Luxury London Magazine March 2020

March 2020 £7.00

MAGAZINE

LORD DALMENY The Sotheby’s chairman on saving Britain’s stately homes

STEVE MCQUEEN How the London filmmaker became the country’s most influential artist

TAKING CRAFTSMANSHIP UP A GEAR

CR E ATIV E LI CE N S E

CUSTOM-BUILT CARS, HAUTE HOTELS & THE CAPITAL’S LATEST DESIGNER RESTAURANTS

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CONTENTS

62 UP FRONT

94 42 MCQUEEN AND COUNTRY

62 BEHIND THE

Sir Steve McQueen’s first solo

exhibition in 20 years

The Wiltshire vault where

10 EDITOR’S LETTER 13 THE BRIEFING

48 COME TOGETHER

How John Lennon’s

Rolls-Royce Bespoke and the

erotic sketches become

controversial return of Desert X

collectors’ items

28 TO THE MANOR BORN How chairman of Sotheby’s Lord Dalmeny is using art to

CONNOISSEUR

save Britain’s stately homes

C U LT U R E

CELLAR DOOR Justerini & Brooks keeps its wine

68 RESTAURANT REVIEW

Marcus at The Berkeley

COUTURE 72 SPRING WARDROBE UPDATE

54 NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

Six ways to tap into the spirit of the season

Why W1 continues to win in the

36 THE AGENDA

culinary postcode lottery

78 IN THE BAG

Cecil Beaton at the

56 LUNCH AT LE CLARENCE

A new V&A exhibition in

Inside Domaine Clarence

celebration of the handbag

National Portrait Gallery 40 PRIZE LOTS

Dillon’s flagship Parisian

84 RETRO-SPECTIVE

restaurant

Men’s accessories to buy now

The top auctions in March

78 86 SOLE SURVIVOR

The Northampton cobblers

turning their hand to trainers

DRIVE

86

56

114 MONKEY ISLAND ESTATE A private island less than an hour from London 116 ABOVE AND BEYOND Why Mauritius is the ultimate honeymoon destination

94 JOY RIDE

126 O UR MAN IN HAVANA

Driving Austria’s Arlberg Massif

How Havana’s heritage has borne

in a classic car

a city like no other

100 POCKET ROCKET

Introducing the new Velar SVAD,

the fastest Range Rover to date

ESCAPE

PROPERTY 134 THE ROYAL TREATMENT Inside the first Linley-designed apartments

110 NEWS & VIEWS

140 STREETS AHEAD

James Bond hotels and

The best homes hitting the market

horoscope-themed holidays

this month

COV E R Rolls-Royce’s Pebble Beach Pastel Collection is one of many bespoke commissions the marque receives each year (p.14)

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Richard Brown

FROM THE EDITOR March 2020 Issue 22

What’s the true price of art? Jubal Brown made headlines in 1996 when an inoffensive abstract painting – Composition with Red, White and Blue by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian – at New York’s Museum of Modern Art provoked within him such a violent reaction that he vomited all over the canvas.

A short while later, while Brown was perusing pieces at the Art Gallery of Ontario, another painting – The Port of Le Havre by Raoul Dufy – triggered the same bodily response. It later transpired that Brown was a multimedia ‘artist’ who viewed vomiting as a legitimate form of artistic expression. The gallery’s cleaners doubtless disagreed.

Back in 1970, Detective Inspector Frederick Luff, head of Scotland Yard’s wonderfully-named Obscene Publications Squad, presumably believed that erotic artwork from a newly-wed John Lennon was sure to provoke similar reactions, but for real. A day after the London Arts Gallery on New Bond Street opened a show dedicated to Lennon’s lascivious lithographs, the OPS shut it down. “It is perhaps charitable to say that they are the work of a sick mind,” declared Luff.

Lennon’s sketches could originally be bought for £40. Today they fetch upwards of £10,000 (p.48).

History is littered with examples of unsuspecting folk fortuitously discovering precious artefacts. In 1820, a Greek peasant on the island of Milos dug up four statues, one of which was acquired by France’s Louis XVIII and presented to the Louvre. Venus De Milo has become one of the most famous statues in history. More recently, an art appraiser examining a painting in a Milwaukee house spotted another picture believed by the homeowners to be a reproduction of a van Gogh. It turned out to be the 1886 original. Still Life with Flowers sold in 1991 for $1.4 million.

“Sometimes you find something in one of these houses which, because of changing tastes, is now incredibly valuable and can be sold to pay for the roof – or a wedding,” says Lord Dalmeny, who, in his role as chairman of Sotheby’s UK, looks for ways of maximising the potential of art collections in Britain’s stately homes (p.28). One way of doing so is by opening up private collections to the general public, as Dalmeny has done at his own Rosebery Estate.

Better still, history tells us, find a famous painting and have someone steal it.

In 1911, Italian house painter Vincenzo Peruggia sauntered into the Louvre and nabbed the Mona Lisa. During the year that da Vinci’s masterpiece was missing, more people visited the museum to marvel at a blank space than had visited in the previous 12 years. Similarly, when The Scream was stolen from Norway’s Edvard Munch Museum, an empty wall attracted more visitors than the painting itself.

Not all high-profile art theft is conducted in museums. In 1999 American ophthalmologist Steven Cooperman claimed $17.5million on insurance for the theft of a Picasso and a Monet from his LA home. Seven years later Cooperman was sent to prison when it was discovered he’d arranged for the paintings to be pinched himself. What a piece of work.

RICH ARD BROWN

DEPUTY EDITOR Ellen Millard SENIOR ASSISTANT EDITOR Anna Prendergast EDITOR-AT-LARGE Annabel Harrison CONTENT DIRECTOR Dawn Alford ONLINE EDITOR Mhairi Graham CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Rob Crossan Josh Sims HEAD OF DESIGN Laddawan Juhong SENIOR DESIGNER Ismail Vedat GENERAL MANAGER Fiona Smith PRODUCTION MANAGER Alice Ford COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Rachel Gilfillan BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Samantha Lathan BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT EXECUTIVE Madelyn Curnyn BRAND MANAGER Dom Jeffares MANAGING DIRECTOR Eren Ellwood

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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 The best designs by Rolls-Royce Bespoke

P.16 THE HOTEL Inside the redesigned Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park

P.20 THE EXHIBITION The controversial return of Desert X

P.22 THE BOOK Portrait artist Nadav Kander’s new book

P.24 THE ESCAPE Anantara’s elephant camp in Thailand

P.26 THE SPA A new brand of wellness in Alicante

Bespoke sculptural light company Cameron House Design creates eye-catching chandeliers in whimsical designs.

See the makers at work during London Craft Week 2020.

27 April – 3 May, camerondesighouse.com

01

THE CAR

The new breed of bespoke: how Rolls-Royce is cashing in on custom cars

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THE BRIEFING

Custom cars have come a long way since the blinged-up days of MTV’s Pimp My Ride. When once scissor doors, glow stick neon paintjobs and subwoofer stereos were the height of cool (in some circles, at least), today a bespoke motor is an altogether more sophisticated creature. Just as customisation has infiltrated our homes, wardrobes and even the way we travel, so too has it made its mark on, er, marques.

Rolls-Royce reports its personalisation service, Rolls-Royce Bespoke Collective, as receiving an unprecedented number of requests in 2019, with almost all of the 5,152 motors the manufacturer created last year featuring some sort of bespoke aspect. In some cases, this meant adding a champagne fridge, a television or climate-controlled humidors.

In others, the commissions have been more challenging. The Pebble Beach 2019 Pastel Collection (pictured), for example, is a triad of motors refreshed in colours inspired by the palette of the wildflowers on California’s Monterey Peninsula. All Black Badge models, the marque’s Ghost, Dawn and Wraith racers were reimagined in light green, coral and yellow respectively, with refreshed interiors to match.

Another customer, a Swedish billionaire, paid for a one-million-satin-stitch rose garden to be embroidered on the interior of his Rolls-Royce Phantom in homage to his wife and two of his four children, who are named after flowers. The Rose Garden at Goodwood, the home of Rolls-Royce, served as inspiration for the brand’s bespoke designer Ieuan Hatherall.

“There is a transcendent beauty when a rose garden is in full bloom,” Hatherall said. “The patron wanted to create that same feeling of awe; an abundance of flowers to lift the spirit and celebrate nature’s decadent beauty, in the Rose Phantom’s serene interior.”

Big ideas and even bigger pockets keep the brand’s bespoke division busy. Last year, the marque unveiled the most expensive new car ever made, a one-off custom build dubbed the Sweptail reported to be worth $13m. The owner approached the marque in 2013 with the idea to create a oneof-a-kind car drawing from the luxury yachts of the 1920s and 30s. A single-piece glass roof, the largest grill ever fitted on a modern-era Rolls and a raked stern directly inspired by the world of racing yachts kept the client happy – and RollsRoyce grinning all the way to the bank. EM rolls-roycemotorcars.com

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T he Dawn Black Badge in shade Coral Solid was completed after seven coats of paint and nine hours of hand polishing T he interior is finished in Arctic White and Sunset in a nod to northern California’s hills and valleys in bloom

02

THE HOTEL

Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park FOLLOWING A MULTI-MILLION-POUND REFURBISHMENT – AND A VERY PUBLIC FIRE – MANDARIN ORIENTAL HYDE PARK REOPENED LAST YEAR HOPING TO REASSERT ITSELF AS ONE OF LONDON’S GREAT HOTELS

Words: Richard Brown

A tale of two apartment blocks: aesthetically speaking, there’s little to link 66 Knightsbridge with 100 Knightsbridge. They may share a plot of prime Monopoly board real estate, but one is a soaring 19th-century chateau with turrets and chimneys; the other is a straight-lined, pre-credit-crunch shelter for the superrich. Yet, when they were launched, both developments were billed as London’s most exclusive collection of apartments – and both elicited their fair share of controversy.

One Hyde Park, the modern complex at 100 Knightsbridge, has provoked classic Daily Mail moral disapprobation since it was completed in 2009. The development’s flagship penthouse, the newspaper discovered, had been purchased by Qatar’s Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al-Thani, the project’s key financial backer, through a company based in the Cayman Islands. The sheik paid £40.5 million for the apartment, almost £100 million less than the asking price. The Guardian, doing some digging of its own, revealed that almost 80 per cent of the development’s 72 apartments had been purchased through similar offshore entities (avoiding capital gains tax, inheritance tax and capping any tax paid on rental income at 20 per cent). Only a handful of flats had registered to pay council tax.

Hyde Park Court, seeking planning approval some 120 years earlier, provoked reproach of a more aesthetic nature.

Plans to build a ‘residential club’ of 500 chambers received short shrift from local residents who argued that the proposed 100ft building – one of the tallest in London at the time – would cast a shadow over the Serpentine Lake in neighbouring Hyde Park.

To deter developers, detractors threatened to construct a giant wooden barrier that would prevent sunlight from reaching the mansion’s lower floors. When that failed, a bill was brought before Parliament, attempting to restrict the height of the building to 60ft.

Eventually, Parliament sided with the developers and, in 1889, Hyde Park Court and Club – ‘designed to meet the requirements

of a large section of the upper classes, being men of first-class social standing, whose means may have not have permitted them to go to the great expense in housekeeping’ – opened its doors to London’s most eligible bachelors.

With its soaring spires, stepped gable and elaborate brick-and-stone façade, the building borrowed heavily from the Flemish Revival style – an architectural form that had found favour in Belgium and the Netherlands in the 1870s and ’80s. Despite the objections of some well-to-do NIMBYs, the building became one of the most unique and arresting in London. It remains so today.

In November 1996, Hyde Park Hotel – the mansion block, after filing for bankruptcy, had been converted into a hotel in 1898, operating, under various proprietors, as a hotel ever since – was purchased by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group for £86 million. In 2005 the hotel hosted the 80th birthday celebrations of Baroness Margaret Thatcher; in 2011 it welcomed the pre-wedding party of Their Royal Highnesses, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Had you exited Knightsbridge tube station from the Sloane Street side between 2017 and 2018, you would have been met by a colossal collage measuring the size of 38 double decker buses. The artwork, designed by British pop artist Sir Peter Blake to conceal a top-tobottom refit, enveloped the entire hotel. It featured the faces of 100 of its most prominent guests, including Sir Paul McCartney, Dame Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and Whoopi Goldberg. In June 2018 a fire interrupted renovations – forcing singer Robbie Williams and his wife Ayda Field to evacuate via an external fire escape – but, finally, in April 2019, a fully refitted Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park opened its doors, hoping to reassert itself as ‘one of the finest hotels in the world.’

Rooms reimagined by Hong Kong-based design doyen Joyce Wang are now brighter and lighter – all grey and gold and pastel and pretty. American Art Deco

meets sleek Milanese appartamenti. All come with fresh fruit, GHD hair straighteners, Nespresso coffee machines, his and hers Miller Harris miniatures, Jo Hansford hair products and heated electric toilet seats that tickle your bottom. You’ll pay a premium for a room on the Hyde Park side of the hotel, but bird’s-eye views of the park’s stately plane trees make it a premium worth paying.

Downstairs, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal – where, ironically, breakfast is served – remains an unspectacular space, despite being repointed by New York’s Adam Tihany, the original ‘restaurant designer’.

Perhaps that’s the point, given the theatrics of the food that served there. Grab a window seat around 11am for a chance to see members of the Household Cavalry ride out from their Hyde Park barracks.

The Rosebery is an extraordinarily pretty, light and airy emporium for afternoon tea. Bar Boulud is a buzzy, coffee-coloured brasserie serving foie gras burgers and upscale croque monsieur. It caters to an extraordinarily international crowd, even for this part of town, and, judging by our visit, gets completely packed-out on a Saturday evening (when, somewhat bizarrely, the vibe becomes happy hour at a Courchevel party-bar – owing, quite possibly, to the crowd-pleasing drama of jeroboams and methuselahs being ceremoniously uncorked).

Super-CEOs, the sort who wake up at 5am to crush a set of bicep curls before crushing the rest of their day, will be pleased to know they can pump and crunch in a comprehensively kitted-out fitness studio. (Why, in other flashy hotels, are gyms little more than converted cleaning cupboards?) Alongside the token assortment of Technogym treadmills and cross-trainers, there’s a decent smattering of dumbbells, a squat rack and one of those BMI machines that will analyse your wobbly bits and, for no extra cost, tell you you’re hideously fat. Down another level still is a spa, again rebooted by Tihany. It has 13 treatment rooms, apparently, and a slick, spot-lit 17-metre pool. There’s no Jacuzzi, though, which is a shame given how cold the pool is, and weird, seeing as though the hotel has gone to the effort of installing a vitality plunge pool and amethyst crystal steam room.

It’s clear that no expense has been spared in this Old-London-meets-New-Orient overhaul. From antique mirrors that have been artistically gilded and etched with feathers, to the heft of marble that flows from lobby to reception and into every guest bathroom via grand sweeping staircases. Wang and Tihany have created a collection of interiors that, in contrast to the building’s theatrical façade, are delicate and tranquil and subtle and light (marble-on-marble lobby aside). It’s a classy and cleverly contemporary redesign of one of London’s most singular and storied settings. mandarinoriental.com

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03

THE EXHIBITION

Desert X arrives in Saudi Arabia amidst a storm of controversy DESCRIBED AS ‘PUTTING LIPSTICK ON A PIG’, THE OUTDOOR ART EXHIBITION HAS BEEN OVERSHADOWED BY POLITICS

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT MANAL ALDOWAYAN, NOW YOU SEE ME, NOW YOU DON’T, PHOTOGRAPHY BY LANCE GERBER; RASHED ALSHASHAI, A CONCISE PASSAGE; LITA ALBUQUERQUE, NAJMA; ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND DESERT X ALULA

At Desert X AlUla, there are 320 rainbow boulders scattered like fallen rocks; a series of recycled date tins overlapped to create a metallic river; and a troupe of trampolines that, at night, light up to form a puddle-like mirage.

But this inaugural art exhibition in Saudi Arabia, the first international version of the original Coachella event, has been marked not by its 14 beautiful artworks, but by controversy surrounding the government of its host nation, which has, amongst other things, tortured dissidents, dismembered a journalist and helped ignite a humanitarian disaster in Yemen. Such is the furore surrounding the collaboration that three of Desert X’s board members resigned in protest. Others saw it as a step towards a more modern society — it is the first phase of a major development in the area, devised as a way to open Saudi’s society and expand its economy.

The artists involved have openly recognised the controversy, but defended their choice to play a part in, what they hope, will be a force for change. Lita Albuquerque, whose figurative NAJMA sculpture is pictured above, describes the installation as “historic” for Saudi Arabia, where Islamic art forbids figurative representation, particularly of women.

“It is revolutionary that [Saudi Arabia] has opened the doors and said ‘yes’ to these works... There is so much political pressure on this [show] and we had the guts to say ‘yes’ to this as artists,” she told ArtNet. “We are not going to bury our heads in the sand. We are going to hold hands, open this up, and stay together in the unknown.” EM Until 7 March, desertx.org

04

THE BOOK

Behind the lens of portrait photographer Nadav Kander THE ARTIST’S STAR-STUDDED PORTFOLIO IS UNVEILED IN A NEW BOOK BY STEIDL

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THE BRIEFING

“To present people exactly how they are, or want to be, is a waste of time,” says photographer Nadav Kander. “Just showing positive, expected images of beauty and airbrushing away the conditions that make us human seems like deception to me.”

It’s not something you’d expect to hear from a man who’s photographed some of the

world’s most famous faces, but Kander’s trueto-life portraits have been defiant in an era of photoshopping — and he’s had no shortage of subjects as a result.

From Sir David Attenborough to Barack Obama to Salman Rushdie, Kander’s ability to see beneath his subjects has made him one of the planet’s most in-demand photographers.

A new book, The Meeting, serves as a portfolio of more than 200 of his works, spanning 30 years of photography and featuring a foreward

by Ian McEwan. Musicians, sports stars and even a self-portrait feature, as well as a series on Walthamstow market traders and his 1991 portraits of South African children in colonial school uniform.

“A picture needs to strike a certain tempo to work for me. It needs to hint at something more you might struggle to make out or understand,” Kander says. “Similar to only just being able to see something in dark water, revealing just a little and leaving the viewer frustrated, with no option but to look deeper and into themselves.” EM

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THE MEETING BY NADAV KANDER, £80, STEIDL.DE

The elephant in the room (almost) ANANTARA’S ELEPHANT CAMP IN THAILAND GETS GUESTS UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH THE MOST MAJESTIC CREATURES ON THE PLANET

05

THE ESCAPE

Overlooking the Mekong and Ruak rivers in Chiang Rai, Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort is set within 160 acres of jungle, with around 22 elephants roaming the wild. With programmes run by mahouts and conservation a top priority, opportunities to get to know these gentle giants take the form of longtail boat cruises, jungle walks and playtime in the river. Hop in the sidecar of a Royal Enfield motorcycle with a private driver, which allows extra mobility while tracking the animals beyond the borders of the resort as well

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as unfettered access to hilltop views of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Later, bed down in the camp’s dome-shaped sleeping quarters, through which you can watch the animals graze, socialise and interact with the unique landscape around you. By banning elephant riding and creating new ways to witness first hand the magic and movement of these creatures, Anantara hopes to set a new standard in noninvasive wildlife experiences. AP From £438 per night for existing guests, anantara.com

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THE BRIEFING

06

Regulars at Alicante’s SHA Wellness Clinic come for the science-backed ‘spa’ (which, admittedly, is a little bit more like a lab – think intravenous liver detoxing and oxidative stress tests). But they return for the longlasting results in wellbeing and weight loss, delivered by medical experts, holistic treatments and hi-tech facilities.

Designed by architect Carlos Giraldi and decked out with Elvira Blanco’s interiors, 11 private residences mean guests can make the most of on-site facials, yoga classes and personal trainers in a setting that feels more home than hotel. With futuristic wraparound swimming pools and a terraced structure, the residences can also include a private chef to provide gut-friendly macrobiotic meals to keep you on track during your stay.

SHA has also announced plans to open clinics in Mexico next year, and Abu Dhabi in 2023. AP

T H E S PA

Private residences from £1,676, shawellnessclinic.com

Where science meets spirituality HOW TO ACCESS ALL THE BENEFITS OF SHA WELLNESS CLINIC’S CUTTING-EDGE SPA TECHNOLOGY IN THE PRIVACY OF YOUR OWN SPACE

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To the

MANOR BORN AS SOTHEBY’S CHAIRMAN LORD DALMENY OPENS THE ROSEBERY E S TAT E TO T H E P U B L I C F O R T H E F I R S T T I M E , H E R E V E A L S T H E R E A L I T I E S O F M O D E R N - D AY S T A T E LY H O M E O W N E R S H I P — AND HOW ART COULD BE THE KEY TO THE FUTURE

Words: Rachel Ingram

BARNBOUGLE CASTLE

M

eeting Sotheby’s chairman Lord Dalmeny feels a bit like meeting Downton Abbey’s Robert Crawley.

Harry Primrose, as he is also known, is heir to the Rosebery Estate in Scotland — and heir apparent to the title of Earl of Rosebery, currently held by his father, Neil Archibald Primrose. The life of the British aristocrat and his family is not dissimilar to that of the characters in the British drama.

He grew up on the family estate just outside of Edinburgh, spending a self-confessed “heavenly childhood” camping in the woodland, riding horses and learning to shoot.

On paper, it all sounds rather glamorous, but the reality of running an estate in the modern age is decidedly less so.

Just as the fictional Crawley family was forced to adapt to changing times to ‘save’ Downton Abbey, the Primroses have needed to re-evaluate and innovate to sustain their 30,000acre estate, which has been in the family since 1662. In the past couple of decades, Rosebery has been transformed from a family home into a “sustainable, living, breathing working entity” with fingers in many pies, from agriculture to tourism.

“The future of the estate and its residents is at the forefront of our plans,” Lord Dalmeny says when I visit Dalmeny House, the family seat. Driving in, I’m surprised

THE PARLOUR WITHIN BARNBOUGLE CASTLE

BARNBOUGLE CASTLE

to find no sign of pomp and ceremony, just a remotecontrolled gate and a pleasant drive through meadows and forest land, past sheep and wild Highland cattle, to the coast.

The Tudor Gothic Revival mansion was built in 1817 for the 4th Earl of Rosebery, Archibald Primrose, and remains the seat of the 7th Earl and his wife, Countess of Rosebery.

Inside, among the network of rooms filled with cabinets of antiques, historic furniture and classic paintings, I discover treasure after treasure, including an exceptional collection of items that once belonged to Napoléon Bonaparte.

Portraits of the Primrose family throughout the generations hang in the hallways and wooden stair wells. The newest, near the guest entrance, draws a chuckle from the Lord — his sister, Lady Lucy Garton, has recently married, and her husband is hidden in the back of the picture because, at the time, he was “not yet part of the family”; the dog, meanwhile, made the cut at the front.

To share these treasures with the public, the family has opened the house to guided tours in the summer (book to visit in June and July, Sunday to Wednesday, between 2pm and 5pm) but one place that’s always been off-limits, even to many members of the family, is Barnbougle Castle — until now.

The former ancestral residence was originally built in the 13th century and rebuilt in the late 19th century by the 5th Earl of Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, who for a short time served as the British prime minister. He saw the castle as his sacred retreat and nobody was allowed in without his permission.

BARNBOUGLE CASTLE

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INTERVIEW

on. It’s about planning for the future and building up a war chest. The repair of a stately home is rather costly, and if you don’t have the funds in place, you could find yourself unable to start something at a time when you might have an emergency on your hands.”

Strategies such as this can put a halt to the nationalisation of stately homes. “There was this period where everyone thought stately homes were just moving into the National Trust or to be looked after by the state, but that’s actually not that case. Equally, it’s no longer the case that just because a family’s inherited a big stately home they’re going to carry on living in a cold, draughty, uninhabitable house,” he says.

“Maybe 30 years ago, the contents of a house might be worth £5m, now it might be worth £10m, but half of that might be a unique Islamic object that you find in a cupboard or a particular type of painting which has really increased in value. Often, rather than selling the whole contents, I go through someone’s collection, with the right experts, and identify things whose value is disproportionate, which could make such a massive difference to the future of the estate.”

In 2014, Lord Dalmeny sold a prized family heirloom, the painting Rome, From Mount Aventine by J.M.W. Turner, for £30.3m to fund restoration work on Dalmeny House — a “difficult” decision for the greater good of the estate.

He’s also worked with many of the country’s most powerful families. He helped the Duke of Devonshire auction a rare Raphael drawing to fund the care of Chatsworth House’s contemporary art collection, while at the estate of the Duke of Northumberland, the Sotheby’s experts uncovered what appeared to be a plaster statue that wasn’t deemed particularly valuable, but turned out to be an ancient Roman antiquity. It fetched £9.3m at auction.

While such works could be considered an emotional loss to a family, Lord Dalmeny says that changing tastes often mean that’s not the case. “We’re living in an era of contemporary art. The level to which people are prepared to be interested in things purely because they’re old is limited.

People like to mix things up,” he says.

“I think we’re also living in an era when people are informal in the way they live — living in a stately home with a kitchen half a mile away down a corridor with cooks is no longer cool. People want to live with their families; they don’t want to live with furniture that can’t be exposed to heat — in our drawing room, we can’t turn the heating on because all the French furniture would seize up and be damaged.”

So, what of the future of the stately home as we know it?

The next generation of owners have a huge undertaking on their hands, but Lord Dalmeny believes they’re already beginning to put their personal stamp on their estates, whether that’s through art or purpose. “Living on an estate like this is a privilege. Looking after it is a responsibility and passing it on for future generations of my family and those who live, work and visit here is my goal.”

Upon the earl’s death in 1929, the castle was sealed and nobody entered for almost 90 years, until Lord Dalmeny made the decision to transform it into a heritage venue for special events. It was restored to its former glory and, in 2019, hosted its first soirée, in honour of the current earl’s 90th birthday. It now hosts corporate and private events in its numerous striking spaces, which include six libraries and a magnificent hall.

The project is the first step in Lord Dalmeny’s master plan to repurpose the estate’s historic buildings, of which there are more than 100. “The first thing you have to do is take away your preconceptions of a place’s original purpose and make sensible integrated use of buildings,” he says.

“The easy answer would be to sell off chunks of land for development, but this estate is so precious. It’s right at the edge of Edinburgh and people love to come and walk along the shore. It’s important for us to keep it going.”

The next stage is to launch weddings at Rosebery House and Steading, just south of Edinburgh. “It’s a farm complex with three cottages next to a big stately home which has a chapel in the garden and can fit 120 people,” he says. “Here is where you’re going to have the kind of wedding that’s an absolute belter — while if you have a wedding at Barnbougle Castle, it’s a lot more restrained.”

He also plans to introduce a luxury holiday offering on the estates. “The future is that you’ll be able to rent a cottage on your own private beach,” he says, pointing out a former fisherman’s house, a few minutes from the castle, which stands in peaceful solitude on the coast.

“The estate used to be supported by agriculture and forestry. While we still do have some commercial farming and sheep farming, we don’t need the manpower anymore.

Farming is much more efficient now, and requires fewer people, so that has freed up a lot of houses.”

Some of these have already been turned into commercial and office plots. There’s also a variety of “weird and wonderful” shops selling motorbikes, kilts and gothic gifts, and a pub, the Hawes Inn, where Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson famously wrote part of the book Kidnapped.

But above all so far, art has been the saving grace of the Rosebery Estate — and many other family-run stately homes across Britain. Through his role as chairman of Sotheby’s in the UK, where he looks after stately homes and historical collections throughout Britain, Lord Dalmeny has learnt how to maximise the potential of his family’s collection.

“The thing about historic collections is that the value of the art doesn’t bring income, but it can balloon rapidly in capital terms, so you can find that the value of your art is actually much more significant as a part of your overall wealth than perhaps it was at the time when it was just decoration,” he says.

“Sometimes you find something in one of these houses which, because of changing tastes, is now incredibly valuable and can be sold to pay for the roof or a wedding, and so

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11 • 12 • 13 SEPTEMBER TICKETS AND PACKAGES AVAILABLE AT GOODWOOD.COM

C U LT U R E MUSIC,

MUSEUMS AND

MASTERPIECES

P.36 THE AGENDA Cecil Beaton at the National Portrait Gallery

P.42 STEVE MCQUEEN The artist and director’s first solo exhibition in 20 years

P.48 ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE The story behind John Lennon’s

©CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LIMITED 2020

erotic artworks

Andy Warhol’s Queen Elizabeth II, from his Reigning Queens (Royal Edition) series, goes under the hammer at Christie’s this March, as part of the auction house’s Prints & Multiples sale (p.40).

T H E A G E N DA YOUR CURATED GUIDE T O CULTURE IN THE CAPITAL Words: Ellen Millard

CHARING CROSS CECIL BEATON’S BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS This March, the National Portrait Gallery presents more than 150 works by Cecil Beaton, in which he captures the Bright Young Things — a nickname given to a group of Bohemian aristocrats and socialites in the 1920s and ’30s. Along with portraits of the era’s leading stars, such as painter Rex Whistler and costume designer Oliver Messel, the exhibition will showcase Beaton’s own life, through self-portraits and those taken by his contemporaries.

From £17, 12 March – 7 June, St. Martin’s Place, WC2H, npg.org.uk

THIS PAGE CECIL BEATON, THE SILVER SOAP SUDS (LEFT TO RIGHT: BABA BEATON, THE HON. MRS CHARLES BAILLIE-HAMILTON AND LADY BRIDGET POULETT), 1930, ©THE CECIL BEATON STUDIO ARCHIVE

ROTIMI FANI-KAYODE, UNTITLED, 1985

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BARBICAN THE BARBICAN DECONSTRUCTS THE CONCEPT OF MASCULINITY IN A NEW PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION From toxic to fragile, the definition of masculinity is complex. In a new exhibition, Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, 300 works by more than 50 artists will explore how the term has been shaped and explored behind the lens, touching on themes such as power, patriarchy and queer identity.

From £15, until 17 May, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, EC2Y, barbican.org.uk

B AT T E R S E A AFFORDABLE ART FAIR RETURNS TO BATTERSEA PARK For 2020, the Affordable Art Fairs in Battersea and Hampstead will focus on two speciallycurated themes: Prints and Photography. Up first is Battersea Spring with Access: Prints, for which prints and multiples from cuttingedge and established artists will be available to view and purchase from a line-up of international galleries.

12-15 March, Battersea Evolution, Battersea Park, SW11, affordableartfair.com

FROM TOP CHOWWAI CHEUNG, LANDFORM II, £3,000; CHOWWAI CHEUNG, UNTITLED 52, £700, BOTH COURTESY OF BRISTOL CONTEMPORARY ART

P I C C A D I L LY DENMARK’S ORDRUPGAARD COLLECTION COMES TO THE UK FOR THE FIRST TIME Assembled by a wealthy Danish couple, the Ordrupgaard Collection near Copenhagen is one of the best compilations of Impressionist master paintings. This March, 60 of the works will go on display at the RA in a new exhibition entitled Gauguin and the Impressionists. The show will close with a career-spanning series of PostImpressionist works by Paul Gauguin.

From £14, 29 March – 14 June, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1J, royalacademy.org.uk ABOVE PAUL GAUGUIN, PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN, VAÏTE (JEANNE) GOUPIL, 1896

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M AY F A I R MADDOX GALLERY MARKS FEMALE ARTISTS WITH A SPECIAL EXHIBITION FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY In honour of International Women’s Day on 8 March, Maddox Gallery presents a celebratory exhibition of cutting-edge art created by a roster of international female artists. Spanning a broad spectrum of mediums, Herstory — Women In Art will include works by the likes of Spanish pop artist Coco Dávez, Welsh muralist Karimah Hassan and English photographer Kate Bellm.

29 February – 24 March, 9 Maddox Street, W1S, maddoxgallery.co.uk

FROM LEFT SOPHIE TEA, FRANCESCA, 2019; KARIMAH HASSAN, TRUE NORTH, 2019

HELAINE BLUMENFELD, EXODUS III, 2018

CANARY WHARF HELAINE BLUMENFELD UNVEILS HER LARGEST EXHIBITION TO DATE Following the success of Fortuna, a permanent sculpture unveiled in Canary Wharf’s Jubilee Park in 2016, sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld OBE presents her largest solo exhibition to date, for which she will transform the estate into an urban sculpture park. Looking Up will focus on Blumenfeld’s favoured materials, Carrera marble, terracotta, cedar wood and bronze, and will showcase 25 of her works – including seven that have been made specifically for the exhibition.

16 March - 26 June, throughout Canary Wharf, canarywharf.com

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MARYLEBONE DISCOVER PHOTOGRAPHER LILLIAN BASSMAN’S MONOCHROMATIC SNAPS OF POST-WAR FASHION

SOUTH KENSINGTON THE V&A EXPLORES THE KIMONO AS A CONSTANTLY EVOLVING ICON OF FASHION From Japan to the rest of the world, a new exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum delves into the sartorial and social significance of the kimono.

Beginning with the origins of the Japanese icon in the 1660s, Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk will trace the history and influence of this treasured garment.

From £16, 29 February – 21 June, Cromwell Road, SW7, vam.ac.uk

In line with a major Harper’s Bazaar retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Atlas Gallery presents a selling exhibition of works by the magazine’s former fashion photographer and art director Lillian Bassman. Having helped foster careers of photographers Richard Avedon, Robert Frank and Arnold Newman, the artist achieved success with her own high-contrast monochromatic snaps of society women and post-war fashion.

27 February – 18 April, 49 Dorset Street, W1U, atlasgallery.com

ABOVE LILLIAN BASSMAN, BARBARA MULLEN, HARPER’S BAZAAR, NEW YORK, C.1958, ©THE ESTATE OF LILLIAN BASSMAN, COURTESY OF PETER FETTERMAN GALLERY

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CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP MANTLE, DESIGNED BY PAUL POIRET, ABOUT 1913, PARIS, ©VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON; KIMONO FOR EXPORT, PROBABLY KYOTO, JAPAN, 190515 ©VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON; ‘KAIDAN’ (STAIRCASE) BY KOBAYAKAWA KIYOSHI (1899-1948), HANGING SCROLL, INK AND COLOURS ON PAPER

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UPCOMING ESTI M ATE : £50

Notes for Women, Justine Smith, 2019 Art on a Postcard raises money for The Hepatitis C Trust through its typically secret online auctions of miniature artworks. For International Women’s Day, the company is hosting its first allfemale charity auction, featuring postcard-sized art from a roster of female artists, with all bids starting from £50.

27 February – 11 March, paddle8.com

PRIZE LOTS

UPCOMING ESTIMATE: £ 7 M – £10 M

Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages, Salvador Dalí, 1937

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP JUSTINE SMITH, NOTES FOR WOMEN, 2019; SALVADOR DALÍ, COUPLE AUX TÊTES PLEINES DE NUAGES, 1937, COURTESY OF BONHAMS; YAYOI KUSAMA, PUMPKIN, 2000, ©CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LIMITED 2020

UPCOMING E ST I M AT E : £1 0,000 – £1 5,000

Pumpkin, Yayoi Kusama, 2000 The pumpkin is as synonymous with Yayoi Kusama as the Campbell soup can is with Andy Warhol. The 90-year-old

Japanese artist has incorporated the humble comestible into her works since her teens, most famously through her polka dot series. This 2000 screenprint in black and red is one of 170 lots that will go under the hammer this March at Christie’s Prints & Multiple sale, alongside pieces by Warhol and Banksy.

18 March, christies.com LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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Never before offered at auction, Salvador Dalí’s Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages will be offered at Phillips’ Impressionist and Modern Art Sale this March.

Originally owned by Italian Modernist composer Giacinto Scelsi, this sculpture was created during the Spanish Civil War, at the height of the artist’s Surrealist period. The figures represent Dalí and his wife, Dala.

26 March, bonhams.com

M addox Galle r y is de d icate d to s up p o r t ing an d showca s ing th e wo rk of blue chip, e st abli sh e d an d emerging ar t i st s f ro m across the globe.

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STEVE MCQUEEN IN FRONT OF HIS YEAR 3 PROJECT AT TATE BRITAIN ©TATE

MCQUEEN & COUNTRY H AV I N G A U T H O R E D S O M E O F T H E M O S T P I V O TA L M O V I N G P I C T U R E S E V E R C R E AT E D , SCREENWRITER, SCULPTOR AND FILM DIRECTOR STEVE MCQUEEN I S O N E O F B R I TA I N ’ S M O S T I M P O R TA N T A N D I N F L U E N T I A L A R T I S T S – A N E W E X H I B I T I O N AT TAT E M O D E R N A I M S T O C A P T U R E THE MAN BEHIND THE IMAGES

Words: Kari Colmans

STEVE MCQUEEN, YEAR 3, BILLBOARD AT KENNINGTON ROAD, LONDON BOROUGH OF LAMBETH, PHOTOGRAPHY BY THEO CHRISTELIS

STEVE MCQUEEN, YEAR 3, BILLBOARDS AT PIMLICO TUBE STATION, LONDON BOROUGH OF WESTMINSTER, PHOTOGRAPHY

BY THEO CHRISTELIS

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“T

here are many entry points to an exhibition of work by Steve McQueen,” writes exhibition curator Clara Kim in her book On Steve McQueen, which accompanies the artist’s eponymous showcase launching at Tate Modern this February. “More than merely a succession of works arranged chronologically or thematically, the unfolding of the works in space and a physical engagement with the image are crucial to the experience of viewing McQueen’s output.”

Born in London in 1969 (although he now lives in Amsterdam), the influence of the British artist, film-director and screenwriter Steve McQueen cannot be overstated.

Having authored some of the most pivotal works of moving image designed for gallery-based presentation, his films for popular release – Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Widows (2018) – made their mark in cinematic history for different reasons. His first feature film, Hunger, for which he won a BAFTA, was a merciless portrayal of the provisional IRA member Bobby Sands starving himself to death in prison. Shame “could not have been a less sexy study of sex addiction” one critic wrote at the time, but it took more than £10m at the box office. Widows is a thriller about a group of women who vow to finish the heist their husbands died attempting.

For arguably his most well-known work, Hollywood blockbuster 12 Years a Slave – a historical drama adaptation of an 1853 slave narrative memoir – he won an Academy Award, BAFTA for Best Film, and Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture: Drama as a producer, as well as the gong for Best Director from the New York Film Critics Circle. Indeed, he made history as the first ever black filmmaker to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. Critic Mark Kermode wrote in The Guardian back in January 2014: “If you have any interest in cinema – or, for that matter, in art, economics, politics, drama, literature or history – then you need to watch 12 Years a Slave… But more important is the reward of seeing an artist using the medium of film for its highest purposes: to elevate, educate and ultimately ennoble the viewer by presenting them with something that is visceral, truthful and electrifyingly ‘real’.”

His work almost always deals uncompromisingly with the issues of identity, representation and history, as well as politics and persecution. He goes way beyond flirting with the taboo, and forces the spectator to stare into the eyes of naked, brutal reality, however uncomfortable it may make us: Bobby Sands’ wasted and withered frame, Shame’s uncontrollable sexual impulses, the torrent of unimaginable torture and abuse in 12 Years A Slave. Spanning two decades of his career, the Tate Modern exhibition will reveal how McQueen’s pioneering

STEVE MCQUEEN IN YEAR 3 AT TATE BRITAIN ©TATE

Steve McQueen goes way beyond flirting with the taboo, and forces the spectator to stare in the eyes of brutal reality

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and poetic approach has paved the way for a new interpretation of art through film and its powers of communication. “Sex addiction, hunger strikes, slavery – these are huge subjects,” McQueen told the Financial Times in October 2014. “And for some reason people don’t want to take them on. I have no idea [why]. But those are the subjects I want to engage with. I want to narrate them, see them, think about them, grapple with them.”

Nearly all of the works included in the showcase were made in the past 20 years, with the edit roughly bookended by two key moments in McQueen’s career; namely winning the 1999 Turner Prize for his muchlauded single-channel video works and his various accolades for 12 Years a Slave (while receiving both an OBE and CBE for good measure). It also clearly begins and ends with London.

The earliest work, Exodus, was made on the streets of East London in 1992/97. Shot on a Super 8 camera, it deals with the issue of race, migration and multiculturalism in London, while in 7th Nov. 2001, we meet the artist’s cousin Marcus, who recounts the day he accidentally shot and killed his own brother.

McQueen’s latest project, Year 3, is a grand civic gesture to his home city, capturing class portraits of Year 3 students from schools throughout the capital.

“The city and place become the point of inspiration for McQueen’s art, coming in full circle in some ways to his beginnings,” writes Kim. These films are accompanied by immersive, vast video installations such as Western Deep 2002 and Static 2009. The first provides a sensory exploration of the conditions for gold miners in South Africa, while the latter gets up close and personal with one of the most symbolic landmarks in the world through an intricate aerial inspection of the Statue of Liberty.

More recent pieces include the moving twochannel video installation Ashes 2002-15, which is named after and tells the story of a young and charismatic fisherman McQueen met and filmed in Grenada in 2002, before he was murdered the following year. The first channel shows Ashes propped on the prow of a boat, looking out at the vast, glimmering ocean, occasionally smiling at the camera and clearly confident and at ease with himself and his place in the world. Equally calm, but

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C U LT U R E

“There are moments in Steve McQueen’s films that seem to encapsulate entire worlds”

more sombre, the second channel shows a graveyard and the making of a tombstone.

McQueen was inspired to make the work when he learned of Ashes’ death, only years after making the initial film, named Caribs’ Leap. The two channels come together to depict a portrait of a man in the prime of his life, and a memorial to his untimely death. “His works demand that we look closer and share his keen sense of observation, awareness and attention, whether in his art or his feature films,” notes Kim. “He holds true the power of the image, and the power of looking to have a transformative effect on how we feel, think and imagine.”

For the first time in the UK, audiences will be able to view End Credits 2012 – ongoing, an evolving tribute to the African-American singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976) who was put under surveillance by the FBI in the 1950s. The film features rolling slides and voiceovers of the reports against him. In some of the images, entire sections of text are blacked out, so that the images resemble abstract forms while the audio track is totally unsynchronised with the visual display. The video footage runs for more than five hours (and the tape a cool 13, and growing) and is a powerful testament about how a life is “counted, valued and remembered,” says Kim. “There are moments in Steve McQueen’s films that seem to encapsulate entire worlds,” she continues.

“Isolated from the narrative that continues around them, these moments become portals into something mysterious, unknown and transgressive, taking the viewer into a new dimension in the experience of seeing.”

From film to sculpture, Weight 2016 explores the relationships between protection, vulnerability and confinement: a gold-plated mosquito net draped over a metal bedframe. The sculpture was made for Artangel at the now closed HM Prison Reading, where Oscar Wilde wrote De Profundis in 1897. It was, in fact, originally created to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK. While McQueen refutes any type of analysis in his work, or indeed artistic style, it is impossible to ignore the recurrent themes: the nature of authority, and the choice between cooperation and resistance. Almost all of his work deals in some way with incarceration, crime and punishment: physically, socially and psychologically. “The fact of the matter is I’m interested in a truth”, Kim quotes McQueen in her accompanying essay. “I am not interested in manipulating people. The complete opposite. I am interested in a truth ... the most horrific things sometimes happen in the most beautiful places ... I cannot put a filter on life. It’s about not blinking.”

OPPOSITE PAGE STEVE MCQUEEN, YEAR 3, ©STEVE MCQUEEN AND TATE, COURTESY OF ARTANGEL, PHOTOGRAPHY BY THEO CHRISTELIS; THIS PAGE, FROM TOP STEVE MCQUEEN, STATIC, 2009; STEVE MCQUEEN, EXODUS, 1992-97; STEVE MCQUEEN, ASHES, 2002-2015, ALL ©STEVE MCQUEEN. COURTESY THE ARTIST, THOMAS DANE GALLERY AND MARIAN GOODMAN GALLERY

Steve McQueen at Tate Modern, £13, 13 February – 11 May, tate.org.uk

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COME TOGETHER C O N F I S C AT E D I N A S C O T L A N D YA R D R A I D , J O H N L E N N O N ’ S E R O T I C D R A W I N G S S P E N T O N LY A S I N G L E D AY O N D I S P L AY I N L O N D O N . F I F T Y YEARS ON, THE EXPLICIT LITHOGRAPHS MADE BY T H E B E AT L E AT H I S C R E AT I V E A N D C O N T R O V E R S I A L P E A K A R E H I G H LY D E S I R A B L E C O L L E C T O R S ’ P I E C E S

Words: Rob Crossan

DETECTIVES SEIZING EIGHT EROTIC PICTURES AT JOHN LENNON’’S EXHIBITION BAG ONE, 1970, ©DAILY SKETCH /​SHUTTERSTOCK

‘M

ost of the famous couples of history – Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Pat and Dick Nixon – have left it to our imaginations to envision them joined in the act of love. But here, for the first time, a pair of famous lovers actually shows us how they express their love for one another.’

So ran the introduction to a feature in the March 1970 issue of the short-lived Avant-Garde magazine.

The magazine was taking quite a risk by publishing the set of lithographs it was describing.

Not from a commercial perspective – there were certainly no shortage of people who were curious to see erotic drawings sketched by John Lennon of himself and his wife Yoko Ono on their honeymoon.

The peril came from Scotland Yard; these drawings were considered so obscene that not only had they been removed from a London gallery by the Met two months earlier, but they would also go on to be the basis of a court case that eventually drew on the content of the Queen’s art collection.

By the beginning of 1970 the Beatles were, to the outside world at least, still a functioning band. Paul McCartney’s public announcement of the break-up of the group was still four months away. But, in reality, the former Fab Four were already de facto solo artists.

While Ringo Starr began shooting movies with Peter Sellers, McCartney took sanctuary on his Scottish farm and George Harrison recorded a mammoth triple album solo project, Lennon was, at this point, by far the highest-profile musician in the country. Fresh from his two week-long Bed-Ins for Peace in Montreal and Amsterdam, and having just scored a world-wide hit with Give Peace a Chance, Lennon had no intention of entering the 70s quietly.

“Perhaps I’ll get interested in drawing and painting again,” he said in an interview at the end of 1969.

“You can’t stand still and I think I’ve been standing still for a bit too long.”

FROM TOP JOHN LENNON, EROTIC #1, 1969; JOHN LENNON, HONEYMOON, 1970

It was Anthony Fawcett, Lennon and Ono’s assistant at the time, who first suggested that lithography could be a new creative avenue. At first Lennon’s response was ambivalent; the Beatle preferred the spontaneity of drawing cartoons straight onto paper. But Fawcett managed to find a solution.

“I devised a way to shortcut the complicated procedure of working directly onto stone blocks or zinc plates,” he later recalled. “By using specially treated ‘litho paper’, which I had sent out to his house along with an array of suitable brushes, litho ink, and crayons,

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‘John Lennon’s lithographs interest me considerably,’ Fuller wrote. ‘If the subject matter forms the basis of the prosecution case, this will be the first of many such actions your department may well have to cope with. There are thousands of prints by Rembrandt van Rijn (to name but one artist) depicting sexual intercourse, so at least one such print will figure in all the important state and private collections... I understand that HM the Queen has some highly erotic work by Fragonard.’

Regardless of the possibility of the reigning monarch’s art collection being raided in the future, the case went to Marlborough Street Magistrates Court in late April 1970, a few weeks after the lithographs were printed in Avant-Garde.

It was only in court that the reasons for using the obscure 19th-century law, which contained the accusation that the artworks were ‘…to the annoyance of passengers’, became clear. By using this, rather than the Obscene Publications Act, Scotland Yard felt it had swerved the chances of Lennon’s representatives using the defence of artistic merit and public interest, which did not apply under the more arcane law.

The explosive-tempered Detective Inspector Luff told the magistrate that when he went to the gallery on 15 January about 40 people were viewing the prints.

“I saw no display of annoyance from the younger age group, but one gentleman was clearly annoyed,” he told the magistrat, St. John Harmsworth.

“Did he stamp his foot?” asked Harmsworth.

“Anger was definitely registered on his face,” came the reply.

Then a prosecution witness, an accountant from south London, took the stand to state, “I felt a bit sick that a man should draw himself and his wife in such positions. It was a shock to see Yoko in the nude with a rather exaggerated bosom with apparently somebody sucking a nipple.”

The laughter from the public gallery, reported The Guardian at the time, was audible. Harmsworth dismissed the case, concluding that the wording of the law concerning the word ‘passengers’ left the Dirty Squad without a hope of a successful prosecution.

“They have, for the time being, finished passaging,” he declared, referring to those who attended the solitary day of the trial. He also found that Lennon’s drawings were “unlikely to deprave or corrupt.”

Half a century on, the paintings are a lot less likely to cause moral panic. They are, however, also a lot more likely to bankrupt anyone desiring to own one. Currently, the official Art of John Lennon website is selling some of the original signed lithographs for upwards of £10,000.

As the defending lawyer at the trial observed at the time, when he handed over a set of lithographs to the court, “I hope the officer will not mark them, because no doubt by the end of this case they will be worth a lot more than £550.”

GALLERY DIRECTOR EUGENE SCHUSTER, 1970

John would be able to draw or paint in his usual manner.

The images could later be transferred from the paper onto sensitized zinc plates by means of an advanced technical process, and the lithographs printed in the traditional way.”

The impressionistic results were created by Lennon in two phases. The first, drawn around the time of his wedding to Ono in Gibraltar and their subsequent holiday in Paris, were fairly simple depictions of the couple together. The second set, drawn during their Bed-Ins were far more skillfully crafted, and a lot more intimate, depicting both of them naked in various love-making positions.

Three thousand individual prints were made up, each signed by Lennon, and 300 complete sets of the 14 lithographs were packaged in white leather bags emblazoned with the words Bag One in black capitals. The lithographs could be bought for £40 each or a whopping £550 for the set.

The London Arts Gallery on New Bond Street (now a Burberry store), opened the show on 15 January 1970 – though the exhibition was doomed not to run its course. The very next day, Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Squad, known as the Dirty Squad, entered the gallery, charged the owner Eugene Schuster under the 1830 law forbidding “profane, indecent or obscene” drawings or images and seized eight of the prints.

Lennon and Ono were away in Denmark, but their absence only inflamed the fury of Detective Inspector Frederick Luff, the head of the Obscene Publications Squad, who, according to files released in 2001 by the National Archive, said: “Many toilet walls depict work of similar merit. It is perhaps charitable to say that [they] are the work of a sick mind.”

The decision to use this obscure 1830 law rather than the better known Obscene Publications Act of 1959 seems to have been taken only after the director of public prosecutions received a letter from an artist by the name of PFC Fuller two days after the raid.

artofjohnlennon.com

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CONNOISSEUR TA ST I N G N OT E S FO R T H E U R B A N E E P I C U R E A N

P.54 POSTCODE LOTTERY Why London’s most exciting restaurants are opening in W1

P.56 RAISE A GLASS Inside Domaine Clarence Dillon’s flagship restaurant

P.62 GOING UNDERGROUND The Wiltshire vault used by the world’s best wine merchants

P.68 RESTAURANT REVIEW Taste testing Marcus

© SEBASTIAN NEVOLS

at The Berkeley

Having started his culinary career in the kitchens at Claridge’s, Daniel Humm has come full circle – the American chef most famous for the threeMichelin-starred Eleven Madison Park in New York, recently opened the doors to his first restaurant outside of the US: Davies and Brook at Claridge’s. Visit for his signature tastes - duck glazed with honey and lavender – and stay for exciting new dishes that blend British seasonality with global influences. claridges.co.uk

IT LONDON

NEIGHBOURHOOD

WAT C H

W H I L E L O N D O N M AY B O A S T T R E N D I E R C U L I N A R Y N E I G H B O U R H O O D S , D I N I N G I N M AY FA I R A N D B E L G R AV I A H A S A LWAY S R E TA I N E D I T S G R AV I TA S , W I T H S O M E O F T H E M O S T E XC I T I N G N E W R E S TA U R A N T S L A U N C H I N G I N A N D A R O U N D W 1

Words: Nick Savage

I T R E S TA U R A N T, D OV E R ST R E E T After becoming one of Ibiza’s most sought-after eateries, IT Restaurant landed on Mayfair’s Dover Street in the end of 2019 and has quickly accrued a following amongst London’s international set. Spearheaded by Gennaro Esposito, who earned two Michelin stars at La Torre del Saracino on the Neapolitan coast, IT

borrows inspiration from the Balearics while serving an accomplished array of classic Italian fare. The dining room is DJ-led with a glitzy statement bar that swoops up to the ceiling like a giant megaphone constructed from silver and neon, while tables come complete with golden charger plates. As the precursor for an evening out on the town, IT London ticks all the boxes. itrestaurants.com

Man-about-town, Innerplace’s Nick Savage, gives you the insider lowdown on London’s most hedonistic haunts 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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D AV I E S A N D B R O O K , BROOK STREET Perhaps the most highly anticipated opening of 2019, Davies and Brook saw Daniel Humm of the legendary Eleven Madison Park in New York decamping to Claridge’s, where he has taken over the space formerly housing Fera.

His accomplished cooking won him three Michelin stars and World’s Best Restaurant in 2017 at his former workplace, and he’s imported the same inventiveness and creative restrain to his new London digs. The dining room has been outfitted with soft lighting, velvet cream banquettes and photography from Roni Horn, while staff members circulate in smart grey suits. The á la carte menu, which is separated between Cold, Warm, Main and Dessert, features some of Humm’s signature dishes, such as duck glazed with honey and lavender, as well as new creations such as seabass ceviche with avocado and cucumber and Claridge’s Fried Chicken. So far, Davies and Brook has lived up to the anticipation preceding its arrival. It will be interesting to see if it can maintain it. claridges.co.uk

M U S E , G R O O M P L AC E Tom Aikens captured the world’s attention when he became Britain’s youngest chef to be awarded two Michelin stars at the age of 26. His newest opening, Muse, marks a return to form of sorts for Aikens with a heavy emphasis on fine dining. Muse is a jewel box-small restaurant situated in a luxe Belgravian mews townhouse.

Structured like a chef’s table with only 26 covers and 12 counter seats spread across two floors, the dining areas feature open-plan theatre kitchens on each floor, giving the visitor keyhole insights into each dish’s preparation. Similarly, Aikens has structured the menu around memory, with descriptions that are more in line with Proustian prose, rather than explaining the manner in which each dish is prepared. musebytomaikens.co.uk

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AMAZÓNICO, BERKELEY SQUARE Having already blazed a trail in Madrid with their celebheavy South American fusion joint Amazónico, chef Sandro Silva and his business partner and wife Marta Seco have set their sights further afield, opening sequel restaurants in Dubai and now Berkeley Square with the help of the investors behind Roka and Zuma. The 13,000 sq ft dining room takes visitors on a journey up the Amazon. It’s been painstakingly wrought to convey the adventure and mystery of the jungle, with a superabundance of greenery and foliage spread over four separate rooms that comprise a lounge, sushi bar, private rainforest room and the restaurant proper. Silva’s menu blends the cuisines of Brazil, Colombia and Peru with the culinary influences of immigration from Japan, China and India to dazzling effect. Sharing common DNA, Amazónico certainly gives Sexy Fish a run for its money. restauranteamazonico.com

C

ustomarily, a lunch doesn’t require a seven-hour commute – but this is no ordinary lunch. In spite of an early winter flu, I’m chomping at the bit to board the Eurostar. The train speeds along under the Channel, leaving behind London’s dull gunmetal skies for a crisp bluebird day in Paris. I catch a cab and head southwest through the city past the Place de la Concorde, its Egyptian obelisk brightly reflecting the sun.

We drive along the northern bank of the Seine, between regimented flanks of plane trees on the Cours La Reine, then veer north onto the Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt, passing the Grand Palais before arriving at Le Clarence.

It’s easy to understate the grandeur of the hôtel particulier that houses Domaine Clarence Dillon’s flagship restaurant, wine cellar and offices. The property was purchased in 2012 by Prince Robert of Luxembourg, who serves as chief

LA VIE EST TROP COURTE POUR BOIRE DU * MAUVAIS VIN A S T H E F L AG S H I P R E S TA U R A N T O F D O M A I N E C L A R E N C E D I L LO N , T H E F A M I LY - R U N C O M P A N Y B E H I N D T H E C L A R E N D E L L E A N D C H Â T E A U H A U T- B R I O N W I N E E S TAT E S , PA R I S ’ S L E C L A R E N C E I S A L E S S O N I N A R T D E V I V R E .

L U X U R Y LO N D O N J U M P S O N T H E E U R O S TA R F O R A L U N C H TO R E M E M B E R

Words: Nick Savage

*Life’s too short to drink bad wine

executive officer of Domaine Clarence Dillon, an estate that boasts some of the most enviable wines in Bordeaux, including Château La Mission Haut-Brion, Château Haut-Brion, Château Quintus and Clarendelle.

The Haut-Brion terroir was recognised as a Cru wine in 1521 and became one of Thomas Jefferson’s favourites after he was hosted by owner Joseph de Fumel in 1787. Currently, it commands the respect of oenophiles worldwide as one of the finest French wines available.

Philippe Vidal strolls into the room and greets us. Whippet-thin, with a wry expression, he’s the consummate host, as well as general managing director of Domaine Clarence Dillon. We’re whisked through a whistle-stop tour of the townhouse, originally built by an eye doctor in the 19th century.

In a private dining room there are a series of family pictures along the wall, one of which depicts American financier Clarence Dillon, the Texan Francophile and Prince Robert’s great-grandfather, who purchased Château Haut-Brion for a snip in 1935. Vidal explains the proprietary succession of Haut-Brion, drawing our attention to a portrait of a raven-haired woman, Dillon’s granddaughter Joan Dillon, who married Prince Charles of Luxembourg in 1967 and gave birth to Prince Robert in 1968. She was the president of Domaine Clarence Dillon from 1975 until 2008, when her son took the reins.

From the salon we catch a glimpse of the kitchens

across the inner courtyard of the mansion. Through the bay windows we can see men and women in white toques swaying around stainless steel and copper.

Though I can’t be sure, I think I catch a glimpse of chef exécutif Christophe Pelé.

It’s no secret that Pelé is gunning for his third Michelin star. After cutting his teeth at Ledoyen, Pierre Gagnaire and The Bristol, he opened his own 20-cover restaurant, La Bigarrade, which was duly awarded two Michelin stars.

Following a spell in Hong Kong he returned to open Le Clarence in Paris in 2015, which was also awarded two stars. In 2019 it also garnered the accolade for Original Thinking at The World Restaurant Awards and continues to attract a devoted coterie of eaters.

We repair to the Grand Salon for an aperitif. The room is exceptionally recherché, personally designed

by Prince Robert to reflect his maxim that ‘the unique is the new luxury’. It is indeed sui generis, imbued with warmth from a crackling open fire and lit by a gold and crystal chandelier. Among the plush brocades of damask wallpaper and gilt lamps, tables and mirrors, one feels transported to the scenes laid out by France’s most sensuous writers. You could be sharing a salon with Proust, Baudelaire or Brillat-Savarin, if it weren’t for the arrival of a large format bottle of Le Clarté de Haut-Brion bearing the year 2012.

On first taste the white wine is almost savoury with an undertone of anisette. But it finds its finest expression when paired with Pelé’s beautiful array

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of snacks. Aged comté gougères approach perfection with crisp umami-rich shells and warm central voids. Barbajuans, ubiquitous appetisers in the Mediterranean, share a similar structure, their interiors empty save for a small pocket of ricotta and spinach, their tawny semolina carapaces dusted with kuro shichimi. Whelks are brought to the table on nests of rock salt, the shells’ apertures laden with a silky tartare sauce and skewered with smart toothpicks. Their flesh is fragrant with thyme, rosemary, sage and bay leaf.

Pelé’s opening salvo announces his arrival as a chef who loves French cuisine and yet its pantheon of dishes doesn’t stand on ceremony, as evidenced by his inclusion of Japanese and Italian ingredients and techniques. While he doesn’t want to tear the entire edifice down, he’s happy to rebel within it.

We’re led to the best table in the house, in the Arnaud de Pontac room; situated underneath a beautifully wrought oak mezzanine replete with rows of rare books, it looks out onto the pistachiogreen dome of the Théâtre du Rond-Point.

The meal commences in earnest with langoustine ensconced in kadaif pastry and served with a green chilli cream and beetroot, followed by a fusillade of ocean-redolent morsels.

A bulbous sea scallop sits atop a creamy throne of pilpil sauce, crowned with silky red cabbage and tuna bottarga. A lone venus clam arrives in its shell, burnished amber with a garlic, parsley and chervil gratin, and anointed with lime and colatura. While plated humbly, these dishes give way to deep waves of flavour that linger in the mind long after they’ve departed the mouth.

And then it arrives, unheralded, in a gleaming woven-silver basket-server: Le Clarence de Haut-Brion 2009. Crafted from merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, the wine teems

CHRISTOPHE PELÉ, LE CLARENCE: THE COOKBOOK, BY CHIHIRO MASUI,PUBLISHED BY GLÉNAT, £50, AMAZON.CO.UK

When the time comes to depart I can relate to the cheese. I am laden with fat and thoroughly trolleyed

with power and complex flavours that bend the mind as they ping-pong from woodsmoke, leather and tobacco to plums, figs and redcurrant.

It takes a bold chef to match flavours with a wine of this stature and I wonder if Pelé can pull it off. My faith is doubly challenged when it turns out that he’ll be returning fire with seafood. However, roasted sea bass in squid ink juice, its opaline flesh barely visible underneath a glistening construction of radicchio, capucine flower and sea urchin, unfurls further notes of red berries and plays with its length. Poached oyster on a wreath of potato spaghetti and sausage is immersed in an immense dashi broth.

Doubts are allayed; admiration piqued.

Unbelievably, La Mission de Haut-Brion 2000 – a cool £1,880 a bottle – outshines its predecessor. It’s martially structured with good acidity and high silky tannins. To match it, Pelé ventures into meat and game. Pigeon pie is presented on a silver tureen before being apportioned in quarters. The cross-section reveals tranches of pigeon and foie gras sharing real estate with spinach leaf, celery cream and a dazzling dollop of horseradish. Abalone is stacked with a marble of foie gras and Daurenki caviar. However, a simple-looking dish of mushroom ravioli takes the top spot, the pasta luxuriating in a silken bath of parmesan cream and white Alba truffles. It’s revelatory.

Chateau de Quintus 2015 Saint-Emilion Grand Cru is decanted tableside and served as the cheese trolley arrives, its powerful merlot fruit balancing out the creamy protein. We wrap up the meal with no less than five desserts served with a Clarendelle Amberwine. They elicit a roundelay of expletives ranging from “oh my” to “holy sh*t”. When the time arrives to depart I can relate to the cheese. I am laden with fat and thoroughly trolleyed.

My flu has vaporised along with the angel’s share of Bordeaux escaping from my body and I’m ready for a quick constitutional along the Champs-Élysées ahead of the return journey. Before I leave, I cross paths with Pelé. His English is limited and my French non-existent, yet I think my current state conveys the gratitude I’m feeling after enjoying one of the best lunches of the year; perhaps even the decade. lacaveduchateau.com; le-clarence.paris

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BEHIND THE CELLAR DOOR

A GIANT HOLE IN THE GROUND E Q U I P P E D W I T H A D VA N C E D E N V I R O N M E N T- S TA B I L I S I N G T E C H N O L O G Y, T H E W I LT S H I R E VA U LT USED BY VENERABLE VINTNER JUSTERINI & BROOKS KEEPS SOME OF THE MOST PRECIOUS WINES IN THE WORLD IN PEAK CONDITION

Words: Josh Sims

“I

t’s like the lair of a James Bond villain,” enthuses Chadwick Delaney. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, this huge underground cavern. And, of course, what’s inside it is rather special too.”

Delaney is the managing director of Justerini & Brooks, the fine wine and spirits merchant founded in St. James’s in 1749, making it one of London’s oldest. But his business is not just about selling wine – it’s also about storing it. And when your firm has fulfilled the drinking needs of every British monarch since King George III’s coronation in 1761 – which reveals the kind of customer

Justerini & Brooks caters to – that is a lot of very expensive wine.

“The company started storing our customers’ wines after the end of the First World War – until then our customers were almost exclusively British aristocracy and they didn’t need us to help with storage,” explains Delaney. “But societal shifts saw better-off people living not on country estates but in London and other cities, and they didn’t have huge houses – or at least not huge enough to store their wine collections.”

Enter, then, the need for, say, a big cave in the Wiltshire countryside, near Corsham. On the surface Octavian Vaults is, deliberately, a rather anonymous place. Below the surface, however, is, as Delaney calls it, “a 1m sq ft hole in the ground”, initially hollowed out to provide the building materials that would, in time, become the city of Bath. It was then taken over by the Ministry of Defence to house armaments – and as a place very secure from prying eyes. It was decommissioned after the Second World War and was left empty – and echoey – until it was acquired by Jersey businessman Nigel Jagger.

“It’s remote and not easy to get into,” says Delaney. “You can’t get in without application to do so in advance. Then every vehicle is searched both going in and going out. Wines are bulky and at this level they’re easy to identify, so they’re hard to steal and hard to sell on – but that doesn’t mean there’s room for complacency. For humans to get down to the floor of the vaults, 100ft below, there’s a very long winding staircase. Everything else goes by the vaults’ own funicular railway. You wish you were riding on it too once you’ve been up and down a few times.”

The security is for good reason, however.

Inside is an estimated £1bn worth of wine, with around a fifth, or £200m worth, under the management of Justerini & Brooks, making the merchant the vaults’ biggest user. Picture 12m or so crated bottles of wine and it’s not unlike the warehouse in the closing scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Only this – at 30 acres, the equivalent of around 20 professional football pitches – is bigger. It’s the biggest repository of wine in the world. With its Latours and Margauxes, its Pétruses and Château Lafites, “it’s a real

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Aladdin’s cave of wine,” as Delaney puts it, “an extraordinary place to visit – especially if you’re well-versed in wine.”

Delaney needs to know exactly where each of his bottles is located in that vast space.

Unusually, Justerini & Brooks staff at the site employ a bespoke logistics management system that gives every case its own unique code, so the case that goes in – and sits there for perhaps 30 years – is the very same case that comes out.

This means that, rather than a client being

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registered as the owner of an unspecified case of a certain wine, they’re owner of a specific case.

“It’s an expensive process – our monthly warehousing bill is in the hundreds of thousands of pounds – but it brings peace of mind,” explains Delaney. “As wine becomes more expensive, details like provenance become ever more important. The likes of OWC – Original Wooden Case – didn’t mean anything not that long ago. Now it’s an important factor to big collectors. More of

those collectors really understand the nature of storage is very important too.”

Justerini & Brooks operates four warehouses in all – in Bordeaux, Hong Kong, close to London in Hertfordshire, and, further out, in Octavian Vaults. But why put such valuable wines – the kind you may lay down for decades – into a big hole in the ground? “From the security perspective it’s unsurpassed, of course – not only is it deep underground, but as an ex-MoD site it’s about as secure as it could be,” explains Delaney.

But there’s more to it than that.

So deep underground, there’s little natural light – and light speeds up the process by which wine matures. Even with the dark glass traditionally used for the bottles, ultraviolet light still has a detrimental effect, so the lighting in the vaults is all sensor-operated LED – most wine spends most of its time in the dark.

The cavern is hollowed out of limestone and chalk, so temperature is consistent too, at around 14˚C, perfect for wine storage; and so is humidity, at around 80 per cent, so the wine is immune to the effects of climate. The vaults

have a kind of wine-friendly sprinkler system that can be used if the humidity level drops, and, thanks to the air ducts installed by the MoD, can ventilate with dry air should it rise too high – poor ventilation can damage a fine wine.

As Delaney puts it, “this way the corks stay fat”, rather than drying out and shrinking.

A loose cork and temperature fluctuations are likely to result in both oxidisation and ullage – wine lost from the bottle through evaporation, or the oenophile’s equivalent of ‘the angel’s share’ of spirits such as whisky (the amount lost to evaporation from porous wooden barrels). Justerini & Brooks even operates a photographic lab in the cavern so that any cases for sale can be shot, bottle by bottle, to record any ullage.

Wine doesn’t like movement, and solid, vibration-free caverns don’t move. This means that it doesn’t much matter where in Octavian Vaults your wine is situated. “But if it’s stored in some big warehouse with, say, a corrugated iron roof, then where the wine is in that structure does matter – if it’s nearer the roof, for

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example,” explains Delaney. “That’s precisely what we’re paying for in a place like the Vaults – minimal ullage.”

Once wine is in the cavern, it tends to stay there for a long, long time. Justerini & Brooks clients typically buy their wines young – en primeur – so are looking to tuck them away and forget about them for at least a generation.

Quite literally. Justerini & Brooks has family clients who have been with it for eight generations and many clients who have been with it for three.

“It’s typically a dynastic collection,” says Delaney. “It’s where the fine wine, the really fine wine, goes. Or the wine that’s become so expensive you can no longer imagine drinking it. We do offer a brokerage service and some wines in the vault change hands without ever leaving it. But essentially we’re servicing people with a passion for wine and the financial ability to express that passion. Most of our customers – and some of them spend millions with us – are planning to drink this wine eventually.”

The scale of the operation is a key factor.

“People like a place the size of Octavian Vaults for the space it offers – they may have a huge stately home but today the chances are that they live and work all over the world,” points out Delaney. “It makes sense for global people to centralise their wine collection.”

Storing such vast quantities of vino supremo in a giant hole in the ground in the countryside comes with certain complications – like dealing with the common request for a case to be removed and delivered, perhaps to London, but perhaps to New York or Tel Aviv. Justerini & Brooks is used to thinking internationally – it welcomed its first overseas customer, an Indian maharaja, in 1858; it opened its first overseas office, in the US, in 1866. Using its smart tracking system, a specialist freight company and some determination, today it can get said case to wherever it needs to go to in less than a week. “It is cheaper and quicker to get a case of wine to, say, Hong Kong than it is to Inverness,” says Delaney. “But that’s OK – we have more customers in Hong Kong than in Inverness.”

For the time being, at least. Although historically Justerini & Brooks has been an operation devoted to wine, latterly it has extended its expertise in whiskies – old ones, rare ones, ones from ‘ghost’ distilleries no longer in business. Its whiskies are currently

“Wine is only worth what someone who’s willing to pull the cork is willing to pay for it” stored in a warehouse in Scotland but the company is now considering whether moving them to the vaults would be better. Whisky doesn’t suffer from temperature fluctuations but there are humidity issues for long-term storage. The company is conducting its own research.

“Of course there’s a lot of knowledge about the long-term storage of whisky in casks, but not in bottles. That’s uncharted territory,” says Delaney. “And the whisky market is booming now.

More people are actively looking to build whisky collections as they have with wine.”

But there’s a sense that Delaney’s heart is still in fine wine rather than firewater. This perhaps explains not only his own fondness for drinking it, but his enthusiasm for others doing the same too. Interestingly, he says the vast majority of his Octavian Vaults clients are not hiding their wines away as some investment asset.

“Yes, wine does become more valuable – it appreciates because it becomes more rare as people drink it,” he chuckles. “But investing in wine, well, you end up with bubbles and a distorted view of the market. Wine isn’t a stock or a bar of gold. It’s only worth what someone who’s willing to pull the cork is willing to pay for it. And that’s the best thing to do with it, especially with wines as fine as those in the vaults.

Pull the cork. Drink it.”

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Today, Wareing employs husband-and-wife team Mark and Shauna Froydenlund as joint chef patrons. They continue to pull off the remarkable feat of delivering three-star cooking in what is, officially, a one Michelin star restaurant (a respectable accolade in itself, unquestionably).

In 2014, Marcus underwent a lavish refurbishment. The resulting interiors are at once opulent and yet informal, grand château without the ornamental starch. Mirrored archways, sophisticated artworks and a light colour palette make for an elegant space, but pretentious this restaurant certainly is not.

For exactly why Marcus, in the view of this writer at least, punches above its one-star rating, see its roast native lobster. Paired with radish salad and English wasabi, the dish exemplifies Froydenlund’s approach to cooking – textured, sophisticated, confident, unfussy, delicious. Similarly, the roast Orkney scallop, served with smoked cod roe and a bone marrow vinaigrette, wasn’t a lesson in complexity but a masterclass of keeping things simple – ok, not that simple.

Elsewhere, pan-fried Scottish halibut is served on a chicken butter and a medley of sea vegetables. It is another beautiful combination of contrasting textures and flavours. A dry-aged Galloway beef fillet, served with a side of pomme purée, is rich, exquisite and worthy of the condemnation from your cardiologist.

REVIEW

MARCUS W H Y M R WA R E I N G ’ S M O D E R N B R I T I S H R E S TA U R A N T C A L L S M I C H E L I N ’ S C R I T E R I A I N TO Q U E S T I O N

“I

Words: James Lawrence

n both London and New York, the [Michelin] guide appears to be out of touch with the way people actually eat,” wrote the late AA Gill, in a typically acerbic Vanity Fair editorial. It’s a sentiment shared by many contemporary writers, who question Michelin’s relevance in a democratised and digitalised world.

Yet to lambast Michelin as totally anachronistic is overstating it somewhat. As leading food critic Andy Hayler observes: “Most chefs regard a Michelin star as an accolade they will boast about to their colleagues, as they can’t be bought.” Sorry Gill, but for many chefs – and for many consumers – Michelin is still the only rating that really counts.

That said, there is, of course, a capricious aspect to Michelin stars that should be challenged. Many critics have highlighted the puzzling trend of Michelin over-marking certain restaurants, while seemingly ignoring superlative chefs who are deserving of a second, or even a third, star.

Presenting Exhibit A: Marcus. Foodies will already be familiar with the backstory: run by the eponymous chef Marcus Wareing, Marcus occupies a hallowed space inside The Berkeley Hotel previously occupied by Pétrus – a joint venture between Gordon Ramsay and his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson, where Wareing acted as head chef. In 2008, Ramsay left and Pétrus became Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, now simply Marcus.

Such well-considered food deserves thoughtfully paired wine. For that, trust in the advice of Marcus’ charming sommelier Michael Deschamps. Highly knowledgeable and open to as many questions as you can fire at him, Deschamps selects glasses based on the ingredients of each dish, explaining his suggestions in the process.

Marcus, surely, reinforces just how fallible the Michelin rating system is. While a single star conveys a certain cachet, Marcus belongs in a division, or two, above. If Michelin’s assessment of this particular restaurant is anything to go by, a healthy dose of skepticism may be required when the organisation releases its next guide.

Marcus, The Berkeley Hotel, SW1, marcusrestaurant.com

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TIME IS PRECIOUS MAKE THE MOST OF IT

T H E U LT I M AT E AIRPORT EXPERIENCE PRIVATE ENTRANCE BUTLER | LUXURIOUS SUITE EXCLUSIVE SECURITY EXPERIENCE CHAUFFEUR | PL A N E H EATH RO WVI P.C O M

COUTURE CUT

FROM

A DIFFERENT

CLOTH

P.72 SPRING TO ACTION Six style updates for the new season

P.78 IN THE BAG Totes amazing handbags

P.84 ADD TO BASKET The must-have men’s accessories to buy now

P.86 SOLE MATE The Northampton cobblers stepping up to the trainer trend

The power of theatre performer Billy Porter’s smile will no doubt sell this T-shirt alone, but there’s a lovely, philanthropic reason too, should his grin not sway you.

In partnership with UK Youth, Coach has launched the psychedelic Dream It Real tee, for which 100 per cent of the net profits will be donated to the charity, which offers support, advice and training to young people across the country. £50, uk.coach.com

SPRING WARDROBE Update TA P I N TO T H E S P I R I T O F T H E S E A S O N W I T H S I X B R I G H T A N D B R E E Z Y WAY S T O D R E S S F O R L I G H T E R D AY S A N D L A N G U I D E V E N I N G S

Words: Anna Prendergast

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Skin

COLOUR Supple leather shirting became a cold-snap staple last season, but spring’s new popping palette (as seen at Prada, Louis Vuitton and Rocha) is sweeter than a bag of Skittles. Textures are soft and buttery, and silhouettes uncomplicated – take inspiration from Sally LaPointe’s ready-to-wear collection of two-tone pantsuits and monochromatic looks or Sies Marjan’s mock-croc lacquered leather separates.

PRADA SS20

FROM TOP: TWO-TONE LEATHER JACKET, £1,092, THE MIGHTY COMPANY, NET-A-PORTER.COM; PINK LEATHER COAT, £3,665, MIU MIU, NET-A-PORTER. COM; KHAKI LEATHER JACKET, £2,000, LOEWE.COM; YELLOW SHORTS, £230, REMAIN BIRGER CHRISTENSEN, NET-APORTER.COM; LIME GREEN BAG, £250, STAUD.CLOTHING

2

LOEWE SS20 © MANUEL BRAUN

FROM TOP: CHOCOLATE PLATFORMS, £705, GUCCI, FARFETCH.COM; ECRU HEELS, £345, MANU ATELIER, SELFRIDGES.COM; ORANGE LOAFERS, £270, NOMASEI.COM BELOW: CAMEL LOAFERS, £300, YUUL YIE, BROWNSFASHION.COM

Block PARTY

Scratch that ’70s itch with a chunky-heeled loafer in shades of plum, ecru and oxblood.

On the catwalks, Lanvin combined three key trends in their square-soled, buckled mule, while Gucci added a platform and fringing to the classic house shape. They work harder than any other design beneath trousers, and styling them is easy – try with a new-season midi skirt.

Bright TIGHTS

FROM TOP: WHITE COTTON VELVET TIGHTS, £39, WOLFORD.COM; CURCUMA YELLOW TIGHTS, £19, FALKE.COM; TWO-TONE PINK AND BLUE TIGHTS, £180, MARC JACOBS, FARFETCH.COM; MILITARY GREEN TIGHTS, £19, FALKE.COM

Multi-hued hosiery in high deniers are doing the legwork this March. If you’re not ready for Stine Goya’s lime-green stockings in Copenhagen or Versace’s tropical prints in Milan, try a chunky cable knit or look to your favourite ’90s labels for logo prints. Wear with summery stilettos or metallic mules, as seen at Marc Jacobs.

3

GUCCI SS20

FROM LEFT: ECRU JACKET, £550, REJINA PYO, MODAOPERANDI.COM; RUFFLE DRESS, £990, JOHANNA ORTIZ, NET-A-PORTER.COM; OFF-WHITE DRESS, £195, MEADOWS-STORE.COM

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It’s hip to be

SQUARE A little bit Princess Diana, a little bit Jane Austen’s Emma (released last month with costumes by Alexandra Byrne) – the angular neckline du jour literally frames the face and décolleté, adding structure to billowy sleeves, gathered skirts and – dare we say it – padded shoulders. To sit snugly against the chest, get your tailor to tweak the armholes and shoulders for the perfect fit.

CECILIE BAHNSEN SS20

ABOVE: SATEEN BLOUSE, £425, ORSEUND IRIS, NET-A-PORTER.COM; FLORAL DRESS, £122, MEADOWS-STORE.COM

BONSERGENT

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MAX MARA SS20

5 BOW Take a

Cast off your combs, scarves and sliders: this summer, wedding guests and whimsical dressers alike will be accessorising with a romantic hair bow. Check out Bonsergent for carefree, oversized styles, or Jennifer Behr’s neat-as-a-pin barrettes.

6

Getting

WAISTED

FROM TOP: COPPER VELVET BARRETTE, £105, JENNIFERBEHR.COM; LOGO PRINT BOW, £60, MARC JACOBS, LIBERTYLONDON.COM; WHITE CREPE HAIRCLIP, £185, EMILIA WICKSTEAD, MATCHESFASHION.COM

Move over Gareth Southgate: Greta Gerwig has triggered a new wave for waistcoats. Call it the Little Women effect, and look to the Marsh sisters for layering tips. Button up doublebreasted styles beneath your usual tailoring, or wear open over an embroidered cotton blouse for big ‘I’ve got tickets to Glasto 2020’ energy.

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FROM TOP: CAMEL WAISTCOAT, £380, NILILOTAN.COM; DECONSTRUCTED WAISTCOAT, £2,060, GUCCI.COM

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PROMOTION

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CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT 18K YELLOW GOLD AQUAMARINE AND DIAMOND EARRINGS; 18K YELLOW GOLD AQUAMARINE AND PEARL PIN; 18K YELLOW AND WHITE GOLD DIAMOND TEMPLAR RING; 18K YELLOW GOLD TAPERED TOURMALINE TEMPLAR RING; 18K YELLOW GOLD PERUVIAN OPAL AND DIAMOND DROP EARRINGS

he history books might not be the most obvious place to look for design inspiration, but for award-winning jeweller Elizabeth Gage this is always her first port of call. For more than 50 years the Belgravia-based designer has been handcrafting fine gold and precious stones into wearable art, looking to coins, fossils and historical artefacts for inspiration. Her references are many: mythology, art and international cultures all play a role in her design process.

Renowned for her distinctive craftsmanship and unique motifs, Gage’s visions are carved into fine metals and offset with dazzling tourmaline, sapphire and opal stones.

Born in London and raised in New York, the designer studied at Chelsea School of Art before enrolling on a goldsmith course at the Sir John Cass College after a friend offered to buy her a ring. “Although I knew what [type of ring] I wanted, I couldn’t find it anywhere,” Gage said of the gift. “Being a tenacious type of person, I thought if I cannot find it, I will make it.”

Her training proved invaluable and her unique pieces went on to catch the eye of Cartier, which commissioned her to create a collection. In 1972, her Agincourt ring earned her the De Beers Diamonds Award and, upon returning to London in 1979, Gage opened her first studio on Beauchamp Place. From here she established herself as a tour de force in the jewellery world, scooping up the prestigious Queens Award for Export in 1989 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Retail Jeweller in 2008. In 2017, her efforts were further recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, when she was awarded an MBE for her services to business.

Today, the designer’s boutique on West Halkin Street glistens with her creations. From cufflinks to necklaces to bespoke jewels, each piece is handcrafted in the Belgravia studio. With a focus on timelessness, tradition and individuality, Gage’s precious designs are created to not only look beautiful but be comfortable and practical, too.

“I try to produce jewellery that people can treasure,” Gage says. “To me, jewellery is to be worn and enjoyed – morning, noon and night.”

ROCKS

O F AG E S D E LV I N G I N T O T H E H I S T O R Y B O O K S F O R I N S P I R AT I O N , E L I Z A B E T H G AG E ’ S O R N AT E JEWELLERY PIECES EVOKE HER PAS S I O N FO R A N C I E N T S O C I E T I E S , WITH HANDCRAFTED YELLOW GOLD AND DAZZLING PRECIOUS STONES

5 West Halkin Street, SW1X, elizabeth-gage.com

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BAG IT UP A NEW EXHIBITION AT T H E V I C TO R I A AND ALBERT MUSEUM EXPLORES THE W O R L D ’ S LO N G S TA N D I N G FA S C I N AT I O N W I T H T H E HUMBLE HANDBAG

Words: Ellen Millard

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icture this: the year is 1959 and Robert Dumas-Hermès is poised to mark a decade at the helm of his family business. Just three years previously, the now world-famous design house had rocketed into sartorial stardom thanks to actress Grace Kelly, who had used the brand’s Sac à Dépêches (renamed the Hermès Kelly in 1977) to shield her pregnant belly.

The rectangular body and short handle made it the perfect size to swing from an arm – and to hide a swelling stomach – but entirely impractical once the baby was born.

Pregnant herself with her fifth child, Hermès designer Catherine Chaillet set to work on what would become the next Hermès icon, with function – and free hands – at the forefront of her vision. The result was a flap top, cross-body tote with an adjustable strap for slinging over your shoulder.

Christened the Constance after Chaillet’s daughter, who arrived a day before her namesake left the Hermès production store, the bag was a roaring success, finding a fan in First Lady Jackie Kennedy. Today it is considered part of the Hermès ‘Holy Trinity’, along with the Kelly and the Birkin.

The Constance, designed with form, function and women in mind, perhaps best sums up the handbag as an accessory, for which design constantly straddles practicality. Your bag could be a lifeline, a portable storage unit for life’s most treasured possessions, or an entirely superfluous object worn for aesthetic alone. See Olympia Le-Tan’s minaudières, designed with storybook covers or in collaboration with artists (her latest collection features prints by Jean-Michel Basquiat), or Anya Hindmarch’s kitsch branded totes – a Frostie’s shopper; a Heinz Tomato Ketchup evening bag. It can even be a force for change: Hindmarch was one of the first to dismiss single-use plastics with her 2007 canvas tote that bore the missive ‘I’m not a plastic bag’, while Bottletop champions sustainability through its recycled ring pull accessories.

This April, the Victoria and Albert Museum will explore the handbag as an icon of function, status and craftsmanship in a new exhibition, Bags: Inside Out. Alongside collectors’ items such as Fendi’s Baguette, Dior’s Lady Dior and the aforementioned Hermès Birkin, there will be totes of historic note: Margaret Thatcher’s grey Asprey, Queen Mary’s WWII gas mask bag and Winston Churchill’s despatch box.

A section on design, meanwhile, will explore the Surrealism and humour championed through such accessories – think a Chanel milk carton, a Thom Browne sausage dog and a 17th-century purse in the shape of a frog.

“Bags can be functional and beautiful, public and private,” says Thierry Andretta, CEO of Mulberry, which is sponsoring the exhibition. “They carry cultural and personal meaning, as well as our belongings, and they are iconic pieces of design worth celebrating in their own right.”

OPPOSITE PAGE MARGOT SHOULDER BAG, £345, BOTTLETOP.ORG; THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE BASQUIAT CANVAS CLUTCH, £1,210, OLYMPIA LE-TAN, MATCHESFASHION.COM; CIELO STAR BAG, £918, ROSANTICA, MATCHESFASHION.COM; SPEEDY HANDBAG, MARC JACOBS FOR LOUIS VUITTON, AUTUMN–WINTER 2006, COURTESY OF V&A; BASQUIAT DINOSAUR BOOK CLUTCH, £1,075, OLYMPIA LE-TAN, MATCHESFASHION.COM; ANYA BRANDS KETCHUP TOTE, £895, ANYAHINDMARCH.COM; MODEL WITH LAIT DE COCO EVENING BAG, KARL LAGERFELD, 2014, ©JASON LLOYD EVANS, COURTESY OF V&A

“Bags can be

functional

and BEAUTIFUL,

public and

private”

Bags: Inside Out, sponsored by Mulberry, 25 April 2020 – 31 January 2021, V&A, Cromwell Road, SW7, vam.ac.uk

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CRÈME DE

LA CRÈME J A PA N ’ S C L É D E P E A U B E A U T É H A S G A R N E R E D A C U LT F O L L O W I N G S I N C E I T WA S F O U N D E D I N 1 9 8 2 . M E R G I N G L E A D I N G J A PA N E S E T E C H N O LO G Y W I T H I N N O VAT I V E R E S E A R C H , T H E B R A N D I S R E N O W N E D F O R I T S W O N D E R S K I N C A R E P R O D U C T S . F O L L O W I N G I T S H I G H LY - A N T I C I P A T E D L A U N C H I N T H E U K L A S T Y E A R , C L É D E P E A U B E A U T É P R E S E N T S A N E W I T E R AT I O N O F I T S S I G N AT U R E L A C R È M E

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PROMOTION

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“It was a real challenge to provide a sensorial and rich texture with no fewer than 60 ingredients”

he saying goes that you can’t rush perfection, but at Clé De Peau Beauté it’s more a case of improving perfection over time. The brand’s signature anti-ageing cream, La Crème, has been recreated no less than eight times since its launch in the early 1980s, with each iteration intended to be more potent and innovative than its predecessor.

Founded in Japan in 1982 with a mission to forge new frontiers in advanced skin cell science, Clé De Peau Beauté is renowned for its products that empower the skin, combining decades of research with cutting-edge technology.

In October 2019, the beauty brand opened its first counter in the UK with an exclusive launch in Harrods’ exquisitely-refurbished Beauty Halls – and with the British debut came the eighth version of La Crème. Based around the brand’s concept of Skin Intelligence – the skin’s innate ability to distinguish between good and bad stimuli – this potent product comprises no less than 60 ingredients, which work together to enhance the skin’s ability to repair and defend itself from damage. Just a small, pearl-sized amount smoothed over skin at night will leave your face feeling firm and smooth.

“La Crème holds technologies that target your skin and the dysfunctions or specific mechanisms that occur at night, such as enhanced oxidative stress, lower skin intelligence and accelerated blood circulation,” says Dr Nathalie Broussard, the brand’s scientific communication director. “The new La Crème incorporates cutting-edge technologies to maximise the skin’s regenerative ability at night in the epidermis and dermis.”

La Crème 8.0 includes the highest concentration of Skin Empowering Illuminator, the brand’s signature concoction that works to intensify the skin’s intelligence at night; green

tea extract to stifle oxidative stress; and CeraFerment Extract, a type of yeast discovered in Japan’s Akita Prefecture. The latter leaves the skin rejuvenated and helps to maintain a youthful appearance. It took the team six years of research to discover the benefits of this unique extract, adding further time to an already lengthy and complex process.

“The development period differs each time, depending on the basic research, the design of the formula and the efficacy tests,” Broussard says of La Crème’s creation. “It was a real challenge to provide a sensorial and rich texture with no fewer than 60 ingredients – and let’s not forget the 30 plus years of research that led to the creation of the Skin-Empowering Illuminator.”

In keeping with Clé De Peau Beauté’s strive for perfection, La Crème is as striking in form as it is in function. The cream is packaged in a golden, jewel-like jar created using a cutting-edge moulding technique, and comes complete with applicators inspired by tools used in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies – a fitting emblem for a brand committed to both heritage and innovation.

From £520 for 30ml, available exclusively in Harrods, The Beauty Halls, Ground Floor, Brompton Road, SW1X, cledepeau-beaute.com

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WANT TO BE LED ASTRAY?

Find and book your next escape at mrandmrssmith.com

LUXURY LONDON

PROMOTION

THE CITY EDIT

THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, EC3V THEROYALEXCHANGE.CO.UK

T H E R O YA L E X C H A N G E P R E S E N T S LO V E I S . . . – A M O N T H - L O N G C E L E B R AT I O N O F A D O R AT I O N I N I T S M Y R I A D F O R M S

ASPINAL OF LONDON Aspinal of London has won over hearts with its slick leather accessories — and this keyring is no exception. Handcrafted from saffiano leather, the charm can be personalised with up to four gold initials. £35, 19 Royal Exchange

TOM DAVIES Bespoke eyewear designer Tom Davies’ heart-shaped Love sunglasses are handcrafted in London and fitted with ZEISS sun lenses.

It might just be love at first sight...

From £295, 25 Royal Exchange

Love Is...

ALESSANDRA AMBROSIO IS THE NEW FACE OF PRETTY BALLERINAS Inspired by the life and style of Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio, Pretty Ballerinas’ SS20 collection of ballet flats, slides and trainers

is a medley of statement prints, neon shades and dazzling embellishment. Our top pick are these Ella pointed toe pumps, a pair of neon pink suede shoes topped with a tangerine sequin heart motif. £169,30 Royal Exchange

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...in the air at The Royal Exchange, which is dedicating the next month to all things romance. Kicking things off is an installation by artist in residence Justyna Stasik, a visual ode to affection on display until the end of March. Don’t miss a panel discussion on Modern Love on 25 March. royalexchange.co.uk

RETRO– SPECTIVE

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Words: Richard Brown

ACO U ST I C E N G I N E E R I N G REVO has re-imagined the classic home stereo for the digital and wireless age. The retro-styled SuperSystem can connect to radio, Spotify and your own external devices, with twin 3.5” BMR speakers and an integrated subwoofer delivering 80W of pin-sharp clarity and deep, satisfying bass. £549.95, revo.co.uk

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3 BOMBER COMMAND Proudly made in Manchester, this bomber jacket from Private White V.C. is made of an ultralightweight, showerproof outer fabric, keeping you cool, and dry, come April showers. £450, privatewhitevc.com

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T OY S T O R Y Fill that empty shelf with this pair of polished earth-toned Be@rbricks – the fourth collaboration between Japanese toymaker Medicom Toy and American artist Pushead, the former merchandise designer for Metallica. £125, endclothing.com

SPECS APPEAL Get the ‘80s look with these lightweight Japanmade tortoiseshell sunglasses from Oliver Peoples. The round-frame ‘Eldon’ glasses have slim gold-tone titanium arms and retrolooking yellow lenses. £305, mrporter.com

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B Y R O YA L APPOINTMENT British leather specialist and Royal Family favourite Tanner Krolle has recently opened a townhouse in Belgravia, where you’ll find the company’s double sunglasses holder (£390) and handcrafted vertical passport pouch (£315), both seen here. As well as Her Majesty the Queen, prominent Tanner Krolle customers have included Jackie Onassis, Cary Grant and Diana Princess of Wales. tannerkrolle.com

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S O F T P OW E R Thanks to the company’s entirely digital approach to distribution, ARTKNIT is able to offer premium luxury at more favourable prices. Take this round-neck sweater, for example – handmade in Italy from Grade A cashmere for half the price you’d expect to pay ARTKNIT’s compatriot brands. £165, bombinate.com

C H E C K M AT E Skyline Chess is the brainchild of two London-based architects. In the company’s Dubai edition, the emirate’s Princess Tower plays the queen, while the tallest building in the world – the Burj Khalifa – stands in for the king. £3,000, mrporter.com

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ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST Explore the work of self-taught Japanese architect Tadao Ando in this new volume of photographs and architectural drawings, which includes recent projects like the Shanghai Poly Theatre and the Clark Center in Massachusetts. £50, taschen.com

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P R I N T WO R KS Produced in an exclusive run of 50, this limitededition artwork from Peytil.com is printed on acid- and lignin-free heavyweight inkjet paper, giving it a tactile feel thanks to its raised surface texture. £257, peytil.com

CROWN NORTHAMPTON

SOLE SURVIVOR A R E VO L U T I O N I N M E N ’ S F O OT W E A R H A S L E F T M A N Y O F E N G L A N D ’ S G R E AT S H O E M A K E R S C O U N T I N G T H E C O S T O F T H E R I S E O F C A S U A LW E A R . I N O R D E R T O SURVIVE, NORTHAMPTON’S FINEST BOOTMAKERS ARE NOW REALISING THEY MUST WA K E U P T O T H E C A L L O F C O M F O R T A N D E M B R A C E T H E C U LT O F T H E S N E A K E R

Words: Josh Sims

“I

t was,” says Crown Northampton’s brand manager Mark Higgs, “part planning, part acting on your gut, and part good luck.” A decade or so ago, the shoe brand entered its fifth generation of family ownership, and with that came a new energy.

“Crown had long been a mass manufacturer of shoes for other companies but we had to move on from that.

Northampton is, of course, known around the world for its leather-soled, Goodyear-welted brogues and derby shoes, but we knew we couldn’t just try to be another brand like Tricker’s or Edward Green,” says Higgs. “We knew we had to do something different.”

Crown Northampton, which dates back to 1908 and is based in England’s shoemaking capital, decided to play to its strengths and continue its long history of making dance shoes and moccasins. But it also decided to go to Japan to actually ask the picky, progressive retailers there what they wanted.

And, being seriously Anglophile in their sartorial tastes, what they wanted was an English, handmade luxury sneaker.

As a result, Crown Northampton’s sneaker collection was launched in 2017.

“We thought then that this wouldn’t be for everybody.

To pay for a pair of sneakers what you could pay for a pair of Northampton-made dress shoes – that’s a lot of money,” says Higgs. “But then the market changed, with sneakers from Balenciaga, Visvim and Common Projects, or the many other high-end sneaker brands that have launched over the past few years.”

Crown Northampton’s decision to diversify has left it sitting pretty. Unfortunately that can’t be said for all Northampton shoemakers, many of which are as traditional in their products and brand image as their esteemed histories might warrant, but which changing fashions are less enamoured by. With the casualisation of men’s clothing – for work and play – and with entire generations having grown up with the comfort of trainers, is there a future for a shoe that, while it may represent a pinnacle of craftsmanship and last a lifetime, can take months to break in and often looks like something your grandfather might have worn?

The brand is not alone among the town’s remaining shoemakers in responding to the changing style landscape.

John Lobb, for example, one of the most upscale and traditional English shoemakers, currently offers a sneaker line of six styles – though perhaps, despite the eye-watering prices, these are more of a token effort than a bold shift away from its more signature black business shoes. Church’s, too, has a sneaker collection, encompassing multiple versions of two core styles – a runner and a court shoe. Both, perhaps, were guided by their respective high-fashion owners, Hermès and Prada, and seemingly just in time.

Valerie Steele, director of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, has compared the decline of English men’s shoemaking brands in recent decades – from an all-time high of some 1,800 to just a handful now – to that of the decline of milliners in the 1960s. A sudden change of culture, with people no longer wearing hats every day, dealt a blow to the hat-making industry from which it has never fully recovered.

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Indeed, that means not just a shift in design but also in image: how long can the wood-panelled, somewhat dusty Victorian-style shop hold its appeal? Northampton maker Cheaney has invested massively in its own shops and shop fits, and in online retail – in other words, in presenting itself as a contemporary brand for contemporary consumers almost despite its 134-year history.

“This is all more than just about the product itself,” stresses co-managing director William Church. “English shoemaking, to a large extent, is a constant that goes through cyclical fashion phases, where classic takes a more or less dominant place. Trends may come and go but the baseline of classic always has a strong role to play. So, no, I do not think Northampton shoe-making is at risk, as long as we keep doing what we do and do it well. But the fact is that we can all make a black brogue. You have to create interesting stores in the best streets to give customers an experience alongside the actual purchase. Brand is seriously important.”

“There’s a need to maintain a sense of who you are as a company because that’s what made you interesting in the first place,” agrees Denholm. “But that’s not an argument for doing nothing either. You can’t ignore the spirit of the age.”

Those who do ignore that spirit make the risky assumption that current younger generations will come to embrace the traditional footwear these companies have made for well over a century. Higgs stresses that there is, of course, a tendency for tradition to outlast trends – that Northampton’s makers have weathered recessions, wars and changes in fashion before, and some, if not all, of them are still making money, typically through exports. But Little questions if, for some Goodyear-welted shoemakers, it’s not all too much of a culture shock. While he believes that many of them make incredible products, which rightly command respect and chime with demand for authenticity and best-inclass craftsmanship, he wonders if that is enough.

“Those English men’s shoemakers that are still around are there because they’re very good at what they do. But they nearly all do some kind of luxury sneaker, which they wouldn’t do if there wasn’t some kind of awareness of the need for change,” he says. “After all, while the market for the classic black toe-cap is still big it’s obviously only going to get smaller as men stop buying them for work and only buy them for special occasions.” argues Little, who’s recently Grenson’s first vegan collection, soon to be followed by styles in a suede made from ocean waste.

“The thing is though that the styling of some of those sneakers is just wrong,” he adds. “It’s as if their makers are still selling to their older customer when they need to sell to a younger guy, by which I mean a man in his 40s. And there’s definitely scope for Northampton manufacturers to make traditional shoes in a modern context. I’d say it was imperative that all makers address that somehow, and soon, if they want to be around in 20 years’ time.”

According to Tim Little, who launched his own shoe brand in 1997 before buying Grenson (a shoe-maker established in 1866) in 2010, shoemaking has faced a perfect storm. It has experienced not just the post dot-com rise of creative and tech industries, with their self-consciously more youthful, more relaxed attitude influencing men’s work attire at large, but also a renewed demand for branded products and social media’s amplification of those trends. Little says that Grenson just about acted in time by introducing sneakers and modernising its traditional men’s shoe styles – for instance, adding white Vibram wedge soles. Such neo-traditional styles now account for around a third of Grenson’s sales.

Edward Green is another niche maker that has also shifted its emphasis, to such a extent that it’s now become a name spoken as much in fashion circles as, say, Pall Mall gentlemen’s clubs. The change came about subtly, not through sneakers, but through emphasising its more casual styles, with new interpretations of the company’s renowned boots.

Brand and business development manager Euan Denholm says the label has responded to the changing market while staying true to its own DNA. “Much as sartorial dressing has moved away from being all about work to being something more personal and expressive, so traditional men’s dress shoes have to go the same way,” he says. “In many ways we’ve been trying to do this for six years or so, aware that there has to be some reflection on the creation of the kind of models that appeal to these changing tastes. But I don’t think that means every Northampton maker should be rushing to make trainers. And for some of those who have the results can look very thin. The trick has been to respond but within the company’s own traditions.”

Martin Mason, managing director of Tricker’s – echoing Higgs’ opening sentiments, has been lucky enough to corner the market for heavy, Dainite-soled brogues that transcend the smart/casual divide – holds what he calls “a slight disdain” for Northampton manufacturers who have chased the upscale sneaker market, as massive as he concedes that market now is.

“It’s more because most of them aren’t made in Northampton, which to my mind makes them odd – in the same way as one might think of Adidas if it started to make brown brogues,” he says. “Also, the fact is that the next generation won’t want to wear what the current generation wears. That said, Northampton manufacturers do need to realise that there is change in the air – and I think the ones that are left do. They can’t follow fashion as such, but they do have to stay relevant. Northampton shoes can’t be all about nostalgia and heritage.”

1. BOLAND PLUS 2, £410, CHURCH-FOOTWEAR.COM; 2. BANNISTER, £155, LOAKE.CO.UK; 3. SNEAKERS 1, £185, GRENSON.COM; 4. OVERSTONE DERBY, £235, CROWNNORTHAMPTON.COM; 5. TENNESSSEE BLUES, £225, TIMLITTLE.COM; 6. FOUNDRY, £645, JOHNLOBB.COM; 7. SNEAKER 1, £185, GRENSON.COM; 8. BOLAND PLUS 2, £410, CHURCH-FOOTWEAR.COM; 9. CHEANEY X WALSH, £225, CHEANEY.CO.UK; 10. TENNESSSEE BLUES, £225, TIMLITTLE.COM; 11. BANNISTER, £155, LOAKE.CO.UK; 12. LEVAH, £515, JOHNLOBB.COM

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DISCOVER THE

BEAUTY

HEALTHCARE . PHARMACY . SKINCARE . WELLBEING

LUXURY LONDON

PROMOTION

own hands, Cashmirino is synonymous with beautiful childrenswear crafted from the finest fabrics – and the brand’s smock dresses are no exception. Handmade from all-natural fibres in a rich assortment of prints and carefully curated colours, each Cashmirino piece is a work of art, made to be treasured now and passed down to the next generation.

The creation process is extensive; all smocking and embroidery is done by hand by a dedicated group of traditional artisans in Italy and Spain, who work from their own homes to create each piece. Premium linens and cottons are sourced locally, while Liberty of London supplies the brand with its array of dainty floral printed fabrics. Once these are cut into the appropriate patterns, the pieces are sent directly to the artisans’ houses, which are located in different cities across Spain and Italy. These part-finished pieces are then collected and sent to a small manufacturer in Italy, where they are assembled into dresses and finished with linings, trimmings and branded buttons.

Cashmirino also produces limited edition dresses which are particularly decorative and labour-intensive, with embroidery on the sleeves and the skirt lining. Each limited edition piece has a hand-embroidered series number sewn into the lining. For special occasions such as weddings, first birthdays and baptisms, the brand offers a bespoke service, which includes a variety of customisation sewing and embroidery options – such as personalising a much-loved toy or creating a garment to match a favourite of Mum’s.

FROCK & ROLL

31 Burlington Arcade, W1J, cashmirino.com

H O W C A S H M I R I N O M A K E S I T S S I G N AT U R E HAND-SMOCKED FROCKS

C

reating small clothes is a big job. At Cashmirino in Burlington Arcade, the brand’s signature smock dresses are hand-crafted with minutiae detail, in a painstaking and lengthy process.

Founded more than a decade ago by Maria Busquets who, on the hunt for a cashmere jumper with a childfriendly design, decided to take matters into her

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DRIVE H Y P E R C A R S , H O T H AT C H E S & S U P E R S U V S

P.94 BEYOND RETRO Swapping slopes for spokes at Austria’s classic car rally

P.100 NEED FOR SPEED Road testing the Velar SVAD, the fastest Range Rover ever

When the snow melts and the skiiers go home, the Alberg Massif in Austria becomes a picturesque playground for vintage motors (p.94)

JOY RIDE B E S T K N OW N A S A U S T R I A’ S L A R G E S T S K I R E G I O N , T H E A R L B E R G M A S S I F P L AY S H O S T T O A C L A S S I C C A R R A L LY L I K E N O O T H E R D U R I N G T H E S U M M E R M O N T H S .

L U X U R Y LO N D O N J O I N S A F L E E T O F V I N TAG E AUTOMOBILES FOR A 400-MILE JOURNEY THROUGH SOME OF EUROPE’S MOST STRIKING ALPINE SCENERY

Words: Josh Sims

PHOTOGRAPHY ©CHRISTOPH SCHÖCH

LUXURY LONDON

F E AT U R E

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ark Knight is used to challenges. He is, after all, a former RAF officer. But this journey was unexpected. “There were casualties,” he says, “though thankfully we made it. In places it was very stressing on both man and machine.” This was no military exercise, however, but, arguably, the world’s most spectacular, if little-known, classic car run. “You always enjoy the Arlberg Rally, but you’re also a little anxious about your 1955 Austin-Healey 100,” says Knight, who only recently discovered the rally despite running his own classic car workshop.

“That’s especially because Healeys do tend to get hot. And this rally had 5,000ft climbs up to some of the lunch spots.”

While Italy can lay claim to the more famous rallies, the Arlberg Rally, running between Austria and Germany – and

celebrating its 11th anniversary in 2020 – offers the more spectacular scenery, wending its way through the sublime mountainous landscape of the Lech Zürs region. It’s not a long rally – nearly 400 miles over three days – nor is it big.

Only around 100 to 120 drivers take part. One of those is Uwe Brodbeck, president of the Allgemeine SchnauferlClub, one of Germany’s longest-established vintage car assocations; another is Ludwig Muxel, Lech’s mayor, who dreamt up the event.

That’s why it pulls in the cream of classic cars – everything from a Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 Springfield to a Lotus Cortina, with around half the field driving prewar vehicles, which, last year, included a Ford Model A, a Chrysler 72 sports roadster and a 1929 Fiat 51, one of only

LUXURY LONDON

DRIVE

PHOTOGRAPHY ©CHRISTOPH SCHÖCH

especially the pre-war models, because they’re underpowered compared with modern vehicles, says Drexel. “But for us it’s all about the cars – those really rare entrants, those truly beautiful ones, the ones you’re astounded are still working.

The serious gradients here can tend towards engines overheating. The drivers sometimes worry that their cars won’t make it. But they’re generally too busy enjoying the scenery.”

The rally takes in, among other highlights, the Zugspitze (Germany’s highest mountain); Vaduz Castle, the palace and official residence of the Prince of Liechtenstein; and the Hahntennjoch pass, climbing up 19 per cent gradients to 1,894m across the remote Bschlabertal valley. This is not a place for a breakdown. Coming into the villages of Boden and Pfafflar, is less an opportunity for a photo than one to let

three in the world still on the road. Past rallies have seen a Lancia Lambda open tourer and an Aries Rolling Banquet biplaza roadster – both dating to the 1910s – tackle the course. The 2019 event saw a brave little Renault 4CV off the starting line with all of its 19 horse power – it required a few rest spots to make it up the more vertiginous passes.

“The event is typically over-subscribed, but there’s been a deliberate policy of keeping it a small, familiar event for those who know, which is unusual,” says Marcel Drexel, the event’s organiser. “We aim to have a wide variety of cars in the line-up, too. But what really makes it a special event in the classic car world is that there are hardly any rallies through Alpine scenery.”

Some of the older cars struggle with the hill climbs,

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the like. “But you could see that the place would be beautiful in summer, that there was an opportunity being missed,” he says. “Yet even as someone very much into classic cars, I was surprised when I first heard about the rally – and that was through the German equivalent of Classic Cars magazine.”

Now that he’s in the know himself, Wright would rather the event was kept undercover. Unfortunately for him, and perhaps for its other loyal devotees, the rally’s status is growing, both locally and internationally. Car enthusiasts now travel to see the motors go past and to take pictures at the stop points. The rally has become so popular that now long stretches of the run are closed to other traffic, as it winds through breathtaking heights (almost literally, given the altitudes) and along green valleys from Lech, via Pitz and Lermoos, to Vorarlberg and on through Appenzell and finally to Romanshorn on Lake Constance.

“For all that the driving can push you, of course it’s the spectacular views that gets to you,” says Knight, echoing the

out a sigh of relief, even if these picture-postcard villages are rarely seen by tourists over the summer months. Not for nothing does the organiser of the rally offer a one-day training course for drivers who aren’t confident about tackling this kind of terrain. And a free brake check.

“There are plenty of five-star hotels in the area and naturally these form the stopping parts for the drivers,” says Drexel, stressing that there’s pleasure at the end of any painful drive. “Tourism is big here over the winter, it’s an insiders’ spot for skiing, free-skiing, snow-shoeing, just about anything involving snow. But what the rally has done is open up the region to tourism outside of winter. And that’s worked well. It’s helped Lech and the region become much more of a year-round destination.”

The Arlberg Rally has, however, long outgrown its original intent as a tourist draw, as Mark Wright can personally attest.

He and his wife Joanna used to go to the region for the skiing, saving their driving for the shores of Lake Como and

PHOTOGRAPHY ©CHRISTOPH SCHÖCH

event’s motto: ‘Mit Freunden durch alpine Traumkulissen’, or ‘Driving with friends through heavenly Alpine scenery’.

“That’s what sets it apart from any other rally. The locals are very welcoming to the classic car community, too – people want to stop and talk to you, which isn’t the reaction you get with all rallies.

He likes the way that the Arlberg Rally is a bit of an insider secret, even among the classic car fraternity – and the way that, rather than seeking to carry off a trophy, most entrants are there for the history, the food, the wine and the views, as well as the drive. “It’s nice to be one of the few Brits taking part,” he says. “It’s shorter than many rallies, and yet, in timetrial terms, more challenging. This is the kind of terrain that makes the act of driving a real joy.”

“This is the kind of terrain that just makes the act of driving a real joy”

The 2020 Arlberg Classic Car Rally will take place 25-28 June, arlbergclassic-car-rally.at

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POCKET

ROCKET T H E N E W V E L A R S VA D I S T H E FA S T E S T R A N G E R O V E R E V E R – S O H OW D O E S I T CO M PA R E W I T H T H E F U L L- S I Z E D O R I G I N A L?

Words: Jeremy Taylor

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and Rover’s lightweight Velar was always destined to feature a high-performance engine but who could have guessed the new SVAD version would be the fastest

Range Rover ever?

Blessed with a 542bhp V8 engine borrowed from the heavier Range Rover SVR, the slippery-looking Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic breaks the five-second barrier to 60mph and keeps on accelerating until 176mph.

There are plenty of sports cars that will keep up with that performance these days but none can carry five people and your dog at the same time. Yes, the Lamborghini Urus and Bentley Bentayga Speed SUVs are faster but they also cost twice the price of the SVAD. The Velar has been a runaway success story for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) since it launched to great acclaim just over two years ago. The company has sold far more than expected,

The Velar SVAD needed to be good to compete with a whole bunch of sexy rivals meaning that this new, slicker version was never in doubt.

By far the most modern-looking model in the Range Rover stable, the Velar SVAD needed to be good to compete with a whole bunch of sexy rivals, including the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio and the Porsche Macan Turbo.

It also faced stiff in-house competition from the big daddy of the Range Rover family – the full-sized SVAD. The price difference is vast but the Velar is so good that you wonder how it can possibly cost almost £60,000 less than its brawnier brother.

Let’s start with the name. Land Rover started work on a luxury off-road vehicle in the 1960s. The prototype was called Velar, from the Latin verb meaning to hide – a crucial factor for the Solihull company in the early design stages of such an important new vehicle.

That prototype was to become the Range Rover – the world’s first luxury SUV, launched in 1970. It was one of the few vehicles to deliver permanent four-wheel drive and became so famous that it was even displayed the Louvre in Paris.

The Range Rover has evolved into a design icon. Built with Land Rover’s trademark ‘go-anywhere’ ability, the new Velar

SVAD is the latest model in a stellar line-up that includes the Evoque, Sport and original Range Rover.

Created by JLR’s Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) department, the Velar SVAD is not only seriously quick, it is incredibly luxurious. The design team has managed to retain the comfort of less sporty models, despite beefing up the performance.

Sumptuous quilted-leather seats and quality trim adorn the cabin, noise levels are low and the dual-screen dash is a joy to use. Rear leg and head room are compromised in the Velar compared to a full-sized Range Rover, but you can still squeeze five adults in at a push.

The SVAD feels reassuringly solid and robust to drive.

It’s light around town but the steering stiffens up at speed, keeping the high-sided body very stable.

And it’s that remarkable V8 engine that dominates the driving experience. Mated to JLR’s sublime eight-speed, automatic gearbox, the all-wheel drive Velar just needs a tweak of the right foot to fire into life.

It’s not as outrageously noisy as the new Maserati Levante Trofeo, for example, but the drama is there for all to feel.

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R A N G E R OV E R V E L A R SVAU TO B I O G R A P H Y DY N A M I C PRICE: From £86,685 ENGINE: 5000cc V8 supercharged TOP SPEED: 176mph POWER: 542bhp 0-60MPH: 4.3 seconds

R A N G E R OV E R SVAU TO B I O G R A P H Y DY N A M I C PRICE: £144,225 ENGINE: 5000cc V8 supercharged TOP SPEED: 155mph POWER: 565bhp 0-60MPH: 5.1 seconds

RANGE ROVER SVAUTOBIOGRAPHY DYNAMIC

Anyone who has driven an SUV with an active exhaust system will know all that audible nonsense can become tiring after a while.

Yes, the SVAD is thirsty and the over-aggressive styling might turn some people off, but the modern-day trend for low-slung SUVs means it steals a march on its taller big brother, the Range Rover SVAD. It handles better and there’s less body roll in the corners.

If you still feel the need for a ‘proper’, full-sized Range Rover, then the SVAD version of that vehicle is another remarkable machine. The current fourth generation model has been around for seven years and still looks the business. Built around an aluminium monocoque frame, it remains one of the most luxurious cars on the road.

Its unmistakable styling ensures Range Rover’s iconic status – a 4x4 that is instantly recognisable anywhere in the world.

Even the entry-level 3.0-litre turbodiesel model is a class act at a shade more than £80,000. So what has the SVO team done to make the SVAD version worth the extra £65,000?

The flagship of the entire Range Rover model range is handcrafted and available in both short and long wheelbase versions. The rear seat configuration is more luxurious and offers dual, adjustable armchair-style seats with a large centre console in the middle. This houses a cool box big enough for a bottle and a couple of aluminium tray tables.

A lot of the tweaks are less obvious, like adaptive bi-xenon headlights, assorted Land Rover safety features and acoustic windows all-round. It’s whisper quiet until you start playing with the 825w Meridian sound system.

A lot of the switchgear is made from aluminium, while the leather seats are second to none. Compared to the Velar it’s positively palatial inside – and the boot’s massive.

But the real reason to own the Range Rover SVAD is to drive it. Sitting in the back might a be first class travel experience – but getting to grips with that V8 engine is an unforgettable pleasure.

It’s not as fast as the Velar SVAD but you will wonder how a car this large can perform this well. There’s a distant rumble from the quad exhaust system when the Range Rover opens up but it’s all effortless and easy – there’s that much power.

The new Bentley Bentayga Speed is equally special but it’s also more expensive and has yet to achieve the go-anywhere status of a Range Rover. It’s also not as pretty – remarkable considering this Range Rover has been around since 2012.

Ultimately, it will come down to the depth of your pockets, but when it comes to performance SUVs, for the moment at least, the Bentayga Speed and Velar SVAD exist in a class of two.

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What the Velar SVAD has to beat…

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A wonderful 503bhp V8 engine ensures this SUV is both dramatic and entertaining. It feels heavy, however, and the styling is not to everyone’s taste. mercedes-benz.co.uk

Another V8 that sounds glorious and is subtler inside than some carbon-clad rivals. Terrific fun and almost a bargain among its high-priced peers. jaguar.co.uk

The new, Ferrari-built V8 model gives the Maserati the performance it has been missing. It also has tons more character than a Porsche Cayenne. maserati.com

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I IN THE FA S T L A N E TA K I N G P L A C E O N T H E W E S T S U S S E X G R O U N D S O F G O O D W O O D H O U S E , T H E F E S T I VA L O F S P E E D PRESENTED BY MASTERCARD IS MORE THAN A C E L E B R AT I O N F O R P E T R O L H E A D S , I T I S O N E OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BRITISH SUMMER SOCIAL CALENDAR

t’s hard to say what exactly the Goodwood Festival of Speed has morphed into since its conception in 1993. Some will make the journey purely for the dopamine-fuelled Goodwood hillclimb, as drivers battle it out on ‘Shootout Sunday’ to beat the course record of 39.9 seconds, which an electric Volkswagen ID. R almost took in 2019. For others, it is an opportunity to roam the immaculate grounds in West Sussex, culminating in a huge garden party that attracts stars and motoring legends from across the world. If you thought the smell of English roses and burnt rubber made an unlikely coupling, you’re forgetting this is a festival founded by the Duke of Richmond, a man who converted his kitchen to make more room for his car collection.

After the successful theme of last year’s festival, Speed Kings - Motorsport’s Record Breakers, 2020 is about ‘The Maestros – Motorsport’s Great All-Rounders.’ The first Maestro to confirm his attendance is six-time Le Mans winner, Dakar champion and eight-time Formula One race winner Jacky Ickx.

“The heyday of the Goodwood Motor Circuit coincided with a time when some astonishing talent could be seen winning in different cars from one week to the next or even during the same race meeting,” says the Duke of Richmond. “It is this level of artistry that we will be paying tribute to.” Don’t be surprised if you find yourself rubbing shoulders with Jenson Button or Sir Jackie Stewart – they are both Festival of Speed regulars.

The four-day event is a mecca of some of the world’s rarest machines. From Maranello to Crewe, four wheels to two, petrol to jet fuel, the breadth of vehicles on show will satisfy even the most ardent of car collectors. Show highlights include the Cartier Style et Luxe, a concours d’elegance to see and be seen at; the Michelin Supercar Paddock, which features some of the most advanced cars in the world; and the FOS Future Lab, a pioneering hub where a wealth of inspiring activities will be hosted by engineers, scientists and inventors. See you at the start line.

9-12 July, Festival of Speed, Goodwood, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 0PX. Tickets and hospitality available at goodwood.com

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CA P

CA NA | DOMINIC A N

R E PU B LIC

AN ALL-INCLUSIVE EXPERIENCE by HYATT

+1.682.606.8342 | RESORTSBYHYATT.COM Hyatt Zilara ™ and Hyatt Ziva ™ trademarks and related marks are trademarks of Hyatt Corporation. ©2020 Hyatt Corporation. ©2020 Playa Hotels & Resorts is the owner and exclusive operator of Hyatt Zilara ™ and Hyatt Ziva ™ resorts in Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Mexico. All rights reserved.

ESCAPE TO STRIVE, TO SEEK, TO FIND...

P.114 MONKEY AROUND The best bedroom to book at Monkey Island Estate

P.116 ISLAND TIME Stopping the clocks on holiday in Mauritius

P.126 CUBAN LINK How Havana’s heritage has borne a city like no other

As James Bond returns to the spotlight this April, so too do the locations 007 has visited. Originally owned by Ian Fleming, GoldenEye in Jamaica is topping the list of must-visit spots for secret agent fanatics (p.110)

The Rosewood’s return to the BVIs

ROSEWOOD, LITTLE DIX BAY

Caribbean icon Little Dix Bay is back in action, three years after suffering serious damage at the hands of Hurricane Irma. New features at the private resort include an informal butler service which starts when you book your trip, an on-site sustainable farm that supplies the kitchen, a single-use plastic ban and a midcenturyinspired revamp by Meyer Davis (the design team behind 1 Hotel’s first West Coast outpost last year). But regulars to the private bay won’t be put out – the house cocktail, a Pelican Smash, hasn’t changed since 1964, and neither has original owner Laurance Rockefeller’s conservational approach.

From approx. £1,500 per night, rosewoodhotels.com

NEWS & VIEWS JAMES BOND-INSPIRED JOURNEYS, H O R O S C O P E - F R I E N D LY H O L I D AY S & W H Y WA R S AW I S O N E O F E U R O P E ’ S T O P D E S T I N AT I O N S

Words: Anna Prendergast

2020’S TOP NEW FLIGHT PATHS MAY: LHR to Dalaman, Turkey Curve Bodrum’s crowds at this summer’s must-visit spot on the Turkish Riviera JUNE: LHR to Portland, USA Catch a game at Providence Park followed by artisanal cocktails at Tulip Shop Tavern JULY: LCY to San Sebastián Blag your way into September’s film festival, and stock up on world-class ingredients

The cult souvenir

(that you’ll actually want to take home)

HARRIET PARRY’S INTERPRETATION OF A STILL FROM HOTEL CHEVALIER (2007)

Flora and fauna permeated interiors trends last year with biophilic walls and tropical wallpaper, and while hotels have always commissioned bespoke bunches, there’s a new handful of creatives disrupting the scene with experimental masterpieces. Stylist and florist Harriet Parry, famous for installations that mimic film stills and artworks, was invited by London’s hot new hotel The Standard to transform their lobby with one of her stunning interpretations, and The Dorchester has launched an eponymous rose in partnership with in-house florist Philip Hammond and grower Meijer Roses. It’s about much more than just creating ’grammable backdrops – these bespoke bouquets allow even the most urban spaces to invite in the wilderness. harrietparryflowers.com; thedorchester.com

SEXTANTIO LE GROTTE DELLA CIVITA, MATERA

007 WAYS

TO SEE THE WORLD April is set to be packed with high-octane events and adrenaline-rush adventures with the release of No Time to Die on the 2nd. As always, the Bond effect will burrow deep into the public’s psyche, and we predict a spike in sales for the Omega Seamaster watch and the navy N.Peal sweater that Daniel Craig wears throughout. It’s not all about his clothes though: it’s where he wears them, too. The dramatic landscapes of the Faroe Islands were a key shooting location: celeb-spot at Hotel Føroyar or check into the islands’ only boutique, Hotel Havgrím on Tórshavn, where the crew were seen filming. We can’t wait to see the scenes set in Matera, too, with its enchanting ‘sassi’ (stone) and labyrinthine caves – which you can actually stay in, at the subterranean Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita. Take a drive (in an Aston, obvs) to Gravina’s aqueduct, which Craig throws himself off in the trailer holding nothing but GOLDENEYE, JAMAICA

JAMAICA INN, JAMAICA

a rope and, fittingly, wearing Italian tailoring (Massimo Alba, to be precise). Further afield, Ian Fleming’s friends at the familyowned Jamaica Inn have launched outdoor screenings of the film, cocktail classes and tours of the island (which has been used in several Bond films) to celebrate their relationship with the author. While you’re there, tack on a few extra nights at the iconic beachside GoldenEye, where 2020’s Bond is thought to be retiring, no doubt with martini in hand. hotelforoyar.fo; hotelhavgrim.fo; sextantio.it; jamaicainn.com; goldeneye.com

LONDON’S

TOP 3

NEW OPENINGS

RUBY LUCY A carnival-inspired space with an unbeatable party scene, an in-house radio station and a bar that’s open 24/7. ruby-hotels.com

G R E AT S C O T L A N D YA R D Colonial interiors and criminally cool curiosities hark back to the building’s previous incarnation as the home of the Met police. hyatt.com

N O B U LO N D O N A power move by the brand, which has been long-awaited in the capital for its immaculate hospitality and, naturally, standard-setting sushi. nobuhotels.com

WHAT TO PACK

NOBU, WARSAW

EASTERN standard Big-league hotel names are jostling for prime real estate in eastern Europe, bringing their highly trusted, reliable brands of quality and comfort to the less-commonly visited corners of the continent, made all the more accessible with new flight paths from London. Last year, Radisson Blu opened in Latvia’s capital Riga, with a conference centre designed to accommodate large-scale corporate events plus pet-friendly bedrooms worth booking for the city

The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts sensitively unravels the history of the region through its music and its makers. £16.99, waterstones.com

views alone (spot Gothic spires, Art Deco architecture and the River Daugava from your room). In Poland, Warsaw welcomes Nobu to super-central Wilcza Street this June, in a flurry of new of new openings across the globe including London

Morrama specialises in product design, and this wet-shave razor provides clean, controlled grooming with zero plastic waste.

£85, mrporter.com

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MOXY HOTEL, WARSAW

Tom Ford’s latest fragrance drop, Beau de Jour, blends lavender and leatherlike oakmoss with rosemary and basil for a fresh but sexy scent. £83, tomford.com

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CASTEL MIMI, MOLDOVA

It’s in the stars (see left), Tel Aviv and Toronto. Younger crowds will flock to the creative district of Praga, where a new Moxy set in a former vodka factory has boosted the boutique scene. Design plays on the building’s industrial history, with playful touches such as corded telephones and neon light installations. In Moldova, the country’s largest architectural restoration has seen Castel Mimi’s Versailles-style chateau and grounds become a destination in its own right. Up until now, the winery only provided on-site accommodation in the form of seven private lodges, but this year 20 hotel rooms will open alongside a vinotherapie-style spa.

Further south in Romania, fans of the Corinthia won’t be disappointed by the majestic grandeur of the new location in Bucharest’s Old Town, opening in 2021 after careful restoration of the historical building. radissonhotels.com; nobuhotels.com; moxy-hotels.marriott.com; castelmimi.md; corinthia.com; hotelbristol.sk

FLIGHT CLUB This April, a new flight route from Stansted to Slovakia’s ‘second city’ Košice will draw visitors away from Bratislava (book into the business apartment in Bristol Hotel) and between June and September, British Airways will resume its direct flight from Heathrow to Ljubljana in Slovenia. ryanair.com; hotelbristol.sk; britishairways.com

CASTEL MIMI, MOLDOVA

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You don’t need a crystal ball to predict big things for zodiac travel: since last summer, hoteliers have been consulting the occult for new ways to give guests a unique experience, and travellers have sought out itineraries designed to meet the individual needs of their star sign. Last October, Melissa Madara became the tarot-toting ‘witch in residence’ at New York’s James Hotel, and W Hotels collaborated with new-age lifestyle platform The Numinous founder Ruby Warrington to design trips personalised according to zodiac signs. Astrologer Susan Miller did private astrology readings at Daios Cove in Crete, and this year will take up residencies at The St Regis in Aspen and Raffles in the Maldives, as well as hosting a spiritual conference on board an Alaskan cruise with Divine Travels. Book into the ‘Spiritual Journey’ package at Amankora in Bhutan and receive an astrology reading, or head to Miami, where The Standard’s in-house astrologer and acupuncturist Lori Bell offers horoscopes and healing. jameshotels.com; w-hotels.marriott.com; daioscovecrete.com; marriott.co.uk; raffles.com; aman.com; standardhotels.com

A W E E K E N D AWAY

MONKEY ISLAND E S TAT E A P R I VAT E I S L A N D L E S S T H A N A N H O U R F R O M L O N D O N P R O V I D E S O N E O F T H E M O S T J AW - D R O P P I N G B E D R O O M S W E ’ V E E V E R S E T E Y E S O N

Words: Anna Prendergast

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very time I return to my suite at Monkey Island Estate, there’s another surprise in store. Glossy strawberries dipped in chocolate; freshly-baked muffins with an apricot compôte centre; lavender spray on my pillow. At arrival, there’s an ice bucket and instructions on how to create the house cocktail – a ginbased infusion of lavender, jasmine tea, lemon and cardamom. I soon find myself looking for excuses to leave in order to return again, but a combination of being both weighed down by such treats and smitten with

my quarters make it a challenge.

The Wedgewood Suite is unquestionably the icing on the cake – almost literally, as the Wedgwood jasperware after which its intricate ivory plasterwork is named and modelled looks like icing sugar or marzipan, sculpted into mermaids, seashells and mythical creatures. Sure, the design team at Champalimaud studio also created 40 river-view bedrooms, but they’re not generous in size and their pristine design (black lacquered surfaces, pleather chairs) jars with the history of the place.

‘Nothing makes sense or fits

together,’ admitted Andrew Jordan, executive vice president of YTL Hotels.

‘But once you’re halfway across the footbridge – you just get it.’ YTL is the parent company of the estate, a fishshaped island on the Thames, built on rubble from the Great Fire of London and acquired by Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough, in 1923. Augustinian monks, monarchs, aristocrats and artists (roughly in that order) have taken up residence in the estate since the 16th century, and Jordan is right – they’ve all stitched their history into the island, now a patchwork of architecture, design and art. It’s after

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the art that the island gets its name – despite it’s roster of fine residents, monkeys were never one of them: they simply skip across the ceiling of the Monkey Bar, in a painstakingly-restored singerie scene by French artist Andieu de Clermont (right).

When Spencer bought the property, Palladian architect Robert Morri created two new buildings, now the Grade I-listed Temple and Pavilion.

There are also a handful of private cottages, which come with the use of a Mini and the option of a private chef, perfect for families dropping anchor at one of the two moorings the hotel offers. Bar one bedroom that accommodates a cot, the hotel itself is virtually adults-only – a relief when you find yourself blissfully comatose from a massage in the Floating Spa and don’t want your sense of inner peace ruined by tears and tantrums. The spa itself is a cobalt-blue barge on the water, which rocks soothingly when other boats pass. With three treatment rooms and giant carboys of ‘monks elixir’ in the cabin, it’s a truly unique space for decompressing. It closes once a year for maintenance, so check before you book.

HOW TO GET HERE The fast train from Paddington to Maidenhead takes 15 minutes W H AT T O B R I N G Your own toiletries – the hotel hasn’t tackled single-use plastic quite yet W H AT T O W E A R Cashmere roll-necks and Ralph Lauren blazers

Bray, nearby, is renowned for its cuisine, with seven Michelin stars and chefs like Heston Blumenthal cooking the village into the country’s collective foodie consciousness. Monkey Island’s kitchen was originally headed up by Will Hemming (of Simpson’s at the Strand), followed by Alex Tyndall (of Chapters in Blackheath). But the idea was never to compete with their neighbours – the restaurant here is an informal brasserie serving good wine and decent food including a catch of the day in quantities so satisfying I felt the need to loosen my shoelaces after two courses.

Back in my bedroom of dreams and demigods, I find a pear with its stem tipped in red wax, just like those in France, where Passe Crassane pears ripen after they’ve been picked and the wax seals in the water to

WHERE TO GO Make reservations at The Fat Duck (it’s closed Mondays and Sundays), and explore the medieval-esque village of Bray on foot

stop them going bad. The room is dark – two bedside lamps glow in the corners of the room, but after nightfall, it’s a drowsy kind of light, and I’m reminded of a lovely line in Yann Martel’s Beatrice & Virgil. ‘Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.’

Perhaps that’s why there’s a pear in every bedroom – it’s just another way in which you’re taken care of on this island of magic and monkeys.

Doubles from £275; monkeyislandestate.com

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ONE&ONLY’S LE ST GÉRAN

ABOVE AND BEYOND ENCHANTING VIEWS, SOFT WHITE BEACHES AND A TRUE GRASP OF ALL THINGS LUXURY MAKE MAURITIUS THE MOST M A G I C A L S P O T F O R A R O M A N T I C G E TAWAY

Words: Elle Blakeman

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here to go on honeymoon must be the height of first-world problems; up there with ‘Where do I buy a second house?’ or ‘Do I need another Tom Ford suit?’ With a bafflingly devil-may-care attitude to finance – what difference will it make after spending twice the mortgage on a wedding cake and some lace? – the world opens up. But these limitless possibilities are as exhausting as they are fabulous.

Asking everyone you meet is a big mistake. ‘You must go to the Maldives.’ ‘Whatever you do, don’t go to the Maldives.’

‘Have you thought about the Maldives, maybe?’ Sigh.

So you make a list. You dismiss the Maldives: too clichéd, too small, too great a chance of killing new spouse before the fortnight is up. Middle East: too hot. Seychelles: too expensive. Safari: too Harry and Meghan.

Essentially we are looking for an unashamedly lazy, longhaul getaway, untroubled by malaria, Zika or minor royals. A quick Google confirms Mauritius ticks every box. The weather is pretty much year-round perfect: tick. It’s packed with palm trees and soft white beaches: tick. There’s opportunity for a bit of adventure: tick. The food is brilliant, it’s safe and there’s no jet lag: tick, tick, tick. It’s also pleasingly long-haul (balls to Europe, we can do that whenever) and easyJet don’t fly there. Mauritius it is.

Going straight in at the top, we head for One&Only’s Le St Géran resort. Built in 1975, and recently refurbished from top to bottom, it was the island’s first luxury hotel.

As such, it nabbed the prime spot: a white-sand peninsula, surrounded by 60 acres of gardens and palm trees, looking out on an azure lagoon with the open sea beyond.

A gong announces our arrival and we are greeted as if the staff have excitedly awaited us all day. The light is dying but, even so, the entrance – a bleached-wood runway from the pristine beach – is spectacular.

Our luggage disappears like smoke and we are eased into large, cushioned chairs. An itinerary is laid out before us: lagoon trips and spa treatments and beach yoga. We should have done this honeymoon lark years ago.

An hour later we are sipping champagne in the hotel’s Bohemian Chic Tipi – an idyllic dinner-on-the-beach experience – and chatting to Dev, a divine waiter who has been at the hotel since it opened. Many of the staff have stayed the course, which is why the service is repeatedly praised by all who come here.

After a few hours, the fire, gently lapping ocean and mountain of rock lobster – not to mention the 14-hourjourney – get to us. We are carted back to our room to collapse into a bed bigger than our top floor in London.

We don’t wake for 13 solid hours.

With more than a mile of beach wrapping itself around the resort, you are never crowded or overlooked. If hell is other people, this is heaven

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The next day we have time to soak it all in. The bedroom is light and spacious – soft teals and teaks – with an elegant balcony overlooking the sea. The walk-in wardrobe has space for the most zealous of over-packers while the bathroom boasts a huge wet-room stuffed with delicious Abahna products and an egg-shaped bath big enough to swim in.

Breakfast is an indulgent affair, as anyone familiar with the One&Only brand will know. Tables groan beneath the weight of fresh fruits and homemade pastries, cakes and pancakes.

And sushi, of course.

Le St Géran itself could not be more perfectly appointed.

Apparently, the original owners took a helicopter across the island before selecting an optimum position for the hotel.

Strolling around, you see their thinking. With more than a mile of beach wrapping itself around the resort, you are never crowded or overlooked. If hell is other people, this really is heaven.

A water sports centre offers facilities for paddleboarding, water-skiing, jet-skiing and windsurfing across the aquamarine lagoon. Outdoor showers lurk discreetly beneath palm trees; pools boast four-poster beds with ‘Do not disturb’ flags.

There’s a seriously kitted-out fitness centre (we join a brutal CrossFit class), three floodlit tennis courts, a battalion of mountain bikes and a full mini-golf course.

The resort’s spa seems loosely modelled on what people imagine the afterlife to look like: swathes of white veils blow around whitewashed walls, candles flicker gently, water flows gently in the background. I wouldn’t have been entirely surprised to find a choir in the corner. Biologique Recherche and Espa products peep from white coves. A couple’s massage is good enough to send us into a coma, before we collapse by the infinity pool.

We become lunchtime regulars at La Pointe: an elegant, pool-side, feet-in-the-sand restaurant, where the catch of the day or a delicious Mauritian salad (crunchy, cooling, cucumber-based) is a perfect accompaniment to a chilled glass of rosé. There is a chic little Parisian-style café serving delicious cakes and macaroons if you can cram another snack into a packed eating schedule. (Unless you’re the type to go easy on a buffet breakfast, in which case I salute you with the hand that isn’t piling croissants on a plate).

Evenings are spent skipping between Prime, a steakhouse, the more relaxed La Terrasse, offering a buffet of every cuisine imaginable (again, you need self-control for this one) and the atmospheric Tapasake, on stilts over the water.

Post-dinner, guests are encouraged to relax in the bar, soundtracked by an enthusiastic albeit slightly cheesy band playing eighties and nineties classics that you can’t help but secretly enjoy. On the last night we return to a hot bath full of rose petals (how did they know when we’d be back?) and spend the remainder of the evening on the balcony, wondering how long we have to wait before we can legitimately return here for a ‘second honeymoon’.

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Leaving the St Géran is made substantially easier by not actually going very far. We jump in a cab and travel for 90 minutes to the top of the coast. There, on a wide, secluded cove beside a quiet fishing village, stands Lux Grand Gaube – a five-star resort of an entirely different kind.

Redesigned by Kelly Hoppen MBE, the hotel makes quite the impression on us not-so-weary travellers. A wide, breezy, arched entrance punctuates a long, winding driveway. To one side is a retro-chic palm court, complete with high-backed rattan chairs straight from a 1980s wedding, sequined pillars, and plants in wicker baskets hanging from the ceiling. To the other side is a beach, dotted with picture-perfect thatched parasols and red-and-white bean bags. It’s less grande dame, more ingénue, with a touch of Ibiza-esque glam.

The resort itself comprises low-rise, bougainvillea-clad villas, built around two bays. Bay one is a quiet, adultsonly section, with a pool, restaurant and bar under a giant banyan tree. Bay two is buzzy, with water sports, more restaurants and a gin bar.

Rooms walk the line between trend-led and traditional.

Local linens, bleached wood beds and elegant naval shades combine with sliding doors, bold geometric tiles and oversized, freestanding baths. Patios with armchairs offer the perfect place to relax in the unlikely event that it all gets too much.

Throughout the resort, quirky touches compete to offer the perfect Instagram shot. Inflatable pink flamingos pop out of the lagoon. Hammocks sway gently between palm trees. A scarlet phone box invites guests to ‘phone home’. An ice-cream truck – proffering homemade gelatos and a bright

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turtle reserve and even master the art of opening a bottle with a sabre. There are also professional tennis courts and coaches for those looking to polish up their game.

One place we return to more than is decent is Bodrum Blue. This fabulous Turkish restaurant offers a brilliant menu (spicy Levantine mezzes, slow-cooked lamb and sticky baklava), an excellent local wine list and the best views over the miles of lagoon.

There are no fewer than 14 restaurants at the Grand Gaube, but the Peruvian-Argentinian Inti deserves a standing ovation: a theatrical ceviche and pisco bar, a menu bursting with ridiculously fresh seafood, punchy tacos, a fantastic wine list and the best steak in the Indian Ocean. We eat until we run out of menu, then head to the tropical garden, lagoon lit up in the background, for a final pisco sour. At night, things

beachside mural by French artist Camille Walala – provides a graphic backdrop to the beach bar. Cheerful, handwritten signs abound.

On arrival we order a latte at Café Lux, Grand Gaube’s answer to Starbucks, and take in the view over the glistening cove. Fishing boats bob in the water. I quickly suss out that the spa – 11 treatment rooms, three pools of varying temperatures, a glorious hammam – is the hotel’s pièce de résistance, and vow to spend as much time there as humanly possible.

Activities, for those who ‘don’t do lounging around’ (note: I am not such a person), are plentiful: twice-daily boat trips to snorkel in the clear Indian Ocean, film screenings, paddleboarding, kayaking, water-skiing. You can take photography classes around the resort, ride a bike to a giant

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NEED TO KNOW Tropical Sky Holidays offers a range of luxury holidays across the Indian Ocean, including Mauritius, from £1,079 per person including flights and transfers, 001342 886941, tropicalsky.co.uk; Double rooms

at the One and Only Le St Géran start at £382 in low season, including breakfast, oneandonlyresorts.com; Double rooms at LUX* Grand Gaube start at £130, and at LUX* Le Morne at £157 per night on a room only basis, luxresorts.com

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At Lux Le Morne we are promised a heady cocktail of epic sunsets and swim-up bars get rousingly rowdy in the palm court, with live bands adding a dash of disco.

Our final stop is the Le Morne peninsula at the southwestern tip of the island. There we are promised a heady cocktail of epic sunsets and swim-up bars. Lux Le Morne is part of the same group as the Grand Gaube but is an entirely different proposition to its northern counterpart.

The Gaube is glittering and fabulous. Le Morne is rustic, relaxed and utterly enchanting. Wooden, Balinese-style apartments crescent around powdery white beaches, and the rooms are simple yet comfortable. Coming here feels like kicking off high heels after a night of partying.

The magnificent Le Morne Brabant presides over the area. Awarded Unesco World Heritage status, the mountain provides shelter from high winds that make the seas below excellent for surfing.

A sense of calm pervades the region and the resort is the most relaxed we’ve seen. Yet we find ourselves lured by the activities on offer. I sign up for sunrise yoga on the beach and paddleboard most afternoons. Near the resort are some of the best snorkelling and diving spots in Mauritius and we take boat trips to reefs populated by incredible arrays of creatures in all shapes and colours.

After a long battle, Le Morne Brabant has been opened to the public. We seize the opportunity. At 3.5km, the trail is long and has sharp inclines (divorce might have been mentioned) but the three-plus hours of uphill are made more than worth it by the spectacular views over the endless blue below.

As we hike, our guide explains the significance of the mountain to Mauritius. A symbol of freedom, it provided shelter for runaway slaves before the British passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. Many are said to have climbed to its 555m peak and jumped, rather than return to the horrors that awaited them below. If you make it to the top, you will see a cross honouring those who chose the ‘kiss of death’. It’s an extraordinary place.

Another bucket-list ticker is the opportunity to swim with wild dolphins; an incredible experience made all the more so by the resort’s determination to keep from disturbing them. Each day, a couple of local boats take a handful of guests to where dolphins often swim. We jump in the water and delight as at least 50 bottlenoses and spinners pass effortlessly around us, paying us no heed whatsoever. It’s nothing short of magical.

When it’s time to relax, Lux Le Morne has no fewer than five large infinity pools. All are surrounded by palm trees and tropical flowerbeds. Hammocks in the lagoon are slowly filled by afternoon tides. The beach restaurant serves a delicious mix of Creole and Thai-inspired dishes, and long lunches blend into balmy early evenings.

On the final night we watch a fire-red sunset slowly dip behind the lagoon, then enjoy dinner at the award-winning, candlelit Thai restaurant East. Afterwards, on the way back to our room, we pass the Tree of Wishes and sit on a swinging bench beneath the dreams of guests of days gone by. What’s the rule on wishing for more wishes again…?

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WHERE MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT SAY “AHHHH” Feed your soul with an enriching experience on our serene island within the Shaviyani Atoll. Relax in one of 60 luxurious villas, each with their own private pool, plush bedding and lavish spaces. Tantalise your tastebuds with 5 restaurants set overwater or within the treetops, 3 unique bars and a wine room.

Indulge at the Spa by JW or recentre yourself with a yoga or meditation class while the kids stay active at the Little Griffin’s Kid’s Club. Embrace the authentic and warm Maldivian culture whilst you become fully present, nourished and reconnected.

JW Marriott Maldives Resort & Spa jwmarriottmaldives.com

RENOVATED AND COLOURFUL BUILDINGS ON PASEO DEL PRADO, ©AGATHA KADAR/ SHUTTERSTOCK

OUR MAN IN HAVANA D E S P I T E M O R E T H A N H A L F -A- C E N T U R Y O F A M E R I C A N AT T E M P T S T O C H A N G E T H E W AY O F L I F E I N T H E C O U N T R Y, C U B A ’ S CONTINUED COMMITMENT TO SETTING ITS OWN ECONOMIC AG E N DA H A S C R E AT E D A C A P I TA L C I T Y L I K E N O O T H E R

Words: Rob Crossan

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n hour after dusk in Old Havana and stray dogs, shuttered doors, dim streetlights and battered, 50-year-old Fords make for an atmosphere that’s rich, sticky and mysterious.

Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene both chose to set books here, but you wouldn’t need even a fraction of those authors’ talent to imagine your own a compelling Havana-based narrative. For Cuba is just as much an idea as it is a country, with plotlines that seem to constantly evolve, conflate and twist without ever really changing the overall story for many of its inhabitants – or even making sense.

I pad along the cracked asphalt, beside Baroque Spanish mansion blocks with crumbling paintwork that is falling away in flakes like stale confetti. I turn endless corners in narrow alleyways of the San Isidro neighbourhood, telegraph wires sagging above me.

The bronchial cough of a struggling refuse cart, blocks away, is the only sound. Then I see it: a warm, amber glow emerging from a building on the right hand-side of the long street ahead.

Moving closer I see vivid turquoise, purple and yellow abstract murals on the walls. The glow is from a small bar and, stepping inside, I find an arched room with terracotta-coloured floor tiles, ancient metal chairs and drinks coasters made out of old vinyl seven-inch singles This is Jibaro, one of a growing number of privately-owned bars which, thanks to the ruling party relaxing restrictions on private businesses, can now compete with the (often lacklustre) state-owned bars.

The owners, Diana and David Figueroa, do not have the usual barkeeper’s backstory. She’s a nuclear engineer. He’s an economist and university lecturer.

They are the beneficiaries of Cuba’s world-class (and entirely free) public education system, and are now dealing with life in an island nation where the official average monthly salary is around £25.

“Running a bar isn’t an easy thing to do in Cuba,” Diana admits, as she mixes a tamarind and passion fruit gimlet for a customer. “The American tourism ban over the last couple of years has had a big impact. That’s on top of there being no wholesalers in Cuba to buy ingredients. Changes are happening – but it’s baby steps.”

The bruised and battered mid-1950s Chevrolets and Buicks, the almost total lack of Wi-Fi, not to mention the almost daily shortages of basics such as milk and chicken are all, to a greater or lesser extent, a consequence of the trade restrictions the

This is an island with world-famous icons yet an intensely localised soul

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OPPOSITE PAGE OLD HAVANA, ©OKSANA PH/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM; THIS PAGE WOMAN SMOKING A CUBAN CIGAR, ©KAMIRA/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

US has placed on Cuba since the revolution of 1959, which put Fidel Castro in power.

Under Barack Obama’s presidency, the famously archaic visa restrictions for Americans wishing to visit Cuba were relaxed. US cruise ships docked in the island’s ports and American visitors flocked to explore a nation that, in so many ways, remains rooted in the era of Eisenhower, complete with flannel trousers and diesel fumes.

President Trump changed all that, rescinding the partial détente and effectively shutting the doors again for US visitors. This has seriously dented the island’s tourist economy and left Cuba reliant on visitors from Canada, Mexico and, increasingly, Europe, with direct KLM flights to the city available from Amsterdam.

“The system is too strong to fail, yet too screwed up to be fixed,” one young Habanero, who is sipping from a bottle of Palma Cristal beer at the bar, says to me. “We adapt, we survive. Things are different here but we’re not living in a prison – that’s what so many visitors don’t understand.”

As I discover, this is an island with world-famous icons yet an intensely localised soul.

Old Havana, home to Jibaro, is possibly the most atmospheric neighbourhood in which to get lost, but young Habaneros favour Vedado. This deceptively calm area features aging mansions alongside some of the city’s liveliest nightclubs and Fábrica de Arte Cubano, an old cooking-oil factory turned into an arts complex and home to the

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too much to romantic visions of Che Guevara in his beret, salsa, cigars and socialist utopias.

For the vast majority of Cubans, life is, if not a struggle, then certainly lacking in much beyond the basic tools needed for survival. Yet there’s a remarkable lucidity and pragmatism to this country and its inhabitants.

Even when I heard complaints about shortages, wages or visa issues, nobody had retreated into outright cynicism. So what makes Cuba so continually beguiling? It’s not just the sunshine. It’s not just the cocktails. And it’s not just the sense of community, shaped by the country’s unique cultural politics, and more apparent here than perhaps anywhere else in the western hemisphere.

Perhaps it’s that same promise of mystery I felt when I walked around Old Havana. Something ineffable has contributed to Cuba and its way of life, which has survived the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the USSR, the digital revolution and more than half a century of American attempts to undermine it.

Whatever it is – from the sounds of a guitar being strummed on an upstairs balcony and a broom being swept across a tiled courtyard, to the splash of rum being poured into old, worn tumblers and the aromas of cigar smoke, banyan trees and exhaust fumes – there’s something in the Havana air that seems to defy the modern rationales of efficiency and speed.

It’s easy to say Havana is frozen in time. It’s not. It’s simply that the way the clock ticks forward here is so slow, and so soft, it can seem as though you’re almost floating, cigar in one hand, mojito in the other.

There’s something in the Havana air that seems to defy the modern rationales of efficiency and speed terrific El Cocinero restaurant. The rooftop eatery serves lobster, swordfish, tacos and daiquiris to a sophisticated crowd.

From Vedado, I stroll along the Malecón seafront promenade, also known as the ‘world’s longest sofa’, where everyone comes out to see and be seen as the spume crashes against the sea wall.

Overlooking all this is the Christ of Havana, a 20m statue hewn from Carrara marble that appears to depict Jesus with his hands perfectly positioned to hold a mojito and a legendary native cigar.

Catholicism was introduced in Cuba by the Spanish in the 16th century and is one anchor of life here. Another is, of course, a resistance to capitalism.

The Museo de la Revolución (Museum of the Revolution), housed in the old presidential palace, still has bullet holes from the armed uprising of 1959 and dusty glass cases documenting Fidel Castro’s triumphs, from his days as a guerrilla leader to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and beyond.

While Cuba’s stubborn survival against the desires of its vastly more powerful neighbour – located just 90 miles away across the Straits of Florida – is impressive, I leave Havana feeling it important not to fall prey

Rob was a guest of Havana Club Rum. For details on their range of Cuban rums plus their new ‘1519’ rum visit havana-club.com

HIGH LIFE Arrive in (understated) style by flying KLM business class, where superlative food – such as pan-fried cod with Dutch prawns, herb potatoes and broad beans in a mussel gravy – noisecancelling headphones, immense pillows, vast blankets and lie-flat seats come as standard.

OPPOSITE PAGE THE NATIONAL CAPITOL BUILDING IN HAVANA, ©ALEX AZABACHE/ SHUTTERSTOCK.COM; THIS PAGE MUSICIANS IN OLD HAVANA, ©EVIJAF SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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KLM flies from London Heathrow to Havana via Amsterdam with business class return fares from £1,825, klm.com

The

GREAT BIG 2020 SALE *

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P R O P E R T Y T H E F I N E S T H O M E S I N T H E C A P I TA L

TOP TIPS An expert’s guide to short-letting your home

P.140 STREETS AHEAD The best homes hitting the market this month

The first Linleydesigned apartments have been unveiled at 1 Queen Anne’s Gate (p.134)

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D AV I D L I N L E Y U N V E I L S T H E F I R S T L I N L E Y A PA R T M E N T S C H E M E AT 1 Q U E E N A N N E ’ S G AT E

Words: Ellen Millard

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hen David Linley opened his first furniture shop on the New Kings Road, aged just 23, he’d spent the previous three years carving cabinets above a chippy in Dorking.

The trajectory was speedy, fast-tracked no doubt by his royal connections (his mother is Princess Margaret), but his designs deserving. In the 35 years since, the carpenter’s eponymous design house has carved a niche in the interior industry with its own brand of bespoke joinery, combining 17th-century marquetry with modern techniques.

To wit, 1 Queen Anne’s Gate, the first luxury home designed and dressed entirely by Linley.

Comprising 27 one-, two- and three-bedroom lateral and duplex apartments – as well as a five-bedroom penthouse – the development by Aperture Group Management is reflective of the British craftsman’s work, with clean lines, a muted colour palette and bespoke furniture to boot.

Once three townhouses that served as the official London residence and offices for the British Foreign Secretary (there’s a blue plaque outside to prove it), 1 Queen Anne’s Gate was remodelled in 1930 to create the current fivestorey Edwardian building it is today.

Working in partnership with architecture firm PDP London, Linley has created a collection of apartments that are both sensitive to the building’s heritage yet firmly forward-thinking in design.

Benefitting from bespoke specifications, each apartment has marble floor entrance halls, reception rooms with European oak herringbone parquet flooring and custom-designed kitchens by TM Italia, complete with quartz worktops and Miele appliances. Underfloor heating in the bathrooms, ambient lighting and custom-made wardrobes are the cherry on the cake.

“For 35 years our meticulous attention to detail has been unrivalled and we strive for superlative quality,” Linley said. “We have designed every aspect of this project, from optimising layouts and arranging the living spaces, down to the finest details of the soft furnishings.”

From £1.67m. For more information contact joint agents Savills, 020 3733 7329, or Beauchamp Estates, 020 7499 7722, onequeenannesgate.com

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BY ED HILL & TOM FALLON

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Vision. Passion. Perfection. The fires of the imagination, fuelled by desire, creating the exceptional. The mind of the architect and the skilled hand of the craftsman, it is the pure elegance of simplicity, and nothing less than perfection is acceptable.

Renowned for its stunning cliffs and golden sands – unspoilt and rich in culture and history – Vale do Lobo is one of the finest resorts in the Algarve, and the perfect setting for a home like Casa da Quinta.

Priced EUR 13.75m +44 (0)20 3146 6247 www.roqueproperties.com info@roqueproperties.com

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10 first class bedroom suites and dramatic open plan living and entertaining spaces are adorned with beautiful materials and exceptional design and craftsmanship. With state-of-the-art technology, stunning landscaped gardens, private terraces, and an infinity pool with breathtaking Atlantic views, only those lucky enough to experience it first hand will ever truly understand.

Because although the fires of imagination that created it have died down, its heat will be felt forever.

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MEET THE EXPERT L AV I N A L I YA N A G E , C H I E F MARKETS OFFICER FOR O N E F I N E S TAY ’ S C I T Y C O L L E C T I O N , SHARES HER TOP TIPS FOR SHORT LETTING YO U R HO ME

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sking Lavina Liyanage to describe her typical day is akin to questioning the length of a piece of string.

As chief markets officer for high-end home-sharing service onefinestay, Liyanage spends her life liasing with the local teams in the company’s nine different cities – which means she could find herself in a different location on any given day of the week.

“My day is extremely varied,” she says.

“I might wake up in London, Paris, New York, Sydney – or any of the other cities in our City Collection portfolio.”

Bridging the gap between hotel and home, onefinestay has transformed the hospitality industry with its own brand of high-end home-sharing. “Our mission is to be the undisputed leader in highend private rentals,” Liyanage explains, “and for every guest and homeowner to enjoy a personal service that is unmatched in home-sharing today.”

In collaboration with onefinestay’s local teams, Liyanage works to ensure a high-standard of quality and consistency across the brand’s exclusive City Collection, a role that involves everything from “streamlining how we welcome new homes to the portfolio, to

rolling out a new service or benefit to homeowners or guests.”

For those looking to short-let their home, Liyanage’s advice could prove invaluable. Having seen first-hand what does – and doesn’t – work for homeowners across the globe, she has become something of an authority on the subject. Here, Liyanage shares her expert’s guide to short-letting your home.

What are your top tips for people considering short-term letting? The first thing you’ll want to consider is time. Ask yourself ‘do I have the time or inclination to manage stays and look after guests?’ If the answer is ‘no’, consider partnering with a hospitality company to make the experience both rewarding and hassle-free. Short-term letting is easy and safe, and you don’t have to do it alone.

How should people prepare their homes for guests? We always advise homeowners to do a bit of decluttering

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ANDA, A MEMBER OF THE HOUSEKEEPING TEAM

ALL IMAGES ‘THE STRAND’, LONDON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAY HAWLEY

a local. They want to enjoy cooking in a well-stocked kitchen and relaxing in a cosy living room in privacy, and look for unique touches that make a home feel like home.

and stow away personal items, as well as anything sentimental. Once our homeowners receive a booking, there’s actually very little they have to do to prepare their home. We provide the housekeeping before and after each stay, prepare the home with our own signature linen and locally-sourced bath amenities, and seal cupboards and wardrobes for privacy and safekeeping.

What does onefinestay typically look for in a home? Our guests are very discerning, so we must be, too. We carefully study each home, looking for four key things: location, character, comfort and space. We welcome many families, couples and business travellers who want to experience London as

What are the perks of being a onefinestay homeowner? The first and most important perk is that homeowners can enjoy this exciting new lifestyle with the peace-of-mind, flexibility and convenience that onefinestay provides. We understand that each home is precious and we have professional processes in place to ensure owners and their homes are looked after. Security is very important to us and is one of the main reasons many of our owners choose to partner with us. As a onefinestay homeowner, you’ll never have to interact with guests, check IDs, or worry about pricing, payments or marketing.

How does onefinestay make short letting easier? Our role starts from photographing the home to strategic pricing, through to preparing the home to the highest standards, personally welcoming guests and being available 24/7 for any support.

We are a high touch service, learning everything about each home so that owners aren’t interrupted while they’re away unless absolutely necessary.

How does onefinestay go the extra mile for its homeowners and their guests? We go the extra mile by investing time to personally connect with our guests and homeowners and to anticipate their needs. For owners, there’s no better feeling than returning from a holiday or a business trip to a clean and sparkling home and knowing your greatest asset was in safe hands.

For more information on becoming a onefinestay homeowner, call +44 20 3871 8650 or visit onefinestay.com/join/luxury

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STREETS AHEAD DISTINCTIVE HOMES ON THE PROPERTY MARKET THIS MONTH

LANCER SQUARE, W8

Located on the site of the former Kensington Palace Barracks, Lancer Square, a new development on Kensington Church Street, comprises 36 homes, the first of which are expected to welcome residents from 2021. Including a 25m swimming pool, gym, underground parking and a 24-hour concierge, the square features landscaped gardens inspired by those in the neighbouring Kensington Palace.

From £4.1m, lancersquare.co.uk

LUXURY LONDON

PROPERTY

R E G E N T S C R E S C E N T, W 1 B

Q U E E N S G AT E P L AC E M E WS , SW 7

The former home of Oscarwinning Chariots of Fire director Lord David Puttnam has hit the market. This three-bedroom mews house has recently been redesigned to high specification, with

Developer CIT has unveiled the second phase of Regents Crescent: a collection of nine Garden Villas, which are expected to complete this year. Modelled on the traditional London mews house, each villa is spread across three floors and comprises three bedrooms. Residents will have access to the Crescent’s complete list of amenities, which include a swimming pool, spa and cinema.

Gaggenau appliances in the kitchen, an expansive walk-in-wardobe in the master bedroom, marble bathrooms, dark oak flooring and skylights that flood the space with light.

From £5.35m, regentscrescent.com

£4.95m, 020 7361 0400, wilfords.com

LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK

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Smith Terrace, Chelsea SW3 £3,800 per week

Unfurnished

Ladbroke Gardens, Notting Hill W11 £3,750 per week

Furnished

A beautifully refurbished house, ideally situated on a quiet street south of the King’s Road.

An outstanding and rare three/four-bedroom maisonette, with direct access to beautifully maintained communal gardens.

2,383 sq ft (221.4 sq m) Reception room | Drawing room | Kitchen | Two en suite double bedrooms | Further bedroom | Further bathroom | Cloakroom | Utility | Garden | Patio | Cinema room | EPC rating B

3,131 sq ft (290.9 sq m) Kitchen | Dining room | Drawing room | Master bedroom suite | Three further bedrooms | Three bath/shower rooms | Cloakroom | Media room | Study | Utility | Garden | Balcony | Communal garden access | EPC rating D

Chelsea 020 3504 5588 | chelsea@struttandparker.com

Notting Hill 020 3773 4114 | nottinghilllettings@struttandparker.com

Stafford Terrace, Kensington W8 £2,800 per week

Furnished

Pavilion Road, Knightsbridge SW1X £3,750 per week

Furnished

Interior designed and finished to an excellent standard, a stunning maisonette on one of Kensington’s most desirable residential streets.

An recently refurbished, stunning three-bedroom mews house in the coveted Knightsbridge neighbourhood.

1,855 sq ft (172 sq m) Drawing room | Kitchen/breakfast room | Two double bedrooms with en suites | Third bedroom/media room | Shower room | Study | Roof terrace | EPC rating D

2,224 sq ft (210.33 sq m) Two reception rooms | Kitchen | Master bedroom suite with dressing room | Two further bedroom suites | Bedroom four/media room | Study | Further bathroom | Cloakroom | Utility | Garage | EPC rating C

Kensington 020 3813 9477 | kensington.lettings@struttandparker.com

Knightsbridge 020 3504 8796 | knightsbridgelettings@struttandparker.com

*After an offer is accepted by the Landlord, which is subject to contract and acceptable references, the following charges and fees will be payable before the commencement of the tenancy: Preparation of Tenancy Agreement £222 (Inc VAT),

/struttandparker

@struttandparker

struttandparker.com

60 Offices across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

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Harbledown Road, Fulham SW6 £1,100 per week

Unfurnished

Elm Park Gardens, West Chelsea SW10 £2,500 per week Furnished/Unfurnished

Enviably located in the heart of Parsons Green, this wonderful four-bedroom family house offers spacious accommodation on a popular, quiet residential street in Fulham.

An exceptional and spacious three double bedroom flat with its own private entrance. This property has also been beautifully refurbished throughout.

2,121 sq ft (197 sq m) Drawing room | Kitchen | Master bedroom with en suite | Three further bedrooms | Two bathrooms | Utility | Cloakroom | Garden | Balcony | EPC rating E

1,694 sq ft (157.37 sq m) Reception room | Kitchen | Three double bedrooms | Three bathrooms | Lift | Communal gardens | EPC rating D

Fulham 020 8023 6671 | fulham.lettings@struttandparker.com

Chelsea SW10 020 3813 9185 | chelseaSW10lettings@struttandparker.com

Harrington Road, South Kensington SW7 £10,500 per week Furnished

Milner Street, Chelsea SW3 £3,250 per week

An impeccable five-bedroom penthouse in a newly refurbished development with cinema, gym and parking available.

A fantastic six-bedroom family house with over 1,000 square feet of outside space, situated in the heart of Chelsea.

2,495 sq ft (232 sq m) Reception room | Kitchen | Three bedroom suites | Further two bedrooms | Further bathroom | Cloakroom | Three terraces | Concierge | Cinema | Gym | Chef and maid services available | EPC rating C

4,171 sq ft (387.5 sq m) Three reception rooms | Kitchen | Two bedroom suites | Three further bedrooms | Dressing room | Further bathroom | Cloakroom | Staff apartment | Terrace | Roof terrace | Ample storage | EPC rating E

South Ken 020 3504 5901 | southkensingtonlettings@struttandparker.com

Chelsea 020 3504 5588 | chelsea.lettings@struttandparker.com

Furnished

References per Tenant £54 (Inc VAT), a deposit – usually between 6-10 weeks of the agreed rent. Any rent advertised is pure rent and does not include any additional services such as council tax, water or utility charges.

Strutt & Parker is a trading style of BNP Paribas Real Estate Advisory & Property Management UK Limited, which provides a full range of services across the residential, commercial and the rural property sectors.

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Smith Terrace, Chelsea SW3 £5,450,000

Freehold

Elgin Crescent, Notting Hill W11 £1,600,000 Share of Freehold

A beautifully refurbished house, ideally situated on a quiet street south of the King’s Road.

A stunning one-bedroom flat with a private garden and direct access to Montpelier communal gardens.

2,383 sq ft (221.4 sq m) Reception room | Drawing room | Kitchen | Two en suite double bedrooms | Further bedroom | Further bathroom | Cloakroom | Utility | Garden | Patio | Cinema room | EPC rating B

858 sq ft (80 sq m) Entrance hall | Kitchen/reception room | Bedroom | Bathroom | Cloakroom | Study | Utility | Garden | Communal garden access | EPC rating E

Chelsea 020 3504 5588 | chelsea@struttandparker.com

Notting Hill 020 3773 4114 | nottinghill@struttandparker.com

Sutherland House, Kensington W8 £1,950,000 Share of Freehold

Rutland Gate, Knightsbridge SW7 £2,995,000 Share of Freehold

An impressive two-bedroom apartment occupying approximately 1,029 sq ft on the third floor (with lift), of this well maintained portered mansion block.

A three-bedroom lateral penthouse apartment set in this prime Knightsbridge garden square.

1,029 sq ft (95.6 sq m) Entrance hall | Reception room | Kitchen | Master bedroom with en suite shower room | Bedroom two | Bathroom | EPC rating C Kensington 020 3813 9477 | kensington@struttandparker.com

/struttandparker

@struttandparker

1,342 sq ft (124.68 sq m) Reception room | Three bedrooms | Two bathrooms | Lift | Concierge/porter | Communal gardens | EPC rating exempt Knightsbridge 020 3504 8796 | knightsbridge@struttandparker.com

struttandparker.com

60 Offices across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

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Walham Grove, Fulham SW6 £3,250,000

Freehold

An exceptionally wide, four-storey property that has been meticulously rebuilt and fully furnished to create an outstanding family home.

2,626 sq ft (244 sq m) Reception room | Kitchen | Dining room | Master suite | Three further bedrooms | Two shower rooms | Further bathroom | Utility | Cloakroom | EPC rating C

Needham Road, Notting Hill W11 £4,750,000

Freehold

An outstanding and beautifully presented semi-detached five-bedroom family house, located in the heart of Notting Hill.

2,773 sq ft (258 sq m) Entrance hall | Drawing room | Dining room | Kitchen | Morning room | Five double bedrooms | Three bathrooms | Cloakroom | Garden | Vault | EPC rating D

Fulham 020 8023 6671 | fulham@struttandparker.com

Notting Hill 020 3773 4114 | nottinghill@struttandparker.com

Queen’s Gate Place Mews, South Ken SW7 £6,250,000 Freehold

Ifield Road, Chelsea SW10 £3,500,000

A meticulously refurbished four-bedroom contemporary mews house with terrace, garage, cinema and gym.

A super stylish and elegant four-bedroom family home with a charming west-facing garden and terrace.

3,718 sq ft (345.4 sq m) Reception room | Cinema room | Kitchen | Master bedroom suite | Three bedrooms | Garage | Roof terraces | Gym | EPC rating B

2,734 sq ft (254.17 sq m) Three reception rooms | Kitchen | Dining room | Conservatory | Family room | En suite master bedroom | Three further bedrooms | Two further bathrooms | Terrace | West-facing garden | EPC rating D

South Ken 020 3504 5901 | southken@struttandparker.com

Chelsea SW10 020 3813 9185 | chelseaSW10@struttandparker.com

Freehold

Strutt & Parker is a trading style of BNP Paribas Real Estate Advisory & Property Management UK Limited, which provides a full range of services across the residential, commercial and the rural property sectors.

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Phillimore Terrace, Kensington W8

ÂŁ8,950 per week Unfurnished

An exceptional six-bedroom family house, occupying approximately 4,811 sq ft, with excellent living space, a 44ft garden and off-street parking for two cars.

4,811 sq ft (447 sq m) Drawing room | Sitting room | Kitchen/family room | Master bedroom with en suite bathroom | Five further bedrooms | Three further bathrooms | Two shower rooms | 44ft garden | Off-street parking for two cars | EPC rating D

Kensington 020 3813 9477 | kensington.lettings@struttandparker.com *After an offer is accepted by the Landlord, which is subject to contract and acceptable references, the following charges and fees will be payable before the commencement of the tenancy: Preparation of Tenancy Agreement ÂŁ222 (Inc VAT),

/struttandparker

@struttandparker

struttandparker.com

60 Offices across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

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The Crescent, Television Centre, White City W12

£3,995,000 Long Leasehold

A brand new and unique eighth floor apartment with three en suite bedrooms and three separate terraces.

2,307 sq ft (214 sq m) Entrance hall | Open-plan kitchen/dining area | Family/TV area | Master bedroom suite | Two further en suite bedrooms | Bathroom and cloakroom | Utility | Three separate terraces | 24-hour concierge | Swimming pool | Soho House private members’ club | Health club | EPC rating B Notting Hill 020 3773 4114 | nottinghill@struttandparker.com References per Tenant £54 (Inc VAT), a deposit – usually between 6-10 weeks of the agreed rent. Any rent advertised is pure rent and does not include any additional services such as council tax, water or utility charges.

Strutt & Parker is a trading style of BNP Paribas Real Estate Advisory & Property Management UK Limited, which provides a full range of services across the residential, commercial and the rural property sectors.

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