Canary Wharf Magazine November 2011 by Runwild Media Group

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contents

interiors fashion health.&.beauty

sTylish sTudies one fine day ayurveda Pura

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feature 12 Jack the Lad S teven Milton talks to Australian A-lister Hugh Jackman and discovers a funny family man beneath the Hollywood star exterior

17 The Reworking of World Order? The enchanTed Palace

R ichard Brown examines the increase in luxury spending in the East and the impact on Western economies

Top designers have transformed Kensington Palace into a magical fashion wonderland, a spellbinding fusion of ancient history and contemporary fashion

esigners were challenged to mourning. William Tempest, whose designs have create an inspiring visual story notably been worn by Harry Potter star Emma about the lives and culture of Watson and X Factor winner Leona Lewis, people who had once lived in the produced an origami and trompe l’oeil-effect Palace. Iconic British designer dress inspired by a young Queen Victoria. Dame Vivienne Westwood, with her witty The Enchanted Palace now features a series interpretation of historical dress evident in her of innovative light installations by Chris Levine early fashion collections, was commissioned and Jane Darke, illuminating the enthralling to create a dress for a “rebellious princess”, tales of the building. Do not miss out on this last inspired by the spirited Princess Charlotte, and opportunity to participate in this unforgettable Aminaka Wilmont made a “dress of tears” for spectacle, finishing in January 2012. n Black and navy evening suit, £695, wing-collar dress shirt Queen Mary II’s bedchamber, based on the with studs, £125, blue and black bow-tie, £45, all tradition of collecting tears during of , No1 Savile www.hrp.org.uk/kensingtonpalace Gievestimes & Hawkes Row, W1, 020 7432 6403 Enamel cufflinks, £85, Links of London 0845 1202922, www.linksoflondon.com

collection 24 Larger Than Life

A nnabel Harrison meets CEO of Hublot, Jean-Claude Biver, to discuss the young brand’s rise to worldwide success

28 First Place Precision

R ichard Brown finds out more about the prestigious world of Zenith, one of the industry’s leading watch brands

One

Fine Day

Photographer:

Jon Cottam Fashion Editor:

Lucie Dodds

concierge 50 One Fine Day L ucie Dodds demonstrates how best to do gentlemanly glamour on the luxurious Orient Express

calibre 82 When Less Is More M atthew Carter explains why the Audi A6 Avant is the one to choose

comment 90 Safeguarding London’s Future

S tuart Fraser, Chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee at The City of London Corporation, explains how London can maintain its reputation

connoisseur 108 Winter Wonderlands From Iceland to Vermont, Olivia Sharpe presents our pick of the top five cold breaks this winter

feature

First Place

precision Considering it almost perfect, in 1985 Swiss watchmaker Georges Favre-Jacot chose to name a movement he had created after the word that designates the highest point in the universe. Nearly 150 years later, Richard Brown discovers that Zenith’s intricate timepieces continue to imitate the complexity of the constellations

f the trophy cabinets of the world’s leading watch brands were to be assembled together in one room, you can be certain that one cabinet would be fuller than most. That is, of course, if Zenith’s hoard of awards managed to make it through the door. Over the last century and a half, not only has the Swiss manufacturer notched up a prodigious 1,420 international decorations for its precision timepieces but of those 1,420, 1,398 have been awarded first place prizes. This is rather impressive for a manufacturer that in 1975 was ordered by its US owners to discontinue its mechanical watchmaking operations and send to the scrap yard all of its horological machines, calibres and tools. Luckily for Zenith, it was an order that Charles Vermot, head of the chronograph studios at the time, found that he couldn’t face carrying out. At the risk of losing his job, Vermot began hiding essential tools and components, meticulously labelling, listing and classifying the cams, cutting tools, presses and machines while recording the entire production process in a notebook.

Vermot wouldn’t have known it at the time but his actions were to prove critical to the survival of the brand. Nine years later, as the watch industry emerged from the quartz crisis and mechanical watches began to find favour once more, Vermot’s deeds allowed Zenith to reinstall the entire set of watch-making equipment that would have otherwise been scrapped. The brand that had bestowed upon the world its first automatic chronograph movement, the El Primero, was back in business and now it was being approached by a host of other illustrious manufacturers who sought the company as a supplier for their own movements, brands that included Rolex, Ebel, Panerai, Concord and Parmigiani. The last two decades of the 20th century saw Zenith continue to bolster its reputation as one of the most innovative watch manufacturers in the industry, most notably thanks to models such as the celebrated Grande Chronomaster XXT Open. In 2000 the brand became part of the LVMH group which decided it would henceforth reserve the El Primero movement exclusively for Zenith pieces. Today, Zenith remains a brand esteemed by industry professionals, experts and collectors alike, having just two months ago picked up both the 2011 Watch World Award’s ‘Watch of the Year’ and ‘Complicated Watch of the Year’ for its Christophe Colomb – a piece that spent a total of five years in development. Of course, with reputations of greatness come great expectations, a fact of which Rebecca McDermott, Brand Director of Zenith UK, is all too aware. Luckily, says McDermott, the pressure is something the company’s master watchmakers thrive on:“Zenith’s strategy is not to invest in ‘celebrity’ ambassadors but to invest in the development of ground-breaking research and development. Precision remains our obsession and the Striking 10th and Christophe Colomb models are perfect examples of Zenith’s exclusive innovations.” While celebrity endorsement may not figure in the brand’s marketing strategy, that’s not to say Zenith watches haven’t appeared on a number of notable wrists: Ghandi’s, JFK’s and Pope Pius X’s to name but a few. For them, Zenith represented the pinnacle of precision, “a gateway into a world of watch making above and beyond ‘mass-market’ luxury,” as McDermott puts it. Zenith’s reputation revolves around exactitude and exclusivity; every Calibre is manufactured in-house and Zenith

only produces in a full year the number of watches some brands might produce in a week. It was in 1969, however, when the brand cemented itself as an industry heavyweight. Before then, all chronographs required manual winding; no one had successfully managed to integrate the automatic winding mechanism into a chronograph movement. When Zenith became the first to do so with the El Primero, the most famous movement in watchmaking history, it revolutionized the entire chronograph market. The significance of the El Primero, however, as McDermott explains, did not stop there. “The movement was also the world’s first high frequency chronograph, meaning that the balance spring [the time-regulating organ] beats more times per hour than a regular watch from another brand – 36,000 times to be precise, compared to the industry standard of 28,800. The benefit of the higher frequency is that the ‘sweep’ of the El Primero’s seconds hand is created by ten beats per second as opposed to eight, meaning that the chronograph can be stopped accurate to 1/10th of a second.” To date, the El Primero remains the world’s most accurate series-produced movement. How, then, does a brand that has for 146 years enjoyed industry-leading status guarantee that it remains among the watch elite? “Adaptability is key,” says McDermott. “If you’re not faster, smarter and stronger than your competition then you will fall behind. Creating products that are relevant to modern tastes is essential; however this should never be done at the expense of the traditional values that your company was founded on.” It is a strategy that has served Zenith well, one in part responsible for the company’s CEO Jean-Frederic Dufour being announced as the watch industry’s 2010 ‘Man of the Year’. Planning once again to revolutionize the high frequency chronograph market in the coming months, and with its 150th anniversary just around the corner, the future of Zenith looks as starry as the sky from which it took its name. “The next five years will see us build on an already successful collection,” says McDermott. “Using our rich heritage as inspiration we will expand into exciting new directions.” Zenith will, no doubt, receive more recognition for doing so. Good news for Zenith; bad news for the person dusting the trophy cabinet. n

collection

Above from left: Zenith El Primero Striking 10th; Zenith Academy Christophe Colomb; Zenith Academy Christophe Colomb

Of course, with reputations of greatness come great expectations but the pressure is something Zenith’s master watchmakers thrive on

Zenith watches are available at Charles Fish, Cabot Place

regulars 11 editor’s letter

21 watches & jewellery

105 travel

50 fashion

115 food & drink

61 health & beauty

118 out & about

65 interiors

121 property

sport

EL PRIMERO by Zenith, inventor of the high-frequency self-winding chronograph

EL PRIMERO CHRONOMASTER OPEN www.zenith-watches.com

Cabot Place • Canary Wharf • London E14 4QT 0207 512 9595 • www.charlesﬁsh.co.uk

contributors...

RUNWILD M

Editor-in-Chief Lesley Ellwood

Editorial Director Kate Harrison

Editor

Annabel Harrison

Fashion Editor Lucie Dodds

Motoring Editor Matthew Carter

Assistant Editors 1. David Kuo is one of the UK’s leading

commentators on money matters. He is a director at The Motley Fool as well as providing daily insight and financial news for BBC London’s Breakfast Show.

2. Martin Bamford is one of the youngest and most successful financial planners in the UK. He runs his own firm of financial advisers – Informed Choice – and regularly contributes to various financial publications.

3. Matthew Carter is a London-based freelance journalist who’s been writing about cars for most of his working life. A former editor of Autocar magazine, he is a serial car owner. 4. Clare Murray is founder and managing partner of specialist law firm, CM Murray LLP. Clare and her colleagues advise a wide range of companies, professional firms and senior individuals on employment, partnership and business immigration law issues.

5. Carol Cordrey is an art critic and editor

with popular columns in many magazines. Each year she organises sponsored art competitions offering attractive prize money and judged by distiguished artists.

Richard Brown Gabrielle Lane

Editorial Assistant Olivia Sharpe

Head of Design Hiren Chandarana

Senior Designer Dalton Butler

Designer

Ashley Lewis

Production Manager Fiona Fenwick

Production

Hugo Wheatley

Senior Project Manager Ella Kilgarriff

Head of Finance Elton Hopkins

Managing Director Eren Ellwood

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First Place Precision See p. 28

www.shutterstock.com © r.nagy

Image with thanks to Zenith

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CUT BY WOLFGANG PUCK

55265_011DORCHESTER_City_Oct.indd Pg1 Mundocom UK

21/09/2011 15:56

November

from the editor...

enith / zen-ith n. 1 the time at which someone or something is at its most powerful or successful. 2 the point in the sky directly overhead. 3 the highest point in the sky reached by the sun or moon. Because he considered it to be almost perfect, in 1865 Swiss watchmaker Georges Favre-Jacot named a movement he had just created ‘zenith’ and now, nearly 150 years later, Zenith’s intricate timepieces continue to imitate the complexity of the constellations. Richard Brown finds out why Zenith has been rewarded so extensively for its achievements in the watch-making world (p. 28). A brand that is much younger but has in recent years demonstrated a meteoric rise to success in this industry is Hublot; I discovered, via chronographs and cheese-making, that the watches and the personality of CEO Jean-Claude Biver are both larger than life (p. 24). One place where Hublot has been particularly well-received is China: the population has become very “watch-conscious”, according to Biver and growth has been “phenomenal”. We explore how the rise of China’s middle classes, and their insatiable appetite for luxury, has had an enormous impact on the global economy and on high-end brands worldwide (p. 17). Forbes magazine recently reported a total of 146 billionaires in China this year - up 14 per cent from 2010 and second only to the United States. Sujata Bhatia, Vice President, Europe and Asia, for American Express Business Insights,

also shares trends that she is seeing in luxury spending across the world (p. 92). I expect many of you are familiar with the cartoon character Wolverine and its film star embodiment Hugh Jackman, as seen in the X-Men franchise. Steven Milton discovers that although the Hollywood A-lister has the looks, talent and charm of some of his contemporaries, he’s a true family man at heart (p. 12). As the weather becomes colder, thoughts turn to winter breaks and exciting escapes where the snow is pure white and the skies are bright blue. Annabel Goldie-Morrison skis up a storm in Châtel, France (p. 106) while Olivia Sharpe suggests some alternative winter wonderlands (p. 108). Venture outside Europe for skiing, try whale watching in Norway or visit Iceland for the picturesque geysers and glaciers. As Christmas gets ever closer, next month we bring you the ultimate luxury gift guide. I would like to end with some lines from the Ode of Remembrance, in honour of Remembrance Day on 11 November. “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.”

Annabel Harrison Editor

JACK

THE LAD Astoundingly handsome, polite and smart, with a laid-back Aussie manner that seems to have served him better than fellow Antipodeans Gibson and Crowe, Hugh Jackman’s entire being screams ‘movie star’. But, as Steven Milton discovers, he’s really a family man at heart

Miguel Campos / Shutterstock.com

rom the megawatt grin, and designer laughter lines etched across his tanned face, to his criminally flawless record with the tabloids, the actor enjoys a secured foothold on Tinseltown’s A-list, raking in an eight-figure salary for every movie and recently usurping Tom Hanks as the ‘nicest guy in Hollywood’ – evidence enough that nice guys don’t always come last. Success came relatively late to the born and raised Sydney-sider, judging by today’s youth-obsessed standards at least. Barely scraping through drama school in Melbourne, the aspiring actor eked out a living through a series of supporting theatre roles and failed pilots, meeting with several rounds of rejection in the US before fellow expatriate Russell Crowe’s fiery temperament and salary demands inadvertently started Jackman’s wheel of fortune rolling. The star of Gladiator walked away from the iconic role of Wolverine in X-Men and several actors were subsequently screen-tested, including Scottish actor Dougray Scott, who also turned down the part. Producers then decided to take a chance on the unknown Jackman. As it turned out, it was a wise move, with the Aussie hunk proving a popular, and commercial, overnight success. The father of two, married to actress Deborah Lee Furness, has since gone on to reprise his role in three further X-Men movies and is currently in preparation mode for a fourth outing in The Wolverine. Further box office successes include Van Helsing, The Prestige and epic drama Australia – another Crowe hand-medown. But even a reported salary of $20 million doesn’t mask the critical acclaim that Jackman desperately seeks, although he confesses that he may never achieve it, thanks to those higher on the A-list pecking order. “I’m a ‘glass half full’ kind of guy,” he explains, speaking exclusively to me in an airless suite in London’s famous Claridges Hotel. “So don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for my lot. But would I like to be in something like The King’s Speech? Absolutely. Of course, I’d like the best roles out there, the ones that get the Oscars and other awards, but as an actor, the victory is that I’m working. “Sometimes, as an actor, you look at the choices you get and realise that you’re far from the top of the tree. I don’t get the choices that Brad Pitt or George Clooney or Will Smith get. I don’t get offered The King’s Speech. That’s the truth. But I get a hell of a lot more choices than when I was starting out. And overwhelmingly, I’m grateful. I’m not sitting there, thinking, ‘Why is Brad Pitt getting that role?’ Okay, maybe I have had that thought for one second in the past but I got over it quite quickly. It’s out of my control.”

interview

feature

feature interview

Be that as it may, Jackman may finally get the industry acclaim he so obviously desires after signing up to play Jean Valjean in the long-awaited big screen adaptation of Les Misérables, directed by, no less, The King’s Speech director, Tom Hooper. “I knew in my heart that I could play this role. So I made sure I got an audition with Tom, just to prove to him that I could do it. And even after the audition, I rang him, basically saying, ‘Look, I don’t know if you want me or not, but I want this so bad’.” Hooper was already blown away by Jackman’s performance and passion for the role, so the pair – along with Russell Crowe, Geoffrey Rush and rumoured cast additions Anne Hathaway and Emma Watson – will begin principal shooting in London early next month. Such success only exacerbates the problem that Jackman and family are, to a major degree in the UK, homeless. Holing up in one of London’s lavish penthouse suites doesn’t really cut it with the 42-year-old; instead he hopes to find something a little more permanent on these shores. “It’s getting to the point where I need somewhere over here because there’s so much time spent in the UK. And I’d love to have a place here because it’s a fantastic country, and London is a fantastic city. I used to have a pad near Victoria but I sold that a few years ago. I think it’s time to put some roots down again.” Currently embarking on a worldwide promotional tour for new movie Real Steel, Jackman admits he initially shied away from a script that saw him play a trainer to a boxing robot. “I’m a big fan of sports, particularly of underdog movies like Rocky or Chariots of Fire,” he tells us. “But when I read it, ‘robot boxing’ just didn’t sound right for me… “However, I looked at it again and was really drawn into the elements of humanity and strength in it. And ultimately it’s an interesting, fun and exciting movie that I think the whole family can love and get something from. At a screening a couple of weeks back, I brought all my relatives in to see it. At the end, my mother-in-law turned to me and said, ‘You know what, that was the first of your movies I’ve properly enjoyed’. I mean, if that isn’t validation for your work, from your mother-in-law no less, I don’t know what is!” While one family member is offering her seal of approval, Hugh admits not all his brood share the same sentiment. “My 11-year-old son Oscar is just so embarrassed by everything I do. And I don’t know if it’s just typical pre-teen attitude of ‘Oh my God, this is my dad, it’s so embarrassing’ or if there’s a little bit of ‘I just want you to be my dad; I don’t want other people clapping and cheering for you’. He’s never been good at that, he’s never liked people coming up to me in the street, although he now can handle it if they’re young, goodlooking girls. But he hates paparazzi and is always asking me to quit acting.” Shouldn’t there be a certain cachet when your dad is Wolverine? “He never talks to me about it. I’ve never let him see the X-Men movies. I feel it’s a little undermining. I’m trying to get him to not kill his sister and there’s his father slicing heads off on screen! But on a beach once I did hear him chatting to a girl. His opening gambit was, ‘My dad’s Wolverine.’ As chat-up lines go, that should be rather effective…” n

I did hear my 11-year-old son chatting to a girl on a beach once. His opening gambit was; “my dad’s Wolverine”. As chat-up lines go, that should be rather effective

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economy

feature

The Remaking

of World Order?

As the spending power of China’s booming middle class continues to grow, so does the country’s appetite for luxury. The country’s extraordinary growth is good news for both the world economy and high-end brands, writes Richard Brown

otheby’s auction house, Hong Kong, October 2010. An anonymous Chinese phone bidder pays $696,000 for three bottles of 1869 Château Lafite Rothschild, making them the most expensive wines ever sold. Was this the spontaneous action of an eccentric oligarch or a case in point of a trend far more profound? The evidence, overwhelmingly, would suggest the latter. The same auction house raised a total of $14.3 million

from just two wine auctions last year, almost double the amount raised by the top eight wine sales held in London. In fact, fuelled by China’s new-found, seemingly insatiable thirst for everything luxury, Hong Kong is now the world’s secondlargest centre for wine auctions; having surpassed London, it’s behind only New York. If consumption continues at the same speed – the Chinese purchased more than 126 million cases in 2009 – the country will overtake the United States as the world’s largest consumer of wine by 2015.

If China hadn’t provided a new source of growth for the global economy, the world might easily have slipped into depression Of course, it’s not just wine that has found favour amongst China’s multiplying middle classes: their luxury wish-lists now include everything from handbags and health food to overseas property and foreign education. Even Tibetan Mastiffs have become an essential must-have; earlier this year a coal baron paid $1.6 million for one puppy, while in 2009 a Chinese woman paid $600,000 for another of the same breed. The trend continues for everything from LCD televisions to Apple’s iPhones. The increase in China’s spending power over the last few decades has been truly monumental; the country now has more billionaires than any other country except the United States, the number of its millionaires has increased to more than 400,000 and of the world’s 20 richest self-made

women, more than half are Chinese, including the top three. Couple these statistics with the fact that between 1981 and 2005 (according to China’s own official reports), an estimated 600 million Chinese people moved out of poverty, raising the number of the country’s middle class households to 55 million, and you can see how China is well on course to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy. Predictions on when that will happen vary. The New York Times says it will do so by 2030; Goldman Sachs anticipates 2027; The Economist believes it could happen as early as 2019. What is not being questioned are these facts: for nearly 30 years China has been the world’s fastest-growing major economy; it’s the largest exporter and second largest importer of goods on the planet; and currently it accounts for more than 13 per cent of the world’s total GDP (a figure that rose an astonishing 6.2 per cent in the last decade). The prospect of a power shift to the East may at first have struck fear into the hearts of Western captains of industry; in a globalised world, a country with a population of more than 1.3 billion, who have historically worked longer hours for less money and whose urban disposable income

economy

feature

Antique Map of Asia by Ortelius, circa 1570 ©Steve Estvanik

has in 30 years increased from 343RMB to 13,785RMB (£301 to £1,241) per head, has the power to redefine capital and labour markets across the world. However, there are other ways of interpreting this economic shift. Firstly, it’s fair to assume that the recession of 2007 to 2009 could have been much worse had it not been for China’s rapid expansion in the first decade of the new millennium. As it was, by buying capital equipment and consumer goods from Japan, South Korea and other neighbouring countries, China lifted much of East Asia out of financial crisis whilst simultaneously aiding the States by importing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of the country’s goods ($92 billion in 2010). The country’s exports also exploded – by almost 490 per cent between 2000 and 2007 – as did the level of its foreign investment, from $12.3 billion in 2005 to $56.5 billion in 2009. If China hadn’t provided a new source of growth for the global economy, the world might easily have slipped into depression. Next is to consider the unprecedented market opportunity that China’s rising middle classes offer to a plethora of luxury brands. Having increased its stores in China from six in 2006 to 39 by 2011, China now accounts for 18 per cent of Gucci’s global sales. For Louis Vuitton, which has three stores in Shanghai alone, that figure is 15 per cent. For luxury goods group Richemont it is 22; for Bulgari, 14; for Hermes, 11. Sales of Tiffany & Co.’s products in China rose 45 per cent in the second quarter of this year, while next year the country is expected to top the U.S. as Rolls-Royce’s number one market. The list of luxury brands making good in China goes on: Jimmy Choo plans to open 50 stores there in the next five years, Rolex has set up in Shanghai and Aquascutum now has a total of 59 residences on the mainland. While the country’s economy continues to enjoy near double-digit growth and its status-conscious middle class continue to flaunt its newfound wealth, it’s a trend that shows no signs of slowing. Anyone in doubt need only take a walk down Beijing’s Wangfujing Street. Reminiscent of Oxford Street the day after Boxing Day, it has become one of the country’s most famous shopping districts, its one million daily visitors bound by a collective consciousness for everything luxury. Stroll down the pedestrianised road and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Gucci and Ray-Ban had teamed up for a clearance sale; the former’s signature handbags adorn what seems like every other shoulder, while the latter’s iconic wayfarers are sported in almost equal numbers. Across the Yellow Sea in South Korea, Louis Vuitton’s handbags have become such a phenomenon that they are now nicknamed the ‘three second bags’; that’s the amount of time you’ll go between seeing one from the next. LV’s presence in mainland China may not yet have reached those kinds of levels but in Hong Kong and Beijing, like searching

for stars in the night’s sky, it has become a case of the more you look, the more you see. The same can be said for the signature staples from British brands Burberry and Mulberry. Earlier this year China became the largest manufacturing nation by output in the world, ending America’s 110year stint at the top of the table. If current trends continue, the world’s distribution of economic product and manufacturing output is expected to resemble that of 1800 – when China was producing a third of the world’s GDP – before the middle of this century. For the Chinese, their 200-year economic ‘blip’ will be over. For brands in the west, the Land of the Rising Sun will have become their most important market. n

12 The Courtyard, Royal Exchange, EC3V 3LR TEL: +44 (0) 20 3405 1437 EMAIL: bachet.london@bachet.fr www.bachet.fr

interview men’s luxury jewellery

jean-claude biverred & black ..................................east meets west ........................

...............................................

Meet the Maisons

I This month, SalonQP cordially invites you to the 2011 SalonQP event, where you can discover the inside story of fine watch-making

f you’ve longed to learn how the intricate internal mechanics of the world’s most complicated watches work, or to meet the faces behind your favourite brands, then keep 10-12 November free. On these dates, the fittingly art-filled confines of the Saatchi Gallery is playing host to the 2011 SalonQP. The horological equivalent of an international motor show, SalonQP showcases the very best in the world of luxury watches, housing a huge selection of rare timepieces and new models, as well as holding debates and lectures by QP contributors, watchmakers, designers and auction experts.

The carpets of the Saatchi Gallery are welcoming representatives not only from venerable maisons such as Cartier, Vacheron Constantin and Girard-Perregaux but also from more modern marques, including Bremont, De Bethune and MB&F. Adding an interactive element to the event is Jaeger-LeCoultre, hosting watch-making master classes, while Bulgari’s mirrored kaleidoscope promises to provide a unique insight into the intricate workings of a complicated timepiece movement. n SalonQP, The Saatchi Gallery, 10-12 November

watches

collection

Editor’s Picks from...

watch

news

Only Watch 2011 Annual charity auction Only Watch was established to support research into Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Midnight GMT Tourbillon Harry Winston sold for £140,000

The Oscars of the watch world Representatives of the world’s most acclaimed watchmakers are descending upon Switzerland this month for the 11th Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix. Established to salute the excellence of worldwide horological production, the awards recognise the finest creations and most important operators in the watchmaking sector. A jury of industry professionals, experts and collectors will identify the best watches in seven

categories: Men’s Watch, Ladies’ Watch, Design Watch, Jewellery and Artistic Crafts Watch, Complicated Watch, Sports Watch and La Petite Aiguille (the small hand) Watch. The most prestigious prize, the “Aiguille d’Or” Grand Prix, will then be awarded to the best overall watch from all categories, a distinction last year bestowed upon Greubel Forsey’s Double Tourbillion 300 Edition Historique.

3939, Patek Philippe sold for £1,200,000

One to Watch Each month Sandy Madhvani, Showroom Manager at David M. Robinson in Canary Wharf, selects his favourite watch from the newest models

“Enabling you to check the time in 24 time zones while displaying local time by means of large central hour, minute and seconds hands, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s beautiful new Master Geographic is the perfect traveller’s watch” Master Geographic, £15,100 Jaeger-LeCoultre available at David M. Robinson, Jubilee Place

Masterpiece Maurice Lacroix sold for £9,600

LIFE LARGER

LARGER

LIFE

THAN

Annabel Harrison meets Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of Hublot, to discuss the meteoric rise of the relatively young company, via chronographs and cheese-making

©Fred Merz/rezo.ch

interview

hear Jean-Claude Biver before I see him: entering the Monaco Yacht Club, a booming voice emanates from behind a cluster of Chinese journalists. As the Hublot CEO holds court, it is clear, firstly, that he has secured the attention of everyone in earshot and secondly, that he has an infectiously enthusiastic personality. This is repeatedly reinforced: after the launch of Hublot’s newest watch that afternoon, Biver excuses himself from the evening festivities with this explanation; “I have 100 cows and I have to be at the head of them to bring them 16 kilometres home tomorrow. Every boat has a captain,” he adds gleefully, “and my cows have only one captain... me!” Every year, Biver produces approximately five tonnes of cheese at his farm in the Swiss Alps. He refuses payment, offering it only to his friends and family and to particular restaurants of his choosing: “I will be the master of my cheese until the last piece.” It is a declaration that

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could well be rewritten with ‘watches’ replacing ‘cheese’, because Biver applies the same energy, focus and commitment to his main role as to this unusual sideline venture. Biver’s life, as would be expected of a man with a career trajectory such as his, has revolved around watches and by the time he joined Hublot in 2004, he was already legendary in the industry. After graduating with a business degree, he spent time in the Vallée de Joux absorbing the culture of watchmaking and was offered a year of ‘all-rounder’ training at Audemars Piguet. Biver then became product manager at Omega and left after a year in 1981 to rejuvenate the legendary but flagging Blancpain brand with Jacques Piguet. An undoubtedly significant part of Biver’s success was that, in his early career, he never stayed at one brand for too long, which allowed him to absorb a host of different brand approaches in a short amount of time. After the sale of Blancpain, Biver joined the board of directors of Swatch Group, where he was charged with turning around Swatch’s

collection interview

Images courtesy of HUBLOT

Omega brand, considered to be a “national joke”. In Biver’s ten years at Omega, he almost tripled sales and proved himself an excellent strategist in the field of marketing, securing critical product placement, most notably in the James Bond franchise. At the end of 2003, Biver decided to take a year’s sabbatical, but rapidly changed his mind in order to take control of Hublot Geneva, a small, high-profile business. Straightaway, he chose to highlight the brand’s historic philosophy, the Art of Fusion, and to emphasise “the fusion of tradition and future”; after all, Hublot had pioneered the first fusion of materials in a watch, combining gold and natural rubber, in 1980. Testament to his way of getting things done, within a year Biver had launched a revolutionary, contemporary watch: the Big Bang. Revealed at BaselWorld 2005, it was an immediate success. Winning a range of awards, including Best Design at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, this tour de force proved a game-changer, commanding attention and driving Hublot’s revival. The Big Bang collections employ a hi-tech, jet-set aesthetic. Big and bold, tough and modern, the materials used include titanium, carbon fibre, tungsten and all kinds of lightweight metals. Sometimes a company’s success is attributed to the vision of many, but the same cannot be said of Hublot; its rapid growth seems to have been driven by the force of Biver’s own ideas, energy, experience and knowledge. This growth was both economical and physical: turnover increased in four years from 25 million to more than 200 million Swiss francs and, in physical terms, there were 700 points of sale across the world. This resulted in 35 exclusive Hublot boutiques, the first opening in February 2007, an Hublot high-tech manufacture on the banks of Lake Geneva in Nyon and a new factory there, which will allow the company to produce its own movements on-site. However, Biver’s vision has given Hublot something which is much harder to pin down and intangibly valuable; brand awareness and the ‘Art of Fusion’ USP. Through innovations such as the Big Bang, King Power, Classic Fusion and Masterpiece collections, this fusion thread unifies the brand’s offerings, combining unusual materials – zirconium, tantalum, tungsten or nomex – with more traditional materials like gold, platinum, steel and diamonds. Biver also recognised, earlier than most, that football was watched by an audience that could afford his watches and as such, he secured sponsorship deals for Hublot, as Official Timekeeper, with Manchester United in 2008, with UEFA for Euro 2008 and with FIFA, an historic first, for the next two football World Cups, just after having been chosen as the Official Watch of Formula 1TM. This offered Hublot exceptional visibility on a global scale. When I asked Biver why he chose this path of sporting sponsorship, his answer was simple: “Because it’s important to my customers. We are trying to follow our customer; if my customer plays polo, I want him to meet me. If he goes to a football game, I want to meet him. I want my customer to believe that Hublot belongs to his world.” His marketing strategy is to go where potential customers can be found and this, married with his remarkable communication skills and

Hublot’s modern, distinctive creations, was how Hublot struck gold. This is what made it so appealing to LVMH when the luxury goods powerhouse bought Hublot in 2008 for an undisclosed sum; LVMH buys brands, not products, and Biver had created a very profitable, dynamic brand in just four years. For the 10th anniversary of the Monaco Classic Week, Hublot created a Classic Fusion Chronograph Yacht Club de Monaco, a sport-chic model in titanium and navy blue. With characteristically vehement enthusiasm, Biver declares: “It’s the best! It’s the one I like the most. It would be a shame if the last series was less good than the one before, but here this is not the case.” Hublot has a natural link with the Yacht Club, having been appointed its official timekeeper in 2005, and, speaking at the launch of this limited edition chronograph, Biver explained why there is a clear synergy: “Hublot and Monaco have a lot of things in common. We have glamour and luxury. We have art, tradition and culture. And today, there is no future if you don’t have tradition.” As ever, the watch industry’s favourite buzzwords are tradition and modernity and every brand, whether 20 or 200 years old, aspires to imbue its watches with these two juxtaposing qualities. Biver explains that, in holding regattas both for modern and classic boats, it is possible for Monaco Yacht Club to display harmony between tradition and modernity: “the Yacht Club shows us how you can bring tradition into the 21st century”. So a brand must acknowledge the watch industry’s history, however (relatively) young the brand might be? Biver agrees: “You don’t need, necessarily, the history in your brand, but the people who manage your brand must understand, respect and interpret history”. While Biver undoubtedly does respect the history, he is firmly anchored in the present and simultaneously looking to the future. I ask how he has seen the watch industry change during his career. Biver has several, expansive answers to this. Firstly, people are buying watches not just as time-telling devices, but as tools for communication, to express “your style, emotions and status”. Secondly, watches have become bigger and more visible; “if it’s a communication tool you need to be able to see it”. Next, “expensive watches today are exclusively traditional watches in the sense that they have traditional movements. An expensive watch with a quartz movement doesn’t exist anymore.” Finally, women are buying more watches, “because they believe it’s like a piece of jewellery” and, rather than comprising lots of individual brands, the industry has become more concentrated because the brands all belong to one group or another. Biver clearly knows his stuff. “Young, dynamic and successful, he trusts himself, has selfconfidence and loves watches”. This is the typical Hublot customer, according to Biver. Unsurprisingly enough, apart from the age, it’s a depiction that quite accurately describes the Hublot CEO too. n David M. Robinson, Jubilee Place www.davidmrobinson.com

First Place

feature

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Above from left: Zenith El Primero Striking 10th; Zenith Academy Christophe Colomb; Zenith Academy Christophe Colomb

Of course, with reputations of greatness come great expectations but the pressure is something Zenith’s master watchmakers thrive on

Zenith watches are available at Charles Fish, Cabot Place

A STELLAR Last month, Vertu unveiled its latest smartphone, Constellation. Annabel Harrison finds out why this luxury mobile phone should be at the top of your Christmas wish list

One touch of the sapphire screen give s you acce ss to a world of e xclusive e xperiences

his time last year, Vertu launched its first smartphone – the Constellation Quest, eight years after Vertu’s Signature came to market. Signature held the distinction of being the first luxury phone to feature a dedicated lifestyle assistance button; handily, VertuConcierge connects users to a team of luxury experts with the requisite knowledge, experience and contacts. By the time the Constellation Quest arrived, the first Concierge request on one was made in Singapore, where a bouquet of flowers was ordered and delivered on behalf of a client. Romantic, easy and modern, all in one go. So what could be better than this? A Vertu smartphone with a touch screen? Indeed, and this is exactly what Vertu has created, striking the much sought-after balance between the best of craftsmanship and advanced technology. As Perry Oosting, President of Vertu explains, “Vertu has applied its values of an authentic, tailored, luxury experience to the latest smartphone, creating a touch-screen handset that is as functional as it is beautiful.” Oosting also sets out how VertuConcierge has developed a great deal since its launch. Accessed via a dedicated key on the handset, this allows users to feel almost as though they are special agents on a secret mission, also offering a choice between an email or a call for assistance. Jet-setters or business people travelling on a daily basis between different time zones might have concerns that Concierge couldn’t keep up with this; worry not, because global experts are based in city hubs around the world and ready to help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Vertu City Brief is handy for frequent fliers, covering 200 key city destinations worldwide, showcasing the finest restaurants, hidden gems and the latest places to be seen on arrival in a new city.

luxury goods

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VERTU.COM

Touch What about if you’re fluent in three different languages? The experts can go one better, able to help in eight widely spoken languages. Ask for recommendations for the best restaurants in San Francisco; request a last-minute ticket to a show at Sydney Opera House; arrange for a beautiful gift to be delivered to your mother-in-law after forgetting her birthday; or fulfil a lifetime dream of diving with sharks. If you’re one of those impatient types, a Concierge Live app displays a real-time status update of requests to guarantee peace of mind. Tap into the global network of private members’ lifestyle and business clubs, which has been created just for customers’ complementary use. For wine connoisseurs, direct access is given to wine and spirit merchant Berry Brothers & Rudd, providing a personal sommelier at the touch of a button. I particularly like the ‘Identify a Bottle’ feature, which allows you to photograph any wine bottle label and send it directly to the Berry Brothers & Rudd’s fine wine team, who can reply with tasting notes. For those interested in the tech side of things, Constellation comes complete with quad band GSM, penta band WCDMA and HSDPA coverage, as well as hi-speed WLAN and user memory of 32GB. The handset features a 3.5” nHD brilliant, high contrast AMOLED display and a 3.5mm audio/video socket for larger viewing of films, images, presentations and emails. Other technical specifications include Bluetooth with A2DP, an FM radio, free global maps and navigation by Assisted GPS with Accelerometer and Digital Compass. Constellation also offers access to personal, business and Vertu email and Office attachment viewers. If you’re more concerned about what’s on the outside than the inside, let’s consider the design.Each Constellation is handmade by a single craftsman, who signs the inside of the handset. Highperformance materials are used, such as a single piece of flawless multi-touch sapphire crystal for the screen, an eight megapixel camera with an intricate ruby surround on the shutter key, polished ceramic pillow, surgical grade stainless steel with satin and polished finish, and highest quality leather on the back plate of the phone. What are you waiting for? This is the ultimate Christmas gift. n David M. Robinson Jubilee Place www.vertu.com Constellation Black Alligator with Diamonds, £6,950

L I F E B E A U T I F U L LY A R R A N G E D

4 JUBILEE PLACE, CANARY WHARF, LONDON, E14 5NY

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1 3

2 7

EAST

meets

WEST Jewellery trends look towards the Orient this season with bold statements, long beaded necklaces, Japanese art, jade and coral

5 9

10 1 Rosarietto 24-carat gold-plated jade necklace, £315, Rosantica, www.NET-A-PORTER.com 2 18-carat red gold Amadeo Convertible 7-Day Tourbillon Dragon and Phoenix, POA, Bovet www.bovet.com 3 Beaded necklace, £315, Chan Luu, www.chanluu.com 4 Jade gold-plated drop earrings, £305, Yves Saint Laurent, www.yvessaintlaurent.co.uk 5 Lucky 18-carat rose and yellow gold cuff, £5,220, Carolina Bucci, www.carolinabucci.com 6 Theodora jade and oxidized brass necklace, £415, Dannijo, www.Net-A-PORTER.com 7 Sterling silver coral drop earrings, £470, Kara Ross, www.kararossny.com 8 L.U.C XP Urushi 18-carat rose gold watch with peacock dial, £14,030, Chopard, www.chopard.com 9 22-carat gold-plated crystal ring, £145, Kenneth Jay Lane, www.NET-A-PORTER.com 10 Cherry quartz teardrop earrings, £140, Astley Clarke, www.astleyclarke.com

men’s luxury

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1 4

RED and BLACK

6 8

Put your money on both this season by selecting accessories in two colours that never go out of style

Big Bang 48 mm Red Magic, POA, Hublot at David M. Robinson, Jubilee Place 2 21 Blackjack, £110,000, Christophe Claret, www.christopheclaret.com 3 Black Buffalo Leather iPhone Case with silver colibri, £240, John Hardy at Harrods, www.harrods.com 4 Véloce LeDIX Watch Cell Phone, £193,000, Celsius X VI II at Harrods 5 Millemiglia writing instruments, POA Cuervo y Sobrinos, www.cuervoysobrinos.com 6 Red Crystal Skull Cufflinks, £89, Paul Smith, www.my-wardrobe.com 7 Driving Gloves in red leather, £386, Versace at Selfridges and Harrods 8 Garnet Intrecciato VN Wallet in red leather, £245, Bottega Veneta, 33 Sloane Street 9 Black Widow Mr Race, £41,000, Ladoire at Kronometry 1999, 106 New Bond Street 10 Tourmaline Intrecciato Nappa Belt, £300, Bottega Veneta, as before

DIAMOND COLLECTION

CLASSIC

JEWELS

FOR

LIFE'S

• DIAMONDS EXCEPTIONAL

• FINE

WATCHES

OCCASIONS

18-19 BURLINGTON ARCADE, LONDON W1J 0PW T: +44 (0)207 499 7644 WWW.HEMINGJEWELS.COM

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Our favourite three…

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news

statement cuffs

Cutting Edge

This month, Samantha Hansard, buying director at Charles Fish, chooses her favourite pieces from Shaun Leane’s current collections

“Award-winning Shaun Leane’s African-inspired ‘Bound’ collection is bang on trend this season with its champagne quartz and 18 carat gold vermeil design. This luxury piece is perfect for everyday glamour if worn to work, for livening up evening or partywear and for making a style statement”

Limelight 18 carat cuff watch paved with diamonds, piaget, £154 www.piaget.co.uk

‘Bound’ coiled champagne quartz ring, £605 and matching ‘bound’ necklace, £240 shaun leane at Charles Fish, Cabot Place, www.charlesfish.co.uk

Sun Drop Diamond A touch of the spectacular has descended from the skies into the earthly world of jewellery; the highlight of Sotheby’s Magnificent Jewels auction, taking place on 15 November in Geneva, is the remarkable Sun Drop Diamond. The 110.03 carat yellow diamond has been graded Fancy Vivid Yellow by the Gemological Institute of America, the highest colour grading possible for a yellow diamond. This makes the exceptional, record-breaking stone the largest known pear-shaped, fancy vivid yellow diamond in the world. The stunning rare gem was exhibited earlier this year at London’s Natural History Museum and its worth has been estimated between $11 and 15 million.

Kali Sterling Silver Strap Cuff John Hardy, £650 www.johnhardy.com

Amelia Swarovski crystal spike cuff Philippe Audibert, £865 www.NET-A-PORTER.com

current affairs

feature

The Core of Apple: Steve Jobs’ right-hand men Following the death of Steve Jobs, Olivia Sharpe looks at the key men behind the scenes who have helped Apple to become the world’s most valuable company

Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com

sk Apple’s new iPhone 4S to tell your partner that you are running late for dinner and it will write a text, send it and then inform you that it has done so. Ask it if you need to take a coat to work and it will find out the local temperature, read the predicted weather forecast and provide you with an audible answer. Even 11 years into the 21st century, that’s still a pretty nifty piece of kit. Then again, Apple has been astounding the world with its gamechanging innovations ever since it launched the Macintosh back in 1984. When the company’s captain Steve Jobs passed away last month, the news was greeted by a global outpouring of grief, generated a furore of media coverage and prompted tributes of praise from some of the planet’s most important figures. During his life, Jobs led a team of creative engineers that changed the world. In his death he was lauded as a modern day mastermind, the Sir Isaac Newton of his time. His company is now the world’s most valuable, an achievement widely credited to the genius of Jobs. Of course, empires aren’t built by the endeavours of just one man and, while Apple may have been a ship steered with Jobs at its helm, there have been a number of key individuals who have helped to keep the wind in the company’s sails.

feature current affairs

Though Edwin H. Land may have never worked for Apple, and in fact he and Jobs are thought to have only met twice, the inventor of the Polaroid instant camera was a man on whose career Jobs openly modelled his own. Having dropped out of college, both would rely on an unparalleled determinism, a meticulous eye for detail and an audacious level of self-confidence to cultivate companies that would change the world. When Land presented the first instant camera in 1947, his invention became an instant phenomenon, capturing the minds of its prospective market in a similar way to how the iPod would do more than 50 years later. To Jobs, Land’s unapologetic attitude to perfectionism made him a national treasure. “I don’t understand why people like that can’t be held up as models,” he said in a 1985 interview. “This is the most incredible thing to be - not an astronaut, not a football player - but this.” If nothing else, Land can be credited as the inspiration behind Apple’s dramatic, big screen product launches, the type of theatrical showcases that the Polaroid Corporation co-founder would put on for his shareholders whenever it introduced a new product half a century earlier. Although Land was a key inspiration for Jobs, Apple’s CEO also required hands-on assistance in creating his global corporation. Accompanying him on his road to success in the early days were fellow innovators Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne; it was the trio’s collaborative efforts which led to the founding of Apple in 1976. In 1971, fate drew together a 21-year-old Steve Wozniak and an adolescent Steve Jobs and the pair quickly developed a close relationship which would prove to be monumental in both of their lives. At the time, Wozniak was a computer hacker, and a brilliant one at that. Jobs managed to persuade his new-found friend to assemble his first computer and sell it. The ‘Wonderful Wizard of Oz’, as Jobs is today affectionately known, utilized this engineering and programming whiz kid to create the Apple I and Apple II computers; by himself, Wozniak designed the hardware, circuit board designs and operating system for the Apple I in the mid-1970s. Although Jobs was undoubtedly the leader of the operation, utilizing his own essential business magnate skills and imagination, his ship would have almost certainly sunk without Wozniak’s technological innovations. Similarly, without Ronald Wayne, Jobs would have been hard-pressed to fully achieve his revolutionary concept. Apple’s creative outlook is communicated through the company’s brand strategies, including the iconic Apple logo. Take this away and Apple’s worldwide status may never have revolved around such an iconic emblem. Wayne was solely responsible for having drawn the first Apple logo, as well as for writing the three men’s original partnership agreement and authoring the Apple I manual. Wayne, like Jobs and Wozniak, was a pivotal cog in the Apple machine.

During the 1980s, Jobs notoriously swiped leading businessman John Sculley from Coca-Cola by asking him whether he would prefer to “sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?” Sculley and Jobs, or the ‘dynamic duo’ as famously referred to in the 1983 issue of Business Week, were seen by the press as the dream team, known for being so in tune with each other’s thoughts and their shared vision that they completed each other’s sentences. Sculley was announced as the CEO of Apple in 1983. Sculley, in addition, promoted Apple’s reputation in the public at the time; with his business background and considerable recent success, Sculley was a necessary component in providing an image of greater reliability and stability which Jobs, with his occasionally erratic behaviour, could not have so effectively done. Despite their controversial fallout, followed by Sculley’s eventual forced resignation in 1993, his ten-year reign as the company’s figurehead highlights how fundamental Sculley was to the company during these pivotal years. While Apple had always been a contender within the technology industry, it wasn’t until 2001 and the launch of the iPod that the company would truly begin its prodigious ascension to the top of the high-tech table. The uncomplicated functionality, clean lines and simple aesthetics of that product proved a unanimous hit with customers in a market neglected by other manufacturers. And, although it was Jobs who acted as the face of Apple as it commenced its journey to becoming the world’s most valuable firm, it was the endeavours of a little-known, Essex-born Jonathon Ive CBE that would cement Apple as an undisputed industry leader. Ive had already revolutionized computer design with the iMac when he was given the task of engineering a pocketsized hard drive that would play thousands of songs. The result of that brief was the iPod. Proving his worth as Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Ive progressed to become the leading conceptual mind behind the MacBook, iPhone and iPad. His designs led to the The Sunday Times naming him one of Britain’s most influential expatriates, while the The Daily Telegraph rated him the most influential Briton in America. It’s hard to imagine Jobs’ legacy being what it is without Ive’s creative flair for mixing form with function. In 2006 Macworld writer Dan Moren suggested that Ive would be an excellent candidate for CEO of Apple when the time came for Steve Jobs to step down. Unfortunately, as a result of Jobs’ deteriorating health, that time came prematurely. Instead of Ive it was Tim Cook, Apple’s previous Chief Operating Officer, who filled the vacant position. On doing so, he sent an email to his employees promising that “Apple is not going to change.” It’s a promise that millions will hope is fulfilled. n

SHOPPING

Cranley Dress with Tapestry Print £195

Ami Coat £345

Rhian Jacket £295

COLD WEATHER,

Ellie Bag £349 Cordua Blouse £135

hot looks

As the leaves on the trees turn red, brown and gold, the clothes on the rails also begin to take on a more autumnal look. If you must turn up your collar against the cold, ensure that it is a stylish collar: LK Bennett’s signature red Ami coat unites form and function, and with a modern silhouette and sophisticated detailing, it encapsulates the aesthetic of the entire collection. Delicate prints combine with quality tailoring and beautiful accessories to create a look that is both elegant and feminine. Pairing the riding-inspired wool Rhian jacket with soft Cordua blouse allows business women and ladies of leisure to appear equally smart and chic, completed by accessorising with a flash of burgundy; the Genevra belt adds definition and the gorgeous Ellie bag is the perfect finishing touch to any outfit. From desk to dinner, or workday to weekend away, the versatility of these pieces means that whether you are escaping on a romantic getaway, rushing into a meeting or catching up with friends, you will always feel well dressed. Make sure that wherever you are going this season, you step out in style.

Sledge Patent Shoe £175

Geneva Belt £55

LK Bennett Jubilee Place Canary Wharf 020 7719 0090

winterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S t s o m

d e t wan

thursday 1 December faShion ShowS

Reiss, jubilee place | Reiss WomensWeaR, cabot place

12noon - 2.30pm & 5pm - 8pm

excluSive DiScountS 9am - 8pm

gooDie bagS* from 5pm

*in Jubilee Place from 5pm, terms and conditions apply, see website for details.

SHOPPING

Winter’s

Most Wanted

% 20Draped velvet mini dress, £160, Karen Millen, Jubilee Place

Canary Wharf’s annual festive shopping event returns on Thursday 1 December and provides the perfect opportunity to snap up that party dress or festive gift, make use of fantastic in-store discounts and enjoy an evening of entertainment, fashion shows and giveaways.*

20%

% 20Benwick black coat, £545,

L.K. Bennett, Jubilee Place

Sequined Blue T-shirt, £105, Karen Millen, Jubilee Place

% 20Crystal click bangle, £90,

Jaeger London, Cabot Place

0% 2Zipped purple gloves, £75,

Aspinal of London, Cabot Place

0% 2Lamont purple suede boots, £315, L.K. Bennett, Jubilee Place

% 20Midnight in Manhattan clutch, £350, Aspinal of London, Cabot Place

% 20Whirl Silver Glitter Platform Court shoes, £90, Dune, Cabot Place

* Correct at time of print. Terms and conditions apply. Retailers reserve the right to amend their offers. More discounts will be announced. Check www.canarywharf.com for further updates.

SHOPPING

Jan Bra, £79, Thong Suspender, £65

Cherie Bra, £110, Thong £39

Winter

Azelea Bra, £79, Thong, £39

Warmers

Myla presents its beautiful Autumn/Winter collection, available in their boutique at Canary Wharf in Cabot Place. The collection includes sumptuous satins, stunning silk and exquisite lace and pearl detailing, often following the high-fashion trend for bright and bold jewel tones. Why not treat yourself or your partner to a seductive early Christmas present by browsing the exquisite collections in store now? Or give in to the striking fashion trend of A/W11 and introduce some rich jewellery-inspired, bright colours into your lingerie wardrobe? Indulge your senses in the colour-pop perfection of Myla’s collection, the ideal way to brighten up the autumn days ahead. Dress up your sophisticated side in luxurious Cherie Black; unleash your inner siren in seductive Gail; revel in the high-fashion unique design of Jan Midnight; or be the ultimate bedroom goddess in radiant Azalea Emerald.

Myla Cabot Place 020 7715 5374

Gail Bra, £150, Brazillian Thong, £100

SHOPPING

British Slubby Herringbone £360

Merino Wool roll-neck £130

Herringbone Overcoat £499

Boys areBack in Town

The

Jaeger London Menswear Cabot Place Canary Wharf

Boasting new lines based on dynamic and charismatic styleicons Mick Jagger, Sir Michael Caine and Terence Stamp, Jaeger menswear swaggers into Canary Wharf, with a new menswear store opening later this year in Cabot Place. Taking inspiration from David Bailey’s monochromatic ‘Pin Up’ photographs and his muses, the collection epitomises the confidence and self-assurance of the three men, whilst retaining their individual style. Sir Michael’s 60s Cockney charm was aided by the elegant, elongated silhouette of his coats and suits. Terence Stamp exuded an

Moleskin Jeans £115

Reversible Leather Belt £75

air of refined consideration, underpinned by sharp tailoring that spoke volumes about confidence and status. Meanwhile Mick Jagger’s eccentric and personal take on Mod style punctuated casual simplicity with utilitarian classics, marking him out as an all-time style-icon. Jaeger seeks to incorporate all of these attributes and attitudes into this season’s range; dynamic and suave, it marries the past and the present, updating the 60s designs for a modern man. Canary Wharf can expect to get a little more stylish.

Sculpture in the workplace / visual arts

ART window galleries The Art, Design & Lightbox Window Galleries, located in Canada Place Shopping Mall, showcase up-and-coming artists, designers and craftspeople.

Joseph Falconer

Until 25 November

LAWSON OYEKAN: GLOBAL WORKING Lobby, One Canada Square Until 11 November Lawson Oyekan: Global Working continues in One Canada Square until 11 November, with an opportunity to hear the artist in conversation with Ann Elliott, curator of the exhibition, on Tuesday 1 November. For a number of years Oyekan has not had a permanent studio base because of his ambition to make ceramic sculptures on a large scale, which has taken him to different parts of the globe. This enables him to reflect on other cultures and to discover the effects that clays from different countries have on his sculptural vessels. For him each vessel is a figure, the smaller items resembling heads, and these vessels hold not only mysteries, spirits and stories conjured up from his Yoruba origins but are also married with contemporary culture from around the world. Lawson Oyekan was born in London but brought up in Nigeria. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1988 and has since pursued a career as a sculptor working in both stone and clay. He has gained residencies in Britain, Europe and the United States and has exhibited widely. He won the Grand Prize at the World Ceramic Biennale in South Korea in 2001.

ARTIST / CURATOR TALK - FREE Tuesday 1 November, 1.15pm Lobby, One Canada Square Please contact Canary Wharf Public Art to book a place: 020 7418 2257

Joseph graduated from Central Saint Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College of Art in 2010 and since then his work has been selected for exhibition by acclaimed broadcaster Matthew Collings. The paintings shown here are inspired by current affairs and recent events in the Middle East.

joefalconer.com

Alex Ramsay

Until 25 November Alex Ramsay designs and makes contemporary silverware: double skinned silver objects are handpierced to create intricate, layered and cut away patterns that explore and reference those in the glass. Alex was a finalist in The Balvenie Master of Crafts Awards 2011.

alexramsay.co.uk

COMMUNITY GALLERY Situated within the link from Canada Place Mall to the Jubilee Line, the Community Gallery is devoted to exhibiting work produced by local arts projects.

IDCF (Isle of Dogs Community Foundation)

Sunju Lee

Until 29 Nov

Since IDCF was established in 1990, it has invested more than ÂŁ16 million in grants to the local community for an array of initiatives. IDCF is a strong partnership between voluntary, business and statutory bodies operating locally and focuses its efforts on improving employability, education and community development. Christmas Food Bag Appeal: In the last three years IDCF has worked with Canary Wharf based companies to distribute more than 1,000 Christmas food bags to local isolated and housebound elders.

Until 4 January

Idcf.org

sunjulee.com

Sunju addresses the way in which we interpret constructed space through living in it. In her work she reads how a place reflects its rich array of facets in contrast to other places and people through the process of collating events and reconstructing the place.

For information on the Visual Arts programme please visit canarywharf.com

NEWS

Big Businesses Backs Tower Hamlets’ City Status Bid Last month, some of the UK’s pre-eminent businesses pledged support for Tower Hamlets’ bid to become the UK’s next city. Canary Wharf-based Barclays, J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Thomson Reuters, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Clifford Chance, Credit Suisse and Canary Wharf Group declared their backing for the bid, in which Tower Hamlets is competing against 24 other towns and boroughs to be named a city as part of Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012. Bill Mills, EMEA CEO at Citigroup, said: “As a long-time resident and large employer in Tower Hamlets, Citi is proud to support the borough’s bid for city status. Tower Hamlets is a thriving community that deserves to be recognised for its contribution to the UK’s economy and its cultural heritage.” Tower Hamlets, which includes the famous Canary Wharf shopping and business district, provides more than 204,000 jobs, which equates to five per cent of London’s employment total. Just under half of these jobs are in Canary Wharf, with the working population projected to double by 2025.

Tabernacle in Place for Jewish Celebrations Canary Wharf’s largest ever Tabernacle was set up in Montgomery Square last month to welcome members of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (or booths). The Tabernacle, which was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates PC in New York last year, was constructed by Canary Wharf Group plc and welcomed members of Stepney Jewish Community Centre, Dennis Centre, Brenner Centre, Nightingale House and members of the

East London Synagogues Association at buffet lunches from 17 to 19 October. Canary Wharf Group plc’s Danny Seliger says: “It is a wonderful chance for the Jewish community from around Canary Wharf and East London to come together. It is important that the Canary Wharf business community remains in touch with what is going on in the surrounding areas and this is one of the many ways in which we do so.”

events

Christmasis Coming... With November comes comedy, fashion, ice skating and art; visit Canary Wharf to get your festive fill of the best that winter has to offer

CANARY WHARF COMEDY CLUB

Andrew Maxwell

Featuring Andrew Maxwell Jimmy McGhie, Sara Pascoe, Charlie Baker & Mike Bubbins* Energy and intelligence are the order of the day as Comedy Club returns for November with the charismatic charm of Charlie Baker, Jimmy McGhie fresh from his Artificial Intelligence Edinburgh Festival show, the sharp social commentary of likeable Londoner Andrew Maxwell and the original stand up of comedy writer favourite Sara Pascoe. Finally you can discover the hilarious results of Mike Bubbins’ years of failed relationships, humiliation, bitterness, impatience and hypochondria.

Tuesday 8 November 7.15pm (doors 6.30pm) East Wintergarden, 43 Bank Street, Canary Wharf, E14 Tickets £12 Booking information: In advance: ticketweb.co.uk or 0844 847 2268 (Booking fee applies) In person: On the door, subject to availability * Line up correct at time of publication Unreserved seating. Full pay bar and food available. Note: Only items purchased at the East Wintergarden may be consumed on the premises.

BRITISH SITTING VOLLEYBALL Meet some Paralympic hopefuls when the women’s British Sitting Volleyball team comes to Jubilee Place on 9 November between 12-2pm. A Paralympic Sport since 1980, witness the speed of the game and even have a go yourself.

If you have any queries about the event at Canary Wharf please contact Emma Warden at emma.warden@canarywharf.com

FASHIONING THE FUTURE Canary Wharf celebrates sustainable fashion in all its forms at the ‘Fashioning the Future’ Exhibition. This showcase is the leading international platform for innovation in sustainable design and the only student competition of its kind. Designed and coordinated by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, finalists will be judged by a stellar panel including supermodel Erin O’Connor, Chairman of the British Fashion Council Harold Tillman and eco pioneer Jo Wood. Winners will be announced at a glittering ceremony hosted by Caryn Franklin on Thursday 10 November, before the exhibition opens to the public on Friday 11 November.

Friday 11 November - Sunday 13 November Friday & Saturday 10am - 6pm, Sunday 12-4pm East Wintergarden, 43 Bank Street, Canary Wharf, E14 FREE

CANARY WHARF ICE RINK

Coming Soon:

The Canary Wharf Ice Rink returns for its seventh year and promises to be as enchanting and full of festive fun as ever. Nestled in Canada Square Park, skaters can glide under the gleaming towers and twinkling trees full of fairy lights. Skate hire and lessons are available so no matter what your level of experience you can enjoy the Ice Rink this year. Once you have finished skating you could take a well-earned rest in one of the rinkside bars and restaurants and take care of all your Christmas shopping in the shopping malls. With more than 200 shops, bars and restaurants, you are bound to find what you are looking for and more besides.

Winter’s Most Wanted

Saturday 12 November – Sunday 19 February Daily Canada Square Park, Canary Wharf, E14 Tickets from £10 (£7.50 under 12’s) Booking information: In advance: ticketmaster.co.uk or 0844 847 1556 / Groups 0844 847 1546 (Booking fee applies) In person: Rinkside Box Office from 12 November

Canary Wharf’s annual festive shopping event provides the perfect opportunity to snap up that party dress or festive gift, make use of fantastic in-store discounts and enjoy an evening of entertainment, fashion shows and giveaways. The ever popular Canary Wharf Shopping goodie bag returns and will be distributed in Jubilee Place from 5pm.*

Thursday 1 December 9am - 8pm Throughout Shopping Malls FREE * Terms and conditions apply

For more information visit canarywharf.com

interiors fashion health & beauty

stylish studies one fine day . .......... ayurveda pura

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The Enchanted Palace

Top designers have transformed Kensington Palace into a magical fashion wonderland, a spellbinding fusion of ancient history and contemporary fashion

esigners were challenged to create an inspiring visual story about the lives and culture of people who had once lived in the Palace. Iconic British designer Dame Vivienne Westwood, with her witty interpretation of historical dress evident in her early fashion collections, was commissioned to create a dress for a “rebellious princess”, inspired by the spirited Princess Charlotte, and Aminaka Wilmont made a “dress of tears” for Queen Mary II’s bedchamber, based on the tradition of collecting tears during times of

mourning. William Tempest, whose designs have notably been worn by Harry Potter star Emma Watson and X Factor winner Leona Lewis, produced an origami and trompe l’oeil-effect dress inspired by a young Queen Victoria. The Enchanted Palace now features a series of innovative light installations by Chris Levine and Jane Darke, illuminating the enthralling tales of the building. Do not miss out on this last opportunity to participate in this unforgettable spectacle, finishing in January 2012. n www.hrp.org.uk/kensingtonpalace

One

Fine Day

Photographer:

Jon Cottam Fashion Editor:

Lucie Dodds

Black and navy evening suit, £695, wing-collar dress shirt with studs, £125, blue and black bow-tie, £45, all Gieves & Hawkes, No1 Savile Row, W1, 020 7432 6403 Enamel cufflinks, £85, Links of London 0845 1202922, www.linksoflondon.com

Blue velvet jacket, £2,060, white dress shirt, £294, black bowtie, £143, black satin trousers, £600, all Tom Ford at Harrods, Knightsbridge, 020 7730 1234, www.tomford.com

Black satin evening suit, £1,195, black navy knitted bow-tie, £85, white dress shirt, £195, dress shirt studs, £300, navy cashmere coat, £1,995, silk square, £55, all Dunhill, 0845 4580779, www.dunhill.com

Black velvet and satin lapel evening suit, £2,000, cream round collar pleated front shirt, £300, black velvet loafers, £385, all Ermenegildo Zegna, 37-38 New Bond Street, W1, 020 7518 2700, www.zegna.com Glasses, £192, Tom Ford, www.tomford.com

Black velvet jacket, £1045, black shirt, £185, black bow-tie, £88, all Dolce & Gabanna at Matches, www.matchesfashion.com

Shot on location onboard British Pullman by Orient Express 0845 077 22 22, www.orient-express.com Thanks to Emma and Anna

Grooming: Paula Mann at Models1Creative using Paul Mitchell Luxury Haircare Products and Clinique

Photography Assistant: Adam Goodison

Post Production: Peach Perfect

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get the look: leather & lace Luxe yet laidback designer brand Theory, known for its chic cuts, scored an incredible reaction to its S/S11 Theyskens’ Theory collection when it was shown in New York in September; try out the leather playsuit with opaque tights and ankle or knee high boots for a day to evening look. Joseph’s leather leggings and Oscar de la Renta’s lace blouse also pair up perfectly to nail both trends in one fell swoop.

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www.theory.com

DESIGNER SNOW A white Christmas is always exciting but especially so when it appears in the slinky, gift-wrapped form of some of our favourite designer staples. In honour of the snowy season, Selfridges has commissioned an exclusive range of pieces in a snowy hue, including an iconic Burberry coat, the Mulberry Alexa, glitter-encrusted stilettos from Dune and a beautiful Vivienne Westwood teddy bear brooch, all of which would make gorgeous gifts. The items are available exclusively in store now.

Quote of the month:

I don’t design clothes; I design dreams.

www.selfridges.com

Ralph Lauren

As the annual winter coat season begins, we stumbled across this Carven cape wool blend coat. The oversized storm flaps and turn-up cuffs give it a fashionable edge but there’s no denying that the camel tone and flattering tie-waist make it a style classic. www.cochinechine.com

www.themerchant24.com

MUST-HAVE ITEM:

Website:

TREND: Fetish

Keep this address safe! The website allows visitors to browse the rails of London’s designer consignment store The Merchant, where high fashion pieces are available for around a third of their original price. Expect to find vintage dresses, Stella McCartney sequin blazers, Hermès Birkins and Jimmy Choos in immaculate condition.

One of the least daunting ways to work this season’s trend for all things avant garde is with some bold footwear. Ipilya’s A/W11 collection incorporates sparkling black PVC, flourishes of ruby red faux fur and sky-high heels. These shoes were made for walking. www.ipilya.com

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3 of the best...

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Keep warm this winter, whether in the cold winds of the capital or the bracing air of the ski slopes. Outdoor wear is stylish as well as practical this autumn, with quilted gilets to suit all personal styles.

A True Gentleman Quintessential British men’s outfitter Hackett is renowned for its effortless fusion of tradition with modernity for a look that exemplifies understated luxury. If you think of Matt Damon and Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley, you’ll see how they inspired Hackett’s new A/W11 collection. Ivy League-inspired cuts reminiscent of collegiate 1950s America feature heavily, with V-neck cardigans over crisp shirts, matched with chinos in chocolate brown or fresh blues as the main autumn colour palette. Statement plaid and twill jackets, which epitomize British style and quality tailoring, are also key elements this winter. Jackets range from £350 and come in a range of colours including blue, brown, beige, tweed and pinstripe. For special occasions, such as weddings or a new job, treat yourself to Hackett’s fine occasion wear which displays the company’s signature, classic style.

Down-filled gilet Burberry, £395, www.MRPORTER.com

Hackett, Cabot Place www.hackett.com

Get the Look: Hiking • • •

Leather lace-up boots, Quoddy, £260, www.MRPORTER.com Cadogen backpack, Paul Smith, £350, Paul Smith Arctic rabbit-trimmed hat, Woolrich, £85, www.MRPORTER.com

Down wax jacket Barbour, £179, www.harrods.com

Boulder down-filled padded gilet J Crew, £130, www.MRPORTER.com

Things are looking BRIGHTER

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Look brilliant, feel brilliant!

At our walk-in studios, our friendly dental professionals will clean, whiten and can straighten teeth to create that brilliant, beautiful smile you’ve always dreamed about. It’s quick, convenient and you don’t need a referral. Call 0207 836 6866 or book online today.

COVENT GARDEN • BANK • CANARY WHARF

health & beauty

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health & beauty

news FIGHTING SPIRIT If you really need to let off some steam, head to Reebok; the gym has recently opened a new combat area complete with boxing ring and punch-bags, so you can kick, punch and grapple until your frustration is spent. If you’re up for interacting with other gym-goers, you can be paired against someone and while the Mixed Martial Arts class is challenging, it’s not bruiseinducingly so. Taught by a world champion fighter, the lesson caters for all abilities and is as fun or as tough as you want to make it. To join, call 0844 558 1315 or visit www.reebokclub.co.uk

Perfect your technique Christmas, and all the indulgences that come with the festive season, will be here before you know it. To help you to keep trim before the inescapable excess, we asked Olympic rowing coach and training guru Terry O’Neill for advice about how to achieve the perfect rowing technique. “The best technique for the indoor rower is the same one that you see on the TV at the Olympics, World Championships or in the Boat Race,” Terry

explains. “Lean back slightly, legs flat, handle drawn to the body. Make sure your forearms are horizontal and your arms are relaxed. For the most effective results, always rock forward from the hips.” For a series of pictures and videos with World Champion rower Tom Kay showing you how it’s done, check out the Concept2 website. visit www.concept2.co.uk/technique or Email training@concept2.co.uk for information

turn back time treatment of the month: Ayurvedic Deep Tissue Massage Ayurveda Pura’s foundation was based on the principles of Ayurveda, the appealing-sounding ancient holistic health system of India, which provides for excellent health, both physical and mental, by “creating harmony between a person’s body and nature”. I’m already sold. My body most certainly felt harmonised after the blissful deep tissue massage; although it lasted one hour (£55), I could happily have stayed all day. Following a consultation to ascertain my body complaints (chiefly the typical back and shoulder troubles of a deskworker), my therapist used plenty of beautifulsmelling oil to gently knead the knots from my body. This is going to be a regular fixture on my beauty calendar from now on. Ayurveda Pura Health Spa & Beauty Centre www.AyurvedaPura.com

The Rejuvenation Clinic & Medispa opens this month in Cabot Place, offering expertise to revert the process of ageing and restore youthful skin, blending holistic traditional therapies with ground-breaking treatments. Employing South-East Asian techniques, leading Harley Street practitioners work under the supervision of world-renowned cosmetic derma-surgeon Dr Mario Luca Russo. The Clinic has three spa treatment rooms, an aromatherapy steam room, tropical shower, a skin analysis lounge, a Champagne nail bar and a shop where an exclusive range of hair and skin care products are available, including Clinique Medical, Espa, Fore Essentials, Skinceuticals and Obagi MD.

concierge health & beauty comment

“Beauty is Power,

A Smile is its Sword.” Annabel Harrison visits Smilepod in Canary Wharf. The results? Immaculate teeth and determination to revisit.

n addition to great hair and athletic figures, most of us aspire to brilliant smiles and clean, white, straight teeth, in the style of Hollywood A-listers and most American professionals. However, although a study for the British Orthodontic Society reported that 45 per cent of British adults are unhappy with their teeth, only half of us have seen a dentist in the last 12 months. So why don’t we go? Perhaps the nearest practice is too far away, you need a dentist referral first, it takes ages to book, you’re apprehensive or you just haven’t bothered? I suspect many of you would answer yes to at least one of these reasons. Enter Smilepod, which eliminates every single one of those concerns with an ethos of making high-quality professional dental care accessible on the high street for the first time, in the form of walk-in hygiene studios. Smilepod is geared towards ensuring customers have brighter, healthy smiles, offering teeth cleaning, stain removal, oral hygiene, whitening and even InvisalignR, the invisible straightening treatment that’s perfect for busy business people. So, reservation one? Distance. But Smilepod has studios in the heart of Canary Wharf’s shopping malls, Bank in the City and Covent Garden so there’s no excuse in terms of travel difficulties. Reservation two; referrals. Although there are 22,000 dentists in the UK, there are only 4,000 hygienists; access to them is restricted and only possible through a dentist referral. Because every Smilepod hygiene treatment is undertaken by a qualified dentist, you don’t need to wait for a referral – just walk in. Booking is incredibly easy; call up or book appointments online with a ‘real time’ 24/7 booking system, in work-friendly slots from 8am until 7pm. If you’re apprehensive about dentists, don’t be. Smilepod doesn’t feel like a dentist practice, with modern design and unexpectedly vibrant colours. The treatment ‘pods’ have cream walls and purple accents, with quotations painted on the wall, and the dentist chair is exceptionally comfy and music is playing. I opt for the most popular treatment; the High Gloss Diamond PolishTM (£85). All the prices, incidentally, are clearly displayed in reception and on the website, eliminating awkward ‘how much is going to cost?’ moments. Prices start from just £35 for the Smile on the RunTM treatment. My dentist is friendly, polite and thorough, working her way through a list of questions. Do I smoke? Do I drink coffee? What toothbrush do I use? When I answer manual, she suggests the Sonicare electric toothbrush as it removes

more plaque, which in turn results in less staining. I’m set at ease by her repeated assurances to “let me know if there’s any discomfort”. Amazingly, she can tell that I’m right-handed by how I clean my teeth and urges me to be more thorough on the right side. An ultrasonic scaler removes deposits of plaque with a special tip which vibrates at a high rate to flush out bacteria and deposits from below the gum with water. As the tip glides over the tooth surface, I’m told it’s much more effective at removing hard build-up and calcium deposits than hand scaling alone, smoothing out bumps and divots in the surface to prevent further build-up. Hand scaling then removes any small pieces that have remained during the ultrasonic treatments and doesn’t hurt in the slightest. This is followed by an Air Flow, a fine jet of calcium carbonate powder, smooth, soft and gentle to the tooth and allowing for efficient and faster stain removal. Finally the diamond polishing paste with minute particles of diamond results in a silky smooth finish. I’m sold. Forget waiting until Christmas when I’m in the same place as my family dentist. Smilepod made my dental hygiene experience user-friendly, cost effective and even, dare I say it, enjoyable. A recent survey of Smilepod customers found that they felt traditional dental visits to be “expensive, anxious, a chore and stressful” while they found their visit to Smilepod “professional, convenient, friendly and quick”. I agree with the latter. n For more information about Smilepod in Canary Wharf, Bank in the City or Covent Garden, visit www.smilepod.co.uk, call 020 7836 6866 or email reception@smilepod.co.uk to book

seanhanna_xmas_giftbox_canarywharf_mag.indd 1

19/10/2011 12:21

interiors

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interiors

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PALE AND INTERESTING The new Astral collection by Barbara Barry for Tufenkian is an interesting and fresh take on neutral décor. Having worked with the artisan carpet brand for more than15 years, Barbara has a great understanding of what works well in the home. The latest collection includes rugs woven with fine silk and wool to enhance texture and ensure they attract the eye. The champagne-hued Effervescence rug is a real favourite of ours. www.tufenkian.com

WINTER ESSENTIALS This month we discovered By Nord, a quirky interiors label which aims to capture the beauty of Scandinavian nature. Nowhere is this inspiration more evident than in the striking cushion collection where splashes of volcanic colour and winter landscapes make for some truly atmospheric accessories. We can see these in a city bachelor pad just as much as in a cosy winter retreat.

TOAST TO LAGERFELD They might not be Chanel 2.55 bags but these glasses from Karl Lagerfeld for Orrefors are as stylish, unique and iconic as you’d expect from the director of the French fashion house. Wine, water, liqueur and champagne glasses make up

www.selfridges.com

the range, along with monogrammed coasters and vases. Notice the use of monochrome and sleek shapes which we’ve come to expect from Lagerfeld. Karl’s drink of choice? Diet Coke. www.harrods.com

MODERN TOUCHES BoConcept isn’t just a first port of call for modern furniture design; it also stocks a great range of edgy accessories, as shown by the latest collection. Industrial style lamps, coloured vases, wire-crafted baskets and reworked patchwork cushions are amongst the drop, all ideal items for injecting new life into your home this season. www.boconcept.co.uk

the trend Settle down with a good book in an attractive and cosy study space, styled with leather armchairs, dark woods and a gentleman’s finest collectables

Stamford Wing Chair, £785, Chesterfields www.chesterfields1780.com

Bookshelf Wallpaper Inventor Library Multi £119.90, Shack, www.shackinteriors.co.uk

Botanist Cushion, £75, Amara www.amara.co.uk

Acanthus Amber Cushion, £99 Amara, www.amara.co.uk

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Leather Expedition Globe, £192.50 Just Globes, www.justglobes.co.uk

Whisky Box with Crystal Glasses and Decanter £2,500, www.gift-library.com Grand Tripod Candlestick, POA Christopher Guy, www.christopherguy.com

Collected Memories Mirror, £628 Anthropologie, www.anthropologie.eu

Wycliffe Ottoman, POA, Mulberry Home www.mulberryhome.com

Indochine Desk, £1,935, The Conran Shop www.conranshop.co.uk

concierge interiors

Lobster Bespoke Standard Lampshade, £225 Beauvamp, www.notonthehighstreet.com

Chatsworth House Cocktail Ottoman, POA Ralph Lauren Home, www.ralphlaurenhome.com

Domino Poker Set, £4,033, Gift Library www.gift-library.com

Betty Joel Cocktail cabinet, POA, Mid Century Online, www.mid-centuryonline.com

Portobello Diary, £210, Smythson www.smythson.com

King’s Diary, £160, Smythson www.smythson.com

Smarter

My home is than yours Discover how easy it is to commission a cable-free and cutting-edge house, featuring all the latest gadgetry and technological innovations. Jamie Carter picks out some inspirational examples of bespoke smart homes

an your iPhone dim the lights, adjust the heating and play a movie? With huge flatscreen televisions becoming ever thinner and home cinema rooms now de rigueur, interior designers are increasingly integrating multi-room entertainment systems that can master a homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s every function. How about a television that rises from the end of your bed? Or a wall of smoked glass panels that part like curtains to reveal a TV? A favourite of film buffs is the

installation of a projector that drops down from a panel in the ceiling to project the latest 3D movie onto a screen that rises from the floor, while itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to beat a velvetcovered, but perforated, wall that completely hides a bank of powerful surround sound speakers. So-called custom installations were born around the idea of private, exclusive cinemas operated by a touchscreen remote that controls a projector, amplifier and even motorised blackout curtains. And while a home cinema or

interiors

‘media room’ (the latter describing family-friendly games or multi-function room) is almost always some part of the plan in modern smart homes, there’s an increasing concentration on whole house control. Yes, the modern bespoke home is wired for sound but a whole lot more can be done. It’s common to find touchscreens subtly mounted on the walls of a kitchen, lounge or wine cellar that can control a home’s ambient temperature, lighting and security functions. Systems exist with sensors which can be programmed to recognise your car as it parks outside and light a path through the house, following your usual habits. Others adjust a home’s heating and lighting, gradually drawing or opening curtains (motorised, naturally) to maximise natural light while saving as much energy as possible. It’s clever stuff, but is a smart home for everyone? In the luxury new build market, the wiring for a smart home is now an essential part of the sale; don’t buy a new home that doesn’t at least have extensive data cabling throughout, even if it doesn’t actually have ‘smart’ functions. You’d think it would all be wireless but while WiFi is clean and convenient, it’s not nearly as reliable – and if your home’s security and AV (audiovisual) system are tied into a custom installation, the

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wired option is by far the best. That’s not always possible, and for anyone living in historic or period buildings, creating a retrofit smart home can be a touch harder and more expensive. You could, of course, do it yourself. A credit card and a drive to a retail park will secure you as big a television as you want, a 3D Blu-ray player and a sound system to be proud of, but who’s going to install it? Though anyone with a modicum of knowledge about AV can set it all up, achieving a clutter-free and cable-free installation that gels with your interior design is difficult. Anyone after an automated home – with smartphone control, perhaps – has only one option. A good custom installer can access exclusive behind-the-scenes products and solutions that allow an iPhone to switch off the lights upstairs, monitor a security camera or flick to cover over a swimming pool, and these experts can design, build and install a smart home just the way you want it. While it’s hard to beat recommendations from friends, custom installers are often small teams so can be tied-up for months at a time. Head to www.cedia.co.uk – CEDIA is the industry body for the custom install industry – for advice on installers in your area and check out our pick of some of the smartest homes around.

concierge interiors comment

The Luxury Home Cinema How can a luxurious house full of the latest technological wizardry be complete without its own home cinema? Figueras knows what it’s talking about in terms of cinema seats, having installed more than 150,000 for film giants Warner Brothers. Its newest seats have automatic backrests and footrests, which are individually controlled by pushbuttons so you can achieve optimum visibility and maximum comfort at the touch of a button. For those who are safety conscious, both return automatically to their original position to leave a cleared path between rows in case of emergency. So snuggle up, pop the popcorn and enjoy the film. Cost: POA Installer: Figueras

The Loft Cinema

The Super-smart Home

A state-of-the-art, compact home cinema in a semi-detached home’s triangular loft might seem a good idea but what about the neighbours? The solution: a stud-wall shell filled with recycled car tyres and glue, along with a floating floor, which contains the sound from Klipsch speakers and four incredible subwoofers. “I can sit in the cinema with the sound turned right up and you can only just hear a faint rumble in the bedroom directly below,” says the owner. “And the neighbours are still speaking to me!” At 109 decibels, that’s a lofty achievement.

Architecturally as modern as it gets, this holiday home in France is often empty, so security is a major part of the final design. A whole house control system covers lighting, multi-zone audio, video, security and control of all electronic devices across all four floors. Touchscreens, hidden in doorways and windows, occupy each room while underground is a gym, pool, Turkish bath, home cinema, library, games room and part-wine cellar, part-bar. That’s all protected by biometric access, while the owner can monitor security on the internet. With that haul, who could blame him?

Cost: £40,000 - £100,000 Installer: FAB Audio Visual

Cost: £100,000+ Installer: Henri Intégrateur Domotique, Villa des Amis

The Media Room A typical first step in transforming a house into a smart home is a simple media room. This living space retains its sharp interior design aesthetic and isn’t dominated by technology, yet it’s packed with the latest gizmos; a recessed 42-inch plasma, two Sky+HD boxes, a Blu-ray player and an iPod music system are joined-up by a Crestron Prodigy universal remote, while special in-wall surround sound speakers by Amina have been installed and painted over so that they have become invisible. “We’re very happy with the final installation,” said the homeowner. “The system is straightforward, logical to use and fits perfectly into the surroundings.” n Cost: £15,000 Installer: Dawsons Group

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ph. Andrea Pancino C

VG Studio at

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www.idesign-int.com info@inspirationsoftickhill.co.uk Tel: 01302 760040

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sports motoring event

Thrilling tENNIS Audi a6 avant ........................... ..PORSCHE CHALLENGE . ..........................................

Photography: Jeff Brown of Superyacht Media

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SAILING IN STYLE

Sleek, stylish and luxurious, the Zefira yacht was the seventh Dubois design to be built by Fitzroy Yachts in New Zealand

ounded in 1977, Dubois Naval Architects is at the centre of modern yacht design. Although constructing beautiful vessels is the main aim, the company also strives to create great pieces of engineering, resulting in the perfect union between form and function. Launched in 2010, this 49.7 metre fast-cruising sloop is constructed of aluminium with a bulb keel. Unique, innovative and graceful, the Zefira was built with Italian owners who are passionate about sailing and artistic design specifically in mind. The deck leads straight into the glass of the

superstructure in order to accentuate the smooth appearance. The main requirement for the exterior was to create a feeling of being very close to the water and this was done by having a clear, open space. In terms of the interior, comfort is an essential quality for all Dubois designs. Styled by Ressi Tessier, a large communal space allows it to be a sociable area while still retaining warmth through the dĂŠcor. Zefira was awarded Best Sailing Yacht 45m+ at the World Superyacht Awards, presented by Boat International Media in May, and received Sailing Yacht of the Year. n

Gold Medal Fitness for Busy People

There aren’t many of us who can win an Olympic Gold Medal aged 20, and return to the same sport aged 40 aiming to win another in 2012. But that’s exactly what Greg Searle is attempting. So how did he regain his fitness whilst juggling a full time job and a young family? He used what little spare time he had wisely…on a Concept2 Indoor Rower. The Concept2 is recognised worldwide as providing one of the best all body workouts available – whether you’re an elite athlete or a complete beginner. Not everyone has to have the same level of commitment that Greg has (he snuck away from the celebrations on Christmas Day 2009 to do a 5000m test in the spare bedroom!). For us mere mortals, just 20 minutes

three times a week promises improved energy, better fitness, and probably a trimmer waistline. For those willing to put in a little more effort…the opportunities are limitless…as Greg is hoping! To find out more about the Concept2 Indoor Rower and how it would improve your health & fitness visit our website at www.concept2.co.uk where you can download the Free training guide, or create your own interactive training programme. If you would like to talk to one of our knowledgeable staff please call 0115 945 5522 today or you could check out what Greg Searle is up to on www.concept2.co.uk/greg

ROWING Concept2 Limited Vermont House Nottingham NG11 7HQ | 0115 945 5522 | info@concept2.co.uk | www.concept2.co.uk

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New York Marathon If taking a well-deserved holiday to New York, lend your support and sympathy to the runners of the ING New York City Marathon. Taking place on 6 November, the event attracts more than 100,000 applicants annually. The race brings together many world-class professional athletes, not only for the $600,000 in prize money but also for the chance to excel in front of two million spectators and 315 million worldwide television viewers. Entrants run through the streets of New York’s five boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan.

Home

www.nycmarathon.org

Hennessy Winter Festival day festival promises to keep spectators on the edge of their seats. Choose from a wide selection of top class hospitality packages and experience the excitement of the races in style and luxury. 24-26 November www.racecoursehospitality.net

AWAY

The National Hunt returns to Newbury from 24 to 26 November in what many people consider the highlight of the racing year. Certain to attract some of the biggest crowds of the season and featuring one of Britain’s most prestigious jump races, the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup, this three

Prestige Ticketing A new report commissioned by Prestige Ticketing Limited, the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games’ official on-site hospitality provider, predicts that companies investing in corporate hospitality at the Games will most likely earn a return on investment exceeding 12 per cent, which is valued at an estimated £1.6 billion for the companies involved. 2.2 million Olympic tickets are promised to international sports fans, NOCs, sponsors and international federations. However, it is also estimated that around 6.6 million tickets will go on sale to the British public; so, if you were unlucky first time round, you are still in for a chance to attend this monumental sporting event. www.prestigeticketing.london2012.com

the fast and the furious Sebastian Vettel made F1 history in October when he became only the ninth driver to win back-toback world titles. Following Vettel’s coronation as 2011 F1 king, the season draws to a close this month with the final Grand Prix taking place in Brazil on 27 November. Two weeks before that,

Sporting Soundbite

the season’s penultimate race takes drivers to Abu Dhabi for the Etihad Airways Grand Prix. Make the most of the end of the season by booking your tickets for a two day or weekend pass now. Abu Dhabi - 13 November, Brazil - 27 November www.formula1.com

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself. Dawn Fraser, Australian swimmer, 3-time Olympic Games gold medallist

Let me

entertain you

Later this month, the world’s best tennis players of old will face off once more at the AEGON Masters. Lee Brooks speaks to the legendary court jester Mansour Bahrami ahead of the sporting event

hen tennis players retire, it’s often because a younger, fitter, hungrier generation of opponents has emerged and their chances to challenge for silverware are severely reduced. The talent for entertaining, and the desire to do so, remains, however, so rather than putting their feet up and signing up for their free bus pass, the likes of John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras and Mansour Bahrami have refused to down tools. Instead, they’ve joined another series called the ATP Champions Tour, which brings together the legends of tennis. Throughout the year, players compete in a series of events, playing best of three set matches in a ‘round robin’ format before the top two play in the final. The season then culminates with the AEGON Masters at the iconic

Royal Albert Hall. This year is the 15th time our capital has hosted the event and once again, expect a combination of competitive singles matches. However, it’s the light-hearted, crowd-pleasing doubles matches, featuring self-professed oncourt jester Bahrami as the star attraction, which really make the tournament stand out. Unable to afford his own racket, Bahrami, now 54, taught himself to play tennis with a frying pan and made the Iranian Davis Cup team, despite never having been coached. After failing to make his mark on the professional tour, he is now a regular on the seniors’ tour, spending 40 weeks of the year playing various tournaments and exhibitions, showing his vast array of trick shots. From catching a lob in the pocket of his shorts or playing a drop shot, which bounces back over the due to excessive spin, to hitting clean winners

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THE YOUNGSTERS A week before the AEGON Masters takes place, the men’s tour sees the culmination of their gruelling season with the ATP World Tour finals at The O2 Arena. The world’s top eight players face off in a gladiatorial tennis battle of will. This season, Novak Djokovic has been a revelation, winning the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open to inch to within touching distance of confirming the year-end world number one ranking. Former world number one and 14-time Grand Slam champion Pete Sampras described Djokovic’s season as “one of the best achievements in all of sports”. Despite Djokovic falling one win short of McEnroe’s record-setting 42-match winning streak earlier this season, McEnroe also believes the world number one’s record tops his achievement. “Given that there’s more competition, more athleticism and deeper fields now, I’d say his record is even more impressive than mine,” he said. Former world leaders Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, along with Britain’s Andy Murray, join forces with Djokovic to make this season one of the most competitive ever. With just one major tournament left on this year’s calendar, the trio will be keen to end their years on a high and set themselves up for an attempt at breaking the Serbian’s dominance next season. “The standard is amazingly strong at the moment and the players are great,” said Bahrami, who admitted to watching plenty of tennis and checking the results every day. “One thing is for sure, they are not funny but we want great players and not clowns on the court – that’s my job! If you want to succeed and be number one in the world you have to be focused and play serious tennis.” Visit www.barclaysatpworldtourfinals.com for more information

with his back facing the court, Bahrami has an endless supply of shots with which to entertain the crowds. “I learnt all my trick shots playing and seeing how people reacted to what I did,” said Bahrami. “I started doing trick shots even when I was as young as ten. “Now I do it a lot more easily easier and much better but most of them just happen one time in a match and if people laugh I try to do it again the next time. I’m not sure which is my favourite, but I like the one when I’m running back to get a ball and I hit it behind, not through my legs, but beside my right leg. That one is the most difficult.” While Bahrami wouldn’t be drawn on naming a favourite doubles partner, he did single out Peter McNamara, who won 19 ATP doubles titles, as his favourite opponent. “I love to play against Macca [McNamara]”, confessed Bahrami. “I can’t do what I do very well without him on the other side. I love him and he is a great friend. It is always my favourite to be on the court with him. But regarding the people I play with, I am happy to play with all of the guys.” Bahrami has been a regular fixture at the Royal Albert Hall since the event was first hosted in 1997 and he can think of few venues where he would rather play. “The atmosphere in the Albert Hall is unique and the people are really close to you,” he said. “It is a great venue and I love that we play in the day and at night. The crowd is always full

of energy and because the Hall was built for music, the noise gives it an amazing atmosphere. The venue is one of the most special venues we get to play in.” Also in the doubles, Goran Ivanisevic, Pat Rafter and Tim Henman will reunite alongside McEnroe to mark the 10th anniversary of an epic Wimbledon. British fans will remember the heartache when an unfortunate rain break destroyed Henman’s best chance of reaching a coveted Wimbledon final, as a rejuvenated Ivanisevic fought back to beat the Brit before overcoming Rafter in a thrilling five-set humdinger. In the singles, McEnroe leads an all-star cast, which also includes Pat Cash, Mark Philippoussis, Pat Cash, Tim Henman and Goran Ivanisevic, as the American returns to the London venue for the first time in three years. The 52-year-old has won the title four times in his career and believes he’s fitter now that than eight years ago when he last won the event. “The London tournament has always been one of my favourite events of the year,” he said. “The crowds are really fantastic, the atmosphere is great and the Royal Albert Hall is one of the most spectacular arenas I’ve ever played in. I still love to compete and I always play to win, so I am training hard to be able to bring my best tennis back to London.” n Visit www.aegonmasterstennis.com for more information

All Eyes On...

Canary Wharf and The City Magazines’ competition winners Barclays Wealth and Citigroup

the Arctic prize

As the summer drew to a close, the Porsche Showroom at Canary Wharf invited 12 teams to the Porsche Experience Centre at Silverstone to compete for the ultimate driving experience: a trip to Camp4 at Porsche’s Arctic Driving Centre in Finland. Richard Brown was there to witness all the fast-paced action

t doesn’t take much for the business rivalries that simmer beneath London’s finance sector to rise to the surface. Especially when there are reputations of sporting supremacy at stake and a trip to an Arctic Driving Centre up for grabs. And so it was proven when 12 groups of four descended on Porsche’s Silverstonebased Experience Centre at the end of September for the 2011 Canary Wharf Challenge. Swapping the boardroom for the inside of a Porsche and Blackberry handsets for a

state-of-the-art handling circuit, each team had their eyes firmly fixed on the five-day first prize trip to Finland. Competitors representing HSBC, UBS, SocGen,Vinson & Elkins, Barclays Capital and Clifford Chance were all in attendance, as were Canary Wharf and The City magazines’ competition winners from Barclays Wealth and Citigroup. All that stood between the teams and the glistening arctic ice was a series of track-based challenges designed to push both their driving ability and mental agility to the extreme.

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2011 Power of 4 Challenge winners Clifford Chance

UBS’s Team Catalunya leaving the track

Each team member was to be assessed by a speciallytrained Porsche expert and awarded points based on their ability to control their vehicle in a range of wet, dry and off-road conditions. As well as simulated ice and snow driving, competitors would tackle low friction surfaces and a demanding handling circuit. At 10am, 48 drivers took to the tracks, ready to tackle the unique opportunity of exploring the five vehicles comprising Porsche’s entire latest model range. Following a lesson in economy, driving in a Panamera S Hybrid, team members faced an off-road course in a Cayenne Diesel, a low friction driving circle in a 911 GT3 RS and a waterdoused ‘Kick Plate’ in a Panamera Turbo S. Their nerves were finally tested on the challenging handling circuit behind the wheel of a Caymen S and Boxster Spyder. For UBS’s Fraz Khawaja of Team Catalunya the handling circuit proved the most exhilarating. “I drove two Porsches for a good number of laps at the speed I could handle the car while gaining helpful feedback from the expert instructor,” said Fraz. “I was very happy that I managed to improve my driving skills in such short time. All I needed now is a track to drive on!” It was the Cayman S that stole the show for Vinson & Elkins lawyer Francois Feuillat of Team Hungaroring: “The mid-engined Porsche was awesome; it stuck to the road like a go-kart and was tremendously fun to drive.” After a day that featured more slides, slips and spins than an episode of Dancing on Ice, it was Team Valencia from Clifford Chance that secured its place on the plane to Porsche’s Camp4 Arctic Driving Centre, beating team SocGen into second place. “The event was a huge success.” said Alistair Sommerville, the showroom’s Sales and Marketing manager. “Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely and the competition was intense. Thank you to everyone at Porsche Cars GB and the Porsche Experience Centre who helped to organise the day, and congratulations to our worthy winners.” n Team Clifford Chance will attend the four day driving experience at Porsche’s Camp4 Arctic Driving Centre in February. If you missed out this year, Porsche Canary Wharf hopes to see you, your clients and colleagues taking part in The Power of 4 Challenge in 2012. Images courtesy of Jaime Leme www.airimages.org/jaime_leme

WHEN LESS The baby of the new Audi A6 Avant range is the one to go for and it’s best to ignore the options list, advises Matthew Carter

mong the fleets of test cars run by the press offices of all the various companies, there’s no such thing as a standard car. All of them have desirable options added to boost their appeal and the journalist is, often, ignorant which bits cost extra. Audi, on the other hand, is quite upfront about the gizmos and goodies they stick on their press cars. They even leave a sheet in the car listing everything that’s been added. Take the Audi A6 Avant 3.0 TDI Quattro. The basic price of this car is 50 quid short of £41,000, yet the one I drove had a list of extras as long as your arm. Together they added a further £38,605 to the cost of the car - virtually double. It had everything. Panoramic roof (£1,370), check; massage front seats (£1,600), check; Bang & Olufsen sound system (£6,300 – yes really), check; and so on and so forth. Significantly, it also had £2,500 worth of 20-inch alloy wheels which look great but ruin the ride comfort; to be honest, while one or two of the options are worth the money, I’d save the cash and buy a A5 Coupé with the change. In fact, I’d save even more and head down the range to

IS MORE the 2.0-litre TDI SE Avant, a snip at £32,000. For that, you get leather, sat nav, dynamic suspension (best left in normal mode), parking sensors front and rear and Bluetooth. Add, say, £3,000 worth of extras – DAB radio, electrically adjustable heated front seats and a couple of other bits – and you’ve got a fine car, arguably the best of the range. Audis are strange. Some, which ought to be exciting, don’t quite live up to expectations, while others that you might expect to be a tad dull are the exact opposite, and that’s the case with the A6 Avant, or estate. The new Avant might look broadly similar to the car it’s replacing, but it’s all new. It’s bigger, for one thing, with a longer wheelbase and more interior space. Greater use of aluminium parts, meanwhile, means it’s up to 70 kilograms lighter than the old one which helps to make it feel livelier. It also benefits from the technology that’s been crammed into the A8 and A7. This means you can have (if you pay extra) a head-up display projecting the car’s speed onto the screen in your line of vision (works well) or an automatic boot-opening function triggered by waggling your foot under

motoring

the back of the car (didn’t seem to work at all). You can even turn the interior of the car into a mobile wi-fi zone and display Google Earth images on the sat nav screen. If you ignore all that stuff, you’re left with an elegant, honest car that delivers more than you’d expect. The interior is typically Audi; classy and beautifully made with top class materials. Especially neat is the way the sat nav screen slides away when not in use to leave a clean, uncluttered dash. The extra length in the wheelbase translates into more passenger room and while the load area might not be the widest around, it’s still usefully large (though if you want a removal van there’s nothing to touch the Mercedes E-class). Perhaps the best thing about the Audi, though, is the way it drives. The baby of the range might be powered by a mere 2.0-litre turbodiesel but it does deliver a healthy 177hp and when that is put into the lightweight shell it seems livelier still. Audi reckons it will top almost 140 mph and reach 60 mph from rest in under nine seconds, and that’s not bad going for a large family estate. Better news comes at the pumps with an official combined figure

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of more than 56mpg allied to emissions of 132g/km, low enough to reduce company car tax percentage to 19 per cent. Stop/Start technology is also standard, helping to lower emissions and running costs. The standard six-speed gearbox is slick IN BRIEF and easy to use and even the steering is agile and eager, in fact, more so than Car: the larger diesel’s steering, which feels a Audi A6 Avant 2.0 TDI SE little dead. Price: Whichever way you look at it, the £32,100 (plus options) 2.0TDI SE – not the more expensive S-line Engine: version which has lowered suspension and 1,968 cc 4-cylinder diesel bigger wheels – is a perfect example of Power: ‘less is more’. Not that Audi is worried. 177 hp When challenged about the absurdity of Drive: the version which had doubled in price, Front-wheel drive the man from Audi shrugged his shoulders Performance: and said: “People seem happy to spend 138 mph max that much on options… and we’re happy 0-62 mph in 9.0secs that they do.” n

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MEET

THE NEW BOSS Matthew Carter’s opinion on BMW’s new 3-series? Same as the old boss

he days of startlingly different BMWs are long gone. The latest 3-series – which will be the biggest seller in the BMW range and arrives here next February – looks like, well, a 3-series. OK, it’s more grown up than before and benefits from some styling cues seen on the 5- and 6-series machines, such as the wider grille and ‘slanted eyes’ headlamps, but it couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than 3. Evolutionary styling apart, however, the new car is a real step up from the current model. It’s longer, which at last means there’s a bit of leg-room in the rear, and the track is wider for enhanced handling. But despite being bigger it’s lighter than before. New engines, with emphasis on efficiency as much as on performance, promise a stirring drive with excellent economy and lower emissions, and there’s a new eight-speed automatic option that contrives to be as frugal as the manual equivalent. Auto Stop/Start is standard across the range and there’s a new Driver Experience Control switch which, as well as the now familiar Comfort, Sport and Sport + options, has an ECO PRO button. If you want to save the planet, switch to ECO mode and the throttle response is muted; even the air conditioner is reprogrammed to use less fuel. To go the whole way, you’ll need to wait until later in the year when the first hybrid 3-series is launched. As it combines a 306hp six cylinder turbocharged petrol engine with a 40kW electric motor, lack of performance will not be a concern. The range will start at £24,100. n

Audi ultra lightweight technology means lighter fuel consumption. A car that weighs less, drinks less. The new Audi A6 Avant is engineered with Audi ultra lightweight technology. Part aluminium, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up to 70kg lighter than its predecessor. So itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more fuel efficient (up to 56.5mpg combined), emits less CO2 and even costs less to tax. For more information, visit your local Audi Centre or audi.co.uk/A6

The new Audi A6 Avant.

Docklands Audi 64 Marsh Wall South Quay Docklands London E14 9SL 0207 536 0555 www.docklands.audi.co.uk Official fuel consumption figures for the new A6 Avant range in mpg (l/100km): Urban 26.2 (10.8) - 47.9 (5.9), Extra Urban 42.8 (6.6) - 62.8 (4.5), Combined 34.4 (8.2) - 56.5 (5.0), CO2 emissions 190 - 132g/km. For more information visit audi.co.uk/A6

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Jukebox Jury The latest generation of multi-zone, WiFi and 3D-ready music and movie jukeboxes for the home swap vinyl and cardboard cover art for MP3s and iPad apps

emember the jukebox? They’ve come a long way since the dawn of digital; a bunch of new whole house systems can now store your complete collection of digital music and movies – or anything on the Internet – and send it wirelessly to any room in your house. Home entertainment – and entertaining at home – has never been so much fun. Some of these multi-room jukeboxes are controlled by touchscreen remotes and most have iPhone and iPad apps to let you scroll through cover art and compile playlists on your own device. Others fetch videos from YouTube, stream from Spotify or grab holiday photos from Flickr. Most systems are constructed thus: your discs – be they CD, DVD and/

or Blu-ray – are ripped to a central media server, which then sprays that content to multiple ‘zones’ in your house. Each zone has to have what’s termed a ‘slave’ unit, which you also need to buy, and usually you’ll need to add your own speakers or TV to these units too. Once you’ve done that, each room can be supplied with music or movies from your collection (or fetched from other sources) simultaneously – while content can even ‘follow’ you around the home. So it’s possible to change rooms halfway though a film or have a particular CD or playlist ‘sent’ from the study to the bathroom. We have hand-picked the best multi-room media servers that deal both in audio and video – or both – to help you to create the ultimate entertainment system in your home. n

Whole-house hints Sound or vision: Do you need multi-room music or movies? Or both?

Third way: If you have 3D Blu-ray discs, find a system that can handle 3D – not all can.

Zoning out: Think about how many rooms you want to entertain in – you’ll need equipment for each one.

App’y shopper: Download the iPad app but get a ‘proper’ remote too for shared households – phones aren’t always at home.

Turn on: Some systems require your PC or Mac to be constantly switched-on.

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Music Miner Sonos is a modular audio-only system that mines for music stored both on a PC in the house and from online sources (principally Spotify and Last.fm), and it gets better with every Play:5 (£349) slave unit that’s added. Crucially, each Play:5 is also armed with a stereo speaker, making this the most minimalist, fuss-free system around. We’ve used the Sonos extensively and have to say that once the wireless Play:5 units are in a ‘zone’ it’s the iPhone/ iPad/Android phone app that brings the smiles; simply pick a zone from the app and play any song or playlist on your computer anywhere in your house. You can even have different music playing in each zone, control the sound settings and volume in all zones and compile playlists as you go. A less powerful, smaller Play:3 (£259) is also available. Sonos Play:5 From £349 www.sonos.com

Depth Charge

Ace of Base

Clad in a slinky black brushed aluminum chassis, this multi-room system is about as comprehensive as it gets: 300 Blu-ray or 1,500 DVD movies can be ripped to a massive 12 terabyte server – and that includes 3D. Also able to handle music, photos and online media, the Solo 2 3D (£3,780) is the engine room – attach up to four Mozaex Blu-ray players (£1,550) to simultaneously play any media at any time in up to five rooms. Fitted with a super-fast Intel i3 processor, the components within the Solo 2 3D are top class, though 3D fans should know that the system is only compatible with 3D TVs and 3D Blu-ray players from Panasonic, Sony and Samsung.

What we love most about this system is its integration with Spotify. As well as storing your complete CD collection, albums from Spotify can be browsed, played and even ‘pinned’ permanently to the screen. It’s a great feature for music fans, and the way the cover art from albums, movies and even material from web sources (like Last.fm, YouTube, Flickr or BBC News) can be flicked through onscreen is almost Apple-esque. It’s also scalable; the 3D-ready Base3D Media Server can be used in a single room or easily expanded by adding Link devices to create HD video-zones anywhere in a home.

Mozaex Solo 2 3D From £3,780 www.mozaex.com

DF Solutions BASE media server and Link client £1,999 and £1,299 www.dfsolutions.co.uk

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Remembrance Day

This month, in honour of Remembrance Day, St. Paul’s Cathedral is playing host to a special poppy art installation, commemorating those who died

s viewers prove every Sunday, tuning in to Downton Abbey in their millions, there seems no danger of us forgetting the magnitude or devastation of World War One. With ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, we are constantly reminded of the sacrifices of young soldiers as they continue to fight for their Queen and country in the 21st century. St. Paul’s Cathedral is preparing for nationwide remembrance with a special installation; more than 5,000 poppies are being scattered under its dome on 11 November. When viewed from the

Whispering Gallery, the poppies will form an image of three child soldiers in order to draw attention to the involvement of children during warfare. Artist Ted Harrison states: “At the time of year when we rightly recall British soldiers, sailors and airmen who have given their lives for their country, this work is a reminder of the many children who have also, throughout history, died as members of the armed forces… I hope something of the innocence of these children is conveyed along with a sense of innocence betrayed.” The installation is part of the St. Paul’s Cathedral Arts Project which explores the meeting between art and faith. n

Safeguarding London’’s Future London has served as the world’s pre-eminent business centre since the beginning of the 19th century. Today the city remains top of Global Financial Centres Index, ranking ahead of New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. Richard Brown meets Stuart Fraser, Chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee at the City of London Corporation, to find out how he plans to keep London in the top spot

t must be a daunting prospect, waking up at the helm of England’s oldest local authority each morning. Even more daunting when it’s your job to ensure that that authority remains not just Britain’s, but the world’s, foremost financial centre. Fortunately, Stuart Fraser is a man better equipped to deal with the task than most. Having entered the City as a trainee stockbroker in 1963, Fraser spent the next 30 years moving through a succession of investment-related disciplines – foreign exchange, money broking, international equities, investment research and fund management – before he joined the City of London Corporation as a Common Councilman in 1993. In his current role, Fraser is responsible for setting the strategic priorities and policies of the City of London, as well as representing the authority in both Westminster and Brussels. How did your time at the London Stock Exchange prepare you for your current role? I understand how markets work; I understand many of the things that have been happening, the crisis in 2008 and the issues facing us at the moment, probably better than most of the politicians who are supposed to be dealing with it. I can talk to CEOs of major financial houses and I know their businesses inside out, how they operate and the roles that bankers, investment banks and brokers play. What issues do you believe pose the biggest threats to London as the world’s pre-eminent financial capital? At the moment, the Euro crisis, although there are emerging tensions elsewhere – with the States and with China, for example. But to worry about the future of the City of London in the current climate is probably a pointless

exercise; what will determine its future will be what results from the current crisis and how it all pans out. I’ve just come out of a finance meeting and a fund manager at one of the big companies told me the Euro is going to go, the whole lot; back to 17 currencies in, I think he said, six months. How will that affect businesses in London? Fortunately we have our own currency but the sheer shock and complexity, if the Euro did collapse, isn’t worth thinking about. Given the amount of ongoing contracts that are in part denominated in Euros, what are you going to deliver against? 17 different currencies all wrapped up in one big basket? What will you do to the financial contracts out there in Euros if the Euro didn’t exist? As everyone has said, it would be a disaster and it would take years to recover. Will anything change if the Euro does survive? There will have to be closer federalism in certain levels within Europe, at least in terms of the 17 members of the Eurozone. You will see more Eurocentric regulation which essentially says; “we agree each other’s debts under the terms X, Y and Z.” The demarcation between the Eurozone and those in Europe who are outside the Euro will become starker and that could lead to protectionism. How do current financial uncertainties compare with crises of the past? In the past we compartmentalised because of the inability to communicate. When I first started, you booked a call to America and you’d wait for the operator to come back and say “you are now connected.” If you had a problem in the UK it was confined to the UK. Now, because we are so connected, problems spread like a virus from one country to

interview

the next and are more difficult to control and understand because you don’t know what the problem actually is. What are the biggest changes you’ve witnessed in the way people do business since you started working in London? There are a lot of things that happened back then over the shake of a hand that, if they were done today, would land people in prison. It was a private club, one with very restrictive membership supplied by about eight public schools. It has evolved. Episodes like the 1973/ 74 crash and the 1982 crisis changed things; they decimated old firms and the way business was done. It’s also much more cosmopolitan. Nothing happened in the City after 6pm in the old days; everyone wanted to disappear to the West End. With business districts expanding worldwide, how do you ensure London continues to appeal to global companies? Apart from Hong Kong, which is relatively small, the other emerging centres are a long way from being fully globalised. Our major competitor is New York and it’s likely to remain that way for a long time – the agglomeration of talent, and to have all of your business contacts within a very small area, is replicated nowhere else in the world other than New York. You can lose parts of business, like hedge funds to Switzerland, but the whole body isn’t suddenly going to evaporate and go somewhere else. Do London’s historical buildings and ancient street layout hinder its expansion as a financial district in the 21st century? Yes. Substantial parts of the city are covered by height limitations. We have St. Paul’s, the Tower of London, the river, 600 listed buildings and 23 conservation areas, as well as a host of other things. The tall buildings are built only where we can build them without breaching guidelines. I do agree with you though [that London’s historical wealth is one of its appealing features.] This is a very nice

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place to work. It’s better than New York. We pay a lot of attention to areas like parks and gardens, keeping the streets clean, that sort of thing. There is no doubt that the history adds to the mystery of the City and provides a depth which you wouldn’t find in another financial city. How important is it to increase London’s airport capacity and how viable is ‘Boris Island’ [a proposed 24-hour airport to be built on an artificial island in the Thames estuary]? I have no problem with Boris Island but it’s 40 years away. My issue is with the now. When Hong Kong decides it needs to expand, it builds four runways and sticks them in the sea. The world won’t sit around and wait for us; we will lose business. We could build Boris Island then move Heathrow or even close it completely; if you build it big enough, why not? I’ve always made it plain that the runway capacity is the issue. At the moment, Heathrow is absolutely vital to the city’s continual international development. How do you envisage London will look in 50 years time? I honestly don’t know. We’ve been able to deal through conference calls for many years now but people still need to congregate together to do business or at least see people between conference calls. The need for people to congregate is a human instinct and I think that’s why cities will remain. What do you find the most frustrating aspect of your job? European politics. Under the previous administration, taxes were being slapped on all sorts of things. Now we’ve got a better degree of political stability. I’m not really a politician; I didn’t grow up with a desire to get involved in party politics. What has been the highlight of your career so far? Lots of things have been fantastic but one doesn’t really stand out. I’m not very reflective; I’m one of those people who hopes that the future will be full of even more highlights. n

The return of Sujata Bhatia, Vice President, Europe and Asia, for American Express Business Insights, shares trends that she is seeing in luxury spending across the world

uring the height of the economic downturn in late 2008 to 2009, luxury spending across the world fell in all major categories – fashion, jewellery, hotels, travel and fine dining. Europeans spent 15 per cent less on luxury goods in 2009 compared to 2008, while Americans reduced their spending by 12 per cent over the same period. The picture was even elsewhere; Australian and Japanese consumers reduced their spending on luxury by 17 per cent. However, 2010 saw a rebound in luxury spending across all regions, with rises in spending by Australian and Japanese consumers of seven per cent, and Americans by nine per cent. The exception in this revival was Europe, where the recovery lagged until the first quarter of this year, when Europeans recorded an impressive 17 per cent growth, compared with the same period last year. Europe’s rebound completed a worldwide revival in luxury spending. Much of the growth in 2009 and 2010

Luxury came from the fine dining sector, which appeared to be the most “recessionproof” of the luxury categories. Luxury fashion also recovered well; despite beginning to slow earlier than other categories, it came back both early and strongly. The lagging industries have been travel and hotels; there isn’t a single market in which spending in the luxury hotel sector is back to pre-recession levels, although it has been encouraging to see business travellers increase their spend on luxury hotels, and there is evidence to show that not only are the numbers of travellers – both business and leisure – increasing, but the amount these travellers are spending on hotel rooms is also going up. This analysis points to the resilience of the luxury market, despite the continued economic uncertainty. Looking at the data, it would be easy to assume that those consumers who have historically spent on luxury goods are feeling

comfortable about their personal economic outlook and are returning to their traditional spending patterns. However, this is not the case. Since the downturn, we have identified an entirely new category of luxury consumer – one who had not made a single luxury purchase in 2007, but who has done so since the downturn: the Luxury Newcomer. In identifying the Luxury Newcomer, we believe we have distinguished an entirely new group. These aren’t people who stopped spending on luxury and are now returning; this is an entirely new group of luxury consumers. While they are not yet making up the majority of spending in any luxury market across the world, their contribution to the overall spend in luxury makes them significant. Taking luxury fashion as an example, our data has shown that Newcomers have had the strongest impact in the USA, where they make up 36 per cent of spending, followed by India and France, where they contribute to 33 and 31 per cent of spending on luxury fashion respectively. This is a group who

feature

Left to right: Vivienne Westwood handbag; Nicholas Kirkwood stiletto; ivory Globetrotter ‘Safari’ luggage; Stephen Webster ‘Murder She Wrote’ poison apple ring; Gucci handbags; Bulgari Bali Resort; Ruinart Blanc de Blancs champagne

have emerged en masse, contributing almost the same monetary amounts as the most active luxury shopper, suggesting that they’re a group that luxury brands would do well to keep an eye on. Newcomers don’t look or transact like the traditional luxury consumer. They tend to be younger and less affluent, but clearly have a strong sense of confidence in their spending power. They also prioritise their spending differently, with electronics and luxury rising to the top of their list. In the UK, these Newcomers make up 15 per cent of all luxury spending. All generations are represented in the Newcomer class, but there is one that really stands out. Generation X (roughly those aged 29–46) is a surprising force in this luxury resurgence, increasing its spending power and emerging as a major player in the luxury market. No one would challenge the fact that there are tens of millions more people in the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation than those in Generation X, but the latter’s taste for luxury has started much earlier than their older counterparts. Looking at luxury spending by generation, we have seen a similar contribution by Generation X as we have by the Luxury Newcomers. The UK and Japan lead other countries in the amount Generation X-ers have spent on luxury fashion, making up 44 per cent and 40 per cent of total fashion spending respectively. In fact, in the UK, Generation X contributes almost the same level of spending as

their Baby Boomer counterparts at 48 per cent. Our analysis has shown that while the traditional, older luxury shopper essentially returned to their favourite brands and normal spending patterns after 2009, Generation X is far more experimental in the brands it chooses, and its luxury spending patterns aren’t yet set. When we look at our data more closely, we can see that Generation X luxury shoppers are made up of more men than in previous generations and, in many luxury fashion markets around the world, Generation X is gaining share of the luxury market at the expense of both Baby Boomers and Seniors. Generation X is, of course, not merely buying what its predecessors have bought. With a taste for travel, Generation X ventures to places that were likely off limits to its parents’ generation. China, Thailand and Brazil are common destinations for Generation X travellers, while Boomers prefer Italy, Japan and Switzerland. Across different countries, the Generation X-ers are also increasing their spend much faster than the Baby Boomers in industries such as home furnishings and electronics. As far as luxury fashion retailers are concerned, their competition may not be coming from another fashion brand: it’s very likely to be a smart phone, or a designer chair – and it’s probably being bought online. In the UK, Generation X’s spend on luxury electronics has been growing 75 per cent faster than Baby Boomers’.

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While the recent trends for luxury spending can be viewed with cautious optimism, the first half of 2011 has shown we shouldn’t be too quick to declare that the outlook is rosy. In analyses conducted by American Express Business Insights ahead of Fashion Weeks in New York, London and Paris, those making up the top five per cent of spend on apparel and accessories have slowed their spending globally. In Britain, these so-called “fashion enthusiasts” have slowed their year-on-year spending on luxury fashion, a possible sign that the luxury resurgence is easing. However, the spending habits of the Luxury Newcomers as well as Generation Y consumers should not be ignored. Although Generation Y represents a minority of the enthusiast consumers, in the first half of 2011 in Britain, it devoted more than 30 per cent more of its overall spending to luxury fashion than Generation X, Baby Boomers and Seniors. These consumers, who are younger and less affluent than the traditional luxury buyers, but with fewer financial commitments and a new-found appetite for luxury, seem to be spending their way through the doom and gloom. Luxury, for some at least, is back. n American Express Business Insights, the data analytics and consulting arm of American Express, provides businesses with in-depth, actionable insights into consumer and business spending by using data from 90 million card members in more than 125 markets.

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comment human resources

Giving References Clare Murray spells out the key issues that employers must bear in mind

Name; job title; length of service; disclaimer… after ten years’ dedicated service, summarising an individual’s experience in a few lines can seem somewhat cold. It is, however, little wonder that employers these days are hesitant to depart from standard form references. Potential legal complaints arising in the context of reference giving include, by way of example, breach of contract, negligent misstatement, deceit, malicious falsehood and defamation. A recent case, McKie v Swindon College (2011), has highlighted again the risks that former employers face in respect of references, this time in the context of negligent misstatement. The High Court found the College to be liable for fallacious and untrue comments when it sent an email (which was not intended to be a reference) to Mr McKie’s new employer that subsequently resulted in his dismissal. Swindon College was found to owe a duty of care to its former employee and it was held that the connection between the negligent email and resultant dismissal was sufficiently close, notwithstanding that six years had passed since McKie had left Swindon College’s employment. In providing a reference, an employer owes a duty of care not only to the subject of the reference but also to the recipient. Whilst there is no legal obligation to provide references, employers may find themselves on the wrong side of a discrimination, victimisation or breach of implied trust and confidence claim if they are not consistent in the way in which they deal with reference requests. For example, if an individual

with a protected characteristic such as race or sex is able to show that others not sharing that characteristic are routinely given references where he/she was not, the individual may point to race/sex as the reason for that non-provision. An exception to the general rule that employers do not have to provide references exists in the context of FSA-regulated persons: special rules necessitate that prospective employers must seek detailed information from former employers to ensure that any prospective employee recruited to undertake a controlled function is ‘fit and proper’; this will include a detailed assessment of the individual’s honesty, integrity and reputation. Employers should ensure that all references are true, accurate and fair; are not inconsistent with the real reason for an individual’s dismissal; and do not include statements of opinion, unless these can be objectively justified (particularly in the context of suitability for a new job). In addition, special care should be taken to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998, in particular when providing sensitive personal data belonging to the employee (for example, medical records). By training staff about the risks associated with providing references and putting a detailed policy in place (and applying this consistently), employers can go a long way to protecting themselves against legal liabilities. And remember, if anything beyond very basic factual information is to be provided in a reference, make sure this is accompanied by a disclaimer. n

Clare Murray is Managing Partner at specialist employment and partnership law firm CM Murray LLP. She can be contacted at clare.murray@cm-murray.com or 020 7718 0090. The contents of this column are for general purposes only. Specialist legal advice should be taken regarding specific circumstances.

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Colfe’s

HMC Independent Co-educational Day School for children aged 3 -18

Co-Education Richard Russell, Headmaster at Colfe’s School, puts his case forward for co-education

Popular wisdom often misrepresents advantages of single-sex schools over co-ed: in fact, just under 80 per cent of pupils in independent schools are currently educated in co-educational schools. This would have been unthinkable a generation ago when the vast majority of fee-paying schools, as well as many state schools, catered for girls or boys only. The most compelling argument for co-education is also the most obvious: an increasing number of parents want their children to grow up in an environment that prepares them for a world which contains both men and women. They do not want their daughters to find out for the first time in the induction period at Ernst & Young that boys (of all ages) can sometimes be very silly. Boys, on the other hand, should not leave it too late to discover that girls tend not to like Warhammer.

PrePrep and Prep School Open Morning Thursday 10th November 2011 9.30am – 11am Please book via the Admissions page of our website

Horn Park Lane London SE12 8AW Tel: 020 8852 2283 www.colfes.com 98

In their anxiety not to become completely anachronistic, advocates of single-sex schools point with growing desperation to the fact that they continue to dominate the higher reaches of the league tables. It is frequently claimed that girls in particular get better results in single sex schools, but the most authoritative recent research, covering schools in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the USA, as well as Great Britain and Ireland, suggests otherwise. Commissioned by the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents the heads of 250 leading independent schools in the UK, The Paradox of Single-Sex and Coeducational Schooling* concludes that boys and girls in single-sex schools enjoy no perceptible academic advantage. The author of the report, Sir Alan Smithers, is the foremost educational adviser in the UK and his conclusion could not be clearer: “While both single-sex and co-education schooling have passionate advocates, half a century of research has so far revealed no striking differences one way or the other.” So the choice between single-sex and co-ed is not about results, but about a belief in how you best prepare children for adulthood. Colfe’s has been fully co-educational for more than a decade and we are comfortable with our ethos, but not complacent; a standing co-education committee meets regularly to discuss gender issues and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, our pupils continue to benefit from both male and female perspectives in all aspects of school life. n

* http://wordpress.buckingham.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hmcsscd.pdf

The benefits of co-education extend beyond the obvious aspect of preparing for life in general. An education is enriched by the presence of both male and female perspectives in classrooms and laboratories. The social balance of a co-educational school enables boys and girls to learn from each other in a wider sense, breaking down the intensity of difficult social dynamics, which can so easily develop when boys or girls are left to their own devices.

personal finance

How to afford a Cartier Dr. David Kuo explains why we’re still interested in luxury brands, even though the Western world is tiptoeing on the edge of another recession

Aston Martin is reckoned to be the coolest brand in the UK. The luxury carmaker pipped the computer giant Apple to the post for the second year running, according to the latest CoolBrands survey. The truth is that billionaires do not stop spending millions on football clubs and expensive boats even in the depths of a recession. While the highearning part of the population may suffer a bit, there are always enough rich people to sustain the niche market for luxury goods. Additionally, luxury goods are sold all over the world, so makers of posh things are never reliant on the economy of any one country. In other words, there are always rich people somewhere in the world who are willing to splash the cash. According to Lars Tvede, the author of Supertrends, luxury has a fantastic future as millions of new consumers from emerging markets develop a taste for the finer things in life, despite the global recession. In other words, while the mass affluent of the West were the main buyers of luxury items after the War, there is every reason to assume that the next crop of mass-affluent buyers will come from the emerging markets. Put another way, luxury will always be luxury because it is luxury. The only difference is who can afford to buy it, and right now, the growth market is in Shanghai, Mumbai and Dubai. But what exactly is a luxury item? Interestingly, we all know one when we see one. As soon as we set eyes on a Cartier watch or a Porsche, we immediately identify that they ooze luxury, but what is it that makes a Cartier different from an equally accurate digital watch from a market stall? The

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simple answer is that it is an expensive, beautiful alternative to other more mundane goods that perform the same function. Consider mobile phones. Why would anyone want to own an Apple iPhone when alternative phones are a dime a dozen? The key is exclusivity. What the consumers of these luxury goods are buying is not just a product – they are also buying exclusivity. The upshot is that luxury goods makers create this image of superiority with clever marketing. Note how Mulberry has achieved this by ensuring that its handbags are identified with celebrities such as Kate Moss and Alexa Chung. Note also how Superdry is regularly linked with David Beckham and Leonardo DiCaprio. By ensuring that the rich and famous are associated with their expensive products, luxury goods makers emit a clear signal that their goods are not for everyone. Instead, they are only for the initiated. The truth is, luxury goods makers live by their brands, which is why they are fiercely defensive of their marques. Consequently, the existence of counterfeit goods and knockoffs can seriously damage a luxury goods company. The issue is not that the company loses many sales - far from it; after all, those who buy fake goods are unlikely to buy the originals. The problem is that knockoffs damage the exclusivity of the brand. So what does the future hold for luxury brands? According to Lars Tvede, the luxury industry has blossomed in the past decades. He cites the example of the exceptional growth of Louis Vuitton, from two shops selling suitcases to a business empire valued at $21 billion. LVMH, whose stable of brands include Donna Karan and TAG Heuer, is not alone; it may be hard to believe but Ferrari was once a small manufacturer of sports cars. For investors, luxury brands possess a unique quality that makes them stand out in both good times and bad, namely pricing power. Economists call this “conspicuous consumption”, which is music to the ears of luxury goods makers. I call it showing off and a good way of capitalising on show-offs is to invest in companies that cater to them. After all, making money from the rich can be the first step to being rich yourself. n

Dr David Kuo, Director at popular financial website The Motley Fool www.Fool.co.uk

Colfe’s

Grammar school ethos with independent edge

Senior Schools Open Morning (11+, 13+, 16+) Saturday12th November 2011 9am – 12pm Please book via the Admissions page of our website HMC Independent Co-educational Day School for children aged 3 - 18 · Consistently outperforms state grammar schools at GCSE and A level · Excellent hit rate with top universities, including 5% Oxbridge (2011) · National netball champions (2011) · On-site sports and leisure complex with full size swimming pool · Dedicated Visual and Performing Arts Centre

Horn Park Lane London SE12 8AW Tel: 020 8852 2283 www.colfes.com

Unique to London • Catering for children aged three months to eleven years • New Montessori Elementary school for 4-11 year olds now taking applications for all classes • Open 48 weeks a year 7:30am – 6:00pm • Bright spacious classrooms • Indoor gym • Bus Service available serving Bethnal Green, Bow and Canary Wharf For more information +44 (0)20 7488 2374 www.greengablesschool.com

personal finance

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Why Savings Still Matter Martin Bamford instructs us to resist the urge to spend impulsively and instead to save prudently The outlook for interest rates in the UK remains incredibly low. By the time the Bank of England announces its interest rate decision each month, most economists and commentators have already decided that rates will remain on hold. Now that the economy appears to be slowing even further, the speculation is less about when interest rates will go up but whether they might go even lower. Those of us with mortgages are probably rejoicing this prolonged period of low interest rates: it should, in theory, be lowering the monthly cost of mortgages, making more money available to spend and boosting economic prospects; your country needs you to spend the money you were previously allocating to mortgage payments on consumer electronics and other goods from the high street. In reality, it doesn’t appear to be working out quite like that; interest rates on mortgage products might have fallen, although often not by as much as the Bank Rate has dropped, and the popularity of fixed rate deals means that many with mortgages have not benefited from falling interest rates. Even when mortgage payments have fallen, it does not necessarily mean borrowers are out spending their spare cash each month. Uncertainty in the job market is one reason why some people are cautious about spending their cash; stubbornly high price inflation has pushed up the cost of other goods and services we consume, so any savings on mortgage payments are being offset, to some extent, by higher fuel and food prices. The flip side of lower interest rates is the impact these have on savers. Some groups have been vocal, since interest rates fell, about the consequences of lower interest rates for elderly people. Those in retirement often use the interest on cash savings to supplement their income in later life. Seeing your interest income fall so dramatically, while price inflation is high, can have a dramatic impact on your household budget. Recent figures from the Bank of England suggest that

savers have missed out on more than £43 billion of interest payments over the past two and a half years, when interest rates were first cut. The same figures show that borrowers have benefited by around £51 billion, so the £8 billion gap should in theory be of benefit to the economy. But despite such low interest rates, savings remain the foundation of every sensible financial plan. It can be hard to find the motivation to allocate your money to cash savings when the reward for doing so is close to derisory, yet cash remains the best home for your assets in a variety of circumstances. What we saw during the summer, which coincided with historically low interest rates, was an extremely volatile set of investment markets. As a result, many savers are not prepared to expose their money to the stock markets or other investment markets in order to get the prospect for better returns. Leaving money in cash in the current ‘low interest rate, high inflation’ environment is a sure fire way to see the ‘real’ capital value (that is, the purchasing power of the money) eroded over time. Even a couple of years of this happening can have a dramatic impact on the real value of cash savings. Cash does however offer a stable home for your money. The capital value will not fall in absolute terms, which is vital when you have a relatively short term financial objective. If you are uncomfortable with the possibility of the stock markets going down as well as up, cash is the only sensible option. It also provides a valuable safety net, often referred to as an emergency fund, should things go wrong financially. With the UK economy still in uncertain territory, knowing that you can afford to pay the bills for three to six months in the event that you lose your job is reassuring. Now might be a unique opportunity to build an emergency fund of cash savings relatively quickly. It isn’t as gratifying as spending your surplus cash on the high street, particularly with interest rates so low, but it can make a big contribution towards financial security and peace of mind. n

Martin Bamford is a chartered financial planner at Informed Choice (www.icl-ifa.co.uk) and author of several best-selling personal finance books.

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The official site for

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RUSSIA’’’S ‘WINDOW TO THE WEST’

If you’re looking for a weekend away with a difference, head to historic, bohemian St. Petersburg for the perfect combination of culture, tradition and nightlife

t. Petersburg differs from its easterly counterparts because of its desire to look towards European modern consumerism and imagination with art galleries, clubs and delectable dining. However, if it’s Russian history that interests you, there is a plethora of cultural attractions to enjoy. Visit the stunning Catherine Palace, filled with 18th century paintings and ornate rooms, including the well-known Amber Room; this was stolen by Nazi troops during World War Two but has now been recreated by Russian craftsmen. If it is the country’s religious traditions that

intrigue you, a trip to The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood, a beautiful gold-draped church on the Griboedova Canal, is a must. In the evening, dress up in your finest cocktail attire and attend a performance of the famous Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre. To experience the ultimate in luxury, stay at the elegant Alexander House Hotel, conveniently located centrally in St. Petersburg. Wonderfully lavish features include a beautiful bar, library, lounge with fireplace, courtyard garden and a traditional Russian banya sauna to make short-term guests feel as at home as possible in their new surroundings. n

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travel

connoisseur

travel

news

Saddle Up Visitors to south-west Switzerland’s Gstaad Saanenland slopes can now add winter horse riding and air-boarding to the list of outdoor activities available in the area. Thrill-seekers can take their chances navigating the new dedicated airboard trial, while avid equestrians can saddle up and set out for horse riding in the unspoilt landscape or take lessons in the indoor paddock. Accompanied hacks can last from one and a half to six hours and a sign-posted winter bridle path is open to riders setting out on their own. www.gstaad.ch

Snow and Spa Enjoy both ski and spa time on a winter sojourn to the Grand Hotel Kronenhof, Pontresina. Guests can hit the 350 kilometres of Engadin-St Moritz ski runs, safe in the knowledge that rest and relaxation await, on return to the Kronenhof Spa. Indeed, with swimming and hydrotherapy pools looking out over snow-capped peaks, saunas, flotation rooms and Kneipp baths, switching off and soothing tired muscles should be a doddle.

Be pampered to perfection during your stay thanks to a new host of treatments and packages that have been launched in time for the 2011/12 ski season. The anti-inflammatory effects of the new Mud Therapy package, which involves a 50 minute full body massage with mud and marmot milk, should be a godsend after a day spent traversing the Swiss mountain terrain. www.kronenhof.com

Art District Cool The first Asian branch of the award-winning boutique brand, Grace Hotels, has opened in the Chinese capital. Grace Beijing sits in the thriving cultural 798 Art District, at the heart of the famous fashion and design centre. Inside, 30 luxury rooms and suites mix both traditional and contemporary design influences as Ming Dynasty inspired décor is combined with clean-lines, contemporary furniture and artwork to ensure a unique finish. Fresh, local fish and seafood feature strongly on the Yi House restaurant menu while, in the evening, the hotel’s sophisticated Bar 798 is the place to pull up a stool and work your way through the extensive cocktail list.

winter warmth Since June, BA Cityflyer has been running four weekly flights to Faro in Portugal and three to Malaga. Both routes will operate year-round and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by mild temperatures during the winter as the climate is very stable.

Website of the month www.jacadatravel.com This brilliant site specialises in inspiring luxury tours to Latin America. When it comes to designing bespoke getaways, be it for an unforgettable honeymoon, a family-friendly adventure or an annual holiday, Jacada Travel plans every aspect of your trip, from organising private tours led by exceptional local guides, to booking hasslefree transfers to remote locations.

Brought to you in association with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, an unsurpassable collection of over 500 hotels spanning 70 countries, which offer an infinite variety of experiences.

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Dreaming of

a white Christmas

Annabel Goldie-Morrison visits the newly built Maison Blanche et Verte in Ch창tel, France, for skiing, scenery, eating and sleeping. This is a place worthy of a fairytale family Christmas

travel

ith more than 650 kilometres of interlinked skiing, the Portes du Soleil ski area includes the well-known French resorts of Morzine, Avoriaz and Les Gets and the Swiss resorts of Champéry, Morgins and Torgon. Less well-known is the little town of Châtel, where you can enjoy quiet, rural surroundings while being only minutes from the extensive Portes du Soleil network. Châtel is a picturesque farming village, a rarity amongst the many purpose-built French resorts. It’s only 90 minutes drive from Geneva airport, equally suitable for a week of skiing or just a quick weekend away. It’s also possible to drive to Châtel from London in one day. For non-skiers, Châtel has a farmer’s market every Wednesday and there’s great shopping in various villages and towns nearby. Alternative snowy activities include cross-country skiing and snow-shoeing. Cheese lovers should pay a visit to one of the farms in Châtel producing the delicious Abondance cheese – you can meet the cows and the farmer, and try-and-buy some of the produce. The newly built Maison Blanche et Verte sits in one of the best spots in Châtel, with almost 360-degree views overlooking the town and the slopes beyond. The nearest ski lift is only a two-minute walk away or the chalet staff can whisk you to one of the other lifts in the area. The interior design is by Jimmy MacDonald, who runs Tent London – the interior design show – and it is simple but luxurious. The predominant materials are wood, stone and glass, complemented by big statement pieces – Conran sofas, wooden tables and Eames dining chairs, all set off by mood-enhancing designer lighting. The six bedrooms are minimalist but cosy, in warm greys and white. The White Company linen and extremely comfortable mattresses are a pleasure to sink into after a day on the slopes. Each room has an en-suite bathroom in grey tile and glass with a walk-in shower or bath. Stay in touch with the world with in-room wi-fi and plasma TVs. Thoughtfully, the bedrooms are in a separate wing to the living and entertaining block, so the night owls and early birds can happily co-exist without disturbing each other. The chalet is equipped with everything you could need, whether you’re hell-bent on fitness and exertion, or dead set on relaxing to the max. There’s a 20-foot indoor pool with

connoisseur

swim jet, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows which, on warm days, can open up onto the garden. There’s also a sauna, massage room with sunken bath and a fully equipped gym. For children, there’s a playroom full of toys and beanbags, while, for teenagers (and adults), there’s a lounge on the mezzanine level with plasma TV, Wii and Xbox. In the basement there’s a fully equipped cinema with proper cinema seats, surround sound and a snack bar, with a comprehensive selection of new release DVDs and both classic and modern favourites. Meals at Maison Blanche et Verte are an event in themselves – the chef has no limit on his food budget and it really shows. He can call in whatever is fresh, seasonal and the best quality, buying locally whenever possible. Breakfast sets you up for a day on the slopes; choose from a continental selection of pastries, cereal, yoghurt and fruit, plus a cooked speciality each day. Particular favourites were the Eggs Benedict and Cêpe Omelettes. Gourmet dinners are preceded by champagne and canapés, before launching into three fabulous courses and rounding these off with cheese. The menu is flexible, with a leaning towards light, delicately flavoured international cuisine rather than heavy Alpine fare. We enjoyed fantastic steak, Moroccan lamb, Thai green curry, lobster risotto... all delicious. The owner of the chalet is a wine aficionado and guests can take full advantage of this. There are excellent house wines, as well as an impressive à la carte wine list, showcasing the best of fine Burgundies and Italian wines. Even better, they’re all available at little more than shop prices, a welcome break from the ridiculous mark-ups in hotels. As well as the chef, there’s a host, a driver and waiting staff to look after you and ensure your every need is met. For the duration of your stay, Maison Blanche et Verte becomes your home, and whether you are sitting down for dinner in the open-plan living room, relaxing in the cinema room or waking up in one of the comfy bedrooms, the views of the valley and village are all your own too. The Portes du Soleil ski area is great for intermediate skiers and families alike. There are plenty of blues and reds, and some fantastic off-piste areas too; in a week, even the most seasoned skier wouldn’t be able to ski the entire, extensive network of pistes. For those wanting a bit more of a challenge, there is the world-famous ‘Swiss Wall’ to test your nerve. The cross-border ski area links 12 resorts, 200 ski lifts and 650 kilometres of pistes. The surroundings are unspoilt, the lifts keep a low profile amidst snowbound forests and pistes wind their way through snow meadows and spruces. Snowfall is good from mid-November to the end of April, with an average of eight metres of powder every year. Take a ski safari from resort to resort, valley to valley, and even country to country, before heading back to Maison Blanche et Verte, having worked up an appetite for dinner. Just a couple of chairlifts from Châtel, a must for lunch on the piste is Les Lindarets, a small ski-in, ski-out hamlet also known as the Village of the Goats, because of the mountain goats who wander freely through. There are a couple of superb restaurants here, so sit back, order a cêpe fondue and soak up the mountain scenery. n

Châtel is 90 minutes drive from Geneva airport, equally suitable for a week of skiing or just a quick weekend away

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Winter

Wonderlands

From Finland to Iceland and geysers to glaciers... Olivia Sharpe discovers winter breaks worth booking before everyone else follows suit

espite an unusually warm start to October, the winter season is finally here. If the slushy snow and unpredictable weather of the UK leave you yearning for true alpine adventures and stylish skiing, not to mention Father Christmas, take your pick from our top winter escapes.

Whale-Watching Wonderland “We ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.” If, like Ishmael in Moby Dick, you are on a quest to experience nature at its most awe-inspiring, a whalewatching trip to Norway is perfect for you. In order to give yourself the best chance of sighting one of these magnificent mammals, visit the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago north of the Arctic Circle, where the deep waters almost guarantee you this rare opportunity. Late October to mid-January is the best time to go, as this is when the whales follow shoals of Atlantic herring. Whilst there, also experience the atmosphere and the excitement of the fishing area; every winter, hundreds of

people travel to see who catches the most, and the largest, Arctic cod in the World Championship of Fishing.

A Fairytale Christmas What better place to spend your Christmas than close to the lair of the king of this magical holiday? Finnish Lapland, close to the Arctic region and ‘home’ to Santa Claus, boasts some of the country’s heaviest snowfalls, making it an ideal location for cross country skiers and for those who wish to participate in other energetic winter activities, including snowshoe hiking, husky safari, ice fishing and snowmobile safaris. Luxury travel agency Zicasso designs exclusive vacation tours to Salla, an area which lies close to the Russian border; families can choose between star-rated packages, ranging from one to five, and Zicasso personally organises your itinerary, including flights and catering. The holiday commences with a festive trip to the local reindeer farm, where you will be kitted out with essential cold weather clothing. Prices start from £680 for children and £1,115 for adults. www.zicasso.com

travel

Geysers and Glaciers Although many people associate a trip to Iceland with experiencing the breathtaking Northern Lights, Iceland is home to many other sensational sights that make this ice-coated fantasy land well worth a visit. Reykjavik, which holds the titles for being both the country’s oldest settlement and the most northernly capital in the world, is now a modern and vibrant city with a wide selection of restaurants, nightclubs and discos. For those interested in culture as well as cuisine, you can also see the world’s oldest parliament. You can’t go to Iceland without trying the rejuvenating geothermal water at the Blue Lagoon. Drive around the fertile lowlands of southern Iceland and visit one of Iceland’s most magnificent waterfalls, Gullfoss, the erupting hot springs in the Geysir Area and the Þingvellir National Park. Premier travel service company, Luxury Adventures, provides excellent package tours around Iceland, enabling you to see the most worthwhile and spectacular spots – waterfalls, black sandy beaches, mountains and strange lava formations in areas ranging from the South Coast and Vatnajokull area, Landmannalaugar and Thórsmörk. www.lux.is

Skiing in Style If you’re tired of the conventional European ski season, try something new and exciting this winter with an unforgettable and action-packed trip abroad either to the United States or Canada.

Stowe Mountain Lodge, Vermont Cherish the beauty of the bridges, lakes, rambling

connoisseur

woodlands and majestic peaks of Stowe Mountain Resort, located on Mt. Mansfield, Vermont’s highest peak. Stowe Mountain’s recent improvements include a new intermountain lift, new trials and new high-speed detachable quads, among others, and these reinforce the resort’s reputation for offering one of the best mountain experiences in this area. After a physically strenuous but exhilarating day on the slopes, pampering is essential. From guest rooms and suites to condos and cabin rentals, spectacular Stowe Mountain Lodge provides guests with state-of-the-art facilities and the ultimate in luxury, including floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the breathtaking mountain scenery, marble bathrooms, private balcony, wireless internet access and iPod docking station. www.stowemountainlodge.com

Villa Marvic Le Massif, Quebec region, Canada One hour from Quebec city, Villa Marvic Le Massif is the ideal location for visiting the Charlevoix region and to ski on the three nearby ski resorts. It has six bedrooms, with en-suite bathrooms, and sleeps a maximum of 14 people. Make the most of the three different lounges, seven fireplaces and the abundance of facilities, including a pool room, billiard room, spa, sauna, steam room and wi-fi internet. A private concierge will be on hand to take care of any requirements that you might have, from in-chalet massages and yoga sessions to helicopter lifts, private flights over the region or even the opportunity of skiing with an Olympic champion. A personal maid, chef or caterers can also be provided if requested by guests. n www.skiinluxury.com

Left to right: Skiing, Canada Whale-watching, Norway Husky-sledding, Finland Lapland Lodge The Blue Lagoon, Iceland

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12/10/2011 17:10

A world away Take the time to drive those extra miles and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find yourself in the wonderful surrounds of West Charleton Grange in South Devon, a truly magical escape from the chaotic city, says Emma Mills

travel

outh Devon might be a good four hour drive down the motorway but there is a reason for that. This gorgeous area, bursting with natural beauty, quaint villages, rolling hills and miles and miles of peace and quiet, offers a whole different pace and quality of life. “We do have a lot of people who come down from the city and find the peace and quiet unnerving at first,” laughs Hazel Bustin, who runs the luxury cottages we’re staying in with her husband John. “We always say that there’s a reason it takes a bit longer to get here but that it’s so worth it.” She’s completely right and West Charleton Grange itself provides a perfect base to explore this wonderful area. The Grange has six cottages in total, all nestled into the steep hillside with views across the valley. Every cottage is furnished to the highest standard, with plush carpets, large, generously fitted kitchens, private outdoor terraces and large bedrooms. West Wing House is the star turn here, a large house with a big private terrace, high ceilinged sitting room and a Victorian roll top bath. Twysden and Tickell Cottages afford some of the loveliest views, with special sunny spots in the sitting rooms, complete with floor to ceiling windows and wicker armchairs. We’re staying in Pypard Cottage, a sweet two bedroom house with a lovely large kitchen and a great terrace that provides perfect views across the lawn and over to the hills beyond. The grounds at the Grange are extensive and well thought out: stepped terraces, seating areas and a built-in barbeque space offer lovely places to sit in the sun; Wendy houses, cubby holes and climbing frames keep little ones busy for hours; and the heated indoor pool, tennis court, options for canoeing and

even an onsite personal trainer means those looking to leave feeling fitter and healthier have plenty of options. You can also arrange for a personal massage therapist to do treatments in your cottage – essential weekend escapism. We arrive later than we would like on a Friday evening and it’s a wonderful relief finally to be here. The cottage is warm and welcoming, a bottle of wine awaiting us on the kitchen table, along with a pre-ordered platter of fresh seafood, and their introductory hamper of fresh fish pie, teabags, fresh coffee, milk, scones, clotted cream, jam, organic bread, eggs, bacon and sausages. We grab a cold bottle of wine and head to the terrace to catch the last rays of sunshine and take in the peace and fresh country air. Horse graze quietly in the fields opposite, we dine on lobster, fresh crab and giant prawns and we can feel the city stress just ebbing away. After a long, indulgent sleep we rise the next morning to a beautiful day and head to the stunning indoor pool for a pre-breakfast swim, before enjoying toast, jam and coffee for breakfast in the sunshine. Then it’s a gentle walk throughout the farmland and down to the estuary, before ending up at The Millbrook Inn in South Pool for lunch. The final morning, after another decadent lie-in, with the sun making us wish we were staying a third day, we have a divine breakfast of Devonshire bacon, sausages and local farm eggs on the terrace in the sunshine before bidding the Grange goodbye and heading for Dartmouth, a sweet costal town just a short 15 minute drive from the Grange on a stunning coastal road. We’re eating at Mitch Tonks’ restaurant, the Seahorse, renowned for its seafood, and for perhaps the 100th time this weekend, we’re not disappointed. The Seahorse is a delight

connoisseur

inside, Parisian bistro meets London wine bar meets coastal café – mustard yellow and dark wood don’t seem a natural choice for a seafood restaurant, but here they really work. We order langoustines and grilled peppers to start our meal, followed by classic fish soup and Dartmouth crab with new season asparagus – the soup is rich and tasty, while the crab and asparagus is a perfect summery dish. We both have fish again for our main course and my local sea bass fillet with hollandaise sauce is perfect in its simplicity – bold and flavoursome, the buttery potatoes and breaded parsnips it comes with are a revelation. The other half’s Dover sole comes completely whole and looks enormous, but he finds it fairly easy to polish off this excellently cooked and delicate dish, the sole just melting in the mouth. We wash this fantastic food down with a deliciously light carafe of Chablis and finish our meal with the most sumptuous rhubarb fool we’ve ever eaten. Finally it is time to leave, although as we walk through this little town, it feels hard to do so. South Devon might feel far away but that’s its charm. We know we’ll be back. n

ADDRESS BOOK West Charleton Grange West Charleton, Kingsbridge Devon, TQ7 2AD 01548 531 779 www.westcharletongrange.com

Seahorse 5 South Embankment Dartmouth, TQ6 9BH 01803 835 147 www.seahorserestaurant.co.uk

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Festive Events at Four Seasons Hotel London at Canary Wharf

Christmas Event Packages in our Private Dining Rooms From £85 per person for your festive dinner party From 15 to 200 guests

For further information please contact our Events Team on 020 7510 1860

Festive Tempations in Quadrato Restaurant Three course lunch or dinner from £35 per person Available from 1 - 24 December 2011

Christmas Day

Six course plated lunch at £120 per person includes water, coffee/tea & petit fours

New Year's Eve

Six course plated dinner menu at £160 per person includes a Champagne toast, live entertainment and party favours

Holiday Brunch

Boxing Day, December 26th at £60 per person New Years Day 2012 at £60 per person

For further information please contact our Restaurants Team on 020 7510 1858

food & drink

connoisseur

Pick of the Best...

food & drink

news

Wine Bars

Astons Champagne and Wine Bar Astons, “a place for all reasons”, is a modern wine and champagne bar located just minutes from South Quay station. With its cream, black and silver décor, the Art Deco salon has all the sophistication and glamour of a bygone age. As well as its impressive drinks menu, Astons also serves a selection of Mediterranean cuisine and is open Monday to Wednesdays until midnight and Thursday and Fridays until 2am.

The best of New and Old This month we’re excited about the arrival of Iberica in Cabot Square. Offering seasonal gastronomic tapas, Iberica Canary Wharf hopes to be as successful as its big sister in Marylebone. Bringing the world’s best mozzarella to one of London’s busiest districts, Obika restaurant is also opening mid-November in the spacious West Wintergarden. Other exciting news on the Canary Wharf food scene is the birthday of Camino restaurant. The Spanish bar and tapas celebrated its first birthday on 29 September with a memorable summer closing party.

We’re pleased that luxury British chocolatier and cocoa grower Hotel Chocolat has chosen to open a brand new store in Canary Wharf. This latest addition, which opened on 4 October, forms part of the company’s boutique portfolio with locations in the UK, Channel Islands and in Boston, USA. CEO Angus Thirlwell explains that “each and every one of our stores is designed to be a real sanctuary for our guests, which connects with the escapism of Hotel Chocolat... We also want customers to reflect that we are one of the world’s few cocoa growing chocolatiers.”

Davy’s at Canary Wharf Recently refurbished with a stylish new interior that fuses traditional Victorian style with contemporary elegance, Davy’s of London provides a relaxing ambience in which to drink a glass of one of its excellent wines. Enjoy a cigar from the Segar and Snuff Parlour, one of London’s last remaining tobacco specialists to feature a selection of loose pipe and hand rolling tobaccos.

early taste of christmas

First Edition Wine Bar

Experience a delectable Christmas lunch early by attending the Taste of Christmas, returning once again to ExCel this year. High-quality food and drink is provided by artisan producers for all foodies looking to indulge this festive season. Seasonal menus will be on offer from some of London’s top restaurants, along with beer and chocolate tastings. Invaluable insight from top chefs including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Gary Rhodes and Michael Roux Jr will be provided. Ticket prices are from £17.50.

First Edition in Cabot Square boasts an extensive wine list which successfully balances new world and traditional wines. With white floors, white walls and pale wood furniture, the small restaurant has managed to evoke an essentially cool, calm and reserved vibe.

2–4 December, www.tasteofchristmas.com

www.designwine.co.uk

Website of the month

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The best food and drink that Canary Wharf has to offer American

Byron Hamburgers

Second Floor, Cabot Place 020 7715 9360 Smollensky’s

Reuters Plaza, E14 020 7719 0101

Davys Wine Bar

Rocket

PLATEAU

Wildwood

Gastro Pub

Mexican

31-35 Fisherman’s Walk, E14 020 7363 6633 Canada Place, E14 020 7715 7100

Chuchill Place, E14 020 3200 2022 Jubilee Place, E14 020 7719 1213

Gourmet Burger Kitchen

The Fine Line

Jubilee Place, E14 020 7719 6408

29-30 Fisherman’s Walk, E14 020 7513 0255

WAHACA 40 Canada Square, E14 020 7516 9145

Argentinian

THE GUN

Middle Eastern

GAUCHO CANARY

29 Westferry Circus, E14 020 7987 9494

27 Coldharbour Lane, E14 020 7515 5222 THE NARROW

British

44 Narrow Street, E14 020 7592 7950

Cabot Place 020 7715 5818

Indian

CANTEEN

65 - 67 Amsterdam Road, E14 020 7538 3008

Boisdale of Canary Wharf

The Park Pavilion Canada Square 0845 686 1122

Gilt London

Memsaheb

Aniseed Bar & Indian Restaurant

25 Westferry Road, E14 020 7517 9233

14 New London Street, EC3R 020 7264 1910

Italian/Pizza

THE PARLOUR

MEZ RESTAURANT

571 Manchester Road, E14 020 7005 0421 Nina’s TAZA express

322 Burdett Road, E14 020 7093 3552

Oriental ITSU

Level 2, Cabot Place, E14 020 7512 5790 ROKA 4 Park Pavilion, Canada Square 020 7636 5228

AMERIGO VESPUCCI

Royal China

25 Cabot Square, E14 020 7513 0288

30 West Ferry Circus, E14 020 7719 0888

CARLUCCIO’S

SRI NAM

European

2 Reuters Plaza, E14 020 7719 1749

1 North Colonnade, E14 020 7715 9515

34 Westferry Circus, E14 020 8305 3089

Gourmet Pizza

Seafood

40 Canada Square, E14 0845 468 0100 The Battery

Docklands Bar and Grill

18-20 Cabot Square, E14 020 7345 9192

Royal Victoria Docks Western Gateway, E16 020 7055 2119

Jamie’s Italian

FIRST EDITION

LA FIGA

25 Cabot Square, E14 020 7513 0300 REEBOK RESTAURANT

16-19 Canada Square, E14 020 7719 6408

French

CafÉ Rouge

29-35 MacKenzie Walk, E14 020 7537 9696

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Churchill Place, E14 020 3002 5252 45 Narrow Street, E14 020 7790 0077

Pizza Express

Cabot Place, E14 020 7513 0513 QUADRATO

The Four Seasons Hotel 46 Westferry Circus, E14 020 7510 1857

CURVE

Marriott Hotel, West India Quay 22 Hertsmere Road, E14 020 7517 2808

Spanish CAMINO

28 Westferry Circus, E14 020 7239 9077 EL FARO

Turnberry Quay E14 020 7987 5511

Turkish Hazev

2 South Quay Square Canary Wharf, E14 0207 515 9467

food & drink

connoisseur

ROKA ROCKS Jennifer Lewis heads to ROKA Canary Wharf, only to find out that the cocktails are just as delicious as the food

t was a busy Thursday night when I made my visit to ROKA, famed for its contemporary take on Japanese robatayaki cuisine. Canary Wharfers were welcoming an early weekend with a drink in the bars around Canada Square and spilling out onto the pavements, eager to make the most of the last moments of October sun. This convivial mood continued as I stepped out onto the Terrace Bar on the top floor of ROKA and settled into one of the comfy, lounge-style wicker chairs, cocktail menu in hand. My first drink was a delightfully fresh take on the Caipirinha, infused with kiwi, followed by a potent gin, sake and prosecco combination. The Terrace Bar is a wonderful area in which to relax with a drink, decorated with greenery and pretty tea lights, offering a natural juxtaposition to the towering, mirrored office blocks of the square that it overlooks. David Carter, the newly appointed general manager, tells me enthusiastically about the ambitions he has for the space. The current layout includes wide, low seating and attentive table service, creating a charming but more relaxed vibe; the redesign plans to shake this up. A new standing bar will take its place, Carter explains, encouraging a more vibrant atmosphere. This, he hopes, will pick up more passing traffic from the busy square below, making ROKA even more of a destination for its cocktails, as well as for its fantastic food. As he speaks, I peruse the seasonal cocktail selection; my guest and I are very pleased by the new winter menu, thoughtfully full of deeper, warmer spirits, which offer a perfect respite from the oncoming autumnal chill. The selection is strong and I can certainly see the new Terrace becoming a natural home for those wishing for a more interesting drink destination in the evenings. Appetites whetted, we head downstairs for dinner, choosing to sit in the lively bar area. We settle into the menu with a glass of English sparkling wine, as recommend by the charming sommelier. It turns out we only need moments for our food choice; the Tasting Menu is the unavoidable decision, full to bursting with the restaurant’s tempting signature dishes. The first course is an extravagant start to the meal, a delicate tuna tartare served with a raw quails egg and

Sevruga caviar. The experience is both rich and exquisite, setting the tone for the rest of evening. The next notable delight is the Wagyu beef nigiri, the tender meat wellmatched with a spring onion and ginger accompaniment. The tasting menu is carefully selected, starting light, with each plate taking you closer to the final, and richest, course. This consists of melt-in-the-mouth black cod with miso sauce and succulent Korean spiced lamb served with an intense truffle risotto. The cod is a personal favourite of mine, well worth its position as one of the restaurant’s most famous dishes. With this course also comes my preferred wine of the night, a Cabernet Franc from the Barboursville Vineyards in Virginia, the bold currant and wood flavours sitting well with the robustness of the lamb. In fact all the wines brought by the sommelier are chosen with each food on the tasting menu in mind, adding another dimension to the already full experience. Dinner is aptly finished off with a dessert platter, brimming with fresh fruit, subtle sorbet and magnificent chocolate and green tea pudding. By this point in the evening the bar has begun to empty out as satisfied diners finish their meals and head homewards. Those in it for the long haul settle in at the bar, enjoying the contemporary atmosphere and music. I decide to join them, sampling an expresso martini and surveying the scene. This branch of ROKA has done impressively well since its opening in 2009, firmly establishing itself as one of the area’s finest food destinations. With Carter’s planned changes and his passionate team leading the way, I look forward to ROKA fulfilling its ambition, being as well known for its bar and impressive cocktails as it is for its exquisite black cod. n ROKA Canary Wharf, Canada Square

117

out about

Santa’s Grotto at Canary Wharf Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a visit from Father Christmas himself. Also known as Santa Claus, the favourite festive figure of children worldwide is making his grand arrival on Saturday 3 December in a spectacular show at the East Wintergarden and he can be found in his grotto in Jubilee Place every weekend in the run up to Christmas. In order to make this the ultimate family occasion, there will be plenty of exciting childrens’ activities taking place throughout the shopping malls, such as face painting and craft workshops. The grotto is also open in the five days leading up to Christmas Day to ensure everyone gets a chance to meet the man in question. Weekends in December and 19-23 December. Open 11am-5pm www.canarywharf.com

Winter in Style Get a head start on your Christmas shopping in one day and under one roof this December at Canary Wharf’s Winter’s Most Wanted. Enjoy the delights that this annual festive shopping day has to offer, including live fashion shows, evening entertainment, fantastic in-store discounts and giveaways. The ever-popular Canary Wharf Shopping Goodie Bag will be distributed in Jubilee Place from 5pm. This event offers shoppers the opportunity to go home with some amazing bargains and beautiful gifts, so don’t miss out. Thursday 1 December, 9am–8pm www.canarywharf.com

Dickens and London The Museum of London will soon be paying tribute to one of the nation’s favourite authors in the celebration of the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. This will be the first major UK exhibition of the prolific journalist and novelist in more than 40 years, with paintings, photographs, costume and objects all being showcased in order to explore the major themes of his works. Rarely seen manuscripts including Bleak House and David Copperfield, written in the author’s own hand, will provide clues to his creative genius. The great social questions of the 19th century, including wealth and poverty, prostitution, childhood mortality and philanthropy, will be thoroughly examined. 9 December 2011–10 June 2012 www.musuemoflondon.org.uk

out & about

connoisseur

Nutcracker!

The Stones on Stage

Acclaimed by The Observer as “the undisputed king of dance theatre”, Matthew Bourne returns to Sadler’s Wells with his stunning Nutcracker! production, celebrating its 20th anniversary. Experience the enjoyment and hilarity of Bourne’s trademark wit, pathos and fantasy as the audience follows Clara’s bittersweet journey from a bleak Christmas Eve at Dr. Dross’ Orphanage through an ice-skating winter wonderland to the delectable Sweetieland candy kingdom. With only a seven week run, make sure you book tickets early so that all your family can enjoy this spectacular and magical event. 6 December 2011–22 January 2012 www.matthewbournesnutcracker.com

Legendary guitarist of The Rolling Stones and prolific artist, Ronny Wood, proves how the creative fire never extinguishes as he unveils his debut collection of fine art for Washington Green. This will be revealed across select UK retail art galleries, including Artisan Fine Art in Canary Wharf. The Famous Flames Suite focuses on the four members of The Rolling Stones: Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie. In contrast, The Stones on Stage – Got Me Rockin’ captures the raw energy of the band fronted by Mick Jagger. Wood’s artistic achievements have won him a whole host of followers, with Bill Clinton being one of several wellknown collectors of his original artworks. From Saturday 22 October Artisan Galleries, North Colonnade

Frank Sinatra’s Way In celebration of all things jazz, Boisdale is hosting a series of events throughout November in order to keep lovers of this musical genre in raptures. On Friday 11 November, there will be A Salute to Humph, a tribute to the much-loved Humphrey Lyttelton. The following night, fans of late music legend Frank Sinatra will be pleased to hear that his music lives on, as the West End’s ‘Rat Pack’ singer Gary Williams presents the best of Sinatra. Audience members will be given free rein to choose which Sinatra classics are played on the night. Friday 11 November Boisdale of Canary Wharf, Cabot Place

KNOWHOW™

MY EAST LONDON

KNOWHOW™ is the new and exciting face of technology service and support from PC World and Curry’s to ensure that all of your technology needs are covered with a range of services available in-store, in-home, over the phone, or online. From getting it home and setting it up, or helping you get the most from your technology, they promise to be there to help with the know how. For example, if you need assistance with laptop breaks, setting up cameras, tablets or netbooks, or even if you simply need them to back up your files, photos, music and video online. Curry’s Digital, Cabot Place

Myeastlondon.com keeps you up to date with exactly what’s happening in East London. After a much anticipated launch, the site is already the number one authority on the area, providing a comprehensive directory of must-visit places, shops and restaurants and the latest news, developments and up-to-the-minute listings. Teaming up with the most influential companies in the area, myeastlondon.com is a central hub of information for the upcoming London 2012 Olympics. Visit the site to find out what’s happening in your East London. www.myeastlondon.com

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Not just another day at the office WELCOME TO TOWN HALL HOTEL & APARTMENTS

T O W N H A L L H O T E L & A PA R T M E N T S

Patriot Square, London, e2 9nf

+44 0460 +44 (0)20 (0)20 7871 7621 8783

www.townhallhotel.com

T O W N H A L L H O T E L & A PA R T M E N T S ABTA0210_TOWNHALL.indd 1

Patriot Square, London, e2 9nf

15/1/10 09:49:00

LONDON Homes&

PROPERTY Showcasing the finest homes in your area

C o v e r i n g CANARY WHARF, D OC K L AN D S , WA P P ING & T h e C i t y

LUXURY LIFESTYLE Glamorous new apartments

Overseas Influx Expats coming home

LONDON Homes&

PROPERTY Editorial Director Kate Harrison

Editor

Emma Mills

Assistant Editor Gabrielle Lane

Head of Design Hiren Chandarana

Brand Consistency Laddawan Juhong

Designer

Ashley Lewis

Production Manager

november

Welcome note...

elcome to the November issue of London Homes & Property, where Canary Wharf continues to prove itself as the place to see, be seen – and live.

The estate’s retail offering continues to boom, with the announcement that 25 new shops will open in Jubilee Place mall following a 3.3 per cent increase in the number of visitors to the precinct in the past year (p. 124). Glamorous new apartments have been unveiled as part of the Pan Peninsula development with all the modern touches and lifestyle services you’d expect from plush city pads, including an onsite spa (p. 158), and with prime London property proving more popular than ever now is certainly the time to buy (p. 156). Happy Hunting!

Fiona Fenwick

Production Daniel Harris

Senior Property Manager Samantha Ratcliffe

Finance Manager Elton Hopkins

Managing Director Eren Ellwood

RUNWILD M

16 Heron Quay, Canary Wharf London E14 4JB T: 020 7987 4320 F: 020 7005 0045 info@londonhomesandproperty.com www.londonhomesandproperty.com Runwild Media Group cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited submissions, manuscripts and photographs. While every care is taken, prices and details are subject to change and Runwild Media Group take no responsibility for omissions or errors. We reserve the right to publish and edit any letters. All rights reserved.

LONDON HOmes&

PROPERTY ShowcaSing the fineSt homeS in your area

c o v e r i n g c a n a ry w h a r f, D o c K L a n D S , wa P P i n g & t h e c i t y

luXurY lIFestYle

Glamorous new apartments

Overseas Influx eXpats comInG home

contents 124

158 living local

124 Area News 137 Mortgage Update

new homes

156 Property Latest 158 Development Focus 162 State of the Market

living local

areanews By Richard Brown

Canary Wharf set to expand its retail offerings The Canary Wharf Group looks to have ridden the wave of uncertainty created by the recent economic instability. Not only has the group announced that the market value of its retained investment property portfolio has increased by 1.9 per cent to just over £4.7m over the first six months of 2011, it has also recorded strong retail performance in the same period, with turnover up 6.4 per cent and occupancy at 100 per cent. George Iacobescu, chairman and chief executive of The Canary Wharf Group, believes the future of retail on the estate continues to look solid. In a report accompanying the results, Iacobescu wrote: “With a working population of just over 95,000 people and excellent transport links, Canary Wharf continues to develop as an exciting retail and leisure destination. Twelve retail units were exchanged during the period, with a further six since the period end, including coffee shops, electrical goods,

Transport latest… KPMG has announced that it will sponsor a new fleet of Thames Clippers that will run between Millbank, Royal Arsenal and St George Wharf Pier at Vauxhall. When it was founded in 1999, the Thames Clipper was a single vessel operation ferrying just 80 people a day. 12 years on and the company is now London’s largest river bus commuter service, carrying three million passengers a year. Workers can commute from London Bridge to Canary Wharf in just nine minutes.

pharmacies, restaurants and clothing outlets.” Iacobescu also highlighted how the arrival of J.P. Morgan and Shell staff in 2012 will bring an additional 10,000 people to the Estate, an increase the Group will cater for by developing a 43,000 sq ft extension to its retail portfolio. The expansion, which makes use of space previously operated as a car park, will see another 25 shops open in Jubilee Place mall. The report announced that footfall to the shopping areas in Canary Wharf in the year to June 30 increased by 3.3 per cent compared to the previous year.

Cross-river cable Despite the cost of the scheme rising by £9.5m, from £50.5m to £60m, London Mayor Boris Johnson has continued to back the Docklands’ cross-river cable car project. The proposed route, which suspends cable cars 60 metres in the air, would be capable of carrying 2,500 passengers an hour from North Greenwich tube to the Royal Victoria DLR. The extra costs would be recovered “through a combination of commercial sponsorship and third party funding,” Mr Johnson said.

Did you know? From 1440 to 1830 the gravel site under what is now Wapping Pier was the traditional place for the execution of pirates.

Fresh sushi She has opened restaurants in Fulham, Borough Market and Kensington and now Silla Bjerrum is bringing her Feng Sushi endeavours to Billingsgate Market, Canary Wharf. Operating as a take-away service, rather than a sit down venue, the venture will allow residents and workers of addresses in E14, E16, E2 and E3 to order online or over the phone and simply wait for their delivery to arrive at their door. Alternatively, you canÂ pick up your order and have a green teaÂ while you wait. www.fengsushi.co.uk

125

Knight Frank

Gaynes Park Mansion, Epping, Essex

Set within 10 acres of landscaped gardens and woodlands Gaynes Park is a unique Grade II listed 19th Century Gothic Victorian mansion which has been refurbished and converted into seven luxury two and three bedroom high specification apartments. Each apartment offers share of freehold, porter/concierge, access to leisure facilities including a tennis court and private parking.

Prices starting at ÂŁ1,750,000 (CNW110171)

KnightFrank.co.uk/Canary-Wharf canarywharf@knightfrank.com 020 7512 9966

Knight Frank

Port East Apartments, Canary Wharf, E14

Berkeley Tower, Canary Wharf, E14

A wonderfully refurbished two bedroom penthouse apartment situated in one of Canary Wharf’s most sought after developments. Boasting wonderful warehouse features including solid oak flooring, wooden beams and exposed brick work. Share of Freehold

A generously proportioned three bedroom, three bathroom apartment. Located on the 14th floor of Berkeley Tower, the apartment offers wonderful far reaching river views from the reception, dining area and master bedroom. Leasehold

£1,200,000

£1,350,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/Canary-Wharf 020 7512 9966 canarywharf@knightfrank.com

New Atlas Wharf, Canary Wharf, E14 Located on the top two floors of a well maintained portered development, this spacious and well proportioned two bedroom duplex apartment benefits from two separate areas of outside space and wonderful river and Canary Wharf views. Share of Freehold

Langbourne Place, Isle of Dogs E14 A well presented three double bedroom apartment situated in one of Canary Wharf’s best riverside develpments. The apartment boasts three reception areas on the upper level with a large private terrace offering fantastic Canary Wharf views. Leasehold

£795,000

£1,000,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/Canary-Wharf 020 7512 9966 canarywharf@knightfrank.com

Knight Frank

Pan Paninsula, London E14

Victoria Wharf, Narrow Street, E14

Master bedroom with en suite bathroom, second bedroom, second bathroom, kitchen, balcony with fantastic views of London, all spread over 686 sq ft of space. Furnished to a very high standard. Leisure facilities, 24 hour concierge and parking.

Two bedroom, two bathroom 1st floor apartment located on the river. Reception room with two balconies, separate kitchen, fantastic river views, porter and parking. Close proximity to Limehouse Rail and Westferry DLR stations (0.3 and 0.4 miles respectivly).

£700 per week

£525 per week

KnightFrank.co.uk 020 7512 9955 cwharf@knightfrank.com

Landmark East Tower, London E14

New Providence Wharf, Fairmont Avenue, E14

Two bedroom apartment featuring floor to ceiling windows with excellent views of The River Thames, Canary Wharf and The o2 Dome. The block is conveniently located approximately 0.4 miles from Canary Wharf tube station and includes concierge and a gym.

Spacious one bedroom, one bathroom apartment offering an impressive reception area and living space featuring a balcony with views of Canary Wharf. Kitchen with hi-spec appliances, leisures facilities, 24 hour concierge. 0.5 miles from Canary Wharf Tube.

£595 per week

£385 per week

KnightFrank.co.uk 020 7512 9955 cwharf@knightfrank.com

Knight Frank Dundee Court, Wapping, E1W

Stylish two bedroom apartment Stylish two double bedroom two bathroom apartment set on the 4th floor of this smart portered development on Wapping High Street. This bright south facing apartment has a lovely dual aspect reception room with river views, modern open plan fitted kitchen, double bedrooms, two bathrooms with showers (one en-suite), hard wooden floors, interior designed furniture pack and a large parking space for two cars. ÂŁ540 per week

KnightFrank.co.uk/lettings wapping@knightfrank.com 020 7480 6848

Unicorn Building, Wapping, E1W Spacious one bedroom unit Spacious one bedroom apartment to rent in this portered development moments from Limehouse DLR and a short walk in to Canary Wharf or Wapping. This furnished apartment has a good size reception room, separate fully fitted kitchen, large double bedroom, bathroom with shower, balcony and secure underground parking. Available furnished. ÂŁ340 per week

KnightFrank.co.uk/lettings wapping@knightfrank.com 020 7480 6848

Knight Frank NEO Bankside, Southbank, SE1

Brand new 11th floor apartment Brand new 11th floor one bedroom apartment located in this outstanding 24 hour portered development, NEO Bankside. This modern unit has a contemporary interior designed furniture package, large bathroom with a separate shower and bath, large utility room, comfort cooling and great west facing views towards the London Eye and Big Ben.

ÂŁ695 per week

KnightFrank.co.uk/lettings wapping@knightfrank.com 020 7480 6848

Pear Tree Lane, Wapping, E1W Modern unfurnished house Modern two/three bedroom two bathroom house set on Shadwell Basin. This bright unfurnished home is set over 3 floors boasting a large fully fitted kitchen with access on to a patio garden, guest WC on the ground floor. L shaped reception room with sliding door dividing the 3rd bedroom/reception room on the 1st floor. Two further bedrooms and two bathrooms on the 2nd floor. Available furnished. ÂŁ475 per week

KnightFrank.co.uk/lettings wapping@knightfrank.com 020 7480 6848

1 2

savills.co.uk

BROMLEY, br2

ROCHESTER, me1

2 reception rooms and conservatory ø private garden ø allocated parking ø excellent local schools ø Bromley station (1.3 miles) to London Victoria in 19 mins

5 bedroom houses ø contemporary interiors ø fantastic river views ø close to well renowned King's School ø St Pancras in 34 mins ø 4,073 sq ft

Prices from £354,995

Prices from £935,000

3 4

Savills Sevenoaks nbutcher@savills.com 01689 860999

Savills Sevenoaks alhall@savills.com 01732 789740

KESTON, br2

CHISLEHURST, br7

2 reception rooms ø secure gated development ø lake views ø Orpington station (2.2 miles) to London Bridge in 15 mins ø over 2,300 sq ft duplex apartments

3 reception rooms ø spacious bespoke family kitchen/breakfast room ø 5 bedrooms ø Chislehurst station to London Bridge 19 mins ø circa 3,700 sq ft

Prices from £1.085 million

Prices from £1.25 million

Savills Sevenoaks nbutcher@savills.com 01689 860999

1 2

savills.co.uk

FREE TRADE WHARF, e1w

THE CIRCLE, se1

Reception room ø open plan kitchen ø 2 bedrooms ø 2 bathrooms ø roof terrace ø balcony ø porter ø 2 parking spaces

2 reception rooms ø kitchen ø 2 bedrooms ø 2 bathrooms ø roof terrace ø balcony ø gym ø porter ø parking space

Guide £675,000 Leasehold

Guide £875,000 Leasehold

3 4

Savills Docklands zjames@savills.com 020 7456 6800

THE PACIFIC WHARF, se16

ST. JOHNS PARK, se3

2 reception rooms ø open plan kitchen ø 2 bedrooms ø 2 bathrooms ø roof terrace ø balcony ø porter ø parking space

7 bedrooms ø 4 reception rooms ø 5 bathrooms ø indoor swimming pool ø garage

Guide £1.05 million Leasehold

Guide £2.99 million Freehold

Savills Docklands zjames@savills.com 020 7456 6800

1 2

savills.co.uk

NEW PROVIDENCE, e14

WEST INDIA QUAY, e14

Reception room ø 2 double bedrooms ø 2 bathrooms ø balcony ø porter ø parking space

Reception room ø kitchen ø 2 bedrooms with en suite bathrooms ø study ø porter ø parking space

Guide £515,000 Leasehold

Guide £1.525 million Leasehold

3 4

Savills Canary Wharf bpage@savills.com 020 7531 2500

DISCOVERY DOCK, e14

BELGRAVE COURT, e14

Reception room ø kitchen ø 3 bedrooms ø 3 bathrooms ø terrace ø porter ø parking space

Reception room ø kitchen ø 3 bedrooms ø 3 bathrooms ø porter ø parking space

Guide £1.1 million Leasehold

Guide £1.5 million Leasehold

Savills Canary Wharf bpage@savills.com 020 7531 2500

1 2

savills.co.uk

GUN PLACE, e1w

NEW PROVIDENCE, e14

1 bedroom ø 1 bathroom and guest w.c. ø open plan kitchen reception room ø balcony ø porterage

2 bedrooms ø 2 bathrooms (1 en suite) ø private balcony ø river views from all principal rooms ø valet parking ø on site leisure facilities ø 24hr porterage

£450 per week Flexible furnishings

£500 per week Furnished

3 4

Savills Docklands brodgers@savills.com 020 7456 6800

Savills Canary Wharf ssaul@savills.com 020 7531 2500

CINNABAR WHARF, e1w

BELGRAVE COURT, e14

2 bedrooms ø 3 bathrooms (2 en suite) ø reception room with dining area ø river and city views ø allocated parking ø 24hr porterage

Gated 5* estate ø 3 bedrooms ø 3 bathrooms (all en suite) and 1 guest w.c. ø parking ø river views ø communal gardens ø porterage and 24hr security

£695 per week Furnished

£1,450 per week Flexible furnishings

Savills Docklands brodgers@savills.com 020 7456 6800

Savills Canary Wharf ssaul@savills.com 020 7531 2500

The Savills Client Care Questionnaire 2010 found that 94% of clients believe Savills meets or exceeds their expectations.

We won't be happy until we meet as many expectations as we do people. More than youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for. savills.co.uk

Savills has over 200 offices worldwide and 22 in London, below are those immediately local to you. Savills Canary Wharf 4 Westferry Circus, London E14 4HD. 020 7531 2500. canarywharf@savills.com Savills Docklands Execution Dock, 80 Wapping High Street, London E1W 2NE. 020 7456 6800. docklands@savills.com

living local

Can I get a mortgage? Ron Radway HAS ENCOURAGING WORDS FOR MORTGAGE HUNTERS

ith all the issues in the eurozone, the Bank of England increasing its commitment to quantitative easing in the midst of another recession and the media reporting nothing but doom and gloom, one could be forgiven for thinking that raising a mortgage at this moment in time would be nigh on impossible. But, actually, it could not be further from the truth; with lenders rediscovering an appetite to lend, competition has returned to the marketplace. The big four are heavily jostling with each other for market share and are consequently offering very competitive rates. Indeed, the fixed rates available are the best value for the consumer in living memory, but get in quick if you want to take advantage. The markets, as usual, are one step ahead of the Bank of England, the wholesale price of money is beginning to increase and it is expected to continue to rise in the New Year and filter through to the new borrower. Higher loan to value deals (involving smaller deposits) are more frequently approved as opposed to just being paid lip service. This is because the smaller lenders are happy to discuss individual cases and accommodate borrowers who don’t fit the very tight criteria applied by the big boys. New lenders are also queuing up for licences. Indeed, this month sees Tesco Bank entering the fray, and let’s be frank; Tesco doesn’t make too many mistakes and wouldn’t join this sector without having access to significant funds and the confidence of high demand. Of course, this hunger for customers is counterbalanced by restrictive criteria, in the form of tight credit scoring, strict affordability perimeters and stringent income proofs. If you think you fall into any of those categories, you can, unfortunately, still expect to experience problems and you should seek out the services of an independent mortgage broker (visit www.unbiased. co.uk to find one near you), who will be able to guide you through the maze. n Ron Radway is a mortgage consultant with OneCall Financial Advice Centre. For further details visit www.onecallonline.co.uk or call 020 3174 0422

137

SALES

St Davids Square, London, E14 £254,950

Pan Peninsula East, London, E14 £285,000

Galaxy Building, London E14

Situated in a popular development on the southern tip of the Isle of Dogs this larger than average one bedroom/ two bathroom apartment would be an ideal first time purchase. Site facilities include concierge, gym, swimming pool and billiards room.

A stunning 5th floor studio with separate sleeping area offering dock views from the balcony Impressive facilities include gym, spa, cinema and 24hr concierge. Located adjacent to South Quay DLR station and a 5 minute walk to Canary Wharf.

A spacious 1 bed apartment situated in the popular Odyssey Development. The apartment offers an abundance of space and light. Boasting a balcony with fantastic views, large open plan kitchen. 24hr concierge and residents Gym. Mudchute DLR.

Baltimore Wharf, London, E14

Dennison Court, London, E14

Galaxy Building, London, E14

£315,000

£325,000

£289,950

£410,000

A second floor dock facing studio suite situated in Ballymore’s newest luxury development with dock facing balcony and seperate sleeping/dining area. A great opportunity to buy in what will be one of Canary Wharf’s best addresses located adjacent to Crossharbour DLR station.

A top floor 1 bed apartment with a south facing balcony. Offering a stylish interior and a superb location close to Canary Wharf shops and amenities and South Quay DLR Station, lift access and porter and an allocated parking space.

A two bed apartment situated on the fourth floor of an impressive Thames side development with balcony, superb panoramic views and underground parking. Development benefits from residents gym and 24hrs porter. Mudchute DLR.

Langbourne Place, London, E14 £499,995

Baltimore Wharf, London, E14

West India Quay, London, E14

This large two bedroom apartment is on the 6th floor of the ever popular Langbourne Place development. Boasts balcony with river views, secure parking and proximity to Canary Wharf. We strongly recommend viewing.

A brand new luxury apartment offering two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Situated on the 10th floor with two east facing balconies together with allocated parking. Adjacent to Crossharbour DLR. Completion due late October 2011

All Awards 2010/11

£525,000

£975,000

This amazing 1568ft² one bedroom duplex apartment is the finest we have seen. Double height ceilings, floor to ceiling glazing with unrivalled panoramic views, parking, concierge and access to room service from the neighbouring 5 star Marriot hotel. West India Quay DLR.

020 7715 9700 joneslanglasalle.co.uk

LETTINGS

1st Floor Hodgeson House, E1

£260pw

Hera Court, E14

£320pw

Baltimore Wharf, E14

£370pw

Brand new first floor studio apartment available in luxury Space E1 development. Located in the dynamic Brick Lane area of east London. Fully furnished to a high standard, early viewing recommended.

A highly desirable one bed apartment in sought after gated riverside development offering on-site facilities including pool, gym, jacuzzi, steam room, sauna and 24hr concierge. Includes one allocated parking space.

Brand new 9th floor one bed apartment in eagerly awaited Baltimore Wharf finished to the very highest standard offering luxury living moments from Canary Wharf. Available furnished to the highest level. EARLY VIEWING RECOMMENDED!

Edison Building, E1

Boardwalk, E14

Landmark East, E14

£395pw

£450pw

£575pw

Two double bedroom apartment located on the 4th floor with two bathrooms and semi open plan kitchen living space. Gated development offers 24hr concierge and gym. Short walk to Canary Wharf DLR. Fully furnished with secure parking.

Spacious two bedroom two bathroom marina view apartment boasting large open plan kitchen and living area with access to private balcony offering marine views. Secure dockside development close to Blackwall DLR and Canary Wharf itself. Offered UNFURNISHED with parking.

Stunning two bed two bath 33rd floor south west facing unit with dual aspect views from panoramic windows. Just moments from Heron Quays DLR the development features 24hr concierge and residents’ gym. Fully furnished to the highest standard.

Belgrave Court, E14

Hanover House, E14

Landmark East, E14

£695pw

Spacious two bedroom riverside apartment on the 5th floor of this prestigious development with parking. Canary Wharf and its local amenities within easy walking distance. Well furnished, spacious apartment. Concierge. Available Now.

£775pw

Amazing 1386ft² two bedroom apartment in Canary Riverside with direct river views from all rooms in this prestigious development. Features include solid oak flooring, comfort cooling and skirting heating. A must see!. Avail Now. Unfurnished

11 Westferry Circus, Canary Wharf, London, E14 4HE

£1200pw

Stunning three bedroom two bath 37th floor South West facing unit offering Canary Wharf and Thames views. 24hr concierge, and residents gym. Moments walk to Heron Quay DLR and Canary Wharf Jubilee Line.

dockland.sales@eu.jll.co.uk

www.alanselby.co.uk Sales

Pointers Close E14

£POA A larger than average 3 bedroom end of terrace town house offering spacious accommodation comprising; 1st floor reception room with indirect river views, open plan kitchen and dining room, master bedroom suite with en-suite bath and shower room, main bathroom, front and rear gardens. The property is set on a private no through road with pedestrian access to the Thames foot path, Mudchute DLR station is approximately 450 metres away and the Canary Wharf estate is within 1 mile. This property is ideal for both a family or a buyer looking for a larger London residence.

Schooner Close E14

£349,995 This smart 2 bedroom split level 1st and second floor duplex offers spacious living accommodation comprising; reception room with balcony, utility room, cloakroom, separate kitchen, bathroom and comes with an allocated parking space. Situated in a quiet no through road with communal gardens and within 700 metres of both Cross Harbour and Island gardens DLR stations and with the River Thames only a short distance away makes the surroundings ideal for those looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Mudchute Farm and park can also be found in close proximity.

Claire Place E14

£359,995 A beautifully refurbished two bedroom, semi-detached house with a freehold title, set in a quiet, private, no-through road within 800 metres of the Canary Wharf Jubilee line station. Crossharbour DLR station can also be found within 600 metres. The accommodation comprises of a reception room with French doors opening onto a deck, overlooking the south facing rear garden; modern separate kitchen and bathroom upstairs. The property also boasts a lock-up garage and off-street parking and is available chain free. In the immediate vicinity are numerous local amenities including a medical centre, public swimming pool, schools and the Canary Wharf estate offering an abundance of shops, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities.

Estate Agents | Land & Development Consultants

www.alanselby.co.uk Sales

New Atlas Wharf E14

ÂŁ409,995 Offering fantastic views from the reception room across a park and onto the River Thames, this 5th floor 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment is set within the New Atlas Wharf development which boasts a 24 hour porter, gymnasium, Jacuzzi and steam room as well as secure underground parking. The property consists of reception room, separate kitchen, bathroom and en-suite to the master bedroom as well as a south facing balcony and is situated within 850 metres of Coldharbour and Heron Quays DLR stations. The Canary Wharf estate offering a Jubilee line underground station as well as many shops, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities is approximately 0.5 miles. This property is offered to the market chain free.

Vanguard Building E14

ÂŁ489,995 A well-presented two bedroom, 1st floor apartment set in the highly regarded Millennium Harbour development with views west facing on to the River Thames. The accommodation comprises; reception room with river facing balcony, separate modern kitchen, master bedroom with Juliette balcony facing the river and en-suite shower room, second bedroom and main bathroom. The property also offers a secure parking space, the Millennium Harbour development is situated approximately 600 metres from both Heron Quays DLR station and the Canary Wharf Jubilee line underground station and also benefits from 24 hour porter and leisure facilities. This property is offered to the market chain free.

Virginia Quay E14 ÂŁ629,995 Offering spectacular panoramic views incorporating the River Thames, 02 arena, Greenwhich, The City and Canary Wharf this stunning three bedroom penthouse gives spacious accommodation comprising; Reception room with access on to a large sun terrace (South & West facing) separate kitchen, re modernised en-suite to the master bedroom also giving access to a South facing sun terrace, the second and third bedrooms have access to the sun terrace and a Jack and Jill bathroom. The property also boasts two secure underground parking spaces and is situated within 200 metres from East India DLR station, the Virginia Quay development itself offers 24 hour porter and is 0.75 Miles from the Canary Wharf estate offering an abundance of shops, bars, restaurants and leisure facilities as well as a Jubilee line underground station. This property is offered to the market chain free.

Estate Agents | Land & Development Consultants

Saunders Close, Limehouse, E14

£274,999 • Marina views £399,950

£289,999 • Balcony £349,950

House, Limehouse, E14 •Fleet One double bedroom •• 17th Twofloor double bedrooms •• 24 hourbathrooms concierge Two •• Balcony Parking

bedrooms • Two £345,000 • Two bathrooms • Balcony

£335,000

• Two double bedrooms • Seperate kitchen • Secure parking • Air conditioning

Contact our sales team today for a free, no £349,950 obligation valuation.

020 7538 9250

• Large balcony £399,995 • River views • 11th floor £375,000

LD SO

£525,000

• Two double bedrooms • Two bathrooms Neutron Tower, Virginia Quay, E14 • Large reception double bedrooms • Two • Neutral décor

bedrooms • Two £425,000 • Two bathrooms • Direct river views • Balcony

Apollo Building, Isle of Dogs, E14

LD SO Cardale Street, Isle of Dogs, E14

• Three double bedrooms • Two bathrooms • Good decorative order Chinnocks Wharf, • Front and rear gardens Narrow Street, E14

Dogs, E14

Milligan Street, Limehouse, E14

Court, Narrow Street, E14 • TwoLamb bedrooms • Top•floor Two double bedrooms • Recently bathrooms • Tworefurbished • Excellent location underground parking • Secure

Actions speak louder than words.

LD • Two double bedrooms • Separate kitchen Shackleton Court, Isle Of • Secure car parking river views • Direct • Daytime concierge

Wharfside Point, Blackwall, E14

SO Kelly Court, Wesftferry, E14

L SO

£629,950

L SO

L SO Ebb Court, Galleons Reach, E16

Medland • One doubleHouse, bedroom Limehouse, E14 • Large decked balcony apartment • Penthouse • Underground terraceparking • Large • On site underground concierge parking • Secure £209,995 views • Marina

Berglen Court, Limehouse, E14

St Davids Square, Isle of Dogs, E14

Two bathrooms •£495,000 • Two bedrooms • River views • Balcony

• One double bedroom £649,950

• Two double bedrooms • Two bathrooms • Sixth floor Millennium Harbour, South Quay, E14 • Direct marina views

£449,950

020 7538 9250

• Two double bedrooms • Two bathrooms • Private balcony Millennium Drive, Isle Of • River views

Dogs, E14

• Secure car parking • River views • Refurbished throughout £275,000

www.lourdes-estates.com

Lourdes Estate Agents, 94-96 Three Colt Street, Limehouse, London, E14 8AP

Dogs, E14

• £365 week bathrooms • Twoper Two bedrooms

• Balcony

£335,000

Ionian Building, Narrow Street, E14 • Two double bedrooms • Two bathrooms • Fully furnished • 24 hour concierge

Contact our sales team today for a free, no £385 per week obligation valuation.

£325 •per week Balcony £349,950

• One bedroom • Shackleton River views Court, Isle Of • Secure parking Direct river views • • Close to Canary Wharf

Michigan Building, Canary Wharf, E14

Lamb Court, Narrow Street, E14 • One bedroom • Fully furnished • Two double bedrooms • Leisure facilities bathrooms • Two • 24hr Concierge • Secure underground parking

Actions speak louder than words.

£300 per week views • Marina £399,950

Duke Shore Wharf, Narrow Street, E14

L SO

£275 perviews week • Marina £629,950

Fleet House, Limehouse, E14 • One bedroom • Fully furnished double bedrooms • Two • Two balconies bathrooms • Two • Sixth floor • Parking

Dundee Wharf, Limehouse, E14

• One bedroom • River Neutron views Tower, Virginia Quay, E14 • Fully furnished Two double • • Close to Canary Wharf bedrooms

Large balcony £385 •per week River views

• • 11th floor £375,000

LD SO

Artesian House, Alscot Road, SE1

• Medland One bedroom House, Limehouse, E14 • •Fully furnished apartment Penthouse • •Private Largebalcony terrace • •River viewsunderground parking Secure

E14

L SO

Barrier Point, Royal Docks, E16

The Watergardens, Narrow Street, E14

Dundee Wharf, Limehouse E14

New Providence Wharf, E14

bedrooms • Twoper £390 week

bathrooms • Two £550 per week

Oneweek double bedroom £550 •per

• Two double bedrooms • Private terrace • Secure parking Narrow Street, E14 • Chinnocks Close to Canary Wharf, Wharf

• Two bathrooms • Direct river views • Balcony £525,000

020 7538 9250

• Two double bedrooms • Two bathrooms • River views Millennium Harbour, South Quay, E14 • Fully furnished

• Two bedrooms • River views • Balcony £449,950

020 7538 9250

• Two double bedrooms • Two bathrooms • River views Drive, Isle Of • LargeMillennium facilities

Dogs, E14

• Secure car parking • River views • Refurbished throughout £275,000

www.lourdes-estates.com

Lourdes Estate Agents, 94-96 Three Colt Street, Limehouse, London, E14 8AP

living local

HOT PROPERTY: Penthouse Perfection

A beautiful three bedroom duplex penthouse has just become available in a prestigious location. The stylish property is situated a short walk from Sloane Square and the fashionable boutiques, bars and restaurants of Kings Road and benefits from stunning river views across Chelsea Bridge. The accommodation is modern and bright throughout and finished to a very high specification.

It includes an open plan living area with floor to ceiling windows which look out onto a spectacular outside terrace which is perfect for entertaining. The master bedroom also benefits from a large and fullytiled en-suite bathroom, while the galley kitchen is similarly sleek and contemporary. With the area continuing to prove extremely popular, the penthouse makes a gorgeous investment.

Grosvenor Waterside, SW1 ÂŁ2.95M LEASEHOLD Knight Frank Riverside www.knightfrank.com

020 7590 2450 145

2011-10-21 11:08:19

94.126.43.186

TOWER BRIDGE

Wiltshire House Maidstone Buildings Mews SE1 A penthouse warehouse conversion located close to Borough market, arranged over two floors with a large roof terrace offering 360Âş views of the City skyline, the Shard of Glass and the South Bank. The apartment has a large variety of original warehouse character throughout, including exposed brick work in every room, iron columns, wooden vaulted ceilings and cast iron window frames entrance hall | double height reception room | 4 double bedrooms (1 en suite) | bathroom | shower room | kitchen with open-plan dining area | mezzanine reception area | daytime porter | lift access | gated entrance | roof terrace

Guide price ÂŁ2,950,000 leasehold

cluttons.com

020 7407 3669

towerbridge@cluttons.com

2011-10-21 11:16:01

94.126.43.186

WAPPING

Olivers Wharf Wapping High Street E1W A penthouse apartment in this landmark Victorian warehouse conversion. Set on the top floor, this stunning property extends to 203 sq m (2,188 sq ft), has been fully refurbished to the highest standards throughout and retains an abundance of original warehouse features and charm. Oliver's Wharf is located near Tower Hill and Gateway stations, as well as the array of amenities available at St Katharine Docks reception room with open-plan kitchen | main bedroom (en suite bathroom) | 2 further bedrooms | shower room | study area | lift | live-in concierge secure private parking

Guide price ÂŁ2,500,000 share of freehold

cluttons.com

020 7488 4858 wapping@cluttons.com

lavender house HAMPSTEAD villAgE lONDON NW3

Arguably one of the most unique and radical houses to have been built in London for the past twenty years, Lavender House was conceived and built by Richard Paxton and his wife Heidi Locher. This special home forms the pinnacle of achievement from a design partnership which is now recognised from both other architects and critics alike as leaders in the creation of striking urban residential architecture.

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This low built lateral house of 6,405 sq ft/595 sq m is discretely located within the centre of Hampstead Village and is anonymously set behind steel security gates, making it virtually unseen from the road. The structure of the house is created from steel and glass with beautiful soft natural stone and cherry wood interiors. The house is set around a central vaulted 40’ reception space which in the spring and summer months can double as a garden (due to its flower/plant bedding and the presence of mature tree’s) when the huge overhead retractable roof-lights automatically slide back and infuses the entire area with amazing natural light.

Within this remarkable space is a 39’ glass sided swimming pool and hot tub. An open plan Bulthaup kitchen with dining area adjoins it as well as raised sitting/TV room. Running parallel to the pool and overlooking both it and the main reception area is the master suite with en-suite dressing room and ‘his and hers’ bathrooms. There are four further bedroom suites: Two duplex bedroom suites, both enjoying access to a small patio and a first floor guest suite within the main house as well as a self contained studio/guest annexe. Further entertainment space is provided with a lower ground floor party/cinema room with glass windows looking in to the pool! In addition to this the house also offers a first floor study, a workshop and double garage plus dedicated off street parking for two cars.

Terms Freehold Price on Application

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London's Finest Properties

LETTINGS

SALES

Boston Building, Deals Gateway, SE13

City Peninsula, North Greenwich, SE10

New Providence Wharf, Fairmont Avenue, E14

• One Bedroom Apartment • First floor • Fully furnished • Balcony • Onsite Pool & Gym • Close to Deptford Bridge DLR

• Two Bedroom Apartment • 4th Floor • Fully Furnished • Balcony • Parking Available • Nr. North Greenwich St.

• 17th Floor One Bedroom Apartment • Highly prestigious riverside development • Exceptional Leisure Facilities • 24hr Concierge • Moments from Canary Wharf

• Stunning 13th Floor Two Bed Apartment • Uninterrupted River Views From All Rooms • Excellent Condition Throughout • Secure Underground Parking • 24hr Concierge and Exceptional Leisure facilities

Asking Price £325,000

Asking Price £475,000

£230.00 per week

£340.00 per week

The Landmark West, E14

Westgate Apartments, Excel, E16

Sugar House, Leman Street, E1

Westgate Apartments, Royal Docks, E16

• One Bedroom Apartment • 14th Floor • Fully Furnished • Onsite Gymnasium • 24 Hour Concierge Service • Nr. South Quay DLR.

• Two Bedroom Apartment • 13th Floor • Fully Furnished • Fully Equipped Gymnasium • Concierge Service • Royal Victoria DLR

• Immaculate 1st floor show apartment • Two Bedroom/ Two Bathroom • Interior Designed • Exceptional Specification • Secure Underground Parking • Moments from the City and tube

• 5th floor Two Bedroom/ Two Bathroom • Immaculate Condition • Concierge • Good Transport Links • Close Proximity to Canary Wharf and the City

£355.00 per week

£365.00 per week

£1,080,000

£314,950

New Providence Wharf, Canary Wharf, E14

Lowry House, Canary Wharf, E14

Christopher Court, City Quarter, E1

New Providence Wharf, Fairmont Avenue, E1

• Two Bedroom Apartment • 6th Floor • Fully furnished • Balcony • Onsite Leisure Facilities • Allocated Parking

• Three Bedroom Apartment • Fully furnished • Balcony • Onsite Leisure Facilities • 24hr Concierge Service • Nr. South Quay DLR

• 2 Bedroom/ 2 Bathroom Corner Unit • Private Patio • Highly Desirable Development • Exceptional Level of Specification • Moments from DLR/Tube and City

• 4th Floor Two bed/One bath • Stunning Riverside Development • Balcony • Valet Parking • Moments from DLR and Jubilee Line

£525.00 per week

£675.00 per week

Asking Price £529,950

Asking Price £399,999

Sales | Lettings | Corporate Services | Property Management www.liferesidential.co.uk

Central London 020 7582 7989

West London 020 8896 9990

Finchley 020 8446 9524

Docklands 020 7476 0125

Deptford & Greenwich 020 8692 2244

tHE uk’S MOST VISITED AGENCY WEBSITE

JAMES MUIR

New Providence Wharf

£385,000

MANILLA STREET

£345,000

PORTREE STREET

£339,950

docklands@your-move.co.uk 020 7987 8900

• Two Bedroom Apartment • 10th Floor • Thames River View • Fitted Kitchen

• Two Bedrooms • Leasehold • 5th Floor • En-suite To Master

• Three Bedrooms • Freehold • Fitted Kitchen • Rear Garden

Elektron Tower

£334,950

Michigan Building

£330,000

Carmine Wharf

£289,950

docklands@your-move.co.uk 020 7987 8900

• Two Bedroom Apartment • On site GYM Facilities • On Site Concierge • Two Bathrooms

• Two Bedroom Apartment • Balcony • Fitted Kitchen • Communal Facilities:

• Two Bedroom • Ground Floor • Allocated Parking • Rear Garden

FUSION BUILDING

£270,000

ST. DAVIDS SQUARE

£252,000

DOUGLAS PATH

£215,000

docklands@your-move.co.uk 020 7987 8900

• Two Bedroom Apartment • 6th Floor • En-suite To Master • Double Glazed Windows

• One Bedroom Apartment • Covered Parking Space • Third Floor • Balcony

• One Bedroom Flat • Balcony • Lift Access • Open Plan Kitchen

sales lettings mortgages

YOUR MOVE James Muir is a trading name of James Muir Ltd. YOUR MOVE James Muir is an independently owned business, operated under license from www.your-move.co.uk Limited ‘Source: Httwise March 2010

River Habitat RiverHabitat.co.uk

Belgrave Ct, CANARY RIVERSIDE, E14 FANTASTIC RIVERVIEW FLAT WITH EASY CANARY WHARF WALK

Berkeley Tower, Canary Riverside, E14 SUPERB LUXURY APARTMENT WITH PANORAMIC RIVER VIEWS

n 10th FLoor, F/UF n 1,843 Sq. Ft. Beautiful Three, Double Bedroom Apartment n Stunning views up and down the river S. and SW. n Floor to Ceiling Windows and Bay area facing South n Portered Building, Lifts, 24 Hour Security. Next to Virgin Active Gym n Parking space. Available NOW

n 12th Floor. U/F n 1,816 Sq. Ft. three double bedroom, three en-suites, Cloakroom. n West and East Views. Balcony n Easy walk into Canary Wharf n Portered Building, Lifts, 24 Hour Security. Next to Virgin Active Gym n Secure Underground Car Parking Space. Available NOW

£1,450 p/w

£1,250 p/w or Sale £1,450,000 LHD

Belgrave Court, Canary Riverside, E14 FANTASTIC RIVERVIEW FLAT WITH EASY CANARY WHARF WALK

Belgrave Court, Canary Riverside, E145 LOVELY VIEWS ONTO THE GARDEN SQUARE & RIVER

n 1,592 Sq. Ft. beautiful two, double bedroom apartment n Stunning floor to ceiling curved windows n Juliet Balcony with Breathtaking N.W. view n Parking space. Available Mid-December 2011.

n 1,095 Sq. Ft. beautiful two double bedroom apartment n Floor to Ceiling Windows with southern views n Portered Building with lifts and 24 hour security n Balcony n Parking Space. Available January 2012

£1,100,000 LHD REDUCED!!

£675,000 LHD NEW!!

• info@RiverHabitat.co.uk • T: 020 7791 9830 • F: 020 7791 9831 • The Suite LG. 655 Commercial Road, Limehouse, London E14 7LW

LawerenceWard_CityMagazine_NOV2011 24/10/2011 16:20 Page 1

Established in 1975 in Blackheath, SE3, we have since grown into a tightly-knit group of six branches covering Greenwich, Blackheath, Westcombe Park, Charlton, Lee, Hither Green & Brockley. Over the last 35 years, we have helped tens of thousands of people buy, sell, let & rent property, with many new clients finding us through recommendation and word-of-mouth. We pride ourselves on our long standing reputation for quality of service, and we operate with uncompromising values of truth and integrity. In short, we offer a traditional service with cutting-edge modern marketing. Visit our website for more information at johnpayne.com.

johnpayne.com

Blackheath Branch 1 Montpelier Vale Blackheath Village, SE3 0TA Tel: 020 8318 1311

Lee Branch 119 Burnt Ash Road Lee, SE12 8RA Tel: 020 8852 8633

Greenwich Branch 227 Greenwich High Road Greenwich, SE10 8NB Tel: 020 8858 9911

Lettings Branch 39 Montpelier Vale Blackheath Village, SE3 0TJ Tel: 020 8318 0243

Westcombe Park Branch 11 Stratheden Parade Westcombe Park, SE3 7SX Tel: 020 8858 6101

Commercial Branch 7 Hare & Billet Road Blackheath, SE3 0RB Tel: 020 8852 6125

newHOMES

Your essential guide to new local developments. Read up to the minute information about star apartments, good investments, yet to be launched to the market properties, and the best in innovative design, architectural excellence and chic, city style. This dedicated section covers luxury projects throughout Blackheath, Camberwell, Dulwich and other select areas of South East London.

City Slickers

BRAND NEW APARTMENTS

Market Update PROPERTY NEWS

newhomes

Property Latest By Lauren Romano

spitalfields penthouse A Spitalfields penthouse has become the largest and most expensive apartment to be sold in E1 to date, after the full asking price of £2.1m was achieved, which equates to a staggering £924 per sqft. The luxurious two to three bedroom apartment, boasting a steam room, full length terrace, 24 hour concierge service and views towards Canary Wharf, was snapped up by an overseas cash buyer who decided to invest his money in property for tax purposes. This year, the UK market has seen an increased number of investors from abroad who are keen to benefit from rising rental rates, in particular. Situated at the trendy end of east London’s Commercial Street, the duplex, 2271 sqft pad is ideally located close to the best shops, bars and restaurants in the surrounding area, and is also well

connected to Liverpool Street station, within walking distance of the Square Mile. The modern Exchange Building property justifies its extravagant price tag thanks to the great attention to detail taken by designers and its swish,

Property Investors from overseas It is common knowledge that London attracts overseas property investors. However a recent study suggests that foreign buyers are drawn to our shores particularly because of the favourable way in which the UK deals with tenancy agreements. According to Savills, a predicted surge in investment from overseas clients in London’s commercial properties is likely, and this is largely because insurance and maintenance costs incurred in commercial investments are taken on by the tenant.

contemporary features, including state-of- the-art, dual temperaturecontrolled Gaggenau wine cabinets, integrated audio systems, iPod docking stations, an air-conditioned master bedroom and remote control blinds.

New Estate Agent

NEWS IN BRIEF

Winkworth, London’s largest estate agency brand, is opening a new Chislehurst branch. The new outpost will run as a sister venture to the nearby family-run Blackheath office, with several of the core team bringing their wealth of local area knowledge to the start-up. The Blackheath Winkworth office has one of the highest sales and lettings turnovers in the group and this strong level of transferable expertise will greatly benefit potential vendors and buyers in the area. The attractive mix of village buildings, commons and beautiful open spaces, skirted by National Trust land also makes Chislehurst a desirable oasis of calm, only 25 minutes from central London. With an excellent array of amenities — from boutique style shops to top-notch restaurants, and a great choice of nearby schools, including Babington House, Farringtons and Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School — the area is popular with young families wishing to invest in a slice of Chislehurst’s understated affluence.

Expats invest in property in London Increased numbers of expats are considering buying property in London. The capital is considered a relatively safe investment option, both in terms of rental yields and capital appreciation and although prices have already climbed seven per cent this year, the weakened pound means that the exchange rate is working in favour of many expats’ decisions to buy property back here. Furthermore, British residents now living abroad are likely to enjoy all sort of incentives, from discounts to rental guarantees, which UK property developers don’t offer to UK buyers.

Weatherproof your home this winter

www.winkworth.co.uk/estate-agents/ chislehurst

House Price Poll of Polls The recent Chesterton Humberts/CEBR house price poll of polls has shown a marginal 0.2 per cent rise in UK house prices, with the average home now costing £175,553. A greater number of mortgage approvals and increased credit availability is thought to have attributed to the increase. The current strength of house prices in the capital has been responsible for hiking average figures, with property sales in London accounting for around 13 per cent of the national average.

The National House Building Council (NHBC) is advising home owners to take measures to protect their homes against the winter weather. The NHBC’s practical advice ranges from annual tasks, including clearing gutters and checking and servicing central heating boilers to sweeping chimneys to prevent fires and risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Other handy pointers include advice on bleeding radiators to ensure proper water circulation and tips on how to identify potential cold spots in your home. The council are also keen to advise new-build homeowners that if properties are covered by the NHBC’s ten year Buildmark warranty, any damage or defects spotted in the first two years after completion should be put right by the builder responsible.

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newhomes

DEVELOPMENT FOCUS Living the High Life Elegant, state of the art apartments overlooking Canary Wharf provide the perfect bolt-hole for city-slickers, says Lauren Romano

espite its substantial surroundings, the Pan Peninsula complex holds its own amidst the towering sky scrapers and office high-rises of Canary Wharf. With one of the most desirable addresses, right in the heart of the fastpaced business and finance district, this glamorous urban resort is comprised of two interlinked landmark towers, which soar to a staggering 40 and 48 storeys respectively. Boasting an attractive riverside location and a quick and convenient route to the office, the new range of private residences, launched by Ballymore Group, are found on the 34th and 37th floors and command impressive panoramas over the City, Canary Wharf and Greenwich. But it’s not just the view alone which pushes each apartment to the cutting edge of metropolitan living, every conceivable aspect, from the interior design finishes to the wide spectrum of services available, has been taken care of, with great attention to detail. High-specification appliances mixed with high calibre materials, including stone, chrome and sleek mirroring, combine to create sharp, contemporary yet comfortable interiors. Meanwhile, the 24 hour concierge service and valet parking means that the resident’s every whim is catered for at all times. The stress and hard toil of the working week can be shrugged off at The Six Senses Spa, which is at the resident’s disposal. The range of Asian-influenced therapies on offer is impressive, but if getting the muscles pumping takes top priority, exercise sessions at the private health club are another option. Here, the state of the art equipment and facilities include a hydrotherapy suite, cardio

vascular theatre, dance studio, sauna and steam rooms. In terms of entertainment, there’s also no need to stray far; an on-site private cinema, kitted out with leather recliners and a whole host of stylish and vibrant restaurants and bars ensure the conveniently situated apartments provide city-workers with the best of both worlds. Mix business and pleasure 50 floors up, in the sky lobby business centre or the exclusive cocktail bar situated on the Penthouse level.

LOCATION The excellent work/social life balance the Pan Peninsula apartments afford is facilitated by their location. Canary Wharf is just ten minutes away, while central London is a commutable 20 minute tube ride. London City airport can be reached in another ten minutes and with the Stratford Eurostar Terminal close by, Paris is less than two hours away. Closer to home, over 200 restaurants, bars and luxury boutiques can be found scattered throughout Canary Wharf and the nearby 02 Arena plays host to some of the biggest names in the music and entertainment industries regularly.

Star apartment It is easy to see why these apartments are so desirable. Well-proportioned rooms are equipped with high-end, state-of-the-art fixtures and fittings. In the kitchen, the long list of Gaggenau appliances is impressive and includes everything from built-in wine cellars and Teppan Yaki style grill plates, to coffee makers and steam ovens. The kitchen/dining space as a whole is perfectly designed for effortless entertaining; sleek, white glossy units open out onto dining tables which in turn look out over the astounding views of the bright lights of the city from a dizzying 47 floors up. In the bathroom, a sliding door opens to reveal a spotlit bright white suite, contrasted with dark stone tiles. The simple monochrome look is adapted in the bedroom where creams are combined with a warm palette of browns, fawns and grey, while statement walls inject bold splashes of colour throughout. Simple, elegant furniture is dotted around and juxtaposed with sumptuous upholstery and patterned soft furnishings which complete the opulent look. Prices for the Premier apartments range from £1.35m to £2.8m. Contact Pan Peninsula marketing suite on 020 7001 9650 or email Ludi Le Clere: lleclere@ballymoregroup.com.

INTERIORS AND SPECIFICATION Designed by renowned architectural practice and master planners of Canary Wharf, Skidmore Ownings and Merrill, the apartments blend elegance and sophistication with comfort and functionality. Cream interiors and clean-lines exude simplicity and unfussy luxury. The open-plan layout makes brilliant use of space, and floor to ceiling windows which let the light flood in, also offer impressive views of the City and beyond. n 159

CENTRAL SQUARE YOUR SANCTUARY IN THE CITY Luxury 1, 2 & 3 bed apartments overlooking a private water garden in Clerkenwell EC1 1 beds from £425,000 2 beds from £590,000 SALES & MARKETING SUITE OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK*

1 & 2 BED SHOW APARTMENTS AVAILABLE TO VIEW NOW

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL THE MARKETING SUITE ON 0845 177 1711

CENTRALSQUARELONDON.COM

*Please call to book an appointment. Prices correct at time of going to print Interior images used are of a 2 bed apartment. Computer enhanced image of private garden at Central Square.

Mount Anvil: Building your London

Central Square is a joint venture between Mount Anvil and One Housing Group.

Y D T A S E R R ED FI AL V E ER M S O E H R

CAVERLEIGH PLACE FERNWOOD CLOSE • BROMLEY • KENT • BR1 3EZ

STUNNING NEW SHOW HOME NOW OPEN Caverleigh Place is a stunning new collection of just five 4 and 5 bedroom detached houses. Set in a quiet close on the popular ‘Palace Estate’ in Bromley, these delightful family homes are ideally situated for the station, town and local schools, and are available to reserve now.

Prices from £850,000 Show Home open Thursday to Monday, 10am - 5pm For more information and to make an appointment to view call selling agents Acorn New Homes on: 0208

shanlyhomes.com Photography of Plot 5 at Caverleigh Place. Prices correct at time of press. Interior photography depicts Show Home.

663 4466

newhomes

State of the market ALASDAIR CARPENTER, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF LOURDES ESTATE AGENTS, COMMENTS ON THE STATE OF THE RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY MARKET

THE new MORTGAGE LEGISLATION

ÂŠ London 2012

he Financial Services Authority have just published the latest in a series of guidelines that will have wide-reaching implications for the UK housing market. In essence, the new regulations set out both good and bad practice for UK lending institutions relating to their treatment of mortgage customers experiencing financial difficulties.

It is of obvious importance and benefit to consider the health and wealth of the UK economy in general, and borrowers in particular, especially owing to the uncertainty seen in recent times in the employment market. There was also a clear and widely recognised need to apply more stringent regulation to the banks, in the wake of the credit crisis. The debate around mortgage guidelines also highlights the need for buyers to research their options thoroughly and seek good, independent advice. This is positive as it is likely to lead to successful and informed transactions. The new advice to banks suggests that greater care is taken when allowing those who have bought a property using a mortgage to switch to an interest only product, extend the term of their existing plan or draw down on agreed facilities. There is talk that the move, in inadvertently restricting the profits of the banks, will reduce the funding and options available for those needing mortgages. It might therefore impact upon the sales market. Some feel that as fears grow on a daily basis of a further dip in the already shaky economy, a restricted mortgage market will only make matters worse. Restricting the options available to those already struggling to service their property related debts might result in an increase in defaults and repossessions. It could appear that these restrictive FSA guidelines are therefore doing little to assist those in most need of assistance and lay the foundations for a rejuvenated housing market. Most professionals involved in the housing market will testify to the fact that mortgage funding is already heavily policed.Â Further bureaucratic red tape is both unnecessary and uncalled for. n Lourdes Estate Agents 020 7538 9245 www.lourdes-estates.com

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HIRSH L O N D O N

EMBRACE DIAMONDS SET IN 18CT WHITE GOLD

Where every piece is a work of art www.hirshlondon.com

WEST END 56-57 BURLINGTON ARCADE W1J 0QN - T +44 (0)20 7499 6814 - CITY 9 HATTON GARDEN EC1N 8AH - T +44 (0)20 7831 3333

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