Air Magazine - Al Bateen - May'16

Issue sIXTY MAY 2016

The Rolling Stones Luxury • Culture • People • Style • Heritage

SOUS LE SIGNE DU LION NECKLACE IN YELLOW GOLD AND DIAMONDS RING IN WHITE GOLD, ROCK CRYSTAL AND DIAMONDS

DUBAI, THE DUBAI MALL +971 4 3827100/06

RIYADH, AL TAHLIA +966 11 4627959 www.chanel.com

DOHA, LAGOONA MALL +974 4444 1932

CALIBER RM 011 YELLOW FLASH

WALK WITH TIME He was a traveler, experiencing all hours of the earth.

Planning trips with such great care, he and Time had merged.

Grateful to the man for walking with him, not around, Time reassured he’d arrive anywhere he was bound.

#MakeTimeYourOwn

Contents maY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Forty Two

Sixty

In 2016, have we finally seen the mellowing of Naomi Campbell, or is her internal fire still simmering?

Amy Johnson took flight, set records, found fame... then flamed out. What happened to the accomplished pilotess?

Fifty

Sixty Five

For the new generation of high-flyer: stunninglyelegant Vacheron Constantin Overseas timepieces

Photographer Gered Mankowitz followed the early-years Rolling Stones (and lived to tell the tale)

Super-calm Model

Time Traveller

Editorial Editorial director

John Thatcher Editor

Chris Ujma christopher@hotmediapublishing.com Features Editor

air

Annie Darling

art art director

Andy Knappett designer

Emi Dixon illustrator

Andrew Thorpe

CommErCial managing director

Victoria Thatcher Group Commercial director

David Wade

david@hotmediapublishing.com Commercial director

Rawan Chehab

rawan@hotmediapublishing.com Business development manager

Rabih El Turk

rabih@hotmediapublishing.com

ProduCtion Production manager

Muthu Kumar

12

Queen of the Air

Jumpin’ Gered Flash

© 2016 TUMI, INC.

NICO ROSBERG Global Citizen

TUMI.COM

Contents MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Twenty Two

Thirty Three

Seventy

Seventy Six

Letters, dresses, drawings and photos comprise a stylish tribute to the welldressed Femmes en Dior

Terminator, meet Antoinette; not quite, but the lines between tech and couture blur in Manus x Machina

Gentleman, start your engine: the ‘one man, one machine’ approach of Mercedes-AMG

Just when you think your jet has enabled you to see every beauty in the world, along comes Velaa Private Island

Twenty Eight

Forty

Seventy Four

Graff is a name synonymous with diamonds and we delve into this true gem of the jewellery industry

The stunning Grieb & Benzinger collection inspired

by Middle Eastern culture, and the needs of a clientele

Embark on a culinary odyssey with storied Michelin-starred Indian chef Vikas Khanna

Radar

Motoring

Timepieces

Gastronomy

AIR

Jewellery

Art & Design

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.

14

Travel

Al Bateen MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Welcome to the May edition of AIR magazine, your own personal guide to Al Bateen Executive Airport, its developments, its people and the latest news. This issue will take you on a journey through Al Bateen’s facilities and offerings, which aim to deliver the best quality services for its customers from aircraft operators, aircraft owners and pilots.

We look forward to welcoming more and more visitors throughout the remainder of the year, and remain committed to providing the highest level of private aviation services to our customers from all over the world.

On behalf of AIR and the entire Al Bateen team, we wish you a safe journey wherever you may be heading to. We look forward to welcoming you again to the region’s only dedicated business aviation airport.

Welcome Onboard

Ali Majed Al Mansoori, CFA

Chairman of ADAC

May 2016

Contact Details: albateeninfo@adac.ae albateenairport.com 17

Al Bateen MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

A Story of Success How Al Bateen has made great strides in over half a century of service

Al Bateen Executive Airport, the dedicated business aviation airport of Abu Dhabi Airports, began operations in the 1960s as the first main international airport in the UAE capital, until Abu Dhabi International Airport was opened in 1982.

Al Bateen was then initially converted into a military air base that operated until the end of 2008, when Abu Dhabi Airports took over the management of the airport and transformed it into a world class executive facility. It currently has stand capacity for up to 90 private jets, and operates fast and efficient turnarounds. There are no holding patterns and, with short taxiing times 18

and a strategic location in the heart of Abu Dhabi, it is within easy reach of the city’s major businesses and leisure facilities.

Al Bateen has since witnessed a steady rise in the number of visiting executive jets. Most recently, the airport reported an 18% increase in visiting aircraft traffic and a 6% increase in total commercial aircraft traffic compared to the previous year. This growth demonstrates the success of the airport in attracting corporate and VIP clients.

The emirate of Abu Dhabi plays host to a number of high-profile sporting and cultural events throughout the year and many of the visiting VIPs

Al Bateen MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

land at Al Bateen Executive Airport.

To support the increasing inflow of visitors, a range of new services have been introduced at Al Bateen Airport, such as a new aircraft cleaning service provided by Falcon Aviation Services (FAS), a partnership with Emirates Transport Services and new fuel uplift services. These services are coordinated and offered

by DhabiJet, the airport’s Fixed Base Operations (FBO) service provider.

DhabiJet brings together all of the requirements for business aviation customers visiting the executive airport, under the management of a single highly trained DhabiJet customer service team.

The team acts as a single point of contact for all requirements and works consistently hard to provide the fastest possible services time ‘door to door’ for passengers and crew. Its range of services also includes the meeting and greeting of passengers, refueling, aircraft cleaning services, ground handling, transportations and hotel arrangements. Catering is provided by gategroup of Switzerland, through its ‘Executive Gourmet’ catering facility, offering world class hospitality and catering services to meet the tailored requirements of elite passengers and private jets.

On a biannual basis Al Bateen Airport hosts Abu Dhabi Air Expo, the only general aviation exhibition in the Middle East. The Air Expo showcases key developments that relate to private aircraft, helicopters, general aviation manufacturers, airport equipment and services, pilot training schools, avionics, insurance and financing. It has rapidly become one of the key events in the global business aviation calendar, a testament to Al Bateen’s unique status as the only airport of its type in the region. The most recent edition, in March, saw close to 300 manufacturers and suppliers exhibit the latest private aircraft and helicopters. The next edition of Abu Dhabi Air Expo is scheduled for February 26-28, 2018.

Al Bateen Airport is also the home of Gulf Centre for Aviation Studies (GCAS). Since its establishment in 2009, GCAS has provided training for many thousands of aviation professionals, not only Abu Dhabi Airports’ own staff, but also other delegates from all around the world.

This has not only been crucial in developing skills and raising operating standards, but GCAS has also in the process established itself as a leading expert in the provision 20

of skills and the raising of standards more generally in the global aviation industry – a huge endorsement of its expertise. Development of professional skills, and especially the employment and training of UAE nationals, is vital to the future both of Abu Dhabi Airports and that of Abu Dhabi as a whole. In this regard, an especially important initiative was the launch of Al Eqla’a train-to-hire programme last year, a graduate training programme dedicated to Emiratis and overseen by GCAS. It is the only such training of its type in the region and will play a key role in the harnessing and development of local talent. GCAS also hosted 250 students at this year’s Air Expo, giving them a tour of the show and of its facilities in the hope of firing their enthusiasm and interest in a career in aviation.

The transformation of Al Bateen Airport has thus been nothing short of phenomenal. From having operated for many years as a military base, it has had to change its capabilities to cater for an entirely different sector, demanding the highest standards of customer service. It has rapidly become one of the world’s leading executive airports, a fact for which Abu Dhabi can be proud.

MAX SPEED: MACH 0.88 • MAX RANGE: 8,056 KM • MAX ALTITUDE: 13,716 M

PROVEN LEADERSHIP Growing an international business demands reliability and peak performance.

That’s what the Gulfstream G450™ delivers. This aircraft is part of the top-selling platform in business aviation history and consistently earns NBAA reliability ratings above 99 percent. Take the guesswork out of success. Put yourself in a G450.

ALLAN STANTON | +971 50 653 5258 | allan.stanton@gulfstream.com | GULFSTREAMG450.COM Theoretical max range is based on cruise at Mach 0.80 with eight passengers, three crew and NBAA IFR fuel reserves.

Actual range will be affected by ATC routing, operating speed, weather, outfitting options and other factors.

Radar

AIR

MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Since 1947, when faced with immortalising flashbulb moments, an influential constellation of royals and red carpet nobility have turned to Dior to provide their elegant-garment de jour.

An homage to these illustrious moments will be showcased through dresses, photographs, paintings, drawings and letters: within a celebratory Rizzoli tome entitled Women in Dior – Portraits of Elegance, and at a curated exhibition that begins May 5 at the Christian Dior Museum (in his hometown of Granville, as part of the Normandy Impressionist festival). “The array of designs created by Christian Dior, then by his successors, has consistently enchanted a vast number of women who find what they need to express their individuality in the beautifully crafted lines,” says the brand.

True; from Princess Grace of Monaco and Princess Diana of Wales, right through to Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and the designer’s own muse Mitzah Bricard (pictured). Witnessed in print or in person, it’s a stylish tribute to Femmes en Dior. musee-dior-granville.com 22

23

Critique MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Film High-Rise Dir: Ben Wheatley A London doctor moves into a luxury apartment and struggles with high society life when class warfare leads to anarchy.

AT BEST: “Alive with human behaviour, heightened at times and stylised as hell... crackling with a wicked energy.” Hitflix AT WORST: “Feels too glib and hermetically sealed to resonate beyond its chaotic interiors.” Time Out N.Y.

Captain America: Civil War AIR

Dir: Anthony & Joe Russo Political pressure mounts when Steve Rogers leads the new team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity.

AT BEST: “Matching its blockbuster scale and spectacle with the smarts of a great, grown-up thriller… Marvel Studios’ finest film yet.”

Empire AT WORST: “Overlong but surprisingly light on its feet.” The Hollywood Reporter

Weiner Dir: Elyse Steinberg & Josh Kriegman The true story behind Anthony Weiner’s high-profile political scandal, as it unfolded.

AT BEST: “A brilliant window into the impact of the contemporary media circus on public life… one of the most compelling anti-heroes in recent memory.” IndieWire AT WORST: “The most fascinating questions surrounding Weiner’s epic fall remain unanswered.” Variety

Love & Friendship Dir: Whit Stillman A beautiful and manipulative widow, Lady Susan Vernon, uses devious tactics to win the hearts of various suitors.

AT BEST: “It’s flat-out hilarious – find me a funnier screen stab at Austen, and I’m tempted to offer your money back personally.” The Telegraph AT WORST: “Witty dialogue and memorable characters – traits that Love & Friendship offer in abundance.” Screen International 24

Critique MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Theatre

Above: From left, Caroline Faber, Katie Brayben and Maureen Lipman in My Mother Said I Never Should.

Photograph: Alex Harvey-Brown/Savannah Photographic

U

ntil June 15, the Dorfman Theatre in London will run an “astonishing New York hit that goes behind the scenes at a cinema to expose the desperate longings of its three young protagonists”, writes The Guardian’s Michael Billington.

The Flick is an “inherently dramatic” and “astonishing play”. “I should say straight off that this is a quiet play that slowly unfolds its meaning over three and a quarter hours,” Billington writes. “By the simple act of not demanding our attention, however, Baker rivetingly compels it.” The characters are “deeply moving”, and he concludes that, “This is like no other play in London. It moves at its own unhurried pace and magically exposes the souls of lonely people in danger of being left behind in our new, digitised age.”

Fiona Mountford of The Evening Standard also acknowledges its length, however isn’t so favourable.

“The Flick is very long and very slow... and over-indulgent. The silences!

The pauses!” Audiences become

“twitchy”, despite feeling “moments of immersion in the milieu as Sam (Matthew Maher) and Avery (Jaygann Ayeh) clean up for the umpteenth time after the last screening of the day.”

She concludes that unfortunately, the Flick is “no great meditation on either cinema or life”. Mountford is more positive about My Mother Said I Never Should, which runs until May 21 at St. James Theatre in London. “The script intially skips playfully-about through the decades, underscoring the repeated tug of dreams versus reality, career versus motherhood down the generations,” she says. “A real treat.”

Paul Vale of The Stage describes the play as “a remarkable debut work” and “thoughtful production”, while Billington claims it “possesses an unflinching integrity” and that the play is “...well staged. In documenting the pressures placed on women… the play is very much about a generational puritanism that measures success by achievement.”

Meanwhile Sheridan Smith returns to the West End in the Menier 25

Chocolate Factory production of Funny Girl at the Savoy Theatre.

According to What’s On Stage’s Daisy Bowie-Sell, the show is “whipcrackingly tight”. Funny Girl is the musical biography of the early life and success of a Ziegfield star, played

by Smith, whose performance “on stage is enormous”, according to Douglas Mayo of British Theatre. Such is the nature and advancements in production that this production of Funny Girl has one third of the cast of the original and an orchestra half the size, but you’d hardly know it.”

“No one’s going to rain on Sheridan Smith’s parade,” writes Mark Shenton of The Stage. “This is the best female performance to be seen in the West End since Imelda Staunton’s triumphant Oliverwinning performance as Momma Rose in Gypsy on the same stage.”

It’s a “loving, delicately nuanced production”. Additionally, Smith’s performance “is extraordinarily warm, and alternately heartbreaking and heart-stopping”.

Critique MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Art

Above: Loading Tea at Canton, Studio of Tinqua, c. 1852.

AIR

“T

he oranges of the island are like blazing fire among the emerald boughs,” wrote the twelfth century Sicilian-Arab poet Abd arRahman of Trapani, who served one of the Norman kings of Sicily. These evocative lines of verse appear at the beginning of the British Museum’s new exhibition, Sicily: Culture and Conquest, which is devoted to the region’s rich and varied history.

Featured artwork “will kindle nostalgia in anyone who has ever been to this magical island,” writes The Telegraph’s Alastair Sooke. Over 200 artistic pieces will be showcased at the British Museum until August 14, predominately detailing the daily lives of the Ancient Greeks and the Normans, each of which presided over the glory years of Sicily. “After an initial section devoted to the early farming communities of Sicily that predated the Phoenicians and Greeks… the exhibition amply demonstrates the golden age that flourished under Sicily’s sophisticated Greek rulers,” explains Sooke. Terracotta ornaments taken from several limestone and sandstone temples, including a dramatic horse’s head with flaring nostrils, and a sculpture of a stumbling warrior carved from marble; enable visitors to “marvel at Sicily’s outstanding past”.

“The British Museum’s latest stimulating survey of world history shows why we should rediscover these feudal fighters as heroes of multiculturalism,” writes The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones. “There is much to learn from the truly global art of Norman Sicily.”

Redazione ANSA writes that, “Top newspapers have hailed the exhibition as one of the main cultural events of the season in the British capital... The show in London seals this moment in time”.

Meanwhile, Painted Encounters: Parsi Traders and the Community at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi runs until May 29. Amit Sengupt, executive editor of Hardnews, writes that, “The Parsi story is seen through three very different exhibitions… that chronicle their art and aesthetics, their early history and their unique brand of spiritualism.” A variety of displayed paintings “are a tribute to various influences, from European and Dutch traditions, Vermeer to Rembrandt, to a legendary JJ School of Art in Bombay.” Since the second half of the nineteenth century, Parsi traders asserted their economic independence and “in their quest for prosperity, they defied the illegalities and dangers of the times.”

26

The exhibition “shows how Parsis shaped themselves to colonial modernity, nationalism, Indian modernism and global culture,” writes the Times of India.

Curators Peroza J. Godrej and Firoza Punthakey Mistree point out that, “artists of Parsi origin have participated actively in the domain and debates of Indian art. Far from remaining anchored within the ethnic and religious harbor of their birth, they have charted vivid memorable voyages across the ocean of transcultural exchanges.”

“The narrative, here, moves to the early colonial world… portraits, furniture and textiles are a common feature, with each exhibit being a mix of these influences,” write Pallavi Pundir of The Indian Express. It’s “a magnum effort, and has come with a deep realisation.”

Until May 30, Musée du Louvre in Paris will run the Hubert Robert (1733 – 1808) A Visionary Painter exhibition, which showcases the “absolute brilliance” of his work “only rarely recognised in the art world nowadays.” His “prolific and illustrious career” transports art lovers worldwide into “the heart of his picturesque ruins, poetic landscapes and urban panoramas,” writes Time Out’s Virginie Duchesne. Paris-born Robert mastered artistry in Italy, where Roman ruins were all the rage.

Drawing on inspiration following the rediscoveries of Pompeii and Herculaneum, he quickly became a huge success upon retuning to France a decade later. The exhibition offers “a rare comprehensive look at Robert,” writes J.S Marcus of The Wall Street Journal.

“The Louvre can claim something of a first with its huge exhibition,” agrees Nathalie Mandel of BLOUIN ARTINFO. “It is the first show of such magnitude devoted to the artist,” and “illustrates the diversity of the French painter, whose creations go far beyond the representation of the ruins with which he has been principally associated for centuries.”

Critique MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Books I

n 1957, a wealthy New Yorker is hosting a charity event at his Upper East Side triplex. Above his marital bed hangs ‘At the Edge of a Wood’; a painting first purchased by one of his Dutch ancestors three centuries earlier. It’s his family heirloom and, in the author Dominic Smith’s invented world, the only surviving painting of the fictional artist Sara de Vos, a talented painter with status. “The genius of Smith’s book is not just the caper plot but also the interweaving of three alternating timelines and locations to tell a wider, suspenseful story of one painting’s rippling impact on three people over multiple centuries and locations,” writes Ian Shapira of The Washington Post.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos is “a riveting tale”, which “absorbs you from the start”. Smith’s “descriptions are beautifully precise and reveal the vast research required to write so originally in the well-trodden genre of art mystery.”

Kathryn Harrison of the New York Times agrees that diversity adds to the narrative. “As though caught between a pair of opposing mirrors, the novel’s themes and images reflect forward and backward in time, its plot sprinkled with uncanny details… Smith can craft an elegant page-turner that carries its erudition effortlessly on an energetic plot.

His narratives may be complex, but that quality only enhances their suspense.” She concludes that it “has a supple omniscience that glides,” so descriptive that, “Amsterdam in its Golden Age is no less vivid than millennial Manhattan.”

“Smith’s paintings, like his settings, come alive through detail,” reports Publishers Weekly. This attention enables Smith to “capture on canvas simultaneous beauty and sadness.”

“A rich and detailed story,” concurs Kirkus Reviews. “Smith turns forgery into art, replication into longing, deceit into an art of love”. It is a “beautiful, patient, and timeless book, one that builds upon

centuries and shows how the smallest of choices… can be the definitive markings of an entire life”.

Across the globe, people undergo daily interrogations and searches by the police. At check-points and local markets, groups of thugs representing order gather “like spear fishermen hunting trout in the narrows,” as Sarah Chayes writes in Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. She argues that greed among governments and military organisations are an obstacle to establishing stable democracies throughout the world. She “makes a strong case that acute corruption causes not only social breakdown but also violent extremism,” muses Giles Foden of the New York Times.

Although “her personal narrative is even more complicated than any summary might suggest”, he also argues that it is “an important book that should be required reading for officials in foreign service… Of interest to the non-specialist reader, though the balance of exciting narrative, academic discourse and policy-speak will unsettle some...

While I am in full agreement with Chayes, I found her prose raising my hackles on occasion,” he concludes.

27

The Telegraph’s Oliver Bullough is more favourable of how the book is pieced together, insisting that he “would strongly recommend this book. It provides a fascinating way of looking at the turmoil, and a series of policy proposals that could upend how we confront it. Despite producing such a polemical book, her suggested policies are pleasingly mild, though they may still be too much for the militaries on both sides of the Atlantic,” he ponders.

Charles Bock’s second novel, Alice & Oliver, is “based on events that actually happened to him and his first wife, Diana Joy Colbert, who death from leukemia… left Bock a single parent of their young daughter,” writes the New York Times’ Lauren Groff. “The narrative’s medical experience feels dynamic and lived; the book’s greatest strength lies in the clarity with which Alice’s disease unfolds.” Being critical, “the characters often are static accretions of characteristics rather than fully developed people,” but despite its misgivings, “the real things to celebrate with the publication are Bock’s superhuman efforts to write a story that must have seemed so large it blocked out all the light”.

Jewellery MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

AIR

Mine, All Mine

Privately-sourced, intricately-cut and beautifully-designed: Graff Diamonds, millions of years in the making

“H

ow would you define what sets Graff apart?”

That Clive Golanski, Senior Executive, keeps his answer concise is nothing short of miraculous, because heaven knows he has a wealth of ways to answer. For example, he could delve into naming some of the world’s most-celebrated gemstones, of which the company has been custodian: the 603-carat Lesotho Promise, which Graff famously cut into a necklace of 26 perfect stones; the largest square Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond in the world, the 118.08 carat Deliaure Sunrise; the largest D Flawless round diamond, the Graff Constellation, at 102.79 carats. He could point to how the design process is kept contained in-house, with the

cutting and polishing process taking place in South Africa, Botswana, New York and Antwerp, and where the treasures move to a comprehensive workshop in their London HQ, to receive hand-worked attention.

Instead, his reply focuses on the very foundation that has enabled such gems to shine: “Quality is one thing, but the other defining characteristic of Graff is that we still retain a family element.

Leading industry names often move into bigger markets – opening many workshops around the world – and it can end up diluting the part of the family business upon which your name and reputation was founded.”

From sourcing, to design, manufacture and distribution, Graff keeps a very 28

close eye on every stage, to ensure their exquisite jewellery creations and timepieces eternally rise to the occasion. As Golanski alluded to, at the top it really is a family affair. Laurence Graff OBE started the business almost sixty years ago and is the reigning CEO; his son, Francois Graff, is the managing director; the founder’s brother Raymond runs the workshop, and his son Elliot is the operations director, handling administration and production. Over the decades, a signature has been solidly developed.

“How we do things has to be the same. The quality is consistent, even though designs will change because the designers change: we have a bigger creative team than ever, with a lot of

29

AIR

international voices, and everyone contributes their own ideas. Then, those heading Graff will sit and finalise what has been discussed, to ensure we maintain a certain identifying image.

Because – however much you expand – as a design house you need to keep the essence of the approach that has made you an important name throughout the global industry.”

It is a resplendent reputation that Graff Diamonds wears, and it is built on the fire and flair of their founder, Laurence. In the comprehensive book Graff (by Rizzoli), esteemed fashion critic Suzy Menkes penned in her foreword that, “the greatest jewellers, it seems to me, are born, not trained.

Laurence Graff has the eye, the courage

to turn the rough into the spectacular, and the charisma and passion to entice eager purchasers across the world. I love his story about Elizabeth Taylor

Graff has been custodian to some of the world’s most-celebrated gemstones gazing adoring at a tray of diamonds, incapable of being able to make a choice.” This is no idle name-drop either: Taylor is indicative of the elite clientele that Graff has lured over the years. When you have sensationally30

set stones, then kings, presidents and cultural icons certainly come calling.

There is plenty of tradition here, but make no mistake: this is a brand bang up-to-date. Explains Menkes, about her visit to the London-based premises, “Descending the stairs all the way to the deepest underground, I observe… highly-skilled hands at work – and a couple of digital screens – all involved with the latest creations. In this marvellous magicians lair, the uniquely punctilious protagonists wear white lab coats as they work using techniques that might go back hundreds of years, alongside other methods that are products of the computer age.” Golanski expands on this, saying, “There have to be elements of technology involved.

A computer can scan a rough diamond or stone, and provide a 3D image that inspires confidence: it allows us to see exactly what we can get out of that stone. Lawrence Graff still ensures the diamonds are cut in-house, and finished exactly how he wants them to look. In the case of some of the rare pinks and blues, some have emerged from our own production process because we come across them, but Mr. Graff may have purchased a particular stone on his travels.”

The boutique empire spans a number of select, prestigious locations, including the Middle East with outlets in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai at The Dubai Mall and the Burj Al Arab.

They are finding that in this region,

“women seem to prefer the bejewelled pieces and the men gravitate towards the diamond pieces. Watches especially have performed well for us, as timepieces in general have technically become much better over the last ten years. It used to be one or two brands that were at the forefront, but now, because the technology exists to create amazingly complicated pieces, if you are able to set up an independent watch company – such as we’ve done with Graff Luxury Watches in Switzerland – you can design movements right through to the final touches, ensuring you have pieces no-one else can create.”

Delivering such excellence rests upon nature’s most-stunning protagonists, whose frequency cannot be predicted.

31

Shares Golanski, “One emerald necklace that we have, for example… to collect so many emerald beads of such size and quality is tough, so you can understand that to collect 28 of them can take years. It can take ‘only’ two years for the jewellery to actually be designed but that belies the amount of time it needs to acquire the stones.”

They started in very different places: Laurence Graff, born in London’s East End; the gemstones, deep within the ground of South Africa. Yet they fortuitously crossed paths with one another. Had they not, some of selfstyled ‘Most Fabulous Jewels in the World’ – and one of the most fabulous minds in all of jewellery – may have both remained unearthed.

OB JECTS OF DESIRE

OBJECTS OF DESIRE

Master craftsmanship, effortless style and timeless appeal; this month’s must-haves and collectibles

Art & Design MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Where Technology Meets Fashion

In Manus x Machina, vintage Yves Saint Laurent cocktail dresses and Chanel taupe bouclĂŠ suits blur the lines between the high-tech and the artisan 33

AIR

The distinction between haute couture and prêt-à-porter was based on the handmade and the machine-made... this distinction has become increasingly blurred

H

aute couture can be traced back to the sumptuous court of Louis XVI and his exquisite queen, Marie Antoinette. The French nobility acquired an insatiable appetite for fashion and were eager to elaborately showcase their immense wealth. Extravagant peacock feathers, fragile heels, plush pastel ruffles and recherché frock coats laid the foundations for high-end fashion in the late-eighteenth century.

Haute couture, however, wasn’t formalised in France until English-born designer Charles Frederick Worth opened his Paris atelier in 1858.

Over the centuries, fashion has evolved and trends have emerged to reflect social, political and cultural change. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibit, Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, explores the impact of new technology on fashion, as well as how designers are using computer modelling, 3D printing, laser cutting and other machine-based methods to create modern collections.

“Traditionally, the distinction between the haute couture and prêt-à-porter was based on the handmade and the machine-made, but recently

this distinction has become increasingly blurred as both disciplines have embraced the practices and techniques of the other,” says Andrew Bolton, curator in The Costume Institute. A publication by him will accompany the exhibition and is available from early May direct from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Manus x Machina features more than 100 elegant pieces of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, which remain as popular as they do exclusive. A machine-sewn, hand-finished white synthetic scuba knit Chanel wedding ensemble, which, according to Bolton, served as the inspiration for the exhibit is one of many treasures on display. An Iris van Herpen haute couture gown with hand-stitched strips of lasercut silicone and hand-applied gull skulls will also be featured, as well as a classic Chanel suit with 3-D printed white polyamide overlay.

Despite enormous advancements in technology, all sought-after fashion brands continue to proudly craft lavish avant-garde ensembles.

Plunging Grecian necklines of dark mossy green and absinthe yellow make up Valentino’s Spring 2016 collection; while Chanel’s delicately hand34

35

Art & Design

AIR

MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

36

Fashion and technology are inextricably connected, more so now than ever before

sewn chunky schoolgirl buttons and puffed sleeves flaunt Coco’s timeless style. Rather than threatening the traditional art of haute couture, technological modes of production have seamlessly revolutionised design and challenged preconceptions of what is possible.

The exhibition will explore the differences in which hand and machine are presented as instruments in the creative process. A series of pairings of handmade haute couture garments and their machine-made ready-to-wear counterparts will be displayed, to examine the variation between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina). Furthermore, it will be explored how these methods have changed since the onset of industralisation and mass production.

“Fashion and technology are inextricably connected, more so now than ever before,” said Thomas P. Campbell, director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “It is therefore timely to examine the roles that the handmade and the machine-made have played in the creative process. Often presented as oppositional, this exhibition proposes a new view in which the hand and the machine are mutual and equal protagonists in the tale.”

37

The Robert Lehman Collection and the Anna Wintour Costume Centre will feature a variety of designers, including Alber Elbaz, Karl Lagerfeld, Rei Kawakubo, Raf Simons, Miuccia Prada and Christoher Kane. The latter gallery will focus more on the traditional aspects of haute couture and has been arranged to resemble a traditional maison de couture. Meanwhile, the former will present a series of case studies. Traditional métiers of haute couture, such as embroidery and leatherwork, will be presented alongside innovative techniques like 3-D printing and computer modelling.

Once disparate industries, fashion and technology are growing closer, with fashionistas fighting on the front lines for technological advancement. Designers are opting to use digital modes of production alongside traditional methods. These industries are evolving, and exploration between the machine-made and the man-made, as well as the juxtaposing pieces crafted by the petites mains in haute couture ateliers, are certain to play out heavily on this year’s runways.

Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology runs from May 5 to August 14, 2016, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Timepieces MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

The State Of Play, In May TaRIq MalIk

J

ust like those familiar hands that constantly circumnavigate the dial, the world of watchmaking never stops and is always moving forward. Each brand carves out its niche, and each expert watchmaker tries to outdo all the others. This year has heralded some interesting developments, and the leaders of haute horlogerie have taken bold steps toward the future.

With the big watch-fairs of 2016 done and dusted, here are my favourite announcements so far.

1. Rolex Daytona (in steel) It’s one of the most highly-anticipated watches to have been released by Rolex since 1965. The new Daytona with a black Cerachrom bezel caused a stir at Baselworld, and the waiting list is already a long one. What makes it so appealing is the fact that it pays homage to one of the most desirable vintage models – the Ref 6240, the ultimate racing Rolex. The Daytona’s distinctive identity is sealed with the charismatic black bezel engraved with a tachymeter scale for measuring average speeds of up to 400 miles or kilometers per hour. It’s made from Cerachrom, which is corrosion resistant, virtually scratchproof and completely unaffected by UV rays.

2. Tudor Heritage Black Bay 36 This brand has proud historical ties to Rolex, but has developed a unique personality in military and diving circles since the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Tudor recently released the heritage range, which features the

classic ‘Snowflake’ hour hands. The Black Bay Bronze and Black Bay Dark are both appealing, but the Black Bay 36 particularly caught my eye. The name refers to the 36mm case that’s designed for finer wrists, and the watch wears particularly well.

3. Tag Heuer Monza Chronograph Tag Heuer have re-invented their 1976 classic, the Monza, but this time they’ve used grade-5 titanium for the case instead of steel. Now the model’s as light as a feather and this racing classic is as attractive as it was 40 years ago. Black and white lacquered hour and minute hands and indices in vintage orange Superluminova offset the matt black dial to perfection. The 42mm case with naked steel pushers and the calf-skin strap complete all the aesthetic lines.

4. Omega Speedmaster Ck 2998 The perennial classic ‘Moonwatch’ returns this year with a visual twist.

The new Speedmaster retains the ever-faithful Calibre 1861 movement, one of Omega’s best, but this year’s 39

new release is in striking blue. I love the return of the instantly recognisable lollipop chronograph hand, and the tiny touches of style like the seahorse medallion embossed on the screw-in case back, along with the number for this release, which is limited to 2,998.

5. Patek Philippe World Time Chrono 5930G as usual Patek Philippe has released a watch that is hard to compete with. Its latest offering, the World Time Chrono, combines the Genevan manufacture’s imposing World Time mechanism with a self-winding chronograph movement. The striking blue dial is manually guilloched, and surrounded by white gold. It has a moving ‘city disk’ with each place name representing one of the 24 international time zones, plus a moving 24-hour ring on which the time is indicated. The dial is a busy place, with lots of movement, but all harmonised to perfection.

Discover Tariq’s co-founded vintage boutique at momentum-dubai.com

Timepieces MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

The Sands of Time AIR

Grieb & Benzinger bring 18k white gold and sparkling princess cut diamonds to Middle Eastern-tailored timepieces

40

D

eep within the sap-scented hills of Black Forest in Germany (home of the cuckoo clock), Grieb & Benzinger specialises in redefining vintage movements. By practicing classic techniques such as skeletonising and engraving, artisans assemble less than 100 one-of-a-kind watches each year. “The timepieces we create remain true to our brand DNA at all levels, and we ensure this by using traditional and rare forms of craftsmanship,” says Georg Bartkowiak, CEO. The company is proof that the art of traditional horology lives on, and the Middle Eastern market is particularly appreciative of the skill. “Customers in the region are very passionate

One watch has an Arabian Sea influence, with shades of shimmering azure on its dial about our brand,” reveals Bartkowiak.

“Because of this, we started receiving more and more requests for timepieces featuring traditional numerals, and that is why we created the Middle Eastern-inspired collection.”

It comprises bespoke timepieces for an expectant clientele, and the most recent creation – the Polaris Al Arab Imperial – embodies their approach.

It is an exceptional watch where a distinctive ‘8 style’ adorns a delicate face, graced with ornate Eastern Arabic numerals. Shares the CEO, “As with many of our timepieces, it was a customer who helped us design the Polaris Al Arab Imperial. He asked for a unique design, different to any other watch we have created in the past.” In terms of materials, an opulent rose gold base is delicately hand-guillochéd and

41

shines with a white Breguet frosted finish, a rare technique hardly in use today. 66 sparkling black princess cut diamonds are carefully arranged around the handsome handcrafted twopart gold and black dial, which is what Bartkowiak believes make this piece exceptional. “The fine princess cut of the black diamonds appears clearer and more elegant,” he smiles.

It joins an already-extraordinary Middle Eastern lineup. There is the Green Inspiration for men and the Pharos Raspberry for women; the former comes in a solid platinum case with a green-tinted base that slightly changes colour when sun-kissed, while the Pharos Raspberry is a more feminine piece, complemented by a solid white 18k gold case that is set with 77 brilliant cut diamonds. The two novelties are unmistakable eyecatchers and boast attention to detail appreciated by any true aficionado.

Immaculate detail is present too in Forever Baba Zayed, which pays tribute to the late, great Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founder of the United Arab Emirates. It’s a unique timepiece that emulates the beauty, artistry and design of the magnificent Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. Snow-white marble domes are simulated in the movement components, which are partnered with seductive ruby jewels. Another gem is the Polaris Stallion, boasting a domed sapphire crystal and a solid white gold crown, screwed-in case-back.

Lastly, the Pharos Al Arab Imperial takes inspiration from the Arabian Sea. Various shades of shimmering azure, as well as the iconic Burj Al Arab’s turquoise hues, are mimicked in a bluecoated base dial. “Our Middle Eastern collection is very specific in terms of colour palette as well as sourced materials, and the Arabic-styled numerals and icons cater to the needs and wants of our individual collectors,” explains Bartkowiak.

With both vintage and modern specialties, these appealing timepieces are admirable in their improbable handiwork, haute allure, and all-round good looks. Add in the Arabic design influences, and you have a collection that is just what the region ordered.

42

AIR

FIERCE

KITTEN Naomi Campbell, the feistiest supermodel of all, tells Krissi Murison that her tantrums are over WORDS : KRISSI MURISON

43

AIR

I

’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I’d been warned she’d be late: I’m told it’s usually two hours. I’d expected her to be guarded: she rarely talks about her exes – the rock stars, the playboys, the Hollywood actors. And it’s no secret that she can be tetchy: she has four assault convictions. She threw a BlackBerry at her former housekeeper and was sentenced to community service in 2007 – sweeping out of the New York City Department of Sanitation on her last day in a silver sequined Dolce & Gabbana gown.

The following year she pleaded guilty to kicking and spitting at two police officers at Heathrow in a row over lost luggage. That’s in addition to an incident involving an assistant and a projectile mobile phone, another with a handbag and a paparazzo, and several more accusations of violence against employees and associates that haven’t led to convictions.

I took a book to read while I waited, and a vague hope that if she did throw it at me I could at least sue for damages.

But here she is, a mere 35 minutes behind schedule, and so polite, I’m almost disappointed. And who’s this Amazonian woman she’s brought with her? Not a PR or an assistant. Surely not a bodyguard?

“This is my mum, Valerie,” says Naomi Campbell, 45. “She’s hanging out with me today.”

Valerie is in her mid-sixties and has better cheekbones than her daughter. She used to be a dancer, leaving the young Naomi to live with her grandmother while she travelled the world on tour. I know this from Campbell’s new book, which she is here to promote. Actually, it’s one of two limited-edition books that Taschen are publishing. Volume one is full of luxuriant pictures and short quotes from Campbell’s colleagues on her fabulousness. Volume two is more photos, plus Campbell’s airbrushed account of her life from stage-school cub to fashion panther.

She flew in this morning for London Fashion Week. It comes hot on the heels of New York Fashion Week, where she hit the catwalk for her friend Kanye West (as well as making music and comments about his own genius, West also has his own clothing line, Yeezy).

How is he, I ask, because to the outside world it looks as though he’s going completely mad… “Oh, he’s eccentric, but he’s a very smart guy. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He has a plan and he’s on schedule for his plan,” she reveals, laughing uproariously.

She was pushed through the airport in a wheelchair – and not for the first time – leading to speculation that she had hip surgery while in New York, but she says not and her people have previously described her as suffering from a “light foot injury”. Anyway, she seems to be walking fine again now.

She and her mother make themselves comfortable. Valerie seems incredibly sweet: taciturn and softly spoken with a smile for everyone. She is dressed in jeans and is beautiful but unassuming.

Campbell Jr. came in wearing an electric-blue and black fur coat and is a force of raucous nature: loud, forthright, inexhaustible. The week before she went to New York, she took a plane every day: “New York, London; London, Austria; Austria, London, LA. I love being in the air. I feel like I’m present but I’m not present. I can catch up with my reading, catch up with myself. I’m reading a book about nutrition at the moment called Clean Gut, because I’m a real believer about keeping your colon clean.”

She looks sensational, of course. Full lips, cat features, glossy hair with a heavy fringe and eyes that shimmer somewhere between blue and green – presumably the result of contact lenses worn over her God-given brown.

Underneath the coat she wears a demure black polo neck and cardie.

After 30 years in the fashion business, she can’t pick a favourite photo from the book. But “I love the memories of being with my girls, travelling together from city to city, doing the shows. It was a lot of fun, like a dormitory.”

She means the 1990s supermodels.

“Linda, Christy, Cindy, Tatjana, Stephanie, Claudia…” Long before Taylor Swift coined the term as her own, the supers were the original girl #squad. Campbell was its only nonwhite member, the first black model to make the cover of French Vogue and Time magazine. It was only because the other girls were willing to stick their necks on the line for her, she thinks, that any of it was possible.

44

“Let me put it this way: these designers didn’t book any girl of colour.

I don’t think it was intentional, but they didn’t think about being diverse at that time. So my girls went in and said if you want us in the show, you will have to take Naomi.”

She says that her mother didn’t raise her to use racism as an excuse not to succeed at something. “I’d find other ways to get what I wanted. I’m not afraid of challenges, I’ve had many in my career and I’ve dealt with them as they came.”

One was never landing a contract to become the face of one of the big beauty brands due – she can only assume – to the colour of her skin. “Quite early on in my career I understood that as a model of colour I would have to make money in other ways,” she writes in the book. Other ways included acting, television presenting, launching her own fragrance and setting up her own branding and events company, NC Connect. She is now worth an estimated USD48 million.

She still keeps in touch with the other supers – especially Kate Moss, who arrived on the scene later, at the tender age of 17, and with whom Campbell (who is three years her senior) adopted a big sister-like role.

Campbell was engaged to U2’s Adam Clayton in the 1990s, so they all spent a lot of time together in Ireland, where Bono’s wife nicknamed them “the wagons”. “Kate was little wagon, Christy [Turlington] was the original wagon and I was black wagon.”

Why “wagon”? Because you were constantly falling off them?

“No! It’s because… we’re wagons.

Because we’re naughty, we enjoy our life, we laugh, just girls having fun.”

Campbell is at pains to remind me how many old friends and business associates she remains close to after all this time, with the subtext presumably being: I can’t be that bad if they still want to hang out with me.

She knows that her reputation precedes her. In 2010 she was called to The Hague to give evidence in the war crimes trial of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor. He had allegedly given her uncut “blood diamonds” after a function for Nelson Mandela’s Children’s Fund in 1997; Campbell says she had no idea what

And lo, the “magic runway boomboom”– her unmistakable hip-swinging strut – was born 45

46

AIR

the “dirty-looking” stones were and gave them away. She initially refused to testify, but was subpoenaed, telling the court that it was “a big inconvenience” for her to be there. Taylor was sentenced to 50 years for aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity, but Campbell’s petulance dominated the headlines.

“It was disgraceful,” she says of the media circus. “Absolutely disgraceful.

I felt, like, you need a fashion model to come and tell you that this man is not a good guy? Come on. That’s ridiculous.”

Do you feel… “A scapegoat,” she interrupts, before I can finish. …that you wished you’d said certain things differently?

“No, I can’t take it back now. I only wish maybe I said ‘your honour’, because I forgot, apparently – and she was a very nice lady, the judge. You know, it was an eye-opener to see who was who in my life,” she adds, darkly.

She won’t say who, but I wonder if it’s her former modelling agent Carole White, who gave evidence that cast doubt on Naomi’s version of events.

It wasn’t the first time Campbell had fallen out with an agency. She was fired from the Elite modelling agency in 1993, on the grounds that “no amount of money or prestige could further justify the abuse (she inflicted on staff and clients)”. Six months later the agency rehired her.

Campbell went to rehab for cocaine and alcohol addiction in 1999 and has been in a recovery programme ever since, “working” on herself for “an hour every day”. She is vague about what this entails, although it seems to be yoga, Pilates or “a walk in the park”, plus her programme meetings. She says the process has made her “more mellow”. If she means more even-tempered, then on today’s evidence I can only agree.

“My behaviour at certain points in my life…” she begins and I can tell it’s a speech she’s had to make time and time again. “I was growing up, just learning how to live, and I had to do it in front of the world. But that was my sacrifice and I have no complaints about it. I made some big mistakes and I made amends.

I can’t beat myself up about it, but I don’t forget. I hope I’m forgiven, as I forgive those who’ve hurt me too.”

But where did all her anger come from? She made a fleeting reference

to “abandonment issues” in a previous interview I read. What did she mean?

“Well, there’s always abandonment issues, because I left my mother at…”

She stops and changes tack. “My mother had to (make a) sacrifice to send me to the school I wanted to go to. She had to go to work, but unfortunately it wasn’t in this country. So, she did what she thought was best for me.

There were times when I wanted to see my mum and she couldn’t be with me, but she’s a single parent and she was working to keep me in a great school.”

I look over at Valerie. That must have been hard for you too, I say.

“Oh yes, of course,” says Valerie.

“Sometimes if the child isn’t well and you can’t be there because you’ve got to work. But you try to give the best as a single parent that you can. I always used to take her to… remember we used to always go for high tea?”

“Oh, custard tarts!” Campbell shrieks.

“You really told me off once when I got my knife and fork mixed up. I don’t know where we were, but you let me have it.” I can’t imagine Valerie letting anyone have it, but both say she could be strict in her own way.

Campbell was born in Streatham, south London. Her father had already left, taking off soon after Valerie became pregnant. Mother and daughter moved to Italy together until Campbell was nearly three years old. When Valerie relocated to Switzerland, Campbell came back to south London and spent time living with her grandmother and another woman she calls “Nanny”. She would fly out to see her mum for holidays. “Or, if I got a few days off, I’d come back to see her,” says Valerie. At five, Campbell was enrolled in the Barbara Speake Stage School in Acton, taking a bus and two trains across London every day.

Was it Naomi’s decision to go to stage school? Valerie: “Yes, yes, yes.” At five?

Naomi: “I told her I wanted to go, before I was five! Everyone was looking at her, going, ‘Don’t listen to a threeyear-old! Are you mad?’ And you were like, ‘Nope, I think she knows what she wants.’ Ma, why did you believe me?”

Valerie: “You was always posing and dancing. I’ve got that photo of you posing in the pink jumper and jeans, and you’re all like that [Valerie flings her arms out in an extravagant pose; 47

Naomi looks slightly embarrassed].

Don’t you remember?”

Naomi: “No, Ma, I don’t remember.”

Campbell was spotted by a modelling scout when she was 15, while shopping in Covent Garden after school. She remembers being surprised that she was chosen over the two blonde friends she was with. Valerie, now back in London, taught her daughter how to walk like a model in the hallway of their home: “I said, ‘You can’t try and copy somebody else. You have to own the stage but have your own style.” And lo, the “magic runway boom-boom”, as Vogue described her unmistakable hipswinging strut, was born.

She says she was always shy about her body — even in the years when you couldn’t open a magazine without seeing her lounging half-naked across its pages. “I used to feel very uncomfortable doing bathing suit and lingerie shoots when I was younger.

Now I think I’m finally comfortable enough in my own skin to feel comfortable with pictures in lingerie.”

Not that, she says, she was ever pressured into doing them: “No, I was very much the person to say what I was and wasn’t going to do.”

On her mother’s wishes, she has never tried to meet her father. However, as soon as she left home, she began searching for surrogate figures to plug the hole. The French designer Azzedine Alaïa became one. She called him “Papa” and would stay with him whenever she was working in Paris.

The music producer Quincy Jones was another; he still refers to her as his seventh daughter. But perhaps her most famous familial relationship was with Nelson Mandela, whom she met in 1994 in South Africa. He called her his “honorary granddaughter”. She called him “Grandad” and raised huge sums for his Children’s Fund.

There had been internet chatter in the weeks leading up to our interview that she is romantically involved with Idris Elba, who played Mandela in the 2013 film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

They were spotted together on a night out in New York. Days later, the news broke that Elba had left his long-term girlfriend and mother of his 22-monthold child.

I know enough about Campbell to know she won’t appreciate me raising

AIR

it, so I attempt a side ambush, which she sees coming a mile off. Does she think her friend Idris Elba would make a good James Bond?

“Well, how do you know I’m friendly with Idris Elba? Because of what the papers are writing, which is complete crap,” she says, turning fiery for the first time.

“I’ve known Idris for years and he’s been so supportive of (my charity) Fashion for Relief, especially what I do for ebola. It makes me laugh reading all of this stuff. It’s so inaccurate and so wrong.”

Me: (innocently) “What is? The speculation that you’re a couple?”

Naomi: “Yes. It’s like, would you have said that four years ago? Why didn’t you? I’ve had pictures with him before.

All of a sudden it’s this whole story…

It’s ridiculous. But would he be a good Bond? Of course, but I don’t know if he wants to be a good Bond.”

“I think he’d be a good Bond,” Valerie pipes up. Do you know him too, then?

“No, no, no.”

Naomi wrestles back control of the conversation. “I think Bonds should be diverse. I find it kind of strange when I know that Ian Fleming wrote them in Jamaica. I’ve sat at his desk, I’ve slept in his bedroom! Yeah, in Goldeneye. So, I’m like, hold on a minute, he must have got some influence from Jamaica.”

We talk about current racial tensions in the United States and I ask if she is engaged with Black Lives Matter, the American activist movement that campaigns against police brutality and racial injustice in the criminal justice system — which reached a wider audience when Beyoncé made references to it during her performance at the NFL Super Bowl.

“I don’t think it’s [morally] correct that people have died unjustly by being shot by police. That’s absolutely wrong – and has to be cleaned up, otherwise they’re going to have their cities rioting,” she says. “I don’t know much about it and maybe I need to go online and read about it. But yeah, black lives do matter, white lives matter, everyone’s lives matter.”

Early in her career she signed up to fashion’s Black Girls’ Coalition, a lobbying group set up by the American fashion agent Bethann Hardison and the model Iman, wife of the late David

Bowie. To this day, Hardison keeps a tally of the number of women of colour used on the catwalks each season and she and Campbell have written letters to designers reminding them of their duty to represent diversity if the numbers fall.

“Some people honestly did say that they’d forgotten! It wasn’t as though we were trying to out anybody, it was just, ‘be conscious, be aware of what you’re putting out [on the catwalks]’ and remember that the world is such a melting pot of cultures right now that your customer is not just one colour.”

Through Iman, she met and got to know Bowie. She doesn’t want to talk about his death “because it’s private.

But my heart for [Iman] – to lose your partner – is just very sad and I feel for her. And she’s someone I respect very much. She’s always been very straightforward to me and told me what is what. I don’t like bulls**t people in my life. I’ve no time for enablers.”

In 2011, she was instrumental in packing one friend, designer John Galliano, off to rehab, following his much-publicised outburst at a restaurant in Paris. It emerged that he had been caught on video doing much the same a couple of months previous.

Campbell dedicates an entire minichapter in her book to their friendship.

I was going to ask if she felt comfortable sticking up for him, given his comments and her background as a high-profile advocate of racial equality, but she jumps in before I get to the end of my question: “I didn’t have any problem at all. Your friend is not well and they need help, you pick up the phone, you call. Someone’s life is at stake here, that’s how serious that is.”

So what did she do?

“I just did what had to be done and secured the place. The single most important thing was getting him there and getting him well. Everybody played their role. Anna Wintour was incredible and is also very protective of John. I mean… someone’s videoing and you don’t know it, it’s awful. I don’t like videos, I think they’re awful.”

Hmm. I’m not sure the fact Galliano was being videoed during his tirade is necessarily what the rest of the world will remember as awful, but still.

She has been linked to a slew of powerful men – Adam Clayton, Mike 48

Tyson, Robert De Niro, the Russian billionaire Vladimir Doronin, the former Formula One team boss Flavio Briatore. None lasted.

I wonder if the trouble with being with Naomi Campbell is that men can’t see past that fact. They want her as a trophy rather than a living, breathing, full-time commitment.

She cuts me off: “Okay, I’m going to answer this by ‘watch this space’.” She laughs, then checks herself. “No, I’m joking. I’m an old romantic, traditional person. I love to love, so that’s it.”

Or is it? I get the impression that she isn’t joking, that she may have met someone ready to settle down with her for the long haul – not Elba, but someone else?

There’s something else she says near the end of the interview that also makes me think there could be another big announcement soon. We are discussing her longevity in the business. Those in the know speak of her strong work ethic, but also of the fact that she is the only one of the original supers not to have taken time out to have children – and I wonder if this has anything to do with her prolonged supremacy.

Again, she cuts me off before I can fully get the question out. “Well, I’m not saying I won’t have children. I could have children. I just don’t know which way I’ll have children. But I think I’ll have children, everyone thinks I’ll be a good mother. I’ll just do it when I’m ready. I’m not rushing to anyone’s drumbeat, I’m going to my own.”

Even if there isn’t a man in her life, she has her mother, who raised her single-handed, for inspiration.

“Absolutely. Totally. That’s not been a fear of mine. As I said, it’s just timing, grounding, foundation. Where are you living? Where are you raising?”

What does she see as the ideal opportunity to have kids? “Well, you want to come back home for something like that. But I couldn’t answer this until this really was happening.”

What about Valerie? Does she like the idea of being a grandmother? “Yes, yes, I do,” Valerie smiles. “But I don’t want to force…” I’m not sure that she could if she wanted to.

Naomi Campbell by Naomi Campbell and Josh Baker is published by Taschen in a limited-edition run of 1,000 signed copies. taschen.com

I’m an old romantic, traditional person. I love to love

49

AIR

ON THE ROAD

A reimagined Overseas collection ensures the modern traveller packs Vacheron Constantin style alongside their sense of adventure LOCATION: JW MARRIOTT MARQUIS HOTEL DUBAI PHOTOGRAPHY: MAZEN ABUSROUR STYLING: VASIL BOZHILOF MAKE-UP: SHARON DRUGAN HAIR: ANIA PONIATOWSKA ART DIRECTION: ANDY KNAPPETT 50

51

52

Opening Page: Lucas wears Overseas with blue dial and rubber strap. Ref: 4500V/110A-B128

CLOTHING STOCKISTS: Opening Page: Lucas wears shirt by Ermanno Scervino

Left: Lucas wears Overseas Chronograph with brown aligator leather strap. Ref: 5500V/000R-B074; Olga wears Overseas small model, rosy beige dial, rubber strap. Ref: 2305V/100A-B078

Left: Lucas wears suit and jersey top, both by Versace; Olga wears trousers, top and jacket, all Ermanno Scervino

This Page: Lucas wears Overseas with blue dial and stainless steel strap. Ref: 4500V/110A-B128 53

This Page: Lucas wears Overseas Chronograph with blue aligator leather strap. Ref: 5500V/000R-B074.

AIR

CLOTHING STOCKISTS: This Page: Lucas wears shirt and trousers, both

by Gucci

54

55

56

AIR

Left: Lucas wears Overseas Chronograph with brown rubber strap.Ref: 5500V/000R-B074 This Page: Lucas wears Overseas ultra-thin perpetual calendar with translucent grey-lacquered dial and blue aligator leather strap.Ref: 4300V/120G-B102

CLOTHING STOCKISTS: Left: Lucas wears shirt by Thomas Pink This Page: Lucas wears trousers by Berluti, shirt by Versace, belt by Pal Zileri; Olga wears dress by Stella McCartney

57

This Page: Olga wears Overseas small model with rosy beige dial and aligator-leather strap.

Ref: 2305V/100A-B078

AIR

CLOTHING STOCKISTS: This Page: Olga wears shirt-dress by Versace

58

59

60

AIR

viatrix F

or 75 years, the remains of Amy Johnson’s vintage plane have lain hidden in the impenetrable, sullen waters of the Thames Estuary and with them, the secrecy of her final moments.

Events leading up to the crash have been exceptionally well documented, however the reasons behind that fateful day remain a mystery.

On January 5, 1941, Johnson was working for the civilian Air Transport Auxiliary. She was flying to Oxfordshire, where her plane was to be used for Royal Air Force (RAF) training, when she suddenly plunged into the sea off the Kent coast.

The most widely accepted version of what happened is that Johnson couldn’t land because of bad weather. She continued her journey, presumably hoping to find better conditions, but ran out of fuel and bailed out. “At about 3:30pm… a seaman spotted an aeroplane and then a parachute floating down through the snow,” explains Midge Gillies, author of Amy Johnson, Queen of the Air. “Several sailors later reported seeing two bodies in the water.

One was described as fresh-faced and wearing a helmet. The figure

In May 1930, British typist Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia, with only a thermos flask and packet of sandwiches for company.

Three weeks later she landed in Darwin, sun-blistered and exhausted, becoming a celebrity overnight WORDS : ANNIE DARLING

61

AIR

called out for help in a high-pitched voice as it drifted dangerously close to the ship’s propellers.”

A Royal Navy ship, the HMS Haslemere, immediately went to her aid after spotting the wreckage and the vessel’s captain sadly died “from exposure and shock” after diving into the winter waters trying to reach the second figure. Johnson’s body was never found and her mission remains a government secret.

Unsurprisingly, there are several outlandish theories for the reason behind Johnson’s fateful flight. Some have claimed she was on a clandestine mission, others that she was a victim of friendly fire after being mistakenly identified as a German bomber. This premise was later supported by retired gunner Tom Mitchell, who claimed that on the night of Johnson’s death he was ordered to fire down an unidentified plane he later believed was hers.

But just how did this 37-year-old woman find herself fighting an ice-cold tide in a heavy vintage-flying suit? As a young girl, Gillies claims Johnson had a reputation for being rebellious.

“She was always a ‘tomboy’. She liked sports and daredevil games. In fact, she lost her two front teeth when she was 14-years-old after a cricket ball hit her full on in the face!”

After graduating from the University of Sheffield with a bachelor’s degree in Economics, she secured a job as a typist in her hometown of Hull, where she first went up in a plane. “She paid for a trip in a flying circus, which were very popular after the First World War. Ex-RAF pilots earned money taking passengers up for a spin.”

Her interest in all things aeronautical inspired her to pursue a pilot’s license, which she finally obtained in July 1929.

Unable to make a living from flying, she became the first woman in Britain to become an Air Ministry qualified ground engineer. However, before long the ‘aviation bug’ was back, and she decided to try and break the worldrecord for flying solo from England to Australia, which had been set by Bert Hinkler in 1928.

At first, her efforts to raise financial support failed, but she soon persuaded her father and oil magnate Lord Wakefield to share the cost of buying an aircraft. “She had a close relationship 62

with her father,” reveals Gillies. “Amy was the eldest of four girls and, in some ways, he treated her like the son he never had. He was very supportive of her efforts to fly.”

Johnson nicknamed her second-hand USD850 de Havilland Moth Jason after her family’s fish business and on May 5, 1930, she set off on her 11,000mile epic endeavour. “In a way, it was coincidental,” comments Gillies on Johnson’s adventurous undertaking.

Her achievements went well beyond what was normal for a woman in the 1920s and 1930s “Before setting off for Australia her longest solo flight had been from Hull to London [201 miles].”

To begin with, there wasn’t much interest in her expedition and only her father, plus a few close friends, gathered to see her off. Nonetheless, by the time she had reached her first stop in Karachi, Pakistan, she had achieved international celebrity.

“Her achievements went well beyond what was normal for a woman in the 1920s and 1930s,” remarks Gillies. “She went to university, left home to live in London with a female friend and qualified as an engineer – and that was all before she qualified as a pilot.”

A combination of mechanical problems and unfavourable weather meant that Johnson failed to break Hinkler’s record of 15 days, despite initially exceeding his pace. She took 19 days, landing in Darwin on May 24, but despite this apparent failure, she became the first woman to fly solo to Australia, and returned home to a hero’s welcome, which culminated in 63

her award of a C.B.E. Johnson’s success only increased after her marriage to Scottish playboy Jim Mollison a couple of years later.

Together, ‘The Flying Sweethearts’ broke several records, partied with the Mayfair Set and entertained Hollywood Stars. Regrettably their tempestuous marriage broke down, but her love affair with speed endured.

“Jim liked the high life and drank heavily – even before a long-distance flight,” claims Gillies. “Jim and Amy carried out two record-breaking flights together… both ended in a crash because they disagreed about when to land.”

Johnson’s daredevil flying exploits made her an icon. After weeks of flying a second-hand, open cockpit biplane with no radio transmission and the most basic of maps, her odysseys inspired a world struggling with the deplorable effects of the Depression and European tension. “Amy Johnson set a benchmark for other women aviators and they strove to emulate her,” says Dame Fiona Kidman, author of The Infinite Air. “[She] inspired women to believe that they could achieve in a man’s world.”

“She was an international superstar,” concurs Gillies. “She became a symbol of what women could achieve.

In Australia, women asked to have their hairstyle in an ‘Amy Wave’ and designers, including Chanel, made outfits for her. Her death only added to the glamour.”

Despite the many unanswered questions surrounding Johnson’s harrowing death, she remains an extraordinary inspiration to many women. By breaking world records, she shattered many stereotypes and has undoubtedly proved that a strongwilled woman is an admirable match for any man.

ROLL ING AIR

During the mid-1960s, The Rolling Stones worked regularly with photographer Gered Mankowitz. His images show a young band battling their way to the top

WORDS: CHRIS ANDERSON

64

65

AIR

W

hen Mankowitz got the call in 1965 to tour America with The Rolling Stones, he had no idea what to expect. But far from being the biggest band in the world, at the time these were five young men looking to kick-start their career. “It wasn’t particularly glamorous, not how they tour nowadays,” the photographer reveals. “We were in the States for five weeks, playing sports arenas in all of the major cities, just the band, me, the support act and a single roadie. They would play venues that had been a rodeo the night before, with the smell of horses in the air, and they wouldn’t even have their own dressing rooms – they would get ready in a basketball team’s changing room, with sweaty sports kit hanging everywhere.”

But for Mankowitz – who in the decades that followed worked with a wide range of music stars, from Jimi Hendrix to Oasis – this remains one of his career highlights, aged only 19 and on tour with a band just a few years older than himself. “It was an extraordinary period, full of optimism and positivity,” he describes. “It was the peak of their initial success. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction had been a huge hit, getting to No 1 in America, and towards the end of the year Get Off of My Cloud was another big record.

Those two songs changed everything for them. They were suddenly one of the biggest bands in the UK.” Mankowitz had only just taken up photography, leaving school at 15 and encouraged by the late actor Peter Sellers, who was a family friend. He worked in studios around London to gain experience, and quickly acquired the confidence to set up on his own.

He found himself interested in the emerging music scene of the time, and after a photo session with singer Marianne Faithfull had caught the attention of her manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, who was keen for him to work with another of his acts, set to be his biggest to date.

The Rolling Stones back then consisted of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and the late Brian Jones. “I met them at Andrew’s office at the end of 1964,” Mankowitz recalls. “They were absolutely lovely – charming, friendly, funny and approachable. I think

They would play venues that had been a rodeo the night before, and they wouldn’t even have their own dressing rooms Andrew saw my youth as a positive, that my inexperience might contribute an honesty and an innocence in the picture-taking process, giving the Stones a chance to shine without any of the glamour that a more established photographer might have added.”

Oldham clearly had the idea of Mankowitz and the Stones developing a working relationship, and the young photographer found himself accepted into their circle. “I wasn’t their official photographer, I was just the go-to guy for the band in London during that period,” Mankowitz recalls. “We worked regularly together for the next two years, from 1965-67, and of course I got to go on tour to America with them.

They saw me as part of the team.”

Many books have been published over the years highlighting some of the best photos taken during this time.

Mankowitz currently has a new gallery 66

exhibition in London, allowing people to see his take on Mick, Keith and Co. up-close, and is about to launch another volume of work, Backstage: The Rolling Stones, focusing on the behindthe-scenes happenings at concerts, which he argues is often overlooked when compared to the live performance and studio images.

But Mankowitz has such an impressive Stones archive. He hit it off with the band so well that even their first session together at his photography studio in London’s West End proved fruitful, resulting in the cover for their third UK album, Out of Our Heads, EP and sheet music covers, and even passport photos for their upcoming tour of the United States.

“I shot other album covers – an American release, December’s Children (And Everybody’s), and another UK album, Between the Buttons,” he adds.

Opener: Keith at Home 1966 Left: Charlie Watts (top) and Bill Wyman (below) recording the Satanic Majesties album at Olympic Studios London 1967 This page: Mick Jagger & Aston Martin DB6 London 1966 Next page: The Rolling Stones Primrose Hill London 1966 All images ŠGered Mankowitz

67

68

AIR

“The latter was particularly memorable, on Primrose Hill in north London, very early in the morning after an all-night recording session. The band were tired and cold, and Brian in particular was uncooperative. Andrew told me to get on with it, as whatever happened would be interpreted as a Rolling Stones thing to have done. That was really good

They were absolutely lovely – charming, funny and approachable advice, it freed me a lot, and the band looked great in every image.”

The access Mankowitz had to the Stones would be impossible today, shooting them in the recording studio, on stage (“I was allowed anywhere, as long as I didn’t get in Mick’s way,” he says) and even at home.

“I spent a day with each of the band individually, photographing them at their houses and with their cars, for magazines who wanted that sort of thing,” he divulges.

When asked if the American tour was as crazy and eventful as fans might expect, Mankowitz laughs. “I hate to disappoint you,” he says. “Well, there were a few nights like that, but most of it was hard graft. We usually had to leave a gig and fly to the next city, often arriving in the early hours, trying to get some sleep at a motel. It was exhausting. In a few of the bigger cities, friends and family would arrive and we’d party in the traditional manner. I don’t remember anyone throwing a TV out of a hotel window or anything like that. We did get thrown out of one hotel in New York, but that was because fans were trying to bribe security to get into the band’s room, and at the place we got sent to, I accidentally set fire to my bed.

But apart from that...”

Off the Hook: The Rolling Stones by Gered Mankowitz runs until May 28 at Snap Galleries in London (www. snapgalleries.com). Backstage: The Rolling Stones by Gered Mankowitz is available from June 2016, published

by Ormond Yard Press, limited to 750 copies, price USD565 69

Motoring MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

One Man One Engine With haute design and couture engineering, Mercedes-AMG delivers motorsport excellence to the road (in style)

AIR

WORDS : CHRIS UJMA

70

71

M

ercy me! The sleek, long-hooded, taperedrear Mercedes-AMG GT resurrects age-old questions for the humble journalist: how do you define adrenaline? How do you harness excitement in words? How do you bottle that feeling – those seconds after emerging from a trackblistering performance in a motoring virtuoso – and communicate it to

AIR

A weapon of choice in the connoisseur-driver’s garage arsenal the reader? You’ve vaulted from 0-60 in 3.7 seconds, turned the drive programme dial to Sport+, tapped into a 503-horsepower, forced-induction biturbo V8 with its low low centre of gravity, and heard the rumbling growl.

You can grapple with the dictionary to describe the experience in this – and across the range of AMG-honed Mercedes creations – but their place as a weapon of choice in the connoisseurdriver’s garage arsenal requires much less deliberation.

Yet the whole outfit could almost, nearly, have never existed. When the motoring gods close one door, they sometimes open another (to a more immensely powerful vehicle), and for the engineering duo who would later create AMG, they had to recalculate the route to success. The eventual formation of the high-performance division was all because of Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher: a two-man dream-team, contently engineering in the hive of the DaimlerBenz Development department back in the 1960s. Their endeavour was being poured into finely-tuning a 300 SE racing engine… until the company deployed cold business sense and put the brakes on its motorsport development activities.

Undeterred, Aufrecht and Melcher (the ‘A’ and ‘M’) continued honing the engine at a house in Grossaspach (the ‘G’) – and it was an engine with such high performance that it rocketed Manfred Shiek to the German Touring Car Championship in 1965. They eventually both left Mercedes-Benz to concentrate on making road-vehicles

modelled after their title-winning racing car. In 1967 their collective passion for motoring excellence led to the foundation of (take a deep breath) Aufrecht Melcher Großaspach Ingenieurbüro, Konstruktion und Versuch zur Entwicklung von Rennmotoren. (Translated to English: ‘Aufrecht Melcher Großaspach engineering firm, design and testing for the development of racing engines’).

The intent was clear from the name: this was a niche company, but meant serious business. The 1971 iteration of 24 Hours of Spa put them firmly on the map due to an AMG Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 that, as Mercedes puts it, was: “A heavy luxury sedan pulling a fast one on the competing lighter race cars – this caused a sensation, and the name AMG spread throughout the world.”

When the company alludes to how it expanded upon excellence, they state that, “In the early 1970s, a new discipline evolved: customisation.

‘Impossible’ became a foreign word for the AMG team, and it remains so to this day. The attractive business 72

segment allowed AMG to grow to a medium-sized company with more and more foreign clients… AMG became an engine manufacturer in 1984 due to an innovation: Melcher developed a completely independent cylinder head with four valves per cylinder. In 1986, AMG implanted the 5.0-litre V8 in an E-class coupe, which received worldwide fame under the nickname ‘The Hammer’”. In the late 1980s, things came poetically full-circle for ‘A’

more-practical environs like ‘the icy cold of northern Sweden, the merciless heat of Death Valley, oxygen-depleted air on the 4300m high Mount Evans in Colorado, lapping the high-speed circuits in Nardo, and Papenburg, or in stop-and-go traffic in inner-city Stuttgart.’ Akin to a fine bottle of liquid vintage, maturity of these creations takes time: for example, development work on the AMG 5.5-litre V8 biturbo

Each model provides adrenaline and goosebumps at a moment’s notice

and ‘M’: they worked in co-operation with Diamler-Benz, and could tap into the wide Mercedes-Benz network.

This history lesson sets the scene nicely to understand the drive for innovation that powers the modern day, star-studded AMG lineup – which encompasses the A, C, CLA, CLS, E, G, GLA, GLE, GT, S, SL and SLC classes.

Because it is within this process of crafting ‘Driving Performance’ that AMG’s true auto-appreciation is earned.

We’ll start with the looks, even though that goes against the AMG grain of ‘form follows performance’: design-wise, motorsport elements abound, such as wider-wheel arches for the road grip of wider tyres, the fourexhausts and diffuser at the rear, and the visually-distinctive powerdomes on the hood that hint at the V8 or V12 underneath. These immense engines are thirsty – for oxygen – hence the calling card of stylised ‘A’-shaped air vents. Everything that looks good on these vehicles has purpose and value; visual attributes complement aerodynamics and purism.

Those engines (and more) emerge from the tuning division and vehicle development hub in Affalterbach, Germany. It is here that the ‘One Man, One Engine’ philosophy is practiced: one technician builds his single engine, assembled by hand from the ground up (assisted by advanced computer technology like AMG Trace, to ensure parts and statistics are logged). The engines are comprehensively pushed to their limits, be it bench tests or 73

engine – introduced in 2010 – began in 2006.

Effective horsepower generation sounds great, but AMG asserts that big numbers mean nothing without a transmission or drivetrain capable of translating raw torque into actual drivability. The company says that, ‘AMG transmission technology is born and tested in the world of motorsport, where a fraction of a second delay can cost a victory. Our transmissions are specifically designed for the unique requirements of our engines, ensuring extreme robustness, maximum efficiency and spontaneous gearshifts with no loss of tractive force.’

Granted, at this level of elite engineering, the tiniest details are mulled over and you can’t shake the comparisons with in-class autorivals. But turn the Agility Select from ‘Comfort’ into ‘Sport Plus’ or ‘Race’, and you’ll likely be turned too: to this brand of personalised driving performance.

In its own unique way, each MercedesAMG provides adrenaline and goosebumps at a moment’s notice; own one, and you’ve 45 years of motorsport experience at your fingertips (and under your foot, at the balancing of a pedal). A mighty Merc-AMG is built to perform, and to unleash the best of roadcar engineering. Start the machine, pause to think of the expertise of that ‘one man’ – who built your engine, and whose signature is on a nameplate upon it – then push down the accelerator and make him proud.

Explore a universe of history, engineering detail and bespoke customisation at mercedes-amg.com

Gastronomy MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

A Culinary Odyssey

Celebrity chef Vikas Khanna serves-up a fascinating tale of culture and cuisine, from small-town Punjab to Michelin-starred Manhattan

AIR

WORDS : ANNIE DARLING

74

I

ndia is lauded for its flavoursome curries and saporous spices. This intoxicating country simmers, sizzles and kneads a deliciously diverse repertoire of dishes, from masterfully marinated meats and deep-sea delights to crispy dosa and syrupy kulfi.

Michelin starred chef Vikas Khanna is devoted to the preservation of his homeland’s culinary treasures. A mindstirring mix of people, traditions and landscapes produce regionally distinct comestible creations, crafted using traditional techniques and presentation methods. However, Khanna explains that despite India’s already sterling reputation, thousands of hidden culinary gems – which showcase the country’s long-standing heritage and rich history – are yet to be unearthed.

The MasterChef India judge has spent the last 15 years collecting various pots and pans, which will be displayed in an upcoming living museum in Manipal, Karnataka. Last month, he laid the foundation stone for the USD4 million Culinary Arts and Culinary Museum, which is scheduled to open in August 2017. “People will be able to contribute to the museum’s collection by loaning or donating whatever family legacies they have,” he explains.

Khanna has already collected several thousand antique utensils. Various seed sowing instruments, wooden ladles and handsome rolling pins decorate the table. He picks up a particularly chunky item and runs his fingers along

If the road isn’t difficult, how can you enjoy your success? its bruised edges. “Indian dishes do not belong on the street,” he broods.

“These dishes are our country’s history; our legacy and craftsmanship, as well as our pain and our suffering. They’re works of art.”

Amritsar-born Khanna grew up familiar with fresh seasonal produce from Punjab’s fragrant fields. In 2000, he arrived in New York with no job offers and just a few dollars to his name. Initially Khanna accepted a job as a dishwasher at a small restaurant in Manhattan. He made ends meet by doing additional odd jobs, including

multiple part-time shifts at a local café.

“The restaurant scene in New York is amazing, but you have to be inventive.

There’s so much on offer and people have a short memory. You could be the greatest chef in New York today and tomorrow nobody will even know you.”

Years later, on the very same day that his second restaurant failed – Purnima, which he revamped on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares – Khanna was invited to a talk hosted by the Dalai Lama. “I told him I had failed. I was considering going back to India. He said: ‘No. You’re a dreamer and when you dream the hardest, you have to take the punch the hardest. The power comes from your ability to stand back up. You need to travel and read, you must explore something other than India.’ So that night I packed my bags and left for the Himalayas.”

Living in the mountains for several months, he then backpacked solo across the entire region, from Kashmir to Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh, Tibet and Sikkim. He wrote a book, Return to the Rivers, which features an incredible collection of recipes and photos from his time in the majestic valleys. “I learned that you must explore beyond what you initially think is beautiful.”

Khanna is now the author of several cookbooks, including the 16-kg goldencrusted Utsav, which chronicles Indian rituals and culinary cultures.

On December 2, 2010, 10 years to the day Khanna landed in New York, his flagship Junoon restaurant opened its doors in Manhattan. “The best day of my life was when my mother first came to Junoon.” Overcome with emotion, Khanna smiles as he wipes away tears.

“The restaurant was packed with 75

customers. All the guests stood up to shake my hand. My mother was listening to all their wonderful compliments and blessings. I don’t know how much she understood. As we walked to her table together, I thought about all the times we’d struggled together.

“The first time she visited me I didn’t even have a place to stay. My restaurant had just closed and there wasn’t anything I could show her to be proud of.” Within ten months of its launch, Junoon earned its first Michelin star.

“If the road isn’t difficult, how can you enjoy your success?” Khanna asks.

While I slurp nectarous piña colada mocktails and indulge in pools of spicy machar jhol in Junoon Dubai, Khanna shakes every hand and accepts every photo request with a glittering smile.

“I will never be a clone of anyone,” he insists. “I’ve done the television gigs, but I don’t want to become one of those chefs that open one successful restaurant named after them and just move on. I want to give back and make a difference.”

Khanna, who has cooked for President Barack Obama and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will premiere his debut documentary Kitchens of Gratitude at the Festival de Cannes this month. He’s also campaigning to raise USD1 million for the Smile Foundation India, a non-profit organisation that provides education and nutrition to disadvantaged children.

This chef has taken Asian flavours to unprecedented levels; he’s also the most recognised Indian culinary face on the global stage. This gourmand has ensured he’ll leave behind a legacy that lives up to Michelin starred prestige (and more).

Travel MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

4

Velaa Private Island, Maldives

AIR

journeys by jet

76

77

Y

ou always remember the first time your eyes meet with the ocean in the Maldives. It stirs your soul. So brilliantly vivid are the shades of blues and greens, so flawless is the water that laps gently at the powder-soft sand that it appears glass-like, a window to the multi-hued marine life below. So perfect is it all, in fact, it’s almost as if someone has photoshopped a personal scene for your eyes only.

If we were anywhere other than Velaa Private Island, you’d swiftly dismiss the idea as impossible, of course. But we are at Velaa Private Island, where anything is made possible.

This exceptionally picturesque, intimate island is the realisation of one man’s wish to create an island resort unlike any other in the Maldives.

One that truly lives up to its private billing (even when its 47 villas and residences are in use, you see few others). One that goes above and beyond, in order to deliver a customer experience that is without compromise.

Many a month did sole owner Jiri Smejc spend in the Maldives, sampling the offerings as a guest of myriad other resorts, departing each time with the personal opinion that nowhere offered the experience he sought, or hoped for.

But so fond of the Maldives is he, and so keen was he to spend his downtime there, that the obvious answer was to build an island resort of his very own.

And so he did.

Whereas some resorts in the Maldives cater to guests who still aspire, Velaa caters to the established. As such, it exudes an air of relaxed luxury, rather 78

than forced. Even the high-design, super-stylish signature restaurant allows for barefoot dining.

You can see how Velaa Private Island came to fruition via a gallery of midconstruction pictures which hang on crumbling stone walls within a small, traditional Maldivian dwelling, the only building on the island when Smejc arrived. That he kept it there and built around it (the dwelling now stands near the open-air reception) is testament to Smeic’s desire to respect the past and local culture (the name Velaa translates from the Maldivian word for turtle) while creating a thoroughly contemporary, luxury resort for the wider world.

True to his word, Smejc’s island offers the spectacular. And we find it everywhere we go. It’s there in Tavau, a

stunning, cylindrical tower fashioned from taught canvas where, inside, chefs (under the guidance of Michelinstarred Adeline Grattard) revel in showcasing their skills at the Teppan tables. It’s there in signature restaurant Aragu, an over-the-water expanse of elegance, heightened by light and an abundance of silver fish, suspended from the ceiling as if frozen mid-swim.

The finest ingredients in the world are deployed here, in visually arresting creations that taste every bit as good as they look. And it’s there in Cru, an enclave with cushioned seats that stretch along a wooden platform, a few feet above the ocean, from where you can sample some of the world’s finest and rarest bottles of bubbles.

Even those features ubiquitous in the Maldives, the over-water villas being

one, are done with a certain panache at Velaa – a sunken jacuzzi in the bathroom; a viewing panel of glass on the floor of the living room, depicting the sealife below. These villas face either the sunset or sundown, the latter granting nature the chance to put on a spectacular show of its own.

Watch from an infinity pool as a buttercup yellow gradually becomes burnt orange, before at its death, a burst of resplendent red sees the sun slip away beyond the ocean. Guests count themselves fortunate to see a sunset of such beauty again.

Of course, where there’s the

Any request is met at Velaa. That includes setting up a tee box. In the ocean. Right in front of your villa. If you don’t fancy making the five minute buggy ride to the academy.

The extraordinary extends to the over-water spa, one of a handful across the world operated in association with Clarins. It features the Maldives’ only ‘snow room’ (you don snow shoes and just a towel), and the intriguingly named Wolke 7 Cloud 9. The work of Sha, an Austrian artist and perception researcher, you rest inside a cloud shaped cocoon - tucked under a duvet - which gently rocks you into a deep

Buttercup yellow gradually becomes burnt orange, before at its death, a burst of resplendent red sees the sun slip away beyond the ocean spectacular is often the extraordinary.

Golf and the Maldives would appear the most unwilling of bedfellows, but Jose Maria Olazabel has created a quite incredible golf academy on Velaa. Nine different tees, six greens, seven bunkers and a lake, are all designed to sharpen your short game – although a PGAqualified professional is on hand to do the sharpening for you, naturally.

79

sleep as the lights and sounds fluctuate around you. Such are the private island-based moments that Velaa delivers, time and again.

Access by jet sees you land at Malé International Airport, from where you can charter a private seaplane (and a separate one for luggage), which takes 60 minutes to touch down at Velaa Private Island.

What I Know Now

AIR

MAY 2016 : ISSUE 60

Charlotte Olympia Luxury shoes and accessories designer

W

hen I was a child I really enjoyed watching old movies with my mother, in particular ones that featured the glittering stars of the silver screen.

These actors and actresses are the reason I fell in love with Hollywood glamour at such a young age.

personal style. I love movie stars and pin-up girls. American actress and dancer Rita Hayworth is a legendary Hollywood beauty and a personal favourite of mine. I love to create feminine designs inspired by these stunning idols and add a cheeky touch of humour.

The essence of Charlotte Olympia comes from my love for Old Hollywood.

The 1940s and 1950s represent a bygone era that I’m nostalgic for. This time period plays a huge part on the sensibility of the brand and my own

Our logo is a spider’s web. The idea came to me from E.B. White’s timeless classic; Charlotte’s Web. It appears on the sole of each shoe and is also referenced in a number of other designs. So many different things 80

inspire me, from places and people to art and fabrics. I like to give my collections a soul and a story. I collect beautiful things and try to translate their elegance by transforming everyday objects into something that’s wearable.

The opening of my first stand-alone retail store in London’s Mayfair was one of my proudest and most unforgettable moments to date. Being able to create the perfect environment to showcase my collections was absolutely incredible.

ABU DHABI AL AIN WESTERN REGION

27/ APR - 3/ MAY ABU DHABI INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR 2016 Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre The fastest growing book fair in the region will soon return with the world's leading publishing houses, book sellers and readers from across the world. The event features Ibn Rushd as the ‘Focus Personality of the Year’ and Italy as the Guest of Honour for its 26th edition.

3 - 7/ MAY

6/ MAY

7/ MAY

Abu Dhabi International Jewellery & Watch Show 2016

ACTIONHA on Yas Island

James and the Giant Peach

9 & 10/ MAY

UNTIL 10/ MAY

12 - 14/ MAY

China Philharmonic Orchestra with Long Yu

Portrait of Nation

Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer Live!

16/ MAY

UNTIL 17/ JUL

25 - 30/ MAY

Matthias Goerne: Winter Journey Manarat Al Saadiyat

Emirates Photography Competition Exhibition

Sweet Time Festival

26 - 29/ MAY

UNTIL 1/ JUN

Chic Lady Show Abu Dhabi

Multaqa Zayed National Museum

Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre

Emirates Palace/ UAE University

Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre

For more information abudhabievents.ae

Yas Marina Circuit

Abu Dhabi Theatre, Breakwater

Emirates Palace

Manarat Al Saadiyat

du Forum, Yas Island

Dalma Mall

Manarat Al Saadiyat

abudhabievents