The 15th edition of the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards took place at the Royal Academy of Arts, London

Last week, the 15th edition of the annual Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards took place at The Royal Academy of Arts in Mayfair. Chloe Frost-Smith recounts the evening

Wine experts and distinguished guests sipped glasses of Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV champagne, admiring an exhibition of works from the Artistry of Wine Award shortlist against the backdrop of a full-sized copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s mural painting The Last Supper and the Royal Academy‘s collection of Greek and Roman sculptures.

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The winners were announced in the amphitheatre that forms part of the RA’s remodelled wing, and prizes were presented by Charles Metcalfe, the Chairman of the Judges and award-winning wine author. This year, more than 200 entries were received from writers from 23 countries. Karen MacNeil, a regular contributor to the likes of Decanter, won the new award for Consumer Title Writer of the Year, which recognises wine writing beyond specialist titles. Photographer Leif Carlsson was awarded the Louis Roederer Artistry of Wine, Malu Lambert was named the Montblanc Emerging Wine Writer of the Year and Andrea Frost won the Marchesi Mazzei Wine Columnist of the Year.

Read more: Richard Mille’s Alpine athletes Alexis Pinturault & Ester Ledecká

Esther Mobley of the San Francisco Chronicle was named the Domaines Ott* Wine Feature Writer of the Year and Simon Woolf received the Domaine Faiveley Wine Book of the Year for Amber Revolution, while US wine importer and writer Terry Theise won the Chairman’s Award for his book What Makes a Wine Worth Drinking.

The evening concluded with an informal tasting session in the RA’s Collection Room, allowing guests the opportunity to experience each sponsor’s sommelier selection in the most sophisticated of atmospheres.

To view the full 2019 shortlist visit: theroedererawards.com

Olympian skier Alexis Pinturault, who was involved in designing the red, white and blue RM 67-02 Automatic

Irene Bellucci meets World-Cup-winning Alpine ski racer Alexis Pinturault and super-G skiing and giant slalom snowboarding Olympic gold medallist Ester Ledecká on the powdery slopes of Courchevel to talk winning, the thrill of the race and their roles as ambassadors for luxury watchmaker Richard Mille

Alexis Pinturault is France’s most successful skier, notching up 23 World Cup victories and representing his country in five World Championships and two Winter Olympics, most recently winning four bronze medals in the giant slalom event.

LUX: What does skiing mean to you?
Alexis Pinturault: Doing any kind of sport is a kind of mindset. It brings you education, respect, confidence. It is a way of life.

LUX: Are you very competitive?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes, maybe too much, but I am getting better. It’s important to know your competitors, but on the day of the race, there is just you. I try to be more accepting about losing, but I used to find it very difficult. Alpine skiers are a bit crazy.

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RM 67-02 Automatic

LUX: Describe a typical training day for you.
Alexis Pinturault: I wake up at 6 or 6.30, warm up and have breakfast. I’ll be on the slopes by 7.30 for an inspection at 8.30, and take my first run at 9.30. Depending on the results, we might go ahead with a second inspection and run. We’ll then have a break, review progress and then I might have some physiotherapy. On the rare day that I’m not training, I’m not very patient. My wife and I are very active: we go hiking, diving, walking. Never just chilling on the beach.

LUX: What do you feel just before the start of the race?
Alexis Pinturault: I’m very focused on the moment. When I’m skiing, it’s all about instinct and I don’t have time to think about what I’m doing. If you start to think about it, the race is already over. When we are racing, we are like animals.

LUX: What do you consider “success”?
Alexis Pinturault: Success is an achievement. For a sportsman, it’s reaching a goal, like the Olympics. But even once you’ve achieved your goal, there are always other goals to reach for.

LUX: What are your other goals for the next five years?
Alexis Pinturault: I want to win the World Championship here in Courchevel in 2023, and then maybe the next Olympics in 2026.

LUX: Do you feel pressure to set an example for the next generation of skiers?
Alexis Pinturault: You do feel pressure when you spot all the kids and all the people cheering for you at the finish line, waiting for autographs and selfies and wanting to spend time with you. But it’s amazing to come back to Courchevel and ski with the kids from the ski club.

Read more: Inside Andermatt’s newly opened concert hall

LUX: Are you a watch enthusiast?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes. I got my first watch from my grandfather, and another one after I got married.

LUX: Do you wear your Richard Mille watch during competitions?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes, it’s lightweight and I wear it under gloves and a protector for slalom and giant slalom races. I was involved in designing some of the details and suggested white for snow, and red and blue to represent the French flag.

LUX: Is there a connection between the brand and your sport?
Alexis Pinturault: Yes – we are both focused on pushing the limits, always looking and trying new ideas.

Olympian skier Ester Ledecká

At the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, Ester Ledecká triumphed in both the super-G Alpine skiing event and the giant slalom in snowboarding. This feat made the Czech athlete the first person to win gold in two separate disciplines at the same Winter Olympics.

LUX: Can you describe the feeling of skiing downhill?
Ester Ledecká: Pure freedom. When I ride down the hills, I can feel little fireworks inside my heart. The feeling is even stronger when I’m competing! Everyone asks me, “How are you going to celebrate after the race?” and I always reply that I have already celebrated. Nothing better can happen after the run because I’ve already experienced the best feeling in the world.

LUX: Why do you do both snowboarding and skiing?
Ester Ledecká: For me, this is an easy question to answer. It’s because I love both of them too much! I don’t want to be bored by either of them.

LUX: How do you win races across both disciplines?
Ester Ledecká: There is no tutorial for it. I worked hard, I started when I was two years old and I have trained every day for 22 years. It takes a lot of training, and you need to learn how to lose – billions of times – before you reach some kind of result.

Read more: Spring Studios Founder Francesco Costa on creative networking

LUX: What is your relationship with time?
Ester Ledecká: Actually, I am in a race with time. I don’t race with other girls, I race with time. It doesn’t matter if it’s snowboarding or skiing. It doesn’t matter who’s next to me. I just need to be fast.

RM67-02

LUX: Does your Richard Mille watch help?
Ester Ledecká: Richard Mille gave me my first watch. The design of these watches is all about precision and details. There are no excuses; everything needs to be perfect. I love the way you can see all the details inside the dial; other brands hide the workings of the watch, but Richard Mille’s are perfect. When I met the Richard Mille ‘family’, I fell in love with the whole team. This watch is much more than a pretty thing I have on my wrist, it’s a reminder that I’m part of something very big. The company supports me not as a sponsor, but like a real family. They are with me if I win or if I lose. When I’m wearing my watch, I remember that someone’s got my back.

LUX: Do you wear the watch during the competitions?
Ester Ledecká: Sadly no, because it doesn’t fit under my suit and protection for downhill and super-G. But I can wear it to play other sports because it’s so light.

LUX: Who else supports your career?
Ester Ledecká: I am lucky to come from a very supportive family. My grandpa [Jan Klapáč] was a world champion in ice hockey and he taught me how to love sport and how to lose. He showed me how beautiful and fun a professional sport can be. To become a professional athlete you need a lot of passion. You have to sacrifice a lot, including your personal life. It’s a tough job, but he taught me how to love even the hardest parts of my job. My mum also comes with me everywhere, she’s never missed a race – apart from one on the other side of the ocean because she is afraid to fly.

LUX: What are your future goals now that you’ve already won so much?
Ester Ledecká: I haven’t won anything at all, I am just at the beginning. There is a long way in front of me. Even in snowboarding, there is still something to improve. I still have a lot of races to win in skiing. That will take a long time, but step by step…

LUX: Can you describe Alexis?
Ester Ledecká: Fast. Cute. And one of my skiing idols.

Thank you to the Hôtel Annapurna in Courchevel, owned by Pinturault’s family, for hosting LUX. For more information visit: annapurna-courchevel.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue.

Andermatt Concert Hall’s glass façade floods the venue with light

In Andermatt, the sound of music soars beautifully from a remarkable newly opened concert hall. Laura Archer discovers how the state-of-the-art venue is helping to mark the Alpine town out as a vibrant year-round cultural destination as well as a luxury skiing resort

Back when he was a student in Berlin, Samih Sawiris, the chairman of Andermatt Swiss Alps, would do anything to get his hands on tickets to the Philharmonie. He often struck lucky, recalling ending up attending “hundreds” of concerts conducted by the legendary Herbert von Karajan. This summer, decades later, the Berlin Philharmonic inaugurated Sawiris’ state-of-the-art Andermatt Concert Hall with a spectacular performance of Mozart and Shostakovich, marking the start of a world-class programme unrivalled in the Alps. For the property developer, whose passion for classical music is evangelical and who first conceived of the project many years ago, it was a particular joy. When the first notes of Mozart’s Symphony No.34 swirled around the light-filled hall, with forested mountains almost poking through the windows, Sawiris tells LUX, “It was a dream come true. Like many of my dreams, this one entailed long and hard work, but it doubled the pleasure to see the Berlin Philharmonic finally here.”

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While in the past Andermatt has struggled to escape from the shadows of its glitzier Alpine cousins – Gstaad and St. Moritz among them – it is now emerging as a glamorous destination in its own right, thanks to an impressive investment programme designed to transform the village into a year-round destination where superb skiing is just one of the many strings in its bow. At the heart of this development is the 650-seat Andermatt Concert Hall, masterminded by London-based Studio Seilern Architects.

Studio Seilern Architects took every opportunity to add light to the Concert Hall’s design.

The Berlin Philharmonic played the venue’s first concert in June this year

Founder-director Christina Seilern lived in Switzerland until she was 18 and sees the place as something of a second home. This project proved irresistible, giving her a chance to showcase her architectural prowess within an environment she loves. “It brought me back to my roots,” she says. “Given that I grew up in the mountains, it felt appropriate to connect the dramatic landscape to the music within the hall.”

Read more: Meet the Renaissance entrepreneur Kevin Xu

She has done so in spectacular style, working with an existing underground concrete bunker originally intended to be a conference venue and literally raising the roof, adding a glass façade to create a soaring atrium that floods the concert space below with daylight and opens it up to stunning mountain views. In winter, audiences might find themselves listening to music while watching snow swirl outside, while in summer the green alpine pastures provide a similarly inspiring backdrop. The hall’s bijou size, with incredible acoustics courtesy of Kahle Acoustics and Ducks Scéno (the teams behind the Philharmonie de Paris) creates a sensory experience like no other in the Alps. “It felt like having the orchestra in my living room,” says Seilern of the opening performance. “The intimacy between orchestra and audience was palpable. It was completely electrifying.”

At street level, the clever design means passers-by can also see into the concert hall and enjoy the spectacle, further cementing Sawiris’ vision that classical music is for everyone.

The Andermatt Autumn Music Festival, a satellite of the Lucerne Festival, starts on 24 October 2019 andermatt-swissalps.ch

Gotthard Lofts (here and above)

Stay in style

With so much to see and do in Andermatt, you’ll want to return time and again. And after a long day on the slopes, on the golf course, or hiking, cycling or touring, it’s nice to relax in the comfort of your own home. Gotthard Lofts, a new development of 10 spacious loft-style apartments on the sixth floor of the Radisson Blu hotel, offers your own private space with all the benefits of the hotel’s facilities, including private access to the 25-metre panoramic pool, spa and the concert hall itself. Inside, large balconies make the most of the surrounding scenery, while light woods and neutral tones evoke a modern Alpine spirit. Cook for family and friends one night; dine in the hotel restaurant the next – the flexibility and choice are what make Gotthard Lofts so appealing. Buyers receive a special exception from stringent Swiss property laws about foreign ownership, and receive a host of benefits including a three- year ski pass and the option to rent it out when you’re not there. It’s the smart way to make the most of your precious holiday time.

From CHF 990,000. For more information visit: gotthard-residences.ch

“I worked in nature as if it was in the studio. The vineyards seemed to me a very poetical, mysterious and playful environment.” – Marie Benattar

Louis Roederer makes what might just be the world’s most famous champagne, Cristal, and a range of others all renowned for their sophistication and complexity. Less known is the family-owned company’s visionary art foundation, and foray into the luxury boutique hotel industry. Darius Sanai speaks to CEO and 7th-generation family scion, Frédéric Rouzaud, about photography,
art, hospitality, and almost everything except champagne

Frédéric Rouzaud

Travelling from the heart of London to the heart of Paris is, in some ways, like stepping from one luxury universe into another. In Mayfair, every conversation is about money – what’s for sale, what’s being sold, who might buy what. A brand is a currency, there to have its value inflated and sold on to the next wheeler-dealer.

Paris may be the home of the global luxury industry, but despite this, or perhaps because of it, it is – mostly – not considered appropriate to have the same conversations. For every private equity group buying and selling companies like card sharps distributing aces, there is a celebrated company (don’t call them brands) that has been in family hands for centuries.

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This is one of the first thoughts that flows through my head when I meet Frédéric Rouzaud in a hotel lobby in the chi-chi 16th arrondissement. Through the Maison Louis Roederer, Rouzaud may be the family owner and CEO of one of the world’s most celebrated luxury brands – who doesn’t know Cristal, after all – but it’s apparent that this thoughtful, understated and gently smiling gentleman in a dapper suit is a different breed to many modern CEOs. Louis Roederer is a Maison, not a brand.

Photography by Michel Slomka

We settle in quickly to an easy conversation about art, and in particular photography. Recently, Louis Roederer invited young abstract artistic photographers to create images of the champagne house, its cellars and grounds, giving them carte blanche to interpret whatever they wished, however they wanted.

The results, which have never been publicly exhibited, are published on these pages. But Rouzaud, who expresses an enthusiasm for photography and 20th and 21st century art, is doing so much more in the world of art through the Fondation Louis Roederer (a private foundation), and has a plan to develop a collection of luxury boutique hotels. Here is a polymath who is plainly not interested in being pigeonholed. And, of course, the Louis Roederer brand owns several wine estates and makes some of the world’s most celebrated champagnes – not just Cristal, which needs little introduction – including a personal favourite, the complex yet ethereal blanc de blancs.

“I found in champagne perfect elements related to dreams… it appears as a perfect opportunity to explore a fairy direction.” – Marie Benattar

LUX: Tell us more about your hotel projects?
Frédéric Rouzaud: We bought our first hotel last November, in the Alps in France. A hotel seems far away from the wine world, but not so far when you look for a long-term strategy that you need to have for hotels. Like for wine, it’s about the French ‘art de vivre’. It’s about gastronomy, the experience and wine. My idea is to create a small boutique hotel collection, and also by having some private houses open to private consumers who would like to live a very nice experience around wine in our different properties. [Outside of Champagne] we have wine properties in Provence, Portugal, two châteaux in Bordeaux, one in California. The idea is to create a small collection either by buying hotels like we did in the Alps or by creating some hotels within our winery sites, which are generally very nice places to stay.

Read more: Wes Anderson & Juman Malouf curate an exhibition at Fondazione Prada

LUX: Will there be a particular aesthetic?
Frédéric Rouzaud: We will try to make people feel comfortable and at home. We will work with some designers that have this sense of conviviality, [to create] a nice experience. We will adapt to each place – the style, the sense of the place. It will be a five-star hotel that is casual and comfortable, family friendly.

“I worked at night by the light of the moon. I have aspired to build mirage images in order to reveal what can not be mastered by man, the very power of nature. The artificial lights were developed to unmask ghostly presences, unreal scenes, dreamlike horizons.” – Lucie Jean

LUX: There is a very powerful partnership between your Maison and the art world. The photography for the prize that you do is very abstract. Is that something you initiated yourself and how has it grown?
Frédéric Rouzaud: The story started 20 years ago, when we met the president of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. They have a fantastic collection of more than five million images – old photographs from the beginning of the creation of the photography – but they didn’t know what to do with it because they are more book-orientated. So they asked us if we would be interested in helping them show the fantastic collection to the public. That is how we started our collaboration, and we did a lot of very nice and interesting exhibitions there. We sponsor all of the exhibitions and they are fantastic. It is a very serious, rigorous and interesting collection of photography with plenty of artists.

“Views from above of the symbolic interiors of Roederer were completed with images of starry skies from the vineyards. This face- to-face seemed to us to be a poetic metaphor for what champagne represents, a kind of cosmic union between earth and sky.” – Simon Brodbeck and Lucie de Barbuat.

LUX: What about the young photographers we feature here?
Frédéric Rouzaud: We asked the Bibliothèque Nationale de France to select for us eight or ten young photographers who went to Champagne; there was lots of creativity and they decided to photograph Roederer as their own perception.

LUX: What did you think of what they did?
Frédéric Rouzaud: I think it was great. I think it was so different and their approach was phenomenal.

LUX: You must have a personal passion for photography to give it such support?
Frédéric Rouzaud: I am interested by art and photography – because photography is really a contemporary art form. I think it is approachable for people who sometimes do not understand or find it difficult to approach contemporary art. Photography is always approachable, understandable… and I see a big future, a big potential for photography. It is a very nice, aesthetic art.

“The intervention of man gives a very graphic aspect to the vines. I sought, through the strength of this vegetation and nature,
visual haikus which would plunge us between the lines from what is immediately visible.” – Lucie Jean

LUX: Do you collect photography yourself ?
Frédéric Rouzaud: I have some, I don’t only collect photography – I collect many things. I buy lots of intuition and inspiration (laughs). I am not a collector in the sense that I buy everything, I am more for going into galleries on the weekends/ auction sales to see what is going on – I can buy photography, a chair, a lamp…

Read more: Geoffrey Kent on travelling beyond the beaten track

LUX: Does your foundation have a physical home that people can visit?
Frédéric Rouzaud: No, not yet. The purpose of the foundation is to help institutions and museums like Palais de Tokyo and Le Grand Palais to show to the public their fantastic collections. I think we are much more for that approach rather than to say, ‘Hey, look at my foundation, look at my collection, come and visit it.’ We are a small company, we are more for helping the French big institutions, like Bibliothèque Nationale, trying to choose the artists that really talk to us in a way – that is the first point. The second point is the different prizes that we have created now; we like to discover new talents. That is really the two things helping the institution with known artists – because there are lots of artists who we have sponsored who were known, but we also like to give prizes to new talents.

“For me, photography is a way to discover and observe the world, to embrace its complexity without feeling too much gravity. It is also a way to take time, spend it and even try to stop it.” – Marie Benattar

LUX: Is the private sector becoming more important in supporting art?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Museums don’t always have the means to do these exhibitions for the public so they seem very happy to have that kind of foundation to help. I think it is very important, yes. Even if in France it is less usual to have funds from a private company or foundation like it is in the UK, it is very normal. But I think it is coming and definitely there are never enough funds to help art. If the approach is quiet, organised, long-term and focused on what we like, I think there is no reason that it doesn’t work, because again in our approach we are more behind museums that have the savoir faire, the connection. We prefer to be maybe a little bit behind the scenes.

LUX: Are wine and art similar?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Of course, there is a link. But I always say to my team, ‘Don’t consider yourselves artists. We are not artists. We are artisans, dedicated to nature, trying to interpret each year what nature likes to give us: climate, size of grapes, concentration…’ And we try to make, modestly, with that, a wine that we sell. Artists have total freedom. We don’t. We have to ferment the wine, we have to press the wine, it has to be vigorous. It’s close to the artists’ work – but we don’t have the freedom. The only thing you have to do as an artist is express what you have in your head. So there is a very natural link between the world of wine and the world of art, but we are not artists.

“The need and the desire to create cannot be explained. It’s like a breath, a small voice and sometimes even a cry that animates you and takes you to creation.” – Laura Bonnefous

LUX: Is it true to say the world of wine is more objective than art?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Yes, in the world of wine we have to follow rules, some tools, some gestures. In art, you do what you want – you are much more free. We are free in the way that we are free to search the best soils to plant the vineyards, we are free to search the best way for pruning the vineyards, the way of fine-tuning our grapes, our methods, our pressing process, our fermentation, our storage – we are free for that. But at the end of the day, the focus has to be a bottle of wine that is appreciated by the consumers. An artist, if he makes something and it pleases collectors, it is good. If it doesn’t please them, it is fine also!

Read more: Spring Studios’ Founder Francesco Costa on building a creative network

LUX: With wine, is the product the most important thing? Or the brand?
Frédéric Rouzaud: (Laughs) The brand comes after the product, in our approach. We do small quantities, small production in our own vineyards. We don’t buy grapes, we don’t buy wine, so it is a small production and we produce a small quantity of wine – not enough for the world and we are fine with that, because we don’t know how to do more at that level of quality. For us the brand is more a Maison; it is a family-owned company and we make a product the best way we can and if it becomes a brand, fine! But we are not trying to make a brand and then make the product. We were founded in 1776 and my brothers and sisters have done a great job to make a brand today – called Roederer – but still the team is really not in that approach of branding. We are really behind our product, behind our vineyards.

“A Cristal bottle is transparent; I tried to make the production process transparent by highlighting the talented people working in the vineyard, the cellars, the factory, the office…” – Sandra Reinflet

LUX: Tell us why you chose Val-d’Isère for your first hotel?
Frédéric Rouzaud: Why Val-d’Isère? This resort in terms of value, authenticity, purity of skiing… it really is the resort in France, if you like to ski. I like to ski and I have been to lots of resorts in France. After testing Val-d’Isère you will be disappointed if you go elsewhere – if you like to ski. Plus the fact that it is a historic hotel, one of the first of the resort, and it belonged to a family – the same family who built the hotel.

LUX: How important is China for you?
Frédéric Rouzaud: It is small yet. We are very strong in Hong Kong, but China is quite small at the moment. First, we do not have the volume. Second, the market is very young. Sometimes champagne is considered as goods which should be offered for parties. I don’t know why – champagne as a commodity. In an emerging market like that you have to sponsor a lot if you want to be in some places and we are not in this game, because we do not have the volume. We have such a respect for the wine itself that we don’t like to give it for free. We only do it sometimes, as a special prize.

LUX: We were talking about biodynamics…
Frédéric Rouzaud: We are running the Cristal estate in Champagne, 100% biodynamically, it has been ten years now so we are very happy with it. I am not a technician, but I have tastes; the grapes and maturities, the balance of the grapes concentration, acidity, level of alcohol – and it is working very well.

LUX: What difference does it make to the products when you make it biodynamically?
Frédéric Rouzaud: It is difficult to express but I think it gives it more vibrancy, more life in the wine.

Find out more: louis-roederer.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue

California Tech University (Caltech), where Kevin Xu has endowed the new Neurotechnology Center, due to open next year

As a business leader, scientist, activist, media owner and philanthropist, Kevin Xu is the embodiment of a Renaissance entrepreneur. Andrew Saunders delves into the businessman’s master plan

Kevin Xu

He may not quite be a household name – at least, not yet – but the chair of the MEBO group of regenerative wound care businesses, Kevin Xu, is a force to be reckoned with in the many spheres of his interest all the same. International entrepreneur and mentor; scientist, academic and researcher; advocate for better commercial relations and greater mutual understanding between the US and China; media owner; committed global philanthropist recognised with an Empact 100 award from the UN.

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As if that wasn’t enough, Xu also manages to fit in being a contributor to leading business titles including Forbes, Wired, Inc and Business Insider. No wonder he says wistfully that he doesn’t get much time to keep up with the fortunes of his favourite basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, these days.

It’s an eclectic and impressive line-up of interests for a man whose ‘day job’ is running one of China’s leading biomedical therapeutics businesses, burns treatment specialist MEBO International. But the thread that unites his diverse activities is his personal credo: if you help someone, they will help others in their turn. “I believe in reciprocity and leadership,” he tells me. “I believe that if I can help an individual to lead a different life, then that person may reciprocate back to society when they become a success themselves. That’s why my interests are wide-ranging and don’t have any restrictions – not ethnicity, region, social status or gender bias. It’s all about individuals who I can help and make a difference.”

To aid him in that quest he also possesses two other valuable assets: a packed international diary and a 24-carat contacts list. He was born and raised in California, but we meet in London – he came for Royal Ascot, but also for meetings with charities and NGOs he’s interested in – before he headed to Japan for that country’s first-ever G20 summit. He’s on the advisory board of the California-China Trade Office, serves on the Asian Advisory Board at the University of Southern California’s Davis School of Gerontology, mentors young entrepreneurs at MIT, is the founder of the Kevin Xu Initiative at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and has endowed a new Neurotechnology Center in California Institute of Technology. The list goes on.

Perhaps the relationships he is most proud of, however, are his ties to two former US presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He’s a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and a contributor to the Obama Foundation, and recently spent a fortnight with Clinton in the US Virgin Islands, working with the 42nd president of the United States in connection with its efforts to help rebuild the region after the devastating 2017 hurricanes.

Kevin Xu (pictured with Bill and Hillary Clinton here), is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.

His view is that great world leaders all share a concern for humanity – and human life – above all. “True leadership involves a value system that puts people’s lives first. Clinton and Obama have that humanitarian aspect and so have other world leaders I have met – people like Pope Francis and [former UN secretary general] Ban Ki-Moon.”

Xu’s connection with the two former presidents was forged in the aftermath of the traumatic death of his father, MEBO founder Dr Rongxiang Xu, in 2015. “It was an accident – an awful shock,” he says. “It was a moment when I realised the power of mentorship. Presidents Obama and Clinton stepped up and carried me through that time – they sent condolence letters and said they would be role models to teach me how to carry on good leadership.”

At the age of 27, Xu not only had to cope with the loss of his father, but also with being parachuted into the pilot seat of the business that Dr Xu had built and run for 30 years. “My biggest fears when my father passed away were firstly that I didn’t know how to run his business in China, and secondly that I didn’t know how to create connections with people there. I grew up in the US, I didn’t know anything about China.”

Read more: Louis Roederer’s CEO Frédéric Rouzaud on art and hospitality

The business was well established in China, where Dr Xu first developed his pioneering moist environment burns therapy (MEBT) in the 1980s. Based on traditional Chinese medicine, the therapy capitalises on the human body’s innate ability to regenerate its own tissues, in a carefully controlled environment. Even deep-tissue, third-degree burns can be successfully treated without the need for painful or disfiguring skin grafts, says Xu. “My father decided to become a burns surgeon because he realised that burns are the most painful conditions people ever face – both pain from the burn and pain from the treatment.”

By the time Xu took over, the business had trained almost a million doctors in the use of its therapy, and had a network of 65,000 hospitals in China alone. Picking up the reins was quite a responsibility.

Xu works with former US president Barack Obama

When President Obama invited Xu to stay with him and be part of the official delegation for the US state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, doors were opened that might otherwise have remained closed to him for years. “Obama helped me to make a whole new group of connections between the US and China that are different from those of my father’s era. I met President Xi almost every day.”

That meeting led to MEBO being selected as one of the Chinese government’s official partners on the UN’s Every Woman Every Child initiative, providing medical experts to help deliver the global programme for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health in many countries. As Xu explains, there were ten such official Chinese partners, and nine of them were already chosen by the time he and President Xi met. “I believe in serendipity, and that happened serendipitously. President Xi decided to have MEBO as number ten.”

His network of A-grade connections is also helping to bring the MEBO burns treatment to the US, via California-based company Skingenix, of which he is also CEO. The road to approval is not an easy one; when the process began in the early 2000s, the FDA regulator didn’t even have a category for treatments based on Chinese medicine. Thanks to the new regulations implemented under the administration of another former president, George Bush Jr, it does now – the category of ‘botanic drugs’ – and the approval process is ongoing.

Read more: Travelling beyond the beaten track with Geoffrey Kent

What have his experiences taught him about fostering better understanding between China and the US? “It’s like the psychology of dating – the US way of dating and the Chinese way of dating show exactly how they each do business,” he suggests. “If a Chinese person takes you seriously and wants to marry you, they will take things slowly, because they want to get to know you. If a US person wants to marry you, you are more likely to get into a fight early in the romance – they are more willing to say something that might hurt you, because they care about you.”

They are two ways of achieving the same goal he says, the main difference in both love and business being that the Chinese approach involves taking a long view. “Eastern people think further ahead, but they don’t always state their full intention at the start. They use connotations to imply it, and that can cause misunderstandings with western people.”

Xu leads a mentoring meeting at the University of California, Berkeley

Another leadership challenge Xu has faced is the fact that many of the experienced executives who help him run MEBO are from his father’s era, and are considerably older than their current boss. “My key advice to young entrepreneurs running a company with older people is not to take your youth as an advantage, but a disadvantage. Be humble and learn what they are thinking. Treat them like your parents, people with more experience than you.”

And what of his co-ownership of Californian media outlet LA Weekly, which he acquired in 2017 alongside several other local investors? Where does this fit into the plan? “I bought it because I understand the importance of media. I love the city where I grew up, but there is too much focus on entertainment, movies and gossip. There is also a more humanitarian side to the city, it just needs bringing out. If I want to change the way people think, I must change the media. Since I bought it, it has become more focused on philanthropy and the arts – a channel for distributing positive energies to people.”

So once again, it may look random from the outside but it’s all part of his plan. What’s the ultimate aim? “I have two goals. My goal for MEBO is that the technology should be available in every country, so that when the world needs us, we will be there. My personal vision is that I want to create a new balance between peace, stability and the self. I want to use science and a new way of thinking to regenerate the world, just as MEBO regenerates the body.”

You heard it here first.

Management by horoscope

East also meets West in one of Xu’s more unusual leadership techniques – using astrology to recruit the right people. “I like horoscopes because I studied neuroscience, and my favourite part of history is Greek mythology. In the company, I know the horoscope signs for most of my people and I place them according to their strengths. Scorpios are more meticulous, for example, so they are suited to finance work, whereas Leos and Aries are more outspoken – it is easier for them to develop new markets.” What does his own star sign indicate? “I am Libra – that’s why I like balance,” he says.

Find out more about the MEBO group: mebo.com

Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf at Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. Photo: Christian Mendez

Following the exhibition’s first home at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna earlier this year, Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures has moved to Fondazione Prada’s gallery space in Milan with larger displays and more exhibits than its original incarnation.

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Curated by Wes Anderson and Juman Malouf, the exhibition explores the history of collecting in museums, stripping the barriers of traditional gallery shows and embracing the concept of the kunstkammer (cabinet of curiosities).

Installation view of ‘Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures’ at Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, showing the Coffin of a Spitzmaus (Shrew), c. 4th century BC. Photo: Jeremais Morandell. Courtesy KHM-Museumsverband

‘A Philosopher of Antiquity’, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, c. 1520/30. Photo: Jeremias Morandell. Courtesy: KHM-Museumsverband

The show’s eclectic display focuses around an unusual star object: the sarcophagus of a shrew. The Spitzmaus coffin (its name comes from the German word for shrew) is a small vessel, gilded and painted with the silhouette of a mouse. Dating from the 4th century BC, it was designed to hold the Egyptian mummified remains of a sacred shrew. The coffin – along with all of the other pieces on display – was selected by Anderson and Malouf from the vast archives of Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna, and perfectly encapsulates the quirky aesthetic of the exhibition as a whole.

Unknown, XVIII Sec. Photo by Jeremias Morandell. Courtesy KHM-Museumsverband

This is the Kunsthistorisches’ third exhibition in seven years to welcome creative individuals as curators. Following curations by Ed Ruscha and Edmund de Waal, Anderson and Malouf were selected for their clear artistic vision, unique style and attention to detail. We can see this in many of the pieces they’ve chosen: often small and ornate with a focus on unusual materials, their displays bring together a selection of natural and man-made objects and artworks, presented in separate cases or in clusters.

Read more: Mustafah Abdulaziz wins 2019 LOBA photography award

‘Mummy Portrait: Young man with fuzz’, Roman, Early Antoine, 2nd quarter 2nd cent. AD. Courtesy: KHM-Museumsverband

Each room shares a distinct quality, that seems to resonate with both Anderson’s and Malouf’s creative universe. In fact, the whole exhibit appears much like the perfectly staged Kunst Museum that Jeff Goldblum is chased through in The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Rosie Ellison-Balaam

‘Spitzmaus Mummy in a Coffin and Other Treasures’ runs until 13 January 2020 at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. For more information visit: fondazioneprada.org

Sanctuary Baines’ Camp, bordering the Moremi Game Reserve and the Okavango Delta, is ideally placed for wildlife watching

Nobody wants to go where everyone else has been. Creating a holiday that eschews the well-trodden tourist trail requires knowledge, contacts and experience. James Parry speaks to ultimate tour operator Abercrombie & Kent to see how they create experiences beyond expectations, from the best view of a solar eclipse in Argentina to a private tour of the Bolshoi with an ex-ballerina as your guide

In our increasingly crowded world, it’s difficult to ‘get away from it all’. We often reminisce about the places we visited long ago – that seaside holiday when you and your friends were the only people on the beach or that time you visited a beautifully tranquil temple and got a guided tour by one of the monks. And though our memories of bygone holidays may be rose-tinted, it is certainly true that getting off the beaten track today has never been more difficult. Queues, timed tickets and a throng of visitors brandishing selfie sticks are often part of the price you pay for seeing more of the world.

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The travel market is starting to recognise that some travellers would like a more engaging, authentic experience abroad, one where they can create a personal connection to their destination. Abercrombie & Kent (A&K), the bespoke travel company created by adventure pioneer Geoffrey Kent, has been specialising in highly personalised itineraries that are designed to match each traveller’s interests and passions since 1962. A&K’s clients want more than a sight-seeing tour, and Kent and his team are specialists in what’s known as ‘experiential travel’, conceiving trips that “inspire our guests to look at the world in a new and different way”.

Chile has some of the world’s most spectacular vineyards

However much input you may want to have in your itinerary, a wide network of contacts is useful, and A&K’s global staff – which numbers over 2,500 – leverage their detailed local knowledge and send their team members on fact-finding missions so they can devise trips full of unusual venues and experiences.

In Cambodia, A&K’s contacts extend beyond the temples, cultural landmarks and eco-tourism spots; it has also built relationships with art experts and curators to offer insider access to the country’s thriving creative industries. If you’re passionate about craftsmanship, the chance to spend time in an artist’s workshop gets to the very heart of what makes a place tick. One visit included the opportunity to spend time with artisans who are preserving and promoting traditional Khmer lacquerware techniques and whose pieces have been commissioned by brands such as Cartier, Hermès and Louis Vuitton. On another trip, A&K arranged a stopover to a Khmer couture designer to see how locally sourced fibres are used to hand-make bespoke fabrics that are now making it onto the catwalks of Milan and Paris.

Eric Raisina, a couture designer in Cambodia

For dance lovers, the trip of a lifetime might involve witnessing the legendary dancers of the Bolshoi in Moscow – not just performing, but in rehearsal. Elizabeth Patch, private client manager, organised one such behind-the-scenes visit for a client, who commented on “the unstaged emotion and raw-life element of the practice room”. The experience also includes a tour of the legendary institution led by a former ballerina who offers first-hand recollections of a life dancing on stage and regales her guests with stories of landmark productions and celebrated prima donnas. Guests are also shown the seamstresses’ workshop, where every costume is hand-made, and the visit is topped off with an attendance of the performance itself.

Read more: Ferrari designer Flavio Manzoni on collaborating with Hublot

Behind the scenes at the Bolshoi in Moscow

Time and again, travellers’ most memorable experiences are drawn from the people they meet. In Chile, one possible itinerary sees visitors spending time at Casa Marín, the award-winning winery of Maria Luz Marín – one of the most influential women in the global wine industry. Marilú, as she is usually known, bucked the trend in the male-dominated world of viniculture by going out on her own to produce premium wines from an estate that most experts said was too close to the sea for vines to thrive. Today she shares her knowledge – and some of her finest vintages – with guests at La Casa.

Renowned chef Francis Mallmann’s unique Siete Fuegos open-flame cooking techniques in Argentina.

One of the greatest joys of a bespoke holiday is delegating logistics to the experts – even the weather. Earlier this year, a special programme was arranged for a group of clients to witness the total solar eclipse visible across parts of South America on 2 July. The A&K team in Argentina had to identify the best possible location for a luxurious camp from which to view this momentous event. “We chose two different places, based on the optimum vantage points, and had to decide at the last minute which one to use, after we knew what the weather was doing,” says Veronica Curtis, A&K country manager for Argentina. “We were prepared for one area to have more cloud cover than the other, so we had helicopters on standby ready to take the group to whichever site had the best view of the eclipse.”

Read more: Lenny Kravtiz on his creative vision for Dom Pérignon

A rare view of the total solar eclipse in Argentina this summer

For travellers who balk at overcrowding, the ultimate luxury would be a visit to a unique venue on an exclusive basis. This applies not just to cultural landmarks, such as the Mount Etna Observatory in Italy – one of many private tours that A&K has made possible – but also to accommodation. Hotels and lodges are selected to reflect the distinctive character of each destination. Think lesser-known gems, such as the boutique Temple House in Chengdu, China, which artfully combines a restored imperial courtyard with chic modern interiors, and Angama Mara, a luxury safari lodge dramatically perched on the edge of Kenya’s iconic Great Rift Valley in the midst of what has been described as the ‘greatest wildlife show on Earth’.

Abercrombie & Kent has spent decades honing its instinct for what makes truly meaningful, one-of-a-kind trips. Beyond the planning and preparation, experiential travel requires imagination on the part of the organiser and the traveller. After all, a successful journey will take you to a place you’ve always dreamed about, but a wildly successful trip might just take you to a place you’ve never even heard of.

Another side of the red city

The YSL Museum in Marrakech

The sandstone walls and souks of Marrakech in Morocco are a well-established stop on the mainstream tourist route, but you can also experience some of the city’s more remarkable sights in a totally original way: without the buzz of the crowds. Bespoke private access can be arranged to many of the city’s cultural venues, offering you the chance to soak up the atmosphere at your own pace. Options include an after-hours private tour of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, a visit to an Arab horse stud farm, and exclusive occupancy of the privately owned estate of Dar El Sadaka, designed by the celebrated French installation artist Jean-François Fourtou and home to his whimsical architectural masterpieces, The House Fallen from the Sky and The Giant’s House.

Discover A&K’s portfolio of travel tours: abercrombiekent.co.uk

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue.

Spring Place Beverly Hills is housed in a building designed by Belzberg Architects

Francesco Costa

Is he the new Nick Jones? Is he the new Adam Neumann? Or is Francesco Costa a totally different type of entrepreneur to the founders of Soho House and WeWork? His Spring Studios and Spring Place businesses, which operate in New York, LA, London and, soon, Milan, offer hip coworking spaces, club membership and studios for shoots, and are becoming a creative force in themselves. Clients include Procter & Gamble, Louis Vuitton, Estée Lauder, Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford. Milan will represent another big step in the global reach of a group that is harnessing the creative energy of its members in a way that might just be making the all-conquering Soho House group feel a little envious. LUX Editor-at- Large Gauhar Kapparova, a Spring member, fires some questions at the Italian creative rainmaker over lunch in London

Gauhar Kapparova

LUX: Does anything else like your business model exist, and how did you think of it?
Francesco Costa: There is nothing like it, we put together workspace, creative agency, production, events and content creation.

LUX: Did you always intend to create Spring Place even when you were creating Studios?
Francesco Costa: No, the idea came later when we saw there was a request for space from our friends and associates.

LUX: How important was the buy-in of creative leaders?
Francesco Costa: Very. Spring is a platform created for them.

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LUX: Spring Place is set to open soon in Milan, following on from NYC and LA. Why is this model so successful?
Francesco Costa: Because the community we serve has many occasions to meet socially, but not so many to meet and interact professionally.

LUX: Why Milan?
Francesco Costa: Milan has an incredible energy. Milan was the art capital of the world in the 1960s, then the fashion capital of the world in the 1980s. Today, it is the centre of design. And, I am Italian.

The meeting space and bar (above) in the LA building

LUX: Did you need to get the buy-in of the big fashion houses for Milan and how did you do this? Who else? Agencies? Celebrities?
Francesco Costa: Most of the fashion houses in Milan are already our clients or investors or friends. I expect a big support from them.

Read more: The opening of Turkey’s newest contemporary art museum OMM

LUX: Is there a signature look and feel to all of the Spring locations, or does the design of each space reflect the personality of its host city? How will the Milan space be different?
Francesco Costa: Every one is different, but there is a common factor: the quality of design and the modernity. Milan will be the same .

The Spring Studios building in New York City and the bar (below)

LUX: There is an obvious logistical advantage in signing up for the whole Spring ‘package’ (production, location, content, events, workspace and entertaining), but does this joined-up approach somehow open up more creative opportunities as well?
Francesco Costa: My goal is to give opportunities beyond the obvious advantage of signing up for ‘a package’.

LUX: Tell us about examples of the creative community supporting or encouraging their peers through the Spring network.
Francesco Costa: There are so many; our members just had the opportunity to invest in the real deal one year ago at one third of the actual stock price.

Each Spring Place location – from LA (above) to NYC and soon Milan – is unique, but the common factor is “the quality of the design and the modernity,” says Costa

LUX: Fashion, film, advertising, digital, media, print – is one more important than others for you? How do they work together?
Francesco Costa: They all work together, but fashion pays for everything.

LUX: How do you communicate with your community and bind them together?
Francesco Costa: By email.

Read more: Lenny Kravitz on creativity and champagne

LUX: Are you the new Soho House?
Francesco Costa: No. Soho House is where you grab a beer, Spring is where you create a new venture or idea.

LUX: Is food and entertainment an important part of the Spring brand?
Francesco Costa: Very!

LUX: What are your biggest challenges?
Francesco Costa: To find amazing buildings like the NYC and LA ones.

LUX: What’s your ten-year plan?
Francesco Costa: To have Spring in every major creative city, a Spring audience, and great brands incubated out of Spring.

Notes: Costa co-founded Spring Place with Alessandro Cajrati; Olivier Lordonnois is its CEO. Costa reinvented the Spring Studios concept after buying it as a studio facility in London.

Find out more: springstudios.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue.

The Hublot Classic Fusion Ferrari GT 3D

No detail is small enough to escape Ferrari designer Flavio Manzoni’s razor-sharp focus. Rachael Taylor discovers how his expertise in supercar design lends itself masterfully to the Hublot and Ferrari watch collaboration

In the Ferrari Maranello plant in northern Italy, you will often find Flavio Manzoni and his team convening at a ten-metre-tall LED wall display. The images they’re looking at are often enormously scaled-up photographs of the miniscule parts of a Ferrari engine or exterior. The extreme magnification is used to perfect infinitesimal details you might never notice should you take the car for a spin. And this, says Manzoni, is the essence of luxury design.

“The luxury of a Ferrari is more a consequence than an objective,” says Manzoni, the car manufacturer’s senior vice president of design, who this year accepted the Red Dot Design Team of the Year award. “There are two perspectives [of design]. One is from the distance, where you see the whole harmony of the object. The other is with the lens, when you magnify every element and put a lot of art into every single detail.”

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Focusing on each and every element – no matter how small – and making sure that it not only performs brilliantly, but is also aesthetically exciting, is what makes Ferrari cars among the most sought-after, and expensive, in the world. It is also this zoomed-in approach to design that has made the switch to designing watches a seamless transition for Manzoni.

Manzoni joined Ferrari in 2010. The following year, he was working on a top-secret project for the company’s first hybrid sportscar, LaFerrari, when he was also brought in to oversee the development of a watch in collaboration with Swiss atelier Hublot. He kicked off their first meeting with a rejection.

Award-winning designer Flavio Manzoni has been with Ferrari since 2010

“At the beginning, their idea was to propose some concepts to us,” says Manzoni. “They wanted to draw inspiration from the central shape of a Ferrari, the dynamic shape, but my idea was to avoid that because it makes no sense to give an aerodynamic shape to a watch.”

Instead, he wanted the Hublot team to look beyond the obvious and dive deep with him into the romance of the details. “I tried to guide the research towards the technical beauty of certain mechanical components of a Ferrari, like the engine for example.”

Hublot Classic Fusion Ferrari GT King Gold

Hublot Techframe Ferrari Tourbillon Chronograph

The result – the Hublot MP-05 LaFerrari watch – was spectacular. A tapered, angular case covered entirely with sapphire crystal, showed off the inner workings of an unusual movement, with the time displayed on off-centre cylinders rather than hands. In place of the traditional flat cogs and springs, an industrial-looking central column of gleaming aluminium barrels gave the impression of a watch that revs rather than ticks. Being Ferrari, performance excellence was important too, and a super- charged power reserve function was created that allowed the mechanical tourbillon watch to carry on ticking off the wrist for what was, at the time, a record 50 days. “I think they attract customers because of their uniqueness,” says Manzoni of the Hublot Ferrari watches, which he believes appeal to a much wider audience than the Ferrari fan base. “They speak out from the mass in the field of watchmaking because they are different. We try to use an out-of-the box approach, which comes from the attitude that we have towards our cars.”

Read more: Rockstar turned designer Lenny Kravtiz on champagne and creativity

It has been eight years since Hublot and Ferrari first joined forces, and Manzoni and his team have very much taken control of the design process. They select which movements to build around, and work up 3D models of prospective timepieces before presenting the concepts to Hublot. Each watch produced (using that same digital ‘wall’ for extreme close ups) continues to focus on the details of Ferraris – the ceramic carbon brake discs, the peccary leather seats – and often uses the same materials that are lavished on the supercars. No flourish is too small to champion, and it gives the team a platform to celebrate much-considered elements of the cars that might otherwise be overlooked simply as pleasant minutiae.

The limited edition Scuderia Ferrari 90th Anniversary Platinum and 3D Carbon watch

This year, Scuderia Ferrari is celebrating 90 years of making supercars, and to celebrate, three Hublot Ferrari watches have been released to mark its past, present and future. Each a twist on Hublot’s popular Big Bang model, the trio of timepieces are all powered by a UNICO movement with a flyback chronograph that offers a 72-hour power reserve and are anchored with bezels cut from the same ceramic carbon that helps Ferrari’s cars to screech to a halt.

The first watch in the series recalls long- past glory days with a brushed platinum case to echo the dashboards of classic Scuderia Ferrari models, as well as a leather strap and bright-yellow markers and hands to bring to mind old-fashioned speedometers. The model celebrating the here and now does so with a 3D carbon case and a strap made from Nomex, the fire-resistant material Ferrari drivers rely on to keep their suits from going up in flames.

The third watch, the one that nods towards what Ferraris might look like in the future, uses sapphire crystal to create a see-through case that exposes its inner workings. The futurist aesthetic is continued with a strap made from Kevlar, a composite material that Ferrari uses to protect its carbon-fibre chassis from stones spraying up from the road.

The latest automotive launch from Ferrari is the SF90 Stradale hybrid, an evolution of the LaFerrari that inspired that first Hublot Ferrari watch. So are we likely to see this latest model transformed into a wrist-ready format? “I don’t think that there will be a literal translation, but for sure there will be some inspiration,” muses Manzoni, who never feels bound to tie the latest watches into the latest cars. “It’s always nice to create cultural bridges between different disciplines.”

Discover Hublot’s collections: hublot.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue.

OMM designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates. © NAARO

Last weekend saw the opening of Odunpazari Modern Museum (OMM), a major new art museum  founded by art collector Erol Tabanca and designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates in North West Turkey. Here, we recall the event in pictures

Home to Erol Tabanca’s 1000 piece contemporary art collection alongside a curated program of exhibitions, OMM officially opened its doors to the public on Sunday 8th September following a glamorous launch party on the Saturday night.

Guests at the opening party of OMM

Erol Tabanca with Kengo Kuma and Yuki Ikeguchi

The opening celebrations saw Japanese bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV completing the final touches of his largest ever installation, alongside performances by Turkish artist Lin Pesto, and singer-songwriter Jonathan Bree , and two immersive installations by British digital art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast.

The largest installation to date by Japanese bamboo-artist Tanabe Chikuunsai IV © NAARO

Read more: OMM’s Creative Director Idil Tabanca on creating an art institution

The night also launched the museum’s first exhibition Vuslat​ (loosely translated as The Union). The group show features a selection of over 100 works by 60 leading artists predominantly from Turkey including Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Canan Tolon, Erol Akyavaş, İlhan Koman, Ramazan Bayrakoğlu, Sinan Demirtaş and Tayfun Erdoğmuş.

Rana, Idil and Erol Tabanca

Fashion designer Dilara Fındıkoğlu has designed the uniforms for the museum’s staff in collaboration with Creative Director Idil Tabanca

For more information visit: omm.art