The Gloss December 2016 by Gloss Publications

POP IN TO A POP-UP / TALES OUT OF TRINITY / FEELING LUMINOUS / STANDOUT SCENTS / EAT, DRINK & BE MERRY

MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2016

COUNTDOWN TO

CHRISTMAS

with THE IR

Gorgeous gifts and getting ready

PARTY PANTS TIME TO RETIRE YOUR LITTLE BLACK DRESS

ISH TIMES

www.chanel.com

CHANEL BROWN THOMAS, GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN 2

DECEMBER ��

NEXT ISSUE

THURSDAY JANUARY 5

48 INSIDE THIS ISSUE 6 THE LOWDOWN What's popping up in December?

8 HUNTING & GATHERING Get ready for the gold rush

12 MOODBOARD Susan Zelouf is feeling luminous

14 MY GLOSSY WEEKEND Margaret de Heinrich Omorovicza on downtime in Budapest

16 LET'S DO LUNCH Anne Harris talks resilience with restaurateur Sallyanne Clarke

18 COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS We know what you need and where to find it

44 WARDROBE

Festive dressing and investing in cocktail sweaters

PU B L IS H E R

JA N E M C D O N N E L L

48 FASHION

E DITO R

Retire your LBD – trousers are about to become your eveningwear staple

SA RA H M C D O N N E L L STY L E E DITO R

AISLINN COFFEY

58 BEAUTY

B E AU TY E DITO R

The newest launches, standout scents and beauty highlights of 2016

SA RA H H A L L I W E L L ART E DITO R

L AU RA K E N N Y

62 INTO THE WEST Inside the charming Quay House in Clifden, Co Galway

68 TRAVEL Tim Magee's gift ideas for the man who has everything

70 BOUND FOR GLORY The year's most coveted coffee table books

26 TRAY CHIC

73 WINE

Our pick of the season's most enduring gifts, presented in style

Think outside the bottle when buying for a wine lover, advises Mary Dowey

34 COME IN, WE'RE OPEN

74 FOOD

Could opening up your relationship make it stronger?

Trish Deseine has all the ingredients for a very merry Christmas

40 REBELS WITHOUT A DESK

76 THIS GLOSSY LIFE

Claire Kilroy recounts a futile protest during her days at Trinity

Introducing four women whose expertise sets them apart

2 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

ASS ISTANT E DITO R – FE ATU RE S

SA RA H B R E E N

FASHION

ASS ISTANT E DITO R

ABOVE LEFT: L: Wrap-neck sweater, cardigan and trousers, all COS. Black patent shoes with crystal heels, Miu Miu. Earrings, Erickson Beamon. R: Red trousers and jacket, Paule Ka. Patent leather heels, Manolo Blahnik. Gold collar, Alexis Bittar.

H A N NA H P O P H A M

ABOVE RIGHT: L: Black coat with transparent panels and black trousers, both Jason Wu. Black satin heels with crystal buckles, Roger Vivier. Choker necklace, Eddie Borgo. R: Black top with sequined neck, & Other Stories. Black leather jacket, Zara Woman Studio. Black jean style trousers, Carven. Black suede heels, Jimmy Choo.

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T RAC Y O R M I STO N CO N TRIB UTIN G EDITO RS

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Michael Dwornik, Neil Gavin, Renato Ghiazza, Olivia Graham, Neil Hurley, Lisa Loftus, Barry McCall, Joanne Murphy, Liam Murphy, Amelia Stein, Suki Stuart THE GLOSS welcomes letters from readers, emailed to letters@thegloss.ie. THE GLOSS is published by Gloss Publications Ltd, The Courtyard, 40 Main Street, Blackrock, Co Dublin, 01 275 5130. Subscriptions Hotline: 01 275 5130. 12 issues delivered directly to your address: Ireland: t49.50. UK and EU: t80. Rest of world: t115. Printed by Boylan Print. Colour origination by Typeform. Copyright 2016 Gloss Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. This magazine can be recycled either in your Green Bin kerbside collection or at a local recycling point.

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R E B M E DEC

Kitsch FESTIVE DÉCOR … CRAFTING as Heaney did … FAKING it in meetings … Avoiding gilding in the WHITE HOUSE … and PARTYING like a pro

ow will you decorate your own home or office this year? Trend forecasters predict three main influences. “Northern Climes” evokes a serene mood with artisanal touches inspired by remote landscapes; think birch branches, Scandi colour schemes and the scent of cypress. Pop art, vintage elements and the fun factor are part of A mischevious Santa parties the “Playful” trend. If neither suits your aesthetic in Selfridges or Instagram account try “Opulent Luxe” – a ’Christmas maximalist approach that combines plush textiles, window metallics and heavy embellishment. Our decorating this year. MO is usually more organic: some “Old Stuff” with Meanwhile, although we all know sending cards is in a some “New Stuff” and accents of “School Stuff”. At our decline – the delight at receiving them still has impact. recent reader event at The Dean, readers of THE GLOSS SEAMUS HEANEY used to design his own each year. stocked up on Jo Malone London candles in elegantly At the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy they are wintery Orange Bitters. running a Christmas card printmaking session along with    wreath-making workshops. An Post’s Christmas stamps This year, Claridge’s modishly minimal tree is designed by this year are reminiscent of early Christian manuscripts SIR JONY IVE of Apple and MARC NEWSON. Further and somehow spark a desire to pop them on an envelope. afield, in Paris, the Raffles Le Royal Monceau’s Lightning    Tree, full of lights and flashes, was designed by artist and Concentrating at work when you are preoccupied with architect DIDIER FAUSTINO. Irish hotels are every bit as the festive season can be a drudge. Pick up SARAH beautifully decorated (and often more tastefully) as hotels COOPER’s new book 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in abroad. The scent of The Merrion’s fresh fir tree in the Meetings: How to Get By without Even Trying (Square entrance hall mingles deliciously with the smell of the peat Peg). Cooper worked at Yahoo before becoming a burning in the drawing room fireplaces (try Cloon Keen’s manager at Google, both of which provided fodder for her Noble Fir candle to replicate) while at the InterContinental book. Some of her tricks that guarantee success include; in Ballsbridge, the annual forest of fresh Nordmann fir trees drawing a Venn diagram (regardless of the situation) from grower Christy Kavanagh in the Wicklow mountains and calling the centre the sweet spot, pacing the room, provides a heavenly backdrop for their Festive Afternoon encouraging everyone to take a “step back”, stepping out Tea (until December 31; call 01 665 4000 to book). At for an important call and writing the word VISION on The Merchant in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, the Great a white board … She also decodes meeting speak in this Room, all red velvet and gilt, needs almost no decorating honest, helpful and humorous read. at all – but huge wreaths, fresh garlands and a wood fire    in the cocktail bar beside it, make it extra-welcoming this It seems our appetite for Vogue and its various editors is time of year. At The Westbury, Wilde Restaurant has been insatiable. While ALEXANDRA SHULMAN is having reimagined, with a smart bar, dark green buttoned velvet a moment and her Inside Vogue: A Diary of my 100th Year banquettes and one particularly intimate nook in which to (Fig Tree) will no doubt be a stocking filler for fashionistas, have a good glossip. If you still haven’t decided where to the new documentary Franca: Chaos and Creation spend Christmas or Twixmas, booking one of Sheen Falls’ takes us behind the scenes of Italian editor in chief super-quaint thatched cottages on the shores of Lough FRANCA SOZZANI. It’s been directed by her son Roughty in Kenmare doesn’t mean loading up the car with Francesco Carrozzini though that didn’t make the job provisions and stocking the fridge. Your decorated cottage any easier. “My mother treats me like she treats her comes fully prepared, complete with Christmas tree, and photographers. When you don’t hear, you know it’s you can avail of Sheen Falls’ dining room, library and spa. great …” We predict the next Voguette in line for a biopic    will be the colourful ANNA DELLA RUSSO, though The Rubicon Project – an advertising firm – estimates the editor of newly launched Vogue Arabia, DEENA that the average spend per person on Christmas presents ABDULAZIZ, has arguably the most luxurious role in this year will be d862 – with millennials planning to fashion. She commutes to work (from Kuwait to Dubai) increase their spending on last year. “Xmaxed” is their word in a private jet. for maxing out the credit card on shopping, apparently.

Hygge is something we Irish have been doing for years (layering up, wearing extra socks and drinking steaming cups of tea by the fireside), so there’s no need to buy one of the countless books on the subject. Far better for the tablescape is Versace by DONATELLA VERSACE (Rizzoli) on the house’s 40-year history, or Gardenista: The Definitive Guide to Stylish Outdoor Spaces by MICHELLE SLATALLA. For more literary gift ideas, turn to page 70.    Talking of which, have you picked up Architectural Digest’s December issue featuring the Obama revamp of The White House? Their style is comfortable, contemporary and colourful, as designed by acclaimed Irish-American LA-based decorator MICHAEL E SMITH (he has been The White House decorator since 2008). Asked what he would envisage for the new presidentelect, Smith reveals that TRUMP has said he would do little to change The White House. Says Smith, “I would seek to keep it classy and steer things away from the temptation for gilding.” Smith sees a throne chair by CARLO BUGATTI and furniture by WARREN PLATNER and VLADIMIR KAGAN for trump. “And I would fill Ettore Sottsass’ Shiva vase with jonquils, to remind him of HILLARY CLINTON.”    While we are all a #pantsuitnation at present because of the weather (the hashtag was used during the elections and is a reference to Hillary’s sartorial style), when we get our legs out for the inevitable LBD moment during the holidays, some fishnets would not go amiss. They’re more interesting than the usual opaque black tights and can add a tough, fashion-forward edge to your favourite ensembles.    Party perennial DAME JOAN COLLINS writes about how to survive the season in her diary column for The Spectator (eat a boiled egg or hummus before you go out, turn up an hour after kick-off to avoid over-indulging and only RSVP to invitations sparingly) while GARECH BROWNE and his Wicklow estate Luggala has been profiled in The Times as the consummate party palace. Luggala is also profiled in Great Houses, Modern Aristocrats by JAMES REGINATO (Rizzoli). Remember, amidst the seasonal stress, Alexandra Shulman has said “The amount spent on a party has nothing to do with how enjoyable it is. Some of the best parties I’ve been to were spontaneous bring-your-own affairs.” Thank goodness for that. DIANA VREELAND meanwhile advocated, “The best time to leave a party is when it’s just beginning.” That is just about the silliest thing we have ever heard. Pass the mince pies. ^

T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E | December 2016 | 3

hermes.com

G A L O P D ’ H E R M È S , PA R F U M S E L L I E R .

THE LOWDOWN

TO BE REVEALED: Makers & Brothers is popping up on Dawson Street. Nordic Elements’ beautifully edited selection of Scandinavian festive decorations.

1. April and the Bear’s charming festive decorations. 2. Mark Grehan’s pop-up Christmas shop at The Garden. 3. Chupi takes her jewellery designs to Avoca. 4. & 5. Red wool scarf, Helen Steele, c250; Bunny Girl, Guadalupe Creations, c72; both at Design Ireland. 6. Je Sweets brings music-inspired chocolate creations to Avoca.

WHAT’S

POPPING UP IN DECEMBER? Following their understated and beautiful pop-up above Castle & Drury in Castle Market last December, April and The Bear will re-open their doors today at Thirty Four Coffee & Records in Portobello. Pick up a Full Circle Roasters coffee, browse Irish jeweller Tory Long’s latest geometric designs and sample organic syrups handmade in Connemara by American Village Apothecary. It’s only open for a ten-day spell, so select some elegant festive décor and quirky gifts before they disappear again for another year. December 1 - 10, 34 Lennox Street, Dublin 8; www.aprilandthebear.com

DESIGN IRELAND The Design & Crafts Council of Ireland is curating Design Ireland, an impressive series of week-long popups at 5 Westbury Mall that encompass the most diverse Irish design talent. It features woven scarves from Brendan Joseph, black and white cityscape prints from me&him&you and the latest collections from fashion collaboration TISSUE (Gráinne Finn and Hannah Mullen), Edel Traynor and Danielle Romeril, along with ceramics and porcelain from Magda Bethani and Chloë Dowds. Until December 24, 5 Westbury Mall, Dublin 2 and online at www.designireland.ie

Textiles, Bean & Goose Chocolate and homewares by Superfolk. Open all week until December 24, 41 Dawson Street, Dublin 2; www.makersandbrothers.com

6 4 5

NORDIC ELEMENTS For those on the lookout for all things Scandicool for their homes, Nordic Elements will open its studios from Thursday to Saturday, with wonderful Nordic-designed textiles, rugs, art, lighting and furniture, along with delicate Christmas decorations. Until December 17, St Mary’s, 54 Booterstown Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin; www.nordicelements.com

MINNIE PETERS Style-oriented shoppers who have fond memories of Minnie Peters’ store in Dun Laoghaire and its fab Christmassy vibe will make a point of heading to the Minnie Peters showroom where a festive collection of Christmas baubles and decorations, lamps, mirrors, console tables, chandeliers, dinnerware and antiques will pop up through December, Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm. 12 Maple Avenue, Stillorgan Business Park, Co Dublin; www.minniepeters.com

MAKERS & BROTHERS

CHUPI AND JE SWEETS AT AVOCA

Makers & Brothers will take up temporary residence in the National Bible Society’s old bookshop on Dawson Street. Recreating the winter refuge they established in their pop-up in Blackrock last Christmas, they will be offering luxurious treats from Aesop, Mourne

The nature-inspired jewellery of Chupi will grace three Avoca stores (Kilmacanogue, Suffolk Street and Rathcoole) in an exclusive collaboration. The pop-up will showcase designer Chupi Sweetman’s handmade pieces in luxe gold, silver and rose gold, often modelled

6 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

on feathers and twigs, featuring initials and birthstones for unique, personalised gifts. Until December 24, 11-13 Suffolk Street, and branches; www.chupi.com Joining Chupi, new artisan chocolatier Síona Ryan (Je Sweets) will take up residence in Avoca Kilmacanogue. After a career in music, Ryan perfected her craft in Paris and London at Rococo Chocolates. Her exclusive range for Avoca features f lavours like Espresso Ganache and Earl Grey, inspired by her favourite songs, handmade in her kitchen. Until December 24, Avoca Kilmacanogue, Bray, Co Wicklow; www.avoca.com

THE GARDEN The Garden’s fragrant pop-up at Powerscourt Townhouse is the perfect place to gather gifts for the green-thumbed on your list or to perk up tired decorations. Buy one of owner Mark Grehan’s smart Christmas wreaths, from c49.95, or learn to make your own at one of his workshops: Sunday, December 11 at Ard Bia House, Henry Street, Galway or Wednesday, December 14 at Powerscourt Townhouse, 59 South William Street, Dublin 2; www.thegardenpowerscourt.ie ^

COMPILED BY HANNAH POPHAM

APRIL AND THE BEAR

MICHAEL KORS

HUNTING

AN ANN UAL EVENT

GOLD RUSH

JASON LLOYD-EVANS

As it’s now December, let us declare party season officially open. That means your iCalendar is probably humming with invites and events, some you look forward to every year, others not so much. But regardless, don we now our gay apparel, which this season means a healthy smattering of metallics, most notably, gold. On the runway at Michael Kors, models wore gold on gold on gold in brocade coats and matching bags with fine knits in delicious camel and toffee. The pièce de la résistance? A crisp white tux sleeve peeking through, which reminds us that this look will work just as well on a post-work Tuesday as it will on a Saturday evening. But let’s just hope there aren’t too many post-work Tuesday engagements on our horizon. We’re already looking forward to the peace on earth that January brings.

8 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

GATHERING

Channel the Trend

JASON LLOYD-EVANS

9 10

GOLD FEVER

PODIUM FINISH

1. Gold-tone Hybrid steel-mesh cabinet, Meike Harde, d4,560, at ROCHE BOBOIS, Beacon South Quarter, Sandyford, Dublin 18. 2. Metallic Hollywood cocktail tools, d35 for set of three, at MARKS & SPENCER. 3. The Sparkler gold shimmer atomiser, d23.50, at THE BODY SHOP. 4. Gold sequinned jacket, IRO, d649, at Seagreen, Ranelagh, Dublin 6 and Monkstown, Co Dublin. 5. Gold organza blouse, DODO BAR OR, d295; www. net-a-porter.com. 6. Gel Couture nail polish in Getting Groovy, ESSIE, d9.99, at pharmacies nationwide. 7. Brass planters, from d17.49 each; WWW.LAREDOUTE.COM. 8. 14ct gold cubic zirconia earrings, d299, at PANDORA, 35 Grafton Street, Dublin 2. 9. Razor Sharp Longwear Liquid Eyeliner, URBAN DECAY, d20, at Debenhams. 10. Brass Jelva side table, d159, at WWW.AMARA.COM. 11. Brass cocktail shaker, LIVING BY CHRISTIANE LEMIEUX, d35, at House of Fraser. 12. Gold leather shoes, d59.95, at ZARA. For stockists, www.thegloss.ie

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MOODBOARD 1

I’m switching on my polished bronze Binary pendant light by Irish artist Niamh Barry. www. niamhbarry.com

“THERE IS A CRACK IN EVERYTHING. THAT’S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN.”

LEONARD COHEN

4 I’m chasing fireflies in warm and sultry twilight dreams, so no lightning bugs in Ireland!

“LIFE IS A LUMINOUS PAUSE BETWEEN TWO MYSTERIES.” CARL JUNG

T H IS M O N T H T H E MOOD IS:

LUMINOUS SUSAN ZELOUF is beginning to see the light Setting up a modest direct debit to a credit union account felt like the modern day equivalent of my Polish grandma’s jam jar full of pennies, a rainy day fund that, over 20 years, had the potential to add up to a dream holiday, an attic conversion, a dreaded yet necessary root canal or my ultimate secret agenda: a facelift fund, should gravity take down my cheekbones like a 3am storm collapsing the tent of novice campers at their first Electric Picnic. What I hadn’t banked on was the collapse of the economy and the G-force of negative equity, so instead of booking a surgical procedure designed to make me look refreshed, I found myself cashing in my shares to help pay off our mortgage, a nip and tuck performed by a vulture fund unwilling to renegotiate terms. According to my politic plastic surgeon, in conversation during an appointment to remove an actinic keratosis from the back of my hand, I am almost perfect. His advice: a little work, often. With that in mind, I’ve booked a consultation with the Eccles Clinic to shed light on the available non-surgical options to achieve a luminous glow, based on what’s left in my piggy bank. Light refers to electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength, but unless you’re a physicist, the science of light is hard to get our heads around. Light, like a relationship going nowhere, is missed most intensely when it’s gone. When it comes to our skin, pale or dark, the aim of cosmetics is to perfect an imperfect surface; the most advanced skin science incorporates light-def lecting microparticles into creams, radiance boosters for mature skin. According to make-up artists, dewy versus matte is about finish, shine and radiance; to me, it’s about looking like I’ve had enough sleep, haven’t touched sugar in ten years, eschewed nightly John Rocha-sized goblets of Cabernet, and appear f lushed from the early throes of white-hot love rather than from dwindling oestrogen

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levels. The skincare product that successfully fakes an inner glow will have earned my annual beauty budget, but so far, I haven’t scored the light sabre of foundations. In a 1998 column by Irish Times journalist and naturalist Michael Viney on the bioluminescence of lichens, parasitic fungi, firef lies, glowworms, night light jellyfish and sparkling protozoa, he cites the presence of a chemical nicknamed over a century ago as Luciferin, a concentration of which, when fed by oxygen, combusts into a phosphorescence both beautiful and practical. Describing the greenish glow of honey fungus (Armillaria mellea, deadly to shrubs and trees), Viney recounts how in the first World War, “soldiers in the trenches fixed chunks of the wood to their helmets and bayonets to avoid nasty accidents at night.” Reports of luminous f lying objects over the gorge at Blackwater River, Co Waterford in 1911 reminded me of witnessing something similar at a waterfall in upstate New York, and while I prefer to cling to the belief that I had seen extraterrestrials, Viney refers to an explanation by Richard Mabey, pointing to owls in f light, which “had probably picked up phosphorescence from roosting in the crumbling ‘touchwood’ of a tree smitten with honey fungus.” Spoiled by up to 17 hours of daylight during the Irish summer, those of us who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) during light-starved winter months daydream (if eight hours of light qualifies as a day) of sunnier climes, and resort to light boxes, artificial daylight lamps and even transcranial bright light treatment via the ear, sticking tiny LED buds into ear canals to reach lightsensitive parts of the brain. According to a Taylor Swift lyric (or was it astrophysicist Carl Sagan?), we are made of stardust. This month, why not wear your cloud inside out and show off your silver lining? Glow for it! ^ @SusanZelouf

THIS MONTH’S MOODBOARD I’M EYEING UP Lebanese designer Iyad Naja’s concrete and copper-plated steel calligraphic stools (1). www.iyadnaja.com

I’M DRIFTING on ocean currents and staying dry with David Attenborough’s BBC series The Blue Planet, The Deep episode (2).

I’M PRACTISING Sun Salutations to Madonna’s 1998 Grammy awardwinning album Ray of Light (3).

I’M RECITING “The Cloths of Heaven” in the glow of Irish calligraphic rock star Denis Brown’s framed Yeats’ Wistful Eye (4). Buy or commission at www.quillskill.com

I’M MEDITATING on the late Patrick Scott’s limited edition boxed set of gilded prints (5). www. stoneyroadpress.com

SOCIAL LIFE

MARGARET DE HEINRICH DE OMOROVICZA Margaret runs the Omorovicza skincare brand and 19th-century thermal water spa with her husband Stephen. She previously worked as chief of staff at the US embassy in Budapest.

“Explosion” by contemporary painter Judit Reigl. Below: Brody House boutique hotel.

The pool at Omorovicza spa in Budapest

y days of relaxing and winding down have passed, with having a fourth baby, Felix, twelve months ago: all four children are under ten so we have our hands full. But we love music and art and we’ve got the kids into that too: it’s not hard to find a student who is passionate and will take time to interest the children. I travel a lot, and we spend a lot of time in London, but it’s Budapest I know like the back of my hand. Hungary is so many things – it’s a very glamorous place, but not in an ostentatious way. You have to have a soul to appreciate Budapest. I love the fusion of east and west and the fact there’s so much culture here. It’s a very young city, with a lot of energy bubbling over: people are curious and want to explore, and there’s amazing music, food and fashion. Whatever location we’re in, we tend to do similar things at the weekend. On Friday nights Stephen and I will have a date – the place we love is CAFÉ KÖR on Sas utca. When I worked in the embassy it was just down the street so I’d go every day for lunch. It’s very much a local place, casual and very Hungarian – you can have anything from the whole hog, like beef tenderloin goulash or, in the summer, cold fruit soup which they’re famous for, or goose crackling and a light salad. For dessert, they’re known for their palacsinta, crêpes with homemade apricot marmalade – it’s excellent. There are wonderful Hungarian wines, too.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TINA HILLIER

Cafe Kör

My GLOSSY

WEEKEND Skincare founder MARGARET DE HEINRICH DE OMOROVICZA describes weekends in Budapest

SATURDAY On Saturday morning we all have breakfast around the table – we have an apartment on the Danube so it’s a beautiful place to sit and watch the boats f loating

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by. Then we’ll head into town – the girls have an art class in the morning at the MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS [the museum itself is closed for renovation until March 2018, but masterpieces from its collection including Rodin sculptures, are on show in the Hungarian National Gallery]. There are wonderful teachers – art students. Art is such a focus for us, and we are enthusiastic collectors of modern art. I get a real kick from it – we starting collecting twelve years ago and the scene has really exploded, so I find it really exciting. At Use the moment we especially admire Judit Reigl, a Unused 93-year-old Hungarian painter based in France. For lunch we’ll go somewhere like MEMZA, which is in our own office building on Liszt Ferenc, for a bowl of traditional bean soup with ham and cabbage, or beetroot cream soup. Afterwards we might go to the LISZT MUSIC HALL, and then to the park on Margaret Island, in between Buda and Pest in the middle of the Danube, which has a little zoo. We might take a picnic and sit by the thermal lakes and pools. In the evening we’ll take the younger children to the LISZT ACADEMY

for music classes, or have friends for dinner. I love to cook so we’ll do a big dinner, usually duck – such a Hungarian thing – and we have lots of wonderful farms that deliver so I’ll get whatever’s fresh, such as rabbit, duck, pork and organic vegetables.

SUNDAY

Sunday we’ll wander around Falk Mikfa Street which has wonderful galleries – it’s where all the New York galleries come to for deco furniture and antiques. I love that area of town – the 8th district near Hungary’s National Museum. We might stop off at BRODY HOUSE, a fantastic hotel and bar which combines artists in residence and a cool club where you can have coffee or lunch. I’d choose a Pálinka, a traditional fruit brandy, like Schnapps, or Unicum, a herbal digestif. The older I get, the younger I dress – at the moment I have some great green army pants with sequins on them, and I love Sonia Rykiel designs – I have a bird T-shirt for weekends. I’m also loving Trademark, which I buy in SoHo when I’m in New York, and Ulla Johnson (available at www.madewell.com) – amazing. And I’m wearing some great Stella denim overalls all the time – I prefer clothes that are comfortable but also fun. There are so many local places to shop for clothes, like USE UNUSED (on Sas Utca; www.useunused.com), designed in Budapest, and ÁERON (www.aeron.hu), both are right in the centre of 5th and 6th districts. ^ Omorovicza Skincare is at SpaceNK, Grafton Street and Harvey Nichols, Dundrum

A R N O T T S - H A RV E Y N I C H O L S - D U B L I N

INTERVIEW

SALLYANNE CLARKE:

LET’S DO LUNCH by Anne Harris

“E

very lunch is a matinée, every dinner a full performance.” The playhouse in question is less a theatre in the round than in the corner: the historic corner of Dublin that is L’Ecrivain restaurant, the razzle dazzle mistress of ceremonies, Sallyanne Clarke, who with her husband Derry created the gourmet production. “It’s all about giving people the experience they’ve been expecting,” she says. A taste of La Dolce Vita is the dream: Clarke’s classic glamour helps make it a reality. But somewhere in here too is the chapel of ease which transformed the anguish of Christmas four years ago into a bearable ache for the Clarkes. At what point did their public buoyancy transcend their private pain? And is the secret in the restaurant? If the showbiz analogy seems far-fetched, consider this: Hollywood bad boy Mel Gibson, after a ten-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film festival last month for his film Hacksaw, his official coming in from a ten-year

ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN O’NEILL

Over baked hake at L’Ecrivain, Sallyanne Clarke steels herself for an emotional festive season

freeze, said: “It’s like being a chef. If people eat it and go ‘Yum yum,’ it’s gratifying.” Who knew good food could be so cathartic? There’s no doubt that food and entertainment are part of the eternal verities of this season. But Sallyanne Clarke doesn’t deal in sentimentalities. Untypical truths turned out to be her thing. When I complimented her on her fresh complexion, she cheerily announced, “Oh, I get the vampire facial,” thereby becoming the first woman I’ve interviewed – met, even – to admit to the tiniest procedure. When I asked how L’Ecrivain survived the recession, she eschewed self-pity: “We lost all our savings. But this place gave us the savings in the first place, so it was right to put it back.” And most telling of all, when I asked how she and Derry cope with Christmas, anniversary of their beloved son Andrew’s death by suicide, her answer was stunningly simple. “We run away.” The five stages of grief are well documented. Those who know grief know a sixth: the stage at which escaping the barrage of painful memory is essential for survival. Christmas is the crucible of memory. “I don’t talk about it very often. When your child doesn’t drink or party,

16 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

you don’t worry. We think it was his first time doing drugs. Sallyanne He was coming down, the Clarke and her husband Derry dangerous time.” own L’Ecrivain, Their brief respite is in no way the Michelina denial. Their commitment and starred Dublin restaurant. She is work for suicide charities, like also president Teenline, keeps them connected of Ireland’s to their loss. And to Andrew. Blue Book. “Even before Andrew died, Derry had done cycles for Console. When the scandal broke, he was devastated.” That too passed. She’s insightful and funny. Donald Trump, she says, got the earth-shattering Mexican wall idea from Doonbeg and the plan to build a wall to protect his golf course from erosion. “He announced Mexico very shortly after Doonbeg.” She’s pragmatic about walls herself: when the corporate world got anxious about conspicuous consumption during the bad days – “We weren’t more expensive but we were seen to be more expensive,” – they built a wall, a corporate dining area. Now “people like to be seen again.” She believes Bill Clinton didn’t support Hillary – not really. “I have just completed my first year as president of Ireland’s Blue Book, which was a challenge. Derry was joking, calling me El Presidente, but then he said ‘I’m so proud of you.’ That matters more than anything else.” Bill’s charisma, however, is not in doubt. “I met him when he was here. While he was shaking my hand, he was rubbing my back.” I mention a conversation I overheard between his secret service men, perplexed at his habit of doubling back in a crowd if he missed an outstretched hand: it made their job difficult and they couldn’t figure how he saw everything. “It’s because he’s tall,” she says. As she is. “It’s an advantage to be tall. You can look over all the customers – see who’s not eating, who’s uncomfortable, which pregnant woman needs the cushioned chair. ” She points to a mezzanine, rather like the gantry on a film set. “We encourage the staff to go up there and look over the restaurant. Because it’s the little things people appreciate. Like noticing if it’s someone’s birthday even if they haven’t told us. It takes three minutes for a pastry chef to write happy birthday in chocolate on a dessert. And they remember it. “When people recognise me outside and say ‘Aren’t you the girl from the restaurant?’ I love it.” Our own menu choices were dictated by my bout of sniff les. If that disappointed her epicurean plans, she didn’t show it. Warming velouté of potato yielded to baked hake, followed by a spicy poached pear. She tempts me to another dessert of Tonka bean tart and I need no convincing. Feed a cold, they say – sure isn’t it medicinal? The medical excuse appeals to her. The art of front of house, she believes is “like a bedside manner – you can’t teach it.” Clarke could have been born to it. “I’m a shopkeeper’s daughter. My mum had a boutique, my dad had a sweetshop. I’d worked in hospitality, I’d had my own agency. And marketing is my baby.” Before she took it on, “Derry would be working all hours. I’d come in and there might be maître d’ problems.” Working together was the solution. And working together became their salvation when the terrible tragedy struck. “This place kept us sane. A lot of people depend on us. You don’t get over it, you work it out.” This Christmas will be a cruise where others will entertain the Clarkes. After that, the show will go on. And putting on a good show is another term for courage. ^

GIVING

Pink Tembo fabriccovered chair, ¤1,620; www.nordic elements.com.

Helsinki wool-covered wireless speaker, Vifa, ¤398, at Inreda, RHA, 15 Ely Place, Dublin 2.

Supersonic hairdryer, Dyson, ¤399, at Boots.

Mini elephant earrings, Nach, ¤70, at Costume, Castlemarket, Dublin 2.

Red ponyskin belt, The Kooples, ¤75, at Kildare Village.

PARTY PIECES

Rose gold and blush Madeline earrings, Mignonne Gavigan, ¤279, at Loulerie, Chatham Street, Dublin 2.

Cinematic light box, ¤22.50, at Designist, 68 South Great George’s Street Upper, Dublin

GORGEOUS GIZMOS

Red striped socks, Carolyn Donnelly The Edit, ¤7, at Dunnes Stores.

Neon heart, from ¤63; www.bagandbones.co.uk. Kakkoii Chrome QBL wireless splash-proof speaker, ¤69.95 at Avoca.

Pink felt wool hat, ¤170, at Anthony Peto, 14 South Anne Street, Dublin 2.

COUNTDOWN

– to –

CHRISTMAS Limited edition Rolf Sachs X Leica camera; www.leica-camera.com.

Red crepe blouse with velvet belt, Hillier Bartley, ¤2,032; www. matchesfashion. com.

Who wouldn’t want to count down to the holidays with these beautiful glossy gifts?

ESSENTIALS FOR HIM

Tweed tassled scarf, ¤290; www.thetweed project.com

HOSTESS NECESSITIES

Laundry basket, ¤165; www.raefeather.com. Brass shoe horn, ¤30, at Industry & Co, 41 Drury Street, Dublin 2.

Linen napkins, ¤54 for six; www. neptune.com.

Santa Rosa candle, Astier de Villatte, from ¤65, at Electra, 12 Donnybrook Road, Dublin 4.

Brass Svante watering can, Klong, ¤85, at Makers & Brothers, 41 Dawson Street, Dublin 2.

Enamel and brass bowls, from ¤55 each; www.nordicelements.com.

Cobalt blue 2017 desk diary, Smythson, ¤235, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin. Navy Freelancer watch with rubber strap, Raymond Weil, ¤2,250, at John Brereton, Grafton Street, Dublin 2.

Black suede high-top sneakers, ¤195, at Indigo & Cloth, 9 Essex Street, Dublin 2.

Black fauxleather watch box, Wolfwatch, ¤90; www. mrporter.com.

Horn cake server, Hornvarefabrikken, ¤25, at Makers & Brothers, 41 Dawson Street, Dublin 2.

18 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

Black and white silktweed tie, Bonagrew, ¤120; www. design ireland.ie

B O O D LES. CO M

PRISM

GIVING

Limited edition Variations Sachertorte coffee capsules, ¤3.80 for ten, at Nespresso Boutique, 22 Duke Street, Dublin 2.

Gold globe trinket bowl, Jonathan Adler, ¤395, at Louise Kennedy, 56 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.

Tan Paris Premier leather bag, ¤1,490;www. longchamp.com.

Gold Fionn earrings, Isle, ¤115; www.design ireland.ie.

Winter Papers, arts anthology, Volume Two, £30stg, at No Alibis, 83 Botanic Avenue Belfast.

HOME COMFORTS

Navy velvet appliquéd dress, Prada, ¤2,700; www.net-aporter.com.

SOUND INVESTMENTS

Multi-row Fantasy pearls, from a selection, at Chanel.

Black cashmere dressing gown, Rosie for Autograph, ¤279, at Marks & Spencer.

Christmas layered scented candle, £80stg; www.joloves.com.

Constellation Master Chronometer Small Seconds, Omega, ¤10,600, at Weir & Sons.

Pink satin shoes with crystal embellishment, Prada, ¤890; www.net-a-porter.com.

18ct gold Roulette Flip ring with diamonds, ¤1,300, at Boodles, 71 Grafton Street, Dublin 2.

But First, Cocktails candy bento box, Sugarfina, ¤60, at Harvey Nichols, Dundrum, Dublin.

Loison Panettone Rosa, ¤20, at Dunnes Stores.

Venise cocktail forks, L’Objet, ¤175, at Louise Kennedy, 56 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.

Fish corkscrew, Walter Bosse, ¤70, at Makers & Brothers, 41 Dawson Street, Dublin 2.

Woodland Trophy animal head wall mounts, ¤15 each, at April and The Bear.

IRISH DESIGN

NIFTY PLAYTHINGS

Marble-print leather tote, Carolyn Donnelly The Edit, ¤119, at Dunnes Stores.

Grey cashmere sweater, ¤375, at Monaghans Cashmere, Royal Hibernian Mall, Dublin 2.

My Travel Journey by Lonely Planet Kids, ¤10. Teal print silk camisole and shorts set, ¤120; www. theethical silkco.com. Cream Vespa Classic helmet, ¤50, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin.

Yellow Submarine, Lego, ¤54.99, at Argos.

1950s Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, ¤65, at Ulysses Rare Books, 10 Duke Street, Dublin 2.

22 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

Black doublelayer satin skirt, Peter O’Brien, ¤180, at Arnotts.

Daria earrings, Tory Long, ¤165, at Arnotts.

Gold Elephant pendant, The Collection by Amy Huberman for Newbridge Silverware, ¤30; www.newbridge silverware.com. Gold Clara clutch with Swarovski crystals, ¤1,395, at Louise Kennedy, 56 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH RAYMOND WEIL is proud to be supporting Swiss sailing team Realteam as its Official Timing Partner and to introduce a new freelancer able to support the crew in the most extreme sailing conditions. A nice little tip of the hat to Mr Raymond Weil who was a member of the Geneva Yacht Club. Join the discussion #RWRealteam

freelancer collection

GIVING

Tray CHIC

A glittering array of bright ideas for her, for him and for the home Styled by AISLINN COFFEY | Photographed by NEIL HURLEY 17

2 16 15

18 14 9 19

21 22

TRINKETS & TREATS The ultimate bedside table 1. Silver Courier leather mini bag, PROENZA SCHOULER, d1,250, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin. 2. Cream wire Eiffel Tower, d159, at EDEN HOME & GARDEN, Temple Road, Blackrock, Co Dublin. 3. Diane diamanté earrings, LANVIN, ¤695, at Brown Thomas. 4. Diorific Vernis in Golden, DIOR, d27, at Debenhams. 5. Steel Koppel clock, GEORG JENSEN, d103, at Weir & Sons, 96-99 Grafton Street, Dublin 2. 6. Brightening Blush, BOBBI BROWN, d46, limited edition, at counters nationwide. 7. Eyelash curler, CHARLOTTE TILBURY, d24.50, at BT2, Dundrum. 8. Le Vestiaire des Parfums Tuxedo, YSL, d250, at Brown Thomas. 9. White gold and blue Complications watch with alligator strap, PATEK PHILIPPE, d46,400, at Weir & Sons. 10. L'Absolu Rouge lipstick in Caprice, LANCÔME, d31, at counters nationwide. 11. Les Exceptions eau de parfum Chyprissime, THIERRY MUGLER, d170, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin. 12. Luxe Lip Colour in Uber Nude, BOBBI BROWN, d32.50, at counters nationwide. 13. Pretty Iconic, a new beauty bible by Sali Hughes, d29.99. 14. Mirrored jewellery box, ¤198, at INREDA, RHA, 15 Ely Place, Dublin 2. 15. Noble Fir perfumed candle, d40, at CLOON KEEN ATELIER, 21A High Street, Galway. 16. Glass snow globe baubles, PAPERCHASE, ¤19 for four, at Arnotts. 17. Gothic Garden snow globe, PAPERCHASE, ¤19, at Arnotts. 18. 18ct rose gold twist bangle, ROBERTO COIN, d19,910, at Weir & Sons, as before. 19. No5 The Body Oil, CHANEL, d80, at counters nationwide. 20. Les Parfums collection, LOUIS VUITTON, d250 at Brown Thomas. 21. Diorific Matte Lipstick in 950 Splendour, DIOR, d39.50, at Debenhams. 22. Silver-plated tray, ¤85, at DEE BROPHY DECORATIVE ANTIQUES, Newhall, Naas, Co Kildare. 23. Spellbinder Shadow, MAC, d22, at BT2, Henry Street, Dublin. 24. Travel Brush Set, BOBBI BROWN, d115, at counters nationwide.

26 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

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GIVING ANIMAL INSTINCT Go wild at teatime 1. Silver-plated punch bowl, d245, at DEE BROPHY DECORATIVE ANTIQUES. 2. Gold lantern lights, d16.95, at ARTICLE, Powerscourt Townhouse, Dublin 2. 3. Brass elephant candle holder, d490, at THE DRAWING ROOM, Westbury Mall, Dublin 2. 4. Bobby Bird glass bird, d30, at TJ GELLETLIE, Main Street, Wicklow; 0404 67557. 5. Bee ceramic trinket dish, d14.95, at ARNOTTS. Silver bell, d25, at EDEN HOME & GARDEN. 7. Black Falcon polyresin money box, d75, at THE OLD MILL STORES, Leap, Co Cork. 8. Silver-plated tongs, d25, at DEE BROPHY DECORATIVE ANTIQUES, as before. 9. Silverplated salver tray, d65, at DEE BROPHY DECORATIVE ANTIQUES, as before. 10. Green Stream coasters, d6.95 for four, at ARTICLE, as before. 11, 12 & 13. Carnets d'Equateur porcelain tea pot, d590; sugar bowl, d240; tea cup and saucer (just seen), d190; all at HERMÃ&#x2C6;S. Gold pompom bow (beside tea cup), PAPERCHASE, d2.50, at Arnotts. 14. Miniature glass baubles, PAPERCHASE, d8 for 25, at Arnotts.

2 11

4 1

6 9

5 8

28 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

GIVING

6 8

GROOMING & GADGETS Gifts for smooth movers 1. Metallic 22-inch skateboard, PENNY SKATE, d175, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin. 2. Gold bottle opener, d9.95, at ARTICLE, as before. 3. Shaving kit, DALVEY, d351, at Weir & Sons, as before. Glass cloche with silver-tone plate, d55, at EDEN HOME & GARDEN 4. Sardine Rosso scented candle, FORNASETTI, d135, at Seagreen, Monkstown Co Dublin and Ranelagh, Dublin 6. 5. Token Of Love matches in a bottle, ¤12, at ARTICLE. 6. Black Home 3D wooden brainteaser puzzle, d67, at INREDA. 7. Ombre Leather perfume atomiser, TOM FORD, d370, at Brown Thomas. 8. Red silk lapel pin, Mr Jenks, ¤9.99, SÓ COLLECTIVE, at Kildare Village. 9. Painted wooden Nutcracker, ¤89, at INREDA.

30 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

T H E J OY O F G I V I N G Hand-finished jewellery crafted from sterling silver and given with love. Explore the new Christmas collection at pandora.net

DUBLIN · CORK · GALWAY · LIMERICK · WEXFORD · TRALEE · ENNIS · WATERFORD · KILKENNY · ATHLONE · SLIGO

GIVING 4

6 2

HOT DESKING

The fantasy workstation 1. Silver bow, PAPERCHASE, d2.50, at Arnotts. 2. Brass contemporary candelabra, d365, at INREDA. 3. Red leather elephant purse, LOEWE, d295, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin. 4. Pop, Fizz, Clink confetti rockets, THE WHITE COMPANY, d26 for six, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin. 5. Elements Low glass, J HILL'S STANDARD, d575 for four, at The Marvel Room, Brown Thomas Dublin. 6. Vertical calendar, d16.95, at ARTICLE. 7. Green reading glasses, SEE CONCEPT, d32.95, at Avoca, 11-13 Suffolk Street, Dublin 2 and branches. 8. Brass circular tray, d69.95, at ARTICLE, as before. 9. Navy and white Effects enamel circular dish, d59, at ARTICLE. 10. Red wooden heart brooch, d20, at INREDA. 11. & 12. Silver plate lobster pick and scissors, d225 (set of six picks), at DEE BROPHY DECORATIVE ANTIQUES. 13. Elements Low glass, J HILL'S STANDARD, as before.

32 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

Photo Michel Gibert, used as a reference only. Special thanks: TASCHEN.

French Art de Vivre

Symbole. Corner composition in fabric, designed by Sacha Lakic. Cushions upholstered in Jean Paul Gaultier fabrics. Radian. High and low occasional tables, designed by CĂŠdric Ragot. Basket. Cocktail table, designed by Renaud Thiry. European manufacture.

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RELATIONSHIPS

CO ME WE IN ’RE ,

OP EN

A marriage is traditionally between two people but modern lifestyles mean couples are bending the rules. SARAH BREEN asks: could opening your relationship make it stronger? Twenty-one years ago, in the run up to the divorce referendum, the pearl-clutching opposition claimed that allowing the good, god-fearing people of Ireland to dissolve their marriages would damage the institution irreparably. The slogan “Hello divorce, goodbye Daddy” insinuated that, were the constitution amended, husbands across the country would immediately and gleefully pack their bags, leaving in their wake a sea of broken families, latchkey kids and weeping ex-wives. The reality is that after the referendum passed (by a miniscule majority of 50.3 per cent) not much really changed. Irish people continue to get married and stay married. Our divorce rate, at 0.6 per cent per 1,000 couples, remains the lowest in Europe. And while there are some weeping ex-wives, there are also really happy ones who throw parties and get dramatic new haircuts to celebrate. The upside is that for people living in failing or abusive marriages, there is light at the end of what can be a very long and dark tunnel. And as of last summer, same-sex couples can get in on the act too. Over time, the institution of marriage has evolved to reflect our societal changes and that, we can all agree, is A Very Good Thing. “My parents modelled marriage as a life sentence to be endured rather than a partnership to be enjoyed,” says Susan Pease Gadua, a San Francisco-based therapist and co-author of The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Sceptics, Realists and Rebels. “They

34 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

constantly told us kids that they were staying together for our benefit. They made us feel responsible for their unhappiness.” She was 19 when they eventually divorced. While Pease Gadua was researching her book, she discovered more and more couples are starting to redefine marriage to make it work on their own terms. “An interesting one I came across is the Living Apart Together (LAT) marriage where the partners live separate lives, in separate places, but they are still committed to each other.” Irish actress Olwen Fouéré is just one advocate of this unconventional set-up, which allows her to easily maintain parallel romantic relationships. “My husband David lives in an apartment in the same building as mine, and the other man 15 minutes away,” she told THE GLOSS in 2014. “I grew up in the 1960s when traditions were being broken down, but peculiarly life is more conservative now. But I’ve never felt I had to conform to what society dictates “family” should be. I’ve found a way of living that nurtures what I care about most.” Fellow thespian Tilda Swinton lives in Scotland with her partner and the father of her children, playwright John Byrne. They are occasionally joined in the home by Swinton’s younger lover, Sandro Kopp. “We are all a family,” she says of the arrangement. “What you must know is we’re all very happy.” Sounds wacky? Rest assured, open marriages are more common than you think, and they’re not just reserved for celebrities and

RELATIONSHIPS the sexually adventurous. Michael*, 39, who works in IT support in Dublin, is in one, having been a one-woman man for seven years. “It may have been the ‘seven year itch,’ but my wife and I both cheated around the same time,” he says. “We went through a turbulent period for about 18 months before we came to a crossroads: either split up or open up.” His first experience was at a swingers club, but now he uses www.openminded.com, a dating website that helps people in open marriages find clued-in potential partners. Meanwhile, his wife usually sticks to one regular extra-marital paramour. Michael claims many benefits to loosening the parameters of their marriage: “I’ve grown more confident as a person, socially, and more experienced, romantically. It enhances our marriage overall, and in a way, also brings new, deeper appreciation for my relationship with my wife.” The challenges, he says, include managing a rather more packed diary and dealing with feelings of jealousy, mostly on his wife’s side. “Personally, I’ve never been really jealous, as long as I know who she is with and she gives me the feeling that I’m still Number One.” Jenny Block wrote in detail about her marriage in Open: Love, Sex and Life in an Open Marriage. “I always assumed I was going to marry one man and live happily ever after,” she says on a telephone call from Dallas. “But about three years into my marriage, I had an affair with a woman. I ended up telling my husband about it and instead of saying ‘I can’t believe you cheated on me,’ he said, ‘I can’t believe you lied to me’. The cheating wasn’t a dealbreaker. I started doing some research and realised that there are different attitudes to monogamy. Our taste in food and music and hobbies is allowed to evolve but who we choose to love is supposed to stay static? I just don’t think that that’s reality.” So pop went the doors to her marriage, and in flooded some exciting changes. “There was one woman that my husband and I were both with and for about six months we all lived together. She was my best friend at the time and my husband and I adored each other. It worked amazingly well for us.” “If you’re capable of having two best friends, or loving both of your children equally, of course it’s possible to have a loving relationship with more than one person,” says Eimear, 24, an artist and writer living in Dublin, who has been in an open relationship for two and a half years. “And I think society finds it really easy to normalise the first two of those things but there’s still a stigma around this third idea. “I was about 16 when I started to become uncomfortable with the idea that someone would want me all to themselves,” Eimear explains. “But this idea is perpetuated in popular culture all the time. There was never a pop song that said ‘I want you to do whatever you want, only stay with me if you’re happy’, but rather this possessive attitude that says, ‘give me your mind, body and soul’. A short time later I came to the realisation that monogamy is an invention of society and that there are alternatives. I met my partner in college and from the very beginning it’s been understood that I was only interested in being in a non-monogamous relationship.” Eimear cites good communication as essential in making an open relationship work. “The modes by which we communicate are important,” Eimear explains. “For example, at first we talked a lot through emails as it gave us more space to reflect and respond maturely. Then we discussed things in person as it was more intimate.

Now it’s a variety of ways depending on our needs. It can be hard work sometimes, but it’s a way of examining control and possessiveness and entitlement and jealousy and other things which could invisibly exist in a monogamous relationship. They have to be confronted. I would never exchange it for a relationship where those things are not addressed.” The long-term relationship doesn’t take precedence over all others. “A thing that comes up early in nonmonogamous relationships is the idea of prioritising the original relationship above everybody else. The longevity of it does lend it a sense of importance but if I’m seeing other people, I definitely would not put them second. My aspiration is to have caring, fulfilling, respectful relationships with everybody I’m dating. “The number one benefit of being non-monogamous for me is that I am in a relationship where I don’t have to pretend that the entirety of my desire, past, present and future, is limited to one person. In previous relationships I found that pretence very stressful. The constructed romantic ideal we have about a monogamous partner can often involve a lot of projection or putting that person on a pedestal.” Even though Eimear is clearly a product of a very modern Ireland, and has many progressive friends, social acceptance remains a major challenge faced by people in open relationships. “People can be squeamish about it,” Eimear says. “Many of my friends are so open-minded

“I came to the REALISATION that monogomy was an invention of society and there ARE alternatives.” in so many ways, but at one stage I had to move out of my rented home when a housemate found out I was nonmonogamous. People have reacted with gossip and ridicule and shaming too. Monogamy is such a central principle of our culture. There’s a kind of fortress around the idea of ‘the couple’. When that boundary wall is challenged, it can feel very de-stabilising to some. Despite the sexual liberation that was supposed to have happened 40 years ago, non-monogamy is one taboo which remains.” Any successful open relationship is built on a set of very definite ground rules. For Michael, they were, “Be honest, no hiding stuff and if you don’t like something, discuss it like an adult,” but they vary dramatically from couple to couple. “I’ve seen every possible permutation, from no kissing to no penetration, to the other partner has to be there to witness it, to asking permission before and telling everything after, to not mentioning anything at all,” says Jenny Block. “So yes, there can still be cheating in an open relationship, if the rules are broken.” Just three years into her marriage, Angela*, 57, who lives in the west of Ireland and works in PR, realised that monogamy wasn’t for her. “I was 21 when I walked down the aisle,” she says. “There was nothing wrong with the relationship, we were fine, but I was becoming very unhappy with the situation. I eventually figured out that what we needed to do was give each other permission to have other relationships. My husband took

36 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

it in his stride and it worked very well for us for a long time. The marriage broke up 15 years later, but for very different reasons.” Angela firmly believes her marriage wouldn’t have lasted so long if they hadn’t bent the rules a bit. “It gave us space to be together as well as to be with other people,” she says. After a few monogamous relationships that didn’t work out, today Angela lives alone. Her love life, however, is thriving: she has two separate male lovers, one of whom has a girlfriend living in the US who makes a very welcome third wheel on her regular visits to Ireland. They all accept the paradigm as it is: “There’s enough of the relationship to go around.” But only a handful of Angela’s closest friends are fully aware of her lifestyle. “It colours people,” she says. “They find it very difficult to understand; they’re threatened by anything that’s different. A lot of people in the polyamory community equate being poly today to being gay 25 years ago. We have to keep quiet about it and it’s a shame because who are we hurting? I look at my married friends and they’re cheating all over the place. I think people just don’t want to confront their own hypocrisy. Someone I work with found out accidentally and I had a series of postcards left on my desk saying ‘slut’ and ‘whore’. HR had to get involved. And I’ve lost friends because of it – people who I thought were very open-minded. I’d love to be able to tell everyone but I think it would be hard on my children and grandchildren. They don’t need the stress in their already busy lives.” If having two or sometimes three partners sounds exhausting, you’re not wrong. “Scheduling and timing is probably our biggest problem. There are only so many weekends,” Angela laughs. But being polyamorous is an important aspect of her life, one she’s not willing to compromise on. “It’s the freedom to be who I am and express my relationships with other people in whatever way seems natural to me. It’s very liberating to know that you can love two people. There’s a misconception about polyamory that because you’re free to sleep with everybody, you want to. I don’t. I don’t have disposable relationships. I want to have the relationships that I want to have. And I’m very lucky because the two guys I’m involved with are great friends. We do get together sometimes – not in a sexual way – but they’re like chalk and cheese. They both have other love interests and that’s fine with me.” And if you’re wondering, there’s an unwritten rule about who she goes home with at the end of one of these nights: if her lover from Dublin has travelled to the west, it’s him. “It can be a delicate thing sometimes, you have to be sensitive,” she says. Could her fierce independence be a reason the poly lifestyle works so well for Angela? “I don’t want a father for my children. I don’t want someone to support me financially, and never did. I don’t need the emotional support of having somebody in the house 24/7. Yes, it’s nice when we go away for holidays, but I love going home to my own house and closing the door. Weirdly, I’m a loner,” she says. Right now, there is a small grass roots movement in the polyamory community advocating a campaign for poly marriage to become legal in Ireland. Twenty-one years ago, the Yes side just about scraped a win in the divorce referendum. Last summer, same-sex marriage prevailed with 62 per cent of the vote. Who knows what the future for marriage holds? Check back in 20 years or so. ^ *Names have been changed

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BOOKS

REBELS WITHOUT A DESK Having attended Trinity College during the 1990s, author CLAIRE KILROY recalls one amusing but rather futile protest

Trinity possessed a romantic quality in my mind long before I attended it. It meant ‘not here’, as in, not the awful convent school I attended in Clontarf where everyone (it seemed to me) aspired to a job in PR and marketing, and art was the preserve of weirdos and losers. The weather, I used to think, got better when you emerged from that dark tunnel onto Front Square. My grandfather, Joseph Long, had done a postgrad there, having been granted a dispensation from John Charles McQuaid, whom he loathed. Joe was the formidable one, the one who read Joyce and was bolshie and anti-establishment and fun. Nicky Byrne went there too, and she was one of the most beautiful girls on the peninsula of Howth. Nelson Mandela told her that if he weren’t already married, he’d propose. Trinity equalled freedom and, all through the bleakness of the 1980s, it was the straw I clung to. I was off to read English, and that was the end of it, even if it was a fast track to unemployment. There was no Plan B. The Trinity I entered and the Trinity I left struck me as very different places. When I arrived in the Arts Block in 1991, several professors still wore black academic gowns. They stood at podiums to lecture into the middle distance about things of which I knew nothing. They seemed elderly, antique, stumping along as if on wooden legs, navy and maroon hardbacks stacked under their arms. Their canon stopped in the 1800s. This was the School of English, Michaelmas Term. I was a Junior Freshman, just turned 18. Their store of knowledge was vast and intimidating. They spoke with genuine passion about poetic language, poetic imagery, poetic truth, poetic beauty. This was the world they had dwelt in for decades, these were their marble halls, and they were intimate with every corner. They sat in offices lined with books, having devoted themselves like monks to lives of contemplation. The first-year booklist they set us ran to something like 400 titles. If it was designed to cow us, their strategy worked. A bunch of us sat there during Freshers’ Week examining it, our stomachs sick. Our Leaving Cert As were no good to us here. Nobody knew what ontological meant – we’d only gotten as far as metaphysical. As for Old English, a whole different language? To open your mouth was to expose your ignorance. The safest approach was that of Stephen Dedalus: silence, exile, cunning. I took notes and kept my head down. Then, during my Sophister years, a critical theorist arrived, and with him, critical theory. It swept through

40 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

BOOKS

BIRD in the HAND

The BOBBY BIRD is an Irish-made glass Christmas tree decoration which bears the initial of your loved one on a delicate silver chain. Goldsmith JOAN GELLETLIE designs and makes the BOBBY BIRD herself, having first given one to a friend as a Christmas gift. Her friend loved it so much, Joan decided to make more. A personalised gift for someone you love, the BOBBY BIRD is a memorable way to mark a baby’s first Christmas, a gorgeous gift for each member of a family, or a beautiful gesture to mark the passing of someone special. Collectors can add new BOBBY BIRDs every year. Their delicate form adds elegance and twinkle to any Christmas tree. Just c30, the BOBBY BIRD comes in a pretty presentation box, where it will remain safe for next Christmas.

MAIN ST. WICKLOW TOWN, WICKLOW TEL: +353 (0) 404 67557 / +353 (0) 404 61681 WWW.GELLETLIE.COM

42 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

the School of English like wildfire. We were given new words like deconstruction and ideology and post-Marxism, and we knocked them about like hammers. Anyone who disagreed with you was declared a fascist. That shut them up. The theorist was witty. He had charisma. Instead of a gown, he wore a leather jacket. He didn’t bother with the lectern, but instead wandered up and down the podium, discoursing with his hands in his pockets. Lectures became performances. He told us he never again wanted to read another sentence beginning with the words ‘What Shakespeare is trying to say is ...’ as if Shakespeare were groping around for the right words but we could nail it. Literary texts stopped being about truth and beauty, and started being about revealing who had the power, and who they were oppressing with it. You had to deconstruct everything in order to reveal what it truly meant. Hamlet, it was explained, was hommelette, which

The march wasn’t really about the LIBRARY at all. It was about being YOUNG in early spring. sounded like omelette but which meant little man. Wow, I thought, scribbling this down in the lecture hall, this is amazing. It almost made sense. Those people in the black gowns banging on about lyricism and imagery? They were the liberal humanists, we were told. Liberal humanists were the old guard. They were the house we had to burn down. Yeah, what he said, went up the cry. A spirit of rebellious excitement began to brew, though there was frankly little for us to rebel against. Fees were already in the process of being abolished by the Government but we had to agitate about something, so we agitated about the, um, library. There were not enough seats to go around, and we were the children of the 1970s baby boom – we had had to compete hard to get into university, and we continued to compete hard when we got there. So we read on window sills or steps or those poxy orange boxes or even on the f loor. This was hardly the worst state of affairs: we were young – we did not yet suffer from backache, and it was

collegial enough in its way. As a generation, we were used to being squashed in. The protest was a bit of diversion, a f lexing of our new-found wings. One of the JCR [Junior Common Room] heads strung a banner across Front Arch. Paris 1968, Dublin 1993, it proclaimed without irony to the traffic on College Green. A classmate carted a desk out to Front Square and sat there with a sign reading This student is out here because there is no seat for him in the library. There was an empty seat for him at his tutorials. (I googled him after I wrote this, the classmate who had lugged a desk out to Front Square. I discovered he lives in Melbourne now. Then I googled the girl he started seeing the summer after we graduated and were loitering about, not knowing know what to do with ourselves now that our studies in Going on the Dole were complete. She was in Melbourne too. Sweet.) There was a march about the, um, library. We got up on our hind legs and strode down O’Connell Street on a sunny spring afternoon, disrupting the traffic, making noise. There we all were the following day in the paper, to our delight, quite a large photo, as I recall, which alas I couldn’t find, prancing around in our element, revelling in our heyday. I think of yearlings bucking in meadows just because they can. The march wasn’t really about the library at all. It was about being young in early spring and having had the tools of the intellect recently handed down to you, and seeing what you could do with them for the few years that you were protected by that lovely walled city, the moral high ground inalienably on your side. The liberal humanists were right, of course: it was beauty that mattered in the end. The beauty of the young, the fresh, the untrammelled, the hopeful and the hopelessly optimistic, setting off into the world.. ^ Trinity Tales, edited by Catherine Heaney (The Lilliput Press, ¤20) is out December 8

Polka dots and chevrons are featured on the contemporary yet timeless knit silhouettes.

FASHION NEWS

Wardrobe

BY AISLINN COFFEY

Party

THE ONE:

STORY TIME

DRESSING It’s the season to be party-ready and fabulous: What are the rules for dressing to kill during December? Here, Carin Rodebjer of Swedish label Rodebjer ﬁlls us in ... PARTY DRESS OR PANTS? I love to dress up in sharp and distinct suits for parties. A womanly, tailored suit is always on point. BLACK OR COLOUR? For parties I almost always go for black or dark, midnight blue. I love black with sparkles – sequins, jewellery, fringes – classic yet easy to add relevant elements that lend that extra something to a classical black look. SHEEN OR SPARKLE? Sparkle! I think feeling comfortable in what you are wearing is the key to style no matter what age. To pull off sparkle, a contrast with something super crisp or matte is always a good way to

balance the look. LACE OR FUR? A combination of lace and faux fur is such a great look, always! Sharp, womanly, romantic – I love these elements combined. I only work with faux fur. There are so many great fur alternatives made by fantastic fabric suppliers, there is no reason to work with real. FLATS OR HEELS? I am up for both, depending on how I feel and what the look is. I don’t like to over dress so if I am in a delicate dress I would wear f lats, a sharp suit Black and white looks great with heels. I pussy-bow would wear with tights blouse, c230; back jacquard though I love bare legs, trousers, especially bare ankles. c385; both Rodebjer. Rodebjer is at Arnotts.

LIGHT UP THE ROOM

The Saturdays’ Frankie Bridge on sparkling this Christmas GO OUT OR ENTERTAIN AT HOME?

I like to be at home. Except for Christmas Eve, when my friends and I all go out to a local Chinese and do karaoke. I like to spend Christmas Day with my parents, vegging out watching films. GIVING OR RECEIVING? I give to receive. I’ve been wearing the Thomas Sabo Love Point and Love Bridge bracelets so I will be gifting those to my girlfriends. SILVER OR GOLD? Both. You used to have to choose one whereas now everyone mixes both. DELICATE OR CHUNKY? I like to wear delicate rings on a day-to-day basis but Thomas Sabo has a lovely chunky bracelet that everyone always comments on.

“Playful, feminine and classic” is how Philomène Tellaroli, concept designer at & Other Stories, describes the store’s upcoming knitwear collaboration with Wool and the Gang. “Our aim was create a co-lab collection of the kind of knits you’ll treasure forever. We wanted the silhouettes to be timeless with a twist, so we decorated them with beautiful details.” The result is a collection of knitted pieces such as sweaters and accessories along with doit-yourself knit kits. Winter woollies aside, how will the designer dress over the festive period? “Sequined trapeze-shaped dresses are an important ingredient, but I also love metallic pants with a cropped embellished top,” she says. Metallics “in all colours, materials and textures” will also It’s A Wrap feature heavily, as will scarf knit faux fur: “It could be a kit, c49; sleeve on a coat or detail in a dress, scarves or gloves.” And footwear? “Jacquard or velvet heeled mules.” & Other Stories opens December 9 at 26-27 Grafton Street, Dublin 2.

So it really depends on my outfit. UNDERSTATED OR BLING? You can be blingy and understated at the same time. I have some diamonds that are subtle but still add a little sparkle. SOLO OR LAYERED? Always layered. A little or a lot? A lot. I like to stack so I always end up chucking loads on. WHAT’S ON YOUR CHRISTMAS WISHLIST?

I’ve hinted to [my husband, footballer] Wayne [Bridge] that I’d quite like a necklace from Thomas Sabo’s Together collection. It’s such a romantic piece. ^ Frankie Bridge is the UK and Ireland ambassador for Thomas Sabo. The new AW16 collection is in stores and online now. www.thomassabo.com

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Clockwise from top left: Thomas Sabo’s new Triangle collection: 18ct gold-plated large Triangle necklace, c198; 18ct gold-plated small Triangle necklace, c179; 18ct goldplated large Triangle ring, c179; 18ct gold-plated double Triangle ring, c169.

Clockwise from left: Wool and the Gang and & Other Stories knitted beret. Trapeze dress, c75. Jacquard shoes, c95.

FOR THE HARD TO PLEASE

Avoca gift cards, available at all stores and www.avoca.com.

FOR DEDICATED FOLLOWERS OF FASHION

1 Mighty Purse with built in charger, €119.95. 2 Chupi for Avoca personalised necklace in gift box, €99. 3 Pestle & Mortar gift set, €86.

N ALL AVOCA

CHRISTMAS

08-11-2016 | THE GLOSS | AVOCA

Have a chilled Christmas packed with our bright and brilliant ideas for extraordinary gifts 1

FOR THE ADDLED HOSTESS

1 Avoca Mince Pies, €7.95 per box. 2 Avoca Glazed Hams, cooked to order, €79.50. 3 Avoca’s award-winning Great Taste Pudding, from €12.95 - €24.95. 1

FOR THE ALPHA MALE

1 Avoca men’s ribbed sweaters, €49.95. 2 Kakkoii Chrome QBL wireless splash-proof speaker, €69.95.

FOR THE PARTY POOPER

FOR THE ICE QUEEN

1 Avoca women’s suede gloves, €69.95. 2 DOIY Sushi socks, €12.95. 3 Jumper 1234 cashmere joggers, €199.95 each.

07-11-16 TG Avoca Shot 01AP.jpg

©NEIL HURLEY PHOTOGRAPHY 2016

1 Pip Studio dressing gown, €79.95. 2 Dachschund Through The Snow mug with chocolate Santa, €15.95. 3 Le Comptoir de Mathilde chocolate tree with hammer, €19.95; and hot chocolate stirrers, €6.50 each.

FOR THE HIBERNATOR

1 Avoca jewel-coloured cashmere throws, €114.95 each. 2 Avoca initial mugs, €9.95 each. 3 Sol Edgar touch lamps, €99.95 each.

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SPEND

& SAVE

Receive an Avoca hand pump soap worth €9.95 when you spend over €100 in store: simply visit www.avoca.com/thegloss and enter your name and email address to receive an email voucher to present in store. Available while stocks last. H A N D W E AV E R S

www.nespresso.com/whatelse

9 letters for â&#x20AC;&#x153;incomparableâ&#x20AC;?

WIDE ANGLE LEFT: Green satin jacket, c990; silver leather trousers c2,450; both MIU MIU. Grey satin evening bag, c1,300, ROGER VIVIER. Crystal earrings, c109, KENNETH JAY LANE. RIGHT: Khaki floralembroidered cotton jacket, c1,995; khaki cotton trousers, c645; both ERDEM. Multi-coloured leather sandals, c795, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN. Striped Twist MM epi leather handbag, c2,700, LOUIS VUITTON. Black and gold beaded earrings, c595, ALEXIS BITTAR.

PANTS

It's time to retire your LBD â&#x20AC;&#x201C; trousers are about to become your new eveningwear staple

Photographed by MICHAEL DWORNIK Styled by LUIS RODRIGUEZ

A PERFECT MATCH LEFT: Multi-coloured floral blazer, c835; matching cigaretteleg trousers, c480; both 3.1 PHILLIP LIM. Green patchwork cotton bag, c2,500, CHANEL. RIGHT: Black, blue, and red satin jacket, c2,100; matching satin trousers, c1,350; both PRADA. Black satin frame clutch, c65, & OTHER STORIES.

TOP OF THE CROPS LEFT: Black wool jacket with leather pockets, c1,420; black cashmere mix trousers, c305; blue snakeskin belt, c490; all MAX MARA. Black Anouk suede shoes, c425, JIMMY CHOO. Gold geometric clipon earrings, c145, ALEXIS BITTAR. RIGHT: Chartreuse bow-tie blouse, c39.95, ZARA. Black cropped wool trousers, c185, WHISTLES. Metallic pink leather mules, c578, GUCCI. Black vermeil and Swarovski crystal earrings, c1,150, ERICKSON BEAMON.

A FINE WINE LEFT: Dark red oversized wool sweater, c1,490; matching wool trousers, c1,290; both THE ROW. Black Anouk suede shoes, c425, Jimmy Choo. Gold Glint Duster earrings, c205, EDDIE BORGO. RIGHT: White cotton tunic-style shirt, c240; striped wool sweater, c420; both THEORY. Blue cotton jacket, c245; white wide-leg trousers, c345; both JOSEPH. Gold Chaos leather shoes, c640, MANOLO BLAHNIK. Red satin box clutch, c1,100, ROGER VIVIER. Pearl and Swarovski crystal necklace, c1,128, ERICKSON BEAMON.

SUIT UP LEFT: White highneck blouse, POA, ERDEM. Floral-print crepe jacket, c1,065; matching cigaretteleg crepe trousers, c730; both ERDEM. Gold Marmont leather shoes, c730, GUCCI. Black Viv Roses evening bag, c1,500, ROGER VIVIER. RIGHT: Light pink Grace crepe blazer, c574; burgundy Camille crepe trousers, c378; both ELIZABETH AND JAMES. Black and pink boots, c49.95, ZARA. Black and gold geometric earrings, c361, ERICKSON BEAMON.

PRINT WORKS LEFT: Blue floralprint tux-cuff silk shirt, c380; cream embroidered cotton jeans, c550; both VICTORIA VICTORIA BECKHAM. Multistrand vermeil and Swarovski crystal necklace, c2,278, ERIKSON BEAMON. RIGHT: White cotton shirt, c790; black tweed jacket, c3,300; black striped cotton trousers, c1,590; all CHANEL. Oversized pearl chandelier earrings, c511, ERICKSON BEAMON. Photographed by Michael Dwornik. Styled by Luis Rodriguez. Assisted by Alexander Boutin. Hair by Louis Angelo for KÃ©rastase Paris. Make up by Brian Duprey for MAC Cosmetics.

BUSINESS WISDOM

marketing. Recruiting, motivating and maintaining the best staff and volunteer network is crucial. Every euro we raise is of such importance, it is vital that we innovate all the time.

DID ANYTHING IN YOUR FAMILY BACKGROUND INFLUENCE YOUR JOURNEY TO THE ROLE? My parents, hardworking, open and honest, gave us all confidence to be ourselves, be grateful for our lot, and to stand up for others. I was interested in equality issues, human rights and studied the American south. That led me to realise that when you have a passion for something you will go the extra mile. And work doesn’t feel like work. I love what I do.

AN ACCOMPLISHMENT YOU ARE MOST PROUD OF? Getting my MBA in 2002. The recent merger of ICTR and Fundraising Ireland as Charities Institute Ireland was another important one. But I think championing and empowering the amazing women who I had the pleasure of working with at Focus Ireland and encouraging them to step up and be more confident in their abilities is something I am incredibly proud of. That and keeping the balls in the air. So far!

HOW YOU APPROACH DIFFICULT SITUATIONS? Don’t put it off, it doesn’t go away. Where people are concerned, I am direct and fair, and try to be sunny side up. This attitude has served me well.

FROM THE DESK OF ...

Lisa-Nicole Dunne PHOTOGRAPH BY AL HIGGINS

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CMRF CRUMLIN

THE CV Lisa-Nicole Dunne worked at BMW Group Ireland, Irish Life and Permanent and as an adjunct lecturer with DCU before joining the non-profit sector in 2009. She has since raised more than €40m for charitable purposes working with Focus Ireland and UNICEF Ireland. A previous board member of Children Direct, Fundraising Ireland and currently a Charities Institute Ireland board member, she has been Chief Executive of CMRF Crumlin (www.cmrf.org) since September.

THE COMPANY? Children’s Medical and Research Foundation (CMRF) Crumlin raises vital funding for the National Children’s Research Centre and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin to help some of Ireland’s sickest children.

DESCRIBE YOUR ROLE: I am developing the overall strategy for the organisation which includes fundraising and marketing and managing a team of professional fundraisers, thousands of community champions and volunteers, as well as corporate partners and donors in Ireland, the UK and the US. I ensure the foundation funding is sustainable and efficient and, working with the board, I oversee best practice in governance and management policies.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO GET READY IN THE MORNING? About 20 minutes. I usually pick an outfit the night before to ensure the chaos of two kids in the morning doesn’t mean I go out with odd shoes.

WHAT KEEPS YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT? Right now that is definitely my one-year-old daughter, Sadie!

A CHARACTERISTIC YOU BELIEVE A BUSINESS LEADER SHOULD POSSESS? Self-awareness.

WHAT IS THE MOST USEFUL WAY TO ENGAGE SUPPORTERS? The best way to engage people is to bring them in to see the impact of their support. So whether that is a visit to the hospital or a breakfast or lunch, we share stories of children whose lives have been changed thanks to our donor support.

ADVICE TO WOMEN WHO ASPIRE TO BE IN LEADERSHIP ROLES? Don’t back away from opportunity; make it work. Get a good mentor. I have been blessed along the way with good friends, informal mentors (including my dad!) and amazing committee members. And be aware of the impact you can have on others, good and bad. ^

BUSINESS PRIORITIES FOR 2017? With more than 140,000 patients set to visit Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin every year, our priority is highlighting the critical funding needs of the hospital and research centre and engaging corporate partners and amazing donors to share our vision and to fund equipment and cuttingedge research that will change the outcomes for sick children. Right now, our priority is our Tiny Hearts Christmas appeal.

HIGHLIGHTS AND CHALLENGES DURING YOUR TENURE? A key challenge is ensuring our supporters continue to trust us and share our vision. Fundraising is an incredibly challenging but wonderfully creative and innovative area of sales and

MY WORKING LIFE:

THE WAY I DO BUSINESS 1. WORK/LIFE BALANCE: Do something you love then blurred lines are okay. My husband runs his own business so he leaves for work when I get home. I like to be really present when I am with the kids so I only check email when they are in bed. 2. YOUR STRONG POINTS? I am strategic, decisive, creative and data-led. 3. WEAKNESSES? I am not a lover of live media interviews, so I have forced myself to do some training and practice. I’m not sure it will ever be my favourite part of the role! 4. LOOKING THE BUSINESS It depends on the day and audience, but I usually mix classic, tailored and high street style to create a comfortable, smart look. I love fancy tights to bring a good black dress to life. 5. PLANNING FOR THE

FUTURE I started my career in Irish Life and Permanent so I do know a bit about my pension. However, I haven’t been great at saving so far, and I am starting to realise it is time to really prioritise that.

54 | December 2016 | T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E

READER EVENT

THE GLOSS

FESTIVE STYLE EVENT

Black lace dress, TED BAKER. RRP: d250 Village price: d155

Ceramic teapot, SÓ COLLECTIVE. RRP:d120 Village price: d96

SHOP FABULOUS FASHION & GIFTS AT

KILDARE VILLAGE Join THE GLOSS Magazine for a Festive Style Event at Kildare Village on Sunday December 11. Sign up now to receive your exclusive VIP Pack on arrival ...

Gilt necklace, Maria Dorai Raj, at SÓ COLLECTIVE. RRP: d210 Village price: d126

Nina clutch, LK BENNETT. RRP: d388, Village price: d175 Lace top, THE KOOPLES. RRP: d165 Village price: d105

A PERFECT PARTY WARDROBE A beautiful blouse, a Little Black Dress, some sparkle, lots of style: party-givers and goers can choose their fabulous festive wardrobes from a range of very special stores and boutiques.

Cranberry stole, LK BENNETT. RRP: d350, Village price: d165

Delia smoked suede boots, LK BENNETT. RRP: d550, Village price: d365

Red animal print shoes, PRETTY BALLERINAS. RRP d199; Village Price d129

Arlesienne scented candle, L’OCCITANE. RRP:d25 Village price: d18.65

Nespresso coffee machine, HOME AND COOK. RRP:d189, Village price: d109.99

Pale pink casserole dish, LE CREUSET. RRP:d210 Village price: d140

+ DRESS YOUR HOME Your festive fashion under control? Now choose the pieces that will warm up your home, from luxurious scented candles to the latest kitchen gadgets and timeless tableware.

Burgundy wallet clutch, COACH. RRP: d110, Village price: d49

HOW TO SIGN UP Email us now at tormiston@thegloss.ie or call us on 01 275 5130. Guests should collect their special VIP Pass at the Information Centre on arrival. Guests will be treated to special offers in addition to 10% off all purchases which are already discounted. Guests can also avail of hands-free shopping services and enjoy prosecco and canapés in the VIP Lounge from 12pm-4pm, where Kildare Village Personal Shopper Natalie Svikle will also give styling advice for wardrobe and home in two sessions, at 1pm and 3pm.

MAKE MERRY Irish gifts to gladden hearts and make spirits sing

DesignIreland.ie has curated a range of simply gorgeous contemporary gifts in jewellery, fashion and accessories, homeware and giftware, all designed and made in Ireland. Discover some of the exciting Irish designers and craftspeople lauded and loved by international media. Learn about their work, their inspiration and their story. Link to buy online direct from the maker or from a trusted partner website or visit one of the listed shops nationwide.

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Seductive Twists & Turns Beguiling metalwork, geometric simplicity and bold unusual forms - youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find them all at DesignIreland.ie. Irish makers are creating jewellery from a wide range of perspectives in a rich array of materials and finishes.

1. Ann Chapman, Silver and Pearl Balance Ring, Sterling Silver with Pearl Embellishment, c250. 2. Tory Long, Tia, Gold Plated Spike Necklace, c155. 3. Filip Vanas, Tectonics Ring â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Delta/Epsilon, Solid Aluminium with Anodised Finish, c95. 4. Inner Island, Helio Bangle, Gold Vermeil, c145. 5. Ann Chapman, Gold Galaxy Bangle Circular, Solid 9ct Gold, c650. 6. Tory Long, Ariel Gold Necklace, 16ct Matte Gold Plated, c120.

My True Love Gave To Me

What do we all really want for Christmas? Something authentic and well made. Objects created with feeling, wit and craftsmanship. We have curated an array of gifts from Irish makers to elicit squeals of glee from you and yours.

5 3

Catwalks To Long Walks There is a consistent pattern running through Irish fashion designers gaining experience working in the finest ateliers and fashion houses of the world, then returning home to create their own lines. Theirs are long journeys worth following.

1. Jill de BĂşrca, Feather Bomber, Digitally Printed Fabric, c380. 2. Bonagrew, Orange Skipper, Irish Linen Tie, c90. 3. Emma Manley, Cara Tee - Blue, Perforated Leather, c220. 4. Liadain Aiken, Merino Wool Hat, c55. 5. Alison Conneely, Tan Tablet Bag, Leather, c150. 6. Original Aran Co, Cream Aran Jumper, 100% new merino wool, c74.

1. Arran Street East, Cabbage Ceramic Biscuit Plate, c12. 2. Helen Steele, Souk Kaftan, Toltaca, 100% silk, c465. 3. Makers & Brothers, Lumper, Bronze, c195. 4. Jerpoint Glass Studio, Festival Wine Glass, c37.99. 5. Kinsale Leather Co, Jamie Foldover Clutch, Taupe Leather, c125. 6. Susannagh Grogan, Lady Bug Stripe Classic Square, 100% silk, c125. 7. Melissa Curry, Ohlala Cuff, c145. 8. Saturday Workshop, Rabbit, Locally Sourced Hardwood Toy, c45. 9. Mourne Textiles, Mist Cushion, 30% cotton / 70% merino wool, c170. 10. Cleo, Mouse, Irish tweed, c12. 11. Ekotree Knitwear, Woollen Hot Water Bottle Cover, â&#x201A;Ź35.12. KaroArt, Robin Bauble, Porcelain decorated with strokes of Gold, c32.13. Candella, Earth Collection Candle - Wood, Copper and Natural Soya Wax, c40.

DesignIreland.ie is presented by the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland

BEAUTY

��

Buffet BY SARAH HALLIWELL

DIOR

HIGHLIGHTS OUR PICKS OF THE YEAR … From the thousands of launches we tried and tested over the past twelve months, these are the standouts: THE TREND ... It’s been the year of the lipstick: formulas such as MAC Retro Matte Liquid Lipcolour, Tom Ford’s Patent Polish gloss and Chanel’s Lip Ink dazzled, and made lip colour more exciting than ever. ARRIVALS ... The new passion for blow-dry bars (see right) means we can have better hair, at hours that suit us. GADGET ... Yes, the Dyson Supersonic hairdrier is an investment buy, but it really does transform the daily drag of hair-drying. MAKE-UP MAGIC ... Lancôme’s Miracle Cushion foundation (below right, d38) is no gimmick – it goes everywhere with us. SURPRISE HITS ... Blue mascara, especially YSL’s Vinyl Couture: it’s far more wearable and flattering than you think. THE SHOW-STOPPER ... Victoria Beckham’s collaboration with Estée Lauder was love at first sight – and we hear there is more in the pipeline. THE ESSENTIAL ... Lancôme’s Grandiôse Liner (d29) made it easy for all of us to do the perfect cat’s eye. THE PALETTE ... Everyone loves the Nakeds, but our pick is Urban Decay’s Moon Dust (below, d40, at Debenhams), a set of glittery eyeshadows that are fun and fabulous, just as make-up should be.

ALL DRESSED UP

vening glamour doesn’t have to mean acres of glitter. Let’s be realistic: most of us don’t have the luxury of hours to transform from a day to evening look in some spectacular fashion. As teens, getting ready was the best of part of a night out, but these days we’re doing well if we can grab ten minutes. The trick is to focus on one feature and go for broke, as seen in this liner look at CHRISTIAN DIOR couture. I find the VICTORIA BECKHAM x ESTÉE LAUDER Eye Kajal (d27) the inkiest carbon-black liner for along the waterline. For a winged eye, the most artistic solution for the steadyhanded is Calligraphie de CHANEL in Hyperblack (below, d31), with its small flat brush; URBAN DECAY Razor-Sharp Long Wear Liner (d20) is infallible, waterproof and comes in every colour under the sun. Equally, a touch of metallic looks like you made just the right amount of effort, and lends a touch of SAINT LAURENT rock-chick to the most last-minute outfit: a streak of ELIZABETH ARDEN Bold Defining 24hr Eye Liner in gold (d23) across the eyelid and you’re good to go. We’re also entranced by MAC’s limited edition “magnetic” Spellbinder Shadows, one of the most exciting formulas we’ve seen all year: they feel like velvet, with a rich, light-reflecting texture. Bright lips will continue to be on trend next spring – the more unapologetic and neon the better – so go brilliant with SMASHBOX Infrared Matte (d19 at Boots), one of 120 shades of Be Legendary lipstick. Then you only need perfume: see page 60 for the most unforgettable …

TAKE 3

PERFECT PITSTOPS Where to head for fast hair fixes BLOW SALONS. Amid all the new blow-dry bars, don’t forget Blow, on the scene since 2002 and now in three locations. Weekday appointments from 6.45am; regular offers include c15 blowdries (usually c30). 144 Upper Leeson Street, Dublin 4, 01 607 0222; www.blow.ie. HOT AIR’s excellent stylists take great care to use products to suit your hair type: Kevin Murphy Blonde Angel purple shampoo is a revelation for brightening blonde and toning down brassiness. Rather than a rush job, expect a deepdown hair fix that lasts for days. Then nip upstairs for a manicure. Early opening from 7am WednesdayFriday, ¤29. OSLO, 67 Mespil Road, Dublin; www.inoslo.ie. SHOW BEAUTY at Harvey Nichols is worth remembering when you’re in Dundrum – Show products are beautiful, if pricey, and you’ll leave with a glamorous, fragrant bounce in your hair. From c20.

THE BARE NECESSITIES

Why it’s time to simplify your skincare

here’s a move towards a simpler and more transparent approach to skincare, and not before time – we’re tired of squinting at pots of serums and creams to try and see what’s in them and why. Why is fragrance so high up on the ingredients list, for example; do we really need so many silicones in every cream; and why is alcohol, which is drying, in our moisturiser? Just as with food packaging, we’re increasingly looking into the small print and demanding the best that science can deliver us, but without all the extra fillers. CHANEL helped kickstart this earlier in the year when it launched Solution 10 de Chanel, a moisturiser for sensitive skin with just ten essential components. And Canadian company Deciem is onto something with their pared-down range, THE ORDINARY (available at www. ordinaries.com), slashing both prices and ingredients lists and making simplicity the selling point: the Organic ColdPressed Rosehip Seed Oil (right), for example, is less than

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d10. Meanwhile Irish brand PESTLE & MORTAR is having great success with its clarity of packaging and ingredients, focusing on one key element at a time – first hyaluronic acid in its serum, then retinol in its Superstar Night Oil. A new focus on simplicity feels like a backlash against the identikit faces that dominate television and social media – the antithesis of injecting and filling your face to eerie smoothness. The ludicrous concept of “fighting” ageing is giving way to looking the best you can at every age, and words like raw, individual and radiant rule for spring 2017. One look at Lancôme’s more natural new ad campaigns reflects the relaxed, simplified mood. Pare it back, and focus on glowing skin, wrinkles and all.

IN HAND

& OTHER STORIES

BEAUTY

We love the idea of cool white nails for winter – so chic against dark clothes. Find icy white polishes at Essie and & Other Stories (opening on December 9 at Grafton Street). But wearing it makes you pay attention to your hands, always forgotten but in need of as much care and hydration as your face and neck. We recommend Carita Genesis of Youth for Hands SPF15 (d75), available at 5th Avenue salons in Dublin and Cork, a robustly protective serum to see you through the coldest months. Next month, Carita launch an intriguing “facial for hands” treatment that uses LED light and ultrasound for a deep-down focus on your neglected hands. We also rate Hand Chemistry (at Boots, d11.99), and lovely natural Aurelia Aromatic Repair & Brighten Hand Cream (left, d40, at SpaceNK). Nails Inc have introduced Shine Bright Glove Masks (d6), extending the face mask trend to your hands, with vitamins and retinol to brighten and moisturise.

MA K E A N EN T RA N CE …

IN THE AIR TONIGHT

Sureﬁre scent hits for when you don’t want to wear what everyone else is wearing ... THE RULEBREAKER ROJA DOVE perfumes have just arrived into Parfumarija and they are not for wallflowers – charismatic, complex and addictive, with names like Risqué, Innuendo and Scandal, these are couture creations, and priced accordingly. Try Rose eau de parfum, unlike any rose you’ve smelled before – capturing “the depth and sensuality of a very velvety, dark red rose” says Dove – and Diaghilev, a truly opulent chypre that’s captivating and has to be smelled to be believed.

LEATHER UP MUST VISIT: The brains behind Dublin’s perfume boutique PARFUMARIJA have expanded into the shop next door in Westbury Mall with a standalone Santa Maria Novella store – one of just a handful worldwide. The skincare and scents, all made in Florence, make the most elegant gifts – just a simple glass bottle of pure rosewater is covetable. Westbury Mall, Dublin 2.

TA KE 3

HOMEGROWN OILS For skincare that’s simple and effective, an oil is a good place to start: they’re versatile, work wonders on dry skin, and can life your mood with natural fragrance. Not all oils are created equal: buy Irish as there are so many good ones available, including Yogandha and Voya. Here’s our pick of the best: MODERN BOTANY This multitasking essential for face, body, hair and nails is formulated in Ireland and will be made here from early next year. Ingredients are ethically sourced, and co-founder Simon Jackson, the botanist who’s also behind Dr Jackson skincare, is encouraging Irish farmers to grow ingredients like flax and chamomile. Look out for further launches next year. Fairly priced and high quality, this is our new staple. c35; www.modernbotany.com.

FLORA + FIONA Dublinbased aromatherapist Fiona Hedigan has been making bespoke oils for private clients for years. Her first official launch is this blend of sweet almond, apricot kernel, jojoba and rosehip seed oils, ideal for ages 45-plus when skin becomes drier. From c25 for 10ml. www.floraplusfiona.com. BARE CHIC SKIN One of my favourite finds of the year, Fiona Carr’s Bare Chic organic skincare, made in tiny batches in Galway, is among the loveliest and most natural stuff you can put on your skin. Contact barechicorganics@ gmail.com for now, and buy it online from early next year.

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Convert to leather perfumes for winter: TOM FORD’s Ombre Leather (d188) is distractingly sexy. MEMO PARIS Russian Leather (d190, at Brown Thomas), with its hints of pine, mint, cedar and rosemary, is like being in a frozen winter forest. Smoked Plum & Leather by JO LOVES (£65stg at www.joloves. com) is warm, rich and indulgent.

FOR ICY DAYS Wear something chilled, like a breath of frozen air. CALVIN KLEIN CK2, from d29.99, at Boots, is a new take on the coolest scent of the 1980s. FRÉDÉRIC MALLE’s L’Eau d’Hiver is icy, fresh and intriguing all at once; from d85 for 30ml at Parfumarija, Dublin.

FOR EVENING DRAMA ESTÉE LAUDER Modern Muse eau de parfum, d65, makes a memorable mark. Try also the Angel Schlesser collection, including sultry, sweet Oriental Edition II, d50.58, new at Harvey Nichols, Dundrum.

MODERN LOVE Sure-fire hits for younger scent wearers include STELLA Pop, from d45 at Debenhams, and MARC JACOBS Decadence, d87, both in eye-catching bottles. TIP: Give perfume gifts the personal touch by having the bottle engraved: at selected Boots stores, including Liffey Valley and Jervis, you can personalise beauty gifts, from make-up palettes to pots of cream, for a flat fee of V4.

Beauty is in our nature The intricacies of your DNA make you utterly unique. From skin hydration to anti-ageing, find the right supplements to enrich your inner beauty regime at solgar.co.uk/beauty

For your nearest SolgarÂŽ stockist visit www.solgar.co.uk

Zinc contributes to the maintenance of normal skin, hair and nails. Food supplements should not be used instead of a varied balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. SolgarÂŽ is a registered trademark.

INTERIORS

The Foyles were always interested in Napoleon and had started collecting memorabilia before they came to The Quay House. This tongue-and-groove chambre became a shrine to him.

INTO THE WEST Paddy and Julia Foyle, owners of the Quay House, like to tell their guests that they can throw a pebble into the Atlantic from their bedroom balcony. All but two of the 14 stylish rooms have sea views, so it is easy to put their claim to the test. The bow-fronted harbour master’s house was built in 1820 and is the oldest building in Clifden. It has had many incarnations: now a chic townhouse bed and breakfast, it was once a Franciscan priory, then a convent – one assumes there was no crossover between monk and nun. Clifden, the capital of Connemara, is proud and selfsufficient. Only 77 kilometres from arty bohemian Galway city, it takes an hour an a half to drive. Passing through Oughterard and Moycullen down the two-lane windy N59, the landscape becomes spectacular. There is no rush – on a clear day you may want to take hours to pass through slowly and marvel at the breathtaking scenery unveiling its raw beauty before you. Belfast-born Paul Henry (1877–1958), Ireland’s fine post-impressionist, depicted the beauty of the west. In 2012, RTÉ listeners voted his brooding canvas of “The Twelve Pins” (“Na Beanna Beola”) mountain range and thatched cottages the nation’s favourite painting. Irish nationals and visitors from all over the world come to the far west coast for its stunning scenery and beautiful beaches, to hike, play golf, to cycle and fish or to ride. Connemara is the largest part of the Gaeltacht. Post 1916, the new free state designated areas of the country

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A marble bust of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Binoculars are for use by any guest who has a penchant for birding.

Julia and Paddy Foyle bought the brass lobster that sits on the Irish Georgian mahogany table while on their honeymoon in Thailand. The rest of the representations of varied species are real – but Paddy swiftly proclaims that his only hunting is done in antique shops with a cheque book.

PHOTOGRAPHS, JAMES FENNELL. STYLING AND TEXT, JOSEPHINE RYAN

At almost 200 years old, The Quay House in Clifden exudes the kind of authentic charm modern homes strive to replicate

“We offer Ireland’s only range of burglar-proof windows and doors with eco glass as standard – keeping you safe, and saving you money.” Jim Toal, Managing Director

www.fairco.ie

INTERIORS as Irish-speaking, with the aim of restoring Gaelic as the national language. Irish is still taught in all schools, road signs are in English and Irish. It is this culture that attracts artists and musicians so it is no surprise there is a thriving traditional music scene in Clifden. Like many Irish towns, there is no shortage of a good pub in Clifden, and many of them – including Mullarkey’s bar in Foyle’s Hotel (a family establishment where Paddy was born and reared) – have regular sessions. Since 2010, the annual Clifden Traditional Music Festival, which takes place in March, has attracted top-notch musicians from across the country and all over the world. Choosing to stay at the Quay House is all the more perfect if the great indoors is also your kind of landscape. Paddy and Julia have created their own unique world, displaying their collected art, antiques and artifacts in an exuberant manner. A traditional collection of 18th and 19th-century family portraits in the double drawing room is very much part of the character of the house. The large collection of encased taxidermy fish in the hall along with skulls and antlers are all fine specimens. A regular Chanel-clad Parisian guest is most at home in the panelled Napoleon chambre. If you are very lucky – depending on your views on the supernatural – a ghost of friendly disposition may appear in your bedroom, usually in a monk’s robe. He then vanishes just as quickly as he appeared and may not be seen again for several months. The youngest Foyle, Toby, is showing a keen interest in becoming more involved in the running of the house and is proving to be a talented cook. Breakfast, the only meal offered, is an award-winning extravaganza, served in the green conservatory. Toby bakes a mean loaf of brown bread – very popular with the guests, save the Parisienne, who always travels with her weighing scales for fear of gaining a pound during her stay. ^ From Hidden Ireland: Discover Ireland’s Most Beautiful Houses, published by Blackstaff Press,V29.99, from all good bookshops and online retailers.

This room, the family conservatory, is Julia’s favourite. The collection of black busts includes Napoleon and Victorian Canova copies. The white Victorian barn owl looks wisely on the white marble bust of a young French girl next to a bowl by Nicholas Mosse. On the left, gunnera leaves make a dramatic display.

Above: This striking pair of framed 18-century German topographical prints are of Cologne and Leipzig. Left: The nautical spelter sculpture on the window ledge is of Hercules lifting a boat out of the water. The trunk, camphor-wood and zinc-lined, once belonged to a Captain McClintock but is now a useful coffee table.

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PROMOTION

CELEBRATING THE SEASON

WITH A WORLD CLASS COCKTAIL AT HOME It’s the season for friends, family and festive parties, and whether you’re planning a small gathering or a big seasonal get-together, your guests will be impressed by these simple but delicious drinks that have been created by World Class Bartenders. From quirky twists on festive treats to seasonal classics, whichever World Class cocktail you serve will bring the ultimate luxury drinks experience and a touch of seasonal flair to your at-home entertaining.

CÎROC VODKA CHAMPAGNE COSMO A colourful, classy drink that will impress any guest and add a touch of sophistication to festive occasions. 35ml Cîroc vodka u 45ml cranberry juice u 35ml Champagne u 10ml fresh lime juice (around half a lime) u1 orange for the twist Alcohol Content: 15g

1. Add Cîroc vodka, cranberry juice, lime juice and ice to a shaker, then shake for a few seconds (eight to ten should be long enough). 2. Strain through a fine mesh strainer or sieve into a chilled Champagne flute. 3. Top with the Champagne. 4. Garnish with an orange twist. To do this, use a vegetable peeler or sharp knife to remove a 1cm-wide strip of peel from the orange (try to get as little pith as possible), twist in opposite directions over the glass to release the oils.

DON JULIO BLANCO MULLED WINTER MARGARITA An enticing alternative to mulled wine, this drink can be scaled up for groups, making it great for festive gatherings. (serves 4) 100ml Don Julio Blanco tequila u 200ml Merlot 80ml mulled spice syrup u 100ml freshly squeezed lemon juice u 1 orange for the twist Alcohol Content: 22g per drink

1. Fill a large jug with ice. 2. Add all ingredients to the jug and stir. 3. Serve in tumblers and garnish with orange peel (with minimum pith), twisting the peel over the top of the drink to release the oils.

# WORLDCLASSDRINKS

BULLEIT RYE WHISKEY NUTTY EGGNOG A familiar sight in many Christmas movies, this creamy, decadent drink is perfect for laid-back festive occasions with friends. 50ml Bulleit Rye whiskey u 15ml milk u 15ml cream u 10ml sugar syrup u 1 egg u 10ml Dublin Porter Guinness u1/4 tsp chocolate shavings Alcohol Content: 18g

1. Pour the Bulleit Rye whiskey, milk, cream and sugar syrup into a shaker and add the egg. 2. Shake to combine without adding ice (‘dry’ shake). 3. Add ice and shake once more. 4. Pour the Dublin Porter Guinness into an Old Fashioned glass. 5. Add ice. 6. Strain the shaker’s contents into the glass. 7. Garnish with chocolate shavings.

STRAP

Handcrafted Cabinetry

Rathnew, Co Wicklow Telephone 0404 65000 www.newcastledesign.ie

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

London Sock Company.

TRAVEL

Chemex coffeemaker. Above: Fingal Ferguson Knives.

ho will be the next James Bond? The bookies have been touting Idris Elba, Tom Hiddleston, Damien Lewis, James Norton and Tom Hardy for the 25th outing on slow news days. Hardy was favourite last time I checked. Elba is a two-trick pony and can only play John Luther or The Wire’s Stringer Bell. Hiddleston is too Upstairs Downstairs, and would be better as a Bond villain. Hardy is a touch short but his charisma would fill the gap. And in the same way that Daniel Craig’s unofficial screen test was the underrated Layer Cake, Hardy was skipping in and out of the British agent’s riff in Inception. Michael Fassbender has ruled himself out. Like Hardy he is probably too A-list but he would’ve been the perfect 007. Bond is supposed to be a bit grizzly, looking like he was up all night fighting, philandering, drinking straight vodka, or all three. Fassbender has that in spades. The incumbent, Daniel Craig, has it in spades too. Craig’s perfectly shipwrecked face and melting arctic icecap eyes will probably give it one more outing. He should. He needs to bring Bond back to the majesty of the best Bond outing, Casino Royale. Ten years ago last month, Craig was the first Bond since the very first Bond who looked like he could actually fight or drink his way out of trouble. Bond bled for the first time. There were no more gadgets, no one-liners, and Casino Royale even killed Bond’s biggest enemy: misogyny. 007 had met more than his match (even on the eyes front) with Eva Greene’s impossible to call and compelling Vesper Lynd. Then Sam Mendes took over and undid all of those good things. The last outing, Spectre, was a nightmare. And now the next challenge is who will Bond fight next, as world events have passed 007 out. Along with the House of Cards screenwriters, Bond’s people must be struggling. Russia is a good baddie again but would Bond even fight for Brexit Britannia? Baldy men in front of screens with white cats are not the danger any more – nothing that Blofeld or Spectre could come up with could be more dangerous or scarier than Donald Trump. Should he defect to the US to work for another smart-scary woman

FOR HIS EYES ONLY What do you get the man who has everything? TIM MAGEE has created a Christmas wishlist worthy of James Bond himself

in a pantsuit? Before he goes, just in case he doesn’t come back, we should give him a rousing send off, a Christmas to remember. What should we get him? Well, what do we actually know about him? He travels a lot. Drinks a lot. Drives a nice car. Has impeccable taste. He’s mad into his coffee, he’s particular about his cocktails, and he is drawn to the finer things instinctively. “I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink,” he says in Casino Royale and in the novel From Russia, with Love he brews his breakfast coffee using a CHEMEX COFFEEMAKER. Ahead of the curve – and very curvy it is – Chemex is still going strong, thanks to the resurgence in pour-over coffee and the fact that the object itself is rated as a design classic and is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Making a guest appearance in Don Draper’s kitchen during Mad Men makes perfect sense for this stylish glass beaker too. Prices from about $40, www.chemexcoffeemaker.com A 00 agent needs to keep sharpening knife skills. For some there’s nothing sexier than being able to bone a fish, carve a joint or open an oyster without making a complete tool of yourself. The right tools are important though, as is the confidence to handle a sharp blade like Oddjob without endangering anyone in your immediate vicinity. The stunning creations of charcutier, cheesemaker and knifemaker FINGAL FERGUSON of Gubbeen are waitlist-worthy – and there is a long wait for each of these handmade beauties. Balanced, handsome, unique, these mini works of art aren’t just for Christmas, they are for life. www.fingalfergusonknives.com But to be the sharpest knife in the drawer you also need to know what you’re doing with it. An evening spent

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Rules restaurant, London.

learning to slice and dice with the professionals is a smart investment that will save a fortune on Elastoplast and the swear jar. Both Cooks Academy and Dublin Cookery School offer one-night KNIFE SKILLS CLASSES that will leave those goldfingers intact. From c70, www. cooksacademy.com and www.dublincookeryschool.ie There is only one benefit to Brexit so far, and that is the exchange rate. Go to London. Bond is a fan of that most civilised end to the day, beginning the evening with a specific cocktail, depending on circumstance. “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?” is his personal recipe for a Vesper martini, from Casino Royale, and Rules, London’s oldest restaurant, offers COCKTAIL MASTERCLASSES to just four people at a time, where they teach you to make one of the ten cocktails on their list. Yes, they only do ten. Don’t doubt them – they’ve been in business, ramming them in and sending them home happy, since 1798. Where M, Q and Moneypenny (the kickass modern Moneypenny) met up during Spectre, Rules is a wood-panelled, gold-framed, velvetupholstered fantasy of the kind of England Bond probably has engraved on his cold black heart. From £135 per person, www.rules.co.uk. Add a voucher for PLATINUM SERVICES, essentially a bijou 5-star airport within Dublin Airport, a secret agent’s world where you are minded every step of the way in a luxury bubble and chauffeured to and from the gate, fast-tracking security. Call 01 814 4895 to investigate. Finally, get him SOCKS. A Christmas cliché, but necessary. Imagine how Bond must struggle to find socks when he needs them? Always running, jumping, ducking and diving – having a steady supply of socks delivered would take at least that pressure off, leaving you free to deal with bigger, more important stuff. Daniel Craig himself wears the natty London Sock Company socks for all his premières, so where better to start. Their gift subscription means that lonely boots will have something waiting for in the post every month. They can be designed to order, so at least the recipient has that small quantum of solace – cotton, merino, Olde Turquoise, Earl Grey, sober black, a surprise! – in an otherwise predictable life. www.londonsockcompany.com ^ @manandasuitcase

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BOOKS

BOUND FOR GLORY Got a gifting conundrum? You’ll get plenty of bang for a book, writes SARAH BREEN

GOING ONCE: �5 YEARS OF CULTURE, TASTE AND COLLECTING AT CHRISTIE’S From furniture to vintage cars, rare art and jewellery, Going Once showcases 250 of the most outstanding objects sold at Christie’s since it was founded in 1766. (Phaidon, ¤49.95)

AMERICAN DREAMER: MY LIFE IN FASHION & BUSINESS In his first autobiography, American fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger shares his extraordinary rise to fame, from the opening of his first store in 1969 to his current status as the King of East Coast Prep. Combining equal parts grit and glamour, it provides and incredible insight into the hard work behind Hilfiger’s multibillion dollar brand and business empire. Also, did you know he was a regular at Studio 54? (Ballantine Books, ¤25)

A DAY IN MAY A collection of moving real-life stories from the people most affected by last May’s equal marriage referendum: the LGBT community. Compiled by journalist Charlie Bird. (Merrion Press, ¤24.99)

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE HOUSE?

THE CURATED CLOSET Can’t see the wood for the trees in your wardrobe? Let minimalist Anuschka Rees guide you in creating a capsule that works for your lifestyle. (Ten Speed Press, ¤26.60)

The first book from interior designer Lorraine Kirke is a celebration of her signature aesthetic: bold, fearless and daringly eclectic. A surefire hit for interiors fans. (Rizzoli, ¤35)

GARDENISTA Featuring twelve enviable gardens, as well as lots of practical inspiration and advice, all that stands between you and a dreamy outdoor space is this book. (Artisan, ¤28.99)

JAMIE OLIVER’S CHRISTMAS COOKBOOK HISTOROPEDIA From Fatti and John Burke, the father and daughter team behind Irlandopedia, this gorgeous new installment will take readers of all ages on a time-travelling journey through Irish history. (Gill, ¤19.99)

As well as everything you need to create the ultimate festive feast, Oliver also serves up plenty of ideas for leftovers and a rather tempting selection of cocktails. (Michael Joseph, ¤36.40)

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PAGES FROM THE GLOSSIES As well as more than 500 spreads from top magazines, this glossy book contains lively personal anecdotes from the famous fashion photographer himself. (Taschen, ¤34.99)

WOMEN

SELFISH

Featuring the remarkable women who influenced photographer Slim Aaron’s life, including Diana Vreeland, Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, Women contains more than 200 stunning photographs. (Abrams Books, ¤55)

Now with “more me!” this updated version of Kim Kardashian’s ode to Kim Kardashian will delight fans and sceptics alike. We’re not kidding. (Universe, ¤20.95)

BOOKS A HISTORY OF THE EASTER RISING IN 5� OBJECTS A unique perspective on the 1916 Rising told through 50 surviving objects, among them Seán Mac Diarmada’s hurley and Kathleen Lynn’s prison biscuits. (Mercier Press, ¤19.99)

BOTANICAL STYLE Learn to decorate with nature, plants and florals, with expert guidance from interior stylist Selina Lake, in her seventh gorgeous book. (Ryland Peters and Small, ¤19.99)

BOWIE A TO Z: THE LIFE OF AN ICON Gone but certainly not forgotten, Steve Wide’s illustrated celebration of David Bowie’s incredible life and work is sure to delight fans of the Starman, young and old. (Smith Street Books, ¤12.99)

POOL PARTY Set at bon vivant Johnny Pigozzi’s home on the Côte d’Azur, Pool Party features the well-known guests who’ve taken a dip on the property, among them celebrities, models, rock stars, and artists. (Rizzoli, ¤22.50)

THE BIG BOOK OF BUGS This jolly, fact-filled large format book is guaranteed to satisfy the curiosity of any bugchasing child. Or adult. (Thames and Hudson, ¤12.95)

HAVANA This amazing snapshot of the Cuban

NEVILLE JACOBS, I’M MARC’S DOG With 196,000 Instagram followers, Neville is the latest celebrity pet to take advantage of his reach. This peek inside his glamorous and stylish life offers plenty of star cameos and a look at how the other half live. (Rizzoli, ¤13.95)

THE ART OF THE CHEESE PLATE Take your dinner party game to the next level with this mouth-watering guide to fancy fromage and delicious pairings. (Rizzoli, ¤24.95)

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capital, captured by Bernhard Hartmann, proves exactly why Havana was the must-visit holiday destination of this year. Warning: you will want to book flights asap. (TeNeues, ¤59)

CREATING HISTORY Published to coincide with the National Gallery exhibition of the same name, this tome includes chapters by leading Irish historians. (Irish Academic Press, ¤24.99)

THE MOON SPUN ROUND You’re never too young to enjoy WB Yeats. This beautifully illustrated book is the perfect introduction for young poetry fans. (The O’Brien Press, ¤19.99)

GIFTS TO DELIGHT THE WINE LOVER

WINE

Steer clear of the obvious bottles and go oﬀ-piste instead, writes MARY DOWEY

perfumes, luxury oils are relatively expensive, so they’re not the kind of thing that people necessarily buy for themselves. And like the best perfumes, they tend to come in handsome looking bottles – another factor that pushes them high up the gift ratings. Terroirs of Donnybrook, an Aladdin’s cave of gorgeous wine-related gifts, has top-ranking Tuscan estate oils like Isole e Olena (500ml, d19.50), Coltibuono (500ml, d19.50), Capezzana (750ml, d35) as well as super-swish Ornellaia (500ml, d29.50) and Frescobaldi Laudemio (250ml, d24.50, 500ml d34.50). See www.terroirs.ie

unting out a present for a dedicated wine lover? My advice is to go offpiste. Bordeaux, port, champagne and the other mainstream classics that are shunted to the front of drinks displays every Christmas may seem a little dull to the recipient of your largesse. He or she probably has favourites that you don’t know about or else feels lukewarm about over-familiar styles. So if you’re hell-bent on a bottle it should be irresistibly intriguing. As for wine paraphernalia, for all but novice drinkers this may be over-trodden territory too. Unless specific hints are dropped, it’s safe to assume that most wine buffs have more corkscrews, foil cutters, drip-stops, decanters and posh glasses in all sizes than even the most committed imbiber could need. Avoid the obvious, in other words. Here are a few ideas for goodies that most wine fans should whip out of their wrappings with glee:

FAB ENGLISH FIZZ Partly thanks to global warming, England now produces sparkling wines to rival champagne for finesse. The best are made from the traditional champagne grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, grown on the same band of chalk that runs through the Champagne region and across the South Downs. One of the most scintillating is Wiston Estate Blanc de Blancs NV, a wonderfully poised and sensuous sparkler made in West Sussex, the heartland of English wine, by Corkman Dermot Sugrue. From www.lecaveau.ie; Corkscrew, Dublin 2; Green Man, Dublin 6; Bradleys, Cork; World Wide, Waterford, d57-d60.

NEW BOTTLES – FOR MONTHS For anybody who wants to expand their wine horizons, the Wine Explorers Club organised by mail order specialists Wines Direct is a brilliant idea. For a monthly subscription of d69, d89 or d109 (depending on how fancy you’d like the wines to be), members receive six different bottles – white, red or mixed, according to preference – together with tasting notes and vineyard details. Typically the wines will come from small, worthwhile estates, because Wines Direct makes a genuine effort to ferret out exciting family producers; and they will include the latest additions to the portfolio. Membership conditions are flexible, so if a year’s gift subscription seems over-lavish you can sign up for just a few months. Full details on www.winesdirect.ie.

EVENINGS AT ELY Some of the most tempting wine appreciation courses on offer are run by Ely Bar & Brasserie in their wine vaults at the CHQ Building in the IFSC. Taught by awardwinning sommelier Ian Brosnan, sessions are held once a week for four weeks (next start dates are January 17 and February 28) and include supper as well as two hours of tasting for d220. Ely also hosts an array of individual tastings and masterclasses which can be given as a gift. Imminent themes include Bordeaux Left Bank (January

DREAM WINE & CHEESE DUO

12, d60), Pinot Noir (January 20, d55), New World Icons (February 3, d60) and Champagne & Sparkling Wines (February 9, d50). Talk about new year cheer! Details at www.elywinebar.ie.

INTOXICATING HUMOUR We live in such po-faced, PC times that people over the age of 30 hardly dare admit that the appeal of wines, beers and spirits is linked more than tentatively to inebriation. This is one reason why Highballs For Breakfast - The very best of PG Wodehouse on the joys of a good stiff drink is such a welcome little book: an unabashed admission that pleasure may (occasionally) be had from getting squiffy, pickled, pie-eyed or polluted. The other reason, of course, is Wodehouse’s fluent wit. I’d forgotten just how entertaining he can be until Highballs hit my desk. Any enthusiastic drinker will enjoy dipping into it for encouragement – or solace. (Hutchinson, d14.60)

GENEROUS TASTING GLASSES Because their shape is specially designed to enhance aromas and flavours, wine tasting glasses should be in the kitchen of every wine fan. The trouble is that the standard, tulip-shaped ISO jobs look basic and decidedly mean. I’ve ditched my own recently in favour of Authentis tasting glasses by Spiegelau, a company owned by Austrian wine glass wizards Riedel. They’re robust enough for everyday use (and the dishwasher) but look elegant enough for a dinner party. From www.riedel.co.uk.

WINE ESTATE OLIVE OIL Olive oil from a smart wine estate may please a picky wine buff far more than a bottle of vino – particularly if he or she is an enthusiastic cook. Like exceptional

Port and Stilton? No thanks. Heavy as lead at the end of a meal, these two overhyped old partners don’t even taste all that great together, especially given the quality of some of the Stilton shoved on to the market for Christmas. Instead, pick up half a round of our own Cashel Blue and offer it in a thermal bag along with a well chilled half bottle of Hermits Hill Botrytis Semillon, Riverina 2011. Made by De Bortoli, deft producers of the legendary Australian sweet wine Noble One, this light-footed beauty with orange and pineapple notes turns Ireland’s favourite blue into a stellar treat. From Marks & Spencer, 375ml, d12.80.

A JURA JEWEL Wedged between Burgundy and Switzerland, Jura in eastern France is attracting attention these days because its highly traditional wines are so individualistic in style. And so utterly fantastic, I can tell you, having made my first visit there this summer. More details of this revelatory trip soon but in the meantime I bet adventurous drinkers would love to try Domaine Rolet Naturé du Jura 2013. Made from Savagnin, Jura’s white speciality grape, it’s fruity but also nutty with a refreshing, almost salty finish. Magnificent with roast chicken or that other Jura speciality, Comté cheese. From Clontarf Wines, Dublin 3; Baggot Street Wines, Dublin 4; Drink Store, Dublin 7; 64 Wine, Glasthule, Co Dublin; La Touche, Greystones, Co Wicklow, about d25.

SOPHISTICATED STORAGE With bright lights and temperature fluctuations, the kitchen is the worst possible place to store wine. Damage can be done even in a matter of weeks unless a temperature-controlled wine cooler is there to save the day. A godsend in homes with limited space, the Haier WS25GA is a handsome 25-bottle unit with a Class A energy rating, anti-vibration system and anti-UV glass door. Wines will be kept in peak condition, ready to serve at the ideal temperature. What a gift! From www.kal.ie, d359. You can see it in the flesh at KAL, in Citywest, Dublin 24. ^ @MaryDowey

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FOOD

EAT, DRINK

& BE MERRY Christmas means entertaining. Seasoned hostess TRISH DESEINE has all the ingredients for a festive cocktail party

The King of Rioja. JAV6122_Faustino_Gloss_Bookends_121x160.indd 2

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PHOTOGRAPH BY DEIRDRE ROONEY

DECK THE HALLS Trish Deseine gets into a festive mood.

t’s party season once more. Apologies if you are dreading the merrymaking but at this time of year, I am in my element. The Christmas run-up is my favourite part of the season – far surpassing the Big Day itself – and as soon as the calendar shows December 1, for me the next three and a half weeks are like one long Christmas Eve. Like it or not, there’s a very good chance that at some stage over the next month, you will need to fling open the doors of your house along with those of your drinks cupboard and – especially if you are allergic to full-blown dinner parties – might be thinking that a cocktail party is a good way of returning a maximum number of invitations with a minimal amount of cooking. But let’s face it, to set that dinner party counter back to zero, you are going to need to offer more than a shop-bought mulled wine mix sloshed into cheap Shiraz (which always smells like a combination of pub carpet and the worst scented candles) cherry tomatoes and Pringles. In my party-giving heyday, I thought nothing of inviting and lavishly feeding 30 or more guests (for my 35th “La Vie en Rose” birthday bash I cooked an entirely pink menu for 65, all required to wear pink, the poor devils). These days, even if my west Cork social life is more subdued, at Christmas I’ll still be wanting to spoil friends and family as much as possible. Throwing a successful party needs not just a cook’s skills but also those of barman, interior designer and theatre director rolled into one. Here are my top tips to make sure your fabulous soirée is the talk of the town – or at least the village. 1. If you have more than ten or twelve guests, do not attempt to make them individual cocktails all evening. Like the French, start with a luxurious splash, something like a very fashionable Aperol Spritz or, more potent, a Negroni or my “Demie” with an Irish craft gin and champagne. Then offer (good) wine throughout the night, perhaps ending up with more bubbles and a nice cognac or whiskey as things wind down. If you absolutely want to offer cocktails non-stop, set up a large, open DIY space with all the kit and keep it topped up with clean glasses, mixers and ice. 2. Keep the lights low – except over the food – but go easy on the candles and always keep them out of the way and high enough to avoid disasters. I speak from sorry experience. 3. Don’t let guests wander too much: confine the party to a couple of rooms – and of course, unavoidably, the kitchen – as you need a bit of a crush to warm up the atmosphere. Rule of thumb is one guest per square metre! 4. Serve the poshest, prettiest, fiddliest nibbles at the start, alongside two or three dips with flatbreads and crudités for when appetites start to build after the first drink takes effect. Then bring out something more substantial. A simple soup with a fancy garnish in small, easy to handle cups and/ or a side of home cured salmon with good bread, butter and horseradish cream are crowdpleasers and easy to make and serve. 5. Always finish (them) off with one good cheese, a boozy trifle, a chocolate cake and lashings of cream. ^ @TrishDeseine

FOOD

SOMETHING FISHY Crowd-pleasing seafood canapés

SHAKE IT UP

Get in the party spirit with a classic cocktail

ne surefire way to kick proceedings off with a bang is to offer guests one of my favourite festive cocktails. To make a classic Negroni (right), pour equal parts gin, vermouth and Campari over ice and garnish with an aromatic orange twist (I like to offer pomegranate seeds too for an extra burst of f lavour). My personal favourite, thanks to the addition of bubbles, is La Demie – take one measure of Irish craft gin, add one teaspoon of icing sugar with one teaspoon of lime juice and top up with icy prosecco or, better still, champagne if you’ve got it. Having a moment this party season is the traditional Italian aperitif, the Aperol Spritz. Put some ice in a large glass with a slice of orange; add three parts prosecco to one part Aperol and finish with a dash of soda. As well as alcohol, mixers and garnishes, clever to have on hand at the cocktail bar (or festively decorated table): plenty of glasses, more ice than you think you’ll need and coasters or cocktail napkins where people can’t avoid them. A mixologist is always a welcome

addition, although some guests may take on the role as amateurs. It’s always a good idea to have some non-alcoholic options available too – you won’t go wrong with chilled sparkling water and lime wedges or some fresh fruit juices. As for snacks, keep them to a minimum so as not to detract from the canapés: think lemon and rosemary olives or roasted nuts. And what about the music? If your DJ skills haven’t been tested in a while, you can browse moods, genres and create personalised playlists with Spotify. ^

SUPER EASY GIN-CURED SALMON This is my go-to recipe, swiped from good old Jamie, though I prefer gin to his vodka and not to use dill in the cure but leave it for the horseradish cream alongside. FOR 8 -10 (10 minutes preparation; 4 – 5 hours resting) 1 heaped tbsp soft brown sugar • 30ml gin • 3 heaped tbsp sea salt • Zest from 1 orange and 2 lemons • One large fillet salmon, pin boned, skin on (about 300g)

The King of Rioja.

1. Mix the sugar, gin, salt and zests in a large bowl. 2. Place the salmon on cling film on a baking tray and pour the curing mix over. Massage the fish well, rubbing the mix into the flesh and then tightly wrap it in cling film, trying to capture all the liquid. 3. Leave it for 4 to 5 hours, then rinse quickly under cold water, pat dry, slice and serve with horseradish and dill mixed with double cream, yoghurt or crème fraiche.

SKEWERED SCALLOPS WITH CHORIZO I love these niblets as they are juicy, salty and well behaved enough to stay delicious as they cool a little. You could also use salmon. (10 minutes preparation; 3 – 4 minutes cooking)

SEAWEED AND LEMON BUTTER FOR CURED OR SMOKED SALMON Serve this tasty butter with bread alongside the salmon. (5 minutes preparation; 1 hour chilling) 100g butter • 1 tsp dried seaweed • Touch of pepper • ½ tsp grated lemon zest 1. Mix together with a fork or in a mini blender. Roll into sausage shape in cling film and chill until needed.

200g scallops • 15 or so wafer-thin chorizo or ham slices 1. Pre-heat the oven to 180˚C. 2. Cut the scallops into bite-sized chunks. Wrap with chorizo and set on some silver foil on a baking sheet. Roast for 3 to 4 minutes until the scallops are cooked and the chorizo crisped and bubbling. Remove from the oven and skewer each bite with a cocktail pique. Serve warm.

A single family have tended the same soil in Rioja for 150 years, blending select Tempranillo, Graciano and Mazuelo grapes with patient skill, then French and American oak ageing to give their wines a balanced, memorable, fuller intensity. Sip, and you’ll taste berries, spice and the warmth of the Spanish sun. And you’ll see exactly why people call Faustino the King of Rioja. Faustino I Gran Reserva 2001 Top Wine of the Year Decanter Magazine January 2014 97/100 rating Faustino Faustino Faustino

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T H E G L O S S M A G A Z I N E | December 2016 | 75

THIS GLOSSY LIFE

A GREATER KNOWLEDGE

A ﬁne jewellery consultant, a Hollywood make-up artist and two curators tell us how they turned interest into expertise and forged careers that they love

EXPERT WITNESS

laire-Laurence Mestrallet used to play with diamonds on the table in the living room of her childhood home on the south of France. “It’s not really how it sounds – my father was a diamond dealer, that’s how we had diamonds in the house.” Mestrallet is now Head of Jewellery at Adam’s auction house on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, to which every day, when she’s not travelling abroad for work, she walks with Isys, her miniature dachshund. Isys seems to be a very well-behaved dog and utterly at ease in the world of fine jewellery, art and antiques, sitting patiently on Mestrallet’s chair or under her desk as she goes about her business. She’s an international dog, at home everywhere. “I was born in Grenoble but soon after we moved to Namibia, where my father was working, and then back to live in the south of France.” Mestrallet’s father died when she was eight and at 13 she went to boarding school in England, then to university in Paris for two years, then two years in New York, studying art history and public relations. During her time in New York, she interned at Christie’s. If gems were in her genes, a strong interest would emerge only after she got her first job, as PA to the Head of Jewellery at Christie’s in Geneva. “Being a PA is only interesting if you are interested in the business you work for – otherwise it is purely administration and can be boring. Although I’m very grateful I learned all those skills too. My boss was fascinating and knowledgeable and I was inspired to begin studying by correspondence. I was too fond of earning money to give up my job and go back to college full time.” When the department at Christie’s in Geneva closed, and now armed with her degree in gemmology, Mestrallet began working for a family business in Geneva, sourcing and selling diamonds, meeting clients and working with designers and workshops to create engagement rings for clients. “For one ring, I had a budget of over ¤200,000, for another, ¤5,000. I was very proud of both.” Joining Bonhams in London, after a year, Mestrallet

went to Bonhams in Geneva, where she flew all over Europe, from Germany to Austria to Monaco, appraising jewellery for clients. “We had a sort of jewellery clinic, like that of a doctor – 30-minute appointments.” Clients would attend with their collections which they were intending to consign to an auction. “In some cases, for clients who had important collections, I would fly in for the day and visit them at home.” These visits did not always yield treasures. “Sometimes you find surprises where you don’t expect them. In other situations, you have to find a way to diplomatically tell a client that his or her jewellery is not what they thought it was. In some cases, clients would have effectively lost hundreds of thousands of euros, buying jewellery worth a fraction of what they had thought.” Diplomacy is one key skill of the jewellery expert, discretion is another. “Of course this

“Now, with more conﬁdence in my own taste, I select pieces that move me, that have a CHARM.” applies in every instance. For instance, when working in diamonds, a client might one day select something for his wife; another day for his mistress.” If Mestrallet raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, a client would not have noticed. “I was there to provide a service.” Mestrallet says her education continues all the time. “I learn by reading, by looking. Over time an instinct develops. Now, when curating sales, I select pieces that I know are well-designed, with good quality gemstones, but also now, with more confidence in my own taste, pieces that move me, that have a charm.” This month, Mestrallet will conduct a jewellery sale for Adam’s, her third since she arrived in early summer. It’s a mix of consigned pieces, accepted for sale from clients and the general public and pieces Mestrallet has sourced from all over Europe, including jewellery by designers who sell abroad but not in Ireland, Italian designer Margherita Burgener, for

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instance. “I worked with her in Geneva, and we have kept in touch. I’m delighted to introduce her to our Irish clients.” Mestrallet also takes a fresh approach to her catalogue, which looks modern and fun. “I do want to make my sales relevant and inviting.” The sale on December 6 will be a mixture of contemporary and antique. Mestrallet, who wears very understated jewellery, and often just one piece at a time, has a preference for pieces of the 1940s and 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. “Particularly French jewellery of the 1940s and 1950s. You might say I’m biased but anything with a French assay mark from that period is usually beautifully made and will hold its value.” There are diamond rings, antique brooches and pins, watches and earrings. There is a pair of aquamarine, sapphire and diamond earrings by Seaman Schepps, a flamboyant designer of the 1930s and 1940s, favoured by Wallis Simpson, Coco Chanel, Katharine Hepburn, heiress Doris Duke, Fidel Castro, who bought a bracelet for his sister, and Andy Warhol. There are semi-precious pieces and cultured pearls, which Mestrallet says, are very popular with Irish women. Mestrallet is already tapped into the Irish scene and for her autumn sale in October invited designer Louise Kennedy to select her favourites from the sale. For this sale, designer Peter O’Brien has chosen some of his. “Peter loves antique pieces and chose an oxidised ring with diamonds by Suzanne Belperron, a very famous Parisian designer, a favourite of the Duchess of Windsor.” It’s one of a kind and the estimate is ¤1,400. O’Brien also chose some Victorian turquoise earrings. Also in the sale, a glittering 11ct Graff diamond bracelet with an estimate of ¤45,000. “At a Graff boutique it would cost ¤200,000.” But not everything has a huge price tag, with prices starting at ¤200 for a pair of diamond earrings. And what about investment value? “This jewellery will hold its value but as estimates in the auction world are very close to real value, these really are pieces to be worn and loved.” SMcD The Adam’s fine jewellery sale will be conducted alongside a sale of Irish art. Viewing on December 3 and 4, from 1-5pm; December 5, 10-5pm; December 6; 10-4pm. The auction begins at 6pm on December 6. www.adams.ie; @clm_adams_auctioneers

This Glossy Life

Claire-Laurence Mestrallet, accompanied by Isys and photographed by Al Higgins at Adams, wears items from the December sale: aquamarine and diamond ring, Margherita Burgener; diamond bracelet, Graff; antique diamond and pearl star brooch, c 1890.

THIS GLOSSY LIFE MOVIE MAGIC

ichele Burke was the Irish film industry abroad when there was no Irish film industry abroad. A true trailblazer, her ability to transform the features of A-list actors like Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez and Kirsten Dunst through the magic of make-up artistry has placed her at the top of her game. Yet she is refreshingly candid about her success, joking that she learned on the job – often “by the seat of my pants” – and was so convinced she wouldn’t win her first Oscar that she didn’t attend the awards ceremony (she’s won twice, and been nominated six times). Burke is personable and witty. Her Irish accent remains despite decades of living and working first in Canada and then in Los Angeles, where she lives with husband, Michael Winter. She is elegance personified, clad in black, with a structured bob. She was, she says, a fan of “the pictures” long before she started working on them. “We lived right beside the cinema in Kildare, in a Georgian house. Our father was crazy about Hollywood and film stars. He had a collection of LIFE magazines. I don’t remember if it was The Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy, but [a character] had his face on a hot plate burner and there was smoke coming out. I would look at it time and time again and say: ‘Daddy, how come he’s not getting burnt?’ He’d say it was tricks and I didn’t understand it – but later I was the one doing the tricks.” After emigrating to Canada with her brother Mark, Burke says she “stumbled” into make-up artistry, and initially had no idea it could be a career option. After doing a beauty course, she did some work for a makeup boutique and modelled for a brief period, though she hated being in front of the camera. The discovery of a book on the craft by author Richard Corson proved a revelation. “In there I saw witches and demons and ageings and I thought: ‘I’m not a real makeup artist at all’. The changes you could make on a face fascinated me. This was a new discovery. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a make-up artist all my life – I didn’t know there was such a thing. When I found out, I was blown away – I felt like I’d been cheated! How come no one told me about this?” But for an Irish emigrant with no connections to the film industry, hers was never going to be a straightforward path. She sought out a make-up artist in Montreal who agreed to let her work as an assistant on a few low-budget projects: “I learned about the set, continuity, all the things that you needed to know about working on a film. It was a perfect learning ground and before I knew where I was, I was heading up departments. I was inventing it all as I went. I literally learned on the job. Even though they were kind of chintzy films, it didn’t matter. That’s what horror films were all about. I loved it – I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and go to work.” A job on the 1981 film Quest For Fire would be her huge breakthrough, though she did not realise it at the time. It would give her her first Academy Award, an award that came as a surprise to Burke, whose work on the left field film was up against the Goliath that was

Gandhi. “I got a call to do this film about neanderthals in Africa. I said yes but what I didn’t realise was that they had called every other make-up artist in Montreal before me,” she laughs. “I just said: ‘Great, I’m off.’ And then it won me an Oscar. And all my peers were asking: ‘Who’s Michele Burke?’” So convinced was she of not winning that she took a job in Alaska and missed the ceremony. She and her sister Adrienne later went to collect the gold statue from their local customs office. “The box was heavy and [the customs officer brought] it around to open it. He said: ‘Ooh it’s an Oscar’ and Adrienne said: ‘Well, present her with it’. At that point there were people around clapping, and that’s how I got my first Oscar.” The second Academy Award, years later, for her groundbreaking work on the Francis Ford Coppoladirected Bram Stoker’s Dracula, sealed her reputation as one of the finest in her field. “The stakes were higher really. With the second one, I thought: ‘If I win, I’d prove to them all that it’s not a fluke’. Coppola is an amazing director to work with. He knew what he wanted, he had the entire film storyboarded. The best part was working

“Tom [Cruise] called me a LOT, but I didn’t always work with HIM, I did many other projects. My thing is to ﬁnd work that’s creative and EXCITING for me.” with Eiko Ishioka, the costume designer, a very famous Japanese designer. They didn’t want the normal Dracula, with the fangs and the cape and the widow’s peak. He’s an iconic figure and now we were making him into a different iconic figure, so there was a huge amount of pressure. But it was accepted, and people did like this new look.” What is her memory of her name being called out? “First, you don’t believe it, people have to push you up because you don’t really hear it, you’re wondering if your mind is playing games. When I stood up on stage it took my breath away, because I looked out and it was this sea of faces. It was overwhelming, that moment.” She agrees that Oscar night in Los Angeles is a surreal experience. “It’s very strange because you have all the publicists, all the paparazzi people, and we’re nobodies. It’s like: ‘Get out of the way, where’s Angelina Jolie?’ They want to see the stars. They want famous faces. But it is very exciting. For anyone who gets there, it’s an honour.” Now head of a group of make-up artists that she calls her “SWAT team”, Burke’s career continues to flourish and she’s worked on two new films this year. While she has always been drawn to variety in her work, she is synonymous with some very memorable faces. It was she who helped bring Austin Powers to life, she who enhanced J-Lo’s striking features in The Cell, she who transformed Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst into bloodthirsty beings in

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Interview with the Vampire. Dunst, says Burke, is “dear to my heart. She was only eleven when she did Interview with the Vampire, and got her first kiss from Brad. She’s a normal, lovely person.” Her collaborations with arguably the world’s biggest star, Tom Cruise, are now in double figures and include the blockbuster Mission: Impossible movies. It was she who helped “disfigure” Cruise following an accident in Vanilla Sky – and she who helped transform him into slimy producer Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder. “He requires total 100 per cent focus and excellence. On the other hand, if you’ve done a good job, he loves it and he is happy about it. We’ve collaborated on quite a few characters, good ones. He wants you to go super fast. He wants no more than an hour in the make-up chair – you can see he wants to get out and get on the set. He’s very exciting to work with. An adrenaline rush.” Still, despite being on the radar of some of the world’s biggest stars, Burke is wary of becoming too closely involved with them. “Tom called me a lot, but I didn’t always work with him, I did many other projects. Some actresses take their make-up artists everywhere, and they’re best friends. But I’ve seen it go the other way, where they get too chummy with them and then all of a sudden they are dumped. My thing is to find work that’s creative and exciting for me, on a project that I want to do: I would seek out those projects. And also when I did his films I designed the whole show, I did all the make-up. I didn’t want to get pigeon-holed.” Burke occasionally has to make-up an actor who can’t bear make-up, like Tilda Swinton in Minority Report. “Tilda hated make-up. She likes that bare-faced look and she’s created a whole beauty look around it. It’s gorgeous.” Burke’s career remains a work in progress and she is a shrewd businesswoman both on and off set. Her collaboration with make-up applicator manufacturers GEKA has led to sales of almost one million units in applicator designs to major cosmetics houses. Burke also paints. “Make-up design for film is collaborative, infused with the input and direction of actors, directors and producers, as well as studio and script requirements. I paint for my own pleasure. It helps me to perfect make-up skills and more completely explore the boundaries of light, shadow and blending.” This Christmas, Burke will enjoy some downtime with family and friends, spending the festive season in Los Angeles. “Of course it’s impossible to top Christmas in Ireland. Nevertheless Christmas in Los Angeles is special,” she says. “My little town of Burbank has a Christmas decorating competition and everyone goes all out. I live in a very special horse-zoned community and there are group rides with Christmas carolers. Lots of dress-up – even for the horses and animals. As so many live here from all around the globe, the city fills with their extended families and friends. “Of course the weather is an attraction and work usually slows down a bit as Christmas approaches. It’s a time to catch up with close friends who have been working nonstop all year on film sets all over the world and a great time for parties and dinners.” ESTHER MC CARTHY Michele Burke featured in IFTA’s In Conversation With series. For details, see www.ifta.ie. www.micheleburke.com; @micheleburke_mua

Michele Burke, photographed by Massimo Masini, in her studio in LA.

“I paint for PLEASURE. It helps me to perfect makeup SKILLS and more completely explore the BOUNDARIES of light, shadow and blending.”

THIS GLOSSY LIFE

ROOM FOR ART

he National Gallery on Dublin’s Merrion Square is undergoing a huge renovation but while parts of the gallery are under wraps until 2017, for curators – and the visiting public – it’s very much business as usual. The

Gallery houses a collection of over 12,000 works on paper – prints, pastels, watercolours, sketchbooks and miniatures, from the 15th century to the present day. Highlights include old master drawings by François Boucher, JeanAntoine Watteau and Jacob Jordaens, works by Irish and British artists, Frederic William Burton, Walter Osborne, William Orpen, Paul Henry, as well as Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne. Not forgetting 31 watercolours by English landscape painter JMW Turner (1775-1851) which arrived in Dublin in September 1900 in a custommade oak cabinet, and went on show for the first time at the Gallery in January 1901. Works on paper are vulnerable to prolonged periods of light so are not on permanent display year round. Henry Vaughan’s bequest stipulated the drawings should be exhibited to the public, free of charge, each January when the light is at its lowest level. If the run-up to Christmas means one thing to Anne Hodge and Niamh MacNally, respectively Curator and Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, it’s Turner, as the catalogue for the exhibition is updated, the hanging plan finalised, and a tradition of almost 120 years continues. Both Hodge and MacNally visited the exhibition as children. As Hodge

Niamh MacNally, left, and Anne Hodge, right, photographed by Doreen Kilfeather with the work of Margaret Clarke and JMW Turner, in the The Diageo Prints & Drawings Study Room at the National Gallery. The oak cabinet behind Hodge is the original from the 1900 Henry Vaughan bequest.

says, “Bequests like Vaugan’s are a present to the nation and it’s wonderful to see visitors enjoying it year after year, passing that interest down, often by grandparents to grandchildren.” For both women, early exposure to art was instrumental in their choice of career, or at least their decisions to study in the area. Hodge, a graduate of NCAD and UCD, was as a student captivated by the idea of provenance of art and the historical context in which works were painted or drawn. Niamh MacNally could have followed in the footsteps of other family members and joined the family’s optical business but chose another path, one of a very different visual nature. If a curator was once considered a stuffy role by the uninitiated, films like The First Monday in May, which featured Andrew Bolton of the Met Museum in New York, have helped highlight the interesting work of a curator. Hodge and MacNally are not lunching with Anna Wintour of Vogue, nor is Baz Luhrmann art-directing the opening of their exhibitions, but nor are they cooped up writing and researching, lost in an arcane world of scholarship. Says MacNally, “We are lecturing, meeting the public, family members of artists, other curators, travelling as couriers to other museums and galleries.” Hodge notes that as well as adding to the body of work about an artist, “Our job is to inspire and encourage others – students of art and art history, with our knowledge of the works in the National Collection.” Meet The Curator sessions and access to the study room are ways of imparting that knowledge. MacNally and Hodge also advise on the acquisition of works – especially those by female artists, to redress the

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gender balance – and also the acquisition of interesting pieces to close the gaps in the chronology of any collection. Hodge is not just an expert on Turner: she was responsible for the Edvard Munch and Leonardo da Vinci exhibitions among many others in her 15 years at the Gallery, but, at this time of the year, he is uppermost in her mind. “The interesting thing about our Turner pieces is that they span his early work as a teenager, until his latter years.” Her knowledge of Turner earned her a visit from Mike Leigh, director of the excellent 2014 film, Mr Turner. While the Turner collection is being prepared by Hodge for its annual outing, MacNally is working on a 2017 exhibition. Margaret Clarke (1884-1961), wife of celebrated stained glass artist Harry Clarke, was an accomplished and highly regarded artist in her own right, a student of William Orpen at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the second female member of the Royal Hibernian Academy (the first was Sarah Purser). “Contextualising an artist and her work,” says MacNally, “should tell an interesting story with a fresh perspective.” Many of the works come from the Gallery’s own collection (a bequest from the partner of one of Clarke’s sons). Other material comes from the Crawford in Cork and the National Self Portrait Collection at UL. “It is the curator’s job to bring it out, present it in a way that is inclusive, accessible and welcoming.” Hodge adds, “This is the National Collection: it belongs to all of us.” ^ SMcD The Vaughan Bequest, January 1-31 2017. Admission free. The Art of Margaret Clarke RHA (1884-1964), May 10-August 20 2017. Research students and members of the public are welcome to visit the Prints & Drawings Study Room, 01 663 3535. Email drawings@ngi.ie.

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