Luxury London Magazine Autumn 2021

AUTUMN 2021 £8.00

MAGAZINE

Jackie

Stewart

IS THE MAN WHO WON’T BE STOPPED

David

ROCKWELL

IN CONVERSATION WITH AMERICA’S PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT-DESIGNER

DOLCE & GABBANA On the return of 90s street style, targeting the TikTok generation, creating an NFT collection, and the very futuristic outlook for high fashion

ALSO INSIDE: CLARE SMYTH, FRANCIS SULTANA, THE SUPERYACHTS OF THE MOMENT & THE HYPERCARS OF THE FUTURE

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©2019 Harry Winston, Inc. CLASSIC WINSTON™ RINGS ©2019 Harry Winston, Inc. CLASSIC WINSTON™ RINGS

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CONTENTS

74 UP FRONT

96 48 A LIGHT THAT NEVER

COUTURE

GOES OUT? 10 EDITOR’S LETTER

Soho’s beatnik spirit is waning at the hands of rising rents

13 THE BRIEFING

The bon vivant’s bulletin for the

52 BARBADOS OR BUST

latest in luxury

How Great Train Robber Ronnie

JACKIE STEWART

CONNOISSEUR

racing’s deadliest decade

C U LT U R E

60 HOT PLATES

after a pandemic-induced delay A culture vulture’s guide to

What did Rodin really represent?

in No Time To Die 74 INTERVIEW: DOLCE & GABBANA Fashion’s iconic duo on getting down with the kids Glitzy pieces to inform your

The restaurants finally opening

62 CORE VALUES

London this season

Bond’s best sartorial moments

82 STYLE HER

38 THE AGENDA

44 THE MAKING OF RODIN

Biggs evaded justice

30 INTERVIEW: Formula One’s ‘Flying Scot’ on

72 MAN ABOUT TOWN

80s-inspired wardrobe

COLLECTION

Clare Smyth’s flagship restaurant

68 ABOVE AT HIDE

86 JEWELLERY NEWS

A new dining experience proves

Glittering new collections and

showstopping pieces

‘accomplished’ and ‘beautiful’

72

92

62

HOMES & INTERIORS 88 HIDDEN GEM

The stranger-than-fiction story of

106 TO LOVE OR TO LOATHE

the Marlborough diamond theft

92 SECONDS OUT

The London buildings proving more contentious than Marmite

A horologist’s guide to the most

112 STYLE YOUR TERRACE

important new watch releases

DRIVE

Heuman ON CREATING UPLIFTING LIVING SPACES

Phoebexxxx

FOXXX

WHAT NEXT FOR THE REAL STAR OF THE GREAT ? SED QUIIHIC TO CUS

114 FRANCIS SULTANA The acclaimed designer on curating interiors for the rich and famous

96 GERMAN SHEPHERD

Beata

The chicest outdoor accessories to zhuzh up any al fresco space

The unfettered opulence of the

120 ROCK OF AGES

Mercedes Maybach S-Class

DOLCE & GABBANA Introducing Francesca Kelly and Marianna Doyle, the EnglishSicilianHilici idebitis quam, tet laborporro quas audi

ALSO INSIDE: DAVID YARROW, MICK ROCK, EMMA WILLIS, JACK BLUMENTHAL, MARK WESTON & EDWARD SEXTON

In conversation with architectural

COV E R

genius David Rockwell

100 M ADDEST OF THE MAD

MAGAZINE

AUTUMN 2021 £8.00

These new British

130 PROPERTY OF THE MONTH

hypercars are are totally

A peek inside a classic stucco-

off the wall

fronted Knightsbridge townhouse

Dolce & Gabbana on their ’90s inspired FW21 collection (p74)

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

FROM THE EDITOR

Richard Brown EDITOR-AT-LARGE

AUTUMN 2021 Issue 25

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Annabel Harrison DIGITAL EDITOR Zoe Dickens ASSISTANT EDITOR

he time has come for everyone to stop and think about what is worth living and working for.”

Like everyone, lockdown for Stefano Gabbana was a period of introspection. For the first time in three-and-a-half decades – the time it’s taken him and Domenico Dolce to transform a fledgling design studio into one of the world’s most fêted fashion houses – life stood still, allowing the designer to reflect on what was really important. “Our families, our loved ones – too many times taken for granted.”

Early on in the pandemic, Stefano and Domenico decided to confront Covid-19 head-on, donating money to medical research institutions already attempting to combat the virus. So struck were the duo by the efforts of Milan’s Humanitas University, that not only did the pair contribute to the organisation financially, but chose to host their company’s SS21 fashion show on the university’s campus.

Discover how, out of the darkness, came a collection characterised by light on page 74.

David Rockwell, perhaps the most influential American architect-designer of the past 20 years, utilised lockdown to learn to play the harmonica – though you’ll never see him “wearing one of those neck-brace things to hold it on.” Professionallyspeaking, the pandemic saw Rockwell turn his attention to hospitals, and how they could be better built to provide greater emotional benefit to their patients. As a new monograph chronicles the way his work intersects architecture and performance, Rockwell discusses why buildings should be seductive and why he learns the scores of every show for which he designs sets, on page 120.

Anna Solomon CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Rob Crossan Jeremy Taylor Josh Sims HEAD OF DESIGN Laddawan Juhong GENERAL MANAGER Fiona Smith PRODUCTION MANAGER Alice Ford MANAGING DIRECTOR Rachel Gilfillan BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Asleen Mauthoor CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Three Michelin star chef, and new Hublot ambassador, Clare Smyth spent lockdown reviewing what a good restaurant should be (p.62); Francis Sultana, interior designer to the stars, split the time between working on a superyacht, a new hotel project and three furniture collections (p.114); Sir Jackie Stewart continued his fight against dementia by raising funds to sponsor early-career researchers who find it difficult to source funding elsewhere (p.30).

Eren Ellwood

Whether or not your lockdown was as productive as our interviewees’, Luxury London welcomes you back to the real world.

PUBLISHED BY

Enjoy the issue.

RICH ARD BROWN Editorial Director 6 SALEM ROAD, LONDON, W2 4BU T: 020 7537 6565 LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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T H E B R I E F I NG T H E L AT E S T N E W S F R O M T H E W O R L D O F L U X U R Y P.14 THE CAR An automobile that’s more than meets the eye

P.16 THE YACHT The technology making yachts greener

P.18 THE RESORT When five stars isn’t enough

P.22 THE PHOTOGRAPHY Are smartphones the new cameras?

P.24 THE PROPERTY Park-adjacent apartments pending

P.26 THE VILLA A secluded bolthole for art-lovers

The soon-tobe-completed Park Modern development from Fenton Whelan offers uninterrupted south-facing views thanks to its proximity to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens

01 THE CAR

Rolls-Royce Boat Tail A MYSTERY CLIENT HAS COMMISSIONED A £20M BESPOKE ROLLS-ROYCE, COMPLETE WITH TELESCOPIC PARASOL AND CAVIAR FRIDGE Words: Jeremy Taylor

E

arlier this summer, in a distinctly unglamorous warehouse in Leighton Buzzard, Rolls-Royce pulled the covers off its most audacious model to date – a bespoke £20 million motor called Boat Tail.

The hand-painted Azur blue bonnet, which graduates to a softer, lighter blue on the car’s side panels, was by far the most eye-catching feature – until a concealed parasol popped up at the rear of the car.

Indeed, much of what makes the Boat Tail so special is hidden from prying eyes. At the back, twin side-opening compartments are hinged in the middle and open like a butterfly, revealing an Aladdin’s cave of treasures. On one side is a pair of twin champagne coolers, designed to fit the owner’s favourite Armand de Brignac vintages.

Elsewhere, there’s crockery by Christofle of Paris – hopefully dishwasher safe – matched to bespoke salt and pepper grinders, all engraved with the car’s name. Caviar is kept cool in a proper fridge, rather

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than a chiller, with various other food compartments that have been tested in temperatures that range from 80°C to -20°C. As mentioned, however, the Boat Tail’s crowning glory is a parasol that slots into the rear of the car to provide extra shade. With a stainless steel shaft and aluminium coupling, the high-tensile fabric is stretched over carbon-fibre stays, which were tested in Rolls-Royce’s wind tunnel.

In the cabin, the company has worked with Swissbased House of Bovet to create reversible ‘his and hers’ watches. The centrepiece of the minimalist dashboard is a slot to insert one of the watches, which then becomes the Boat Tail clock.

The secrecy surrounding this car is extraordinary.

Luxury London received a tip off about who commissioned the project, but at the risk of upsetting the Rolls-Royce legal department, we’ll keep schtum – except to say that trailing the Cote d’Azur with an eagle eye is probably your best bet of ever catching a glimpse of this stately machine in the wild.

The shape of the Boat Tail was inspired by the RollsRoyce Sweptail, a unique convertible unveiled in 2017

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S haring the same chassis as the Rolls-Royce Phantom, the Boat Tail is 5.9 metres long and houses a 6.75-litre V12 engine

02 T H E S U P E R YA C H T

M/Y Artefact NOBISKRUG YACHT ARTEFACT PICKED UP SEVERAL WINS AT THE RECENT DESIGN & INNOVATION AWARDS FOR ITS GROUNDBREAKING HULL AND PLANET-SAVING TECHNOLOGY Words: Anna Solomon

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ome truly trailblazing vessels gained recognition at Boat International’s award ceremony this year. One such vessel was 80 metre Artefact, which won awards for her interior, naval architecture and onboard innovation.

Artefact’s owner had a very specific brief. The yacht needed to feel spacious – cavernous even – which Nobiskrug achieved with a floor-to-ceiling glass section in the hull (comprising nearly 8,000 square feet of curved glasswork and weighing almost 120,000 pounds).

This acutely modern feature should not, however, make the interior feel cold or harsh – interior designer Reymond Langton was tasked with delivering ‘cosiness’. The result was custom-made furniture, including a stunning Silverlining table, and the integration of artwork throughout.

But Nobiskrug’s latest superyacht is not only remarkable for its design – it is also an impressive feat of technology.

Artefact’s DC grid-based hybrid power system by ABB means that various energy sources can be optimised according to the ship’s needs, resulting in energy saving. Plus, the use of solar panels and a large battery storage system allows the yacht to operate for a limited time without the use of its internal combustion engines.

Artefact has also been designed so that it might be upgraded with future technologies – for example, the integration of fuel cells in the place of generators – and also boasts a dynamic positioning system which keeps it steady without the use of an anchor, preventing damage to the sea floor.

These innovations mark a shift in the yachting industry, which has historically garnered a reputation for putting hedonism before environmentalism. The last few years have seen a change of tack in not only builders but owners, who want their yachts to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

Artefact is one of the first superyachts to meet IMO Tier III emissions regulations.

Artefact has been designed so that it might be upgraded with future technologies

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03 T H E R E T R E AT

The Evian Resort THE STATELY FRENCH SPA ESCAPE, WHERE THE GRASS REALLY IS GREENER Words: Richard Brown

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he Evian Resort is your smartphone camera with HDR mode turned on. So green are the manicured lawns, so blue is the Alpine sky, so radiant the ranks of rosebushes and rows of rhododendrons, that whenever you whip out your phone to capture the prismatic panorama – which stretches from the Haute-Savoie mountains to the waters of Lake Geneva – your exposure settings are sent into a state of paralysis. LG should shoot a promotional video for its OLED TVs here.

They can play them on loop in the home tech department of John Lewis. #Nofilter. No way. It’s true!

There are two ways of getting to Évian-les-Bains, the famous French belle époque spa town that’s been inviting high-society pilgrims to take the waters since the middle of the 19th century.

The first is on-board Evian One, a state-of-the-art catamaran that looks like something the prop department of Interstellar dreamt up. Thanks to some cutting-edge aerodynamics, the water-bound space-cat is capable of whizzing up to 10 people from a gangway near Geneva airport to the shores of Évian-lesBains in just 45 minutes without creating so much as a ripple.

Guests staying at the Evian Resort, which ranges across 245 acres of verdant mountainside some 500 metres above, are invited to make use of the boat throughout the duration of their visit.

The second, more conventional, method of arrival is by car; a journey that takes only half-an-hour longer from the same starting point. The route snakes the perimeter of the lake through a series of medieval villages, and the Swiss-French border, before arriving at the source of what is, supposedly, the world’s most evenly-balanced mineral water.

Both methods of arrival terminate at the end of a stately driveway, which winds through towering cedar trees and grass that would make the groundsmen at Augusta jealous, before delivering you to a human-sized Evian water logo illuminated by spotlights and encircled by international flags. Even before you enter its high-domed, cathedral-like lobby, Hôtel Royal, the resort’s flagship hotel (there are two) feels like somewhere that would host the heads of state during an international convention. Funnily enough, in 2003 the resort helped accommodate the lead delegates of the G8 summit.

Nine years later, the hotel having recently celebrated its centenary, interior-design guru Francois Champsaur and historical architect Francois Chatillon were charged with overseeing a head-to-foot refurbishment. I’ve no idea what the hotel looked like previously, but if Coco Chanel had designed a hotel (she may well have, I have no idea), you’d imagine it would’ve looked something like the revamped Royal – all white-marble floors and statement chandeliers.

Rooms – there are 150, and 32 suites – are a little more relaxed; turn-of-the-century furniture fraternising with canaryyellow armchairs; a navy-on-white-on-light-wood colour palette creating a nautical quality. Indeed, with the shimmering lake a constant companion, the hotel’s long, linear layout makes it feel as though you’ve run aground on the kingliest of cruise ships.

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The resort’s pièce de résistance is the fabled Les Fresques

All rooms, apart from those on the fifth floor, have balconies large enough to accommodate a table and chairs.

You can drink in views of the lake for free, or sip Aperol Spritzs for around £20 a pop. While we’re on that subject, you might expect bottles of Evian to be provided gratis, given that we’re sat on the mountain that spits out the stuff for free. Not so.

While 33cl bedside bottles are replenished every night, each additional 750cl bottle you request adds €8 to your bill.

It’s easy to stay cocooned in the Hôtel Royal, with its indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and industry-leading spa (complete with hot tubs, hammams and an open-air hydrocircuit). But the Evian Resort is far more than its flagship hotel.

The four-star Hôtel Ermitage, located a few hundred metres uphill, has its own pool and spa. There’s a concert hall, a kid’s club, streams of garden trails and a championship golf course – the only course to host a Major in Continental Europe – just a short drive away. Down in Evian town, the resort even has its own casino. A vintage wooden funicular will take you there for free.

The resort’s pièce de résistance is the fabled, white-tableclothed Les Fresques. Artist Gustave Louis Jaulmes hailed from across the water in Lausanne. In 1909, fresh from working on Paris’ Palais de Chaillot, he traversed the lake to apply his handiwork at the Royal. His monumental, hand-painted frescos were painstakingly restored during the hotel’s overhaul and now cap what must be one of the world’s most elegant dining rooms.

Dishes are the work of veteran head chef Patrice Vander, who’s been with hotel for more than 20 years. Fish comes from the lake; beef and cheese from the mountains; tomatoes and herbs from the hotel’s square-kilometre vegetable garden. It’s top-tier food served in a fairy-tale setting. You can’t help but feel that Michelin was a little bit stingy when it chose to award Les Fresques only the one star following its most recent visit.

In 2010, the French Minister of Tourism decided that five stars simply didn’t do justice to his country’s top guesthouses and dreamt up a new classification of hotel. ‘Palace’ status was awarded to hotels that ‘embodied French standards of excellence and contributed to enhancing the image of France throughout the world.’

Even the most sanctified of the 25 hotels currently on the list – Paris’ the Crillon, the George V and Le Bristol, Le Byblos in Saint-Tropez, and the neighbouring Saint-JeanCap-Ferrat and Le Cap-Eden-Rock, among them – require an element of compromise. A city centre location comes at the cost of a pokey room; a subterranean spa negates a decentsized swimming pool; a reputation as a party palace attracts a certain type of pleasuremonger. It’s difficult to pinpoint the opportunity cost of staying at the Evian Resort.

‘Grand’, ‘opulent’ and ‘classy’ are lazy, stock images of words, but they’ll do just fine in précising this fanciest of French resorts.

Rooms at Hôtel Royal from approx. £255 per night, rooms at Hôtel Ermitage from approx. £148 per night, evianresort.com

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04 THE PHOTOGRAPHY

The iPhone Photography Awards WHY FORK OUT SEVERAL THOUSAND POUNDS FOR A FUJIFILM X-T4 OR A CANON EOS R6 WHEN YOU COULD JUST USE YOUR IPHONE 7?

Words: Anna Solomon

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hey say a picture is worth a thousand words, but for a picture taken with a camera phone, it’s probably a little less.

Or at least that used to be the case. Nowadays, photos taken on smart phones are breathtaking – so much so that an award has been set up exclusively for iPhone photography.

The iPhone Photography Awards insist that you don’t need fancy equipment to create powerful images – just a good eye – and a glance at the winning shot proves this to be true. Top prize-winner Istvan Kerekes, a Hungarian

photojournalist, snapped a haunting image of two Transylvanian shepherds against an industrial landscape on his iPhone 7.

The Photographer of the Year Award, meanwhile, went to Sharan Shetty of India for his moving picture of an Azerbaijani man and his horse, while Dan Liu took second for his shot of the Martian-esque landscape of Qinghai province in China (pictured).

In a year where digital sharing became the ultimate (and at some points, sole) tool of communication, this year’s competition takes on a particular poignancy.

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TOP IMAGE LIZHI WANG BOTTOM LEFT DAN LIU BOTTOM RIGHT EINAT SHTECKLER IPPAWARDS.COM

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05 THE PROPERTY

Park Modern, Hyde Park LONDON’S NEWEST COLLECTION OF SUPER-PRIME RESIDENCES COMPRISES 57 APARTMENTS OVERLOOKING HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS Words: Ellen Millard

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o spectacular is the view at Park Modern that, when Fenton Whelan’s sales director Lars Christiaanse pitches the development, he simply sticks a photo of the vista in front of potential buyers. It’s a sales tactic that worked – £100m worth of apartments were sold off-plan before the property had been officially unveiled in June.

Located on Bayswater Road, towards the entrance of Queensway, the property faces the park from the south, allowing residents to enjoy both the sunrise and the sunset from their apartments, which range from £2m for a one-bed and go up to £60m for the striking nine-bed penthouse.

The building, designed by architecture practice PLP, was

informed by the surrounding parkland, with its curves representing “a continuous line that moves from one end of the site to the other, evocative of the organic shapes found in nature,” says PLP-founder Lee Polisano.

Every property will have access to outdoor space in some capacity, whether that be a balcony or a wider terrace.

Inside, the developers spent time designing the joinery, doors and ironmongery to ensure that “everything you touch feels special”, says James Van den Heule, co-founder of Fenton Whelan.

The building expected to complete in 2022. “We set out to create the best residential development in London,” continues Van den Heule. “We wanted to create a legacy for what truly is a spectacular location.”

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OCCUPANTS OF PARK MODERN WILL BE PROVIDED ACCESS TO A RESIDENTS-ONLY SPA, WITH TREATMENT ROOMS AND A 25M SWIMMING POOL, A GYM AND A 16-SEAT CINEMA

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THE VILLA

Villa Belich PARED-BACK INTERIORS PUT THE EMPHASIS ON CONTEMPORARY ARTWORK AT THIS SECLUDED BOLTHOLE BY THE SEA Words: Richard Brown

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tanding sentinel, shoulders back, head up, in the corner of one of the two living rooms of Villa Belich, a pink-hued one-bedroom bungalow roughly 90 kilometres from Palermo Airport, is a three-foot-tall superhero wearing red-andyellow budgie-smugglers.

It takes about one-and-a-half hours to get to Belich from

the Sicilian capital, the last 15 minutes of which become a tangle of pot-holed B-roads and beaten-up dirt tracks.

Fortunately, The Thinking Traveller, the only villa rental company through which you are able to hire the property, sends you a handy information pack before you’ve even left the UK. ‘Turn left at the green gate, bear right at the cream

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Some of the villa’s other artworks include a huge drawing in the dining room by the abstract Palermitan painter Ignazio Schifano – you can see some of his other pieces in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Catania, on the other side of the island – and an even bigger canvas, ostensibly left blank, unless we missed something, by the conceptualist Vincenzo Schillaci. Something about the seen and the unseen, or something, we guessed.

Villa Belich is burrowed several hundred metres from the beach on Sicily’s south-east corner, where the island flattens into fields of wheat and vine, and the horizon dips into the sea. As well as directions of how to get to the property, the booklet provided by The Thinking Traveller offers advice on everything from local restaurants to the treasures of the surrounding area (the company publishes a guidebook for each of its 220 properties).

Fifteen minutes away, for example, is the archaeological park of Selinunte, one of the most progressive cities in

house, look out for the old farm with the cylindrical red water tower’; don’t try this in the dark folks, otherwise you’ll end up lost, just like us.

The scaled-down superhero, based on the Fantastic Four character The Thing, is the work of the Sicilian-born, Palermo-based sculptor Domenico Pellegrino. Of the belief that post-war America plundered the history of Greek gods for its comic book protagonists, Pellegrino re-appropriates Marvel characters as Sicilian heroes. Hence the reason why Belich’s resident superhero has swapped his customary blue shorts for a pair of underpants painted in the highlydecorative style of a Sicilian horse-drawn cart.

“I’m totally in love with art,” explains Belich’s proprietor Adriana di Mariano, an interior designer by trade and a contemporary art collector by passion. “I am convinced that pieces of art decide the houses they live in. When I was working on Belich I brought some of my favourite pieces to the house to decide which of them would stay.”

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Belich is a design lesson in chicness and light; whitebeamed ceilings and grey, micro-cement floors. It’s ludicrously spacious for just two people. There’s a doubleaspect kitchen, a separate dining area and two living rooms; so that one of you can be playing vinyls on a record player in one, while the other flicks through coffee-table tomes in the other. The furniture is as eclectic as the artwork.

“Most of the furniture in the property is from an old uncle’s house,” explains di Mariano. “I love mixing memories, traditions, roots and family stories with contemporary furniture to create a sort of timeless, free spirit atmosphere.”

The Belice Nature Reserve is only 300 metres away.

Chances are you’ll have the beach all to yourself, such is the off-the-beaten-track nature of this south-facing stretch of Sicily’s coastline. An infinity pool, surrounded by palm trees, looks out to the ocean.

Belich has its own vineyard and citrus orchard. They run in furrowed rows in front and behind the house, their sun-scorched branches creating a natural sound barrier to the cacophony of the outside world. Not that there’s much noise to keep out down this way, except for the gentle chime of clanging sheep bells and the continual brushstroke of smooth ocean waves.

Magna Graecia, until the Carthaginians sacked it in 409BC. The ruins that remain today are as impressive as anything found in the Valley of Temples, the more famous archaeological site one-hour to the east in Agrigento.

Also within the book are the details of how to get to the hilltop estate of Planeta, one of Sicily’s largest fine-wine producers. Between mid-August and the end of September you can help them harvest grapes. Alternatively, you can skip the manual labour and arrange a wine tasting within the estate’s chic La Foresteria restaurant.

Menfi, the closest town, is a fifteen-minute drive away.

Much of the city was razed to the ground by an earthquake in 1968, meaning that the town isn’t so much to look at nowadays. Restaurant Liccumarie near its centre, however, does serve slabs of meat and glasses of red wine worthy of an evening out. Nearby ristro-pub Befolk is mostly homemade beef-burgers and locally-brewed beer. It’s shut during lunchtimes but hosts local bands at the weekends.

Alternatively, you can opt to hideaway in Belich and have The Thinking Traveller arrange a chef to cook for you. Gabriella Becchina swapped life as an art historian in New York to set up a food-themed experience company in Sicily. The daughter of an upmarket olive oil producer – her father founded Olio Verde in 1989 – Becchina was born and raised in neighbouring Castelvetrano. Today, she works with The Thinking Traveller on in-villa menus that highlight the strength and breadth of local ingredients. Becchina’s sea bass was one of the highlights of our entire time in Sicily.

Villa Belich sleeps two guests. It is available to rent exclusively through The Thinking Traveller. Prices per week start from £3,207, thethinkingtraveller.com

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Our best-selling Derby boot, produced for more than 30 years.

An original version in Suede.

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SIR JACKIE STEWART The man who won’t be stopped

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Words: Rory FH Smith

here was a time in Formula One, not so long ago, when fireball crashes like the one Romain Grosjean endured at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix were the norm, not the exception. That time was the 1960s and early 70s, when drivers would risk it all in the name of entertainment and sport.

A time that would later be referred to as ‘the killer years’.

“In many respects, it was a wonderful period,” says Sir Jackie Stewart in the comfortable surroundings of the Formula

“The death toll was really ridiculous.

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One Paddock Club ahead of the British Grand Prix. The 82-year-old looks dapper.

Dressed in his signature Royal Stewart tartan trousers, matching flat cap and a crisp, white shirt, he is still every bit the paddock icon.

“But on the negative side, the death toll was really ridiculous,” says Stewart, earnestly. “In 1968, you had a driver killed for four consecutive months on the same day. Jim Clark died on 7 April. After that, Mike Spence was killed on 7 May, followed by Ludovico Scarfiotti [8 June] and Jo Schlesser [7 July]. It was crazy and a completely different world back then.”

Over the course of his career, Stewart witnessed the death of more than 50 of his fellow drivers and, by his reckoning, a driver who raced for five years had a twothirds chance of being killed in a crash.

Stewart refused to be a bystander in the deathly debacle. On 12 June 1966, Stewart pulled onto the startline of the Belgian Grand Prix. Fresh from his win

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the streets of Monaco only 21 days earlier, Stewart was hopeful he could replicate the same success on the 14.1-kilometre circuit that wound its way through the Belgian countryside. It was not to be. A sudden downpour had left surface water on the track and by the end of the first lap, more than half the field had crashed out due to the poor conditions.

“It was heavy, heavy rain – at the first corner, eight cars had come off the track.

Luckily, I wasn’t one of them.”

The Scott had survived the first few corners before his luck ran out. He left the track at the notorious Masta Kink, something he would later refer to as “by far the most difficult corner in the world.”

Believed to have been doing more than 165mph when he left the track, Stewart’s fragile BRM P261 hit a telegraph pole and then a building before landing upside down in a ditch while high-octane race fuel rushed into the cockpit, drenching Stewart’s rudimentary race overalls.

“I hit this river of water and I wasn’t completely conscious, so I don’t remember the actual impact,” he admits.

“While I don’t remember that exact moment, I know what I did. I went off the road, hit a telegraph pole, went through a woodcutter’s hut and smashed it to smithereens – then I landed upside down in a ditch.” Despite the substantial impact, against all odds, Stewart was relatively unharmed by the initial crash. The most torturous moment was yet to come.

“The telegraph pole did most of the damage and it ruptured the fuel tank which came in on me, so I was soaked in high-octane fuel. In those days, it was real juice – like aviation fuel but with more stuff in it!”

Thankfully, Stewart wasn’t the only driver whose luck had run out at that moment. Close by were British racer Graham Hill and American Bob Bondurant, who’d both come off the track not far away.

“Bondurant and Graham Hill went off in the same river of water, but there was nothing else to hit – I had knocked it all down – so they were OK. And when they got to me, they had to borrow spanners from a spectator’s car to get me out and to remove the steering wheel. Nowadays they

THIS IMAGE ©ROLEX/NICK HARVEY | SIR JACKIE STEWART AT THE 2018 GOODWOOD REVIVAL AHEAD OF A DEMONSTRATION RUN BELOW STEWART WITH MIKE KRANEFUSS, MOTOR SPORT MANAGER OF FORD, AT THE NÜRBURGRING, 1973

“Grosjean’s crash was a fantastic demonstration of what has happened since my day... It was a wonderful example of how things have moved forward – in my day, he would never have gotten out of the car” LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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all come off but they didn’t back then.”

Once out of the car, Bondurant and Hill saw to the Scotsman, pulling him away from the twisted wreck of his BRM and into the relative safety of a nearby barn, where they stripped his saturated clothes to relieve the burn of the highly flammable fuel against his skin. “In those days the fuel itself burnt you.”

By the time Stewart’s teammates had battled to free him from the cockpit, 25-minutes had passed. It took an ambulance two hours to get him to a medical centre. “When the paramedics arrived, they laid me on the ground on a canvas stretcher and I can still remember seeing the cigarette butts scattered around me.” Despite arriving at the track’s rudimentary medical facility, the comedy of errors continued. Another

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ambulance arrived to take him to a nearby hospital, but it got lost en route, at which point Stewart’s team manager took the executive decision to hire a private jet to fly Stewart to St Thomas’ hospital in London. Miraculously, the Scotsman emerged from the crash with only a broken shoulder and ribs.

From that moment, Stewart made a stand against the appalling safety standards and lack of medical facilities at racetracks around the world. While his campaign proved unpopular with many in the paddock, particularly the sport’s promoters and circuit owners, progress was made.

“Grosjean’s crash was a fantastic demonstration of what has happened since my day,” says Stewart. “I was watching the race at home and all I could think of was that he was a dead man, and then the next thing you see is the guy getting out the cockpit and struggling to get over the barrier. Then there’s a marshal helping him over it and then he stood up and walked to the medical car. And then when he got to the medical centre, they knew exactly what to do with him. It was just a wonderful example of how things have moved forward – in my day, he would never have gotten out of the car.”

Off the track, Stewart’s greatest motor racing legacy is, undoubtedly, the way he spearheaded health and safety campaigns that saved the lives of countless drivers.

On the track, the achievements of the man nicknamed the ‘Flying Scot’ are downright astonishing.

Stewart managed to claim three Formula One World Championships between 1969 and 1973, with 99 race starts before he retired in 1973, aged just 34. In 2020, the The Economist ranked him as the fourth-best racing driver in history, based on the relativity between car quality and driver skill. Apparently, news of the accolade hadn’t yet reached Stewart.

“Well, thank you very much,” he says raising an eyebrow. “They must have had Fangio up there … and maybe Sterling, Schumacher and Senna. But that’s four, so I guess one of them must have not made the cut! ... I think I was about 29th,” he says, with a wry smile. Fangio was indeed ranked in first place, in front of Jim Clark and Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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INTERVIEW

was fifth, followed by Lewis Hamilton in sixth position. Senna was ranked eighth.

In contrast to many of today’s drivers, Stewart was undaunted by other forms of motor racing. “If you were driving in Formula One, you were likely to already be driving in touring cars, GT cars, Formula Three cars, Indy cars. You’d be doing all sorts of things!”

In 1966, less than two weeks before Stewart’s sizeable crash at Spa, the Scott flew across the Atlantic for his first shot at the Indianapolis 500 in Indiana. Like Formula One, the 500-mile race was wrought with danger and, on the first lap, 11 of the 33 contenders were taken out of the race in an accident. Stewart swerved clear of the incident to take the lead.

Extending his lead by more than a lap, Stewart looked set to claim his first Indy win on his debut race. But, with just ten laps to go, the car lost oil pressure and Stewart was forced to park up and walk

back to the pits, handing victory to his friend, and fellow Formula One driver, Graham Hill. Stewart entered the same race the following year but was forced to retire from engine failure.

It’s been 50 years since Stewart’s second Formula One championship title, yet, in his personal life, the 82-year-old shows no signs of slowing down. After his wife of 59 years was diagnosed with dementia in 2016, Stewart set up his own charity, Race Against Dementia.

“Its aim is to beat the illness,” he says forcefully. “To create either preventive medicine, to begin with, and then a cure in my lifetime. No one in more than 40 years has managed to achieve that, but look what they’ve done for cancer – there are four cancer PhDs for every one for dementia, so that’s why we’re sponsoring young PhDs from all over the world.”

Working with partners in motorsport, business, technology, arts and medicine,

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the charity identifies and financially backs the most talented early-career researchers, enabling them to pursue innovative ideas that might not get funded by more mainstream charities.

As we chat today, Stewart’s wife is sat beside him. It’s clear that the two are inseparable, just as they were in Stewart’s racing days, when Helen would stand on the sidelines, timing his laps on a stopwatch.

“Helen was always there, supporting me through everything,” says Stewart. “She was razor-sharp; brilliant with that watch… but today we’re facing a new challenge, the hardest I’ve ever had to face.”

Plainly, Stewart’s appetite for a fight remains diminished. As with his racing career, failure is an option he won’t consider.

Sir Jackie Stewart was interviewed in his capacity as a Rolex ambassador. To donate to Race Against Dementia, visit raceagainstdementia.com

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raceagainstdementia.com

THIS PAGE STEWART WEARING AN EARLY NIKON HELMET CAM OPPOSITE PAGE STEWART AT THE KYALAMI GRAND PRIX CIRCUIT, GAUTENG PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA, JUST NORTH OF JOHANNESBURG, 1974

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ORIGINAL, LIMITED-EDITION ART DECO POSTERS

97 x 65 cm. Priced at £420 each (inc. UK sales tax).

Private commissions are also welcome.

@pullmaneditionsposters

Our central London gallery

All images and text copyright © Pullman Editions Ltd. 2021

View and buy online at w w w.pullmaneditions.com Pullman Ed Luxury London.indd 1

22/07/2021 15:49

Culture MUSIC,

MUSEUMS AND MASTERPIECES

‘The Making of Rodin’ at The Tate Modern argues that The Thinker’s creator was postmodern, subversive, even body-positive.

Chris Cotonou isn’t so sure. (p.44)

38 The Agenda Culture in the capital 44 The making of Rodin Did Rodin break the rules of classical sculpture?

48 A light that never goes out? How rents and rates are killing Soho’s soul 52 Barbados or Bust Ronnie Biggs’ life on the run

T H E A G E N DA YOUR CURATED GUIDE TO CULTURE IN THE CAPITAL

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Words: Annabel Harrison

The Return of the Musicals, Across the West End

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Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser V&A Museum “So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.” Be dwarfed by huge playing cards, billowing pink flowers and, of course, a giant grinning cat as you explore the origins, adaptations and reinventions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published 156 years ago. On show are everything from props, sets and costumes to memorabilia

and manuscripts, all of which will thrill Alice lovers and convert the uninitiated. The V&A excels at larger-than-life, theatrical exhibitions; this one is delightfully mind-bending – and it’s a rabbit hole you need to fall into sooner rather than later to catch it before it finishes.

Not only must the shows we already know and love go on, but so too must the new musicals that have been waiting in the wings.

Much-anticipated after a lengthy delay is Cinderella, created by musicals maestro Andrew Lloyd Webber and written by Oscar winner Emerald Fennell. Returning to the West End from September are & Juliet and Six the Musical – the former turning the tragic Shakespearean love story on its head, and the latter giving voices to Henry VIII’s six wives. And book now for two new musicals: Get Up Stand Up!, for anyone who loves the music of one Mr Bob Marley, and Moulin Rouge! for a production as opulent as the theatre in which it’s staged (The Piccadilly). andrewlloydwebberscinderella.com; andjulietthemusical.co.uk; sixthemusical.com; getupstandupthemusical.com; moulinrougemusical.co.uk

£20, Wednesday-Sunday, until 31 December, vam.ac.uk Above Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, May 2021, Installation, Victoria and Albert Museum

Right Miriam-Teak Lee as Juliet in & Juliet

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Van Gogh Alive Kensington Gardens

Images by Richard Blake

Catch it while you can: Van Gogh Alive is leaving its 25,000 sq. ft. purpose-built venue at the end of September. It has the accolade of being the world’s most visited ‘immersive multi-sensory experience’, allowing millions of people to appreciate the work of Van Gogh in a thoroughly modern way. It’s not just the most well-known of his paintings that get star treatment; more than 3,000 images LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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are beamed onto every surface of the exhibition space, sound-tracked by a classical score to transport you through the Netherlands, Arles, Saint Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise, where the post-impressionist painter created many of his masterpieces. £29, until 26 September, Kensington Gardens, East Albert Lawn, vangoghaliveuk.com

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Summer Exhibition 2021, Royal

Academy

The Royal Academy didn’t let the pandemic ruin its uninterrupted streak; its annual celebration of creativity – the world’s largest open submission art show for everything from prints and paintings, film and photography to sculpture, architectural works and more – has run without interruption since 1769. If art has taught us anything over the past year, the RA says, it is that it can act ‘as a global

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symbol of hope, offer individual moments of solace, and create much-needed daily distractions from the enormity of our new situation’. This year, the not-quiteso-summery Summer Exhibition will be coordinated by artist Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, on the theme of ‘Reclaiming Magic’. £18, until 12 September, Cromwell Road, SW7, vam.ac.uk

Above Installation view of Summer Exhibition 2020 c. David Parry

Firsts 2021: London’s Rare Book Fair, Saatchi Gallery

“We are very lucky to have this kind of fair… it’s not elitist, it’s not specialist, you don’t have to be a scholar, you just have to be someone with an immense thirst for the glory of books.” Well said, Stephen Fry – actor, writer and, it won’t surprise anyone to hear, book collector. Firsts, LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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London’s Rare Book Fair, is taking place at the Saatchi Gallery and the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association will welcome both bibliophiles and more than 120 international exhibitors to its 64th edition.

21-24 October, firstslondon.com

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London Design Festival Locations across the capital

The 19th edition of this celebration of our capital’s creative brilliance involves a series of outdoor installations, exhibitions and special events, designed to ‘provide an inventive enquiry of design and enable audiences to rediscover the entire city, playing a central role in London’s economic recovery’. As part of the Mayor of London’s initiative Let’s Do London, LDF 2020’s Emerging Design Medal winner Yinka Ilori is leading a major initiative that will transform central London and the City of London into an outdoor art gallery.

Ten Design Districts play their part in LDF, including the newly-launchedfor-2021 Greenwich Peninsula, Park Royal and Southwark South.

18-26 September, londondesignfestival.com

Right Medusa by SFAP Sou Fujimoto Atelier Paris, produced by Tin Drum and presented by London Design Festival

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Poussin and the Dance National Gallery

A-COLD-WALL x Converse Chuck Taylor Lugged

Preface an evening visit to a late-night London venue, where you can at long last dance like everyone is watching, with an afternoon admiring the dance-related works of Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665).

For the first time in its 124-year history, The Wallace Collection is lending his most celebrated dance painting, A Dance to the Music of Time. The exhibition is also the first dedicated solely to Poussin’s pictures of dance and the first on Poussin ever to be held at the National Gallery, which promises to bring together ‘tambourine shakes, wine spills, and half-naked figures’ which whirl across the canvas in paintings of ‘revelry, dance and drama’.

Free for members, £12 for non-members, 9 October – 2 January 2022, nationalgallery.org.uk

NG42, The Triumph of Silenus, probably about 1637 © The National Gallery, London

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The Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics V&A Museum More than 400 entries were received from all over the world for this prize in its sixth edition and devoted to contemporary design inspired by Islamic tradition, art and culture. The exhibition presents the work of eight finalists who hail from India, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the UK, and whose works span graphic design and fashion, typography and textiles, installation and activism. Pictured here is the work of one of the eight finalists, Golnar Adili, an artist and designer based in New York who grew up in Tehran after the 1979 Revolution. Part of the Language Landscape collection, this work deconstructs the artist’s latefather’s handwriting.

Free, Wednesday-Sunday, 18 September – 28 November, vam.ac.uk Ye Harvest from the Eleven-Page Letter, Golnar Adili, installation 2016. Photograph Golnar Adili

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THE MAKING OF RODIN A N E W E X H I B I T I O N AT TAT E M O D E R N I S T H E F I R S T TO F O C U S O N A U G U S T E R O D I N ’ S U S E O F P L A S T E R A N D F E AT U R E S W O R K S T H AT H AV E N E V E R B E E N D I S P L AY E D O U T S I D E O F F R A N C E .

Y E T, W H I L E S O M E P I E C E S A R E E V E N M O R E F O R M I D A B L E W H E N R E N D E R E D I N W H I T E P L A S T E R , D O E S T H E S H O W R E A L LY T E L L U S ANYTHING ABOUT THE MAN BEHIND THE MOULDS?

Words: Chris Cotonou

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ntil 21 November, Tate Modern is hosting a collection of cast sculptures and designs by Auguste Rodin, one of the most important and celebrated figures in 20th -century art. Arranged to resemble the artist’s studio – how Rodin himself liked to exhibit his work – it is the first show that focuses on the sculptor’s use of plaster casts.

That the exhibition is being displayed at Tate Modern, and not Tate Britain, has itself provoked debate. The English painter and illustrator Edward BurneJones (1833-1898) didn’t quite make it into the Modern, after all, and the two lived at a similar time and shared a similar retrospective view on their respective crafts. Whether that’s a comparison you accept or not, Rodin being here is not an

accident. And it’s up to you to decide if he is – as the curators hint at – a sort of modernist, with all the subversive mischief that brings. Or just another in a line of classical-interpreting sculptors.

Rodin was born in 1840 to a workingclass family in the Mouffetard district of Paris. Rejected on three occasions by the city’s nepotistic art school École des Beaux-Arts, he instead worked as an assistant into his mid-30s. He didn’t find fame until after his The Age of Bronze nude statue. This is the first piece you encounter in the exhibition.

It is so lifelike that you expect one of the eyes to blink. But the space is small and dark, and becomes crowded.

Before long you’re hurried off. It’s as conventional and classic as Rodin gets, but deserves to be presented in an appropriate space.

The plaster models in the comparatively large, bright central salon LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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THIS IMAGE THE THREE SHADOWS, BEFORE 1886, MUSÉE RODIN OPPOSITE TOP STUDY FOR THE THINKER, 1881, MUSÉE RODIN OPPOSITE THIRD FROM TOP MONUMENT TO THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS, 1889, MUSÉE RODIN; INSTALLATION VIEWS © TATE PHOTOGRAPHY (MATT GREENWOOD)

almost seem like a beautiful gathering of dinosaur fossils: chipped, bone white, dismembered, and displayed on plinths. It includes a version of Rodin’s most famous work, The Thinker, but more emphasis is put on a curious, almost comical, assemblage of pieces from his divisive Honoré de Balzac project.

This is where you come into contact with Rodin the modernist. French novelist Balzac was by no means a pretty picture, no Eros or Hermes; a large man, who in photographs has stout features and the jovial expressions of a provincial landlord. It was Rodin’s aim to emphasise the writer’s personality, rather than his physical appearance. A large robe sits on a plinth and is just one of many studies you encounter. It speaks about Rodin’s tireless obsession with detail. How he made Balzac beautiful is one of his most impressive feats.

In an adjacent room is a surprising, overlooked highlight: a collection of watercolour paintings. Mostly in a twilight blue and pink, which seem less like guidelines and more like spaces he could draft his emotions onto, there are 20 or so spread over the wall. As you scan the framed pieces, you’re reminded of the fantastical impressionists, of ToulouseLautrec or Degas. Rodin’s paintings are the most obvious reminder of the era in which he toiled.

Rodin’s life did not have the romance of his contemporaries, although there is tragedy. We briefly learn about the sculptor Camille Claudel, who began as Rodin’s model, then his student, and became his disillusioned lover. Underappreciated for her work, perhaps even objectified by her married master’s desire for an artistic muse, she met a tragic fate of her own. We see three examples of her figurine work, all of which bear his style.

Feeling some remorse after her death, we’re told that Rodin approved plans for a dedicated display.

It is in the masks of Japanese actress and dancer Ohta Hisa that Rodin’s desire to capture human emotion becomes most intense. His attempt to capture a single emotion, anguish, ranging across Hisa’s face during a performance in Marseille, resulted in some 50 masks, a rare focus on the face LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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over the body. Many of them are here for us to see. It’s one of the most interesting displays in the entire exhibition, and the one that most supports the Rodin-as-Modernist claim (the masks bear similarity to Dada’s African-inspired masks, and represent a step from Rodin’s beloved Ancient Greeks). As you stare at Hisa’s sloping cheeks and wide mouth, it’s impossible not to question what it was that affected Rodin so intensely. But no personal insight is given.

The problem with Rodin, and this is something the curators have struggled with, is that, as a person, he’s rather dull. Aside from an occasional affair, he makes most artists of his time seem like Tiger Woods. The struggle has been to convey his life and personality through his exceptional work. And those spaces reserved for other artists’ most human failures and triumphs, are filled by descriptions of Claudel, Hisa, or another

The problem with Rodin, and this is something the curators have struggled with, is that, as a person, he’s rather dull

THIS IMAGE RODIN IN HIS ATELIER. MUSÉE RODIN OPPOSITE TATE PHOTOGRAPHY © MATT GREENWOOD

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associate, writer and literary salon proprietor Helene von Nostitz.

There’s nothing really wrong with this, and Rodin’s work pays the admission fee alone. When something is good, it’s good.

But the limping, cracked plaster figures leave you yearning to see more of Rodin’s finished masterpieces.

The closest you get to satisfaction is while circling his The Burghers of Calais – six men condemned to die.

The expressions are brutal. The figures’ bony medieval limbs beg God for mercy; their unique personalities, regrets and horror laid bare.

Some of my fellow spectators were left open-mouthed. There’s something about this work that we all feel. There is a bronze cast of the work outside the Houses of Parliament that I’ve always admired, but it’s even more haunting in white plaster. The details buried in the dark creases of bronze are here, naked and ghostly. This is where my

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fellow visitors and I sat and remained the longest. It must be seen.

It was probably around this time that I started looking between sculptures and noticing other spectators. I hadn’t seen this many people in one space, sober, moving, diverse in size and stature, since before the pandemic. I was transfixed between the gangly thighs and muscles of The Thinker and Balzac, and others in the salon.

Two slim, tall girls stood beside a stocky man. One of the girls had powerful legs, and the man’s tightfitting T-shirt had creases caused by his muscles. Behind him was a modern Adonis, a handsome boy who stopped to observe Rodin’s small clay figures. He strode next to the stocky man, and the tall girls crossed him by. There was a large, older lady taking photographs of The Inner Voice. Another in a wheelchair with an overcoat draped like Balzac’s robe.

As the handsome boy walked past The Walking Man with a curious expression, you gauge Rodin’s purpose.

It’s not to be postmodern or subversive – as the exhibition might have you to think – but to show the authentic connection between our bodies and our emotions.

There are, of course, subtle references to body positivity. Of Rodin being ahead of his time in expressing creases and excess blubber; and that’s fine and good. But I’m less interested in Balzac’s gut than the vague display of his bodily emotion; the familiar traces of movement in a woman’s lifted arm; a man sitting with his head in his palms; or the burghers’ desperate plea to God. There isn’t heaps to learn about Rodin here; the guide even struggles to fill the space with anything particularly illuminating. There’s a section called ‘Appropriation’ which is sure to please the contemporary art students. But it doesn’t need to be there, and says little about the artist himself. Rodin was straightforward about his art and what it does to people, which is about as classic as it gets.

The Making of Rodin, free for members, otherwise: Adult £18, Senior £17, Student £17, 12-18-year-olds £5, Under-12s free, Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG, tate.org.uk LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT? Has Covid-19 snuffed out Soho’s indie spirit for good?

C H A N G I N G S O C I A L H A B I T S A N D C R I P P L I N G B U S I N E S S R AT E S W E R E A L R E A DY S U F F O C AT I N G S O H O ’ S I N D E P E N D E N T B A R S , C A F É S A N D R E S TA U R A N T S .

N O W, A P E R M A N E N T P E D E S T R I A N I S AT I O N S C H E M E T H R E AT E N S T O C H A N G E T H E FA C E O F A C O M M U N I T Y I T WA S S E T U P T O S AV E

Words: Chris Cotonou

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OLD COMPTON STREET, SOHO, 16 APRIL 2021

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here was a poet who lived above the Maison Bertaux café on Greek Street. On Sundays, he would open the window to recite lines to whoever was passing by. He doesn’t anymore. He disappeared in the summer.

Couldn’t afford the rent, I’m told.

Fled to the country, as all impecunious Londoners are fated to do.

It’s the area’s loss. There has been a creeping realisation over the past few years that Soho is becoming just another Shoreditch – ‘Sohoditch’, as it’s been coined – as a combination of rising business rates and property rents, together with changing nightlife habits, slowly snuff out a community that has managed to thrive for so long.

Soho, it must be said, maintained its

counter-culture spirit for longer than other bohemian nightlife districts: Montmartre in Paris or New York’s Lower East Side, for example. That the poet was even there until recently is testament to the area’s sustained beatnik nature.

I grew up in London, and, like most Londoners, always thought that anywhere within a mile of Leicester Square couldn’t possibly be interesting. My generation, millennials, sought our kicks beyond Zone One, chasing that fantasy Williamsburglike lifestyle in Scandi-inspired, MacBookpopulated coffee shops east of the City and south of the river. In Shoreditch and Peckham. Soho was where tourists went to watch Aladdin and giggle at sex shops.

The bars and cafés on Dean Street and Greek Street still have a sense of menace about them. The Kray twins, who ran The Hide-A-Way club on Gerrard Street in the 1960s, have, reportedly, LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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been replaced by the Italian, Albanian and Chinese mafias. You can still see haggard sex-workers at Newport Court.

Drug dealers off Brewer Street. Ageing bohèmes in corduroy trousers and horn-rimmed glasses rolling cigarettes outside Bar Italia.

It’s a small place, Soho, a genuine city within a city, with invisible borders that separate Chinatown, the Theatre District, the LGBT bars on Old Compton Street, grimy Wigmore Street, spruced-up Carnaby Street, and the modish jazz and Italian spots that splinter off Soho Square. There are high-society members’ clubs and hip restaurants and homeless shelters.

Everything is in Soho. That’s why, metre-for-metre, the neighbourhood is the most interesting place in Europe.

Perhaps the world.

In the 1950s and 60s, the area was

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where browbeaten creatives and lost souls found solace in each other’s company. Struggling authors, artists and poets, including Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, and later Sebastian Horsley, made the district their home. Sensing that something important was happening, fashion brands opened up in Carnaby Street. New bands called The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Birds began recording music near Denmark Street. If it was happening, it was happening in Soho.

The area also formed the nucleus of the New Romantic and Punk scenes.

Chris Sullivan has been in the thick of it for more than 40 years. The writer, Soho Radio DJ, and author of Punk, arrived at the age of 15 from his hometown in Wales. He ran legendary nightclub The Wag Club during its glory years in the 80s.

If anyone knows Soho, what it is and what it stands for, what people continue to seek, even now, it’s Sullivan.

On what Soho represents, Sullivan says this: “You can be anything you want to be in Soho, and I still think that applies today.” It was much seedier in the 70s, says Sullivan, painting a picture of a place “festooned with sex shops, peep shows and strip clubs.”

“There were prostitutes on the street and every other window had a red light in it,” Sullivan continues. “It was a red light area but also a community. Among all that, there were family-run bakers, cafés, fishmongers, butchers, restaurants of every nationality, and drinking clubs that opened when the pubs shut between three and six in the morning. It also attracted artists, musicians – you’d see gangs of jazz musicians waiting for work outside of the Musicians’ Union headquarters in Archer Street – and it was full of art students. St Martins College of Art was on Charing Cross Road, then. It was naughty and lively and colourful and nice.”

Sullivan opened The Wag Club in 1982 for ‘one-nighters’, where a different genre of music was played, or performer booked, for different nights of the week. By 1983, Sullivan was working with different promoters six nights out of seven. “After that, most clubs took to the ‘different style of music, different clientele each night’ approach,” he says.

“Soho was the only place to be, everyone was style obsessed.”

It’s a time Sullivan looks back on with envy. “You’d go to The Marquee, 100 Club,

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and later The Vortex, which was on the site of Crackers… In the late 70s and early 80s, it was Billy’s on Meard Street. I did onenighters at Le Kilt and St Moritz. It would be a while until others followed, but Soho became the haven for one-night clubs.”

This summer, a well-known magazine published an article titled ‘Soho is Back’. It mentioned trendy coffee shops. It praised Soho House and Noble Rot, the new wine bar that opened where the Gay Hussar pub used to be (ironically, a cradle of London’s socialist movement). Trisha’s bar, formerly the New Evaristo, was offered as an example of a Soho institution brought back to life. The author described the feeling of stepping into Trisha’s basement in the tone of David Attenborough encountering a lost species of rhino.

Post lockdown, you can’t get into Trisha’s. At least not without queuing. In all the years I’ve been going, there has never been any indication that the bar even exists; just a blue door, now painted black, that leads down to the main room.

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over by street food vendors and outdoor seating from local bars and restaurants.

Although it did help some businesses get back on their feet as lockdown restrictions were lifted, not everyone agrees that the scheme will be in the interests of the area in the long term.

There are ongoing discussions, I’m told, to make the pedestrianisation permanent – something local campaigners are actually fighting against.

An increase in this type of foot traffic, they argue, will only mean an increase in rent rates. Not just for the bars themselves – many of which are independent and unable to compete with commercial chains – but for local housing, too.

Soho’s nightlife industry relies on people working into the small hours, depending on them to travel outside of normal commuter times. The further they live from Soho, the harder that becomes.

Now, as ever, it’s the people of Soho that make the neighbourhood special; the community of characters that stays behind once the party is over. If they go, the spirit of the area goes with them. And what will be left behind is an empty shell, a place that once was interesting. Like Camden.

I imagine the poet above the Maison Bertaux is still serenading passers-by from some faraway suburban window, but Soho is a little less brilliant without him.

The same faces, many of whom have been coming for decades, are still there, but Trisha’s attracts a different crowd nowadays, patrons who visit to document their trip on Instagram.

Of course, after the financial hit these businesses took during the pandemic, it’s good to see them busy – but that doesn’t mean that ‘Soho is Back’.

“I’ve been here 13 years,” says Jan, the manager of Bradley’s on Hanway Street, one of Soho’s best bars, and a place still frequented by the area’s most colourful characters. “But it’s changed a lot.” Jan knows everybody and hears everything: “All the small shops have disappeared and there is almost no community feeling left,” he tells me. “The smaller places where people would go to meet up no longer exist.”

In April 2021, the Save our Soho campaign successfully lobbied Westminster City Council to allow the temporary pedestrianisation of Old Compton Street. The subsequent Soho Summer Street Festival saw the road taken

ABOVE BERWICK STREET, 16 APRIL 2021 THIS IMAGE ABSURD BIRD, PETER STREET, 16 APRIL 2021

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RONNIE BIGGS TALKS TO THE MEDIA IN RIO DE JANEIRO, 27 APRIL 1981

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The curious kidnapping of the Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs FORTY YEARS AGO, A MOTLEY CREW OF EX-SOLDIERS AT T E M P T E D TO K I D N A P G R E AT T R A I N R O B B E R Y E S C A P E E RONNIE BIGGS FROM HIS EXILED HOME IN RIO DE JANEIRO – T H E A B D U C TO R S M A D E I T A S FA R A S T H E WAT E R S O F F B A R B A D O S

B

B E F O R E T H E I R P L A N B E G A N T O S P E C T A C U L A R LY U N R AV E L

Words:Rob Crossan

arbados, 25 March 1981. An engine splutters a bronchial, final cough and dies.

The unrelenting sun, hard baked into the centre of the pellucid sky, pierces and gnaws at the pale faces of those on board the yacht; now listlessly floating, seven miles off the coast of a Caribbean paradise.

Life on board is about to become infinitely less comfortable for the men now trapped on a vessel unfit for purpose.

As for the other men on board, in front of their eyes, their audacious plan to kidnap one of the century’s most infamous wanted men is falling apart as quickly as the engine thwarting their plans.

Less than two days previously, Ronnie Biggs was enjoying the first months of yet another year as a fugitive, drinking in the bars and walking on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro with his young son, Mike, in tow.

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Miller had already attempted to dupe Biggs in 1979 by offering him a walk-on part in the movie Moonraker had carried out the largest heist in British history. Biggs’ role, a relatively minor one, was to locate a driver who could drive the train after the Royal Mail staff on board had been restrained. Receiving a £140,000 share of the loot for his efforts, it wasn’t long before Biggs and the rest of the gang were caught. Biggs was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Still only in his mid-30s, the prospect of staying in jail until he was a pensioner didn’t fit in with Biggs’s life plans and, barely a year after his incarceration in HMP Wandsworth, he clambered up

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a rope ladder over a prison wall and escaped in a waiting van. While every other member of the Great Train Robbery crew ate their porridge, Biggs remained the only known member of the gang at large; moving first to Australia under an assumed name with his wife, Charmian.

In Melbourne, a photograph published in a local newspaper in 1970 put Scotland Yard onto his whereabouts.

Leaving his wife behind this time, he managed to escape to Rio, where he was able to live in complete freedom thanks to the fact that no extradition treaty existed between Brazil and the UK (a treaty was only signed in 1997).

Protected by the government in Brazil and able to make money by charging curious visitors £200 for a meeting with him, Biggs had begun to become complacent about his own security by the start of the 1980s. John Miller, a Scottish former soldier who had set up a firm supplying ex-military personnel as security

for pop stars, sensed an opportunity. “It wasn’t a personal ‘I hate Ronnie Biggs’ thing,” recalled Miller, decades later. “He was a robber. I was a soldier. I was putting my expertise on the line and saying, ‘I can get this man back.’”

Believing kidnapping Biggs and taking him home to the UK to face justice would heighten the reputation of his security company, Miller had already attempted to dupe Biggs in 1979. Posing as a stuntman on Moonraker, the James Bond film which was shooting in Brazil at the time, Miller befriended Biggs and offered him a walkon part in the movie. The ‘offer’ required Biggs to fly to Belem in northern Brazil and take a trip on a boat. Biggs would be paid £5,000 for his troubles.

But Ronnie’s luck was in. Miller tipped off a journalist about his kidnapping plan.

But the hack told Biggs what was afoot and the plot was scuppered before it had begun. Two years later, Ronnie wouldn’t be quite as fortunate, mainly due to the

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBER RONNIE BIGGS, SUNNING IT UP IN RIO DE JANEIRO ON 24 MARCH 1981, THE DAY BEFORE HE WAS ABDUCTED

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C U LT U R E RONNIE BIGGS RELAXING WITH A BEER IN THE POOL OF HIS HOME IN SANTA TERESA, RIO DE JANEIRO, IN 1990

more professional efforts of Patrick King.

Working in the shadowy world of international security, King was given a budget of £38,000 by a mysterious contact whose true identity, over 40 years on, remains unknown. This contact wanted to use Biggs as a ‘soft target’ rehearsal project which could, potentially, be used in the future to extradite perpetrators of war crimes living as fugitives in countries that didn’t have extradition treaties with the UK. Operation Anaconda, as it was called, was underway, with King bringing in Miller and another ex-soldier called Fred Prime to assist with their new plan.

There wouldn’t be so much reliance on matey inveigling this time. The plan was

to snatch Biggs by force if necessary and get him to Barbados, a country that did have an extradition treaty with the UK. “It was like getting to a second cup final,” recalled Miller. “Except this time, we’re not going to make the same mistakes.”

In March 1981, the plan was set into action. Mark Allgate, an ex-Royal Engineer with commando training was brought onto the team, as well as Tony Marriage, an expert in surveillance. All four men had British infantry training and knew how to operate snatch squads, where ring leaders are taken out of riot situations.

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Barbados, heading for Belem in Brazil.

King and Marriage flew on ahead of them to Rio, knowing that they had 10 days’ worth of funds from their mystery partner to find Biggs and prepare the snatch.

They also knew that years in a Brazilian jail awaited them if their plans were discovered by local authorities.

“We were gonna put [Biggs] in a large canvas bag that you put marquees in,” said Miller. “It would have a sign on it that would say ‘anaconda snake – handle with care.’ We’d walk him through the departure lounge, put him on a private jet that we’d chartered, take him to the north of Brazil, put him in a yacht and sail him to Barbados. It was as simple as that.”

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If they succeeded, they would have topped the efforts of Scotland Yard themselves. Seven years previously, Detective Superintendent Jack Slipper was sent to Rio after Biggs’s location was discovered by a journalist. Yet, in a worldwide sensation of a story, Biggs was given permission by the Brazilian government to stay as his girlfriend was pregnant with his child. Slipper returned home alone. Biggs, the master escapologist, retained his freedom.

Despite fears that Biggs would be wary of newcomers, the kidnapping team found cooperation with him incredibly easy. Posing as a tourist who wanted to take Biggs to lunch, Patrick King paid the obligatory £200 fee and befriended Biggs, inviting him to another meal a few evenings later, this time in a restaurant at the bottom of Sugarloaf Mountain.

With Miller, Prime and Allgate now in Rio, having flown in after leaving the yacht in Belem, the team acted quickly on the night of 16 March, running into the restaurant where a waiting Biggs managed

to kick his table into the air as the team dragged him outside to a soundtrack of smashed crockery and Biggs yelling ‘help me’ in Portuguese. “Ronnie was fighting for his life. It was over in 12 and a half or 13 seconds,” recalled Fred Prime.

With tape on his face, he was bundled into the back of a van which sped towards the airfield where a £3 million private Lear jet was standing by. “That was the tricky part,” recalls Miller. “Getting an 11 stone man through departures. All anyone had to do was say ‘open the bag’ and it was over. All it would then take would be a private jet pilot saying, ‘I don’t really want your business anymore’. Then you’re truly f**ked.”

The team made it on board and flew north with Biggs remaining in the bag throughout the flight. At 1am, they landed in Belem. Biggs was now thousands of miles from Rio and had been in a marquee sack for more than four hours.

“Our transport didn’t turn up so there we were, putting a kidnapped train robber into the back of a taxi asking the driver

to take us to the yacht club,” remembers Miller. Locked up for the night, the team now had to get Ronnie over a 10-foothigh fence to enter the marina and take a dinghy out to the waiting yacht. “He was quite calm when we got him out of the bag,” recalls King. “I strongly sensed that he was resigned to what was happening.”

During the 1,400-mile voyage to Barbados, Fred Prime filmed a relaxed and jovial looking Biggs on board the yacht, drinking brandy, smoking grass and even cooking dinner for the crew.

Miller had tipped off the British tabloids that the Great Train Robber had been kidnapped and was on his way to Barbados. But that was before the humiliation of the yacht’s engine failing.

With all other options exhausted, the kidnappers had no option other than to put out an SOS to the Barbados mainland and be rescued, complete with their famous captive.

Thanks to Miller, the press were waiting, having flown in from all over the world to the Caribbean island, many

RONNIE BIGGS EVEN LANDED A PART IN THE 1980 SEX PISTOLS MOCKUMENTARY THE GREAT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL SWINDLE

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suspecting that MI6 or Scotland Yard were the ones really behind the abduction. As the malfunctioning yacht chugged into Bridgetown harbour, it was surrounded by tiny vessels filled with photographers, hoping to get their first glimpse of a captured Biggs. “I didn’t really feel any sense of guilt at bringing him back,” recalled King. “He was a nice bloke but we had a job to do.”

Taken to the capital’s police station, the kidnap team were released on the grounds that they had committed no crimes in Barbados. Biggs, however, was handed over to the British High Commission. The Brazilian government meanwhile was outraged that somebody had been kidnapped on their soil and began proceedings to get Biggs back to Rio de Janeiro.

Over the following days, a full diplomatic conflict between Brazil and the UK blew up, while, in Barbados, lawmakers struggled to figure out exactly who was behind the operation. “It was very hard for me to understand that the people who had kidnapped Biggs and taken him off the street were staying in a hotel and were free,” said Biggs’ American defence lawyer David Neufeld.

“It would, you might think, be the kidnappers who should be in the cells.

They were international pirates!”

Barely three days after arriving, all of the kidnappers had left Barbados with no charges brought against them. Biggs, however, was in jail, looking at being extradited back to Britain to serve the remaining 29 years of his sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery. “He didn’t seem unduly worried. He seemed to believe that fate would play a part in the injustice being righted. I can tell you, at that stage, I wasn’t that hopeful,” said Ezra Alleyne, one of Biggs’s defence team.

The prosecution argued that Biggs’s extradition was essential as a lesson to other members of the criminal underworld that their crimes wouldn’t go unpunished. Biggs, it seemed, was certain to be taken home to a British prison cell.

But then, in an unbelievable twist, Alleyne discovered that the extradition treaty with Britain had not been properly validated in the Barbados parliament.

On 23 April, Neufeld and Alleyne

BIGGS WEARING ONE OF HIS OWN NOVELTY T-SHIRTS

made their case to the magistrate that the treaty wasn’t legal. The court, their hands tied by legal protocol, had no choice but to let Biggs go. “It was pandemonium outside the court,” remembers Alleyne.

Borne aloft by a huge crowd, the Houdini of the criminal world had, miraculously, evaded British justice once again. Two TV companies stumped up the cash for a private jet to fly Biggs back to Rio to be reconciled with his son. Biggs was filmed kissing the tarmac at Rio airport when he alighted from the plane.

As for the kidnappers, their failure to get Biggs back to Britain didn’t unduly affect their confidence. “I wasn’t worried one way or the other,” reflected Miller.

“We achieved our objective. If he got away with it [in the courts] then good luck to him.” Miller’s final role in the kidnap was to sell a fake picture of Biggs being kidnapped to the Sunday Mirror. In fact, the man in the bag was his co-accomplice Fred Prime. Miller went on to manage

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a country and western club in the States and even sold another fake story to the press claiming he’d met Lord Lucan.

For Biggs, the money started flowing in again with his new, enhanced celebrity status back in Brazil; a situation that continued right up until 2001 when he finally gave himself up after a series of strokes. He returned voluntarily to the UK to serve time in Belmarsh High Security prison before dying, aged 84, in December 2013.

Four decades on, crucial questions about the case remain unanswered. Why were charges never brought against the kidnapping team? And why was there never an inquiry to find out exactly who King’s mystery sponsor was and where the funds to enact Operation Anaconda had come from? “I think, if it had been successful, then the true source of who was behind this would have come forward,” said Neufeld. “But it wasn’t.

And we still don’t know.”

Connoisseur TAST I N G

NOTES FOR

THE

URBANE

EPICUREAN

Ave Mario opened this summer to hoards of patrons wanting more from the group that brought us Circolo Popolare.

The Florence-inspired, 295-cover restaurant on Covent Garden’s Henrietta Street is an ode to Italian cuisine. (p.60)

60 Hot Plates A slew of must-visit eateries open their doors 62 Core Values One of four British chefs to hold three Michelin stars, Clare Smyth discusses unpretentious cooking 68 Above at Hide Does the ‘augmented’ standard of Ollie Dabbous’ restaurant justify the prices?

Words: Nick Savage, Innerplace Concierge

HOT PLATES The relaxing of lockdown restrictions saw a slew of delayed hospitality enterprises finally open their doors this summer. As autumn approaches, these are the restaurants to see and be seen in

Ave Mario, WC2 Paris’ Big Mamma Group made tidal waves when it opened both Gloria in Shoreditch and Circolo Popolare in Fitzrovia. This summer, London got hit with a tsunami when the group opened its largest restaurant to date: Ave Mario.

Inspired by Florence, BMG has created its own church to Italian cuisine with a massive 295 covers set over more than 7,000 sq ft on Covent Garden’s Henrietta Street. The osteria will draw influence from all corners of Italy, from Liguria to Venice to Milan. Don’t miss the 1970s-inspired luxe mirrored basement, where pizzaiolos will be spinning the dough from within a lowered kitchen. Opened at the beginning of July, Ave Mario is already the talk of the town. bigmammagroup.com

Sumi, W11 Upmarket Japanese restaurant Endo at the Rotunda ruffled some serious foodie feathers when it opened in White City, including the plumage of the Michelin inspectors, who promptly offered it a star after opening. Following his success, Endo Kazutoshi has opened Sumi in Notting Hill. Named after his mother, the restaurant LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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is a more casual proposition than its elder sibling, with a focus on slicing and dicing the freshest, most painstakingly-provenanced ingredients. Kazutoshi is an adept culinary showman and this new venue is utterly inviting, with beautiful wood panelling and rattan put to use to create a serene Japanese environment. sushisumi.com

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SIXES, W1 The team behind Mac & Wild has taken over the space that formerly housed Villandry in Fitzrovia for their second outing of Sixes, a bar/indoor cricket ground that launched pre-lockdown in Fulham.

Sixes offers a cricket simulator, styled as batting nets, alongside

drinks and gastropub-inspired food, such as sausage rolls and lemon-fried chicken with Kiev butter dip. Considering the foodie panache the team brought to Mac & Wild, expect big things from their menu alongside some great high-octane fun. sixescricket.com

El Pastor Soho, W1 The Harts Group has proven to have the Midas touch when it comes to buzz-worthy restaurants, with its Catalan-influenced Barrafina, the elevated traditional British fare of Quo Vadis, and the bold Mexican flavours of El Pastor in Southwark. In June, the group launched another outpost of the latter in Soho. Situated on Brewer Street on a site that formerly housed HIX, El Pastor transports diners to the brash and brazen streets of Mexico City – where its founders used to run cult nightclub, El Colmillo – literally turning the thermostat up and piping in some humidity for good measure. For anyone looking for a more than memorable meal, El Pastor offers a private dining room on the ground floor, painted in green lacquer and adorned with imagery of Mexican plants and botanicals. tacoselpastor.co.uk

Bar des Prés, W1 Bar des Prés is a new concept recently launched on Albemarle Street by the team who smashed it out of the park with Amazónico. Formerly occupied by Indian Accent, it marks the first international venture by esteemed French chef Cyril Lignac.

Designed by Sagrada (Dover Street Arts Club), the restaurant will provide the perfect foil to Lignac’s playful combination of Franco-East Asian dishes. Set within a small and charming 18th century building, Bar des Prés combines a bold blue exterior with discreet gold signage and touches of warm polished timber inside.

The intimate interior features stunning counter-dining bars on both ground and basement floors, elegant custom-made furniture and vibrant peacock embroidered upholstery. Parisian chic meets Japanese precision. bardespres.com/london-restaurant

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Innerplace is London’s personal lifestyle concierge. Membership provides complimentary access to the finest nightclubs, the best restaurants and top private members’ clubs. Innerplace also offers priority bookings, updates on the latest openings and hosts its own regular parties. Membership starts from £100 a month, innerplace.co.uk

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CORE VALUES: Why Clare Smyth is the chef London needs right now

O N LY F O U R B R I T I S H C H E F S H A V E E V E R B E E N A W A R D E D T H R E E M I C H E L I N S T A R S : G O R D O N R A M S AY, M A R C O P I E R R E W H I T E , H E S T O N B L U M E N T H A L A N D C L A R E S M Y T H .

H E R E , T H E L A S T N A M E O F T H AT R A R E F I E D L I S T E X P L A I N S W H Y R E S TA U R A N T S S H O U L D B E A B O U T N OT H I N G B U T P L E A S U R E

Words: Rob Crossan

W

hen did chefs become glamorous? Perhaps it would be more pertinent to ask why chefs seemed to have studiously avoided any aesthetic relation to the recherché or the chic for so long? Quite an achievement, really, when you consider the benefits that freshly-ironed chef whites and a toque blanche can bring to a figure.

Auguste Escoffier may have been a culinary genius but he looked like a Dickensian rent collector. Keith Floyd may have had roguish charisma but he always gave you the feeling he could have been (and, indeed, probably was) dragged out from underneath a bench at Turnpike Lane bus shelter in order to present his TV cooking shows. Joseph Favre may have created the four-volume Dictionnaire Universel de Cuisine Pratique but he resembled a chubby gargoyle with measles.

So how did we evolve from these spatulawielding scruffs of yore to Clare Smyth, the chefpatron of Core, who exudes the kind of raffish, make-up-free, tomboyish, slightly sun-tinted cool that might pair well with a cotton Stella McCartney suit and a Hublot watch? The latter I know for sure to be true; she’s wearing one today as part of her new role as an ambassador for the uber-luxury watch brand beloved by Jay-Z and Kylie Jenner.

Smyth’s career trajectory spans the time between the end of that long, long era when chefs were considered to be talented but gauche,

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or unruly adjuncts to creative culture, and the beginning of our current time, in which chefs have become the fulcrum around which so much pop culture revolves.

Born in County Antrim in 1978, Smyth’s mother was a waitress and her father was a farmer. Food in her home was, as she recalls, more important to her than for most of her school mates. “Living on a farm meant I wasn’t eating baked beans on toast or pasta like my friends,” she says.

“We had sheep and cows and grew crops on our farm. Eating out was all about quantity over quality in Ireland back then; it was all mixed grills and high teas. There weren’t any fine dining restaurants. Being on a farm, we would butcher animals, freeze them and eat the whole thing.

I think, through that, I had more exposure to cooking than most people – especially back then.

Though we did have potatoes with everything, which was just like everybody else!”

Moving to England as a teen, Smyth studied catering in Portsmouth before beginning her career in restaurants with stints at Terence Conran’s restaurant and at the St. Enodoc Hotel in Cornwall, before a near two-decade stint working under Gordon Ramsay at his eponymous Chelsea restaurant.

“Working with Gordon really helped me start to think differently. With him I cooked in the style of that restaurant but it definitely gave me the confidence and ability to create something exceptional from what would be considered humble and everyday ingredients in some people’s eyes,” she explains.

“I spent 15 years with Gordon, cooking predominantly French food, so I was really ready for the change and to start thinking about things differently; prioritising the emotion and memory of food rather than technique.”

Interviews with Smyth (she doesn’t do many) tend to revolve around little more than the obvious facts that she is a) a woman and b) not the shouty type. I ask her if there was a moment when she realised that her gender was no longer going to be the dominating element of her profile.

“I don’t know if there was an exact moment when I realised it but I do think I’m pretty much there now. Everyone wanted to talk to me about being a woman with three Michelin stars when it was awarded, which was fine, but I was always thinking, ‘never mind the ‘woman’ bit. What about the fact that having three Michelin stars is something only myself, Gordon, Marco Pierre White and Heston Blumenthal have ever achieved as British chefs?’ I feel that’s the most important thing, rather than my gender. There’s a different generation coming through now which is great

and I hope that conversations about my gender are now over for good.”

Smyth opened Core, on Kensington Park Road, when she finally left the Ramsay empire to start out on her own in 2017. The building has a strong culinary legacy; it was here that Prue Leith opened her eponymous restaurant way back in 1969. The interior, unassuming and filled with potted plants and bookshelves and daubed in hues of white and cream, looks like the reception area of a Dutch bespoke publishing house.

But perhaps the blandness of the space is purposeful, as there is so little to distract your attention from the food, which is some of the most gastronomically astute in London. A tight,

ambitious yet economical statement of intent on how far native ingredients can fly.

Take Smyth’s Charlotte potato dish. It’s a spud.

A brown one. A regular one, about the size of a pack of playing cards. It sits proudly in a beurre blanc sauce, is daintily dashed with herring roe and stuck with salt and vinegar crisps. It’s a signature dish at Core and is still perhaps Smyth’s greatest attempt so far to turn the mundane into the monumental. The pop of roe, the softness of spud and the lick of salt and crunch; these flavours are at once robust modernity and dewy-eyed nostalgia.

A Philippe Starck chair resting on an orange Axminster carpet.

“I love the challenge that comes with making

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something spectacular with a carrot or a potato,” says Smyth. “Fine dining can be so pretentious and intimidating sometimes. I wanted to base what I do on nothing more complicated than the things I reach for first in the kitchen and the things I like to eat. A lot of it is about nostalgia and memory for me. Emotions are how you connect with people when it comes to food; it’s more powerful than any luxury ingredient.”

Now a fully paid-up member of the most rarefied of chef circles (she even beat the rest of the country’s top foodie contenders to cook at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018), Smyth’s views on the fine dining scene are as refreshing and direct as her food.

“Michelin-starred cooking still is fixated on French cuisine,” she insists. “I want to bring the same level of technical brilliance but with ingredients from our own culture. Being British is important to me and I don’t want to play second fiddle to France. Food tells the story of what’s around us. When people travel to the UK and come to Core I want them to eat things that are British: jellied eels, beef and mince; these are the ingredients with stories behind them. That’s the story of our land and where we’re from.”

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“There’s a different generation coming through now which is great and I hope that conversations about my gender are now over for good” evening service, Smyth leaves me with another piece of her no-nonsense philosophy on food, one that seems to chime perfectly with a close-to-postCovid London where, after a lengthy break from the joys of eating out, we are more grateful than ever for the survival of places that get right the basics of what a restaurant, bar or greasy spoon should be.

“We’re the experts,” Smyth states firmly.

“You’re coming here to eat and to be entertained.

All the nonsense about fine dining restaurants is gone from Core. And it is all nonsense. I don’t care if customers pronounce the name of the wine or a dish wrong. It absolutely doesn’t matter.

Just sit back and enjoy it. Nobody who is paying for their dinner should ever have to do anything more than that.”

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LEFT GARDEN CUPCAKE, FROM THE EIGHT-COURSE TASTING MENU (£245)

RESTAURANT REVIEW:

ABOVE AT HIDE R E O P E N E D A N D R E B R A N D E D , A B O V E A T H I D E I S , Q U I T E S I M P LY, ONE OF THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED, DARING AND BEAUTIFUL

O

DINING EXPERIENCES IN THE COUNTRY RIGHT NOW

Words: Rob Crossan

ne unexpected element of a window seat at Above at Hide is that the view out of the floor-to-ceiling windows puts you directly in the sightline of the top deck of the Number 9 bus as it trundles along Piccadilly. It takes a lot to distract the senses from the cooking of Ollie Dabbous and his team but, should rapport with your dining partner be on the short-of-sparkle side, then making eye contact with a random, ever-changing collection of commuters is an effortless lubricant to conversation.

‘Should I raise my glass to that bloke?’ my dining partner asks. ‘Best not,’ I

conclude. For I cannot think of a less likely conduit to friendly interaction than to give a wink and raise a glass from the window of a one Michelin-starred restaurant to a bloke in a tracksuit top who’s reading the Metro while eating an egg mayo sandwich.

The prices I’m about to write down, after all, may initially shock you, and all regular eaters of egg mayo sandwiches. The eightcourse tasting menu with the ‘classic’ wine pairings (the cheapest of the three wine pairing options) costs £245. Per person.

Before service.

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of making it feel more palatable. Opt for the eight courses and you’re in for a four-hour experience, which, for two people, costs no more than a train fare and overnight stay in Edinburgh.

Now, I adore the Scottish capital as a staycation option. But I will take four hours in Above at Hide over 48 hours on the Royal Mile. Because this is, quite simply, one of the most accomplished, daring and beautiful dining experiences in this country right now.

It was nearly a decade ago that I ate at Dabbous, Ollie’s eponymous restaurant in Fitzrovia; a place where waiting lists were year-long and dishes set a new standard for intense, highly-focused flavours and unusual ingredients. It was where I ate meadowsweet for the first time – an almond-tasting perennial herb, the hazy aroma of which I now covet to the point of drinking meadowsweet tea when nobody’s watching.

There’s a more modestly-priced ground floor brasserie here – formerly called Hide Ground, now simply Hide – and a wine bar in the basement next to a cellar groaning with bottles of Screaming Eagle at prices that even Elon Musk would think twice about (guests can also choose wine from Hedonism’s nearby store – the largest in the world – which will be delivered to your table within 15 minutes).

It’s after climbing a gargantuan oak staircase that looks like a Lewis Carrollimagined approach to the world’s poshest treehouse that you arrive at Above, where Primal Scream and The Velvet

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Underground provide the soundtrack and the waitresses wear tops with puffedup sleeves that make them look like Regency-era weightlifters.

What Ollie and his team began in the late Dabbous has been, if anything, augmented and escalated. These are small dishes of dexterity, wit and aesthetic allure which consistently manage to show off ingredients to their best advantage.

Highlights (and there are, quite honestly, nothing other than highlights in this meal) include an eggshell filled almost to the top with a thick sauce of smoked butter and mushrooms, in a nest of hay that smells of Guy Fawkes Night.

Then there’s the fragile tartlet of ricotta with a beetroot carved and scalloped to resemble a rose flower. In other dining rooms this would look far too try-hard.

Here, it succeeds in looking deceptively simple and tasting of everything earthy, sweet and deep that a beetroot should.

Next there was a roasted apricot with confetti and osmanthus. Lightly doused with almond and soy milk ice cream, it’s a fairly obvious combination of flavours that leaps off in a new unexpected direction; each component becoming

familiar friends in the mouth to create a cheesecake-like texture that seems to almost deftly trapeze on the tongue.

As for the wines, we are guided by Federica who hails from Lombardy and who, for reasons that baffle me, does not quite yet have her master sommelier qualification. I can only assume it’s lost

“This is Michelin with its scuffed moleskins on” in the post; the enthusiasm with which she explained her choices was a genuine pleasure to listen to, in the same way that hearing Michaela Coel talk about good drama is interesting; puppyish vivacity combined with intuitive skill.

Federica’s choices were absolute bullseyes, from the hazy, dry, almost ciderlike Georgian Rkatsiteli, to a sake from the LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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Tosa Brewery in Kochi, on Japan’s Shikoku island, that was as crystal clear and pure as drinking from the sleeve of a geisha’s kimono on the summit of Mount Fuji.

Best of all, the atmosphere here is not one of cathedral-like genuflection at the altar of Ollie. This is Michelin with its scuffed moleskins on; the laughter coming from the couples and small groups of fellow diners is full throated and convivial, not braying or nervous.

But what’s really stayed with me after the long, long evening at Above at Hide is how much this experience feels like a genuine conversation with the hedgerows, tidal pools, marshes, seas and fields of this country. It’s not affected; that only happens when a chef’s manifesto takes precedence over taste.

That’s never allowed to happen here and nobody is crass enough to call the tasting menu a ‘journey’.

This is simply an opportunity to taste the creations of a chef who has succeeded in the almost cruelly difficult challenge of evolving from critic’s darling upstart to stalwart of London fine dining. May his reign be as long, but perhaps not as bumpy, as the route of that Number 9 bus.

Make it personal.

The Moisturiser

The Hydrator

Your skin’s needs are unique and always changing. The world-renowned beauty trailblazer, Dr Jean-Louis Sebagh pioneered the concept of mixing different, powerful serums to create a personalised daily ritual that perfectly meets your skin’s needs. Potent and award-winning, Dr Sebagh’s iconic serums—including the trio of super-serums featured here—can all be used alone or combined, for agelessly radiant results.

Moisturising is essential to restore the skin barrier, protect against environmental aggressors, seal in hydration and keep skin plump. Deeply moisturise and soothe your skin using Rose de Vie Serum, with antioxidant and nourishing rosehip oil, blended with the hydrating, hyaluronic acid-rich Serum Repair, which instantly leaves skin looking and feeling plumped, firmer and tighter.

The Anti-Ager

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Add a trouble-shooting, ‘Ageing-Maintenance’ hero to the mix with a few drops of Supreme Maintenance Youth Serum. It boasts 95% active ingredients, more than any other skin care product, including the ‘youth molecule’ Resveratrol, three anti-aging peptides, a mineral radiance booster and an anti-pollution film.

Power-up your serum blend even more with a little Pure Vitamin C Powder Cream. This patented, highly concentrated and stabilised powder-to-cream formula can be mixed with any serum to brighten the skin, prevent pigmentation and bring back its glow.

Available in-store and at drsebagh.com

The founding designers behind D&G are future-proofing the brand, but will never do away with the magic of real fashion shows. Find out why on page 74.

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72 A Look To Kill Dress like 007 in No Time to Die 74 Interview: Dolce and Gabbana The owners of fashion’s most iconic initials target a generation of TikTokers 82 Style Her Get out your glad rags – the ’80s are back

DANIEL CRAIG AS JAMES BOND IN NO TIME TO DIE, © 2021 METRO-GOLDWYNMAYER STUDIOS INC/EON PRODUCTIONS

The watch: Omega Seamaster Omega first appeared in Goldeneye 26 years ago, but the latest watch to grace 007’s wrist is arguably the finest yet. A stripped-down-tothe-basics diving watch you can imagine being worn by real-life field agents, it boasts a ‘tropical’ brown dial with pre-aged, oversized hour markers, as well as a distinctive mesh bracelet.

The whole thing is crafted from titanium, making it lightweight but virtually imperishable. £7,880, omegawatches.com

A LOOK TO KILL The best Bond merch from No Time to Die Words: Charlie Thomas

Thrice delayed by Covid-19, No Time to Die will, at the time of writing at least, hit cinemas on 30 September – administering a much-needed shot in the arm to an industry still struggling to get bums back on seats.

Amid the sheath-slim Tom Ford suits and clumsy product placements, some bona fide brand tie-ups mean that Daniel Craig’s 007 swansong might just be the most stylish James Bond film ever made. These are the hero pieces most worth investing in...

The legacy collection: Orlebar Brown There’s no word on whether Orlebar Brown will be featured in No Time to Die – its swim shorts were last worn by Craig during the Shanghai rooftop pool scene in Skyfall (2012) – but the British brand has announced another collection harking back to historic Bond films. Key pieces from the capsule look to the Connery days, with a pair of Thunderball shirts being revisited, as well as a linen suit worn by George Lazenby.

Swim shorts, £195, orlebarbrown.com

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The luggage: Globe-Trotter

Established in 1897, GlobeTrotter first appeared as Bond’s luggage in 2015’s Spectre, a partnership that’s set to continue for No Time to Die. Last year, the brand released a pair of hard-case designs inspired by those featured in the film. Made from Globe-Trotter’s vulcanised fibreboard in ocean green, they feature subtle Bond touches, such as a 007 branded plaque and luggage tag. It might blow Bond’s cover during check-in, but it works for us. £2,220, globe-trotter.com

The sweater: N.Peal THE SUIT: TOM FORD The suits in Spectre were cut so slim they bordered on spivvy. The film stills from No Time to Die look a lot more promising. From mid-grey two-pieces, to Prince of Wales blazers to shawl collar dinner suits, for the fourth consecutive time most of Daniel Craig’s wardrobe will be made-to-measure Tom Ford. Speaking of the partnership, the American designer said: “James Bond epitomises the Tom Ford man in his elegance, style and love of luxury.” The specific suit block Craig’s outfits have been based on is the O’Connor, a slim-fit, two-button style with mid-width notch lapels and flap pockets. Go for grey and wear it like Bond with a plain blue tie and white pocket square. £2,670, mrporter.com

Navy, though, it makes perfect sense. Made by N.Peal, the jumper’s ribbed construction and canvas patches are militaristic in look and feel, yet stylish enough to be worn to the pub. £345, npeal.com

That sweater, the one Craig wears in the original poster, caused quite a stir online.

What was Bond doing out of his signature tux? Had 007 joined the cadets? When you consider Bond’s history as a commander in the Royal

The shoes: Crockett & Jones Daniel Craig was reportedly a client of Crockett & Jones before he became Bond. In No Time to Die, Craig wears the Highbury (as he did in Skyfall and Spectre). A classic shoe in

The sunglasses: Barton Perreira classic as they come. A simple, angular design and all-black finish means they can be worn with both smart and casual looks, and the subtle ‘007’ insignia on the temple leaves no guesses as to from where their inspiration is derived. £320, bartonperreira.com

Daniel Craig’s Bond has been known to wear classicshaped sunglasses over the last few films, which often complement the simplicity of his tailoring. For No Time to Die, things aren’t any different, with these Barton Perreira shades about as

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black calf leather complete with a hidden rubber sole, it’s the ideal complement to a suit but with added comfort and grip. £445, crockettandjones.com

DG

I TA L I A N D E S I G N D OY E N S D O M E N I C O D O LC E & S T E FA N O G A B B A N A TA L K E P I P H A N I E S , E M B R AC I N G T H E D I G I TA L AG E A N D T H E I R N E W F W 2 1 C O L L E C T I O N

Words: Chris Anderson

very company had to adjust to life during the pandemic. For Italian style magnates Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, the power duo behind the eponymous fashion label, lockdown provided time to regroup, reflect and re-emerge in a flurry of colour and positivity.

“The crisis has deeply affected us,” Dolce, who turned 63 in August, tells me as the UK approached its so-called ‘Freedom Day’. “We stopped for a moment to think about the really important things in life – our families, our loved ones, too many times taken for granted.”

Dolce and Gabbana met through compatriot designer Giorgio Correggiari in Milan in 1980.

The pair established a consulting studio in 1982, before launching their first women’s collection under the brand name ‘Dolce & Gabbana’ in 1985. For Gabbana, 58, the past 18 months have also been a time of introspection.

“We’re often overwhelmed by the events and the speed with which they happen, by the rules of things like marketing and finance,” he says. “The time has come for everyone to stop and think about what is worth living and working for.”

Early on in the pandemic, Dolce and Gabbana made the decision to tackle Covid-19 head-on, making generous donations to medical research

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institutions that were attempting to combat the virus.

“We immediately realised that we had to do something,” says Gabbana. “We’d already been collaborating with the Humanitas University for some years, funding scholarships for students of the MEDTEC School to earn a degree in medicine. This is why we thought to keep supporting Humanitas University, whose excellence and humanity make it a special entity, with several initiatives.”

“We understood that in any case it was worth doing something,” says Dolce, in reference to assisting the university. “Even a very small gesture can have enormous significance. Supporting

“I am from Milan; Domenico is Sicilian.

He loves linearity; I love colour” scientific research is a moral duty for us.”

Humanitas University, located close to Dolce & Gabbana’s headquarters in Milan, became the location for the maison’s SS21 fashion show – held during the summer of 2020, as soon as the hosting of live events became possible.

Like most of the fashion industry, Dolce & Gabbana had to switch to promoting their shows and clothing online – something that fostered within the pair an appreciation for digital technology, and all the possibilities presented by its various mediums.

“We think that now, more than ever, we could consider ‘digital’ as a major trend,” muses Gabbana. “We truly believe in the importance of the human touch, but it’s also true that now we can explore and take advantage from the wide range of possibilities that online offers. We’ve always looked to the future with positivity, because there’s always something to learn, even from difficulties.”

Testament to Dolce & Gabbana’s eagerness to explore those digital possibilities, the brand has recently announced an exclusive NFT (NonFungible Token) collection in collaboration with UNXD, a curated marketplace for digital luxury and culture. NFTs, most easily described as digital assets that represent real-world objects, are bought and sold online, will form Dolce & Gabbana’s Genesis Collection which, from September, can be bought exclusively through UNXD.com.

Technology, it seems, has also informed the brand physically. See the label’s FW21 collection,

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with its space-age influences and sci-fi- like aesthetics, for evidence. It’s a collection, simultaneously, that’s deeply rooted in ’90s messaging and street culture. A collection, I venture, that might just be D&G’s most nostalgic ever. An upshot, perhaps, of the fact that it was created during a pandemic, when everyone was looking back for a sense of reassurance and wistfulness?

“It’s not about nostalgia,” counters Dolce.

“Tradition and innovation have been two essential topics for us since the very beginning – when we first started, we were transported by innovation; then we discovered that we still needed our roots.

“We wanted to understand, in an era like this, where there is a new digital generation, how we might be able to talk and have a better dialogue with our experiences, traditions and the handmade, and combine all of this with innovation. Also, tradition has no meaning if there’s no innovation, and vice-versa. Just as there’s no Dolce without Gabbana!”

Appropriately for a collection that looks as though it’s travelled back through time, the show announcing the women’s FW21 collection was held at the prestigious Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa. If the setting was about as 21st century as it gets, the clothes on display belonged very much to the last decade of the 20th century: vinyl puffers, graffiti-printed tie-dye, shiny metallics, and T-shirts emblazoned with the words ‘90s Fashion’ and ‘90s Supermodels’ accounted for LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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“The time has come for everyone to stop and think about what is worth living and working for” the majority of that seen on the runway.

“For this collection, we were inspired by the corsets that Prince used in his video for Cream, and the bodysuits often worn by Madonna,” says Dolce.

“There’s also the famous ’90s bodysuit with stones and diamonds of Naomi Campbell, and the bra with stones and diamonds of Linda Evangelista.”

The focus on tech may also have been a strategic play to engage the attentions of the social media and TikTok generations, among whom 90s fashion has become a bible. “Young people told us, ‘We love the clothes of the 90s,’” Gabbana reveals. “For us it was quite a shock – you’re talking 30 years ago! We called this collection Next Chapter, because of the way it embraces technology, and that’s why we cooperated with the IIT – one of the most esteemed scientific institutes in the world.”

The men’s side of the FW21 collection has also been informed by cultural values of a younger generation. “It reflects that idea of ‘maximum freedom’, which the new generation

taught us,” says Gabbana. “The freedom for a man to be able to put on nail polish or make-up, or wear clothes that no longer have any particular gender definition – jackets, coats, trousers… this comes directly from new social media trends, and what we’ve seen on TikTok and Twitch. We’d like to connect ourselves with this new generation not as teachers, but as students who are learning too, constantly challenging ourselves.”

Ordinarily, travel would be a requirement when researching a new line. During the pandemic the options were limited. Scrolling smartphones and tablets became one solution.

“The way we’ve been living this past year, we’ve observed what’s happening through social media,” says Dolce. “In the past, when designing a collection, it was normal to travel to big cities like London, New York, Milan, Shanghai or Tokyo to look for inspiration. More recently, it became a necessity to do this online.”

The SS22 collection feels like a natural progression from FW21, embracing the 2000s,

with the theme of technology continuing via a focus on lights – specifically, the luminaire light shows that take place in southern Italy, usually in early July, when cities light up their famous buildings with colourful bulbs and lamps.

“The Luminarias are a very Italian tradition: a celebration of light, family and craftsmanship,” explains Gabbana. “This is the most important message of the collection. Light is a great therapy for this dark moment. Now we need to see light, joy and happiness in the eyes of people.”

It will certainly be a joy to be decked out in the handmade, multi-coloured embroidery in the men’s collection, which features bright photographic prints on silk, and hip-hop influences embellished on denim. It is, you might argue, a far cry from the signature elements

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(slim-line silhouettes, hourglass dresses) on which the Dolce & Gabbana empire was built.

“Dolce & Gabbana’s DNA is the union of multiple elements,” argues Dolce, on what he believes are the key themes that best characterise his company’s designs. “The harmony of opposites, femininity and masculinity, sensuality and austerity, the use of black and the use of colour. Also, the sacred and the profane, the most eccentric print, the simplicity, the lace; we are all of this.”

Gabbana elaborates, explaining from where he believes some of his brand’s key visual motifs originated. “At the beginning of our journey, back in 1985, we referred to codes born from a mix of the North and South [of Italy]. I am from Milan; Domenico is Sicilian. He loves linearity; I love colour. From this meeting our aesthetic was born, made up of very different contrasts and elements.

All of this has remained our strength and our constant, the basis on which we work every day, never losing sight of what’s happening around us.”

And yet, for all of their willingness to embrace digital technologies, and stake next year’s success on a futuristic, otherworldly aesthetic, it’s obvious that both Dolce and Gabbana believe in the value of here-and-now interaction and the magic of live, in-person shows.

“For us, the fashion shows represent the real experience and they must give a dream to those who participate,” says Dolce. “It’s for this reason that we bring so many looks to the catwalk; in this way, we have the opportunity to inform each other better and to fascinate. The moment of the fashion show is everything, and the dream of fashion shows is fundamental for all of us in the field – stylists, buyers, journalists, we all need it!”

“To us, the handmade and the human represent a fundamental value,” says Gabbana. “They translate the love we have for our work and the construction of every single garment to the search for a perfect balance between the harmony of shapes and attention to detail.”

Just as fundamental to the output of Dolce and Gabbana – as seems to be the case for every designer born on the Apennine Peninsula, is the role played by Italy itself.

“For us, Italy is the place where everything started and where everything always comes around, like a circle that closes,” says Gabbana. “Each region has a story to tell, a folklore that reveals the soul of the territory and of the people who live there – pearls of rare beauty that have to be known; treasures of priceless craftsmanship. What we try to do with our collections is to tell and transmit to the new generations our love for these peculiarities.” dolcegabbana.com LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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BORN IN THE ’80S Words: Anna Solomon

IMAGE BY DAVID ROEMER

LO U B I 5 4 C LU TC H B AG Thanks to Spandau Ballet, nothing says ‘the ‘80s’ like gold.

Eminently more sophisticated than the English pop band, however, is the Loubi54 from Christian Louboutin. Its clean lines, distinctive monogram and signature flash of red make this clutch the ultimate in taste and class, even if it is dressed in gilded nappa leather. £825, eu.christianlouboutin.com

SEQUIN DOLMAN TOP A high-neck, long-sleeve, relaxed-fit top all sounds rather conservative, but not if Lapointe (lover of glitter, feathers and silk) has anything to do with it. The Dolman Top is given a shimmering update with aquamarine sequins, and there’s even a matching sequin trouser. £722, shoplapointe.com

GABRIELLE ROBE As its name suggests, Retrofête is all about vintage party pieces. A veritable explosion of sparkles, lace and ruching, its deep dive into 1970s and ’80s glamour has resonated

with celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow. The Gabrielle Robe features handstitched sequins, a wrap bodice and voluminous blouson sleeves. £543, retrofete.com

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STRETCHJERSEY LEGGINGS We’re not sure whether we’re going to an aerobics class or on a wild night out with these body-sculpting Commando leggings, but we don’t really care. £165, net-a-porter.com

BROCHE VIVIER BUCKLE PUMPS These Roger Vivier pumps are giving Palace of Versailles vibes more than ‘80s party girl, but they still fit the bill: Shiny?

Check. Bejewelled? Check.

Totally over the top? You know it. The Broche Vivier is the perfect footwear for all of your post-pandemic soirée needs. £1,325, rogervivier.com

SEQUIN-EMBELLISHED S AT I N - J E R S E Y S H I R T This larger-than-life statement shirt, paved with glistening tonal sequins, looks like something that Axl Rose or Steven Tyler would have worn. Except, of course, it’s Bottega Veneta (available on Net-a-Porter). £1,855, net-a-porter.com

GINEVRA TOP Huishan Zhang, who recently dressed Gemma Chan for Vogue, is a master in making things that are, on paper, totally over the top (like enormous feather trims or head-to-toe sequin dresses), look pareddown, refined, even regal. The Ginevra Top is a case in point, with its balloon sleeves, crystal trim and bold rose-pink hue.

G O L D S PA R K L E H O B O B AG The people wanted sequins, and that is exactly what Paco Rabanne gave them. A bag made entirely out of sequins, to be precise. The ironically named Hobo Bag is crafted from gold paillettes and features a metal ‘PR’ logo chain.

£1,450, huishanzhang.com

£890, pacorabanne.com

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WWW.LAURENROSSDESIGN.COM

Brand ambassador and seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton promotes IWC Schaffhausen’s new Pilot’s Watch collection, shot by fellow IWC ambassador, British photographer Misan Harriman. Hamilton wears the Big Pilot’s Watch 43. iwc.com

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86 Jewellery News Precious pieces from Harry Winston, Dior and Pomellato 88 Hidden Gem The unbelievable true story of Britain’s most valuable unsolved diamond heist 92 Seconds Out From Bremont to Ball, the hottest watch launches of summer 2021

JEWEL TONE Words: Annabel Harrison

Pole Position The Portuguese word for ‘connecting rod’ isn’t the most obvious name for a jewellery collection but for Ara Vartanian, also a car collector, ‘Biela’ made perfect sense. All of the collection’s emeralds, rubellites and Paraiba tourmalines are from Conscious Mining mines. aravartanian.com

Time to Shine Concealed within hundreds of diamonds is a diamond-andsapphire-set watch face; this spectacular octagonal timepiece can be worn on the wrist, as a brooch, or as a pendant, taking its name – Ultimate Emerald Signature – from the central emerald-cut sapphire (Mr. Harry Winston’s preferred shape).

Making Waves To mark 20 years of its Pastello designs, Bucherer Fine Jewellery presents Ocean Breeze Pastello, featuring pale blue sapphires to reflect the serenity of water. This collection is available in Bucherer’s new Covent Garden flagship store.

harrywinston.com

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La Vie en Rose Dior Rose celebrates the ‘metamorphosis’ of the House’s private mansion at 30 Avenue Montaigne.

Artistic Director Victoire de Castellane was inspired to create a ‘Planet Dior’, home to 116 jewels; among them the romantic rose, futuristic rose and abstract couture rose.

FROM LEFT ROSE FUTURISTE RING, ROSE MANTIQUE EARRINGS, ROSE MANTIQUE RING, ALL POA FROM THE DIOR ROSE COLLECTION

dior.com

Pearly White Are these the epitome of perfectly-modern pearls? Kiki McDonough’s new Cordelia earrings (£1,900) feature a pair of pearls suspended from delicate diamond twists crafted from 18k yellow gold. kiki.co.uk

In the Stars Pomellato’s La Gioia collection has two chapters; in the first, unique pieces make use of jewellery from its 1990-2014 archive. This Bavarole Lucky Stars necklace features 2014’s jet and diamond stars, strung from gold chains with black ceramic and sapphire detail. pomellato.com LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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SHOP OWNER LAURENCE GRAFF SHOWING PICTURES OF THE MARLBOROUGH DIAMOND TO THE PRESS, 11 SEPTEMBER 1980

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HIDDEN GEM: The 40-year hunt for the Marlborough Diamond B R I TA I N ’ S M O S T VA L U A B L E U N S O LV E D D I A M O N D H E I S T I S A W I L D TA L E I N V O LV I N G T H E D I S F I G U R E D C O U S I N O F W I N S T O N C H U R C H I L L , A W I LY A C C O U N TA N T O N H I S L U N C H B R E A K , A H Y P N OT I S E D P O S T O F F I C E C L E R K A N D T W O T I G H T- L I P P E D

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WISE GUYS FROM THE CHICAGO MAFIA

Words: Rob Crossan

he names alone sound like hard-boiled protagonists from a vintage Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy novel. But Arthur ‘The Brain’ Rachel and Joseph ‘The Monk’ Scalise weren’t the creations of fiction writers. Forty years ago, these men were veteran members of the Chicago mafia. Their specialty was assassination but in early September 1980 their target was jewellery, namely, gems that had once belonged to the family of Winston Churchill; gems that were now housed in a London jewellers.

The (literal) star of the show was the 45-carat, cushion-shaped Marlborough diamond, which had been recut into a starburst design and took pride of place in the window of Knightsbridge jewellers Graff. The stone, in today’s money, would be worth in the region of £2 million.

Scalise, known as ‘The Monk’ due to a claim he made as a younger man that he would one day like to be a priest, along with Rachel, known as ‘The Brain’ due to LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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his IQ score of 162, were the men tasked with carrying out an operation which, to this day, is believed to be the most valuable unsolved diamond heist in British history.

Before we get to the theft itself, it’s worth detailing the bizarre story that landed the diamond in the Graff window in the first place. It belonged to Gladys Deacon, the second wife of the Duke of Marlborough, Winston Churchill’s cousin.

A noted intellectual and great beauty in her day, Deacon was admired by multiple luminaries including French novelist Marcel Proust, who declared, “I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.”

In an effort to maintain her legendary, captivating looks, Gladys subjected herself to an early, and horribly ineffectual, attempt at plastic surgery on her nose. Injecting paraffin wax, the operation grossly disfigured her.

Becoming a recluse, she was eventually institutionalised, spending the last 15 years of her life in a home before dying in 1977. It was only after her death that

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the stone was sold to Graff and reset as a necklace from a brooch.

It was this jewel, more than any other, which The Monk and The Brain had their eyes on. After flying into London from Illinois, the duo spent the next few days sizing up the jewellery store, which had a front door that was only unlocked to allow customers to enter once they had been screened by a security guard.

Rachel and Scalise had a simple plan to ensure that they would be granted access. Dressed up as Arab sheiks with fake beards, they hired a Fiat Mirafiori to drive to Sloane Street where the store was, and still is, located. It was broad daylight and five employers and two customers hit the floor as Scalise walked in brandishing a revolver and, entering behind him, Rachel showed what appeared to be a hand grenade.

Barely saying a word, the men went straight to the window display and started filling a briefcase. The owner of the shop, Laurence Graff, later said the thieves had clearly known what they were after: “They picked out the very special pieces from the window,” he said. “It was all over in less than a minute.” No-one was hurt during the raid. In fact, so smooth was the operation that staff and customers on the upper two floors of the three-storey shop weren’t even aware it was happening.

But the seeds of the thieves’ downfall

The duo themselves, although sloppy criminals, were a little more seasoned when it came to upholding the mafia’s omertà were already sown. An alert accountant who worked for Graff was returning from his lunchbreak when he noticed two men, one of whom appeared to be wearing a fake beard, taking off white gloves as they left the doorway of the store.

Following the two men, the accountant noted the registration number of Scalise and Rachel’s car. He would later tell Scotland Yard that he was convinced by the sight of the men that there was “something rotten in the state of Denmark” – a line from Hamlet suggesting that things might not be as they seem.

Understandably, the pair were keen to get back to the States as soon as possible.

But this was where Rachel’s formidable IQ seems to have deserted him. Within hours of the robbery being reported, the police had traced the hire car as having been rented from Hertz at Heathrow airport.

Incredibly, the duo had booked the car under their real names, as were their bookings at the hotel and their plane

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tickets back to Chicago. Their arrest by the FBI, as they alighted at O’Hare airport, was swift. Yet neither Scalise or Rachel had the diamonds on them.

The next few years would see an epic legal battle for extradition with both men eventually being recalled to the UK in July 1983, where they served almost a decade at HM Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight.

Incongruous as the reality of two Chicago mobsters languishing in a prison cell near Cowes and the River Solent was, answers from Scalise and Rachel about the whereabouts of the diamond were not forthcoming. A London cab driver told police that Scalise and Rachel were in his car on the day of the heist and asked him to locate a Post Office and post a parcel for them – which he did.

A Post Office clerk, put under hypnosis by the police to assist his powers of recall, declared that he had handled a package later that day and that it was addressed to New York. He couldn’t, however, remember the specific address.

Could that package have contained the Marlborough diamond? Scalise’s sister lived in New York at the time but, despite investigations, the trail went cold. Years later, in 1999, an unnamed Chicago Mob associate of Scalise told FBI investigators that The Monk had indeed mailed the diamonds to his sister in the Big Apple immediately after the heist.

The duo themselves, although sloppy criminals, were a little more seasoned when it came to upholding the mafia’s omertà. While in jail on the Isle of Wight, FBI investigator Jack O’Rourke travelled across the Atlantic to dangle the carrot of a reduced sentence in front of them, should they reveal the whereabouts of the Marlborough diamond. Both Scalise and Rachel refused point blank. Rachel refused to even leave his cell for the interview.

What does seem probable is that the duo benefitted little from the value of

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THIS PAGE A DRAWING OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH DIAMOND SET IN THE GRAFF NECKLACE OPPOSITE THE GRAFF STORE FROM WHERE THE DIAMOND WAS STOLEN, TODAY

court judge why he continued his life of crime into such advanced years, before his sentencing for the robbery attempt in 2012 (then aged 73). Federal prosecutor Amarjeet Bhachu was more scathing of Rachel, stating during the trial: “This thug has the gall to ask for leniency when he does the same thing over and over. He is a parasite. He lives off of others. The public needs to be protected from this man.”

If Scalise didn’t profit from the Marlborough diamond, he has certainly made some money from Hollywood. In more recent years he was employed as a consultant by director Michael Mann on the Johnny Depp film Public Enemies.

The reward for the return of the diamond still stands at $100,000.

Though, as the men enter their twilight years, it seems increasingly unlikely that they’d break their sacred code of honour.

Writing to the weary FBI investigator O’Rourke from his Isle of Wight prison cell in the 1980s, Scalise quoted Nietzsche: ‘You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.’

the diamond. As Scalise’s attorney, Vadim Glozman, drolly pointed out in one interview, “as far as I’m concerned if he had it, he wouldn’t be living off social security benefits.”

Both The Monk and The Brain swiftly returned to lives of criminality after their eventual release and return to the States.

One conviction was for an attempt to hijack an armoured van and rob the house of the widow of a former mob boss. At the time of writing, however, both men are free and living in halfway houses in Chicago. Now in their early 80s, the two continue to deny knowing anything about the whereabouts of the Marlborough diamond. Interviewed in 2001 by the American ABC television network, Rachel stated that he’d already spent the money and, when asked how much he made from the deal, retorted, “none of your business.”

As ageing wise guys, the culture of a lifetime in the mob means the chances of authorities getting any clear answers remain slim. “It’s the way we are. We got nothing better to do,” was Rachel’s response when asked by a US district LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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SECONDS OUT A S T H E WAT C H I N D U S T R Y N AV I G AT E S A N U N FA M I L I A R B U T B U O YA N T P O S T- L O C K D O W N L A N D S C A P E , M AT E R I A L S A N D S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y H AV E P R O V E D L U C R AT I V E TA L K I N G P O I N T S .

H E R E W E LO O K AT S O M E O F T H E M O S T I N T R I G U I N G R E C E N T R E L E A S E S

Words: Martin Williams

SCHOFIELD

The Bronze Beater B4 is Schofield founder Giles Ellis’ love letter to Japan, and a watch more densely packed with Japanese touches you are unlikely to find, well, anywhere really.

On the reverse is a caseback etched with a traditional Japanese Durama-san doll, the Japanese symbol for luck emblazoned on its chest, while the design also includes the gingko and cherry blossom motif used on a Tokyo drain cover. The dial is made of Indigo-dyed Japanese Boro patchwork cloth, while the strap is made from Japanese Mudcloth. And the automatic movement inside the heavily patinated 44mm bronze case? That, at least, is Swiss. £3,280, schofieldwatchcompany.com

BALL

Ball’s Engineer Skindiver II Heritage offers the brand’s 1960s-inspired dive watch a covert, matte black makeover with a Titanium Carbide coating on its 42mm stainless steel case and bracelet. Paired with a black dial and a sapphire crystal-topped unidirectional bezel,

the only opportunity for colour comes from Ball’s signature, self-powered micro gas tubes. Hands and hour markers are rendered in a candycoloured assortment, while green tubes are inlaid into the bezel illuminating its minute scale. Limited to 390 pieces, the watch is water resistant to 200 metres. £1,750, ballwatch.com

Bremont now has the means to produce more of its own watchmaking components in the UK than ever before BELL & ROSS

BREMONT

With its manufacturing facility, The Wing, newly opened in Henley-on-Thames, Bremont now has the means to produce more of its own watchmaking components in the UK than ever before and its latest watch, the 43mm MB Savanna, uses the first titanium cases it has milled itself. The MB, of course, stands for long-time partner and ejector seat maker Martin Baker, a partnership which reveals itself through a knurled caseband and pull cord counterweight on the seconds hand. Even the sandy coating on the titanium is colour-matched to its parachutes, used to survive in arid terrain. £4,595, bremont.com

Breitling’s loss is Bell & Ross’ gain as the former pivoted away from Top Gun-style aviation leaving its longterm partner, Patrouille de France, free to sign with the latter. To celebrate its new relationship with the French national fast jet display team, Bell & Ross has created the BR 03-94 Patrouille de France, a square 42mm black ceramic chronograph with bidirectional bezel. The dial takes on the blue, white and red of the French tricolour, while the Patrouille logo sits at the six o’clock. As well as creating a 500-piece limited edition automatic chronograph Bell & Ross is also making a 100-piece quartzpowered version. £5,400, bellross.com

A. LANGE & SÖHNE

ORIS

RICHARD MILLE

TUDOR

Oris has long led on ocean sustainability.

The brand recently announced that it is climate neutral, and the dial of this Aquis Date Upcycle dive watch is made from recycled PET plastic.

POA, oris.ch

The three-watch RM 07-01 Coloured Ceramics capsule collection actually errs on the side of tradition: the metal sections of the dial feature hand-applied guilloche decoration.

POA, richardmille.com

Tudor’s masterstroke was restoring silver’s place in watchmaking. The Tudor Black Bay Fifty-Eight 925, a precious metal watch at a price lower than bronze and only slightly more expensive than steel, proved irresistible. £3,230, tudorwatch.com LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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Lange’s Langematik Perpetual, now cased in 18ct pink and white gold with deep blue dials as 50-piece limited editions, brings clever touches of refinement from the German manufacturer. It pairs the perpetual calendar complication, which will keep track of the date until 2100 if you (or your grandchildren) keep it wound, with Lange’s oversized date window, giving it a look that is distinct from other QPs whilst also offering a zero-reset mechanism and a main corrector for advancing the calendar, making short work of setting the date. £81,400, alange-soehne.com

Life feels better behind the wheel of a classic.

Specialist insurance for classics, moderns, collections, homes and marine.

Call our friendly UK team for a quote.

0333 207 6034 footmanjames.co.uk

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Drive H Y P E R C A R S , H OT H ATC H E S & S U P E R S U Vs

The sci-fi-looking V12 Speedster by Aston Martin is a living show car, championing racing history and aeronautical design. (p.100)

96 German Shepherd Why the new Mercedes Maybach S-Class is made for backseat drivers 100 Maddest of the Mad These are the cars eschewing windscreens and breaking the mould

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GERMAN SHEPHERD T H E N E W 6 0 3 B H P, 6 . 0 - L I T R E M E R C E D E S - M AY B A C H S - C L A S S IS 18CM LONGER THAN THE LONG WHEELBASE S-CLASS, H A S T W I N E X E C U T I V E S E AT S , M A S S AG I N G L E G R E S T S , N E C K H E AT I N G F O R R E A R P A S S E N G E R S A N D J U S T A B O U T E V E R Y O T H E R

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M U S T- H AV E F E AT U R E A H I G H - F LY I N G C E O C O U L D E V E R A S K F O R

Words: Jeremy Taylor

obody likes a backseat driver, but the MercedesMaybach really isn’t designed for the person sat in the driver’s seat. Overtly luxurious in every way, the truth is that most owners will likely never even lay a hand on the leather-clad, heated steering wheel.

But first, a little history.

Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau. The name hardly rolls off the tongue, but that was the title of a company set up by Wilhelm Maybach in 1909. Together with his son Karl, Wilhelm originally built engines for the Zeppelins used in World War I, and,

later, for German tanks in World War II. In 1960, the company was bought by Daimler-Benz and produced commercial diesel engines before the Maybach name returned as a luxury flagship car for Mercedes-Benz in 2002.

For once, the German carmaker got it wrong, as global Maybach 57 and 62 sales – the numbers denoting the limousines’ lengths in hundreds of millimetres – never matched expectations. The company ceased production in 2013, but, thanks to a small number of loyal customers, returned in 2014 as a subbrand. Heavily based on the Mercedes S-Class, the Maybach S 600 sold 60,000 cars – well enough to inspire this

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sumptuous new model, which Mercedes hopes will take sales to a new level.

I spent most of the test drive wallowing in the back, in more comfort than a firstclass airline seat. For here is a level of personalised well-being and pampering rarely experienced in the swankiest of executive saloons.

Fully loaded with every conceivable gadget, gizmo and driving aid, the top-of-the-range S 680 is the pinnacle of automotive luxury – a genuine rival to the best that Rolls-Royce and Bentley has to offer. It might seem like an odd statement but, for once, Mercedes is the poor relation in this particular market sector. For my money, however, the latest all-singing, all-dancing Maybach is actually more comfortable in the rear than vehicles from both of those British marques.

And while I did enjoy driving a lefthand drive, 6.0-litre V12 behemoth across the Cotswolds, the back seat is where the real story lies – from the seatbelt airbags to the Mercedes MBUX rear entertainment system, this is simply a space unlike anything you’’ll find in any other car.

To achieve such levels of comfort, the £201,335 S 680 is stretched a remarkable

Mercedes-Benz knows that it got the original Maybach wrong – something the German car manufacturer is aiming to rectify with this latest model 18cm longer than the ‘Long’ version of the ocean-going Mercedes S-Class – itself a car that won’t win you many friends in a supermarket car park. Even with fourwheel steering, the Maybach is as nimble as an oil tanker.

Most of that extra length is devoted to a cocooned rear cabin area, which is now more opulent than ever. A system called Active Road Noise Suppression filters out any low-frequency rumbles like a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

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incongruously on every trim panel. If a motorway driver indicates right while a passing car overtakes in the outside lane, the lighting in the right door turns red. In the rear, turn down the heating on the minitablet provided in the centre console and lights on the back of the front seat change colour to ice blue. Thankfully, the lights can be toned down or turned off completely.

There’’s plenty of sound in the cabin.

Not from the barely distinguishable V12 engine, but from a new, 30-speaker, 1750w Burmester 4D sound system. The whopping subwoofers are hidden in the rear of the front seats.

Included in this car are optional, silver-plated champagne flutes, cleverly designed to clip neatly on bespoke glass holders. Naturally, there is a bottle cooler in the middle of the rear bulkhead.

Most Maybach buyers swap the standard rear bench seat for two individual airline-style seats cut from Napa leather. For rear passengers sat diagonally across from the driver, this seat will recline almost into a bed, as the front seat automatically slides forward to allow for extra rear leg room.

Each back seat faces an 11.3-inch

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THE VITA L S

Model: S 680 4MATIC Price: from £201,335 Engine: 5980cc V12 Power: 603bhp Economy: 16.7mpg Top speed: 155mph 0-62mph: 4.5 seconds

touchscreen that complements the minitablet found in the centre armrest. The latter can be used inside or outside the vehicle and fits neatly in a jacket pocket.

The rear doors operate from a button on the edge of the roof lining – not to be mistaken for a jacket hook – or can be opened remotely from the driver’s seat. A wireless mobile phone charger is hidden away in the centre armrest, as well as every type of AUX slot ever created. There’s so much technology going on that I’m glad my chauffeur David has spared me the task of reading the manual. Most owners, I’’m sure, will only scratch the surface of what the Maybach has on offer.

Lots of cars have voice recognition these days, for making phone calls or changing the radio station. The Hey Mercedes voice assistant does just about everything and even has attitude. You don’t believe me? ‘Hey Mercedes, tell me a joke’. The response is swift: ‘I’m sorry, I’m German, I don’t have a sense of humour.’

The system can keep passengers entertained on longer journeys with a general knowledge quiz, or tell it that you are stressed and the ambient lighting will dim, the air conditioning cool and music

volume drop down a notch or two. I swear I dozed off listening to waves crash on a beach in glorious surround sound. You can even tap in for a training exercise to stretch tired muscles that haven’t been soothed by the massaging features and heated and cooled seats.

The Maybach wafts along on air suspension, with extraordinary ride comfort and body control. The ‘‘Chauffeur’’ setting is a little on the soft side but opt for ‘‘Comfort’’ and the balance is just about right. An augmented reality, head-up display flashes vital information onto the road ahead, while a roof-mounted camera sends real-time imagery to the centre display screen, adding blue arrows for sat-nav directions.

The MBUX rear entertainment system

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even recognises eye direction, body language and hand gestures. Sensors monitor trip data so that an ‘Energising Coach’ can create a ‘wellness programme’ for passengers, boosting sleep quality and lowering stress levels.

Need to escape the paparazzi? No problem, there’s a 6.0-litre V12 under the bonnet. It produces 603 bhp and will reach 62mph in 4.5 seconds. There’s the choice of a 4.0-litre V8 model too, which starts at a not inconsiderable £160,000.

Even if you really do want to drive this thing, the Maybach doesn’t encourage you to do so. Like its Mercedes S-Class sibling, the S 680 is one of the few cars ready for Level 3 semi-autonomous driving, which may be government-approved in the UK by the end of this year.

Such incredible levels of technical refinement don’t come cheap, of course, but I’ll wager that this latest Maybach will send a chill down the spine of other luxury carmakers. The S 680 is a limousine for a new generation of youthful entrepreneurs. mercedes-benz.com

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MADDEST OF THE MAD A BRACE OF BRITISH HYPERCARS ARE BREAKING THE MOULD OF AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN. CONCEIVED WITHOUT ROOFS OR WINDSCREENS, BOTH THE £765,000 ASTON MARTIN V12 SPEEDSTER AND £1.4 MILLION M C L A R E N E LVA P R O M I S E T O D E L I V E R A ( L I T E R A L ) B R E AT H O F F R E S H A I R – I F YO U C A N B R E AT H E W H I L E D R I V I N G T H E M T H AT I S

Words: Jeremy Taylor

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here were gasps of incredulity when the iconic Lamborghini Countach was first revealed in the early 1970s. The original prototype was one of the most dramatic vehicles ever devised, with a low-slung wedge shape that ultimately defined the supercar genre.

In 1971, the motoring world was awash with mediocrity – the Jaguar E-Type was on the way out, Mercedes only made sensible cars and even the Ferrari 365 looked dull compared to the

outlandish Lambo.

Fifty years later, a pair of British car companies are breaking the mould of automotive design again, with two of the craziest cars ever seen on tarmac. Few motors will split opinion quite as much as the new McLaren Elva and Aston

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Martin V12 Speedster.

Forget the staggering performance and jaw-dropping looks, what really had the Twitterati bristling is that neither featured a windscreen or roof. It was far from ideal that both cars were launched in May, just as we were witnessing the

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worst spring weather in living memory.

McLaren and Aston Martin claim that just ‘a few’ build slots remain for both limited editions, confident their outrageous designs will be a sell-out.

Originally McLaren was planning to build 399 Elvas, reduced to 249 and now just 149 will run off the production line in Woking.

Long before the British summer arrived, I managed to dodge the rain clouds and take both cars for a genuinely breathless drive across the English countryside. McLaren has since announced an optional windscreen but my Elva was the ‘in-your-face’ version, completely untroubled by glass.

Priced at £1.4 million – almost double the V12 Speedster – driving the madcap McLaren is best explained with a couple of technical stats. The 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 is from the Senna hypercar and pushes out 804 bhp. It weighs just 1,148 kg, some 600 kg less than the Aston Martin.

A sub-3.0 second dash to 62mph is

naturally thrilling but remember, the featherlight Elva is asking you to enjoy the experience full in the face, sat high in the seat with the door tops at roughly chest height.

A buffering beyond endurance? It would be, except this McLaren has an ace up its sleeve. Those gaping slots in the bonnet gulp air in and are a key part of the Elva’s Active Air Management System (AAMS), activated via a discreet – rather awkward to locate at speed – button beside the steering column.

When pressed, a 15cm bonnet flap rises at speeds over 28mph, forcing air up and over the cockpit and, theoretically, cocooning both driver and passenger in a bubble of calm. The buffer does automatically limit the Elva to 124 mph, although most drivers will be slowing down for oxygen long before that.

Without AAMS, even at 50mph the blast of air is enough to leave passengers fighting for breath. For those determined to remould their faces at triple digit racetrack speeds – remember

Clarkson in the Ariel Atom? – McLaren provides a pair of bespoke helmets which, unlike the V12 Speedster, don’t fit inside those distinctive humps behind the headrests.

AAMS on or off, with or without helmet, driving the Elva – named after a superlight 1960s series of cars designed

by Bruce McLaren – is for hardcore enthusiasts only. The wind-deflector certainly takes some of the sting out of the experience, but not much. I once rode a four-man bobsleigh, the battering was nowhere near as bad.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the £765,000 Aston Martin Speedster feels more gentlemanly compared to the Elva. I’m still glad for the full-face safety helmet I crammed in my travel bag before leaving home. Without it, I would be gasping for breath in between the giggles and guffaws, as this 186mph supercar scrabbles for grip on rain-soaked tarmac.

Only the price could dampen enthusiasm. A DBS Superleggera Volante with the same 5.2-litre V12 engine is,

M C L A R E N E LVA

Price: £1.4 million Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 Power: 804 bhp Weight: 1,148 kg 0-60 mph: 2.8 seconds Top speed: 203 mph Number built: 149

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ASTO N M A R TI N V 1 2 S P E E DSTER

Price: £765,000 Engine: 5.2-litre twin turbo V12 Power: 691 bhp Weight: 1,765kg 0-60 mph: 3.5 seconds Top speed: 186 mph Number built: 88

after all, less than half the cost. That’s especially true in the US, where the Speedster’s roofless design means it can only be enjoyed on a racetrack.

Sat much lower in the cockpit, the trim is a predictable mix of lightweight materials and leather, with some familiar Aston Martin switchgear to boot. The most obvious addition is a carbon-fibre blade, running fore and aft between the two seats at neck height.

It’s an eye-catching design but ‘enthusiastic’ drivers will probably curse the impact between helmet and carbonfibre when reaching down for the heating and centre console controls. With 691 bhp coursing through an eight-speed automatic gearbox – slightly less than the Superleggera – there is plenty of opportunity to chip the lacquer too.

A heated steering wheel and backside warmers in the wafer-thin, carbon-fibre seats are optional – most other luxuries have been stripped out to save weight. At least a powerful air heater is preventing my fingers from numbness.

This particular Speedster is a cut above the rest because it has been fitted out to DBR1 specification, at an extra cost of around £50,000. The Aston Martin Racing Green paint and flashy anodised grille pay tribute to an iconic roadster, a car that won both the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hours and the Nürburgring 24 Hours races.

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the dashboard.

Despite being equipped with SatNav, powerful heaters and high-spec sound systems, both cars are totally impractical for everyday use or lengthy journeys. The McLaren does come with an emergency tonneau but only for use when the car is stationary. It’s also the only one of the two with specially-designed airbags that don’t need to deflect off a windscreen when inflating.

Whether the V12 Speedster or the McLaren Elva appeal then might depend on where you live. In Britain, I’d be constantly monitoring the weather app on my mobile phone before heading out. For those in sunnier climes, either could be the ultimate, wind-in-the-hair driving experience. Just don’t forget a helmet.

VIEW FROM LE VEL 39 AT NEWFOU NDL AND. COMPUTER GENER ATED IMAGE, INDICATIVE ONLY.

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25/08/2021 10:56

Homes & Interiors I T ’ S W H AT ’ S I N S I D E T H AT CO U N T S

David Rockwell’s architecture firm designed hotel Moxy East Village, and its restaurant Cathédrale, to reflect the East Village’s counterculture. (p.112)

106 To Love or to Loathe London’s most divisive buildings 112 How to Style Your Terrace Top tips for accessorising your outdoor entertaining space 114 Francis Sultana In conversation with the collector’s designer 120 Rock of Ages What David Rockwell did next

TO LOVE OR TO LOATHE? A SHORT HISTORY OF LONDON’S MOST CONTENTIOUS BUILDINGS Words: Rob Crossan

A

s far as Royal duties are concerned, turning up to open a shopping complex, bridge or civic centre would perhaps be considered one of their more innocuous tasks.

Oh contraire. The furore that can follow the erection of a structure that dots, peeps, looms, leers and occasionally wobbles on the London skyline can make the centuries-long soap opera based at Buckingham Palace (itself a building of contention when it was completed in 1850) seem almost tranquil.

As companies start to move in to the recently opened 22 Bishopsgate (the new, tallest skyscraper in the City), Luxury London rounds-up the piles of bricks, cement, concrete and controversy that have most divided public opinion over the past 150 years.

NOVA V I C TO R I A ( 2 01 7 )

It hasn’t been held for the last three years, but, between 2006 and 2018 the Carbuncle Cup was a much anticipated annual award meted out by Building Design magazine to the ugliest new building in Britain.

The penultimate winner is the truly grim Nova Victoria building. Described by the judges as a ‘crass, over-scaled … hideous mess’, the building has a retina-damaging black-and-white stripe motif on the outside and is flanked by a blood red, glass ‘spire’ on one side.

It’s impossible to beat the description IMAGE BY RON ELLIS SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

this was given by the Carbuncle judges, who winced at “the bright red prows that adorn various points of the exterior like the inflamed protruding breasts of demented preening cockerels”.

The building cost £380 million.

Architect Gordon Benson claimed that Nova, “has to speak two languages, Latin towards Belgravia, and Samuel Beckett to the other side”. The language it triggers in most Londoners can probably be said to have more in common with Picasso’s ‘blue’ period.

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M I L L E N N I U M B R I DG E ( 2 0 0 0 )

Back in the 1970s, the UK had a well-deserved reputation for not being able to make anything competently, as any ageing owners of an Austin Allegro will testify. But by the year 2000 it was thought that the engineers and architects of this nation had upped their game – until the Millennium Bridge was opened.

Spanning the Thames between the Tate Modern and St. Paul’s, the bridge opened to great fanfare and

EUSTON A RC H (DEMOLISHE D I N T HE 19 6 0S)

The British equivalent of Penn Station, the bulldozing of Euston Arch had a similar effect on Londoners as the demolition of the glorious Manhattan railway terminal had on New Yorkers. Built in 1837, this immense Doric column was a beloved London landmark which, despite protests from the public spearheaded by the future Poet Laureate John Betjeman, was demolished with a haste that bordered on the violent.

The early 1960s were not a time when sympathy towards historic buildings was in large supply. Amid the ‘you’ve never had it so good’ modernising zeal of PM Harold MacMillan’s Britain, innumerable buildings of huge beauty and significance were levelled in the capital. None was more criticised than the destruction of the Arch, destroyed to make way for a revamped Euston station which, as it turned out upon completion in 1968, didn’t require the razing of the arch at all.

The only crumb of comfort was that, in the aftermath of the arch’s demise, much more effective pressure groups were formed to stop any further acts of gross vandalism on London’s most revered structures. To this day, plans to resurrect the Euston Arch continue to be formed.

was abruptly shut again just two days later. The reason? It wobbled.

Dangerously so.

Cue two years of repairs to stop the swaying motion and keep the bridge stable. It was hugely embarrassing at the time coming, as it did, on top of the revulsion that public and critics alike felt over the larcenously expensive Millennium Dome down the river in Greenwich.

Two decades later and the bridge has never really recovered its reputation.

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IMAGE BY LUBO IVANKO SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

EL EP HA N T & C ASTL E SHOP P I N G C E N TR E ( 1 9 6 5- 2 02 1 )

Opened in 1965, this was one of the first American-style malls in London, with more than 100 shops on three levels and incorporating a tube and overland station within. But the expected throngs of shoppers never really materialised; the location at the centre of two monstrous roundabouts, and the dank underground passageways that granted access beneath the roads, all meant LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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that the centre developed a mordant, dismal atmosphere long before Southwark Council ordered its demolition.

Will it be missed? Not by many. But the dying days of the centre did convert a new generation of fans. With the big chain stores having long fled, the last years saw a glut of alternative businesses occupying the place; including a Polish milk bar and a string of dirt-cheap Columbian takeaways in the strange concrete moat that surrounded the building.

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IMAGE BY RICHARTPHOTOS SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

2 0 F E N C H U R C H ST REET, A KA TH E ‘ WA L KI E-TALKI E’ ( 2 01 4 )

IMAGE BY STERLING IMAGES SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

The top heavy, bulbous design of Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly was reduced in height before construction even began due to concerns that it would overwhelm views of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London.

But this was just the beginning of the saga of the ‘Walkie-Talkie’.

A quite astonishing design flaw meant that the curved glass acted as a laser beam, intensifying and reflecting the sun onto the streets below. The results included melted cars, baked shop fronts, ruined bicycle saddles and a short-lived craze for frying eggs on car bonnets. With street-level temperatures soaring to more than 70°C, the level of opprobrium towards the building was no less heated among the architectural and planning cognoscenti itself.

THE NEW DEN , MILLWALL F C ( 19 93 )

After the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, countless football clubs fled their antiquated 19th century grounds and built new, all-seater, safety-conscious stadiums. Many of these new constructions in London have been hugely popular with fans, neighbourhood residents and architects alike, but The New Den isn’t one of them.

Opened in 1993 in the Senegal Fields area of Bermondsey, the ground may have won over some Lions supporters who could see fault with the facilities at their old Cold Blow Lane home, but the design of the four near-identical stands is numbingly clunky, boxy and devoid of character.

The experience of coming here is particularly loathed by away supporters who need to traverse a caged ‘rat run’ on arrival which leads from the railway station directly to the away end of the ground. The worst sports stadium in London by the length of a 30-yard free kick.

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TOW E R B R I DG E ( 1 89 4 )

Cheap, showy and unworthy of the Thames. Incredibly, these were the criticisms levelled at Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the architect of Tower Bridge, when it first raised its drawbridge in 1894. The Gothic style of the bridge was unpopular with both the public and critics. The Pall Mall Gazette wrote that “there certainly seems to be a subtle quality of ungainliness, a certain variegated ugliness, so to speak, that age can scarcely wither or custom stale, about this new bridge.”

Tower Bridge has, of course, undergone a radical change of perception among Londoners in the centuryand-a-quarter since its construction. However, as beloved by tourists and film makers as it may now be, some very crucial design flaws remain. Even now, if it’s winter and the bridge is opened to allow vessels to pass through, there is nowhere for pedestrians and cyclists to shelter from the elements.

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PENDANT LIGHT, POA, CASSINA.COM PHOTOGRAPHY DEPASQUALE MAFFINI

H O W TO S T Y L E YO U R TER R AC E A N E W F O U N D A P P R E C I AT I O N F O R A L F R E S C O E N T E R TA I N I N G ,

Words: Annabel Harrison

E V E N W E L L I N T O T H E A U T U M N , M E A N S L AV I S H I N G AT T E N T I O N O N F U R N I T U R E A N D ACC E S S O R I E S FO R O U TS I D E S PAC E S

LEFT DRINKS TROLLEY, £250, ROCKETTSTGEORGE.CO.UK

TO THE BAR Space is often at a premium on a terrace so think about what you’ll be using it for most and invest accordingly. There’s a high chance drinks will be imbibed? If so, create a small

but perfectly formed bar area, complete with drinks trolley.

Channel your inner barista and seek out unusual bottles and colourful glassware to serve up drinks that pack an extra punch.

OPPOSITE HANGING CHAIR, £399, DAYBED, £1,295, MIRROR, £195, ALL COXANDCOX. CO.UK; FLOOR CUSHION, £399, OKA.COM; SIDE TABLE, £1,501, HARRISHARRIS LONDON.CO.UK

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MIRROR MIRROR Just as they are inside, mirrors are a great tool for small outdoor spaces as they reflect light and make them appear bigger – choose a window style to create a ‘secret garden’ feel.

Opt for as big a mirror as you can accommodate, or use several mirrors dotted around to reflect your favourite elements.

F L O O R S PA C E Reflect an adjoining room’s decorative scheme outside to create a sense of harmony, for example, by picking out a colour or material with cushions and blankets. Choose clever pieces that can be adapted to your requirements – floor cushions can easily be stacked or taken back inside when not in use.

HANGING OUT Cox & Cox does make larger hanging chairs for gardens but this has been designed in a ‘slim’ style so as to maximise comfort while minimising space. Curl up with your morning coffee and the paper, or use it as seating when entertaining at home.

UNDER THE HOOD If you have a spacious terrace, Cox & Cox has the perfect seating all-rounder. Its Hurst daybed looks, at first glance, like a smart little two-seater (with showerproof cushions and allweather rattan) but a pull-out footstool and retractable sun hood turn it into a double sun-lounger - perfect for lazy lunches and warm autumnal evenings.

SET IN STONE Harris Harris London’s Overend table in solid Bath limestone may be just 35cm wide but it’s perfectly formed. Rather surprisingly it weighs in at 100kg, making it a seriously solid side table statement (and worth considering on what surface you will position it).

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FRANCIS SULTANA: The AD100 designer on his favourite projects S I N C E F O U N D I N G H I S E P O N Y M O U S P R A C T I C E I N 2 0 0 9 , F R A N C I S S U LTA N A H A S B E C O M E O N E O F T H E W O R L D ’ S M O S T S O U G H T-A F T E R I N T E R I O R D E S I G N E R S , A M A S S I N G A H I G H - N E T- W O R T H C L I E N T E L E T H AT S PA N S T H E G LO B E .

I

A S H E S E T S T O W O R K O N A N E W H O T E L P R O J E C T I N C A P R I , T H E M A LT E S E - B R I T O N D I S C U S S E S H I S I N S P I R AT I O N S , D E S I G N P E T P E E V E S A N D L O V E O F A R T

f ever there was an argument for letting your children watch too much television, then Francis Sultana is it. It was shows such as Dallas and Dynasty that inspired the interior designer’s very first project, his aunt’s house in Gozo, Malta, which he designed, rather remarkably, when he was just seven years old. “I was already being influenced by interior design as a little boy,” says Sultana. “Malta was very heavily socialist at the time and we didn’t have very much; those TV series were like opening a window into a world of success.

I always say to my friends now, be careful what you let your children watch because they could end up like me.”

Something tells me such parents wouldn’t be too upset if that turned out to be the case. An AD100 designer who founded his eponymous studio 12 years

Words: Ellen Millard

“Sultana has become one of the foremost interior designers for the super-rich, working with clients such as Madonna and Annie Lennox” ago, Sultana has become one of the foremost interior designers for the superrich, creating homes and superyachts for clients such as Madonna and Annie Lennox, as well as commercial spaces for brands including jeweller Fawaz Gruosi.

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is designing his furniture collection, which is updated annually and starts from £4,000 for lighting, or curating exhibitions at David Gill Gallery, whose eponymous founder is his partner in life and work. Sultana’s role as the gallery’s artistic director allows him to satisfy his passion for art, which is intrinsically woven into his interior design concepts and informed by his positions on the boards of the Design Museum, the Serpentine Gallery and PAD London.

Projects in the pipeline include the Hotel La Palma in Capri, which is due to open in 2022, and several furniture and accessory collaborations in the UK and France, the details of which are yet to be revealed. In between meetings, we caught up over Zoom to discuss his influences, his favourite projects and keeping his clients’ spiralling creativity in check.

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© CHRIS FLOYD

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THE DINING ROOM OF ONE OF SULTANA’S HEREFORDSHIREBASED CLIENTS, 2020

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When did you know you wanted to be an interior designer? Since I was six years old, or probably earlier. I always wanted to do this. Working first of all with David Gill Gallery and 20th century and contemporary furniture designs allowed me to delve into that world and have a better knowledge about it. Then, when the time was right, I set up a practice on my own. I think when people look at my work they think the legacy of it is a lot longer than it actually is, because it has only been 12 years. We’ve worked very hard to build up something that’s of value, and I’m not really interested in the general trends. I’m only interested in what I feel are my inspirations and my influences, and it will always remain that way.

How did the pandemic impact your work? The reality is that, in this industry, everybody had to find a way to do their work. We’ve been able to continue with our residential projects, and because people have spent so much time at home, it’s suddenly created this influx of enquiries from existing clients and new clients, so that’s kept us all really rather busy. Now we’re working on a new book that will come out in 2022, and this year we’re bringing out three furniture collections at the same time. I’m currently working on a superyacht and I’m working on a couple of homes, mostly in New York. We’re also starting to work on setting up for a new hotel project.

What’s been your favourite project to date? My favourites are almost always the most recent projects. In the UK last year, I worked on a beautiful country house in Herefordshire, which was a stunning project – its location, the architecture, the scale. The clients allowed me to create a contemporary version of a William Chambers-style interior but using great designers. It was like something out

of a Jane Austen novel; it was just very romantic and very beautiful, what you expect an English country house to be – the detailing was just perfect.

My other favourite project from last year was another country house on the outskirts of Cannes. The client wanted something very Côte d’Azur but 1950s Riviera chic, which is one of my favourite periods. He wanted something that was reminiscent of a high society movie with Grace Kelly and Fred Astaire, with a beautiful pool, umbrellas with fringing – I even designed the branding of the house, the embroidery on the towels and the pillows. The detailing was just to die for, and the client was so in love with the project. We got it ready against all odds on 22 December. I promised him, come hell or high water, Covid or no Covid, he was going to have this house for Christmas, and he did.

How involved in the creative process do you allow your clients to become?

My clients always have a lot to say for themselves. Too much. All the houses I do are not about me, they’re about the people who live in them, and they all have their own mind and their own collections.

I’m not their interior designer or their decorator, I’m their editor; I’m there to

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make sure it all comes together and it works. But I always say to them, I’m the editor-in-chief – don’t forget that. My final word goes. Sometimes they get too creative for their own good, but most of the time I have to say their influence is quite profound on my work, hence why a lot of my furniture collections have been named after certain women for whom I’ve done homes, and who have had an influence on me.

What’s the most unusual request you’ve had from a client? One of the most unusual was for an outdoor kitchen – that would outdo any indoor kitchen – in a house in the south of France. I’ve never seen a budget like it. This family love their food and they have great chefs. There were rotisseries, pizza ovens, an aisle where guests can sit while chefs are cooking, and all outside – it’s phenomenal. I also had a request to make a guest loo look like something from a Venetian palazzo – in The Boltons.

You closed the mirrored door and find yourself in a carved marble columned room with a Murano basin and white gold, all in an amazing, tiny space. The detailing was phenomenal and you actually feel like you could be in a contemporary Venetian palazzo toilet.

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How does art inspire your interior design work? I love collecting art, so I suppose that’s a big catalyst.

Contemporary art is a reflection of our society today, so it’s really important, and creative people seem to all feed off each other. A lot of my clients are really good art collectors. They collect because they’re so impassioned by it, it’s not about the trophy. Some of my clients work for big corporates but you’d be surprised how interested they become in fabrics and colourways. People would be shocked if they knew some of the people I’ve worked for, and the WhatsApp messages that come in. They are creative souls at the end of the day; they may be in oil or finance, but actually what gives them joy is creativity, and it’s a hobby.

© PAUL MASSEY

Who is your greatest influence? I can only look back at people who’ve done what I’ve done in their careers. One that comes to mind is Jean-Michel Frank, the French decorator who worked with artists like I do.

He had a most wonderful rise in his career and a very tragic suicide during the Second World War. His work was forgotten for many years and then was resurrected in the 1980s by people like Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. They were true collectors, and how they created their homes had a great influence on me. I see myself as a bit of a collector and I see myself as a bit of an interior designer, so marrying those two situations is quite interesting.

What is your design pet peeve? I don’t like it when people copy each other; there’s really no need for it. At the end of the day, I think people get too heavily influenced by what they see, and they get influenced by design that’s happening right now and will not last long. It doesn’t have the look of something that’s going to endure for more than a decade. I don’t really care if I’m considered to be really ‘in’ or a top designer, I’m not hyped up and it’s never what I wanted. I plod along in my way and I know I’m creating my history. Maybe, in 50 years’ time, some students will look back at my work the way I looked at other designers’ work when I was in my teens, and that will be my joy.

2-4 King Street, SW1Y, francissultana.com

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clients’ spiralling creativity in check.

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ROCK OF AGES H E ’ S T H E M A N YO U A P P R OAC H W H E N YO U WA N T YO U R R E S TA U R A N T TO LO O K S WA N K Y ( M A Z E , N O B U ) ; YO U R H OT E L TO LO O K C H I C ( W N E W YO R K , T H E C O S M O P O L I TA N L A S V E G A S ) ; O R YO U R M U S E U M O R E V E N T S PA C E T O P O S S E S S A C E R TA I N G R AV I TA S ( T H E A C A D E M Y A W A R D S , T H E W A LT D I S N E Y F A M I LY M U S E U M , T H E N A T I O N A L CENTER FOR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS). AS A NEW M O N O G R A P H C H R O N I C L E S T H E WAY D AV I D R O C K W E L L ’ S WORK INTERSECTS ARCHITECTURE AND PERFORMANCE ART ( H E ’ S D E S I G N E D S E T S F O R T H E R O C K Y H O R R O R S H O W, H A I R S P R A Y A N D K I N K Y B O O T S ) , L U X U R Y L O N D O N E N J O Y S A T Ê T E - À -T Ê T E W I T H O N E T H E M O S T I N F L U E N T I A L D E S I G N E R S O F T H E PA S T 4 0 Y E A R S

Words: Josh Sims

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F E AT U R E VIDANTA LOS CABOS RESORT, BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR, MEXICO, 2018.

PERMISSION GRANTED BY HAKKASAN GROUP

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F E AT U R E STAGE DESIGN FOR THE 81ST AND 82ND ACADEMY AWARDS, 2008, 2009, DOLBY THEATRE, HOLLYWOOD © ERIC LAIGNEL

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D

David Rockwell, a lifelong fan of the Chicago Bears American football team, is suddenly cagey. “Well, I can’t confirm it,” he says. “But I may have embedded in the Green Bay Packers’ Hall of Fame one or two small references to the Bears, ones that only a true Bears fan would recognise. Then again, it may be that I just have to embrace a team that’s really bad to stop me getting too self-satisfied. I need them to be bad to give me creative drive.”

Creative drive is one thing that the New York-based Rockwell is not short of.

Considered one of the world’s pre-eminent architects, Rockwell and his 250 staff have designed not only museums, but also airports and resorts, shops, hotels and restaurants – including, as with those in Marble Arch and Shoreditch, all of Nobu’s. He has renovated New York landmarks including the FAO Schwartz toy store and Grand Central Station.

For the past 20 years he’s also turned his hand to set design for the likes of Hairspray, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Tootsie. He’s the only architect with both the Presidential Design Award and a Tony.

“And I can tell you that the Tony Awards are a much more fun event,” he laughs. “But then they have a kind of mythic quality to me after so many years of going to the theatre.”

Rockwell’s mother was a vaudeville dancer and choreographer. He and his four older brothers amounted to what he calls “a very hyper theatre group”. And he describes as one of his most seminal experiences, aged 12, being taken from the family home in New Jersey to visit New York’s Times Square to see Fiddler on the Roof.

“I became obsessed with the idea of theatre. I went all the time,” says Rockwell, dressed head to toe in black, as designers so often tend to do. “I’d sit there criticising the sets. In fact, I went to one show with a lighting designer. After I was giving my critique, he said to me ‘well, if you’re

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so smart, what would you do?’. Let’s say that it took me a while to answer that one.”

When Rockwell did, arguably it changed his entire working practice – leading him to inculcate the foundational ideas of the theatre into his other design work, a crossover documented in a new book Drama (published by Phaidon).

Rockwell has joked that it can seem that many architects secretly prefer their buildings free of those most cluttering of things – people. Not Rockwell.

“One thing at the core of our work is the idea of the audience,” he explains.

“If you look at the built world through the filter of theatre you have to acknowledge that if there’s no audience there’s no drama. It’s people that are the feedback loop. In theatre you have to seduce the audience and you need to do that with architecture, too. Another intuitive example is movement, or choreography in theatre. Similarly, in architecture we define spaces by the doors, by that sense of transitioning from one space to another.”

It’s why, also typically unlike many architects, Rockwell is unfazed by any of his work being temporary, rather than being distracted by the idea that buildings should stand monolithic for centuries.

He’s designed a pop-up stage for the TED Theatre and a mobile kitchen for Jamie Oliver. He’s fascinated by the idea that every theatre performance is a one-off.

“And that notion of the ephemeral that’s so powerful and visible in theatre

[has] really inspired me, the idea that the ephemeral leads to the adaptable,” he says. If you want to dig down for the roots of this, he adds, “I was brought up in a world in which the central idea was impermanence. My dad died when I was three, we moved around a lot – from Chicago to New Jersey to Mexico...”.

It’s ironic then, in a way, that Rockwell is famously so invested in everything he designs, researching any category of design job that’s new to him for years before finally committing to working on a project. He appears to take the same approach with his hobbies. He played piano as a child – part of that theatrical tradition – but let it slide as his architecture training took over. Then, four years ago, he convinced a world-class teacher, Seymour Bernstein, already in his 90s, to take him on as a pupil.

“It’s interesting but slowly playing hasreinforced ideas I’ve had about design,” he explains. “Part of what I think is critical in a design process is to do as much research as you can. It’s a toxic thing to think you know the answer to a new project before you start it, [but] a friend of mine, who’s a musician, says that at some time you have to conjure a solution. And it’s the same with piano.

I’ll work on a piece for four months to a year and each comes with new challenges, as to how to choreograph your body to produce those notes. At some point that preparation goes away and you have to play the music.”

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F E AT U R E THIS IMAGE THE CIRCULATION RIBBON AT NEXUS, THE WATERLINE CLUB, WATERLINE SQUARE, MANHATTAN, 2020. ISCOTT FRANCES / PERMISSION GRANTED BY GID MANAGEMENT LEFT THE ABANDONED KAUFHAUS GÖRLITZ, SHOPPING CENTER, USED AS A FILM LOCATION FOR GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, 2014. MARKUS GEBAUER + URBEXERY.COM

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F E AT U R E LAWN INSTALLATION, NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM (NBM), WASHINGTON D.C., 2019.

TIMOTHY SCHENCK

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Rockwell learns the scores to all the shows he works on. He went through a bit of a Springsteen phase, “which my friends tolerated”, but Chopin is currently his favourite.

“I love Stevie Wonder’s music, too, so over lockdown I also had a teacher who taught me how to play harmonica. But I don’t play piano and harmonica at the same time,” he stresses.

“You’ll never see me wearing one of those neck brace things to hold the harmonica on.”

Professionally speaking, right now all those research months and years are going into thinking about hospitals – “a building type that’s ripe for reconsideration,” Rockwell argues, “in terms of designing so as to help people feel emotionally safe”. There are also opera houses, public parks, Olympic opening ceremonies. “I love the small, intimate scale of those,” he quips. Even Covid memorials.

These are all things he hasn’t yet designed, but would like to.

“I think we need a little more perspective [on the pandemic] first, to pull the camera back a little bit. But I like the idea of a series of memorials globally,” he riffs, “all linked in some way, that intersect and look at how each individual place is different but how globally there are also similarities.”

Rockwell is certainly not precious about what he designs, as long as it provides, as it he puts it, “an opportunity to think about how design can improve our lives.” He took to designing restaurants long before these were generally perceived by his compatriots in architecture as offering such an opportunity. In the wake of 9/11, considering the healing potential in play, he designed his Imagination Playground, comprising big foam blocks that children can work together to assemble in their own way.

There’s certainly an attractive playfulness, a levity of tone, that’s appealing in Rockwell himself. He’s not stuck in the high seriousness by which architects are often stereotyped – apart from, of course, that attachment to wearing the uniform of dark clothing.

“Why do I do that? Hmm, it’s a good question,” he says. “I think part of the answer is that if you have a basic uniform it’s just one less thing you have to think about, though I have moved on from black.... to blue. But I also love texture so if you simplify the visual that allows you to focus on that aspect more. I’m actually meant to be going to a party at the weekend at which the theme is ‘The Great Gatsby’ so I’m not sure how I’m going to make a black T-shirt work at that one. I think I’ll just add a scarf.”

Drama, David Rockwell with Bruce Mau, Edited by Sam Lubell, £39.95, phaidon.com LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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RESIDENTIALHOME_LUXURYLONDON_MAG_DPS_Final.indd RESIDENTIALHOME_LUXURYLONDON_MAG_DPS_Final.indd All AllPages Pages

New NewHomes Homes||Sales Sales||Lettings Lettings

ItItisisnot notthe thebricks bricksand andmortar mortarthat thatsurround surroundyou. you.

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Whether Whetheryou’re you’relooking lookingfor foraaplace placeto tolive liveor oraa project projectto toinvest investin inwe’re we’reall alldriven drivenby bythe thesame same yearning: yearning:to tolove loveand andbe beloved; loved;to tothrive, thrive,and and achieve, achieve,and andfind findhappiness. happiness.

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PROPERTY OF THE MONTH

LO C AT I O N , LO C AT I O N , LO C AT I O N A S T U N N I N G R E N TA L P R O P E R T Y T H AT E N J OY S A P R I V I L E G E D P O S I T I O N I N O N E O F L O N D O N ’ S M O S T S O U G H T- A F T E R P O S TC O D E S

K

nightsbridge has been vying with Mayfair for the title of London’s most prime location for years, but even diehard dwellers of W1 can’t resist occasionally migrating south. Knightsbridge’s well-heeled denizens enjoy world-class restaurants, museums and shops, as well the best of PCL’s real estate.

Tucked behind Harrods and a stone’s throw from Brompton Road is Walton Street. The postcode is home to the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection

Department, and is known for its boutiques, including Chanel and Isabel Marant, and exquisite restaurants like Scalini and The Enterprise.

JLL is pleased to introduce a highspecification rental on Walton Street: a classic stucco-fronted townhouse with neo-Baroque columns and a Parisianstyle balconette. Inside, this recently refurbished property is light, white and airy. Neutral shades, wooden floorboards and spotlights create an opulently modern aesthetic.

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The first floor features a double reception room with built-in and strip-lit shelving, two fireplaces, and double doors that open out onto a balcony. The balcony itself looks out over a Grade II-listed church-turned-seven-bedroom home, originally designed in 1838 by Belgrave Square architect George Basevi.

Three floors comprise three bedrooms (one en suite and two with a shared bathroom), plus an additional bedroom and en suite on the lower ground floor.

The bedrooms are characteristically crisp and clean, while the raised ground-floor kitchen is striking thanks to jet-black units.

Finally, the Walton Street property boasts a versatile living space/fifth bedroom with en suite shower and bi-fold doors onto the patio garden – walled to create a slice of serenity within this bustling locale.

Walton Street, Knightsbridge, SW3, coming to market soon. Please contact kate.flynn@eu.jll.com for more information.

Find out more at residential.jll.co.uk/prime-collection

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