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A NEW ERA IN EXCELLENCE Welcome to Four Seasons Private Residences Deer Valley, a world-class mountain resort at the heart of North America’s most exciting new alpine destination, Deer Valley ® East Village. The property features 123 ski-in/ski-out residences and a collection of exclusive amenities, with eight penthouses sitting at the pinnacle of the two towers. Envisioned by world-renowned architect ODA and realized by Extell Development Company, the residences are perfected by Four Seasons service to create a truly legendary lifestyle. One- to Six-Bedroom Mountainside Condominium Residences from $3,750,000

435.640.7162 SHall@DVEastVillage.com This material is based upon information that we consider reliable, but because it has been supplied by third parties, we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete, including price, or withdrawal without notice; square footage is an estimate only. All renderings and illustrative maps of the Resort are conceptual only and subject to change. Buildings and amenities shown in renderings and illustrative maps are proposed and may not be installed or developed as a part of the Resort. The Master Developer has reserved the right to make any modifications and changes as deemed necessary. Dimensions, sizes, specifications, furnishings, layouts, and materials are approximate only and subject to change without notice. The Master Developer disclaims any and all liability, including any express or implied warranties, whether oral or written, related to the Resort or any information included in this document. ©MMXXVI Sotheby’s InternationalRealty Affiliates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Sotheby’s International Realty® is a licensed trademark to Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates, Inc. An Equal Opportunity Company. Each Office Is Independently Owned And Operated. Copyright© Summit Sotheby’s International Realty 2026.

LEGENDARY SKIING MEETS LEGENDARY SERVICE AT FOUR SEASONS DEER VALLEY

contents

LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER

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DIPINTO DI BLU

London-based Artelier Brings Fine Art to the Skies

Modern Czech Chefs Rewarded for Creatively Reinventing Forgotten Heritage Recipes

50 12 JetsetMag.com

ECONOMIC ENIGMA The Fed Has Three Problems and No Good Solution

PLAYING THE LONG GAME CDA National Reserve Redefines the Club Experience by Combining World-Class Golf with Outdoor Adventures and Longevity

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THE CHATBOT CONUNDRUM

Automation May Cut Customer Service Costs, but It Can’t Replace the Power of Human Interaction

THE FRICTIONLESS LIFE Inside the New Architecture of Private Membership, where the Most Coveted Privilege is the Disappearance of Interruption

CZECHIA’S MICHELIN MOMENT

ALENTEJO DREAMING This Sunlit Region of Southern Portugal is a Peaceful Oasis of Vineyards and Grand Estate Farms

MOVING MAGIC Bibi van der Velden’s Enchanting Treasures Come Alive as They Travel Through Life and Landscapes

altitude

FIGHTING SPIRIT Napa Valley’s Remarkable History is an American Success Story of Determination and Overcoming Adversity

LOVE AT FORTY THOUSAND FEET The Distance Between Here and Greatness with Coco Gauff × flyExclusive

ISSUE 4. 2026

DEPARTMENTS 14

THINKING STRATEGICALLY How the Executive Center of Your Brain Works and Why It’s Important to Develop It

RISING STAR The Secret is Out About Appi Kogen, One of the Last Great Frontiers of Japanese Skiing

FEATURES 54

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME Jetset takes an inside look at what makes Rolls-Royce tick, from its factory to its rural home. And why exactly you need to visit.

THE DEVIL, REBORN Inside Emanuel Colombini’s Limited-Edition Rebirth of the Lamborghini Diablo

THE ART OF ADAPTATION Paris Hilton on Fame, Power and Playing the Long Game

PHOTO BY NINO MUÑOZ

MASTERING MONGOLIA Set Out on a Bespoke Journey to the Gobi Desert and Beyond with Nomadic Expeditions

SEAWORTHY SUSTAINABILITY Dutch Design Studio Vripack Reimagines How Yachts Interact with the Environment

MAKING CONNECTIONS The Journey That Built Atlas, a Company Dedicated to Eliminating Uncertainty in Private Aviation

VENICE IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT See the City of Canals through the Eyes of Artists During the 2026 Biennale Arte

ARCTIC AMBITIONS Pelorus Yachting Launches Polar Expeditions Aboard the World’s First Near-ZeroEmissions Luxury Yacht

Issue 4 • 2026 13

ur cover star, Paris Hilton, has spent more than two decades being underestimated—and watching the culture catch up with her. Long before “creator” became a profession and personal branding an industry, Hilton understood how to turn the attention economy into a global enterprise. Now, as A24 prepares to adapt her memoir for prestige television, we explore her evolution from defining an earlier era to confronting some of the present’s most consequential questions, from AI and consent to authorship and the ownership of one’s image.

CORPORATE CEO/PUBLISHER CFO Creative Director Editor-in-Chief VP of Business Development VP of Operations VP of Strategic Partnerships Executive Assistant/Office Manager Executive Administrator Art & Design

MARKETING National Account Executives

As 2026 draws to a close, there’s no better time to start planning your adventures for 2027. In this issue, our writers have truly outdone themselves to bring you a wide range of intriguing destinations. Which one(s) will you choose? If you’re a skier, you won’t want to miss our feature on Appi Kogen, one of the last great frontiers of Japanese skiing. Located off the beaten track, this ski resort is blessed with an incredible 26 feet of snow each year. Continuing on in the spirit of adventure, check out our story on Nomadic Expeditions and how this trailblazing company built Mongolia’s first luxury eco-lodge in the Gobi Desert. Looking for another unique eco-adventure? Pelorus Yachting is now offering polar expeditions aboard the world’s first nearzero-emissions luxury yacht. If European adventures are more your style, consider heading to Alentejo, Portugal’s peaceful, sunlit region that’s dotted with vineyards and grand estate farms. Czechia is having a Michelin moment as modern Czech chefs are rewarded for reinventing the country’s heritage recipes. And if you’re an art lover, you’ll want to see the City of Canals through the eyes of artists at the 2026 Biennale Arte di Venezia.

For something equally transportive on a smaller scale, discover the imaginative world of jewelry designer Bibi van der Velden, whose fantastical creations transform creatures, fossils and rare materials into wearable works of art. As House Jeweler at Rosewood Amsterdam, van der Velden has taken fine jewelry out from behind the glass with “Jewels on Wheels,” a traveling jewelry cart that brings her creations directly to hotel guests. She has since taken the idea quite literally on the road, transforming a vintage Citroën into a traveling jewelry shop. And finally, we offer you an update on how private clubs are evolving to better meet their members’ needs. We also introduce you to a prime example of this trend, CDA National Reserve, a spectacular private club and nature reserve in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, that offers a full menu of outdoor adventures and wellness amenities. Enjoy your adventures, wherever they may take you.

Darrin Austin

CEO/Publisher, Jetset Magazine 14 JetsetMag.com

TONIE ELLIS ROSS FENTON GLEN FRANCOIS LAURA MEITH JULIE OSTEN SI SI PENALOZA DAN SHARPE MICHAEL SKJAERRIS

EXECUTIVE EDITORS DR. JOHN DEMARTINI DAYMOND JOHN ROBERT KIYOSAKI BARRY LABOV KEN McELROY

EDITORS Automotive Editor Luxury Custom Content Editor Copy Editor/Writer Contributing Writers

As always, we love to bring you the latest news from the automotive world. Do you remember Lamborghini’s iconic 1990 Diablo? Emanuel Colombini, founder of Eccentrica, is bringing it back in a big way with a limited-edition utilizing today’s technology and materials. This year also marks two extraordinary anniversaries: America’s 250th and the 50th anniversary of the Judgment of Paris, the legendary 1976 blind tasting that transformed the world’s perception of California wine. We look back at Napa Valley’s remarkable journey from its immigrant and pioneering roots through phylloxera, Prohibition and decades of rebuilding to its emergence as one of the world’s great wine regions. It is a story of resilience, reinvention and fighting spirit—and, in many ways, a distinctly American success story.

DARRIN AUSTIN PATRICIA JOHNSON TOBY THOMPSON TAMI AUSTIN GREG FAHLMAN TIANNA KAYE CHRISTA LEBAR THERESA JONES CHRISTINA MORENO ERIN SUWWAN

MATT CHAPPELL SI SI PENALOZA KAREN BROST MIGUEL COSTA MICHAEL CROLEY JILLIAN DARA AMY HIGGINS LESLIE K. HUGHES ANNABEL ILLINGWORTH JASON MURRAY ALEXANDRA OWENS J.R. PATTERSON SIMON ROBERTS ANNIE STOPAK JESSE WINTER

DIGITAL PR/Marketing Manager Campaign Manager Creative Strategy Manager Web Development Specialist Videographer

CARSON LEATHERS JENNIFER KRAYBILL JAMES LEARY PETER TALAVERA COLLIN PAPE

Editorial Inquiries: editor@jetsetmag.com Advertising Inquiries: sales@jetsetmag.com Jetset Magazine Corporate Office 15220 N. 75th Street . Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Toll Free: 877.538.5738 . Phone: 480.991.8986 Fax: 877.538.5738 JetsetMag.com Member of

Jetset Magazine is printed on 10% recycled (post-consumer waste) paper using only soy based inks. Our printer meets or exceeds all Federal Resource Conservation Act (RCRA) Standards and is a certified member of the Forest Stewardship Council. Advertising rates furnished upon request. SEND ALL ADVERTSING INFORMATION AND MATERIALS TO 15220 N. 75th St. - Scottsdale, AZ 85260. DIRECT ALL SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRES TO 480-991-8986. All advertising is subject to approval before acceptance. Jetset Magazine LLC. reserves the right to refuse any ad for any reason whatsoever. Only actual publication of an advertisement constitutes acceptance thereof, but does not constitute any agreement for continued publication in any form. California law applies to and controls all materials contained herein. ORDERING FROM ADVERTISERS: Advertisers warrant and represent that the descriptions of the products or services advertised are true in all respects. Jetset Magazine LLC. assumes no responsibility for claims made by advertisers. Jetset Magazine LLC, its officers, directors, employees, and agents make no recommendations as the purchase or sale any product, service, or other item. All views expressed in all articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Jetset Magazine LLC. All letters and their contents sent to Jetset Magazine LLC become the sole property of Jetset Magazine LLC and may be used and published in any manner whatsoever without limit and without obligation and liability to the author thereof. Canada Post International Publications Mail (Canadian distribution) Sales Agreement No. 0560502. Copyright 2026 by Jetset Magazine LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part or storage in any data retrieval system or any transmission by and means there from without written permission is prohibited.

ART

DIPINTO DI BLU London-based Artelier Brings Fine Art to the Skies BY LAYNE RANDOLPH

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BOMBARDIER GLOBAL 5000 © COURTESY OF ARTELIER ART CONSULTANCY

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BOMBARDIER GLOBAL 5000, COURTESY OF ARTELIER ART CONSULTANCY © WINCH DESIGN

“

ainted blue, in the blue” is the English meaning of the Italian words “nel blu dipinto di blu” that Domenico Modugno sang in Volare in the mid1960s. The phrase feels oddly appropriate for the world of private aviation today, where luxury cabins are increasingly becoming canvases for bespoke art and craftsmanship. London-based Artelier has built a reputation for combining art consultancy, interior design, and craftsmanship to create bespoke environments for luxury residences, yachts, hotels, and private aircraft. Founder and Creative Director David Knowles discussed with Jetset some of the unique challenges and opportunities involved in bringing fine art to the skies. Private aircraft are often described as the ultimate expression of personal luxury. How does art change the emotional experience of being onboard? People often assume art in private jets is just there as a decorative tool, but it actually changes

how the whole experience feels. When you’re flying long distances, the cabin becomes your space for hours at a time, and the right piece of art can make it feel calmer, less repetitive, and a bit more human.

Our curatorial vision usually leans for clear and calming imagery, nothing with too much noise. This is especially because people can spend long periods of traveling onboard, so they need something to rest their eyes on.

It’s also about not overdoing it. In a small cabin, too much art just feels busy, so usually it works best with one or two strong pieces placed carefully. Everything else in the aircraft is already quite controlled and functional, so art is one of the few things that adds personality. Without it, the space can feel a bit flat; with it, the cabin feels more like a place to be in, not just a way to get from A to B.

Light is another important factor. The cabin environment is constantly shifting, from bright daylight at altitude to much softer, more enclosed evening lighting. So the artwork needs to feel comfortable and coherent across all of those conditions.

What makes designing or curating art for an aircraft fundamentally different from doing so for a residence, yacht, or hotel? Scale is the first thing to consider. We are not working within a typical four-wall room layout. Aircraft cabins are compact, highly functional spaces, so oversized works or heavily textured pieces don’t always translate well.

Even the most ambitious feature walls or integrated artworks need close collaboration with completion centers and engineering teams to ensure everything is safely built, mounted, and certified for flight. Constraints shape almost every decision we make, but that doesn’t stop us thinking big. Weight is always a key consideration, so instead of traditional heavy substrates like metals or wood, we often look at lighter options. Even the Issue 4 • 2026 17

ART

medium matters. We tend to avoid oils because of toxicity and long-term stability concerns and instead work with water-based systems. Every finish has to pass strict flammability testing (so materials like silk, wool, and precious metals are favored). Mounting systems need to handle vibration and turbulence. Most importantly, however, our aim is not to get bogged down by limitations but rather explore them. Do most clients come to Artelier with a clear vision already in mind, or do they give your team considerable creative freedom? Can you share some design inspirations? Most clients don’t come to us with a clear vision already in place, and that’s perfectly normal. I often joke that they ‘haven’t got the eye yet;’ 18 JetsetMag.com

our job is to help them discover it. We’re given a great deal of creative freedom to research and recommend artworks, but aircraft owners and the designers involved are typically very busy, so it’s our responsibility to distill that research into a concise, thoughtful selection that feels authentic to them.

We have created collections inspired by Japanese abstraction, European Impressionism, contemporary African art, and sculptural craft traditions. The most successful projects are usually the most personal ones, where the collection reflects something specific about the owner rather than following trends.

The process always starts with getting to know the client. What excites them? That exchange of ideas allows us to create something genuinely bespoke.

One of the most memorable projects we’ve worked on was a private aircraft, Bombardier Global 5000, in collaboration with Winch Design. It features a large abstract art wall inspired by the Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga. At first glance, it looks like a free-flowing explosion of colour, but behind that artwork was an enormous amount of collaboration and technical problem-solving.

Of course, creativity has to work hand in hand with practicality. We consider budgets, locations, dimensions, and the realities of the aircraft environment. But what makes our approach different is that we don’t work from inventory. We’re not trying to sell stock from a particular gallery or collector, which means our recommendations are completely impartial.

The piece was created by a London-based artist on a separate panel in their studio before being integrated into the aircraft during completion.

BOMBARDIER GLOBAL 5000, COURTESY OF ARTELIER ART CONSULTANCY © WINCH DESIGN

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To comply with flammability and toxicity regulations, we actually made a certified custom paint formula so that it was burn-proof and didn’t emit harmful fumes. For readers who may be unfamiliar with the process, what level of investment is typically required for a bespoke art and interior design project aboard a private aircraft? It really depends on the client and their intention. Some want their jet to reflect an established collection, so they look at adapting important works they already own. Commissioning new work, on the other hand, offers much more flexibility. It allows us to design pieces specifically for the aircraft from the start, taking into account its infrastructure, lighting, and technical constraints. A curated art program can range from tens of thousands of pounds for emerging or mid-career artists, up to several hundred thousand, and in some cases well over £1 million when blue-chip works, commissioned originals, or integrated installations are involved. Often the most successful approach is a blend of both. Existing works help bring a starting tone and direction, while bespoke commissions are created to respond directly to the cabin and complete the narrative. In most cases, art is not treated as a separate line item but as part of the wider interior design scope, so the overall investment is shaped less by individual pieces and more by how central art is to the creative design brief and identity of the aircraft.

BOMBARDIER GLOBAL 5000, COURTESY OF ARTELIER ART CONSULTANCY © WINCH DESIGN

When interior aircraft design can cost between $50,000 and $20M-plus, the art is a drop in the ocean cost-wise. Without a doubt though, it packs a punch when giving that final touch to the space and the project’s personalization.

Issue 4 • 2026 19

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AVIATION

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Love at Forty Thousand Feet

The Distance Between Here and Greatness with Coco Gauff × flyExclusive BY SI SI PENALOZA PHOTOGRAPHY BY GUERIN BLASK

ennis is the only major sport whose word for zero is love, which ought to tell you something about a game that has always preferred irony to arithmetic. Coco Gauff has embodied both: the fifteen-year-old qualifier ranked 313th in the world who walked onto Wimbledon’s grass and beat the childhood idol who’d first inspired her to play. In the space of that stunning July 2019 victory, she captured the other kind of love: adored, immediately. Every sport builds mythology on succession—the apprentice dethroning the master, the fresh face who bests the old guard—and women’s tennis has been telling variations of this origin story ever since. The phenom prodigy is now twenty-two, a two-time Grand Slam champion who has traded combustion for something closer to command, and if there is a throughline to her rise, it is this: everyone else was still doing the arithmetic while Gauff had already worked out the irony. flyExclusive, which recently made her the face of its fleet, appears to have arrived at a similar conclusion—that the fastest way anywhere is rarely the interesting part, and the real luxury is arriving as exactly the person who left. Two straight years atop Forbes’ list of the bestpaid women in sport, and bearing the US flag

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alongside LeBron James at the Paris Olympics, the apprentice has earned the run of a fleet— and it’s aboard a flyExclusive Challenger 350, parked, engines off, that Gauff gave Jetset magazine the kind of access that’s rare even by the standards of a publication that’s used to it. Call it coincidence. Tennis would call it fate, and tennis is rarely wrong about these things. She settles into the seat and looks around the cabin the way anyone looks around a room they actually intend to enjoy. “It’s really nice and beautiful in here,” she says, and there’s no performance in it. It’s the satisfied verdict of someone who has logged enough hours on enough planes to know precisely when one is worth the compliment. Gauff’s life, after all, is measured in departures. Melbourne becomes Paris, Paris becomes London, London becomes New York; Doha,

22 JetsetMag.com

Dubai; Rome, Beijing. The WTA calendar is less a schedule than a cartographic dare, an eleven-month migration in which the athlete is expected to cross continents and time zones, then stand alone inside a rectangle and perform with exquisite precision. The glamour of professional tennis has always concealed a logistics business. “I’m an athlete that travels a lot and has to be in sometimes two places at once,” she observes. This partnership makes flyExclusive’s ownedand-operated fleet the official private-aviation solution for Gauff, her family and team as they move between tournaments. The arrangement is multi-year, but its logic is immediate. Gauff describes the appeal with the practicality of someone for whom a delayed arrival is not an inconvenience so much as a competitive variable: “Making sure I have not only the quickest way to get to places, but also the most

comfortable way.” Comfort, in this context, isn’t indulgence. It is infrastructure. “Having the travel time cut down, and being able to be comfortable and rested—and sometimes multitask, which you’re not always able to do,” she muses, is part of what makes the difference. There is a distinctly Gauffian efficiency to the formulation: save the time, protect the body. A cabin becomes a recovery room, office, living room, and, when necessary, a refuge. When asked what drew her toward flyExclusive, Gauff doesn’t begin with range or speed or cabin dimensions. She begins with people. “The level of care and attention to detail that they have,” she says. More particularly, it’s “the personal care that all the staff have on each trip”—the small accommodations that can make travel feel personal when she is far from home. Private aviation likes to advertise the conquest of

The girl who emerged from Wimbledon became the woman who won the U.S. Open in 2023 and Roland-Garros in 2025. “The belief in yourself is more important than your game or anything,” Gauff says, “because without belief, you can’t really go far.” The modern luxury traveler has become accustomed to hearing that time is the ultimate currency. Athletes understand the proposition more brutally. Their careers have clocks attached. Gauff seems unusually conscious of hers. “The life I live is very rare and special, and it can be taken away at any second,” she says. “So I try to remind myself to continue to do you and live life to the fullest.” She rarely travels alone. “Almost every tournament, I have one of my parents with me—and if not, I have a team around me that I’m really close to,” she says. “I definitely can’t do what I do without them.” That matters because the Coco Gauff story has always been a family story. Corey and Candi Gauff did not merely raise a champion; they protected the audacity required to become one. “I’ve been lucky to have parents who’ve never diminished or tried to minimize my goals or my dreams,” she says. Her parents remain close, providing the emotional ballast that fame cannot purchase and trophies cannot replace.

time: no terminals, no connections, no waiting. flyExclusive’s proposition to Gauff was far more subtle. It is control over the texture of that time. There is a difference between reaching somewhere quickly and arriving ready. “It’s not just about the quickest way to get to places,” she ventures. “It’s about the most comfortable way, too.” For flyExclusive, the association offers a compelling symmetry. Founder, Chairman and CEO Jim Segrave has spent a career obsessing over the same marginal gains that govern Gauff’s: responsiveness, consistency, the invisible details upon which conspicuous results depend. He built an aviation company, sold it to Delta in 2010, served inside its private-jet operation, then waited out his noncompete and went home to Kinston, North Carolina. In 2015,

he started again; flyExclusive was born. Tennis has another name for this: the second serve. Second acts are familiar territory in tennis. A sport that can turn a teenager into a global celebrity before she is old enough to rent a car also requires her to outgrow the version of herself everyone first fell in love with. Gauff ’s first act came with astonishing speed. Her second has been more deliberate. “What are the odds that out of a hundred players, you play your idol in the first round at Wimbledon—the biggest tournament in the world?” she says now of that meeting with Venus Williams. “That was something like fate.” Fate made for a marvelous beginning. Everything afterward required work.

Her commercial life has matured in much the same fashion. New Balance backed her before Wimbledon made her famous and eventually gave her something still rare in women’s tennis: a signature shoe. Head supplies the racquet. Rolex put her within a sporting lineage built around permanence. Gauff has reached the stage of celebrity at which saying no becomes as consequential as saying yes. She formalized that instinct in 2025 by leaving her longtime representation and establishing Coco Gauff Enterprises with WME, describing the move as a way to take greater ownership of her career. Additionally, her first two iRoc Media Group executive-produced documentary projects premiered on the Tennis Channel, Serve: Fashion & Tennis and The Zina Effect this summer. Coco’s also passionate about philanthropy, launching The Coco Gauff Foundation which is dedicated to empowering youth, supporting education, and refurbishing public tennis courts. It is an unusually grown-up phrase for someone barely into her twenties, but she has spent much of her life being asked to arrive early. For Gauff, the journey was never really about getting there first. It was about becoming someone worth arriving as. Issue 4 • 2026 23

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Moving Magic Bibi van der Velden’s Enchanting Treasures Come Alive as They Travel Through Life and Landscapes BY ANNIE STOPAK

“I love creating pieces that feel as if they have come from a dream or a memory,” van der Velden said fondly, alluding to her storybook upbringing, a time that felt intricately woven into her life now.

BIBI VAN DER VELDEN

24 JetsetMag.com

Van der Velden grew up in a historic home in the English countryside with the freedom to frolic in woods and fields. Immersed in art and nature from a young age, she followed in the footsteps of her mother and trained as a sculptor before building her very own jewelry

house. “I have always approached jewelry as something alive and three-dimensional,” she said. “A ring or necklace should not simply sit on the body; it should inhabit it.” She was surrounded by imagination ever since she can remember. “I never felt jewelry had to be conventional or behave in a certain way,” she said with a hint of mischief—a sentiment that echoed her ethereal youth. Her parents, both creative individuals, were supportive of her wants and desires from a young age, allowing her vision to blossom over time. It was through this support and spontaneity that, many years later, allowed her to create “Jewels on Wheels,” a popup jewelry cart that travels on its own through the Rosewood Amsterdam—an iconic hotel in

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF BIBI VAN DER VELDEN

magine jewelry where the wild becomes wearable. Creatures of folklore—frogs, alligators, shells, and mermaids— are entwined in each jewel and the material is shown in an honest way: raw and uninhibited. This is the enchanting world of Bibi van der Velden.

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BIG SCARAB PAVE BRACELET

the Netherland’s canal district—inviting guests to peruse her jewelry without leaving the luxury of their accommodations. “Fine jewelry is often experienced in a very formal way: behind glass, under lights, slightly untouchable,” she said. “I wanted to create something more surprising, more playful, more intimate.” Born in New York and raised in England and the Netherlands, diverse terrain was a part of her DNA. She was well-versed in various cultures, had refined taste, and got along well with likeminded intellectuals. As she settled into the flow of young adulthood, van der Velden moved to Florence to major in fine arts before continuing her studies at Gerrit Rietveld Academy and Royal Academy of Arts, two of the most prestigious art and design institutions in the Netherlands. Both schools further honed her craft. In 2005, after years of curiosity and practice, she went out on a whim to launch her very own jewelry atelier in Amsterdam. It was there that she allowed the ebb and flow of her inner world to take form and began a journey into the mysterious realm of jewelry making. Exotic material is one of many lures of the label. The designer has sourced baroque pearl, 60,000-year-old mammoth tusk, and even scarab, an Egyptian feathered beetle whose delicate wings were reimagined into 18K diamond earrings. Van der Velden’s Amsterdam flagship is an extension of this natural world. It features a sweeping arched ceiling adorned with fossils which meets silk moiré walls and guides the eye toward a terrazzo alligator floor mosaic. 26 JetsetMag.com

GHOST Ghost is both a statement of elegance and a dynamic force on the road. It is the amplifier of life, elevating every moment.

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ADORNMENT

DIAMOND ALLIGATOR EARRING EXTRA LONG

Intentional craftsmanship is a trademark of the brand as her process acknowledges the magic of rare material while honoring the skill of technical prowess. Each piece is formed entirely by hand—sketched by van der Velden herself and rendered in a small wax replica—before coming alive in full form. “My process is quite instinctive at first. I collect images, memories, textures, animals, myths,” she said. “Then comes the sculptural stage— how does this idea become an object? How does it sit on the body? Can it move? Can it open? Is there a secret?” she continued. “The final piece has to feel inevitable, as if this strange combination of creature, stone, metal, and story could not have existed any other way.” “Jewels on Wheels” at Rosewood Amsterdam is a way of sharing this story with others. While guests can request a private viewing experience in their very own room, patrons are also encouraged to touch and explore—open hidden drawers, try on jewelry, and use the magnifying glass to uncover tiny details. “I love pieces that reveal themselves slowly,” she said. “There is something quite magical about jewels appearing in unexpected and more personal spaces.” The jewelry cart, crafted in 18K recycled gold, is trimmed in walnut, birch, oak, and zebrano. 28 JetsetMag.com

The wooden frame is stained in van der Velden’s signature malachite green and finished in Delft blue as a tribute to Dutch heritage. The magnificent rolling show presents a curated rotation of approximately 30 signature pieces including her very own “Diamond-Dusted Animal Kingdom,” an artistic jungle brimming with gold leaf plants, ceramic clouds, and a sculptural alligator. She continues to uphold an impressive role at Rosewood Amsterdam as House Jeweler of the hotel, which allows her to make continuous enhancements to “Jewels on Wheels.” As much as she loves femininity in her work, van der Velden sees space for balance, which requires being rooted in the ground and occasionally lost in whimsy. “My femininity has never been about softness alone,” she said. “I think femininity can be powerful, mysterious, playful, sensual, even a little wild,” she continued. “It is always grounded in craft, materiality and the earth.” She still swoons over one of her favorite collections, Enchanted Forest, a dreamlike display of creatures and crystals inspired by the intimacy of memories and the transformation of

life. It serves as a gentle reminder of her fanciful youth and how far she has come. Last year, along with the grand opening of her Amsterdam flagship, the brand celebrated its 20th anniversary with the release of Diamond Collection, a line of sculptural jewels reminiscent of the refined glamour of 1930s Art Deco. With roots in both Amsterdam and Portugal, van der Velden spends her year shifting between the two. Both European sanctuaries reflect the joy and inspiration that she carries into her life. This past summer, the brand took the spirit of “Jewels on Wheels” even further with a vintage Citroën HY, a charming French cargo hauler, that was reimagined into a travelling jewelry shop. With a desire to bring her designs to new audiences, the team envisioned this jewelry vitrine as an elegant escapade across Europe, introducing high jewelry through the comfort of a car. Bibi van der Velden reiterates the truth that growth rarely happens while standing still. “For me, jewelry should travel,” she said. “It should move through life, through landscapes, through memory,” she continued. “That is where it becomes truly alive.”

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TASTE

Czechia’s MICHELIN MOMENT Modern Czech Chefs Rewarded for Creatively Reinventing Forgotten Heritage Recipes J.R. PATTERSON

oday’s new wave of Czech cooking is rooted as deeply in history as in innovation. Centuries under the Habsburg Empire and close cultural ties with France brought refined sauces, pastry techniques, and restaurant traditions into Czech kitchens, especially in Prague’s elite restaurants, up to the early 20th century. Yet the following decades of war and repression under the USSR had their impact on the nation’s food culture, flattening and fusing it, so that what was eaten in Moscow was eaten in Hungary, in Slovakia, in Czechia. Modern Czech chefs are now rediscovering that forgotten heritage, pairing classical French

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discipline with local ingredients, regional recipes, and seasonal produce. Across the country, chefs are reviving dishes once lost, producing along the way a new and elegant contemporary cuisine. These are some of Czechia’s restaurants rewarded with a Michelin Star for their efforts. The open kitchen at Štangl typifies the changing nature of Czech cuisine. In Prague’s once manufacturing-heavy Karlín District, a crop of urban creatives has sprung up like so many mushrooms. There, over the exposed ranges and sinks, the chefs, including the namesake Martin Štangl, fiddle and fuss over foams and pastries. The room, with its industrial feel, has the air of a performance space.

THIS PAGE : PHOTO COURTESY OF LA VILLA. RIGHT PAGE: TOP 2 PHOTOS COURTESY OF AMBI.CZ. BOTTOM 2 PHOTOS, COURTESY OF RESTAURANT PAPILIO. MIDDLE PHOTO COURTESY OF RESTAURANT PAPILIO.

LA VILLA

ŠTANGL

ENTRÉE

PAPILIO

Yet the hard factory edge does not infuse the menu, which draws heavily on the countryside. Smoked eel arrives on a chunk of gneissic rock; potato tartlets are presented on a bed of woodchips; a sour soup is sprinkled with pickled conifer. (Besides its Michelin star, the restaurant has been awarded a Michelin green star for its local sourcing of ingredients). At the side of the room, a hydroponic vault brims with leafy greens, and, within a dry ager, various carcasses hang in wait for the plate. Each dish is paired with compliment of natural Czech wines, or a concoction of mocktails. And a rarity in restaurants of this calibre, Štangl serves a threecourse breakfast every Saturday.

focus of Chef Jan Knedla’s culinary repertoire is history, and the resurrection of lost recipes and flavors. Inspired years ago by recipes found in a grandmother’s 19th-century cookbook, Knedla worked backwards, searching out flavour profiles and ingredient combinations that had been flattened and obscured during the communist era. Today, the Papilio menu shifts with the seasons, and is organized around whatever Knedla’s klatch of farmers and hunters can supply him with: venison, guinea fowl, badger, snails, pickled apple, horseradish, thin slivers of truffle, and dark, molassasy bread. And everywhere are mushrooms: boletes and chanterelles, blewits and collies.

Not far from Prague, in the village of Vysoky Újezd, Czechia’s only two-Michelin-starred restaurant is found in a former stable. Yet for all the modern spectacles found at Papilio— another open kitchen, the pageantry of the kitchen staff at work, glossy white interior—the

Further east, in the foothills of the Jeseníky mountains, is Olomouc, Czechia’s “Little Prague.” While this regional city lacks the capital’s grand theatrical beauty (though its astrological clock blessedly ticks away without crowds), it has a thriving regional

PAPILIO

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LA VILLA

food scene: tangy tvarůžky cheese, sweet Hanácké koláče pasteries, and smoky Hanácká kyselica. Entrée carries forward that regional association with a more refined edge, focusing on stripped-down recipes that, over six, seven, or nine courses, elevate nuanced flavours: sea buckthorn, yuzu, rabbit, sturgeon, and pork crackling. Entrée’s interior is striking, a hive of living foliage and sculptural lighting. Chef Přemek Forejt is well-known within Czechia, having competed in the country’s version of MasterChef in 2019. La Villa represents possibly the sharpest turn towards French cuisine in Czechia’s current dining scene. On the outskirts of Zlín (a functionalist city designed with practical intentions by industrialist Tomáš Bat’a and inseparable from his shoe empire), La Villa occupies an elegant manse built in 1941 for a Bat’a company executive, surrounded by greenery and birdsong and statuary from painter and sculptor Miloslav Chlupáč.

ESSENS

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LA VILLA

There is a shifting identity to the restaurant, which swings between a relaxed bistro during the day, to an elegant fine-dining destination with artistic tasting menus and wine pairings inspired by French “art de vivre.” Regardless, the impression is of fine dining, and chef Július Löffler and his team invoke the French classics: Quiche Lorraine, Fois gras, Veal entrecôte, Vol-au-vent, Éclair, fruit tartlets, Paris-Brest. The wine club boasts an impressive array of international bottles. The French vintners at Hospices de Beaune produce a Pinot Noir especially for the restaurant, with the proceeds from that particular vintage donated to charity. South Moravia provides a different atmosphere altogether. Vineyards spread across a landscape slung with rivers and lakes. The hills largely produce whites—commonly sweet pálavas and muscats and Rieslings, but there are also good, strong reds: Pinot Noirs, Frankovkas and Saint Laurent, that blend well with grilled meat. Set within the restored neoclassical Château de

ESSENS

Frontiere, all pale stone and columns on the former border between Moravia and Austria, ESSENS restaurant leans into its winey surroundings, beginning its meal with a glass of premier champagne, and going on to provide the best pairings for each sumptuous dish of Pohořelice catfish, Périgord truffle, plums, and poppy. The menu at ESSENS is in constant flux, and is never published beforehand, and may never be the same twice. A bold move by Chef Otto Vašák, but freed by the constraints of consistency, the kitchen is able to focus on perfection. Vašák delivered South Moravia’s first Michelin star, although the man could be called a horticulturist as much as a chef, meticulously tending a garden that delivers to ESSENS its vegetables and fruits. Indeed, far from being “the land that vegetables forgot,” as critic Anthony Bourdain dubbed Czechia, Vašák, along with these other chefs, has proved that the future of Czech cuisine has grown here all along.

TOP 2 PHOTOS COURTESY OF LA VILLA. BOTTOM 2 PHOTOS, COURTESY OF RESTAURANT ESSENS, CENTRÁLA CESTOVNÍHO RUCHU - JIŽNÍ MORAVA

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LEGACY

Fighting Spirit Napa Valley’s Remarkable History is an American Success Story of Determination and Overcoming Adversity

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PHOTO COURTESY OF STAGS LEAP

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BY LAYNE RANDOLPH

ew events loom so large in Napa Valley wine history as the 1976 Judgment of Paris, which marks its 50th anniversary in 2026. As the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, Napa Valley offers its own version of the American story. It’s a place where immigrants arrived with pieces of their homeland, families crossed the continent to build something from nothing, and fortunes were made and lost. One of the most iconic moments in Napa history parallels another American anniversary, the bicentennial. In May 1976, a group of California wines was entered into a blind tasting in Paris alongside some of France’s most prestigious bottles. The event was organized by British wine merchant Steven Spurrier and his American colleague Patricia Gallagher. The judges were overwhelmingly French, and few expected the California wines to prevail. What happened that day has since become Napa Valley lore. A 1973 Chardonnay from Chateau Montelena took first place in the white-wine tasting, ahead of celebrated white Burgundies. In the red flight, a 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars ranked first against formidable Bordeaux. Other California producers, including Freemark Abbey and Mayacamas from Napa Valley, also took part. The result shocked the wine world and changed the way it regarded California wine. Napa Valley had demonstrated, under blind conditions and before French experts, that its wines could stand beside some of Europe’s most revered bottles. Chateau Montelena and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars are still operating today, their names still

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHATEAU MONTELENA

CHATEAU MONTELENA

STAGS LEAP

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LEGACY

BLIND WINE TASTING IN PARIS, MAY 1976

European viticulture arrived nearly at the same time as the birth of the United States. Beginning in 1769, Franciscan missionaries established missions along the West Coast in what is now California, and with them came vines, planted for sacramental wine and everyday use. They planted the Mission grape, a variety of Vitis vinifera genetically linked to Spain’s Listán

Prieto, a Spanish grape that traveled through the Americas with Spanish colonial expansion. In South America, related forms became known as País and Criolla. Its journey began in Mexico and went northward as the Spanish crown sought to colonize Alta California in the 18th century. During the Gold Rush and after, European immigrants arrived with skills (and, in some cases, vines) from their homelands. Inglenook, founded by Finnish immigrant Gustave Niebaum in 1879, and Beringer, founded by German immigrant brothers Jacob

INGLENOOK

GUSTAVE NIEBAUM

and Frederick Beringer in 1876, are two of the most well-known examples. These and other early immigrants began planting vineyards and building wineries across Northern California. By the late 19th century, Napa had emerged as an increasingly important wine region, with more than 140 wineries operating in the county. Then came phylloxera. The tiny root-feeding insect, native to North America, became one of the great catastrophes of modern wine history after it was carried from America to Europe in the 19th century. European Vitis vinifera vines had little natural resistance, and vineyards across France and elsewhere were devastated. The eventual solution was to graft European grape varieties onto resistant American rootstocks. American vine material helped save the European wine world. Phylloxera also damaged California vineyards, including in Napa Valley, forcing growers to replant and rebuild. The young industry endured, only to face another catastrophe, this one political, in the early decades of the 20th century. In 1920, national Prohibition took effect, sharply restricting the alcoholic beverage industry’s ability to produce and sell across the United States. For a wine industry that had spent decades growing, investing, and

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TOP : PHOTO COURTESY OF CHATEAU MONTELENA. BOTTOM: PHOTOS COURTESY OF INGLENOOK

inseparable from that extraordinary afternoon in Paris. But to imagine that Napa Valley history begins in 1976 would be a mistake.

Recovery took decades, but ghost wineries were slowly revived, and dormant properties returned to wine production. Far Niente, founded in 1885, was abandoned around Prohibition and sat dormant for roughly six decades before Gil Nickel bought and restored it in 1979. Other historic properties followed similar arcs of dormancy and revival, including Schramsberg, founded by German immigrant Jacob Schram in the 1860s and revived by Jack and Jamie Davies in the 1960s, and Inglenook.

FAR NIENTE

The valley’s rebirth would depend not only on old estates, but on new personalities. Among the most consequential was an Italian American family whose own history would become one of Napa Valley’s great dramas.

TOP : PHOTOS COURTESY OF FAR NIENTE WINERY. BOTTOM LEFT: PHOTOS COURTESY OF CHARLES KRUG WINERY. BOTTOM RIGHT: PHOTO COURTESEY OF ROBERT MONDAVI WINERY.

FAR NIENTE

establishing itself, the consequences were devastating. Wineries closed. Vineyards were abandoned or converted to other uses. Some of the stone wineries left behind would eventually become the “ghost wineries,” symbols of the Napa heyday that had passed. But some exemptions and loopholes kept a few wineries alive through Prohibition. Sacramental wine remained legal, allowing producers such as Beringer and Beaulieu Vineyard, founded by French immigrant Georges de Latour in 1900, to continue operating by supplying churches. Grapes could still be grown and sold,

and demand from home winemakers created a market for California fruit shipped across the country. Elsewhere in the state, companies sold concentrated grape products, including the famous grape “bricks” accompanied by warnings that seemed to explain exactly what a consumer should not do if he wished to avoid accidentally producing wine.

CESARE AND ROSA MONDAVI

PETER AND ROSA MONDAVI

After Prohibition ended, the Depression and World War II slowed recovery further. Of roughly 700 wineries operating across California before Prohibition, only about 40 survived the combined devastation.

Cesare and Rosa Mondavi were Italian immigrants whose family eventually settled in California. In 1943, the family acquired the inactive Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, founded in 1861 and already part of Napa’s earliest commercial history. Robert worked there alongside his younger brother, Peter, but the partnership did not last. Robert left Charles Krug and, in 1966, founded the Robert Mondavi Winery in Oakville. Peter remained with Charles Krug. More than half a century later, Charles Krug remains tied to Peter Mondavi’s family, and his granddaughter, Angelina Mondavi, now serves as the estate’s winemaker, shaping its future. Through Napa’s postwar decades, new investment and ambition returned to the valley. Still, outside California, and especially outside the United States, Napa remained an upstart. Then came Paris and international attention followed. Investment and tourism expanded, and Napa entered a new era of confidence and ambition. Robert Mondavi entered a partnership with Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Château Mouton Rothschild, joining one of Napa’s most forceful champions with one of Bordeaux’s most

ROBERT MONDAVI

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CHARLES KRUG WINERY EMPLOYEES, CIRCA 1870S

celebrated names. Their project, Opus One, produced its first vintage in 1979 and became one of the defining luxury wines of the modern Napa Valley. Another French investment postParis Judgment came from Moët & Chandon, which established Domaine Chandon in 1976. In the 1980s and 1990s, another force began reshaping the valley: the critic. Robert Parker’s influence extended across the wine world, but Napa Cabernet Sauvignon proved well-suited to an era shaped by his palate. Many wines of ripe fruit, concentration, power, and generous oak were rewarded by Parker’s influential 100-point system, helping to create reputations and, in some cases, extraordinary demand. The emergence of highly sought-after estates such as Harlan and Screaming Eagle became part of a new Napa mythology: the cult Cabernet. As tourism expanded, Napa’s winery experiences became part of the region’s appeal. Estates such as Alpha Omega, Del Dotto, and Quintessa reflect different sides of modern Napa hospitality, from polished terrace tastings to opulent architectural drama. Today’s Napa goes well beyond wineries, encompassing destination restaurants and hotels.

BARDESSONO HOTEL AND SPA

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The French Laundry and Press keep Napa in the Michelin conversation, while restaurants such as The Charter Oak help define a more relaxed, contemporary style of dining in the valley. Luxury hotels such as Auberge du Soleil, Meadowood, and Bardessono Hotel and Spa confirm Napa as a destination beyond the tasting room.

ROBERT MONDAVI

Napa’s rise also helped change expectations of American wine far beyond the valley. Today, world-class wines emerge across California, from neighboring Sonoma and Mendocino to Santa Barbara and Paso Robles, in a range of varieties and styles unimaginable when Franciscan missionaries grew the Mission grape. In little more than a century, Napa Valley moved through phylloxera, Prohibition, and abandonment into a world of international acclaim, luxury, and wines collected alongside the most prestigious bottles of Europe.

ALPHA OMEGA TASTING ROOM

Immigrants brought their know-how and traditions and planted stakes in a land they did not know, only to see it threatened by disease, law, and economic hardship. Courageous souls with a fighting spirit built a region and a legacy for their future generations. Two hundred and fifty years after the founding of the nation, that may be the most American story Napa Valley has to tell.

BARDESSONO HOTEL AND SPA

DEL DOTTO ESTATE CAVE

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY OF CHARLES KRUG WINERY. COURTESEY OF ROBERT MONDAVI WINERY. COURTESY OF ALPHA OMEGA. COURTESY OF BARDESSONO HOTEL AND SPA. COURTESY OF DEL DOTTO. COURTESY OF BARDESSONO HOTEL AND SPA.

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EXPLORE

Alentejo DREAMING

VERMELHO MELIDES

This Sunlit Region of Southern Portugal is a Peaceful Oasis of Vineyards and Grand Estate Farms BY J.R. PATTERSON

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n a world of flattening sameness, Portugal retains a pleasing regionality. There is nothing truly “Portuguese,” except perhaps a penchant for bread and butter for breakfast, and even then, each of the nation’s 25 subregions will have its own particular bread on offer. Within the country, however, it’s largely recognized that no region quite matches the excellence, regarding bread or anything else, of the Alentejo. South and west of Lisbon, the Alentejo is Europe’s most sparsely populated area, a land of

wheat and wine, space and skyline, choral music and cork forests. The towns are little oases in the summer heat, white-washed caravanserai where stores peddle leather goods, horse tack, honeypots, and slabs of cork, and parasoled tables crowd the cobbles topped with coldpressed whites, hot açorda stew, and plates of braised wild boar. Smack in the middle of this territory is Montemor-o-Novo, a sleepy town once a place of rest and politics for the monarchs, bishops, and generals who finagled Iberia’s destiny. In

L’AND VINEYARDS

room is a lovely touch, but better still is the chance to concoct something unique with the “Make Your Own Wine” course. The opportunity also has a competitive edge, as the winner (decided not by taste, but by correctly guessing the composite grapes) gets to take home a bottle of their unique blend. The hotel will even hold onto the recipe for two years, should you care to come back for more, and members of the L’AND wine club might even add their bottle to their onsite curated collection.

the castle, the first Portuguese expedition to India was decided, sending Vasco de Gama onto the seas and changing the world forever. On its outskirts, in full view of the castle, is the sixhectare grounds of L’AND Vineyards. Unprepossessing in appearance (the sloping architecture by Márcio Kogan draws the eye away from the building, towards the private lake), L’AND is like a hamlet without a prince. Wine, naturally, is everywhere on the property, though less as an amenity than an organizing principle. A bottle bearing one’s name in the

The Alentejo shares several commonalities with North Africa (the menu at MAPA Restaurant strongly alludes to the flavors of the Maghreb), particularly the scorching temperatures, which in summer can reach up to 120°F. The locals are accordingly crepuscular, with little happening during the day. And while the spa provides an appropriately cool grotto in which to pass the heat of the day, at night, L’AND shepherds you outside with individual fireplaces, private plunge pools, and large skylights that douse the bed in starshine. Further south, in the lower Alentejo, grand estate farms dominate the countryside. Off the

highway, dirt tracks spiderweb over the hills, through the montado, the groves of olive and cork. Here, beyond the city of Beja, in 1998, the Soares family purchased 200 hectares of disused land and founded Herdade de Maladinha Nova, which today encompasses over 750 hectares of vineyards, olive trees, wheat, river, glen, and pastureland. They have transformed their property into a protected zone for local species, so native grasses are left unimpeded, and heritage breeds of Alentejano cattle, merino sheep, black pigs, and purebred Lusitanian horses graze amidst a landscape like a pointillist painting: a million dots of purple thistle, red poppies, and yellow margaritas. Five distantly placed buildings among that background constitute the accommodation (guests are given a golf cart to ferry themselves around), each of them reflecting the Alentejano classicalism with terracotta floors, wooden beams, and expansive terraces, but with all the marked modern enhancements. Guests are free to be as industrious or as indolent as they wish, though they have the run of this working farm: quad rides on the Issue 4 • 2026 41

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HERDADE DE MALADINHA NOVA

back roads, fishing for achigã (largemouth bass) in the farm’s reservoirs, cycling and picnicking in the vines, making pottery, or collecting honey with their apiarist. Years of privation have created an Alentejan propensity for sustainability and self-sufficiency. These, too, are Maladinha Nova’s tenants; soon, the property will be electrically independent while the olive oil, vegetables, meats, and wines are all funnelled into the onsite Michelin restaurant. Closer to the Atlantic coast, where rice fields meet lagoons, the Alentejo has been transformed

VERMELHO MELIDES

into an international destination. The beaches of Comporta have bloomed with construction and apartment blocks, a chaos of tourists and traffic. Yet pockets of traditionalism remain in the rolling hills inland from the sea. One such place is Melides, a village of whitewashed houses banded in yellow and blue, where the crowing of roosters, the Jurassic bill-clacking of storks, and church bells are the only sounds. Indeed, Melides is so offside that it’s surprising to learn Vermelho Melides, Christian Louboutin’s hospitality debut, is not some

antiquated manse, but a new build, sitting where only a few years ago was a wooded valley. Much of that woodland remains, a green backdrop to the splashy colour of the hotel (“Vermelho” being Portuguese for red, the hue pervades). Built new to look old—Manueline style, trimmed with ceramic ribbon and with a plethora of Portuguese tilework—much of the hotel’s furniture and art comes from Louboutin’s own collection, which he has gathered, magpie-style, from around the world: massive hunks of coral, Grecian marble statues, Maison Gatti chairs from Paris, original Bollywood movie posters. The effect is homey eccentricity, and indeed, with just 13 rooms, the hotel is intimate, almost secretive, with its in-and-outdoor staircases giving an Escher-like feel of continual rise and fall. In comparison to the hotel’s bold stylism, the restaurant Xtian is surprisingly restrained, specializing in traditional Alentejano seafood dishes, though sumptuous by Melides standards. The Alentejano poet Martinho Marques pondered “the wandering shadow of the distance that the afternoon spills over the open countryside” of his homeland. While it’s possible to stay and eat well, the land is not flashy. Luxury sheds its excess for space, silence, and sunlit horizons, and for travelers willing to adjust their tempo, the rewards are considerable.

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EXCLUSIVE

BY TOBY THOMPSON AND SI SI PENALOZA

or much of the last century, wealth announced itself through accumulation. Larger boats. Deeper cellars. Collections requiring their own square footage. Success occupied space with unapologetic confidence. The logic was almost architectural: if you had arrived, there ought to be something enormous proving it. That equation is beginning to invert.

The

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LIFE 44 JetsetMag.com

Some of the more intriguing expressions of privilege today work by subtraction. They remove waiting, exposure, logistics, strangers, decisions—the tiny abrasions of ordinary life. They are not so much selling abundance as editing inconvenience. Luxury used to promise a better seat at the table. Increasingly, it promises a smaller room.

LEFT: PHOTO BY NICO SCHINCO. BOTTOM : PHOTO COURTESY OF MAJOR FOOD GROUP

Inside the New Architecture of Private Membership, where the Most Coveted Privilege is the Disappearance of Interruption

A Martini Through the Looking Glass THE RA RA ROOM

BOTTOM RIGHT & TOP LEFT: PHOTOS BY NICO SCHINCO.

The Ra Ra Room is the first members-only private dining club inside a sports and entertainment venue. Opened in November 2024 inside Phoenix’s Mortgage Matchup Center, home to the Suns, the Mercury and major concerts, it isn’t merely a premium lounge to inhale dinner before tip-off. Members needn’t be attending anything at all. They can come simply because they would like an impeccable plate of pasta. On the event level, an entrance marked by a martini leads into The Ra Ra Room, created through a collaboration between Suns and Mercury owner Mat Ishbia and Major Food Group founders Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick and Rich Torrisi. Gensler and MFG’s design team conceived the interiors as a Gatsby-era supper club hidden inside the machinery of professional sport. There are two private dining spaces, a lounge and bar, and a gourmet snack pantry. But the room makes considerably more sense once the food arrives. The menu is generous and entirely uninterested in pretending dinner ought to improve your moral character. Spicy Rigatoni Vodka is the

sort of pasta that makes sharing feel like a clerical error. Caesar alla ZZ is made tableside, because even lettuce deserves an entrance when dressed so divinely. Mario’s Meatballs and Veal Parmesan carry the heavy Italian-American artillery, while Chicken Milanese arrives crisp, bright and well-behaved by comparison. Then things get carnivorous: steaks arrive alongside a raw bar of oysters, king crab, lobster and yellowtail ceviche. These are recognizable pleasures given enough theater to make familiarity feel illicit again. Dessert includes a six-layer carrot cake, less a slice than a small architectural event. The arena becomes merely the address. The club becomes the destination. Which brings us back to that martini. No explanation. No marquee. Privacy, increasingly, is moving into conspicuously public places, separated from thousands of people by little more than a door and the knowledge that the door is there. And perhaps that is The Ra Ra Room’s cleverest trick. It hasn’t removed its members from the spectacle. It’s given them somewhere private from which to decide how much of the spectacle they would like.

The New Life Aquatic ARMADA CLUB Armada Club removes the building altogether. Its proposition is striking precisely because of what members do not need to acquire: the yacht itself. The club is built around access to a global fleet for private dinners, business lunches, meetings and wellness experiences aboard yachts in port or at anchor, without fractional ownership or a syndicate sitting awkwardly behind the curtain. This is a small conceptual revolution disguised as dinner. Yachting has traditionally been organized around possession or charter, both involving considerable commitments of money, time and choreography. Armada isolates perhaps the most seductive portion—the privacy, service and improbable serenity of a beautifully appointed vessel—and detaches it from ownership. The distinction has become increasingly valuable in cities where privacy is porous. Restaurants have private rooms, but private rooms still have corridors, kitchens, cameras, other guests and the subtle social risk of being observed entering them. A yacht at anchor establishes a more convincing border. The gangway is both entrance and moat. On board, luxury becomes granular: dinner prepared in a galley accustomed to charter-level hospitality, a handwritten note from the chef, serious fitness facilities, and on some yachts wellness technology extending to cryotherapy or hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The vessel becomes less transportation than atmosphere supported by marine engineering. There is wit in the immobility of it. For generations, the yacht symbolized freedom because it could go anywhere. Here, it can become valuable precisely because no one else can easily follow. The vessel barely moves. The boundary does all the work. Issue 4 • 2026 45

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The Mountain, Domesticated THE ALPINE CLUB At 10,540 feet in Telluride, The Alpine Club will debut in summer 2027. Set within San Sophia Station, where the gondola connects downtown Telluride with Mountain Village, the forthcoming club is conceived as Telluride’s first fully private, on-mountain club—a 26,000-square-foot attempt to make the mountain feel less like somewhere one visits than somewhere one belongs. Developed by Southworth in partnership with longtime Telluride residents Scott and Lauren Woodward, the project proposes something more ambitious than privileged ski access. The plan folds dining, recovery, conversation and adventure into one continuous altitude, creating what amounts to a private basecamp suspended between town and mountain. Pembrooke & Ives is designing the interiors, with weathered woods, aged metals and saddle leathers intended to draw the landscape indoors without turning the place into an alpine costume. The old ski lodge treated comfort as aftermath. One endured the mountain, then returned to warmth. The Alpine Club is being designed to erase that border. Plans call for sauna and massage rooms, a cold plunge, fitness center, indoor/outdoor après lounge, dedicated 46 JetsetMag.com

kids room and golf, gaming and multi-sport simulator room with cinema alongside worldclass dining and gathering spaces. Members are also expected to have private lockers and gear waiting where they need it, allowing the practical machinery of a ski day to recede quietly into the background. The distinction matters. Ski culture has traditionally fetishized conquest: first tracks, vertical feet, gradients, black diamonds, the heroic ache in the quadriceps that proves one did not come merely for lunch.

The emerging alpine ritual is increasingly interested in what happens between those moments—the recovery as much as the descent, the lunch as much as the lift, the hour by the fire as much as the hour spent above the tree line. Because once a destination develops rituals, familiarity and repetition, it stops behaving entirely like a destination. That may be The Alpine Club’s real proposition: not simply privileged access to the mountain, but the possibility of making the mountain feel privately continuous.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ALPINE CLUB

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The Nineteenth Hole in Flagstaff, AZ PINE CANYON Pine Canyon occupies more than 600 acres of northern Arizona high country, set among Ponderosa pines with the San Francisco Peaks rising beyond them. More than simply a golf club, it is a private residential community organized around a broader proposition: mountain life with golf as its gravitational center. That center is the championship course designed by Jay Morrish, currently ranked No. 6 in Arizona by Golf Digest for 2025–26. The routing works through towering pines, elevation changes, streams and ponds, with the surrounding peaks periodically asserting themselves beyond the fairways. Broad landing areas can make the course appear forgiving from a distance. Golf, as usual, has other ideas. Eighteen holes make up the championship course proper. Then comes an encore. The bonus par-3 19th is called “Double or Nothing,” an island-green proposition intended to settle wagers that have somehow survived the preceding four hours. It is the kind of detail that reveals more about a club than another inventory of amenities. The serious golf is ostensibly finished. Then somebody gives you one last opportunity to make matters considerably worse.

Beyond the scorecard, a 35,000-square-foot clubhouse houses dining, spa and fitness facilities, while hiking, biking, fishing, family programming and winter recreation extend the community beyond golf season. The course may be Pine Canyon’s centerpiece, but it is not the entire picture. The larger proposition is a private mountain life that continues after the eighteenth green. Pine Canyon’s aviation program says more about the evolving psychology of membership than another inventory of amenities ever could. Through its private aviation program with PrismJet, members can arrange on-demand charter flights from Scottsdale Airport to Flagstaff with 48 hours’ notice, with aircraft ranging from a King Air 350i to a Global 5000. Booking happens through the Pine Canyon app, an almost comic compression of two previously distinct worlds: private aviation and the casual tap-and-go psychology of ridesharing. The club no longer begins at the gate. It reaches backward into the journey, annexing the time before arrival. That may be contemporary privilege in its purest form: not speed for the exhilaration of speed, but the refusal to surrender an afternoon unnecessarily.

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EXCLUSIVE

When Obsession Requires Architecture THE HANGAR GROUP BOTTOM LEFT: PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLULA COLLECTIONS

Eventually, possessions develop architectural ambitions. The Hangar Group begins with a problem rarely discussed in polite company: what happens when a collection outgrows the house? Its private garage condominiums in West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach—and a forthcoming Hamptons location— are customizable spaces for cars, art, wine and whatever other passions have exceeded the patience of residential architecture. Owners gain not merely storage but equity membership and access to a social world built around collecting. Inside, the spaces become galleries, cocktail rooms, wine rooms, private museums and architectural autobiographies. One owner may arrange automobiles beneath museum lighting. Another builds a bar beside racing memorabilia. There is something revealing in that inversion. Collecting is generally portrayed as acquisitive—a procession of objects accumulating provenance, insurance premiums and increasingly nervous conversations with one’s spouse. But here the collection becomes inhabitable. Cars are no longer hidden beneath covers and visited during battery checks. They become scenery. Art isn’t accommodated by whatever wall remains available after the interior designer has finished. The walls become its attendants. The Palm Beach International Airport location, comprising 68 privately owned hangars, sold out within six months of completion, according to the company. More interesting than the

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velocity is what owners did after acquiring them. Blank interiors became highly personal worlds, part showroom and part salon, animated by invitation-only events, “Hangar Crawls,” private track experiences and journeys such as a multiday drive through the Dolomites. Ownership here is not solitary. Obsession becomes social currency. The private club historically gathered people around resemblance: similar schools, industries, neighborhoods, surnames murmured over similar dining tables. The Hangar gathers them around appetite. The result is less inherited society than elective tribe. One belongs because one understands why a particular chassis, canvas or vintage might reasonably deserve a room more considered than most Manhattan apartments.

Beyond the Trophy Bottle YES SOCIETY After hidden dining rooms, mountains, aircraft, hangars and yachts, wine might appear almost quaint. It isn’t. Yes Society, founded by Antica Terra winemaker Maggie Harrison and shaped alongside wine director Tynan Pierce, approaches membership through discovery rather than spectacle. Members encounter rare allocations, limited releases, a marketplace, sommelier guidance and wines sourced through relationships with established and emerging producers. The society says nearly 100 wines in its portfolio are available only through it in the United States or globally. Wine collecting has always lived uneasily between sensuality and accounting. A cellar may be a library of weather, labor, geology and time. It may also be a taxidermy display of labels too valuable to open. The savviest collectors know the difference, though their dinner guests occasionally do not. Yes Society leans toward the library. Members discover Slovenian wines, Collio in Friuli, unfamiliar Champagne and bottles from small producers they might otherwise never encounter. They speak about the accompanying explanations—where the grapes were planted, who grew them, what decisions were made in the cellar—as integral to experiencing what eventually reaches the glass. This is connoisseurship with the stage lighting dimmed. The bottle may still be scarce, but scarcity alone has become an exhausted form of status. Rarity can be purchased by anyone with sufficient capital, speed and advice. Discernment takes longer. It requires knowing why something matters before asking what

it costs. That makes Yes Society an apt final room in this new architecture of membership. The earlier clubs remove obstacles from the body: the crowd, the journey, the logistics, the exposure, the problem of where to put the collection. This one removes an obstacle from perception. It replaces the anxiety of choice with the pleasure of context. A bottle arrives not merely as an object but as a plot. There is a grower, a patch of earth, a difficult season, a decision in the cellar, some stubborn human reason why this wine tastes unlike the one beside it. Knowledge doesn’t diminish pleasure. It gives pleasure more surfaces. And perhaps this is where the frictionless life becomes complicated. Friction is not always the enemy. Waiting can sharpen appetite. Travel can enlarge arrival. Confusion can produce discovery. A wrong turn may become the only portion of a journey worth retelling. Remove every inconvenience and life risks acquiring the eerie smoothness of a hotel corridor at three in the morning. The more intelligent private clubs seem to understand this. They remove administrative friction while preserving sensory difficulty. The goal isn’t perfection. That may be the deeper meaning of these new private spaces. They aren’t simply hiding wealth from view. They are editing experience with unusual precision, separating inconvenience from texture, delay from anticipation, exposure from sociability. They build small, selective worlds inside the larger one and decide, door by door, what may enter. Issue 4 • 2026 49

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OUTDOORS

CDA National Reserve Redefines the Club Experience by Combining WorldClass Golf with Outdoor Adventures and Longevity BY TOBY THOMPSON

sk any avid golfer what they look for in a private club and at the top of their list would likely be an extremely scenic, expertly designed course with plenty of challenges. But when you find that course in a pristine, lakeside wilderness setting in Idaho and it’s accompanied by a full menu of outdoor adventures and wellness amenities, it takes the experience to a whole new level. That’s what you’ll discover when you visit CDA National Reserve, an incredible, 1,000-acre private club and nature preserve in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. First things first. The club is easy to get to—it’s just an hour’s drive from Spokane International Airport. Or, even more conveniently, if you’re flying private, it’s less than 40 miles from the StanCraft Jet Center, the FBO at Coeur d’Alene Airport (KCOE). Once you arrive at the club, you’ll quickly discover just how much there is to do. Let’s start with golf. The 18-hole championship course was designed by Tom Weiskopf and he made maximum use of the forested terrain and absolutely stunning (albeit distracting) views of Lake Coeur d’Alene. While you’re on this magnificent course, you might even spot a few elk, moose, deer or bald eagles playing through. The course’s signature hole, #15, is a par-3 that requires a downhill tee shot to your choice of two greens. Your efforts will be rewarded, though, with a visit to the hole’s taco stand, appropriately named La Vista. 50 JetsetMag.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CDA NATIONAL RESERVE

Playing the Long Game

HOLE #15

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OUTDOORS

Next up is The Lakehouse, your destination for boating and water sports. It features a private, 13-slip marina and a dedicated boat concierge ready to assist you with booking the club’s custom StanCraft boat or a pontoon, wakeboarding or fishing boat. You’ll also find easy access to paddleboards, kayaks and water sports gear and there’s even a floating waterpark for the whole family to enjoy. After a day of adventures out on the water, you can relax by one of the fire pits or grab a bite to eat or your favorite beverage at the lakeside lounge. When you’re ready to take on even more activities, head to The Outpost where you can play pickleball or tennis, hit the gym, take a fitness class, tackle the rock-climbing wall, or do a few laps in the pool. Or, you can grab a mountain bike and head out on the club’s extensive trail system. Then, to wind down, you can relax in the Scandinavian sauna or take a refreshing dip in the cold plunge.

BEVERLY’S AT COEUR D’ALENE RESORT

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A visit to The Reserve is a unique experience outdoors enthusiasts won’t want to miss. It offers

BOTTOM: COURTESY OF BEVERLY’S AT COEUR D’ALENE RESORT. TOP : COURTESY OF CDA NATIONAL RESERVE

THE OUTPOST

THE LAKEHOUSE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CDA NATIONAL RESERVE

exclusive access to a pristine wilderness area dedicated to exhilarating activities such as axe throwing, horseback riding, hiking, hunting and shooting sporting clays. There’s even a new ninehole archery course. The club has an Outdoor Experience Team dedicated to planning and overseeing activities both on and off the property and making the most of each experience. If you’re traveling with kids, they’ll be happy to know they can join the CDA Explorers Club where they can participate in fun activities like archery, paddleboarding, fishing, scavenger hunts, nature treks and yes, naturally, lakeside s’mores. It’s a great place to make fun memories along with some new friends. Another element that really sets CDA National Reserve apart from many other private clubs is its focus on wellness and longevity. It offers a Premier Longevity Membership in partnership with the local integrated medical practice, Clinic 5C. Designed to help members optimize their personal wellness, the program includes a monthly IV infusion, quarterly appointments, custom supplements and health plans and an Oura ring to optimize the tracking of essential health data. The membership also

FAIRWAY LODGES NORTH

THE CLUBHOUSE

includes access to recovery treatments such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy and the use of an infrared sauna and ozone or red-light therapies. According to the club, members also receive “exclusive pricing for stem cell therapies, stem cell banking and other regenerative therapies to aid in healing, recovery and rejuvenation.” The real estate ownership opportunities at CDA National Reserve are truly exceptional. If you’d like to design your own home, a number of custom homesites are available and the club maintains a list of preferred builders they can recommend to you. Or, if the convenience of a move-in ready residence appeals to you, you can choose one of the Fairway Lodges (priced from $2.175 million), a limited collection of three-bedroom, 3.5-bath homes beautifully positioned along the 17th fairway of the golf course. They each feature a contemporary mountain design that pairs wood and stone finishes to honor the area’s rugged terrain. Among the lodge homes’ other amenities are an open floor plan, floor-to-ceiling windows, a chef ’s kitchen and dual primary suites. Homes in the section called Fairway Lodges South have the added advantage of a separate casita to provide extra space to host guests.

CDA National Reserve offers everything you could possibly desire, including excellent dining, so there’s really no reason to leave the property. But should you decide to, you may want to check out Coeur d’Alene’s charming downtown area which dates back to 1888. It’s easily accessible by boat or car. If you’re lucky enough to be there at dinnertime, you’ll do very well to book a reservation at Beverly’s at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Located on the seventh floor of the resort’s Lake Tower, the restaurant offers spectacular views of the lake along with mouth-watering signature entrees such as Hot Rock Filet Mignon, Wild King Salmon and Lobster Macaroni & Cheese. It also boasts the Pacific Northwest’s Largest Wine Cellar. Be sure to save room for the Huckleberry Baked Alaska or the decadent Chocolate Macadamia Caramel Layer Cake. There’s another very unique factor you’ll discover when you visit CDA National Reserve. Even though it’s an exclusive private club, it doesn’t give off the stuffy vibes that so many private clubs do. In fact, they’ve managed to do something very impressive. They’ve created a club that’s super luxurious and ultra private while being super laid back at the same time.

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There’s No Place Like

HOME PHOTO COURTESY OF ROLLS -ROYCE

Jetset takes an inside look at what makes Rolls-Royce tick, from its factory to its rural home. And why exactly you need to visit.

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BY MATT CHAPPELL

olls-Royce has long been synonymous with effortless luxury, and it should be no surprise that it set up shop in a quiet corner of England that mirrors this image. West Sussex, a beautiful, rural, quintessentially British county, is home to grand estates, Michelin-starred kitchens, and plenty of award-winning vineyards. Like its prestigious motoring resident, it knows true luxury rarely announces its arrival. To truly understand a brand like Rolls-Royce, it’s necessary to make the pilgrimage to its home.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROLLS- ROYCE

Rolls-Royce HQ is tucked away on the famous Goodwood Estate in Chichester, West Sussex, so discreetly that, from the road, you’d barely know it was there. Designed in 2003 by awardwinning architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, known for The Eden Project, the factory is partially sunken into the hillside. Its famous 8-acre living roof, the largest in the U.K., is covered in hardy sedum plants so wonderful that even national broadcasting treasure Alan Titchmarsh walked it in search of groundnesting skylarks for the BBC. Floor-to-ceiling windows flood the Assembly Hall with natural light along its entire length, which Rolls-Royce calls “the glass mile.” All of this is not an accident; it’s a sustainable philosophy. Every car built here has already sold. Every Rolls-Royce is a bespoke creation and built by hand. The cars go through a variety of stations — 16 in the case of the Ghost. Its coachlines are painted freehand with a brush made of squirrel hair, and the paint shop adds up to 20 individual layers of lacquer, hand-polished to brilliance over four hours. It delivers what Rolls-Royce describes as a “piano finish.” There are Champagne coolers calibrated to the precise serving temperature of different Champagnes. One customer had a microwave installed for warm guest hand towels. Another had their car painted to match their Chanel lipstick. Nothing, just nothing, is too absurd. Issue 4 • 2026 55

It is against this backdrop, this obsession with perfection, that Jetset climbed into the Black Badge Ghost. The Black Badge is Rolls-Royce’s darker alter ego, its signature luxury with a maverick edge. Blacked-out chrome, “technical fiber” cabin trim, and a darkened Spirit of Ecstasy. Little signals that this is no ordinary beast.

Its West Sussex base, explored from behind the wheel of the Black Badge Ghost, reveals itself at its own pace. The first stop is Gravetye Manor, a grand Elizabethan house built in 1598 and set within 35 acres of gardens. William

GRAVETYE MANOR

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GRAVETYE MANOR

TOP 2 PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ROLLS -ROYCE. BOTTOM 3 PHOTOS : COURTESY OF GRAVETYE MANOR.

Under the hood, a 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 pumps out 600PS and 900Nm of torque. That’s massive. Flicked on via the steering column, the Low Mode halves gear-change times and makes the V12 a little bit louder. This car can feel like a boat on water, wafting through country lanes, and shutting out the outside noise like a tranquil cocoon. The starlight headliner, hundreds of individual fiber-optic stars hand-threaded through the roof lining, turns the cabin into a private planetarium. But squeeze the throttle and this 2-ton-plus car eats up corners in the twisties so well that it’s regularly put on track by the British marque. The Ghost is not a car that asks you to choose between comfort and performance. It delivers both simultaneously.

BOTTOM LEFT PHOTO : © CÉSAR AND CLAUDIO OITICICA, COURTESY LISSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARIA BELL. BOTTOM RIGHT PHOTO : PHOTOGRAPH BY LUCY DAWKINS, COURTESY OF GOODWOOD ART FOUNDATION.

GRAVETYE MANOR

HÉLIO OITICICA, MAGIC SQUARE #3 (1978; 2026). INSTALLED AT GOODWOOD ART FOUNDATION, UK

Robinson, the pioneering gardener who bought the estate in 1884 and spent 50 years reimagining what an English garden could be, set in motion a legacy that still defines the place today. The walled kitchen garden supplies a Michelin-starred restaurant that uses vegetables, fruits and herbs grown in the backyard. Seventeen rooms, each named for a tree on the estate, provide guests with rest that touches the soul. Log fires. Ancient wood paneling. The kind of deep, unhurried hospitality that takes generations to perfect. A short drive through the South Downs brings you to Wiston Estate, where the Goring family has farmed its ancient chalk downland since 1743. Whilst the vineyards produce wines that win serious international acclaim, it is Chalk

that demands your attention. The restaurant holds a place in the Michelin Guide 2026 and was named Restaurant of the Year at the Beautiful South Awards 2025-26. Set in a restored 18th-century barn, the setting is rustic chic, and the food runs off a six-course set Estate Menu. It houses delights that bring together homegrown produce farmed and foraged in or around the Wiston Estate and Sussex coast. This is a place that inspires you to get lost in the moment, in the joy of your senses, and leave unsurprised by its many accolades. Then there is the Goodwood Art Foundation, which opened in 2025 on the historic Goodwood Estate, sharing its home with regular motoring enthusiast events like the Festival of Speed

ISAMU NOGUCHI, OCTETRA ( THREE ELEMENT- STACK ) (1968-2021). INSTALLED AT GOODWOOD ART FOUNDATION

and Goodwood Revival. Seventy acres of ancient woodland and wildflower meadows form the backdrop for a year-round program of contemporary art exhibitions and landscape design by Dan Pearson, curated by Ann Gallagher. For those who find rejuvenation, discovery and tranquility in the pursuit of great art, this is surely top of the list to visit. With installations that will leave you speechless on a hazy summer’s evening. It is both magical and awe-inspiring. They say what you surround yourself with, you become. Rolls-Royce chose this county for a reason, amongst brands that live by the same standards it does but also rise up as a result. Spend a day here and not only will you understand why, but you’ll also understand Rolls-Royce on a deeper level. Issue 4 • 2026 57

The Devil,

REBORN Inside Emanuel Colombini’s Limited-Edition Rebirth of the Lamborghini Diablo BY SIMON ROBERTS

ECCENTRICA V12

hy would Emanuel Colombini choose to take one of the unruliest Lamborghinis in history and find a way to update it, to reimagine it, and to harness its essence without killing its spirit? To fully explain the complete reimagining of a supercar that is regarded by many as one of Lamborghini’s most iconic cars, you must look at its origins. If you grew up in the 1990s, as Emanuel Colombini did, you would undoubtedly know Lamborghini’s Project 132, or as it was called when it was released in 1990, Diablo. The Diablo was a low-slung, V12 powered, mid-engined, feral wedge designed by the late 58 JetsetMag.com

Marcello Gandini, if not the devil himself. Gandini designed previous icons for Lamborghini such as the Miura and the Countach, as well as the legendary Stratos for Lancia, among others. It is fair to say that a sleek, sexy, and mid-engined aesthetic was in Gandini’s design language. That said, the Diablo was set apart from other cars by its single-minded “ragion d’essere,” its reason to exist. Yes, it was designed to be sleek, beautiful, and powerful, but that was all in the service of its underlying purpose, going faster than the Porsche 959, the car that brought humanity to the doorstep of the 200-mph production car barrier (197 mph in 1986), and the Ferrari

F40, the one that stepped across the threshold first (201-mph in 1987). The Diablo was Lamborghini’s 1990, 202-mph answer to the emerging European supercar arms race. There are some predictable problems that arise when your goal is speed above all else. It comes at a cost. That cost, in the case of the early versions of the Diablo, was its notoriously unruly driving characteristics. This was due not only to its massive V12’s raw power and spartan mechanical controls, but also its jealous nature that demanded an experienced driver with near professional-level throttle discipline, who could provide constant and full attention to this unforgiving physics experiment. It was not just a sexy supercar; it was an existential threat to those who lacked the skill and fortitude to dance with the devil. An overzealous throttle decision transferred the well-balanced weight of the mid-mounted V12 to the colossal rear wheels, locking them into an unhealthy relationship with the surface. This produced a light front end and an understeer which would push the car wide of the driver’s intended driving line and assuredly toward an inconveniently placed tree. Most people, alarmed by the feeling, sight, and sound of the unresponsive front wheels would instinctively turn the wheel harder into the corner, and lift off the throttle completely in an attempt to regain their intended driving line away from said tree. These drivers would become instantly familiar with the term “lift-off oversteer” when the weight shifted instantly forward to the front wheels, inducing an aggressive swing of the backend that now was headed toward the same aforementioned tree, except now facing backwards. This kept most people at a respectful distance from the Diablo. Emanuel Colombini is not most people, and he wants to dance with the devil. Colombini’s Diablo story begins, like so many of them do, with a magazine. He has described flipping through a magazine as a teen and locking eyes with a Diablo on the page, an experience so strong that few other cars have left as deep an impression on him since. Years later, with the means to close the loop as president of his family-run furniture company, he began collecting Lamborghinis. Eventually,

ECCENTRICA V12

EMANUEL COLOMBINI

ECCENTRICA V12

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that led to racing in the Super Trofeo series, and two first-generation Diablos, including a Diablo GT. Those two cars became the reference points when he established Eccentrica Cars to create an exclusive, 19-car homage to a legend. It’s worth understanding why he chose the Diablo specifically, rather than other Lamborghinis like the Miura or Countach. The Diablo occupies a place in Lamborghini history where Chrysler had taken a controlling stake in the company and insisted on industrial rigor being incorporated into the design rather than just the artistic improvisation of Marcello Gandini. Colombini has argued that this interstitial space left the Diablo with room for refinement, something a Miura, already close to perfection, would not provide. This space created the opportunity for Colombini and his team to operate. When asked about the line between reinvention and preserving heritage, Colombini said “For me, heritage is about preserving the feeling, not every single physical component. The Diablo has such a unique character, and that was something we never wanted to lose. Modern engineering allows us to purify the experience without changing what makes the car special. If the emotion is still there every time you get behind the wheel, then I believe you’ve respected the legacy.” A furniture magnate rebuilding a limited production run (19) of a 1990s supercar restomod could easily be written off as a vanity project, but that’s where Colombini did something else unexpected. Colombini went out and recruited one of the best qualified people to help him do it, Maurizio Reggiani, Lamborghini’s former CTO and head of motorsport, who is credited with engineering the Murcielago, Gallardo, Aventador, and Urus. Colombini somehow pulled him back out of retirement to help rebirth this legendary car. To create one of Colombini’s Eccentrica V12s, his team starts with a genuine Diablo (first gen 1990-1994, provided by the customer), strips it down to its bare chassis and rebuilds it around a fully reengineered 5.7-liter naturally aspirated V12. The builders then fit

ECCENTRICA ROADSTER

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ECCENTRICA ROADSTER

all the improved engineering that was not available to the original Diablo engineers in the late 80s. This includes improved camshafts, an electronic throttle body, and an ECU that orchestrate roughly 542–550 horsepower and 442 lb-ft of torque and send it to the rear wheels via the six-speed manual gearbox. Eccentrica quotes a 0–100 km/h time of about 3.8 seconds and a top speed near 208 mph. That puts this

thirty-five-year-old silhouette within shouting distance of current supercar numbers. This is not your run-of-the-mill restomod.

ECCENTRICA ROADSTER

Eccentrica’s founding premise is simple in theory but wildly complicated in practice. As Colombini puts it, “We didn’t approach this project with the idea of explicitly improving what Lamborghini created; the question we asked ourselves was much simpler. If the original engineers had access to today’s technology and materials, how might the Diablo have evolved while staying true to its identity?” The modern updates don’t end there. The body panels are made of carbon fiber and it has a stiffened chassis and enlarged suspension. Brembo brakes get improved cooling ducts behind the 19-inch front and 20-inch rear forged carbon-aluminum wheels. Inside, the cabin is trimmed in bespoke materials alongside a modern fire-suppression system and a redesigned steering wheel. Eccentrica’s timing is not an accident. As the broader automotive industry pushes toward electrification and more disconnected cabins, a sector of the collector world has started pushing back. This is reflected in the ascent of restomod powerhouses like Singer, Gunther Werks, and now, Eccentrica, that focus on the reclamation of the driving experience. What sets Eccentrica apart is the specificity of its target customer. Colombini bet on a car most considered a transitional anomaly crowbarred awkwardly between Lamborghini’s artisanal past and its Audi-owned future.

ECCENTRICA ROADSTER

That bet looks increasingly like a good one. With Reggiani now reportedly eyeing whether the Murciélago could be next in line, Eccentrica has positioned itself not as a car-specific restomod house, but as something unique, even eccentric, a company where the founder’s own bedroom poster effectively became the founding document. Few executives get to resurrect their childhood dream car. Fewer still convince a legendary engineer into coming out of retirement to help do it. And fewer still have actually done it. Issue 4 • 2026 61

Art Adapta The

Paris Hilton on Fame, Power and Playing the Long Game BY SI SI PENALOZA COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY NINO MUÑOZ

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PHOTO BY KEVIN SIKORSKY

tion

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PHOTO BY KEVIN SIKORSKY

he first time I met Paris Hilton, nobody knew yet that Paris Hilton was the future. It was Sundance 2004, at one of those parties that seemed entirely ephemeral until an entire era grew nostalgic for them. William Morris Independent was throwing the buzziest party with the tightest guest list, and in my iCloud is a photograph I captured that night: Hilton, then 22, talking with Peter Fonda, while André 3000 appears over her shoulder as though I’d been given advance notice of posterity. I was a young entertainment reporter for ELLE, and none of us had any particular reason to think we were standing inside history. We did not have creators. The concept of “personal brands” was in its infancy. We did not have Instagram, TikTok or an economy devoted to monetizing the performance of everyday life. We had Paris Hilton. “Oh my God, yes,” Hilton laughs, confronted with this little archaeological dig from 22 years ago. “That was amazing. It was so much fun back in the day.” She was one of the reigning figures of the great nocturnal republic of the early aughts—a world of velvet ropes and flip phones, where fame traveled by paparazzi flash rather than push notification and even stars still enjoyed the now-exotic possibility of leaving the house without leaving a digital record. Hilton was then routinely described as “famous for being famous,” a phrase intended to suggest an absence where a talent ought to have been. “What people called nothing was actually something they just didn’t have a name for yet,” she ventures further on our call. “I

be in,” she tells me. And then, with the timing of someone who has had years to perfect the punch line: “I’m not a dumb blonde. I was just very good at pretending to be one.” The ultimate luxury, however, may be authorship. A24 is developing a scripted television adaptation of her 2023 New York Times bestseller, Paris: The Memoir, produced with Dakota and Elle Fanning’s Lewellen Pictures and Hilton’s own 11:11 Media, with Hilton among its executive producers. The Fannings have said they want to reconcile the outward Paris—the glitz, the glamour, the Chihuahuas—with the darker history underneath it. It is an unusually apt brief. “The tabloids created one story about me. Reality TV created another version,” Hilton says. “And then with the documentary and the memoir, that was really the first time I felt like I was taking ownership of my story and showing the parts that people had never seen.” There is a pleasing irony in this. For much of her early fame, Hilton existed as a collection of instantly reproducible signatures—the voice, the wardrobe, the vocabulary, the mannerisms—while the person who originated them was treated as almost beside the point. Now the imitation has acquired the dignity of adaptation. Asked how she regards the younger Paris, Hilton says she feels protective of her—and proud. “Because I was just myself.” The culture copied Paris Hilton long before it thought to read her. Now A24 is doing precisely that. There’s something almost Borgesian about the arrangement: Paris Hilton, once accused of turning herself into a

“ I UNDERSTOOD VERY EARLY THE POWER OF A PERSONAL BRAND AND BUILDING A BRAND AROUND YOUR PERSONALITY, YOUR TASTE AND YOUR LIFE. BACK THEN THERE WAS NO CREATOR ECONOMY, NO SOCIAL MEDIA AND NO BLUEPRINT FOR TURNING CULTURAL RELEVANCE INTO A GLOBAL BRAND.” understood very early the power of a personal brand and building a brand around your personality, your taste and your life. Back then there was no creator economy, no social media and no blueprint for turning cultural relevance into a global brand.” These days, “famous for being famous” has a less pejorative name: the creator economy. The misunderstanding was useful. Hilton discovered early that being underestimated could function as a kind of commercial camouflage. While the culture was busy inventorying Kathy and Rick Hilton’s eldest heir—the pedigree, the Manhattan nightlife, the boyfriends, feuds and endless tabloid weather—Paris was quietly taking inventory of something else: what, exactly, all that attention might be worth. “People saw the blonde hair, the pink, the sparkles and the party girl and assumed I wasn’t paying attention to the business side,” she recalls with amusement. “But I always was.” She points to her fragrance empire, which she says she has been involved with from the beginning, as an early example of the distinction between Paris the spectacle and Paris the operator. “Being underestimated can be a very powerful position to

character, will now help select the actress entrusted with turning the character back into a person. There are, however, other ways to manufacture a Paris Hilton. An actress requires permission; AI requires no such courtesy. More than two decades after the nonconsensual distribution of an intimate recording made Hilton’s private life a form of public property, she has found herself on Capitol Hill advocating for the DEFIANCE Act, bipartisan legislation that would expand federal civil remedies for victims of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes, allowing them to sue those who knowingly create or circulate them under specified circumstances. The woman whom the early internet treated as content is now helping to argue for the legal right not to become content—a reversal sufficiently improbable that TIME this year named her to its TIME100 AI as an “Advocate against deepfakes.” I ask Hilton whether there is an almost grotesque historical logic to all of this: whether AI, by making it possible to manufacture a convincing sexual image of a woman who never participated in its creation, has finally exposed

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the absurdity of victim-blaming. “AI can create something that never even happened and make it look completely real,” she says. “That is terrifying because it can happen to anyone.” Technology, in other words, has accomplished something the tabloids of the early aughts largely failed to do: it has made the absence of consent impossible to confuse with participation. But legislation can move faster than shame. I ask Hilton when she first understood that the shame the media had assigned to her did not, in fact, belong to her. “It took me a long time to understand that,” she says. “For so many years, the way people talked about what happened made me feel like I was the one who should be ashamed.” It was only after speaking with other survivors, she says, that the moral geometry began to right itself: being famous did not constitute consent; being seen did not mean surrendering the right to privacy. “Now I know that I shouldn’t be ashamed,” she says. “It should be the ones who hurt me.” There is something devastatingly elementary about the conclusion, particularly because it took the culture so long to arrive there with her. Now, in the age of the deepfake, we have finally invented a technology capable of demonstrating just how false that equation always was. Long before Hilton had an image to lose control of, she had lost control of something more elemental. In written testimony submitted to Congress and, later, in an appearance before the House Ways and Means Committee in 2024, Hilton described being sent through a succession of youth residential facilities, culminating in Provo Canyon School. Across those institutions, she testified that she was force-fed medication, sexually abused by staff, violently restrained and dragged through hallways, stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement. Communication with the outside world, she has said, was monitored, leaving her effectively unable to tell her family what was happening. Did returning all these years later feel like justice, I ask, or merely evidence of how long justice can take? Hilton grows emotional. She calls it “the most terrifying experience” and remembers having “everything taken away from me.” Then she returns to the promise she had made to herself there: “One day I’m going to work so hard and become so successful that no one will ever be able to control me or tell me what to do ever again.” Success, of course, is not a form of justice. It can buy autonomy; it cannot confer it retroactively. There is something chilling about a child having to dream of success as a form of rescue. At Provo, Hilton tells me, “I felt completely powerless, and I felt like nobody would believe me.” At 17, the institution possessed all the credibility; Hilton possessed virtually none of it. That imbalance is what makes her return nearly three decades later so striking. She came back alongside other survivors to find the equation almost unimaginably reversed: this time, people in power were listening. She describes seeing the state revoke the licenses of the boys’ and girls’ campuses as profoundly meaningful. “And obviously it doesn’t erase what happened,” she says. “But knowing that people finally listened to us is incredibly powerful. And knowing that no other children must go through that hell in that place has been one of the most healing experiences of my life.” There is another, quieter way Hilton has attempted to keep the promise she made to that girl. Motherhood has returned her, inevitably, to the question of what a childhood ought to feel like. Watching her threeyear-old son Phoenix and two-year-old daughter London grow up “feeling loved and safe,” she observes, has made her think differently about her own childhood. “I can’t change what happened to me, but I can make sure that my children always feel protected and supported and that they know they can come to me about anything.” She talks about looking into their faces and seeing “these little innocent babies,” with the particular vigilance of someone who knows how completely adults

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Y2K is back, I’m like, it never left my closet,” she muses playfully. She never stopped wearing the pink or the crystals, she explains; the culture simply departed and eventually circled back. I ask her, accordingly, to imagine herself as a grandmother and the Met mounting the inevitable retrospective: Paris Hilton and the Invention of the 21st Century. What absolutely has to go behind glass? She doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely 100 percent the Julien Macdonald dress for my 21st birthday,” she declares, referring to the shimmering silver chainmail dress that became one of the defining images of her early fame. “That dress is so iconic to me, and I love that people still are inspired and recreate that look. So it’s definitely earned a place behind glass.” Earned is an unexpectedly apt word for it. A 21st-birthday dress is not ordinarily required to survive anything more strenuous than a 21st birthday party. This one survived long enough to become a reference. The party dress became an artifact; the punch line became period style; the supposedly ephemeral woman became an archivist of her own ephemera. And somewhere inside that dressing suite is a two-year-old girl trying on her mother’s clothes, unaware of the improbable journey they have made to reach her. She does not know which ones were photographed outside nightclubs, copied by designers, rediscovered, or may someday sit behind museum glass. She knows only that they belong to her mother and, her mother tells her, one day they will belong to her. can fail the children entrusted to them. What she wants to give them is not insulation from life so much as the certainty of support when life becomes complicated: “They can literally tell me anything in life. And I’ll always be there for them.” It is difficult not to hear the poignancy embedded in her responses. The girl thought no one would believe her; the mother is building a family in which being believed is part of the architecture. For someone whose life was so often defined by other people deciding what her experience meant—institutions, tabloids, reality television, an audience of millions—there is something almost radical in the domestic modesty of this ambition.

Twenty-two years after I took that photograph at Sundance, Paris Hilton has arrived at a far more consequential place than her early fame might have suggested. The party girl has become an advocate on Capitol Hill. The celebrity who once seemed to represent the frivolity of the new century is now participating in some of its most consequential debates—over AI, consent, authorship, the ownership of one’s likeness, protections for children—while simultaneously watching the physical evidence of her past life harden into posterity. History did not turn Paris Hilton into a different person. It changed the significance of being Paris Hilton.

PHOTOS ON LEFT AND RIGHT BY ASHLEY OSBORN / 11:11 MEDIA

London is already showing an interest in one considerably more glamorous portion of her inheritance. Hilton has kept much of the wardrobe that constituted the visual grammar of Paris Hilton: the crystals and metallics, the tiny dresses and extravagant artifacts of a period that, not so long ago, seemed far too recent and ridiculous to qualify as history. Now many of them are archived. London has already discovered the room where several decades of Paris Hilton are hanging on rails. “She’s already raiding my closet at two,” Hilton marvels. “Every time she’s in there with me, she’s like trying stuff on, playing with everything.” Hilton tells her, “You’re the luckiest girl in the world because one day all of this is going to be yours.” The phrase has a different resonance when the woman saying it has spent much of her adult life deciding what, precisely, belongs to her. Her name became a brand; her persona became a commercial asset; her private life became public entertainment; her image could be reproduced without her permission. Now there is a material record of a life whose provenance is unmistakably clear. It is hers. She kept it. She gets to decide where it goes next. The wardrobe once offered as proof of her disposability has outlived the culture that trivialized it. Y2K has returned as an aesthetic category, although Hilton disputes the premise of the revival. “When people say

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Mastering

MONGOLIA mongolia 4 pages

Set Out on a Bespoke Journey to the Gobi Desert and Beyond with Nomadic Expeditions BY TERRY WARD

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here are many ways to embark on a journey through Mongolia. And since Jan. 2026, when the country’s newest luxury property, Ayan Zalaat, opened its doors, there has never been a more decadent way to instantly immerse yourself in this East Asian country known for its nomadic roots. This oasis of Italian marble with 32 lavish rooms is spread across a picturesque valley just outside of the country’s capital city of Ulaanbaatar. A stay at this ultra-luxurious, Mongolian-owned property with the country’s most lavish spa, a subterranean wine cellar and cigar lounge, to name just a few of Ayan Zalaat’s amenities, goes beyond any typical five-star retreat.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

TOP 2 PHOTOS: COURTESY OF AYAN ZALAAT. BOTTOM 2 PHOTOS COURTESY OF NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

On any given day, you may find yourself practicing Buddhist meditation with visiting monks in the hotel’s private temple or settling into an intimate theater to listen to the art of khöömei (traditional throatsinging) and horsehair fiddle performed by some of the country’s most celebrated musicians. The surrounding hills of the Bogd Khan Uul UNESCO Biosphere Reserve beckon for walks and hikes during which you may spot roe deer and Arctic hare along austere slopes that somehow conjure Iceland or Scotland. A stay at Ayan Zalaat provides an excellent prelude to what awaits you during a bespoke journey with Nomadic Expeditions, a luxury tour operator specializing in Mongolia that also offers private itineraries in India, Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet.

AYAN ZALAAT

Nomadic Expeditions was founded by first-generation American, Jalsa Urubshurow, in 1992 as the country’s first luxury and sustainabilityminded tour operator. And the company continues to set the gold standard for travel in Mongolia, his ancestral homeland, today. Born in 1952, Urubshurow grew up in New Jersey speaking Mongolian with his parents. From a young age, he also learned old world carpentry skills as well as the stories and legends of his homeland with family and neighbors from Mongolia’s diaspora. He went on to build a successful commercial and residential construction company in New Jersey. But it wasn’t until Mongolia transitioned to democracy in the early 1990s that Urubshurow first visited the country at the request of Dashiin Byambasuren, Mongolia’s first democratically elected prime minister. Byambasuren had met Urubshurow during a Mongolian delegation to New York City and requested his help fostering western tourism to the country. And that’s how Nomadic Expeditions was born. After much scouting, Urubshurow lucked upon a piece of rocky land tucked into a natural windbreak at the edge of a volcanic outcropping near Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park in the southern Gobi Desert. And it was there that he built Mongolia’s first luxury eco-lodge. Rock by

AYAN ZALAAT

rock, hand-by-Mongol-hand, built and staffed entirely by locals, Three Camel Lodge rose from the rocky landscapes and opened its doors to guests in 2002. Today, after a few days recuperating from your travels at Ayan Zalaat and taking in the capital’s museums and monasteries, you can journey to Three Camel Lodge by flying private or boarding the roughly hourlong commercial flight to Dalanzadgad in southern Mongolia. From there, an onward journey of roughly 90 minutes by luxury SUV brings you to this exquisite eco-lodge. Guests of the lodge stay in 40 individual luxury gers (circular dwellings called yurts in other languages), all decorated with handmade furnishings fashioned in the lodge’s onsite carpentry workshop from Mongolian pine, larch and felt. Huge, walk-in stone showers tucked inside each ger’s private ensuite bathroom feel as indulgent as any luxury hotel’s, beckoning guests to de-dust after exhilarating days spent exploring the Gobi’s wonders.

THREE CAMEL LODGE GER

Three Camel Lodge is Mongolia’s most luxurious base for adventures in an environment that defines the word harsh. A cold desert, the Gobi is the largest desert in Asia and sees some of the most extreme temperature shifts on Earth. Arctic and Siberian winds drive the mercury down to −40 °F in winter and summertime highs push it to 113 °F and above. In July and August, therefore, excursions tend to take place early in the day or timed for sunset views. Summer is the fairest season for a visit, and when Nomadic Expeditions’ most classic Gobi Desert itineraries launch from Three Camel Lodge. Dedicated tour guides accompany each individual Nomadic Expeditions’ group throughout the entire stay, and all itineraries are bespoke, tailored to cater to the interests of travelers who range from Issue 4 • 2026 69

individuals on sabbaticals to adventurous honeymooning couples and multi-generational families. From touchdown in Ulaanbaatar, your journey can be crafted to include everything from intimate meetings with paleontologists at Mongolia’s Institute of Paleontology as they describe the sensation of unearthing a Protoceratops from its final resting spot to decamping to remote regions with pop-up, seasonal camps. In that latter category, that might mean overlanding to the remote wilderness of the country’s eastern grasslands, a sort of northern Serengeti where more than two million Mongolian gazelle roam. And in late January 2027, Nomadic Expeditions is launching a new itinerary to coincide with that month’s Thousand Camel Festival, welcoming guests to Three Camel Lodge in the heart of winter for the first time to experience one of the country’s most magnificent nomadic festivals. Before settling into the absolute silence of your ger for the evening, you might join the lodge’s resident astronomer to marvel at a sky entirely bereft of light pollution and streaked by shooting stars. When the moon rises, gather on the lodge’s deck to watch its orb morph from blood orange to lemon yellow, casting a glow across the surrounding rocky expanse as if it were an entire ocean.

NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

In the morning, when you push open your ger’s door, the land appears to extend forever, with nothing to block its flow except for the odd nomad atop a motorbike, herding horses and sheep toward a well. How you spend your days at Three Camel Lodge is entirely up to you. Onsite, there are traditional jewelry and felt-making courses in the lodge’s dedicated atelier. Fancy learning to wrap buuz–a kind of dumpling and the beloved national dish? That can be arranged with the lodge’s talented chef at any time, too. Outside the lodge’s arrival ger, electric tricycles, mountain bikes and Russian sidecar motorbikes stand at the ready for venturing out into the endless beyond whenever the whim strikes you. Drive one out as far as you dare and you will feel closer to what matters and far from everything that doesn’t. If there is freedom in wide open spaces, it is unequivocally here.

THREE CAMEL LODGE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

THREE CAMEL LODGE PRIVATE DINING

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THREE CAMEL LODGE

Consider setting off on horseback after dawn to ride the same shortstatured breed of Mongolian horses that were the war steeds of Genghis Khan. The sure-footed animals plod up a hillside behind the lodge to a viewpoint where ancient burial sites lie marked by rockpiles, petroglyphs are etched into stones and tarbagan marmots scurry for shelter. Further afield, the lodge’s fleet of luxury Land Cruisers will deliver you to some of the Gobi’s most compelling sites.

NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

In a ger with nomads, you may be invited to sip camel’s milk from a punch-like bowl as your guide gamely accepts a pinch of snuff from the herder’s tobacco stash, tucked into a jewel-encrusted bottle called a khoorog (a traditional gesture of welcome, you may try it, too, if you’re feeling bold). Today, many nomads use GPS to track their animals, as has become increasingly common in this country where more than half of the population is still considered nomadic and moves with their animals through the seasons. You’ll be invited to mount a camel for a foray into the waves of the surrounding Moltsog Els Sand Dunes—one of the rare areas in the Gobi where the rocky desert softens, mimicking the Sahara sands.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

Arriving before sunset at the famous geological site of Bayanzag— known as Flaming Cliffs and where the first dinosaur eggs were discovered in 1923 by a team from the American Museum of Natural History—you might find yourself following your guide along a trail to a gulley where the sandstone cliffs turn as softly sifted as the contents of an hourglass. As you descend into a valley and the desert gives way, all cinnamoncolored beneath your feet, the SUVs will have magically appeared to whisk you onward to where a tent awaits for an alfresco dinner overlooking the cliffs. Raise an Aperol spritz the color of the rocks and you could consider it a typical sundown affair, until your guide beckons you over to see a shard of ancient pottery or a fragment of dinosaur bone plucked from the open earth. With Nomadic Expeditions in Mongolia, everything feels somehow delightfully unscripted. But wonder is threaded through every moment. NOMADIC EXPEDITIONS

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Seaworthy

SUSTAIN Dutch Design Studio Vripack Reimagines How Yachts Interact with the Environment BY KELLIE SPEED

or more than six decades, Vripack has been making waves in the yachting industry. Known for its cutting-edge designs, holistic interiors, and seaworthy sustainability, the Dutch design studio is once again seeking to set a seafaring precedent when they venture into uncharted territory to introduce the first all-electric superyacht.

Their newest endeavor, a 230-foot yacht known as Project Zero, will be entirely powered using renewable energy. With no traditional engine on board, the world’s first fossil fuel-free yacht will use clean energy of solar and wind for power. The distinctive vessel being introduced later this year will have a radically new ability to sail for up to two weeks on renewable energy without having to rely on any fossil fuel used to power traditional yachts. Project Zero will be available for private charters while also continuing to serve as a platform for scientific research on renewable technologies.

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NABILITY PROJECT MILKY WAYS

When creating a sailing yacht built around energy generation rather than consumption, the team at Vripack knew they had a challenge in store for them. In addition to the groundbreaking technology, they wanted to create a design that would be timeless. The result? After spending six years in development, the luxurious design will boast a sleek metallic blue hull with towering masts while the interior features everything from bespoke deck hardware and curved structural glass to hand-carved double-curved oak corners and natural materials. Natural grain variations, cracks, and knots were deliberately preserved instead of being concealed. Reclaimed bark, leathered stone, smoked European oak, and hand-selected veneers can also be found throughout the interior. Other highlights include custom furniture and functional space that can easily be transformed based on a client’s specific preferences. Designed

to change the direction of global marine travel, the yacht will be able to accommodate up to 12 guests with a nine-person crew. It will also feature an owner’s suite designed around the mizzen mast featuring custom artwork, four themed guest cabins outfitted with furnishings inspired by travel from Italy to French Polynesia, and a sleek outdoor lounge. A main salon boasts a dining table that doubles as a “craft table” for the owners who love to puzzle. Freed-up space that comes from eliminating a full-beam engine room has been repurposed into a “secret passageway” for staff. Vripack’s Partner and Co-Creative Director Marnix Hoekstra spoke humbly about the breakthrough design. “Our experience is defined by a strong sense of gratitude that actually stems from a deeply personal vision shared by the owners, to create a yacht powered entirely by renewable energy,” he said. “Being invited to Issue 4 • 2026 73

MARNIX HOEKSTRA AND BART BOUWHUIS

contribute to that vision, alongside a wider group of specialists, is both a responsibility and a privilege. It is an emotional journey, characterized by a shared ambition to push the boundaries of what is possible.” What makes Vripack stand out in the yachting industry is their unique approach to design. Traditionally speaking, yachts were once viewed as leisure assets. Today’s luxury standards have transformed that opinion and set the bar even higher with superyachts now being created to function as a full extension of both the home and office. Instead of being looked at as a lavish getaway used solely for vacationing, yachts today have now become a place to fluidly live, work, and entertain, while staying health focused. Clients want a luxurious vessel where they can operate professionally at a high level while also enjoying a place to focus on their long-term health. Hoekstra said a variety of factors have influenced the shift, which is changing the way Vripack creates its designs. “It is not about adding an office or a gym,” he said. “It is about creating environments that support extended time on board and bring together the different elements of our clients’ lives. We are seeing a return to the roots of yachting. Given the times we are living in, marked by global instability, there’s a growing desire for privacy, control and togetherness. In uncertain

PROJECT ZERO

PROJECT LILY

periods, people naturally retreat to environments they can shape around their own values, and that has traditionally been the home.” Once regarded primarily as a holiday escape, yachting today not only offers a luxurious getaway with a sense of freedom at sea but is also a place where owners can focus on their wellbeing while continuing to work. “Unlike life on land, it is less regulated and more self-directed,” Hoekstra said. “In the past, particularly through the 1970s to 1990s, yachting evolved into a symbol of outward luxury and financial success. It became a display. Today, that has shifted.” Yacht owners are now seeking amenity-rich spaces offering a combination of comfort, security and personalized interiors that have become a true extension of their home while at sea. After listening to what conveniences their clients were looking for, the Vripack team discovered they wanted high-end luxuries like those found at five-star hotels, as well as wellness spaces and global business hubs. Following the pandemic, more and more clients today are spending longer periods on board, so having an oceanfront home office is also a common request but surprisingly not Vripack’s top one. “The most popular feature today is the evolution of the beach club,” said Vripack’s Partner and Co-Creative Director Bart Bouwhuis. “What was once a simple swim platform has developed into a fully realized space, more like an additional room on board. These areas are often designed as lounge or activity spaces, frequently incorporating wellness elements such as gyms, spas or massage areas. They are designed to enhance the connection to the water and have become a defining feature of contemporary yacht design.” Some of Vripack’s other notable yachts include Project Lily and Special One. Focused on health and leisure, Project Lily was designed for multigenerational living. Onboard amenities include a dedicated leisure deck with fitness center, a waterside pool, expansive social areas, and a floating children’s play space. Award-winning Special One set out to redefine the traditional sportfishing yacht. It was custom created for an owner seeking serious offshore capability combined with the unique ability to lavishly host and entertain family and friends. Vripack was responsible for the exterior design, interior design and naval architecture, developing a high-performance sportfisher with expansive social spaces, including a bow lounge that is equipped with a sound system, DJ set-up and open air-cinema.

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“Special One is a true sportfisher, designed for a private owner who is serious about big game fishing,” Bouwhuis said. “Due to the magnitude of scale with her true sportfish proportions, she becomes iconic.”

SPECIAL ONE

Committed to providing a greener future, Vripack believes sustainable marine travel is the wave of the future. “We see sustainability as the defining design opportunity of our generation,” Hoekstra noted. “It allows us to rethink how yachts interact with the environment, with the goal of minimising impact, and ultimately contributing positively. This is also a personal motivation. Having grown up on the water, we have witnessed the environmental impact first-hand. Ensuring that future generations can experience the same connection to the sea is a key driver behind our approach.” While always staying ahead of the curve, Vripack’s intent to change how consumers view yachts was actually never a deliberate objective. “It is part of a wider global shift that is shaping how people think and live,” Bouwhuis noted. “Our role is to respond to that. Since 1961, Vripack has aimed to remain at the forefront of change, helping clients realize their vision. While our work may influence how yachts are perceived, we are not driving that change; we are enabling it by translating our clients’ evolving expectations into design.” Next year, Vripack will be introducing Project Milky Ways, Brazil’s largest in-build superyacht. Designed with an eye toward integrated onboard living, it will boast a layout designed to support everything from work and health to family life and relaxation. Highlights include two dedicated offices, an overwater “people pad,” and a helipad that doubles as a basketball court. “The brief was to develop a boat that is as multifunctional as possible, with areas dedicated to both the owner’s large family and business, and that meant the layout needed to be rather special,” Bouwhuis said. When asked what Vripack’s most challenging project has been so far, Bouwhuis says he believes it is likely ahead. “The studio is currently working on several highly complex concepts simultaneously,” he said. “These include a private island support vessel for a major hospitality brand, designed to handle guest transfers, leisure activities and on-board living across multiple islands, as well as ongoing developments such as Project Zero and a series of coastal residential vessels. Each project presents distinct technical and design challenges, and the breadth of this work continues to push the studio into new territory.” Issue 4 • 2026 75

MAKING CONNECTIONS The Journey That Built Atlas, a Company Dedicated to Eliminating Uncertainty in Private Aviation BY JERE’MY GENGENBACH, CO - FOUNDER, ATLAS JET SERVICES

ome of my favorite childhood memories began with a surfboard and no guarantee I would make it to Hawaii.

As a third-generation aviator, I grew up flying standby with my father on Continental Airlines. I loved the adventure, the airplanes, the anticipation, and eventually paddling into the Pacific. But travel also taught me the other side of aviation: maintenance delays, missed connections, and sitting in an airport with little communication about when or whether we were going anywhere. During one of these surf trips, my family and I found ourselves stranded on Oahu. A major marathon was in town and hotels were sold out. While speaking with a hotel concierge, I simply slowed down, asked about her day, and we connected. She couldn’t find us a room, so she did something extraordinary: she invited my family into her home to celebrate a private luau with her family. That experience has stayed with me throughout my life. Genuine human connection can inspire

extraordinary generosity and relationships will always mean more than transactions. Years later, after circumnavigating the globe in private jets and building and managing a private flight department, I realized something: uncertainty is exactly what private aviation should eliminate. Atlas does that through human connection, open communication, and thoughtful planning. We built Atlas around the relationship we believe should exist between an aircraft owner and the people entrusted with their travel. That means listening, communicating openly, understanding our clients’ preferences, and becoming a team they know personally and trust implicitly. Aircraft management is ultimately stewardship. An owner is entrusting us not only with a valuable asset, but with their family, their time and often their business. Having experienced ownership from both the operator’s perspective and the owner’s, I understand that successful management happens long before passengers arrive at the airport.

Thoughtful maintenance management, financial oversight and strategic planning improve dispatch reliability and help prevent surprises. But aviation will always present variables beyond anyone’s control. When plans change, communication matters. Rather than leave a client waiting for answers, our team works proactively on solutions, including sourcing alternative aircraft through our charter brokerage when necessary. That same philosophy shapes how we built our team. Instead of asking one person to wear every hat, Atlas brings together specialists in client interaction, flight operations, maintenance, accounting, and charter brokerage. Each is accountable for doing their part exceptionally well. Private aviation gave that kid with a surfboard something extraordinary: access to the world. Today, our responsibility is to give our clients something even more valuable: confidence that wherever they need to go, they have a team looking ahead for them.

www.atlasjetsvc.com • (832) 271-9339 • info@atlasjetsvc.com 76 JetsetMag.com

Something Beautiful Is Coming in 2027 , a new chapter begins at one of the caribbean’s most iconic luxury resorts.

coveatlantis.com

See the City of Canals through the Eyes of Artists During the 2026 Biennale Arte BY LAYNE RANDOLPH

tanding before Secret Garden at the St. Regis Venice, the hotel’s art exhibition, Komorebi, comes to light. The word Komorebi is Japanese for dappled light, light and shadow patterns that disappear almost as soon as they appear; it is impermanence, reflections, and light.

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Created by Italian artist Marco De Sanctis, now based in Brussels, Secret Garden is made of two huge panels in deep, bright shades of Prussian blue, punctuated by areas of white resembling leaves. He created it using cyanotype, a nineteenth-century process that, in this case, recorded the effect of light passing through the vines outside his studio window. De Sanctis captured not only the illusion of vines, but the fleeting glimpses created when they interrupted light. What emerged, he said, is “something that doesn’t exist.” It is mesmerizing. He explained, “These shadows were almost invisible, concealed within the narrow space between object and projection. They could not really be observed directly. Instead, I had to imagine them.”

DAPPLED LIGHT

Komorebi quickly becomes a metaphor for Venice itself. It’s an impossible, unimaginable city built on water, yet as fragile as it is, it holds some of the world’s most valuable architecture, art, and history. Its vulnerability is ever present; the unprecedented high water of Acqua Alta of 1966 is still part of the city’s collective memory. During the Biennale Arte, the city is transformed into something even more than its usual magical self. Venice has always been theatrical, but during the Biennale it leans into the role, not by transforming into something new but by heightening what has always been there. The Venice that people imagine and the Venice that actually exists briefly collapse into the same place.

THE ART OF GLASS

Beyond the Komorebi exhibit, the St. Regis Venice is a spectacular home base for an immersive Biennale experience. Not just because it’s iconic, historic, and on the Grand Canal, but because it is integrated with the art world in a way that intensifies the artistic experience. Take its majestic “White Chandelier” by Ai Weiwei, hanging in the center of its Grand Salon, made of rainbow crystal. It was created as a tribute to Venice’s 1,600-year history. Before venturing out to explore the city, explore St. Regis itself. The hotel offers a guided tour through the premises, with an explanation of each work in the exhibition. After an hour or so, you’ll have a better understanding of the exhibition’s concept, St. Regis Venice, and the Biennale. Then take a water taxi or vaporetto to the groundbreaking Berengo Studio, which specializes in Murano glass. Here, the centuriesold craft of Murano glass continues to evolve. Founded by Adriano Berengo in 1989, the studio revived a collaborative spirit once championed by Peggy Guggenheim and Egidio Costantini, inviting contemporary artists to work alongside Murano’s master artisans. Berengo helped create a renaissance in contemporary art glass. His work transformed glass from craft into an accepted medium of contemporary fine art. View intricate, avant-garde pieces, some displayed in the middle of a former factory furnace room, smoke-stained windows and all. Watch Murano masters shape molten glass into intricate contemporary works, transforming one of Venice’s oldest traditions into something strikingly modern. Back at the hotel, experience Murano glass in another form, with an aperitivo at the Grand Canal-facing Arts Bar, which serves inventive cocktails in customized, drink-specific Murano glasses designed by Berengo Studio.

MARCO DE SANCTIS

ST. REGIS BAR

FOLLOWING THE ARTISTS

Everything about Venice feels ephemeral. Perhaps that is why artists have been drawn here for centuries.

More than a century ago, Claude Monet arrived in Venice intending to stay only a few weeks. Instead, he extended his visit and became consumed by the city’s shifting light. From his window at the Grand Hotel Britannia, now The St. Regis Venice, he painted repeated views of San Giorgio Maggiore, but instead of focusing on the buildings, he became obsessed with painting the air, water, atmosphere, and light. Issue 4 • 2026 79

PRESIDENTIAL SUITE

De Sanctis described Monet’s approach in a way that is very Komorebi. “Monet, and the Impressionists more broadly, were deeply concerned with the attempt to capture something fleeting and almost impossible to hold onto: a particular moment, a particular quality of light. In a way, they were also precursors to photography itself. The very notion of an “impression” carries this desire to preserve an instant before it disappears.”

setting with permanent national pavilions for exhibitions by 29 countries. A fifteenminute walk from the Giardini through the Castello district takes you to the Arsenale, the old shipyard for Venetian vessels, one of the largest Renaissance and medieval shipyards in the world. Its size and warehouses allow for larger exhibitions and installations.

Today, the St. Regis suites overlooking the Grand Canal and San Giorgio Maggiore are known as The Monet Suites. Inside, large panels painted on canvas by artist Olivier Masmonteil, inspired by Monet’s series, hang on the walls. “With this project, I have focused on light and its abstraction,” Masmonteil shared.

By the time the private water taxi arrives back on St. Regis’ dock and the porters help guide you from sea to land, the hotel’s exquisite restaurant, Gio’s, is waiting. Here, Venice reveals itself through yet another medium: gastronomy.

Venturing from the hotel through Venice’s medieval streets and canals is half the Biennale experience. Art spills beyond the historic Giardini and Arsenale sites of the Biennale, appearing in piazzas, along canals, inside churches and palazzos, making the city itself feel like an extension of the exhibition. Giardini della Biennale, the original site of the Biennale, is in an open-air, parklike 80 JetsetMag.com

VENICE THROUGH ANOTHER MEDIUM

Every course carried the thread of lightness and minerality, like Venice and the lagoon. A petit four of a chocolate sphere with a toasted caper delivered a slight, unexpected burst of salinity that interrupted sweetness— such a delicate, fleeting pleasure. For travelers, the Biennale experience works best as a slow itinerary: begin with the St. Regis Venice’s own exhibition, continue to Berengo Studio in Murano, devote a day each to the Giardini and Arsenale, then return to the Grand Canal for a cocktail or dinner as light shifts over the water.

At Gio’s, the cuisine, developed by Puglia-native Executive Chef Giuseppe Ricci, reinforces the city’s larger story. The seafood carries the imprint of the Adriatic, and even the wines seem touched by the sea.

It’s a wonderful time to visit Venice. More than a century after Monet painted San Giorgio Maggiore from the windows of what is now the Monet Suites, artists like Marco De Sanctis are still pursuing the same elusive qualities that captivated Monet: light, air, shadows, and impermanence.

“It’s the same sea,” Ricci explained. Venice sits on the northern Adriatic. Puglia stretches along the southern Adriatic. Different landscapes, different histories, different light—yet connected by the same body of water, and the same instinct toward seafood, olive oil, herbs, and delicacy.

The 61st International Art Exhibition, Biennale Arte di Venezia, runs from May 9 to November 22, 2026. Unveiled during the opening week of the Biennale, Komorebi will remain on view at The St. Regis Venice through April 30, 2027.

GRAN SALONE

CLAUDE MONET

GINORI TERRACE

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Arctic AMBITIONS Pelorus Yachting Launches Polar Expeditions Aboard the World’s First Near-Zero-Emissions Luxury Yacht

BY KELLIE SPEED PHOTOGRAPHY BY PELORUS YACHTING / CAPTAIN ARCTIC f you are looking for an unforgettable way to spend the holidays this year, here’s your chance to book a private charter through Pelorus Yachting aboard the brand-new Captain Arctic polar expedition yacht.

The world’s first “close-to-zero-carbonemission” luxury sailing vessel, designed as a new way for eco-conscious explorers to experience the Arctic, will boast renewable energy systems onboard and customized Pelorus expert-led adventures itineraries throughout remote regions of Norway/Svalbard during the winter, and Greenland/Svalbard in the summer. Able to accommodate up to 30 guests, the 230-foot yacht will be available for private charters starting in December. With solar sails customized to create energy from wind, the vessel was designed to cruise silently, free from noise, vibration, and exhaust while also protecting marine animals. It will run on vegetable oil as a backup system if wind and solar power lag. “She is going to be the most exciting launch this year as there has never been a level of

this luxury before,” Gayle Patterson, Pelorus Yachting’s director of yachting told Jetset in an exclusive phone interview. “She is focused on renewable energy and was designed to reduce the environmental footprint, so it is going to be interesting to see how she will be challenging the luxury yachting industry.” The adventure-packed expeditions will provide guests the chance to not only see the Northern Lights, but also participate in backcountry ski tours, observe polar bears, and spot whales. Following a day of exploration, guests will retreat back on board the wheelchair-accessible yacht designed for multigenerational guests where a plethora of wellness amenities, including a cold tub, full spa, and fitness center, await. “Captain Arctic is going to be a world class superyacht in terms of build, choice of fabrics, and design,” Patterson added. “The cabins are very luxurious and spacious. There are large windows, and gourmet dining with a Nordic theme of the highest standard with locally sourced ingredients.” Pelorus Yachting is offering an eight-night cruise aboard Captain Arctic from December 18-26,

2026 for up to 30 guests for approximately $779,500. A percentage of the profits will be shared with charitable organizations focused on Arctic protection. Pelorus believes decarbonization of ocean travel should remain a top priority, especially due to more and more clients now wanting to travel responsibly. In addition, each voyage will continue to assist with environmental research through its onboard science laboratory. To curate a one-of-a-kind experience, Pelorus has the unique advantage of offering a disciplined approach to planning, preparation, and decision-making. The company was co-founded by Jimmy Carroll and Geordie Mackay-Lewis, both former British Army captains. One of the biggest lessons they took from their military backgrounds, Carroll told Jetset, was that “no successful operation is planned by one person alone. Every expedition or trip is shaped through meticulous planning, local intelligence and years of relationships on the ground, allowing us to anticipate every scenario while still creating something imaginative and completely unique to the client. That combination of rigorous preparation and

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collaborative creativity is what enables us to deliver experiences that feel effortless for the client, even in some of the world’s most remote and logistically complex environments.” When it comes to US expeditions, Carroll explains Alaska is one of Pelorus’ most soughtafter destinations, offering everything from heli-hiking and bear encounters to private yacht expeditions through remote fjords. In addition, they have also seen strong demand for trips to the American West “where guests can combine luxury ranches, horseback adventures and access to spectacular national parks, as well as Hawaii, where we create experiences that go beyond the beaches through volcano exploration, marine encounters and cultural immersion,” he said. After just one trip, Carroll notes explorers receive the travel bug for future, more daring explorations. “We’re seeing clients use these experiences as a gateway to something even more adventurous,” he said. “Rather than following traditional summer travel patterns, many are choosing destinations that offer greater exclusivity, deeper connections with nature and opportunities to learn from conservationists, scientists and local experts. It’s a shift we’ve embraced through finding an alternative path for clients, encouraging people to look beyond the obvious and discover journeys they may never have previously considered.” As Pelorus enters their second decade, Carroll reflects on some of their most unforgettable experiences. “Looking back over the last decade, the experiences we’re most proud of are the ones that have pushed beyond traditional luxury travel and brought together exploration, storytelling and genuine purpose,” he said. “One of the defining moments was leading our 2025 Antarctic yacht expedition, where guests explored one of the world’s most remote and spectacular environments aboard a luxury

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expedition yacht alongside renowned marine scientists, polar experts and expedition leaders.” While their ambition remains the same to continue creating the world’s most unique and inspiring travel experiences, Carroll told Jetset they are also looking forward to expanding their fleet. “We’ll be growing our portfolio of extraordinary journeys across land, sea and air, and continuing to collaborate with leading scientists, historians, conservationists and explorers to create experiences that simply can’t be replicated elsewhere,” he said. “At the same time, we see our role extending beyond trip planning. The travel landscape is changing rapidly, influenced by global events, new

technologies such as AI and evolving client expectations. Our recent thought leadership reflects this, helping clients understand not only where to travel, but why, when and how to travel with confidence.” Carroll admits that while artificial intelligence will assist Pelorus as a research tool, “it can’t replace judgement, relationships or decades of operational expertise. As the world becomes more complex, we believe trusted human insight will become even more valuable. Our focus is to continue leading those conversations while delivering journeys that inspire, challenge perceptions and redefine what luxury travel can be.”

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INDUSTRY

THE CHATBOT CONUNDRUM Automation May Cut Customer Service Costs, but It Can’t Replace the Power of Human Interaction BY BARRY LABOV

e are in an era of worsening customer experiences. AI and automation are being deployed almost everywhere to streamline, cut costs, and, in theory, make things easier. Phone systems now “talk” to us. Chatbots handle our questions. And, if we’re persistent and lucky enough, we might eventually be able to connect with an actual human or at least begin a chat with one instead of a bot. One reason this model has spread is the success of Amazon. Business leaders saw Amazon’s brilliance and drew the wrong conclusions. They copied the mechanics (fewer humans, more automation, intelligent design, self-service everything) without understanding the deeper strategy behind them. Amazon makes it incredibly easy to do almost anything without human interaction. It works for them because they’ve built a system where they carry nearly none of the cost of those issues. Don’t like the product? Return it, and the supplier often absorbs the expense. Too many complaints? Amazon can remove the supplier from its site. But does that model apply to your business? Likely not. When automation works for customers, as it often does with Amazon, then satisfaction is generally high. The trouble begins when technology becomes a barrier between purchasers and the help they need. From personal experience, I know how frustrating it is to be trapped in a circle of automated responses, unable to reach someone who can actually help. 86 JetsetMag.com

And if you receive inaccurate information, that frustration grows into distrust. In 2024, Air Canada’s chatbot provided incorrect guidance to a passenger who wanted a bereavement fare after the death of his grandmother. The chatbot instructed him to purchase his ticket and then request a refund. Unfortunately, this advice conflicted with Air Canada’s actual policy, which required that requests be made before purchasing a ticket. When the airline later denied the refund, the passenger filed a lawsuit. Air Canada was found liable for the information its chatbot provided. The lesson is clear. If an automated system provides bad information or makes it difficult to get answers, customers will hold the company responsible. AI is programmed to answer the most common, easier issues, but it is no replacement for real human conversation. Now, contrast that with three companies that understand the irreplaceable value of people. Chuck Surack founded Sweetwater Sound back in 1979. Today, it’s the #1 online retailer of pro audio and musical instruments in the U.S. What makes the company unique is how seamlessly it combines digital convenience with human expertise. If you shop for a musical instrument on Sweetwater’s website, you can quickly connect with one of its highly trained sales engineers over the phone. That person becomes your dedicated advisor, guiding your musical purchases over time and providing recommendations and support that go far beyond the transaction.

There’s a similar approach at Arccos Golf, which Sal Syed co-founded. When customers need help with their performance tracking system, a real person will respond immediately via email. For example, if a customer owns two homes and two sets of clubs, instead of being forced to purchase the system twice, the support team will set things up so you can use one license for both locations. Likewise, The Stack System, co-founded by Sasho MacKenzie, has cultivated a loyal following not only because the app helps golfers increase their swing speed (a major advantage in the game) but also because of its team’s accessibility. Customers receive personal responses to their questions and requests. The company also rewards loyalty with unexpected perks that are brilliantly designed to deepen loyalty and encourage future purchases. These three exceptional leaders understand that lasting success requires both technology and human connection. They’ve created compelling reasons to buy directly from their companies instead of turning to Amazon. It’s time to move beyond the idea that a “no human, all tech” approach is the gold standard. What works for Amazon doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. Companies that try to mindlessly replicate it risk sacrificing something far more valuable than efficiency: the customer relationship. When you put technology between your company and your customers, you lose control over the experience and increase the likelihood of becoming just another commodity. True customer service is not about maximum efficiency; it’s about maximum loyalty. A customer is human. They will ask messy, emotional, “inefficient” questions that may frustrate AI. Give your team permission to have real conversations with customers. More than that, allow them the freedom to solve problems on the spot. That will strengthen brand trust and customer connection. Companies can no longer straddle the line between being relationship-driven and technology-first. If you position your company as a high-touch organization, your customers will expect a personal experience and genuine support, not a maze of automated systems standing between them and the help they need. Success starts with owning as much of the customer relationship as possible. The strongest brands use technology brilliantly but refuse to replace the value of human expertise, empathy, and problem-solving capabilities. That’s why leaders like Chuck, Sal, and Sasho have legions of loyal fans who are ready to interact with their products and teams. That’s their power of differentiation.

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ESTATES

The Fed would be trying to restrain inflation while simultaneously supporting the market for government debt. If the Fed has to become a significant buyer because private investors aren’t willing to buy enough Treasury debt at current yields, the issue becomes much bigger than interest rates. It becomes a question of how the government continues financing its deficits without either paying substantially higher rates or relying more heavily on the Fed.

ECONOMIC ENIGMA

At that point, something has to give.

The Fed Has Three Problems and No Good Solution BY KEN MCELROY

he Federal Reserve may be approaching a problem that doesn’t have a good solution. Normally, when the economy weakens and unemployment rises, the Fed cuts interest rates. But what happens if unemployment is rising while inflation is still too high to cut rates, and at the same time the bond market is demanding higher yields to finance U.S. government debt?

debt—more than $40 trillion—and continues running large deficits. The longer interest rates remain elevated, the more expensive that debt becomes as existing debt matures and has to be refinanced at higher rates. Businesses, consumers and real estate owners face the same problem.

That combination would put the Fed in a very difficult position. Cutting rates could make inflation worse, while keeping rates high could put even more pressure on employment, businesses, real estate and the government’s growing debt burden.

The Treasury constantly needs investors to buy new debt and refinance existing debt. If investors become increasingly concerned about inflation, deficits, or the long-term value of U.S. debt, they may demand higher yields to keep buying it.

WHAT IF OIL SENDS INFLATION HIGHER? Imagine the economy is already weakening when an oil supply disruption sends energy prices sharply higher. Oil doesn’t just affect gasoline. Energy costs flow through transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and shipping. Businesses pay more to produce and transport goods, while consumers have less disposable income because they’re spending more on energy. The Fed can’t ignore the inflation that comes with an oil shortage. If higher energy costs begin spreading into wages, services and inflation expectations, the Fed may have to keep rates elevated despite rising unemployment. That’s classic stagflation, but with an important difference from the 1970s. Today, the United States is also carrying an enormous amount of 88 JetsetMag.com

WHAT IF THE BOND MARKET PUSHES BACK?

Suppose inflation moves toward five percent, unemployment moves toward six percent, and Treasury yields continue rising because investors want greater compensation for holding government debt. Now the Fed has a real problem. Allowing Treasury yields to rise would push mortgage rates and commercial real estate financing higher, increase corporate borrowing costs, put pressure on asset values and increase the federal government’s own interest expense. The bond market would effectively be tightening financial conditions at exactly the moment the economy is already weakening. The Fed could step in and purchase government bonds to stabilize the market and push yields lower, just as it has during previous periods of financial stress, but imagine doing that while inflation is five percent.

Policymakers can keep rates high to fight inflation, but risk worsening unemployment, defaults and the debt problem. They can cut rates to support the economy, but risk pushing inflation higher. They can allow Treasury yields to rise until investors return, but put even more pressure on housing, real estate, businesses and government finances. Or the Fed can become a larger buyer of government debt, potentially creating even more inflation. There is no option that solves every problem at once.

SO WHAT ARE THEY LIKELY TO DO? If forced to choose, I believe policymakers will ultimately protect the financial system and the government’s ability to finance itself. That could mean accepting inflation somewhat above the Fed’s two percent target, intervening in the Treasury market when necessary, or eventually lowering rates before inflation has been completely defeated. Policymakers may eventually decide that tolerating somewhat higher inflation is less damaging than allowing rising unemployment, widespread defaults and instability in the Treasury market to feed on each other.

MY CURRENT FOCUS I personally try to focus on what I know and what I think I know. I know the Fed is in a difficult position. I think policymakers will ultimately choose to tolerate higher inflation rather than risk breaking the financial system trying to get inflation back to two percent. That assumption influences how I invest. I want to own assets that can benefit from inflation, including metals, real estate and energy assets. I don’t need to predict exactly what the Fed will do or when. I need to understand the environment we’re likely moving into and position myself accordingly. In a situation this complicated, focusing on what you know and what you reasonably believe is likely to happen is a much better strategy than trying to predict every move along the way.

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INSPIRE

THINKING STRATEGICALLY How the Executive Center of Your Brain Works and Why It’s Important to Develop It BY DR. JOHN DEMARTINI

This is Part One of a Two-Part Series.

t is wise to develop the self-governing executive function of your brain if you would love to think strategically and act with wisdom. This is opposed to living your life by reacting emotionally to your perceptions of the outer world. You may have heard, on occasion, of people speaking of a “knee-jerk reaction.” This term originates from the sudden kicking movement of your lower leg in response to a sharp tap on the patellar tendon, which lies just below your kneecap. This type of response, known as a “stimulus-response,” is unlearned, involuntary, predictable and primitive. It has only two options in that it either fires or it doesn’t. It is black or white, not grey. Think of how you react to painful stimuli, like placing your hand on a hot stove. You don’t need to think, strategize or plan to remove your hand—it happens instinctively as a reaction to a painful external stimulus. These impulsive reactions occur in the afferent and efferent

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nerves of the spinal cord, before they even ascend and reach your conscious cortical brain. Your most primitive part of the spinal cord and subcortical brain structures operate as a survival mechanism—one of prey-seeking impulses and predator avoidance instincts. In that part of your spinal cord, you’re most likely to have very few options and very little freedom of reaction. However, as you ascend up into the very front of the cortical layer of your brain (the forebrain), where there are massive amounts of interneurons and their associations, you’ll be more likely to reflect and then act strategically instead of impulsively. It’s almost like having a dimmer switch instead of an on-off button. You are more able to refine and fine tune your response instead of having a black-or-white, all-or-nothing, subthreshold or suprathreshold response. The farther you go up in the brain, the more moderate the governance you have access to.

“IT’S NOT WHAT JUST HAPPENS TO YOU THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN LIFE BUT HOW YOU PERCEIVE AND PROCESS IT.”

Systems 2 Thinking: Also known as human brain, it gives rise to slower, more governed responses as you take time to process a number of options. You may think about what response will give you more advantages than disadvantages and the impact your response may have on your future relationship, business dealings with this person, finances or social network. It’s not what just happens to you that makes a difference in life but how you perceive and process it. The difference between responding emotionally without thinking and thinking reasonably without emotionally reacting is the difference in the advancement to higher levels of your brain. Your executive functioning center is what allows you to inhibit or dampen those knee-jerk impulsive reactions that you usually regret, and, instead, respond in a wiser, more governed way. Your executive functioning center (the smart part of your brain) allows you to control your behavior. It gives you the freedom to act with wisdom instead of reacting foolishly and emotionally and without thinking. This executive part of the brain also allows you to take a new stimulus, look back at the experiences you’ve had in the past, think of all the possible scenarios that could take place, and then choose the most advantageous response—all before you respond or react. This is the source of your greatest strategic analysis, reason, intuition, and action.

At the very forward portion of your brain is your prefrontal cortex. And at the front, inward and folded under portion of it, you have your medial prefrontal cortex, one of the more advanced parts of your brain, also called the executive functioning center. This part of your brain takes in new affector sensory input and associates it with all types of previous experiences before creating an intentional effector motor output. As such, you don’t just have an automatic reflex, black or white, but shades of more reflective grey. Think of it this way. If someone criticizes you, you may react by punching them, which is a primitive response from the amygdala (the emotional fight-or-flight driver of your limbic system) and spinal cord. You could also take that stimulus and think of hundreds or thousands of different experiences and scenarios you could use to respond to it differently. Perhaps with a witty comeback or firm answer, a more self-governed response derived from your executive functioning center.

When you emotionally react and use the more primitive portion of your subcortical brain and spinal cord, the more black and white your thinking becomes, leaving you with fewer options available. You’re almost like an animal that sees prey and runs towards it or sees a predator and runs away from it. In other words, you’re in seek (rest and digest) or in avoid (fight-or-flight) survival mode. As stimuli ascend up into your cortical forebrain to one of the more advanced parts of your brain, your medial prefrontal cortex, you now have a much higher number of options. This is what sets you apart from an animal. Your prefrontal cortex’s executive center allows you to have an increased variety of reflective responses. There are two systems of response in the brain: Systems 1 Thinking: Also known as monkey brain, it gives rise to your emotional responses for survival—mono and di-synaptic reflexes where you react without thinking, like an animal seeking prey or avoiding a predator.

So while it may take under three seconds to respond, you can opt for a more graded response, more of a dimmer switch than a blackor-white on-off switch. As a result, instead of having an emotional reaction where the external world runs you, you’re now run strategically and wisely from within. When you’re in survival mode and reacting emotionally, the external world runs you because you primitively react. Your monkey brain is running the show. However, when you’re in the advanced part of the brain, you run the show because you decide how you want to respond. That’s the difference between emotional reaction and thoughtful anticipation, strategic planning and action. One is reactive. One is proactive. In the next issue of Jetset, we’ll examine how this relates to your daily life and offer steps you can take to develop your brain’s executive center. Dr. John Demartini is a human behavioral specialist, educator, internationally published bestselling author, consultant and founder of the Demartini Institute. Drdemartini.com Issue 4 • 2026 91

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ADVENTURE

Rising Star APPI KOGEN SNOW MONSTERS ( TREES)

BY ANNABEL ILLINGWORTH

uring a once-in-ten-year snowstorm last winter, two feet of fresh, dry powder blanketed the slopes of Japan’s Appi Kogen ski resort with fresh tracks every day. The slopes were quiet and a lucky few locals and visitors had the time of their lives, including us. This gem of a resort flies truly under the radar, a purposebuilt complex in the far north of the island of Honshu, with the same weather system as Niseko but without the crowds, on the same latitude as Aspen and St. Anton. Appi sits further off the beaten track, and from Toyko, than popular resorts in the Japanese Alps such as Nozawa Onsen, with its Edo-period streets, independent eateries and mineral-rich thermal waters. Deep in the Tohoku region, where a reverence for nature has been woven into the very place names by the indigenous Ainu people, Appi Kogen translates as “the highlands where one can live in peace.” 92 JetsetMag.com

The resort opened in 1981, with a ski hill designed by and named after Austrian Olympic ski racing legend Toni Sailer. Blessed with 26 feet of snow each year of dreamy “aspirin” quality, Tohoku is considered by luxury ski specialists Mabey Ski to be among Japan’s lesser-known regions to watch as it develops at the upper end. “The rawness is exactly what makes it exciting, it’s one of the true frontiers left in Japanese skiing,” says the company’s founder, Nickie Mabey. It’s also one of the newest additions to the IKON season pass, with around 400 passholders visiting last season, so the secret is out, if still only a whisper. For extra privileges, the VIP Black Pass allows you to jump any short lift queues and, more importantly, gives you unlimited access to the Nishimori Cat, with its intermediate and advanced tree skiing, Bravo and Attack, and some decent pitches of open powder. If you’re feeling especially extravagant,

you could probably blast off eight or ten snowcat laps in a day. It’s Japanese skiing as authentic as it comes—the charming waiting room is a small wooden hut, with a kettle keeping warm on a kerosene stove and endless smiles from the crew. Getting lost in the trees, whether in gladed or more tightly packed sections across the mountain, is a most entertaining thrill. Although there are guides for the more sensible people following in our footsteps, which might save a climb out or two. There are plenty of long, groomed runs for warming up and cruising, including the 5.5km green run Yamabato. As such, the hours and miles fly by, as you whiz up and down with a simple lunch break in functional hillside cafes or a giant food hall at the resort base, serving katsu curry, ramen and pizza. The piste map looks modest on paper, with 21 runs, but there is more than enough for a week in good conditions, plus backcountry guiding to supplement the in-bounds terrain. The lift infrastructure is somewhat dated, a bit like the architecture, but look beyond the surface and you’ll find white gold. The aesthetic is unapologetically contemporary, with a Hello

PHOTO COURTESY OF APPI RESORT

The Secret is Out About Appi Kogen, One of the Last Great Frontiers of Japanese Skiing

Kitty brand collaboration and other popculture “cuteness” tropes known as kawaii sitting cheerfully alongside centuries-old onsen culture. As well as appealing to couples, perhaps even small groups of friends, the resort is family friendly, with junior and more advanced snow parks and the Magic Forest, an easy tree run.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF APPI RESORT

Renting ski gear can be hit or miss in smaller Japanese resorts, but the Executive Rental Lounge is the exception: a strong range of premium and demo-level skis and boards, including swallowtails, plus colorful Salomon outerwear for hire. The ski valet service means you can avoid hauling around gear and there’s ski-in ski-out access to the slopes. There’s no conventional nightlife to speak of, unless you count a competitive evening on the golf simulator or a quiet cocktail. An apt mantra might read: Ski, Relax, Eat, Repeat. At the secluded 5-Star ANA Intercontinental, the spa and onsen natural hot springs bath become daily rituals, with superb massages and zen-inducing single-sex bathing in stone-lined indoor and outdoor pools, with steam rising to meet the fluffy snowflakes in the air. Atmospheric rectangular wooden bathtubs overlooking the snowfields are the highlight of

APPI RESORT

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ADVENTURE

SHIRATSUYU

APPI KOGEN TEPPANYAKI KAZAN

each spacious bedroom, and for some unfiltered cultural immersion, flick on sumo wrestling on television, unless private karaoke boxes in the sports center appeal.

Try it in a simmering sukiyaki hotpot or crispy on a yakiniku-style Korean bbq. For a more intimate setting, the small teppanyaki and sushi restaurants are a welcome contrast.

Breakfast is serene, as you gaze across the snowy scenery through enormous glass panels, raising the anticipation for the day ahead as the lifts start to turn. Alongside the usual western dishes, there’s rice porridge and freshly squeezed dekopon juice—a local citrus, sharper and sweeter than any orange—and traditional small bowls of pickles, grilled fish and miso soup.

With a predominantly Asian clientele and local flights to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia and mainland China, English isn’t the default language here, although there is an outpost of Harrow boarding school, and translation apps tend to fill in any communication blanks during ordering or conversation—most staff have them on hand and are willing to help and please.

Dinner is an early affair, with a range of options in the complex beyond the hotel’s superb Michelin Key restaurant, Shiratsuyu, with its farm-to-table French Japanese fusion and flights of premium sake. A highlight on the other various menus is the Maesawa beef, a finely marbled waygu, which is Iwate prefecture’s pride and joy and considered the best in Japan.

ANA INTERCONTINENTAL

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With afternoon tea, cocktail hour, an onsen and dinner to pack into a few hours, it’s no hardship to save the big nights out for a return to the city. Sendai and Iwate airports are nearby so one could fly much of the way. That said, taking the bullet train in Gran Class from Tokyo is all part of the experience, easily combined with a stay

in the capital and a scoot around the shopping district Ginza, the Imperial Palace Gardens and a bird’s eye view over the city lights at The Peninsula hotel, complete with their chauffeur to pick you up in a handcrafted Toyota Century, the limo historically favored by the Emperor. Leaving Mt Fuji behind as the Tohoku Shinkansen rail line speeds north, the dormant volcanic peaks of Iwate and Hachimantai fill the horizon at Appi’s summit on a clear day. Whether you get the chance to glimpse them under blue skies or the mountain remains shrouded in snow-laden clouds, the scene remains an unforgettable one. And the penny drops on why the Ainu people call the sister peaks on the nearby island of Hokkaido “the playground of the gods.” Travel Tip: Appi Kogen sits far enough off the international radar that it’s worth using a specialist operator rather than booking independently.

TOHOKU SHINKANSEN RAIL LINE

BOTTOM RIGHT PHOTO BY ANNABEL ILLINGWORTH. ALL OTHER PHOTOS COURTESY OF APPI RESORT.

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C E S S N A C I TAT I O N

THE EXPERIENCE YOU CAN COUNT ON

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Jetset Magazine, Issue 4, 2026