Issue sIXTY THRee AUGUST 2016
Morgan Freeman Luxury • Culture • People • Style • Heritage
CALIBER RM 011 YELLOW FLASH
Haute Joaillerie, place Vendôme since 1906
DUBAI: The Dubai Mall - Mall of the Emirates ABU DHABI: The Galleria, Al Maryah Island 800-VAN-CLEEF (800-826-25333) ABU DHABI: Etihad Towers +971 2 681 1919 www.vancleefarpels.com
Poetry of Time Exhibition The Dubai Mall February 8 - 22
Contents auGuSt 2016 : ISSUE 63
Editorial Editorial director
John Thatcher Editor
Chris Ujma christopher@hotmediapublishing.com Contributing Editor
air
Hayley Skirka
art art director
Andy Knappett designer
Emi Dixon illustrator
Andrew Thorpe
CommErCial managing director
Victoria Thatcher Group Commercial director
Forty
Fifty Two
Morgan Freeman invites us ‘home’ – though it’s certainly not Tinseltown where this Hollywood icon resides
Polarising, powerful, and pretty-darn good: Harvey Levin, on his tenacious newswire’s celebrity scoops
Forty Six
Sixty Four
Bouton d’or and Perlée: two stunning motifs from Van Cleef & Arpels, the legendary jewellery Maison
You may need to reconsider what you believe happened to Jesse Owens after his Olympic triumph in Berlin...
Southern Charm
David Wade
david@hotmediapublishing.com Commercial director
Rawan Chehab
TMZ Truths
rawan@hotmediapublishing.com
Poetry in Bloom
Business development manager
Rabih El Turk
rabih@hotmediapublishing.com
ProduCtion Production manager
Muthu Kumar
8
Race
Contents
AIR
AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Eighteen
Thirty Four
Timepieces
Motoring
A look back to when The Beatles fell completely out of love with live performance, fifty years ago
Chanel introduces its madefor-men The Monsieur, which features their first in-house movement
The coveted classic cars that will change hands at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction this August
Twenty Eight
Thirty Eight
Seventy Four
Seventy Eight
A comprehensive collection of Cindy Sherman’s work attracts art-minds (and adulation) at The Broad
The late, great Zaha Hadid collaborated with Georj Jensen; the result of her final project is truly timelesss
Executive Chef Richard Ekkebus talks about creating the standard-bearer of fine dining in Hong Kong
Twelve reasons (and more) to fall in love with The Brando, a gem on the private Tetiaroa atoll in French Polynesia
Radar
Art & Design
Seventy
Jewellery
Gastronomy
Tel: 00971 4 364 2876 Fax: 00971 4 369 7494 Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from HOT Media Publishing is strictly prohibited. HOT Media Publishing does not accept liability for omissions or errors in AIR.
10
Travel
MAX SPEED: MACH 0.88 • MAX RANGE: 8,056 KM • MAX ALTITUDE: 13,716 M
PROVEN LEADERSHIP Growing an international business demands reliability and peak performance. That’s what the Gulfstream G450™ delivers. This aircraft is part of the top-selling platform in business aviation history and consistently earns NBAA reliability ratings above 99 percent. Take the guesswork out of success. Put yourself in a G450.
ALLAN STANTON | +971 50 653 5258 | allan.stanton@gulfstream.com | GULFSTREAMG450.COM Theoretical max range is based on cruise at Mach 0.80 with eight passengers, three crew and NBAA IFR fuel reserves. Actual range will be affected by ATC routing, operating speed, weather, outfitting options and other factors.
Nasjet AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
NASJET is the first private charter company in Saudi Arabia providing bespoke aviation services for the most discerning clients and institutions in the world since 1999. Currently, the Group operates more than 67 corporate aircraft, making us the largest and most experienced private jet operator in the region with a managed fleet value exceeding USD2.0 billion. NASJET, part of NAS Holding, employs over 1,700 industry experts, operating 24/7 from our state of the art flight center in Riyadh and across the world-delivering a superior level of safety, service and value. At NASJET we have the expertise and international experience to operate corporate aircraft world-wide. Every hour of every day, we are moving planes, crews and inventory across continents. We give you peace of mind when it comes to your private or commercial operations. As a Saudi company we are backed by some of the most prominent shareholders in the world. We are established.
Welcome Onboard august 2016
We currently operate & manage on our Air Operator Certificate (AOC) the following aircraft: • Hawker 750 Aircraft which can seat up to 8 passengers and fly for 4 hours non-stop • Citation Excel which can seat 6 passengers and fly for up to 3 hours non-stop. • Legacy 600 which can seat 13 and 14 passengers and fly for up to 5 hours non-stop. • Gulfstream GIV-SP and G450 Aircraft which can seat between 13 and 14 passengers and fly for up to 8 hours non-stop • Gulfstream GV which can seat 16 passengers and fly for up to 12 hours non-stop. NasJet is also pleased to offer you the following services: • Aircraft Purchase and Sales, we have aircraft available for sale and management, or we can manage the purchase or sale of other aircraft. • Aircraft Acquisition, Acceptance, Completion, and Delivery. We can find you the right new Aircraft that suits your needs, customise it to your liking, monitor the build of the aircraft at the manufacturer, and supervise the entire final delivery process to insure a smooth and rewarding private Aircraft experience. • Aircraft Management, where we are responsible for your Aircraft from all aspects to provide you the highest safety standards, the best service, and most economical management solutions. • Block Charter, where we provide you charter solutions sold in bulk at discounted rates. • Ad Hoc Charter, where we can serve your charter needs where and when you need us on demand. • With the new GACA rules and regulations coming into effect as of 1st March 2016, NASJET has taken the lead to establish itself as the first to market our Private and Commercial AOC services. We welcome the opportunity to serve you and look forward to seeing you on one of our private jets.
Ghassan Hamdan CEO
Contact Details: clientservices@nasjet.com.sa nasjet.com.sa T. +966 (0)11 217 2070 13
Nasjet AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
14
Nasjet AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
New Saudi Arabian GACA Rules & Regulations Most Saudi aircraft owners have been aware or informed that the Saudi Arabian General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has introduced new aviation rules and regulations effective the 1st March 2016 applicable to all aircraft based in Saudi Arabia regardless of the aircraft country of registration. GACA has given the aviation community 6 months from the 1st March 2016 to provide a plan for moving forward with the new regulations and to decide whether your aircraft will be operated on a Private Air Operator Certificate (AOC) or a Commercial Air Operator Certificate. A Private AOC would be under GACA Rules Part 125 and a Commercial AOC would be under GACA Rules Part 121 Special Unscheduled. For more information on this you may visit the NEW GACA rules website at the following link: https://gaca.gov.sa/web/en-gb/page/ new-regulations In the event the aircraft owner who has an aircraft based in Saudi Arabia decides not to comply with these new rules and regulations the
NASJET partnership with The Jet Business
15
consequences could be severe with restrictions placed on the renewal of an annual landing permit for Saudi Arabia or possibly being denied a single landing permit hence grounding the owners plane. To make matters simple NASJET, the Largest Private Aviation Operator and Management Company in Saudi Arabia, would like to offer the aviation community the opportunity to add their aircraft onto the NASJET Private or Commercial AOC. We current manage a variety of aircraft under our AOC including Boeing Business Jets, Airbus Corporate Jets, Gulfstream, Legacy, Hawker, and Cessna Aircraft. Furthermore, we are ready to pass on to you our NASJET fleet discounts on Fuel, Handling, and Insurance which can reduce your operating cost by 25 per cent. For more information related to the NEW GACA rules and regulations or to request a quote to add your aircraft onto our NASJET Private or Commercial Air Operator Certificate (AOC) please feel free to reach out to us at sales@nasjet.com.sa and we will be more than happy to customise a programme meeting your requirements and expectations. NasJet Sales Team Phone: +966 11 217 2070 Email: sales@nasjet.com.sa Web: www.nasjet.com.sa NASJET and The Jet Business headquartered in London, UK have teamed up to offer a partnership for selling and purchasing aircraft for the Middle East clientele. The Jet Business is the world’s first ever street-level corporate aviation showroom for the acquisition and sale of private jet aircraft and ancillary services. The Jet Business provides a fully immersive experience throughout the aircraft transaction process, combining the most up to date product information, global market data, extensive industry relationships and unrivalled worldclass expertise. With this partnership NASJET are now able to provide full turnkey solutions from the purchase of the aircraft, completion and outfitting, to full management, and charter solutions.
Nasjet AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Our Services A host of services await you when flying with NASJET Aircraft sales Buy from the best. As a world-class owner, operator and manager of private aircraft in the middle east since 1999, we offer real-time market pricing analysis, aircraft financing with preferred lenders, aircraft inspections, sales and marketing collateral, and assertive price negotiation.
Flight Support Expertise and purchasing power. Using NASJET’s unrivaled regional operational expertise and purchasing power, aircraft managed either by the principal’s crew or an internal corporate flight department can access a menu of services provided by the NASJET flight centre.
Completions-Advisory Benefit from our experience. We have the advantage of a
close working relationship with many of the leading business jet manufacturers, including Boeing, Airbus, Gulfstream, Bombardier and Hawker Beechcraft. Over the years, the team has successfully completed over 45 new aircraft deliveries, working with owners to ensure their aircraft is completed to the highest specification and within budget.
Ground Services In 2013 NASJET, and its partner,w ExecuJet, launched ground services for private aircraft flying into the Riyadh private aviation terminal, Saudi Arabia. The collaboration builds on the two partners’ reputation for providing a superior and competitive level of service.
Aircraft Management Have the experts do all the work. Owning a private jet is certainly a pleasure, but it’s also a major undertaking. NASJET can take that stress away and give you peace of mind knowing that an established and experienced international operator is able to manage your asset efficiently. 16
NASJET has in excess of 70 aircraft under management. Aircraft owners gain many privileges and financial benefits by being within a NASJETmanaged fleet, including economy of scale on fuel, fleet insurance, training and maintenance.
On-Demand Charter The best option for ultimate flexibility without the commitment. Chartering with NASJET gives clients access to the largest and most closely-managed fleet in the region. We are focused entirely on safety, service and value. By owning many of our aircraft, we are able to make an immediate decision on aircraft availability. NASJET’s dedicated 24/7, 365 days a year charter department, based in Riyadh, are able to provide instant competitive quotations. The NASJET block charter program has all the benefits of ad-hoc charter but with guaranteed availability, flexible payment terms and billing based on your actual flight times. Visit nasjet.com.sa for more information
Radar
AIR
AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
It’s a time-frozen image; a smiley Fab Four on stage... but it didn’t end that way for a more-melancholic lineup. On August 29, 1966, few in Candlestick Park knew that it would be the scene of the final live-hurrah – except, perhaps, the band themselves. Behind a six-foot-high wire fence The Beatles were isolated on centre field, drowned out by intense screams, frazzled and disenchanted at the tail end of their (controversy-laden) third US Tour. John, Paul, George and Ringo took to the stage in San Francisco at 9.27pm: eleven songs (and a flight back to London) later, they decided the touringdream was over for good and retreated to the studio. Fifty years on, one can only look back with envy at the sellout crowd who witnessed history… Except, of the park’s 42,500 capacity, only 25,000 tickets were taken, leaving large sections of unsold seats. For a slice of modern-day appreciation, International Beatleweek is held in Liverpool from August 24-30 – the legendary Cavern Club is one venue paying homage. internationalbeatleweek.com 18
19
Critique AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Film Blood Father Dir: Jean-François Richet An ex-con battles the Mexican drug dealers trying to kill his daughter AT BEST: “As comeback projects go, it’s stellar… loud, outrageously violent, unabashedly pulpy, and doesn’t skimp on character development.” The Guardian AT WORST: “The best way to think of it might be as an audition: to remind that Mel Gibson, given the chance, could juice up a serious movie.” Variety
Florence Foster Jenkins AIR
Dir: Stephen Frears A drama about a New York heiress who dreamed of becoming an opera singer… despite having a terrible singing voice AT BEST: “A bright, bubbly and suitably ear-bursting biopic of surely the least gifted chanteuse ever to sell out Carnegie Hall.” Variety AT WORST: “Despite its imperfections, this is a heartfelt piece of cinema, and its emotional core leaves the screen with you.” Trespass
Star Trek Beyond Dir: Justin Lin The thirteenth Star Trek movie sees Capt. Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew stranded on a hostile planet, facing an alien threat AT BEST: “There’s a lovely reverence for the legacy of Trek throughout. Chances are this rose won’t be losing its bloom anytime soon.” Empire AT WORST: ““…what is unfortunate is a momentum-killing middle and a main villain who fails to be interesting until a thrilling third act.” USA Today
Indignation Dir: James Schamus A student on scholarship travels to smalltown Ohio, stopping him from being drafted into the Korean War – but not from falling in love AT BEST: “Anchored by an exquisitely crafted script and fine-tuned aesthetics… a compelling twist on the coming-of-age genre with intelligence and wit to spare.” Collider AT WORST: “It’s a great-looking movie, but it’s a museum piece, seeming too often to be posed rather than captured.” Flavorwire 20
Critique AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Theatre
Above: Alexander Hanson and Frances O’Connor in The Truth. Image by Marc Brenner
W
hat is the truth? Audiences can attempt to find out at Wyndhams Theatre on the West End, until September 3. In The Guardian, Kate Kellaway says of Florian Zeller’s play, “The Truth is an unusually accomplished piece about two unfaithful couples. A millefeuille of truth and deceit, it keeps us guessing: duped, enlightened, duped again. Zeller is a protean writer with an interest in confounding audiences. Lying and its multiple uses interest him, and pretended ignorance emerges here as the most devious tool: hidden knowledge is power… It is a devious must-see.” Dave Calhoun at Time Out London muses that, “Lying is fine, it seems, as long as you’re in charge. This is a lighter, perhaps more throwaway play than ‘The Father’ – Zeller’s last play to transfer to the West End – but its quick pace and bracing comic wordplay fail to hide some piercing, lasting truths.” At its heart, “The play is a middle-class middle-age exploration of infidelity and will resonate obviously more
with some rather than others. I couldn’t help but will it to be less conscious and less controlled – if you enjoy your farces with a bit more door slamming this isn’t for you, but for anyone wanting a little depth to their deception will be pleasantly rewarded,” penned Dom O’Hanlon for londontheatre.co.uk. Across town, a night-time ticket at the Menier Chocolate Factory will lead patrons Into the Woods (until September 17). “If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a rather delightful surprise. Imported from Off-Broadway (is this) charming stripped-back version of the 1987 Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine production about the revealing tropes and psychological truths in fairy tales… Joyously ingenious and teasingly incongruous,” writes The Independent’s Paul Taylor. Kellaway explains (this time for The Observer) that, “[The theatre’s] homemade look suits Sondheim and Lapine’s musical, with its motley fusion of fairytales. It is as if a dressing-up box had been raided: 22
a red cloak… a long, yellow knitted scarf… faded frocks… Princes must content themselves with riding hobby horses.” She goes on to say that, “The musical’s first half ends as if it were the finale, which contributes to the sense that the second half is a potentially long haul in which the lyric ‘every moment is of moment in the woods’ rings untrue. And yet, as the fairytales get darker and more human, the thinking deepens – especially the idea that our desires control us and not the other way around.” At Pershing Square Signature Center over in New York, theatre takes a reflective turn in Small Mouth Sounds, on until until September 25. “Bess Wohl’s exquisite play is set at an upstate meditation retreat where six strangers take (and mostly break) a vow not to speak. But baser metals also emerge from the vacuum of verbiage: When we don’t have everyday babble muting the noise in our heads, we risk drowning in an ocean of loneliness, grief and fear. The sight of deeply unhappy people trapped in a series of embarrassing situations makes this one of the funnier sad plays you’re likely to see,” summarises Jenna Scherer in Time Out New York. Jesse Green writes for Vulture that, “It is a terrific new play… that deserves to be seen and reseen, in fact. This is all the more encouraging because it is challenging fare, in subject and style. I don’t mean that it is abstruse or insufferable; quite the opposite, though suffering is its subject. Rather, it is joyful and hilarious about the absolutely worst things we all face, producing (its) enormous wallop of emotional power, no less than its comedy, from the acknowledgment of the pain most people are in.” Of Rachel Chavkin’s direction, Variety’s Marilyn Stasio was inspired. “It is so supple and the ensemble work so subtle, it’s hard to say exactly when the shift happens – the silent, earth-moving switch from comedy to tragedy that makes this strange little play so moving. But when it does happen, it’s shattering.”
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
Critique AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Art
AIR
“B
est to avoid Bas Jan Ader’s show if you’re feeling emotionally fragile. The seminal Dutch conceptual artist disappeared mysteriously in 1975 and left behind a body of just 35 works of art,” writes Time Out London’s Eddy Frankel, of the exhibit at Simon Lee Gallery in Mayfair. “It all works because the pieces are so beautifully composed; the videos and photos are full of neat classical touches and perfect framing. Powerful ideas + good aesthetics = conceptual art that doesn’t leave you scratching your head.” The installations are on show until August 29, and this dose of ‘Romantic Conceptualism’ is “exactly what we need now,” believes Lorena Muñoz-Alonso of artnetnews. “I stood in front of his most famous film, I’m Too Sad to Tell You, feeling its poignancy and relevance more strongly than ever. There is something about that piece by Ader that resonates deeply with our current social, economical, and political global landscape: the utter despondency, the lack of words to make sense of all those things that don’t; but also, the need to perform publicly… It seems it’s not so much the result – whether success or failure – that matters in Ader’s work. In it, the slapstick fall, the failed sailing trip, the falling tear, become collateral outcomes to the act of trying, which might explain why he chose to perform purposeless tasks, to highlight the very notion of attempting, and persevering.” Big Bang Data makes its Asian debut over in Singapore, and this exhibition-with-a-difference might sit a little too close for comfort for some. The Telegraph’s Mark Hudson said of the London iteration, “(The show) makes it unnervingly clear that your data exists in highly specific places: massive, semi-secret installations that are more like the satanic mills of old-school heavy industry than the feather-light ‘cloud’ the digital corporations tell us about… The exhibit divides its energies between
Above: data.tron by Ryoji Ikeda, at Big Bang Data
exploring these possibilities in an informational way, and providing space for a broad range of digital artists and new breed of designertechnician-activists who sculpt with computer code.” In ‘Black Shoals: Dark Matter’, viewers can observe constellations of stars that twinkle according to real-time financial market fluctuations, for example; it is half sinister, half fascinating. On artnetnews Matilda Battersby, called it ‘the show where you could run into your own selfie.’ She writes that, “The subtext is part compliment, part criticism: namely that if you look hard enough at this show you might find something of yourself… but watch out because the fact that this data exists means you’ve been flagrantly squandering it. They have taken the 2.5 trillion bytes of data produced by humans everyday as a starting point for examining how the world is changing, as a result of the so-called ‘Big Bang’ of data which happened in 2002… The idea is a neat one, skillfully meshing the apparently opposite disciplines of science and 24
art.” Marina Bay Sands hosts (at its ArtScience Museum) until October 16. From modern day to modernism: Stuart Davis: In Full Swing is showing until September 25 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in the Meatpacking District. Holland Cotter at the NY Times says of the artist, “A little Matisse, a lot of jazz, all-American… This is a restless, zestful exhibition that’s both broad enough to be a survey and sufficiently focused to qualify as a thematic study. It isn’t, however, a full-blown retrospective and isn’t meant to be. Davis’s very early art is missing and that’s quite a bit of work for an artist who got going very young… As you move through the show, you’re moving through time… (and) get a vivid sense of the time, measured in labour, that Davis put into making individual pieces…” He was, says Karen Wilkin in the Wall Street Journal, “An artist who resolved to be modern; Davis translated French Cubism into an unmistakably American idiom… This well-chosen survey of more than eighty (of his) significant works is reason for rejoicing.”
JW MARRIOT T® MARQUIS DUBAI
Destination of Exceptional Taste. Experience a world of choice with authentic flavors at a myriad of award-winning restaurants and lounges.
PERUVIAN FOOD & DRINKS TO SHARE
Sheikh Zayed Road, Business Bay, PO Box 121000, Dubai, UAE | T +971 4 414 0000, F +971 4 414 0001 | jwmarriottmarquisdubai.com JW Marriott Marquis Dubai |
@JWDubaiMarquis |
JWMarriottMarquisDubai
Critique AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
AIR
Books
“I
magine a world in which sin is visible. In which anger, lust, envy and avarice erupt in plumes of smoke, and the clothes of the sinful are stained in dark soot. In which London is a city of vice, inhabited only by degenerates, its air polluted not with diesel but with transgression, its sewers running with the soot of sinners.” You’re imagining the backdrop for Smoke by Dan Vyleta, of which Hannah Beckerman at The Guardian continues to comment that, “There is a cinematic quality to his writing: this is a novel crying out for screen adaptation. [The book] is at once profound, moving and timely: a novel that tackles the most fundamental question of good versus evil.” Jennifer Senior of the NY Times senses the writer’s passion, too: “The lessons [Vyleta] wishes to impart are largehearted, even if they detonate with a loud boom. To smoke is human, is his real point. The same instincts that make us sin make us impassioned, loving, courageous. Smoke isn’t just a sign of degeneracy, but of vitality and free thought: ‘It’s the animal part of us that will not serve.’” The reviewers at Kirkus.com believe that this dystopian fantasy novel is “… somewhat derivative of other books in this vein and loses its way at times,
but the novel’s sumptuous, irresistible narrative – filled with plenty of twists and turns and imagination – will satisfy any reader.” Heroes of the Frontier is the latest novel by Dave Eggers, and his new literary effort weaves the tale of Josie, a former dentist on the run in Alaska – escaping a bad relationship and with her two children in tow. It is, writes Michiko Kakutani in the NY Times, a “slapdash, picaresque adventure and spiritual coming-of-age tale... Eggers has so mastered the art of oldfashioned, straight-ahead storytelling here that the reader quickly becomes immersed in a funny-sad tale.” The Guardian’s Alex Preston contexualises the novel in saying, “I think Eggers is trying to tell us something about contemporary American life, about the meaning of courage in a world where danger appears only on television… America has lost its bravery, Eggers tells us, and it can be found in nature, in open spaces, in shucking off the trappings of mall life and the media and consumerism… He renders it with such passion and good humour, and describes the ‘land of mountains and light’ in such stirring, lustrous prose, we can’t help but feel it’s truth anew.” Cathy O’Neil explodes from the periphery with her lucid look at the 26
daunting algorithms that govern so many aspects of our lives, entitled Weapons of Math Destruction – How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Publisher’s Weekly calls it “a taut and accessible volume, the stuff of technophobes’ nightmares, (which) explores the myriad ways in which large-scale data modelling has made the world a less just and equal place… She homes in on the ways these systems are frequently destructive even to the privileged: sloppy data-gathering companies misidentify people and flag them as criminals, and algorithms determine employee value during company-wide firings.” Kirkus.com says it is, “a look at how ill-conceived algorithms now micromanage America’s economy, from advertising to prisons. The author writes with passion – a few years ago she became disillusioned over her hedge fund modelling and joined the Occupy movement – but with the authority of a former Barnard professor who is outraged at the increasingly wrongheaded use of mathematics.” Felix Salmon of Fusion puts things rather concisely: “Next time you hear someone gushing uncritically about the wonders of Big Data, show them Weapons of Math Destruction. It’ll be salutary.”
Art & Design AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Imitation of Life After two decades away from the Los Angeles major-museum scene, Cindy Sherman is back with a special exhibition of comprehensive works at The Broad. It’s a triumphant return
AIR
WORDS : CHRIS UJMA
28
29
AIR
S
herman is a photographer who visually immerses herself within each female trope she portrays, and over the past thirty years The Broad has taken a similarly immersive approach to acquiring pieces from her captivating portfolio. “Cindy’s work has been a touchstone for The Broad collection since (philanthropists and patrons) Eli and Edye Broad first encountered it in 1982, and she is the only artist in the collection whose work we’ve acquired so deeply and regularly,” shares Joanne Heyler, founding director of the museum. This is photography that enthrals on so many levels, and Sherman’s methodology is just as intriguing as the end result. She shoots alone in her studio, taking on the role of director, photographer, make-up artist, hairstylist, and subject of the composition. What emerges, the museum believes, are ‘powerful questions about identity, representation, and the role of images in contemporary culture… her monumental body of work provocatively engages with contemporary life’s mediated personas and stereotypes’. Philipp Kaiser is the guest curator of this exhibit of Sherman’s works, which span 1975-2016 – including a 1997 feature film called Office Killer. He has worked with many artists of the so-called Pictures Generation (artists who combine interests in popular culture and conceptualism), and is the ideal mind to shape the project. “My curatorial effort has been to turn The Broad’s comprehensive holdings of Sherman’s work into a meaningful show… Their collection represents every body of work the artist has produced to date, and this exhibition presents a comprehensive survey of Sherman’s highly acclaimed career... Starting the series of special exhibitions with Cindy Sherman highlights The Broad collection’s emphasis on artwork that ties conceptual ideas with popular culture references.” As for Sherman, he believes that she, “dissects identity and representation within the realm of mass media in contemporary culture. By photographing herself, her chameleon-like personas generate work of utter beauty and disturbance, burrowing the language of media from
I don’t feel I am the person. I may be thinking about a certain story, but I don’t become her cinema and television, to advertising, the internet, and even old master paintings. Her persistence to focus on the fragmented self for almost forty years is radical and distinct.” The show is entitled Imitation of Life, a moniker that Sherman chose as both a nod to Douglas Sirk’s 1959 melodrama, and also to emphasise her thorough relationship with movie culture. Imitation is, of course, at the core of her artistic practice but it’s not hyperbole to say that the imitable Sherman was (and is) ahead of her time. In fact, her mass-media imagery of the 1980s sits relevantly in the modern day, where images of a reimagined self are in abundance. The camera of the masses is now just as likely to be pointed toward themselves as it is to be facing forward – yet while a retuned generation will relate to her ‘role play’, 30
they’ll perhaps not comprehend what went into each composition. Sherman’s works have many overlooked elements; Kaiser gives an example. “One aspect that has been granted little attention is to what extent Sherman has to accomplish a dramatic performance for the imitation of stereotypical image making. Because it is the image, according to the late art critic Craig Owens, which produces the imitation. Sherman’s body must inscribe itself into the regime of the scopophilic gaze with empathy and subordination. The artist herself has persuasively summarised the complexity of the dialectic interrelationship between determined image and performance: ‘I don’t feel that I am the person. I may be thinking about a certain story or situation, but I don’t become her.
Opening pages: Untitled #70. 1980 Clockwise from left: Untitled #512; Untitled Film Still #47; Untitled #92
There’s this distance. The image in the mirror becomes her – the image the camera gets on the film. And the one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.’” Kaiser says that helming the exhibition is “a huge privilege,” and he penned a must-read essay for the exhibition catalogue that contextualises the Sherman canon with comments such as, ‘...For over forty years, Sherman’s work has moved within the discussion of identity and representation and, in doing so, has manoeuvred through various mass-media contexts, among others cinema; its fictional suggestions and typologies have long since become a real ersatz-reality, an imitation of life.’ Not that there was an intention to be high-brow. The artist claims that, “When I was
in school I was getting disgusted with the attitude of art being so religious or sacred, so I wanted to make something which people could relate to without having read a book about it first. So that anybody off the street could appreciate it … That’s the reason why I wanted to imitate something out of the culture, and also make fun of the culture as I was doing it.” Whether familiar with her works or a newcomer to the self-styled genre of the Mistress of Disguise, there is plenty at The Broad to captivate the onlooker. Surmises Kaiser, “Presented here in Los Angeles, the heart of the filmmaking industry, this exhibition is on one hand a comprehensive survey of Cindy’s work, on the other hand it puts an emphasis on movie culture and the cinematic. Cindy Sherman is one of, if not, the most influential contemporary 31
living artists and the exhibition offers the rare opportunity to be amazed by her various incarnations. The interconnectivity of each distinct series allows us to expand our ideas of Cindy’s practice and lets us understand how focused and broad the work has moved throughout the years.” An established photography legend, the literal question of ‘Who is Cindy Sherman?’ is decades out-of-date; the enduring question is, ‘who do I imagine Cindy Sherman to be in the photograph I’m looking at?’ Owens has a quote about her Centerfolds interpretation that serves as a prophetic comment of Cindy overall; “…while Sherman may pose as a pin-up, she still cannot be pinned down.” Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life is at The Broad until October 2, 2016. thebroad.org
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Master craftsmanship, effortless style and timeless appeal; this month’s must-haves and collectibles
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
D
Da v i nci au Dio L a b s
L I m I T E D E D I T I O n T u R n Ta B L E S : aSTOn maRTIn Ony x BL aCk
Everyone listens to music these days. Connoisseurs of both live performance and vinyl, though, want to hear music, exactly as the artist intended. This hi-fi is pretty, but carefully-crafted to reproduce sound at its purest. Features of the Turntable MKII by Gabriel / Da Vinci Audio Labs
include a highly stable base, completely silent magnetic bearings, an absolutely stable power supply, and Swiss precision. But forget tech obsession: this is made by music-lovers for music-lovers, to bring out the emotion of the LP, and achieve an immersive experience. da-vinci-audio.com 1
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
E
G i o R G i o a R M a n i F o R b u G aT T i
CapSuLE COLLECTIOn
Dynamic, with timeless elegance. Are we talking Bugatti, or Armani? Both, which makes this collaboration so sensible. Giorgio turned his creative hand to a new Autumn / Winter collective of leather goods and refined clothes pieces; limited
edition, numbered... this is the epitome of coveted. The collection has a distinct colour palette – cognac, army green and Bugatti blue – and the carry items are soft calfskin, made entirely by hand and lined with luxurious suede. Engineered style. 2
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
ER MEnEGiLDo ZEGna
SEERSuCkER ShIRT JaCkE T
Ever-experimental with luxury fabrics, Zegna strikes again with this travel-style wardrobe staple: a tailored sport jacket. Made with a high-twist yarn that has natural elasticity (for ease of movement) and superfine fibres for a smooth, soft feel,
the jacket is an instant-classic. An added yarn of appeal is its ability to withstand the rigours of international globetrotting, and it is unflappable in crease-intense situations. Roll it up; traverse continents; arrive; unfurl; look suave. zegna.com 3
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
S
FERRaRi
L aFERR aRI SpIDER
Above is an auto-pioneer. The LaFerrari surges through milestone firsts – the fastest road-legal supercar to come out of Maranello; the first non-Pininfarina designed Prancing Horse since 1973; the first Ferrari to carry a hybrid powertrain; the show-stealer at the
Geneva Motoshow... The 2017 Spider is the successor of the Enzo and the F50, and was spun into 499 units, with a multimillion dollar pricetag bite. There’s three versions of the supercar: ‘standard’, a track-only FXX K, and a drop-top Aperta – making its debut in Paris this October. 4
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
I 5
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
R WoR L D oF Di a Mon Ds
T h E J ay n E S E y m O u R R I n g
Making waves in the High Jewellery sphere is this piece, replete with a rare 2.08 carat cushion-cut fancy vivid blue diamond, set in a rose-gold plated platinum ring. The addition to the Group’s private collection was made in honour of Seymour, the British-American actress, producer and
philanthropist. Some of the world’s richest have already attempted to purchase it, but personal desire for this ‘object’ could hit a potential roadblock – the final decision of ownership is at the discretion of the WOD chairman, who will decide which individual possesses the relevant criteria... 6
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
u Ly s s E n a R D i n
C L a S S I C O m a n u Fa C T u R E
What a way to celebrate 170 years: a limited edition Classico Collection timepiece with a ‘Grand Feu’ Enamel dial, driven by a UN-320 calibre with silicium hairspring and anchor escapement. The unique dial is handcrafted in-house (we’ll allow the brand to explain this part): ‘The
beautiful Grand Feu method began in the 17th century, taking its name from the incredible heat required to fuse the enamel powder in the kiln – between 760-900°C.’ Being crafted in a limited number of 170 to symbolise each year of Ulysse Nardin, this is a guaranteed collectible. 7
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
E
RicHaRD MiLLE
R m 6 8 - 0 1 k O n g O/ m I L L E Mille timepieces are described as ‘works of art for the wrist’, and the haute horologist has taken the phrase literally this time with an historic collaboration. Artist Cyril Kongo was under instruction from Mille to flourish his graffiti-genius upon
“...the whole watch: the movement, the tourbillon... everything.” Kongo worked with a technical team to develop a special airbrush, allowing him to spray his colours with utmost delicacy – one perfectlyweighted, unique droplet at a time. 8
Timepieces AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Time-worn Authenticity: Patina on Vintage Dials TArIq MAlIk
O
ur culture is a little obsessed with new things. Be it a car, movie or the latest gadget – if it’s new, people are fascinated. There are those who, like me, prefer something a little faded and worn, something with a scratch or two – something comfortable and interesting; something with a story. When the latter kind of person stops into my watch boutique I know it immediately because the vintage models are the first to catch their eye. Sometimes a visitor will even ask, “but what about patina?” That’s a sure sign that they know the worth of heritage and provenance. Patina is a discolouration of metal over time. Buyers of antiques will sometimes use the term “patina” arbitrarily to describe all kinds of things – even a build-up of sediment on an old wooden tabletop. Writers will use the term metaphorically, meaning an aura or a look: “He has the patina of wealth about him.” But patina on vintage watches is something different, referring to the discolouration of tritium or radium-based luminescent material (or lume) on hands and markers, the discolouration of dials, and even the metal of certain kinds of cases. Typically, cases that contain bronze will develop a distinctly ‘nautical’ look over time. Usually the dial colour will darken, and sometimes crack. This cracking is called spidering, and very rarely buyers will actually seek out such dials. Almost all the collectors I’ve met love patina, though, and some sellers have even
developed methods to ‘fake’ patina using eggs, vinegar, liver of sulfur and who knows what else. Sometimes they create horological abominations, so be warned. What exactly causes (genuine) patina is a topic for heated debate among watch enthusiasts. Some say it’s the radiation from old types of lume, others say it’s UV from the sun. It doesn’t matter – call it wear and tear if you like. What matters is whether or not you like the look, and whether it increases or decreases the value of a timepiece. Personally, if I’m buying a vintage watch, it needs to look its age. The more unique and interesting the patina, the more it is worth. An old watch tells a story. In fact, the dial of a vintage watch is the most important factor that determines its relative value, and a rare ‘chocolate’ or ‘tropical’ patina and deep orange lume can add an extra zero to the price of the right watch. rolex watches made between 1950 and 1970 often have the best patina. Particularly popular are the GMT’s, red Submariners and the Double red Sea Dwellers (models with two lines of red writing on the dial including ‘SUBMArINEr, SEADWEllEr 2000’). If these have great tropical dials they can become grail watches for serious rolex collectors. They may have cost perhaps a few hundred dollars new in 1970, but around 2008 some of them actually skyrocketed in value and while I’ve seen a number of them worn with NATO style straps, in my opinion they look particularly authentic when matched with a fitting vintage 33
strap. Authenticity is more important than restoration, and a discoloured dial often has no effect whatsoever on the movement of the watch. The timepiece will run perfectly, and look like it has a story to tell. Examining the amount of discolouration is also a surefire method to check whether parts of an old watch have been replaced – if the patina on the markers doesn’t match the patina on the hands, for example, you know something’s wrong. While there is such a thing as too much patina, it is very seldom that I find watches like that: it’s usually a bad replication of a dial, non-genuine replacement parts or botched repair jobs that detract from the value of a good vintage watch. When it comes to patina on vintage watches, old is definitely a good thing. Find Tariq’s co-founded vintage watch boutique Momentum in Dubai’s DIFC. momentum-dubai.com
Timepieces AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
AIR
Man Of The House
Turning its watchmaking focus firmly towards men via the Monsieur de Chanel, the iconic Parisian fashion brand raises eyebrows with its first in-house movement WORDS : HAYLEY SKIRKA
W
hen Karl Lagerfeld presented his Fall/Winter showcase in a supermarket, the fashion world watched in wonder. Again too, when Chanel signed Willow Smith – a 15-year-old famous for obsessively whipping her hair back and forth – eyebrows were raised. Coco herself was of course something of a wonder, having been dumped in an orphanage as a baby and only learning to sew thanks to the nuns who raised her, before going on to create what is quite possibly the world’s best known fashion label. In that vein, it should really be no shock that Chanel’s latest
horology offering is, for want of a better word, something of a surprise. Unexpected it may be, but suitably impressive it certainly is. After 30 years of fine feminine watchmaking, the Monsieur timepiece realises a new vision for Chanel, as it integrates the iconic brand’s first-ever in-house movement. According to Nicolas Beau, International Watch Director at Chanel, the male timepiece is a result of the brand’s desire to express its own vision of haute horology. “It all began with a desire, a vision and a drawing. Since the beginning of our watchmaking activities in 1987, we developed a strong 34
desire to express our own vision, which is an aesthetic one, expressed and enhanced by technical prowess.” Thus, Chanel went on to found its Haute Horlogerie workshop, with an aim to gain autonomy and ensure independence, by developing in-house calibres. The subsequent Calibre 1, the movement featured in the Monsieur, is the first representation of the magic that has been created. “It was the Chanel Watch Creation Studio in Paris that designed, first the allure of the Calibre 1 Heure Sautante Instantee Minute Retrograde movement, and secondly the case
35
Timepieces
AIR
AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
36
to welcome it and the dial design,” enlightens Beau. “It was then 100 per cent developed and assembled in-house at Chatelain, our manufacturer in La Chaux-de-Fonds.” The movement in question is indisputably imposing. It offers a 3-day power reserve with two integrated complications: an instantaneous jumping hour at 6 o’clock, and a 240° retrograde minute off-centre. According to Beau, this integrated movement renders the timepiece, “rare, reliable and accurate. It allows integrating issues into the conception such as the energy needs of the instantaneous jumping hour. To fulfil this energy consumption, the power reserve is 80 hours, thanks to two barrels arranged in series.” Proud of what has evolved, Chanel has filed for two patents: one for the double instant jump of the Retrograde minute hands and the hours disc, and another for the bi-directional correction mechanism of the retrograde minute, a function described by Beau as “a very delicate feature, as any improper adjustment may cause breakage of some of the movement components.” What is perhaps most surprising, given Chanel’s outlandish DNA, is the Monsieur’s design. A classic representation of monochrome, the opaline ivory dial is subtly sleek and pairs effortlessly with the black alligator strap. The Beige Gold alloy – a colour created exclusively by the brand three years ago – encompasses both with ease, and the overall look is modern but minimal. It perhaps
wouldn’t be too much to suggest that the design is somewhat innocuous; a juxtaposition with Chanel’s patrimony. That said, there are definite elements of the timepiece that visibly verify its designer signature. Each piece of the calibre is highlighted by a ganse – a trim that serves as a distinct nod to iconic Chanel jackets. And numbers, a longstanding leitmotif at Chanel, are discernible with the time displayed via a number rather than a hand and, of course, the jumping hour movement. And while the Monsieur may play it safe on a design front, watch aficionados are sure to be impressed with Chanel’s choice of supplier, the extremely talented Romain Gauthier. According to Beau, “We decided to entrust Romain Gauthier with the production of all the components, as it is one of the 21st century gems of Haute Horlogerie. Their extraordinary level of expertise in the machining of complex and sophisticated components impressed us.” With the Calibre 1 composed of 170 components and 30 rubies, each immaculately finished and assembled with utmost precision, Chanel won’t be the only ones captivated with the outcome. Turn the timepiece on its back and parallels between fashion and horology are at play; the movement showcases an entire spectrum of black –ranging from misty silver to deep charcoal. Beau explains: “One of the main ideas was to show every single component. In order to do so, we worked in particular on the different shades of black, obtained thanks to various polishing 37
The Monsieur integrates the iconic brand’s first-ever inhouse movement and finishing techniques.” This allowed each individual component to be visible, and creates a truly intriguing façade, both in terms of watchmaking and style. Backed by 30 years of expertise in the world of watchmaking, this first Haute Horlogerie movement is the future. “Designed, developed, reliabilitychecked and assembled in our LaChaud-de-Fonds workshop in Chatelin, the Monsieur represents the final step in the integration of watchmaking expertise, and adds a new chapter in the history of Chanel,” declares Beau. In keeping with the perception of the house, this timepiece offers a unique allure for discerning gentlemen of distinguished taste, and does so through minimalist design and complicated finesse. Indeed, with this creation, perhaps now is the time for watch-loving monsieurs to drop any prejudices they may hold for ‘fashion label’ watches, and simply embrace what is a perfect combination of design and watchmaking mastery.
Jewellery AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Complex Clarity AIR
Designed to reference the sculptural curves of the late Zaha Hadid’s architectural masterpieces, her final collaboration – with Georg Jensen – is pure convoluted simplicity
I
n 2014, at dinner with a mutual friend, David Chu – Chairman and Chief Creative Director of Danish design brand Georg Jensen – found himself sat beside the controversial queen of contemporary architecture, Zaha Hadid. A long-time fan of her work, on this occasion it was her jewellery that caught Chu’s eye, leading to a conversation that would serve as the murmuring for a fantastical, multifaceted collaboration. “Sometimes a good dinner comes out with a good idea,” said Chu shortly after the meeting, and the sixteen-month alliance appears to have been exactly that. Working closely with Meeling Wong, Managing Director of Jewellery
for the 112-year-old Danish silversmith, Hadid personally approved each piece in what has been named the Lamellae Collection. Sadly, as fate would have it, Hadid would be denied the chance to give her seal of approval on the very final pieces. “I was supposed to meet her on April 2 to give her the Lamellae gold ring… she loved gold,” recalls Meeling with a hint of sorrow. It was a meeting that would never transpire; Hadid suffered a fatal heart attack just a few days prior. The ring in question was a 383-diamond disc in exacting lines of pave. Truly striking, it is sculptural, imposing, amorphous and sensuous – in short, it’s pure Zaha. But it’s also 38
George Jensen. In fact, the parallels between the two are uncanny. Finding logic in nature and sculptural sensibility, the spirited Iranian designer was the perfect tonic to Georg Jensen’s contemporary designs, with both parties allowing the simple and the complex to coexist harmoniously. Born in Baghdad in 1950, Hadid became the first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, yet remained ever assiduous. Her design philosophies evolved as she flourished, and later-on, Hadid would state that, “I started out trying to create buildings that would sparkle like isolated jewels: now I want them to connect, to form a new kind
Inspired by some of the architect’s most famous buildings
of landscape, to flow together with contemporary cities and the lives of their peoples.” The Lamellae Collection, which consists of five rings and three cuff bangles, mirrors such a connective stance. Inspired by some of the architect’s most famous buildings – primarily the Wangjang Soho complex, consisting of three curvilinear asymmetric buildings that seem to circle one another changing appearance with the light of day – the jewellery collection is testament to Hadid’s eye as a designer. Initially crafted in sterling silver and sterling silver plated black rhodium set with black diamonds, the final
addition was four voluptuously tactile gold pieces, expected to fetch over USD25,000 individually. Throughout the series, smooth-flowing ribbonlike lines appear adulated by polished and matte effect silver pieces that are pure simplicity. The black diamond set pieces sparkle subtly, like tiny architectural gemstones. Signature cuff bracelets wrap organically around the wrist, boggling the mind with manipulations of light and flow. Everything is carefully considered, a result of a symbiotic relationship. Hadid was a woman who tested boundaries, working with determination and indifference to practical constraints, something 39
mirrored by the work of Jensen. Just a few weeks before her death, Hadid commented on the collection being the result of “a constant process of balance, proportion and scale.” Described by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas as “a planet in her own inimitable orbit,” there’s an inescapable sadness in the death of such an icon. Yet the gifts she leaves behind – Scotland’s Riverside Museum, the Guangzhou Opera House and the architectural brilliance of Heydar Aliyev Center – take a personal turn in her last collaboration, with Georg Jensen. The presentation is a jewellery miniaturisation of the iconic vision of an incredible woman.
40
AIR
if/Chris Ujma
WORDS : Cezar Gre
SOUTHERN CHARM He’s a Hollywood legend, but Morgan Freeman doesn’t live in the Hills. The man with the world’s smoothest voice is Mississippi born and raised, it’s where he still resides, and it’s where he met AIR
41
42
AIR
I
f you want to meet Morgan Freeman, you have to travel to the Mississippi Delta. We heard this again and again from his staff. And if you want to discover the Mississippi Delta region, I couldn’t think of a better guide than Morgan. It’s a bit of a well-kept secret, as many people in Hollywood don’t even know he lives there. But it makes total sense from his perspective, since that’s where he was born, and he used to run in the Mississippi fields coming back from school as a child. Nothing can replace those memories. We flew to Memphis, the biggest international airport in the region, and then rented cars to drive down an hour and half to Clarksdale, Mississippi – in the heart of the Delta – home of the Blues, where it all started. The weather was gorgeous, with big blue skies and only a few scattered clouds. Arriving in Clarksdale is like arriving in smalltown America. It’s only slightly larger than a village, and you can see poverty in parts of it. And in other parts, you can feel the blues all around you. At the end of Delta Avenue sits the Ground Zero Blues Club, the club owned by Morgan Freeman. People from all over the world come to visit this alreadylegendary institution: music is played almost every night, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get to also meet Morgan at the club. We got lucky. Morgan arrived wearing a sports jacket and jeans. He was relaxed and in a good mood, joking a lot. He came with his business partner and close friend Bill Luckett, who is also the Mayor of Clarksdale. Tourists gathered around us, with many asking for photos. Morgan “Basically grew up in Greenwood, Mississippi, a fairly large town as Delta towns go. I had a wonderful childhood, went to school and got what I thought, once I got out of school, was a terrific education. I think home is a place that gets in your bones. I didn’t care wherever I would go, but once I left Mississippi as a young man, I intended to be gone, get the hell out of here, and not look back! My family is all generational Delta people for the most part, except for one great-great grandfather. We’re all Mississippi people, all the way back as far as I know. So when I started coming back to visit my parents, after living in big
Once I know my heritage, I don’t want to escape it... I belong here cities like New York – after all the dirt, the soot, the concrete, living in caves, in small areas, no grass, no trees – I got really hungry for this. Smaller towns, fewer people, lots of trees, lots of grass, dogs in the street.” He’s at ease here, and deeply knowledgeable of surrounds that he describes (with a laugh) in three words as, “Black, hot and buggy.” Freeman is a cornerstone of Hollywood, and his revered status only increases the perplexed reaction of those when told where he lives. The response is an indication that there are misconceptions about this region, though Morgan says, “These misconceptions, they sort to tend to feed on each other. They don’t feed on anything most of us do here. Because most of the people you meet from the South are memorable people. Warm, friendly and outgoing. Once we got past the overt racism that defined the confederacy, the realisation that Southerners are Southerners and what colour you are is not so germane as why you’re here. You want to leave? You can. The Greyhound bus runs everyday. So why are we here? You gotta like it.” What unites people here (irrespective of colour), he believes, is “History. The black people who survived the
43
American Civil War were the people who kept a lot of the plantation and farms going during the war. This guy from here, Andy Carr, who had slaves in his family. He wrote a book [about it]: this was a guy who had slaves in his family, and he knew there were relatives as the results of these unions. My great-great grandfather was a white man. The difference between him and most of the others, especially here in Mississippi, is he married my great-great grandmother. They’re buried together. Once I know my heritage, I don’t want to escape it, I don’t want to avoid it and I don’t want to pretend it doesn’t exist. It does. I belong here.” Of course when it comes to changing mindsets, the platform on which he makes his money is a great vehicle to transform: ideas, places, people, events. So why aren’t more movies made in Mississippi, to help shatter the misconceptions? A lot of the ideas we have about history nowadays come from movies, I suggest… he quickly interjects, “And lot of it is very wrong! For example, there was a town in Alabama that never joined the Confederacy during the Civil War. With our Native American past, in the South we talk about farming Indians, they were peaceful. The movie industry thought plains Indians riding horses were
44
AIR
more exciting.” As for the absence of high profile films with the region as a backdrop, “It’s about subject matter,” he says. “When someone comes up with a subject matter, it gets shot here. Quite a few have been shot here. The last one I can think of is The Help. People write about all kinds of stuff, but not that many movies are set in the South, and the ones that are… they’re just not… I don’t want to do the kind of movie that makes you regurgitate bitterness.” Theories abound as to whether Memphis belongs to the Delta or not. Better to ask the expert: “They say the Delta starts in the lobby of the Peabody hotel in Memphis. It’s about right that in Memphis, people describe the region as ‘mid south’. You don’t have to go very far north to be in Iowa. Iowa was never part of the South. Iowa is clearly the Midwest: same for Illinois. Illinois comes all the way down to Kentucky. I’d say Tennessee qualifies as midsouth, about equidistant from Texas to South Carolina.” People “absolutely” still play the blues in Clarksdale: “Kids that are steeped in the history and tradition of the blues.” Invariably, Freeman gets asked about The Ground Zero Blues Club that he coowns with Luckett, as well as Memphis entertainment executive Howard Stovall. “I try to explain that it’s a dump, a juke joint. It’s not really like a club, it’s a joint! Like a ‘bucket-of-blood’ type of joint, except we don’t allow ‘bucket-of-blood’ type of activity in the club. But we want to evoke the famous ‘bad old blues clubs,’ guys rocking their liqour and pouring out their souls. I think if Ground Zero wasn’t here, people would still be coming, like they were before, but they’d be asking ‘where can we find some blues to listen to?’ – people used to leave disappointed. We fixed that problem. We didn’t have to hunt for the players: they were here, but they were saying they didn’t have a venue to play.” 45
Music, food and hospitality, that’s the South; catfish on the table, gospel and blues in the air…. “Southern people are warm-blooded. This is a hot place. People are used to moving slow and being laid back. I think because we’re not so over-crowded, people still reach out. You go into some place where people live ‘cheek-by-jaw,’ like New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles, there’s so little space, people don’t reach out to you, they never stop.” As for the cuisine, “We have a few very nice eclectic restaurants here. One named Claudette’s, and then some in the city of Cleveland, in Bolivar County.” He does get out of here, of course. On the travel front, Freeman confides that his favourite places to travel are, “Paris, Rome, Istanbul, London, Prague, Sydney, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nicaragua. All the way down the BVI (British Virgin Islands) in the Caribbean. I still have the boat we used to sail down there. But travel doesn’t inspire my work: it is just travel. For work, it used to be quite fun to go to different places when I didn’t have a ‘celebrity profile’, as it’s easy to see where you are. But when you get a ‘profile’ like me, you don’t see anything but the inside of a hotel room or your favourite restaurant.” Movie-making opened up a world of opportunity for Freeman to taste travel, fame, fortune and international acclaim. Immortalised on the reel he’s the measured narrator; he’s Lucius Fox, Scrap-Iron Dupris, Hoke Colburn driving Miss Daisy; he’s The Boss, The President, The Big Cheese, and he’ll play Sheik Ilderim in the 2016 remake of Ben Hur, in cinemas this month. Off-screen he’s down to earth – no act – an affable, approachable star unable to resist that small-town soul. Yes, film provided Morgan with his pass out of Mississippi. It’s just that unlike many who go on to accomplish great things, he made it a return ticket.
AIR
POETRY IN BLOOM
The artisans of Van Cleef & Arpels harness the delicate beauty, rousing emotion and unbridled freedom of nature. It’s an elegance captured in two spellbinding collections from the Maison – Bouton d’or and Perlée – each with their own motif, inspiration, and rich heritage; both utterly timeless
PHOTOGRAPHY : ŽIGA MIHELČIČ STYLING : CLAIRE CARRUTHERS MAKE-UP : SHARON DRUGAN HAIR : ANGEL MONTAGUE SAYERS FLOWERS SUPPLIED BY : FOREVER ROSE
46
47
AIR
Opening pages: Perlée diamond ring in yellow gold; Perlée clover ring; Perlée diamond ring in pink gold This page: Perlée clover ring; Perlée variation ring with carnelian; Bouton d’or ring and pendant (all in pink gold) Opposite: Perlée 3-row hoop earrings; Bouton d’or ring; Perlée variation ring in with onyx; Bouton d’or pendant; Perlée clover bracelet (all in yellow gold) All Van Cleef & Arpels
48
CLOTHING STOCKISTS: Left: Angelika wears a dress by Christian Siriano, from BySymphony This page: Victoria wears a bodysuit by Elisabetta Franchi
49
AIR
This page: Perlée 3-row hoop earrings in yellow gold with diamonds; Perlée ring in pink gold with diamonds Opposite: Bouton d’or: earrings, necklace and ring, of yellow gold, chrysoprase, onyx and round diamonds All Van Cleef & Arpels
50
CLOTHING STOCKISTS: This page: Victoria wears: Tiger print coat by Adam Lippes at Boutique 1; Sunglasses by Fendi
51
52
AIR
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST When TMZ revealed that Prince had died, it was the latest in a string of scoops for the website. Nicholas Schmidle goes in search of the crusader responsible for the explosive headlines – Harvey Levin, a former lawyer hellbent on publishing the stories celebrities want to hide WORDS : Nicholas schmidle
53
54
AIR
I
t was 2014 and Harvey Levin, the 65-yearold former lawyer and founder of TMZ, was making an appearance on the Fox News programme MediaBuzz. Levin has a jittery manner, a wide smile and a deep tan. For the TV appearance, he was wearing a tight black T-shirt, which showed off his physique – he works out every weekday before dawn, prior to going into the office. Howard Kurtz, the host of MediaBuzz, reminded his audience that TMZ had published many memorable scoops, such as posting police records in 2006 that exposed Mel Gibson’s drunk-driving arrest and anti-semitic rant. In 2009, TMZ broke the news of Michael Jackson’s sudden death. (Back in April it was the first to reveal that Prince had died at Paisley Park, his Minnesota mansion. There were so many hits, the outlet’s website briefly crashed). “How does TMZ get this stuff?” Kurtz asked. “It’s so funny to me that people ask that question,” Levin replied. “We’re a news operation. I mean, that’s what you’re supposed to do.” TMZ – the website famous for its merciless approach to celebrities – resembles an intelligence agency as much as a news organisation, and it has turned its domain, Los Angeles, into a city of stool pigeons. In an email from last year, a photographer reported having four airport sources for the day, including “Harold at Delta, Leon at baggage service, Fred at Hudson News, Lyle at fruit and nut stand”. A former TMZ cameraman showed me expense reports that he had submitted in 2010, reflecting payments of USD40 or USD50 to various sources: to the counter girl at a Beverly Hills salon, for information on Goldie Hawn; to a valet, for Pete Sampras; to a shopkeeper, for Dwight Howard, the American basketball player; and to a waiter, for Hayden Christensen, the Star Wars actor. “Everybody rats everybody else out,” Simon Cardoza, a former cameraman for the site, told me. “That’s the beauty of TMZ.” The site has built a deep network of sources, including entertainment lawyers, realitytelevision stars, adult-film brokers and court officials, allowing Levin to knock down the walls that guard celebrity life. Many tipsters ask to be paid, and the site often complies. Russ Weakland, a former TMZ producer, told me that he sometimes negotiated payments with tipsters who were anxious about releasing sensitive information. In 2009, for example, he took the call that led to TMZ’s breaking the news that singer Chris Brown had physically assaulted his girlfriend, Rihanna. (The site subsequently published a police photograph of Rihanna’s battered face). Weakland told me his attempts to persuade sources to follow through with a leak often resembled a therapy session. “I’d have to talk 55
people off cliffs,” Weakland said. “I’d tell them, ‘We’re not going to reveal our sources, because we want you to be a source for us again. We want you to trust us.’ ” On the Fox News programme, Kurtz asked Levin whether his willingness to buy material “tarnished” TMZ’s integrity. Last year, the celebrity news website pagesix.com reported that TMZ paid well over USD300,000 for surveillance footage of Beyoncé’s sister, Solange, attacking Jay Z in a lift at the Standard hotel in New York. (According to a former TMZ employee knowledgeable about the deal, the price was closer to USD5,000). Levin was unapologetic. “There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said. “The video is still the video. So who cares whether you pay money for it?” Kurtz noted that, amid all the gossip, TMZ had aired some consequential stories. In 2012, the site published a video showing four marines in Afghanistan urinating on dead insurgents, which prompted a criminal investigation and disciplinary action. Did such posts, Kurtz asked, signal an intent to change TMZ’s reputation as “a raunchy tabloid operation”? Levin’s face lit up. “We’ve been around for nine years, and if you look at the stories that we’ve broken they are stories that literally every newscast in America has put on the air,” he said. Levin’s exposure on television has turned him into a celebrity himself. The Los Angeles Times has followed his attempts to sell his house in Hollywood Hills West, for which he is asking almost USD4 million. Gossip sites have published paparazzi shots of Levin drinking iced coffee with his partner, Andy Mauer, a chiropractor. When Levin appeared on The Howard Stern Show, in 2011, Stern said he’d heard that TMZ was worth as much as USD400 million. “That’s nothing to sneeze at for a website,” he added. (The website is wholly owned by Warner Bros, but Levin is an executive producer of TMZ’s TV shows). The attention that Levin receives is not always so adulatory. The estranged husband of a former sitcom star recently made threats against him, persuading him to take on a 24-hour security detail. He’s been called the “high prince of sleaze”. Alec Baldwin, who has been the subject of several harsh TMZ stories – including one, from 2007, in which the site posted a voicemail recording of Baldwin calling his 11-year-old daughter a “rude, thoughtless little pig” – told me, “There was a time when my greatest wish was to stab Harvey Levin with a rusty implement and watch his entrails go running down my forearm, in some Macbethian stance. I wanted him to die in my arms, while looking into my eyes, and I wanted to say to him, ‘Oh, Harvey, you thoughtless little pig.’” Baldwin added, “He is a festering boil on the anus of American media.”
AIR
And yet in 2014, media magazine Adweek named Levin the digital editor of the year, noting, “Whatever topic your coworkers are talking about around the water-cooler, they probably read it first at TMZ.” The television journalist Jane VelezMitchell, a friend of Levin’s, told me, “Harvey’s a truth-teller – he has exposed things that people want to keep secret.” And after Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post, died, in late 2014, Deadline Hollywood praised TMZ’s “gamechanging” work, and asked of Levin, “Is he the next gen Ben Bradlee, or just the face of the new incarnation of the National Enquirer?” In the mid-Seventies, Levin, a law graduate, accepted a teaching job at the University of Miami. He loved combining the seriousness of academia with the wild fun of South Beach. He subscribed to a new magazine, People, and read it in his office. After hours of poring over casework, it was, he says, “just like crack”. Levin returned to California, to teach at the Whittier College law school. Then he went to the Los Angeles Times, which hired him to contribute an advice column titled “The Law and You”. Levin wrote about, among other things, a passenger’s rights when he or she is bumped off a flight, and whether blood tests can conclusively establish paternity. When the actress Carol Burnett sued the National Enquirer for defamation, in 1981, he observed that her lawsuit faced significant challenges: she “must prove that the Enquirer published the article about her with either an intentional or reckless disregard for the truth”. After a few years, Levin moved into TV, eventually joining the CBS affiliate station, KCBS. On June 13, 1994, OJ Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman were found dead outside her condominium. The case combined Levin’s core professional interests – law, celebrity, scandal – and he worked tirelessly on it. A month after the murder, he was reviewing footage taken outside Simpson’s home and noticed that the prosecutor Marcia Clark had been on the premises before a search warrant was issued: the time stamp read 10.28am, though Clark did not receive the warrant until 10.45. KCBS promoted Levin’s discovery as “a bombshell”, and Levin referred to himself on the radio as “a constitutional police officer”. But Levin had made an error. The time stamp depicted the moment that the footage had been filed, at 10.28pm, instead of the moment it had been shot. The station issued what the Los Angeles Times called “an extraordinary public apology”. Levin went on the air and said, “We made a mistake, we know how it was made, we’ve corrected it, and it is something that will not happen again.” He added, “I stand on my record and the stories that I’ve broken. I don’t apologise for being an aggressive reporter.”
Leo Braudy, in his 1986 book, The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History, defines fame as “the interplay between the common and the unique in human nature”. For Levin, nothing captures this dynamic quite like stars posing for mug shots or appearing in court. In the early Noughties, he successfully pitched an idea to Telepictures, a division of Warner Bros: a weekday newscast dedicated to celebrity court cases. His “mission,” he once said, was “not to make celebrities look bad but to make them real”. To Levin, the OJ Simpson case offered a glaring example of how differently the law was applied to celebrities and to ordinary citizens. Levin had witnessed this double standard himself. His father had run an off-licence in Reseda, Los Angeles, and in Harvey’s youth it was subjected repeatedly to sting operations by police officers who suspected that minors were being allowed to buy alcohol. At the same time, celebrity-friendly clubs in Hollywood touted their lenient policies with respect to minors. “Harvey thought it was so unfair that these clubs would get away with it, just because they were selling to celebrities,” Gillian Sheldon, the former TMZ publicist, told me.
There was a time when my greatest wish was to stab Harvey Levin with a rusty implement... Levin also disapproved of the way that publicists leveraged access to celebrities in order to control the media coverage of their clients. “The stories that were being told weren’t real,” he said, in a 2009 interview. “Producers knew that they weren’t real, but they played ball to get interviews with the stars.” Most journalism about stars, he said, was “built on a lie”. He set out to infuse celebrity coverage with an investigative ethos by tracking legal filings and court cases. A website called the Smoking Gun was already publishing such documents online. But Levin “taught us what else to look for”, Angela Laughlin, one of the first employees at TMZ, said. “How to reach out to all those named in the complaint, how to stay on top of these cases, how to find statements and depositions buried in the file.” In September 2002, Levin’s new TV show, Celebrity Justice, premiered. It often aired late at night, and struggled to find viewers. Sheldon, who was the publicist at Celebrity Justice, recalls, “We were breaking news all the time, but we weren’t doing it on the show.” Rather than unveiling scoops in the middle of the night, to meagre audiences, Levin and his reporters often took the best material to more established shows such as Access Hollywood, or to CNN and Fox News. 56
57
58
AIR
Celebrity Justice continued to do poorly in the ratings, and after three years it was cancelled. Nevertheless, Jim Paratore, the president of Telepictures, wanted to find Levin another project. Paratore had been contemplating a new website that could feature the unused footage amassed by the magazine show Extra, also under the Telepictures production name. But Levin was not interested in managing a site that functioned as “another thing to puff up Hollywood”. Instead, Levin proposed adapting the combative spirit of Celebrity Justice to the pace of the web.” “Urgency – Harvey used that word all the time. He wanted a site that created a sense of urgency,” ” Jeff Rowe, a former AOL executive, shared with me. The site needed a name, and Feed the Beast, Frenzie and Buzz Feed were all considered, says Rowe. Then, one day, a Telepictures executive suggested Thirty Mile Zone. It was an old movie-industry phrase, dating back to the mid20th century, which designated the industry’s boundaries in Los Angeles. Levin suggested an
Put me in Afghanistan and I’ll use the same principles I’d use with Britney Spears abbreviated version: TMZ. The domain name tmz.com, however, was owned by a man who built robots – the site’s initials stood for Team Minus Zero – and he showed little interest in selling. Levin decided to go see the man, and asked to borrow Rowe’s modest rental car, so that he wouldn’t appear to be wealthy. (Levin drove a Mercedes). “Harvey called him up, went over, wrote him a check for five thousand dollars, and bought the URL.” In November 2005, TMZ launched. On one of the first nights, its lone cameraman caught Paris Hilton and her boyfriend leaving a club in her Bentley, crashing into a parked truck and fleeing the scene. It was an auspicious start, and web traffic soon soared to more than ten million unique visitors a month. (tmz.com now regularly records more than 17 million, monthly). From the start, Levin’s “crusader mentality” at TMZ caused some consternation, Lewis D’Vorkin, a former vice-president of AOL, told me. “Harvey believed that every celebrity was fake, and that it was his job to expose that.” Alan Citron, TMZ’s first general manager, recalls fielding concerns from both AOL and Telepictures over “the tabloid direction of the stories”. Executives urged him to “move the coverage into the middle”. He hired a reporter from Variety to write more traditional features about the industry – the comings and goings of agents – 59
and experimented with property development coverage. But when Citron reviewed the traffic data, one thing became “undeniably clear: the tabloid material was what people wanted. The rest was like organ rejection – it just didn’t work.” At the start, Levin had only a dozen or so employees. He was selective about whom he brought in, prizing loyalty, energy and connections over experience. “We’ll hire kids, and we’ll train them,” he has said. One early employee was the daughter of Paris Hilton’s attorney. Another was the son of the assistant sheriff in Orange County – Mike Walters, now the head of TMZ’s news desk. Los Angeles was, as Levin put it, a “very Kevin Bacon-like city”, and he wanted reporters who either had celebrity connections or showed an eagerness to build them. In July 2006, a tipster called TMZ to say he had just seen Mel Gibson on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway. Levin made some inquiries, and learnt that Gibson had been pulled over for driving under the influence, and that he had called the arresting officer a “motherf***er”. Gibson also had launched into an anti-semitic tirade. Levin went to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department for confirmation. He was told his account was “absolutely untrue”. But later that day he secured a copy of the original police report, which contained four pages, excised from the version on file, detailing Gibson’s anti-semitic rant. The document supplied both evidence of Gibson’s bigotry and proof that the sheriff’s department had attempted to cover it up. After TMZ published images of the four pages, the story made headlines. Citron said, “That was the moment the rest of the world discovered TMZ.” Four months later, Michael Richards, the former Seinfeld star, was performing at a comedy club in LA when he singled out an African-American in the crowd: “Fifty years ago, we’d have you upside down with a fork up your ass.” One of Levin’s deputies, Evan Rosenblum, got a call from a college friend in the middle of the night. The friend had a sister, and one of her boyfriend’s buddies had been at the club and had recorded Richards’s outburst on a digital camera. “We started working on it at 4am,” Rosenblum said, in a Los Angeles Daily News article. The resulting piece left Richards’s career in ruins. Rosenblum later said the Gibson story “put us on the map”, but the Richards video “made us what we are”. Within a year, TMZ had become a dominant venue for celebrity news. “We were getting our asses kicked,” Brittain Stone, who was Us Weekly’s photography director from 2001 to 2011, said. “They were at police precincts, doing real beat reporting, and getting things like surveillance video. They were coming up with things that we would never touch: cellphone pictures, video grabs, things that wouldn’t hold up in print.”
AIR
TMZ’s crude look emphasised that it prioritised speed over polish. “It was single-handedly creating the news cycle,” Stone said. Steve Honig, a public-relations adviser who, for a time, represented Lindsay Lohan, told me, “When my phone rings and it’s TMZ, I pretty much stop what I’m doing and pick it up. Not because I’m bowing to the gods at TMZ but because, when something from TMZ runs, it spreads so quickly that, if there is any inaccurate information, within five or ten minutes it’s picked up by a hundred other outlets.” “I use my law degree every five minutes,” Levin has said. Over the years, he has trained many employees in the art of court reporting. Ben Presnell, who worked at TMZ, told me he spent most of his days at the Los Angeles County Municipal Courthouse, trying to charm clerks into giving him information. TMZ has three reporters stationed at the courthouse; the Los Angeles Times has one court reporter. In May 2012, the judge overseeing the case of a man who allegedly extorted Stevie Wonder caught a TMZ cameraman illicitly taping the courtroom proceedings. (The tape was turned over to the judge for review). David Perel, the former editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, recalls, “Everything that was hitting the window in the courthouse, they were getting instantly.” To Perel’s frustration, Levin consistently secured documents before others had access to them. “They were throwing around a lot of money,” he claims. According to a former TMZ news reporter, documents constantly flowed into the office from the courthouse. “Assistants and couriers would bring them in stacks. We had court documents coming out of our ass.” Levin also maintained close relationships with defence attorneys. Many received free publicity on TMZ and were referred to by cheeky nicknames. Laura Wasser, a divorce attorney, was the Disso-Queen. This nickname has appeared on TMZ hundreds of times. In October 2011, Kim Kardashian, a Wasser client, filed to divorce Kris Humphries, the basketball player, after 72 days of marriage. “Kim has hired disso-queen Laura Wasser, who has repped the likes of Britney Spears, Maria Shriver, Angelina Jolie, Ryan Reynolds and Robyn Gibson,” the accompanying story read. TMZ published exclusive images of the divorce papers moments after Wasser filed them in court. (He said, “This firm has a strong policy of not speaking with media about our cases”). Multiple sources told me that Levin is close to Shawn Holley, a lawyer who has represented Lindsay Lohan and other celebrities. In 2011, when Lohan went on trial for theft, TMZ repeatedly posted confidential information. The presiding judge compared the site to the CIA, and expressed bewilderment at “how these things leak out”. He added, “Thankfully, this case doesn’t 60
involve military secrets where people’s lives are at stake.” (Holley denies giving information to TMZ). The success of the website inspired Levin to branch out. In 2007, he created TMZ on TV, and the TMZ Live show followed, in 2012. He started celebrity-spotting bus tours in LA and New York. (The tours are managed by Andy Mauer, Levin’s partner). Some stars call ahead with their location, and then act surprised when the bus drives by. “It’s almost like an African jungle safari – they’ll come up to the bus,” Levin said recently. On TV, Levin always appears congenial, but, according to numerous accounts, when the
They broke the news of Michael Jackson’s death 18 minutes after he’d stopped breathing cameras switch off he often turns abrasive and domineering. “If there were gaps in your stories, if you didn’t have enough detail, if he wanted another question answered, he would fly off the handle,” a former news-desk reporter told me. The former senior producer remembered Levin impetuously firing people. “We roll through a lot of people,” Levin conceded in a speech last year. “Harvey has no problem publicly shaming you,” a former assignment-desk producer told me. “He used to say, to all of us, ‘My f***ing dogs are smarter than you!’ You become like a battered child. He beats you down, but the second you’re about to say, ‘Screw this place,’ he gives you a compliment, and you live for that.” A former TMZ photographer recounted that Levin once screamed, “I could get a monkey to do your job!” and, on another occasion, “Do you want me to draw this out in crayons for you idiots?” Rory Waltzer, another former cameraman, told me, “Harvey Levin would have been a great dictator: he is charming enough so that you want to follow him, but terrifying enough so that you don’t want to fail.” Dozens of current and former employees characterised the TMZ offices as an uncomfortable workplace. “Sex was discussed casually, as a commodity,” another former producer said. He described employees regularly gathering around computer monitors to watch new footage of celebrities having sex. (Stills from these clips appeared on TMZ). Many people declined to discuss TMZ on the record, citing nondisclosure agreements and a fear of antagonising Levin. Gillian Sheldon called Levin to ask him for permission to speak to me – even though she left TMZ in 2008. One former employee came to lunch in a disguise, worried that she might be recognised speaking to a reporter. Another stood me up; she later apologised, saying, 61
“I was scared.” “Harvey is ruthless,” Simon Cardoza, the former cameraman, said. “He is able to treat people like s*** because everybody wants to be near the limelight.” In June 2009, Michael Jackson died. A first responder, on arriving at Jackson’s house, called TMZ to tip off the site. (Ed Winter, the LA assistant chief coroner, is also a regular source, according to numerous former employees. Winter says that it is part of his job to speak to reporters). TMZ confirmed the death through one of Jackson’s security guards and Jackson’s father, Joe, and broke the news 18 minutes after Jackson stopped breathing. In a 2013 radio interview, Levin said that his kind of journalism was as rigorous as any other. “You put me in Afghanistan and I’ll use the same principles I’d use with Britney Spears.” Levin insists that his photographers are not paparazzi. On a recent episode of TMZ Live he said, “There are a group of renegade photogs out there that are dangerous – where they run people off the road, where they chase people, where they go after people’s kids, where they incite people. And it’s terrible, and I’m the first one to say those guys should be dealt with very strongly, thrown in jail, when they do it.” Josh Levine, TMZ’s original photographer, questions this statement. ‘We don’t follow people or do car chases’? They had me do that all the time.” Levine recalled pursuing Britney Spears’ black Lexus through Beverly Hills. “She’d do U-turns on Beverly Boulevard to mess with us. I was on my motorcycle and there were, like, 25 other cars, all paps, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights. It was a show. Harvey would yell if we didn’t get the shot.” Other photographers offered similar accounts. (TMZ said its employees are expected to obey the law). I met Kevin Blatt, a source for TMZ who had also worked in the pornography industry, at a bar. Blatt made small talk with the bartender and the cocktail waitress. “These are the people who call me with stuff,” he said. Scanning the menu, Blatt recalled coming to this bar one night and spotting Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, dining with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. (That night, a TMZ cameraman captured John at the door. “Why don’t you just f*** off!” John shouted.) Blatt surveyed the room. “I’m a hustler,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been doing since I was born. I’ve had over 150 jobs. I’ve sold cellphones. I’ve sold porn. But there’s nothing like selling celebrity dirt. It’s recession-proof.” It’s estimated that he had made more than 150 deals with TMZ over the years, collecting, on average, more than USD30,000 a year. In February 2012, after Whitney Houston was found dead in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton, Blatt drove there and checked into a room. He cultivated sources among the hotel employees.
AIR
“I had a whole pocketful of hundreds,” he told me. “That’s what makes the world go round – cash.” He soon obtained photographs taken in Houston’s room, including one of her room service trolley, which had an open can of Heineken on it. Most valuable was a shot of the bathtub, still filled with water, where paramedics discovered Houston’s body. Blatt sold this for about USD1,000. He recalls paying a member of the hotel staff about 100 to take the photo for him. Blatt spotted Alexis and Jim Bellino, co-stars of The Real Housewives of Orange County. He said that he contacts TMZ whenever he sees someone famous. “If I call in now and say, ‘I’m with Alexis Bellino,’ and they give me 50 bucks, that’s 50 bucks that paid for my dinner.” The Bellinos slid into the banquette beside ours. Blatt leant over and introduced himself to Jim Bellino. After Blatt commended Bellino for his performance on the show, he commented that he sometimes worked for Harvey Levin. “We actually really appreciate Harvey,” Bellino said.“They’ve never done anything slanty on you?” Blatt asked. “No,” Bellino said. “Harvey gets it. You don’t burn bridges. We did a newscast with Harvey, and we even co-operated with the bus.” He went on, “It was convenient. We were going to be shopping in Beverly Hills, or whatever, so I said, ‘If the bus is coming by…’ ” After a few more minutes of conversation, Bellino turned back to his table. He and Alexis finished their meal, then stepped outside, into a battery of camera flashes. Last April, Levin gave a lecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, titled The New Journalistic Environment. He spoke for 30 minutes, describing how TMZ had broken down the barriers once maintained by publicists. He discussed his plan to create another news show, and said he was in the midst of developing a game show. He said that, in an age of digital disruption, media companies need to “evolve or we die”. In a Q&A session after the talk, a student asked Levin how he had obtained the video of Solange attacking Jay Z in the Standard lift. “I’m not gonna say,” Levin replied, emphasising the importance of protecting sources. Another woman asked Levin what he thought went into making a successful journalist. “Good stories don’t come easy,” Levin said. “You get shut down all the time, and if somebody shuts the door you’ve got to find the way around the door.” He said that he told his staff, “Find 12 ways around the word ‘no’.” After Levin finished, students crowded around him, asking for autographs and selfies. As they dispersed, I stepped forward to introduce myself. Arms crossed, he expressed displeasure over the fact that I had contacted current and former TMZ employees – and referred me to his publicist. 62
63
AIR
H
e was shunned by a furious Hitler, bitter at the success of a non-Aryan athlete – in the Führer’s own stadium, no less. He returned from Germany an American hero, celebrated back on home soil after vanquishing the Nazis. Wasn’t he? Didn’t he? No. It’s a stunning story, but oversimplified and airbrushed for history. Owens is a man seemingly eternally misunderstood: take his name, for example. It’s James Cleveland – or J.C. – but when uttering this to a schoolteacher in his southern drawl, she mistook it for ‘Jesse’. Though inaccurate, the name stuck, as with other inaccuracies once he became more widely known, and his legacy forged. Listen to commentary at the Rio Olympics this month: sport has a constant narrative. Media coverage is epically fuelled with redemption, triumph and glory, by supernaturally-gifted icons – heroes – shouldering the pressure and weight of the moment like Atlas. Owens was no stranger to the lyrical waxing – his sheer talent always recognised. His achievement of setting three world records and tying another in less than an hour at the 1935 Big Ten track meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has been called ‘the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport.’ His exploits in Berlin, setting three world records and tying another in the 100m, 200m, 400m relay and the Long Jump, would cement his place as ‘one of the greatest athletes ever’. But the outside world crept in. His fable transcended running spikes and lanes, no longer confined to sport. 1936 was a different time, and the moment had real weight; an era of World war, where a raciallyloaded Berlin reflected the nervous sentiment. The US deliberated a boycott, though president of the American Olympic Committee (AOC) Avery Brundage challenged it, in the belief that, “The Olympic Games belong to the athletes and not to the politicians.” The US team did go to the eleventh summer Olympics – by ship – and the imagery of Owens’ blasting into the history books with his medal haul dented Nazi doctrine. ‘The Shun’ became an unfounded false addition. Hitler met a few gold medal winners on day one, before leaving the stadium early. Olympic officials informed the German leader of the need for consistency, and that in the future he must receive all of the winners or none at all. He opted to acknowledge none; Jesse Owens recorded his victories on the second day. What Hitler thought is unknown, but he did not show any outward outrage and besides, Germany’s systematically trained athletes actually topped the overall medal count at the Games, while the regime considered their hosting an opportunity to embark on a charm offensive. The Editor of newspaper Der Angriff said ahead of Berlin, “We must be more charming than the Parisians, more easy-going 64
RACE As the Rio 2016 Olympics burst into life, it’s time to tell the tale of Jesse Owens, one of the Games’ greatest sons. 80 years on, his success of four old medals at the Berlin 1936 Olympics is widely known. What happened to the icon after he crossed the finish line, is not. WORDS : chRis uJmA
65
AIR
than the Viennese, more vivacious than the Romans, more cosmopolitan than London, and more practical than New York.” Their general motives was callous and this approach was camouflage, but an in-your-face rejection (when focused on propaganda) makes little sense. Tangible tension came from within. Owens the champion was awarded his medals, and the appellation of Owens the Nazi-slayer; the AOC wanted to cash in on the sprint king. Journalist Donald McRae shares that, “Brundage had arranged a post-Olympic tour across Europe with the sole purpose of making money for the two administrations of which he was president… The tour began on August 10, the day after the track and field programme ended in Berlin…. The AAU brushed aside Owens’s exhaustion and insisted he take part.” Penniless Owens flew to Prague, competed, then on to Bochum, followed
by London, where the team slept in an empty hangar. All the while, “He was being bombarded with telegrams from America, each containing another lucrative offer: USD40,000 from the radio entertainer Eddie Cantor, USD25,000 to appear on stage with a Californian orchestra were supposed to be just the start of a growing
His fable transcended running-lanes, no longer confined to sport mountain of money… He had run in eight additional races for Brundage’s benefit and had grown, in his own words, ‘pretty sick of running’. He and Larry Snyder (Owens’s college coach), refused to board a flight to Stockholm.” He was automatically suspended for ‘refusing to fulfil his 66
Above: The ‘Buckeye Bullet’ wins the 200m in a record 21s at the Olympic trials. image from New York Daily News archive Next Page: Jesse jumps a pole on the deck of the ‘manhattan’, on his voyage from New York to Europe to take part in the summer Olympics in Berlin
competitive obligations,’ and it would signal the end of his athlete status. Explains Mike Marqusee of The Guardian, “Within a fortnight of winning his fourth gold medal at Berlin, Owens was expelled from the track for life by the US athletics authorities. His crime was refusing to complete a tour of pointless exhibition races, a tour arranged without his permission and from which he was to derive zero financial benefit … Jesse did everything that was asked [of him], and more, and still ended up shortchanged and demeaned.” Pre-Olympics, despite being an outstanding college athlete, he was forced to live off-campus and didn’t receive a full scholarship. Returning a champion, he tasted more of the same. Owens picks up the baton: “When I came back to my native country, with all the stories about Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus. I had to go 67
to the back door. I couldn’t live where I wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either.” Franklin D. Roosevelt never publicly acknowledged Owens’ achievements, never invited him to the White House, and didn’t send a letter of congratulations. When researching for a book (that would become Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens), McCrae was browsing the newspaper archives and “Decided to jump a couple of years to 1938. Two years after his Olympic glory I hoped I might find more reflective pieces on Owens’ achievement… it seemed to me as if his life was frozen in Berlin. What did Jesse Owens do after the Nazi Olympics? I imagined that he must have broken many more world records and been feted across America. It sounded like a sweet story – but nothing more. A grainy newspaper cutting
68
AIR
I wasn’t invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either
changed everything… As one page after another from the Chicago Defender whirred past on the microfiche screen, a brief news item snagged my attention. The bare details were enough to floor me. On July 4, 1938, only two weeks after gaining revenge in the ring against Germany’s Max Schmeling, boxer Joe Louis had raced against Jesse Owens in a 60-yard dash. An image of the poker-faced and flat-footed world heavyweight champion running against the smiling and flying ‘Fastest Man on Earth’ bewildered me. Why were they racing each other in such an unequal contest? What had driven them to such a stunt – so soon after they both conquered Hitler’s favourite sporting representatives?” It was one of many such events. Bundage stayed ‘in power’, becoming president of the International Olympic Committee until 1972, and Owens remained exiled. He would have to accept races against a horse, trains, cars, motorbikes, baseball players and even a dog, the only avenue to make dollars through his godgiven athletic ability. A pained Owens told writer Larry Schwartz, “People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can’t eat four gold medals. There was no TV, no big advertising, no endorsements then. Not for a black man, anyway,” Both Ruth Owens (his wife), and Marlene Owens Rankin (Jesse’s youngest daughter) spoke to McRae for the book. Ruth recalled, “That Avery Brundage feller tore a big hole inside Jesse,” and Marlene elaborated further, saying, “They took away his career… his life. Today, it would be the same as administrators telling Tiger Woods his career is over. Can you imagine how Tiger would feel, and how the rest of the world would react, if he was told at 24 he could never hit another golf ball again in serious competition? It took some real mental gymnastics for Jesse to rationalise this awful truth. It seems ridiculous now when you consider the multi-million deals that await any athlete who wins the Olympic 100m gold. But America was very different in 1936. On the one hand Jesse was being touted as this legend 69
who had beaten Hitler. Yet he was continually reminded he was not so special. He was still black.” But what of all those fantastic offers tabled to him? Ruth remembers, “His face was in every newspaper and everyone was his friend. We were taken to expensive restaurants and swanky hotels. But whenever Jesse looked a little deeper into each offer he saw there was nothing there. People kept telling him they were gonna do this or that for him. It was just fancy talk.” McRae deduces that, “Jesse Owens’ postOlympic life was a maze of contradictions. Beyond the stunt-runs he had a dazzling variety of jobs – from nightclub entertainer and motivational speaker to director of the Illinois Youth Commission and ‘international sports ambassador’ for the American government. He survived debt and endless tax problems while always managing to sustain a comfortable middleclass existence. His life was not tragic, yet it was marked by paradox and pain. And despite his symbolic role against Nazism, Owens was never free from racism himself.” The snub-myth does not taint Jesse’s bravery. In 1936 he went into the lion’s den and sprinted where many would fear to even tread. He’s revered and exalted, but in retrospect, as it took a changing of societal values for the adoration to dawn. Two decades passed before another President, Eisenhower, named Owens ‘Ambassador of Sports’, and his achievements weren’t formally recognised until 1976, when President Ford awarded him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It took Owens 10.3 seconds to cross the line in the 1936 100m final, but the quest for racial equality – and for his personal achievements to garner awards named in his honour and statues erected in his memory – took far longer. The Civil Rights side of the tale is vastly complex and Owens’ own involvement is worthy of another article in itself, but make no mistake: Jesse Owens is real hero, in 1936, 2016, and beyond. The sad story is that he wasn’t treated like one at the time. Not in far-flung Europe, but in the very country he was born.
Motoring AUGUST JULY 2016 2016 : ISSUE : ISSUE 6263
Pebble Beach Treasures The world-famous Concours d’Elegance rolls into California, and RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction is an integral part of the prestige
AIR
WORDS : CHRIS UJMA
“W
hat makes our Monterey sale a calendar highlight is that it ties-in to one of the oldest and most-prestigious international classic car events. The awarding of ‘Best in Show’ at Pebble Beach is one of the most-coveted awards in the world and as such, the vehicles and clients who are drawn to the area make it the most exclusive gathering, anywhere.” They’re the opening thoughts of Alain Squindo, Chief Operating Officer of RM Auctions, who wields great expertise when talking of an annual meeting that
his accent smoothly Americanises as ‘Moner-ray’. It’s the classic car sphere at its zenith, yet even without Alain’s insight the auction speaks for itself. The most discerning collectors flock to this RM Sotheby’s showcase, and the 2016 sale catalogue has a gleaming line-up to get the adrenaline going. Alain says of the standout lots that, “There are a number of captivating ones, and we have a really strong emphasis on American racing – which is quite appropriate given that Ford is celebrating the historic win of the GT40’s in 1966 at Le Mans, and of 70
course they won in their class this year. Among our offerings at Monterey are not one but two GT40s – one set up for road use, the other with racing specs.” Add to this the bombshell announcement made in July that Monterey would have a very special auction protagonist indeed: “We have the original, very first 260 Shelby Cobra CSX 2000. This is the car that built the company, and it’s never left the family’s ownership so is something that hasn’t been available for public sale. It is arguably the most important Shelby Cobra in the world.”
71
AIR
Going on past history, the Shelby could be RM Sotheby’s next Pebble Beach home-run. They’ve a string of headline-making sales, none more so than when they got their hands on a road-going NART Spider with an incredible backstory. Self-made success Eddie Smith – then owner of apparel company National Wholesale –was the recipient of his NART back in 1968 (for a acquisition price far more modest than it its eventual sales figure at Monterey 2013). At the time, screen hero Steve McQueen was intent on getting a NART to replace the one he had totalled, yet Eddie resisted advances to sell – and many more were forthcoming (Ralph Lauren, for example, flew in especially to drive it once, but couldn’t strike a deal). Eddie’s ethos was, “I bought it for the right reasons and kept it for the right reasons: because I really love it. I feel like it’s a part of me.” Years after his passing, Smith’s family felt the Ferrari was being imprisoned in its garage, and made the tough decision to part company with the beauty. But what made it outperform pre-sale expectations? Alain recalls that, “We offered that car from its original family, and I believe it broke the record because we created the environment in which that car could thrive: we marketed it, bringing it to the attention of every significant buyer in the world; we made a special dedicated video for it, and a dedicated book for the family as a keepsake. They announced that they would donate every single penny to charity – which is remarkable – and by the time it hammered sold, it far exceeded the offer that they had expected for the car, going for USD27.5million. We handle every single component of buying and selling cars, and have the largest dedicated team of professionals to do so: we have effectively become a department of Sotheby’s, with all of their in-house resources now partnered with ours. That sale is a classic example of our all-encompassing approach, but also of the thrill of Monterey and its record-setting atmosphere.” Whichever side of the coin you’re on, it is an exciting time; RM Sotheby’s shies away from giving investment advice as an auction house, but Alain does impart some insight of the 72
It’s a setting where some of the most valuable classic cars in the world change hands
landscape. “Cars have been performing more strongly than other asset classes, and historically speaking, for the last ten years this has been readily apparent. There has been a slight market correction this year, though it is a correction that people are really comfortable with because it tells us that there is solid footing underneath our feet, and there is sense to this market. The escalation of the high-end classic car market was so rapid for the last five years that I think people were starting to wonder if it was too speculative… but quite honestly, it is all very sound. Ferrari, Classic and Hypercar prices are all very strong, and scientifically speaking they’re also sensible. It’s a good market,” he shares. Pebble Beach is the place to be for those looking to acquire, or admire. “What makes our event exciting in terms of attendance is that there’s a robust calendar of things to do: it’s a destination event. It isn’t just an auction. Once you’re in Monterey there’s racing plus the different Concours events, but at RM Auctions we’ve set ourselves apart in one vital component and that’s bringing Sotheby’s. The events both in-andaround [the event] create the setting for some of the most valuable cars in the world to change hands, and regardless of what you’re doing in the Monterey peninsula that week, you can be assured it will be of the highest and most exclusive calibre.” Coinciding with the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, RM Sotheby’s Monterey flagship auction takes place on August 19-20 at Portola Hotel & Spa, California. rmsothebys.com/en/ auctions/MO16 73
Gastronomy AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Oriental Amber AIR
In the heart of Hong Kong, Richard Ekkebus has crafted a slow-burning Michelin star dynasty – and the culinary accolades keep on flowing WORDS : CHRIS UJMA
A
Western chef primed by some of the top culinary names in the world; two stars from the coveted guide; an inclusion on the roll-call of the best restaurants. Amber, on the seventh floor at The Landmark, Mandarin Oriental, sounds like a ‘just add water’ success story, but Ekkebus confides that it took resilience to get here. “People have said to me, ‘I didn’t like the first chef that opened the restaurant, but things have really come along since you arrived’, and my response is, ‘well I was the opening chef….’ When we started eleven
years ago, the food scene was rather traditional and in the beginning it didn’t necessarily take: people didn’t really ‘get’ what we were doing, and it took some convincing for Hong Kong to cotton on. I wanted us to be very different, and that’s maybe because my route here involved working in restaurants where I was influenced to pursue personality within my cooking. We held on to our beliefs – and to the French-contemporary cuisine style – and persisted.” The awards that followed are almost redemptive, and Amber now sits at 74
number twenty on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants List 2016 – the only representative from Hong Kong, at that. “They say we are now one of the best in the city, but we were ahead of our curve at the time, operating without complacency and always questioning how to make the overall dining experience even greater.” Ekkebus honed his skillset in some illustrious culinary institutions, under the tutelage of such kitchen luminaries as Hans Snijders and Robert Kranenborg in his native Holland, then by the side of Alain Passard, Guy Savoy,
75
76
and Pierre Gagnaire during his time in France. The influential experience taught him to “create your own rules and your own culinary language”, and coupled with his experiences in Barbados (at Sandy Lane), Mauritius and the USA, his professional-past “shaped a broad perspective and certain degree of tolerance.” Not entirely tolerant, though. On many frontiers, the greats of history have torn up the rulebook; Ekkebus – a Michelin star great in his own right – would just as readily tear-up the menu. The Executive Chef confides, “I hate signature dishes and I am known to get rid of them very quickly when I see that they become a synonymous. Our Hokkaido sea urchin with lobster jelly and caviar, for example, was a dish that was very emblematic of the restaurant, but I felt that it was holding us back from grander things. I’ve always had a traumatic feeling about this topic, and I believe that the menu is the biggest constraint for any chef. The ultimate evolution of Amber might become ‘the restaurant without a menu’, because I think that if you have a particular item that people visit to try, there could be a day that it is not as good as the day before: every ingredient has its peak.” The dishes created at Amber comprise pristine seasonal produce. “I wanted to work with regional ingredients, but in China and Hong Kong, the only thing growing is Real Estate. Instead I turned to Japan – though as much as that country has shaped our cooking ingredient-wise, it has not shaped our cooking from a flavour profile perspective. That remains very Western. We are at an interesting crossroads of a Western chef, cooking with Japanese ingredients: something extremely different to what people had seen before.” He is a visionary and a leader, but considers himself a democratic one. “Within the development process of dishes, I set the guidelines and decide the products we want to work with, and I visit Japan around six times a year to be inspired by the markets. Then we use trial and error to work with the chosen products, which very often we’re not familiar with. We delve into the best way of preparing it; we have input from the entire team, and from the most junior to the most senior chef,
I hate signature dishes and I am known to get rid of them very quickly...
there is no such thing as a bad idea; during the tasting and trials, everyone has a say on the approach to a dish.” As-balanced is the interior styling, designed in collaboration with hospitality-project maestro Adam Tihany, who conceptualised the likes of Tomas Keller’s Per Se, Bouchon in Beverly Hills, and even At.Mosphere at the tip of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. For Amber, Ekkebus reveals that, “Aesthetically, we wanted to recreate the golden days of 20s-30s art deco Hong Kong, but the way Adam designed the room enables it to feel timeless, despite it being a decade old – very often restaurants look dated after five years, but Amber is still spectacular looking. For example, in our discussions with Adam we decided that chandeliers were very old fashioned, but he went to work with 4,350 copper rods that created an iconic ceiling feature in what is otherwise a minimalistic room; there’s a lot of wood, copper and of course harmonious elements influenced by a feng shui master.” The location at the Mandarin Oriental’s Landmark was, he says, “A no-brainer: to me it’s the most luxurious hotel brand in the world and has always had a very strong F&B focus, so to work with a company of this calibre has made the restaurant even better. It has been a great combination.” 77
Chef Ekkebus is somewhat radical, but not for the sake of being an industry firebrand – the nuances within which he innovates are carefully considered. For every unconventional Sylvie Coquet porcelain plate or experiential service tweak, there is a custom being respected, such as in the cultureinspired décor, saké pairing, and the cooking practices. Amber may shun a constant-menu concept, but their in-kitchen methods are a calling card: “Our signature techniques are definitely traditional. We were never people who cooked in vacuum bags (like many) but on wood fire, which is very fashionable these days, but we were doing it from the beginning. We are open minded to improvements but still rooted in tradition: it’s what sets Amber apart.” It was almost New York where the Executive Chef unfurled his talents (the 9/11 tragedy halted his Big Apple venture), but Hong Kong fortuitously came along at the right time. “The city is one that, for any chef or foodie, is extremely attractive,” he enthuses. “We have always been a stubborn restaurant, and never taken the cookie cutter approach. The story that we tell is much deeper than just beautifullyplated dishes of excellently-cooked fare with delectable ingredients: there is a strong story to what we do.” It’s a narrative that has secured their status among the world’s elite dining enclaves.
Travel AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
7 journeys by jet
The Brando
AIR
Tahiti
J
ust 30 miles north of Tahiti is a secluded atoll that takes the breath away, and takes sun-soaked days to explore. The promise is a seamless transition of tranquillity, by stepping off the private jet and into the privacy of an exquisite luxury resort. Located in French Polynesia, The Brando is truly unique in concept. Its home, Tetiaroa, is a cluster of twelve small islands (or ‘Motus’) in the South Pacific. Each of these distinct-dozen have their own charm and a natural treasure to unearth: for example, Reiono has a preserved, primitive rainforest, where coconut crabs roam
free; Oroatera boasts beaches, a lagoon, and a seahorse-shaped pond that inspired a local legend; Tahuna Iti and Tahuna Rahi are where birds such as red-breasted frigates and brown gannets nest-down; Onetahi – the 193 acre Motus upon which The Brando is located – was once the favoured retreat of Tahitian royalty. ‘Royal’ is a succinct word to encapsulate the luxury experiences one can savour. The styling of the resort reflects Polynesian lifestyle and their sacred culture, while the 35 villas are footsteps away from a beach and ocean visited by sea turtles, manta rays and 78
exotic birds. Of the villas, the threebedroom is the grandest, at 2,648 sq.ft. in size; pass beneath a covered porch along the boardwalk to the front door, behind which lies features that include a private dining area, a kitchen for the resort’s chef to craft fine fare, and a media room in which to hunker down and watch movies. Sun decks with stunning vistas of the lagoon provide an unscripted viewing option, behind a screen of pandanus, miki miki and coconut trees. The villa has elements to make the most of the outdoors: private access to the white-sand beach is right on the doorstep but if that feels a walk
too far, there’s a 236 sq.ft. pool on the deck area, as well as chaise lounges and shaded sitting area. You’ll be enticed to venture out. Guy Martin is the maestro of double Michelin star enclave Le Grand Véfour in Paris, and it is his fare that graces the dining venues and in-room culinary options – the menu in elegant Les Mutines mirrors that which vaulted the Paris restaurant to acclaim. (Ingredients within all of the kitchens are carefully chosen, daily, from the organic garden and orchard). For a wellness top-up there is the Varua Polynesian Spa, with its steam baths,
yoga shelter, spa suite for couples and a relaxation lounge. From snorkelling, bird-watching and scuba diving, to stargazing, swimming in Mermaid Bay, and laying eyes upon lemon sharks in the dedicated nursery, The Brando has much to enthrall. These are surroundings that compelled Hollywood legend Marlon Brando to settle down and find a home; surrounds upon which he reflected, “My mind is always soothed when I imagine myself sitting on my South Sea island at night… Tetiaroa is beautiful beyond my capacity to describe. One could say that Tetiaroa is the tincture 79
of the South Seas.” The briefest dip into this retreat is enough to make you linger on that decision to charter their turboprop private plane back to Tahiti; The Residences – a limited number of luxury homes located along the beach – are evidence that many couldn’t bear to leave this stunning haven behind. Tetiaroa is self-contained with its own airstrip. Make an initial landing at Faa’a International Airport, then – after customs – take charter from a dedicated terminal to Motu Onetahi, twenty minutes away. Guests are escorted by electric vehicle to the private villa. thebrando.com
What I Know Now
AIR
AUGUST 2016 : ISSUE 63
Russell James
PhotograPher and Brand Creator of raw SPirit fragranCeS Every day that I wake up, I realise I’m doing what I love. I’ve had moments, like seeing my first solo book published or first art exhibition. But my on-going highlight is the possiblity of being in this world to do what you love – so long as you give it your best. Over the years, my most important asset has been tenacity. I have learned not to ride the roller coaster of emotions. In a creative space you can be criticised one day and hailed as a genius the next. I have learned not to buy into either point of view or the other. When I know what I am doing is right, I follow my gut instinct. The biggest challenges for me are to never
become complacent. I show up to each shoot thinking if this isn’t great it could well be my last. I don’t depend on my history to keep me relevant. I challenge myself everyday to think ‘what am I missing, how is the world changing, how do I reflect that in my photography while being true to my style?’ I’ve not to allowed professional successes or failures define me personally. The true measure of a person is not how hard they can punch but how many times they are willing to get up after being knocked down. No matter that I’ve had times when I didn’t know if I could pay my monthly rent, and times when I have been on the 80
largest productions in the world. I like to believe that my personal side is the same, despite what my ego may say. The best advice I ever received was from Richard Branson, who said, “You will learn far more from your failures than your successes.” I have always taken that knowledge forward and all these years later, when I see Raw Spirit coming together in perfect form I realise it is a result of never giving up when you believe in your idea. It just takes time to get it right. Get on the scent of Russell’s sustainably-sourced luxury fragrances at rawspiritfragrances.com
BE INSPIRED The lagoon draws you irresistibly in, and you become one with its crystal clear waters. An unearthly experience, you have never felt anything quite like it. Every Constance Hotels and Resorts establishment forms a seamless addition to a location carefully selected for its beauty and communion with the waves. Pearls sparkling in the pristine seas.
MAURITIUS
•
SEYCHEL L ES
constancehotels.com
•
MALDIVES
•
MADAGASCAR
MATCH
YOUR
STYLE
PERSONALISATION FOR MOBILE PHONES & TABLETS Pure Gold & Platinum • Swarovski Crystals • Engraving • Textures • Skins • Colour The Dubai Mall | Dubai Festival City | Abu Dhabi Mall