Time to get smart: Traditional watchmakers are striking back against the Apple Watch April 2, 2015 With the Apple Watch set to shake up the watch market, Switzerland’s established brands are rushing to release their own takes on wearable tech. Last month’s Baselworld watch fair saw a slew of these, including this model from Breitling. Rather than text messages and activity tracking, the B55 enables you to perform adjustments – timezones, [...]
Swinging 60s: Take a drive back in time to rediscover the inimitable style of the April 2, 2015 Osman dress, £1,010, harveynichols.com; Osman boots, £POA, manoloblahnik.com; Brooks Brothers headscarf, £130, brooksbrothers.com; Cutler & Gross sunglasses, £395, cutlerandgross.com; Chanel ring, £4,075, 26 Old Bond Street, W1S 4DQ (Katie) Tods dress, £3,150, tods.com; Christian Dior jacket, £3,100, dior.com; Christian Dior boots, £1,850, dior.com; JW Anderson bag, £1,625, j-w-anderson.com; Cutler & Gross sunglasses, £310, [...]
Lounge lizard: Party like it’s 1979 with these classic disco-era watches April 2, 2015 In the late 70s and early 80s, had you found yourself living it up in St Tropez, partying with the in-crowd at New York’s Studio 54, or following the jet-set around the hotspots of London, Paris and Milan, the watch you’d have repeatedly found on the wrists of the rich and glamorous would have been [...]
Grapes and wrath: Why wine critic Robert Parker is skipping the famous Bordeaux tasting April 2, 2015 It’s tasting time in Bordeaux, when the wine world flocks to the banks of the Garonne to discover what the latest vintage has to offer. For the next few weeks critics and merchants will sniff, snort, swill and spit their way through hundreds of tastings before passing judgement on the wines of 2014. This [...]
Counter culture: How Melbourne changed the way the entire world enjoys its morning cup of coffee April 2, 2015 There are few places in the world where coffee is taken as seriously as it is in Australia. The country’s unrivalled coffee capital, Melbourne, blazed the trail for the cold drips, aero-presses and cupping that have become de rigueur in hipster coffee houses across the world. Every day Melbourne handles 30 tonnes of coffee beans. [...]
In praise of solitude: What does time alone mean to you? April 2, 2015 Our phones never stop ringing. Emails flood our inboxes. Meetings are an integral part of our working lives (not to mention pre-meetings and de-briefings). Smartphones keep us connected with our friends and family during the day and our bosses when we’re at home at night. In 2015, most of us can quite honestly say they [...]
A new exhibition celebrates the work of era-defining illustrator Mac Conner April 2, 2015 In the 1940s and 50s, before advancements in print technology and the proliferation of photography, ad companies relied on illustrators to give their brands a visual identity. Adverts in popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Women’s Day and Colliers established a shorthand for aspirational, middle-class American living; fedoras, cigarette holders, swooning large-eyed women and men in [...]
Liquid Spaces: A new book explores the way our perception of space can be altered April 2, 2015 Korean artist Jee Young Lee’s installation pieces transform 3x6m boxes into fantastical, surreal dreamscapes. In some, scores of painted fans form psychedelic clouds, or a swirling ocean sucking the artist into its centre. Others, inspired by childhood memories, feature the artist in nostalgic or frightening environments, filled with giant insects, sinister tentacles, or startled crows [...]
Considered for Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian Cooke is one of the UK’s hottest new actors March 5, 2015 There’s handsome, and there’s “that guy should star in a soft-core BDSM blockbuster” handsome. Christian Cooke is the latter, to the extent that he was in the running to bag the lead role in Fifty Shades of Grey, before it was given to fellow Brit Jamie Dornan. In person Cooke seems far too nice for [...]
Flower power: Get ready for the new season in floral prints and pastel shades March 5, 2015 Christian Dior jumpsuit, £4,700, dior.com Giorgio Armani dress, £18,440, armani.com; BLK DNM shirt, £195, net-a-porter.com; Jimmy Choo flats, £375, jimmychoo.com Peter Pilotto dress, £1,500, harveynichols.com Marni dress, £1,170, 26 Sloane Street, SW1X 9NE Kate Spade top, £395, katespade.co.uk; Brooks Brothers shirt, £95, brooksbrothers.com; Hudson jeans, £250, Selfridges.com; Jimmy Choo flats, [...]