Lounge for 26 mar 2011

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Saturday, March 26, 2011

Vol. 5 No. 13

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

Velvet and cashmere embroidered coat, gold and pearl neck­ laces and hairband from Chanel’s Pre­ Fall 2011 Métiers d’Art Paris­Byzance collection.

DRESS LIKE AN ICON >Pages 19­21

THE KEY TO THE INDIAN MONEYBAG

A lot has changed since Louis Vuitton opened its first India store in 2003, says Radha Chadha >Page 4

KING OF YOUR ISLAND

THE LUXURY ISSUE

The what, where, how and how much of all the finer things in life

The archipelago of the Philippines shelters one of the most secluded luxury locations in Asia >Page 27

HAUTE WHEELS

Two Parisian trunk makers have come to India with custom­made cases >Page 30

First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream.

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (MANAGING EDITOR)

ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY NABEEL MOHIDEEN MANAS CHAKRAVARTY MONIKA HALAN VENKATESHA BABU SHUCHI BANSAL SIDIN VADUKUT (MANAGING EDITOR, LIVEMINT)

FOUNDING EDITOR RAJU NARISETTI ©2011 HT Media Ltd All Rights Reserved

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THE (NOT SO) DISCREET CHARM OF

THE BOURGEOISIE L

DINODIA PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

uis Buñuel’s surrealist ket to understand the pleas1972 film might have litures of discretion. tle to do with the state of In January 2010, Volkswagen the Indian luxury market. But introduced the Phaeton—a the title lends itself exceedhand-built luxury car for the ingly well. sort of people who prefer to There is nothing discreet wear their designer labels on about the way the Indian luxury the inside of their clothing. At consumer is spending his just under `1 crore, it was in money today. In her column, direct competition with the marketing and consumer flashier Mercedes S-Class or insight expert Radha Chadha the BMW 7 Series. While sales speaks of the New Money conhaven’t been phenomenal, its sumer who is focused on entry in the Indian market sigacquiring the fresh symbols of nals a shift to subtlety. wealth: from monogrammed A 2007 article in The New bags to portable trunks that York Times analysing the open up to reveal the whole Indian luxury market quoted shebang and come with a `15 Yves Carcelle, chief executive lakh price tag, to business jets and chairman of Louis Vuitton, that are no longer the preserve as saying: “Each country has a of multinationals, with even different attitude towards luxmedium-sized entrepreneurs ury. A century ago the Indian eyeing the new Bombardier or elite, the maharajahs, were Boeing. A 2010 CII (Confederaamong the luxury brands’ bigtion of Indian Industry)-AT gest clients.” This is an imporKearney report says the luxury tant observation because there goods market in the country is Understated: JRD was always elegantly turned out. are other countries where there set to touch $14.72 billion is no luxury tradition. As Car(around `66,240 crore) by 2015, y o u r m o t h e r ’ s , b u t y o u r g r a n d - celle says, luxury disappeared in India, almost triple of what it was in 2010. mother’s jewellery) prime Indians for but the culture for luxury continued to Yet one can’t dismiss India as a luxury consumption. Deep down, we exist. He gives reason to believe that “loud”-loving market. In our style fea- supposedly know the good stuff. But beneath the bling and blah there’s a ture by designer Ravi Bajaj, we remi- as an emerging luxury market that connoisseur waiting to be tapped. nisce about Indian men of vintage really only opened up in January And that he could be both discreet, who exemplified understated ele- 2006, when the government began to and charming. gance such as JRD. The heritage of allow foreign direct investment of as craftsmanship, the love for things that much as 51% in single-brand retail Anindita Ghose last, the eye for detail (look at not operations, it is far too young a mar- Issue editor

ON THE COVER

CHANEL’S TRYST WITH BYZANTINE OPULENCE

W

ith jewel tones, regal gold embellishments and dripping gemstones, Chanel’s Pre-Fall 2011 Métiers d’Art collection is all about splendour. Inspired by Coco Chanel’s love for the Byzantine empire, Karl Lagerfeld has reinterpreted the Roman silhouettes and presented tunics and togas with a contemporary twist.

What are luxury brands for if not a recoding of heritage for modern times? Since 2002, through Metiers d’Art, KARL LAGERFELD

Lagerfeld has dedicated an annual collection to French artisans—embroiderers, shoemakers and goldsmiths—to keep their craft alive. This time, tweeds have been interwoven with gold, velvet, cashmere, chiffon, lace and tulle to create a dazzling collection.

The belts and jewellery from this collection, adorned with glass beads and enamelling, are also reminiscent of Indian royal grandeur. The biggest international fashion houses have openly spoken about India’s tradition of craftsmanship—sometimes to acknowledge outsourcing their embroidery to India, or finding inspiration in the country, and usually to talk about the immense potential of the Indian market. “It’s a huge cou ntr y an d a n ol d country with deep appreciation of beautiful things,” Patrizio di Marco, CEO of Gucci, told us on his visit to India in November.

Chanel’s Paris-Byzance collection will be available at Chanel boutiques in May. Rachana Nakra

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: KARL LAGERFELD FOR CHANEL

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RADHA CHADHA LUXURY CULT

THE KEY TO THE

INDIAN MONEYBAG

T

he 2003 launch of Louis Vuitton in Delhi serves as a symbolic start of the luxury brand industry in India. A lot has happened in the eight years since. Most of the global heavyweights—besides Vuitton, the likes of Gucci,

Hermès, Cartier, Armani, Burberry, all regulars on Interbrand’s Best Global Brands ranking—have set up store here.

Luxury malls such as Emporio have opened their doors. Fashion glossies such as Vogue have taken root and are spreading the luxury gospel. The number of high networth individuals, or HNIs (with financial assets of over $1million, or `4.5 crore) has more than doubled—the 2003 World Wealth Report by Merrill Lynch Capgemini estimated that there were 50,000 HNIs in India, the 2010 report puts the number at 127,000. The luxury culture has spread among the elite—attend a kitty party in one of New Delhi’s swank restaurants and it will be a brave woman who will show up without her luxury bag in hand. Or check out men’s watches at a high-society party and chances are all of them are marking time on pricey Swiss tickers.

But here’s the twist—talk to the brands themselves and, barring the odd exception, there is a general sense of disappointment in the numbers that their businesses are delivering. Top lines have been extremely modest and

bottom lines barely there. The hoopla around luxury brands has been high decibel, but profit and loss statements seem to be saying “yeh dil maange more”. Everyone agrees that India has huge potential, but how do you unlock that potential? How do you translate it into a large enough business? How do you gather speed and scale?

Before we address that question, let’s get two quick points out of the way.

One, the timing is good for the luxury business to move into the fast lane as we transit from the “Start of Money” stage—wherein only small numbers of elite customers buy luxury brands—to the “Show Off” stage, which is marked by relatively large numbers of New Money folk hell-bent on acquiring symbols of wealth. Ride that wave, embrace new wealth, understand its anxieties and eccentricities, and you should be halfway home. It is instructive to dial back to China in the early 2000s, a decade after luxury brands entered that country, and although numbers were a lot higher than today’s India, the broad picture was similar—there was Louis Vuitton, seven-stores strong and sales

figures head and shoulders above the pack (between $30-40 million), a clutch of men’s brands (Zegna, Dunhill, Hugo Boss) with sales in the $5-10 million range, a dozen brands operating in the $2-5 million range, and then a long tail of twos and ones. Halve those numbers and you have an approximation of the scene in India today.

Two, the incidence of Indian tourists buying abroad has increased significantly. It is vexing when you see it from the lens of the Indian country managers—they prime the customer in India and the sale is consummated abroad—but pull back and put on a global lens and this is entirely good news. I would encourage it—a sale is a sale wherever in the world it happens—and find ways to capture and credit the India team. Again a comparison with China is useful. Today, a full 20 years after luxury brands entered China, when the Chinese consumer is already the biggest in the world for many brands, more than 50% of Chinese sales are captured overseas, including Hong Kong and Macau, for the simple reason that prices in China are higher. The point is the phenomenon of shopping abroad is always going to be a significant part of the game, so why complain about it—leverage it to the hilt instead, study Indian tourists’

needs and play to them.

Now to our central question of gaining scale for luxury in India. I have three points to make—one, go all out for the New Money consumer; two, go back to luxury brand building 101; and three, innovate for India. Let me build on these.

Target the New Money consumer There is only one kind of money in an emerging economy—New Money—so it makes perfect business sense to give it a bear hug. Well, okay, India does have tiny pockets of old money—roy

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

al families and industrial dynasties—but their limited numbers aren’t going to help build scale.

New Money comes in many shapes and forms. Entrepreneurial India—it tends to be the most loaded—is a sureshot target, along with their families.

They tend to be clear-headed folk who expect clarity from their luxury brands, i.e., clear logos, unmistakable symbols, signature styles, stuff that says “I spent this money, I got this brand”. My real estate broker—a down-to-earth GurTURN TO PAGE L6®

Watch out: Zenith’s new model, the Christophe Colomb chronometer, is priced at `98 lakh; and (top) the DLF Emporio mall in New Delhi.

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THOMAS LEE/BLOOMBERG

COURTESY HARPER’S BAZAAR INDIA

® FROM PAGE L4

gaon bloke—on learning what I do, offered pertinent advice: “But Ma’am, please tell them to put the brand name up front.” Luxury brands beef up his credentials, he says, “very important in this line of work”.

Wealthy business families are scattered in Small Town India too—as so emphatically demonstrated by the recent Aurangabad 150-Mercedesbuying binge. Connecting with Small Town India needs innovative strategies—group buying a la Aurangabad may well be a model that luxury brands could consider. Luxury watches are striking a chord in smaller towns too—Omega and Tag Heuer are reportedly becoming musthaves for brides and grooms.

Professional India, whether working independently or in senior positions at corporate houses, is making hefty sums of new money. Chances are they grew up in hard-working government service families and still hold on to “good old middle-class” values—so prying their wallets open is harder than the free-spending business kind.

Patience and persistence is key here—with time they will succumb to the luxury watch, the luxury car, the luxury suit, and before you know it, the missus needs a luxury handbag, and then there is no going back.

Young India can be groomed into luxury—they have the mindset anyway, and their means will increase as they go up the professional or entrepreneurial ladder. For example, my

broker, in his early 30s, started from scratch in the real estate business, and now has an office with half a dozen people, and does 50-60 deals a year. Do the math—he is your New Money customer.

Having sharp strategies to generate trials among New Money is critical to building scale. For example, low-entry price points (for select products) is a tried-and-tested way to entice a larger audience, as has happened in the rest of Asia. What products would work for India? And how should they be priced? (The numbers tell an interesting story. As against aiming at the 127,000 HNIs and their ilk—even if you multiply them by 10, their potential is just a million and a quarter—if you aim instead at the top 25% of SEC A (a socio-economic classification of India, “A” has 34 million people), you are looking at a potential audience of eight million. Most of them may never buy a $2,000 handbag or a $4,000 jacket, but many could be persuaded to buy “entry-priced” watches, sunglasses, wallets, perfumes, lipsticks, and over time they will graduate to bigger ticket items).

ket, especially if you are targeting New Money India that may not have heard of your brand, may not be familiar with your heritage and story, may not be sure how to use your products, and most crucially may not know why on earth it should pay so much for it.

There are no short cuts to a robust marketing plan and a solid team to work it.

Vogue’s “School of Style” with young professionals—doctors, lawyers, executives, all subscribers of the magazine—is an example of a brandbuilding exercise that is a win-winwin. The young ladies gathered at the Oberoi over drinks—presumably after a hard day’s work—to hear the Vogue fashion team present ideas on how to dress for work. Alex Kuruvilla, managing director of Condé Nast India, says he was amazed by the questions the women asked. “It wasn’t frivolous stuff for them—this was serious, this was about how to dress better for success at work.” Everyone wins—Vogue’s fashion authority goes up, it helps their advertisers, and the young professionals go back with a once-in-alifetime coaching session from the same team that styles the likes of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Deepika Padukone for photo shoots.

Luxury brands aren’t built on advertising alone—important as that is—their lifeline is “buzz” i.e., being talked about in circles that

Innovate for India India is a snakes and ladders game—there are challenges that can set you back by 40 squares; equally, there are unique opportunities that can take you right to the top of the heap. Dealing with India’s mix of challenges and opportunities needs a mix of flexibility and creativity—a sophisticated version of jugaad if you will, a readiness to experiment and innovate to meet dramatically

Coveted: (above) Shoppers line up to enter a Gucci store on Canton Road in Hong Kong; and shoes from Prada’s Made in India range. different local needs—and that’s been hard for luxury brands as they are used to playing—and winning—by their script.

Take the less-than-happy luxury retail space situation. Unlike China, where upscale malls fell into place with relative ease in city after city, India is struggling, and the question is how do you build scale without a supply of luxury-appropriate retail space. Experiment with far-from-perfect but well-established Indian alternatives? Influence the shopping centre development process? Leverage the Internet?

Or take the huge opportunity that the Indian wedding presents—a onetime, all-out spending frenzy. Making your brand a part of it can quickly multiply sales. But to really harvest the wedding, luxury brands need to get to its heart—the clothes and the jewellery. Leave this sizeable fashion opportunity lying on the table? Or create specially for the Indian wedding market?

Or take India’s rich heritage of craftsmanship. That’s an opportunity right up their street, for what are luxury brands if not a recoding of heritage for modern times? Not sure how many Western brands would be willing to take the plunge into Indian culture, but I got a taste of how it might look: the Prada Made in India range of bags, shoes and dresses is a treat. I checked out the orange and black, woven leather handbag.

It is just beautiful. The price?

Upwards of $2,000 in New York. And worth every cent.

Radha Chadha is one of Asia’s leading marketing and consumer insight experts. She is the author of the best-selling book The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury.

Invest in brand building Luxury brands are usually masters at this, but in India many have fallen into the chicken-and-egg trap—they have not invested enough in building their brands, presumably because sales haven’t been that good; and not surprisingly sales won’t go up unless the brand is built. The need is even more acute in an emerging mar-

matter, being written about in the local media. Buzz jacks up their cachet and therefore it is crucial to have a line-up of buzz-generating activities—these could range from small coffee sessions where one-onone relations are nurtured to highprofile parties with celebrities in attendance that get splashed in the media. Burberry creative head Christopher Bailey’s visit to India for the Mumbai store opening is an example—the select few (Bollywood, celebrities, socialites) get to party with him in person, the rest of us meet him between the sheets of a fashion magazine.

There is a silver lining here. India is still a relatively level playing field, and any brand could potentially capture Indian hearts—and wallets—if it moves swiftly on the brand-building front.

Write to Radha at luxurycult@livemint.com Luxury gateway: Coco Mademoiselle, Chanel’s new perfume (above), and Tod’s sunglasses are both priced under `20,000.

www.livemint.com Read Radha’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/radha­chadha

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Secret pleasures: (left) B&W’s Nautilus speakers; and a Bottega Veneta handbag with its trademark Intrecciato weave.

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

DISCRETION IS THE

BETTER PART OF LUXURY

O

n the face of it, Sandeep Karyotakalam, 38, is your typical IT professional. He wears navy full-sleeved shirts and speaks in precise sentences. After a stint at Infosys Technologies in Zurich, he just PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

completed his executive postgraduate programme at IIM Bangalore, which is where I met him (he was a student in a class I taught there). Underneath his reserved but friendly demeanour is an epicurean sensibility. Karyotakalam collects high-end audio systems and speciality chef’s knives, a passion that began when he used pots as speakers for school parties. “From an acoustic point of view, earthen pots make the best speaker enclosures,” he says. “There are no parallel or flat surfaces, no standing waves, no moving joints.”

After he started working, Karyotakalam would bring back audio equipment from abroad. Today, his collection includes some of the best names in audio equipment—Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), Marantz, Pro-ject, Bose, Sennheiser, Yamaha, Sonodyne and others, which cost him around `3.5 lakh. Next on his list are B&W’s Nautilus speakers (`20 lakh a pair), Krell Evolution Mono amplifiers (`6 lakh a pair) and a Marantz Ken Ishikawa Pearl SACD player (`2.5 lakh). “High-end audio systems are quite beautiful with analogue dials, exposed valves and heat sinks. If you play Knopfler on a high-end super audio CD (SACD) system, you can close your eyes and imagine him sitting next to you,” says Karyotakalam, reeling off details about dampening and connecting equipment, D/A (digital to analogue) converters and specialist cables.

In his kitchen are the professional knives, pots and pans that he collects. He has a couple of Kasumi knives, but he loves Zwilling, Sekiryu and Fackelmann knives as well. The best part? Few people can put a price on his passions. It is, in that sense, a secret luxury.

Secret luxury is a trend that has gained ground in the US in the aftermath of the global financial crisis when it was considered obscene to be spending money on frivolous goods such as Chanel sunglasses and Dior handbags when people were losing jobs and going bankrupt.

This resulted in the concept of stealth wealth or discreet luxury.

The online fashion site Net-a-porter.com offered the option of sending out its purchases in recycled brown bags last year as opposed to its signature ribbon-wrapped black boxes, to take the “shame out of shopping”, as one trend watcher said.

Gucci saw an increase in sales of its handbags with a toned-down logo.

The Paris fashion house, Celine, under its current designer Phoebe Philo, has eschewed logos.

Its Spring 2011 collection of handbags, with nary a hint of the

The bling factor: Socialite Paris Hilton with a state­ ment handbag.

brand name, received rave reviews from the fashion press.

Mature luxury markets such as France, the UK and US can embrace stealth wealth but India is still an emerging market and we like to flaunt it—most of us, anyway. Marketing professionals tell us that the reason we buy a Prada handbag or Bulgari shades is to “signal” to the world that we have arrived. Luxury brands are portable symbols of wealth and prestige. Yet even in India, there is a growing group of people who disdain overt displays of wealth and opt instead for subtlety and quiet pleasure.Years ago, in Manhattan, logo-phobic women would shop at the Yuta Powell Salon for unusual clothes that didn’t scream Hermès or Versace. In India, the nice thing is that logos still aren’t the norm with our fashion designers so patrons who want to wear a Wendell Rodricks blouse or a Tarun Tahiliani skirt can still do so without being labelled label junkies.

In a study published in the Journal of Marketing last year, consumers were labelled based on whether they liked “loud” objects that screamed out their logos, or whether they were logo-phobic.

The “patricians” were wealthy aristocrats who didn’t need the status that logos conferred and went to great lengths to buy discreet logo-less objects that only their fellow patricians could recognize and appreciate. In the Indian context, this would be more like Nadir Godrej, who lives in a semi-bungalow at the end of a leafy lane in the heart of Malabar Hill rather than his neighbour down the road who has erected a 27-floor tower that looks like an Ikea CD rack. Antilla’s owners might be labelled “parvenus” or nouveau riche by the study’s authors.

These are wealthy consumers who are high in need of status, and who, as the study says, “use loud luxury goods to signal to the less affluent that they are not one of them”. Think of Paris Hilton and her branded handbags, or any number of socialites in India. The third category are “poseurs”, who buy fake brands and try to emulate the patricians even though they cannot afford that lifestyle. If you save up to buy a Chanel sunglass simply because of its highly visible interlocking C logo, then you are a poseur, according to the study’s authors.

The “proletariats” are those who don’t care for and aren’t driven by status purchases.

Se c r e t lux ur y i s le ss about eschewing brands and more about keeping it quiet. You could buy Frette bed linen or Porhault towels for your home and the world wouldn’t know.

You could place the sleek BeoLab 5 speaker from Bang & Olufsen in your den or living room and people might think it to be a space capsule. A Loro Piana cashmere overcoat will see you through the Delhi winter in style, and no one will guess that it cost TORU YAMANAKA/AFP $4,500 (around `2 lakh). Perofil

undershirts (we call them banians) and Kyle King’s bamboo underwear cost over `4,000 each but customers swear that they are great value. You could carry a jute bag but rub Crème de la Mer on your skin and still pass off as a college student of poor means. Bottega Veneta, which advertises only through its Intrecciato weave, has always been a cult favourite, as are logo-less brands such as Martin Margiela.

But if I had the money, the brand I

would buy is a Chanel. Not Coco, but Guy. This master craftsman made the famous Hermès saddles before starting a small line of high-quality but discreet leather goods. Check out “France”, and “Travel”, in his man-bag line; and “Duetto” from his woman-bags line. Everything is customized; the bags are supple and well made. Best of all, no one will know where they are from. The catch? They cost upward of €1,500 (around `95,000) a piece, occasionally going up to €50,000.

Proenza Schouler’s new PS1 bags are easier on the wallet and cost only $1,995.

For all my admiration of secret luxury and discreet style, I am not there yet. I have a few of the usual suspects in my closet, which I bought for their logos, and this puts me right in the camp of what Holden Caulfield called phonies. But to understand the intricacies of objects, to learn about their provenance, and to cultivate the connoisseurship that is a

component, if not the essence of style, takes time and effort. Buying a brand simply because of the logo is much easier and quicker. I still have my secret and strange walking shoes, though, made by a company called Masai Barefoot Technology. The best part? Rather than staring at my shoes with envy, the housekeepers in my building commiserate with me about my poor shoes. An expensive object sans guilt or shame; and one that puts you on par with the proletariat—that’s a luxury worth having.

Shoba Narayan’s secret luxury is an aged Pauillac.Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns on www.livemint.com/shoba­narayan

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WHEN IT COMES TO STYLE,

FABRIZIO MARCO NANNINI/WSJ

IT’S IN THE BAG As the ‘It Bag’ peters out, some of the thoughtful, well­put­together handbags are taking its place

DAVID MCGOUGH/DMI/TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

B Y T INA G AUDOIN ·································· few years ago, I overambitiously predicted the death of the “It Bag”. In actual fact, a fate far more constructive has befallen what is, in its purest form, the most meaningful and practical of women’s fashion items.

But first, the backstory. We all know, thanks to Oscar Wilde, that it is surprising what can fit in a handbag (if it’s the right shape and size), but we also know now, thanks to the “It Bag”, or IB, about its social messaging, status and price tag. Though I despised the IB with all of its tasteless, meaningless buckles, padlocks, logos, prints and “special editions”, it certainly offered the opposite sex an easy solution when it came to gift buying. I can’t count the number of husbands or partners of friends who have started a sentence, “I want to buy X a nice bag, can you help?”

While the IB has fallen out of favour, its legacy is that the consumer now knows the value of an expensive bag and is almost instinctively on the lookout for the “next big thing”. And that’s where the good news begins.

All the attention lavished over the past decade on behalf of luxury goods companies in the quest to create and sell “the world’s most desirable bag” has led to the construction and revamping of some pretty thoughtful, well-put-together classics, with a degree of longevity one would never have attributed to the IB. These days, most of us know what we want from a handbag, or a pocketbook, as Americans call them. Practicality is mostly high on the list (even with an evening bag or minaudière, one needs to be able to fit in the car keys, the lipstick and a mobile phone); shape and style is, of course, a personal thing, though, in my experience, one is either a tote lugger (short straps, big body); a long-strap, medium, squishy-shape lover; or a neat-and-tidy, over-the-shoulder, boxy type. As for colour, black and brown obviously win hands down, though this season, there’s a plethora of acid vibrancy out there, and a lighter colour for summer (taupe or mouse’s back) is always a nice idea.

Of course, one can switch in and out where bags are concerned; but really, buying a handbag is like buying underwear—if it looks racy, it probably has a sprinter’s shelf life and will be spent long before you are.

I have always admired Anya Hindmarch’s practical approach to handbag creation. Long before other luxury goods houses (save Hermès) were thinking things through in terms of what women really wanted, Hindmarch’s classic “Carker” was the workhorse for career women, transporting diaries, phones, make-up bags, wet wipes, granola bars and the occasional (in my case) pair of running shoes, all the while looking like a pulled-together, stylish option.

Hindmarch’s latest classic is the “Maxi”, a soft, comfortable troop transporter of a shoulder bag with a weighty zipper, in black, stone, pink and navy (from £695, or around `51,000, for the smaller version). In terms of classics, whilst I’ve never owned a Gucci handbag, I’m tempted by their new version of the “Jackie”.

With the traditional 1937 diamantè print in hemp and hand-stitched leather and accessorized with bamboo, this roomy shoulder bag

A

(£1,070) has pockets for two phones (very handy, though, I’m sure Mrs KO would have found that somewhat vulgar) and the provenance of an ancient classic. In another 80 or so years, it will still look as good as it does now.

Buying handbags is a challenging customer experience. Unlike clothing or shoes, one cannot easily see the pricing without unzipping or opening the bag. This is doubly uncomfortable if one is carrying large shopping bags already or has a small child in tow.

Full marks then to Louis Vuitton, which displays the pricing on all its handbags, loud and proud in front of each item, at their gleaming Bond Street emporium. Quite right. Why should a customer have to enquire every time a price is needed or go through the rigours of fighting to open stubborn clasps? If I could have any bag in the Louis Vuitton store (and there are lots to choose from), I would take the casually chic “Artsy” in black python for £5,600. The LVembossed croquet trunk also caught

my eye. For £50,000, it would be churlish not to buy that too.

Perhaps you’ve heard about Mulberry’s 66% leap in ownstore sales over the Christmas and New Year’s period? Surely their Alexa bag (created in homage to the messy-haired British style icon Alexa Chung) can’t have done all the heavy lifting. Well, not entirely, though one should never underestimate the value of the right kind of celebrity association. I still have my “vintage” “Luella” bag, named for the company’s canny collaboration some years ago with hip Brit designer Luella Bartley. In any case, Emma Hill, the creative director, and Godfrey Davis, the CEO, are driving the bus; though Mulberry does make exceedingly good bags. This season’s “Tilly” satchel, with solid buckle clasps (from £812), is very likely to follow in the Alexa’s footsteps and become a speedy, but practical, best-seller. Smythson’s bag collection is something of which Samantha Cameron can be justly proud. Their “Nancy” tote (£820) is already perceived by some to be a classic and apparently there’s an online waiting list for their new “Cooper” tote (from £715).

The flip side of the sensible bag evolution is that bags have become so important and such style signifiers that these days they are the easiest way to switch up an outfit. YSL’s 1970s-inspired clutch (£1,195), with heavy silver studding, is a case in point. Whilst your little black dress might be somewhat staid, this bag is anything but. Longchamp’s current crop of acid brights make the proverbial sweet store look dull, but the real candy is Kate Moss’ range for the label. Her capacious “Gloucester” (£590), in dark racing green, is already a classic with its short handles and big twin buckles, but watch out for the canvas-andleather satchel (£350) in her new Faraway collection. You wouldn’t expect Prada to follow the trend for sensible bags (though Miuccia Prada initially made her fortune from her early techno backpacks and continues to turn out simple, desirable pieces).

This season, stripes are Prada’s thing.

If you want to make a statement, then buy the green-and-black striped “Canapa Righe” (£695) and matching hat (£325). Karl Lagerfeld was never afraid of subversion either. His ironic take on the basic, long-handled denim beach tote is cheeky and fun, though you might not think the same about the price tag, £1,965. For around the same price, though arguably not the same amusement value, you could buy Asprey’s oversized python tote, into which you could certainly pack a lot of beach towels, for £1,835.

There’s subversion and then there’s subversion.

Tomas Maier at Bottega Veneta has laced his classic—the intrecciato-woven “Cabat”—with threads this season. The effect is that of a slightly withered, tatty, Miss Havishamesque hold-all. As a classic Cabat (£3,385) owner, I appreciate the deconstructive gesture, as only a handbag bore might. But there are plenty out there who wouldn’t agree. For £4,170, they might rather have a classic that doesn’t appear to be coming apart at the seams.

Write to wsj@livemint.com

ANTONIO CALABRESE/WSJ

OLIVIER MESNAGE/WSJ

Bag it: (from top) Prada striped hat and matching striped tote; the Kate Moss for Longchamp ‘Faraway’ Hobo bag; the Anya Hind­ march ‘Maxi’ zip satchel; the Smythson ‘Cooper’ tote; the Bottega Veneta Intrec­ ciato effiloche Cabat; and (extreme left) the late Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

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THE PHENOM IS THE NEW PORSCHE

The number of private jets is set to triple over the next decade in India

THE SHAPE OF STYLE Stripes, squares, cubes—put some geometry in your wardrobe

q Burberry: Patent sling bag, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `64,000.

B Y P .R . S ANJAI pr.sanjai@livemint.com

·································· achin Bajla is the managing director of the mining firm Dharni Sampada, a company that owns four manganese mines in the Ivory Coast, six blocks of uranium mines across 3,000 sq. km in Niger and two tantalite mines in Sierra Leone. He travels frequently to these destinations, but ask him about these countries’ airports and Bajla is stumped.

The 40-year-old industrialist flies an eight-seater Cessna Caravan, which is safely parked in Johannesburg, between his various mines in Africa. “I love my Cessna but it is exclusively for Africa; I spent `15 crore on this plane.

Now I’m planning to buy either a Bombardier or Cessna jet to be stationed in India,” he says.

Bajla represents a growing tribe of small- and medium-sized businesses and enterprises that are buying private jets, which were once the monopoly of multinational firms.

In a February report, the specialist consulting firm, Centre for Asia Pacific

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Aviation, said India’s general aviation sector could see new aircraft sales—business jets, helicopters, turboprops and piston engines—of up to $12 billion (around `54 crore) over the next decade. By then the general aviation fleet is expected to reach 2,000, up from 680 now. An indication of the growth comes from figures over the last four years—aircraft dealers say India had around 100 jets in 2006, which had grown to 515 by last year.

“The mood is upbeat for buying small helicopters to larger jets,” says Karan Singh, vice-president, Business Aviation Association of India, an industry lobby that was recently recognized by the Union ministry of civil aviation. “The prices of business jets have come down by 35-50% from the peak of 2008. Indians are making the best out of this opportunity,” adds Singh.

Kalanithi Maran, promoter, chairman and managing director of southern India’s largest media group Sun TV and owner of low-fare carrier SpiceJet, will be one of the few in the country to own an

Phenomenal: (top) The Phenom 100 by Embraer provides an ambience enhanced by gener­ ous windows and onboard con­ veniences such as a wardrobe, refreshment centre, and satellite communications; and the eight­ seater Bombardier BA Learjet 45 XR is well­suited for zipping in and out of far­flung airports. ultra-luxury business jet. He has bought a Boeing which costs an estimated $60-85 million.

Among those using Boeing business jets in India are President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Kingfisher Airlines’ Vijay Mallya uses an Airbus corporate jet, while Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries gifted his wife Nita an Airbus jet in 2007. Jaypee Infratech is in talks to buy a Beechcraft King Air B200 GT, and automotive giant Mahindra and Mahindra is opting for a new Learjet 60 XR. And these are largely for personal use.

Louis XIII de Rémy Martin A blend of 1,200 eaux­de­vie from the Grande Champagne territory of Cognac, France, aged in centuries­old oak barrels. The decanter, with its neck plated in 24 carat gold, is crafted out of hand­blown crystal by 11 craftsmen.

Now available at the Delhi Duty Free, Indira Gandhi International Airport, $4,500 (approx. `2 lakh) for 150cl.

p Giorgio Armani: Single­breasted jacket, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `1.10 lakh t Bottega Veneta: Wedge heels with Intrecciato weave, at The Galleria, Trident, Mumbai; UB City mall, Vit­ tal Mallya Road, Bangalore; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `48,000

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

PRADEEP GAUR

&

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

SATELLITE TIME

Moon dust makes its way into a watch

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uxury watch brand Romain Jerome has gone celestial with the Moon Dust, which has authentic moon dust on its dial.

The Swiss watch brand has a reputation for its outrageous creations. In 2008, it made a watch fashioned out of steel from the Titanic. “The idea was to have a piece of history on your wrist,” says Gurinder Sahni, managing director of Jot Impex, which has brought Romain Jerome to India.

The Moon Dust is a limited edition of 1,969 pieces (the year when the first manned spacecraft landed on the moon). Features include a black rubber or crocodile hornback strap, fibres of which are partly woven from an International Space Station (ISS) spacesuit. Each watch comes with a legal certified document authenticating the Moon Dust and a certificate from the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) which salutes Romain Jerome for the idea. The Moon Dust range is priced at `5.85 lakh and above.

Moon Dust is available at Jot Impex, Delhi, and Swiss Paradise Luxury Timepieces and Watches of Switzerland, Mumbai.

Komal Sharma Write to lounge@livemint.com Celestial: The RJ watch uses moon dust.

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BRING HOME THE RESTAURANT For a price, celebrity chefs will bring the haute cuisine experience to your dining room

Gastronomic wonder: Caperberry’s menu includes salad of com­ pressed watermelon, Mahón cheese jelly, tap­ enade and mixed greens.

B Y A MRITA R OY amrita.r@livemint.com

·································· hen a Delhi-based scion of an old industrial family called a few friends for dinner last week, there was a surprise on the menu. Despite the considerable reputation of the retinue of family cooks, all the food, from the Panko Crusted Bharwan Mirch with Goat Cheese Mousse and Chilli Aam Papad Chutney or Roast Scallops Balchao with Sabudana Papad and Kokum Powder, bore the unmistakable signature of Manish Mehrotra. The chef who is at the helm of Indian Accent, the nouvelle Indian cuisine restaurant at The Manor, New Delhi, is among the new breed of celebrity chefs who are bringing the haute cuisine experience to the homes of their gourmet patrons. But Mehrotra says he is an accidental caterer: “When we launched Indian Accent, a catering service was not on the cards. But the offers kept pouring in, and eight months later, we started catering.”

The demand is a marker of the “revolution”—it’s nothing less, says Mehrotra—sweeping the catering industry. “In any big city today, you are spoilt for choices when eating out. It follows that you will demand the same kind of options when hosting a party at home,” adds Abhijit Saha, chef and director of Avant Garde Hospitality, which runs the Caperberry and Fava restaurants in Bangalore. Niche restaurants serving diverse cuisines have been quick to spot the opportunity and venture into the premium catering segment, taking a slice of the pie from established caterers and five-star hotels.

From attendant sommeliers, gourmet ingredients flown in from overseas, to pre-

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Exclusively yours: Manish Mehrotra limits his catering orders to 20 plates. plated five-course meals, it’s all on the menu. “Wood-fired pizzas, American grills, and live sushi bars are popular. Once we did a take on the yule log with goat cheese and whipped brie for the crackers,” says Varun Tuli, chef-restaurateur who turned caterer in October with his Gurgaon-based Food Inc by The Yum Yum Tree.

It gets ever more exotic. “Till recently, the insalata caprese was the rage with its buffalo mozzarella. Suddenly, it’s not enough. Now people want a caprese with burrata,” says food consultant and restaurateur Marut Sikka. On a few occasions, he has provided logistical support to chefs flown in from abroad. “Some people even ask for a Michelin-starred chef or two!” adds Sikka.

The services start at `2,500-4,000 per plate—excluding tax, transportation and alcohol—and it’s not unusual for prices to cross the `10,000 mark. At that price you may ask for beef from Kobe or caviar from the Caspian Sea. Saha calls the trend “bespoke catering”.

That is also the name Avant Garde’s catering division goes by and it serves, among other things, Caperberry’s culinary artmeets-rocket science menu of molecular gastronomy. “What the clients look for is the Caperberry experience, but served at their homes,” he adds. Bespoke Catering uses sferification (a technology to turn liquids into caviar-like beads) mini kits

developed by molecular gastronomy pioneer Ferran Adria to replicate the Caperberry menu in a patron’s kitchen. Sikka, however, sticks to his speciality: Indian cuisine. “I prefer not to dilute my brand,” says the owner of Magique and Kainoosh in New Delhi, which are known for marrying the traditional and the modern.

Mehrotra too keeps the focus on the Indian Accent brand. He even limits the size of orders to 15-20 plates. “It’s not possible to produce Indian Accent food on a mass scale. We prefer to do private, sitdown dinners.”

When it comes to entertaining at home, New Delhi is the undisputed capital, says restaurateur A.D. Singh. Singh’s Olive brand began catering services when it opened in the Capital a few years ago. He now operates a separate kitchen in Okhla, Moving Kitchen, and has widened Olive’s standard oeuvre of Italian and Mediterranean to include Japanese, even Indian. In the six months since its launch, Food Inc has catered for about 20 parties a month on an average, says Tuli. “But then, it was the party season in Delhi. With summer here, there aren’t likely to be so many orders,” he says.

Who knows? Some Delhi socialite may decide to throw a caviar and cocktail party.

Rachana Nakra contributed to this story.

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WATCHMAN

SIDIN VADUKUT

PERSONALITY CULT

HOME IN THE SKY Four Seasons homes in Bangalore herald a ritzy real estate trend

B Y P AVITRA J AYARAMAN & M ADHURIMA N ANDY ······························· do have high standards where my living spaces are concerned,” says Raj Chawla, who is among the first set of clients to buy a Four Seasons branded residence in Bangalore. A two-bedroom apartment on the 24th floor of the building that will also house the Four Seasons hotel will be Chawla’s retirement home. “By the time I am 50, I hope,” laughs the 43-year-old, Singapore-based investment banker.

For Chawla, a Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts regular, the choice was a simple one. “Though I don’t live in Bangalore, there is an assurance that I won’t be short-changed because of the brand involved,” he says.

Being built by Westcourt builders in collaboration with Four Seasons, the project, named CityView, stands on a 6.5-acre site north of Palace Grounds on Bellary Road in Bangalore. Of the three buildings, one 30-storey tower will house the hotel along with oneand two-bedroom apartments priced at `4-7 crore on the top nine floors.

The second 30-storey building, labelled the North Tower, will be dedicated entirely to residential spaces, and will have generous three- and four-bedroom apartments priced upwards of `10 crore.

Designed by Studio u+a, with interiors by Yabu Pushelberg and landscaping by P Landscape, both buildings will include duplex penthouses that will be custom-made for buyers. Each floor in the residential tower will have two units with independent elevators. “The biggest distinction is the service component,” says Westcourt’s president and CEO, Vinay Kapoor. In addition to services such as 24-hour valet parking, concierge services and complex-wide Wi-Fi, all residents will be able to enjoy the hotel’s paid services such as room service, limousines, apartment cleaning services or even supermarket shop-

Towering luxury: (clockwise from above, left) An artist’s impression of the living room at a Four Seasons apartment; the campus will have three buildings for the residences, hotel and office spaces; and the resi­ dential lobby of the North Tower.

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Political: Obama wears the 6500 Jorg Gray steel chronograph.

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urrently, thousands of watch buyers, sellers and makers have congregated in Basel, Switzerland, for BaselWorld, the annual watch exhibition which is on till 31 March. It is the biggest event of its kind. Some luxury brands often book orders for up to 85% of their entire annual sales at the event.

For journalists and watch enthusiasts, it is a good opportunity to gawk at the latest timepieces. Are watches getting smaller? Bigger? Shinier? Basel is also a chance for fringe brands to get noticed with novelties and new collections.

These smaller brands, often relegated to secondary halls and spaces in the vast BaselWorld exhibition complex, sometimes surprise with their creativity.

Unlike the Pateks, Rolexes and Breguets, they don’t have the weight of heritage on their shoulders. They can, and often do, think out of the box.

A few days ago, I received a press release from one such watch brand. Jorg Gray, a 13-year-old watch brand based in Tustin, California, announced that it would be exhibiting products for the first time at BaselWorld this year.

Jorg Gray has a collection of approximately 150 watches and some accessories such as pens and watch straps. They make watches for both men and women. While the company does make a few diamond and gold watches that can cost up to a few thousand dollars, the bulk of its collection is moderately priced at $250-800 (around `11,500-36,100). Most of Jorg Gray’s watches come with sober, classic dials and some of their best pieces have aviator-style dark dials with light numerals.

According to the brand’s website, Jorg Gray began as a supplier of speciality private-label watches. In other words, they made good quality watches that could be branded and sold by other organizations (such as museum gift shops). But recently, the brand’s fortunes changed dramatically. It has begun developing the Jorg Gray brand in its own right.

This change has been due to the dramatic success of Jorg Gray’s “6500” family of watches. Currently, the 6500 collection comprises 14 pieces, all of them chronographs with round faces. It is a handsome, versatile collection but not a distinctive one.

So why is the 6500 so popular?

Simple.

It is the Obama watch.

JASON REED/REUTERS

US President Barack Obama frequently wears a 6500 Jorg Gray steel chronograph with a black dial and black leather strap.

Now, much like most watch connoisseurs, heads of state and other celebrities also use their timepieces to convey messages. Bill Clinton, for instance, used to wear an ordinary Timex Ironman as a symbol of solidarity with the man on the street (since leaving office, however, Clinton is believed to be a discerning collector of expensive pieces).

Vladimir Putin wears Patek Philippes and BlancPains. In 2009, Putin made headlines when during a factory visit he gifted a worker the £5,500 (around `4 lakh now) BlancPain he was wearing.

Italian Prime Minister-cum-compulsive playboy Silvio Berlusconi has been spotted wearing a platinum Vacheron Constantin minute repeater masterpiece.

A year or so ago, I convinced one of my colleagues to go find out what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wears. After a week she reverted: Dr Singh has a collection comprising a Longines and several Titans. Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, doesn’t wear watches at all.

Sachin, of Tendulkar fame, can be spotted wearing spectacular Audemars Piguet timepieces. But then he is an ambassador for the brand.

In Obama’s case, there is more than personal choice or brand endorsement involved. In 2007, when still a presidential candidate, Obama was gifted the watch by members of his Secret Service retinue. At the time, Jorg Gray supplied watches to the Secret Service gift shop inside the White House. The piece Obama wears has the Secret Service insignia on the dial.

As the Obama train picked up speed, the watch became a hot seller. Today, you can buy the same model online for $350. The watch does not have the Secret Service insignia any more. But it does have a special Obama engraving on the back and each piece is numbered.

The Jorg Gray 6500 is a simple, clean watch at a decent price that can be worn to meetings or a tennis match. But it gets elevated to symbolic greatness by virtue of association.

There are several reasons to fork out wads of cash for a watch. Buying one because Obama wears it is by no means the worst one.

Write to Sidin at watchman@livemint.com

ping and delivery. “We haven’t yet decided on the price points for these services, and might discount them for residents,” says Christopher Wong, vice-president, development, Asia-Pacific, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

The North Tower will also have a wine room with dual-temperature wine refrigerators, a media room and sports centre independent from the hotel.

The residents will also have a discreet entrance to the hotel lobby.

All 110 residences are being marketed by Sotheby’s International Realty, the real estate division of art auction house Sotheby’s, which has entered the Indian real estate market with this project. “The buyers can be categorized as mostly NRIs and Indian executives in the age group of 35-50 years,” says Philip Grant, project director, real estate sales and marketing, Blueprint Global/Sotheby’s International Realty. Grant is on the look out for clients who want to live the high life, which is perhaps why he is scouting for buyers at Sotheby’s global art events. “I would imagine that people with fine taste will appreciate what we have on offer here,” he says.

CityView is expected to be ready in 2012, but the fact that several similar projects are in the pipeline across the

country is an indication of a recovery from the economic lull of 2008-09.

Property consultants believe that the new concept of high-end, branded residences in India lends a different flavour by mixing both hospitality and residential elements in the same space.

“Developers can easily fetch a premium of 15-20% on the pricing of such residences, and these are good investment options as well,” says Karun Varma, managing director, Jones Lang LaSalle, a property advisory firm.

While the trend is relatively new, developers in Mumbai and Bangalore have begun toying with the idea of building such branded residences.

Mumbai-based Oberoi Realty is in the last stages of finalizing an international hospitality operator for its south Mumbai (Worli) project, where it plans a hotel and branded residences. Bangalore-based Nitesh Estates, which is developing the Ritz Carlton hotel in the city, is planning similar residences for its second Ritz Carlton project in Chennai.

“These residences would be considered in our mixed-use development projects where you can also build a hotel alongside,” says Ashwini Kumar, chief operating officer, Nitesh Estates. Though they won’t come with a hotel, Mumbai will also get its own set of Trump-branded residences, which will be developed through a tie-up between billionaire Donald Trump’s Trump Organization and local developer Rohan Lifescapes.

Priced at around `40,000 per sq. ft, the 60-storey tower will come up on Hughes Road in south Mumbai. pavitra.j@livemint.com

DADDY OF DIAMONDS

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/ MINT

Jewellery designer Nirav Modi’s pink diamonds are a shade apart B Y K OMAL S HARMA komal.sharma@livemint.com

····························· ovember 2010 was the first time that Christie’s auctioned a necklace by an Indian jeweller. The piece in question, the “Golconda Lotus necklace” by Mumbai-based designer Nirav Modi, features a rare Golconda diamond at its centre with pink diamonds from Australia’s Argyle mines, held together by Ainra cut links—a trademark Modi design that replaces metal clasps with diamonds. It was auctioned for `16.29 crore.

Modi, who retails out of the Nirav Modi boutique in Mumbai, is now back with another rare diamond—the Shalimar. Bought from Argyle in 2009, the diamond is set in a ring which will be exhibited in New York, Hong Kong, Perth and Tokyo between August and October.

The ring features the rarest stone produced by the Argyle mines: the pink diamond. “They comprise

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only 0.03% of global diamond production and this rarity makes them most valuable. While a 1-carat white diamond is `5 lakh, 1 carat of round, vivid pink diamond would be `1-5 crore,” says Modi.

While the quality of a diamond is measured by the 4 Cs, for pink diamonds the colour is measured, highest to lowest, as vivid pink, fancy intense, fancy and fancy light.

The Shalimar is vivid pink and weighs 1.25 carats. “The only other instance we know of was a pink diamond owned by the Sultan of Brunei in 1987. That was 0.89 carats,” says Modi. The Shalimar ring is inspired by Goddess Lakshmi emerging from a lotus. Six layers of petals, each with handcrafted diamonds, are created in a mix of white and pink diamonds. In the centre sits the Shalimar as Lakshmi.

Another one of Modi’s creations is set to go to Sotheby’s in April. A pear-shaped ring which features the “endless cut” is estimated at $3-4

Jewelled lotus: Modi’s Shalimar pink diamond ring is inspired

by Goddess Lakshmi. million (around `13-18 crore).

The master craftsman is also one for diamond mythology. He narrates an anecdote popular in diamond circles. “At a New York ball in 1957, the Duchess of Windsor wore an exquisitely crafted diamond choker by Harry Winston. Guests were mesmerized by the size of it.

Also present at the ball was Maharani Sita Devi, who eventually commented that the diamonds looked better on her feet. Winston had purchased a pair of anklets from the Maharani a few years ago and remounted the same jewels on to the choker.”

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Watchmaking heritage: (from far left) Michel Parmigiani; the company’s manufacturing unit at Fleurier; and the Fibonacci­Savonette pocket watch.

THE MATHEMATICS OF

PARMIGIANI The watch brand has something in common with Da Vinci’s paintings and the new version of Twitter’s homepage

B Y S IDIN V ADUKUT ·································· n the slightly bizarre world of high luxury, the recency of Swiss watches is anathema. Newness is something that is not only frowned upon, but actively campaigned against.

For instance, walk into any one of the two major watch fairs that are held each year in Basel or Geneva.

You will find only two kinds of brands. The kind that can and will say they have been around for centuries—“Depuis 1775”, “Since 1843” and so on—and the kind that can’t and, therefore, won’t. Revered brands, such as Breguet, work their provenance into their logos. Ancient years, important dates and reproductions of ancient documents and photographs line the walls of their booths and the pages of their catalogues.

Upstarts prefer to talk about amorphous ideas, such as “Swiss watchmaking heritage”, to deflect attention from their recent births. Sometimes they have to resort to using double the gold and triple the number of diamonds to get noticed.

Which is why it is somewhat extraordinary to see the respect accorded to Parmigiani Fleurier by other brands.

The brand, as we know it today, was established in the Swiss village of Fleurier by master watchmaker Michel Parmigiani in 1997. It is just 14 years old—a period that barely registers on the timeline of Swiss watchmaking (to put this in perspective, Rolex has been making its classic Oyster Perpetual Submariner range since 1954, shortly after Michel

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Parmigiani was born).

Yet, talk to any of the large or small brands that exhibited along with Parmigiani at this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) watch fair in Geneva, and they talk about “Parm” with ungrudging respect. This is not an upstart that has unleashed marketing millions (in fact, it is anything but. Almost all of Parmigiani’s regional brand managers, and some of their retailers, talk of the need for much greater investment in marketing and communication).

The reason for this, for the time being, is the watchmaking skill of the man whose name is on the building. Since going into business as a watchmaker and restorer in 1976, Michel Parmigiani has developed a reputation for both restoring extraordinary timepieces and, more recently, creating new ones.

“It is quite extraordinary to see my name there,” said Michel Parmigiani through an interpreter in January at the SIHH fair in Geneva. “It is humbling.

But also a little scary. Now, I have to do everything I can to uphold the brand.”

Michel Parmigiani speaks in bursts.

He listens intently to your questions and usually doesn’t wait for his interpreter to finish. Then he speaks quickly and somewhat impatiently. Once he is done he seems to withdraw a little, waiting for the translation to be complete.

At least once or twice later at the fair I spotted him strolling around his own booth, the one with his name all over it, like a curious visitor—peering into displays. Reading labels. While he doesn’t comically trip over things or pick up a

Mars bar to answer a phone call, there is more of the absent-minded professor to Michel Parmigiani than immediately meets the eye.

The Parmigiani head office in Fleurier is housed in a three-storey building that looks like nothing but the home of a wealthy provincial administrator of some kind. The building belongs to the Sandoz family, the billionaire Swiss pharma heirs who are also the patrons of the brand. Michel Parmigiani began his association with the family when he began restoring antique clocks and timepieces from the Sandoz collection in the 1970s.

Across the road from the head office is a more modern building, one of a complex of manufacturing facilities owned by Parmigiani that exist within a 2-hour radius of the head office by road. While the lower floors of this complex house large, loud, unromantic machines that make watch cases, the uppermost floor houses the restoration section.

The genesis of the brand is here, where Parmigiani and a couple of understudies bring back to life watches made hundreds of years ago. When we visited the office two months ago one of the pieces undergoing refurbishment was a small vanity pistol with a tiny watch built into the handle. A pull of the trigger and a tiny bird pops out of the barrel. Then, inside the pistol, a system of bellows begins to operate. And the bird begins to sing. And flap its wings.

The effect is mesmerizing. The bird is no bigger than a thumbnail. Yet its wings have textures, its eyes glitter. The

Gilded secret: (left) A close­up of the movement of a Parmigiani watch; and the Parmigiani Bugatti Atalante, around `1.24 crore.

birdsong is both beautiful and precise, each note crystal clear.

And it is all achieved with clockwork.

The pistol is around two centuries old.

Hardly any drawings or notes exist and all parts that need to be replaced need to be made by hand. In short, this is exactly the kind of challenge that built Michel Parmigiani’s reputation.

Starting with restoration work in 1976, Parmigiani slowly began to make movements for other brands. Over time, his work found its way into watches by brands such as Chopard and Breguet.

Meanwhile, he also became the sole restorer of timepieces for the extensive Sandoz Family Foundation collection.

Then in the early 1990s, the foundation wondered why it wasn’t capitalizing on Parmigiani’s considerable skills.

In 1997, the brand Parmigiani Fleurier was born and shortly thereafter a series of collections were launched for men and women—Tonda, Kalpa, Pershing and the Bugatti watches.

The best place to start looking at a Parmigiani watch is from the side. Note the unique shape of the lugs—the bits of metal that connect the strap to the case.

See how the lugs have the profile of a slightly curved tear drop. That might seem like the outcome of a freeform curve with a pen on a piece of paper.

It is not.

“In 1969, I discovered the golden ratio while reading a mathematics text book.

That has completely changed the way I look at life,” Michel Parmigiani told us.

The golden ratio is a number that approximately equals 1.618033. For centuries it has been associated with a certain divine mathematics and divine proportions. Building things in this ratio makes them, it is believed, more pleasing to the eye. Everything from Greek buildings, Da Vinci’s paintings and even the newest version of Twitter’s homepage have been found to contain the golden ratio.

Parmigiani referred to it as the “number of mystery”, the “number of life” and the “divine proportion”. He implements it in some interesting places.

Those lugs are designed using the golden ratio and are a signature aspect of most Parmigiani watches: “You can identify if someone is wearing a Parmigiani just by getting a glimpse of the lugs from inside his cuffs…”

The letters in the brand logo are also inspired thus.

“Why is the Taj Mahal so beautiful?” he asks. “Simple. It is built using the golden ratio!”

Michel Parmigiani is at his most effusive when we are talking not about business or brands or history, but when he is asked about mathematicians such as Fibonacci and Luca Pacioli, and architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright.

“Architecture and watchmaking are totally related,” he says. “In both cases, you use a series of rules and ratios to build things for human use.”

The products of Parmigiani’s mathematics are slowly beginning to get their due. The collection, in comparison with older brands, may not have any classic or collector items yet.

But it is only a matter of time.

The Pershing, for instance, is a superb sports watch that is brutally masculine yet very refined.

The watch Parmigiani himself was wearing when we met him, the GMT Tonda Hemispheres, is both sharp and sensual. The deft touch in choosing playful numerals gives the watch tremendous personality.

The Bugatti watches are brash and gimmicky. But they did get noticed. This year, Parmigiani launched a limited-edition lunar table clock that works with the Muslim Hegirian calendar.

Michel Parimigiani said: “That is a tremendously difficult project to execute. One you can do only once in a while. Otherwise, you will go mad. The movement is so different from regular clocks.”

In a business where brands vie to prove their ancient heritage, it is rare to see a new brand garner respect. Parmigiani is doing it for the right reasons: movements, design, craftsmanship, and Michel Parmigiani’s mathematics.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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SWIRL, SNIFF, SIP

EVERY CULTURE

Bernard Peillon, chairman and CEO of Hennessy, on encounters that shaped his career, and why mixing Red Bull with cognac is a bad idea

B Y A RUN J ANARDHAN arun.j@livemint.com

·································· dimly lit room with wooden flooring, book-lined walls, a leather couch, and a distinguished gentleman in a sharply cut suit smoking a cigar, swirling a glass of cognac in his other hand.

This is the picture I had in mind; this is not what I actually saw, except for the distinguished gentleman in a well-cut business suit.

Bernard Peillon, the chairman and chief executive officer of cognac brand Hennessy, declines a late morning drink (he asks me for tea though) during our meeting at the Sea Lounge of The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel in Mumbai. The 54-year-old Peillon is warm and speaks generously about encounters with people who shaped his life, though he doesn’t name them.

“My whole career has been a matter of meeting people,” he says in clear English tinged with a French accent.

He starts from “far away”, when he had to choose between two sides of his family—one with the Chateau de Rieussec in Bordeaux and the other in the silk business in Lyon.

Peillon swayed towards the vineyard and started working there in 1979, learning about the business till he encountered “a customer” who asked him to move to Harrod’s in London. Still in his early 20s, Peillon worked as a wine salesman for a few months at Harrod’s, which also helped him improve his English. An encounter with “an American” took him to the US in 1981, working in the field of distribution with “one of the finest wine retailers on the East Coast”, till his next encounter brought him back to France in 1983.

He joined the BSN Group, a food and beverage firm, after passing a test to identify three different kinds of bubbly blindfolded, becoming responsible for the group’s champagne brands in export markets. But that was not the end of the journey for the man who kept travelling, learning new facets of the wine business, including marketing, general management and even how to load a truck.

A

More than three decades later, Peillon remains in the business, although he doesn’t load trucks any more. “Every time, you have to absorb the local culture. You have to dip into it. When I hire people in my company, I say please don’t make judgements right away. You have to perceive those cultural differences, the way people think and behave,” he says.

After spending three years, from 1990, in the US setting up an import and distribution company to handle the BSN Group’s champagne brands, Peillon joined the LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) Group as export manager of Moët and Chandon in 1994, working his way up the company till January 2007, when he became the president of Hennessy Cognac, which is part of the LVMH Group.

He says the perception of an elitist tag associated with cognac has faded over the years, considering younger people now experiment—mixing the smooth spirit that burns slowly down your throat with, unimaginably and among others, Red Bull, a sweet energy drink.

Peillon, clearly not in favour of consuming this particular concoction himself, is not dismissive of it.

He says that’s the sort of variation that keeps Hennessy going even today. “If you drink Hennessy XO or Paradis, you probably belong to an older demographic, male, 45 years old and above, a successful businessman, cultured,” he pauses, “good home, good friends. The old tradition is now a cliché—of a snifter, and all of that cigar business.

That’s not the way people drink it.

Probably 70% of consumers enjoy it as a mixed drink, particularly the younger generation, who would drink it with Coke or green tea, like in China. In India, ginger seems to be important. In the US, it’s cranberry juice. Sometimes, with Red Bull, but that’s an acquired taste, we are not promoting it.”

He pauses before adding: “I tried Red Bull once. Just to say I have done it once. Disgusting. Here, I am maybe too old.”

Having lived in France, the US

MOST POPULAR Hennessy VS is the most favoured product in the Indian market, and the latest fad doing the rounds is to mix it with ginger ale.

THE NEXT BIG THING Bernard Peillon says the company will dedicate more resources to India in an attempt to change people’s mindsets towards cognac.

BEYOND THE FRINGE The Hennessy Artistry Club Series will have six shows this year, all in Bangalore, up from three high­energy parties last year. The first of this year’s series was held in February; it had six musical events.

and England, he says Indians are “probably closer to the French in terms of sophistication, culture. Few people integrate the past because they have no past and few cultural references. India and France share an interesting sense of aesthetics.

We don’t do things just because they are functional”.

In October, one of the reasons

Peillon visited India, the company organized a Hennessy Artistry (music) series, a mix of different kinds of music, style and people.

Bangalore was the chosen destination because that’s where the brand does best. Hennessy’s current enthusiasm for India is also a consequence of the need to expand in newer markets, after the slow-

down left the luxury product “flat” over two years.

Peillon, who travels two-thirds of the time in a year, spends the rest at his home close to Versailles, with wife Katinka and six children aged between 12 and 22.

Yes, he loves his Hennessy XO with some ice water in the evening, with strictly no Red Bull.

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THE PURSUIT OF

Con brio: The suave Brioni jacket; and (above) the Brioni storefront in Milan.

PERFECTION What differentiates the English suit from an Italian one?

B Y S UPRIYA N AIR supriya.n@livemint.com

·································· ome things, like satirical journalism and the art of defending in football, are widely considered to have originated in England, but perfected in Italy. Many will claim this is also true of the wardrobe of the welldressed man. The suit has a particularly British social and cultural history unrivalled by other forms of European menswear—at least, until someone decides to revive the senatorial toga.

Yet close your eyes and think of the walk-in closet of the man about town, and you are likely to imagine the relentless lines and Byronic shimmer of the abito Italiano. That discreet silken-ness!

That demanding, tapering waist! And those names emblazoned in sartorial history, from Prandoni to Giorgio Armani, punctuated along the way by Zegna, Attolini and Caraceni—mantras for men’s tailoring. From Gianni Agnelli to George Clooney, the evidence is plain.

Other suits put a man on annual bestdressed lists; Italian suits are for the bestdressed of all time.

But tycoons and icons are no strangers to the most famous address in men’s fashion. On Savile Row, centuries of Royal Warrants and world-dominating clients (not for nothing was one of the street’s best-known patrons, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, judged “the best-dressed man in the British Empire”) cannot be overstated.

Their customers are not mantra chanters.

For such men, “bespoke” begins and ends on the “golden row of tailoring”—quite appropriately, since the word originates from the street’s old practice of customers choosing the bolts of fabric from which their clothes were to be cut, causing them to “be spoken for”.

None of this makes it easy to adjudge the loftier tradition. There is a broad attempt to classify the creative philosophies of centuries of design into handy categories: the English suit for elegance, the Italian suit for fashion. But what distinguishes each?

“The traditional answer would be that the Savile Row suit has a double vent at the back and the Italian suit is unvented,” explains Mark Henderson, chairman, Savile Row Bespoke, and deputy chairman, Gieves & Hawkes (No. 1, Savile Row to you). “The British suit has less padding at the shoulder, is cut snugger, and is made of heavier cloths due to our colder climate.

There has, however, been a constant interchange of ideas and now the differences are minimal. Savile Row has certainly mastered the use of the finest cloths,

S

Britannia vs Italia Does the man of fashion choose between tapered trousers and tweed? Or do both traditions lib­ erate themselves from stereo­ types? The Anglo­Italian argu­ ment over the suit acquires more dimensions at the Mint Luxury Conference, where Mark Henderson of Gieves and Hawkes and Francesco Pesci of Brioni will fight their respective corners in a session called ‘Menswear: English Elegance vs Italian Flair’.

The panel juxtaposes English and Italian fashion fundamentals to understand the history and impact of each in a changing world. It will be moderated by Vinod Nair, fashion editor, ‘Hindustan Times’.

Menswear: ‘English Elegance vs Italian Flair’ at the Mint Luxury Conference, The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, on 26 March at 4pm.

while many Italian suits are vented.”

“We believe that an English suit has more shape and structure, with a defined silhouette,” says Richard Fuller, retail manager at Kilgour (No. 8, Savile Row), “which really highlights the elegance in every piece.”

Bold words when you consider the other corner, with its unforgiving slim fit and a cut so sharp it bleeds, associated with the world’s greatest fashion houses.

“Italian tailoring prefers not to follow rigid aesthetic guidelines,” says Francesco Pesci, chief executive officer, Brioni. “The way we developed the internal parts of the suit, the lighter fabrics and suits modelled for functionality and comfort were a new level of innovation.”

But before you conjure up visions of grim petites mains in the backrooms of British workshops up against suntanned maestros in Mediterranean studios, exclaiming Italian variations of “Surprise me!”, pause a moment. Let’s not forget that no one on Savile Row has publicly claimed to tailor a suit so fautlessly as Enzo d’Orsi, master tailor and creative director at the legendary Kiton of Naples.

D’Orsi reportedly makes every custom K50, the most exclusive of Kiton’s designs, by chalking the pattern directly on to his fabric (suits are otherwise cut with the help of a paper pattern).

“The perception that Italian tailoring sacrifices technique for flair is wrong,” Pesci says. “The Italian sartorial school evolved from an established English one, but it did so to improve technique, with textures and fabrics that were not previously easy to work with.” This is true: When Nazareno Fonticoli and Gaetano Savini opened Brioni’s first shop on the Via Barberini, Rome, in 1945, they became the cornerstone of an entire school of Roman tailoring. Innovation remains compulsory. In recent years, Brioni was the first to introduce the “hidden chest” in a suit. “It provides for a fitting and internal texture that is useful in areas with a high level of humidity,” Pesci explains.

Besides, who else could offer that $43,000 (around `19.4 lakh) vicuñawool-blend suit threaded with white gold pinstripes?

“There are some wonderful suit makers in Italy,” Henderson says. “We’d never deny that. But Savile Row is also alive with innovation, in a careful way. There are dozens of young apprentices–cutters, coat makers, etc., who are studying with their masters but always looking to innovate and are alive to London’s fashion buzz.”

Coming from an institution that once employed the young Alexander McQueen, this is irrefutable.

Pesci extols the “pure passion of the artisan” that goes into the Italian suit. But to Fuller, Italian innovation has a price. “(Italian suits) have an inevitable fashionability in terms of cut and choice of fabrication. The Italian fabrics tend to be more precious, and have a lustre on the finish that does not aid the process of ageing gracefully.” Kilgour’s mohairs, silks, linens and cashmeres, he says, are themselves supported by the march of technology to have the opposite effect. “We can offer crease-resistant fabrics that recover from a day’s wear simply by being hung in the wardrobe—comfortable to wear, immaculate to the eye.” Just as useful as the revered tendency of Attolini suits to spring back into perfect shape even after they have been crushed into a ball.

When Giorgio Armani created his low-slung, unstructured suit jacket in 1975, he recalibrated the meaning of elegance. Today, the boldness and drama associated with Mediterranean style meets its match on Savile Row itself; the street houses no less a fashion icon than the young Londoner Ozwald Boateng (No. 12a), whose classical tailoring marries a sense of flamboyant colour and cut that redefines the readyto-wear suit on Fashion Week runways.

Is there a clue as to which tradition might suit the Indian man better?

Choosing the destination is no simpler than picking one from that other great AngloItalian face-off: sonnet styles. Petrarchan or Shakespearean?

It depends on the cut of your jib.

SUZANNE PLUNKETT/BLOOMBERG

Golden row: (left) Savile Row is considered to be tailoring at its finest; and the Kilgour suit marries innovation to tradition.

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DRESS LIKE RAVI BAJAJ

AN ICON

FINISHING TOUCH

How would these sharp dressers from the past dress today?

Designer Ravi Bajaj recreates contemporary looks for four of the most suave men of Indian vintage Tom Ford: Mother­of­ pearl cufflinks, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `1.50 lakh.

THE INDUSTRIALIST

JEHANGIR RATANJI TATA (JRD) T

he man with an international vision for Indian business dressed accordingly. It would be rare to come across a photograph of him clad in anything other than a suit and tie, which he wore right up to his late 80s.

The champion aviator, who founded what is now India’s national airline, Air India, was born in 1904 in Paris to the pioneering businessman Ratanji Tata and a French mother, Suzanne “Sooni” Brière. JRD spent a large part of his childhood in Paris (his first language was French); a factor that might explain much of his strict sartorial discipline.

While his father dressed like European top brass, even incorporating white ruffled shirts and collars in his wardrobe, JRD wasn’t as flamboyant. He stuck diligently to a more formal look, veering to experiment with variously coloured ties and the occasional pocket square.

Ú

HINDUSTAN TIMES

THE ICON TODAY: JRD is styled in a fitted grey suit—a departure from his otherwise baggy silhouette—and a mauve tie to spruce up the tones. Bajaj also gives a brown leather attaché to the man who carried a lot on his shoulders.

Ermenegildo Zegna: Laptop bag, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; The Taj Mahal Pal­ ace and Tower, Mumbai; Taj Krishna, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad; and UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `90,300.

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FINISHING TOUCH Dunhill: Straw hat, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `9,999.

THE ARTISTE

THE KOBAL COLLECTION

SATYAJIT RAY H

e carried off fitted linen shirts and cotton trousers with panache on his impossibly tall 6’ 4” frame.

As a film-maker who often shot in rural locations, he was dressed for the heat and grit of the outdoors, with trousers slightly rolled up and the sleeves always elbow-length, never longer.

In equal parts a salon man, he wore a crisp white kurta (long but fitted) for the indoors.

Both the linen shirt look and the kurtapyjama were adapted for his iconic detective, Feluda, whose illustrations were done

by Ray himself (Ray designed the clothes of all the characters of his movies, making painstaking character drawings).

Though he was rarely seen without a pipe, cigarette or camera in hand, his strongest accessory was his brooding intellectual look.

Dunhill: Lighter, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `32,999.

Ermenegildo Zegna: Aviators, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai; Taj Krishna, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad; and UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `21,800.

Ù

THE ICON TODAY: Bajaj shortens the traditional kurta length and swaps the loose pyjamas with a tapered pair for a more streamlined silhouette. While outdoors, Ray donned some sort of headgear to protect himself from the scorching sun, which the designer envisions as a straw fedora trimmed with a rust­coloured ribbon.

Tom Ford: Overnight bag with trimming, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `2.5 lakh.

FINISHING TOUCH

THE STATESMAN

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU DUNGAN/GETTY IMAGES

T

he first and longest-serving prime minister of India was surely a busy man, but not one to leave home without being impeccably well turned out. While Nehru wore three-piece suits to dandy perfection in his younger days as a student at Cambridge, UK, he graduated to a shorter version of the traditional subcontinental achkan soon after his return to India.

Nehru’s signature dress was purposefully simple in design, material and colour. It represented a lifestyle that was pertinent to his political milieu: a uniform for a new India.

Not too many politicos would have style trends named after them, but Nehru had the “Nehru jacket”. He had these made in stiff fabrics that lent to the sharp lines and high collars. With such defined lines for “Indian” wear, he blurred the boundaries between Indian and Western dressing.

He even managed to add a touch of class to the then commonplace white topi by incorporating it in his formal wardrobe.

His original silhouette, and the ever-present red rose tucked in his buttonhole, make him one of the most memorable of Indian style icons. But his fashion sense ran far deeper. Legend has it that not only did he have his suits tailored in England, but that they were also sent there for dry-cleaning.

Tom Ford: Silk pocket square, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `7,000.

Gucci: Lace­up shoes, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and The Galleria, Trident, Mumbai, `32,000.

Ú

THE ICON TODAY: Bajaj’s Nehru wears his trademark achkan more fitted while his pyjamas become slim­fit trousers. The designer intervenes with patent leather lace­ups instead of the leather slip­ons Nehru usually wore and suggests pocket squares as an alternative to the rose.

Bottega Veneta: Briefcase, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; The Galleria, Trident, Mumbai; and UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `2.05 lakh.

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THE SPORTSTAR

IFTIKHAR ALI KHAN PATAUDI

EXPRESS/GETTY IMAGES

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orn into the princely state of Pataudi, Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi—or IAK, as he was called by friends—carried his style on his lapel, rather literally.

He captained the Indian cricket team in the 1940s, was an accomplished billiards and hockey player, and made quite the mark with his sartorial flourishes.

His college years at Oxford, UK, and subsequent cricket career as part of the English team had a noticeable imprint on his style staples: the trench coat, the exaggerated collars and lapels, the ubiquitous scarf, and the fedora that he wore with a delicate tilt. He emphasized cuts over colour, and was usually seen in middle greys and browns.

While his son Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi (who also captained the Indian cricket team later in a rare father-son coup) is also known for his personal style, IAK was among the best that Indian cricket has seen. When he died in 1952, at the age of 41, he was at a polo game, outfitted like a star.

Ù THE ICON TODAY: Bajaj styles the adventur­ ous sharp dresser in beige Jodhpurs paired with a pastel shirt. Bajaj’s interventions are in the colour palette: the burnt peach scarf and violet moccasins pepper Pataudi’s otherwise muted ensemble.

Audemars Piguet: The Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph, at Kapoor Watch Co., DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and Time Avenue, Bandra (West), Mumbai, `24.48 lakh.

FINISHING TOUCH Canali: Cravat tie, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore; and Palla­ dium, High Street Phoenix, Mumbai, `21,700.

Tod’s: Moccasins, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and The Galleria, Trident, Mumbai, `25,000.

Compiled by Anindita Ghose and Seema Chowdhry; anindita.g@livemint.com

Tom Ford: Sunglasses, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `15,750.

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STEPHANIE MITCHELL/HARVARD

CAVIAR FOR YOUR

GREY CELLS

We are in the middle of a revolution—not just acquiring wealth but having meaningful experiences, pursuing knowledge, and sharing it B Y P ARMESH S HAHANI ·································· uddled with 30 other thinkers, debating globalization and diversity at an invite-only conference called “The Inner Lives of Cultures” has to define my idea of bliss. At this one, organized by the British Council two weeks ago in Delhi, my co-participants included philosopher Charles Taylor, anthropologist Henrietta Moore, mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, brand guru Santosh Desai, psychiatrist Sushrut Jadhav, poet George Szirtes and writer Amit Chaudhari. The chaotic churning of my mind as it processed cross-disciplinary insights is a luxury I consider priceless.

Over the past two years, this hasn’t been a solitary journey. I’ve had many co-travellers but it seems that from being somewhat of a secret cult, the phenomenon of “brain spas” is reaching a tipping point. Simultaneously, as an editor at a national fashion magazine, I have witnessed, at close quarters, the apparent luxury boom in the country, whether in the shape of international fashion labels, private jets or yachts.

These parallel journeys have led me to contend that we are indeed in the middle of a luxury revolution—but it is not of the kind that the luxury brandwallahs would like to project on PowerPoints.

The first wave of this revolution began in the early 2000s, as it did in the West, with the widening of the lexicon of luxury to make way for subdued and meaningful experiences. As we began to get comfortable with wealth in India after the late 1980s, and after we were satiated with the deluge of gadgets and branded baubles post-liberalization, we realized that luxury lay perhaps not in merely having things to own, but in pursuing experiences. So we began to seek out these spe-

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cial experiences, such as masterclasses on art or wine or sailing, personalized spiritual gurus, yoga at Ananda in the Himalayas, and so on. The luxury industry began to recalibrate around these experiences. This wave generated several sub-trends, such as “stealth wealth” (Newsweek International, 24 June 2007), or the wave of “sustainable luxury” that Suzy Menkes and her International Herald Tribune gang rode into Delhi, singing, in early 2009.

While this wave was gaining momentum, another one was forming. This was the pursuit of knowledge as the new luxury. The luxury of living your life contextually, connectedly and meaningfully, instead of in a mere acquisitive manner.

Luxury no longer lay in what you possessed or even what you experienced, but rather, in what you said and did—your words and deeds came from knowledge within you.

Where does this knowledge come from? In an age of Google searches on your mobile phone, just access to information is not enough. As Harvard University’s Homi K. Bhabha recently told me in Mumbai, the challenge lies in interpreting this vast amount of information as knowledge.

Where do you start looking for this interpretation? As with other kinds of luxury, you need a concierge, and the “knowledge as luxury” wave has brought a whole new breed of concierges and curators to the forefront, such as the India Today group, which started organizing its annual high-powered conclaves in 2002, or Lakshmi Pratury, who brought the TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) conference to India in 2009.

The timing was impeccable. Post-recession, it seems that the rest of the world was feeling anxious, and there was an upsurge in attendance at conferences such as TED, which mixed up speakers and performers of all kinds to create ideas worth sharing. In 2010, Pratury also put together INK (Innovation and Knowledge). INK will be an annual conference (TED India was a one-off), and Pratury’s organizational and networking skills catapulted her to the Forbes Women to Watch in Asia list in October.

Most attendees at these events are from the corporate world, because the cost of tickets is high. INK costs `1 lakh for three days and the two-day India Today Conclave costs `85,000. For attendees, these events serve as much-needed breaks from the routine and are useful opportunities to network. Ultimately, their value lies in the inspiration they provide, usually from the non-paying fellows, or speakers.

More than the large expensive conferences, it is the several hundred events under the TEDx banner that have created brainspa addicts across the nation.

TEDx events are mini-TEDs independently organized by local volunteers. There have been TEDx events in cities (Patna and Chennai), in universities (such as Mind travel: Film­maker James Cameron (left) and Lakshmi Pratury in conversation at INK 2010 in Lavasa, Maharashtra, in December.

GENE DRISKELL/INK

TEDx IIM Kozhikode or TEDx Anna University), or around themes (TEDx Youth).

Some of these events have celebrities as speakers or in attendance (TEDxChange in Delhi this week had Melinda Gates as a special guest), but the majority are filled with ordinary folk, and their extraordinary lives.

What excites me about these knowledge summits is that they are often not just about knowledge for the sake of it but also opportunities for inciting change. When urban policy activism and business collide, as at the 361 Degrees conference in Mumbai, or when design thinking plays out in myriad ways, as at the Unbox Festival in Delhi, the needle moves. Changes, however small, do take place.

These recurring changes have led to the third wave that has just begun, especially since the start of 2011, where luxury lies in not just attending conferences and interacting with participants, but in collating and curating such people yourself.

A think tank—the kind that top hedge funds, and wealthy individuals in the US have—costs less than a university, and is simpler to fund and run because its activities are focused. The trend is beginning to gain credence in India.

The Mahindra group has recently incubated the foreign policy think tank Gateway House. The Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore has been set up through the Kusuma Trust to examine how the Internet interacts with the political, cultural and societal norms. The New India Foundation, based in Bangalore and funded by businessman Nandan Nilekani, runs a fellowship programme for awardees to write books that contribute to a fuller understanding of independent India.

None of this means that Tikka Shatrujit Singh of Louis Vuitton should be worried. His monogrammed bags will continue to fly off the shelves; we are in a demographic

Brain masseuse: Harvard’s Homi K. Bhabha is one of the most important figures in contemporary post­colonial studies. and economic sweet spot, as all the branded luxury PowerPoints, and indeed other articles in this issue, might tell you.

But what these new luxury paradigms suggest, and what gives me hope is that, perhaps, contained within some of those LV bags are bunches of conference notes or white papers, with insights that can skew the luxury lexicon.

TED Fellow Parmesh Shahani heads the Godrej-India Culture Lab, and is editorat-large at Verve magazine. His first book Gay Bombay: Globalization, Love and (Be)Longing in Contemporary India, was released in 2008.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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THE RUNWAYS’ BEST,

WORST AND WEIRDEST

AUGUSTO BUZZEO/WSJ

Fashion weeks in Milan, Paris and New York showcase luxury and drama for fall

B Y C HRISTINA B INKLEY ··········································· ere’s a T-shirt you probably don’t have yet: a mink tee. Made from strips of fur hand-sewn on a fine cashmere knit, this Brunello Cucinelli shirt is one of many pieces on the runways in Europe and New York that signalled luxury is back.

Both the lifestyle and the luxury business are in recovery. Bain Capital predicts the industry will grow roughly 5% this year to as much as €176 billion (around `11.1 trillion).

Certainly, these were the most dramatic, newsy fashion weeks in recent memory. John Galliano lost his job at Dior, and luxury conglomerate LVMH agreed to buy Bulgari—even as it continued to press for a takeover of Hermès, which announced that its earnings rose 46% last year.

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Even as the luxury industry is looking like one to watch in coming months, fashions for this fall are richer and dressier. British-gentry tweeds, luxe furs and leather all walked the runways in the past few weeks.

There were other hints of what’s to come in fashion. We’ll be wearing longer skirts this fall—knee-length or below— and lots of pleats. Also, this is the season to bring out your black leather.

Not every garment in the shows will have legs (see Least Practical Garment). But stores are placing bets on many of the runway looks, and versions of them will begin arriving in stores in August. Here are some of the most notable looks and moments of a dramatic season.

Write to wsj@livemint.com

MOST EXCITING COLLECTION Alexander McQueen (Paris)

High fashion: Brunello Cucinelli showed a mink T­shirt in Milan.

The latest collection by designer Sarah Burton cements her position at the head of modern fashion design. Little more than a year ago, she worked behind the scenes as Lee Alexander McQueen’s assistant. Now, she is showing that she has the chops to sustain the brand—and its sensational powerful­woman aesthetic.

PETER STIGTER

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BEST CRISIS MANAGEMENT

JONAS GUSTAVSSON/WSJ

Christian Dior (Paris) When designer John Galliano was caught on video slurring “I love Hitler”, Dior executives dismissed him. CEO Sidney Toledano personally opened the runway show with remarks condemning racism. At the end, dozens of white­frocked “petites mains”—the craftspeople who sewed the collection—appeared on stage.

Fashion hasn’t been this excited about Dior in decades.

FRANCOIS GUILLOT/WSJ

BEST CASUAL CHIC

BEST (WEARABLE) DRESS

Jil Sander (Milan)

Bottega Veneta (Milan)

A recipe for stylish comfort: Take one pair of high­grade black stirrup pants, add a bright sweater, yank on chic boots, and off you go.

The latest collection by Tomas Maier was still being discussed a week later. This dress, in particular, offered haunting layering and a graceful drape. What’s more, it can do double duty, shifting from day into night.

PETER STIGTER

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JONAS GUSTAVSSON/WSJ

PETER STIGTER

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JONAS GUSTAVSSON/WSJ

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MAYA VIDON/WSJ

BEST SHOW

DAN

&

CORINA LECCA/WSJ

Louis Vuitton (Paris) French maids in uniform greeted 1,300 guests with waving feather dusters. Models emerged one at a time from old­fashioned elevators in the massive tent: Chauffeurs, footmen, parlour maids and various fetish characters were represented by 85 leggy models, ending with a cigarette­puffing Kate Moss.

Oh, and the clothes were great too.

STRONGEST COMEBACK Theyskens’ Theory (New York) Last time we heard from Olivier Theyskens, the designer had lost two jobs in a row. The retail buzz was that he was too much of an artiste, and his clothes didn’t fit well enough to sell strongly. His team­up with Theory proves that theory wrong. The line managed to be art and wearable at the same time.

HENDRIK BALLHAUSEN/WSJ

LEAST PRACTICAL GARMENT Hermès (Paris) Pant­boots. Poonts?

The fact that there is no sensible name for this garment suggests that it shouldn’t be worn. The poonts—for lack of a better word—were fashioned of the creamiest leather.

But Hermès clients, known as women of good taste, probably don’t want to field the questions these items raise.

WEIRDEST MOMENT Balmain (Paris) After the last Balmain model disappeared backstage at the Grand Hotel in Paris, audience members waited. And waited.

When designer Christophe Decarnin (right) failed to emerge, rumours blazed. The brand said Decarnin had stayed away on doctor’s orders, but the episode tarnished a brand that was as hot as can be just a few seasons ago.

FOC KAN/WSJ

BIGGEST SLEEPER Salvatore Ferragamo (Milan) You probably thought this was a shoe brand. But since Massimiliano Giornetti took over designing its womenswear last year, the clothes have been well worth seeing. This collection is not to be missed. It’s for female power brokers who favour pinstripes and houndstooth.

PETER STIGTER

&

JONAS GUSTAVSSON/WSJ

BEST MEN’S COLLECTION Billy Reid (New York)

HENRY S DZIEKAN III/WSJ

The designer lives in the southern US and isn’t a fashion­crowd gadabout.

Perhaps it helps: His clothes are fashionable without the fashion shenanigans, such as short pants and polka dots, that frighten men.

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LUXE HAS

A NEW PIN CODE Why Pune is suddenly commanding the attention of designer stores, luxury hotels and an international chain of spas

COURTESY HERMÈS

New entrants: (clockwise from left) Yoopune’s 228 apartments offer European­designed fix­ tures; a Hermès leather shoulder bag; and the second Hermès store in India opened in Pune in January, a precursor to the Mumbai outlet opening in May.

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B Y S APNA A GARWAL & A RUN J ANARDHAN ·································· t’s the next big market, retailers say. If the north has Ludhiana and Chandigarh, it’s Pune for the west.

The city is among the top six or seven most attractive cities in India for luxury retailers to set up shop, says Neelesh Hundekari, principal and head, luxury and lifestyle practice, AT Kearney India.

Luxury marketeers such as Abhay Gupta, executive director of Blues Clothing Co., the retailer for Versace and Corneliani in India, want to set up shop in Pune in the later half of 2011 or 2012. Gupta brackets Pune with Kolkata and Chennai as the place to go to once the other metros are saturated.

The once slow city of quiet roads, treelined streets with agreeable year-round weather, ideal for retired genteel folk, is now a bustling city of a young, high-income, educated lot working in the IT and auto industries, its roads a blur of speeding automobiles. Once a weekend destination for residents of Mumbai, to be spent at the races or in quaint restaurants and pubs, the city has transformed into a lifestyle and luxury hub that includes spas, multiple five-star restaurants, posh residences and coveted highstreet brands.

Most noticeably, over the past year, Pune has become home to the first branch of Ananda in the Himalayas spa, winner of several awards for being one of the Top 10 yoga retreats in the world.

Sixth Sense Spa and Resorts, which has been consistently rated as one of the world’s best spa resorts by Condé Nast Traveller since 2000, will make its India debut in Pune soon. In January, French luxury retailer Hermès opened its second India store in Pune (after Delhi). One of the world’s most celebrated designers, Philippe Starck, will be collaborating on a luxury residential project with a local real estate development company, Panchshil Realty. Ista, a business-luxury chain of hotels, is a new entrant to a market that will see 12 five-stars come up in the city in the near future.

BY

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

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Old money, new bag Pune represents a confluence of old and new money, with families such as the Bajajs, Kirloskars, Kalyanis and Poonawallas representing old wealth, and the real estate, IT, auto and engineering sec-

tors creating new wealth.

It is the coming together of engineering and IT services and a booming educational hub that is creating wealth in the city, helping it grow at over the national growth rate, says Pradeep Dokania, chairman, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.

“While there are no figures available, the number of affluent households in Pune is substantial,” says Sanjay Kapoor, managing director, Genesis Luxury (part of Genesis Colors), which is the franchisee for Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Canali, Etro, Just Cavalli, Jimmy Choo, Paul Smith and Tumi in India, with 25 stand-alone stores across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

“These consist of industrial families with second- and first-generation wealth, and professionals with a household income of `5 million and above. All these people are used to shopping for luxury goods overseas or in metros such as Mumbai and Delhi. Hence, the potential for brands to tap this market is huge,” Kapoor adds.

An Environment Status Report (ESR) of the Pune Municipal Corporation in 2008 put the city’s per capita income at 50% higher than the country’s, more than that of Hyderabad’s and comparable to Bangalore’s. It attributed the reason for

Pune’s economic growth to its large number of manufacturing units and growing education sector—with about 100,000 international students from 62 countries, which indirectly boosts sectors such as hotels, garments, entertainment and transport.

This spending power, it would appear, now has newer avenues to swipe its card.

Hermès, for instance, opened a store in Delhi a few years ago. A statement from the company after its Pune store opened earlier this year said: “The road to Pune will lead us to the significant step for Hermès in India: the opening in Mumbai, in May 2011, of our flagship store in India.”

When asked why they picked Pune ahead of Mumbai, Hermès India managing director Bertrand Michaud told the Hindustan Times in January that “Hermès does not follow a specific pattern, nor does it focus on market trends. Pune is a city that reflects the brand’s goals—to explore, surprise and offer exclusive items.” Hermès declined to participate for this article.

“Puneites spend a hell lot of money and they want variety,” says Sabina Sanghvi, station head, Radio One, Pune who loves her Jimmy Choo shoes.

If anything is an indicator of luxury, it has to be this—lying on your stomach

with someone kneading you to the odours of scented oils, elevator music in the background at a cost that a single rupee note would not cover. Manish Patwardhan, founder and CEO of the advisory firm Spa Consultants, says there has been an influx of spas in recent months—his company alone has helped start three in the city in the last six months and has three more coming up in the next six.

The flood of spas is not just a result of people willing to invest in them, but also of an increasing number of clients who want to pay to get pummelled on a table.

“These (high-end) spas are obviously trying to speak to a spa-goer, not the uninitiated, to someone who knows brands and is picky,” says Mumbai-based Sandhya Chipalkatti, publisher and editor of StyleSpeak, a magazine dedicated to spas and salons.

The real deal The location for the upcoming international chain Sixth Sense Spa is at the 17-acre site in Magarpatta City, which will have the “YOO inspired by Starck” residential project.

Executive director of Panchshil Realty, Sagar I. Chordia, was travelling in Tel Aviv when he chanced upon two buildings he

really liked. He chased down the designers and struck a deal with YOO, a company partnered by designer Starck and John Hitchcox, a property entrepreneur.

Yoopune will have 228 flats, each 5,500 sq. ft at a going rate of `15,000 per sq. ft.

“It’s not a real estate project, it’s more like a hotel condo,” says Chordia, adding that they have already sold 46 apartments in a complex to be completed by 2014. “Lots of people want to move from bungalows to apartments. People don’t have time to do their interiors. So why not give them designer homes?” he says.

Ista, one of the city’s new hotels, has 209 rooms, plus the Hermès store and the Ananda Spa on its property on Nagar Road, near the newly hip Kalyani Nagar.

Set up in 2006, the chain, owned by IHHR Hospitality, started with Bangalore. Pune is their fourth property after Hyderabad and Amritsar. At room prices ranging from `6,500-7,000, the hotel is aimed at the 35- to 45-year-old business executive.

“Pune is growing because Mumbai has gone beyond the seams,” says Nikhil Kapur, general manager of Ista.

“A lot of new and existing businesses are choosing Pune as a hub. Back-end and high-end engineering companies are here along with several research facilities. Normally, a hotel like ours should be 50% non-resident visitors (people who are not staying at the hotel, but are there to use facilities such as dining, spa, shopping, etc.). We get 70% because Pune recognizes quality and appreciates it,” says Kapur.

Viman Nagar, 2km from the airport, hosts another symbol of growth. The `700 crore Phoenix Market City will be spread over 3 million sq. ft, including 1.5 million sq. ft of retail space that will house 280 brands, commercial offices, hospitality outfits, and 500,000 sq. ft of parking. It’s being developed by the same company that owns the thriving Phoenix Mills in central Mumbai.

“Pune is a huge untapped market and has one of the most homogenous populations,” says Tushar Mehta, the director of the Phoenix Market City. “It’s got the right mix of people, highest expat student population and high literacy. Pune has not had choice till now but it’s a choosy, value-conscious city. They will pay a price if they find value to the product.”

Mehta adds that Pune has the advantage of being surrounded by cash-rich neighbours, who come to Pune for “bigticket items”. A case in point was the one-time order for 150 Mercedes-Benz cars worth `65 crore from a group of entrepreneurs, industrialists and businessmen from Aurangabad, an industrial town about 200km from Pune, in October. The owners apparently wanted to announce Aurangabad’s arrival as an economic powerhouse.

It would appear that Pune is no longer the kind of city that people like Indranil Sengupta, assistant vice-president of marketing and brand communications, at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, think of it as—just “a place of food, pubs and possibly Osho”. sapna.a@livemint.com

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COURTESY AMAN RESORTS

KING OF YOUR

ISLAND Isolated bliss: The indigenous casitas at Amanpulo.

The archipelago of the Philippines shelters one of the most secluded luxury locations in Asia B Y A DRIANNA T AN ·········································· here comes a point in every traveller’s life when the experience of going to a foreign place no longer feels the same, nor as exciting as it used to be when she first began. Cities blur into similar skylines, restaurants and bars.

Non-cities remain precisely that—good in small doses but rarely more. The magic of travel fades into a succession of airports, suited executives and boring business hotels, or a kaleidoscope of lobster-red package tourists and concrete bungalows on dirty beaches.

Even I could not avoid that fate.

Having travelled around many parts of the world on a student’s budget not too long ago, I used to skip perfectly affordable, mid-range hotels in favour of `100 rooms. I was used to travelling for three months or more at a time, and had a strict travel philosophy: “It’s got to be all or nothing. Either luxury on a private island scale, or whatever I can get for next to nothing.”

While I outgrew those `100 rooms, I still refused to fork out any money for mediocre, mid-range travel experiences. I began hunting instead for those luxe private island retreats I’d long dreamed about. South and South-East Asia were pretty good places to start, blessed as they are with sun, beautiful beaches, world-class cuisine and culture.

The Philippines, with its 7,107 islands, was especially appealing. Under-visited and often overlooked in favour of Thailand and Indonesia, the Philippines has a certain charm that sets on slowly, but lingers on long after you’ve left. It’s so large, with each region and group of islands distinct from each other, that it feels disjointed; and so disorganized and chaotic that it can be hard to

T

pinpoint what exactly the Filipino experience is about. Is it about the colonial heritage of Intramuros in Old Manila, or the pine trees and mountain ranges around Baguio, where strawberries, ube (yam) jams and hot springs rule?

Why the Philippines is not overrun with tourists is the reason why it should be: It can be experienced in so many spectacularly different ways. A world away from Manila’s chaos are the islands that travellers really should be paying more attention to.

There are many quaint hotels on the beaches of Palawan, Boracay and Bohol, but truly world-class luxury options are not as easy to come by as they are in Bali, parts of Thailand, or the Maldives. That is, until you land on Pamalican Island in a private jet.

Home to Amanpulo, the Aman Resorts’ lone foray in the Philippines, Pamalican Island is a private island 300km south-west of Manila. The location, in the Sulu Sea, was once an important stop on the spice trade route between China and Borneo, but later doomed to centuries of obscurity. Today, it is one of the most secluded luxury locations in Asia, and provides an otherworldly privacy worth flying halfway across the world for. The only way to get there is the Amanpulo’s own turboprop.

A hangar at Manila airport hides the Amanpulo’s dedicated lounge, and the journey—and the attentive, invisible service one expects of a hotel of this calibre—begins there. Riding in the 19-seat plane across the seas to the Amanpulo’s private airstrip, you get the sense upon landing on Pamalican Island that there will be nothing but sun, sea and pina coladas for as long as you’re there. Instead of beach huts, your nights are spent in large casitas, modelled after local village homes, either right on the beach or perched among the trees on the hills. Each casiTHE MIELE GUIDE tas comes with its own chef and maid to look after your culinary and other daily needs, and with a buggy so that you can explore the island.

For the adventurous, the snorkelling and diving around the Amanpulo is sublime: that the island is surrounded by 7 sq. km of reef, with no one else to share it with, is a plus. Windsurfing, fishing and kayaking in the Sulu Sea are also popular activities for the active traveller.

The rest of us are likely to be found among the trees at the brand new Aman Spa, getting a massage, taking part in a yoga session, or just More than a meal: A lying on the lovely white sand beaches, snacking dish from Antonio’s. on fresh seafood from the Beach Club.

The world beyond the Sulu Sea A few other private islands in South­East Asia that allow you a king’s life Pulau Rebak, Malaysia The Taj Hotels’ Rebak Island Resort features Malay­style timbered villas set amid palm trees in peninsular Malaysia. One of the 99 isles that make up Langkawi, Rebak Island has pristine forests and secluded beaches and, most of all, the exclusivity and privacy of a Taj hotel.

Getting there: From Kuala Lumpur, fly to Langkawi and be transferred to Rebak by road and sea.

they bought an island in the Riau Archipelago and fashioned it into the Robinson Crusoe island of their dreams. A tiny number of eco­chic beach houses, handcrafted by one of the owners, host savvy travellers in the know.

Getting there: From Singapore, take the ferry to Bintan in Indonesia for the transfer to Nikoi.

Cocoa Island, Maldives The COMO hotels seem to have a trademark on indulgent luxuries, and the Cocoa Island Resort is one of their finest achievements. Choose from villas and suites carved out of traditional ‘dhoni’ boats, all on the pristine beaches of Cocoa Island.

Getting there: From Male airport, transfer via speedboat to Cocoa Island.

Pulau Nikoi, Indonesia When a group of Singapore­based bankers got tired of holidaying in tacky resorts catering to package tourists,

Endless blue: The beachfront of Pulau Nikoi in Indonesia.

The magic of Amanpulo is a mesmerizing one, but not one that lasts forever. On the way back to Manila, make the most of your Philippines experience by making a side stop at Tagaytay, in Cavite province just outside the capital. In the hilly, lush surroundings, Tagaytay is home to one of the Philippines’ best restaurants, Antonio’s. In a large colonial house hidden from sight, Antonio Escalante has built an international following by serving fine cuisine in an atmospheric location, literally in the middle of nowhere. The Spanferkel boneless suckling pig, foie gras three ways, lamb ribs (and superb salads and spinach casseroles for vegetarians) are among the dishes that have put Antonio’s on the Miele Guide’s list of Asia’s Top 10 Restaurants. Dining at Antonio’s is not merely about the food—which is excellent, all the time—it’s also about the whole set-up—getting to Tagaytay (good luck with the drive), finding the restaurant, arriving at the restaurant starving and having its massive doors open into a surprisingly charming villa. You

then dine along its nostalgic black and white balconies and corridors, while imagining this to be the scene of a historical Filipino-Spanish movie, one in which there is good food all the time.

My `100 room days may have ended, but they let me into a secret. To see a country for what it is, you should live like a king or like everyone else, but never as a tourist. Luxury is never about how much you spend on a hotel room, but about priceless, not easily replicated experiences. You can find luxury in the waves of the Sulu Sea, and on every plate on the table in Tagaytay.

Rates at Amanpulo start at $800 (approx. `36,145) a night for a treetop casita (nestled in the island’s hills) and go to $4,300 a night for a four-bedroom villa.

The transfer from Manila to Amanpulo is charged at $400 per person. Service charges and taxes extra.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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PACK EVERYTHING

BUT YOUR VISA Head to these destinations without any bothersome paperwork

B Y S IDIN V ADUKUT ································ s Bob Dylan nearly said in his mildly trippy song Gotta Serve Somebody: “You might be a rock ‘n’ roll addict prancing on the stage, you might have drugs at your command, women in a cage, you may be a businessman or some high-degree thief, they may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief... But you still need a visa to go somewhere, buddy.”

In some cases, that slip of paper in your passport is the only aspect of your trip that lies beyond your control. You can use the latest websites to book your flight tickets, you can trawl your social media networks for

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hotel ideas...and no doubt you have within reach an overpriced guidebook pregnant with ideas for things to see, do and eat. But all that comes to nought if the gruff lady in the severe pantsuit disapproves of your salary slip printout.

Yet all is not lost. The Indian passport isn’t as cool as the British one, which lets its holders travel to more than 160 countries without prior paperwork. But even so, approximately 50 countries and territories all over the world are welcoming enough to let you in visa-free or with a visa-on-arrival.

No need to fill in forms or stand in long lines. Just pack your bags, book your rooms and fly.

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

THINKSTOCK

This doesn’t just eliminate the need for months of preparation, but also lets you plan some spectacular surprise trips for the family, without having to surreptitiously procure their passports and certificates.

Our list includes destinations on every major continent and offers a spectacular array of geographical features, climates and cuisines. Replace that visa with a sense of adventure, and you now have several years’ worth of travelling to look forward to. We pick a few of our favourite visa-free destinations and tell you why they make excellent luxury travel prospects.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

ECUADOR Why: The Galapagos archipelago is arguably the most significant location in contemporary science. The islands are synonymous with Darwin and his theory of evolution. Since the islands are governed by Ecuador, Indian citizens can experience Galapagos without a visa. The islands are remote—around 1,000km from the South American mainland—and the fastest way to reach is to fly in from airports in Quito and Guayaquil on the mainland. Once there, book into one of the many luxury yachts for an extended trip around the islands, often accompanied by a scientist who can tell you about the significance of the wildlife you see. Go snorkelling in Urbina Bay, visit the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, and go diving at Wolf Island. Drop into Quito on your way out for some Ecuadorean hospitality complete with cuy—roasted guinea pig—and see if you can fit in a brief excursion to the spectacular Cotopaxi National Park a few hours away.

How: Just land up in Ecuador and you’re allowed to stay for 90 days.

All­Americas: See the psychedelic Sally Lightfoot crabs in the Galapagos; (top, right) get educated on evolution in Ecuador; (below, right) live the hike life in Guatemala; and don’t miss Bolivia’s high­altitude charm.

GUATEMALA

BOLIVIA Why: One of the highest countries in the world, Bolivia is called the Tibet of South America. La Paz, the highest national capital in the world, is serviced by a handful of top-class hotels, including the all-suite Ritz Apart Hotel. Sights include the surreal Moon Valley, just a short drive away. The country is studded with several beautiful national parks and an ironic juxtaposition of the very high—mountains and valleys—and the very flat—the spectacular Salar De Uyuni salt flats. Even Bolivia’s border with Peru is worth visiting—it’s the gorgeous Lake Titicaca. If the fact that Bolivia has a standing navy without access to any sea doesn’t amuse you enough, you can always retire in relative style to the sole remaining Bolivian ski resort at Chacaltaya, 18 miles (around 29km) from La Paz, where the slopes are high and the snow has a reputation for speed.

How: Visas are issued on arrival and cost about $60 (around `2,710) each.

Why: Luxury holidays can’t all be spent doing nothing by the sea.

Sometimes a little exercise won’t hurt. Especially if the fruits of your troubles are massive Mayan monuments such as Tikal or El Mirador. When you’re done tomb-raiding, retire to beautiful Lake Atitlan or the beach at Monterrico, before rounding off your trip with a climb up a volcano. While the Mayan ruins are ancient, some of the hotels are resolutely modern with the stars to prove it.

A word of warning before you pack your bags though. Visa regulations tend to change frequently and without warning.

This list could become longer or shorter. Do check before you go.

Also, most immigration authorities will expect to see proof of hotel reservations, return flights and spending money.

How: No visa required.

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SEYCHELLES FIJI Why: Some of the best beaches in the world are found on this nation of over 300 islands. For instance, Natadola on Viti Levu island is a beautiful, white sand beach home to the highly rated Intercontinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa. For a little less golf and a little more beach, try the awardwinning Vatulele resort a short plane trip away.

The resort has 19 private beach huts or bures, each with its own private strip of beach. If you’d prefer land-based activities, go cycling in the mountains around the capital of Suva. The roads are smooth and pass by magical waterfalls.

How: Fly in with sunblock and shorts. Immediately receive a visitor permit to stay for up to four months. Come back whenever.

Why: In Seychelles, the islands are small, numerous and beautiful. The country’s 115 or so islands make up for a land area of only 175 sq. miles. Yet the islands still manage to cram in several five-star resorts, water sports and excellent golf. A short distance from the miniature capital city of Victoria is the St Anne Marine National Park popular with snorkellers for the coral reefs. Praslin, the second largest island, is home to the Vallee de Mai, a prehistoric palm forest that is now a Unesco world heritage site. Also on Praslin is the tournament quality Lemuria Resort golf course. The islands are also popular with wedding and other family groups.

How: Hassle-free, month-long visitor permits when you land. Excellent when the wedding invitee list spirals out of control.

THINKSTOCK

CAPE VERDE Why: Africa meets Europe on this charming archipelago off the coast of western Africa. Cape Verde is a peaceful, developing country that is witnessing the beginnings of a boom in tourism (all the more reason to make plans right away). Beaches abound, as do pristine trekking trails.

Climb up Mt Fogo, the country’s only active volcano, and hike all over Santo Antao, taking in the canyons and valleys. Later, put your feet up in the town of Mindelo with its excellent natural harbour. If you’d prefer something more strenuous, go for the Mardi Gras festival, when things get fun.

How: Citizens of all countries without a Cape Verdean embassy get visas on arrival. And no, India doesn’t have one yet.

Self­azured: (clockwise from above) Fiji sunsets; Sey­ chelles’ great aquamarine; continental drift in Cape Verde; and putting out roots in St Kitts and Nevis.

ROBERT MACPHERSON

ST KITTS AND NEVIS Why: Everything you’d expect from a Caribbean holiday. But with a little less madding crowd.

The country is split across two islands—Saint Kitts and Nevis—with plenty of resorts, spas and beach bars. Several old plantation houses, such as the Ottley’s Plantation Inn on St Kitts, have now been turned into hotels. For more modern accommodation, the Frigate Bay area has golf courses and condos. There are music festivals in both summer and winter. You’re never too far away from a cricket or football pitch. The islands also have abundant flora and fauna, and Nevis calls itself one of “the last unspoiled places on earth”.

How: Member of the Commonwealth? Still upset about the Games? Walk right in!

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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COURTESY TRUNK COMPANY, JAIPUR

HAUTE

WHEELS Two Parisian trunk makers have come to India with custom­made cases that are fitted with bars, watch winders and iPods

B Y K OMAL S HARMA & A NINDITA G HOSE ············································· hile Goyard and Louis Vuitton have been creating trunks for over a century now, two Parisian trunk companies are bringing the idea of portable lifestyle to India this year. “Parisian design houses have traditionally created trunks for Indian royalty and their long-distance travel,” says Damien Finot, one of the founders of TT Trunks, which launched in India last month. “But it’s a lifestyle statement now, something to carry on your yacht, or just keep in your bedroom,” says Finot.

While Finot likes to invite his Indian clients to Hôtel de Crillon in Paris for a consultation if they are looking for specially tailored pieces, TT Trunks also retails ready-to-sell trunk designs for clients around the world. In India, they are being retailed by Aruna Singh Sharma of Ville-de Luxurie in Delhi.

Another product and interior designer from Paris, Livio Delesgues, who’s been living and working in India for the last five years, set up the Trunk Company, Jaipur in India a few months ago, in collaboration with Paritosh and Priyank Mehta who own the Furniture Design Boutique in Jaipur. In the next six months, the Trunk Company, Jaipur will be available at select boutiques in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Finot and his partner Julien Trossat decided to set up their company and cater to the Asian market after their success at an exhibition in Dubai in 2007. “We sold two minibar trunks we’d created as prototypes in three days. The next projects were champagne and cigar trunks, which also became popular,” says Finot.

Both TT Trunks and the Trunk Company, Jaipur design what they call “functional” trunks for poker or golf enthusiasts, cigar and hat collectors, or even for wedding trousseaus. Both say their bar trunks have been the most popular in India so far.

The chic finish apart, the trunks come with sophisticated electronics and outrageous functionality.

While the Trunk Company, Jaipur’s watch trunk is fitted with a watch winder for luxury watches, TT Trunks’ latest project is to create a chocolate trunk to present truffles.

“People come up with strange requests. We had a Swiss client who wanted a trunk for her bags, but in the shape of an egg,” says Finot. Delesgues speaks of a client from New Delhi who wanted a trunk to place at the centre of her walk-in closet as her make-up console. He built her a 5ft-high trunk that opens up to reveal a few hundred compartments, a mirror, and a stool that can be pulled out.

While one isn’t likely to travel with trunks that cost `5-15 lakh, Delesgues assures us that they’re built to be portable, even though they could weigh close to 200kg. “They come with very solid German wheels fitted with brakes,” he says. This portability works especially well for his iPod trunk, which you can wheel into a jungle or to the beach, open up and have up to 6 hours of hi-fidelity sound.

TT Trunks are priced at `2-15 lakh, and those by the Trunk Company, Jaipur at `1-5 lakh.

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p Icy cool: TT Trunks’ ‘Dandy Trunk’ comes with an iPad base, a whisky decanter and glasses. The central part holds a compartment fitted with a humidifier and a hygrometer for storing cigars. It comes equipped with a full poker set: 500 chips, a dealer button, two decks of cards and a poker table top slipped into the door, approx. `15 lakh.

PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

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komal.sharma@livemint.com

What we call groovy: The iPod trunk by the Trunk Company, Jaipur comes fitted with hi­fidelity speakers and a rechargeable battery life of 6 hours. The design house sources leather from Italy, `2.75 lakh.

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Ahead of its time: The Trunk Company, Jaipur’s watch trunk has six watch holders and can be fitted with any number of watch wind­ ers—contraptions that keep precision luxury watches in motion by functioning as a tumbling device. It also has several compartments to store jewellery, approx. `3 lakh.