PORTFOLIO AUGUST 2018 by Motivate Media Group

issue

152

INFLUENCE AS CURRENCY

How social media has changed celebrity

JOHN LEGEND

Grammy award-winner turns wine mogul

THE RISE OF THE INDEPENDENT COFFEE COMPANIES How the little guys are challenging the brewing giants

HYPEBEAST

Commodifying youth culture

DIGITAL NOMADS

The future of working?

Stronger than time. THE NEW G-CLASS.

SIMPLY THE BEST CASHMERE IN THE WORLD

August issue 152

The business of life & living

Exclusive to Emirates First Class and Business Class

EDIToR-IN-CHIEF Obaid Humaid al Tayer MANAGING pARTNER & GRoup EDIToR ian Fairservice EDIToRIAl DIRECToR Gina JOHnsOn GRoup EDIToR mark evans marke@motivate.ae SENIoR ART DIRECToR OlGa peTrOFF olga.petroff@motivate.ae ART DIRECToR clarkwin cruz clarkwin@motivate.ae DESIGNER ralpH mancaO ralph@motivate.ae EDIToRIAl ASSISTANT lOndresa FlOres londresa@motivate.ae pICTuRE RESEARCHER aarTi saundalkar aarti@motivate.ae GENERAl MANAGER – pRoDuCTIoN sunil kumar sunil@motivate.ae pRoDuCTIoN MANAGER r murali krisHnan muralik@motivate.ae ASSISTANT pRoDuCTIoN MANAGER binu purandaran binu@motivate.ae pRoDuCTIoN SupERvISoR veniTa pinTO venita@motivate.ae CHIEF CoMMERCIAl oFFICER anTHOny milne anthony@motivate.ae GRoup SAlES MANAGER micHael underdOwn michael@motivate.ae

Emirates takes care to ensure that all facts published herein are correct. In the event of any inaccuracy please contact the editor. Any opinion expressed is the honest belief of the author based on all available facts. Comments and facts should not be relied upon by the reader in taking commercial, legal, financial or other decisions. Articles are by their nature general and specialist advice should always be consulted before any actions are taken. All dollar prices throughout the magazine refer to US dollars. Published for Emirates by

8 08

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Blow up p30

Amsterdam’s Foam gallery

August issue 152

contents uPfront

tHe race for 300

The supercars aiming to break the speed record

living

A private estate set within a wine valley in stunning Franschhoek

tHe battle for Water

The coming resource wars of the 21st century

florida ProPerty

A waterfront property in the heart of Fort Lauderdale

star quality

John Legend’s foray into the wine industry

Hotel

WHat to Pack

From Düsseldorf to Ho Chi Minh City, we’ve got you covered

mental HealtH

Chefs’ well-being after the death of Anthony Bourdain

exHibition

A history of coolness in Berlin

column

The dictionary of body language

33,164 copies December 2017

August issue 152

contents Features

rise oF the inFluencer

How marketers and the public are coping with the era of the influencer

coFFeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s second wave

The independent coffee companies taking on the giants

digital nomads

How a new generation of nomads are working remotely from around the world

hypebeast

From a sneaker blog to a multi-million dollar company - we track the rise of Hypebeast

international media representatives australia/new Zealand Samford Media; +61 412 080 600, licia@okm.com.au china IMM International; Tel +852 2639 3635, j.bouron@ imm-international.com germany IMV Internationale Medien Vermarktung GmbH; Tel +49 8151 550 8959, w.jaeger@imv-media.com greece Global Media; +30 210 69 85 981, c.fronimos@global-media.gr hong Kong/malaysia/indonesia Sonney Media Networks; Tel +852 2151 2351, hemant@sonneymedia. com india Media Star; Tel +91 22 4220 2103, ravi@mediastar.co.in switZerland/France/italy/spain IMM International; Tel +331 40 1300 30, n.devos@ imm-international.com Japan Tandem Inc.; Tel + 81 3 3541 4166, all@tandem-inc.com netherlands giO media; Tel +31 6 6 2223 8420, giovanni@giO-media.nl thailand Media Representation International; +66 8 6777 3417, Stephen@mediarepint.com turKey TTR Media Ltd; Tel +90 212 275 8433, tanbilge@medialtd. com.tr uK Spafax; Tel +44 207 906 1983, merle.stein@spafax.com usa WorldMedia Inc; Tel +1 212 244 5610, conoverbrown@worldmediaonline.com

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The race for 300

Doran Burke examines how supercar brands are battling to break the 300 mph mark

he race is on. At least it is among a very select group of supercar manufacturers who are all aiming to produce the first road car to beat the 300 mph mark. In workshops and deserts, these people are pushing the boundaries of what is possible, with state-ofthe-art, multi-million dollar cars. And for the rest of us, the question remains: who will win? It’s not a new question, with carmakers chasing this holy grail for more than thirty years. In 1987, the Ferrari F40 was the first car to break the 200 mph mark, reaching a speed of 202 mph. That was matched by the Lamborghini Diablo in 1991, which was followed by Bugatti’s EB110 GT and Jaguar’s XJ220, which made it to 213 mph in 1993. Then in 1993, MacLaren’s F1 tore the record to shreds, reaching 240 mph – a record that would not be surpassed until 2005. Then it was the Bugatti Veyron that took honours, making it to 253 mph.

And it was Bugatti that broke its own record in 2010, reaching the current milestone of 267 mph. John Hennessey, the founder of Hennessey Performance, a Texasbased supercar manufacturer told Bloomberg that breaking 300 was the aim of the game. “Achieving 300 mph is the goal,” he said. So far the race looks to be between Hennessey and the French manufacturer, Bugatti. For the buyers, it’s all about the speed. Look at the Instagram feeds of supercar owners and you will see how much pride is attached to top speeds. One US collector recently bragged on his Instagram feed about reaching 210 mph at a motorsports ranch in Nevada and received more than 6,000 likes. Bugatti, Hennessey, and Koenigsegg are joined by a myriad of more obscure competitors that are also making cars gunning for 300 mph: Dubai-based Devel Motors TranStar Racing and its Dagger GT, and Croatia’s Rimac Automobili.

upfront

It’s a primal thing: go to the moon, climb Mount Everest, break the 300 mph barrier

Reaching a speed of 300 mph requires a raft of engineering excellence. Aerodynamics becomes vital, as does a low centre of gravity. This creates a ‘downforce’ that enables smoother traction and a better grip on the road. It’s also safer, given the light carbonfibre bodies that these cars are made of. The main problem that manufacturers face is cooling down the car – and a car that requires 1,800bph needs a lot of cooling. The established method for cooling down the excessive heat an engine produces is by channelling the vast quantity of air that rushes past the vehicle as it moves over the hot parts to strip away the excess heat. It is a simple and elegant solution; the faster you travel the more you need to cool, and the faster you go the more air you are provided with. It’s perfect – except for the drag that’s produced. As you channel that air through intakes and scoops, those gaps and holes reduce the aerodynamic efficiency of the car and cause drag. And the faster you are travelling, the more that drag slows you down and wastes more of the power produced by the engine. Of that 1,800hp estimate, almost 1,500hp of it will be used just to overcome the drag of the vehicle. It’s not just the horsepower that has to be on point – the tires do too. As Eric Schmedding, a Michelin product manager, told Bloomberg. “It’s a big game, with

fierce competition, and it’s very fast-moving.” Michelin, based in France, made the record-breaking tires used by Koenigsegg and Bugatti. Those tires are crucial, because the real limiter to 300 mph isn’t actually engine power; 1,200 or 1,500 horsepower can be done. It often comes down to downforce and friction - mostly, where the wheels meet the road. And even at below-record speeds, if anything goes wrong with a tire, the situation could turn fatal. The challenge is to mitigate heat, pressure, and wear. The tires on a 300 mph attempt would need to be able to repeatedly withstand high speeds for minutes at a time, because the official record is awarded after taking the average speed of several runs over a set course. According to Schmedding, “We are knocking

on the door of 300 mph.” Despite the glamour evidenced on Instagram feeds and the spectacular videos shot as the sun sets over the Nevada deserts, the reality is that this is an obscure, and relatively unimportant segment of the car industry. What really excites the industry right now is automotive driving. For consumers, it’s all about bang for the buck when it comes to miles per gallon. The prospect of some ultra-rich dude in California breaking the 300 mph mark, should seem less than exciting for most. “It’s a primal thing,” says Charlie Lee, a motoring analyst from New York. “Go to the moon, climb Mount Everest, break the 300 mph barrier: we are hardwired to try and take on new challenges, to beat previous bests. I think that’s why people are fascinated to see

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carmakers to feel heat of tariffs German carmakers BMW and Mercedes are set to suffer from the impending US-China trade war as both brands build their SUV models in the US for export globally. Since July 6th, they have to pay a 40 per cent duty on the value of each exported car, prompting BMW to consider price hikes for its China-bound products. Investment bank Evercore ISI, which has called the China tariff “a tax on Southern Germany,” argues that there are few short-term fixes. Mercedes employs 24,000 workers at its assembly plant in Vance, Alabama, roughly 8 per cent of its overall work force. BMW is the largest US car exporter by dollar value, thanks to its huge plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

which car will be the first to beat the 300 mph mark. Obviously the vast majority of us will never be able to afford a car that can go that fast, but the vast majority of us will never climb Mount Everest or go to the moon either.” Brett David, the owner of Miami-based Prestige Imports,

The 1996 Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster

which sells all the top-brand supercars, told Bloomberg that many clients who buy Paganis, Bugattis, and Lamborghinis are not just focused on the top speed. “The race to 300 mph is very, very real,” he says. “But when you think of a supercar you also think of things like zero to 60 mph. You

think of braking speed. Are we thinking of a vehicle with hybrid technology? Are we talking about a car that is aesthetically beautiful and has tons of sex appeal?” The brands themselves, also play down the race to 300. “It’s not on the top of my agenda,” says Stephan Winkelmann, Bugatti’s chief executive officer. “It’s something [my engineers] ask me about internally, but I think that Bugatti is much more than this.” Winkelmann also points out that the technology in the company’s 1,479-horsepower Chiron has been automatically limited to run no faster than 261 mph, “so we don’t even know how fast this car is going to go.” It’s a swiftly shifting field, and the current record may topple as soon as 2019 – by another Koenigsegg. “The Agera RS will be replaced with a new vehicle, most likely at the Geneva show next year,” says Steven Wade, Koenigsegg’s head of communications. “Will that car hit 300 mph? We’ll all have to wait and see.”

The FasTesT Road CaRs hennessey Venom Gt 270 mPh With only 13 cars built, and at a cost of $1.2 million, the Texas-built GT is officially the fastest road tested car in the world. The company is betting on the Venom F5 to break the 300 mph mark. With a starting price of $1.6 million, you will pay for the privilege.

Bugatti chiron 261 mPh At $2.7 million a car, the French model is not cheap, but then again with these stats, who cares: 1,500 horsepower and a whopping 1,180 pound-feet of torque. It’s also one of the most eye catching of the new breed of supercars.

Bugatti Veyron super sport 268 mPh The Super Sport can go from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds and carries a substantial 1,200 horsepower. Add to that a top speed of 268 mph and it’s not hard to see why this model caused a lot of fuss when it was launched in 2010.

ssc Ultimate aero 256 mPh The fastest production car in the world from its launch in 2007 until 2010 when the Super Sport was unveiled. Billed as a ‘driver’s car’, the Aero was not sold with antilock brakes or traction control and is something of a cult classic among petrol heads.

saleen s7 twin turbo 248 mPh This hand-built supercar made a huge stir when it was launched in 2000 in California. The first mid-engine production supercar, the 2005 updated model saw a top speed of 248 mph and 750 horsepower. A trailblazer in the race to 300 mph.

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The ultimate commodity As global demand exceeds supply, experts say water will become a more important asset than gold or oil. Gary Evans finds out how you invest in something thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too complicated to own and too expensive to move

AUGUST / wATer

he South African government recently announced Cape Town was approaching Day Zero. Rain had fallen too slowly and water levels had dropped too quickly: in the country’s second largest city they’d soon have to turn off the taps. No topping up pools, no using a hosepipe. It was illegal to wash your car with city drinking water. People were asked to avoid flushing the toilet. Notices went up: ‘let it mellow, if it’s yellow.’ Tourism dropped. Commercial properties had to reduce usage by 45 per cent, farmers by 60 per cent. Residents could report water misuse online. There was talk of rioting. “The Day Zero case in Cape Town,” Dr Anthony Turton says, “is the canary down the mineshaft that warns of impending catastrophe.” Turton, a professor at the University of the Free State in South Africa, specialises in resource management. He explains Cape Town’s problems: “a growing population base, in a semi-arid setting, surrounded by desert, but influenced by climate variability. It’s about the hydraulic density of population – a technical term for the number of people sustained by a unit of water over time.” Water scarcity is a globally growing problem. It comes in two forms: scarcity of availability, a physical shortage due to low rainfall or climate change, and a scarcity of access, problems caused by poor water infrastructure and management. United Nations Water says over the past century water use grew globally at more than double the rate of population increase. Water scarcity now affects every continent – 2.7 billion people at least one month a year.

The number of people living in cities is four billion and growing. This puts increasingly concentrated pressure on water. São Paulo, Mexico City, and several cities in India suffered similar crises to Cape Town’s. Melbourne might have only a decade’s worth of water left. Jakarta sucks up so much underground water that the city above sinks by 25cm per year. The South African government set a daily limit in Cape Town of 50 litres per person. The average American uses 300-380 litres per day. The city halved its water consumption between 2015 and 2018, and by the end of July, rainfall increased dam levels to

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Willem Buiter said: “Water will, in my view, become eventually the single most important physicalcommodity based asset class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and precious metals.” “Strictly speaking,” Orlando Hilton says, “water is not an asset class.” Hilton is an investment director at Resonance Asset Management. “However, there are major problems with water scarcity and the environmental damage of water sources from human activity. The economic and social impact of these problems will only increase with population growth and industrialisation. These problems are making the topic of water increasingly

Cape Town has such water shortages, that its residents are limited to consuming just 50 litres a day around 50 per cent. Still, it’s only enough to push back Day Zero to 2020. It’s reckoned nationally the water shortage will put more than 300,000 people out of jobs. Among proposed solutions was a plan to tow an iceberg to South Africa from Antarctica. Turton says governments need to stop shifting the blame and be better prepared: “Of the total volume of water on Earth less than two per cent is fresh,” Turton says. “The rest is saline sea water. Our future lies in changing our collective mindset that water is a stock and therefore finite and scarce. In reality, it is a flux, moving in time and space, so it’s actually an infinitely renewable resource provided we create policy conditions that attract both capital and technology into the water sector.” Back in 2011, the economist

prominent across boardrooms and government bodies alike. Water will therefore become an increasingly important factor in business and political decision making going forward. “Business can play a very important role in solving water scarcity problems. By working with local government and communities, businesses can ensure the sustainable and fair use of scarce water sources.” Michael Burry predicted the 2008 financial crisis. The investor bet big on the credit market’s collapse, made almost $1bn, then got out. Christian Bale played him in The Big Short. At the end of the 2015 film, a caption about Burry reads: ‘The small investing he still does is all focused on one commodity: water.’

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Burry said buying water rights, ownership of a lake, a river, any water source, doesn’t work. It’s complicated politically and moving water is either expensive or impossible. The only real way to make money from water rights is by selling them for more than you paid. In a rare recent interview with New York magazine, Burry said you invest in water by investing in food: ‘That is, grow food in water-rich areas and transport it for sale in water-poor areas.’ Beef, coffee, and chocolate are all water-intensive. It takes over 700 litres of water to make one bottle of wine. A gallon of water grows a single almond. ‘This is the method for redistributing water that is least contentious,’ Burry said, ‘and ultimately it can be profitable, which will ensure that this redistribution is sustainable.’

In 2016, a federal state of emergency was declared in Flint, Michigan, as the city’s water was highly contaminated with lead

Analysts believe we are not far away from the first conflict over water

It’s not the only way of investing in water, however. The water in Flint, Michigan, recently turned orange then brown. It smelled. Bits floated in it. Some residents reported skin rashes and lost hair. The state repeatedly told them the water was fine. In 2016, a federal state of emergency was finally declared. The water was highly contaminated with lead. People in a sizeable American city had been poisoned by their own water. It was a failure of infrastructure. “In both developed and developing countries,” Hubert Aarts says, “proposed spending

on water-related infrastructure development is huge.” Aarts is co-head of listed equities at Impax Asset Management, which has been researching and investing in listed water and water-related companies since 1999. He says investing in water in developed countries offers stable growth. Investing similarly in developing countries carries more risk but offers greater rewards. “Investing in water is often assumed to be narrow, high risk, and principally focused around utilities,” Aarts says. “This is not true. The case for water investment goes beyond utilities

AUGUST / wATer

and stretches across a diverse range of businesses including: water infrastructure providers, water treatment companies, pump and pipe manufacturers, GPS and filtration systems, water reuse and desalination technology, leak detection and flow measurement software, as well as businesses involved in water conservation.” Aart repeatedly talks about “the ever-increasing gap between supply and demand” – the stuff of freemarket economics. But if water itself isn’t an asset class, can investments in water still really dwarf oil? “We believe that this is entirely true,” says Simon Gottelier, senior investment manager on Pictet Asset Management’s water fund. “We can perhaps envisage living in a world without gold or even oil, but water is the only true life-sustaining resource. Without water, there are no agricultural commodities, nor can we extract hydrocarbons or metals from the

There’s a growing trend to switch from failed privatised water services to public services earth. Water is vital both for our survival as well as for all industrial processes from chip making in Asia to tanning leather in Turkey.” Gottelier says buying water rights is “the haves exploiting the have-nots, but with a lifesustaining resource” which would bring “too much headline risk to our firm.” Yet he believes it is “fair for a company to seek proportionally-priced contracts for providing services to communities that otherwise would not have access to clean water.” The Water Justice project recently listed places all over the world that have switched from failed privatised water management to successfully managed public

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services, a growing trend. From Chile to England, privatised water services continue to fail and fail dramatically. In the US, the State of Public water report found the cheapest 142 of 500 water systems are publicly owned or not-for-profit. Significant investment is needed to maintain current levels of water supply, let alone improve it. While it’s disputed that water is a commodity, the commodification of its supply is well under way. Companies profiting from advanced water technology is one thing. But profiting at the utility level, the supply of water, a basic human right, is something different altogether. On a long enough timeline, the price of oil and gold goes only one way. That’s supply and demand. There are currently no companies seeking proportionally-priced contracts for providing services to communities that otherwise would not have access to oil or gold.

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Raise a glass James Brennan discovers the new selection of premium drinks debuting on Emirates

mirates First Class and Business Class customers can now raise a glass to a new selection of premium drinks. An in-house team of experts has curated a menu of spirits in partnership with some of the world’s best brands, from Hennessey cognac to Dalmore whisky. And when it comes to fine wine, the Emirates Vintage Collection comprises a rare selection of reds, which have been stored in its cellar in Burgundy for up to 15 years. Thanks to a unique approach to buying wines, Emirates has sourced large quantities of rare barrels for storage since 2006. By building direct relationships with some of the world’s premier vineyards, the airline has been able to carefully select a number of highly sought-after vintages. This year, for a limited period, First Class passengers can enjoy the Château Cheval Blanc 2004, the elegant Château Haut Brion 2004, the Château Mouton Rothschild 2001 and a fresh and nicely textured Château Margaux 1998. “We went direct to the winemakers, handpicked these vintages and then cellared them for up to 15 years in Burgundy before we decided they were ready to be served,” said Joost Heymeijer, Senior Vice President of Emirates inflight catering. “It has taken a great deal of patience, investment and longterm planning. Our aim has always been to surprise and delight our customers and they are in for a treat with this selection.”

The four wines, which will be offered in stages throughout the year on various routes in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australasia, are the fruit of Emirates’ commitment to continued investment in Bordeaux wines, which last year totalled $58 million spent on wines and champagne in France, part of a total $780 million investment since 2006. “Every effort was taken to present the wines from the Emirates Vintage Collection in the best possible way,” said Heymeijer. “We spent time training our cabin crew, redesigning our glassware and creating a food pairing menu to ensure that when you savour these great wines on board, it’s no different than the best restaurants in the world’s top cities.” Nothing has been left to chance in pairing these choice drinks with food. Emirates’ culinary team worked closely with its sommeliers to create dishes that best complement the wines as part of a regionally inspired menu. The medium-to-full bodied Château Cheval Blanc 2004 is paired with Irish grass-fed beef fillet, potato dauphinoise, creamed leek and spinach, baby carrots and shallot jus on Dublin routes. Yet on flights to Geneva it will be served with seared venison and thyme jus, with blanched kohlrabi, baby carrots and broccolini. “We aim to deliver the best culinary experience on board and that goes for our menus, our wines and also our new spirits range. We’ve invested time in building relationships

August / emirAtes

with the best spirits makers in the world, understanding global trends and achieving the perfect serve on board to showcase these beverages in the best possible way,” said Heymeijer. The new spirits menu offers 30 new spirits and liqueurs as a result of two years’ close cooperation between Emirates’ in-house team and suppliers. The new spirits are available in both First Class and Business Class. A selection of niche handcrafted brands sit beside some household names. First Class customers can choose a Hennessey Paradis cognac or perhaps try something different with the Tesseron Lot 29 XO, a handcrafted spirit from Tesseron Cognac, which is centuries old and still family-owned. Also available in First Class is the Dalmore King Alexander III whisky, the only single malt Scotch in the world that is aged with a sixcask finish. Meanwhile, Business Class customers can enjoy a Glenfiddich Solera Reserve 15 year-old single malt Scotch whisky, or perhaps the Woodford Reserve

issue 152

Distiller’s Select, a small-batch premium Kentucky bourbon from Labrot & Graham. Alternatively, Sipsmith gin is a classic London dry gin distilled from the finest English wheat spirit from the first copper-pot distillery to open within London’s city limits in nearly 200 years. In keeping with its regional menus, Emirates is serving drinks with a distinct local flavour. Amarula is a fruit cream liqueur made with Marula fruit, which grows wild in South Africa. In the fermentation process the Marula ‘wine’ is distilled and aged in French oak barrels for at least two years. The on-board cocktail menu has also been shaken up with the addition of Negroni (gin, Vermouth rosso and Campari), Old Fashioned (bourbon, Angistura bitters and sugar) and Aperol Spritz (Aperol, prosecco and soda) to go alongside existing favourites such as Mojito, Bloody Mary and Kir Royal. Whatever your tipple, there’s now more to enjoy with Emirates.

August issue 152

uPfront / ProPerty

Residential buildings

164

Retail, dining and entertainment outlets

Bluewaters set for take off A new Dubai island development proves attractive for investors

B 24

luewaters is a new destination located on an island off the coast of Jumeirah Beach Residence, which is set to become one of Dubai’s most iconic neighbourhoods. The star of the show will be Ain Dubai, the world’s largest observation wheel (at 210 metres high) which will offer spectacular views of the city. There will be plenty of attractions at ground level too, with the island home to two five-star

hotels, both will have beach clubs catering to guests and visitors alike. For those who prefer their relaxing of the retail kind, Bluewaters will also be host to 164 retail, dining and entertainment outlets. Bluewater residences will comprise of 10 apartment buildings, four penthouses, and 17 townhouses. It will offer sea views and world-class amenities, including gyms, swimming pools, landscaped gardens, basketball courts and children’s play areas.

There will be plenty of greenery too, with a collection of water courtyards providing a cooling effect to the external spaces. A series of landscaped areas located on the waterfront will provide a nice contrast to the sea views. Shaded walkways, bordered by lots of greenery will connect the different areas of the development. This is one of the most exciting new developments in Dubai and is sure to prove popular with both local and international investors.

210

Metre high Ain Dubai

479

Hotel rooms

Ferry dock

Beach club

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Outdoor pool

5 bedrooms

Southern charm A family gem surrounded by water

stunning five-bedroom villa in the heart of Fort Lauderdaleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bermuda Riviera and only minutes from the beach. High ceilings let the beautiful Florida light stream in and with three garage bays (and one with a lift) thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plenty of room for your convertibles as well. Technology is ever-present here with a cuttingedge smart house automation system linking the lighting, media, climate control and security systems, ensuring complete peace of mind whether you are home or not. Only built in 2009, this would make the perfect holiday home or primary residence, less than an hour from downtown Miami.

Florida

Price $4 million

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August / property

issue 152

AUGUST UPFRONT / MOST WANTED

MOST WANTED

BOTTeGA VeNeTA BAG JAeGer LecOULTre WATcH This stunning limited edition (there’s only 1,000 for sale) update of the 1968 Polaris Memovox manages to pay homage to the original while adding a new dial, a rubber strap and a case back that can heighten the alarm sound under water.

A beautifully crafted duffel bag, made from mattefinish calf, which features three roomy internal pockets and two external zipped compartments. Bottega Veneta; from $2,100; bottegaveneta.com

Jaeger LeCoultre; from $6,600; jaeger-lecoultre.com

L’OBJeT PLAYiNG cArDS A crocodile-print set of two decks of playing cards which features 24 carat gold-leaf embellishment, while the box features Limoges porcelain. L’Objet; from $195; eu.l-objet.com

BrOKiS LiGHT

GeOrGe JeNSeN riNG

A beautiful light from the product designers Dan Yeffet and Lucie Koldova. The copper base fits inside a hand-made glass container – a stunning addition to any home.

This sterling silver Lamellae ring is a collaboration between the jeweller and the late architect, Zaha Hadid, and takes inspiration from the sweeping buildings she created.

Brokis; from $600; brokis.cz

George Jensen; from $900; skandium.com

MiLLeNNiALS, cHiNA, BOOST LUXUrY reTAiL SecTOr The recently released Bain Luxury Study revealed that the luxury market grew five per cent to be worth $1.2 trillion globally last year. Luxury sales grew in industries such as cars, food, wine and clothing. The boom has been driven largely by China, as well as millennials who have driven growth, particularly online. Menswear in particular, has seen luxury brands focus on street wear and accessories. All the luxury brands in the report are focusing their efforts on ecommerce and social media.

ISSUE 152

upfront

Foam Deborah Nicholls-Lee explores Amsterdam’s famous photography museum

hrough the labyrinth of galleries at Foam, the international photography museum in Amsterdam, laughter interspersed with drilling is coming from one of its exhibition spaces. Curator Kim Knoppers is leading her building-up team through the installation of their latest exhibition, Studies in Geology, an exploration of the mineral colours of an abandoned copper mine in the Troodos Mountains, shot by up-andcoming photographer Stelios Kallinikou. Kallinikou has flown over this morning from Cyprus to assist with the installation, shoot a quick video about the project, and take part in the press event the following day. Though they have just 24 hours to work their magic, the atmosphere is alive with mirth rather than nerves. “We’re quite excited,” Knoppers tells me, grinning, and gestures towards a tangle of copper piping. “We’re building a copper construction. It’s a bit hard now to imagine…” Downstairs, there’s a steady stream of visitors – on average over 500 a day – walking through the book shop reception and over the blue glass walkway into the main building.

A William Klein exhibition in 2014, Photo: Christian van der Kooy

Occupying 800m² in three adjoining buildings on Amsterdam’s picturesque Keizersgracht canal, Foam’s interior combines original period features – giant marble fireplaces, ceiling mouldings, and etched-glass windows – with more modern, industrial design in glass and stainless steel. It’s a pairing which fits neatly with the exhibition content which, during my visit, ranged from dainty 19th century daguerreotypes to giant digitally-enhanced pieces using contemporary imaging techniques.

Well known internationally for its chunky, avant-garde Foam Magazine, which published its 50th edition earlier this year, the museum itself attracts a more local crowd of around 60 per cent Dutch to its 20 or so exhibitions each year. Though Foam is a great place to see big-name artists such as Diane Arbus, Henri CartierBresson and Richard Avedon, it is also well known for nurturing young new talent like Kallinikou, displaying their work in the smaller – less intimidating – 3h gallery reserved for rising stars.

AugusT / The Business

she broke with tradition by choosing an advertising executive, Erik Kessels, to curate their first exhibition. The result, Dutch Delight, which showcased home talent, was something rawer than the cultural scene was used to, with photographs hung from improvised picture rails or propped up on the floor. This willingness to experiment and forge a new way has remained key to Foam’s mission and has enabled it to carve out a niche in Amsterdam, attracting an unusually young clientele

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compared to other museums, with an average age of 38-40. Catering to an increase in younger visitors to Amsterdam, enticed by the budget air revolution and the capital’s reputation as a party city, requires a dynamic and reactive approach. I am surprised to hear that though Knoppers first made contact with Kallinikou in 2015, the decision to collaborate on this exhibition was confirmed just three months ago. “We act quite fast,” she explains. “It’s different from other museums. We like to be very up to date and respond

Occupying three adjoining buildings, Foam’s interior combines orginal period features with more modern, industrial design

As well as the museum’s yearly Foam Paul Huf Award for best newcomer, which includes an exhibition at Foam and €20,000 in prize money, the annual Talent Issue of Foam Magazine also puts a spotlight on gifted aspirants. This year it attracted a record-breaking 1,851 portfolios from young photographers eager to be selected for its pages. The museum has always demonstrated an open-minded, exploratory approach. When founding director Marloes Krijnen opened Foam’s doors in 2001,

Visitors at an opening in June 2018. Photo: Marleen van Veen

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Only 25 per cent of Foam’s income is covered by government subsidies

a lot to what we see around us and be fast to show it.” “We have always been very open and creative,” agrees Merel Kappelhoff, Foam’s head of PR, who is giving me a tour of the building. “I think our audience knows that, so they come here to discover the latest.” Just beyond the reception area, by means of example, a film of a crowded refugee boat being intercepted is on loop. It is part of Foam’s Les Invisibles exhibition by Samuel Gratacap, a multi-media window on the migration crisis. “Nowadays, young photographers are not only making pictures in frames,” explains Kappelhoff, who has seen images reproduced in a range of formats from wallpaper (Ai Weiwei, #SafePassage, 2016), to prints made on stones and leather (Back to The Future, 2018). Hedi Slimane’s 2007 exhibition even included music and incense, she tells me. “He found it really important that it was the whole experience.” Foam’s objective, she explains, is to be “a platform”, rather than “the classic white cube, with photographs on the wall.” “We are a museum, but we are also a place where we talk about photography. We invite professionals, journalists, photographers and students to talk about the latest developments and meet each other, to learn from each other and inspire each other.” Marloes Krijnen has remained in post since her business proposal for the museum was accepted in 2001 – a moment which she describes as “a dream come true”. Right from the start, working from

an office in the attic with just one assistant, she saw the museum as a “cultural entrepreneur,” open to opportunities and eager to network inside and outside the arts community. “That is something that we cherished from the beginning,” she says, “because I am convinced that by working with other organisations and enterprises you get inspired.” This entrepreneurial spirit has also been crucial to their financial security, I learn. While Dutch guidelines permit up to 75 per cent of a museum’s income to be covered by government subsidies, Foam makes do with 20 per cent. Partnerships with companies such as Olympus and law firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek are mutually beneficial, while the museum shop in the attic selling signed, limited-edition prints, the bookshop in the foyer, and the café in the basement all help supplement ticket sales. Foam’s current focus is to expand its international impact, which Krijnen describes as one of the most interesting aspects of her work, as well as one of the biggest challenges the organisation has faced. Working in conjunction with galleries abroad, they have already exhibited in Frankfurt, London and New York this year, and Mumbai and Paris will follow shortly. The experience still gives her goose bumps. “When we have an opening, you’re a bit nervous – as if it’s your birthday – about whether people will show up because it’s always uncertain if you start in new cities.” She taps the table superstitiously: “Until now – and I have to touch wood – we’ve always had huge openings with many people interested and a lot of press coverage. That’s something that excites me a lot and that I’m really very proud of.” I return to Foam for the opening the same evening and head straight for 3h to see Studies in Geology in its finished state. On

Helmut Newton

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Foam has already exhibited in Frankfurt, London and New York this year, and Mumbai and Paris will follow shortly

Top right: Foam bookshop Left: Retrospective Helmut Newton at Foam. Photos by Christian van der Kooy

the way up, I bump into Knoppers on the stairs. She is as bubbly as last time and still smiling ear to ear. The finished exhibition, she tells me modestly, does not look all that different from what I saw before. But that’s not true. The copper piping is up and gives the display a more edgy feel and the description printed on a copper plate is an original touch. But the biggest change is Kallinikou. He’s not hanging his works any more – he’s in deep conversation with another aspiring photographer, an Australian, who is asking him for advice. Foam continues to pay it forward.

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UPFRONT / CLASSIC READ

Wild Ride

Adam Lashinsky’s examination of Uber chronicles a tech company spiralling out of control

f there ever was a company that illustrated the arrogance of the tech elite, it is Uber. The book chronicles how Travis Kalanick went from a somewhat reluctant advisor to the CEO of a company worth more than $60 billion, shunning regulations, winning over investors and ignoring media criticism along the way. The author asks a pertinent question: could Uber have succeeded the way it has if it wasn’t for Kalanick’s ‘success at all costs’ attitude? Lashinsky, a long-time Fortune magazine writer, is able to take the moving parts of this story and fuse them in a coherent way. He is sceptical of the cult of personality that dominates many technology companies, but doesn’t trash Uber either. Uber started off as a luxury ride-hailing service, but grew into a lot more (users can currently hire auto rickshaws in Pakistan and get food delivered via Uber Eats). The future, as Lashinsky sees it, will involve Uber attempting to own the driverless cars space, a sector that almost every car company is investing tens of millions of dollars into. Kalanick’s focus is shown when Lashinksy reveals how he poached entire departments from elite research universities in order to get there first (and replace the drivers Uber has recruited). Kalanick’s charm helped raise a staggering $17 billion in investments from private markets, which helped the company grow without it having to lay itself bare for private investors like it would have if it had done an IPO.

Indeed, it’s impossible not to be impressed by Kalanick’s abilities: he managed to build the world’s biggest start-up in eight years, with a market cap of around $70 billion and disrupted the public transport system in cities around the world. Lashinsky gets access to Kalanick, and his interview with him spans a chapter, one where they walk through San Francisco before getting a ride – an Uber of course – back to the office. Despite the access, it’s clear Uber didn’t get to sign off on any of the content and this is far from a hagiography. Lashinsky

is clear-eyed about the problems Uber has caused, from the way it treats its employees to the accusations of sexual harassment that have followed the company since it started. You get the sense that Uber would not have achieved the success it has without the drive and creativity of Kalanick. Now that he has been replaced – by Dara Khosrowshahi, the former

Uber has now reinvented itself as a ‘woke’ firm in a damage control maneouvre head of Expedia – can Uber keep growing at the pace it had? While the book doesn’t go easy on Uber, or Kalanick, you get the sense Lashinsky has a sneaking regard for the way the company grew, and the risks it took in the process. Uber is now in the process of reinventing itself as a ‘woke’ tech company, hiring as many diverse groups as possible and attempting to be seen as the ‘good guy’ (witness it offering to help refugees trapped in detentions centres at the American border), while still hiring drivers on ‘zero hour’ contracts. It’s clear the Uber business model only works if the drivers are paid minimum wage and not given holiday pay, healthcare or pensions, which may be a fatal flaw in the company’s attempts to reinvent itself. It’s also unclear if the company can win the driverless car race without Kalanick’s ‘win at all costs’ mentality. While Lashinsky is pretty hard on Kalanick at times, it’s evident he feels that Uber might not be better off without him in the long run. The company’s shareholders might soon be feeling the same way.

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Celebrity Rosé Sheila Marikar meets the R&B singer John Legend, who’s new venture is wine

n a recent Wednesday afternoon, the singer and songwriter John Legend was at the Soho House in Malibu, California, his jean-jacketed back to the Pacific Ocean, his left hand around a glass of rosé that he helped create. He was ruminating about the global uptick in wine consumption – the millennial’s alcoholic beverage of choice, according to studies and articles galore. “Wine has a kind of connection to luxury, and if you can make it in a price range that’s available to a lot of people, they want to access it,” said Legend, who is 39 (more of a Gen X-er). He paused to consider the salmon-coloured varietal swishing around his glass, which was created with Jean-Charles Boisset, costs $25 per bottle and was made with grapes grown in the South of France, on a vineyard a few miles from the Mediterranean. “It was a big coup for us to get the grapes that we got from that area,” Legend said. The rosé is the fourth wine he and Boisset have produced together under the LVE label, which stands for Legend Vineyard Exclusive. (The name “was always kind of suggestive of love, even though it doesn’t spell it out explicitly,” said Legend, born John Stephens.) It is also far from the

only famous person’s rosé on the market. Drew Barrymore has one. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (their split notwithstanding) too. “Typically we say no to any celebrity client,” said Boisset, who wears his blond hair in suave waves and also dabbles in making jewellery. “Typically, they’re not as intensely into wine, not as dedicated to wine and winemaking.” He first received Legend in a private Napa Valley tasting room that had, fortuitously enough, a piano. “He played the piano, and we went back and forth between there and the blending room. He was really into it, so I said, ‘Why not? Let’s do it.”

Legend majored in English and worked in management consulting before pursuing music as a full-time career A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania who majored in English and worked in management consulting before pursuing music full-time, Legend has more Renaissance man bona fides than many of his Hollywood peers. In 2015 he started the nonprofit Free America, to raise awareness about mass incarceration in America. “I started reading about it and honestly, I just got mad,” he said. Visiting prisons across the country for that

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upfront

His wine costs $25 a bottle and was made with grapes grown in the South of France

project led to working with Meet Your DA, a campaign funded, in part, by the American Civil Liberties Union that tracks how district attorneys across the country vote on criminal justice reform. “A lot of times, DAs run unopposed, people vote for whatever is on their side, partywise, and they don’t care or pay attention,” Legend said. A waiter offered him more rosé and he politely declined. “So we decided, ‘Let’s pay attention!’ Some of them are doing a great job, some of them could be a lot better if they were held accountable, and if they don’t want to change, we’ll make sure we find someone else who can run against them.” Sometimes Legend’s many worlds collide. Hours before the Malibu wine tasting, President Donald Trump had commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a first-time nonviolent drug offender, in part because of an in-person plea from Kim Kardashian West. Legend frequently disparages Trump and his administration on Twitter (note his Father’s Day tweet to Paul Ryan). He also counts Kardashian West and her husband, Kanye West, among his friends (West hired Legend to sing on his tracks early in their careers). Did the confluence of friend, enemy and action make Legend re-evaluate his approach to this administration? “My thought is, he’s our president right now,” Legend said. “He has power, and he can use those levers of power for good or

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he can use them for evil. To the extent that meeting with him and taking a photo or whatever you do with him can be used as leverage to improve people’s lives, that’s a good thing.” “Kim did a good thing by getting a pardon for that woman,” he said. “If we really want systemic change, though, we’ve got to convince the people in power like Sessions, like Trump, to change policy rather than granting these things on an ad hoc, celebrityfocused basis. Right now it feels like a cross between a casting of ‘The Apprentice’ and a signal to the people who might testify against him, his pardoning strategy.” A white-haired man in a baseball cap walked up to Legend. “I’m sorry, I overheard you, and that speech was epic,” he said, thrusting out his hand. “Your wife is magnificent, too. What beautiful children you make.”

John Legend with French winemaker Jean-Charles Boisse

Chrissy Teigen – model, cookbook author, irreverent social media personality and Legend’s wife – gave birth to their second child, a son named Miles, in May; their daughter, Luna, is two. On Trump’s 72nd birthday, Teigen and Legend donated $288,000 – $72,000 for each member of their immediate family – to the ACLU to aid immigrant families being separated at the border. “Someone was asking me about having a new boy,” Legend said. “In this moment, I think more about, how do I raise a good man? How do I raise someone who will be kind and empathetic and not toxic?” Last month, he had a piano installed at a wine tasting room in Beverly Hills, where he plans to drop in for impromptu performances. On June 21 he played at a wine-fuelled outdoor concert at the home of the

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decorator Kelly Wearstler (it was sponsored by Airbnb, but, alas, her place is not available for rent). It was a grander version of the barbecues he and Teigen often host, where she sometimes freestyles with whatever ingredients are on hand, he follows a recipe to the letter, and a lot of LVE gets poured. On a velvet-roped couch near the bar, Teigen bounced Luna on her lap; Kris Kardashian grabbed a seat in front of Legend’s ivory grand piano. Setting down his glass of rosé, Legend performed a handful of songs including “La Vie en Rose” (of course); a new song, “Preach” (“Every day I wake up, everything is broken, turning off my phone just to get out of bed”); and his popular ballad “All of Me.” Then he hopped the velvet rope, lifted Luna onto his shoulders and danced with his family until the rosé ran dry.

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Tagwalk wants to be the Google of Fashion Elizabeth Paton discovers a Paris-based fashion start up

our years ago, Alexandra Van Houtte was a fashion assistant in Paris. She would sit in the back offices of magazines like Grazia, Glamour or international editions of Vogue for countless hours researching and cataloguing looks for fashion shoots. The monotony and inefficiency of scrolling for a particular look through sites like Style.com or Women’s Wear Daily – a chore undertaken by generations of junior assistants and stylists across the globe – got her thinking about how it could be made better. “For a multibillion-dollar industry that prided itself on being forward-thinking, the whole system was totally hopeless,” said Van Houtte, 29, who studied Mandarin at college in Britain before starting her career in fashion. At the time, startups like WhatsApp, Uber and Deliveroo were upending the landscape of their respective sectors, transforming the way people communicate, shop, socialise, travel and eat. When, Van Houtte wondered, would it be fashion’s turn to develop a transformative platform to make the lives of those doing her job easier, a service that could even reach fashion-conscious women outside the industry? In May 2015, with no answer forthcoming, she decided to build it for herself, funding the venture initially by putting her flat on Airbnb.

Above: Tagwalk allows users to create mood boards based on things like colour Left: Alexandra Van Houtte

Tagwalk, which calls itself the world’s first fashion search engine, is the result. By using more than 2,800 keywords, users can search by brand, season, city, trend, colour, fabric or style through 128,000 pictures. “Even if you are the best buyer or trend searcher in town, no one can have an immediate recall on that much content,” she said from her bright Paris headquarters in the Second Arrondissement, where she leads a team of 14. “Now, if you remember that Prada used neon last season and want to see who else did for a mood board, you can do it fast and with just a few clicks of your mouse.”

Le Figaro and The Financial Times have called Tagwalk the Google of fashion. But when she started out, Van Houtte, who initially tagged each image by hand (now it is mostly done via artificial intelligence algorithms with a human once-over before going live), encountered considerable skepticism, particularly from potential investors. “A lot of them were very dismissive,” she said. “They said it was too niche, that it only catered to bloggers and assistants and lower rungs of the fashion industry, that it couldn’t scale. Even my parents started having their doubts about where the business could go.”

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Critically, one person did not. Carmen Busquets, the Venezuelan businesswoman and angel investor who found fame as a founding investor in Net-a-Porter, quickly understood Tagwalk’s potential. She put seed funding into the business when it was just two months old. “Investing early on in disruptive ideas is always a big risk, but it’s one I’ve taken many times because you become a co-founder and partner as well as an investor,” said Busquets, who later introduced Van Houtte to a secondary major investor, Adrian Cheng of C Ventures. “Alexandra’s business plan immediately made sense to me,” Busquets said. The business does not have a subscription fee, nor does it have advertising. It generates cash from its roughly 25,000 users (who use the site roughly three times a week) in four ways. There is a consulting arm for brands on digital and social media growth, and a fast-growing shopping component that allows for purchase of featured looks via affiliated links. More meaningful, however, is that smaller labels or those without runway shows can pay a monthly rate to be featured on the database alongside bigger houses, thus thrown into the sightlines of busy editors and stylists. Emerging labels pay around $175 , while more established brands pay $520.

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For Tagwalk, mining and selling data analytics is where the real money is; although the user base is small, the influence of those who visit is big “Within a week of being on Tagwalk, I was getting editorial requests from a different level of industry power player, those inside a bubble that had been so hard to crack before,” said Rosh Mahtani, the founder of Alighieri, a jewellery label sold on Net-a-Porter. “But the really valuable part of the partnership is data. Insight into what trends people are looking at on Tagwalk, or keywords that are consistently popular, has helped me shape my next creative and commercial steps, from how many pieces to produce to what kinds of stones or materials to use.” For Tagwalk, mining and selling data analytics is where the

real money is. Although the user base is still relatively small, the influence of those who regularly visit the site is big, making access to their behavioural habits extremely valuable to those who want to better understand them. Nearly all of the biggest brands in the industry are keen to know which shows got the most searches for the fall 2018 season. According to Tagwalk, the top three in New York were Calvin Klein, Phillip Lim and Bottega Veneta, while in London it was JW Anderson, Erdem and Christopher Kane. In Milan, Gucci ran ahead of the competition (followed by Dolce & Gabbana and Prada); in Paris, Dior came in ahead (barely) of Chanel, then Saint Laurent. “We can immediately see, and tell a brand, which looks are the most searched for, by whom and in which countries, as well as how a brand’s collection has fared compared to other brands overall,” Van Houtte said. “We think it’s a simple idea but with revolutionary potential,” she added with a grin.

Anthony Tierney investigates the rise of the social media influencer

THE PRICE OF INFLUENCE

Influencers

ou may have come across them online, on Instagram or even being interviewed on TV. More than likely they were young, attractive and famous for the number of followers they have on social media rather for anything they actually did. They describe themselves as ‘content creators’ even though the content they create doesn’t stretch must past a photograph and an accompanying caption. These are the influencers, a very modern breed of celebrity who have taken over social media in recent years. For brands, influencers are a good way of getting in front of the right market. In an era of ad blockers and distrust of ‘old media’, influencers are seen (particularly by millennials) as one of them. And how many millennials read a newspaper? Watch TV? Listen to the radio? The old way of spreading your message is dead. Brands also know that millennials are extremely susceptible to copycat behaviour. Scroll through a group of 21-year-old’s Instagram accounts, and you are going to see nearly identical poses, fashion styles, language and make-up. Brands know this and it’s easy for them to hijack these visual and linguistic style to push their products. Influencers take this a step further, and for health food and beauty brands the right influencer is the marketing sweet spot. This is a world where influencers such as Rachel Brathen (an Instagram influencer with more than 2 million followers) can charge more than $25,000 for a single Instagram post. It may seem strange that these people can garner such huge followings. When they talk about their ‘content’ they are not talking about long form writing, well thought out videos, analysis, interviews or any of the other things we might associate with that word. Their feeds are filled with captioned, stylised photographs and that’s it. Flick through the feeds of most influencers and you will quickly see a pattern: the tropes of the influencer visual. From the ‘lying on bed, drinking a coffee’ to the ‘posing against a brick wall carrying my handbag’ there’s a photo for every occasion. The trick is to combine careful styling with a constructed nonchalance – you want to look amazing, but communicate to your followers that you just woke up like this. It’s a lifestyle that’s often completely fake: blemishes and wrinkles are airbrushed out, pasty skin is made tan, and cellulite

Brands love influencers as they are increasingly the best way of getting in front of millennials

is Photoshopped out of existence. Something as simple as breakfast looks like something from a fashion shoot – and it’s this aspirational mood board that keeps the top influencers’ followers clicking, liking and commentating. Of course, all this comes at a price. Influencers often talk about ‘authenticity,’ yet, the overriding drive to be perfect is more ubiquitous and can have terrible consequences. A recent study by the UK’s Royal Society For Public Health and Young Health Movement found that young people who spend more than two hours a day on social media sites are more likely to report psychological distress. “Seeing friends constantly on holiday or enjoying nights out can make young people feel like they are missing out while others enjoy life,” the #StatusOfMind report states. “These feelings can promote a ‘compare and despair’ attitude.” Social media posts can also set unrealistic

Influencers

Some influencers use their platform to speak candidly about mental health issues (although accompanied with perfectly posed photos) and this at least tells a millennial audience that it’s OK not to feel OK. For brands too, dealing with influencers can be riddled with problems. A US-based creative agenc y, Mediakix, created two influencer profiles from scratch, @calibeachgirl310 and @wanderingggirl. With a combined following of 80,000 followers, they secured paid brand endorsements as well as free products. One of the company’s fooled was a large national US food company. The moral of the story: don’t believe that every influencer is real – anyone can game the system, all you need is the money to buy enough followers, likes and comments. As Mediakix CEO Evan Asano said, he got the idea for the campaign when choosing influencers for other projects, and noticed that one influencer had doubled her followers in a few days. “It was clear she had bought followers,” he said. “It’s known in the industry that influencers buy followers and engagement, but the extent that they do so is almost impossible to know. We wanted to show brands that it was easy to do so and it was happening more often than they were aware.” So the entirely fake @calibeachgirl310 could charge more than $300 for a post. Influencers are either contacted directly by brands or tender for contracts through an online broker. While some brokers have less than spotless track records expectations and create feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, the authors wrote. This may explain why Instagram, where personal photos take centre stage, received the worst scores for body image and anxiety. As one survey respondent wrote, “Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren’t good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order for them to look ‘perfect’.” Of course, it shouldn’t be a surprise that teenagers and twentysomethings make bad decisions. Add a lot of disposable income, a huge audience and it’s surprising that more bad behaviour isn’t recorded. Of course the mental health issues go both ways. Many influencers pride themselves on their unfiltered, ‘raw’ videos and posts, exposing every aspect of their lives and ensuring their followers get an intimate look at their lives. This can, unsurprisingly, lead to huge issues.

Top left: Rachel Brathen Above: @wanderingggirl Top: @calibeachgirl310 Right: Logan Paul, a YouTube star who had a spectacular fall from grace

Influencers

Undeclared advertising, fake followers and an increasing awareness of the damage influencers wreak on teenagers’ mental health has caused much controversy

of dealing with fake followers, others are being more proactive. One such broker, Tribe, which is based in Australia, says it has taken steps to combat the fakery. “We hired a couple of hackers to make fake profiles,” Tribe’s CEO, Anthony Svirskis, said. “We then took the findings and handed them all over to our data scientists. They built an algorithm that looks for tricks and assesses in real time.” Svirkis claims the program can scan more than 200 profiles per second and scans each of their 18,000 users four times a day. It looks for the most common signs of a fake account, including sudden spikes in follower numbers and the ratio of comments to likes. Fake follower s are not the only issue. Undeclared advertising is another big problem. In many countries, there are now advertising standards rules that state influencers must make it clear if they are being paid for an Instagram post. While some play by these rules, many don’t. There are legions of influencers who get paid for Instagram posts who don’t tag their caption with ‘ad’, which is the industry standard way of letting your audience know you were paid to post it. In Ireland, the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) laid out guidelines earlier this year. For the ASAI’s Orla Twomey, the issue is complex.

Three of the Kardashian clan; the most successful of the first wave of influencers

“Not everything that a blogger or influencer posts that mentions a brand or interacts with a brand is marketing communication,” she says. “There has to be an exchange of value – payment – but also the advertiser has to control what happens. I think it’s an area that has a lot of nuances, but the way I look at it, it’s akin to a press company

Influencers

Five inFluencer Fails Logan Paul The biggest YouTuber in the world, Paul caused huge controversy earlier this year when he recorded the body of a man who had committed suicide in the Aokigahara forest at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan. The forest is infamous as a place where people go to end their lives, and Paul and his friends had planned to illegally camp in the woods. His video got more than 6.3 million views before being deleted and Paul lost a host of commercial endorsements in the process.

Belle Gibson

sending out free products to a journalist and hoping they will do a review, but in no way being able to influence how, when, or what the blogger says,” adds Twomey. “When the company starts to frame where you say something or how you say it, or what you say, those constitute control.” More and more countr ies are likely to introduce similar legislation as brands’ use of influencers grows. And indeed, there’s no sign of the influencer phenomenon dying down anytime soon. Brands will undoubtedly be more picky about who they use to promote their products and they will be far more savvy about figuring out who is using fake followers. And more and more young people will try to build an audience, believing that they can be the next Caitlin Jenner or Logan Paul. How that plays out for the next generation of teenagers’ mental health remains to be seen. As the Australian influencer, Essena O’Neill posted before quitting Instagram, two years ago, when referring to one of her old photos: “stomach sucked in, strategic pose, pushed up boobs. I just want younger girls to know this isn’t candid life, or cool or inspirational. It’s contrived perfection made to get attention.” Contrived it may be, but for brands and a whole generation of teenagers, the era of the influencer is just getting started.

This Australian blogger claimed to have beaten cancer through diet and alternative therapies and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars of money for charity, which she instead spent on clothes, cars, cosmetic procedures and rent. After attempts to whitewash negative comments about the growing rumours that she had lied about everything, Gibson eventually came clean. She was criticised for getting paid $45,000 for an interview with 60 Minutes. Last year she was fined $310,000, which she still has not paid.

Elle Darby This UK-based influencer (she had 96,000 YouTube subscribers and 88,000 Instagram followers), contacted a Dublin hotelier looking for a four-night stay in return for video and social content. The hotelier – Paul Stenson – reacted by posting her email on social media, accusing her of lacking “self-

respect and dignity.” There was a predictable backlash against Darby, then an even more predictable backlash against the backlash. Needless to stay, Darby never made it to the hotel.

Kendall Jenner A member of the ubiquitous Kardashian clan, Jenner was hired to be the face of Pepsi’s ‘global diversity’ campaign. In the ad, Jenner is shown leaving a photo shoot and joining a street protest. When she approaches a line of riot police, she hands one of them a can of Pepsi. There was a predictable uproar, with critics claiming it was bad taste to ape a civil rights march to sell a soft drink (and use a white model to do so). Pepsi withdrew the ad and apologised, claiming it did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Scott Disick Another Kardashian (sort of), Disick was paid by a health food company called Boot Tea Shake to promote them on Instagram. He posted a picture of himself holding the product with the caption: “Keeping up with the summer workout routine with my morning @ booteauk protein shake!” The only problem? He had never bothered to remove the directions from the marketing manager, which were also added to the post. These read: “Here you go, at 4pm est, write the below caption.” Oops.

FULL OF BEANS Jesse Onslow Norton discovers how a new breed of independent coffee makers are taking on the big retailers

FULL OF BEANS

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tâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the first priority for hundreds of millions of people every morning. A warm latte can be the catalyst for a creative breakthrough or the icebreaker in a delicate conversation, but the story behind the coffee in the cup is changing. All over the world, consumers are no longer satisfied with just any old coffee and suppliers are going to new lengths to discover more distinctive flavours. Now, specialty coffee has taken over the high streets and it is redefining the entire global industry. The history of the global coffee trade can be traced back to the height of the Ottoman Empire. The first coffee house in Istanbul was opened just behind the Spice Bazaar in 1554 by merchants from Damascus and Aleppo. From there, the exotic new bean was exported as far as SouthEast Asia, Northern Europe, the Southern tip of Africa, and even to the newly colonised Americas. Today, coffee is estimated to be the second most commonly traded commodity in the world with 2.25

billion cups consumed every day. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 100 million people are employed by the industry, which generates more than $100 billion in retail sales each year. But despite the nearuniversal appeal of the product, there are growing fears about where the trade is headed and whether it can continue to grow. The UK may be famous for its tea, but it is also one of the most avid coffee consuming nations in the world. It also serves as a microcosm of the challenges facing the industry worldwide. Ten years ago there were fewer than 10,000 places to get coffee in the UK and a third of those outlets were one of the three major franchises: Starbucks, Costa or Nero. Today, the number of coffee shops has more than doubled and the chains are struggling to keep up with the competition. Last year, Costa, which operates 2,326 stores across the country, announced a 4.6 per cent drop in profits as competition

The UK will achieve peak coffee shop saturation in the next four to five years, a trend predicted for most Western cities

A rise in the number of independent cafes across the world has eroded the dominance of major players such as Starbucks

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“The majority of coffee is bought on the futures market, with the price dependent on the volume available”

in the market heated up and things are expected to get worse. According to investment bank CitiGroup, the UK will achieve peak coffee shop saturation within four to five years, with similar projections forecast for other advanced economies. The increased competition is one of the leading causes of the rise of speciality coffee. As coffee shops become more abundant consumers are becoming more demanding and this is resulting in a quiet renaissance for the world’s favourite beverage. Baristas at the high-street chains are

growing used to seeing fewer and fewer regulars queue up each morning. Instead, coffee culture is evolving and consumers are turning their attention towards more artisanal alternatives that sell them speciality coffee. Al Sargeant is the founder of Strangers Coffee, a UK-based specialty coffee brand that operates its own cafe and roastery, as well as supplying other retailers and selling its beans online. As the market for coffee has changed, the small, independent retailer has been propelled to the forefront of the country’s speciality coffee scene. But what makes some cups of coffee more special than others? “Coffee is a huge industry with a wide variety of beans that are available. The majority are still bought on futures markets, where it’s sold at a fixed price based on the volume of that’s available on the marketplace. Speciality coffee is separate from that,” Sargeant explains. “Speciality coffee is tasted by panels of tasters called quality graders who score it on its flavour. Anything that scores 80 points out of a 100 is classified as speciality because of its flavour. At Strangers, we look for a score above 82.” A former mortgage broker, Sargeant founded Strangers Coffee in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis. At the time, the UK high street was undergoing a massive transformation as stagnant wage growth made consumers more discerning. Sargeant bought out a bankrupt sandwich shop and soon discovered that customers were becoming more inquisitive about the coffee he served them. “I think it’s the internet that has resulted in a lot of the changes within the high street.

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Differentiating a new cafe from the high street mainstays takes more than slick branding, it requires beating them on taste

There’s a lot more information accessible to us now and that’s created the expectation that we know a lot more about what we’re selling,” says Sargeant. “In the past there was this idea that if it tastes like coffee that’s enough. But I think that’s where a lot of businesses will fail if they continue to think that. You have to really understand how to cater to the different tastes of customers now.” Strangers Coffee is part of a global movement towards more ethically and sustainably sourced coffee. The third-wave coffee movement has inspired thousands of bearded hipsters and tattooed hopefuls to launch their own cafes, but only some will ultimately be successful. Differentiating a new cafe from the high-street mainstays takes more than just a slick logo and branding, it requires outcompeting them on taste. For many, this means investing in the equipment to roast their own beans. This was the dream of Klaus Thomsen, founder of Denmark’s most celebrated coffee brand, Coffee Collective. “Coffee Collective started 11 years ago when we bought a roaster and put up a little shed near Copenhagen airport. The first two coffees we bought directly from farmers, which was quite revolutionary at the time and still is because most small roasters start out by buying from importers,” says Thomsen. “Our whole idea was to engage more closely in a relationship with farmers and to build strong, direct relationships where we could pay them more.” The Coffee Collective was made up of award-winning baristas who had been working around Copenhagen, but were unsatisfied with

their employers lack of commitment to fairly compensating the farmers who produce the beans. According to data from the World Intellectual Property Organisation, coffee producing countries earn less than 10 per cent of the total global value chain. But can independent cafes compete with the global chains if they choose to pay more for their beans? “It’s always difficult when you don’t have that efficiency of scale as someone big like Starbucks. On the other hand I feel like it’s easier to stand out, it’s easier to find coffees that are truly unique and that you believe in, and find your own style. It allows us to go to coffee tastings and discover covers that are just crazy good,” says Thomsen. “The majority of the price for a latte goes to cover rental and wages and taxes. The actual coffee part of it is negligible, which allows us to pay a lot more than others and get much higher quality beans. Our prices still end up similar to what Starbucks charges even though we spend more on the raw product.”

Recent years has seen the profile of the barista raised with barista competitions taking place across the world

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One of the world’s youngest coffee entrepreneurs is trying to make it easier for independent cafes to bridge the gap between coffee producers and coffee sellers. Calum Maciel Brough grew up on his aunt’s coffee farm in Alta Mogiana, Brazil where he gained first-hand experience in the entire cultivation process - from hand-picking and washing, to selecting the right beans and identifying potential defects. After moving to the UK, he founded his own import business, Cal’s Coffee, that supplies independent cafes that are passionate about direct trade. “It can be really hard work to actually track down your own supply chain. If you need upwards of 700 tonnes of coffee it’s much easier for you to go to the futures market where the beans are mixed together and sold by type. But it makes it impossible to trace the origin of what you’re buying,” says Brough. “I think the whole supply chain needs to be revised because there are far too many intermediaries in that process. Instead, we make a commitment that the coffee you’re drinking comes from one specific location and all of the stages of how it got to you have been tracked.” This process is known as direct trade and is one of the defining characteristics of the third-wave coffee movement. It’s a flat rejection of purchasing beans from futures markets or commodities exchanges. The belief is that everybody benefits when greater connections are fostered between those producing coffee and those consuming it. “With direct trade we wanted to say, how dare you tell the farmers to do anything until you as a roaster start paying much more for coffee, because the main sustainability issue with coffee is pricing,” explains Thomsen “We set up guidelines for ourselves to pay at least 25 per cent more than the fair trade price. In reality we often pay 200 per cent above that and put our cost price of the coffee on our bags. It’s crazy because it doesn’t account for all the other expenses, but we want consumers to be asking questions about how ethical the coffee they’re consuming is.”

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When it comes to promoting their ethics, multinational franchises such as Starbucks are quick to highlight the fair-trade certificates that come with their beans. But in reality, ethically sourcing beans is about much more than a label on the packaging. The third-wave coffee movement aims to create a more holistic relationship between both buyer and seller. “It normally costs around $10,000 to pay an auditor to visit a farm. This means only established farmers can afford to be audited, while the single estates who would benefit most from the higher price are being excluded. This is why so many African coffees have no certification whatsoever, they just can’t afford it,” says Brough. “The problem is that there are so many certifications now that they conflict with each other. One may specify that farms must have recycling bins

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Nestlé purchased a 68 per cent stake in the United State’s hippest speciality coffee chain, Blue Bottle Coffee

on-site, while another will say that they should store all bins off the farm itself. There needs to be greater coordination to merge these programmes together so there’s less conflict.” As independent cafes grow in reputation the strain on their supply chain increases. Coffee shops may stock up to 50 distinct beans sourced from separate farms in different countries. Both Strangers Coffee in the UK and the Coffee Collective in Denmark now operate several outlets and ship their beans to customers all over the world. This creates unique challenges as they continue their commitment to direct trade and maintaining ethical relationships with growers. “We’ve been facing this challenge for the past four years. As we grow we are able to source even better coffees at larger quantities that means it gets prioritised on the exporting level. This helps

it get out of the country faster so it’s fresher and we can do more optimal roast profiles for each coffee when it arrives,” says Thomsen. “I think for us the key thing is that we come from the barista background. We’ve all been baristas, so we know that the staff on the floor are the most important people. We will always be looking to reinvent ourselves, to innovate, and to identify new spaces that could offer something different as a cafe.” In the face of the growing consumer appetite for speciality coffee, franchises like Starbucks are now looking at how they too can become closer to the third-wave coffee movement. In September last year, Nestlé purchased a 68 per cent stake in the United States’ hippest speciality coffee chain: Blue Bottle Coffee. But how does being acquired by the world’s largest coffee producer change consumer’s perception of the brand? “It was tricky, especially in San Francisco where people came in and were apprehensive about what the future might hold. But Nestlé has placed no constraints on the type or quality of coffee that we’re allowed to buy and serve,” says James Freeman, founder of Blue Bottle Coffee. “Nestlé is a 152 year old company and they’re very patient. They’ve taken a long view of what it means to grow Blue Bottle Coffee, so I think time will show that this decision will help continue to grow the quality of our coffee. We need to show our customers that.” The world’s leading chains will need to be careful as coffee enthusiasts become more and more demanding. The growth of speciality coffee is changing the taste of coffee and threatening to permanently reshape the high street. The future of coffee could already be cold-brewing in the world’s hippest cafes.

Digital NomaDs Lauren Razavi discovers a global community of freelancers

digital nomads

ince the earliest days of humanity, people have always been on the move. Almost every major culture in the world can trace its origins back to nomadic communities that moved from place to place in search of resources, security, and opportunity. Fast forward to the 21st centur y, and an increasing number of people from all over the globe are embracing the chance to live a life in motion, just as their ancestors did. After many decades of humans establishing and developing static destinations for work and play â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including megacities that keep the global economy ticking along and provide millions of people with both employment and a place to call home â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a new demographic is fast emerging. Today, city dwellers refuse to stick to one place, and trendy co-working spaces are replacing the traditional office. Welcome to the era of the digital nomads. The number of people freelancing or working remotely worldwide has been rising steadily over the past decade. According to Gallupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual State of the American Workplace report, 43 per cent of employees in the United States spend at least some time working remotely. The global freelancing platform Upwork predicts that the majority of the US workforce will be freelance by the year 2027, while in the European Union, freelancers currently make up more than 16 per cent of the global workforce. Rapid advancements in and the ever-reducing costs of technology combined with astronomical property prices in key business cities such as London, Paris, New York, and Hong Kong are leading more and more companies to rethink their approach to office space. Meanwhile, the number of people renting desks in co-working spaces is expected to grow from just under one million in 2016 to more than five million by 2022, according to research firm Small Business Labs. Potential cost savings are one important factor influencing this shift, but winning talent is also an important consideration: the competition to attract the best workers is fierce, especially when it comes to young people. Millennials are entering their prime working and spending years, and as

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they do so, they’re weighing their options and thinking differently than their predecessors about what matters to them. This demographic values being part of a positive work culture and wants to feel interested in the work they are doing – not just bring home a good paycheque each month. With many young people being priced out of cities by the cost of living, and larger companies struggling to keep abreast of worker expectations, an increasing number of millennials are grabbing their laptops and hitting the road to build their careers while they experience the world. These digital nomads are embracing new ways of working, and some believe they are the early adopters of a lifestyle many more will pursue in the years to come. So who, exactly, are these young trailblazers? And is travelling the world really the future of work for all of us? Ebony-Stor m Halladay is a 20-year-old artist and social media consultant from the UK. Earlier this year, she left home for the first time and began travelling as a digital

nomad. “It was a very natural transition for me. After working at a communications consultancy where my directors were digital nomads, I became really curious about this new world of work outside of the physical office,” she explains. “I had always wanted to travel but hadn’t yet made the space in my life to do it. The idea that I could continue my freelance work in another country was too good to resist.” Halladay also notes, however, that the value of the digital nomad experience goes deeper than just work and travel. “Before I started travelling, I was very aware of how little I know about different countries, and how much I still have to learn. But there are so many opportunities to do that learning as a digital nomad,” she says. “Whether it’s history, culture or a language, I find myself remembering things I learned months ago and applying them to my work and lifestyle. That kind of education can’t be found in a textbook.” During a joint research trip to meet digital nomads in cities all over the world, academics from the University of Manchester in the UK and the Université Paris-Dauphine in France observed that many digital nomads are “still in the development phase of their entrepreneurial lives.” This means that they have not yet established a fully-fledged freelance or remote career, and may still be experimenting with and considering a number of different work options. This has led some commentators to surmise that the digital nomad trend is little more than millennials embarking on a new form of gap year. But digital nomadism is far from a millennial-only trend. Susan Katz Keating is a journalist and author who hit the road after her youngest daughter flew the nest for university four years ago. “For me, digital nomadism actually might be more exciting and rewarding than people say. The lifestyle is not for everyone. You don’t have clearly defined roots. You live a transient existence. You have a minimalist wardrobe. You either intrigue people or unnerve them when they learn how you live,” she explains. “That’s all part

Many young workers are being priced out of cities by the cost of living and so travel the world and build a career

digital nomads

of the fun though. I am in charge of my schedule, my work, my whereabouts, my life. For a time, I lived in a tool shed on the beach in Florida. I lived in a cabin in the woods in Virginia. I stayed near spectacular mountains in New Hampshire. I went aboard an aircraft carrier at sea. Now, I’m planning my summer jaunt in Europe.” Hearing stories like these, it’s easy to wonder whether making a success of digital nomadism is mostly about having the disposable income or level

WeWork’s Shanghai, remote working hub.

of savings needed to embark on travel adventures. Is work simply a means of maintaining a sense of purpose along the way? Keating disagrees with this assessment: “I’m not rich. I pay my way by writing and selling articles, and I spend frugally. But the rewards are [many]: I meet fascinating people, I see breathtaking beauty, I experience life.” Dr. Beth Altringer, a professor at Harvard University and founder of design and research firm The Desirability Lab, is another academic who has

digital nomads

“I’m not rich. I pay my way by writing and selling articles and I spend frugally. But the rewards are many”

conducted research on digital nomads. Her global survey focused on assessing the financial position of these travellers, and she found that: “Salaries that would allow for a modest existence in top global cities allow for living like royalty in nomad hubs like Indonesia and Thailand.” The pursuit of freedom and a better life, it seems, is what makes digital nomadism appealing across different generations. “The idea of freedom is very often a trigger that people talk about when deciding to become

Top: Ebony-Storm Halladay Above: Dr. Beth Altringer

digital nomads. What most people don’t realise though is that their own concept of freedom changes significantly over time,” says Dave Cook, a researcher and PhD candidate at University College London, whose work focuses on digital nomads and modern concepts of freedom. “I’ve spoken to dozens of people who are highly skilled and can get their work done quickly in traditional settings. They tend to complain about experiencing things like presenteeism and micromanagement. Many of these people realise they can get their work done fast and that their skills are portable. Often that’s a trigger for people experimenting with different degrees of location independence.” He adds: “Many people find over time, however, that they actually come to miss the social aspects of the workplace. So freedom can often be the initial trigger, but can later transform into isolation.” The length of time that digital nomads call a particular place home or stay out on the road can often depend on the location they find themselves in. While the digital nomad trend has only begun to pick up pace over the past five years, cities are already starting to pay attention to this new demographic. Some countries – such as Estonia and Thailand, which have both launched a ‘digital nomad’ visa in the past year – are looking to capitalise on the opportunities digital nomads bring and endeavouring to attract more of them. So what makes a good destination? “A lot of people are looking for somewhere that is familiar but different; a place they can have new experiences but where it’s not too difficult to live on the day-to-day level,” says Spencer Jentzsch, chief operating officer at Hacker Paradise, a remote work company that has arranged digital nomad trips since 2014, mostly catering for US millennials working in the tech and creative sectors. “Some of the key factors we look for in destinations are the speed and reliability of

digital nomads

Spencer Jentzsch

“Key factors are the speed of WiFi, the cost of accommodation and the proximity and quality of coworking spaces”

WiFi, the standard and cost of accommodation, and the quality and proximity of coworking spaces. It’s vital that these basics are in place for digital nomads – including our own team – to be able to live and work effectively from different locations.” Digital nomadism is certainly a way for citizens of developed nations to escape their stagnant economies and the resulting lack of opportunity at home, and in many ways, it’s inspiring the next generation to think globally and approach the entire world as their office. For the developing countries and lesser-known cities looking for a piece of the action, the potential for knowledgesharing, innovation and leapfrogging competitors is considerable – and unexpected destinations are likely to emerge as winners over the coming years. Exactly where the trend goes from here, and how fast more citizens decide to embark on their own tantalising journey of work and travel, will likely depend on a mix of national strategy, openminded policymaking, and how quickly companies can pioneer the new global services that digital nomads desire. If one thing is sure, though, it’s that there’s never been a more exciting time to consider a global and ambitious future of work.

digital nomads

Top 5 DigiTal NomaD DesTiNaTioNs As the number of digital nomads roaming the globe grows, various cities and islands are making rapid gains as popular destinations for those seeking adventure and opportunity. Here are eight of the cities battling it out to attract digital nomads.

Barcelona, Spain A warm climate, a rich history, excellent food and fast WiFi make Spain a popular choice for digital nomads. A relatively cheap cost of living combined with great beaches and a healthy startup scene is drawing many freelancers, remote workers and entrepreneurs to the city of Barcelona for extended stays.

Tallinn, Estonia In 2018, Estonia became the world’s first country to announce a digital nomad visa, allowing a stay of 365 days in Estonia and stays of up to 90 days in 26 other European states that are part of the Schengen Area. Its capital, Tallinn, is working hard to establish itself as a hotspot for basing their talents in Europe for a while.

Chiang Mai, Thailand A good quality of life for a low cost combined with a wide range of coworking spaces has made Chiang Mai one of the world’s most successful digital nomad destinations to date. Last year, the Thai government introduced a new “Smart Visa” for business professionals, which it is believed will allow four-year stays for digital nomads.

Bali, Indonesia Known as “the island of the Gods” for its scenery and climate, Bali has been successful at attracting expats and tourists since the turn of the century. Digital nomads are usually found in Ubud, a sleepy town in the centre of the island, which has become a hotbed for entrepreneurship and welcomes many visitors for Bali Startup Weekend each year.

Medellin, Colombia Colombia’s second-largest city has become renowned for its rapid reform and subsequent development in areas such as politics, education, urban transport and innovation. Not bad for a place deemed “most dangerous city in the world” just 25 years ago. Digital nomads praise its walkability, free WiFi, workspaces and friendliness towards foreigners.

Belie v The h e ype

David

Whela pheno n examine s meno n that the youth cu is Hyp ebeas lture t

hypebeast

hat star ts out small, often ends up far larger than anyone could have predicted. This is precisely what happened to Hypebeast, once a small fashion and youth culture blog operated by a single person, which floated itself on the Hong Kong Stock Market in April 2016 – and quickly became Asia’s best performing stock of the year. A heady rise for one of the shining jewels in contemporary content production. Now, in 2018, Hypebeast is valued at $270 million and has 34 million unique monthly visitors. It is, also, the first sneaker blog to be listed as a publically traded company, and has been translated into multiple languages, as well as spawning a variety of offshoots, for different ages and focuses, and an e-commerce platform. This is quite the performance for a humble sneaker blog founded in 2005 by Kevin Ma in Vancouver, Canada. Over a decade ago, Ma was studying Economics and Psychology at the University of British Columbia when he decided to set up a blog. In an interview with Forbes in 2011, Ma stated that, at its inception, he “did not expect anything from the site, it was more of a hobby.” In Ma’s opinion, sneaker culture was solidifying around 2005, but lacked a proper filtration system. It was a lot of opinionated, fashionable men trading tips and pointers on a variety of digital forms. People were logging on and heading to places such as Nike Talk to share their findings, but no one was aggregating it. And there was no designated holy book, or official guiding voice. It was a rabble. A lot of noise, but not that much understanding. For a new and fresh sneakerhead, it would have been overwhelming. Thus, Hypebeast was born – not with the intention of anything other than being a content collector. The one-stop-shop for the latest news and trends. A place that anyone could navigate to and find that someone else had already done all the hard work for them. After graduation, Ma took a job in the financial sector, but continued to operate the blog in his spare time – mostly at night, mostly alone. “It was a grind,” said Ma. A succession of working, eating, sleeping, working. The occasional dinner with friends. Certainly, hearing Ma talk about establishing the site is reminiscent of a Sisyphean effort – content, as they say, never sleeps and no matter how ahead of the curve Hypebeast was one day, it

Top: Kevin Ma founded Hypebeast in 2005 as a sneaker blog Left: Musician Lupe Fiasco and models walk the runway at the Song For The Mute show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2014

“Hypebeast has never been beholden to a lot of the archaic standards that slow other publishers down”

hypebeast

was always starting at the bottom the next. But he worked tirelessly, endlessly. It turned out this was exactly what people wanted. After a few months, the site had grown to 10,000 unique visitors a day. And, then, one afternoon, Ma was queuing up for the latest sneakers at a store, only for the person in front of him to ask whether he’d heard about this shoe from Hypebeast: then, he knew something was happening. Hypebeast was not only being read, it was being followed. After six months at the bank, his Google AdSense account was producing as much income as his day job. He quit and began writing full time. Ma had not only set up the most popular fashion blog in Asia, he had redefined an entire word. What started out as derogatory online slang for someone who bought sneakers by compulsion (or – to read between the lines, here – with bad taste) had now become synonymous with the complete opposite. If you were seen wearing a shoe talked about on Hypebeast, you were curated, and in touch. Just as Lupe Fiasco – a noted devotee and Hypebeast’s personal celebrity hype beast. Nowadays, the office is located on the 12th floor of an assuming industrial loading dock in Kwai Tsing. As if by design, Ma has established his workplace in the centre of an ancient port, where old traditions of trade and cultural exchange have made way for new ones. Below, on the street level, the office overlooks stack of shipping containers, railway lines and, of course, the South China Sea. It’s a fitting place for it – an influencer cannot be found downtown between Wells Fargo and a Pret a Manger. Not yet, at least. “I visited Hypebeast’s headquarters in Hong Kong in 2016,” says Thom Bettridge, writer and expert on content strategy, “and I was impressed by how relatively small the team was for an organisation that publishes so frequently. I later found out that many HB editors write and upload 10 articles per day, which is a rate that is unheard of at a classic media outlet.” Ma describes the site, and its various offshoots such as hypekids, as being formed and operated under “the spirit of consolidation”. There is a way of imagining Hypebeast as a great filter system – thousands upon thousands of opinions, trends and voices go in, and one comes out. Visitors to Hypebeast know that there is an algorithm out there that says there are rights and wrongs of fashion – and Hypebeast has been on the correct side for over a decade. For a large part of that time, too, for little financial gain. For the first years

hypebeast

of its life, the blog made no money at all, and was sustained by advertisements. It’s this sort of late-night-by-your-computerwith-a-sizeable-coffee-feel that still powers the company today. A visit to any of their various websites or a browse through their online store and the spirit of Ma lives on – there’s a genuineness to it all that feels inherently real rather than manufactured. “Their editors there told me the golden rule of the company: “Always post about news, and post it fast.” Adds Bettridge. “I think part of Hypebeast’s success is that they have never been beholden to a lot of the archaic standards that slow older publishers down.” They are, in other words, incredibly fast and good at what they do. The question of whether Hypebeast has, in fact, transformed what it loves into a purchasable commodity is an interesting one. It sprung right from the Wild West of the internet, when anonymous people on forums could actually possess valid information; when tip offs and insider knowledge were currency. Nowadays, forums are an almost dead medium, replaced by Twitter and blogs and WhatsApp groups. Is it Hypebeast’s fault for helping to render what spawned it moot, or should it be applauded for evolving? The answer to that can be derived from how it’s using its new-found financial might. So far, at least, the money has gone to the right places, and seems to be moving toward sustaining youth cultural scenes rather than just reporting on them. “I think they will be relevant as a news source in their category until someone faster comes along,” says Bettridge. In February 2018, Hypebeast announced that it was investing in none other than a skatepark in the middle of nowhere in Los Angeles. Tucked up beside the Los Angeles River and surrounded by empty lots and low-slung office buildings, The Berrics has long been a safe space for the youth of LA to skate without the hassle of hitting the streets (and, therefore, the police). Founded by legendary skaters Steve Berra and Eric Koston, it hosts the Battle at the Berrics, an online stream of skaters performing body contorting magic, which was probably the first of its kind. Prior to that, the only access to skating videos and fashion was direct from retailers. Ma put in $750k for a 51 per cent share. “We want to keep it as authentic as possible,” said Ma. “It’s the same as Hypebeast. If someone came and wanted to change what Hypebeast is about, then it’s like, hey, that’s kind of wack. For us, it’s just really trying to support on the back end, or things we learned along the way, we want to share it with everybody. Skateboarding should be for everybody.”

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“Hypebeast understood that reading online and shopping online are similar activities”

Other manoeuvres have a similar outlook, but may be slightly less impressive. When hypekids (which, admittedly, does sound slightly like a mid-morning TV show featuring irritating and precocious kids on with various fashion-themed superpowers) launched in 2017 it had the air of a Black Mirror episode. hypekids does exactly what you would imagine it would: provide a curated space for the latest in children’s streetwear and fashion. With added unboxing videos. While this seems like a slightly cynical (and, profoundly, uncool) move to expand its demographic toward children, it has to be applauded for trying something new. As TechWire Asia’s Samantha Cheh noted, “it plays a role in demonstrating Hypebeast’s habit of continuing to look further into the future, and constantly thinking about how to further scale their company. Fashion forms the bedrock of Hypebeast and it’s

a kind of inheritance, something parents will pass down to their children.” This has been playing out in the streets of the United Kingdom. Last year, VICE journalist Louise Donovan travelled to London to interview those queuing up for the latest Gosha Rubchiniskiy line. To her surprise, a large percentage of the 200 people queuing up were barely teenagers – wearing SUPREME shirts costing $470, and jackets of nearly a grand. Leo “Golly Guy” Mandela, a 14-year-old Instagram influencer, has over 13,000 followers online and spends upwards of $13,000 a year on clothes. Each of these kids all look the same, a sort of style that’s like someone put Sports Direct in the washing machine alongside Gucci. This is the future subculture – one that is, admittedly, slightly baffling – but is nevertheless a ready made market for hypekids. Another, again, seemingly ridiculous yet popular offshoot, is Hypebae. For the uninitiated, bae is slang for ‘before anyone else’, or partner. Hypebae – which, reportedly started as an April Fool’s but ended up staying around – is the female-focused Hypebeast. It worked, proving once more that it’s basically impossible to predict what people will enjoy and what they may find patronising. “A big part of staying relevant in the publishing space across the fashion industry,” adds Bettridge, “is the realisation that reading online and shopping online are very similar activities, so Hypebeast’s growth into this category with HBX bodes well for them.” As the website began to solidify and become popular, Ma had to expand into an editorial side. Nowadays, each of its various editors are tasked with creating 12 to 20 articles each day. This is made possible thanks to a sophisticated system they dub “re-posting”, which essentially boils down to translating the thousands of press, ads and blogs they get sent each day into the house style. They then send these to senior editors throughout the world, who decide which to run, and when. The copy is short, concise and always accompanied by a hyperlink and an image. Think more an internet comment section than The Atlantic. Despite the move toward larger editorials and interviews, the amateur aesthetic of micro-blogs still dominates its output – lending Hypebeast an almost eternal, retro feel. It’s stayed true to its roots, and its original readers. Another key Ma methodology permeates everything they do. “You have to look at where people’s habits are,” he said in an interview with Berlin’s 032c, “and instead of fighting it,

hypebeast

Sneaker culture has jumped into the mainstream in recent years

try to embrace it.” From blogspot to Twitter to Instagram to Snapchat to who-knows-where, one of Hypebeast’s lifeblood is its adaptability. It produces content in the manner that its consumers want it – a simple editorial standard that is noteworthy mostly for its lack of ego. It’s not telling its readers what they want, it’s giving them it. A more complicated relationship lies within Hypebeast’s dedication to brands and partnerships. Its ecommerce platform, HBX, further complicates this situation. How, one could legitimately ask, can it really be considered an influencer when it has financial incentive toward certain things? And, isn’t their editorial policy completely at odds with free journalism? These two questions misunderstand Hypebeast. It is not, and has never been, free: the secret’s in the name. It’s controlled by hype and our desire to consume. It’s a company utterly in love with the product, and one that produces paid-for-content with as much love and care as it does its passion projects. In that way, it’s almost impossible to sellout. There was no soul to begin with that wasn’t satisfied by a pair of box-fresh sneaks. Its reader-

Hypebeast’s lifeblood is its adaptability. It produces content in the manner that its consumers want and with a lack of ego

ship (mostly 18-35 males, though diversifying) care not about integrity – they care about being the first to invest in the latest trend. Its new revenue model on the stock exchange is perfect for that continuation. It’s not about integrity, it’s about investment. The integrity of the writers and the content is a given: it’s a site in love with consumption, devoted to brand, eloping with trend. It’s a place of convergence: of all forms. This isn’t a place to go to educate your opinion on a humanitarian crisis – it’s about getting the coolest clothes. “It’s still a passion, but it’s a business as well,” said Ma. “The whole industry is moving toward that direction, so I think as long as you’re transparent and you’re doing stuff with brands that you enjoy, you need to do it.” Naturally, Hypebeast has published articles reflecting on how they themselves have contributed to a snake-eat-tail situation of consumption, which function more as necessary self-forgiveness than editorial shifts. “It may seem odd coming from us – we’re Hypebeast after all…” begins one such piece. But, then again, maybe it isn’t odd. Perhaps this is another example of Hypebeast’s ability to always change and move forward; to stay relevant even when the culture it helped grow has begun to devour itself.

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Mountain High

A private estate set within the vineyards of Franschhoek

august issue 152

living / hotel

Mont rochelle hotel and Mountain Vineyard

Where to stay

Franschhoek

Price From $270 per night

virginlimited edition.com

 CPT

s far as picture-perfect locations go, Mont Rochelle Hotel and Mountain Vineyard sets the bar high. The 26-room, 100-acre estate is one of a clutch of private lifestyle properties owned by globetrotting British billionaire Richard Branson. It is nestled in the stunning Franschhoek Valley, between the mountains of the Cape winelands, just a 45-minute drive from Cape Town. There are two renowned restaurants on site – the fine dining Miko, and the more casual Country Kitchen (which doubles as a handy pit-stop for the Franschhoek Wine Tram), a cosy bar, and the usual gamut of luxury lodge

there’s something to be said for the ambience of a property that names its guest wings after grapes

essentials such as a day-spa, heated pool and warm, silver service at every turn. There’s something to be said for the ambience of a property that names its guest wings after grapes; Shiraz, Merlot and Cabernet Rooms all offer varying degrees of five-star comfort, valley views and even customized rubber ducks dressed as sommeliers. Pinotage Suites have private terraces and plunge pools. But the showstopper comes in the form of the Manor House, a vast private colonial-style home comprising four deluxe suites swathed in soothing country-chic style. It even has a childfriendly bunk room where – in true Branson style – fun and frivolity are actively encouraged.

august issue 152

From the ConCierge

SEE

The charming hop-on-hop-off Franschhoek Wine Tram takes passengers right into the heartland of the Franschhoek Valley, stopping at several vineyards with top restaurants. Curated wine experiences, personalized picnics, and private group bookings are available.

Eight years in the making, the Dylan Lewis Sculpture Garden is located in Stellenbosch, a 30-minute drive from Franschhoek. The stunning natural landscape, with its winding pathways and tranquil groves, acts as an outdoor installation space for more than 60 oversized sculptures, forming a staggering body of work from one of South Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most celebrated contemporary artists.

EAT

Miko at Mont Rochelle Hotel and Mountain Vineyard offers world-class international cuisine paired with wines from the nearby Franschhoek estates. Throughout selected evenings in August and September, the venue will host live music performed by local Emmynominated musician James Stewart.

AUGUST LIVING / INVESTMENT

ISSUE 152

Coins The right investments could earn you a pretty penny

Buying from the US Mint is a surefire way of knowing what you are getting from your money.

Commemorative coin sets almost always go up in value. Buy them when they are first released and put them away.

The most successful investors have spent decades building a collection. This takes time, so be patient.

oins, like most left of centre investments, require a lot of research. To the untrained eye, there is no difference between a 1949 Lincoln Penny and a 1943 Lincoln Penny. The well-trained collector will know the 1949 penny is worth 5 cents (at the most), while the 1943 penny is worth north of $1.7 million. There are a number of price guides which will tell you what different coins are worth, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up to you to study these as there are plenty of unscrupulous coin dealers out there.

living / style

what to pack ...for summer weather in Düsseldorf and beyond

Average temp

22°c

Amsterdam Birmingham Kiev Oslo

21°C 21°C 23°C 20°C

also wear in...

august

DÜsselDorf

Chance of rain: 12%

what to see

MedienHafen Medienhafen is filled with incredible architecture that edges onto the Rhine and covers the city’s docklands. Formerly the city’s industrial heart, it’s now a creative hub and home to iconic buildings such as Frank Gehry’s Neuer Zollhof, three highrises covered in stainless steel,

white plaster and red brick. There’s plenty to do in the evening here with a host of restaurants, bars and clubs catering to the city’s young professionals. The area only had 212 residents in 2000, which gives you some idea of its transformation. One of Germany’s hippest areas, and well worth a visit.

AUGUST ISSUE 152

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81 Saint Laurent Celtic buckle leather belt $531 matchesfashion.com

Moncler Genius Hiroshi Fujiwara backpack $862 harveynichols.com

Gucci acetate and goldtone sunglasses $265 mrporter.com

living / style

What to pack ...for summer weather in Ho Chi Minh City and beyond

Average temp

31°c

Bali Kuala Lumpur Bangkok Chennai

30°C 33°C 32°C 32°C

also Wear in...

august

ho Chi Minh City

Chance of rain: 60%

What to see

Ben Thanh MarkeT Is one of the most famous in Vietnam, filled with more than 3,000 stalls (with everything from sheep’s eyeballs to handmade handbags). Tourists will be charged more than locals, but be prepared to haggle – and the earlier you go, the cheaper the prices. Earlier in the day, there

are less crowds too, and the heat and mass of shoppers can make the market uncomfortable during the afternoon. In the evening, restaurants and food stalls open up at the edge of the market, with everything from wok-fried noodles, to ice cream to BBQ fish on offer. One of Vietnam’s most comprehensive markets.

AUGUST ISSUE 152

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Gucci GG marmont crystalembellished ring $418 harveynichols.com

Missoni sun hat with scarf detail $457 neimanmarcus.com

1. Veronica Beard striped one-shoulder ruffle top $296, neimanmarcus.com 2. Carolina Herrera floralprint cotton-blend faille dress $2,337, matchesfashion.com 3. Isabel Marant marlone eyelet-embroidered voile dress $1,491, harveynichols.com 4. Christian Louboutin measuring tape-embellished pumps $873, matchesfashion.com 5. Off-White wool-blend wrap mini skirt $610, net-a-porter.com

living / Food

Waking Up In the wake of Anthony Bourdain’s death, James Brennan examines the mental health issues that many chefs face

ne summer afternoon a few years ago, I ate a lunch of traditional Lebanese kibbeh with hot yoghurt and garlic sauce in a little family restaurant in the Gemmayzeh district of Beirut. Le Chef had long been a local favourite for its homestyle food and unaffected décor, as well as the monotone greetings of its head waiter Charbel Bassil: “Welcome, welcome!” The place still had a neighbourhood vibe, yet it had recently been discovered by the world, including myself, thanks largely to Anthony Bourdain. On his TV shows No Reservations and Parts Unknown, the American chef and author had traipsed every corner of the earth, eating extreme delicacies in the name of intrepid food journalism. Le Chef was thrust into the spotlight by Bourdain’s patronage, as were hundreds of great but unfussy restaurants across the globe. “He sat over there,” Bassil told me, pointing to a plastic-covered table beside a gaudy mural with palm trees, under a big sign saying ‘Welcome’. “He ate kibbe and hummus. And he drank arak.” Did he like it, I asked? “Of course, or he wouldn’t have come twice.”

In some ways Bourdain was the bane of many a travelling food hack’s life. Not only was he a brilliant writer, but he had also been everywhere and eaten everything. It was impossible not to love Bourdain’s blunt style and spiky wit, but if you were looking to unearth an unknown and exciting gem of a restaurant in some long-forgotten corner of the Earth, you could forget it. Bourdain had already smoked a Marlboro in its toilet. Without him, though, food writing might have been a stale old dish, a soufflé that failed to rise. When his breakthrough book Kitchen Confidential became a bestseller in 2000, it bludgeoned its way into the public consciousness like an overworked line chef with a meat mallet. It was a gritty exposé of the restaurant business, full of killer lines and New York savvy acquired over years as the executive chef at Les Halles on Park Avenue. He was Hunter S. Thompson with a chef ’s knife, cleaving a path through ream after ream of staid and genteel prose to give us food writing that hissed and sizzled. But for all the macho verve and badinage there was an air of vulnerability about Anthony Bourdain. His words

august issue 152

living / Food

always came with a healthy sprinkling of self-depreciation. He wrote with great soul and sensitivity about the simple pleasures of eating good food in good company. He knew all about the power of food to unite people across diverse cultures. And he was respectful to all the food cultures he experienced, no matter how challenging or alien to his own. He was a thinking man who maybe thought too much. It’s heartbreaking to have to write about Anthony Bourdain in the past tense. But as we all know, on June 8th he took his own life in a hotel room in

Alsace, France, while filming on location for Parts Unknown. The fact that nobody knows, or will ever know, why this hugely talented, successful and popular chef and writer took this decision makes it all the more perplexing to everybody. Everybody, perhaps, except other chefs. They might not always be vocal about it, but a chef’s life can be fraught with mental and emotional pressures. Working hours are long and stressful. Chefs work gruelling shifts while everybody else is enjoying a bit of downtime, relaxing at home after work or dining in restaurants. And when that long shift is over – after

hours – that’s when the chefs get to let off steam. All too often it can lead to unhealthy choices and substance abuse. One chef who is dedicated to raising awareness of mental health among restaurant workers is Andrew Clarke. The chef director at Brunswick House and the newly launched St Leonards restaurants, both in London, told of his struggle with depression in an Instagram post in 2016. “Inside I was suffering from a pain so extreme that I could barely cope,” it read. “I hated who I was… I never believed in depression and only ever saw the world in a positive

august issue 152

“Stigma will remain a problem if we allow it to. It’s time we started making some changes to the way we look after ourselves and each other” light. But it’s not until you experience it, that you realise just how real it is.” Clarke was overwhelmed with the messages of support he received from friends and colleagues who appeared to be going through a similar thing, but had never dared to talk about it. “It’s actually difficult for anyone to open up when you have depression,” he says. “One of the biggest reasons for many is not wanting to show any sign of weakness, and there’s a huge stigma attached to that. But I often hear how others just don’t want to talk, not wanting to burden others with their problems, or the feeling of self

worthlessness raising the question ‘why would anyone care what’s happening with me?’” Clarke’s depression was triggered by a relationship breakdown, and although he now insists that kitchen life was not the direct cause of his condition (in fact he says it was his job that saved him), he acknowledges how the lifestyle can lead to bad choices. “Kitchens are often fast-paced, high-pressured environments. My negative life choice was to overreward myself for a hard day’s work. The accessibility of drink and other substances facilitated that. When it starts

affecting your work and relationships, it’s hard to get out of that vicious circle. But there are many more reasons. I’ve often heard it is because people who work in hospitality are adrenaline junkies, and I think there’s some truth in that.” Having made a full recovery, these days Clarke is getting his kicks from the launch of his new Shoreditch venture, St Leonards. But he has also created an initiative designed to get people in the restaurant industry talking about mental health. Pilot Light (pilotlightcampaign.co.uk) aims to support chefs and restaurant staff in sharing their experiences and finding the right professional support. Working with UK-based mental health charity Mind, Pilot Light will shine its beam on what remains something of a taboo subject in most kitchens. “Stigma will remain a problem if we allow it to,” says Clarke. “If we talk, we can understand each other more and manage each other better. There are fewer chefs coming into the industry so it’s about time we started making some changes to the way we look after ourselves and each other.” Pilot Light is not alone in the fight for greater awareness when it comes to mental health in professional kitchens. In Anthony Bourdain’s home town of New York City, food writer and author Kat Kinsman set up the Chefs With Issues website (www.chefswithissues.com) to encourage people in the industry to share resources and stories about depression, anxiety, addiction, bullying, or whatever it is they need to talk about. It’s been a while since Anthony Bourdain worked in the cut and thrust world of professional kitchens, but once a chef, always a chef. He empathised with the chefs and restaurant workers he met around the world, and those he never got a chance to meet. Let’s not forget them, and what they might be going through in order to put food on our tables.

living / art

Coolness: Story of an Attitude A Berlin exhibition about the origins of cool 88

t’s fitting that an exhibition on coolness takes place in Berlin, which has long been associated with a cutting-edge counterculture. Witness the likes of Iggy Pop and David Bowie (who lived together in Schöneberg for

a while) who made the city their home in the late seventies. The exhibition will examine four aspects of ‘coolness’: Resistance: the origins of coolness in the urban African American milieu; Appropriation: coolness conquers the

white mainstream in the ’50s; Passion: coolness as rebellion in the ’60s and ’70s; Distance: coolness becomes a commodity and an expression of individuality. Until September 30th, The Kennedys Thekennedys.de

AUGUST ISSUE 152

Clockwise from opposite: Muhammad Ali; Dieter Blumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cowboy; Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground; Michael Jordan; James Baldwin

AUGUST ISSUE 152

LIVING / COLUMN

The Dictionary of Body Language By Joe Navarro

he mouth is essential for eating, breathing and drinking and is also, of course, where we form and pronounce words. Highly sensitive to touch and temperature, the mouth is surrounded by more than ten intricately reflexive muscles that not only respond to touch but also reflect our thoughts and sentiments. The mouth can be seductive or sad, joyous or pained – and it accurately registers when one emotion gives way to another in an instant. After we look at the eyes for information, it is here where we search for additional cues as to what is in the mind. • Loud, short exhaling: This type of exhale, where the lips are left slightly open, indicates high stress or frustration. People exhibit this behaviour when hearing bad news or when confronted with a difficult situation. It helps relieve stress, especially when we are angry. • Holding the breath: Polygraphers know this well; when stressed, many people have an impulse to hold their breath to try to contain their nervous breathing. Often they even have to be told to breathe. Holding one’s breath is part of the freeze, flight, fight response. If you see people restraining their breathing or actually holding their breath when asked a question, most likely they are experiencing fear or apprehension. • Yawning: Yawning is an excellent pacifier, as it relieves pent-up stress by stimulating nerves in the jaw; specifically the temporomandibular joint. It was also recently discovered that the rapid intake of air when we yawn cools the blood circulating within the palate of the mouth and, like a car radiator, the blood going to the brain. Yawning may indicate that someone is too hot or as I often found during interviews, that the interviewee was severely stressed. Babies wrapped too warmly will also yawn with greater frequency as they sleep to help them cool down.

• Tongue jutting: When the tongue suddenly protrudes between the teeth, sometimes without touching the lips it means, “I got away with something,” or “Oops, I got caught.” You also see it when people catch themselves making a mistake. The tongue jut is universal and is remarkable in its consistency, whether it is indicating that you got away with a great bargain or an extra cookie, a higher grade, or a whopper of a lie. • Voice tone: The tone of our voice can make people comfortable or feel like we are challenging them. We can use the tone of our voice to alter or enhance how we are perceived. You can come off as nice, sweet, kind, loving, and knowledgeable, depending on your tone of voice or alternatively as suspicious, indignant, or arrogant. Tone of voice matters greatly. Ironically, if you want to get people’s attention, lowering your tone of voice will work best. A lower voice is also soothing. • Uptalk: Uptalk is when people inflect their tone up at the end of a declarative sentence, as though it were a question. Studies show that even a single instance of uptalk on the phone can negatively impact the listener’s impression of the speaker. Though uptalk is popular with many young people, it makes them sound tentative and lacking in confidence. • Delay in answering: Many people erroneously believe that a delay in answering a question signals that a person is lying or is buying time in an attempt to muster a credible answer. Unfortunately, both the honest and the dishonest may delay an answer but for different reasons. The guilty may in fact have to think about what to say while the innocent may be thinking about how to best say it. In my experience, a delay in answering should make us take note but is not indicative of deception.

“If you want to get people’s attention, ironically, lowering your voice will be the most effective way”

Still or Sparkling?

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