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Unveiled — The New Maserati GranTurismo 2023
When I first saw a Maserati GranTurismo some 11 years ago, I remember thinking at the time that car design had peaked. The vehicle profile was striking and vast, baring its teeth as it elegantly roared past. It was design from another era, the past translated into the future if you will, now proven by…
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Glenfiddich – Reassuringly Timeless
The idea of patience is an increasingly warped notion in modern life. We quite simply hate to wait. In fairness, it’s hard to blame anyone in particular, after all we have all been under involuntary – or perhaps incognisant – training for the past decade, with the amazonic acceleration of delivery times and omnipresent-ly seamless…
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Brand Mixology — Perfect timing
There was a time I could feel myself getting “collab” fatigue; this brand is releasing a collection with that one, or this new modern brand reinterpreting that famous old brand. The fact is I couldn’t have been any further from the truth; as time has progressed, collaborations have actually saved brand creativity. It’s the equivalent…
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D’OTTO — Artistic Fragrance
Embracing the notion of fragrance as a liquid artform rather than a trivial embellishment is not necessarily a new concept, but in that pursuit there are indeed many, many levels of accomplishment. Italian fragrance brand D’OTTO are a new arrival, but certainly no pretenders, ticking pretty much every box you can as a fragrance brand.…
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Boat Tail — Chapter II
To read a good book is to embark on a journey; each chapter further unveiling the storyline, characters, emotive connotations — and the nature of the author. It’s a cumulative revelation, a story building layer upon layer, ultimately leading to a grand finale. By no means at the end of the Boat Tail saga –…
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Remy Martin XO by LEE BROOM
The idea that change is “necessary” to remain relevant is something that the classicists have fought for years. Having said that on the other side of the coin, the modernists could argue that if you don’t change you will get left behind. A conundrum indeed. This is where what I call “tasteful re-interpretation” comes in…
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Christie’s presents Au Bord Du Lac
Space: a boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. With such a definition, it’s hard to see space as anything other than otherworldly, but we inhabit it in every moment of the humdrum of our lives: crossing the hallway to brush your teeth, shuffling through a…
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The Frozen Vignettes of Alex Prager
For much of her career, photographer Alex Prager has sought minute meaning in large, crowded compositions; often deftly nudging the viewer’s eye to a mischievously planted detail. Signatures on the cast of a high school football player, a bandage on the nose of a woman running in terror, the face in the reflection of a…
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Tercet — Born of Brotherhood
One would think that an institution as esteemed and established as Rémy Martin would have hit something of a(n extremely lofty) plateau by now. The legendary cognac house is nearly 300 years old. The fact they have lasted – or rather, dominated – for so long is not down to reaching pinnacle status and resting…
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Luxury Comes as a Standard — Hua Hin
Hua Hin is one of Thailand’s inaugural beach destinations and with such seniority, sophistication and depth come as primary benefits. It manages to strike a balance between built up and bucolic; for every postcard beach there is a grandstanding golf course. Authentic markets offset feverish waterparks and its proximity to Bangkok compared to other Thai…
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Welcome Home — Glenlivet’s New Crib
It’s a curious phenomenon, our resistance to change. Change, really, is the staple ingredient to improvement and is in fact the one-word definition of what nature is; so, naturally, there is nothing more natural. So why can it feel so wrong? I think the root of that pain in change is in an urgency to…
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Rolls-Royce Cellarette — Where Cigars & Whisky meet
I must admit, it came as a big surprise to me to learn one of the industries most affected by the pandemic is the cigar market. In fact just yesterday morning, I received a received a message asking if I knew anyone that supplied Cohibas due to a shortage of cigars for a top client…
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Organic Architecture — Ilulissat Icefjord
The great American biologist E.O. Wilson says that if we are to safeguard the systems on which all species – including our own – depend, we must devote half of all available land mass to nature. Nature is forgiving. It will bounce back – if we let it. And nature, more than anything else, holds…
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Where to? — Cromwell Place
It’s a curious paradox that in times of crises we must prioritise pillars of survival over enjoyment. Healthcare, education and commerce have dominated our collective attentions these past couple of years and the world, by necessity, has been forced to take on a greyer complexion. However, it’s in these times of sparsity that the…