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THE
WA T C H & J E W E L R Y
ISSUE
134
Man of the Hour
Formal wear is more than
just a sharp jacket and
matching cuff links. Look
to these timepieces to
complete your next black-tie
ensemble.
BY PAIGE REDDINGER

160
Diamonds
Aren’t Forever
The Australian outback is
more than just dunes and
dingoes—it also houses a
mine that has long produced
the best pink diamonds in
the jewelry business. But
as the supply runs dry, the
burning question remains:
Where will we harvest the
ultra-rare gem from next?
BY MARK ELLWOOD

174
British
Standard Time
In July, Sotheby’s sold a
watch for $4.5 million that
was pieced together in a
garden shed on a tiny island
off the coast of England.
Its maker, George Daniels,
is one of the many faces
behind the UK’s long and
proud horological history,
a legacy that has since
paved the way for British
watchmaking’s modern-day
resurgence.
BY NICHOLAS FOULKES
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSHUA SCOT T; ST YLING BY LUIS CAMPUZ ANO

182
Wild Things
Journey to the heart of the
jungle via our selection of
necklaces, rings and other
statement accessories.
BY PAIGE REDDINGER

The Bovet Virtuoso IX

pocket watch, in 18-karat
red gold, transforms into
a wristwatch.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 29
 F E AT U R E S

146
Born to Ride
Jessica Springsteen is one of America’s
finest equestrians, with an eye on next year’s
Olympics. But on a beach in Saint-Tropez, she
needs to show her horse who’s the boss.
BY BROOKE MAZUREK

152
Four-Wheel Fantasy
Concept cars have long offered an ambitious,
far-reaching look into the automotive crystal
ball—from the Ferrari 512S Modulo’s sliding-
canopy glass roof at the Geneva Motor Show
in 1970 to Bentley’s suave vision for our future.
Warning: These cars will seriously damage
your bank balance. If you can find them.
BY ROBERT ROSS

166
The Next Frontier
A recent flurry of luxe lodges, camps and
hotels, strategically positioned near the
country’s mountain gorillas, have made
Rwanda a bona fide high-end travel
destination, all while keeping sustainability
at their core.
BY TONY PERROTTET

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 31
 epartments THE GOODS
72

82 61 tailoring tricks for when your

State, and five farm-fresh restaurants
55
TRAVEL
A closer look at Honolulu’s long-
awaited luxury renaissance, and the
rebuilt hotels and villas to book in
post–Hurricane Irma St. Barts.
FOOD & DRINK
he complex wines of Washington
to sample in southern Portugal.
66
STYLE
A new book reveals Ralph Lauren’s
life (and custom Bugatti), plus
dimensions fluctuate, Tiffany & Co.
releases its first men’s accessories and
boutique shop D. C. Johnson Ltd.
brings rare jewelry and watches
to the Midwest.
74
WATCHE S
Free Solo filmmaker Jimmy Chin
explains why the Panerai Submersible
BMG-Tech 47 mm is ideal for scaling
rock faces, and three intricately
engineered and innovative timepieces.
82
ART & DE SIGN
Sculptor Nairy Baghramian’s new
exhibition; plump, statement-making
furnishings; and the latest show at
MoMA PS1, devoted to pieces that
reference the Gulf War.

DREAM MACHINES GENIUS AT WORK

40
C ONTR IBUT O RS
119
42 MAJE STY IN MICRO
ED IT OR ’S L E T TE R
Watchmaker Jaquet Droz embeds
45 teensy artistic masterpieces
in its timepieces, from an elephant
OB J E C T IFIE D
Quenelles get a mosaic made of eggshells to a
makeover, the world’s swimming-fish automaton.
fastest sedan and an
oddball timepiece with a
purpose.

52
TH E DU E L
The Macallan vs.
Pappy Van Winkle

88
T H E A NSW E R S
With eyewear visionary
Garrett Leight
FIELD NOTES
224 91 114
WATER TECH
T H E D E C ID E R
What’s Your Fountain 127
We take the Lexus LY 650 cruiser for a spin Snapchat embeds two smartphone- Going bullish on data-driven
of Youth?
in uncertain waters, and a new Monaco- connected cameras into a seemingly art investments, sparking joy by
adjacent marina provides a safe harbor. ordinary pair of glasses with its limited- keeping beloved wardrobe items and
edition Spectacles 3 model. mastering a legendary Hemingway
96 fishing hole.
WHEELS
Bowlus debuts a trailer for next-level
glamping, Drako proves that electric and
performance aren’t mutually exclusive, THE BUSINESS
Ferrari unveils two convertibles.

108 219
WINGS Sports arenas have graduated
from beer and bleachers to wine
C OVE R Private-jet transport for your next ski trip, and luxury suites, and Out of
IL LUSTRATIO N BY and supersonic-flight regulations look Office with Jaeger-LeCoultre
VASAVA likely to loosen. 91 CEO Catherine Renier.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 33
 Robb Report is owned and published by Penske Media Corporation
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 CALIBER RM 07-03

RICHARD MILLE BOUTIQUES

ASPEN BAL HARBOUR BEVERLY HILLS BOSTON BUENOS AIRES
LAS VEGAS MIAMI NEW YORK ST. BARTH TORONTO VANCOUVER

www.richardmille.com
 Contributors

Sofia Jaramillo
Jaramillo is an outdoor adventure photographer based in Jackson,
Wyo. Her work has appeared in The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian—this month, for
Robb Report, she shot climber, filmmaker and watch enthusiast
Jimmy Chin in “King of the Hill” (p. 78). “I’ve looked up to [Chin]
since I was a kid,” she says. “It was especially nice to work with
him, as he’s also a photographer—he understood exactly what
needed to happen to get the right shot.” When not on set, she’s off
skiing or climbing in the Tetons.

Nicholas Foulkes Stefania Paparelli Tony Perrottet Peter Rosa

Foulkes is a London-based
writer and author of about 30
books, including Patek Philippe:
The Authorized Biography.
A contributing editor to How
To Spend It, GQ and The Rake,
Foulkes lent his horological
know-how to Robb Report this
month, chronicling the history
of British watchmaking in
“British Standard Time,” (p. 174)
from Richard of Wallingford’s
St. Albans timepiece in the 1320s
to Bamford Watch Department’s
21st century success. His latest
book, Time Tamed, charts
mankind’s history—from 25,000
BCE to the moon landing—
through the lens of the many
timepieces humans have
created.
Based out of Sardinia,
photographer Paparelli
regularly commutes to Rome,
Paris and London for her
work. This month, she found
herself in Saint-Tropez, where
she captured show-jumping
champion Jessica Springsteen
and her trusty steed, Zecilie,
for “Born to Ride” (p. 146).
“It was the horse’s first time
at the beach,” she says of the
shoot. “But Jessica didn’t lose
her patience, even when it got
nervous—the next day, the two
would compete!” In addition
to Robb Report and Muse by
Robb Report, Paparelli’s work
has appeared in The Sunday
Times, Harper’s Bazaar and
L’Officiel.
Australian-born, New
York–based writer Perrottet
began his career as a foreign
correspondent in South
America, where he covered
guerrilla wars in Peru, drug
trafficking in Colombia and
military rebellions in Argentina.
This issue he traveled to
the forests of Rwanda for
“The Next Frontier” (p. 166),
documenting the country’s
budding sustainable travel
industry firsthand. “Plastic
bags were banned about 15
years ago and possessing one
in Rwanda carries a hefty
fine,” says Perottet. “We had
to hide [mine] in the glove
compartment and smuggle it
back to the hotel.”
Beauty and still-life
photographer Rosa’s work has
appeared in Elle, Vogue and
Harper’s Bazaar. His signature
clean, elegant aesthetic allows
the individual beauty of each
object and face he encounters
to shine—a sensibility he put to
task in Robb Report’s jewelry
shoot this month, “Wild Things”
(p. 182). “One challenge with
shooting these pieces is finding
a way to represent their scale. In
this regard, we looked to botany
to help tell the story,” says Rosa.
“We selected earth tones that
complimented each piece, while
still making them stand out.”

40 NOVEMBER 2019
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 Welcome to our annual watches-and-jewelry issue, one
that celebrates the finest timepieces and the people who
make them, as well as the most extraordinary diamonds,
gems and exotic creations available worldwide.
From the scarcely believable dial work of Jaquet Droz
to the high complications of Ulysse Nardin, plus the most
covetable and elegant dress pieces around and a hard-
as-nails (harder, actually) Panerai, this issue is full of
fascinating stories for watch collectors and enthusiasts
alike. But the horological tale I found most intriguing
involved, at least in part, a cranky eccentric genius at his
best in the 1980s, an ambitious and spirited man of God
from the 14th century, an inventor who came up with the
concept of minute markers in the 1600s and one of the
most respected figures of our present-day industry.
To explain, I had asked author, historian and one of the
great watch writers of our time, Nicholas Foulkes, to trace
the influence of British watchmaking on the storied history
of, well, time. Because Britain—from where both Nick and
I hail—is, perhaps surprisingly, deeply embedded in that
particular timeline. It’s a remarkable tale of boom, bust and
burgeoning re-boom, and reminds us that fine timekeeping
hasn’t always been the preserve of the French and the
Swiss, after all.
Outside of horology, but a rising star in no less of a
precision industry, is Jessica Springsteen. An outstanding
athlete and Olympic hopeful, Springsteen is one of
America’s brightest equestrian talents, so we were thrilled
that she agreed to give up a considerable chunk of time
for us in the run-up to one of the major tournaments in
the Longines Global Champions Tour, the preeminent
competition in show jumping. Now, far be it from me to
take credit where none is due, but not only did Springsteen
and her horse Zecilie pose like the pros they are on a beach
in the South of France, but the pair then went on to secure Paul Croughton
the finest win of their careers just days later. Coincidence Editor in Chief
or fate? Not for me to say... @paulcroughton
Far from resting on their laurels, our fantastic team
returned to put together one of the best jewelry shoots I’ve
ever seen. I get asked occasionally why a men’s magazine Walker at the helm of Lexus’s newest release, although
like Robb Report covers jewelry—we’re the only one in the for this one he’s not on tarmac but on the ocean. The
world that does, to the best of my knowledge. The answer is marque’s LY 650 is a 2,700 hp, 73,000-pound yacht, and
that exquisite jewelry is not that different from watches, or Robb Report was the first to take it out on sea trial, on a day
cars, or boats, or art. At the very highest end of the market, that saw winds gusting to 28 mph and waves tipping 8 feet
it’s a craft practiced by only a few highly trained and devoted high. Did Walker shrink in the face of such adversity? Not a
technicians, who make something so beautiful it’s coveted bit. Read his exhilarating report on page 91. And then check
around the world. And that is something to be celebrated. out Robert Ross’s engaging romp through the history
(Not to mention that the smart, successful men our of the concept car, showing how auto designers let their
magazine attracts tend to recognize the investment potential imaginations soar to produce the vehicles of tomorrow
JOSHUA SCOT T

in these objects, just as they do in, say, watches, or cars, today. I doubt you’ll find a more intriguing collection of
or boats, or art.) So turn to page 182 and see what I mean. cars anywhere else this month.
Elsewhere in the issue you’ll find writer Howard Enjoy the issue.

42 NOVEMBER 2019
PRINCESS FLOWER COLLECTION | robertocoin.com
 STOP
LOOKING
FOR THE PERFECT COAT

DOWN-LINED, WATERPROOF
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 Objectified

Child’s Play
The bizarre form of Tom & T-Rex,
MB&F’s quirky timepiece,
serves a higher purpose. “Tom,”
the character perched atop the
clock’s Murano glass face,
represents children living with
Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The piece imagines a fantastical
world beyond that of Tom’s
physical disability—one where
dinosaurs might once again
walk the Earth, with our hero
at their palladium-plated brass,
bronze and stainless-steel helm,
according to MB&F. The one-
of-a-kind piece, created with
L’Epée 1839, will be available at
the Christie’s Only Watch charity
auction in Geneva this month;
its proceeds will fund further
Duchenne research. mbandf.com

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 45
 Take Flight
Luxury is about getting the details right, and with
its 2020 Flying Spur, Bentley has added a beautiful
finishing touch to its brand-new model. The English
automaker crowns the world’s fastest sedan—it goes
zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds and hits a top speed of
207 mph—with a redesigned and retractable Flying B
mascot that’s crafted from stainless steel and boasts
illuminated wings. The first cars will hit dealerships in
early 2020. bentleymotors.com

46 NOVEMBER 2019
Objectified
8 EM 2019
 Objectified

French Twist
The classic Lyonnaise
dish quenelles de brochet
plucks the meat from a
bony fish and combines it
with egg and cream for an
airy dumpling that’s rich
yet delicate. Honestly,
it’s perfect. Still, chef
Dave Beran can’t help
but mess with perfection.
At his new Santa Monica
restaurant, Pasjoli—the
follow-up to his Michelin-
starred Dialogue—Beran
is taking liberties with
the Parisian bistro. He’ll
give you what looks like
a classic quenelle, but
he’s made it with scallops
instead of fish and topped
it with caviar-laden
beurre blanc in lieu of
the traditional crayfish
sauce. What it lacks in
authenticity, it makes
up in deliciousness.
pasjoli.com
CHRISTIAN SEEL
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Family
Ties
The techniques
imbedded in CODE 11.59
by Audemars Piguet
watches connects
them with a long line
of Audemars Piguet
creations.

“I think Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet is

a little like a bridge,” says Audemars Piguet
Head of Complications Michael Friedman.
“Certain aspects are apparent when you’re
driving on it, but it’s not until you get off the
bridge and see it from the side that you
start to fully appreciate its architectural
integrity.” Most watch collectors who
viewed this new family of contemporary
round watches introduced this year would
agree that Friedman’s analogy is unusually
apt. The true qualities of CODE 11.59 by
Audemars Piguet are fully apparent once
you pick it up and admire the complex
language of geometries and contrasting
finishes, as seen from different angles.

The myriad of surfaces on the CODE 11.59

by Audemars Piguet case, from its open-
worked lugs to its octagonal middle case
band, presented such a challenge to the
company’s case polishers; only the 12 most
experienced were assigned to the initial
production. Their work is exemplary—
all the more remarkable as it is done
largely by hand and eye. The bands
of mirror polishing on the middle case
subtly vary in thickness to follow the
octagonal contour. Their touch is more
than mere artisanship, it is a thread
running throughout Audemars Piguet’s
wristwatch production.

“The combination of brushed and

polished finishes does not begin with
the Royal Oak,” says Friedman. “It can
be seen in pieces throughout the 20th
century. Gerald Genta (designing the
Royal Oak) in 1972 was showcasing
the existing polishing techniques of
Audemars Piguet. The CODE 11.59 by
Audemars Piguet is honoring that long
history of geometric case forms that
give the polishers a canvas to create.”

In fact, CODE 11.59 by Audemars Piguet “The combination of

opens these possibilities to a greater
degree than ever before. To allow
brushed and polished
unimpeded finishing of the octagonal
middle case, the lugs had to be
finishes does not begin
proprietarily laser welded to the upper
bezel—a 21st-century manufacturing
with the Royal Oak”
process that is performed just a few
meters away from the mid-20th-
century heat conveyor belt as well as
the age-old hand-finishing techniques. “With any kind of contemporary art,
This welding is far from the only notable you need a context to fully appreciate
innovation. In the interests of legibility, its qualities,” muses Friedman, who
the company’s logo on the dial is grown sees the new watch family as an
in a galvanic process to provide greater integral part of Audemars Piguet’s
resolution to the details. These, along collections over the last hundred
with the dials in perfect lacquer, or, in years. “With architecture and sculpture
the case of the highly coveted perpetual and, I would argue, CODE 11.59 by
calendar in aventurine glass, are all Audemars Piguet, it’s about discovery
the more lustrous underneath a unique and having something that is more than
crystal that utilizes an internal dome meets the eye.”
contour for maximum visibility.

Friedman, who oversaw the creation

of a special two-tone gold model for
2019’s Only Watch auction, hints at
future possibilities with the design. audemarspiguet.com
 Whether you’re a whiskey collector or simply enjoy a deluxe dram, the
Macallan and Pappy Van Winkle should be on your radar. The former is one of
the first legally licensed distilleries in Scotland and the only major producer to
age its hallowed single malts almost exclusively in Spanish sherry casks. The
latter has created a cult following around its scarcity, as with its 23-year-old
bottle of Pappy, which has been dubbed “liquefied, barrel-aged unobtainium.”

The VS.
Pappy
Macallan Van Winkle
WHERE IT ’S MADE

Speyside, Scotland Franklin County, Kentucky

Y E A R S I N P RO D U CT I O N

(Founded in 1824) 195 47 (The 20-year expression debuted in 1995, followed by the 23 Year Old in 1998.)

M O ST P O P U L A R AG E E X P R E S S I O N S

12, 18, 25 15, 20, 23

HOUS E ST YL E

Heavily sherried Heavily hyped

W H E N TO B R E A K I T O U T

After your second IPO After you’ve run out of IPA

MOST E XPE N S IV E B OT TL E EV ER SOLD

There are rumors

$1.5m $15,000?
The Macallan
about a record
1926 60 Year
private sale of a
Old, in 2018.
23 Year Old in 2018.

FA M O U S H E I ST S
Someone actually convinced someone else to In 2013, thieves pilfered an estimated $26K
pay $1.5 million for an old bottle of whisky. worth of whiskey from the distillery.

W H O ’ S YO U R ( C O R P O R AT E ) D A D DY

WHAT ’ S ON THE L ABE L

Easter The
Elchies Easter Elchies House, the The man himself, Julian actual
House ancestral home of the brand. “Pappy” Van Winkle Sr. “Pappy”

SILVER-SCREEN CAMEO

DANIEL CRAIG AND VINCE VAUGHN: SHUT TERSTOCK

James Bond enjoys a 50-year- Vince Vaughn enjoys Pappy in The
old Macallan in Skyfall. Internship, which no one enjoyed.
EASTER ELCHIES HOUSE: ALAMY

WOR L D- CL AS S B AR AT THE DISTILLERY

Yes No

FAN FRENZY
In 2018, police had to shut down the main road leading to the distillery after it In 2015, a superfan drove from his home in Atlanta to Birmingham, Ala., and camped out-
was overrun by people determined to purchase a one-time-only offering. side a liquor store for three days in the rain for a shot at a new allocation of Pappy.

52 NOVEMBER 2019
 astronomia solar zodiac
The Astronomia Solar Zodiac puts the solar system on your wrist, complete with
its Star Sign dial. Combining a high-watchmaking double-axis tourbillon with
precious-stone planets that rotate both clockwise and counter clockwise around
the “sun” (a Jacob-cut Citrine with 288 facets), the Astronomia Solar Zodiac is
always changing, and it will change the way you look at luxury watches.

N e w Yo r k 4 8 Eas t 5 7 S t reet , New Yo r k , N e w Yo r k +1 .2 1 2 .7 1 9 .5 8 8 7

F o u r S e a s o n s H o t e l D e s B e r g u e s G e n e v a 33, Quai des Bergues, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland +41 22 316 00 96

jacobandco.com
 T R AV E L | FOOD & DRINK | STYLE | WA T C H E S | ART & DESIGN
€

The Goods
T H I S M O N T H ’ S W H O , W H AT A N D W E A R

The pool at the

Ritz-Carlton
Residences,
Waikiki Beach.

The New
Aloha
It’s time to rethink
what luxury means on
Hawaii’s capital island.
BY ANDREW SESSA

after decades of little

luxe development, a new wave
of style and sophistication has
come ashore on Honolulu. Once
a destination for mass-produced
DON RIDDLE

luau buffets and overcrowded

sunset cruises, an influx of
affluent travelers, particularly †

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 55
 The Goods | T R AV E L

from Japan, has enlivened the island city and

brought a swell of new, high-end hotels and
restaurants to Hawaii’s capital—which makes
now the perfect moment to revisit these
stunning tropical shores.

HOTELS
Among the newest game-changing debuts
is Espacio, which stakes a claim as Hawaii’s
most luxurious hotel. The property, across
the street from Waikiki Beach, houses just
nine 2,250-square-foot residential-style
suites, each occupying its own floor with
two or three bedrooms and three bathrooms.
(For unobstructed, 180-degree ocean views,
reserve one of the top four suites.) Design
details include expansive balconies, dining
tables crafted from slabs of Carrara marble,
handmade chandeliers from Morocco and
hand-knotted carpets, while impressive
amenities extend from butler service and
Bulgari bath products to a fleet of Audi Q5
house cars. espaciowaikiki.com
Less than a mile away in the former
Waikiki Parc Hotel is the Halepuna Waikiki
by Halekulani, which opened in late October
across the street from its oceanfront sister
hotel, the Halekulani. Designed as a serene
urban retreat, the property includes 284
rooms—we recommend the opulent Ocean and
Grand Ocean suites, each with a view of the
Pacific—and a stunning eighth-floor oasis with
open-air gardens and a 72-foot infinity pool

“An influx of affluent

travelers has enlivened
the island city.”

Come for the overlooking the ocean. Book one of the private
new Ritz-Carlton cabanas for a rejuvenating treatment from a
Residences tower SpaHalekulani therapist. halepuna.com
(left), stay for the The second tower of the Ritz Carlton
incredible beach Residences, Waikiki Beach opened just a year
views (above). ago, and the buildings’ 552 hotel suites include
the only four-bedroom option in Waikiki; it’s
reportedly become quite popular with Hollywood
stars and other A-listers. Also not to be missed:

QUEEN’S BEACH: HTA / VINCENT LIM; RITZ CARLTON: DON RIDDLE

an in-house dining experience at Sushi Sho, the
new restaurant from notable Japanese chef Keiji
Nakazawa. ritzcarlton.com

RESTAURANTS
One of the buzziest places to eat in the city is
Tbd, a two-year pop-up from Indian-born Vikram
Garg, former executive chef at Halekulani, that
opened in June at the Lotus Honolulu Hotel. Garg
has created a focused menu that uses the best
local products to re-create flavors from across the
globe—try the decadent hotpot of lobster, shrimp
and fish in a Makrut lime-scented bisque as well
as the massive tomahawk steaks cooked in a
tandoor oven. tbdhawaii.com

56 NOVEMBER 2019
 T R AV E L | The Goods

St. Barts
Is Back
What could top St. Barts?
The Francophone island
is gearing up for one of its
most spectacular winters
yet after much revitalization
in the wake of Hurricane
Irma in 2017. Marking the
first season that the island
is fully “back,” plenty of
Amels and Feadships will
be glimmering at the quay
in Gustavia.
Prefer to ditch the
yacht for land? “The most
iconic hotels and villas
on the island have truly
raised the bar. The newly
renovated rooms are
chicer than ever,” said
Samy Ghachem, managing
director of Sereno Hotels,
which includes Le Sereno
in St. Barts and Il Sereno
on Lake Como.
This winter, Le Sereno,
a hideaway on the opposite
side of the island from
Gustavia, is back open for
business. First erected
in 1980—now rebuilt
and revamped following
Irma—the resort debuted
four new suites in October
that overlook the Grand
Cul de Sac lagoon,
with private pools and
the option to connect
rooms for a private villa
experience. (Bonus: The
beach and lagoon in front
of Le Sereno form the
island’s only protected
marine sanctuary, giving
you easy access to
superb snorkeling and
paddleboarding with
turtles.) serenohotels.com
Come November 20,
you can also opt to laze
in the sun at Eden Rock–
St. Barths, which will
reopen after two years
of rebuilding. Part of the
Oetker Collection, the
hotel has a new spa as
well as a new bar next to
the Sand Bar Restaurant,
helmed by Jean-Georges
Vongerichten. There’s even
a “‘frosé” trolley. Now,
really, what could top St.
Barts? oetkercollection
.com Perri O. Blumberg

Yuya Yamanaka brings a similarly worldly

perspective to Paris.Hawaii, his counter-style
eatery that opened in late August last year. The
Japanese-born talent was the opening sous chef
at Le Clown Bar Bistro, a foodie favorite in the
City of Lights, and that influence is delightfully
evident in his eight-course, tropically accented
contemporary French prix fixe meals spun from
seasonal Hawaiian ingredients. paris-hawaii.us
As its name suggests, Tane Vegan Izakaya,
which made its debut this past spring, is a
celebration of vegetables through the lens of
Japanese flavors and techniques. Hong Kong-
born, Honolulu-bred chef Kin Lui returned to
Hawaii to open the restaurant after more than
a decade working in San Francisco, where he
committed himself to serving only the most
sustainable seafood at his Tataki Sushi and
Sake Bar; his subsequent plant-based sushi bar
Shizen was also a hit. Tane Vegan Izakaya’s
fully plant-derived offerings range from braised
and grilled small plates to ramen, but the Le Sereno’s post-Irma
showstopper is surely Lui’s signature, jewel-like revamp is complete.
all-veggie nigiri. tanevegan.com

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 57
 CAPTURE IN MOTION ROLLING RINGS - GOLD, TITANIUM & DIAMONDS
SAKS FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, BEVERLY HILLS, HOUSTON & BAL HARBOUR - JUST ONE EYE, LOS ANGELES
PLACE VENDOME, PASADENA - DAORO, AVENTURA MALL - EAST COAST JEWELRY, BOCA RATON - JENSEN & STERN, KETCHUM

FOOD & DRINK
Portugal’s
Freshest Bites
The farm doesn’t get much closer than this.
the alentejo region of
southern Portugal, sprawling
between the Atlantic coast and
the Spanish border, lies within
striking distance of Lisbon
but offers a fresh-air antidote
to the city. Thick with olive
groves and medieval villages,
the territory is the country’s
breadbasket and an epicenter of
authentic, rural traditions. So it
was only a matter of time before
a new generation snapped up
the Alentejo’s old farmsteads, or
in some cases erected faithful
facsimiles, and refitted them as
SANDA VUCKOVIC PAG AIMO
São Lourenço
do Barrocal’s
restaurant.
The Goods
pastoral retreats stocked with
spas, swimming pools, bars and
a full roster of activities. These
resorts also function as serious,
working estates, and their eco-
conscious owners are intent
on sourcing from the region’s
bounty of wheat fields, vineyards
and coastal seafood, as well as
their own orchards and kitchen
gardens, to offer an updated taste
of the bulging local larder. The
result is proof of how far chefs
can take farm-to-table cooking
when the farm pitches right up on
the doorstep. Raphael Kadushin
 The Goods | F O O D & D R I N K

QUINTA DA COMPORTA
Conceived by star Portuguese
architect Miguel Câncio Martins as a
sustainable wellness retreat, Quinta
da Comporta (an SLH property) sits
in the middle of Comporta’s
sweeping nature reserve, its 73 guest
rooms, suites and pool villas paying
homage to traditional regional
designs. Chef João Sousa, who has
cooked throughout Europe, produces
a Mediterranean-inflected global
cuisine driven by the full Alentejo
playbook, from lemons and pork to
the coastal sea bass and prawns. The
fish turn up in his creamy seafood
soup and in his prawn risotto. And
his Porco 3-D is an homage to the
famous Alentejo black pig, served
three ways and best paired with one
of the bar’s cocktails spiked with
herbs from the property’s bio-
garden. quintadacomporta.com

SUBLIME COMPORTA
Sitting on 17 acres, the recently
built Sublime Comporta offers 23
guest rooms and suites, as well as
wood-beamed cabanas modeled
on local farmers’ houses. The
added bonus here is the
neighboring white-sand beach of
the Atlantic coast, and chef Tiago
Santos—veteran of Michelin-
starred kitchens—takes full
advantage of the daily catch,
even adding a briny accent to the
meaty Alentejo black pork
served in a shell with clams in
the resort’s Sem Porta restaurant.
But real culinary pioneers will
want to join the Food Circle in
the organic garden, served by a
team of chefs cooking the best of
the seasonal crop to the beat of
music, often over a live fire.
sublimecomporta.pt

CRAVEIRAL FARMHOUSE

MARTIN K AUFMANN; MAP ILLUSTRATION BY HOLLY WALES

A group of whitewashed houses clustered around

COMPORTA: NELSON G ARRIDO; CRAVEIRAL FARMHOUSE:

courtyards, converted into a range of guest rooms and QUINTA DA COMPORTA: MANOLO YLLERA; SUBLIME
lofts, the Craveiral Farmhouse sits on prime turf close
to the coastal beaches, in the middle of a nature
reserve scored by hiking and biking trails. Taking full
advantage of the property’s orchards and sustainable
vegetable garden, the farmhouse’s chefs upcycle the
Alentejo harvest, dressing dishes like octopus with
crispy kale and sweet-potato puree. Leaning toward a
largely veg-centric menu, the Farmhouse is becoming
best known for star turns like a creamy coriander rice,
inspired by the classic regional dishes. craveiral.pt

62 NOVEMBER 2019
 F O O D & D R I N K | The Goods

Q&A

DÁ LICENÇA
Situated in the middle of a 300-acre
eco-reserve dense with olive and fig
trees and close to the historic market
town of Estremoz, Dá Licença offers
a masterfully renovated clutch of
19th-century agricultural buildings
refitted as three guest rooms and four
suites, all punctuated by the owners’
world-class Scandinavian-style Arts
& Crafts collection. Chef Hugo
Bernardo finds his truest muse in the
property’s olive grove, and his
olive-centric version of farm-to-fork
produces dishes like cod buoyed by
garlic, cauliflower cream and olive
dust and a lemon-thyme panna cotta
dressed with vodka-infused olives.
The best place to dig in? Alongside
the original farm basin, fringed by
jasmine and fig trees. dalicenca.pt
SÃO LOURENÇO DO BARROCAL
The São Lourenço do Barrocal is a
sprawling family-owned estate lying just
below the medieval hilltop village of
Monsaraz and renovated by Pritzker
Prize–winning architect Eduardo Souto
de Moura as a resort with its own
vineyards and winery. Alentejo-born chef
José Júlio Vintém lightens traditional
regional recipes, infusing the classic migas
bread stew with organic tomatoes from
the resort’s vegetable garden, accenting
his pumpkin soup with fennel and ginger
and crowning his caldeta (a freshwater
seafood soup) with fish eggs. Sometimes,
though, he just plays on his own, turning
out a partridge escabeche with egg
yolk that is a favorite of diners returning
AKIRA BACK ILLUSTRATION BY JOEL KIMMEL
Akira Back
A Snowboarder Turned Chef
Takes Flight
What do you get when you cross a former
professional snowboarder with a detail-
obsessed gourmand? Lumi, a rooftop restaurant
helmed by chef Akira Back in downtown San
Diego that is set to open this month.
At Lumi, guests can expect hits like salmon,
wagyu beef or toro, all stone-seared at 1,000
degrees Fahrenheit and chased with oroshi
ponzu, salt-sesame oil and mustard-soy garlic.
Or splurge on “the Harmony,” a sushi roll
topped with foie gras, wagyu, lobster tempura
and truffle sauce.
It’s clear that Back, Korean-born and
Aspen-bred, is gaining serious altitude in the
culinary world. With a portfolio of 16 global
venues (and counting), the Michelin-starred
chef caught up with us about his latest.
Perri O. Blumberg
You spent seven years on the professional
snowboarding circuit. How has that
influenced you as a chef? There are a lot of
underlying similarities between snowboarding
and being a chef. Both are very physically
demanding and allow self-expression in a
unique way. Snowboarding has given me the
endurance needed to succeed in the kitchen as
well as the confidence to take risks.
Tell us about your passion for using exotic
ingredients. Ingredients that are lesser-
known or exotic truly excite me. I welcome the
challenge of being able to prepare them in a
way that’s true to my style and approachable
for my guests. Right now, chestnuts and
persimmon are two I’m loving. Nostalgia plays
a factor, too, as I have fond childhood
memories of eating both with my baseball team
and my family.
What advice can you offer for sourcing the
absolute finest local ingredients? Keep it

simple. Overcomplication can be the downfall

from sunset horseback rides. barrocal.pt of a dish. With the menus at Lumi, I’m working
DÁ LICENÇA: FRANCISCO NOGUEIRA;

with a lot of incredible purveyors and farmers,

and home chefs can do the same by sourcing
ingredients from local farmers markets.

You have to give up caviar or truffles for

the rest of your life. Which gets the ax?
Caviar. The acidity can cause arthritic issues if
overconsumed. lumirooftop.com

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 63
 The Goods | F O O D & D R I N K

along with intensity and power from thick,

wind-buffeted skins, and WeatherEye
wines have the potential to age.
One new producer, Liminal winery, is
putting WeatherEye’s potential to the
test. They have the first wines from the
vineyard in barrel: Syrah, Grenache and
Viognier from 2018. An advance taste
with winemaker Chris Peterson (partner
in Liminal with Marty Taucher, also a
Microsoft alum) justifies the excitement.
The winery’s High Canyon Block Syrah
is a ringer for a Côte-Rôtie—dense,
textured and peppery, with a distinct
earthiness under dark-berry fruit and
black-olive notes. The Grenache, also
from the High Canyon Block, is big-
shouldered and impressively complex
for such young vines; layers of crushed
stone and savory herbs underlie juicy red
fruit. “We’re just trying to capture the
terroir and the avant-garde tenacity of
Ryan,” says Peterson.
With notoriety comes heartbreak: The
first-tier allocation list for Liminal wines
is already closed. Members will be invited
to a barrel tasting in March 2020, and
whether they can come or not they’ll have
the chance to buy a three-bottle pack,
slated to be released in fall 2020. (The
reds will likely be in the $80 to $85 range

Washington
Wines
on the ridgeline of Red Mountain,
one of Eastern Washington’s smallest (and
warmest) wine regions, there are
vineyards where no one thought any
grapes could grow. And they resemble no
others in the state—or the New World, for
executive Cam Myhrvold, Johnson’s
partner in the venture), and the vineyard
does, in fact, take much inspiration from
the Rhône Valley. Johnson, one of the
state’s most respected viticulturists, spent
more than a year on the mountaintop
studying its soils (a lot of fractured basalt
lava covered by the barest coat of
windblown soil) and minutely varied
aspects, to decide what to plant where.
“This is crazy terroir up here,” he says.
and the Viognier about $60.) But all is not
WeatherEye
Vineyard, lost: A second-tier waiting list is still open
(but with no allocation guarantees).
overlooking the
Red Mountain Liminal is the first brand solely
AVA (American dedicated to WeatherEye wines, but
Viticultural Area).
according to Johnson, seven Washington
producers have dibs on fruit from these
exotic “island vineyards.” Look for a
Granache from Sleight of Hand Cellars, a
Grenache-based blend from Upsidedown
Wine, a Graciano blend from Devium

WASHINGTON WINES: RYAN JOHNSON

that matter. Explaining his plan for a
block of Syrah, viticulturist Ryan Johnson
might as well be describing the vine
logistics on a pitched slope in France’s
Northern Rhône.
The new WeatherEye Vineyard
comprises 50 blocks covering 30 out of
the 360 total acres on the property
(purchased in 2004 by former Microsoft
“With all the undulations and changes in Wines, a Grenache Blanc from Two
soils . . . you end up with islands.” Vintners, a Viognier from Kobayashi—and
Interlaced among the isolated blocks of a top-secret project from the viticulturist
vines are natives he spared (pungent sage) himself, who has the sharpest bead on
and botanicals he has planted (lavender), the vineyard. As Johnson, who has
hoping they’ll help capture a wild worked 20 vintages on Red Mountain,
savoriness in the wine. Add in higher levels puts it, “There’ve always been rocks
of acidity and lower levels of sugar from and wind up here—just no imagination.”
the cooler temperatures at this elevation, liminalwine.com Sara L. Schneider

ROBB RECOMMENDS...

Glenfiddich Personal celebrations usually require a bottle of Champagne, while business deals are toasted with a
bottle of scotch. Glenfiddich’s new Grand Cru whisky, however, works for both. The new expression
Grand Cru spent 23 years in American and European oak barrels before a final finish, for up to six months,
inside casks that once held some of France’s great sparkling cuvées. Even the cork is designed like a
cage atop a bottle of bubbly. The signature notes of a Glenfiddich—banana, baking spices—are layered
with pear, sandalwood and even apple blossom. Smooth at 80 proof and rich in flavor, the whisky
also has an unusual lightness. It’s definitely an improvement on the Auld Alliance—that legendary
partnership between Scotland and France that began in 1295—where the entire world can now drink
the fruits of such a marriage. glenfiddich.com Janice O’Leary

64 NOVEMBER 2019
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 The Goods

STYLE

Oh, To Be in
Ralph’s World
A new book sheds light on America’s
master of style.
B Y D AV D C O G G I N S

alan flusser has a unique vantage
point on men’s style. He’s the author of
definitive books (including Clothes and the
Man, one of the first style manuals), he’s run
a bespoke tailoring business for decades in
Midtown Manhattan, and he’s responsible
for some of the most memorable tailoring
in film (he dressed Michael Douglas as
Gordon Gekko in Wall Street and Christian
Bale in American Psycho, among others).
Now he’s undertaken a job perfectly
made for him: He’s written Ralph Lauren:
In His Own Fashion (Abrams), the
definitive book on Ralph Lauren, America’s
master of style. He was given access to
Ralph himself and, crucially, the complete
archive of photos and clothes. It comes
as the designer is being considered in a
new HBO documentary, Very Ralph.
Flusser and I spoke in his meticulously
appointed office at his NYC tailoring
studio and showroom.
Ralph, famously, DC: You’ve known Ralph for a long time
changed the and started this project 12 years ago.
color of What did you learn that surprised you?
his Bugatti. AF: There are so many things he
designed before their time. I was totally
surprised that he invented the whole
home business. In 1983, he did a
complete collection of home products,
divided into four themes—
Thoroughbred racers, things like that.
Nobody had ever taken wallpaper, †

66 NOVEMBER 2019
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towels, dishes and put them together,

much less four of them. Then he said to
stores, “You have to buy each of the
collections.” And told them that in the
store you had to walk into that
environment.

DC: I brought two sets of the sheets

to college.
AF: More than just the products, it’s the
idea of it. Ralph’s been in the business of
teaching people to wear clothes. Here’s a
guy whose message in the 1970s was
about having an arm’s-length relationship
with fashion. “You should have style.”
Imagine saying that to the fashion
industry in the United States. And he built
one of the largest fashion businesses in
America based on non-fashion. One of the
reasons I wanted to write the book was
because I think that’s the right message.

DC: Anybody can say they want to

build an entire world, but how does it
happen? Is it advertising? Is it the stores
themselves? Is it his incorporation of his
family into the storytelling?
AF: Ralph saw clothes as just part of the
picture. He focused on a lifestyle. He
also saw that men wore something to
work, something at home and something
else on the weekend, and he wanted to
put that all together. Stores were really
resistant to that. At that time, the suits
were here and the trousers there. So
he went to Bloomingdale’s and said he
wanted all his clothes in one place. They draw, he doesn’t sketch, he doesn’t
said no. And he said, “Well, then, Ralph saw clothes as just drape, he doesn’t cut. But he would like
I’m leaving.” They’d never had a shop part of the picture. He focused to be considered a “designer.” I worked
for anybody. That was very courageous. for Pierre Cardin, and he said a true
And he did the same thing with Saks. on a lifestyle. designer should be able to design a spoon
Even opening the Rhinelander and a dress and you should be able to tell

THE LODGE: BJÖRN WALLANDER /OT TO; RALPH LAUREN AND WIFE: THOMAS IANNACCONE /SHUT TERSTOCK;
Mansion [on 72nd and Madison]. Your the same person designed them both.
biggest customers in the States are Saks And in that sense Ralph’s completely a
and Bloomingdale’s, and you’re telling designer. He can take anything and make
them you’re about to open your own, it look like himself.
more elegant store within spitting
distance of both of them. And you even DC: Let’s talk about his cars. How did
have the audacity to tell them that it’s he build his collection?
going to improve their business. AF: The cars are interesting because
they’re not a collection the way somebody
DC: He has five homes, and you had would go about building a collection.
unprecedented access. Ralph basically bought the cars he wanted
AF: They’re completely different homes. to drive. Not to own and polish but to
From a ranch to a sleek New York actually drive.
apartment, to Jamaica to Montauk to
Bedford. Five different lifestyles and DC: His Bugatti is, essentially, one of the
personalities. world’s most famous objects.
AF: Yes. It’s one of two that are left in the
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF ABRAMS

DC: Does it ever strike you as invented? world. If it came on the market—and I
Lauren and his wife
AF: The criticism has always been Ricky (left) own don’t think it ever will—it would be
from the more cerebral set that just five estates. over $50 or $60 million. The thing is that
because you have a ranch doesn’t mean When visiting their that car was blue. French blue. They
you’re a cowboy. Whether or not you ranch, the Laurens made four, and one was black, but his
come from those backgrounds, everybody stay in the main car was blue. He said: “I’m going to
would like to have those homes. house, called the change this vintage car’s color.” And he
Ralph’s not a designer. He doesn’t Lodge (above). had it painted black. †

68 NOVEMBER 2019
 We craft watches not to meet
expectations, but to surpass them.

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The Goods | S T Y L E

DC: It takes a lot of confidence in your

own taste to do that.
AF: He stained the fence outside his ranch
to make it look like it had been there for
30 years. He just invented it. There was
nothing old. Ralph has a visual intelligence.

DC: Is it because he’s so much part of the

establishment that we forget to see how
The Ups
radical some of his early work was?
AF: Well, he’s still that way. A month ago
and Downs
Ralph took out a two-page ad in The New
York Times for his restaurant in Paris. You
of a Yo-Yo
can’t get a reservation there, and he spent
that money in New York City. There aren’t Wardrobe
a lot of people who think that globally.
The quest to do it
DC: Can we talk about the level of control
all—powering through
that takes to do that? Attention to detail?
the anguish of an Iron
AF: They took two or three months to
Man, then closing a
prepare the restaurant in New York. Ralph huge deal on too little
understands that this is a very particular sleep and too many
crowd, and he’s not going to open it until client dinners—can take
he’s completely confident that everything’s a serious toll. On your
going to be just right. wardrobe, that is.
Now they get 1,200 to 1,300 calls a day High-end suitmakers
for a reservation. Some people say he’s got from Campbell Carey, inches of inlay; Carey season he left it open.”
the Midas touch. Bullshit. Everything in The polo coat, creative director leaves nearly six. And while the
that restaurant has a reason for being. If which became at Savile Row shop Not all expansion waistline is the easiest
you don’t think Ralph isn’t involved in all of one of the brand’s Huntsman, to Leonard is so simply rectified. to alter, Cundey says
those decisions, then you don’t know Ralph. staples. Logsdail, one of New Joseph Morgan, of the cycling fad has
York’s most sought- Chittleborough & driven customers
after bespoke tailors, Morgan, also on the back to his shop for a
are seeing a surge of Row, says bulging, different fix. “Ten years
customers requesting bodybuilder deltoids are ago, men would meet
alterations as they hardest to fit—additional on the golf course for
boomerang between fit material in the shoulder some socializing and a
and, well, less so. can accommodate decent lunch. Now, they
“I have garments growth, but only to a spend their weekends
that have been in and point. And too severe wearing Lycra and
out so many times you a swing in the other acquiring mighty legs.”
have to reline them,” direction poses its own To the rescue: high-rise,
says Carey, whose problems. “Pot bellies pleated trousers. “The
clients include a poker that go down drastically extra material is more
player who packs on leave a ‘floating button,’” forgiving over muscular
up to 14 pounds during on the coat, Cundey thighs and calves,”
tournaments, and a says, while Carey notes says Morgan.

RALPH LAUREN WITH COAT: THE NEW YORK TIMES /REDUX; ILLUSTRATION BY STEVE SCOT T
banker who adds four such extreme shrinkage But at up to $800
inches to his waist results in “a lot of a pop for adjustments,
whenever a big deal spare cloth at the front you’ll soon cover the
is on, then goes back that you don’t know cost of another bespoke
to binging the gym the what to do about.” suit with nothing to
moment the Montblanc Double-breasted show for it—so why
hits the dotted line. jackets can provide not simply have two of
Sound familiar? flexibility for oscillating the same suit cut, one
There are a few things physiques (so long for fatter times and one
to know. First, have as they’re unbuttoned, for leaner, and save
suits cut to include though that defies a yourself the hassle?
enough material that formal look). “One of my “Back in the day,
your tailor can expand clients was a champion globetrotting gentlemen
it alongside your amateur jockey and his used to get four suits
increasing dimensions. waist size fluctuated made for their different
Simon Cundey, of three inches when in houses around the
venerable Savile Row or out of season,” world,” says Carey.
tailor Henry Poole, says Logsdail. “He “Now they get a skinny
inventor of the tuxedo always ordered a suit and a bigger one
jacket, says he hedges double-breasted jacket; to accommodate these
against inflation by in season he wore it regular ups and downs.”
leaving around four buttoned and out of Jemima Sissons
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 The Goods | S T Y L E

Something
Blue
here’s one you probably
haven’t heard before: What do a
pair of silver cuff links, a cocktail
mixer and a compass have in
common? They’re pieces in
Tiffany & Co.’s new—and first-
ever—comprehensive men’s
collection. Long celebrated for its
women’s accessories, the brand’s
latest lineup includes nearly
100 designs and runs the gamut
from necklaces and watches to
sunglasses and beer mugs.
“Of course, jewelry was the
centerpiece,” notes chief artistic
officer Reed Krakoff. “It’s not
fussy; not overdecorated. It’s really
for anyone—someone who’s into
cars, art . . . anything that requires
a focus and virtuosity [to make].”
That being said, should you find
yourself in the market for a
bit more sparkle, Tiffany has
a trinket or two via its annual Blue
Book high-jewelry collection—
which, this year, includes a handful
of men’s pieces. A platinum beetle
brooch and a ruby-set signet ring
that resembles a bird’s head are CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Sterling-
just a few items among this glitzy silver and 18-karat yellow-gold chain
cohort, which stand in stark bracelet; 18-karat yellow-
contrast to the understated gold necklace and sterling-silver
aesthetics of the main collection. pendant; sterling-silver ring; 18-karat
tiffany.com Helena Madden gold cuff links with diamonds.

Cornering
the Market
Attention Midwesterners:
A serious watch and jewelry
store is bringing hard-to-
get pieces to Ohio. Buyers
looking for a boutique
experience at D.C. Johnson
Ltd. will find pieces from
Nikos Koulis, Carolina
Bucci and Mizuki as well as
pre-owned estate watches
from Rolex, Audemars Piguet
and Patek Philippe. A fully
stocked marble-topped bar
and his brother, Brian
Johnson, the in-house
master goldsmith,
does repairs on-site. Tufted
velvet royal blue doors,
butterscotch-colored leather
chairs, a private appointment
room, dark mahogany display
cases and chandeliers
faceted like emerald-cut
diamonds are just a few of
the design features
conceived by local firm
DCJ: REAGEN TAYLOR

The boutique’s and lounge area provide a Crimson Design Group to

design is meant welcome space to kick back bring the feeling of Madison
to give a sit- and try on the goods. Avenue to 1700 W Lane Ave.
and-stay vibe. Owner David Johnson is in Columbus. dcjltd.com
a third-generation jeweler Paige Reddinger

72 NOVEMBER 2019
 The Goods

WAT

Mechanical
Marvels
Whether conceived in the
15th or 21st century, the
technologies encased in these
three pieces represent grand 2
1

feats of micro-engineering.
B Y PA I G E R E D D I N G E R

4
3

at the high end of the watch industry,

it’s typical for R&D teams to flex new ways
of working with centuries-old innovations.
Creating an entirely new system for telling
time, however, does not occur with frequency.
When Ulysse Nardin debuted its Freak in 2001,
it was, as its name suggests, way outside
the norm. Not only did it operate without
hands or a crown, but it was also the first
mechanical wristwatch to use silicon
components—improving both weight and
accuracy. The watch indicated the time
through the rotation of a baguette (or linear)
movement front-and-center on the dial, with
a Super-LumiNova indicator at the tip (1),
showing the minutes, while the hours are
indicated by a Super-LumiNova index placed
directly in the barrel (2).
It has since spawned more than a dozen
iterations. The latest, initially a concept watch
when it was unveiled in March, has now been
released in a very limited run of 12. You might
need a tech manual to fully dive into the
nuances of its mechanics, but the highlights
are an array of components made entirely of
silicon: a 3-D flying oscillator (3) that appears
to float due to its lack of balance staff, Going
Train wheels and a constant force escapement.
It also boasts a highly precise frequency of 12
hertz with a power reserve of 70 hours (a 30
percent increase over the other models). †

74 OO
N CT
VOEB
MEBRE R2 021091 9
 The Goods | WA T C H E S

“The axis is the main source for the loss of energy—

since there is no axis, the quality factor has been
improved a lot,” says Stéphane Von Gunten, head
of research and innovation at Ulysse Nardin, who
has been developing this watch for about 11 years.
“It oscillates for a very long time without energy. It
works in the flat or vertical position of the watch.”
Kicking it into action is the so-called “Grinder,”
an automatic winding system that uses an oscillating
weight connected to a circle with four pawls that
engage a barrel in the watch’s center to wind the
mainspring—allowing the timepiece to be wound in
both directions.
To top it off, in a brilliant design touch, its
Millennium Falcon-mimicking oscillator and four
small glass tubes (4) contain green Super-LumiNova
that glow in the dark to illuminate the wrist with
what looks like a spaceship with laser beams. The
bezel also lights up thanks to the material.
May the Freak be with you. (Limited to 12,
$300,000, ulysse-nardin.com)

ZENITH DEFY FUSÉE

TOURBILLON
Early examples of the fusée-
and-chain were first seen in
watchmaking as early as the
15th century—and in drawings
by Italian masterminds
Filippo Brunelleschi and
Leonardo da Vinci. But the
mechanism became mostly
unnecessary in the 17th
century when the pendulum
and balance spring were
invented. Nevertheless, the
device—a spiraled chain that
wraps around a conical part
to compensate for the loss of
torque in the mainspring—was
used well into the early 20th
century, specifically in marine
chronometers, and is alive
ARMIN STROM MINUTE REPEATER RESONANCE
and well today in Zenith’s new
Defy Fusée Tourbillon. The 13th-century when hung on the same
The fusée-and-chain is a Zytglogge clocktower plane. Antide Janvier would
rarity; it’s complex and difficult in Bern, Switzerland, make the first double
to produce and, therefore, was the inspiration for pendulum clock with the
time-consuming. The chain Armin Strom’s new technology, and about
alone required 575 individually minute repeater, which 20 years later Abraham-
hand-assembled components. incorporates the resonance Louis Breguet invented the
That’s more parts than the mechanism—an invention resonance pocket watch
entire movement of some dating back three centuries to improve accuracy. It
minute repeaters. Taking that has become the brand’s wasn’t until 2000 that
its bragging rights one step calling card. But, housed in F.P. Journe became
further, Zenith decorated the titanium and designed with the first to use it in a
chain and the tourbillon in a the gongs and hammers wristwatch. To date, only
blued finish, skeletonized the of the minute repeater F.P. Journe, Haldimann
watch and then encapsulated prominently visible on the and Armin Strom make
the 500-year-old invention dial side, this watch is resonance watches with
in a 44 mm case and dial anything but old-fashioned. two separate movements.
made from watchmaking’s First discovered by This one, however, is the
most modern material— Dutch scientist Christiaan only resonance watch
carbon. (Limited to 50 in Huygens in the 17th century, with a minute repeater
carbon, $80,900, and 10 in the effect of resonance complication in existence.
platinum, $103,500, zenith occurred in pendulum (Limited to 10, $350,000,
-watches.com) clocks that synchronized arminstrom.com)

76 NOVEMBER 2019
 The Goods | WA T C H E S
King of the Hill
jimmy chin is at the peak of his career.
The professional climber, photographer
and filmmaker shared an Oscar this
year with his documentary filmmaker
wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, for
adrenaline-pumping Free Solo, the
story of climber Alex Honnold’s life-
threatening and nearly superhuman
ascent to the top of Yosemite’s roughly
3,000-foot-tall El Capitan rock formation
. . . without ropes. It’s a feat many have
considered; only Honnold has attempted
it. The incredible film, for those who
haven’t seen it, is best watched with one
hand over your eyes.
“It feels like you’ve entered the fourth
dimension,” says Chin of his big win.
“It felt like optimal experiences I’ve had
climbing, skiing or surfing where your
senses go into this other place. I just
remember walking down the aisle at
that moment, and I see it so vividly
because it felt like time was in slow
motion. I felt like I saw my whole life
flash in front of me.”
The film has since taken home
an astounding seven Emmy Awards,
including a win for Chin and Vasarhelyi
for Outstanding Directing for a
Documentary/Nonfiction Program.
Needless to say, brands are knocking
down his door for partnerships, but his
budding relationship with Panerai seems
like a natural fit. A Panerai Luminor
78 NOVEMBER 2019
GMT 44 mm accompanied him to the
Oscars, but the new Panerai Submersible
minutes and, more often, seconds—is
paramount when you’re making a film
BMG-Tech 47 mm is the only model tough where your subject, suspended only by
enough to join him in the mountains. This his limbs, is constantly a millimeter slip
month, Chin turned the lens on himself in away from death. In Chin and Honnold’s
a film with the Italian marque, where he case, philosophically, it was also the right
punishes the watch on the cliffs of Grand time to make Free Solo. “It had to be
Teton National Park. the right moment for him; he prepared
Made from a proprietary Panerai for two years, but really he had been
material consisting of zirconium, copper, preparing his whole life,” says Chin.
aluminum, titanium and nickel, BMG- “Interestingly, it also had to be the right
Tech is heated at a high temperature and time for me. I needed all of my experience
cooled for just a few seconds so that the
atoms don’t form an ordered structure;
the chaos of its makeup is what gives the
case material a greater strength, as well as
a resistance to corrosion, external shocks
and magnetic fields. Its bezel is made of
Carbotech—a material made from thin
sheets of carbon fiber compressed under
high pressure with a polymer called
PEEK (Polyether Ether Ketone) for high
durability. The result is a featherlight
watch that can take a beating and emerge
without a scratch.
It’s a design feature that is hugely
important to climbers. “You become very
selective about what you bring in the
mountains,” says Chin, who adds that
he and his fellow climbers even cut the
tags off their jackets to reduce weight.
“Every ounce counts. You can shave
off five pounds by being conscious of
Chin models your equipment, and that can mean the
the Panerai difference between being able to carry
Submersible three days of food or six.”
BMG-Tech 47 mm. But the function of time itself—hours,
P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y S O F I A J A R A M I L LO

to have the confidence to make this film—
any less and it would have broken me.
The stakes were so high.”
Not only did they survive, but they
achieved the summit. The resulting
ascent to fame has been rapid. But Chin
is already at work with Vasarhelyi on
a feature documentary with Kristine
Tompkins and Yvon Chouinard, whom he
refers to as his mentors and “the greatest
conservationists of our time.” Now Chin
will make a film about preserving nature
rather than conquering it. Tompkins and
her husband, the late Douglas Tompkins,
the multimillionaire founder of the North
Face and cofounder of Esprit clothing
companies, own large swaths of land in
Patagonia. “[The Tompkins Conservation]
just handed over 1 million acres—the
biggest private land handover in history—
to the Chilean government,” says Chin of
the move that helped create five national
parks and expand three others.
Meanwhile, he’s heading to the
WA T C H E S | The Goods
Maldives for surfing and diving then on
to Antarctica in January, followed by
the Sahara and the Chilean Andes. His
Panerai BMG-Tech will be along for the
ride, but will also, perhaps, be a reminder
to slow down. “In the mountain, we have
this saying, ‘Slow is fast’—if you scramble,
you’ll make a mistake that might be
Chin’s next film is highly consequential,” says Chin. “In the
about preserving moment, you’re like, ‘OK, we have to make
nature rather than up this time.’ But you can’t be in a rush.
conquering it. It’s an interesting dilemma.” P.R.
“You become very
selective about what you
bring in the mountains.
Every ounce counts.”
 P R O M O T I O N

in focus

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 The Goods

ART & DESIGN

Large
and in
Charge
The case for fat and
happy furniture.
BY HELENA MADDEN

sure, your coffee table

could stand to lose a few
pounds, but that extra weight
is not such a bad thing. A far
cry from the slender metals
of minimalism yore, “fat”
furnishings have plopped
themselves in many an upscale

CHARLIE SCHUCK

Objects of Common
Interest Tube Chair
($8,500, objectsof
commoninterest.com).

82 NOVEMBER 2019
RARE AND MAGNIFICENT EWELS
LONDON GENEVA HONG KONG COURCHEVEL
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 The Goods | A R T & D E S I G N

residence this year, characterized by a pudgy

silhouette, curved edges and tubular appendagges.
Who’s to thank for the big new trend? Faye
Toogood and her “Roly-Poly” chair (2014) for one,
o
and Pierre Yovanovitch’s “Papa Bear” armchairr
(2017) for another—both of which have witnessed
overwhelming success since their sketchings.
Fine and great for a showcase or two, but how
h
in blazes does one place these in a living roomm
without risking comparison to Pee-wee’s Play--
house? Funnily enough, aesthetic nirvana hingges
on a happy marriage with minimalist work, an nd
Justin Donnelly of design duo Jumbo cautionss
against filling the entire room with “bright,
overstuffed, glossy” items. “I pair sculptural
furniture with thin-diameter steel pieces in mym
own home,” he says. “Theyy playy really well in the
t
sandbox together.” Here, a few off our chunkier
favorites—consider clippingg one or two for you ur
next redesign, rather than all four at once.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
Blue Red Blowing
Armchair 3 by
Seungjin Yang ($8,125,
at thefutureperfect
.com); Dito Rosso
armchair by Ayala
Serfaty ($25,000,
ayalaserfaty.com);
Set No. 5 cocktail
table by Müsing-Sellés
($3,450, musing
-selles.com); OOO
floor lamp by Eny
Lee Parker ($7,200,
enyleeparker.com).

ROBB RECOMMENDS...

The eighth edition of Salon Art + Design will descend upon New York City this month, bringing with it 56 galleries’
All That worth of vintage and contemporary works. Our first stop? Frida Fjellman’s “Crystal Atmosphere,” a site-specific
DITO ROSSO: ELAD SARIG

Glitters exhibition that’s a veritable forest of the designer’s prismatic lights. Each of the nearly 35 multicolored prisms
will be linked to one or more of its brethren to surround the viewer, their bulbs flickering as if the light were being
passed from one to the other. “Walking among them, one gets the feeling that they’re small,” says Fjellman. “As
if they are a child again.” The Swedish creative’s immersive work—plus that of many other luminaries—will be on
view from November 14 to 18 at the Park Avenue Armory. thesalonny.com H.M.

84 NOVEMBER 2019
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 The Goods | C A T E G O R Y
Escape Artist
Nairy Baghramian has built
a reputation for her cerebral
yet tactile sculptures, but for
her next exhibition, opening
November 8 at Marian Goodman
Gallery in New York, the
Berlin-based artist decided to
show a series of drawings and
maquettes that she never meant
to move beyond the idea phase.
“Most of the time, these
drawings and models are
counter-designed while I’m
working on a real project, and
they have nothing to do with the
resulting work and do not serve
as a study or path,” Baghramian
says, describing them as an
“extension of my thinking.” For
an artist who normally has to
consider such obstacles as a
material’s physical properties
and, well, gravity, drawing
means freedom. “They could be
understood as a phantom group
that allows me to escape.”
Better known in Europe than
the US, Baghramian is set to make
a splash stateside this month. In
addition to the gallery show, she
is collaborating on a project for
Performa 19 with choreographer
Maria Hassabi and being honored
at SculptureCenter’s annual
gala. The Performa piece, Entre
Deux Actes (Ménage à Quatre),
will take over a 1906 Manhattan
townhouse. There, dancers
will move amid an installation
Baghramian created by mingling
her work with furniture designed
by Janette Laverrière and
famed Polaroid nudes by Carlo
Mollino. Dance and theater, she
86 NOVEMBER 2019
says, have been important to
her since the 1980s, when she
was a teenager in Berlin, having
migrated from her native Iran. And
collaborations with artists such
as Phyllida Barlow have long been
a part of her practice.
Marian Goodman Gallery is
pairing Baghramian’s works with
mirror pieces by Laverrière,
who, before her death in 2011
at the age of 101, referred to the
generations-younger sculptor
and herself as “sisters in spirit.”
Baghramian’s sculptures
often evoke interior design, an
influence she attributes less to
formalism than to gender politics.
“In the past, the interior seems to
Nairy
Baghramian
and two
works from
her series
Side leaps
(Drawings
and Models).
have been reserved for women
and gay [men], while the facade
was reserved for [straight] men,”
she explains.
Her fascination with interiors
has a metaphorical resonance
as well. “As a person from an
Armenian minority, who grew up
in Iran until I was 13 and then had
to flee the country for political
reasons, the interior always
symbolized a transformation in
which I had my own identity
to create,” she says. Noting that
she was exceedingly happy
after arriving in Germany, she
adds, in sculptor lingo, “I knew
I could shape myself again.”
Julie Belcove
A R T & D E S I G N | The Goods
Dia al-Azzawi, War Diary, No. 1, 1991.
Bridging the Gulf
Twenty-eight years after a US-led coalition
dropped nearly 90,000 tons of bombs on Iraq
to persuade Saddam Hussein to hightail it out
of Kuwait, and 16 years after the US invaded
Iraq to overthrow Hussein, MoMA PS1 is
giving over its entire building in Long Island
City, Queens, to Theater of Operations: The
Gulf Wars 1991-2011, an exhibition of works by
83 artists and collectives, both Western and
Iraqi, responding to the bloody conflicts.
“The Gulf War is little remembered—in
the West, at least,” says curator Ruba Katrib.
“But that moment shaped the region and
redefined Iraq.” The Gulf War was also
televised live, with round-the-clock coverage
on CNN and endless footage of so-called
smart bombs precisely hitting their targets.
“We were interested in the media moment.”
Unlike its swift predecessor, the Iraq
NAIRY BAGHRAMIAN: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND MARIAN GOODMAN G ALLERY, NEW YORK, PARIS AND LONDON;
War dragged on for more than eight years.
When Katrib and chief curator Peter Eleey
began their research, they were startled by
the breadth of artists driven to make work
about the wars, from conceptual artist Robert
Morris to Pictures Generation star Louise
Lawler and the feminist collective Guerilla
Girls. Even Richard Serra, famed for his
monumental sculptures, has a piece in the
show: an oil-stick drawing of a hooded figure,
alluding to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison,
with the words “Stop Bush.”
But the most compelling pieces in the
exhibition, which opens November 3, come
from the Iraqi artists, who were either
refugees confronted with anti-Islamic
hostility or trapped amid the violence.
DIA AL-A ZZ AWI: COURTESY THE ARTIST
Facing a shortage of materials, artists such as
ceramicist Nuha al-Radi had to make do with
found objects and create small-scale works.
Western artists, Eleey says, “were dealing at
arm’s-length with the war. Iraqi responses
tend to be more gestural; sometimes the body
is more visibly present.” A vivid reminder of
exactly where the theater of operations was
located on the map. J.B.
 Sumptuous custom designed 18K yellow gold,
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Answers
with . . .
GARRETT
LEIGHT
California native Garrett Leight’s laid-back
attitude seems incongruous with his booming
luxury eyewear business, but it may just be
his secret sauce. The son of Oliver Peoples
founder Larry Leight, he paved his own path
outside the family fortune when he founded
his eponymous label in 2011, known for its
retro-inspired acetate and titanium frames,
which blend craftsmanship with a style that
is recognizable for its low-key cool. In 2018,
when father and son teamed up to create an
ultra-high-end line of eyeglasses called Mr.
Leight, handcrafted in Japan, the dynasty
was complete. But Garrett isn’t resting on
his laurels. Here’s how the designer stays
grounded while helping his clients put their
best face forward.
B Y PA I G E R E D D I N G E R
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN GUIDO
 What’s the first thing you do in the morning?
The very first thing I do is tell myself not to reach for my phone. And I don’t. Lately my daugh-
ter has been coming into our bed and just hanging out before school for like 30 minutes when
we wake up.

What apps do you use the most?

Instagram. I probably use it too much. I’m a big golfer, so I’m a fan of Christian Hafer’s
@hafe_life. He posts really beautiful golf imagery. I also use the ESPN app.

What do you do that’s still analog?

I’m on a softball team—sports are a very big part of my life. I sign a lot of checks for my busi-
ness, and I read paper and hardcover books.

What in your wardrobe do you wear most often?

Nylon shorts from General Admission. I swim in them, I wear them to work, and I work out
in them, so they are a major part of my uniform. I also love basketball shorts, especially some
from John Elliott. In the summer, I wear my Nick Fouquet 1 Cuban hat a lot. I have a fetish for 1
Fouquet is a
these hats. And, of course, my glasses. hatmaker in
Venice, Calif.,
Which models from your eyewear collection do you wear? who uses straw
and sustainably
Calabar for sunglasses, and I’ve been wearing the Ave, which are for next season, but I always harvested
beaver felt in his
test my frames before they go to market. collections.

What are your favorite websites?

2 I’m a little obsessed with all things Ford Bronco.2 I just bought one that’s kind of an old Shelby
Vintage Ford
Broncos can
Mustang blue with a white hardtop. I love classic cars like that and seeing how they get remod-
range in price eled. They have actually inspired some of my designs and color combinations for my eyewear.
from $20,000
to more than
$300,000, What’s your favorite cocktail?
depending on Tequila on the rocks. Clase Azul is one of my favorites right now. I also like whisky. I have a
restoration quality
and condition. really good Glenfiddich 15-year-old reserve.

What, apart from more time, would make the biggest difference in your life?
A bigger house and a pool would be nice. These things would make parenting easier.

What do you regret not buying recently?

3
A vintage Rolex Submariner, specifically a 1986 solid-gold Oyster perpetual date3 that would Rolex’s
have looked great with my new Bronco. Submariner
model, while
still affordable
What’s worth paying for? in comparison
Being comfortable—whether it’s a hotel room or the ease of anything. I don’t stress out about to the Daytona,
is a classic
paying extra money for the next flight if it’s a better time for me. I’ve been traveling like crazy that’s become
for 10 years. I think of how I do it now versus how I did it in the beginning, and it’s way less increasingly
popular in recent
stressful now. years.

What is your favorite seat on the plane?

I’m a window guy for sure. I’m pretty cool with flying now, but I didn’t use to be. I like to look
out the window on takeoff and landing.

Do you have any regular tables?

My wife and I have a standing table at Gjelina in Venice, Calif. We know the chef well, and we
go every Thursday night. When I’m in New York, I go to Momofuku. I know it’s cliché, but I’m
all about those pork buns. I also love Balaboosta, an Israeli restaurant in the West Village that
has the best hummus.

What’s the last piece of advice you gave?

A friend was having some business questions, and the moral of my story was to not be afraid of
change, because it’s a constant. Don’t get too cemented.

Bowie or Dylan?
Dylan.

Read the full interview online at robbreport.com/leight.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 89
 WA T E R | WHEELS | WINGS | TECH
€

Dream Machines A DEVOTION TO MOTION

Lexus Takes
to New Waters
The new $3.6 million Lexus LY 650
shows off its wet-weather handling
in our exclusive test.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 91
 Dream Machines | WA T E R

the forecast is enough to send a

Weather Channel anchor into a frenzy.
Winds steady at 22 mph, gusting to
a feisty 28. Frothy seas running at
6 to 8 feet high. Forty percent chance
of a downpour. No, not a great day
for boating.
“I’m game if you are,” deadpans
Randy Peterson, propulsion engineer
for Marquis Yachts. He’s also captain
of the new Lexus LY 650, a 2,700 hp
flybridge cruiser that we’re here in Boca
Raton, Fla., to helm as part of its first
big-weather sea trial. Yesterday, the sleek
65-footer made its global debut, and
today Robb Report is getting an exclusive
first crack at driving this boat through
the choppy Atlantic.
Peterson fires up the dual 12.8-liter,
turbocharged Volvo D13 engines, each
delivering 1,350 hp to compact Volvo IPS
drives with twin, forward-facing props.
On flat water, and with light loading,
this 73,000-pound speedster can zoom
to 33.5 knots and go from a standstill to
planing in only 12.5 seconds. But we’re
not headed to flat water.
We ease out of the Boca Raton inlet
and brace for the ocean rollers lunging
toward us. Time to power up. I push
forward on the throttles and hang on as
the LY 650’s flared
bow lifts gently and This 73,000-pound
cuts through the
heavy swell. Although speedster can zoom
the big engines spin to 33.5 knots in only
at 2,450 rpm on wide-
open throttle, there’s 12.5
only the faintest hum
from the seriously insulated engine room. 42-foot Lexus Sport Yacht Concept,
And the carbon-reinforced hull does a
stellar job of tracking straight and riding
smooth through the washing-machine
seas. The hull design—unique to the
LY—is the work of Wisconsin’s Marquis Inside, the white interior is the work
Yachts together with marine architects of Italian design powerhouse Nuvolari
Donald L. Blount and Associates, of Lenard. Step down into the light-filled
Chesapeake, Va. Marquis’s Josh Delforge, central atrium and doors lead to three
with considerable cabins. The full-beam owner’s stateroom
input from the presents vast hull windows, atmospheric
Lexus design team lighting and mirror-finished eucalyptus
in Japan, gave woodwork that could have come straight
the LY 650 curvy, out of the latest LS flagship sedan.
head-turning But why a Lexus yacht? According
seconds. lines that evolved to Toyota Motor Corporation president
from the stunning and passionate boater, Akio Toyoda,
it’s a means of furthering the automaker’s
which debuted in Miami in 2017: same quest to become a true luxury lifestyle
distinctive bow, same voluptuous brand and to showcase the marque’s
hindquarters and same rich copper-and- craftsmanship to the marine market.
steely gray exterior palette. From where I’m standing at the helm, the
LY is a serious performance contender.
After an hour or so running at an
easy 28 knots, I steer hard to starboard
to enter Fort Lauderdale’s deep-water
ship channel. Despite the frothy seas,
the craft carves easily into the turn and
shrugs off the whitecaps, feeling stable
Italian design and inspiring confidence.
studio Nuvolari “Quite a ride,” says Peterson as we tie
Lenard took care up at Lauderdale’s Pier Sixty-Six Marina.
of the interior, “I was really happy with the way it took
which includes the waves. That was pretty rough out
three staterooms there.” But it was also exhilarating.
for six guests. Marquis Yachts has already sold three
Lexus LY 650s (priced starting at $3.6
million), including our well-equipped
$4.7 million example, and a fourth is
being built. Next year there’ll be a
non-flybridge version, and a 48-footer
may also be on the horizon. It might
not be long before you overhear someone
saying, “My next boat’s a Lexus.” lexus
.com Howard Walker

92 NOVEMBER 2019
MANUFACTURE CALIBRE PURE RESONANCE
ARF16 15¼’’’ 18CT ROSE GOLD

JUPITER WELLINGTON PALM BEACH

561.747.4449 561.798.0777 561.833.0550
 Dream Machines | WA T E R

Q&A

Ewa Eidsgaard
The director and designer
for British studio Harrison
Eidsgaard remains on the hunt
for trends that are cutting-edge,
eco-friendly and, above all,
authentic to the yachting lifestyle.

No matter the size of boat, designing

yacht interiors involves a complicated
matrix of innovation, compromise and
personal taste. Interior-design specialist
Ewa Eidsgaard discusses the return of
gold, glassmaking’s evolution and how
nailing the initial consultation saves lots of
headache down the line. JULIA ZALTZMAN

What are the biggest design challenges

when it comes to yacht interiors? The need
for innovation—that’s always a challenge. And
a yacht is a place of leisure, so you have to
consider how sun cream, saltwater or heat will
impact the materials you choose.
Any design meeting with a client is
effectively the tip of an iceberg. If you’re
considering a large stone sculpture, for
example, it needs to be decided in the very
early stages in case the walls and floor need
to be reinforced. Leave it too late, and it can
cause extra costs and delays. A Marina’s
What trends are prominent today? Ten
years ago, white metal finishes like nickel and
Metamorphosis
polished chrome became popular. Now gold
is coming back. But yacht design is less about
fashion and more an evolution of the lifestyle.

What types of materials are coming to the

fore? What the evolution of glass has done for
yacht design is incredible. It’s an old material,
but it has hugely progressed. In the not-so-
distant past, it wasn’t technically possible to
have large glass panels with double curvature
like we have today. securing a superyacht slip in Monaco’s 35 upscale shops and restaurants, boast
Owners often have an appreciation for
Port Hercule or Fontvieille marinas— state-of-the-art security measures—70
the noble materials. While new techniques
especially at the height of the summer CCTV cameras among them—and offer
exist for resins and liquid metals, clients lean
season—is tougher than snagging front- haul-out for vessels up to 100 feet.
toward wood, stone and leather. And the
row Super Bowl seats on game day. But The marina will also offer underground
sustainability angle is huge. First, we had
ILLUSTRATION BY JOEL KIMMEL

natural wool carpets, then it was silk—highly

there’s relief in sight. Cala del Forte, a
luxurious but totally impractical—and then came new 178-berth marina located less than
a wave of synthetic silk. But I think clients eight miles by water from Monaco, will be
will now be more conscious of the impact of finished by the end of the year. An official
having “plastic” carpet. Our client briefs today ribbon cutting is planned for June 2020.
increasingly request eco credentials for every Just across the Italian border in
single material listed. eidsgaard.com Ventimiglia, Cala del Forte will
accommodate yachts up to 230 feet, feature
parking for 577 cars, a substantial fueling
depot and water depths of up to 18 feet.
Yet the best news for yacht owners
is that it will be operated by Ports of
Monaco, which manages Hercule and
Fontvieille, with promises of the same
level of safety, service and meticulous
Monégasque attention to detail.

94 NOVEMBER 2019
 According to reports, Ventimiglia’s
original plan from 2008 called for a 348-
slip marina, for boats in the 30- to 60-foot
range. Work began, but after the marina’s
distinctive, wave-cushioning, semi-circular
seawall was built, construction ground to
a halt amid rumors of Mafia money being
siphoned and local government infighting.
By 2013, all work had ceased.
In 2016, Monaco stepped in to rescue
the half-completed project, acquiring the
lease, which runs until 2094, from the
municipality of Ventimiglia and a local
developer who had failed to complete
the job. In the process, Monaco pledged
to invest roughly $94 million to take over
and complete the ambitious undertaking
by the end of 2019.
“For the principality of Monaco, Cala
del Forte is a strategically important
investment, simply because we need more
berths,” explains Aleco Keusseoglou,
president of the Ports of Monaco.
“Enlarging our two ports—Hercule and
Fontvieille—would be almost impossible
given the depth of our seabed.”
Whether visiting yacht owners will be
enthusiastic about giving up the glitz and
glam of Monaco nightlife for the beach
town of Ventimiglia, best known for its
bustling Friday street market and as a
refugee border crossing, is a test to come.
But for owners, the prospect of a
40-year slip lease in a well-protected
marina with Monaco-style services should
appeal—especially with the scarcity of
berths in the Côte d’Azur marinas. And
we all know pasta tastes better in Italy.
caladelforte-ventimiglia.it H.W.
R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 95
 Dream Machines

WHEELS
You’ll Fight
Over the Keys
to This One
Forget Disneyland—buckle the kids
in for a 200 mph ride in the Drako
all-electric grand tourer.

with hybrid and electric hypercars
upping the horsepower bar, and the new
Porsche Taycan raising expectations
for the battery-powered sedan, it
stands to reason that some enterprising
manufacturer would marry electricity
and extreme performance with four-
passenger, four-door luxury. Enter Silicon
Valley carmaker Drako Motors and the
world’s most powerful grand tourer, the
1,200 hp Drako GTE with a top speed of
206 mph. The car gets its mojo from four
permanent-magnet, hybrid-synchronous
electric motors (one at each wheel),
which deliver a staggering 6,490 ft lbs
of combined torque through separate
direct-drive gearboxes to each wheel.
An advanced torque vectoring system
and the vehicle’s low center of gravity,
due to floor-mounted batteries, result in
handling dynamics that optimize traction
and safety on all road surfaces. So while
you may thrill the kids in the backseat a
little, they’ll still feel safe. Ish.
The Drako’s slippery shape is the
work of Lowie Vermeersch, founder
and creative director of Granstudio in
Turin, Italy (and former design director
at Pininfarina). The vehicle’s design
With 1,200 hp, the serves both aesthetic and aerodynamic
all-electric Drako imperatives, proof that what works best
GTE charges to often looks best, too. Evidence of this is
206 mph. the rear end’s Kamm tail design, which †

96 NOVEMBER 2019
Presented By

MACKLOWE GALLERY
445 Park Ave, New York, NY 10022
www.macklowegallery.com
 Dream Machines | W H E E L S

gives a historic nod to the Alfa Romeo

“Coda Trunca” of the 1960s and reduces
drag in the bargain. A prominent rear
diffuser underscores (literally) the GTE’s
performance capabilities.
Pop the carbon-fiber hood and,
instead of two banks of cylinders, the
Drako reveals an impressive technology
landscape of huge DC-to-AC inverters,
artfully engineered Öhlins suspension
components and a formidable cooling
system that includes three oversize
radiators. The system is designed to cope
with the batteries’ 90 kWh of energy
capacity and peak output of 2,200 amps.
The GTE’s long wheelbase means
plenty of cabin space for four—with
luggage—and the interior appointments
include trim options and amenities and
infotainment commensurate with elegant
long-distance travel. Priced from $1.25
million, the Drako GTE will be limited
to 25 cars worldwide, with deliveries
planned for 2020. drakomotors.com
Robert Ross
The car gets its mojo from four permanent-magnet,
A-List Access: For serious purchase inquiries, hybrid-synchronous electric motors (one at each wheel), which
contact Shiv Sikand, Drako Motors’ executive vice
president, at shiv@drakomotors.com.
deliver a staggering 6,490 ft lbs of combined torque.

Only 25 examples
of the Drako GTE
will be made, each
priced from $1.25
million.

98 NOVEMBER 2019
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 Dream Machines | W H E E L S
Riding
the Wave
it’s hard not to covet a Bowlus Road Chief
luxury trailer. (Just ask Airstream, which
copied aviation visionary Hawley Bowlus’s
sleek and groundbreaking aluminum Road
Chief design from 1934 to great success.)
It’s clear the company understands just how
lust-worthy its products have become. With
its latest release, now simply called the Wave,
the Nevada-based brand at first promised
the ability to park a literal “Wave of Envy” in
your driveway.
“For our brand-new Wave edition, our
design team drew inspiration from luxurious
racing yachts,” says Geneva Long, Bowlus
Road Chief CEO. The body is made from
aircraft-grade 2024-T3 aluminum, while the
interior, which sleeps four, is understated but
unsparing in its use of elegant (but durable)
materials and in its quality of fit and finish.
The wood flooring is upgraded to walnut and
Comparable
Camping
When most people think
of aluminum trailers,
Airstream is the name
The compact but comfortable
Airstream Bambi.
100 NOVEMBER 2019
The Wave’s yacht-
themed interior is
dressed in birch,
walnut and organic
fabrics.
that comes to mind. But
founder Wally Byam’s 1936
Clipper was essentially a
re-badged Bowlus, and
demand for tow-alongs
was massive at the time.
By 1937, America had about
400 trailer companies vying
for business. Although
WWII put the brakes on all
of them, Airstream was
back in action by 1947.
Today’s Airstreams
are produced by Thor
Industries and epitomize
the rotund designs,
resembling a shiny loaf
of bread, that have been
popular for decades. The
current lineup ranges from
the pod-like Bambi to the
near-locomotive-length
Classic. The Globetrotter,
ranging from 23 to 30
The Airstream Globetrotter has
eight different floor plans.
holly—both favored in yacht construction—
and walls are paneled in richly grained
birch for a pleasing contrast to the deep
walnut tabletops. Fabrics include an
organic (but nonanimal) material that
resembles suede and, in Marina Blue with
white piping, elegantly reinforces the
maritime theme. The master bedroom
features luxury touches like padded
headboards, while the instrument cluster,
featuring a compass, thermometer and
barometer, recalls a ship’s bridge.
Like all of the Bowlus Road Chief
designs, the 80-inch-wide Wave is outfitted
with a full galley, water closet and shower,
plus advanced climate control, including
a 10,000 BTU air-conditioning system
and heated floors. A 4 kWh lithium-iron-
phosphate battery can power the Bowlus
off the grid for up to a week. The limited-
production model is priced from $225,000.
bowlusroadchief.com R.R.
A-List Access: For purchase inquiries, please contact
Bowlus Road Chief CEO Geneva Long at 702.762.9137.
feet in length, is aptly and weighing 7,300 pounds
compared to the Bowlus ready to roll, is truly a
but with an altogether home on wheels. The
more industrial look. The 25-foot model sleeps six
two-axle design, available and starts at $104,400.
in eight floor-plan options airstream.com R.R.
BOWLUS: DREW PHILLIPS
 Dream Machines | W H E E L S

The Prancing Horse The F8 Spider (left)

and the 812 GTS

Topless Club (bottom), Ferrari’s

latest roof-
optional stallions.

it seems ferrari, that most imperious

of brands, is finally letting its hair down
for a little blow in the wind. In September,
for the first time ever, the Italian marque
unveiled two different models on the same
day—and both top-optional at that.
Billed as the most powerful production
convertible currently made, the front-
engine 812 GTS takes its performance and
design cues directly from the 812 Superfast
coupe, and under the hood lies the same
naturally aspirated, 6.5-liter V-12 kicking out
789 hp and 530 ft lbs of torque. Mated to a
seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, the power
plant launches the GTS to 62 mph in less
than 3.0 seconds on its way to a top speed
of 211 mph. But perhaps more significant
even than the car’s staggering performance
numbers is its appearance in Ferrari’s
lineup at all: The 812 GTS is the first
production front-engine V-12 convertible
out of Maranello since the legendary 1969
Daytona Spider. (Technically, Ferrari has
considered every interim example, like the
F60 America and 575 Superamerica, as a
limited-edition model.) And as it turns out,
it was not entirely deliberate. †

102 NOVEMBER 2019

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“Honestly, it wasn’t planned to make

an open version, but working with
engineers, we found it was possible to
have a good variation of the shape of the
812 [Superfast],” says Flavio Manzoni,
Ferrari’s chief design officer. “The
retractable hardtop was probably the most
difficult aspect to be solved.”

“Those who test this car

will see how easy it is to
go to the limit and stay
there.”

What began as the main challenge for

Manzoni and his team became one of the
car’s most innovative additions. The roof,
which can open or close in 14 seconds
at speeds up to 28 mph, compromises
neither structural rigidity nor the size of
the cockpit. “This is a new interpretation
of the Spider,” says Manzoni. “The [front-
engine] predecessors were cabriolets
with soft tops, so the architecture was
completely different. This version doesn’t
contradict the 812 Superfast—it keeps the
fastback effect.”
While the 812 GTS is an homage to
Ferrari’s rich V-12 heritage, the F8 Spider,
an open-air take on the F8 Tributo, speaks
to the increased role of the automaker’s
eight-cylinder power trains. Set behind
the driver, the 3.9-liter turbocharged mill,
with 710 hp and 568 ft lbs of torque, is
Ferrari’s most powerful production V-8
to date; paired with a seven-speed dual-
clutch gearbox, it gives the roadster nearly
the same zero-to-62 mph and top-speed
numbers as its new V-12 stablemate.
“It was very interesting to work
shoulder-to-shoulder with the
aerodynamicists,” says Manzoni,
“especially on the rear section of the car,
because it was necessary to have a larger
rear spoiler and satisfy heat evacuation
from the engine.”
Improved handling features include
the Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer Plus,
which adds braking capability to the
Side Slip Control system, making the car
more predictable at the edges of traction.
“Those who test this car will see how easy
it is to go to the limit and stay there,” said
Michael Leiters, Ferrari’s chief technology
officer, at the official unveiling.
The 812 GTS and F8 Spider, priced
starting at €336,000 and €262,000,
respectively (US pricing has not yet
been announced), begin deliveries in the
latter half of 2020. Note: sunscreen not
included. ferrari.com Viju Mathew

With a retractable
hardtop and 710 hp
V-8, the F8 Spider
can open it up
inside and out.

104 NOVEMBER 2019

 A DREAMLIKE FLIGHT
Enjoy your dream flight with the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.

Products and services are subject to change depending on flight duration and aircra.
 Dream Machines | W H E E L S
Q&A
Carsten Breitfeld
The new CEO of Faraday Future
explains why the auto industry’s
current business model needs
more than a tune-up.
After 20 years with BMW and three more
with his own marque (Byton), Carsten
Breitfeld was recently named CEO of
Faraday Future, an electric-car developer
that’s been hampered by financial and
organizational issues since its founding
in 2014. But he has a plan, and it’s all
about sharing. V.M.
Is car culture becoming marginalized?
More people don’t want to own a car, they
just want to use it—something to bring you
from point A to B and then have it gone. This is
where transportation is going in general. There
will still be individuals owning nice cars, but it
will be a niche segment and very expensive.
How should automakers adapt to this new
environment? It’s definitely a transformation
of the business model. Transportation in the
future, at least in volume, will be shared.
Automakers need to adopt the mind-set found
in the consumer-electronics industry, which
is centered on the user and reacting rapidly.
The car should be considered as a piece of
hardware you sell but then continually release
new functionality that can be uploaded. It’s
about mobility ecosystems.
What exactly is a mobility ecosystem? We
have to convert the car into a smart device on
wheels, where the users could be identified by
face recognition, for example, and have all of
their data and applications downloaded from
the cloud within seconds. Imagine combining
this kind of product with the shared ride
platforms we have today, like Uber.
What is your first step with Faraday?
Our FF 91 halo car. It has 1,050 hp with two
electric motors in the rear—capable of torque
vectoring—and another in the front, enabling
zero to 60 mph in under 3.0 seconds. The
four-door will have Level 3 autonomous driving
capabilities and a range of more than 300
miles. It will be fun to drive, but in the back
you’ll find first-class airline comfort and a digital
environment that includes big screens and
high-speed connectivity. The first deliveries will
be in the third quarter of 2020. ff.com
106 NOVEMBER 2019
Bucket-List
Baja
from november 19 to 24, the Baja 1000
will call racers from around the world
with its siren song of studded tires bashing
over sand, boulders attacking suspension
and the wailing four-stroke howl of
throttles pinned to the floor as purpose-
built off-roaders go screaming across 800
miles of desolate Mexican landscape in
search of endurance-racing glory.
First run in 1967, the Baja 1000 has
attracted a who’s who of motorsport
enthusiasts—including hard-core
Hollywood dust-chasers like Steve
McQueen, James Garner and Paul
Newman—because of, not despite, the
hardship. But if you want to test your
mettle without the prep time, cost or
customs hassle of entering your own
vehicle, Wide Open Baja has your all-
inclusive ticket.
“The experience is designed to make
real racing accessible to those who
have the passion but no time to develop
their own program,” says Robert Ward,
general manager of the Nevada-based
outfitter, which also offers multiday
trips throughout the year. “It’s a
turnkey solution providing everything
from high-performance equipment to
detailed logistics. Anyone who wants to
compete in the Baja 1000 with us just
needs enthusiasm, determination and an
adventurous spirit, plus a small amount of
basic driving ability, and we’ll take care
of the rest.”
As we can attest following a 200-
mile foray into the Baja Peninsula with
Ward’s team, the “rest” comprises a Baja
Challenge race vehicle (with a Weddle
four-speed manual transmission and a top
ILLUSTRATION BY JOEL KIMMEL; BAJA: ART EUGENIO ( TOP); OFF-ROAD BOB D’OLIVO/ THE ENTHUSIAST NETWORK /GET T Y IMAGES (IBOT TOM)
speed of 95 mph) plus three replacement
cars and a support staff, including
mechanics. The latter proved invaluable
when one team in our group busted an
axle; they were back in action by the end
of a water break.
Entry fees, fuel, dining and lodging for
up to six participants are also covered for
around $82,000, and with Wide Open’s
99 percent finish rate, far above the race
average, it seems that completing one of
the world’s most legendary races before
the 34-hour cutoff is also part of the
package. wideopenbaja.com V.M.
A-List Access: To inquire about
Wide Open Baja’s off-road
adventures, contact general
manager Robert Ward at
949-635-2292 or robward@
wideopenbaja.com.
Decades of dust:
one of Wide Open’s
off-roaders today
(top) and a Baja
endurance racer
circa 1972.
WINGS
Feeling
the machinery may be designed
for speed, but the pace of progress in
commercial supersonic aircraft has
Projected speeds of Mach 2.2, or 1,451
mph, would halve the 11-hour flight
from Tokyo to San Francisco. Boom

Supersonic
Currently banned over land in the
United States, civil supersonic flight
may be coming back fast.
been glacial. After all, the Concorde,
which could cruise at twice the speed
of sound, was already in service back in
1976. But the drag may be diminishing
in a regulatory environment that’s
less hostile to supersonic flight than it
has been in decades. That could mean
commercial travel at Mach 2 within just
a few years. Several companies stand at
the vanguard, engines ready.
Denver-based start-up Boom
Supersonic has preorders for 20 aircraft
from Japan Airlines and 10 from Virgin
Group for its Overture airliner, with
seats for as many as 75 passengers.
aims to have the plane in service by
the middle of the next decade, and its
smaller prototype, the XB-1, is expected
to break the sound barrier next year.
Lockheed Martin has unveiled
a design for a Quiet Supersonic
Technology Airliner (QSTA) that
would cruise at Mach 1.8 and carry
40 passengers. The company is also
working with NASA on cutting the
sound of a supersonic plane from a
window-breaking boom to something
that causes neither damage nor noise
pollution on the ground.
This comes as the US Federal

Aviation Administration is reexamining
its ban on civil supersonic flight over
land. New proposed noise limits are
expected by next year. The Aircraft
Owners and Pilots Association,
however, has sounded a note of caution,
warning of the dangers of introducing
ultra-fast aircraft into environments
where pilots are operating under visual
flight rules.
Whatever the new regulations,
Boston-based Spike Aerospace is
another entrant looking for a share. It
aims to have a two-thirds prototype of
its 18-passenger Mach 1.6 airliner flying
in 2021, with projected first deliveries
in 2025.
And then there is Aerion. The Reno
Projected speeds of Mach 2.2,
or 1,451 mph, would halve the 11-hour
flight from Tokyo to San Francisco.
W I N G S | Dream Machines
Q&A
company has been plugging away with
plans for a supersonic business jet since
2003. Partners have come and gone,
but the current lineup of Honeywell,
Boeing, GE Aviation and Spirit Kevin Noertker
AeroSystems sounds promising for its
12-seat, Mach 1.4 plane. The CEO of an electric-jet
In an arena where speed is key, company on why hybrid systems
though, another company plans to make sense for now.
streak ahead. The British firm Reaction
Engines is working on SABRE, a As cofounder and head of electric-
revolutionary combination jet and aircraft pioneer Ampaire, Kevin Noertker
rocket engine, trials of which start is focused on testing its six-seat hybrid:
next year. The goal is to have it power a Cessna 337 retrofitted with one
reusable space vehicles and Mach 5 combustion engine and one battery-
intercontinental airliners. London to electric-motor pack. The US company
Sydney in four and a half hours, anyone? also plans to refit other existing planes
Rohit Jaggi with alternative systems and is working
on a sleek design for a new-build, nine-
passenger, all-electric craft. R.J.
What’s the likely path to achieve aviation’s
target of cutting emissions in half by
2050? Most likely we’ll see more regional
travel in electric aircraft, opening low-cost,
quiet, eco-friendly transportation to more
people and helping smaller towns—that today
lack air service—connect to larger ones.
Kerosene-burning jets will be reserved for the
longest routes that are beyond the capability
of electric aircraft.
Are passengers ready for electric
flight? They’re certainly ready for more
environmentally responsible aircraft and will
welcome lower operational costs and lower
fares. Our hybrid is demonstrating the ability
to cut fuel consumption by 50 percent and
emissions accordingly.
For your first project, why hybrid instead
of all-electric? The most efficient path to
a fully electric future is a partially electric
present. The benefits of hybrid systems are
improved range and power-plant redundancy,
which builds customer trust. We’ve staked
out a market segment that we can enter with
certified products within just a few years. But
we believe that by 2040, any flight under 90
minutes—or about 500 miles—could be flown
fully electric.
Can all the electric vertical takeoff and
landing (eVTOL) contenders survive, even
ILLUSTRATION BY JOEL KIMMEL
if they get off the ground? I’m not sure the
world needs 180 different types of eVTOLs.
However, a handful of different configurations
will likely be brought to market eventually.
They can’t all survive, but the technology and
workforce knowledge they develop will benefit
the industry. ampaire.com
R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 109
 • B O C A R AT O N •

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Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium, Car of the Year Boca Raton features an
exhilarating simulated track experience where guests enjoy heart-racing vehicle
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DECEMBER 4-6 / DECEMBER 6-8

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 Dream Machines | W I N G S

Private-Jet Powder Days

every skier and snowboarder dreams of making fresh tracks, but having to slalom through air-
ports, crowded commercial flights and delays can melt any hope of hitting untouched slopes. Aside
from convenience and time saved, private-jet charter flights can be a smart choice if you want your
pets to romp in the snow with you. Plus, they take care of just you and yours. Think gourmet in-flight
dining, black-car transportation to and from resorts, onboard beds for long flights, entertainment for
kids. Costs may even be lower than fractional-ownership clubs. For the upcoming season, these ski-
flight charters will provide white-glove service as smooth as Deer Valley’s famously groomed pistes.
Nicolas Stecher

Paramount Business Jets TellurideFlights Air Charter Service

• Paramount can get you on board 4,000 private aircraft • As its name suggests, this service specializes in • Heli-yesss. Beyond getaways to America’s top mountain
TOP: OFFSET/SHUT TERSTOCK

worldwide, including Pilatus PC-12 turboprops and large
19-passenger jets, and fly you to just about anywhere. For
the 2019–20 season, Paramount’s ski destinations range
from Courchevel to Beaver Creek to New Zealand’s Treble
Cone. For the latter, a sleek long-range Dassault Falcon
900B will drop you at remote Wanaka on the South Island,
where the Oakridge Resort’s 14 miles of black-diamond ski
terrain awaits. paramountbusinessjets.com
accessing the renowned Colorado ski town. The company’s
prop planes are often better for short runways—but larger
jets from Dassault and Gulfstream are also part of the fleet.
This season, its Club Shuttle Program offers direct flights
from some cities across the US for a flat fee per seat—no
hidden charges and no fees for runway traffic, fog delays
or other snafus. tellurideflights.com
retreats—from Aspen to Killington—the UK-based Air
Charter Service creates bespoke packages to remote
heli-skiing hot spots like Iceland’s Troll Peninsula and
Italy’s Valgrisenche Valley. For this kind of ski destination,
the company books both the private-jet travel and the
helicopter access, along with chef-staffed chalets loaded
with après-ski amenities. aircharterservice.com

112 NOVEMBER 2019

 Dream Machines
TECH
Looking Snappy
With its new Spectacles 3 eyewear, Snapchat hopes
you give augmented reality more than a fleeting glance.
in 2016 Snapchat unveiled Spectacles, a pair of glasses
subtly equipped with a smartphone-connected camera,
to much hype and fanfare. Unfortunately for the social
media unicorn, the market reaction was less enthusiastic,
and the first model disappeared quietly into the night—
though not before costing Snapchat nearly $40 million in
unsold inventory.
But the Santa Monica, Calif.–based company hasn’t
given up on the underlying tech. Snapchat recently unveiled
its third-generation product, Spectacles 3, now outfitted
with twin HD cameras. The company’s aim is to increase
its capabilities in the augmented reality (AR) landscape:
The addition of a second camera provides depth to captured
114 NOVEMBER 2019
Snapchat’s new
glasses capture
3-D images with
two HD cameras.
images, allowing an entirely new suite of 3-D effects for
Spectacles users.
The glasses also boast a more appealing design, with
adjustable tips, lightweight steel hardware, tinted lenses, a
full-grain leather case (which also serves as a charger) and
two color options: black “carbon” and gold-hued “mineral.” A
button at the top allows you to take photos and capture videos
of up to 60 seconds, which are then wirelessly synced to your
phone. Notably, Snapchat launched the $380 Spectacles 3
as a “limited edition”—perhaps to drum up demand against
competitors, like Amazon’s new Echo Frames, or perhaps so
that, unlike its first go-round, excess supply stays out of the
picture. spectacles.com Nicolas Stecher
 P R O M O T I O N

in focus

DEWAR’S
dewars.com
Dewar’s introduces the Double
Double special collectors series,
which is defined by a unique,
four-stage aging process where
each age statement is finished in a
different type of premium Sherry
Cask-21yr: Oloroso; 27yr: Palo
Cortado & 32yr: PX Casks.

PONANT YACHT CRUISES

& EXPEDITIONS
ponant.com
The world leader of luxury
expeditions, PONANT offers a
blend of luxury, adventure, and
exploration aboard eco-friendly,
intimate yachts to every corner of
the globe, including Antarctica and
the Arctic. Each featuring expert
onboard naturalists and speakers
who enrich your experience.

NEHA DANI
nehadani.com
Neha Dani’s one-of-a-kind
sculptural artistry is shown at
New York’s Macklowe Gallery. The
Alissa bangle in gold and diamonds
captures the moment of a leaf
swirling in the wind, embracing the
wrist in an elegant curl.
 OPEN THE DOOR TO

celebrations
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D E LT A P R I V A T E J E T S . C O M | 8 7 7. 5 4 1 . 3 5 4 8
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Delta Private Jets® flights are operated by Delta Private Jets, Inc., an FAA-certificated FAR Part 135 air carrier, or by another FAA-certificated Part 135 or Part 121 air carrier. Offers void where prohibited by law. Offers, benefits and rules subject to change without notice. Other restrictions apply.
Fuel and Federal Excise Taxes included. Hourly rates are subject to a premium for travel on peak days, for travel involving international locations and for travel requested on a Citation Excel/XLS. Government taxes and carrier-imposed fees (including, F.B.O. surcharges, incidental expenses and non-refundable
administrative and handling fees) may apply. Additional fees for flights to or from certain fixed-based operators and airports may apply.

Majesty in
many premium watch
companies have métiers d’art
ateliers, where exceptional artisanal
pieces are done by hand. But few (if
any) are able to create these works
Micro
of art on the astonishing scale of
Jaquet Droz. Whether it’s a dial
made from a mosaic of nearly
invisible elements to an automaton
dial with miniature moving parts
At Jaquet Droz, that bring a scene to life, the artistry
found within the walls of this small
each timepiece is an intricate, manufacture in the valley of the
Swiss Jura Mountains is
and tiny, work of art. unparalleled.
BY PA I G E R E D D I N G E R Jaquet Droz has been making
P H O T O G R A P H Y BY N I E LS A C K E R M A N N these creations for almost three
Genius at Work
Magic Lotus
Automaton and
Petite Heure
Minute Carps.
centuries, dating back to its founder,
Pierre Jaquet-Droz. Its singular
mechanical automata figures—
which all could move and draw,
write or play music—were built for
kings, queens and aristocrats at
court and were the precursors to our
21st-century androids. In their day,
they served as feats of entertainment,
and the versions the company now
crafts for the wrist look like modern
museum pieces still fit for the
pleasure of royalty. Some of the
decorative techniques in this atelier,
such as the eggshell dials, cannot be
found at any other watchmaker in
the world. jaquet-droz.com
R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 119
 Genius at Work

1 TO P

A Brush with Genius

Each lotus-flower leaf on the Magic Lotus

Automaton (far left) is hand-painted in Grand
Feu enamel. Depending on the design of watch,
sometimes the brush must be almost as thin as a
human hair to finesse the nuances of the dial.

2 A BOVE

Stir It Up

The enamel is broken up with a mortar and

pestle and ground into a powder. Water
is added to create the paint-like paste for
depicting the dial.

3 L E FT

Color Coded

A hundred shades of enamel powders line

the studio wall like jars of spices waiting to
be mixed into a paste.

120 NOVEMBER 2019

 Creative: Laspata DeCaro

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Offered by The Solvere Group, LLC (AZ DRE #LC631297000). The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Paradise Valley are not owned, developed or sold by The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. or its affiliates
(“Ritz-Carlton”). FSPV Parcel C, LLC and it’s affiliates (“Developer”) use The Ritz-Carlton marks under a license from Ritz-Carlton, which has not confirmed the accuracy of any of the statements or representations
made herein. Square footages are gross measurements based on architectural plans and may very based on location of unit. All renderings contained herein are artist impressions, conceptual interpretations, merely intended as illustration and
all depicted improvements are proposed only and are not in existence. No guarantee is made that the described features, services, amenities or facilities will be available or built. Developer reserves the right to make any modifications, revisions or
withdrawals in its sole discretion and without prior notice. ORAL REPRESENTATIONS CANNOT BE RELIED UPON AS CORRECTLY STATING REPRESENTATIONS OF THE DEVELOPER. FOR CORRECT REPRESENTATIONS, MAKE REFERENCE
TO THE DOCUMENTS THAT ARE REQUIRED BY ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES, 32-2181, et seq,. TO BE FURNISHED BY A DEVELOPER TO A BUYER OR LESSEE. This is not an offer of real estate for sale or solicitation of an offer to buy, to
residents of any state, province or other jurisdiction where the project is not registered in accordance with applicable law or where such offering or solicitation would otherwise be prohibited by law. Void where prohibited.
 Genius at Work

4 RIGHT
Behind the Scenes

An artisan is busy at work against the

backdrop of the scenic La Chaux-de-
Fonds countryside. He’ll spend hours
peering into the magnifying lens to place
pieces into a mosaic.

5 A BOV E
Working on Eggshells

Incredibly, the face of the elephant shown here is made from

tiny pieces of crushed quail eggshells. The pieces are so
small that to the naked eye they almost look like sand. The
broken-up shells have natural variations in color and are
sorted by hue in containers the size of a contact lens case,
so that the shadowing and details of the elephant’s face can
come to life. An in-house artisan discovered this form of The Jaquet Droz Petite
mosaic artwork in Vietnam and brought it back to the Swiss Heure Minute Mosaic
valley. After all of the pieces have been set in place, the dial Elephant comes encased
is covered with a lacquer coating for permanence—a delicate in 18-karat red gold with
process given the fragile nature of the material. a black onyx dial.

122 NOVEMBER 2019

 Genius at Work

6 LE FT
Tiny Dancers

Each piece is placed by hand with tweezers until the

scene comes together. This Lilliputian-size koi fish is
8.5 mm long, made of gold and hand-painted—a process
that takes almost three hours. Once it’s placed on the
dial and the automaton is activated, the fish moves so it
appears to be swimming through the water.

7 AB OVE

Bring the Heat

The enamel piece is placed on a special tray and fired in

a kiln to set the material. Each color requires a particular
timing and temperature.

8 RIGHT

In the Groove

The intricate engraving work, seen

here on the caseback and movement
of Jaquet Droz’s Tropical Bird Repeater
automaton, is done by hand with a
burin (a steel engraving tool) under a
magnifying loupe.

124 NOVEMBER 2019

 Justin Fenner
on style, p. 127
Field N
JUSTIN FENNER
When Tidying Up
Doesn’t Spark Joy
ST YLEOwning fewer but better clothes is hailed
as an act of virtue. There’s a case to be made,
however, for keeping hold of what you love.
L
ately I’ve been
rediscovering a lot of old
friends hiding almost in
plain sight. Among them
are two striped shirts
from Hamilton, the bespoke shirtmaker
in Houston; a pair of great sunglasses
from Dom Vetro and a cache of perfectly
faded jeans whose whiskering would
take years of wearing to reproduce. For
a guy who likes denim, that’s like finding
a winning jackpot ticket you’d forgotten
you bought.
This happens irregularly, which
adds to its charm. I’ll be looking for a
pair of socks and realize they’re on top
of a cherished old scarf, or hunting for
shoe polish in my hall closet only to
alight on a bomber jacket I haven’t worn
in ages, but that works perfectly with a
newly purchased pair of trousers.
And that’s because I never could
quite capitulate to the idea that less
really is more, despite the current
enthusiasm for owning fewer and
fewer things. How could the ruthless
disposal of elements of my wardrobe
possibly spark joy when I found so
much pleasure in acquiring those pieces
to begin with—and even more at their
rediscovery?
That’s not a knock on minimalism
or even asceticism. For some guys I
know, “less is better” has turned from
an abstract idea into a full-blown way
of life, and even a business plan. Take
Nick Ragosta and Agyesh Madan, the
cofounders of the New York made-
to-measure brand Stòffa. They are
David Coggins
on fishing, p. 128
one of many excellent young teams
whose work focuses on making jackets,
trousers and other staples that may age
well enough to hand down one day. I
think of them as the Vitsoe of casual
tailoring: a wearable answer to the
proposal that you can live better with
less that lasts longer.
For those stylish men and others like
them, I’m sure active, rigorous editing
of one’s wardrobe works—especially if
they’ve arrived at a style they want to
stick to. That makes it easier to identify
What if you haven’t committed to a single
self-expression and like to mix things up?
what doesn’t belong, arguably the
most important factor in keeping one’s
personal furnishings in check.
But what are you supposed to do
if you like good clothing that’s well
made—and already have a lot of it? What
if you haven’t committed to a single
self-expression and like to mix things
up now and then? There’s a common
argument that if you haven’t worn
something in a year, you should get rid
of it, but it hardly makes sense to do that
with the bespoke tuxedo you wear to
the odd gala, or the shearling jacket that
makes sense only for a specific week
every February.
Illustrations by CELYN
Jacob Pabst
on investing, p. 130
The advice I’m givingg myselff (and
myy partner, Brian, with whom I recently
joined households, closets and alll) is
to keep everything, with some m minor
exceptions. If it’s damaged beyond
repair, donate it to an organization
that specializes in recycling textiles,
like GrowNYC or Blue Jeans Go
Green, which turns denim into home
insulation. If it doesn’t fit, and isn’t
likely to in the future, hand it over to
someone who can wear it.
But the rest of it, I think, should stay
put. After all, men’s fashion is moving so
fast that there’s something in the market
for almost everyone, so as long as your
clothes are well made and fit your body
and aesthetic, you’ll be hard to fault. It’s
the reason Brian and I decided to keep
the mountain of boots we own between
us—well, that and we both wear a size
11—and how we justified not throwing
away various stacks of cashmere,
pocket squares and T-shirts during the
move. It’s joy enough knowing that a
variety of options—and new possible
combinations—are at our disposal,
whenever we may need them, now and
in the future.
Justin Fenner is Robb Report’s
deputy digital editor and a self-
proclaimed clothes horse.
R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 127
 Field Notes
DAVID COGGINS
Sometimes the
Victory Isn’t
Catching a Fish
FISHING The most challenging streams require
focus and presence. Just mastering those two
things can be a win.
T
he thunder clouds came
over the hill on a straight
line toward us. It was
almost sunset when
we arrived at Idaho’s
Silver Creek, one of the crown jewels of
American fly-fishing. There’s no neutral
way to fish this waterway. I remember
each time I’ve been there, the conditions
are etched in my mind, from the first fat
rainbow I caught there 15 years ago to
an excruciating lost brown trout that left
me speechless last year. The arrival of
a storm is often when the fish are most
active. This would be another chapter in
my history on this legendary water.
My friend Taite Pearson, an
experienced guide here, and I had a
decision to make. Should we take the
path through the high grass and arrive
at the creek at about the same time as
128 NOVEMBER 2019
th
he storm? Or wait under the porch of
th
he visitor-center cabin for the weather
to clear? It’s hard to be this close to
leggendary water and not fish it. I was
su
ure Taite felt the same. “Is this inspired
stuupid? Or just plain stupid?” I asked
him as we hauled on our raincoats.
“W
We’ll find out soon enough,” he said
with a gleam in his eye. We headed
doown the path.
Silver Creek is in Picabo, Ida.,
abbout 30 miles south of Ketchum,
annd snakes innocently through the
su
urrounding meadows. It’s the source
off much mythology, but in this case
it’s a story that turns out to be true.
Errnest Hemingway fished this water
“If you can catch a 6-inch trout here,
you can catch a 26-inch trout here.
It’s the same technique.”
off and on for more than 20 years. But
the story of Silver Creek involves a
different Hemingway, the writer’s son
Jack. As a boy he fished here with his
father and grew to love the area. When
the Silver Creek Preserve came up for
sale, Jack, in an act of foresight and
civic-mindedness, convinced the Nature
Conservancy to buy it. That has kept its
870 acres undeveloped and open to all
who want the challenge.
Taite and I got to the stream, which
has a very slow current—one reason
it’s so difficult to fish. The many trout
can take their time to examine your fly
as it floats gently by. If it’s not well-
presented, they will wait for something
more to their liking. Taite got to the
water first. He tried to contain his
excitement. “Every fish on the stream
is feeding right now.” It was true: There
were rises everywhere we looked, little
splashes where trout were taking flies
on the surface. Silver Creek was alive.
This is what anglers dream of. But
at Silver Creek that dream will test you.
The hatch was a baetis, which is a very
small mayfly. And by small I mean tiny;
these are about the size of an asterisk.
The game here is downstream drifts
on long leaders with a light tippet. The
most delicate tackle you can use, it looks
like you’re casting a spider web. That
means the trout sees the fly first and
isn’t spooked by the thicker floating fly
line. Such casting is difficult in any case,
but with the flies so small you can barely
see them, it’s even harder.
I let the line out, casting down to a
pair of rising fish. They seemed to feed
on everything but my fly. I thought in
their feeding frenzy one might just take
it by accident. No dice. The water was
cold. I could feel it through my waders
and long underwear. Whose idea
was this again? I cast to another rising
fish, and there was a splash and a
hookup. Fish on! I quickly realized this
was no trophy, but perhaps the smallest
trout in the creek.
Taite laughed and tried to comfort
me. “If you can catch a 6-inch trout
here, you can catch a 26-inch trout
here,” he said. “It’s the same technique.”
This seemed like the faintest of
victories. I watched Taite. He let his fly
drift expertly down, mending the line so
it followed the current exactly. He had
a couple of rises but couldn’t hook up
with the large trout that rose to his fly.
It’s hard to set a small hook, especially
when you have more than 40 feet of line
out on the water.
The rain stayed away, and the sun
set in a wide streak of orange over
the Picabo Hills. It was unusually
quiet. This is why Silver Creek draws
anglers back year after year. It’s an
extraordinary setting that tests
your skill, one of the great legacies in
the sport.
You can’t be passive about Silver
Creek. To fish it well you have to be
engaged during every cast and drift. The
sensitivity and concentration required
heighten the experience. You are fully
there. When you catch a trout, you know
you’ve earned it. And when you lose
them, you know it’s part of the equation
on one of the most challenging streams
in the country. We paid attention,
focused and fished, and felt good about
that. We didn’t catch the big one that
day, but we’ll be back.
David Coggins is the author of Men and
Manners. He lives in New York City.
 Field Notes
JACOB PABST
Want Something
Better to Look
at Than Stock
Symbols? Buy Art.
INVESTING Collecting—based on data—can be just
as lucrative in ROI as your blue-chip portfolio.
T
he art market is at an
all-time high, in the
middle of a seemingly
never-ending period
of growth like none
we have seen before. What was once
a niche community of enthusiasts has
evolved into a legitimate global market.
As in other investment categories,
data can help direct buyers’ attention
when investing in art and identify
key opportunities. Total worldwide
auction sales in 2018 were $19.4 billion,
compared to $3.2 billion in 1989, an
increase of more than 500 percent.
The total size of the art market today,
including gallery and online sales, is
estimated to be at least $60 billion.
But a closer look is needed, as the
art market consists of hundreds of
individual markets that often behave
very differently. While the total sales
have increased, many segments are not
faring so well and often haven’t been
for some time. Take the old masters,
which have become something like
General Electric: an old powerhouse
overwhelmed by the market demand
for younger, sexier options such as
Facebook, Amazon or Netflix.
As more investors have sought to
diversify their portfolios with high-
performing alternative assets, art has
drawn more and more interest in the
United States and throughout the
world, with US collectors now claiming
36 percent of the art-market share.
According to Artnet’s proprietary
database (the source for the sales figures
in this story), investing in art can be
rewarding in many ways. Looking at the
past 18 years, Artnet’s index of the 10
top-performing artists produced a
130 NOVEMBER 2019
7 percent compound annual growth rate
(or CAGR), beating the 3.7 percent for
the S&P 500. This growth is apparent, for
example, with regard to Andy Warhol’s
Statue of Liberty silkscreen, which sold
for just $453,500 at auction in 1999 and
$3.7 million in 2016.
Growth in value in the last 10
years has come mainly from the top
segment of artworks, those valued at
more than $1 million, where a handful
of artists such as Warhol and Pablo
Picasso drive the entire market. On the
other hand, hundreds of other artists
present good investment opportunities.
Cindy Sherman and Oscar Murillo, for
example, don’t get the same attention,
There are areas of opportunity buyers
can and should get into now.
but their work is very often just as
interesting—or even more so. In 2011,
Murillo’s most expensive paintings
sold through dealers for $8,500 each.
Midway through last year, his average
sales price at auction was roughly
$113,000, good for a CAGR of 45 percent.
Aside from artists who are not quite
in that uppermost tier, there are areas
of opportunity buyers can and should
get into now, according to the data.
Interest has been shifting toward newer
work for years. Last year was the first
on record in which auction houses sold
more lots of postwar and contemporary
art (about 109,000) than impressionist
and modern art (about 106,000). And
while impressionist and modern works
still outsold postwar and contemporary
works by value last year, the latter
category showed a greater year-over-
year increase in price: 15.2 percent
versus 12.4 percent.
Hype is also creating new pitfalls
and opportunities. After the major slate
of New York auctions in May 2019, the
artist KAWS—a frequent collaborator
with fashion brands such as Dior as
well as mass consumer brands like
Uniqlo and a symbol of the rising street
culture—had actually overtaken the
celebrated master painter Gerhard
Richter in total auction sales for the
year, by a margin of roughly $52 million
to $50 million, largely because many
more KAWS pieces were sold at auction
than Richters (382 versus 125)—though,
importantly, at a much lower average
price per work. With Richter’s place in
the canon of postwar art already secure,
tthis dip in supply may be long-term, in
wwhich case investors need to look for
uundervalued talents.
The data, conveniently, also reveal
tthat female artists are still drastically
uunderrepresented in the marketplace.
IIn 2018, only five of the top 100 artists
bby total sales value were women. The
aaverage sales price for a painting by
tthe top-selling female artist, Yayoi
KKusama, was just under $606,000, while
tthe average price for a painting by the
ttop-selling male artist, Pablo Picasso,
wwas $11.3 million. In terms of total sales,
tthe fifth-ranked man, Andy Warhol,
ggenerated $23 million more in auction
ssales than the top two women (Kusama
aand Joan Mitchell) combined. As society
aat large recalibrates the balance between
ggenders, many art investors view this
vvalue gap as an opportunity.
J
Jacob Pabst is the CEO of Artnet, which
provides
p pricing information, reporting
a access to the global art marketplace.
and
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 FROM LEFT: Jaeger-
LeCoultre Reverso Tribute
Small Seconds watch in
stainless steel ($7,900,
jaeger-lecoultre.com);
Vacheron Constantin
Overseas Perpetual
Calendar Ultra-Thin in
18-karat pink gold ($73,500,
vacheron-constantin.com).

134 NOVEMBER 2019

 MAN of the HOUR
If you’re really getting dressed up, make sure your wrist doesn’t let you down. Here’s our pick of
the watches to wear this party season—and how to style them.

By PAIGE REDDINGER Photography by JOSHUA SCOTT Styling by LUIS CAMPUZANO

F. P. Journe
Black Label Divine
watch in platinum
($51,600, fpjourne
.com); Brunello
Cucinelli corduroy
tuxedo ($4,995,
brunellocucinelli
.com); Louis Vuitton
cotton double-cuff
bib shirt ($655,
louisvuitton.com).
 Man of the Hour

Audemars Piguet
Code 11.59 Self-Winding
Chronograph in 18-karat
pink gold ($42,400,
audemarspiguet.com);
Giorgio Armani wool
tuxedo ($3,495, armani
.com); Tom Ford cotton
shirt ($660, tomford
.com); Tiffany & Co.
cuff links in 18-karat
gold and sterling silver
($3,400, tiffany.com);
Ermenegildo Zegna
Couture leather shoes
($895, zegna.us).

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 137
 Man of the Hour

Harry Winston
Midnight Date Moon
Phase Automatic in
18-karat rose gold
($27,300, harrywinston
.com); Corneliani
three-piece virgin-wool
suit ($2,595, corneliani
.com); Louis Vuitton
cotton double-cuff bib
shirt ($655, louisvuitton
.com); Tiffany & Co.
cuff links in 18-karat
gold and sterling silver
($3,400, tiffany.com).

138 NOVEMBER 2019

 A. Lange & Söhne
1815 Annual Calendar in
white gold ($41,875,
alange-soehne.com);
Thom Sweeney
silk tuxedo jacket ($1,790,
thomsweeney.co.uk);
Brunello Cucinelli
satin bow tie ($295) and
cotton pocket square
($125, brunellocucinelli
.com); Hermès cotton
shirt ($580) and cuff links
in brushed stainless steel
($460, hermes.com).
140 NOVEMBER 2019
 Man of the Hour

Carl F. Bucherer Manero

Tourbillon Double Peripheral
in 18-karat rose gold
($68,000, carl-f-bucherer
.com); Giorgio Armani
wool tuxedo ($3,495, armani
.com); Canali cotton dress
shirt ($350, canali.com);
Cartier cuff links in 18-karat
white, yellow and rose gold
($4,050, cartier.com).
Patek Philippe
Self-Winding Annual
Calendar Chronograph
5905R-001 in
18-karat rose gold
($65,770, patek.com);
Tom Ford cotton-
velvet peak-lapel jacket
($4,130) and silk scarf
($1,590, tomford.com).
 Man of the Hour

Bovet Virtuoso IX
pocket watch in 18-karat
red gold ($280,000,
bovet.com); Louis
Vuitton wool evening
suit ($3,850) and cotton
double-cuff bib shirt
($655, louisvuitton.com).

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 143
 Breguet Classique
5177 watch in 18-karat
white gold ($23,700) and
Classique Dial cuff links
in 18-karat white gold
and diamonds ($11,300,
breguet.com); Louis
Vuitton wool evening
suit ($3,850) and cotton
double-cuff bib shirt
($655, louisvuitton.com).

Dialing In
Choosing the right watch for a special occasion requires
effort. Here’s what’s under the hood.
F. P. JOURNE BLACK LABEL DIVINE
Part of the firm’s ultra-exclusive Black
Label collection, the Divine is available
only to F. P. Journe watch owners, but
if you’re part of the club, this unique dial
design should already be on your wish
list. Its in-house Octa Calibre 1300.3,
when fully wound, delivers 120 hours (or
five days) of chronometric precision for
extra bragging rights.
FASHION ASSISTANT: VICTOR VAUGHNS JR.
CARL F. BUCHERER MANERO TOURBILLON
DOUBLE PERIPHERAL
Housed within this simple and clean-
looking dial layout is Carl F. Bucherer’s
complex CFB T3000 caliber. Its claim to
fame is a peripheral rotor that allows for
a better view of the movement through
the caseback, as well as a tourbillon
mounted with a peripheral cage, which
forgoes the need for bridges and gives
the appearance that it’s floating.
AUDEMARS PIGUET CODE 11.59
SELF-WINDING CHRONOGRAPH
This watch from Audemars Piguet’s
brand-new Code 11.59, its first fresh
line of watches in 24 years, comes
equipped with the 4401 caliber—one of
three new calibers in the collection. Use
it as a talking point to explain to your
fellow dinner guests why you’ve bought
something other than the Royal Oak.
PATEK PHILIPPE SELF-WINDING ANNUAL
CALENDAR CHRONOGRAPH 5905R-001
A highlight from Patek Philippe’s 2019
collection, the Ref. 5905R-001’s chocolate
dial and rose-gold casing are a welcome
change from the traditional white or
black dial for dress watches, while
still keeping it classic. Invented by the
watchmaker in the ’90s, the annual
calendar is a must-have for any Patek
Philippe collector.
JAEGER-LECOULTRE REVERSO TRIBUTE SMALL SECONDS
The perfect black-tie companion, this
watch has a dial that famously flips over—
originally as protection against whirling
polo mallets, but now as a helpful way
to avoid checking the time at the dinner
table. (Some, however, might consider
flipping its face a good way to pass the
time at an interminable function.)
HARRY WINSTON MIDNIGHT DATE
MOON PHASE AUTOMATIC
When it comes to watchmaking, Harry
Winston’s offerings run the gamut from
extreme complications, such as its Opus
collection, to time-honored standards
like this rose-gold watch with a moon
phase and pointer-type date. This is the
kind of timepiece that will get mileage
from boardroom to ballroom.
BOVET VIRTUOSO IX
The ultimate showpiece, this pocket
watch transforms into a wristwatch and
comes with a double time zone, a 10-day
power-reserve indicator, a big date
and a flying tourbillon. Flip it over for a
spectacular view of the hour and minute
hands centered over open-work bridges
with a sparkling bris de verre engraving—
a serious collector’s item but also a
useful conversation piece.
Man of the Hour
VACHERON CONSTANTIN OVERSEAS
PERPETUAL CALENDAR ULTRA-THIN
This watch underwent a face-lift this year
with the addition of a new blue dial, which
pops against the rose-gold case. It’s a
simple update with serious visual impact
that dresses up the sporty model. Wear it
with its alligator strap by night or keep it
casual with the rubber strap by day.
A. LANGE & SÖHNE 1815 ANNUAL CALENDAR
Annual calendars, like this one, do not
account for leap years, so they must be
adjusted at the end of February. This
watch does not require a pin to reset
it, thereby cutting out the need for a
separate instrument. Instead, the 1815
comes equipped with a rectangular push
button at two o’clock to move the day
and date forward simultaneously.
BREGUET CLASSIQUE 5177
There are few brands that own the dress-
watch category quite like Breguet. The
venerable watchmaker is synonymous
with refined taste and classic timepieces.
It is also known for its expert guilloche
techniques, an art form used on watch
dials by founder Abraham-Louis Breguet
in 1786, seen here in the 5177. The
understated but elegant dial is the perfect
backdrop for blue moon-tipped hands.
R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 145
 Jessica Springsteen, equestrian and Olympic hopeful,
has been around horses all her life. Now, in the South of France,
all that experience might be about to pay off.

BY BRO OKE MAZUREK

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEFANIA PAPARELLI
STYLING BY GAULTIER DE SANDRE NAVARRE

Zecilie the horse wasn’t feeling Saint-Tropez.

On a recent Wednesday, the 12-year-old mare was surrounded if you get nervous, it’s going to affect the
by the kind of conditions you couldn’t order if you tried: sun sus- horse.” Horses sense fear. Which is why
pended in a cloudless sky, the Mediterranean’s waves lapping vast the equestrian, who is warm and effu-
stretches of white sand, summer heat that should have left when all sive, said nothing on that stretch of shore.
the tourists did. Beside her was a fence and, just beyond it, a lush Extending her open palm, she simply
courtyard at the hotel Epi 1959, a glamorous cocoon where beau- stood there.
tiful French people kept replenishing barely touched dessert tarts For a moment, Zecilie calmed.
with yet more dessert tarts—lemon meringue, ganache, blueberry. The two of them are on the French
In this tableau vivant, lobsters were bobbing around an outdoor Riviera to compete. Half a block away,
tank, Bill Withers was crooning about how he knew it was “gonna a parking lot has been transformed into
be a lovely day” and every fourth minute plumes of mist were mate- a small white stadium for the Longines
rializing from the bamboo cabanas. Global Champions Tour, where 55 men
But Zecilie was all nerves. You could see it in her ears, which and women from 18 countries could win Jessica Springsteen and
were twisting in and out like searchlights that couldn’t land their $680,000 in prize money over three days. Zecilie on the beach at
Epi 1959 in Saint-Tropez.
target. Or in the way she was nodding from side to side, her ridicu- In place of a typical sporting event’s hot-
Springsteen wears
lously shiny copper coat catching the light as she turned. “They’re dog or T-shirt stands, there are Hermès an Eres swimsuit and
so sensitive,” her rider, Jessica Springsteen, later explains. “And and Dolce & Gabbana booths. Louis Vuitton trousers.

146 NOVEMBER 2019

Poolside at Epi 1959
in a Polo Ralph
Lauren shirt and Rudi
Gernreich swimsuit.
 Born to Ride

The goal in equestrian jumping is to be
the fastest to coax a 1,000-pound animal
to torque its body over a series of obsta-
cles in a thoughtfully considered course.
“You need to be able to extend your horse,
collect your horse, turn your horse all in
a certain way so you’re meeting the jump
correctly,” Springsteen says over tuna tar-
tare and chilled passion-fruit soup. Some
turns are tighter than others; some fences
require different angling. It is an inordi-
nately expensive sport that is based on
geometry and strategy, but also on the
most invaluable thing of all: time.
“Time, time, time,” she says of the pro-
cess. “It just takes time.”
Springsteen should know: She has
dedicated more than three-quarters of
her 27 years to it.
turn to jump the low barriers. “It was
pouring and they were like, ‘We’ve been
here all day, you have to canter the horse.’
So I finally did it and got over the fear.” She
now clears five-and-a-half-foot obstacles.
“Her way with horses is exceptional,”
Helena Stormanns, the trainer and veteran
championship rider who scouted Zecilie at
a show in Germany three years ago, tells
me. “Jessica’s got a very generous person-
ality, and horses like that. . . . Horses don’t
respond well to fear.” Still, inside the lovely
twentysomething who has Taylor Swift’s
new Lover album on repeat is a fierce com-
petitor. “You go through pain and emotion
and anxiety as a rider, and you have to get
to the other side of that,” Stormanns says.
“Jessica is determined. She wants to win.”
same competitions, live five minutes from
the stables and spend winters together in
the equestrian enclave of Wellington, Fla.—
“the one time of the year when you’re in
one place for longer than two weeks,” as
she puts it.
The couple typically compete Thurs-
day through Sunday and then ride Monday
through Wednesday, with most mornings
beginning at nine o’clock. Springsteen
often takes an hour-and-a-half train ride
to Germany, where Stormanns is based,
for time with Zecilie, who spends up to
four hours a day being exercised through
the surrounding forests. “I’ll be on the
phone with my mom and I’m like, ‘Hold
on, I’m crossing the border, I’m going to
lose you,’ ” Springsteen says with a laugh.
“We’re in three countries in one day. She’s

A
Her earliest memories of horses are year ago Springsteen relocated always so surprised.”
foggy ones that begin in California, where to Brussels. After basing herself They are traveling the world together,
she was the second of three children in England, the Netherlands and Springsteen and Zecilie, and theirs is a
born to rock icon Bruce Springsteen and Germany for three summers, Springsteen complicated waltz of a lifestyle, requir-
his wife, the guitarist and E Street Band found a city without a language barrier ing precision and months of planning.
member Patti Scialfa. Jessica learned what (she knows conversational French) that Before Saint-Tropez, they were in Rome,
The pair take a jump
she knows growing up in Rumson, N.J., also proved a central location for competi- at the Longines Global
where Springsteen was able to bolt over
where her family moved when she was tions. She and boyfriend Lorenzo de Luca, Championship Tour to the Colosseum on a long run with a
four so she and her brothers could have a also a show jumper who enters many of the event in Saint-Tropez. friend between rounds. Before that: Paris,
childhood removed from tabloid culture.
Their house was across the street from her
middle school. “I remember walking home
over a hill to all of our dogs waiting for us
on the other side,” she says. “It was amaz- “Jessica’s got a very generous
ing.” (Her parents now live in nearby Colts
Neck, 10 miles from Freehold, the factory personality, and horses like that.... Horses
town Bruce grew up in. Jessica calls their
300-acre farm her “happy place” and puts don’t respond well to fear.”
her retired horses out to pasture there.)
Rumson was also near a top-notch rid-
ing school, and by five years old, Spring-
steen was saddling up to practice almost
every day. To become an exceptional rider,
you begin with the Ford and work your
way up to the Ferrari. “Really talented
horses teach you how to be a better rider,
but you don’t start there because you’re
not ready,” Springsteen says. There were
ponies first, notoriously attitude-prone:
They would scoop down for grass without
warning and send her tumbling over. In
her recollection, she would fall off pretty
much all the time. “It’s good for you, I
think, when you’re little.” At 12, she got her
first horse, a brown mare named Deneuve,
who was “brave as a lion” and taught her
confidence.
Jumps were scary in the beginning, and
Springsteen was overly cautious. “You’re
meant to canter [over the fences], and I
would only trot,” she says. “And because I
would only trot them, I would never win.”
There was this one rainy competition she
ROBB RICE

remembers where the whole Springsteen

clan had been patiently waiting for her

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 149
 Born to Ride

Three years ago Bruce and Patti had a

Her hometown was near a top-notch riding
school, and by five years old, she was saddling
up to practice almost every day.
Cannes, Shanghai and Madrid. Within
Europe, the horse, who is worth around
$10 million, almost always travels on a
truck specially outfitted with a partition
for support. When Springsteen competed
in New York this fall, Zecilie boarded a
plane with stalls instead of seats—a jour-
ney that wasn’t too taxing because of the
horse’s ability to sleep standing up. The
round-trip ticket cost upwards of $20,000.
understand the lifestyle and how it can be
taxing.” When she feels the need to come
home, even if only for three days, they get
her there. “As you get older, you realize.
You assume everyone has that support, and
you see how lucky you are to really have
[it].” She chalks it up to parental love, of
course, but also to empathy for her dreams
and ambitions. “They obviously found
their passion when they were younger
with music, and they recognize how hard
show in Madrid the same weekend their
daughter was in town for a global-tour
event. “Everyone from the horse show
went [to the concert], and it was the best
of overlapping,” she recalls. “So much fun.”
The difference between the two pur-
suits is time off. Which is to say, there is
next to none for Springsteen. There can’t
be when you’re working with a live animal.
“You have to manage your schedule and do
what’s best for [the horse],” she says. And
there are eight that require her attention.
It is ultimately that attention, that
focus, on which success hinges. “You have
to dig deep, the horse has to dig deep, and
together you grow into a partnership,”
Stormanns tells me.
It took Springsteen and Zecilie nine
months to find their rhythm. “She couldn’t
understand what I was asking her to do,
and I was a little confused by certain
movements,” Springsteen says. Studying
developmental psychology at Duke isn’t
something she cites as having influenced
her process, but horses are not unlike chil-
dren. “You’re never going to change them
in a day, and they’re never going to under-
stand everything you’re asking. You have
to do it gradually and be patient.”
Whether Zecilie is the one that will
carry Springsteen all the way to the
Olympics, time will tell. (Unlike many
sports, equestrian does not have a single
Olympic-trial event. Instead, riders are
chosen based on their cumulative perfor-
mances at competitions throughout the
season.) Zecilie is squarely within a horse’s
peak years—typically between ages 11 and
15—and has the physique. But as Spring-
steen points out, “You can buy the best
horse in the world and pair it with the best
rider and still have a bad result.”
Which isn’t what happens in
Saint-Tropez.
The next day, they enter the ring. Gone
from Springsteen’s face is her Julia Rob-
erts smile, and her long, flowing brown
hair is secured beneath a helmet. Her torn
denim and the Chanel sleeveless tee she’d
nicked from her mom’s closet (“she has
the best taste”) have been swapped for a
navy blazer, white breeches and the most
dialed-in focus. Watching her and Zecilie
snake through the 13 jumps feels like a les-
son in presence, a hyperextended version
of the way Springsteen had energetically

M
uch like the concert touring
circuit, Springsteen’s nontra-
ditional path will likely find
her living out of a suitcase for the foresee-
able future, given that riders can and do
compete into their 60s. Her parents, she
says, “always really supported me. They
it is. Some people go through their entire become the anchor between sea and horse
In this shot from the life without finding something that they the day before.
Springsteen family really love, so they just kind of really It lasts 77.35 seconds, this first round.
archives, Jessica is pushed me. They know that you just have It is so quick. It is so quiet. And their first-
about five or six, she
to keep going. And they’ve really instilled place finish two days from now will be the
says. She started on
ponies and got her that in me.” biggest win of their career. Perhaps Zecilie
first horse at 12. On occasion, touring paths will cross. was feeling Saint-Tropez after all.

150 NOVEMBER 2019

Springsteen wears
a Dior coat. Sandals
by K. Jacques.

HAIR AND MAKEUP:

Giulio Panciera
STYLIST ASSISTANT:
Alienor Mocoeur

Photographed on location
at hotel Epi 1959.
 L
E
E
H
- W
R
U
O
F

F R O M F I E R C E T O E C O - F R I E N D LY, C O N C E P T C A R S

152 NOVEMBER 2019

 F
A
N
T
A
S
Y
BY
ROBERT
ROSS

The PB-18 e-tron

concept, which
premiered at Pebble
Beach in 2018, is
Audi’s take on the
all-electric supercar.

A R E T H E AU T O M A K E R S ’ C R OW D - S O U R C E D R & D.
 Four-Wheel Fantasy
The history of concept cars begins in ear-
nest in the 1950s, but for context you need
to head a little further back in time. As
the United States lurched out of the Great
Depression, a middle class emerged, suf-
ficiently affluent to afford automobiles
in greater and greater volumes. The look
of a car quickly became its most salable
feature. New styles sold new cars, so fre-
quent updates became essential to mov-
ing metal. With the outbreak of World
War II, car manufacturing worldwide
trickled to a halt but resumed with a ven-
geance in 1946, and by 1950 the race to
capture brand-loyal customers was on.
Dream machines came into their own,
with international motor shows attracting
hundreds of thousands of visitors world-
wide to see the latest vehicles, and to get
a glimpse of the future. Manufacturers
were only too eager to whet these appe-
tites with concept cars that explored—and
influenced—new aesthetic and technology
trends. Some were evolutionary, others so
outlandish they could not possibly be mass
produced. The boldest concepts estab-
lished manufacturers such as General
Motors as visionaries, at the same time
gauging just how much innovation the
public would actually park in their drive-
ways. But while early concept cars were
often freewheeling fantasies sketched
in the studio, today’s concept cars are
informed by a sophisticated mash-up of
engineering data, focus groups, share-
holder profits and all manner of global
emissions and safety regulations.
From the beginning of aviation,
aerodynamic efficiency—whether real or
154 NOVEMBER 2019
implied—has been an overarching prin-
ciple for forward-thinking car designers,
knowing that sleek bodies cheat wind,
save fuel and look like they’re going fast
even when they’re standing still. Poly-
math Buckminster Fuller exhibited his
blimp-shaped Dymaxion, one of the first
extreme automotive aerodynamic exer-
cises, at Chicago’s 1933-34 World’s Fair.
The Dymaxion (Dynamic, Maximum,
Tension) explored the potential for a
vehicle that could drive and fly, and while
never intended as a commercial venture,
it expressed Fuller’s utopian imaginings,
which encompassed geodesic domes,
solar electricity and freedom from tradi-
tional means of transportation.
GM design boss Harley Earl was the
man whose design vision charted the
company’s postwar growth as the world’s
leading automaker. His 1938 Buick Y-Job
(sketched by George Snyder) is consid-
ered the first auto-show styling concept,
meant to enthrall the public with its
looks. Long, low and with lots of chrome,
it set the tone for the coming decade, one
in which the American automotive indus-
try would reign supreme.
Some concepts set styling trends from
stem to stern. GM’s jet-fighter-inspired
1951 LeSabre, for instance, boasted tail
fins that soon became de rigueur on
American luxury cars like Cadillac. Oth-
ers, such as GM’s Firebird I, II and III
(created from 1954 through 1958), were
impractical dreams that looked like
wingless jet fighters and were propelled
by turbine engines. The Firebird II was,
presciently, meant to be autonomous,
 The Ferrari 512S
Modulo, designed by
Pininfarina’s Paolo
Martin, astounded
visitors to the
1970 Geneva Motor
Show. It may well
be regarded as the
most significant—and
inventive—concept
car of its era.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 155
 Four-Wheel Fantasy

X-CONCEPT, FORD SEAT TLE-ITE, LANCIA

STRATOS: SHUT TERSTOCK; FIREBIRD III:
Y-JOB, PLYMOUTH XNR, PININFARINA
ALFA ROMEO BAT: ALAMY; BUICK

BET TMAN/GET T YIMAGES

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
Bertone’s 1955 Alfa Romeo
B.A.T. 9 (front) and 1954 B.A.T.
(rear) put Italian design in
the forefront; the 1938 Buick
Y-Job was Detroit’s first
concept car; Virgil Exner’s
1962 Plymouth XNR was an
exercise in asymmetry; 1962
Ford Seattle-ite XXI was the
star of the Seattle World’s
Fair; 1960 Pininfarina X had
four wheels arranged in a
diamond; GM’s 1958 Firebird
III was turbine powered;
Marcello Gandini created the
1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero
while at Bertone.

156 NOVEMBER 2019

 DES MOR
IGN E RA
S WE DICA
BET RE C L
1 9 70 WEE ONJ
THA N 1960 URE
N IN AND D
OTH PER
ER D HAP
ECA S AN
DE. Y
“releasing the driver from the wheel”
on a so-called “Highway of Tomorrow,”
according to its 1956 publicity brochure.
Americans weren’t the only car
designers with a crystal ball. The Ital-
ians, especially, were hard at work imag-
ining what the future would hold, often
incorporating novel styling into one-off
or limited-series models for marques like
Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Lancia. Zagato, a
carrozzeria whose founder cut his teeth
designing aircraft, adapted the same alu-
minum fabrication expertise to the design
of slippery sports cars.
The carrozzeria Bertone, meanwhile,
pushed the aerodynamic envelope with
the Alfa Romeo BAT 5, 7 and 9, Italy’s most
influential concept cars of the 1950s, all
designed by in-house stylist Franco Sca-
glione. Pininfarina was no less extreme
with its X concept car and Fiat-Abarth
Monoposto, both from 1960, inspired by
rockets that captured the public imagi-
nation at the dawn of space exploration.
More radical designs were conjured
between 1960 and 1970 than in perhaps
any other decade, and by the end, concept
cars were low, creased wedges that aptly
prefigured the following decade’s hard-
edged aesthetic.
Bertone’s 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo
and 1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero, both
designed by Marcello Gandini, were
strikingly modern. The Carabo featured
scissor doors, eventually employed in
Gandini’s design for Lamborghini’s Coun-
tach. The most innovative creation from
1970 was Pininfarina’s Ferrari 512S Mod-
ulo, designed by Paolo Martin, which
featured a sliding-canopy glass roof that
described a flowing arc front to rear.
In 1978, an ambitious young Los
Angeles designer named Gerald Wieg-
ert unveiled his Vector W2 prototype,
a wedge-shaped assault weapon chal-
lenging the most radical inventions from
Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche. His
company was never the same after a
boardroom fight in 1993, though with
coincidental timing, Gordon Murray’s
McLaren F1 took center stage as the
world’s most capable supercar.
If today’s concept cars don’t seem
quite as outrageous as their more
extreme predecessors, it’s in part because
materials and technologies heretofore
unimaginable—exotic composites and
metallurgy, even tires that hold up at 300
mph—are now possible. Aerodynamic
solutions, a fundamental trait of futuristic
design from the beginning, are incorpo-
rated into the most quotidian automo-
biles. Horsepower routinely eclipses the
once unthinkable 1,000 hp threshold,
with 1,500 hp as a realistic target for mod-
ern hypercars.
Such massive power is a hallmark of
cost-is-no-object one-offs like Bugatti’s
La Voiture Noire (the Black Car), which
won the Villa d’Este Design Award for
concept cars in 2019. Based on the Chi-
ron and with nearly 1,500 hp, it recently
sold for $12.5 million ($18.9 million with
taxes) to a private buyer.
While good looks and high perfor-
mance will always be a part of the con-
cept-car equation, overarching concerns
of gridlocked motorways and a planet fur-
ther warmed by internal combustion are
driving designers, engineers and the auto-
makers that employ them to consider solu-
tions that address the future’s substantive
global transportation challenges. Ferrari’s
most powerful series-production car ever,
the SF90 Stradale, already combines a V-8
engine with three electric motors for a
total output of nearly 1,000 hp.
Indeed, the writing is on the prover-
bial gas-station wall, and it suggests that
in our near future, the oil oozing from
dead dinosaurs may best remain under-
ground for another 65 million years.
So, apart from emphasizing brute out-
put, concepts with gas hybrid, fuel-cell
hybrid and, especially, electric power
trains are quickly replacing pure internal
R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 157
Bentley’s 2019 EXP
100 GTR envisions
electric power and
luxury with a touch of
AI in the year 2035.
 Four-Wheel Fantasy

AU T
ALL OMA
SEG KER
MEN S AC
TO T TS A ROS
E R S
“A U T R MS W E COM
ONO ITH ING
MOU THE
S AG
END
A.”

combustion engines. The 2018 Audi PB18

e-tron proposes that the future is an
all-electric one. The Genesis Essentia EV
and Italdesign’s gullwing DaVinci, both
made for electric power, point the way
forward from the perspective of a South
Korean mass producer and a bespoke Ital-
ian design studio, respectively. Porsche’s
Taycan turned from the 2015 Mission E
concept to production sedan this year,
proof that the automobile’s electric future
is here, now.
All of which presupposes that some-
one will actually need to drive tomorrow’s
cars. Hundreds of millions of motorists
endure rush-hour purgatory every day,
and who among them would not embrace
deliverance through autonomous contrap-
tions that could speed their commutes
and liberate them from the horrors of not
just stop-and-go traffic but automobile
accidents and bodily injury? Automakers
across all segments are coming to terms
with the “autonomous agenda.” The Rolls-
Royce 103EX from 2016 was a visionary
concept car that demonstrated the natural
affinity of luxury and autonomy. Sports-
car manufacturers have a tougher row to
hoe: It’s difficult to imagine any Porsche,
Ferrari or Corvette driver giving up the
wheel without his or her cold, dead fingers
being pried from the rim.
Offering unabashed opulence and a
far-reaching look into the future of auton-
omy is the Bentley EXP 100 GT, an electric-
powered concept car with 1,100 lb ft of
torque, revealed this year as a tip of the
hat to the marque’s centennial. Imagine a
Bentley in 2035. It incorporates AI to opti-
mize cabin conditions, using biometrics to
monitor an occupant’s mood, blood pres-
sure and body temperature. Seats double
as massage chairs. Pleasant smells, such as
the sea air or forest pines, can be filtered
in, while noxious odors are blocked. When
you have such interesting distractions—
maybe even a good novel—perhaps hav-
ing the computer take the wheel won’t be
such a bad trade-off after all.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 159
 Di m ds
A r e n ’t
Fo r eve r

Deep in the Australian outback, the

world’s largest diamond mine has
produced the most spectacular pink stones
ever unearthed. But as the last of
them are extracted, what will the future
hold for Argyle pinks?

BY Mark Ellwood

160 NOVEMBER 2019

 
The Argyle Enigma,
a 1.75-carat fancy
red, radiant-cut
diamond, offered in
this year’s tender.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 161
 Diamonds Aren’t Forever
I
It was the anthills that confirmed their suspicions,
glinting inexplicably under the harsh sun of the Austra-
lian outback. The geologists had explored the land for a
decade, including surveys by helicopter, suspecting there
might be something precious lurking under the barren,
sunbaked earth. It took a closer look, though, to be sure:
Trekking through the outback on foot, they squinted
more closely at those sparkling flecks. They were dia-
monds, shards that the insects had inadvertently ferried
to the surface from a deposit, or pipe, below.
What even that team, seasoned diamond hunters all,
couldn’t have guessed then was the size of the seam
they’d identified, a few miles south of Lake Argyle.
When formal operations began in 1983, four years after
the initial find, the diamonds from this single mine vir-
tually doubled world production—overnight. Named
in the lake’s honor, the Argyle mine has produced 865
million carats of rough in the four decades since. Where
the shimmering anthills once stood as the only sign of
life, there is now a vast gash in the red-brown earth, with
steep, stepped walls carved by the mine.
But there was an even greater prize hidden in the
teeming shoals of stones, one that the ants hadn’t tele-
graphed: pink diamonds. Most mines will be lucky to
unearth one pink in the entire haul; at Argyle, it’s about
one pink carat for every 1,000 carats mined. Even more
astonishingly, they are consistently of the highest cali-
ber, with a strong, pure, intense shade. “To call an Argyle
pink rare is an understatement,” says Murray Rayner, a
geologist who has worked at Rio Tinto, the mine’s owner,
for 16 years. “It’s so much rarer than rare—it shouldn’t
exist.” Indeed, the likelihood of even one such diamond
forming was thought akin to winning the lottery twice
on the same day; to the delight of Rayner and the other
geologists at Argyle, it has happened over and over again.
The discovery of pink diamonds here has been vital for
the global supply, producing 90 percent of those sold
since it opened; even then, the average annual output
has been about 10,000 polished carats.
Until the Argyle seam was found, pink diamonds were
so rare that they barely registered on jewelers’ radar. As
dealer Scott West explains, what use was it creating a
market without some consistent supply? His family firm,
L. J. West, has long been a major player in colored dia-
monds, including Argyle pinks. This mine transformed
the market by providing a small but steady stream of top-
tier gems—at least until now. Rio Tinto has announced
162 NOVEMBER 2019
it will shutter operations at Argyle permanently by the
end of 2020—and it estimates that there are just 150 or
so Argyle pinks left to be unearthed there before it does.
It’s a Herculean task: In the cool, damp tunnels under
the earth where the final excavations are taking place,
dumpers deposit tons of stony soil, which clatters noisily
as it’s sifted, every hour, every day. Those 150 pinks lurk
somewhere in that gray sludge, golden-ticket-style.
Rio Tinto has aggressively nurtured the Argyle dia-
mond brand since it first understood the value of the
pinks hidden here. It launched a formal certification and
marketing program in the 1980s, aiming to connect the
name with the best of these stones. One key component
of this program: the annual invitation-only tender each
fall, attended by just 150 of the world’s most prestigious
dealers, jewelers and other connoisseurs. Since 1984,
they have been invited to fly across the world to tussle
over the previous year’s supply of premium pinks, an
annual offering that has averaged just 50 carats. (The
remainder are sold through Argyle’s distribution net-
work throughout the year.) Each year, that batch would
be sold at tender with a theatrical flourish—and at great
expense, as when Laurence Graff snapped up every sin-
gle stone in the first tender, creating from them a trem-
blant flower later purchased by the Sultan of Brunei. Per
Rio Tinto’s own figures, there’s been double-digit growth
in prices each year, which means an investment in one of
these rocks in 2000 would have outperformed all major
equity indexes. This year’s tender was to be held after
this issue went to press; as the penultimate sale of Argyle
pinks, it promised to be intensely competitive.
Argyle diamonds’ appeal isn’t just down to their rela-
tive abundance but also their quality. Colorless diamonds
are graded via the four-C system (carat, color, cut and
clarity), but in 1995, the US-based Gemological Institute
of America refined its classification for their colored
counterparts, factoring in elements like hue, saturation
and tone. Argyle pinks were consistent standouts—and
it’s all thanks to the process by which they were formed.
Or at least that’s the geologists’ theory.
This deposit, they believe, was formed at deeper, hot-
ter levels of the earth’s crust than a typical pipe, which
coalesces around 100 miles below the surface. The
Argyle deposit, then, required more time and greater
force to push through to the mantle. Undergoing this
process intensified the stress on the diamond seedings
in just the right way to turn them pink, according to Ray-
ner. Yet even he cannot be sure. Many colors of diamond,
such as blue and yellow, are the result of impurities; pink
is an exception, developing under duress via shifts that
take place inside the stone at an atomic level. Even today,
Rayner and his colleagues cannot fully explain the exact
process that creates a pink diamond.
But whatever happened at Argyle, it was well-
timed. This pipe doesn’t produce the watery, slightly
The pink diamonds
l u r k s o m ew h e r e
i n t h e g r ay
MINE: JAMES REEVE
sludge, golden-
t i c ke t - s t y l e .

LEFT: The Argyle mine,
about 1,600 feet
underground. BELOW
FROM TOP: Diamonds
offered in the 2019 tender:
the Argyle Elysian, a 1.20-
carat fancy vivid pink,
cushion cut; the Argyle
Avenoir, a 1.07-carat
fancy red, oval cut;
the Argyle Amari, a 1.48-
carat fancy vivid purplish-
pink, heart cut.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 163
 faded shades unearthed in South Africa or elsewhere.
Instead, Argyle’s pink diamonds shine with an intense,
bubblegum-like vibrance that acts much like a gem-
ological fingerprint; it’s unique in the world and makes
the stones from this mine instantly recognizable to a
loupe-wielding expert.
The geological peculiarities of this seam have had
other impacts on the stones as well. Argyle pinks are
more delicate and difficult to polish, too.  Cutters rue-
fully analogize finessing a clear diamond and a pink to
working on butter versus knots of wood. The twisted
subatomic structure that confers the vivid color is also
impossible to replicate in the lab using the standard pro-
cess, which builds diamonds in layers, slowly, around
a seed. (Just in case, Rio Tinto supplies each authentic
Argyle with a certificate of origin and, on stones down
to 0.08 carats, a laser-inscribed ID number, visible only
under magnification.)
The aesthetic appeal and quality of Argyle pinks has
helped the value of colored diamonds as a whole sky-
rocket in the last 20 years: In the decade to 2017, the
median price paid at auction for colored diamonds rose
122 percent, according to the Fancy Color Research
Foundation. Argyle pinks, meanwhile, command an
additional premium of 10 to 20 percent over even the
finest colors from elsewhere, whether Siberia, South
Africa or Tanzania. Panmure Gordon and other banks
and analysts predict that throttling the spigot of supply
will turbocharge Argyle’s prices.
But the possibility remains that Rio Tinto will sell the
well-established Argyle name once the mine itself is dor-
mant. Industry insiders say the mining giant would likely
sell only to a buyer already deeply involved with Argyle,
such as a longtime dealer who has stockpiled more


The western Australian
terrain, including an
enormous anthill, near
the Argyle mine.

LANDSCAPE AND MINE: JAMES REEVE

“ I t ’s s o m u c h r a r e r
th a n r a r e , ” s ays
a geologist.
“ I t s h o u l d n’ t ex i s t . ”

164 NOVEMBER 2019

 Diamonds Aren’t Forever


An array of pinks
on the block at the
2019 tender, Argyle’s
penultimate sale.
RIGHT: The Argyle
mine has more than
18 miles of tunnels.

than a few pinks and has a vested interest in preserving

their prestige—and their price. In that case, one needn’t
worry the name will be diluted with Argyle Pink Vodka
or Argyle Pink Socks. One potential bidder is Singapore-
based John Glajz, who confirms to Robb Report that he
has given his nonbinding expression of interest. Glajz
sees a huge opportunity looming. “Any [Argyle] prod-
uct out there would become a branded product, and
would own the word ‘pink,’ I guess,” he says. In the inti-
mate world of diamonds, there would be an element of
self-policing, too, lessening the likelihood that anyone
would dare try to pass off an ersatz pink as an Argyle.
Though several industry players have reportedly put
up their paddles, two knowledegable sources say Rio
Tinto has suddenly gone silent about a sale and may be
rethinking its strategy. One suggested the holdup could
be bidders’ demands that sale data, including confiden-
tial client lists, be included in the deal, or it could be
that the company is simply stalling until after the final,
presumably blockbuster tender. A spokeswoman for
Rio Tinto declined to comment on the company’s plans,
including whether the Argyle name is for sale.
 At last year’s tender, with the closure already loom-
ing, prices for one-carat vivid pinks were reportedly up
about 40 percent. Though Rio Tinto does not release
sales figures, it did announce that several records had
been set. This year’s tender promises to be just as excit-
ing, with 64 diamonds, weighing 56.28 carats, plus a
secondary assortment of stones bundled into sets and
dubbed Everlastings on the block—and the prospect of
but one more tender to come. “I can’t think, off the top
of my head, of a parallel to that in the jewelry world,”
says New York–based Josh Weinman, a dealer who spe-
cializes in Argyle. “It’s finite, like a famous artist passing
away, where no new art will ever come onto the market.”
Fellow dealer Scott West makes an art analogy as
well. “The discovery of Argyle was like when Monet
started painting in a profound new way, which other
artists then tried to copy, building their style on his,”
he says. And just as the artist’s studio will one day be
empty of paintings, so goes the Argyle mine. “It’s bit-
tersweet, just like life—you have to cherish it when it’s
here and realize that something beautiful does not nec-
essarily last forever.”  

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 165
The Singita Kwitonda
Lodge is one of
several recent
sustainability-minded
developments in
Rwanda.
FRONTIER
BY Tony Perrottet

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 167
‘‘ president is coming!”
e excited whispers ripple
und the sumptuous new
gita Kwitonda Lodge on the
andan side of the verdant,
ze-shrouded Virunga vol-
oes, then become increas-
ly urgent: “He’s outside!”
e’s here now!” Like the
hundred or so other international guests who made the journey
to this hauntingly beautiful spot for the lodge’s opening cere-
mony, I am intrigued to be meeting Paul Kagame, commander
of the rebel force credited with ending the genocide in this
central-African country in 1994, who, more controversially, has
been head of state since 2000. But our curiosity dims in compar-
ison to that of the many Rwandans present, who regard Kagame
with adulation. The local staff in particular are openly starstruck
when the tall, rake-thin leader appears at the door in a casual
khaki shirt and begins to work the crowd, shaking hands and
waving to fans as if he were Mick Jagger on tour. When the word
goes around that the president has agreed to pose for a group
photo with lodge employees on the front grounds, the waiters
drop whatever they’re doing and break into a run.
As Kagame gives a brief speech about Rwanda’s embrace of
high-end tourism—“The Singita is even higher end than the high-
end I was speaking about!” he jokes of the $25 million lodge—the
sun emerges from behind heavy rain clouds, giving the three jag-
ged extinct volcanoes an otherworldly air, like a CGI-enhanced
scene from Black Panther. The rugged Virunga Massif is, of course,
home to the world’s thousand or so endangered mountain goril-
las, 340 of which live on the Rwandan side. (The others are over
the border in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.)
I will soon be trekking there myself, to experience firsthand
what has become one of the world’s most exclusive and sought-
after wildlife encounters. Now, as flutes of Champagne are passed
around with plates of African delicacies and imported cheeses, we
learn that Kagame has vanished as suddenly as he arrived. “The
president has left the building!” a diplomat intones, sotto voce.
The presence of the charismatic Kagame at the Singita’s
A mountain gorilla unveiling is a sign of how seriously Rwanda takes its fledgling
from the tourism industry. It is a major national event, and an emblem
Virunga Massif. of the country’s astonishing transformation, which is regularly

referred to in the international media as the “Rwandan mira-
cle.” In just 25 years, the nation has recovered from harrowing
genocidal violence that cost the lives of more than 800,000 peo-
ple to become an economic model for Africa, with an average
growth rate of more than 7.5 percent a year since 2000; today,
the country is best known for its safety and natural beauty and
the friendliness of its people. The tragic recent history has also
meant that Rwanda entered the eco-tourism industry late, allow-
ing it to learn from other African countries’ mistakes. “I can’t say
it’s an advantage,” says Belise Kariza, chief tourism officer at the
Rwanda Development Board, with a wry laugh. “But the recon-
ciliation process has given us a model. The Rwandan people are
so resilient. It’s proof that if you come together with a unified
vision, you can achieve anything.”
Inspired by the likes of Bhutan and Botswana, the govern-
ment has chosen to promote exclusive, low-footprint travel that
will protect the environment and benefit local communities. The
mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park are a key part of
the strategy: Only 80 trekking permits are issued daily to meet
them, and in 2017 the cost for each permit was doubled to $1,500.
In a hugely successful revenue-sharing scheme, 10 percent of all
tourism revenue from national parks is pumped back into sur-
rounding villages by building schools and hospitals and improv-
ing sanitation. The government also plans to reinvest in the park
by buying more land, which will increase the gorillas’ habitat
and thus their numbers. One guide told me there’s even a fund to
compensate farmers whose produce is eaten by golden monkeys,
another primate group in the park that has the habit of venturing
beyond its borders. Such policies have increased support among
villagers for the long-term benefits of saving wildlife rather than
the lucrative temptations of poaching.
They have also led to a mini-boom in luxurious, eco-friendly
properties in the country’s wildlife parks: One&Only’s year-old
Nyungwe House will be joined this month by Gorilla’s Nest, a
second property; Wilderness Safaris opened Bisate Lodge in 2017
and Magashi Camp last December, and rumor holds that Four
Our guide reassures us about
the gorillas. “Don’t worry.
They are vegetarians.”
Seasons is exploring sites. “Rwanda has really put sustainability
at the center of a very thoughtful tourism strategy,” says Philippe
Zuber, chief operating officer at Kerzner, the owner of One&Only,
explaining why the brand chose the country for its latest ventures
in Africa. “It was in alignment with our own global vision of com-
bining uber-luxury with amazing natural destinations.” Adding
to investor confidence is the government’s unequivocal support.
“The president himself facilitated the projects’ approval and was
personally involved,” Zuber says. Deborah Calmeyer, CEO and
founder of Roar Africa, a high-end operator in New York, has a
similar take. “Who knows which direction a country in Africa
ADRIA AN LOUW
will go in?” she says. “But Rwanda has made it incredibly easy
to invest, limiting red tape and making construction of the new
lodges headache-free.”
The Next Frontier
The Singita Kwitonda, named after a friendly silverback
gorilla who lived in the park, is the most ambitious of the new
wave. Two young architects at the reception, Italian-born Fran-
cesco Stassi and Croatian Secil Taskoparan (both based in the
capital, Kigali), reminisce about the difficulties of constructing
in this wild and isolated setting, which only two years ago was a
swamp best explored by helicopter. “We had to hike for an hour
from the road, and we’d often fall up to our chests in water,” Stassi
says with a laugh. Ironically, creating a lodge 70 miles northwest
of Kigali with almost zero waste to landfill required pharaonic
efforts: After hiring some 500 construction workers, artisans
and gardeners from nearby villages, builders used more than
800,000 locally made bricks and 24,600 square feet of volcanic
stone, while the enormous panes of glass for the floor-to-ceiling
windows were airlifted in from South Africa in a chartered cargo
plane. The eight expansive suites, each with its own Jacuzzi, fire-
places and massage table, were erected on plinths to preserve the
landscape. And more than 250,000 trees and seedlings have been
planted on the lodge’s 178 acres, creating a lush buffer with the
park. “It’s an eco-tourism masterpiece,” boasts Luke Bailes, Singi-
ta’s towering, sandy-haired founder and executive chairman.
T
he project would be inspiring in any part of the
world, but the lodge’s proximity to the cele-
brated gorillas takes it to a higher level. In fact,
the primate trek has become such a near-mythic
goal for nature-lovers—on a par with yachting in
the Galápagos or diving with whale sharks on
the Great Barrier Reef—that I have to wonder if it could possibly
live up to the hype.
Luckily, I find, the expedition is far from over-controlled.
The trek remains a quirky, intimate adventure, with a cheerful
Rwandan blend of 21st-century efficiency and old-school African
improvisation. At around seven a.m., I join the 79 other permit-
holders at the park headquarters, which is a mile or so from a
Kong-size wooden gorilla statue where annual naming rituals
are held for newborn gorillas. The open-air HQ is a hubbub of
Land Rovers, drivers from nearby villages and wide-eyed travel-
ers lining up for local coffee, which is brewed with a meticulous-
ness that would impress any Brooklyn barista. “You’re looking at
the biggest economic engine in Rwanda,” marvels an American
financier of the busy pre-trek scene. “Think about it: 80 tourists a
day, $1,500 a pop, 365 days a year, without fail.” He does the quick
math. “Let’s call it $44 million a year, give or take.”
Soon we are divided into groups of eight, based on our hik-
ing ability, and I join a French couple and a Colombian family to
meet our guide, Olivier Mutuyimana. “We are very lucky today!”
he beams. We have been chosen to meet one of the largest gorilla
families on the entire massif, the Igishas. There are 33 primates
in the extended clan, ranging in age from silverbacks in their mid-
30s and 40s to a baby just one week old. “But the mother is jeal-
ous!” he warns. We might not get a chance to see her.
Mutuyimana goes on to explain the basic etiquette of meet-
ing wild primates face-to-face: We should keep a distance of at
least 20 feet at all times, as much to keep human germs from the
family as for our personal safety. Gorillas are rarely interested
in harming Homo sapiens, so long as they don’t feel threatened.
“Don’t worry,” he says with a chuckle, surmising that some of us
may have watched too many YouTube videos of gorillas taking
unexpected swipes at visitors. “They are vegetarians.” In fact, the
R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 169
170 NOVEMBER 2019
 The Next Frontier

gorillas have up to 200 types of plant to eat on the volcanoes, he

adds, with mushrooms for protein; sometimes they mix the dif-
ferent plant varieties to make what the guides call “gorilla salad.”
It’s an hour-long drive to the trailhead through Rwanda’s
dreamy farmland, where scarlet volcanic soil and hills veiled in
mist offer some of the most stunning scenery in Africa. The roads
become increasingly rugged as we approach our goal, the extinct
volcano Mount Karisimbi, until we grind to a halt by a row of
thatch huts, where porters in khaki are offering their services for
$10. Many are former poachers whose energies are now diverted
to the trekking industry. My backpack contains little more than
a sandwich and a water bottle, but I happily sign on Étienne,
content that my 10-spot will make a modest direct contribution
to the Rwandan cause.
The muddy trail rises through potato fields exploding with
white and lavender blossoms, then into the dense rain forest.
Thanks to the altitude, around 8,500 feet, the air is thin but the
jungle benign: There are no Land That Time Forgot snakes or spi-
ders to worry about, only five types of stinging nettles. (Luckily,
Singita gave me ankle gaiters: In fact, like a high-end ski lodge
LEFT: The deck in Aspen, it provides all gear, including state-of-the-art hik-
and pool at the ing trousers, rain jackets, backpacks, water bottles and walking
Singita Kwitonda. sticks.) After about an hour, we run into half a dozen camouflaged
BELOW: Breakfast men with machetes, several of them cradling automatic rifles—
at the lodge. trackers who sleep overnight in the park to monitor the gorillas’

movements. The family is near, they tell us, so Mutuyimana briefs

us on gorilla vocabulary. There are 16 “oral prompts,” he explains,
but the most important is a series of low grunts that show you
mean no harm. If a gorilla makes aggressive-looking moves
toward us, he adds casually, we should just drop to our knees and
bow our heads in submission. All will be well. And we shouldn’t
ADRIA AN LOUW

worry about silverbacks, who can grow to 480 pounds and 6 feet
tall: “Chest beating is a form of communication. It can mean they
are angry or happy.”

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 171
 As the trail grows steeper, rivers of sweat begin to pour from
us, until the trackers start muttering excitedly in Kinyarwanda,
Rwanda’s national language. Before I know what is happening,
the vines part and I’m in a grassy clearing with a dozen gorillas.
They just had their breakfast and are about to have a morning
siesta, lying idly in the sun, digesting and yawning. It doesn’t
matter how many times others have described the experience:
The moment I realize I am feet away from the hulking creatures,
which share 98 percent of our DNA, all I can do is stare in open-
mouthed wonder. It’s easy to see why Dian Fossey, the American
researcher who championed the gorillas in the late 1970s and
1980s, gave them fond names like Uncle Bert, Geezer, Coco and
Pucker Puss.
For an hour, we watch domestic scenes unfold like a primate
sitcom. A romantic young couple grooms one another affec-
tionately, while two kids, more active than the others, gambol
in a bamboo grove, then begin swinging between branches like
Cirque du Soleil stars. We soon spot the mother nursing her new-
born baby, the very picture of Madonna and child. As we edge
around the clearing taking photos (without flash, we have been
warned), none of the group pays us the slightest attention. They
have become habituated to the human visits every morning and
regard us almost as part of the backdrop.
But then the sleepy mood changes when two teenage male
gorillas begin to show off in front of a female. They push one
another provocatively for a while, then leap into a brawl, teeth
172 NOVEMBER 2019
A Singita bared, swinging at one another furiously. Suddenly, a roar echoes
Kwitonda around the clearing: The silverback, who has been sitting above
suite. the fray, lumbers forward and stops the contest with a swipe of
his anvil-size fist.
The teenage pair look like they will slink off sheepishly, but
without warning, one breaks into a run—and I realize I am directly
in his path. For a second, I am paralyzed—any thought of dropping
to my knees is completely forgotten—until Mutuyimana hisses:
“Get out of the way!” I step aside and the gorilla speeds straight
past, ignoring me entirely. “We are very lucky!” Mutuyimana
gloats once the excitement has passed. “We have seen a gorilla
fight!” With my heart rate still up around 180, he motions for us to
leave. Our hour is up.
A
s we drive back to the lodge, everyone is in a
euphoric delirium. The gorillas had been so
recognizable, their range of emotions so close to
human and their gentleness so humbling: Any
one of the adults could easily have torn an arm
SINGITA SUITE: ADRIA AN LOUW
off or crushed our rib cages, but they indulged
our presence with a lordly magnanimity. It’s difficult to imagine
that the first Western explorer to encounter the creatures, a Ger-
man named Captain Robert von Beringe, who passed by these iso-
lated volcanoes in 1902, promptly shot a pair to take home as
scientific specimens. It’s even more disturbing to learn that
poaching continues to be a threat, despite its senselessness:
 The Next Frontier

“We are very lucky!

We have seen a gorilla fight!”
Gorillas are still in danger of being killed so their hands, feet and
heads can be sold as trophies and their meat as highly priced
food, and infants are at risk of being captured alive, even though
no mountain gorilla has been known to survive in captivity.
I can only hope that the “Rwandan miracle” will continue:
The future of the gorillas is tied to the country’s recovery from
the bloodcurdling 1994 genocide, whose memory still hovers.
That night, I go with my driver (who prefers not to be named)
for beer and ubugari, a porridge-like cassava paste, in the town of
Musanze. He opens up about those unimaginable days, when he
lost his father, two of his four sisters and two of his three broth-
ers, Tutsis who were butchered by a Hutu gang led by his former
best friend. He shares the gruesome details matter-of-factly, but
he remains optimistic about the process of reconciliation. “It’s
good to go up in the mountains, to hear the calls of the birds,
to see people smiling,” he tells me. “It helps me to recover from
those things.”
There are other encouraging signs. In Kigali, I ask a guide,
Bosco Kayatina, whether he is a Tutsi or a Hutu. He just finished
FROM TOP:
telling me how he had volunteered as a 13-year-old to help clean
up the corpses clogging the streets and river. He shakes his head
K ARIN SCHERMBRUCKER

A trek to see the

area’s golden angrily at the question. “I am Rwandan,” he insists. “We are all
monkeys; touring Rwandans now.”
the community; Dian Fossey would have understood: “When you realize the
beads in the value of all life,” she famously wrote, “you dwell less on what is
local market. past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.”

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 173
 The Swiss may get
all the attention, but the UK
has a storied horological
industry all its own.
By NICHOLAS FOULKES

Colloquially
known as Big
Ben, the clock
on the Palace of
Westminster in
London gets a spit
and polish.

174 NOVEMBER 2019

 f the 1982 Academy Awards ceremony is
remembered for anything, it is for Colin
Welland’s acceptance speech. Welland
had written the screenplay for Chariots of
Fire, the era-defining film of floppy hair-
cuts and slow-motion running, in time
to the electronic soundtrack of Vangelis.
As his name was announced, the tubby
Liverpool-born actor and writer rose to
his feet and hoicked up his trousers, fas-
tened his dinner jacket and mounted the stage.
His words of thanks, delivered in an ee-by-gum
Lancastrian accent, were restrained, correct and
understated—until the end, when he gave what he
called a “word of warning,” and then quoted Paul
Revere’s famous line, “The British are coming.”
As it happens, his words proved prophetic.
Using the bridgehead established by Welland
and his lean-muscled athletes, British talent has
TOLG A AKMEN/LNP/SHUT TERSTOCK

poured across the Atlantic: Kate Winslet, Colin

Firth, Helen Mirren, Kenneth Branagh, Phoebe
Waller-Bridge, Steve McQueen, Keira Knight-
ley, Danny Boyle, among others.
The line has stuck in my mind ever since, and
then this summer I had a Colin Welland moment.
In July, Sotheby’s sold a watch for £3.6 mil-
lion, or about $4.5 million. Not quite enough

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 175
 to break into the top 10 list of auction sales but
strong money nonetheless: the sort of sum you
might expect an esoteric Rolex Daytona or an
exceptional Patek 2499 to command. Maybe the
price was assisted by a bit of helpful Hollywood
provenance, or perhaps it had once been worn
by one of the great robber barons of Gilded Age
America.
However, it was none of the above. Instead of
coming from one of the celebrated Swiss maisons,
it was made in a workshop on the grounds of a
house on the Isle of Man, a small island between
Ireland and England best known for its benev-
olent tax regime and its murderous motorcycle
race. A watch made in what amounts to a garden
shed forcing its way into the front row of haute
horlogerie is a story worthy of the Welland treat-
ment, who said that his writing tended to “cham-
pion the individual against the system.”

I
have a feeling that Welland and George Dan-
iels, the man in the “shed,” would have got on
famously. Before his death in 2011, Daniels was
the ultimate Bentley-driving, tweed-jacketed
British individualist. The watch he made that
sold for this vast sum dated from 1982 and was
named the Space Traveller I. Although expertly
accurate, it looked more stagecoach than space
age: a large pocket watch displaying moon phase,
sidereal time, equation of time, mean solar time,
etc. It was, said Daniels, “the kind of watch you
would need on your package tour to Mars.”
This watch is important on all sorts of lev-
els. It is a cracking piece of craftsmanship; it is
unique; it was made by the man many regard as
the finest watchmaker of the last century; and it
was exquisitely constructed at a time when the
mechanical wristwatch, let alone a pocket watch
with abstruse astronomical functions, seemed to
be an anachronism. Even James Bond had moved
with the times: During the 1970s and early ’80s,
Her Majesty’s most famous secret agent was
sporting fine quartz timepieces from Japan with
liquid-crystal displays.
But Daniels thrived on being an individual.
Beginning working life repairing and restor-
ing watches, he emerged as the leading Breguet
scholar of his generation, doing much to preserve
interest in the great French watchmaker. In his
own work he rewound watchmaking 200 years
to the time of the total watchmaker, when one
man made the whole watch: movement, dial, Indeed, the man who established Britain as expense when he came to the monastery. But
case and all. (To be precise, Daniels mastered a pioneer in the field was, like Daniels, a strong Richard had a ready answer for the royal rebuke.
32 of the 34 required skills, farming out the springs character. Richard of Wallingford became abbot As a chronicler of his abbacy recounts, Richard
and the glass.) As such, he rejected two centuries of St. Albans in the 1320s and used abbey funds to “replied, with due respect, that enough abbots
of accepted wisdom of the inevitability of indus- construct a giant timepiece that unified the func- would succeed him who would find workmen for
trialization and a drift toward series production: tions of astronomical instruments and the newly the fabric of the monastery, but that there would
watchmaking being segmented into a series of dis- invented mechanical clock. As well as the hour be no successor, after his death, who could finish
TRISTAN FEWINGS/GET T Y IMAGES

crete tasks with precision manufacturing methods
that permit the interchangeability of components.
At the time, it might have seemed Canute-like,
but Daniels lived long enough to see himself
lauded by the industry and elevated to the pan-
theon of horological greatness, where he joined
his forebears from the British Isles, which had
once led the world in mechanical timekeeping.
of the day, it showed the positions of heavenly
bodies in real time, predicted when lunar eclipses
would take place and showed the time of high
and low tide.
His brother clerics complained to each other
about the cost of what some appear to have seen
as a vanity project when the church was in need
of repair. Even King Edward III questioned the
the work that had been begun.” As it happens, it
was finally finished decades after his death and
remained a source of wonder until the dissolution
of the monasteries by Henry VIII.
In the great age of the great minds who gath-
ered around the court of King Charles II, Robert
Hooke would have been the most famous natural
philosopher of his age had Isaac Newton never

176 NOVEMBER 2019

 British Standard Time

been born. As it was, the irascible Hooke seems CLOCKWISE

to have spent much of his life defending his rep- FROM RIGHT:
utation. He believed himself to have come up Watchmaker
with the concept of gravity before Newton and George Daniels
the watch balance spring before the Dutchman at work in 1995;
Christiaan Huygens. During the 1660s he had drawings and
presented watches to the newly founded Royal tools in his
workshop on the
Society (of which he was curator of experiments
Isle of Man; his
and Huygens a fellow) and spoken of the use of
Space Traveller I,
springs. However, it appears that he did not have
made in 1982 to
a working prototype by 1675, when Huygens
commemorate the
unveiled his clock.
1969 American
Whoever first devised the balance spring, it moon landing.
was an invention that would improve the accu-
racy of the portable timepiece from around plus
or minus an hour a day to a mere four or five min-
utes. Still used on modern mechanical watches,
the balance spring was an immense leap forward,
akin to the jump from the first mainframe com-
puters to the smartphone. By the end of the cen-
tury, the balance spring was so widely used and
GEORGE DANIELS: MICHAEL ARMSTRONG/SHUT TERSTOCK; TOOLS: COLIN MCPHERSON/ALAMY

accepted that watchmaker Daniel Quare, another

Brit, added the hitherto unnecessary refinement
of minute markers to a watch.

T
he next great advance in precision time-
keeping was John Harrison’s marine chro-
nometer, the story of which Dava Sobel tells
so well in her book Longitude, pitting the
individualist autodidact Harrison against
the scientific elite in his use of ultra-accurate
timepieces to assist navigation, ensuring the Brit-
ish navy’s imperial domination of the seas. And
during the 19th century, Big Ben, as the Great
Clock in the Houses of Parliament is commonly
known, became the horological symbol of the
world’s mightiest empire, a monumental indus-
trial and technical feat, its strikework accurate to
The end of large-scale mechanical
one second every hour. watchmaking did not mean that British horology
Of course it would be patriotic to the point of
idiocy to ignore the great horological advances was dead—it had just gone highbrow.
being made in France and Switzerland. But by
the early 20th century, Britain remained enough

of a center of the horological world for a young

German named Hans Wilsdorf to establish his
fledgling “wristlet” watch company in Lon-
don; while traveling on a London omnibus, he
came up with the name Rolex. Across the Atlan-
tic, the famously acquisitive, pineapple-nosed
Napoleon of Wall Street, J. P. Morgan, favored
complicated timepieces by the English maker
Frodsham. When he commissioned three iden-
tical Rolls-Royces built during 1911 and 1912,
each featured a Frodsham clock (and electric
cigar lighters), and new partners at his bank
could expect to be presented with a handsome
Frodsham open-faced tourbillon with minute
repeater and split-second chronograph.
But by the early 1970s, when George Daniels
was making his first watches, British watchmak-
ing had more or less disappeared, with even the
great Smiths, maker of watches and instruments

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 177
 British Standard Time
The 49-year-old Smith is high priest
of British high watchmaking,
a cult that is gaining new adherents
every day.
for car dash panels, ceasing domestic production
by 1979. But the end of large-scale mechanical
watchmaking did not mean that British horol-
ogy was dead—it had just gone highbrow. For
instance, it was at about this time that Anthony
Randall, a real watchmaker’s watchmaker,
emerged as one of the leading horological schol-
ars. A physicist as well as a watchmaker, he is
known for researching the constant-force escape-
ment and cataloguing the important marine chro-
nometers at the British Museum.
Like Randall, Daniels was more than a master
craftsman and a maker of a handful of exquisite
timepieces; he was an inventor capable of reimag-
ining the fundamentals of horology with his coax-
ial escapement, which in true British-maverick
178 NOVEMBER 2019
CLOCKWISE FROM
ABOVE: Roger W.
fashion was viewed skeptically by the industry
until the visionary Nicolas Hayek of the Swatch
Smith; his M12E40
watch; Smith’s
Group decided to back it. Today it finds itself at
the figurative and horological heart of the newly
Series 4 watch. resurgent Omega brand.
By the beginning of the current century, Dan-
ROGER W. SMITH: FREDERIC ARANDA; ROGER SMITH SERIES IV WATCH: IAN PILBEAM
iels had become a revered figure and his “shed”
on the Isle of Man a place of pilgrimage, visited
by those who wished to genuflect at the altar of
world-class British watchmaking. Daniels’s work
was influential well beyond the UK, inspiring a
new generation of watchmakers for whom Dan-
iels represented an alternative to the increasingly
corporate industry. Notable among his disciples
was F. P. Journe, eponym of the highly regarded
Geneva-based niche brand now partly owned by
Chanel. In 2010, the year before Daniels’s death,
Journe presided at a London dinner honoring the
grand old man of British watchmaking.
Daniels had also acquired a British acolyte: the
talented young watchmaker Roger W. Smith, who
in 1998 had gone to live on the Isle of Man to work
with Daniels on the Millennium series. Although
nowhere nearly as complicated as Daniels’s solo
masterpieces, this series is arguably more signif-
icant, first because the notoriously demanding
ALAMY
 Daniels had found someone with whom he felt
he could collaborate and, second, because rather
than a collector’s item or museum piece, it was
a wristwatch made in series. It has since gone
on to become a trophy for discriminating col-
lectors: One sold last September at Sotheby’s for
£200,000, or about $250,000.
Two decades later, Roger Smith OBE is a
maker of exquisite watches with an evolved
aesthetic that owes a debt to Daniels, and he is
also a superb ambassador for the horological
renaissance taking place on the British Isles. I
have the honor of serving with him on the jury
of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, where
his scholarly and good-humored observations

“Everything we do is made to order,

and that started out as a necessity,
as we could not afford to finance
our work.”
FROM TOP: The
customizable
Kingsley MKII;
escapement is that it functions without oil and
Rebecca Struthers
making watch dials
thus without the deleterious effects on chro-
on a 19th-century nometric performance over time as lubricants
jeweler’s fly degrade. No more than a dozen of these watches
press; the Carter are made each year, and the rest of the time the
pocket watch Frodsham workshop concentrates on restoration
from Struthers, work, carriage clocks and the construction of rep-
including a licas of Harrison’s historic longitude timekeepers.
recommissioned

R
antique English estoration was also the route that took hus-
watch movement band and wife Craig and Rebecca Struthers
from the 1880s. to signing watches of their own manufac-
ture. “It was not some grand plan to be
an independent watchmaker,” explains
are always listened to with respect and interest. Rebecca. “We decided to set up a boutique res-
Whereas Daniels was an anchorite-like toration studio, and a lot of our work is on things
prophet preaching in what at the time must have that have been taken to watchmakers and deemed

STRUTHERS: JONNY WILSON; STRUTHERS WORKSHOP: ANDY PILSBURY

seemed like a horological desert, the 49-year-old
Smith is the high priest of British high watchmak-
ing, a cult that is gaining new adherents every day.
Daniels and Smith wristwatches have now
been joined by a wristwatch from Charles Frod-
sham, the British marque so esteemed by J. P.
Morgan more than a century ago. Founded by its
eponym in 1834, Frodsham was one of the few
British makers not to go out of business. Now
owned by Richard Stenning and Philip Whyte,
it has entered the connoisseur’s wristwatch
market with the Double Impulse Chronometer,
a typically British timepiece as restrained on its
exterior as it is adventurous in its mechanism. It
succeeds in miniaturizing the legendary double-
wheel escapement invented by Daniels until
it fits inside a wristwatch. The benefit of the
impossible.”
It was only when the Strutherses spotted a
design competition, entered a design for a watch
and won that they found themselves making a
watch. “We had to make it in 10 weeks.” With what
they learned from this exercise, they embarked on
a collaboration with sports-car brand Morgan to
make timepieces inspired by the World War I era
and built around re-commissioned Omega cali-
bers. Subsequently, they extended this approach to
a made-to-order program focused on core designs,
along the same lines as Breguet’s subscription
system. “Everything we do is made to order. That
started out as a necessity, as we could not afford
to finance our work. It also keeps it interesting and
fresh, as when you are handmaking something you
get bored of doing the same thing.”

180 NOVEMBER 2019

 British Standard Time

As their business has flourished, they have
begun work on their own proprietary movement.
“The only thing we have outsourced is jewels,
hairspring and mainspring,” Rebecca says. “We
are reverse-engineering a movement from our
favorite period in watchmaking, the 1890s, and
have used as our base the first fully machine-made
movement made in the UK with an English lever
escapement by Coventry maker Thomas Hill.”
Indeed, such was the success of these that
Bamford attracted the attention of the watch
companies, most of which took a dim view of
what they saw as “pimping” their timepieces. One
powerful industry leader, however, had a differ-
ent attitude. Far-sighted maverick Jean-Claude
Biver, who had scored notable successes with his
relaunch of Blancpain and turnaround of Hublot,
believed he could work with Bamford to bring his
personalization expertise to official customers of

T
he beauty of the resurgence in British TAG Heuer and Zenith, which Biver had taken
watchmaking is that it appears to have over. But there was a gentleman’s agreement:
staying power. Bamford would no longer undertake unofficial
Bremont is the great success story of aftermarket customization. He leapt at the chance
21st-century British watchmaking, having and two years ago also took the opportunity to
released its first watch in 2007 and now running produce watches under his own brand name;
a facility that employs 150 people in the pictur- the distinctively styled Bamford GMT launched
esque Thames Valley. Founded by Nick and Giles in 2018.
English, Bremont is a pioneer at the industrial But it was the endorsement by Biver that really
rather than rarefied end of the market. Whereas put Bamford on the official horological map. “We
a highly specialized workshop may build a dozen first met in 2015. He came to the office and said we
or so watches in a year, Bremont makes 12,000 should work together,” Bamford recalls. “It blew
pieces, with capacity for many more. It was known me sideways—the godfather of the Swiss watch
for novelty watches such as those including bits industry had come to my office. It was an unbe-
of famous ships, vehicles and aircraft (the Wright lievable moment. A year later we announced that
Flyer and the Concorde among them), but these BWD would be the official personalization part-
days such watches are in the minority, and the ner for Zenith and then TAG Heuer. At the Basel
brand has opened it own stores in London, Hong fair of 2018, we presented our first limited edi-
Kong, Melbourne and New York. tion together, a carbon Monaco in edition of 500,
And although Bremont was the victim of a which sold out well before the end of the fair.”
misunderstanding five years ago when it over- ABOVE: Bremont In the words of Colin Welland, the British are
enthusiastically announced an “in-house” move- H-4 Hercules coming.
ment when less ambitious language would have Limited Edition.
been appropriate—the movement was in fact the BELOW: Bremont’s Nicholas Foulkes’s latest book, Time Tamed: The
result of a collaboration with La Joux-Perret, a headquarters in Remarkable Story of Humanity’s Quest to Mea-
specialist supplier to many brands—it remains Henley-on-Thames. sure Time, is published by Simon & Schuster UK.
determined to bring out its own caliber, which
it’s developing in the UK and for which it has
hired movement designer and former watchmak-
ing teacher Stephen McDonnell, luring him from
Switzerland.
“We are all passionate about bringing watch-
making back here. Otherwise we would not be
building this factory and making this movement,”
says Nick English. “If in 20 years Giles and I can
look back and say that Bremont played a part in
the re-introduction of watchmaking, I feel we will
have achieved something.” Of their ultimate plans
to make 40,000 movements a year, he says that
operations on such a scale “will not have been seen
since the days of Smiths,” which closed almost half
a century ago. Who knows? Maybe Bremont will
be able to sell its British-made movements to other
brands, perhaps one day even a Swiss brand.
One British company is already working with
some of the best-known brands in the very heart
of Switzerland. In 2003 George Bamford, scion
of the JCB construction-vehicle dynasty, made
his first black watch by using a DLC coating to
transform a Rolex GMT-Master. He soon moved
on to other brands, and these blackened watches
became a trend with which the Bamford Watch
Department achieved global fame. These early
aftermarket interventions have since become
sought-after by collectors of contemporary and
modern sports watches.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 181
 Lotus Arts de Vivre Lotus Arts de Vivre has its roots in Thailand and crafts its
scarab cluster necklace extraordinary and unusual pieces using artisans throughout
with five freshwater Asia, but this necklace owes its beauty to the ancient Egyptian
pearls set against pink pharaohs and Chinese emperors, who believed scarabs were
gold with rose-cut white good luck. What looks like a collar of leaves here are actually
diamonds and pink scarab wings backed in 18-karat gold. They are acquired from
tourmalines ($43,020, tamarind farms in Thailand, where the wings are collected
lotusartsdevivre.com). after the beetles die naturally.

182 NOVEMBER 2019

 Sylva & Cie hand-carved
boulder opal Swallow
pendant with brilliant-cut
diamonds set in 18-karat
gold ($18,000) and a
32-inch 18-karat-gold Indian
ceremonial bead necklace
($11,000, sylvacie.com).

“I was inspired by the

significance of birds—they
symbolize freedom and
strength, and in many
cultures they symbolize
eternal life, the link
between heaven and
earth,” says designer Sylva
Yepremian. The chain’s
almost 70-year-old gold
beads are said to be
used like worry beads in
India for a calming effect.

WILD THINGS
These unconventional jewels are made from exotic materials, evoking ancient cultures
but with a thoroughly modern sensibility.
By PAIGE REDDINGER Photography by PETER ROSA Styling by LINDEN ELSTRAN
Messika Black Hawk earrings
in Ziricote wood, 18-karat yellow
gold and diamonds ($11,920)
and a Black Hawk bracelet
in Ziricote wood, 18-karat pink
gold and diamonds ($91,850,
messika.com).

Taking cues from designs

in Native American culture,
Valérie Messika used
Ziricote wood, sourced from
Central and South America,
to fashion the pointed
shapes of these earrings
and cuff, evoking an eagle’s
feathers. Each piece is
topped off with pear-cut and
micro-frame-set diamonds.
 Wild Things

Assael earrings in Tahitian

pearl, Burmese gray jadeite and
rhodolite set in 18-karat yellow
gold ($22,000, assael.com).

In ancient Chinese culture,

pearls were thought to protect
against fire and dragons.
Today, we know they won’t
save you from flames or
reptilian monsters, but these
Assael Tahitian pearls, no
doubt, indicate good fortune.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 185
 Coomi Affinity Bali-carved
wood earrings with orange and
green sapphires and rose-
cut and baguette diamonds
($26,000, coomi.com).

Hand-carved in wood in a
traditional Balinese style,
these earrings reference
the island’s dramatic native
dances, colorful ceremonies
and rich landscape.

186 NOVEMBER 2019

 Wild Things

Hueb earrings in 18-karat

yellow gold and diamonds
($15,000, hueb.com).

Ancient Brazilian culture

was the starting point
for each piece in Hueb’s
Tribal Collection. These
earrings capture the flora
of the Amazon rainforest,
and just like their real-
life counterparts, they
move with the wind or the
turn of a head. The
diamonds are like tiny
raindrops that, fortunately,
never fall to earth.
 Wild Things

Guita M earrings in Australian

opal, white diamond and
hand-carved ruby green stone
($6,800, guitam.com).

“On a trip to India, I

ventured out to a town called
Khajuraho, famous for its
Hindu temples with erotic
motifs,” says designer Guita
Mortinger. “A knowledgeable
guide introduced me to a
collector of Hindu-deity
statues. I was immediately
attracted to the ruby green
stones, with their intricate,
detailed carvings of a seated
Buddha and a flower bearing
Lakshmi. Sometimes a
piece speaks to you and you
know you have to have it!
Buddha is the spiritual leader
and sage, while Lakshmi is
the goddess of wealth and
purity. Wearing both is bliss.”

188 NOVEMBER 2019

Gurhan necklace with
individually hammered 24-karat-
gold bezels containing ancient
rare coins, buttons, carvings and
antique cameos and intaglios
($37,500, gurhan.com).

Throughout his more than

two-decade career, Gurhan
Orhan has been known
for incorporating his
collection of rare coins and
bits and pieces of antiquity in
his distinctive, wearable time
capsules. This necklace’s
historical elements include a
Viking bronze decorative
button found in Kiev dating to
the 10th or 12th century, a
handmade cameo and mosaics
from the Victorian era, and
Roman imperial coins.
 Wild Things

Silvia Furmanovich floral

earrings in hand-painted marquetry
with Kunzite and diamonds
($11,555, bergdorfgoodman.com).

These earrings are as light as a

feather but come backed with
a hefty dose of design history.
The ancient Japanese obi sash
worn with the traditional
kimono serves as the
foundation of their striking
motif. Furmanovich found the
fabric that launched the
design in a box of textiles that
once belonged to a prominent
family catering to Kyoto
women from the Meji period
(1868–1912). Today, artisans in
Udaipur, India, are responsible
for re-creating the vivid effect
of the Japanese textiles.

190 NOVEMBER 2019

Bulgari Serpenti ring in 18-karat
pink gold set with one pear-
shaped 3.42-carat rubellite,
emeralds and diamonds (price
upon request, bulgari.com).

The serpent has long been

Bulgari’s spirit animal—it
has appeared in its jewelry
since the ’40s. Decades
later, it remains one of the
most instantly recognizable
and covetable styles in the
history of modern jewelry.
The Italian maison has long
taken interest in ancient
Rome, when the serpent
was considered a symbol of
strength, wisdom or rebirth.
It was a sign of protection
in the ruins of Pompeii and,
of course, in biblical times a
figure of seduction.
Patricia Von Musulin
hand-carved ebony
beaded necklace with Maw
Sit Sit Jade stone ($14,000,
bergdorfgoodman.com)
and ebony earrings with
a large Mojave Desert
green turquoise cabochon
stone with silver backing
and clip ($3,000,
bergdorfgoodman.com).
Patricia Von Musulin’s
pieces are more wearable
sculptures than jewelry—
you can also find her
work at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and the
Smithsonian. America’s
greatest patrons are
among her collectors,
including the late Gloria
Vanderbilt and former
first lady Michelle Obama.
The ebony beads of this
necklace were hand-
carved in her New York
atelier, while the jade was
sourced from Myanmar.
The turquoise is unique to
the Mojave Desert.
 Wild Things

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Venyx

earrings in 18-karat gold, diamond
and pearlescent ceramic ($12,150,
venyxworld.com); John Hardy
Kali silver extra-wide cuff ($2,795,
johnhardy.com); Boucheron
Radiant Edition cuff ($22,000,
boucheron.com).

John Hardy has been tapping

into the indigenous artisan
techniques in Bali since
the ’70s, and as one of the
largest employers of locals
on the island, its jewelry
has become synonymous
with Balinese culture. This
statement cuff has enough
surface to thoroughly show
off its masterful metal
craftwork straight out of its
Ubud workshop. While the
Venyx and Boucheron pieces
are created in Europe, their
indebtedness to balmier
regions is unmistakable.

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 193
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 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION

YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

A
s day-to-day lives become busier and busier, the desire to obtain
greater quality time and connection with family, friends and
business associates is considered true luxury. We eke out our
getaway time, spending a week in one resort or vacation home or another, a
place where each family member takes off on their own for the day and may
join the rest of the group for dinner. What if you changed up the paradigm? ›

Photo courtesy of Oceanco

 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

OCEANCO DREAMBOAT
The newly delivered 2 95-foot yacht
DreAMBoat is exactly what the name
i m p l i e s — t h e o w n e r ’s d re a m ya c h t .
DreAMBoat is a first-time collaboration
between two of the most renowned
designers in the superyacht world—Espen
Øino International for the exterior and
Terence Disdale Design for the interior. The
classic profile, with generous overhangs
from the superstructure and cutouts in the
bulwarks, lends a traditional, timeless look.
The exterior deck areas flow seamlessly into
the interior spaces, maintaining continuity.
The 2,950 GT volume allows for luxurious
accommodations for 23 guests and 33 crew
members. DreAMBoat ’s amenities cater
well to multigenerational family life. Outside
spaces include a large pool on the main
aft deck, an enormous partially enclosed
sundeck, two Jacuzzis, an outdoor cinema,
and copious seating and entertaining
options. DreAMBoat is an example of reliable
technology and has achieved the ECO-IHM
(inventory of hazardous materials) notation,
which demonstrates a commitment to
operating the vessel on an environmentally
sound basis beyond statutory compliance.
BUILTBYOCEANCO.COM

Instead of a holiday where guests
meet up for breakfast or dinner,
how about an adventure where
everyone enjoys a variety of
activities selected and arranged
in advance for each guest’s wish
list? And the actual location of
this holiday could even reflect one
of your favorite homes or resorts!
Envision working with a designer
to build a yacht that mirrors your
favorite house or destination—
your dream home, floating on
beautiful seas that change from
season to season. Or, if chartering,
you can enjoy an expedition-style
yacht one week and a sailing
vessel another. Accommodations
for 12 guests or just four can all be
managed. There are no limits to
creating your perfect vacation or
destination to share with others
or enjoy on your own.
A private yacht is the ultimate
solution—from gigayachts and
superyachts to sport yachts and
day boats. Whether designing
a bespoke superyacht that you
build with shipyards such as
Oceanco or Benetti or opting for
a proven platform to personalize,
such as a yacht from Azimut,
Riva, Sunseeker, Sirena Yachts,
Sunreef Yachts or Westport, you
can create your own personal space
to be enjoyed in so many ways.
Does the idea of building or
commissioning a new yacht seem
overwhelming? Companies like
Burgess can help you buy, build,
manage, charter and even sell your
yacht when you’re ready for a new
space on the water. The company
can even work with the designer
of your choice, such as Pininfarina
(a studio best known for designing
Italian sports cars), whose sleek
yacht designs (both interior and ›

STORY CONTINUED
 B R AVO E U G E N I A
109m / 357ft

www.built by OCEANCO.com
SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION
BENETTI
In a spectacular showcase never
before seen, the water in front of
the Benetti shipyard in Livorno,
Italy, was transformed into a stage
for a unique parade attended by
hundreds of locals as well as Benetti
employees. Side by side, three
megayachts glided majestically over
the water, each a masterpiece from
the Italian brand’s creative ingenuity
and highly skilled craftsmen. The
three yachts that cruised together
in an atmosphere charged with
excitement were the 226-foot
Spectre , 220-foot Seasense and
207-foot 11.11. All set out to cross
the Atlantic to the United States.
The three floating works of art were
tailor-made to reflect the desires of
their demanding and knowledgeable
owners, simultaneously realizing the
dreams of sea-lovers and sailing
enthusiasts around the world.
“This is the outstanding result of
a long and impassioned process
that the shipyard has decided to
share with the city on this special
BENETTIYACHTS.IT
YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E
day. These three megayachts will
be international ambassadors
for ever ything ‘Made in Italy,’
celebrating Benetti’s craftsmanship
and advanced technology,” says
Benetti CEO Franco Fusignani, who
describes the event as a milestone
in Italian nautical history.
As the company’s 50th-anniversary
year comes to a close, we also look
back at the Giga Season, celebrating
the record-breaking launch of
three gigayachts within 100 days.
Looking ahead, Benetti is extending
its range, adding new models
and product families, including
a collection that pays tribute to
the brand’s storied past: Benetti
has rediscovered the appeal and
luxury of the 1960s and yachts built
with steel, reinventing a category
of timeless yachts that will stay
up-to-date for their lifetimes. The
collection will include three models,
with the first yacht planned for a
2021 launch.
 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

AZIMUT GRANDE S10

The Azimut Grande S10 is a completely
original boat produced in partnership with
Alberto Mancini, who created the concept
and designed the exteriors, and Francesco
Guida, who conceived the interior. At 100
feet in length, this sporty and sophisticated
yacht is the result of Mancini’s creative
flair and skill at blending three stylistic
sources: the fascinating, evergreen world
of mega-sailers; the elegance of a villa on
the Riviera with spectacular sea views
as well as multiple terraces that descend
gradually toward the water; and, finally,
automotive design, which gives the Grande
S10 its sporty personality and dictates the
shapes and choice of materials. For the
interiors, Guida underscored the importance
of the concept of “flexibility as a space
multiplier,” or, in other words, using the
versatility of the space in the layout as a tool
for making new suggestions and creating an
unprecedented ambience.
AZIMUTYACHTS.COM

exterior) are showcased on its site.
If you’re ready to experience
crystal-blue water, nature and
local delicacies, the British
Virgin Islands are an ideal
location for true inspiration of
every kind, offering quaint coves,
transparent waters, snorkeling
and diving, dining, shopping
and exploration adventures.
International Superyacht Society
(ISS) is an organization that stands
for excellence in yachting, known
particularly for helping the marine
industry move the needle forward.
Yacht owners can rest assured that
industry members are working
together to stay up-to-date on
new technology; encourage design
perfection; and inspire crew
excellence, diplomatic leadership
and charitable work around the
globe. Join the yachting lifestyle
and create unforgettable memories
and connections that will shape
the journeys ahead.
Building a Dream
The first question is: Do you
want to enjoy entertaining with
extended family and friends or do
you prefer just a few? Benetti has
a range to fill either need. This is
your opportunity to run with your
dreams, no holds barred. From
fitness rooms and multiple dining
areas to swim and sunning spaces.
Livorno, Italy-based Benetti
celebrates its 50th anniversary
this year along with sibling Azimut
Yachts. Recently, they reached new
records in building and launching
several gigayachts greater than
300 feet in length. This size of
yacht allows for amenities such as
a touch-and-go helipad, swimming
pool, accommodations for 20-plus
guests and 29 crew, and the ability ›

STORY CONTINUED
GRANDE S10 _ Carbon-Tech
Exterior Design _ Alberto Mancini
Interior Design _ Francesco Guida
A brand of AZIMUT BENETTI Group
MARINEMAX - marinemaxyachts.com azimutyachts.com
SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION
THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
Need a little adventure? A spectacular and luxurious one can be
found aboard a yacht in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Multiple
islands, secluded coves, top-notch restaurants and lively beach
bars are all waiting to welcome you ashore. And while plenty of
travelers have found their bliss here before, there are still many
secrets to uncover in this sailors’ haven.
Bareboat or crewed, the choice is yours. We invite you to bring
your own vessel to experience the BVI or charter the yacht of your
dreams. Chart your own course, as pirates such as Blackbeard
did in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Go wherever your spirit
and the breeze moves you. Cruise the waterways, dive into the
crystal-blue waters to discover life below the surface, or pull up to
shore and explore the lush greenery in one of the islands’ national
parks. Nearly 600 nautical miles and 60 islands await you in the
British Virgin Islands. Ocean breezes whisk travelers away to
tranquil anchorages, while a multitude of dive sites, including the
famous 150-year old RMS Rhone or the recently sunk Willy T turned
artificial reef, make available countless underwater adventures.
Chart your course and feel free to wander.
YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E
Each island offers distinct attractions, like The Baths on Virgin
Gorda, where large boulders create a unique chain of pools, grottos
and caves. This stunning location is ideal for a picnic lunch and
peaceful afternoon. On Jost Van Dyke, Great Harbour makes for
an easy anchorage to visit Foxy’s Tamarind Bar & Restaurant,
famous for its unique decor, island spirit and Foxy himself, a well-
known local personality. Around the point lies another celebrated
establishment for sailors, Soggy Dollar, which is home of the BVI’s
must-try beverage, the Painkiller cocktail. On the island of Tortola,
you will find secluded, clean white beaches such as Smuggler’s
Cove, where a drink and light snack from Nigel’s Boom Boom
Beach Bar & Grill makes the experience memorable. Surrounded
by shallow reefs, the island of Anegada is known for its lobster
and great shipwreck diving.
The BVI is a place to share secrets and create lifelong memories,
like enjoying a perfect view of the vibrant sunset from a private
yacht. For yacht owners and newcomers alike, the calm, sapphire
seas of the British Virgin Islands promise unforgettable experiences.
BVITOURISM.COM
Muskmelon Bay, Guana Island

OUT TO SEA AND

IN YOUR ELEMENT
Go wherever your spirit — and the — wind moves you.
Comfortably charter a yacht, catamaran, or bring your
own craft. Bareboat or crewed, the choice is yours.
Nearly 600 nautical miles and 60 islands await you in
the British Virgin Islands.
 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

THE RIVA 90’ ARGO

With its streamlined and dynamic
profile, the Riva 90’ Argo was
de sig ne d by O f ficina It aliana
Design (founded by Mauro Micheli
and Sergio Beretta) and is the
latest addition to the new flybridge
generation, completing the range
that includes the 100’ Corsaro and
110’ Dolcevita. The 93-foot yacht
with a 21-foot beam demonstrates
a nice balance between interior and
exterior, with precise attention to
design detail and refined quality.
Spaces are beautifully harmonized,
all perfectly balanced in terms of
surfaces and materials. Combining
charming, timeless aesthetics
and stylistic research, the Riva
90’ Argo has written an exciting
chapter in the Riva story with its
two master cabins. The first is a
323-squarefoot full-beam master
suite located on the main deck, with
a bed in the center, a walk-in closet
and a large bathroom in the foredeck.
The second, a 215-square-foot
fullbeam master suite, is located aft
on the lower deck, making guests
feel like owners.

RIVA-YACHT.COM

to travel 6,500 nautical miles (or
across the Atlantic and then some).
Do you want to be perfectly styled
in your own beauty salon? Need
to ensure a dining area that seats
all 20-plus people on board? Or
perhaps you foresee time in the
spa with the amenities of your
choice—massage, yoga studio, gym
and hammam. One of Benetti’s
100-plus-meter gigayachts features
hybrid propulsion, which lowers
emissions and makes for a more
efficient, vibration-free cruise.
Yours can too.
However you envision your home
away from home, a gigayacht will
ensure you have the space to check
off your wish list of features.
Dutch shipyard Oceanco, a world-
class builder of custom superyachts
up to the 459-foot range, recently
delivered DreAMBoat to its owners,
who accomplished building their
dream yacht with custom features
that perfectly reflect their lifestyle.
The owners of this 295-foot
yacht used the services of famous
yacht designers Espen Øino
(exterior) and Terence Disdale
(interior). Built specifically for a
multigenerational cruising family,
DreAMBoat has staterooms for
23 guests and 33 crew members
who will ensure that your every
need is taken care of.
Custom cocktail? No problem.
Need a snack? No problem.
You name it; there is someone
to take care of it for you. Talk
about service! The owners of
DreAMBoat can enjoy relaxing
time in the pool and hot tubs,
numerous conversation areas,
special movie nights under the
stars and expansive, unspoiled
views both inside and out.
Building your yacht from ›

STORY CONTINUED
 NOTHING ELSE

Iseo • Aquariva Super • Rivam are • Dolceriva • 56’ Rivale • 66’ Ribelle • 76’ Perseo
76’ Bahamas • 88’ Domino Super • 88’ Florida • 90’ Argo • 100’ Corsaro • 110’ Dolcevita

a Ferretti Group brand

www.riva-yacht.com

Ferretti Group America

1445 SE 16th Street, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 33316
Ph. 1 954.462.5527 - salesusa@ferrettigroup.com
ferrettigroupamerica.com
 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

SUNSEEKER 76 YACHT
Clever design maximizes social and entertaining
spaces on Sunseeker’s 76 Yacht, while the
innovative use of glass enhances natural
light, making this a bright and airy boat
in which to relax and unwind with family
and friends. The optional retractable glass
skylight over the lower helm offers an open
boat experience, allowing light to flood in.
For life alfresco, the yacht’s exterior decks
provide unprecedented levels of space and
flexibility that can be adapted to suit any
need, whether relaxing or entertaining. The
vast flybridge is another exceptional feature
of the 76 Yacht, and the already impressive
layout can be further enhanced by the addition
of an optional spa and cocktail bar to provide
that superyacht feel. The light and space
continue belowdecks, where there are four
sumptuous cabins and four bathrooms,
including an impressive full-beam master
with en-suite and dressing area.
SUNSEEKER.COM

the ground up also allows for
accommodation of environmental
and safety concerns. Oceanco’s
DreAMBoat and has achieved
the ECO-IHM (inventory of
hazardous materials) notation,
which shows the owners’
commitment to operating the
vessel on an environmentally
sound basis beyond statutory
compliance.
What’s your dream boat?
Personalizing the Proven
If building a yacht from concept
to completion is too daunting,
how about a proven platform
upon which you personalize the
yacht of your dreams? Get to
know the brand whose style feels
most in tune with yours and let
your selections expand from
there. Picture yourself on board.
Here are a few, among many, to
choose from:
Part of the Azimut Benetti
group, Azimut Yachts (currently
celebrating its 50th anniversary)
offers many award-winning boats.
The Azimut S8 made a surprise
appearance at the Cannes Yachting
Festival in September, where it
was unveiled for the public. The
almost-81-foot yacht features
accommodations for eight guests
and two crew members in a hull
designed by Alberto Mancini
and a contemporary interior by
Francesco Guida. Propelled by
three Volvo IPS 1350 drives, the
yacht hits a top speed of 34 knots.
For many yacht lovers, UK-based
Sunseeker brings to mind the
exhilaration of skimming along the
water in a sporty yacht with the
freedom to roam and the amenities
to make roaming comfortable.
Recent models from the builder
make the most use of natural light, ›

STORY CONTINUED
KEEP DISCOVERING
EVEN WHEN YOU STOP
76 YACHT

Chesapeake Bay | +1 (410) 643-5800 North Carolina | +1 (910) 338-4890 SUNSEEKER.COM

Fort Lauderdale | +1 (954) 606-0445 Palm Beach | +1 (561) 296-9800
Great Lakes | +1 (866) 490-5297 Pompano | +1 (754) 600-5700
Miami | +1 (305) 856-4050 South Carolina | +1 (843) 256-8900
New York | +1 (516) 906-2229 Vancouver | +1 (604) 692-0333
 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

PININFARINA
A global icon of Italian style, Pininfarina is
recognized for its unparalleled ability to create
timeless beauty through its values of elegance,
purity and innovation. Adhering to the belief that
design is an instrument to humanize innovation,
Pininfarina focuses on building projects for the
future through thoughtful, user-centric design.
Pininfarina has been working within the
nautical sector since 1988, collaborating with
internationally renowned industry partners
such as Beneteau, Primatist, Fincantieri,
Persico Marine, Wally and Princess Yachts.
The company’s design team is in constant
pursuit of better solutions to the transportation
sector’s increasingly complex problems and
technological advances by incorporating
research to guide decision making.
“Pininfarina lives for the challenge, and we are
always searching for inspiration by exploring
new areas,” says chairman Paolo Pininfarina.
Reflected by their distinguished nautical icons,
the firm’s unmatched expertise within this
sector will continue its success as the leading
progenitor for luxury transportation design.
PININFARINA.COM

with retractable glass skylights
and huge windows throughout
the yacht. Whether hanging out
on the flybridge with the bar
and hot tub or on the foredeck
with ample seating and optional
shading, the whole line offers
speedy yachts with plenty of space
to spend quality time. Sunseeker
has now expanded its bespoke
service in partnership with Icon
Yachts, which will be seen with
the Sunseeker 161, the shipyard’s
largest vessel to date.
Riva, a Ferretti Group brand
rich in history, presents the
Riva 90’ Argo model, a new
generation of Riva flybridges with
two master suites—one on the main
deck and one down below. From
the Ferretti Group Superyacht
Yard, Riva recently launched its
164-foot model, which takes the
recognizable Riva traits—like
mahogany details—and kicks it up
a notch. The larger Riva 50METRI
model hits a top speed of 15 knots.
Sirena Yachts, a Turkish
shipyard, presented the world
debut of Sirena 88 at the Cannes
Yachting Festival this September.
This new member to the Sirena
Yachts fleet is noted as a “true
expedition-go-anywhere” small
yacht with a five-cabin layout
for up to 12 people, including a
main-deck master suite.
Sirena enlisted noted designer
Germán Frers for the yacht’s fuel-
efficient lines and Cor D. Rover
for the interior. Other attention-
grabbing features include all
kinds of outdoor lounging space,
two formal dining areas and an
optional Jacuzzi on the sundeck.
If catamarans fit a little
better in your dream category,
Sunreef Yachts is an established ›

STORY CONTINUED
 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

BURGESS TRIPLE SEVEN

Aside from surfing, swimming, diving,
kayaking and snorkeling whenever you
want, what makes for an enjoyable charter
is experienced, well-trained staff. The crew
on the Burgess-managed yacht Triple Seven
is enthusiastic about having a ball in the big
blue. They can guide guests safely through
exciting and fun water-based activities.
Triple Seven ’s crew is overflowing with
expertise. Second officer Oscar Rorvik
represented New Zealand in sailing and bosun
Scotty Lefevre from South Africa coached
surfing in college and can get anyone riding
the waves in no time. Australian chief engineer
Andy Connolly is a mean kayaker, while
captain Lachlan Holder, who holds the record
for swimming a lap around the yacht, will help
anyone who wants to try to beat his time.
With everything from Jet Skis to paddleboards
and an inflatable climbing wall onboard Triple
Seven, you’ll go home a happy water-sports
expert, anxious to return as soon as possible.
BURGESSYACHTS.COM

brand that just might check
everything off your wish list,
whether you prefer a sailing
yacht or a motor yacht. The Polish
yard’s most recent release is the
80 Sunreef Power catamaran,
unveiled at this year’s Cannes
Yachting Festival. If you love this
power cat that accommodates up to
12 guests, you are not alone: Tennis
star Rafael Nadal has already
ordered his.
Westport Yachts, the largest
US-based shipyard, is a tried-
and-true yacht builder with a
history of building a wide variety
of vessels that consistently
please owners. From 112 to 164
feet, the composite-built yachts
accommodate from eight to 12
guests in four to six staterooms.
Westport also has its own charter
division. Choose from a raised-
pilothouse design or a tri-deck
with space for 12 crew and
20-plus-knot cruising speeds
(26-knot max). Westport’s design
and engineering teams worked
with designer Donald Starkey and
naval architect William Garden
to develop a hull form with
solid ocean-going performance,
a configuration that balances
interior and on-deck spaces and
contemporary styling to stay
relevant over the years.
Where Do You Start?
If building a customized yacht is
beyond your time and wheelhouse,
enlist a company such as Burgess to
help you through the whole process.
Burgess will help you find a yacht
designer, a builder to manufacture
that design, an interior designer,
management to help you find and
maintain crew, oversee vessel
maintenance and arrange charters,
if you choose, when it’s not in use. ›

STORY CONTINUED
 Playtime.
by Burgess

For sale and charter

TRIPLE SEVEN
EUR 38,000,000 EU VAT PAID
223.1ft (68m)
12 guests, 5 cabins

Email charter@burgessyachts.com | sales@burgessyachts.com

New York +1 212 223 0410 Miami +1 305 672 0150 Beverly Hills +1 310 424 5112 Discover the difference.
14 offices worldwide I Europe I Americas I Asia Pacific I Middle East burgessyachts.com
Not available for charter to US residents while in US waters. Worldwide Central Agents for sale and charter.
 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

SIRENA 88
New from Sirena Yachts is the shipyard’s
largest vessel yet, the Sirena 88. This
brilliant combination of different worlds
provides timeless and functional design
with an innovative, fuel-efficient package.
The bonus is long-distance journeys
with unbeatable comfort, inside and out.
“The Sirena 88 is designed with lines
that are unique but recognizable; not
exaggerated but surprising. Lines that are
as beautiful today as they will be tomorrow,”
says world-renowned yacht designer
Cor D. Rover, who created the interior.
With a 23-foot beam, the Sirena 88 is
the widest yacht in its segment. It offers
enormous space and headroom as well as a
five-cabin layout for up to 12 people, including
a panoramic main-deck owner’s suite—all
wrapped in an elegant and stylish décor.
“It is a low-resistance, seaworthy hull that
performs efficiently with minimum fuel
consumption at all speed ranges,” says
Germán Frers., who designed the exterior.
SIRENAYACHTS.COM

In the Details
Design firm Pininfarina, known
for its 90 years of historical designs
for custom automobiles, yachts,
jets, architecture, technology
and, well, almost anything in
the refined luxury sector, has
recently shown two of its yachts
at the Monaco Yacht Show last
September. Showing its breadth
of nautical experience, the studio
showcased sailing yacht Wally
101 and motor yacht Princess Y95.
Fincantieri and Rossinavi are two
other shipyards that collaborated
with Pininfarina.
If you want to see more of
Pininfarina’s history and creations,
tour the studio’s design center in
Italy, where its many masterpieces
are on display.
The World Is Yours
Where to begin exploration?
Most of the world’s yachts spend
time in the Mediterranean in
the summer and head to the
Caribbean for the winter months.
Some daring few veer off to chase
glaciers in Alaska or Greenland,
while others aim to discover
sea turtles and other wildlife in
Central and South America.
If you picture yourself
snorkeling, paddle-boarding
and swimming in clear waters
without a wet suit, check out the
British Virgin Islands. Nearly 60
islands provide serene anchorages,
choice beaches, snorkeling and
dive sites, grottos, caves, tropical
flowers, Caribbean dining splendor
and cocktail creations, and much
more. Explore in the style and
comfort of your choice.
Striving Beyond Excellence
The yachting industry constantly ›

STORY CONTINUED
 SPECI A L A DV ERT ISING SEC T ION YA C H T IN G L I F E S T Y L E

SUNREEF YACHT S
Founded in 2002 by Francis Lapp in the port
city of Gdansk, Poland, Sunreef Yachts has
established itself as a world leader in the design
and construction of bespoke, luxury catamarans.
The shipyard’s team of naval architects,
engineers and interior designers boasts
the experience and technical know-how
to build the most advanced multihulls.
With shallow draft, inherent stability, fuel
efficiency and vast, custom living spaces,
Sunreef Yachts catamarans set new
standards for luxury crafts around the world.
Sunreef Yachts maintains a healthy global
presence, with offices in Poland, Dubai,
Montenegro and Miami. Catering to clients in
the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and
Latin America, the Americas office is located
in Miami’s Design District. Tour Sunreef Yachts
catamarans at the not-to-miss boat shows
in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Palm Beach.
With a fleet of satisfied owners and numerous
yachting awards and nominations over two
decades, Sunreef Yachts emanates excellence.
SUNREEF-YACHTS.COM

strives to excel in every way.
Founded to represent the
superyacht industry, ISS works
with members to advocate for
industry-wide issues, such
as code improvement, taxes,
positive industry ethics and crew
training, and provides a welcome
space for shipyards, designers,
architects and other marine
industry professionals to share
ideas and cheer each other on.
In fact, the annual Leadership
Award for charitable work,
mentoring and contributing to
improving yachting overall is
voted on by its members who are
often competitors. Other award
categories include best interior,
exterior, refits and more. Perhaps
your personalized superyacht will
take the award in its category!
Innovation
The yachting community
in general has embraced
new technology to increase
stabilization permitting even
the most sensitive individuals
to enjoy being at sea without
motion sickness. There is
also great focus on today’s
environmental concerns.
From hybrid yachts to those
powered by electric propulsion
and hulls designed for maximum
efficiency, today’s yachts are
designed and built with an eye
toward sustainability, while at
the same time ensuring top-notch
comfort and service for the most
discerning yacht owner. What
does your new yacht look like?

STORY CONTINUED
stephanie@sunreef.com robert.r@sunreef.com
www.sunreef-yachts.com
+1 (954) 224 - 5293 + 1 (305) 321 - 2582
 The Business

How the Arena Became the Palace

GAME DAY USED TO LOOK LIKE A HOT DOG AND A BEER, WITH A
PERCH ON THE BLEACHERS. BUT IN THIS NEW ERA OF SPORTS VENUES, TEAMS NEED
TO PROVIDE AN UPSCALE EXPERIENCE TO SURVIVE.
By Jeremy Repanich

T
he wine has run out. This is no cause for
alarm. The butler can fetch another bottle
from your private vault a few feet away or dip
into the cellar filled with $450,000 worth of it, also at
your disposal. While you wait, there’s a cocktail
created by a James Beard Award–nominated bartender
and dinner to be enjoyed at the crisp white quartz
table surrounded by walnut cabinets. But don’t linger
too long—you don’t want to miss tip-off. You’re here
for the game, after all. Fortunately, on the nine TV
screens covering one wall, a camera beams back a live
view of the court, which is just steps from this suite
inside the Golden State Warriors’ gleaming new arena
in San Francisco. It’s a reminder that this is a sporting
event and not an evening with friends at Soho House.
This season, the Warriors’ Chase Center will
offer select NBA fans one of the premier in-game
experiences in sports. And it’s no anomaly. In
venues around the world, bleachers and hot dogs
have been replaced with well-appointed suites and
artisanal fare.
A new era of sports venues and hospitality has
arrived, pointing to the future of attending a game.
Fierce as the competition on the court and field can
be, teams have realized their most important
fight is creating a game-day experience that outshines
all other entertainment options in town—and on the
enormous HDTVs at home. And they need to, because
they’re chasing a customer base that’s more
discerning than ever.

Illustration by EGLE PLY TNIK AITE

R O B B R E P O R T. C O M 219

This premium era of sports—taking
the largely populist experience of going
to a game and turning it into a luxurious
one—began out of necessity. As player
salaries rose in the 1970s, so did the
need for teams to find new ways to
generate revenue. They began designing
a ring of suites and/or club seats into
venues, increasing comfort and maybe
adding some better food, or at least a few
more options.
That soon evolved into teams
realizing just how inordinately valuable
suites and seats close to the action
could be, especially in basketball. “The
NBA is really interesting. I think we
practice what I would call the ‘Robin
Hood School of Pricing,’ ” says Warriors
president and COO Rick Welts. “We
are able, for a very few customers, to
charge a premium for a real premium
experience. And that, in effect, subsidizes
the cost of all the other seats in the
building.” But to charge the higher
price—courtside suites go for $1.5 million
to $2.5 million per year—the in-game
experience had to be about more than
just a closer seat. Teams that didn’t
realize this suffered the consequences.
In the mid-1990s, the NBA’s Seattle
SuperSonics worked with the city to
overhaul and modernize the Seattle
Center Coliseum, an arena built for the
1962 World’s Fair. The Sonics touted
the newly christened KeyArena as
San Francisco’s Chase Center,
by the Numbers
The Golden State Warriors are moving from Oakland to San
Fran for the upcoming season, and a $1.4 billion new arena
awaits. As does a half-ton of pizza dough and a whole lot of
beer per game.
2,200 $2,500,000
Gallons of beer Price tag for the
consumed per game most expensive
courtside suite
17,000 114,000
Tons of steel Yards of concrete
220 NOVEMBER 2019
The Business
an intimate place to watch a game,
convinced it had solved its venue
problem. It took only about a decade for
the team to realize it had built an arena
for an outdated model.
Sure, there was a ring of the
customary suites, but the premium
experience ended there. Courtside
season-ticket holders—people who
might pay north of $60,000 per year for
a pair of seats—got the chance to have
some Coors Light out of kegerators in a
concrete crypt hidden in the bowels of
the arena at halftime and not much
more. The Coliseum couldn’t compete
for entertainment dollars against the
brand-new stadiums the Seahawks and
Mariners had erected a few years earlier.
Without an arena able to compete
economically, Starbucks impresario
Howard Schultz sold the Sonics, and the
new owners moved the team to
Oklahoma City.
Warriors owners Joe Lacob and
Peter Guber faced a similar problem
when they bought the Warriors in 2010.
“We had the oldest arena in the NBA. It
was a great place to play. It still is. And
we love Oracle in many ways, but the
modern amenities were not there,” says
Lacob, who made his money as a venture
capitalist at Kleiner Perkins. “It had one
kitchen to serve 19,596 people. In the
end, food and all the other stuff that goes
along with an arena matters.”
1,200
Pounds of pizza
dough made
for each game
607 $450,000
Toilets and urinals Value of wine in the
premium cellar
18,064 44
Seats Luxury suites
It especially counts because the
Warriors are part of a new paradigm
of privately funded venues. “Cities,
counties and states started getting out
of the business of building stadiums and
arenas, and once that happened, there
was a significant debt service on the
building that had to be covered,” says
Ron Turner, a four-decade stadium-
design veteran at architecture firm
ACROSS SPORTS YOU’RE
SEEING AN ESCALATION OF
LUXURY AMENITIES
IN STADIUMS AND ARENAS.
Gensler. This shift has accelerated,
turning attending a game into a
premium product to jolt revenues.
So across sports you’re seeing an
escalation of luxury amenities. “While
the gate revenues are projected to
increase across the five top US pro
leagues in the next five years, luxury and
premium revenue will probably triple
that,” says Matt Cacciato, director of
the master’s program in sports
administration at Ohio University.
“Teams are depending on luxury
revenues to outpace normal gate
revenues.” Since 1995 premium-seating
inventory across the NBA, MLB, NFL,
MLS and NHL has nearly doubled, and
it now makes up 40 percent of all
ticket revenue, according to a 2016
PricewaterhouseCoopers study. The
secondary-ticket market for Warriors’
opening night at Chase Center is an
indication of the money that premium
seats can command compared to seats
4,000 elsewhere: At press time, a ticket in
Pieces of sushi the upper bowl for the season opener
and sashimi served could be had for $225, while courtside
per game seats cost as much as $19,000.
In many venues, that price doesn’t
just get you a seat. In Jacksonville, the
Jaguars have cabanas with a pool; in
Miami, the Dolphins have “Living Room
Boxes,” where fans sit in lounge chairs at
the 35-yard line with TVs; Arthur Ashe
Stadium, home of the tennis US Open,
36 has a suite with a private sushi chef; and
Concession stands the new digs for London soccer club
and restaurants Tottenham Hotspur includes among its
amenities a members-only club where
a select few can dine behind one-way
glass next to the players’ tunnel, so you
can watch the team prepare for the game
before they walk out onto the pitch.
Chase Center’s crown jewels are its
courtside lounges, which go for up to
SHUT TERSTOCK
$1.5 million more than the traditional
32 top-level box suites and serve as private
Courtside lounges hideaways for people buying some of the
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 The Business

best seats in the house. The team went

even further in designing the arena. “In
the past, whether you were in a stadium
or arena, there were two premium
experiences they were providing,”
Turner says, referring to courtside Out of Office with
seating and box suites. “In Chase Center,
there are 17. That’s the evolution of the
premium experience. There has to be
variety because not everyone wants the
CATHERINE RENIER
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, JAEGER-LECOULTRE
same thing.” So the Warriors built new
tiers of offerings for smaller groups, like
“Theater Boxes,” where a private dining
A little more than a year ago, Catherine Renier left
table for four (with waiter service) is
her job as president of the Asia and Pacific division of
on one side of a wall and on the other
Richemont’s jewelry luminary Van Cleef & Arpels to
side are four court-facing seats, or the
assume the role as CEO of Richemont’s watch titan
open-air Modelo Cantina, where
Jaeger-LeCoultre. The move made her the first female
reservations include a more comfortable
CEO of a major haute horlogerie watch brand. The
seat and food at the shared club space.
transition, she claims, was easy. “Both maisons have
And now we’ve arrived at a time
similar values and quality craftsmanship and a search
where teams have incorporated the first
for excellence,” says Renier. Her first job was working
wave of luxury amenities, from better
in sales at the Cartier boutique in New York City.
physical spaces to better food. The next
That experience cemented her business philosophy
phase will home in on service and the
that “connecting with customers” is the foundation of
strategic deployment of technology
success. It’s a notion she’s already putting into action
to enhance all that—from Wi-Fi that
at the watchmaker: Under her direction, clients now
actually works to apps for ordering food
receive an eight-year warranty, besting the standard
to one-on-one interactions between a
two to five years. She also plans to have more
helpful staff and demanding fans.
in-store demonstrations of JLC’s watchmakers’
“We’ve invested a lot in training
skills. Here she reveals the inner workings of her
employees, myself included, to the level of
approach to keeping the business ahead of its time.
service you’d expect heading into a Disney
theme park,” Welts says. “Because that’s jaeger-lecoultre.com KATHLEEN BECKETT
the most important thing we can provide,
except maybe the team winning.” Though
the Warriors haven’t had that problem of
What is the one thing you Do you prefer email, phone best friend. It shouldn’t
late, these new stadiums and services can
have to do every day to stay or text? be the first thing and
also insulate teams from the boom and bust
sane? Text. It’s quick and short. the last thing I attend to
of winning one season and losing the next.
In my car driving to and And then, if necessary, I can every day.
“Some teams that are underperforming are
from work, I listen to set up a meeting if there’s a
propped up by the game-day experience
music and sing. My three need to go deeper. What’s your favorite app?
in the stadium,” Cacciato says.
kids, ages 8, 11 and 13, I’m always on airline apps.
The Warriors’ gambit to preserve that
make suggestions. What’s the one adjustment But I like Flipboard,
experience could be the most forward-
everyone can make in their which aggregates articles,
looking design element of Chase Center.
What is your biggest lives to be more successful? for the news.
The team took the counterintuitive
annoyance at work? To celebrate every success,
step of offering fewer of the hottest
People who hide things. even if it’s small. Enjoy the What was your first job, and
tickets in the Bay Area. In the move from
If you have an issue, bring small steps as much as the what did you learn from it that
Oakland to San Francisco, the Warriors
it to the forefront. I like big ones. Keep a vision in impacted your later career?
made the arena 1,500 seats smaller so
to be straightforward. your life, whether personal I worked in the retail
it would be more intimate and exciting.
or professional, of what department of Cartier in
That also allowed for more communal
What do you look for in an you want to accomplish. New York City. I learned
areas such as the courtside suites and the
employee? how important every detail
ample lounges where courtside ticket
Someone who will enjoy What’s the best advice you is. It’s all about the feeling
holders can gather to dine before the
where they are and what were given? you want to achieve in the
game. “We’re finding stadiums getting
they’re doing because Have an objective and store—the flowers, the
smaller and smaller. But the socialization
they believe in it and realize it takes time to smile of the salesperson.
spaces in the stadium are getting bigger
understand the values. achieve it. But know that There should be coherence,
and bigger,” Turner says. “People want
life is long, you have consistency. Everything
to move around. They want to text their
How long should a time, so enjoy every day. counts. You can’t
friends and say, ‘Look, I’m over here at
meeting last? I hope that’s right! compromise when you want
this club. It’s cool, why don’t you come
An hour and a half. That to reach that big picture.
over?’ That’s how people want to enjoy
gives enough time for What’s one thing you want to
these events.” Perversely, the future
JOHANN SAUT Y

discussion, and it’s long improve in your work life? What is your daily driver?
of buying a great seat at a sports stadium
enough to make decisions. My phone is no longer my A Mini Cooper.
may be the freedom to sit in that seat as
little as you’d like.

222 NOVEMBER 2019

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 What Yo Fountai Youth?
How good are you at
sticking to a regimen?
Are you afraid of needles? Are you trying to . . .

Disciplined Meh
Yikes! Nope Keep Father Time at bay? Turn back the hands of time?

How often do you Do you want a What’s more important?

think about detoxing? more natural look?
Looking good Feeling good What are you thinking when
That’s faux science Often Yes Doesn’t matter you watch a sci-fi film?

This is a chilling Bring on the

allegory for humanity future
How much are you
willing to spend?

Whatever it takes Just enough

Beauty is . . .

Important On the inside Your skin should be...

Where would But you still love the
Glowing Tight as a drum you rather live? special effects?

LA Silicon Valley Oh, yeah A little bit

Botox
Juice cleanses and superfoods

SHUT TERSTOCK

Serums and lotions Plastic surgery Stem cells and gene editing

224 NOVEMBER 2019