Candy SS12

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60 metres of pure luxury 12 guests pampered by 15 crew. World-class cruising without compromise. Slipstream is available for charter in the Mediterranean this summer from Burgess as Worldwide Central Agents

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deSigned by candy & candy FoR one hyde PaRk SuPPlied eXcluSively by bathRoomS inteRnational

R etail Show Room: 4 Pont StR eet london Sw1X 9el telePhone: +44 (0)20 7838 7788 FacSimile: +44 (0)20 7838 7789 w w w.bathRoomSint.com

Bespoke safes. Discrete service .

UniqUe cUstomers.

aUranJa „Limited Edition“ tecHnical Details:

· Patented electronic locking system Stocktronic · Integrated emergency alarm · VDS security grade III acc. to EU 1143/1 · Height x Width x Depth: 119 x 56 x 51 cm · Weight: ca. 485 kg inDiviDUal finisH:

· Special high gloss lacquering with black frame · 2.5 kg brass cufflink handle, gold plated · Interior in Stockinger gold and orange leather · Six drawers for watches, jewellery and more · Internal light system

cHimera iii 48v “Jet black – Silver/Macassar – Cognac” tecHnical Details:

· Patented electronic locking system Stocktronic · Integrated emergency alarm · VDS security grade III acc. to EU 1143/1 · Height x Width x Depth: 127 x 67 x 55 cm · Weight: ca. 750 kg inDiviDUal finisH:

· Body and door in high-gloss jet black lacquer · Interior, facing and fittings lined in Stockinger Silver and Macassar wood · One more tray for jewellery & watches · 48 watch winders · Internal light system

Worldwide delivery

HigHest secUrity in Uncertain times.

A Stockinger Safe provides optimum security and unrestricted enjoyment of your objects of beauty and value. Our safes are not grey bulky objects hidden in a cellar but beautiful objects, easy to operate, and mostly placed in dressing rooms, studies or bedrooms. Each safe is a unique, handcrafed masterpiece reected by its unsurpassed German precision engineering and excellence. Not one single safe has been forcibly entered in the last 30 years. Our safes are created by 30 dierent teams of specialists and crafsmen made for life-long use to protect your valuables.

Today the name Candy & Candy is synonymous with some of the world’s most luxurious interiors, from homes in some of the world’s most coveted locales to private jets, yachts and commercial spaces. Most people have forgotten the intricate attention to detail, the ďŹ ne crafsmanship and the meticulous process that takes place behind the scenes.

A Candy & Candy designer is consistently in pursuit of perfection, fearlessly striving to improve and challenge themselves. Design is always changing and developing so that the end result can strike the impeccable balance of form and functionality.

www.candyandcandy.com

eLCoME

to thE latEst Edition of CANDY magazine At Candy & Candy, we continue to drive innovative and ground-breaking design projects across the globe.

As a prestigious British luxury brand, with our roots in London, we are proud to collaborate with many leading UK professionals and outstanding British crafspeople. In this issue of Candy magazine, we celebrate Britain’s moment – in the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics – and explore some of the creative energy that is fuelling the country right now, from London’s buzzing art scene to the world of Burberry through the eyes of Angela Ahrendts, CEO of the very successful British company. We review two remarkable apartments at London’s most distinguished address, One Hyde Park: The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, London, and showcase exquisite fashions by exclusive British design talent in its luxurious facilities. The actor/funny man and national treasure David Walliams explains his love of swimming and why he’s serious about raising money for charity, and we illustrate the many reasons that London is the ultimate city in the world and the unrivalled location in which to live, work and play. We welcome you to the universe of Candy & Candy and hope you enjoy this issue.

NICHOLAS CANDY

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c NT NTS

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Eye Candy Projected to reach more than 275mph, the SSC Tuatara car looks set to break records; an exclusive whisky created to mark the Diamond Jubilee; and Linley’s exquisitely crafed wooden humidor comes with rare cigars

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Studio Candy & Candy and

their collaborators design an extraordinary Easter egg, and party guests help create a unique light sculpture; plus Candy & Candy creative director Mat Carlisle on his objets d’art

PUBLISHED fOr CAnDy & CAnDy

By SHOW MEDIA LtD 1-2 Ravey Street, London EC2A 4QP +44 20 3222 0101; showmedia.net

Cover photography roBert Wyatt Colour reproduction by fmg (wearefmg.com).

Printed by Taylor Bloxham (taylorbloxham.co.uk).

All material © Show Media Ltd, except where stated. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Editor Joanne Glasbey Art Director Dominic Bell Contributing Art Director Ciara Walshe Chief Copy Editor Chris Madigan Associate Editor Henry Farrar-Hockley Picture Editor Juliette Hedoin Senior Copy Editor Sarah Evans Copy Editors Cate Langmuir, Gill Wing Contributing Editor Maria Yacoob Project Manager Zai Shamis Creative Director Ian Pendleton Executive Editor Peter Howarth Advertising Julia Pasaron +44 20 8741 8967

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Worlds Apart Two lavish

apartments at One Hyde Park possess very different yet distinctively stylish interiors, reflecting the property’s cosmopolitan Knightsbridge setting

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Art Hub London has become the

focal point of global art markets and attracts an extraordinary range of collectors and practitioners

One of a Kind A ravishing emerald and sapphire necklace, plus sumptuous diamond pieces – these rare examples from the finest jewellery houses are the toast of the season

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Sky’s the Limit Around the world,

the bolder the buildings, the better the landscape of tomorrow

London at Large Cultured,

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Capital View Spectacular sights

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Angela Ahrendts Burberry’s

88 92

Pianos A forte Looking for a baby

stable, vibrant and elegant – why the capital is the world’s ultimate city, in this most memorable of years

from the penthouse apartment at One Hyde Park reveal London’s superb skyscape in all its glory

American CEO is taking the iconic British fashion house to even higher levels of world success

grand? Consult the experts Home is Where the Heart is

Opulent garments in the finest fabrics suit the best address, by far

Directory Selected products and services, plus fashion and jewellery stockists details and contact information

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Personal Passions Actor, national treasure and fundraiser extraordinaire David Walliams talks about his enduring love of swimming

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brett ryder; robert wyatt; tif hunter

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HIGH JEWELLERY COLLECTION

TM

171 NEW BOND STREET LONDON W1S 4RD 0207 907 8800

©2012 Harry Winston, Inc. harrywinston.com

effervescence champagne by barbara barry. available in standard and custom sizes.

r a d i a n c e by b a r b a r a b a r r y

Admired for more than just their beauty

V i s i t u s at o u r L o n d o n L o c at i o n :

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think tank revoLuTionary desiGn and miLiTary HeriTaGe make cArTier’s new, briTisH version of iTs Tank waTcH an eXQuisiTe icon of THis memorabLe year The Cartier Tank is a truly iconic model, first created by Louis Cartier in 1917. Inspired by the new Renault tanks that he saw on World War I battlefields, Cartier presented the prototype timepiece to General John Pershing of the American Expeditionary Force.

Intriguingly both a square and a rectangle, the watch’s lines and proportions are based on those tanks, and the metal bracelet is decorated with distinctive indentations that are reminiscent of their caterpillar tracks. This watch was a trailblazer, and its revolutionary form, style and elegance pioneered a modern lifestyle. Its design squared the circle, and the seamless integration of the lugs and case as an extension of the strap heralded a new era in watchmaking. To celebrate 2012 as Britain’s special year, Cartier has, afer the introduction of the Tank Américaine and Tank Française, created the Tank Anglaise. It’s a beautiful milestone in the pursuit of pared-down elegance, following the aesthetic demands of Louis Cartier in his quest for streamlined design. cartier.com

words Joanne Glasbey PHoToGrAPHY Tif Hunter

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diamond & GOLd exclusivity and excellence aRe the watchwoRds of john walker & sons’ commemoRative whisky Diamond Jubilee by John Walker & Sons may just be the most exclusive way of sharing a whisky with the Queen – these 60 decanters are certainly rarer than an invitation to a state dinner. Beautifully handmade chests, created from oak from the Sandringham Estate and pine from Balmoral, contain a Baccarat crystal decanter with a diamond-studded silver collar, two hand-etched crystal nosing glasses and a hand-bound book personalised by the royal calligrapher. The whisky itself is a blend of spirits distilled in 1952, the final ‘marrying’ having taken place in a cask made from Sandringham oak. Master blender Jim Beveridge describes the result as combining ‘light freshness, spice notes, smokiness, vanilla sweetness and deep brown autumnal flavours’. diamond Jubilee by John walker & sons, £100,000. to express interest, email diamondjubilee@johnwalkerandsons.com

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worDs chris madigan

DGrosmangin/MCMorazzani

Red Sunset: an exceptional ruby of 10.12 cts ring in white gold set with diamonds. adler, jewellers since 1886 GENEVE . GSTAAD . LONDON 13, New Bond Street +4420 7409 2237 . HONGKONG . TOKYO

www.adler.ch london@adler.ch

Big Smoke THis HumidoR, beauTifully cRafTed wiTH a wealTH of woods by LinLeY also conTains some veRy special cuban ciGaRs Idiosyncratic British design company Linley is renowned for using the most sophisticated techniques in craf. For this unique and handsome humidor, its super-skilled crafsmen have applied veneers of cherry, Swiss pear, sycamore, walnut and wenge to stylishly recreate the London skyline against a background of Macassar ebony. Inside, Spanish cedar drawers have capacity for around 70 cigars, concealing a cigar-spa humidification system – the latest in humidor technology – which provides an excellent way to store and mature cigars in conditions of ambient humidity.

The humidor, produced in a limited edition of just five, contains special ‘regional editions’ of Ramón Allones Belicoso Fino cigars, produced exclusively for the UK. Linley also undertakes commissions for bespoke pieces, and has produced stunning architectural versions, including one based on London’s Royal Albert Hall. price on application; davidlinley.com

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PHOTOGRAPHY Tif Hunter wORds Joanne Glasbey

Bite size the exquisite Red CaRpet ColleCtion by chopard is designed to matCh the glamouR and pRestige of the Cannes film festival Swiss luxury jewellery and watch brand Chopard has, for many years, been an official partner of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival held each May – even redesigning the Palme d’Or trophy, awarded annually to the director of the best film. Each year, Caroline Scheufele, Chopard co-president and artistic director, creates a new Haute Joaillerie collection, which comprises the same number of pieces as the years of the movie festival, which this year takes the total to 65. The Red Carpet collection is inspired by the glamorous actresses who take part in the famous ‘mounting the steps’ ritual, and they choose a piece to wear at the event. This year’s collection is themed around colour – as this sneak preview of a spectacular piece from the collection exemplifies. The original and unexpected ring is beautifully crafed with around 800 tsavorites and more than 200 brown diamonds totalling 57.2 carats adorning its apple shape, lending it radiance and a touch of humour – the unique fruit of Chopard’s design and craf brilliance. chopard.com

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WordS Joanne glasbey

TOP SABLE ONLY

1 2 0 , aven ue des C h amps - É l y s ées Par i s 8 e - F r an ce 74, r ue du F aubo ur g S ai n t - H o n o r é Par i s 8 e - F r an ce L e Tr empl i n , C o ur ch evel 1 8 5 0 - F r an ce H ô t el C ar l t o n , 5 8 L a C r o i s et t e C an n es - F r an ce w w w.mi l ady.t v

Speed: evolved

If velocIty’s youR vIce, you’ll fInd lIttle fasteR on fouR wheels than the SSC TuaTara In 2007, afer seven years of development, fledgling US company Shelby SuperCars (sscnorthamerica.com) made history when it launched its inaugural automobile, the Tarmac-guzzling Ultimate Aero. Recording a top speed of 257.41mph on the test track, Guinness World Records proclaimed it the World’s Fastest Production Car. SSC is due to launch a successor at this year’s prestigious Top Marques Monaco – the leading global luxury showcase for supercars, haute horology and superboats – and it looks set to rewrite the record books all over again. With 1350bhp and a projected top speed of 276mph, the Tuatara promises to be every bit as agile as it looks. top Marques Monaco will take place at the Grimaldi forum, 19–22 april. topmarquesmonaco.com

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RIVIERA ROUGE DESK - Limited Edition Handmade desk with secret drawers. Santos rosewood and sycamore with leather and nickel detailing. £48,500.

BESPOKE DESIGN | GIFTS & ACCESSORIES | FURNITURE & UPHOLSTERY | INTERIOR DESIGN

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60 Pimlico Road, London SW1W 8LP

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LINLEY at HARRODS

2nd Floor, London SW1

linley@davidlinley.com

+44 (0)20 3036 6156

www.davidlinley.com

STUDIO The CANDY & CANDY design Team Takes inspiraTion from ofTen unlikely sources

35

 z e v i ta b l e

 C h i n e s e pa r a s o l s

I’ve always been a big fan of Seventies furniture. This decade saw the Italians at the forefront of interior design, and furniture designs ofen took on industrial and geometric forms. This table designed and made by Zevi that I bought in London epitomises this aesthetic. The architectural shapes and combination of materials – brass, bronze glass and cracked black leather – really appeal.

I was hunting in a bric-a-brac store in Buenos Aires when I came across a pair of 19th-century Chinese hand-painted giant parasols. Immediately I knew they’d look good with lighting behind them, to work as a pair of beautiful chandeliers.

They are about 5f across and the hand-painted flowers are different on each, but both are bold yet delicate.

 o M e G a WatC h e s My love of vintage Omega watches was influenced by my father, who was bought one for his 21st birthday by his mother, my grandmother. The collection so far is solely of pieces from the Sixties and Seventies as I like the understated subtlety of the designs and materials from this period.

All the pieces still work perfectly and a couple have engravings from the previous owners. I love that there is a hidden history behind each piece that I will never know.

tHe collector candy & candy cReative diRectoR mat carlisle descRibes his admiRation foR eclectic objects  v i n y l a rt Wo r k I’ve had the vinyl bug for over 18 years for the love of the sound, but equally for the cover artwork, which can ofen be a design classic. It tells you everything you need to know about the singer or band’s personality.

Whether it’s a strong image of a solo artist, or a beautifully painted collage, you can sometimes judge a book by its cover.

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 ra M s’ h e a ds

 W i l ly r i z zo ta b l e

These two decorative rams’ heads form the base of a low table, which has a glass top so you can see through to the elegantly curved horns supporting it.

Again, it’s my love of metals coming through – and I like the fact that they are slightly kitsch while being very well made, bold statements.

Portrait photographer and furniture designer Willy Rizzo is a key influence on modern design – in the Seventies he designed abstract modernist pieces that are very collectable. I love this table by him with its strong and sharp lines. The mirror, brass and chrome top with the lacquer base help it appear to float above the floor.

HOT STU FF The world ’s firsT appliance To offer noT only hoT and cold mains waTer, buT The convenience of hoT and cold filTered waTer , delivered Through a dedicaTed waTerway from a single spouT.

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A GOOD GOOD eGG egg when it came to cReating a bespoke easteR egg foR the fabergé big egg hunt 2012 and Raising funds foR chaRity in the pRocess, candy & candy was in its element words Joanne glasbey

ABOVE The sketch for the Candy & Candy Fabergé egg OppOsitE The egg on display at One Hyde Park

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This spring, Candy & Candy joined over 200 internationally renowned designers and personalities to create its own bespoke Easter egg as part of the Fabergé Big Egg Hunt 2012. The world’s largest such event aimed to raise £2m, to be split between the charities Action for Children and Elephant Family.

The fibreglass eggs, each measuring 2øf in height, were turned into unique, highly collectable works of art by a swathe of the global art and design world; fashion designers Diane von Furstenberg and Zandra Rhodes and artists Rob Ryan and Jake and Dinos Chapman were some of the talents who turned their imaginations to craf and decorate in their idiosyncratic styles.

Candy & Candy’s designers deployed trademark attention to detail to create an exquisite work. A combination of exceptional materials and the finest crafsmanship, as would be expected from the pioneers of bespoke and innovative design, the result was an extraordinary statement. The exterior of the giant egg, finished in a Green Blade Bahamas timber veneer, has a decorative pattern, while the front features a

geometric crack. Inside, within a high-gloss black lacquer interior, is a beautifully lit Celestite crystal sitting on a mirrored plinth. This is not so much a decorated egg as a spectacular sculpture.

The Candy & Candy design team used the specialist help of joinery firm EE Smith to bring the egg design to life. London fossil and mineral gallery Dale Rogers Ammonite also kindly donated the Celestite crystal for the piece.

The 209 eggs were placed strategically around central London and the public was encouraged to seek them out during Lent. The Candy & Candy egg could be found in McLaren’s flagship showroom at One Hyde Park. Afer the hunt was over, there were three auctions at which buyers could bid for the likes of ‘Humpty Dumpty’ by the Prince’s Drawing School, signed by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, the elegant white fingerprint design by artist Marc Quinn or even an especially tasteful edible version, courtesy of top chocolatier William Curley and his team. In the end, the Candy & Candy creation sold for an impressive £22,000 at Sotheby’s.

A cracking time was had by all.

light feat feat cReated to ceLebRate candy & candy’s 10th biRthday, the tRuLy spectacuLaR anniversary chandelier is a unique piece of coLLaboRative design WOrds Joanne gLasbey PhOTOGraPhy ben MooRe & JuLian abRaMs When Candy & Candy threw a party at the Halcyon Gallery to celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary and the launch of its first book, Candy & Candy: The Art of Design last autumn, it wanted an innovative way for distinguished guests to collaborate with the brand.

The idea was to create a live piece of art that would be featured in a high-profile new TV series on the Sky Arts channel.

The design team thought hard and hit on the idea of an interactive chandelier.

Mat Carlisle, Candy & Candy’s creative director, enlisted the assistance of designer makers Haberdasherylondon, with whom they ofen collaborate. Their challenge was to conceptualise and create a unique piece. And also, says Haberdasherylondon’s Mac Cox, ‘to devise a way to get guests to participate.

It was crucial that the finished article had consistency, individuality and originality’ – and, most importantly of all, that it would be fun to participate in its making.

‘Having decided to make bespoke lighting,’ Mat explains, ‘we explored the idea of a halo- or wreath-shaped chandelier.

We wanted it to be a symbol of celebration, a metaphor for collaboration, and to create something beautiful, delicate and really simple.’

First, the designers constructed a frame using a process called photo-etching, in which a light-sensitive polymer is applied to a metallic surface and then exposed to light, which corrodes the surface to reveal a negative image. Mat describes its striking effect: ‘Light spills through, casting subtle shadows.’

The frame was constructed to support thousands of metal and acrylic leaves in three different designs. ‘At the party, each guest was invited to choose a leaf configuration and to sign it, so it was specific to them,’ Mac says. ‘The autographed leaves were displayed on the gallery’s wall with magnets, and

40

attached later to the frame.’ The finished chandelier comprises some 5,000 filigree metal and 9,000 coloured acrylic leaves, and it’s quite a design feat. It appears contradictory – at once strong yet fragile, made of metal yet weightless.

And it safeguards a secret – that, on the inside, hundreds of original signatures can be found, making its impact as much about its interior as its exterior.

CloCkwise from left Display of flowers handcrafed and autographed by Candy & Candy’s high-profile guest list, lef and above; petals displayed for party guests to autograph; a model of the finished chandelier; magnetic board used to display completed flowers at the event; photo-etched leaves Objects of Desire is a new TV series to be shown on Sky Arts.

The series looks at the world’s most impressive, beautiful objects and explores what makes them so desirable.

‘We like to call it a light sculpture,’ says Mat, explaining that the chandelier doesn’t just contain a light, but has a sculptural effect when light is shone on it. ‘It would look spectacular in a bar or restaurant – it’s a statement piece.’

When the chandelier is auctioned by Phillips de Pury on 20 June in the final episode of the Sky Arts series – the proceeds will go to Candy & Candy’s chosen charity, the Elton John Aids Foundation – the lucky bidder can decide in which environment it will hang. But, wherever it ends up, what is certain is that it will always remain a very special, one-off creation – the exceptional, light-filled, hand-crafed memento of a unique, fun celebration.

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WoRLDs APART THE PRESTIGIOUS LONDON DEVELOPMENT ONE HyDE PaRk HOUSES TWO aPaRTMENTS WITH IDENTICaL FLOORPLaNS aND TWO ENTIRELy DIFFERENT yET STUNNING STyLES WORDS Maria yacoob PHOTOGRAPHY Julian abrams

OPPOSITE A beautiful bespoke console table situated in the entrance hallway ThIS PagE, frOm TOP Geometric rosebud chandelier in formal reception; bespoke chandelier formed of glass bauble lanterns

I n t h e t r e e - l I n e d tranquillity of Hyde Park, the colours of nature mark the seasons. Breeze and birdsong provide an unhurried soundscape.

Along Knightsbridge, and down Sloane Street, London’s most fashionable street, a kinetic cacophony of shoppers and traffic rushes purposefully against a backdrop of the most famous high-end names in retail. The two settings are poles apart, yet sit side by side as neighbours. The striking contrast is typical of England’s capital city.

Candy & Candy has taken this essentially London phenomenon of opposites living cheek by jowl as inspiration at its most prestigious address – One Hyde Park: The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, London. The building itself sits on the divide between Hyde Park and Knightsbridge. Apartments enjoy unrivalled views of the majestic urban

oasis, or the royalty of retail districts.

And in two neighbouring apartments, both overlooking Knightsbridge, Candy & Candy’s design team has used two identical floorplans to create entirely different worlds.

In the first apartment, the main reception room looks out onto Burberry’s flagship store, where Eddie Redmayne pouts persuasively on giant billboards. It’s a fitting view for an apartment which stakes its credentials as a home for bright young things.

References to iconic film sets, pop art, and F1 racing are on display throughout the two floors. The mostly monochrome furnishings immediately evoke the Swinging Sixties. But the black and white surroundings also bring to mind the drawings in Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The evocation is apt, for this is an apartment where one must expect the unexpected.

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this picture Formal reception room overlooking the bustling streets of Knightsbridge below Entrance hallway featuring a sculptural piece and vertical LED lights

The entrance hall walls are curved, illuminated and overlaid with large white ultra-suede panels. It’s like walking through the cinematic spaceships of 2001 or Star Wars. The hall opens out into a lobby where the eye can’t help but be drawn to a suede-panelled wall with a collection of randomly positioned vertical light strips. Does the design bring to mind the rain, a retro computer game or both? The smooth curves of a sculpted bronze bench and two Elvis prints feel like exhibits in an art gallery or museum – the Pompidou Centre, rather than the Louvre.

The lobby leads into the show-stopping main reception room. The floor-to-ceiling windows provide an awesome panorama of the ‘Golden Triangle’ where Knightsbridge, Sloane Street and the Brompton Road connect. Yet despite being on top of this metropolitan mayhem, triple-glazing ensures that not even a murmur can intrude from the streets below.

Here, the lighting takes centre-stage again. In a contemporary chandelier, strips panels, which are arranged in the shape of a camera lens. The calming white light can

44

be adjusted by a palette that mirrors the city’s different coloured lights.

The chandelier overlooks two distinct living areas. On one side, silvery, velvet seats on handsome dark oak bases are placed around an oval coffee table, the bronze and dark oak design of which resembles the facets of a Picasso portrait. This entertaining area is complemented on the other side of the room by an 85in plasma screen, framed by metallic lacquer and leather panels. The screen is best enjoyed horizontally, from a vast L-shaped sofa, generously laden with bespoke embroidered cushions.

All across the room, unique art and sculpture adds playful touches. A family of coloured glass jelly babies sits atop one table. Elsewhere, a pillar with a carefully angled cube balanced on top is, on closer inspection, being held in place by a tiny Atlas figure.

Sliding panel doors on one side of the room lead through into the dramatic dining area. The bespoke table is sliced into two designs – one half created in brass bronze, the other in bronze glass.

Its sturdy legs seem unbreakable, but

Quirky art pieces are on display throughout all the bedrooms, bathrooms and even the powder room

breaking the table is just what Candy & Candy’s design team had in mind when taking inspiration for the chandelier – a futuristic tangle of fragments creating patterns of forked light across the room.

The monochrome tones of the reception room are echoed in the master bedroom. A circuit-board design features on the wall above the expansive bed and on the cushions. A pop-up plasma screen allows the ultimate luxury of staying in bed all day while a reading cove provides a sanctuary from screens, as well as being an ingenious use of the space. The master bathroom with sunken marble bath, rain shower and under-floor heating is elegant and indulgent in equal measures.

The second bedroom also uses a geometric design on the headboard, and has a quiet corner for study. In the corner of the third bedroom stands an imposing arc lamp. Quirky art pieces are on display throughout all the bedrooms, bathrooms and even the powder room, with its selection of vintage perfume bottles.

Just one pavilion along from its neighbour, the view from the second

this picture Formal reception room featuring a dark yet organic colour palette below Striking display unit situated in the dining room

Candy & Candy interior-designed apartment takes in the grande dame of department stores: Harvey Nichols, which embraces the more sophisticated and elegant spectrum of fashion. Likewise, this apartment has a more mature and measured style than its youthful neighbour.

As opposed to the starker monochrome of the Sixties, the decade of inspiration here is the sof palette of the Seventies.

Instead of taking a big idea like pop art as a theme for the decor, the thread running through this apartment is a design detail – the herringbone pattern of tweed cloth.

The entrance hall walls are lined with strong-grained American black walnut panels, which run its full length. These are placed next to one another, with the grains running at opposing diagonals, to create the herringbone effect. The warm, rich tones of the wood make an inviting atmosphere. In the lobby, the staircase wall features similarly patterned wood panels, but this time in darker, more imposing fumed satin walnut.

In the main reception room, it is the glamour of the Seventies that comes to the fore. The chandeliers hanging above

46

Who would have thought that these two worlds could co-exist so closely?

the two seating areas consist of molecular-style arrangements of brass baubles, which give off a sof, ambient glow. There are cool ambers and bronzes mixed with silver tones throughout the furnishings, which complement the sof red bricks of nearby architecture.

The sheer curtains filter the light from outside, adding more warmth to the room.

The silvery grey velvet of the sofas and chairs is sumptuous. The red fox throw is a touch of outrageous Seventies glamour, as are the smoked-mirror and marble-topped shelving units, the vintage lamps sourced from Paris, and the delicate glass-topped coffee table.

The adjoining dining room features the herringbone design in the large charcoal and silver silk rug. But in the bar unit, marquetry techniques transform the American black walnut into an intricate honeycomb design.

Above, the cut-bevelled mirror with black lacquer surround is offset perfectly by some large Seventies-style liqueur bottles and decanters.

The master bedroom is subtle and relaxed. It refers to a rich burgundy, silver and ivory palette. Above the bed,

the suede headboard incorporates delicate stitch detailing. Leather buckle straps, resonant of a vintage travel trunk, overlay the silk wallpaper, which wraps around the room, and leads into the secret study area. All the lamps and mirrors, including the bone lamps beside the bed, are one-offs, uniquely sourced from Paris. The sunken marble bath and basins in the master bathroom are offset by graceful, floral sculptures.

The asymmetrical shape of the second bedroom is assuaged by a symmetrical design, which again incorporates the vintage travel trunk detail. The tones here are cooler, more silver in the details, and the bedside lamps are shaped like large brass artichokes. The third bedroom picks up the herring-bone design in its timber headboard, while the silvery rug incorporates a beautiful carved star-shaped pattern.

The elegant serenity of this apartment is just a corridor away from the striking style of its art-loving neighbour. Who would have thought these two worlds could co-exist so closely? It could only happen in London, and then only at One Hyde Park.

Sometimes you ju spend the w

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LONDON IS THE BEATING HEART OF THE INTERNATIONAL ART WORLD, PULSATING WITH ENERGY, CREATIVITY, CONFIDENCE, CHARACTERS... AND GREAT PARTIES WORDS Amy Raphael

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Despite the recession, the British art market remains buoyant. In fact, it outperformed the stock market by nine per cent last year

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it is also about interactive art: for example, Turner Prize winner Martin Creed is asking everyone in Britain to ring any kind of bell for three minutes on the morning of the opening ceremony.

Despite the recession, the British art market remains buoyant. In fact, it outperformed the stock market by nine per cent last year. Ben Lewis, an award-winning documentary film-maker, author and critic who is best known for Art Safari, his TV series on contemporary art, says that the London auction market is at least as lively as New York’s. ‘It benefits from a clientele that includes Russian oligarchs, Greek shipping billionaires and Chinese business magnates, and records are made as regularly here as they are in New York.

Francis Outred, the head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, has done an incredibly good job persuading people that art is both a good investment and a good way to look cool.’

London itself certainly knows how to look cool. It’s bursting with artists and galleries. ‘The capital has the highest density of artists in a single small area,’ says Lewis. ‘Statistically, there are more artists in east London than in any area the same size anywhere else on Earth. Ours is a city where galleries are competing against each other to open bigger and bigger spaces. Larry

above The Serpentine summer party, 2011 below Damien Hirst with his artwork ‘St Elmo’s Fire’

dafydd jones; quintin lake

T h e r e a r e g e n e r a l ly one or two art exhibitions in London each year that send the press into rapture and the public into a ticket-buying frenzy. Earlier this year, it was David Hockney’s Royal Academy of Art show of new landscape works. And now it’s the turn of Damien Hirst, whose retrospective at Tate Modern will run until September.

Hirst is only 46 and yet here he is, enjoying a mid-career retrospective.

It illustrates how the enfant terrible, the punk rocker of the art world, has become part of the establishment, even, perhaps, poised to join Hockney as a national treasure. His work has now spanned a quarter of a century and his wealth is estimated at £215m. The Tate Modern exhibition serves as a reminder – as if it were needed – that London boasts some of the most famous and talked-about artists in the world and the city’s art world is at the very heart of Cool Britannia.

Hockney and Hirst are also part of the Cultural Olympiad, a 12-week festival planned to accompany the Olympic Games. Culture was a key element in bringing the Games to the capital this summer and the Olympiad aims to show that London is the arts capital of the world. Not New York, not Paris, but London. And the Olympiad is not just about traditional art shows in galleries,

Gagosian opened a cavernous white space near King’s Cross, then a year or two later, Hauser & Wirth did the same in Savile Row, installing the most spectacular and expensive lighting you can imagine.

Then Jay Jopling of White Cube opened an even more cavernous white space in Bermondsey. These spaces are so big, artists can now make work that couldn’t be exhibited in any other private gallery – and most public galleries – in the world.’

The capital has become a huge magnet for art buyers. Its galleries and auction houses attract global visitors as does the Frieze Art Fair, which takes place in Regent’s Park every October and showcases more than 170 of the most exciting international contemporary art galleries. It has become so successful – with a steady 60,000 visitors annually – that, in May, for the first time, it is launching Stateside. Londoners showing New Yorkers how to put on an art fair is, of course, a huge deal. Frieze New York, which is to take place on Randall’s Island in Manhattan, can only build the buzz about London being the coolest city on the planet for viewing and buying art.

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curator and dealer, he noticed how tough it was for students to be thrust out into an unknown world. Forty recent graduates are chosen to appear in The Catlin Guide: New Artists in the UK and the best are then chosen as finalists for the annual Art Prize exhibition. Flick through this year’s guide and you’ll see a diverse selection of performance artists, painters and sculptors. Michael Shultz, who has a BA in fine art from Goldsmiths, introduces himself by explaining how he’s ‘interested in the space between crafsmanship and industrial production’. His work, he writes, examines ‘how a mass-produced object can inherit a certain aura through the hand of the artist’. On the page overleaf is a photograph of a giant pink hairdryer made out of a fan, fibreglass, rubber and car paint. It reminds me immediately of Jeff Koons.

Hammond laughs. ‘Absolutely! At a private view, he had a PVC-clad model sitting next to it – this pretty phalliclooking hairdryer – and it was the piece everyone was talking about all night.

And Charles Saatchi bought it.’

Hammond is rather like a junior version of Saatchi, the collector whose taste virtually defines contemporary art.

He talks with great passion about the artists in The Catlin Guide. There’s Julia Vogl, who graduated from Slade School of Fine Art and makes ‘social sculptures that rely on community participation’,

London’s art parties have become fixtures in the social diaries of the international great and good

above VIP preview at the Frieze Art Fair, October 2011 below First held in 2003, the Frieze Art Fair attracts more than 60,000 visitors annually and is launching in Manhattan

and he is very enthusiastic about Glasgow School of Art graduate Gabriella Boyd’s huge, beautiful, touching paintings.

Jonny Briggs, who completed an MA in Fine Art Photography at the Royal College of Art, says his photographs ‘create a new reality with my parents and self’. One image shows him wearing a giant wooden mask made to look like his father’s face. Last October, he won New Sensations, a competition launched by the Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4 to find Britain’s most talented art graduate.

Soheila Sokhanvari has placed a taxidermy horse astride a squidgy blue ball. This particular image is impossible to look at without thinking of Damien Hirst’s own taxidermy period. Sokhanvari, like Hirst, graduated from Goldsmiths College. ‘You can certainly see the legacy of Hirst’s work in Soheila’s piece,’ says Hammond. ‘The influence of the Young British Artists is quite clear.’

In order to better understand the work of this new generation, one has to look back at the recent past. And to remember how everything in London changed back in 1988. In July that year, a 23-year-old Damien Hirst staged the show Freeze in an empty building at Surrey Docks. He has since described the Docklands show as ‘the exhibition everybody says they saw and hardly anybody did’. Hirst changed the course of art history. Freeze was full of works by Hirst’s fellow Fine Art students

dafydd jones; getty images

Frieze has established itself as one of the most important dates in the diary of any serious collector. And there are now so many fairs – among them the London Art Fair, which takes place in Islington each January and features the work of more than 100 galleries, and Art London, held in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which sells work from 1850 to 2012 – that buying art in London could easily become a fantastically enjoyable full-time occupation.

As well as the shows, and the invitations to opening nights and private views, the art parties London hosts have become fixtures in the social diaries of the international great and good, the beautiful people and the business crowd. The jet set flies in for the annual Serpentine Summer Party, which chairman Tim Jeffries calls ‘definitely the most fun of the summer’. Last July’s bash, co-hosted by Burberry, was unmissable.

One of the great things about London as the world’s art capital is its willingness to embrace the new as well as the established. The Other Art Fair, which takes place in Marylebone in May, is all about emerging artists who are so far unrepresented. The art world isn’t just about the Hockneys and the Hirsts or Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas. It’s also about the young blood that emerges from art school each summer.

Justin Hammond started the Catlin Art Prize six years ago when, as an art

from top ‘Hair Dryer’ by Michael Schultz; Jennifer Taylor’s ‘Rumour from Ground Control’; ‘Orange Room’ by Gabriella Boyd; Julia Vogl’s ‘City (Wood Print)’

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at Goldsmiths – artists who would later become associated with the Young British Artists (YBAs). On display was a pile of crumpled metal by Sarah Lucas; a door painted by Gary Hume; light bulbs

by Angela Bulloch; and Mat Collishaw’s Bullet Hole – a series of lightboxes showing a photo of a head wound.

Michael Craig-Martin, who taught many of the exhibitors, persuaded some significant art-world names – Saatchi, the Tate’s Sir Nicholas Serota and the Royal Academy’s Norman Rosenthal among them – to make the trek east to see the show. Nearly a decade later, in 1997, Rosenthal curated Sensation at the Royal Academy, an exhibition of Saatchi’s extensive collection, including many works by the YBAs. This was the moment at which Hirst and co crossed from cult to mainstream and London became the global hotspot for art.

Robin Cembalest is executive editor of the New York-based ARTnews, the oldest and most widely circulated art magazine in the world. She agrees that the city started changing ‘with the rise of the YBAs and the opening of Tate Modern in 2000. Both factors influenced the international focus that remains on London.’

I ask Angelica Sule, curator of the emerging artists programme at the University of the Arts London, if the ghosts of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin still linger on in the work of young creatives. ‘I think everyone is over the shock factor of their work and the celebrity that surrounded them. Students and recent graduates tend to look more at the quality of output than at the character of the person who created it.’

Justin Hammond insists that the legacy of the YBAs can’t be denied.

Especially not with the Hirst show at Tate Modern. ‘The retrospective is testament to the incredible impact those artists had and continue to have.

Whether you’re a fan or not, that kind of legacy can’t be denied – the artists I work with are constantly asked if they’re the new Tracey or Damien.’

Austere times sort the wheat from the chaff, which means that artists, galleries and dealers that have survived the recession genuinely have something to offer. Inflated prices in east London – where, until very recently, Vyner Street alone was heaving with galleries – are prompting relocations to more affordable areas.

The city started changing ‘with the rise of the YBAs and the opening of Tate Modern in 2000’

TJ Boulting has recently lef the East End for Fitzrovia. ‘Our move was financially motivated,’ explains director Hannah Watson. ‘The area became super-gentrified afer the opening of Shoreditch House and Boundary, Terence Conran’s hotel. It’s now like Notting Hill. We love Fitzrovia because it’s always been slightly underground and bohemian.’

There appears to be something of a grassroots movement in London right now. While Hirst’s £50m diamond skull still glitters at Tate Modern, the new generation of artists and gallery owners are turning their back on the shock tactics used by so many of the YBAs. TJ Boulting is a young gallery that is growing with the artists it represents, establishing relationships with artists as soon as they graduate. Watson talks with pride about Jennifer Taylor, and Stephanie Quayle, who makes wild animals out of clay and whose life-size bull elephant resulted in a commission from Comme des Garçons to build elephants for the label’s HQs in Tokyo and Beijing. Boo Saville – younger sister of YBA Jenny Saville – is, Watson says, amazing. Her work is macabre and disturbing yet compelling.

Watson remembers going to the Sensation exhibition as a teenager. She says that having a new-school show in an old-school institution really opened the door for the YBA generation. But the new school is, by now, of course, the old school, and, in her view, there’s no new school, no YBAs 2.0. ‘Everyone’s work is much more diverse these days. Artists are carving their own niches.’

And that only adds to the excitement.

Robin Cembalest says ARTnews has a London story in every issue. ‘Its galleries are extremely vibrant. It was exciting when Hirst and Emin were emerging, but, in some ways, it’s even more exciting now because it’s a more global city – people from Asia and Africa want to create art in London. It’s one of the most happening art cities in the world.’

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Moshe Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

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acRoss the woRLd, aRchitectuRe of the imagination is becoming ReaLity. Jonathan Bell says weLcome to the woRLd of tomoRRow

Which world cities represent the very essence of our age? Where should one go for an instant hit of pure architectural adrenaline? Architecture has always been about spectacle and power and grand designs that establish and maintain a hierarchy of order. But since the arrival of the modernist era, the creation of spectacle has shifed from the rigid grandiosity of the classical orders to the epic, emotional sweep of the various new styles, from the vertical drama of the skyscraper to the thrilling juxtapositions wrought by the contemporary museum.

As a result, our reaction to architecture and to the city itself has changed. Awe is no longer conveyed by grand avenues, formal town planning and monumental facades. Instead, architecture has evolved into a form of drama, an entertainment that we expect not just to function, but also to symbolise our hopes and aspirations of the future. In the modern era, romanticism is represented by a new breed of expressive architecture that takes its source from flowing organic lines or fractured geometries, using the power of the computer to translate this dynamism into three-dimensional space.

There are plenty of visionary new worlds to explore from the comfort of your computer screen, as designers exploit the power of CGI to speculate on wildly elaborate new forms that can be slotted into and above the real world. These grand plans are all very well, but an unexpected side-effect of their abundance has been to dampen our expectations of what can and can’t be achieved; real life can’t always live up to the render.

But as centres of money and power shif uneasily around the globe, some architects and developers are finally getting the chance to translate these forms from pixels into buildings, giving rise to some of the 21st century’s most dramatic urban sights in the process.

Our sense of what is contemporary has certainly advanced far in the two decades. The modern apartment building has evolved from a featureless slab into a synthesis of the richly elaborate facades of the Victorian and Edwardian eras with the very best of contemporary design and material. Designers such as Rogers Stirk Harbour, the architects behind One Hyde Park and NEO Bankside, and Bjarke Ingels of BIG, have become especially adept at creating contemporary urban residences that bring futurist thinking with modern convenience and respect for the urban context – a tricky balancing act. Both Ingels and Rogers have written extensively on the state of cities, society and architecture, with remarkably similar approaches from different generational viewpoints – Ingels is 37, Rogers 78.

So, which contemporary cities give the visitor that heady rush of the unknown,

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BELOW Daniel Libeskind’s Reflections at Keppel Bay, Singapore. BOttOm MAD Architects’ Fake Hills development in Beihai, China

a sense of the uncanny, the unexpected and the visually eclectic? Can one still expect to be catapulted into tomorrow by architecture alone? Heady futurism was once the preserve of the International Expo, where countries and cities vied for prestige through the demonstration of industrial and technical might. Ever since the Eiffel Tower took its place on the Parisian skyline in 1889, there has been a place for iconic one-offs, ruptures in the established order that help to advance our sense of what it means to live in the modern world. International Expositions continue to act as cultural waypoints, all the way up to the dizzying aggregation of spiky, spindly pavilions that made up 2010’s Shanghai Expo, yet, for the most part, they are momentary diversions, leaving little infrastructure behind – just sites scrubbed clean for redevelopment.

The spirit of experimentation still defines a truly modern skyline. In Singapore, recent projects by Moshe Safdie and Daniel Libeskind have given the city-state a major boost in the never-ending contest to be the most futuristic city in Asia.

Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands – a huge hotel complex consisting of a trio of wedgy towers topped by a skateboard-like

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slab of suspended city in the shape of a one-hectare SkyPark complete with restaurants, pools and vegetation – set the bar for contemporary futurism.

Sitting 55 storeys above the bay, around a cluster of convention and performance spaces, it is instantly appealing to the urban futurist. Recently joined by the Esplanade Theatres, as well as Wilkinson Eyre’s Gardens by the Bay, a sort of Eden Project in reverse, the effect has been to transform the city’s waterfront into the kind of glittering cavalcade once owned by Hong Kong or Shanghai.

A few kilometres to the west, the city’s newest landmark development has recently opened, the Reflections at Keppel Bay apartment complex. Designed by Daniel Libeskind, the architect behind the masterplan of the former World Trade Center site in New York, this cluster of six silvery spiked towers leans and twists as they arc skyward. Libeskind is regularly lumped in with the bleeding edge of the modern architectural avant-garde, a designer whose output was largely abstract and theoretical for the first part of his career, until advances in computer-aided design and a new civic willingness to embrace complex,

Recent projects have given Singapore a boost in the never-ending contest to be the most futuristic Asian city

fractured, angular forms saw his paper architecture translated into physical form.

China doesn’t lag far behind in its rabid commitment to spectacular cityscapes.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the country will complete a 500f-tall building ‘every five days for the next three years’, and a recent viral video showed a fully fitted-out 30-storey pre-fabricated skyscraper being erected in just 15 days.

Most of this frenzied construction is decidedly sub-par, thrown up to fit the demands of rapid urbanisation. But buried in among the system-built mediocrity, there have been some remarkable gems

by Chinese as well as Western architects.

Works such as Herzog & de Meuron’s Beijing Stadium (the ‘Bird’s Nest’), Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House and Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid office complex were among the first large-scale manifestations of a new kind of modern architecture that, in the past, had mainly been confined to cultural projects in the West. With their striking forms and resolute rejection of traditional symmetry and pattern, these new buildings were very well suited to the expansive, dynamic mood that characterised the emerging economic zones in the East and Middle East.

China’s home-grown architectural talent has seen a similar explosion in opportunity and approach. MAD Architects’ Fake Hills – a residential project that occupies a vast seafront site in the southern coastal city of Beihai – is a case in point. Described by the architects as a ‘groundscraper’, the undulating building runs for over three quarters of a kilometre, its massing broken up by a skyline that rises and falls like the profile of a roller coaster.

Named with typical Chinese directness, it forms an artificial landscape, with the thin, rolling topology of the building’s

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left The Elbphilarmonie, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, in Hamburg’s rejuvenated docklands below left The 2,150-seater Grand Hall of the Philharmonic is acoustically isolated from the rest of the former warehouse

The Philarmonic is spearheading the redevelopment of Hamburg’s docklands in the same way that cultural monoliths such as Bilbao’s Guggenheim did before 68

ridgeline playing host to swimming pools, tennis courts and gardens.

Two colossal new buildings on either side of the globe epitomise the grand scale and scope of the contemporary cultural megastructure. In Taiwan, Toyo Ito’s Taichung Metropolitan Opera has been on the boards since 2006. Ground was broken in late 2010 and now the complex concrete shell is starting to take shape, on course for an opening in 2013.

Like all big concert venues, the TMO is a warren of halls and corridors. Ito, one of Japan’s most distinguished architects, has divided his rectangular block into a series of three-dimensional, interlocking voids, housing the concert halls themselves and a myriad support spaces. The building is a living diagram, an intricate puzzle united by curved steel mesh sprayed with concrete that forms the external structure, floor plates and internal walls. When finished, the TMO will be fully integrated into the surrounding landscape, with the parkland designed to ‘bleed’ into the depths of the sponge-like structure.

A similarly bold undertaking is on-site in Hamburg, Germany. Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilharmonie is currently rising above the waters of the Elbe like some ghostly, drifing ocean liner.

Another example of slipped schedules and rising budgets, the new building sits atop a hefy brick base, the Kaispeicher A warehouse – once a landmark in the city’s now-dormant docklands. The Philharmonic is spearheading the regeneration of the area (rebranded as ‘Hafencity’), in just the same way that titanic cultural monoliths such as the Bilbao Guggenheim did before it. Architecturally, however, the Philharmonic is on a different plane – a crown of glass atop the brick plinth that juts out over the water.

The building will contain two concert halls, hotels, restaurants, apartments and a public plaza at the level of the ‘join’ between old and new. The scope of the work has been vast. The structural gymnastics required to acoustically isolate a 2,150-seater Grand Hall within a steel and concrete superstructure atop a rebuilt warehouse on an island promontory have been exceptional. There’s little doubt that when it eventually opens – several years and a significant chunk of euros over budget – the Elbphilharmonie will take its place as one of the most significant and visited modern buildings in Europe, an unparalleled futurist vision.

Finally, no survey of the world’s most fluid and dynamic cityscapes would be complete without a look at New York –

a city driven by constant transformation.

With the $4bn One World Trade Center tower due to open in Spring 2013, it has been joined by a citywide building spree, with new hotels and condos by Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Bernard Tschumi, Norman Foster, and Frank Gehry all bringing fresh interpretations of the classic skyscraper to the city. The drive has been dented by the recession, but conventional property-market churn has been joined by other design-led initiatives to keep Manhattan on the cutting edge.

In 2009, the city saw the opening of the High Line, an urban park up on the abandoned path of the New York Central Railroad. Expensive, elaborate and perhaps unnecessarily complex, the High Line was still a trailblazing example of how green space can be inserted into the city without compromising real-estate value.

All along this new pedestrian route, designed by NYC firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro and planted by Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf, fresh development has sprung up, with developers and hoteliers scrambling to give their guests and tenants a view.

Architects will never cease drawing up major schemes – just as long as there’s finance and ambition. Impossible utopias will still be invented, of course, as they offer up a place for unbridled thought and aesthetic optimism. The next decade may – or may not – see the completion of a host of major infrastructural works, all of which are anchored by futuristic architecture and the goal of driving the economy up and emissions down.

Right now, many of these look ambitious or even far-fetched – the proposal for a new airport and transport hub in the Thames Estuary, Abu Dhabi’s vast Saadiyat Island cultural complex, the redevelopment of St Petersburg’s New Holland Island, the colossal West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong – but all have that sheen of optimism about the importance of renewal.

Futurism is all around us, all the time, regardless of the dips and twists of the global economy. But to transcend the path of least resistance to most commercial return, those charged with designing and building the skylines of tomorrow have to be as bold and energised as the places in which they work. Futurism’s mis-steps might make for comic relief – personal jetpacks never did take off – but building design does more than any other creative field to shape the way we feel about where we live. Part of the power of the modern city are these ever-shifing vistas, and the realisation that change, growth and revitalisation are essential components of urban life.

Jonathan Bell is the architecture editor of Wallpaper*

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LoNDOn AT LArGE ELEgantLy appointEd, SafE, SEcuRE, cuLtuREd, financiaLLy pRiapic – hERE'S why London iS thE woRLd’S uLtiMatE city, in thiS MoSt SpEciaL of yEaRS WORDS Simon Mills / ILLUSTRATION Brett Ryder

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Seeing the Household Cavalry in their red coats and bearskins never fails to enchant even the most hardened Londoner 72

I t ’ s a b I t o f a w r e n c h , but if we can, allow us to tempt you away from the climatically controlled bliss of your One Hyde Park apartment, with its comfort-cooling facility, interstitial blinds, privacy fins and chilled ceilings, and come with us on a portfolio tour: round the immaculately civilised, safe, elegantly appointed, superbly catered, financially priapic and reliably investable, world capital of London. Let us show you why London – in this special year, celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and hosting the Olympics – is not just a great city, but the world’s ultimate city in which to live, work and play.

Of course, you are only too aware that One Hyde Park is in one of the most desirable locations in town.

But hop in the limo and tell your driver to point the Spirit of Ecstasy towards Buckingham Palace, which will be the focus for a lavish four-day celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June, and catch the Household Cavalry in their red coats and bearskins riding down the Mall to the ritual of the Changing of the Guard – a sight that never fails to enchant even the hardened Londoner. And you remind yourself that royal heritage contributes much towards London’s vibrancy. In fact, London’s history, manifested in its architecture and customs, and all the very diverse cultural events that happen year round – from ballet, opera and theatre to music and world-class art shows – are most compelling reasons for making the city your home town.

Now head into the thick of the action: the bars, restaurants, clubs, stores and galleries of Mayfair.

Before you step out for a flute or two at Scott’s, pull over and have a stroll down Mount Street, now widely regarded as one of the capital’s smartest shopping and quaffing arteries, with tenants that include Marc Jacobs, Loewe and Christian Louboutin. And probably one of the wealthiest, too. ‘Mount Street is not a passing-trade destination,’ Helen Franks, head of retail and commercial lettings at the Grosvenor property company told the Evening Standard last year. ‘We want people who will come here in their chauffeur-driven convertibles and buy 10 pairs of Louboutin shoes.’

Which is probably why Grosvenor has spent over £10 million smartening up the street.

Everywhere you look there is energy and an exciting new project about to burst on the London scene. There’s a large site on Balderton Street, Mayfair, where the apparently unstoppable duo of Chris Corbin and Jeremy King (of The Wolseley fame) are at work on The Beaumont, a modern, art deco-style hotel, due to open in 2014, which will feature an ambitious collaboration with sculptor Antony Gormley – an ‘inhabitable sculpture’ based on the artist’s work ‘Crouching Man’.

This is by no means the Rex Restaurant Associates' only live project. Adding to an already refulgent portfolio that includes The Wolseley, The Delaunay and a new conversion of the old Oriel brasserie on Sloane Square, Corbin and King are about to open Brasserie Zédel, ‘a quintessential Parisian brasserie with broad appeal’ on the old Atlantic Bar & Grill site near Piccadilly Circus. ‘You will enter through the ground-floor Zinc Bar Tabac before descending to the brasserie itself,’ explains Jeremy King. ‘Then the Bar Américain and a cabaret space – which, by dint of its cockerel-adorned signature clock, will be known as “The Crazy Coqs.”’

Now we are driving through another of London’s prime property landscapes, in many ways as idyllic and sought-afer an address as Knightsbridge for both

residential and office use. Around a fifh of the estimated $2,000 billion of capital managed by the world’s 10,000 or so hedge funds is handled by outfits based in London and most of those are here in Mayfair. Why? According to Donald MacKenzie, a professor of sociology at Edinburgh University and author of An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets: ‘An address in Mayfair counts in the world of hedge funds. It shows you’re serious, and have the money and confidence to pay the world’s most expensive commercial rents.’

That said, if you want to be able to walk to work, you may have to wait patiently for the perfect townhouse or duplex to come on the market. Like Fabergé eggs and vicuña overcoats, Mayfair property is notable and deliciously desirable by its scarcity and in the past only 150 or so pads have been put up for sale every year in the gilded district – it’s what the agents artfully refer to as ‘historic under-supply’.

These petty inconveniences don’t seem to deter foreign buyers, who purchase around 66 per cent of Mayfair properties a year (compared with just 25 per cent as recently as 2009) generating £1.4 billion (net) inflow of equity in 2011. Savills estate agents attribute an 18.6 per cent rise in upscale London property prices to international buyers sinking money into UK real estate as a tax-efficient safe haven while other investments looked increasingly unpredictable. And all this, remember, during one of the worst financial crises in living memory.

Imagine how London will fly when the slump is finally over.

Knight Frank acknowledges a general upward trend also. Ironically, economic and even political turmoil have provided the impetus for growth. The way the London market rallied – afer just six months – post the financial Armageddon of 2008 has had a lasting and lucrative impression on buyers. Prices are forecast to rise five per cent in 2012, driven in large part by international demand and relatively constrained supply. In short, purchasing a pad such as One Hyde Park in the plushest bits of the capital remains a cast-iron investment.

Some areas perform beyond all logic and expectation. Buying property on and around Bond Street, for instance, has proved to be as secure and savvy an investment as gold itself during the past 20 years. Incredibly, despite the value of retail units on London’s premier shopping parade now rating a capital value of over £27,000 per square foot, making

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a 428 per cent increase since 1991 (gold has been on a similarly vertiginous 455 per cent rise), there seems to be no shortage of interest when prime spots come up for sale. Last year, Daniel Kattan, son of Gullivers Travel Associates magnate Uzi Kattan, bought 106 New Bond Street for £28.5 million, beating off 21 other prospective cash buyers. Central London is a finite resource that seems to be constantly in the global spotlight.

London’s thriving art scene has had a huge influence on this area, with the bespoke tailors of Savile Row now finding that they have so-called ‘mega galleries’ such as the 15,000sq f Hauser & Wirth Gallery at number 23 as their neighbours. New York art dealer Pace is due to open a Mayfair gallery later this year, while major players such as Gagosian and Sadie Coles already have exhibition venues here.

David Rosen, of creative property consultancy Pilcher Hershman believes that the arrival of the mega galleries has been significant. ‘The Mayfair art scene is what has really fired the regeneration of the area over the past few years. Everything else tends to feed off it – new restaurants, clubs, bars.’

Gerald Ronson, business tycoon, philanthropist and London resident, believes that his home town deserves its reputation as a world capital not just because of its culture, shopping, history and parks but also, increasingly, its unique approach to security.

‘The police don’t carry guns,’ Ronson told Candy magazine. ‘But London is a “safe” place, especially to invest money, as it has a stable political environment, a stable currency and a highly developed legal infrastructure and is tax efficient for foreign investors.

Financially speaking, the market is relatively transparent and liquid, so barriers to entry or exit are low.’

Ronson believes the manner in which residential property is developed only adds to a pervading sense of calm and safekeeping. ‘Property that is secure, with a high level of service offer, is particularly in demand from foreign purchasers.’

Typically, London likes to conduct its upscale security in a stealthy, sensitive manner. For instance, outside the retail units at One Hyde Park, there are surfacemounted, self-watering planters that double as highly reinforced BSI PAS 68 anti-ram-raid barriers capable of stopping a 2.5-ton truck travelling at a speed of 40mph, creating an effective but unobtrusive ring of steel around the building.

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It’s this sort of detail that has helped Knight Frank sell prime, central London properties to a rather staggering 65 different nationalities within the last 12 months.

Almost exclusively, they’re looking for newly refurbished properties. ‘It’s quite difficult to sell things that are tired and second-hand, and there are very few serious investors that have the desire to take on properties in need of major attention,’ says Knight Frank’s Rupert des Forges, the agent in charge of sales at One Hyde Park. ‘Overseas buyers in particular are looking for instant gratification, an immediate solution, a place they can move straight into.’

Such a varied influx of high-net-worth exotica has furnished London with a multicultural atmosphere that is unrivalled anywhere in the world.

Yes, London may still have marginally fewer Michelinstarred restaurants than, say, Paris, New York or Tokyo but it still has a staggering 36 Michelin stars in the Westminster borough alone and offers, by far, the widest variety of gourmet food than any other city: British, French, Italian, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese cuisine is served to Michelin-star standards. The quality of Asian food is particularly exemplary for a town that was considered something of an overcooked gastronomic joke only a few years ago.

Now we are back in the car, heading east towards the City and beyond. This is where low-rise London begins to get high. Norman Foster’s ‘Gherkin’ building at 30 St Mary Axe in the City of London, started off the multi-storey revolution in 2004. Now it’s joined

by Renzo Piano’s Shard in London Bridge, the 540f Broadgate Tower near Liverpool Street Station, Rem Koolhaas’s design for the Rothschild HQ, not to mention the ‘Cheese Grater,’ the ‘Walkie Talkie’ and the recently announced conversion of Sea Containers House. The Morgans Hotel Group is to turn this last into a London outpost of the Mondrian Hotel, designed

by Tom Dixon, as Thames-side property is at last exploiting its covetable location and water views.

You have to drive much further east to get to what is arguably modern London’s greatest-ever achievement; the £5.3 billion Olympic Park at Stratford and Lea Valley: a vast, dazzlingly futuristic project that includes an Olympic village, a beautiful wooden velodrome and a Zaha Hadid-designed aquatics centre that has, effectively, created a brand new, state-of-the-art community in this once run-down part of London.

The village includes more than 2,800 apartments, a superfast rail link to the West End and a huge branch of the Westfield shopping centre and is expected to bring in over £700 million during the Games. With such huge amounts of money at stake, investors have been understandably keen to ensure that it does not become a ghost-town folly afer the Games are over, and rather impressively, six out of the eight Olympic venues already has a secure future. The likes of West Ham and Spurs have been fighting over the athletics venue, while construction giant Balfour Beatty PLC will take over the running of the Olympic Park in a 10-year £50 million deal. The Government expects the ‘ArcelorMittal Orbit’ structure (aka ‘the Helter-Skelter’) designed by artist Anish Kapoor and taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty, to attract up to a million visitors a year.

It’s all part of the thrill-ride that is London’s never-dull property-market boom, that reflects how dynamic the city is right now, and the vigorous and enjoyable pursuits and benefits it offers. Hold tight. Here we go.

‘Property that is secure, with a high level of service offer, is particularly in demand from foreign purchasers’

towers of london T h e v i e w f r o m o n e h y d e Pa r k ’ s penthouse apartment owns the London skyline. With the illuminated dome of Harrods so near you feel you can touch it, the panorama widens out to include a glimpse of the turning wheel of the London Eye, its blue light shaping its contour on the South Bank of the Thames. Not far away, the construction of the radical Tate Modern extension is going apace, and should be finished later this year, to accommodate its 4.5 million annual visitors. For a city that has traditionally shunned high-rises in favour of historic views of buildings such as Wren’s magnificent St Paul’s Cathedral, some major projects are already re-profiling London’s silhouette.

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Over the next year or two, incredible new architectural wonders will be pointing heavenwards. These include the Renzo Piano-designed skyscraper The Shard at London Bridge, which stands at 1,017 feet tall and is clad entirely in glass, due for completion this year.

Two other prestigious builds should complete in 2014: 20 Fenchurch Street, nicknamed ‘The Walkie Talkie’ because of its bulbous top, and the Leadenhall Building, fondly referred to as ‘The Cheese Grater’, all 737f of it, designed by One Hyde Park’s architects, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. All these buildings contribute to a dramatic cityscape. London’s great topography is dynamically on the up and up.

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Candyscape II was the ďŹ rst boat launched by the builder Viareggio SuperYachts. At 62-metres this stunning showpiece of naval architecture was designed by the legendary Espen Oeino.

World-renowned designers Candy & Candy have exclusively designed all interior and deck spaces with their signature awless attention to detail, with absolutely no expense spared. The result - with a style spanning 1930s glamour to 21stcentury state-of-the-art, with dramatic contrasts of black and white, and contrasting textures of leather and steel against silk and cashmere - is a truly incredible yacht.

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Awards Received the accolade for Best Power Yacht over 60 metres at The International Yacht Awards 2011

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after another set of stellar results, the revival of burberry is showing no signs of a slow-down – and it seems angela ahrendts, the brand’s american ceo, has its trademark britishness sewn up Words peter howarth / Portrait mary mccartney

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from top The most recent fashion show for the autumn winter 2012/13 collection; Angela Ahrendts with Burberry chief creative officer Christopher Bailey

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I n t h e r e c e p t I o n a r e a of Burberry’s headquarters in London’s Horseferry Road – a huge, seven-floor temple to the brand, flooded with light through a building-high central atrium – an enormous screen plays footage of the autumn/winter 2012 women’s fashion show. A stream of doe-eyed girls walks holding umbrellas beneath a shower of ‘rain’ fashioned from a confetti of silver-foil discs.

They have that innocent Sixties look pioneered

by Jean Shrimpton and Marianne Faithfull – straight, long hair of indeterminate brunette-ness, clean, butter-wouldn’t-melt expressions that are all the more sexy for their understated knowingness. It’s a far cry from Dolce & Gabbana’s Sicilian bombshells, or Versace’s bleach-blonde sirens.

But then this is Burberry, fashion-brand-Britain central.

At its head, though, is an American, Angela Ahrendts, the publicity-shy CEO, who took over the helm in 2006, inheriting what she describes as a ‘solid platform’ from her predecessor, New Yorker Rose Marie Bravo. Bravo had already transformed Burberry from a fusty heritage retailer selling trench coats and cashmere sweaters to tourists to a fashion label promoted by Kate Moss in advertising campaigns shot by Mario Testino.

She had also recruited a talented young Yorkshireman, Christopher Bailey, to be its chief designer.

What, then, was Ahrendts’ vision on taking up her position? What did she feel there was to be done?

On a foggy March morning, on the top floor of her HQ, Angela Ahrendts sits beside a glass table wearing a chic combination of black trousers and cardigan, white shirt, four-inch heels and a large buckled belt.

She looks like a more grown-up version of the Burberry girls on the catwalk, but she doesn’t hail from Chelsea and Kensington, but from Indiana. That said, many of the modern Shrimptons and Faithfulls on the Burberry runway come from Eastern Europe and the States – it is surely part of Burberry’s considerable success that it has managed to market Britishness to the world; and Ahrendts seems to be as much a willing adopter of this style as her customers.

‘It’s funny,’ she says, ‘but when I knew I was coming here, I had lunch with Christopher in New York.

We’d worked together years ago at Donna Karan and so there was already a level of trust and understanding.

Over four hours, we thrashed around ideas about what we might do; and if you’re having those conversations, you can’t help but say that one of our greatest attributes as a brand is that we are British. Our big French peers aren’t. And neither are the Italians.’

If that lunch sounds like the fashion world’s equivalent of the Blair-Brown meeting at Islington’s Granita restaurant, where they hammered out the future of the Labour Party, then that’s because it was. Today, six years later, Burberry is the only British luxury fashion brand of any scale and Ahrendts puts this success down to the lef/right brain combination that she and Bailey established at that early encounter in New York. She knew she needed him and he knew he needed her. (One of her first moves was to promote Bailey to chief creative officer of the company, which means that everything the consumer sees – the clothes, the advertising, the stores, the website – has to go through him.) Ahrendts explains: ‘I’m about 50/50 lef/right brain, but I lean towards the lef, logical side.

Christopher is about 60/40 right-brain creative, and he leans that way. But it’s where we interconnect that things get interesting. If we have an idea we agree on, you’d better watch out – it’s going to happen.’

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Burberry has a real commitment to Britishness: all the models in its ad campaigns are British, as is the music it champions online and at its shows. The old factory up in Castleford still makes its iconic trench coats and its mill at Woodrow weaves the gabardine for these, while the brand’s cashmere is woven in Elgin, Scotland. And, in a significant move, the brand moved its fashion show from Milan back to London a few seasons ago. Another big idea Ahrendts and Bailey had was to build the business around one garment.

‘We are the only brand born from a coat. We still make our classic trench up in Yorkshire and, in that sense, our emphasis on the British heritage of our outerwear is no different from what our European peers do with the positioning of their handbags.’

So, she decided the trench coat would lead the charge for the new Burberry, connecting that heritage to the future ambitions of the company: ‘The trench has to be at the front and centre of everything we do.

At every fashion show, the first outfit is a trench, and it’s no coincidence that the model Rosie HuntingtonWhiteley is wearing a satin trench coat in our Body fragrance campaign or that our first social-media project was the Art of the Trench.’

She is referring here to Burberry’s decision to hire the online blogging phenomenon that is The Sartorialist, aka American photographer and writer Scott Schuman, to snap people in trench coats (although not necessarily Burberry ones) all over the world. But just as the trench itself has evolved – season by season it comes in different styles, lengths, fabrics, colours and with new buttons and accessories – this online street-photography project has

‘Burberry is the only brand born from a coat. We still make our classic trench in Yorkshire and it’s at the front and centre of everything we do’ grown; today, you will find portraits on there not only

by Schuman, but by a gaggle of Magnum photographers, and by customers themselves, encouraged to enter into Burberry’s virtual community.

This one piece of activity could stand as a case study of how Ahrendts and Bailey view communication.

It combines traditional fashion methods – product and photography – with a youthful, inclusive attitude, and delivers it through digital media. ‘Christopher said from the outset that he wanted to take the brand younger,’ says Ahrendts. ‘And if you’re going young, you have to go digital. I have teenage children and they don’t read a lot of magazines, but they do live on their devices.’

More than any other fashion brand, Burberry has embraced the digital age, pioneering live streaming of its fashion shows and investing heavily in social media and online content. Currently, it has 12 million Facebook fans.

Burberry now delivers the same experience over any platform – whether it’s a laptop, tablet, smartphone, or the giant in-store swipe-screens that let customers interact with the product. The Beijing store, now a year old, has the largest external LED screens in the world afer those at the Yankee Stadium. And for the launch of that flagship, the company staged a fashion show in which holograms walked alongside real models, occasionally exploding dramatically or morphing into another outfit.

And the innovation doesn’t end there. Ahrendts has overseen the creation of a charitable foundation,

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a programme of ownership that now sees all employees as shareholders within the company (when she joined, fewer than 10 per cent owned a slice) and nice touches like a cycle park in Horseferry Road’s basement and free lunch for all staff in a canteen that could rival, in looks at least, many modernist eateries in the West End. The net result is that Burberry is in rude health and ready for the next step. In the past five years, this striking 51-year-old American has taken the company from a turnover of £850m in 2006/07 to almost double that – £1.5bn – in 2010/11. Profits for the same period went from £156m to £296m – again an increase of nearly twofold. Since Ahrendts joined, the share price has risen by 261 per cent (from 430p to 1554p), while the FTSE showed an increase of only two per cent over the same period.

If 2011 saw record profits and revenues for the brand, the first half of 2011/12 has seen the trend continue with year-on-year revenue for the period up 29 per cent to £830m. Significantly, in that time frame, the company has seen double-digit growth in revenue for retail and wholesale, and in every region and every product category. There are now 500 Burberry stores globally, with a new one – the biggest in the world – slated to open this summer in Regent Street at 30,000sq f, and nine more flagships under development globally.

The interesting thing is that, unlike many luxury brands, the ethos here is not one of snobbery and exclusivity.

Instead, Ahrendts talks of a philosophy of democratic luxury. That’s why she’s as excited about the £60 Burberry Body fragrance as she is about the new design-your-owntrench-coat ‘Burberry Bespoke’ digital offer, which allows you to create your own garment to include 12 million different options, including crocodile epaulettes, a mink lining and studs under the collar.

‘Back at that first lunch in New York, it happened to be Burberry’s 150th-anniversary year and Christopher was celebrating it by shooting all sorts of British characters like Bryan Ferry and Stella Tennant in the clothes. He told me what he loves about Burberry is that it’s a brand that seems to have an almost aristocratic foundation but also appeals to young kids on the street. He said he didn’t want one without the other – he wanted to keep both.

He said Burberry should deliver “dishevelled elegance”.

For me, that’s the key. And it’s a very British idea.’

above From Burberry’s autumn/winter 2012/13 collection

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PIaNOS A FORTe FoR the pianist who wants an absolutely unique instRument, MARKSON PIANOS is the expeRt to call in

mes E R Ja WRIT

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The Rolling Stones need a piano in Amsterdam tomorrow.

A famously exacting pianist needs his new instrument veneered with a unique finish. An enthusiastic amateur needs a baby grand lifed into a fifh-floor apartment by crane. They all turn to one place: Markson Pianos.

A large glass-fronted showroom just off Regent’s Park in north London is crowded with pianos, arranged in intricate patterns to enable access to each keyboard while wasting as little floor space as possible. From this showroom and the workshop next door, cousins Simon and Julian Markson and a group of supremely skilled crafsmen provide everything piano-related short of actual manufacture. Simon reels off the list: ‘Restoration, hire, sales, tuning, transportation, storage, teaching, and we provide practice studios and curate a concert series.’

It began in 1910, in Woolwich, south-east London, with the cousins’ grandfather restoring pianos and their grandmother cleaning them up. A century on, it is the leading concert and event-hire company in the capital, if not the UK. ‘We have a fleet of about 35 Yamaha pianos, mostly grands, for hire,’ says Simon, ‘and about 1,000 bookings a year.’ That includes supplying the piano for the BBC’s Later… With Jools Holland, for the Royal Albert Hall and the Glastonbury Festival; and it might involve shipping a piano to Australia for James Blunt.

Customers who've bought pianos from Markson include prime ministers, pop stars, grand hotels and

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a number of properties decorated by Candy & Candy, including One Hyde Park, for which Markson supplied the self-playing grand piano in reception.

Simon insists that the very best is worth paying for: ‘There’s still a relentless quest to make the best piano in the world. The difference between playing a mid-range piano and a handcrafed piano is huge. It’s a wonderful thing – it has a dreamlike quality.’

The pinnacle remains the revered Bösendorfer. This Austrian company is now owned by Yamaha, but still makes its pianos in the same way it has since the mid-19th century, and to just the same degree of perfection.

The difference is that it now has the resources for R&D, which means further advances can be made – for instance, in the area of recording. Bösendorfer’s CEUS system allows recording and replaying with noticeably greater accuracy and fidelity than ever before.

The other area of change is in design. In recent years, leading design companies such as Porsche have entered

‘Anything can be done, whether it’s Renaissance or baroque design, a beautiful veneer or a coat of arms. It’s no problem for the sound of the instrument’

the piano market, offering a new approach. Markson can go further, offering a near-limitless palette. ‘We’re known for offering a wide variety of pianos in different finishes, and for customising and bespoke,’ says Simon.

Candy & Candy ofen works with Markson to create one-off commissions to complement its interior designs.

It’s a side to the business Simon particularly relishes: ‘There was a beautiful flat in central London that I viewed when it was virtually a building site. I discussed the dimensions with the designer, how it was to have an Art Deco look to it, and he sketched the piano stool there and then. We took that initial design and came up with illustrations of what pianos might have looked like during that era and a final design was agreed.’

From there, Markson will oversee the purchase of the piano and the building of its case by specialised crafsmen, ofen in Eastern Europe, but the piano will then be returned to Markson for fine regulation.

‘Anything can be done, whether it’s Renaissance or baroque, a beautiful veneer or a coat of arms. It’s no problem for the sound of the instrument.’

This is the same quietly gung-ho attitude that Markson seems to apply to everything it does: all is considered, nothing is dismissed out of hand. Tradition is a backbone of this business, but not at the expense of an open mind.

It’s the confidence, you imagine, that comes with 100 years of dedication.

Be treated like Royalty every day at the ďŹ rst and only European Residences at Mandarin Oriental

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r e s ta u r a n t s Novikov Part Asian food palace, part paean to Italian cuisine, offering exquisite dishes to suit all palates 50a Berkeley Street; +44 20 7399 4330 (novikovrestaurant.co.uk) La Petite Maison The cognoscenti’s favourite, nestled behind New Bond Street, serves up decadent Italo-French food 53–54 Brook’s Mews; +44 20 7495 4774 (lpmlondon.co.uk) Mari Vanna A new outpost of Russia’s most famous restaurant, serving authentic classics from St Petersburg 116 Knightsbridge; +44 20 7225 3122 (marivanna.co.uk) Dinner by Heston Blumenthal Bray’s three-Michelin-starred chef comes to SW1 with his clever twist on historic British gastronomy 66 Knightsbridge; +44 20 7201 3833 (dinnerbyheston.com)

thE aDDReSS book b r e a k fa s t s The Wolseley This former bank turned Viennese brasserie is a grand backdrop for early-morning power meetings 160 Piccadilly; +44 20 7499 6996 (thewolseley.com) Dean Street Townhouse Comfort food, strong coffee and luxurious banquettes set the standard at this Soho address 69 - 71 Dean Street; +44 20 7434 1775 (deanstreettownhouse.com)

views One Hyde Park ‘Experience the Exceptional’ does not merely refer to the inside of One Hyde Park’s exquisite residential penthouses; it also alludes to the exclusive, breathtaking views they provide across the 350 acres of London’s most famous Royal Park One Hyde Park; +44 20 7590 2340 (onehydepark.com)

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auction houses Christie's The SW7 branch of Christie’s is the busiest saleroom in the UK, with over 100 annual sales 85 Old Brompton Road; +44 20 7930 6074 (christies.com) Sotheby’s London’s foremost auctioneer since 1744, overseeing a number of record-breaking sales 34–35 New Bond Street; +44 20 7293 5000 (sothebys.com)

bars & clubs Sake Bar at Zuma Never mind the 40 varieties of sake, try the famous Rubabu – a rhubarb-infused sake and vodka cocktail 5 Raphael Street; +44 20 7584 1010 (zumarestaurant.com) The Connaught Bar David Collins’ Cubism-inspired bar is the perfect venue for enjoying martinis the way they should be Carlos Place; +44 20 7314 3419 (the-connaught.co.uk) George Club The cavernous downstairs bar at this central members’ club is feted for its attentive service 87–88 Mount Street; +44 20 7491 4433 (georgeclub.com) Annabel’s A club in every sense, this famous private members’ establishment is the place to party 44 Berkeley Square; +44 20 7629 1096 (annabels.co.uk)

foR London’s most excLusive destinations, Look no fuRtheR than candy & candy’s LittLe bLack book

s pa s Hushh...spa & beauty For the ultimate in deep-tissue massage, facials and manicures from La Prairie and Rodial 44 Pimlico Road; +44 20 7730 9977 (hushhspas.com) The Spa at Mandarin Oriental Bespoke face and body treatments come as standard in this haven of urban tranquillity 66 Knightsbridge; +44 20 7838 9888 (mandarinoriental.com/london/spa)

shops Harvey Nichols For edgy, fashion-forward labels just a stone’s throw from One Hyde Park 109–125 Knightsbridge; +44 20 7235 5000 (harveynichols.com) Harrods A seemingly never-ending Rolodex of exclusive fashion and beauty brands under one roof 87–135 Brompton Road; +44 20 7730 1234 (harrods.com)

galleries Halcyon Gallery One of the go-to galleries for collectors seeking works ranging from Impressionism to Pop 144-146 New Bond Street; +44 20 7100 7144 (halcyongallery.com) Serpentine Gallery Among London’s best-loved exhibition spaces for modern and contemporary art Kensington Gardens; +44 20 7402 6075 (serpentinegallery.org)

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Home is wHeRe tHe HeaRt is …aND every hearT beaTs a LiTTLe fasTer ON eNTeriNg ONe hyDe Park: The resiDeNCes aT maNDariN OrieNTaL, LONDON PhotograPhy robert Wyatt FaShIoN EDItor mary fellowes

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WA R M G L OW Jumpsuit, Derek Lam aT NeT-a-POrTer. Santos Demoiselle wristwatch in yellow gold, CarTier

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w e at h e r g i r l Beige trench-style cape, Junya Watanabe at net-a-poRteR. Beige pinafore dress, caRven at net-a-poRteR. Black shoes, GIna. Black ‘Birkin’ bag with gold details, heRmÈs. Black gloves, seRmoneta

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step up Dress, Roksanda IlIncIc at matches. Shoes, GIna. ‘Concept 1’ limited edition titanium wristwatch with crocodile bracelet, avakIan

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true bluE Dress, oSman youSefzada. Bra, aGent PRovocateuR. Shoes (in background), Gina.

White gold, blue topaz and diamond bracelet, avakian

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House st ylE She wears: Dress, RaouL at haRvey nichoLS. Shoes, Gina. Clutch bag, coccineLLe. Santos Demoiselle wristwatch in yellow gold, caRtieR He wears: Tuxedo suit, BiLLionaiRe coutuRe. Shirt, Gucci

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red alert She wears: Dress, ANTONIO BERARDI AT HARRODs. ‘Victory Collection’ white gold, diamond and pink tourmaline bracelets, both AvAkIAN He wears: Shirt, trousers and belt, all GuccI

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c o s m o p o l i ta n c h i c Cream dropped-waist dress, VicToria BEckHam aT HarroDS. Black ‘Birkin’ bag with gold details, HErmÈS. Black shoes, Gina

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m e l l ow f e e l i n g Dress with integrated belt, Gucci. Shoes, Gina.

Bag, raoul aT HarVEY nicHolS

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H au t E l i v i n g She wears: Dress, RaLph & Russo aT haRRoDs. Leather and chrome chain handbag, ChaneL. White gold, blue topaz and diamond bracelet, avakian He wears: Suit and shirt, both GioRGio aRMani Hair Nicholas James at Premier Hair & Make-up using Shu Uemura Art of Hair.

Make-up Karina Constantine.

Models Abi Fox and Valentin Appaix.

Photographer’s assistants Tom Sloan and Tom Weatherill.

Stylist’s assistant Chloe Brunton-Dunn.

The shoot took place at One Hyde Park: The Residences at Mandarin Oriental, London SToCKiSTS DeTAilS oN PAge 105

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WeLdon

 v i A r e g g i o s U P e r yAc H T s

Weldon's fine parquetry, marquetry, antique and boarded floors are a defining feature of elegant private residences, historic public buildings and Royal Palaces across the British Isles, Europe and the Middle East. A Weldon floor reflects both the quality of the finest natural materials, sourced from carefully selected woodlands, and the precision and care of the hands that prepare and lay each piece. In contrast, leading-edge design and quality-control technology ensure that even the most complex, bespoke designs are accurately and consistently realised. Weldon was awarded a Royal Warrant almost a decade afer the company’s first commission by the Royal Palaces, as part of the Windsor Castle restoration team, and a second warrant has since been awarded. weldon.co.uk

Avant-garde technology, meticulous attention to detail and timeless design set Viareggio Superyachts (VSY) apart as elite, custom-built yacht manufacturers. Its new concept of ‘deeper luxury’ combines innovative design with its Eco Green initiative to minimise damage to the marine eco-system. Since 2004, VSY has redefined superyacht standards through continuous research and evolution, providing the best in design, technique and functionality to satisfy the most discerning owners.

Candyscape II, VSY’s first 62m yacht, won first prize in her category both at the 2010 World Superyacht Awards and the 2011 International Yacht & Aviation Awards. More recent projects include Stella Maris (72m) and Duchess Of Tuscany II (64m). vsy.it

 B U r g e s s yAc H T s

 grAff diAMonds

Founded in 1975, Burgess is the global superyacht industry leader, uniquely specialising in yachts of over 40 metres.

Renowned for its professional yachting services, the company guides clients through every aspect of yachting, including sale and purchase, new construction, charter and operational yacht management. Burgess has been involved in the sale of many of the most significant yachts afloat, while its new construction division is currently project managing the build and development of a diverse range of superyachts. Burgess’s first-class charter service offers a portfolio of the finest yachts in the world’s best cruising destinations. The company’s qualified yacht managers have extensive seagoing experience and can take care of every aspect of managing a large yacht. burgessyachts.com

The name Graff Diamonds is synonymous with the most exquisite jewels in the world. The brand symbolises rarity, beauty, and, above all, the ultimate quality and crafsmanship in design. Each jewel is unique, from the perfectly cut diamond to the hand-finished masterpiece.

Recently launched is the magnificent Scroll motif design, featuring intricate swirls of white diamonds set with richly coloured emeralds, sapphires and rubies. Each piece begins as a hand-drawn design, painted in watercolour, before being set by hand in Graff’s London workshop by master crafsmen. Slowly the sculptural piece takes shape, and all the elements come together, creating a striking, one-of-a-kind necklace of the finest quality in the world. graffdiamonds.com

Ú B U LT H A U P

Adler +44 20 7409 2237;

In 1949, not far from the lower foothills of the Alps in the Lower Bavarian town of Bodenkirchen, Martin Bulthaup bought a sawmill and founded a furniture factory. From these humble beginnings developed a brand that today ranks as a visionary and trendsetter in the architecture of expertly crafed living spaces. Bulthaup is synonymous with innovation, precision and flawless functionality, creating aesthetically outstanding products and expertly thought-out kitchen spaces that integrate with the architecture of their surroundings, marrying both form and function – and never compromising on either. bulthaup.com

adler.ch Agent Provocateur +44 20 7923 5214; agentprovocateur.com Antonio Berardi at Harrods +44 20 7730 1234; harrods.com Avakian +44 20 7235 1323; avakian.com Billionaire Couture +44 20 7245 0096; billionairecouture.com Boodles +44 20 7437 5050; boodles.com Cartier +44 20 3147 4850; cartier.com Carven at Net-a-Porter +44 20 3471 4510; net-a-porter.com Chanel +44 20 7493 5040; chanel.com Coccinelle +44 20 7730 7657; coccinelle.com Derek Lam at Net-a-Porter +44 20 3471 4510; net-a-porter.com Gina +44 20 7235 2932; gina.com Giorgio Armani +44 20 7235 6232; giorgioarmani.com Gucci +44 20 7629 2716; gucci.com Harry Winston +44 20 7907 8800; harrywinston.com Hermès +44 20 7499 8856;

Ú M A sT e r P i ec e Lo n d o n 2 01 2

hermes.com

On 27 June, Masterpiece London will open its doors for the third year running at the South Grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, London SW3. The fair will showcase the best in fine and decorative arts as well as premium collectors’ items such as classic cars, premium wines and exquisite jewellery from around the world. Items on show this year include a sculpture by Henry Moore (below) and rare first-edition novels by Charles Dickens. No ordinary antiques exhibition, this is a forum for aesthetic excellence in which every exhibit is of outstanding quality. From 28 June to 4 July 2012 (preview on 27 June). Tickets from £20. masterpiecefair.com

Junya Watanabe at Net-a-Porter +44 20 3471 4510; net-a-porter.com Osman Yousefzada +44 20 7724 9414; osmanyousefzada.com Ralph & Russo at Harrods +44 20 7730 1234; harrods.com Raoul at Harvey Nichols +44 20 7235 5000; harveynichols.com Roksanda Ilincic at Matches +44 20 7221 0255; matchesfashion.com Sermoneta +44 20 7491 9009; sermonetagloves.com Van Cleef & Arpels +44 20 7493 0400; vancleef-arpels.com Victoria Beckham at Harrods +44 20 7730 1234; harrods.com

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David Walliams has raised over £7m for Comic Relief by swimming marathon distances

in the swim Actor, funny mAn And All-round nAtionAl treAsure dAvid wAlliAms explAins his love of front crAwl

What is it that so excites you about swimming?

To me, it’s like flying. Also, it’s the only sport I am half good at as I’m a big lumbering oaf.

When did you first take it up, and why?

What were the most unexpected challenges you faced while swimming the Strait of Gibraltar, the Channel and, more recently, the Thames?

I threw up for most of the Gibraltar swim – that was probably seasickness. With the Thames, I became very ill too, but the other end. Physical exercise is the last thing you want to do when you’re feeling ill.

You should be lying in bed drinking Lucozade and watching Loose Women.

What’s your favourite stroke? Are you a breast or a back man?

Front crawl all the way. When you are swimming long distances, you want to travel as fast as you can. You don’t want to be in that freezing cold water a minute longer than you need to. But I do like women’s breasts, if that’s what you are getting at. Very much.

How has your trainer, Professor Greg Whyte, changed your swimming style in order to prepare you for your marathon swims?

He made me go ‘bi’. Breathe bilaterally, that is – not become bisexual. That means taking a breath on both sides as I swim to prevent neck pain.

Have your marathon swims changed your perspective on the world and those around you? If so, how?

The British public is incredibly generous. Over the past decade, I’ve raised more than £7m for Comic Relief,

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but all my efforts would mean nothing without their generosity – it would just be showing off. And I’ve done enough of that already.

Have you hung up your charity Speedos for good or can we expect to see ‘David Walliams’ Even Bigger Swim’ at the next Sport Relief? We hear the Nile hasn’t been conquered yet…

I tore a disc in my back swimming the Thames and I

‘The only sportsman I identify with is Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards. He was a hero for even trying to win a medal at the 1988 Winter Olympics’

dangerous event of all, and I see myself as a trier more than a winner. Not all of us can win, but we can all try.

It speaks of the British spirit, the underdog triumphing against all the odds.

In a typical week, how ofen do you swim, and where?

If I’m training, five times a week; if I’m not, maybe three.

At the moment, I’m a member of the Lansdowne Club in Mayfair. It has a really beautiful 25m pool that is ofen quite quiet, so please don’t tell anyone.

Could you imagine your passion for swimming tipping over into another sport?

I love skiing, but I don’t think anyone will ever sponsor me to go to St Moritz and have a week at a five-star hotel, unfortunately.

What do you think about when doing your big swims?

don’t really think my body can take another enormous challenge. A new one would have to be bigger than the last, and the last one was 140 miles of swimming in eight days. Also, I think people have seen me in my Speedos too many times already. My plan is to wait until I am 80 and do the Channel again. Then I might become Dame David Walliams.

Are there any sporting icons you’ve found particularly inspiring since you started your charity swimming career?

The only sportsman I identify with is Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards. He was a hero for even trying to win a medal at the 1988 Winter Olympics in what was the most

It’s best to think about the most pleasurable things in life. For me, it’s sex, laughter and food. In that order.

Sometimes combined.

Have you ever encountered a mermaid or a very unusual sea creature while swimming?

No mermaids, but in the Strait of Gibraltar, I did encounter three pilot whales. At first, I heard their song under the water and then, before I knew it, they’d swum less than a metre underneath me. One flick of their tails and I could have been dead, but it was still one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Even though I was throwing up at the time!

REX FEATURES

When you are overweight – and I was a fat child – it’s the best sport you can do. Being fat isn’t too much of a disadvantage in the water, because the water takes your weight. Still, I never came first as a child. In later life, I realised my gif was being able to stay in very cold water for long periods of time. Like a walrus.

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