Angelina Jolie on how she portrayed the late opera star Maria Callas for her new film, a role that’s being hotly tipped for Oscar glory.
Forty Six Soft Sell
How Brunello Cucinelli built a multi-billion-dollar clothing empire from a tiny Italian town where his factory workers take siestas.
Fifty Four One Way Or Another
From the early days of hanging out with Andy Warhol to a campaign with Gucci at 79, the Blondie star remains as unconventional as ever.
Debbie
Harry
REGULARS
Eighteen Radar
Twenty Objects of Desire
Twenty Six Jewellery
Thirty Four Timepieces
Sixty Two Motoring
Sixty Six Gastronomy
Seventy Travel
Seventy Two What I Know Now
Twenty Two Art & Design
How a gut feeling encouraged Lina Cahill to create her eponymous design brand, which now counts royalty among its clients.
EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief & Co-owner
John Thatcher john@hotmedia.me
COMMERCIAL
Managing Director & Co-owner
Victoria Thatcher
PRODUCTION
Digital Media Manager Muthu Kumar
ICE CUBE
Welcome Onboard
NOVEMBER 2024
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2024, scheduled to take place from December 5 -8 at the world-renowned Yas Marina Circuit, marks the highly anticipated finale of the Formula 1 season this year. Known for its iconic twilight race, this prestigious event offers a thrilling combination of world-class motorsport and luxurious entertainment. As top drivers battle for the championship, the city transforms into a vibrant hub of glamour and excitement.
Each year, fans from around the globe fly to Abu Dhabi to experience the Grand Prix, resulting in a surge of commercial air traffic. For those looking to elevate their travel experience, private flights offer unmatched advantages, from convenience to arriving in comfort and style.
Whether you are a passionate F1 aficionado looking to book a private jet, or a corporate guest hosting VIP clients, chartering private flights provide complete flexibility, allowing you to set your schedule and avoid the congestion of commercial airports. It also means privacy and efficiency, especially during such a high-demand weekend. Instead of navigating crowded terminals, long lines, or rigid flight schedules, you can enjoy a tailored travel experience from the moment you board your jet.
At Jetex, we understand that the thrill of the Grand Prix should extend beyond the racetrack. Our dedicated team is committed to offering personalised services that align with the grandeur and excitement of Formula 1, allowing you to enjoy every moment of this spectacular weekend with complete peace of mind. From VIP terminal access to fast-track customs clearance, Jetex provides a level of convenience and comfort that aligns perfectly with the prestige of this global event.
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 : Angelina Jolie by Mary Rozzi/AUGUST
Fly Private To The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2024
Enjoy a spectacle of speed and luxury
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2024 (December 5-8) is set to electrify motorsport fans as it takes centre stage at the iconic Yas Marina Circuit, promising another thrilling grand finale to the Formula 1 season. As the only twilight race on the calendar, it offers a unique blend of racing action and spectacular visuals, where drivers race against the backdrop of a stunning sunset with the track transitioning from daylight to night under the floodlights, making for one of the most visually captivating spectacles in the sport. The event continues to grow in popularity, with about 70,000 spectators attending each year to witness the season’s final showdown. Fans from around the globe converge on Abu Dhabi, not just for the race, but
for the accompanying entertainment, which includes post-race concerts by international superstars, exclusive parties, and an array of high-end dining and hospitality experiences. Tickets for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix typically range from general admission passes to premium options, such as grandstand seating and VIP packages. For those looking for the ultimate experience, Yas Marina Circuit offers luxurious hospitality suites, including the Paddock Club, with prices reaching several thousand dollars per ticket. These premium options grant access to exclusive areas, gourmet catering, and behindthe-scenes experiences, allowing fans to immerse themselves in the world of Formula 1 in unparalleled comfort. Accommodation options range from
five-star hotels on Yas Island to luxury resorts and private villas, with many offering exclusive race-weekend packages. Transportation to and from the event is well-organised, with shuttle services, VIP transfers, and even direct yacht access to the marina. For those seeking a truly personalised experience, Jetex Concierge offers tailored services, from securing the best race tickets to booking premium accommodation and arranging private transfers. The concierge team ensures every detail of your Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend is handled with care and precision, allowing you to focus on enjoying the race and surrounding festivities. For further details, call the contact centre (24/7) on +971 4 212 4000 or email concierge@jetex.com
Bespoke Luxury Safes
One of the UAE’s most beloved and prominent artists, Shaikha Al Mazrou has been commissioned by Jimmy Choo to create an artwork that will serve as an ongoing, ever-evolving dialogue between the brand and the wider thriving art scene in the Middle East. The piece, titled Symmetrical Repeats , is characteristic of Al Mazrou’s acclaimed body of work, which explores materiality and form, and makes a feature of Jimmy Choo’s faceted diamond design motif. “Shaikha Al Mazrou’s work captures the strength, beauty and multifaceted nature that define both our brand and our community,” says Sandra Choi, Creative Director, Jimmy Choo. “It’s a privilege to collaborate with an artist who represents the dynamic spirit of the UAE.” Fashioned from steel and coloured a vibrant red, Symmetrical Repeats will be permanently installed at Jimmy Choo’s flagship boutique in The Dubai Mall.
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Master craftsmanship, effortless style and timeless appeal; this month’s must-haves and collectibles
Under the banner of ‘Italian Beauty’, Dolce&Gabbana injected some muchneeded fun onto the runway, pinning platinum wigs to its models to channel the spirt of the most celebrated blondes of all, the likes of Monroe, Dietrich and – sat in the front row – Madonna, whose
famous conical bra was referenced in the cone-bra bustier dress that opened the show. A corset paired with a pinstriped suit was another nod to the Material Girl, while further highlights included dresses that dazzled with sensuality.
DOLCE&GABBANA WOMEN’S SS25
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Loro Piana’s Fall/Winter collection is devoted to the brand’s 100th anniversary, a major milestone for any fashion house but particularly impressive for one that has never compromised on quality. A genuine master of textiles, it’s no surprise that the brand chose to celebrate by
One of many statement pieces from the second instalment of Messika’s sparkling Midnight Sun collection, this magnificent Fragments of Time high jewellery piece weaves together two necklaces and a pair of stunning diamonds: one a 36-carat yellow
diamond, the other a 33-carat luminous white diamond, each enveloped in a satin-finished gold setting for a modern touch. With both necklaces also bedecked in diamonds, the piece boasts over 230 in total, with a combined weight of 129 carats.
CHANEL PREMIÈRE SOUND WATCH
The Première watch – the first of which was issued in 1987 – comprises many elements of the house’s signature designs: its octagonal case is representative of the stopper atop the legendary No. 5 bottle, while its bracelet channels the chained shoulder strap of its bags. Yet this latest iteration is thoroughly modern, fusing state-ofthe-art technology with jewellery and watchmaking know-how to create a watch on a chain, with noise-cancelling headphones and a microphone, that connects to your smartphone.
This year’s TimeForArt, the first-ever benefit watch auction in support of contemporary art and artists, takes place in New York on December 7. Featuring unique pieces from 25 brands, Chopard’s colourful entry is this Alpine Eagle 41 XP, the
dial of which is somewhat of a mini masterpiece. It’s fashioned from straw marquetry, a 17th-century technique that just one artisan at Chopard has been trained to master, and its use here is a first for a timepiece. Time to get bidding.
CHOPARD ALPINE EAGLE 41 XP
Comprising pieces plucked from its women’s ready-to-wear, leather goods, shoes and accessories ranges, Louis Vuitton’s Flight Mode capsule is devoted to the luxury of travel – and how to do so in style. Perfect for your private jet, this luxurious wool and
silk wrap coat is reversible, as is the capsule’s Neverfull Inside Out bag, the largest size of which comes liberally decorated with Flight Mode travel stamps. It’s a look repeated elsewhere across the collection, but best of all on a long silk skirt. Bon voyage.
LOUIS VUITTON FLIGHT MODE CAPSULE COLLECTION
RICHARD MILLE
RM 65-01 MCLAREN W1
Richard Mille’s collaboration with supercar manufacturer McLaren has already birthed three boundary-shifting timepieces – including what was the lightest split seconds tourbillon chronograph in the world – but its fourth is arguably the most innovative. Based on the W1 – McLaren’s most powerful, fastest road car – Richard Mille was tasked with reflecting ‘the cutting edge, highperformance features of the car in terms of its shape, materials, functionality and the ‘engine’ that powers it.’ Naturally, Richard Mille has exceeded those expectations.
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Self Made
How a gut feeling encouraged Lina Cahill to create her eponymous design brand, which now counts royalty among its clients
WORDS: JOHN THATCHER
It takes a great deal of confidence to strike out on your own, to back your talent. It also takes a huge amount of courage. It’s fair to say that Lina Cahill has both in abundance.
Born in Casablanca to a Moroccan French mother and Lebanese father, Lina was just eighteen when she used the money her parents had earmarked for her first car to launch her eponymous brand. “I thought, let’s try. If it works I can buy the car I really want. And if it doesn’t, I will still have a wardrobe full of beautiful dresses,” she laughs, stopping briefly for a sip of water before continuing her story.
“So I made my first pieces and modelled one on the red carpet at the Marrakech International Film Festival, where it was noticed by L’Officiel.”
Impressed with what they saw, it kickstarted a relationship whereby Lina would create a collection of kaftans each season for the magazine – “Moroccan, but done in my way, maintaining the authenticity of the product but elevating its traditional look” – which would appear across its pages in a series of photoshoots. “I found it easy to sell them that way.”
That first flush of success planted the seed from which Lina’s career has blossomed. Kaftans, handcrafted from exquisite materials, still feature as a key component of Lina’s couture and haute couture collections, which also encompass beautifully embroidered coats, red carpet gowns, evening, and bridal wear – and a client list that includes royalty across the MENA region.
Lina sketches each design, selecting complementing fabrics and colours before each piece is brought to life through artisans in Lebanon, India and Morocco and then returned for Lina to add the finishing touch.
She also designs magnificent high jewellery pieces, using precious stones – diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires – sourced primarily from her trusted contacts in Geneva, and a strictly limited number of highly creative 24ct gold-plated pieces, detailing individually crafted flora and fauna. Then there are beautiful cufflinks, a 30-piece collection – of which all but two are one-of-kind designs – born from the frustration of a fruitless shopping trip to find a gift for her boyfriend.
The cufflinks represent the first element of a men’s collection of accessories, one of six brand offerings represented by the
‘ I’m a free spirt who enjoys the freedom of working for myself ’
six points on Lina’s snowflake logo, the emblem of her brand. In addition are the bridal line, haute couture, couture, jewellery and, in the works, a home line, which Lina hopes will encompass soft furnishings for yachts and private jets.
In a little over ten years, Lina has built her brand in tandem with her burgeoning reputation. And she’s done so on her own. “I began my brand because of a feeling, like it was something I just had to do. I didn’t set out with a grand strategy or business plan. So after three years, I was like, okay, it works. After five years, it became much better, and at that point I had the offer of external investment, but I had the courage to say no. I’m a free spirit who enjoys the freedom of working for myself.” But as the brand grew, so too did the hard work. “To create a real connection with my clients I was personally delivering their orders, wherever they were in the world. Sometimes I flew from Casablanca to New York and back in the same day.”
Travel is an enduring influence on her designs, not surprising for someone who has lived in a clutch of cities worldwide and, as a schoolgirl, would do her
homework on the weekly flight she took between Morocco and Lebanon, where she would visit family.
“I get influenced by all the trips that I take. Sometimes it’s the culture that inspires me; other times it’s the architecture. But always it is a mix between the feelings and the emotions that I feel during the trip.”
Lina talks a lot about feelings. They’re her fuel. And they take her in diverse creative directions, whether adding to her own brand or designing the interiors of her friends’ homes, yachts, jets and cars, another of her passions – she is currently in talks to collaborate with a luxury marque. “I don’t feel I have set parameters in terms of what I can design, so long as it’s artistic. I love to create.”
To that end, Lina hopes to evolve her brand into a full lifestyle offering. And she’ll do so while remembering the words of an architecture lecturer whom she studied under. “He told me to never kill the kid you have inside you, because that’s what makes you creative. That’s what makes you keep dreaming.”
So far, it’s also what’s made her dreams come true.
Animal Instincts
The second chapter of Nature Sauvage, Cartier’s latest high jewellery collection, accentuates the vision of its artisans
WORDS: JOHN THATCHER
You can trace Cartier’s fascination with the animal kingdom all the way back to 1914, when the patterned coat of a panther was replicated on a charming onyx and diamond timepiece. Three years later, its designers crafted a cigarette case depicting a diamond-and-onyx panther between two cypress trees for Jeanne Toussaint. A designer friend of Coco Chanel, Toussaint later worked as Cartier’s artistic director of jewellery from 1933 until 1970, her creations establishing a legacy that sees the ever-graceful panther star as not only a permanent source of inspiration for the maison’s myriad objects – including jewellery, timepieces, scents and bags – but also part of its expressive personality.
Over the years it’s since been joined by a virtual Noah’s Ark of other animals – elephants, snakes, turtles and birds among them – all of them marching, slithering, swimming or fluttering their way into the minds of Cartier’s artisans and out again as magnificent, bejewelled creations, ever more lifelike thanks to inventive setting techniques or an ingrained understanding of volume, shape and colour.
Nature Sauvage, Cartier’s latest high jewellery collection, adds another chapter to this enduring story of supreme craftsmanship, its first –and now recently released – second instalments both beguiling in their beauty and characterful designs, for which Cartier’s current creatives capture perfectly the essence of the animals they meticulously depict.
Jacqueline Karachi, Cartier’s Director of High Jewellery Creation, describes it as “a new perspective of the Cartier fauna, to surprise, amaze and bring modernity by way of unexpected encounters. Expressive jewellery which showcases the attitudes and personality of an animal, its vitality. Like an actor, it plays with graphics, with volume and optical illusions, blending into an imaginary landscape. This is the spirit of Nature Sauvage.”
A prime example of what Karachi describes is the Vamana necklace, which portrays the mighty elephant, an animal that has appeared in many Cartier pieces – arguably most beautifully in the form of a gold and
diamond necklace that formed part of the recently auctioned collection of the late Miami-based philanthropist Patricia Wallace – and most often in its natural form, so as to explicitly communicate its strength, wisdom, and grace. For this beautifully constructed Vamana necklace, the elephant is interpreted in a new way that fuses figurative and abstract styles. An open-worked mesh
of triangle, lozenge and kite-shaped diamonds that continues all the way around the neck, sees the precise outline of an elephant’s ears, trunk and eyes (formed from emeralds) almost appear only on second glance. Captivating.
Cartier’s vast archive features countless fascinating pieces where the vibrant hues of the butterfly are composed of coloured stones. Adopting the allure of those vintage pieces, a new Chryseis necklace sees four full-form butterflies fashioned from onyx and diamonds and positioned delicately on the necklace to appear ready to take flight at any given moment. Their painstakingly set black and white wings are beautifully juxtaposed with vivacious green chalcedony beads, bunched like berries at the lower part of the necklace from which dangles the brightest burst of colour on this statement piece – a quite dazzling 63.76-carat rubellite, which ultimately unites the trio of red, green and black, colours that have played such a starring role in Cartier’s richly-toned universe. Crocodile skin has long captured the imagination of luxury fashion, its touch supple despite it being exceptionally tough. Yet it’s the unique scale pattern of each crocodile that tends to fire the
‘The precise outline of an elephant’s ears, trunk and eyes almost appear only on second glance ’
creative vision – particularly within the Cartier atelier. While wishing to reference the prehistoric reptile in its Sibaya necklace, Cartier’s skilled artisans decided to distil the crocodile’s unique personality to its scales, replicated here by a stunning selection of sugar loaf emeralds. To ensure that the unique pattern of every crocodile skin is honoured, each of these emeralds was selected one by one. Adding an additional layer of character, the emeralds are entwined with diamondpaved motifs to evoke the idea of the crocodile slinking in shimmering water. For the final instalment in chapter
two of Nature Sauvage we return to our old friend, the panther, as relevant now to Cartier’s innate artistry as it was way back in 1914. Its familiar face is at the heart of the spectacular Panthere Chatoyante necklace, its steely stare formed from precisely cut emeralds and its coat fashioned from onyx and diamonds. The power of the panther’s intense gaze is further enhanced by the considered arrangement of striking rubellites and chrysoprases that embrace it, adding a layer of majesty to this magnificent piece. Cartier’s love affair with nature endures, as captivating as ever.
Opening pages, from left to right: Chryseis necklace; Sibaya necklace Opposite page, from top to bottom: making of Chryseis necklace; Panthere Chatoyante necklace
This page, from top to bottom: Vamana necklace; making of Sibaya necklace
Magic Flight
Tiffany closes its Blue Book 2024 with a final flourish of ingenuity
Opposite page: Star Burst Crystal Opal Necklace in yellow gold with crystal opals of over 64 total carats and diamonds
This page: Unicorn Bicolor Tourmaline Brooch in platinum and 18k yellow gold with a bicolor tourmaline of over 25 carats and diamonds
Like a gift that keeps on giving, Jean Schlumberger’s remarkable creative oeuvre while at Tiffany continues to inspire, influencing the many designers who have followed in his footsteps and inspiring ever more fantastical creations. Tiffany’s latest incumbent, Nathalie Verdeille, the brand’s Chief Artistic Officer, channelled Schlumberger’s spirt for invention and vivid imagination when dreaming up Blue Book 2024: Tiffany Céleste, the third and final instalment of which is now released. Featuring four new high jewellery chapters – Star Burst, Phoenix, Owl
on a Rock and Unicorn – each one “began with an intensive study of the subjects or themes that inspired it,” outlines Verdeille, referencing archival Jean Schlumberger masterpieces, some of which, like the Bird on a Rock and Phoenix brooches, are among his most cherished creations. Through her own unique gaze, Verdeille has reimagined the former as a series of Owl on a Rock brooches, which feature the nocturnal bird perched atop a ‘moon rock’ – black opals, moonstones, tanzanites and a Sri Lankan star sapphire of over 57 carats – to mimic the night sky,
each owl designed to reflect the characteristics of the stone it sits on.
To reference the Ancient Greek origins of the word ‘phoenix’ – meaning a fiery red colour – Verdeille has selected vibrant stones accordingly for her thoroughly modern Phoenix chapter, including a fire opal of over 29 carats as the cornerstone of her Phoenix Fire Opal Brooch, which is further decorated by unenhanced Umba sapphires, tsavorites and diamonds.
As this year’s Blue Book closes with a final flourish, the enchanting stories of expert craftsmanship and ingenuity it contains will be told forever more.
Opposite page: Owl on a Rock Black Opal Brooch in platinum and 18k yellow gold with a black opal of over 21 carats, sapphires and yellow and white diamonds
This page: Phoenix Fire Opal Brooch in platinum and 18k yellow gold with a fire opal of over 29 carats, unenhanced Umba sapphires, tsavorites and diamonds
History Repeating
By using its exceptional heritage to inform its modern approach, Vacheron Constantin remains at the pinnacle of watchmaking
WORDS:JOHN THATCHER
‘ The Collection Excellence Platine has broadened to welcome emblematic timepieces, including the most complicated horological creations’
The embodiment of its slogan ‘one of not many’, Vacheron Constantin introduced the Collection Excellence Platine in 2006, a line developed for collectors to secure limited edition iterations of various models from its ever-expanding universe. In the intervening years the collection has swelled with stunning examples of timepieces that capture not just the artistry born from centurieshoned craftsmanship, but also the brand’s innate inventiveness and spirit.
“When Vacheron Constantin launched this collection in 2006, the intention was to release new benchmark models from the maison,” outlines Christian Selmoni, Style & Heritage Director at Vacheron Constantin. “Over time, however, it became clear that this approach was overly restrictive. The Collection Excellence Platine could very well broaden its horizons and welcome not necessarily new models, but rather timepieces worthy of particular interest. In other words, emblematic timepieces in all registers, from three-hand timepieces to the most complicated horological creations. The only common denominator was the use of an exceptional, noble and rare metal for exceptional watches.”
The latest piece to join the ranks is the Traditionnelle Tourbillon Chronograph, which pays homage to grand watchmaking tradition by pairing two storied complications. Platinum throughout – right down to the stitching on the strap, which is fashioned from braided silk and platinum thread – it is powered by the 292part Calibre 3200 which incorporates a monopusher chronograph with a tourbillon regulator. It was designed to celebrate Vacheron’s 260th anniversary and continues the rich legacy of chronographs developed by the brand. “Considering that deadbeat seconds
mechanisms represent the early stages of the chronograph, since they require a form of energy storage, the first timepiece in Vacheron Constantin’s heritage to feature such a device – with the addition of a quarter repeater –dates back to 1819,” says Selmoni, providing insight into the brand’s extraordinary history. “The oldest wrist chronograph in its collections – a gold monopusher model with a minutes counter – dates back to 1917.”
Issued as a 50-piece limited edition, the Traditionnelle Tourbillon Chronograph is meticulously finished to such a degree that it took 11 hours to round off the bar of its tourbillon carriage by hand.
Such dedication to perfect the minutest of details is a trait of Vacheron Constantin, and the Patrimony collection is further proof. Introduced in 2004, it honours the prevalent style of the 1950s and the watches produced by Vacheron Constantin during that time. So pure is its minimalist aesthetic that to change it in any way would seemingly undermine all that it represents, which is where it gets difficult. “It is certainly true that the design of the Patrimony is so simple – at least, apparently so – that modifying it without altering its character is a tricky exercise,” suggests Selmoni. “Since its launch in 2004, we have opted to develop it in a very subtle way.”
Doing so has tended to see a change of mechanisms, from 2006’s retrograde day-date to the moon phase retrograde date of 2017. For 2024, the changes are multiple yet resolutely subtle. Across three new models we see a diameter trimmed to 39mm, new dial and strap colours, and the opportunity for customised engraving on the caseback.
Two manual-winding models in white or pink gold are the recipients of the new 39mm size, along with an antique
silver-toned dial and two new strap colours: azure blue or olive-green.
A new white gold model with moon phases and retrograde date features an old-silver-toned dial and an olive-green alligator strap. “Like all the watches in the Patrimony collection, these examples are part of the same approach that involved achieving extreme understatement, rooting the watch firmly in a spirit of timeless modernity.”
Fiftysix is another Vacheron Constantin collection that has its design roots in the 1950s, in particular, Reference 6073 from 1956. “The 1950s were a period of prosperity and economic growth and Vacheron Constantin was no exception to this dynamic,” states Selmoni, who says that their watches at the time were characterised by “sophistication, clean lines and harmonious proportions.” In keeping, the newly launched Fiftysix Self-Winding opts for an original, contrasting combination of pink gold case, black dial and anthracite nubuck calfskin leather strap, a retrocontemporary aesthetic that’s another outstanding example of how Vacheron Constantin seamlessly blends the past and present.
A model very much of the moment is the Overseas, which expands its offering with an all-titanium tourbillon timepiece powered by the ultra-thin Manufacture Calibre 2160 and – in what’s a first for this collection – four new models in pink gold bearing intense green dials. “We chose a deep green exuding hints of plants and forests,” explains Selmoni. “A sort of call to nature that makes for a perfect fit with the Overseas spirit of travel and exploration. The complementary nature of these four references is truly striking when placed side by side and it could well be that this new colour will become as iconic as blue within the collection.”
Opening pages: Overseas models in pink gold with green dials
Above and right: Fiftysix Self-Winding
Top right: Patrimony Manual-Winding
Below and far right: Traditionnelle Tourbillon Chronograph
DRIVEN BY YOU
Porsche’s Exclusive Manufaktur and Sonderwunsch programmes give owners creative control of every design detail, from bespoke materials to unique colours, to create your car, your way
WORDS: NICK WATKINS
PHOTOGRAPHER: ŽIGA MIHELČIČ
CREATIVE DIRECTION: MUTHU KUMAR
LOCATION: DRVN BY PORSCHE, BLUEWATERS ISLAND, DUBAI
For die-hard Porsche owners, passion for the brand extends beyond having the legendary German carmaker’s vehicles sat in their garage. They want something more. Something different. Something like no other. Something exclusively theirs.
Sharing this goal, the Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur division was developed to make dreams a reality, creating custom-designed cars that are ultimately a unique reflection of the owner’s individuality.
In addition there is Sonderwunsch, the special request arm of both Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur and the Porsche Classic department, which grants Porsche owners a rare opportunity to really get under the skin of their vehicle, to re-shape, tweak, spray and add one-off, handcrafted details to make their car unlike any other on the road.
This month, two iconic sports cars that perfectly showcase the bespoke capabilities of Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur and Sonderwunsch go on show at the fourth edition of Icons of Porsche, which takes place at The Slab, d3, Dubai, from
23-24 November — a 911 Targa 4S, replete with bespoke features from the Exclusive Manufaktur menu and a magnificent 911 Turbo Remastered, described by the brand as a ‘Sonderwunsch masterpiece’.
“These two dream sportscars are both spectacular examples of the individualisation options available from Porsche,” enthuses Dr Manfred Bräunl, Chief Executive Officer, Porsche Middle East and Africa FZE.
The custom 911 Targa 4S reveals the incredible lengths owners can go to via Exclusive Manufaktur when simply using the Porsche Car Configurator to order their car online. This digital configurator offers myriad design packages — right down to different interior stitching options — to make the vehicle one-of-a-kind. Included are a wide range of special colours and high-quality materials, including the likes of carbon, aluminium and wood finishes for interior elements. Requests from customers can also extend beyond the 600 order options already available.
First unveiled in 1965, the 911 Targa was ground-
PORSCHE X AIR
‘THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF THE PORSCHE EXCLUSIVE MANUFAKTUR IS TO TURN SOMETHING SPECIAL INTO SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY’
breaking in its design, with a distinct body shape that meant it was neither a cabriolet or a coupe, nor a hard top or saloon. It was the world’s first safety cabriolet with a fixed roll bar, created in response to heightened safety requirements for open-top cars in the United States, where some were calling for a complete ban on cabriolets.
Clad in a custom Yachting Blue Metallic paint, the 911 Targa 4S by Exclusive Manufaktur features Carrera exclusive design wheels painted in high-gloss black. Other subtle highlights are the electric folding exterior mirrors and lower trims painted in matching Yachting Blue Metallic, contrasted with high gloss black bases that incorporate courtesy lighting.
This one-off Targa is not only a sight to behold on the outside but on the inside too, with stylish twotone leather seats, taken straight from the Heritage Design Classic package of Black and Classic Cognac from Exclusive Manufaktur. These Pepita black and white patterned seat inserts, which adorned early Porsche models, sit tidily against the heritage tone Classic Cognac for the semi anilin leather side bolsters, shoulder and head rests, which carry through to the Exclusive Manufaktur Dashboard and Door Trim package.
“The interior was inspired by the 911 Sport Classic, which was a limited model and is highly sought after and therefore very desirable,” Bräunl explains.
“We’ve used the Pepita trim against the semi anilin leather, which is a bit smoother and thinner. It makes it a bit harder to fabricate but gives that vintage feeling to it.”
A Sport Chrono Package, Porsche Track Precision App and a tyre temperature display, along with Exclusive Manufaktur aluminium PDK gear selector, aluminium pedals and footrest, Heritage Design floor mats and a Light Design package finish off the stylish personalised interior.
Patrick Gallas, Manager of Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur at Porsche Middle East and Africa FZE, says the car demonstrates how “cool” you can make your vehicle look purely using the configurator.
“This car has been ordered using only the options available in the car configurator, so there are no special request items and yet it still looks like it’s out of this world.”
Adding to the allure, Gallas explains that despite the near limitless customisation opportunities available via the Porsche Car Configurator, your dream Porsche will be produced without delay.
“The execution is like any other car and needs to be planned in order to give notice to our suppliers, but we route everything through the same production line, which means that if you order a car with standard black seats or you order a seat with the Pepita fabric we’ve used on our 911 Targa
4S from the Heritage Design Classic Package, the production time is the same.” Gallas states.
As for the 911 Turbo Remastered — designed as part of Porsche’s ‘50 Years of Turbo’ celebrations — it’s been given a bespoke new look to take it from the 1974 original into a modern-day marvel using the Sonderwunsch programme. “This very special car is not only a showcase of what is possible with our Porsche personalisation programmes,” says Bräunl. “It also highlights the brave and pioneering Porsche spirit as we look back to the inspiration for this project, the very first 911 Turbo.” The remastered model is a collaboration between Style Porsche, Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur and the Porsche Middle East and Africa regional office and inspired by the original prototype commissioned for Louise Piëch, daughter of founder Ferdinand Porsche, in 1974.
“We wanted to create a modern iteration of a car that was truly unique. Luckily for us, there is no shortage of Porsche cars that people label as icons. We elected to ‘remaster’ one of the greatest icons of them all, the original 911 Turbo prototype from Louise Piech,” explains Gallas.
The ‘GT silver’ Sonderwunsch 911 Turbo has been tailored to look as close to the 1974 original as possible on the outside, with some elements in matte black, along with black Fuchs alloy wheels, while the old ‘turbo’ rear badge is the same as that used on the first-ever production turbo. Not that you’d have much time to notice such a detail when the vehicle is on the road — it achieves 0-100 km/h in just 2.8 seconds and an impressive top speed of 320km/h.
On the inside is a modified version of the Heritage Design Classic package that includes retrolooking green illuminated dials. Not to mention a fully bespoke customised trim to match Piëch’s request on the 1974 original. The Sonderwunsch PORSCHE X
‘THE SONDERWUNSCH DEPARTMENT EXPERTLY CRAFTED A UNIQUE TWO-TONE INTERIOR LIKE THAT OF NO OTHER PORSCHE’
department expertly crafted a unique two-tone interior like that of no other Porsche: a Lipstick Red on black theme that differs from other two-tone options on offer.
“It’s a new way of doing two-tone on a 911 type 992 using a unique mix of fabric, leather and twotone you don’t see today,” says Gallas. “We wanted to use this opportunity to promote and highlight what the Exclusive Manufaktur department can do through Sonderwunsch, so we really pushed the boundaries and utilised many unique features that you won’t find on the car configurator, including a cross stitching on the upper dash and upper doors, which is all done by hand.”
Other bespoke elements for the interior include a PDK gear selector in aluminium from Exclusive Manufaktur, as well as a tailored key that features the chequered tartan pattern in the middle with GT Silver along the sides.
“The car showcases the extent to which special requests can be accommodated, which makes it a unique piece with a price to suit that exclusivity,”
Gallas explains. “Whereas the 911 Targa 4S was created using the available tools you can find at every Porsche Centre or online.”
He adds: “These two cars are a great comparison and I think it’s special to have them next to each other, because I’m sure everybody will find both of them stunning. We want to encourage customers to be bold when personalising their car and this 911 Targa 4S Exclusive Manufaktur is a perfect example of how it can easily be done.”
The ultimate goal of the Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur is to turn something special into something extraordinary. As Ferdinand Porsche once said: “We place more value on building cars of quality than on building cars for quantity.”
Now, not only is Porsche building cars of quality, it’s building them just the way you like it.
Both the 911 Targa 4S by Exclusive Manufaktur and the 911 Turbo Remastered by Sonderwunsch will be on display at Icons of Porsche, 23-24 November 2024, Dubai. Tickets are available via iconsofporsche.com
Ave Maria
Angelina Jolie on how
INTERVIEW LUCY ALLEN
WORDS JOHN THATCHER
she portrayed the late opera star Maria Callas, a role that’s being hotly tipped for Oscar glory
It’s not uncommon for first screenings at film festivals to receive a standing ovation. But when that ovation lasts for close on ten minutes, well, that’s a little less common. Angelina Jolie’s latest vehicle, Maria, earned that rare response at the recent New York Film Festival, where it was shown ahead of its global release on Netflix in December. It’s since been placed at the head of the pack for those films the critics believe will be in the running for Oscar recognition in March.
The film sees Jolie star as the renowned but, in many ways, tragic opera singer Maria Callas, who died in Paris in 1977 at the age of 53. It marks her return to the screen for the first time in three years, but it’s a role she was at first hesitant to take on.
“I’ve always wanted to work with Pablo (Larraín, the film’s director), but I was immediately intimidated by the thought of it because I didn’t know Maria at all – only her music and what many of us already knew about her. You have to study when you play a real person; you take it so seriously. It’s their life and you are going to have this privilege to breathe it and align with it.”
In order to do so, Jolie needs to feel a connection. “I need to love someone to play them properly. It was easy to fall in love with Maria and to be moved by her music, though it was very hard to believe that I could do it. Yet I believed Pablo wouldn’t allow me to not do my best. He’s
a very, very strong director who would make sure I had the right training and would push me. I was willing to jump if he believed I could, but I was terrified.”
So how was the process of learning to sing? “So, I made the mistake of thinking in the beginning that I could already sing a little, like ‘movie’ singing. But I realised very quickly that you can’t fake sing opera. Not that I wanted to fake sing anything, but I didn’t really think I was going to be asked to actually sing opera. Somehow, it just didn’t cross my mind, and I didn’t completely understand until I was standing in this room with a teacher who said, ‘Okay. Plant your feet…’ He took me seriously as a singer, which was very moving to me already, and then he said, ‘Take a deep breath and then start to make sounds’ – and I started crying.
“I think we all hold so much in that we don’t really let out. We don’t let our full voice out. We don’t let our full sound out. And then you start to discover your own voice, which is such a special thing to do. I would encourage every single person to take an opera class, because once you sing a little bit and somebody says to you, ‘Now sing as loud as you can, give everything you’ve got in your body with all the emotion that you carry inside yourself,’ it’s very therapeutic. It’s a gift.”
In all, Jolie spent seven months learning opera so that her own voice could be used in the film alongside that of Maria’s, which features when the
film – which imagines the sadness of the singer’s final days – cuts to performances of Maria in her prime, when she wowed audiences. Her performance in Tosca at London’s Covent Garden is widely considered to have produced the greatest opera experience of all time.
While not an ardent fan of opera before taking on the role, Jolie recalls being taken to watch one when she was young and recognising it as a unique art form. “I could feel it that it was different. I knew that. I knew that it was something more than the art forms I had known and that I had studied. But I had to really get to know it. And I think one of the things that is important to Pablo, and was important to Maria, is that she didn’t want opera to be elitist. She wanted it to be perfect. She was a perfectionist, she loved it, she was a technician. But she was excited for there to be pieces that were popular and for people to come and enjoy it.”
Jolie plays Maria across various stages of her life, a life that saw her own mother blackmail her, her husband, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, steal from her, and her partner, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, grow violent before abandoning her for Jackie Kennedy. In public it was a different story – she was adored by audiences worldwide.
“She did literally play so many characters,” says Jolie. “I wanted to find the older her first. The her that was without everything else. And we found
‘ I think we all hold so much in that we don’t really let out. We don’t let our full voice out ’
Top and above: Stills from Maria, 2024
‘ I’m always very moved when I see someone fight to continue ’
her glasses and her little robe and her little nightgown. From it I discovered this very fragile woman who had faith and loneliness – and I just loved her. I fell in love with her. And then I learnt how she created characters on top of that. She had to become Floria Tosca. She had to become the public Maria Callas.
“She had a lot of people in her life who were unkind to her. When she was at the top, people were nice to her. Then if she failed just a little bit they’d pounce on her. She was attacked; La Scala sued her; the critics, when she went to try to sing again, were so unbelievably mean.”
Maria’s last years were spent in her Paris apartment, aided by her housekeeper Bruna and butler Ferruccio.
“They were two people who, until this day – Ferruccio is still alive – never wrote a book about her or said nasty things about her. They were friends. And I was so happy she had that.”
When Maria died of heart failure in 1777, it was the culmination of a period of continued ill health. “From what I
understand she had many very serious health issues,” says Jolie. “When she talks about being a purple frog and being swollen, she did something very real. She took steroids. She had to take lots of medication. She was sick often and missed performances because of that, but people would throw things at her and call her names.”
It was while researching Maria’s prescription drugs – and subsequently speaking to an optometrist – that Jolie discovered the extent of her issues. “The optometrist said to me, ‘This woman was almost blind.’ And I quickly realised that this young girl needed to prove that she’s the best and can be on stage without saying, ‘I need my glasses, please.’ So she had to memorise everything. And there’s an interview in which she says, ‘Well, I couldn’t see the conductor.’ Which means she probably couldn’t even see the expression of the actor across the stage. What she did to perform the way she did was exceptional.”
Despite her health issues, Maria
pushed herself until the end to sing again. Perhaps too far. “I think there’s a lot of truth to that. She knew that her body was very, very fragile, and she knew when she pushed herself that she had a weak heart. So yes, it’s not a huge stretch to say that deciding to push herself was dangerous for her – but it was her life. That’s what she lived for.”
Director Larraín praised the stoicism Jolie brings to the role. “I’m always very moved when I see fight; this fight to continue,” says Jolie. “When I see someone who’s full of self-pity or giving up, it doesn’t move me in the same way. And I was very moved by her because I would see Maria, even in her darkest hours, try to pull herself together and move forward. I feel that was her. And I wanted this film to be about what an extraordinary artist she was. A celebration of her and this artist, who was a fighter and a deeply feeling emotional person. Someone who loved art and gave her life for it, not someone who was just a tragedy.”
Soft sell
How Brunello Cucinelli built a multi-billion-dollar clothing empire from a tiny Italian town where his factory workers take siestas
WORDS JIM ARMITAGE
Brunello Cucinelli, the Italian designer to the super-rich, has built a €6 billion luxury clothing empire that dresses people high in the social stratosphere.
The founder of the eponymous company is as pally with real royals as he is with the royalty of Silicon Valley. The late Steve Jobs’s trademark black turtleneck? Cucinelli. Mark Zuckerberg’s classic grey T-shirt? Cucinelli.
In womenswear, think the quietly understated cashmere draped on Shiv Roy in the TV series Succession, or the whispered elegance of another Cucinelli chum, Gwyneth Paltrow.
You get nothing so gauche as a logo with this brand, but those in the know, know. “It is,” as one devotee at Goldman Sachs quipped to me over lunch last week: “What you wear when you’re walking on the tarmac from your limo to your private jet.”
Perhaps only Loro Piana and Hermès can claim similar elevated status in the world the fashion press call “quiet luxury.”
While lesser labels – Burberry, in particular – have been struggling amid slow demand from China, Cucinelli has kept churning out the highest quality profit growth for its shareholders on the Milan stock exchange. In its recent half-year figures, the company posted 19 per cent profit growth to €105 million and a 14 per cent increase in turnover to €620.7 million.
The fact is, its customers never really feel the pinch.
Given the discreetly loaded nature of his clientele, and the business he’s in, you might expect Brunello to be a snooty type. But when he spies me across the hushed lobby at his HQ in the Umbrian countryside, he is anything but. “Ah!” he bellows, in loud Italian: “He is wearing a tie! Ha ha! Of course, how English!”
All in white, with a slim-cut, open-neck shirt and tapered cashmere cords that stop just above the ankle, within seconds he’s on me, fingering the material of my suit, praising its midnight blue colour while theatrically grabbing my shoulders, then shaking my hand. It’s like being jumped on by a six-foot Italian puppy dog.
The interpreter struggles to keep up as he enthuses about all things English, going faster than the beloved Bentley GT he drives down the hill to work in every day.
And what a hill that is. Cucinelli lives in a grand house in a medieval hilltop village in Umbria, a region famed for its knitwear industry. A cluster of caramelstone houses around an ancient castle, this is Solomeo, a place he has made a key part of the Cucinelli brand.
His daughters, Camilla and Carolina, and their husbands, Riccardo and Alessio, all work in the business and live in handsome homes a few yards away with their children. They are all intimidatingly beautiful.
Solomeo, the hometown of his wife (the pair were teenage sweethearts), had fallen on hard times until Cucinelli started to make serious money. When he floated his company in 2012, he cashed in €150 million and spent the lot renovating the area. Not only did he start doing up Solomeo itself, but he bought up the
dilapidated industrial buildings in the valley below to return the land to nature.
“I said to my daughters: ‘This valley, it’s beautiful. We have to clean it out and turn it into orchards, vineyards. But it will mean we are €150 million poorer,’ and they said: ‘Yeah? Why not?’”
The results are glorious. From the old castle tower that he uses as an office, to the hall he’s turned into a college teaching youngsters tailoring and other crafts, Solomeo is immaculate.
The valley looks straight out of a renaissance painting. “E vero, Of course,” he says, “Perugino [the 15thcentury artist who taught Raphael how to draw], painted here.”
With his hand guiding the small of my back, he ushers me excitedly into the large, airy factory downstairs. I say ‘factory’, but it hardly looks like a
‘ Cucinelli is the perfect example of beautiful quality Italian clothes ’
factory at all. While there are dozens of Cucinelli-clad men and women stitching, tailoring and pressing garments, it feels more like a trendy open-plan office. Light floods in from huge floor to ceiling windows on all sides, each boasting a view of that delicious countryside.
Cucinelli, a keen student of classical philosophy, is famous in Italy for running his factories as an antidote to the sweatshops of fast fashion. The views, he says, are a key part of that.
“When we moved in, this place had no windows at all,” he says. “Like most factories, the idea was; if workers can see outside they will waste time looking. But that’s not natural. If I have a window and glance out 400 times a day, I waste 500 seconds but I live better. I become more creative as a consequence.”
It isn’t just the windows. Cucinelli’s staff start at 8am and stop at 1pm for an hour and a half lunchbreak, when they eat, for a nominal €3 at the excellent canteen. Then, siesta. “Some go home to see their children, some take a nap, it’s up to them, but in my opinion it’s very important to rest,” he says.
The shift ends at 5.30pm, when it’s home time, with work emails and phone calls strictly forbidden.
He says he pays his workers an average of about €2,100 a month: “That’s 20 per cent more than the average in Italy for this kind of work,” he says, adding that he cannot understand why other companies don’t do the same. When I suggest that’s because most can’t charge the same prices as his brand, and outsource to China, he furrows his brow. “I’m not interested in Chinese ways.” The point is, he says, it’s not about the price, but the profit margin. “You know how much it costs me to pay my staff this handsomely?
Just 1 per cent of my profitability a year.”
If other companies could sacrifice 1 per cent of their margin to boost their workers’ pay, “it could be a gamechanger,” he says. Cucinelli’s operating margins run at about 16-17 per cent, which is, indeed, lower than many luxury goods companies.
Now 71, he grew up in the countryside nearby. “I am a peasant,” he says proudly. His family were tenant farmers, and he recalls idyllic days helping in the fields. But Cucinelli padre eventually moved them to the city and got a job in a factory. Brunello was 15, and
seeing the effect the grim conditions had on his father clearly moulded his approach to his 3,000 employees today. “I heard him complain about being humiliated by his employers. I saw him disappointed, upset, with teary eyes.”
After drifting somewhat in his early twenties, modelling for the Ellesse sports brand and hairdressers who would sometimes send him home with his locks died bright green or red, he had a sudden idea. “It was literally overnight,” he says. Benetton was making a fortune selling brightly-coloured Shetland wool jumpers; Cucinelli figured he could do the same, but with cashmere. Loading his first batch into a van, he hit the road, started selling, and hasn’t looked back since.
He has little sympathy for the big fashion houses warning of troubled times.
“In 2019 to 2023, those very famous names, they doubled their turnover and raised their profit by 35 per cent. That doesn’t sound like a lot of trouble, does it?
“For us, over the past 20 years we basically grew by 11 per cent on average. That’s normal, not violent growth. If you
grow violently, you will fail violently.”
When he floated, his advisers told him if he did not promise to expand the business 20 to 30 per cent a year, nobody would buy the shares. “I said don’t even remotely think about that. We want a growth rate of about 10 per cent and that’s that.”
Since then, despite a sharp fall along with the rest of the sector since spring, the shares are up 617 per cent even after a 5 per cent drift down since the start of the year. He and his family own roughly half of the shares, and the company’s market value is €5.66 billion.
His friend Sir Paul Smith puts Cucinelli’s success down to focus. “He’s the perfect example of beautiful quality Italian clothes. It’s a very complete style and doesn’t differ from that,” he says.
We walk out into the sunshine, where a fountain is playing by a statue of the god Hermes. Is it a nod to the similarly named Parisian luxury rival? Not at all, the billionaire responds, “He’s the god of trade and commerce.” As we walk past, I’m sure I catch it smiling down on him.
‘ If you grow violently, you will fail violently ’
One Way Or Another
From the early days of hanging out with Andy Warhol to a campaign with Gucci at 79, Debbie Harry remains as unconventional as ever
WORDS: LISA ARMSTRONG
Over the years Debbie Harry’s precision-chiselled features have been captured in museum-worthy portraits by numerous artists, including Andy Warhol who became a personal friend (he threw a party for her at Studio 54 in 1979 to celebrate the release of ‘Heart of Glass’) and Robert Mapplethorpe. Chris Stein, the guitarist with whom she founded Blondie in 1974 (and who was her romantic partner for over a decade), is a talented photographer on the side, capturing her at her most candid.
So it’s certainly not lost on her that, aged 79, the singer who was one of the rock world’s most pictured women, is once again in high demand – a festival headliner, a bestselling author, and, in September, a fashion front row star.
Harry has only seen the photographs from her new Gucci campaign on her phone so far, but she sounds relaxed about them being shown to the press. Not for her the paranoid scrutiny that other celebrities engage in when
safeguarding their own image. For one thing the images are shot by Nan Goldin, an artist and activist whom she has long admired and is best known for her work documenting the HIV/AIDs and opioids crises.
“You need chemistry to create a great photo,” Harry tells me in her distinctive New York drawl. ‘That’s what I worked out. Once you have that – and good lighting – you can relax.” Relax she did in many of her pictures. It helps that she was never a prude. There are photos from the 70s of Harry wearing a dress that allegedly belonged to Marilyn Monroe, jousting with a flaming frying pan in a burned-out apartment; Harry wearing a pillow case cinched with duct tape for an outtake of the cover of Blondie’s second album, Plastic Letters “Our landlord found that pillowcase… He had a good eye,” says Harry.
For Gucci, Goldin shot her in a black taxi, in London. “That’s quite an intimate space,” says Harry, but Nan’s so lovely as well as an outstanding
person.’’ Harry finds lots of people lovely, but she’s not afraid to call out the creeps and predators either, which she does frequently, in Face It, her remarkably frank bestselling autobiography, released first in 2019. London is one of her favourite cities. Blondie were big in the UK before they broke the US, kicking off their first UK tour in that bastion of punk, Bournemouth in 1977. She was 31 and remembers hanging out at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm Maclaren’s boutique on the King’s Road, “but I couldn’t afford any of their things.” That’s how it was for nascent superstars then: precious few freebies, unless they were from skips, and very little in the way of sponsorship. “I think some people found some of my looks offensive, but it was a sign of the times. Everyone was doing that in New York and London – finding lots of treasures from the past and tearing them up a bit.” She still loves diving into a second hand store, “and finding something
‘ I don’t think I ever hired a professional stylist ’
Opposite page: Blondie This page, from top to bottom: Promotional picture for Chrysalis records, date unknown; Harry on the roof of the Gramercy Park Hotel, New York, 1978
that plays your heart strings. It’s an adventure. You get great things at the right price... I think if I’d been born in another era, I would definitely have been an explorer of some kind.”
No wonder she’s chuffed to be working with Gucci, and to have a bag named after her. “I’m honoured, really flattered, although I don’t know whether Sabato (de Sarno, Gucci’s creative director) was actually thinking of me when he designed The Blondie, or named it afterwards.” (In fact it’s a 1970s archival Gucci design that was re-launched during Gucci’s Cruise 2025 show at Tate Modern in May 2024). She’s speaking to me from her Chelsea apartment in New York where she lives alone with her dogs. She has never married or had children.
She has just returned home after sitting in the front row at Gucci in Milan. Today her camera’s switched off, but three days earlier at the show, she wore a white shirt, a black split knee length skirt, thumpingly high chunky red loafers (she loves a comfy shoe these days) and carried a red leather Gucci jacket and a black version of the Blondie bag: edgy but not outrageous. Her blonde hair, more silver these days, was swept up and she wore a pair of those teeny black triangular sunglasses that look as though they’re perching on cheekbones. Only those with outstanding bone structure need apply.
She comes across as someone with a sophisticated understanding of her image, both then and now. Harry and Stein may have had a remarkable knack of writing catchy pop songs, but they always had art school sensibilities. Not for nothing did they open for Iggy Pop in 1977 (David Bowie was on keyboards for ‘Pop’) or have Jean-Michel Basquiat feature in the 1980 video for ‘Rapture.’
Her Blondie look stemmed from a fascination with Marilyn Monroe, the way her platinum hair shimmered on screen and the fact that Monroe was constantly belittled by snobs – “She had the smarts.”
Born Angela Trimble in Florida, at three months, Harry was adopted by parents Catherine and Richard Harry who were gift shop proprietors in New Jersey, and renamed Deborah Ann Harry (like her, Monroe was adopted). She may have grown up in middle class suburbia, but she is a gritty New Yorker, heart and soul. There was a
‘Technology can be wonderful, but we have access to so much now and nothing has time to ferment ’
brief flirtation with hippy style – “I actually went to Woodstock one year” –but it didn’t last. Thanks to her adoptive mother, who was a keen seamstress, she knew how to sew. When I ask what she thought of the Gucci show, instead of the usual celebrity platitudes, she gives me a detailed summary of the beading and the A-line constructions.
She was 20, and immersed in the downtown New York music scene with The Velvet Underground and Janis Joplin, when she realised she wanted to perform. It took another nine years of experimentation before she founded Blondie with her lover, guitarist Chris Stein, in 1974 – ‘Heart of Glass’ hit number one in the US in 1979.
In 2019 Miley Cyrus released a cover of the track and spoke of the debt her generation of female singers owe to Harry. While today’s elite musicians make billions and appear to be largely in charge of their own empires, Harry and Stein were famously cheated out of millions by dodgy management back in the early 80s, signing a series of bad deals which eventually led to all their possessions being seized by the Internal Revenue Service to compensate for unpaid taxes. A band that sold 50
million records, in the end, did not afford her a life of leisure. After Blondie split up in 1982, she had to continue working to pay her way, launching a solo music and acting career which has barely let up to this day.
If the band Blondie were launching today, one feels, Harry would undoubtedly be given her own highly lucrative celebrity fashion line in double quick time. Some of her most famous looks, like the white dress she wore on the cover of 1978’s Parallel Lines, the chiffon asymmetricneckline dress she wore in the 1979 video for ‘Heart of Glass’ and her uniform of thigh-high patent boots and t-shirts-as-dresses, are consistently described as iconic. She demurs at this. “That’s a word I associate with Russian art rather than celebrity.”
In what turns out to be a typically hair-raising Harry side note, she tells me that the Blondie bag reminds her of a shoulder bag she bought from a vendor near Canal Street more than 50 years ago. “That bag was so strong that when these guys tried to mug me, they couldn’t break the straps on it.” This is one of her tamer anecdotes. There is not much she
Opposite page: Harry poses for a Blondie promo, 1978 Left: Debbie Harry by Andy Warhol
hasn’t seen – or done. And many of her clothes corroborate the tale.
“I still have that bag somewhere, along with many of my early clothes,” she adds. “They’re all kept really well in a special place. I’ve actually surprised myself at how organised they are.’’ Sometimes she still wears them. “I cherish them. I’ve taken some of the colours and designs and reworked them into more modern applications… I guess I really do have a strong relationship with fashion.”
It’s true she worked out quite early on what sells. That meant finding some of her most provocative pieces in thrift stores, back when they were genuinely cheap – although one of her favourite buys in recent years was a suit – she can’t remember who made it but knows she bought from Harvey Nichols in Manchester during a UK tour last year.
Far from the manufactured styling many celebrities rely on today, Harry would look to her friends to come up with suggestions about what she should wear. Stephen Sprouse, then an up-and-coming designer working for Halston, designed the gorgeous – and for Harry, unusually polished – ‘Heart of Glass’ chiffon dress, described as “the funkiest of dresses” by one critic at the time. Sprouse, who died at 50 in 2004 and never capitalised financially on the early buzz about him, was, like Harry, a through and through punk with an eye for beauty and glamour. Apart from dressing her, he became known for incorporating graffiti in his designs. “I think he just couldn’t bear seeing me look like a mess, so he would help me,” she says. “Friends would say to me, ‘no not that. Or why don’t you add a bangle?’ I don’t think I ever hired a professional stylist.”
I wonder whether she ever minds that she wasn’t born later, so that she could capitalise on today’s more marketdriven and lucrative music scene. Or maybe she thinks the vanilla flavour of so much of today’s popular culture would bore her witless. “Yeah, I do wonder about that sometimes. And I don’t really have an answer. What I also wonder is where today’s counterculture is. [Technology can be] wonderful, but we have access to so much now and nothing has time to ferment.”
“Truth be told, I’d like to be working a bit more,” she says, even though she
These pages, from left to right: Gucci’s ‘We Will Always Have London’ campaign, fronted by Harry; Harry at Gucci’s Women’s Spring/Summer 2025
‘ Icon? That’s a word I associate with Russian art rather than celebrity ’
recently returned from a long tour that included playing Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage and Coachella last summer. She says that she likes being on the road, even though “everyone wants me to sing the same old songs. I get that. There’s an emotional connection. And I love all those songs.” There are certainly no retirement plans.
She’s currently putting the finishing touches to an album of new material, her ninth since 1988’s Once More into the Bleach. Despite the fact that they split romantically in 1983, she remains close friends and working allies with Chris Stein, whom she nursed through a debilitating auto-immune disease called pemphigus vulgaris which causes burn-like skin blisters and saw him laid low for years in the 1980s. Musically, she’s eternally curious, as open minded as ever and hungry for new experiences. “When I walk onstage every little ache and pain just disappears, even if I have a cold.”
She tried working out with a trainer for a few years, but gave up. “I’ve tried
everything at some point,” she says. “These days I do a lot of speed walking with the dogs.” She has two Russian Chins, “of course they’re adorable. I had a bunch more, but they died. I’m practically vegetarian and I do old lady exercises, which is shocking to me. I mean how have I got so old? But I guess I’ve been lucky.” (In 2010 she told an Australian reporter that roughly half the people she hung out with in the 70s and early 80s were dead).
She sounds as unconventional as she always did. Her sangfroid about the missing millions, the burned out apartments, the burglaries, the addiction (explicitly retold in Face It), is bracing. It could also be called fortitude. “That doesn’t mean I don’t also worry, acutely, sometimes. But I’m quite strong. I’ve had my accidents but I seem to be able to adjust and I’m pretty athletic,” she says (she even learned to wrestle for a 1983 Broadway play). ‘‘My motto is just kind of keep going. I don’t recommend that to everyone but it works for me.”
Skyfall
A plug-in hybrid supercar? With 1,000bhp? Naturally, the Italians have included a monstrous petrol V12 in the Lamborghini Revuelto
WORDS: ANDREW ENGLISH
Adjacent to the historic buildings of the former Hatfield aerodrome in England lies Mosquito Way, a redolent name for a sort of supercar mall where all the ‘exclusive’ marques gather like sheep under an oak tree. Ferrari, McLaren, Maserati, Bentley, Range Rover, Lamborghini, roll up, roll up! It’s the school holidays and a small group of lads park their bicycles on the opposite pavement hoping to catch a glimpse of a supermodel: female, male or automotive…
For an industry firmly anchored in the fulfilment of fantasies, this all seems as glamorous and exclusive as schlepping around Ikea in a tracksuit. I pull away quietly into the 30mph-limit service road in the test car, although it’s difficult to be incognito in a large orange Lamborghini.
Running in City mode, there’s the faintest whirring for the first 20 yards, then the electronics detect that the battery is fading, so it fires up the 6.5-litre, naturally-aspirated V12 engine and everyone, but everyone, looks around, including a couple of grinning policemen. It takes only six minutes for the V12 to charge
the tiny 3.8kWh battery, 30 minutes if you plug it into a household wallbox.
And while some have complained this new Lamborghini isn’t quite the visual street theatre of the seminal Countach or outgoing Aventador (I don’t agree), there’s nothing outside of a racing paddock that makes this sort of racket. Gurgling, croaking, cawing and rasping; heaven knows how this car got through any sort of noise test. Even from inside, it sounds as if a murder of crows flew into the side window to argue about a tasty worm. There’s not really much scope for a normal conversation, although this isn’t the sort of car in which you’d have a chat. Getting in, however, is something of an art for those in short skirts or ageing discs in their backs. Once in, there’s plenty of room for those six feet or below, but after that things get quite cramped. There’s not a lot of room around the driver, but behind the seats there’s a sizable shelf which Lamborghini says will swallow a set of golf clubs. Under the bonnet is a space that will accommodate an airline carry-on case.
‘ I hit the red line at 9,500rpm and thought the sky had fallen in’
Supercar makers are seldom at the cutting edge of digital technology and often plough their own furrows and so it proves with the Revuelto. There’s a single flat instrument binnacle with a huge central rev counter, a digital speedometer, displays for battery state of charge and fuel contents, with flanking gauges for the radio/stereo and power distribution, although you can shift these around.
On the centre console is a smallish touchscreen, tasteful but not simple to navigate. Below that are some of the kitschest switches for gear selection, particularly reverse, along with scarlet “bomb release” covers.
The steering wheel has far too many switches including those for the damper settings, driver modes (City, Road, Sport, Track and, for the truly brave, everything
off), as well as a hybrid or battery charge mode. They all resemble Jelly Tots sweets and the rocker switch for the indicators is far too easy to lose when negotiating a sharp corner or a roundabout. Manual gear selection is accomplished via lovely carbon-fibre paddle behind the steering wheel.
On the road, the first thing to be aware of is the accident you can have in a Lamborghini because it’s a Lamborghini. As soon as some drivers are aware of its presence, they stop without warning, drive off the road (one chap drove straight on to the middle of a roundabout) or veer towards you – it’s terrifying.
Then there’s the intimidation of driving a five-metre long, 2.25m-wide, 1,000 horsepower machine on anything approaching a normal road. Everyone might be looking at you, but you’re staring like a petrified owl at oncoming traffic, the kerb stones, pedestrians, cyclists and anything else preventing you from using every inch of road space.
The ride, while gentle if you select ‘soft’
damping, is still a trifle sudden over road humps and potholes. And with little ground clearance you are always aware of the very expensive possibility of catching the spoiler lip of the flat-bottomed car on an undulation. There is a front-lift facility, which raises the car for larger ramps, but it switches to normal ride height above 40mph. At one point, a long and straight rolling piece of road beckoned and I gave the Revuelto its head, but backed out at 100km/h, concerned about car-to-earth contact; the driver of the Ford Fiesta ST behind me was not impressed.
On the odd occasion I was able to go faster, it’s clear this car is a force of nature, make that a North Atlantic gale maybe. It will max out somewhere above 350km/h, while 0-100km/h is dispatched in 2.5sec and 0-200km/h in 7sec.
The V12 explodes into life, with the front motors adding stability and even guidance under hard braking. I saw the red line
at 9,500rpm once and thought the sky had fallen in. Revuelto road driving is an exercise in self control, not impossible but there’s always a feeling it’s not altogether happy when pootling around town, which is ironic as most of them will ultimately live in the centre of megacities.
The steering remains faithful and direct, better than the Aventador. Some might think it over-assisted, I thought it was just right, easy to control but with some feedback, even if you do have to amp up your responses to suit the car.
At a brisk pace, you simply turn the wheel and the nose follows, it’s that simple. Speed up and it does the same, there’s an almost uncanny lack of drama. And it’ll tolerate a fair bit of mismanagement into and through corners without disappearing rear-first into the scenery, as mid-engined supercars have built a reputation for. Combining regeneration and friction braking, plus a degree of stability support
from the front motors, the stopping power is eye-popping, although I didn’t think the low-speed stopping was particularly refined and found my passenger’s head nodding as we rolled to a stop.
The official launch took place at the Vallelunga race circuit in Italy. Colleagues report a broadly benign car, capable of being exploited but with reserves of grip and handling to keep drivers both safe and still smiling. I’d concur, but my days, this is a mind-warpingly quick car.
The Revuelto isn’t going to change the world. Its hybrid technology mainly allows the car to retain its old-fashioned non-turbo V12 engine while providing a modicum of fuel economy. Just as racing almost never improves the breed, so supercars don’t change regular cars, but do show what can be done when manufacturers put their minds to it. If only for its attitude, its looks and the cacophony it makes, I rather liked this car.
Björn Again?
After scooping three Michelin stars for his debut restaurants in Sweden and Singapore, Björn Frantzén will be hoping to repeat the trick with his new Dubai opening
WORDS: JOHN THATCHER
It’s fair to say that Björn Frantzén doesn’t want for confidence.
We’re sat inside the super-sized Grand Atlantis Suite at Atlantis, The Palm, and we’re talking about his new restaurant FZN, ahead of its highly anticipated opening several floors beneath us on November 8. “I’m super excited, and I expect it to deliver 100% from day one,” he says, as though the idea of a soft opening period is anathema to him.
And well might it. His debut restaurant, Frantzén, which he opened in Stockholm in 2018, was Sweden’s first to be awarded three Michelin stars. Then came Zén in Singapore, which swiftly scooped three of its own.
Such success is a rarity. But then so is Björn, an honest, characterful presence throughout our chat who only took up cooking when injury curtailed his career as a professional footballer in Sweden’s top division. “I was like, what the heck can I do now? And then I did a stint in a Michelin-starred restaurant and realised that it’s the closest I will ever get to having the same feeling as playing football. The fifteen minutes before you open the door of a Michelin-starred restaurant are the same as the fifteen minutes in a dressing room before kick-off: you’re part of a team that’s going out to perform together and there’s a high expectation on you to perform well.”
Teamwork is of paramount importance to Björn. “I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of team members who have been with me for many years. So even though the company is pretty big nowadays (in addition to Frantzén and Zén, the group comprises Villa Frantzén in Bangkok, Brasserie Astoria in Marbella and Studio Frantzén in London, an outpost of which has also just opened at Atlantis, The Palm) it feels like a family business.”
As well as promoting from within, Björn likes to bring in people who can add something new, a fresh ingredient to a successful recipe. It’s a given that this person will already be a great chef, so what Björn looks for is personality. “We have a very clear vision and know exactly what we want to do and how we want to do it. So it needs to be a person who doesn’t have too big an ego,
‘ I like restaurants that have a lot of energy, because you should have fun going to restaurants’
because we would clash — big time! But then it’s also more about being a good leader, because at the end of the day it’s a team thing, and the job is to make everyone feel comfortable.”
FZN is a prime example of how Björn likes to mix old and new. Led by General Manager Karin Ågren, who has been with The Frantzén Group for seven years, the kitchen will be helmed by Executive Chef Torsten Vildgaard, whose CV boasts his own Michelinstarred restaurant in Denmark and a decade spent at gastronomic giant Noma, once a fixture in the number one slot of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Why does Björn think the Nordic region became such a culinary hotspot? “I think a lot of different things happened at the same time. Number one, there was a generation of chefs born in the 1970s — I was born in 1977, René (Redzepi) also, Rasmus (Kofoed) was born in 1974 — who were leaving the Nordic region to train at different three-Michelinstar restaurants around the world, because at the time the Nordic region was all about French, Austrian and German head chefs cooking very French food. We returned and were like, ‘Hell no!’ And that happened at the same time as social media kicked off big time, and the likes of World’s 50 Best Restaurants was launched, shining a light on the Nordic region. “Additionally, we were using locally sourced ingredients and they were ingredients no one outside of the region had really heard about, like pine needles. But it was also that our idea of fine dining was pretty relaxed, to reflect the Nordic people.”
Which brings us nicely onto FZN, where stuffiness is most definitely not on the menu. “I like restaurants that have a lot of energy, because you should have fun going to restaurants, even though by virtue of having three Michelin stars it
might be a very serious restaurant.”
Accommodating just 27 guests –including 13 around its open kitchen – the experience begins with the ringing of a doorbell, after which guests are guided first into a stylish, apartment-style living room for canapés – where they will also be shown the raw ingredients of their dinner – then the dining room for the next nine courses, including the likes of Norwegian king crab and langoustine, reimagined Frantzén style. Then it’s back to the living room for petit fours. All of it will be soundtracked by an upbeat, eclectic playlist curated by Björn, who is fond of hearing a bit of rock ‘n’ roll while he eats. And he ensures that he does eat at his own restaurants, hailing doing so as the best career advice he’s ever received.
“Don’t just stand in the kitchen, because it’s such a different experience to eat all the dishes and in the right order. Always, whenever I visit one of our restaurants, I do so first as a guest before I step into the kitchen. That way you get the full picture.”
He describes how doing so allows him to tweak the menu, if necessary.
“A dish that tasted great when developed and sampled individually in our test kitchen may not taste so great when eaten as the fourteenth course of a tasting menu, when you may need something with a greater level of acidity or more spice, because by that point the brain has tired of all the flavours and you may need to up the levels.”
Just as a fashion designer sketches clothing before it’s made, so too does Bjorn draw each of his dishes, indulging an artistic talent inherited from his mother, a painter.
“I always draw the dishes before I cook. Some chefs walk around in a kitchen smelling a carrot and getting a feeling. I’m sitting and thinking and I’m drawing. I realised I have to do this.
“Even though they may have tasted great, a lot of dishes we created haven’t made it onto our menus because I don’t think we got the aesthetics quite right — how it looked on the plate. It was too predictable.”
It’s that kind of extraordinary detail that ensures FZN will be anything but.
Call of the Wild
Singita’s one-of-a-kind villa in the heart of Tanzania’s Serengeti promises a memorable experience
There are memories of holidays that fade over time, and there are memories so vivid that they’re permanently etched on your mind. A trip to Singita Lebombo Lodge, nestled all alone in South Africa’s vast Kruger National Park, will undoubtedly effect the latter. It’s close to twenty years since I last visited, spending just two nights in one of only 15 glass-walled suites that are cut into a cliff face, placing you somewhere between the open sky and the wildlife-rife wilderness below. And yet I can still fondly recall every detail of it, so rich was the experience.
So it was with great excitement that I received news of the newly opened Singita Milele, this one even more exclusive: a huge, one-of-a-kind private villa in the heart of Tanzania’s Serengeti, granting its guests front-row seats to the annual Great Migration. It took three years to build, and like Singita Lebombo Lodge it has been designed so that you feel at one with nature – visually, acoustically, and physically.
Positioned high on a hill in the 350,0000acre private Grumeti Reserve, Singita Milele is a 10-minute drive from its own private airstrip – but far from other lodges, so that your game drive is also practically private, save for the abundant wildlife you’ll encounter. The villa houses five uniquely designed suites (two of which have al fresco spa pools) that can accommodate up to 10 guests, each representative of Serengeti’s famed inhabitants – giraffe, lion, cheetah, zebra, and rhino – and all feature dressing rooms, expansive terraces, outdoor showers and fine vistas of the endless savannas spread out below. But it’s the villa’s shared spaces that mark it out as extraordinary.
The beautifully considered outdoor area comprises a sheltered pavilion for prime viewing, a boma and firepit for enjoying star-strewn skies, and an infinity pool with an adjacent spa pool. Inside is liberally decorated with contemporary African art and design pieces crafted by local artisans, conveying a real sense of place. You’ll also find snug spots to cosy up fireside, a fitness centre, a 10-person cinema room and a remarkable wine cellar stocked with vintages and award-winning wines, which you’ll get to sample through sommelier-hosted tastings.
The sommelier is just one of several staff members dedicated to ensuring you make the most of your stay. Instructors are on hand for yoga and meditation, spa therapists can provide personalised treatments inside or out, and drivers are on-call to take you deeper into the wilderness for wildlife encounters. They’re joined by a field guide, chef, butler and housekeeping team.
“Singita Milele’s generous spaces and easy flow – combined with the rich inspiration it draws from Grumeti and its wildlife – embody the ultimate sense of freedom,” says Georgie Pennington, Head of Creative Direction at Singita. It’s also likely to furnish the ultimate holiday. One you’ll never forget. JT
Izak Senbahar
OWNER OF THE MARK HOTEL AND CAVIAR KASPIA
I’ve recieved too many pieces of good advice to single out just one as the best. They include: hard work never goes to waste; the harder you work the luckier you get; live and let live; treat everybody the way you want your mother to be treated; keep your eye on the product; OK is not good enough, great is the least you should go for.
I truly believe that you discover your strength during tough times, especially in how you respond to challenges. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 tested us profoundly. At that time, we were juggling several major projects and every morning presented new obstacles. But despite the setbacks we showed up, faced each issue head-on, and worked harder than ever. The Mark Hotel was one of those projects where, despite
the outside pressures, we managed to maintain its timeless elegance, making it a landmark in its own right. It’s now one of the most iconic and celebrated hotels in New York City.
A lesson I learned the hard way was not knowing or not admitting that real estate is a cyclical business. The business we are in has had many cycles in the last 40 years. The down cycles are hard to escape. Also taking risks can have real consequences, especially in down cycles. I now know to analyse the downside carefully and only take calculated risks.
If I could acquire any new talent it would be for singing and playing the drums. I play the bongos but would have loved to play the drums as well. Every time I think I should take it up,
a voice in me says, ‘you are too old.’ I also wish I could sing like Paul McCartney.
I think I would have been happier if I were not such a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist makes things harder for yourself and the people around you. But when things are perfect, the joy and the satisfaction you get from it is priceless.
Given the chance, there aren’t many things I would have done differently. Maybe slow down and smell the roses sometimes.
People I admire include the late Steve Jobs for his creativity, perseverance and perfectionism, and Bill Gates for his humanness. He comes across as a smart, measured and extremely philanthropic person. I like that about him.
