A Magazine, Issue 75 by Aïshti

No. 75 DEC 2014/JAN 2015 LL10,000

Winter wonderland The most glamorous time of the year Fashion Looks for every wish list Cuisine A culinary masquerade Art The Forever Now Beauty A festive finish Books A history of the Cuban cigar Design Beirut's Nouvelle Vague Travel Get snowed in

Christmas at Tabbah House of Tabbah

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Inside No. 75 DEC 2014/JAN 2015

Cityscape

52 Beirut Eat, drink and be merry 58 London Ice skating, art viewing 60 Paris Courrèges and chess are in again 62 Milan Where to stay and what to do 64 New York Sipping hot toddies 66 Event Aïshti’s annual fashion show

Playground

78 Mixed media Vanina on a desert island 80 Cookbook Beirut Cooks 82 Symbol The power of the cigar 84 Tradition New music, familiar sounds 86 Film Fashionable flicks

Fashion

92 News All the news that’s fit to wear 94 Collection In memory of Chloé’s founder 98 Debate Can gym wear be fashionable? 100 Market Fashion brands court China 102 Street style An authentic shot 104 Exhibition The politics of fashion 108 Form Say so long to symmetry 110 Staple The return of the turtleneck 112 Textile Coziness is key 114 Carryall “It” bag etiquette 116 Backstage Runway ready 124 Accessories A look for every wish list 146 Hot stuff Gold glam and winter warmers 152 Men’s accessories Always a gent

156 Dark encounters Beirut secrets 170 What lies beneath Peel back the layers 178 Paris match Two hit the road 196 Call of the wild Into the woods

Beauty

208 Counter Foundation for a New Year 210 Asset The beauty of being different 216 Breakthrough Personalized skincare 218 Runway A festive finish 220 Fantasy A colorful dream

Design

228 Update Beirut’s Nouvelle Vague 234 Trend All fired up 236 Holiday home Designer rentals 240 Book Drawing from Practice 244 Structure Stanford’s new additions

High Art

248 Exhibitions What’s on view 252 Moment The Forever Now 256 Renaissance Seoul is where the art is 260 Icon The legacy of Horst 262 Language Richard Tuttle 264 Auction Tord Boontje

Inside Lifestyle

272 Experiment Nothing’s as it seems 278 Escape Nordic dream 282 Club Castel lives up to its reputation 288 Safari Escape to Africa 294 Speakeasy London’s best-kept secrets 298 City Mont Tremblant

Last Word

300 Shoes Twinkle, twinkle

Cover She’s wearing a Fendi top, Moschino shorts, Céline bracelet, miu miu earrings and a Cartier necklace. Her bag is by Saint Laurent Photographer Jimmy Backius. Stylist Amelianna Loiacono. Hair and makeup Rory Rice from WM Management. Model Dalia Gunther from Model Management

An enchanting grace Your choice of emeralds, rubies or sapphires, blooming out of an intricate blend of yellow and white diamonds, for a winter flower that delicately rests on your hand.

33 Weygand Street, Downtown Beirut, Lebanon. www.georgehakim.com

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Publisher

Tony Salamé Group TSG SAL

Editor-in-chief MacKenzie Lewis Kassab

Art directors

Senior art and production director Maria Maalouf Senior art director Mélanie Dagher Guest art director Lea Mouracade, Raya Farhat

Editors

Associate editor Pip Usher Assistant editor Celine Omeira Italy editor Renata Fontanelli UK editor Grace Banks US editor Robert Landon

Writers

Leonore Dicker, James Haines-Young, Robert Landon, Clara Le Fort, John Ovans M. Astella Saw, Mehrnoush Shafiei, Natalie Shooter, Jasper Toms, Laura van Straatan, J. Michael Welton

Photographers

Fashion photographers Jimmy Backius, Alessio Bolzoni, Brendan Freeman, Bachar Srour, Cathleen Wolf Contributing photographers Raya Farhat, Nabil Ismail, Rami Hajj Illustrator Mélanie Dagher

Stylists

Joe Arida, Jennifer Hahn, Amelianna Loiacono, Siobhan Lyons

Leonore Dicker Leonore Dicker is a French-German foodie, born and raised in London. Having co-founded publishing house and website Don’t Believe in Jet Lag, she recently released The Food Guide: Beirut on a Plate, a culinary guide to Lebanon’s capital.

Rori Rice Hair stylist and makeup artist Rori Rice is Australian and English, growing up and honing his crafts between both countries. Currenly based in Milan, he has worked with Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar and now A magazine, among other titles.

Advertising

Melhem Moussallem, Karine Abou Arraj, Stephanie Missirian

Production and printing

Senior photo producer Fadi Maalouf Printing Dots: The Art of Printing

Responsible director Nasser Bitar

140 El Moutrane St., Fourth Floor, Downtown Beirut, Lebanon, tel. 961.1.974.444, a@aishti.com, aishtiblog.com

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dazzling display The season’s first fairy lights are still being strung, but we’ve got countless reasons to be jolly. This issue is an indulgent wish list of looks, bags, shoes, jewelry and accessories tailored to your most deserving loved ones (and we didn’t forget about you). Page after page of style inspiration will get you in the mood for cocktail parties and weekends in the snow-capped mountains, while winter’s most coveted beauty products are guaranteed to add sparkle to the biggest nights of the season. And when the holidays wind down and it’s time to kick off the New Year, we have the travel destinations, restaurants, movies and art exhibitions to top any 2015 bucket list. So from the A magazine family to yours, wishing you a fashionable holiday and an exciting New Year! MacKenzie Lewis Kassab

A cityscape

Just in Beirut

Baxter (left)

Displaying exquisite craftsmanship, Italian luxury furniture brand Baxter has just opened a new flagship store in Beirut. This familyowned company creates traditional styles that are refined to suit modern sensibilities. Al Arz St., Saifi, tel. 01.563.111

It’s more about the journey than the destination. Travel in style this festive season with a holiday collection from Tumi, the finest in business and travel accessories. Available at Aïshti stores.

Diptyque (above)

The power of scent has been proven to connect us to our most cherished memories. Make new memories that will last a lifetime with a Diptyque holiday collection created with Qubo Gas, a collective of French artists. Available at Aïshti stores.

Divvy (right)

A new restaurant in the heart of Mar Mikhael, Divvy will excite your taste buds with an innovative and eclectic menu. The concept was born out of the idea that sharing is caring, so bring your friends and break bread. Mar Mikhael, tel. 01.444.020 A 52

Burberry (above)

Burberry knows that gift giving has long been a way for people to connect. With a wide range of holiday accessories epitomizing the brand’s nod to British heritage, there is something for everyone. Available at Burberry, Allenby St., tel. 01.991.111 ext. 455, burberry.com

Tumi (below)

A cityscape

Just in Beirut

Al Mandaloun PŠ tisserie (right)

Al Mandaloun Pâtisserie is ushering in the sweetest time of year with a new selection of holiday specialties. Gingerbread houses, bûches de Noël and Christmas cookies are just a few confections adding a festive twist to the bakery’s menu. Dbayeh Old Rd., tel. 04.547.411

ChŠ teau Kefraya (above)

Drink to the New Year by toasting with Château Kefraya’s Vintage 2012, celebrated with a special edition label by Lebanese artist Mazen Kerbaj. Jeb Jannine, Bekaa, tel. 08.645.333, chateaukefraya.com

Cozy furnishings and thoughtful details make L’Avocat an extension of your living room, complete with tasty eats and signature cocktails. With a covered terrace, rain or shine, it’s the perfect year-round patio pleasure. Badaro Main St., tel. 01.382.522

Valentino (right)

The Emperor is back on our shores. Valentino’s newest location lands in Beirut with an elegant boutique that reflects the luxury and regality of the Italian brand. 143 El Moutran St., valentino.com

Silly Spoon (left)

Beirut’s movers and shakers are flocking to The Silly Spoon, a new tableware and home accessories boutique. With an eye for unique design and quality craftsmanship, the store lives up to its mantra of bringing fashion to the table. Zahrat El Ihsan St., Ashrafieh, tel. 01.339.909, thesillyspoon.com A 54

Lê Avocat (below)

Sylvie Saliba . Quantum towerS . beirut . tel 01/330 500 . www.aS29.com

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A cityscape

Just in Beirut

Loquet London (left)

The brainchild of Sheherazade Goldsmith and Laura Baily, Loquet London is a luxury jeweler with a new addition to its collection: a crystal locket that can be filled with sentimental trinkets and birthstones. Available at Sylvie Saliba, Charles Malek Avenue, Ashrafieh, tel. 01.330.500, sylviesaliba.com

Zegna (below)

BistroBar Live (above)

Drawing on the traditional charms of Paris, BistroBar Live will transport you to the city of lights. Live la vie en belle with their Franco-Italian fare and live music. Makdessi St., Hamra, tel. 70.255.211 A 56

ÂŠ Baxter, Bistro Bar, Burberry, Divvy, Diptyque, Kefraya, Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Avocat, Loquet London, Mandaloun Patisserie, Religion, Silly Spoon, Tumi, Zegna

With a 10-year history in Beirut, Ermenegildo Zegna has expanded its empire to include a revamped, 394-square-meter boutique. The shop blends Zegna style, history and values with cutting-edge trends in architecture and luxury design. 62 Abdel Malek St., tel. 01.991.111 ext. 222, zegna.com

WATCH THE FILM AT JIMMYCHOO.COM LEBANON BEIruT SOukS +961 1 991 111 ExT 595

A cityscape

Just in London

Skate at Somerset House (above)

Conflict, Time, Photography (left)

Allen Jones RA (above)

Pop artist Allen Jones’ retrospective is long overdue. Canvases, sculpture – including a piece incorporating Kate Moss – and rarely shown storyboards testify to Allen Jones’s impact on fashion and art. Runs until January 25, 2015 at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, tel. 44.20.7300.5987, royalacademy.org.uk A 58

Tate Modern has researched a century of war art to curate a show surveying how conflict is reported through photography. Highlights include Taryn Simon’s landscapes and conceptual work by Shomei Tomatsu. Runs until March 15, 2015 at Tate Modern, Bankside, tel. 44.20.7887.8888, tate.org.uk

Room at Beaumont Hotel (above)

Tacked onto the newly opened Beaumont Hotel is artist Anthony Gormley’s Room, an installation-like suite that he describes as a hermit’s cave. Beautifully executed, the Room is designed around Gormley’s trademark motifs of space. Brown Hart Gardens, Mayfair, tel. 44.20.7499.1001, thebeaumont.com

Shrimps (above)

From under-the-radar trendsetter to catwalk contender, Shrimps is now a bona fide faux fur leader. Designed by Londoner Hannah Weiland, these bright jackets and purses ooze Margot Tenenbaum nonchalance. Available at Selfridges, 400 Oxford St., tel. 44.11.3369.8040, selfridges.com

This year luxury food hall Fortnum & Mason is taking over Somerset House ice rink. Located in a historic courtyard, the rink follows daytime skating with club nights and innovative winter cocktails. Somerset House, Strand, tel. 44.20.7845.4600, somersethouse.org.uk

A cityscape

Just in Paris Ventilo (left)

Tucked in among the genteel antique dealers that define the neighborhood, this imaginative modern bazaar successfully blends old and new. A flash of crimson neon here, a vintage Vallauris vase there – and, throughout, the heady prints and lush textiles of this cult brand’s time-tested womenswear collection. 7 Quai Voltaire, seventh arrondissement, tel. 33.01.4261.6704, ventilo.fr

Within walking distance of the landmark stores on Boulevard Haussman, this sophisticated hotel, designed by star decorators Gilles & Boissier, gleams in black and white. A handsome suite overlooks the Opéra Garnier; downstairs, would-be kings, queens, knights and bishops canoodle over cocktails and, yes, a chessboard or two. 6 Rue du Helder, ninth arrondissement, 33.01.4824.1010, thechesshotel.com

Fondation Louis Vuitton (below) Frank Gehry’s swooping structure, all timber, steel and glass, houses Paris’s newest contemporary art museum. Eleven galleries display a collection that includes works by Olafur Eliasson, Ellsworth Kelly and Bertrand Lavier. From the upper terraces, views of the city surprise and delight. 8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, 16th arrondissement, tel. 33.01.4069.9600, fondationlouisvuitton.fr

Porte 12 (below)

In a former lingerie workshop, chef Vincent Crépel has stitched together a modern menu whose creative dishes please inside and out. Pretty plates hold inventive pairings of flameseared mackerel with cucumber sorbet, or short ribs dusted with bamboo ash and Earl Grey tea – all the better for a little oh-là-là. 12 Rue des Messageries, 10th arrondissement, tel. 33.01.4246.2264, porte12.com

Courr´ ges Popê Store (above)

From miniskirts to this mini store in brilliant blue, cheeky ‘60s label Courrèges is popping up once again on the fashion radar. Choose from limited-edition stationery, shoes and accessories: your holiday shopping will be done in a flash, bang, pop! 40 Rue François 1er, eighth arrondissement, tel. 33.01.5367.3000, courreges.com A 60

The Chess Hotel (above)

A誰shti | 71 El-Moutrane Street | T - 01.991111 A誰shti Seaside | Jal el Dib | T - 04.717716 zagliani.com

A cityscape

Just in Milan

Boutique Erika Cavallini SemiCouture (left)

With vintage clothing reinterpreted into contemporary designs, this meticulously furnished space gives visitors the impression they are entering an old and forgotten world, while a relaxing back room displays videos of the latest designer fashion shows. Via Sant’Andrea 12, tel. 39.02.7634.1373, semi-couture.it

Metals Collection (left)

The label is making a name for itself in Milan’s most exclusive boutique with day and eveningwear designed for the jet-setting woman: elegant and comfortable, whose clothes must look great straight from a suitcase. Excelsior Milano, Galleria del Corso 4, tel. 39.02.7630.7301, excelsiormilano.com

Alberto Giacometti (above)

The Swiss sculptor’s works are on exhibit in one of the city’s most interesting museums. Accompanying the show are private writings and photographs of the restless artist who experimented with Cubism before embracing Breton’s Surrealism. Runs until February 1 at GAM, Via Palestro 16, tel. 39.02.8844.5947, gam-milano.com

Hotel Milano Scala (below)

Hotel Milano Scala is the city’s first environmentally-friendly hotel. It offers “green” dining, almost completely supplied from the building’s rooftop garden, vegan and vegetarian cuisine in addition to traditional fare, and common rooms dedicated to opera in tribute to the nearby Teatro alla Scala. The terrace bar that looks out onto the gargoyles of the Duomo cathedral is spectacular. Via Dell’Orso 7, tel. 39.02.870.961, hotelmilanoscala.it

Tartufi and Friends (right)

A new place dedicated entirely to truffles (tartufi) was recently inaugurated inside Milan’s historic Palazzo Serbelloni. In addition to selling the exquisite fungus, this four-room bar and restaurant also offers luxurious meals and an interesting history of the truffle, described in a series of 16thcentury prints. Corso Venezia 18, tel. 39.02.7639.4031, tartufiandfriends.it A 62

La Mania (right)

Rising Spanish brand Etnia Barcelona has launched a limited-edition collection of ultra-light eyewear in Milan’s top stores. The vintage-inspired Yokohoma model in gold and platinum is inspired by Japan’s second capital and available only by special order. 10 Corso Como, tel. 39.02.2900.2674, 10corsocomo.com

HUBLOT BOUTIQUE Beirut Souks, Gold Souks Sector Downtown Beirut - Lebanon. Phone: +961 ( 1) 999 891 Fax: +961 Mobile: +961 ( 78) 843 853

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A cityscape

Just in New York Dirty French (below)

Drawing inspiration from France’s farflung former colonies, this new restaurant adds exotic and unexpected twists to classic French cuisine. Think tartare of tuna with a Vietnamese-style crêpe or the bouillabaisse noire. At The Ludlow hotel, 180 Ludlow St., tel. 212.254.3000, dirtyfrench.com

Beyond the Supersquare (below)

With some 60 works by 30 different artists, this fascinating exhibition explores Modernist architecture in Latin America and how it shapes contemporary artistic production. Runs until January 11 at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx, tel. 718.681.6000, bronxmuseum.org

Boris Bidjan Saberi (above)

This Barcelona-based luxury designer has opened his very first flagship store in SoHo. The inviting store is the perfect venue to see Saberi’s work, which combines urban elements with unexpected references to his own Persian heritage. 494 Greenwich Street, tel. 212.925.2901, borisbidjansaberiny.com

Outliner Lamps (below)

Far off the trendy grid in leafy Fort Tryon Park, the New Leaf feels like a rustic mountain lodge. The revamped cocktail menu wows with creative takes on classics like the savory New Leaf martini, made with gin, vermouth and blue cheese-stuffed olives. 1 Margaret Corbin Dr., tel. 212.568.5323, newleafrestaurant.com

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New Leaf (below)

Martin Schmitz’s work is all about evoking a reaction of surprise, and with his new ceiling-mounting Outliner lamps he calls into question the very concept of the lampshade as well as the nature of space and light. Boffi Soho, 31 ½ Greene St., tel. 212.431.8282, boffi-soho.com

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A cityscape _ event

Runway ready Aïshti fashion shows reveals the season’s must-have looks

On one Friday night in November, Downtown Beirut rivaled the world’s fashion capitals with the exclusive MasterCard Aïshti Fashion Experience Beirut 2014. As A-list guests watched from the front row, the annual fall/ winter event saw highlights from global fashion weeks showcased before Aïshti’s stunning flagship store.

©Nabil Ismail

With the stars illuminating Downtown Beirut, 14 male and female models took to

a 40-meter, open-air runway to present the latest looks from New York, Milan, London and Paris. The season’s most influential trends came to life with colorful patterns, intricate pleating, layers of lace, fur details and knitwear elements. For men, casual was king, and smart separates were styled to laid-back perfection. Forty-seven looks encapsulated this season’s must-have pieces, with Agent Provocateur, Burberry, Chloé, Cushnie et Ochs, Oscar de la Renta, Dolce &

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A cityscape _ event

Gabbana, Gucci, Prada, Stella McCartney, Ermenegildo Zegna and dozens of other luxury brands rounding out the event. A gold lace dress from Saint Laurent closed the show. The beauty looks were polished but relaxed, allowing show-stopping fashions to take center stage. The women wore their hair straight with loads of movement, while the men went in a similar direction with lightly tousled styles. Makeup was subtle and skin was glowing. Aïshti owner and CEO Tony Salamé later appeared on the runway to announce winners of raffle prizes from Aïshti, MasterCard, Bank Audi, Global Blue and Samsung. All guests were entered into a drawing for three Aïshti shopping vouchers worth $2,500 (two provided by Global Blue and one provided by MasterCard) and several gifts from Samsung: a Galaxy Note 4, Galaxy Note 4 with Gear Fit, Galaxy Alfa and Galaxy 4 with Gear 2 Neo. Additional gifts included two $2,500 Aïshti vouchers, exclusive to MasterCard and Aïshti Bank Audi MasterCard cardholders.

©Nabil Ismail

Before the show, guests gathered at Aïshti’s People restaurant for Beirut’s Nouvelle Vague, an event celebrating local talent and outstanding design. Following the final look, they gathered in the crisp fall night to sip cocktails and enjoy hors d’oeuvres.

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p. Paola Naone - ph.Andrea Ferrari

Baxter flagship store, Saifi - Al Arz street - Beirut - Lebanon - Tel: +961 1 563 111 - Fax: +961 1 563 119

Vivre, Antelias-Dbaye internal road at Congress Center bridge - Tel: +961 4 520 111

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GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO SHOP

Spend $200 or more at Aïshti for the chance to win an all-new 2015 Jaguar F-type Coupé V6 or Samsung's new 78" Curved Smart TV

LEBANON 225 Foch St., Downtown Beirut Te l . + 9 6 1 1 9 9 1 1 1 1 E x t . 4 8 0

A playground _ mixed media

Alone on a desert islandÄ

By Pip Usher

Jewelry designers: Tatiana Fayad and Joanne Hayek Young designers Tatiana Fayad and Joanne Hayek have added sparkle to Beirut’s streets with their label, Vanina, a brand of statement jewelry pieces. But how would these creative types stay inspired if marooned on a desert island? A fantastical side is revealed when they select Peau d’Âne, a French musical from the ’70s, as a film they’d have to pack because it’s “straight out of a fairytale.” Legendary Lebanese singer Fayrouz also has her album added to the suitcase: described by the pair as a “a voice, a star and a mystery,” she’d provide their morning dose of nostalgia. But what about all that spare time to ponder? Jon Krakauer’s biographical survival tale, Into the Wild, gives “a taste of the real reason for existence.” And Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry resonates as a “tender tale of loneliness, friendship and love.” If that all sounds too somber, madcap movie The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob provides the laughs as Louis de Funès gives a topnotch performance as a bigoted businessman who overcomes his prejudices, while Nina Simone’s “deep velvety tones” set a sultry tone when the sun sets. A 78

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A playground _ symbol

Smoke screen

By James Haines-Young

ÂŠ Patrick Jantet, Assouline

The revolutionary art of the Cuban cigar

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This page With the right know-how, tobacco leaves become a legendary Havana cigar Previous page According to the author, the tobacco farmer’s real satisfaction has always been harvesting a perfect tobacco leaf

Asking what links Winston Churchill to Fidel Castro shouldn’t be a complex question. While their politics couldn’t have been more different, both will be forever linked by the thick cigars permanently wedged between their teeth. From the tobacco-stained fingers of communist revolutionaries to the oak-paneled smoking rooms of London lounges, the Cuban cigar is fixed in our collective memory as a 20th-century icon. The story of its rise has been documented in depth by Charles Del Todesco and Patrick Jantet in Havana: Legendary Cigars.

of Cuba’s fight for independence, received the call for a revolutionary uprising rolled up in a cigar. This cigar set off a war to free the island from Spanish control,” says Del Todesco.

Since its discovery in the mid-15th century, the cigar has integrated into European society, from the docks and wharves to the clubs of Paris, London and Madrid. In the smoking rooms of Europe the cigar even changed fashion, inadvertently creating the smoking jacket.

The author weaves the detailed rise of the Havana cigar through time with beautiful historical images and Jantet’s photographs of the industry today, but Havana: Legendary Cigars isn’t just concerned with the past. The practical aspect of smoking cigars requires a gentleman to know his brands – not what you’re smoking but also what your neighbor is. Don’t worry if you’re rusty on the difference between a Montecristo and a Romeo y Julieta: Del Todesco details the approximately 500 types put out by the 36 Havana cigar makers, so you’ll be armed with an encyclopedic understanding of the art.

If influencing style wasn’t enough, cigars also played a part in war. When, in the mid-1800s, public orators were allowed into Cuban rolling factories, the cigar set the stage for a revolution. “It is certainly no accident that the first work presented in this way was entitled ‘Las Luchas del Siglo’ (The Struggles of the Century),” explains Del Todesco. Radical freethinking literature was being read aloud to the tens of thousands now employed in Cuba’s cigar industry. Then, on February 24, 1895, a cigar literally lit the fuse for the island’s war for freedom. “José Martí, hero

The book is a documentation of an industry that remains a handcraft more akin to the days of old than a globalized world. Indeed the Cuban cigar is a connection to our past, a craft that still requires skilled artisans in a world of mass production. When you sit down to a fine Partagás, you don’t have to look hard to see the signs of the expertise. The Cuban cigar is the pinnacle of artisanal finery and Havana: Legendary Cigars is a fitting testament to that. It’s a book that demands to be savored at leisure, perhaps even accompanied by a classic Havana. 83 A

A playground _ tradition

Beyond nostalgia

By Natalie Shooter

Keeping the region’s rich musical heritage alive

Mustafa Said

Daline Jabbour

Ahmad Naffory

Walid Kenaan

Since relocating from Damascus, Ahmad Naffory has become a main player in the Beirut underground music scene with music outfits rooted in Oriental tradition and contemporary folk. His recent project, Assa’aleek, features sarcastic lyrics and a rebellion against archaic social values, with Oriental-fusion melodies and nods towards flamenco. A 84

Daline Jabbour, a Lebanese singer and oudist, brings life to centuries-old Arab music with mesmerizing vocals sung in styles from bygone eras. Along with her ensemble, she focuses the spotlight on the Nahda period from the 19th-century Levant, largely considered the Arab world’s musical golden age.

Veteran Lebanese oudist and singer Walid Kenaan has released four albums during his 20 years in the Oriental music scene. As well as his own musical compositions, he plays music that harks back to the Arab old school era, performing songs by legendary artists such as Egyptian oudist Sheikh Imam, Lebanese oudist Marcel Khalife and the Lebanese Oriental “establishment,” Fayrouz and Ziad Rahbani.

Beirut-based Egyptian singer and oudist Mustafa Said works on developing new forms of traditional Arabic music, finding a contemporary voice to secure its future. He’s also director of AMAR – Lebanon’s Arab Music Archiving and Research Foundation – creating weekly podcasts to disseminate Arab music from a forgotten era.

A誰shti, Downtown Beirut 01. 99 11 11

A playground _ film

Fashionable flicks By MacKenzie Lewis Kassab

Costume designers promise a stylish cinema experience

Starring: Benicio del Toro, Josh Hutcherson Opens December 2014

Annie Racking up several awards for her work on Chocolat, Renée Ehrlich Kalfus’ latest film is the 2014 adaptation of Annie. Forget drab Depression-era looks; this time around, a snarky Miss Hannigan, Annie and the rest of her foster-home crew are in modern day New York and dressed for one of the world’s most stylish cities. Ehrlich Kalfus’ designs are already a hit, with U.S. retailer Target launching an Annieinspired kids’ wear collection with the designer for the holidays. Starring: Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhané Wallis, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Cameron Diaz Opens December 2014 A 86

Escobar: Paradise Lost Marylin Fitoussi is somewhat of an expert on the various facets of Latin American style, coming up in the wardrobe departments of Colombiana, Bandidas and Castro, to name just a few. The costume designer sets her sights on the Colombian coast for Escobar: Paradise Lost, a film chronicling the story of a Canadian surfer who discovers his girlfriend’s uncle is notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. As he becomes entangled in her family business, the flick flashes between 1983 and 1991, two memorable eras in fashion history – for better or for worse.

Into the Woods In Walt Disney’s latest musical fantasy, Grimm fairytales come to life at the hands of costume designer Colleen Atwood and an all-star cast. Cinderella, Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood all make appearances, but don’t expect saccharine looks: Atwood is best known for her work in The Silence of the Lambs and Edward Scissorhands. Her latest project sees one-dimensional storybook characters reveal a human complexity, and Atwood’s magnificent costumes add yet another layer. Starring: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Johnny Depp Opens December 2014

A Most Violent Year Kasia Walicka-Maimone is taking a 180-degree turn from her color-saturated and award-nominated work on Wes Anderson’s 2012 love story, Moonrise Kingdom. Set in 1981, this action crime drama sees Manhattan during one of its most violent years in history. Walicka-Maimone makes some not-so-subtle references to Scarface with her selection of cuts and colors, an association only heightened by the film’s hair and makeup departments. Though this flick is dark and gritty, the designer has managed to resuscitate some truly chic looks from the period, which is no easy feat. Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain Opens January 2015 87 A

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A fashion _ news

Fashion fragments All the news that’s fit to wear

Cult following (above)

London’s bad boys and rock chicks worship Religion, a British brand that was born from ’90s club culture. Rihanna, Michael Fassbender and Muse frontman Matt Bellamy are all fans of the label, which is now available in Beirut at select Aïzone stores. Visit religionclothing.com

From London with Love (above)

If you’re captivated by Burberry’s holiday film “From London with Love,” you’re in luck: not only are its iconic looks available in Burberry stores, but its soundtrack – “The Way That I Live,” by English singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt – is now available at iTunes. Visit itunes.com She’s expecting her second child but Kate Middleton has been looking decidedly less matronly in recent weeks. Natasha Archer, the duchess’s former assistant, just came on board as her stylist and is credited with giving the royal a younger, edgier look.

In with a roar (above and right)

This year Cartier is celebrating 100 years of the Panthère de Cartier with new interpretations of the house’s iconic feline. Each onyx spot is cut by hand into a unique shape, giving movement and life to a wearable masterpiece. Visit cartier.com A 92

A royal makeover (above)

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A fashion _ collection

In focus

By John Ovans

Founder Gaby Aghion’s spirit lives on in Chloé

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This page Gaby Aghion (left), Chloé’s founder, moved from Egypt (below) to Paris at the end of World War II Previous page Clare Waight Keller still channels the house’s early spirit

“Egypt is a color for me,” Gaby Aghion once said of the country where she was born. “The sand is the most beautiful sand I have ever seen. A rose-tinted beige. It feels like silk in your hands.” Such a color became a signature of Chloé – a house that said goodbye to its founder this fall. Born into an artistic family in 1921 in Alexandria, Aghion first visited Paris at the age of 18. She moved to the city in 1945, after the conclusion of World War II, and quickly became ensconced in bohemian circles that included Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Luxury fashion at the time revolved strictly around astronomically priced couture, embodied by Dior’s stiff, fabric-heavy New Look. Even reasonably wealthy women wore bad-quality copies run up with couture patterns by seamstresses. But as more and more women began to work, the restrictions of wearing couture became apparent. Along with eventual business partner Jacques Lenoir, Aghion realized that change was necessary, and sought to make it. Not because she needed to – she was married to a wealthy man – but because she saw value in her own independence. Producing a collection of six off-the-rack dresses in the maid’s room of her apartment,

she was the one who eventually coined the phrase “prêt-à-porter” to accommodate the desire for more affordable, practical but still stylish luxury clothing in a post-war Paris. The name itself, Chloé, was chosen to connote femininity, intelligence and warmth, the three defining traits of the house aesthetic. That being said, it was not originally regarded as a house by even Aghion, but rather a manufacturing label, the dresses made from simple, fluid, high-quality cotton that could be altered easily to fit whoever bought them. It was an immediate success, and Aghion showed her first ready-to-wear collection in the Café de Flore on the Boulevard St. Germain in 1956. While Chloé was born out of the limitations of the time – fabric itself was widely unavailable – Aghion was resolutely modern, with other designers only picking up the ball to imitate her two decades later. Though body-conscious, the designs were avant-garde in that they moved away from corset-led design de rigueur into the necessities of a brave new world where women ceased to be regarded as merely decorative. Chloé’s woman was a new woman. By the ’70s the house had hit its stride, with clients that included the likes

of Grace Kelly, Brigitte Bardot, Maria Callas and Jackie Kennedy Onassis. Tellingly, throughout its history, the majority of the label’s chief designers have been women – including Stella McCartney, who spoke of her appreciation in being part of a “female fashion family” – and around 80 percent of employees are also female. These days helmed by British-born Clare Waight Keller, Chloé continues to evoke the spirit of the label’s origins with its relaxed, fluid and artfully undone fall/winter 201415 collection. On show were the house’s signature silk dresses, some with ruffles and others with batwing sleeves, and separates and outerwear designed with what Waight Keller described as a “sweatshirt approach,” yet elegantly so, with unstructured, duvet-like wrap coats and white marabou feather jumpers. The color palette was predominately soft – cream, vanilla, navy, pink and puce – but it was offset with heavy gold emblems and geometric prints. While Aghion sold her stake in the Chloé brand in 1985 to the Richemont Group, she maintained a keen interest its direction. She died aged 93, and the house dedicated its spring/summer 2015 collection to her. 95 A

Back Karl Lagerfeld is one of the few male designers to work with what Stella McCartney once called a “female fashion family” Front The house’s current creative director, Waight Keller, keeps things relaxed but tailored on the fall runway

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A fashion _ collection

A fashion _ debate

Yes or no: Casual culture Does athletic wear have a place in fashion?

YES

When Rihanna stepped out in New York wearing Alexander Wang’s coveted collection for H&M, no one was shocked by her head-to-toe sportswear or the blindingly white New Balance sneakers that finished off the ensemble. Instead, fashion magazines applauded yet another coup by pop’s most provocative princess, whose style seamlessly blends haute couture with hood rat again and again. After winning the prestigious CFDA Style Icon Award this summer, it’s clear that Rihanna has come to represent a new expression of personal style that gives the middle finger to convention.

Imagine the scene. It’s Beirut’s most talked about bar, known for its artisanal cocktails and waiting list. At one end sits a woman in tailored trousers, a silk blouse and zebra print flats. She stands out because she’s effortless – polished but comfortable. At the other end of the bar sits a woman in leggings, a designer sweatshirt and limited edition sneakers. Looking casual and comfortable, this woman also stands out. Her effortlessness, however, translates to not putting in any effort.

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Like it or not, lasting judgments come from first impressions. The impression that gym clothes give on a night out is that you didn’t care enough about the people around you to make an effort, or worse: that you didn’t care enough about yourself. In sweats, positive body language is lost beneath slouchy jersey knit. Try convincing someone you’re confident when your shoulders are hunched and your sneakered feet shuffle as you walk.

There was nothing sloppy about Rihanna’s decision to wear leggings and a crop top that afternoon. Her taut body? It suggests an army of personal trainers devoted to its daily upkeep. The suede Gucci bag slung over one shoulder? It doesn’t come cheap, either. But the confidence needed to pull off such a look? Now that’s priceless.

I’m not romanticizing uncomfortable traditions; there’s nothing appealing about a constricting corset, unless you’re in the privacy of your bedroom. Likewise, I’m not suggesting that we revert to wearing white gloves to a friend’s house. I’m simply saying that when texting during dinner and arriving fashionably late have become the norm, a little formality goes a long way.

By Pip Usher

By MacKenzie Lewis Kassab

Remember the days when men wore hats to every social engagement? No, me neither. Like trilbies, archaic notions of “suitable” clothing have been appropriated to fashion’s dustbin as the world loosens its ideas on what can be worn and where. As athletic wear accelerates into the arena of high fashion, it creates more opportunities for individualism – surely never a bad thing. And from Brian Lichtenberg’s witty riffs slung across baseball caps and oversized sweatshirts to Saint Laurent’s high tops, made in supple leather with luxe gold accents, this new age of sportswear is sleek, stylized and self-aware.

Karl Lagerfeld once said, “Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.” It may be a melodramatic argument, but at the root of his statement is some truth.

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A fashion _ market

A booming economy means big business for luxury brands

This page “Le Petit Théâtre Dior” presents French fashion history to an Asian audience

Dior

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By Pip Usher

It’s a familiar image these days: a glossy posse of Asian women with megawatt smiles and even bigger designer handbags. On the ropes for decades, China’s super rich have finally entered the world’s economic arena with their gloves off and their wallets out. Front row at the ring sit Europe’s most illustrious fashion houses, courting the attention of these shiny financial superstars through a series of artistic initiatives that seek to integrate their brand names within Eastern culture. As the West struggles to right itself from the wreckage of 2008’s financial crisis, China is booming. By 2015, its population of high net-worth individuals (people worth more than $1.6 million) is expected to reach one million, as estimated by management consultancy group Bain & Company. As the country’s wealth grows, a newly prosperous

Dior is one such fashion house that is successfully translating its eight decades of couture into a language that Chinese consumers can understand. Placing an emphasis on local art, Dior has cracked the Chinese market through a careful alignment of its brand values against the fashionable social scenes of Shanghai and Beijing. Employing a creative strategy that was first launched with the opening of the “Christian Dior and Chinese Artists” exhibition at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing in 2008, Dior has encouraged an ongoing dialogue with contemporary Chinese artists. More recently, its “Miss Dior” exhibition at the Shanghai Sculpture Space displayed works by 16 female artists in celebration of the brand’s perfume, with

The lure of China

generation has emerged armed with limitless credit cards and an insatiable appetite for consumption. To some, this reflects a worrying shift of power towards the East as old powers wane and new ones rise. But for luxury brands, it’s an opportunity; a new and formerly untapped market of upwardly mobile Asian consumers that look to storied European fashion houses for pomp and prestige. With some estimates claiming that half of the world’s luxury spending will come from China by next year, brands have to work fast and act smart.

This page Chinese popstar Li Yuchun (left) and actress Yao Chen (right) attend the Balenciaga show; a look from the Balenciaga Limited Edition collection, launched exclusively for a Chinese audience (below)

Hollywood star and brand ambassador Natalie Portman walking the red carpet alongside Chinese screen sirens Zhang Ziyi and Ni Ni. Art aside, Dior has focused on educational storytelling that encourages deep-pocketed Chinese to engage with the brand’s prestigious history. In May, the house downsized its larger-than-life fashion credentials for “Le Petit Théâtre Dior,” a traveling show of exquisitely crafted miniature clothes crafted by Dior’s atelier. Recreating iconic pieces from the fashion house’s archives, it was a nod to the touring “Théâtre de la Mode” exhibition that showcased Parisian fashion to post-World War II America. While the symbolism may not be deliberate, it seems fitting that, 70 years later, Dior’s attentions have shifted from the oh-so-passé United States to a new world order. A notoriously austere couturier, Cristóbal Balenciaga was renowned for the hawk-eyed watch he kept over the doors of his Parisian fashion house, admitting only Europe’s

most elite. But Balenciaga’s presence in China proves that even old couturiers can learn new tricks. With Alexander Wang (who is Chinese-American, with a mother still living in Shanghai) now at the helm, the fashion house has been furiously familiarizing Chinese customers with its brand history. First, Wang staged a Balenciaga show in Beijing that included 13 luxuriously patterned, highly desirable looks designed exclusively for the Chinese market. Simultaneously, he curated and launched an exhibition that revolved around 40 iconic designs by founder Cristóbal Balenciaga. As he explained to WWD, “The consumers here have become much more evolved. The taste and the style have grown beyond the bigger brands that have a major presence.” This sudden onslaught of immense affluence has left China’s upwardly mobile hankering for luxury products that cement their social status. Looking to traditional European fashion houses for inspiration, they’ve found these brands already casting a longing eye towards their hefty bank balances. Now the fight’s down to which brand can pursue them best. 101 A

A fashion _ street style

Streets paved in gold

By John Ovans

The evolution of street style photography

The origins of street style photography in its current, recognized form is generally traced back to Bill Cunningham, who began snapping pictures of people he perceived to have genuine personal style for The New York Times in 1978. The photographs did what good street photography does best – capturing unguarded human experience in “nick of time” images, at what French street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson famously coined as “the decisive moment” that is a central principle in the medium – and combined it with striking sartorial flair carried off by regular people. A 102

Scrolling through a street style blog in 2014, you’d be forgiven for wondering why you’ve never seen streets like these, chock-a-block with Average Janes and Joes that look like they fell out of a high-fashion luxury editorial. They’re lurking about the city, popping to the shops, puffing on cigarettes, hailing cabs and getting photographed by style-seeking bloggers in completely unpremeditated situations. Yes sir, completely unpremeditated.

Cunningham’s first subject was a woman in her 70s in a nutria coat sporting laundry detergent-blue hair. In this way, the street reflected a mood and zeitgeist of its very own, a sidewalk running parallel to the catwalk where fashion lovers, however tentative, could find inspiration. Now the two have converged: fast-forward past the emergence of the Internet to 2014, and such everyday subjects are entirely different beasts: models “spotted” between shows, celebrities wearing just-debuted runway looks and bloggers wearing brands because they have been paid to promote them. What was originally hoisted as the flag for authenticity became one of the biggest fashion digital marketing trends of the past decade. Its genuineness can be called into question, but this repurposing suits consumers in different ways. Exciting fashion served up in a more normalized setting than the catwalk or a studio is still an infinitely more accessible means of getting wind of trends and new ideas. A quick visit to the one of the original street style blogs, Face Hunter – last year purchased by Condé Nast – reveals, yes, a bevy of high-fashion beauties gesturing dramatically, posing on piers against sunset backdrops. But “the people’s fashion” can and should be aspirational too, and for many, that’s empowering; for example, most of the bloggers touting such looks are selfmade successes, now sharing the front row with big-league fashion editors. Although if you’re wondering why pictures of you hanging around on the road fall somewhat flat in comparison,

never fear: to achieve these charming nickof-time poses, you can visit an online tutorial spewing tips on how to get photographed by a street style photographer. Easy. Somewhere down the line, you’ve got to factor in something called inevitability. Fashion is a trillion-dollar business, so it’s only natural for brands to seek new marketing avenues. “The way I measure the influence of the blog is the results. If I talk about a product there’s a good chance it will sell out,” blogger and former freelance illustrator Garance Doré recently told a U.K. magazine. Street style might be evolving but the Internet remains a democracy, and the fact that anyone, anywhere could be making cash registers go “cha-ching” is still, well, kind of neat. 103 A

A fashion _ exhibition

Read between the lines

By Mehrnoush Shafiei This page Working class London skinheads, the counterculture to the era’s hippies Opposite page Romanticizing the power of the people in the ’60s

“The personal is political,” the impassioned rallying cry of ’60s activism, is as relevant today as it was then. And what could be more personal than the clothes on your back? “Politics of Fashion,” guest-curated by international fashion journalist Jeanne Beker, taps into this theme with an exhibition that explores the many ways fashion has been used to broadcast identity and serve as an outlet for political expression. Held in downtown Toronto’s historic Design Exchange, the exhibition displays 200 gamechanging pieces culled from the last 55 years of fashion, ranging from the free love of the ’60s to the hostility of British punk and Rad Hourani’s gender-defiant “unisex haute couture.” Though some dismiss the role designers play in fueling cultural movements, Beker

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maintains that fashion is about making a statement. “Many of the designers I have met over the years have used their trade to express their ideologies and want their work to mean something,” she says. “Because the ’60s were such a critical moment in fashion, we decided to use that as the starting point.” While admitting that the intersections of fashion and politics long precede that decade, Beker decided to begin the chronicle there because this generation was the first to wear its conscience on their sleeves (literally), rather than keep them it to themselves. Walking through the show feels a lot like going back in time, as familiar items of clothing are juxtaposed with political symbols and slogans, revealing the cultural

©Toronto Design Exchange

Fashion gets political at Toronto’s Design Exchange

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A fashion _ exhibition

weight they had during their time. If the miniskirt signaled the triumph of the women’s movement, the shoulder-padded power suits of the ’80s represented women’s struggle to elbow their way through the old boys’ club. Some pieces, dark and nihilistic, lend an unnerving atmosphere to the exhibit. For example, coal-black burqas – from an all-encompassing conservative abaya to one scandalously cut off just above the waist – borrowed from the 1996 archives of Turkish-British designer Hussein Chalayan – make a provocative statement about religion and sexuality. Displayed only steps away is Jeremy Scott’s more contemporary version of the theme, a spring 2013 collection that was inspired by the Arab Spring, featuring a sequined leopard-print burqa teamed with a leather baseball cap. Riding a wave of rave reviews, the exhibition has an oddly prescient quality – in fact, within days of its launch, Vivienne Westwood sent models down the catwalk holding bold “yes” badges, a reference to the designer’s position on the Scottish independence movement. While that particular incident may be an unusually clear coupling of fashion and politics, the strength of the show lies in its ability to unpack the significance of an industry that is typically more about the experience than the explanation. If nothing else, you will gain a greater appreciation for the treasures that lie buried deep in your closet, expressions of personal identity.

Top The style choices of a first lady, like this dress, can make more of a statement than her husband’s politics Bottom A movement advocating gender equality made its statement without clothes

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©Toronto Design Exchange

Runs until January 25 at Design Exchange, 234 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario, tel. 416.363.6121, dx.org

AvAilAble At All A誰shti stores, +961 .1. 99 11 11

A fashion _ form

An unbalancing act By Mehrnoush Shafiei

Say so long to symmetry

The ancient Greeks extolled what they believed to be a universally accepted, capital-T truth: beauty – both in human proportions and the built environment – is found in symmetry. Even today, a fetish for geometric balance is everywhere. As a society, we collectively cringe when Jennifer Lawrence loses hers at the Oscars; we consume books about the elusive work/life balance; we admire evenness of temper, a balanced diet; and we dole out thousands of dollars to attain an Angelina-esque face with “golden ratio” proportions. It’s no surprise, then, that fashion has followed suit. Balenciaga

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But rebellion was in the air at the fall/winter 2014-15 runway shows, where contrarian

Something was amiss at Céline when models paraded down the runway in wool coats with conspicuously absent buttons. While it may take a moment for the eye to adjust to the novelty of form, the absence of the expected breathes an air of insouciance into the look, a clear stamp of Phoebe Philos’s trademark cool. Not to be outdone, Tomas Maier’s fall/winter 2014-15 collection for Bottega Veneta revealed asymmetrical – what the designer refers to as “graphic slicing and puzzling” – color-blocked, zigzag-patterned pieces in the understated manner that we have come to expect from the house. Over at Balenciaga, Alexander Wang’s stunning knits garnered rave reviews for unpredictable tailoring and ambitious unevenness, adding a sense of structured physicality to his collection.

Bottega Veneta

designers liberated their collections from the thrall of perfect symmetry. The trend, which first made waves last spring with the wildly popular Mise-en-Dior pearl earring, gained salience this autumn with Raf Simons’ single statement earring. To Simons’ credit, it is a rare breed of designer who can bring such a trend back from the fringes of early-‘90s punk and infuse it with modern elegance. Reminiscent of the legendary Mr. Dior’s “nostalgia for the future,” Simons’ collection adds an element of edge to old-school glamour with asymmetrical quilt dresses in brightly colored, opulent fabrics.

Dior

If the fall 2014 collections are proselytizing the merits of being off balance, above all, they suggest that adherence to a strict doctrine of symmetry limits fashion’s possibilities. Maybe the ancient obsession with balance was itself slightly off; for all their love of symmetry, Grecian togas were decidedly less so. In light of the pressure exerted on women to constantly bring a sense of equilibrium into their lives, it is a comfort to know that being off balance, once in a while, may do some good. Perhaps this explains why Jennifer Lawrence’s popularity increases with each new Oscar tumble.

Céline

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A fashion _ staple

Disorderly conduct By Talia Abbas

The return of the turtleneck

Over time, the turtleneck settled down, finding its way onto classic, all-American runways like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren in the ’90s. With maturity often comes routine, and, in the turtleneck’s case, an undeservedly stodgy reputation. For fall 2014, we’re witnessing a resurrection of the head-turning turtleneck. Noted in a series of playful twists, designers experimented this season with different cuts and lengths of the traditional turtleneck. One such designer was Adam Lippes, who showed knee-length sleeveless versions with a highlow hem in cream mohair and gray cashmere. Phoebe Philo exaggerated the style at Céline, letting reversible necklines hang loose to showcase their versatility, while Antonio Berardi cut the turtleneck in half – a clever juxtaposition to his metallic mini dresses. Adam Lippes

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An irrefutable winter staple, the turtleneck was created to prevent chafing from the medieval knight’s chainmail armor and battled through several centuries to achieve its current status. By the ’40s, sweater girls had adopted the look – two sizes too small, to accentuate their busts and increase their sex appeal. Existentialists of the next decade adopted the black turtleneck for broody reflections over cups of coffee. When Gloria Steinem paraded the knitwear as a feminist statement in the ’70s, it was another defiant point in the sweater’s long history of rebellion.

Céline

Michael Kors

Marc by Marc Jacobs

materials and prints. Altuzarra revamped the tradition with fringed tweed turtlenecks, while Stella McCartney’s oversized tie-dye version in flaming red mohair was nothing short of a statement piece. Michael Kors channeled boho-luxe in printed chiffon turtleneck dresses, then finished the show with a fur roll neck that epitomized his brand of approachable glamour.

Stella McCartney

It was at Marc by Marc Jacobs, however, that turtlenecks stole the show. They were the foundation of the pop militia-inspired collection, worn under everything from tutu-lined coats to kung fu fighter suits. In true knight spirit, this season renews the turtleneck’s rebellion against convention. Seen in tie-dye, fringe and fur, it’s come a long way from the battlefield. 111 A

A fashion _ textile

Coziness is key By John Ovans

Left and above Pieces from a new exhibition at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum put knitwear in perspective

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Knitwear injects glamour into coldweather dressing

Stella McCartney

Céline

Michael Kors

Stella McCartney

Marc Jacobs

While emerging from the house resembling the Michelin Man in mittens isn’t the sexiest winter look, we’ll concede that sometimes an icy nip necessitates piling on as many warm clothes as possible. Just as well that for fall/winter 2014-15, designers are playing with knits more than ever before, offering new ways of wrapping up and staying chic. Because knitwear challenges that couturederived notion that something can only be avant-garde if it’s bizarre and uncomfortable, it has never been treated with the same haute pretensions as other areas of fashion. Yet it’s having a moment, thanks in part to “Knitwear: Chanel to Westwood,” an exhibition at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum that charts

design innovation and knitwear technologies throughout the 20th century, from ’30s woolen swimwear to Japanese designers experimenting with its sculptural capabilities in the ’90s. When we’re talking sales, though, it’s the comfort factor that keeps customers coming, something Stella McCartney recognized and explored this season. “I wear a lot of knitwear and it’s a big part of my everyday life,” she said after her fall runway show. “What we wanted to do with the collection was be honest about that.” This manifested in thick, embroidered woolen sweater dresses, as well a series of rustic fleck and mélange knit dresses with matching bags and knitted trousers. McCartney explained that she liked the idea of the wearer being “taken

care of” by the clothing. Another designer unafraid to play with layering was Marc Jacobs, whose ’60s, mod-inspired collection featured a range of beige and camel knits and ribbed wool sweaters with plunging necklines and matching pants. And if you needed a further indication that knitted trousers are in this season, look only at Céline, who sent out knitwear trouser suits. It was Michael Kors, however, who gave us the master class in creative knitting, showing off a gloriously diverse range of techniques, including one-ply fringing and brioche stitching, along with knitted coats and heavy, texturized cableknits and scarves. So stop lamenting the loss of summer and go forth and shop: winter’s here, and knitwear is king. 113 A

A fashion _ carryall

– It” bag etiquette

By Grace Banks

Don’t carry your bag – work it

There’s more happening on fall’s fashion agenda than trends, famous faces and ever-changing hemlines. On the fall/winter 2014-15 runways attention turned to the skill of carrying a bag, from clutching it to swinging it over your shoulder. There’s heritage in this technical interest. In the ’50s, women’s rise in the workplace meant bags needed to capacitate a day’s worth of paraphernalia, and suddenly it was the bigger the bag, the better. As the decade that saw the meteoric rise of the “It” bag, the ’90s did away with midcentury ideals of the neat carryall. Now, the ways for a millennial to tote are endless.

Miuccia Prada choreographed a move for her stocky metal satchel. Simply throw the chain over your shoulder and then hoist the bag behind your arm, securing it snugly next to your elbow to ensure there are no disruptions to the front view of your Prada ensemble. Christopher Kane’s first accessories collection makes an art of the ungainly haul. His range of small box bags are adorned with a thick leather handstrap, encouraging fans to get in on Kane’s unusual cool by downsizing their accoutrements and placing them A 114

Prada

into a piece held in the fingertips. Big thinkers before their time, like Hannah Höch and Lee Miller, inspired Phoebe Philo’s tough, sculpted leather bags at Céline. Made to balance between your hip and hand, these half-moon shaped pieces are as practical as a carry-on. Over in Milan there was plenty of time for opulence. Dolce & Gabbana can’t hide their love for glamour and diamonds, and like the intricately cut jewels that adorned their models’ hair, wrists and décolletage, Stefano and Domenico’s diamond-adorned bags are designed to be clutched. The more plucky Siciliana might style hers across the body, freeing up her hands to grab life by both.

Jeremy Scott’s Moschino woman doesn’t carry her bag; she serves it. Scott’s uniformed diner girls presented the label’s sellout golden arches clutch on a tray, while its Happy Meal-inspired purse was displayed with pride across the body. Olympia Le-Tan and Chanel also weighed in on fall’s obsession with fast food. Le-Tan’s embroidered satin box bag is a dead ringer for Chinese takeout packaging, while Chanel’s milk carton suggests there’s only one thing to do: grab it and go.

Christopher Kane

Dolce & Gabbana

Prada

CĂŠline

Moschino

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A fashion _ backstage

Runway ready Photographer Rami Hajj Stylist Amelianna Loiacono

Behind the scenes at Aïshti’s electric runway show

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Top Prada dress, scarf, bag and Gucci hat (left); Prada vest, shirt, pants and bag (right) Bottom Azzedine Ala誰a dress, Cartier bracelet and miu miu bag

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Top Prada look (left); Cartier necklace (right) Bottom Pucci dress and clutch (left); CĂŠline shirt and bracelet (right)

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Top CĂŠline shirt, pants, bracelet and bag Bottom Marni shoes

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Top ChloĂŠ vest, shirt, pants, bag and Bottega Veneta sunglasses (left); Marc Jacobs shirt and sunglasses, Pucci pants, Roberto Cavalli necklace and Gucci hat (right) Bottom CĂŠline coat and Eugenia Kim hat

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Top Prada dress and scarf, Gucci hat, miu miu earrings and Cartier necklace (left); Gucci pants and shoes (right) Bottom Agent Provocateur bodysuit and Saint Laurent cape (left); Prada skirt and blouse, Cartier necklace (right)

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Top Gucci dress (left); Burberry look (right) Bottom Agent Provocateur bodysuit (left); CĂŠline shoes (right)

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Fashion

Paris match

A fashion _ accessories

Merry and bright Photographer Bachar Srour Stylist Joe Arida

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This page clockwise from left Cartier ring; Bulgari bracelet; Bulgari bracelet with diamonds; Cartier Juste un Clou bracelet; Cartier Double Love bracelet. Price upon request Opposite page Saint Laurent top, LL4,470,000; Charlotte Olympia clutches, LL2,272,500 (each)

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This page RenĂŠe Caovilla shoes, LL1,965,000 Opposite page Saint Laurent boots, LL2,242,500; Balenciaga clutch, LL3,142,500

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This page Stella McCartney bag, LL2,137,500; Fendi keychain, LL2,542,500; Dior shoes, LL1,170,000 Opposite page Cartier clutch; Repossi earrings from Sylvie Saliba. Price upon request

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This page Jimmy Choo clutch, LL1,552,500; Marni shoes, LL967,500; Spektre sunglasses, LL315,000 Opposite page Charlotte Olympia clutch, LL2,002,500; Dior bracelet, LL4,642,000

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This page Saint Laurent bags, LL2,190,000 (each) Opposite page Charlotte Olympia heels, LL2,340,000; Jimmy Choo shoes, LL1,095,000

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This page Saint Laurent boots, LL1,680,000; Vhernier bracelet, available at Sylvie Saliba; Yvan Tufenkjian, available at Yvan Tufenkjian. Price upon request Opposite page Mawi clutch in pink, LL1,425,000; Mawi clutch in bronze, LL1,537,500

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This page Dolce & Gabbana fur vest, LL23,145,000 and bag, LL6,967,500 Opposite page from top to bottom Bulgari earrings; Georges Hakim earrings; Bulgari earrings; Repossi earrings, available at Sylvie Saliba. Price upon request

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This page ChloĂŠ bag, LL15,960,000 Opposite page Cartier pen; Georges Hakim ring; Cartier lighter. Price upon request

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This page Balenciaga bracelet, LL630,000; Cartier rings. Price upon request Opposite page Stella McCartney shoes, LL1,440,000; HermĂ¨s necklace, LL6,166,500

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This page Yvan Tufenkjian ring and bracelet, available at Yvan Tufenkjian; Lydia Courteille bracelet, available at Sylvie Saliba. Price upon request Opposite page Georges Hakim watch; Bulgari necklace, bracelet and ring. Price upon request

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This page Charlotte Olympia bag, LL2,377,500; Hermès Méga Large bracelet, LL1,370,000; Hermès Large bracelet, LL989,000 Opposite page Céline bag, LL3,825,000; Saint Laurent boots, LL4,252,500

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Gilded glamour 12.

14. Tory Burch

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1. Saint Laurent sunglasses 2. Bottega Veneta clutch 3. Dolce & Gabbana dress 4. Fendi necklace 5. Azzedine AlaĂŻa heels 6. Moschino top 7. Dolce & Gabbana necklace 8. Moschino skirt 9. Diane von Furstenberg jumpsuit 10. Dolce & Gabbana dress 11. Rag & Bone jacket 12. Oscar de la Renta pants 13. miu miu heels 14. Saint Laurent bag 15. Jimmy Choo bag 16. Saint Laurent necklace 17. ChloĂŠ shoes 18. Marni earrings

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Tory Burch

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11. 1. Balenciaga bracelet 2. Balenciaga bag 3. Valentino heels 4. Gucci coat 5. Gucci sunglasses 6. Balenciaga gloves 7. miu miu sunglasses 8. Pucci dress 9. Giambattista Valli skirt 10. Valentino bracelet 11. Charlotte Olympia bag 12. Gucci boots 13. Tory Burch dress 14. Azzedine AlaĂŻa bag 15. Michael Kors jacket 16. Stella McCartney pants 17. Stella McCartney clutch 18. ChloĂŠ heels

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ChloĂŠ, Valentino and Prada runway looks

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Marni, Pucci and Etro runway looks

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1. Marni top 2. Gucci bag 3. Marni jacket 4. Gucci top 5. Burberry jacket 6. miu miu sunglasses 7. Fendi dress 8. Valentino heels 9. Oscar de la Renta skirt 10. Etro pants 11. Valentino bag 12. Pucci sweater 13. M2Malletier bag 14. Stella McCartney dress 15. Bottega Veneta wallet 16. Saint Laurent shoes 17. Tibi skirt

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Ever the gent Photographer Bachar Srour Stylist Joe Arida

Prada bag, LL3,720,000; Hermès umbrella, LL900,000 and hat, LL1,197,000. Available at Hermès boutiques

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Clockwise from left Diptyque candle, LL156,000; Dior shirt, LL1,155,000; Dior sneakers, LL1,605,000

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Clockwise from left Bulgari watches, Cartier watch. Price upon request

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Cecilia Bringheli shoes, LL930,000 (each pair). Available at A誰shti stores unless otherwise indicated.

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漏Chanel, Essie, Lanc么me, Tom Ford, Valentino

Dark encounters Photographer Jimmy Backius

Stylist Amelianna Loiacono

Location The Smallville Hotel, Beirut

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Fendi top, Moschino shorts, Balenciaga shoes, CĂŠline bracelet, miu miu earrings, Mawi bracelet and Cartier necklace. Her bag is by Saint Laurent

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This page She’s wearing a Saint Laurent coat, Stella McCartney sweater, Lover shorts, Cartier bracelet, Panthère Bubble de Cartier necklace and Cartier necklace and a Bulgari watch. Her bag is by Dsquared2 Opposite page She’s in an Antonio Berardi skirt, Fendi top and bracelet

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in an Antonio Berardi dress and Charlotte Olympia shoes. Her necklace is Marni, her rings are by Moschino and her bag by is by Vionnet

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Fendi top, Moschino shorts, CĂŠline bracelet, miu miu earrings and Cartier necklace. Her bag is by Saint Laurent

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This page She’s wearing a miu miu coat, miu miu dress, Jenny Packham earrings and a Cartier ring. Her boots are by Chloé and her bag is by Michael Kors. Opposite page She’s in a Valentino sweater and belt, Jitrois skirt and Roberto Cavalli necklaces. She’s holding a Valentino bag

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Her dress is by Gucci and her earrings are by Oscar de la Renta

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Prada sweater and skirt and a Bulgari necklace, ring and bracelet. Her watch is by Cartier and her bag is by miu miu. Available at AĂŻshti stores. Hair and makeup Rory Rice from WM Management Model Dalia Gunther from Model Management

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What lies beneath Photographer Brendan Freeman

Stylist Siobhan Lyons

Location London

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Bottega Veneta skirt and sweater and a Burberry coat. Her ring, earrings and bag are by Roberto Cavalli and her bag in crocodile is by Dior

She’s wearing a Giambattista Valli dress and Saint Laurent bag (left), her bag is by Céline (middle) and she’s in a Bottega Veneta sweater and skirt and a Burberry coat. Her bag is by Dior and her ring and earrings are by Roberto Cavalli (right)

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Paul & Joe fur, Agent Provocateur stockings and Roberto Cavalli shoes. Her bag is by Saint Laurent

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Dior dress and a Chanel bracelet, ring and earrings

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Dior coat, turtleneck, trousers and shoes and a Bottega Veneta sweater Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Dior dress, Kate Spade top and Prada boots. Her bracelet is by Chanel

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Dior coat and Roberto Cavalli shoes. Her sunglasses are by Dita

Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Saint Laurent dress and boots, Paul & Joe cape and Roberto Cavalli bracelets Hair Yumi Nakada-Dingle Makeup Natsumi Narita Nails Zarra Celik from LMC Worldwide Models Kit Alexander from Models 1, Lena from FM London, Kate C from M+P Models and David Gorny Production Tereza Bila

Paris match Photographer Alessio Bolzoni Stylist Amelianna Loiacono Location Paris

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Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re wearing Roberto Cavalli fur

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Left She’s wearing a Brunello Cucinelli sweater and an Etro jacket and pants. Her boots are by Jimmy Choo, her sunglasses are by Valentino and her bag is by Etro Right She’s in Marni pants, an Etro jacket and boots and a Brunello Cucinelli sweater. Her sunglasses are by Valentino and she’s carrying a Marni bag

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Front Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a skirt, cardigan, scarf, gloves, shoes and bag, all by Dolce & Gabbana Back Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Dolce & Gabbana skirt, cardigan, gloves, scarf and bag

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Left She’s in a Parosh sweater, Pucci pants and Jimmy Choo boots. Her bag is by Etro Right She’s wearing a Parosh sweater and Diesel pants. Her boots and bag are both by Etro

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Front Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Maison Martin Margiela dress and bag. Her sweater is by Brunello Cucinelli and her boots are by Roberto Cavalli Back Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a skirt and shirt by Maison Martin Margiela. Her sunglasses are by Valentino, her boots are by Jimmy Choo and her bag is by Dolce & Gabbana

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Both are in a Fendi sweater, fur and pants, and carrying bags by Fendi

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Both are in Valentino

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They are wearing Tory Burch shirts and Etro pants

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Front Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a jacket and pants by Moschino. Her bag is by Gucci Back Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in Moschino. Her boots are by Jimmy Choo and her bag is by Tory Burch. Hair Alessandro Rebecchi from ArtList Paris Makeup Tiziana Raimondo from Atomo Management Models Yulia Serzhantova from Silent Paris and Tanya Chubko from Fashion Model Management

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Call of the wild Photographer Cathleen Wolf Stylist Jennifer Hahn

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Dior coat and Tory Burch leg warmers

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Burberry coat

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing an Etro dress and a Tory Burch coat

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a Prada dress, Tory Burch leg warmers and Dior shoes

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wearing a Burberry dress and miu miu jacket

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Her leg warmers are by Tory Burch and her shoes are by Jil Sander

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Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a jacket and pants by Jil Sander. Her socks are by Tory Burch Hair & Makeup Marie-Fee Steinvorth from Nina Klein Agency Model Sophia Linnewedel from Seeds Management

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A beauty _ counter

Inside and out Heavenly radiance Called the first-of-its-kind “essencein-lotion,” Estée Lauder Micro Essence Skin Activating Treatment Lotion is revolutionizing skincare with a formula that works on a micro-level to give skin an angelic radiance from within.

Build your bronze Combat the winter blues with a bit of bronze. Clarins’ new Radiance-Plus Golden Glow Booster is a made-to-measure tan that can be built upon with each application. Simply add three drops of serum to your favorite cream, massage into the skin and get glowing.

The multitasker Take your New Year’s cleanse to the next level with detoxifying skincare. Diptyque’s Argile de Gommage clay scrub can be used on wet skin as an exfoliator, or on dry skin as a deep-cleaning, 10-minute mask.

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In good repair Made with prickly pear seed oil, Christophe Robin’s creamy Regenerating Mask works wonders in 15 minutes flat. It strengthens damaged strands, protects color and stimulates the scalp while imparting tired tresses with touchable volume and shine.

Eight-minute miracle La Mer’s Intensive Revitalizing Mask gives post-holiday complexions a much-needed pick-me-up. Combining the brand’s legendary “miracle broth” with the uplifting scent of grapefruit and mint, this 8-minute mask transforms any afternoon into a day at the spa.

The foundation for a gorgeous New Year

A beauty _ asset

One freckle at a time By Pip Usher

ÂŠ Vivienne Westwood, Anna & Boy

Unconventional beauty is a cut above

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Ever heard of a fashion freckle? After centuries of scorn, a sprinkling of dark spots is finally on trend. Natural-looking freckles were applied with self-tanner at Preen’s spring/summer 2015 show, while faux spots were speckled across fresh faces at Oscar de la Renta. It’s an ingenious way to look like an ingénue: on top of dewy skin, freckles suggest youthfulness with a touch of Little Orphan Annie’s tomboy charm.

We’re all familiar with Hollywood’s dictates on beauty: the bee-stung lips and wide-set eyes, a heart-shaped face and delicate nose. Those quirks that set one person apart from the next – a gap-toothed smile, wild curls – are the quickest way to get knocked out of a lifelong race to be the prettiest, perkiest prom queen long after high school has ended. But has conventional beauty become a little too, well, conventional?

I’ve always had freckles. Not just a cute smattering across my nose but an all-out rainstorm that changes with the seasons. They’re part of me, a layer of texture to my skin that I observe with an odd, detached curiosity as patterns evolve and new recruits join the constellation across my body. But they haven’t always been considered chic. On a family trip to Pompeii as a 12 year old, a group of olive-skinned Italian teenagers pointedly laughed at the dense freckles across my face, which had heightened to fever pitch under the Mediterranean sun. Suddenly, I felt… different. And different, I quickly concluded, does not spell desirable.

There have been a slew of models of late that challenge the fashion industry’s prejudices, and in doing so allow individuality to creep through. Lara Stone, a Dutch supermodel famed as much for her gapped front teeth as her decidedly large bra size, was described by The New York Times’ fashion critic Cathy Horyn as the “anti-model.” That gap in her teeth has proved pivotal to her career, with her unconventional look landing her on the catwalks of everyone from Fendi to Stella McCartney. And what about Tilda Swinton? Her beaky, androgynous face and translucent skin are far from fashionable, yet she’s an Oscar-winning actress who has

inspired countless fashion designers with her fiercely unique face. OK Cupid, the wildly popular dating site, has employed its huge stores of user data to analyze perceptions of female attractiveness. The results shared in their recent blog post are surprising. “Take whatever you think some guys don’t like – and play it up,” OK Cupid claims. “We now have mathematical evidence [that suggests] that minimizing your ‘flaws’ is the opposite of what you should do… If you have a big nose, play it up. If you have a weird snaggletooth, play it up.” By this logic, freckles aren’t faults. They’re fabulous. Beauty will always have barometers, but perhaps we don’t need to be quite so prescriptive. As Grazia magazine’s beauty director once said, “A gappy tooth, tons of freckles and huge geek-chic glasses all give someone so much more personality than a glossy blow-out and a fake tan.” My freckles may be more permanent than a fashion accessory, but that’s why I like them. Looks come and go, but they’re here for good. 211 A

JEAN SEBASTIEN & ROLIEN EN COUPLE DEPUIS 4 ANS

148 SAAD ZAGHLOUL STREET - DOWNTOWN BEIRUT

A beauty _ breakthrough

All about you By Grace Banks

Generic formulas give way to customized skincare Top Ioma analyzes skin to determine the perfect beauty regime from over 45,000 possible outcomes Left Codage developed My Codage to put clients in control of their unique skincare solutions

This diagnostic morning routine isn’t far off. In the last two years, hyper-personalization has been the buzzword in dermatology labs, with bespoke beauty formulas being developed around new technology that evaluates the skin. Gone are the days of the generic “under-35” or “mature” pharmacy-shelf prescription: hyperpersonalization has the potential to revolutionize skincare routines. Founded in 2008 by microelectronic scientist Jean Michel Karam, skincare brand Ioma defines the personalization genre. A 216

Using a patented devise called Sphere, developed with the same technology NASA uses to explore the surface of Mars, Ioma analyzes the seven layers of skin and automatically generates a beauty regime from a possible 45,252 outcomes. For Karam’s regular customers, this technology makes it possible for skin to be treated with bespoke products as it changes over months and even weeks. With Ioma’s targeted regimes you could address rosacea before it even takes hold, halt fine lines at the first signs and mattify shiny patches, all with relative ease. Part of personalization’s appeal is customer input. Beauty enthusiasts often center their routines on skincare, and many will have been mixing their own formulas from various products for years. Launched in November, bespoke beauty company Codage developed My Codage to put the brand’s diagnostic tools in consumers’ hands. Each shopper fills out an online questionnaire and chooses to add or

subtract ingredients to a series of serums, which are then delivered directly to her front door. While a relatively small number of individuals are currently benefiting from this technology, the general population may soon see its advantages. Ioma is building a world map of skin, and with every diagnosis it collects data from countries around the world to make buying products easier for global customers. Personalization is hitting the mainstream too. YSL Beauty’s Fusion Ink Foundation boasts a 24-hour finish by using adjustable lipophilic actives that lock sebum in and create a smooth complexion. L’Oréal is also making waves, recently partnering with Image Metrics to create the Makeup Genius app, which uses gaming industry technology to recognize 400 skin pigmentation types, recommending products accordingly. This is what makes hyper-personalization so innovative: women finally have skincare that adapts to them, and not the other way around.

You wake up in the morning and the first thing you check is a sleek compact with a digital reading of your dermal score for the day. Immediately you know the level of your skin’s hydration, potential sun damage and any dark spots or fine lines that may be developing. Seconds later, when a daily dose of lotions, tablets and serums are displayed, you begin your beauty routine using a curated mix of products.

A beauty _ runway

A festive finish

By MacKenzie Lewis Kassab

Rita Remark, lead nail artist at Essie Canada, captured Gordon’s relaxed-gone-luxe mood with manicures in crimson hues. “I was inspired by the luxurious textures in his designs, but I fell in love with the red satin dresses and shoes,” says Remark. “I wanted to create a refined nail art look that was reminiscent of this satin: dramatic, classically sexy and sophisticated.” She succeeded, creating an updated French manicure that mirrors Gordon’s play on texture without straying from the timelessness of scarlet nails. Remark began the manicure with a proper filing and basic cuticle care, followed by A 218

a coat of Essie’s First Base color adhesive and primer. She then layered shades until she achieved the perfect color and finish: Penny Talk, a brilliantly reflective copper, followed by Bordeaux, a deep wine red. “This made the nails look like little rubies,” she explains. A coat of Matte About You matte finisher gave a satin affect to the nail. The final step was what Remark calls a “smile line” of Wicked, Essie’s iconic bloodred shade, along the tip. “The result,” says Remark, “is simply decadent.”

1. Tom Ford Nail Lacquer in Bordeaux Lust 2. Essie Penny Talk 3. Essie Matte About You Top Coat 4. Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour in Lotus Rouge No. 455 5. Dior Diorific Vernis in Gold Equinoxe No. 241 6. Yves Saint Laurent La Laque Couture in Prune Minimale No. 07

On the fall runway, Wes Gordon encapsulated the spirit of the season in a collection that layers cold-weather coziness and New Year’s Eve glamour. Pairing silk and Chantilly lace with chunky wool knits, the designer dressed his uptown muse for a night that starts curled up by the fire and evolves into something altogether more glamorous once the first champagne cork is popped.

VisiT oUr a誰sHTi sTores eL MoUTraNe sTreeT, BeirUT, TeL 01 99 11 11 New York

LoNdoN

Paris

MiLaN

roMe

Madrid

Moscow

TokYo

HoNg koNg

sHaNgHai

A beauty _ fantasy

Decorative arts © Chanel, Dior, Raya Farhat, Cecil Beaton / Assouline “Cecil Beaton: The Art of the Scrapbook”

Cecil Beaton’s scrapbooks inspire a fantasy of color and fragrance

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From left Clarins Cream-to-Powder Matte Eyeshadow in Sparkle Grey No. 05, LL45,000; Dior 5 Couleurs Palette in Golden Shock No. 756, LL118,500; Chanel Camélia de Plumes Highlighting Powder, LL126,000; Giorgio Armani Eye & Brow Maestro in Gold No. 09, LL65,000

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Clockwise from left Sisley So Intense Mascara in Deep Black No. 01, LL96,000; Bobbi Brown Smokey Eye Mascara, LL78,000; Clarins Be Long Mascara in No. 01, LL60,000; EstĂŠe Lauder Sumptuous Infinite Daring Length + Volume Mascara in Black, LL63,000

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From left Dior Diorific Vernis in Smoky No. 990, LL82,500; Yves Saint Laurent La Laque Couture Nail Lacquer in Bleu Galuchat No. 52, LL51,000; Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour in Vamp No. 18, LL52,500; Chanel Le Vernis Nail Colour in Phenix No. 687, LL52,500

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A beauty _ fantasy

From left Cartier La Panthère Extrait eau de parfum, price upon request; Chloé Love Story eau de parfum, LL168,000

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Top row from left Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet in La Flamboyante No. 337, LL57,000; Dior Diorific Shock Colour Lip Duo Matte and Metallic in Daring Shock No. 005, LL82,500; EstĂŠe Lauder Pure Colour Envy, Sculpting Lipstick, Decadent, No. 150, LL73,500; Dior Diorific Shock Colour Lip Duo Matte and Metallic in Enchanting Shock No. 002, LL82,500

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From left Tom Ford Patchouli Absolu eau de parfum, LL382,500; Jimmy Choo Man eau de toilette, LL102,000.

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Available at A誰zone stores 01 99 11 11

MELISSA IT. FALL WINTER 2014.

www.melissa.com.br

A design _ update

Catch the wave By MacKenzie Lewis Kassab

A magazine’s designers to watch Jewelry design Vanina (right)

One woman’s trash is another’s treasure, and no one knows that better than Vanina founders Tatiana Fayad and Joanne Hayek. This season the pair unites non-biodegradable plastic bags and Swarovski crystals for a glittering collection dedicated to nature’s beauty.

Ralph Masri (left)

The youngest U.K. Jewellery Award nominee in history, Ralph Masri designs beautifully crafted fine jewelry with all the flare and fearlessness of fashion jewelry. His latest collection fuses Arabesque patterns with Art Deco details.

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In mid-November, A magazine teamed with L’Officiel-Levant to launch Beirut’s Nouvelle Vague, a monthlong celebration of local talent and extraordinary design. The two publications selected a roster of emerging designers across four categories, all with works worth setting your sights on.

Gourmet edibles

Sapori di Tery (right)

Sapori di Tery founder Isabella Baffa calls herself Italian “by birth and by heart,” and now the Beirut-based foodie has recreated the tastes of her mother’s kitchen, from pasta sauces to salty cakes, for the rest of us to savor.

Beirut Cooks (left)

Pascale Habis knows the recipe for the perfect culinary tome: interesting friends, mouthwatering recipes and vibrant photographs of both. Her first book, Beirut Cooks, profiles a who’s-who of Beirut – and what they eat.

Lê Atelier du Miel (above)

Continuously moving their beehives across Lebanon to follow seasonal flower blossoms, L’Atelier du Miel produces delectable, 100 percent-natural honey – and honey-based sweets – all year round.

House of Zejd (right)

Olives reign supreme at House of Zejd, where extra virgin olive oils from various regions of Lebanon, artisanal tapenades and beauty products made from olive oil attest to the fruit’s versatility. 231 A

A design _ update

Fashion design

Mixing and matching textures, patterns and inspiration, Sara Melki’s luxe ready-to-wear collection is infused with exotic references to Africa, China and India. She designs for a modern woman with unapologetically eclectic taste.

Product design

David/Nicolas (above)

David Raffoul and Nicolas Moussallem created their eponymous studio with one word in mind: teamwork. That philosophy extends from their work approach to how they harmonize timelessness with trends, demonstrated in their porcelain collaboration with Vista Alegre. A 232

Carla Baz (right)

Working early in her career with names like Burberry and Zaha Hadid, it’s no surprise that Carla Baz made her name creating functional objects with graceful, sculptural lines. Her elegant pieces are made from noble materials worked by hand.

Sara Melki (left)

HHD Henry Dakak Jr. (right)

Taking elements from the Age of Enlightenment, the ’40s and today, Henry Dakak Jr.’s bespoke pieces incorporate longforgotten artifacts, precious metals, reclaimed wood and even handles from an old riverboat.

Marc Dibeh (left and below) Product designer Marc Dibeh is an expert at pushing boundaries, creating thoughtprovoking pieces that are equally compelling to the eye. His latest collection imagines objects stolen from homes and the stories behind them.

La Terre est Folle (left)

La Terre est Folle, by Joe Arida, is split into two categories: hardware (products you can hold) and software (products you can squeeze). The label’s latest collection is a nod to a disciplined form of Japanese floral arranging. Beirut’s Nouvelle Vague launched on November 14 and will run through December at Aïshti’s People Restaurant in Downtown Beirut, under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and with the support of Global Blue. 233 A

A design _ trend

All fired up By J. Michael Welton

Decorative tiles and mosaics bring new life to a wall or floor

Mixed-up (right)

Gilt-y as charged (above)

The Aurora Collection was inspired by designer Sara Baldwinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travels to cities like Paris, Istanbul and St. Petersburg, where architecture is pierced by flashes of brilliant gold. The collection consists of 24 mosaic designs, each handcrafted in stone, shell, jewel glass and 24-karat gold. Visit newravenna.com A 234

Hand-brushed (above)

Boris Aldridge creates his Elements tiles from stoneware clay, crushed glass from recycled bottles and hand-mixed glazes. He applies all glazes by brush, applying them in layers to achieve a painterly effect. The glass melts in the kiln, then solidifies and crackles. Visit cletile.com

ÂŠ Cletile, Fireclaytile, Metolius Ridge, New Revanna

Paul Schatzâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Miraflores Collection, once available only in stone, now comes in glass, shell and honed 24-karat gold. His mosaics are inspired by close study of Moroccan design and Chinese fret work, and his sojourns through Spain, Portugal and Mexico. Visit newravenna.com

Suzani-inspired (left)

Suppose, Metolius Ridge artisan Justyn Livingston asks, you install a rustic tile “carpet” in the hallway of your modern apartment? Or, on your traditional kitchen’s backsplash, you create a pattern like I.M. Pei’s Louvre pyramid? Anything goes when you superimpose modern against rustic, and she’s out to prove it. Visit metoliusridgeartisantile.com

Persian-influenced (right)

Fireclay Tile’s new Mediterranean series is handcrafted with a proprietary wax resist technique from 16th-century Persia. Artisans first screen a pattern onto the surface of a 70-percent-recycled clay tile, then handpaint lead-free glazes onto it. Visit fireclaytile.com

Psyched-out (left)

First there’s the company name: Timourous Beasties. Then there’s the moniker of their tiles: The Rorschach Collection. Paul Simmons and Alistair McAuley pair up classic patterns with imagery that some say unlocks the subconscious, using hand drawing, marbling and puddles of ink. Visit cletile.com

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A design _ holiday home

Staying power

Indulgent homes away from home

Anyone with a hankering to stay in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright or Rudolph Schindler can now take heart. Wright’s Schwartz House in Two Rivers, Wisconsin – a four-room, 1940 Usonian affair, once named Life magazine’s Dream House – is available for rent by the night or the week. And Schindler’s Mackey Apartments, designed by the modern master in Los Angeles in 1939, are available under similar terms.

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They’re among 550 properties – including homes, apartments, bed and breakfasts, and small hotels – available through California-based Boutique Homes, a company founded by former Hollywood set designers Heinz Legler and Veronique Lievre. He’s German, she’s French, and both possess impeccable taste that they like to share with a clientele they call “chic nomads.” “They’re always looking for something unique and original, and they love great architecture,” says Boutique Homes

By J. Michael Welton

This page Areias do Seixo in Portugal (top left), Godswindow in South Africa (top right) and Historic Boutique Hideaway in Sicily (bottom) Opposite page Beirut Gardens B+B in Mount Lebanon

spokesman Matthew Clark. “They’re focused on mid-century modern and minimalist properties that are really interesting, and in beautiful and scenic locations.” That means Mexico, Los Angeles, New York, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Greece, Brazil and Turkey. “In Lisbon, we’ve had a ton of beautiful properties lately and everybody’s going there,” he says. “Istanbul is a place with a couple of really cool properties, and Provence is a great destination – we have one property in Gordes.” Lebanon, too, is now on the company’s

radar screen. “We just added a new property in Mount Lebanon called Beirut Gardens B+B, about 40 minutes from the capital,” he says. Boutique Homes is not alone as a source for modern residential rentals. The Cape Cod Modern House Trust (CCMHT) is in the process of restoring a number of modernist homes, many of them designed by acolytes of Bauhaus masters Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. It currently rents three of them, April through September. They’re tucked away in the pine forests 237 A

A design _ holiday home

of the Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, each with panoramic views of glacial ponds and Cape Cod Bay. “These are amazing experimental modernist houses in a completely wild and pristine landscape,” says Peter McMahon, founder of the group. “The Hatch Cottage on the bay looks like it’s in Big Sur.” Rental proceeds support CCMHT’s educational programs and restorations.

Perhaps the most interesting is a resort that Legler and Lievre built 10 years ago near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It’s called Verana, it’s in Yelapa and it’s very remote. “You arrive in Puerto Vallarta and take a boat over to Yelapa, and then a mule to get to Verana,” says Clark. “It’s elevated over the water, in jungle surroundings. It’s kind A 238

Boutique Homes rental rates can vary, since 50 percent of its properties are small hotels and apartments. “We cover the whole gamut of sizes and prices, from $80 a night up to $10,000 a night,” Clark says. “We like to find things cheap and interesting, funky and creative.”

This page Trulli Gardens in Italy (left), Metafort in Provence (right) and Cape Cod’s Kugel/Gips House (bottom) Opposite page Mykonos Villa in Greece (top) and V House (bottom) in Mexico

of rustic but it’s away from it all.” Rustic’s not exactly modern, but Verana is for those who want peace in a minimalist, Zen setting. “People love it – it gets nothing but great reviews,” he says. “They come back, and come back again.” In a modern world, that’s the ultimate compliment. Visit boutique-homes.com

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Winning favor This page Welton investigates the importance of a simple pencil and paper to dozens of firms, including Höweler + Yoon Opposite page Sketching is still an important precursor in the design process to newer technology

The engaging new book Drawing from Practice: Architects and the Meaning of Freehand, by regular A magazine contributor J. Michael Welton, illuminates the way 26 widely respected architects use freehand drawing to shape cities and towns. From the first parti to the finished product, the author reveals the contemporary life of a sketch and the role it plays in the creative process. Expect words, images and photographs to change the way you see pencil on paper when the book is released in February. An excerpt from Drawing from Practice At age 41, Eric Höweler’s been front and center for a revolution in architectural rendering. “I learned to draw at Cornell in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and there were no computers until my last year at school,” the partner in Boston-based Höweler + Yoon

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Architecture says. Today, he and Meejin Yoon compete for clients in a totally different world – one that’s fast-paced, short-fused and aptly described as an arms race for new work. “On day one, the client wants something fully rendered by a computer,” he says. “Nowadays everybody’s doing it. It takes skill and time, but there’s an expectation that a photo rendering is necessary at the first meeting.” There are drawbacks, however. A photo rendering often can present an illusion of resolution – it’s so full of details that it gives the client and the public a false sense of completeness. A design may look resolved, but it’s not. “Say you’re designing a skyscraper,” he says. “You used to draw a form at the beginning,

Architects Höweler + Yoon use every tool possible to win new business

but not a curtain wall. Now, on the first day you have to make a decision, in photorealism, about that curtain wall, and it’s one that you’re not necessarily ready to do.” The client comes to a meeting and believes the design is complete, or the public comes to a hearing and arrives at the same conclusion. “It affects the overall design process – it doesn’t allow design to develop over time,” he says. He looks to the computer as one more tool in an arsenal of techniques. “We don’t fetishize the technology, we just try to exploit every medium to its maximum,” he says. “There’s a lot of creativity with analog techniques, and the digital tools vastly expand the possibilities, but it still comes down to being creative with any medium, and the content of what’s being represented.”

to develop ideas, and then exploited them with every possible technology available. “It was probably the most extreme presentation we’ve ever done,” he says. “It was a six-month effort for a six-minute presentation in Istanbul.” To bring the jury to their side, they pulled out all the stops, using video, animation, voiceover, PowerPoint, a physical model, computer renderings and a verbal presentation. “We created an atmosphere with a backlit theatrical space where you entered a cube, with fabric all around and a soft voiceover,” he says. “It was not just drawings, but an atmosphere that set the tone for these very elaborate videos.”

He and Yoon demonstrated that ably in 2012, with their entry in the Audi Urban Future Initiative. Theirs was among five finalists from around the world, each seeking to solve mobility issues in specific urban corridors. Höweler + Yoon selected the heavily traveled I-95 BosWash corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C. as their design challenge. They called their set of solutions “Shareway.”

The voiceover guided the jury through a storyboard with a narrative and sequence of images, along with a series of three-minute video clips played sequentially in a continuous loop, articulating the firm’s research and architectural solutions. “We translated properties into forms, and research into concrete proposals – into real buildings, cityscapes, cars and streetscapes,” he says. “Even the eyeglasses were futuristic safety glasses that gave everybody a feeling of being a little bit into the future.”

Aiming to win, they developed a cutting-edge, multimedia presentation for the Audi jury. Taking time to work through it thoroughly, they started with sketches

Höweler + Yoon didn’t just redesign the road, the car or the streets of the city. They tackled hardware/software interface solutions for booking tickets and driving on 241 A

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Höweler + Yoon Architecture, who won the Audi Urban Future Initiative with their “Shareway” proposal (left and below), is just one of the firms Welton profiles

Conceived as a retrofit to rail, highway and the surrounding landscape, the entire Shareway project hinges on the turning radius for the trains that helped create this nation. “It’s a product of what’s already there,” he says. “It’s about the geometry of speed.” They proposed that rail traffic, both commercial and commuter, be bundled into tubes in the airspace above I-95, with automobile and truck traffic bundled similarly, and also space for bicycles and pedestrians. They proposed shared ownership for battery-powered cars to shuttle commuters to and from major urban areas. They A 242

also suggested shared ownership of nearby homes and farms. Their efforts paid off – in spades. In late 2012, Höweler + Yoon’s entry easily trumped four other finalists from Istanbul, Mumbai, São Paolo and China’s Pearl River Valley. “I think the jury appreciated the design of the whole system of how to move in the city,” he says. Their sophisticated visual presentation, though – one that started with access to ideas through the freehand sketch – must have helped seal the deal. Drawing from Practice: Architects and the Meaning of Freehand is out February 2015. Visit routledge.com

new kinds of roads. They looked at transportation not as a matter of getting from point A to point B, but as a form of shared social connectivity.

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A design _ structure

Counter culture

By Robert Landon

ÂŠ Aislinn Weidele, Jeff Goldberg, The Estate of Philip Guston / McKee Gallery New York, Henrik-Kam

Tech-driven Stanford University explores its creative side

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Three extraordinary new buildings at Stanford University have put the arts, quite literally, front and center of university life. Flanking the palm-lined approach to the campus, the trio includes a state-of-the-art concert hall, a remarkable collection of 20th-century art, and a grand building that will wrap together the university’s art and art history departments into a single, genre-busting structure. Located in a suburb 70 kilometers south of San Francisco, California, Stanford has long had little silos of high culture, from its Rodin collection to a renowned fictionwriting program. But these pockets of brooding have tended to languish amid the school’s sunny, sprawling, carefully manicured campus. Whereas Yale and Harvard are celebrated for their cerebral types, Stanford is defined by doers – in particular the code-wrangling billionaires that dominate the surrounding Silicon Valley. But now, the school’s new arts district is challenging these received notions. Anchoring the arts district is the Anderson Collection, housed in pristine, purpose-built galleries by Ennead Architects’ Richard Olcott. From the museum’s sparse entrance hall, a single flight of steps lifts you out of the workaday world and into the stillness of its luminous galleries. I can’t remember the last time I was in a space that lent itself so well not just to the display of art but also to its contemplation. Glimpses of nature through strategic windows contribute to a sylvan calm.

This page The exterior of Bing Concert Hall (top) and Philip Guston’s “The Coat II,” part of the Anderson Collection Opposite page Bing Concert Hall has over 800 seats in the vineyard style, surrounding the stage

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The building’s materials and forms are simple but never quite predictable, so that the mind is subtly refreshed as one moves through its bright spaces. Above all, it is the quality of light that engenders an ideal state of wide-awake calm. A semi-transparent clerestory, or high row of windows, bathes the interior in diffused light. This in turn is seamlessly augmented by a lighting system that automatically adjusts to outdoor conditions. The result: an ideal environment to encounter an extraordinary collection – 121 modern and contemporary paintings and sculptures ranging from Jackson Pollock’s 1947 “Lucifer” to Wayne Thiebaud’s 1962 “Candy Counter.” Mastery of light also defines Ennead’s Bing Concert Hall, a looming ellipsis that rears up on the other side of Palm Drive. Besides sheathing state-of-the-art, Nagatadesigned acoustics, the concrete ellipsis also draws refined attention to the sculptural qualities of California sunshine. Inside, the hall has over 800 seats, arranged in the vineyard style. Its maternal curves, together with the warmth and sweetness of its acoustics, seem to envelope spectators, both visually and musically. A generous, glass-sheathed lobby connects this interior space to its Arcadian surroundings, while indoor plantings at the A 246

edge help further dissolve boundaries between interior and exterior. These two masterworks will soon be joined by Diller, Scofidio + Renfro’s McMurtry Building, scheduled to open in the fall of 2015. As the future home of Stanford’s art and art history department, it consists of two strands, one devoted to the study of art, the other to its creation. Each strand twists up and around a three-story central courtyard. Stitching these spaces together is a shared, light-filled library that takes up the second floor. Swirling around this serene core you will find everything from digital darkrooms to hanging gardens, customized study carrels to state-of-the-art film projection. The final product is sure to be astonishing. At Stanford, there is a perpetual rivalry between “techies” (those who study engineering and the sciences) and “fuzzies” (those who study social sciences and the humanities). The techies have always dominated, and probably always will. They are, after all, the ones who can afford to give most generously to Stanford’s vast endowment. But these new buildings, and the commitment they represent, certainly help add a little more balance to a delicate equation.

The Anderson Collection building, designed by Ennead Architects’ Richard Olcott

A high art _ exhibitions

On view

Exposure 2014/Under Construction “Exposure 2014/Under Construction,” an exhibition celebrating emerging artists in or from Lebanon, is now in its sixth year. The event gives up-and-comers a space to reflect on how their experiences have informed their art and gives them a platform to exhibit their work. On view until February 12 at Beirut Art Center, Jisr El Wati, tel. 961.01.397.018, beirutartcenter.org Richard Serra Richard Serra is a man of steel. One of the most celebrated artists of our time, four of Serra’s monumental steel structures are now on display. Their size alone –over 50 feet tall – make it patently obvious why he is commonly referred to as the greatest living sculptor of our time. On view until February 28 at Gagosian Gallery, 6-24 Britannia St., London, tel. 44.207.841.9960, gagosian.com

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By Mehrnoush Shafiei

Claude Rutault Claude Rutault is no conventional painter by any stretch of the imagination. Rather than put brush to canvas, he issues a set of rules he calls “de-finition/methods,” according to which someone else “actualizes” a given work. On view until January 4 at Galerie Perrotin until January 3, 909 Madison Avenue and 73rd Street, New York, tel. 1.212.812.2902, perrotin.com Pablo Picasso At the age of 73, Picasso’s love for his wife Jacqueline (she was 27) inspired him to crank out hundreds of portraits of his muse. Many of these, including some that have never been seen before, are now on display. On view until January 10 at Pace Gallery, 32 E 57th, New York, tel. 1.212.421.3292, pacegallery.com

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Black Scalpel Cityscapes Broody and nihilistic, Damien Hirst’s “Black Scalpel Cityscapes” invites reflection on the dark sides of modernity – surveillance, urbanization and modern warfare, among others. On view until January 31 at White Cube São Paulo, Rua Agostinho Rodrigues Filho 550, Vila Mariana, tel. 55.11.4329.4474, whitecube.com Urethane Paintings The second solo show of American artist Alex Hubbard, “Urethane Paintings” features 15 works created by casting traditional paintings, resulting in a dizzying array of colors and textures. On view until January 24 at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, 21 Maag Areal, Zahnradstr, Zurich, tel. 41.43.444.7050, presenhuber.com

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A high art _ moment

The Forever Now By Laura van Straaten

When New York’s Museum of Modern Art last mounted a survey of contemporary painting, many of the artists in that show – Baselitz, Basquiat, Clemente, Polke, Schnabel, Scully – still needed their givenname modifiers. The year was 1984. But paintings by 17 international artists working today will be the focus of “The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World,” opening December 14 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. “This type of show is a rare one for MoMA,” concedes its curator, Laura Hoptman. So, “the question we asked was, ‘What is something notable within this vast landscape?’” What they found was a slew of artists employing tools, methods or motifs from other periods in a way that was about “re-combining them, re-inventing them [and] re-enacting them” to create works that defy classification in any particular era, particularly the one in which they were made. Many are of the everythingfrom-everywhere-anywhere-and-anytime Internet age and raise questions about appropriation, originality and subjectivity. “There is no ‘now’ and there is no such thing as ‘new,”’ Hoptman explains, “not that there is nothing innovative.” A 252

MoMA’s newest show takes on time

This page Nicole Eisenman’s “Guy Capitalist,” 2011 Opposite page “Untitled,” 2013 by Laura Owens

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Top “Divot,” 2012 by Matt Connors Bottom Charline von Heyl’s “Carlotta,” 2013

The exhibition includes nearly 90 large- and small-scale paintings made in the last few years by a roster of artists that includes Richard Aldrich, Kerstin Brätsch, Charline von Heyl, Mark Grotjahn and Amy Sillman, among a dozen others. “It’s meant to start a conversation, not to define who is making the masterpieces,” Hoptman says. “I tried to choose a representative group and also artists who... embrace the term ‘atemporality.’”

Sure to attract attention will be works by Nicole Eisenman, whose 20-year, critically acclaimed retrospective is on view through December 28 at Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art, and by Oscar Murillo, whose profile in New York magazine last summer made the 28-year-old the poster child/whipping boy for the contemporary art market. Time is a hot topic for curators. In 2013, the North Carolina Museum of Arts and the nearby Penland School of Crafts originated the exhibit “0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art,” which examined time as form, content and material in art, and how art is used to represent, evoke, manipulate or transform time. And in 2011, inspired by American composer John Cage’s 1952 silent piece “4’33”,” the Dallas Museum of Art mounted “Silence and Time” to explore contemporary artists addressing temporality in their work. “It’s a kind of remarkable event for MoMA to enter into contemporary art discourse in this way,” Hoptman said. “It should give us a handle on how art is a product of time, not a reflection of our time. When we look at it, we learn more about who we are and what we are doing.” Runs until December 14 at The Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St., New York, tel. 212.708.9400, moma.org A 254

Yet Hoptman stresses that the works in this show are not about atemporality. “They exemplify it,” she cautioned, but don’t necessarily “look it.” As an example, she pointed to paintings by Mary Weatherford, who may have a similar mindset to Clyfford Still or Mark Rothko but whose paintings are far from derivative. Hoptman specifically sought artists who work with historical sources in a way that refutes the idea of cultural progress. “No one’s going anywhere,” she said. It’s not about mapping the next big art movement for a timeline in a future edition of H.W. Janson’s classic History of Art.

ÂŠ JeongMee Yoon, Albemarle Gallery, National Palace Museum of Korea, Do Ho Suh / Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

A high art _ renaissance

Seoul is where the art is

By Rich Thornton

The rise of Korean art in the 21st century

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This page Lee Jaehyo’s juniper wood chair Opposite page “Blueprint,” 2014 by Do-ho Suh

“Oopa Gangnam style!” barks the chubby, tuxedoed Korean man as he dances his way to the most music video views in the world – ever. Psy’s “Gangnam Style” may have been the most famous piece of art to emerge from South Korea in living memory, but it wasn’t as unexpected as you might think. For the past two decades South Korea has been enjoying a renaissance of art on an international scale. The Gwangju Biennale – South Korea’s largest international art fair – is now more visited than its Venice counterpart, and November 2014 marks the one-year anniversary of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, a new art space that aims to be what MoMA is to New York and the Tate Modern is to London. In fact, such grand aspirations are within the

country’s scope. South Korea has modernized at breakneck speed over the past half-century, and its art market is now in full flight. According to art expert and Keumsan Gallery owner Hwang Dal-seung, “The trend for becoming more global has led to an increased public interest in contemporary art,” a theory proven by the 620,000 people who visited the Gwangju Biennale in 2012. Do-ho Suh is one of South Korea’s most famous contemporary artists. His multimedia architecture reflects on how we see the places we inhabit, whether they be clothes, bedrooms or mansions. His work “Home within Home within Home within Home within Home” was chosen as the inaugural art piece for the Seoul Box, the MMCA’s most prestigious atrium. Suh’s work epitomizes much of what South Korean art has become

to be known for: exploring “the inner self and how one sees the world,” according to Hwang. JeongMee Yoon continues this theme of how one sees the world, and how the world influences that perception. “The Pink and Blue Project” is a five-year art exploration in which she questions how gender is manipulated via the color indoctrination that boys must love blue and girls must love pink. The theme took a darker turn at the 2014 Gwangju Biennale when Minouk Lim placed two rusty trailers in the courtyard, filled them with plastic refuse bins, then packed each bin with one category of human bone: skull, hip or femur. The piece was a political critique of the under-reported Korean War massacres in which the government killed over 100,000 suspected communists and other opponents. 257 A

ÂŠ JeongMee Yoon, Albemarle Gallery, National Palace Museum of Korea, Do Ho Suh / Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

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This page “Sun, Moon and Five Peaks,” a 19th-early 20th-century screen (top) and JeongMee Yoon’s “Taehyung-Luke and His Blue Things,” 2011 (bottom) Opposite page “Myselves,” 2014 by Do-ho Suh

South Korean artists are indeed ripe with innovation, but their curators and gallerists are also pushing boundaries by trailblazing new ways to engage the public. In 2011, Savina Lee founded the Korean Artist Project, an online platform that showcases virtual exhibitions, video interviews and digital archives that promote Korean artists and provide visitors with an “in-depth sense of the Korean contemporary art scene.” The Asian Hotel Art Fair was launched in 2008 to take contemporary art out of the white cube and into the luxury rooms of five-star hotels. The fair is held twice a year in Seoul and Hong Kong and attempts to engage potential art collectors with radical art in familiar settings. Korean art has also been turning heads away from home soil. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently hosted an exhibition on the arts and culture of the Joseon Dynasty (13921910), a show that offers clues into the origins of the contemporary South Korean aesthetic. HADA gallery in London also champions South Korean art, and in mid-2014 produced a knockout solo show by metal, wood and fire sculptor Lee Jaehyo. Only time will tell whether Korean art can continue its 21st-century ascent into global cultural stardom, but if the country can get the whole world hooked on a song they don’t understand, getting them interested in border-crossing visual art is well within its reach. 259 A

A high art _ icon

Inventing the wheel By Grace Banks

A major retrospective casts Horst as the inventor of modern photography

“Horst: Photographer of Style” is a study on how fashion photography as we know it was shaped by the artist. The German native began shooting when magazine upheaval was cresting, switching from illustrated fashion spreads to photos. Horst responded to this movement by constructing the first production team. Sensing that a strong editorial image needed more than a camera and photographer, he began assembling teams that included stylists, makeup artists, lighting technicians and even studio assistants. Modeling wasn’t a A 260

Couture shutterbug, photojournalist, war artist, paparazzo – it’s rare for a commercial photographer to straddle so many disciplines, yet the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann retrospective proves it possible. Dropping his middle and last names and signing off all editorial simply as “Horst,” the photographer reached Richard Avedon and Irving Penn levels of professional fame, but his story stands apart from the latter’s celebrity. Horst transcended fashion editorial, was involved in one of contemporary art’s most important movements and created the magazine shoot along the way.

Opposite page Horst shot the May 1941 cover of Vogue magazine This page below Dinner suit and headdress by Schiaparelli, photographed by Horst in 1947 Right Horst’s portrait of Muriel Maxwell went on to grace the July 1939 cover of Vogue

profession at the time, so the subjects in his pictures are often friends, aristocrats or stage actresses. Thanks to Horst, by the mid-’30s Surrealism had morphed from one of the century’s most niche art movements into a cultural trend in which the fashion world was taking part. Like the Surrealists, he obsessed over the fragmented representation of form and even collaborated with Salvador Dali on his costumes for Léonide Massine’s 1939 ballet, “Bacchanale.” Horst’s conceptual approach to photography resonated deeply with the movement, and his trompe l’oeil still lifes and photography of Elsa Schiaparelli’s Surrealist-inspired designs were trademark oddball moves. Horst’s is a career of genre-

defining firsts. Sensing a lack of public appetite for rich celebrities in grand houses after World War I, he turned his lens to Hollywood sirens such as Marlene Dietrich, who had risen from nothing. Traveling from Beirut to Persepolis, his candid on-the-road photographs paved the way for journal-style travel photography. When color blazed onto the scene, Horst made his first Vogue cover in saturated hues. Few of his color prints still exist, and this show exhibits some of the only original versions in the world. By the end of his life, Horst had created 94 Vogue covers, taking the magazine from classic portraits to cuttingedge editorial images and leaving behind a legacy. Runs until January 4, 2015 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd., London, tel. 44.20.7942.2000, vam.ac.uk

Above Salvador Dali’s costumes for Léonide Massine’s ballet, Bacchanale, in 1939

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A high art _ language

Story weaving

By Jasper Toms

The Turbine Hall installation, “I Don’t Know: The Weave of Textile Language,” is Tuttle’s biggest sculpture to date. The five-part composition is suspended from the ceiling and has four horizontal wooden platforms reminiscent of old-fashioned airplane wings, with a 12-meter vertical shape hanging between the two central platforms. The vertical section is like a half-S, or perhaps a submerged 2, with five discs intersecting with it. This S is covered in pieces of red fabric, with the discs becoming swathed and one supporting a pile of the red pieces, like scraps with corners overflowing. The whole thing appears to be about components and the way the construction of fabric is like a modular system, although this feels offset by the erratic and unpolished pieces of fabric. In yolk yellow and poppy red, they together form a grating, childish combination. The yellow pieces look rather desperate, clinging to their wooden hosts, and the huge structure constructs a tension between harmony and disjunction.

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Storytelling, femininity, emotionalism, handicrafts: these are some of the associations that textile art gets saddled with time and again. It’s not unfounded, as contemporary artists from Tracey Emin to Louise Bourgeois have employed fabric to explore such things as they reclaimed the medium to express themselves against the masculinity of modernism. But Richard

The commission, which is on show until April, is one segment of a three-part project that included a solo show this fall at London’s influential Whitechapel Gallery, and a chunky art book that explores the global microcultures surrounding textiles. The works at the Whitechapel were made between the ’60s and today and were mainly strange, disjunctive bricolages

Tuttle, the American postmodernist whose immense sculpture is the latest Turbine Hall commission at Tate Modern, has returned to textile over and over for half a century, without resorting to metaphor and craft in a predictable way. He uses the medium to think about the medium itself, and to consider it as a system of communication.

This page “I Don’t Know: The Weave of Textile Language,” is now on at Tate Modern (left), Tuttle’s “Section VII, Extension O” (below) and “In 23”(bottom left) Opposite page “Fiction Fish I, 7” by the artist

that looked both hectic and spare. Tuttle was part of a New York art scene at the dawn of postmodernism that called for the death of painting by exploring alternative media as a more relevant method of communication. Through this exhibition, his emphasis on using juxtaposition, arrangement, shape and shadow to convey a sense of how we communicate, was sensitively teased out. Tuttle often uses the written word alongside his sculptures to add another layer of interaction. Enthusiasm for textile art as a serious medium has never been higher, with two recent surveys at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and the ICA Boston. In 2014, new auction records were set for the medium as a work by Rosemarie Trockel sold for $4.98 million and another by Alighiero Boetti went for $2.8 million, according to Sotheby’s, which itself held a selling show of textile art in London in September. For the sake of counterpoint, it may be interesting to consider how the Turbine Hall installation might be interpreted if Tuttle were a woman, with its echoes of the body, its red textiles reminiscent of fragmented flesh, and its curvaceous discs set against linear flats. As he isn’t, “I Don’t Know: The Weave of Textile Language” will be left alone as an intellectual exploration of his favorite medium. Although perhaps something stereotypically masculine could be read into those airplane wings. On view until April 6, 2015 at Tate Modern, Bankside, London, tel. 44.20.7887.8888, tate.org.uk 263 A

A high art _ auction

A fantasy wardrobe By Jasper Toms

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Bond Street is no stranger to the fantasy wardrobe concept, as boutiques such as Chanel, Dior and Ralph Lauren provide customers with just that on a daily basis. This January, however, a different sort of dream closet will be for sale here through Sotheby’s auction house. At its London headquarters, set between Richard Green gallery and Damien Hirst’s Other Criteria shop, Tord Boontje’s artisanal, romantic designs will be exhibited alongside drawings and sculptures by the designer’s wife, Emma Woffenden, in a

rare opportunity for collectors to take home the creative couple’s unusual pieces. The show, appropriately titled “Originals,” will be Boontje’s first retrospective and pivots around his instantly recognizable “Fig Leaf Wardrobe,” which was a popular hit when it featured at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2009. Eleven ateliers across England and France worked to create it, and its 616 handmade leaves have led Sotheby’s to believe that it may be the most ambitious

Sotheby’s holds the first selling retrospective of Tord Boontje’s showpieces

This page Boontje’s iconic “Fig Leaf Wardrobe” Opposite page The artist and his “Resin Drip Chair”

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enamelling project to date. The witty piece, a highly finished construction that features cascades of shiny green leaves encasing an elegant central trunk inside a bespoke silk interior, is a play on the 19th-century tradition of fantasy furniture. This amusing genre came into fashion to meet the whims of the European aristocracy who demanded a return to opulence during the British Regency and in France towards the end of Napoleon’s rule. The style can be seen in full effect at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, not far from London, on the U.K.’s south coast. Here the British prince regent let his imagination run wild and commissioned an array of camp showpieces with which to decorate his escapist seaside palace, the notorious site of numerous decadent parties. The fantasy style was immensely popular between 1800 and 1915, and even had sub-genres such as Grotto Furniture, full of seashells and oceanic iconography, and Black Forest Furniture, often featuring animals carved in wood. Its resurgence at the start of the 21st century can be compared with its golden era, as both periods followed a wave of minimalist design. In Georgian England, aesthetics were elegant and simple, built around symmetry and restraint.

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Similarly, the 20th century was dominated by the rise of modernism, and at its close the ’90s saw a sparse serenity in interior decoration. As a result, designers like Ron Arad and Ettore Sottsass introduced detail into their furniture designs to restore meaning and character into living spaces. Boontje has been hailed as one of the master craftsmen of 21st-century design thanks to the intricacy of his objects and the expertise required to figure such detail. It’s not just furniture that he makes but also lighting, jewelry and textiles; he’s also a professor and the Head of Design Products at the Royal College of Art. Through his commercial projects the designer has collaborated with Alexander McQueen, Shiseido, Yamaha, Hewlett Packard, Bisazza, Philips, Kvadrat, and Perrier-Jouët, to name a few. His partner Woffenden works predominantly in glass and has pieces held by MoMA New York and the V&A, among other collections. Set off by Boontje’s florid style, her minimal, geometric sculptures refresh the way that both their work is framed. Runs January 6-18 at Sotheby’s London, 34-35 New Bond St., London, tel. 44.20.7293.5000, sothebys.com

The “Princess Chair,” one of a series of seven chairs designed as characters you might meet in a children’s story

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A lifestyle _ experiment

Culinary Masquerade By Leonore Dicker

Clockwise from left A Bjorg ring and bracelet and a Delfina Delettrez bracelet and rings are the perfect accessories for the fresh ingredients at La Petite Maison

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ÂŠBachar Srour

The flavor of the week

Food is a fashion these days and like all fashion, it’s treading into newfound territories. First came fusion food, a crossover between cuisines that resulted in dishes with dual nationalities, like JapaneseItalian wasabi pizzas topped with tuna sashimi. Then came the real hybrids, such as Dominique Ansel’s cronut – a croissant-meets-donut pastry that was voted one of the 25 Best Inventions of 2013 by Time magazine – or Keizo Shimamoto’s ramen burger, a meat sandwich where the bun is replaced with compressed ramen noodles. With foodies expecting to be stunned, chefs keep outdoing themselves as new concepts are born. The latest craze goes so far as to masquerade foods to trick the senses. At “flavor tripping” parties, guests are offered miracle berries, a plant that transforms taste buds. Sour flavors turn deliciously sweet for about an hour, so you can bite into a lemon without contorting your face into a knot. The Dans le Noir restaurant chain is serving food in complete darkness to boost gustatory senses by numbing the vision; however, guests should be prepared to sample meats more likely found in a zoo than on a restaurant menu. Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal, the king of culinary sorcery, has even built an edible house, à la Hansel and Gretel, with bricks made of red-colored chocolate, marshmallow and puffed rice, and windows constructed from boiled sweets. So what does it feel like to see one thing and taste another? To find out, I headed to Beirut’s La Petite Maison.

Clockwise from left Diane von Furstenberg top, Bjorg ring and bracelet, Parosh top, Delfina Delettrez rings and Olympia Le-Tan clutch

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Clockwise from left While sampling the menu at La Petite Maison, a Diane von Furstenberg top, Balenciaga bracelet, Moschino sweater, Vickisarge necklace, Ileana necklace, Delfina Delettrez ring, Bjorg ring

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ÂŠBachar Srour

A lifestyle _ experiment

Olympia Le-Tan clutch

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A lifestyle _ experiment

The restaurant is known for its fresh Mediterranean dishes envisioned by Nigerian-born and Japanesemarried head chef Raphael Duntoye. While taking a seat at a white-clothed table impeccably dressed with a bottle of olive oil, tomatoes and lemons, I couldn’t help but wonder how this very traditional, very chic restaurant would shock my senses. I began with the classics: Caesar salad and burrata. The salad, which came in its usual creamy dressing, was presented with large romaine lettuce leaves piled as dominos. The tang of crunchy artichokes and caramelized oyster mushrooms marinated in sherry vinegar and honey was a far cry from the standard flavor of chicken breast, giving the dish a light – and vegetarian – twist. The burrata’s datterini tomatoes were infused with sugar and so surprisingly sweet that for the very first time I understood what they mean about tomatoes being a fruit.

La Petite Maison offered a tasty, approachable insight into the world of food acrobatics. It’s only a matter of time before the Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory becomes a reality. For reservations at La Petite Maison, call 01.368.300 A 276

©Bachar Srour

Clockwise from left A Victoria Beckham top, Delfina Delettrez ring and ring, and Moschino sweater are as eye-catching as La Petite Maison’s colorful dishes

Then came the octopus carpaccio. I had anticipated a mélange of fresh seafood with a rubber texture but instead indulged in the pleasant aromas of Earl Grey tea, honey and rice vinegar – a dish most definitely inspired by the chef ’s Asian ties. The dessert was the biggest treat of the tricks: a passion fruit posset covered in what appeared to be ice but was actually iced milk froth and Earl Grey granita.

A lifestyle _ escape

Nordic dream By Robert Landon

ÂŠ Knut Bry, Juvet Landscape Hotel

The Juvet Landscape Hotel answers the call of the wild

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Every once in a while, you encounter architecture that makes you so unaccountably happy that you never want to return to the un-designed messiness of “real” life. That’s what happened when I visited the Juvet Landscape Hotel, located in fjord country about 400 kilometers northwest of Oslo. Consisting of nine modernist cabins scattered along the banks of the rushing Valldola River, the Juvet achieves both architectonic beauty and uncanny intimacy with its surroundings. In this part of Norway, snow clings to the framing peaks until high summer, while frothy waterfalls streak steep, glacier-carved slopes. And when the northern sun burns through morning mists, the narrow valley is spanned with interlocking rainbows – an almost outlandish

finishing touch on such a sublime landscape. Before visiting the Juvet, I had seen photos of its spare, modernist cabins. But nothing could prepare me for the feeling of being inside one of my own. Usually plagued by restlessness, I found myself instantly transformed into so contemplative a being that I hardly recognized myself. I just wanted to sit and stare for hours at the scene before me. It delivered more thrills than any 3D Imax film. Designed by Jensen & Skodvin, the Juvet’s wood-lined cabins are painted with blackpigmented oil to minimize reflections in the floor-to-ceiling windows – subtly but powerfully enhancing the sense of connection with the exterior scene. The minimalist

shapes and monochromatic palette are not architectural gestures for their own sake, but a highly effective strategy to keep eyes and minds focused on the splendor of the natural rather than the cleverness of the manmade. To clinch this union between interior and exterior, each side of the bed is equipped with small sliding panels that, when open, fill the room with the stereo sounds of the rushing Valldola. I left mine open all night and can’t remember sleeping so well for years. And when I woke wrapped in a duvet, I felt at once cozily ensconced and deeply connected to the wild North dawning outside my window. Alstad, 6210 Valldal, Norway, tel. 47.9503.2010, juvet.com

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ÂŠ Knut Bry, Juvet Landscape Hotel

A lifestyle _ escape

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A lifestyle _ club

The notorious ’60s hot spot has been given a colorful makeover in recent months

The restoration of Castel’s legendary nights

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A lifestyle _ club

An illustrated “wall of fame” (top) and Castel’s private art collection (bottom) adorn the club’s walls

For 40 years, Jean Castel ruled over Parisian nights, but following his death in 1999, the club fell into the wrong hands – until recently. A few months back A 284

In the ’60s, Saint-Germain’s most notorious club was overflowing with cool kids and cinema stars. Back then Castel was legendary. And infamously known, too, for endless nights where Françoise Sagan and Catherine Deneuve, Lauren Bacall and Brigitte Bardot, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Serge Gainsbourg had fun following their own rules. Later came Mick Jagger, Madonna and Prince, who all became regulars. Owner Jean Castel was known for his scandalous parties, including a boxer short-themed evening and “kolkhozy (communist farm) night”: The Rolling Stones stood in disbelief when they arrived at the club, post-concert, to find pigs and sheep mingling with guests. Later came the Bal des Dégoutantes (Disgusting Ball), a not-soinnocent parody of the Bal des Débutantes.

A lifestyle _ club

it was taken over by a team of French creatives who spearheaded its makeover. Art directors André Saraiva (known as André in his comic drawings and tags) and Thomas Lenthal, the man behind the visual identity of Numéro magazine, have given the club’s glossy crimson door, red walls and 18th-century terracotta floors a new finish. They also commissioned illustrator Jean-Philippe Delhomme to create a “hall of fame” for the bar. Behind a serious collection of vintage spirits and champagne bottles, Delhomme’s elegant waiters in bow ties, pushy paparazzi, lean dandies and sunglass-obscured celebrities compose a glamorous backdrop. In the foyer beside the bar, Castel’s private art collection continues to captivate, while Serge Gainsbourg’s piano still plays downstairs. On the first floor, the restaurant’s original artworks – some by Keith Haring, Marcel Duchamp and

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Molinier – forge an informal gallery above tables dressed in checkered bistro linens. The beat from the dance floor oozes into the library, where original copies of erotic books seduce from their shelves. The wait staff proudly wear uniforms designed by Olympia Le-Tan, and a Byredo custom fragrance discretely fills the air. Right down to the club’s exclusive membership, every detail has been meticulously executed to revive Jean Castel’s talent for orchestrating largerthan-life nights. Behind the scenes, a list of 16 “secret” partners from different backgrounds – rumor has it heirs and entrepreneurs with links to Galeries Lafayette, Caviar Kaspia, Bonpoint and Weston are involved – all have the same goal: to live up to the Castel name. 15 rue Princesse, Paris, tel. 33.01.4051.5280, castelparis.com

The club has always found the perfect blend of high and low

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A lifestyle _ safari

A game plan By Clara Le Fort

Around the African continent, new lodges and revamped safari camps serve a magical mix of breathtaking landscapes, exotic wildlife and elegant lodging pulled from the pages of a leather-bound book. It’s the perfect formula for an unforgettable adventure. Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp, Namibia Opened in August, Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp is, as its name suggests, set in the iconic Skeleton Coast National Park. Accessible only by light aircraft, the camp itself consists of half a dozen twin-bedded tents and a family unit, with stylish ensuite bedrooms and shaded outdoor decks. Flanked to the east and west by rugged hills, the property looks out over stunning, starkly beautiful land that welcomes one of the greatest concentrations of desertadapted elephant and lion. Visit wilderness-safaris.com Chinzombo, Zambia If Karen Blixen had lived in the 21st century, Chinzombo could very well be the set of Out of Africa. Anchored on the banks of the Luangwa River, the newly opened Norman Carr Safaris property echoes the prestigious legacy of the explorer, botanist and national park founder. Renovated by prominent South African architects Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens, Chinzombo now offers an upscale vision of the safari lodge on the very A 288

Living out a safari fantasy

In Zambia, the sun sets over Chinzombo

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site where Sir Normann Carr lived during the rainy season. Passionate about African culture, Rech and Carstens drew inspiration from traditional Zambian dwellings with locally made canvas walls, reclaimed wood flooring and earthenware fittings. Visit normancarrsafaris.com Kichwa Tembo Tented Camp, Kenya Located in Kenya’s legendary Masai Mara National Reserve, world famous for the diversity and richness of its wildlife, Kichwa Tembo Tented Camp was recently revamped by &Beyond to put the emphasis on the spectacular views: large windows invite nature in, making it feel at one with the living space. While the color palette embraces earthy tones, rustic tribal pieces A 290

A lifestyle _ safari

This page The Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge in Botswana took inspiration from local elements Opposite page Kichwa Tembo Tented Camp has found harmony with Kenya’s nature (top); Catch a glimpse of an elephant or lion at Namibia’s Hoanib Skeleton Coast Camp (bottom)

inspired by the Maasai, Giriama and Pokot people were sourced to decorate the walls. Another distinctive feature, the shamba, or vegetable garden, welcomes guests who want to select fresh vegetables for their meals. Visit andbeyond.com Sandibe Okavango Safari Lodge, Botswana The nests of the weaver birds of the famous Okavango Delta in Botswana inspired the new building structure at Sandibe: the curvilinear shapes of the woven nests and the overlapping scales of the pangolin – a type of anteater – influenced both form and construction, resulting in a building skeleton clad in a wooden skin of shingles and timber. Inside, distinctive elements, including a giant basket highlighting the handicrafts of the region, a large dining table made from the root of an ironwood tree and woven carpets mimicking water lilies, compose a modern décor. Visit andbeyond.com 291 A

Rattray’s on MalaMala (left) has some jaw-dropping visitors, including the robust Cape buffalo (top)

Rattray’s on MalaMala, South Africa A unique lodge and home to the big five – the African lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and white/black rhinoceros – Rattray’s features a handful of beautifully furnished villas with sweeping views of the Sand River. Set in the private MalaMala concession, tied to the Kruger National Park, the camp boasts a colonial safari style reminiscent of a luxurious time gone by, with each lavish suite featuring a private plunge pool. Enjoy dinner under the stars in the protected boma, an open-air tribal area elegantly fenced-off to keep the animals away without obstructing the view. Visit malamala.com A 292

A lifestyle _ safari

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A lifestyle _ speakeasy

Behind closed doors

By Natalie Shooter

Perhaps it was the spotlight on ’20s hedonism and illegal watering holes in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby that inspired the “secret” cocktail bars taking root across London. Over the past year, the modern speakeasy cocktail bar has popped up everywhere, from luxe, windowless spaces in basements to converted public toilets. As a band of iPhone-wielding hipsters search through the night for their locations, a certain smugness results from being in on the secret. Only a suited doorman gives a hint to the location of The Experimental Cocktail Club (ECC), hidden behind an unmarked doorway in Chinatown and avoiding the weekend

tourists as a result. ECC came to life in Paris in 2007, opening over the Channel in London in 2010. “It was close in distance but a completely different cocktail culture – much more mature – than Paris,” says Olivier Bon, one of ECC’s owners. “In December 2010, we opened ECC Chinatown and at the time, there was a yearning for more cocktail bars in London.” ECC’s cocktail menu takes inspiration from around the world, featuring everything from the experimental to the well established. “The bartenders and I gain a lot of inspiration from different nations and cultures,” says general manager Abdulai Kpekawa. Just around the corner from Liverpool Street

BYOC is just one of the capital’s many takes on the old-fashioned speakeasy

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London’s secret cocktail bars

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A lifestyle _ speakeasy

Left Navigate London’s unassuming streets to be rewarded with a cocktail at Discount Suit Company (left) or Bermondsey Arts Club (right) Below 5CC’s three cocktail bars serve up killer drinks

One of 5CC’s three cocktail bars is close by on Bethnal Green Road, and also worth stopping by. It features a sexy drawing room-type basement with luscious green leather chairs, exposed brick walls, dim lighting and a killer cocktail menu. Covent Garden’s BYOC (Bring Your Own Cocktail) has a unique concept: bring your own spirit and in-house mixologists will create a cocktail from homemade syrups, shrubs, tinctures and bitters. For Nathaniel Shenton, BYOC’s bar development manager, the art of cocktail making has really advanced over the past 20 years. “Cocktails have fallen in and out of popularity since their creation, but the current revival has really pushed them to the next level. We now see bartenders treating alcohol the way chefs treat food and utilizing many cooking and molecular techniques in the bar,” he says. The miniscule and newly opened Bermondsey Arts Club deserves a mention for its impressive location alone. Situated below street level in a converted public loo, the interior is subtle and refined, with black and white tiled floors and Art Nouveau references. The cocktails are just as sophisticated, with classics such as the Old Negroni standing alongside the more unusual Mary Rose, made with atomized rosemary gin and blue cheese olives. Perhaps the most unpretentious of the bunch, the bartenders at Bermondsey are approachable and the soundtrack laid-back, laced with reggae. Katey Brooks, marketing manager of Cecil’s, A 296

a cocktail bar hidden in a basement on a London Bridge back alley, says that after an initial surge in New York, Melbourne took a pioneering role in the secret bar scene that’s now established around the world. “Cocktails went from being an elite hotel offering to something more mainstream, and the bars selling them got mobbed,” she says. For her, the speakeasy concept offered “something more hidden, where you could enjoy a quality drink with a certain type of company you felt akin [to].” Cecil’s not only does cocktails at reasonable prices, but it hosts live music across a spectrum of genres, all in a hidden – though slap-bang central London – location, with a far East-themed interior.

Though it’s easy to shrug off the speakeasy as a short-lived hipster fad, the art of mixology has been accelerated and fine-tuned behind this clandestine façade. The resulting depth has created sustainability. “The trend of the speakeasy in London seems to be quieting down and the great cocktail bars – hidden doors or not – are really shining through,” Pierre-Charles Cros, one of ECC’s owners, says. Once the secret passwords and hidden entrances are cracked, you have an upgrade of London’s drinking culture, in central London, light years away from the crowds. Visit chinatownecc.com, discountsuitcompany.co.uk, 5cc-london.com, byoc.co.uk, bermondseyartsclub.co.uk

Station is Discount Suit Company, set in the former storage room of its previous tenant and namesake. This low-lit wood and brick basement bar at the bottom of a concealed staircase serves up revived classics made with vintage spirits that are sipped to a soundtrack of northern soul.

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A lifestyle _ city

La belle province By Mehrnoush Shafiei

Welcome to Canada. The home of the strong and free, known worldwide for its maple syrup, love of hockey and unparalleled level of politeness (a study found that 90 percent of Canadians will promptly say “sorry!” when bumped into by a stranger). Beyond such appeal, insiders know that what truly sets the country apart are its world-class ski resorts. Mont Tremblant, tucked deep in the powdery slopes of French-speaking Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains, is arguably the most enchanting ski resort town in the country. A romantic getaway with four mountains – Versant Sud, Versant Soleil, Versant Nord and Edge – its 95 trails and 14 chairlifts make it an idyllic winter retreat. With newly scheduled seasonal flights operating daily from Toronto to Mont Tremblant, now is the perfect time to make the trek into Quebec’s A 298

tundra. The official ski and snowboard season begins on the third week of November and continues well into March. In addition to world-class ski slopes, you can enjoy the charms of Québécois culture by strolling the cobblestoned streets of the quaint and colorful pedestrian village of Tremblant. Featuring a dizzying array of local cafes and artisan boutiques, the village recalls Quebec’s slogan, “Je me souviens” (I remember), an aspiration to celebrate the province’s rich and culturally varied heritage. When the sun goes down, the village radiates with twinkling lights that illuminate the vibrant nightlife and unique brand of Québécois joie de vivre. Locals will tell you that the best way to get a taste of the belle province is to immerse yourself in the food — Québécois delicacies

include smoked meat, tourtière (meat pie) and poutine, a heavenly combination of French fries, gravy and cheese. For dessert, be sure to try the delicious beaver tails, a uniquely Canadian spin on traditional homemade crepes, guaranteed to satisfy your sweet tooth. While Québécois cuisine is admittedly not gentle on the waistline, you can appease your guilty conscious by indulging in the town’s famous wellness centers and rustic Scandinavian spas. Nothing will make you feel younger and more connected to nature than an exhilarating dip into a frigid plunge pool. Nicknamed “the polar bear plunge,” advocates gush about its purported ability to rev up metabolism, strengthen immunity and improve overall health. With benefits like these you don’t want to be left out in the cold.

All signs point north

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Restaurant La Quintessence & Winebar With floor-to-ceiling fireplaces and breathtaking views of Lake Tremblant, this cozy high-end restaurant and wine bar is sure to satiate the taste buds of the most discerning foodies with its tempting Quebecstyle fusion cuisine. Bison strip steak served with poutine is a signature dish. Visit hotelquintessence.com

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A last _ word

Twinkle twinkle

Jimmy Choo captures a slice of starry winter nights with an updated version of the Anouk heel. Adorned with sparkling onyx and gold, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a classic silhouette with a glittering finish.

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ÂŠBachar Srour

Catch a falling star

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