Penha magazine 2013-14

Cristiano ronaldo

Why sportsmen are the new trendsetters BEYONCÉ THE WOMAN WITHIN THE STAR | APHRODISIACS FOODS TO BOOST YOUR SEX DRIVE FRAGRANCE HISTORY-MAKING SCENTS | FASHION THE CULT OF COUTURE

cartier.com

L’ E A U D E P A R F U M

www.dior.com

LaSensuality sensualitéunveiled mise à nu

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WELCOME

CONTENTS

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BEYONCÉ Prudish, trampy, Southern belle, New York bourgeois, feminist, gangster’s moll…

Beyoncé is all these things and much, much more. We unearth the real character behind one of the world’s most famous singers.

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SHOPPING

WHAT’S HOT

Our guide to all the stunning Penha shops across the Caribbean.

Treat yourself to the very latest in fragrances, cosmetics, apparel and eyewear.

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fashion

sport

fragrance

Why are some sportsmen such as Cristiano Ronaldo (left) also fashion models, while others aren’t? It’s not all about looks, is it?

Discover the most iconic fragrances of all time, as chosen by one of world’s leading olfactory experts.

PENHA

With its billionaire patrons, exclusive guest lists and heart-stopping price tags, haute couture fashion is a world away from the kind of clothing we mere mortals get to wear. We give you a secret insider’s view.

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WELCOME

CONTENTS

beauty The story of MAC Cosmetics which started off in a humble Toronto kitchen but is now one of the world’s most exciting make-up brands.

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art

drink

Recently decriminalised, street art is now ubiquitous in Brazil’s major cities with artists such as Zezao, Calma, Nunca, Tinho, Sesper and Carlos Dias brightening up whole neighbourhoods. Here we examine the burgeoning scene.

Ground-breaking, award-winning and eccentrically creative, Tony Conigliaro is stirring up a revolution in cocktail making.

We mix with this mixologist.

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music

aphrodisiac

World-famous classical pianist Lang Lang can earn as much as US$50,000 a recital.

But is his enormous popularity more due to his skill or to his glitzy playing style?

Can certain foods increase sex drive? Paul Henderson from GQ magazine finds out which aphrodisiacs work and which don’t.

LUXURY TREAT If you like a smoke then opt for the very best: the finest Cuban cigar.

PENHA

Property Tired of the rat race?

Bored of the big city?

Find out what it’s like to live on your own private island.

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WELCOME

WELCOME TO PENHA

W

elcome to the latest issue of Penha magazine. Inside you’ll find great articles on celebrities, fashion, perfume, beauty, sport, food, drink and art.

Brought to you by Penha, one of the leading beauty and fashion retailers in the Caribbean, it also includes news and features about all our latest lines of fragrances, cosmetics, apparel and eyewear: Chanel, Dior, MAC Cosmetics, Estée Lauder, Clinique, Lancôme, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Carolina Herrera, Clarins, Shiseido, Jean Paul Gaultier, Ralph Lauren… all are available – some exclusively – in our many exciting retail outlets dotted across the Caribbean. We hope you’re inspired to visit our stores – there are now 15 of them across four different islands – and find out why we pride ourselves on both exquisite products and world-class customer service.

It was all the way back in 1865 that the Penha family first started trading in Curaçao. In the early 1900s the family moved their business into the elegant Penha building on Willemstad’s waterfront, known as

the Handelskade – now on the list of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.

Although Penha traded in all kinds of merchandise over the years, more recently the company became renowned for its extensive range of luxury perfumes and cosmetics, thanks to the founder’s son Julius Lopez Penha junior. In the latter half of the 20th Century Penha then expanded business across to the Netherlands Antilles’ other islands.

Led by Julius’s daughter Edna de Jong Lopez Penha, and her husband Jan de Jong, it opened stores in St. Maarten and Aruba, making the Penha name and company a leading light in Caribbean retail.

Despite all this history Penha is not a business that stands still.

In the last year we have opened a major new Penha store in Grand Cayman as well as exclusive MAC Cosmetics boutiques in Aruba and Grand Cayman. In the near future we shall also be unveiling fantastic new Victoria’s Secret stores in Curaçao and Grand Cayman.

Everything you need to keep beautiful and on trend.

Enjoy reading.

PENHA

clinique.com Š Clinique Laboratories, LLC

What does a water balloon tell us about strong, healthy skin? Everything.

Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion+ With a new complex, our formula now strengthens skin’s own moisture barrier by 54%.

Skin feels soft, springy. Has a healthy glow.

Oil-free Gel formula, too. Allergy Tested. 100% Fragrance Free.

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CONTRIBUTORS

CONTRIBUTORS EDITOR /

WRITER /

WRITER /

WRITER /

DOMINIC BLISS

Paul Henderson

Chandler Burr

Francesca Gavin

Dominic has been a magazine editor for the last 15 years, in fields as varied as retail, fashion, drinks, jewellery, architecture and sport. Based in London, he also writes for newspapers and magazines.

Paul is the food, sports and motoring editor on GQ magazine. This means he gets to attend major sporting events, eat in all the best restaurants and drive the most desirable cars in the world. Jealous?

Former perfume critic for the New York Times, Chandler is now curator of olfactory art at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design. He has also written several books on perfume including The Perfect Scent and The Emperor of Scent.

Art writer and curator, Francesca is also arts editor of several leading magazines including Dazed & Confused, Twin and Another Magazine. She has written a book on sculptural street art called Street Renegades.

WRITER /

WRITER /

writer /

ILLUSTRATOR /

John Lewis

Tina Milton

Joe Boyle

Roxanna Bina

A London-based music critic, John has written for The Times, Financial Times, The Guardian and various magazines.

Over the years he has interviewed a baffling array of stars including Ozzy Osbourne, Amy Winehouse, Burt Bacharach, Lionel Richie and Pink Floyd. He once even played piano on a top 10 Japanese hit single.

A beauty writer for over 10 years, Tina has enjoyed assignments as eclectic as testing sun cream in the Seychelles to watching Lady Gaga get tattooed at her fragrance launch. Never a dull moment.

Joe has been writing about soccer for more than two decades, cutting his teeth with fanzines before ending up writing for international newspapers.

His favourite assignment remains a 1990s interview for Croatian TV conducted in French with eventual World Cup winners Marcel Desailly and Christian Karembeu.

Roxanna is author of quirky fashion blog Teacups and Couture which focuses on emerging fashion designers and anything unusual within the industry. She has lived and breathed fashion ever since she was a toddler, first trying on her mother’s oversized high heels and applying lipstick with artistic licence.

ALMA Media International Ltd 83 Bell Street Reigate, Surrey, RH2 7AN United Kingdom

Penha magazine is published on behalf of Penha by:

T +44 20 8944 1155 E info@almamedia.co.uk W www.almamedia.co.uk

Publisher Tony Richardson Editor Dominic Bliss Advertising Manager Gideon Knowles Production Assistant Tracy Powell Account Director Amanda Richardson Design Deep London For more information, recommendations and assistance please visit www.JLPenha.com or email us on info@jlpenha.com

PENHA

Image Credits Cover image: Nike.

Features: D&G, Adidas, Victoria’s Secret, Beyonce / Picture group, Christian Dior Couture, Drink Factory, Montblanc, Virgin Limited Edition, Vladi Private islands, Private Islands online, BAT / Dunhill cigars, MAC, H&M, Getty, Armani.

© 2013 Alma Media International Limited.

Original articles and other contributions published in this magazine may only be reproduced with permission from both Penha and the publishers. Neither accepts responsibility for any views or statements made in the articles and other contributions reproduced from any other source. No responsibility is accepted for the claims made in advertisements appearing in this journal and the publishers reserve the right to accept or refuse advertisements at their discretion.

Lack of sleep.

Is it aging your skin too fast?

New research says–it is.

New. Advanced Night Repair

This breakthrough serum promotes a natural nighttime purification process–vital to younger-looking skin.

Wake up to more beautiful skin–every day.

25+ Patents Worldwide* Patents and patents pending.

*

esteelauder.com © 2013 Estée Lauder Inc.

Tested and proven. Skin looks significantly smoother, radiant, more hydrated and even toned.

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S T O R E L O C AT I O N S

WHERE TO SHOP

ARUBA

Curaçao

GRAND CAYMAN

ST. MAARTEN

Just off the coast of Venezuela, Aruba is the westernmost of the Lesser Antilles. It may be tiny (less than 70 square miles), but it’s perfectly formed with beautiful, protected beaches in the west and rolling hills looking over the interior.

There are five Penha stores on Aruba. The largest is in Oranjestad, next to the Renaissance Hotel, with a smaller outlet at Palm Beach Plaza.

We also operate a MAC Cosmetics boutique and two Victoria’s Secret beauty and accessories stores on Caya Betico Croes.

The largest and most populous of the three ABC islands, Curaçao is also the most architecturally significant. The capital, Willemstad, features beautiful Dutch and Spanish colonial buildings which have helped earn it UNESCO World Heritage status.

The focal point of these historical buildings is Penha Punda, backdrop to countless tourist photographs over the years. Built in 1708, it now contains Penha’s flagship store, selling top fragrances, cosmetics and apparel.

Right next to it is Penha Eyewear, selling all the leading sunglasses brands.

There are five other Penha stores: Salinja (cosmetics, eyewear and men’s and women’s apparel), Zuikertuin (fragrances), Renaissance Mall (fragrances and skincare), Montblanc Boutique (writing instruments, timepieces, jewellery, leather goods and eyewear) and, recently opened, a brand new Victoria’s Secret beauty and accessories store.

An overseas British territory, Grand Cayman is the largest of the three Cayman Islands, and the furthest west.

One of its main attractions is Seven Mile Beach, a long crescent of coral sand considered by many one of the finest beaches in the whole of the Caribbean.

Our stunning new Penha flagship store is now open in the centre of the capital George Town. You will also find our exclusive MAC Cosmetics boutique and a new Victoria’s Secret store.

Comprising the southern half of Saint Martin island, this small territory is a constituent country of the Netherlands, along with Aruba and Curaçao.

Over 1.5 million cruise passengers visit St. Maarten every year, making it one of the busiest cruise stops in the whole of the Caribbean.

A good proportion of them pass through the fragrance and cosmetics stores in Phillipsburg (Penha Phillipsburg) and at the airport (Penha Airport Duty Free).

We also have a new Penha store at the Maho Beach Plaza.

PENHA

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S T O R E L O C AT I O N S

ARUBA

CuraÇao

St. Maarten

Grand Cayman

Penha Downtown

Penha Punda Heerenstraat 1 Tel: (+5999) 461 2266 Fax: (+5999) 461 7827 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Penha Downtown Phillipsburg

Penha Grand Cayman

Caya Betico Croes 11 Tel: (+297) 582 4160 FAX: (+294) 582 2669 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Penha Palm Beach Plaza

Penha Saliña

L.G Smith Boulevard 95 TEL: (+297) 586 6781 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Saliña Galleries SCHOTTEGATWEG Z/Nc Tel: (+5999) 465 8788 Fax: (+5999) 465 8789 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Penha Airport Duty Free

Penha Zuikertuin Mall

PENHA MAHO BEACH

Tel: (+5999) 738 6368 Fax: (+5999) 738 6367 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

MAHO BEACH PLAZA RHINE ROAD 9/10 Tel: (+590) 524 8676 E-MAIL: INFO@JLPENHA.COM

MAC Boutique Daniel Leo Square Emmastraat 1, Unit 2 Oranjestad Tel: (+297) 582 5446 FAX: (+297) 582 5445 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Victoria’s Secret Caya Betico Croes 20 Oranjestad Tel: (+297) 583 7158 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

VICTORIA’S SECRET PALM BEACH PLAZA MALL L.G SMITH BOULEVARD 95 TEL: (+297) 586 8960 EMAIL: INFO@JLPENHA.COM

Frontstreet 55 Tel: (+599) 542 2279 Fax: (+599) 542 5212 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Princess Juliana international Airport Tel: (+599) 564 7740 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Penha Renaissance Mall BADENPOWELLWEG 1 Tel: (+5999) 461 2718 Fax: (+5999) 461 2714 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Penha Eyewear Heerenstraat 5 Tel: (+5999) 461 0524 Fax: (+5999) 461 0527 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

Montblanc Boutique Baden Powellweg 1 Renaissance Mall Tel: (+5999) 461 2795 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

VICTORIA’S SECRET BEAUTY & ACCESSORIES HEERENSTRAAT 5 TEL: (+5999) 461 0524 FAX: (+5999) 461 0527 EMAIL: INFO@JLPENHA.COM

PENHA

40 Royal Plaza Cardinal Avenue George Town Tel: (+1345) 949 6513 Fax: (+1345) 949 6511 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

MAC Boutique 40 Royal Plaza Cardinal Avenue George Town Tel: (+1345) 946 6512 Fax: (+1345) 925 7374 E-mail: info@jlpenha.com

VICTORIA’S SECRET BEAUTY & ACCESSORIES 40 Royal Plaza Cardinal Avenue George Town Tel: (+1345) 946 2087 EMAIL: INFO@JLPENHA.COM

NEWS

Welcome to the beautiful world of Penha Over the following pages we introduce some of the hottest new (and classic) fragrances, cosmetics and luxury goods available in our stores across the Caribbean.

PENHA

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NEWS

women’s fragrances Dior Behind the veil

Boucheron Paris passions

François Demachy, Dior’s perfumer creator, chose to compose this new edition J’adore Voile de Parfum as an “all-enveloping fragrance that melts into the skin, dressing it with sophistication.”

Boucheron presents a new women’s fragrance named after Place Vendôme, the address in Paris where Frederic Boucheron opened his first jewellery store in 1893. This perfume symbolises over 150 years of light and gems that have passed through this house. The perfumer believes “a woman who wears Boucheron is conceived as independent, free, self-reliant and confident.”

Elizabeth Arden Untold stories Since 1922, Elizabeth Arden has been crafting fragrances including classics like Red Door and 5th Avenue which delight women around the world. Now, with Untold, the brand is introducing a luxurious and modern rendition of a sensual floral composition.

Perfumer Clement Gavarry has a vision of the wearer: “I imagined her sometimes adventurous, sometimes romantic, yet always equally confident.”

Estée Lauder Modern love Estée Lauder unveils Modern Muse, a new fragrance inspired by the “intriguing duality of today’s woman” and one which complements every aspect of her dynamic life. Composed of subtle contrasts and bold contradictions, it “reveals layers of strength and softness in an appealing creative tension”.

Jimmy Choo The bling thing The main aim of the creator of Flash was to create a perfume as desirable as a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes or a Jimmy Choo handbag. The fragrance accentuates delicate white flower notes with a hint of spice and fruit. Top notes feature passionate strawberry combined with tangerine and pink pepper while heart notes are white floral.

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NEWS

women’s fragrances Roberto Cavalli Tempting stuff

cacharel Caught out?

Cacharel Catch... Me is “lively and playful, perfect for summer nights”.

The fragrance is rich with zesty citruses, soft flowers and gourmand flavours. Developed by perfumer Dominique Ropion, it opens with sparkling notes of Italian mandarin and petit grain. The heart is dominated by heady orange blossom from Morocco blended with notes of Italian jasmine and laid on the soft base of almond milk, amber and woody notes.

Just Cavalli for her is a sexy and provocative new fragrance.

According to designer Roberto Cavalli, “the Just Cavalli woman fully embraces her own sensuality. She is a playful temptress who likes to tease and provoke. She revels in the thrill of the chase. She is audacious and free.”

Oscar de la Renta Marry in style “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” This was the guideline used by Oscar de la Renta when he created Something Blue. Women will no doubt connect the fragrance to the beautiful wedding dresses designed by Oscar. Stephanotis, the signature note of Something Blue, is often called ‘bridal veil’ because of its traditional use in wedding bouquets.

Oscar grows this highly fragrant flower in his own beloved country garden.

Estée Lauder As Sexy As You Are Estée Lauder’s Very Estée is a floral woody musk fragrance that celebrates “the Estée Lauder woman’s affinity for style and luxury”.

According to the perfumers, “she is a trend-setter through her own inimitably feminine style, knowledgeable and distinctive in her preferences and aspirational in her desire for a fragrance that stays with her every moment of her dynamic life”.

Burberry British booty Burberry Body Tender opens with fresh aromas of lemon, apple, peach and absinthe. The core of the composition includes essences of rose, tea leaves, jasmine and sandalwood, all placed at the base of cashmere accords, vanilla, musk and amber.

PENHA

CHanel Dark times In 1984, Chanel created Coco, the sumptuous blend of wood, resins, flowers, spices and fruit. Then, in 2001, came Coco Mademoiselle, a breath of air radiating fruit and flower. And today we have the nocturnal Coco Noir, another journey into the history of Gabrielle Chanel and her life.

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NEWS

women’s fragrances Dior French Golden Delicious

Hermes Floral fancy Jour d’Hermès was only created in 2012 yet Hermes believe it carries the whole history of its famous house with it. “It offers a sensual and luminous invitation to seize the day and celebrate life.”

Dior Addict, Eau Délice is a striking scent composition.

According to the perfumers, “it is a mouth-watering fruity and floral composition. A voluptuous perfume that emphasises the sweet and sour notes of cranberry. A magic formula for a cool beauty. A manifesto for joie de vivre.”

Cartier Fresh cut Cartier Eau de Cartier Goutte De Rose eau de toilette sparkles with optimism. The latest chapter in the Eau de Cartier saga tells the tale of a garden rose freshly cut. The result is a scent “both majestic and delicate, a reimagining of romance in a cascade of radiant facets”.

carolina Herrera Works like a charm

Rihanna GO ROGUE

CH Eau De Parfum Sublime is the latest fragrance by Carolina Herrera. Inspired by her ideal of a sophisticated and sensual woman, she has created this new scent using ingredients whose aromas “best represent the feminine traits which make a woman irresistible”.

Rogue is the fourth fragrance by Rihanna but her first unisex one. It will be available in two installments – first as a women’s, then as a men’s. It is described as “a flirtatious and sensual oriental, containing accords of lemon blossom, cyclamen, jasmine, rose, plum and suede over a base of musk, woods, patchouli, vanilla and amber”.

PENHA

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MADONNA

PENHA

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NEWS

men’s fragrances Givenchy True gent Givenchy’s new fragrance for men, Gentlemen Only, is a modern homage to the classic fragrance Givenchy Gentlemen which debuted back in 1974.

Fronted by Hollywood star Simon Baker, it is designed around modern woody nuances. The composition opens with fresh and spicy green mandarin, pink pepper, nutmeg and birch leaves.

Deep and intense woody character is provided by the heart of cedar, patchouli and vetiver. The base captures incense and animalistic notes.

versace God of style

Bulgari Roman empire Bulgari Man Extreme revisits the core values of the charismatic, iconic fragrance Bulgari Man. It is a woody, fresh eau de toilette infused with a manly appeal and verve; “an inebriating mix that stirs the soul to seduce and intrigue”. The silver and slate-grey monolithic bottle is designed to look like it was carved from marble.

Ralph Lauren Red devil

Donatella Versace’s desire was to fit this fragrance into the concept of the Versace brand. “Eros is truly the DNA of the house of Versace,” she explains. “We have a Greek motif, making us think about ancient Greece, antiquities and mythology, while turquoise colour represents the Mediterranean. That is Versace!” The fragrance includes mint oil combined with green apple and Italian lemon.

The latest edition from the Polo collection of Ralph Lauren celebrates the fiery colour red. Polo Red opens with red grapefruit united with cranberry and Italian lemon. The heart of the composition emphasises accords of red sage, red saffron and lavender, while the base notes are red wood, hot amber and fragrant coffee beans.

Burberry FEEL THE BEAT According to creative director Christopher Bailey, Burberry Brit Rhythm is “inspired by the exhilaration and adrenalin of live music and the electric energy of the crowd”.

PENHA

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NEWS

skincare & suncare LANCÔME Young at start

Philosophy Promised land With Full of Promise, Philosophy has discovered an innovative method to reawaken the skin’s natural revitalising system and help restore the appearance of full, firm, lifted skin.

The result of 14 years of cuttingedge research, and protected by nine patents, Advanced Génifique has been scientifically proven to activate youthful skin.

For all skin types.

Shiseido Future proof

Chanel Precious glow

Since 1872, Shiseido has been integrating ancient Japanese wisdom with the latest scientific discoveries. This has now led to the discovery of a new mechanism that triumphs over visible ageing. With its exclusive cellvitalising technology, Future Solution LX improves your skin’s resistance to wrinkles and sagging for years to come.

The Sublimage collection intensely regenerates and deeply revitalises the complexion, restoring skin to its most youthful appearance.

clinique Dramatic times

Estée Lauder Night flight Estée Lauder were among the first to understand that night time is the right time for skin to repair the day’s damage. New Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex II reduces signs of ageing for a significantly younger look. Lines and wrinkles are reduced and skin is strengthened to help prevent further damage.

According to Clinique, someone in the world buys a bottle of Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion+ every 4.87 seconds. Now the product has been dermatologistreformulated to deliver a 50 per cent improvement in moisture and a 54 per cent improvement in the skin’s barrier-strength.

Clarins Take the lift Smooth your silhouette with the Clarins Body Lift Cellulite Control, a targeted treatment for both early and stubborn cellulite. The formula works to prevent and correct the appearance of cellulite at every level.

Dior Smooth operator According to Dior, their Dior Capture Totale treatment range restructures the skin’s hypodermal stem cells. “The biological seams are woven from fibre to fibre, and from cell to cell, all the way to the surface in order to perfectly reorganise the skin’s architecture and provide total cohesion”.

The effect is that your skin is smoothed and plumped.

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NEWS

Colour cosmetics Eyes on the prize

Dior Rouge reinvention

MAC Veluxe Pearlfusion is a versatile eye shadow that brings out the pigment’s pure and true colour. The result is a glamorous, creamy and lightweight hybrid offering two distinctive effects: applied wet for a super saturation of colour that glistens with metallic brilliance, or dry for sheer coverage with a soft, sparkling finish. Six palettes feature five complementary shades.

LANCÔME Doll face

Rouge Dior is now celebrating its 60th anniversary, creating the perfect opportunity for the house to reinvent its cult lipstick. Every woman has her signature colour. The product is now available in 32 shades within four colour families: reds, pinks, beiges and corals.

Lancôme’s Hypnôse Doll Eyes evenly coats lashes without weighing them down. Sweep it on using the cone-shaped brush and watch your eyes transform into a dazzling wide-eyed look.

Bobbi Brown Perfect finish

LANCÔME Go like a pro This luxury set from Lancôme, the Absolu Voyage, contains everything a travelling beauty expert needs, all presented in a sleek, black-lacquered compact. It includes a lip brush, eye brush, powder brush and a small applicator pad.

Bobbi Brown’s Long-Wear Even Finish Foundation SPF 15 is unlike most long-wearing foundations that tend to look cakey or mask-like. This unique formula looks completely natural. It’s comfortable, hydrating and offers medium to full coverage for up to 12 hours.

OPI Bright lights Here are some nail-polish shades that make a big statement. Fun on fingers and toes, Brights by OPI will add an extra jolt of colour to your style.

PENHA

BRING ON THE FLAWLESS! NEW! LIQUID HALO HD FOUNDATION 10 vERSATILE SHADES to match all skin tones—promise!

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NEWS

FASHION & ACCESSORIES Carolina Herrera Shades with style

Victoria’s Secret Not so secret

Every Carolina Herrera sunglasses collection embodies the elegance and femininity of its renowned designer. Rich in stylistic content, every pair works to reflect Herrera’s effortless luxury, timeless spirit, sophistication and confidence.

Now open in Curaçao, Aruba and Grand Cayman, Penha’s Victoria’s Secret boutiques are a must visit for any fashionista. They carry the latest clothing and accessory lines along with the best-selling swimwear, lingerie and beauty collections. Get the supermodel look with the guidance of the everhelpful shop assistants.

Montblanc Swiss stars

Chopard Glam it up If you like a bit of bling with your sunglasses then Chopard is the brand for you. It’s a favourite amongst Hollywood celebrities thanks to its connection to one of the world’s most exclusive jewellery houses. Visit a Penha boutique to see the huge range of bestselling styles.

Don’t forget to visit the stunning Montblanc boutique in Curaçao to find the latest collections from one of the world’s most celebrated luxury brands. From the famous Meisterstück writing instruments through to the glamorous leather goods, accessories, jewellery and watches, Penha carries the most complete range in the Caribbean and has staff on hand to offer expert advice.

PENHA

THE FRAGRANCE FOR MEN

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sport

the perfect match Fashion designerS love to clothe successful sportsmen such as Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham and Kobe Bryant. But it’s crucial the sport and the athlete are a perfect match for their brand. Dominic Bliss explains why some sportsmen are clotheshorses and others aren’t.

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R

oger Federer earns a staggering US$10 million a year to wear Nike tennis clothing. When you consider that in an average season he plays just under 100 matches, that works out at over $100,000 per match.

And he doesn’t even have to pick up his own tennis balls.

Top tennis players are among the highest paid clotheshorses in the world, eclipsing the salaries of all but the most super of the super models.

The reason? It’s all thanks to TV. In between points, the TV cameras focus on the players’ faces and upper bodies, ensuring that clothing logos are regularly in shot. Matches can last three hours or more, which, by the end of a tournament, adds up to a hell of a lot of TV exposure. Tennis is globally popular (the men’s ATP tour stages events in 32 nations on six continents), especially with the wealthy middle classes, and enjoys TV coverage from January to November. Easy, then, to understand why sponsors feel they earn a healthy return on their investments.

Golf is another favourite with clothing sponsors. Also global, also year-round, also popular with the middle classes and also a sport where the TV cameras tend to linger on the players’ upper bodies. That will explain why Tiger Woods earned over $78 million last year, notwithstanding his naughty extracurricular activities.

According to Forbes, Woods is the highest-paid sports star on the planet. Yet, last year, only $13 million of his riches came from prize money earned on the course; the rest was courtesy of sponsors, particularly Nike and Rolex.

Aside from golf, the rest of the top 10 on the Forbes list includes just four sports. At No.2 is Federer, the only tennis player. After him come two basketballers (Kobe Bryant and LeBron James), two American footballers (Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers), another golfer (Phil Mickelson) and three soccer players (David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi).

Interestingly, those competing in individual sports are paid handsomely for what they wear on the field of play while those in team sports – where the clothing sponsor is a management choice rather than an individual one – need to sign modelling contracts if they want to earn big bucks from fashion brands. Hence Ronaldo’s contract with Armani jeans and underwear, Beckham’s with H&M and Messi’s with Dolce & Gabbana. >

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S P ORT

Golf is a favourite with clothing sponsors.

Global, year-round, popular with the middle classes and a sport where the TV cameras tend to linger on the players’ upper bodies. That will explain why Tiger Woods earned over $78 million last year, notwithstanding his naughty extracurricular activities.

Occasionally a high fashion brand will sponsor an entire team off the pitch: Dolce & Gabbana’s contract with AC Milan is a good case in point. Or Hugo Boss’s contract with McLaren in Formula 1.

Otherwise, brands can ignore the sportsmen altogether and instead sponsor the staff at a sporting event. Ralph Lauren, for example, clothe the officials at Wimbledon and the US Open in tennis, and at the Open Championship in golf.

It’s easy to see why sports clothing brands need successful sportsmen to promote their wares. But the enormous salaries that the likes of Beckham and Ronaldo get offered to wear high fashion brands off the field of play work slightly differently. Why does H&M pay Beckham pant-wetting millions to wear their underpants? How is Ronaldo able to pocket so much cash for wearing Armani trousers?

First of all, and most obviously, these athletes need to be successful.

No one is going to sponsor a loser. Secondly they need to be fairly clean cut – hence Woods’ massive drop in sponsorship when it was first revealed that he was a serial philanderer. Sponsors particularly love sport because of its clean-cut and healthy image. Some of the tabloid newspaper headlines that top European soccer players have triggered in recent years – sexual peccadilloes, violence, racist comments, reckless driving etc – have frightened off potential sponsors for good.

It helps, too, if the sponsored athlete is good-looking and has a strong media image. That is perhaps why pretty boy Beckham (media

darling, model looks, pop star wife) earns 90 per cent of his salary through sponsorship and just 10 per cent through wages while Aaron Rodgers (by no means ugly but rarely on the front pages of newspapers and often hidden inside his football helmet) earns just 13 per cent through sponsorship and 87 per cent through wages.

Fashion brands reap further publicity through fragrance sponsorship. Again, looks and image are crucial, which explains why Formula 1 driver Jenson Button has a very lucrative contract with Hugo Boss fragrance, and why former tennis players Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf get paid handsomely by Aramis.

Historically it took quite a while for fashion brands to realise the potential selling power of sports stars. In the late 19th Century, when sports were first codified, even the most successful athletes would always dress themselves both on and off the field of play. The idea that a T-shirt manufacturer might pay a golfer or a tennis player or an >

source: Forbes

The world’s highest-paid athletes Name

Sport

Total pay

Prize money

Sponsorship

01 Tiger Woods

Golf

$78.1m

$13.1m

$65m

02 Roger Federer

Tennis

$71.5m

$6.5m

$65m

03 Kobe Bryant

Basketball

$61.9m

$27.9m

$34m

04 LeBron James

Basketball

$59.8m $17.8m $42m

05 Drew Brees

American football

$51m

06 Aaron Rodgers

American football

$49m $43m $6m

07 Phil Mickelson

Golf

$48.7m $4.7m $44m

08 David Beckham

Soccer

09 Cristiano Ronaldo 10 Lionel Messi

$40m

$11m

$47.2m

$5,2m

$42m

Soccer

$44m

$23m

$21m

Soccer

$41.3m

$20.3m

$21m

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equestrian to soil their precious duds by sweating in public was anathema. The idea that a fashion designer might give them free suit or dress samples was even more of an anathema. Golfers, tennis players and cricketers wore suits. Track athletes wore what they’d always worn at university. Some teams developed team strips but they weren’t much more advanced than school gym kit.

Although John Redfern, possibly the earliest ever designer of sports-specific clothing, was producing tailored garments back in the 1870s for women to ride horses, play tennis and go yachting in, it wasn’t until the 1930s that the worlds of fashion and sport first started properly to co-exist. That was when French designer Coco Chanel was introduced to polo through her boyfriend, the glamorous socialite Boy Capel. Around the same time, French tennis player René Lacoste joined forces with a French knitwear manufacturer to create lightweight collared T-shirts.

By the 1950s, British tennis player Fred Perry, along with Austrian footballer Tibby Wegner, had started manufacturing polo shirts and handing them out for free to players at Wimbledon. “The leading players were only too keen to get their hands on these new items of clothing since they looked better than the baggy, ill-fitting alternatives,” writes Paolo Hewitt in Fred Perry Icon Book, his tribute to the fashion brand.

But sportsmen still weren’t being officially paid to wear a designer’s clothing. Since there were many unofficial under-the-table payments, it’s difficult to say with accuracy when that particular milestone was reached. By the 1970s, however, any self-respecting sports star would be earning extra money thanks to the shirt on his back.

Fast forward to modern day and any sportsman with even just a modicum of success now has a clothing contract. One modern invention that has given them even more negotiating power is social media. Just like TV exposure, the influence of Facebook, Twitter et al is a numbers game. So when Nike decided to launch their new football boot earlier this year, it was built into their contract with Ronaldo that he should post pictures of himself modelling the boot on his Facebook page. Cue 570,000 likes. The bosses at Nike then sat back and smiled while shops worldwide empty themselves of said football boots.

Social media can be much more inventive than traditional media in the way it allows sportsmen to support their sponsors without resorting to cheesy commercialism. Champion snowboarder Shaun White is the perfect example. He recently ran a promotion for Oakley sunglasses on his Twitter and Facebook pages, inviting his fans to come and meet him at the company’s New York store. The fans were also given a code word, entitling them to a free pair of sunglasses.

“Shaun White appeals strongly to a younger demographic fully engaged with social media,” explains Eric Fisher at American magazine Sports Business Journal. “He particularly excels in integrating his battery of corporate sponsors.”

And, of course, it’s all much cheaper and much more effective than a traditional advertising campaign.

One modern invention that has given sportsmen even more negotiating power is social media.

PENHA

GAME ON Try out these great fragrances, skin products and sunglasses for the sporty male, all available at Penha.

Tommy Hilfiger Freedom In a nod to Tommy Hilfiger’s brand style and long-time use of nautical inspirations, Freedom delivers a strong sporting heritage and image.

Givenchy Gentlemen Only The stylish new modern take on a Givenchy classic, Gentlemen Only is for good sports. They play to win but always with grace.

Jean Paul Gaultier Le Beau Male As the name suggests, this fragrance is for the star player of the team. Perhaps the choice of Cristiano Ronaldo?

Clarins Men After exercise your skin needs love.

The Clarins Men range covers all the bases with moisturisers, shaving lotions, skin balms, body lotions and deodorants.

Oakley The choice of many stars of golf, tennis, cricket and sailing, Oakley sunglasses enhance vision on the field of play and boost style off it.

Ray-ban The Ray-Ban Aviator was first worn by pilots and has become a staple for men and women looking for that sporty style in everyday life.

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BEYONCÉ

Child of destiny Prudish, trampy, Southern belle, New York bourgeois, feminist, gangster’s moll…

Beyoncé is all these things and much, much more. John Lewis tries to discover the real character behind one of the world’s most famous singers.

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f you want to understand the contradictions that seem to define Beyoncé Knowles, just listen to her 2008 anthem Single Ladies. Sonically, it’s one of the most thrilling and futuristic R & B songs in decades. Her vocals emerge over a series of hand claps, foot stomps and chirruping ringtones, as if a clutch of children in a playground have formed a circle around her and forced her to improvise a song.

Beyoncé then addresses “all the single ladies”. As her ecstatic vocals soar over the top, and as the claps and stomps start to pound ever louder, you hear a swell of ominous synthesizer voicing that sounds like it’s been beamed in from another planet.

She is out on the town with her single lady friends and she’s flirting with a new man. Why is she out carousing? Because her boyfriend didn’t “put a ring on it”. For all the futuristic, avantgarde racket that surrounds her, Beyoncé is advocating a curiously conservative line. She’s an old-fashioned gal who demands matrimony before “three good years” is up, and wants an enormous piece of jewellery to represent this. It’s a devastating fusion of space-age electronica and Victorian traditionalism.

Beyoncé’s entire brand is characterised by similar paradoxes. She’s a tramp and a prude; a Southern belle and New York upper-middle class; an independent woman and a gangster’s moll.

Beyoncé Knowles is the cultural equivalent of a psychologist’s inkblot – what you see in her is what you want to see. For some she’s the everapproachable girl next door, not afraid to laugh at herself on Saturday Night Live sketches. For others she’s also the image-censoring control freak who won’t allow photographers into her shows for fear that they’ll take unflattering photographs. She’s >

Beyoncé’s entire brand is characterised by paradoxes.

She’s the God-fearing, lawabiding, Bible-studying Christian but she’s married to mafioso rapper Jay-Z, a former crack-cocaine dealer.

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the God-fearing, law-abiding, Bible-studying Christian (who named her first group Destiny’s Child after a line from the Book of Isaiah) but she’s married to mafioso rapper Jay-Z, a former crack-cocaine dealer from Brooklyn. She’s the self-proclaimed feminist who actively promotes and raises money for women’s charities. She’s also the pliant wifey who sung “bow down bitches” and named her last tour The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour after her husband.

She is able to be all things to all people, a skill that is often confused with blandness. Just as Obama is sold as the “post-racial president”, Beyoncé is a post-racial pop star who appeals to heavyweight hip hop audiences as well as mainstream pop and rock fans. When, in 2011, she headlined the UK’s Glastonbury Festival – usually the preserve of white, alternative rock acts – there was none of the controversy that accompanied her husband’s headline slot three years earlier.

Instead, she owned the weekend with a remarkable greatest hits set while the experienced festival rock band U2 (headlining the next day) bombed.

If Beyoncé has remained something of an enigma, it’s because she has barely put a foot wrong professionally. It’s led some to subscribe to the most outlandish conspiracy theories: internet message boards are filled with hare-brained stories about her sexuality, or rumours that she was never pregnant

BEYONCÉ

with her first child. Other critics have leapt upon whatever fragments of scandal they can find. Republican congressmen were up in arms when she and Jay-Z holidayed in Cuba in defiance of US tourism bans. Liberals were similarly outraged when she was revealed as one of the stars – along with Lionel Richie, Usher and Mariah Carey – to have played private parties on a Caribbean island for Colonel Gaddafi’s most wayward and ruthless son. (On realising its dubious provenance, Beyoncé gave her substantial fee to a Haitian earthquake charity.)

Yet her squeaky-clean reputation survives, untarnished, and she’s maintained close relations with successive US presidents.

She performed for George W Bush in 2001 and at both of Obama’s inaugurations. She appeared on the Democrats’ campaign trail and has been a frequent guest of the Obamas at the White House. Politicians can be guaranteed that they won’t suffer by association with her.

Beyoncé has been part of our collective consciousness for more than 15 years. Coming from a stately, well-to-do Texan family, her university-educated parents had been sending her to auditions and talent shows from a young age. After spells with several Texan girl bands, she was only 16 years old when Destiny’s Child – then a four-piece – released their first record, and placed another song, Killing Time, on the soundtrack of Will Smith’s movie Men In Black. Before Beyoncé had even left her teens, Destiny’s Child had shifted more than 16 million albums.

From the start, the band was managed by Beyoncé’s father, businessman and medical sales rep Mathew Knowles. (It was a partnership that Beyoncé ended only in 2011 when her parents split up.) Mathew ensured that his daughter was the star of the group, with her cousin and best friend Kelly Rowland serving as second in command. The first two Destiny’s Child sidekicks, LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson, wanted to move in a more streetwise direction; within two years they had left, alleging an unequal distribution of performance royalties. Two lookalikes – Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin – replaced them but the latter quickly left, claiming that Beyoncé was a control freak and a diva.

The invention of Beyoncé as a solo act seems to have been propelled by Jay-Z. The pair first met at an October 2001 fundraiser for the victims of 9/11 attacks. Within a year they were in a relationship and recording a single together; within two years Destiny’s Child were no more. Jay-Z was still serving three months’ probation for stabbing a rival rapper, Lance Rivera, in a New York nightclub, but was keen to present himself as a reformed character. In 2002, aged 32 and the biggest name in hip hop, he announced his retirement from live performance and devoted his energy to launching Beyoncé’s solo career.

The press once scoffed at the idea of Beyoncé and Jay-Z as a 21st-century Diana Ross and Berry Gordy but the union is

The press once scoffed at the idea of Beyoncé and Jay-Z as a 21st-century Diana Ross and Berry Gordy but the union is every bit as powerful.

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Beyoncé and beyond Remember these amazing moments from one of pop’s most amazing performers?

May 2003 Crazy In Love Powered by a horn sample of a 1970 Chi-Lites track, and assisted by a spectacular Jake Nava, the single sold eight million copies worldwide and helped fuel 11 million sales of its parent album Dangerously In Love.

2004 She launches House Of Deréon Beyonce’s mother ran a beauty salon and has always served as her daughter’s stylist. Together they launched this fashion line “where sidewalk and catwalk meet”.

2006 She stars in Dreamgirls Beyoncé appeared in a few comedy films before this – Austin Powers in Goldmember and The Pink Panther – but here she played a character loosely based on her idol Diana Ross in a cast that featured Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy.

every bit as powerful. The poet hustler from Brooklyn and the God-fearing bourgeois Texan girl have a combined wealth that’s close to a billion dollars. Together they’ve carved out a new blueprint for black entertainers, making the key leap from being mere employees to being autonomous business people.

It’s given Beyoncé a power and clout that few pop performers – with the possible exception of the business-savvy Madonna and Jennifer Lopez – can match. In the last decade she’s seen off Britney Spears, Kelis, Pink, Mya, Lil’ Kim, Ciara, TLC and The Pussycat Dolls, and now does battle for pop prominence with the likes of Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. These are battles that Beyoncé will always win because, unlike all her peers, she can truly sing, with a soul larynx that puts her in a classic R & B lineage. Earlier this year there was much controversy about Beyoncé miming the Star-Spangled Banner at Obama’s second inauguration but she replicated the remarkable performance before sceptical journalists at a later press conference, completely live, with no studio artifice. She can improvise and let rip with a full-throated holler but, crucially, she exercises control. Never does she ladle out the wobbly warbling that characterises Mariah Carey or any of her X Factor imitators.

Many people try and listen to Beyoncé but get drowned out by the clatter of statistics. They hear the ker-ching of each Forbes magazine rich-list (where she was said to have earned US$87 million in a single year). They hear the rattle of awards (17 Grammys from 45 nominations), the record sales (118 million worldwide, plus another 50 million with Destiny’s Child), the big-name endorsements (L’Oréal, Nintendo, Pepsi, H&M, American Express, Tommy Hilfiger).

They really shouldn’t ignore the sound of Beyoncé herself.

It’s extraordinary.

October 2008 Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) The highlight of her I Am… Sasha Fierce double album, this song shifted five million units while the black-and-white video inspired the first major dance craze of the 21st century: J-Setting.

June 2011 She headlines Glastonbury In glittery hotpants, Beyoncé became the first solo female performer ever to headline the world’s biggest rock festival, winning over an initially sceptical crowd of 170,000.

January 2012 She gives birth to Blue Ivy Carter After an earlier miscarriage, it turns out Beyoncé was two months pregnant when she performed at Glastonbury. She announced the pregnancy after patting her tummy on an MTV red carpet in August 2011.

February 2013 The Super Bowl A fortnight after her controversial mimed performance at President Obama’s second inauguration, Beyoncé performed the Super Bowl half-time slot. Before an audience of 110 million, her nine-song set included a reunion with her Destiny’s Child pals.

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FRAGRANCE

Heaven Discover the greatest fragrances of all time, as chosen by one of THE world’s leading olfactory experts.

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he most iconic fragrances of all time? How could you possibly select perfumes for such a list? That’s like nominating the greatest paintings or songs or films in history. You’ll never get anyone to concur with you.

Nevertheless, one of the world’s top fragrance experts, Chandler Burr, curator of olfactory art at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, has thrown caution to the wind by choosing what he believes are the “pivotal fragrances” that have had the greatest impact on olfactory art.

Burr, former perfume critic for the New York Times, featured his choices in a recent exhibition at his museum. Here, using excerpts from his new catalogue, The Art of Scent 1889-2012 (which also contains a collection of scents from the exhibition), he explains his choices. >

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FRAGRANCE

the greatest fragrances of all time Year: 1889 Perfume: Jicky Perfumer: Aimé Guerlain “Along with the perfumer Paul Parquet, Aimé Guerlain effectively invented olfactory art. He used three synthetics to create Jicky. These synthetics freed olfactory artists from the limitations of nature. The genius of Jicky is that it could never have existed in nature. Guerlain had created both a new work of art and a new art form.”

Year: 1957 Perfume: L’Interdit Perfumer: Francis Fabron “This is one of the quintessential works of olfactory abstract expressionism. With L’interdit, Fabron displaced the recognisable scents of flower, wood and grass. He intentionally departed from the natural world.”

Year: 1971 Perfume: Aromatics Elixir Perfumer: Bernard Chant “With Aromatics Elixir, the brilliant French artist Bernard Chant gave his American patron, Carol Philips, a work that followed the classic 19th-century French rules: it opened with great presence, evolved from scene to scene, and diffused with entrancing complexity.”

Year: 1982 Perfume: Drakkar Noir Perfumer: Pierre Wargnye “Wargnye used industrial scent dihydromyrcenol as the structural core of Drakkar Noir. Combining functional materials in fine fragrance was, to some, a sacrilege. Who, Wargnye was asked, wanted to smell like clean laundry? That hundreds of millions of people wanted to smell like clean laundry was not a surprise to any observer of art in the 20th century.”

“We feel the violence of a cold storm that has ripped limbs from young trees, revealing the green organic material inside.”

Year: 1992 Perfume: L’Eau d’Issey PERFUMER: JACQUES CAVALLIER “L’eau d’Issey is a tour de force of minimalism, a work that is completely uniform, a monolith of scent. It is woven together with intricate combinations of floral raw materials that nevertheless give an impression of simplicity.”

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FRAGRANCE

Year: 1992 Perfume: ANGEL Perfumer: Olivier Cresp “Cresp’s use of ethyl maltol, which he transformed from subtle ornament to fundamental structural material, pushed olfactory art to new extremes and placed shocking artificiality in full view. This was the progenitor of an olfactory pop art movement that arrived in the mid-1990s and continues today.”

Year: 1995 Perfume: Pleasures Perfumers: Annie Buzantian and Alberto Morillas “In the 1990s natural raw materials extracted with critical-phase carbon dioxide became available to olfactory artists. The extraordinary aspect of carbon dioxide was that it extracted materials at room temperature, producing an ultrahigh-resolution olfactory ‘photograph’ of an actual scent. Pleasures is perhaps the most masterful work of its kind.”

Year: 2001 Perfume: Light Blue Perfumer: Olivier Cresp “For Light Blue, Cresp built three olfactory holograms. First, he created a natural Sicilian lemon. Then he built a tart green and slightly juicy apple out of synthetics.

For the third he produced a cedar scent (using smoky and creamy cedars from China, Morocco and Virginia). He treated each of these three-dimensional objects as distinct pieces and linked them together to produce a work of olfactory art that functions in a state of precise equilibrium.”

Year: 2004 Perfume: Prada Amber Perfumers: Carlos Benaim, Max Gavarry and Clement Gavarry “Prada Amber retains all the visceral referential power of the past and refines it into a more ambiguous form. It says something intelligent, yet it also makes one feel something profoundly.”

Year: 2006 Perfume: Osmanthe Yunnan Perfumer: Jean-Claude Ellena “Ellena has built a translucent sheet of scent that collects and re-emits light. It is a consummate work of virtual silence and calm that creates an immense presence.”

Year: 2010 Perfume: Untitled Perfumer: Daniela Andrier “With Untitled we feel the violence of a cold storm that has ripped limbs from young trees, revealing the green organic material inside, the smell of fresh, cold rain water, the green of a chilled spring, heightened and slightly brutal.”

To order The Art of Scent 1889-2012 by Chandler Burr, visit www.thestore.madmuseum.org/products/the-art-of-scent-1889-2012

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fashion

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fashion

the dress circle With its billionaire patrons, exclusive guest lists and heartstopping price tags, haute couture fashion is a world away from the kind of clothing we mere mortals get to wear.

Fashion blogger Roxanna Bina gives us a secret insider’s view.

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nly a handful of fashion designers get to show their master creations at the twice-yearly haute couture shows in Paris. To be invited they must be official members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Among them are fashion giants Chanel, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier and Versace.

First set up the year after World War II, the organisation originally featured over 100 designers, employing some 35,000 workers. Today that number has shrunk to just 15 designers with only 5,000 staff. To qualify as an haute couture designer, there are stringent criteria: you must design made-to-order garments for private clients; you must have a workshop in Paris employing at least 15 people; you must have at least 20 full-time technical employees (specialising in shoes, buttons, beading etc.); and you must show 35 outfits or gowns twice a year in Paris. No exceptions. At this level of fashion design things are very serious indeed.

In the early years an estimated 15,000 women wore haute couture. Today that number is down to just 2,000, more than half of them American, and the vast majority celebrities, magazines or one-off clients. In fact there are only around 200 regular private clients. Nevertheless, fashion houses use their flagship haute couture to drive sales of their more ordinary products, generating over a billion dollars a year in ready-towear clothing, perfumes and cosmetics.

The haute couture shows – elite, theatrical and always spectacular – are the most coveted tickets during Paris Fashion Week. Those attending range from celebrities and high-society socialites to members of royalty: in short, some of the wealthiest women in the world. Tickets can cost as much as US$2,500, provided you are first invited by a fashion house. If you’re a regular client, however, or an A-list celebrity or a journalist, access is slightly easier. Mere mortals can watch from home via live streaming on the internet.

One haute couture regular is Daphne Guinness, heir to the famous brewer of the same name. She owns such an incredible fashion collection that museums often ask to borrow pieces from her. Perhaps the most famous couture collector of all, however, was the late Isabella Blow. Best known for her outlandish Philip Treacy hats, she is credited with launching the career of British designer Alexander McQueen. Many couture pieces also find their way into the stage shows of stars such as Madonna and Lady Gaga. A long-time favourite of the former is French designer Jean Paul Gaultier who helped create her now iconic cone-shaped bra from the 1990 Blonde Ambition World Tour.

The timing of the spring couture shows is perfect since they are staged just a few weeks before the Hollywood >

Those attending haute couture shows range from celebrities and high-society socialites to members of royalty. Tickets can cost as much as US$2,500, provided you are first invited by a fashion house.

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F A S H IO N

awards season, giving celebrities the chance to borrow unique gowns for their elegant saunters down the red carpet. At the 2013 Academy Awards actress Jennifer Lawrence won an Oscar wearing Christian Dior haute couture; in 2008 Marion Cotillard won hers in Jean Paul Gaultier.

Sometimes the dress doesn’t even need to be new – both Natalie Portman and Reese Witherspoon have attended the Oscars in vintage Christian Dior gowns. In fact, so timeless are these gowns that it’s not uncommon for celebrities to be offered items from a couturier’s vintage vault rather than from the current collection.

But what makes the dresses so timeless? It’s simple really: exclusivity and quality. When you consider that each is a one-off and requires up to 400 hours of hand-beading, cutting and sewing, then it’s not surprising they still look wonderful years after they were first created.

When it comes to the oft-photographed celebrities, most of these designs are worn only once. Private clients hopefully get a bit more wear out of them. However, given the shockingly high price tags (north of $20,000, depending on the current status of the designer), surely this is an area of retail that can’t survive the world recession.

Chanel’s designer, Karl Lagerfeld, thinks it can. While he admits small designers should focus on expensive ready-to-wear collections, he believes the major fashion houses will continue to produce haute couture well beyond the reach of normal consumers.

“I think couture has a real reason to exist in a limited way,” he says.

“There is something mythical about it that cannot be improvised.”

When it comes to the oftphotographed celebrities, most of these designs are worn only once.

Private clients hopefully get a bit more wear out of them.

SHOW STOPPERS Here are some beautiful products from the world’s top fashion houses, all available at Penha.

Christian Dior

Dolce & Gabbanna

Diorskin Nude BB Crème delivers the essential “rosy nude complexion.”

A dream match between make-up and skincare, it’s a new-generation beautifier for the complexion.

Dolce & Gabbana’s new fragrance Desire has an oriental floral with a bouquet of intense and intoxicating notes to create an opulent and deeply feminine fragrance.

Elie Saab

Givenchy

It’s almost a certainty that at some point in the future Elie Saab will head up a venerable Paris couture house. For the moment, the Lebanese designer creates beautiful couture gowns and this fragrance, Elie Saab Le Parfum.

Apparently it took 279 trial versions before he hit upon the perfect scent.

Givenchy’s reputation as a perfume house was enhanced recently with the acclaimed Dahlia Noir fragrance, the latest incarnation of which is a lighter edition called Dahlia Noir L’Eau. It’s described as “transparent, subtle, sensual without being overtly seductive, sparkling, graceful elegance, crisp, green, translucent, beaded with dew, discreetly chypre trail, couture sophistication”.

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ART

Brazil in the frame All eyes are on Brazil. In business, culture and sport, this nation is lighting up South America. Now the art scene is thriving, too, thanks in part to the country’s amazing street artists. Francesca Gavin discovers what’s on offer.

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The press once scoffed at the idea of Beyoncé and Jay-Z as a 21st-century Diana Ross and Berry Gordy but the union is every bit as powerful.

VISIT US AT BOOTH 533

.com DRINK WITH CARE.

STOLICHNAYA® Premium vodka. 40% Alc./Vol. 100% Grain Neutral Spirits. © 2012

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C

overing things up, washing things off, city authorities are often at war with street artists and graffiti writers. Brazil, however, has gone the other way, creating a vibrant, community-led visual culture that is gaining a serious global reputation.

Street art was decriminalised in this country in 2009, as long as the works were created with the permission of the building owners. As a result, the paintings which once only lined the walls of favelas in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have now expanded across the country, becoming the most open form of social expression, crossing borders of class and money.

Some of the most memorable street art created in Rio was by outsiders, notably JR’s incredible transformation of the capital’s favelas into a wall of local photographic faces of women who lost loved ones to gang violence, pasted onto the architecture.

However, it is the native graphic inventiveness of the country’s artists that is really pushing artistic boundaries.

Artists like Zezao who began by disseminating his blue graphic symbolism through the sewers and underground tunnels of Sao Paolo. Or Calma (Stephan Doitschinoff) who has made a hugely successful career moving between public spaces and galleries with his unique graphic work influenced by traditional Brazilian woodcut designs. Over the past decade, numerous artists have emerged with their unique take on street art including the illustrative murals of Nunca, the narrative childlike characters of Tinho, the abstract faces of Sesper, and the Basquiat-like thick lines and speed of Carlos Dias.

Brazilian street art is not just graphic faces and bright colours. Pixação is the signature graffiti language of the city – and its most edgy. This long, thing calligraphic black writing is often painted in high, inaccessible places, requiring artists to make risky climbs. Originally written in tar in response to political parties in the 1940s and 1950s, it wasn’t until the 1980s that graffiti writers adopted the approach with paint. The result is strange and darkly alluring, although you won’t see it in auction houses. >

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Paintings which once only lined the walls of favelas in Rio and Sao Paulo have now become the most open form of social expression, crossing borders of class and money.

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ART

TRUE COLOURS Inspired to turn yourself into a work of art? Try these funky products, all available from Penha.

CK Shock The new unisex fragrance CK One Shock Street Edition attracts attention from the first luminous drops. Top notes open with glittery citruses (bergamot and mandarin) combined with sweet plum zest. The heart incorporates sweet, intense fruity notes sweetened with dark chocolate and caramel, while the base is soft and warmed with aromas of patchouli, sandalwood, amber and musk.

MAC Viva Glam MAC and hip-hop diva Nicki Minaj have joined forces in the past couple of years to create VIVA GLAM Nicki, a scenestealing lipstick. All the proceeds from the sale of this lipstick go to MAC Aids Fund which helps women, men and children everywhere affected by HIV and AIDS.

Pixação is the signature graffiti language of the city. It is often painted in high, inaccessible places, requiring artists to make risky climbs.

This more violent graphic edge of Brazilian street art is at the other end of the spectrum from the colourful figures of Os Gemeos. Identical male twins, they are Brazil’s best-known street artists, exhibiting internationally at London’s Tate Modern, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and recently collaborating on scarf for Louis Vuitton. Their paintings depict a bright, almost psychedelic world of yellow-skinned characters. The pair’s playful, accessible aesthetic has helped push street art – not just from Brazil but around the world – beyond the confines of the city to a wider international audience.

Brazil has now become a mecca for street art, with every artist worth his salt making a contribution to the city’s walls. This visual culture is integrated into all public regeneration projects.

The streets of Sao Paolo and Rio are not just where you will find the next Banksy but also where a whole new model for the integration of art into daily life is being established.

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Madly Kenzo!

Madly Kenzo! by Japanese brand Kenzo was launched in 2011 and designed by renowned perfumer Aurelien Guichard.

The fragrance is a spicy, oriental-inspired scent combining exotic floral notes to seduce the senses.

Clinique Chubby Sticks These moisturising and colourful lip crayons have scribbled their way into the hearts of devoted fans worldwide.

Now Clinique introduces new Chubby Stick Intense Moisturizing Lip Colour Balm, packaged in the same playful, crayon-like barrels but offering a much fuller coverage for lips.

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Eva Mendes

EAU DE PARFUM

www.muglerstore.com

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BEAUTY

MAC have the knack From its humble origins in a Toronto kitchen, MAC Cosmetics has now grown into one of the world’s most exciting make-up brands, all without losing its counter-cultural edge.

Beauty writer Tina Milton discovers its inspiration.

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AC Cosmetics has a celebrity roll call that would make any chat show host salivate. With ambassadors such as pop diva Lady Gaga and drag queen RuPaul to collections with Liza Minnelli and Rihanna, it’s a make-up brand renowned for creative collaborations with the stars. But it’s a brand where personalities of all shapes and sizes are embraced – even icons such as Hello Kitty, Wonder Woman, Marilyn Monroe and Barbie have been honoured with their own ranges. Although such luminaries have been an important part of raising visibility, there are many other strategies keeping the brand at the forefront of the make-up industry.

Above all else, attitude is key. MAC does not pigeonhole consumers by demographics.

At its heart, the company’s motto – All Ages, All Races, All Sexes – reflects a unique appreciation of individuality, artistry and self-expression. A brand that means ‘all things to all people’ may sound like an impossible brief but it’s one that MAC has managed to crack. Sassy and bold seasonal launches can be slightly off-the-wall but it is this that makes the brand so attractive, blending colour with fun, giving it a playful yet flamboyant feel.

Above all else, attitude is key.

MAC does not pigeonhole consumers by demographics.

It follows that such a quirky heart must be led by a creative brain. Enter James Gager, senior vice-president, group creative director for MAC (and stablemates La Mer and Jo Malone). Gager has been instrumental in cultivating the edginess of MAC, bringing to the table an innate ability to analyse trends and re-invent them. Since 1999 he has conceptualised all the creative activity, from collection concepts, packaging, store design and window fixtures to the idea of celebrating mature beauty with the MAC Beauty Icons Series which has featured Catherine Deneuve and Raquel Welch among others.

Pop culture is a major strand in the DNA of MAC. It joins forces with innovators, influencers and industry icons in music, fashion and art. “We like our collaborations to be as authentic as possible,” explains Gager. “We are very selective and choose our collaborators for their creativity, so we would never stifle that. We interpret the inspiration through products, shades and visuals while staying true to the MAC brand ethos.”

It was Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) that really took the brand global after acquiring a majority interest in 1995 and full ownership in 1998. Freestanding stores and counters opened at retailers worldwide. With its enhanced profile, MAC teams began working backstage at international fashion collections. Popularity

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evolved through a tradition of word-of-mouth endorsement from make-up artists, models, photographers and journalists; people so influential that they create trends with partnerships for seasonal runway lines while cultivating new generations of make-up artists through training.

Gisel Calvillo is MAC’s senior artist for duty-free. She has been with the company for nine years and was initially drawn to the brand because of its vibrant image and creative campaigns. “We participate in fashion shows every season in New York, London, Milan and Paris among others,” she says. “Working with other international make-up artists, designers and stylists allows us to set the trends in make-up. Our creative director also sees art as constant growth and movement so many collections are inspired from both our past and present which is also what I believe makes us interesting and innovative. If you come into any of our counters and ask a MAC artist to try one of the hottest trend looks, they will be able to show you how to create it on yourself.

That is the MAC way and that is overall what allows us to continue to be who we are.”

The statistics surrounding MAC’s success speak for themselves. The brand has over 1,700

Frustrated by the lack of colours that would shoot well with photography, the founders of MAC developed a studio line make-up range that would fulfill their professional needs.

MAC’s Gisel Calvillo

retail locations worldwide and is sold in over 83 territories, underpinned by an army of 12,800 make-up artists. It’s a far cry from its humble beginnings. It was originally established in Toronto by make-up artist and photographer Frank Toskan and beauty salon owner Frank Angelo. Cosmetics were first cooked up in the two Franks’ kitchen and sold from the salon.

Frustrated by the lack of colours that would shoot well with photography, they aimed to develop a studio line make-up range that would fulfill their professional needs. In 1984 the duo officially launched the line from a single counter in a department store in Toronto.

Championed by make-up artists, MAC’s counter culture uses make-up artistry and theatricality as the lifeblood, while social conscience rests at its soul. The Viva Glam campaign, for example, whose proceeds are given to MAC AIDS Fund, has raised over US$270 million worldwide for those affected

by HIV/AIDS, using provocative visuals shot by high-profile photographers.

So much about MAC is unexpected. The company may sit at the epicentre of fashion, beauty and popular culture but it will never stand still for long. That constant desire for change is perhaps, above all, what places the brand ahead of its rivals.

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DRINKS

Life behind bars Ground-breaking, award-winning and eccentrically creative, Tony Conigliaro is stirring up a revolution in cocktail making.

Dominic Bliss mixes with this mixologist.

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Cristiano ronaldo

Why sportsmen are the neW trendsetters BEYONCÉ THE WOMAN WITHIN THE STAR | APHRODISIACS FOODS TO BOOST YOUR SEX DRIVE FRAGRANCE HISTORY-MAKING SCENTS | FASHION THE CULT OF COUTURE

We hope you have enjoyed reading our new-look magazine.

If you have a moment to spare we would love to hear what you thought of this issue – let us know what you liked (or didn’t like) and what you would like to see more of in future issues. As our customer your input is very valuable.

E-mail your comments to: magazine@JLPenha.com To find our more about contributing or advertising in Penha magazine please email: info@almamedia.co.uk

DRINKS

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unpowder, lichen, bee pollen, crushed flint, frankincense and bile from a sperm whale. They sound like rather unsavoury items you might find lurking at the bottom of a witch’s cauldron. Actually, they’re all base ingredients of cocktail drinks created by one of the world’s most exciting and unorthodox cocktail mixologists: Tony Conigliaro.

Owner of critically acclaimed bars in London and Paris, this 41-year-old Londoner has won various awards for his craft – too many to mention here. Some of his more infamous creations are the Prairie Oyster (tomato juice, horseradish vodka, sherry, shallots, pepper sauce and herbs), the Avignon (Cognac, chamomile syrup and smoked frankincense) and the Terroir (distilled clay, flint and lichen).

But the cocktail he’s most proud of is what’s known simply as La Rose, a sugar cube infused with rose essence and topped with Champagne. “It took so long to invent,” he says almost wearily. “We had to create something that had the structure of a perfume so we could put rose essence in a sugar cube. We wanted to ensure that when it dissolved in Champagne it would come apart and release the aromas and flavours. That was very technical, very tricky.

That took us two years.”

Sprawled on a sofa at his drinks research laboratory (Drink Factory) in London, Tony attempts to explain the current global popularity of exotic cocktails. “It’s the bartenders who have led this revolution,” he says. “They have become more professional and more enthusiastic about their craft. That enthusiasm has spread to the customers so that they will now drink things they never would have drunk before.”

“There is a degree of theatricality in what some cocktail bartenders do. But you can throw all the theatrics you want at a cocktail and it still won’t be popular unless it’s a great product in the first place.”

Tony Conigliaro

Drinkers are also no doubt attracted by the theatrics of modern cocktail making.

After all, who doesn’t get just a little bit excited by dry ice, foam spilling over the top of the glass, a chocolate truffle martini, or (as Tony suggests) a gunpowder tea tincture doused in gin?

“Yes, there is a degree of theatricality in what some cocktail bartenders do,” Tony admits. “But you can throw all the theatrics you want at a cocktail and it still won’t be popular unless it’s a great product in the first place. It’s like a used-car salesman. He has to use all the theatrics and patter in the book to sell you his cars but if they’re not great cars in the first place then you’ll always regret buying them afterwards.”

As well as the theatrics, there’s a lot of science to making cocktails. Not surprising when, as in Tony’s case, the tools of the trade include the sort of high-tech machines you’d expect to find in a chemistry lab: freeze-dryers, centrifuges, a vacuum distillation unit and a mixer which uses ultrasound to combine different flavours.

Tony uses all of these – plus many distillation stills – to create his cocktails. >

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He admits he is no chemist, however. Trained in art, his route into cocktail making was via an evening bar job he took on when he needed funds to pay for his artist’s studio. Nowadays, while he dreams up the ideas for his cocktails, it’s the boffins who take care of the chemistry. “We’re lucky,” he explains. “We work with a lot of intelligent people – food scientists and chemists.”

Much of Tony’s Drink Factory (housed in rock band Pink Floyd’s former north London studio) is dedicated to this makeshift laboratory. As he describes his methods he keeps one eye on the budding bartenders experimenting with new drinks.

The other half of Drink Factory is taken up by floor-to-ceiling shelving, jam-packed with test tubes, pipettes, bell jars, perfume bottles, drinks shakers, swizzle sticks, food blenders, every size and shape of cocktail glass you could imagine, and bottles and bottles and bottles of booze. The office parties here must be legendary. You suspect that, once the sun goes down, Tony can be found waist-deep in spirits, intoxicating himself with various exotic mixes like some sort of crazy professor of chemistry.

“Actually we work very methodically,” he says. “If we were trying drinks all the time we’d never get the recipes 100 per cent right. To achieve what we want, everything has to be recorded and registered.”

Right now Tony is concentrating on creating the cocktail menu for a new London restaurant called The Grain Store. As well as a brand new cocktail menu, he’s attempting to recreate wines in the ancient Greek and Roman style, mixing cordials, honey, herbs, spices and resins into various young wines. He’s also preparing flavoured waters that will eventually accompany the dishes on offer at the restaurant.

If anyone can guess where cocktail making might be going in the future, it’s surely this man.

“There will be an increase in products that people shied away from in the past,” he predicts. “Tequila, rum, whisky... People are willing now to try things with a bit more flavour in them. I think there will be fewer theatrics in cocktails, though, and fewer garnishes to the drinks. People will want drinks that are simple but beautiful, with bespoke ingredients.”

Off-duty, Tony’s own taste in drinks is far more pedestrian. He says he prefers stouts and ales, a pint of Guinness his favourite tipple.

Does he ever drink to excess, though? “I think most people do, don’t they?” he says with a smile.

“But I get no more drunk than most other people.”

Tony Conigliaro’s Caribbean cocktail El Presidente Ingredients: Two measures of golden rum One measure of red vermouth A dash of triple sec A dash of grenadine METHOD: Stir it all up and put a little orange twist on top.

It’s a great digestif.

“Tequila, rum, whisky...

People are willing now to try things with a bit more flavour in them.

People will want drinks that are simple but beautiful, with bespoke ingredients.”

Tony Conigliaro

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MUSIC

The people’s pianist Perhaps the most famous classical pianist on the planet, Lang Lang can earn as much as US$50,000 a recital.

But is his enormous popularity more due to his skill or to his glitzy playing style?

John Lewis finds out.

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here are times when Lang Lang seems less like a classical pianist and more like a particularly shy sporting megastar. His distinctive porcupine hairdo has become a brand which sells everything from Adidas trainers to Audi cars. He performed at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics before a global audience of billions.

He’s played at state occasions for Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Kofi Annan and the Queen of England.

People who can’t tell a string quartet from a string vest have heard of Lang Lang. Not for nothing has he been described as “the David Beckham of the piano”.

Like Beckham, he’s never been the world’s best player, but none of the competition (Marc-André Hamelin, Martha Argerich or Evgeny Kissin, for instance) have his box-office appeal. And one certainly couldn’t imagine the likes of Alfred Brendel flogging Sony headphones or having a playlist on the PlayStation video game Gran Turismo.

Born in 1982 in Shenyang, in China, Lang Lang was an award-winning child prodigy. At just 13 years old he was performing Chopin’s second concerto with the Moscow Philharmonic; by 18 he was headlining Carnegie Hall; not long after that he became the first Chinese pianist engaged by the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras. He may be the classical world’s biggest star

but he got there without dumbing down. Granted, he often duets with the jazz pianist Herbie Hancock and has made a few ill-advised excursions into electronic music but his solo recitals display a puppy-dog bravado on everything from Mozart to Liszt. He’s also something of a showman – his onstage gyrations appal critics. Just watch him on YouTube playing Chopin’s Black Key Etude with an orange, or playing Flight Of The Bumblebee on an iPad. China has a complex relationship with Western classical music. Chinese musicians started integrating orchestral instruments into their ensembles in the late 19th Century and, by 1927, Shanghai had its own conservatoire. In the wake of the Cultural Revolution the Communist Party poured scorn on Western classical music as “bourgeois deviation” but, with the ping-pong diplomacy of the 1970s, they reclassified it as an essential component of the “advanced culture” needed to make the People’s Republic a truly global power.

Nowadays, as the audience for classical music recedes in the West, it grows in the East, especially among China’s burgeoning middle classes. China now has 30 million piano students and leads the world in the production of nearly all Western instruments.

And Lang Lang has become a tremendous ambassador for the new China, an avatar for its cultural

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ascendance. By mastering Western music he counteracts his country’s traditional image of insularity. He also embodies China’s uneasy alliance of communism and capitalism, benefitting from massive state funding – in the form of intensive music education – but using it to compete in the global marketplace. He plays 125 concerts a year, earning around US$50,000 a recital. At private corporate parties he can earn five times that amount.

Lang Lang himself acknowledges that many Chinese musicians are technically gifted but mechanical.

“Western classical music in China is usually like Chinese food in the West,” he says. “Familiar but not quite the real thing.” And he admits he is more at home with East Europeans like Chopin and Liszt.

Some have suggested his playing can get bogged down in detail. An American newspaper critic memorably wrote that Lang Lang playing a Schubert sonata was like “touring a mansion with a magnifying glass”. However, the common criticism is that Lang Lang is too emotional and schmaltzy, or too showy.

(Sniffier critics call him Bang Bang). But that’s part of his appeal. If you want deep and ponderous, go to another player. If you want sprightly, showy melodrama, then Lang Lang is your man.

Nowadays, as the audience for classical music recedes in the West, it grows in the East, especially among China’s burgeoning middle classes.

Lang Lang is chairman of the Montblanc Cultural Foundation.

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CUISINE

Dirty dishes Can certain foods increase sex drive?

Paul Henderson from GQ magazine finds out which aphrodisiacs work and which don’t.

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Do aphrodisiacs really work?

While it hasn’t been proven that any one food can truly get your sexual motor running, there is some scientific rationale behind the notion of aphrodisiacs.

Aromas

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t’s not Aphrodite’s fault. As the Greek goddess of love, beauty and procreation, she was hardly going to enjoy quiet nights in with a good parchment and warm cup of ambrosia. No, she was the living embodiment of loveliness. Men couldn’t help but fall in love – and lust – with her, and she with them. So when it came to the foods that produced similar feelings of desire, the name ‘aphrodisiac’ was the obvious choice.

For 18th Century Italian playboy Casanova, that meant red wine and stilton cheese, with a side order of 50 oysters. Montezuma, king of the Aztecs, wouldn’t get into bed with any of his wives without downing a gallon of chocolate laced with chilli. And the Arabian medical scholar Galen reckoned 100 pine nuts would set a man up nicely for the night.

But like the faith once held in the gods of ancient Greece, when it comes to mythical sources of aphrodisiac power, how do we separate wanton beliefs from scientific fact?

For many believers, hundreds of foods can have aphrodisiac properties. Some arouse the senses because of their shape (bananas, asparagus), others because of their texture (oysters, egg yolks). Then there are the foods that stimulate the body due to their internal effects (red wine, chocolate).

Sceptics, however, believe love is either on the menu or it isn’t – the meal itself has nothing to do with it.

The blood pressure in men’s nether regions responds most to the scent of cinnamon buns, followed by a rather unconventional mixture of lavender with pumpkin pie.

Women’s sexual blood flow, meanwhile, increases with the scent of liquorice and banana bread but decreases with the scent of cherries and barbecued meat.

“Scientifically, aphrodisiacs just don’t work,” says Dr William Granzig, professor of clinical sexology at Maimonides University in Florida. “What is desire, after all, other than the hope that you can fulfill your sexual fantasies? And that’s all in your mind.

Your biggest sex organ is the one between your ears.”

While that may be true, it is a simple fact that certain foods do have nutritional properties that can boost the libido. The vitamins, nutrients and stimulating properties of some ingredients mean that, if you’re in the mood for love, the route to a man’s or woman’s heart may be through their stomach after all.

Amy Reiley certainly thinks so. Something of an aphrodisiac expert, she is author of Fork Me, Spoon Me: The Sensual Cookbook, and the founder of eatsomethingsexy.com, so it’s safe to say she is passionate about… well, inflaming passion. >

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Eating Studies show that nutmeg, cloves and passion flower all increase copulatory activity… in mice, at least.

In a small scientific study (on humans, this time), the Peruvian root vegetable maca, which looks a little like a radish, was found to improve sperm count and increase sexual desire.

Drinking Alcohol has been found to increase women’s level of testosterone – a hormone linked to sex drive. But easy does it. As William Shakespeare pointed out: “Drink provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.”

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10 ingredients to put a spring in your step Garlic The ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Chinese all believed that garlic put the love in clove. In fact, Tibetan monks and devout Hindus were forbidden from partaking for fear they might not surpress subsequent urges.

Truffles Ancient Romans wouldn’t even think about organising an orgy without them.

Asparagus Not only is the shape phallic but, thanks to the richness of potassium, phosphorous, calcium and vitamin E, this vegetable could be the gift that keeps giving.

Figs This most feminine of fruits has long been seen as an aphrodisiac.

Back in ancient Egypt, if Cleopatra was coming for you, you’d know what she’d had for supper.

Gingko The Chinese have used gingko leaves for 5,000 years to treat impotence. 1.3 billion people can’t be wrong.

Almonds Known as a symbol of fertitility for centuries, almonds are rich in vitamin E, magnesium and fibre. It’s one of the reasons they are given as favours at weddings.

Basil In ancient Rome women would wear basil around their necks as a love charm. The Greeks also claimed it was a cure for headaches which is one less excuse for not being romantic.

Montezuma, king of the Aztecs, wouldn’t get into bed with any of his wives without downing a gallon of chocolate laced with chilli.

Avocado Packed with vitamin E, avocado boosts the body’s prodcution of frisky hormones such as testosterone and oestrogen.

Chocolate The Mayans worshipped the cacao tree and called it the “food of the gods”. Scientists are a little less impressed but they have discovered chocolate contains phenethylamine and serotonin, both feel-good chemicals for the brain.

Honey Newly wedded couples used to drink mead (fermented honey and water) as a pre-bed aperitif; hence the term honeymoon.

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FOOD

PASSION PLAY Sexy products sure to put the fizz into your love life, all available from Penha.

Cacharel Amor Amor As intense and exhilarating as a first kiss, Cacharel Amor Amor is the fragrance of instant temptation and ultimate seduction. Sensual vanilla and jasmin mingle with sparkling blackcurrant; let the scent wrap around you both.

D&G Sunglasses If you want to play the sultry seducer then Dolce and Gabbana is your brand. D&G epitomise Italian flamboyance and confidence. The house blends the classic with the unconventional finding limitless inspiration in Sicily. All D&G sunglasses are designed and made in Italy.

Victoria’s Secret

“People always ask me, ‘What’s the food that’s going to act like Viagra?’” she says. “The truth is there isn’t one. Viagra was made by chemistry. But a lot of foods can promote sexual health by their nutritional value.”

Basing her recipes on a mix of scientific, historical and even mythical beliefs, Reiley believes that the right combination of ingredients can fire up the libido in men and women, as long as they buy into the idea. “Ginger is one of my favorites because its effects are pretty much immediate,” she said. “It makes the tongue tingle. It makes the lips swell and look just that much more kissable. It also helps raise your body temperature a little bit.”

Of course, for the final word on the subject perhaps it’s best to ask one of the world’s most celebrated chefs and restaurateurs, Daniel Boulud. With famous restaurants in Florida, Montreal, Toronto, London, Beijing, Singapore and New York City (the latter Michelin three-starred), Boulud has this piece of advice for any man who wants to put the oooh in wooing.

“Women love stinky cheese,” he says with a suggestive smile. “It doesn’t sound particularly romantic but a soft, strongly flavoured cheese like Epoisses with a powerful aroma would be a very sensual desert.”

And after dessert? Well, the rest is up to you…

Victoria’s Secret is inspired by a love for lingerie, and the desire to bring beauty – and fantasy – into every woman’s wardrobe.

The brand tells us it believes little luxuries are of grand importance and what’s closest to your body is always closest to their heart. Sweet!

Givenchy Ange ou Démon Le Secret The feeling of feathers as they glide over the skin is one of life’s sexier sensations. Feathers have always been a staple in fashion, that’s why Givenchy has chosen to pay homage by adorning the iconic bottle with a collar of nude ostrich plumes that can be worn as a bracelet. The fragrance remains untouched.

Dior Homme Intense The final chapter in the Dior Homme fragrance trilogy is also the most audacious: Dior Homme Intense is an intense, sophisticated and sensual Eau de Parfum for the evening, created in a limited edition.

Valentina Acqua Floreale

by Valentino Some foods arouse because of their shape (bananas, asparagus), others because of their texture (oysters, egg yolks) or their internal effects (red wine, chocolate).

PENHA

Inspired by the highly romantic Valentina fragrance, Acqua Floreale is a unique and elegant floral fragrance. This sophisticated eau de toilette full of luminosity, energy and freshness. It awakens the senses, accentuating the vibrant joie de vivre of the modern Valentino woman.

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PROPERTY

ISLAND SHOPPING Tired of the rat race? Bored of the big city? Dominic Bliss finds out what it’s like to live on your own private island.

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Necker Island - Virgin Limited Edition

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PROPERTY

Private Islands online

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ave Glasheen has lived on his own private island off the north-eastern tip of Australia for the last 20 years – most of it with just his dog Quasi as a companion. With his long white hair and straggly beard, and a dress code rarely amounting to much more than a G-string, he looks like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe.

A former big-city businessman who lost his fortune in the 1987 stock market crash, Dave first came to Restoration Island, a 100-acre volcanic islet right at the top of the Great Barrier Reef, when he and two business partners bought the lease back in 1994. Now 69 years old, he lives all alone in a run-down boat shed, eating local fish and fruit, growing his own vegetables and brewing his own beer. “It’s a luxury item but it’s a necessary luxury,” he says of the latter.

The only income he has is his Australian state pension. He also manages to trade his home-brew beer with passing fishermen for the odd fish dinner. “It’s not trading,” he says, wary that bartering beer is actually illegal under Australian law. “People like to give me fish and I like to give them beer.”

With only the most basic modern conveniences – solar-powered electricity and computer, plus a dwindling supply of rainwater plumbing – much of Dave’s life consists of scavenging for food. But he seems genuinely happy. He says the best thing about living on an island is “the complete privacy and tranquility”. The worst thing, however, is “not having someone special to share the experiences with”. Indeed, for the last few years he has

Head for less clement climates and you can pick up a very remote, very pretty (but probably very cold) islet for the same price as a suburban house.

been trying to find a suitable lady friend to move in with him. It seems the simplicity of his lifestyle (not to mention the beard and the G-string) might be putting potential contenders off the idea.

Most private islanders enjoy a lot more luxury than Dave does. Peruse some of the paradises on sale at specialist estate agents such as Private Islands Inc or Vladi Private Islands and you’ll quickly realise just how much more. There’s 220-acre Cave Cay in the Bahamas for US$110 million, featuring a luxurious main house on the island’s high point, plus guesthouses, marina, harbour and airstrip; there’s 19-acre Ile Gagnon, for $29 million, a river island in Canada and former home to Celine Dion, featuring a reproduction French chateau complete with its own library, wine cellar and state-ofthe-art gym; or there’s 100-acre South Molle Island, off Australia’s east coast, for $29 million, with a small tourist resort, a nine-hole golf course, a helicopter landing site and a mile-long main beach.

The owners of these miniature kingdoms are paying a premium for guaranteed privacy. With the sea to protect them from the riffraff, no wonder some of the world’s richest stars have hidden themselves away on island retreats. Actor Mel Gibson has a 5,400-acre island in Fiji. Fellow A-listers Johnny Depp, Shakira, Nicholas Cage, David Copperfield and Eddie Murphy have all bagged themselves their own little (sometimes big) rocks in The Bahamas.

The list of private islanders goes on and on: Leonardo DiCaprio’s is off the coast of Belize; the Disney family’s is off Washington State; Gene Hackman’s is off British Columbia; Ricky Martin’s is off Brazil; Cristiano Ronaldo’s is off Portugal. The biggest island-lover of all, though, is surely British business magnate Richard Branson. He has two Caribbean islands, one Australian island and a man-made islet off the coast of Dubai.

But not all private islands are the exclusive realms of millionaires. Head for less clement climates and you can pick up a very remote, very pretty (but probably very cold) islet for the same price as a suburban house.

Private Islands Inc lists a one-acre island off the coast of Maine, in the United States, for just $40,000, a four-acre wooded isle in New Brunswick, in Canada, for $63,000 or a group of six islands off Brazil for $79,500.

Vladi Private Islands has a four-acre wooded isle in Nova Scotia, Canada, for $58,000, a 12-acre island in the Norwegian fjords for $111,000, and a tiny Japanese islet for $230,000. None feature any buildings (unless you count a dilapidated sun shelter).

If you’re really clever you can turn your private island into a viable business. That’s what Nigel Bower and Mona Wiethuchter have done in The Bahamas. The couple inhabits a private paradise called Ship Channel Cay, just two and half miles long and half a mile wide.

Through their tourist company Powerboat Adventures, they welcome day-trippers and overnight guests.

Facilities include guest cabins, restaurant, bar, kitchen, boat dock and two beaches.

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PROPERTY

“We have no neighbours here and we never worry about crime,” says 34-year-old Mona who was brought up thousands of miles away in Germany. “During the day I have breathtaking views. At night we have some of the most beautiful skies in the world with no city lights to stop us seeing the stars. The peace I have here gives me a different perspective on life.”

But paradise has its drawbacks too. The nearest shop (“just for emergencies”) is a six-mile boat ride away.

Otherwise it’s over 30 miles to commercial shops in the Bahamian capital Nassau. “If you’re not organised you may have to take a boat to the next island just to get coffee,” Mona says. “And in hurricane season the storms can be a problem. Afterwards there’s a lot of physical work in cleaning up. Being so exposed to nature’s elements can be very rough.”

Nevertheless, she wouldn’t dream of changing her home. “It would be devastating if I had to move away.”

Back in the Great Barrier Reef, Dave Glasheen has similar sentiments although his island future is less certain. Last year a court ruled that he must leave the island because he and his business partners hadn’t honoured a condition of the original lease promising that they would carry out commercial development.

Not that he plans to depart without a fight. “I’ll chain myself to the trees,” he says when reminded of the eviction order. “Quasi and I aren’t going. We’re going nowhere.”

“We never worry about crime.

During the day I have breathtaking views. At night we have some of the most beautiful skies in the world.

The peace here gives me a different perspective on life.”

Mona Wiethuchter, private islander in The Bahamas.

Island life You don’t need to be a multimillionaire to afford your own private island. SOME COST less than a townhouse in the suburbs. Here’s what you get for your money.

Cave Cay Location: The Bahamas Price: $110 million Size: 220 acres Facilities: Luxurious main house on the island’s high point, guesthouses, marina, harbour and airstrip.

Ile Gagnon Location: Quebec, Canada Price: $29 million Size: 19 acres Facilities: A reproduction French chateau complete with its own library, wine cellar and state-of-the-art gym. (As used by Celine Dion.)

South Molle Island Location: Queensland, Australia Price: $29 million Size: 100 acres Facilities: A small tourist resort, a nine-hole golf course, a helicopter landing site and a milelong main beach.

Krotteroy Island Location: Norway Price: $111,000 Size: 12 acres Facilities: None.

Rangyai Island - Private Islands online

Maru Island Location: Japan Price: $230,000 Size: 0.25 acres Facilities: None.

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T H E L U X U R Y T R E AT

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Holy smoke

hey say the world’s very best cigars are rolled between the thighs of Cuban virgins. Unfortunately it’s a myth. Yes, female rollers (or torcedoras) work with piles of tobacco leaves on their laps but they never actually use their legs to roll. For the best brands, that’s always done by hand.

There are many other marks of quality that make top Cuban cigars stand head and shoulders above the competition. First off there’s the soil that the tobacco is grown in. Not only must the different parts of the cigar (filler, binder and wrapper) come from specific regions on the island of Cuba, but the soil itself must be loose to allow the plant roots to thrive. For this reason, many fields are still ploughed by animal power, and in special patterns.

During harvest, leaves are picked by hand at intervals, the lowest leaves first, the highest last, so that each plant takes a month to be fully harvested.

The manufacturing process is just as painstaking, with many factories employing readers to entertain the cigar rollers by reading out loud to them from newspapers or novels. It’s believed the famous Montecristo brand derived its name from the French novel The Count of Monte Cristo, once very popular among rollers.

There’s also a wonderful exclusivity to the top Cuban brands, not only because of the elevated prices – these bundles of tobacco sell for as much as US$50 a piece, more for special editions – but also thanks to the American trade embargo on Cuban products. With American citizens banned from buying them since the 1960s, they have since gained legendary status; a sort of forbidden fruit.

But of all the many Cuban brands available, which is most likely to set your world on fire? Ajay Patel is owner of one of the world’s leading retailers, La Casa del Habano, in London. He believes there are two brands you should go out of your way to taste: the Cohiba Behike and the Dunhill Esplendido.

“It’s a very complex cigar,” he says of the former. “The slower you smoke it, the more flavours you get. It’s floral with dark cocoa bean flavours.”

As for the Dunhill, well, Cigar Aficionado magazine recently rated it 100 out of 100. Praise indeed. “It’s also a very complex cigar,” Patel says. “Lots of milk chocolate, cinnamon and vanilla flavours come through.”

And not a hint of virgins’ thighs.

Don’t miss out on life’s luxury treats. If you do smoke, then smoke the very best: a quality Cuban cigar.

PENHA

MONTBLANC TIMEWALKER CHRONOVOYAGER UTC

A second time zone synchronised with Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) makes this self-winding chronograph the perfect companion for all frequent travellers.Itsrobust43-mm-diameterstainlesssteelcasewithsatin-finishedbezel and push-pieces unites elegant design and the traditional art of watchmaking.

This chronograph features a second time zone with day/night indication displayed by 24 hours on the flange, a date display, a central second-hand as well as two additional counters for up to 30 elapsed minutes and maximally 12 elapsed hours. The TimeWalker ChronoVoyager UTC is crafted in the Montblanc Manufacture in Le Locle, Switzerland.

Exclusive Montblanc Boutique: Renaissance Curaçao Resort & Casino Baden Powell Weg 1, Otrobanda Tel. 0.5999.461.2795