AIR Magazine - Empire Aviation - January'24

REACHING NEW HEIGHTS

Empire Aviation’s soaring success JANUARY 2024

JESSICA CHASTAIN

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Contents

Credit: The Cult of Self – study III, 2013, London © 2022 Miles Aldridge

JANUARY 2024: ISSUE 148

FEATURES Thirty Four

Forty

Fifty Six

Hollywood royalty she very well may be, but Jessica Chastain has more than a few problems with her industry.

How visionary photographer and daydreamer, Miles Aldridge, brought fashion to the front room.

From rococo to avant-garde, a new book shows that Karl Lagerfeld’s houses were as eclectic as the man himself.

Stick It To The Man

Miles Ahead

Through The Keyhole

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Contents

JANUARY 2024: ISSUE 148

REGULARS Fourteen

Radar

Sixteen

Objects of Desire Eighteen

Critique Twenty

Art & Design Twenty Six

Jewellery Thirty

Timepieces Fifty Eight

Gastronomy Sixty Two

Travel

EDITORIAL

Sixty Four

Editor-in-Chief & Co-owner

What I Know Now

John Thatcher john@hotmedia.me

ART Art Director

Kerri Bennett Illustration

Leona Beth

COMMERCIAL Fifty Four

Motoring Italian custom car company Ares Design has teamed up with French luxury glassmaker Lalique to create a limited-edition 1950s-inspired roadster.

Managing Director & Co-owner

Victoria Thatcher

PRODUCTION Digital Media Manager

Muthu Kumar

M e d i a C i t y, D u b a i , UAE Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from HOT Media is strictly prohibited.

HOT Media does not accept liability for any omissions or errors in AIR.

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Empire Aviation Group JANUARY 2024:ISSUE 148

Welcome Onboard JANUARY 2024

Welcome to the first issue of AIR in 2024, our private aviation lifestyle magazine for aircraft owners and charter clients. We are excited to bring you inspiration and ideas for the new year, whether you’re in the air or on the ground.

2023 was a fantastic year for private aviation, and the forecasts for 2024 indicate another year of strong growth. Manufacturers are experiencing strong order books for new aircraft, and all major regions for aviation are looking positive. This encouraging outlook to the new year also extends to all our services, including a high demand for charter flights.

With increase in charter services, the inflight service expectations are also rising fast. Digital transformation is all around us and the ubiquity of communications technology means we are truly living digital — as well as physical — lives. Today, people expect an ‘always-on’ experience with seamless connectivity to fast networks.

Of course, we all want our digital connections to be easy and everywhere all the time, so we can continue our digital working and personal lives seamlessly and perhaps enjoy our online gaming, movie streaming and video calls. This can sometimes be a challenge on the ground and in the air but the technology is developing quickly to enable the same experience in the cabin as you would enjoy at the office or at home.

Looking up, the sky may seem vast and empty, but it is criss-crossed with aviation highways and above these, we have constellations of satellites ringing the globe in various orbits making all of this complex traffic and connectivity possible. It’s an incredible achievement, which we focus on in this issue, along with our partners Satcom Direct (SD) — the experts in connecting aircraft, crew and passengers. SD is making a major contribution to private aviation efficiency and safety, as well as crew and passenger experience. This cabin connectivity is critical for owners and charter clients who really want the fast broadband and seamless wi-fi experience. Most of our fleet of midsize and super midsize aircraft enjoy a very high standard of onboard connectivity — essential to the travel experience when passengers may be flying over longer distances and spending many hours in the air.

The first of our managed aircraft to be equipped with Satcom Direct’s advanced Plane Simple® Ku-band solution is a Bombardier Global Express XRS — a large cabin, ultra long-range business jet. It’s configured as a ‘global office’ with conference table, workstation and now with the benefit of the most advanced connectivity. So, wherever you fly in 2024, you can stay connected.

We wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2024.

Paras P. Dhamecha Managing Director Empire Aviation Group About Empire Aviation Group

Since launching in Dubai UAE in 2007, Empire Aviation Group has developed into a global private aviation business integrating a comprehensive range of services, based on a distinctive aircraft management approach and personalised service, ensuring aircraft owners and clients enjoy all the privacy, safety, comfort and convenience of private aviation. Empire Aviation operates one of the Middle East’s largest managed fleets of business jets, with aircraft based in global locations.

The company operates in the key regions for private aviation, covering the USA, Europe, India, Africa and Indonesia, in addition to the Middle East. The Empire Aviation team comprises 130 aviation specialists across the globe. Empire Aviation holds AOCs (Air Operator Certificates) in the UAE and San Marino.

Contact Details: Cover: Jessica Chastain, Alamy

info@empire.aero empireaviation.com 9

Empire Aviation Group JANUARY 2024:ISSUE 148

Connectivity At The Speed Of Sound How cabin tech enhances passenger experience

Empire Aviation recently became the first operator in the UAE to deploy Satcom Direct’s advanced technology Plane Simple® Ku-band terminal and the system is being installed in aircraft across the company’s managed fleet.

The move is in response to advancing technology and the rising demand from owners and charter clients – more simply, commercial value and passenger satisfaction. The Satcom Direct system offers a single resource to meet all connectivity needs, from the cockpit to cabin, with leadingedge technology backed by a network of top MRO partners and access to expert support 24/7/365 to keep aircraft connected. It’s an approach that gives owners peace of mind when deploying this new advanced technology. It’s a technological miracle and we go behind the scenes with SD to see how they make this work.

Satcom Direct's Cabin Solutions allow passengers to stay in touch, informed, and entertained with the optimal onboard connectivity experience. The company partners with industry-leading satellite network operators to deliver the most advanced in-flight connectivity available, working closely with

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owners and operators to understand aircraft, travel patterns, the desired capabilities and budget to build a customised, fully-integrated solution.

We all expect our inflight internet to be as fast and reliable as it is at home or in the office, wherever we fly in the world and this is what SD delivers – high speed connectivity on board to enable video and audio streaming, live TV, video calls, transferring large files and access to corporate VPN. As SD describes the challenge – we all compare our connectivity experience with our homes or offices – a persistent, high bandwidth, low latency connection. Replicating this experience in an aircraft at 45,000 feet flying near 0.9Mach is a technical challenge. Unlike a house or office building, the aircraft is manoeuvring, the antenna is in motion, the satellite is in motion, there are clouds and rain in between both, latency varies depending on how far away the satellite is and the connection can be interrupted as the system switches between satellite beams and/or between satellites. For most uses, these technical challenges are transparent to the user. There are a couple of applications such as

gaming or video teleconferencing that demand a persistent high bandwidth low latency connection that can be challenging to replicate in an airborne environment.

Airborne connectivity represents a significant investment for an aircraft owner or operator. The result of that investment should be a system that supports the passenger’s needs and aircraft’s missions for 7-10 years. SD’s solution is Plane Simple®, a family of antennas that are modular, easy to install, frequency and network diverse, with a flexible system architecture that can adapt to future network changes. The decision on which solution to install on an aircraft to best achieve their connectivity goals is a factor of the mission requirements of the given aircraft: what are the passengers and crew trying to do and where are they flying. The first step is to look at the critical applications that are needed as well as the most prevalent flight routes. Secondly, it’s important to understand how many passengers are typically on board. This will help identify the key requirement in terms of capacity, latency, and consistency that are needed.

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Empire Aviation Group JANUARY 2024:ISSUE 148

Bombardier Global Express XRS Your Connected Office In The Sky Empire Aviation has managed several Bombardier Global Express XRS aircraft and this super midsize business jet has the capability of flying non-stop on intercontinental missions to many of the world’s global cities for business and leisure. It’s also become the first aircraft on Empire’s managed fleet to be fitted with Satcom Direct’s advanced technology Plane Simple® Ku-band terminal and the system is also being installed

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across other aircraft on the fleet.

The large cabin, ultra long-range business jet is powered by twin Rolls-Royce engines and has a range of 11,390km and a top speed of 950km/h, which means it can fly nonstop between many of the important city pairs around the world. It can be configured as a boardroom in the sky for business, along with all the comforts of home – including advanced connectivity.

Radar

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JANUARY 2024: ISSUE 148

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Credit: Kaeson Station, Pyongyang Metro, by Dave Kulesza

Wes Anderson is an auteur, a director whose visually arresting style ensures his films — including The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Asteroid City (2023) — are instantly recognisable. That charming, eccentric aesthetic is manifest in Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition, a collection of over 200 real-life images inspired by Anderson’s work that also form the bedrock for an online community called ‘Accidentally Wes Anderson’, to which photographers from across the globe contribute images, all of which seem plucked from Anderson’s pastelhued world.

Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition, 81-85 Old Brompton Road, South Kensington, London, until February 17

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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

RICHARD MILLE

RM 21 - 02 TO U RBILLON AERODY NE Richard Mille’s pursuit of the extraordinary has led to it introducing myriad materials to the world of watchmaking, mostly from the automotive and aeronautics industries.

From the latter comes Carbon TPT®, which is combined with a nickel-

chromium-aluminium-iron alloy called HAYNES® 214® to form what is effectively the most robust yet remarkably light watch you’ll ever wear (at least, until the next Richard Mille offering). Released as a limited edition of 50 pieces, its case is also water resistant to a depth of 50 metres.

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Credit: © Limited Edition in collaboration with Mickalene Thomas

OB JECTS OF DESIRE

DIOR

L ADY DIOR Every year, Dior embarks on a creative a diverse range of contemporary artists project with a selection of the world’s from as far and wide as England and on-point artists to transform its Lady China, the USA and Japan, including this Dior bag, a product that will forever arresting piece from African-American be linked to the late Princess of Wales, visual artist Mickalene Thomas, whose Diana. Now in its eighth cycle, this signature style delivers a fusion of beads, year’s project sees Dior collaborate with sequins, crystals, and resin elements.

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OB JECTS OF DESIRE

PAT E K P H I L I P P E

A Q U A N A U T L U C E ‘ R A I N B O W M I N U T E ’ R E P E AT E R H A U T E J O A I L L E R I E As the trend to laden women’s watches with complications continues, Patek Philippe has added a minute repeater to its Aquanaut Luce line. Reference 5260 is realised in rose gold and adorned with a setting of 52 multi-coloured baguette-cut sapphires (3.19ct), 112

baguette-cut diamonds (7.31ct) and 160 brilliant-cut diamonds (0.72ct), each placed using the invisible setting technique. This watch comes with three straps in an ultra-resistant composite material decorated with the embossed Aquanaut motif.

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OB JECTS OF DESIRE

ALEX ANDER MCQUEEN

THE ARMADILLO SHOE Having debuted in 2010’s Plato’s Atlantis, Lee McQueen’s final – and widely considered best – runway presentation, the Armadillo shoe, its name and design derived from the protective shell of an armadillo, has been reinvented in a range that includes ankle, thigh, and calf-

high-boots, the latter sculpted from soft faux leather with an exploded bow and a gold, silver or tonal lacquered curve heel. The ankle and thigh-high versions feature pointed toes and come in black and silver leather, with a contrast lacquer trademark curve heel.

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OB JECTS OF DESIRE

B U R B E R RY

HIGHGROVE SCARVES As part of its remit as a Royal Warrant holder (granted to companies who supply goods to the UK’s Royal Household), Burberry has released a limited-edition collection of scarves designed to celebrate the gardens at Highgrove, the private residence of King

Charles III. Fashioned from organic silk and finished with hand-rolled edges, the four scarves are named after the seasons, each one featuring a charming illustration by British artist Sammi Lynch, a recent graduate from the Royal Drawing School.

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OB JECTS OF DESIRE

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OB JECTS OF DESIRE

R M SOTHEBY’S

2018 FORD GT When it was launched in 2015 at Detroit Auto Show, Ford’s new GT came as a complete shock to the industry. Created to be a world-beating supercar, this new GT would boast a speed that would take it from standstill to 100km/h in three seconds, while a strong emphasis on low weight and aerodynamic efficiency dictated

its futuristic bodywork. Demand for the GT was so strong that Ford implemented a rigid application process for the privilege of buying one, producing only 1,350 examples. This one is expected to realise between $900k and $1.1m when it goes under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s Arizona auction on January 25.

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OB JECTS OF DESIRE

T H E VA M P I R E ’ S W I F E X G L O B E T R O T T E R

THE WEDDING COLLECTION

A marriage of The Vampire’s Wife wild romanticism and Globetrotter’s time-honoured tradition, The Wedding Collection is one of two limited-edition luggage sets comprising an elegant selection of XL trunks, alongside cabin, carry-on, vanity, and jewellery cases.

Inside these structured ivory pieces is a blood-

red lining, while outside are moulded leather trims, golden brass hardware, and luggage tags featuring The Vampire’s Wife’s bat motif. “The Wedding Collection is inspired by the most beautiful vanity case, a wedding gift from my Father to my Mother,” revealed The Vampire’s Wife founder, Susie Cave.

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OBJECTS OF DESIRE

Critique JANUARY 2024 : ISSUE 148

Film I.S.S. Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite Set in the near future aboard the International Space Station as a global conflict breaks out on Earth, a team of astronauts is instructed to take control of the station — by any means.

AT BEST: “A vision of the future if humanity doesn’t find some common ground.” — Valerie Complex, Deadline Hollywood Daily AT WORST: “Too generic a genre exercise to matter, one that vaguely orbits notions such as trust, selflessness, teamwork.” — Tomris Laffly, TheWrap

All Of Us Strangers Dir. Andrew Haigh

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A man’s chance encounter with a mysterious neighbour in his sparsely-populated tower block punctures the rhythm of his everyday life.

AT BEST: “A masterful love story of loneliness and healing.” — Anna Bogutskaya, Time Out AT WORST: “The film results in something far more maudlin than emotionally engaging.” — Mike Shutt, Slashfilm

Housekeeping For Beginners Dir. Goran Stolevski A battle of wills ensures when circumstances force a woman to reluctantly raise her girlfriend’s two daughters.

AT BEST: “Crackles with so much feral energy, you practically get a static shock from the screen.” — Wendy Ide, Screen International AT WORST: “Made with immediacy and sincerity, the film requires some time to find Stolevski’s rhythm.” — Brian Eggert, Deep Focus Review

Sometimes I Think About Dying Dir. Rachel Lambert A friendly new recruit persistently tries to befriend a self-isolated coworker, for whom connecting goes against every fibre of her being.

AT BEST: “A fascinating exploration of loneliness, comfort in solitude, and disconnection.” — Matt Hudson, What I Watched Tonight AT WORST: “The whole thing ends up feeling unspecific and dull.” — Drew Gregory, Autostraddle

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Critique JANUARY 2024 : ISSUE 148

Books

In Carl Hiaasen’s fast-paced, funny thriller Native Tongue, when the precious clue-tongued mango voles at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills are stolen by heartless, ruthless thugs, Joe Winder wants to uncover why, and find the voles. “Ruthlessly wicked… Wonderful… His best book yet,” writes the Atlanta Journal & Constitution, which is praise indeed when you factor in that Hiassen has written well over thirty books, his first back in 1981. Equally enraptured is the New York Times Book Review, which says the book, “Rips, zips, hurtles, keeping us turning the pages at breakfinger pace.”

A Flaw In The Design by Nathan Oates tells of a professor whose life is turned upside down when he takes in his charming, wildly dangerous nephew, whose wealthy parents have just died under mysterious circumstances. “This American debut explores family and class tensions in a fight over who controls the narrative… Great characterisation and plenty of genuine suspense in a psychological thriller par excellence,”

rates The Guardian. Booklist says that Oates’ debut is “Highly literary yet suspenseful,” and that Oates “weaves a stunning tale of obsession, with a surprising ending that begs for a sequel.” Also impressed is Publishers Weekly: “This immersive page-turner cleverly juxtaposes the writing of short fiction with the production of stories in people’s minds. Oates is definitely a writer to watch,” while fellow author, Julia May Jonas, writes that A Flaw In The Design is, “A literary thriller of the highest order. Oates manages, with wisdom and insight, to explore the vulnerability of parenthood, the economic injustice of New York City, middle-age compromise, and the fallibility of storytelling, all while telling a heart-pounding tale that commanded my attention from the first sentence to the last.”

In The Price of Humanity, journalist and academic, Amy Schiller, evaluates the history of philanthropy to try and rescue it from her belief that it has declined into vanity projects that drive wealth inequality. “Schiller

takes an unpromising subject and infuses it with passion, warmth, and humour,” writes fellow author William Deresiewicz. “She does so by putting pressure on the ‘-anthropy’ in ‘philanthropy.’ What does it mean to live a human life, she asks — is bare survival enough, or does it require something more expansive — and what does it mean to make one possible for others?

How can we love humanity in a way that honours our own? This book provides a pithy, personable guide.”

Another author, Corey Robin, says that the book is, “Magical. It takes philanthropy out of the hands of the Gates Foundation and the Effective Altruists and restores it to its original purpose: love of humanity.

It is an enthralling experience, made all the more by Amy Schiller’s distinctive voice: wise, sceptical, delighted, hilarious, grounded, joyous, sharp, and shrewd, so much in love with the humanity, and the individuals, who move across her pages and, thanks to her narrative art, step into our lives.”

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Art & Design JANUARY 2024: ISSUE 148

Drawn Together A new exhibition of David Hockney’s work makes clear that people are the very heart of his work

AIR

WORDS: HAYLEY KARDROU

W

hen it comes to notable figures within the art world, David Hockney is an artist of the people. In 2011, he was named Britain’s most influential artist. The 1,000 subjects who were surveyed were budding artists and sculptors, demonstrating his lasting influence as well as his appeal to his contemporaries. In 2017, a retrospective of his work at Tate Britain drew its highest ever number of paying visitors.

And in 2018, the painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) became, at the time, the most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction by a living artist.

But while his depictions of pools, and his place within the cubism and pop art movements in the twentieth century have gained him mass appeal and admiration from critics and amateurs alike, it’s Hockney’s fascination with the human form that truly defines him as an artist.

Throughout his six-decade career, portraiture has been the constant as movements, materials and methods (Hockney is often praised for his inventive use of technology in his work) have evolved. Now it’s enjoying a second stint in the spotlight via Drawing From Life, a blockbuster exhibition at London’s 20

National Portrait Gallery which was first shown for just 20 days in 2020 before Covid intervened to force its cancellation. This new version debuts a selection of over thirty new portraits, including the likes of Harry Styles.

Each portrait is intimate in style and nature – Hockney draws those he loves, admires and has been inspired by – and demonstrate that people are really at the core of his art. Grit and glamour, age and youth, the familiar and the quizzical are all shown throughout the different wings and divisions of the gallery.

One of Hockney’s most notable muses is Celia Birtwell. The British textile and fashion designer created garments influenced by the works of artists such as Picasso – a fellow inspiration to Hockney in his work, perhaps predicting the close, lifelong relationship the duo would go on to have. Birtwell and Hockney met in Portobella Market in the 1960s, and she has since gone on to be one of the most famous figures in all his paintings.

Hockey followers will recognise the glamorous, romantic figure from works such as 1971 painting Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, within which she posed alongside her then-husband, Ossie Clark.

It remains one of the most viewed pieces in the Tate Britain today. But it’s the more intimate images – as clearly becomes the theme of the exhibition – that move his audience (and perhaps creator) in a different way. In their heyday, it was Celia, Nude that reigned, capturing all of her youthful beauty. In a new unseen sketch, Hockney allows for the passing of time in his work without letting that hint of intrigue and allure disappear.

Her colourful image is replaced with a sepia sketch, further emphasising the passing years as the two grow old together. While quietly beautiful, the subject herself protested at the opening of the original exhibition, labelling it “horrible.” She said: “It’s life! One gets old. It is a reality of who you are and what you look like now.... We only ever see ourselves in the mirror, we never ever see how we really are.

He sees you as you really are.”

And Birtwell is not the only figure made famous by Hockney as he saw them for who they really are. This exhibition shows more of his famous muses from a fresh perspective – even if seen through the same spectacled eyes. Gregory Evans, Maurice Payne

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and his own mother, Laura Hockney, lace the halls of the National Portrait Gallery, showcasing the people – and perhaps the work – he values most.

Like Birtwell, Evans is another person truly loved by the artist whom he captured to his core – be it posing nonchalantly or staring begrudgingly in an armchair as Hockney got to work. The two had a close relationship throughout the 1970s, and the intimacy between them is captured through the lack of pretence expressed on Evans’ face in each portrait. From youthful fancy and wonder to aged grit, Evans becomes the everyman in Hockney’s more recent portrayals. He trudges on as he progresses through the stages of life, just like the rest of us. Likewise, friend and collaborator Maurice Payne also upholds the same solemn demeanour throughout the exhibition – his eyes heavy in sketches across the years.

Hockney sees and captures emotions in his subjects – his loved ones – that they are not always too willing to portray to the world at large.

And as all of the above muses sat side by side with their friend and admirer, one key person essential to the curation yet missing from the lineup was of course Laura Hockney – his late mother, who passed in 1999. One of the more striking, emotive images of his mother shows her on the day of his father’s funeral. Once again, he simplistically yet skillfully captures that raw emotion.

One of Hockney’s most famous paintings sees her sat beside his also late father, Kenneth, in her signature demure style. My Parents, completed in 1977, is among his most notable works and is the most visited painting at the Tate Britain.

But as you enter this exhibition, the same two figures greet you in an image eerily familiar. My Parents and Myself is the earlier, previously abandoned edition of the final famed piece. While his beloved mother is much the same, the original edition features his father still and patient. The final piece shows him more fidgety, restless – perhaps a note on the fact the original resulted in a family rift, Kenneth being resentful that his travel to Paris (where it was sketched) and patience while sitting (seemingly) went to waste. But the biggest difference is Hockney’s own cameo in the original piece – his reflection in the mirror.

Dyed blond hair and bespectacled in 22

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Hockney sees and captures emotions in his subjects that they are not always too willing to portray his forties, this is the image many of his fans will hold in their mind of the icon.

In fact, Hockney’s most famous subject is himself – the artist has created some 300 plus self-portraits in his career to date. Self-portraits across time and place hold a thread of curiosity, searching and intensity – Hockney is always searching to learn more, even within himself.

What this latest curation really

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shows about the beloved artist is that real, intimate relations are what’s truly at the heart of Hockney’s life and art. Each muse has been with him throughout the years, and his seeminglysimplistically yet technically skilled sketches capture them perfectly.

David Hockney: Drawing from Life, National Portrait Gallery, London, until Jan 21

Previous page: Self Portrait, 22nd November 2021, by David Hockney © David Hockney Opposite page: Harry Styles, 31st May 2022, by David Hockney © David Hockney This page, from far left: JP Concalves de Lima, 3rd November 2021, by David Hockney © David Hockney; Mother, Bradford, 19th February, 1979, by David Hockney © David Hockney; David Hockney painting Harry Styles, 1st June 2022; Self Portrait, 26th September 1983, by David Hockney © David Hockney; Gregory 1978, by David Hockney © David Hockney; Celia, Carennac, August 1971, by David Hockney © David Hockney

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SPIRIT OF THE TIMES As the world’s first ultra-luxury electric super coupé, Rolls-Royce Spectre is the ultimate expression of modern magnificence CAR: ROLLS-ROYCE MOTOR CARS DUBAI, AGMC ART DIRECTOR: KERRI BENNETT PHOTOGRAPHER: ZIGA MIHELCIC LOCATION: ATLANTIS THE ROYAL

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Stylist Lindsay Judge Hair and Make-up Ola Model Karen mlnmodel.com

She’s The Boss

How mob wives and spaghetti fuelled Jessica McCormack’s latest fine jewellery collection

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WORDS: ANNABEL DAVIDSON

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Jewellery JANUARY 2024 : ISSUE 148

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The earrings are entirely handmade, not cast, so there’s no room for error

into a mould. The white metal is essentially coaxed into shape by hand with files and pliers, and its exact proportions replicated in yellow gold.

“It involved a lot of swearing, a lot of adjustment,” Fairfax recalls. A second pair is currently underway in the workshop. Did he learn anything from making the first pair that eases the process? “Yes!” he laughs. “I got someone else in the workshop to make them.”

The Tagliatelle earrings were not, however, the most time-consuming design in the collection. The Spiral earrings and Spaghetti necklace take that honour: each requiring another skill – trimming – in addition to the usual mounting (the shaping of the gold), setting (the placing of the diamonds), polishing and finishing.

Trimming is not a term I’ve heard before… “Trimming is drastically changing the shape of a stone, making sure the facets are correct, and that the diamond loses none of its lustre,” explains Fairfax. “Every single stone in these pieces needed at least two of their sides trimmed.

“I wanted the Spaghetti necklace to look like a continuous diamond line around the neck, not a chain of individual stones or a rivière-style necklace,” says McCormack, who professes to prefer step-cut stones, which this necklace comprises, to

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Credit: © Annabel Davidson / Telegraph Media Group Limited 2024

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essica McCormack was twisting a piece of fettuccine around her fork one evening when she started thinking about what would become her latest collection, Carmela. “I was thinking about how pasta is such a trope for Italian-American culture in cinema and television, especially Mafia movies,” she says of the unlikely inspiration for a diamondheavy fine jewellery collection. “And when it comes to jewellery, people think of the mob bosses and their gold chains and signet rings. But I wanted to think about the women.”

Carmela Soprano from The Sopranos, Ginger McKenna in Casino, Karen Hill in Goodfellas – all glamourous, loyal, complicated characters: McCormack decided she wanted to bring them out of the role of wife or girlfriend and put them centre stage as her muses, with pasta as the central motif of the collection.

“I’ve always loved those complicated mob-wife characters – there’s a mix of glamour and vulnerability to them,” she says. “They’re having babies and stuck in the kitchen or displayed like trophies in casinos. I felt like I wanted to make the jewellery they deserved, but with a nod to the kitchen. I wanted to capture that fluidity, that tangle of a bowl of spaghetti, but in diamonds and gold. And I wanted to make it glamorous, confident, and sexy.”

She has certainly achieved those goals, but not without putting her team through some colossal headaches. Take the Tagliatelle earrings: dramatic, unfurling ribbons of yellow and white gold, the fronts channel-set with step-cut diamonds in white gold, each twist revealing the gleaming yellow gold that makes up the back.

“The most complicated element of these was getting that yellow gold on the reverse,” explains Tom Fairfax, head of product development at the company. “You can’t just solder it on to the white gold and file off the overlap, it has o be done in multiple sections to exactly fit. The earrings are entirely handmade, not cast, so there’s no room for error.”

What Fairfax is referring to is the way that the gold elements are made; shaped, filed, and polished by hand from a gold sheet rather than being cast from molten gold poured

princess-cut stones, which have more facets and look like a square take on the ubiquitous super-sparkly brilliant cut. “Step cuts have fewer facets and just look a little more limpid and clean,” McCormack says of the cut that gained favour in the art deco period for its sharp geometric lines.

The only problem was, she also wanted them to fit the meandering lines of the necklace’s design, a squiggle-like stream that fattens and thins in width at random, requiring diamonds of shapes and sizes that the diamond supply chain does not provide. Enter the trimmer. “The Spiral earrings contain 140 individual stones,” says Suzette Conradie, head of production. “The Spaghetti necklace contains 120 stones. Every single one had to be trimmed to fit.” In fact, not a single diamond could even be sourced until both the necklace and earrings were essentially made and just waiting to be set with the stones.

The way the diamond industry works, this type of cut isn’t made to order. Instead, a parcel of rough stones that are the right quality will be manufactured, cut and polished by hand, then sold in ‘polished’ parcels.

But they won’t all be perfect. Hence, both the necklace and the earrings required multiple parcels to be inspected – and often rejected – to get the right mix. “The biggest diamond

in the necklace is three carats, posttrimming,’ explains Conradie. “So you need to find the right stone that has the right proportions so that it can be trimmed to a very exact trapezoid shape and not lose its lustre.”

If trimming diamonds sounds scary, imagine what it was like for the poor soul who had to chop the necklace into 80 bits after its creation (and before the diamonds were set). The whole thing was cast in eight different sections of white gold, which are then soldered together and hand-shaped on a metal bust to ensure that the necklace flows comfortably around the neck.

Next, the ‘gallery’ is added, with the open yellow-gold back of the necklace in keeping with the jeweller’s signature Georgian-inspired setting.

(Traditionally, Georgian jewellery would have silver fronts and yellowgold backs to keep the silver from tarnishing clothing; McCormack uses 18ct white gold instead – a modern, and more luxurious, alternative.)

At this stage, the whole necklace was diced up into 80 sections with the most precise of cuts – a goldsmith in the workshop literally sawing through the two layers of metal. “The poor guy had to get it exactly right first time,” says Fairfax. After then hinging each piece together to exacting angles (“we needed it to articulate, but not so much that the diamonds would crash into each other,” explains Fairfax), it was time for the trimmer and setter to get to work.

“They sat side by side for months, the trimmer shaping each stone to the exact spaces in the gold, the setter then setting them, before passing it back for the next stone,” says Fairfax. The result, still being completed at the time of writing, is an extraordinary fluid collar. Its all-gold sister, despite being diamond-free, is just as impressive.

In fact, everything in the Carmela collection – including the Al Dente ring, so-named because it’s one of the only pieces that isn’t articulated – has an eddying aspect that’s more organic and sensually messy than is McCormack’s usual style. “And all because I twirled some pasta around my fork one night and imagined it in gold and diamonds,” says McCormack.

The craftspeople in her workshop must be hoping she’ll stick to steak next time.

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JANUARY 2024: ISSUE 148

Proud As A Peacock Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Product Creation Executive Director at Bulgari Horlogerie, on the brand’s masterful homage to the majestic peacock WORDS: JOHN THATCHER

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Previous page: Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani This page, from top to bottom: Divas’ Dream Peacock Feather Marquetry; Divas’ Dream Peacock Jumping Hour Right: Divas’ Dream Peacock Mother-of-Pearl Marquetry

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he peacock served as a serial muse for Roman and Byzantine artists, often used as a metaphor for paradise and renewal and duly represented in myriad artworks, most strikingly in the decorative mosaics that adorn the walls of Rome’s centuries-old Baths of Caracalla.

For revered Roman jeweller Bulgari, it is the peacock’s magnificently hued feathers that fascinate most, their rich, shimmering tones aligned to the brand’s historic fondness for colour. “We love it,” enthuses Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Bulgari Horlogerie’s Product Ceation Executive Director, smartly dressed in a camelcoloured suit and in Dubai to present three new peacock-inspired pieces at the city’s annual Watch Week.

“Colour is very important for us, part of our DNA, as we were the first to use coloured gemstones in fine jewellery.

But we are a jewellery maker that also makes very unique timepieces. So the idea each time is to find a different way to mix and match these two different souls of the company, always looking for the best execution to showcase our unique DNA.” 32

This creative pathway led to feathers.

“With peacock feathers you have an amazing colour scheme – blue, green, gold – a lot of different shades and incredible reflections. That’s why we love to play with these feathers.

They are perfect for the brand.”

The Divas’ Dream Peacock collection was launched in 2017, a trio of timepieces reflecting not only Bulgari’s rich Italian heritage but also the prowess of its watchmaking division, which by then had already netted a series of world records for the Octo Finissimo.

If Octo Finissimo was a feat of technical mastery, the spectacular new Divas’ Dream Peacock pieces see artisinal crafts take centre stage, high-level skills that take years to perfect – particularly when your canvas for expression is only the size of a watch dial.

One such skill is marquetry, an ancient craft that Bulgari first returned to the fold in the 1970s. Peacocks naturally shed their tail feathers, which are then hand-selected to ensure the finest assortment of colours and textures.

Twelve of these feathers are then

passed through an antique brass steam machine in a bid to reveal their natural lustre. Each is then cut, assembled, and glued to form a shimmering mosaic on the dial of the Divas’ Dream Peacock Feather Marquetry. The tools used may be simple – a magnifying glass, tweezers, knife and scissors – but so meticulous is the marquetry process that creating this one miniature artwork takes several days.

The Divas’ Dream Peacock Motherof-Pearl Marquetry portrays a peacock in gold and mother-of-pearl. Its fanshaped feathers sweep across the lower part of the dial, while a tuft adorns its head, complete with a beak in rose gold.

Creating the mother-of-pearl marquetry that the peacock is set against is immensely challenging because of the material’s fragility. The mother-of-pearl elements are painted on the reverse to introduce varying shades of blue, then intricately cut and set into recesses carved directly into the dial.

A melding of horological and jewellery craftsmanship, the Divas’ Dream Peacock Precious Marquetry Jumping Hours and Retrograde Minute is a highly complex creation. It features

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Sometimes you’re looking for specific things and end up with something totally different

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three-dimensional marquetry, its pattern directly inspired by those aforementioned mosaics inside the Baths of Caracalla. Here the peacock is resplendent, cast in rose gold, snow-set diamonds, aventurine, and malachite, the latter two purposeful nods to Italian tradition — in ancient Rome, malachite was said to protect against misfortune, while aventurine glass dates to 14thcentury Murano. On the technical side, the jumping hours appear in the aperture at twelve o’clock, while a retrograde hand, located at the upper part of the dial, indicates the minutes.

Getting it right took time. “We

changed the dial three times,” reveals Fabrizio “The task was made more difficult because we made this kind of three-dimensional dial for the first time. And the design was very tough because the feathers and the triangular elements of the peacock are very small. So there were a lot of different constraints on the same dial and we were experiencing them for the first time. This was difficult for us to manage because we had not planned to have this kind of dial – it was born by chance.”

As a seasoned designer, veering off course is something Fabrizio takes in his stride. “This is the most interesting part of the creative job,” he says.

“Sometimes you’re looking for specific things and end up with something totally different. You have to be open to say, ‘this is not what I’m looking for’. But it’s very interesting. And we are very f lexible, very versatile, and always open to improve our idea and to change it if it’s bad. There is always an opportunity to make a better product.”

The newest additions to the Divas’ Dream collection are stunning proof of that maxim.

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Hollywood royalty she may very well be, but Jessica Chastain has more than a few problems with her industry WORDS: RICHARD GODWIN

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or a woman who has basically completed Hollywood, Jessica Chastain does not have the highest opinion of the place. She does not love the hangouts. “Whenever I go to LA they always put me in these Hollywood places like Chateau Marmont or Sunset Tower, all the places that actors go,” she says. In fact, what she wants to do is get to the ocean: “As far away from the industry as I can.”

She does not love the parties, either.

After she won the Academy Award for her performance as the tele-evangelist in The Eyes of Tammy Faye last year, she spent three hours at an after-party slumped on a sofa with her Oscar while her friends danced around her. And she really doesn’t like the fact that everyone in LA spends so long in their cars, separate and alone, which is why she lives in New York, with its theatres, museums and public transport. “I have entire conversations with people on a subway in New York.

All different walks of life, it’s amazing.”

She especially doesn’t like the ‘antiimagination’ of the studio bosses and platform owners, who she has spent much of the past year picketing as part

of the Screen Actors Guild strike. “Oh, Hollywood is working very hard against the imagination,” she says. I try to put in a good word for Los Angeles. But she fixes me with a Zero Dark Thirty stare. “You think people are direct? In Los Angeles?!”

It’s a little disconcerting. From the outside at least, Hollywood has been pretty good to Chastain, 46. Since her breakout year of 2011 — Take Shelter, The Tree of Life, The Help, Coriolanus, Wilde Salomé — she has found regular work in a succession of heavyweight projects: Zero Dark Thirty, A Most Violent Year, Miss Sloane, Scenes from a Marriage.

She has worked with the greats. She has won every award going. She has even done her time in the X-Men films and is now in a position where she can choose her projects. Case in point: the lowbudget indie movie Memory, directed by the Mexican auteur Michel Franco, in which Chastain, as usual, delivers a masterclass in under-the-surface acting — a whole inner life contained in a flinch.

But there’s also the fact that Chastain’s own life story has such a classic Hollywood structure, if you go in for the whole ‘determined individual triumphs 35

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over adversity against overwhelming odds’ thing. She grew up dirt poor in Sacramento, northern California, born to a teenage mother and largely raised by her grandmother. “I’m the first woman in my family to not get pregnant when I was 17 years old,” she stresses. Her childhood was marked by continual evictions, poverty (her mother even resorted to stealing food) and the struggles of Chastain’s younger sister, Juliet, who suffered from depression and addiction and died by suicide when she was 24. Chastain herself dropped out of high school and no one in her family noticed. And yet, she managed to scrape a scholarship to Juilliard, the most prestigious acting school in the United States, and, well, if this were a movie, that 2022 Oscar win might just be the climactic scene. The thing that altered the course of her life? It was discovering Shakespeare at the age of 15. No, no, I can hear the screenwriters protesting. That’s a bit too much!

And yet life rarely fits these outward narratives. There is always a lot more going on underneath.

Chastain proves warm, sharp and opinionated — but also more carefully guarded than most actors. Her marriage to the Italian fashion executive Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, and her two children are absolutely off limits. That dim view of Hollywood, meanwhile, seems to stem from her early experiences of being typecast. In The Tree of Life and Take Shelter — wonderful movies though they are — she played idealised ‘wife roles’.

“Afterwards I was getting all of these scripts where there were characters whose job was to support the male character who was actually doing something interesting,” she says. “It was so clear that Hollywood was insistent on typecasting me. They could not be more strong about it.” Instead, she chose to play an ‘antimother’ in Guillermo del Toro’s horror Mama and the CIA Operative Maya in Zero Dark Thirty, a woman who has no time for any man other than Osama Bin Laden, whom she is trying to kill. “The second that a studio or some kind of… system tries to tell me what I am or what I should be doing, I’ll do the opposite.”

Her stance, too, is informed by the 100 or more days that she has spent on strike this year. Battle lines have been drawn in Hollywood about who gets to make money from the vast glut of content in 36

These pages: Stills from Lucy, 2014

the streaming age, creatives vs industry.

After initial reluctance (she hates public speaking) she has proved a forceful advocate for union rights on social media, on marches and behind the scenes.

There is, she stresses, a huge chasm between the people who actually make the things they like to watch — and the people who make money off it. “You know, 87 per cent of my union doesn’t have health insurance because they make less than $26,000 a year,” she says.

And of course, she has a keen awareness of what it is like to have no money.

“We struggled a lot, so this probably was planted in me at some point,” she says. “Don’t just play nice all the time.

There’s certain things you need to fight for. You need to make sure that your voice is heard. You need to make sure if you have a platform that you use it to amplify the voices of others that aren’t being listened to or are being ignored. I’m sure that was fed into me as a child who was ignored by society.”

An agreement has yet to be reached — but she betrays some optimism for what will happen in the aftermath. She has a theory: the last two really significant Hollywood strikes, in the 1960s and 1980s, were followed by a flourishing of independent filmmaking in the 1970s and 1990s. “Whenever there’s a strike, it’s usually the workers trying to get power away from the all-knowing studio system and there usually is some kind of seismic shift afterwards.

So I’m hoping, if we’re following the trend, the decade to come is going to be a really exciting time in cinema.”

I mean, let’s hope so? And her latest movie, Memory, is a reminder that there is plenty of life in American cinema beyond the content farms and megafranchises. Chastain plays Sylvia, a single mother and recovering alcoholic living in a rough part of Brooklyn. She is securityobsessed, highly protective of her teenage daughter, suspicious of everyone. It slowly emerges that she was sexually assaulted as a child and has carried the memory of these traumas long into adulthood.

Then, at a school reunion, she meets Saul (Peter Sarsgaard). As it turns out, he has something like the opposite problem: early onset dementia. Whereas she can’t forget, he is incapable of remembering.

The two performances are wonderful and seem likely to earn more awards attention. There is a lot going on

These pages, from left to right: still from Crimson Peak (2015); still from Lawless (2012)

second that a studio ‘The or some kind of system tries to tell me what I am or what I should be doing, I’ll do the opposite

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underneath the surface. “Al Pacino taught me something about the camera that was really interesting on my very first film with him and I think that’s something that has been vastly important to me in approaching my characters. It’s like there’s two dialogues happening at once.

There’s what the character’s saying and what they’re presenting in public — and it’s also what’s happening inside and in many cases, it’s the opposite going on. It’s that tension of the opposites that I think is the most exciting thing on camera.”

It is also determinedly gritty filmmaking, Franco revealing an unvarnished America that is rarely captured on film. To which end, Chastain bought all of Sylvia’s clothes from vintage stores, styled her own hair and put in shifts at the daycare centre where Sylvia works — helping the real-life residents get dressed, giving them their medicines, taking her breaks with her co-workers.

She also discovered, on the first day of filming, that Franco had decided to shoot

the first scene at an actual AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting in the basement of a church with actual AA members. “I have no idea how he persuaded them,” she laughs. “Literally this is the first film I did after The Oscars, so I went from all this pomp and circumstance to being, ‘I don’t want to look like the actress pretending to be something in this room’. So you know, he really forces you to be authentic.”

She was so taken with Franco’s approach that she has already shot another movie with him — and plans to make as many more as he will have her in.

“I mean, I hope to work with him every year. He keeps talking to me about ideas he has. I’m like, ‘Great let’s do it!’” She speaks with similar enthusiasm about the British theatre director Jamie Lloyd: she was in his production of A Doll’s House on Broadway recently and hints that this will end up in London before long. “I like working with filmmakers and directors who are okay to throw away all the rules and try something exciting and new.

That’s what I’m hoping to do for a while.”

This independence of imagination is clearly the thing she values most. As we talk, the theme resurfaces again and again. “No matter what we’re doing — it could be art, it could be politics, it could be music — it is a very rare thing for people to feel comfortable to move against the current of thought,” she says. “I mean I don’t want to get into politics — but, it’s like, you open social media and everyone’s talking about Israel 37

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Credit: ES Magazine/The Interview People

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You need to make sure if you have a platform that you use it to amplify the voices of others that aren’t being listened to or are being ignored

and Gaza, right? It’s everywhere. And I’m like, okay, well what’s happening in the Congo? What about the 1.5 million Muslims who are in camps in China?

What about the 500,000 Syrians who were killed, you know what I mean? It’s anti-thought, anti-expansiveness. It’s like everyone gets on this one train of thought and they don’t have room to understand that many things can happen at once and we should care about all of the things.”

I wonder how much this perspective comes from her upbringing, as a child who was ignored, as she has put it? And yes, it is hard to separate herself from her childhood struggles. “If someone’s trying to tell me what I should do or what I should be — and that someone has more power than me, like a studio — I’ll push against it. I’ll stick it to the man… I mean, I never went to the doctor. I literally just started going to a doctor now. I never even thought it was important because I grew up as a child without going to a doctor because we had no medical insurance.”

It seems improbable that she made it out; she has family members who didn’t. At the same time, however, she was absolutely certain, from a very young age, that acting was almost like a superpower for her.

“I just knew it immediately. I’m an incredibly sensitive person. I can feel things that other people are feeling, which meant in drama classes or whatever, I could kind of fall into whatever I was

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playing and the teachers were affected by it and impressed by it. I saw that very early on as like: Ahah! This is something that people are giving me attention for — and maybe this is my way out.”

And it really was Shakespeare who provided her escape, the specific moment arriving when she saw a production of Richard III on a school field trip.

“Shakespeare became very sexy to me when I was in high school. I was so moved by the language and what could be expressed if you just focus on the words and not on this idea that this is something written so long ago.

I just became obsessed with it.”

So obsessed that she was bunking off school to read the Complete Works. “It’s a bit insane.” When she decided, later, to try out for Juilliard, she chose a speech from Romeo & Juliet as her audition piece — and thus became the first member of her family to complete any form of higher education.

She retains many good friends from Juilliard, including Oscar Isaac, her costar in the extremely emotionally gruelling Scenes from a Marriage. (“That whole thing, man. That was rough…) But she was aware, all the while that she was studying, of the ever-present risk of being kicked out.

“I was taking out so many loans and my grandmother was helping me out a lot. I was like: ‘If I get cut from this programme, what am I going to do?’ It wasn’t something that could even be a possibility

for me.” So, while her fellow students went out drinking, she would usually be found in the New York performing arts library, watching old videos of Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Michael Caine. “All of these other people who come from different backgrounds can go home, they can get kicked out, go home, they’ll be fine. It was survival for me in a different way.”

In a sense, she says, that feeling of insecurity has never left her — not even after three dozen movies, Golden Globes, Academy Awards, not even being married to an Italian aristocrat. “I think it’s always there,” she says. “I’m so worried about money all the time... I mean the biggest purchase I ever made besides a house: I bought myself a Mini Cooper during the pandemic, but like a used one. It’s the only car I’ve ever bought.

I don’t spend money. I’ll spend money on other people but it’s very difficult for me to spend money on myself.”

What does she do for fun, then? She insists that she is “the most boring person in the industry”, which having interviewed a few actors, I’d say is wholly untrue. She likes cooking, walking and sitting in silence. “Some people get energy from crowds. Maybe it’s because I’m sensitive but I feel like when I’m with people, my energy goes out. I think that’s the difference between introvert and extrovert. I need to be quiet for a while.”

I’d say Jessica Chastain should do whatever the hell she needs to do.

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How photographer Miles Aldridge brought fashion to the front room WORDS: SORAYA GAIED CHORTANE

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here is something quite endearing about harking back to one’s formative years for inspiration. Take Andy Warhol’s famous pop-art depictions of Campbell’s soup — which he ate every night for dinner — or Edvard Munch’s macabre paintings, which stem from the ghost stories his father read to him as a child.

More recently, it’s British fashion photographer Miles Aldridge taking inspiration from his younger years.

A compact mirror in his mother’s lacquered handbag; a beaten-up paisley sofa; an old television set — these are the memories Aldridge associates with childhood. At 58-years-old, he is among a group of like-minded contemporary artists, who have established themselves through a preoccupation with nostalgia.

Over his 24 -year long career, he is both visionary photographer and

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daydreamer. Shooting the likes of Donatella Versace, Marina Abramović and Lily Cole for the likes of Vogue, The New York Times and Harper’s Bazaar. He has worked alongside some of fashion’s luminaries including former editor-in-chief, Franca Sozzani. “She was the Pope and I was Michelangelo, commissioned by her to paint the ceiling of Vogue Italia.

Without her patronage I wouldn’t have been the artist I am today because she gave me a carte blanche.”

It was this carte blanche that urged Aldridge to break new ground as an artist – evoking a sense of childlike wonder and imagination through his visually-arresting images. Despite all his successes and accolades, Aldridge still feels somewhat of an outsider.

“I think this very much part of being an artist,” he says. “I don’t feel like I’m everyone’s cup of tea and I really

Opening pages: Sophie Turner – study, 2017, Los Angeles These pages, from left to right: New Utopias – study, 2018, London; The Road – study II, 2005, Paris

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I don’t feel like I’m everyone’s cup of tea and I really wouldn’t want to be

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These pages, clockwise from bottom left: New Utopias – study XIII, 2018, London; The Cult of Self – study III, 2013, London; Five Girls in a Car – study, 2013, London

Credit: The Interview People. Images © 2022 Miles Aldridge

I recast the models as ‘actresses from films that I wanted to make ’

wouldn’t want to be because I don’t want to be that easily palatable.”

When I speak to him in his lofty King’s Cross studio in London, he is curious and confident at the outset of his most recent online retrospective, The Terror of Domestic Bliss. It featured chromogenic prints, colourful screenprints and polaroids, and drew upon the themes, “the false promise of luxury, the mysteries of the family, and how the surface often belies what’s underneath.” Talking to Aldridge, it is clear he has a strong work ethic and flair for creativity.

The photographer has also just published his own book, Please Please return Polaroid, a love letter to the photographic medium. Wearing acidic dresses with perfectly-coiffed bleach blonde hair, women of all ages and body types are staged and shot in a technicolour dream-cumnightmare. They are, at once, freaky and frightening, but always beautiful.

“I recast the models as actresses from films that I wanted to make, so instead of modelling the clothes they were the protagonists in the story that I was creating,” he tells me whilst presenting his favourite print, 3D, a multi-coloured mise en scène of a woman catching an epic at the cinema.

It was this love-affair of film that triggered his initial curiosity in photography. Watching A Matter of Life and Death (a 1946 British fantasyromance film) after his parent’s split in his neighbour’s house, was a seminal moment for the photographer,

influencing him on both a professional and emotional level. “The first nine years of my childhood were golden and then I entered reality”, he reflects. “I was in a foreign house without my mum or dad and suddenly everything was different. The tea tastes different. The food is different. The bed is different but watching this film, I was taken away into this universe of imagery.”

At that very moment, the multicoloured house he grew up in, with music, psychedelic prints and wacky furniture, had fallen apart.

The glorious image of family was shattered and he was left with not only the absence of the father, but a mother left wondering, ‘what next?’

Yet the image of the home remains undimmed for the acclaimed photographer — who, soon after, began to translate the memories of his youth into striking visual imagery. Appreciating that the split wasn’t a recipe for disaster; rather, productivity and creativity.

Portraying women for what they truly are — strong, beautiful and fiercely independent — in domesticated settings, became Aldridge’s vocation.

“There’s always an overriding sense of confusion or discontent or uncertainty to the characters in my work. Who they are and how they got there. And that’s how I felt being in the middle of a very fast-moving world.”

Aldridge seeks to find beauty in the dark side of human nature. “Somebody once said is childhood revisited, you know? I think images that take you into a dark place but then back out into the light are as old as time. All the art that I like confronts a sort of duality of man in terms of what is troubling and what is beautiful. It’s where you find a meaning in the arts,” he says.

Miles Aldridge: Please Please return Polaroid is published

by Steidl and out now

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From rococo to avant-garde, Karl Lagerfeld’s houses were as eclectic as the man himself (including the one he only spent a single night in) WORDS: KATRINA BURROUGHS

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Opening pages: In the photo studio at the back of the 7L bookshop, Rue de Lille, Paris, 2008 This page: At Rue de l'Université, Paris, early 1960s

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W

ith his trademark black shades and powdered white ponytail, Karl Lagerfeld was at the heart of the fashion industry for over half a century, designing up to 14 collections a year well into his eighties.

Celebrated for the prolific creativity of his tenures at Chloé, Chanel and Fendi, the designer, who died in 2019, is less well known for his private passion: interiors. Last September, Victoria Beckham held her label’s spring/ summer 2024 show in the salon of one of Lagerfeld’s former homes on Paris’s Left Bank. She is not the only one: in October, Design Miami’s inaugural Paris edition pitched up at the same mansion in Saint-Germain-des-Prés — Hôtel Pozzo di Borgo in Rue de l’Université, to be exact — with the art crowd admiring the mise en scène of crystal chandeliers and chequerboard marble floors. Now a new book, Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses, reveals the jaw-dropping decor of 13 of his residences. “This collection of interiors reflects the desires, circumstances and whims of its creator and reveals his character more fully than any biography,” Patrick Mauriès writes in his introduction. Mauriès, a long-term Lagerfeld watcher, adds that “Lagerfeld collected interiors in the same way that Don Juan notched up conquests.”

The series of love affairs that took him from Paris to Biarritz, Rome and Hamburg, began in the Rue de l’Université in 1963, when Lagerfeld moved with his mother into a secondfloor apartment of an 18th-century mansion. There he placed art deco pieces by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and André Groult alongside Sixties armchairs by Joe Colombo and tables

by Eero Saarinen. It was a mix and match made in heaven, but Lagerfeld rarely became attached to any of the elements of his homes. “It’s collecting that’s fun, not owning,” he once said, and accordingly he painstakingly researched and acquired the perfect pieces. Then, the ensemble completed

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These pages, clockwise from right: Karl in his office; the chairs in his office were specially woven for him in a checkerboard design; Le Roccabella, Monte Carlo

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Karl was very much that sort of person who starts building something and then he destroys it and then moves on to something else

to his satisfaction, he moved on to the next look.

“The most beautiful house is always the next one,” was Lagerfeld’s way of describing his thirst for a new project. And his subsequent home was indeed sublime. In the early 1970s he purchased a flat on Place Saint-Sulpice, on the other side of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, and in 1975, ready for an aesthetic fresh start, sold his art deco collection at Drouot auction house. But it was the Hôtel Pozzo di Borgo, where he moved two years later — the backdrop to Beckham’s floaty frocks — that marks the most spectacular of Lagerfeld’s transformations. The 18th-century architecture is unashamedly grand and, to match the majesty of the rooms, he decided to evoke the spirit of Louis XIV and Madame de Pompadour in the decor. He bought old master paintings and furniture with gilded rococo curves and neoclassical lines. This was when the designer began to wear his hair in a ponytail and carry a fan, entertaining 50

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Left: Rue des Saints-Pères, Paris Right: Karl in L'hôtel Pozzo di Borgo Paris

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guests by candlelight, like a grand siècle dandy. The extravagant decor spread from wing to wing, the makeover only halted by his debts to the French tax authorities — which led to a sale of much of the Pozzo di Borgo collection at Christie’s in 2000.

Marie Kalt, who wrote the chapters on his homes, accounts for the constant metamorphoses by explaining that his houses were never private sanctuaries — they were stage sets. She had previously worked with Lagerfeld for several months in 2012 when she was editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest France and he guest-edited an issue.

“Each time he moved into a house he told himself a story and invented a life to go with that house,” she tells me. “It was just as if he had been designing a set for a film or play and he was the central character.”

Never one to be typecast, in 1981 Lagerfeld moved into an apartment on the 21st floor of a high rise in Monte Carlo designed by Gio Ponti, called 52

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Le Roccabella. There he proceeded to create the aesthetic opposite of his 18th-century fantasia, with avant-garde design by the Memphis Group: Ettore Sottsass’s Carlton bookcase, Michael Graves’s Plaza dressing table and Masanori Umeda’s boxing ring.

Ten years later, when Lagerfeld’s Memphis moment had passed, the collection was sold at Sotheby’s. “He was very much that sort of person who starts building something and then he destroys it and then moves on to something else — which was also the way he treated his relationships,” Kalt says. “He was very, very close to some people, then after a while they were banned and he started a new circle — and on and on and on again.”

The final house in the book, and his last interiors project, Pavillon des Voisins, in Louveciennes, is a 19thcentury mansion with a neoclassical façade in the countryside near Paris, which he bought in 2009. It can scarcely be called Lagerfeld’s home.

The designer never actually lived there, spending a single night and throwing one dinner party (for his friends Princess Caroline of Monaco and event organiser Françoise Dumas). But it was the most personal of his properties.

Here were all the objects he had never sold or discarded. Georg Jensen candlesticks by Johan Rohde, which had followed him from Monaco to Hamburg and Biarritz. Works by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Martin Szekely brought from his Paris apartment on Rue des Saints-Pères. He recreated his teenage bedroom on the first floor and added a reproduction of a painting of Voltaire and Frederick II of Prussia by Adolph von Menzel that had originally inspired his interest in the 18th century.

If not a home, then this country house was a testament to the shape-shifting designer’s lifelong curiosity — as well as his inexhaustible genius for reinvention.

Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses

by Patrick Mauriès and Marie Kalt (Thames & Hudson) is out now

Credit: The Sunday Times Style Magazine / News Licensing

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This collection of interiors reflects the desires, circumstances and whims of its creator and reveals his character more fully than any biography

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Motoring JANUARY 2024 : ISSUE 148

Into The Spyder-Verse Italian custom car company Ares Design has teamed up with French luxury glassmaker Lalique to create a limited-edition 1950s-inspired roadster

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WORDS: CHRIS ANDERSON

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It’s the perfect marriage between Lalique’s bespoke crystal and Ares Design’s high level of excellence

ven if you know your cars, Ares Design is a company that likes to throw a curveball every now and then. The vehicles emerging from its workshops in Modena, Italy, are like nothing else on the road, with a donor car wheeled in, the body stripped completely, and something of its own design built on top. This was the case with the Panther ProgettoUno in 2020 – a Lamborghini Huracán treated to an all-new carbon-fibre shell, reminiscent of a 1970s De Tamaso Pantera sports car. Owners benefitted from retro looks, a new hand-built interior with Mark Levinson audio, and a Lamborghini V10 under the bonnet.

But such elaborate makeovers are rare.

Most of the time, Ares offers less intrusive modifications, styling Porsches, Bentleys and other cars to their owners’ tastes. Once in a while, however, the creativity really takes hold, and something special, truly original, emerges. And that time is now.

Ares has unveiled its follow-up to the Panther ProgettoUno, the second of its so-called Legends Reborn series, the Wami Lalique Spyder. The car was originally an E85-generation BMW Z4, extensively reworked, and now a homage to some of the finest roadsters of the 1950s and 1960s. Its front grille, for example, references the 1953 Maserati A6GCS Frua, while the profile, roofline and side vents channel the simplicity of the Ferrari 250 GT California, first launched in 1957.

While Ares was founded in 2014 by former Lotus CEO Dany Bahar, it was the company’s executive chairman, Waleed Al Gharafi, who pushed for the Wami to be built. “As a young child, I was captivated by the cars driven by the film stars in the 1950s and 1960s, during that carefree and

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wonderful era known to all as La Dolce Vita,” he says. “It was this admiration that led us to design and develop a car like no other – a retro-styled roadster that not only pays homage to some of the most beautiful cars ever created but one that incorporates remarkable artistry and craftsmanship from Lalique.”

Ah, yes. The other piece of the puzzle, celebrated French luxury glassmaker Lalique – a company with a lengthy history, dating back to 1888, founded

by René Lalique, which made glass art, perfume bottles, and then lead glass (crystal) under the direction of René’s son, Marc, in the 1950s. From 1925 onwards, it even shaped glass hood ornaments for Bentley and Rolls-Royce, creating an earlier automotive link. “Both Ares and Lalique share the same values of luxury and tradition, combining modern technology with traditional manufacturing methods to produce unique creations that transcend time and fashion,” Al Gharafi continues. “The Wami, with its sleek shape and interior embellished by Lalique crystals is the perfect project to bring together the identity of the two brands.”

The Lalique crystal is the perfect complement to the English oak dashboard and handcrafted upholstery. There are 13 handcrafted jewels in total, incorporated into the cockpit, seats, gear clutch, tyres and front badge, with some familiar Lalique motifs on display, such as Masque de Femme, Hirondelles, and Coutard, with the Hirondelles motif embossed on the leather headrests and steering wheel. The feeling is classic, even with the carbon-fibre used, and the centrally-located infotainment screen, with Bluetooth, Apple Car Play and Android Auto connectivity, retracting into

the dash to keep it looking suitably 1950s.

All of the crystal elements were made at Lalique’s factory in Wingen-sur-Moder in Alsace, which first opened in 1922.

The process involves several stages, from crafting the moulds and melting the crystals – a process involving temperatures of up to 1,400 degrees C – to cleaning and shaping for the perfect fit and finish. The crystals were then sent to Ares in Modena for assembly with the rest of the car.

Designed, developed and built by hand in the Centro Stile workshops, the Wami was treated to extensive chrome detailing, including the exhaust, bumper over-riders and 18in classic-style wire wheels. The carbon-fibre body is durable and lightweight, and available in different colours, including Amalfi Red or Mediterranean Light Blue. Under the bonnet sits a 3-litre naturally-aspirated straight six engine, offering 231hp.

Just 12 examples of the Wami will be made, but even in such small numbers the chairman and CEO of Lalique, Silvio Denze, seems happy. “Thanks to the perfect marriage between Lalique’s bespoke crystal, and Ares Design’s high level of excellence, the masterpiece that results is the ultimate luxury accessory,” he says. “This very special collaboration perpetuates the work of René Lalique, whose iconic car mascots were some of his best-known pieces, created in the Roaring Twenties.”

Anyone lucky enough to buy a Wami Lalique Spyder can imagine themselves driving along the French Riviera or the Amalfi Coast of the 1950s. And for those missing out? Just wait until Ares Design’s next masterpiece. It’s sure to keep those curveballs coming.

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Gastronomy

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JANUARY 2024: ISSUE 148

Phoenix From The Flames How fate intervened to set Nobu Matsuhisa on the path to his lifestyle empire

WORDS: JOHN THATCHER

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obu Matsuhisa takes a sip of coffee and confirms with a swift glance at his watch that were he in Los Angeles right now, where he was twenty-four hours previously, he’d be readying himself for bed. As it is, he’s bright-eyed, in Dubai, and in a celebratory mood.

It’s been 15 years since Nobu Dubai opened at Atlantis, The Palm, and across three nights the legendary chef celebrated by treating guests to an omakase menu specially devised to mark the occasion.

The most obvious change in the intervening years has been Nobu Dubai’s switch of location, moving from among the hotel’s ground-floor enclave of restaurants to its own lofty position at the top, affording diners a unique view of Palm Jumeirah – straight down the trunk, so that its fronds are evenly spread either side.

The less obvious change is in the details. Because of its fermenting process, soy sauce contains a small percentage of alcohol, and fifteen years ago Nobu couldn’t use it. Instead, he tasked his supplier with creating an alcohol-free version just for the restaurant. Then there’s the larger ingredients, which had to be shipped from Japan. “Now in Dubai we can get almost anything we want.”

One such ingredient is black cod, the fame of which has grown in tandem with that of Nobu himself. Much copied but never bettered, Nobu explains how the idea for what was his first signature dish, miso-marinated black cod, actually originated from the need to be frugal. “Black cod was a very cheap fish. When I opened my Los Angeles restaurant in 1987 [Matsuhisa] I had no money, so I found this black cod in a fish market. Now it’s probably twenty times the price.” It remains a staple of his Nobu restaurants across the globe, and he explains how the fish is marinated for three days to give it that buttery-sweet flavour that makes it almost impossible to willingly share with your dining companion. As for the difference between Nobu’s version and the many others that populate menus, Nobu simply taps at his heart. Cooking with it makes all the difference.

We meet when it’s Thanksgiving back in Nobu’s adopted home country of the United States, and it reminds Nobu of

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another anniversary, one much darker in tone but literally life-changing.

Towards the end of the 1970s, Nobu moved from Japan to Alaska with his wife and two young children to try and realise his dream of building and running his own restaurant. It took a huge loan for that dream to come true, along with the prerequisite blood, sweat and tears, but with the hard work finally paying off, the restaurant busy, he decided to treat himself to a first day off in months when a friend asked him over for Thanksgiving dinner. “It was almost midnight when I received a call to say the restaurant was on fire.” Nobu rushed to the scene and watched in disbelief as his dream turned to ashes. Worse still was the fact that the building was not insured. He had to borrow more money to fly his family back to Japan, their new start abruptly ended. “I thought about killing myself,” he says candidly.

“It was the worst experience of my life but also the best learning experience. Before the fire I was young and impetuous, always looking to take

the next step, to make more money, fast. But this experience taught me patience. After it I never rushed any more. Be patient, keep going, never give up. That’s why I’m here now.”

By the late Eighties, Nobu opened Matsuhisa in Los Angeles with money loaned from a friend. It didn’t make a profit for the first two years but, as is the way in cities like LA, it then became fashionable and drew a crowd of celebrities, one of whom, Robert De Niro, was a repeat customer.

The pair forged a friendship and, years later, a business — Nobu.

The first Nobu restaurant opened in New York in 1994, where it proved an instant hit with both customers and critics. There are now 56 Nobu’s across the world. There are also 18 Nobu hotels, from Malibu to Manila, a number that will swell to near 50 with the confirmed projects in the pipeline.

One will be housed on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island by 2027, alongside Nobu-branded residences (one of 12 in the world), which will feature

exclusive sky villas and penthouses.

Having given his name to a single restaurant, it’s now a global brand, a lifestyle empire.

And it’s been built on respect. The respect Nobu has always shown to each and every member of his team, regardless of their position.

“Being a chef means working in a restaurant, and a restaurant cannot work with just the chef. Someone has to take reservations; the waiters have to serve and clear the tables; without someone to wash the dishes there would be no clean plates to serve the food on.” Understanding that process, where everyone on the team has a crucial role to play, is the philosophy that underpins Nobu’s success. “Teams build a business.”

There is, however, one person whose role in Nobu’s life is paramount.

“The best decision I’ve made in my life was to marry my wife. She is my biggest supporter.” Chief among what’s now a legion of Nobu fans and loyalists across the globe.

‘ It was the worst experience of my life but also the best learning experience’

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Travel

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JANUARY 2024: ISSUE 148

ULTIMATE STAYS

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ust 30 miles north of Tahiti is a secluded atoll that takes the breath away. The promise is a seamless transition of tranquillity, by stepping off a 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 seahorseshaped 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 here. The styling of the resort reflects Polynesian lifestyle and their sacred culture, while the villas – which range in size from one to three bedroom – are footsteps away from a beach and ocean visited by sea turtles, manta rays and exotic birds. Of the villas, the threebedroom is the grandest; pass beneath a covered porch along the boardwalk to the front door, behind which lie 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 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 like a walk too far, there’s an infinity pool on the deck area, as well as chaise lounges and a shaded sitting area.

More secluded, with its private entrance, is the magnificent Teremoana Residence.

Designed to be enjoyed inside and out, it caters to six adults and a staff member and includes a butler.

However, you’ll be enticed to venture out.

The man behind a Michelin-starred restaurant at Paris’ storied Plaza Athénée and latterly the new chef of the world’s most famous train, Venice SimplonOrient-Express, Jean Imbert leads

the culinary charge at The Brando, adding a touch of Gallic flare to each of the resort’s dining venues, including fine-dining favourite Les Mutinés.

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 the 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.”

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What I Know Now

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Illustration: Leona Beth

JANUARY 2024 : ISSUE 148

Tissa Fontaneda FOUNDER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR, TISSA FONTANEDA I once was told ‘l’énergie suit la pensée’, which essentially means that where the focus goes, the energy flows. This couldn’t be truer, and I’ve certainly experienced it when setting up my eponymous brand. I think this concept becomes particularly real when deciding to start your own venture.

One thing I do every day is ensure that I speak with my children. Carlota (my eldest) and I are particularly close. She lives in London and now directs the UK arm of the brand. Carlota has acted as my right hand throughout the whole process of opening our first flagship store in London.

A lesson I learned the hard way was that you can imagine things very quickly, but bringing them to life takes time. And I 64

know it’s obvious, but when you’re creating something you just really want to see it alive the next day. This is not possible, and I’ve had to learn to be patient, to try, re-try, and then finally see my vision translated into physical objects. I’ve also learnt that a designer is nothing without the right team and skilled artisans supporting them.

I am always inspired by elegant women I see in the street, around me, and on the screen. I admire people who dress well, who can elevate outfits with accessories, and who know how to mix and match.

I admire those who take risks and are confident enough to just be themselves.

Besides my family and children, who will always be my greatest achievement,

the other part of my personal success is what I feel when I see something that I’ve worked so hard on finally come to life. And then, seeing it on people, of course. That is just priceless. I have had my hands full lately, expanding our women’s ready-to-wear collection, launching sunglasses and a capsule Tissa Fontaneda men’s accessories collection.

If I could speak to my younger self I’d tell them that everything will unfold the way it needs to. I didn’t study fashion, but I ended up in the industry.

I had never thought about relocating to Spain, but I did so for work. And it was there that I decided to launch my brand. Life is a journey that is almost impossible to plan, no matter what.

the most ultra-luxury experiential resort in the world Atlantis The Royal has forever changed the landscape of Dubai.

Crafted by the world’s leading designers, architects and artists, this is the place where something incredible happens at every moment.

Book your stay at Atlantis The Royal and experience Dubai’s most iconic resort.

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