. What’s unusual is that these countries are so close in so many ways, it’s just that trauma etc has left them severed from one another It’s a bizarre, specific situation that neither of them have ability for tourist visas, there’s no tourist visas for India and Pakistan, you can’t just visit, you have to have a reason and government approval.

Read more: Rana Begum and Durjoy Rahman on South Asian art’s global ascendancy

LUX: Possibly controversial, but I would love to hear from you both, what do you consider needs to happen for conceptions to really change around the Partition and affect the vast majority of the population?

DR: We have to perform what we believe and have to do what is good for the community, what is good for the region, despite what the supremacy wants to establish.

SD: I don’t think there is a simple solution, but I think that creating conversations and conflict resolution is always a noble aim. I think conflict resolution and actually talking about it is where to start, without bias and actually listening.

All images © Raghu Rai

Find out more: 

durjoybangladeshfoundation.org

projectdastaan.org

St. Eden vineyard

Darius Sanai examines the creation of Bond, one of the world’s most desirable wines and brainchild of Napa Valley wine royal Bill Harlan, over a tasting with its winemaker

Legacy is an important concept in the luxury industry. In a world where perception and status form a fundamental part of a brand, legacy means stability, and retained value. A Ferrari derives its value partly from the racing Ferraris of the 1950s, now worth multimillions. A Picasso or a Matisse is valuable because the artists retained and enhanced their status long after they stopped producing works, though the legacy of their collectors and dealers.

The world’s great wine brands have long traded on legacy: indeed, they are among the longest-lived legacy brands in the world, Chateau Haut-Brion, owned by Prince Robert de Luxembourg, was name-checked by Thomas Jefferson, American revolutionary and one of the country’s Founding Fathers. Brands like Chateau Lafite, Chateau Petrus and Domaine de la Romanée Conti may be hot among a new generation of collectors, but they have been desired and collected by royals and the wealthy for centuries.

No watch, jewellery or leather goods brands can claim a legacy as long as the world’s luxury wine brands: Chateau Latour came to prominence as long ago as 1680, centuries before Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Patek Philippe or Rolls Royce existed.

Vecina vineyard

Bill Harlan is the founder and owner of Harlan Estate, one of the wine world’s modern luxury brands, based in Napa Valley, California. Unlike certain luxury goods, whose brand equity can be created by the illusion of marketing, the status of a wine, as a consumable product, rests largely on its inherent quality. No amount of brilliant marketing will make collectors crave a mediocre wine.

Harlan’s wines rose to the top of the tree through their quality, and also scarcity: to this day, to secure a case or two of top vintages, money isn’t enough (although they are as expensive as any of the world’s top wines), you need contacts.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Harlan stepped back and handed the reins to his son, Will, a couple of years back, although Harlan Sr is still involved in the background. And one of the founder’s most interesting moves was the establishment, in the late 1990s, of a sister estate to Harlan in Napa Valley: Bond.

Bond would make wines from specific vineyards, all planted with 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, deemed by Harlan and his team to be the best of the best in the region. The stated aim was to create “Grand Cru” quality wines, from specific sites whose terroir – combination of climate, soil and positioning – had been analysed closely.

Melbury vineyard

Grand Cru is, itself, a challenging term in the wine world: in some places, like Burgundy, it generally denotes the very best, and most expensive, wines in the region and the world. In others, like Champagne, it is less meaningful, in Bordeaux the term “Grand Cru Classe” covers hundreds of estates at different levels, and in Napa it has no formal meaning at all.

But a self-certification from the Harlan family has a meaning of its own, given their position at the top of the Napa Valley wine tree. And Bond is all about legacy: just as Domaine de la Romanee Conti has been known as among the very best physical vineyard sites in Burgundy for centuries, so Bill Harlan’s stated intention is for Bond’s vineyard site to be known as the very best places to create Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa Valley for hundreds of years to come.

And it takes many years to make, and judge a great wine: for a great wine is not one that tastes excellent when it is five years old, but one that develops and is magnificent when it is 50. So, the jury is by necessity still out, but that doesn’t stop us from dipping our toes in the judgement pool.

Pluribus vineyard

With that ambition in mind, Darius Sanai settled down for a Zoom tasting with Max Kast, Bond’s Estate Director and Cory Empting, Bond’s managing director of winemaking, of wines from Bond’s five sites: Melbury, Quella, St Eden, Pluribus and Vecina. We have a little history here, because a few years back, Darius included a bottle of Bond Melbury in a tasting of the world’s greatest Cabernet Sauvignons, which he hosted for the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan at the Four Seasons George V in Paris, which he chronicled in GQ magazine.The Bond wine was the overall winner in a field that included the likes of Chateau Lafite, Chateau Margaux, and California’s Screaming Eagle.

Max Kast, Bond’s Estate Director

Empting is an engaging and self-effacing tasting host, without a hint of pomp or self-aggrandisement, despite the desirability of his products. He told LUX that he is constantly examining new sites, making wines out of them to assess their potential, to see if any other wines can be permitted into the Bond club. For the moment, there are five, all of them sharing power, finesse, and a sense of grandeur. Each subtly different in character, these are attention-seeking wines in that they demand your full intellectual engagement: they would be the centrepiece of any dinner, like an extra guest.

Cory Empting, Bond’s winemaker

Although we will all have our favourites, it is not possible to choose an objective winner here: Bond wines are about the character of these ultimate vineyard sites in one of the very greatest wine growing areas in the world.

The Bond wines (tasting notes by Darius Sanai); in order of tasting, not of preference. All wines from the 2013 vintage.

Bond Vecina
A kind of wildness here, amid the grandeur and size. Very savoury, umami and smoked bacon with mulberries. Also a refreshing twist. My personal favourite, and one to sip, on a hilltop, alone, contemplating sunset over the distant forested hills.

Bond Melbury
Big and rich, but also stylish and layered, not overwhelming. This would be the Bond wine to serve to a lover of Chateau Margaux, to show California’s equivalent, before racing away the next day in your Ferrari GTO.

Bond wines: Melbury, Quella, St. Eden, Vecina and Pluribus

Bond St Eden
Fascinating wine: one we felt was being opened far too young. Very structured, concentrated, packed with nuance, shielded by a shell at the moment: stones, berries, plums, Mediterranean herbs, it’s all there. Decant it ahead of time and serve to a collector of Rembrandts, next to one of their Rembrandts. It’s that grand.

Read more: Chef Heston Blumenthal: The Culinary Resurrector

Bond Pluribus
Pluribus is so concentrated, so dense, that it would be the dominant factor in a meal of Simmental beef with foie gras and a béarnaise sauce. There’s a black fruit nature to this wine, with a kind of intense, graphite power, you feel you should write a letter with it.

Bond Quella
This fascinating wine was quite closed, almost light, on opening, but transformed in the hours after our tasting to have a Burgundy-style elegance and lift, along with a freshness of mountain river beds and plenty of dense fruit. We’d find the oldest vintage available to drink now, or buy a case now to drink in 2040.

Find out more: bond.wine

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar, Energy Within, 2023

The French-Iranian artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar has a solo show opening in Phillips on Berkeley Square. His compelling paintings examine themes of loss, anger, nature, healing and positive and negative energy. Each of Behnam-Bakhtiar’s paintings in the series reflect the internal structure of trees which he connects with trauma-recovery and healing. The selling exhibition has been supported by his German gallerist Setareh and is curated by Kamiar Maleki, erstwhile director of Photo London among other hats.

Behnam-Bakhtiar comes from a notable Iranian family; his great uncle Shahpour led the country’s last attempt at creating a liberal, democratic regime before the Islamic revolution ushered in an era of Muslim extremism. Jasper Greig, emerging collector and philanthropic advisor, spoke to the artist in his home in Cap Ferrat, about the personal experiences that informed his increasingly sought-after art

Jasper Greig: I would like to ask about your early life and how you got into painting?

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar: I am a fourth generation artist; my father was and is an artist and was highly involved in the government before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, as one of the key figures in bringing and developing modern art to Iran back in the day. Family-wise I was always showing signs of creativity and was very tight with my Dad before my parents separated when I was 3 years old. I was very close with my Dad until the age of 5 when I was still around in Europe – I was born in Paris. My first memory of art was my father teaching me how to paint!

I always had this creativity within me. Unfortunately the support to pursue my passion was not present in any way as a child and young adult, after being separated from my father.

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar, The Secret of Life, 2023

JG: Was your father very supportive of you wanting to pursue art as a career?
SBB: He was, but unfortunately, my parents divorced when I was young! But it stayed in me. That was the seed. When you’re a child, your first 3 years are the most formative – my own son is three and a half now, so I have seen it with my own eyes.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

JG: You were born in France to an Iranian family, and then unusually moved to Iran. Did you feel your family’s reputation changed your experiences in Iran?
SBB: Being in school, I remember reading a chapter about Shahpour Bahktiar, the late Prime Minister, my great uncle, who was assassinated in Paris. They were showing videos of people chanting, literally swearing at our family. Everybody knew I was from that family so I was basically an outcast while I was in Iran. They wouldn’t accept me as an Iranian because I was born in France and I came from what they would call a ‘western family’. It was very tough at the beginning, until I integrated at about 12 or 13. I used to get bullied all the time. There are a lot of people over there who are like me so I found my group eventually, but for the first few years it was hell.

Simultaneously, I was always highly frustrated about the way Iran was being portrayed, even though I was not accepted by my own society.

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar, Powerful Beyond Measure, 2023

JG: Can you tell us about your journey into increasing your vibrations through meditation? You said you discovered that at a really low point in Iran.
SBB: I see it as a form of rebirth for me. I was at the lowest point in my life, and going through that transformation during those harsh times changed my life forever.

It was after taming my anger that I went back into my studio and I was looking for that signature style of work that you can see today. I will never forget – I did a body of work and it was the last painting from that body of work that was a two by four metre painting, a big one, where I actually found it. The whole body was exhibited at Saatchi Gallery in 2017. That was the first time I brought these paintings to the public because they were very intimate. Obviously, since then my style has developed and critics come and go – some say my work has the romantic qualities of a Monet, others say I am the perfect melting pot with my Persian background and Western techniques. Everyone has their own thing to say, but for me, my works are representations of energy at their core, no matter what subject I’m trying to depict.

JG: Your paintings involve the building up of layers, scraping those layers, relaying and spreading them back over each other. Does each painting start from a meditative process?
SBB: There were some small figurative elements to the works which slowly started to die out – nothing is planned behind my work. Those paintings at Saatchi, you can still see the collage elements on the work – they were the transition between the collage and the painting. Today, at least for now, I am highly focused on my abstract paintings and what I can do with my signature style of work. For now I can confidently say we will probably not be seeing any figurative elements for a while to come. But nothing is planned, everything is organic. I’m in a different zone when I paint.

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar, Earth, 2023

JG: Some of the greatest artists like Bacon and Freud, writers like James Joyce, all worked best away from their homeland. Do you think this can be a kind of liberation or do you think there is always a perpetual feeling of loss?
SBB: It’s difficult to explain how you feel because if you add on everything that has happened to me from a young age to today, if you feel it and you see it, it is the combination of all these things that will give you those emotions while you’re creating art. When I am working I find myself wearing a lot of the complicated times I have had on the surface of the canvas, but immediately I want to cover them.

Read more: Art Dubai opens in support of South Asian artists

It has shaped the way that I paint today. I would say that everything had a direct impact. I definitely miss home very much, even though things have been tough there for me. Whatever happened happened for a reason, for me to be able to paint the way I do today.

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar, Tree of Love, 2023

JG: If you were describing your paintings to an alien how would you describe them?
SBB: It’s very simple. My painting provides a window for you so you can have a better understanding of who you are. I have a much better idea of my own capabilities as a human being – I’m not saying I know it all, I’m still on my journey. But we are capable of powerful things beyond measure. You can heal yourself from a lot of injuries for instance, which I can do now.

Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar’s latest series, ‘The Age of Energy’, is available to view at Phillips Gallery, 30 Berkeley Square, London W1J 6EX, until Sunday 26th March

Managing Director of Lateral Naval Architects, James Roy, speaks to Samantha Welsh about innovation and sustainability in the yachting industry

LUX: What made you embark on your career as a naval architect?
James Roy: I grew up in a sailing family, and the sea must have gotten under my skin at an incredibly early age. I remember, aged five, seeing a ship sail past and drawing it; with the clear intent of doing that for a living when I was older. However, the path to success is rarely a straight line, but after some twists and turns I arrived at Southampton Institute in 1992 to study Yacht & Powercraft Design. Having never excelled academically at school I suddenly found myself with a fresh drive and ambition that I had never experienced and graduated top of my year, such is the power of having meaning and passion in one’s work.

LUX: Why did Lateral come about and how do you manage your collaborations?
JR: Lateral is the result of 26 years development. Ultimately, the company is an evolution of the first business that I joined in 1996 (Nigel Gee & Associates). Via evolution of that company, mixed with some acquisition and collaboration, Lateral was brought to life. Reflecting on that path, it has been innovation within an evolving industry that has been a key part of navigating the many possible outcomes that could have come to pass. Whilst the road ahead may be beset with uncertainty it is innovation that often acts as a compass to set direction. When it comes to collaboration, Lateral takes an ‘open-source’ approach. We want to remove any barriers for creativity. Our ethos is that engineering can enable design innovation, and we intend to make that a reality with every project.

LUX: Engineering or architecture, which comes first?
JR: This is a good question, and much like quantum mechanics, both answers can be right and wrong at the same time! There are some projects where the performance specification may be highly demanding, and in such cases an engineering approach may be best suited at the start, and there may be other projects where the functional specification may be leading, in which case architecture takes an initial lead. The reality is that in most projects there is a requirement for both performance and function in some balance. This dictates collaboration from the outset being a key ingredient. Ultimately, collaborating all comes down to people.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: What is meaningful innovation to you?
JR: Innovation is often confused with invention. To innovate does not mean inventing new things, it means finding solutions to things that did not exist before. Many innovative solutions use existing technologies, but package them in a unique way to solve a particular problem. What I find fascinating is that innovation often leads to improvements to ‘problems’ that no one was aware of, by doing so they improve our lives and experiences. These innovations becoming truly meaningful. To find such innovations is often the result of curiosity; playing with ideas in stolen moments, weaved together by thoughts from diverse projects, often finding something by chance. As Einstein said, ‘creativity is the residue of wasted time.’

Sinot Yacht Architecture & Design, Lateral-Sinot net-zero concept collaboration

LUX: How do you design-in a net zero target?
JR: Net-zero is a straightforward idea but complex in execution. Designing for net-zero is quite simple, we are doing that already by engineering flexible architecture into new superyacht platforms, however they can only achieve net-zero in operation via accountancy. The use of various alternative fuels will still lead to the emission of carbon, for these to be net-zero there must be an accountancy that the carbon emitted has been captured somewhere else. Net-zero is therefore an eco-system spanning many industries, regions, and nations.

LUX: Are superyachts following the motor industry in adopting electrification as a viable alternative to fossil fuel?
JR: Yes, electrification is being embraced but in a different context. Whilst cars are mainly going full electric, yachts are remaining the equivalent of an electric hybrid. This is simply down to the scale of energy needed for a yacht to operate, and the limited storage capacity of batteries. Designs such as Kairos from Oceanco / Pininfarina / Lateral are pushing the boundary and achieving 75% of daily operation on battery. However, we can be sure that battery technology will advance and it is a core part of our future proofing strategy to make batteries part of our energy and propulsion system architecture choices.

LUX: We read about alternatives like liquid hydrogen-based systems, will these become industry-standard in the future?
JR: There are many alternative fuels being explored by the marine industry (and other industries) in the move to decarbonisation and net-zero. Some of these fuels, such as bio diesel, are a simple ‘drop-in’ equivalent for the diesel we already use. Other fuels, such as methanol and liquid hydrogen can make compelling options for future net-zero fuels. However, all of these require more space on board as they have a lower energy density than current fossil fuels. In the future there will be no singular solution, there may be many different future fuels in use. We can be certain that this will be a (welcome) challenge to designers and engineers; we will need to become even more efficient in energy use (so we require less fuel as it uses more volume) and we will also need to offer at least equivalent levels of functionality but in a smaller package. This is the creative challenge we will face in the future; such challenges drive us to innovate.

Read more:Driving Force: Porsche Panamera 4S E-Hybrid

LUX: What do you tell your next gen clients when they are spoiled for choice?
JR: We live in an age of so much choice that it often becomes an enemy to decision making. When I was growing up, we had three TV channels, now we have hundreds but choosing which one to watch is surprisingly quite hard at times! It is a key skill of any leader to be able to guide their clients through the complexities of choice. There are some choices that are complex, technical, rational, and others which are very emotive and personal. Equally there are a multitude that fall in the grey area in between, and guiding clients in these choices without making them feel like they are taking unmanaged risks is key.

Find out more: lateral.engineering