IS SU E T W EN T Y SEV EN | AUGUST
2013
The Greatest
Produced in International Media Production Zone
AIR looks back on the career of a living legend
CHRIS O’DOWD From bullied younger brother to the toast of LA’s comedy crowd
SPEED THRILLS Jamie Merrill gets to grips with Bentley’s fastest ever model
BORN IN THE UAE The Emirati artists taking their talents to the global stage
TWO’S COMPANY Meet the interior design duo transforming the homes of the glitterati
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CONTENTS / FE ATURES
Managing Director Victoria Thatcher Editorial Director John Thatcher Advertisement Director Chris Capstick chris@hotmediapublishing.com
Forty Two
Muhammad Ali
Editor Leah Oatway leah@hotmediapublishing.com
AIR looks back at the illustrious career of one of sport’s, and history’s, most legendary characters
Contributing Editor Hazel Plush hazel@hotmediapublishing.com
Fifty Six
Chris O’Dowd
Writer Grace Hyne grace@hotmediapublishing.com
Meet the Irish comic actor whose star is in ascension as he talks about life, love and flunking drama school
Senior Designer Adam Sneade Designer Andy Knappett Illustrator Vanessa Arnaud Production Manager Chalitha Fernando Senior Advertisement Manager Stefanie Morgner stefanie@hotmediapublishing.com Advertisement Manager Sukaina Hussein sukaina@hotmediapublishing.com
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CONTENTS / REGUL ARS Fourteen
Seventy
Seventy Two
The private island in the Seychelles that’s yours to hire, for a small fee
A new boutique Bahrain hotel hopes to revolutionise business travel forever
Erkan Fere, CEO of The Left Shoe Company, on the life lessons he has learned
Radar
Travel
What I Know Now
Twenty Three
Timepieces
Piaget reveals the creative genius behind its limited edition Altiplano watches
Twenty Nine
Jewellery
Marvel at the stunning offerings of Boucheron, Bvlgari and Bottega Veneta
Thirty Two
Art & Design Jonathan Yeo has made portrait painting cool again. AIR catches up with him.
Thirty Eight
Interiors
Meet the best friends whose passion for antiques spawned a design empire
Sixty Four
Gastronomy Chef Ferran Adrià on life after closing his trailblazing El Bulli restaurant
Sixty
Motoring Getting to grips with the super power of Bentley’s Continental GT Speed
Tel: 00971 4 364 2876 Fax: 00971 4 369 7494 Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from HOT Media Publishing is strictly prohibited. All prices mentioned are correct at time of press but may change. HOT Media Publishing does not accept liability for omissions or errors in AIR.
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SETTING THE STANDARD IN COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS
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EMPIRE AVIATION GROUP
August 2013
WELCOME ONBOARD
Welcome to this issue of AIR – our private aviation lifestyle magazine for onboard guests and aircraft owners. In this issue we look at two important areas of private aviation – firstly, the decision to make the step from business jet charter customer to aircraft owner; and secondly, the financing of a business jet for a new owner. The two issues are related and are part of the initial consultancy services we offer to prospective owners. We provide a tailored business model to all our clients so that they can be sure they are ready to acquire a business jet and that it is a worthwhile option to chartering – and a viable financial option. But once the benefits are clear and the feasibility established, jet ownership becomes a very powerful and convenient business tool. With the right team advising and taking responsibility for maintaining and operating the business jet on the owner’s behalf, with the foremost objective of protecting its long term value, much of the complexity is taken away. Simplifying ownership and optimising the benefits of a business jet is a fundamental part of our role with our aircraft owners and we are delighted to share some of this experience with you.
Steve Hartley Executive Director
Contact details: info@empire.aero empire.aero
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Paras Dhamecha Executive Director
EMPIRE AVIATION GROUP NEWS
FROM AIRCRAFT CHARTER TO OWNERSHIP
Business jet charter is often the first experience of private aviation for an individual or a company and can provide the basis for considering a move into aircraft ownership. But when does ownership become a practical option to chartering?
Buying a private jet is very different from buying a luxury car or boat, for example. The logistics involved in the acquisition are much more complicated than they are in most other purchases. You cannot go out and acquire the jet on the same day, as there are many calculations to make and other crucial factors for buyers to consider. Firstly, consider the types of mission to be flown and whether these are consistent. For example, you might have an important decision to make regarding the size and capacity of the jet. This depends on your needs. If the jet is to be used by a chairman of a corporation or a group of senior executives for intercontinental flights, the wide bodied jets would be preferable and they can be used for onboard meetings with clients too. If the need is for a private jet for domestic or short flights only, then investing a large amount may not be justified. It is also important to factor-in the type of destination(s), as a specific type of aircraft may be required - for example, destinations with remote or high altitude airfields and challenging climatic conditions or destinations with short or unmade runways. Secondly, think about travel patterns; do you have a relatively fixed pattern of travel and can you predict when you might need an aircraft? Alternatively, you may have no fixed pattern and need an aircraft on standby for long periods ready for travel at short notice. As a rule of thumb, if you spend over 200 hours a year in the air, that’s the point at which you might want to start seriously considering acquiring your own business jet. Anything less, then charter aircraft would probably make more sense. It’s not always a simple decision and there are a number of ownership models that can be tailored to meet the owner’s specific needs, including the option to put the aircraft onto the charter market to help offset some of the standing costs. Aircraft ownership is a different game to chartering and demands the specialist expertise of an aircraft management company that can offer one-stop services to the owner – including advising on the decision to buy and the appropriate type of aircraft to suit the missions and budget, which could include new or pre-owned options, as well as maintenance, crew and overall operating cost analyses. This is where the value of the professional aircraft management company comes into play – providing the experience and expertise to work with a prospective owner, to find the right business model and then work through all the options. It should be part of the consulting service offered to owners and include the consideration of charter revenue within the business model and finance requirement.
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Aircraft Sales Aircraft Management Aircraft Charter
Unit F-06 Dubai Airport Free Zone, P.O. Box 293827, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Tel: +971 4 299 8444 | Fax: +971 4 299 8445 | Web: www.empire.aero
EMPIRE AVIATION GROUP NEWS
FINANCING YOUR BUSINESS JET A business jet is a significant corporate or personal investment. Financing the purchase of an asset that can cost anywhere from USD5 million to USD50 million or more, is an important consideration when looking at the overall acquisition process and cost of acquisition. For cash buyers there is no issue. For those buyers seeking finance, the lending arrangements and cost of finance are an important element of the overall asset management model for the aircraft and its ownership. Pre global economic crisis, credit was abundant and easily accessible. The new economic reality means that lines of credit are tighter and the criteria for assessing finance risk are also tighter than before. Depending on the situation and circumstances of the prospective buyer – high net wealth individual or a company – there are still banks willing to lend and may specialise in the private or the company buyer. The lending arrangement may be part of an existing ongoing relationship with the financial institution or considered in isolation as a separate transaction. Whatever the situation of the buyer and type of institution involved, there is no doubt that there is much greater and deeper due diligence done by lenders in assessing the credit risk – and understandably so. This due diligence includes understanding the intention of the buyer’s aircraft acquisition – this is where the asset management approach to aircraft ownership is so important, clearly defining the owner’s business model, aircraft selection rationale and then the operating costs and protection of the residual value of the aircraft. Of course, for company buyers, audited financial statements may provide the basis for the credit risk assessment, whilst private buyers may need to provide additional information regarding personal wealth and sources of income. Lenders may offer full debt financing. There is the option of considering a general lender with whom you may already have a relationship, or specialist aircraft finance experts. They may look at a loan value of 50 to 80% of the cost over a 10-15 year period. The rates and terms and conditions will vary to reflect the level of risk but there is no doubt that an existing relationship with a prospective lender helps create the track record and reassurance that can help facilitate the due diligence process. Private buyers and companies may want to consider cash as a viable buying option and there is a high degree of cash used in private aviation transactions; those with sufficient resources can look for the best prices for new aircraft from the manufacturers and also in the pre-owned market – because at the end of the day, cash is still king.
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RADAR
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RADAR
From the gleaming offerings of the early Roman Empire to major jewellery houses, such as Bvlgari and Cartier, and contemporary artist jewellers: a new exhibition at London’s prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum explores the timeless beauty of one of the world’s best-loved gems. To be held in collaboration with the Qatar Museums Authority, between September 21 and January 19, 2014, visitors can marvel at an array of classically beautiful pieces. Among the items on display are rare natural specimens, the necklace of Mary Queen of Scots, a selection of tiaras worn by European royalty and pearl drop earrings that once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor.
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> Gastronomists in the UAE have high hopes for the newest restaurant on the block, La Serre Bistro and Boulangerie, which opens in Dubai this month. Managed by Heather McKnight, formerly of Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck and his equally excellent Dinner, and with head chef Izu Ani at the helm, who cooked up a storm at the city’s ultra-popular, award-winning La Petite Maison, the new Parisian-style eatery promises fresh, organic produce from artisan suppliers in Europe and food that embodies the Southern French culture it seeks to represent.
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CRITIQUE
Film In a World...
Dir: Lake Bell A struggling vocal coach who strikes it big in the cutthroat world of movie-trailer voiceovers finds herself in direct competition with the industry’s reigning king: her father. AT BEST: “The world of Hollywood voice-over talent provides a ripe backdrop for Lake Bell’s funny and engaging directorial debut.” Hollywood Reporter AT WORST: “Buries its own lead until it practically becomes an ironic parody of itself.” Film Threat
The Spectacular Now
Prince Avalanche
Dir: James Ponsoldt The path of young love never runs smooth, and when highschool charmer Sutter falls for straight-laced junior Aimee, their story is no exception. AT BEST: “A sincere, refreshingly unaffected look at teenagers and their attitudes.” Hollywood Reporter AT WORST: “Does not come close to portraying that isolation that teenagers feel, certainly never coming close to equalling last year’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” Film Threat
Dir: David Gordon Green An off beat comedy about two men painting traffic lines on a desolate country highway – an unlikely setting for an equally unlikely friendship. AT BEST: “What a lovely, lyrical wonder David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche is... This is a triumph.” Quickflix AT WORST: “Green’s latest effort is also one of the more grating and sluggish films in recent memory.” Fan the Fire
Drift
Dir: Ben Nott , Morgan O’Neill Aussie brothers Andy and Jimmy Kelly own a surf shop and have spent their lives on the waves. But when shady newcomers arrive in town, their halcyon days are over. AT BEST: “Both steadfastly likable and quietly compelling throughout.” sbs.com.au AT WORST: “This is a lazy, over-long, poorly directed surf drama. 2013 is a dud year for Australian film.” 3AW
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Art
The curators of London’s Royal Academy have taken on the brave task of capturing the Mexican revolution through the era’s art. Mexico: A Revolution in Art pieces together the social and political upheaval between 1910 and 1940, and features work by some of the country’s most prominent painters, photographers and sculptors. “One looks into these images to find a vast country convulsed and ever changing, in triumph and lament, bleeding and resurgent,” writes Laura Cumming in the Guardian. “Chandeliers shiver in the shoot-out. Newspaper offices are blown to smithereens. Firing squads work their way through the countryside. Walter Horne’s photographs of street executions show the victims are still momentarily upright, pale and ghostly as the bullets enter their bodies in the unfurling chaos of smoke.” The Telegraph’s Alastair Smart is equally enthralled: “If they awarded a quetzal-plumed crown for the year’s boldest, barmiest exhibition, my vote for 2013 would undoubtedly go to the RA for this show. Credit to curator Adrian Locke for having the proverbial cojones to tackle a show about the Mexican Revolution. In 1940, Mexico elected a conservative government, the PRI party settled in for 60 years of uninterrupted rule, and the politics of revolution was swiftly consigned to history. The art of revolution, however, has proved a lot more enduring.” Painter Eugène Boudin has long been overshadowed by his better-known contemporaries – among them, JeanBaptiste-Camille Corot and Edgar Degas – until now.
At the Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris, Boudin’s works take centre stage in an eponymous exhibition – the first retrospective in the artist’s home city since 1899. “If you need an excuse to go to Paris, this is it,” enthuses Dalya Alberge in The Independent. “Don’t miss it. Seascapes and beach scenes bathed in radiant light are among around the 60 or so works on display at the Musée Jacquemart-André, a grand 19th-century mansion on Boulevard Haussmann... All manner of people fell under Boudin’s gaze, but in every piece the figures are dwarfed by nature, as Boudin depicted the immensity of the skies, the shifting mists and evermoving clouds.” The National Gallery of Australia is also looking westward with its latest exhibition, Australian Impressionists in France. The show focuses on homegrown talent such as Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin, who made the journey to Europe in the late 19th century and were inspired by the culture they encountered. Their depictions of Australian themes and landscapes through vibrant Impressionist techniques show true international savoir faire – much to the delight of critics Down Under. “The pieces are undeniably attractive,” writes Christopher Allen in The Australian. “Not because they have particularly powerful or distinctive artistic voices, but because we feel, even in modest work, the pleasure and care they have taken in depicting what they saw of the world.” Curator Elena Taylor is confident of the exhibition’s impact on contemporary art: “For the first time, the work of Australian artists will be considered within an international, rather than national context, allowing for a new understanding of their work and the period. It will look at this most vital period of art in a new way.”
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CRITIQUE
Books
Paul Theroux, master of genredefying travel writing narratives, has spent the past five decades bringing his adventures to life through his pithy narratives. But The Last Train to Zona Verde is his swansong: after a life on the move, Theroux is passing the baton onto his younger – and less road-weary – counterparts. In this final novel, he ventures by rail, bus and bicycle from South Africa to Angola, casting his keen eye over the politics, culture and landscape of West Africa. It’s a magical combination for Roz Shea of Book Reporter: “Theroux’s crystalline narrative hums with authenticity. Theroux reports what he sees through his gimlet eye with eloquent prose... This is a gripping read for anyone interested in today’s Africa.” The Spectator’s Anthony Sattin isn’t so sure: “This latest novel has some faults, including sweeping overstatements and generalisations about Africa and Africans. And yet it is hard to put down The Last Train to Zona Verde, for no other reason than for its core of brutal honesty, about the author himself as much as about the places he visits.
One literary great that shows no sign of slowing is Carl Hiassen, whose latest novel Bad Monkey puts gonzo crime fiction right back on top. Detective Andrew Yancy is tasked with investigating the disappearance of serial fraudster Nicky Stripling – and the appearance of his severed arm, bobbing in the Florida Keys. “Any fears that Carl Hiaasen might be mellowing are put to rest by Bad Monkey,” writes Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times. “This is a rollicking misadventure in the colorful annals of greed and corruption in South Florida.” The National’s David Black is also clearly a fan: “The former Miami Herald reporter has an extensive canon, but his core are 12 rollercoaster romps set in Florida, each populated by an original menagerie of grotesques... Everything [in Bad Monkey] is familiar - which is to say, not very comfortable at all, right from the first paragraph: fans of Carl Hiaasen know you don’t so much read one of his novels as climb into it and enjoy the ride.” When Bernadette Fox disappears without a trace, her 15-year-old daughter turns detective. The canny teenager uncovers emails, memos, magazine clippings and police files, and decides to investigate. Where’d You Go, Bernadette has already created a storm in the States, and now Maria Semple’s sassy prose has critics hooked all over the world. “Semple’s background is in television comedy and this is a very funny book in places,” says the Guardian’s Natasha Tripney. “As a portrait of motherhood as something emotionally draining and frustrating, utterly consuming and ultimately wonderful, it’s refreshing in its honesty.” Carolyn Kellogg of LA Times is also enthralled: “Semper has written a fantastic, funny novel. Its affecting characters, not-necessarily-nice humor and surprising plot twists make this novel an enchanting ride.”
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Theatre
Hollywood actors aren’t the only ones venturing from screen to stage: director Sam Mendes has recently made his own foray to London’s West End. The creator of Skyfall and American Beauty has cast his silver screen magic on the musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which opened at Drury Lane theatre last month. The classic children’s tale follows wide-eyed boy Charlie as he tours the famous Willy Wonka chocolate factory, indulging his sweet tooth while receiving a piquant moral education. It’s surely a recipe for allround critical success? Not quite. “The show’s visual splendor allows audiences to see how well their money has been spent,” writes Variety’s David Benedict. “Dramatically, however, they’ve been short-changed. Mark Thompson’s all-stops-out design keeps diverting attention from the all-pervasive problem but, for the most part, [the production is] woefully static. Since tuners thrive on
movement, physical and emotional, this is disappointing.” Unfortunately, Benedict isn’t the only one left with a nasty aftertaste: “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an eye-catching offer, but has more wrapping than filling,” writes Claudia Pritchard in The Independent. “Mendes piles every-thing into this lucky dip – puppetry, ballet burlesque, dizzying back projections, panto-style antics… but there is not much to like.” It’s the 50th anniversary of Boston Ballet, one of the dance world’s most respected ensembles. To celebrate, the company is touring in Europe, and last month it performed in London for the first time in three decades. At the Coliseum they staged a five-part bill, depicting the evolution of dance over the past millennium. Programme One captured the attention of Katie Colombus at The Stage: “The production offers a diverse mixture of neo-classical, modern and contemporary ballet,” she writes. “It is rich in popular dance history, with significant pieces crucial
to the development of 20th-century dance… The selection and distillation of the balletic danse d’ecole finely showcases their technique and showmanship there is strength in their travelling and sparkle in their simple port de bras. The glamour and flair is complemented perfectly by
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Stravinskian strings.” Judith Mackrell of the Guardian enjoyed Programme Two: “The liveliness of the company is most evident in their second programme, a contemporary-ish triple bill. All 14 dancers are playful. There’s an unusually raunchy vibe to William Forsythe’s choreography here, and the dancers’ delight in that vibe is infectious, with Kathleen Breen Combes especially bright and mocking as she snaps her body through the wicked small detail.”
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TIMEPIECES
FREDERIC WATRELOT Christie’s watch specialist shares the enduring appeal of James Bond’s watches James Bond may be the most famous watch collector of all. Over the years he has worn some of the greatest watch brands and makes in history: the Omega Seamaster; Rolex Submariner; and even Seiko at the start of the digital age. In the books, Ian Fleming describes him as having a Rolex and in the movies the giving of the latest model by Q is one of the most anticipated parts of each film. Bond has always defined sophistication, taste and style: what man wouldn’t want to have a piece of the action for himself? Over the years, Christie’s have been fortunate to sell a number of these original watches used in the movies. The first ever specially modified watch issued by Q branch to James Bond was a Breitling Top Time wristwatch used in the 1965 film Thunderball and worn by Sean Connery. I mentioned the sale of this watch in a previous column as it made $160,000 earlier this summer. Bond is seen wearing the watch during various scenes, using it to search for the location of the atomic bombs stolen by Spectre during a nighttime underwater dive to check for a radioactive count and again when he sneaks on to the Disco Volante in disguise. There was only one of these watches made for the film, making this particular Bond gadget totally unique – hence its appeal in the saleroom. But James is best known as a
Rolex man. A specially adapted version from a stainless steel Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner wristwatch was famously used by Roger Moore as 007 to attach an invisible wire to unzip Miss Caruso’s dress in the 1973 movie Live and Let Die. It was sold by Christie’s in Geneva in 2011 for $244,000. It had been equipped by Q for James Bond with a hyper-intensified magnetic field, powerful enough to deflect the path of a bullet even at long range, and a buzz saw, both used by Bond to help him get out of a scrape in the movie.
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Manufactured in 1972 and then converted, the inside case back was signed ‘Roger Moore 007’, and was specifically adapted for the buzz saw feature by cutting the bezel’s edges into sharp teeth. The saw is activated by compressed air blown through a tube onto specially constructed vanes, causing the bezel to rise and rotate. James Bond used the saw feature with dramatic results in one of the film’s most exciting sequences, when cutting through the rope and escaping with Solitaire just before they are fed to the sharks. Now that really is a clever watch…
TIMEPIECES
I
ts watchmaking prowess has dazzled the world for more than a century and the exceptional beauty of the Yves Piaget rose has been its talisman since it was created in honour of its namesake in 1982. Now, in line with its commitment to innovate, Piaget has married the best of these elements with the aged art of gold thread embroidery – traditionally used to adorn European religious and royal garments. The result? Eight remarkable limited-edition Altiplano watches. “Piaget wanted to use its background of expert technical and artistic skills to distinguish itself in original ways that are always exceptional and extraordinary,” explained Franck Touzeau, marketing director at the jewellery house. “That’s why for this particular time piece, which is meant to be precious and delicate, we chose the art of precious thread embroidery.” Among the most challenging aspects of the project was simply finding an artisan with the skill set required to carry out the work. “There are very few craftsmen able to realise masterpieces with this
THE ART OF TIME
As Piaget unveils its limited-edition Altiplano timepiece, the maison shares the intricate details of its innovative craftsmanship…
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traditional technique,” explained Touzeau. “Combining this traditional technique with Piaget’s watchmaking excellence and high expectations, both in terms of quality and exceptional aesthetic, was the second biggest challenge.” Having finally secured such a professional, the hard work truly began. The technique required hours of eye-straining precision and immeasurable patience on the part of the artist, as the silk was first stretched and attached to a support before they traced the lines of the Yves Piaget rose design with chalk onto the fabric. The tracing was then pricked and a white powder forced through the stencil holes using a felt pouncing tool, transferring the pattern to the silk. From there, the artist retraced the Yves Piaget rose using a pencil before placing gold work wire, known as jaseron, onto the silk and securing it with couching until a double row of the wire formed the rose. “To give a sense of fullness and depth to the work, Piaget has chosen a specific thread known as ‘jaseron’, composed of a precious, thin and delicate thread twisted around itself and embroidered onto the silk, millimetre by millimetre,” explained Touzeau. Throughout the process, the embroiderer and Piaget worked together to ensure the design was correctly proportioned and in line with the limitations imposed by the size of the dial – 38 millimetres in diameter, height of the hands and the depth of the Altiplano’s case. All eight limited-edition pieces boast a black silk dial decorated with a hand-embroidered rose in white gold. Its strap is made of black alligator leather, with a white gold pin bucket, while the 18-carat white gold case is set with 78 brilliant-cut diamonds. It is the first time that Piaget has used such a technique to decorate a timepiece. But with the results such a success, many suspect it will not be the last.
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JEWELLERY > Dazzle your loved ones with these earrings, by Bvlgari. Made in 18-carat white gold with pavè diamonds, they are a part of the Diva collection, which pays tribute to the stars of the 1950s and 1960s and features some of the world’s rarest coloured gems.
> Boucheron is celebrating 120 years at 26, Place Vendôme, in Paris, with a new High jewellery collection called Hôtel de la Lumière. The collection pays tribute to the location where, for 12 decades, skilled craftsmen and artisans have created pieces that explore light - Boucheron’s hallmark. This Fleur du Jour question mark necklace (right) is part of that collection: white gold set with a pear-shaped 1.01 carat diamond, 18.2 carats of rose-cut and round diamonds. Sublime.
> This exquisite bracelet is part of a collection created by Bottega Veneta to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious fine porcelain maker, Koenigliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berline (KPM). The fashion house prides itself on working with rare artisanal communities to produce its luxury items and has been working with KPM since 2008. To celebrate the porcelain maestro’s landmark birthday, Bottega Veneta created a collection of jewellery consisting of elaborate Oro Bruciato chains and porcelain bisque medallions. Each piece is adorned with cubic zirconia and verre irise and each porcelain element bears the KPM stamp.
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ART & DESIGN
New Frontier
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or the first time, the creative talent of Emirati artists is on show in the UK. Three Generations, which runs until August 9 at Sotheby’s London, features 12 works by 12 different artists from the UAE. Its aim? To shed light, internationally, on Emirati culture and the talent that is flourishing nation-wide.“The exhibition provides a window into the cultural currents of the UAE through the eyes of some of its established and emerging creative minds,” said HE Hoda I Al KhamisKanoo, founder of Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) – responsible for curating the new exhibition. “It is a reflection of where the UAE has come from, where it is now, and where it is going. I sincerely hope that the range of styles, approaches and mediums used excites and informs all those who visit.” The artists on exhibit explore a wide range of media – from traditional painting forms through to digital masterpieces. Among those whose work is on display is established artist Mohammed Al Astad Al Hammadi who has developed a technique of transforming beaches into “a sort of art grave”. His work Midnight was created by burying iron with canvas for up to three weeks, forming an abstract piece that features rust imprints: each is unique. Three Generations, by no means a comprehensive overview of the Emirates’ visual arts scene, is held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Ruler’s Representative of the Western Region of Abu Dhabi. “Sotheby’s is delighted to provide a platform for the first UK show of a selection of works that represents the remarkable talent amongst artists both new and established from the UAE,” said Roxane Zand, Sotheby’s Deputy Chairman, Middle East and Gulf Region. “ADMAF has succeeded in creating an exciting programme of events and exhibitions that allows the international art world greater access to appreciate the vibrant and dynamic arts scene in the UAE region.”
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Images courtesy of: Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation and the artists 2.
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Jalal Lukman, The Hint of a Smile, 2008 Najat Makki, Untitled, 2011 Hamdan Buti Al Shamsi, State of Mind, 2011 Shamsa Al Omaira, Diffused, 2012 Mohammed Al Astad, Midnight, 2012
ART & DESIGN
PEOPLE WATCHING
As the National Portrait Gallery in London prepares to unveil a mini-retrospective on Jonathan Yeo’s work, AIR catches up with the man who has made portrait painting cool again…
F
rom a world-weary Tony Blair to a somewhat risqué version of George Bush: within a relatively short period of time British artist Jonathan Yeo’s sometimes controversial, always thoughtprovoking, works have earned him global recognition and transformed the image of portraiture. Testing the boundaries of the art form, the self-taught artist and son of former British politician Tim Yeo has succeeded in making what was once considered an elitist and dying medium media-worthy. Next month the National Portrait Gallery in London will unveil its first Yeo-dedicated display. It’s a coming-of-age moment for the artist, who took up painting seriously in his early 20s while recovering from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. “It’s special for me because the National Portrait Gallery was the first gallery I remember going to as a kid and getting excited about,” he said. “It’s a happy experience, and it feels such a privilege to go back there for a miniretrospective. The way the gallery crosses over an interest in art and history has always been fascinating to me, and to be part of it is exciting.” On display will be the best of old and new – the new including a remarkable oil-on-canvas portrait of Kevin Spacey as Shakespeare’s Richard III, a role he filled while artistic director of The Old Vic Theatre, as well as a portrait of artist Damian Hirst; the old includes the now famous portrait of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the end of his leadership, an iconic painting of model Erin O’Connor and the infamous collage treatments of George W Bush and Paris Hilton (both were made entirely of adult magazine cuttings). It was perhaps these collages that earned him notoriety worldwide. Was that for fun or was there a message behind the work? “It was a bit
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ART & DESIGN
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Images: Opening page – Kevin Spacey by Jonathan Yeo, 2013 (c) Jonathan Yeo, London; Opposite page – Sir Michael Parkinson by Jonathan Yeo, 2011 (c) National Portrait Gallery, London
‘Being ill woke me to the possibility that time is not endless, so it’s important to pursue your beliefs’ of both,” he said. ”I am always interested in the ways I can use portraiture. Ways of testing the limits of it, and seeing how it can do different things, and ask questions of people and art. This was clearly a conspicuous way of doing that. And it drew attention to portraiture even more than I anticipated. It must be noted that I only ever did it with people who hadn’t sat for me. Bush was going to sit but withdrew at the last minute... It is not something I will purse in the future again, as – ultimately – I love to paint, but it was interesting to use collage.” Of Yeo’s most recent subjects, it is his peer Hirst who appears to have left an indelible impression. “He is someone so well-known for doing work that involves a very different practice, it was fascinating to have him in my studio, and have him interrogate me as to what I was doing,” Yeo said. “It was also the first time I had painted someone in a full rubber suit, which presented its own challenges.” Yeo loves to paint – he always has. Particularly faces. His earliest recollection of art is a Picasso painting of the artist’s son as a harlequin – “it was beautiful and realistic, as well as – in parts – sketchy and unrealised”. And he would doodle his way through school too – mostly sketching the faces of classmates and teachers. “It was for my own amusement and to make my friends laugh – an element of being the class clown. But my work now still comes from the same place: I am endlessly fascinated with people’s faces. In hindsight it was probably good practice: you had to capture the person quickly, before getting caught, condensing the most important facial aspects and personality attributes.” While he initially discounted portraiture as a career – “at that point it was out of fashion and didn’t seem a realistic career option” – a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma led him back to his first passion. “Being ill made me perhaps more stubborn and
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selfish,” he said. “It woke me up to the possibility that time is not endless, so it’s so important to pursue what you truly believe in.” In a bid to avoid the negative connotations of portraiture and society painting Yeo has pursed subjects who have achieved success “in their own right”. “It is important to me that the subjects are interesting and valued for what they have done.” His first painting was of Trevor Huddleston who, then aged 80, was still president of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. “I was worried it wouldn’t turn out well since it was the first time I had done it properly, but he was patient, and it turned out better than I expected, kick-starting the whole thing.” Today he paints the most photographed stars in the world: portraiture offers them something, Yeo said, that images cannot. “A photograph is a single moment, whereas a portrait is a series of moments. In a painting you get a sense of time passing, a person’s different moods on different days, and also my moods and thoughts. A richness develops through this series of thoughts and perceptions, rather than one distinct – and sometimes limiting – snapshot of time.” Most recently, Yeo has delved into the sometimes disturbing, always fascinating, world of cosmetic surgery – producing a body of work that explores developments and people’s pursuit of youth and beauty. “As a portrait painter I am concerned with the inner-mind as much as the outer, and the way we interact with one another: plastic surgery poses questions for this, potentially affecting our human relations, causing difficulty in communicating and reading one another. It is an area that is very wide and important, warranting more discussion. I do not feel judgmental but I wanted to explore it, and the ramifications.” With retirement a long way in the future for the English painter, Yeo has no intention of diversifying too far from the art form that has served him so well. “I will carry on trying new ways to look at portraiture – using it to explore people,” he said. “I will never be happy just doing the same thing, so I seek imaginative ways to develop. In the medium-term I hope to find more shows like the NPG exhibition elsewhere in the world, especially in the Middle and Far East.” We hope so too. Jonathan Yeo Portraits will be at the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK from September 11, 2013–January 5, 2014; admission is free (npg.org.uk)
INTERIORS
SARA COSGROVE Harrods’ head of interior design explains why the secret to a stylish home lies with comfort One question I often get asked is do we have a Harrods style. The answer is no, we don’t. Every client we have has unique requirements and needs, they have experiences and desires that are theirs alone. In saying this we do see preferences that are repeated and trends in certain styles and designs or functionality requirements. Increasingly we are seeing an overall trend towards spaces becoming more relaxed and in many homes less
requirements for overly formal spaces that never get used. The focus is on abandoning the idea of these seldom used areas of the home and changing the dynamic by making them calm and more welcoming spaces. Good interior designers can introduce a new way of thinking by providing a scheme that encourages families to use the whole home rather than just part of it. Drawing rooms and formal dining rooms can now be used as a place to indulge and escape in the evening after a busy day, or just to read a book while reclining on a chaise longue in the afternoon. Gone is the dark and overly precious room within your home that resembles a museum or art gallery. Why design a space that will only get used twice a year for special occasions when you can get greater value out of a more realistic selection? This laid back style of interior design is playing out in colour schemes and fabric and floor finishes as well as in the furniture included in recent collections. It is in stark contrast to the strong colour palettes
and serious style direction that has been popular in recent years; there seems to have been an evolution towards more relaxed colour themes and textures. I like to think of this trend as desaturated, with a watercolour-inspired palette and fabrics you want to stroke. Some of my favourite interiors brands demonstrating relaxed lifestyle collections are: Rubelli Donghia – with beautiful floral fabrics that can be used for upholstery and curtains; Hermes Maison, which has a collection of fabric and wallpapers that are wonderfully simple in design; and Kenzo Maison, B&B Italia, Poltrona Frau and Flexform, which produce family-friendly pieces for all areas of the home. I’m not saying that one should never include a theatrical room with dramatic finishes in rich colour schemes that is used solely for formal entertaining – designers love to work using that as their brief – but relaxing the style overall will certainly make more of your home, opening it up for everyday living.
> When it comes to sourcing a unique, one-off piece for the home, antique fairs rarely disappoint. August is usually quiet on the fair front, but that’s set to change with the new Antiques & Fine Art Fair being launched by Penman Fairs at Mall Galleries on The Mall, near London’s Trafalgar Square. Between August 28 and 31, scour the treasures presented by 30 specialist dealers in the heart of the city. penman-fairs.co.uk
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RUG COMPANY HEADER These unique wool and silk rugs are the brainchild of specialist furniture designer Tim Gosling, who has teamed up with The Rug Company. The three designs are inspired by Gosling’s love of the Art Deco movement in London. The Rug Company, Dubai International Financial Centre
> Sleek, discreet and packed with power, the Bang & Olufsen BeoLab14 surround sound speaker system is a must. Not only does it look incredible – the subwoofer appears to float above the floor, thanks to a slim grill base, and the small satellite speakers are chic and understated – but its sophisticated technology makes everything sound incredible: from your favourite films through to computer games. bang-olufsen. com/beolab14
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INTERIORS
Friends & bookends What began as a shared love for antiques spawned one of the most powerful interior design partnerships in the world. Meet the award-winning Carden Cunietti…
M
ixing business with friendship is a risky strategy, but one that has paid dividends for interior designers Audrey Carden and Elenanora Cunietti. For the past 17 years the pair have travelled the world, transforming the homes of the rich and famous. From private football clubs at sprawling LA mansions to yachts and private jets: the British designers (recently voted interior designers of the year by an established UK interiors publication) have proved there’s nothing they can’t turn their hands to. The secret to their success? Their friendship, says Cunietti. “Our husbands work together in the same office and we all go on holiday together. We are friends. We are different and work in different ways but we compliment each other. If we were both the same then it wouldn’t work.” The duo met at a London antiques fair while sourcing items for their clients. Carden, who had studied a masters degree in art, had recently ended her job as a London property developer to concentrate on her passion for design. “Elenanora was working on her own but we knew each other previously and decided to start Carden Cunietti. When we were looking for a premises we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have a shop?’” The shop they set up in the mid-90s, on Westbourne
Road in London’s super fashionable Notting Hill, sold furniture and antiques in addition to their design services… and it was a roaring success. Magazine editors were among their clientele and national and international media exposure soon followed, cementing their eclectic approach to interior design among the best in the world. “I wanted to be published in magazines,” said Cunietti. “That was ‘making it’ in my eyes. Then it happened, about two years after we started, and it was amazing. Of course I remember which property featured – it was a house in St John’s Wood. “As a young designer, to get your work published is hard and when we started out we were babies. Everyone was in their 50s and 60s. There were no 20-something designers. I look at where I was and people today and am so thankful because there are so many people now trying to make it. We were so lucky.” By the end of the 90s, demand for their timeless taste and unique design approach, which combines the
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traditional with both modern and antique pieces, meant they had outgrown their Notting Hill shop and the design force moved to a studio near the England capital’s Little Venice, where today they lead a team of 12. Now they travel the world, kitting out the private residences of some of the planet’s biggest names – including rock stars, though they refuse to give names – “we pride ourselves on our confidential service”, said Carden, who is currently working between Los Angeles and Hong Kong. “I once worked on a private jet, actually,” she revealed. “ I can’t say who it was for, but it was a woman and she commissioned it for a Gulfstream. “We went down to Charleston. We chose the colour of the leather, the stone for the galleys, the fabrics for the seats and linens… she wanted to be able to have a sealed off bedroom in the back. I loved the experience and she was really pleased with the result. “There was quite a lot of choice and at that end of the market you can have what you want: beautiful leather for
the seats and special materials and shapes that you could use in a home. You end up with a palatial interior that is comfortable to fly in.” While unique, it is not the most unusual project they have ever worked on. “I have done a football club for a private football field in LA,” said Carden. “The client, a British man, built himself a football pitch and wanted a club as a hangout place for his mates. And last year, we did a private nightclub place in Ibiza for 200 people with an amazing DJ deck. He was having a 40th birthday.” It is the spontaneous and random nature of the job that keeps both entertained. “It’s one of those aspirational things: I’m not going to be able to afford my own Gulf Stream…” said Carden. There are, Cunietti admits, some drawbacks to the job: “I’m still working on my own house, one-and-a-half years later. It’s about trying to find time to do it.” But she can’t imagine doing anything else. “My favourite project is always the next one,” she added. “I enjoy a challenge.”
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Words: Alan Hubbard
Why
Muhammad Ali really is the
GREATEST of all time It’s 35 years since Ali avenged an earlier defeat against Leon Spinks to become the first boxer to reclaim the world heavyweight crown three times. AIR looks back on the career of an icon... Even though the dancing years have ebbed away and the famous shuffle is no longer a dazzling quickstep but a distressingly slow wobble, Muhammad Ali remains the most recognisable human being on earth, and among the best-loved too. When he told the world he was The Greatest, we believed him, because he surely was. Perhaps not the greatest boxer – Ali himself always acknowledged that Sugar Ray Robinson held that title – but when the argument turns to who is the greatest sports figure in history, it is no contest. There has only ever really been one Lord of the Rings. “Parachute me into High Street, China,” he once said at his zenith, “and every kid would know who I am.” I was fortunate enough to travel the world with the phenomenon who so ennobled his art that his act as the undisputed heavyweight champion has proved impossible to follow. Sport’s biggest irony is that the greatest orator it has known is now reduced to a mumble, the face that launched a thousand quips partially paralysed, like much of his
body, through Parkinson’s Syndrome, the nerve-numbing condition from which his housepainter father died, which in Ali’s case was surely exacerbated by 10 fights too many. In 50 years of covering sport, there have been moments when I have been tempted to shed a tear but only once have I ever done so. That was on the night of October 2, 1980 in the car park of Caesars Palace, where an 18,000 crowd assembled for what was to prove Ali’s penultimate fight. It was the night that an icon disintegrated before our eyes as Ali, a 38-year-old robotic shell of the sublime athlete of his heyday, suffered a savage beating that even his opponent, Larry Holmes, was reluctant to administer, repeatedly beckoning to a dispassionate referee to end his erstwhile idol’s agonising humiliation. Even the media were pleading “stop it, stop it” amid counter-cries from some in the Ali entourage fearful of losing their meal ticket. It was Ali’s career-long cornerman Angelo Dundee who finally defied them. “I am the chief second and I stop the fight,” he yelled to the referee, a dull-eyed Ali slumped on his stool at the end of the 10th round. It was too late to save Ali’s career, but it probably saved his life. Ali had reigned in an age when boxing crowns were not tawdry bits of bling. He turned it into an art form, making a ballet out of brutality. Being a sportswriter around him was bliss. We were never short of a storyline. Once, back in the 1970s, on arriving to interview him in Dublin, we discovered that Ali was flu-stricken and being attended by a doctor in his hotel
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bedroom. We explained to Dundee that all we wanted was to talk to Ali for 10 minutes. “No chance,” came the reply. “He never talks to anyone for less than an hour.” He phoned Ali’s room and winked. “Hey guys, the champ says go on up.” We emerged two hours later, notebooks overflowing. Not that Ali was a saint. A serial womaniser, he had a darker side which surfaced after he became champion and a member of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam movement – perhaps understandably considering the past injustices to black people by white America. Having been barred from a local fast-food restaurant because of his colour, when he returned from Rome after winning the Olympic light-heavyweight title in 1960 he placed his gold medal on the counter and ordered a hamburger. “We still don’t serve n*ggers,” he was told. “That’s OK,” the then Cassius Clay is said to have replied. “I don’t eat ‘em.” But there is no longer a trace of malice in him. Throughout his illness he has never had
‘He’s a once-in-a-lifetime guy. There’ll never be another’ an ounce of self-pity, and he is as generous with his time as he is with his money. “Whenever you see him, you just want to hug him,” says one of his seven daughters, Hana. I know what she means. I shared a hug with Ali not so long ago, and was again close to tears when he placed a trembling hand on my shoulder and leaned down to whisper: “It ain’t the same any more, is it?” Ali hasn’t floated like a butterfly or stung like a bee for over 30 years but he is still fighting, perversely outliving the majority of his 50 opponents, among them Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier and Henry Cooper, whose left hook in 1963 came within a split second, or a split glove, of changing the course of boxing history. Perhaps the most pertinent birthday tribute comes from Dundee, himself now 90. “Muhammad was great outside the ring, he was great inside it. Right now there is nobody out there to turn people on like he did”, said Angelo Dundee, who died last year aged 90. “It is unfair to try and compare anybody with him because he’s a once-in-a-lifetime guy. There’ll never be another Muhammad Ali.”
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Rome 1960 A brash 18-year-old Cassius Marcellus Clay Jnr wins the Olympic lightheavyweight title, defeating Polish opponent Zbigniew Pietrzykowski in the final and showing early signs of the uniquely flamboyant, fast-fisted style that was to become his hallmark. He was so proud of his gold medal, he didn’t take it off for two days. Born on January 17, 1942, the younger of two brothers (Rudolph Valentino Clay was later to box as Rahman Ali) he was named after the 19th Century slave abolitionist and politician, and brought up as a Baptist. As a 12-yearold, Clay had taken up boxing on the advice of a white Louisville police officer, Joe Martin, after saying he wanted to “whup” the thief who had stolen his bicycle. He went on to win two national Golden Gloves titles, recording 100 wins and five losses. In an early biography he claimed he threw his Olympic medal into the Ohio River in disgust after being refused service at a “whites only” restaurant. He later admitted he actually lost it and was given a replacement during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where he lit the flame in one of the most moving moments in the history of the Games.
Ali’s
Golden Moments - 44 -
Champion of the world When, aged 22, he beat the Mafia-run Sonny Liston, an ageing but seemingly invincible ogre in Miami in 1964, he indeed “shocked the world” twice – first by forcing Liston to retire on his stool after the sixth round and then announcing that Cassius Clay (“my slave name”) was no more and he accepted the teachings of Islam and Malcolm X’s influence.
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His return to the ring Banned, stripped of his title and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in early 1967 for refusing the Vietnam draft (“I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong – they never called me n*gger”) Ali’s licence was finally restored after a three-and-a-halfyear exile in which he lectured in mosques and colleges. With a new anti-war mood sweeping the United States, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction – he never did go to jail – and Ali was free at last to exercise his civil rights, and some uncivil lefts, against Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in 1970. Fight night was like a scene
from Porgy and Bess as Georgia’s black community hailed the returning hero, a pugilistic Pied Piper who had hundreds of kids scampering in his wake wherever he went. Quarry was a quality opponent but Ali had lost little of his speed and sharpness, his slicing punches bringing a third-round stoppage on cuts. He had one more win, against Oscar Bonavena, before Smokin’ Joe Frazier, who had become champion and helped him with cash handouts in the lean years, became the first man to beat him, in Madison Square Garden’s Fight of the Century in 1971.
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Ali’s eighth-round knockout of another ogre, fellow Olympic champion George Foreman, in the Rumble in the Jungle in Kinshasa, Zaire, remains one of the most magical episodes in sport. “Oh my God, he’s won the world title back at 32,” declared the BBC commentator Harry Carpenter as Ali’s right hand sent Foreman corkscrewing to the floor, with an 80,000 crowd chanting “Ali bombaye” (Ali kill him). All
The Rumble in the Jungle through the fight Ali employed his ‘rope-a-dope’, leaning back into the ropes that were purposely slackened by Dundee to absorb Foreman’s thunderous body blows. “That your best shot, George?” he challenged a befuddled Foreman, who Dundee
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correctly predicted would “blow up like an old bull elephant”. As he was counted out at around 3.30am the heavens opened and the ringside became a raging torrent. Ali had been re-born as dawn broke over Africa, a renaissance that was commemorated in the award-winning film When We Were Kings while Norman Mailer wrote a book about it simply called The Fight.
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The Thrilla in Manila It was, said Ali, “the closest thing to dyin’” after the epic they called The Thrilla in Manila. Ali, on the point of exhaustion, collapsed with relief when, in the last of their celebrated trilogy, Joe Frazier, bloodied, bruised and half-blind, was forcibly retired on his stool by compassionate trainer Eddie Futch. There were just three minutes left of the all-time classic, in which boxing’s most bitter rivals punched much of the hate out of each other.
The third coming
Images: Getty Images Text: Alan Hubbard / The Independent / The Interview People
A packed Superdome in New Orleans witnessed the third coming of boxing’s messiah in 1978. Having lost his title to Leon Spinks, a gap-toothed tyro of only seven pro fights – although, like himself, an Olympic lightheavyweight champion – Ali became the first to regain the belt three times. He admitted he undertrained for Spinks, and underrated him, for their first fight in which he was strangely lackadaisical, but the return saw him floating and stinging again, just like the old days.
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Anas Bukhash (left) wearing polo shirt AED 715 and swim shorts AED 910. Majid, his son, wearing matching shorts AED 525 and T-shirt AED 275
Short Stuff
For two decades, the vibrant prints and youthful energy of Vilebrequin swim shorts have made their Father & Son line a firm favourite among the international jet-set elite. AIR explores the chic fashion house’s latest offerings‌
Harith Bukhash wearing shirt AED 880 and embroidered swim shorts AED 2,370
Moadh Bukhash wearing T-shirt AED 360 and swim shorts AED 800; Majid, his nephew, is wearing matching shorts AED 470
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Anas Bukhash (left) wearing shirt AED 880, swim shorts AED 910 and hat AED 800; Harith Bukhash (right) wearing polo shirt AED 495 and swim shorts AED 2,370
Images: With thanks to Monte-Carlo Beach Club, Saadiyat Photography by Omar AlGurg in association with @ThinkupGCC
Moadh Bukhash wearing embriodered shirt AED 1,160 and swim shorts AED 2,370
Anas Bukhash wearing T-shirt AED 360 and swim shorts AED 910. Majid, his son, wearing matching shorts AED 525 and T-shirt AED 275
IT The
Man
Bridesmaids made him Hollywood’s lovable romantic lead, but Chris O’Dowd is still the Irish japester who was bullied by his sisters into wearing make-up to school
Words: Tanya Gold
C
hris O’Dowd looks odd in a suit, like a man forced to do fashion at gunpoint. He walks away from the photographer and sits down on a large, fashionable leather sofa, which doesn’t suit him either. He is, as misogynists like to say, all hair and legs. Otherwise, he looks like a handsome Gruffalo. O’Dowd is a comic actor and writer who has been gifted a complex Cinderella fate. He is now, thanks to playing a mooning traffic cop in the 2011 worldwide hit Bridesmaids, a romantic leading man. His character, Officer Nathan Rhodes, was a damp swain, always nagging Kristen Wiig, the object of his love, about getting her tail lights fixed. After Wiig sleeps with him and runs away, he looks hurt;
when she bakes him a cake to say sorry, he refuses to eat it. Ah, a feminist hero; an anti-Michael Douglas. Now he is mobbed in Mothercare. Would you, I ask idly, be angry if a woman one-nightstanded you? Would you not eat the cake? He giggles. “I can’t think of any circumstances when I wouldn’t eat the cake,” he says. (He was fat after drama school.) “Would I? I’m not sure it’s ever, no, yeah, it has, yeah, I’d be distraught.” I take this to mean this actor was once used and abandoned by a woman, and he didn’t like it. “I think I’d be more bitter than open. I don’t think I’d see how hurt I was. I’ve never been great with women, successful, I think I mean,” he says. “I was a late bloomer, a big kid. I was 6ft when I was 11, an awkward-looking creature.” He goes somewhere in his head, returns. “What was I talking about?” “I don’t think they’re necessarily attracted to me physically,” he says of women. “I was playing an incredibly caring, emotionally available man.” Actually, you played the woman, I say; Wiig was the man. “I was the woman,” he agrees, and segues into Nathan. “That wasn’t fair the way you treated me,” he wails, and turns back into Chris. “That’s a huge thing. That’s so rare. That women were astounded to see an honest, genuine, emotionally available male character who wasn’t camp.” He is obviously used to obeying women: he has three older sisters. He grew up in Boyle, Ireland, the son of a graphic designer and a Weight Watchers rep who retrained as a psychotherapist. He says he knew his mother had become a shrink because she started saying “I understand” to him. “I knew [then] I had to leave some money on the table and leave,” he says. “The ‘I understand’ thing. The mother thing has gone now.” His sisters used to dress him up in girls’ clothes; this, I tell him, in case he didn’t know, is fascinating. “And not only them,” he says, “My parents used to dress me up in my sisters’ clothes. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up. It was the make-up I took issue with.” The make-up? “My sisters would wait until I was asleep and put smoky eyes and a bit of blusher on me and wake me up really late for school,” he says. “When they were being particularly cruel they’d do it quite subtly. I’d like to think I appreciated the joke for what it was, but I can’t totally remember.” Did they ever say sorry? “No, even now they’d be, ‘We wish we’d done more stuff. Because we read these stories in magazines [about you]. We wish we’d gone that touch further.’” So if his sisters are reading this, they’re probably fantasising about sticking tiny Chris into fairy costumes. His first ambition was politics; a way, I suspect, to be revenged on the malevolent wall of sisters, because politicians have bodyguards, and if you have bodyguards, nobody applies eye shadow without your consent. He went to University College Dublin and discovered the drama
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society. If politics, as Julie Burchill said, is showbiz for the ugly, then drama is politics for the less ugly. The drama students were, he says, “a bunch of outcasts, and that was appealing. I was the most normal person there. I loved it.” He flunked his finals because he already had a place at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. “I didn’t love it,” he says. “What they do in drama school is try and send a neutral container out to the industry so the industry can mould it into whatever it wants. It means everybody starts behaving the same. You meet these incredible people on the first day. By the end of the second year they’re the same. I found that disheartening. I thought a lot of it was bull. Britain is an amazing country with an amazing tradition, but a lot of the theatre stuff and the folksy/ thespy stuff just drives me nuts and that’s what drama schools are full of.” So he flunked that too. Ah, so you don’t finish things? Self-hatred or selfpossession, a magical sense that everything will turn out fine? “I was the youngest boy in a family of five,” he says. “By the time it got to me, it was no pressure. Never a big motivation to do anything. Yeah, love killed my ambition.” This is a typical O’Dowd sentence; just when you think he is an ordinary man, if tall, he says something astonishingly poetic. At first he wanted to be a dramatic actor. He went for loads of stuff, “like throwing sh*t at a barnyard door. Comedy went better.” In fact, he is a fine dramatic actor, superb as the broken adulterer in the adaptation of The Crimson Petal and the White. Comedy didn’t occur to him because
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Images: Corbis / Arabian Eye Text: Tanya Gold / The Sunday Times
it was “never mentioned” at drama school. “There isn’t enough respect given to great comic performers. I don’t know why that is,” he says, “I don’t necessarily get what that is about. Every year when the Oscars roll around it’s going to be the guy with no legs rather than the incredible funny amazing guy.” Snobbery, I say, and self-importance and fear. He admires Will Ferrell and John C Reilly; as actors they are, respectively, the mad and the broken. Does he mind that to be a female actor you have to be beautiful, but men can be fat and/or ugly? “It’s great!” he says. “It’s unfair that women can’t. What is that? I feel very fortunate to be a man. To be a female actor is hard.” Are you a feminist? “I don’t know,” he says. “I think so. There does seem to be a lot of infighting.” This, of course, is true. His latest role is purely comic. He is the lead in Family Tree, an HBO series about a man seeking his ancestors, after another broken relationship. It is created by the wonderful Christopher Guest, the writer and director of This Is Spinal Tap, perhaps the funniest movie ever made, and the cast largely improvise. The episodes I saw featured a pantomime horse race and O’Dowd standing over the grave of his ancestor saying: “[He was] lying dead at 55 of a broken heart and lungs full of the flatulence of his own betrayal.” Did you write that? “Yah,” he says. He’s also writing the third season of Moone Boy, a drama about a “more charming” version of his 11-year-old self. He wants to work more behind the camera because he doesn’t trust celebrity. “Self-destruction is only around the corner. The tide turns no matter what you’re doing. I’m bracing myself for that. That’s why I want to be less in front of the camera, more at the genesis of the creation.” I am particularly riveted by his idea for a film about a self-help group of fat men seeking to lose weight; he lost 3½ stone after drama school and was “fat enough to be self conscious about it”. But he has a problem. He wants his friend Nick Frost, the superb comic actor from Shaun of the Dead, to be in it. “But how do you ask?” he says. “How do you ask anybody? These are the things I think about all the time. There are two or three people who’d be so great. How do I broach that?” I think he is being melodramatic. Frost must know he’s fat. He owes a lot to Frost. He told O’Dowd to contact his now wife, the TV presenter and writer Dawn Porter, when he went to LA in 2009. He had just come out “of a very long relationship. Nick said, ‘You should look up Dawn, she’s really good fun’,” he says. “So I Facebooked her and she kept just rejecting my friend requests. She just thought I was some weirdo.” Eventually, she had a 30th birthday party and was worried about numbers, so she invited him. “She was, she was...” he says. What? “Drunk but a lot of a fun and dancing with her dad. There was definitely a spark there and we went out a week after that. We chased each other for six
months”. Who did the most chasing? “Oh, definitely her,” he says. He instantly changes his mind. “We chased in equal measure at different times.” Back in London she was making a documentary about breast cancer called My Breasts Could Kill Me. “I was worried about her,” he says, “She was going to find out if she had the gene. She lost her mum [to breast cancer] when she was seven. It’s not until that moment comes along when it’s very dramatic that you realise your feelings for someone and they were very clear to me.” His voice breaks slightly. “So I turned up at the kebab shop across the road from her flat with a bottle of champagne and told her I loved her.” In the kebab shop? “In the kebab shop, yeah,” he says. “And that was that. She’s very kind. She makes me laugh more than anybody else I know, and I know some funny people.” They married in 2012 and she changed her name to Dawn O’Porter; she took his “O”. “I was very lucky to get that,” he says. “It never occurred to me she would change her name. She’s a performer, so it’s part of her thing. Her oeuvre. When she suggested it I thought she was joking. I think it’s very cool. I feel very privileged to be part of her name.” They celebrated by posing in onesies and posting the
‘Self-destruction is only around the corner. The tide turns no matter what’ photos online. He says O’Porter made him wear it; I think he is quite easily led by women. “I’ll never put that on,” he told her. “Let’s see,” she said. The result? “I wear it a good bit now.” They live in sweet domesticity, “with a dog called Potato we fostered in LA. We ended up stealing him. He is the most gorgeous animal — like a little Jack Russell but taller. And we have a Siamese cat called Lilu.” Now he is silent; is he thinking about the cat? What is Lilu like? He doesn’t answer; instead he changes his mind again, very unconvincingly. “I was going to say she’s sweet. She’s not sweet at all. It’s her house. We’re just staying there. She lets us know that with her delightful voice, coming from the nether regions of hell.” This sounds chilling from his mouth. He goes very still and is silent again. I ask: what do you think about? “Gosh. That’s a big question. I was watching Alan Partridge [Steve Coogan’s alter ego, a failed Z-list DJ]. He has a phone-in asking what’s the best thing? The Taj Mahal? No. Warm towels? It’s a hard one, isn’t it?” He gives a big sigh. “Not as much as I should is the answer. I think about my place in the world, the ones I love, when’s the next time the dog needs to relieve itself. Between those three things I don’t have room for anything else because I’ve never finished a course.”
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MOTORING
FAST LOVE
AIR feels the need for speed in Bentley’s quickest ever model
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Images:Supplied Text: Jamie Merrill. Additional reporting by John Thatcher
H
ow fast is fast enough? If you are Bentley the answer to that question is 330kph exactly. That’s the top speed of the Continental GT Speed. It’s a staggering turn of pace for a road-going car, even one as luxurious as this continent-crossing grand tourer. The technical challenges alone are mind boggling, before you begin to start to think about where this sort of straight-line speed is actually achievable. The aerodynamic stresses are incredible. I’m told that at 330kph the side windows are sucked out with such force that the A pillar has had to be reinforced and Bentley had to design special seals to keep the glass in place. Meanwhile at that speed the car is swallowing up somewhere near 4,000 litres of air a second so the firm’s engineers have had to incorporate all kinds of chassis and down-force black magic to keep it on the road. This is before you start to think about the uprated suspension springs Bentley has had to fit or the vice-like brakes required to stop it. There’s something even more amazing about all of this though; the GT Speed is still a properly civilised car to drive and spend time in. Its 616bhp engine – up from 576bhp in the standard Continental – is monstrous but it hasn’t ruined the car. Don’t get me wrong: the GT Speed is still a total weapon, and only my caution and its four-wheel drive system keep me planted on the road, but it’s still a seriously luxurious and refined four-seater. Unlike many 2+2 coupés – like, say, Aston Martin’s DB9, to which, incidentally, I found the Bentley to be superior to on pretty much all counts – two adults can actually survive in the back, and with a supple suspension and peerless noise suppression its touring manners are terrific. Inside the only letdown for me is the positioning of the button that triggers the boot, which when pressed brings it fully open. That’s because the button sits mere centimetres from the one which operates the driver’s window, and when I thought I’d pressed it when entering my car park, I had instead opened my boot. Not great for rear vision. There is one major issue that arises from all the power under the GT Speed’s bonnet, though. When you are pressing on with your foot down into a corner there’s so much puffed-up air in the engine’s intake system that when you take your foot of the accelerator, that air has still got to work its way through the engine. There’s a second delay when you take your foot off the throttle and the car continues to surge forward. You soon get used to it, though, and what else do you expect from the fastest Bentley ever made? Never mind that you can only use a third of the GT Speed’s power legally on the road, the new Speed GT is the apogee of the company’s standing and in sport mode – with its throaty roar and pops and crackles on the overrun – it is a wondrous thing. And did I mention that it does 330kph?
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AIR PROMOTION
Sponsored Feature
Cryolipolysis could change your life Director of Clinic Lémanic, Dr Véronique Emmenegger, on the new non-surgical technique everyone’s talking about
What can cryolipolysis do?
Body fat, although it protects us from the cold, is also more sensitive than other tissue to exposure to intense cold. Following ten years of research, equipment has been developed for treating localised areas of body fat such as love handles or rolls of unwanted abdominal fat. Treatment produces a progressive loss of about one centimetre of fatty tissue following a one-hour session. The technology is sophisticated and the resulting treatment is natural.
What happens to the fat cells?
Exposure to cold begins a process by which only adipocytes or fat cells are reabsorbed naturally. About seven billion cells are damaged by the cold (between 0 °C and 10 °C) diffused by the system, which are then eliminated physically by the body.
Is it a non-surgical treatment?
activities for about a week as the treated areas may react causing very slight pulling.
Who is cryolipolysis aimed at?
It’s ideal for people of any age and any skin type (apart from those whose skin is already extremely slack) who have slight local bulges. It is not a slimming method, but a true remodelling technique.
For you, what are the advantages of the cryolipolysis technique compared to the ultrasound, for example? It’s the natural and comfortable nature of cryolipolysis that I like. In fact, the exposure to the cold creates an innate anaesthetic effect which is much appreciated by our patients.
And are the results permanent? Yes, the treated fatty cells are destroyed for good.
15 YEARS OF SUCCESS “Clinic Lémanic is the winner of several international awards. For the past fifteen years we have worked to create a clinic that offers a unique environment, being both discretely elegant and intimate. It’s a clinic which has risen to international fame, uniting under one roof a department of dermatology, aesthetic and reconstructive surgery, a laser centre and clinical research centre, as well as a medical aesthetics department dedicated to beauty, prevention of ageing and slimming. Clinic Lémanic specialises in efficient, fast and durable aesthetic procedures without visible consequences, performed in the utmost discretion. Our absolute priority remains to achieve excellence in our medical and aesthetic treatments, which have made our reputation in Switzerland and abroad.” Véronique Emmenegger Medical Director and cofounder of Clinic Lémanic
Yes. Cryolipolysis is a new, noninvasive, risk-free technique for reducing unsightly local bulges without anaesthetic or injections. It can visibly reduce unwanted rolls of fat and that reduction is perceptible, smooth and permanent. After treatment, slight redness is usually observed lasting about half an hour and, more unusually, there is superficial bruising with no consequence. Improvements are seen after 15 days but the final results take two or three months to appear. With cryolipolysis, you can go back to your daily routine immediately, although I would advise going easy on sporting
Clinic Lémanic 2, Avenue de la Gare 1003 Lausanne Switzerland +41 21 321 20 82 info@cliniclemanic.ch cliniclemanic.ch
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GASTRONOMY
What The World’s Greatest Chef Did Next... The trailblazing restaurant El Bulli was universally feted and had a two-year waiting list until in 2011 its creator decided to close it down. But retirement was never on the menu for Ferran Adrià, says John Carlin
F
erran Adrià leaps to his feet and races over to a large fridge, empty save for a glass of tomato juice. He picks up the glass and holds it urgently, eyes wide open in amazement, as if he were a 17th-century botanist-explorer who has just discovered a new species of fruit. “What’s this?” he asks. We are an hour into our interview and he has been firing five times more questions at me than I have at him. I’m never quite sure whether or not he is expecting an answer. In any case, I feel as I used to in physics class at school, largely at sea. “What is this?” he repeats. ‘Er… tomato juice?’ Adrià nods, but not very convincingly. “It’s tomato juice, OK, but if I pour it into a bowl what is it?” ‘Soup?’ “Soup! Correct!” Phew. “And then if I heat it up and mix it in with spaghetti, what then?” ‘Sauce?’ “Exactly. But if it’s a juice and if it’s a soup and if it’s a sauce then it’s not, in truth, any of these things. Is it?” ‘No.’ “No. Correct. What this is, is a tomato that has been cut, cooked, chopped, strained, cooled and seasoned and, yes, if I drink it from a glass it’s a juice, if I have it with a spoon it’s a soup, if I attack it with a fork it’s a sauce. Got it?” Got it. “And then what you must do to get to the bottom of it all is examine the tomato plant. So what we are talking about here — and we could be talking
about a block of butter, or an egg,” he says, wrapping up my 15th lesson of the hour, “is unravelling the DNA of food. Right?” Right. Adrià, who thinks so fast his words pour out of his mouth in barely grammatical torrents, who says his mission is to teach the world a new “language” of food, is by common consent the world’s greatest chef. Born in Barcelona to a family with no special passion for food, he began his culinary career washing dishes at a French restaurant outside Barcelona, then progressed to Ibiza, where he went to cook but chiefly, as he told me some years back, to meet girls. But a voracious fascination for classic recipe books and old tomes on the history of food sidetracked him, setting him on his life’s course. Today he is to food as Einstein is to nuclear science. His friend Juan Mari Arzak, whose restaurant in San Sebastián has featured in the top ten of the world’s best restaurants for as long as anyone can remember, told me a few years back, without a hint of envy and as if stating an indisputable fact, that Adrià was “the most imaginative cook in history, and the most imaginative there ever will be”. Every chef worth his salt paid a pilgrimage to Adrià’s revolutionary restaurant El Bulli on the Costa Brava, an establishment of no renown when he joined its staff
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GASTRONOMY
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‘Every chef worth his salt paid a pilgrimage to Adrià’s revolutionary restaurant El Bulli on the Costa Brava, an establishment of no renown when he joined its staff’ in 1984, aged 22, but latterly a culinary temple whose influence redefined cooking and extended to every corner of the earth. Even the French bow to his genius, which helps to explain why, since he closed El Bulli two years ago, he has been busier and more feted than ever, continually travelling the globe, filling auditoriums at MIT, Harvard, George Washington and Melbourne universities, hosting large exhibitions of his work in Barcelona, New York, Boston and, this month, El Bulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food at Somerset House in London. Those who failed to get a table at the original El Bulli (and a fair number did miss out, given the average wait for a reservation was two years) will now have a chance to see and perhaps even understand the thought processes behind some of the famously deconstructed dishes he devised at his restaurant. Things such as wild flowers encrusted in laminated, transparent, edible paper; olives transformed by freezing nitrogen into objects that look and feel like peeled quail’s eggs; the finest Spanish ham presented in liquid form, transparent as water. He served hare, he
served tuna, he served lobster, he served apples and, yes, tomatoes and, while everything tasted more or less as you would have expected from a reading of the menu, every single one of the 40 dishes he delivered at each sitting startled and amazed by the art and incongruity of its appearance. Eating will not be on the agenda at the Somerset House exhibition but, if it is any comfort to prospective visitors, the food at El Bulli was always at least as much of a feast for the eyes as for the tastebuds. What they will get that the fortunate few at El Bulli did not is a lesson in this business that Adrià calls “the language of El Bulli”; an attempt to spell out the DNA of his creative process. Imagine Picasso having set out to explain one of his paintings, from the first idea that entered his mind to the very last brush stroke: something like that is what Adrià is now seeking to do with his kitchen creations. I interview him in the place where each El Bulli dish was originally devised: a spacious, space-age, minimalist gastro lab set in the heart of medieval Barcelona. The last time I was here, three and a half years ago, the fridge was full and
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GASTRONOMY the lab was buzzing with men in white coats conducting experiments in food with the precision of surgeons and sushi-master delicacy of touch. Now the lab is empty save for Adrià and me and the tomato juice; papers all over the place, on the tables and on the walls, long lists scribbled in pencil or diagrams with connecting circles and arrows, visual expressions of Adrià’s culinary acrobatics. He tells me that since the restaurant has closed, the El Bulli Foundation (motto: Feeding Creativity) is his life’s work. That means three things: organising exhibitions that seek to decipher El Bulli for the layperson; a planned museum where the restaurant used to be, on Spain’s northern Mediterranean coast, to tell the story of food “from the Big Bang to the Neolithic age to the avant-garde cuisine of El Bulli”; and a monumental internet project to be called Bullipedia whose goal will be to catalogue, dissect and explain every item of food on the planet, from algae to oranges. ‘It sounds mad,’ he says. ‘But maybe it isn’t because a surprising number of people are taking us seriously. The fact is that for the first time in history hundreds of thousands of people are flocking to exhibitions about a restaurant, for heaven’s sake, and behind us, offering ideas and advice, we have some of the finest minds at the finest universities and business schools in the world.’ With his El Bulli Foundation, Adrià, 51, is like a child with a new toy, or a student brainbox working on the latest killer app. Dressed in a grey T-shirt, black jeans and black trainers with thick red laces, he looks younger and more excited than I’ve seen him in the ten years I’ve known him. One moment we’re sitting down at a table, the next he is up and practically running across the wooden floor to a computer screen. He laughs, he smiles, he exclaims, he repeats (a dozen times at least in the two hours we spend together), “You’ll think I’m mad, but...”; then it’s back to the table, then up again to a bookstand heaving with files that he flips through with manic purpose, then to the fridge and the tomato juice, or whatever it is. Keeping up with him is exhausting, mentally and physically. His El Bulli Foundation team are used to it. All 15 of them, star chefs in their own right who have decided to hitch their wagon to the master, worked with him in the kitchen at El Bulli. Adrià’s wife of 11 years, Isabel, is a highly intelligent woman who plays a critical role — as she did at El Bulli — as his most trusted adviser and the person who imposes businesslike order on the general creative frenzy. The financing comes, and will come, from a range of sources: the proceeds from exhibitions such as the London one, an endowment set up to back the planned museum and income from advertising once Bullipedia is up and running. It is Bullipedia that really gets him going right now. “It’s going to be like the Tree of Life or Darwin’s history of evolution. It’ll be not the human genome but the food genome. Every last thing a chef could need to know. And what I love about it is that it forces me to rationalise
things, to understand my own thinking, in a way I’d never imagined when I was working at El Bulli.” It’s all of a piece with the other two elements of the Bulli Foundation’s three-pronged mission. He is endeavouring to deconstruct the workings of his avid, infinitely curious mind in the same way he deconstructed at his restaurant what we always thought of merely as food. Go to one of his exhibitions, go to the museum or plough through Bullipedia when all are up and running in maybe three or four years’ time and, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll be in a position to open your eyes to the world as Adrià does. Then you’ll be able to answer rather better than I could questions not just like, “What’s a tomato?” but others Adrià fired at me, no less disconcertingly, such as “What’s butter?” or “What’s a white asparagus?” or “What’s the sex of a chicken?” The answer to the last, he told me — reassuringly adding that most chefs were baffled by the question, too — is that it is always young but can be male or female and that the taste is actually different. Eventually managing to shift our encounter to less daunting terrain, I asked him if he’d ever reopen El Bulli or start another restaurant. His response was a very categorical “no”. He enjoys offering ideas and advice to his (also mightily talented) younger brother Albert at his wildly successful and relatively new Barcelona tapas restaurant Tickets, but that is the limit of his interest in getting back into the restaurant game. “I was in the production side of things for 30 years, working 17 hours a day, and it doesn’t interest me any more. No one really likes restaurant work. What I have now is what most chefs would dream of. The creativity and the adrenaline and the fun without the relentless stress of the daily business. Why would I ever want to go back?” No envy, then, of El Bulli’s neighbouring Catalan restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, which just took over the best restaurant in the world title? Rather, Adrià celebrates. “It’s very important for Spain. The Scandinavians took over for a while, but their cuisine was inspired by what we did. Celler’s triumph reminds people that Spain has led the gastronomic vanguard for the past 20 years. Our influence has spread all over — Peru, Brazil, Mexico are the places to look at now — but here is where it began and it is our methods that others have learned to apply to their particular produce and to their traditions.” Adrià’s self-assurance is total. He knows, beyond arrogance, that he is a genius and he is way past any need for PR dissimulation. Chefs at the very best restaurants acknowledge his genius and they will be flocking to Somerset House to sit at the master’s feet, striving to become more fluent in the unique and wildly original language of his mind. Quite a few of their customers — especially those complacent in the belief that they know what tomato juice is — should go, too.
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elBulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food runs at Somerset House, London, until September 29. somersethouse.org.uk
‘What I have now is what most chefs would dream of. The creativity and the adrenaline and the fun without the relentless stress of the daily business’
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TRAVEL
T
THE DOMAIN
he days of lonely business travel could soon be at an end for executives in the GCC with the launch of ultra-chic, tech-savvie hotel The Domain Bahrain. With a slogan of “Stay, Work, Play”, the 36-storey boutique property – which is soft launching this month – is also a private members club. Its aim? To ensure businessmen and women travelling alone to Bahrain have no time to feel lonely, by devoting more space to socialising, media, entertainment and state-ofthe-art technology. The result, The Domain promises, is “one luxury, innovative experience”
It’s less work and more play at a new luxury boutique hotel in Bahrain…
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which is open for use by both hotel guests and exclusive club members. This means more entertaining space than bedrooms, for starters. Aside from the 61 suites and 68 rooms (all of which boast incredible views and a luxe, modern look), there are an impressive nine restaurants, each sleekly designed and distinct: from Txoko Basque Lounge, which serves up afternoon tea followed by Basque tapas served with live DJ sets, to the Mad Men-esque leather-bound chairs and über-masculine vibe of Le Savage, where a meat sommelier helps diners choose from the finest curated cuts, grilled to your liking before being served with classic French side dishes. Vie spa and Vie Fitness Club span two floors of the hotel, while a breathtaking rooftop infinity pool with retractable roof cries out for a nighttime swim.
Before guests arrive at the hotel, a “Master of your Domain” web tool allows them to customise the experience that awaits – from dinner reservations through to pillow selection. And W on arrival a Domain Manager will meet you in the lobby and usher you to your room for checkin. It’s here you’ll meet your butler (there is one on every floor), who will be on hand to help with anything and everything you desire. In-room tablets control lighting and climate, and there’s also a technology butler available to deal with any guest queries. Dining alone? The Conversation, an internal social network, enables guests and members to connect with each other, complimented by an in-house Social Media Director who keeps things interesting, including by inviting guests to meet other like-minded individuals at a specified time and location – perfect for networking.
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LIFE LESSONS
WHAT I KNOW NOW
Erkan Fere
CEO of The Left Shoe Company I have been fortunate in the sense that throughout my working life I have had the opportunity to meet interesting people from various cultures and there are some thoughts that seem universal. When it comes to business relationships, you should always take care of your customer as eventually it is the customer that takes care of your business. The relationship begins when the customer opens your store door and it never ends. We all make mistakes, it´s human, but you have one chance to make it right and you should certainly not make the same mistake twice. Every company makes a mistake at some point but what makes your company stand out, is how you correct it. Open and candid communication makes life easier. Be respectful and use consideration when discussing business and you don´t need to go back and see what you said earlier. The truth is the most valuable asset in communication, telling stories will always catch up on you. Success follows courage and trying your best carries a long way. Making solid, analysed decisions and standing behind those will ease the execution of tasks. However, always listen to other views and from time to time review your decisions to ensure that you are on the right track. As long as the right decisions exceed the wrong ones at a 9:1 ratio, you are performing. A man should have 5-6 pairs of shoes in the wardrobe at all times. Take care of your shoes and these will carry you for those extra miles.
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