SHA Magazine Nº3 ENG

ULTIMATE

HEALTHY

LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE No 03

H E A LT H TECHNOLOGY P. 3 4

LIVING WELL IN...

MADRID P. 2 6

S U S TA I N A B L E FASHION P. 6 4 WITH

CAROLE BOUQUET BENJAMIN MILLEPIED NORMAN FOSTER PIET OUDOLF

THE SCIENCE OF LONGEVITY

‘Living longer & better’

‘ L E T F O O D B E T H Y M E D I C I N E A N D M E D I C I N E B E T H Y F O O D’

—Hippocrates

CON TRI BUTORS

STA FF

LANIE GOODMAN

4

M AGA Z I N E

Born and raised in New York, Lanie Goodman is an arts and travel writer based in the south

E DI TOR

of France since 1988. She contributes to

ALEJANDRO BATALLER

publications including Condé Nast Traveller, Wallpaper* and The Wall Street Journal.

E DI TORI A L COOR D I N ATO R

She is the author of the book Romantic French

BERNARDO FUERTES

Homes and Moving Towards the Light: The Paintings of Joseph Raffael.

DE PUTY E DI TORIA L COVE R PHOTO

COORDI N ATOR

STEPHANIE RAUSSER

AGNISH RAY

(TRUNK ARCHIVES) A RT DI RECTI ON

CANO ESTUDIO PA RTN E RSHI PS & A DV E RT I S I N G

BLANCA REYERO DI G I TA L M AG A ZI N E

MARTA HERIAS E DI TORI A L A DVI SO R S

SANDRA DEL RÍO JESÚS CANO PUBLI SHE D I N SPA I N BY

ALBIR HILLS RESORT SAU Calle Verderol 5 Playa del Albir SPAIN CON TACT

advertising@shamagazine.com editorial@shamagazine.com info@shamagazine.com ROSLYN S ULCAS

FRANCE SCA WHI TE

Roslyn Sulcas is a dance critic and culture

Francesca White is a writer and consultant

writer for The New York Times. She was an

specialising in the world of wellness.

obsessed ballet student when growing up in

As Health & Beauty Editor-at-Large of Tatler

Cape Town, South Africa. Since then, she

magazine, she loves nothing more than

has lived in Paris, New York and London and

discovering the latest aesthetic treatments.

written about some of the most significant

PRI N TE R

figures and phenomena in the world of dance.

GRÁFICAS IMTRO (SPAIN) ISSN: 2603896X ALBE RTO BRAVO

D. L.: M-7762-2018

For the past 20 years, Alberto Bravo has

Paper certified from responsible sources

been a journalist covering science, medicine and sport. He worked with the scientific magazine Jano for 15 years. He is currently finishing his new book about anti-ageing medicine.

CON TENTS

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A CUP OF TEA WITH

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H EALTH Y LIVING IN...

6

CAROLE BOUQUET MADRID

& M ORE...

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S P OT L I G H T O N . . . K UZ U

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H E A LT H & B E AU T Y

19

I N N OVAT I V E TO O L S

24

BOOKS & FILMS

34 MEDI CINE

HEALTH TECHNOLOGY 42

TALK I NG WI TH

BENJAMIN MILLEPIED 50 ARCHITECTU RE

NORMAN FOSTER

PIET OUDOLF’S GARDENS 56 ENVIRONMENT

64 FASH ION

TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY

& SHA UN I VE R S E 96

P O S I T I V E L U X U RY

108

A DVA N C E D T R E AT M E N T S

1 1 4

CHEF’S STUDIO

70 GASTRONOMY

PLANT-BASED REVOLUTION WITH MATTHEW KENNEY 76 ART

VILLA CARMIGNAC 84

UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS

102

WI TH DR VI CENTE MERA

NATURAL THERAPIES THE SCIENCE OF LONGEVITY

S H A MAGAZ INE

Be the CEO of your own health It is estimated that by 2030 we will be lacking 18 million health sector professionals needed to provide a sufficient level of healthcare, considering the rapidly growing rate of illnesses - most of which are preventable and avoidable through a healthy lifestyle.

We are learning to master advanced technology from an increasingly early age. But there is one piece of equipment that we still haven’t managed to get the hang of - our own body. The main way in which the average person learns how to live is from the idyllic picture painted by commercial brands.

ALFREDO BATALLER PARIETTI

SHA President & Founder

One of the major transformations of recent decades relates to food intake. We have moved from consuming natural products, like wholemeal cereals, vegetables, fruits and bits of fish and meat on special occasions, to consuming a range of processed products that contain huge amounts of sugar, salt, preservatives, colourants and flavour enhancers. This means that the lessons about healthy eating that used to be handed down through generations have been drastically disrupted.

As in any area of life, these sorts of decisions have to be taken in a sufficiently informed way. What is best for my body? What foods are the most or least suitable? Apart from the differences that may exist between some nutritional studies and others, there are certain key references that are less questionable, such as those from the World Health Organisation (WHO) or Harvard Medical School.

Natural therapies, which are becoming more and more popular among the public, can offer great solutions when it comes to achieving a state of wellbeing. In this issue of SHA Magazine, we put some of these under the microscope, sharing some of the latest evidence found on the subject.

We also look at how technology is becoming increasingly relevant for monitoring and controlling our key health indicators. In years to come, we will have access - at home, or simply on our wrists - to a similar level of technology for monitoring our health that a cutting-edge hospital might have today. This does not mean that we no longer need doctors or hospitals, or that we should self-medicate. But it does mean that we will only be able to enjoy an ideal health if we think seriously about using the right knowledge and tools to become the CEOs of our own health.

organiza organised by

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S H A MAGAZ INE

I LLU STRATIO N

PABLO RUBÉN

Spotlight on... Kuzu A surprisingly mighty starch A C H A LK Y WH I TE P OWDE R LA B E LLED ‘K U ZU ’ IS F O U ND IN MOS T NAT U R AL H EALT H FO O D SH O P S I N E U RO P E A N D THE U S. BU T A LO NG H IS TO RY LIES BEH IND T H IS MO DE ST- LO O K I N G I N GRE DI E N T…

SPOTLI GH T ON

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MELANIE WAXMAN

It is said that around 2000 years ago, people living by the Yoshino River in Japan began harvesting a hardy, fast-growing vine, whose roots were thought to contain healing and strengthening powers. To this day, these roots are highly prized for the fine, white starch they produce.

Digging up these aggressive, wild roots was hard work - they can measure up to 2 metres and weigh over 180 kilos. So the process of making kuzu starch has always been considered an artform. The roots are carried down from the hills, to be cut, crushed, soaked and rinsed in spring water - all by hand, amidst Japan’s cold, mountainous winters.

The pure starch that remains has almost no taste and can be mixed into soups, sauces, desserts, medicinal drinks and other foods. Although it is still not consumed on a large scale outside Japan, kuzu is a prize ingredient in the kitchens of those who have experienced the value of its medicinal properties.

HEALING POWERS J UICE, WITH A K I CK

Here is a way to quickly whip up a warm fruit drink that does wonders for your body. Put one heaped teaspoon of kuzu in a small saucepan containing half a cup of cold water. While heating, add half a cup of sugar-free apple juice and simmer over a medium heat, stirring often with a wooden spoon.

Prepared as a soothing yet energising ume sho kuzu tea, with umeboshi, ginger and soy sauce, it can dissipate cold and flu symptoms almost immediately; the rice-syrup-sweetened ame kuzu tea is good for hypoglycemia and anxiety; and apple kuzu tea relaxes muscle pains and aides a restful sleep. The alkaline quality of the starch also makes an excellent anti-inflammatory lining for the stomach and intestines, and its high content of naturally occurring antioxidant flavonoids offers a powerful boost to the digestive and circulatory systems.

When the liquid starts to bubble around the edges, stir constantly until it thickens and becomes more translucent. Remove from the heat, add a little lemon juice and drink while still warm. This simple but healing drink is perfect for insomnia and for relaxing tense muscles.

Kuzu was always considered precious because of how difficult it was to extract the starch - it is, after all, a notoriously tough and tenacious plant, growing deep into the ground and even through rock. It is no surprise then that consuming it provides an equally impressive dose of strength and energy.

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FACE TO FACE

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PHOTOG RA PHY

CORALIE ROGEZ

RICCARDO TINELLI / H&K

14

A cup of tea with...

Carole Bouquet Q

A

Carole Bouquet is said to have captured Karl Lagerfield’s imagination

When I am acting on stage.

That is when I forget all my problems.

Q

Your favourite book?

How do you enjoy your leisure time?

Q

A

What sound do you love?

Q

What sound do you hate?

By reading a book or exploring my local neighbourhood.

Q

What turns you on?

Q

Your favourite fruit?

Q

What turns you off?

Q

What do you not eat?

Q

What would you like to learn?

Q

What is your favourite virtue?

Q

What are you most grateful for?

Q

What is your present state of mind?

Q

Your favourite life motto?

A

Q

A

with just one look - and he made her the face of Chanel No. 5 for fifteen years. In an acting career spanning over four decades, she has starred in films from all over Europe, including Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of

Q

A

Desire and as the Bond girl in For Your Eyes Only.

Her son Dimitri’s recent marriage

A

to Carlota Casiraghi has put this attractive, demure and elegant woman back on the radar - and now we know one of the secrets to her healthy

A

life. In the late 90s, with the help of her good friend Isabella Rossellini, Bouquet acquired 18,000 hectares of land on the Sicilian island of

Q

A

Pantelleria.

She bought it from Nuncio Gorgone, an agricultor who taught her how to cultivate ecological vineyards on this volcanic island. Everything in this

Going to the theatre and listening to music - classical music, in particular.

How do you unwind after a stressful week?

Figs from the trees at my house in Pantelleria.

Seafood, as I am allergic. And I don’t like offal.

Beach or mountain?

I like to go walking or jogging in the mountains. But I love the sea for relaxing at sunset and sunrise.

Your top tip for a healthy body?

Q

What is the one thing you cannot go without?

A

and maintained by hand. Bouquet has found her paradise here - one made that wonderful soil.

When are your body and mind most at peace?

Q

region, called Serraglio, is harvested

of sea, fruit trees, olive groves and

I can take my music and photos with me everywhere - but at the same time it forces me to work everywhere.

Your idea of perfect happiness is?

Famed for her signature enigmatic gaze, the French model and actress

Paris. Even though I have more than one house, and my heart is divided between Italy and France, I always go back to Paris.

Q

Q LADY OF THE LAND

Where is home?

A

It is very important to keep your mind and spirit happy, in order to have positive results on the body.

Everything is connected.

My mobile phone. I like it because

A

A

A

A lovely dinner with friends in my house in Pantelleria.

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov.

The laughter of my nephews.

The noise of an ambulance, as it makes me think that something negative is happening.

A Love.

A A A

A

A

A

Solitude.

Ancient Greek.

Sympathy. And when someone can let you truly laugh.

All the positive things that have happened in my life.

Today my mind is busy and full of things as I am starting a new project.

Get up and do it, even when you are tired, bored or lazy. You have to go out and start a new day.

NEW TOUR,

IN 2019 PATRICK BRUEL KICKS OFF A NEW TOUR THROUGH THE BIGGEST CITIES IN FRANCE AND CENTRAL EUROPE

HEALTH PERSONAL & BEAUTY CARE

TEX T

PHOTOG RA PHY

FRANCESCA WHITE

FRAGMENTO UNIVERSO

Ancient Remedies Health & Beauty Time-tested formulas

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Prepare your skin to travel

Treat and transform face and body with these time-tested formulas, as picked by the These in-flight beauty director essentials of Tatler magazine. will ensure you touch down looking –and feeling– better than when you left.

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SSHHAAMAGAZ MAGAZINE INE

INN OVATIVE TOOLS

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S H A MAGAZ INE

MAGGIE PIERCE

M O B I L E A RT One of the most popular and high-selling items at Art Basel this year was not an oil painting, sculpture or installation - but a pair of sunglasses. These frames are signed by the contemporary artist Ugo Rondinone and few collectors at the fair could resist picking up a pair. They make a strong statement too totally recyclable, biodegradable and made with non-toxic, eco-sustainable materials. oneallevery.com

Smart Design For daily wellbeing

LIFE IN MAPLE These office goods by Grovemade are crafted from solid maple, lined with durable aluminum and cork, then sanded and finished with a clear vegetable-based oil for a rich, lustrous finish that highlights the natural warmth and beauty of the wood. grovemade.com

DIG IN

O U T O N T H E WAT E R

Reconnect with your garden using these polished metal gardening tools by Internoitaliano, whose range of homeware is inspired by the Italian way of living.

The company describes their items as “happy objects� - fruit of a joint effort between designer and craftsman.

Rowing provides ideal exercise for anyone looking to burn calories, build lean muscle, boost the metabolic and cardiovascular systems and improve overall fitness.

This handmade piece of equipment by WaterRowers, built using sustainably sourced hardwoods, stimulates a realistic feeling of rowing on water.

internoitaliano.com

waterrower.fr

INN OVATIVE TOOLS

20

INDOOR GARDEN

BETTER LIGHT, BETTER SLEEP

B R E AT H E C L E A N E R

Harvest and enjoy healthy herbs, edible flowers and fresh vegetables all year round from the comfort of your kitchen. This compact, silent and ergonomic product

by Véritable uses cutting-edge LED light technology to ensure plant growth without any natural light needed.

It is important to monitor the link between our light intake and our sleep cycles.

This coin-sized wearable disk by LYS works to ensure you get the right amount of natural light, in order to encourage a good night’s sleep. Hook it onto your lapel or jacket collar, or hang it around your neck on a chain, while monitoring via an app on your phone.

The patented technology used in Molekule’s air purifier works at molecular level to eliminate common indoor pollutants such as particulate matter, bacteria, mould and allergens.

veritable-potager.fr

lystechnologies.co.uk

FREEWHEELING A new category of electric two-wheelers known as the ‘noped’ is emerging as one of the more innovative vehicles for the urban commuter. Sol Motor’s Pocket Rocket combines lightweight contemporary design with performance and connectivity, incorporating technology with a functional lifestyle, for a modern riding experience. solmotors.com

HANDS CLEAN This soft-to-the-touch black matte container, fitting neatly in your pocket, holds a scented hand sanitiser spray derived from sugar-canebased alcohol, rosehip seed, jojoba and Italian bergamia oil. Clean, fresh and sweet-smelling hands anywhere you go. noshinku.com

molekule.com

S H A MAGAZ INE

Enjoy a stopover in Qatar on your next journey Fly with us from Madrid and Barcelona and enjoy a memorable stopover in Doha before connecting to over 160 places worldwide. In Qatar´s historic capital, savour five-star cuisine, gaze at the impressive skyline, wander through the old alleyways of Souq Waqif or explore the new National Museum of Qatar.

Discover Doha with Qatar Airways. qatarairways.com

EN VIRONMENT

TE XT

PHOTOG RA PHY

JEAN-MARIE LEVY

ANTOSETIAWAN

Preserving the forests A race against the clock

BEYOND CRAF TSMANSHIP

The desire to preserve is in the DNA of a watch brand like Audemars Piguet, which has just launched a new collection, Code 11.59 - a landmark moment for the manufacturer, who has not released any new products since 2002. Jasmine Audemars, chairwoman of the board of directors, explains:

Deforestation is one of the greatest environmental problems that the planet is facing. In Indonesia, the problem is particularly serious because of widespread palm oil production and the destructive effect this has on biodiversity, as well as increasing forest fires.

“At Audemars Piguet we constantly challenge ourselves to push the limits of craftsmanship. Endowed with a strong spirit of independence, we proudly own our roots and territory, daring to combine precision and creativity. Faithful to our legacy, we are continuing to grow, preserve and rewrite traditions. The 11.59 is ahead of the game, always looking to the future.” A contemporary take on a classic, this collection gives a modern touch and a certain originality to the classic round watch, while playing with the brand’s long history of design and conventional shapes. The collection includes 13 models, featuring five different functionalities and six calibres of the latest generation, representing one of the most important launches for Audemars Piguet.

Among the highlights of the Audemars Piguet Foundation’s is a project on the regeneration of biodiversity on the island of Flores in Indonesia, which has been heavily damaged by fires. This project is an extension of the restoration and reforestation activities that the foundation carried out in Flores in 2016, with the aim of increasing the area of repair, forest preservation and local awareness-raising (among farmers, hunters, breeders) to 120 hectares in 3 zones. The areas identified for reforestation fall within the continuation of the project funded by the Audemars Piguet Foundation, in the region of Riung, to the centre of the island. The areas still have forests with high levels of biodiversity - but these are gradually reducing because of fires.

S H A MAGAZ INE

The increasing importance for companies to make improvements in society, the environment and development is driving projects that really contribute to changing the world. One of the companies with a particularly keen eye for investing in such projects is Audemars Piguet.

In addition to its long, successful relationship with the worlds of art, golf and music, Audemars Piguet places special emphasis on the regeneration of forests, with projects spread all over the globe. Since 1992, the Audemars Piguet Foundation has been changing the world through initiatives related to environmental protection and engaging young people. The foundation’s board of directors is led by Jasmine Audemars, daughter of Jacques-Louis Audemars, who set up the foundation in 1992.

The foundation has the benefit of a scientific collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an organisation that brings together around 1,000 governmental and nongovernmental bodies dedicated to matters of environmental conservation.

BO OK S & FILMS

TEXT

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RALPH CUTTEN

Expand your mind Nourish your spirit

HOW TO BE WELL:

THE C WORD

FOODS THAT CURE D I S E A S E

Frank Lipman

Directed by Meghan L. O’Hara

Directed by Craig McMahon

In How to Be Well, the bestselling author and health expert Dr Frank Lipman shares his formula for vitality - the Good Medicine Mandala. Guided by a circular system of six spheres, the Mandala contains more than 100 simple steps to build and improve recovery, resistance to illness and general health.

In this book we learn about some of the daily habits and exercises that we can apply to the most basic aspects of life, like eating, sleeping, attuning your body with the earth’s natural rhythms, protecting against toxins, disconnecting from stress and awakening one’s consciousness.

The prestigious producer Megan O’Hara, a cancer survivor, is changing the way we think about the disease. The time has come to stop fearing this illness - it is now cancer’s turn to be afraid of us. O’Hara met the neurologist David Servan-Schreiber, who was diagnosed with brain cancer while he himself was carrying out research into the disease. Together they explore the daily behaviours in the West that are linked to 70% of deaths caused by cancer - smoking, processed foods, stress, pollutants and lack of exercise. The film is narrated and produced by Morgan Freeman.

This documentary - which is more than four hours long showcases some fascinating stories. The director, Craig McMahon, after discovering the high levels of cholesterol in his blood, decided to change his way of life and confront his genetic predisposition. He adopted a strict vegetarian diet inspired by the theories of Drs T. Colin Campbell, Thomas M. Campbell, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Mike Greger and John McDougall.

Backed by his studies at Cornell University, Craig used scientific research to create healthy and delicious recipes that improve your health.

THE 6 K EYS TO A HAPPY AND HEALTH Y LIF E

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S H A MAGAZ INE

COWSP IRAC Y

TH E WE LLN E SS GA RDEN:

U NS U P ER S IZ E ME

GROW, E AT A N D WA L K YO U R WAY TO B E TTE R H E A LTH

Directed by Keegan Kuhn and Kip Anderson

Shawna Coronado (Cool Spring Press)

Directed by Juan Carlos Asse

Even the world’s most important ecological organisations are failing to truly address the greatest destructive force that our planet faces today - the contamination of the air we breathe. Breeding animals produces more harmful gas emissions than all transport forms put together, polluting or destroying natural habitats. The documentary follows the heart-rending journey (not without some humour) of an ambitious ecologist on a daring hunt for a real solution to our most urgent environmental problems and for a true path towards sustainability.

If you love gardening and are conscious of your physical fitness, or if you are looking for ways to live a more healthy life and even fight specific chronic health problems, the author and speaker Shawna Coronado offers a series of tips for fighting chronic pain while looking after your garden at home. The author explains how she learned to use gardening as a key tool in her fight against arthritis and other chronic pain problems. In this practical manual, she teaches us how to create our own wellness garden.

This great piece of visual reportage documents the inspirational story of Juan Carlos Asse, owner of Zen Fitness, a personal training studio in Gainesville, Florida, in the USA, and his mission to prove that a diet based on plants and whole foods, along with a strict exercise routine, can significantly and quickly improve lives. Armed with discipline and the right kind of knowledge, any person is capable of transforming his or her life. The documentary is a powerful story of overcoming hardship, in which we are told about the radical process of weight-loss for people suffering from extreme obesity.

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E AT I N G

A LON SO M A RTÍ N EZ ROOTS LA M A RCA

ALONSO MARTÍNEZ BUN NY’S DELI

Vegan, organic, artisanal, gluten-free food that the owner prepares on-site, in a cute, welcoming space only big enough for eight covers. Simple yet delicious, and proof of how tasty this type of food can be for even the most discerning of palates. They also offer catering for private events.

San Gregorio, 17 bunnysdeli.com

RETIRO UN PACKED

This shop is bursting with everything you can imagine: seaweed, bran, cereals, pasta, pulses, dried fruits, seeds, teas, medicinal herbs, chocolates and oil - but also detergent, personal hygiene products and ecological toilet paper. The idea is that you bring your own containers and fill them up with what you want, in order to avoid using bags.

Inside the multidisciplinary Lamarca building - which includes Lab, a clothes shop selling brands like Golden Goose and Re/Done, a Clandestin outlet and Tracy Anderson’s first studio in Spain - is a space that develops mindful nutrition based on seasonal, locally produced and unprocessed ingredients, free from refined sugars, additives, chemical products and GMOs. In practice, their mission to “return to the origins” translates into surprising recipes like: a macrobiotic bowl with kale, black lentils, kimchi, roast sweet potato, pumpkin seeds and sesame; an Omega 3 toast with kale pesto, nuts and mixed seeds; and a beetroot and blue spirulina tart. There is also a corner for granola, spirulina popcorn, kale chips, kombucha and enriched waters, to fill up your cupboard at home.

Calle Fernando VI, 10 rootslamarca.com

BA RRI O SA LA M A NC A PLA N E T ORG A N I C

Narváez, 28 unpackedshop.es

ALONSO MARTÍNEZ LA MAGDALENA DE PROU ST

On the one hand, this is a small ecological market selling fresh products grown by the owner Laura Martínez in her bio-sustainable garden. But inside you also find a bakery that makes more than 25 different types of bread.

Everything from the most common ingredients - like wheat, rye and corn - to spelt and kamut wheat feature in the stellar recipes found on the bakery’s prized shelves. Customers can even sign up to breadmaking classes.

Regueros, 8 lamagdalenadeproust.com

This multi-use space includes a supermarket (with a great assortment of products) and also a restaurant with a daily special menu. The menu gives a playful twist to dishes that, on first sight, one might not think of as healthy, thus debunking the cliché of healthy food as boring or tasteless.

For example: freshly fried potato wedges served with tofu mayonnaise and artisanal pizza made with spelt flour, passata, mozzarella, oregano and organic ham.

Castelló, 63 planetorganic.es top to bottom UNPACKED, ROOTS LAMARCA AND LA MAGDALENA DE PROUST.

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B A RRIO SA LA MA NC A B U MP GRE E N

The menu is defined by respect for ingredients and an innovative style that plays with the traditions of ageold recipes. The space is delightfully decorated, mixing rural references with vintage touches, somewhat resembling an English countryside mansion. It’s a haven of peace in which to escape from hectic city life. Among its highlight dishes are the artisanal avocado toast or the sweet potato noodles.

Velázquez, 11 bumpgreen.com

RE TIRO C E LIC IOSO

In 2012, taking on the challenge of creating a gastronomical offer that left gluten out of the equation, Santiago Godfrid founded a restaurant that now has four branches in Madrid. A paradise for celiacs, where they can enjoy banana and walnut loaf, sugar-free chocolate cake, Argentine dulce de leche pastries or colourful macaroons, not to mention a surprising and tempting array of lactosefree cupcakes.

O’Donnell, 4 celicioso.com

VA RIO U S LO C ATIO NS O LI VIA TE C U IDA

A classic establishment, and one of the first places in Madrid to focus on healthy eating without forgetting about aesthetics or flavour. Options include breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner, as well as a catering service. The restaurant has gradually expanded its empire and philosophy across the city.

Santa Teresa, 8; Fortuny, 7; Paseo de la Chopera, 14; Santa Isabel, 3 oliviatecuida.net

C H U EC A AUAK T

This is one of the most recent additions to the flourishing, fashionable Salesas sub-district. Its journey begins with the idea that healthy food does not need to be boring, tasteless or low in calories.

Prime materials and their traceability are the most important thing here.

There are four menus for different parts of the day - breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner - and after hours, there is a signature cocktail menu based on fresh products, low in sugar and alcohol-free.

Barquillo, 42 auakt.com

C H U EC A EL H U ERTO DE LU C AS

A total immersion into the organic eating wave, right in the heart of Chueca. A canteen, a market and a restaurant all sit in this space, whose luminous glazed ceiling is filled with hanging plants. Swing by at any time of the day, whether it’s to grab a table or gather around the bar, and enjoy the ecological and sustainable food based on the quality of fresh products - many of which are also on sale in the shop window. Come here to stock up on organic vegetables, fish and pulses.

San Lucas, 13 elhuertodelucas.com

top to bottom BUMPGREEN, OLIVIA TE CUIDA, AUKAT, EL HUERTO DE LUCAS.

DESTINATION

S TAY I N G F I T

BARRI O SALAMANCA TRACY ANDERSON METHOD

Under the umbrella of Lamarca, came Spain’s first space by Tracy Anderson - the fitness trainer whom Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna and Olivia Palermo swear by. Her method, which she developed through more than 20 years of studying the female body, are proven to work and have sparked quite a frenzy - her studios in New York, the Hamptons and Los Angeles all have waiting lists.

Fernando VI, 10 tracyanderson.com

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top to bottom CLUB XII, YOGA PARA EL CAMBIO, TRIB3, HOLISTIC STUDIO.

PRI N CE SA HOLI STI C STUDI O

A boutique studio that follows a holistic focus when it comes to training. Forget formulas and reps - with the help of the experts, the programmes (which include barre classes, cardio, yoga and strength) adapt and change constantly to fit with each person’s needs, objectives and tastes.

Martín de los Heros, 57 holisticstudio.es

BARRI O SALAMANCA CLUB X II

ATOCHA

Taking the idea of the boutique gym and adding a new concept of personal training, this elegant, welcoming and very personal space goes further than the usual workout. There are boxing classes and interactive machines of the latest generation, as well as spaces for post-work leisure, networking, or just watching the match on the sofa. A club in the most literal and exclusive sense of the word.

AYO G A

Paseo de Eduardo Dato, 12

Atocha, 56

You can find hatha, vinyasa, kundalini, yin yoga, aero yoga, pilates and even yoga for kids in this New York-style space. A big selling point is the flexible timetable, with classes running from 9 in the morning until 10 at night.

They also organise sessions to work on confidence, motivation and leadership, and offer therapy and massages. ayoga.es

AZCA TRIB3

A N Y WHE RE YOG A PA RA E L CA MB I O

This chain has branches in Moscow, Tel Aviv, Leeds and London - and they have just opened in Madrid (at Paseo de la Castellana 141, as well as in Basílica). The system is rather unique studio spaces with personalised music and bootcamp-style training, but no membership fees. You just pay for the sessions that you do. Perfect for businessmen and women who travel and are short for time.

Calle Edgar Neville 22 trib3.es

Rediscover yourself through an integral yoga practice focused on self-knowledge and awakening your physical and emotional abilities, guided by Cristina Madrid. Her private yoga classes are detailed and totally personalised, to achieve your goals, whether they are physical, emotional or spiritual.

The classes follow a comprehensive approach which respects everyone’s own personal rhythm.

At home yogaparaelcambio.com

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BEAUTY AND SPORTS

LA MO R ALEJA C RYS DYAZ & CO

B A RRIO SA LA MA NC A C LAU DIA DI PAO LO

This is a temple for beauty treatments located right on Madrid’s golden mile. On Jorge Juan street, you’ll find a unique space created by beauty hunter Claudia di Paolo, inventor of a revolutionary concept that has built a big following ever since it opened the ‘Spa Capilar’. Di Paolo’s boutique offers the most exclusive signature cosmetics brands from all over the world. In this authentic beauty clinic for your hair, you can get made-to-measure treatments specific to different hair types. The facial treatments are based on traditional Japanese skincare and facelift methods, which di Paolo brought to Spain; they work on your face with their hands, resulting in a real facial workout.

Jorge Juan, 39 claudiadipaolo.com

A LO NSO MA RTÍNE Z H A N DMA DE B E AU TY

From a Mother Earth facial to restore your skin to a Cleanse massage to eliminate toxins, blocked liquid and heavy metals, or a chemical-free Raw manicure. This place uses and sells its own product line - 7-free nail polishes, rice and cucumber face masks, and moisturisers made of tomato and essential oils.

Backed by her brilliant career as an elite sportswoman, having represented Spain as a swimmer, Cristina Diaz is thought to be responsible for the enviable figures of several Spanish celebrities. In her studio, designed like a spacious and welcoming New York penthouse, she works with the latest trends in fitness technology, like surf, vertimax or flowin boards, or other tools like TRX, kinesis or boxing, which let her develop programmes suited to each of her patients, meeting their needs and objectives, with a physical as well as nutritional focus.

Azalea, 1, La Moraleja crysdyazandco.com

C AMP O DE LAS NAC IO NES W ELLNIU M

The secret of this place’s success lies in its reinterpretation of pilates as a key ingredient and common denominator of a wide range of functional training.

This fusion results in a series of sessions that burn more calories than traditional sessions and allows the body to generally work better, improving performance by increasing coordination and stimulating muscular patterns through progressive, daily efforts.

Olivar de la Hinojosa Golf Club. Vía Dublín wellnium.com

Conde de Xiquena, 17 handmadebeauty-db.com

top to bottom CLAUDIA DI PAOLO AND OLIVAR DE LA HINOJOSA GOLF CLUB WHERE WELLNIUM IS LOCATED.

DESTINATION

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LIFESTYLE

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AIRPORT

ESENZA

BY SHA, VERNATURA, CORTANA, DESPACIO CONCEPT STORE.

ESENZA BY S H A

Esenza by SHA is an exclusive space located in terminals 4 and 4S of Madrid’s Adolfo Suárez international airport, focused on the inner wellbeing of those who always want to look after themselves regardless of how busy they are in day-to-day life. Through a careful selection of natural cosmetics, personalised beauty treatments and healthy, fresh, ecological food, which follow the nutritional principles of SHA Wellness Clinic, Esenza by Sha is an oasis in which we care for our bodies and restore balance.

T4, next to J55 y J54 gates, T4S, next to S24 y S26 gates

CHUECA

Level + 1 Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport

DE SPACI O CON C E P T S TO R E

esenzabysha.com

This furniture shop (with items like bamboo sushi kits, ecological rattan tablecloths and pans with De Buyer wood handles) also offers cookery classes (for children too), like vegetarian cooking, ice cream and artisanal desserts, and healthy fast food.

This is one of the trendiest avant-garde concept stores you can find in Madrid right now. Its aesthetic is clean - much like the brand it works with. T-shirts made of organic cotton, ready-towear garments from Danish brands in a typical Scandanavian style (like Nümph or Samsoe Samsoe), ecological and fair-trade sports trainers by Veja, backpacks by Swiss recycled accessories brand Freitag, plus items by other Spanish brands.

Plaza de la Encarnación, 2

Belén, 10

alambique.com

despacio.es

LEGAZPI

BA RRI O SA LA M A NC A

VERNATURA

CORTA N A

This gardening centre specialises in the concept of the vegetable patch. From €45 per month, they rent you a space to grow your own orchard in the city. Not only do they provide you with everything you need - from the compost to the tools - but they also offer you guidance and classes.

Art and nature in their most delicate form are the main source of inspiration for Rosa Esteva. The designer from Mallorca offers high-quality materials, a bespoke colour palette and exclusive prints developed from watercolours that she herself paints. The ‘slow’ philosophy of the brand is manifest in the natural fabrics made by hand in local workshops.

Ó PERA ALAMBIQUE

Embajadores, 320 vernatura.es

Callejón de Jorge Juan, 12 cortana.es

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TECH NOLOGY

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DANNY BUCKLAND

HOME IS WHERE THE HEALTH IS WITH MOBILE HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES ATTRACTING RECORD LEVELS OF INVESTMENT, THE POSSIBILITIES FOR MONITORING AND EVEN DIAGNOSING OUR OWN HEALTH, FROM HOME OR ON THE MOVE, ARE ADVANCING LIKE NEVER BEFORE.

TECH NOLOGY

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Healthcare has emerged from its slow-lane status, where it dawdled with queues and bureaucracy for a generation, into a super highway of dynamic growth. The blueprints that sent us to clinics and hospitals to dutifully wait in line are being torn up in favour of flexible, responsive systems that offer all the convenience consumers expect in a digital age.

Advances in technology and increasing patient power mean healthcare is heading home - artificial intelligence, algorithms, telehealth and smart design are just some of the movements that are enabling the public to connect with diagnoses from their own houses or while on the move.

INTERNET OF THINGS

This fluid age of connectivity means people can capitalise on mountains of data to create healthier futures. The health sector is already awash with influences from commerce and retail, which pioneer the use of technology to service their customers. And research has shown that the public is willing to discard traditional methods of medical contact in favour of virtual consultations and teleheath connections.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that is infiltrating more and more areas of daily life, with data constantly flying around between the array of digital devices that we surround ourselves with every day.

In the area of healthcare, we can see

Avatar nurses and doctors now advise on common ailments on smartphones; wellness routines guided by wearable devices are mainstream; and blood glucose monitors have revolutionised self-care for people with diabetes. More serious conditions still of course need hospital care and face-to-face contact with physicians - but even chemotherapy patients are soon to avail of at-home monitoring devices.

a particularly revolutionary effect.

According to recently released studies, the global IoT market in just the healthcare space (or, the Internet of Medical Things) is expected to reach over 371.4 billion US dollars by 2025. Across the vast ecosystem of healthcare, IoT developments in

The exciting potential here is magnetising business. Amazon, Apple, Uber and Verily (Google’s billion-dollar healthcare division) are investing heavily, while the US shopping giant Walmart is creating primary healthcare ‘retail clinics’ in its stores. These corporations believe that replicating their core values - convenience, speed and efficiency - to the sector will enable healthcare to be dispensed at home or direct to the person. No queues, no bureaucracy - healthcare has become shoppable.

things like remote monitoring, smart sensors and device integration are not only increasing health and safety for patients, but also letting practitioners deliver better care in the treatment of cancer, diabetes, respiratory and digestive disorders and all sorts of

“Healthcare institutions need to be aware that the fabric of the world is changing at a rapid pace and that digital is going to be the tool to accelerate performance, productivity and outcomes,” says David Roberts, global health sector leader at EY, whose recent studies highlight how healthcare is lagging behind retail, travel and financial services in digital transformation.

other conditions.

The notion of treating patients as consumers is a difficult step-change for traditional healthcare systems. But the shift could save vital funds at a time when the World Health Organisation projects that the number of people aged 65 or older - many living with chronic conditions - will grow from 524 million in 2010 to 1.5 billion in 2050.

“People are used to quick reactions when they use a bank, do their shopping or book a holiday,” says Lloyd Price, co-founder of Zesty, an online health company based in the UK. “The same applies to healthcare and I believe the transformation we are seeing now is an unstoppable force. People will be more engaged with their health and encouraged

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to have healthier lives. Hospitals will still exist but they will be more efficient and deal with only the people they need to see. This is a disruptive time but the future is exciting.”

These changes are aimed at a time-pressured, digitally savvy audience, offering a speedy route to diagnosis. Work remains to be done to apply the digital accelerant to treatment and outcomes - but nonetheless we are seeing the herald of a new age where the individual takes more control of their health, deploying technology and knowledge to delay illness and infirmity, relieving some of the pressure on health systems.

AGEING P O P U L AT IO N

The World Health Organisation

The sector is attracting the brightest brains and generating game-changing tech. There are now gloves with stimulating sensors to help restore function to stroke patients and virtual reality headsets for use in pain and anxiety management. A wearable ring called Oura registers temperature, blood volume and a range of vital signs from your finger, looking like a fashion accessory but acting as a phalanx of medics. The smart pill, a medicinal tablet armed with sensors to monitor response, is already in development and companies are testing the use of crypto currencies to fund and control personalised health plans.

predicts that by 2050 there will be 1.5 billion people over the age of 65.

The Japanese government and the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) are among the other sources to have recently released similarly concerning demographic shifts in their respective countries. A new report by Moody’s highlights the challenges this is implying for Japan’s financial sector.

The movement is not without its challenges. Government systems, freighted with political concern, are slow to change, while the public’s desire for datadriven remedies is tempered by concerns around the security of personal details. Digital skills are yet to become a fundamental part of medical training and policy makers still need to ensure the regulatory climate is more conducive to new ideas and ecosystems.

Over in America, JP Morgan Asset Management believes that investing in things like housing or the auto industry becomes particularly challenging in an ageing and slow-growing population.

But the ONS is somewhat less pessimistic. The analysts say that while

Studies by Philips, the health diagnostics giant, have detected growing public acceptance of teleheath’s efficacy in breaking traditional constraints. Such findings are backed up by Accenture, who reveals that younger generations are instinctively drawn to medical providers with strong digital capabilities such as mobile or online access to test results, booking and prescriptions. Phillips also reported that 51 per cent of respondents used a wearable or mobile app to manage their lifestyle and healthcare conditions and 53 percent use virtual nurses to monitor health conditions, medications and vital signs.

Healthcare is on the road to an intuitive, responsive future where the individual has more ability to improve their own lifestyle, conditions and wellbeing. The smartwatches of today will be succeeded by a new generation of wearables, at-home monitoring and rapid connections to expert health advice.

More than ever before, healthcare is in the fast lane.

their findings may imply pressure on things like economy and healthcare, they could also be viewed alongside the more encouraging trend of people starting to live healthier, longer and more active lives.

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KEEP YOUR H EAD

It’s all about headsets nowadays.

The Muse InterAxon uses electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to monitor your brain activity, transmitting the information to your computer, smartphone or tablet. Clinicians, particularly in the USA, are also starting to use virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift, which plays a range of animated films to treat patients’ anxiety and pain.

TA K E A B I T E

W EARAB LE DEVI CES F O R YO UR H EALTH

An electronic piece of cutlery called HAPIfork helps you stay healthy by monitoring your eating habits. A built-in accelerometer tracks the movement of your hand and measures the time between mouthfuls, warning you if you’re eating too fast. The utensil pairs with the HAPIfork mobile app to help you track and sync your data as you eat.

MATTERS OF THE HE ART

Mobile monitors like AliveCor let you track your heart health all day long, delivering a medical-grade electrocardiogram (ECG) to your smartphone in just 30 seconds.

A remote monitoring system called BodyGuardian Heart allows healthcare practitioners to monitor their patients’ respiration, heart rate and other cardiac activity. Withings sells a blood pressure monitor, strapped around your arm, that lets you detect a variety of cardiovascular diseases in the comfort of your home. The same company also makes a sleeping mat for sleep cycle monitoring (deep, light and REM), heart rate tracking and snore detection.

INJ URY RELI EF

New devices are emerging to provide drug-free pain relief through wearable devices. A strap by Quell worn around the leg uses nerve stimulation to rid people of joint and muscle pain. LumiWave’s device uses near-infrared light therapy to do the same.

STEP I N TIME

Keep close track of the steps you are taking daily with the latest pedometers on the market, like the Garmin Vivofit 4, the Misfit Ray or the Xiaomi Mi Band 2.

FI TB I T F U T U R E

The market keeps churning out new and improved health-related wearables for your wrist. The latest Apple Watch Series 4, the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active and the Fitbit Versa are lightweight, simple and let you track a range of health and fitness activities at a simple glance.

BRI N G B AC K F E E L I N G

Sensory electrical stimulation (SES) gloves by companies like Saebo are being offered to patients who have had strokes or suffer from impaired function, weakness, spasticity or other neurological and orthopedic injuries, to help bring functionality back to the hand and arm.

M E D I C A L I MAGI N G

New technology by companies like Openwater is providing low-cost, portable alternatives to multi-million dollar medical scans like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). These new optoelectronic and holographic systems allow access to medical imaging for all and could slash the need for brick and mortar hospitals within a decade.

TALKI NG WI TH ...

TEXT

PHOTOG RA PHY

ROSLYN SULCAS

SEBASTIEN MICKE (GETTY IMAGES)

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BENJAMIN

A BODY STRETCHING THE LIMITS MILLEPIED Whether choreographing for Hollywood, or launching a digital fitness platform, this dance star is showing the world what the human body is truly capable of.

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B

enjamin Millepied has been dancing ever since he can remember. Now married to the actress Natalie Portman, this French-born dance star, choreographer and about-to-be film director has lived, on and off, in Los Angeles since 2012. But his first years were spent in Dakar, Senegal, where his father used to work training the country’s top athletes. Millepied lived there until he was five - and his earliest memories are of his mother’s dance studio.

Although he no longer dances professionally, Millepied still spends a good amount of his waking hours in motion - choreographing work for his own troupe, called L.A. Dance Project, or rehearsing the ballets that are performed by companies all over the world. In October, he will begin work on his first feature film - an updated take on the French opera Carmen. And amidst all this, he is busy with a new exercise app that will be launched on iOS and Android in October - an evolution of the LA Dance Workout online platform that he recently launched.

“We want to bring dance to people in a way that isn’t just a classic fitness routine,” Millepied tells me. “There will be 15-minute, 30-minute and hour-long sessions, adapted to smaller spaces, and we’re busy selecting teachers now. Some of our dancers will lead the routines, and the app will also allow us to live-stream classes, so that you get variation and new faces. We want people to feel great about themselves and their bodies through the joy of movement.”

This joy of movement was very much Millepied’s own way into dance.

When his family returned to France from Senegal, his mother opened a dance school in Bordeaux, teaching modern and African dance. “I did classes whenever I felt like it, not because anyone told me to - so it was all about the pleasure of dancing,” he says.

A L I B E R AT I N G B U T D E M A N D I N G A R T F O R M

Millepied was aware early on that the French model wasn’t for him.

“I remember seeing a documentary on the Paris Opera Ballet School when I was about ten, and it totally put me off going there. The teachers had sticks and were so strict; something seemed so wrong about that.”

Dance, Millepied says, has always represented freedom to him, perhaps because his parents were going through a fractious divorce at the time.

So studying ballet “was a discovery and an escape,” he says. He began to take classes at the Bordeaux Ballet School, then moving on to the Lyons Conservatoire. In 1995, he joined the New York City Ballet, and rose steadily through the ranks, becoming a principal in 2002, at just 24.

The physical demands on a dancer are gruelling. The legendary British ballerina Margot Fonteyn once famously said that if everyone knew how physically cruel dance can really be, nobody would watch.

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A WORKOUT F OR BODY AN D MI ND

From zumba and ballet barre to pole dancing and sexy stilettos, dance is forming an increasingly important part of people’s exercise routines.

While dance moves have always featured in things like aerobics classes, a more recent trend has seen the specialisms of dance training take on PHOTO: PATRICK FRASER

greater importance in broader fitness strategies, becoming a key part of a healthy, active everyday life. Not only does dance help with weight loss, core strength, stamina and coordination, but it is also a workout for the brain mentally focusing on the right movements, following music and staying in rhythm.

BENJAMIN MILLEPIED

PERFORMING “THE BODY IN MOVEMENT’ AT THE PETITE GALERIE DU LOUVRE, PARIS (2016) AND IN REHEARSAL WITH L.A. DANCE PROJECT (2018).

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DANCING, CYCLING AND TRX ALL FORM PART OF MILLEPIED’S FITNESS ROUTINE

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A ballet dancer begins each day with a 90-minute workout, which follows a predetermined order. First comes a warm-up at the barre, with slow bends and stretches preceding faster, higher extensions and beats, to get the body ready for dancing in the centre of the room. Once there, the dancers do slow arm and leg exercises, then move on to turns and jumps - first small, beaten steps, then high soaring leaps. And that’s just the start of the day. Then come many hours of rehearsing different ballets, each with different physical demands - some more contemporary and grounded, others more classical and technically precise.

Male dancers need great upper body strength, since they have to lift the female dancers high into the air, sometimes holding them overhead, with no appearance of effort or strain. Yes, ballerinas are thin - but imagine whipping around a stage with 45kg or more held gracefully over your head. For this, they often need to do extra weight and machine training.

“Ballet dancers now have really extreme workout sessions,” Millepied says.

“They do stuff with machines, gyrotonics and TRX, that we didn’t do when I was dancing. There is much more awareness about core strength and how to avoid injury, which is great.”

P OW ER CO U P L E

Dance can be a gruelling process for the body. Benjamin Millepied can tell you that - but so can his wife, Natalie Portman. Even though Portman danced ballet as a girl, getting ready to play a

More than just dancing, Millepied says he always wanted to choreograph, bringing movement to life in others. He made his first pieces for his mother’s dance school, and later continued to practise on his fellow students. In 2001, he made his first professional work, Danses Concertantes, presenting it in London - and he hasn’t stopped since. A pivotal moment came when he was asked to choreograph the dance sequences for the Darren Aronofsky film, Black Swan (2010). During the shoot, he met Natalie Portman, who would go on to win an Oscar for her role as a ballerina consumed by her artform.

ballerina in the film Black Swan was another story. She had a year and a half - under the guidance of Millepied and former New York City Ballet dancer Mary Helen Bowers - to perfect her fouettés, jetés and pirouettes.

The results she achieved for her body inspired numerous fitness programmes to build muscle,

In 2012 Millepied was appointed director of the Paris Opera Ballet, relocating to the French capital. After an intensely productive but fraught two years, Millepied resigned. Ever since, he has dedicated himself to L.A. Dance Project and to his own choreography.

flexibility and core strength.

Much like her husband, Portman does not eat meat. In fact, she has been a vegetarian since she was 9 years old. And later in

S TAY I N G F I T O V E R T H E Y E A R S

life, as she learned more about the meat industry, she decided to exclude animal products from her diet entirely. She has

Today, Millepied’s daily routine is highly variable, depending on whether he is working with his dancers at the company’s LA headquarters, or on the road, creating a new work (or rehearsing an older one) with another ballet company. His latest piece Bach Studies (Part 2) premiered this year.

But it is important to him, he said, to stay fit, particularly now that he is no longer dancing.

“My fitness routine varies between running, biking and working out in the gym,” he says. “I get bored doing just one thing, so I have to shift.

I took up biking recently and really love it. If I’m in our small gym at home, I do stabilisation and core exercises, rather than just lifting weights. I have a gyrotonic TRX, which I love, because you can do all

now been a prominent vegan for around eight years and encourages the same diet in the couple’s children.

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these different exercises on it.” Diet, he adds, also makes a huge difference to his levels of fitness and energy. “I try to lay off carbs and gluten as much as I can, and stick to vegetables, protein and fruit.”

FIVE MUSCLES THAT BALLET BUILDS

Core: The balance, alignment and stability required when

He tries to work out for 60-90 minutes each time, several times a week.

“I have periods where I feel more or less fit, depending on work and travel. I am trying more than ever to make walking part of my day, particularly in a city like Los Angeles, where everyone is in the car.

Ideally, I’d hike every week - that’s the best exercise therapy.”

moving gracefully in ballet means constantly engaging the core. Every pose, turn and jump needs these core muscles to be active, which quickly makes them tight and strong.

Quads: A strong, straight leg line is essential for graceful ballet. Much of a ballet class involves perfecting this shape and working towards high extensions of the leg, which results in strong quadriceps.

But dance, he says, is still his first love as exercise. “When you are in the studio, working really intensely with dancers, you get in a whole different kind of shape,” he says. And it is this love of dance, along with its physical benefits, that he wants non-dancers out there to experience and benefit from, whatever their age or level of fitness.

As strict and physically demanding as dance is, when we speak of what he requires of his dancers, Millepied says that doesn’t ask them to train in any specific manner outside of classes. “I want a certain fluidity and naturalistic look. Although the cross-training that a lot of dancers do is great, I don’t need that statuesque, muscular look. Some people do crossfit, and it certainly helps with avoiding injuries - for me, at 42, I feel it’s too extreme—your body doesn’t have the same kind of resilience when you have pushed it hard for so many years.”

Hamstrings: One of the most fundamental moves in ballet is the plié – a deep knee bend.

This movement contracts the hamstrings, and is repeated several times over the course of a class or routine - so you feel the effects quickly in the thighs.

Calves: A lot of ballet moves involve making a ‘pointe’ with your toes, as well as rising up onto them. This action requires a flexion in the lower legs, in order to stably support the rest of the body, which means you will soon have killer calf muscles.

Glutes: The ‘turnout’ movement of the feet that ballet dancers are famous for in fact begins from the hip socket, rather than in the legs or feet. The hip muscles are engaged to produce this turnout shape in a number of different moves. This builds strong gluteal muscles.

This man has certainly achieved great things with his body. Now, he is hugely excited about the upcoming Carmen film, has ambitious plans for digital projects (the fitness app among them) and is full of new ideas for creating a more experimental environment for dance-making. “My focus is to be here, with the company, with my family, make my movies and grow dance in the city.”

ARCH ITECTURE

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BERNARDO FUERTES

He is one of the most important living architects. His work has directly influenced the physiognomy of cities and, through the Norman Foster Foundation, he is shaping the way human beings relate to the planet.

LORD FOSTER

PHOTO: NIGEL YOUNG_FOSTER + PARTNERS

UNCONVENTIONAL THINKING

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H

e lives between London, Madrid and Lausanne, constantly traveling from one to another. His buildings are found all over the world, which affords him a truly global vision. He has just turned 84 but he still lives an intense life. He cycles and skis. He has survived intestinal cancer and a heart attack. Originally from a working class neighbourhood of Levenshulme, an industrial town in Manchester, Norman Foster is now a leading authority in architecture. Aside from being a visionary, he is also a savvy businessman.

SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA

The Norman Foster Foundation is currently working with Wole Osinupebi and other Nigerian partners to develop a pilot strategy in Nigeria with the potential to meet the need to quickly build local schools all around the country. The government of Nigeria has recently recognised that the country has the world’s highest number of children out of school. It is said that the total is 10.5 million, owing to numerous factors, but mainly because

His studio, Foster + Partners, brings in between 250 and 300 million euros every year. Over 1,300 employees of 50 different nationalities work for him. He himself is worth hundreds of millions. However, the foundation, he says, “is not about earning money, but providing it, to change the world.” The foundation is dedicated to attracting talent, promoting research and accelerating new, sustainable design projects. It also acts as an ideas lab for professionals from different backgrounds like architecture, design, engineering and art. Regarding the meeting of creative minds that this enables, Foster says: “I am convinced of the great benefit of bringing together various different disciplines, and that both professionals and students can listen to new voices. Our forums bring together artists, engineers, researchers, politicians, civil leaders and however many other disciplines that can use their vision to create a better world. This is essential for facing today’s environmental challenges. The best and most sustainable design requires uniting and combining different voices instead of, as is usually done, asking separate solutions from each specialist.”

of the unmanageably high demand for classrooms from an extremely fast-growing population. Stemming from a new political desire to increase funding and investment in education, the foundation is looking to develop an experimental programme to increase the educational capacity of the country.

The Norman Foster Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to research, education and the implementation of architecture, design and urbanism projects. In Foster’s own words, its mission is to allow us

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DRO NEP O RT

In Rwanda, Africa, the Droneport was the first project built by the Norman Foster Foundation - a project based on the idea of creating a network of ports for drones,

to do and think about things in an unconventional way: “Our intention is to break down the barriers between professions and generations, approaching design in a holistic and politically unbiased way.” This involves collaborating with people who care about the environment and the urban space. “The futures of our societies depend on our ability to rethink cities and face the growing problems arising from the lack of drinking water and energy supplies for vast portions of the world’s population.”

with the purpose of distributing medicinal supplies and other necessities in areas of Africa and other continents with access challenges owing to a lack of transport infrastructure. The first prototype of the project was presented during the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016, and it is now exhibited permanently in the city’s Arsenale. The Droneport concept was

He thinks of architecture as something all-encompassing, which influences people’s health and wellbeing. He gives very few interviews nowadays, but in a recent one with Fuera de Serie, a supplement of the Spanish newspaper Expansión, he said: “Good design makes us feel better and therefore more healthy. This used to be something that we thought and believed without any real scientific basis - but recently there have been lots of studies that prove it. A patient recovers more quickly when in an attractive room with a pleasant view. If a child grows up in an attractive environment and in contact with nature, their abilities develop better. If we want to live long and healthy lives, we need to find ways to create clean energy. And now we know how to - we can create buildings that produce more energy than they consume, thus sustaining society.

Technology is a means to an end - it is not an end in itself. So let’s put it to work in a clean, elegant space.”

Speaking of his commitments to improve the planet, he spoke candidly: “There are nearly 2 billion people in the world who don’t have a decent home, 1.6 billion without electricity and an immense portion without running drinking water. First we need to improve these statistics and guarantee safe shelter for everyone; then we can start to improve on the basic qualities. Although many in my profession may not consider this problem to be an architectural one, it is, at the most elemental level – it is a pressing need that should be tackled by those who can apply our expertise. For me, combining design ability with political initiatives is part of architecture.”

the idea of Jonathan Ledgard, who developed it in the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne in Switzerland.

Ledgard approached Foster with the idea because of his experience in airport design and his vast knowledge of flying gliders, helicopters and airplanes.

ARCH ITECTURE

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MO NORAIL

The Norman Foster Foundation is working with BYD to design and implement a new â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Skyrailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - a next-generation straddlestyle monorail system. In the late 19th and mid 20th centuries the monorail emerged as one of the key features of the imagined urban future of science-fiction.

But despite its space age connotations, its implementation is actually relatively accessible and fast - especially when

The Norman Foster Foundation carries out its projects, research and education programme at the same time as developing and cataloguing its archive. Further work has been carried out with the aim of allowing researchers greater access to the archive. In total, over the course of 2018, the Norman Foster Foundation welcomed more than 1,000 students, researchers and visitors, representing more than 50 different nationalities.

compared to the cost, time and impact of tunnels in underground metro systems.

Despite the large numbers of monorail systems either already operative or in construction today, they are still often thought of as separate to other urban needs.

However, new technology could change the reality and perception of monorail systems, especially if the carrier structures could also provide other functions with

One of the aims of the foundation has been to raise awareness of the difficult situation of people living in marginalised neighbourhoods - the number is currently 1 billion, and could rise to one in three people worldwide by 2050. One project to transform and modernise neighbourhoods from within has now begun, through a collaboration with Tata Trusts and the state government of Odisha in India. Another more long-term project in India aims to address the same issues using a greater level of technology - a joint programme with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Regarding the improvement of connectivity in rural communities, a joint project with AltĂĄn Redes in Mexico has been launched, using digital communication to set up small civic centres.

urban benefits, either in terms of landscape (like urban gardens) or of mobility (raised walkways for pedestrians and cyclists). New generations of monorail could improve urban transport thanks to the increase in metro, rail and road connections. Owing to the scarce support surface that they require and their narrow turning radius, monorail systems can be easily implemented developed areas, they present several opportunities for combining architecture, infrastructure and public transport.

PHOTOS: NORMAN FOSTER FUNDATION

in densely populated areas. In newly

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TH E NO RMA N FOSTE R FO U NDATIO N P RO MOTE S TH E MATE RIA LISATIO N O F A RC H ITEC TU RA L P ROJEC TS RE LATE D TO I TS MISSIO N. A SIDE FRO M ITS P RO GRA MME S, RE SE A RC H INITIATIVE S A N D P U B LIC ATIO NS, TH E FO U NDATIO N A IMS TO DE VE LO P INNOVATIVE A N D E XP E RIME NTA L P ROJEC TS A ND P ROTOTYP E S AC TIVE LY DE DIC ATE D TO I NTE RDISC IP LINA RY TH O U GH T A B O U T TH E B U ILT E N VIRO NME NT. TH E SE P ROJEC TS A RE TH E RE SU LT O F TH E FO U NDATIO Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CO LLA B O RATIO N WITH U N I VE RSITIE S, RE SE A RC H I N STITU TE S, GOVE RNME NT E N TITIE S A ND P RIVATE CO MPA NIE S.

S H A MAGAZ INE

EN VIRONMENT

TEXT

AGNISH RAY

PIET O UD O L F

MASTER OF THE WILD

VOORLINDEN GARDEN AT MUSEUM VOORLINDEN, THE NETHERLANDS.

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T H E D U TC H L A N D S C A P E D E S I G N E R , A L E A D I N G F I G U R E I N T H E N E W P E R E N N I A L M O V E M E N T, I S N O W T H E S U B J E C T O F A N E W D O C U M E N TA R Y. H E I S C H A N G I N G H O W W E T H I N K A B O U T H O R T I C U LT U R E .

PHOTO: WALTER HERFST

OUDOLF FIELD IN HAUSER & WIRTH SOMERSET.

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PHOTO: JASON INGRAM

“With the stress on our environment,” says Oudolf, “people want to be more related to nature and come closer to the wild. It’s very much today that people are more conscious about what we do to nature.”

EN VIRONMENT

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AT HOME PIET OUDOLF´S GARDEN IN HUMMELO, WHERE HE LIVES WITH HIS WIFE.

HIGH LINE IN NEW YORK, WHICH TURNS TEN THIS YEAR.

beauty has captured the imagination of architects, designers, urban planners, ecologists and horticulturalists around the world, who have called on his unique skills to bring the authentic essence of nature and green life into a variety of spaces.

One might hardly believe that just a few metres above the bustling streets of New York City sits a natural oasis of calm and greenery. But sure enough, a walk on the High Line - the elevated walkway populated with hundreds of different plant species, which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary - transports you to a place where the concretes, tarmacs and industrial structures of the big smoke seem to drift away behind a flourish of biodiversity.

The designer behind this meandering layout of natural landscape was the Dutch gardener Piet Oudolf - a man whose level of global influence and cultural relevance is rare for those of his profession. His vision of natural

Oudolf is considered one of the leaders of the New Perennial movement a creative horticultural wave that uses herbaceous perennials and grasses planted in tight, undulating formations, creating a feeling of the wild, to artistic and dreamlike effect. While an artist uses oils, a paintbrush and a canvas, it is trees, lawns, flowers and shrubs that make up the tools of Oudolfâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s craft.

Londoners may have seen his handiwork at the gardens of the Serpentine Gallery, while those in Chicago might have wandered through his Lurie Garden in the Millenium Park. Closer to home, Oudolf designed a classically inspired garden for the Voorlinden art museum in Wassenaar, Holland.

A new documentary, Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf, provides a rare glimpse of the working life of this visionary plantsman, shining a light on his pioneering ideas of what gardens and public spaces can be. Filmmaker Tom Piper follows Oudolf around the world over the course of a year, letting us watch, through his eyes, how life begins, blossoms and eventually wilts and passes on, only to give way for

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PIET OUDOLF IN A STILL FROM THE NEW DOCUMENTARY

BY TOM PIPER.

P IET ’ S FAVO U R IT E P LANTS

Baptisia leucantha. Also known as White Wild Indigo, this rounded, multibranched perennial tends to blossom in June, and stay attractive into the winter. Spikes of white, pea-like flowers come out

the next cycle to begin. We are taken on a wandering journey around many of Oudolf’s most intriguing works, including his own garden in Hummelo and the public works he has created in New York, Chicago and the UK, as well as several key places of inspiration - like German industrial parks, a Texas wildflower explosion and the deep woods of Pennsylvania.

museum over the coming months will see this garden shapeshift and blossom into life, adding colour and texture around Chillida’s abstract metal and stone sculptures that sit on the 11 hectares of outdoor land. This year, Oudolf is also working on designs for his new garden in the Belle Isle district of Detroit, as well as for one of the care centres of the Maggie’s cancer charity in London.

Speaking to me from his home in Hummelo, the Netherlands - where Oudolf moved with his wife Anja in 1982 - we discuss some of his most remarkable works to date. The designer is perhaps most famed globally for his work on the New York High Line - but it is a far more intimate garden, tucked away in the fields of Somerset, England, that he describes as one of the best gardens of the last ten years. This was a project for the Swiss art dealers Hauser & Wirth, who commissioned him to design the meadowy grounds of their Somerset gallery.

Today, a decade since the High Line opened, this kind of garden design has come to play an increasingly vital part of urban planning. The phenomenally successful landscaped walkway model (which some will argue in fact began with the Promenade Plantée in Paris in 1993) has been replicated in several different cities around the world, from Sydney to Seoul. Just this summer, the architects behind the High Line, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, are unveiling the initial phase of a new project called The Tide, a 5km linear park planned to run along the River Thames in London. The first section, located on the Greenwich Peninsula in the southwest of the city, features 9m-high raised walkways flowing through floating gardens of pines, silver birch and wild grass, and dotted with artworks by the likes of Damien Hirst and Allen Jones.

Although Oudolf is not involved in this project, the echoes of his work on the High Line resonate through it.

And as more and more new landscaped spaces like these open in cities around

of the ends of the branches, complemented by bluish, threepart clover-like leaves.

Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’. This is a short, bushy plant with small, dark green leaves that go yellow in autumn. It produces clumps of blue, star-shaped flowers, that sit on slender, leafy stems.

Grow them in June and July.

It seems that, since then, Oudolf has become something of a go-to for Hauser & Wirth’s garden designs. They also brought him on board to rethink the landscape of the Eduardo Chillida outdoor museum and sculpture park in San Sebastian, northern Spain, which the Swiss art gallery helped to reopen to the public this April, after around eight years of semi-closure. Visitors to this late Basque artist’s monographic

Monarda bradburiana.

Lavender-pink tubular flowers grow on this compact plant, also known as eastern bee balm.

The aromatic grey-green leaves are sometimes used in teas, while the flowers tend to attract a range of butterflies.

Astrantia ‘Roma’. These deep pink flowers sit on tall stems above a mound of green leaves. They bloom best in May and June - but they nearly always produce a second flush of flowers in the autumn. A colourful addition to any garden.

Sporobolus heterolepis.

This graceful, slow-growing and long-lasting grass produces mounds of foliage topped with heads of a darkish pink flower.

It grows from June until August - but it remains fragrant and attractive until the winter.

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the world, one feels compelled by the need to bring more greenery into the urban context. London has launched its mission to become a ‘National Park City’, with half its areas green by 2050, while Paris is planning to green 100 hectares of buildings by next year. With global warming becoming an increasing threat to human and animal life, the urge to bring biodiversity and urban life closer together has never been greater.

GARDENI NG F OR WELLBEING

Green spaces are not just important for the environment - they can also play a key role in our personal wellness. Research published by Harvard University

“With the stress on our environment,” says Oudolf, “people want to be more related to nature and come closer to the wild. It’s very much today that people are more conscious about what we do to nature.” This does not mean that his task is rendered an easy one. Quite to the contrary, designers like him are under greater pressure than ever to ensure the sustainability of all their practice - a matter that often revolves around how the garden is to be looked after in years to come.

shows that people who have access to green spaces live healthier lives, with lower rates of physical and mental illness.

Not only does the physical activity itself of gardening encourage a better frame of mind, but simply observing and contemplating a garden can help to reduce stress and anxiety levels. Initiatives like Growing Health (in the UK) are dedicated to promoting the benefits of gardening for mental

“We are making a wilderness that is not really wild - it is composed,” he explains.

“That’s why you need good people who can maintain the garden - it won’t take care of itself. This is even more complicated than actually making the garden.”

health, and ‘green therapy’ is becoming an increasingly important part of patient recovery and rehabilitation processes around the world.

Even the healthcare director of meditation app Headspace has been vocal about how gardening and mindfulness are a perfect match.

SERPENTINE GALLERY ONE OF PIET OUDOLF´S GARDENS IN LONDON.

It is a reminder of the fact that public garden projects do not always go down well with everyone. The ill-fated Garden Bridge in London was a plan to build a new bridge across the river covered in flowers and trees - but plans collapsed due to lack of funds, persistent planning issues, political conflicts and financial recklessness. It was recently revealed that nearly £50m of public money was spent on this project that never actually came to be.

It is thought that a major failure of this project was its lack of focus on the public, coming to represent little more than a vanity project for a privileged few. Instead, it seems that an unwavering dedication to the public’s interest is key for successfully connecting with others through horticulture. “The most important thing for me is working in public,” Oudolf tells me, “because you connect so many people with gardening. It can be somewhere rural or in the city - it’s all about context.” While he has created many spectacular gardens for private residences, it is ultimately the projects that touch the lives of vast amounts of the public that really make Oudolf tick.

The structure of the meditative and intimate Five Seasons documentary, in which we follow the changing textures and colours of gardens over the course of the year, accentuates the poignant role of time in Oudolf’s work.

With work that requires such a deep connection with the cycles of the earth, Oudolf possesses a profound sense of humanity and mortality - it is, after all, a job in which one is constantly reminded of the fragility of life, as well as the inevitability of death. Indeed, for Oudolf, dead plants and trees are often some of the most breathtakingly beautiful. “Beauty is in so many things you wouldn’t think of,” he says in the film. “I think it’s the journey in your life to find out what real beauty is, and also discover beauty in things that are, on first sight, not beautiful.”

FASHION

TE XT

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WE EAT ORGANIC, WE DITCH PLASTIC BAGS, WE USE PARABEN-FREE COSMETICS AND WE PRINT ON RECYCLED PAPER. WHY DON’T WE TAKE THE SAME APPROACH WITH OUR WARDROBE?

SUSTAINABILITY

SANDRA FERNÁNDEZ

SENSE &

The world is turning faster every day.

If fashion was once defined by decades - the bohemia of the 70s, the shoulder pads of the 80s, the minimalism of the 90s - nowadays, things go out of style in a matter of months, weeks or days. In the age of internet, globalised social media and information overload, trends come and go thick and fast. This tendency also goes for the way we consume - as a society, we buy 400 percent more clothes than we did 20 years ago. But there is a high human and environmental cost to this insatiable mechanism.

Global textile production is responsible for 20 percent of the world’s water wastage and annually emits 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases - that’s more than all international flights and cargo ships combined. 73 percent of the 53 million tonnes of material used to make clothing and fabric ends up burnt or on landfills. Facing these figures, the United Nations declared the fashion industry to be the second most polluting on the planet - only following petrol. And that’s not all - clothing is one of the most likely products to be manufactured in the slave-like conditions all too common in a sector in which 80 percent of the workforce are women, according to the latest report by Fashion Revolution.

This movement emerged following the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh in 2013, with the aim

FASHION

FASH ION REVOLUTION:

“WHO MAKES MY CLOTHES?” WE BELIEVE THAT TRANSPARENCY IS THE FIRST STEP TO TRANSFORM THE INDUSTRY. AND IT STARTS WITH THIS QUESTION. A SIMPLE QUESTION THAT MAKES PEOPLE THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT WHAT THEY WEAR.

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of getting the public to ask (and ask themselves): who makes my clothes? “We believe that transparency is the first step to transform the industry. And it starts with this question. A simple question that makes people think differently about what they wear,” they declare.

Today, sustainability is a lifestyle choice. There’s no black and white, all or nothing, in this complex matter - one which begins with the nature of the materials, continues to the manufacturing process and supply chain and ends with the number of times we wash a t-shirt. There are now companies, like Wool & Prince and Pangaia, who are developing items of clothes that promise a hundred uses before having to be washed, with the aim of reducing the 15,000 litres of water that a washing machine uses every year. However, buying less and buying better is a good mantra to start with.

There are options. Some of the most recent ideas from companies and designers move modern-day sustainable fashion away from the cliché of hemp bags and cork sandals. From gold rings

by Fairmined to certified emeralds by Gemfields de Chopard to Gucci glasses made from eco-friendly acetate extracted from castor seeds and H&M jeans made from recycled cotton. “Design is always the starting point. One of the most responsible things that you can do as a designer is to create things that people want and won’t want to throw away,” argues Stella McCartney.

The British designer began to talk about this much before “eco” became a trendy word. From the very beginning, as a vegetarian, she has pioneered a cruelty-free ethos which has seeped through even to her perfumes, rejecting the use of animal products. In 2017 she teamed up with the biotechnicians at Bolt Threads and has since created a vegan silk, a mushroom leather (with which she updated her iconic Falabella bag) and an innovative solvent-free polyurethane which she has debuted in

PANGAIA PROTECT THE SPECIES T-SHIRT

BY PURCHASING THIS -SHIRT, YOU CONTRIBUTE TO GLOBAL ANIMAL CONSERVATION. ALL SALES PROCEEDS OF THIS T-SHIRT GO TO UNDP LION’S SHARE FUND. SEAWEED FIBER, PEPPERMINT OIL TREATMENT AND ORGANIC COTTON.

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CHOPARD AND GEMFIELDS

EMERALDS WILL BE FULLY VALIDATED

BY ECO-AGE’S GREEN CARPET CHALLENGE (GCC) PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE EXCELLENCE.

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the brand’s accessories during a season in which, from raincoats to heels, PVC is the overwhelming trend on the runway.

“Polyvinyl chloride is by far the most toxic and harmful of all plastics. In the short term, exposure to this component can cause dizziness, drowsiness and migraines. And prolonged exposure leads to much more serious complications.

Ever since we stopped using it in 2010 we have been working to find a material with the same versatility and durability,” explains the designer.

M O R E T H A N R E C YC L I N G

Research to develop new and better alternatives is key to a sustainable approach for debunking the notion that using responsible materials and techniques somehow limits the creativity and aesthetics that define fashion as a personal and artistic expression. “For us, innovation is key. It has allowed us to develop more than 300 fabrics using everything from fishing nets, plastic bottles and old tyres to used coffee, wool and cotton,” says Javier Goeyeneche, who founded Ecoalf in 2009 and is today an example and provider for a new generation of businesses who care about their social and environmental role.

“We currently consume between five and six times more than what the planet is capable of generating,” he continues; and recycling can only be the solution “if we can create a new generation of products with the same quality and design as the best non-recycled products.”

W R AP P ED U P IN COT TO N

Not only is cotton production responsible for 24 percent of the insecticides used in the world, but it also takes 20,000 litres of water to grow, process and dye a kilo of this material just to make one pair of jeans.

This shows that ‘natural’ doesn’t always mean ‘good’. There are several different solutions being offered as alternatives to this organic cultivation, many that would use around 90 percent less water. C&A who is signed up to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s global commitment for a new plastics economy, and is an advocate for the Fashion Revolution movement - has launched the

Last year, the company won a PETA Award (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) for their collaboration with the British brand Felder Felder. And making its debut on the Italian runway, Ecoalf’s latest collection - designed by Ana Gimeno Brugada, with the house slogan, “Because there is no Planet B” - is an exercise in progress, which shows that fashion and sustainability can go hand in hand.

first Cradle to Cradle jeans available on the market. Liu Jo is expected to unveil a line that replaces the usual liquid colourants with chitosan, a biopolymer extracted from shellfish that requires much less H2O. And Wrangler has just developed a world exclusive, Indigood, a foam-based dying system that reduces water

They aren’t the only ones. Salvatore Ferragamo has created a one-off collection with Orange Fiber, the first

use by almost 100 percent and energy use and waste production by 60 percent.

FASHION

A QUESTI ON OF S K IN

Even Miuccia Prada is getting involved. “The Prada Group is committed to innovation and social responsibility, and our fur-free policy – reached following a positive dialogue with the Fur Free Alliance – is an extension of that engagement,” said the company’s statement. The Italian designer joined an increasingly long list of creators

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fabric produced using citrus fruits, although it looks and feels just like silk.

H&M, in its latest Conscious Exclusive collection, uses a leather substitute made from pine leaves and a flexible foam made of seaweed, which has been used to shape the sandals. Mara Hoffman, whose business was reborn in 2016 with a recycled polyester swimsuit (its first sustainable offer), has improved its techniques with a fabric called Repreve, made from recycled bottles, which lets you play with the texture of the items. Swarovski has lab-developed an alternative to diamonds, identical to those extracted from mines but without the collateral damage. The company Zilver, which marks the return of the designer Pedro Lourenço, creates its biker look with a fake leather made of apple peel. Puma has come up with a line of biodegradable products, and Wolford is giving its basics a new twist, with the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ certification, a system which goes further than the three Rs (recycling, reusing and reducing) by using ingredients that are composted into nutrients for the planet once the product’s life span is up. It all means kicking aside the ‘buy, use, throw away’ pattern and getting one step closer to closing the loop of today’s linear economy.

who have excluded the use of animal skins in their collections, from Calvin Klein to Michael Kors, Giorgio Armani, Vivienne Westwood, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Burberry and Chanel, exchanging the genuine versions for synthetic, but no less realistic, ones. Nonetheless, this near-unanimous decision is not without its opposition.

Some believe that the artificial alternatives - made from polyester or acrylic - are in fact not that much better.

“Fake fur is not perfect but its environmental impact is much lower, for many reasons - starting with animal cruelty,” argues Stella McCartney, who is developing a fur alternative made from corn.

DID YOU KNOW THAT I AM SUSTAINABLE?

THIS MEANS THAT I AM MADE FROM COTTON GROWN WITHOUT ANY NASTY CHEMICALS, HELPING ME TO BE GOOD TO FARMERS, THE SOIL, AND THE EARTH.

BY STELLA MC CARTNEY KIDS.

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ECOALF

IS A FASHION AND LIFESTYLE BRAND USING BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES MADE ENTIRELY FROM RECYCLED MATERIALS WITH THE SAME QUALITY, DESIGN, AND TECHNICAL PROPERTIES AS THE BEST NON-RECYCLED PRODUCTS.

GASTRONOMY

TEXT

MARGAUX LUSHING

PLANT-BASED REVOLUTION From pizza parlours to supermarket shelves, healthy dining doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need

P H OTO GRA P H Y

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ADRIAN MUELLER

to be elitist and inaccessible. Meet MATTHEW KENNEY, one of LAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most forward-looking vegan chefs.

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A new restaurant on a fast-gentrifying segment of Lincoln Boulevard in Los Angeles is beckoning healthy eaters with its clean lines, the scent of rising pizza dough and a glowing wall filled with bottles of vegan Italian wine. Sitting across the street from a hipster booze shop and next door to a Philly cheesesteak joint, this branch of Double Zero is the latest venture by raw vegan chef Matthew Kenney - and a welcome addition to LA’s westside for those who have been following this food innovator’s work over the past decade.

KENNEY ’S VEGAN FOOD EMPIRE IS GROWING AND REACHING MORE AND MORE PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD

Kenney’s mission, he says, is to, “shift the global food paradigm to one that is non-processed and move it away from consumption of animal products.”

His growing, plant-based empire started as the world’s first classically structured raw food culinary academy, the Matthew Kenney Test Kitchen, in 2009. This LA-based academy has grown to graduate students from over 30 countries, who go on to bring Kenney’s style of non-processed, vegan cooking far beyond the bounds of California.

Currently operating restaurants across eleven countries, he aims to nearly double this amount by the end of 2020. In addition to planning an additional five branches of Double Zero, he will also be launching a frozen food line, a pumpkin seed milk brand, a shelf-stable protein bar, a vegan food hall in Providence, Rhode Island, and a tasting-menu-only restaurant in New York.

Kenney is not just expanding - he is diversifying his concepts. Before, he shares, “we had been doing really high-end cuisine and raw food. Now we wanted to do something more accessible.” Many health-conscious eaters will be familiar with the feeling of having to choose between the elevated end of fine dining and the pay-by-the-pound style on the casual end. But Kenney hopes that his global innovations can make it easier for diners everywhere to find vegan cuisine across the spectrum of gastronomic experiences, from chic pizzerias to frozen food available in supermarkets.

H E H A S C R E AT E D A N E W C O N C E P T O F V E G A N R E S TAU R A N T I N L . A . F O C U S E D O N P I Z Z A

As a Venice resident himself, Kenney chose this beachside enclave of the LA neighborhood for the new incarnation of Double Zero (whose first location has been open in New York since 2016). To-date, here in LA, Kenney has been best known for his fine dining eatery Plant Food and Wine, where he serves an all-vegan, heavily raw menu using local ingredients, with items ranging from a kelp noodle cacio e pepe to a farro and fennel sausage with maitake mushrooms and squash blossoms. By contrast, the West Coast branch of Double Zero is a place for pizza lovers.

WILD MUSHROOMS

COOKED ON LOCAL SEAWEED.

“There are a lot of vegan restaurants around LA, a lot of great ones - but there was nothing focused on pizza and Italian,” he explains in advance of the opening. “We’ve modified our dough - it’s a little lighter and has a higher moisture content.” This is important for California, where healthconscious coastal culture means light fare such as kale salads and grilled vegetables are more likely dinner staples than stodgy breads.

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The pizzas are indeed light and hearty at the same time. They are made with double zero flour (a particularly fine Italian-milled everyday style of flour, after which Kenney’s pizzerias are named), making them lighter than many non-vegan styles. The non-pizza items are also rare finds on a vegan menu - pillowy cacio e pepe is prepared with homemade noodles and cashew cream, or a chopped salad made with almond ricotta and chickpeas. It all feels as traditional as it does forward-thinking.

As soon as the new restaurant is up and running, Kenney will turn his attention back to his local Los Angeles test kitchen, where his team works on signature plant-based innovation. Having the test kitchen, Kenney feels, is the key to the brand’s sucess. “It’s the heart of our business,” he tells me. “Our content is innovation in the plant-based space. Sourcing the best ingredients, getting the best equipment, developing the best techniques and being creative.” The test kitchen allows him and his team to, “experiment without the day-to-day constraints of a restaurant.”

Working on five-to-six concepts per day here. “ T H E P L A N T- B A S E D M A R K E T H A S N E V E R B E E N M O R E E X C I T I N G . I T I S N O W A WAY O F L I F E . ”

The brand’s culinary evolution mirrors Kenney’s own. He recalls his own journey into healthy eating: “My personal entry into vegan living was a self-imposed, strict raw food diet - which was a great reset for me. I still incorporate a lot of raw smoothies and juices into my diet, but nowadays I try to eat more Ayurvedic-style foods. My diet is always shifting and I think it is for all of us. We are always adapting to our lifestyles.”

On the topic of evolution, Kenney continues that, “from a business perspective, every day that goes by, we find a new method that allows us to create our food a little cleaner. We used to do a tonne of dehydrating - now, we don’t even have a dehydrator at Double Zero.” A popular, traditional technique, dehydrating is often used to concentrate the flavours of vegetables in raw vegan food while retaining their nutritional content. It is a tool that many vegan chefs rely on, but one that Kenney wants to combine with other, more innovative tools. Through trying new methods of preparation, he shares that, his “recipes have gotten more refined, not fancier, but more flavourful, attractive and digestible.”

So what next for this foodie pioneer? “I’ve always wanted to build a global lifestyle company,” he says. And with their expedited global growth, he is confident that he can be a big part of the rapidly growing interest in vegan food throughout the world.

The type of fare that Kenney’s restaurants serve varies based on geography - restaurants in Canada and Chicago focus more on warming, hearty foods, while lighter fare is the focus at the Los Angeles outposts. But the ethos remains the same everywhere. For Kenney, “The plant-based market has never been more exciting. The segment has finally reached a moment where education, know-how, product availability and consumer demand are fully aligned. Plant-based eating is now a way of life”.

MATTHEW KENNEY

THE VEGAN CHEF WANTS TO MAKE HEALTHY EATING MORE ACCESSIBLE.

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VILLA CARMIGNAC

ART ISLAND

PHOTO: ERIC VALL

Fondation Carmignac’s new contemporary art show on the island of Porquerolles, off France’s southern coast, is an ode to creative inspiration through nature.

FRANCE

ART

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TE XT

PHOTOG RA PHY

LANIE GOODMAN

MARC DOMAGE

all it an odyssey, or a fresh way of experiencing art. Hop on a 15-minute ferry from Hyères to the idyllic protected island of Porquerolles, just off the French Riviera, and then hike up a dusty trail shaded by windswept pines and towering eucalyptus trees. This is hardly the place you would expect to view rarely-seen 20th and 21st century masters. But hidden away on this hilltop, surrounded by seven hectares of forests and vineyards, is the Villa Carmignac contemporary art museum.

As you step through the wooden gate, you are greeted with a little taste of what grows from this very soil—a chilled glass of verbena and basil tea, plucked from the kitchen garden of the vineyard estate. The chirping cicadas and soft sea breeze have an immediate soothing effect, preparing you for what is next.

previous page SIGMAR POLKE

UNTITLED (LAPIS LAZULI), 1998.

below EDWARD RUSCHA,

SEA OF DESIRE, 1984.

Guarding the entrance of this revamped Provencal farmhouse—which holds 2,000 square metres of hollowed-out underground exhibition space—is the museum’s guardian, L’Alycastre, a colossal sea dragon who protected Porquerolles from pirates. This patinated bronze sculpture is by Mallorcan artist, Miquel Barceló.

Inspired by the local island legend, Barceló is one of many artists who were invited to explore the foundation’s extensive wild grounds and decide where and how they want to create their specially commissioned artwork, interacting with nature in situ.

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“The concept here is about shedding the weight of your everyday life and leaving it all behind,” says the foundation’s director, Charles Carmignac, 41, who is also a well-known rock musician in France and son of the avid collector and financer Edouard Carmignac. “Once you cross over from the mainland and discover the island, you begin to feel a kind of unique vibration, as if the earth were breathing.”

Now in its second season, after drawing 70,000 visitors since it opened last summer, the Carmignac Foundation has just launched its new show, The Source, featuring a dazzling display of 60 works - paintings, sculptures and outdoor installations - from Edouard Carmignac’s ever-augmenting private collection of over 3,000 pieces, as well as a range of other art on loan.

You can also wander through the wild garden, designed by Louis Benech, which extends across a grassy meadow and woodland, to a wild scrubland, olive grove and a forest, with over 30 types of Mediterranean plants, including rare orchids, flamboyant blue jacarandas, figs and other fruit trees.

“The idea is to try to keep nature in balance here,” says Charles Carmignac.

“Rather than adding, we have tried to protect what is already here and let visitors learn more about the local biodiversity.”

After the foundation’s 2018 inaugural show, Sea of Desire, the thematic journey to the latest exhibition The Source was inspired, in part, by local lore. “There are native fishermen who claim that they’ve dipped their cup in a bubbling freshwater spring, hidden away at the tip of the island,” Carmignac explains.

Legend or not, the idea of hidden wells - just like in the 1986 film Manon des Sources - is very much part of the heritage of the region of Provence.

JEPPE HEIN

PATH OF EMOTIONS, 2018.

© HYERES TOURISME - M SARNETTE

BIKING

THROUGH PINE TREES IN PORQUEROLLES

The Source intrigues by its sheer diversity. “As a group show, it was important to create a sense of complicity and empathy between the artists,” explains the Italian guest curator Chiara Parisi (of the Villa Medici museum in Rome), who handpicked and re-orchestrated the works from Carmignac’s vast collection, juxtaposing them side-by-side.

The idea, says Parisi, was to explore the origins of the seeds of creativity, tapping into the artists’ vital or sexual impulses. She dug into what ‘the source’ meant to each participating artist. “The results were extremely different—they ranged from trying to find that secret inner space to struggling with creative hell.”

Take Italian artist, Maurizio Cattelan, whose exploding white fibreglass head sculpture satirises our uncensored thoughts. “He told me, ‘The source? It’s a horror, I wouldn’t even want to go there,’” the curator recounts with a smile.

Meanwhile, on the upper level are 15 works by British artist Sarah Lucas that play with provocative gender stereotypes - faceless women are portrayed with fried egg breasts mounted on a washing machine, or as a bucket-headed figure with light bulbs dangling from a wire hanger.

The Carmignac Foundation ritual begins with stripping off the vestiges of your urban life. To better immerse yourself with the artwork, only 50 people are allowed to enter every half hour. Like a Japanese temple, visitors are asked to remove their shoes to feel the cool white stone floor as they discover the exhibition.

The cross-shaped exhibition space on the ground floor is in itself a sight to behold, inundated with light quivering like waves from the glass and water

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ceiling. Aquatic themes prevail, from the gushing fountain of suspended fish

by Bruce Nauman and Miquel Barceló’s stunning 16-metre curved fresco of underwater creatures in a chapel-like space.

Portraits of women are in abundance here, by artists like Egon Schiele, Pierre Klossowski, Roy Lichtenstein, R. B. Kitaj, Martial Rayasse and Thomas Ruff - a very different type of female energy to that represented by Sarah Lucas upstairs. There is also a series of alchemical and enigmatic abstract canvases using striking materials, from the arresting blue pigment of Lapis Lazuli by Sigmar Polke to Ghanaian artist El Anatsui’s wall installation of bottle caps, resembling a shimmering golden rain, which denounces the slave trade with Africa and the West.

H OW TO GET T H ER E

Nice and Marseilles are the nearest international airports, both of which are a car, train or bus ride away from the coastal town of Hyères. At this port, ferries sail out across the azure

Other highlights of the show include John Baldessari’s whimsical sculpture Beethoven’s Trumpet (with Ear) Opus #133, that emits a burst of a symphonic music when you scream into the giant cone, and a shimmering installation by Korean artist Koo Jeong A, featuring thousands of sparkling Swarovski crystals embedded in the stone walls, playing with light and shadow and splashing rainbows across the exhibition walls.

PHOTO: CAMILLE MOIRENC

Outdoors, on the sculpture trail, take a wander inside Jeppe Hein’s Path of Emotions, a labyrinth of mirrored strips lost in a forest of Provence cane, or through the meadow where you find French artist Fabrice Hyber’s La Femme de

blue waters to Porquerolles Island, departing every 30 minutes in the summer months.

MIQUEL BARCELÓ

L’ALYCASTRE,

2018

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Ma Vie, a tongue-and-cheek tribute to an emerald nymph with water gushing out of every orifice.

WHERE TO S TAY

On the island itself, Le Mas du

After seeing the art, the museum’s outdoor café, tucked under the pines, features a menu of fresh Mediterranean-style light fare as well as the superb Domaine de la Courtade wines - crisp whites and fruity rosés produced on the property. And a plunge into the crystalline turquoise shallows is just a fiveminute stroll away. Porquerolles is only about nine kilometers long and a little over two kilometers wide - but there is no lack of possibilities to explore, all the while refreshing and replenishing your own energy sources.

Langoustier is a four-star hotel that was built by François Joseph Fournier himself - the wealthy Belgian adventurer who acquired Porquerolles in 1912. The building is cradled in olive groves, pines, bougainvillaea and eucalyptus trees. Aside from its 50 rooms, the hotel also has its own pool

F O N DAT I O N C A R M I G N AC

and access to a secluded beach.

Over on the Hyères mainland,

This Paris-based foundation was established by the billionaire financier Édouard Carmignac, who has developed its art collection over the past 20 years. The collection now contains around 300 pieces, including works by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Roy Lichtenstein.

Hotel Almanarre Plage is an ecofriendly hotel focused on limiting its impact on the environment.

Natural, recycled products have been used in the renovation of the space, there is an efficient wastesorting system, and an organic breakfast of locally-sourced produce is served in the mornings.

MIQUEL BARCELÓ

NOT TITLED YET, 2018

The Foundation also awards an annual prize for photojournalism, funding the production of an investigative photo reportage on human rights issues.

The coming year’s edition of the award is dedicated to the Amazon and its deforestation - the works will be exhibited at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie in Paris this October, and then in London’s Saatchi Gallery next year.

PHOTO: LUC BOEGLY

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HEALTH

TEXT

I LLUSTRATI ON

ALBERTO BRAVO

JAIME MARTĂ?NEZ TOMĂ S

NATURAL THERAPIES UNDER THE MAGNIFYING

GLASS

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In the European Union alone, there are 330,000 professionals who devote their everyday lives to applying natural therapies.

Between them, more than a 100 million patients look to their various areas of expertise in search of treatments that can help them in ways that conventional medicine cannot. In recent years, the majority of developed countries have seen a substantial increase - in both popularity and implementation - of so-called complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs). The prevalence of the use of these varies from country to country, ranging from 10 to 65 percent of the population. In Spain, figures suggest that it is approximately between 25 and 45 percent, although there are no population-

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wide studies. According to the European Commission, it is estimated that complementary and alternative medicine accounts for more than 100 million patients annually across the 28 EU member states. And the trend is on the rise.

However, in recent times, there have been various different debates about its use and efficiency. Certain countries still cast their shadows of doubt – but most are becoming increasingly open to this type of medicine. For example, the Swiss government is convinced of the effectiveness of natural therapies and has been funding them within its national health system for years. This is the country with the fifth highest income per capita in the world, which spends the most on education out of all OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, and according to the EuroHeatlh Consumer Index it has the number one health system in the world.

Switzerland’s approach more recently received a serious backing from none other than the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations body in charge of prevention, promotion and intervention policies in healthcare on a global level.

In the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014-2023, the organisation calls for incorporating both traditional and complementary medicine into public health systems. For the WHO, the meeting of the two covers disciplines like naturotherapy, acupuncture, homeopathy, diverse manual therapies like chiropractic, osteopathy and similar techniques qi gong, tai chi, yoga or thermal medicine - together with other physical, mental, spiritual and psychophysical therapies. It adds: “In the framework of primary care, traditional medicine, natural therapies and western medicine can be combined in a harmonious and beneficial way.”

In Europe, the services of several French specialist doctors in acupuncture and homeopathy are covered by medical

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insurance when provided or prescribed by accredited professionals. Belgium also partially covers certain complementary or alternative treatments, including homeopathic medicines. In the absence of an official standard, the WHO gets EU member states to unify its regulations which in Spainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s case, for example, are non-existent.

Ultimately, the WHO says it is pushing for the development of universal health cover by way of integrating traditional medicine and complementary medicine in the provision of health services, using its possibilities to contribute to improving health services and results and ensuring that users can make informed decisions in matters relating to their own health.

Here are some of the fundamental disciplines associated with natural therapy and its effectiveness, as demonstrated by scientific research and studies. Indeed, the WHO itself states in the aforementioned document that although controlled clinical studies can offer numerous teachings, other evaluation methods are equally valuable - among them, results-based clinical effectiveness studies.

ACUPUN CTURE

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WHAT IS IT ? A combination of processes applied to stimulate certain anatomical points, using different techniques. More specifically, acupuncture uses thin needles inserted in strategic points around the skin with the aim of relieving a wide range of ailments. It is a practice that started in China in the year 100 BC, around the time when The Yellow Emperorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Classic of Internal Medicine was published - a classic work that appeared two millennia ago and provided the basis of traditional Chinese medicine.

In the 17th century, the Jesuits brought it to Europe, but in a somewhat different form to that which is practiced currently. HOW I S I T A PPLI E D? If the human body is

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a system of flowing energy, illness is the result of an imbalance of the vital energy called qi, which circulates around the organism. The practitioner must locate the problem and find the areas in which that energy flow has been altered, in order to reestablish the lost balance and get rid of the blockage that is causing the trouble, with the hope of achieving energetic balance. Among its uses is the treatment of different conditions related to sleep, anxiety, epilepsy, migraines and the effects of vascular-cerebral disease or facial paralysis, among others. W H AT AR E TH E EF F EC TS ?

A study group in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - the public institution in the USA for medical investigation - declared that “the secondary adverse effects of acupuncture are extremely low and certainly less than conventional treatments.” For Dr Lucy Chen of Massachusetts General Hospital, “the benefits of acupuncture are evident and the complications and eventual secondary effects are low compared to medication.” She adds: “It is a good alternative for patients with chronic pain and especially for those who are intolerant to certain medicines.”

LA SE R-AC U P U N TU RE

It consists of an alternative therapeutic method, drawing from classic acupuncture, but using the stimulus produced by a laser ray rather than the traditional needles. One might call it “acupuncture 2.0”. The first instances of the use of laser rays as a method associated with acupuncture date back to 1973. It was then that the Norwegian doctor Wilhelm Schjelderup suggested the implementation of laser radiation as a reflexological method to influence the body’s energy points.

This was the start of a real revolution in the practice of acupuncture all over Europe.

Six years later, the method spread to China - the home of acupuncture - under the term laser acupuncture or “laserpuncture”. Since then, it has been accepted as one of the branches of traditional acupuncture and the practice has spread to many parts of the world. In 2001, laser therapy was approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), America’s government agency in charge of regulating food, medicine, cosmetics, medical equipment, biological goods and blood products.

H OW IS IT A P P LIE D? Applying the laser device to the necessary points of the body allows us to modify, encourage or reactivate the energy flow of our bodies. It affects at least 90% of the body’s energy points which, according to acupuncture, are located around the “meridians” that cover the human anatomy. It can be done very easily on different parts of the body, from the limbs to the head, as the technique is non-invasive. Furthermore, it is painless and can be used by patients with contraindications against the use of needles, because of possible allergies or other reasons. WH AT A RE TH E E FFEC TS? During the Acupuncture and Moxibustion Symposium held in Beijing in 1979, supported by the WHO, the treatment was agreed to be effective to treat migraines, insomnia, unruly gastric fluids, spasmodic colitis, bronchial asthma in children, venous ulcers, joint pain and menstrual cramps.

Nowadays, it is used for the same afflictions as classic acupuncture is. What the studies do warn is that the dosage and the handling of the laser equipment should be carried out by trained staff, to avoid incorrect techniques or doses that could mean a carcinogenic effect on the skin, owing to prolonged exposure.

WH AT IS IT ?

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RE FLE XOLOGY

It is defined as the practice of stimulating certain points in the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reflex zones - feet, hands, nose or ears - to harness their connections with other parts of the body and relieve pain by stimulating them. In 1919, the American doctor William Fitzgerald began to investigate reflexology, while he was head of the ENT (ear, nose, throat) department of St. Francis Hospital in Connecticut, USA. Reflexology is based on chi, the ancient Chinese concept found in several Eastern medical practices, like acupuncture. HOW IS IT A PPLI E D? Auriculotherapy uses the outer ear as the reflex zone to treat disorders all over the body, by applying Vaccaria seeds, small needles, or a simple massage. Then there is foot and hand reflexology - by stimulating these reflex points, one can reestablish the health of the patient, free up energetic and emotional blockages, stimulate blood and nervous circulation and induce relaxation in the whole body. WHAT ARE THE EFFEC TS? It produces a relaxing effect that reduces stress levels, enables physical relaxation, stimulates blood and lymphatic circulation, strengthens the immune system, balances and reestablishes energy levels, eliminates toxins, relieves pain, etc. A study published this year in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer found that it is also effective for reducing fatigue in patients with tumours. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine affirmed last year that reflexology reduces anxiety in pregnant women, while Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice wrote in 2016 that it improves quality of life and lowers the intensity of hot flushes and night sweats in menopausal and premenopausal women.

WHAT IS IT ?

TA I CHI

A martial art developed in China, thousands of years old, and that currently has millions of followers around the world. It is a physical and spiritual practice to improve quality of life, for both body and mind. Most people adept at the discipline practise it mainly for health reasons, such as relaxation or meditation, while only a small portion use it as a martial art for self-defense or as a way of life.

The discipline is performed slowly and smoothly, working all the muscles of the body and being aware of factors such as strength, balance and flexibility. Tai chi is effective for improving physical performance, for the treatment of circulatory diseases and even as anti-ageing therapy. HOW I S I T A PPLI E D? Wisdom and harmony are at the heart of this discipline, combining the three key foundations: body movement, mental concentration and conscious breathing. There are two main modes of tai chi. The first is called yang - long and smooth movements without an alteration of breathing or force. This is recommended for beginners or for the

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elderly. The second mode is chen, in which one passes from relaxation to explosion in a single movement, without any interruption in the transition. They are relatively moderate exercises, so anyone can practise them, with the right amount of discipline.

WH AT A RE TH E E FFEC TS? Tai chi can act as an effective anti-ageing therapy, increase flexibility, strengthen muscles and tendons, as well as help prevent and alleviate certain heart conditions or high blood pressure problems, in addition to arthritis.

In a study published in 2006, researchers at Stanford University found that tai chi improved muscle strength in a series of men and women over 50 years of age with below average fitness and at least one cardiovascular risk factor. After taking classes three times a week, in just 12 weeks they showed improvement in both lower body strength (measured by the number of times they could get up from a chair in 30 seconds) and upper body strength (measured by their ability to do push-ups). In another study conducted in Japan, several types of exercise were compared to see which one improved strength among its practitioners. One group performed tai chi, another walked briskly and another did resistance training. The people who did tai chi improved lower body strength by more than 30 percent and upper body strength by 25 percent - almost as much as those who participated in strength training and substantially better than those who walked briskly. A study published in 2015 by the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that tai chi “improves the quality of life in patients with chronic diseases.” According to Peter Wayne, of Harvard University: “The practice of tai chi improves the physical function of people with Parkinson’s disease, including balance, which means a decrease in falls, plus the general wellbeing of these patients.”

YO GA

Etymologically, the word means “union”. This physical and mental discipline originated in India and aims to connect the soul, body and mind. More than just a practice, yoga could be considered a lifestyle - one that heals, cares for and strengthens the body, mind and spirit, by using the so-called “asanas” (poses) along with breathing and meditation. Practised in India for thousands of years, it has now become one of the most followed systems of physical and spiritual wellbeing, in both the East and the West. The practice is truly multidisciplinary, as there are around 100 different types of yoga. H OW IS IT AP P LIED? During a yoga session, which usually lasts between an hour and an hour and a half, different asanas are practised. These poses are harmonised with the breath, bringing benefits for both for body and mind. The asanas have different degrees of difficulty, depending on the experience of the individual. The sessions begin with a warm-up (to loosen muscles and joints), followed by static positions (to work the balance of the body and its muscles), ending with a relaxation phase (in which body and mind return to calm). WH AT A RE TH E E FFEC TS? There are more and more studies about the benefits of yoga, produced by universities such as Duke, Harvard and San Francisco (the home of western yoga popularised in the 60s). Dr. Timothy McCall - a graduate in psychology from the University of Wisconsin, editor of Yoga Journal and author of

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the bestselling book Yoga As Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing (Bantam) - cited in 2013 up to 75 health problems that yoga can improve. They include stress, anxiety, cancer, obesity, cardiovascular problems and diabetes - some of the ills most heavily associated with Western lifestyle. A study published in the journal Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity found that people who did yoga for 12 weeks in sessions of 90 minutes managed to slow down the cellular deterioration of their body. In addition, they found yoga as a beneficial practice to prevent cognitive decline.

PI LATE S

This is a system of physical and mental training created in the early 20th century by Joseph Hubertus Pilates, a German athlete who during his childhood suffered from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever. All this led him to study the human body, looking for ways to strengthen it through physical exercise and mental strength.

This lay the foundations of a personal method that today has millions of followers around the world. Although the Pilates method has developed enormously over the years, giving rise to numerous different styles and applications, there are some fundamental principles coined by its pioneer that reman: alignment, centralisation, concentration, control, fluidity, precision and breathing. HOW I S I T A PPLI E D? Pilates fits within the group of anaerobic exercises - physical activities that are carried out in brief bursts and based mainly on strength. Its main objective is not to burn calories, but also to strengthen the muscles and increase the control, strength and flexibility of our body. Most exercises are performed through a series of slow and smooth movements, often with the help of devices designed specifically for this discipline. The objective is to achieve the highest possible precision through controlled breathing, the correct alignment of the body and concentration - a fundamental part of the therapy.

The aim is to avoid violent or uncontrolled gestures that may be harmful to the body.

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS? The practice improves posture, strengthens deep muscles, fights back pain, strengthens the belly, increases flexibility in the motor muscles, improves joint range, strength, endurance and muscular power, massages the internal organs, promotes blood circulation and reduces the risk of injury or muscle imbalance.

According to a study in the Andalusian Journal of Sports Medicine, the Pilates method is also effective for â&#x20AC;&#x153;improving isometric hip strength and balance in older people, reducing the risk of falls.â&#x20AC;?

WHAT IS IT ?

COLON HY DROTHE RA PY

Historically speaking, anthropological studies find that people have regularly purified their bodies ever since ancient Egypt, including the cleaning of the colon - although the way we think of the treatment now began to develop at the start of the 20th century. The modern day therapy involves a complete cleaning of the colon using filtered and purified water. This allows a deep clean of the intestines in order to improve and re-establish all its functions. It acts as a

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bath that distributes water inside the intestine with the aim of cleaning out the colon completely, thus getting rid of any remains, waste or toxic residue. This treatment also achieves a true rehabilitation of the intestine, given that it regulates peristaltic movement and improves intestinal bacteria. H OW IS IT AP P LIED? The specialist prepares an infusion with warm water, that has been filtered and treated, and administers it into the colon, varying its pressure and temperature. The water penetrates and circulates the sigmoidal rectum, descending colon, transverse colon and ascending colon, until it reaches the small intestine. The water softens the fecal matter, toxic remains and any dead cells trapped in the intestinal folds. It effortlessly eliminates all these unwanted and harmful remains, without causing any pain to the patient, all with the aim of restoring the colon’s normal physiological function and mobility. From the very first treatment, one gets a noticeable sense of wellbeing and organic lightness - but in order to achieve a complete cleansing of the colon and a deep therapeutic effect, it is advisable to do a series of three sessions, each of around 45 minutes. WH AT A RE TH E E FF EC TS ? Colon hydrotherapy is a completely healthy technique, which has no proven side effects and has been approved by the FDA. A piece published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine in 2006 said that the risk of serious adverse effects is very low when the procedure is carried out by capable staff who use the right equipment.

OSTEO PATH Y

This therapeutic and diagnostic method is based on promoting the inherent self-healing capacity of the organism. Its founder was the American doctor Andrew Taylor, who in 1874 spread the technique around his country, and later through Europe. Many countries consider it to be more typical of conventional medicine than of complementary medicine. Its concept is to consider the body’s entire structure and function as an inseparable whole - so, the alteration of one organ affects all other systems. H OW I S I T A P P LI E D? Osteopathic therapy has about a hundred different procedures or techniques, all grouped into several categories: targeted mobilisation (to restore mobility to a rigid joint), muscular energy (using stretches), opposing tension (to eliminate nerve reflexes that cause stiffness and pain), craniosacral (to act on the entire nervous system), myofascial release (to improve all muscle function) and visceral manipulation or lymphatic pumping (to decrease intrathoracic pressure). WH AT A RE I TS E FFEC TS ? It is used to treat muscle injuries, arthrosis, gastrointestinal, urogenital and respiratory ailments, migraines or headaches, among other symptoms. The WHO categorises osteopathy as “an alternative medicine that deals with the mechanical problems of the body” and in some countries it is taught at universities. For example, in the USA, there is a Bachelor of Osteopathic Medicine, which provides a medical rank and the license to practise and prescribe. The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) represents more than 80,000 osteopaths. Finland, France, Belgium, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Portugal, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Italy, Turkey and the UK are also noteworthy as countries where osteopathy already has a legal grounding that supports it as a profession and recognised study.

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OZON E THE RA PY

This treatment medically introduces ozone into the body, with the aim of improving organ and tissue function. Ozone was discovered in 1840 by the German chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein. In the 1910s, another German chemist Justus Baron von Liebig was the first to study its use for humans. Since then, it has been used to treat local and systemic illnesses in our bodies, applied in several different ways.

There are roughly 26,000 ozone therapy experts in the world and around 10 million patients in Europe per year use it. HOW I S I T A PPLI E D? It can be applied in different ways and depending on the illness to be treated. The main ways of administering the treatment are: topical, infiltrative and systemic. Topical treatment is applied directly using sealed plastic bags or with ozone water or oil. Infiltrative treatment is useful for treating locomotory afflictions like arthritis, tendinitis, myositis, fasciitis or myofascial pain. Systemic ozone therapy involves administering the gas through autologous blood injection and rectal insufflation. This last technique is easy to apply, safe and comfortable for the patient. WHAT A RE THE E FFECTS? Spain’s Ministry of Health includes ozone therapy in the list of services that can be offered by pain units. “The effectiveness, safety and tolerability of ozone, whether infiltrated or administered systemically, justifies the extension of its use in recent years.” explains the magazine of the Sociedad Española del Dolor (Spanish Society for Pain) in its scientific work “Ozone Therapy in Pain Medicine - Revised” in 2013. This same study showed that from a clinical point of view, ozone therapy presents many medical and surgical uses, all related to the antiseptic quality of ozone, like for ischemic processes and cellular redox imbalance. It has anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial effects. It can also play an anticarcinogenic role and it is good for circulation.

WHAT IS IT ?

SE ROTHE RA PY

The most standard definition is the administering of certain serums that help the organism’s auto-recovery, by selecting vitamins, trace elements and natural biological drugs, all according to our specific needs - from weight loss to beautifying the skin or improve healthy hair, among many others. HOW I S I T A PPLI E D? Trace elements (substances found in small amounts in the blood, such as zinc or copper), vitamin C and minerals are administered intravenously to repair cells damaged by the effect of age or other circumstances. The purpose is to neutralise radical polymers. During the therapy, an individualised serum is introduced into our blood flow. The serums used in the treatment must be fully customised to individual’s needs and the health benefits that they wish to obtain. WHAT A RE THE E FFECTS? Different combinations of serums can be used to promote healthy and beautiful skin, lose weight, detoxify the body, combat stress, protect the immune system, revitalise energy, regulate insomnia, promote better digestion, promote healthier cardiovascular performance, stimulate cognitive development, strengthen bones and joints, etc.

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LYMP H ATI C DRA I N AGE

The technique was described and developed for the first time in 1932 by a Danish couple, Dr. Emil Vodder and his wife Estrid, although it is in recent years that it has become more solid. It is a light massage applied to the circulatory system, with the objective of mobilising the body’s fluids. The aim is to help eliminate waste substances accumulated in the liquid between the cells. Therefore, one of the main uses of this technique is for fluid retention. Our lymphatic system suffers from a life full of tension, stress, nutrient-poor and toxin-rich diet, sedentary lifestyle and different environmental aggressions such as pollution. These circumstances are associated with unhealthy ageing and cause our lymphatic system to collapse, requiring a manual therapy that helps to restore the correct function of lymphs.

H OW IS IT A P P LIE D? The lymphatic system fulfills a double function: purification (eliminating toxins and waste substance from the body) and protection (modulating the immune system’s response to bacteria, viruses and other foreign substances in the body). The specialist should apply an extremely slow and mindful massage with movements performed in an upward direction and with a slight pumping movement over the lymphatic channels. As a result, the patient should perceive a feeling of lightness, especially in the lower limbs, and a sense of being deflated. It is important to know that this is not a relaxing massage for surface or muscular use.

WH AT A RE TH E E FFEC TS? It improves the circulation and function of the lymphatic system, balances hydration levels, helps to purify toxins, has a relaxing effect and lowers blood pressure. For all these reasons, it is especially used to treat edemas of all types, varicose veins, tired and swollen legs, dizziness, headaches and migraines, cellulitis, menstrual swelling, hypertension and stress. Studies by great lymphologists have shown that lymphatic drainage is the only effective manual technique in the treatment of lymphedemas, an invaluable one when combined with other physiotherapeutic measures.

WH AT IS IT ?

SH I ATSU

Etymologically, the word comes from the Japanese shi (finger) and atsu (pressure on parts of the body). The discipline was born in Japan and has, for decades, been supported by its national health system, which recognises its benefits for achieving the correct channeling of vital energy, by pressing the fingers and palm on certain key points of the body. It first emerged in 1912, when Tokujiro Namikoshi managed to successfully develop a pressure technique to treat his mother’s rheumatoid arthritis. Currently, the Japan Shiatsu College has about 3,000 students who graduate annually to take the state exam and obtain their license to practice as a shiatsu therapist. H OW I S IT AP P LIED? The Japanese Ministry of Health itself offers guidance on this treatment: “By applying pressure with the fingers and palms on certain points, irregularities are corrected and health is maintained and improved, thus helping to alleviate diseases by activating the self-healing capacity of the human body.” The theory says that a person’s state of health will depend to a large extent on how their vital energy flows through their body. It is a process carried out through channels known as meridians. If an

WH AT IS IT ?

HEALTH

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amount of pressure is applied on them, we can redirect and improve the circulation of energy and therefore revitalise our health. WHAT A RE THE E FFECTS? It resolves muscular and back pains, anxiety, insomnia, stress, depression, migraines, fatigue, gastrointestinal problems and disorders related to menstruation and menopause. In a study conducted earlier this decade by the European Shiatsu Federation, and led by the University of Leeds, it was found that 60 percent of people who received this treatment improved their nocturnal cycle and could sleep better. 89 percent of them said they felt more calm and relaxed after just one session of shiatsu. Over a period of six months, patients reported a significant improvement in their symptoms. And 86 percent of them said that shiatsu helped them manage stress, improve physical problems and increase their energy levels. Furthermore, the World Journal of Plastic Surgery published a study in 2015 which concluded that “20 minutes of shiatsu a day, combined with analgesics, can be beneficial to control anxiety.”

WATSU / WATE R THE RA PI E S

Watsu is a unique massage technique designed to release all kinds of tension. Owing to the absence of gravity, water mobilises our entire body in all three dimensions. It is still a relatively young technique, created in the early 80s by the body therapist and zen shiatsu master Harold Dull, who put his knowledge into practice at Harbin Hot Springs in California. This pioneer discovered that the stretches and movements of shiatsu were particularly effective when performed underwater - thus giving way to watsu. It is already considered one of the most important developments in the field of body work. HOW I S I T A PPLI E D? The process is carried out in hot water (between 34 and 36 degrees centigrade), in which the therapist leads the patient through a progression of movements towards a complete state of relaxation. The body is held in a horizontal position and the expert performs a progression of smooth and harmonious movements on the patient, combining stretches and pressures. The alternating movements and the simple flotation result in muscle relaxation and help to unlock points of physical, mental and energetic tensions. WHAT ARE THE EF FECTS? According to the journal Physiotherapy Research International (2009), watsu therapy was “very useful for controlling stiffness and improving the ambulatory function of patients with hemiparesis” (a decrease in motor functions or partial paralysis affecting one arm and one leg on the same side of the body). For researchers at the University of Dortmund, it is highly effective in patients with clinical depression. In addition, the Hindawi Publishing Corporation’s Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine published a work in 2015 in which “watsu was found to significantly lower participants’ (pregnant women in their third trimester) levels of stress and pain and to improve their mental health-related quality of life and mood.” This technique is used to treat orthopedic conditions, back pain, slipped discs, trauma, different neurological conditions, brain injuries, paralysis, Parkinson’s, stress, multiple sclerosis, different types of arthritis and as a complement to respiratory rehabilitation.

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WHAT IS IT ?

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ME DI TATI O N

This introspective process helps the individual to reach an inner peace that allows them to lower their stress levels and fix harmful emotions. It is believed that if a deep state of relaxation is achieved, the health and wellbeing of a person can be improved. Modern meditation practices originate from certain Asian religions and spiritual traditions, but today their use is widespread and in many cases detached from their religious component. In its most ambitious form, meditation aims to sustain focused concentration without any effort, providing the practitioner with a state of wellbeing in any activity of life. H OW I S I T A P P LI E D? Today, there are many types of meditation practised in Western culture. For example, there is “full consciousness” meditation, which encourages changes in the way one thinks, feels and acts; the ultimate goal is to get rid of negative thoughts and actions, replacing them with positive ones. For this, we must concentrate our breathing and be able to hold thoughts and emotions in a more balanced way on a daily basis; the technique also obtains physical improvements, through flexibility exercises that are also carried out. On the other hand, there is “transcendental” meditation, with a technique substantially different from the previous one - during each session, the only thing the individual has to do is repeat a mantra over and over again, quietly or silently, in order to avoid distraction, concentrate and find a state of total relaxation. WH AT A RE TH E E FFEC TS? There are many studies that suggest that meditation can have several health benefits. An article published in the journal Scientific American states that through meditation we have the power to change our minds. The study was carried out for almost 15 years by the University of Wisconsin, in collaboration with 19 other universities, in more than 100 Buddhist monasteries.

Brain scans were compared with tens of thousands of hours of meditation practice, obtaining very interesting conclusions - the levels of anxiety and depression go down, some areas of the brain are activated (in particular those associated with feelings of empathy, compassion and affection), the volume of the amygdala is reduced (the region of the brain involved in the fear process) and there are positive effects on the telomerase molecule (responsible for lengthening the DNA segments at the ends of the chromosomes, the enzyme that facilitates the immortality of the cells in most carcinogenic processes). The American Heart Association assured in 2017 that meditation prevents cardiovascular diseases. And according to Harvard University psychiatrist Marilynn Wei: “It has been shown that practices such as yoga or meditation reduce your body’s stress response by strengthening its relaxation response and reducing the stress hormone, cortisol.”

WH AT IS IT ?

GLO BAL MOVEMENT

TEXT

AGNISH RAY & SANDRA DEL RÍO

HOW CAN A BRAND SAVE THE PLANET? Diana Verde Nieto, co-founder of Positive Luxury, shares some thoughts on how the luxury industry can make a positive impact on our world…

S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y & LUXURY

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DIANA VERDE NI ETO

Since 2012, Positive Luxury has built a leadership position in helping luxury lifestyle brands to validate their sustainable actions. The company’s Butterfly Mark is an independent seal of approval earned by brands that have adopted sustainability as a business strategy. It promotes transparency and enables consumers to make informed purchasing decisions.

Diana Verde Nieto co-founded the company along with Karen Hanton, founder of toptable. com. The two trailblazing entrepreneurs combined their experience and knowledge to use technology to demystify sustainability and positively communicate a brand’s action directly to the consumer.

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Q A

Why is the concept of sustainability so important for luxury brands?

Q A

And where exactly do you come in?

Brands across all types of industries have realised that sustainability is now an expectation. What is different today from just a few years ago is that it is no longer just NGOs and governments pushing for positive social, economic and environmental impact - voices are growing louder from consumers of all generations, geographies and segments of society.

Sustainability is now an expectation - a recent report by J. Walter Thompson Intelligence showed that 90% of people believe companies and brands have a responsibility to take care of the planet and its people.

I have always been passionate about making connections - in another life I might have been a matchmaker. Instead, I specialise in connecting luxury brands with other people out there who care about the future.

In establishing these connections, Positive Luxury has all sorts of ways to examine a brand’s commitment to sustainability in order to ensure they meet the highest standards of innovation, governance, community investment and social and environmental performance. And it’s about far more than just compliance - brands need to go over and beyond the minimum requirements.

Q What are some of the more emerging trends in how to go about sustainability? Are there any newer players on the scene that are illustrating this in an interesting way?

A In the last few years, as part of a push towards greater authenticity,

we have seen sustainability become a core business strategy, rather than just a supply chain matter. For example, Gabriela Hearst, the Uruguayan ready-to-wear clothing and accessories designer, has created a brand with sustainability at its heart, without compromising on style, quality and craftsmanship. Her environmental commitments are evident with the use of 100% compostable and biodegradable packaging. Her partnership with Manos del Uruguay - a non-profit organisation that pays living wages to craftswoman who hand-make the tweed using wool from Hearst’s own farm - further illustrates how this entrepreneur ensures sustainability as a brand pillar.

Q More and more brands are talking about sustainability. Is it a trend or a need?

A In my view, it’s the new normal. Sustainability cannot be a surface

level issue or just a talking point for brands. Now is the time for action.

In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the UN stated we have twelve years to make unprecedented changes to ensure that future generations can enjoy the privileges that previous ones had. Although sustainability may seem to some to be a trend, there is growing evidence that suggests it’s here to stay. There is greater awareness about sustainability issues, such as the impact of plastic, the loss of biodiversity, deforestation in the supply chain, the use of irresponsibly sourced materials and the exposure to harmful chemicals. Because of this attitude shift, companies investing in sustainability grow six times faster than companies not investing, precisely because they are responding better to consumers’ demands.

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Q A

Are luxury and sustainability always compatible?

Yes, luxury brands are inherently more sustainable - they value quality, craftsmanship and design over quantity. Plus, they have a secondary life, as the longer you keep luxury items, the more valuable they become (e.g. the “vintage” trend). The luxury industry has the ability to drive innovation through the supply chain, in terms of materials, packaging and different business models making a positive impact in the world. I hope this will eventually filter down and have a systemic impact on high street fashion, as well as influence consumer behaviour and purchasing decisions. Consumers are increasingly striving to buy less and better - and luxury is an enabler for this, as quality and durability are inherent.

Q A

Sustainability, stewardship... What is the best way to close the loop?

Innovation and collaboration. These elements are key in accelerating the trajectory of sustainability from niche to mainstream - and it’s refreshing to see how this is happening in every sector. From refillable and upcycling to peer-to-peer renting and mindful lifestyles, the slow movement - as we like to call it - is catching up, which is far more sustainable than the idea of fast living.

Q Which sectors do you consider the most evolved in sustainable practices?

A Food is probably the most evolved as its production and packaging

are highly regulated, as are farming and fishing. In addition, growing consumer concern over wellness, provenance and authenticity are boosting the sale of sustainable foods. The plant-based movement shows no signs

S U S TAINABIL IT Y AT S H A

SHA has a clear commitment to the environment, actively engaging in the conservation of our precious natural resources. SHA’s environmental responsibility policy constantly explores new green initiatives in order to continue improving caring for our greatest treasure, the planet.

Water. SHA uses flow reducers and atomisers in taps and showers, reducing water consumption. The water in the pools is recycled.

Energy. SHA saves 90% of electricity consumption by using LED bulbs. Light and temperature in SHA suites are controlled by automated detection systems.

GLO BAL MOVEMENT

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FARM-TO-TABLE AT SHA

A sustainable approach to sourcing, producing and consuming food is essential to the wellbeing of the planet.

Guests at SHA are taught about how what we eat can affect our health as well as our environment. All the food offered at SHA is seasonal, natural and non-processed, with much of it cultivated in SHA’ s own ecological garden.

The consumption of red meat is another important consideration - it takes nearly 2,000 litres of water to produce just one kilo of meat. Animal agriculture accounts for 15 percent of

of slowing down. The focus on organic and locally sourced foods is equally strong - 60% of shoppers in the UK expressed a clear preference for buying locally sourced products. Plastic is currently facing a backlash and, in response to all the headlines, many supermarkets have confirmed their commitment to introducing plastic-free aisles.

human-produced greenhouse gas emissions, using up around a third of the planet’s land surface.

As such, there is no red meat served at SHA. BAUME

WATCHES ARE MINDFULLY DESIGNED TO MODERNISE EVERY ASPECT OF THE WATCH INDUSTRY.

LOEWE

BEGAN AS A COOPERATIVE OF LEATHER ARTISANS IN THE CENTRE OF MADRID IN 1846, CREATING ONE OF THE WORLD’S ORIGINAL LUXURY HOUSES.

Q What sustainability practices have surprised you while running Positive Luxury?

A Out of many, three examples come to my mind: The LVMH Group

has taken a pioneering and strategic commitment to the environment by implementing LIFE 2020 (LVMH Initiatives For The Environment).

Integrated across each of the group’s 70 maisons, this proactive environmental policy aims to protect the quality of water, air and soil, as well as the diversity of animal and plant species, through innovations in product design, material procurement, production, carbon emissions monitoring, transportation and retail operations. Yves Saint Laurent’s beauty division has an innovative project called YSL Beauty Ourika Gardens: a unique garden harvested by women, carried out in partnership with a women’s village cooperative in the Ourika community on the foothills of the Atlas Mountains in northwestern Africa. In 2018, the Song Saa Foundation launched their largest conservation initiative to date, the Ocean Stewardship Program, a volunteer-based scheme for tourists to make immediate and quantifiable positive changes to Cambodian coral reefs, leaving a legacy of sustainable resource use and marine biodiversity for future generations of the local communities.

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Q A

From your experience, how do consumers react to sustainability?

I find that people don’t always understand what sustainability encompasses in general - so they focus instead on the values that resonate the most to them, whether that’s cruelty-free, organic, fair pay, etc.

Q How far can or should a luxury brand involve the consumer in sustainability actions?

A I think communication is everything - you can’t make choices with

your wallet without information and this is why it’s important for brands to communicate with all their different stakeholder groups.

Q On a personal level, can you tell us what your daily sustainable practices are?

A It is all about reducing my footprint - every time I can, I make

mindful choices depending on the circumstances I am in. For example, I carry around my refillable water bottle and my reusable plastic cup; I only eat meat a few times a month; and I always take my reusable carrier bag everywhere I go.

Q One of the biggest crises that the world is facing today is climate change. Do luxury brands have a role to play here as well?

A Yes, climate change is another key area in which the luxury sector

can make a difference - such as by consistently sourcing quality ingredients and materials. Many brands are investing in innovative research and development in order to mitigate the risk of climate change and ensure the longevity of a sustainable business.

Q What is the best message you can give to luxury brands out there that want to be socially and environmentally responsible?

A In short, one single brand cannot save the planet by itself - but a

systematic approach to change, through collaborations with others out there, will result in success. Collectively, and with cohesive, purposeled determination, brands can be a force for good. But consumers need to continue questioning and challenging brands, raising their voices to demand change now and for future generations.

WO R L D IN YO U R H ANDS

Peter Bellerby owns a small company on the outskirts of London called Bellerby & Co Globemakers, that makes intricately detailed, artisanal, hand-made globes (pictured in this feature.) These bespoke, made-to-order items are personalised, carefully crafted and of extraordinary quality, sometimes taking up to six months to make.

MEDI CINE

TE XT

PHOTOG RA PHY

ALBERTO BRAVO

BOBBY NEEL ADAMS

THE SCIENCE OF LONGEVITY W ITH

T HE REVO LU T I O N I S HERE...

DO CTO R

M E DI CI N E I S N O LON G E R J UST A BOUT PE RSO N A L I S E D T E S T I N G.

W E A R E N OW M OV I N G TOWA R DS “ H Y P E R- P E R S O N A L I SAT I O N ”, W H I C H M E A N S A N E W WAY O F T H I N K I N G A B O U T A N T I -AG E I N G TREATME NT IS E ME RG I N G - I T I S WHAT THE Y CA LL G E N DE RE D M E DI CI N E.

Traditional science barely used to make any distinctions in treatment when it came to the difference between the sexes. One lived for the moment back then; the here and now was what mattered - and it was no different for medicine. But a new reality is gradually emerging, from evidence that is fairly simple, but has been largely ignored over time - that male and female bodies develop significant physiological differences over the course of their lives. Even though, socially speaking, women have recovered much lost ground in several areas of equality - rights, access to the labour market, etc. - medicine has in fact been lagging behind. Only those who understand the need to personalise each treatment to a man or a woman can offer new therapeutic perspectives that are not only stimulating in themselves but also essential to always ensuring the highest quality of that treatment.

So-called “gendered medicine” is about studying the differences between men and women in terms of health. From the development and prevention of diseases to the appearance of symptoms, or from the effectiveness of implemented therapies to the ways of dealing with them psychologically, the simple difference of gender matters. Genes, chromosomes, hormones and metabolisms - among other things - make us certain that “there are different healths for men and for women”, according to Dr Vicente Mera, who leads the anti-ageing unit for men and women at SHA Wellness Clinic.

The bottom line is that a combination of physical and psychosocial factors affect the health of men and women differently.

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TOWA R DS A “ H Y P E R- P E R SO N A L I S E D” M E D I C I N E

One of the key elements of anti-ageing medicine is individualised treatment.

Each person is different - not only does everyone have their own medical history, with nuances that are ultimately very important, but everyone also responds to different treatments in different ways. That is why personalised, tailor-made therapy has really taken off, with treatments adapted to the needs of each individual patient, and not the other way around.

But the revolution is still growing. “It is no longer just about personalisation, but hyper-personalisation - which is one step further,” explains Dr Mera. The proof lies in the value being placed on “gendered medicine” - the distinction made between the sexes when undertaking a treatment. “And we could go even further - by grouping according to age - because the body composition of a woman, for example, is not the same before and after menopause,” adds the SHA specialist.

What is certain is that this revolution has, for now, only reached certain elites. But it is advancing at a tremendous speed. Until not very long ago, scientific studies would not even consider a sample with sexes differentiated or, at least, equally represented. Now it forms part of protocol to include and differentiate both men and women. Only then do we get truly reliable data.

Therefore, an anti-ageing programme optimised for a woman should factor in all the specificities of her sex, paying special attention to the variations in her hormone levels, with the aim of delaying the effects

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of old age, not only to live longer, but to do so with greater vitality and quality. In order to do this, we need to figure out the indicators of biological age and establish its difference from chronological age, as well as warn against all the factors likely to negatively impact quality of life daily habits, nutrition, environment, genetics, etc.

The aim is to define an effective treatment within a plethora of choices available - natural therapies, Eastern medicine, nutrition and more of the latest medical advances. “It needs to be a proactive plan, in which the patient is involved as much as, or more than, the practitioner. The patient needs to feel like an active part of the therapy and feel able to learn and benefit from new healthy habits that allow them to optimise their general health and wellbeing,” explains Dr Mera.

For men, the objectives must be the same - to improve their quality of life, prevent illness and prolong a healthy life expectancy. An anti-ageing programme for men needs to address all his needs and consider the individual characteristics of his ageing and how his body adapts to the passage of time. This is important for people interested in improving their physical appearance and vitality through innovative tools and disciplines that contribute to longevity.

S P EC IF IC T R EAT MENTS AT S H A

Any age after 30 is a good one to start an anti-ageing programme. Although it is never too late, the earlier one starts, the better. SHA’s healthy

To achieve this, the method needs to begin with an initial medical assessment, followed by continued monitoring throughout, as well as various consultations with specialists in specific areas. For example, genetics and anti-ageing, skincare, cognitive stimulation, revitalising medicine, energetic health or urology. “It is fundamental that the patient is seen to by the very best professionals. Otherwise, an anti-ageing programme could actually be counterproductive,” says Dr Mera.

ageing programme lasts 7 days. SHA Wellness Clinic is a leader in comprehensive age management, home to the best laboratory for genetic and genomic studies. The clinic provides wide-ranging experiences in its sleep clinic.

These professionals should start off by determining the patient’s genetic profile and level of oxidative stress. They should also formulate a nutrition plan adapted to individual requirements and a personalised health plan that includes things like supplements, physical exercise, natural therapies, recommendations on lifestyle, etc.

The study of gut bacteria and digestive intolerances are among the most robust in the world. The application of immunomodulation and regenerative medicine are daily

“Ageing for men and women has two things in common - deterioration (simply through the daily use of the body) and obsolescence (that inevitable biological clock). What really makes a difference in anti-ageing treatment is an attention to detail - like differentiating between the sexes.

That’s the difference. That’s the present day.”

practices at SHA. Its antitobacco unit successfully helps people not just to stop smoking temporarily, but to quit the habit for good. Purge your system with treatments based on healthy eating and natural supplements, many of them exclusive to SHA. The stress control unit, which uses ancient techniques from Eastern cultures that also feature in treatments used by NASA, achieves amazing things.

MEDI CINE

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M O R E P R E VA L E N T I L L N E S S E S . . . _ IN

WOMEN

Naturally speaking, women tend to develop more autoimmune diseases and suffer from chronic pain and certain neurodegenerative diseases more often.

As a consequence, they are also more prone to functional disability. These are some of the conditions that scientific studies find to be more prevalent in women.

given birth. It is important to be aware that if thyroid problems are not treated during pregnancy, the child might inherit them and later develop serious physical and mental problems. During menopause, women are also more likely to contract the illness, causing the body to produce a lower quantity of thyroid hormones (thyroxine and triiodothyronine).

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

This accounts for 40 percent of female deaths in the USA. In the year following a cardiac arrest, women have a 50 percent higher chance of dying than men do.

Furthermore, in the first six years after a heart attack, women are twice as likely to suffer a second one. The loss of oestrogen is the reason for this trend, because the hormone is linked with greater levels of high-density lipoproteins and lower levels of low-density lipoproteins.

SLEEPING DI SORDERS

These are suffered by around 40 percent of women (compared to 30 percent of men).

It is a fact that womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sleep patterns change over the years, clearly influenced by hormonal changes (the menstrual cycle, pregnancy and menopause). In postmenopausal women, hormonal changes affect the quality of sleep. Other factors are arthritis, respiratory disorders or hot flushes.

MIGRAI NES

Research finds that in Europe and the US, the number of women who get migraines is almost triple that of men. The causes include stress, hormonal changes and possible sleeping disorders. 60 percent of women who suffer from migraines link the attacks with their menstrual cycles, which shows how the up-and-down of hormone levels can play a part.

THYROID

This is almost ten times more prevalent in women than in men. Moreover, it occurs in 5 percent of pregnant women and 7 percent of women who have previously

D E PRE SSI ON

Women are around twice as likely as men to develop depression - and hormones are not the only cause. Instead, the highest risks come from other biological and hereditary factors, as well as a range of life experiences.

RHE UM ATOI D A RTHRI TI S

This condition has three times more chance of affecting women than men and the chance increases following childbirth or menopause. Female hormones, particularly oestrogen, act as a protector against rheumatoid arthritis.

Different studies have found that when levels of the hormone drop, the risk of the ailment increases. And on the other hand, the risk is reduced during pregnancy or when taking contraceptive medication.

T Y PE 2 DI A BE TE S

This occurs most often from the age of 50 onwards, owing to the reduction in oestrogen levels during menopause.

Oestrogen is directly related to the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s processing of sugar. Woman aged 45 upwards are at greatest risk to start developing chronic illnesses like diabetes or high blood pressure, associated with metabolic changes caused by menopause, obesity and sedentary lifestyle.

OSTEOPOROSI S

This affects one in three women over 50 years. Around half will end up with a fractured hip or vertebra. Low levels of sexual hormones tend to weaken the bones. A high level of thyroid hormones can also cause a reduction in bone mass.

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_IN MEN

Generally speaking, men have a weaker immune system and are more vulnerable to infections. This is most likely because of the presence of testosterone, the male hormone that controls secondary sexual characteristics. According to scientific study, these are the diseases more commonly associated with the male sex.

OVERW EIGH T

LOWE R B AC K PA I N

ER EC TILE P RO BLEMS

This comes third in the ten most common reasons for treatment in physical medicine and rehabilitation.

Men between 25 and 45 years old are the most affected, because of problems with posture, when lifting heavy objects, sitting down, lying down, falling, etc.

This affects more than 140 million men around the world and the latest figures warn that more than 50 percent of men between 40 and 70 suffer from some form of erectile dysfunction at some point.

GO U T

This is four times more common in men.

It is a very painful illness which inflames the joints, mainly the lower ones, because of crystals formed by uric acid. It is more common in men because women tend to have lower levels of uric acid. However, one detail worth bearing in mind is that the levels of uric acid that women develop after menopause are similar to those of men.

GENDERED MEDICINE

THIS IS A REVOLUTION WHICH, FOR NOW, HAS ONLY REACHED CERTAIN ELITES. TREMENDOUS ADVANCEMENTS ARE BEING MADE ON THE SUBJECT AND STUDIES ARE NOW CARRIED OUT USING SAMPLES DIFFERENTIATED

BY SEX.

It is estimated that more than 70 percent of overweight people are men.

According to a study by the University of California, womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ovaries work as protection against gaining weight, preventing neuroinflammation or changes in reproductive hormones.

P ROS TATE C ANC ER

This develops when the cells of the prostate begin to grow out of control.

Although certain types of prostate cancer can grow slowly and need minimal treatment, if any at all, other types are more aggressive and can spread quickly. It is one of the most common tumours in men.

H IGH BLO O D P R ES S U R E

This affects twice as many men as women. One of its characteristics is that it does not display any clear symptoms, or that symptoms remain invisible for a long time. Therefore, it is important to be doubly alert. The statistics indicate that more than 80 percent of people with high blood pressure are either not being treated by a specialist or not even diagnosed.

ADVANCED TREATME NTS

ELLSWORTH KELLY

THESE WORKS BELONG TO AN AMERICAN ARTIST WHO WORKED IN PAINTING, SCULPTURE AND PRINTMAKING. A MEMBER OF THE MINIMALISM SCHOOL OF ARTISTIC THINKING, KELLY IS ALSO CONSIDERED

BY SOME TO HAVE BEEN PART OF THE SURREALIST MOVEMENT.

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With just one drop of capillary blood, it is possible to detect a large number of cellular irregularities that could lead to chronic or degenerative illnesses in the future.

C E L L U L A R B I OA N A LY S I S

BY

WH AT A DVA NTAGE S

Cellular bioanalysis entails the study of a drop of blood under a highpower dark field or phase-contrast microscope. It is a non-invasive technique which studies live human blood, without the use of dyes, through which it is possible to obtain a large amount of information on one’s biological makeup and state of health. All of the body’s organs and tissues are involved in maintaining its internal balance - what we call homeostasis. But blood is the most important tissue in maintaining this balance, given that it provides cells with oxygen and nutrients, transports waste substances and toxins toward the organs that will get rid of them, regulates body temperature, transports hormones and enzymes to where they need to act and carries platelets to areas of bodily damage. It is clear that by observing blood, we can see an accurate reflection of what is going on inside us, and of our metabolic state.

DO E S IT H AVE OVE R OTH E R ME TH O DS?

Traditional blood analysis is carried out using dyed and dried blood, usually once that blood has been outside of the body for quite some time. This causes several morphological changes in the blood’s components.

Analysing live blood, without dyes, immediately after it is drawn,

DOCTOR

lets us observe all its components almost as if it were still inside the body. The information that it provides is therefore invaluable.

Blood is a fundamental tool for detecting cellular disorders and early signs of illness that can appear months before any clinical manifestations.

Conventional health diagnosis is based on the appearance of symptoms that one experiences - but with this other type of study, we can detect the functional irregularities and imbalances produced in the initial phases of an illness, before any of these symptoms appear.

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WHAT FUTURE PROBLEMS CAN I T PREVENT ?

This technique helps with early detection of imbalances and preventing them from developing

Visualising live blood cells allows us to follow their movement, morphology and function - which is essential for determining one’s predisposition to deficiencies and diseases. So too is the relation of these cells with other blood cells, as well as the characteristics of the plasma and the residue accumulated in it.

into chronic cases. However, it does not diagnose illnesses.

Instead, it allows us to get to know the origin of the problem, so that, once it is identified, it may be treated in the most suitable way.

HOW DO I GET CELLULAR BI OANALYSIS TREATMENT AT SH A?

It is a quick and simple method.

Many factors can be identified - like the presence of toxicity, excess or microorganisms; the quality of one’s blood transport system; the levels of cellular oxygenation; the activity of one’s defence system. We find very important data on the activity and viability of the immune system, on cellular oxidation and ageing, on the effects of stress on a cellular level.

All this data allows us to judge the speed at which our patient is ageing.

Rather than a diagnostic method, it is a form of study that provides us with information on the state of our organs and systems as well as on our risk factors. This, in turn, lets us design a better and more accurate treatment for reducing the pathological impact of these factors on the body.

A few drops of blood are taken from the fingertip and placed in a slide. The blood is screened immediately after taking the sample, under a dark field microscope, which amplifies the contrast and visualises the cells, particles, fibrin and holograms, which immediately convey what

The method is a useful one for all sorts of conditions - cardiovascular, degenerative, autoimune, neurological, respiratory and hormonal. It allows us to detect inflammation, intestinal problems, deficits, liver issues and even emotional problems as an underlying cause of persisting cases.

The method helps us to assess whether a problem is acute or chronic, severe or moderate, and what risk factors we should fix. In check-ups, we recommend it in cases where, despite normal screening, we want to rule out latent functional imbalances.

the situation of that patient is at that moment. A digital camera transports the image towards a screen that lets the patient see their own inside world - which might move them to look after themselves better and strengthen

As a preventative means, it is wise to do this kind of analysis regularly, in order to understand the patterns that our bodies tend to work in. This way, we can put the necessary measures in place to avoid possible risks to our health in the future. We can also follow the development of chronic processes more closely, as well as assess the effectiveness of the treatments we have applied.

their will to make changes to their lifestyle. It takes approximately half an hour. After the test, we provide a detailed report on the findings, along with photos and the therapy recommendations that might address any problems identified.

Dr Rosario García is Revitalizing Medicine Coordinator at SHA Wellness Clinic

111

S H A MAGAZ INE

Sea water baths taken at 37 degrees constitute a therapy that has been practised for more than 300 years. The effects of this relaxing treatment go much further than weight loss.

T H I A N O N T H A L A S S OT H E R A P Y

BY WELLNESS DIRECTOR

H OW DO E S IT WO RK ?

The bath takes 20 minutes and it is recommendable to do a total of three sessions within a period of seven days. The best results are achieved when carried out in the

Thalasso pool therapy is an aquatic treatment that has been used since the year 1700. It uses all the therapeutic qualities of sea water, placing the patient in a bathtub full of it, for 20 minutes. It is very important to constantly keep the temperature at 37 degrees centigrade. The core element of this treatment lies in the components of the bath water - a mix of powdered sea water and a few drops of a phyto-essential complex should achieve the desired results.

late afternoon or early evening, as a way to end the day. The first 10 minutes of the treatment also come with a digital head massage which helps to relax the tension built up in the neck and shoulders.

If this treatment is accompanied

The effects of this treatment are important and can tackle different ailments. A key effect is helping to restore balance in the body by regulating the production of hormones like noradrenaline, which influences the intake of food, driven by a sense of wellbeing rather than satisfying hunger. It also regulates cortisol, which has been proven to make us store fat in the abdominal area.

with exercise, a suitable diet and the right amount of sleep for a restful body, the results will be visible after the third session.

Weight loss is the great coup of this treatment - but it also has a lot of other beneficial effects. Among other things, it helps to reduce resistance to insulin, reduces abdominal fat, improves liquid retention, reduces the risk of developing allergies and immunological illnesses, fights osteoporosis and prevents the negative effects of some weight loss treatments such as loss of muscle mass.

ADVANCED TREATME NTS

112

Another key difference of this treatment is that, aside from being good for your health, it also lets us enjoy a relaxing thalasso bath - rich in algae, trace elements and minerals.

The impacts of this bath therapy, which we have started offering at SHA Wellness Clinic in 2019, are supported by the laboratories of Thianon, and by all the studies that have in the past demonstrated the benefits of thalassotherapy.

A therapy of Egyptian origin, using heat from sand.

P S A M M O Q UA RT Z T H E R A P Y

BY

WELLNESS DIRECTOR

This treatment finds its roots in ancient Egypt. Three thousand years ago, the Egyptians would bathe themselves in sand still hot from the sun.

They would long for the relaxing feeling produced by the body contact and the temperature of the desert sand. Nowadays, the concept of psammo therapy refers to this application of dry heat, using quartz sand.

(Psammo means sand in Greek.)

Psammo quartz therapy is an experience that combines Tibetan sound bowl therapy with a relaxing massage performed with awls made of quartz. This takes place on a bed of quartz sand that remains at a temperature of 24 degrees throughout, providing comfort by adapting

113

I MME DIATE E FFEC TS

Psammo quartz therapy is one

S H A MAGAZ INE

to the shape of each body that lies on it. The artificially generated heat carries over into the body slowly and steadily, with the texture of the sand creating a constant surface of contact with the body.

of the latest therapies to be introduced at SHA Wellness Clinic. It takes around 75 minutes. The effects are visible from the very first session, which quickly achieves a substantial

The temperature and the quartz act as an accelerator to relax all of the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s muscles, while producing the same relaxing effect on the internal organs. The process also activates the flow of energy from head to toe and helps to balance the cerebral hemispheres, taking body and mind from a beta state to a zeta state.

increase in physical and mental wellbeing. In order to achieve the best results, the sand beds are made of Baltic amber quartz sand and Himalayan salt.

This type of treatment is especially advisable for people with anxiety, stress, apnoea, muscle and joint pain, or anyone else who, rather than experiencing specific muscular problems, simply needs to improve or prolong their mental concentration or boost their creativity.

The relaxing effects are evident in the immediate term - but there are also noticeable benefits for health on a physical level, as the treatment helps to detoxify the body. At joint and musculo-skeletal level, it works as a form of pain relief.

The fundamental difference of this treatment from others is based on the combination of various ancient therapies - like Tibetan bowls, psammo (sand) and the use of minerals like amber, which has been thought for centuries to have great healing powers. As a stone, amber also strengthens the immune system. There is no therapy quite like this one to bring body and mind to a state of total relaxation.

Paulina Mercader is Wellness Director at SHA Wellness Clinic

HEALTH Y RECIPES

TEXT

PHOTOG RA PHY

LIXI LINEAS

RAFA GALÁN

CHEF’S STUDIO

GOOD HEALTH, TO TAKE AWAY

We often think of healthy food as something difficult to prepare or incompatible with our busy day-to-day lives. The food team at SHA proves quite the opposite, with some simple recipes to rustle up and stick in your lunchbox - a sustainably crafted one, of course.

S H A MAGAZ INE

LUNCHBOXES

BY YOKO DESIGN; BLACK + BLUM; ALESSI (ALESSI.COM); LE PRINCE JARDINIER, FDIT SOCIALME-EU

HEALTH Y RECIPES

116 PORTI ON S

1

ORGANIC RED RICE

BE N E FI TS O F R E D R I C E

It has a low glycemic index, which benefits many people by allowing them to regulate and control their blood sugar levels. It contains antioxidants, minerals and high quantities of fibre, and is a source of vitamin B6. It is also filling, even in small quantities.

CEREALS

VEGETABLE S

DRE SSI N G

PRE PA RAT I O N

40g of organic red rice

10g of black Kalamata olives

200g of organic soya yoghurt

Combine all the ingredients together

1 bunch of kombu seaweed

20g of boiled organic sweetcorn

20g of shiro miso

in a bowl, along with the dressing.

Cook the rice and the kombu seaweed

Half an organic cucumber

5g of tarragon

Finish with basil or chervil leaves, to

in 120ml of water with a pinch of salt

5 gherkins

Mix the ingredients with a hand-held

add a touch of freshness. Serve with a

for at least 20 minutes.

30g of cauliflower

blender and add salt to taste.

green salad.

20g of flat cabbage PROTEI N

Slice the Kalamata olives and set aside.

Peel and cut the cucumber into cubes

20g of natural tofu

and set aside. Slice the gherkins and

10cl of tamari

set aside. Cut the cauliflower into small

Cut the tofu into 2cm cubes and toss

florets and blanche in salted water for

in a frying pan. Add the tamari to the

5 minutes; drain and leave to cool. Cut

mix and cook well. Allow to cool and

the cabbage in julienne strips and press

keep aside.

with the hands to expel the liquid; add a touch of sea salt and set aside.

117

S H A MAGAZ INE P O RTIO NS

1

B U C KW H E AT

BENEF ITS O F BU C K W H EAT

It is gluten-free and rich in fibre. It has a high protein content, with high biological value. It has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as a great number of vitamins and minerals.

C E RE A LS

VEGE TA B LE S

40g of buckwheat

20g of white sweet potato

Cut the red cabbage into 2cm squares

Combine all the ingredients together

3 pieces of green asparagus

and toss in a pan for 10 minutes with

in a bowl and add tamari or Maldon

Cook the buckwheat in salted water

20g of leeks

some water, olive oil and salt; allow to

salt to taste. Serve with a green salad.

(10g per litre of water) for 10 mins,

Half a carrot

cool and set aside. Dice up the carrot

without boiling. Allow to cool.

Half a courgette

and courgette and toss in a pan for 5

10 green olives

minutes with some water, olive oil and

20g of red cabbage

salt; add the asparagus, red cabbage,

5g of basil

leeks and sweet potato and keep

Lettuce

cooking for another 5 minutes on a low

Corn salad

heat. Chop the olives.

Baby radish

DRE SSI N G

S W EET BOW L

P U LSE S

Chickpeas

Cut the sweet potato into 2cm

1 branch of kombu seaweed

squares, toss in a pan for 10 minutes

P R EPAR AT IO N

SALAD BOW L

with some water, olive oil and salt; Cook the chickpeas in water, along

allow to cool and set aside. Dice the

with the kombu seaweed, for 30

asparagus and toss in a pan for

minutes. Add a pinch of salt at the

3 minutes; allow to cool and set aside.

10cl of balsamic or Modena vinagre

Green apple

end, and leave to cool. With pulses,

Cut the leeks into 2cm squares and

40cl of extra virgin olive oil

Redcurrants

it is worth leaving them to soak for at

toss in a pan for 5 minutes with some

Salt and pepper

Lemon juice

least a day, depending on the hardness

water, olive oil and salt; allow to cool

of the water.

and set aside.

Mix all the ingredients together.

HEALTH Y RECIPES

118 PORTI ON S

1

MILLET SALAD

BE N E FI TS O F MI L L E T

Recommended in weight-loss diets.

It fights diabetes, helps digestion and prevents cardiovascular disease, arthritis, anemia and asthma.

CEREALS

VEGETABLE S

DRE SSI N G

60g of organic millet

1 organic avocado

10cl of toasted sesame oil

5g of sea salt

1 organic lime

5cl of tamari

2g of Provencal herbs

20g of organic field peas

2cl of yuzu or lime juice

5 medium shiitake mushrooms

Mix all the ingredients together.

Cook the millet in 120ml of water for

20g of organic baby spinach leaves

15 minutes without boiling, covered,

Half a organic spring onion

with a pinch of salt and the herbs.

10cl of tamari

Allow to cool and set aside.

5g of capers

PRE PA RATI ON

Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl, along with the dressing. Add

Cube the avocado and squeeze in the PULSES

lime to stop it from browning. Cut the field pea pods into strips and set aside.

20g of fresh organic peas

Cube the mushrooms and toss in a pan

2g of mint

with a bit of virgin sesame oil or olive oil, and finish with 5cl of tamari; set aside.

Blanche the peas in salted water (10g

Julienne the spring onion and toss in

of salt per litre) for 7 minutes, allow to

a pan with a bit of virgin sesame oil or

cool and set aside. Julienne the mint

olive oil and finish with 5cl of tamari; set

and set aside.

aside. Wash the spinach leaves.

salt to taste.

119

S H A MAGAZ INE P O RTIO NS

1

LE N TI L, QU I N OA , P OMEGR AN ATE AN D GR E E N VEG SALAD

BENEF ITS O F GR EEN L ENT IL S

High content of carbohydrates and proteins, as well as iron, zinc, magnesium, sodium, potassium, selenio, calcium and vitamins especially B complex, such as B2, B3, B6, B9 (folic acid), vitamin A and vitamin E. Also a source of phosphorous, magnesium and folic acid.

SA LA D

GRE E N VEGE TA B LE S

K A LA MATA O LIVE TAP ENADE

P R EPAR AT IO N

50g of boiled quinoa

100g of broccoli

Crush 20g of kalamata olives and

Simply mix all the elements together in

50g of boiled green lentils

50g of green beans

set aside.

your lunchbox.

10g of pomegranate

5g of pine nuts

20g of tofu cut into cubes

5g of coriander

10g of chopped onion

Put 5 litres of water in a saucepan and

10cl of tamari

boil with 75g of unrefined sea salt.

20g of chopped gherkins

VI N A I GRETTE

10cl balsamic vinegar Prepare a bowl with ice and water to

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.

cool the vegetables. Cut the broccoli

Adjust salt levels with the tamari.

into half bouquets; blanche for 5 minutes in the boiling saucepan and then add to the cold water. Cut the ends off the beans, blanche for 7 minutes in the saucepan and then add to the cold water. Toast the pine nuts in a frying pan, stirring all the time, for 7 minutes on a low heat; allow to cool.

Mix the vegetables with the pine nuts and aromatic herbs.

30cl of extra virgin olive oil Mix and store in a jar.

HEALTH Y RECIPES

120 PORTI ON S

1

SMOKED SALMON

BE N E FI TS

An excellent source of high quality protein, vitamins and minerals (including potassium, selenium and vitamin B12). The best thing about salmon is its omega-3 fatty acids.

The most beneficial omega-3 fats are those found in oily fish, contributing to a healthy brain, heart and joints, and to general wellbeing.

INGREDI ENTS

TOASTS

DI D YOU KN OWâ&#x20AC;Ś?

50g of organic smoked salmon

Wash and slice the radishes, and mix

The idea that eating fish can reduce

2 avocados

it with the vinegar using your hands;

the risk of cardiac illnesses dates back

2 organic rice toasts

leave to rest for 10 minutes. Cut the

to the 70s, when it was found that

1 bunch of dill

avocado into cubes and place in a

among the eskimos of Greenland

20ml of soya yoghurt

container, squeezing the lime over it.

(where a normal diet involved a

Half a cucumber

Peel and dice the cucumber, into

high intake of fish and seafood),

10g of organic mesclun greens

pieces of around the same size as the

the occurrence of heart disease was

5 pickled radishes

avocado. Add to the same container.

extremely low.

10ml of umeboshi vinegar

Season with salt, pepper and olive oil.

3ml of tamari

Cook the beans in salted boiling water

Green beans

(15g of salt per litre of water) for 8

Half a lime

minutes and cool in iced water.

Mix the yoghurt with the chopped dill and add the tamari. In your lunchbox, pile the toasts up with the avocado and cucumber mix and the smoked salmon.

Place the green beans and mesclun salad in another container. Serve with the yoghurt.

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WELLNES S TRENDS TO WATCH

122

COMING UP...

BRAIN HE ALTH TAKES CENT RE STAG E

When we think of wellness or healthy living we usually think of our body and our appearance, forgetting something essential - our brain. Lack of sleep, improper diet, overexposure to technology and pollution are some of the factors that threaten our brain health. In parallel to adopting the right lifestyle, we can and should exercise our brains in the same way as we do with our bodies, aided by a range of today’s technology that allows us to do so quickly and efficiently.

THE RI SE OF TRA N SFORM ATI ON A L TRAVE L

Travellers are increasingly picky about how to make the most of their time - and they no longer look just for simple life experiences. Instead they seek experiences that have a true impact, not only in the given moment, but that contribute to personal development, transforming them in some way. In light of this, education will have an increasingly relevant role.

THE DEATH OF CALORIE S

For more than a century we believed that calories were the most accurate nutritional system for assessing the suitability of one’s diet. Nowadays, the main leading institutions in the area of nutrition barely even mention calories, choosing instead to focus on “what” instead of “how much”, pushing for a balance between vegetables, wholemeal grain, healthy protein and fruit.

HORM ON E S A RE E VE RY THI N G

Hormones occupy an extremely important role, in both men and women, mainly from the age of 40 onwards. Lifestyle is clearly a major determinant.

Thanks to bioidentical hormones, it is now possible to reverse many of the problems associated with both female and male menopause.

CORPORATE WE LLNE SS BECOM E S KE Y

More and more companies are introducing healthy lifestyle or wellness policies into their businesses. Fitness rooms, group yoga and meditation classes, countryside walks, classes on healthy lifestyle, balanced diet, nutritional consultations, and even health retreats for staff members - these are all some of the best practices. The relationship between balance, wellbeing and productivity is evident.

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