Yayoi Kusama Statue at the Veuve Clicquot Exhibition. Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot

Maison Veuve Clicquot has brought its travelling exhibition to London this May. Trudy Ross stepped out to Piccadilly Circus to interview CEO Jean-Marc Gallot amidst sunflowers, paintings, sculptures, and that iconic gleaming yellow 

LUX: Queen Victoria was the first British royal to order a direct shipment of Veuve Clicquot in the 19th century. Now in 2023, with a new monarch having just been crowned, the brand still has this presence in the heart of London. Can you speak to the brand’s long history with the Royal Family?

Jean-Marc Gallot: It is a very, very, long history. I think the first shipment for the royal family was in 1868. In one of the exhibition rooms upstairs we have a menu made especially for Queen Victoria’s son, Edward the 7th Prince of Wales. He gave us the Royal Warrant in 1905, so, I would say, we have a very strong link and history with the UK.

The Maison was created in 1722, so we celebrated 250 years last year. The first shipment to the UK was in 1773, 250 years ago. So there is a long, long story between Veuve Clicquot and the UK. Out of the nine female artists we have here, two are British. We have Cece Philips and Rosie McGuinness, who have created their own portraits and interpretations of Madame Clicquot.

LUX: Throughout these 250 years, what do you think has changed about the brand and what has remained the same?

JMG: What remains today and will continue to remain, is the fact that we have an incredibly inspiring woman at the centre of our history. Madame Clicquot at her time was so courageous, determined, and audacious. She was a widow at 27 years old but her spirit, her audacity, and also this idea of being solaire, being radiant, is what remains in everything we do. It is a state of mind. Everyone from myself, the CEO, to my team, to everyone you will see here today from Maison Veuve Clicquot, works with this state of mind. I think it’s super important to have this spirit of being solaire, audacious and always surprising people. That is not going to change.

Display of Veuve Clicquot’s iconic designs through the years. Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot

What has changed? I would say that when you are so linked with the contemporary and the people around you, you also have to be very curious and try to evolve. So an example is right here: you have the very first ice jacket made by Veuve Clicquot. This first one was made 20 years ago out of diving costumes, but the ones we make now are made by the Saint Martins School of Business of 100% recycled plastic and this mono-material approach uses on average 30% less material than regular production. You can look at things we made 20 years ago and think, yes, this is nice, but we must continue to innovate, to respond to the times and move forward. Every single box that we make now in Veuve Clicquot is made out of 50% recycled paper and 50% hemp (not the hemp that people smoke!).

What we want to show here is that we have some duties to the world we live in. Not everyone is aware of the need for these things, so as a major brand we can help to act as an exemplar. This is what I am hoping to build with my team.

LUX: Your champagnes are offered at a range of price points. How do you balance keeping its luxurious and exclusive reputation whilst also ensuring it is accessible to a wider audience?

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JMG: I have been working for 34 years in the luxury world. I worked at companies like Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Fendi, wonderful luxury names, and I know that luxury, for some people, means something that is not easy to get or seems unapproachable.

I don’t agree with that viewpoint at all. We have a collection of products, starting with the iconic yellow label, Brut, which is the most famous bottle of Veuve Clicquot, then you go to La Grande Dame which is at a much higher price point. Both of them however, embody the spirit of Clicquot, so it’s not a matter of price, it’s a matter of how desirable your brand is and how much you have built around the brand.

Take an exhibition like this, running for 3 weeks in the heart of central London. Some people in this area are on their way to very nice upmarket restaurants, and some are on their way to Tesco. Both will pass the exhibition, they will see these artists and learn about Madam Clicquot’s story, and then they will understand the dream, the spirit and the history of Veuve Clicquot.

Outside the Veuve Clicquot exhibition in Picadilly Square. Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot

LUX: Can you tell us about the importance of art and the art world to Veuve Clicquot?

JMG: Actually, we are not really in the art world; I would say that we are in the design world. Design is not art, it is the way of making a beautiful object which is also functional, or building something beautiful around an object. When you sell bottles of champagne you have to build something really extraordinary. We love the beauty of objects and we believe that in champagne, since you have something precious inside the bottle, you have to make the outside of the bottle exciting as well. So we constantly are looking for the next idea, and there is no set recipe. It has to be a surprise, because more than anything else, we love the element of surprise.

LUX: Beyond this all female exhibition, Veuve Clicquot has many initiatives supporting gender equality, including supporting women entrepreneurs through your Bold Woman Award. Can you tell us more about this aspect of the brand?

JMG: This is the spirit of Veuve Clicquot. Fifty-one years ago one of my predecessors thought, what can we do for the 200 year anniversary of Maison Clicquot? They had an incredible inspiration and vision and said, why don’t we celebrate the spirit of woman entrepreneurs, why don’t we shine light on some inspiring women?

What we found out through running the Bold Woman Award was that for women there are many social barriers standing in the way of them running their own company or being independent. Veuve Clicquot is trying to fight against this because we believe there should be as many women entrepreneurs as men entrepreneurs.

The statistic is the following: 92% of women entrepreneurs believe and admit that they would love to have a role model, and only 15% of them can name one off the top of their head. We want to change this and help to inspire women. The first very inspiring woman entrepreneur was Madame Clicquot, and for the last 220 or 230 years, there have been many more women entrepreneurs that we want to shine a light on. It’s about sharing, inspiring and making the world more balanced between men and women.

Cece Phillips, Window Clicquot, 2022.Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot

LUX: What is Madame Clicquot’s story and why is it so important to the brand?

JMG: You are in 1805 in France, in a very traditional, even noble family. You have faced a lot of challenges because twenty years ago was the French Revolution. You have a very nice husband who you love and a very severe and traditional father in law. Then you become a window overnight. Imagine: you basically don’t exist anymore. What are your options?

You could find another  husband, but instead you say “no, I’m going to take over the company. I’m going to run the company.” Everyone tells you not to, starting with your father-in-law. He says you are not capable of it, you cannot do it, you will not succeed at it. So, you are stuck.

If I had to describe Madame Clicquot, I would say she was  incredibly courageous, incredibly audacious and took huge risks. She teaches us that if you want to do something, just go for it. Never surrender.

LUX: The artworks that are on show here are reimagined portraits of Madame Clicquot. Can you tell me a little bit more about which ones are your favourite, and which one you think speaks to the values of Veuve Clicquot?

JMG: I have to say that I have a love for the Cece Phillips portrait in particular. You have the whole story there. You have a young woman sitting at her table, you see the vineyards through the window, you see that she is studying, very focussed but also very determined. She was writing a lot at the time, writing ideas, writing about the company. She was not travelling, but she was sending letters to all the customers around the world. This and the light, the vibrant, sunny appearance of it all, this is Clicquot.

I have to say, the portrait we have of Clicquot was taken when she was 84 years old and she looks a little bit severe! With all do respect to 80-year-old women, this was maybe not Madame Clicquot at her strongest period of life. Cece Phillips gets it all in one painting, you have the whole story in one, so it’s better than words.

Ines Longevial, Ghost Guest, 2022. Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot

LUX: Beyond the artworks, what else interests you about the exhibition?

JMG: The statue of Yayoi Kusama is pretty impressive, but my favourite piece today here in London, which is not really in touch with the exhibition itself; it is the Sunny Side Cafe. I love it because this is actually when Clicquot meets British tradition and British culture.

LUX: The exhibition has been in Tokyo, Los Angeles, and now London. Where is next?

JMG: We started in Tokyo in June last year, and then we did three weeks in Los Angeles, and now it’s three weeks in London. Next year, we might go somewhere else, perhaps a continent we have not been to yet, perhaps South Africa.

LUX: What was the decision-making process behind choosing these three cities?

JMG: These are the three most important market places for Veuve Clicquot. I loved the idea of being in Tokyo because Japanese people are so refined. Then we went to the US and we didn’t want to go to New York because we thought we were going to be lost, and we love the vibes of LA so we went there. When we went to Europe we didn’t look for France – can you imagine me, a French guy, saying that! – but we decided to take it to London.

Yayoi Kusama, Twist with Madam Clicquot! Courtesy of Veuve Clicquot

LUX: Would you take it to France and if not why?

JMG: No, for a few reasons, actually. First we love to speak about our brand outside of our own country, and second because the UK is very important to us, and also because there are some legal constraints in France which wouldn’t allow us to make such an impression in an exhibition like we have here.

LUX: You have a lot of tradition and history behind you. In today’s market, with the younger generation coming up, what do you think are the key changes and the key ways that you’re going to have to adapt as a brand to appeal to these younger consumers?

JMG: We are a luxury maison, and I’m a strong believer that luxury is about what you offer rather than just marketing fast-moving consumer goods. We talked about how to surprise people, how to make people dream and feel that they are getting something that they are really inspired by. My point is that if we keep on being ourselves, being super creative and bringing excitement, I think that we can offer things that people will discover and appreciate, even if they are not tailored to their tastes.

Read more: Visual art and music meet in Shezad Dawood’s latest exhibition

If we start to do it the other way round and try to anticipate what it is that people expect, what they want or think they need, we lose our spirit and our soul. Of course, we need to listen to the younger generation, look at what they do, and how they behave to a certain extent. However, I don’t want to be obsessed with creating something that people will expect.

Find out more: solaireculture.veuveclicquot.com

Jörg Neuner, Head of Gaggenau’s brand centre in Lipsheim, France

Jörg Neuner, Head of the Gaggenau Brand Centre, speaks to LUX about heritage, handwork, and embracing a hybrid design philosophy

Seamlessly absorbing technological advancements into its DNA, the Gaggenau design philosophy is second to none. The secret? “Traditional handwork with the lightest of mechanical touches,” says Jörg Neuner, Head of the Gaggenau Brand Centre.

LUX travelled to Lipsheim in north-eastern France to speak all things design with Neuner, and find out how – from champagne-supplemented culinary workshops to getting down and dirty in the forging room – the centre offers visitors a fully immersive expression of the Gaggenau brand.

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LUX: How has the Gaggenau Brand Centre evolved since its opening in 2012?
Jörg Neuner: When we originally opened the Brand Centre, it was based just on design. Our first ambition for the space was for our internal product training, so it was used primarily for prototypes and new products. When there were guests here, like trainers and dealers, it also gave them the chance to visit the factory. That’s the interesting thing, to look behind the scenes and see how it’s all done – the handwork, the materials, and so on. So, that’s what we’ve been doing here since 2012. In 2019, after seven years of operation here, we had 10,000 visitors!

The Gaggenau Brand Centre, featuring a showroom, space for training courses and working kitchen, is located next to the brand’s historic factory

LUX: What makes the Lipsheim location different to other Gaggenau showrooms globally?
Jörg Neuner: We have showrooms like the one here in countries all around the world, and they’re all in the same style. I think what draws people to Lipsheim is the factory, being in the place where everything happens. Normally, we have all the guests here, aprons on, sleeves up, and in the kitchen; you can go and see inside the factory, too. That’s why people come. It’s a very dense experience of the brand, probably the most dense that you can have. Everything we do here is related to Gaggenau: its history, its characteristics, the products.

LUX: What does a typical visitor to the centre look like?
Jörg Neuner: Most of the groups that come here are dealers or retailers. A particularly important group is the product developers, the people building high-rise buildings completely equipped with Gaggenau. They travel throughout Europe to visit all the suppliers they have in their buildings, and they come here to see how it’s done, to understand the brand. Even if they are old-timers with Gaggenau, and have a strong knowledge of the brand, they always say how good it is to come and see how we do it – to see that, still, the products are unique. Now, too, because we have this next to the factory, we can really provide an event.

Visitors to the centre can also tour the factory to gain an insight into how the brand’s products are made

LUX: What does the centre have in store for its private clients?
Jörg Neuner: For the moment, the main thing for end consumers is our cooking classes. We have star chef here, from the region, who has a long-time connection with Gaggenau. He does a cooking course here every month, so you can come here, if you pay a certain fee, to cook lunch with him with a glass of champagne. It’s a big dream of ours, to accommodate more private clients in the future.

LUX: One of the most fascinating elements of the centre is the heritage pieces. Is that something you’re interested in, showing more of the brand’s heritage?
Jörg Neuner: Sure. We have a little interactive forging museum with some of our old appliances in it. I always see guests with big smiles on their faces when they take the hammer and make a piece of really authentic heritage using their own hands, which they get to take home with them. This is how we communicate our history: we try to put guests in touch with it, to make it as tangible as possible.

Read more: Vitalie Taittinger on family business and philanthropy

LUX: Which aspect of the manufacturing process is most surprising to visitors?
Jörg Neuner: I think the most fascinating thing is that with every process, there are people involved. There is still so much handwork and complexity involved, which we try to show to visitors. We have only one process that is automatised, which cuts flat sheet metal and can run around the clock, but in all other processes we have people. It’s really traditional handwork too: we don’t cut any corners. The best example is the 90cm oven. The door takes ninety minutes to assemble, and it’s one person, putting together 515 pieces, 37 metres of cable, step by step, all alone. 90 centimetres, 90 minutes: one centimetre a minute. It’s quite a huge depth of production. That’s really special, and it’s important for the dealers when they come to see it here.

Traditional craftsmanship is at the heart of Gaggeanu’s manufacturing processes

LUX: Technology has not replaced the human element of Gaggenau’s manufacturing process, but has it influenced the design evolution of products over the years?
Jörg Neuner: Our philosophy for our products is traditional avant-garde. We respect where we have come from – how people have cooked, what they know, what traditions there are – and, when it makes sense, we incorporate technology. For example, all the tapping indicators on the induction and ceramic cooktops have knobs. We have some [appliances with] touchscreens as well, for flexibility, so that you can do further programming, but you have full control at the manual level. Modular products have also come up over the course of the last few decades. With Gaggenau it started by developing our ovens, making the panels smaller, giving the cavity more space; and eventually we put the oven not below the cooktop but into the wall. We were the first ones to do that. Then, we realised, with this new development, that you could combine it with the steamer, or the coffee machine, and that brought up new forms again. It all contributes to a certain story about the ergonomics of cooking; it’s not just an oven without a panel. So that shows how, on the one side, things develop, and we get a new avant-garde style, but on the other side it still has the things which still make sense. That’s the traditional avant-garde.

LUX: Have any Gaggenau designs remained untouched by time or technology?
Jörg Neuner: We now have two oven series, the 200 and the 400, while the 300 stays as an icon. We did our first attempt to update that one, and I was very happy, and it’s stayed the same ever since. To me, that’s amazing: that you can have an appliance for thirty years in the catalogue without any major change in the design or technology. Nobody else has that. We have a successor, but while it’s technically based on our new oven platform, with the same functions and features, the outline is the same. It has the same face. For me, that’s the Gaggenau face.

Find out more: gaggenau.com

Image by Mark Fagelson Photography

In the third part of our Fast & Luxurious car series from the Summer 2021 issue, LUX’s car reviewer gets behind the wheel of Porsche’s powerful SUV: the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid

When we were younger, we had a dream idea of what the perfect SUV would be. An effortless, go anywhere car with endless performance and the ability to take both motorways and winding roads (and on-roads) in its stride, without skipping a beat.

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The first drive in a then new 1990s Range Rover put us to rights. It was quite powerful, and comfortable, and could certainly go anywhere across a field. But at the moment it started even looking at a corner, the whole car would lean over as if it were going to fall on its side, and the general squishiness of its performance made it feel like driving a marshmallow on roller stilts. Not an edifying experience.
Things have moved a long way in the right direction since then, with technology, so often blamed for hampering a successful car experience, providing all the gains.

Now, it is possible to build a huge, luxurious, powerful SUV with the kind of road presence beloved of purchasers of this type of car, and a high centre of gravity which would have made a previous generation of cars lean over in corners. Due to electronics, everything stays flat.

Nowhere is this more apparent then in our spirited drive of the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid. This Porsche SUV is top of the range, having enough horsepower to tow a small European country if required. There is a huge amount of room for five passengers and their luggage, and a high-tech interior that will please, and probably confuse, the most ardent technologist.

This Cayenne can win a drag race with almost anything else on the road, its excellent gearbox reading your mind as you approach corners in sport mode, and changing down ready for the next assault of a straight. And in the corners themselves, it stays flat and precise.

Read more: An exclusive tasting of Moët & Chandon’s Grand Vintage 2013

Driving it this way, you do wonder though whether such high-performance needs would be better served by a lighter, lower car like Porsche’s own 911. That car can’t squeeze in as many people and bags as this, and it certainly can’t make its way over a muddy field, but you wonder whether owners of Cayennes do that much real off-roading, or that much super high-performance driving. Most of them would be just as happy with a normal model Cayenne.

But if you want the best of the best, this is up there. Lamborghini’s Urus is even more wild and exciting to drive, but more ‘out there’ and perhaps too much for everyday driving. Bentley’s Bentayga and the Rolls-Royce Cullinan are different types of car, more expensive and more focused on luxury than performance.

In that sense the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid is that ultimate SUV for the person who wants it all. Overkill, perhaps, but then what’s the car for?

LUX rating: 18/20

Find out more: porsche.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 2021 issue.

The Park Avenue entrance to Waldorf Astoria New York’s luxury residences, The Towers

Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, the luxury hotel and resort brand of Hilton Worldwide, recently embarked on a major transformation of its historic New York hotel, creating 375 luxurious private residences which are set to open, along with the hotel, in 2023. Here, the group’s Senior Vice President and Global Category Head, Dino Michael discusses the importance of creating memorable experiences, understanding your guests and building local partnerships

1. What makes a luxury brand?

Experiences are everything. Truly personalised touches that create unique moments and memories are what distinguish a luxury brand. There is more license to be whimsical in luxury now more than in the past, to be familiar and welcome guests as if they are visiting someone’s home. Yet while the luxury industry is becoming more approachable and inclusive, luxury customers still appreciate and want a certain level of prestige and truly seamless, elegant service from their luxury brands. Waldorf Astoria, for instance, is a brand known for its effortless service and for creating unforgettable moments for our guests while making them feel at home no matter where they are around the world.

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2. How do you approach global brand development for companies like Hilton, which already have a firmly established reputation and history?

In times of uncertainty, consumers gravitate towards brands they know and trust, and we want our loyal customers to be confident that they can continue to find that with Hilton. It is because of this deep connection we have with our guests that we are able to expand and further develop our brands, particularly Hilton’s luxury category.

We are looking forward to continuing to grow and develop our luxury footprint in both established urban destinations, such as the Waldorf Astoria London Admiralty Arch opening in April 2023, as well as within more remote resort locations like the Seychelles, to give consumers a trusted place to stay while exploring the world. In addition to our hotel offering, we are also seeing momentum with our residential portfolio, most notably with Waldorf Astoria New York’s luxury residences, The Towers, and Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences Miami, both open for sales and seeing incredible buyer interest.

The “Winter Garden” at The Towers

As an organisation we work tirelessly to meet the evolving needs of the luxury traveller, including having a long-term approach and being able to forecast where and how our discerning guests will want to travel. With privacy and exclusivity more important than ever for our guests in the post-pandemic travel landscape, unique offerings such as the recently unveiled Private Island at Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi provide both a safe and reassuring way to travel, as well as the ultimate in luxury experiences.

In addition to Waldorf Astoria, Hilton’s two other luxury brands, Conrad Hotels & Resorts and LXR Hotels & Resorts, both have aggressive development timelines in the next five years. LXR, Hilton’s collection of luxury hotels and resorts, recently launched in the U.S. with the debut of the oceanfront Oceana Santa Monica which will be closely followed by openings in the Seychelles, Las Vegas and Kyoto, Japan. Conrad, our contemporary and design-forward luxury brand, continues to expand its global presence with recent openings in Punta de Mita and Abu Dhabi and upcoming openings in Las Vegas, China, Morocco and more.

3. You have worked across the hospitality sector – from culinary to residential. How does your approach to brand development vary depending on the industry?

Ultimately it is about understanding your guest as they are the heart of the hospitality business, no matter which part of the industry you work in, whether that be hotel, residential or F&B. A good example can be seen with our two Waldorf Astoria developments – both with a residential and hotel component- in New York and Miami. Waldorf Astoria New York is being restored to resemble the hotel’s classic grandeur yet will blend the old and new in a balance of modern comfort with Art Deco opulence that celebrates the scale and beauty of the iconic property. The hotel, residences and F&B components will also reflect the New York City guest and resident in a way that caters to every need they might have visiting and living in Manhattan.

Read more: LUX’s Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai on media

On the other hand, we have Waldorf Astoria Miami – another residential and hotel development- which
Soars 1,049 feet above Biscayne Bay as the tallest building south of New York City and a new modern architectural wonder in South Florida. We’ve taken the rich culture of Miami and let it inform how this property comes to life, while still maintaining the personal service and best-in-class experiences people come to know from Waldorf Astoria. Like all properties we develop, this project will be truly unique to its destination, offering a sense of geography and locale first, followed by the comforting reassurance of being “home” second.

This guest-centric mentality is also integral to how we develop our culinary programs across Hilton’s luxury portfolio. Overseeing the evolution and growth of our luxury F&B program is a passion of mine that stems from my humble beginnings in food and beverage within the hospitality industry. As food tourism continues to be in high demand in the luxury travel market, we continue to innovate and showcase the natural bounty of each destination through the work of world-renowned chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Dave Pynt, Michael Mina, Bryan Voltaggio, Richard Sandoval, Heinz Beck and more, bringing our guests exclusive and truly unforgettable dining experiences.

The living room of one of the private residences at The Towers

4. Given the hotels you work with span many locations across the globe, are there any golden rules to ensure consistency of brand quality?

A defining factor of the Waldorf Astoria brand is that each property is a true representation of their destination and captures the culture and essence of locale. We aspire to create hotels for their destination, not merely in a destination which means that guests should feel that sense of place and localisation first and the Waldorf Astoria brand second.

With that said, Waldorf Astoria properties across the globe work tirelessly to deliver personalised, elegant service, unforgettable experiences, and award-winning culinary excellence, all in marquee destinations which, while perhaps a world away from home, feel like a refined, welcome haven for our guests.

5. Has there been a particular strategy by the hotels under your aegis to survive the global pandemic, given they have had to shut down for the most part?

With ever-evolving guest expectations and comfort in travelling during the pandemic we, as an industry and company, continue to innovate and find unique solutions for the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic and post-pandemic climate.

We are seeing increasingly blurred lines between business and leisure travel as people have more flexibility in their work environment. As many people are choosing to “work from home” in a variety of locations outside their home, our luxury properties have capitalised on this trend by offering specialised packages catering to the extended stay traveler as well as offering alternative work spaces for those wanting to stay closer to home, including an “Escape Longer” package at Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal and an “Office with a View” getaway offer at Waldorf Astoria Trianon Palace Versailles.

The “Starlight” indoor pool

For a property like Waldorf Astoria New York, many of the restoration changes already happening for the hotel and residences naturally work in a post-pandemic environment, such as fewer, larger guest rooms and residences allowing for more personalised attention and service for each guest and resident. Scaling down to 375 guest rooms will enable us to concentrate on delivering our renowned Waldorf Astoria service.

Read more: Louise Cottar of Cottar’s Safaris on meaningful luxury experiences

Additionally, Waldorf Astoria continues to align with and implement Hilton’s industry-defining initiatives and cleanliness protocols to adapt to the needs of our guests. Programs like Hilton CleanStay, an industry-leading standard of cleanliness and disinfection, along with EventReady and WorkSpaces by Hilton, allow us to provide our guests with the peace of mind and assurance that our hotels are not only operating at the highest cleanliness and safety standards, but that we are working to create programs and initiatives that allow guests to still host events, work remotely and travel in a way that makes them feel not only comfortable, but catered to.

6. To what extent does relationships with the local community play a role when establishing hotels in new locations?

Local relationships and partnerships are extremely important as we expand because they drive our impactful and authentic destination experiences across Hilton’s luxury properties. We engage with local shamanas and curanderas for native healing and wellness rituals; partner with elite establishments on private excursions that deliver a sense of place and culture in an intimate setting; and bring the region’s natural ingredients and resources to our restaurants for memorable and immersive dining experiences.

Our Conrad hotels across the globe take local engagement and social impact especially seriously, with many of our hotels offering dedicated programs that directly engage or give back to local communities. For example, the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island collaborates with several local environmental groups to help promote sustainable travel and encourage guests to reduce the use of materials that impact the environment and ocean. Our Conrad property in Washington, DC also embeds sustainability into its operations, integrating Hilton’s food waste training program into the kitchen culture as well as partnering with Clean the World to recycle and redistribute soap from guest rooms to communities in need around the world.

Conrad Washington D.C. will partner with DC Central Kitchen on a culinary internship and training program for youth. The hotel will the world. All of these programs are part of Travel with Purpose, Hilton’s corporate responsibility strategy to redefine and advance sustainable travel globally.

Another example of our engagement with the local community can be seen at The Towers of the Waldorf Astoria New York, where last year over 15,000 furniture pieces from the original hotel were put up for auction with Kaminski. The proceeds from this auction were given to support St. Bartholomew’s Conservancy in its mission to help restore and preserve the exteriors and gardens of fellow neighbourhood landmark St. Bartholomew’s Church and Community House, a celebrated local historic site and marvel of Byzantine-Romanesque architecture directly across the street.

Find out more: hilton.com/en/waldorf-astoria/

A seafront villa at the Ritz-Carlton residences in Bodrum, Turkey

The concept of the branded residence was born in New York in 1927 when The Sherry Netherland Hotel began offering privately owned apartments overlooking Central Park. Since then, almost all major hotel groups have jumped on the trend, launching collections of luxurious, fully-serviced apartments and villas across the globe. Here, Dana Jacobsohn, the Senior Vice President of Residential Development at Marriott International discusses consumer trends, the impact of the pandemic, and the launch of the world’s largest branded residential complex to date

Dana Jacobsohn

1.Why do think branded residences have become more popular in recent years?

The comfort of buying into globally trusted brands like The Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis is becoming even more important to buyers as it ensures the very best in services around the globe. All members of our dedicated residential staff go through over 150 hours of training annually and I think that level of service really appeals to buyers, especially during these unsure times.

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2. Has the pandemic brought about any changes in your sector of the real-estate industry?

Our branded residences business has been resilient, and we have seen strong consumer confidence despite uncertainty caused by the pandemic. The live, work and play phenomenon is a trend that we are seeing across our properties. Vacation homes are now becoming places where people stay for longer periods of time. Many of our residents are working from their homes, so they want to have offices and workstations that seamlessly fit into their lifestyle. We expect to see more vacation homes to become a primary place of residence in the future.

3. How do you engage your owners?

Our teams of dedicated residential staff often become like extended family to our residents. Staff members quickly become familiar with owners’ preferences, their pets, and family, so there’s a very deep level of personal engagement within the communities.

Often in our residences, we’ll have an owner’s lounge, and a place where, say, a celebrity chef comes and does a cooking instruction. However, due to the pandemic, we’ve had to get even more creative with our programming and how we engage with owners. For example, at The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Los Angeles,  the staff delivered food to residents during the pandemic, and we organised a cooking class via Zoom.

A render of the living space inside a St. Regis branded beachfront villa

4. Where have you seen the most growth in recent years?

While the majority of our branded residential portfolio is in North America, more than 75% of our pipeline projects are outside the US. We are seeing strong interest from markets in Asia and the Middle East.

Read more: Professor Peter Newell on why the wealthy need to act on climate change

5. What is the most common demand from buyers?

With over 100 locations across the globe, Marriott International’s branded residences portfolio offers something for everyone from beach-front resort-style properties to ski chalets in the mountains or homes that are within walking distance to restaurants in a bustling city. Our buyers’ lifestyle preferences vary, but the common thread is that they all want beautiful design, and trusted services. I think those will always be most important elements to a buyer, regardless of the location.

6. Can you tell us about latest project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam?

We were thrilled to announce this dual-branded project, The JW Marriott Residences and Marriott Residences, Grand Marina, Saigon earlier this year. Located in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, the project marks the largest branded residential project in the world and is anticipated to include close to 4,200 residential and office units. Each private retreat will offer access to an array of high-quality hotel-like amenities and on-demand services for residents.

Find out more: marriottresidences.com

Bentley Continental GT V8 Convertible

In the third part of our supercar review series, LUX gets behind the wheel of the Bentley Continental GT V8 Convertible

Certain cars have visual drama. Other cars loom. Others still are artistic. The new Bentley Continental GT V8 has presence.

It’s a hard thing to do well in a car, presence. Any large car is literally more present than any small car, and the Bentley is on the large side for a car that doesn’t accommodate more than one large suitcase in its boot, But, recently re-designed, the Continental has a svelte way of going down the road, with a rather beautiful front, and balance in its looks. It is not imposing like a Rolls, its presence implies elegance.

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This is a powerful, fast convertible that actually has proper room in the back for a pair of adults. It’s true that four adults, seated in the car and travelling in refinement at high speed accompanied by the mellifluous howl from the V8 engine would need to send all but their hand luggage ahead of them, as the boot could only accommodate some squishy Vuitton bags.

But that’s fine, because the Bentley is a car for being there and enjoying it, rather than getting there, as the name implies. Unless getting there involved a hypothetical world of traffic-free open roads with no speed limits and sinuous curves up mountain passes devoid of caravans and coaches. In which case, the Continental would be enormous fun. The engine has huge reserves of power from low down and makes a great noise as it punches forward. Perhaps it doesn’t have the bite of its 12-cylinder, bigger engined sibling, but you would only really notice if you were having a race. In the past, Bentleys tended to be bruisers of cars – capable and powerful, but not delicate, and sometimes rather awkward when pushed.

Read more: Anne-Pierre d’Albis-Ganem on championing artists

This car will canter at high speed through tight corners which would have left its predecessors losing grip. It’s also enjoyable to drive at low speeds, roof down, enjoying the scenery outside and the absolutely stunning detail of the interior. As cars have become luxury brands more than simply driving implements, the beauty of the finish in this car’s interior is what sets it apart from cheaper competitors that can match it on performance (think Tesla).

That, and its presence. Essential owning, if you have a home in St-Tropez or the Hamptons.

LUX Rating: 19/20

Find out more: bentleymotors.com

This article originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2020/2021 Issue. 

Lamborghini Huracán EVO RWD

In the second part of our supercar series, LUX drives the new and improved Lamborghini Huracán EVO RWD

Amid the current debate about cultural appropriation, we have a theory that many of the best things in life come from cultural mingling – which is not quite the same thing. Anyone who has visited the region of Alto Adige in northern Italy, which has been swapped between France and Austria over the centuries, will understand Italian culture and cuisine combined with Austrian efficiency creating a whole new world of design and lifestyle? Yes, please.

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We have a theory that the same thing has happened at Lamborghini. This is, on the face of it, the most extrovert and Italian of carmakers. Its logo is a raging bull, created specifically to annoy Enzo Ferrari and his prancing horse. Its cars are not only era-defining design classics (look at the 1960s Miura, which featured in The Italian Job) or the crazy 1980s Countach. They are also, traditionally, loud (visually and aurally), outrageously designed inside, have posing value beyond any other car no matter what the price, and go very fast, if you can handle them.

But this was not all good. Perhaps you wanted something with a soul of a Lamborghini, which didn’t attract a crowd of onlookers every time you drove it. And perhaps you wanted something that you would actually look forward to driving, rather than bracing yourself for a task.

The calming influence on Lamborghini’s hairy-chest nature came in the form of the Volkswagen group, which acquired the company in 1998. Lamborghinis have had a reputation for being better built, more reliable and easier to use since then. But they have also started moving towards the other extreme of becoming efficient. You might have driven the previous model Huracán across Europe, for example, with great satisfaction, but would it have stirred your loins like a previous Lamborghini? The best cultural cocktails are a perfect combination of ingredients, and an alchemy creating something else out of the whole.

Read more: Anne-Pierre d’Albis-Ganem on the importance of championing artists

And this is where the RWD comes in. Lamborghini have taken their current Huracán EVO and taken away the drive from the front wheels, so the previously four-wheel-drive car is just two-wheel drive. They have also reduced the weight, made it more aerodynamically efficient, and, marginally, reduced the power. And they have reduced the price – although that is not likely to be very important to this market.

The reason behind this is to create a car that is not just brilliant on paper, striking to look at and efficient, but to create a car that stirs the soul. The ‘digital’ nature of some of today’s supercars is a reason why some models from 10 or 20 years ago have been going up in value. This Lamborghini is a more analogue car.

The difference is evident even in the first low-speed corner. You are connected to the steering in a way you are not with its 4WD sibling. Approaching some higher speed corners once out of town, you feel a far clearer weight transfer to the back of the car and, on exiting the corner, you feel your acceleration is pushing the rear wheels out and helping you around the corner. And the steering is not interfered with by any tugging from power going to the front wheels at the same time as you are trying to steer. It sounds a little, but it means a lot. Suddenly, you are driving the car, rather than overseeing something that more or less drives itself.

The Huracán is old school in that it features a V10 engine, with no help from turbochargers or an electric motor. And given that typically these cars are driven short distances over their lifetimes, it will probably emit less CO2 than the average family car. Which is not to say that cars like these save the planet any more than they are not guilty of sacrificing it either.

Lecture over, on to the all-important Lamborghini feature of looks. Ours came in a spiffing shade of matt purple. It garnered stares from bystanders rather than a crowd of them like some Lambo models. If it’s attention you crave, better get an Aventador, this car’s big sister. If it’s driving pleasure, buy one of these.

It gets one of the highest ratings of any car we have ever tested. And if it had even more feedback to the steering, and even more dramatic looks (we like that kind of thing), it would receive a perfect 20.

LUX rating: 19.5/20

Find out more: lamborghini.com

This article originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2020/2021 Issue. 

The Heritage Suite Bedroom at Castello Del Nero, Como Group’s latest opening in Tuscany

Olivier Jolivet has sat at the helm of COMO Group since 2017. He oversees the COMO Hotels and Resorts portfolio across 15 locations, and masterminded the launch of Castello Del Nero, the group’s first property in continental Europe. Here, Jolivet tells Chloe Frost-Smith why the luxury travel industry will see an increasing demand for small hotels, private residences and wellbeing experiences this year

Olivier Jolivet

LUX: What sets COMO apart from other luxury brands?
Olivier Jolivet: COMO and its businesses are unique in the luxury landscape. Since its inception, the shareholders stayed the same, which provides stability to the organisation and the opportunity to think long term. It’s a massive competitive advantage, especially when recruiting the right talents. COMO is not only a brand, it’s a ‘lifestyle‘ and this why we have invested in fashion, wellness, sport and will continue to do so in the future.

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LUX: COMO is currently reopening properties in select destinations after temporary closure due to the pandemic. How’s that going?
Olivier Jolivet: One of our founding purposes at COMO has been our 25-year commitment to holistic wellbeing among customers, staff and the communities where we operate. As our properties re-open, we continue to adjust measures to remain in line with different government guidelines, and when we are in doubt of guidelines, we will always go further to ensure the safety of staff and guests.

In the long term, health isn’t ever a quick fix ,but a life-long commitment. This is the driving force behind COMO Shambhala – the wellness heart of COMO, which has always prescribed an integrative approach to wellbeing.

LUX: Can you tell us a bit about the launch of COMO Shambhala By My Side?
Olivier Jolivet: COMO Shambhala By My Side is an innovative digital wellbeing companion, launched by COMO Group’s holistic wellness brand, COMO Shambhala, to bring wellness programmes and personal consultations into homes around the world. The online platform brings together the holistic expertise honed at both COMO Shambhala Urban Escape in Singapore, and COMO Hotels and Resorts wellness locations around the world. Through the digital platform users can access COMO’s rich network of international experts. COMO Shambhala By My Side provides a sanctuary for those who seek tranquillity and the inspiration to stay active during these uncertain times and beyond.

The Bayugita Master bedroom at COMO Shambhala Estate, and above, the treatment room in the retreat villa

LUX: What’s your approach to sustainability for now and in the future?
Olivier Jolivet: No matter the location, we operate with the belief that we can deliver unique experiences for our guests while operating sustainably. We reduce our consumption and source locally, managing our water and energy to minimise our impact on the environment. We celebrate local culture and support the domestic economy, offering immersive and authentic experiences. This is true for all the business we operate.

We have a long-term philosophy and sustainability has always been a key part of our make-up – we just don’t feel the need to shout about it.

Read more: Why Sofia Mitsola is one of our artists to watch in 2021

LUX: You recently oversaw the brand’s first venture into continental Europe, Castello del Nero. Why Tuscany?
Olivier Jolivet: When you want to be an international lifestyle brand, it is difficult to avoid Italy. Tuscany is one of the most amazing regions of Italy with its history, its landscape, its tradition and food. You will always have a strong local market and a great international appeal.

The exterior of the chapel at Castello del Nero

LUX: You have managed two luxury travel brands with Asia-Pacific origins – your current role with COMO and your previous position at Aman Resorts. Is this coincidence, or is there something in particular that drew you to these destinations?
Olivier Jolivet: Even if these two brands have the same geographical origin, they are very different in their conception and in their history, and yes, I was very curious about it. What drew my attention is probably the myth around them and their huge potential for growth.

Read more: Artnet’s Sophie Neuendorf on the rise of a new Renaissance

LUX: Bhutan is a relatively unusual country to have in the portfolio. What is your thought process when it comes to scouting out new destinations?
Olivier Jolivet:  We look for destinations with soul. Our hotels inspire people to live fuller lives and make a meaningful difference by creating experiences worth re-living, whether it’s meditating at an ancient Bhutanese temple or diving with manta rays in the Maldives. Our guests want to satisfy their quest to explore our destinations with COMO.

A water villa at COMO Cocoa Island resort

LUX: How do you think the coronavirus crisis will affect the luxury travel in general and your group in particular?
Olivier Jolivet: Travellers will opt for smaller groups, more intimate locations and specialised offerings instead of 300-bedroom hotels. Our hotel business model has always catered to this, focusing on the soul of each destination, offering limited rooms and suites, and catering to those who seek to improve their wellbeing. For COMO, it’s not about long-term change; our core philosophy toward proactive wellness isn’t changing, it’s just never been more front of mind. We are successful not by chance, but because we continue with our vision.

LUX: What travel trends do you anticipate emerging in 2021?
Olivier Jolivet: I have always said that luxury has something to do with space and intimacy. It is now more relevant than ever, and small destinations will prevail. Travellers are on a pursuit for privacy and intimacy, and we’ve noticed an increased demand for our private villas and residences, as well as private, exclusive experiences. I also predict there will be a strong emphasis on people wanting a wellbeing offering.

LUX: Do you have any new developments in the pipeline?
Olivier Jolivet: We are focusing on developing our lifestyle component by investing into new trends, new businesses and new destinations. We’re also in the process of launching our COMO Club, with access to the world of COMO from hospitality to wellness, sport and fashion.

Find out more: comohotels.com

Ferrari 812 Superfast

In the first of our supercar review series, LUX enjoys an exhilarating drive in the Ferrari 812 Superfast

Ferrari is regularly voted the world’s most powerful luxury brand, and yet curiously there is some discrepancy in consumers’ perception of the company’s products. Mention Ferrari to most people, and they will think of a loud, exciting, flashy high-powered car. Something extroverted, stylish.

Getting into more detail, participants in your own personal luxury brand survey, depending on their age, might describe a car with two seats, an engine behind the driver, above the back wheels, in open view. Like the Testarossa in Miami Vice, or for an older generation, the 308 in Magnum P.I.

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In reality, Ferrari’s flagship product has for the past two decades been something slightly different. Since the introduction of the 550 Maranello in 1997, the most expensive regular production Ferrari you can buy (as opposed to the limited edition special additions open to gazillionaires with contacts only) has been a two-door, long-nosed car with the engine in the front, far more conventional than perception would have it.

These were a continuation of the original front-engined Ferraris from the 1950s and 60s. But the visual quietness of the new flagship 550 in 1997 also coincided with an and sophistication of experience that is perhaps at odds with most people’s perceptions. The 550 and its successor the 575 would pass down any street without turning heads. They were intended to be driveable every day, not show pieces for show-offs.

And while their successors, the 599 of 2006 and F12 of 2012, turned up the dial in terms of performance, the flagship Ferrari was still not a show-off ’s car. The F12 in particular was a conundrum. Here was a car with 730hp, two seats and the ability to handle that power around the toughest of racetracks. Yet on the road, it was curiously refined.

So, when Ferrari announced an updated and upgraded version of the F12 called the 812 Superfast, one might have expected even more of the same. But, for the first time since the F512 M of 1994, which was the ultimate incarnation of the legendary 80s Testarossa, here was a flagship Ferrari that looks like it really wants to be noticed. The 812 is not exactly beautiful, but it is extremely striking in the intent that its engineering and aerodynamics give it.

And the driving experience is also transformed. It has more power from a bigger engine, shorter gearing, rear-wheel steering, and an even faster and more sophisticated paddle-shift gearbox. However, none of these guarantees a more exciting driving experience – just a fast one.

Read more: Why The Alpina Gstaad is top of our travel wish list

From the moment you aim the Superfast around its first corner, you realise that something is up. The steering is sharp, the whole car feels alive and wanting to communicate to you. The faster you go, the livelier and more delicate it feels, and more exciting. Drive the F12 or the 599 down a good road at 70mph and the car shrugs its shoulders: “This is slow, boring, I can do three times the speed”.

The miracle of the 812 is that it is even faster yet feels more involving by a factor of five. At higher speeds it feels delicate, like a dancer, you can control it with two fingers on the wheel while feathering the accelerator pedal.

The star of the show is the engine. Ferrari, like the rest of us, knows that the days of the internal combustion engine are strictly numbered. So, it is a kind of act of brilliant defiance to create this 800hp, 6.5 litre V12. You don’t even have to move to appreciate it. With the engine warm, and gears in neutral, give the accelerator a tap with your right foot. Revs shoot up to 6,000 with a “VLAAP” noise straight out of a Formula One car, and down again instantly.

The interior, meanwhile, is a masterpiece of modern Italian design, minimal yet beautifully put together with Alcantara, carbon fibre, curves and angles.

Is there a downside? In a car-seat set up uncompromisingly for excitement rather than cruise and use, the ride will inevitably suffer and it does in the 812. This would be a tiring car to drive on a long trip; it is no grand tourer at all. It is, simply, a supercar.

We knew the 812 Superfast would live up to its name in being the fastest regular production Ferrari ever made. What we didn’t know was that it would be the most fun as well. Bravo.

LUX Rating: 19.5/20

Find out more: ferrari.com

This article originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2020/2021 Issue. 

Palermo poncho by Aessai

London-based sustainable knitwear label Aessai was founded by Argentinian designer Rebecca Kramer in 2017 to celebrate and support South American craftsmanship. The brand works with local communities and female collectives to create its collection of shawls, sweaters and ponchos, using traditional weaving techniques and fine merino wool. Following the brand’s exclusive launch on MatchesFashion.com, Candice Tucker speaks to Rebecca about her design inspirations, working with small producers and the importance of conscious consumption

Rebecca Kramer

1. How was the concept for Aessai conceived?

Aessai was born out of the desire of doing something meaningful; creating a brand with a purpose. The name Aessai is derived from the phonetic spelling of ‘essay’ inspired by a series of interwoven memories and journeys between my Argentinian identity and my European adulthood. Weaving is a very symbolic practice throughout South America, which is where both the brand and myself come full circle with our roots.

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The label embraces the skills of South American artisans entrenched in sustainability and transparency. It possess a social conscience at its heart with ethical and sustainable values that aim to make a positive impact on the life of the artisan producers and their communities.

2. What inspires your designs?

Aessai designs are inspired by indigenous artisans – they are their designs! I watch them braving the snow dressed in a poncho or weaving a beautiful alpaca blanket to sell in the market. I am the one who interprets their designs and essentially writes “the essay”

Condor wrap by Aessai

3. As you’re based in the UK, how do you ensure that ethical practices are being upheld in your South American workshops?

Our producers are small enterprises with responsible managers who are also part of the same communities; they all share the credentials of having a low environmental impact, being members of the World Fair Trade Organisation, and carrying out cruelty free practices. When a co-operative becomes too big or too overwhelmed we tend to diversify our production and look out for a smaller collectives helping to contribute to their growth.

Rosa blanket and La Paz scarf by Aessai

4. Sustainability has become something of a buzzword in the last few years, how can consumers ensure what they’re buying is actually sustainable?

Some brands are using the word as a marketing tool, some have sustainable ideas, some are pioneers and invest in the research for developing new textiles and fibres… I suppose if someone is really concerned about the sustainability and origins of a product they should always do a bit of homework and do the research before simply adding another article of clothing into their wardrobe.

Read more: Nadezda Foundation’s Nadya Abela on running a children’s charity

5. Do you think there’s a disparity between younger and older generations in terms of their attitudes towards ethical consumption?

I believe that today the average consumer has more acquisitive power and choices than ever before. However, they are also more informed and conscious about the environmental and social damage caused by over consumerism. The older generation were more careful about their consumption choices as the “fast fashion phenomena” simply did not exist.

Grace blankets by Aessai

6. What’s your five year vision for the brand?

We’ve been growing organically for the last three years consistently working on building a name for Aessai in a very saturated and competitive market. I think the time has come for the industry to promote and invest in small ethical brands. I do hope Aessai will be an established brand in the next five years and be in the position whereby it can have an influence on the consumer and be globally recognised for its quality products and work ethics.

View the collection: aessai.com

The reception area at The Fullerton Bay Hotel Singapore

In the first of our four part luxury travel views column, our editor-in-chief Darius Sanai recalls the breathtaking views and chic ambience of The Fullerton Bay hotel in Singapore

A first-time visitor to Singapore before would be forgiven for being rather surprised arriving at the rooftop swimming pool at The Fullerton Bay hotel. The city state has a reputation for being efficient but unexciting – a business city for the wealthy, not a tourist destination.

Walk out of the lift on the top floor of the hotel, and you realise that reputation is outdated. In front of you is a huge outdoor pool with sunloungers both beside it and along both sides, inside it – meaning you can have both a wet bar and a wet sunbathe. Or moonbathe, in my case, as I had just arrived on a long-haul flight in the evening. Beyond the pool was a bright and throbbing outdoor bar area, the front row of which looks directly across the water of Marina Bay at the celebrated skyline of the Sands landmark on the other side, beyond which is the ocean and, in the distance, the islands of Indonesia.

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It may seem ‘normal’ if you are a resident of Singapore but coming from the western hemisphere this tropical city skyline-bar-swimming pool combination is literally breathtaking. A quick swim, then down to my room to get changed ahead of a couple of drinks in the bar, refreshing the palate before a long day of meetings the next day.

The rooftop Lantern bar at The Fullerton Bay Hotel, Singapore

While I was swimming, my room had been transformed. Normally, the ground floor is no place for a suite in a luxury hotel, but at The Fullerton Bay, the ground floor is located directly on the water. No road, no path, nothing in the way – the screens in my room had been folded back by the turndown service so I had a 180-degree view of the harbour, and when I stepped out onto the balcony and into my own personal swimming pool, I could also have taken a couple of steps more and jumped into the sea.

Read more: Activist José Soares dos Santos on environmental responsibility

If I’d been on my own, I would’ve stayed right there on the balcony, ordered some champagne, and chilled in the equatorial moonlight.

Up on the roof, by 10pm, the bar was turning more into a nightclub, with people dancing in an area cleared of tables. I sat at a table on the corner of the bar terrace, a 360-degree view of Singapore city centre all around. A pretty exhilarating introduction into the city.

The living room of its Robinson Suite

In a time when eating outside is advisable as well as enjoyable, The Fullerton Bay has no shortage of options, as I discovered at my outdoor breakfast the next day. It is served à la carte, with tables well spaced, and a choice of Malaysian/Indonesian (nasi goreng), Chinese, and western, it would have been perfect on a luxurious break. On a business trip, though, I recommend you don’t make the same mistake as I did and go down in a crisp white Margiela business shirt to wear at your meetings – 8am, Singapore weather is hot enough to turn you into a sweat ball, meaning a rapid return to the room to change.

The hotel’s rooftop jacuzzi

Fullerton is a legendary name in the Asian luxury industry, owned by the redoubtable and charming Ng family (who are also active in Hong Kong) and the more famous hotel and original of the same name is located 100m along the waterfront. The Fullerton, a local institution, is the colonial-era palace but is not priced at the same high-level as its more exclusive sister hotel. It is where you have to go for spa treatments, and I arranged one for just before my flight home. It was a mixture of Chinese pressure-point massage, ginger, rosemary and lavender oil, and stretching and soothing that was the perfect end to the Singapore stay-over. Over the years, I have changed my pre-long-haul flight routine flying back from Asia from champagne and sushi to a swim and a spa treatment, which is definitely more effective if you want to feel fresh on landing the next day.

Find out more: fullertonhotels.com

This article originally appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2020/2021 Issue. 

Warwick Acoustics’ flagship headphone system, the APERIO, promises the ultimate listening experience. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics

British company Warwick Acoustics has developed a reputation for innovating and producing innovative audio technology. Their flagship headphone system, the APERIO, takes both sound quality and product design to the next level with a 24 karat gold hand-finished limited edition. Here, LUX discovers how the ultimate listening experience is achieved

Numerous studies have shown that listening to music can positively impact your mood, well-being, sleep quality and cognitive ability, reduce stress, and even ease physical pain, but is there such thing as a perfect listening experience?

‘Sound is definitely a subjective experience and what is considered ‘perfect’ for one person may not be for another,’ says Martin Roberts Director of the Headphone Business Unit at UK-based audio technology company Warwick Acoustics Ltd., whose products are designed to achieve an exceptionally high level of sound clarity. Their recently unveiled flagship headphone system, the APERIO (named after the Latin word meaning to uncover or reveal), follows the company’s Sonoma Model One (M1) electrostatic headphone system, and is the result of three years of extensive sound exploration and technical development carried out in their Warwickshire workshops.

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‘Simply put: the APERIO is designed to reproduce audio content as pristinely and accurately as possible – revealing the details and complexities in the original recording without colouration or alteration,’ explains Roberts. A review in Hi-Fi News claims that the system possesses the ability ‘to deliver rare insights into your music.’ Whilst this level of sound quality is naturally more geared towards professionals in the music industry, the company hopes the product will also appeal to music-loving high-net-worth individuals as a high-functioning collectible item.

Each APERIO is assembled by hand in the company’s Warwickshire workshops. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics

In terms of design, the company believes in American architect Louis Henry Sullivan’s ethos that ‘form follows function’, and aspire to create products that have a timeless appeal.

Read more: Why it’s important for banks to incentivise sustainability

The standard version of the APERIO, for example, is understated in sleek black with soft sheepskin leather and stylish detailing such as the curved metal patterning of the headphone grilles, which visually evokes undulating sound waves.

The APERIO standard version. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics.

The limited-edition Gold APERIO is more flashy, crafted from 24 karat gold (including the headphone grilles, hardware and Amplifier front panel) in England’s historic jewellery quarter in Birmingham. Limited to 100 units globally, the system is now available to buy in the UK exclusively from Harrods in Knightsbridge, London.

It’s not just the design that has been upgraded, however, the Gold system also utilises the highest grade Balanced-Drive HPEL Transducer (the component that determines the quality of sound reproduction) innovated by Warwick Acoustics to guarantee outstanding performance. That level of quality doesn’t come cheaply though; the Gold model retails at a cool £30,000/US$35,000 whilst the standard version is priced at £20,000/US$24,000.

The Gold Aperio is limited to 100 units, available in the UK exclusively at Harrods, London. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics.

But how exactly is audio performance or sound quality measured? Each APERIO undergoes rigorous testing, including at least three human listening tests, before the product is released from the company’s Warwickshire facility. ‘The APERIO is about listening to music as if you were there,’ says Roberts. ‘I remember when I visited a very famous recording studio in Los Angeles and a mastering engineer listened to a remastered recording by the great Frank Sinatra… He listened intently to the same track several times then just sat back and said, “Wow.”  When I asked him how his experience was he said, “Amazing, I have literally listened to that Sinatra track a thousand times and this is the first time I have ever heard him smacking his lips in the pauses between verses of the song…Simply astonishing detail”.’

Read more: Artist Yayoi Kusama’s designs for Veuve Clicquot

Warwick Acoustics’ anechoic chamber where the headphones are tested. Image courtesy of Warwick Acoustics.

Attention to detail is at the heart of Warwick Acoustics’ engineering philosophy. The whole system is designed to work harmoniously together, rather than piecing together disparate components and technologies. In many ways, it’s a similar process to the development of a supercar or ultra-high-performance watch, and ultimately, that’s what you’re paying for: the experience. Listening to music is, after all, a process of immersion, of gradually getting closer to the sound, of being slowly transported into another place, self, or way of being.

For more information visit: warwickacoustics.com/headphones, or contact [email protected]

Fashion designer Kevin Germanier. Image by Alexandre Haefeli

As the fashion industry comes under scrutiny for its environmental credentials in an age of sustainability, one young designer is showing a way forward. Paris-based Kevin Germanier designs high-end clothes with upcycled fabrics and beads he culls from other brands. Far from being earnest and worthy, his designs have real sizzle, as Kristina Spencer discovers

The fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters. It emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. While the high turnover and volume of production of fast fashion is a major contributor, how do luxury brands affect the environment? With some maisons producing as many as eight collections a year, it seems inevitable that the sheer amount of output must produce waste. However, as consumer values change and conscious consumerism is on the rise, a new generation of designers is paving the way for a sustainable approach to glamorous, daring fashion. Kevin Germanier is one of them.

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Germanier is only 28. The Central Saint Martins alumnus showed his first collection in 2017 and it was immediately scooped up by MatchesFashion, the London-based luxury e-tailer. It comes as no surprise: Germanier’s high-octane collections are as sustainable as it gets, with everything from zippers to buttons sourced from materials discarded by other designers and brands. His garments are covered in crystals, a deadstock (unsold stock in new condition) supplied exclusively by Swarovski, who has collaborated with Germanier since he launched his eponymous label.

Growing up in Valais, Switzerland, Germanier always knew he wanted to be a fashion designer, spending his childhood draping fabrics over his siblings. His foundation year was spent at Geneva University of Art and Design, but it was London-based Central Saint Martins he pined for. Germanier applied, having told nobody but his flatmate at the time, and after seven interviews, he was in. “My first thought at the time was, ‘Oh God, I have to tell mum and dad!’” he laughs. His parents allowed him to go, but under one condition – he must finance his studies himself. Over a summer, Germanier saved up enough money and moved to London.

Image by Alexandre Haefeli

His sustainable approach did not come about as the result of a practical PR decision; it was merely a way to make ends meet as a student. Instead of buying expensive calico, Germanier went to Brick Lane in east London and found old duvet covers, and his flatmate gave away her deadstock. Some classmates rolled their eyes, but Germanier thrived. “It is harder to find beauty in trash than to go to Shepherd’s Bush, where I can buy anything. I needed to be creatively challenged.”

Read more: Singer-songwriter Ruth B. on poetry, social media & BLM

The industry has changed since Germanier’s first year at Central Saint Martins. These days, sustainability is in vogue. “When I started, nobody cared, and now everyone is an upcycler and a sustainability student, which is a good thing,” he admits. “But when people use sustainability as a marketing tool, that’s when I find it problematic. It should be the norm; what I am doing is normal.” It was hard to source materials at the beginning, but as the word spread, his social media was flooded with messages. “People frequently offer 25 metres of organza or 25 buttons, and I say yes to everything – and find a way to make it work.”

Now in his sixth season, Germanier continues to create feminine, unapologetically glamorous silhouettes with a disco aesthetic. There are glitter-strewn dresses, sculptural jackets and statement coats, sparkling with rainbow-hued Swarovski crystals. There is a strict ‘no black’ rule, despite always wearing black himself, because “no customer is coming to Germanier to buy black trousers”. While fashion schools are frequently criticised for the lack of business education, Germanier has managed to strike the delicate balance between creativity and pragmatism, which, by his own admission, must be due to his Swiss roots.

Björk wearing a Germanier outfit at the We Love Green Festival, Paris, 2018. Image by Santiago Felipe/Getty

His adaptability is another asset. “It is one of my biggest strengths – I am very flexible,” he says, remembering how quickly he got rid of trousers that had beads on the back. A friend wore them for a day and could barely sit. “I learned to adapt the fantasy in my brain to the reality of my customer.” Germanier has had his fair share of the red-carpet moments – he has dressed Björk, Taylor Swift and Kristen Stewart, amongst others – but ultimately, the voluptuous Björk dress cannot be worn in an Uber and even celebrities change into comfortable clothes after pictures get taken at the Met Gala. “There are two ways of conceiving your business; there are your press outfits and commercial pieces, but they can still be extremely creative. You have to play on both sides, and I love it.”

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has exposed the fashion industry’s vulnerabilities: retailers have filed for bankruptcy, brands have sold stock with unprecedented discounts, and designers came together to decry the never-ending global tour of fashion weeks. Germanier barely bats an eyelid because he does not carry any stock. “The calendar is not relevant at all. I don’t follow seasons. When it’s hot in Hong Kong, it is cold in Alaska. And we don’t follow trends. We use leftover fabric that was trendy in 2017. Eight collections a year is just too much product, and a good product takes time… People still need to get dressed, but they don’t need seven bags per week from the same brand.”

So, what is next for Germanier? “The launch of our website, the presentation of the new collection in September,” he says. “And we have made six new looks for Sunmi, the K-pop superstar. I am also currently working on an amazing order and Germanier is going to continue its slow ascent. It is hard to predict what will be next but we are fortunate enough to be able continue what we have built so far.”

View the collections: kevingermanier.com
Follow Kevin Germanier on Instagram: @kevingermanier

This article features in the Autumn Issue, which will be published later this month.

Château La Mission Haut-Brion. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon

For the cosmopolitan Prince Robert de Luxembourg, owning one of the world’s most celebrated wine estates, Château Haut-Brion, was not enough. The former Hollywood screenwriter is creating a world of fine wine and cuisine fantasy for visitors to enjoy in Bordeaux and Paris – and much more besides. Darius Sanai chats to the Prince about the future of Thomas Jefferson’s favourite estate

Chatting in fluent English about online retail and the Chinese social media app WeChat, Prince Robert de Luxembourg does not exactly conform to a preconception of a European prince who owns the longest established of all the great Bordeaux wine estates.

And yet since he took over Domaine Clarence Dillon, maker of Château Haut-Brion, in 2003, Prince Robert has transformed the company, taking it from being the maker of a couple of the most celebrated wines in the world (Haut-Brion and its sister, La Mission, and their second wines) but little else (and a little profit), to a business employing 200 people with five different wine ranges, a two Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris, an upmarket wine store next door, an online fine-wine retail business and a wholesaling arm.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

To add a little tannin to the story, Prince Robert, despite being born into the family that owns Château Haut-Brion, was not even intending to run it. In his youth, he was a successful screenwriter, spotted by Creative Artists in Los Angeles, with one of his scripts optioned by Steven Spielberg. To this day, he looks as if he would be as comfortable sipping a margarita in Malibu as a glass of the legendary 1989 vintage of his wine in Bordeaux.

You also feel he has only just begun on his journey of creating a real enterprise around a gem that was previously, if not neglected then certainly not fully polished.

He insists that he will not, unlike Bernard Arnault of LVMH, luxury magnate and owner of the equally celebrated Château Cheval Blanc, be lending his wine’s name to a hotel group. But there is more in the offing, including a tasting, dining and museum facility at the château itself. Unlike Cheval Blanc, Petrus, Lafite and Margaux, Haut-Brion is easily accessible from the city and airport of Bordeaux, and it is a place where he is determined that any lover of great wines should be able to visit and enjoy.

Prince Robert de Luxembourg. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon

LUX: What were your dreams when you were young?
Robert de Luxembourg: Like all of us, I had all kinds of different dreams depending on my age and some of them were realistic and some were less so.

LUX: Not many owners of Bordeaux First Growths lived in the US and were scouted as screen writers by Stephen Spielberg.
Robert de Luxembourg: I lived in the US only because I went to university there for a short while (at Georgetown) in Washington DC. I was there for under two years. We’ve always had family properties in Maine up in the north-east where I go every summer. Afterwards, thanks to my future wife, we became involved in screenwriting. She was very keen and had done some courses and was working on some ideas and had written a couple of films before I became involved with her, and we wrote a first speculative script when we were living all over the place, including France and driving around. That was the one that was picked up by Creative Artists in Los Angeles and we were signed as young writers; there was interest from Spielberg in that script but we ended up auctioning it to Columbia Pictures and then we worked with different people on it including Peters Entertainment, Original Film and David Heyman. We would come and go. Creative Artists would set up two weeks of meetings for us; and then Columbia and David actually hired us to write another screenplay.

Read more: Penélope Cruz on designing jewellery for Swarovski

LUX: Does a bit of you wish you’d carried on?
Robert de Luxembourg: You can’t do everything in life, and what appealed to me initially about that was I was working with my future wife, and then the realities of our lives made it a bit more complex. I loved the purely creative process. But I have been able to enjoy that in the work that I do in the wine industry throughout all kinds of different projects, whether it’s in the wine estates’ architectural projects or whether it’s developing business ideas. My need, I have come to understand over time, is to be able to develop projects and to basically be able to tell a story and then see that story come to life. So, I have been continuing to write these stories even if they are virtual and seeing them come to life whether it is at Le Clarence or La Cave du Château, or whether it is creating our wholesale business plans.

Seymour Weller and Douglas Dillon, respectively nephew and son of Clarence Dillon. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon

LUX: Was it always inevitable you would go into the family business?
Robert de Luxembourg: In 1993 it was clear that we needed to have the involvement of a young family member in the business. My mother was older and my stepfather, her husband, who was also managing director of the company, was also older, so there was a definite need to bring in new blood. At the time my writing was going well, so I spoke to my grandfather because I could see my career moving away from the family business, and I said, “I’ve been led to believe that there might be interest in me becoming involved. If that is the case, it’s really going to be now or never”. I had moved back to Europe, I was starting a family, I had bought a property and was building a house and all the rest of it, and so I was physically present and I could do it.

I didn’t know to what degree it would become such a central part of my life or how time consuming it would be at the time, but I said to him I don’t just want to be a caretaker if I become involved. I didn’t want to be involved for the glory of being associated with a wonderful story which is Haut-Brion, but to look after the business and develop it, and so he agreed with that, and then I became involved.

The library at Château Haut-Brion. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon

LUX: What was your plan when you started?
Robert de Luxembourg: I had to deal with the most basic things, like branding for example. I also wanted to make sure that we had as much focus on La Mission Haut-Brion [the sister property of Château Haut-Brion, regarded by many experts as equally good] as Haut-Brion so that they were both treated as equals. The business had always been a folly, never a business, we never took any money out of it. It was really just about making exceptional wine. I recognised that was not going to be a way that we could maintain family ownership over the generations. You have to also have a vision, you have to also be able to develop the business, and eventually down the road have a realistic income stream for future beneficiaries.

The story we had to tell was just extraordinary. We wanted to communicate it properly to the outside world, including that Haut-Brion has the most extraordinary wine history of any of the estates in Bordeaux, and we didn’t talk about it enough. Haut-Brion’s red wine as we know it today was basically invented by the Pontac family, and we had this extraordinary story of how the first vines were planted there probably in the first century AD, whereas the Médoc [the main red wine region of the left bank of Bordeaux] was only developed in the 17th century, so 1,600 years later. We were really the birthplace of the great wines of Bordeaux.

Read more: Designer Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar on bringing dream worlds to life

The Pontac family started all of these technological advancements, meaning they were able to develop the new French claret (red Bordeaux wine) that became famous thanks to their extraordinary marketing tool of opening up the Pontac’s Head tavern in London in 1666 after the great fire of London, where all of the cognoscenti at the time would go; everyone from John Locke and Isaac Newton to John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys would be there.

Since then, there has been the development of a new wine estate, Quintus, which really came into existence in 2011, so next year we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary. And then the creation of Clarendelle [high-quality entry-level white, rosé, red and sweet wines]. And that was an easy story for me to tell. I was a young man looking for a great bottle of wine that had a little bit of age on it where I wasn’t going to have to break the bank and have to store in a cellar in London because I didn’t have one. I could buy extraordinary aged Spanish wines or even some Italian wines but I couldn’t find anything from Bordeaux that had the regularity or quality at that price point. That’s where that idea came from.

LUX: With something like Le Clarence, the two Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris that opened in 2015, how do you decide that something which might be interesting to do will also be a good business?
Robert de Luxembourg:  There’s a little bit of a field-of-dreams scenario in some cases in that if you build something then they will come. Le Clarence was inspired by the Pontac family opening up this extraordinary restaurant in London in 1666 where they introduced the new French wines of Haut-Brion. It became the most hyped-up meeting spot in that city, and I also thought if they can do that in 1666 after the Great Fire of London, we could open something up in the heart of the most visited city in the world, Paris, a few feet from the most visited shopping street in the world, the Champs-Élysées. If they were successful then, why not now?

Le Clarence chef Christophe Pelé (above) and a dish of sea urchin with nasturtium. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon.

My wife told me I was absolutely crazy but I said why not do something a little bit different, I would like to design it myself, decorate it myself, build the team around it myself and do something that’s unlike anything else that’s out there. Because I could see the way that people would react when I would invite them to Haut-Brion; they would come to the château for lunch and you could see that people were charmed by that experience. It’s a home, it’s a family story, it’s a historical story and no one else can tell that story but us.

Today it is easy to find perfection in all of these designer restaurants in great hotels around the world that are designed by the same people oftentimes. But I think what’s truly priceless is finding a soul and also finding a perfection in imperfection.

LUX: And what about the idea of starting a wine shop in a city, Paris, that has no shortage of them?
Robert de Luxembourg: Once again, it was about how do you create a unique experience. You can see what Hedonism Wines did in London for example. You didn’t have a lack of wine shops in London yet what Hedonism did was unique and founded a new customer base. Also, Sotheby’s have done an amazing job with their wine shop in Manhattan. La Cave du Château is very specifically focused on the best French produce. My first job was writing letters to about 500 wine producers in France asking them and begging them if they could give us a few bottles to sell directly from the estate. And then creating an environment that was beautiful.

La Cave has developed into an e-tailer, a rather exciting new development that has been a lifesaver for us over the last few months.

La Cave du Château. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon.

LUX: Walking around La Cave and Le Clarence, you feel that they are more private clubs than commercial entities.
Robert de Luxembourg: Ha, yes, I know, it does not look very commercial. But once again, that’s the ultimate luxury. You don’t want to be going to a place where you are right next to other people. For a lot of these people today the ultimate luxury is being comfortable, you don’t want to be overheard by the next table, you want to be in a place where you have space and a sense of privacy. The premise was to receive people the way we receive people at the château in Bordeaux, and to have a place where, before you go down to lunch, you can go and sit in the living room and have a glass of champagne, and after dinner you can go up and have a brandy as you would in the château, and if you want to go outside and have a cigar you can do so.

LUX: And we know you have more plans…
Robert de Luxembourg: Yes, we will be opening up private dining rooms in Bordeaux, with a visitors’ centre. We will have a new Cave du Château which we’ll open up in our visitors’ centre, managed by our retail arm. We will have multiple private dining rooms there, and they can have an experience like the one they can have at Le Clarence but with an extraordinary wine shop downstairs, right within the vineyards of Haut-Brion.

Château Haut-Brion’s acclaimed 1985 vintage. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon.

Prince Robert de Luxembourg’s desert island wines: Château Haut-Brion 1945, Château Haut-Brion 1989, Château La Mission Haut-Brion 1955, Château Haut-Brion Blanc 1989, Château La Mission Haut-Brion Blanc 2009, Château Quintus 2019

LUX: With Château Haut-Brion, you are the guardian of one of the world’s great luxury brands. How does that feel?
Robert de Luxembourg: I’d like to say it’s the greatest! I don’t know – it depends how you define a brand. I am not arrogant because I am not responsible for it.

LUX: Traditionally, awareness of the great Bordeaux wines was handed down from parent to child – unfortunately, usually father to son. Now there are so many new markets – how do you pass the message on to the latest generation of wine lovers, and how do you ensure that the status of the brand is clear?
Robert de Luxembourg: It’s a challenge for us. When I first got into this space, a real wine lover in New York or Singapore or Hong Kong would say how exceptional our wines were. But none of our competitors had the regularity of the past century that we had at Haut-Brion. That was something not really known by the greater public, and it was something I felt we needed to work on.

We continue to be active and interact with people. We were the first First Growth to have our own server and website in China or have a YouTube channel or a WeChat account for our wholesale business, or to open up Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for our vineyards.

You will probably remember that it was considered that luxury brands should not be represented in this space, and it took away from the experience. I disagree with that because I think if you controlled the way you do it you can reach this audience, especially a young audience. Our client base was changing and we needed to adapt to the youth.

The chapel of Château La Mission Haut-Brion. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon.

LUX: And what about the wines themselves? There are commentators who say wine now is better than it has ever been because of advances in winemaking techniques. And others who say that, for example, the 1945 vintage is still the best ever made.
Robert de Luxembourg: The 1945 is the finest Haut-Brion that I have had the pleasure of enjoying. I have only had it about three times in my life. We sold the last eight bottles for charity about ten years ago, and we have none left.

But the unfortunate truth is that global warming has been beneficial to the regularity of quality with wines we’ve produced, alongside the technological advances. If you look at a temperature chart of south-western France over the years, and the heat of those particular years, you will note that the better vintages like the 1945 and 1989 are always the hottest vintages. I don’t want to take anything away from our winemakers and their work, but their work is easier dealing with a 1945, 1959 or a 1961 vintage.

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Yes, it is helped by technology and science, and also by massive investment. We have been in a golden period for the great wines of Bordeaux, and so we have made more money and thus are able to invest more money in all of our businesses and we always try and push the envelope and do better every year. And then we’ve had the arrival of the wine critics who have always encouraged and helped us to a degree, because we have people looking over our shoulder so you can’t get it wrong today. So, yes, I don’t think we have ever made better wines over a period of time than over the past two decades, and our climate conditions have greatly helped us.

LUX: Many wine lovers, after starting their First Growth cellar with the likes of Château Lafite and Château Margaux, eventually gravitate towards Château Haut-Brion. Why?
Robert de Luxembourg:As a wine lover, and I consider myself to be a wine lover before a wine producer, you tend to gravitate away from things that are easier to understand towards things that are more subtle and more difficult to understand.

And that is a disadvantage for Haut-Brion when you are doing a blind tasting and you are not eating and your more easily able on a cerebral level to recognise bulky and more fruit-filled wines. As you age and you become more educated, you want to have a different experience I think you look for something that sets off multiple parts of your gustatory experience, hitting certain spots you are not able to reach with other wines. It’s the same with a painting or a piece of music.

You might find it shocking and enjoyable to see a Pop art piece but over time you maybe gravitate towards something that’s a little bit more complex and has a little bit more depth, with more layers. And Haut-Brion is an intellectual wine because of the terroir, but also because of the way the wine is produced. We have always had that at Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion. They are wines that are more difficult to understand, but when you want to grow as a taster, they are remarkable wines. You see that people eventually gravitate towards lighter extraordinary wines, and great Burgundies which I love also, and I think that is also explained by seeking out something very subtle, elegant and complex.

LUX: What are the unique opportunities and challenges of running a family wine business?
Robert de Luxembourg: Already just being in the world of wine, there is the notion that we aren’t doing anything for tomorrow. A decision that I will make to pull up a parcel of vines and replant it will probably still benefit my grandchildren if they are lucky enough to be involved in the business. We don’t anticipate being able to have a short-term return on many of these projects. We didn’t take a penny out of the business for the first six decades of running this company. It really was a folly of my great-grandfather [Clarence Dillon, who acquired Château Haut-Brion in 1935] that was then inherited by his children.

Today we can’t just sit on our laurels and think that we are managing a jewel of today and being proud of being the wardens or owners of this jewel. We have to have a business that makes sense for future generations and shows some evolutionary growth because otherwise you will immediately get frustrations from the generations to come that build up, and we know how that ends. So that’s a big part of it, great people keeping great people on board, sharing that message with them, making sure they buy into that and we’ve been able to do that with all our companies.

We’ve had relative stability across the board with the teams of people that I work with. Take Jean-Philippe Delmas, a third-generation winemaker at our estate. His family arrived at Haut-Brion in 1923, so they are about to celebrate their century with us, but his is one of multiple families that have been with us for generations.

Château Haut-Brion. Courtesy of Domaine Clarence Dillon.

Winemaker and Deputy General Manager Jean-Philippe Delmas on the greatest wines from the Domaine Clarence Dillon estates

Château Quintus red 2011
We acquired this property in June 2011, so this is a first vintage. It is located on a promontory overlooking the Dordogne valley at the south-west end of Saint-Émilion. This wine is blended equally between Cabernet Franc and Merlot. It’s a sublime marriage of the finesse and elegance of Cabernet Franc with the power, colour and sweetness of Merlot.

Château Haut-Brion red 1989
Certainly the greatest success of all the wines produced by my father. Its harmony is close to perfection with a breathtaking intensity and aromatic complexity combining cedar, eucalyptus, mint, roasting and Havana. The whole tannic structure is coated, giving this wine an unexpected sweetness. This vintage remains and will remain a reference.

Château La Mission Haut-Brion red 2003
This is a vintage when the summer was scorching, so we started the red harvest in mid-August, working at sunrise at the coolest time of the day with refrigerated trucks to preserve the freshness until the vat. It is one of the few Mission vintages where there is a majority of Cabernet Sauvignon. The magic of this terroir does the rest with an incredibly fresh wine.

Château Quintus red 2019
This is the latest addition to this beautiful property in Saint-Émilion. After almost a decade of meticulous work, we have succeeded in creating not only a new brand, but also a new wine with its own identity. Over the years, we have patiently drawn the personality of this wine and have achieved our goal with this vintage.

Château Haut-Brion red 1929
Of all the vintages made by my grandfather, this is the greatest. Even today, this wine has an amazing youth. The great density of this wine has allowed it to travel back in time. It has all the characteristics of the great wines that this terroir can produce – an aromatic signature, elegance and inimitable silky touch.

Château La Mission Haut-Brion red 2009
2009 seems to me to be the modern version of the legendary 1989. In this wine, we find all the characteristics of La Mission, with very rich, deep, spherical and coated wines. This wine charms you with its precision, a tannic structure counterbalanced by sweetness akin to velvet.

Find out more: haut-brion.com

This article features in the Autumn Issue, which will be published later this month.

Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar. Image by Marko Delbello Ocepek.

Iranian-born designer Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar does it all – interiors, architectural design, weddings. Whether large-scale events or private homes, a converted airplane or a château, he runs the gamut from extravagant to minimal with equal flair and imagination, bringing his clients’ stories to life. Torri Mundell reports

Architectural designer Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar is a man on the move. Since 2003, his striking design projects have made their mark on coastlines, private islands, mountainsides and city streets in Europe, Asia and the Gulf, while his events company operates from Dubai, London, Paris and Monaco. The spaces he conceives, from the cargo plane he transformed into an airborne apartment to a spectacular eco-friendly château in Provence and a refurbished 150-metre yacht extended with landscaped green spaces, are equally dynamic. “I think of spaces and events like personal books,” he says. “They are stories that we experience through an introduction, a body and a grande finale.”

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Though Behnam-Bakhtiar claims not to have a signature style, the emphasis on experiencing a space – rather than simply passing through it – is an essential part of his aesthetic. “To create this kind of extra dimension, I am very detail orientated. I study the space carefully, I envision the memories that can be created and I focus on the senses that can be discovered.”

Behnam-Bakhtiar’s floral design for a wedding in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

Ali Bakhtiar Interiors clients do not commission him to create something they have already seen somewhere else. “Everything I do is one of a kind,” he says. “I don’t hold on to what I have done or what has been done.” Conceiving wholly original designs for every project can be hard work, he admits, but it means that he never caves in to “the dullness of repetition.” Instead, each project is always “a learning process that definitely keeps me challenged and excited.”

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Behnam-Bakhtiar’s curiosity, extensive research and the relationships he fosters with his clients to “deeply understand their values, wants and needs” all feed into his vision for a project. Every aspect of design is thoughtfully considered to create a harmonious whole, but his spaces are also full of daring, unexpected moments. Consider the château he restored in Provence: he preserved the historic façade and added a self-sustainable modern basement, a pond that irrigates the rest of the estate and a formal dining room with a glass floor that overlooks a garden lavishly planted with lotus flowers. “I believe it is important to embrace modernity as much as ancient knowledge, because something might look cool and new but it also needs to age well,” says the designer about his blend of the traditional and contemporary.

A 2019 house on Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat designed with glass walls to make the surrounding forest part of the interior. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

Though the scale of the properties he designs can be vast, Behnam-Bakhtiar imbues his spaces with personal elements as well. “Generally, my favourite events or interior projects are the ones in which I deeply connect with my client, because this is what inspires me to go beyond expectation, and create something ‘out of this world’, a visualisation of their dreams and more.” In the château, for instance, each of the 34 suites was decorated to represent places or moments in time that are meaningful to the owner.

Creating a blueprint that encompasses both grand design moments and personal detail requires a nuanced approach. “Architecture to me is about conserving memory; creating spaces that host our lives but remain in existence beyond it,” Behnam-Bakhtiar continues. “Unlike events, architecture has permanence and so you are not just working on one experience in time, you are working on a timeless structure that impacts repeatedly. I believe architecture, landscaping and interior design need to merge to bring true and lasting harmony.”

He takes his cues from the outdoors to create this harmony. “I used to design houses that stood out from nature,” he remembers. “I now create ones that integrate with nature. The house becomes engulfed by the landscape rather than being simply set in it.” This approach also chimes with the current drive for sustainability. “Much more than ever, we now see nature as something that needs to be integrated in interiors and architecture. Rather than fighting the rules of nature or working against it, which we have done for so long, we are finally starting to see the incredible benefits of an alliance.”

A 2018 house design in Florida with a characteristic Behnam-Bakhtiar blending of natural and built environments. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

The “green and self-sustainable” glass house he designed for a client on a private island epitomises how this can work. In building the residence from scratch, Behnam-Bakhtiar gave it a “system that transmits and observes energy” along with an ultra-modern, sleek exterior and sumptuous Art Deco furnishings.

Read more: American artist Rashid Johnson on searching for autonomy

Similarly, on a property refurbishment in the French Pyrénées, Behnam-Bakhtiar preserved the ancient rocks that predated the house by encasing them in glass boxes and installing a “hydraulic system to make the house ‘convertible’; completely open towards the seascape, on multiple levels. We also created several distinct courtyards and fountains, to give the landscape exciting layers.”

A render of an island house off the coast in Abu Dhabi, with an Art Deco inspired interior in contrast to the building’s ultra-modern minimalist exterior. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

Born in Tehran, Ali Behnam-Bakhtiar was still a child when he moved with his family to Paris after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. He grew up surrounded by art and culture and his parents indulged his drive to “redecorate their interiors on a weekly basis”. Even so, he says, “it was very much a conscious adult decision to develop my creativity professionally.”

His early memories from Iran, particularly before the revolution, “in which large-scale events and gatherings were considered normal” may have informed Behnam-Bakhtiar’s other hugely successful business: event planning. Orchestrating large-scale, fantasy weddings, celebrations and parties is a complementary discipline to his design work but he came upon it entirely by chance. “I was working on the interior design of a palace for a client of mine, whose daughter was in the midst of planning her wedding. Completely uninspired by the process, she had sort of given up on her dream wedding until she coincidentally saw my plans for their winter garden. In love with the plans for the garden, she convinced me to design her large-scale royal-like wedding for 2,500 guests.”

A reception that took place in Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

Behnam-Bakhtiar’s ability to imagine multidimensional, immersive spaces works as well for one-off events as it does permanent buildings, and working across the two disciplines allows for a beneficial cross-pollination of ideas. “I mix architecture and interior design with event planning, and do things that have never been seen or done before. This has allowed me to evolve and remain modern. I embrace the future and the process of change and growth.” In 2019, Ali Bakhtiar Designs was named “best wedding planner in the Middle East” at the Destination Wedding Planners ACE awards, and in the same year the company won an honorary award at the Influencer Awards Monaco.

As with his architectural designs, the events he designs are inspired by their setting. “The location and not the budget is what creates the possibilities,” he says. What would he conjure up for a wedding at a castle with an unlimited budget? “I’d probably create a sunset moment, curate different areas so there is movement and a multi-layered experience of the castle. I would also do something with the façade, so the guests can view it differently throughout the evening.”

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He is delighted to be commissioned for wedding and parties abroad. “Like creating a world from scratch, the entire infrastructure is purposefully built and specifically curated for the event, in the middle of nowhere.” The possibilities are endless, he points out, describing a beautiful event he planned on “a private island lit by 50,000 candles. The guests arrived by raft laid with beautiful flowers and in the middle of the island, we created a pond and fountain on which the gala’s dinner tables floated.” More unusually, Behnam-Bakhtiar also oversaw a divorce party on a cruise ship.

As with his design projects, Behnam-Bakhtiar and his team ensure they have oversight of every detail. “The design of the food, the uniforms, the bar; anything that has to do with the visuals, the service, the presentation… To me an event is never just about decoration, it is about continuous implementation; everything needs to run smoothly and as we visualised it.”

An impression of flower-covered columns for a wedding at the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, January 2020. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

A rendered image of a tunnel of flowers for a wedding in Cape Town, 2020. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

With high-profile architectural and interior design clients and starry party guest lists, discretion is part of the Ali Bakhtiar Design service. He will not be drawn on the high profile personalities that have commissioned him. “We work with a lot of different people including celebrities and royalty, but under no circumstances do we share our clients’ names, whether we signed confidentiality agreements or not. We pride ourselves on being private.”

Word, however, is out – partly because of the design company’s huge international reach. “We go where our clients are, so it was only natural to expand,” Behnam-Bakhtiar explains of his company’s outposts in Dubai, London, Paris and Monaco. The company does not promote its productions but exposure has come nonetheless through guests’ photos on social media. And who can blame them? The vast hall filled with reflective ponds and dancing LED lights for a party in Shanghai and the arcade of pink roses for a church wedding in St Barts demanded a selfie. “Much of the current exposure of our work is not just because we have expanded but also because it is shared,” Behnam-Bakhtiar agrees.

A digital impression of a 2019 building design in Switzerland that brings nature into the heart of the home. Copyright and courtesy Ali Bakhtiar Designs

Like the architectural design industry, the events business is also becoming more mindful about expenditure. “I would like to see more consciousness around long-term trust and a sustainable use of funds,” Behnam-Bakhtiar asserts. “Rather than creating an event for the budget and exhausting funds, we now look at what we need for the event. This means we spend less on unnecessary things, so that these funds can be used elsewhere or go to charity.”

Behnam-Bakhtiar’s diligence is even more relevant in a post-Covid era. “Events of up to 7,000 people are postponed for at least a year,” he says, “but the smaller events are starting to take place now, in a more down-sized manner. We’re on stand-by, like the rest of the world.” With his vivid imagination, a roster of international clients and almost two decades of experience, he won’t be standing by for long.

Find out more: alibakhtiardesigns.com

This article features in the Autumn Issue, which will be published later this month.

‘La marea bajita’ from Diango Hernández’s Instopia Instagram project

Dusseldorf-based, Cuban artist Diango Hernández has been blurring the lines between the virtual and physical since 2015 with his ongoing Instagram art project Instopia in which he digitally places his own artworks into existing photographs of luxury spaces. Nick Hackworth speaks to the artist about ownership, challenging perceptions of reality and the culture of revolution

Diango Hernández

LUX: Can you describe Instopia in a nutshell?
Diango Hernández: Instopia is an ongoing series of images that show artworks of mine in extraordinary places; a painting of mine hanging, for example, in a luxurious villa in Greece or Capri or, say, a huge sculpture inside a high-end ‘white cube’ gallery in New York or London.

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There’s a bit of magic or sleight of hand, in the way these Instopia images are made. The process begins with me finding an image of one of these luxurious spaces on Instagram or online. Then I design a virtual artwork, it could be painting, a mural or a sculpture, that I think would look perfect in that particular, photographed space. I take into careful consideration of all the elements of the spaces, its colours, lighting and textures. Then I digitally place my artwork into the image of that space and post up this new picture onto my Instagram account. The work only becomes Instopia only when makes you believe that it’s “real”.

LUX: How did you come up with the concept?
Diango Hernández: It wasn’t actually about the irony, cynicism or any form of mockery. It was just that very often when I came across beautiful images of luxurious places I always found in them, some spaces that I thought would be good for my art. But people got offended by the project because it challenged their ideas of reality. They’d look at an Instopia image and ask, ‘How real is it?’ or ‘Are you lying to me? You don’t have a painting of yours hanging in that beautiful mansion!’ I lost friends because of Instopia. In fact, the longer I’ve been continued the project the more that other artists and art dealers have reacted strangely toward me.

‘Cadenas de agua’ from Diango Hernández’s Instopia Instagram project

LUX: Why do you think people in the art world reacted so strongly?
Diango Hernández: They were upset, insulted even, because they thought I was using these Instopia images to pretend that my work was hanging in this space or was part of that great collection or museum. For instance, I’d replace a Francis Bacon one of my paintings in an image and people would be like, ‘your work isn’t in that collection!’ They’d be really rude, but I would say to them, ‘I’m not bound to the sense of reality you have. I come from another country, another tradition.’ I still believe we have can an intense dialogue with pictures. Pictures are more serious than most people believe.

Read more: Loquet’s co-founder Sheherazade Goldsmith on creating sustainable jewellery

LUX: In the captions of your Instagram posts do you refer to the reality or unreality of the image?
Diango Hernández: No. On Instagram you have a few elements that will imply a level of truthfulness: the image, the hashtags and the text. I work with all of these elements to make you believe, as much as possible, that the post is real. This is why people got really upset. Galleries even cancelled shows. They had collectors calling and telling them that I was abusing the internet. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me guys? Don’t know the history of collage?’ It just shows you how contradictory the contemporary art world is. Everyone is busy selling the ‘new’ and the ‘radical’ but only a few can really deal with what is really new.

Cielo bajo el agua (above) and Tu muchas veces (here) from Diango Hernández’s Instopia Instagram project

LUX: The negative reactions to your work are interestingly hypocritical. Instagram is a vast, collective platform which people use to project or imagine their own fantasies. But as usual, things get conservative when people with money get upset…
Diango Hernández: Exactly. When people complain about me inserting an artwork into an image of their beautiful interior, they are effectively saying, ‘Come on, I have spent millions of dollars on this living room!’ A lot of the outrage is connected to people’s sense of ‘property’.

Read more: Laid-back fine dining at Knightsbridge restaurant Sumosan Twiga

Most of the legal issues I’ve had have come from photographers complaining that I’d abused their copyright. That make sense as people are crazy about property. They forget that artists challenge and question that very notion of ownership. Somehow, we have to do it, it is in our DNA. A world without people questioning private property is an unfair world. But it’s true that my way of doing this is more ‘gentle’, I just add ‘value’ to your beautiful property by adding my ‘art’ to it!

Ojos claros (above) and Noches (here) from Diango Hernández’s Instopia Instagram project

LUX: Do you think of your work as having a punk or anarchist spirit?
Diango Hernández: I’d say my attitude isn’t so much punk, I’d say it comes out of the culture of revolution. To illustrate what I mean, a particular story comes to mind…

In the Havana of the 1940s and 1950s there was a very fancy country club park, frequented by Americans and the Cuban bourgeoisie. In January 1961, the Cuban revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were enjoying a drink just after they finished a game of golf at the club. They were pondered the future of the country club, since all of its members had fled the country. There and then Guevara proposed the creation of a complex of tuition-free art schools to serve talented young people from all over the Third World. ‘The school must be built just right on top of these holes,’ Che Guevara said.

Cuban revolutionary leaders Fidel Castro and Che Guevara playing golf

A few years later Cuba’s National Art Schools were built. In the design they attempted to reinvent architecture in the same manner that the Cuban Revolution aspired to reinvent society. To this day the art school is one of the most beautiful buildings ever built in Cuba.

That idea of subverting the function of that exclusive country club into a school for the arts, seems to me, like a radical and powerful act of collage. There is a lot to learn from the history of design and architecture. One valuable lesson is that transforming images and the values they embody is one way of transforming our reality, culturally and socially. I want people to interact more thoughtfully with images and to create ‘better’ pictures.

Follow Diango Hernandez on Instagram: @diango.hernandez

Nick Hackworth is a writer and curator of Modern Forms, an art collection and curatorial platform founded by Hussam Otaibi, Managing Partner at Floreat Group. 

Loquet’s London shop located at 73 Elizabeth Street, SW1W 9PJ

London-based jewellery brand Loquet is renewing the concept of a keepsake locket with sustainable, modern designs that consumers can personalise and pass through the generations. Here, Abigail Hodges speaks to co-founder Sheherazade Goldsmith about the brand’s ethical ethos, her love of vintage fashion and collaborating with the Wild at Heart Foundation

1.How does your environmentalist background inform your approach to making jewellery?

Sheherazade Goldsmith

I’d say it informs everything. Environmentalism isn’t something you frequent; it’s a way of life and seeps into everything you do. Once you understand the repercussions of not protecting our future and that of our children, it’s impossible to ignore. As a fine jewellery collection, Loquet is part of a luxury world and to me, luxury is sustainability. Our process informs that message by taking the time to source the very best materials, crafted with care and implementing practices that create longevity. Our jewellery is for the generation that makes the purchase, the next generation and the generation after that. It’s about preserving someone’s story to be told, treasured and passed on. At Loquet we are preserving what is important to an individual, without sustainability there would be no point in what we create.

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Our first port of call is the office itself, we use recycled or recyclable materials wherever we can, and we create a product that has no existential timeframe, it is recyclable and has no waste. The problem with so much of what we consume is the waste, but in jewellery there are no seasons and the sentimentality of the pieces make them heirlooms.

2. What inspired you to reinvent the classical locket form?

I already had a classic photo locket and a charm bracelet. My locket was an Indian antique made in 18kt yellow gold with elaborate coloured enamelling on the inside. I love Indian jewellery for this reason. They believe that everything should be as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. My charm bracelet was fun and gregarious, full of charms that patted against my laptop keyboard. On a visit to a fairground my son bought me a present, a pendant made with dried flowers, something I use to do with hedgerow flowers when my children where little. It inspired the idea of being able to combine the two and personalise it myself.

The hexagonal locket with a selection of charms

3. Is there a particular piece that you feel best expresses the story you set out to tell through your work?

Our sapphire crystal lockets are our signature. They allow our customers to be there own designer and create a piece that tells their story, in essence a unique talisman of everything that brings them luck and makes them smile, to be worn close to their heart. We’ve recently relaunched our 14kt collection to include some of my favourite pieces to date, that elegantly translate from day to night. Each of these geometrical shapes is hand cast in 14kt gold encasing a clear faced sapphire crystal facade and can be opened to personalise with our endless selection of meaningful 18kt charms.

A selection of charns

4. How do you ensure that the elements of your design process are ethical?

I spent a lot of time visiting jewellery studios all over the world before deciding to work with our current ateliers. This was to insure that the working conditions where healthy and vibrant, and to also talk through the designs with the artisans that were selected to make our jewellery. The companies I ended up choosing are all members of the responsible jewellery council or similar organisations and are, therefore, required to adhere to certain workers rights and high environmental standards.

Read more: British-Iranian artist darvish Fakhr on the alchemy of art

The human connection behind what we do is paramount to the Loquet design. Our pieces are emotional and as such need to be made that way. So many of us jewellers won’t work with a company unless they have the same ethos and it’s important to champion those that have worked hard to campaign for their workers and implement high standards that look after both their employees and the environment.

Loquet’s pear and hexagonal locket necklaces

5. Besides purchasing from you, how would you advise a consumer looking to shop more sustainably?

Sustainability is about longevity and well-designed things don’t have seasons. Whether that be furniture, clothing, accessories or jewellery, if something is worthwhile it will last through time and trends. With luxury items, less is most definitely more and that is my philosophy both in the way I decorate my house, my jewellery and wardrobe. Admittedly, I wear mostly designer clothing, but much of it is purchased from secondhand websites such as Vestiaire Collective, Hardly Ever Worn and The Real Real. I love vintage fashion, but you can also find all kinds of past-admired items for a quarter of the price. The buying and selling aspect makes you feel part of a community, almost like an exchange and gives your clothes a limitless life.

6. What’s next for Loquet?

We have a very exciting year ahead with some brilliant collaborations. The first launches in October with Nikki Tibbles and the Wild at Heart Foundation. We have put together a charm collection of Nikki’s favourite flowers chosen for their association with her beloved dogs, each epitomising the way we feel about our pets. A percentage of all sales will be donated to her very special dog charity that was set up a few years ago after rescuing a stray from the streets of Puerto Rico, who became her beloved Rose. The charity is now global and works tirelessly to end the unnecessary suffering of these much-loved pets.

Find out more: loquetlondon.com

The new Oyster Perpetual Submariner, 41mm in Oystersteel. © Rolex/Alain Costa

LUX discovers Rolex’s striking new editions to the iconic Submariner, Datejust, Oyster Perpetual and Sky-Dweller collections

The New Submariner

Submariner Date © Rolex/Alain Costa

Rolex’s history with the world of diving dates back to 1926 when the brand invented the now iconic waterproof Oyster case. Following a series of experiments in collaboration with diving pioneers, the brand launched the Submariner in 1953 as the first divers’ wristwatch waterproof to a depth of 100 metres. Since then, the brand’s Submariner collection has gained iconic status with the Oyster case now guaranteeing waterproof to a depth of 300 metres.

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The latest editions to the divers’ collection – the Oyster Perpetual Submariner and Oyster Perpetual Submariner Date – both feature a redesigned, slightly larger case in the classic aesthetic of Oystersteel. Other variations of both watches include a 60-minute graduated Cerachrom insert in coloured ceramic, allowing divers to monitor their dive times.

Oyster Perpetual Datejust 31 in white Rolesor. © Rolex/Alain Costa

The New Datejust

Four new white Rolesor (combining Oystersteel and 18 ct white gold) versions of the Oyster Perpetual Datejust 31 include a diamond-set bezel and aubergine dial with the three other timepieces fitted respectively with a mint green, white lacquer or dark grey dial.

Oyster Perpetual 41 in Oystersteel. © Rolex/Alain Costa

The New Oyster Perpetual

Rolex’s Oyster Perpetual collection features direct descendants of the brand’s original 1926 Oyster waterproof case. The latest model, the Oyster Perpetual 41, is available with a silver or black dial, whilst updates of the Oyster Perpetual 36 feature a range of vibrant lacquer dials in candy pink, turquoise blue, yellow, coral red and green.

Read more: Paris-based artist Cathleen Naundorf on photography, fashion & activism

Both models are equipped with Rolex’s newly launched movement, calibre 3230, which offers gains in terms of precision, power reserve, resistance to shocks and magnetic fields, convenience and reliability.

Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller, 42 mm, 18ct yellow gold. © Rolex/Alain Costa

The New Sky-Dweller

The perfect watch for frequent travellers, the Sky-Dweller displays the time in two time zones simultaneously and has an annual calendar. This latest 18ct yellow gold version of the Oyster Perpetual Sky-Dweller is fitted with the brand’s innovative Oysterflex bracelet made of high-performance black elastomer, promising both durability and comfort.

Find out more: rolex.com

Dior Rose des Vent ‘Sport’, a sketch by Victoire de Castellane

Dior Jewellery’s Creative Director Victoire de Castellane reimagines the latest additions to the brand’s ‘Rose des Vents’ collection in a series of whimsical lockdown sketches. Here, Chloe Frost-Smith picks her favourite pieces

New Rose des Vents earrings

A new series of playful illustrations by Victoire de Castellane depicting domestic scenes in the Dior maison during lockdown, feature the Artistic Director for Dior Joaillerie alongside Christian Dior enjoying an array of at-home activities.

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Hidden amongst these imaginative self-portraits are the designs for the latest ‘Rose des Vents’ Fine Jewellery collection, which subtly replace everyday objects in the colourful sketches including, fridge magnets in the kitchen, flowers in the garden, dumbbells in a home-workout scene, and even appearing on the screen of a Dior television.

Dior Rose des Vents ‘Cooking’ by Victoire de Castellane

A reinterpretation of Dior’s lucky star in the form of a compass rose, the distinctive eight-pointed star appears throughout the collection and de Castellane’s illustrations, adorning circular medallions set in gold and punctuated with diamonds.

Read more: Confined Artists – Free Spirits, a lockdown portrait series by Maryam Eisler

Whilst some pieces are more simplistic in colour, featuring a singular stone such as lapis lazuli in a pair of earrings, or the green four-strand necklace made of emerald and malachite, the multicoloured ‘Rose des Vents’ choker is more daring in palette. A combination of softer tones such as pink opal and mother-of-pearl is layered with vibrant lapis lazuli and turquoise talismans, which can be worn both ways to showcase the stars or the gemstones respectively.

New additions to the Rose des Vents collection

In contrast, the ‘Rose Céleste’ pieces displaying a sun, moon and stars motif are a monochromatic ensemble of black and white onyx and mother-of-pearl. Following the theme of day and night, which can be further emphasised by reversing each piece, the celestial details of the bracelet, necklace and earrings pay homage to Dior’s passion for divinatory art.

Discover the full collection: dior.com

Hublot ambassador Maxime Plescia-Büchi. © Hublot SA

Hublot is celebrated for being the most pioneering and original brand in the world of haute horlogerie. The first watch brand to sponsor international football, the first watch company to make an all-black watch with black dial, numbers and hands, the company famously mixes precious and base metals and materials in its timepieces, and counts sports stars and athletes on its roster of fans. Its partnership with London-based Swiss tattoo haute artiste Maxime Plescia-Büchi takes luxury to a different dimension, as Millie Walton discovers through a conversation with CEO Ricardo Guadalupe

Next year Hublot will celebrate its fortieth anniversary. In the world of Swiss watches, that roughly equates to early adolescence, but, as Hublot’s chief executive Ricardo Guadalupe assures me, “You can be young and have success”. This, in fact, neatly sums up the brand’s aspirational ethos and hugely successful marketing strategy. Through select partnerships with the likes of Usain Bolt, Richard Orlinski, DJ Snake and Maria Höfl-Riesch, the brand has developed its own culture encompassing everything from music, sport, cars and contemporary art to luxury destinations such as Courchevel, Zermatt, Saint-Tropez and Mykonos. The idea is, as Guadalupe puts it, “to create a universe of Hublot”.

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Today, the brand has 4.8 million followers on Instagram, which is not only reflective of their young consumer base – 60 per cent of Hublot’s customers are aged between 20 and 40 years old – but also the changing nature of luxury itself. “The young generation don’t have in mind which are the standard brands of [the luxury] industry. When you’re older, you’re less likely to move to another brand, your choices are already made,” explains Guadalupe. “That’s why we speak to very young consumers, as young as fifteen. We want them to one day dream of getting a Hublot watch.”

The Big Bang Sang Bleu II in titanium pavé

This forward-thinking approach is most clearly demonstrated in Hublot’s choice of collaborations and specifically, the brand’s decision to associate with the art world and notable figures from contemporary urban culture such as renowned tattoo artist and designer Maxime Plescia-Büchi who has now been collaborating with the brand for just over four years. “I think they really took a chance on me at every level,” says Plescia-Büchi, but as a Swiss national, watches were already an integral part of the designer’s identity well before Hublot came along. He recalls flicking through adverts for early luxury sports watches in his collection of vintage National Geographic magazines and even once interviewed Jean-Claude Biver (the former president of LVMH Watches and chairman of Hublot) for an issue of a magazine that he was then running. Nevertheless, receiving an invitation to design the iconic Big Bang must have been exciting.

Plescia-Büchi at work on the Big Bang Sang Bleu

“I prepared some quite radical designs alongside some more conservative options,” says Plescia-Büchi, reflecting on the design process of his first timepiece, the Big Bang Sang Bleu. ‘To [Hublot’s] credit, it was 100 per cent their decision to go with the weirder one.” With a few adjustments – “we had a lot to do in terms of translating how to make [the 2D design] into a watch” – the timepiece launched in 2016 with an initial run of 200 pieces. Crafted largely from glass and titanium, the Big Bang Sang Bleu was a celebration of pure form and geometry, taking influences from architecture, philosophy and Plescia-Büchi’s own tattoo designs. The original idea was to feature the geometric pattern printed onto the watch face with the hands on top, but the designer envisioned more depth and suggested using the shapes as the hands themselves. Given the delicate art of watchmaking, the final version, which features three octagonal discs instead of hands to indicate the hours and minutes, is a huge achievement. “Seeing the watch finished,” Plescia-Büchi admits, “was the closest thing to having a child.”

Read more: Princess Yachts CEO Antony Sheriff on a new generation of yachting

Hublot’s collaborators, unlike with a lot of brands, work with the watchmaker on an ongoing basis, thus becoming an integral part of the brand’s identity. For the Big Bang Sang Bleu II, which was released at the end of 2019, for example, Plescia-Büchi refined the original design to create a more three-dimensional case and inverted the facets to restore Hublot’s iconic porthole shape. “It’s about combining my DNA and Hublot’s DNA to create something new that is also true and faithful to both of the origins,” says Plescia-Büchi. “Something that I find extremely pleasant is that when you’re designing watches you work over many years on slow incremental changes, which is actually quite akin to designing tattoos. You get time to continue improving the design, which is different from designing fashion, for example, because you have a quicker turnover. You can come up with something crazy and the next season, people will have already forgotten.”

The Big Bang Sang Bleu II in gold

The designer was, in fact, approached by another watch brand before Hublot but declined the opportunity: “It wasn’t the level of prestige where I thought I could be”. Though fifteen years ago, Hublot might not have made the cut. Success truly came from the brand when they started “to connect tradition and innovation,” explains Guadalupe, a concept that is at the heart of Hublot’s universe and rooted in a deep understanding of their consumers’ expectations and lifestyles. “The young generation in particular are looking for something iconic with a strong personality and identity,” says Guadalupe. “For men, especially, a watch is the main way to really differentiate yourself, it expresses who you are.” Part of the appeal of buying a Hublot watch is gaining access to the ‘family’ and all the perks that come with it. Football-loving collectors, for example, are invited to all of the games at Chelsea FC with whom Hublot has an ongoing partnership. Indeed, Hublot was the first luxury watch brand to ever support football, again demonstrating a deep understanding of consumer culture as well as a highly innovative marketing strategy. Since 2008, the brand has been the official timekeeper of all of the UEFA men’s European Championships as well as the FIFA World Cup since 2010, and this year, marks the beginning of the brand’s relationship with UEFA’s women’s football.

When it comes to women’s watches, Hublot is still developing – the brand sells only 25 per cent to women – but their approach is unique in the sense that their designs differ very little for the female audience. With the Sang Bleu timepieces, for example, the ladies’ versions are embellished with diamonds, but otherwise remain the same. Look for a women’s collection on the Hublot website and you won’t find it; the watches are listed only by their collection. “It’s no longer men who buy watches for women as gifts. Women decide to buy whatever they want,” says Guadalupe.

Hublot x Women’s Football

Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA President & Ricardo Guadalupe, Hublot’s CEO

Over the past few years, women’s football has increased significantly in popularity with US-based data company Nielsen revealing that approximately 314 million people are now interested in the game. It is perhaps no surprise then, that Hublot recently announced its support, becoming the Official Partner of the Women’s EURO 2021. “In the end [football] talks to the consumer. It doesn’t matter that not everyone can afford to buy a luxury watch, if they know Hublot is a watch that’s positive,” says Ricardo Guadalupe. But the partnership works both ways. As Guy-Laurent Epstein, Marketing Director of UEFA Events SA, puts it, Hublot’s presence as a world-famous brand is “proof women’s football can be supported on its own merits”.

Find out more: hublot.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue.

The Princess Yachts’ X95 flybridge

Antony Sheriff has transformed the fortunes of Bernard Arnault’s yachtmaker Princess, creating boats that are stylish, in demand and environmentally innovative, for a new generation of consumer. LUX gets his story

Antony Sheriff

“It’s the sports car of the range. The hull reduces drag by 30 per cent, and it has sports-car-like performance and a Pininfarina design.” Princess Yachts CEO Antony Sheriff is enthusing over a projection of the R35, his company’s cool-looking 35-foot yacht, the latest in a series of innovations he has overseen in what is fast becoming known as the most dynamic yachtmaker in the world.

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“Sometimes,” he says, “if you are doing something new and are innovating, customers don’t know what they want until you give it to them.” Sheriff has been responsible for a number of innovations at the company, which is owned by LVMH-owner Bernard Arnault through his private equity company L Catterton, both on the product side and on partnerships.

The stateroom (above) and exterior of X95 yacht

In 2016 he launched a collaboration with the Marine Conservation Society, aimed at helping clean up ocean plastics, conserve coral and aid the conservation of marine creatures such as turtles. The Italian-American, who in his previous job launched McLaren’s hybrid P1 hypercar as CEO of the company’s road-car division, is disarmingly straight talking. “We are an industry which makes beautiful products, but we haven’t always been that mindful of the effects they have. We wanted to do something quietly to reduce the impact of yachts on the sea.”

He says the impetus has not – yet – come from the market, but from his own initiative. “We are trying to do the right thing and would rather be on the front foot than the back foot. People enjoy yachting because of the beautiful environment, and we need to try and maintain the water in the state we found it in.”

Read more: Chelsea Barracks is redefining London’s garden squares

Sheriff says that, as with cars, the need to innovate for environmental reasons has actually ended up bringing better products to market. He points to the example of the X95, which has up to 40 per cent more space than its predecessor while using 30 per cent less fuel and matching it in performance; and the Y95, another super-slick collaboration with Italian design house Pininfarina, which seems to have taken up its unparalleled design of luxury modes of transport where it left off with Ferrari after the end of a collaboration there spanning decades.

The R35 performance sports yacht

Sheriff is a little scathing about some of the bloated products on offer from other yachtmakers, and adds: “We are putting the elegance and refinement back in yacht design, creating yachts that look like they belong on the ocean.”

Ultimately, though, he says the biggest change during his tenure since 2016 has been the change in the nature of the consumer. “Increasingly people are buying yachts not as status symbols but as places to spend a wonderful time with family and friends. You go on a family vacation in a yacht and it’s the best vacation possible: the kids stay together with you for fantastic family time, they can’t run away to the nightclub, and you get to spend time with each other in private in a beautiful place.” And, if some of the latest Pininfarina designs continue in the same vein, on a beautiful place, too.

Find out more: princessyachts.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue.

Lucy Hargreaves

British-owned business Spiral Cellars designs, makes and installs a range of luxury wine storage options from free-standing cabinets to bespoke wine rooms. Here, Managing Director Lucy Hargreaves shares her tips on choosing the best storage option, and explains why storing wine has become a greater priority for consumers

1. As an investor, what first attracted you to Spiral Cellars?

I started collecting wine when I was in my early 30s. What started out as an occasional case bought on a whim at a wine fair, soon became a more regular habit. I would go on tips to wineries and would send a few cases of my liquid finds back home. Trouble was, I was buying at a greater rate than I was drinking (despite my best efforts …) . The house was beginning to look like a wine merchants with boxes stacked everywhere, so when the opportunity to invest in Spiral Cellars presented itself, it was a no brainer.

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2. How has the company evolved over the years?

In the beginning, we only sold the one product, our eponymous underground Spiral Cellar, but over the years, the range of products we offer has greatly expanded, so much so that we can now proudly claim to offer the broadest range of luxury wine storage on the market. Our portfolio of cellaring solutions now includes state-of-the-art contemporary glass wine walls, more modest yet still elegant freestanding wine cabinets, bespoke wine rooms and of course, our statement underground cellars. With the range of cellaring solutions we offer, we can create storage to suit a wide range of requirements, personal tastes, budgets and available space.

The expansion of our product portfolio was in response to changing customer needs and expectations. Wine storage used to be an after-thought, with bottles hidden away in the bowels of the house. But then, as more of us started to drink higher quality wines, coupled with the growth of home entertaining, wine storage underwent something of a renaissance. Suddenly, cellaring was no longer just a pragmatic storage solution, it became a highly desirable interior feature.

3. What sets your products apart?

Our products are born out of experience. Over the last 40 years, we have installed more than 4,000 cellars in the UK alone and numerous others around the world. It’s fair to say that this has given us a degree of experience and cellaring know-how that is simply unrivalled within the industry. Our clients can enjoy total peace of mind, confident their wine is safely and securely housed in a Spiral Cellar wine room, cabinet, wall or cellar. And as we all know, you can’t put a value on peace of mind.

The company’s original product the Spiral Cellar offers a stylish and space efficient storage option

4. How important is it for your team to be knowledgeable about wine?

Wine cellaring is actually a very complicated business. It’s not easy to create the exacting environmental conditions required to aid wine maturation. Yes it’s important that our wine cellars, rooms, walls and cabinets look beautiful, but more fundamentally, it’s crucial that they provide the ideal environmental conditions in which to store both ready-to-drink wine and bottles that need longer term cellaring. To help our team appreciate the intricacies of wine cellaring, they need to appreciate wine. That’s why it’s a requirement that everyone in the company takes the WSET Level 1 course, the exception being our design team who must sit Level 2. I passionately believe that our designers build better cellars because they truly understand wine.

Read more: View James Turrell’s immersive light installations online at Pace Gallery, London

5. What advice would you give to a client considering a cellar installation?

The golden rule is to start with the wine, rather than the space. Take the time to really ask questions of your collection. What size is it currently? Is it likely to grow over time and at what pace? Will you be looking to store larger or unusually shaped bottles in your cellar? What about cases, spirits, stemware etc? Once the storage parameters have been set, it’s then time to think about the form and style the storage will take, and where it will be located within the home. Clients assume that the latter is an obvious decision, but you would be amazed at the number of times we are approached to design storage to suit a particular space, only for it to be positioned elsewhere having visited the client’s property.

6. What’s your favourite wine to drink at home?

I do have some favourites (you can’t go wrong with a decent Zinfandel), but my real love is trying new wines. I’m lucky to have friends in the industry who have introduced me to some absolute gems over the years. I recently had a bottle of Gaja Barbaresco 2008, a case of which was given to me by a grateful client. It’s by no means an everyday wine, but my goodness, it was special.

Find out more: spiralcellars.co.uk

Set with 50 diamonds, the new limited editions of Spirit of Big Bang are uplifting evolutions of the Swiss brand’s iconic collection

The colourful collection of new limited edition Hublot timepieces features an uplifting pastel palette, alongside some bolder takes on Spring shades. Chloe Frost-Smith selects her favourites

Big Bang Sang Bleu

Continuing the Swiss brand’s collaboration with Maxime Plescia-Büchi, visionary tattoo artist and founder of Sang Bleu studio, the intricate geometrical centrepiece of the Big Bang Sang Bleu is softened by a dusky pink face and matching strap. The option of a gold bezel adds warmth to the design whilst the stainless steel version provides a more classic look.

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Big Bang Sang Bleu with a King Gold bezel

Spirit of Big Bang

For a brighter pop of pink, the Pink Ceramic Diamonds Spirit of Big Bang is as fresh as it is traditionally feminine. Set with 50 diamonds, the delicate design details of this piece include a satin-finished case, and a white rubber and pale pink alligator strap. Also available in light blue, the colour options for this model are both cheerful and calming.

Spirit of Big Bang with two pastel variations and a king gold bezel

Spirit of Big Bang King Gold Rainbow

A sparkling showcase of the full colour spectrum, this vibrant edition features over 400 multi-coloured baguette-cut gemstones which make up the colours of the rainbow, a symbol of joy and optimism. The entire dial of the 39-mm model is covered with sapphires, rubies, topazes, tsavorites and amethysts to achieve the striking display. To complete this uniquely chromatic piece, the seven recognisable colours are also blended on the strap to bring the design full circle.

Read more: Isolation relaxation with Monterey Bay Aquarium’s live jelly cam

Spirit of Big Bang King Gold Rainbow

For more information visit: hublot.com

Watch this space: our upcoming Summer Issue features interviews with Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe alongside Maxime Plescia-Büchi.

Bentley’s third generation Continental has the lot – power, handling, looks, and even a rotating display next to the dashboard

In the third and final of our supercar reviews, LUX sits at the cockpit of another super fast convertible: the Bentley Continental GTC W12

It used to be said that sitting in a Bentley was like sitting in the drawing room of a Downton Abbey-style British country house. Wood panelling, tastefully muted colours, and probably a butler with a silver tray of slightly stale sherry lurking on the back seat.

That market for Bentleys has largely died out, and, under the aegis of its German owners (the Volkswagen group), the august British company has undergone one of the most successful brand transformations in the history of the luxury industry.

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If you doubt that, just sit in the cockpit of the new Bentley Continental GTC. I did, and found myself clutching a thick, two-tone steering wheel in black and cream. All around me were acres of quilted leather, more trapezoids than I could care to count, on the seats, and inside the doors. Above the leather on the doors, black lacquered piano would give it an oriental feel, above which was beautifully burnished British walnut wood. The fusion of colours and textures extended across the whole interior, and in between me and my passenger was the most lavish centre console I have ever come across, bursting with polished buttons, dials, and traditional looking air vents; all is as beautifully put together as a Swiss watch.

The positioning of this car is perfect: to the new generation of young, swanky drivers, as likely to be wearing a Hublot or Richard Mille as a Patek Philippe the previous generation has taken care of for you, it looks contemporary, super chic, but still has a nod to its heritage.

And to those who have always driven Bentleys – hey, what’s not to like?

We drove the top-of-the-range 12-cylinder convertible version, and the roof zips down in a few seconds leaving you and up to three passengers exposed to the sea breeze in Malibu, Monaco, Mayfair, Macau or wherever. The car sounds wonderful, in a deep, long, slightly rheumy way: it’s somewhere in between being fierce, like a Ferrari, and silent, like a Mercedes.

Click the switch into comfort mode and it lopes along happily, but move the dial into sport mode and the car tightens up and feels like it really wants to go and play. This is a big, heavy, powerful car, not a sports car, but it is immensely fun to drive. It changes direction faithfully – better than its predecessors, which always felt a little bit heavy – communicates well, flies along as it gets going, and is generally a hoot.

Along very tight, twisty country lanes – ironically, down which many traditional Bentley owners will live – you do start to feel its size, and width. But that’s part of the Bentley experience, as you imperiously wave at other vehicles to get out of your road.

Read more: Behind the wheel of the world’s most powerful supercars part two

On more open roads, it feels perfect, wailing its way up through its revs, always smooth, never harsh or unsettled. Its four-wheel drive ensures you always feel safe, and can power out the roundabouts, even wet ones, at comical speeds. And in a straight line, it never slows down. With a top speed of over 200mph, this is the fastest convertible in the world. Just warn your passenger not to get an expensive hair makeover before you try that.

But like any Bentley, its beauty is that it is not just here to be driven hard. You can spend your life pootling around and still enjoy the car’s many assets, most notably its beautifully appointed interior, its general presence and feel. It’s as easy to drive in town as it is down the highway – particularly if you don’t live in a town with very narrow streets. The only minor flaw we could find was that very wide centre console with all its gadgets impinged slightly on knee room for the driver and the passenger. But that just made it feel even more like sitting in the first-class seat of an international airline. Not that most owners would know what that feels like – and the Continental’s interior quality is certainly up to private jet level. We like. A lot.

LUX Rating: 18.5/20

Find out more: bentleymotors.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue.

The creations of quintessentially Parisian jewellery maker Chaumet may have been fit for an empress in the late 18th century when the company was founded. But the jeweller aspires to be equally at home with the modern woman around the world. CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt tells Irene Bellucci how they make the new out of the old

Jean-Marc Mansvelt

“For me, luxury is about craftsmanship and excellence. But it’s more than functionality – it’s also about emotion. And luxury transcends fashion, too; it takes time to invent, create and make.

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“Chaumet’s founder Marie-Etienne Nitot trained under the jeweller to Marie Antoinette, and after the Revolution became Napoleon Bonaparte’s official jeweller in 1805. This led to numerous commissions from the great and the good, including jewels for Empress Joséphine, after whom one of our most iconic collections is named. The brand’s tiaras went on to be worn by queens and rulers across the globe.

Laurel Leaf Tiara by Joseph Chaumet (1920)

“Yet, our history isn’t enough to sustain us in the 21st century; consumers’ tastes have changed as has the function of jewellery itself. Nowadays, a tiara is not really worn beyond special and rare occasions, so in 2010 we reinvented them by moving them from head to finger for our Joséphine ring collection. Once they were crowns expressing power, but now we have brought them into the modern era in a more delicate and wearable form.

“But not all of our pieces are reinventions. We try to mix tradition and contemporary art; we also like to look to the world of music for ideas. In referring just to the past, the risk is that we will repeat ourselves – we need to inject new elements into the process.”

View the collections: chaumet.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue

Cara Delevinge stars the ‘Oui’ collection campaign for Dior Joaillerie

Dior Jewellery’s Creative Director Victoire de Castellane continues to take inspiration from the language of love for the brand’s latest additions to the Oui collection. Chloe Frost Smith reports

Simple in sentiment and design, the latest additions to the iconic Dior Oui collection continue Victoire de Castellane’s tribute to the maison’s couture with two new romantic French phrases – Je t’aime and Toi moi – adorning a series of rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets.

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The Toi moi earrings

Available in white, pink, and yellow gold, the letters ‘i’ and ‘j’ are dotted with solitaire diamonds in a whimsical handwritten font reminiscent of the signature Christian Dior stitching. The Je t’aime ring stretches across two adjacent fingers, whilst the Toi moi ring comprises two separate bands for each word. For an asymmetrical look, the Je t’aime and Toi moi earrings are made up of one word per piercing, allowing the wearer to mix and match.

The Je t’aime ring from Dior Jewellery’s Oui collection

The delicate necklaces and bracelets lend well to layering, alongside the finely threaded rings which can be stacked together with multiple messages on each finger. Whether combined or worn separately, the pieces make for an elegant statement accessory.

View the collection: dior.com

Commissions by Audemars Piguet include Ryoji Ikeda’s Data-Verse (2019)

Olivia Giuntini is brand director at family-owned Swiss watch manufacturer Audemars Piguet, known for its thoughtful artistic collaborations. LUX travels to meet her at their HQ high in the Jura mountains to talk about art, fish and why women don’t just want diamonds

Olivia Giuntini

LUX: So many brands are partnering with artists now. What makes you different?
Olivia Giuntini: We always want to push boundaries and pursue our own path with a free spirit. When we meet artists, we definitely see who has this spirit and who has not. For example, Ryoji Ikeda was not part of the plan historically, but we met him a few years ago. Some discussions happened and we finally met again two years ago and that’s the moment when he proposed his three-part audio-visual installation Data-Verse [the first part of which was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2019], and, we said, “Yes this is the right moment to do it”. But Ryoji is an artist unlike any other. He is a musician and composer, and he is also somebody who uses open data that is accessible to anybody. This accords with what struck me when I first met him – his work is dedicated to making sure that people don’t use their brains first so much as their emotions. He is a kind of free spirit, which is something that definitely links us. It’s about sharing common values. Jana Winderen is another example. She came here and made music from the sounds of our village of Le Brassus. She always wants to raise the awareness of sustainability, so she went onto the lake here to record those fish that nobody can hear and composed music from that.

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LUX: Did you have any idea what the artist was going to do when you first spoke?
Olivia Giuntini: Composing music from the sounds of Le Brassus certainly wasn’t the brief. Not at all. We met her and she came back and said what she wanted to do. So we found a fisherman who was
prepared to spend hours on the lake with her so she could make the recordings.

LUX: Audemars is a fascinating family-owned company. Your chairwoman Jasmine Audemars, for example, was a campaigning journalist and edited the Journal de Genève.
Olivia Giuntini: We have really interesting discussions on the board. Of course, we still have to keep on building a future for Audemars Piguet that stays true to the founder’s vision. What Jasmine said to François-Henry [Bennahmias, the company’s CEO] when he was appointed seven years ago was, “I would like more people to know more about who we are. I would like people to respect us as we are.” And that’s what we need to do with this brand beyond the selling of watches and the crafting of amazing gardes-temps.

LUX: And are you looking to strengthen your relations with your existing collectors?
Olivia Giuntini: It’s funny, because if you talked to Michael Friedman, who is our head of complication, he will tell you there are no collectors in the world. But I agree with you – we do have collectors and we want to strengthen the relationship with them. We want to open other minds, too, such as women’s – I’m sure we’re not on their radar.

Dan Holdsworth’s Continuous Topography (2016) was also commissioned by Audemars Piguet

Read more: Tailor to A-listers Nigel Curtiss on designing identity

LUX: Why is that?
Olivia Giuntini: Because everything has been done instinctively within AP and, apart from Jasmine,
this has been driven by men. The fact that I’m here today and that we want to recruit more women into top management is because we believe that we need to have a different angle. We sell 30 per cent of our collection to women. But it’s not just a question of figures; it’s about being more visible to women who don’t know us because we’ve been a kind of masculine brand.

The new Frosted Gold Philosophique watch from the Millenary collection

LUX: Have watches always been considered male and a bit geeky?
Olivia Giuntini: Watches designed for women have been more like jewellery. And I’m constantly saying to men: don’t think that women are always looking only for diamonds. It’s not true. And I think that Audemars Piguet has a legitimacy there, in a field where we can offer female clients different kinds of finishes that are attractive and sophisticated. I’m convinced that many women are really interested in movements, but, honestly, it’s been a world driven by men and their preconceptions of women. It’s beginning to change, and we have a role there.

LUX: Is the aesthetic of the watch more important to women?
Olivia Giuntini: Of course, in a way. But I think that men are convinced that, for women, a diamond is more important than a movement. And I’m sure they’re wrong.

Find out more: audemarspiguet.com

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 Issue.

The RM 11-04 Automatic Flyback Chronograph Roberto Mancini has been designed to celebrate the heritage of Italian football

Richard Mille’s latest timepiece has been designed in collaboration with Italy’s football team manager Roberto Mancini to celebrate the sport’s heritage. Here, Chloe Frost-Smith marvels at the timepiece’s unique design features

Designed with football fanatics in mind by the Italian national team’s manager, the RM 11-04 Automatic Flyback Chronograph Roberto Mancini makes complicated look cool, with a dedicated dial for tracking half-time, extra time and overtime.

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Set in the  patriotic colour palette of Il Tricolore alongside the recognisable blue belonging to the Squadra Azzurra, there are hints of Italian footballing heritage throughout the design. The timepiece uses a rotor with variable geometry, allowing it to be easily adapted to suit the wearer’s activity levels – you simply adjust the setting of the rib’s placement for the rotor to either speed up when worn at leisure, or slow down in moments of the highest movement.

Roberto Mancini wearing the RM 11-04 Automatic Flyback Chronograph

Displaying match time on the basis of two 45-minute halves and up to 15 minutes of stoppage time, the pusher can be pressed at 4 o’clock to actuate the fly-back function which repositions the hand at 12 o’clock, ready to start the second half. Should extra time be awarded, the fly-back can also be reactivated to reflect these additional minutes ensuring the wearer never loses track.

The watch can be easily adapted to suit the wearer’s activity levels

But the watch isn’t just for football fans. Encased in the almost indestructible Carbon TPT and water-resistant to 50 metres, the RM 11-04 is set for the most extreme of adventures.

For more information visit: richardmille.com

Number 16 Clifford Street in Mayfair, Cifonelli’s new residence

One of Paris’ most illustrious tailoring houses has opened the doors to its a new London boutique. LUX takes a look inside

It’s not often mannequins are intimidating, but the three standing in the shopfront windows of Number 16 Clifford Street are enough to make most men question their wardrobe. This is the new London residence of Cifonelli, a tailoring house renowned for its distinctive details and sharp lines. Karl Lagerfeld was famously quoted as exclaiming that he “could recognise a Cifonelli shoulder from a distance of a hundred metres.”

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The brand was established in Rome in 1880 by Giuseppe Cifonelli before settling in Paris via a short stint in London, and now it’s back in Britain’s capital with fourth-generation cousins Lorenzo and Massimo at the helm.

Cifonelli’s boutique has been designed to offer clients a space to relax and shop

Read more: Truffle making & Michelin-star dining at St. James’s Hotel & Club

On a wintery evening earlier this month, LUX joined a crowd of handsomely dressed men to celebrate the opening with a glass or two of champagne, and dancing to tunes from the in-house DJ. Not the kind of scene you’d necessarily expect from a traditional tailors, but Cifonelli despite its heritage remains very much on the pulse.

The shop itself, for example, is luxurious, but welcoming with plush velvet seats and flattering lighting, the idea being that customers can come in to relax as well as buy. It’s well worth a visit, if only to admire those well-dressed mannequins.

For more information visit: cifonelli.com

Bulgari Resort Dubai is located on the white sandy beaches of Jumeira Bay

Why should I go now?

Still dreaming of that perfect glass of chilled Puligny-Montrachet at sunset on the beach? Keep your memories of those warm summer nights alive, by heading over to Dubai, where the perfect season to visit is just beginning. From around November to March, temperatures come off the searing heat of summer months, so don’t pack away those shorts and sandals yet.

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The city has an over-achieving buzz about it that always bring you back to experience something new. Straight off visiting the top of the Burj Khalifa, we were swiftly introduced to a model construction of the Creek Tower, which will stand at 1.3 kilometres high, surpassing the current tallest skyscraper by 472 meters. The new addition to Dubai’s iconic skyline is projected to be completed in time for the World Expo in 2020.

What’s the lowdown?

If walking through a hall of a hundred doors to get to your room puts you off, Bulgari is the luxury boutique answer to your fear of mega hotels in Dubai. It is a 20 minute drive from the airport, on the seahorse-shaped white sandy beached island of Jumeira Bay, the latest addition to the Bulgari Hotels and Resorts collection comprising six properties in five different countries.

Here, you get the opulent and glamorous experience that Dubai is famous for, without the garishness and glitz. The coral-influenced panel design of the exterior structure coincidentally looked a lot like melted parmesan crisps, perfectly exemplifying the brand’s philosophy of blending their Italian heritage with the region’s maritime influence.

The resort’s main swimming pool sits just above the ocean

From the lobby to the rooms, one could easily mistake oneself to be at the annual Salone del Mobile in Milan. Recognisable signature designs of top Italian furniture brands (Flos, B&B Italia, Poliform, Rimadesio – to name a few) will definitely inspire you to add a few new pieces to your own home. Throughout the resort’s walls, you are reminded of Bulgari’s 130 year legacy with glamorous photography and design sketches of the brand’s timeless jewellery and the famous people they adorned.

Read more: The luxury concierge company that provides the perfect holiday wardrobe

Should the weather get too hot to go outdoors, and it often does, the spa also offers one of the longest and most impressive indoor swimming pools in Dubai complete with private relaxation cabanas. Yes, fly to the sun, and sit indoors. Wise, as the locals know.

Getting horizontal

We stayed in a two-bedroom family villa, which can be best described by one word: home. The moment we arrived, we were greeted at the door by our personal butler, catering to our every need. As we enjoyed fresh fruits, house-made chocolates, dates, and Amaretti biscuits, our butler helped to unpack our luggage. We loved the spacious living area furnished with a large leather sofa of rich mocha, and almond nougat-coloured marble tables. Most of our family time and meals were spent there, where they even set up a cute tent filled with toys and activities for our children.

Here and above: one of the resort’s luxurious beach villas with a spacious living room

Given the exclusive, honeymoon vibe of the resort, it’s surprisingly kid-friendly with an all day Kids Club which even features a shallow plunge pool. If it’s too hot to relax on the beach, each villa has a personal pool, which we found perfect for a refreshing dip after our indulgent breakfasts. Our ever-present butler made sure that we were comfortably cool with Bulgari-branded fresh coconuts, sorbet popsicles, and ice cream-filled mochi. Needless to say, we found ourselves always looking forward to going back “home” to the comforts of our little retreat after a long day out.

Anything else?

If you stay at a villa, try the private barbecue dinner with a personal chef. We had lobster, sea bass, and wagyu steaks straight off our own sizzling grill, with no danger of the husband donning his chef’s whites and making like a BBQ cook-off king. Trust us: there’s nothing like being able to walk just ten steps back to your bedroom after an amazing dinner that puts you in a food coma. Don’t worry, you’ll work it off the next day with a serious cardio session of shopping at Dubai Mall.

The resort’s intimate Japanese restaurant Hoseki

And before you leave, do leave yourself in the hands of Chef Masahiro Sugiyama at resident Japanese restaurant, Hoseki, meaning “ Gem Stone” in Japanese. This sleek and modern restaurant with just 9 seats has a perfect view of Dubai’s glittering skyline and serves only an Omakase menu. You’ll get intimate with Chef Sugiyama who comes from 6 generations of sushi chefs before him. As he serves curated sushi, he explains in detail how each ingredient, all flown in fresh from Tokyo, comes into perfect harmony on your palate. Here, you can truly just sit back, relax and sip on a cup of ice-cold Junmai Daigin Jyo sake. Make sure to book ahead.

Rates: From 2,000 AED for an entry-level room during low season (approx. £400/€500/ $550)

Book your stay: bulgarihotels.com

Emily Lee

Actor Steve McQueen wearing TAG Heuer’s first Monaco timepiece in the 1971 film Le Mans

TAG Heuer is celebrating the anniversary of its Monaco timepiece with a series of limited editions. Chloe Frost-Smith takes a closer look at the collection

Originally debuted as the world’s first water-resistant square cased chronograph in 1969 and made famous by Steve McQueen in the 1971 film Le Mans, the TAG Heuer Monaco celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with a series of five limited editions each alluding to a different decade in the iconic watch’s history as well as two additional timepieces featuring an entirely new in-house movement.

The 1969-1979 edition

Each timepiece is engraved with the brand’s original logo and features the Calibre 11, a modernised version of the first Monaco’s innovative self-winding chronograph movement, alongside a perforated leather strap which creates an automotive look and feel. The seventies edition, however, is the only watch in the collection to feature a brown leather strap, with a textured green Côtes de Genève dial accented with brown and amber touches.

TAG Heuer Monaco 1969-1979 edition with a brown leather strap

The 1979-1989 edition

The 1980s-inspired timepiece is instantly recognisable for its racing red on the watch face and stitching, strikingly set against black and silver detailing. It’s a classic colour combination for motorsport aficionados.

The 1979-1989 edition with a racing red watch face

The 1989-1999 edition

More traditionally Heuer Monaco in appearance, navy and red dominate the overall design of this timepiece whilst the grained, rhodium-plated silver-grey dial adds a contemporary edge.

The 1989-1999 edition follows TAH Heuer’s traditional Monaco colour palette

The 1999-2009 edition

Finished in an understated monochromatic scheme with flashes of red on the hands and markers, the 2000s edition is distinguishable by the white circular index which stands out against the black watch face, complemented by the black strap with white lining.

The monochrome 1999-2009 edition

The 2009-2019 edition

The latest watch in the series is simple yet sleek with a minimalistic approach to the most recent decade, incorporating an unconventional sandblasted stainless-steel case and polished pushers. The charcoal-coloured sun-ray dial is adorned with black-gold-plated indexes, in keeping with the black lining and grey stitching on the strap.

The sleek and contemporary 2009-2019 edition

The 02 edition

Sporting a blue sun-ray brushed dial, silver opaline counters, and a navy blue alligator strap, this edition is set apart from the rest of the series as the first Heuer Monaco timepiece to feature the Swiss brand’s most advanced calibre movement.

The 02 edition features an advanced calibre movement

The Calibre 12 Final edition

Completing the collection with a classic palette of black, white, and red, the final edition features a unique brushed ruthenium dial which allows the watch face to change colour in different lights.

The Calibre 12 Final edition changes colour according to the light

For more information visit: tagheuer.com

Photograph by Mattia Aquila

Launching our new insider guide feature, Italian designer Alberta Ferretti reveals her favourite spots in her hometown Cattolica – as well as a few from further afield. 

My favourite view…

The view of the sea from my town, especially from above, gives me energy; it recharges, relaxes and regenerates me. Gazing at the horizon leaves me with a sense of freedom, which inspires me to follow my imagination. Living in a city by the sea gives me a freedom of thought, an openness to travelling and visiting other places, observing and studying other cultures. From this, my collections are born, the sense of lightness that I bring to my fashion: the lines and volume of the clothing, as well as the colours and fabrics.

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Dining spots to die for…

Wherever there is an open terrace overlooking a beautiful landscape: at the sea, in the mountains, in the city. The terrace of the Gente di Mare restaurant in Cattolica, where you can watch the bay. The tables in front of the large windows of the Hakkasan restaurant in Shanghai, when the Bund shines with sensual lighting.

Where I escape to…

San Bartolo Nature Park [just south of Cattolica].

I am at one with nature in…

My home! I am fortunate to live in a house built in a mature park. Our relationship with nature
is fundamental and I get to experience it daily. Every season changes the shapes, the colours, the smells – from the flowering of the trees and the lawn to the movement of the animals that populate it. For me they are sounds and images that mark time as a melody and make it an enchanted place. New York’s Central Park also fascinates me with its many private corners with wonderful villas and shelters.

Read more: ‘Extremis’ by Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar opens at Setareh Gallery

The perfect weekend brunch is…

Wherever there are my favourite local dishes, such us tagliolini with cuttlefish ink salmon and cream of ricotta acidified with lime.

Worth a detour…

Montegridolfo, a small village in the mountains nearby, with a palace that I renovated together with my brother Massimo in the 1990s. The village has a lot of history.

LUX met Alberta Ferretti during the presentation of her Resort 2020 collection at Monte Carlo Fashion Week. View the brand’s collections: albertaferretti.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue.

Philipp Plein at his Resort show during the Cannes Film Festival in 2018

Philipp Plein is the partying designer for the Monaco private-jet set, who has also retained his status among fashion’s elite. Harriet Quick meets a man with a keen business brain and the unashamedly alpha swagger of a self-made global entrepreneur

“I can remember going to Salone del Mobile for the launch of my furniture line. I rented a truck and drove to Milan with my former girlfriend. We set up the booth ourselves and we slept in a motel. It turned out the motel was also operating as a brothel. Each morning, we had to leave the room empty as it was booked for ‘use’,” says Philipp Plein. “We had dinner at the Autogrill on the highway every night. It was all we could afford.” Plein’s first foray in the business of design was more than 20 years ago and the memory has a fuzzy, sleazy halo.

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A model in Philipp Plein AW19

Today, the Philipp Plein empire encompasses menswear and womenswear collections, accessories, Philipp Plein Sport and 120 stores worldwide (some lease, others franchise), plus the menswear brand, Billionaire (a majority stake of which was purchased from Formula One managing director Flavio Briatore in 2016; it caters for gentlemen who prefer blazers to leather perfectos). It’s been reported that the group generates annual revenues of around €300 million.

As founder, CEO and creative director, Plein exudes the pride of a self-made man. The extrovert alpha male/female personality of his eponymous brand has earned legions of fans who are not in accord with the prissy propriety of high fashion. The stores (on the rue de Rivoli in Paris, London’s Bond Street, Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona and Soho in New York City) gleam with steel and shiny leather, embellished with Swarovski crystals. Mannequins feature six packs that spell machismo, and everything is dosed in irony.

A model backstage at Plein’s AW19 show in New York.

“The experience of building a business from scratch makes you really appreciate things,” says Plein of his trajectory from nobody to head of a fashion empire with 1.7 million Instagram followers. “Nothing was a ‘given’ or ‘easy.’ What people forget when they see the stars of today are the years of dedication and sacrifice. People suffer to reach certain goals.” He doesn’t go into the sacrifices he made, yet it is blatantly clear that Plein, who has an art gallery of tattoos on his considerable biceps, is an ‘all over everything’ workaholic. “I don’t get dropped, I drop the best sh*t in the game – on to the next one,” reads an Instagram post on 3 May 2019, with an image of a female model wearing fantasia eye make- up and a knockout crystal embellished body suit. Ahead of the Met Gala Camp: Notes on Fashion extravaganza, it was decidedly timely.

Read more: Gaggenau’s latest initiative to support emerging artisans

The Munich-born entrepreneur (son of a heart surgeon) possesses a fiery cocktail of Italian flare and Teutonic discipline. He launched into the design business creating sleek stainless-steel beds for dogs and then furniture for humans (he still owns 50% of the small steel factory that made his range) and went on to launch a line of upmarket objets and trophy tables with leather inlays. Dog owners from Miami to Zurich fell in love with the designer pet accessories and via that venture, the young Plein received an on-the- job education in the tastes and materialistic whimsies of the super-wealthy.

The Philipp Plein AW19 catwalk show in Milan

Christian Combs and Breah Hicks at the opening of a new Philipp Plein store in NYC

Philipp Plein the label had planted its roots. Next came the Swarovski crystal-skull- embellished military jackets. They sold from rails at furniture trade shows. That led to an apparel collection featuring more leather, shredded jeans, diva dresses and mini skirts with the kind of proportions, detailing and quality (the collection is made in small Italian factories) that made them several cuts above the average rock ’n’ roll cliché. The collections’ fun- loving rebelliousness appealed to a generation of pop stars, moguls and party kids. Jasmine di Milo, Mohamed Al Fayed’s daughter, was one of Plein’s first customers and bought the line for her mini in-store boutique at Harrods.

“I started marketing the brand into Europe – Germany first and Italy, France and the UK followed,” says Plein. “In the mid oughts, we entered the Russian market and then China. It was a wholesale brand and we went to all the major trade shows.” On early trips to New York’s Coterie show, even his teenage sister came along for the work/vacay ride.

Socialites and celebrities gathered for the opening of the new Philipp Plein store in New York in 2018

The Plein lifestyle – fast cars, nightclubs, champagne, sex – proved a lure. While the level of flash made the arbiters of taste wince, no one could deny the coherence and the quality. This was the era of kick-ass disruption. Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo were turning Chloé into a ‘girl power’ brand, Alexander McQueen was confounding the world with his fusion of romantic beauty with punkish violence while Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga was reviving the moribund house with his electric hybrid mix of futurism, utility and armour.

Through these players, the luxury fashion world was reignited with guts and creative daring. The trajectory was bigger, higher (remember those teetering platform heels?) and in the case of Tom Ford’s Gucci, ever sexier renditions of slinky jersey dresses and low-cut blouses. Plein, who dubbed himself a heroic outsider, was astutely aiming in on the person who did not like concepts and intellectual leanings. In this decade, while fashion trends have leant away from flash and excess, Plein has kept to his groove and it’s paid off. A slew of openings (the majority are franchised stores) followed, aligned with blockbuster shows starting in 2010 and a bonanza of parties.

Do a Google Image search for Plein, and you will be blasted with a showcase of fantastical show sets and extravagance featuring hip-hop stars, racing drivers, sports champs and endless hot models – male and female – living it up to the extremes of camp and bling. The vision was epic and the investment huge. He hired British set designer Simon Costin (the mastermind behind Alexander McQueen’s early shows) and drafted in performers (yes, Snoop Dogg, Rita Ora, Chris Brown) to realise the brand fantasy. A fun park with a rollercoaster, the Harlem Globetrotters, a monster truck crashing into cars – it was all about ‘action’. The brand outbid itself season after season with show costs reaching into the millions.

Plein has homes around the world, including his Manhattan penthouse and La Jungle du Roi villa in Cannes

Plein was not an outlier – it was a period of extravagance. The fashion industry in the late oughts valued spectacle, which, via live streaming and nascent social media platforms, could be viewed across the globe. Tom Ford at Saint Laurent showed in giant black Perspex boxes in the gardens of the Musée Rodin; Louis Vuitton under Marc Jacobs created visions of Paris with moving lifts modelled on the Ritz hotel. Chanel spearheaded the interactive, hyper-reality set with a supermarket, a rocket launch pad and a casino at the Grand Palais. The ‘immersive’ experience was born and Plein wanted to spoil his guests with the outlandish best.

The Billionaire AW19 catwalk show in Milan

Sustainability issues, questions of timing and seasons have somewhat tempered the phenomena of the blockbuster show. Louis Vuitton presented its Cruise 2020 collection at the TWA terminal at JFK (now a design gem hotel) with a note that the plants used for the relatively simple décor would be redistributed or turned into compost. Excess and ‘waste’ is not in fashion. Powerhouses are acutely aware that we are seeking diverse indie and often ecologically minded activities, at least in the West.

Some brands are scaling down, while others are changing formats, taking the show on the road and off the traditional Paris, London, New York axis. The Philipp Plein show now is a relatively plain production that concentrates on the clothes. “We staged the last ‘big’ show in Brooklyn and invited 4,000 people,” says Plein. “From that moment on, I thought: ‘I don’t always want to give people what they expect.’ I want to focus on in-store events and see the investment showing up in sales,” he says. “We are a big player online, with €55million in sales, and this does not include channels such as Farfetch. But we believe in offline stores – you need to be successful in both. While more and more people might be consuming online, we still need to dream the dream, enter stores and touch the product. It’s an omni-channel solution.”

World champion boxer Vasyl Lomachenko is the face of Billionaire

While the old school and economy of fashion relied on editor diktats and designer worship, Plein sees the power pass to the consumers, who, via social media, exert influence and opine endlessly. “The consumer is much more powerful than the medium itself: choosing what information to consume, where to find the information and who to follow or unfollow. It’s much more democratic. In the past, we were able to ‘control’ the consumer, now the consumer ‘controls’ us,” concludes Plein.

Read more: At home with minimalist architect John Pawson

On Instagram, Plein is a dynamic, flashy act to follow, allowing access into his personal world. You’ll find him with his feet up in his marble and glass New York penthouse watching The Rolling Stones; in a helicopter with his five-year-old son flying across the Hudson River; or on-site overseeing the build of an Italianate mansion. One of his favourite photo- op situations is in the vicinity of premium cars. His brand recently collaborated with Mansory on a limited-edition series of ‘Star Trooper’ Mercedes G63 vehicles, for €500,000 each.

He looks fit (running six km a day), full of pluck and at the same time, with his cropped hair, stubble and brown eyes, approachable. He calls himself an “old-school guy” – he likes cars, women, the trappings that wealth can buy, sleek modernity and shiny surfaces. He does not smoke and rarely drinks. His vice is Red Bull. “I want to live a long time,” he adds. For all the wild projections, Plein is ultimately tidy. He has his son, who lives with his mother in Brazil. “He has a happy, normal life,” says Plein of his little boy. “Of course, he enters into my world and he is privileged in the sense that he can enjoy both points of view. As parents, we have a big obligation to our children – and how influential we are towards to them. They are born pure and what that child discovers and experiences, builds character and establishes a value system. It is a base that they will then develop themselves.”

As for kicking up his own feet, Plein – who is now in his forties – is dubious. He has weighed up the option of selling his business, but this would mean giving up a majority stake. “My father told me: ‘Money is an obligation. What would you do with this money? If you don’t know, then don’t sell.’ I think I have mastered my own industry – I don’t know anything else and I am not in need of money right now,” he concludes.

Where the brand ego stops and the real Philipp Plein actually starts is hard to gauge. You can’t imagine him seeking an alter-ego life with a rustic cabana and a plot of agave plants in Mexico. “It’s difficult for me,” he says. “I have grown into the brand and the brand became part of my own life and reflects pretty much my lifestyle. You don’t have too many designers who have a namesake brand anymore,” he says.

Plus, future ventures including scent (the men’s cologne, devised by famed ‘nose’ Alberto Morillas is launching this year) and cosmetics, depend on his presence. Earlier this year, he put in a bid in for the failing Roberto Cavalli brand, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy and now seems irretrievable, not a ‘renovation’ investment. “I look at fashion like a sport,” says Plein. “If you want to perform in any industry you have to be mentally fit and able to deliver results, and you are always under pressure,” he says. “Designers are drafted in like soccer players.” He admits that he does not have a lot to say on sustainability issues (gen up quick), but is happy that his manufacturing is Europe- based and small-factory led.

The exotic leathers might be on the way out and times might be turbulent, but Plein’s view on luxury remains constant. “We give people unnecessary things that no one needs, but everyone wants.”

View the designer’s collections: plein.com

This article was originally published in the Autumn 19 Issue.

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.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

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.

“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.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

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

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.

This weekend Hublot’s high altitude polo tournament returns to the Swiss resort of Gstaad

Gstaad annually plays host to the world’s ‘highest’ polo tournament, Hublot’s prestigious Polo Gold Cup in which four world-class teams battle it out for the winning prize of Hublot’s Big Bang Steel Ceramic watches. This year will see Clinique La Prairie, Gstaad Palace and Hublot‘s teams try to overthrow last year’s victorious captain Cédric Schweri (the Swiss restaurateur) and his Banque Eric Sturdza team who have been unbeatable since 2017.

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Meanwhile, spectators will celebrate in style sipping at glasses of champagne or bottles of bottom-fermented Swiss beer against the backdrop of the snow-capped Alps. For VIPs, there’s the Gala Night dinner, and exclusive closing lunch, followed by the finale and an afternoon prize-giving ceremony hosted by LVMH watches CEO (and LUX columnist) Jean-Claude Biver.

All photography by Kathrin Gralla at the 2018 tournament

The Hublot Polo Gold Cup runs from 22 -25 August 2019. For more information visit: polo-gstaad.ch

Model and founder of Metizo chocolate, Avril Guerrero. Instagram: @_avril_guerrero

LUX contributing editor and model at Models 1, Charlie Newman continues her online exclusive series, interviewing her peers about their creative pursuits, passions and politics

Charlie Newman

THIS MONTH: Having already modelled for twelve years, Avril Guerrero has enjoyed a longer career than most. She has appeared in campaigns for the likes of Victoria’s Secret, Moët, Uniqlo, Avon and Garnier, and has recently launched her own organic chocolate company Metizo. Here, she chats to Charlie about the lessons she’s learned from the fashion industry, running a start-up and tackling issues of sustainability.

Charlie Newman: Firstly, please can you tell us about your childhood and your journey into modelling?
Avril Guerrero: I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic until I left to work in New York aged 16. I went to New York literally the day after my high school graduation never to live in the Dominican Republic  again. I got into modelling through my cousin who was an actor at the time at home. He put me in contact with my first mother agent in the Dominican Republic, who then put me in contact with US agencies who I later signed with. I was with MC squared for 10 years, they were like the family to me. They were the perfect agency to start my career with and now I’ve moved to Fusion, who I signed with about two years ago.

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Charlie Newman: How did you find moving to New York?
Avril Guerrero: The contrast was huge. Honestly, I think there’s something about being so young, you don’t think about things so much. It wasn’t as big a cultural shock as you would expect. If I had to do that again now, it would probably be a much bigger shock, but at the time it just felt right, it was so much fun! The funny thing was that I didn’t even speak English! But it was great because I was so bubbly, thinking back I was just smiling all the time. It was impossible to book me a job where I wasn’t smiling, I wouldn’t have known what to do! I don’t really remember being particularly anxious or nervous.

Charlie Newman: Were you always interested in fashion?
Avril Guerrero: My family aren’t into fashion at all, they’re far more focussed on sports. In fact, all of my aunts on my dad’s side are basketball players, two of which are in the hall of fame in the Dominican Republic for basketball! Fashion wasn’t necessarily something I was seeking, it just happened.

Instagram: @_avril_guerrero

Charlie Newman: What have been your career highlights so far?
Avril Guerrero: I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t really know. I feel like I’ve had an extremely steady career. I’ve never had that career where you’re suddenly thrust into the spotlight with one big job. I’ve had a very progressive career always in more commercial realms. In Paris I do mostly beauty and luxury jobs, but in New York more consistent commercial work. Never a big boom which is good because it’s been progressive and never gone down, well not yet!

Charlie Newman: What advice would you give to any young aspiring models?
Avril Guerrero: Models need to be smart in the sense that it is important to know that this job isn’t going to last forever. The one thing I’ve seen in common with a lot of younger girls is that they don’t understand that this is such an unreliable career and whilst it may go on for as long as mine has, I have to be honest that I don’t see the same girls now as to when I first started working. Also you have to know your purpose: why are you doing this job? For me modelling is a mean to get financial security and is an opportunity for me to travel the world, but that doesn’t have to be the same for everyone, we all have different ambitions. I think it important to be clear about what you want from this job.

Charlie Newman: What has modelling taught you about yourself?
Avril Guerrero: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. To do something for 12 years, has made me think: wait, what have I actually done in all that time? The one thing that modelling has taught me so much is my own strength. It’s shined a light on the capacity of my strength to be self sufficient because I have to travel so much and be alone in all sorts of places, and [it takes strength] to be thrust into so many new places at such a young age. It really takes everything you’ve got, not to just get through them, but also to learn. Modelling has definitely made me a stronger person, purely by being so exposed.

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

Guerrero’s chocolate brand Metizo

Charlie Newman: How did your organic chocolate company Metizo come about?
Avril Guerrero: My father is an agriculturalist in Dominican Republic and my grandfather had a big farm, which grew cacao and coffee. When my grandfather died around 12 years ago, my family didn’t want to have to deal with the farm anymore because it was a lot of work so thought about selling it, but I really didn’t want them to. Somehow I managed to convince my boyfriend and myself to buy this big farm in the Dominican Republic even though we’re based in Paris and in New York!

We both love cacao and chocolate, and he already works in the wine industry so we decided to use our tools and experience by launching a chocolate company – it’s brilliant! We’ve had the farm for three years now, where we employ three people full time and then during harvest season between 15 to 20 people depending on the yield that year. Then in Paris it’s just my boyfriend and me! We have a library of 15 flavours that we have mastered, but at the moment we are only producing four of them. It’s mostly dark chocolate and for now, we only do direct sales through pop-up shops, online and private events. We also offer classes called ‘bean to bar’ where we teach everyone about the whole process and give them the opportunity to make their own bar.

Charlie Newman: What has it been like setting up your own company?
Avril Guerrero: Extremely challenging, especially because we’re trying to manage people who live in a different country and in a different culture. I might have grown up in the Dominican Republic, but I grew older in New York and in Europe. As a result, I think my mindset is no longer in tune with the in the Dominican Republic, when it comes to business at least. So it’s a lot about learning how to convey your message and maybe even learn how to bend the rules a little, and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. There’s a really interesting power dynamic between how to give and how to retain power in order to make things work. So it’s been a big challenge, but to be honest it’s been amazing because I’ve learnt so much about communicational skills as well as about the entire production.

We have complete control over our supply chain which means we can intervene at any moment. I’ve learnt everything about the whole supply chain: how to work the soil, what colour the cacao needs to be, the chemistry behind the fermentation process and how to transport my Dominican Republic bean all the way to France. We harvest and do some post-harvest processes in the Dominican Republic like the fermentation and the drying process of the beans and then the chocolate part of it is based in Paris.

Read more: London to Cornwall in a luxury Mercedes-Benz camper van

Charlie Newman: Is it a sustainable product and business?
Avril Guerrero: That was a big part of the business project. Whilst studying business [at London’s Open University], my favourite class was always sustainability. The whole issue was how in a globalised economy how can we keep the convenience of globalisation and it’s positive effect whilst also minimising the problems it creates. The supply chain is such a big problem because there are so many intermediaries. Transparency is extremely opaque, in cacao it’s really difficult to measure because a lot of the beans come from the Ivory Coast and there is not enough regulation there, so there are many ethical issues. By being able to handle the bad side of the industry ourselves is a huge blessing because we know exactly what is in each chocolate bar, we know how the beans were not only planted, but also harvested. We know our guidelines and we know where we stand and what value we want to incorporate in our company, because at the end of the day this is an opportunity for me to practise what I preach.

I want a more equal society so I’m thinking about how I can do that. I don’t have any public power or governmental power over policies, but now I have the power of a company which is a big lesson for me. Having gone to business school and having my own business portrays the power of the private sector and the fact that change will come from that in capitalist economies. The Dominican Republic may not be the biggest export in cacao, but we are the biggest in exporting organic cacao. It’s still an industry that is growing and becoming more regulated. A lot of the cacao in the Dominican Republic is organic already because of the natural good quality of the soil. We don’t need to treat our soil with chemicals because we don’t have as many diseases as other producers, which has therefore put us in an interesting position within the market.

Instagram: @_avril_guerrero

Charlie Newman: What does Metizo mean and what is the story behind it?
Avril Guerrero: Metizo is a combination of Mestizo in Spanish and Métis in French which translates to bi-racial. Again, I want to use my enterprise and platform to deliver my message and in this case it’s about tolerance. At the time when we started to think about the concept of the brand there was a big issue with immigrants coming into Europe and there was a lot of fear surrounding that. It really made me think a lot, especially as in the countries I consider home – the Dominican Republic and the United States – we are all immigrants, no one is from there. To have that fear about new people coming in is understandable, but at the same time it’s extremely hypocritical because we ourselves are immigrants. Everywhere I’ve lived for the past 12 years, I’ve always been an immigrant. The designer for the packaging, Amandine Delaunay, transformed our ethos into physical design. Each bar has different eyes and mouths on it, so the idea is you can combine a different face with each chocolate bar.

This divide and fear we are all experiencing in some shape or form is a phenomenon that is happening simultaneously everywhere, from Europe to the U.S to my own country. I think it’s really important to understand that no one wants to leave their home for the sake of it, no one wants to embark on a mission and endure the hardship of travelling on a boat not knowing if you’re going to get to your destination. This is not a pleasure trip, you’re moving because you have no choice, you need to leave. We need to cover basic needs, people are dying so we need to be nicer.

Charlie Newman: Are there any stores you would like to see Metizo in?
Avril Guerrero: Our product is more on the luxury side of things, we’re not necessarily trying to sell you another chocolate. We’re offering you something different and sharing an interesting story, it’s never about just delivering another product. Our story is encouraging people to be more tolerant and to look inwards in order to see what we all have in ourselves wherever we are from, whatever our situation. I don’t have a a mission to be in all the biggest stores, rather to be in a few hand-selected stores with a similar objective.

Charlie Newman: Finally, who is your role model of the month?
Avril Guerrero: It’s got to be my family because I think a role model has to be someone you trust. I would never choose someone famous because I have no connection with them, I don’t know the real them. Growing up, I believe it’s more necessary to have role models because you have to start making decisions before having experienced them.

Discover Metizo’s products: metizoparis.com

Follow Avril Guerrero on Instagram: @_avril_guerrero

The Classic Fusion Mykonos is available in two versions, featuring titanium or king gold

Hublot’s latest series of classic fusion chronographs is a celebration of the laid-back Mediterranean lifestyle

Evoking the mood of luxuriously languid days on board a superyacht, Hublot has selected a nautical colour palette for their ‘Cruise’ collection, a new limited edition trio of classic fusion chronographs. The timepieces are named after, and pay homage to the Mediterranean islands of Ibiza, Mykonos, and Capri with varying shades of blue contrasted against striking white and metallic details.

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Hublot’s Classic Fusion Ibiza limited edition timepiece

Ibiza

The dominant colour of the model dedicated to the ‘White Isle’ is complemented by a blue ceramic satin-finished bezel and 45-mm case enclosing the chronograph movement, bound by a bi-material strap in cerulean blue rubber and white alligator leather. Characteristic of the brand’s innovative fusion of materials, these highly resistant and waterproof strap components are beautifully stitched in blue, alongside the polished and engraved back case and matte white dials.

The Classic Fusion Mykonos

Mykonos

Incorporating a similar combination of materials, but with the option of either king gold or titanium, the Mykonos model fully showcases the mechanisms of the watch, revealing the inner workings of the self-winding chronograph movement. Sapphire crystal sits at the centre of the dial, reflected in the Aegean blue lacquered small seconds hands and matching blue ceramic bezel and strap. The most striking element comes in the form of a small rotating windmill aligned at three o’clock, distinguishing the model with the island’s iconic attractions.

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

The Classic Fusion Capri

Capri

The most relaxed of the three models, the Capri watch is decidedly lighter in colour with a sky blue satin-finished dial housed in a ceramic case of the same bespoke blue. The white lined rubber strap adds a touch of sporty chic, bringing a different dimension to this easy-to-wear collection.

Chloe Frost-Smith

For more information visit: hublot.com

Backstage image of a Chaumet tiara being fitted on a model

Tiaras are the cult jewel of maison Chaumet, and their latest exhibition ‘Chaumet in Majesty’ at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco offers a rare insight into the iconic jewel’s history

Since 1780 Chaumet has been the jeweller to sovereigns. This latest exhibition at Grimaldi Forum recounts the lives of the brand’s royal customers and delves into the history of the jewels themselves, highlighting tiaras as symbolic of timeless feminine power.

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Portrait of Edwina, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, last Vicereine of India, wearing her Chaumet tiara for George VI’s coronation. Photographie de Yevonde, 1937. © Madame Yevonde/Mary Evans Picture Library

As Chaumet demonstrates, a tiara is not just a decorative jewel, but one which has an important functionality, specifically designed to imbue its wearer with virtuous qualities and authority. For example, The Briar Rose Bud tiara (1922) features fauna motif referring back to the power and prestige of classical laurel wreaths whilst the material qualities of the pearls evoke wisdom and diamonds are traditionally associated with timeless elegance and strength. The Pearl and Mircomosaic Parer (1811) also projects an image of its imperial court. The tiara depicts scenes of Roman landscapes through mosaic techniques to lend the piece and its wearer an air of romanticism and grandeur.

‘Chaumet in Majesty’ exhibition at the Grimaldi Forum, Monaco: displaying the tiara with florets of Edwina Countess Mountbatten of Burma, last Vice-Queen of India created by Marcel Chaumet (1886-1964) in 1934 in the workshop of Maison Chaumet. The tiara was entrusted to another Maison who sold it to Lady Edwina Mountbatten. Private collection

Read more: Why we love Cartier’s high jewellery collection ‘Magnitude’

The exhibition brings together 250 pieces of jewellery, some of which are being seen publicly for the first time, sourced from the collections of Prince Albert II of Monaco, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and museum collections from all over the world. In the exhibition we see the heritage of the maison’s forms and the quality and beauty of their pieces, but more importantly, we can begin to appreciate jewellery’s role in signifying women’s power throughout the ages.

‘Chaumet in Majesty’ runs until 28 August 2019 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. For more information visit: chaumet.com 

Rosie Ellison-Balaam

Bvlgari’s Cinemagia High Jewellery collection is inspired by old age Hollywood glamour

Bvlgari brings back Hollywood decadence with their latest high jewellery collection inspired by 1950s cinema

Long defined by its unconventional colour combinations of precious stones, Bvlgari’s latest collection reimagines the brand’s colour palette in statement pieces that pay homage to various aspects of cinema.

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The highly unusual monochromatic Action! necklace, for example, celebrates the invention of celluloid roll film with thirty-two carats of pavé diamonds and black zirconium, the latest innovation from the Roman maison which is surprisingly practical in design. A complex spring construction is incorporated to ensure the perfect fit whilst allowing the necklace to return to its original shape after each wear. When rotated, the round film element centre reproduces the sound of old movie projectors, adding an intriguing sensory dimension to this unique piece.

Read more: In conversation with the world’s oldest model

The Action! necklace features thirty-two carats of pavé diamonds and black zirconium

The Fairy Wings necklace with coloured gemstones and diamond butterflies

The Emerald Affair necklace is a contemporary reworking one of the brand’s most iconic pieces, featuring a brilliant green, octagonal step-cut jewel, whilst the Fairy Wings necklace playfully mixes eight coloured oval gemstones, each set on a delicate diamond butterfly.

The Emerald Affair necklace features a brilliant green, octagonal step-cut jewel

Other pieces in the collection incorporate vibrant shades and a variety of gemstones

Other pieces in the collection feature varying shades associated with the days of La Dolce Vita, including pink sapphires, mandarin garnets, and citrine quartz. For a more versatile look, selected pendant pieces can be turned around and styled backwards for wearers to fully embrace Bvlgari’s rule-breaking approach to both colour and design.

Chloe Frost-Smith

Find out more: bulgari.com

Working with several designers, Van Cleef & Arpels have breathed new life into their classic collection

This season, we’ve got our eye on the new, youthful additions to Van Cleef & Arpels’ Perlée collection

Perlée is one of Van Cleef & Arpels’ long-standing, classic collections so-called after the maison‘s signature style of beaded jewels. The newest additions offer a fresh twist on the traditional and have been visualised in youthful graphic campaigns created in collaboration with designers such as Santi Zoraidez and Oscar Pettersson, both of whom are known for their playful, pastel aesthetics, digital geometric formations and sizeable Instagram followings.

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This might mark the first steps to a more millennial approach for the traditional French jewellery brand as does the focus on bespoke design. For example, the transformable long beaded necklace allows wearers to swap in the central ring with a variation of three colours (onyx, turquoise and coral) to better suit their mood, outfit or the occasion.

The transformable long beaded necklace with a coral inner ring

One of Van Cleef & Arpels’ new ‘secret watches’ in bracelet style with rose gold and diamonds

Even the more grown-up pieces such as the secret watches have been made-over with contrasting gemstones and precious metals – rose gold paired with diamonds, deep green malachite and orange coral, yellow gold studded with diamonds and lapis lazuli. It’s an effortless, refreshing new look for the collection, and the brand.

Find out more: vancleefarpels.com

Ricardo Guadalupe (left) with Richard Orlinski and one of his ‘Wild Kong’ sculptures

Luxury Swiss watchmaker Hublot is letting artists design their timepieces, and their customers and collectors love them. Rachael Taylor examines a new trend in horological branding

Hublot chief executive Ricardo Guadalupe was on a skiing holiday in the exclusive Courchevel resort in the French Alps when he spotted unusual sculptures rearing out of the powdery white slopes. The giant faceted animals, including a howling wolf, a chest-beating gorilla and a bright red Tyrannosaurus rex, were the work of contemporary French artist Richard Orlinski, and this chance encounter with a mountain-top menagerie would go on to inspire a surprise hit for Hublot.

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“Maybe Hublot was surprised, but I wasn’t,” laughs Orlinski, commenting on the success of the first watch he designed for the brand. “I don’t know if I have talent, but with my eyes I can see what people see. I’m a mainstream guy. When I like something, a lot of people like it.”

Indeed, Guadalupe has described the demand for Orlinski’s Hublot watches as “unbelievable”, and impossible to fulfil. The collaboration first started in 2017 with the Classic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph Orlinski, a polished titanium skeletonised model with a sharply faceted case and bezel that mirrors Orlinski’s iconic sculptures. The Swiss watchmaker, passing creative control to an artist for the first time, created a modest run of 200 watches, unsure of how they would be received. The collection quickly sold out, attracting existing Hublot collectors, as well as aesthetes, art buffs and quite a few of Orlinski’s famous friends who were new to the brand.

Hublot’s Classic Fusion Tourbillon Orlinski Black Magic

Since then, Orlinski and Hublot have partnered to create a further 10 editions of the watch. These include a vivid-red ceramic version that launched last year; the colour, which is technically very difficult to achieve and is exclusive to Hublot, matched a shade applied to many of Orlinski’s sculptures. For luxury collectors, there is the Aerofusion Chronograph Orlinski King Gold Jewellery, a 18ct solid-gold version set with more than 300 diamonds. And at the top of the range is the Tourbillon Power Reserve 5 Days Orlinski Sapphire, limited to just 30 watches, with a case made entirely from polished sapphire crystal.

Read more: Trevor Hernandez’s surreal urban photography

The faceted cases and bezels of Orlinski’s watches dazzle with light and shadow, adding a sculptural edge to the design. Keeping the watch functional, legible and wearable was important to Orlinski, who is himself a watch collector. “I know a lot about watches,” he says, but admits that until this collaboration his hoard did not include a Hublot as it was focused on vintage timepieces. “I wanted to make a mix between a watch and a sculpture – something you can wear every day, not something very strange.”

Hublot was not the first watch brand to come knocking at Orlinski’s door. Others had tried, but they offered the chance to customise rather than create. For Orlinski, this was not enough. “I always declined because they wouldn’t let me do anything,” he says. “Hublot treat me as a watch designer.”

Richard Orlinski

By giving Orlinski autonomy over the watches that bear his name, the mainstream magic that the bestselling French artist claims to wield has rubbed off on Hublot, making it a commercial success, while also giving it a dose of art kudos. The collaboration has also had benefits for Orlinski’s art, as the global exposure he has enjoyed while touring the world for Hublot events has widened his fan base.

Such synergy between the contemporary art and luxury worlds has led to many such hook ups, as brands use artists to inject fresh vigour into heritage labels. Last year, Chaumet celebrated modern African art by enlisting Kenyan graphic designer Evans Mbugua to create a collection of high-jewellery brooches, while Dior invited 11 artists, including Isabelle Cornaro, Li Shurui and Poppy Apfelbaum, to reimagine its Dior Lady Art handbag.

The Classic Fusion Aerofusion Chronograph Orlinski Red Ceramic

“Nowadays, art gives a credibility to brands,” says Orlinski. “A lot of them understand that they have to tell stories; selling things is not enough now. We live in the World 2.0, and things are changing so fast. If you want to stay in the game, you have to be open minded. People want something different.” It’s also, he says, about using popular art to engage with a wider audience: “Even if you are a luxury brand, you have to talk to everyone. If you only talk to the rich people, you’re dead. The brands that don’t change are going to die.”

Read more: Art collector Kelly Ying on the contemporary artists to watch

As art and watch collectors line up to own a wearable piece of Orlinski, Hublot plans to keep this particular point of difference very much alive and ticking. While the core design of the watch will stay true to its faceted form, Orlinski believes there are myriad possibilities for the future, such as fresh colourways, new materials and increasingly complex horological complications. And at Baselworld watch show in March 2019, the first line of Orlinski Hublot watches for women will be unveiled, opening up a whole new market. “This model will evolve a lot,” says Orlinski. “I have so many ideas, we can go on collaborating for 20 years. It’s just a matter of talent, energy and brainstorming.”

Orlinski with actor Jacqueline Bracamontes at the launch of the Mexico variant of his Hublot watch

The case for collaboration

Hublot, like most watch brands, is best known for its sporting collaborations – its long-running partnership with Ferrari continues to be the vanguard of such alliances. Deals like this, and its sponsorship of the Fifa World Cup in Russia last year, are, according to chief executive Ricardo Guadalupe, the “premier league” of collaborations, to use a suitably sporting analogy. Uniting the worlds of timing and art is a less obvious strategy, but brings other benefits that Guadalupe is keen to cultivate.

“We’re always looking for new inspirations, and we have found that we should not stay in our industry, but go outside,” he says. “When you come with something unique and different, I think consumers are really waiting for that.”

Read more: Why you need to see Sarah Morris’ latest exhibition at White Cube, London

As well as working with Richard Orlinski on his hugely popular line of faceted watches (“The demand is still unbelievable. We can’t keep up with it”). Hublot has also engaged Los Angeles-based street artist Tristan Eaton and London tattoo studio Sang Bleu to reinterpret its Aerofusion and Big Bang models.

“[Working with artists] positions us as a trendsetter in creating new designs for watches and this is really important,” says Guadalupe. “We are at the beginning of the process with Richard Orlinski, with the tattoos, so this is something really new that is appearing in our world. Probably it will bring new consumers into our brand, but it also allows our actual consumers that love Hublot to buy a new watch. You must bring always something different and innovative. [Through art] we are creating a new way of making watches.”

Find out more: hublot.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 19 Issue.

A display in LEMA’s London showroom. Photography by Emma Lambe

Founded in 1970, LEMA still remains family-owned and true to its ‘Made in Italy’ philosophy. The group collaborates with famed architects and designers to produce elegant, modern furniture and made-to-measure interior fittings for residential and commercial properties across the globe. Ahead of this year’s Salone del Mobile in April, we speak to the company’s president Angelo Meroni about working with family, discovering new talent and moving into the Asian market.

Angelo Meroni, President of LEMA

LUX: Tell us about your history and how the brand started?
Angelo Meroni: Our family tradition in the furniture market began in the 1930s with my grandfather. In the 30s following the Brianza manufacturing tradition, he opened a small shop in the town centre. At the time, it was purely craftsman work, completely handmade, in fact, the production times would be unthinkable nowadays. Later, the 1940s saw the opening of the first store in Milan city centre. Here, during the years of the economic boom, LEMA was able to collaborate with the first nationally recognised architects and designers to embrace a production characterised by a more modern aesthetic. Then in 1970, my father founded the brand LEMA and the all-important organised industrial production started, with an innovative factory in Alzate-Brianza designed by Angelo Mangiarotti, a cutting-edge plant for a production with a new philosophy. Indeed, LEMA was the first Italian brand to design and produce integrated furnishing systems, organising the entire production cycle from receiving the raw materials to the packaging. The breakthrough came in 1981 when the “Made-to-Measure Wardrobe” was conceived, a modular custom-made closet solution, a key step in establishing LEMA in the market. The system still exists to this day, and is under constant evolution, fulfilling and anticipating the needs of private and contract customers.

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LUX: You work alongside your two sisters – what are the challenges and benefits of working with family?
Angelo Meroni: The family factor within LEMA is the ‘soul factor’, which gives our designers the possibility to communicate directly with this ‘soul’. As a family, we are directly involved in all areas of the design and selection processes where we decide what furnishings will be produced for the following year. However, LEMA is also a corporate reality, we have more than 250 employees, more than 985 worldwide dealers in over 65 countries. This way we are able to maintain the balance between a strictly family business and an international reality. My sisters and I also look after different sectors of the business, therefore we are able to capitalise on the benefits rather than the challenges.

LEMA works with leading designers to ensure the highest level of craftsmanship

LUX: Why is it so important that the brand maintains a ‘Made in Italy’ ethos?
Angelo Meroni: Since the brand was founded, LEMA has championed the ‘Made in Italy’ ethos by expertly mixing innovation and tradition, turning quality and personalisation into our unique selling point. I would say that this is one of our key strengths, where our extraordinary manufacturing ability meets the typically Italian excellence, allowing LEMA to combine the values and technological efficiencies of a large enterprise with fine and unrivalled craftsmanship, which is unique to Italy.

LUX: You created the first air-cleaning wardrobe system – how did that idea come about?
Angelo Meroni: The LEMA Air Cleaning System is the result of more than twelve months of research, which was created from an idea I had that the wardrobe should play an active role in our well being. Using patented Photocatalytic Oxidation technology, which is mainly used to purify aerospace environments where one of the main issues is to maintain the quality and cleanliness of the air. Indeed, we spend a great deal of our busy daily lives in environments outside our homes: in places such as offices, public transport, shopping centres, restaurants, hotels and gyms, where the quality of air is poor due to inadequate air-recycling: bacteria, allergens, carbon monoxide, particulate matter which permeates our clothing generating bad odours. Interestingly, the Air Cleaning System can be positioned discreetly at the top of any wardrobe, and it uses nanotechnology and a special UV lamp to generate a photochemical reaction that naturally destroys pollutants, bacteria and moulds, purifying the inside of the wardrobe and eliminating up to 90% of these.

Photography by Emma Lambe

LUX: How does your design approach differ for bigger contractual work as seen in LEMA Contract fitting out of the Bulgari London Hotel?
Angelo Meroni: Our Casa and Contract divisions are tightly connected, as for both we use our “made-to-measure” and bespoke philosophy. However, through our Contract Division LEMA’s indissoluble connection with the design world finds its utmost expression. We have a cutting-edge industrial department dedicated solely to the residential, hospitality and office sectors, which has a strong and consistent growth. Our mission statement: “You Think We Make”, defines our mission; our Contract clients can find in LEMA a knowledgeable partner in the development of every project where we interpret and translate all aesthetic and functional needs. In London alone we have collaborated with some of the best-known interior designers, architect firms and developers, collaborating on projects such as The Chilterns apartments, Holland Park Villas, 190 The Strand and Bulgari Hotel, which you mentioned and we are currently delivering Lincoln Square, to name but a few.

LUX: You’ve recently moved into the Asian market, how does an Italian brand appeal to Asian consumers?
Angelo Meroni: Yes indeed, in 2017 we opened a flagship store in Shanghai, which confirms LEMA’s interest in the Asian market and China in particular. The previous year we had inaugurated more than 1000 square meters of showroom space in Shenzhen, an increasingly cosmopolitan hub, where we expressed our Italian excellence. Our Contract sector has also been increasingly busy with the Chinese market, last year we supplied more than 1,000 customised wardrobes for the prestigious One Park apartments in Shanghai.

Regarding our Casa Division, we have also produced some products with the Far East market particularly in mind. For example, at the Milan Salone del Mobile last year we presented the Bulè table that comes with a rotating ‘lazy Susan’, which is perfect for the Asian market, of course, you can also sell it without the rotating centre and then it becomes a normal table. The Asian market is extremely attracted to all that Italy has to offer, and being a strictly “Made in Italy” brand we have been able to draw on this as a unique selling point in this vast and competitive market.

Read more: Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing on redefining Parisian glamour

LUX: How do you issue a design brief for LEMA Casa and to what extent are you involved in the creative process?
Angelo Meroni: Each year, we start the creative process for the new pieces that are first unveiled at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, the most important date in the design calendar. As far as designers go, we are open to anybody. Our Art Director Piero Lissoni looks after a preferred team of designers that we have been working with for years and whom we know very well. Yet, we are especially open to young designers. This is one of the big values of LEMA, we like to discover new talents. While some of our designers such as Francesco Rota and Gordon Guillaumier have been part of our team for years, they were fairly young when they started working with us. It’s an evolving process and it carries on with no ending, a process in which I like to be personally involved across all the phases.

LUX: You fitted out all of the Vodafone shops in Italy in 3 days twice – how did you manage it?
Angelo Meroni: We started with the Italian Vodafone flagship store, in the famous Piazza San Babila in Milan, which welcomes thousands of customers in a super-technological atmosphere. We were asked to realise the whole furniture set of this selling point: demonstrating our ability to build environments according to the customer’s specific needs. It was a record – the whole furniture was engineered in just 30 days! The other challenge was the integration of the furniture with the technologies present in the store, which makes the core of this amazing selling point. LEMA Contract built 1,050 Vodafone Stores in Italy and in all of them the great ability of LEMA’s craftsmanship met with the most innovative of our production technology, meaning that we managed to fit out the stores in such little time.

LUX: What’s next for LEMA?
Angelo Meroni: You will have to wait for the 2019 Salone del Mobile in Milan! We are finalising the products, which we will be showcasing, and unveiling for the first time. It is always an exciting time for us. In particular, we have some important novelties that will be introduced to our LEMA Casa catalogue. As a company we are in continuous development and expansion, and therefore drafting new projects and ideas is definitely my favourite part of the job.

Discover the collection: lemamobili.com

Olivier Rousteing with models, including Cara Delevingne, after Balmain’s SS19 show at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris

The French label Balmain, known for its 1950s couture, has been turned into a leader of the 21st-century pack by its creative director Olivier Rousteing. Harriet Quick meets him at his lair in Paris to discuss glamour, music and diversity

“Glamour never went away but right now we don’t like to like glamour – it’s something taboo, a guilty pleasure. It is easier to say a grey oversized coat is chic and beautiful,” says Olivier Rousteing. Over the past eight years as creative director of Balmain, Rousteing has started a brilliant new chapter in Parisian glamour with his continual reinvention of the fashion lexicon, with his signature ballast-shouldered d-b blazers, crazy beautiful embellishments, and architectural silhouettes conceived for megawatt impact. There are many neutral, minimalist suits and swishy plissé skirts designed for 2019. He’s the master of unapologetic va-va-voom, the kind that is rewarded with fire-flame emojis on Instagram, the kind that speaks of female empowerment, dynamism and a knock ’em-out fighting spirit, a message that the brand spreads far and wide.

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Balmain’s spring/summer 2019 collection, staged late last year under the frescoed ceilings of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, was a paean to the extraordinary depth and breadth of culture in the capital, to Rousteing’s own exploration of it and to Parisian savoir-faire. Model and actress Cara Delevingne opened the show in a sculpted metal bustier, a fluid white satin trench with exaggerated shoulders and utility trousers that would suit a modern-day Cleopatra. Extreme fan shapes in triple organza arched over the torso like an unfolded concertina, micro dresses were constructed out of a mosaic of Plexiglas and black graphic knits boasting white hieroglyphics. “We’ve also riffed on the origins of modern-day Paris – and, actually, modern civilization itself. My fascination with the impressive obelisks, pyramids and columns that date from Napoleon’s campaigns and adorn this city’s most iconic public spaces is reflected in the collection’s many references to Egypt,” says Rousteing of his tour de force.

There are no half measures with Rousteing and he admires designers who work with similar conviction. “In my eight years as creative director, we’ve seen so many strong trends. I’m a huge fan of Demna Gvasalia, Hedi Slimane, Phoebe Philo and Raf Simons – they have visions and strong points of view. When I saw the hyper-real street wear of Vetements, I was happy because it is refreshing, but it doesn’t mean I have to do that. In fact, the opposite – you have to become more you. One might like or dislike Balmain but it keeps a fan and customer base, and you have to challenge and be relevant every season,” says the 33-year-old.

Olivier Rousteing, photographed in Paris in 2017 by Pascal Dangin

“I love what is figurative and what people can see. I use a lot of patterns and craftsmanship because I love the first IMPACT! But just because a piece is shiny does not mean there’s no depth. It’s so easy to say ‘bling’ but that means nothing. A piece can be shiny and be created with so many innovative artisan techniques – it is more than surface. The Tour Eiffel is impressive with or without lights; I hope, night or day – these clothes can stand up,” says the designer who joined Balmain and became its studio manager under his predecessor, Christophe Decarnin, in 2011. Previously, he had worked as Peter Dundas’s right hand at Roberto Cavalli, excelling in that brand’s neo-bohemian glamour.

Read more: In conversation with artist Victoria Fu

Balmain is majority owned by the Qatari investment fund Mayhoola, which is also behind Valentino, Pal Zileri and Anya Hindmarch. The luxury investment business that is supported by the emir of Qatar paid around $560 million for Balmain in 2016. The operations of the royal family-owned luxury investment business is secretive, with turnover figures for the brand undisclosed. To date, 80% of the turnover of Balmain has been at wholesale with collections for men, women and children being sold into multi-label boutiques and department stores around the globe. Success at wholesale equates to customer loyalty, which is impressive in this era of promiscuous label shopping. This year, under the new CEO Massimo Piombini, there is a major expansion into brick-and-mortar stores, with flagships opening in Miami, Moscow, Paris, Rome and Las Vegas. “Piombini is daring and is not afraid, and I love to push the limits of design. This is the base of making a great business in fashion. With Mayhoola, we want to make the business BIG and push it to the next level,” says Rousteing. Currently, Balmain employs 350 staff with 25 in the design studio.

This year has also seen new developments with the launch of a demi-couture collection entitled ‘44 François Premier’ (it carries the address of founder Pierre Balmain’s original atelier); a twice-yearly women’s wear capsule called Episode, which is showcased during the menswear shows; and a big boost to shoes and handbags. The line ‘Beauty’, following a capsule line with L’Oréal, is in the works. In total, Rousteing designs 14 collections a year.

Balmain SS19 ready-to-wear collection

The shift into demi-couture is significant in its appeal to a growing number of younger couture clientèle. Where a typical heavily embellished cocktail dress might cost £2,500–4,000 in ready-to-wear, a gown in ‘44 François Premier’ is £20,000 and up. “The line is not about trend or future forecasting; it’s about beauty for beauty’s sake, with iconic pieces; we have a huge market for that with so many celebrities embracing the brand,” says Rousteing, whose designs were inspired by his delving into the archives and by the golden years of Pierre Balmain, who dressed Hollywood, socialites and royalty in his exuberant designs in the mid-century. For Rousteing, the jewel-coloured ‘Dynasty’-style gowns, with their gigantic ruffles and furls and sinuous Grecian drapes as well as hand-crafted embellishments by Maison Legeron (a long-established maker of fabric flowers) proved a timely recalibration of the couture dream. The line quickly picked up red-carpet strikes with Lupita Nyong’o and Penélope Cruz parading looks at summer premieres.

Rousteing’s latest show was streamed live to the few lucky owners of Oculus VR headsets. While virtual reality has been used by brands including Chanel (in exhibitions) and Dior (in VIP presentations), the VR stream flagged up the digital savvy of Rousteing who embraced the peer-to-peer power of social media and Instagram (where he has five million followers) early on, much to the snobbish dismay of the old luxury elite. “We always have to remain two steps ahead,” says Rousteing, thumbing the shiny gold Balmain buttons on the shoulder line of his cashmere Breton sweater as he sits behind a vast desk of brown marble and bronze.

Balmain’s new store in Miami

The contemporary take on the Parisian dream is epitomised in the micro-detail of the scintillating embellishments, as much as it is in the flagship interiors. The stores offer a new version of the traditional hôtel particulier with white stucco interiors, gilded mirrors and parquet floors that you could skateboard across, with the associated uptight, cloistering atmosphere banished. Likewise, the virtual universe is vibey with campaigns directed as pop videos. Cue the sonic autumn campaign video entitled ‘The Balmain Beat’ (their ad campaign using a series of films) directed by Jake Nava who has worked with Beyoncé and Britney Spears. It features a group of disparate performers including Milla Jovovich and Daphne Guinness in diverse locations in Paris, from empty office blocks to an 18th-century folly, drawn together by a spontaneously evolving tune played out on found instruments. It shows off the brand’s hero bag – a classy BBox bag with a medallion clasp – and clothes that vibrate with neon colour and metallic sheen.

Watch ‘The Balmain Beat’ Fall/Winter 2018:

What are his views on social media? “It’s a fantastic communication channel yet we have to be careful. Five years ago what I loved was the transparency and authenticity of social media – it was spontaneous and honest. Right now, it’s too commercial and you lose the magic of honesty and credibility. The millennials are not going to like it, as they don’t want to feel trapped,” he says.

In the Balmain world, real or virtual, music is a constant. Prince’s ‘When Doves Cry’ was the opening track to the spring/summer 2019 show. “We are witnesses of our time. I’m very passionate about inclusivity; I’m mixed race myself, and I look for diversity in everything I do. And listening is a key to that inclusivity. There’s a rhythm of life happening all around us. You won’t be scared of what happens tomorrow, if you take the time to listen,” says Rousteing.

Rousteing’s ‘lair’ is a spacious glass-walled office on the top of a six-floor HQ in a narrow street in the 8e. The brown marble and bronze desk, stacked with piles of books, devices and leafy plants, is his own design. While he is working, at the gym, or sketching, loud music is his constant companion. His catholic taste includes David Bowie, Rihanna, Ed Sheeran, 80s electro pop, rock and roll, and RnB. His spring/summer 2019 menswear was devoted to Michael Jackson, with its sequin jackets, rolled-cuff denim and white sock/patent shoe combos.

Read more: Italian brand Damiani’s Kazakh-inspired jewellery collection

Rousteing is one of the few black designers currently at the helm of a major brand. Recently, Virgil Abloh was appointed head of menswear at Louis Vuitton, but the numbers are tiny. Independent talents, who have the black experience at the heart of their work, include Duro Olowu and Grace Wales Bonner in London; Stella Luna in Milan; and in New York, Telfar, Pyer Moss and Shayne Oliver.

He has brought pop into fashion and fashion into pop and, by virtue of that ambitious confluence, has opened up a once tired old fashion house to the world. Balmain resonates with a vast audience that exists in and beyond the relatively limited fashion devotee circle. His collections are anthems built on a masterful spectacle and pageantry. He works closely with Rihanna, who first visited his studio in 2013, and he has created hundreds of looks, running the gamut from Egyptian goddess to American high-school denim and sweats, for Beyoncé and her crew for Coachella 2018. A limited-edition line was released shortly afterwards.

Balmain SS19 ready-to-wear collection

“Sometimes people love the tortured element of fashion – depressed, dark and wounded – and there is a depth and struggle in my clothes, but I am pudique (modest). I don’t like being in your face with the torment of creating my clothes,” says the designer who wears no sign of angst on his dewy, unlined complexion. Rousteing has a naturally mellifluous voice and a gentle, warm smile that mellow his fierce rhetoric.

While Rousteing might be a champion of diversity, global messaging and universality, he also remains particularly and brilliantly French. He upholds the values of Parisian glamour that he first fell in love with when a young boy of mixed race raised by adoptive parents in Bordeaux, gazing at images of Iman, Betty Catroux and Catherine Deneuve with their just undone coiffures and smouldering sexuality. He faced adversity (although he does not go into details) but one can assume that a bourgeois city in south-western France might not have been as liberal as it appears now.

Read more: The Bahamas’ new 1,000 acre luxury resort

“I’m obsessed with being French. I am not conservative but I love to push traditions to the next level,” says the designer who joined Balmain at the young age of 24 and brought about radical change making the brand diverse, inclusive, ‘empowered’. Those values, championed by the greats in the 1960s and 70s – Pierre Balmain and Yves Saint Laurent included – had fallen by the wayside in the following century. Now, a more humanistic approach is considered a vital ingredient of contemporary fashion. Frenchness to Rousteing is about creativity, breaking boundaries and yes, freedom, liberté, egalité and fraternité. His own ‘nest’ is in a light-filled Haussmann-heritage building in the 11e that is a contrast of bold minimalism and flamboyant baroque style. His pride and joy is a vast sculpture of a bronze eagle that boasts dazzling amethyst rock. Thinking about the price of Balmain demi-couture, I ask the designer what he would do with 40,000 euros. His answer is a big slab of brown marble to create a piece of furniture from, to go alongside the gym. “I love the way light dances off marble,” he says.

“Being too popular? I’ve never understood that language. Democratising is not something that’s not luxurious. People talk about chic, about style, about proportions, about the front row, but who is defining these words today and what do they mean? If you take a dictionary 20 years or 100 years from now, you will have new words and new meanings and it’s time for fashion to take on a new meaning.”

Discover the Balmain collections: balmain.com

This article was first published in the Winter 19 Issue

An image from the first Alsara by Damiani campaign with Aliya Nazarbayeva wearing earrings and ring with turquoise and black-and-white diamonds

How does a historic Italian jewellery brand come to dedicate an entire collection to the traditions and culture of Kazakhstan? Through a little bit of serendipity, and some inspiration from one of the world’s ancient nomadic cultures, as LUX Editor-at-Large Gauhar Kapparova discovers

Guido, Silvia and Giorgio Damiani

Italian fine jewellery brand Damiani first opened stores in Almaty and Astana in 2005, following the brand’s strategy for global expansion under the leadership of third-generation Damiani family members, Guido, Giorgio and Silvia. The brand’s sensuous Italian style and commitment to hand-crafted detail quickly captured the attention of Kazakh women, whilst the Damiani siblings, who travel frequently to the country on business, became increasingly fascinated and enamoured by the culture and traditions there. A deep and mutual affection grew organically between brand and country, leading to the idea of a cross-cultural collaboration.

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To create Alsara, a collection inspired by and dedicated to Kazakhstan, the President’s youngest daughter Aliya Nazarbayeva teamed up in 2011 with Zhanna Kan, the owner of Damiani Kazakhstan and the driving force behind the new line. The name Alsara is a portmanteau combining Aliya and her mother’s name Sara, and pays tribute to the influence of not just them but also all the Kazakh women the jewellers have met.

Unique necklace ‘Tumar’ with blue sapphires, rubies, diamonds and semi-precious stones

The collection began as a conversation between Aliya and Damiani’s Italy-based designers, during which Aliya educated the brand on ancient Kazakh ornament, such as the traditional tumar necklace and bilezik cuff. These styles were reimagined and transformed by expert craftsmen in Damiani’s historic ateliers in Valenza, where Enrico Grassi Damiani opened his first goldsmith’s laboratory in 1924. The result was a collection of intricate gold and precious stone pieces, marrying refined Italian craftsmanship with Kazakh heritage. Following a sold-out range, the collection broadened to include silver and semi-precious stones, such as onyx and turquoise, typical of Kazakh jewellery.

Read more: Meet the new creative entrepreneurs

Bridging two distinct cultures, the Alsara collection melds tradition with contemporary fashion. “Alsara pieces became not only stylish accessories for modern Kazakh women but also perfect gifts for weddings and kudalyk, which are the engagement ceremonies,” comments Zhanna Kan. “They are regarded as family jewels to be preserved and handed down.”

The Alsara by Damiani campaign with Gulnara Chaizhunussova wearing silver earrings and a bracelet and ring with green agate, citrine and diamonds

Alsara’s most recent designs reveal a striking modern look for the collection, reflecting the evolving cosmopolitan culture of Kazakhstan. Colourful gemstones have been replaced with black and white diamonds, producing a pared-back aesthetic with hints of Art Deco and oriental motives. The Kazakh heritage has not been lost, however, and neither has the craft; the collection continues to be entirely handmade in Italy whilst the influence of traditional Kazakh jewellery remains in the threads of delicately curved silver, drawing on artisanal methods of filigree.

Discover the collections: damiani.com

This article was first published in the Winter 19 Issue.

Earrings with wings motif in white and yellow gold with smoky quartz, garnet and icy diamonds

Jewellery from Damiani’s Alsara collection, including necklace in white and yellow gold with black and white diamonds and pearls, inspired by Art Deco and Kazakh ornament

Philippe Sereys de Rothschild photographed at the Grand Mouton residence

Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, head of the Mouton Rothschild family wine empire, recently inaugurated a new prize for the arts. Darius Sanai celebrates with him and his family members on the night of the awards, and speaks to him about patronage, the wine world and running one of the world’s most celebrated family businesses

Photographs by David Eustace

It’s a cool, clear evening in the vineyards of the Médoc, the triangular strip of land that stretches from Bordeaux to the Atlantic Ocean, along the estuary of the Gironde river, and which contains the world’s most celebrated wine estates. From the terrace of Château Clerc Milon, rows of perfectly groomed vines stretch out to the left and right; immediately below the terrace, a lawn drops down along a path lined by exotic bushes, to a steel-and-glass marquee. Beyond this temporary structure, which was erected the previous day and will be gone by morning, are more vineyards, undulating up towards Château Mouton Rothschild, over the brow of a small hill.

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The Mouton Rothschild vignoble in Pauillac

As the sun goes down, guests sip Rothschild non-vintage Champagne or glasses of deep red Château Clerc Milon 2009, chatting about the show they have just seen. Suddenly, there is a musical introduction and all heads turn towards the stairs leading up from the lawn, from which 20 or so beautiful young people emerge, with a mixture of shyness and performance, and walk two by two through the crowds before dispersing into smaller groups and chatting to guests over glasses of Champagne.

The new arrivals were dancers from the Ballet de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux; earlier, they had given the performance everyone had come for, in the marquee by the vineyard, in front of 100 seated guests. The show marked the second edition of the biannual Prix Clerc Milon de la Danse (Clerc Milon dance prize), awarded by the Philippine de Rothschild Foundation to two outstanding dancers from the Bordeaux ballet. The two winning dancers, Alice Leloup and Marc-Emmanuel Zanoli, had been awarded their prizes at the end of the show; now, after a brief interval, they and their colleagues were emerging, perfectly attired for the evening, to join the soirée. It was a magical moment during a spectacular evening.

The private wine cellar at
Château Mouton Rothschild

The prize is the brainchild of Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, Chairman and CEO of Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA, and his siblings, Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild and Camille Sereys de Rothschild. When their mother, the legendary Philippine de Rothschild, passed away in 2014, they inherited one of the most famous empires in wine. Their company, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, owns Château Mouton Rothschild, one of the five ‘first growths’ of Bordeaux and among the most celebrated and expensive red wines in the world; Château Clerc Milon and Château d’Armailhac, also classed-growth Bordeaux châteaux; the Bordeaux brand Mouton Cadet, and much else.

Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s founding fathers, was famously fond of Brane-Mouton, as Mouton Rothschild was then known, and shipped some over to the nascent United States in the 1780s. But it was Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the grandfather of Sereys de Rothschild, who elevated the wine to worldwide fame, first modernising the estate in the 1920s and insisting on ensuring quality by bottling all wines at the Château, and then asking a different celebrated contemporary artist to create a new label for Mouton Rothschild every year. The labels read like a who’s who of 20th and 21st-century art: among them are Jean Cocteau (1947), Georges Braque (1955), Salvador Dalí (1958), Joan Miró (1969), Marc Chagall (1970), Wassily Kandinsky (1971), Andy Warhol (1975), Keith Haring (1988), Lucian Freud (2006) and Gerhard Richter (2015).

Philippe Sereys de Rothschild with his daughter, Mathilde

The gardens of the Rothschild estate

The Baron’s daughter, Philippine, strengthened the link with the arts – she herself had been a celebrated actress, and married one of France’s most famous actors, Jacques Sereys – while growing the business; and so, on this evening surrounded by vines under a sky washed by the nearby Atlantic, with stars emerging from the fading blue, it seems entirely appropriate that her children are both honouring their mother and supporting the arts with this new prize.

Read more: 6 reasons to buy a Hublot Classic Fusion Bucherer Blue Edition

Certainly, the winners seemed delighted: “I am amazed,” Alice told me, with a big, dimpled grin, her perfect, wavy hair and immaculate outfit belying the fact that she had been dancing on stage minutes previously. She was sipping at a glass of Champagne shyly, as if it were a rare treat to indulge. “It’s a great thing for them to do, although I never thought I would win. It just helps make all the hard work worthwhile.”

Dancers from the Ballet de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux perform at Château Clerc Milon

The next morning, I meet Philippe Sereys de Rothschild in a drawing room at Grand Mouton, the family’s traditional residence, a few hundred metres away in the heart of Château Mouton Rothschild. The room is square and traditionally decorated; four chairs have been placed facing inwards towards each other. Between two of them is an occasional table, on top of which has been placed a tray containing still and sparkling water, small bottles of tonic water, and two halves of a lemon on a saucer. Sereys de Rothschild walks in, erect, greets us and offers us drinks, before settling down in a chair, squeezing one of the lemon halves into his glass of tonic water.

He was up, he says, until past 2am the previous night after the party ended, doing a debrief with his nephew Benjamin, who had helped organise everything. “Yes, last night Benjamin said, ‘We’ve got to do a debrief to know if it went well or not,’ and I said ‘OK, OK.’ So, we went through all the stuff that went well and didn’t go well, and it was the best time to do it because we had everything freshly in our minds. When people visit Château Clerc Milon they know it’s the family, they know it’s the Rothschilds. So, the standard is up there and you can’t disappoint them. Nothing is worse than disappointing people who have come to have a great evening and don’t have a great evening.”

All three of Philippine’s children were at the event; while Philippe oversees, Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild, his younger half-brother, is responsible for the collaboration between art and wine at Mouton, and gave a casual and touching tribute speech on the terrace the previous evening, after the formal speeches in the marquee led by Philippe.

It seemed to be quite a grand success for an event that is so young, I observe. “It is a young event and it actually happened much more quickly than I thought it would,” Philippe says. “The Foundation was created in 2015 and we did the first Clerc Milon prize in 2016. We wanted to start the foundation with something local. That was very important for us. Something local, something artistic and something linked to live performance. And all that was linked to my mother, because my mother was very close to the theatre, the Opéra de Bordeaux. Brigitte Lefèvre (president of the jury of the prize and a former administrator of the Opéra Garnier in Paris) really came in very quickly. I gave her a call one day; it was very interesting, she was outside on the street coming out of a documentary on ballet and I said, ‘I’ll call you back’ and she said ‘No, no, no, don’t call me back – what do you want?’

“I talked to her about the prize and everything and I said, ‘I’m looking for someone who could chair the jury.’ She said yes immediately, and it was in November 2015, so it was very, very quick. She was able to put the jury together quickly because after 20 years at the Opéra de Paris, she knows absolutely the whole planet in her world. So, the first prize was awarded in July 2016 and we were very happy.”

It was Lefèvre, he says, who had the idea of the prize specifically supporting young dancers and those who “cement the group together”. “And don’t forget,” he says, “the Foundation only has been going for three years. When we created it in memory of my mother, everyone knew she was very linked to the arts. As you know Mouton is also very linked to art: wine and art, art and wine. We knew we wanted a foundation carrying the name of my mother, and with an artistic purpose. That was very clear. So, we started there.”

Read more: Grand Luxury founders Ivan & Rouslan Lartisien on curating travel

A Harvard MBA, Sereys de Rothschild worked in the finance sector on graduating; in the late 1990s he was chief financial officer (CFO) of an Italian subsidiary of what is now the Vivendi conglomerate. He then ran a successful private-equity fund and created a high-tech investment fund. Was he always fated to take over the family company, I ask?

“No, not at all,” he says, very definitely. “I don’t feel that family businesses have to be run by families. Family business have to have family values, family principles, family ethics, family identities, yes. But that does not mean they have to be managed by the family, which is a completely different thing. We could have said, ‘Managers manage and the family is just there to define the values, principles, identity and culture.’ It was a choice, because it’s true that the family is very much linked to this company, and it was a choice that I made, to say that I was ready to spend much more time with the company, to make sure that we develop it the right way. There is a lot of development going on now, and I thought that the best way to ensure the development was done the right way was to implant myself more in the company. But it could have been different. I did many other things in my life before – some environmental projects, I managed a software company, I developed schools, I did a high-tech fund.

“But I’m not doing it alone, even if I’m managing this company with the objective of developing it, I’m doing it with the family. They are all on the board and we all decide together, and we all take decisions together and we all decide on the investments and whatever we want to do, together. I’m there to manage it and for the leadership, but they are there with me.”

Château Clerc Milon is a different kind of château with a modern vat house designed by architect Bernard Mazières

Is it different, I ask, managing a family business to running other businesses? “Well, although I’m completely conscious of the fact that it’s a family business, I really try to manage this business by asking myself, whenever I take a decision, is it good or bad for the company? Period. Because otherwise, you mix everything up. Don’t forget that we have 370 people working in this company, so what is important is to make sure that the company lives on and that I pass it on to the next generations. If I start thinking to myself I should do things differently because it’s a family business, then you make the wrong decisions. You have to make a decision, as a business decision, as a company decision.”

The Château Clerc Milon label features a pair of dancing clowns made of precious stones

Has his experience in the broader business and financial sector helped? “I think what has helped me is working with people with very different profiles. That’s been the most valuable thing. When you go from an environmental project to working with software engineers, working with more high-tech people, working with people in schools, you get used to going from one profile to another and to working with very, very diverse profiles. So, I can talk with people in the vineyards and I can talk with people on the market and I can talk to the people with the Ryder Cup [Mouton Cadet is the official wine of the Ryder Cup] or I can talk with the manager of the Festival de Cannes. They’re completely different types of people and the fact that I have had my own professional experience before has helped me to really make the difference between managing people with very different profiles. That’s probably one of the characteristics of the wine business, is that you really go from the vineyard up to the end of the line, who can be art collectors.”

The wine empire’s crest on the walls of the cellar

Over the past 20 years, wine has made a transition from being a drink enjoyed by those with the taste and means to acquire good bottles, to a trophy with, at the highest level, an ever-spiralling price. A case of Mouton Rothschild from a good vintage can cost as much as a new compact car, or a haute-horlogerie watch. Is Sereys de Rothschild in the luxury goods business, I wonder?

“No. I don’t really know which business I’m in,” he says. “In other words, in some ways we are in the luxury business, in some ways we are in the collecting business, in some ways we are in the limited series business, in some ways we are an agricultural product, in some ways we are in the tasting and drinking business. Where are we? I haven’t got the faintest clue. But that’s what makes it exciting and very difficult because we are not a luxury product, but we are in some ways a bit of a luxury product.”

Has China, which has been at the heart of the soaring demand for fine wines, affected the way the company does business?

“I would say it has affected it in the right way. What I like about the Chinese market is that it’s really a market of people who like wine, who drink wine, where wine has become part of their life. When they need to celebrate something they think about wine, which is very important, and it’s become a market of people who know wine well and who talk about wine in a very intelligent way. And don’t forget that Chinese people are very sensitive to education, and you cannot understand wine without having some sort of an education process. There is an initiation approach to wine and the Chinese people have understood that. And when you listen to Chinese people talking about wine, some are astonishingly knowledgeable. It’s real wine market in the long term, and a market of real, high-quality wine consumers.”

The wine world has evolved in recent decades. Mouton Rothschild and its fellow ‘first growths’ remain at the top of the ladder, but competitors have arrived from Napa, Italy and elsewhere, and the mid-market, where Mouton Cadet sits, has never been so crowded. What are the challenges facing the business?

“Staying at the top, which is sometimes more complicated than one thinks. The exposure that we have in the media has been multiplied [by the rise of digital media], which puts more pressure on us. It makes us more well-known, but at the same time if you make a mistake or if something goes wrong everyone will know it, so it exposes you much more. But at the same time, it’s very exciting because you’re much closer to the consumer. If they open the bottle and they don’t like it, you know. And 20 years ago, we could guess, but we didn’t know. So, you’re much more in contact with the end of the line, than we were before. Which actually makes things much more rewarding because you know what you’re there for. You know that you’re there to satisfy customers, much more than 20 years ago. So, it’s actually a very rewarding thing and the digital revolution is for me, very positive. The more I hear about the consumer and the more I know the consumer is happy, the happier I am.

Read more: Moynat unveils new collection of bags in London

“That’s the first thing. The second thing is that the market has become much more competitive, at all levels. In other words, it has become very competitive for Mouton Cadet because there are all the Italian wines, all the Australian wines, all the Chilean wines. So we have to fight for our space. But at the same time, it’s also true for cult wines and iconic wines. In other words, the first growths of 20 or 30 years ago were not quite alone, but the market was not too crowded. Today it’s getting more and more crowded. At the same time, it’s exciting because it’s a challenge and it puts pressure and you’re there to make things even better all the time.”

Château Mouton Rothschild has also been working to support the arts, in the form of the collections at Versailles, the legendary palace outside Paris. How do the two châteaux work in tandem, I wonder? “Mouton is linked to paintings, Clerc Milon is linked to dance. So that’s why we really have two very different things. Back at Mouton, because we’ve always been exposed to contemporary art, and it so happened that a certain number of artists that exhibited at Versailles – Anish Kapoor, Lee Ufan and Bernar Venet – also did the label for Mouton. We got in contact with Versailles and said, ‘Can we help you in any way with your contemporary art exhibitions?’ They were very enthusiastic and that’s what we decided to do. Without being immodest, Versailles is an institution, but so is Mouton in a way, although that’s not due to me, it’s been an institution since before I was born. Getting two institutions together that both represent in their own way the ‘art de vivre à la française’, I thought was… rather a great mix.”

There are sounds of activity coming from outside the room; Grand Mouton is gearing up for a celebratory meal with the jury. Sereys de Rothschild smiles as he shakes hands goodbye, and disappears through one of the doors for Sunday lunch with some leading lights in the arts, whom he is supporting. As I walk out along the perfectly raked gravel, and look at the immaculate lines of vine leaves alongside me, I reflect that the faces of the young dancers, the jury members and the patrons may be different, but everything they are doing is comfortably, commendably, consistent through the centuries.

Philippe Sereys de Rothschild on his favourite vintage of Mouton Rothschild:

“It’s difficult! I could mention the greatest vintages: 1945, 1959, 1961. The trouble is, I drank bottles of 1961 when I was much younger – 18 to 20. I drank a bottle of 1961 for my sister’s wedding, and another on her 10th wedding anniversary. Some guests came from England and one person was born in 1961 so we opened a bottle. Each time was different, so how can I say which was the best 1961? The magic about these wines is that they are never the same. They are always fascinating, they are always fabulous. So, if you ask me whether I prefer the 1945 or the 1961, I’d give you one answer today, and a different answer in five years.”

Discover Château Mouton Rothschild: chateau-mouton-rothschild.com

This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2018 issue. Click here to read more content: The Beauty Issue

Hublot Classic Fusion Bucherer Blue Edition

Hublot’s recently launched timepiece in partnership with Bucherer is at the top of our Christmas list. Here’s why it should be on yours

1. It’s classically beautiful

Dark blue and ageing copper make for an elegant, timeless look.

2. It’s limited edition

Often a loose term, but in this case, it’s actually true. Only 30 pieces have been made.

3. It’s two for the price of one

It’s designed by Hublot for the Bucherer Blue Editions collection, which means you get to say you have a Hublot watch and a Bucherer watch…

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4. It’s unusual

Hublot’s Art of Fusion concept seeks to combine unexpected materials; in this case, the watch’s case brings together ceramic and bronze.

5. It’s wearable with anything

Okay, so it might be slightly on the smarter end of the scale, but it’s surprisingly hardy too. The strap combines blue rubber with alligator leather for extra durability and comfort, and it’s water resistant up to 50m.

6. It will get better with age

Bronze is a material that develops over time, meaning it will only get more and more beautiful.

Convinced? You can buy online via: uk.bucherer.com/hublot-bucherer-blue-editions-watch

The Big Bang Unico Teak Italia Independent, only 100 of which were made

Hublot is fusing smart technology with sleek design to enthral a new generation of customers. Jason Barlow reports

Hublot is enjoying a renaissance. A renaissance that began with four weeks in the global spotlight this June, its prominence during the most compelling football World Cup in a generation exposing this most quixotic of watch brands to a huge new audience.

Inspiring an allegiance between a brand and a client is way more complicated than simply (expensively) forging a partnership with the world’s biggest football tournament, Formula One, or any number of individual ambassadors. Clearly, it helps. But it also helps when the brand in question has something genuinely interesting to say. There are lodestar names in the world of haute horology – Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet – and there are arrivistes, upstarts. Too many to name, in fact, and each freighted with a different set of promises. But certain attributes rise above the rest. Innovation. An engineered aestheticism. Authenticity. This last one is a cornerstone of the entire luxury edifice, and takes time to establish.

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Some get there with incredible rapidity: to take an example from a parallel world, Bugatti began making cars in 1909, artisanal Italian supercar maker Pagani only in 1992. The latter’s cars are the Fabergé eggs of the automotive sphere, precious beyond belief, Pagani’s connection with its clients the ne plus ultra of the car world. Or think of the Marchesi Antinori winery, whose classic Chianti production spans an incredible 26 generations, all the way back to 1385. An astonishing HQ in Bargino, Tuscany, acts as a temple to Antinori’s status and relentless ambition.

Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe and Jean- Claude Biver, head of watchmaking at LVMH

Hublot made its debut in 1980, but has navigated its way to a position of formidable brand power. In 2017, it enjoyed a record year, with a growth in sales of 12 percent, against an industry-wide backdrop of reduced revenues. How has it achieved this? CEO Ricardo Guadalupe’s approach is a fascinating one to dissect. “At Hublot, we strive to have technology at the service of the aesthetics,” he explains. “For us, it is not a battle but a right mix to find.”

I ask Guadalupe to delineate the brand’s ambassador strategy.

“Firstly, we go where our clients are! We continuously focus on our customers, we elaborate our partnerships in accordance with the interests of our clients, to better suit their needs and their expectations. Football, cars, art and music are such areas where our customers are.

Read more: Moynat unveils new collection of bags in London

“We are partnered with FIFA and UEFA, which are the two most important organisations in the football universe. And with Ferrari, which is certainly the most famous car brand in the world. We do things
according to our motto: ‘First, unique, different.’ When entering a new partnership, we always research to fuse our world with that of the ambassadors. What is important is that the potential ambassador is already a Hublot client and that he/she loves the brand. This really matters for us.”

Brand ambassador Usain Bolt

It’s sometimes tempting to think that many high-end brands are 70 percent marketing confections, 30 percent watch. Tuning this approach with the right sensitivity and science is something Guadalupe and his team are acutely aware of.

“We try to have the same strategy for all the countries in order to allow everybody to be part of the Hublot world,” he says. “But of course, we have some differences and some specificities for some markets. In China, we do not do print advertising, only digital. We also stage events around our boutiques or around the department stores where we are present. We have some ambassadors linked to their country: [pianist] Lang Lang is known all around the world but in China he is even more than a superstar.

“Our prices start from about £3,000 and we have a large selection at different prices. It means every person with a budget for a luxury watch can find his or her Hublot timepiece. Besides, we indeed think that we sell a dream, but it is not necessarily the most expensive watch. It is just about the emotion the client shares with their watch.”

The Big Bang Referee watch, to coincide with the 2018 World Cup

Entry points are moot. When former CEO of Hublot Jean-Claude Biver (now head of watchmaking at LVMH, to whom he sold the brand in 2008) decided to lower the barriers to TAG Heuer ownership to bring in the next generation of customers, it risked diluting its appeal to older, wealthier, arguably more discerning clients. Here, too, is another link with luxury brands beyond the watch world, and it had to be done. Ask any CEO in the automotive sector to outline the challenges they face, and high on the list will be reaching millennials. They simply don’t have the same relationship with cars that their parents did, partly because connectivity means something very different in 2018 than it did in 1988. The smartphone is the device that conquered the world, not always beneficently. So, how does Hublot tackle this challenge?

“As in the car, your first watch cannot be a Hublot,” Biver says in his typically forthright way. “You need some culture and knowledge, and most importantly you probably need to buy first one or two ‘classic’ or ‘traditional’ watches, before being ready for a disruptif and fusion watch.”

And what of the threat posed by so-called smart watches? Here, surely, is the item craved by millennials, at the expense of traditional watch-making.

“I am fully aligned with Mr Biver’s view,” says Guadalupe. “Smart watches should be considered as an advantage for the Swiss watchmaking industry because they conquer the wrist of people who weren’t wearing any watch. Moreover, one day, those young clients will also be interested in owning a piece of art on their wrist – and this is what we do.”

Hublot watches are still made in Switzerland

The brand collaborated with tattoo artist Maxime Büchi

Guadalupe also believes that Hublot’s very youth permits the disruption desiderated by so many brands, including some heritage names. It also liberates Hublot from the urge to simply reboot past successes. Instead of yet another tribute to something, he’s more interested in using new material, such as ceramic or sapphire. The partnership with Ferrari is emblematic of this approach: Hublot’s Techframe imports Ferrari’s expertise in advanced materials, to thrilling effect – how does titanium, King Gold or PEEK (polyether ether ketone) sound? Working with Italia Independent’s Lapo Elkann also maximises
the opportunity for what the fabulously flamboyant scion of the Agnelli family calls ‘contamination’. Tattoo artist Maxime Büchi has worked wonders there.

Read more: Château Mouton Rothschild supports restoration of Versailles

But back to connectivity, and Hublot’s unique manifestation of the concept.

“We created our first connected watch, the Big Bang Referee 2018 FIFA World Cup, as it was a specific need expressed by FIFA,” says Guadalupe. “Wanting a customised watch for the referees, FIFA asked Hublot to conceive the perfect watch to accompany them on the pitch during matches.

“Moreover, it was not possible to have all the necessary information on a mechanical watch, that is why we did a connected one. Nevertheless, it has all the attributes of the iconic Big Bang. Its emblematic architecture cut out of the lightness of titanium, its bezel decorated with six H-shaped screws, its Kevlar insert. Even the display on its analogue mode dial could pass for the same aesthetic as that of the automatic models. It is certainly a connected watch, but it is first and foremost a Hublot watch.”

Hublot’s ‘digital boutique’ launch in New York

Two other over-arching trends can’t be ignored. Firstly, does the resurgence of interest in ‘analogue’ – more vinyl records were sold in 2017 than any year since 1988 – favour Hublot?

“I think we must combine the two together,” says Guadalupe. “Digital is important and we must be into it if we want to keep in the era of time, but at Hublot, we keep thinking that it is important to merge tradition and innovation. It is not because we created a connected watch that we are forgetting the past. A key of our success is we are able to find the good balance between those elements.”

The other is the rise of ‘experiential luxury’, the realm that exists beyond the mere act of acquisition. This is a major preoccupation in the luxury world.

“Hublot is aware that the key asset of an excellent customer relationship is based on trust, availability and flexibility,” says Guadalupe. “We have innovatively imagined a ‘virtual’ digital boutique that perfectly complements the role and presence of its physical boutiques around the world. By remotely offering its customers 3D-facilitated access to its products, knowledge and knowhow, Hublot is successfully creating a new bespoke customer service, and preserving the essential denominator of any relationship – that is to say the human connection. It is a new customer experience that is beginning in the United States before being rolled out across the entire world.”

Hublot’s moment looks set to continue.

Discover Hublot’s collections: hublot.com

This article originally appeared in the LUX Beauty Issue. Click here to view more content from the issue.

Each year, Parisian luxury brand Moynat selects one aspect of their craft to spotlight. This year the focus is clasps, buckles, closures, hooks and rings, as LUX discovers at an exclusive preview in the brand’s Mount Street Boutique in London

The Mini Gaby in Leaf

Artistic director Ramesh Nair‘s most recent designs for Moynat explore the mechanisms of the luxury brand’s bags with the aim of both creating seamless function, ease and elegance.

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The Esquisse Clip bag in Mandarine

Admiring one especially exquisite Art Deco inspired clasp, we’re told that the design is based on the pattern of an architectural arch that Nair was drawn to and photographed. Other closures have been developed for their movement, practicality and playfulness, taking inspiration from classical buckles and locks, or everyday objects. The clasp on the Esquisse Bag, for example, is a bulldog clip on a thin silver chain.

The collection also plays with materials. Encased in very thin layers of stone, the Mini Vanity bags are amongst the most innovative with versions available in sandstone, slate, and granite.

To view the full collection visit: moynat.com

The Zenith El Primero Elite

With its revolutionary new mechanism, Zenith has challenged a 300-year-old watchmaking standard. Rachael Taylor meets the innovator behind the brand

In the Jura mountains, a high-altitude stretch of Switzerland deeply embedded in watchmaking heritage, Julien Tornare is operating a start-up. A 153-year-old start-up. Or at least that’s the way the Zenith chief executive views his leadership of this watch brand in flux.

The past couple of years have been stacked with innovation for Zenith. At global watch fair Baselworld in 2017, the maison delivered a reboot of the quite aptly named Defy collection that has shaken up not only its own offering, but the watchmaking status quo. The star of that first new wave was the Defy El Primero 21, a high-beat chronograph that can offer timing accuracy to 1/100th of a second, should you need to be absolutely sure which of your colleagues can complete the morning coffee run the swiftest.

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The Defy Classic with a blue alligator leather strap

Six months later came the really big news. Defy Lab, an experimental line of watches powered by silicone oscillators, not metal, had the watch community ready to self-combust. This was the first time that someone – Guy Sémon, a physicist and former French navy pilot, who is now the general director of Zenith’s sister brand TAG Heuer, to be exact – had successfully challenged the 300-year-old balance spring method developed by Dutch horologist Christiaan Huygens, the man responsible for the satisfying swing of an oscillating weight on your wrist.

What in traditional mechanical watchmaking once required 30 individual metal components, can now be done with just one silicon part. As well as reducing possible mechanical complications by having only one component to maintain, and making the watch lighter, this alternative silicon-driven mechanism also uses less power, and so increases the power reserve of the watch.

Zenith watches are still made in its atelier in Le Locle, Switzerland

The Defy Classic

When the Defy Lab watches were launched, just 10 were made, and these experimental timepieces were very much sold as experiences. For an entry fee of CHF29,900, a small group of connoisseurs was inducted into the Defy Lab. Each was flown first class to Switzerland to collect their watch, and have dinner and a wine tasting session with Tornare and his boss Jean-Claude Biver, the charismatic president of Zenith parent company LVMH’s watch division. Between jovial sips and nibbles, the two pressed upon these early adopters that by supporting this launch, they are now part of watchmaking lore, and also that their watches might be less than flawless.

“There might be some corrections,” admits Tornare. “I told them, you’re buying the research so your watches may not be perfect. They understand that they are part of the turning point, not only for Zenith but for the whole [watchmaking] industry.” Rather than be put off, this collusive, pioneering spirit has the collectors rapt – and connected. “On their own initiative, they have created their own WhatsApp group,” says Tonare.

Read more: Why you need to see the Rodin “Draw, Cut” exhibition at Musée Rodin, Paris

While the Defy Lab launched to much fanfare – with watches delivered by drone to a packed-out preview as Biver shouted, “We are the future of watchmaking!” – the use of silicone has had its detractors, who are worried that this game-changing engineering could destroy traditional horology. “Every time we change something you have two different reactions,” muses Tornare. “Purists are often against change, but when you get to the wider population of clients and millennials, that’s what they want. They want to buy something that brings something new and creative. We have to work between these worlds.”

Though he refers to the purists as friends, it is the more adventurous crowd that Tornare is really pursuing with the new direction in which he has been pushing Zenith since his arrival at the brand 18 months ago. “I worked a lot with Mr Biver [when I first joined], we exchanged a lot on the DNA of the brand,” he says. “In 153 years of history, there has always been a very strong spirit of innovation. Now the big question is, how do we keep millennials interested in mechanical watches? If we don’t want to become a museum brand, we have to keep bringing new things.”

When speaking of Zenith’s innovation, Tornare refers to the El Primero, which, when it launched in the 1960s was the first Swiss-made, fully integrated automatic chronograph, making it revolutionary at the time. And the line remains one of the most respected automatic chronographs in its price range today. Yet, like the rest of the Swiss watch industry, Zenith got complacent in the boom times. “The whole industry became a little bit static, especially in the past 12 to 15 years when all the brands did so well with the first generation of Chinese [wealthy consumers] buying anything at any price. Maybe the industry became a little bit lazy. Global brands tended to look to the past, including Zenith. It’s very important to wake up. We need to build from our heritage, but also create for the future.”

The Zenith building’s facade bears the initials of founder Georges Favre-Jacot

Zenith’s manufacturing facility was renovated in 2012

Tornare is applying this methodology not only to the products that Zenith produces, but to the entire company ethos. And with freshly installed ping-pong tables and cosy weekly breakfast chats with the entire team, he is consciously creating a start-up culture within a heritage luxury business. The concept is so alien that the highly respected IMD business school in Lausanne, at which Tornare himself studied, is currently working on a case study about Zenith and the challenges of being a retrospective start-up.

The Defy Classic with a titanium bracelet

Yet, for Tornare, who has spent much of his 25-year career in watches outside of his Swiss homeland, taking jobs in Hong Kong and the US, it makes perfect sense. “We have to think differently,” he says. “Swiss watch companies, and those located in the mountains, such as Zenith, are turned to the past. When I came on board, I started talking about a start-up spirit. I want to be innovative and dynamic.”

Read more: We ask Corum’s CEO Jérôme Biard 6 Questions

With a large staff deeply ingrained in Swiss watch culture, spread over 18 buildings, it was a hard sell at first. “The first [breakfast] sessions were difficult as it was a bit of a one-way speech and people were not interacting, but by the fourth session they got the exercise and one watchmaker stood up and asked, ‘Why don’t we have big celebrities like other brands?’,” says Tornare, who deftly responded that the lack of star power comes down to budgetary issues. “For me, though, it’s not about ideas to implement, it’s about the exchange and to make them feel part of the adventure.”

Stacked watch plates during manufacturing

The next step in that adventure is to commercialise the Defy Lab watches. “From the very beginning, we didn’t want to have 10 prototypes and then stop there,” says Tornare. “I still remember as a kid at the Geneva car show, you could see so many great cars looking like space ships, but they would never get on the market.” This isn’t what he wants for his brand.

Moving Defy Lab beyond science experiment status to full-blown innovator requires scale, and Tornare is “95 percent sure” that just after Baselworld 2019 at the end of March next year, Zenith should release a more commercial offering of these watches. Production levels will depend on keeping to a strict testing schedule, but Tornare is hopeful of producing between 400 and 600 watches, which he expects to be offered at a more accessible sub-€15,000 price tag.

The margin of error is so high for the silicone oscillators, that should the shape be out by a micron (the silicone is cut by laser and hand corrected), it will not keep time accurately, and as such, each watch needs to be individually tested. Tornare should know more at the end of the summer, when his team return from their holidays and bring back the Defy Lab watches they have been testing in different environments. Not quite the strict lab conditions we expect from Switzerland, but this crowd-funded research most definitely fits in with the all-new modern attitude of this evolving watchmaking legend.

View Zenith’s collections: zenith-watches.com

An Emilio Pucci collection on display at Palazzo Pucci, the family’s ancestral home in Florence.

Florentine aristocrat Emilio Pucci founded his eponymous label in post-war Italy; now the fashion house is internationally renowned for its vibrant geometric patterns and wearable glamour. We ask Emilio’s daughter, Laudomia Pucci, the brand’s Image Director and former CEO, 6 questions.

Laudomia Pucci. Image by Juan Aldabaldetrecu

1. Describe the modern Pucci woman.

The Pucci women is a very international woman. She travels, she is self-assured, she loves femininity and enjoys beauty and fun. She is not afraid of colour and enjoys life.

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2. How do you innovate whilst still staying true to the iconic Pucci aesthetic?

The innovation comes from the fabric and what women want. Mixing a more fluid day look also with sneakers, for example, blurring day and evening, adding more knitwear and changing proportions as well as making sure we are always true to the brand codes…

A look from the Fall/Winter 2018-19 collection

3. What were some of the inspirations behind the new collection?

The inspiration was the glamour of Marilyn Monroe, mixing it with the sporty chic feel of Los Angeles, the colours the shapes, the body-con effect. I think it’s very modern and glamorous at the same time.

4. What comes first functionality or style?

In fashion I think you need to try and serve both. Than it depends on the woman’s taste how she wants to live.

A look from the Emilio Pucci Spring/Summer 2019 collection

5. Earlier this year you collaborated with artist Mouna Rebeiz, creating a piggy bank as part of a charity auction. Do you see fashion as an art form?

We have always enjoyed collaborations and we delighted to participate to Mouna’s project. I’m not sure fashion is art, however they do sometimes cross paths and we have done that in the past with some very special brands. However I do believe my father could have loved being an artist and his prints are just as perfect and recognisable as art pieces, classical in their longevity. He also did lithographs and I have had some contact with artists too on the interpretation of the brand.

6. What’s the best city in the world for shopping?

Dubai – the gold market, the BURJ Khalifa, the mall of the Emirates. Just the quantities of possibilities for shopping are totally incredible there! Also I love Hong Kong for shopping – Hollywood road for the antique shops, Lane Crawford department store and all the shopping areas around Ocean Center.

Discover Emilio Pucci’s latest collections: emiliopucci.com

The entrance to the Corinthia Hotel in Westminster, London

Under the leadership of Alfred Pisani, Corinthia Hotels has grown from a single family-owned banquet hall in Malta to a global luxury brand with properties in 9 destinations and forthcoming openings in Dubai and Brussels. LUX speaks to the Maltese businessman about the challenges he’s faced, his guiding principles and the importance of creating a strong employee culture

Founder & Chairman of Corinthia Hotels, Alfred Pisani

LUX: You developed one of the first deluxe hotels in Malta on your family’s estate. Can you tell us about that story?
Alfred Pisani: It’s a long story but I’ll try and abbreviate. Basically, I was not planning to become a hotelier. My interests when I was at college were mathematics and science; a very logical style of thinking, which I think is very important to our life anyway. My father had just bought a beautiful, majestic villa with some 20,000 square metres of land and wasn’t quite sure whether we were going to live in it or he was going to do business in it. Unfortunately, he passed away four months later, and suddenly, together with my brothers, I had the responsibility of deciding what to do with this property. The place had not been lived in for a number of years and obviously deterioration had taken place, so our first step was to try and put that right. I went to the bank and got a loan, which my uncle supported me with in terms of security, and we first started using this magnificent hall for receptions and weddings, parties and so on.

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Then one day someone came along and said, ‘Why don’t you provide the catering as well?’ so we brought in an outside caterer to help us with that request. After that, we organised a proper kitchen, and then we opened our own restaurant. Two years down the line, there was a big drive from the government to give incentives to entrepreneurs, as the country was changing the economy from  one totally dependent on a naval and military base (as the English were pulling out), to one where we would have industry and tourism, to create a new economy. So I applied, and I went with my own drawing of a forty-room hotel to the appropriate ministry, but we were told we wouldn’t qualify unless we had a minimum 150 rooms.

The opening of Corinthia Palace in Malta, 1968

A few weeks later, I went back with an elongated hotel with 156 rooms. And the guy said to me, ‘So you have money for 40 rooms, but do you have room for 156?’ I said, ‘Well, no, but the bank does. They’re going to give us the money.’ He was amused, but I still went through the motions. I went to one bank, and then another, and then another, and eventually I found one large enough to handle the job. The same question was asked about our equity, and I told them the equity was the building, the ground and our effort. We got 100% funding, and this is something I’m still proud of today. That was unheard of then. But I assume the timing was part of the whole success; there was a tremendous push to bring in foreign currency and to create a new industry.

Then when I came to build the hotel, I found the local contractors were very busy and too expensive, so I decided I’d be the contractor. I actually employed people from the street – literally. And I’ve never built a hotel as fast as that. Never. Today I keep saying to everybody, ‘We do so many drawings that we’d have enough paper to build a hotel out of it.’ But obviously things have become very much more complicated with all the electronics and everything. It’s quite remarkable, though, what one can do when one is determined. I remember buying a second-hand mixer to do the concrete, and we would throw in the aggregate, the sand and the cement and I’d hold a pipe and I’d look it and say, ‘Hmm, yes, the consistency looks right, let’s pour.’

Read more: New luxury hotel Chais Monnet opens near Bordeaux

You know, it’s remarkable with what you can do with nothing. We would work from 6 o’clock in the morning until about 11 o’clock at night, day in, day out, for around two years. And then we opened and it was successful. Again, there were coincidences that helped us along the road and we took the opportunities. Some decisions were very difficult to make in terms of bringing in new partners and going from one playing field to a more advanced one with new shareholders and new standards. And you have to remember that we didn’t have a home market. The banks couldn’t come aboard with us, because they just didn’t have the capital to do that. So, each time we went to an outside destination we’d have to talk to banks who didn’t know us. That didn’t make it easy. You really had to prove yourself. And you had to appoint new architects too. This was what I found most difficult. If you got your first step outside your island wrong, it would just knock you out. So you couldn’t afford to get it wrong. At that time, I didn’t think like that: I just went and went and went. I never had a doubt in my mind. I suppose that’s the beauty of youth, when you are full of enthusiasm and determination but you are limited in your expertise and experience: that combination worked well for us.

Ladies enjoying the pool at Corinthia Palace, Malta in 1968

We have always focused on trying to achieve the best. I don’t think in the early days we gave more importance to visibility as to the quality. I have a strong conviction that quality will win the day. You have to get every step right and then the results will be right. I had a natural tendency to focus on the details and trying to get everything right with the strong belief that that was ultimately what would produce the results I wanted. We don’t have a real measure. I used to say, ‘If I sow one hundred seeds, ninety-five will grow, because that’s part of nature.’ So as long as you move with the current of nature, the results are going to be further growth. There were these very strong principles from a very early stage, and I was constantly trying to share my beliefs and direction with everybody else.

LUX: What do you think sets the Corinthia apart?
Alfred Pisani: Well, today, after so many years of growing a hotel out of a very small country, we have brought another element into our consideration. Not only do we believe in ‘doing it right’ in order to generate a positive return, but we’ve gone one step further by saying we want to “uplift lives”. It will probably take a long time to appreciate what I’m trying to say; I didn’t think like this when I was younger, but it’s something people get to eventually. If you want a more productive outcome from your colleagues – I don’t like to call them employees – you must identify a sense of caring. If you share your knowledge, give a helping hand and show respect, this creates a more committed work force, where everybody is aligning the energy. It’s just like in a magnet: when you align all the atoms instead of having them in disarray, you create a magnet. Simply by infusing a sense of discipline and purpose, you can align everyone’s energies to think in the same direction. You create an energy where, like a magnet, though you can’t see it, you can sense it.

So, from being totally focused on wanting perfection, it has translated itself over the years into saying how can you make everyone within the family more successful as an individual? You must sleep well, eat well, socialise – work is just another aspect of this holistic responsibility. If you can get your engine to be firing correctly on all cylinders, you just get your efficiency a bit higher; you fine tune it. That’s what I think sets Corinthia apart. We have a very close interaction with our personnel. We call it the family. I truly say this with all sincerity: people who have come to the company, and even those who leave the company, will always remain Corinthians. They will always show respect. I say this with a lot of conviction and satisfaction.

A suite at the Corinthia Hotel in London

LUX: We’ve been discussing your properties in Malta – is that your biggest market?
Alfred Pisani: If we go back to when I opened my first hotel in 1968, at that time, with Malta still having a semi-colonial relationship with Britain, all we knew was the UK. We bought everything from the UK, right down to the smallest screw. Our tourism came from the UK, I would say 99%. There was no corporate business because there was no business. People came mainly in summer. Their stays would be long stays – one or two weeks – and it was all handled by tour operators, who distributed the brochures and displayed the hotel across the UK. They would come over in August and agree the rates for the following year. Everything was agreed a year in advance.

Read more: Luxury watch designer Richard Mille on creativity and supercars

Over the years the government and hoteliers realised that it was necessary to diversify for the future and effort was put into marketing it in Europe. And this has, over the years, mainly succeeded, because now we have visitors from all over. Possibly Britain is still number 1. I think it’s a healthy situation to arrive at. When we came to open in London, we knew what the story was. In the five-star business, you had the home market and the United States. So we made a big effort in the United States to win our share of the five star business coming to London, competing against all the other well-known brands, who have been there for a very long time. I think we did very well in penetrating the market in the space of two or three years.

The Pool at ESPA, Corinthia London

LUX: What’s the biggest challenge in investing in other countries?
Alfred Pisani: As I said earlier our bankers, our lawyers, our everything could not move with us. We had to look for destination  where their business had a similarity to us such as resort businesses, holiday businesses, and where it was not too expensive that we could not afford it. I couldn’t dream of coming to London or New York so to begin we built five hotels in Turkey and because I didn’t feel confident enough I looked for Turkish partner.

After 1990 when there was the dissolution of the Soviet Union, tremendous opportunities were available in Russia and all the Eastern European countries came by cheaply. Now, we were, I think, even ahead of the banks! We went into St Petersburg and Budapest and so on and they were good opportunities. We visited every single east European country that had now opened, but what I didn’t have, because I don’t think we were wise yet or we didn’t have the reputation yet, was funding and support from a consult team of banks and institutions which was somewhat of a handicap because the opportunities I met were tremendous.

Read more: The Secret Diary of an Oxford Undergraduate

LUX: And you’ve got properties opening in Brussels and Dubai?
Alfred Pisani: We bought the property in Brussels so that belongs to us, but in Dubai we are purely in management. We will run our flag on one of the most beautiful hotels to be built in Dubai and it will be Corinthia, but we are not the owners. We have supported it in the designs – it will be stunning and it’s set to open in 2020.

In the meantime, we have been operating two other properties on behalf of the same company, the Meydan Group. They have the Meydan Hotel which has big horse racing track and all of the bedrooms overlook the track. It’s a very successful property and we have seen tremendous increase in the bottom line since we took over, together with another hotel which they own in the desert called Bab Al Shams. So, apart from investing in our own properties I think now we have a brand that is visible enough and that is providing good enough standards to also offer it to third party owners and hopefully expand our brand in many more hotels without necessarily putting in capital.

The restaurant at Corinthia London, headed by Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge

LUX: What’s the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn?
Alfred Pisani: I think the lesson I learnt was a confirmation of the conviction I already had to do everything properly and that by doing everything properly, you stood a much bigger chance of success, as opposed to taking shortcuts. We kept to this principal and we would never get involved with political parties in countries. What I realise today, which I didn’t realise at the time, is that I think we were right  in the way we negotiated and I don’t think I would change it if I had to do it all over again. My advice to those who are still starting is keep on the straight.

LUX: Do you see a difference in what younger and older travellers expect from luxury?
Alfred Pisani: Yes, there has been a change of expectations from the customers in terms of the hardware, for example, bathrooms. However, the basic ingredients that they look for haven’t changed. Are you welcomed with a smile that is genuine and not plastic? Do you truly, collectively, radiate an energy of positiveness, which makes the customer feel good even though he cannot put his finger on it? Those elements haven’t really changed that much. I don’t know whether in a number of years to come whether we will be interacting with one another in a deeper way by the development of our intellect, the telepathy, the ability to feel and sense each other in a stronger way with the support of electronics… That’s the future.

LUX: And what about the future of Corinthia Hotels?
Alfred Pisani: Growth. I am sure that the principles that we have worked with will be maintained and the new phrase that was created recently in our last general managers’ meeting in Brussels: “uplifting lives”. That phrases encompasses how we want to continue helping our colleagues to grow and become better people.

Discover Corinthia hotels: corinthia.com

Richard Mille chooses sports personalities as brand ambassadors, including Ukrainian high jumper Yuliya Levchenko

Richard Mille is the name adorning some of the world’s most expensive – and outrageous – timepieces. But the eponymous founder is a thoughtful, passionate creative who dreamed of creating a racing car company as much as a watch brand. Darius Sanai meets him

Richard Mille watching Formula One

Richard Mille has grown his eponymous brand from start-up to occupying a dominant space at the top end of the luxury watch echelon, in less than 20 years. He has done so, not by imitating others, but by creating a completely new script for high-end watches: dramatically beautiful shapes, mind-bending mechanicals and super-high tech, tough materials, meaning his striking timepieces are significant in size but lightweight to wear. Mille could be seen as inventing a new market for the young-at-heart collector who wants to break from tradition. They are sculptures as much as they are timepieces.

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But he is also a marketing genius, sponsoring (and sticking with) stars such as Rafael Nadal, who repaid Mille’s unswerving faith in him by winning the French Open for the 11th time this year, and attaching his name to the sexiest sports, and the sexiest spots, in the world. Whether you’re attending Formula One in Singapore, Formula E in Hong Kong, the Concours d’Elegance in Chantilly, or just hopping by helicopter from Monaco to the private jet terminal at Nice Côte d’Azur airport, you will see the brand (and its customers).

Polo champion and Richard Mille brand ambassador Pablo MacDonough

Richard Mille’s most notable recent partnership is with hyper-car makers McLaren, and like the rest of the brand, the motoring DNA wasn’t dreamed up by a marketing agency. Mille is a car fanatic and collector of some of the most exquisite historic classic cars, and it was this subject – the symmetry between watch and car design and ethos – that kicked off our conversation, because there is a symmetry between classic cars and hypermodern watches, as he reveals…

LUX: Many collectors will say that today’s cars are not as beautiful as the cars of the 1950s and 1960s. What is your view on that?
Richard Mille: The car designs of today are certainly driven by efficiency; everyone wants to optimise the aerodynamics, engine power, downforce, etc. In the 1960s the objectives were different, and there was a lot of the designer’s personality involved in the cars. The variety of designs was very interesting, even in terms of the design drawings – back then even racing cars were very different to each other. Nowadays it is very difficult to see the difference between different car brands because they have to be designed with performance efficiency in mind. Even if you are a connoisseur of Formula One, if you take away the different colours, it would be very different to see the difference between a Ferrari and a Mercedes, because everything is driven by computers and aerodynamics.

The McLaren collaboration watch, RM 50-03

Brand ambassador and
Olympic high jumper
Mutaz Essa Barshim

LUX: Does that apply also to engines? Engines used to be mechanical things of beauty, and that applied to the sounds they made, also. Nowadays, I’m not sure many people could tell the difference between the V8 twin turbo engines in an Aston Martin, a Ferrari, a Mercedes-AMG or a BMW M5.
Richard Mille: Most probably, because now you have to be careful about noise, emissions and other aspects. And when you open the bonnet you don’t see the revelation of the engine. With an Aston Martin or a Lamborghini Huracán you have a magnificent car, but you open the bonnet and you just see a lot of plastic. You then go to a classic car concours and see all those cars; the people are totally crazy because each one is more beautiful than the other – so many different shapes, colours, engines, noises. It is fantastic to see 500 cars in one place that are so different from each other.

Read more: Art auctioneer Simon de Pury on modern philanthropy

LUX: Do you think the younger generation now think of cars just as transportation – that they’d be as happy to use a shared car club or an autonomous car?
Richard Mille: I think in the genes there is still an appeal for cars. If you speak about younger children, today they are in different virtual universes, but still the appeal of a nice car is there. You see them looking around racing cars and dreaming. So I think it still brings excitement.

Above: scenes from the Chantilly Arts & Elegance Richard Mille event 2017

The RM 70-01 watch

LUX: Does the same question apply with mechanical watches? People don’t need the watches you make, but they want them because they are desirable objects?
Richard Mille: Yes, you can really say that there is a parallel there because so many people are still buying watches in different colours that they don’t really use. It’s the same when you buy a sports car that can go at 300km/h; that is not any use because of speed limits, unless you go on a track. But the beautiful object is still a source of desire, which is nice because I can see myself that we cannot cope with the demand, the demand is getting totally crazy. We increase the production every year. Last year we did 4,000 pieces, this year we will do 4,600 pieces, so it is a constant growth. But I cannot cope with the demand at all, the demand is exploding. I have seen the same with my friends. The McLaren Senna costs £750,000 and they were all sold without anyone even seeing a picture of one. My friends, they want it but they can’t get it. It’s the same story with the McLaren P1: 500 units all sold before even before production started. Studies are showing that young people aged 18-30 still dream about luxury watches, which is funny because I expected the opposite.

Read more: The Secret Diary of an Oxford Undergraduate

LUX: When you are creating the watches, how much does the design inform the mechanicals and how does that conversation happen? Because the distinctiveness of your watches is in the design but they are also very mechanically advanced.
Richard Mille: It was one of my concerns when I started,to give as much importance to the design as to the mechanical aspect.

Heptathlete and brand ambassador Nafissatou Thiam

LUX: It is a crowded market, and you have created a brand that has gone from zero to hero in 20 years. How did you do that and why did you succeed when so many others had tried but failed, or remained much smaller?
Richard Mille: The first reason was a kind of rupture with a world of watches. People in this world of high-end watches were just duplicating the same watches that were in existence at the beginning of the 20th century. So I said, we have to do a contemporary watch, a watch that is very different from what is out there, and to create it at any cost, without any compromise. So today it is a paradox where we have a young brand that has got a lot of respect from the market, from the competition and also from the public. We have a lot of respect because we do not copy anybody and we are not afraid to take risks. Many other brands are inspired by the high-end watch business, but sometimes the problem with the watch business is that it is boring – the message is always the same. Our message is that we respect tradition, but we are modern, we are a contemporary watch, we are extremely technical but we do watches to live with, to wear daily.

Singer Pharrell Williams and sprinter Yohan Blake wearing Richard Mille watches at the Little Big Mans race

Mille-sponsored Alexander
Zverev wins the 2018
Madrid Open

LUX: Have you ever been tempted to start or revive a luxury car brand?
Richard Mille: That has been my dream for many years, yes. I would have loved that. It is such a different universe. At the same time, we only have 24 hours in a day; I think it would take two lives to do a car company as well. So I will stick to the watches and collect cars.

LUX: Do you think it’s a shame that France no longer has a supercar brand, like it did many years ago?
Richard Mille: It is, because we have a very interesting past as you see with car collectors. But after the Second World War, the French government just decided to do popular cars.

LUX: LUX speaks to the high end of the luxury market. Is luxury stratifying?
Richard Mille:  Yes, I can see that everyday. There are many luxury brands that are turning into volume brands, and sometimes it is very high volume. Also people are more educated and sophisticated and know the numbers; they know that many brands are volume makers and they are looking for more exclusive things, things that will make them different. Twenty years ago people did not know the difference between Hermès and Louis Vuitton. Today they know the difference between those brands; they know who is doing what. The world of luxury, which was quite over generous, has today totally exploded between all the different segments.

Discover Richard Mille’s collections: richardmille.com

Chelsea FC players Ross Barkley, Marcos Alonso, Olivier Giroud and David Luiz with Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe (middle) cutting the ribbon to mark the opening of Hublot’s London flagship boutique

Monday night saw the official opening of Hublot’s flagship boutique on New Bond Street

Celebrities and fashionistas lined the pavements of New Bond Street in the early evening to celebrate the opening of Hublot‘s first flagship in London and 92nd international store. The store replaces the brand’s previous shop, at the Northern end of the same street, which was run by the watchmaker’s former UK partner Time Products Luxury and owned by Marcus Margulies. Together with four Chelsea FC players, Hublot’s CEO Ricardo Guadalupe cut the ribbon.

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Guests admired the glossy interiors and Pop-Art paintings of the brand’s iconic Big Bang watches whilst Chelsea players signed an illustrated map charting the route from their Stamford Bridge stadium to the Hublot boutique – a gift to mark the extension of the club’s partnership with the brand for another three years.

British model Lara Stone

Ricardo Guadalupe and Olympic athlete Dina Asher-Smith

Read more: Caroline Scheufele on Chopard’s gold standard

Those attending included Lara Stone, Dina Asher-Smith, Amy Jackson and English cricketer Nick Compton. Celebrations continued late into the night with a champagne reception and dinner at Beck in Brown’s Hotel.

The interiors of Hublot’s New Bond Street boutique

Actress Amy Jackson

England football manager Gareth Southgate

Adam Mcnamara, Jack Lowden and Oliver Proudlock

The Hublot Flagship Boutique is located on 14 New Bond Street, London W1S 3SX. For more information on the brand visit: hublot.com

Moynat’s shop in Selfridges, London

It was hand-painted handbags at dusk at the new, gallery-like Accessories Hall at Selfridges in London as Moynat, the uber-exclusive Parisian leather goods company, opened its new shop-within-a-shop in the most prime location in the area. Moynat’s urbane, intellectual CEO Guillaume Davin (who appears more like a perfectly-coiffed character out of a Michel de Montaigne essay, than a luxury brand CEO) was on hand to greet visiting journalistic and customer illuminati, as was creative director Ramesh Nair.

Moynat’s CEO Guillaume Davin, Creative Director, Ramesh Nair and LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai at the launch of Moynat in Selfridges. Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Moynat

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International Vogue Editor Suzy Menkes at Moynat launch party. Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Moynat

The star of the show, though, was surely the painter, Laure, who sat at a table in the centre of the shop painting motifs onto Moynat’s extremely expensive leather with special acrylic paints. One prototype bag featured a motif of Louis Bleriot’s ‘XI’, the first plane to cross the Channel, which appeared and disappeared with temperature fluctuations.

Artist, Laure, painting motifs onto Moynat leather. Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Moynat

Moynat handbags. Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for MOYNAT)

Meanwhile Nair, wearing a black T-shirt and fizzing with ideas, told LUX about a couple of new concepts he is planning, including one so avant-garde he hasn’t yet dared run it past Davin. Watch this space.

moynat.com

Tyler Ellis SS18 Collection

Tyler Ellis

Tyler Ellis, daughter of American fashion designer Perry Ellis, is one of LA’s hottest accessory designers right now. Her clutches and handbags are frequently photographed on the arms of Hollywood’s leading ladies, favoured for their simple, functional design and luxurious range of fabrics. Digital Editor Millie Walton puts the designer in the hot seat, for our new 6 questions slot.

1. You grew up around some of the biggest names in the fashion industry, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors to name but two. Did this inspire you to become a designer?

My mother chose to raise me in LA away from my father’s world to try and give me a private and more normal childhood, so I was not raised in the fashion scene. I remember the first time I went to a Marc Jacobs fashion show, I was around 13 years old and it was at a tented, candle lit pier in NYC, very reminiscent of a romantic night in Italy. That was the first moment that I knew the designer gene was in my blood. The energy in the room was electric – a feeling I will never forget and something that I knew I wanted to be a part of!

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I returned home to LA and for a period of time left my dreams of becoming a designer in NYC. I ended up going to college in Boston and graduating with a Communications degree. It wasn’t until I moved to NYC and started working with the designer Michael Kors that my dream to design reemerged.

Working for Michael and his team was amazing. It was like one big family with people encouraging and inspiring one another to push themselves to do their very best. After this incredible experience I decided to take the leap and start my own line. It was the scariest, but at the same time, most rewarding thing I have ever done and I am very thankful that these impactful experiences pushed me to follow my dream!

2. Your designs have attracted an impressive celebrity following, how influential do you think celebrity endorsement is for contemporary luxury brands?

It has been an unbelievable honour having such strong, incredible and powerful women like Oprah Winfrey, Meryl Streep, Viola Davis, Salma Hayek and Reese Witherspoon choosing to carry my bags, when they have the world at their fingertips.

Celebrities have literally “made” unknown clothing brands by wearing their creations to major events, giving emerging designers a worldwide platform which most young brands cannot achieve on their own. Exposure is key!

Actor Salma Hayek (left) pictured at the Golden Globes holding the Lily Clutch by Tyler Ellis

The accessory world is a bit more difficult because when a celebrity walks the red carpet, the outfit is always the main focus, jewellery and shoes may or may not get mentioned, and the bag sometimes might not even be carried.

Personally, capturing images of celebrities carrying my bags has been a huge asset to my brand not only because it drives sales, but also because it creates brand legitimisation. In order for most people to purchase an item, especially a luxury piece, they must believe in or have trust in the brand. As I mentioned earlier, celebrities have access to anything they want, and when they choose to carry my bags it sends a message to the world.

3. What makes the perfect bag?

The perfect mix between functionality and luxury. There are many beautiful bags in the world, but what defines the good from the great are the intricate details.
All of my bags are hand crafted in Florence, by a father/son owned factory. I customise my hardware, purchase alligator, python and lizard from Hermès Cuirs Precieux (HCP), an Hermès owned tannery, and source all of my leathers from France and Italy.

To me, what make my bags even more unique are the beautiful details that create functionality. Every Tyler Ellis clutch comes with a hidden, detachable, lightweight chain, holds the largest iPhone, fits comfortably in the hand and most also have discrete exterior pockets and internal dividers for the essentials.

Tyler Ellis SS18 Collection

Day bags come with phone chargers, extra-long key-fobs, credit card slots, iPad/computer compartments, hidden exterior pockets and zippered internal pockets. Gold plated pinecone feet are offered to help protect the hides and all of the bags are all lined with my signature “Thayer Blue” lining making it easy to see your belongings inside.

My bags are representations of me and my lifestyle, and I strive to make them as best as I possibly can.

Read next: Photographer Maryam Eisler on East London and the power of art

4. What are some of the challenges that face small independent luxury brands today?

Getting the right people in front of the product! People are so busy these days and given the speed and power of social media and the internet there is so much noise out there it’s very difficult to get enough attention from the fashion world to make a difference for an emerging brand. Larger brands have larger budgets, which leads to greater mainstream exposure. As an independent niche brand, I have changed my approach on running my business, relying less on the traditional fashion world and focusing more on intimate events with prominent women in key cities around the world. These women have access to anything and everything and when they choose to purchase and carry Tyler Ellis it’s an incredible validation for my brand and me.

Gigi Hadid pictured with the Ava Box. Photo by James Devaney/GC Images

5. Do you have a favourite material to work with and why?

I always enjoy working with unexpected exotics…skins like ostrich leg, jungle fowl, fish and toad are not commonly used but look and feel super luxe and keep people guessing. Creating these unique pieces excites me because there is so much of the same out there and it’s always refreshing to find something different and individual. The most rewarding feedback I have received from clients is that when they carry their Tyler Ellis bags, people constantly stop them and inquire about the bags, which makes them feel great and excited to be carrying something special and coveted.

6. What’s next for your brand?

I am currently working on a bag collaboration with a very talented Hollywood stylist. It’s a sporty day bag, which differs from my more classic signature style, but I’m very proud of it and super excited for the launch. I will also be continuing an ongoing collaboration with the fashion label Noon by Noor for their Fall Winter collection which will be presented over New York Fashion Week– stay tuned!

I’ve also started to delve into the bridal world. I’m at the age where many of my friends are getting engaged and I’ve been getting requests to design bespoke bags for brides and their bridal parties. I have a quick turn around and can custom most colours and materials. Another added bonus is the interior of my bags are blue, so you are also checking off something new and blue!

tylerellis.com

Markus Lupfer’s womenswear SS17 collection

German-born, London-based Markus Lupfer is the man who gave us wearable and fun statement knitwear, not to mention some of the quirkiest accessories and outerwear. His creations are as at home in the bars of Hoxton as they are on the backs of chairs at La Soucoupe in Courchevel. His trademark witty glamour has earned Lupfer a following that includes Madonna, Cara Delevingne, Olivia Palermo and Rihanna. Kitty Harris catches up with him in between collections

Markus Lupfer

LUX: What sparked your interest in fashion?
Markus Lupfer: I wanted to be a fashion designer since I was 16 years old… It was my dream and it was all I ever wanted to do! I used to draw and sketch during maths and English classes to the annoyance of my teachers.

LUX: Where did the inspiration for your sequin embroidered sweaters come from?
ML: I developed the very first sequin jumper in 2007, which was actually our sequin lip jumper. The lip is a reference to my signature, which are two lips (kiss kiss) instead of an ‘xx’. The first time I saw the embroidery test of the lip I loved it and it has grown from there.

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LUX: Your designs always have a playful, uplifting element like your cherry and lip motifs. How much does your mood guide your designing?
ML: At the beginning of the season I try to create an overall mood and feel for the collection. The mood of the girl is important and varies from season to season… sometimes she is more glamorous, sometimes she’s got more attitude and is tougher, sometimes she is more romantic… however, there is always something light-hearted in our collections.

LUX: In your AW15 men’s collection, your hand-drawn prints resembled comics, while the following year’s collection incorporated the bear and birds again. How do you keep your illustrations fresh?
ML: Each season the inspiration comes with an instinctive idea, something that really excites me at the time. It could be art, or a place, a movie or music; it really varies. I always try to find a point of difference with our illustrations, something new, something unusual, something desirable.

LUX: Why did you decide on the phrase ‘Don’t question it – wear it’ for this year’s pre-Fall collection?
ML: It was all about unusual contrasts. For example, we had some studded high-gloss belts styled with pretty dresses – it was an unusual combination, so that’s why we used that phrase.

Markus Lupfer’s womenswear SS17 collection with Ecru Fruit Blossom design

LUX: What is the biggest challenge you face as a designer?
ML: We are now working on four womenswear collections a year, which means that there is a deadline every three months. It’s exciting but it’s also challenging.

LUX: Who is your ideal client?
ML: I am always so excited when I see someone wearing Markus Lupfer in the street. It really means a lot to me. I have been in the lucky position of dressing some of the most incredible girls, people like Rihanna, Beyoncé, Ellie Bamber and Maisie Williams.

Read next: Superchef Thomas Keller’s forward-thinking fine dining 

LUX: What lies ahead for the brand?
ML: This year we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of our lip design. We are working on a special project for autumn which is very exciting.

LUX: What is your proudest achievement in your career to date?
ML: Being able to be creative and do what I love most all of the time.

LUX: Are there any clothes you won’t wear?
ML: I don’t wear flip-flops.

LUX: If you had the chance to study again what would you learn?
ML: Astronomy – I would love to learn all about the stars and space.

LUX: What is your motto?
ML: Always enjoy what you do and try to make life more beautiful.

markuslupfer.com

Actress, campaigner, wife of Kering owner François-Henri Pinault, Salma Hayek and CHIME FOR CHANGE co-founder, joined UNICEF to meet Syrian refugees in Lebanon in 2015

Gucci is the biggest Kering brand and, as a producer of leather and fashion garments, the one with the biggest sustainability challenges. In a candid exchange, Robert Triefus, Gucci’s EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, tells LUX how the label is tackling them.

LUX: Is there an awareness among all your staff of the broad Kering vision?
Robert Triefus: We are in luxury fashion. For some individuals, they will feel there is a contradiction in terms between sustainability and luxury fashion. But I think that you have to start from the premise that we are a business, a for-profit (not a not-for-profit) one that believes in its responsibility to lower its impact in terms of carbon footprint, waste management and social issues – how we can be responsible in our community. As the big picture, I think that this is the framework that we, as a group, work within.

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LUX: That big picture means not just reducing environmental impact but doing good in areas such as gender equality. Is this on the rise?
RT: It’s interesting because one of the impacts of the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States and his rather nationalistic approach has been that brands generally are looking at how they can contribute towards the debate on the promotion of certain rights. Equality as a whole is a significant topic in America and beyond because it has that kind of reach.

Going back to the mission of Kering, one of the key issues has always been the idea of gender equality, so when we launched CHIME FOR CHANGE [co-founded by François-Henri Pinault’s wife Salma Hayek, a leading campaigner on gender equality issues] three years ago, it was something we believed in both as a brand and as something that makes very good sense given the number of female clients we have. But also within the framework of Kering’s overall mission, it resided very well under that overall umbrella.

Today, I think the issue of gender equality is widely seen because it has built momentum and it has acquired much more engagement in the media for a lot of different reasons. So, I think that over the past three years we’ve been engaging in this campaign because we believed it was the right thing to do as a campaign, and as a topic.

LUX: In the Dining Issue of LUX we have an interview with Marc Glimcher of Pace Gallery who says that they are doing public art because the public sector doesn’t have the money. Likewise, is no one stepping in to do what you are doing?
RT: I think over the past 10 to 20 years, the private sector in its different manifestations has become much more active partly in the growth of understanding of the role that corporations, brands and wealthy, successful entrepreneurs can play. If you look at the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffets of this world and what they are doing today, you can see that they feel they have responsibilities and the capacity of a small country to carry them out.

Read next: Abercrombie & Kent founder Geoffrey Kent on the value of luxury travel

LUX: How does the responsibility element, the CHIME FOR CHANGE, link with the sustain-ability element of Kering’s strategy?
RT: Within Kering’s ten-year strategy there are pillars. One of them is focused on the environment, and all what we do goes with that. When you use the word sustainability, it’s immediately associated with the environment. But the second pillar is about social good with campaigns such as CHIME FOR CHANGE on gender equality and other philanthropic activities. The third pillar is more in the area of innovation. Kering looks at sustainability in a broad sense under the notion of responsibility to the environment and to humanity. This innovation is driving ways of doing business differently across the area of sustainability.

Gucci’s pre-Fall 2017 collection

LUX: Gucci and CHIME FOR CHANGE support women’s and girls’ causes and you partner with the action group Global Citizen. It’s a good ex-ample of a corporation taking responsibility for social campaigning. Is this continuing?
RT: Yes, the fact that equality is more under question than it was a year ago, certainly in the most developed country in the world [the US], means that we as a campaign movement are going to be busier than before, probably. We are always looking for ways we can be more effective in getting our message out there. Music as a convening force will be part of what we do. We will be having festivals in New York and Berlin. There will be another CHIME FOR CHANGE hackathon supported by Facebook. We are looking for something in the art community, and will continue to be active as we have in the past, and what we could do in the future.

LUX: Will consumers start to demand that luxury brands are responsible? Are you seeing this now or do they just not care?
RT: No, I think they assume that we are responsible and sustainable so I think it would become punitive if it becomes apparent that we have not been acting in that way. At the same time I think – and it’s a bit of a cliché now – the millennials and generation Z are definitely growing up much more aware because they are living in an environment that is more in question. Therefore, they are increasingly aware of the negative impact that companies can have. So, let’s say that the expectation that you are responsible is put at an even greater premium.

LUX: As we go forward, will you push Kering’s sustainability message forward more in Gucci?
RT: I think the point is that we are a for-profit, not not-for-profit, so we are de facto never going to be perfect. Now, we are not going to make this the unique selling point of our brand, maybe it’s different in the case of Stella McCartney as it is part of her DNA, but by and large it is something we believe companies and ourselves should be doing. We are not going to shout from the rooftops because frankly someone could justifiably say, “hang on a minute, you should be that way, so why are you shouting about it?”

gucci.com

A range of glasses crafted by Moser

Moser glassworks was founded in 1857 in the tiny quaint town of Karlovy Vary, just outside of Prague, and is now one of the world’s best-known luxury artisanal glassware brands. Kitty Harris travelled to the glass workshop to speak to Moser’s Art Director, Lukáš Jabůrek about inspirations, collaborations and meeting the demands of diverse luxury markets on the brand’s 160th anniversary year.

Lukáš Jabůrek, Moser’s Art Director

Kitty Harris: What is your background? How did you start?
Lukáš Jabůrek: I studied the cutting and design of glass at a school in Nový Bor. I later worked as a glass cutter in various glass factories in France, The Netherlands and Ireland for some years. I then worked as a teacher in a glass school and later, I came to Moser as an artist, designer and technologist.

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KH: Why did you choose glass cutting? Was it a tradition within your family?
LJ: During my childhood, I always enjoyed painting and architecture, so I decided to attend art school. During my time there, I became involved in glass cutting and I found it inspiring. It is so diverse, as it can be used to make sculptures and decorations, amongst many other things.

KH: What is the best thing about your job?
LJ: Cutting! Every day is different and I always have new ideas and designs. I find the process of cutting glass here in the studio very relaxing.

KH: Where do you draw inspiration from?
LJ: From architecture, nature and life in general. I take inspiration from everything around me.

KH: How do you encourage younger generations? It is a very specialised practice and not many young people may know about it or are interested…
LJ: It is very difficult because many young people don’t know about glass cutting or necessarily want to work with it. Physically, it is very difficult work. With oven temperatures reaching 1400 degrees the manual work is exhausting. If the temperature outside is above 30 degrees we do not allow the glassblowers to work as is it too hot in the factory. As the day goes on, the ovens cool down, to 700 degrees and at this temperature we can make larger pieces of glass – though this is even more demanding work.

Glass blowing at the Moser workshop

In order to deal with this, we partner with schools and students. I search for talent and I invite students to do internships at the studio. Now they only have three or four students per year so it is very small selection to choose from. They train for three years at glass making school and many drop out. But here in the glass factory, we have two student departments and a glass school. This year we will have the very first female glassblower to work at Moser glassworks. We rely a lot on tradition, the craft being passed down generation to generation. Recently, our master glass blower, who has worked at Moser for 60 years, retired and his son is now the manager of the glassblowing workshop.

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KH: What makes Moser special?
LJ: It is the combination and range of colours compared to all the glass factories in the world which have a large but basic colour ranges. And of course, it is a 100% handmade production, with cutting, engraving and painting all done by hand. Visitors are invited to the Moser Museum and some guided tours are available around the site, though the work rooms are closed to the public as the workers need a quiet environment to concentrate in as one wrong 1mm line of engraving can mean a piece (that has gone through 20 other hands before it arrived) is thrown away. Once a year we do an open door day where we run competitions and invite locals and families to spend the day at the factory.

Glass art engravings in the Moser workshop

KH: Why is it a luxury?
LJ: Because it is a special design from the best designers. The colour range is very unique. With regards to production, we have the best cutters and engravers. We maintain very high quality, because we get rid of 70% of the glass at the first innining – these might have bubbles, dust or imperfections. One vase may take one hour, and ten vases go to the next worker in the production chain but this ten may yield only two pieces. So, you must make many pieces for selection.

A piece must be ordered 3 months in advance. Unlike fast paced production lines, seen in other luxury brands, that produce replicated items, each Moser glassworks piece is unique. If an order requires engraving, this can take much longer than three months, bearing in mind to paint one piece can take a whole month.

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KH: How does the company stay contemporary?
LJ: We say that we collect traditional, historic and contemporary design. We keep a specific face of Moser glassworks, but we also collaborate with other designers, artists and architects. We look for new contemporary trends and styles.

KH: The 160th anniversary collection was the biggest you’ve ever made. What different inspiration went into that collection?
LJ: The inspiration for this collection was the history of Moser glassworks as a company. We selected seven periods of time from the last 160 years to represent different eras. Every part has a few pieces from these periods, including historical motifs, engraved art nouveau plant decorations and gilded African scenes.

KH: You have to cater to different luxury markets, how do they compare?
LJ: For certain countries we have special collections, for Taiwan we do a selection of hand engraved animals on colour glass vases. In terms of platinum or gold painted detail, the USA prefer Platinum whilst the EU prefers Gold; this is why Queen Elizabeth’s Splendid Collection is painted in 24kt gold paint.

KH: You have partnerships with some big luxury brands, including Asprey, David Linley and William & Son. Which are the most successful and why?
LJ: They are successful because it is the merging of two different worlds that still have the same traditions of quality and philosophy. We are very like-minded.

Kitty Harris: How does your design approach differ for each brand?
Lukáš Jabůrek: I look at history, for example history of Great Britain and the culture. I look at these symbols for specific inspiration.

Stem forming using a wooden mould in the Moser glassworks factory

KH: Can you draw a distinction between Moser as a product and Moser as an art?
LJ: There is a very small difference, because Moser does not carry out mass machine production. It is careful art production and every piece is unique and original. In our glass factory, every piece is really specific. The construction of every piece is unique. Whilst drink sets have more classic production, our decorative objects are made differently as artistic pieces.

KH: What’s next for Moser glassworks?
LJ: I would like to maintain exceptional standards. But, I would like to introduce fresh designs whilst keeping the history firmly in the design. We would also like to develop a presence in interior design for hotels, restaurants and resorts. For example, developing lamps and chandeliers. It is always evolving at Moser.

moser-glass.com