FEBRUARY 2025
SELENA GOMEZ
THE HAUTE JOAILLERIE SPORT COLLECTION
NECKLACE IN WHITE GOLD AND PLATINUM, DIAMONDS, SAPPHIRE, RUBIES AND ONYX. 10.15-CARAT CUSHION-CUT SAPPHIRE FROM KASHMIR.
The Haute Joaillerie Sport Collection celebrates the sports style of CHANEL, anchored in the House’s history since the 1920s.
An unprecedented encounter between two worlds where elegance and excellence prevail. Designed to become one with the wearer, each jewellery creation expresses the contours of an allure according to CHANEL—that of a woman always on the move.
The necklace’s sapphire comes from an exceptional set of five stones from Kashmir that were meticulously sourced for the collection. The chevron motif and the ruby gradation in pure, simple lines evoke rhythm and speed. Creations designed to accentuate the freedom of the body and the elegance of movement.
FEATURES
Twenty Eight This
Selena Gomez, successful actor, beauty entrepreneur and mental health advocate, on not trying to be anything other than herself.
Thirty Four Face Time
A new blockbuster exhibition details how unconventional portraiture and fashion photography helped The Face make a huge cultural impact.
Forty Two The Man In Black
As an era defining designer, filmmaker and creative director, Tom Ford’s legacy has long been cemented. Next up? Raising his son.
Is Me
Credit: Kate Moss, by Glen Luchford, styled byVenetia Scott, March 1993
© Glen Luchford
Bespoke Luxury Safes
REGULARS
Fourteen Radar
Sixteen Objects of Desire
Eighteen Art & Design
Twenty Two Jewellery
Twenty Six Timepieces
Fifty Motoring
Fifty Eight Travel
Sixty What I Know Now
Fifty Four Gastronomy
As one of the world’s best chefs, Martín Berasategui knows – and shares – the recipe for a good life.
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief & Co-owner
John Thatcher john@hotmedia.me
COMMERCIAL
Managing Director & Co-owner
Victoria Thatcher
PRODUCTION
Digital Media Manager Muthu Kumar
The Emory Like
No Other
Brought to you by Maybourne, The Emory is a modern masterwork by Richard Rogers and Ivan Harbour.
Welcome Onboard
FEBRUARY
The future of air travel is changing, and it’s changing fast. In 2025, the vision of sustainable air mobility – once a concept confined to science fiction – is becoming a reality, transforming the way we think about transportation in urban and regional spaces. With climate change driving the urgency for greener solutions, the aviation industry is finally at the forefront of innovation.
Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, or air taxis, are leading this transformation. These sleek, electric-powered vehicles promise to cut emissions while providing a faster, quieter, and more efficient way to travel short distances. Imagine skipping the traffic on your morning commute or travelling between cities in a fraction of the time – all without adding to the carbon footprint of traditional air travel.
The potential is massive. Cities are starting to build the infrastructure for these services, from charging stations to ‘vertiports’ designed for quick takeoffs and landings. Governments and private companies are investing heavily in sustainable aviation technologies, recognising their role in decarbonising transportation. And with advancements in battery technology, the range and efficiency of these aircraft are steadily improving.
Private aviation companies, like Jetex, are also stepping in to make sustainable air mobility a practical reality. By integrating air taxis into their networks, companies like this are helping lay the groundwork for a future where luxury travel meets sustainability.
2025 Contact Details:
Not just about cutting emissions, sustainable air mobility is also about rethinking how we connect with one another. Whether it’s reducing congestion in sprawling cities or offering eco-conscious alternatives for short-haul travel, the sky is no longer the limit – it’s the next frontier for a greener future.
As always, thank you for choosing Jetex for your global private jet travels. All of us look forward to taking you higher in utmost comfort and luxury – and with complete peace of mind.
Adel Mardini Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Cover : Selena Gomez by Micaiah Carter/AUGUST
The Future of Air Travel Takes Flight
Jetex takes another step on its pathway to sustainability
When you think of private aviation, the words ‘luxury’ and ‘convenience’ might come to mind. But Jetex, the global leader in executive aviation, is determined to add a new word to the list: sustainability.
In partnership with Joby Aviation, a developer of electric air taxis for commercial passenger transport, Jetex is setting the stage for a future where reduced carbon footprint air travel is the norm, rather than the exception. This collaboration aims to bring Joby’s sleek electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to Jetex’s flagship terminals across the Middle East, starting with Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
“At Jetex, sustainability is a key focus of our strategy, and our
partnership with Joby represents an important step forward in achieving our vision of greener skies,” says Adel Mardini, Founder & CEO of Jetex. “We are committed to driving innovation that reduces our industry’s environmental impact, and integrating Joby’s electric air taxis into our network allows us to deliver cleaner, quieter and more sustainable travel experiences, starting in the UAE.”
As Jetex continues to align with global sustainability, the company is proving that luxury and eco-consciousness can –and should – go hand in hand.
In Jetex’s world, the sky is no longer the limit; it’s the beginning of a greener, more connected future.
‘ The sky is no longer the limit; it’s the beginning of a greener, more connected future ’
IMAGINE YOUR S PACE
Imagine a space where your inspiration can run free. A world that tells your own story, every single day
RAK Ceramics we help create the perfect living space, for you and your loved ones. Imagine your space
It’s arguably the most famous stretch of road in the world, home to cultural, retail and architectural behemoths and now the subject of a new book that celebrates its transformation across centuries. Fifth Avenue: 200 Years of Stories and Legends , published by Assouline, uses fascinating images –and the engaging words of renowned author Jay McInerney – to chart the avenue’s evolution from quiet residential street flanked by mansions to its cemented position as a cornerstone of New York City life.
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Master craftsmanship, effortless style and timeless appeal; this month’s must-haves and collectibles
Whatever your opinion of Alessandro Michele’s spotlight-stealing stint at the helm of Gucci, it was always going to run out of steam, as does everything that captures the zeitgeist. Since taking over as the brand’s Creative Director, Sabato De Sarno has championed Gucci’s
well-earned credentials for exceptional tailoring, reminding us of what Gucci has always done best by letting those many exquisite details do all the talking. For his Pre-Fall 2025 collection, De Sarno adds a dash of 70s style to his contemporary vision.
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
A new tote to join the Ghiera line of bags, the Ghiera Shopper features all the hallmarks of Loro Piana’s masterful craftsmanship and restrained yet easily identifiable elegance. It comes fashioned from cashmere, natural canvas or supple cashmere-lined leathers, and in either a
small or large size. Additionally, inside it is a handy zippered pouch, which can be used as a shoulder bag or a handbag. It also comes in an almost countless number of colourways – including a tan-brown nubuck version that’s lined with cashmere.
LORO PIANA GHIERA SHOPPER
SOTHEBY’S ORIGINS
In an historic event that will mark the first ever international auction to be staged in Saudi Arabia, Sotheby’s will place over 100 lots under the hammer on February 8. Titled ‘Origins’, it includes rare artworks by the likes of René Magritte, Andy Warhol and Pablo
Picasso, and a whole host of luxury handbags, jewellery and timepieces, chief among them this Cartier Crash, a unique, privately commissioned piece from 2007 that’s marked 1 of 1. It’s expected to achieve between $130,000-260,000.
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Available now to order as a coupé or cabriolet with rear-wheel drive, the new 911 Carrera S is billed as the most dynamic to date, thanks in part to a significant power upgrade on its predecessor, a feat achieved through, among many things, new turbochargers.
The coupé version accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 3.3 seconds and will hit a top speed of 308 km/h (assuming you haven’t been pulled over before then). Thankfully, a new brake system also offers a significant upgrade in terms of driving dynamics.
Prior to its unveiling last month in Milan’s Palazzo Serbelloni, Brioni’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection was heralded for its lightness – and the feeling of freedom that affords – by the label’s creative director, Norbert Stumpfl. It’s the reason, he believes, his always-on-the-go clients find favour with the brand. Certainly, it’s a feature throughout a collection that brings together the likes of a shirt handwoven from cashmere, beautifully constructed suits, and just the right amount of handapplied detailing.
BRIONI FALL/WINTER 2025
As it has done since 2016, Hublot has chosen to celebrate Chinese New Year by issuing a limited (to 88 pieces) iteration of its Spirit of Big Bang timepiece. On this occasion it’s the snake that slithers into the spotlight on the signature open dial, its gold-plated, three-dimensional
and artfully engraved form encircling the chronograph’s three counters. Elsewhere, the timepiece’s black ceramic case is topped by a screwed ceramic bezel that’s engraved to reveal a pattern of snake scales, which extends to the black rubber strap.
HUBLOT SPIRIT OF BIG BANG YEAR OF THE SNAKE
PIAGET
ALTIPLANO SKELETON HIGH JEWELLERY MÉTIERS D’ART
“A watch is first and foremost a piece of jewellery,” said Yves G. Piaget. And as if to prove his point, Piaget has created a timepiece that marries the arts of skeleton watchmaking, gem-setting and cloisonné enamelling. With its skeleton set with diamonds and blue sapphires,
acclaimed enamel artist Anita Porchet applied a palette of blue, green and purple hues in Grand Feu cloisonné enamel to the dial’s front and back.
Limited to eight pieces, each is co-signed Piaget’s Ateliers de l’Extraordinaire and Anita Porchet.
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Flower Power
He’s one of the most followed artists on Instagram and is in demand from music megastars to luxury brands, no wonder Takashi Murakami’s work is joyful
WORDS: VICKY JESSOP & JOHN THATCHER
Joy. If ever a single word could convey the fundamental emotion derived from an artist’s lifetime of work, then when it comes to Takashi Murakami joy is that word. Characterised – and instantly recognisable – by its eye-popping bright colours and playful nature, a genre-forming fusion of Pop, anime, otaku graphics and classical Japanese painting techniques that Murakami terms “Superflat”, his approach has made him one of the most famous artists in the world – one hugely sought after for potential collaborations with fellow artists and luxury brands.
To highlight his standing, Murakami is currently in the middle of his biggest show in over a decade, hosted by London’s Gagosian Gallery, and a huge collab with Louis Vuitton (the first chapter of which was released last month, the second to follow next month) twenty years after their first.
“I don’t think of it as straddling,” he told Artinfo in 2008 about blurring the line between creative and commercial. “I think of it as changing the line… Japanese people accept that art and commerce will be blended; and in fact, they are surprised by the rigid and pretentious Western hierarchy of ‘high art.’ In the West, it certainly is dangerous to blend the two because people will throw all sorts of stones. But that’s okay — I’m ready with my hard hat.”
Born in Tokyo in 1962, Murakami has always walked his own path. “The origin of my art lies in my experiences during the first half of the 1970s, when Japan was still rebuilding itself after losing World War II,” the artist wrote for CNN in 2019.
“Western paintings were being brought into the country, and going to exhibitions had become a very popular pastime. Every Sunday, my parents would take us to see these works, and I detested the experience.”
Instead, Murakami became a self-confessed ‘otaku’, or geek, diving into the worlds of manga, anime and animation.
“I became obsessed with ‘Ultraman,’ robot anime and sport-themed manga about boxing and baseball,” he added. “I believe these experiences have a lot to do with how I now make films and animations, alongside paintings and sculptures.”
Murakami eventually made it into art school, where he was forced to study the history of Japanese art –including the Nihonga style, which he initially hated and which has since become the basis of his own art. What he ended up with was a distinctive aesthetic that fused elements of pop culture, commercial art and traditional Japanese art and motifs together: combining high and low art to create something unique and fresh. It was a departure from elitism that has since spawned a whole movement.
It’s also sparked controversies. Murakami’s initial artworks were treated with scepticism in Japan: in particular his 1997 piece My Lonesome Cowboy, which was constructed during Murakami’s ‘bodily fluids’ period and sold for $15.1m at Sotheby’s in
2008. Murakami’s best-selling piece ever.
Many of his pieces have since become bestsellers. That includes 2010’s Flowers, Flowers, Flowers (which depict his now-iconic smiling flower motifs), 1996’s Japanese-leaning 727 and 2000’s Mr Wink, Cosmos Ball.
Over the years, he’s also collaborated with designers including Issey Miyake Men by Naoki Takizawa – but the one that launched him into the stratosphere was his first collaboration with Louis Vuitton. His kaleidoscopic take on the LV monogram marked the first time in history that it had been reworked. It elevated him to the status of national treasure in Japan and was followed by a flurry of other commissions.
In 2007, he designed the cover art for Kanye West’s album Graduation; in 2009 he and Pharell Williams created a sculpture together for ArtBasel; in 2018 he worked with the designer Virgil Abloh on a series of new artworks; and in 2019 he directed and animated the music video for Billie Eilish’s music video ‘You Should See Me in a Crown’ – something that Murakami later said took him eight months to create.
That same year, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People – the only visual artist to make the list.
Murakami’s current collaboration with Louis Vuitton consists of more than 200 creations across women’s leather goods and accessories that reimagine and update the original collection, everything from a trunk and bags to silk squares, sunglasses and a skateboard, with that now iconic multicoloured monogram rebirthed and applied using cutting-edge digital printing.
Meanwhile, Murakami’s latest show, Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami, shows until March 8 and draws heavily from traditional Japanese art, reimagining traditional pieces of artwork in a Murakami style. His work Rakuchū-Rakugai-zu Byōbu: Iwasa Matabei RIP (2023–24) is modelled on Iwasa Matabei’s Rakuchū-Rakugai-zu Byōbu (Scenes in and around Kyoto) (Funaki Version) from the 17th century. However, Murakami has added skulls, flower-faced figures and his iconic Mr. DOB character.
Other works include figure and flower paintings, reworkings of traditional Japanese screens and paintings of cherry
‘Japanese people accept that art and commerce will be blended ’
Opening pages, from left to right: Louis Vuitton x Murakami
Opposite page, from top to bottom: White Tiger and Family, 2024 © 2024 Takashi Murakami/ Kaikai Kiki Co; Maiko in Springtime Kyoto, 2024 © 2024 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co
This page, clockwise from left: RakuchūRakugai-zu Byōbu: Iwasa Matabei RIP, 2023–24 © 2023-2024 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co; Louis Vuitton x Murakami; Blue Dragon Soars Through the Universe, 2024 © 2024 Takashi Murakami/ Kaikai Kiki Co
blossom events – but adding in pops of ‘Superflat’ artwork. One of them involved combining his own sketches with AIgenerated images to create a fresh take on depicting the mythical guardians of Kyoto city.
These days, Murakami splits his time between Japan and his Kaikai Kiki offices in the US, and is still adapting bits from contemporary culture into his artwork.
“Recently I have been greatly inspired by the TV show Shōgun, seeing Japanese culture depicted from the American perspective, which is something that I have also reflected in my art,” he tells us. His dream collaborators in future?
“David Beckham’s football team. Inter Miami.”
As for his fame, he says he’s grown used to it – an achievement for a man who boasts 2.6m Instagram followers and fans that include Drake (in his song ‘Going Bad’ with Meek Mill, he boasts about having a “lot of Murakami in the hallway”).
“I didn’t used to like this, but now I have come to terms with it, and I accept it,” he told Vogue in 2023.
“I am actually becoming the old guy character. I’m the character that has lived a long life and has a lot of experience. So maybe I’m famous but I’m a famous old guy. It’s actually easier for me. I can say anything, and people will say, ‘Oh, it’s just the old guy!’ That’s the character I am going for.”
Japanese Art History à la Takashi Murakami is at the Gagosian Grosvenor Hill Gallery, London until March 8.
Chapter One of Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami is available now, with Chapter Two to follow in March
The Royal Treatment
An ode to everlasting love and designed by a princess, Sirivannavari’s high jewellery collection is the stuff of fairytales
WORDS: JOHN THATCHER
IRajakanya
These
‘ The challenge lay in thoughtfully selecting and applying the right techniques for each design ’
t began with a desire for everlasting love, from which a resplendent mix of 62 limited edition and one-of-a-kind high jewellery pieces were handcrafted, each intended to be passed down through generations and cherished by their owners. To be loved. And loved again.
“Each piece is unique, characterised by intricate details that bear testament to Thailand’s inherited métiers d’art, a heritage of exceptional craftsmanship in jewellery making,” says HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya, Creative Director of her eponymous brand Sirivannavari, which has partnered with one of the country’s leading jewellery houses, Beauty Gems, to produce Amour Eternal. “It incorporates rare and sought-after savoir-faire, including intaglio or gem carving, fancy-cut expertise, green wax casting, openwork structures, and more.
“The challenge lay in thoughtfully
Dior, Balmain and Giorgio Armani.
As such, her jewellery designs are often complemented by diverse setting techniques, echoing the painstaking techniques applied in couture, as she intends for her pieces – from necklaces to bracelets, rings to earrings – to be worn as close as possible to the skin.
One such piece is a lattice choker, designed to feel as soft and light as lace, for which Beauty Gems’ craftsmen achieved a stunning combination of sparkling diamonds and vivid blue sapphires set in pendeloques.
meticulously applied and adapted to fit each design, its purpose, and functionality, bringing to life the story of HRH Princess Sirivannavari’s
Sriorathaikul, Managing Director of Beauty Gems. “This is achieved through rare lapidary techniques, such as the briolette cut, which maximises the reflection of diamonds by faceting the entire drop-shaped stone with double rose cuts or dual triangles. Another remarkable feature is the invisible setting, which enhances the brilliance of stones by reworking princesscut diamonds to fit securely against one another within a metal border or rail, making the jewel’s structure as inconspicuous as possible.”
There’s nothing inconspicuous about the stones used.
“Every element is as rare as it is precious, including a batch of
Previous page: HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana
pages, clockwise from left: AI Majestic Paon diamond brooch; Siamese Elephant Legacy brooch; Cascade of Leaves earrings; Pergola of Tournament; Crown of Blossoms ring
Padparadscha sapphires, renowned for their extraordinary and exotic colour range – a unique blend of pink and orange. The name itself is borrowed from the ancient Sanskrit word describing the hue of a tropical lotus flower at sunset,” enthuses Sriorathaikul. “Equally exceptional is the sugar-loafshaped tanzanite. With tanzanite being 1,000 times rarer than a diamond, it is considered a ‘one-generation gem.’”
That batch of highly prized Padparadscha sapphires has been used to form Edge of Symmetric Parure, an exceptional set comprised of a necklace, earrings and a ring, the designs of which highlight the contrast between the graphic angles of different cut diamonds. The components, including round, square, baguette and trapezoid shapes, are arranged to capture incoming light. This light is then directed towards the pink sapphire, which has been expertly cut into a teardrop shape,
complemented by 17 detailed oval beads for the necklace, two beads for each earring, and one bead for the ring.
Amour Eternal comprises two chapters: Love of Nature and Symbols of Sirivannavari, the latter reflecting elements of the designer’s signature traits, including her deep appreciation of Art Deco style. This is present in two pairs of radiant earrings, Cascade of Leaves and Cascade of Petals, the articulated nature of which, enabling them to hang like lengths of shimmering, satin ribbon, are another nod to Sirivannavari’s fashion roots. In the former we find the Symphony of Gardenia earrings, designed to convey the Princess’ fondness for Thailand’s native flowers. Combining white diamonds, white gold and the vivid blue of tanzanite, the three-dimensional earrings are enhanced by meticulous openwork, creating a flower rich in detail.
That’s also true of the Cattleya Queen Sirikit Orchid diamond brooch, with each part of the orchid flower, from its lip to its column, petals to its sepals, a faithful and dazzling reproduction of the flower’s innate beauty. Another brooch that showcases equally exquisite detailing is the Majestic Paon, an homage to the rare white peacock. While the raised shape of design and supple white gold structure offer the piece a graphic, embossed effect, the overlapping of openwork feather motifs intensifies the sparkle of various diamond shapes, from round to brilliant, baguette to square, and pear to briolette, while showcasing extreme attention to detail to faithfully capture the peacock’s grace. Naturally, though, it is the Thai elephant, the nation’s symbol, that strikes the most majestic note as a brooch clad in an abundance of sparkling diamonds and coloured stones.
This page, clockwise from centre: Panache of Sapphires ring; Edge of Symmetric necklace; Lace of Briolette necklace
Opening Chapter
Independent watchmaker Adnane Kerd on his debut brand, Guebly
Behind every great watch collection is the story of how it started. The first watch. For Switzerland-based Adnane Kerd, it was a distinctive dial that lured the then nine year old toward a life he’s since spent indulging his passion for timepieces. “I discovered it at a flea market,” he recalls. “It was a simple three-hand watch featuring Tintin and Snowy [characters from Hergé’s comic book series, The Adventures of Tintin]. At the time, I was fascinated by the design. But it was only years later that I realised it was Swiss-made and that its dial was actually a miniature painting.”
That keen eye served Kerd well as he ventured from avid collector to independent watchmaker with the launch of his own brand, Guebly, named after a Mediterranean wind.
It took its official bow at last year’s Geneva Watch Week, where it debuted its first piece, the ‘Prologue’ version of Chapter 1, the commercial version of which (the few Prologue pieces were made for family and friends)
Kerd hopes will whip up a bit of a storm in the industry. “I aim to bring something fresh and timeless – a handcrafted everyday watch where every detail is carefully designed and finished with precision.
“As a collector and watchmaker, I wanted to create my own vision of watchmaking, combining artistry and technical expertise to offer something personal and unique.”
Fashioned from grade 5 titanium and sized at 42mm, Chapter 1 pairs an angular design with a round, sloping bezel. But where it’s most striking is on the lower half of the dial, where a retrograde seconds hand jumps back to the start on the count of 30 seconds.
“The concept for my debut watch evolved naturally, alongside my journey in watchmaking,” says Kerd. “It drew inspiration from my personal collection, my growing expertise, and the invaluable connections I’ve made in the industry. Over time, the design and technical aspects matured, culminating in a watch that I feel
represents my vision and dedication. It’s a reflection of both my passion and the influences I’ve absorbed from the world of independent horology.”
One such influence is the desire to ensure that every part of the timepiece, whether visible or not, is hand finished to absolute perfection.
Additional artistry on Chapter 1 includes a guilloche dial, grand feu enamel and gold-applied markers for the retrograde seconds. And to ensure this was all best in class, Kerd engaged with leading independent figures from the industry. “The individuals and companies I chose to work with are among the best in the Swiss independent artisanal watchmaking scene. Each one is highly skilled and already works at the highest level, collaborating with respected independent watchmakers such as Kari Voutilainen and Sylvain Pinaud. I specifically sought out people who share a deep passion for their craft and a commitment to excellence,” he says, including the highly skilled enameller, Maelle Constant.
WORDS: JOHN THATCHER
Similarly, it was independents to whom Kerd turned when looking for retailers for his debut piece; his plan to build a network of exclusive retailers in each market. “I believe in working with retailers who truly understand and appreciate my vision. They need to have the ability to explain my work with clarity and passion. Additionally, I prioritise retailers who focus primarily on independent watchmaking brands, as they often share a deep commitment to craftsmanship and storytelling. Essentially, I look for partners who are as passionate about horology as I am and who can connect with customers on a meaningful level.”
As of last October, that growing list of retail partners includes Perpétuel Gallery in Dubai, whose founder, Hamdan Bin Humaid Al Hudaidi, believes Guebly “embodies the very
‘ I specifically sought out people who share a deep passion for their craft and a commitment to excellence ’
essence of artisanal watchmaking.”
Production of Chapter 1 is limited to 100 pieces, with 15 per year. Is that limit born out of a current necessity or a policy Kerd wishes to continue moving forward? “The limited production is a deliberate choice and a principle I plan to uphold. By keeping production small, I can devote more time and attention
to each individual piece, ensuring the highest level of finishing.”
As the brand approaches the end of its debut year, what have been Kerd’s most valued takeaways? “The most important lesson I’ve learnt is to believe in your dreams and stay true to your vision. The journey of launching and running an independent watch brand is filled with challenges, but perseverance and passion make it all worthwhile. Each challenge has been an opportunity to grow, refine my craft, and strengthen my commitment to my goals.
“This year you can expect new developments that stay true to our values – timeless design, unparalleled craftsmanship, and a deep respect for the art of watchmaking. My aim is to keep surprising and delighting collectors who share my passion for independent horology.”
Above: Adnane Kerd
Selena Gomez, successful actor, beauty entrepreneur and mental health advocate, is also currently making the best work of her career. No wonder the child actor turned adult superstar is just happy to be herself
INTERVIEW: JENNY DAVIS WORDS: JOHN THATCHER
The road from Disney Channel star to adulthood fame is well trodden, if just as often more than a little rocky, due to growing up under the unrelenting gaze of the public eye. The likes of Britney Spears, Zendaya and Ryan Gosling have all walked it to varying degrees of comfort (heavily skewed towards dis comfort for females) but only Selena Gomez has had to do so with the added pressure of being, thanks to Instagram, the most followed woman on Earth. Toss in the fact that she juggles her TV and film work with her role as founder of Rare Beauty, the cosmetics line that’s worth a reported $2 billion, and it’s all the more remarkable that she is so refreshingly laid back and down to earth.
“There’s something very special about her,” said Karla Sofia Gascón, Gomez’s co-star in the Netflix musical Emilia Pérez, which scooped a Golden Globe last month and hopes for an Oscar next, while all three of its female stars (Zoe Saldaña completing the trio) shared the award for Best Actress at Cannes. In typical Gomez fashion, such success is met with honesty. “I’m very honoured, but I also don’t like jinxing things. I know that sounds so immature, but I’m always like, ‘Oh, it’s okay. Everything’s fine. We’re doing good.’ And Zoe will always shake me and say, ‘Enjoy it.’ I’m just the kind of person, like, ‘It could be gone tomorrow. We don’t know. This could all come crashing down!’ It’s just that sometimes my head gets in my own way.”
The time she spent on set with her co-stars was equally rewarding. “I know I’m not young. I’m 32, but I felt like these women had wisdom and courage that I’ve never quite experienced before,” says Gomez of her co-stars. “They were very positive. They were honoured and humbled and excited to do something like this, and I learned a lot from them.
“We’re always in communication. We all kind of have anxiety a little bit. So, usually before [stepping out into the spotlight] we’re always holding hands, and the support of that sisterhood is really nice.
“Zoe is like Mother Nature. She is the tender one. And Karla will make
‘ Nobody has to like me, but they do have to respect me, because I will always stand up for myself no matter what the case is ’
you laugh like no one’s business; she is just fierce and just fully bold in herself. I really cherish them, for sure.”
Gomez was born in Grand Prairie, Texas, in 1992, to high school parents who were aged sixteen and fifteen and who subsequently split up when Gomez was five. “That’s not as impressive as I’m sure maybe you wanted, but that was my reality.” To support the infant Selena, her mother, Mandy, worked three jobs and Gomez remembers her doing “a hundred million things to make me happy.”
An aspiring actress, Mandy would inadvertently pass on the acting bug to the young Selena. “My parents were never people to push me to do anything, but my mom did a lot of theatre. She would bring me along to rehearsals and I completely just admired what she was doing and just felt the urge to want to be a part of it. She just said, ‘Okay. It’s going to be a lot of work, but if you want to try it, I’ll support you.’ And then I got on Barney & Friends,” she laughs. It presumably paved the way to Disney? “Not at all. If anything, that probably scared them! No, Disney Channel did a nationwide casting search when I was about 11, and they narrowed it down to five girls and flew me to LA for the first time. The pilot I did didn’t get picked up, but one man that I give all credit to for getting my first job is Gary Marsh [Executive Producer]. He believed in me and gave me Wizards of Waverly Place.”
She describes working on Wizards, which was filmed before a live audience every Friday night, as “the biggest high you could ever get. It was the coolest feeling to make a kid laugh uncontrollably, because it’s pure. I’ll never forget recognising that we had this influence to make people and kids feel good.” Gomez has recently returned to the show
as Executive Producer. “It’s very important to me to honour where I came from. I’m proud of it, and making something that my little sister (Gracie, whom her mum had when she remarried) can watch and enjoy and look up to is the greatest gift.”
What does she remember of the industry back then? “I think, at first, living in a bit of oblivion was nice. You know, they say sometimes being naive can be a little bit more blissful. But I’ve learned that the older I get the more knowledge I have, and the more discernment I have. I’m more understanding of people’s intentions and motivations and my boundaries –that shift really did happen. It didn’t mean that my life wasn’t stressful. This is, fortunately and unfortunately, all I’ve ever known. So I’ve had to figure out how to grow up in that and that hasn’t really always looked maybe the way people thought, but it was my journey and I’m proud of it.”
Having her mother at hand to help guide Gomez navigate her way from Disney to adulthood proved an invaluable asset. “I think in this industry when you gain a little success, people tend to say, ‘You’re great, you’re amazing, you’re perfect, you’re this...’ And that can get very deluded and people can start to believe that. I will say my mom was a person that would look me in the eye and say, ‘I’m going to be the one to tell you ‘no’. I’m going to be the one to say you’re not going to that after-party just because you walked the carpet. You’re 16.’ And I’d go, ‘Oh’. That doesn’t mean I didn’t rebel eventually! [laughs] But, it was really important for me to have that.
“Unfortunately, I did experience things. A lot of surprisingly racial things, a lot of confrontation with, you know, the complications of being a female and wanting to make sure I don’t feel overly sexualised. I’m very grateful my mom went into every room with me. She never allowed me to go into an empty room alone or with an executive. And I think that all paid off, to me being an adult and able to say, ‘This is what makes me comfortable and this is what doesn’t.’”
Like most Disney stars who graduate from Mickey’s kingdom, Gomez also dabbled in music, part of her repertoire that – apart from singing in Emilia
Pérez – she has put on the back burner. “When you’re releasing music, it’s super vulnerable,” she says, preferring the comfort of filming where “You’re just kind of in a bubble. I’m very awkward socially, but when I’m on set I just feel the most comfortable that I could possibly feel. Something about it just doesn’t make me feel like I’m something that people gawk at. I feel like a normal person. I hang out with 70-year-olds like Steve [Martin] and Marty [Short] – it’s the best. They’re big inspirations to me.”
That’s Only Murders In The Building, the offbeat and multi-award winning murder-mystery in which Gomez stars alongside those two aforementioned comedy legends. Can she pinpoint one particular trait she has learned from them? “I don’t know if I could just say one. It is their class professionalism, their grace, their unbelievable kindness. These people have been working longer than I’ve been alive, and they are the most equipped actors. They also have a work ethic that sometimes I don’t feel exists anymore, and I respect it deeply.
“They’re just very personable, and I love that. And then, when we added Meryl [Streep], she was just the same way. I think there was something when people made movies or shows back in the day that had this magic
‘ I’m very awkward socially. But when I’m on set I just feel the most comfortable I could possibly feel ’
of people just wanting to be good and having a good time. I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels really safe. And it feels like they’re all there for the right reasons, and they care, and it just makes for a more enjoyable environment.”
One environment that can feel the exact opposite is online, where Gomez has been asked why she posts about her personal life if she wants to maintain a level of privacy. “And I’ll say, because if I didn’t, it would be a lot of people trying to figure it out and invading my privacy. It’s just choices that I make to keep my life balanced. I’m not trying to be anything other than who I am. I’m sure I’m not meant for everyone. Nobody has to like me, but they do have to respect me, because I will always stand up for myself no matter what the case is. I will always be proud to stay on my ground and just find peace within myself.”
Above: still from Only Murders in the Building (2021)
Right: still from Emilia Perez (2004)
A new blockbuster exhibition details how unconventional portraiture and fashion photography helped The Face make a huge cultural impact
WORDS JOHN THATCHER
These pages: Global Warming TV, photographed and styled by Inez & Vinoodh, September 1994 ©Inez & Vinoodh/courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery
In this age of mass, fragmented media saturation, it’s hard to imagine that one single magazine not only reflected the presiding culture of its time but steered it. But so influential was The Face, the UKbased but very much transatlantic music-and-style print publication of the 80s and 90s, that it’s been the subject of countless articles, books and exhibitions, the latest of which opens this month at London’s National Portrait Gallery.
“Because of The Face’s wide distribution, it attracted readers and contributors from all over the world, all sharing an almost tribal sense that here, finally, was a publication that ‘got them’,” wrote Lindsay Barker for the BBC.
The Face was founded by Nick Logan, who spotted a gap in the market for a monthly title aimed at a youth audience interested in a broad range of subjects that weren’t being featured in glossy fashion publications, teen magazines or the music weeklies. By doing so, he would ultimately invent a new genre of publishing: the style magazine.
It was diverse and multi-racial, talked of fashion, clubbing, music, film, politics and much more besides, winning an Amnesty International Media Award for its feature story on child soldiers in Somalia, and championed creative freedom among its many contributors, giving rise to innovative graphic design and photographers and stylists who would go on to be the most influential of their time, including the likes of Nick Knight, Juergen Teller, David LaChapelle, Corinne Day and Isabella Blow.
It also introduced a slew of new ‘faces.’
“Art director Phil Bicker had shown me a picture of an unknown young model from Croydon,” remembered the magazine’s then editor, Sheryl Garratt to The Guardian. “He suggested that this teenager could become the face of the new Face, and we put her on the cover in May 1990, wearing an Italia 90 football shirt. Her name was Kate Moss, but no one really noticed.
“The cover people did notice was in July: a black-and-white image of Moss wrinkling her nose in a goofy grin.”
‘ As photography evolved in the 90s from analogue to digital formats, TheFacewas at the forefront of exploring the creative potential ’
These pages, clockwise from above: André 3000, by James Dimmock, December 2000 ©James Dimmock; Madonna, by Jean Baptiste Mondino, June 1990 ©Jean Baptiste Mondino; Girls on Bikes (Sarf Coastin’), by ElaineConstantine, styled by Polly Banks, December 1997
©Elaine Constantine
‘ The Face has produced some of the most innovative fashion and portrait photography of its time ’
It’s widely credited with helping launch Moss’ career.
That photograph, unconventional, with its subject looking natural and authentic, is what The Face did best.
“It’s a great photo, it sums everything up,” said the magazine’s then art director, Phil Bicker.
Heathermary Jackson joined the magazine as fashion director in 2002. “It was big. The way they would break people before anyone else, and the way we shot them in a new and completely different way. I remember when we shot Destiny’s Child in Dublin in 2001. I had no idea who they were. But I remember the parameters. Beyoncé’s mum was there, we couldn’t shoot anything that sat above the knee, there was gospel music playing. In the end we did something naughty and used just Beyoncé on the cover, then three months later it broke that she was going out on her own. It was so prophetic. That was just The Face for you,” she told The Guardian.
Such iconic portraiture, coupled with what was groundbreaking fashion photography, forms the basis of The Face Magazine: Culture Shift, for which London’s National Portrait
Gallery has sourced 200 prints from over 80 photographers, the first major museum exhibition to document the magazine’s impact in the 80s, 90s.
The Face billed itself as ‘The World’s Best Dressed Magazine’, thanks in part to the work of Ray Petri, one of the most influential stylists of the 1980s, who redefined men’s fashion within the pages of the magazine. He formed a collective of creatives known as the ‘Buffalo’ group and worked frequently with photographer Jamie Morgan, their images radical not only because of the fashion they featured – which drew inspiration from an eclectic range of references – but because they created space for black models within the fashion industry.
The magazine’s progressive nature saw the stylized shoots of Petri and Morgan replaced with black-and-white photographs, prompting the Kate Moss cover and challenging mainstream fashion stereotypes by contrasting with the high-fashion glamour that dominated the covers of Vogue
As photography evolved in the 90s from analogue to digital formats, The Face was also at the forefront of exploring the creative potential of new
These pages, from left to right: Ms. Dynamite, by Gemma Booth, May 2001 © Gemma Booth; Kylie Minogue, by Norbert Schoerner, styled by Adam Howe, June 1994 © Norbert Schoerner
‘ New technologies shifted the photographer’s role from image-taker to image-maker’
image manipulation programmes, which resulted in bold, colourful and ‘hyperreal’ images, pushing fashion photography in a new direction –glamorous yes, but with a creative twist. These new technologies shifted the photographer’s role from imagetaker to image-maker, so that rather than a photograph capturing a single decisive moment it became the starting point from which to visualise a concept and build a narrative. Fashion stories from 1994 featured models who were photographed in the studio, before the photographs were digitally montaged onto vividly coloured stock slides from image libraries.
Later in the decade, photographers like Elaine Constantine moved away from digital technologies to photograph her images in-camera, using flash to create intense and vibrant colours that evoked nostalgic memories of carefree teenage rebellion.
In a shifting media landscape, The Face ceased publication in 2004, only to make a return in 2019 under new ownnership.
Says Sabina Jaskot-Gill, Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery. “The Face has been a trailblazing title since 1980, not just documenting the contemporary cultural landscape, but playing a vital role in inventing and reinventing it. Within its pages, The Face has produced some of the most innovative fashion and portrait photography of its time – the magazine always allowed its contributors the creative freedom to react against the prevailing mood, to create a shift in culture. I’m delighted to bring together the most comprehensive survey of the magazine’s photographic imagery to date.”
The Face Magazine: Culture Shift, February 20-May 18, National Portrait Gallery, London
These pages, clockwise from above: Jazzie B, by Enrique Badulescu, styled by Adam Howe, April 1989 © Enrique Badulescu; Voici Paris, by Stéphane Sednaoui, styled by Babeth Dijan, June 1988, © Stéphane Sednaoui; Kim Wilde, by Davies and Starr, March 1982 © Davies and Starr
As an era defining designer, filmmaker and creative director, Tom Ford’s legacy has long been cemented. Next up? Raising his son
WORDS: SARAH MOWER
It’s quite a day to be interviewing one of the most prominent Americans in London. I’m meeting Tom Ford — designer, beauty-business genius, movie-maker, man of many lives — on the morning the Trump election news has just hit. He has chosen a private room at Scott’s in Mayfair for our rendezvous. He arrives, invisibly 63, suave, smooth, slim as ever, with a charming greeting — then suddenly freezes with a look of horror. It’s the lighting. “Oh no! This is waaay too bright!” A waiter materialises to fiddle with a dimmer hidden in a cupboard. “Lower. Lower. Lower. No. Lower!” Ford goes. Then he’s up in the cupboard himself. “Now that’s it.”
Ford has pulled an election allnighter. “I’ve only just come from a nap. Which you always have to be careful about at my age,” he mockapologises, miming face creases.
But of course there is no crease on the Ford visage, nor anywhere else on his person. He’s wearing his Tom Ford uniform: black one-button velvet jacket, whittled waist, two precise peaks of white pocket handkerchief, narrow grey trousers, black Chelsea boots. I think he also has on a white pleat-front evening shirt. Three buttons are undone over a hairy chest, which I find myself, very primly, very Englishly, trying not to look at for two and a half hours.
It’s midday now (Ford’s least-favourite time for being seen out and about — the unflattering shadows), but somehow he has arranged the atmospherics in this fancily decorated, windowless boîte so that it could be any time of night. This is oh-so Tom Ford of old, and this is not our first rodeo. I first interviewed him back in 1994, the season before his smash-hit Gucci velvet boot-cut hipsters and slinky silk blouse collection upturned boring minimalist fashion. It made his name, setting off all the incendiary sex-andglamour sensations that put his stamp on the late Nineties and Noughties.
Gucci had very little money at the beginning, but looking back — and also projecting forward to the moviemaker Ford is today — there was always something cinematic about the staging of those shows, down to how he rigged a single spotlight to pick out the girls in an always darkened space. “Shows are cinematic. You introduce
‘ It was a divorce, and let’s just say the other party filed for divorce ’
the audience to something new. Act I, jolt them. Act II, talk them through it. Act III, resolve it. And they should leave in tears! Moved by emotion. That’s why I could never show in the day. It’s too bright! You can’t control it!”
There’s a lot of ground to cover from when I first met the then 33-yearold American. “We can talk as long as you like,” he offers, urbanely. “I just have to pick up Jack at four.”
His 12-year-old is at school in west London. Ford has been a single parent since his husband, the former fashion journalist Richard Buckley, died four years ago, after suffering complications related to a throat cancer diagnosis 30 years earlier, while they were living in Los Angeles.
First, I have to wonder: as a life-long Democrat — ever prescient of coming trends — did Ford hedge against a second Trump presidency by moving to London? Recent press reports made it seem as if he has just relocated here. He has bought a Chelsea house with a whopping £80 million (roughly $100 million) price tag that has set estate agents all a-gossip; they’re betting on a wealthy American refugee influx. He sets me straight. Being here has less to do with politics, he insists, than being an anglophile, how he wants to bring up Jack and his long history in London. “Do you know, I’ve lived here longer than in any other city in my entire life. Twenty-five years. I moved the Gucci design studio to Grafton Street in London in the mid-1990s.”
He set up the Tom Ford studio in Victoria as well. That was a feather in the cap of London as a creative fashion hub. “I always intended to raise Jack in the UK. He was indeed raised here until he was five. We moved to LA to be near Richard’s doctors. This will sound quaint,” he adds, “but I love London. It has all the same cultural advantages of New York City, if not more. It’s calm, peaceful, there’s more green. It’s
‘ I only found out afterwards that everyone was saying I was mad and would fail ’
civilised and I love English humour.”
Happily Jack seems to be thriving. “I think the education system is perhaps more old-fashioned here in some ways, but I also feel that it’s more complete, and that a scholastic work ethic and manners are still incredibly important. While I love Los Angeles, I think it’s a place to live when one is an adult.”
It was great for his boy to enjoy a year-round outdoor life of swimming, football and tennis, but “the extremely materialistic and status-conscious culture and lack of old-fashioned manners was starting to influence his behaviour and values. I can see a tremendous change in him since he has been back in a London school.”
Part of the reason Ford can comfortably afford the Chelsea house is that Estée Lauder bought Tom Ford, the eponymous brand he set up in 2006, for $2.8 billion in 2022. It has been estimated that his personal takeaway was $1 billion. (“By the way,” he says with an eyeroll, “the asking price for that house is not what I paid. I did an exchange with another flat I owned in London.”) He goes on, in quite boggling detail, to describe how he owns “eight houses, four of which are for sale”, some of which are in the States, others in London. Some are “the archaeology of a past life. Now I’m creating a new life, a new place, new house, new everything.”
Everybody associates Tom Ford with his Gucci years. All that sexy, spikeheeled slinkiness — as well as the stilloutrageous Gucci G he had shaved into Carmen Kass in a 2003 advert — has been rediscovered by young people who were babies at the time, relevant again in this current era of “naked” dressing and Y2K trendiness. “It was simple. But the right simple for the time,” Ford says. In a way this was all a stylistic throwback to the late 1970s, played
through the memories of Studio 54 that imprinted on Ford as a young student in New York, the time he came out. It was that, and dropping in on Halston’s ultramodernist Upper East Side townhouse at 101 East 63rd Street with a friend in Andy Warhol’s entourage, that sealed his perma-style for ever. “I copied everything, the long, low grey couches, everything, from Halston’s apartment for the Gucci store design.” I strongly remember the feeling of enticement to lounge around those stores as if they were nightclubs. (Ford loved the actual Halston place so much that he bought it in 2019.)
He’s frustrated, though, that some may overlook what he believes was, “my best work, my most mature, at Saint Laurent.” That’s in the same breath as admitting that those years designing both Gucci and Saint Laurent “nearly killed me.” Even more underestimated is the much longer-lasting part of Ford’s legacy to the fashion world. In 1999 he became a chief architect — with his Gucci CEO, Domenico De Sole — of Gucci Group, which went on to become one of the two leading luxury conglomerates that dominate fashion today.
Under Ford, Gucci was going so wildly well — sales had jumped 90 per cent — and François-Henri Pinault’s PPR bought a welcome $3 billion stake in the business. Ford then hand-picked Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta and Stella McCartney to be purchased. “I thought, which designers am I jealous of?”
Among them was Nicolas Ghesquière, who was incredibly hot at Balenciaga, and Lee McQueen, who jumped ship from LVMH’s Givenchy to join in 2000. “Lee was a genius. I am a commercial designer. I don’t pretend to be anything but, except that I have, I think, an elevated taste level that appeals to a
lot of people. I have a great sense of timing, but I am classic at the core and a commercial designer. But Lee was an artist who expressed his artistry through his clothes. There’s a difference.”
Thus, with a load of corporate drama, the group that eventually became Kering was formed. The trouble for Ford and De Sole was that Pinault now essentially wanted control. In 2004 — with the Gucci Group valued at more than $10 billion — they were suddenly out. “It was a divorce, and let’s just say the other party filed for divorce.” His reaction?
“It was grief and it took me years to get over that. I don’t mean that I thought it was mine. I mean I gave as much of myself as I would anything. It was a part of me and I was a part of it.”
I remember the fraught emotion at his last Gucci afterparty in Milan on February 25, 2004. He wore a black tuxedo with a white gardenia buttonhole — he’d perfected his old-time Tom Ford movie star look by then. There were lots of hardened press and international buyers in tears. His PRs let it be known he would leave on the stroke of midnight. I found the gardenia fallen among the glitter afterwards. It was nothing if not dramatically choreographed.
A fashion world without Tom Ford seemed unimaginable — he’d been that huge for ten years. I’d always wondered if he felt OK for money afterwards. He blinks. “Oh yes. I left Gucci never having to work again in my life because I had an enormous amount of shares.”
Never having to work again! Isn’t that the fantasy outcome everyone dreams of?
“I intended to just start making movies, but I missed fashion. I wasn’t finished. I was still 40.”
Off he went again. He formed Tom Ford, at first as a beauty brand in 2006, making a stunning comeback
These pages, clockwise from far left: Gucci Women’s Autumn/ Winter 2000-2001; Gucci Women’s Autumn/Winter 2004-2005; Yves SaintLaurent Autumn/Winter 2003-2004
‘ My best work, my most mature, was at Saint Laurent ’
with his ultra-expensive, blackpackaged, heavily sexually suggestive fragrances — a high-selling success in every department store. He has won multiple fragrance awards for them, he reminds me. “Creating fragrances is my second favourite thing. I’m wearing my last one right now — Vanilla Sex!”
He has now exited fashion completely, after the spectacular sale to Estée Lauder of the Tom Ford empire, which by then also had womenswear and menswear (“It was all fitted on me. I’m a size 48”). He’s honest: there has been emotional fallout. “Even after I’d started my own company, it took me years to really get over that [Gucci Group]. It honestly took me until Alessandro [Michele] started at Gucci, then, well, Gucci all of a sudden felt … I felt good about Gucci again!” He claims not to look at much of what’s going on in fashion now. (I’m not sure I quite believe that.) But he is looking forward to seeing Haider Ackermann settling in at the brand he founded. “He needs to come in and take it to the next level. I don’t know how to do that. I am of an era.”
If the awards night might symbolise an act of closure on his chapter in fashion, his one in movies is still being written. Ford has proved he has “transferable skills”. Big time. His obsessional talent for super-vigilant image control applies to everything he has ever touched, all the way up to big-
screen directing. His movies, A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016) — which were written, produced and directed by him — garnered great reviews. “The second one,” he points out, “had nine Bafta nominations. Only one had more that year.”
This was to come as an enormous surprise among the fashion industry. “I only found out afterwards that everyone was saying I was mad and would fail,” he says with a laugh. “But I’m a storyteller. I think I did that through fashion, fashion images, stores. But making film is the closest you ever get to being God. Because you’re not just designing clothes. You’re designing what they do, what they say. And it’s forever sealed in a bubble. And fashion is not permanent.”
Two new projects are on the go. “One is an adaptation of Cry to Heaven by Anne Rice. I’ve loved it for years. It’s set in 18th-century Venice, about castrat. I met with her in New Orleans before she died and I’ve drafted the screenplay.” In these times of furore about gender, that sounds like a typically provocative Fordian subject. He’s having trouble casting the right young actor, though. He has another project on the back burner — this, entirely written by himself — if he can’t. Ford is astonishing. A little weird — all that insatiable desire to control — but fun and jokingly self-aware of how he can’t help his perfectionism.
In fashion, designers aren’t supposed to be excellent at more than one thing, you see. They’re also believed to be terrible at making money for themselves. Ford has proved everyone wrong for 30 years. It reminds me of something he once told me about being a child, at home in a suburb of Houston, Texas, or possibly Santa Fe, where his realtor parents, Shirley and Thomas Ford, brought up Tom and his sister, Jennifer. “One day there was a ballet on television. I remember seeing it, leaping around and calling, ‘Look, Mommy, look. I can do that!’ ” It has never occurred to him that he couldn’t do something — and that has included becoming a father. I remember another conversation, in the late Nineties, a couple of years into Gucci, when he told me that his biggest dream was to become a parent. “I knew, I knew I had to have a family.” At the time it felt like an almost shockingly poignant thing to say — an unattainable. Yet this too came to pass: marriage with Buckley, the arrival of Jack, who was born in the States. “I felt all along he had been within me,” Ford says, his eyes sparkling. To wrap up, I ask Ford one final thing: what is his purpose in his sixties? “Oh, that’s simple,” he says without missing a beat. “It’s raising Jack.” And with that he is off to do the school run.
Grand Slam
Why hybrid power perfectly suits Bentley’s mighty Continental GT, making it three cars in one and possibly its best ever
WORDS: ALEX ROBBINS
There’s a man ahead driving up the mountain in a Honda S800. Weighing less than 800kg and driven by a zingy, 800cc naturally-aspirated engine, it’s about as archetypal a lightweight sports car as it’s possible to get.
It’s also the polar opposite of the Bentley Continental GT Convertible I’m driving; a car which, quite frankly, has always been a bit of a porker. But this new version has gained 200kg compared with the old model, which means it tips the scales at about 2.5 tonnes.
The reason is simple: it’s a hybrid. And not just any old hybrid; the latest Continental GT has gained a whopping battery and a plug socket, which makes it a plug-in hybrid (PHEV).
You’d be forgiven for thinking they’ve ruined it. But you’d be wrong.
At its heart sits the same 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine as powered the Continental GT V8 before. To this has been added a 25.9kWh battery, which feeds an electric motor capable of powering the car independently to 99.4mph.
The result is a faintly ludicrous power figure of 771bhp – more than enough to allay fears about the extra weight of the hybrid powertrain denting performance. In fact, the hybrid Conti will accelerate from a standstill to 100km/h in only 3.2 seconds, with a 305km/h top speed. Bentley puts the official electric range at 50 miles (80km/h). Even assuming that’ll drop in the real world, that’s still more than enough for the commute to the office. So you’ll only really want to start the petrol engine on longer trips – or when the mood takes you. And believe me, the mood will take you. But more of that in a second. Let’s just take a moment to talk about the Continental GT’s interior. This is important, because it’s unchanged; meaning that under the skin this Continental isn’t actually all-new. The platform is the same as before. You can see when the two cars are placed side by side that despite the heavily revised styling, the proportions – dictated by the engineering hard-points – remain the same. Does it matter? Maybe not. Especially given the old Conti’s interior was such a tour de force. Banished (forever, hopefully) are the traces of Volkswagen lineage that used to bedevil previous
‘ There’s an overwhelming sense of excitement ’
generations, feeling like the costsaving measures they were.
In their place; beautiful wood or metal inlays, proper physical buttons for most of the controls and a touchscreen that can be revolved away to leave three analogue gauges. The epitome of taste, in other words. Unless, of course, you ask Mulliner to trim it in bright mint green, which, of course, you can – 75 per cent of all new Bentleys these days are given the once-over by the company’s bespoke customisation and coachbuilding arm.
But Bentley has had to find somewhere to put the batteries; some of them reside under the boot floor. The result is a piffling luggage capacity and a boot that’s narrow height-wise, into which you’ll struggle to fit luggage for a week’s holiday. The available volume is down from 358 litres to only 260 in the coupe. The convertible has even less.
Pressing the large, round starter button and hearing nothing but a gentle whirr as the climate control fans kick in is a little odd, but it’s how the Continental GT stirs to life in three of its four driving modes (in Sport, the engine kicks in immediately). In addition to these modes, you can tell the car whether you want it to work as a hybrid, bringing the petrol engine in whenever you press the accelerator beyond a certain point, or prioritise its EV side, running on electric power alone unless maximum acceleration is demanded.
In Hybrid mode, the Continental GT is at its least convincing. The electric motor is powerful enough to cope with most demands, even on mountain roads, so when it brings the petrol engine in it
feels a bit unnecessary, both breaking the silence and creating a small but perceptible moment of hesitation.
In EV mode, by contrast, progress is near-silent. Yes, there’s still a bit of grumble from the wide tyres, but Bentley has clearly worked hard to damp out the noises that would normally be masked by the rumble of the engine, so in fully electric mode the Continental GT glides along as though riding on air.
There are new twin-valve dampers, which Bentley says has enabled it to offer an even softer ride in Comfort mode. I’m not sure it really needed it, but if you want your Continental GT to waft like a 1980s American luxo-barge, well, now it can.
You’re better off leaving the Continental in B mode, which now feels like the best of all worlds. Or, better still, stick it in Sport. When you do that, the Continental goes from delightful to faintly astonishing. Why? It weighs 2.5 tonnes, remember, yet from the way it skips deftly from corner to corner you’d have little to no idea.
The nose is where the change feels most apparent. The old car was surprisingly nimble for its size, but there was always a sense – especially with the heavier W12 engine – that the car wanted to push on ahead, a simple factor of weight and momentum, in spite of all the clever electronics.
The clever electronics are still there –four-wheel steering, torque vectoring, clever traction control and so on – but that sense of weight over the nose has completely gone. The way the new Conti turns in is faintly astonishing, with a response to the wheel you’d be happy to feel in a hot hatchback half its weight.
It will track straight and true through a corner, with all the electronics left on, hugging the line you pick, countless computers beneath the surface nipping the brakes here and there, shuffling power around (all utterly imperceptibly) to ensure that when you feed in all that power, it simply grips and goes.
Alternatively, you can turn off the traction and stability controls, at which point a big hoof of the right foot swings the tail out. You have to be careful of the sheer momentum of all that weight travelling sideways, but the Continental slides wide with breathtaking ease and gentleness, so you’re always well aware of what’s happening and given plenty of time to gather it up.
Along each straight, the ballistic pace comes to the fore and the new V8 sounds even better than the old one, which is saying something; a guttural, throbbing racket that ricochets off rock faces. It’s enough to provoke spontaneous bursts of childish laughter and, even, the occasional involuntary whoop.
There is a fly in the ointment; the gearbox. When you are pressing on the Continental GT, it does such a fabulously convincing impression of a sports car that you find yourself wanting to drop down to second gear before each hairpin; to throw the weight forward and to get the engine ready for powering out again. But time and again the gearbox in our test cars refused to allow that downchange. In a way, it didn’t matter, so vast is the reserve of torque to surge out of corners.
If you find that style of driving a little uncouth, simply select the B mode and listen as the exhaust note fades, the petrol engine ceases and you’re left once again with nothing but the whisper of air over the sweeping roof, the gentle background hum of the tyres, with perhaps some Mahler on the stereo.
There’s also an overwhelming sense of excitement. Because what Bentley has managed to create is quite special, when you think about it. It’s nothing less than a car that can be whatever you want it to be, more completely than any Continental that came before.
Somehow they’ve made a plug-in hybrid that betters the pure petrol models it replaces. It is nothing short of the best Bentley of the company’s modern, Volkswagenowned era. In objective terms, it may even be the best Bentley ever.
The Good Life
As one of the world’s best chefs, Martín Berasategui knows the recipe for enjoying life
WORDS: JOHN THATCHER
To understand Martín Berasategui’s passion for his work, which has thus far garnered 12 Michelin stars, placing him third in the list of chefs with the most, you must first understand what food means to anyone born in the Basque Country. Straddling the border between France and Spain, it is a region where food is the beating heart of society. It binds communities, connects people, brings purpose to lives. And does so daily.
Txokos, which roughly translates as ‘gastronomic societies’, are kitchens and dining halls, sans cooks or waiters, at which friends gather to prepare food and eat together, often long into the night. Some shop for the ingredients, others cook, and come the end of the evening the total cost of what’s consumed is totted up and split equally among the group. “They cook together, they socialise, they get to know each other, but everything happens around the food,” says Berasategui, speaking to us at his Dubai restaurant, Jara by Martín Berasategui, high up in The Lana hotel, which looks out to the cloud-piercing Burj Khalifa, a scene far removed from the Basque Country’s verdant valleys.
Berasategui’s own version of the txokos is the market in San Sebastian, a place so integral to his formative years that he jokes he was born there. It was actually next to his house, but this intoxicating environment of sounds, sights and smells stirred something within him. “The basics of the kitchen start in the market, where you have the fresh meat, the fresh vegetables and the fresh fish.” He describes the people who gather this produce as the “salt and pepper” in his life, the essentials, and the people who sell it at the market – whom he knows well from his weekly trips – as adding “spice to his life.” He’s also noticed how many of the market’s patrons have attempted to adapt to his needs as one of the world’s best chefs. “The
‘ There is no me in this life. There is us. There is family ’
standard role of the market is to cater to someone just doing their shopping. But when you’re talking about a professional cook, then you’re talking about different standards, because I strive for excellence in everything.”
The philosophy of Basque cuisine is rooted in locally-sourced, seasonal produce, and what’s conjured from it is a mix of the traditional and avantgarde, one no more important than the other – case in point, at Jara (its name that of Berasategui’s granddaughter), not only will you find the classic Basque fish stew kokotxas on the menu, but the restaurant is also home to Dubai’s first Krug Ambassador.
This is Berasategui’s cuisine, the Berasategui experience, which he perfected at the Martín Berasategui Restaurant in Lasarte-Oria, the recipient of three Michelin stars. “That is the headquarters, my casa, where the heart is and where the magic happens.”
He talks of people visiting and falling in love with the restaurant. How they returned and got to know him. And how they wanted to spread the word, to share his
gastronomic brilliance. “That’s how we’re here in Dubai with Jara.”
Citing his San Sebastian restaurant as “the main tree”, he talks of his other restaurants – in Barcelona, Tenerife, Bilbao, Valladolid and Ibiza, nearly all of which tote Michelin stars ranging in number from one to three – as “seeds planted that I have managed to turn into trees.”
We’re now enjoying their fruit.
Born in 1960 in San Sebastian, Berasategui is celebrating fifty years in the kitchen, having left his home for France aged just 15 to learn his trade under some of that country’s most prestigious chefs, including Alain Ducasse, at the restaurant Louis XV in Monaco, the man two places above him at the top of the pile for Michelin stars. Prior to then he would help out in the restaurant his parents owned, where they would spend so much time at work they only slept at home. One of five brothers, Martín was the only one to walk his parents’ path into the industry. “My parents told me that it was a very tough profession and that maybe I should try to do something else, but they didn’t stop me because of my passion.”
It was a good decision. In 1993, together with his wife, he opened up the Martín Berasategui Restaurant, which scooped its first Michelin star just six months later.
He now helms 10 restaurants and has authored close on 30 books (the topics of which have recently expanded into health, as he hopes to educate children on the mental health benefits of eating the right food), but such continued success does not flex his ego. “There is no me in this life. There is us. There is family. There is team. It’s about being together,” he says, spoken like a true Basque.
He tells his people, his coterie, that there are four basic steps to a good life: “Eat, drink, talk and get fat.”
If Martín Berasategui’s doing the cooking, count us in.
Best of British
Why the finer details make Brown’s Hotel one of London’s best
Afew weeks prior to staying at Brown’s, the storied Mayfair hotel – it was London’s very first, opening in 1837 – was the subject of a TV show. It was commissioned to show how the hotel geared up for the festive season; planning elaborate afternoon teas, theming the decorations in its communal spaces, prepping to welcome its VIPs. As an aside, it also showed the minute details the hotel’s staff observe to ensure everything is just about faultless – including the GM, who at one point moves a restaurant chair just a fraction of an inch to satisfy his need for perfection. Their efforts are rewarded. Handsomely.
Staying here feels very much like you are guests of their home, not a hotel they happen to work at, which imbues Brown’s with an intimacy that’s a real rarity at this level of refined luxury.
Of course, the fact that it comprises a row of Georgian townhouses makes it look more residence-like and, like any home, it has lots of stories to tell. The first telephone call was made here and Rudyard Kipling penned The Jungle Book, but though history is everywhere at Brown’s, and helps make it quintessentially English, it simply feeds into
‘ Brown’s truly excels at providing the finer touches’
the hotel’s assured sense of style, making it feel also modern and sophisticated. You see this in the hotel’s finest suites, one bearing the name of the aforementioned Kipling, which features hand-painted wallpaper, one-of-a-kind artwork and a framed handwritten letter from the author; another devoted to the quirkiness of fashion designer Sir Paul Smith, which includes a wonderful picture wall of his inspirations and a brass banana as a door handle; and the Dover Suite, where we stayed, noted for its beautifully decorated sitting room where you’ll find a grand marble fireplace and a coffee table that each night was set with a handwritten note and a little something from the kitchen – champagne and chocolates on arrival, freshly made parmesan sables to nibble with a G&T the following
night, a bottle of red and an English cheese platter before a fond farewell. Brown’s truly excels at providing the finer touches.
It also excels in its kitchen. You can have what is hands down London’s best afternoon tea in its historic Drawing Room and creative, heritage-informed fare – the ingredients for which are sourced from some of the world’s best suppliers – at signature restaurant Charlie’s.
At The Donovan Bar, named after famed 60s photographer Terence Donovan, whose signature black and white prints are displayed, it’s the turn of Salvatore Calabrese to take the spotlight. Heralded as one of the world’s best bartenders – and owner of a remarkable collection of vintage pours that is yours to peruse and, in some cases, sample – Calabrese and his team craft cocktails like no others. And as part of the bar’s ongoing Guest Chef Series, you can now enjoy them alongside small plates devised by some of the best in the business. This month it’s the turn of Tom Kitchin, who was Scotland’s youngest recipient of a Michelin star.
Like everything Brown’s does, it’s just that bit better.
Left: Hotel’s front hall
This page, clockwise from top: Salvatore Calabrese; Charlie’s; steamed halibut at Charlie’s; Dover Suite
Cyril Lignac
CHEF AND RESTAURATEUR
All that glitters is not gold. This is advice I received from my mother and it has always guided me. In life, as in my profession, it is essential to remain authentic and to aim for sustainable and genuine goals.
My greatest achievement is to have succeeded in thriving both professionally and personally – I have a wonderful family. Professionally, I am proud to have created restaurants that reflect who I am and that people enjoy.
A lesson I learnt the hard way was that it is essential to grow together and to have trusted collaborators to whom you can entrust projects. In 2016, before the opening of the first Bar des Prés in the heart of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood in Paris, I had an accident that confined me to my home for several weeks. I had to rely on my team, learn to delegate, place greater trust in others and even accept mistakes. Alone, you go faster, but together, you go further.
I wish I had the ability to draw my projects, to envision my restaurant all
the way through its design. I imagine an atmosphere, a spirit, a cuisine, a décor and materials – but even with all these elements I’m not capable of drawing the project. At the early stages of the restaurant’s conception we discuss its identity, and when the architects bring the project to life it all comes together. It’s a valuable talent, especially when working on creative concepts.
Learning to be more patient is one thing I would change about myself. I am someone who is passionate and always on the move; I like things to happen quickly. But it’s important to know how to slow down sometimes.
I would tell my younger self to follow his instincts.
I can’t name anyone specific whom I admire most, but I admire entrepreneurs – those who can create and transform ideas and a vision into something tangible while bringing teams together. It takes a lot of work and often involves failures, but when success comes it’s well-deserved.
