Private Edition Issue 21

ISSUE 21

COLLECTIVE GENIUS

SIBUSISO VILANE THE ICE LION COMETH

SALT WITH IT WHEN SERVICE GOES OVERBOARD

OVER THE EDGE UPS AND DOWNERS OF SMART DRUGS

SNAPPED UP TRETCHI’S ‘CHINESE GIRL’ RETURNS

CONTENTS

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

BMW’s new i3 sets the benchmark in electric-car manufacturing

‘The car turns its driver back into a creator of mobility instead of a mere consumer’ [page 68]

12 ED’S LETTER What excites our editor and, hence, our readers: a look at those stories (and writers) that make the grade.

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THE FIXERS

The boot camp pays off.

Despite the global downturn, the concierge business is booming.

But what are these elite teams of fixers actually selling?

The list that should make it into your little black book.

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THE LION’S SHARE

To conquer Everest, you need the right mindset, physical endurance and a touch of madness.

Sibusiso Vilane has all three.

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WITH A LITTLE BIT OF SALT What do the insanely rich demand?

Service to the same level.

BOND MARKET VIGILANTES

16 PSST

40

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THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

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Virgin Active’s new Alice Lane Health Club has been touted as ‘the best in the world’. And no, it’s not all done with mirrors.

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OVER THE EDGE Increasing numbers of executives are using prescription drugs to improve their mental agility. Are they legit brain boosters – or is it all an over-hyped fad?

SWING-OUT SISTER Forensic economist, swing dancer and DJ – 32-year-old Texan Jeannie Elliott redefines multitasking. She’s leading the local swing-dance revolution.

Cover shot of Sibusiso Vilane by Jacques Weyers.

Styling: Luanne Toms. Suit R14 500 and shirt R2 850, both Emporio Armani. Crampons R500 from City Rock.

Hair and make-up: Karen Haacke, represented by Six Love Artist Management. Fashion assistant: Marilize Uys. Post-production: Blink

CONTENTS

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HOMECOMING

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GREEK RULES

Tretchikoff’s ‘Chinese Girl’, arguably one of the most recognisable paintings in the world, comes home.

The PR on Greece may be poor, but for a traveller on the ground it’s still a delicious mix of laid-back promise and value for money.

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A MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR The 2013 BMW Eurostyle Tour had more twists in it than a thriller.

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HIGH SOCIETY

Private Edition and Elizabeth Arden entertain in style.

70 BREATHLESS

Freediving is grace under hundreds of kilograms of liquid pressure.

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KRUGER’S ARK

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SHAPE SHIFTERS

You could be ruining your reds and wasting a good white, all because of incorrect glassware.

Rivers flood and change a landscape

forever. In the aftermath are new discoveries.

PHOTOGRAPH: MOODY YACHTS FRANCE

So, what are the crew expected to do? Absolutely everything (page 40).

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NIC MORKEL In addition to managing several titles and a dynamic sales team that gets the nuances of the international luxury market, Nic is hands-on, target-driven and excited about building long-term relationships with clients who own their brands.

He studied marketing and cut his management teeth in retail before joining The Publishing Partnership in 2008.

MELANIE FORTUIN-DURR After 11 years of working on two leading Cape radio stations, Melanie turned her focus from ears to eyes and made the move to the world of glossy women’s magazines. That was almost a decade ago, and in that time (and with many of South Africa’s top women’s and lifestyle titles under her belt), she made it her business to master the strategic, operational and financial world of print magazines. Melanie joined The Publishing Partnership earlier this year as publisher of Obrigado, Private Edition and beautysouthafrica.com. When not at work, Melanie is a time-pooryet-aspiring-to-be-fabulous working mom and surfer’s wife. She’s also happy to admit that, loved ones aside, she’s a die-hard coffee and stationery obsessive.

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DEBBIE HATHWAY As managing editor, Debbie enjoys applying her journalistic and management skills across Private Edition. One of the joys of working on the magazine is being introduced to fascinating people, stimulating experiences and incredible destinations. When a commission leads her into the dance world, and exposes her to a new genre, Debbie’s even happier.

Read her story about the forensic economist with a split personality on page 50.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JACQUES WEYERS

CONTRIBUTORS

LUANNE TOMS With a passion for print media that began when she started collecting treasured magazines as a teenager, Luanne has been fortunate to have worked on most of her favourite titles: Leadership, Sunday Life, Elle Decoration, Real Simple and National Geographic Traveller.

Her love of editorial art direction, design and styling has led to a collaboration with longstanding colleague and friend, editor Kerryn Fischer, under the banner of Frank Features. Luanne finds great joy in working with authentic copy and some of South Africa’s top photographers to create beautiful print material – principles upheld

by Private Edition.

FROM THE ED’S HEAD

EDITOR LES AUPIAIS privateedition@tppsa.co.za PUBLISHER MELANIE FORTUIN-DURR CREATIVE DIRECTOR LUANNE TOMS MANAGING EDITOR DEBBIE HATHWAY dhathway@tppsa.co.za COPY EDITORS WENDY MARITZ, RIEKIE HUMAN AND SALLY RUTHERFORD

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Elliott’s delightfully unexpected Jekyll-and-Hyde life is matched by the (now) famous Sibusiso Vilane, our cover man, who has the kind of physical prowess and mental strength that we wish we could bottle and sip. We took him out of his mountaineering gear for the cover and discovered that Armani was made for him. Snowbound to suave in a day, he is also disarmingly humble.

When it comes to toughing it out in the executive suites though, is natural stamina, smarts and strategy enough? Lasley explores the growing use of smart drugs to get business brains focused. The results are… interesting.

A man who doesn’t seem to need more than an uncanny eye for spotting potential in art – and a lump of pretty stone – to be an international legend has just pulled off another coup. Laurence Graff, who acquires some of the most spectacular diamonds in the world, has bought Tretchikoff’s ‘Chinese Girl’. She is now in Stellenbosch on the Delaire Graff estate, and before she globetrots for exhibitions worldwide, we suggest a visit to the estate for lunch and a lingering look at one of the artist’s most instantly recognised works.

AD EDFINITUM • Beg, steal or buy a bottle of 2008 Sutherland Syrah.

It is glorious.

• Travel to Hermanus just for lunch at Dutchies on Voëlklip for authentic Dutch fare, great service and fireside wine. Call 028 314 1392 to book.

• Tell anyone you know to sign up with Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty because of their extraordinary alliance with British Airways and the Avios Travel Rewards programme. When an agent sells your house, you and your family could be sent to Mauritius for a week. Points taken. For further details, visit sothebysrealty.co.za.

ADVERTISING EXECUTIVES CLAIRE JOOSTE 021 481 3518 083 453 5539 cjooste@tppsa.co.za JUSTIN LYONS 021 488 5944, 072 567 1654 jlyons@tppsa.co.za SAMEEGHA WOLHUTER 021 488 5938, 078 356 9521 swolhuter@tppsa.co.za AD SALES COORDINATOR JANICE MCLEAN 021 488 5928 jmclean@tppsa.co.za EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS MARK BEARE, JOHN MORKEL HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER JOLINDA KEMP FINANCIAL MANAGER NAEEMA ABRAHAMS ACCOUNTS LAETITIA BOTHMA ELMON SEARLE MICHÉ STEVENS OFFICE AND FACILITIES MANAGER MARCHÉ JASON PRIVATE EDITION IS PUBLISHED BY

Private Edition is published by The Publishing Partnership (Pty) Ltd, 9th Floor, Tarquin House, 81 Loop Street, Cape Town 8001. Copyright: The Publishing Partnership (Pty) Ltd 2013. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without prior written consent from The Publishing Partnership or the authors. The publishers are not responsible for any unsolicited material. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of The Publishing Partnership or the editor. Editorial and advertising enquiries: PO Box 15054, Vlaeberg 8018; tel: 021 424 3517; fax: 021 424 3612; email: privateedition@tppsa.co.za.

Reproduction: Hirt & Carter. Printing: Paarl Media Paarl. ISSN: 2218-063X Private Edition is produced using certified paper from GOLDEAST PAPER CO LTD, an accredited company committed to environmental protection.

The paper is made from legally harvested trees using environmentally friendly materials. The supplier is subjected to regular environmental audits.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JACQUES WEYERS

PRIVATE EDITION once ran a story about a hotel on an island where the general manager had dispensed with the check-out time for his guests. Why, he reasoned, should a late afternoon or evening flight deprive them of a last and lasting impression? He worked around the logistical challenge. Now that is service and that is luxury, a word now so overused that it’s lost its meaning entirely (particularly when it’s used to describe anything from a wall tile to a bar of soap). It’s time to reinvent it.

We commissioned Kathy Malherbe to trawl her network and find out what goes on when a 330-foot yacht takes to the Med armed with caviar, Bollinger and a brace of Russians. What exactly do guests like these want when they can buy a small country for cash?

Tabitha Lasley was sent off to dig about the concierge-service industry and write up what the world’s well-heeled desire that’s far-fetched and fanciful. And Susan Stos, on a family holiday in Greece, discovers that despite an anorexic rand and a rampant European recession, the island’s people are charming, and the food, wine and accommodation are not ruinous to the budget. Is that not luxury?

Virgin Active has just opened the doors to their flagship Classic Club, Alice Lane, upping the ‘club’ definition a tad with a concierge service and the option to train 50 metres up on a roof with a 360° view of the city. Makes sweating about on a roll-up mat seem light years away.

Handcrafting your wine – and turning your back on using any ingredient that smacks of ‘preservative’ or ‘additive’ – is a real luxury. It feeds into the definition by being driven by maverick wine makers with, it must be said, a slightly obsessive zeal. The verdict? Damn fine wine. Keith Bain sips and savours the experience for us to share.

If forensic economists are considered mildly unusual, then finding one whose real love is swing dancing touches on the eccentric. It would be an oddity except for the fact that South Africans are taking to the floor in droves to move it and shake it. Jeannie

ADVERTISING MANAGER NIC MORKEL 021 488 5926 082 468 6490 nmorkel@tppsa.co.za

OPINION

The Bond Vigilantes Ride Back Into Town

JAMES CARVILLE, an adviser to President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, famously said of the bond markets: ‘I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.’

In those days the so-called ‘bond vigilantes’ ruled capital markets in the US and elsewhere.

Countries deemed to be fiscally profligate or with anti-free-market policies were mercilessly punished in the bond and currency markets. In the early 1990s, bond traders sold US Treasuries aggressively, forcing the Clinton regime to bring down the Federal deficit.

Even more merciless treatment was meted out on emerging markets that strayed from fiscal and market orthodoxy. The Russian debt crisis was the most famous example of the global vigilantes’ tough discipline. The Thai baht, the Korean won and even the rand suffered the wrath of the global vigilantes.

Despite its ruthlessness, the bond market’s tough love had a positive impact: these countries had no choice but to submit themselves to the boot camp of fiscal rectitude and market-friendly policies. South Africa was no exception, and the subsequent fiscal restructuring under Trevor Manuel in the

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1990s helped to put the country on a solid footing, from which we are benefiting today.

Thereafter, the power of the global bond markets waned, with two key trends blunting their power. Firstly, the rise of China as a major industrial force drove up commodity prices over the last decade, boosting the economies of many of the commodity producers that had felt the zealous discipline of the vigilantes in the 1990s. In addition, it helped China and other emerging economies build up large currency reserves. Many of these states were able to use the proceeds of their commodity bonanza to invest in developed nation bonds (such as US Treasuries). This helped to drive down bond yields in emerging and developed markets (especially the US), even where the might of the fundamentals was at odds with the asset prices, such as the rising fiscal deficits or declining levels of political and economic freedom (as seen in Russia and Venezuela).

A second trend militating against the vigilantes was the extraordinary quantitative easing that programmes adopted after the global financial crisis of 2008, principally by the US, but also by the likes of the UK and Japan. With central banks aggressively buying assets in the market, but ironically also expanding their balance sheets, rates were

Words PATRICK LAWLOR

suppressed around the world.

But did the vigilantes ever go away? The Eurozone crisis was a sharp reminder of their power. Greek 10-year government bond yields went as high as 40% in late 2011 (meaning it cost the Greek government 40% a year to borrow), and Portugal, Ireland and Spain saw sharp rises in their borrowing costs as well.

While the European Central Bank has since countered this with its own ‘bazooka’ of bond purchases (Greek yields are at around 10% now), the Eurozone had a tough programme of austerity imposed on it.

With the US talking about exiting its quantitative easing programme, bond yields there have started to climb again. For investors in emerging markets like South Africa, this may mean a reassessment of the trends that have driven performance over the last decade or so. Investors may want to revisit the case for developed equity markets again.

Patrick Lawlor is editor of Investec Wealth & Investment’s publications.

He’s had a lengthy career as a financial journalist for many leading business publications.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY INVESTEC WEALTH & INVESTMENT WWW.INVESTEC.CO.ZA/WI

PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATION: SUPPLIED

The bond market boot camp has paid off. The vigilantes have been, on balance, a force for good.

Psst

UTTERLY RANDOM AND OCCASIONALLY TACTICAL TRIVIA

Forget anything you believed possible with glass. London-based Peter Layton pulls it like taffy in its molten form and ‘dabs’ in colour until, days later, when the glass has set, a 3-D universe of a composition finally reveals itself. Precious metals used in the making affect the way colours fuse, creating a raw range of new colours that account for ‘God’s hand’ in the design. Think fluid jewellery; an undersea reef with flashes of tropical coral, suspended for a moment and then captured; a galaxy of swirls and pinpricks of light; aerial photography; and the iridescent colours of an oil slick on the Thames. Inspired by sea, desert, flowers and myriad life impressions, Peter is a master of his art and takes a more natural, painterly approach to his work. He is also generous, and mentors keen glass-blowers, including a young South African. Today, they flex their creative muscles – quite literally in this physically demanding art – while the artist limits his ranges after a career of nearly four decades. London Glassblowing was the final design revelation on the BMW Eurostyle Tour, and brought together the underlying theme of the 2013 trip: cutting-edge talent, skill and ideas on the edge of genius, but, above all, the power of the collaborative. For more information, visit londonglassblowing.co.uk.

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TEXT: LES AUPIAIS. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

BLOWN AWAY In Peter Layton’s hand, glass becomes impressionism in 3-D

PSST NEWS

STIRRED NEVER SHAKEN 54 on Bath revives a classic ritual There’s a delicious hiatus in the day somewhere between lunch and a late evening dinner. And 54 on Bath in Rosebank has filled it elegantly with a traditional afternoon tea. Or shall we rather say, ‘with teas’. A light infusion of Organic Rooibos; the smoky richness of Lapsang Souchong; a fragrant Earl Grey – these are just some of the temptations. Up on the hotel’s famous fourth floor, where gardens and the pool overlook the Rosebank skyline, tea is served on cake stands laden with delicately cut and filled sandwiches, and freshly baked cakes and scones. Between 3.30pm and 5pm, you can either relax in the ground-floor lounge or take the lift to the fourth. Whether it’s tea for two – or 24, a mother-and-daughter treat, or a book-club meet – this tea hits the sweet spot. For further information, call the hotel on 011 344 8400 or email Levelfour.restaurant@tsogosun.com.

STEAMIN’ NORMAN Great self-catering apartments – but you might never even use the sink There’s the notion that a successful hotel chain is one where you wake up in a suite and are unsure whether you’re in Paris or Pretoria. There’s synergy... and then there’s downright boring.

Protea Hotels is giving a shine to their brand a different way. The Protea Hotel President is an icon on the Atlantic Seaboard. With its revamp came more self-catering apartments, but you may not want to cook anything. Cape Town’s best-kept secret has to be executive chef Norman Heath. In 2004, he made the Nationals of the Chaîne des Rôtisseur, Jeune Commis Rotisseur Afrique Du Sud. Private Edition sampled his winter fare. And now this spring, he’s conjured up Rhubarb Puree Salad, and Beef Carpaccio with Pickled Guava. Got you going yet? Hold back for Rhubarb and White Chocolate Tart and Peach Pie with Cinnamon Mousse. For more details, visit proteahotels.com or call 021 434 8111.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU WEAR Organic cotton champion creates sweeter dreams There can be nothing more luxurious than the feel of pure cotton on your body. The Pure Cotton Shop has gone one step further with their organic range. South African Marietjie Fouche is the brains behind the business and now produces a range of organic cotton products with the fabric certified GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards) label. By manufacturing in SA, she has stimulated the local job market – a move that also allowed her to have the final controlling hand in quality checks. Why is sleeping and wearing organic cotton good for you? Fouche says that the fabric is stronger, softer and more durable. ‘Our skin detoxifies at night,’ she says. ‘Our pores open and we start to perspire. Apart from perspiring, we absorb chemicals around us and that includes linen.’ The product is also excellent for allergy sufferers. For further information, visit purecottonshop.co.za.

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PSST NEWS

FOOT FETISH Footloose and fancyfree It’s hard to believe that a 68g duo of spandex is leading the trend in active footwear in the US and Europe. But around the world, ultra-lightweight shoes are big and the recent launch of Actos shoes in South Africa is proving that they are worth far more than their weight in gold. The shoes offer barefoot freedom and comfort while ensuring correct posture, weight distribution and natural acupressure. They are also extremely flexible while offering support. Dubbed ‘Magic Shoes’ by Pilates instructor Margot King, the second pair of feet with a non-slip sole and soft inner is being used across sporting disciplines including Pilates, aquarobics, strength training, windsurfing, yoga, rock climbing and beach volleyball. Actos Bare Foot skin shoes take up no space, are flexible and are perfect for anyone who has a fetish for healthy feet. For more information, call 082 5757 156 or email kathy@iafrica.com. – KATHY MALHERBE

KNIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES Designer style for culinary experts Whether you’re a professional chef or a would-be kitchen artisan, you’ll weight your choice of cutting tool by function as well as design. Porsche Design gives you a bit of both in the Chroma range of chef’s knives. The tapered handle promotes a comfortable grip, while the strategically placed buttons on either side of the choil gently guide safe finger placement. Designed by FA Porsche, grandson of the founder of Porsche cars, one thing’s for sure: style counts. You’ll see it in the blade/handle proportions and they’re pretty light as stainless steel knives go. They’re available individually or as a starter set of utility, carving and chef’s knives, in varying lengths. Call 011 325 5706 for more information.

TEXT: LES AUPIAIS; DEBBIE HATHWAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

SEEKING BEAUTY E-shopping with a certain je ne sais quoi…

Rachelle Bricout relates well to Cole Porter’s ‘I love Paris’ lyrics. It’s the inspiration behind her online retailtherapy solution, The Beautiful Store. Bricout has curated premium products across the home, décor, lifestyle, jewellery and fashion spectrum, styled to facilitate easy purchase and delivery to your door, beautifully wrapped. She also offers gift vouchers that don’t expire. What a perk! And if you can’t find your heart’s desire, simply fill in the detail on the Seeking Beauty page and she’ll source it for you. For further details, visit thebeautifulstore.com or phone 021 761 1294.

EAR FACTOR Nifty earphones take active cool to a whole new level If looking good makes you feel great, you’re probably firmly entrenched in a fitness regime. But if you’re lacking inspiration and need a distraction while you exercise, here’s a little musical inspiration. The new Monster iSport Strive (pictured) and iSport Intensity earphones incorporate an in-line mic, with controls for iPad, iPhone and iPod. Designed for comfort, with sound quality a given, these bright accessories feature a patented SportClip that holds them securely and comfortably in-ear. They’re sweat-proof and washable, with antimicrobial eartips, and work with helmets, goggles and glasses. Look out for them at leading retailers countrywide, ranging from R899 to R1 999.

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PSST FASHION

GENTLEMAN’S CLUB Debonair Hyde Park retailer doffs its cap to heritage The new heritage wall at McCullagh & Bothwell Hyde Park pays homage to the story of the northern Irish immigrants who founded the company in Kimberley in 1896, largely to service the then-thriving diamond mining community. Interestingly, its reputation for high-quality school clothing has ensured that its clients have grown up with them – literally. One gentleman, in his nineties, who regularly visits the store in his wheelchair, remembers his mother taking him in to buy uniforms when he was six years old! Even the employees have long service and eyes trained to sum up sizes at a glance. They’re the only stockists in the country of the Eden Park and Breuer brands, and the only store in Johannesburg to keep Brax. For further information, visit mcandb.co.za.

ULTIMATE OUTFITTER Understated Scandinavian style fit for a meeting – or a party

First famous for its fine tailored shirts, Polo’s signature preppy style channels a bygone era of mannered, cleancut gentlemen. The Spring/Summer Collection 2013 featured head-turning Madras checks and light ginghams.

There’s also a new palette of dusky pastels to refresh the classic Gordon chinos (try rolling them up to show your ankles, with sneakers or formal shoes) as well as the golfer wardrobe staple and, of course, the Signature men’s striped shirts. Men have loved wearing the golfers with collars pointing upwards, but the buttoned-to-theneck styling is on the comeback trail. For more details, visit polo.co.za.

CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS Fouilards d’Artistes Part II Louis Vuitton’s iconic silk scarf boasts three new looks for the Fall/Winter 2013 season, through its collaboration with international street artists. Franco-Tunisian eL Seed uses his signature calligraffiti to convey a message of ‘tolerance, acceptance and unity’ between East and West and features an extract from a poem by the Palestinian literary figure, Taha Muhammad Ali. Just as dramatic is the Indonesian Eko Nugroho’s mythical beast drawn on a geometric background, combining urban and pop influences with traditional Indonesian motifs. On a traditional note, the UK’s EINE looked to the brand’s heritage to produce a bold, travel-inspired design, framed by the Louis Vuitton signature. For more details, visit louisvuitton.com.

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TEXT: DEBBIE HATHWAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

TOP OF THE CLASS Old-school rules with heritage-cool classics

A pair of tailors approach a gentleman on the street in early 20th-century Sweden and offers to make him a suit, fashioned from Italian fabric. He agrees. He becomes a stylesetter for the clean, minimalist look favoured by swish Scandinavian dressers. It’s the sales strategy that launched Tiger of Sweden in 1903. In March this year, it was the bestselling menswear fashion brand among 253 competitors at Selfridges in London. The secret? Classic tailoring techniques applied to contemporary design with an award-winning service ethic – the slim-fit cut is a consistent favourite. Now sold and marketed in 18 countries, and online, South Africa boasts stores in Melrose Arch and Sandton City, with a V&A Waterfront launch in Cape Town this October.

Follow the brand on Facebook: Tiger of Sweden South Africa or on Twitter: @TigerOfSwedenSA.

U PPE R M A L L , H YD E PA R K CO R N ER , J O H A N N E S B U R G ISSUE 18 P R I V A T E E D I T I O N 0 0

PSST WATCHES

FINAL COUNTDOWN Use time to your advantage as you anticipate the starter’s gun Skippers wanting to make their mark in the Rolex Fastnet Race, which was held off the southern coast of England in August, will have relied on strategy, position, wind and perfect timing to get them across the line first. With 347 craft vying for position, the crew member tasked with monitoring the countdown to the start will have placed all his trust in an instrument like the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master II regatta chronograph.

Launched in 2007 and introduced in stainless steel at Baselworld 2013, it was designed to satisfy the needs of professional yachtsmen and enthusiasts alike. This model exemplifies Rolex’s reputation for precision, function and reliability. It has an exclusive design that allows the countdown to be programmed from one to 10 minutes, and a mechanical memory that enables it to be reset to the same countdown duration. Another bonus is its capacity to be reset on the fly. Visit rolex.com for more details.

AGEING GRACEFULLY Italian design makes its mark on watches that express personality and lifestyle Vintage takes on a whole new meaning when you consider the effort behind the design of U-Boat’s new Chimera U-51 Bronze and Chimera B and B wristwatches. In revitalising his grandfather’s 1942 project to manufacture watches for Italian naval pilots, Italo Fontana has increased the detail required to achieve the brand’s trademark retro-style look. The Chimera U-51 Bronze is made entirely from bronze, while the B and B combines a black PVD coating with bronze finishes. The metal has been treated to ensure that it ages naturally, while the hands, which are painted first, are discoloured and then meticulously scratched by hand to age them purposefully. Even the leather straps, shaped and hand-stitched by master craftsmen from Tuscany, are distressed. The result is that no two timepieces are alike. Both models are available in a limited edition of 300 pieces. For more information, contact World’s Finest Watches on 011 784 0203.

FINE-TUNING PERFECTION Haute horlogerie timepieces shine with technical ingenuity

ON THE CLOCK Underwater lifeline The Oris Regulateur ‘Der Meistertaucher’ takes underwater legibility to a new level for the manufacturer who first invented a diver’s watch with a Regulateur movement. The shape of the minute hand has been strengthened, and the hands and indices now feature a white Super-LumiNova inlay for improved readability. It’s a great safety feature, when time measures every life-saving breath. Call 011 372 6000 for further information.

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TEXT: DEBBIE HATHWAY; PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Swiss watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen has launched two new models in the collection first created to match the accuracy of a marine chronometer: the Portuguese Chronograph Classic and the Portuguese Tourbillon Hand-Wound. The Classic combines elegant design with practical functionality. It’s powered by an IWCmanufactured 89361-calibre chronograph, developed to record time spans in up to 12 hours on a subdial.

Appliquéd Arabic numerals set beneath an arched-edge front glass make it read as clearly as a clock face and appear smaller than its 42mm diameter. The Tourbillion Hand-Wound is beautifully understated with a minimalist design that enhances the display of the intricate flying tourbillion at nine o’clock. IWC engineers have increased this watch’s balance frequency to 28 800 beats per hour, for excellent precision. Master craftsmen from the House of Santoni put the finishing touches to both models’ exquisitely finished leather straps. For more information, visit iwc.com.

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PSST WATCHES

DIVING BACK IN TIME Blancpain backs diving-for-dinosaurs expedition in the deep When Laurent Ballesta and his expert team were commissioned to commune with the coelacanth at the bottom of the ocean, they were in for daily dives of up 120m – a depth that demands long hours of decompression for every minute submerged. The location? The Jesser Canyon caves in Sodwana Bay. Ballesta is a world-renowned marine biologist and scientific diver. He strapped on a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms timepiece to track the time spent searching for what is known locally as Gombessa, a two-metre long ‘peaceful giant’, thought to have become extinct 70 million years ago, but discovered alive in 1938. Blancpain’s first Fifty Fathoms wristwatch defined the specifics of a true diver timepiece in 1953, and has since combined watchmaking know-how with strict diving safety standards to provide the benchmark in its category. Find out more at coelacanthe-projet-gombessa.com and blancpain.com.

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PSST JEWELLERY

3.

2.

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5.

(1) The Piaget Rose Collection celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Yves Piaget bloom, honoured in this exquisite 18ct pink-gold ring, set with a brilliant-cut 0.06ct diamond. Visit piaget.com or call 011 317 2600 for details.

(2) This classic stone demands a classic setting. Designer Johan Louw features the magnificent 5.03ct centre diamond by presenting it on a cushion of smaller diamonds, held up by an 18ct white-gold ring. Estimated at R790 000.

Visit uwekoetter.co.za to find out more.

(3) Cartier’s Collection Paris Nouvelle Vague is an ode to the Parisian lady: modern yet classic, always sophisticated and elegant.

This striking adornment features colour-graduated half-spheres, ribbons of smoked quartz, haematites, amethysts and calibrated diamonds. Visit cartier.com or call 011 666 2800 for more information.

(4) Unearthed from the hills of Tanzania, this ‘stone of the century’ is a rare find. The Prins & Prins design incorporates 2.35cts of brilliant white diamonds and a flawless tanzanite weighing 11.59cts. POA. For further information, visit prinsandprins.com or call 021 422 1090.

(5) Botanical inspiration shines through in this beautifully crafted camellia, pavé-set with over four carats of brilliant-cut diamonds.

The wearer will love the play of light on this ring, masterfully enhanced by the movement of its articulated petals. Estimated at R152 000.

Contact james@charlesgreig.co.za or call 011 325 4477 for more details.

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TEXT: DEBBIE HATHWAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

WITH THIS RING...

Dramatic flair meets designer brilliance

PSST MOTORING

HEADING THE BULL RUN The Lamborghini Aventador loses its top, but not much else in the process I love Italy and its people. Italians have the charisma of the French, but are perhaps less bashful.

They’re less timid and, as a result, more passionate. Their language lingers on the vowels as to add drama. They speak with grand gestures, cook generously, kiss passionately, and their cars inspire.

Things are done the way they’ve been done for generations, and it’s this residue of wisdom that makes driving the Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 Roadster such an occasion. It certainly has charisma. You flip open a red cover to push the starter button. The engine kicks into life with a bark before settling down to a gentle growl. Its angular styling, fine leather interior, comfortable seats and manners when driven sedately rival the best that motoring offers. I’m surprised at how easy to drive it is; how quickly and smoothly the robotised-manual, seven-speed transmission skips between ratios; and how well the F1-type pushrod-suspension system handles rough roads. But, I’m taken aback by its fury when coaxed. This bull needs little prodding to brandish its horns. Mere centimetres behind the driver is a 6.5-litre V12 that delivers a mighty 515kW and 690Nm – enough for a sub-3 second 0-100km/h time. Compared with the Murciélago, it is much less of a handful, but when exiting a corner under hard acceleration, the rear is eager to step out and the steering wheel dances a merry jig. Flicking from third to fifth results in a loud cough – as if it’s clearing its throat – and the kind of acceleration that renders the countryside a muddled mess. It’s not bashful. Press hard on the weighted brake pedal and the carbon brakes do a good job of reigning in the nose, slowing for a second-gear right-hander before it’s back on the accelerator for a short straight. A carbon-fibre body structure makes the car light and manageable through corners. It bounces, but never crashes over undulations and remains composed. It’s quick and responsive. It’s clinical. But, luckily, not without character – there’s passion wrapped up in its mechanical and electronic trickery.

While making the most of the roads in the high country near Durban, it’s undeniable that the Aventador is the new Bull King in the Sant’Agata Bolognese stud, and I am glad to say that the Roadster has lost none of the performance credentials of the coupé. For more information, visit lamborghini.com. – BRETT HAMILTON

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PSST MOTORING

CLEARED FOR TAKE-OFF The Mercedes-Benz E-Class cracks the code The new E-Class range was unveiled and put through its paces at Stellenbosch Flying School in mid-June. I could blather on about all the new safety features (such as forward-looking radar that detects pedestrians stepping into your path and primes the brakes or industryleading environmental preservation measures), but the joy of motoring is in… well, the motoring. Like any good car, the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class makes you feel good when you’re driving it. You can feel virtuous with the E300 BlueTEC HYBRID, which has a ridiculously low fuel efficiency of 4.2 litres of diesel/100km; sexy and sophisticated with the revamped E250/E400 coupé and four-seater cabriolet; or downright raunchy with the E500 or E63 AMG. The latter features a 5.5-litre bi-turbo engine that takes the vehicle from standstill to 100km/h in just 4.2 seconds, putting it within the supercar category. For more information, visit mercedes-benz.co.za. – JIM FREEMAN

A BIG GIRL IN STILETTOS Don’t ever approach a car like the 335i with preconceptions When I first encountered the BMW 3 series sedan, I frowned at its shape, but as I step into the 335i Gran Turismo Sport Line›, I realise this is an entirely new beast. Perhaps it’s the panoramic glass roof, or the red detail running through the cabin, or the amount of rear legroom, but there’s nothing about the cabin that doesn’t satisfy. I activate the start button, select my gear and depress the accelerator – there’s an audible purr. Ten minutes on the open road, I switch to the Sport+ drive option; the mood change is instant. Responsiveness sharpens, suspension feels firm and handling is confident. The heads-up display relays the information you need, so when I spot the sharp right-hander approaching, it’s the perfect excuse to flirt with the brake before leaping right into it, waiting for that moment of top-heavy uncertainty. But it never arrives.

I keep flinging the car into roadholding resolve, which the GT continue to answer with poise and composure. One more left-hander and I find a clean straight line with no traffic, pounce on the gas and watch the electronic rear diffusor rise into view for some added downforce and stability. The engineering here just works. Brilliantly. Visit bmw.co.za to find out more. – ZEYD SULAIMAN

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

A STELLAR GROOVE For the car that has everything... a priceless gift!

It’s easy to be beguiled by a car’s design, feel and overall performance, but realistically, it’s the way it moves on the road that counts. Legendary Italian automotive designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, voted Car Designer of the Century in 1999, is the genius behind many of the sidewall and tread designs that give a Vredestein tyre its unque DNA. Run over a pristine stretch of soft snow, the tyre would leave an extraodinary pattern that, if printed on canvas, would not only create contemporary art, but show that every groove contributes to critical safety and performance characteristics. Vredestein tyres have become legends in the ultra-high performance field, the name translating to better water dispersal, grip, stability and control. They enhance the aesthetics and handling of some of the world’s most desired sports cars, luxury sedans and SUVs, delivering heartstopping performance and head-turning style, effortlessly. Visit vredestein.com for further details.

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ON THE OTHER HAND

Blade (front) Runner Just when you thought there could be no more evolution in watch engineering, along comes a startling revelation.

WATCH COLLECTORS AND AFICIONADOS are always on the lookout for something unique and different. Franck Muller, a new-generation master watchmaker and designer, said, ‘... when you hear that everything has already been done in haute horlogerie watchmaking, it is a big lie. Everything remains to be done, redone, reinterpreted or reinvented – creativity knows no boundaries.’

Baselworld – the World Watch and Jewellery Show, held annually in Switzerland, proves Muller absolutely right. There is no question that this is the most impressive exhibition of any product category in the world. Elaborate displays costing exhibitors millions, endless press conferences, launches and stand activities fill your diary and flood your senses. The saying of ‘not seeing the forest for the trees’ needs to be inverted – the forest is so beautiful that you can’t resist looking for the detail, the true technical and design innovations.

I found my special and rare tree this year at Girard-Perregaux. The launch of the Constant Escapement was taking centre stage, with a breakthrough in the field of chronometry allowing for unprecedented precision in traditional mechanical watches.

To understand what is at stake, we need to recall a few basic notions. The heart of a mechanical watch is ruled by the regulating organ (balance wheel and escapement), which manages the flow rate of energy received from the barrel (main spring) to drive the train of wheels (gears) and, ultimately, the hands. The classic image of the regulating organ is that of a faucet managing the flow of water. The famous Swiss lever escapement appeared between 1850 and 1870 and has become more or less the standard of all mechanical watches. The drawback of this mechanism is that its release of energy is not constant and thus lessens the accuracy. This Swiss lever escapement has been replaced by GirardPerregaux with a revolutionary mechanism of avant-garde materials and advanced technology. It uses a 14-micron silicon blade, six times thinner than a human hair, as the strategic component.

The use of new materials, and especially silicon, has occupied watch-movement engineers for over a decade as it offers many advantages: hardness, lightness and a surface that reduces friction and the need for lubrication. Brands like Patek Philippe and Ulysse Nardin have been pioneers in the use of silicon in their improvements of escapement mechanisms. In 2008 Girard-Perregaux presented its first prototype of a completely new regulating organ releasing a near-perfect flow of energy. This caused big waves within the watch-engineering community, but it took five years of research and development to ensure the reliability of the Constant Escapement.

In housing this unique movement, the case had to do justice to the feat of engineering, and showcase it without hiding behind it. The hours and minutes occupy a sub-dial off-centred at 12 o’clock, flanked by the two main springs in the shape of double barrels. The whole of the lower part of the watch is reserved for the Constant Escapement, which ‘steals the show’. Under the antireflective sapphire glass, The Girard-Perregaux Constant the brand’s three emblematic bridges are visible Escapement in 18ct white gold, and play their structural role in a novel layout. The with its hand-sewn alligator strap fusion between technology and design makes this and folding clasp, will retail at watch a rare find indeed. If you want one, join the approximately R1,2 million rather long waiting list...

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PHOTOGRAPHY OF PRODUCT: SUPPLIED

Words STEVE KOCHER Photography AUBREY JONSSON/INFIDELS

TREND

Suit R14 200 and shirt R2 650, both Emporio Armani; Panerai Luminor 1950 3 Days R81 900; climbing rope R1 399, Cape Union Mart; prop: climbing rope, City Rock

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PUSHING THE LIMITS

The Lion’s Share Ten thousand metres of fixed rope, ladders and a Sherpa are all the help you’ll get if you want to conquer Everest. The rest is mindset, physical endurance and a touch of madness.

Sibusiso Vilane has all three.

Words KATHY MALHERBE Photography JACQUES WEYERS

IT’S BEEN 60 YEARS since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made history by summiting Mount Everest, and 10 years since Sibusiso Vilane first stood on top of the world. Now he’s planning his third summit – not only to celebrate his highaltitude life, but as a champion for the 46664 Participate for Good library initiative. Vilane, who says his life was transformed completely when he made his historical summit, plans to pay the philanthropy he enjoyed forward, and raise funds for at least 10 libraries for schools in South Africa.

Vilane’s dream was to be the first black man to climb 8 848m to the top of the world. And he did it… twice. After summiting from the south side in 2003, he tackled the more treacherous north side in 2005. Still unsatisfied, he walked unaided to the South Pole and then the North Pole, which means he has the elite ‘three-poles’ challenge under his belt: the top of the world, the bottom of the world and the highest peak.

Since 1953, only 4 000 climbers (including Sherpas’ multiple summits) have reached the top of Everest, and over 300 people have died trying. Vilane came very, very close. What lay between him and almost certain death was US $100 more than he had.

On 3 June 2005, Vilane summited Everest for the second time from the north side. He was descending from 8 000m – alone and out of oxygen and water. The temperature was -30°C and dropping; the sun was setting; and the wind was howling like a banshee. Dehydrated and struggling to breathe, he crawled down the mountain, dragging his pack. ‘The music of the devil was sounding very clear,’ he remembers.

‘After about 200m, my coughing became so intense that I had to sit down to catch my breath, and I started to fall asleep. It takes two minutes to freeze in those temperatures.’ He realised that he was in the exact position he had seen so many dead climbers – frozen in time and still clipped to the ropes. Too weak even to crawl, he continued the only way he could: paddling like a child

on his backside, he slid down the vertical slope. He was alone and frightened, and he knew if the sun set, he was a dead man.

The first time he had seen Everest or Sagarmatha, Nepalese for ‘goddess of the sky’, there was a cloud veiling her summit. ‘The mountains never spoke loudly, only silently and, to me, Everest said, “Sibusisio you are welcome to stand at the top.”

‘But now the mountain was beckoning me to lie with her forever. She had so much energy, felt so alive and as if she was going to consume me like so many other climbers.’

Suddenly he heard the sound of singing and, like an angel, a lone Sherpa appeared. Vilane asked if he would help carry his pack down to Camp Two at 7 900m for US $50. ‘US $150,’ said the Sherpa, as calmly as if bartering at an Indian market. An offer to pay when they reached Advanced Base Camp was met with a calm: ‘No. Cash now.’ He didn’t have it. The Sherpa looked at him, turned away and vanished over the ridge. A deep sense of betrayal and disbelief was followed by a bout of bitter weeping. Vilane had been left by his three team-mates, expedition leader and the Sherpas in the race to get down after summiting – and now he was being left for dead.

When asked what would break the ‘Lion’ – the sobriquet given to him by fellow climbers – mentally and physically, Vilane says with equal measures of humility and conviction, ‘This is my heartfelt answer: nothing but myself! And I can only do that by self-limiting, by not entertaining that the impossible does exist in my mind. As long as I believe, then nothing can break me.’

His shock at the callous abandonment was soon replaced by the realisation that he could not rely on anyone but himself.

But the sun had set, he was dehydrated, short of oxygen and freezing, halfway between the two camps in no-man’s-land. He started his desperate slide down the mountain again. When he heard his name echoing in the twilight, he thought it was the ghost of Mallory or Irvine.

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PUSHING THE LIMITS

Then the dark figure of Sherpa Mingma appeared next to him, carrying life-saving water and oxygen. (Mingma was supposed to summit with fellow South African Mark Campbell, but had sacrificed this chance and come back down. And Campbell had been prepared to summit without his personal climbing Sherpa.)

Vilane’s story so far is not likely to result in anyone rushing off to attempt the 8 848m summit. So why do so many people want to climb the goddess of the sky? Historian Walt Unsworth, who compiled 800 pages of Everest history, says: ‘There are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction. Usually they are not experts. Their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts that more cautious men might have.

Determination and faith are their strongest weapons. At best, such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad.’

No doubt George Mallory was the latter. In 1924, he and Andrew Irvine attempted to summit wearing Norfolk jackets, knickerbockers and puttees, and carrying 60 tins of quail in foie gras and 48 bottles of Montebello 1915 champagne. They were determined to succeed at any cost – in Mallory’s and Irvine’s case, the cost was their lives.

So, is it madness that makes a young black man, who grew up in extreme poverty and was a goat herder from the age of four, aspire to climb the highest mountain in the world? Psychologist Clinton Gahwiler, who developed and runs Performing Mind at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, says, ‘In fact, Vilane has a healthy focus, trying to push and improve himself. Unfortunately, in more traditional competitive sports, this element is drowned out by the overwhelming desire to overcome the opponent and, ironically, this is the biggest obstacle to accessing human potential. This, as opposed to welcoming the obstacles the opponent puts in your way as it brings out more in you.’

He does caution that there is a fine line between useful, positive self-belief and denial. In Vilane’s case, Clinton believes that he has learned to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate fears, and has let go of the latter. He has healthy ambition.

For a man who had to go barefoot, wore little more than a loincloth as a child, and only started school at the age of 10, the impossible does not exist. This includes finding the US $60 000 to climb the most challenging summit in the world. During his second Everest summit, he carried Nelson Mandela’s book The Long Walk to Freedom with him. ‘It’s symbolic,’ he says, ‘of shaking off the shackles of poverty,’ which have been his shadow all his life. It is unsurprising that he is now in demand as a motivational speaker around the country.

‘It is not natural for a black person to want to climb a mountain… On all of my climbs, and particularly Everest, I was the only one, and enough of a curiosity for all the kids in the villages to stare at me and the Sherpas to be confused. The upside was that I met so many people who were inquisitive as to why I was there.’

Apart from his absolute determination to change his life, it

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was also the generosity of family, employers and acquaintances that gave Vilane his first chance to climb Everest. His stepfather worked night shifts to pay for his schooling in Swaziland, and the Canadian couple for whom he gardened on the weekends agreed to pay for him to complete his O levels there. But the life-changing moment came when he offered to act as a guide for an Englishman, John Doble, at the Malolotja Nature Reserve, where he worked as a game ranger. It was during these walks that Doble told Vilane that he climbed ‘easily and well’, and tentatively suggested he climb Everest. Doble invited him to climb the 3 000m Cathedral Peak in the Drakensberg. Eventually he was sponsored to have a test run on Kilimanjaro.

Vilane must be the only person to leave on an expedition to climb the highest point in Africa on public transport, with a family of four young kids in tow. The bus dropped him a few kilometres from the airport and he had to walk, towing his bulky expedition bags until, eventually, a police van stopped and gave him a lift.

When Vilane arrived for his first attempt at climbing Everest, he was proudly wearing his game-ranger uniform, army green trekking pants, combat boots and a light fleecy zip-up top – suitable for the mild climate of Nelspruit, but not for the 8 848m he was going to summit. ‘I could feel the breeze through my skin and we were still at base camp! I could see the other climbers saw me as a joke.’

Vilane was only attempting the summit because of Doble’s personal contribution and his efforts in raising the sponsorship for the trip. Money was tight and he had only the basics. A hired down jacket and suit from Jagged Globe were the hopelessly inadequate ‘essential gear’ he had. There was a lot he had to get used to, including crampons. ‘I’m sure I looked like a baby giraffe learning to walk with double plastic boots, as well as the other gear. I had to watch and learn.’

Mentally, he was far better prepared. ‘I read as many books on Everest as I could, including Into Thin Air. I imagined the mountain and climbing past places where people had died. I never imagined falling or turning back; I visualised myself on the ice and snow. In my mind, I had already climbed Everest.’

Which is why, when he found himself alone, freezing and short of oxygen, he didn’t give up.

Where to now for someone who has climbed both faces of Everest, pulled a 140kg sled to the South Pole, survived the 1 110km walk to the North Pole, completed the Dusi Canoe Marathon, the Comrades and, of course, climed the other six mountains that make up the seven summits of the world?

He has conceded his plans to summit again, to relive the moment and raise funds for charity. But there’s something else, and he’s not saying. ‘I have a plan,’ he says. Then he uncharacteristically clams up. He looks pensive for a while and then breaks into an engaging smile. ‘Maybe that will break me.’

And we’ll only know when he does.

HAIR AND MAKE-UP KAREN HAACKE/SIXLOVE ARTIST MANAGEMENT; FASHION ASSITANT: MARILIZE UYS

When Vilane arrived for his first attempt at climbing Everest, he was proudly wearing his game-ranger uniform, army green trekking pants, combat boots and a light fleecy zip-up top.

TREND

Chette waistcoat R2 595, Thomas Pink; shirt R2 850, Emporio Armani; Black Diamond walking axe R1 040, City Rock

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SERVICE With the luxury of space comes the elements of surprise and intrigue.

Expect the unexpected

Words LES AUPIAIS

SUNDAY MORNING. A busy international airport. A woman executive accidentally posts her passport into a mailbox along with her tax returns. Her international flight leaves in a few hours. The box will only be cleared on Monday. But when she throws herself at the mercy of an airline staff member, he not only gentles her out of her panic, but pursuades the authorities of her credentials, smooths her way through customs onto the plane and, ultimately, express couriers the passport to her the following day – emailing hourly to keep her in the loop. The story is written up and posted on the internet, giving the airline a high-five in an industry when ‘service’ and ‘airline’ are mostly oxymorons. The man, unincentivised and paid no more or less than his colleagues and not seeking reward from the passenger, did what came naturally to him. The crux of the story is that he’d do the same wherever he worked.

These spontaneous acts of service heroics create legendary auras around brands. It starts with savvy talent-spotting of potential employees who will stretch the definition of service, something that the managing director of Virgin Active South Africa, Ross Faragher-Thomas, believes will do the trick for Alice Lane Health Club, the latest club to join the global Virgin Active Classic Collection. Certainly, group founder Sir Richard Branson buys it. On a site visit earlier this year, he publicly announced that Alice Lane would be ‘rated the top club in the world’. The company has gone out on a limb to back up the claim – a long limb when you consider that the good-service

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SERVICE

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The club’s rooftop training zone is undoubtedly Alice’s rabbit out of the hat, though. A dedicated lift takes members to an open-air training area with a 360º view of Sandton and surrounds.

One of the more quirky offerings is a shoeshine bar where precious leather footwear will be ‘hat-checked’ in and glammed up for collection after a member’s workout. What the shoeshine man might make of a set of skyscraper-high Louboutins remains to be seen, but they will be cherished, gently buffed and displayed in the back-lit cubbyholes like miniature works of artifice. The club is very, very Johannesburg-savvy in this way.

Inclined to set trends, Johannesburg club members here will also be the first in South Africa to experience some of the most advanced fitness equipment in the world. The Italian Technogym ARTIS equipment offers the latest in biomechanical engineering and interactive technology with a strong eco-angle. Among several innovations that might just tickle the fancy of a high flier, is that they will have their own human energy harnessed to power the equipment displays. Walking off a carbon footprint is typical of the club’s lateral approach to getting fit.

It’s also a club based on the luxury of space. The layout of the cardio-floor is designed to give the gym-scape a presence and visual synergy, but with equipment just far enough apart to ensure privacy. With 3 600m2 to play in, and an eventual maximum of 4 000 members, there’ll be enviable breathing space.

There are several surprises. Anti-gravity yoga, a new concept for South Africa, should be a hit even for spectators. The ceilingsuspended slings allow the member to move with balletic fluidity and with a sense of weightlessness that creates a natural high. The club’s rooftop training zone is undoubtedly Alice’s rabbit out of the hat, though. A dedicated lift takes members to an open-air training area with a 360º view of Sandton and surrounds. As the club closes at 9.30pm, you could train under Orion’s Belt on a clear night.

But it’s at the reception desk where the service battle lines will be drawn. The brief goes along the lines of ‘intelligent coddling’, a level of service that’s an extension of an executive’s PA. After a few visits, reception staff should begin to suss out what the member needs, or may have forgotten: a swimming cap, a cellphone charger, a birthday card. Yes, apparently staff members have been told to keep a stash of ‘break-glass-inemergency’ items.

In the TV series The Mentalist, Australian Simon Baker plays Patrick Jane, a consultant used by the California Bureau of Investigation to crack cases using his uncanny observation of human behaviour. The show is wildly popular because of the element of surprise. If all goes according to plan, expect to be similarly surprised when assistant general manager Xiki Baloyi, a young woman hand-picked for her exceptional people skills, asks one of her staff members to whip you up a shot of juice, chia seed, goji berries and spirulina. You were cycling much slower than usual. You looked a little peaky. You were on the brink of calling it a day. She knew. She was watching...

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

ethic forms part of the general club offering. But hiring staff to deliver rare ‘anticipatory service’ involves developing canny peripheral vision, a sort of X-Men app that translates in Virgin Active terms to knowing their clients better than they know themselves. It’s tough to be a jump ahead because these captains of industry, Johannesburg’s smartest and most successful – the sector dubbed LSM ‘astronauts’ – are used to luxury. They live in it, drive in it and travel in it abroad. They fine dine, know their Chateau Palmer from their Château Mouton Rothschild, their Girard-Perregaux from their Franck Muller, and keep Viglietti Motors afloat. They’re hotly pursued by private bankers, and any party planner in the city stands and falls by a VIP guest list that features them. ‘Discerning’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. So it’s no use simply throwing designer fixtures and fittings at them, because they’re likely to own the companies that supply them.

Having said that, the task of giving the club its factor X fell to award-winning design teams, whose interior concepts included LED mood lighting, unusual wall finishes and contemporary furniture quite at home in a Clifton penthouse. It all adds up to an overall look and feel that’s swanky, modern and sleek. Even Virgin’s cheerfully brash signature red has been redesigned for Alice Lane as ‘crushed-velvet’ burgundy. The club is dead smart, but hauled back from the edge of serious with witty twists here and there, a typical Virgin intervention.

Faragher-Thomas sums it up by saying, ‘We use an enormous amount of vigour in running this business. A club like Alice Lane provides a platform for an excellent customer experience but that’s just doing the job. Beyond that is where it really matters.’

So what does ‘beyond that’ mean in Classic Club terms? How does the club feel – and behave? Richard Lamb-Hughes, Virgin Active South Africa’s head of brand, is the project’s godfather. Together with an Alice SWAT team, he’s spent two years agonising over every detail – from the look and feel of the club to what’s expected from the staff, and ferreting out anything that might be a barrier to a full six-star club experience. ‘You have to create the unexpected,’ he says, ‘the surprise, even intrigue. I think it’s exactly like a relationship where you have to keep the red hotness of it all.’

Everyone involved in the club’s creation agrees that constant change and maintaining that ‘honeymoon’ phase is a tough ask.

It would only work if members were closely monitored, the data mined and then used to make changes to keep the ‘surprise and delight’ element to the club experience.

They’re off to a fine start. Experienced club general manager Wil-Riaan Engelbrecht was singled out to lead a team that includes some of the best personal trainers in the business. Members will be able to fine-tune their wellness programmes with an on-site biokineticist and a dietician charged with designing bespoke health and wellness programmes. And, replacing the average snack-on-the-run health-bar concept is a full-service restaurant, Kohu. It has a barrista and a resident chef, who has designed a refreshingly light menu that goes way beyond wrap and roll. This is a club for grown-ups. Coffee, health whips and mineral water aside, you may order a glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc with your salad, or a craft beer. It underpins the whole ethos of relaxation and moderation as part of a healthy lifestyle.

TREND

With a Little Bit of Salt What do the insanely rich demand? Service to the same level.

Words KATHY MALHERBE

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THIRTY-TWO CREW. Four guests. A 330-foot superyacht. Over the top? Maybe, but in this case, the owner doesn’t much like guests. He doesn’t have to. Welcome to the international superyacht industry, the ultimate status symbol for the world’s uber-wealthy.

So who owns and charters these yachts? Some are so rich you know who they are; others are wealthy enough to ensure nobody does. They are the major industry tycoons, business giants, moguls, magnates, oil barons, sheiks and heads of state.

Whether you charter or own a superyacht, it comes with an astronomical price tag. Last year billionaire Ernest Roper bought a €120-million plaything, Vava 11, for his wife. And then there’s the more than €300 000 you’ll have to spend to ‘fill her up’. Most floating palaces are motor yachts, aka fuel guzzlers.

Owning a boat might give your investment advisor cause to purse his lips a little tightly, but chartering one is not for the cash-strapped either.

Rates range from €250 000 to €900 000 a week,

and don’t expect your ‘vittles’ to be included: fuel, catering and docking fees are add-ons. And if you know your port from your starboard and Bulgari from Piaget, you should know that a 30 percent tip at the end of the charter is standard.

Guests with their Louis Vuitton luggage, Van Cleef & Arpels jewellery, Prada pumps and Montblanc pens are not ones for standard luxury.

For the super-rich, these seven-star floating hotels must offer an escape that comes with very special facilities and services way off the average man’s chart. Think helipad, a pool that can be varied in depth to cater for preferences, a submarine, a gym and a squash court. And for those who are all at sea without some cultural upliftment, some yachts have mini concert halls. And yes, they fly in the talent.

If you’re a bit paranoid, or ‘family’ in your lexicon doesn’t necessarily mean blood relative, you can opt for some serious protection, such as a missile-detection system, a submarine that doubles up as an escape pod, and an armour-plated master

PHOTOGRAPHY: MOODY YACHTS FRANCE; GREATSTOCK/CORBIS

SERVICE suite. And we dare call the Bond releases a little ‘out there’.

On a housekeeping note, customised iPods lie like scatter cushions around the various levels of the yacht, operating everything from doors and lights to aircons and music. They are also a modern-day ‘servant’s bell’ in case you need something urgently, like a chilled glass of Cristal.

Modcons, artillery and big-boy toys aside, what sets being a guest on a superyacht apart from the rest is something that money can and does buy. Service. If you’re paying €900 000 a week, you’ll expect the crew to cater to your every whim. Even if it means the stewardess has to adjust her body’s thermostat by pure will.

‘We are not allowed to perspire when serving guests,’ says one stewardess, ‘even if it’s 40°C and we’re on the outside deck.’ Salt is not welcome either. Whether it’s been brought on board by diamond-encrusted Nikes or just blown in by an offshore wind, salt is taboo.

‘It’s a house on water,’ says one crew member, ‘and you don’t have salt in your house.’ To this end, the deck and hull are rinsed 24/7 and the stainless steel chamoised to military spec.

Guests are accustomed to having the cushions plumped before the indentation has had a chance to self-restore. If they ask for sushi for 17, three hours before dinner (even if the meal has already been prepped and prepared), or for crayfish thermidor at 3am after a night on the town, they expect to get it.

A discreet little black book of idiosyncrasies ensures that the owner and his guests’ preferences are pre-empted, while charter guests, slightly lower in the marine hierarchy, fill in preference sheets. Attention to detail is forensic. A stewardess explains how she photographs the owner’s cabin when he leaves and packs things away, only to recreate it precisely upon his return.

The regimented attention to detail does not always apply to the guests. Apparently, one guest stopped rather unsteadily in front of a map of the Mediterranean after a long night on deck and, in a nautical version of pin-the-tailon-the-donkey, put her finger on St Tropez and said, ‘I want croissants there in the morning.’

And so she had them. The crew had to lift anchor and sail through the night. Although when she stumbled up for ‘breakfast’, the sun was long over the yardarm…

So, what are crew expected to do?

Absolutely everything. Wrap a present for the Pope; have a supply of sea sand, bucket and spade available when a sibling dispute sends the original supply overboard; know the protocol for serving presidents, film stars and celebrities; be alert to body language; and prepare the beach (hand-picked by the captain) with deckchairs, tables, umbrellas and a gourmet picnic prior to the guests’ arrival.

It’s also all about being vigilant, which means following guests in a tender until they are safely back on board after swimming;

keeping a binocular’d eye on jet-ski activities; providing a hose with warm water to rinse off the dreaded salt; and having a drink at hand when guests return. Stewardesses are expected to ensure babies don’t fall overboard, provide cots, bumbo seats, nappies, baby toiletries and a new toy for the slightly bigger darlings on board every day. ‘I make little arrows so when the child wakes up he or she follows them to find the present,’ says one stewardess. ‘These range from crayons to walkie-talkies and real telescopes. The value escalates daily.’

Even though the crew will happily walk the plank for guests, some things are just not possible. Not many requests go unanswered but there are some... like guilessly requesting a Big Mac while anchored in the middle of the Med, or asking for the anchored 330-foot yacht to be ‘moved’ to block off the breeze when sunbathing. That said, when a picky Russian guest declared he could not do without soured buttermilk from the goats of his home village, a plane was dispatched from Turkey to Russia to ensure his needs were met.

Nautical platinum service exceeds all others. It’s exactly what you would expect when crew outnumber passengers by at least three to one and you are paying the equivalent of a middle-class home for a week’s pampering.

Of course, you could just call all this ‘pleasure as usual’ for the seriously rich if their demands didn’t skirt the definition of ‘playing with a full deck’.

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TREND

The Fixers Despite the global downturn, the concierge business is booming.

But what are these elite teams of fixers actually selling?

Words TABITHA LASLEY

IMAGINE THE HORROR: You’re holidaying in the Amazon, desperate to spot the rare pink river dolphin but, so far, you’ve seen nothing. Nada. Not so much as a hint of a rosy dorsal fin, or the flash of a pastel flipper. You’ll probably have to resign yourself to slinking back to the hotel, and trying again the next day. Unless you were a member of a concierge company. Then you could simply make a call, and ask them to do what they did for one disgruntled dolphin-spotter some years back: locate the school further downstream, charter a helicopter and fly you over to see it.

People used to dine out on stories like this. Now they’re becoming more commonplace. The concierge industry – the business of acquiring pretty much anything for cash-rich, time-poor individuals – is bucking economic trends and growing all the time. In just over a decade, Quintessentially Lifestyle, one of the original ‘lifestyle-management’ agencies, went from being a modest start-up, operating out of a basement flat, to a global brand with offices from Johannesburg to Jeddah. The company now employs 2 000 people, services 800 000 clients and parries an average of 35 000 member requests a month.

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SERVICE

Alongside established players like Quintessentially and Ten Group, there are new contenders springing up all the time: ‘We opened for business in June 2012,’ says Alistair Gill, founder of the more recently established Mayfair Concierge. ‘In plain English, we look after families and individuals. That could be anything from making restaurant bookings to sourcing gifts, helping to buy a new car, finding the right home, having the house decorated, arranging Christmas decorations. There are endless possibilities with people.’

Although most requests fall under the category of ‘life admin’, concierge companies are occasionally called on to action the impossible: delivering Indian elephants to urban weddings; bussing in flocks of penguins and white peacocks to parties; and arranging dinner dates atop glaciers. Ten Group founder Alex Cheatle once had to transport an unblemished vial of umbilical blood from South Africa to England. Susannah ToynbeeTheophilus, an Elite account handler with Quintessentially, had to track down a lion cub tame enough to appear at a Lion Kingthemed party. And one of Gill’s first jobs was sourcing a tarantula for a lecture scheduled for the same day.

Company websites make much of these bizarre (and weirdly animal-centric) requests. Not every demand can be met so easily.

Toynbee-Theophilus was once asked to arrange a UK passport for a client’s Thai girlfriend. Concierges may be asked to procure drugs and prostitutes, but can’t do anything that falls outside the bounds of the law.

‘I think there’s a very fine line between immoral and illegal,’ explains Toynbee-Theophilus. ‘I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there are things that we know about and have to be very discreet about. But it’s very much our call. If we’re asked to do something we’re not happy with, then we would say so.’

Not that limitations like these are holding back the sector.

London has become a haven for wealthy émigrés fleeing tax hikes (in France), autocratic rulers (in Russia) and unstable currency (the Eurozone). In the past few years, overseas buyers have snapped up 60 percent of the city’s prime property, with Russian, Indian and French buyers accounting for nearly 33 percent of recent house purchases. With them has come a rising demand for dedicated fixers, people whose specialist skill is making lives run smoothly.

Ten Lifestyle has now attached several Russian- and Chinesespeaking account managers. Quintessentially has a team of 20 account handlers (and a separate phone number) for its Russian-

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speaking desk. And their clients are more interested in tapping up local networks than couriering penguins to parties.

‘It’s really about access,’ says Clementine Churchward, of Quintessentially. ‘Just making sure clients have a really fun, fulfilled life and they don’t feel that they’re missing out on things, even though they often have to work very hard.’

Sometimes clients have a clear social strategy in place, like the high-profile Dubai couple who wanted to make their presence felt on the charity gala scene. The fixers made it happen by arranging a double-page spread on their lives in a newsstand magazine.

Others need more guidance, which is where Quintessentially’s Elite service comes in. It doesn’t come cheap. Fees start at £10 000 a year and go up to £24 000, and any hourly fees incurred are added. But for this, you’ll get a dedicated account handler who meets with you every month to discuss objectives – whether that’s shouldering your way into a certain social circle, or building up a decent cellar of wine. And this is the tier that’s really growing, the one with the highest rate of renewals, as many people step up their general membership to Elite.

To the independent observer, concierge companies appear to be selling two things. The first is convenience. By obtaining hardto-find gifts, sold-out tickets or troupes of wild animals, they’re buying back for their clients that most precious of commodities: time. The second is class.

You can’t buy breeding or lineage, but it seems you can procure their hallmarks: the taste, confidence and social ease that comes with old money. Quite why Europeans believe it’s shameful to earn wealth, rather than inherit it, has never been properly examined. But there it is. The British class system is beset with snares for the newly rich, and one snide comment about over-chilling the Burgundy or wearing red to a shoot can subdue the most bullish of bankers.

Ben Elliot, one of the founders of Quintessentially, is also the nephew of Camilla Parker-Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall, and a close friend of Prince William. He has said that he doesn’t think his background is important to clients or investors, although concierges’ talk of ‘connections’ and ‘networks’, plus their gentle suggestions as to what clients ‘should’ be doing would rather belie this. Of course, getting an account handler to admit it is a tough ask. The concierge who’s déclassé enough to talk class is a rarer creature than the Amazonian river dolphin. And finding one might even be beyond any concierge service’s capabilities.

PHOTOGRAPHY: CORBIS/GREATSTOCK

Ten Group founder Alex Cheatle once had to transport an unblemished vial of umbilical blood from South Africa to England.

TREND

Over the Edge Increasing numbers of executives are using prescription drugs to improve their mental agility. Are they legit brain boosters, or is it all an over-hyped fad?

Either way, it seems the drugs are here to stay.

Words TABITHA LASLEY Illustration RUDI DE WET

‘YOU KNOW, I swear the photographers were on Provigil. I could see them doing camera effects that mimic what happens when you take it. It’s most obvious around Christmas: if you’re on Provigil and you see a Christmas tree, the bulbs stand out like crazy.’

Dave Asprey is talking Limitless. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur is not the first person to wonder whether the film, which sees Bradley Cooper’s deadbeat character transformed after taking a pill that allows him to access 100 percent of his brain, was inspired, in part, by Provigil. He is, however, the first person I’ve heard point out what seems self-evident in retrospect. Scenes in the film are lit to reflect Cooper’s mental state. When he’s in withdrawal, the palette is muted, as if the contrast has been turned down. When he’s up, colours around him intensify; even his own eyes glow surreally blue. This sharpening effect does recall the intense visual focus you’d feel on a 200mg dose of Provigil but, of course, only those who’ve taken it will notice.

Asprey is better placed than most to talk about the drug’s strange side effects. He took Provigil every day for eight years, and still fields questions about it on his blog, The Bulletproof Executive. Interviewed on ABC News, he famously compared taking the pill for the first time with the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy steps out of monochrome Kansas and into glorious Technicolor.

Provigil (also known by its generic name, Modafinil) is a prescription drug originally developed to treat sleep apnea and narcolepsy, but it has a strange secondary indication. Taken ‘off label’, it makes healthy people smarter. It aids memory, increases concentration and boosts cognitive function by up to 10 percent. Unlike

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amphetamine-based stimulants that flood the brain with dopamine, it doesn’t make users feel wired or jumpy, and has a lower potential for abuse.

This is presumably why Provigil has nudged Adderall and Ritalin off the top spot to become America’s ‘smart drug’ of choice. A University of California study published in March this year found that more than 500 000 Americans are taking it to boost their cognitive function. In the UK, one in 10 students admits to taking smart drugs, although this appears to be a conservative estimate. Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuroscience at Cambridge University in the UK, cites one survey that found 20 percent of respondents had tried them. Pharmacists in Australia and South Africa have recently reported an increase in people enquiring about the drug.

Asprey says thousands of people from all fields discuss Provigil use on his blog’s forums. ‘Type A entrepreneurs are likely to use it because they’re Type A, and they’re looking for an edge,’ he says. ‘But there’s a ton of artists and writers who love this stuff. I knew a guy who ran a TV show with a viewership of 50 million people. He was writing a proposal for the Dalai Lama Foundation and he’d been stuck on it for six weeks. The first time he took 100mg of Provigil, he stayed up all night, finished his proposal and it was accepted.’

Before taking Provigil himself, Asprey says he weighed 300 pounds and suffered from ‘profound brain fog’. (But even then, he wasn’t what you’d call a slouch – by the age of 26, he’d already sold his start-up company for $600 million). Smart drugs, he says, enabled him to get an MBA from Wharton while working full time.

He has measured his brain function with an ECG both

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‘I used to be a very anxious, angry person. Smart drugs rewired that. You can change fundamentals.’

on and off Provigil, and found it boosted his cognitive function, enabled him to focus on as little as two hours’ sleep, and even helped him to meditate.

Professor Sahakian has studied the effects of Provigil extensively, and her findings appear to tally with Asprey’s experience: ‘We looked at doctors who were sleepdeprived, and found those on Modafinil were much less impulsive and better at problem solving, compared with those who’d taken a placebo. In a separate study, we asked people to rate how enjoyable it was to do a test.

On a placebo it was OK, but on Modafinil, they rated it as very pleasurable. People tell me they’ve been putting off doing their taxes, or revising for an exam, and then they take this drug and it seems a lot easier.’

Sahakian has no problem with the principle of drugs that enhance cognitive functioning. But she does have concerns with people ordering pills without prescriptions from faceless online pharmacies. ‘These drugs are made for conditions. We don’t know what the long-term effects are on healthy people. And buying over the internet is a very dangerous way to acquire medications. You don’t know what you’re getting.’

Her words ringing in my ears, I take my first pill on an empty stomach. I’ve started a 10-day course of Provigil in the interests of research, but also because, like many freelance writers, I’m prone to idly wondering what life would be like if I worked at maximum efficiency all the time.

I’ve read it suppresses the appetite, but thought I’d be able to ‘beat’ it by eating my breakfast as soon as I’d taken the tablet. Halfway through, I push my plate to one side, feeling nauseous. Once the nausea abates, I notice my mind is running faster and clearer than usual, like a laptop after a clean-up. I tackle my emails straight away, fingers flying over the keyboard as if I’ve downed a triple espresso. Except that my mind is moving at a steady pace. Not sluggishly, but with a kind of calm clarity. My judgement is sharper, my approach more meticulous.

Instead of simply trying to get work off my desk, I’m finessing it.

Despite this, I finish by 4.30pm – a first. On deadline, I usually end up feeling drained. Now, I could carry on working. I left a coat at my friend’s house on the

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weekend, so I decide to go and pick it up. It’s a six-anda-half kilometre round trip, but despite barely eating all day, I find I’ve got the energy to walk it. This is brilliant, I think to myself as I set off. Where’s the catch?

That night, I find out. I sleep badly and have terrible nightmares. The next nine days are a study in diminishing returns. Three days in, I’m still feeling focused and alert, but by the end of the trial, I’m running on empty, taking a pill just to function normally and compensate for poor-quality sleep. And even though I’m at my desk for 12 hours a day, I haven’t actually been that much more productive. When I total my invoices, I’ve only billed marginally more than I would have in an average week. The work I’ve filed is better – thanks to all that polishing – but it won’t translate into more money.

Asprey says my experience is atypical, perhaps a quirk of individual chemistry. In most cases, the results are more pronounced. For students, that 10 percent uptick can mean a different degree classification. Use is now so widespread, many undergraduates complain of feeling coerced into taking drugs just to keep up. Some universities are even considering introducing drug tests.

It seems unlikely employers will show the same rectitude. Why would they mind if, in this chilly economic climate, employees try to get an edge by taking a pill that will make them work harder, longer, more exhaustively?

Use is already mandated by the military. How soon before it’s ratified – and by implication, promoted – in other sectors?

In Limitless, the loose ends are tied up in a seamless Hollywood denouement. How the true-life story will play out is anyone’s guess. Sahakian says that 90 percent of Provigil users are perfectly healthy people, taking the drug purely to improve cognitive performance.

We still have no idea what the long-term effects of off-label use are. Not that it has deterred Asprey or thousands like him. He credits the drug not only with changing his work ethic, but changing his life: ‘I used to be a very anxious, angry person. Smart drugs rewired that. You can change fundamentals. The way you change them is with awareness, and with technology that was completely unavailable 20 or 30 yeas ago. It’s a different world out there.’

EXECUTIVES UNPLUGGED

[Opposite] Ladies’ Bronte jacket R4 350, Bronte skirt R2 150 and Laura shirt R1 895, all Thomas Pink

Power point taken – when Jeannie Elliott’s not providing research for class-action lawsuits she’s burning up the dance floor with swing-dance leads like Matt Molteno

Swing-out Sister

Words DEBBIE HATHWAY

Forensic economist, swing dancer and DJ – 32-year-old Texan Jeannie Elliott redefines multitasking, and she’s leading the swing-dance revolution in South Africa.

ISSUE 21 P R I V A T E E D I T I O N 5 1

JEANNIE ELLIOTT HAS A SPLIT PERSONALITY. She’s a forensic economist with a Master of Philosophy degree, but watch what happens when you put her in a room with hot jazz rhythms.

She morphs into a whirling, twirling, bouncing, dancing-out-ofher-skin kind of girl. And the trigger is swing.

Elliott’s obsession began when she wrote a story about swing dance for her high-school newspaper. Her move from Dallas to Austin, Texas, which boasts one of the best lindy-hop dance scenes in the US, meant that she could learn from the best ‘lindy gods’ globally when swing dance really took off in the late 1990s and early 2000s. One of them was Frankie Manning, lovingly called the ‘ambassador of lindy hop’. Manning was an AfricanAmerican dancer and choreographer, famous for developing and popularising lindy hop in the ’30s and ’40s, and leading its international revival in the ’80s. His many accolades include a Tony Award for Best Choreography in the Broadway hit musical Black and Blue (at age 75), but he downplayed this, saying he simply wanted to let people know ‘what a happy dance this is’.

Now, fuelled by the renewed popularity of ’20s and ’30s fashion, television series like Boardwalk Empire and Downton Abbey, and the recent remake of The Great Gatsby, swing dancing has secured local traction − and Elliott is at the heart of it.

She has worked as a senior researcher and analyst for US forensic economic consulting firm EmployStats for over a

American dance, with its roots in dance from slaves, mostly danced by white dancers, in a building founded by Cecil John Rhodes,’ says Elliott. She encourages her students to learn about and grapple with the role of racism and slavery in the history of this dance.

The subject matter feeds her academic interests too. Swing dance has its roots in West Africa and took shape when the first African slaves were brought to the US. Because plantation owners banned them from drumming, for fear of what they were communicating, the slaves developed dances like juba, which involved patting, slapping and clapping to mimic drumming rhythms. It’s believed that the Charleston dance originated on a small island near Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 20th century, but it wasn’t until the early ’20s that it morphed into a simpler, easier form to suit the European ballroom environment.

What’s particularly fascinating is its attraction for men.

Nothing about Elliott’s students screams ‘dancer’. They simply look clean cut, cool even… until class starts and that ‘jumpin’ jive’ feeling takes over. It’s electric. Concentration kicks in, smiles widen and bodies twist as they focus on ‘making it swing’.

‘This suite of dances is very distinct from Latin dancing where, for example, the music determines what steps you do. As long as the music swings, we’ll do everything. When it’s too fast to swing out to, we can switch to Charleston or balboa,’ says Elliott.

‘There’s something magical about people when they first discover swing dancing. It’s like being in the US in the late ’90s. I tell people at home, if you want to feel that again, come here.’ decade, and still does since her move to Cape Town on a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship almost six years ago.

Juggling work and her master’s degree studies put swing dance on the backburner until she received an invitation to a swing party. ‘Because “swing” is not a word I hear around here often, I thought they were talking about some kinky party! I was assured it was the dancing kind,’ she says.

Elliott was asked to teach at the event, and so began a quest to ignite the swing-dance scene. ‘There’s something magical about people when they first discover swing dancing. It’s like being in the US in the late ’90s. I tell people at home, if you want to feel that again, come here.’

Tickets for swing-dance parties in Cape Town sell fast, especially when their location is shrouded in speakeasy mystique.

Some events feature electro-swing music (a mixture of house music, with samples from the ’20s and ’30s laid on top of each other), which attracts a ‘very young crowd, lots of hipsters, people who may not have an interest in the dance but love the excess and style of the ’20s’. The hipster sub-culture is defined by people in their 20s and 30s: they are creative, intelligent, with progressive political views. They’re ‘influenced by independent music and have a varied non-mainstream fashion sensibility.

‘It’s important to consider the context of lindy hop being danced in venues with colonial histories. These, in particular, bring together dancers from different generations, but it’s probably not what Manning would have had in mind when he thought about lindy hop coming to Africa – doing an African-

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Erica Breuer is one of the growing number of students bopping through the Que Pasa Latin Lounge door, where Elliott teaches under the Boogie Back Dance Co. banner. Not only is Elliott a great dancer, she’s an inspirational teacher, skilled at explaining difficult concepts while keeping it lighthearted and fun.

Breuer began her swing journey in Sydney, Australia, after an invitation to a big-band function. ‘More than half the guests were wearing pretty dresses and suits from the ’30s and ’40s, and were dancing. It looked like so much fun. By the next week I had started classes,’ she says.

The current musical trend has moved away from ‘groovy, bluesy tempos to faster, authentic ’20s and ’30s rhythms,’ says Elliott. ‘It’s about momentum, connection and manipulation, so we’re going back to hot rhythm jazz and incorporating much more Charleston into our swing. We want to dance to crazy tempos.’

Matt Molteno got into swing dancing through an ex-girlfriend.

‘When I was visiting her in Portland, Oregon, she used to go to these crazy, out-of-town dances, where people seemed to almost physically hurt each other, flinging one another around,’ he says.

He’s since discovered that the style he learned there was more similar to Charleston and boogie woogie than anything else.

But it served its purpose… Molteno says that swing dancing (with an amazing partner) is an addiction. ‘You keep coming back to get what you had last time. Oh, except it usually gets better!’

For more information about Boogie Back Dance Co., visit boogiebackdance.com or quepasa.co.za.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JACQUES WEYERS; SUPPLIED. HAIR AND MAKE-UP: KAREN HAACKE/SIXLOVE ARTIST MANAGEMENT. FASHION ASSISTANT: MARILIZE UYS

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THE PURISTS

Au naturel is the way Craig Hawkins likes his wine. Organic will slowly make way for biodynamic farming methods at Lammershoek, to get an even fresher, more energetic result

Naked – As Nature Intended Are they a little mad or are they visionaries?

It depends on whether you see the handful of natural wine makers in South Africa as just anti-establishment, or the vanguard of a very exciting movement.

Words KEITH BAIN

EBEN SADIE HAS SET HIMSELF a new challenge: conquering epic waves. During the next decade, the anarchic Swartlandbased wine maker’s self-imposed rules state that each of these stretches of water must be surfed successfully before progressing.

This year it was Java; next it will be Fiji. In his own way, he’s devised the antithesis of a midlife crisis. Hitting 40, he claims, is a revelation: background noise in the head starts settling, just as the body suddenly starts complaining. He says he can’t imagine how he neglected his surfing for seven years but, listening to him, you realise he’s been consumed by his life’s mission: creating a perfect regional wine. ‘I want to make the quintessential African wine, not by imitating French or Spanish wines. I want to make the ultimate Malmesbury wine and nobody can tell you what it looks like. That’s a fantastic journey.’

Since around 2000, when he abandoned mainstream wine making, Sadie’s probably done as much philosophising about his craft as actively engaging in the hard slog of tending vineyards, harvesting heritage grape stock and nurturing wines in his scaled-back cellar. Setting out to craft wine containing little more than grapes, his low-tech approach is a backlash against those years when he lost himself to science, making wines that were technically perfect, but which denied him the pleasure he takes from the wines he’s making today.

‘I’m not an extremist,’ he says. ‘For me, natural wine is nothing other than wine. I don’t add anything. Period.’

Sadie explains that in much of the wine industry there exist myriad oenological processes, ranging from micro-oxygenation to dealcoholisation, suggesting that most wine is engineered rather than crafted – what he calls ‘conventional wine making’.

On the other side of the scale are wine makers working exclusively by hand, from planting to bottling, striving for zero intervention. Yet, to speak about natural wine or (subtly different, this) natural wine making means opening a can of worms. Chris Alheit, who practises what he calls ‘minimalist’ wine making in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, points out that wine cannot be regarded as wholly natural. ‘Vines don’t arrange themselves in straight lines in a vineyard,’ he says. ‘Man’s hand is always involved.’

For Sadie, it’s rather simple: ‘Wine properly made is a representation of a particular place and time. Vineyards are the key, not the cellar.’ He describes how in the 1980s wine makers became celebrities, and large, fancy cellars emerged, shifting the focus away from the vineyards. It’s an industry that corners the wine maker: ‘Your Zurich-based MD appoints a marketing manager from a London business school. Together they work out that South African Chardonnay will be big in America. So they make you plant single varietal Chardonnay in the wrong soil.

Because that’s what sells. Most wine farmers plant what Excel spreadsheets tell them to.’

While planting a particular varietal to satisfy market demand sounds relatively innocuous, its implications in the cellar are more serious. That, says Sadie, is where it becomes an industry built on oenological manipulation.

In this model, says Sadie, the wine maker has usually predetermined the wine’s flavour profile. During his years making

wines conventionally, Sadie says he followed stringent processes to achieve specific scientific results. The wines were technically perfect, but what he produced said nothing about the vineyards.

He had no compass. ‘That is a terrifying moment. It means that your wine has no bearing other than as a commodity and fashion statement.’ He knew he had to opt out.

For Sadie, wine was only ever meant to be about region, communicating a sense of place. ‘In 2000, I realised that whatever greatness there is in wine, it comes from another place. It does not come from the hand of man. It comes from the relationship you need to have with your vineyards, your environment, with the people who live and work around you.’

More fastidious about adhering to the (occasionally vague) rules on natural wines is Sadie’s neighbour, Craig Hawkins.

Ten years younger and breathlessly passionate, Hawkins spent two years working with Sadie before taking up the reins at Lammershoek. His eureka moment came while tasting from a barrel at Domaine des Bois Lucas. The wine maker was Junko Arai, a Japanese woman handcrafting wine in the Loire Valley.

More importantly, she was making natural, unfiltered wine from organic vineyards.

Hawkins was struck by the freshness and energy of Arai’s wines, qualities he feels are stripped away by the homogenising effects of conventional wine making. It’s an energy that he wants expressed in his own natural wines. Today, he’s on a mission, steadily progressing from organic towards biodynamic farming methods that will, he believes, further satisfy his desire for an all-natural approach.

And for him, everything starts in the vineyards. Natural wine eschews irrigation and chemical farming, resulting in healthier soil (that Hawkins enriches with cattle manure) and lower-yield vines, suited to the smaller-scale wine making model. Grapes are picked, sorted and crushed by hand (or foot), and there are virtually no mechanical processes.

Hawkins says he hardly interferes, although there’s opportunity to experiment widely and achieve unusual results, for example, by fermenting white wine on the skins to produce ‘orange wine’. His job? To nurture, taste and check without meddling. Finally, he stamps the words ‘Made with Grapes’ on his labels, teasingly determined to spread the gospel, even if it opens him up to being categorised as an extremist.

Other wine makers, working to varying degrees in a natural way, worry about the stigma attached to being too vehemently anti-establishment.

Another of Sadie’s neighbours, Adi Badenhorst, eschews cellar manipulation, but remains wary of too-dogmatic tendencies from some quarters within the natural-wine movement. He’s worried about those who let their hearts do all the thinking.

Also making natural wines in the Swartland is Andrea Mullineux. She sees herself as a custodian who brings the wine up to be what it should be. To her mind, natural wine makers tend to be more in tune with the entire process. They follow a more instinctive approach that starts with making decisions around when to harvest.

THE PURISTS

Down to earth: Eben Sadie is as comfortable tackling epic surf conditions as he is in making natural wine

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and earthiness, he regards his wines as more rustic than the technologically homogenised stuff churned out conventionally.

‘Our wines are like someone covered in tattoos. There’s a grunginess to them, but that doesn’t necessarily make them dirty.’

To demonstrate a similar point at Lammershoek, Hawkins holds up one of his bottles to the light to show me just how dense the sediment can be. With no filtering or fining, there’s also a naturally occurring cloudiness, something he compares with the richer, heavier textures people have started appreciating in craft beer. For Hawkins, the sediment represents some of the honesty these wine makers have been talking about.

Outside the cellar, Hawkins stares across his vineyards, gives a deeply satisfied sigh and shakes his head in gratitude: ‘At the end of the day, this is what it’s about. It’s made to be drunk from a tumbler with some bread and an incredible view. My wines may not age 100 years. But why would you want to keep a wine for a century?

‘Yes, I’m young. I’ve made mistakes, and I will continue making mistakes. That’s the name of the game. But that’s how I’m learning.’

It’s a curve Sadie understands, too. ‘There’s a time in one’s life spent on the creative edge, where you need to experiment very widely,’ he says. ‘Where I am now, at 41, I must hit a direction.

No more fiddling around in the ocean. I must start steering more accurately or I will never get to the destination. Of course, once you get there, it’s probably not as important as the journey.’

As with his extreme-surfing mission (‘I’m excited, but I’m very nervous!’), he can’t predict what will happen, but he knows what has to be done.

PHOTOGRAPHY: WARREN RASMUSSEN; SUPPLIED

Growing up in California, Mullineux says she was always a science geek, and although she’s abandoned formula-driven wine making, reckons her science background is a useful fail-safe should something go wrong. She’d hate natural wine making to be viewed as ‘an excuse for a faulty wine’.

With no wine making or science training whatsoever, Craig Wessels, who makes the small, coveted Restless River range on his Klein Hemel estate in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, says he makes wine ‘by sense rather than science’. While nonorganic farming and the addition of sulphur are virtually his only breach of natural wine making protocol, Wessels does, however, favour total non-intervention in the cellar and working exclusively by hand. ‘I do nothing to my wines except nurture them,’ he says. ‘I taste and make judgement calls, feeling my way through it.’

Naturally made wine is a risky and expensive business, but the demand is steadily growing. Wessels, whose ’68 Pontiac speaks of his vintage tastes, reckons his wine appeals to seekers of rare things. Turning over a mere 3 000 bottles each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, his prices cannot possibly reflect the real value of each vintage. For now his business shooting TV commercials subsidises his wine making, a passion that quickly became an obsession, and one that’s quite ‘unforgiving’, he says.

‘You only get one shot at it each year, so you’ve got to really want to do it.’

And the results? Wessel’s Cabernet rates among the top 30 in the country, and he’s sufficiently satisfied with that achievement to forgo marketing, letting people discover Restless River by word of mouth. Notable for their intensity, layered complexity

EN A N THR YE D PR E EPA N ERUKRCSO H RI PN E R I N I T I AT I V E

LINDA WEECH

H Y D E PA R K C O R N E R H A S A L L T H E G L A M O U R A N D S T Y L E A S S O C I AT E D W I T H S O M E MICHAEL WILSON

ANNABELLE DESFONTAINES

Fergus Armstrong GENERATION

'We've created the ultimate shopping experience by incorporating all our senses with our vertical garden, a working fireplace in winter, a signature fragrance permeating the atmosphere, expert dĂŠcor advice and exclusive products that are international cult brands.'

Christopher Greig CHARLES GREIG

Design creativity, imagination and flair, coupled with the ultimate luxury experience, make Charles Greig a splendid jewel in Hyde Park Corner's crown. Any woman who wears Charles Greig jewellery is seen to have an 'eye for the fabulous'. His latest range includes pastel-coloured gemstones and beads from India.

David Gillson CARLTON HAIR

Look to the mega trend for 'short and sweet'. Not since Linda Evangelista cut her hair in the late '80s has short been so in vogue. The music scene has also cast its influence, with Kate Moss the style inspiration for hair that is loose and textured with an undone feel. Watch out for the pretty punk trend with hidden panels of colour in an otherwise classic cut.

Annabelle Desfontaines LUMINANCE

The retail director of the luxury department store Luminance believes that it will draw new shoppers to the centre. The store offers over 70 international brands such as Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Oscar de la Renta, Alexander McQueen and Givenchy. The ambience calls you to spend hours in a sensual experience of fine garments, artefacts and jewellery.

Linda Weech HEALTH WORKS

The ultimate goal at Health Works is to support and help clients to make the necessary changes to their diet and lifestyle to achieve a new, healthier blueprint. The latest energy and weight-loss products are now available exclusively at this store, including a blood-drop analysis that reveals the state of your body’s system.

CHRISTOPHER GREIG

FERGUS ARMSTRONG

O F T H E M O S T FA M O U S A N D S U C C E S S F U L B R A N D S I N T H E W O R L D. DAVID GILLSON

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CALL 011 325 4340 OR VISIT WWW.HYDEPARKCORNER.CO.ZA.

'Hyde Park Corner prides itself on a unique tenant offering, boasting over 130 leading speciality retailers – stocking more than 500 of the world’s foremost international brands,' says Michael Wilson, marketing manager for Hyde Park Corner.

In celebration of all the new brands and stores, Hyde Park Corner will be hosting their first annual ‘Fashion Weekend’ from 25 to 28 September.

The four-day fashion frenzy will be home to evening fashion shows, trend and lifestyle workshops presented by industry specialists as well as cocktail parties and high teas. The centre will be transformed into a festival of fashion, with installations and displays in open areas, a fashion book lounge and the main fashion court that will be styled similar to Marc Jacobs’ fashion week ramp.

Fashion passes are available from the Hyde Park Concierge and Grazia Magazine, with all proceeds from ticket sales going to the Hyprop Foundation.

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Monika from Sing-Lee [Above, left]is the face behind Tretchikoff’s Southern Yellowfamous ‘Chinese Girl’. billed Hornbills are She was a tender 17 known locally as ‘flying years old when he of bananas’; the kind painted her. (Opposite] close encounter that Laurence Graff OBE takes great courage says his passion for to experience contemporary art was ignited by work like this one, ‘L’Aubade’,

by Picasso

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CONSUMING PASSIONS

Deconstructed Faced with workplace restrictions after a corporate takeover, Mark Vinjevold chose to go wild or go home.

Words DEBBIE HATHWAY Photography ANDREW MCGIBBON

Homecoming

Words ETTAGALE BLAUER

Tretchikoff’s ‘Chinese Girl’, arguably one of the most recognisable paintings in the world, was recently bought on auction and will be returning home to its country of origin for an exhibition later this year.

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CONSUMING PASSIONS

LIKE A FAMILY MEMBER WHO’S BEEN AWAY from home for too long, ‘Chinese Girl’, by the late Vladimir Tretchikoff, will make a highly anticipated return to South Africa later this year. Influential diamond magnate Laurence Graff purchased the iconic painting at Bonham’s in London with the intention of making it the crown jewel in his collection at Delaire Graff Estate in Stellenbosch. Graff plans to launch the painting at an event in aid of his charity, the FACET (For Africa’s Children Every Time) Foundation, saying that giving back to the community in this way is only fitting, since southern Africa is the source of many of the diamonds he has bought.

Known for purchasing some of the world’s most headlinemaking diamonds and works of art, Graff’s acquisition of ‘Chinese Girl’ fulfils a decades-long affection for this striking image.

Although Graff started out collecting impressionist works, he found over time that contemporary pieces were more challenging.

Educating himself through his relationships with art dealers and experts, including longtime friend and art expert Peter Brant, he began seeking out iconic works of art that spoke to him.

‘Chinese Girl’, known as one of the most frequently reproduced paintings in the world (and available in reproduction for a few rand), set him back R13,9 million with his successful bid at The South African Sale at Bonham’s in March this year. The piece fits

most valuable pieces in my collection. For me, collecting is very personal. It’s about building a collection that works as a whole and also comprises pieces that have meaning and relevance.’ Unlike his diamond purchases, Graff says he’s not concerned about the fluctuation in art prices. When he buys a work of art, it is meant to become a permanent part of his collection.

Graff admits he made mistakes with art purchases in the early years, particularly when he was still focused on impressionist works. Not being as sure of himself in buying art as he was in buying extremely expensive diamonds, he sometimes put the brakes on during the bidding process, only to experience remorse after a sale. It took time to move into the arena of contemporary art, and to understand and appreciate the work. For Graff, who had been collecting seriously from the mid-1970s, there was a seismic shift around 1993 when, he says, ‘My taste changed. It was a shock, basically. Philippe Segalot (then head of Christie’s contemporary art) invited me to see a Warhol. It was “Orange Marilyn”. When I looked at it, I said, “Wow.” The painting was estimated at $2 million. At $3,2 million I was the under-bidder.’

He stopped bidding at that point and missed out. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing,’ he adds. After that experience, he says, ‘I started studying and going to galleries and exhibitions. I realised I had made a mistake.’

in perfectly with Graff’s stated desire to buy ‘icons’, those works of art that capture a time, a place and a culture. Graff says he’s thrilled that the painting is coming home to South Africa.

As popular with the masses as he was dismissed by the critics, Tretchikoff is considered to be the first mass marketer of his own art. For Graff, the painting ignited a spark within him he scarcely knew existed.

‘As a young man,’ he says, ‘I noticed the image of Tretchikoff’s “Chinese Girl” displayed in many locations in print form. It was the first piece of art that made any significant impact on me and I believe it ignited my interest and passion for art. It’s an iconic piece and I’m delighted that it’s now part of my collection.’

South Africans and visitors from around the world will share in that delight when the painting is unveiled at Delaire Graff Estate later this year. It will join a diverse collection of artworks, many of which are by South African artists, currently on display at the estate. These include Cecil Skotnes’ Shaka Zulu portfolio, and pieces by Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi, Deborah Bell, William Kentridge and Graff’s own son, Stephane.

Graff will wait and spend whatever he has to for a work of art he wants in his collection. Shortly after acquiring ‘Chinese Girl’, he satisfied a 30-year desire to own ‘Woman with Flowered Hat’

by Roy Lichtenstein, which he purchased for US$56,1 million (around R553 million). For Graff, this painting is ‘an icon of icons, a masterpiece. It connects two great artists from the contemporary and modernist worlds (Lichtenstein and Picasso), and is one of the

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Graff then began pursuing the “Lavender Marilyn”, and says, ‘That set me on the road. I realised it was younger, more vibrant, more collectible. It was more in line with my vision. I started selling off my impressionist works.’

Guided by his new taste in contemporary art, Graff plunged in with all his energy and his considerable bankroll. ‘My eye has changed,’ he says.

He has since become an influential figure in the art world, lending some of his masterpieces, both contemporary and earlier work, to important institutions. The portrait of Cezanne by Pissarro is currently on loan to the National Gallery in England, and is ‘one of the few impressionists I have kept’, he adds.

Graff’s extraordinary services to the nation of his birth culminated in an OBE ‘for services to jewellery’, which formed part of Queen Elizabeth’s annual birthday honours list. The OBE caps off an amazing year for Graff, one that he acknowledges with quiet pride.

In 2013, he marked his 60th year in the jewellery industry, which started with his apprenticeship at the age of 15 in London’s Hatton Garden.

Graff’s two grand passions – art and diamonds – are far from being private and self-absorbed obsessions. The diamonds may be crafted into pieces of rare beauty that only the world’s superwealthy can afford, but the artwork is curated for an audience invited to openly appreciate the rare, the avant-garde, the extraordinary. It’s a share in a priceless fortune.

PHOTOGRAPHY: REX FEATURES/INPRA; SUPPLIED

‘It was the first piece of art that made any significant impact on me and I believe it ignited my interest and passion for art.’

‘What all the designers shared was a fierce command of social media – often with one single influential review of their product doubling production – and a desire to stamp their work with their own country of origin.’

A Magical Mystery Tour The 2013 BMW EuroStyle Tour had more twists in it than a thriller. Surprising, intriguing and exhilarating, it burrowed beneath a European recession and came up with real treasures. This is Part One. Words LES AUPIAIS

JAPANESE AUTHOR KEIGO HIGASHINO is the new crimefiction sensation. His plots have the subtle structure and delicate balance of origami: folds within folds, where key characters and mystery intrigue readers who never quite know, between skilful twists, how it’s done. The wonders in the seven days of the 2013 BMW EuroStyle Tour included Russian sisters who trained in London and create 3-D LED wallpaper; two famous chefs who produced dishes that, at first, appeared to be mandarin oranges but were not; a swervy Portuguese fashion designer who wore very little – other than diamonds – in Paris and created a stir over her debut collection; and a car that plugs and plays. If you want to know the real meaning of the phrase ‘surprise and delight’ – the rallying cry of the marketing gurus of today, then this year’s tour, which spanned Lisbon and London, rolled it out with bells and whistles.

Media coverage is a funny thing. You see select audiovisual bites of Europe in recession and Germany’s stern curatorship of it, and yet, on the ground, Lisbon revealed a side where the spirit of inventiveness and lateral thinking ruled. If there is a phrase to come out of both ends of the tour, it is ‘collective creativity’, a kind of design socialism where young people aggregate their talent, spin two jobs, forage, scrounge and skimp capital, go to the core of sustainability and produce the exceptional. Some have teamed up with their parents, and we saw the reverse of the global family diaspora – the older generation brought decades of experience to the table, and found that their children brought a sense of new-age adventure to the process. Others found star mentors who gave them a boost. Bingo. A renaissance of design. In at least three instances, the designers’ initiatives have saved small factories from collapse.

Many of them are creating just the kind of superbly crafted items

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that the top end of the market covets. Of the roughly 15 designers on the tour, none desired to create an income-spinning, massproduced item that could be replicated in China within weeks. What they all shared was a fierce command of social media – often with one single influential review of their product doubling production – and a desire to stamp their work with their own country of origin.

And, oh, what things of beauty they’ve created.

Ines Caleiro won Best Student at the London College of Fashion and promptly landed an apprenticeship with shoe guru Jimmy Choo. It would’ve been easy to clone Choo, but she returned to Portugal with another idea: to challenge the highly conservative shoe-design industry there by combining her skill in graphic and product design with fashion, and, together with Portuguese artisans, create an utterly original look under the label Guava (her favourite fruit). Her shoes are geometric and architectural masterpieces in petrol blue, cyan and other colours you’d need a wavelength coordinate to pin down. Her signature heels pay retrohomage to Art Deco, but the big deal is that her shoes are wearable and just high enough to be sexy. The finish is so fine that no stitch misses a beat. So men demanded a line, the US market bit, then Europe and Asia were hot on their heels. This all from a single line in 2011. Caleiro, with no guile at all, says she has been moved from the back of the design expos where she exhibits to a stand at the front. She’s pleased. We’re not surprised.

If Caleiro’s rattling Portugal with a small shoe-design revolution, then the team from Corque are doing the same for a product that, until recently, has been firmly stuck in the neck of a bottle. Or as wall tiles, circa 1970. Designer and researcher Ana Mestre is Corque’s art director and has officially, since 2009,

2013 BMW EUROSTYLE TOUR

turned the concept of what light, water-washable cork can do on its head.

We wriggle down into a cork pouffe (dubbed Puf Fups) and the strong folds mould around our rear ends. We slip back into a chair (designed

by Pedro Silva Dias), and it’s warm, ergonomic and suedelike to the touch. But perhaps the most intriguing cork products are those that defy its natural form: at Corque, it has become fine fabric – a natural, breathing, living ecoproduct – used to make handbags and wallpaper.

Portugal’s cork oak forest (the country produces 53 percent of the world’s raw product) lives to tell the tale. The bark is harvested so that every five years the tree grows its rough skin with renewed vigour. The cork is 100 percent sustainable and hooks neatly into world demand for environmental authenticity.

You can chuck about the word ‘sustainable’ forever without really getting to grips with it, but you have to hand it to British designer Lee Broom, who started off in theatre school and worked as an actor from 7 to 17. So how does a Shakespearean actor exit stage left and enter design?

Winning Young Designer of the Year and impressing judge Vivienne Westwood helped. He was offered a two-day ‘fashion immersion’ with her and stayed for nine months. One of her phrases stuck with him during his stay: ‘Look to the past for technique,’ she said, and this shifted his creative course a degree or two. Bloom is nothing short of beautiful.

But handsome is as handsome does. It was his big, bold ideas, such as

‘Perhaps the most intriguing cork products are those that defy its natural forms: at Corque, it becomes fine fabric.’

taking a brief that had a relatively modest £50 000 budget attached to it, and presenting such a fabulous concept that he got £750 000 instead to make the whole thing fly. These design installations became his calling card. Never too far from theatre is the glamour and magic created by lighting. Under his new Lee Broom company name, he designed a range of lights made from crystal decanters with the LED light in the neck and the bottom skilfully removed by glass artisans. That left the stoppers... but not for long. This year, the estranged stopper inspired a range of handblown, cut and engraved lights called The Crystal Bulb, manufactured by a factory in Cumbria, so the product can fly authentic ‘Made in England’ colours. Here’s where it gets clever and modern. The bulb is designed to fit any standard fitting and can be used creatively in a spray of lights with silk flex to match the fitting or glow in solitary splendour. The LED bulb has an average life expectancy of 45 000 hours. Now with five furniture and lighting collections behind him, and dozens of shop, restaurant and bar interiors that surely must credit him for all-important atmosphere and style, he’s a hot ticket anywhere from New York to Hong Kong.

While Broom’s crystal lights defy the gloom in the economy, Russian sisters Ekaterina and Maria Yaschuk of Meystyle in London bring magic to the very walls around their clients. In the mid-2000s, Maria needed a showstopping design for her Master’s, but was overloaded with ideas. Ekaterina, who in the midst of a degree in theatre design admits she was fed up with the daily indecision, threw out one line in sisterly exasperation: ‘Do LED wallpaper then,’ she said. They eventually joined forces. The prototype was a little thick and workmanlike, but it had made the critical technological jump. As the years passed, microtechnology revolutionised their world. When 2012 dawned, they had designed a

Corque’s intriguing products defy cork’s natural forms [Opposite] LED-illuminated 3-D wallpaper has inspired Zenlike patience in devotees, who join the long waiting list for Meyside’s painstakingly hand-crafted products

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‘What he did with olives will forever elevate the sad little salad accessory to a new order.

Imagine a deliciously tart and full-flavoured olive extract in a martini glass. Delicately suspended in the juice is a single pearl-shaped pod.’

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flavoured olive extract in a martini glass. Delicately suspended in the juice is a single pearl-shaped pod. In the tiny pod of delicate gel, is the ‘cocktail’. He had simply, wittily, reversed the script. The mandarin appeared as a perfect fruit on the plate, but with the touch of a fork revealed that it was an iced mandarin concentrate, frozen delicately into a sphere that would hold its shape long enough to make it to the table. Inside, a froth and foam of mandarin-infused mousse. It all melted like creamy sorbet on your tongue.

A few days later on a Sunday night, we are at Mandarin Oriental, Hyde Park, and Heston Blumenthal has designed a dinner menu that is cooked for us by Ashley Palmer Watts, executive chef under Blumenthal for The Fat Duck group. The food is all based on 15th- and 16th-century cooking, and among the palateboggling dishes was ‘Lobster and Cucumber Soup’ (circa 1730), served with a Portuguese 2012 Alvarinho, Muros Antigos. Then came the doppelgänger to Avillez’s mandarin dessert: ‘Meat Fruit’ (circa 1500), which arrived in a perfect mandarin shape (complete with a real green stem and leaves), filled with chicken liver and foie gras parfait and served with grilled bread. It was accompanied by a 2007 Castelnau de Suduiraut, France. We might have said no to the ‘Tipsy Cake’ (circa 1810), which was spit-roast pineapple served with a delicious yet unpronounceable 2008 Istvan Szepsy Szamorodni, Tokaj, Hungary, but we couldn’t for fear we might never return. It was Shangri-la for the taste buds.

What linked much of the food from Joachim Koerper’s restaurant, Eleven, and Miguel Castro e Silva’s Largo in Portugal, was a playfulness and alchemy – not the super-refined foams and froths of the past decade, but more grounded dishes that coaxed out the authenticity of flavours. Surprise and delight at every turn.

Keigo Higashino’s intricately plotted thrillers pose the question: is it more difficult to create the masterful problem… or to solve it? The tour, according to the creative maestro behind the annual BMW EuroStyle Tour, Lindsay Pieterse, was a year in the making with checks and double-checks, fine-tuning and diplomatic interchanges that would make an ambassador blanch.

In Part One, we’ve unravelled just some of the themes. In our December issue, look out for the man who will change your city experience for life, the futurists and inventors who will allow you to move and think differently, a Wraith that will haunt Rolls’ enthusiasts, a South African man who is leading London by the nose and a brace of hotels that should be essential stops in a London-Lisbon adventure.

By then, enough time would have passed to restore some shape to the editor and for the asymmetrical jacket to close without the use of a corset.

For more information on the designers featured in the 2013 BMW EuroStyle Tour, visit guava.pt, corquedesign.com, leebroom.com and meystyle.com. For more on the restaurants, see joseavillez.pt, dinnerbyheston.com, restauranteleven.com and largo.pt.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

range that if they explained to us exactly how it worked, they’d have to shoot us. In their small studio where their fabric printer (an £11 000 hard-won investment) churns out broad sheets of wallpaper patterned with environmentally friendly ink, a young Polish girl painstakingly works on a length of non-LED wallpaper that calls for the application of 4 600 Swarovski crystals. Glue dot, single crystal, glue dot, single crystal… Bespoke doesn’t begin to cover this. The new wallpaper range features floating LED lights that are attached to the material by wire no thicker than a hair.

When switched on, minute pinpricks of light dance centimetres from the surface. It is as if you have wandered into the scene in Avatar where flowers and foliage shimmer in the 3-D luminescent landscape. They have made it impossible to mass-produce the paper and, yes, there is a long and patient waiting list of clients who cannot go in to just buy a roll. Some patterns are so intricate it takes a full day to produce two square metres. They make a delightful statement: ‘Since the day we began, our mission has been to rescue walls from the background.’

But how do you stand out if you are a young Portuguese designer in Paris surrounded by wall-to-wall Galiano and Lagerveld? You light up the runway with a little bling. A lot actually. In 1994 Fatima Lopes was teased into wearing a diamond-studded bikini on the ramp. There were a lot of stones, not so much bikini, but the PR stunt did get attention and, in Paris, just getting your name to register is a miracle. Many a designer has fallen, stiletto through the heart, to the French press, but Lopes was smart. She speaks at least five languages, which thawed the critics. She is also charming, effervescent and has a body that could bring traffic to a standstill on the Champs-Élysées. Early in her career, the Madeira-born designer sold clothes with international labels, but the fashion weeks called, her first collection flew and, today, in a building in Lisbon that houses her model agency, she designs bags, shoes, jewellery and, now, homeware and her new fragrance, Be Mine, which is as provocative as her business style. Mostly, though, she is a smart businesswoman who combines her own collections with designing kit for the Portuguese FIFA World Cup team. Diverse and inventive, she rides the crest of a Portuguese design wave. Her characteristic design is geometric lines, and many of them cling.

This is unfortunate for the BMW EuroStyle Tour team. Some of us couldn’t resist her fashion and mused bleakly that perhaps a jacket with an unusual asymmetrical cut would be a visual detraction.

By day seven we had eaten some extraordinary six-course meals. In Portugal at the Michelin-starred Belcanto, José Avillez – one of Portugal’s great chefs – served with his inimitable flair a lunch menu of Portuguese dishes: crab with Jerusalem artichoke, ‘Hen that Laid the Golden Eggs Garden’ (which sounded like a Japanese haiku), ‘Dip in the Sea’, ‘Suckling Pig Revisited’ and a very final, no-frills ‘Mandarin’. He let the dishes describe themselves on our palates and many in the group believed that this was our best meal. What he did with olives will forever elevate the sad little salad accessory to a new order. Imagine a deliciously tart and full-

TREND

‘If they explained to us exactly how it worked, they’d have to shoot us.’

‘The finish is so fine that no stitch misses a beat.’

[Clockwise from top left] Chef José Avillez reverses the script at Lisbon’s Michelin-starred Belcanto; Lee Broom’s handblown Crystal Bulb lights have an LED bulb with an average life expectancy of 45 000 hours; the chef’s table at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is in the restaurant’s inner sanctum; Ines Caleiro’s Guava shoes are covetable geometric masterpieces

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Words LES AUPIAIS

i think, therefore i am BMW’s new i3 kicks the electric-car concept into touch THERE’S A FAIR BIT OF WORLDWIDE ACTIVITY in electriccar manufacturing. It must be terrifying, then, when one company launches a new car that ticks all the boxes and declares the end result ‘born electric’. Firstly, get used to the look of the BMW i3: it’s compact, sculpted in the right places and, while not made for the racetrack, it chases the wind at a fair clip. With a 0–100km/h in 7,9 seconds with a range extender (and 7,2 seconds without) stat, it’s hardly ‘trundling’ about. The car is purpose designed – no adaptations here – in light, strong material, with interior spaciousness geared for shared commuting, but with real performance credentials (and no inverted commas around the word).

For the increasingly ecosensitive market, the i3 incorporates recycled and renewable materials, and when the car gives its final sigh, most of it will be reincarnated in some form or another. The ‘i’ will live on. The battery? Anyone in the solar- or wind-power game will find the i3’s battery can be reused. As for range, it could take you on an accessible weekend getaway of between 190km in the most efficient ECO PRO+ mode and 200km with a range extender. There are ecoinventions today that guzzle energy in their making. Not so with the i3.

It uses 50 percent less energy and 70 percent less water to produce than the average car on the road today. (The Leipzig plant runs on energy generated by wind turbines.) If, as they say, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in cities in 15 years’ time, then e-commuting may even be legislated, rather than optional. And if you’re wrinkling your brow over recharging issues, BMW has this base covered with a home ‘plug-in-and-play’ system, and public charging facilities are on the cards. Head of BMW i Design Benoit Jacob sums it up by saying, ‘If you

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ask me what I did for the past five years, I wouldn’t say I designed a car, I’d tell you that I designed a new culture.’

The most succinct definition of BMW’s new i3 comes from Zurichbased author and columnist Philipp Tingler, who writes, ‘The car turns its driver back into a creator of mobility instead of a mere consumer: the motorist no longer consumes the city, he thinks for himself in an urban environment, quite literally creating and finding new directions.’

If your project has already attracted 1,2 million Facebook fans, it means they’ve been waiting for the real thing. They don’t have long – the i3 rolls out in South Africa late 2014.

TREND

Breathless Freediving is grace under hundreds of kilograms of liquid pressure.

Words JAZZ KUSCHKE Photography CRAIG KOLESKY/NIKON/LEXAR Underwater photography JEAN-MARIE GHISLAIN

WE ALL DID IT AS KIDS. In the pool with friends, you’d take a breath and see who could stay under the longest… Swim a length, maybe two. If you were that adept, you understood – even then – that minimising your movements was key. You’d glide as smoothly as you could, pushing as far and for as long as possible in a pure economy of motion, forcing yourself to stay under a few seconds longer, even while your body choked for air.

‘To breathe,’ ponders South African freediving record holder, Hanli Prinsloo. ‘When we hold our breath, we challenge the most basic and reflexive urge of the human body.’

For the competitive freediver, performance is measured in depth reached, with time submerged but a by-product. Yet, the challenge lies ultimately in learning to control and overcome the urge to take a breath.

It’s a trial as mental as it is physical. ‘The classic chicken-and-egg scenario,’ declares Prinsloo, who’s been pushing the limits of her lungs for well over a decade. ‘The physical training builds confidence and the confidence breeds mental strength.’ Training for freediving (as well as the act of immersion on a single breath) then requires a two-pronged approach of mental and physical preparation.

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Bikini R684, Inner Secrets; sunglasses (MB314S-83Z) R5 649, Montblanc; Omega Planet Ocean Seamaster watch R64 000

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PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY

The goal: to know how long you can hold your breath (say, for four minutes), and to understand the stages the body goes through during that time. If you can control your mind enough to convince your body that all is actually okay, you should be okay. ‘You own the situation,’ says Prinsloo.

If holding their breaths is how they do it, then this ‘situation’ is at the core of why. There are many sought-after situations – a Zen-like apnea competitor with his nose clip and tiny mask reaching a target depth, or the camo-wetsuited spear fisherman successfully hunting a game fish in blue water. But their common bond is the ability to make use of one breath to become part – for a few minutes – of a realm where humans cannot exist naturally. For Prinsloo the ‘whys’ have changed, as she evolved from competitive beast to near-ocean creature over the years.

‘I sometimes wonder whether the competitive years were just a means to an end,’ she muses. ‘That end being the ability to move effortlessly through the ocean in order to experience this last wilderness.’ Years of training to be one of the best at the sport side of breath-hold now allows her the stamina for diving with big whales, the depth to entertain a dolphin and the confidence to enter the water with tiger sharks much bigger than she is.

TREND

WANT TO HOLD YOUR BREATH? South African freediving record holder Hanli Prinsloo offers freediving (and breath-hold) courses based on hypoxic training tables adapted to both swimming and breath-hold training. She’s trained some of South Africa’s top adventure-sport athletes, including trail runner Ryan Sandes and bigwave surfer Frank Solomon. For information on the next course, visit www.hanliprinsloo.com.

(Right) Bikini R684, Inner Secrets; Omega Planet Ocean Seamaster watch R64 000; beach towel R5 150 and Neverfull bag in Epi leather R20 100, both Louis Vuitton

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PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY

APNEA COMPETITION The International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA) was established in 1992 to set global standards and verify freediving records. Competition and record attempts fall under various disciplines, including no-limit freediving, in which the diver makes use of a weight sled to descend to a predetermined depth, and free immersion diving, where a diver descends along a rope and uses it to pull back up. For more information, visit www.aidainternational.org.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY

PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY

PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY

HAIR AND MAKE-UP: KAREN HAACKE/SIXLOVE ARTIST MANAGEMENT

If the sharks and the thought of deep blue water scare you, consider for a few seconds (or a minute if you can hold your breath that long) the physiological stresses the body is put under during a deep breath-hold dive – lungs compress, heart-rate slows to frighteningly low beats and blood surges from the extremities to the heart and brain. It’s an undertaking in which big-name athletes have paid the ultimate price over the years, most notably top proponents Audrey Mestre and Patrick Musimu, and big-wave surfer Jay Moriarity, who succumbed to shallow-water blackout while training in the Maldives. But the perils belie the beauty and, as with scuba diving or swimming underwater in your backyard pool, it’s only as dangerous as you make it.

‘It’s discipline meets acceptance,’ Prinsloo translates from yoga philosophy, an integral part of her training. ‘This lesson is a valuable one for any ocean-user to contemplate. If we can be strong yet quiet in our minds, we can deal with anything the ocean throws at us.’

(Left) Beach towel R5 150, scarf R7 300 and Neverfull bag in Epi leather R20 100, all Louis Vuitton; sandals R2 290, Gucci

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP

O N YO U R M A RQ U ES

F I V E - S TA R T R E AT M E N T I S A G I V E N AT S T A N D R E W S S I G N AT U R E H O T E L & S PA , S I T U AT E D I N B E A U T I F U L LY L A N D S C A P E D G R O U N D S T H AT O V E R L O O K G I L L O O LY ’ S L A K E . I T ’ S I D E A L F O R O U T D O O R W E D D I N G S A N D F U N C T I O N S , C AT E R E D B Y T H E E X E C U T I V E C H E F AT T H E I N - H O U S E T R E N T S R E S TA U R A N T. H E ’ L L A L S O P R E PA R E C U L I N A R Y F A R E W I T H S O U T H A F R I C A N F L A I R F O R I N T I M AT E D I N N E R S A N D C O N F E R E N C E G R O U P S . S U I T E S A R E E L E G A N T LY F U R N I S H E D A N D G E N E R O U S LY PROPORTIONED FOR THE SUPREME COMFORT OF OVERNIGHT GUESTS.

TO BE A SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR YOU NEED IMAGINATION, DRIVE, ENERGY AND SUPPORT. FUNDED BY VIRGIN UNITE, THE BRANSON CENTRE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP UPLIFTS AND EMPOWERS TALENTED YOUNG SOUTH AFRICANS TO DO JUST THAT. THE VIRGIN GROUP’S FOUNDER, SIR RICHARD BRANSON, TALKS ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A ‘GOLDEN HIGHWAY TO ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY’. BUT WHEN THESE ENTREPRENEURS ARE READY TO LAUNCH THEIR NEW IDEAS AND BRANDS, THEY NEED A STAGE. THAT IS WHY THE PRIVATELY OWNED FIVE-STAR BOUTIQUE HOTEL, ST ANDREWS SIGNATURE HOTEL & SPA, OPENED ITS DOORS FOR A DAY’S WORKSHOP FOLLOWED

BY AN EVENING OF FASHION & STYLE. THIS EXCITING OCCASION BECAME BOTH STAGE AND LAUNCH PLATFORM FOR A NEW GENERATION OF YOUNG FASHION DESIGNERS.

St Andrews Signature Hotel & Spa general manager Tadej Peric says, ‘I wanted to start a partnership with Virgin Unite because I love and believe in what they do. I admire their initiative and support for entrepreneurial development. There is so much talent in Africa; there are amazing entrepreneurs out there trying to launch their businesses, which the economy needs. However, many of them need guidance and support to do so. The Branson Centre is the ideal platform for advising, training and mentoring young entrepreneurs. I believe, as successful business people, we should all play a more interactive role.’

An Evening of Fashion & Style, hosted by Peric and Tracey Webster, CEO of the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, offered several young fashion designers the opportunity to reveal design after design, resulting in a fashion wave that inspired and delighted the crowd. They saw it first at St Andrews, but it won’t be long before these new signatures of success take to the high streets: Str8 Lemon Apparel, Soul Fruits, Lord’s Hats & Accessories, Grapevine Fashion, Ubuntuism, R and M Underwear, Mzansi Designers Emporium and Rip ’n Sew. The evening was one of many planned by Peric, adding to a range of successful events previously hosted at the hotel – from car, book, media and music launches to business coaching, team building and gastronomy events. These were coordinated with the support of Reservations Manager Catherine Pool and Operations Manager Sally da Silva. In the future, St Andrews Signature Hotel & Spa will host more workshops and expos.

Earlier this year, the hotel welcomed an international Virgin Unite delegation –

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT

including Sir Richard Branson’s daughter, Holly; her husband, Fred Andrews; and

ST-ANDREWSHOTEL.CO.ZA OR BRANSONCENTRE.ORG.

Jean Oelwang, CEO of Virgin Unite – for an annual event called the Connection

22 MILNER AVENUE, ST ANDREWS, BEDFORDVIEW,

Trip to South Africa. Peric aims to grow this collaboration and encourages other

JOHANNESBURG, 011 453 4242

companies to embark on their own journey along the ‘golden highway’.

TRAVEL

Kruger’s Ark Rivers flood and change a landscape forever.

In the aftermath are new discoveries.

Words IAN GLENN

For further information and to book, visit seasonsinafrica.com.

The Luvuvhu River has carved its way through the sandstone of the escarpment to create the striking Lanner Gorge

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PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES/CORBIS

BETWEEN THE LUVUVHU AND LIMPOPO RIVERS lies the least known, most mysterious part of the Kruger Park: the Makuleke concession. It holds some of South Africa’s most magnificent scenery, unlike anything else in the Kruger: Lanner Gorge and floodplains with groves of fever trees and palms and baobabs.

This is one of the best places in the country for birding.

Until the beginning of 2013, visitors wanting to explore the Makuleke area had three choices: the educational option of going to one of Eco Training’s courses in their Makuleke camp, visiting Pafuri Camp on the Luvuvhu River just across the bridge from the Pafuri picnic site, or going to The Outpost. Now there are only two. Much of Pafuri Camp was washed away, for the second time in 20 years, in the floods of 2013.

Most of the Makuleke concession was under water and signs of devastation remain across the region.

The Outpost, part of the Seasons in Africa group, situated high on cliffs overlooking the whole area, became a kind of Noah’s Ark, with guests having to be transported from Pafuri Camp and then airlifted out. Many guests who had booked at Pafuri were moved to The Outpost, which must have one of the greatest game lodge views anywhere. While it lacks the drama of Lanner Gorge with its precipitous cliffs and snaking river below, it makes up for it with a view across the Luvuvhu River plains. Just as I arrive, guest ranger Johna Turner calls a guest over to see a Martial Eagle in a tree just next to the viewing deck.

The eagle is surveying the Luvuvhu River valley below, showing that the 12 luxury suites, linked by a 500m-long walkway made of Zimbabwean teak, are human eyries that make going out on game drives almost unnecessary. Beneath the lodge, the Luvuvhu River runs peacefully amid the destruction it wrought in January and the landscape it reshaped: uprooted trees, silt deposited and muddy banks. But if you scan the plains, there are the encouraging signs of game returning to the area.

Though the temporary disruption to game habitats and habits and washed-away roads upset the normal routine of game drives, Sarah Nurse and fellow guide (American-born and Australian-trained) Andy Hoffmann used their own advanced qualifications as trail guides to lead more walking trails than normal.

For Andy, there were advantages for walkers, in that more birds than usual could be seen and heard.

The Outpost benefits from being close to Eco Training’s Makuleke camp, as guest guides like Turner, who are trying to build up walking trails, will incorporate stops at the Lodge. Our group, after the more spartan setting of the Eco Training lodge, is simply enjoying the luxury and comfort on tap.

The local Makuleke staff, from manager Lucia Hlongwane down, all seemed to be called Hlongwane.

When I tease them, they explain that there is even a song making fun of this family name because of how prevalent it is. Given how much is at stake for the community to make a success of The Outpost, they offer excellent and cheerful service. The group aims to increase the proportion of South African visitors and to offer rates to attract visitors for two- to three-day visits. Anybody who thinks they know the Kruger but hasn’t been to The Outpost still has a pleasurable surprise in store in terms of both sightings and the value it offers.

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TRAVEL

There’s always the promise of radiant blue skies on the Greek islands. [Opposite] Chania’s charms are not purely visual; they’re in the sincere largesse of the island’s inhabitants too

Greek Rules The PR on Greece may be poor, but for a traveller on the ground it is still a delicious mix of laidback promise and value for money. You simply need to be tight on the turns.

I FIRST VISITED CRETE 30 years ago − the winter was drawing in, my resources were dwindling and it was as far south as my Eurail pass would take me. The ferry deposited us in Chania and there we stayed for a hedonistic three months. The tourist population being nonexistent, backpackers were welcomed until April, when we were turfed out so that the locals could jazz up the town for tourists. We picked oranges and olives, worked in bars and restaurants, and enjoyed the laidback attitude of the locals, where oft-heard words included ‘sega, sega’ (or at least that’s what it sounded like), meaning something like ‘later, later’, and ‘metavrio’, literally interpreted, a rather nonspecific ‘after tomorrow’. The island is so relaxed it’s almost horizontal.

Three decades later and in another season, Chania is a different place − superficially.

Every available space in the old city is filled with shops, restaurants and bars, and bustling with tourists and vendors. It may have been like that 30 years ago in the summertime, but my tourist visa had expired by then.

What hasn’t changed is the people.

Despite tourist season, they all had time for a chat and a laugh, and their largesse never wavered. We ate dinner along the Venetian harbour, selecting a restaurant in front of a sailboat that sported both South African and

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Greek flags. Every meal on Crete starts with a complimentary basket of bread − the lovely dense kind that tears rather than breaks – and we were also treated to a shot of the local liquor, raki, which is best consumed in one toss. We ate in traditional Greek style − plenty of meze dishes and beers being shared around the table before more were ordered. The wine is drinkable (they’ve moved on significantly since retsina was the only option), but the beer is cheap, cold and so good. Our platters started to arrive − dolmades, Greek salad with a huge slab of soft creamy feta on top, fried zucchini, octopus that we had seen drying on the harbour railings only that afternoon, tzatziki, more bread, spinach pies, and stuffed tomatoes and peppers. And when we’d had enough, another shot of something would inevitably arrive with a plate of watermelon slices.

It’s no secret that Greece is battling. People told us life is difficult and resources are scarce.

That’s what is most impressive about their generosity. Unless you seek the high end of the market, it’s still affordable for South Africans.

Meals for four, including drinks, seldom cost us more than R600. And a double room in a four-star hotel in Athens, two tube stops from Syntagma Square, was less than R1 500.

Crete has been inhabited since Neolithic times, but it’s often associated with Minoan

culture. What I didn’t realise, until a visit to the ancient palace of Knossos, is that much of what we think to be true about Minoan culture is educated conjecture, courtesy of British archeologist Sir Arthur Evans.

I was also unaware that, until fairly recently (in historical terms, that is), the most southern of the Greek islands didn’t even belong to Greece. It was occupied by the Myceneans, the Dorians, the Byzantine Empire, and then the Arabs. The Venetians ruled from the 11th century for more than 400 years (there are a variety of Venetian harbours and fortresses throughout the island); after which the Turks were in charge. It was only in 1913 that Crete officially became part of Greece.

As such there is a certain arrogance about the Cretans regarding their own culture and how it differs from the rest of the country.

Agios Nikolaos, on the eastern side of Crete, is beautiful but in an unconscious way – like the girl who has just had her braces taken off and is unaware of her allure. This small city is set in a harbour within a larger harbour.

There are a number of tiny beaches sprinkled on the periphery of the town, among the few fine white sand beaches still to be found on the Med. It may be a sign of the times, or perhaps the tourist season had not yet begun in earnest, but there were relatively few of us around.

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES.COM; CORBIS

Words SUSAN STOS

Our rented car came completely covered, no excess whatsoever. We picked it up in a rather battered condition and soon understood the cavalier attitude when we reached the highway. Solid double lines in no way dictate the flow of traffic. We learnt to stick to the edge of the road when going around a corner or over blind rises. Everyone does. I don’t know what the accident stats are, but Cretan drivers made us think of local taxis more fondly.

Political correctness is out the window on Crete. You want a cigarette, you smoke.

Wherever. Whenever. I shuddered to see children sitting on the laps of adults driving motorcycles without a helmet in sight. It’s hard to believe that the island is part of the same European Union to which Germany belongs. Well, sort of.

In the early ’80s, most houses were not completed. I was told that buildings were

only taxed once they were finished. I assume the same rule still applies as the country is a construction site – very ad hoc.

One of our waiters observed, ‘I think in South Africa you have very beautiful parts and very ugly parts.’ We had to agree. ‘Here in Greece, you see all the parts together.’

Having never spent time on the other islands, we ferried to Santorini. Essentially the remains of a volcanic explosion, Santorini is beautiful, gorgeous and breathtaking. But, and I will most likely be flayed for saying this, it felt somewhat like a one-trick pony. The immortalised sunsets are spectacular, but it was the only time in almost three weeks in Greece that I really felt like a tourist.

We lined the walkways of Oia scrunched in on all sides by other sightseers jostling for a piece of it.

Oia and Fira, set high up on volcanic cliffs, are quite exclusive. Our B&B was on

the opposite end of the island, about an hour away via quad bike and just metres from the black beach. It was very humble, and I initially thought it would be a long week, but our hosts made the difference. Virtually every day we were offered traditional homemade treats, and between their swimming pool and being waited on at the beach while lounging under umbrellas, we truly got into Greek mode. But within the week we had pretty much done and seen what Santorini had to offer.

I don’t think I could ever tire of Crete.

Whether one hikes through the Samaria Gorge from Chania to the Libyan Sea, or visits Roman ‘homes’ dug into the hills at the coastal town of Matala; whether one climbs the range of mountains that run centrally across the island or sails along the coast, Crete has so many interesting and diverse facets to it. Warts and all.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: WERNER PRINSLOO

AN ELIZABETH ARDEN SOCIAL EVENT

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ARDEN TO A TEA An invitation to a prestigious Elizabeth Arden event means a few things...

Of course there’s the promise of shared experiences with good company – on this occasion over delicious afternoon tea – but it’s the one-to-one advice on skincare that’s invaluable.

Guests appreciate the opportunity to have their skin examined for sun damage, and the outcome can be an important wake-up call. It’s the right formula for a combination of science and sociability.

1) Santi Nevan and Carlien Louw 2) Emma Morris and Berdine Smyth 3) Sameegha Wolhuter 4) Izane Mynhardt 5) Tshinaiwa Malaka and Anna Nhlapo 6) The terrace garden at 54 on Bath 7) Mandisa Sibanyoni 8) Sarah Prentice

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BROUGHT TO YOU IN CONJUNCTION WITH PREVAGE AND 54 ON BATH

ON A FINAL NOTE

Shape Shifters

Words KATHY MALHERBE

A wine tasting hosted by Platter’s and Riedel stemware manufacturer at Creation Wines in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley proved that the bouquet, taste, balance and finish of a wine are affected by the shape of the glass. Creation Wines was started 10 years ago when idealistic Swiss winemaker JC Martin and his wife, Carolyn, began taming the valley and making plans for their boutique winery. Today it is one of South Africa’s most lauded wine estates. Seven of its wines have Robert Parker ratings of 90 points or more, and it did no harm tasting them in Riedel stemware.

In 2009, the wine estate partnered with Riedel glasses in order to ‘show off’ their wines properly. The Riedel family (who

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incidentally introduced colour to traffic lights) created cultivarspecific glasses – the first sommelier’s range. The wine tasting included five different stems and four different wines: Sauvignon Blanc/Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet. The routine went something like this: tasters were asked to taste the wines in the appropriate stem and then try them in one of the others; for example, Chardonnay in the Cabernet glass, Sauvignon Blanc in the Pinot glass.

Our tasting started off with a polystyrene cup. The horror.

Despite the Sauvignon Blanc being described as a ‘superbly balanced wine beckoning with aromas of tropical fruit, elegant elderflower and interesting minerally whiffs’, the cup gave the wine a waxy aftertaste and, although not unpalatable, it wasn’t worth a second taste. The polystyrene cup was relegated to spittoon status immediately. We then used an ordinary wine glass, which did little for the different cultivars, followed by the bespoke Riedel stemware.

The most obvious differences were in the chardonnay and Pinot Noir tastings. A Chardonnay glass should be wide open to the nose and taste buds, and it was an epiphany to experience the difference in the bouquet, the glorious layers, the fruitiness and the way the wine made an alliance with the taste buds in the wider Chardonnay glass. In fact, the attractive glints of yellow and green in the Creation Straw were completely absent in the wrong glass.

Pinot Noir out of a Chardonnay glass was, quite frankly, undrinkable. It was one-dimensional, had no creaminess and a pronounced acidity. A Pinot Noir glass narrows towards the top. From the correct stemware we could experience the inviting bouquet of spice, the ‘smooth yet complex experience on the palate and layers of dried fruit mingling with hints of raspberry and piquant spice’. While the large, open bulb on the Chardonnay glass enables you to take in the complex and large varieties of aromas in a Chardonnay, the thin bulb of the Sauvignon Blanc/Riesling glass makes sure that the wine hits your tongue at the centre and targets the right taste buds. The Pinot Noir and Cabernet glasses have a larger bulb to make sure there is enough oxygen to open up the wine but not an overabundance. The correct shape and size are crucial to help release the appropriate fruitiness and tannin levels, and direct the wine to the right part of the tongue.

So, what’s in a glass? A great deal. According to Robert Parker, who is described by the Financial Times as the ‘world’s most prized palate’: ‘The effect of these glasses on fine wine is profound. A glass that turns a sip into a celebration.’

PHOTOGRAPHY: GREATSTOCK/MASTERFILE

You could be ruining your reds and wasting a good white, all because of the incorrect glassware.