Issue seventy march 2017
Brie Larson Luxury • Culture • People • Style • Heritage
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Contents MarCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Editorial Editorial director
John Thatcher Managing Editor
air
Emma Laurence Editor
Chris Ujma christopher@hotmediapublishing.com
art art director
Andy Knappett art Editor
Kerri Bennett illustrations
Vanessa Arnaud
CoMMErCial Managing director
Victoria Thatcher Group Commercial director
David Wade
Forty Four
Fifty Eight
Long unheralded, Brie Larson is out of the shadows – and capitalising on her deserved Oscar success
A behind-the-scenes peek at the creation of Look 54 – an elegant SS17 haute-couture ensemble from Chanel
Fifty
Sixty Four
Celebrating 75 years since the birth of an LA icon: how Capitol Records took the music industry by storm
The darker side of Ernest Hemingway, who played both sides of the spy game with tragic consequences
Box-Office Brilliance
david@hotmediapublishing.com Commercial director
Rawan Chehab
rawan@hotmediapublishing.com
Forget-Me-Not
Sales Manager
Lisa Price
A Capitol Idea
lisa@hotmediapublishing.com
ProduCtion Production Manager
Muthu Kumar
8
Argo, Naught
Contents MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Eighteen
Seventy
Dolce&Gabbana’s SS17 runway showing put millennials in their place… under the spotlight, to shine
The courageous Porsche Panamera changes everything, as family car blends with speed demon
Twenty Six
Seventy Four
Must-see highlights of Art Dubai 2017 – helmed by a new director and with a fascinating new twist
The Raby Hunt is close to perfection – James Close, in fact. Read our exclusive with the Michelin-star maestro
From Thirty Four
Seventy Eight
The latest dark vision from Officine Panerai, plus the rock-star approach of Roger Dubuis
With the mighty Uluru commanding the horizon, Longitude 131° ensures a Red Centre stay like no other
AIR Magazine AIR
Radar
Art & Design
Timepieces
Forty
Jewellery Hail the Queen of Kalahari, and Chopard’s exquisite garden that blossomed from the 342ct diamond
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. HOT Media Publishing does not accept liability for omissions or errors in AIR.
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Motoring
Gastronomy
Travel
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Empire Aviation Group MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Welcome Onboard issue seventy
Welcome to this issue of AIR, our aviation lifestyle magazine for aircraft owners and charter passengers. In this issue, we focus on and profile the largest market for private aviation in the world – the USA. We opened our Empire Aviation USA aircraft sales division in Scottsdale Arizona in 2014 under the leadership of Gary Wright, a veteran of the US general aviation industry. Since commencing the operation, the team has grown, adding a powerful new dimension to the group with the core focus of buying and selling aircraft on behalf of our owners and customers – tapping into the largest private aviation market in the world. With the recent transitions taking place in the US, the consensus is that this will create investment opportunities in the business aviation industry, providing growth in the pre-owned sector as corporations and individuals look to take delivery of new aircraft and more aircraft come onto the pre-owned market. Results from the Q3 2016 JETNET iQ Survey reported that about 40% of owners/operators were feeling optimistic about where the business aviation industry is in the current business cycle, led by respondents in North America (US & Canada) and Europe. Honeywell’s business aviation forecast (2016) predicts that an estimated 65% of projected demand comes from operators in North America, the industry’s largest market. Every part of the global economic cycle creates opportunities/ prospects in business aviation and especially in the US because of its dominance. The highly regulated aircraft sales market provides buyers with reassurance when purchasing through a reputable dealer. Empire Aviation has a thorough due-diligence process undertaken for any pre-buy or pre-sale aircraft. Currently, the majority of new aircraft sales in the US are replacements for existing owners, so we are set to see some very attractive acquisition opportunities and great value for buyers. Empire Aviation USA will continue to specialise in providing customers with the highest standard of aircraft brokerage services in the industry, based on three pillars of expertise – valuation of the asset, sales and marketing, and negotiation and deal construction. With its access to a global network and substantial international business experience, Empire Aviation USA is uniquely qualified to navigate any aircraft transaction anywhere in the world. We plan to follow up this first step into the US market with the introduction of our full-service portfolio of aircraft management and aircraft charter.
Enjoy the read.
Steve Hartley
Executive Director
Contact Details: info@empire.aero empireaviation.com 13
Paras Dhamecha
Executive Director
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Empire Aviation USA – making it big in America globe it creates opportunities to showcase the US services. When you consider that there are currently 42,000 business aircraft in operation worldwide and around 50% of these are based in the United States, customers recognise the value of access to the world’s largest base of aircraft. For example, the team recently delivered a Hawker 800XP to a client in India. In a market as large as the US, there is a place for all aircraft models but it is still very much price and convenience driven, and so remains a buyers’ market. There are no typical customers, and the team works with large publicly traded companies, high-networth individuals, charter operators and fractional companies. Empire Aviation is capable of meeting the needs of any customer.
The US private aviation market for pre-owned aircraft has seen a steady return to activity since the end of election season and there is increasing optimism. Lower corporate taxes and deregulation of the industry are likely to have a positive effect on company profits. There is a direct correlation between corporate profits and aircraft sales. Many owners who may have been considering selling are now committing to listing their aircraft with a view to upgrading. It’s a short-term opportunity, so owners need to move quickly to take advantage of the current market conditions and we expect to see an increase in transactions in the first quarter of 2017, compared to 2016. More than the us As Empire continues to expand its overseas operations across the 14
G IN
D EN
LP
A DE
2010 Global Express XRS
2009 Challenger 300 1999 604 2011 Falcon 7X
2012 2009 Challenger 300
1999 Challenger 605 604 300 2012
2006 Legacy 600
Aircraft Sales | Aircraft Acquisition | Consultation | Financing Solutions Empire Aviation is a one-stop shop for integrated executive aviation services, offering aircraft acquisition, aircraft brokerage, financing solutions, and fleet consultations.
T: +1 (480) 659-0808 | www.empireaviation.com | aircraftsales@empire.aero
Empire Aviation Group MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
inventory to meet demand The US sales office is based at the Scottsdale Municipal Airport (KSDL) – one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country. The current Empire Aviation aircraft inventory includes a Falcon 7X, Legacy 600, Global XRS, Challenger 604, and two Challenger 300s listed for sale, with a Challenger 604 in the pipeline. In addition to listings, the team also represents aircraft buyers and uses its significant expertise and market knowledge to save customers money when buying an aircraft. The greatest compliment is when customers recommend services to business partners and friends. This means that they have complete trust in the team. As an example, Empire USA is currently in the process of acquiring a Gulfstream GV for a repeat customer. The US team has high expectations for 2017 and has already delivered a Hawker 800XP, with a Falcon 7X, Gulfstream G450, Challenger 604, and Gulfstream GV under contract.
Meet the team Empire’s US operation is led by aviation industry veteran Gary Wright, a director who has been selling airplanes since 1977; he has a stellar reputation and is well known across the industry. Gary is ably assisted by senior sales associate Scott Glenn,
The Bombardier Global XRS is within the Empire inventory
who has been working with Gary for the last seven years and was part of the team that launched Empire USA in 2014. More recently, Matt Leis has joined the team to support sales, manage market research and assist in the sales office’s marketing initiatives. Three years after launching in the US, Empire USA is well established not only in the United States but within the global aviation community. Today, the US business currently ranks in the top 10% of dealers worldwide based on the number of aircraft for sale. Empire Aviation is a global company, and so the focus
of attention is not just the United States. Since launching, the US team has concluded transactions in the United States, Mexico, UAE, Qatar, Nigeria, Germany, China and India. Over the course of the last 12 months, the local US business outreach has started to make an impact. Empire USA is preparing to deliver the third aircraft into the Phoenix metropolitan area, and the outlook for 2017 is very positive. The US office is recognised as the premier aircraft sales organisation in the local community, while still contributing to the development of the company’s global network. Scott Glenn, Senior Sales Associate
Gary Wright, Director 16
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Radar
AIR
MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Dolce&Gabbana are no strangers to being the talk of the town, but a feisty showing on the SS17 runway ensured their place as the centrepiece of fashion chatter in the subsequent months. There slicked the millennials – a new attitude from a new generation – to encapsulate the brand’s spirit. For the men’s collection, says the style house, “Music is the driving force… full of flair, with a distinctly Eighties feel. Musical instruments become prints; oversized, top-heavy silhouettes punctuate a collection that merges Sicilian tailoring with flamboyant fashion statements.” The style notes “celebrate music as a glue, as a vehicle for our emotions, as a giver of energy”. The summery visual playlist struck a stylish chord; though given this ensemble of models, perhaps #struckachord.
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Film Brimstone Dir: Martin Koolhoven A wrongly accused frontier woman turns fugitive in the old American West, hunted down by a vengeful preacher At Best: “Dark, lurid, sadistic and powerful… [it’s] a fascinating and bold debut.” CineVue At WoRst: “Even when the film is horrible to look at, the film is beautiful, and a strange and grim portrait of an annihilating American frontier.” Vanity Fair
Logan AIR
Dir: James Mangold Hugh Jackman reprises Wolverine for the final time, in a (seemingly) mutant-free 2029 setting At Best: “The Dark Knight of the mutant-filled X-franchise; a gripping film that transcends the comic-book genre.” USA Today At WoRst: “Not great, but a movie with a noble, weary and tragic performance at its centre. There’s but one Wolverine.” Movie Nation
Get Out Dir: Jordan Peele A weekend getaway to meet the girlfriend’s parents turns gruesome for an unsuspecting boyfriend At Best: “A complex, accomplished genre hybrid that should alter Jordan Peele’s business card.” RogerEbert.com At WoRst: “Even if you don’t think all of it comes off, you will be talking about it.” SciFiNow
The Belko Experiment Dir: Greg McLean It’s kill or be killed in this social experiment, set in a corporate high-rise in the Colombian capital At Best: “As a self-aware guilty pleasure, [it] may not quite seize greatness, but it does give it a playful squeeze.” Variety At WoRst: “In the hands of Greg McLean, the film’s violence feels often overwrought instead of fun.” The Film Stage
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AIR
Books
“K
atie Kitamura’s third work of fiction, A Separation, builds into a hypnotic meditation on infidelity and the unknowability of one’s spouse,” says Kirkus Reviews. “In precise and muted prose, the entire story unspools in the coolly observant mind of a young woman, a translator… The narrator thinks, ‘One of the problems of happiness – and I’d been very happy, when Christopher and I were first engaged – is that it makes you both smug and unimaginative.’ As this harrowing story ends, her life is diminished and her imagination is cruelly awake. A minutely observed novel of infidelity unsettles its characters and readers.” Muses Annalisa Quinn for NPR Books, “It has several separations: the marital separation, the separation between the narrator and her public self, and between herself and the world around her, which she keeps at a careful distance. The narrator is detached and cool… reading this novel is akin to speaking to an expressionless woman through several panes of glass, with unnerving and incomprehensible shapes swimming in the periphery.”
“Kitamura finds a clever parallel between the art of translation and marriage,” argues Michael Magras for BookPage. “The struggle to be faithful… as the narrator states, is ‘an impossible task because there are multiple and contradictory ways’ of achieving fidelity. As this coolly elegant work makes clear, the definition of fealty may vary depending on whom you ask.” Everything Belongs To Us by Yoojin Grace Wuertz is “an ambitious debut about power and family in South Korea with rich character portraits and a strong political heartbeat [that] traces the ambitions of four loosely connected students attending Seoul National University in 1978. While the framework of the novel isn’t always tidy, the book is no less a significant representation of the politics of postwar hope and despair. Engrossing. Wuertz is an important new voice in American fiction” – that’s according to Kirkus Reviews. Over at Shelf Awareness, they opine, “Less of a debut and more an arrival, this [is an] arresting first novel… Readers will easily draw parallels between the South Korean generation 22
pictured here and today’s millennials, both groups of young people set to inherit sink-or-swim social orders with huge gaps in wealth… Powerful and absorbing, [it] introduces a new and compelling voice.” “Wuertz crafts a story with delicious scenes and plot threads, perceptively showing the push and pull of relationships in a strictly mannered society,” concludes Publishers Weekly. On the non-fiction front, modern philosopher Daniel Dennett (one of the infamous ‘four horsemen’, along with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris) returns with From Bacteria To Bach And Back: The Evolution Of Minds. “It is an illuminating and insightful, if occasionally difficult, book; Dennett’s two overarching themes concern the philosophical ideas of René Descartes and the biological concepts of Charles Darwin… He makes a convincing case, based on a rapidly growing body of experimental evidence, that a materialist theory of mind is within reach,” says Publishers Weekly. “Don’t be fooled by the title; there is little about bacteria, only a brief digression about Bach, and no ‘back’ in philosopher Dennett’s latest Big Bravura Book about consciousness… He has written several books about mind, consciousness and evolution, so it is fair to ask whether he has anything new to say in what the blurb claims is his ‘masterwork’,” writes Steven Rose at The Guardian, further venturing, “It is an infuriating book. It is too long, repetitive, indulgently digressive and self-referential (no fewer than 64 references to his own publications). But underlying it all there is a subtle and interesting argument.” Champions Kirkus Reviews, “Anyone interested in modern theories of the mind and consciousness has to reckon with Dennett. This book, dense but accessible, is as good a place as any to start… The dean of consciousnessraising consciousness-explaining returns with another clear-eyed exploration of the mind.”
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Art
AIR
“I
t was a new dawn. Tractors caused uproar and muscular workers got to the factory on flying bicycles. Then came the purges,” says Adrian Searle at The Guardian, taking the temperature of Revolution: Russian Art 1917-1932 (which shows at London’s Royal Academy of Arts until 17 April). “There is much to surprise, but less as visual pleasure than as a way of conveying the clamour, aspirations and contradictions of the times. That said, this is a fun show, in spite of the density of the arguments that were waged in the new Russia. For every painting of a flag-bearing bearded Bolshevik, striding over onion-domed churches and crowded streets, there are… Pavel Filonov’s crazed, teeming cityscapes, a wonderfully frightening world of boggle-eyed heads and tessellated skylines.” Writes Karen Wright for The Independent, “Leaving an exhibition on the downward swoop of a metaphorical roller-coaster ride, this is the type of ambitious exhibition that pleads for people to become Royal Academy members so that they may come freely again and again.” Jackie Wullschlager at the Financial
Times adds, “It is the faces you remember. A gnarled leathery peasant, sunken mouth, skeletal hands, veins bulging, and her huge wide-eyed cow together fix us with a suspicious glare in Boris Grigoriev’s Old Dairy Woman. Pavel Filonov’s stoical Collective Farm Worker has features like granite and a numb expression. Alexander Labas’ Red Army Soldier In The Russian Far East is a lost soul, alienated from a scratchy white Siberian town rising in the distance. Kazimir Malevich’s hieratic, schematic figures – Sportsmen, Woman With Rake – have no faces at all, only blank ovals… The exhibition is full of daring experimentation and terrible pathos.” Across town at the Whitechapel Gallery, the Eduardo Paolozzi retrospective runs until 16 April. “The prodigiously productive son of a Scottish-Italian ice-cream family, Eduardo Paolozzi was one of the key British postwar artists. Yet 12 years on from his death, he’s an oddly undersung figure. That may be because the artist, as this fascinating show reveals, never fully aligned himself to any club or movement – not even the ones he instigated himself,”
V.I.Lenin And Manifestation by Isaak Brodsky, 1919. Photo provided with assistance from The State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSIZO 24
says Mark Hudson for The Telegraph. The Financial Times weighs in here again, saying, “The Whitechapel’s task is not easy. Paolozzi, who died in 2005, was a prolific artist of extremely mixed output. His driving interest – the relationship between man and machine – feels dated in our virtual age… Yet he was the unquestioned choice for his friend Colin St John Wilson’s late brutalist-style British Library: no other British artist so convincingly embraced brutalism, proving across a 40-year career its sculptural scope and limitations. That is why Paolozzi’s story matters.” Ben Luke at the Evening Standard came away melancholic: “Up to the [point of the artist’s self-consciousness], the show, beautifully presented throughout, gives a profound sense of an artist challenging, enquiring, innovating. Beyond it, it feels staid and repetitive, until, in a final series of busts, all life seems drained from Paolozzi’s art.” Until 2 April, the Getty Center in LA delivers an exquisite assortment of commissions from 1700s artist Edmé Bouchardon, entitled Royal Artist Of The Enlightenment. Explains The New York Times, “Developed in partnership with the Louvre in Paris, this exhibition explores [his] work of as a sculptor and draftsman, best known for his depictions of Louis XV and an instrumental, if overlooked, figure in the shift from Rococo to NeoClassicism.” Says Carolyn McDowall of Culture Concept, it features “some 30 sculptures in marble, stone, terracotta, plaster and bronze, many of which have never before been exhibited outside of France… A talented craftsman [from an] age when the idea that freedom from religious oppression and economic growth – driven by commerce and scientific endeavour – would help to make people’s lives unarguably better, Bouchardon became renowned for his meticulousness as he created compositions that captivated and challenged, sparking a great deal of conversation”.
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Theatre “S
omewhere underneath the relentless punning and the pastiche, the whistle-stop wit and the whirling theoretical debate, there’s a seriousness to Tom Stoppard’s 1974 Travesties that feels horribly prescient. The intellectual hijinks are genuinely hilarious, but there’s no disguising the weight of the question they restlessly scamper over and clamber round: what can artists do when faced with social crisis?,” writes Alexandra Coghlan for Broadway World UK. Of the play, which is at London’s Apollo Theatre until 29 April, Ismene Brown of The Arts Desk says, “This little Pooter, potbellied representative of the British Empire, is telling us in his old age the story of how by surreal coincidence, three of the 20th century’s history-makers turned up together in Zurich in 1917 under his very own eyes… Vladimir Lenin, Tristan Tzara and James Joyce… At first you have to adjust your brain. The comedy is the breathtaking magic trick of a then-young playwright (he wrote it over 40 years ago) who seems to be saying, ‘Just watch me.’” The Telegraph elaborates, “This champagne revival by Patrick Marber of Stoppard’s intellectual farce deserves to be a West End hit… Will there be lines, even perhaps entire scenes that pass you by? Almost undoubtedly. Yet Marber’s finely calibrated [resurrection] gives [an] effervescence to the densely plotted exchanges on Marxism, capitalism and the like, while the performances… are blissful.” Of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie – also in London, at the Duke of York’s Theatre, until 29 April – Dom O’Hanlon at London Theatre says, “Memory hangs over this production and play like a foggy mist, from audiences who have seen the classic 1944 drama in various forms to the performers who are recreating this specific production in the West End for the first time, but it takes on a new meaning in this smooth and finely crafted revival that lets you discover it with new eyes, ears and heart.” “John Tiffany’s production – finally making
Tom Hollander in Travesties
it to London after runs in New York and Edinburgh – is deceptively simply staged, but also infused with all the magic that the Harry Potter director and team can bring to bear… other productions of The Glass Menagerie tend to be sour or cynical, but for all its (literal) darkness, Tiffany’s absolutely isn’t. It is a vision of love, guttering in the void; a strange dream of America, falling through the night,” says Andrzej Lukowski for Time Out London. “[It’s] an acute, lacerating, tender look at a family that has gone wrong. Unmissable,” purrs The Times. A viral lie goes too far in Dear Evan Hansen, which has an open run at The Music Box Theater in New York. Says Variety’s Marilyn Stasio, “The very thought of [its] Broadway transfer might chill the blood of theatregoers who loved this bittersweet show when it played in the [Off-Broadway] setting… But through the alchemy of Michael Greif… this Broadway theatre proves a perfect fit for this sensitive musical [of] a neurotic misfit trying to survive senior year in high school… 25
Not since Next To Normal has a score tapped so deeply into the troubled psyche of its needy protagonist.” Charles Isherwood of The New York Times adds, “As… a lonely teenager who inadvertently becomes a socialmedia sensation and a symbol of the kindness that is often cruelly absent in high-school hallways, the marvellous young Platt is giving a performance that’s not likely to be bettered… this season.” “The flickering computer screen, the mobile-phone call, connect the characters, and disconnect them too,” writes Tim Teeman at The Daily Beast. “Indeed, one serious dramatic flaw… is that it doesn’t illustrate enough what may have led to the [dark] feelings that the show is centred around… The play is beautiful, slickly directed and moving, but also biting and subversive.” Isherwood concludes, “[This] gorgeous heartbreaker has grown in emotional potency during its journey to the big leagues… Rarely – scratch that – never have I heard so many stifled sobs and sniffles in the theatre.”
Art & Design
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Masterful
It hosts the region’s biggest art prize, 93 participating galleries, and museum-quality works by contemporary and modern savants: Art Dubai is back for its 11th edition, and a slew of new highlights are primed to delight collectors, artists and art professionals alike 26
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ix months does not seem long enough to get over the heartbreak. Since the September 2016 passing of Hassan Sharif – the father of conceptual art in the region, social commentator and arguably the Emirates’ most famous artist – there has been an outpouring of emotion, and fascinating tales about his period of influence have emerged. Art fairs are not sombre occasions, of course, but a time of celebration and reflection; the half-year period has borne carefully considered tributes to the great man, which will be unfurled at Art Dubai. Says Myrna Ayad, the fair’s director, “We will be paying tribute to him through an exhibition at the Julius Baer lounge that contains works by his students, because he was a mentor to many. The curator of our commissioned performances will dedicate a sequence to Sharif, and Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde will present a work for him at her booth – amazingly Sharif produced the piece specifically for Art Dubai, and finished it before he died. So there are really three axes to the tribute – the Julius Baer show, the work at the
booth, and then the performance. It’s going to be quite poignant.” The honouring of Sharif – while profound and representing a modicum of closure – will not dominate proceedings, simply because there are just so many threads to this event, what with its newfound global stature. The smorgasbord of exhibitions, performances, discussion and creative artistic outlets is testament to how this once-boutique fair has grown – from 40 galleries welcoming 8,000 visitors in 2007, to 90 galleries from 40 countries and 27,000 attendees in 2016. Held at Madinat Jumeirah from 16 to 19 March, three days is almost not enough to fully absorb the myriad wonders that will transpire at Art Dubai. To explain every precious corner of the fair, Ayad closes her eyes to transport herself to the venue (and its halls) for an eight-minute soliloquy recap, so as not to neglect any detail. The director reels through some tasty details: “It can be quite overwhelming because there are so many things to do and see. We have two main halls, Contemporary and Modern. The former 28
The Modern hall remains the preeminent place to see art produced in the 20th century by masters from across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia
will feature 78 galleries while the latter has 15, and combined they hail from 44 countries, which is amazing. The Modern hall was established in 2014 and remains the preeminent place to see art produced in the 20th century by masters from across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia… This hall is always a gem because it’s where you can walk through a visual anthology of regional art; if ever artworks could speak to tell local history, it is through the works in that hall. Contemporary is always a delight in its own right, being alive, buzzing and energetic, where you can tap into the pulse of the ‘now’.” The commissions are, for the first time, entirely performance. As you are walking through the halls you just may be interrupted by a performance, “which I think is amazing – to punctuate your art experience with other art,” she embellishes. Ayad, with her extensive background as a prominent arts writer, helms her first fair with a senior team that includes Pablo del Val, Antonia Carver and Lela Csaky. “Art Dubai is familiar to me, given the fact that I covered it 29
AIR
Opening page: An Attempt To Find Balance by Abdel Hadi Al Washahi, Hafez Gallery Previous page: 2016 by Gil Heitor Cortesao, Carbon 12 gallery Below: Walking The Red Line by Zineb Sedira, Plutschow Gallery
The Global Art Forum takes the cultural temperature of our current moment in time, and trade is at the forefront of our current moment
as a journalist back from its inception in 2007,” the director says. “Over its decade it has grown above and beyond being an art fair and has a very healthy and robust non-profit arm, which is our way of giving back to the community and cultivating a greater appreciation for art practices locally and in the region, and as I mentioned, we do this through our projects, those being AIR – Artists in Residence.” Part of the 2017 edition’s clutch of projects will dot the city with art, so the fair will extend beyond its hub. “I’m keen on continuing to strengthen Art Dubai’s positioning as the most global and diverse of art fairs, 30
but one that remains the preeminent platform to discover the very best of art from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia,” she muses. A major spin-off from Art Dubai is the thought-provoking Art Forum, long established and renowned for sparking imagination and fascinating debate. The Global Art Forum kicked off in Sharjah in January and culminates at Art Dubai, with this year’s theme being ‘Trading Places’. The forum commissioner, Shumon Basar, tells us, “The Forum takes the cultural temperature of our current moment in time, and trade is at the forefront of
our current moment. People are asking, ‘Does globalisation work?’; ‘Are robots going to make us all unemployable?’; ‘How does Amazon know what I want before I know what I want?’ Trade has always made and remade the world. But never the same way twice. “Previous editions,” he adds, “have tackled media, language, history, technology and the future. It could be argued – not too difficultly – that all of these figure into trade today. Our simple fascination is that every economy of goods has produced a parallel economy of ideas. Food is ideas. Art is ideas. Language is ideas.
Fashion is ideas. Wherever there is a confluence of people who bring along different backgrounds and histories, new things are invented or imported.” Basar’s are among the opinions worth catching – case in point, his answer as to the future of trade: “Things are undoubtedly going to be forever changed by ever-increased connectivity in a ‘flat world’. Most trade transactions in share markets are done between computers and clever algorithms in tiny fractions of seconds, billions of times a day. At the same time, I always say, you still can’t outsource your haircut to the other side of the world.” 31
While the forum looks outwards, the eyes of the global art world are increasingly turning towards Art Dubai. “The world is paying more attention to art rooted in these regions, which is evident in acquisition teams of major museums obtaining art from this genre, but also the retrospectives and exhibitions of major artists like Ibrahim El-Salahi and Fahrelnissa Zeid at the Tate Modern.” A jewel in Art Dubai’s crown that puts yet more talent from the diaspora in the spotlight is the prestigious Abraaj Group Art Prize, and 2017 sees the unveiling of Rana Begum’s winning work (along with those of the other shortlisted artists, all of whom worked under the tutelage of Omar Berrada). “I really can’t wait to see it constructed and installed. Since announcing the artists, being aware of the discussions of the jury, knowing which artists won, through to the announcement, to checking in on the art production and then finally for this year-long experience to culminate at the fair… there’s something to be said about the waiting and the anticipation,” enthuses Ayad. You’ve just read a comprehensive allocation of words about the fair, but there is still so much within this event’s footprint to discover and be astounded by. “I’d like people to leave having seen something new, having been touched, inspired and moved,” says Ayad, adding her own sense of excitement to the mix: “In a sense I’m still a journalist in my want to see everything, and in Art Dubai week we all suffer from a state of frenzied perpetual ‘fear of missing out’ – you want to absorb everything, and all that you see resonates with you for a long time.” Art Dubai is at Madinat Jumeirah from 15 to 18 March, with various art installations across the city. For the full schedule of events and to buy tickets, visit artdubai.ae
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Master craftsmanship, effortless style and timeless appeal; this month’s must-haves and collectibles
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
D Ch au m e t
InSOlEnCE DIamOnD COllECTIOn
“Seductive hide-and-seek”… “Tie, untie me”… writes the maison. Don’t expect the latest Chaumet high-jewellery offerings to be impeccably behaved, but they certainly have visual decorum befitting a classic. The collection features a necklace, ring, earrings and a bracelet, all inspired by
ribbons dear to Marie Antoinette. The sobriquet is derived from the way that the carefree bows have been nonchalantly tied, on the verge of being undone. The strands are woven bonds of love fused with elegant hedonism – in white and pink gold with brilliant-cut diamonds, no less. 1
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
E huBLOt
B I g B a n g m E C a -1 0 m a g I C g O l D
The bold horologists are back with a bang, peppering magic into this Meccanoinspired timepiece to shake the codes of watchmaking. Adventurous spirits are provided peace of mind as the properties of the ‘Magic’ material (a ceramic and 24ct gold fusion) make it the first scratch-
resistant gold in the world, with certified hardness that only diamond can rival. Innovation lies in the HUB1201 calibre, and the movement reveals its entire interlocking power reserve on the dial side. A 10-day reserve will keep you going, flanked by technical prowess and daring. 2
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
BeRLutI
mESH JaCKE T SS17
Dubai World Cup’s thoroughbred race day on 25 March is an excuse for a fresh injection of wardrobe sophistication, and the spring/summer collection from Berluti has plenty of desirable additions to add a handsome lick to any style reinvention. “The sky lends its hues to the collection,”
says the studio. “Pure white, sunshine yellow, turquoise, navy blue, rust red and deep brown are all nods to day-to-evening wear designed to meet all the whims and requirements of a nomadic man.” Peruse the new looks, which range from very casual to more immaculate formal attire. 3
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
S
L a m BORghIn I
a v E n Ta D O R S
The icon is reborn, and there are plenty of new details for the aficionado to pore over; this may be classed as an ‘upgrade’, but it’s more akin to the sharpening of a deadly samurai sword. The Italian V12 produces a ferocious 730HP – up 39 horsepower thanks to more aggressive
valve timing and intake tuning. There’s a new four-wheel steering system, retuned suspension and a more menacing feel aesthetically – each visual tweak having a calculated function, of course. It’s form, excellence, ‘catch me if you can’ at 349 km/h – and it’s now for sale. 4
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
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OB JECTS OF DESIRE
DOLCe&gaBBana
CRuISE 2017 COllECTIOn
Dolce&Gabbana mamboed into SS17 with an upbeat fizz. Statement pieces? This fun collection has enough to spark an entire conversation. Says the brand of its funky seasonal lookbook, “Our DNA is the South and all the symbols that represent it: flowers, pasta, bread, good-luck charms,
shells, fish, religious symbols, music, ice cream, drinks, dolls, biscuits, forks, spoons, pizza and mandolin. All of this is love, is #DGFamily.” It’s a cultural soup, flavouring a collection of fashion pieces and accessories to be desired; a riot of colour, in time for summer. 6
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
R ChaneL
gaBRIEllE Bag
Karl Lagerfeld is at it again, creating a contemporary handbag design that gives a knowing wink toward the influence of Coco Chanel herself. Behold the Gabrielle: beauty and practicality combined. The supple, aged-calfskin bag comes in a trio of formats – a hobo version (with three
iterations of its own), a backpack, a large shopper and a supple purse contained in a rigid half-case. The libertarian designer was inspired by the shape of augmented-reality glasses, as well as the binocular cases slung over the shoulders of gentlemen at the racecourse. 7
OB JECTS OF DESIRE
E
e B m ey ROw I t z
B E S p O K E S p E C Ta C l E S
For visionaries looking to boost their actual vision, the world’s foremost purveyor of luxury optical goods is the atelier of choice. The esteemed Old Bond Street-based ocularists have been handcrafting made-to-measure specs since 1875, and their cornerstone philosophies
are timeless elegance and attentive care. Frame materials range from cotton-based acetates to naturally sourced buffalo horn, precious metals, fine jewels, exotic skins, tortoiseshell and more, while 2017 marks the atelier’s beginning of overseas visits, for discerning clients on foreign shores. 8
Timepieces MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Does Size Matter? TARIq MALIk
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ize is a touchy subject when it comes to men and their accessories. Think of how mobile phones have evolved from the chunky, brick-sized car phones of the 1980s to the tiny breast-pocket-sized flip phones, and back again to the wide, slim new smartphones. Even if it’s on a subconscious level, I must admit, men like to compare… As our world changed, cars and gadgets became smaller, but going against the grain, the dials of wristwatches started getting bigger. In the very late 1990s, celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore and Sylvester Stallone wearing a Panerai Luminor caught the eye of the media. Their watches were far bigger than the average 38mm or 40mm that had been the norm until then. And people noticed. Suddenly more and more ‘oversized’ watches started appearing, and it soon became a trend. The dials of new watches became ever larger, while vintage watches with small dials became less popular. Ariel Adams (a fellow expert in watches writing for popular online horology forum A Blog To Watch) describes it this way: “People started commenting on large watch sizes when timepieces measuring 44mm wide from companies such as Panerai and others started to become popular in the early 2000s and, to a degree, the late 1990s.” It was a trend that gathered momentum, and soon many of the world’s leading luxury brands were producing watches with dials of 44mm and broader. Even Rolex, a brand known for its consistency in styling, introduced the Datejust II,
which measured in at 41mm compared to the usual 36mm of previous models. “We have increased some cases to 40mm and 41mm,” said Carla Uzel, a spokeswoman for Rolex Watch USA, “while the standard size for classics like the Oyster Perpetual, Air king and Datejust have held steady at 34mm and 36mm.” It’s an interesting development, considering how the luxury wristwatch is already a status symbol. So: does a bigger watch mean more status? Opinions are divided as to what, exactly, the perfect watch to wrist-size ratio happens to be. It’s generally accepted that smaller wrists suit smaller diameters, and larger wrists can pull off the oversized modern watches, but even this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Big watches are popular with a portion of the female audience, too. Men who enjoy big watches will claim that smaller watches look like they were made for ladies or boys. On the other hand, those who prefer smaller watches will rebut with the argument that big watches make it 33
look like you’re overcompensating for something. Adams offers the following advice: “There are certain rules to see if a watch is too big for your particular wrist. The first thing to do is put on a watch and see whether or not the lugs stick out past your wrist. If your wrist does not have enough real-estate space for the watch to sit on, then in our opinion the watch is too large for your wrist.” Historically, the only really large watches ever produced were those made for flight navigation. As large watches have become popular again, the aviator-style watch has experienced a renaissance. Brands like IWC, which has a rich history in aviator watches, capitalised. Its Big Pilot range sports dials with diameters of up to 46mm, and they’re more popular than ever. Experts warn that the trend is set to reverse. Benjamin Clymer, lead author of Hodinkee, offers his opinion: “At a macro level, you could say there’s been a return to elegance. We’re seeing a lot more of simple, understated watches, and moderate sizing is a big part of that trend. For some time, a 45-47mm watch was the norm. But now 42mm has become the max, while most high-end watches are being designed even smaller at around 40mm.” In the end it remains a matter of personal taste. There are those who will admire the bold, if not ostentatious bulk of a Royal Oak Offshore chronograph, and there are those who will always swear by the understated, slim elegance of a Patek Philippe. Find Tariq’s co-founded vintagewatch boutique Momentum in Dubai’s DIFC; momentum-dubai.com
Timepieces MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Dark Ideas
From the Laboratorio di Idee at Officine Panerai comes the limited-edition LAB-ID Luminor 1950 Carbotech, a 2017 novelty with enough innovation to blow competitors out of the water
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anerai is synonymous with its deep-sea diving heritage and supplying exceptional Radomir timepieces to frogman commandos of the Royal Italian Navy – but today it finds itself competing on a different plane. There’s a ‘space race’ taking place in mechanical high watchmaking right now, and it concerns the deployment of contemporary, ground-breaking, otherworldly materials; the focus is on attaining new heights of innovation, not depths. “We’re a brand linked to technology, and when we produced the first watches for the commandos, it was not a ‘normal’ watch technology. In the present we continue this tradition… to capture the right materials to propose to our clients. It’s a very important part of our DNA,” explains Angelo Bonati, Officine Panerai CEO. The Florence-based watchmaker attacked SIHH 2017 with a truly conceptual, futuristic watch. The highly successful Luminor 1950 collection has a new member, though it’s almost like another species; the LAB-ID Luminor 1950 Carbotech 3 Days PAM 700 highlights Panerai’s own curious, complex material – Carbotech. It’s a carbon fibre-based composite: thin sheets of the fibres are compressed at a controlled temperature under high pressure together with a high-end polymer that binds them together. Visually, it produces a unique marbling that is almost wood-like in appearance.
They say, mysteriously, “It’s what you don’t see…” and this is one of the deepest black dials we’ve ever seen. The LAB-ID is coated in carbon nanotubes, which totally absorb the light; it’s entirely ‘lights out’, save for the blue numerals and hand coatings, to reduce reflection. The wording you see on the dial? It’s not on the dial but printed directly onto the crystal-glass dome, in order to preserve the matte blackness. The stealth horology gem has two barrels and a three-day power reserve when fully wound, with a whopping 49mm case that is 6.5mm thick and has a see-through sapphire-crystal back, through which to peer at its glorious inner workings. Of those innards are self-lubricating plates and bridges as well as dry lubricated barrels; this spells low maintenance and durability, and leads to an astonishing 50-year guarantee, such is Panerai’s confidence. Says Milvin George, managing director, Middle East and India, “The Luminor 1950 Carbotech LAB-ID is not only a revolutionary timepiece, but represents a milestone that marks an exciting chapter in our story as it sets a new standard by which watchmaking excellence is measured. We are continuously committed to using the latest technology and our Laboratorio di Idee to enhance our offerings, not only to thrive today, but further cement the legacy of Panerai as a creator of the most avant-garde timepieces.” 34
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Timepieces MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Dare To Be Rare
Roger Dubuis wields exceptional timepieces such as the mighty Excalibur, but it’s flamboyant expression that fuels its rule-breaking approach to fine-watchmaking convention
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WORDS : CHRIS UJMA
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uxury boutique brands are always accompanied by interesting stories, and this one is no exception. When I meet JeanSebastien Berland, Roger Dubuis’ regional brand director, he delves straight into the fascinating sequence of events that inspired the company’s founder: “The tale goes that a young Roger Dubuis was living in a small village in Switzerland, and as a kid he wasn’t really inspired by school and didn’t have any direction; maybe he’d become a policeman or a fireman, he thought. However, he had made friends with the local leathersmith, who one day asked him to help with ringing the bell at the local church. So on that given Sunday he went to the church, climbed the ladder to the tower and laid eyes upon the clock mechanism – it was a revelation for him, love at first sight.” He continues, “When Roger Dubuis saw the beauty and intricacy of the clock workings, he told himself that was what he wanted to do with his life – repair and, if possible, create clocks. So from that moment he became driven, starting to do well at school,
and he went on to join the best watchmaking school in Geneva. And the rest, as they say, was history. After progressing right through to the high complications department of Patek Philippe, he set up his own company [with the aid of former Franck Muller designer Carlos Dias] late in his career.” It means the brand is relatively young in terms of active years, and that freshness is alive and well through its actions, too. The working environment at Geneva HQ is not the stereotypical set-up one imagines of a Swiss high-watchmaking institution. “Roger Dubuis has this kind of startup, rock-and-roll spirit where you have crazy, talented watchmakers who are always thinking ahead and designing the watches of the 21st century,” says Berland, adding with a smile, “If you had an opportunity to visit the prototyping department you would see young guys with tattoos, skulls on their desk, driving crazy cars and motorbikes to work. One of the features of the brand is a daring attitude, that nothing is impossible, and the team embody that spirit.” These watchmakers break 36
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Opening page: An individually finished RD820SQ movement Left: The Excalibur Quatuor Cobalt MicroMelt
We have this kind of rock-androll spirit where you have crazy, talented watchmakers who are always thinking ahead
with convention, yet maintain an impeccable standard of excellence. It works, and the movements meet the new (and previous) requirements of the long-coveted, prestigious Poinçon de Genève – the Geneva Seal. The team is young and blazing with ideas – take the incredibly complex Quatuor as an example. The watch is the first in the world to have four balances, all in the name of negating the harmful effects that gravity has on timekeeping. “It took seven years of research before even getting close to being commercially produced,” says Berland. A result of furrow-browed overtime in the lab, then? Not initially. “It was a late Friday-night conversation at the bar and they started drawing this amazing timepiece manufacture on a restaurant napkin,” he regales. The company’s ‘be who you are’ approach nurtured genius, defying expert opinon that the technology in the calibre – with four balances, each set at a 45° angle – was impossible to execute. The camaraderie (and radical skillset) of the Dubuis team got it done – and not once, but in three working prototypes. Take that. “Roger Dubuis is the perfect manufacturer when it comes to highend complications, and our clients expect new, innovative designs and techniques. For that, we need to take risks by merging polar-opposite materials that contrast and work well together,” says Berland. At Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) Genève back in January, the Roger Dubuis line-up was an eruption of colour – hues of blue in some pieces and red rhapsody in others, ensuring that these watches stand out from the crowd (well, even more so than usual). Behind the visual attention seeking were substantial, curious developments. Recalls Berland of the annual horology summit, “The Excalibur was the star of the show, and with its disruptive materials and progressive complications, we once again pushed the boundaries of watchmaking. We launched a world first with a pioneering 39
material called Cobalt MicroMelt, which graces that Excalibur iteration with a strong, highly rare metal – both in a 48mm case with the Quatuor calibre, and a 42mm case with automatic skeleton. There was groundbreaking research poured into the Excalibur Carbon Spider, too. “We launched the full carbon movement – a crazy timepiece weighing only 40g, which has a tourbillon. And what’s amazing about this watch is that the plate is made of carbon, yet it’s still a Poinçon de Genève movement. So yet again, an incredible achievement from the R&D department back in Geneva.” The brand’s SIHH assault was geared towards showcasing ‘the perfect fit between disruptive materials and progressive complications’ – and over the years, an avant-garde approach has been the rule here, not the exception. The manufacturer has adopted the ‘dare to be rare’ tagline, of which CEO JeanMarc Pontroué explains, “The ‘dare’ in this statement is largely down to Roger Dubuis himself, because this is what he did. It is very difficult to go against the common understanding, against market studies and against people who are telling you that you shouldn’t do something. In the luxury business it’s even more difficult to take the decision to come up with a product that represents a genuine rupture from the status quo. The ‘rare’ part, meanwhile, reflects the exclusive nature of the different spectacular limited-edition timepieces that we bring each year.” After steering the brand through those initial years, the modern-day role of Dubuis, he told Esquire, is “firstly, to coach our watchmakers. [Secondly], which is most important, is to be the soul of the maison. Every year I travel around the world, meeting our special clients and the press, motivating them and giving them the spirit of the brand”. The Roger Dubuis spirit and soul is being a collective of unorthodox timepiece mavericks stomping into a high-paced age of adventure. Their concerns are definitely not about being mainstream – on the contrary, they’re hellbent on swimming against the tide.
Jewellery MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
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Long Live The Queen After months of shrouded secrecy, Chopard has unveiled the results of a mysterious project. From the 342ct Queen of Kalahari diamond a stunning ensemble has emerged – the Garden of Kalahari – that immediately ascends into haute-joaillerie nobility WORDS : CHRIS UJMA
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hen diamond recoverer Tekolo Sethebe found this particular 342ct gem at the heart of a mined deposit, news quickly spread: it astonished even seasoned workers at Karowe mine, a Lucara Diamond Corp-owned asset. Once alerted to its discovery, Chopard copresident and artistic director Caroline Scheufele dashed to the scene. “When I first arrived at the mine in Botswana after two days of travelling, I really felt the fascination and the excitement of
every person working there. The rough diamond was a gift from the earth and they were the ones who found it. The atmosphere was very special and I immediately sensed that this was an incredibly rare gem of exceptional beauty and purity,” she recalls of her first encounter with it. “The energy and emotional charge emanating from it are truly incomparable.” Graced with the name Queen of Kalahari, what made the ethereal find so astounding is that it combines 40
D colour – the most beautiful – with grade F (flawless) clarity. “This rough diamond is not necessarily the biggest ever found, but it is for sure the purest. An exceptional stone created by Mother Nature a billion years ago. It was like seeing a flower bloom in an arid and extreme – yet fertile – environment. This never happens,” Scheufele reflects, her words underpinned by four decades on the global trail of rare gems. An astonishing find, but its captivating story was far from complete…
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This is a truly exceptional stone, but we did not wish to treat it as a mere trophy, instead choosing to prepare it for a destiny worthy of its stature
Opening page: The pearshaped diamond, one of five 20ct-plus gems cut from the original Queen of Kalahari stone Left: The poppy-inspired cushion cut Below: One of the Queen’s emergent beauties – a ‘secret’ watch from the Garden
Filmmaker Alexis Veller recently teased the trailer for his dramatic docufiction The Queen Of Kalahari, which re-enacts the diamond’s unearthing and onward journey. “This wonderful movie tells the narrative of this unique set,” explains Scheufele. “It takes you to Botswana where the diamond was discovered, to Antwerp where it was cut, to our workshops in Geneva where it was designed and became reality, and, finally, to Paris where it was introduced to the world. This movie really brought back every single emotion I felt during this unique project.” The middle portion of that tale deserves lingering on, particularly – it’s where the gem really comes to life, in a fanciful 23-diamond suite named the Garden of Kalahari. “This is a truly exceptional stone, but we did not wish to treat it as a mere trophy, instead choosing to prepare it for a destiny worthy of its stature,” says the maison’s stewardess of high jewellery. The Chopard ateliers received the diamond cut on 9 March 2016, but Scheufele had been making plans for it long before, dreaming of designs to make it shine from the moment she laid eyes upon it. Her impetus was to create “something that I had never done; something that I had never designed”. Scheufele, who masterminded iconic collections like Happy Diamonds, had a delightful challenge on her hands. “Faced with this rough diamond we had a number of potential options. I wanted to explore every possibility and to represent all classical diamond cuts,” she explains. Five weigh more than 20 carats and each of the main stone cuts – cushion, brilliant, heart, emerald and pear – is represented. “I wanted to explore every possibility given by this rough diamond and to represent all possible shapes. Once cut, the different 43
diamonds reminded me of flowers and I came up with the idea of the Garden of Kalahari,” she says. “The jewelleries created from the Queen of Kalahari had to be as exceptional as the stone was, with a spectacular design. I wanted to create a unique set that you could play with and wear in many different ways.” The five 20ct-plus gems take pride of place in a gorgeous choker, alongside three majestic pendants adorned with the three biggest diamonds in the Garden: the 50ct brilliant-cut sunflower, 26ct heart-shaped pansy and 25ct pear-shaped banana blossom. This trio of precious attachments can be worn alone or together, for full effect. “I enjoyed designing a very dynamic, playful piece, and the ateliers really outshone themselves in working on this exceptional project,” enthuses Caroline, adding, “The synergies among the different crafts were further strengthened by the process.” The set is enriched by a cuff bracelet adorned with two emerald-cut diamonds, two resplendent rings and an astonishing ‘secret’ watch. The set is inspired by diamond guipure lace with a luminous cut-out motif, and took over 3,200 hours to hone. It’s certain to blossom into an alltime great in the pantheon of Chopard beauties; fruits of an exceptional find, from the depths of the earth. Scheufele concurs: “This one-of-a-kind set is very special to my heart, and sits within our most iconic creations. Having a set of jewellery created from one unique rough diamond was a first for our house. We had the chance to work with exceptional stones like the 50ct brilliant-cut diamond – the purest and the biggest on the market. Moreover, this project confirmed the exceptional know-how and extraordinary skills of the workshops at Chopard.”
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INVISIBLE NO MORE INTERVIEW : Jane Mulkerrins ADDITIONAL WORDS : CHris uJMa
Last year’s Oscar win was instant reward for Brie Larson, right? Wrong. Decades of due diligence primed her for the spotlight, and this month she resumes her rightful place – with a bout of blockbuster recognition 44
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I came to realise that there has to be a purpose to my art, that my work has to be of service
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ers encapsulates the immediacy of Hollywood fame: merely 14 months and one award-winning movie ago, you’d have been forgiven for not spotting Brie Larson were she to stroll past you in the street – in spite of an acting career that already spanned almost two decades. Pre-supernova, fans of independent film may have been familiar with her from her critically acclaimed role as a care worker in Short Term 12, or for playing Amy Schumer’s level-headed sister in the ribald comedy Trainwreck. But Larson was still able to go out to dinner in her native Los Angeles untroubled by the attentions of the paparazzi. Not since February 2016. Her emotionally wrenching performance in the film Room gained nominations for both a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award, in Best Actress categories that included Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirren. In the midst of the Oscarnomination buzz that naturally followed, she said, modestly, “It seems so far removed from my reality. Even talking about it feels like planning your dream wedding when you don’t have a boyfriend; there’s just no point. I’m so thrilled that the movie is resonating with [audiences], and that is honestly all I could ever have hoped for.” Hope wasn’t required – she emerged victorious from the Academy Awards, and the other nominations turned into triumphs, too. The life of this 27-yearold hasn’t been the same since. When Room was receiving its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, Larson wore a white lace shirt and fuchsia skirt, with her blonde hair in gentle waves, and her sunny appearance and manner seemed starkly at odds with the dark places her character, Ma, demanded of her. But go there, Larson definitely did – preparing for the role by subjecting herself to a month of isolation, barricaded in her Los Angeles apartment. “A lot of old memories resurfaced, things about my childhood that I had forgotten,” she recalls. “I remembered moving from Sacramento to Los Angeles with my mum when I was seven and my sister was three or four. We moved into a studio apartment that was not much bigger than [the 47
shed set in] Room, with a bed that pulled down from the wall.” Unbeknown to Larson and her sister, Milaine, their parents had separated, and her mother was struggling to make ends meet. “I just had two pairs of jeans and a couple of shirts and a pair of shoes, and we ate Top Ramen noodles every night,” she now remembers. “But my mum has this incredible imagination, and she instilled so much life into that space I didn’t realise we didn’t have anything.” Larson has spoken of how she talked to different trauma specialists for the lead role, “about sexual abuse and what would happen to a mind after you’ve been stuck in that space for seven years. You’d start to normalise some stuff. Then I spoke with a nutritionist about the lack of vitamin D, about not having a toothbrush, not being able to wash your hair or face, [the] lack of nutrition”. Larson was a fan of the Emma Donoghue book long before the opportunity to play Ma came along. “I absolutely loved it and devoured it in a day,” she enthuses. Filming it, however, brought numerous challenges. The first half of the 10-week shoot – which, unusually, was filmed chronologically – was conducted entirely within a 10ft x 10ft shed-like room inside a Toronto studio. “It was exhausting for the crew to shoot in so confined a space, and you could really feel the momentum in the room, of us all desperately wanting to get out,” she recalls. “That sense of confinement was very real.” Her stage is now exponentially bigger. You’ll see her back on the silver screen this month in blockbuster Kong: Skull Island, directed by Jordan VogtRoberts. It was filmed in Hawaii, where she and co-star Tom Hiddleston were “running around in the jungle the whole time, laughing like children”. A greater departure from a cramped shed it is hard to imagine. “It’s a bigger production than I’ve ever been involved in, in every way,” she confesses. The actress is still based in LA, but is rarely there more than one weekend a month. Does her itinerant lifestyle put a strain on relationships? She pauses before saying, “I don’t really have any people in my life who aren’t gypsies.” Her close friends include
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actress Shailene Woodley, and she’s engaged to Alex Greenwald from the band Phantom Planet (who has also modelled for Gap, and acted in Donnie Darko). “There isn’t anyone in my life who is going to get upset about how much travelling I have to do, or whether or not I’m available for drinks that night,” she adds. Larson is the first to admit that she’s not sure where her desire to act came from. “That has been one of the biggest questions for me my whole life,” she laughs. Growing up in Sacramento, California, her parents were both chiropractors. At six, Brie told her mother, “I know what my dharma [duty] is: to be an actor.” “That’s weird,” she notes now. Not least since she was exceptionally shy. “I was nervous to even talk to other kids in my class,” she says. “I would hide in my room when my parents had people over.” Her mother was initially sceptical about her acting ambitions, but since Brie would not let the subject lie, at seven years of age, she was allowed to take some lessons. On stage she came out of her shell. “I found I could perform in front of 200 people, but I would still feel nervous having a one-on-one conversation,” she remembers. Her first professional job was performing in sketches on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, after which she won roles in tween and teen fodder such as Disney’s Right On Track and Sleepover (“I was not a child star,” she has said, “I was more like a young auditioner”). When it came time to transfer to high school, Larson decided she wanted to be home-schooled so she could continue to act. “I was choosing something that was totally different from everyone I knew, and I had to question, is this right for me?” She decided it was. “And then I had to ask myself, do I want to go college?” Again, she decided to stick with acting over formal education. In her mid-teens, Larson also briefly dabbled in the music industry. Having written and recorded songs at home, which she uploaded to her own website, one of them, Invisible Girl, ended up getting airplay on an LA radio station. At 15, she was offered a record deal and flown around America, recording songs for an album. But by the time Finally Out Of PE was released in 2005, Larson
It is really important to me that women are shown as having contradictions had become disillusioned with the business, unhappy with being forced to record material that was not her own. “I came to realise that there has to be a purpose to my art, that my work has to be of service,” she says. “If I am just doing this for financial gain, that counts for nothing – there’s nothing substantial in that.” That decision governed her choice to focus mainly on low-paying independent projects such as Diablo Cody’s television series United States Of Tara, which starred Toni Collette as a housewife with a multiple-personality disorder, and the indie hit Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, written and directed by Edgar Wright. The acclaimed Short Term 12, in which Larson plays Grace, the manager of a home for troubled children, did not make her any money either, but was of value in other ways. “It was my first leading role – as an adult – which means that you get more 48
screen time, so you have more time to show complexity,” she says. “It is really important to me that women are shown as having contradictions. In the case of Grace, that you can be so loving to others, and yet be so hard on yourself. That was the first time I was really able to expose those different parts of our humanity.” Next Larson moved behind the camera and wrote and directed a short film, The Arm – about social pressure and relationships in a technologically advanced world, which won an award at Sundance back in 2012. “I don’t think I have ever felt more proud in my life,” she beams. But despite the bounty of accolades, her motivations, she insists, have never included amassing a cabinet of trophies: “As I’ve got older, I’ve realised there isn’t anything inside of me that isn’t what somebody else feels too. And what excites me is to make things that connect with people.”
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Seventy-five years ago, three industry insiders joined forces to create a modest record label on the United States’ West Coast. That seed grew into the legendary Capitol Records, which made its mark on the LA skyline with an eye-catching HQ‌ but moreover, totally transformed the music landscape
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Johnny Mercer brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat King Cole, let them sing whatever they wanted, and it became the best record company in America
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Opening page: Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at a session for Martin’s Sleep Warm LP. Ken Veeder, Capitol Tower Studio B, 1958 Right: Nat King Cole at the show recorded for his At The Sands LP. Ken Veeder, Las Vegas, 1960. Both images © Capitol Photo Archives
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’ve never written one note or word of music simply because I think it will make money,” once said The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, defiantly. Suffice it to say, record companies such as Capitol Records – the label to which his California fivesome was signed to from their fledgling days – are wired slightly differently. Their oxygen is publicity, hype, drama; discovering the next big thing, finding the soundtrack for the now. In 2017 the Capitol colossus celebrates its 75th year, and it didn’t get to that magic number by being innocent: it’s a company that has ingrained itself in the fabric of Los Angeles, taken a string of high-profile music luminaries under its wing, and orchestrated publicity to ensure culturally resonant songs like Wilson’s I Get Around truly get around – as well as maintaining a healthy bottom line. Capitol created the soundtrack to generations past, present and future. They’ve got a suitably grand slate of celebrations planned for their anniversary, among them a 75-album
vinyl reissue that spans different eras (and genres) from the Capitol Records music catalogue. You’re certain to find at least one record that changed your life, and even this restrained release serves to indicate just how substantial their impact has been. Among the seminal reissues are Sinatra’s Come Fly With Me from 1958, Nat King Cole’s 1953 album Unforgettable, The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Pet Sounds from those surfin’ saints The Beach Boys, Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd, OK Computer by Radiohead and John Lennon’s Imagine, through to more recent albums from Coldplay (Parachutes), Sam Smith (In The Lonely Hour) and the roarsome Katy Perry (Teenage Dream). The company was formed in early 1940s Los Angeles, where, at the time, there wasn’t really a music industry – everything was happening on the East Coast. While LA and the rock scene are now thought of as synonymous, the idea of having a record label on the West Coast was revolutionary at the time. Capitol Records wanted to somehow 52
leverage the music industry into the wider entertainment industry, and the venture materialised when Buddy DeSylva (a former head of production at Paramount) joined forces with Johnny Mercer – a songwriter who hung out with other local musicians at the Music City record store – and Glenn Wallichs, who owned that store. Their combined acumen and ability to produce appealing pop swiftly put the label on the map, and it grew rapidly. Or, as bigband crooner Tony Bennett succinctly glosses over those early years of toil, “Johnny Mercer started Capitol Records and he brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat King Cole. He just let them sing whatever they wanted, and it became the best record company in America.” This year, in addition to the vinyl releases, Capitol will become the first record label to be awarded a Hollywood star on the famous Walk of Fame. The blinker atop Capitol Tower – which has always blipped out ‘Hollywood’ in morse code – will emit ‘Capitol 75’ for the next 12 months, in homage. Documentaries will be aired, and the
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icing on the cake is a comprehensive 500-page record-shaped book – titled 75 Years Of Capitol Records – published by Taschen, allowing a treasure trove of imagery from the Capitol archive to be admired. Reuel Golden, editor at Taschen, worked on the latter with respected Rock’s Backpages music critic Barney Hoskyns – whose career commentary includes a wealth of contributions to the likes of Melody Maker, NME, Mojo and British Vogue. Compiling the history was an immense task, yet what has emerged from the process is a tome that encapsulates the label’s legacy, says Golden. “They have their own photographic archive and much more: original sound recordings, eight-tracks, album art, letters and correspondence. It’s a vast treasure trove of music ephemera, and we focused more on the photographs – there’s a lot of history behind each one.” Quite why there were so many images to sort through is testament to Capitol’s voracious commitment to their stars. “What’s interesting for us when going through the archives is how important photography was in terms of promoting the artists, and the crucial role it played in promoting and branding the artists,” says Golden. “There were some artists who were pretty obscure and you’d never heard of, and you could literally look at 4,000 photos of an artist who was a one-hit wonder (or even no-hit wonder). The sheer amount of money and time that they invested in photography to promote these people was staggering – but of course that was a totally different era. Now, artists have their own Instagram account where they can hit their fans in a very direct, dramatic and very cheap way – currentday shots are probably taken by their assistant with a cellphone. I think what was interesting for us was that it was clearly a totally different time; the record company had such a tight hold over how their stars and artists were marketed and within that marketing photography played a huge role.” Not just different times in terms of tech, either, explains Golden: “When the label was formed they defied the tide that swept the wider context of America, in that their first superstar was Nat King Cole, a black artist,
I paid for a couple of those floors… Nat King Cole took care of the first floor, The Beatles bought a few, and Katy Perry, she’s probably responsible for the penthouse
which was extraordinary considering you’re talking about the late Forties, early Fifties – not exactly a time of huge enlightenment in terms of race relations. Nat actually made Capitol Records the success that it became, and he was the guy initially making them lots of money.” The Capitol Tower – that Welton Becket-designed sonic temple on Vine Street – is even affectionately known as ‘the house that Nat built’ in a nod to his profitability. (Though there was some tongue-in-cheek contention from other label staples like MC Hammer, who at a 75th-anniversary celebration bash said in earshot of Billboard, “I paid for a couple of those floors… Nat King Cole took care of the first floor, The Beatles bought a few, and Katy Perry, she’s probably responsible for the penthouse.”) Aside from a smorgasbord of images, the book is packed with informative text. Hoskyns weaves together the narrative and opens 55
each of the five chapters, there’s a foreword from eclectic artist Beck, and cultural historians, music critics and architecture experts weigh in with considered essays. The composition of the building itself is worthy of scrutiny. “What’s interesting is that it’s circular and shaped like a stack of records, although they claim that is a total coincidence and the connection wasn’t made until later. As Beck wrote in the foreword, the building represents postwar optimism that people associate with Los Angeles, the idea that it’s a mixture of hope and creativity. It’s akin to the movie La La Land: that sense of optimism, about trying to ‘make it’. That area of Hollywood is quite flat, so that building really stands out. It’s part of the physical and cultural landscape,” Golden says. There are other record labels in America, so what was the secret formula that made Capitol great? “What has made them a heavyweight to
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The moment I walked into this pizza pie-shaped tower over 10 years ago, I felt the magic and history
emulate is that throughout their history they’ve had quite groundbreaking acts as part of their stable. Like all record companies they’ve had some lean years but emphatically overcame them; some acts weren’t great successes, but they’ve had a consistent track record. They had some talented A&R people and talent spotters, and there’s an element of luck as well with some of this – with The Beatles especially, as EMI happened to be part of the subsidiary that was owned by Capitol Records. I’d say their formula was a mixture of intuition, hard work, and that element of luck and good timing,” Golden believes. Artists clamour to record at the LA studios not because of the label’s reputation, of course, but for the quality of the facility. The studios were designed by Les Paul – yes, the same Les Paul whose name is attached to the coveted Gibson guitar. Explains John Peabody of A Continuous Lean, “Paul was commissioned to give the studios reverb, [and to create it] he built a series of eight cavernous trapezoidal echo chambers dug 30ft below the building. The sparse concrete chambers, each with their own unique characteristics, have speakers on one side and microphones on the other. Sound engineers working in the studios above can pipe audio into the reverb chambers and re-record the sound, adding as much as a fivesecond delay, giving singers a booming vocal quality that makes it sound more like the track was recorded in a cathedral, not a sound studio in LA. The difference is huge.”
Previous page, from top: The Beastie Boys shortly after Ill Communication became the first of their three consecutive No 1 albums for Capitol © Ari Marcopoulos; Roger Waters and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd in the studio circa 1970, from Capitol Photo Archives Right: Sam Smith’s photo session for his debut album In The Lonely Hour © Stephanie Sian Smith
Capitol has kept its finger on the pulse in the modern day by parlaying that fine facility with the measured support of acts who delivered the goods. Golden explains, “They’ve got one of the biggest stars in the world in Katy Perry; she’s a huge pop star and somebody that is a trailblazer and has had a great career. At the same time they have strength with Beck as part of their label – a great, experimental LA musician. They have different labels that fall under Capitol Music Group, too, such as an electronic dance label [Astralwerks] and jazz [Blue Note Records], so they’ve succeeded by diversifying.” Priorities have changed for modern musicians, and while Capitol once represented a ‘tight hold’, what attracted the likes of Perry is newfound freedom. The Group supported “larger-than-life pioneering women like Bonnie Raitt and Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson”, she says, adding, “From the moment I walked into this pizza pie-shaped tower over 10 years ago, I felt the magic and history. Capitol gave me the reins instead of pressuring me to be a carbon copy of whatever was trending at the time.” 75 Years Of Capitol Records is indeed a celebration, but the Group’s current steward has instigated a new dawn. Steve Barnett, appointed its CEO in 56
2012, has his own treasured albums from Capitol lore, but on taking the helm was swift to strip out the gold discs and Beatles cardboard cutout in the lobby, among other nurturing moves. “They were so burdened by the past they couldn’t think about the future,” he told the LA Times. The approach worked, as Capitol vaulted back into the leading crop of labels, given a new lease of life. Barnett gave the iconic building a facelift in the shape of extensive glass in redesigned offices, fresh paint and new equipment in the three recording studios, among other physical upgrades. The Group is more relevant than ever – from number ones on the Billboard Hot 100 in the 1950s to topping the salestracking stats on SoundScan today, Capitol Records has become the spiritual home of music. It’s an LA melody that turned out to be a hit. 75 Years Of Capitol Records, published by Taschen, is out now; taschen.com
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The Look of Love
AIR takes an in-depth and exclusive look at the mastery involved in the making of Look 54 from the Chanel Spring Summer 2017 Haute Couture show: a dress in pleated white organza, embellished with white flowers, beads and tubes, and bubble sleeves in feathers 59
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Opening page: The dress is accessorised with a belt in pale-pink patent leather and a pearl ankle bracelet, while on the runway a pair of high heels in iridescent silver leather will complete the look These pages, clockwise from top left: Off-white cotton toile pattern is used to create the toile of the silhouette at Chanel ateliers, then reproduced in the fabric chosen by Karl Lagerfeld – in this case, white organza; the pleated organza of the dress is embellished with 2,000 little forget-me-not flowers made from organza and rhodoid; the bubble sleeves of the dress are made using marabou and ostrich feathers; the pieces made by the House of LemariÊ are sent to the Chanel ateliers so that the seamstresses can start to assemble the dress; at LemariÊ ateliers, embellishment is aided by the help of a cutter, as well as little round faceted beads and glass tubes
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440 hours of work were required at the LemariĂŠ ateliers to embellish the pleated organza of the dress with 2,000 little forgetme-not flowers
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Far left: During assembly at Chanel ateliers, the dress is tried on a wooden mannequin to check that the proportions and silhouette imagined by Karl Lagerfeld are respected Left and above: At the Chanel studio, the dress is subject to the approval of Lagerfeld during the final fitting in the studio the day before the show
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Frontline reporter, literary hero, ladies’ man… double agent? A new book reveals there was another, darker side to Ernest Hemingway, the famous writer who played both sides of the spy game during WWII, and beyond WORDS : EMMA LAURENCE
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ove and war: two deceptively small words without which it would be impossible to tell Ernest Hemingway’s story. Most famous, of course, as a writer, he was a longtime war reporter and the author of some of the 20th century’s greatest fiction, his place in literary history cemented by the likes of For Whom The Bell Tolls. It’s fair to say that love and war were woven throughout his life and work, his novels quite literally charting his own encounters with both in black and white. But the books only tell part of the story, because off the
page, Hemingway was far more than just an impassioned observer. “Sure, he would use his experiences in his writing,” military-intelligence expert Nicholas Reynolds tells me ahead of the release of his new book, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy. “That’s trademark Hemingway – but he’s not just doing that, by any means.” The book, six years in the making, pieces together Hemingway’s secret adventures over three decades, from a devastating but pivotal hurricane in the Florida Keys to the equally pivotal and even more devastating Bay of Pigs 64
invasion. What happened in-between, says Reynolds, “helps to explain things that didn’t make much sense before”. Things like Hemingway’s withdrawal from writing, descent into depression and eventual suicide in 1961. At the centre of the puzzle, Reynolds uncovered “a remarkable set of meetings” that would see Hemingway add ‘spy’ to his list of wartime endeavours. It’s well known that the writer dabbled with more than one intelligence agency but, says Reynolds, “The deeper I dug, the more I saw a pattern, and that pattern fit over
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a period of decades. I’m not saying he was a great spy who had a giant secret at the heart of his life; it’s more subtle than that. It’s a set of attitudes that leads him to take certain actions – and those actions have consequences.” Those attitudes were forged long before any spy connections – Hemingway had seen combat during the First World War, aged just 18, and his subsequent work as a foreign correspondent took him back to the battlefield repeatedly. Alongside his assignments, he indulged in his other great passions, women and writing, publishing a slew of novels and marrying (and divorcing) twice. It was because of all three – love, war and writing – that he wound up in Spain in 1937 covering the Spanish Civil War alongside Martha Gellhorn, who would become Mrs Hemingway No 3. Together they fought for the Republic – even after it had fallen – speaking out against the fascism they believed had destroyed their beloved Spain. For Hemingway, the struggle in Spain effectively became all struggles; it represented in his mind ‘the good fight’, an idea that had taken hold in the aftermath of the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, where Reynolds’ account begins. Sailing from his home in Key West to offer relief to survivors, Hemingway – never one to stand on the sidelines – was deeply affected by what he saw. A seaside camp for WWI veterans working on a New Deal construction project had been decimated – a terrible coincidence that, for the opinionated writer, served as a flagrant example of all that was wrong with the American government. He wrote as much, in a no-holds-barred New Masses article that caught the attention of everyone from Time magazine to the NKVD (a precursor to the KGB). What he witnessed in Spain only intensified his antifascist convictions, leaving him open to leftist influences: chiefly, the communist director Joris Ivens, with whom he collaborated on a film and who, according to Reynolds, “would direct the writer’s political education”. Whether or not Ivens was under the instruction of the NKVD, he introduced Hemingway to numerous communist fighters and Soviet officials in the course of their work together,
and later admitted, “I had a plan for Hemingway… I knew how far he could go, and he was not a traitor.” By 1939, says Reynolds, Hemingway “knew the Spanish war was all but over” but “was still far from ready to give up his personal fight for Republican values”. As he saw it, the Soviets were the only ones doing anything to help. It wasn’t unusual for Hemingway to mould the facts to his version of the truth in this way, and so, when he crossed paths with Soviet handler Jacob Golos, it wasn’t hard to recruit him. “He loved secrets, he loved intrigue, he loved knowing more than the person next to him,” says Reynolds, “so that fed the needs of his ego.” Despite an elaborate set of arrangements for a secret meeting in China, in the end Golos’ plans for ‘Argo’ (Hemingway’s NKVD code name) amounted to nothing. Ivens was right: he was not a traitor. Ironically, though, the trip threw up a handful of other interested parties – Chinese leaders Chiang Kaishek and Chou En-lai; US treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr and his right-hand man Harry Dexter White (himself a double agent); and US naval intelligence officer John Thomason Jr (who was also an author, and shared the same editor as Hemingway). “Everyone sees something a little different in him,” explains Reynolds of Hemingway’s spy appeal. “His charisma and reputation play a role but in most of these relationships there’s also an opportunity they’re trying to exploit. The Soviets see a great writer they can use for their own ends; the American embassy in Havana see an expatriate with a lot of good connections on the ground; the Office of Naval Intelligence is maybe tolerating a somewhat eccentric request; the Office of Strategic Services won’t sign him up but they will take advantage of an opportunity on the battlefield in France.” After China came Cuba, where the American embassy gave Hemingway free reign to set up a counterintelligence bureau, an outfit he christened The Crook Factory. He didn’t take well to having to answer to the FBI, though, and proposed a new mission aboard his own boat, Pilar, scouting Cuban waters for German submarines. By his own admission, 67
He loved secrets, he loved intrigue, he loved knowing more than the person next to him
it was an “improbable” idea, but – testament to his powers of persuasion – Operation Friendless (another Hemingway moniker) set sail in 1942. “He had never been happier,” says Reynolds, but ultimately, there wasn’t enough war in Cuba to keep Hemingway occupied – and Gellhorn was growing restless, too. She wanted to be where the action was, and took matters into her own hands, lining up an RAF reporting gig for her husband. His door remained open to the Soviets – there were meetings in both Havana and London – but he was now in possession of other, less risky options. “He wanted to make a contribution from the first day to the last day of his life,” explains Reynolds. “He had three goals: be useful to the fighting forces, find the best stories that he could, and operate on his own terms.” He succeeded in 1944 when he managed, once again, to talk his way into an unofficial reconnaissance mission for the US. En route to Paris Hemingway picked up a band of French guerilla fighters, and their combined (unorthodox) activities in nearby Rambouillet paved the way for the Allied liberation of the capital. With Paris came Mrs Hemingway No 4, Mary Welsh, and his great friendship with fellow warrior-writer Buck Lanham. It was a golden time until, with the war winding down, he was called to account for his conduct at Rambouillet.
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Opening page: Hemingway’s warcorrespondent ID Previous page: Sailing in Key West Right: With German communist Gustav Regler. All photographs © JFK Library
He was crushed. He wanted so badly to be important, to be useful, to play his part – albeit on his own terms – and this felt like rejection. He retreated back to Cuba, and to his writing. Neither could console him. “There’s a repeated pattern in his life of not quite connecting,” says Reynolds. “In all of his marriages, there are these disconnects or failures to connect. I read Hemingway and I feel as if he’s speaking to me – that’s his genius as a writer, that he’s able to convey experience in such a way that the reader can feel this kind of connection, but it’s a limited connection.” He felt further isolated as the Cold War blossomed, and the US investigated Soviet espionage during WWII. He called it a “witch hunt” – one that never came for him (after all, he never actually delivered on his end of the deal with the NKVD) but which rattled him nonetheless. He knew, as Reynolds puts it, that “his relationship with the NKVD was something he would never be able to explain away”. His next novel, Across The River And Into The Trees – whose hero is jaded by war and ready to give up – was not well received, but the next won Hemingway the Pulitzer, and the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Old Man And
The Sea, about a Cuban fisherman’s struggle for survival, was not about war or politics, but it was hopeful. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated,” he wrote. It was perhaps too little, too late. “There’s a Hemingway cycle,” explains Reynolds: “Adventure, book, depression, lying low – and each cycle could last three or four years. Over time that cycle exhausts him.” That cycle, exacerbated by a growing fear that his past would catch up with him, was compounded by what was now happening in Cuba. “There’s almost a straight line between Spain and Cuba,” argues Reynolds. “If he were here with us right now he’d say, ‘Of course I was affected by what I saw in Spain, and that made me feel the way I did about Fidel Castro, at least initially.’ Is he looking at Castro and Cuba on their own terms or is he seeing them through the Hemingway filter that was created in Spain? I’d lean towards the view that it was the Hemingway filter.” He was abundantly hopeful for Castro’s Cuba, even when things began to turn sinister, again moulding the reality to fit his perception. But his hopes were dashed by the botched invasion of the Bay of Pigs in 1961. “He’s always hoping that he can have his cake and eat it, that he can support 68
Castro and be a good enough American and continue to live at the Finca [his Cuban home for more than 20 years], but after the Bay of Pigs, he has to realise that this is hopeless,” says Reynolds. “Cuba is one of the great loves of his life and that love story ends at the Bay of Pigs, and I think that accelerates his decline.” Back on US soil, having succumbed to pressure to leave Cuba, his loyalty again called into question, Hemingway sought treatment for depression and paranoia, but his obsessions persisted – among them, the fear that the FBI were after him. On the eve of his suicide, he again voiced suspicions that he was being watched. He was, in fact, never under FBI surveillance, but the damage had been done. As Reynolds concludes, “Hemingway’s dalliance with the NKVD influenced many of the decisions he made during his last 15 years: where he lived, what he wrote, and how he acted. He did not understand politics and intrigue as well as he thought he did… In the end, he began to understand his limits, and came to the tragic conclusion that the only way to reassert control was to kill himself.” Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy by Nicholas Reynolds (published by William Morrow) is out on 14 March
There’s a Hemingway cycle: adventure, book, depression, lying low. And over time, that cycle exhausts him
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Motoring MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Split Personality Track-fast like a 911, yet road-built for the whole family? Porsche has made it possible. With lightning speed, cosy convenience and cutting-edge tech, the Panamera makes zero compromises
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WORDS : CHRIS UJMA
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t’s an eternal, Sisyphean conversation transpiring in the homes of two-seater supercar enthusiasts across the world: “We’ve got a family now, darling. Isn’t it time we switched to a more sensible vehicle?” Damage limitation might encompass buying a family car and retiring the other hell-raiser to the garage, flexing its might on the highway once in a blue moon (incoming message: “Blue moon cancelled, please pick up the kids from the mall.”) Sensible doesn’t always have to mean sacrifice – Porsche’s Cayenne being Exhibit A, a splendid crossover SUV that is hardly considered a slouch. Still… it’s no 911. Well, this marque says: no more! Porsche created the Panamera – a sporty speed-demon saloon that accommodates a family of four – and significantly upped the ante on the latest edition, including the 4s and Turbo. It’s the fastest luxury sedan in the world, and this is not casual hyperbole. Porsche has a fine winning pedigree in distance duels (like the iconic 917 from the 1970s and the 919 Hybrid, which triumphed at 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015), and even the Panamera name derives from a borderto-border Mexican road race called the Carrera Panamericana. On rigorous tests at the legendary Nürburgring, the outcome raised eyebrows; Porsche’s 2017 Turbo iteration of the model took just seven minutes and 38 seconds to cover the 20.832km Nordschleife – a timing that makes it the record holder in its class. (It smashed the lap time of the previous-generation Panamera by a stunning 14 seconds in the process.) Oh, and if you’re wondering whether it was a modified version of the vehicle configured to achieve an advertising headline, the only extras added to the record-breaking Panamera were a roll cage and a special sports seat for the driver’s safety. Otherwise, it was just a standard model delivering truly exceptional performance. ‘Courage Changes Everything’ is the tagline adopted by Porsche for the Panamera, and they’ve truly pushed the boundaries of expectancy for the class. They set their sights on making this long-distance king the best of both worlds: track-occasion performance and day-to-day trust.
I ventured behind the wheel of both the 4s and the Turbo. The former has a new, lighter twin-turbo V6, while the latter is fuelled by an adaptive cylinder-control twin-turbo V8 engine – the ‘adaptive’ part activates cylinders on demand, and Porsche’s example of this tech is: “If you’re driving in town and have little need for power, your car will now operate on only four cylinders instead of eight. Once you demand greater power output again, all cylinders will immediately be reactivated.” Direct fuel injection on this engine generation means higher output with increased efficiency – a win-win when you’re enjoying the drive. The Panamera Turbo is especially astonishing: 550HP and an eight-speed PDK transmission under the hood, and a universe of comfort and athletic customisation within – beginning with 18-way adaptive sports seats and an optional carbon interior package. Twenty-one-inch 911 Turbo Design wheels are another of the multitude of personal-choice extra treats. Even without taking the Turbo option, clicking the Panamera’s mode to Sport takes you from buttery smooth to as sharp as the knife that cuts through, with more direct engine dynamics and the various Porsche systems delivering harder damping, more direct turnin and even greater agility through corners. The driver feeling at one with the machine is a worn cliché, but there is something about the Panamera that makes you feel in tune – in real time – with its response. Reminder: this is a four-door family car we’re discussing. The facelift of the Panamera encompasses sculpted design cues that evoke a more graceful, sleek silhouette than predecessors. The interior, meanwhile, has had its own overhaul, and a cockpit sits under a panoramic roof, graced with advancements. On its tech highway, helping to keep eyes on the road (and not distractedly fiddling through menus) is an intuitive hi-res touchscreen display – Porsche Communication Management – which behaves more like a 12-inch tablet. Interface modules enable drivers to arrange multiple apps according to their convenience: temperature settings, GPS, music and such. There are two hi-res screens on the driver’s panel, too, which can be configured 72
Opening page: The Panamera Turbo photographed from Pearl Jumeirah in Dubai Opposite: Design cues of the Turbo edition, in Agate Grey Metallic
Sport mode takes you from buttery smooth to as sharp as the knife that cuts through to show anything from trip details and fuel-efficiency stats to ‘who sang this song again?!’ tracklisting. Backseat passengers have their own touchscreen display, as well, and there is four-zone climate control to suit individual needs. The space and comfort within the cabin is not typical of a car with elite sports performance. This is getting a bit brochure-like, so how does the drive feel? It’s nimble, with great power delivery… and one need only try out its Launch Control function (on a non-public road) to experience its enormous power blasting into your bones. Click the mode into Sport Plus, press down the brake at the same time as the accelerator, then do two things I neglected to: take a breath and brace yourself, because this is rocket-like G-force that will throw you back into the seat in a heartbeat (0-99km/h in 3.6 seconds if you’re counting). More necessary in daily life is the less savage but still potent Sport Response, for a 20-second injection of overtaking zest that wolfs down the road past the lingering flock. The Stuttgart-based marque has risen to the challenge (one it admittedly set itself), to create the unthinkable – a saloon that reconciles contradictions, being a shot of espresso for the adults and, when you want it to be, a mild babyccino for the children. In reality, only Porsche could have brought this new wave of the Panamera to life. So, family car or sports car? Yes.
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Gastronomy
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MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Northern Star In a quiet corner of rural England, The Raby Hunt is not your average country pub. Meet James Close, the self-taught chef who’s singlehandedly made it the only two-Michelin-starred restaurant in the North East
WORDS : EMMA LAURENCE 74
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E
ight years ago, The Raby Hunt was just the sort of traditional coaching inn you’d find in any English country village, and James Close was washing dishes in a nearby hotel kitchen. Five years ago, the restaurant won its first Michelin star, and last year Close became the only chef in the North East to be awarded a second. It’s fair to say his journey to the culinary major leagues wasn’t exactly textbook, but it’s all the more remarkable for it. Rewind to 2009 and Close’s former career as a golf pro had stalled. He was pushing 30 with no real qualifications and no idea what do next. Like many a disillusioned twentysomething, he decided to go travelling – but far from the usual clichés, he found more than himself along the way. He found food. Perhaps it was fate that he chose France, the home of gastronomy, for his year abroad – on his travels he was drawn to all manner of restaurants and bistros, markets and cantines, and on his return to the UK, took an entry-level job in a professional kitchen, just to see if he liked it. He did, and, with the help of his parents (whose background was in hospitality), bought the local pub. The rest is, quite literally, history. “No-one in the North East of England has ever had a two-Michelin-star restaurant,” explains Close. “It puts me in an elite group of 21 chefs in the UK and sets me apart from a lot of others. I can’t say I was driven to get two stars, but having them makes you realise you’ve achieved something amazing.” Particularly when you consider that when he started out in the kitchen, “It was just my mum and me doing simple food like steak and chips.” As the locals came around to the idea of a ‘proper’ restaurant, word spread, and Close’s ambition grew along with his confidence. But it took that first Michelin star to really put The Raby Hunt on the map. Now, says Close, “It’s a destination. And as the chef-owner I’m in the lucky position of being able to do the dishes I want, how I want.” That means one set menu made up of about 15 different courses, small and large. “It’s an experience,” says Close. “It takes three hours to eat through the menu from start to finish.” Backstory aside, such singularity, combined with the fact that the restaurant has just 25
covers and only operates five services a week, is impressive however you look at it. But this is no vanity project; what Close has created is a dining experience with the customer firmly at its core. “We’re a small, independent restaurant run by a modest but very talented and dedicated team who are committed to giving diners a great experience,” he says – a promise delivered by the menu. “We’ve found since we got two stars that people want to try all the dishes from the past year,” explains Close. “We recently added a new dish – a potato soufflé executed in a very modern way with oyster and lovage – but we only change the menu when we create another signature dish that’s better than what we already had.” The result is a precisely considered tasting menu composed entirely of signature dishes, like a winter salad made up of some 40 ingredients. “We try and grow as many of them as we can ourselves,” says Close. “I’m always 76
striving to be more creative. We’ve built our own walled garden around the restaurant where we grow our own vegetables in the summer and autumn. We also grow under lights, which allows us to have year-round herbs and salad leaves.” Next on the agenda is an expansion of the kitchen “so we aren’t living in a box” and a chef’s table. “Having just achieved two Michelin stars,” says Close, “we’re taking the time to savour that.” When I ask what drives him, the answer is satisfyingly simple: “The desire to get better and better every time I go into the kitchen.” And it’s this simplicity that powers the whole Raby Hunt philosophy, which Close describes as “not too many flavours on the plate, executed with refinement. It’s all about the ingredients and the taste. If it works, we get it on the menu”. Refinement is right; Close might have taught himself the basics, but his plates are anything but. Think zingy, well-
There’s no point going all out for theatre if you don’t get the flavours right
composed colours and elegant justso presentation, with the occasional surprise (look out for the squab pigeon). “Theatre is important, but it has to be all about the flavours on the plate,” insists Close. “There’s no point going all out for theatre if you don’t get the flavours right. It’s flavour first, and then presentation.” One recurring theme that certainly feels theatrical, and gives proceedings a pleasingly quirky edge, is Close’s use of the skull motif in his creations. There’s a large silver skull on display in the otherwise smart but understated dining room, and every iteration of the menu ends with a hand-tempered chocolate skull – cast from a mould the chef-proprietor came across on a foodie expedition in Belgium (of course). “The skull is there to remind me never to give up and that you only get one chance,” muses Close. The proof of that – if it were needed – is most certainly in the pudding. 77
Travel MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
14 journeys by jet
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Longitude 131° Uluru-Kata Tjuta
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eing close to rugged, Red Centre northern outback and reclining in the lap of luxury seem, at first, to sit on opposite ends of the travel-expectation spectrum. But the awe-inspiring power of a natural spectacle such as Ayers Rock can compel mankind to achieve astounding things. In the spiritual heart of Australia, Baillie Lodges has honed a space where
juxtaposed ideals live in harmony: contemporary cuisine, climatecontrolled residences and stylish lounging all (respectfully) exist amid an ancient desert landscape that beckons exploration. It’s a luxury basecamp in a World Heritage-listed park: splendidly isolated lodgings that overlook both the sacred red domes of Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and the fabled Uluru monolith – 78
the latter, the star of a stoic scene that greets guests every morning, through floor-to-ceiling windows. There is a concerted effort to entwine your experience with local culture, too; visitors can acquire an understanding of local Anangu traditions and indigenous artwork, while each individual abode is named in honour of a local outback pioneer, with various artefacts offering a firsthand history
of their tale. Those suites harbour canopied pavilions, king-size beds, rain showers, generous proportions and gourmet treats from the in-suite bar. Social moments take place in and around the Dune Lodge, with indulgent sunset drinks and canapés in the cool of the evening on the dune top, and local culinary journeys via Dinner at Table 131°, savouring regional flavours while observing
nature’s changing face under crystal-clear starlight. Personally tailored stays can be composed from an array of elements including a sunrise tour, a scenic aerial flight, or what has to be one of the coolest travel experiences on Earth: a Harley Davidson ride around the 550-million-year-old sandstone icon. Be your purpose discovery or merely relaxation 79
surrounded by organic splendour, your soul will be enriched and your senses pampered; here, sacred land meets earthy elegance. Charter into Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Darwin, and connect on to Ayers Rock Airport. Longitude 131° operates complimentary transfers – connecting with all Ayers Rock Airport flights – in a prestige fleet of custom luxury vehicles; longitude131.com.au
What I Know Now
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MARCH 2017 : ISSUE 70
Ebraheem Al Samadi Founder and Ceo, Forever rose
My father always used to tell me, “Never bomb the bridge behind you,” meaning if you’re going to end a relationship, be it business or personal, always do so on good terms and don’t destroy that relationship as you leave it. You never know when you might need that person again, or may need to be involved with that person, company or entity in another capacity. When I first sensed that all my employees were happy to be working for me was the moment I felt successful.
When I was 18 years old I had nine retail locations for a shoe concept I developed in the United States, and I remember thinking each of my employees had smiles on their faces and were full of positive energy while they were at work. Those I work with being comfortable under my leadership – and being happy – are both very important to me, and will always be my number-one priority. I do my very best to contact my parents once a day, to tell them how much I love 80
them and how much they mean to me. I think it’s very important to have your parents’ guidance – they are the only people who truly want the best for you. In general, my definition of personal success is to carry a strong reputation, both as a company and as an individual, knowing that I have no enemies and have not harmed or hurt anyone. Life to me is not about a bank account with 20 digits, it’s about having those around you, love you – for who you are, not for what you have.
RACING IN STYLE. WORLD SPONSOR AND OFFICIAL TIMEKEEPER SINCE 1988.
MILLE MIGLIA 2016 XL RACE EDITION (168580-3001). CHOPARD MOVEMENT, CALIBRE 03.05-C
MIL L E MIG L IA
