ROX Man AW19

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Big Bang Tourbillon Power Reserve 5 Days Sapphire. Scratch-resistant sapphire case. In-house skeleton tourbillon movement with a 5-day power reserve. Interchangeable strap using patented One-Click system. Limited edition of 99 pieces.

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hublot.com


MILLE MIGLIA CLASSIC CHRONOGRAPH Since 1988, Chopard has been the historical partner and official timekeeper of the fabled Mille Miglia, the world’s most beautiful car race. Proudly created and assembled in our Manufacture, this unique 42 mm-diameter chronograph showcases the full range of watchmaking skills cultivated within the Maison Chopard.




MONACO CALIBRE 11 AUTOMATIC CHRONOGRAPH

Steve McQueen’s legacy is timeless. More than an actor, more than a pilot, he became a legend. Like TAG Heuer, he defined himself beyond standards and never cracked under pressure.






Z E N I T H - W AT C H E S . C O M

T I M E T O R E AC H YO U R S TA R

T H E W O R L D ’ S TA L L E S T B U I L D I N G . F O R N O W.


DEFY E L P R I M E R O 21

T H E F U T U R E O F S W I S S WATC H M A K I N G S I N C E 18 6 5


Enter the uncharted at www.rolls-roycemotorcars-edinburgh.co.uk or call us on 0131 442 1000

Discover Cullinan at Rolls-Royce Edinburgh or visit www.rolls-roycemotorcars-edinburgh.co.uk


One Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh, EH12 6DD 0131 442 1000



S2000/Yellow

bremont.com






Exclusively Exclusively at Dior.com, at Dior.com, House House of Fraser of Fraser Glasgow Glasgow and Harvey and Harvey NicholsNichols Leeds Leeds



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ROX MAGAZINE

CONTENTS

CONTENTS 28

WISH LIST This AW19's must have fashion, accessories and watches.

40

DINNER PLANS Getting it right in the kitchen, where it really matters.

48

HOW TO BE A MODERN MAN Staying with it as midlife encroaches, a minefield of tragic fails.

52

THE BIG ONE OH! We take a trip down memory lane through the last 10 years of ROX Magazine.

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ROX STAR

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LUXURY WATCH EDIT

p. 39

p. 56

A rebel, leader and timeless icon.

The definitive guide to what you should be wearing on your wrist right now.

OUTSIDE EDGE Taking to the streets with Peter Gemmell aka The Gentleman Select.

p. 38

136

HOLIDAY HOMES

p.142

116

p. 98

Why have one home when you can have two?

142

MOTORING Chris Chilton gives us an insight into Ferrari and Porsche masterpieces.

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T HI N K A CEN TUR Y AHE AD Each decanter is the life achievement of generations of Cellar Masters.

Please Enjoy Responsibly

www.LOUISXIII-cognac.com


ROX MAGAZINE

EDITOR'S LETTER

WELCOME...

I

t gives me great pleasure welcoming you to another jampacked issue of ROX Man. Jam being the operative word, as I write this letter in the woozy, dying days of summer, hedges laden with fruit, lawns scorched and dusty… No wait, that was last year. Summer was a bit rubbish this time round, wasn’t it? All the more reason, then, to look forward to autumn and winter’s cosy embrace, and to reflect on a doubly poignant year for this journal’s esteemed publisher: nothing less than ROX’s 10th anniversary. You can read more in Laura McCreddie-Doak’s feature on page 52 and hear from the horse’s mouth – AKA ROX’s estimable co-founder Kyron Keogh – but suffice to say it feels more than a mere decade ago that he and Grant flipped the received wisdom of retailing jewellery on its head. Lavish fixtures and fittings make every visitor to their restless empire of boutiques feel like a rock star, while at the same time totally at ease – in itself a rare sensation with plenty of other ‘VIP’ establishments.

More importantly for this magazine, those short 10 years have also seen the ROX vitrines gleaming with as many tickers as sparklers. Spring chickens – especially spring chickens anywhere other than London – rarely win authorised dealerships with the likes of Audemars Piguet, Chopard or Zenith so fast, but as the following pages hopefully prove, the in situ passion, know-how and plain watchnerdery at ROX makes it a nobrainer when it comes to your first ‘proper’ horological investment. We have plenty more in store over the next 100-or-so pages, so even if you’re still saving for that next addition to the dresser, the next few months of rain and cold might still be enlivened by a new overcoat, podcast or skiing holiday you’d never normally consider. Meanwhile, from us at ROX, here’s to another incredible 10 years of Diamonds & Thrills!

Alex Doak

EDITOR’S PICKS

Hublot Big Bang Watch 70073 | £14,700

DIOR

Zenith Defy Watch 70130 | £6,100

SAINT LAURENT

Audemars Piguet Watch 72733 | £26,200

www.rox.co.uk

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Slovenia’s spectacular, word-of-mouth skiing area of Vogel, near Lake Bohinj and chocolate-box Bled (see page 38)


FRESH MANIFESTO Winter is coming! But there's no need to get all Ned Stark about it – tool up and take off with ROX Man's latest bulletin on everything that matters right now. Flora, fauna, fish, fowl, whatever: our late-2019 agenda indulges every tribe’s flight of fancy, from tweezered microherbs to Mexican vineyard, via post-rave euphoria and driving a Norwegian mountain pass. It’s all there for the taking and ROX Magazine is here with a season’s worth of inspiration

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WISH LIST WATCH ANATOMY CULTURAL RADAR THROUGH THE PORTHOLE RAMBLING MAN DINNER PLANS EPIC DRIVES HOW TO BE A MODERN MAN


WISH LIST

FRESH MANIFESTO

ROX MAGAZINE

AW19 WISH LIST We've sourced this winters must have fashion, watches and accessories so that you can step into winter in true ROX Star fashion. Christmas party season is approaching so make sure you add this Balmain double-breasted velvet blazer to your winter wardrobe. The classic Balmain military style buttons will transform your day-to-night ensemble with a stylish finish. Wear with a classic black cigarette pant and white shirt for the ultimate Christmas party look.

This Alexander McQueen black belt features signature skulls and studded detail making it the perfect accessory for any ROX Star. Italian crafted, it’ll last a lifetime. Simplify your look and let the belt translate your personality with black jeans, a simple white tee and leather jacket.

MAKING HISTORY A new addition to the Black Bay family this Tudor Black Bay S&G features the brand’s first chronograph. The iconic model plays host to selfwinding manufacture calibre MT5813 and makes a mark on Tudor’s history books. This luxury timepiece is a true modern icon. 72816 | £4,890

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A wallet says a lot more about a man than you might think. It offers an insight into style and personality rather than simply alluding to where you bank. This season be sure to invest in this impeccably crafted Ettinger wallet - it's the perfect combination of traditional and sleek design. 74234 | £185

For the ROX Man proud to wear his style on his sleeve this Gucci bracelet guarantees to impress. Gents jewellery is enjoying a moment in the spotlight this season and this bracelet boasts an antique charm with a modern outlook. 73190 | £350

This classic fedora hat will add character to your everyday wardrobe with its refined aesthetic and simple leather trim whatever the season. Embrace the All Saints vibe and wear a muted palette look, consisting of a worn tee, skinny jeans and ankle boots.


ROX MAGAZINE

FRESH MANIFESTO

WISH LIST

They say keep the snakes away unless they’re Gucci and this sterling silver ring is a shining example of that. Effortlessly suave this is a must have for the ROX Man not afraid to let his style do the talking. 73174 | £225

Dive into style this season with a little help from this Gucci Dive watch. Fall for the charm of the snake motif on the dial of this trendy stainless steel Swiss timepiece. 71482 | £980

The classic Burberry trench coat reimagined by Riccardo Tisci in their SS19 runway. The timeless piece is branded with red sans-serif text routing from a commission to graphic designer Peter Saville. It’s a Burberry essential with a 2019 twist and we love it!

Bold, daring and unashamedly sleek there’s little wonder why the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak has been heralded as one of the world’s most sought after luxury watches. This 41mm pink gold bracelet model is a showcase of the stellar craftsmanship which the iconic brand is known for, harnessing time-honoured skills to create a horological masterpiece. 71912 | £49,200

A MODERN PIONEER

Travel in true ROX Star style with this Fabbrica Pelletterie Milano case. This Italian crafted trunk style case will complete your look with its ribbed shell and silver-tone metal hardware studs set on a four wheel base - ideal for those on the go.

Think of the Zenith Defy El Primero 21 and precision is the first thing that springs to mind. Accurate to 1/100th of a second it’s clear to see why this iconic model has made such an impression. Featuring a skeletonised dial and sleek all-black case, the Defy El Primero 21 brings a fresh new look to the El Primero of the Sixties and Seventies. 72994 | £15,500

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WISH LIST

FRESH MANIFESTO

ROX MAGAZINE

Relax and unwind with a little help from the soothing woody fragrances of the ROX Burning Embers candle. Mysterious, sweet and smoky the unforgettable fragrance will take you back to camping adventures of days gone by and warm nights by the crackling campfire. 63430 | £35

A CHAMPION OF STYLE Has the time come to take your wrist game up a gear? The Chopard Classic Mille Migla GTS is the ultimate sports watch. A limited edition model, this 43mm watch is number 143 of 500 and strikes the often tricky balance between sophistication and sporting finesse. 73001 | £5,490

Mastering the art of being both regal and rock 'n' roll the Chelsea boot is a wardrobe staple this season. These Saint Laurent boots guarantee to impress when paired with skinny jeans.

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Hublot is renowned for creating timepieces that define a generation and the Big Bang Meca 10 is one to watch. This 45mm model commands attention with its matt back skeleton dial and micro-blasted clack ceramic case. A true champion of the brand’s Art of Fusion philosophy this is a timepiece that isn’t afraid to break away from the status quo to make its own mark. 71662 | £18,200

Long gone are the days of gent’s necklaces being associated by Del Boy inspired characters as fashion houses such as Gucci breathe a new lease of life into the trend. It doesn’t get more modern than this wolf pendant from the iconic brand. 73175 | £355

If there was any brand to be wearing this AW19 it’s Amiri, known for their signature jeans. These MXI Leather Patch Jeans capture the quintessential rebellious spirit of the wearer. Crafted in California you too can be that Cali cool guy this winter wearing Amiri.


ROX MAGAZINE

FRESH MANIFESTO

WISH LIST

KEEP ON MOVIN’ As the pace of life continues to increase there’s no escaping that time is of the essence for us all – particularly the luxury watch collectors amongst us. Investing in horological icons may be a rewarding past time but the reality is if you don’t keep moving, neither will they. Check out this Wolf Axis Watch Winder to keep your timepieces ticking. 73224 | £469 When it comes to adding a touch of timeless charm to any look there’s nothing quite like a pair of cufflinks. For the ROX Man proud to bring a contemporary touch to a classic look, these Gucci cufflinks promise to be your go-to this season. 73196 | £350

GO DEEP Since TAG Heuer patented its first water resistant case in 1895 the brand hasn’t been afraid to explore the seven seas and the depths of the ocean with the Aquagraph. This 43mm stainless steel model breathes a fresh lease of life into the iconic Aquaracer range whilst never losing its sense of adventure. 73135 | £1,850

They say if you expect the unexpected you might just be prepared and the Bremont Supermarine divers watch encapsulates just that. Inspired by the brand’s aviation principles this 45mm divers timepiece is designed to withstand further depths and making it the deepest diving watch in Bremont’s entire collection of Supermarine models. 72654 | £4,595

CARRY IT WELL Dior is bringing the heat this AW19 with their Oblique “B24” Sneaker. Their signature Dior repeat pattern print covers the shoe accented by a neon flash adding a pop of colour to any darker winter palette. Pair them with a Dior printed tee for an ultra cool look.

CONTEMPORARY CHARM Watches have a remarkable ability to carry tales with them through generations – tales that could otherwise be lost. Capture a snapshot of your life to pass on with the Gucci G-Timeless Contemporary GRG mens watch. 73058 | £850

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ROX MAGAZINE

FRESH MANIFESTO

WATCH ANATOMY

BALANCING ACT The new, breathlessly titled ‘Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Frosted Gold Double Balance Wheel Openworked’ is a symphony of horological virtuosity, from the case’s shimmering texture to the movement’s ensemble of intricately crafted micro mechanics.Words by Alex Doak.

The 18-carat white-gold case glitters with Audemars Piguet’s ‘Frosted Gold’ texture, micro-hammered by hand with a diamond-tipped tool, unique to each piece. It’s a Florentine jewellery technique, which AP developed alongside British designer Carolina Bucci.

The dual-anchored balance cock, plus hands and hour indices are all delicately crafted from pink gold.

Audemars Piguet’s patented ‘Double Balancier’ doubles up the traditional balance spring-balance wheel arrangement to minimize potential ‘wobbles’ in its steady oscillation.

The Double Balancier improves the watch’s precision and stability. By stacking two balance wheels and two hairsprings on the same axis, they oscillate back and forth (like a pendulum) three times a second, in perfect synchrony, tick for the tock, for the tick.

This is just the latest in the Royal Oak’s storied legacy – a line in wildly experimental haute horlogerie that began in 1972, when Gérad Genta was tasked with designing a sporty but luxurious watch to appeal to the Italian market. His iconic octagonal bezel and integrated bezel have barely changed since.

The spider’s-web intricacy of the Royal Oak Openworked’s dial is in fact the mechanics’ baseplate, brought dialside and hand-polished to perfect ‘anglage’ consistency.

The steel baselplate, once skeletonised and handfinished, is coated in anthracite to lend a sinister dark sheen, highlighting, by contrast, the mechanics beneath.

Whenever one balance wheel gets out of sync, the other corrects it. This is enabled by the two hairpsrings being superimposed in opposite ‘directions of wind’ – as one is compressing, the other is expanding.

Circling each balance wheel are asymmetric adjustment weights, which the watchmaker uses to tweak, or ‘regulate’ the rate of oscillation.

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CULTURAL RADAR

FRESH MANIFESTO

ROX MAGAZINE

CULTURAL RADAR

It pays to keep your earbuds to the tracks and square-eyes on the prizewinners. This is a banner year for everything cultural, with all things digital fostering rather than hindering artistic creativity, nurturing our attention spans rather than blunting, and all along threatening nothing to the 45rpm twelve-inch, printed word or static picture. Words by Alex Doak.

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THE SCREEN

THE STREAM

THE EXHIBITION

JOKER

THE POLITICIAN

CONSCIENCE MATTERS

If you’re fed up with superheroes after the 10-year, 21-film bloated Marvel whale that was finally washed up in Avengers: Endgame, then think of this as a palettecleanser. As the name suggests, this is a reimagining of Batman’s nemesis and his origin myth, set in the 1980s and following the plight of struggling stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck whose failure with audiences, and brutal treatment at the hands of various groups of men, drives him insane and into crime. A murky, beautifully shot portrayal of the descent into madness, owing debt to Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s seminal graphic novel The Killing Joke.

The small screen is where the A-list is at these days. There’s Meryl doing her bit for mother-in-laws everywhere in Big Little Lies; John Hamm putting his jawline to good use as the Angel Gabriel in Good Omens; and now it’s the turn of jade-egg touting, vagina-steaming Gwyneth Paltrow who will be on small screens later on this year in Netflix’s The Politician. Details are scant at the time of press, but there are rumours of musical numbers and violent teen deaths, so think Heathers meets Glee. We think. (Starts September 27.)

During WWII 60,000 men and women chose not to fight for religious, political or moral reasons. Despite having to prove your reasons sufficiently or face prison, there was a stigma, or an aura of cowardice, attached to these conscientious objectors. This judiciously curated show at Edinburgh’s National War Museum brings together stories, paintings, letters and speeches, valiantly attempting to redefine these brave people who took a stand for the things in which they believed, in the face of public condemnation. Truly an exhibition for our times.

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ROX MAGAZINE

FRESH MANIFESTO

CULTURAL RADAR

THE COFFEE TABLE MAGNUM PHOTOBOOK Members of the legendary Magnum co-operative have been out there, documenting the 20th century through a long lens for over 70 years, from epoch-defining events to family life in all its mundanity. Its founding members comprised the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour and Robert Capa and now we have the first complete illustrated bibliography of 1,000 iconic photobooks created by Magnum snappers, complete with behind-the-scenes material and ephemera from the photographers’ personal archives.

THE PODCAST

THE ALBUM

THE NIGHTSTAND

THAT PETER CROUCH PODCAST

A BATH FULL OF ECSTASY

ME BY ELTON JOHN

He has 42 caps for England, scored over 100 goals as a Premier League player and had us all doing the robot dance, but it seems that Peter Crouch has now found his milieu behind a microphone. What could have amounted to “famous footballer tells anecdotes” actually feels like you’re earwigging on a chat between mates at the pub, albeit one where one of the three has 42 England caps (the other two being BBC Sports journalist Tom Fordyce and Scott Mills’s former Radio 1 cohort Chris Stark). Enjoy with a nice cold pint.

The festival season may be a fading memory, but stick on Hot Chip’s seventh studio album and you’ll be transported to a field somewhere in Hampshire feeling hands-in-the-air euphoric. From the lush melancholic openers Melody of Love and Spell to the house-influenced tension and release of Hungry Child, this is a celebration of music as hope. Poignantly, it also stands as testament to a major collaborator on ABFOE, Philippe Zdar – renowned French producer and co-founder of Cassius who, shockingly, died the day before this album’s release.

“My life has been one helluva roller coaster ride,” was how Elton John announced on Twitter that he would be publishing his memoir this October. And he’s not kidding. He’s married women, entered rehab allegedly dressed as a chicken and has a stage wardrobe to rival Marie-Antoinette. All that as well as selling 300m records, raising over $200m through his Elton John AIDS Foundation and being presented with the Legion d’honneur, France’s highest honour, by Emmanuel Macron. Who can possibly resist a first-hand opportunity to see this all through Elton’s diamondencrusted lenses?

www.rox.co.uk

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TIMELINE

FRESH MANIFESTO

ROX MAGAZINE

THROUGH THE

PORTHOLE What began as an indie startup based solely on a nautical motif has, in four short decades, become the Hublot we now know: massive, in every sense of the word. Words by Alex Doak.

I

t’s hard to imagine the apprehension that Carlo Crocco must have felt in 1980 when he stood at the Hublot stand at the Basel watch fair. No one had ever heard of him, and no one had ever seen a watch like his. The scion of the Italian Binda Group dynasty, best known for making Breil watches, Carlo Crocco struck out on his own in 1976 to create something disruptive. Moving to Switzerland he formed MDM Genève (standing for Montres Danielle Marie, after Crocco's wife) and soon settled on what’s become an enduring icon of 20th-century watch design: an angular case, mounted by a circular bezel and 12 exposed screws, looking just like a boat’s porthole, whose French translation he adopted for his brand. Contrary to what you might think, it wasn’t the titular case construct that posed the biggest challenge. It was Crocco’s decision to fit his ‘Hublots’ with the first-ever truly natural rubber strap in Switzerland’s history. In the late 1970s

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there was no one who knew how to work rubber to luxury watchmaking’s standards, so Crocco looked to tyre producers to create the exact mix of rubber, reinforced by an inner steel blade for thinness, flexibility and resilience. The genius touch was to add a vanilla scent to the mix, masking the slight acrid smell of the rubber. The fact that we now see rubber so frequently throughout watches and jewellery – in rebellious ‘fusion’ with bling-bling gold – can be credited entirely to Crocco. Fast forward to 2004, and from there onwards, the rest is history. For it was that year when industry maven Jean-Claude Biver took the helm and things went into overdrive. The ‘Big Bang’ chronograph, FIFA and Ferrari partnerships, hiphop kudos, an ever-expanding factory with every mechanical complication mastered and plenty others pioneered… There is, quite simply, no other brand quite like Hublot.


ROX MAGAZINE

FRESH MANIFESTO

MDM Genève and its ‘Hublot’ watch are founded by Italian Carlo Crocco, following three years’ developing the brand’s eponymous ‘porthole’ design plus a world-first: a vanilla-scented, steel-reinforced rubber strap.

Preoccupied by his own design work and activities for the Hand-in-Hand children’s foundation, Crocco set out to look for the man who could oversee his watchmaking empire.

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2003

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2008 2009

2012 Hublot’s next exploit with the Prancing Horse of Maranello is the MP-05: a watch inspired by the hybrid LaFerrari supercar featuring an historic 50-day power reserve – a punch packed by 11 series-coupled winding barrels.

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With Biver having driven sales of Hublot watches skywards by a factor of five, French luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH buys Hublot from Carlo Crocco lock-stock-andbarrel (retaining Biver of course), adding to its enviable watchmaking roster of TAG Heuer, Zenith and eventually Bulgari.

Cementing its mantra of ‘fusion’, Hublot adds ‘Magic Gold’ to its line-up of innovative and in-house-conceived case materials – the world’s first scratchproof 18kt gold, fused under huge pressure and temperature with ceramic. The launch model is the first to commemorate Hublot’s new partnership with Ferrari.

2015

To mark Ferrari's 70th, Hublot designs the sinuous Techframe Ferrari Tourbillon Chronograph, employing an identical 'total design' approach to that of Ferrari Centro Stile. The attention to detail extends to screw recesses that echoed the rear diffuser of an F12tdf.

Despite failing to attract single sale on the first day of Hublot’s Basel fair debut, Crocco amounted $2 million’s worth of sales in his first year. Hublot soon became a firm favourite of the Eighties jetset.

Jean-Claude Biver assumes the role of CEO. Already an industry legend, Biver’s laserguided vision and infectious energy had revived Blancpain in 1982, singlehandedly reinventing the notion of luxury mechanical watches at a time when quartz was the future. With Hublot he wasted no time setting out its stall: "The Art of Fusion".

2004

In less than a year, Biver creates a new flagship collection: ‘Big Bang’. Oversized, with monumental emphasis on Hublot’s porthole motif and kitted with chronograph functionality for extra status, it was to be the newly minted Millennial’s very own Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore. Orders tripled within a year and it took Design Prize in Geneva’s Grand Prix of Horology.

LVMH wastes no time, investing in a ground-up, cutting-edge factory on the shores of Lake Geneva, outside the historic town of Nyon.

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TIMELINE

The crowning achievement of Hublot’s new era is launched: the Unico chronograph movement, conceived and made entirely in-house. It features an integrated flyback chronograph with column-wheel mechanism positioned dial-side for all to admire in action.

As official timekeeper to FIFA, Hublot’s logo dominates the referee boards of Russia’s World Cup, plus a collaboration with stablemate TAG Heuer elicits its first-ever smartwatch – an essential tool during every match, not only on the wrist of every on-pitch referee but also our waistcoated legend on the sideline, Gareth Southgate. www.rox.co.uk

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RAMBLING MAN

ROX MAGAZINE

FRESH MANIFESTO

RAMBLING MAN Weather-wise it’s been a disappointing summer, so why not throw fiscal caution to the wind and book another break for autumn or winter? Europe’s best bet is skiing of course, but should you still be hankering for a dose of bone-warming sunshine, then boy do we have the thing for you… Words by Alex Doak.

A LONG WEEKEND SKI SLOVENIA If you’re tired of the luxury posturing, why not hop further east and swap Verbier for Vogel? The magical mountain scenery of the Slovenian Julian Alps is at its best here, from snow-dusted forests to frozen lakes with island churches and clifftop castles.

STAY: The chocolate-box lakeside

town of Bled is a backpackers’ insider secret, not least because all those backpackers are growing up and revisiting their gap-year highlights, though now staying in hotels rather than hostels (hence all those luxury eco-resorts popping up throughout Thailand). While Bled’s youth hostel is better than most, may we heartily divert you towards Rikli Balance, with recent renovation rooms focused on your health and wellbeing. Not only are rooms are furnished with the spruce wood that grows in nearby Pokljuka, but essential oils from the resin combine with breathable wall paint to make your airways as happy inside as they are outside. Everyone gets a balcony and a spectacular view of the mirror lake.

SKI: Dotted across the Julian Alps,

the three main ski resorts in Slovenia have gentle, uncrowded slopes. The main ski area of Vogel in the beautiful Bohinj Valley is a scenic 30-45 minutes' free bus ride away from Bled. If you fancy exploring some different resorts during your holiday, jump on the daily free ski bus to the resort of Krvavec, or take a taxi to Kranjska Gora as they are both covered on the lift pass. The superb ski schools make it a popular pick for beginners and families, and excellent snowmaking keeps the powder topped up throughout the winter. Area lift passes cover 72km of piste across Kranjska Gora, Krvavec and Vogel, packing in good beginner slopes and a few reds and blacks. crystalski.co.uk

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EXPLORE:

Bled is a winter paradise, with plenty besides the pistes, from dog sledding, snowshoeing, to horsedrawn carriage rides and it’s not far to take a day trip to the capital city of Ljubljana. Plus, if it gets cold enough, and you’re brave enough, Lake Bled occasionally freezes over…


FRESH MANIFESTO

ROX MAGAZINE

RAMBLING MAN

AN EPIC ADVENTURE BACCHANALIAN BAJA It’s just a 90-minute drive from the US border to Valle de Guadalupe – Baja California’s biggest and best wine region (yes, as in ‘Mexico’). It’s a whole lot cheaper and far less predictable than Napa, which is why Angelenos in the know have been escaping here for years. If you like your wine, you should too.

STAY: Less than a four-hour drive EAT AND DRINK: from LAX airport, all the wineries you’ll want to hit are within 15 minutes from Hotel Encuentro Guadalupe’s modernist wood-clad cabins, dotted into the boulderstrewn hills. After a day of wine tasting, pour yourself a final glass of red, light your outdoor fireplace, and prepare for some epic stargazing. grupoencuentro.com.mx

EXPLORE:

The Valle de Guadalupe region of Baja California is a 14-mile pastoral paradise, with patchworks of vineyards planted by Mexico’s original Spanish settlers as well as Italians and Russians arriving with their own grape varieties. At Finca La Carrodilla, sit in the rooftop garden and have a glass of the crisp biodynamic chenin blanc (few whites are produced in this red-heavy area). For a small-batch experience, Quinta Monasterio is a tight-knit family vineyard offering tours and a taste of their specialty Natal, a dry, apricot-peach-pear Chardonnay, and their Sinfonía de Tintos, an impressive red blend.

With the ‘drink’ element well and truly covered above, let’s look at the best for ‘eat’: unquestionably Baja’s answer to the French Laundry, Corazón de Tierra. Diego Hernández’s five-course tasting menu is brilliant, and brilliantly great value. For a more casual vibe, chef Drew Deckman’s al fresco bar, Concha de Piedra is also a mustvisit next to the upper vineyard on Mogor Ranch, where the salty bite of oysters and crisp champagne cut right through the desert heat.

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DINNER PLANS

FRESH MANIFESTO

ROX MAGAZINE

DINNER PLANS What are you doing tonight? Eating will be involved, we’re sure, and Scotland and the North have better-than-ever opportunities to sample our shores’ homegrown, world-class cuisine – one of them just a stone’s throw from ROX’s newest boutique in Liverpool Words by Alex Doak.

Close to home... GRAZING, EDINBURGH Mark Greenaway’s Edinburgh star remains firmly in the ascendant, thanks to a boldly decorated but deliberately relaxed approach at ‘The Caley’ hotel on Rutland Street. Come for the food, stay for the... well, just stay Always overshadowed somewhat by fellow Scots, Messrs Kitchin and Wishart, Mark's eponymous restaurant, Restaurant Mark Greenaway, opened in North Castle Street in Edinburgh in 2013 and proceeded to win numerous culinary awards. Greenaway’s first cookbook, Perceptions even received the 'Best in the World' award at The Gourmand Cookbook Awards in 2017. Despite retaining three AA Rosettes every year until 2018, he closed his restaurant and focused on a bold new venture within one of Edinburgh’s finest hotels, the Waldorf Astoria – The Caledonian, in Rutland Street. The driving premise? A refreshingly relaxed focus on customers sharing and enjoying their dining experience in a leisurely manner. Hence: ‘grazing’. Locally known as the 'Caley', the luxurious Waldorf is a capital landmark at the west end of Princes Street, so Greenaway’s laidback approach was arguably something of a gamble for those who enjoy their airs and graces. But you needn’t worry – this is still a mustvisit for Edinburgh gastronauts.

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The menu showcases a mix of traditional, modern and sharing plates, always incorporating locally sourced ingredients. Star dishes include BBQ shiitake mushrooms on toast, a playful cured meat and choux pastry picnic box, and fluffy buttermilk pancakes inspired by a particularly impactful visit to Japan. Grazing also showcases British sharing dishes, such as hearty shepherd’s pie and roast chicken, as well as Greenaway’s popular signature dishes, which former North Castle Street devotees will relish: 11-hour slow roast pork belly, and indulgent sticky toffee soufflé. Grazing by Mark Greenaway, Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh - The Caledonian, Rutland Street, Edinburgh EH1 2AB, grazing.reservations@waldorfastoria.com


FRESH MANIFESTO

Further afield... RÖSKI, LIVERPOOL

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deprivation to worry about henceforth. Its headline was “Use any excuse to eat here” and the review described Röski as “the Spinal Tap of restaurants with every flavour turned up to a welcome 11.” The glowing piece ended: “All I can say is: lucky Liverpool.”

It’s not just ROX’s new boutique that’s making an indelible mark on the little black books of Röski received 1,000 bookings within 24 hours of Liverpool’s great and good – Masterchef winner that particular broadsheet becoming Monday’s chip paper. And rightly so. You can expect big flavours, Anton Piotrowski has journeyed all the way from Devon with his modern take on fine dining big smiles, and great service at Röski, where any diner It’s been quite a journey for Anton Piotrowski, both career-wise and in the literal sense of ‘journey’. Not only did he win the 2012 series of Masterchef: The Professionals, but not long after earning a Michelin star for Devon’s Treby Arms, he shocked everyone by upping sticks and opening Röski on Liverpool’s Rodney Street, 280 miles away – and this was despite failing to raise anything near his £60,000 crowdfunding target, then having to abort an overwrought prepayment system. Come late-2018 however, a single Sundaymorning review by Jay Rayner in The Observer ensured Piotrowski would have nothing more than sleep

usually intimidated by foodie fare such as smoked eel, parmesan custard and a mandatory tasting menu on Fridays and Saturdays can relax: the 28-cover restaurant is intimate, calm and totally unpretentious. So, once you’ve splurged on some gorgeous jewellery at Liverpool ONE on Peter’s Lane – from the shiny new outpost of ROX, opening in November if you didn’t already know – why not take the 13-minute stroll up Wood Street and indulge in some red-cabbage Bolognese in a restaurant bearing an eerily similar name? Röski, 16 Rodney Street, Liverpool L1 2TE, roski.restaurant@gmail.com

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EPIC DRIVES

FRESH MANIFESTO

ROX MAGAZINE

EPIC DRIVES There’s nothing quite like a spontaneous weekend dash to the countryside – but with winter upon us, how about planning a dash for the Continent, come spring? There are spectacular driver’s roads aplenty, if you know where to look – and they’re not all the Stelvio Pass. Words by Alex Doak.

ATLANTIC ROAD + GEIRANGER-TROLLSTIGEN, NORWAY It’s a long old haul to get there – about 30 hours not including rest stops – and the tarmac in question is a mere 12-minute blast, but boy oh boy is Norway’s Atlantic Road worth it. So much so, we’d even recommend flying to Ålesund or Kristiansand via Oslo and making do with a rental car – any lack of serious grunt is more than made up for by the spectacular scenery. What’s more, another five hours south (what’s five hours when you’ve come this far?) is the GeirangerTrollstigen mountain pass – a switchback-ridden road that could be described as the Norwegian Transfăgărășan Highway. The two stretches thrillingly combine mountains, fjords, ocean and serpentine roads. Throw in some incongruously contemporary architecture along the way (see sidebar) and you have one of Europe’s most otherworldly driving experiences. The Atlantic Road itself – or “Atlanterhavsveien” – winds its way through islands and scarries over the open ocean, forming a dramatic link between land, sea and sky by connecting the island community of Averøy with mainland Eide. Few places bring you closer to the ocean and let you feel part of it, curving sinuously from islet to islet over its seven bridges, across moorland to bare crags. When the weather’s feeling inclement, waves crash and spray consumes a particularly precarious-looking bridge, curving away from the tiny island of Grisen. The sweep up and over is pure, stomach-churning excitement.

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EPIC DRIVES

At the end of the breakwater at Aksvågen you can feast your eyes on the view when the weather is good, and when storms roll in you can feel your body buffeted by the power of nature. Or come summer, simply rent one of the new cabins at Atlanterhavsveien Sjøstuer and wait for the Northern Lights to appear. The “Geiranger-Trollstigen” tourist route, meanwhile, is a drive that offers innumerable highlights, and the eleven hairpin bends of Trollstigen as well as the view from Ørnesvingen down to the Geirangerfjord will set your pulse racing. Lush valleys, sheltered strawberry-growing areas, precipitous mountains and vantage points are all guaranteed to make you dizzy – if not from the heights, then from the sheer variety and scale of Norway’s landscape.

WHICH CAR? ROLLS-ROYCE CULLINAN It’s a looong way to the Atlantic Coast of Norway (some 30odd hours, not including rest stops, via the Lowlands then the Hirtshals ferry from Denmark to Larvik) but if you’re feeling suitably epic, then this road trip calls for unadulterated comfort and capacity. An SUV that combines all-terrain expertise with the ultimate in luxuriously appointments – in other words, the graceful beast that is Rolls-Royce’s first-ever all-wheeler, powered by a 6.7-litre V12 and with ‘magic carpet ride’ experience still intact. If you’re in any doubt, we refer you to the British marque’s recent partnership with National Geographic, conquering 12,000 miles of the world’s toughest terrain. rolls-roycemotorcars-edinburgh.co.uk

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EPIC DRIVES

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COL DE TURINI, FRANCE In stark contrast to the raw, coastal elements of Norway’s Atlantic Road, we have Col de Turini – pretty much your quintessential, sweeping South of France glamour cruise. Or, with a little less ooh-la-la and a touch more sacre bleu, one of Europe’s lesserknown destinations for putting pedal to metal. Begin your journey in St Tropez (where else?) waking up in the lush, landscaped gardens of the Muse Hotel. Hop into the driver’s seat and you’ll curve along the the Cote d’Azur coastal road, through Sainte-Maxime, before taking a turn off the D559 and up the D8 road where you begin the scenic climb to Fréjus. Do stop at Restaurant L’Orlando in the port to indulge in a traditional Marseille bouillabaisse; a stew of fresh shellfish and saffron, mopped up with crusty baguette. If you have time for a detour, swing by the futuristic architectural marvel “Palais Bulles”, created by iconic French designer Pierre Cardin. Otherwise, the coast road continues along towards buzzy, star-studded Cannes. To experience the city like a native, cruise past the designer shops on the seafront then head a minute or two into the town for time-honoured home-style dishes at La Brouette de Grande Mère.

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Nestled between Cannes and Nice sits the town of Antibes on the eastern neck of La Garoupe. (If you’re feeling road weary, head for some R&R at the iconic Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.) From the city limits, a sharp left turn towards the St-Laurent-du-Var then introduces the highlight of the route. Located in the Alps with an elevation of more than 1,000m, the Col de Turini mountain pass is one of the most distinguished roads in the world. Its winding stripe of tarmac demands all your attention and all the power of our recommended ride – the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera. The road may seem like it leads nowhere but the thought of a destination is insignificant with some of the most breathtaking views in the country.

WHICH CAR? ASTON MARTIN DBS SUPERLEGGERA This classic continental blast demands a classic grand-touring coupé, and this V12 monster will do the job better than most – pure comfort and practicality combined with torrents of power a mere toe-curl away (like, 0–62mph in 3.6s kind of power). It’s the flagship of Aston Martin’s newly refreshed range – a pumped-up version of the core DB11, whose wild success has underpinned the Warwickshire marque’s return to profitability at the hands of CEO-on-the-move Andy Palmer. A true, 715bhp, twin-turbo, 5.2-litre British muscle car, whose sinuous lines will still grace the waterfronts of the French Riviera with appropriate poise. astonmartinedinburgh.co.uk

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ROX MAGAZINE

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FRONTLINE

MAKING WAVES Military veteran Tudor ambushed everyone at Baselworld back in March, with its left-of-field and uncompromising Black Bay P01 frogman. Words by Alex Doak.

As origin myths go, the story surrounding the new Tudor Black Bay P01 is up there with the best Marvel can conjure. Back in the 1960s, the US Navy came to Tudor asking it to make adjustments to its frogmen’s standard-issue ‘Submariner’ – a more affordable version of big brother Rolex’s own gamechanging Sub’ also used by the French Marine Nationale (pictured), whose historical iterations are now distilled across the Black Bay collection. The crown kept getting knocked and the dive-timing bezel was too easy to move. Tudor duly got to work and patented a prototype with a crown at four o’clock to avoid knocks and a mechanism that clampedfast the bezel. The US Navy liked the innovation but it was deemed too “technical” to put into mass production, so it was shelved. To this day, Tudor neither confirms or denies whether any were actually made (meaning a good

number of recent, pricey auction lots are probably fakes) but good news for modern collectors is that Tudor has dug the patent from its archives and resurrected it as the ‘Black Bay P01’ (£2,830). It not only has the off-kilter crown but also possesses the patented bezel-locking system, though this time it’s only on one side because the bezel isn’t removable for cleaning. (Sensibly, Tudor didn’t want to have to deal with the inevitable deluge of missing bezel requests.) Its jolie-laide aesthetic has polarised people but in the metal, it’s as solid a military tool watch as you’d want in 2019 let alone 1968, and a satisfying answer to 51 years of rumour. Tudor Watches are available at ROX Newcastle.

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Illustrations by Ross Craig

ETIQUETTE

HOW TO...

BE A MODERN MAN Staying ‘with it’ as midlife enchroaches: a minefield of tragic fails (with failure guaranteed if you actually use ‘with it’). But fear not! Here we are with the sixth and swankiest installment of ROX MAN’s guide to staying on the money in a time of confused masculinity: keeping things rock ‘n’ roll instead of Songs of Praise. Words by Alex Doak.

CURATE THE PERFECT VINYL COLLECTION As it transpires, the vinyl revival is most definitely not dead on arrival – black wax is back for good. It might have started as an ironic accoutrement for every hipster speakeasy or midcentury-furnished studio flat, but beyond the vintage box-ticking, its unflagging resurgence is down to a cute paradox: digital music’s frustrating lack of physical ‘collectability’, allied with digital music’s limitless scope for aural 48

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adventurousness. Combine the two, and you have a world of listeners craving cultural substance. So now you’ve managed to steal your parents’ turntable (while they ineffectually shout ALEXA! before ‘putting a record on’) what to pluck knowingly from your burgeoning library of twelve inches? What will make you look tasteful, but not tryhard? Just vintage enough to distract from the fact it’s all been purchased over the past six months? The good news is, despite there still being


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less than 100 vinyl pressing plants in the entire world, 2018 saw new openings across all five continents, so sourcing anything new, past or present, is getting easier by the day. However, if you fancy rolling up your sleeves for a spot of ‘crate digging’, remember that persistence pays off, and when it does, always look past the dust and feel for deep scratches across the grooves. As for the store itself? Your one-stop shop is the virtuous latter-day institution that is Record Store Day, keeping your friendly local vinylman in the limelight: recordstoreday.co.uk. But the music itself? As anyone knows who’s read Nick Hornby’s classic musing on the male condition High Fidelity, a list is a risky thing – let alone rearranging your collection in autobiographical order. But to hell with it, in no order whatsoever: Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night, José Feliciano's Feliciano!, Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma, Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, A-Ha's Hunting High and Low, The War on Drugs' Lost in the Dream, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Leftfield's Leftism, Lou Reed's Transformer, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, The Dead Weather's Horehound, Paul Simon’s Graceland. Arguments on a postcard.

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ETIQUETTE

WEAR LEATHER AND (JUST ABOUT) PULL IT OFF So you’ve resisted the Porsche, the carbon road bike, the Lycra (and the mistress too, we sincerely hope). So far, so many midlife clichés avoided. Congratulations! This means you’re entitled to indulge that one remaining, desperate grasp at fading youth. In a word: COW.

SO YOU’VE RESISTED THE PORSCHE, THE CARBON ROAD BIKE, THE LYCRA (AND THE MISTRESS TOO, WE SINCERELY HOPE). Its hide, more specifically, given its haunches are already a no-no for men of a certain age and dietary persuasion. And we’ll begin by illuminating a large red light in the direction of leather trousers. Only Lenny Kravitz and Jim Morrison ever got away with leather trousers, and even they were scraping it. As for the leather waistcoat, here are two more words: Richard Hammond.

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FRESH MANIFESTO

No, we’re talking the leather jacket of course. Surprisingly effortless to pull off, with the potential to boss it, even. While long associated with musical rebels from Elvis to Sid Vicious, forget about emulating your heroes and aim for nicer, more approachable look. In other words, instead of trying to be a rebel, pretend you’re already a rebel who just wants more friends. Soften your jacket’s angles and shininess with a roll neck, in soft wool coloured a lovely offwhite. Come the summer, look no further than Brad Pitt in Fight Club, who offers a two-for-one deal in leather jacket tutelage: (1) a floral ‘Aloha’ shirt to show your fun-loving side (rather than ultraviolent hobbies); (2) a jazzy colour, because why does it always have to be black? Brad’s is terracotta red, but bottle green or tan will also age nicely. Go for it, tiger! WHISKY? BOURBON? RYE WHISKEY? EASY Straight-up, no chaser, on the rocks, keep ’em coming… You can spout all the hardbitten American drinking jargon you want, but pounding the ol’ fermented grain (that’s one of ours) all

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ETIQUETTE

night and into the cold light of dawn won’t cover up the sober reality: you have literally no idea what distinguishes bourbon from rye whiskey from ‘proper’ Scotch whisky from Tennessee whiskey, let alone whether whisky should have an ‘e’ or not. The main difference is, as with so many appellations, geographic, but it does also come down to ingredients and, yes, spelling. Simply put: Scotch is whisky made in Scotland, while bourbon is whiskey made in the U.S. of A, generally in Kentucky. The Federal Standards of Identity state that for a whiskey to call itself bourbon, its mixture of grains (or ‘mash’) must contain at least 51% corn, where Scotch goes mostly for malted barley. The main difference between a Tennessee whiskey like Jack Daniel’s and a bourbon like Jim Beam is that after the spirit is distilled, Tennessee whiskey is filtered through sugar-maple charcoal –known as the ‘Lincoln County Process’. As for ‘rye’? That’s easy: the mash must be at least 51% rye, or it’s a Canadian whisky, which may or may not actually include any rye. Which means we now need a large drink.

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THE BIG ONE OH!

ROX MAGAZINE

THE BIG ONE OH! This year, ROX Magazine celebrates a game changing decade of diamonds, timepieces, thrills and spills (where, luckily, the only spills were the odd glass of Moët…) words by Laura McCreddie-Doak

It’s hard to fully describe the shock and amazement I felt walking into the ROX Thrill Room in Glasgow for the first time. I was new to both retail and jewellery – the wet-behindthe-ears editor of UK trade bible Retail Jeweller, trying to learn about this complex new world. A decade ago, when jewellery or watch businesses would proudly show you to the part of the store reserved for customers who were going to splash more cash than the average, you’d have been lucky to find a Nespresso machine in there. And here were ROX co-founders Grant and Kyron gesturing expansively around a space that had more in common with world-leading luxury hotels. Natural light spilled in from the stained-glass windows above, catching the diamonds sparkling in display cabinets dotted discreetly about the space, which, along with acres of plush seating boasted a bar stocked seemingly with the most bottles of Moët & Chandon seen outside of Epernay. It was elegant, decadent and completely original. “We got the idea on a trip to a Munich trade fair in February 2009,” explains Kyron. “We had the perfect check-in experience. Instead of standing at the check-in desk, as soon as we arrived our group was seated on sofas in the lobby and offered a glass of champagne to relax. The check-in paperwork was brought to us to sign and our bags seamlessly brought to our rooms without having to ask who’s bag was who’s (I asked how they knew – they said they read the luggage tag!) “It made us made us re-think our selling experience, so instead of sitting 52

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at a desk or counter, we came up with the Thrill Room lounge concept. We made a bold statement by devoting more space to lounge seating than display – everyone thought we were mad at the time.” Of course, it’s not all fur coats at ROX – the knickers are most certainly in place, with the finest-quality jewellery first and foremost. Its everexpanding and highly experienced team hand-select every pristine diamond for its scintillation, sparkle and above all beauty to create truly beguiling and mesmerising designs. From show-stopping collars that command attention in any room to effortlessly romantic engagement rings or a contemporary silver design, each perfectly crafted piece captures the essence of ROX’s ‘diamonds and thrills’ mantra. Not content with transforming the face of jewellery and watch retail, ROX has also ploughed its ethos and dynamic style into the world of print, by launching a magazine; the parent of what would become ROX Man and ROX Woman. “In this digital world, I think readers do still love magazines,” says Kyron, when asked why he went into publishing 10 years ago when everyone was predicting the death of print. “It is a visually appealing medium and also the opportunity to present the ROX lifestyle, with our unique tone of voice.” Of the numerous amazing covers that have graced the magazine over the past 10 years, Kyron cites the first cover star, Scottish model Amanda Hendrick as a special one especially as

this AW ROX Magazine goes full circle re-inventing ROX STAR for 2019, but he also takes credit for bringing the bearded hipster north of the border with ROX Man’s first cover featuring supermodel Chris John Millington and also for spotting a little-known bollywood actress Amy Jackson back in 2014 who has become a phenomenally successful actress with 7.7m Instagram followers to her name. It isn’t only the magazine that has been graced with celebrity. The Thrill Room is regularly used as an event space, hosting soirees for Scotland’s celebratti. But there was one that really stood out… “I will never forget Emeli Sandé playing an acoustic set in our Thrill Room in Glasgow in December 2011,” says Kyron. “After a chance meeting with her manager at the Scottish Style Awards, the stars aligned for us that December. I invited her to perform and she made time in her schedule on the very same night she was supporting Coldplay at the SEE Hydro. “The hairs still stand up on the back of my neck when I imagine that voice. Then, six months later she opened the Olympics in London.” A full seven years after that, and ROX’s star remains in its ascendancy. With identically opulent boutiques in iconic locations spanning Scotland and the north (at the time of writing, Liverpool ONE was about to join a roster boasting Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Newcastle and Leeds), plus the likes of Audemars Piguet, Hublot and Zenith populating the wristwatch vitrines, it appears the Moët will be flowing for many more decades besides.


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THE BIG ONE OH!

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AW 2014 A JEWEL OF AN ISSUE Once upon a time books told the fairytales but the AW14 Magazine brought to life an enchanting ROX fairytale through whimsical femininity and divine jewels.

AW 2009 ROX STAR The original ROX Star, the start of an iconic and memorable journey through ROX time. The first magazine saw glamour, a lot of jewellery and diamonds & thrills of course.

2009

SS 2015 AND THEN THERE WERE TWO The ROX Magazine split in two, introducing ROX Man and ROX Woman. Both issues marked the beginning of a trend driven magazine and put ROX Magazines on the map.

AW 2012 NOSTALGIC DREAMS Inspired by the special moments in life that make us who we are, that we treasure and that define us. It was truly a sentimental issue.

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SS 2016 ALL WHITE EVERYTHING MEETS URBAN SAFARI ROX brought the Miami heat to the pages with some cool tailoring – both man and women. As always there was a focus on trends, effortless, essential and eternally chic of course.

THE BIG ONE OH!

SS 2019 THE SOCIAL ISSUE & THE MAN IN BLOOM A young, trendy, leading independent is the underpinning of the ROX brand and that's exactly what SS19 brought. The pages saw fresh styling, trend driven articles and collaborations with the UK's leading social influencers in all fields – it matched the ROX brand with the ROX magazine.

2019 AW 2018 ETERNAL DECADENCE & THE MAXIMALIST MAN More, more, more. The theme was clear and Diamonds & Thrills was defined within these pages. An issue filled with grandeur glamour and undeniable class.

SS 2017 CANDY GIRL & BRITISH STREET COUNCIL The Summer of 2017 saw the rise of the bad boy and the emergence of the ever so innocent Candy Girl. With these issues came the message that ROX is here to step aside from the decades old loved up couple jewellery brands have endorsed for time. ROX leads the way.

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ROX STAR A rebel, leader and timeless icon.

TAG Heuer Carrera Chrono Watch ÂŁ3,500 (73123), All Saints jacket, Saint Laurent top, Zara jeans, Balenciaga trainers.

Art direction/production/styling: Taylor Brown Photography: Ian Lim

Model: Morten Jagert

Hair stylist: Florence Neilson

Make-up: Rae Mathieson @Colours Agency



TAG Heuer Carrera Chrono Watch ÂŁ3,500 (73123), All Saints jacket, Saint Laurent top, Zara jeans, Balenciaga trainers.




TAG Heuer Carrera Chrono Watch ÂŁ3,500 (73123), All Saints jacket, Saint Laurent top, Zara jeans, Balenciaga trainers.


Hublot Big Bang Unico Black Ceramic Watch 45mm ÂŁ16,500 (64791), Balenciaga over shirt, shirt and trousers from Flannels. Balenciaga trainers from Matches Fashion.



Hublot Big Bang Unico Black Ceramic Watch 45mm ÂŁ16,500 (64791), Balenciaga over shirt, shirt and trousers from Flannels. Balenciaga trainers from Matches Fashion.



Hublot Big Bang Unico Black Ceramic Watch 45mm ÂŁ16,500 (64791), Balenciaga over shirt, shirt and trousers from Flannels. Balenciaga trainers from Matches Fashion.




Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph ÂŁ44,800 (67353), Fendi suit and t-shirt from Flannels. Neil Barrett shoes from Matches Fashion.


Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph ÂŁ44,800 (67353), Fendi suit and t-shirt from Flannels. Neil Barrett shoes from Matches Fashion.



Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Watch ÂŁ24,500 (69770), Fendi suit and t-shirt from Flannels. Neil Barrett shoes from Matches Fashion.


Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore ÂŁ27,000 (69770), Burberry bomber jacket and Burberry T-shirt from Flannels. Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter and Balenciaga trainers from Matches Fashion.



Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore ÂŁ27,000 (69770), Burberry bomber jacket and Burberry T-shirt from Flannels. Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter and Balenciaga trainers from Matches Fashion.


Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore ÂŁ27,000 (69770), Burberry bomber jacket and Burberry T-shirt from Flannels. Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter and Balenciaga trainers from Matches Fashion.




Audemars Hublot Piguet Big Royal Bang Oak Ceramic Offshore Blue ÂŁ27,000 (69770), Chronograph Burberry Watch bomber ÂŁ13,300 jacket and Burberry (69704),T-shirt Guccifrom tracksuit Flannels. from Belstaff Cruise. jeans Dior from shirt Mrand Porter sneakers and Balenciaga from Dior trainers from Matches Fashion.



Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Titanium Watch 42mm ÂŁ17,300 (67359), Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter. Balmain Jacket from Matches Fashion. White hoodie from ASOS and Saint Laurent boots from Matches Fashion.


Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Titanium Watch 42mm ÂŁ17,300 (67359), Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter. Balmain Jacket from Matches Fashion. White hoodie from ASOS and Saint Laurent boots from Matches Fashion.



Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Titanium Watch 42mm £17,300 (67359), Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter. Balmain Jacket from Matches Fashion. White hoodie from ASOS and Saint Laurent boots from Matches Fashion.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph Watch £40,700 (67353), Saint Laurent shirt & Helmut Lang trousers from Cruise, Dior sneakers from Dior



Zenith 50th El Primero Anniversary A384 Revival ÂŁ6,700 (73490), Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter. Balmain Jacket from Matches Fashion. White hoodie from ASOS and Saint Laurent boots from Matches Fashion.



Zenith 50th El Primero Anniversary A384 Revival ÂŁ6,700 (73490), Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter. Balmain Jacket from Matches Fashion. White hoodie from ASOS and Saint Laurent boots from Matches Fashion.




Zenith 50th El Primero Anniversary A384 Revival ÂŁ6,700 (73490), Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter. Balmain Jacket from Matches Fashion. White hoodie from ASOS and Saint Laurent boots from Matches Fashion.


Zenith 50th El Primero Anniversary A384 Revival ÂŁ6,700 (73490), Belstaff jeans from Mr Porter. Balmain Jacket from Matches Fashion. White hoodie from ASOS and Saint Laurent boots from Matches Fashion.


NEW RANGE ROVER EVOQUE

CAPABLE. YET INCAPABLE OF BLENDING IN.

New Range Rover Evoque is as at home on city streets as it is on mountainous roads. It has all the capability credentials of a true Land Rover but with all the city smarts too, such as ClearSight Groundview* technology. This displays what’s underneath the bonnet so you can keep an eye on those awkward high kerbs when parking. The Evoque really can do anything. Apart from avoid admiring glances. Call or visit to book your test drive today.

Park’s

100 Heathfield Road, Ayr KA8 9BN 01292 653200

61 Harbour Road, Inverness IV1 1UF 01463 716716

parks.uk.com/land-rover

Official WLTP Fuel Consumption for the Range Rover Evoque range in mpg (l/100km): Combined 28.5-44.9 (9.9-6.3). NEDCeq CO2 Emissions 188-143 g/km. The figures provided are as a result of official manufacturer’s tests in accordance with EU legislation. For comparison purposes only. Real world figures may differ. CO2 and fuel economy figures may vary according to factors such as driving styles, environmental conditions, load and accessories. Nolita Grey on First Edition only for 12 months from launch. *ClearSight Groundview not available on First Edition. Requires 360 camera. All in-car features should be used by drivers only when safe to do so. Drivers must ensure they are in full control of the vehicle at all times. Park’s (AYR) Limited and Park’s of Hamilton (Townhead Garage) Limited are Appointed Representatives of Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited, FRN 308476 of 14 Bothwell Road, Hamilton, ML3 0AY, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited permitted business is Insurance Mediation and to act as a Credit Broker. We can introduce you to a limited number of finance providers to assist with your purchase, who may remunerate us for introducing you to them. Retail customers only. Figures correct at time of printing.



HANDMADE IN ENGLAND E T T I N G E R .CO.U K +44 (0)20 8877 1616


LUXURY WATCH EDIT

ROX MAGAZINE

LUXURY WATCH EDIT The definitive directory of what you should be wearing on your wrist right now. Words by Alex Doak.

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HUBLOT

CHOPARD

AUDEMARS PIGUET

CLASSIC FUSION FERRARI GT

L.U.C. QUATTRO

This extraordinary HR Giger-esque cyborg of a watch is the latest result of Hublot and Ferrari’s hand-in-hand design approach that travels miles further than mere badge engineering. Like 2017’s extraordinary ‘Techframe’ celebrating Ferrari’s 70th anniversary, this chronograph looks to the sinuous forms of Maranello’s finest ‘Gran Turismo’ road cars for design inspo, suspending the ‘engine’ in a voluptuous, biomorphic chassis, just as Ferrari displays its mid-mounted V8s through a glass cowling. 72855 | £32,100

It says everything of Chopard’s elite ‘L.U.C.’ thinktank that its horological boffins have barely needed to tweak the Quattro movement in 19 years, so perfect is its concoction of dual twin-stacked barrels, affording nine whole, wind-free days of tick-tick-ticking autonomy. Its surprisingly slender mechanics are finished flawlessly by hand – always beautiful backstage, leaving Chopard’s draughtsmen with the constant challenge of reworking their modern classic, front-of-house. This year’s slate-blue redux is a particular tour de force. 74024 | £20,800

ROYAL OAK PERPETUAL CALENDAR ULTRA-THIN

www.rox.co.uk

Losing 3.2mm from your waistband is hardly troubling Weight Watchers’ annual awards ceremony, but when you consider things started at 9.5mm, and the diet has only been going a few years, that’s truly impressive. Not only is the new ‘5133’ perpetual calendar movement thinner, it is also cleverer, simplifying the components required to keep the precise date in spite of the Gergorian calendar’s erratic course from 374 to 256 – an engineering process AP alikes to collapsing a three-storey building into one, slightly broader single storey. 74020 | (P.O.A.)


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TUDOR BLACK BAY S&G CHRONOGRAPH Top-end ‘manufacture’ chronograph movement from Breitling? Complete with instantaneous vertical clutch and columnwheel lever co-ordination? With that much yellow gold thrown into an already-baffling ‘steel’ of a bargain? For £4,030? It’s hard to understand quite how Rolex’s not-solittle brother Tudor does it, all packaged in a cocktail of such on-point design nous, too. Decades of satisfying the demands of budget-restricted military frogmen probably has something to do with it. But still: £4,030? 72976 | £4,030

ZENITH

TAG HEUER

BREMONT

DEFY EL PRIMERO 21 CARBON

MONACO CALIBRE 11

JAGUAR D-TYPE

The likes of this year’s Defy Inventor (see our Zenith feature elsewhere in these pages) and the Defy Fusee Tourbillon (turn to Gadget Man at the back) may be vying for high-tech bragging rights in 2019 – and fair enough given El Primero’s 50th anniversary this year – but that’s not to detract from the cutting-edge engineering behind this stealthy bit of Bat-kit. Not only is the stopwatch function precise to 100th of a second, but it’s cased up in a ‘forged’ composite of randomly arranged carbon fibres, making it utility-belt shoein, so to speak. Shall we now prepare the Batmobile, sir? 72994 | £15,500

It’s a big year for watchmaking – a golden anniversary for no less than four watchmaking icons. There’s Seiko and its revolutionary quartz watch, Astron; Omega and its Speedmaster, which walked on the Moon in July of ’69; and then Zenith and TAG Heuer, who each launched their answer to Switzerland’s own Space Race: the self-winding chronograph. The latter had Calibre 11, first housed in the hip-to-be-square ‘Monaco’ made so famous by Steve McQueen. Only 169 examples of this racy, red-faced edition are being made, so best move fast. 74021 | £5,350

Back in 1955, Jaguar planned to build 100 of its curvaceous monoseater D-types. But, despite winning the Le Mans 24 Hours three times, at the hands of Scotland’s Ecurie Ecosse team, just 75 examples were completed. The British marque’s ‘Classic’ department is now fulfilling the chassis assignations with 25 period-correct creations, and Jaguar’s watch partner Bremont is celebrating the good news with 300 chronographs, rendered in EE’s iconic metallic blue hue, topped with heritage Jaguar logo in enamel. Bloody marvellous. 73218 | £5,495

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WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY, ZENITH? Future proof innovation makes Zenith tick. Words by Alex Doak.

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t might still be nestled among similarly quaint Art Nouveau buildings, deep in a remote valley, but Zenith has always been the future of Swiss watchmaking. When a 22-year-old Georges Favre-Jacot set up shop in Le Locle village over 150 years ago, his was the only factory in the Swiss Jura mountains to be fitted with electric lighting, let alone the first one to bring all of watchmaking’s key skills under one roof, rather than rely on the Jura Mountains’ sprawling cottage industry. Not only that, but Favre-Jacot pioneered the transfer of American industrial methods to the Jura, buying precision machinery for the production of highly interchangeable parts in big series. (An approach adopted three years later by Florentine Ariosto Jones, AKA father of IWC.) Yet still, after 300 patents, 600 movement variations and a staggering 2,333 prizes in the field of precision chronometry, Zenith continues to find itself firmly rooted in the art of the ‘chronograph’ stopwatch function. More

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precisely: El Primero. When first unveiled in January of 1969, pipping Heuer and Breitling’s collaborative ‘Calibre 11’ to the post by six months, Zenith’s El Primero could proudly advertise itself not only as the world’s first self-winding chronograph but also the first to tick at the highly precise frequency of 36,000 vibrations per hour, or 5 Hertz. This meant you could time events down to an accuracy of one tenth of a second, rather than the eighth afforded by all other 4Hz, or 28,800vph chronographs. Fittingly, El Primero made its debut later in 1969 powering a watch design far ahead of its time. The ‘A384’ (not named after the trunk road connecting Buckfastleigh and Totnes in Devon) housed its 5Hz mechanics in a steel case with angular facets straight off a Buck Rogers extra. For the A384’s 50th-anniversary revival this year, Zenith’s boffins went even more far out, 3D-scanning and digitising a museum original for perfect reproduction.


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Unfortunately, the writing was on the wall come the early Seventies. Like everything mechanical at the time, the contents of the El Primero workshop was ordered to be scrapped at the price of its metal, making way for newfangled quartz technology. An especially percipient workshop manager by the name of Charley Vermot reckoned otherwise, however. He assiduously squirrelled-away the plans and every single tool required to make an El Primero movement from scratch, shelving it all in a forgotten-about attic. It wasn’t long before Vermot’s act of insubordination came to benefit Zenith as, sure enough, interest in mechanical watches was back on the upswing by the early Eighties – and you can guess which prodigal son was to return first. At the same time that El Primero was heralding Zenith’s mechanical revival (its production instantly reinstated thanks to the efforts of Charley boy), another would-be industry legend was making his name reviving the Blancpain brand under the stoic mantra of “no quartz here, thank you very much”. A modern-day Georges Favre-Jacot, Biver is a revolutionary credited for reviving interest in mechanical watches in the Eighties when everyone was wearing quartz. His recent crowning achievement was establishing Hublot as one of the biggest players (the Big Bang was all his idea) and having tended to TAG, his swansong has been Zenith itself. Biver’s final and fitting tenure has seen the jewel in LVMH’s crown scale higher peaks than ever. First up for Zenith v3.0, in a reassertion of El Primero’s importance at the core of the brand, was the stopwatch function of 2017’s ‘Defy El Primero 21’, powered by a totally separate, highfrequency geartrain ticking at the breakneck speed of 360,000 vibrations per hour (or 50Hz). The tech is derived from a short-lived ‘haute horlogerie’ experiment at TAG in 2011, and feels far more at home here, especially in this year’s stealthy carbon-fibre case. In a dazzling exaggeration of El Primero’s high-frequency capability, the central sweepseconds hand whizzes round the dial once a second and keeps time to a hundredth of a second, rather than a tenth. And if that wasn’t enough to keep you utterly transfixed, the dial is ‘skeletonised’ to afford a glimpse into the tiny constellation of micro-mechanics within.

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As the first move in Zenith’s 21st-century masterplan, Defy 21 was tantamount to leapfrogging your pawns with a knight. But with Mr Biver on board, you can be sure this is no bluff. And sure enough, the novelties unveiled on Zenith’s stand at the Baselworld trade fair back in March signalled a solid checkmate in the game of high-frequency watchmaking. First up: the Defy Double Tourbillon Chronograph – another shelved adventure chez TAG Heuer, now made real by a brand that arguably suits the technology better. Not only does it feature a ‘normal’ tourbillon, tumbling the 5Hz El Primero escapement assembly a full 360º every minute, but hit the chronograph’s ‘start’ pusher on the side and the secondary stopwatch powertrain, ticking at a breakneck 50Hz, tumbles inside its own tourbillon cage 12 times faster – i.e. 360º every five seconds. The pure physics of a 5-second tourbillon, albeit on a microscopic scale, are a feat of nearalchemical engineering – and its down to the genius of LVMH’s resident Einstein, Guy Sémon. A former French Air Force test pilot and professor of physics, you get the impression that with the responsibility of saving lives or advancing science behind him, Sémon is treating the horological laboratories of TAG Heuer and Zenith like a toy shop, playground and man-cave combined. No further proof being needed than 2019’s other gamechanger…

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If Zenith’s far-out ‘Defy LAB’ concept of 2017 seemed far-fetched, then the thinking man’s Swiss maison has truly ‘defied’ the naysayers this year by bringing a commercial evolution to market in less than two years – for just £15,500. Dramatically, the renamed ‘Inventor’ does away entirely with the traditional, tick-tick-ticking assembly of balance wheel, hairspring and lever escapement, replacing its concoction of 30 parts with just 1 single component: a single wafer of silicon, stencilled into Kandinsky abstractness. It ‘twitches’ at 15Hz bringing the whole, openworked dial display to life, measuring an error of just one second across 70 hours’ autonomy. Nothing else mechanical comes close to that, whether you’re talking precision, frequency or sheer horological chutzpah in rejecting Switzerland’s time-worn regulating system

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wholesale. While the likes of Patek Philippe, Rolex, Omega et al. tinker with the odd silicon balance wheel or escape lever, gradually slimming down on lubricating oils and reducing the risk of magnetisation, Sémon and his team are ripping things up and starting over, lightyears ahead. Whether silicon itself continues to be the silver bullet for 21st-century watchmaking or some other micro-engineered alchemy steals a march, you can remain confident that Zenith will be continue to be your one-stop shop for futureproof innovation.

Zenith Watches are available online and at ROX Argyll Arcade.

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ROX-Y MUSIC If music be the food of love, and love happens to be the drug, then play on, Bryan. These lounge-lizard timekeepers are smooth operators ticking a steady beat long after midnight, with leopard-print pants and vodka on the rocks as standard. More than this? Not likely...


from left to right: Hublot Classic Fusion Watch £29,000 (71248), Bremont ALT1-C/PB Watch £4,895 (65320), Chopard L.U.C XPS Automatic Watch £13,000 (73991), Bremont Zenith Chronomaster El Primero Watch £5,500 (68696), Hublot Classic Fusion Watch £6,400 (64204)


JUNGLE READY Do you have an appetite for destruction? If so, then welcome to the watches that ‘slash’ the competition for hard-rock credentials: shock resistant, encased in toughened steel, ceramic or carbon, driven by precision mechanics a good many years from a knock on heaven’s door


from left to right: Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Watch £18,200 (67360), TAG Heuer Carrera Indy 500 Watch £3,850 (72330), Tudor Heritage Black Bay Watch £2,450 (65617), Bremont Airco Mach 1 Watch £2,895 (67852), Zenith Defy El Primero 21 Watch £15,500 (72994)


NEW SCHOOL Whether you were rave, old school or breaks, it was all about the ‘tech’ with little ‘no’ – and the same goes for these horological firestarters, spiked with no-limits, cutting-edge innovation and designed with all-nighters in mind. Glowsticks and whistles at the ready, party people – and that includes the search party


from left to right: Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Watch £29,600 (67351), Zenith Defy Classic Watch £6,100 (72005), Hublot Big Bang Meca-10 £18,200 (69691), Bremont U-2 Jet Watch £3,995 (69975), Tudor Heritage Black Bay Watch £3,240 (65612)


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GOLD

FOR THE SOUL Precious-metal powerhouse Chopard is setting a shining example with its ongoing commitment to crafting watches (and jewellery) entirely from ethical gold. Words by Alex Doak.

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t wasn’t so much a product as an idea that stood out at Baselworld, all of five years ago. Thanks to Chopard’s headline men’s launch, the more conscientious visitor was left questioning the ethical motives of any other brand who encases their timepieces in precious metal. (Virtually everyone, then.) Limited to 25 pieces, the ‘L.U.C Tourbillon QF Fairmined’ was the world’s first watch made with Fairmined-certified gold – a certification that guarantees the metal was mined in a responsible manner and that the miners themselves receive fair payment and an overall premium. Given 108

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the zeitgeist of ‘woke’ global responsibility, it’s surprising enough that the watch world has taken so long; what’s more suprising is that the standard itself was only defined as recently as 2011, by the South American Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM). ARM is an NGO working in close collaboration with gold industry experts to support and enable Artisanal and Small-scale Miner communities (ASMs) in Latin America, providing a stable route to market and a fair deal for the miners and their communities when selling their gold. Chopard had been working


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with ARM since 2013 on a line of Fairmined haute joaillerie, through its partnership with ‘Eco-Age’ and its creative director, Livia Firth. “Chopard was the first fine jewellery house to offer Fairtrade Fairmined gold,” says industry insider and ROX contributor, Laura McCreddie-Doak, “however it was not one of the original companies when it was launched on Valentine's Day in 2011. The main protagonists were people such as Stephen Webster, lesserknown names such as Pippa Small and Ute Decker… plus Cred, which was the designer for Livia Firth's first foray onto the red carpet in ‘green’ jewellery when her husband Colin won his Oscar for The King's Speech in 2011.” Importantly, the launch of Fairmined gold highlighted the littleknown risks people were taking to

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Journey to Sustainable Luxury'. As Caroline Scheufele, copresident and artistic director of Chopard attests, “As a century-old, family-run business, we are very aware of our responsibilities. It is not an easy journey, but it is the right one.” For Firth and her team, it is one of the most exciting projects they’ve ever taken on – despite a glittering roster of clients from Burberry to Valentino. Following a similar pattern to its other high-end ‘green’ projects, Eco-Age are brokering and vertically integrating Chopard’s relationship with the relevant NGOs and ultimately facilitating what Firth calls ‘Sustainable Style’, particularly through supply-chain innovation. EcoAge’s wider ‘Green Carpet Challenge’ initiative has even earned Firth a UN Leader of Change Award, leading onto

“IT HAS TAKEN SO LONG FOR THE INDUSTRY TO SEE ITS FIRST FAIRMINED WATCH, BECAUSE IT TAKES SO LONG TO JOIN THE DOTS. BUT THAT’S WHAT ECO-AGE DOES – IT JOINS THE DOTS.” mine the metal. It also ensured that the ASMs from Peru, Bolivia, Columbia and Ecuador were offered a price of 95% of the London Bullion Market’s (LBMA) fix for gold. “ASMs are at the mercy of middlemen,” McCreddie-Doak reveals, “who cheat them on price on the grounds of weight and purity. They offer anything from 35% to 85% of the LBMA fix for their gold, despite the fact that ASMs account for 10% of world gold production and 90% of the extraction workforce. This leaves many miners living on as little as $1 a day. “Fairmined gold changes that for these people.” Since 2013, Chopard has supported the development of the Coodmilla cooperative, located in the Nariño region of Colombia, setting itself the target of buying a significant percentage of its gold from other ‘Fairmined’ gold stocks and supporting other cooperatives in South America, with a view to their achieving ‘Fairmined’ certification. It’s a multiyear programme they’re calling 'The

the launch of the GCC Brand Mark and the world’s first zero-deforestation certified handbag collection with Gucci. “Chopard’s ‘Green Carpet’ collection launched at Cannes last year has been a real high point for us,” Firth says, “with stars like Marion Cotillard and Cate Blanchett wearing some stunning pieces in the glare of the public eye. And now, to have KarlFriedrich [Scheufele, co-president of Chopard and brother of Caroline] come on board with the men’s L.U.C watches… “It has taken so long for the industry to see its first Fairmined watch, because it takes so long to join the dots. But that’s what Eco-Age does – it joins the dots.” Indeed, it was at the Oscars in 2011 when Firth – between celebrating her husband’s win for The King’s Speech – fell into conversation with Caroline. “I asked where she bought her gold and she said, ‘From the bank, of course– Oh…’ “As soon as she said it, she www.rox.co.uk

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realised what I was implying. And it wasn’t long after the Oscars that I got the call back from Caroline, saying she’d been thinking hard about our conversation and that she wanted to do something with us. “We are so proud,” Firth concludes, “because they didn’t need to change but they wanted to.” The L.U.C. Tourbillon Fairmined was a supremely handsome launchpad, with its 43mmwide rose gold and distinguished ruthenium dial, not to mention exquisitely hand-finished and in-house-manufactured mechanics ticking inside. Since then, the steady trickle of Fairmined gold men’s watches have not let up in the looks department, nor failed to showcase Chopard’s L.U.C. division’s commitment to high-horological as well as ethical exactitude. There’s the ultrathin and ultra-chic XPS Twist, as well as the ‘Full Strike’ minute repeater, which breaks ground by ringing-out the time – down to the hours, quarters and minutes – on sapphire-crystal gongs. “We’re not quite ready to launch Fairmined gold into the entire collection,” Karl Friedrich Scheufele reveals, “as supply has to be ensured. Plus, having just returned from Asia, the Chinese customers are less concerned about these issues than in Europe. So we have to consider our bigger markets’ expectations and demands. “Personally,” he continues, “I would love the core collection’s precious metals to be entirely Fairmined. But for now, it’s a great communication tool to increase awareness. As soon as we have ensured a regular supply, we will broaden the collection. Simple economics!” From the customer’s perspective, you can already breathe easy across the board. Since 2018, Chopard has committed to source all of its gold from, if not Fairmined-certified ASMs, then one of two other traceable routes: small-scale mines participating in the Swiss Better Gold Association, or those channelled by the Responsible Jewellery Council. What’s more, thanks to the custodial Scheufele dynasty’s high-jewellery background, all of Chopard’s gold alloys are forged in its own foundry in Pforzheim, Germany. Theirs is a closed-loop system, where as much as 70% of production waste (gold that has already entered facilities) is recycled, reducing dependence on freshly mined gold. What’s more, while the premium the customer usually pays on Fairmined gold is actually lower than you might expect, Chopard is continuing to absorb this premium entirely into its own costs. If that isn’t a commitment to fairness, what is? Your move, everyone else. Chpard Watches and Jewellery are available online and at ROX Argyll Arcade www.rox.co.uk

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DASHING CHAP

Overshadowed for too long by its square-jawed cousin, the Monaco, TAG Heuer’s Autavia is re-establishing itself on pole position as the true petrolhead’s go-to instrument. Words by Alex Doak.

J

ack Heuer is the octogenarian patriarch of modern-day TAG Heuer – a spry, living legend of Swiss watchmaking with a gimlet eye and many words to the wise. Which is to forget that, on taking over the family firm in 1961 and blocking its sale to US giant Bulova, things were desperate, including his callow 28-year-old self. The success and reputation of his ancestors weighed heavy, and he needed to prove himself, let alone save the company from bankruptcy. Surprisingly, Jack’s first answer came in the form of another failure, three years prior. “In 1958, my first year at ‘Ed. Heuer & Co. SA’, I participated in two Swiss car rallies,” he recounts in his rollicking collection of memoirs, The Times of My Life. “We were doing fine until, close to the finish, I misread the dial of our Citröen’s Heuer ‘Autavia’ dashboard stopwatch, by a minute. The result was that our team came in third place instead of first. “This error infuriated me and I realised that the dial of the Autavia was unclear, confusing and very difficult to read correctly in a speeding rally car. Back at the Heuer factory we therefore created a new stopwatch with a large central minute hand. We mounted it into a dashboard case and called it the ‘Autorallye’.” The upshot of which was, as well as refining Heuer’s already formidable prowess in timekeeping, Jack still had the pithy ‘Autavia’ name to hand. Since 1933, it had combined the words ‘automobile’ and ‘aviation’ as a byword for

cockpit precision, rivalling Breitling’s own line in dashboard instrumentation. Come the autumn of 1961, Jack decided to revive ‘Autavia’ as an all-new wristworn chronograph, fitted with a turning bezel for the very first time. “A bezel with 60 separate one-minute divisions,” Jack explains, “would allow the wearer to set a marker for a defined interval of less than one hour: a 12-hour division would allow the time in another time zone to be displayed: and divisions of 1/100th of a minute would be useful for time study purposes.” Heuer’s modern era (and Jack’s career) was off to a flying start. Within a single year, Autavia was joined by 1963’s purer ‘Carrera’ chronograph, borrowing its name from Mexico’s notorious Carrera Panamericana road rally (just as Porsche did a year later when it launched the 911). “Looking back I can say that the Autavia was the first real wristwatch product I personally created for the company.” As this year’s various 50th celebrations have reminded us, however, 1969 saw several horological milestones that rather overshadowed Autavia’s import. Not only did Omega’s Speedmaster walk on the Moon, but Seiko invented quartz, plus every watchmaker’s Holy Grail – the self-winding, or ‘automatic’ chronograph movement – was finally brought to light. Twice. Zenith unveiled its ‘El Primero’ straight out www.rox.co.uk

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of the traps in January, but it was Heuer and Breitling’s collaborative ‘Calibre 11’ that made it to market first. And, sadly for Autavia, Jack Heuer wanted it to debut with an all-new and high-impact product. Named in tribute to the equally showy grand prix, the Monaco’s cobalt-blue dial was striking enough, but in addition was a world-first: a water-resistant square case. Once Steve McQueen paired a Monaco with a Heuer-branded racesuit in Le Mans (1970), the rest would be history. A history being celebrated in no uncertain terms this year, with no less than five limited-edition Monacos. Which, if we’re honest, is rather unfair on its forefather. Autavia’s third generation, duly upgraded with Calibre 11 mechanics (complete with signature left-handed crown) switched things up massively in the looks department. It now had an ovoid cushion case – no doubt inspired by the funkadelic styles of the time – strapped via short,

“LOOKING BACK I CAN SAY THAT THE AUTAVIA WAS THE FIRST REAL WRISTWATCH PRODUCT I PERSONALLY CREATED FOR THE COMPANY.” square lugs. While the first-gen Autavias were largely an exercise in monochrome, these new designs brought with them a range of colourful dials, including perhaps the best-known Autavia of all: reference 1163T with a white dial and bright blue highlights. This was known as the ‘Siffert’ Autavia – and arguably it served an even more potent link between Heuer and motorsport than anything mustered by Monaco. “I was at my golf club [in 1968] with an old friend Claude Blancpain, who ran the Cardinal brewery in Fribourg,” Jack recalls in his autobiography. “Out of the blue, Claude suggested I should sponsor a young driver called Joseph Siffert, also from Fribourg, who had shot to fame by winning the British Grand Prix that July, beating drivers such as Chris Amon, Jacky Ickx and Jackie Stewart. “Claude considered him one of the greatest talents in Formula One racing at the time.” A meeting was duly arranged, where Jack and Jo hit it off immediately. They agreed on the following: (1) During all races Jo would wear the Heuer logo patch on his overalls plus a Heuer chronograph, preferably the Autavia; 114

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(2) He would put a red Heuer sticker on all the cars he raced; (3) Heuer would allow him to buy its products at wholesale prices to resell them privately at races; (4) Heuer would pay him an annual fee of CHF25,000. “Although I didn't realise it at the time,” says Jack, “this relatively simple sponsoring contract with Siffert was probably one of the best marketing moves I ever made. It opened the door for us to the whole world of Formula One.” Sure enough, in Jack’s words, Siffert was a born “wheeler and dealer”. He travelled everywhere with a collection of watches, which he would place with all of his friends on the circuit, somewhere between wholesale and retail prices. “If you looked around, they all wore a Heuer Chronograph... all bought from Jo! He put it exactly in the right hands of those in his world.” It led to Heuer’s revolutionary and longlasting sponsorship of Ferrari’s F1 team from 1970, leveraged thanks to the watchmaker’s supply of cutting-edge digital timing equipment, which Enzo himself deemed superior to F1’s own kit. It was even Siffert’s role as muse to McQueen on the set of Le Mans that meant the King of Cool personally chose a Monaco to wear on screen. And all the while, Siffert wore his own favourite, the ovoid case with blue accents. Today, TAG Heuer continues to burn rubber

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on board with Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing, as well as strapped to brand-ambassador-cumlatterday-racer Patrick ‘McDreamy’ Dempsey. And the good news for fans of Autavia’s pure formula of high-octane horology is that, while the ovoid case has reverted to its original circle (for now, at least) the choice is better than ever – both styling and performance wise. Joining the ‘Heritage’ chronographs, this year’s time-and-date-only collection draws from Autavia’s aviation and automobile origins in the cockpit – i.e. functionality and legibility through and through. Available in steel of course, but also gritty bronze, their gradated dials in blue, black or green are each marked ‘Isograph’ and ‘chronometer’. The latter indicates that the Calibre 5 mechanics inside have been upgraded with TAG Heuer’s own silicon hairspring, which ‘breathes’ four times a second in perfect symmetry and contributes to the former’s indication of certified precision; in other words, a daily deviation of just –4/+5 seconds. As Autavia’s first significant evolution in 50 years, it’s been a long time coming. But Mr Heuer can rest easy in the knowledge his own ‘first real wristwatch product’ is still going places, and fast. TAG Heuer Watches are available online and at ROX Newcastle www.rox.co.uk

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OUTSIDE EDGE We take to the streets in unforgiving style and confidence with Peter Gemmell aka @thegentlemanselect. Your AW19 wardrobe and watch collection is about to get a little more thrilling.


MAKE IT POP Like to mix it up a little? Opt for a colourful timepiece to add some depth and personality to your everyday look.


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Styling: Taylor Brown in collaboration with Cruise Clothing. Model/Blogger: TheGentlemanSelect

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Watch 70086 | £25,300

Bremont ALT1-ZT/51 Watch 65329 | £4,495

Hublot Big Bang Ceramic Blue Watch 69704 | £13,300

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Watch 72733 | £26,200

Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Watch 73002 | £5,960

TAG Heuer Monaco Gulf Special Edition Watch 70159 | £4,750

Hublot Big Bang Scuderia Ferrari Watch 72858 | £33,900

Zenith Chronomaster El Primero Watch 68725 | £7,200

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Hublot Big Bang Ceramic Blue Watch 69704 | £13,300

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Watch 70086 | £25,300

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Bremont ALT1-ZT/51 Watch 65329 | £4,495

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Hublot Big Bang Unico King Gold Watch 65726 | £30,400

ROSE GOLD MEDALIST Rose gold is leading the way in watchmaking and it's to no surprise.The striking metal transforms any timepiece.


Styling: Taylor Brown in collaboration with Cruise Clothing. Model/Blogger: TheGentlemanSelect

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Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph Watch 67326 | £37,300

Hublot Big Bang Unico King Gold Watch 65726 | £30,400

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Watch 67353 | £44,800

Zenith El Primero 21 Watch 74247 | £36,700

Zenith Defy Classic Watch 72995 | £8,100

Chopard L.U.C Time Traveller One Watch 68102 | £19,500

Hublot Classic Fusion Aerofusion Watch 71248 | £29,000

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Zenith Defy Classic Watch 72995 | £8,100

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Hublot Big Bang Unico King Gold Watch 65726 | £30,400

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph Watch 67326 | £37,300

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TAG Heuer Carrera Watch 69953 | £2,050

BROWN IS THE NEW BLACK Opt for a brown strap watch and take a step back in time – with a strong vintage feel, they ooze history.


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Styling: Taylor Brown in collaboration with Cruise Clothing. Model/Blogger: TheGentlemanSelect

Zenith Chronomaster El Primero Watch 68696 | £5,500

TAG Heuer Carrera Watch 69953 | £2,050

Bremont Supermarine Type 501 Divers Watch 69970 | £3,495

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Watch 69692 | £39,700

Zenith Pilot Cronometro Tipo CP-2 Watch 69726 | £6,400

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph Watch 67330 | £37,300

Tudor Black Bay S&G Watch 72976 | £4,030

Hublotr Spirit of Big Bang King Gold Watch 67361 | £33,900

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Zenith Chronomaster El Primero Watch 68696 | £5,500

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Bremont Supermarine Type 501 Divers Watch 69970 | £13,495

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Watch 69692 | £39,700

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FOOD & DRINK

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CHILE'S

NEW COOL Chile has much more to offer than the cheap and cheerful wine it is most known for. This beautiful country is home to some of the worlds most exquisite wines, each with their own story to tell. Words by Rebecca Palmer.

‘Donde la tierra se acaba … where the land ends’ said the helicopter pilot (and somewhat worryingly I thought) as I held my breath, gripped my seat and we swooped and looped over a tiny experimental vineyard perched perilously above the Pacific on its rocky promontory. ‘So that’s what the word ‘Chile’ means in the old Mapuche language’ he explained helpfully. ‘Or some say it is the cry of seagulls chille chille, or perhaps the Quechua word for snow, or todas esas cosas a la vez’. Indeed Chile is all these things and more. A land of contrasts and extremes, Chile is an extraordinary country. Spanning over 4600km north to south, it is also just 93 miles wide. Home to 18 million people and 2000 active volcanoes, it also harbours 200 thousand hectares of vines. In fact, Chile is often termed a viticultural paradise, thanks to its unique geography. In the north the vast Atacama desert proves a barrier to predators. Likewise, the mighty Andes (80% of Chile’s landmass!), rising to the east. To the south and west lie the waters of the Pacific. It is thanks to these protective natural boundaries that Chile was spared the ravages of phylloxera, the louse that devastated world vineyards in the

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late 19th century, and much more besides. So Chile is in many ways an enclave, its landscape contrasting ancient rolling hills and steep-sided valleys glittering with minerals, dense forests and deep lakes, snow-topped mountains and meandering rivers. There are vines everywhere, some planted long ago in the 1500s, the legacy of the Spanish conquistadors, others the result of widespread European migration in the 19th and 20th centuries; this is a land with a rich history, whose natural attributes, politics and culture have spawned a fascinating industry. The Chilean wine industry is significant in global terms, in 2018 it stood as 6th largest wine producing country in the world (12.9mhl. Source: OIV), and has become well-known in export markets, particularly for its well-priced easydrinking wines, which outperform so many other countries in terms of value for money. However, the inevitable flipside to this success is that Chile has found itself pigeonholed as a producer of the cheap and cheerful: uncomplicated, juicy wines tasting of their grape variety but not much more. ‘Does what it says on the tin’. However, Chile has much more to offer, as I found out last Autumn


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FOOD & DRINK

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AR11234 EGS2668, EGS2664, EGS2662


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Polemico Pais Vina Laurent 2018

when I made my latest buying trip to South America. A number of discussions with trade friends and tastings of Chilean wines in the UK, made me realise I must delve deeper into Chile, and so I set aside a few days to do so, and I am so glad I did. Buying trips seem to warp time. In a few intense days criss-crossing Chile, I had the opportunity to meet with dozens of producers, experience extraordinary landscapes, and taste hundreds of wines, many of which were new to me. The people I met, the vineyards I walked in or flew above, the wines I tried, were eye-opening in so many different and colourful ways. After a number of tastings and discussions with the growers and colleagues at Corney & Barrow, I am delighted that we have signed an entire handful of producers, five new faces whose wines can take us – and our customers - on a new and exciting journey through Chile. All offer something different from somewhere different, all have their own unique story to tell. Some of these growers produce just a few hundred cases a year, others are a little larger, but the common thread to all of their wines, is that they have a sense of place and of the people that made them; to use that very French concept, they are wines of ‘terroir’. These include classic red varietals from Idahue estate in the new DO Licanten (only the fourth appellation in Chile to be inaugurated, just last year!), a jaw-dropping feat of engineering by La Ronciere winery; revived heritage grapes Pais and Moscatel from the rolling landscape of the beautiful Itata valley; an orange skin-contact Torontel from the remote southern Maule and an old bush vine, dry-grown Garnacha made in amphorae. We have a biodynamic Cab Sauv from 80 year-old vines grown at altitude high above Colchagua, and the very essence of Carmenere from a French-Chilean winemaking couple with their own tiny venture in the Maipo. Recently arrived, or about to, all these wines are exclusive to Corney & Barrow in the UK. We hope they will inspire you to learn more about Chile and the many faces of its wine world.

Produced from 150 years-old ungrafted vines in Chile's Southern Itata Valley, the original heartland of Chilean wine production from the 16th century. Polemico combines novelty and heritage in a fragrant, supple expression of the little known País grape..

£11.95

Inocente Carmenere Vina Laurent 2018 Rich and structured Carménère, with aromas of black cherries and hints of leather notes that bring up the typicity of the grape expression in the heart of Maipo Valley. The wine is made by small artisan producer Viña Laurent, an independent boutique winery dedicated to the production of premium Chilean wines.

£11.95

Naranjo Torontel Loncomilla Maturana Wines 2018 Tangy orange wine carefully crafted and produced in tiny quantities. It stays in contact with the pinkish skins of Torontel for 8 months, thus its orange hue. It is made from heritage vines of almost 80 years old located in Loncomilla, a remote sub-region of the Maule Valley in Chile.

£14.95

La Gringa Moscatel Massoc Freres 2017 Dry, elegant Moscatel made from 80 yearold vines located in the Itata Valley. This is a partnership between Massoc Frères and local grower Juan Hinojosa.

Find out more at corneyandbarrow.com

Their project helps revive heritage grapes in Southern Chile. This wine is testament to its origin and grape variety, with a delicious sense of purity

£14.95

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WHAT'S HOT

ROX MAGAZINE

WHAT'S HOT Taylor Brown unveils this years coolest opening for a fun filled AW19.

ROX Liverpool ROX is set to bring Diamonds & Thrills to Liverpool this season. The brand's sixth boutique will open at Peters Lane in Liverpool One, one of Europe's leading retail and leisure destinations, focusing purely on ROX diamond and silver jewellery along with luxury goods. Designed by award-winning interiors firm Graven the new boutique will open its doors mid-November.

Flight Club This is darts, but not as you know it. Flight Club is coming to Leeds with an unusual darts bar concept that’s made waves on both sides of the Atlantic. They’ve taken the humble dart board and turned it into a fun experience for all to enjoy in fast-paced multiplayer games, groundbreaking dart technology and an instant scoring system. You can expect to miss a few shots though as it’s an uber cool bar with creative cocktails and alcoholic slushes. Enjoy!

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WHAT'S HOT

Kings Golf Club A new course designed by Scottish golf architect Stuart Rennie has recently opened for play at the newly renamed Kings Golf Club in Inverness. It replaces the old Torvean course which first opened in 1962 with 16 holes along with a new club house. The course boasts a 65 metre difference in elevation between the top and bottom of the site making it a great undulating site.

Fingal Hotel Fingal is a former Northern Lighthouse Board ship turned glamorous and quirky hotel in Edinburgh’s historic port of Leith after a £5 million development project. It boasts luxurious cabins, dining and entertaining space, choose from a luxury cabin with private deck, a duplex cabin with comfortable living space or the extravagant Skerryvore Suite with extensive outdoor space to relax and entertain.

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PROPERTY

ROX MAGAZINE

HOLIDAY HOMES

Why have one home when you can have two? Taylor Brown opens the doors to the best homes the globe has to offer for a truly unforgettable AW19.

SCOTLAND This is one for our Game of Thrones fans. Step back in time with this category A-listed Tudor-style Gothic mansion nestled amongst the tranquility of the Dumbarton hills. This historic Dalmoak Castle features a wealth of original features like stained glass windows, magnificent Corinthian columns 136

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and two tower rooms with a terrace. The property is thought to date back to 1866 and was built by architect Alexander Watt. During WW2 the property was used by the Royal Air Force as its local headquarters!

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Address: Dalmoak, Dumbarton G82 4HQ Prices: ÂŁ675,000 Savills: 0141 222 5875

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ROX MAGAZINE

PROPERTY

own

of m²)

the

of

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AUSTRIA Beautifully situated in a slightly elevated location above Ellmau, this country style chalet is within easy reach of the town centre and offers superb views of the Wilder Kaiser mountain range and

its ski slopes. It was fully renovated and modernised this year, featuring a hot tub, sauna, ski-in/ski-out location, outdoor parking and a terrace which surrounds the chalet - what more could you want?

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2

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Address: Ellmau, Tirol, Austria Offers Over: ÂŁ1,402,520 Savills: 020 3428 2949 www.rox.co.uk

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ITALY Enjoy an Italian break for some winter sun in this beautifully presented detached villa situated in an idyllic and tranquil spot facing views over Lake Trasimeno. The property features charismatic chestnut

beams and reclaimed stone which tastefully harmonise with the modern conveniences. If you thought it couldn’t get any better, every room features lake views!

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Address: Villa Azzurra, San Feliciano, Magione, Perugia, Umbria, Italy Prices: ÂŁ432,223 Savills: 020 3428 2949

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The new Bentayga Hybrid. Bentley technology has always made travel more exhilarating. Now it also makes the journey effortless. Discover more at BentleyMotors.com/Bentayga The name ‘Bentley’ and the ‘B’ in wings device are registered trademarks. © 2019 Bentley Motors Limited. Model shown: Bentayga Hybrid.

BENTLEY GLASGOW

Bentayga Hybrid is currently only available to order in the USA and Canada. It will become available to order in other markets during the first half of 2019. All technical data is based on the North American drive cycle and is provisional, subject to Type Approval. Park’s of Hamilton (Townhead Garage) Limited is an Appointed Representative of Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited, FRN 308476 of 14 Bothwell Road, Hamilton, ML3 0AY, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited permitted business is Insurance Mediation and to act as a Credit Broker. We can introduce you to a limited number of finance providers to assist with your purchase, who may remunerate us for introducing you to them. Retail customers only.


ROX MAGAZINE

PROPERTY

DUBAI 4 Escape the harsh winters and head east to Dubai. This penthouse in Jumeirah is hot property with four bedrooms, a swooning balcony facing onto the sea, five bathrooms, basement parking, floor to ceiling windows and an outdoor

entertainment area. Not only are you met by these astounding features but a private elevator takes you straight there. How do we sign up?

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Address: Becici, Budva Riviera, Montenegro, 85310 Prices: ÂŁ10,567,683 Savills: +97 143 657 772 www.rox.co.uk

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ROX MAGAZINE

MOTORING

FERRARI

SWITCHES ON TO

ELECTRIC POWER

This year, both Hublot and Ferrari celebrate the Scuderia Ferrari racing team’s 90 years of competition in typically arresting fashion. But while the Hublot Big Bang’s transparent face is literally a window to the exquisite engineering below, the SF90 Stradale plays its cards close to its chest. Words by Chris Chilton.

A

t a glance it looks much like the less expensive F8 Tributo, the 488 replacement also announced this year. But under the skin it’s a radically different beast. A four-wheel drive plug-in hybrid beast, it’s like no supercar to come from Ferrari’s Maranello works. Ferrari has already introduced

4.0-litre V8 similar to the Tributo’s, and producing 769bhp. That alone would be enough to guarantee explosive acceleration. But the SF90 combines it with three electric motors – one mounted between the engine and the new eight-speed dual-clutch transmission driving the rear wheels, and a further two working on the front wheels.

WITH THE ENGINE AND ELECTRIC MOTORS WORKING TOGETHER TO DELIVER A STAGGERING 1000 METRIC HORSEPOWER THE SF90 CAN SLINGSHOT TO 62MPH IN JUST 2.5SEC four-wheel drive, but only in its frontengined GT cars. It’s dabbled with electric power, too, on the LaFerrari hypercar, but there it was only ever available to assist the V12, never to propel the car on its own. For the SF90 it combines the two technologies to create a Ferrari fit for the modern age. At its heart is a turbocharged

The ‘Stradale’ name translates as ‘street’ in Italian, underlining that this is a car designed primarily for the road, and not the track. But there are few roads in the world where you can legally use the full performance. With the engine and electric motors working together to deliver a staggering 1,000 metric horsepower www.rox.co.uk

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ROX MAGAZINE

(986bhp in Brexit-spec British brake horsepower) the SF90 can slingshot to 62mph in just 2.5sec and eventually reach 211mph given enough room. Alternately, you can drive for 15.5 miles purely using the 217bhp of the electric motors, although inevitably at the expense of some performance: the top speed is a more modest, but still practical 84mph. As you’d expect from a car inspired by F1 trends, the SF90 features active spoilers to provide aerodynamic downforce that help you deploy the car’s performance safely, while inside there’s a new fully configurable instrument panel and fight jet-style head-up display. The cleverest bit isn’t the technology, though, but the price, which is rumoured to be around £400,000. That’s a big chunk of cash for a car no matter how fat your wallet is, but it also puts the SF90 into a market where it has few

FEATURE

actual competitors. The supercar market is usually split between production supercars hovering either side of the £200,000 mark, and extremely limited production hypercars costing as much as £1m, and, increasingly, even more. But with the SF90 Ferrari is offering a car with hypercar-level performance for ‘only’ slightly more than regular supercar money. A horological analogy might be if Rolex invented Tudor today. The SF90’s closest on-paper rival, the Lamborghini Aventador, is charismatic, but destined to feel arthritic in comparison. It’s a genius move, and one you can be sure has sent the likes of McLaren scrambling to respond in kind. Find more motoring news at www.rox.co.uk/magazine www.rox.co.uk

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ROX MAGAZINE

MOTORING

PORSCHE NEW FASTBACK CAYENNE PRIORITISES

SPORT

OVER

UTILITY

Every serious garage, like every serious watch collection, needs more than one piece. Chopard’s handsome Classic, and hi-tech Superfast Porsche 919 Edition both tell the time, but you’d be no more likely to wear the chronograph to an evening function than take your dress watch to the track. Words by Chris Chilton.

T

he breadth of Chopard’s range means you can have a different timepiece to suit each occasion and stay within the family. And since the introduction of the Cayenne SUV back in 2002, Porsche fans needing a second car offering more practicality than their 911 or Boxster have been able to do the same. Now, however, with the new Cayenne Coupé, Porsche brings those two poles slightly closer. Although clearly based on the existing Cayenne, the Coupé features a 20mm lower roof that’s constructed from glass as standard, but can be swapped for carbon fibre if you specify the optional lightweight pack. There’s also a steeply raked rear screen and more pronounced rear hips to emphasise the new, muscular look. Finishing off the new design are a pair of spoilers: a small fixed wing at the top of the rear screen, and an electric one at the base

that extends 135mm into the airstream at speeds over 56mph. Creating a clear visual link between a huge SUV and Porsche’s iconic 911 sports car is no mean feat, but the designer have done a great job. So great you have to wonder why it took Porsche so long. Despite being one of the first to offer a genuinely high performance driver-focused SUV, Porsche is one of the last to deliver a sportier fastback variant. BMW’s X6, this car’s most obvious rival, first appeared way back in 2008. Inside, the dashboard and centre console with its glorious wide touchscreen are carried over. But the rear three-seat bench is swapped for one sculpted for two (you can revert to three at no extra cost), and mounted slightly lower in the car to replace the headroom lost to the sportier roofline. And under the bonnet you’ll find one of three engines, all familiar to existing Cayenne

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MOTORING

owners. Base model and Cayenne S Coupés get turbocharged V6 engines developing 335bhp or 434bhp, while the power crazed can step up to the 542bhp V8-powered Cayenne Turbo that can reach 62mph in just 3.9sec. In each case power is delivered to all four wheels with the option of a rearwheel steering system to increase the agility of what is a large, still tall, and heavy car. Despite the Coupé’s sportier image Porsche doesn’t make any great claims of dynamic superiority over the regular Cayenne, and of course that sloping rear window impacts on practicality, reducing space in the still-ample boot by 145 litres. Yet Porsche wants more money in return. The Cayenne Coupé starts at £62,129, so costs between

CREATING A CLEAR VISUAL LINK BETWEEN A HUGE SUV AND PORSCHE’S ICONIC 911 SPORTS CAR IS NO MEAN FEAT, BUT THE DESIGNER HAVE DONE A GREAT JOB. SO GREAT YOU HAVE TO WONDER WHY IT TOOK PORSCHE SO LONG. £3,574 and £4,935 more than the Cayenne depending on the model. No better to drive, less useful and more expensive? Viewed dispassionately you could say cars like the Cayenne Coupé are absurd. But you don’t approach a car with a Porsche badge on the nose dispassionately any more than you would a Chopard. You can rationalise the purchase of a car or watch by referencing its performance or build quality, but often the draw is more personal than that. The Cayenne Coupé is bound to divide opinion, but Porsche’s bulging order book is testament to its appeal.

Find more motoring news at www.rox.co.uk/magazine www.rox.co.uk

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THE NEW BMW 1 SERIES. EXPRESS YOURSELF. The BMW 1 Series has been redesigned to go beyond the journey and co-pilot your life. Boasting a 5-door design with a new sporty look and BMW TwinPower Turbo engines, it also comes with an enhanced digital eco-system that seamlessly merges your life into the driving experience. Add to this a boost in interior space, and you have a car that is open to amazing possibilities.

SEARCH DOUGLAS PARK Hamilton Bothwell Road ML3 0AY 01698 303700 Glasgow Kyle Street G4 0HP 0141 333 0088 Stirling New Kerse Road FK7 7RZ 01786 474477

douglasparkbmw.co.uk

Fuel economy and CO2 results for the BMW 1 Series range. Mpg (l/100km): Combined 35.8 (7.9) to 62.8 (4.6). CO2 emissions: 155–100g/km. Figures are for comparison purposes and may not reflect real life driving results, which depend on a number of factors including the accessories fitted (post registration), variations in weather, driving styles and vehicle load. All figures were determined according to a new test (WLTP). The CO 2 figures were translated back to the outgoing test (NEDC) and will be used to calculate vehicle tax on first registration. Only compare fuel consumption and CO2 figures with other cars tested to the same technical procedure. Douglas Park Limited is an Appointed Representative of Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited, FRN 308476 of 14 Bothwell Road, Hamilton, ML3 0AY, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited permitted business is Insurance Mediation and to act as a Credit Broker. We can introduce you to a limited number of finance providers to assist with your purchase, who may remunerate us for introducing you to them. Retail customers only.


ROX MAGAZINE

GADGET MAN

GADGET MAN You don’t have to be technical wizard to enjoy a good gadget. We bring you a selection of the best gizmos on the market. As our old friend Inspector Gadget would say: “Wowsers.” ZENITH DEFY EL PRIMERO FUSEE TOURBILLON Its recent repositioning as the ‘future of fine watchmaking’ has opened the floodgates for Zenith’s horological boffins as well as product designers and materials scientists. All three disciplines come together with sci-fi brilliance here: a Battlestar Galacticaworthy skeleton dial revealing the high-tech hearts of the matter, all gleaming in electric blue. At 6 o’clock, the tumbling, ticking zero-G tourbillon cage. Above it, a miniature chain, regulating torque delivery to the geartrain as the barrel unwinds. 74084 | £89,000

SEGA CLASSIC GAME CONSOLE Now you can play the legendary console in all it’s glory (much to your partner's despair), with some modern extras thrown in for good measure. This 80’s classic is packed with 81 games including fans favourites Sonic The Hedgehog and Mortal Kombat. The kit also comes with two controllers – it’s competition time!

BREMONT ARMED FORCES ARGONAUT You’re looking at the culmination of an unprecedented watchmaking programme: the ultimate battle-ready diving watch, honed from Bremont’s years of supplying specially commissioned chronometers to elite military units, getting an exclusive audience with those operatives and as a result, earning endorsement from all three of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. The Argonaut, good to 300 metres underwater with an internal dive-time bezel protected from scrapes, is what the Royal Navy’s best would wear – and if it’s good enough for them? Well, you know the rest. 72644 | £2,795

TAG HEUER CONNECTED MODULAR GOLF Arguably the most complete smartwatch on the market is now stepping onto the fairway, not only with the requisite sartorial élan – thanks to its glove-like perforated white leather strap – but also formidable technical prowess, given TAG Heuer’s proprietary golf app’s ability to guide your round no less than 39,000 fairways all over the world within a metre’s GPS accuracy, every one of them rendered in three dimensions on your hidef OLED screen. You can also scratch that scorecard and keep track of everyone’s game with a flick of a fingertip 74085 | £1,600.

JAXJOX KETTLEBELLCONNECT There’s nothing technology can’t get its hands on, the latest victim is the humble kettle bell. KettleBellConnect relies on gravity to change the weight, all you have to do is select your desired weight on the LCD screen and an internal screw does the work in seconds. The battery last 14 hours and there’s an app that aids toward your goal. Space saver sent from space!

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The Maserati of SUVs

PARK’S MASERATI 143 / 159 ALMADA STREET, HAMILTON ML3 0ET 01698 303828 PARKS.UK.COM/MASERATI

Fuel economy and CO2 results for the Maserati Levante MY19 range in mpg (l/100km) combined: 20.7 (13.6) to 30.0 (9.4). *CO2 emissions: 282 - 207 g/km. Figures shown are for comparability purposes; only compare fuel consumption and CO2 figures with other cars tested to the same technical procedures. These figures may not reflect real life driving results, which will depend upon a number of factors including the accessories fitted (post-registration), variations in weather, driving styles and vehicle load. *There is a new test used for fuel consumption and CO2 figures. The CO2 figures shown however, are based on the outgoing test cycle and will be used to calculate vehicle tax on first registration.


ROX MAGAZINE

TREATS FOR HIM

TREATS FOR HIM You may not need convincing to spend that cash on a flash must have, but just in case, here’s a selection of treats to tempt you.

WOLF Blake Single Watch Roll 73221 | £89

Gucci GG Silver Bracelet 73197 | £425

Prada Silk-Twill Tie

Emporio Armani Watch 73822 | £229

Hugo Boss Watch 73829 | £399

Balenciaga Cotton-Twill Baseball Cap

ROX Link Silver Curb Chain 72380 | £350

Ettinger Sterling Credit Card Case 74235 | £115

Acne Studios Toronty Wool-Blend Scarf

Emporio Armani Watch 72427 | £369

Gucci Silver Double G Cufflinks 73169 | £315

Saint Laurent Glossed Nylon-Ripstop Holdall

Gucci G Cube Silver Ring 73193 | £225

Hugo Boss Watch 73835 | £449

Tom Ford Full-Grain Leather Belt

ROX Man Leather Bracelet 69328 | £60

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JAGUAR E-PACE

STRAY FROM THE PACK.

The E-PACE. A sports car-inspired SUV. Available with Intelligent AWD and Active Driveline.* Sporting chassis and suspension tune. Driver-focussed cockpit and an elegant, spacious interior with up to 1,234 litres of loadspace. Not all cars follow the same pattern. Contact us to book a test drive.

Park’s 100 Heathfield Road, Ayr KA8 9BN 01292 653000 61 Harbour Road, Inverness IV1 1UF 01463 668844 parks.uk.com/jaguar

A BREED APART *Active Driveline is available with D240 and P300 engines only. Official NEDC Equivalent (NEDCeq) Fuel Consumption for the Jaguar E-PACE range in mpg (l/100km): Combined 31.7-52.3 (8.9-5.4). CO 2 Emissions 203-143 g/km. The figures provided are NEDCeq calculated from official manufacturer’s WLTP tests in accordance with EU legislation. For comparison purposes only. Real world figures may differ. CO 2 and fuel economy figures may vary according to wheel fitment and optional extras fitted. Park’s (AYR) Limited and Park’s of Hamilton (Townhead Garage) Limited are Appointed Representatives of Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited, FRN 308476 of 14 Bothwell Road, Hamilton, ML3 0AY, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited permitted business is Insurance Mediation and to act as a Credit Broker. We can introduce you to a limited number of finance providers to assist with your purchase, who may remunerate us for introducing you to them. Retail customers only.


ROX MAGAZINE

GIFTS FOR HER

GIFTS FOR HER We love the ladies, and they're good to us, so if you need some gift inspiration look no further than our selection of treats for her. Happy wife, happy life!

Michael Kors Love Logo Earrings 74203 | £89

Emporio Armani Gioia Watch 73820 | £179

ROX Diamond Drop Necklace 70949 | £595

Acne Studios Pansy Ribbed Wool Beanie

Burberry Padded Silk-Satin Cape

ROX Vintage Stacking Ring 0.07cts 73878 | £495

ROX Diamond Earrings 0.16cts 72007 | £495

Hugo Boss Watch 73807 | £299

Gucci Icon Earings 53051 | £440

Gianvitto Rossi Plexi 105 Leather Mules

Gucci G-Timeless Watch 73057 | £850

ROX Bamboo Letter K Pendant 71978 | £55

Michael Kors Watch 73853 | £279

ROX Orbit Beaded Silver Torque 71462 | £95

Fendi Leather Shoulder Strap

ROX Luxe Candle 62237 | £35

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10 years

OF GUESTLIST

It wouldn't be a ROX Magazine without some ROX Star performances. We're proud to have presented the hottest events around over the last decade, hosting some of the world's biggest names in music and entertainment...





HOW TO SHOP

ROX MAGAZINE

ROX - DIAMONDS & THRILLS KEEP UP WITH THE DIAMONDS & THRILLS Follow us on socials for the latest product drops and jewellery trends for AW19.

@ROXJEWELLERY @ROXWATCHES

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READ ALL ABOUT IT

HOW TO SHOP

Pick up a ROXWoman magazine to keep up to date with all the latest jewellery trends and news. You can also read our e-magazine online at rox.co.uk.

Alternatively you can shop in one of our boutiques in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds or Aberdeen.

The materials in this publication may not be reproduced in any format without permission. Please email requests for permission to pr@rox.co.uk. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be accepted. Editorial material and opinions expressed in the ROX Magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of ROX (UK) Ltd. ROX (UK) Ltd do not accept the responsibility for the advertising content. Jewellery shown may not be actual size and/or set to scale. Carat weights shown are approximate and may vary in-store. When buying online,

please check our website for full terms and conditions. The contents of this magazine were correct at the time of going to print (September 2019). ROX and the brand owners featured reserve the right to change prices and specifications without notice. For more information about ROX, or to request a brochure, please call our Customer Services team on Freephone 0800 0124 363. Š Copyright ROX (UK) LTD 2019

www.rox.co.uk


Make your own rules. Drive the Grand Tourer that defies convention.

New McLaren GT McLaren Glasgow

McLaren Glasgow

McLaren Glasgow

Global and Regional Retailer of the Year 2015

Global and Regional Retailer of the Year 2016

Premier Club Retailer of the Year 2016

McLaren Glasgow Bothwell Road, Hamilton ML3 0AY 01698 303777 glasgow.mclaren.com

McLaren Leeds 2 Aire Valley Drive, Temple Green, Leeds LS9 0AA 01134 879710 leeds.mclaren.com

Official fuel consumption figures in UK L/100km for the McLaren GT 4.0L (3,994cc) petrol, 7-speed Seamless Shift Dual Clutch Gearbox (SSG): Low: 22.2, Medium: 11.9, High: 9.3, Extra-High: 10.2, Combined: 11.9. CO2 Emissions, Combined: 270 g/km. The efficiency figures quoted are derived from official WLTP test results, are provided for comparability purposes only, and might not reflect actual driving experience. Park’s of Hamilton (Townhead Garage) Limited is an Appointed Representative of Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited, FRN 308476 of 14 Bothwell Road, Hamilton, ML3 0AY, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Park’s of Hamilton (Holdings) Limited permitted business is Insurance Mediation and to act as a Credit Broker. We can introduce you to a limited number of finance providers to assist with your purchase, who may remunerate us for introducing you to them. Retail customers only.


AUDEMARS PIGUET®

TO BREAK THE RULES, YOU MUST FIRST MASTER THEM.


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