Private Edition Issue 35

ISSUE 35

INNOVATION

BEYOND CARNISM

RIGHT ON TIME

DEPARTURES

CAR SPA

THE MEAT OF THE MATTER

OUR LATEST WATCH STARS

ISLANDS, VIC FALLS AND ALL THAT JAZZ

A HOTEL FOR HOT WHEELS

CONTENTS CONTENTS

Bold, modern and innovative, Cartier’s Juste un Clou collection transcends the everyday, making the ordinary exquisite, for him and for her (page 46)

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ED’S LETTER What intrigues our editor.

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NOTA BENE – NEWS Utterly random and occasionally tactical trivia.

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THE NEW GARAGISTAS What do you do when you own a harem of hot classics but you’re short on a chateau to house them?

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SHIRT CANDY It’s a strip of a thing, but it oozes class and modernity.

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MADAME, YOUR WARDROBE IS SERVED...

If your closet is chaotic, there’s a concierge service that’s just the ticket.

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NOTA BENE – FASHION The latest in fashion news and trends.

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NOTA BENE – FRAGRANCE The latest crop of scents are dosed with beautiful botanicals.

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MASTERPIECES IN MINIATURE A report-back on this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie.

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THE MORE THINGS STAY THE SAME Innovation moves watchmaking forward.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Creative direction: Kimberley Reid Photography: Cameron McDonald Styling: Robynne Kahn Hair and make-up: Sjani Grobbelaar Model: Richard McKeown (Full Circle Model Management) Suit and shirt: Issa Leo Tie and pocket square: Weef (www.weefwear.com) Post-production: Jean-Pierre Gouws

CONTENTS

NOTA BENE – WATCHES

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Notes on the most innovative timepieces on the planet.

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Notes on décor and design news to spark direction and creativity.

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IF I AM WHAT I EAT...

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A look at the psychology of the meat industry and why it’s so normalised.

NOTABENE – ACCELERATE Notes on modern classics and super performers to inform your choice of wheels.

SUMBA’S BIG BREAK Nihiwatu, an ultra-luxury resort on the south coast of Sumba, is an hour’s flight from Bali.

Expect a wild coastline and the surf of dreams – but beyond the hedonism is a better life for all those who live there.

TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW The S-Works Turbo Levo offers a snappy, power-boosting performance.

72 The Avocado Show, Europe’s first avocado restaurant, will open later this year in Amsterdam (page 21)

CRY ME A RIVER Hurricane Katrina all but destroyed New Orleans but, true to its jazz and blues roots, the city nurtured those who loved and lived there, working its fall into a triumph.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RANGE While driving an electric car may offer a nippy suburban solution, hybrids kick the tech up a notch with other surprisingly ‘green’ alternatives.

NOTA BENE – DÉCOR

A WORLD IN THREE COUNTRIES Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana: seven days, shiny new airports, chasing the ‘Big Smoke’ and an African river baptism, all in the light of a ‘super-lune’.

LIVING ART Jason deCaires Taylor’s underwater sculptures are a creative paradox.

CUT-ABOVE RUGS The Rug Company has taken things up a notch on the local décor scene.

THE DEEPEST CUTS Would you dive into the freezing Atlantic to find the perfect gem?

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UNDER THE GOLDEN BRIDGE Eat, walk and stay in San Francisco to explore the full dimensions of the city.

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NOTA BENE – JEWELLERY Notes on the classic beauties, audacious moderns and singular spoils in the world of jewellery.

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Rooibos enjoys a reputation as a healthy drink, but it appears it may also be a beneficial biological weapon.

AT THE HEART OF INNOVATION Innovation is key when it comes to timeless design.

THE SECRET LIFE OF ROOIBOS

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BENGUERRA’S SECRET A dot in the Indian Ocean balances luxury and eco-credentials.

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NOTA BENE – DEPARTURES Notes on on far-flung places, exotic spaces and diary notes for your next escape.

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THE LONG GAME We consume good wines as if there’s no tomorrow. It might be wiser to cultivate patience.

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NOTA BENE – TASTINGS Notes on dining out, special tastes and brilliance in a bottle – wherever you are in the world.

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A COMEBACK FOR THE CALL UP? Stripped of their mod cons, millennials might find khaki and the camp way too much to handle.

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RECIPE, STYLING & PHOTOGRAPHY: FOODDECO BY COLETTE DIKE FOR HER AVOCADO BOOK/@FOODDECO ON INSTAGRAM

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JENNIFER CAMPBELL is a writer and copy editor specialising in lifestyle, travel and wellness content.

With a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies, and a masters in creative writing currently underway, she’s always on the lookout for a good story. When she’s not reading, writing or editing, she can be found exploring Cape Town’s outdoors.

We’ve never met someone who enjoys conversations with himself quite as much as ZEYD SULAIMAN does. And that’s probably why we enjoy his satire as much as we do. After years of driving some of the finest luxury performance cars in the world for Private Edition, Zeyd is no stranger to our corridors. But it’s his obsession with high-end road and mountain bikes that really gets him excited. Zeyd operates as founder and managing director of True FitCorp, and is set to change the landscape of employee wellness.

KIMBERLEY REID is a creative director, designer and brand magician. Kim is also a freelance explorer and friend of animals everywhere. On Private Edition, her quick eye for illustration or photography moves the design of a magazine page from mildly interesting to arresting.

It is Cape Town photographer CAMERON MCDONALD’s love for marketing and advertising that helped him avoid getting stuck in a specific genre of photography. As an artist, his versatility was born out of a unique approach to every project – seeing it as a challenge and opportunity to shoot the best shot of his life.

He is passionate about beauty and portrait photography, inspired by the intimacy created between subject and camera, and always aims to discover the true beauty in every moment.

GABRIELLA GEFFEN is currently a freelance writer living in Cape Town.

Prior to that, she worked in developing the HRDC National Entrepreneurship Strategy for South Africa, consulting to the Department of Basic Education in particular, where she co-authored the blueprint for implementing entrepreneurial education in schools. She has an honours degree in English literature from UCT as well as a bachelor’s in economics and philosophy.

THEO KRYNAUW Having completed a design degree at the University of Pretoria in 2006, Theo gravitated towards Cape Town’s creative energy.

He works in the Mother City as a freelance illustrator.

When he’s not drawing, Theo spends his time marvelling at the work of natural scientists and dry humorists.

ANDRÉ WIESNER is a writer, editor and publication developer. He is married, with three children, and studied at UCT, where he was a lecturer in Media Studies. The nicest guy you’ll ever meet, and the most strategically-minded consultant your trillion-dollar outfit could hope to hire, André runs a small but robust communications business.

JIM FREEMAN is a Cape Town-based photojournalist who has been happily plying for trades around the world for 30-something years.

He is passionate about travel, motorcycling, sport and – now and again (and again and again) – consuming the waters of life.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

CONTRIBUTORS

FROM THE ED’S HEAD

EDITOR LES AUPIAIS privateedition@tppsa.co.za PUBLISHER SUSAN NEWHAM-BLAKE CREATIVE DIRECTOR KIMBERLEY REID MANAGING EDITOR JENNIFER CAMPBELL jcampbell@tppsa.co.za COPY EDITOR CHRISTINE DE VILLIERS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER NIC MORKEL 021 488 5926 082 468 6490 nmorkel@tppsa.co.za PRINT ADVERTISING MANAGER SAMEEGHA WOLHUTER 021 488 5938, 078 356 9521 swolhuter@tppsa.co.za ADVERTISING & SALES ENQUIRIES NICK LUMB 021 488 3518 060 736 4386 nlumb@tppsa.co.za

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experiences hard to top – all under the startling light of the super-lune that bathed our landscape late last year.

Celebrating other African ‘heroes’, we take a closer look at rooibos’s reputation for healing, and hand the little red bush an Oscar for its newly discovered properties.

And just when we thought that there may be boundaries to adventure for the ordinary traveller, enter the diamond safari – a private jet, diving for carats and bragging rights to answer ‘How deep is your love?’

Service has always been top of our Private Edition list and in this edition we find the answer to your mismanaged, mismatched wardrobe with a ‘fixer’ who brings the concept of concierge service to the fore. Two enterprising men have turned a lashing of leather into a fashion icon. And for those with a rare supercar or a dozen of them: a vault that will ‘spa’ them for you.

Of course there’s always more, elegantly slipped between the pages of Private Edition. We hope you enjoy the unexpected directions the magazine takes to keep you engaged.

ADVERTISING SALES COORDINATOR NADIA JACOBS 021 488 5928 njacobs@tppsa.co.za EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS MARK BEARE, JOHN MORKEL HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER JOLINDA KEMP FINANCIAL MANAGER NAEEMA ABRAHAMS ACCOUNTS LAETITIA BOTHMA RECEPTIONIST MARITZA PERRANG

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 2017. 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; email: privateedition@tppsa.co.za. Visit privateedition. co.za. Reproduction: Hirt & Carter. Printing: Novus Print Solutions. ISSN: 2218-063X

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

LAST MONTH, quite unexpectedly, I was introduced to Jochen Zeitz at the CTICC. It was a bit like walking into a cocktail party in say, Sandton, and bumping in to Barack Obama over canapés. Zeitz, former CEO of Puma, the man who has in his stellar career balanced ethical business practices, conservation, community upliftment, culture and commerce, was in the city for the Cape Town Art Fair but will return to open the not-for-profit cultural institution Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA). By bringing to the museum his collection, built strategically over the years, along with works selected by the new executive director and chief curator Mark Coetzee, he will create a magnet as powerful as any modern art museum in the world.

His contribution – along with the V&A Waterfront’s vision for the Silo precinct, which is pivotal to this ground-breaking initiative – is likely to bring well over a million more visitors to Cape Town but, more importantly, shine a powerful spotlight on the artists of this continent. Already, across the country, galleries are focusing on contemporary African art and those of you with alternative investments or simply an exceptional acquisition should add ‘art route’ to wine and culinary ones.

Connecting with the MOCAA, the new 26-room The Silo opened its doors in March and is set to become the most talked about hotel in South Africa. And, when the international travel writers get here, a world icon. It carries Liz Biden’s stamp (see Royal Malewane, Birkenhead House, La Residence and others) and defies anything as banal as ‘five star’. Beginning with a rooftop garden with 360-degree views of the city, it then piles on a floor-by-floor visual feast of quirky artworks, bursts of colour and design innovation with the hotel’s diamond-faceted windows a unique signature.

So there is much to be said about staying put here on the continent at the moment. We suggest that a trip north of our own borders might be a first consideration. In a three-country hop with Vic Falls as the fulcrum, I share a few African

UTTERLY RANDOM AND OCCASIONALLY TACTICAL TRIVIA GO FOR GREEN Our favourite superfood takes centre stage...

RECIPE, STYLING & PHOTOGRAPHY: FOODDECO BY COLETTE DIKE FOR HER AVOCADO BOOK/@FOODDECO ON INSTAGRAM

If you like avo, you'll absolutely love The Avocado Show, Europe's first avocado restaurant, based in Amsterdam.

The restaurant, which will open later this year, will be serving stunning dishes thanks to foodie friends Ron Simpson, Julien Zaal and Jaimie van Heije. Colette Dike, artist, chef and author of Avocado, a book dedicated to mouthwatering avocado photography, inspired the team behind the innovative menu. 'We fell in love with her book and now we know why they call her Miss Avocado!' say the creators of this exciting new restaurant.

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NEWS A LOCAL ICON Ever since Peter Finlayson established the Bouchard Finlayson wine estate in 1989, the winery’s name has been internationally synonymous with excellence. Now, they've been nominated in the prestigious category of SA Wine Icons in this year's Klink Awards. Fifty percent of the farm's vineyards are devoted to the varietal for which it is most acclaimed – Pinot Noir. Other cultivars under production include Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Sangiovese, as well as a handful of others that are being explored. bouchardfinlayson.co.za

BRING ON THE BOLD

ART FOR THOUGHT Belgium-born artist William Sweetlove unites Dadaism with surrealism and pop art in his quirky sculptures. With his cloned animals, Sweetlove calls for greater ecological awareness and urges us to reflect on the consequences of climate change and the challenges humanity faces as a result. His cloned dogs (like the Chihuahua on the right) wear boots as a reference to rising sea levels, while his sculptures of penguins carry water bottles to raise awareness around water. facebook.com/sweetlove.william

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WORDS: JENNIFER CAMPBELL.. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED; JOHAN KALÉN (CHIHUAHUA)

Five new colours have just been added to the perky palette of the C de Cartier bag.

The collection gleams in jewel tones of green beryl, purple sapphire, blue tourmaline, lemon magnesite, and coral. Popping with colour and finished with saddle-stitch detailing, the leather accessory range now features new mixed-material models in calfskin and niloticus crocodile. cartier.co.za

REAL FOOD FROM SCRATCH Soon after publishing their book, Tasty Wastenots, nutritional therapist Sally-Ann Creed and chef Jason Whitehead celebrated its shortlisting for the 2017 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards’ Innovative category. The awards were founded by Édouard Cointreau in 1995 to applaud the best food and wine books, printed or digital, as well as food television. Winners will be announced at a ceremony in China in May. ‘The most important message in this book is about eating real foods (nothing processed and no GMO produce), not wasting anything, and ultimately growing your own organic produce, even if you just start with a window box of herbs,’ says Whitehead. The book is full of economical recipes for low-carbohydrate, sugar-free dishes. There’s also some useful advice on what to feed your pet, and how to start a vegetable garden. jasonwhitehead.co.za/books

ESSENCE OF ROSE Lady Emblem from Mont Blanc is a floral fragrance inspired by the rose, a universal symbol of elegance and femininity. The top notes of this scent blend pink pepper and juicy pink grapefruit, while the heart is a bouquet of jasmine and rose notes, and a touch of pomegranate for a bittersweet, fruity touch.

The drydown features elegant sandalwood and warm amber notes illuminated by musk crystals for a dazzling signature. montblanc.com

NATURAL BEAUTY If you want smooth, healthy skin – and who doesn't? – Kiehl's Pure Vitality Skin Renewing Cream is all about restoring that youthful glow. It's packed with natural ingredients like Korean red ginseng root, which accelerates cell renewal, and Manuka honey from New Zealand, which works by strengthening the skin barrier to smooth fine lines. In fact, this honey was chosen as an ingredient in the cream as it's known in Western medicine to have the highest polyphenol level of all honeys and helps to improve skin’s resilience, increasing its ability to recover. kiehls.com

EXOTIC LUXURY The stylish way to carry your wine or bubbly, the genuine python Marataba bottle bag from Kat Van Duinen discreetly holds two bottles, zipping closed for ease of use, while the genuine Napa lining offers a wipe-clean surface. Also available in genuine ostrich leather, this exquisitely luxurious piece makes a sophisticated statement. katvanduinen.com

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PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

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SERVICE SERVICE

The New Garagistas What do you do when you own a harem of hot classics but you’re short on a chateau to house them?

There is a space… Words JIM FREEMAN

WHEN YOU WANT TO PRESERVE your finer vintages, you build a wine cellar. Romeo y Julieta cigars are kept in a humidor to prevent drying out, and chances are your better watches and pieces of jewellery are locked away in a safe to keep them out of reach of the terminally light-fingered. But what do you do if you’re a well-heeled petrolhead in Cape Town with more cars than garage space, or whose regular comings and goings in the Mother City leave you unable to lavish on your classicor performance-car darlings the attention they demand?

You check them into a hotel – of sorts. ‘We have a client who only has space at home for a family car, so he keeps his Porsche GT4 here. He takes it out a couple of times a month,’ says Carvault operations manager Cindi Harding. ‘We also have a businessman who lives and works in Johannesburg but wants to ride his classic convertible on those frequent occasions he comes to Cape Town.’ Clients have round-the-clock access to their vehicles. ‘And, of course, we cater to the “swallows” … those foreigners who spend the summer months in the Western Cape before returning to their British or European homes for the rest of the year. It’s cheaper and a lot more fun to buy and store a local runabout.’ Carvault also offers an airport collection and drop-off service.

Carvault is a high-roofed warehouse on the slopes of Devil’s Peak with space for nearly 100 cars. It’s not yet full (having only opened late last year and with word still going round) but the multimillion-rand collection of cars already includes Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Bentley, Jaguar, BMW, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce. There’s even – and if you know your cars, you’ll drool – a Noble M400 supercar.

The atmosphere is hushed and respectful, with vehicles lined neatly side-by-side like sarcophagi in a mausoleum.

However, there are not that many tombs in this world (of which I am aware) that are draped with bright yellow dust covers or have trickle chargers plugged into them to facilitate their occupants’ resurrection.

Calling Carvault an automotive ‘lock-up-and-go’ might be technically accurate but it suggests internment and, although the facility boasts state-of-the-art security, it is more of a spa for

your car, with all the concern, cleansing and care that implies.

Like people, the more exotic (or vintage, for that matter) the car, the greater the amount of TLC required. And no, what’s good for the 1958 Mercedes-Benz SL 190 roadster goose is not necessarily as good for a 21st-century Aston Martin gander. Every vehicle undergoes a comprehensive multi-point assessment on check-in before being taken to the adjacent wash bay for a full valet. For those owners who feel their vehicles deserve even more TLC, Carvault offers a complete detailing service under the critical gaze of master detailer Mark Bruce. This service encompasses deodorising and disinfection, leather treatments and upholstering, paint surface touch-ups or upgrades, and applying protective coatings. Additional detailing options include an engine clean and degrease, and a ‘showroom’ treatment.

The typical storage package features assessment and registration on arrival, wash and detail prior to storage, trickle charging, vehicle start every 10 days, and a monthly detail, which also ensures the vehicle is moved, reducing mechanical and tyre stress. Apart from electronic security, the premises are protected by an armed response service. The standard storage package costs less than half of a student studio in Rondebosch would, with discounts applicable if five or more cars are stored.

It’s temporary adoption with full custody for the parent.

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SERVICE

Shirt Candy It’s a strip of a thing, but it oozes class and modernity.

THE REVIVAL OF COLOUR – certainly in the last decade – has been a standout in men’s fashion. A simple way for a gentleman to jazz up an otherwise staid suit is to add a statement tie and coordinating socks.

However, bold ties needn’t always be a feature. A muted shirt accessory oozes sophistication – and yes, you can still slip on your beloved brightly striped Paul Smith socks. The trick is to keep your subtle neckpiece modern, though – otherwise you may as well ask your father for his collection.

Texture is a clever way of introducing freshness (read: modernity) into your wardrobe, but if you’re in the corporate game, neckpieces fashioned out of an oddly textured cloth won’t do. That’s where classic materials come in, and none is more so than leather. Luxurious in both look and feel, carefully crafted leather pieces are as essential to a man’s wardrobe as the can’tlive-without little black dress is to a woman’s. Leather is not only flexible and durable but injects polish into a multitude of wardrobe pairings. It’s indispensable for office days – you know this, of course – and, thanks to the creative smarts of Weef, no longer relegated to shoes, belts and briefcases alone. Enter the leather tie. Designed by label co-founders Dévan Swanepoel and Patrick Musil (opposite, from left), the range is handmade from the finest quality leather in a variety of rich shades.

Dimension-wise, Weef ties are described as ‘skinny tailored’, which gives them a contemporary aesthetic. ‘Our ties are made to be exported to the rest of the world, as well as being sold in South Africa,’ says Swanepoel – and a skinnier look is very European, appealing to the international market.

Should you prefer something more substantial, Weef will custom-make your tie to your online order and deliver it to you. They’ll even engrave it. Just don’t expect it to be anything other than understated in terms of colour – although ‘wildcard colours’ Oxblood Red and Cognac Tan are rather fun, says Swanepoel. ‘The colours we use are African and we want to portray that by keeping to a certain palette.’ Besides, should electric lime really be holding court so close to your face? We’ll let you be the judge of that.

The heady scent that only premium leather can emit, on the other hand, is definitely deserving of a spot in your wardrobe. Imagine the fragrance of the leather seats of a luxury car being released gently so you get a feel-good hit throughout the day. That’s what it’s like to wear a Weef tie.

Weef are launching six brand-new bow ties in the same colours as their skinny ties soon. See the collection at weefwear.com

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PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Words HELEN CLEMSON

LIFESTYLE

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PHOTOGRAPHY: CAMERON MCDONALD

Madame, Your Wardrobe is Served…

SERVICE

PHOTOGRAPHY: CAMAERON MCDONALD. HAIR AND MAKEUP: SJANI GROBBELAAR. STYLIST: ROBYNNE KAHN

If your closet is a tad chaotic and your couture items are roughing it, there’s a concierge service that’s just the ticket. Words HELEN CLEMSON EIGHTY PERCENT OF FASHION in wardrobes everywhere feels distinctly unloved (the 80/20 rule is gospel in the fashion game: we wear 20 percent of our wardrobe 80 percent of the time). Neglected garments bought with a promise of ‘Oh, that’ll go with practically everything I own,’ are relegated to the back of the closet, only to be hauled out for brief inspection every so often. And then – still unworn – back in they go. Of course, it’s a wonderful idea to keep that gently worn (read: hardly ever worn) Bottega Veneta mustardhued quilted clutch for little Octavia Rose for when she finally graduates. However, let’s be honest: unless the family member in question lives and breathes Vogue or the garments in question are real sartorial classics, heirs may very well politely pass on your cherished fashion finds.

Enter a swish service that not only stores all that excess winter clothing taking up space in your closet (a winner if you’re moving or have seasonal homes, especially) but also collects, photographs and delivers items as you need them. The Closet Concierge is a safe and secure space with the perfect temperature and environment to protect clothing from damage. While you might not wear – or even want to wear – a good deal of what’s going into storage, the last thing you need is for moths to take what’s yours. As for Octavia Rose’s Bottega Veneta: perhaps that’ll be swung her way one day after all, so best it’s unharmed.

The Closet Concierge team offers a detox service too, meaning they help organise and catalogue your wardrobe so that it becomes more easily workable. An essential element of a wardrobe that makes for seamless dressing is creating an area that looks boutique-worthy. Your teenager may find joy in clothing chaos but we doubt you do. So this is another service on offer: the design and installation of beautifully custom-made closets. And it’s an investment that can actually break that 80/20 rule, simply because clever cupboard design makes storing clothes and laying them out for dressing a cinch.

If, after all of this, you’re still determined to throw some couture to the curb, Closet Concierge does buy designer fashion. But we recommend you do the garment audit and storage exercise first and get reacquainted with pieces that you once loved at first swipe.

With experience in marketing, PR and training for premium fashion brands in South Africa, the UK, Europe and the Middle East, Jayde Goosen (left), founded Closet Concierge in 2007.

To request a quote or make an appointment, visit closetconcierge.co.za.

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FASHION

Notes on wardrobe classics and tempting accessories to signal a fashion refresh

STYLE IN A NUTSHELL Imagine all your fashion essentials in one simple collection...

Ah, the beauty that is the capsule wardrobe; carefully considered garments that work seamlessly to create multiple looks from what is essentially just a few great staples. Clever Hugo Boss has just launched two menswear capsule collections for the modern gentleman. Boss Staples Capsule, a range of essentials that every man needs in his closet regardless of trends, lets the wearer mix and match to his sartorial heart’s content without breaking into a ‘but does this look ok?’ sweat. Stylish accessories included, take note of the rather handsome grainy leather tote for an on-the-go day – it’s rather suave. hugoboss.com

NEW YORK TO CAPE TOWN Your next trip to NYC might be a little more freed up thanks to the opening of Michael Kors at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.

Why miss out on that superb exhibition at The Met just because you’re desperate to shop? The 2 497-square-foot boutique is stocked with footwear and accessories from Michael Kors, including handbags and small leather goods. There are also watches, jewellery, eyewear and a selection of the brand’s fragrances to select from.

Design-wise, a luxe modern ambience, along with a clean, neutral palette means the space isn’t simply the littlest sister of the flagship store in Soho, New York. michaelkors.com

SHADY LADY No matter the season, always stick to toned-down sleek frames. This pair of CHANEL sunglasses (available from Luxottica) from their Spring-Summer 2017 Eyewear Collection is an example of refined dark glasses that make just as much of a statement as anything adorned with ‘accessories’. The look for Chanel’s latest collection is a combination of styles and lines: think the octagon of the perfume cabochons and the fine jewellery quilting, both of which lovers of Chanel know all too well. chanel.com

EAST MEETS WEST

WORDS: HELEN CLEMSON. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

BOOT-TIFUL Who says winter’s quintessential ankle boot needs to look muted?

This pair is the brainchild of footwear design genius, Manolo Blahnik. Available from Luminance (Hyde Park Corner and online), these boots are a nod to the richness of Aztec art, and the multi-textural blend of materials gives them huge tactile appeal.

Team them with a belted camel coat or pick up the electric-blue detailing in the shoe, and match it with a coat in the same hue. Shop online at luminanceonline.com

A collaboration of two countries – and cultures – equals a very beautiful result. In celebration of the official start of the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac, Versace has created a special edition of the house’s Palazzo Empire bag. Crafted in calf leather with a gold metal central Medusa head clasp, this beauty is colour blocked and includes a detachable black and gold shoulder strap so you can switch up your look quickly. And, a Versace tag with a gold metal embellished Swarovski rooster charm can be left on or whisked away as you wish. versace.com

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FRAGRANCES

WORDS: HELEN CLEMSON. PHOTOGRAPHY: CAMERON MCDONALD

Notes on the latest fragrance releases designed by modern alchemists

NATURE’S WAY The latest crop of scents are dosed with beautiful botanicals Take fragrance in its simplest form; a single note (like the pure smell of jasmine or sandalwood) sourced from nature’s bounty. Contemporary scents have twisted the notion of botanical scent extraction – if a flower doesn’t have a particular smell, it can simply be concocted in a lab. And why stop there? One perfume company is selling virtually scent-free flacons of ‘juice’.

Escentric Molecules fragrances are practically scentless but mingle with the wearer’s natural pheromones to create a unique smell. Yes, technology is getting smarter, but should it seep into the world of perfume apothecary? Established fragrance houses are still creating heady scents made from luscious ingredients – with both traditional favourites and modern must-haves – and we’re still rushing to the counters ready to spray ourselves silly. For women, Narciso Rodriguez has just launched Fleur Musc. Its hero ingredient? The sun-soaked scent of rich roses. Other compelling botanicals are less obvious: a ‘Sea Amber accord’ with ambergris – made by master perfumer Jacques Cavallier – is at the heart of Bvlgari’s latest, Aqva Pour Homme Atlantiqve.

Ambergris originates at profound depths of the ocean, explains Cavallier, and is one of the most mythical ingredients in perfumery.

STOCKISTS: OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ELIE SAAB LE PARFUM RESORT COLLECTION LIMITED EDITION EDT (WOOLWORTHS), CHLOÉ LOVE STORY EAU SENSUELLE EDP (EDGARS, TRUWORTHS AND FOSCHINI), HERMÈS GALOP D’HERMÈS EDP (EDGARS), LANCÔME LA VIE EST BELLE EDP, NARCISO RODRIGUEZ FLEUR MUSC FOR HER EDP (EDGARS AND RED SQUARE), CHANEL COCO MADEMOISELLE LIMITED EDITION EDP PURSE SPRAY WITH CASE AND THREE REFILLS (EDGARS) AND ALAÏA BLANCHE EDP (WOOLWORTHS); THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PACO RABANNE INVICTUS INTENSE (EDGARS, RED SQUARE), AZZARO WANTED (EDGARS), BVLGARI AQVA POUR HOMME ATLANTIQVE (ALL MAJOR RETAILERS NATIONWIDE), CHANEL BLEU DE CHANEL (EDGARS, WOOLWORTHS AND TRUWORTHS) AND HUGO BOSS BOSS BOTTLED TONIC (EDGARS)

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Masterpieces in Miniature

LOOKING AHEAD to what will most likely be another transition year for the fine watchmaking industry, Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH) chairwoman and managing director Fabienne Lupo predicts caution in terms of product offering. ‘Clients want simpler pieces that are more affordable. The brands have done great work, perhaps refocusing, getting back to the essentials of their collections to present products that embody their values completely.’

She was speaking at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva, where some of the world’s best watchmaking innovators unveil new creations in January each year. Private Edition was part of a select group of

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(Above) The Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva showcased some of the world’s most innovative creations in January this year

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Despite a cautiously optimistic mood surrounding the industry, at this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, there were highly innovative timepieces that played with the concept and very interpretation of time. Super-light on the wrist vied with heavyweight watch values. Words DEBBIE HATHWAY

BY INVITATION ONLY

Launch editions of the HM7 Aquapod are expected to sell out by the end of the first quarter of 2017. Collectors who miss out on one of 33 titanium/blue bezel pieces or one of 66 18ct red gold/ black bezel pieces will have to wait until 2018 for a titanium/green bezel version.

journalists invited to be among the first to experience a range of novelties often years in the making, as well as popular product line extensions. ‘These births are incredible moments,’ says MB&F owner Max Busser, ‘when you finally show the product you’ve had so many doubts about.’

MB&F’s launch of the HM7 Aquapod (1), described as a horological jellyfish that glows in the dark, pays tribute to dive watches with its ceramic ‘oversized, floating, rotating bezel’. The mechanical sculpture of 305 parts was four years in production.

The pod-shaped design with its transparent skin features a ‘brain’ under a sapphire dome, a tentacle-like winding 3-D rotor, a central flying tourbillon and a radially symmetrical movement that mimics the anatomy of the animal.

Busser says it was an incredible challenge to produce a final product that not only looked amazing but was also wearable. ‘Every time we come out with a new horological machine, social media goes crazy… The haters start talking and it’s horrible,’ he told an interviewer from TheWATCHES.tv. ‘But everybody seems to love it, which is very weird. I’m not used to this and I’m enjoying it a lot.’

The avant-garde Carré des Horlogers section of independent workshops, designers and watchmakers, of which MB&F forms part, grew this year with the participation of Manufacture Contemporaine du Temps, Romain Jerome, Ressence, Grönefeld and Speake-Marin. Among the ancestral maisons, SIHH founding member Girard-

Perregaux returned to the exhibition and Ulysse Nardin joined for the first time. Both maisons featured among artisan-creator Vianney Halter’s top picks (but more on those in a later issue). For Halter, winner of the Prix Gaïa 2016, which is awarded for dedication to the measurement of time, innovation was a clear draw card. A ‘passionate young watchmaker’ showing the intricacies of Montblanc’s Heritage Chronométrie Exotourbillon Rattrapante (2) grabbed his attention with his explanation of the movement and position of the balance wheel outside the cage. The advantage is in having a larger balance wheel, which is the timekeeping device in a mechanical watch, but saving a lot of energy because the cage is smaller. ‘Well done to the one who imagined it,’ says Halter.

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Independent Finnish watchmaker Kari Voutilainen’s Vingt-8 ISO (3) also gave him something to think about, which was precisely the point. The ISO is the kind of watch that forces the wearer to read the time rather than simply know it at a glance. The minute hand overlaps the hour hand. Every half hour, the hands are opposite each other. The angle between them is the same, no matter the time, while their position in relation to each other is always according to the minutes. The mind boggles. ‘Not the one to wear when you’ve got a plane to catch,’ remarks Halter, ‘because you’ll think you’re half an hour early when you’re actually 30 minutes late!’

Jaeger-LeCoultre posed a similar challenge by removing the hands from the dial of the Hybris Artistica mystérieuse (4). The wearer must tell the time by interpreting the tourbillon’s position on the dial in conjunction with the flange disc that shows the passing minutes. That’s if they can drag their eyes away from the rare artistic crafts demonstrated in the skeletonisation of both the front and back of the case of the five limited-edition pieces for men – or the intricate ivy-leaf decoration of the three unique pieces for women that took one craftsman six months per watch to complete.

Skeleton work also features in Cartier’s Rotonde de Cartier (5) with its calibre 9983 MC, but for the first time in the same watch there is a mysterious movement as well. Instead of being directly linked to the movement, the hands are joined to two sapphire discs fitted with teeth around their circumference that, when activated by the movement, turn the hands – one disc for the minute hand and the other for the hour. And instead of hiding the movement beneath the dial, Cartier has revealed the gear train of the mysterious movement.

This year, both Greubel Forsey and Vacheron Constantin launched their first grande sonnerie watches with eye-watering price tags. As innovative as they are rare, this complication exists in the collections of fewer than 10 manufactures in the world. The Greubel Forsey Grande Sonnerie (6) took 11 years in research and development (R&D).

It comprises 935 parts in a 43,5mm diameter and

The architectural design of the limited-edition Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Artistica mystérieuse for men (4) is achieved with a skeletonised mother-ofpearl lace pattern over a blue aventurine dial that gives a 3-D effect to the orbital flying tourbillon

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16,13mm high case, and can be set to three modes – the grande sonnerie (which strikes the hours and quarters), petite sonnerie (which strikes the full hours) and silence. The maison prefers not to talk price, so we wait until somebody asks tentatively, ‘The value then?’ That would be CHF1 500 000 (R20 243 815,48). Excluding tax. It does inspire a sharp intake of breath.

At a fractionally lower cost, around CHF1 million, Vacheron Constantin’s Les Cabinotiers Symphonia Grande Sonnerie 1860 (7) was a decade in the works. Its grande sonnerie, petite sonnerie and minute repeater complications are housed in a case measuring 37mm wide and 9,1mm deep, transparent at the back to admire the striking mechanism. Vacheron Constantin offers investors the opportunity to customise the case and dial through their bespoke department, which could increase the price.

At just short of a million Swiss francs, Richard Mille launched the lightest mechanical chronograph ever in its RM 50-03/01 Tourbillon Split-seconds Chronograph Ultralight McClaren F1 (8) of which 75 numbered, limited-edition pieces will be available through Richard Mille boutiques.

The result of ‘relentless technical innovation’, the 600 parts weigh less than 40g, including the strap.

The movement alone weighs 7g. The secret? It’s in the materials combination of titanium, carbon TPT and graph TPT (graphene).

Roger Dubuis nailed the innovation theme too, releasing three world premieres in choice of material. The Excalibur Cobalt Quator Micromelt (9), a visually striking piece in cobalt chrome with white gold, cobalt blue and red accents, features the cobalt chrome alloy used in aeronautics and astronomy. ‘Don’t simply look at the piece,’ they said. ‘Listen to it. It’s like a symphony.

The hand-wound 590-part RD101 Quatuor movement – beating at a frequency of 4x4 Hz (115,200 vph) with its four sprung balances and five differentials creates the sound of engines.’

At the start of the fair, one of the eight pieces was presumed sold at CHF 390 000 (R5 253 627,61).

The investment in the pieces described here are as extraordinary as the creations. Private Edition and the special Private Time magazine published midyear will feature more on the range of releases designed to revitalise trade across the fine watchmaking spectrum throughout the year.

Visit sihh.org for more information.

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FOCUS

The more things stay the same…

THERE’S AN UNWAVERING lifestyle duality that I find fascinating – it’s all very same-same, yet everything’s so different.

Let me break it down for you. When I look at the physicality of life, I see much of the same. People’s wardrobes feature many of the same brands and styles. Skinny jeans, branded T-shirts and button-downs. Leggings and designer bags. Hairstyles remain the same – spiky, gelled, short hair for the guys, long blown-out hair for the girls. Women’s hemlines rise and fall, but the silhouette remains much the same. We even fly the same way – minus the Concorde – and airplane interiors haven’t really evolved much since the 1960s.

We still see French movies and afterwards still spin out over cappuccini to dissect the plot. Are you ready for your third decade of avo-and-grilled-chicken salad, served with a splash of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar? Many of our tactile touch points are seemingly frozen in time.

Yet, at the same time, we live in a completely different world when life is approached from a mental angle. Our lives have undergone a life-changing revolution, driven by technology.

We order food and taxis, and book hotel rooms on our phones.

Singles meet new people online in digital cafes and bars. Our newspapers and magazines are electronic, as are our postal and telephone systems. On this level, life has leapt forward at warp speed.

At times, it’s difficult to reconcile the two streams – one perhaps best described as ‘on the street’, the other as ‘in the air’.

On the street, we pretty much live the same way we did 20 years ago. In the air, it’s another world. Innovation is what drives the latter.

Innovation moves things forward. By its very dictionary definition, innovation is a ‘new idea, device or method’.

But I also see it as an improvement on an existing concept.

Watches, in particular, have long evolved into a modern classic and have become an integral – some might say definitive – part of our daily global-economy living. We socialise, work, exercise, travel, connect and rest to the ever-sweeping minute hand that paces our lives.

So, it always excites me when one of our iconic watchmakers innovates. This year Jaeger-LeCoultre has added a discreet note of innovation to their ladies Rendez-Vous line, introducing the Sonatina*. The edition sounds a very gentle, once-off chime to remind you that you have a rendez-vous. The Rendez-Vous is

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oh-so-thoroughly modern, yet it harks back to a more genteel time before shrill-sounding cellphone reminders, repetitive electronic beeps, heart-stopping alarms and incessant ringing.

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Rendez-Vous is one of dozens of iconic and innovative timepieces from the world’s most coveted Swiss watchmaking houses that you’ll find at Elegance Jewellers. And there’s no need to set an electronic reminder – visit at your leisure. We’re always here for you (and that’s something that’s never changed over the past 50 years since our founding).

We’ll see you soon.

ORESTI MAVRODARIS Creative Director Elegance Jewellers

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED * THE JAEGER-LECOULTRE RENDEZ-VOUS SONATINA IS A LIMITED EDITION WITH JUST 18 PIECES AVAILABLE.

Life is strange. When I look back 20 years, I see that much is the same on so many levels – yet so much has changed.

WATCHES

Notes on the most classic beauties, audacious innovative, complicated and moderns and singular definition-defying timepieces spoils in the on theworld planetof Jewellery

ART DE VIVRE Pushing the boundaries of precision Cartier’s Drive de Cartier Moon Phases takes timekeeping to the next level with its astronomic complication needing correction by just one day in 125 years. Powered by the new Manufacture movement 1904-LU MC, the watch’s moon-phase complication at 6 o’clock tracks the moon’s orbit of the earth.

It’s a classy addition to the Drive de Cartier collection, designed for the stylish, independent thinker who puts a premium on wearability. With its cushion-shaped case and simple white guilloche dial, it’s a modern accessory in rose gold or stainless steel with classic references that make it ideal for any occasion. cartier.com

BLUE-SKY THINKING Jaeger-LeCoultre has created a magnificent rendition of the night sky in the Rendez-Vous Celestial, one of the latest models from the Métiers Rares® atelier. Perpetuating a level of artistry that has been practised for generations, the 37,5mm enamel dial features a lapis lazuli sky hand-painted with the 12 signs of the zodiac and encircled by sapphires and diamonds on the bezel (right). Inspired by the aurora borealis, this piece is as much an artwork as it is a watch. In another model, shades of amethyst colour the rotating celestial map as seen from the northern hemisphere while the baguette-cut sapphires reflect blue, pink and violet light. The position of the star can be set by one of the crowns to indicate the next rendezvous. The Rendez-Vous Celestial is also available in pink gold or in a high-jewellery version with white gold and diamonds. jaeger-lecoultre.com

COSMIC DANCE There’s much to admire in Girard-Perregaux’s Tri-Axial Planetarium, which features two delicately hand-painted astronomical complications. The rotating globe catches our eye first, even though the lunar disk and Tri-Axial tourbillon are complex features in their own right. The tourbillon drives the hours, minutes, moon-phase and day/night functions. The globe completes one rotation in 24 hours, and displays a miniature view of the world in 1791, when GirardPerregaux was established. At noon, the arrow at the base of this 13mmdiameter aluminium sphere will indicate where it is daylight on the dial side, and where it is evening on the back. The lunar disc is just as meticulously decorated to reflect the selenography at the time the telescope was invented. You need only adjust the astronomical moon-phase indicator once every 122 years, so be sure to leave instructions to your next-in-line. girard-perregaux.com

WORDS: DEBBIE HATHWAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

DA VINCI’S CODE Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s exploration of mathematic and artistic proportion, IWC Schaffhausen’s Da Vinci line is all about harmonious patterns and timeless beauty. But that’s on the surface. Reverting to the round case now synonymous with the IWC style, the Da Vinci watches hold the promise of new complications and Manufacture movements to match the inventiveness of the maison’s engineers. The Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Chronograph (right) is a case in point. It’s the brand’s first watch to combine both hour and minute counters with the moon phase on one subdial.

With the Da Vinci Automatic 36 and the Da Vinci Automatic Moon Phase 36, IWC is also re-establishing an old tradition of creating selected models from the line specially for women and adding diamonds or fashionable straps and bracelets as features. iwc.com

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WATCHES

WATCHES

Notes on the classic beauties, audacious moderns and singular spoils in the world of Jewellery

OVER THE MOON Audemars Piguet was the first to launch a perpetual calendar wristwatch with leap-year indication in 1955 and many others have since followed suit. This year the maison introduces a full-black 41mm self-winding version to its Royal Oak Perpetual Calendars line. The ceramic bracelet alone takes 30 hours to complete, five times longer than what is needed to machine, polish, hand-finish and assemble a stainless-steel Royal Oak bracelet. It’s the final flourish on a timepiece that was 600 hours in research and development and features the day, date, month and astronomical moon, as well as the week of the year on the dial’s outer chapter ring. The leap year indication takes pride of place on the Grande Tapisserie-decorated slate-grey dial with black counters but what we love most is the photorealistic moon at 6 o’clock. audemarspiguet.com

OFF-CENTRE STAGE If you fancy a bit of science fiction on your wrist, Romain Jerome’s latest addition to the Moon-DNA collection should do it for you. The Moon Orbiter features an unusually shaped case without a bezel, built around a flying tourbillon with 3-D architecture. And in true Romain Jerome style, expect talkability: the 49mm wide, 45mm long and 20mm thick design incorporates elements from Apollo 11. You can read the time via an off-centred 3 o’clock counter on the right-hand side of the dial and monitor the 42-hour power reserve on a subdial between the lugs at 6 o’clock. The lugs are mounted on pneumatic cylinders to ensure a comfortable, smooth fit. Only 25 pieces are available. romainjerome.ch

SKY MAPPING Collectors mad about moon-phase complications will be keen to add Vacheron Constantin’s latest creation to their collection. The Les Cabinotiers Celestia Astronomical Grand Complication 3600 watch features 23 mainly astronomical complications produced by one master watchmaker. Fitting the calibre comprising 514 components into an 8,7mm calibre is a feat in itself. The extremely rare ‘running’ equation of time enables instant reading of true solar time via an additional coaxial minutes hand. A tropical gear train simulating the tropical year (the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun, that is), to which the solar hand is set, has a patent pending. The dial displays civil time indications, solar time indications and a mareoscope. On the back is a celestial chart of the northern hemisphere indicating sidereal time, for which a patent has been filed. vacheron-constantin.com

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INNOVATION ESSAY

At the Heart of Innovation

PHOTOGRAPHY: SHIMANSKY

Change is the only constant in life for Shimansky, and innovation is key when it comes to timeless design.

CREATING CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS is a special kind of choreography that begins with a meticulous selection of diamonds for what will ultimately be their grand finale, a transformation from rough stone to a flawless and original piece of jewellery.

Between the earth and the final revelation lies the creative designer, always restless in pursuit of perfection, and the master craftsman who will determine how the diamond is cut to maximise its potential. Both collaborate and innovate for the most important stage: the jewellery’s impact on the eye and its defining moment.

For Shimansky to be at the forefront of innovation means challenging the norm and exploring new frontiers. It is a life path and a discipline. All of us live with the potential to become our own master designer, one facet at a time, moving forward in a constant evolution.

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JEWELLERY

Notes on the classic beauties, audacious moderns and singular spoils in the world of jewellery WRISTY BUSINESS Sublime in its simplicity and sheer elegance, Cartier’s new Juste un Clou wraparound bracelet is part of a suite of pieces designed to elevate a humble piece of hardware into something altogether more desirable. The bracelet is available in a variety of precious metals and is based on a cult design using a nail that was first showcased by the brand in the 70s. The 21st-century version is bold without being brash, simple without being insignificant – it’s effortlessly stylish and a certain heritage piece. cartier.com

ELEGANT CHOICE Founded as a family business in 1967, Elegance Jewellers is considered one of the country’s leading fine jewellery merchants, offering the most coveted jewels and exclusive Swiss watch brands.

Their impeccable service and stylish shopping environment is ideal for the urban Johannesburg consumer. They offer a curated collection of the best local and international design, and showcase global brands in addition to offering their own signature line of beautiful jewellery. ejewels.co.za

WORDS: JUSTINE HEWITT. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

EDEN’S OFFERING Named for the delicate carissa, the intensely scented, exotic white flower synonymous with warm climates and endemic to South Africa, Delaire Graff’s Carissa collection consists of a series of showstopping necklaces, earrings and bracelets in diamonds, or a combination of diamonds with rubies, emeralds or sapphires. Like its namesake, whose scent intensifies come nightfall, so the brilliant pear and marquise gemstones carefully pieced in a floral pattern come into their own after dark giving them undoubted red-carpet appeal. delaire.co.za

DAZZLING DUO South African diamond and precious gem maestros Charles Greig have done it again with two new ready-to-wear offerings. The magnificent White Gold Diamond and Sapphire Half Eternity ring, resplendent in diamonds and a band of sapphires is an on-trend choice albeit with an impressive pedigree, while the daintiness of their new White Gold Heart Shape Diamond Full Eternity ring belies its hefty gem credentials – 18 round brilliant cut diamonds in heart-shaped settings and 18 carat white gold ensures this is much more than just a piece of pretty. charlesgreig.co.za

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DÉCOR

Cut-above Rugs WHEN IT COMES TO DÉCOR TRENDS, it’s clear that designer rugs are smoking-hot news. Whereas chairs are still enjoying their place in the sun, and wallpaper too, it’s in the last few years that rugs – especially unusual, handmade and designdriven specimens – have catapulted into the style stratosphere, bringing sexy straight back to floor level. There is no doubt that The Rug Company is up there in the category of the world’s most desired rugs. And for very good reasons.

At the time when The Rug Company opened its doors in 1997, brand Cool Britannia – spearheaded by the likes of Kate Moss, Oasis and artists like Damian Hirst – was just taking off.

Edginess in décor circles was just becoming a thing, since until then, the UK interiors scene was for the most part a little staid, with traditional ideas of ‘British’ style epitomised by scenes of fox hunts and fishing. The founders, husband-and-wife team Christopher and Suzanne Sharp, turned that notion on its head.

And with a bang. The first rugs to hit the ground, so to speak, featured designs by fashion talents who epitomised the ’90s zeitgeist. And they were an instant hit.

It was this collaborative approach that would set the tone for the Sharps’ company, and a glance at their website of past and current collaborators reveals an alphabet of names to know, from Alexander McQueen to Vivienne Westwood. It’s clear from the pool of talents that the Sharps are ever aware of how fashion informs décor – the likes of Diane von Furstenburg, Paul Smith (whose Swirl rug is a modern classic) and Matthew Williamson feature – and their designs for The Rug Company are as arresting as their creations on the catwalk. Other design greats in the mix include US-based Jonathan Adler, famous for his prolific interior, product and surface design work, and Spanish ceramics maestro Jaime Hayon. Nowadays, being asked to create something for The Rug Company is a rite of passage and certainly an indication that a designer has made it.

Innovation and tackling an ancient craft’s production process with fresh eyes has always been a key focus for The Rug Company – in the 20 years since it has opened its doors one

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constant has remained: an unbridled passion for craftsmanship.

It’s why owners of pieces from The Rug Company treat their rugs like the works of art they are – giving them pride of place in their homes, marrying them with complementary items and extolling the artistic virtues of the particular designer responsible for their investment.

Like a coveted piece of art, a rug from The Rug Company is no flippant floor covering – it is an heirloom in the making. One wool rug takes four months and about 20 people to finish, and each is made in the same time-honoured tradition by craftsmen and -women in Nepal. Passionate about fair-trade principles, the Sharps are at pains to explain how important it is that their products are as pedigreed as they are ethically produced. In a 2011 interview on US interiors website Apartment Therapy, Christopher extended this notion: ‘We hired an independent professional to give us an ethical and environmental audit…

The best thing you can do in the developing world is to give people jobs… It’s really important to give people work, as long as you look after them and provide them with proper wages, schooling, and medical care.’

In recent years the Sharps have broadened their horizons.

Not only have they opened a store in South Africa, their traditional use of wool in The Rug Company offerings has also morphed to include other fibres and décor items. From knotted silk rugs and flat-weave cotton dhurries to cushions, wall hangings and throws, décor fundis can now own a piece of The Rug Company pie in a range of formats. Yet purists will agree that to own a pure-wool, hand-dyed and -woven rug from this quintessentially cool brand is an excellent aspiration. It’s just deciding which one to take home that’s the hard part.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

A cult brand in British interiors circles, The Rug Company has taken things up a notch on the local décor scene with a move to these shores. Words JUSTINE HEWITT

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DÉCOR

Notes on décor and design news to spark direction and creativity

KITCHEN COUTURE Beauty meets practicality in a new artisanal range designed for the home The new bespoke kitchen collection from cult local homeware brand Weylandts is certainly a cut above its competitors! Style-savvy cooks can expect to find the highest quality handforged Japanese and German chef’s tools, an array of artisan-made practical essentials as well as a beautiful selection of tableware in on-trend natural materials including marble, wood, terracotta and glazed porcelain.

This move to custom-made kitchenware is testament to the Weylandts brand’s passion for sourcing the best global finds for every area of the home. weylandts.co.za

GREEN CREDENTIALS

WORDS: JUSTINE HEWITT. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Looking for a statement chair? Look no further than this elegant beauty – the Consonance Armchair. One of the newest offerings from Roche Bobois, the international brand that features creations from a pedigreed pool of names to know, this conversation piece is by Italian design duo Roberto Tapinassi and Maurizio Manzoni.

A combination of leather and velvet ensures its status as an opulent choice that straddles sci-fi chic and organic-influenced style beautifully. roche-bobois.com

PRACTICAL MAGIC Recently launched at Maison et Objet in Paris and a fitting homage to the late starchitect Zaha Hadid, Alessi’s Forma Cheese Grater is already a collector’s item. True to Alessi’s philosophy of working with acclaimed designers, it is a statement piece imbued with well-designed functionality. The sensual, pebble-inspired shape of the melamine base is the perfect foil for the 18/10 stainless steel grater that comfortably fits in one’s hand. alessi.com

FOR ORDERLY MINDS Inspired by no-nonsense industrial style and created with sheer glamour in mind, these sleek Iro Shelves by Windsor Smith are an A-list accessory for any home. Honed marble sets a sophisticated tone while the brass frame keeps it absolutely on trend.

Use for essentials in a bathroom, keeping order in an office or displaying special collectables. arteriorshome.com

ANCIENT AND MODERN British born designer Alexander Lamont has lived in Asia for the past twenty years. Here he works with local craftsmen, harnessing their ancient skills and marrying them with European techniques such as marquetry and gilt leafing – and a myriad contemporary furnishing concepts. This pair of tear drop shaped tables are virtual gems for the home: their glowing straw marquetry tops contrast magnificently with hand forged bronze bases and are certainly modern classics in the making. alexanderlamont.com

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ILLUSTRATION: THEO KRYNAUW REPRESENTED BY SPARX MEDIA

THINK THINKTANK TANK

If I Am What I Eat… Many of us feel that if we had to witness where our meat really came from, we wouldn’t be able to eat it. And yet, as rational, compassionate beings, we make choices every day that are in conflict with our values. Why? Words GABRIELLA GEFFEN

DR MELANIE JOY is a special kind of vegan advocate. The Harvard-educated psychologist and eighth winner of the Ahimsa Award (previously won by the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela), does not tell you to stop eating meat. She delves into the psychology of why the meat industry is so normalised and the cognitive distortions that are keeping ‘carnistic’ ideology afloat.

She reconnects you to that part of yourself that wants no harm done to other beings.

‘Let’s leave words such as “right” or “wrong” out of this,’ Joy begins. ‘Let’s talk about making choices that align with our values and how we want to relate to the world. Once we recognise the irrationality of our choices, do we throw up our hands and say, “Screw it. I can either live with no contradictions or all contradictions”? Or do we observe this inner contradiction with compassion and choose to walk along a continuum of awareness, with integration as the guiding principle?’

Currently, animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, habitat destruction and global warming. However, one person swapping only one beef burger with a plant-based option saves 5 000g of CO2 and 2 000 litres of water. One person taking one day off meat is equivalent to saving water from 50 showers.

But what about your health? What about Banting? ‘In the US,’ she says, ‘the low-carb Atkins diet is regarded in the same light as doctors who used to advocate smoking for healthy lungs.

Atkins himself died of a heart attack.’ Yes, refined, processed carbs are not healthy, but good-quality carbs are not evil.

According to Joy, veganism is not just about choosing to have an honest relationship with food. ‘There is growing literature on how healthy veganism is, and many athletes are choosing vegan diets specifically to optimise well-being and athletic performance. It is not this false dichotomy between my health and the earth that many people make it out to be.’

The thing to remember with our objections, she says, is that our views on how to live and eat are biased or, rather, conditioned. ‘We often think that vegans and vegetarians are

the only ones who are living according to an ideology,’ Joy says. ‘However, we are born into an invisible belief system that conditions us to eat animals and is institutionalised right from state to the family. Carnism explains why people in different cultures find the thought of a cow, a pig, or a dog disgusting, while others do not, and how we often just stop thinking and feeling when it comes to eating animals.’ Joy has given a name to this dominant ideology – carnism – in an effort to bring it out into the open.

‘The vast majority of people genuinely care about animals and would never willingly participate in violence towards them,’ Joy stresses. ‘Yet our choice to eat animals is normalised by a system that is based on violence, and which uses cognitive distortions in order to get the compliance of empathic beings to go against something they would not choose if they were fully aware. The industry distorts perceptions through keeping both the ideology and the victims invisible.’

Next, the system relies upon justifications and the creation of myths around meat, eggs and dairy. Myth 1: Protein. ‘Meat is not a nutrient,’ Joy stresses. ‘It is made up of amino acids.

These same amino acids (the building blocks of protein) are in plant-based foods, in a more readily available form and without the violence. Myth 2: The theory that our brains developed to be as sophisticated as they are because of eating meat. ‘There is also a theory that we got smart by using our brains to figure out how to hunt animals, not in the eating of them,’ says Joy. Myth 3: Animals are not sentient beings. Pigs are as intelligent as three-year-old humans. Cows form deep and lasting lifetime bonds. Chickens risk their lives for one another. Fish have pain receptors and are much more intelligent than previously acknowledged. Myth 4: Humane/free-range meat. Would you eat a humanely killed golden retriever? Why not? Myth 5: Eating meat is normal, natural and necessary. Joy notes that the same myth has been used as a rationale for slavery and male domination.

The justifications for carnism largely stem from a typical ‘don’t rock the boat’ way of thinking. Carnism is so pervasive an ideology that people who do not want to engage in an industry of violence are stereotyped as hippies or pathologised by even the most compassionate psychologists as ‘extremists’ or ‘eatingdisorder cases’. Yet the slaughtering of 1,2 billion animals every week is considered normal.

Veganism is a mind shift. ‘And we don’t have to be 100 percent vegan to be a part of the solution,’ Joy says. ‘We just need to commit to reducing our participation in carnism, and to making choices that reflect what we authentically think and feel rather than what we have been taught to feel.’

‘It takes an incredible amount of psychic energy to disconnect from the truth of our experience day in and day out, and to pretend to ourselves that the meat is something and not someone. Becoming vegan released much of the energy that I was investing in numbing myself when I ate. The level of connectedness that I was able to experience with my food – and with life – has completely transformed.’

Can we change and live lightly – with consciousness and compassion? It’s a compelling choice.

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BREAKTHROUGH

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BREAKTHROUGH

The Secret Life of Rooibos

PHOTOGRAPHY: THINKSTOCK.COM

Rooibos enjoys an international reputation as a soothing, healthy drink with a bonus point as a beauty elixir. But it appears that the extract from the green leaves may also be a beneficial biological weapon. Words KATHY MALHERBE

ALTHOUGH IT HAS BEEN well established that rooibos is rich in antioxidants and reduces oxidative stress (Khoisan people have used rooibos medicinally for hundreds of years), Professor Wentzel Gelderblom of Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s Institute of Biomedical and Microbial Biotechnology says the research on rooibos extract’s ability to remove precancerous cells in the skin should be considered a breakthrough.

For the past 11 years, scientists from the South African Medical Research Council and Cape Peninsula University of Technology have been involved in studying how rooibos can prevent skin cancer by protecting against inflammation in skin cells, since chronic inflammation is one of the hallmarks of skin-cancer development. The scientists have discovered that an extract of rooibos tea is unique in that it can remove UVBdamaged cells, delaying or preventing their progression into a tumour. It does so by stopping the multiplication of cancerous cells and removing these by prompting them to ‘commit suicide’ – a process that is scientifically referred to as ‘programmed cell death’. Gelderblom points out that the extract works on basal- and squamous-cell carcinoma, and not on melanoma.

So what makes rooibos unique?

Most of us have heard of flavonoids, the ‘good cops’ found naturally in a variety of fruit and vegetables thought to provide

health benefits through antioxidant effects. According to Gelderblom, it is the flavonoid aspalathin, found in high quantities in green rooibos leaves, that is important. It is thought to help protect the plant against oxidative stress and the harsh environment.

Scientists have been working with unfermented rooibos and an empirical form of ‘reading the tea leaves’ has revealed that it can also undo some of the damage caused by the sun’s harmful rays. Gelderblom, one of the lead researchers in the study, says, ‘Once the skin has been exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays, rooibos extracts have the ability to remove precancerous damaged cells, thereby blocking the onset of chronic inflammation.’

Harvard Medical School quotes Dr Andrew Luster of the Centre for Immunology and Inflammatory Diseases at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital: ‘Inflammation is like a fire in your body you cannot see or feel.

It’s a smouldering process that injures your body, and you often do not notice it until significant damage is done.

However, inflammation is not evil per se. It is chronic inflammation, where the flame persists. This is a process where white blood cells flood the problem area and end up attacking nearby healthy tissues and organs as well as the area of injury.’ Such inflammation causes cell damage and DNA mutations, and not only skin cancer but also other cancers.

‘Rooibos has the ability to remove precancerous damaged cells, thereby blocking the onset of chronic inflammation.’

After sun damage, it is normal for skin cells to go into apoptosis or programmed cell death to remove damaged cells. Rooibos extract would accelerate this to ensure the removal of potentially mutating cells that may only manifest themselves as skin cancer 20 or 30 years later. Just like chemotherapy, it results in induced apoptosis or controlled cell deletion – the major difference being that in chemo healthy cells are damaged as well. In this scenario, it would appear that the rooibos flavonoids turned out to act as pro-oxidants. They increase oxidative stress in the cell and programme it to commit suicide, destroying the molecules that causes inflammation. They also remove DNA-damaged cells, which is another key determinant for cancer development.

So can we expect a miracle aftersun cream in the near future? Gelderblom says, ‘We are in a new phase of developing biomarkers – that is, an objectively measured and evaluated response to a therapeutic intervention.

Very importantly, we must ascertain the correct quantity of extract needed for efficacy for the most specific doseresponsive effects. Lab trials and then clinical trials will follow.’

He recommends that using an aftersun skincare product containing rooibos extract, as based on the findings of the current studies, could be beneficial. He warns, however, that care should be exercised, as these products should be validated first before any health claims can be made.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: AUSTEN JOHNSTON, ETCHED SPACE

ADVENTURE

A bird’s-eye view of Benguela Diamonds’ ‘base camp’: a luxury villa at the seam of the semi-desert near Port Nolloth

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The Deepest Cuts You bought your girl a diamond? Big deal. You can prove it’s not a ‘blood’ diamond? Good on your ethical heart. You dived into the freezing Atlantic and dredged the ocean floor to find a suitable gem for her? Standing ovation.

Words JIM FREEMAN

YOU CAN’T EAT JEWELLERY but you can certainly dine out on it, especially when the round-the-table conversation turns to a discussion of the various glittering baubles on display.

While a shopping spree at Van Cleef & Arpels, Tiffany & Co or Graff might be hard to top in both the extravagance and braggadocio stakes, regaling fellow guests with your ‘diamond safari’ adventures in the rugged Namaqualand should guarantee an audience. However, with a price tag of R220K (for a group of two to eight people, excluding diamonds and make-up of jewellery) for a single day, the safari is not much cheaper than a trip to a ritzy manufacturer’s showroom.

Consequently, to date its appeal has been limited largely to well-heeled visitors from Europe.

One person who has (literally) dined out on what he describes as ‘an extraordinary experience’ is award-winning Latvian chef Martins Ritins of Vincents Restorāns in the picturesque Baltic port city of Riga. Ritins has cooked for – among others – Prince Charles, Elton John, the emperor of Japan, and the king of multisensory cuisine, Heston Blumenthal.

‘I tell people how we were picked up by Rolls-Royce from Camps Bay early in the morning and driven to Cape Town International Airport. Our group of eight boarded a private charter for Port Nolloth, where we were transferred to a beautiful waterfront villa that has its own jetty.

After a warm welcome and briefing by a professional diver, those of us who wanted to dive for diamonds changed into wetsuits and walked down to the boat.’

They didn’t have far to go, says Wynand Hendrikse, head of the tour operator Benguela Diamonds and the driving force behind the initiative. Hendrikse, 41, is a son of Namaqualand, born in Nababeep about 600km north of Cape Town. He’s been in the diamond industry for the past 22 years, having started as a deep-water diver in nearby Port Nolloth before gaining further experience elsewhere in Africa. When Hendrikse returned to the Northern Cape alluvial fields, he also opened a jewellery store in Stellenbosch because ‘people who knew I was in the industry kept asking if I could get diamonds’, he says. ‘We obtained a 22km-long shallow-water private diamonddiving concession off Port Nolloth in 2008 and it’s into this zone that we take our tourists.’

One of the most important aspects of his safari, Hendrikse explains, is that there is no question whether the diamonds collected have been mined to fund wars or internecine conflict.

‘We assure our clients they are diving for “ethical” diamonds and provide them with appropriate certificates of provenance.’ For years, he’d wanted to show people how alluvial diamonds were mined and this desire inspired Benguela Diamonds. ‘It’s a practice that’s virtually unknown to the public because of the closed nature of the industry – and a pretty thrilling experience.’

Zurich-based attorney and investment adviser Peter R Ackermann described his trip into the chilly waters off the West Coast as part of a group of eight in late 2016 as ‘an unforgettable adventure that provided wonderful, brilliant-as-diamond memories’.

ADVENTURE

(Above) Braving the icy Atlantic for the adventure of a lifetime – diving for diamonds off the coast of Africa. (Right) The proof of the pudding... looking for diamonds in the alluvial gravel

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work all day, even before the visitors arrived.

There have been canapés as well as nonstop snacks for those who stayed ‘at home’, and now the fires have been lit, the crayfish braaied. The chilled wines are opened and poured. And Martins Ritins is ecstatic. He’ll have a lot to talk about when he gets back to Riga.

Benguela Diamonds is named after the predominant current that flows northwards along the west coast of Africa, a region that holds rich reserves of minerals – diamonds, in particular. The company not only dives for these gems, it also has its own cutting works, a goldsmith and a boutique in Stellenbosch. Visit bengueladiamonds.com to find out more.

PHOTOGRAPHY: AUSTEN JOHNSTON

While only commercially rated divers can do the actual mining – diamond-bearing gravel is vacuumed up from the ocean floor to the boat – those who want to observe first-hand require only a basic diving competency. ‘Basically, they need to present us with a level-one diving competency certificate in order to get into the water,’ says Hendrikse.

The visitors don’t spend much time in the Atlantic: it’s bitterly cold, after all, and never mind the neoprene. The boat speeds back to the villa, where guests have a hot shower before heading to an in-house sorting room. The entire group, those who went out on the water as well as those who remained at the villa, cluster around the central pan as potentially diamond-bearing grit (any sand from the ocean floor has already been washed off) spews onto the surface in front of them. The search begins. Excitement mounts as the first stone is lifted and verified as a diamond. And the next. And the next.

While guests are selecting the gems that will become bespoke jewellery pieces, the hired private chef is preparing an extraordinary and uniquely Namaqualand feast. Actually, the team has been at

ADVENTURE

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PHOTO ESSAY

Living Art Jason deCaires Taylor’s underwater sculptures are a creative paradox. Designed to be absorbed by the ocean and transformed into living reefs, his work is an attempt at creating a connection between people and the fragile oceans.

Words JENNIFER CAMPBELL Photography JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR | CACT LANZAROTE

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Crossing the Rubicon depicts 35 figures walking towards an underwater wall with a rectangular doorway at its centre that represents a boundary between two realities and a portal to the Atlantic Ocean. The wall is 30m long and 4m high, and is intended to be a monument to absurdity, a dysfunctional barrier in the middle of a vast fluid, three-dimensional space, which can be bypassed in any direction

PHOTO ESSAY

Detail from The Raft of Lampedusa, a reflection on human suffering and the current refugee crisis, when it was still on dry land

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PHOTO ESSAY

The Raft of Lampedusa is lowered into the water. Made of pH-neutral concrete, the sculpture will act as an artificial reef and help marine species to reproduce and grow

CREATED TO PROTECT the marine environment and to promote environmental education, the Museo Atlántico is a museum project designed by artist Jason deCaires Taylor. Twelve metres under water off the south coast of Lanzarote, in the Bahia de Las Coloradas, the museum site was chosen for its physical landscape and covers 2 500m2, which is accessible to divers. Ocean conservation is at the heart of Taylor’s work, and his collection will, over time, create an artificial reef made up of a series of pH-neutral concrete sculptures that will help marine life to flourish.

Taylor has worked as a diving instructor and underwater naturalist, and has won numerous underwater-photography awards for his dramatic images that capture the evolution of sculptures and the metamorphic effects of the ocean. In 2006, he created the world’s first underwater park on the west coast of Grenada in the Caribbean that was declared a protected underwater national area by the local government. In 2009, he went on to create MUSA, an underwater art museum near the coast of Cancún, Mexico, made up of more than 500 sculptures. His sculptures are designed to be changed by the sea and to evolve into living reefs, making each one unique and subject to the movement of the ocean and its marine life.

Behind each piece is the desire to promote environmental awareness and inspire social change, as well as offer viewers the opportunity to appreciate the natural, powerful and ever-changing beauty of the underwater world.

The layout of the Museo Atlántico is designed along a route made up of 12 sections, beginning with Los Jolateros, which shows a group of children on brass boats. The sculpture makes reference to a local tradition and also represents a metaphor for the precarious future of our children. Next is a piece called Inmortal, a sculpture that was moulded using a local fisherman from La Graciosa island on the north coast of Lanzarote as a model. The figure rests on a stack of concrete sticks that represent a traditional funeral pyre.

The Raft of Lampedusa is based on Théodore Gericáult’s 1818 painting,

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PHOTO ESSAY

The Raft of Lampedusa represents the parallelism between hope and loss, paying tribute to those who have lost their lives at sea. Its title is a nod to GÊricault’s painting The Raft of the Medusa, the subject of which was the survivors of a controversial shipwreck in the early 19th century

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PHOTO ESSAY

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PHOTO ESSAY

In keeping with the symbolism of the composition of The Raft of Lampedusa, Taylor chose people from all over the world as models for the passengers. Among them is Abdel Kader, an immigrant from Morocco who arrived at Lanzarote by boat when he was only 12. He sat for the artist to help capture the hopeful figure seated upright in the helm of the vessel

The Raft of the Medusa, which depicts survivors who were abandoned by the ship’s officers when it ran aground in 1816 off the coast of today’s Mauritania. It is a comment on the current refugee crisis, paying tribute to those who have lost their lives in their journey across the sea. The shape of the boat is inspired by the dinghies on which many immigrants arrive at Lanzarote. Nearby is Disconnected, which shows a couple standing together, taking a selfie. Its placement next to The Raft of Lampedusa is a comment on the way we use technology and how tragic human moments are often turned into background events. A little further along is Crossing the Rubicon, an impressive scene made up of 35 figures walking towards an underwater wall that represents a boundary between two realities and a portal to the Atlantic Ocean. The wall is 30m long and 4m high, and is made of a combination of industrial and organic materials. Intended to be a monument to absurdity, the piece shows how ownership and territories are irrelevant to the natural world. It aims to remind us that we cannot segregate our oceans, air, climate or wildlife as we do our land and possessions, and we are all an integral part of a living system.

A reference to the rich vegetation of Lanzarote is Hybrid Garden, which features sculptures that are designed to look half-human, half-cactus – a representation of nature and humanity living in harmony. The Portal, on the other hand, depicts a hybrid of animal and human looking into a large square mirror that reflects the

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surface of the ocean. The concept of the artwork is intended to depict water within water, a kind of looking glass into another world. The mirror is elevated on a series of compartments designed to attract small sea creatures.

A scene where businessmen in suits play in a children’s playground is titled Deregulated and was designed to demonstrate the arrogance of corporations towards the natural world.

A see-saw represents an oil pump and makes reference to the unregulated use of fossil fuels, while a dolphin ride makes a comment on the burden we place on marine species.

Last in the exhibition is Human Gyre, where more than 200 life-size figures are placed in a circle. The structure forms a large, complex reef formation for marine creatures to inhabit and makes an effective statement, suggesting that we are all subject to the movement of the ocean – a poignant end to a fascinating series of installations.

The installation Hybrid Garden comprises sculptures that are half-human, half-cactus, symbolising harmony between humanity and nature

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ACCELERATE

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ACCELERATE

It’s All About the Range

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

While driving an electric car may offer a nippy suburban solution, hybrids kick the tech up a notch with other surprisingly ‘green’ alternatives. Words JIM FREEMAN ‘WE HAVE TWO MEANS of heating water,’ says Robyn Patz as she shows me around my tent-cottage at Teniqua Treetops in the forests outside Sedgefield, ‘We have solar and gas power. There’s usually enough sunlight to use the solar option but when it’s cold and overcast for several days in a row, switch over to gas. Don’t try to use them both at the same time because the water won’t get hot.’

Most people give Robyn untold plaudits for her ecotourism initiative on the Garden Route but it’s only people who spend a large part of their lives around cars that would immediately think, ‘Aha! Hybrid.’

Technically speaking, Robyn’s system is a hybrid in that two disparate energy sources work together to heat water and keep it hot. However, unlike in the case of mated automotive powertrains, her solar panels and gas bottles cannot switch instantly and seamlessly from one to the other. ‘Clean’ engines were designed for a single purpose: to reduce the amount of harmful exhaust emissions discharged into the atmosphere and combat global warming. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are all the rage in Europe, where enviro-nannies have passed stringent laws limiting carbon-dioxide emissions, especially in cities. PHEVs such as the BMW i3 use rechargeable batteries and (when operated in all-electric mode) emit zero pollutants. They are perfectly suited to first-world conditions because they respond instantly to the accelerator and are thus surprisingly nippy around the city. The downside is that, although they’re cheap to run, their batteries discharge fairly quickly, giving rise to a motoring condition known as ‘range anxiety’. In pure-electric

mode, the BMW i3 and Mercedes-Benz C350e have a range of about 30km, which translates to dropping the kids off at school.

The battery then has to be recharged, which implies a consistent electricity supply and a secure A/C plug-in point. Sadly, PHEVs are expensive and, right now, impractical for South African conditions. The cool thing is that they’ll probably be recovered pretty soon after having been stolen in Sandton.

As the concept of ‘green’ motoring gained traction, the motoring marques overcame the range drawback by developing hybrid systems that were clean, offered performance that increasingly gladdened petrolheads’ hearts and were unbelievably fuel-efficient. Last year, BMW SA launched the i8 two-door coupe, a 1.5-litre turbocharged supercar that justifies its R2 million+ price tag with a top speed of 250km/h (120km/h in pure electric) and a manufacturer-stated combined consumption of 2.1 litres/100km in controlled conditions, while emitting just 49g of CO2/km – a third of that of one of the country’s most popular 1.6-litre sedans!

Thanks to the combination of combustion engine and electric drive, hybrid systems deliver impressively low consumption with high performance. The electric motor replaces or supports the combustion engine in situations where the latter does not perform quite so well. At the same time, it makes practical use of energy generated while braking by converting it and storing it as electric energy.

Nearly two years ago, Private Edition drove the Mercedes-Benz E300 BlueTEC diesel hybrid and was astounded to find the 2.5-tonne saloon giving virtually the identical fuel consumption as a 650cc

motorcycle one-tenth its weight. We were therefore thrilled to hear last year that Mercedes would be manufacturing its twolitre C350e workhorse (the right-hand-drive version, anyway) in East London. What a difference 24 months makes in the world of automotive engineering! Unlike Robyn’s water-heating system, the two energy sources do work simultaneously.

Remember me saying there is no lag in response when you press down the accelerator in an electric vehicle?

Imagine cruising at about 140km/h in petrol mode on the freeway and coming upon a lumbering pantechnicon (of which there are many on the roads of the Eastern Cape) on a long uphill. Whatever you do, don’t mash the gas because the response of the electrical motor kicking in to boost the output of the combustion engine is instant and feels like you’ve engaged afterburners in an F-16 Fighting Falcon. At R805 000, the C350e provides a hell of a lot of performance bang-for-buck. The only thing slow in this vehicle is the fuel gauge moving from full to empty.

Buying a hybrid vehicle isn’t the only way you’re going to save the planet from the driving seat, though. You can demonstrate your tree-hugging credentials in other equally cost-effective ways. Technology has come a long way from the days when diesel engines were oily, smelly, noisy spewers of noxious gasses. Diesel engines today are more efficient and the fuel cleaner than it used to be – although, admittedly, carbon emissions are usually slightly greater than from petrol. But let’s look sensibly at the performance of the Volvo XC90 SUV*, SA’s reigning Car of the Year. Its two-litre diesel engine emits 136g of CO2/km compared with the 140g put out by Merc’s C200 petrol-driven sedan. But the Volvo’s 71-litre tank took me from Cape Town to Teniqua Treetops, on to Knysna and around the Seven Passes before I headed homewards.

I refuelled at Caledon. The C200’s 66-litre tank wouldn’t have taken me nearly as far. Diesel might not be as easy on the environment as a hybrid but it’s definitely easier on the wallet. And sometimes the ‘greenest’ car is the one you can afford.

The Volvo XC90, as tested by

*

Private Edition, retails at R1 013 350.

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ON TRACK

Tough Act to Follow MOST CYCLISTS BELIEVE the happiness we derive from riding endless miles of singletrack can only be attained through torturous hours of leg-burning, chest-pounding, kilojoule-munching climbs up ridiculously long hills made of soft sand, loose stones and slippery tree branches.

Yet the mental equation somehow makes sense to us.

Effort must equal reward. While stories of vertical conquest in the saddle may draw respect, this form of physical self-abuse does not appeal to everyone. Hard to believe, I know.

When Specialized Africa offered to let me terraintest their Turbo Levo pedal-assist bike, I reacted with the same speculation as the rest of the cycling world. This bike potentially represented an unhealthy departure from our mental equation (refer above). But, according to my last chewing-gum wrapper, an open mind is a wonderful thing.

So, mind open, I hopped aboard the S-Works Levo and followed my riding partner, Harry Orr from Specialized Africa, up the singletrack of Paradyskloof. The first pedal stroke was definitely strange. I felt a surge of power through the back wheels that was alien at first but became a lot more predictable with each stroke that followed. As the hill got steeper and the track got tighter, my instinct to avoid major obstacles slowly but surely disappeared because, with extra power under foot,

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there simply was no need to find the path of least resistance.

Make no mistake: the ride was challenging – in part due to our tempo as well as the technicality of the terrain – but as we exited the tree line to face the full might of a 35˚C day in Stellenbosch, I realised why Levo justifies its two wheels on earth. This was no cheat mechanism. It was no training wheel.

The Levo did not diminish my experience. Instead, it enhanced it. I had worked hard to get to the top of that hill but I had enough energy left to ride further.

The opportunity to ride back down was a little slice of heaven because the Levo, boasting Stumpjumper geometry, remote dropper post, carbon-fibre wheels and riding on 650B plus tires, moved like butter. Built by S-Works to take a beating, and snappy enough to shift quickly and confidently between rocks and roots, the Levo gets airborne with incredible stability.

I used to struggle with the concept of pedal-assist bikes in principle, yet riding the Levo immediately answered a host of principled questions I hadn’t even verbalised before. This fundamental shift in cycling mentality will undoubtedly make cycling more accessible. And given the state of the world right now, perhaps we need more bums in saddles for sanity’s sake.

If this is the future of cycling, count me in!

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Without detracting from the self-inflicted torture of a tough course, the S-Works Turbo Levo offers snappy, power-boosting performance that may just be a game changer. Words ZEYD SULAIMAN

ACCELERATE

ACCELERATE

Notes on the classic beauties, audacious moderns and singular spoils in the world of Jewellery

Queuing up

Value for money, good to drive – Audi’s new baby is all this and precocious too. Words and Photography JIM FREEMAN I THINK AUDI have got it horribly wrong with their Q2. Perhaps I should explain before the good folk of Ingolstadt have a collective cadenza because they are uniformly thrilled about the latest addition to their sport utility vehicle (SUV) ‘Q’-series.

Audi has called the Q2 ‘an urban vehicle perfect for everyday driving and recreation, bundling youthful styling and technology with a high level of functionality. The sporty yet compact SUV with all-road genes and coupe design is a new entrant into the premium SUV segment of the market and it’s one all-rounder determined not to fit the boxes.’

In light of the final statement, the company has appended the cheeky #untaggable label to the vehicle and I cannot dispute any of the above. But Audi has said the Q2 is an entry-level vehicle into the segment and will be the departure point for SUV-users to go on to bigger and better things ... namely the Q3, Q5 and, ultimately, the Q7. I’m not so sure: I don’t think I’d ever want to give the Q2 back – it’s just too cool and fun to run.

The model was launched recently with only one of three engine derivatives, a 1.4-litre petrol-fed powerplant, and I was lucky to take one with all the bells and whistles (which gave it a R709K price tag) from Stellenbosch and over the Bainskloof Pass.

It zoomed off like a gingered nag when it was able but was as stable and sure-footed as a Clydesdale when it was necessary.

Then we discovered we’d been in the ‘comfortable’ of the five driving modes and switched to ‘dynamic’. Wheeeeeee!

Audi will be introducing South Africa to a singlelitre petrol Q2 and a two-litre turbo-diesel version in the next couple of months, and I think they will be great additions to the range. But if I had the cash to spare in the interim, I wouldn’t bother waiting.

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ACCELERATE

Notes on modern classics and super performers to inform your choice of wheels

LUXURY-LITE Parents often feel obliged to mark milestones in their offspring’s lives by buying them cars.

JIM FREEMAN presents the notion that they’re never too young to develop champagne tastes.

STARTING HIS ARTICLES: BMW i3 Let your aspiring legal eagle learn the ropes of luxury motoring and at the same time discover that eco-consciousness comes at a cost (the all-electric BMW i3 has a price-tag of R5 97,800 plus R6 73,500 to install the BMW iWallbox home-charging station). Naturally, he can compromise his principles by asking you to cough up an additional R75K for the optional petrol range-extender that will allow him to get from Cape Town to Hermanus before having to refuel or recharge the battery overnight. Fun as hell to drive but, unless he finds digs with a garage and a power-point, you’ll never get him to leave home. Then again he could stay and pay it off in free legal assistance. It’s called paying it forward.

ON YOUR DAUGHTER’S MATRICULATION: SMART FORFOUR The apple of your eye is off to university and she needs to get to class. Of course, she’s also going to party so you need to get her something that’s long on safety and nippy in traffic, without being the pocket rocket her drag-racing boyfriend will want to appropriate to impress his buddies.

This little urban runabout from the Mercedes-Benz stable looks spunky, has the marque’s traditional build quality and is surprisingly roomy. It’s cheap to run and a doddle to park.

Don’t bother with the smaller ForTwo; there’s no luggage or shopping space whatsoever. Prices for the Smart ForFour range from R175 - 207K.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

LIGHT WHEELS AHEAD As the 2017 cycling season kicks off with a tour down under, ZEYD SULAIMAN’S focus is drawn eagerly towards the weapons of choice chosen by the cycling elite.

Peter Sagan is arguably the coolest guy on two wheels in the world of professional cycling at the moment. And now he’s managed to carve another notch in the bar when he recently posted pictures of what can only be described as the Starship Enterprise of road bikes. A veritable masterpiece, the 2017 S-Works Venge is a jaw-dropping iridescent silver, dotted with Bora Hansgrohe livery and boasts a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset and Roval CLX64 wheels shod with Specialized Turbo tyres. Meanwhile, Pinarello have launched the eagerly awaited Dogma F10 after the incredible performance that we saw from Chris Froome on the F8 last year (bar the light jog). Upgrades include increased stiffness, improved aerodynamics and a surgical reduction in weight. This would make it the eighth road bike that Pinarello has developed in conjunction with Team Sky, so what we have before us is a relationship that works.

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Under the Golden Bridge Eat, walk and stay in San Francisco to explore the full dimensions of the city.

THERE’S A ‘POWER’ LOOK in San Francisco – a city peppered by young professionals in black-rimmed Paul Smith glasses wearing sharp designer suits. They’re the billionaire Apple, Uber, Google execs, the hot new designers and fashionistas at the cutting edge of ideas. The city has always been that special avant-garde place. If Rome is the city of grandeur and civilisation, and Paris the city of boulevards and patisserie, San Francisco spawns ideas, movements and big change.

The city is ablaze with inventiveness, daring fashion and state-of-the-art restaurants. Stay at the Clift on Geary Street, the city’s oldest boutique hotel, which has been turned into a style haven by Philippe Starck – a surreal, dimly-lit lobby, oversized chair, Salvador Dalí lamp and coffee table, and lavender-hued corridors. The lift lights up orange to reflect the Golden Gate Bridge. On the 14th floor, the room with its large windows and soft colours is an eyrie above this energetic, vibrant city.

In this city you walk, especially on warm evenings. It’s Cape Town’s doppelgänger, with hills and dips, views of the ocean, and ‘The Rock’, America’s most notorious penitentiary, Alcatraz – Robben Island’s grim twin. We tramped through Chinatown to the Financial District, one area leading into another like colourful scene changes, looking for Quince restaurant. Every time we asked for directions, people looked envious and raved about it. We realised why immediately.

Quince envelops you with its artistic, calming atmosphere and classy details: chandelier, dark sophisticated colours and – perhaps unusual for a restaurant bent on seducing your tastes – arrangements of flowers bloom-jammed for effect. As restaurants get brighter, louder and more crowded, Quince gives you space, comfort and the exceptional – small servings of delicious freshness and delicacy, and exciting wine-pairing options.

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The only other food destination that lived up to Quince was the two-Michelin-star Saison, where food really is ‘art’.

The food levels the fields in the fame stakes but you pay for the privilege of the experience. Saison’s open kitchen is like a stage set, each course producing a rallying call with lights that illuminate intriguing dishes, all 13 of them checked for detail and taste delight by head waiter Scott. It’s a steel-and-brick setting, with well-groomed waiters looking like Prada models, an easy atmosphere, and an air of quiet exuberance.

The food appears as miniature artworks – smoked, grilled, roasted, a discovery of hundreds of new taste buds.

Beyond food, there are other earthly delights: shop the groovy Fillmore Street, and invest time in the spectacular SFMOMA, with artworks that will keep you engaged for hours. Walk along the coast above Cliff House to gaze out to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, and go up Coit Tower with its colourful murals depicting the city’s history.

Back at the Clift, there was a jewel in the crown: Redwood Room. It has the quality of a vivid dream, a cave of redwood, the bar carved from a single redwood tree with a Murano glass top, Art Deco wall pieces and moving digital art images. It’s everyone’s favourite bar in San Francisco and the ‘light bites’ are superb. You could sit here all night – the perfect sweet spot for saying goodbye to this glittering city.

Find out more at morganshotelgroup.com/originals/ originals-clift-san-francisco, quincerestaurant.com and saisonsf.com

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTYIMAGES.COM

Words SHARON FEINSTEIN

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTYIMAGES.COM

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A World in Three Countries Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana: seven days, shiny new airports, chasing the ‘Big Smoke’ and an African river baptism, all in the light of a ‘super-lune’. Words Les Aupiais and Ian Glenn

from the soil like bloody fingers. Red milkwoods shade areas of the path but even in this dry season on the Western point the falls create a miniature ‘rain forest’, and the umfefezo, the heavy misted spray that flies off the rock face, means a light raincoat is required. Our guide, Aleck Zulu, tells us his father was one of the men who laid the path for modern travellers decades ago. Why walk this route at all? It is a profoundly moving experience in any season.

A few days later, from the Zambian side, we are led by sturdy guides to Devil’s Pool within half a metre of the edge to loll about in this natural swimming hole – but only if you have a strong stomach and no fear of heights. Across the chasm, travellers wave from the safety of the path we walked days before. Later we hire a chopper, a minute bubble of acrylic and clattering blades, and view the river and rock formation from the air, only possible in the river’s dry season. It is a spectacular final perspective of the wonder that three countries share. In April when the falls are at their most violent, the spray creates an upwardly surging cloud over 400m high and flying low is dangerous.

Three experiences, three compelling reasons to return..…

WATERWAYS AND GAME VIEWING IT IS DRY UP NORTH in Zimbabwe in October, with the heavy, dramatic sheets of January rains yet to fall.

Overhead, a massive buttery moon rises, the closest it will be to the earth in 67 years. It casts a broad, bright path across the great Zambezi, split and diverted by islands in the shallows. For now, the river must follow gravity to the lowest point above Victoria Falls and be content with gushing down the 60m of Devil’s Cataract to the bottom of the gorge. But visiting in this dry season has its high points.

ONE WATERFALL, THREE VIEWS From the Zimbabwean side, the walk on the contour path exposes the black basalt bones of the rock gorge and, from the air, shows the dramatic chasm stretching 1 700m wide and just over 100m at its highest. A violent earth in transition created the zigzagged fault but with a short flight of imagination one can easily imagine the hand of a dark wizard in the cracked earth. The explorer Livingstone diplomatically gave it its royal title of Victoria Falls but Mosi-Oa-Tunya – ‘the smoke that thunders’ – gives the falls its proper due.

In April when the Zambezi is in full flood, the ground shudders from the force of 625 million litres of water a minute plunging over the kilometre and a half of the fault. It draws nearly a million tourists who come to see this ‘seventh wonder’ of the natural world, riveted by the Zambezi’s violent diversion and spectacular collapse.

In this October month along the pathway on the Zimbabwean side, scarlet Haemanthus blooms poke

(Opposite) An aerial view of the spectacular Victoria Falls and the dramatic chasm below

To be on the river, on a cruise, reverses the vehicle-based bush viewing habits we are used to. On the rivers, the game faces you, often scant metres away and seemingly indifferent to the passage of the boat. The photographic moments are superb. The boat cruises on the Zambezi offer total viewing – hippos quarrelling in the river or a crocodile the dimensions of a small barge on a sand bank have to compete with the spray of the falls in the background. On the luxury cruise boat Zambezi Explorer during our Zimbabwean stay at Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, the executive deck is our base and we snack on tiny bites of beef Wellington and crocodile carpaccio. On this evening, the sunset is rivalled by the rise of the super-moon.

The sunset cruises from our two-day home base at the River Club in Zambia are on a small motorboat shaded by a canopy. It seats only a handful of guests. We can glide within centimetres of the bank where tree roots shelter a juvenile crocodile, approach impala or baboons coming for an evening drink, or slip closer to birds settling on sandbanks for the evening. The most intriguing sighting is of the rare rock pratincole that breeds on rocks in the middle of the fast-moving river only in this season. Several intrepid pairs are within a hundred metres of the falls.

When we get to Chobe and the Caprivi Strip in Botswana, the river is broad, clean, leisurely, with trees well set back from the shore. Our small flat-bottomed metal boat is the perfect platform from which to view buffalo, hippo, elephant and birds. Buffalo chew incuriously as we glide by, while a line of hippo leaves the water for land. Puku and lechwe horns stick out from among those of the more common impala.

This is one of the great birding sites of Africa. African skimmers, fish-eagles, terns, cormorants and a variety of herons sit on sandy banks, branches or islands, while an unexpected ruddy turnstone puzzles our guide briefly before it is confirmed and logged as a sighting.

When we return to Ngoma Safari Lodge via the Chobe National Park, our drive is along the river bank. We see a resting lion, but elephant and buffalo dominate this landscape. A group of sable antelope comes to drink near the road – the most regal, heraldic antelope of all –and then a second group, horns swept back, kneeling to drink and graze.

Using a wide-angle lens, one’s sense of perspective is of a vast

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(Above) The Victoria Falls Lodge in Zimbabwe is just four kilometres from the Falls and overlooks a plain and dams. (Opposite) The River Club in Zambia offers luxury at its finest, and is located eighteen kilometres upstream from the falls

expanse, into which elephants and buffalo are comfortably accommodated. On a bend in the river, towards sunset, a solitary bull elephant poses magnificently. He is captured for viewing later at home.

It is almost unusual today to see a crash of rhino – a solitary bull by chance perhaps, but several and from a few metres away… rare. Livingstone Walking Safaris (operating in the MosiOa-Tunya National Park) offer two armed guides, who take us deep into the bush in the early morning before the November heat sets in. Thirty minutes later we approach downwind from nine white rhino resting in the shade of a copse of trees. There is feed on the ground to keep them from straying too far but it is a small, human intervention to keep a small crash safe and balances out the experience of sitting still, your seat on a fallen log, your back 3m from 18 000kg of unpredictability.

OVERNIGHT IN THREE COUNTRIES

livingstonetourism.com/livingstone-walking-safaris

africaalbidatourism.com/safari-lodges/victoria-fallssafari-lodge

Our thanks to Safari Par Excellence (SAFPAR), safpar.com

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VICTORIA FALLS LODGE IN ZIMBABWE The Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, part of the Africa Albida Tourism group, is four kilometres from the falls, situated on a ridge overlooking a plain where dams attract game and give a more savanna-safari feel to the stay. Guests at breakfast may see rescued elephants being herded by minders, and the conservation-conscious group has tried to reverse severe declines in vulture numbers by setting up a feeding programme.

This daily feasting frenzy, with marabou storks, yellow-billed kites, and white-backed and hooded vultures dominating, suggests that they have been very successful. Seasonal cicadas in the trees and a game walk on the lodge’s grounds add to the wild feel of the lodge.

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(Above) The view from the central area at Ngoma Safari Lodge in Botwana overlooks the Chobe River flood plains

THE RIVER CLUB IN ZAMBIA Eighteen kilometres upstream from the falls, The River Club in Zambia celebrates the glories of an imperial past while embracing the commonwealth present. Set on 20ha of private land, with west-facing suites tucked discreetly amidst the trees, this is luxury at its finest, particularly as we are invited to stay at the spacious Princess Mary suite, with its high ceilings and fans, and private pool. Bushbabies clatter over the roof at night and nesting Schalow’s turacos seen from the breakfast table bring wild Africa firmly back into the picture. We hear of a wedding on the grounds that was delayed but made very memorable by two buffalo who clambered out at the jetty and scrambled up the banks. Buffalo safely redirected, the ceremony resumed… We have high tea and dine on the veranda of the Edwardian Zambezi House and after dinner wander through to the formal dining room with its massive teak table and library. The lodge is superbly run and staff, headed by the quiet but efficient Charmaine, create a full exploration ‘menu’, from rhino walks to spa treatments. We bounce back up the rapids to lunch at The Elephant Café for the brilliance of chef Annabel Hughes.

theriverclubafrica.com

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NGOMA SAFARI LODGE IN BOTSWANA This exclusive small-scale lodge within the Chobe Forest Reserve that sleeps 16 people in eight suites overlooks the Chobe River flood plains, close to the Chobe National Park with Namibia across the river. Zebra migrate in their thousands in this part of the world, offering spectacular viewing in season as they make their way south.

This lodge is the perfect base for a full-day safari exploring Chobe by boat and 4x4 and to return to at night to share the day’s experiences over drinks and a sophisticated dinner. Breakfast, a Banting stack of egg white, bacon and mushroom, was accompanied by the sight of a giraffe drinking at the waterhole. At night your bed is set to face the plains but an outdoor shower and plunge pool offer a more natural viewpoint. The whoop-whoop call of hyena is likely to wake you but only for a moment.

africaalbidatourism.com/safari-lodges/ngoma-safarilodge/

FACT FILE  Hire a guide on the Zimbabwean side of the falls and turn the path meander into a much richer experience of history, plantand animal life, and new indigenous words as souvenirs.  Charter a chopper from Batoka Sky, Victoria Falls, Zambia, for a spectacular aerial view.  Tongabezi Lodge is an excellent choice for the Livingstone Island breakfast and a swim in Devil’s Pool. tongabezi.com  We flew with Tanzanian-based Fastjet direct from OR Tambo to the newly-opened Victoria Falls airport. Since our flight, South African travellers wanting to use Fastjet to get to the falls need to fly from Johannesburg via Harare.

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Cry Me a River Hurricane Katrina all but destroyed New Orleans but, true to its jazz and blues roots, the city nurtured those who loved and lived there, working its fall into a triumph. Words GRAHAM HOWE NEW ORLEANS celebrated its tricentennial this year with one of the biggest carnivals ever. The mayor called it ‘the biggest comeback story in American history’. Rising like a phoenix from the flood, this historic city was painstakingly restored home by home, block by block, parish by parish, levee by levee, after Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything in its path in 2005.

The tourists are back. It’s playtime as usual in the French Quarter, the heart of the city where a symphony of hot blues, jazz and zydeco spills onto Bourbon Street from the bars, clubs and cafés that all serve a super-sized signature hurricane cocktail. This most exotic of destinations – a potpourri of Spanish, French, African, Caribbean, American, Creole and Cajun culture – is the birthplace of jazz and the blues, the home of giants like Louis Armstrong, Joe ‘King’ Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Domino. After Katrina, the Jazz Foundation of America replaced thousands of lost instruments.

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(Above) Wrought-iron balconies overflowing with potted plants are a common sight in the charming French Quarter, also known as the Vieux Carré (‘Old Square’), the oldest neighbourhood in the city of New Orleans. (Opposite) No matter where you turn on these streets, the sound of music is never far

These historic buildings have led many lives over the centuries. The waterfront town at the mouth of the Mississippi is an architectural patina of brightly painted shotgun shacks, gabled Creole cottages, double-gallery townhouses with ironlace balconies, Spanish mission churches and grand plantation mansions with columned porticos and parapets. The city known affectionately to locals as Nola (for New Orleans, Louisiana) has come back from the brink after years of painstaking restoration.

In New Orleans even the departed are laid to rest above ground to keep the high water levels from raising the dead.

The grand tombs and crypts are a ghoulish tourist attraction and a heady mix of Catholic and voodoo traditions.

More than a decade on, Katrina still casts a long shadow over the city. If you look closely, the worst natural disaster in the history of the US has left her indelible mark much like the distinct high-water line still visible on the sides of many walls. On a ‘misery tour’ to the Lower 9th Ward, tourists visit the massive concrete levee breached by a runaway barge when Hurricane Katrina hit land here on 29 August 2005. Streets and highways were deep underwater as winds, rain and flood

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waves surged through New Orleans, breaching more than 50 levees and floodwalls.

In the worst-hit Lower 9th, where 1 000 residents died and 4 000 homes were destroyed, broken steps lead to cracked foundations and dilapidated, boarded-up shotgun shacks in overgrown lots. Nearly 12 years after the disaster, some still bear a biblical cross on the door painted by the national guardsmen who went from house to house retrieving bodies and rescuing residents, evacuating the entire city in the aftermath.

Many of the 800 000 displaced inhabitants never came back.

Yet most of the wrecked districts were slowly rebuilt.

Eco-friendly, elevated ‘flood-proof’ homes were designed for residents of the Lower 9th by a handful of the world’s top architects who supported actor Brad Pitt’s ‘Make it Right’ campaign to restore the city. An exhibition on one of the abandoned blocks documents the construction of these designer homes in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of the city, leading – ironically – to the gentrification of the district.

In this waterscape, the river has always run through everyone’s lives. A century ago, the steamboat captains of

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the Mississippi, legends like Mark Twain, lived here on the banks in heritage houses still crowned by pilot cabins. On eponymous Flood Street, a resident walks the dogs she rescued from the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.

The bright-yellow façade of the home of Fats Domino, the piano laureate of New Orleans, is another landmark in the Lower 9th. Rescued by helicopter from his home, the 89-year-old is a musical legend, symbolising the indestructible spirit of the city. Credited as one of the inventors of rock’n’roll, Domino has influenced generations of artists from John Lennon to Elton John with hits like ‘The Fat Man’, ‘Blueberry Hill’ and ‘Ain’t That a Shame’. You might spot him in a rocking chair on his porch painted with stars.

New Orleans is the beginning and the end of the great river road, an epic road trip that follows the course of the Mississippi for 4 000km from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. This blues highway conveyed the music – and runaway slaves – north, all

Brad Pitt's 'Make It Right' campaign launched its primary initiative in the devastated Lower 9th Ward with the Pink Houses project. Conceived by Pitt and 13 international architects, the idea behind the 150 pink homes was to symbolise renewal

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the way from the Delta to Chicago in search of freedom.

Slaves from West Africa and the Caribbean working on the cotton and sugar plantations of Louisiana used to gather to dance and drum in Congo Square in the 1800s. The rhythms of Africa and Latin America blended with the French Cajuns, giving birth to the rich melting pot of culture and music in New Orleans today. A giant statue of Louis Armstrong looms over Congo Square while the jazz of brass bands, and blues and zydeco on accordions and washboards still fill the park.

The Orpheum, a magnificent vaudeville theatre built in 1918, was flooded badly in 2005. It is a landmark and key point of call on any journey through Nola, and was reopened to mark the rebirth of the city on the 10th anniversary of the disaster. Exquisitely restored, from the Art Nouveau mosaics to the wedding-cake stucco of the galleries, this gilded stage is home to the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra today.

Chris Rose, an award-winning journalist from New Orleans, wrote 1 Dead in Attic and won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina for The Times-Picayune.

Now he conducts walking tours. ‘We all stayed after Katrina, seven reporters on an island of denial,’ he says. ‘We all got Pulitzers. We wrote about trying to survive under the most unbelievable conditions. I lost everything to Katrina: my home, my job, my marriage, my sanity. Yeah, let me show you the home of the blues.’

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTYIMAGES.COM

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Sumba’s Big Break Nihiwatu, an ultra-luxury resort on the south coast of Sumba is an hour’s flight from Bali. Expect a wild coastline and the surf of dreams – but beyond the hedonism is a better life for all those who live there.

Words NARINA EXELBY

IT’S TWO HOURS AFTER SUNRISE and we’re walking down to the sea across grassy knolls broken by clumps of banana trees, palm trees and cashews. Barefoot boys herd water buffaloes chewing languidly on their cud to a paddy where they’ll be driven around and around the terraced land, churning the earth with their hooves. ‘It is the best way to plough,’ explains our guide, Tiger. ‘Some farmers will use a machine, but then the rice doesn’t grow as well.’

Rice is precious here on Sumba, one of Indonesia’s southernmost islands. Unlike nearby Bali, where farmers grow three rice crops every year, Sumba can sustain only one. ‘Our island is actually very dry,’ says Tiger. ‘That’s hard to believe now, during the green rainy season.’

Tiger apologises as we step onto a narrow, slippery path – jalan tikus, he calls it, a mouse track – and cool mud squelches underfoot. Two hours ago we were wrapped in pure cotton sheets in a four-poster bed in the hotel that last year Travel + Leisure magazine readers voted the ‘number one hotel in the

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world’. To add to that contrast, Tiger is taking us on a twohour scenic walk to Nihiwatu’s spa where, after swimming in a cliff-top rim-flow pool and taking breakfast in a beach-side treehouse, we’ll spend the day with a view of crystal reefs, indulging in massages, body wraps and scrubs.

Set on a 2,5km stretch of beach, Nihiwatu is the poster child for a tropical island escape. The 28 villas, all hidden by gardens, are fringed with thatch roofs. Voluptuous gold-coloured bath tubs set on their verandas allow ocean views, and all over the resort there are vine-shaded havens with sofas, sun loungers or hammocks. Slothfulness is not the only sinful temptation – there’s even a small chocolate factory here. And then there’s The Wave, likely the most exclusive in the world. Outside rainy season, when the crisp left-hander barrels over the reef, you’ll pay US$120 a day for the privilege of being one of 10 people to surf the legendary Occy’s Left.

As we continue through the paddies, Tiger tells us about traditional life on Sumba. He speaks about pasola, Sumba’s

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PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

(Opposite) There are 28 villas at Nihiwatu, each one different in design and price. Shown here is Lamba Villa. The landscaping at the resort is beautiful and each villa is a private island getaway, tucked into its own piece of tropical jungle. (Above) The Spa Safari at Nihiwatu is an experience not to be missed. Guests are invited to walk for about 90 minutes through hills, rice paddies and traditional villages to Nihi Oka spa, where breakfast is served on a treehouse platform overlooking a deserted beach

ritual horseback battle designed to spill blood on the ground to ensure successful rice crops; he says priests know peoples’ futures by reading the livers of chickens, and that animals are slaughtered at every funeral. It’s an expensive tradition that’s difficult – but important – to maintain on one of Indonesia’s poorest islands.

We pass a woman carrying a container of water. She greets us warmly, as do all the people we meet, and we feel particularly welcome here. ‘Women and children used to spend so much time carrying water to their homes,’ says Tiger. Traditionally, Sumbanese villages of tall-roofed stilted houses, were built on top of hills – excellent for defence, not so good for access to water. ‘But now life is easier because the Sumba Foundation has built wells close to many of our villages; the children now have more time for school and the women can do things like weaving and cooking.’

The Sumba Foundation is Nihiwatu’s gift to the island, an initiative conceived by the resort’s founding owners, Petra and Claude Graves. If you ever wanted proof that what you put into something is what you get out, Nihiwatu is it. A small surf camp has become a major innovator and the biggest employer on the island, a place that has managed to uplift the community in this region. When the couple first landed on Sumba in 1988, there was virtually no infrastructure. During those early years Sumba crept

under their skin, and the couple experienced life as the locals do – and that meant dealing with harsh realities. Water was scarce; malaria was rampant; access to good healthcare was nonexistent.

From the outset Claude and Petra put as much into the island as they could and in 2001 the Sumba Foundation was established, allowing them to formalise their aid work. When the hotel’s current owners, Chris Burch and South African-born James McBride, invested in Nihiwatu in 2012 and took it to new levels of luxury, the foundation continued to flourish. Funded by a percentage of profits from the resort and donations from guests, it has provided and maintains wells that supply water to almost 20 000 people; it has built and supports six schools and five clinics (including two prenatal-care facilities), established a nutrition programme that serves 3 000 meals a week (and plans to increase that to 7 500), launched a nursing scholarship programme, and reduced malaria on the island by 85 percent.

Nihiwatu has a deep connection to the island’s communities and their culture. It is not simply a salary-payer but a nurturer, a preserver and an enabler that, by lessening the consequences of poverty, is actively changing thousands of lives.

For more information visit nihiwatu.com.

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Benguerra’s Secret A dot in the Indian Ocean balances luxury and eco-credentials. Words KATHY MALHERBE

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

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YOU NEED CHUTZPAH to create your own time zone when you are a mere blip in the Indian Ocean.

Benguerra Island, 14km off mainland Mozambique, is 55km² with a population of fewer than 2 000 people.

The time dodge is to maximise daylight hours, according to Faizel Kara, frontof-house manager for luxury lodge Azura Benguerra and the manager of the CSI Rainbow Fund. Cheeky enough to tweak the Greenwich Meridian, he is ‘waiting for the Mozambique mainland to get with the programme…’

Arriving at Azura Benguerra Island is like being a terribly privileged castaway. A 10-minute flip in a Eurocopter from Vilanculos deposits you gently on the island. The central area and the villas are designed for maximum privacy, with a fusion of indoor-outdoor living and ‘mullet’ cuts in the roof thatching to maximise the view but ensure you are screened from your neighbours. You need only share your infinity pool with a riotous palette of tiny exotic birds as they do their toilette in the fresh water at dusk. If birding is your thing, venture to the island’s only vlei, which is dotted with flamingos churning up the mud in search of delicacies, their feet moving in a kind of choreographed moon walk.

Like any island, catering for guests on a luxury scale means ‘little somethings’ on demand. Here, supplies are delivered late at night, the dhow landing softly on the beach and fresh goods being carried by the locals, balanced on their heads. The service at Benguerra is just as discreet. Each guest is assigned a butler who ensures that you want for nothing and yet are left in absolute privacy. From the cocktails and snacks delivered to your villa at sunset to breakfast and dinner, you, and only you, are his focus of attention.

The service, the excellent local cuisine, including fresh seafood and a selection of the owner’s wines, especially flown in from their chateau in the Loire Valley, is utterly seductive.

The lure of the island and its available activities are incentive enough to get off your lounger and take a tour.

See the school that the Rainbow Fund

has built, or the neat villages, or take the island’s signature excursion by boat to the reef and then to Pansy Island for a private lunch on the beach.

The dolphins are playful marshals as the boat heads out to sea. It’s just a slip off the platform and you are snorkelling above the reef, metres from the fish and turtles. Next: Pansy Island.

Considering the rarity of the soughtafter shell it is named for, visiting the island is like being overwhelmed by a well-stocked candy store… The shells lie half-exposed on a small sandbank the size of a living room. Even though there are hundreds of them, you are told to admire and leave them in this marine national park (and tread very carefully).

The staff set up lunch on a private stretch of beach – the décor artfully sculpted in the form of 3D turtles and a border of small shells, while flowers adorn the table and umbrella. Replete with a chilled French white, fresh fish and fruit, all that remains is to enjoy the peace until you are nudged gently back onto the boat.

Alongside the ultimate guest experience is the incredible work that is being done on the island by the community and the lodge. Azura Benguerra positions itself as the first luxury eco-boutique retreat in Mozambique. Everyone understands the working of an ecosystem with great clarity. In the unlikely event that a local or visitor doesn’t respect the importance of preserving this little gem in the Indian Ocean, ex-army personnel guard the small island – fiercely.

Because the island is isolated, every commodity is precious. Candles are recycled, the lodge bottles its own still and sparkling water (saving the 50 000 plastic bottles a year they might have used), they use grey water on the vegetable garden and refillable bottles for shampoo and shower gels in the villas. Kara says they are starting a chicken farm to produce the 8 000 eggs they use annually, and the chicken manure will be used as fertiliser.

The 100 or so employees at the lodge are all from the local community, and Sujado, who guided us around the island, believes the symbiotic relationship between the lodge and the local community is key to the longevity of both.

Visit azura-retreats.com for more information.

A sunset cruise in a rough-hewn dhow is a must. It’s hard to believe that locals can go out for a week at a time on these open boats, at the mercy of the elements as they fish for tuna, mackerel and even barracuda using hand lines – in strict contrast to our cruise to the nearby island of Bazaruto, enjoying Champagne and canapés with the merest billow in the sails

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Notes on far-flung places, exotic spaces and diary notes for your next escape

Kenya is fast gaining a reputation among adventure travellers as a destination packed with experiences that go beyond the traditional safari, for which the country became famous. In fact, luxury travel in general has become more about the adventure element than ever before, and consumers are increasingly interested in authentic experiences and the narrative of a trip, rather than brand-based luxury elements.

Now, visitors looking for a bit of a thrill in Kenya can opt for customised experiences like white-water rafting on the Tana River, or skydiving above Diani Beach. Those looking to stay really active on their travels have the option of running the Safaricom Marathon in the Lewa Conservancy in June each year -- with more than 1 200 runners from 20 countries, the 140 armed rangers and three spotter helicopters have their work cut out for them, protecting the athletes as they run through the unfenced wild. ker-downeyafrica.com

WORDS: JENNIFER CAMPBELL. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

REAL ADVENTURE More than just a holiday...

WELLNESS IN THE WILD Mhondoro Game Lodge in the Welgevonden Game Reserve in Limpopo has joined forces with renowned international yoga instructor and detox specialist Monique Christiaans of Zenzo Yoga in the Netherlands, to present an exclusive detox and yoga safari at the five-star lodge. The programme will run from 19 to 24 June, and includes five nights of luxury accommodation, a complete detox programme, personal coaching, yoga and meditation sessions, daily safaris, bushwalks, mindfulness walks and spa treatments.

With its extensive decks and heated swimming pools overlooking the reserve, yoga room and two gymnasiums, the lodge lends itself perfectly to hosting this kind of exclusive wellness event. mhondoro.com

A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE Just recently opened, The Silo towers above Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront and is built in the grain elevator portion of the historic grain silo complex, occupying six floors above what will become the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in September this year. Guests at The Silo can look forward to the expert advice of concierge and guest relations manager Hoon Kim, one of only 12 South Africans to be honoured with the coveted ‘Crossed Keys’-a member of the prestigious international hotel concierge association Les Clefs d’Or. theroyalportfolio.com/the-silo

LIFE DAY SPA With branches in both Gauteng and the Western Cape (Century City spa pictured above), the Life Day Spas are designed with exquisitely appointed marble, glass and wood finishes. Internationally qualified therapists use the finest global and local brands, and treatments range from express options to full spa days.The spas include elegant treatment rooms, couples suites, nail bars and an opulent relaxation lounge, as well as a tranquility pool, Middle Eastern mud ritual chamber and flotation pool. lifedayspa.co.za

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TASTINGS

The Long Game We consume good wines as if there’s no tomorrow.

It might be wiser to cultivate patience.

Words JOHN MAYTHAM

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PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTYIMAGES.COM

TASTINGS

THERE IS AN ONGOING DEBATE in local wine-geek circles about whether the country’s wines can support an investment wine industry.

It’s a small, but important and growing market internationally – a recent article in The Telegraph newspaper proclaims: ‘When compared with global equities, fine wine outperformed 98 percent of the time over any given handful of years.’ Ninety percent of that market is made up of the big names of Bordeaux and Burgundy, with a handful of cult wines from California and Italy taking the difference.

One of the key factors in buying a wine to keep and sell and (hopefully) make a good profit on is its track record of ageing well.

There is absolute conviction that a Chateau Latour from a great vintage like 2009 will improve, in quality and price, over many decades. That same conviction doesn’t exist for South African wine. There are those, however, who believe that conviction could – and should – be created.

Mike Ratcliffe of Vilafonté is a believer. ‘We need to hold back wine volumes to allow older vintages to be released sporadically and so prove the 25-year-old ageability thesis,’ he says. Kanonkop, Klein Constantia and Bouchard Finlayson are other examples of wineries paying more than lip service to the maturation and niche marketing of older vintages.

The Bouchard Finlayson offering is called Peter’s Picks, after the wine maker, Peter Finlayson. The current set comprises the 2006 vintage of the limited-edition Tête de Cuvée Pinot Noir; the 1998 and 2001 vintages of the Galpin Peak Pinot Noir; and three vintages of Chardonnay – the 2007 and 2011 from the legendary Kaaimansgat vineyard near Villiersdorp, and a 2009 Sans Barrique. All six wines illustrate perfectly the point that excellent South African wines from good vintages, optimally cellared, drink beautifully for many years after coming to market. The three Pinot Noir wines also add weight to the growing evidence that the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley is South Africa’s premier region for growing this often difficult Burgundian varietal, dubbed the ‘heartbreak grape’.

Enjoying older wines can take some practice. A much quoted statistic from the wine retail world is that more than 90 percent of bottles are drunk within 48 hours of being sold, and that has driven producers to make and release wines for early drinking – full of bright and primary fruit aromas. In older wines that brightness mellows, and secondary and tertiary qualities replace it – harmony and balance become more important than upfront fruit flavour.

The ’98 Galpin Peak is a perfect example of the benefits of patience.

The nose still takes one into a cherry orchard; the palate is beautifully balanced with wonderful symmetry between the fruit and the supportive oaking; and the wine is kept very much alive by a pure line of acidity that energises what’s in the glass almost 20 years after bottling.

The Tête de Cuvée is 10 years old but has the rich and brooding intensity that tells one it is still an adolescent in terms of its development – it will provide this delectable combination of dark plum aromatics and super-fine tannin structure for another couple of decades.

All three white wines show only the positive signs of maturity – still prettily alive with great fruit, fresh acidity and graceful balance, but an added complexity and palate weight that comes with being allowed time to integrate.

I still have two bottles of the ’97 Kaaimansgat in my cellar and I am in no hurry to drink them, so confident am I of their continued vivacity. Peter’s Picks are available online and from the cellar door, and provide stellar proof of the old English phrase ‘Good things come to those who wait’.

VINO-VATION Sometimes you have to go back to go forward – and getting inventive in the vineyard doesn’t necessarily mean going hi-tech, writes JIM FREEMAN BAROQUE-STAR WHITES ‘Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak,’ goes the line from the 1697 play The Mourning Bride, and it is works from this period that help make the wines from one Stellenbosch vineyard a resounding success. It’s been another superb year for Wendy Appelbaum’s DeMorgenzon, which followed up its 2015 International Wine Challenge-winning Reserve Chenin Blanc with a judges’ decision at the 2016 Decanter World Wine Awards that the Stellenbosch estate’s Chardonnay Reserve 2015 was the best in the world.

Baroque music is piped continuously through the DeMorgenzon vineyards in the belief that the power of soothing music positively influences the grape-ripening process.

GASTROPOD SLUGFEST Avondale near Paarl prides itself not only on producing quality wines but also on its sustainable and organic farming practices.

‘We nourish the soil by planting indigenous cover crops and, in return, the micro-life within the soil feeds the vines,’ says owner Jonathan Grieve.

Pesticides are shunned: instead, a flock of snailloving ducks boards Avondale’s ‘Duckmobile’ each morning to clear any gastropod infestations. Other vermin are left to raptors, and predators such as genet, caracal and leopards that descend from the nearby Klein Drakenstein mountains.

No chemicals are used during wine making … not that the divine Armilla MCC has appeared to suffer as a result!

ROSÉ RISE Pink needn’t be sweet and it certainly doesn’t have to be cute. Nor does it have to be Pinot Noir.

Fairview is seeking to elevate the contemporary rosé from being an often underappreciated style to being a more serious contender among South African palate choices.

The 2016 Fairview Rose Quartz is a blend of Grenache Noir, Carignan and Cinsault grapes from stand-alone blocks on the popular Suider-Paarl farm.

The result, says wine maker Anthony de Jager, is a great summer wine, packed with fruit and complexity. ‘This very versatile wine is well balanced and delicious when paired with salads, creamy pasta dishes, as well as sushi and other light fish dishes.’

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TASTINGS

Notes on dining out, special tastes and brilliance in a bottle – wherever you are in the world

WELCOME THE DUCHESS What to drink when you’re not drinking...

The Duchess is the world’s first ready-to-drink, virgin gin and tonic – an elegant, sugar-free alternative to alcohol. Crafted using natural botanical extracts traditionally found in gin, it retains authentic gintasting notes without the alcohol. The Duchess’s botanists made this possible by blending re-distilled juniper berries with their own botanically infused tonic water. With layers of orange peel, allspice and star anise, the drink is aromatic and refreshing.

Plus, it’s guilt-free as it doesn’t contain any sugar and is naturally sweetened using stevia and xylitol. theduchess.co.za

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WORDS: JENNIFER CAMPBELL & DEBBIE HATHWAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED; THINKSTOCK, STEFANMARCELGERARD.COM

THE PERFECT HIDEAWAY

A WORLD OF FLAVOUR

Bosjes, meaning ‘small bushes’ in Dutch is the new name given to the old Bosjesman’s Valley Farm, which has recently opened to both day visitors and overnight guests. The beautiful avant-garde chapel, which appears to rest lightly on the body of water before it, makes an ideal setting for weddings and other celebratory events. Visitors to Bosjes can also enjoy hiking, game- and bird-watching, as well as mouth-watering meals and homemade treats in the family-friendly bistro and tea garden, while the luxury accommodation ensures peaceful sleep in a gorgeous setting. bosjes.co.za

The stylish boutique Whisky Live Celebrations open its doors from 6–8 April 2017 in Cape Town at The Lookout on the V&A Waterfront, from 4–6 May 2017 at Brooklyn Square in Pretoria and from 1–3 June at Gateway Theatre of Shopping in Durban. Showcasing a range of luxury whiskies under one roof – from Bunnahabhain, Ardbeg, Glenmorangie and more – the events start at 6pm and run until 10pm. Tickets include a tasting glass, 16 tasting vouchers and a bottle of Consol still water. whiskylive.co.za

WHEN IN GENEVA …

Be sure to book in October for January, if you want to be certain of a table at Rasoi by Vineet in Geneva, when the city is full of journalists, retailers and marketers keen to see the top new watch releases at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie. Even the Michelin-starred chef Vineet Bhatia avoids the crush, planning his regular visit with staff once the crowds thin. Bhatia is renowned for reinventing contemporary Indian cuisine and it’s always a thrill to watch guests experience it for the first time. As one said, ‘It’s rare to experience a tasting menu where absolutely everything is delicious!’

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ON A FINAL NOTE

A comeback for the call-up?

Stripped of their mod cons, millennials might find khaki and the camp way too much to handle.

Words ANDRÉ WIESNER

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precisely the sort of attitude-adjusting kick in the duff Generation Y needs in order to find their way, adrift as they supposedly are in a world where the narratives and ideological categories of yesteryear – man/woman, virtual/real, local/global, and more – are constantly dissolving and the very notion of “adulthood”, as understood by the old fogeys, seems like an oppressive, fascist construct, never mind being economically elusive.

Better to evade and refashion it under the cover of prolonging one’s ‘youth’ status: When I was a child, I thought and did as a child; when I became a man, I set aside childish things and upgraded from Grand Theft Auto IV to Call of Duty:

Infinite Warfare.

Is there any such merit, then, to conscription? Speaking as someone who passed through the SADF back in the day, I have my doubts. Infantry life does have the advantage of getting you exercising outdoors and picking up new swearwords, but when armies do their job properly, the consequences are unpleasant for all concerned.

It was the most other-worldly, concentratedly godless – and possibly funniest, and most interesting – experience I’ve ever had. Conscription drew a line in the swamp, separating my life pre-army from life post-army. But what I transmogrified into as a result of the experience is anybody’s guess, least of all mine.

I learnt, and forgot, marching; I learnt, and remembered, hand-washing laundry, ironing and window-cleaning, as well as admin fraud, playing along with authority, and the ability to do lousy stuff long haul, with little hope of reward. I learnt not to be overawed by yahoos with guns and uniforms.

Is military service something I’d wish on my children, these little millennials? On reflection, no. Over my dead body: that would be a war worth fighting.

PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTYIMAGES.COM

MEDICAL GRADUATES in South Africa are required to undergo a year of compulsory community service, and there’s been speculation about extending this to other professions and, indeed, across the board to all youth. We’re talking community service, where the focus is on upliftment, crop gardens, housing projects, literacy training, smiling underprivileged children and happy, helping hands. But what about military service, which is an entirely different kettle of fish?

Could the day be coming when the fatherland’s hipsters, goateed Xbox warriors and TEFL-teaching gap-year wayfarers are called up to the army, packed off in trucks to barbed-wire camps in the middle of the desert, then shorn of their hair, earbuds, therapists and Facebook access, clapped in khaki, drilled, subjected to opfoks night and day, and finally deployed as a cyborg fighting force for gangland and/or campus pacification?

It’s a charming idea, perhaps. Millennials, or Generation Y – meaning those born between the 1980s and early 2000s – have been stereotyped variously as “self-entitled narcissists or open-minded do-gooders”, as one website put it. In language reminiscent of what was levelled at my lot, Generation X, they’re seen as taking their comforts for granted and expecting things on a plate. Quick to passion about the state of society, they’re slow to make their beds; they’re creative dynamos, but battle to get their lives together. Tending to have a series of miscellaneous gigs rather than careers, they sit on their asses well into their twenties playing computer games all day like PlayStation Peter Pans.

By contrast, a season in the army is famously considered to be a character-building exercise, one that makes a man, or grownup, of you: it’s a rite of passage, a netherworld trial by ordeal that brings about a transition from one identity and outlook to another.

Seen in this light, a comeback for the call-up might look to be