Still from Within, directed and choreographed by Benjamin Millepied with music by Thomas Roussel. Photograph by Melissa Roldan

To celebrate the launch of their latest timepiece, Richard Mille invited choreographer Benjamin Millepied and composer Thomas Roussel to create a short film incorporating original dance and music. Here, Abigail Hodges takes a closer look at the performance and watch design

RM72-01

The Richard Mille 72-01 Lifestyle In-House Chronograph is the brand’s first flyback chronograph made entirely in-house, and through its design it aims to weave together tradition and modernity – a concept which is also at the heart of WITHIN, a short film created by Benjamin Millepied and Thomas Roussel, set in the desert landscape of southern California.

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The film brings together the physical wonder of a ballet performance and the powerful sound of orchestral music to celebrate the precise art of watchmaking and Richard Mille’s bold, contemporary design aesthetic.

Both images: stills from Within. Photography by Melissa Roldan

While Millepied’s choreography – performed by two dancers – reflects how classical structure and form may be artistically reinvented, Thomas Roussel’s composition blends orchestral and electronic elements to create a dramatic, vibrant soundtrack which was performed by the 50 musicians of the London Symphony Orchestra and recorded at St. Luke’s Church in London.

Read more: Philanthropist Keith Breslauer on combining business & charity

The watch itself aligns with Richard Mille’s avant-garde approach to time-keeping and design (the watch face, for example, features only the numbers three, eight and eleven), but it is also one of the brand’s subtler and more elegant models. Worn on the wrists of both dancers in the film, it pairs perfectly with their formal costumes and the stark, dramatic landscape.

Watch the film below:

For more information visit: richardmille.com

John Pawson is one of the UK’s most renowned architects, known for his signature white, pared-back aesthetic that celebrates space over clutter. His projects vary from high-end private homes to hotels, shops, restaurants, monasteries and London’s Design Museum. LUX Contributing Editor Maryam Eisler visits and photographs his recently completed home in Oxfordshire consisting of a farmhouse and barns to talk about light, lines, and imperfect perfection.

Maryam Eisler: Talk to me about light John.
John Pawson: Well, Louis Kahn said there’s no architecture without natural light. So if there are ten building blocks for architecture, whether it’s scale or proportion or materials, light has to take priority. Cause you’re fucked otherwise!

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Maryam Eisler: If I say monastic, you say …
John Pawson: We’ve been very lucky to have completed three monastic commissions (referring to the new Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Novy Dvur in Bohemia, interior renovation of the basilica of the Benedictine Archabbey of Pannonhalma in Hungary and work at the Cistercian Abbey of Sept-Fons in France). Religious buildings – and specifically monastic buildings – are very different. And the brief is different. But the fact that someone who’s done a Calvin Klein shop can also do a monastery isn’t a contradiction. We’re there to do buildings and we are not measured for our morals or religious beliefs. And the monks saw something in the domestic and retail architecture which attracted them; they thought I might be the right person to help them with their projects.

Maryam Eisler: So, if I say the Rothko Chapel in Houston or Tadao Ando’s Church of the Light near Osaka in Japan…
John Pawson: I could relate to these projects. A lot.

Maryam Eisler: Talk to me about clutter. Or the lack of it.
John Pawson: I’m not a great one for things, but you know you need tools to do stuff, as an architect, a gardener or a cook; it’s just about making sure that you don’t have more than you need.

Maryam Eisler: So you take quite a utilitarian approach to life?
John Pawson: I think that the architecture comes from the way I like to live and it always has done. It’s what I do, and the clients seem to like what I do.

Maryam Eisler: Is your mind as clean as the space and environment you function in?
John Pawson: No, quite the opposite. It’s crammed with stuff, and my brain is all over the place. That’s why I like things ordered. But you can never have exactly what you want. Especially if you live with people.

Read more: Island paradise at the Ritz-Carlton Abama resort, Tenerife

Maryam Eisler: What about order?
John Pawson: I see order as being a good thing. But it has pejorative tones for some people. They see regiment. They see military. They see oppression. I just think it helps.

Maryam Eisler: You appear to have a sense of inner peace and balance, reflective of your work. Am I reading it right?
John Pawson: I’ve been very lucky in my life, and things have gone for the most part smoothly. Work can be quite stressful as I try to produce really special things.

Maryam Eisler: Talk to me about lines.
John Pawson: Yes, Lines. Lots of them. Straight lines.

Maryam Eisler: Are they always straight?
John Pawson: Human beings and women in particular have curves. Buildings are, for the most part, rectilinear. Things are only curved when they need to be.

Maryam Eisler: Have you ever produced anything circular?
John Pawson: Very rarely. We once did a circular surround hedge to a tennis court for Karl Lagerfeld in Biarritz. And he went slightly mad because he said, ‘Don’t you know I don’t like curves’ and I didn’t ! – You know, one of the rules! The other one is ‘Don’t spill coffee on the plans’ which I did as well; that didn’t go down very well either [laughter]!

Maryam Eisler: Which brings me actually to the topic of ‘favourite’ project. Have you had one?
John Pawson: Yes! A monastic city. That was the most fulfilling project of all. And different. Also, I suppose on an egotistical level, not many architects get to do monasteries on this scale.

Maryam Eisler: What about this particular farm house, where we’re sitting now ?
John Pawson: Having worked on this project for five years, you forget how fresh it can be for other people. The level of detail which isn’t always apparent in the materials and the amount of work that has gone into it …. It must seem very calm, judging by peoples’ reactions. So, I don’t know whether this will become like the monastery or not. I just don’t know.

John Pawson conversing with Carrie Scott, an independent art historian and curator who is currently working with John on his photographic series

Maryam Eisler: The strength of your work, the clean lines in your designs, are reminiscent in my opinion of Judd’s work. Same strength. Same presence. Interesting that the first thing I saw when I came here are three Judd chairs, perfectly aligned in the kitchen. Has he been a source of inspiration?
John Pawson: Yes. From very early days – I think I first saw an exhibition of his in Japan when I lived in Tokyo in the early 70s. After that Hester [van Royen, mother of John’s children Caius and Phoebe] became his dealer in Europe, so I got to meet him. He was not too big on conversation!

And then there was a moment in Basel when Hester said, ‘Oh let’s go for lunch !’ Judd was hungry. So, the three of us went out and I thought ‘Oh great; I finally get to sit down with Donald Judd over lunch. Amazing!’ And just as we were going out of the hall, a client of mine caught me and I couldn’t help but to say ‘come along’. He talked non-stop. So, I never got to listen to Judd!

Maryam Eisler: Your aesthetic and emotional connection to Judd seems obvious.
John Pawson: Definitely. Extraordinary, in fact! It’s been a natural thing. He was one of the first artists I was exposed to. I was asked by Hester to give a talk in Oxford on Judd’s work. ‘Sure, cool’, I said and had the complete set of the most incredible slides relating to him – his work, Marfa, everything! It was a big hall and a lot of people. I got up very confident. I was, maybe 30 or 35, and of course my mind went completely blank! So, I put up that first slide and I just said ‘window’, because it was a window. And then the next one was ‘door’. And it went on and on.

Maryam Eisler: We’ve talked about light. What about shadow or darkness?
John Pawson: Everything is about the contrast. Without one, you don’t have the other. But it’s all in the subtlety – the colour changes so quickly, doesn’t it?

Read more: In conversation with painter Luc Tuymans

Maryam Eisler: I’m assuming you see a lot of colour even though, to an outside observer, your work may appear to be somewhat monochrome, neutral, in various shades of beige and grey.
John Pawson: There’s a huge amount of colour in my work and they’re all different! I also slightly underestimated the garden side of things here in the country. Because I thought I could just lay it all out simply and everything would be fine. And at this time of year (end of Spring), it’s so green and yellow … just incredible!

Maryam Eisler: It looks like a painting. Which brings me to the subject of art! You are an architect, a creative mind and a photographer. An artist in every sense of the word. I hope you agree ? Yet, I see no art (in its traditional sense) in the house. No painting on walls. No sculptures in rooms.
John Pawson: I’ve always been very very careful with that. I keep it clean and uncluttered. I know people consider architecture to be an art form. But, to me, architects are not artists. There is a very distinct line between art and architecture.

Maryam Eisler: What are the main lines of differentiation between art and architecture?
John Pawson: I think that architecture has a functional aspect to it. It has to be used. People need shelter. Whereas ‘art’ doesn’t have to fulfil any practical or functional qualities. However, it is important to say that we would not survive as a human race without art.

Maryam Eisler: And you, personally, can do both. You can be an architect and a photographer, simultaneously.
John Pawson: I’m definitely not an artist [laughter]. And I would be very careful about considering myself a photographer.

Read more: Dutch artist Viviane Sassen’s photographic series ‘Venus and Mercury’

Maryam Eisler: But the world will label you as that, especially as you are becoming more public with your photography! You look, think and see like a photographer!
John Pawson: Well then, I am happy to review the situation. It isn’t false modesty. It’s just that I’ve always enjoyed framing things and taking photographs, and until now, I’ve never sought to take it any further than the daily musings.

Here and above: Images from John Pawson’s photographic series Home, a portfolio of 8 images available in an edition of 10.

Maryam Eisler: These daily musings which I follow on your instagram have become in effect a journal or a diary of your life. One can feel your soul through your photographs. I would even go as far as saying that they are self- portraits of some sort. And even though we don’t see you, you’re there and we definitely feel you.
John Pawson: This is just the way I see life, and it’s been a very nice discipline for me. I’m always amazed at how people see things and how they each photograph the same subject so differently. I’m not saying that they’re worse or better, but they’re so different and yet they use the same machine and have two eyes! I’ve always taken photographs but I had never shown them publicly before Instagram.

Maryam Eisler: Now that you’ve come out of the closet with your photography, do you impose more rules onto yourself? Or do you keep the practice spontaneous in the way that you have always done before?
John Pawson: I’d say I am spontaneous because I never think too much before framing a shot. They’re for me, first and foremost. It’s a bit the same with architecture. I design things for me, or as I would like them to be.

Maryam Eisler: You give birth to buildings and you give birth to photographs, and then they get adopted, basically, by the collector, or by the clients.
John Pawson: Sure.

Maryam Eisler: And then they do what they wish with it.
John Pawson: Absolutely.

Maryam Eisler: Does that bother you?
John Pawson: No.

Maryam Eisler: They have a life of their own and that’s OK?
John Pawson: Even though I spend months designing a building, the day you hand it over, it’s no longer yours.

Maryam Eisler: Do you believe in some form of sublime intervention in the act of creation? A hand that enables some – maybe not everyone – to produce and to be creative?
John Pawson: I don’t think so. I’ve always thought that anyone can do it. Although I didn’t think I could. I thought designing was something other people could do. So I learnt; I went to school and learnt to design, literally. Which was illuminating in itself.

Maryam Eisler: Are there any limitations in the act of creation?
John Pawson: One of the things that’s held me back is that people find it very difficult to see what I might do for them. Because the work seems so simple. But it’s a hard grind. It’s making umpteen models. And the problem is that most people just can’t see it. And I can understand that. People came here and saw this place and simply couldn’t understand how I could possibly do anything with it.

I remember giving a talk at RIBA years ago and I turned up, and the whole place was buzzing and heaving, and there were lots of incredibly attractive people, and they all looked very intelligent. And for a moment I wondered why they were there. And then of course I realised they were there for my talk. I still couldn’t think ‘why are they not doing it themselves, and why am I doing it?’ And I realised that it just takes a certain drive; every day you push and you keep your head down and then at the end, there’s something special.

Maryam Eisler: Whereas with photography, there’s much more instant satisfaction. No? You snap, you see…
John Pawson: Oh it’s heaven. Pure satisfaction.

Maryam Eisler: You are your own language in photography. Is the black and white a conscious choice?
John Pawson: Yes I think. Well, my photographs have a black and whiteness about them. But I think it just provides more focus, a stronger message. It takes away the noise.

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

Maryam Eisler: In the chaotic world that we live in and share, do you think your photography helps you gain some control of your life, possibly even focus and introspection?
John Pawson: Definitely. It’s a sort of ordering of things, and the discipline is important. And it makes me even calmer because I’ve captured something. We’re always seeing things as we drive. But I very rarely stop the car. Lost moments. It’s important to capture these instances.

Maryam Eisler: Are you concerned by the passage of time, by the ephemeral?
John Pawson: Of course I’m concerned about the state of things in the world. But I just find it difficult to get involved or to get concerned too deeply about something I can’t personally do something about. Maybe I should do more.

Maryam Eisler: Maybe you do. And maybe you’re not aware of it. Maybe you are adding that much required inner peace to people’s lives. Either through the serenity of your architectural spaces or your peaceful, well measured photography…
John Pawson: We do have a drawer of thank you letters. People’s lives are saved. It feels good to hear about the stories. And there are many stories.

Maryam Eisler: How would you like your legacy to be pondered upon?
John Pawson: Definitely not something I consider at all.

Maryam Eisler: So, for you, it’s about being here, in the moment?
John Pawson: Yeah, I’m here in the moment and legacy is impalpable. I didn’t chart this life, and I never set out to be an architect, but it’s come my way.

Maryam Eisler: A favourite photographer?
John Pawson: Crikey. I do tend to like the classics and people who did things first, but I used to hang out with Robert Mapplethorpe. Some of his works were really good. Not so much the portrait he made of me …

Maryam Eisler: Tell me about that moment when he shot you…
John Pawson: Early 80s is when it happened. Sadly, I was not asked to take my clothes off for him [laughter]… It was just a very relaxed shot of me sitting on the floor, cross-legged. I remember the moment well.

I was around the studio when he was taking photographs. A huge amount of energy went into his photography. He knew what he was doing. He was also very good with people.

Maryam Eisler: I suppose that the primary source of inspiration when you photograph is derived from your own spaces… as well as the reflection of shadow and light within these spaces ?
John Pawson: Yes.

Maryam Eisler: I see the odd tree or landscape every now again. Would you ever snap a figure?
John Pawson: I took Catherine [John’s wife] doing press ups on the beach once! Taking people is a whole other ball game isn’t it? When you’re travelling, I used to see a lot of potential interesting photographs of people and things happening around me. I would take them, but the stress levels were too much, because strangers get uncomfortable. So I decided to stick to what I know.

Maryam Eisler: Would you say you’re a perfectionist?
John Pawson: Absolutely. An imperfect person.

Maryam Eisler: So, you’re an imperfect perfectionist ?
John Pawson: Well I’m obviously aware. A lot of it comes from being very imperfect. At the end, the goal is to produce something really really special, and I don’t personally have the means to do it on my own, so I’m always marshalling other people. It’s a big team. Building is an imprecise trade. So nothing is actually perfect anyway, which is fine because only God can be perfect, as the monks say. And that’s where the curve comes, I think; it’s only God who does curves well.

Maryam Eisler: So perhaps you’re the God of architecture?
John Pawson: That I know not. No delusions there!

John Pawson’s latest book ‘John Pawson: Anatomy of Minimum’ is published by Phaidon: phaidon.com

View his full portfolio of work: johnpawson.com

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.

Tom Davies is a British eyewear designer offering a truly bespoke service. Kitty Harris sits opposite the designer in his Royal Exchange shop to learn more about designing for the individual and the evolution of the luxury eyewear industry.

Tom Davies

Kitty Harris: You have had many design roles during your career. Why did you choose eyewear?
Tom Davies: When I was originally setting up my company, I set up in London to design frames for Tom Davies. But I was just starting out and I was doing contract design for other eyewear brands. For example, one of my big clients was Puma and I was designing their sports eyewear line under contract and also project managing the delivery. That was quite lucrative for me. But at the same time, I would take anything. I actually designed a popcorn maker, an MP3 player, a food mixer and so on. I set up companies just to qualify me for being able to take that particular job. For Aquascutum, I was designing websites and brochures. For Puma, I managed to weasel my way into their websites and brochures and before I knew it, I had twelve designers and a design company.

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But I wanted to pursue Tom Davies glasses, so I threw all of that away for what I truly wanted. All my other ventures were great but they were merely vehicles to make money; whereas eyewear defines the wearer. Human communication is through the face, so in terms of design, there is nothing more important. I think it is the number one design challenge and the most exciting. What really excited me was that nobody else knew that. It has been ignored by the world.

‘Specky four-eyes’ has haunted eyewear for thirty to forty years. It has been something that people haven’t wanted to wear, because it is seen as a medical device and a necessity. But the truth is, if you get to forty years old, 95% of people need some kind of correction for their vision. It is everywhere and everybody needs it. The challenge is to make something that somebody enjoys wearing – that makes them look good, that they are comfortable in and helps them. I get such satisfaction by making someone a really comfortable frame that will really suit them.

KH: How would you describe your design aesthetic?
TD: I am always looking at the person. It is the physical things. I have signatures in my frames – little touches that I like to put in there. Whilst a lot of eyewear brands have a certain hinge or style, which is how they define themselves; I am a bespoke brand, so I’m all about the person. If I was to make you a pair of glasses, I am looking at the shape of your eyebrows, your long eyelashes and your small nose and I think of how it will fit. I look at the shape of your hairline that frames your face, the earrings – how you accessorise yourself. I must design something that will bring all of that together and then match it. That is not easy, which is why people hate glasses. There is so much going on in your personality that you’re already outwardly projecting.

Read next: Visionary designer Bill Bensley on creating luxury dream worlds

The idea that you simply wear what I say and have to deal with it doesn’t really work. That is effectively what happens when you go to an optician. I take several aspects into account: your personal style and features, then we look at the delicacy and thickness of the rim, the tone of the colour, the finishing material (polished, matt or satin), how the frames are fitting. We must take all that into account and then have to consider the prescription requirements and what lens design will give you the optimum vision. You can squeeze any lens into a frame, but people can develop headaches and dizziness. It’s all about you – that is my design style. My products aren’t signature to a hinge, they are signature to the person, so you shouldn’t really be able to spot my frames.

KH: What’s wrong with a ‘one size fits all’ model?
TD: First of all, you must remember those funny caricatures that used to appear in newspapers and magazines where they had images of heart-shaped faces and square faces and they would state which shapes suited you. You don’t see those so much anymore, as they are nonsense and the consumers realised it. If you go into a normal optician, you tend to see a variety of different shapes that do generally work on people. Whether they fit them on the bridge or whether the arms are right is not clear. You will see a generic mix of shapes and if the opticians are good buyers, they will have bought enough to service most people in a generic sort of way. The reason people have used those devices in the past is because you had to buy off the shelf. There wasn’t really a bespoke service.

What I do is I take that same principle, as I have a fully functioning opticians here. You can walk away with a pair of glasses that fit you reasonably well, as with most opticians. But in actual fact, what we’ll do is say – we like this frame and then alter it in terms of shape and style. The principles are there in all opticians and everyone is trying to match face shape to frames as much as they can. But, I am taking that to the next level by starting with something you like and making it better. On my personal appointments, I will pretty much start with a blank piece of paper and sketch something. But generally speaking, if you come to my store, we will start with something the customer really likes and we then bring it on to the next level. It hasn’t necessarily been ignored, but the limits of normal business have prevented them from being able to cater for this.

KH: How would you say the industry has changed?
TD: It keeps changing faster and faster, almost every couple of months. It is now all about individuality in whatever brand you are looking at. There are many people now marketing a bespoke service, but it is generally offering their best-selling frame in twelve different colours. Often these bespoke services are also only offered in plastic, which is the easiest one to do and is often not that accurate and there is no designer behind it.

Read next: Jasper Johns’ alternative perspectives at the Royal Academy

If you come to us, there is a designer in-store and then a designer in my head office who is designing the frame on your face. It is then individually made for you to 0.1 of a millimetre. There is nobody doing anything like that, but there are lots of people in customisation and 3D printing who are coming into this sphere. I was at a trade show in January this year and two years ago, there were two other brands there. But this year, there were twelve other brands there offering some kind of customisation service. This boom is happening and you will see more and more customisation. It is the future of eyewear. You will then also see the big players, such as Luxottica, which owns most of the brands, trying to protect their system. They buy up the industry. For example, Luxottica and Essilor are merging at the moment to make the biggest retailer in the world. Between them, they will own over half of the industry. That is happening in eyewear as well. I think that will carry on happening.

The new Tom Davies store in Covent Garden

KH: Why did you decide to move your factory from China to Britain?
TD: There were many reasons for this. There is no eyewear industry in Britain. I think ten years ago, I would have been too threatened by the idea of training up the next generation of eyewear makers. But now at 42, I don’t feel threatened by that. I am going to be training people, we are bringing in a new generation and we have to create our own supporting industries for it in the UK. We will set up factories here and I find that an exciting challenge.

And also, I am 42 and it’s hard work to travel to China every six weeks. I live in perpetual jet-lag. I am now the master of upgrades, I know everything about everything on airplanes and I know the check-in people. But, I can’t keep doing that. The cost in China is also not what it used to be. Shenzhen is a fabulous place to do business, but it is actually more expensive than Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is as expensive as London. Therefore, economically there is not much of a financial benefit in being based there. Within three years, there will be no financial benefit at all.

Rami Mekdachi has worked as a perfumer for over twenty years, collaborating with some of the world’s best known brands, such as L’Oréal, Colette, Lacoste and Chloé. And now, he’s created his own high-concept brand, Lola James Harper, bringing together his passion for music, film, design and fragrance with his friends and family. Millie Walton speaks to the Frenchman about curing perfectionism, capturing memories and bringing creativity to the hospitality industry.

Rami Mekdachi

LUX: When did you decide to master perfumery?
Rami Mekdachi: I never decided really. Encounters and opportunities make things happen in our lives. In 1996 I met Catherine Raiser, Head of CCB/L’Oréal. We decided to work together and I joined as a Perfume Developer. That same year, I met Pierre Bourdon and Benoist Lapouza, two amazing perfumers, and now two friends. That’s when I realised how grand the perfume world is. How playing with scents, images, poetry, myth and design can be powerful and generous. How wide and touching it can be…

LUX: Do you have a favourite scent?
RM: I have so many!

LUX: Have you ever struggled to capture a certain smell?
RM: Anything I do, I do it for the term. I do not struggle, I just take my time. I have 100 projects going on at the same time. I am way too much of a perfectionist and when I was 20 years old, I spent too much time on little things, struggling to get what I wanted and trying to get it as fast as possible. Now I have found the cure: 100 projects at a time, no time to lose, when it comes, it comes, when it does not come I change the project. My days are super diverse, every two hours I change fields and projects. That is my cure to perfectionism.

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LUX: You’ve had a very successful career as a perfumer, what led you to create Lola James Harper?
RM: For twenty five years, I have been playing music with great singers around the world and I would take pictures for music and travel magazines. Music and photography were in my blood even before perfume. My work as a perfumer was inspired by those experiences. I was lucky enough to have the chance to work with great people and big brands: Colette, Ines de le Fressange, Costes, Lacoste, Chloé, Roger Vivier, Dinh Van. Lola James Harper was a way to gather all the people I love and the three fields I enjoy: music, photography and perfumery.

LUX: Is there a central concept that ties all of your products together?
RM: Good and touching memories of places and people we love, generous and elevating mind sets.

LUX: The names of your candles suggest that their scent evokes a particular memory for their creator. Is it important that the customer realises the story behind the scent or is it more for the purpose of your inspiration?
RM: The point of it all is to share a life and moments that could be touching and evocative for everyone, to transport and make everyone dream. We are all dreaming machines. With Lola James Harper pictures, movies, music and fragrances I want to give to everyone the opportunity to feel free to dream and to do it.

Lola James Harper scented candle

LUX: How does your experience in perfumery inform your other creative pursuits? Music and film, for example?
RM: In music, film and perfumery, I have to compose ingredients together to create a new evocative world. In music I mix sounds, in perfume I mix fragrance notes, in film I mix pictures, motion pictures and sounds. Music helped me to get into the perfume field much faster in 1996, then working with amazing perfumers helped me to enhance my comprehension of a sound mix. Trying to imagine what a fragrance note evokes to people, what colour, what mind set, just opened my consciousness to what immaterial things provoke in our apprehension of the world and gave me so many clues about how to edit pictures, sounds and colours in a film. Life is a huge place to learn and now I know that when I am looking for any answer it always lies somewhere else.

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LUX: What’s the most difficult part of your job?
Rami Mekdachi: The logistic and legal part of it! Legislation shifts so often in the perfume world that we have to change our fragrance composition and stickers every year.

LUX: Where do you go to escape?
RM: The basket-ball court with my son. Movie theatres with my daughter. Walking the town, any town, with my wife, son and daughter. Road tripping the world, renting a car with my family and cruising for days. And when I want to be alone, I like to go to any good coffee shop with good music and tasteful coffee where I know no one.

Lola James Harper Shop in Le Bon Marché department store, Paris

LUX: What lies ahead for Lola James Harper?
RM: Lola James Harper is a magical project. It gathers my family and all my friends and my encounters for over two decades. It brings together my three fields, music, photo and perfumery. I love to see people passing by our places and just feeling happy looking at our pictures, listening to our music and testing our fragrance memories. I am really proud to have achieved all that in one successful project.

Now we are working on opening full Lola James Harper destinations, hotels! Hotels with basketball courts, music studios, TV basements, vinyl shops, coffee shops, full of travel and music pictures, full of good fragrances and our way of life. This should happen in 2018. And just for now, we are finalising our first movie, 85 minutes about the last two decades, globe-trotting the world, discovering music, pictures, friendship and family.

lolajamesharper.com

New York interior designer Ryan Korban has designed retail spaces for  the biggest names in fashion – most recently the Aquazzura‘s opulent flagship on Madison Avenue – and counts Nicole Richie and Behati Prinsloo amongst his best friends, but it’s his uniquely luxe aesthetic that’s got people talking. Combining old world romance with urban seduction, Korban creates atmospheric and alluring worlds. It’s no wonder his name appears on the prestigious AD100 list as one of the design world’s best young talents for 2017. As part of our luxury leaders series, Nathalie Breitschwerdt speaks to Ryan Korban about his design philosophy, the relationship between fashion and interior design and his “must have” luxury.

Ryan Korban

LUX: Given your background is not in interior design, was it difficult to break through barriers to make your mark?
Ryan Korban: I truly believe good taste can help you start any creative career. When I began to study European history in school as well as art, I realised I loved the idea of creating an environment. In a city like New York, confidence and professionalism are everything. Any sign of weakness and you’re finished, so I try to stay strong through the whole thing. It’s important to just keep moving forward. I am always looking for the next thing and not relishing in the moment.

LUX: How would you define your own interior design aesthetic? What makes it unique?
Ryan Korban: I think it’s critical to have a very clear aesthetic because there are so many designers and it’s easy to get lost. The three critical elements in my style are sex, romance, and fantasy. It’s hard to say which one of them is most important, because I really do think it’s the combination of them that creates something alluring and beautiful.

The Alexander Wang flagship store by Ryan Korban

LUX: You describe your philosophy as “more is more”. When does more become too much?
Ryan Korban: There are times when I’ve tried “more is more” and that never feels as successful or well thought-out. If the room is a fifty-fifty split between contemporary and traditional furniture, I find that confusing – it’s like your taste is split in half. For me, a beautiful, contemporary room with antiques sprinkled throughout is just enough of both worlds. That’s when I get the most positive feedback.

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LUX:Which project did you find most challenging and why?
Ryan Korban: When you work with people who have their own ‘taste,’ it is always a collaboration, which is always a challenging thing. You want to be sure you push your client so they will listen to you, but you always have to be sure their voice is heard as well. It can be a very tricky balance. This is the exact reason I often prefer working on commercial spaces. It tends to be more straightforward when you are working with a company versus a private client.

Tribeca Residence by Ryan Korban

LUX: How do you define luxury within your brand? Is it exclusivity, a trend, the price?
Ryan Korban: For me, luxury is the idea of taking luxurious things and using them in your day-to-day life. It’s something that we saw happen in fashion, and I don’t think it’s necessarily something that has happened in design yet, which is what’s so alluring about it.

LUX: You designed retail stores for various fashion labels, how would you describe the relationship between fashion and interior design?
Ryan Korban: I think of interior design and fashion as a kind of art form. It’s all abstract for me; it’s all about a feeling or a mood. A client might want a living room that’s comfortable but also a little sexy. So you want furniture that you can fling yourself on – fur and carpeting.

The new Aquazzura flagship on Madison Avenue

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LUX: Which piece of furniture / decoration is an absolute luxury “must-have” for each household?
Ryan Korban: I think what you want to do in any space is create a sense of drama. I’m a huge believer in lighting. I think it’s another easy way to transform a space, and I don’t think you can have too much lighting, especially in New York City or any metropolitan setting.

LUX: What do you have planned for the future?
Ryan Korban: I have been really focused on residential right now and have some amazing projects completing in the spring.

ryankorban.com