At John Pawson’s Cotswolds farmhouse, in the open-plan, refectory-style kitchen that regularly hosts lunch parties of 12 or 14, a 3.6m-long table of the minimalist architect’s own design takes centre stage. Another, longer story was told in Italy, where Brunello Cucinelli, the king of soft-tailored munificence, launched his Autumn/Winter 2014-2015 collection by imagining an alfresco dining moment stretching down a cypress-hemmed avenue into the Umbrian hills. And beating them both to the punch, the house of Ferragamo hosted a dinner at Burlington Arcade back in 2012, with a single dining table running the 179m length of the covered Samuel Ware-designed shopping landmark, its tableclothed surface disappearing down the famous gentle gradient to Piccadilly.

The modern long table – whether dressed, candlelit or whiteclothed – has its roots in medieval monasteries, where the utilitarian, refectory-style table was first used by monks for communal dining during the 14th century. Leonardo da Vinci depicted the drama, scale and social reach of the long dining table in his Last Supper, painted a century later, but took artistic licence by arranging Jesus and his 12 disciples along one side of the table, when in reality, of course, they would have been sitting across from each other.

Today, the long table has moved beyond the army mess, garden fêtes and street parties to conquer civic banquets and grand receptions. At a wedding lunch or significant birthday bash, a single long surface negates the snooty, outdated notion of a “top table”. Here is a democracy in dining that cannot be achieved with myriad round tables and the attendant class system of the table plan. Instead, parallel placement encourages sitters to move freely (once the entrée plates have been cleared), without the worry of leaving gaping empty spaces.

The Connaught hotel in London currently stages regular, extended dining events in its private rooms; tablescapes of dreamy infinity, tessellations of candelabras, flowers, glass, silverware and linen glinting into the Mayfair distance. The long story continues…

At the height of his late-20th-century British Saturday-night TV fame, the late Australian TV critic and travel broadcaster Clive James would show clips of Endurance, the most extreme game show Japanese television had to offer, in which people would eat insects as they tumbled from huge inflatable ladders into empty swimming pools full of mouse traps. No wonder a generation grew up believing Japan to be some sort of giant self-harm version of It’s A Knockout.

Fortunately, five years ago, an alluring shot of Mount Fuji on Instagram drew me back to Japan, after a 25-year break, where I discovered a world beyond sado-masochistic game shows; one of forests, rivers, landscapes, seascapes, sculpture parks, architecture, food, fashions and shops that were so magnetic I’ve been back four times since.

If arriving into Tokyo for the first time, a degree of international familiarity, as well as uninterrupted views of Mount Fuji, can be found at the Mandarin Oriental in the business district of Nihonbashi, the very centre of the original Tokyo. Look down from your room and you will see Shinkansen (bullet trains) sliding gracefully into Tokyo Station.

A few blocks away is the Tokyo Imperial Palace, the main residence of the Japanese Emperor and a must for fans of enormous moats, stone walls and history. There are, of course, countless restaurants, people and adventures to experience and enjoy in Tokyo, but the bookshop chain Tsutaya at Daikanyama is on another level to any other bookshop anywhere, the Kapital clothing shops stretch your imagination like few Western shops will, and Daiwa Sushi in the docks is a must-visit.

Board a Shinkansen and 90 minutes away from the metropolis, in Hakone, the Japanese Lake District, you will find a tree-lined valley overlooking a powerful river and numerous hot-spring onsen hotels. Choose the KAI Hakone and, as you sit with your feet in the river, gazing up at the dense forest as the water crashes from boulder to boulder, you’ll soon forget the city of 37 million people you’ve just left behind. No wonder Tokyoites are apt to pop down for a day’s rest and relaxation.

Unexpectedly, at 808 Monsmare, Hakone, you will find some of the world’s best pizzas outside of Naples. And at the truly astounding Hakone Open-Air Museum, you’ll discover sculptures like the brilliantly playful kids-only hand-knitted playscape by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam, and a Picasso ceramics gallery.

Next stop: the Shinkansen propels you towards Naoshima. You may have seen images of Yayoi Kusama’s giant pumpkins on Japan’s famous ‘art island’. However, her presence starts on the white car ferries that take you on the 20-minute ride across the Seto Inland Sea, each emblazoned with huge scarlet chevrons or circles – as if the Pet Shop Boys have redesigned a Red Cross boat.

For high-end accommodation, check in to the hotel at Benesse House Museum – in its grounds sits Kusama’s much Instagrammed yellow pumpkin. Here you’ll find Yukinori Yanagi’s sizeable wall of international flags made of sand, which holds your attention for quite some time before you realise that the whole installation is connected by Plexiglas tubes and is home to an ant colony. The slight degradation of each flag is a result of the insects’ busy travels.

Elsewhere, Yayoi Kusama’s Narcissus Garden features 1,700 stainless-steel spheres spread out across the paths, pond and layers of a garden and into the corridors of a concrete structure. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s stunning collection of sea photographs is presented on either side of a view of the Seto Inland Sea itself.

There’s no end to the quality and impact of the artworks here, best enjoyed by hiring electric bikes, which allow you to explore an art trail of truly diverse works housed in the alleyways between homes with Shou Suggi Ban charred-pine exteriors. Here you’ll frequently run into utterly unexpected installations: a room of total darkness; a former dentist’s house where extracted teeth are embedded in the walls; a huge Statue of Liberty climbing two storeys of a house filled with nautical ephemera.

Despite the island’s thriving community of creatives, perhaps the greatest beauty you experience here is not manmade; it’s the view at the end of the day as the ferry takes you back to the mainland. Later, when you look back at your pictures and you see the splendour of the seascape, you’ll wonder, ‘How on earth did I get used to this?’

Tolstoy had a knack of getting to the heart of things and it’s hard to disagree with the great novelist when he wrote: ‘A cigar – it’s not so much a pleasure as the crown and hallmark of pleasure.’ These are the words of Prince Stepan ‘Stiva’ Arkadyich Oblonsky in Anna Karenina. Had ‘Stiva’ been in London in June, he would have felt right at home when a nimbus of blue smoke formed over Belgrave Square as its railed gardens became a piece of Cuban territory hosting the three-day cigar marathon known as Habanos World Days.

Habanos World Days was conceived during the pandemic as a digital event to compensate for the absence of the annual Cigar Festival that takes place in Havana in February. It was a valiant attempt, but enjoying a cigar over Zoom has its limits. In 2024, the decision was taken to hold a physical event, the first of its kind outside Cuba: think of it as a kind of Art Basel Miami-style spin-off, but for cigars; and the choice of venue reflects London’s status as the market for Havana cigars.

‘The UK has long been a natural home to Havanas, and there is huge historical significance,’ says second-generation cigar merchant Eddie Sahakian, owner of the famous Davidoff store in St James’s and the Sahakian sampling room at the Bvlgari Hotel in Knightsbridge. ‘It may not have the sunshine of Cuba, but the mild climate favours ageing cigars over long periods and the peculiarities of the UK market mean that cigar merchants are incentivised to keep and age cigars. And there is an additional level of quality in the English Market Selection quality seal, which commands a premium among collectors.’

English Market Selection has been a thing for over 100 years and denotes the superior quality of cigars designated for the British market, but was only codified in the 1990s with the introduction of the seal: a coloured label about the size of a postage stamp that carries the year of import. Hunters & Frankau, the sole importer of Cuban cigars into the UK, describes EMS as ‘the cornerstone of the UK’s long-established reputation as the world centre for the finest Havana cigars’.

Moreover, the recent spree of grande luxe hotel openings in London has resulted in some of the finest cigar shops and sampling rooms in the world: places where lovers of fine Vuelta Abajo tobacco can enjoy the best that Cuba has to offer in a comfortable and contemplative environment. Indeed, opening a smart hotel without a cigar shop these days is like dispensing with the Michelin-starred restaurant or heavily marketed cocktail lounge. (My current favourite is on the top floor of The Emory hotel; it is hard to feel too bad about life when sampling a limited-edition Partagas Series D No.1 from 2004 while looking out across the treetops of Hyde Park.)

It is this spirit that Habanos World Days has tapped into. For all the depredations the capital has suffered at the hands of our political leaders in recent years, not least Rishi Sunak’s fiddling with VAT refunds that drove tourist shoppers across the Channel, overseas visitors remain attracted to London, in part because it is still regarded as the locus classicus of a certain type of dandified luxury, of which cigars are a component. Britain neither cultivates tobacco nor rolls it into cigars, but somehow it does add value to them. From the preceding weekend, cigar enthusiasts start flying into London from around the world. Some go straight from the airport to Mayfair and begin scouring cigar shops for vintage treasures, and placing advance orders for the latest limited edition – the Trinidad Cabildos, which made its world debut at Habanos World Days in London a couple of years back.

In 2024, the three-day programme of parties, dinners, seminar and exhibition all honoured the Trinidad brand, which was celebrating its 55th birthday. Named after the Cuban city (not the Caribbean island), Trinidad was once so exclusive that for its first 29 years it was only used as a diplomatic gift, which, it is said, only Fidel Castro could bestow. It was finally released commercially in 1998 and, even then, only in one size, the slender Fundadores. In terms of prestige, it was positioned only slightly beneath the triple-fermented Cohiba. Its blend showcased the seco leaf, which accounts for the fragrant aroma and smooth character. For some years it preserved much of its mystique, even when the range expanded to include, among other gems, the Robusto Extra and the Robusto T. But, as is often the way with Cuban cigars, when something really good comes along it is soon discontinued. Sadly, this was the story with the Extra and the T, and when these were killed off in 2012 I lost interest for a while. But now the cry has gone up to Make Trinidad Great Again. As well as the Cabildos, London was favoured with the first 20 commemorative humidors packed with 55 Trinidad Fundadores Vintage 10, matured in Cuba for at least a decade. In effect, Habanos World Days is a reboot for Trinidad, which is now to be positioned as a luxury brand – not just a luxury cigar brand, but a luxury brand, full stop.

Habanos S.A., the body that makes and markets the cigars, is half owned by the Cuban state and half owned by a Hong Kong-based consortium that bought out Imperial Brands, the previous shareholder, for a sum rumoured to be over a billion dollars. The Asian investors have raised the perception (and prices) of Cuban cigars by seeing them not as a means of delivering nicotine into the body – a Trinidad or Cohiba has as much in common with cigarettes as a bottle of Petrus does with a bottle of plonk – but as a luxury product with its own world of quality, tradition and craftsmanship similar in stature to haute couture. After all, the torcedors who manipulate the aromatic leaf into instruments of pleasure are as skilled in their own way as les petites mains who create a Chanel suit or Dior gown.

In short, the unique character and culture of the Cuban cigar warrants a sophisticated level of connoisseurship and appreciation – and, at Habanos World Days in London, it receives it.

Where to stay for the Venice Biennale: Hotel Cipriani

With a cast of legendary guests – Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren, Brad Pitt and Yves Saint Laurent amongst – who have all supped up the swell vibes of the Hotel Cipriani one wonders if by osmosis a certain starriness seeps through to mere mortals. Does the legacy lead to a subtle form of behaviour modification? It’s sweet to ponder as I lap up and down the fabulously generous outdoor swimming pool with 270 panoramic views over the Venetian Lagoon. Taking an outdoor shower in a jasmine covered niche, watching the pool staff deliver peachy pink swim towels to vacant loungers, maybe the hotel’s soignee air becomes me.

There’s a baffling choice of over twenty natural honeys, plus a slab of honeycomb, at breakfast from which I conclude the art of pique-ing curiosity is a central tenant of contemporary luxury. Hotel Cipriani, located on Giudecca island opened in 1958 when the visionary Giuseppe Cipriani realised the potential of this quiet residential strip of land with its views towards St Marks. Having started out as a bartender, turning into an acclaimed chef, Cipriani senior distilled his wisdom and experience into a sybarite’s paradise. His son, ninety something, Arrigo Cipriani, looking pucker in blue seersucker, can be spotted at lunch outpost, Harry’s Dolci – now this must be a man with a cornucopia of tales to tell. Yet decades of potentially salacious goings on are treated with utter discretion.

Owned and run by Belmond, originally operating as Orient Express Hotels since 1976, the myth and legacy are carefully plumped like feather pillows. Interior architect Peter Marino, chairman of Venetian Heritage Foundation, was charged with the ongoing rejuvenation of the hotel's interiors that got their first reveal in 2025. “The world's great artists, actors, singers and society all mingled at this very special place and my goal is to rekindle that magic,” says Marino. There’s a gorgeous sweet and salty gorgeousness to Marino’s schemes where Dolce Vita era vintage furniture colludes with Grand Venetian rococo, peppered with huge abstract expressionist artworks, mahogany panelling and mirrors everywhere.

Where to eat at the Venice Biennale: Oro

The Michelin starred Oro restaurant is an ode to the shimmery beauty of Venice with its giant windows that deliver a Canaletto vista from every angle, glimmering hand cast Murano glass walls and Marino designed furniture and frolicsome Murano made chandeliers. The menu conceived by head chef Vania Ghedini (who broke off her maternity leave to take up the role offered by Oro’s culinary creative director, Massimo Botturo) is interlaced with Venetian stories that give the dishes a rich educational dimension. Star of the show is a beef carpaccio that pays tribute to the dish created by Giuseppe Cipriani in 1950 in honour of the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio. On the plate, tender meat is veiled by an edible portrait of the artist himself. Cut into the neck and with macabre beauty, the red flesh pops out. Rice, one of the first crops cultivated by Venetians in the 15th century, is championed in a risotto with seaweed broth and horseradish while pan fried sturgeon receives a dousing in caviar, anchovies and garlic. Ghedini delivers an operatic ending in the shape of reductionist tiramisu with gold leaf covered patisserie. Ghedini spends the off season travelling and researching new menus – culinary artistry, like painting, needs the luxury of time. Alongside the signature Carpaccio, Cipriani also delivered the Bellini (that heady concoction of Prosecco and peach puree) at Harry’s Bar in 1948, to sync with a grand retrospective of the Italian master. Now that level of cultural/social capital is world beating. The dreamy hue is dispersed throughout the hotel from the staff uniforms to the striped glass cloths that were delivered to my room at turndown. I can definitely see the splendours of Venice more clearly and appreciate gibigiana – my new favourite word which translates as the dance of light on water.

What to see at the 2026 Venice Biennale 'In Minor Keys'

The National Pavilions in the Giardini offer up a multitude of interpretations of the umbrella theme with artists exploring the vernacular, the role of memory, community and hope. It’s a pleasure to meander but with limited time head to France for Yto Barrada’s delicately hued textile works; to Austria for Florentina Holzinger’s performance installation that investigates ecological destruction and human autonomy; to Egypt for Armen Agop’s sonic, olfactory and sculptural scapes that beckon the cosmos and to Brazil where Diane Lima curates a beguiling display of figurative art and ceramics by Adriana Varejão and Rosana Paulino. Behind the neoclassical façade of Great Britain’s pavilion find Lubainia Himid’s zingy but disquieting portrayals that examine black British migrant life.

labiennale.org/en

Marina Abramović: Transforming Energy at Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia.

The solo show, heralding the artist’s 80th year, bridges five centuries of art placing Abramović's ground-breaking performances (including Rhythm 0, Imponderabilia, and Balkan Baroque) directly alongside Renaissance masterpieces.

gallerieaccademia.it

Lorna Simpson: Third Person at Pinault Collection Punta della Dogana.

The American artist delivers paintings collages and installations made in the last ten years into the serene space to explore the erosion of memory, identity and the blurring of truth and fiction.

pinaultcollection.com

Dries Van Noten Foundation: The Only True Protest is Beauty

The palazzo Pisani Moretta, located on the Grand Canal, in all its rococo splendour offers up a resplendent environment for Van Noten’s new art foundation that he founded with partner Patrick Vangheluwe on purchasing the palazzo from the Sammartini family in 2025. The debut show opened in April champions craft with a brilliant curation of fashion (Comme des Garcons and Christian Lacroix), ceramics, glass, sculpture, photography and furniture that examines the art of making. Don’t miss the gift shop where Van Noten’s perfumes mingle with books and limited edition pieces.

fondazionedriesvannoten.org

Convent Garden of Redentore

For a ruminative walk head to this secret Convent Garden on Giudecca. After restoration and replanting by the Venice Gardens Foundation, the secluded spot features over 1200 plants and views of the lagoon plus there’s a poetic show of Sarah Moon’s photography of Venice.

venicegardensfoundation.org

There exists a direct, 101-year-old correlation between the tradition of the summer blockbuster movie and air conditioning technology – if the two hadn’t collided, Hollywood’s July-August season would be a hot, empty mess and ambient temperatures would make a visit to the cinema feel like two hours in a sauna.

Reel back to 1925, and New York industrialist Willis Carrier had a plan to counter the deleterious effect of high summer on moviegoing, installing a newfangled ‘refrigerating plant’ powering a ‘centrifugal chiller’ in Times Square’s Rivoli Theatre. Carrier had invented the cooling machine in 1902, forming the Carrier Air Conditioner Company of America in 1908. ‘We have invested over $100,000 ($1.8 million in today’s money) in a refrigeration plant to keep you cool and comfortable when the world is sweltering,’ announced the Rivoli’s proud management on its Memorial Day debut. By 1930, more than 300 US picture houses could advertise their buildings as ‘cooled by refrigeration’, offering a respite from stifling conditions outside. Better still, the air conditioning helped keep hot projection equipment from overheating also.

A decade later, the proliferation of holiday air-con begat a new genre for what had traditionally been the slow season for the movie industry: the summer ‘blockbuster’ was named after a particularly lethal brand of World War II bomb capable of taking out a whole block when dropped from aircraft. Hollywood first borrowed the term to describe the 1943 war drama Bombardier. ‘The block-buster of all action-thrill service shows!’ screamed the ads.

In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws became the first bona fide summer blockbuster of the modern era, with punters literally queuing around the block to see the sun, sea and shark spectacle (sometimes two or three times in a single day) and the film busting all records by becoming the first to take $100 million at the box office (adjusting for inflation, that’s around $584 million today).

Over five decades on, many of the original summer blockbusters – Alien, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Batman, Jurassic Park, Star Wars – continue to thrive as highly profitable movie franchises, and continue to owe part of their success to aircon. How cool is that?

France’s regicide revolutionaries wanted to efface every sign of the Ancien Régime, including timekeeping, which went decimal: 10-day weeks, 10-hour days, hours of 100 minutes. It only lasted for an undecimal 12 years, so you can be forgiven for not recognising the date ‘7 Messidor, Year 9’ until it is translated into Gregorian – when it becomes 26 June 1801, a date that is, or should be, engraved into the minds of all watch lovers. On that date, Abraham-Louis Breguet was granted a patent for a device he called the tourbillon and watchmaking has never quite been the same since.

You cannot repeal the laws of physics. But you can, if you are Breguet, be clever about circumventing them. Gravity pulls unevenly on a balance-spring held vertically, as a pocket watch invariably was, distorting its oscillations and gradually impairing its precision. His solution was to place the entire escapement inside a rotating cage making one complete revolution per minute, averaging out the gravitational effect.

This year, Breguet is celebrating the 225th anniversary of the patent with a collection of new watches that will travel the globe. This world tour was the idea of Gregory Kissling, CEO of Montres Breguet. ‘Nobody needs this,’ he says of the new collection, with the calm confidence of a man who knows that need is entirely beside the point. ‘This is a work of art,’ he enthuses.

Kissling feels that, as the tourbillon’s inventor, the Breguet brand has a duty to honour its founder’s most famous creation. Thus, modern Breguet has eight different tourbillon calibres and, for the 225th anniversary, five new watches draw on that extraordinary repertoire.

The Marine Tourbillon Équation Marchante 5887, the most complex watch in the collection, combines tourbillon, perpetual calendar and running equation of time in a 43.9 mm platinum case. Its extraordinary dial carries a phosphorescent miniature painting of the Paris sky at midnight on 26 June 1801.

In contrast, the 35mm Classique Tourbillon 7357, is a far less busy homage to Breguet’s Ref 3350, the first tourbillon wristwatch produced by modern-era Breguet in 1988 – important because it propelled the watchmaker into the premier league, where Kissling would like to see the brand return. In a nice touch, its new calibre, the 187B, preserves the historic frequency of 18,000 vibrations per hour that Breguet himself used.

Moving at a rather more rapid 10 Hz, the Expérimentale 1 provides a glimpse of what Breguet might have achieved with 21st-century methods and materials. Its four-minute tourbillon running at 10 Hz with a constant-force magnetic escapement is certified to within one second per day.

If you are already perplexed by the workings of the tourbillon, then prepare to be baffled by the Classique Tourbillon Sidéral 7255, Breguet’s first-ever flying tourbillon wristwatch. This first is further enhanced with what the manufacture calls a ‘mysterious’ construction putting the tourbillon into motion without it being visibly connected to the rest of the movement, a piece of horological legerdemain made possible by drive gears of anti-reflective sapphire, a technique not used by Breguet for the past two decades.

The Tradition Tourbillon 7047 reaches back even further for its inspiration, uniting Breguet’s tourbillon with a fusée-and-chain transmission, a system so historic that it was sketched by Leonardo da Vinci. Looking like a beautifully finished miniaturised bike chain, it ensures constant torque regardless of remaining power. When da Vinci drew that fusée-and-chain in the late 15th century and when Breguet patented his tourbillon in 1801, neither could have imagined sharing a wrist. In the 7047, they do… two geniuses in one watch.

GOOD TO KNOW

A tourbillon cage comprises 70 or so components weighing less than half a gram in total. Between 1796 and 1829 Breguet and his workshops made 40 tourbillons, a quarter of which were likely to have been used for naval navigation and timekeeping.

With a patination and palette reminiscent of salt flats, the new iteration of the Prada Bonnie bag waves to the abstract beauty of summer landscapes. Where in nature salt forms mineral crusts on sandy surfaces, in the Prada lab, pristine raw linen is painted with pigment, then washed, cut, treated, stitched and assembled with front flap pockets and slender handles. The upshot is an unconventional, tactile design that neatly throws clichés of the seasonal white bag up in the air.

The Bonnie, an elongated east-west shape, was first introduced quietly in 2024 and charmed bag hunters with its handy pockets and archival belt buckle/strap detailing. The latest edition requires multiple processes and a complete set of artisan hand tools, including pliers, a magnifying glass and a weight gauge, to assemble.

While the appearance is breezy and light with its illusionistic textured surface, the densely woven linen is durable and nods to the functional language of knapsacks and camera bags. Indeed, a Leica would happily slip into the front pouch, and a swimsuit and water flask into the top zipper pocket.

GOOD TO KNOW

Consider the Bonnie bag a primer. Come September, Prada will unleash its AW26 collection, which reads as a paean to decay and renewal with patched, slashed, worn and crinkled pieces layering up in ensembles of slip dresses, bloomers and coats. The Bonnie linen is also reminiscent of delectable, chewy torrone nougat and in this complex, agitated era in fashion, there is room for sweetness too.

With a twinge of body nostalgia, I flashback to the streets of Palermo. Looking for a ride to the airport in 35 degrees (and late, very late) I’m sprinting in a pair of Chanel chambray hot pants, a broderie anglaise top and sandals. No cabs but I am turning heads. Legs! I could compose a requiem for youthful, bronzed summer limbs.

Two decades on with inner thighs sagging through collagen breakdown that is part and parcel of ageing, and with a texture that is far from glassy, I embark on a mission to reclaim my legs. My ‘right sized’ goal is not brevity (though the hot pants still fit) but the bliss of shortish shorts; a body that emerges from the swimming pool without the urge to lurch for a pareo, and improved ‘presence’ on the tennis court.

Short of a surgical ‘sock lift’ (an advanced, circumferential inner thigh lift) I want to explore non-invasive procedures. I’m not alone. ‘Collagen breakdown causes skin laxity but there’s a lot that can be done without surgery, using devices, injectables and topical treatments, to the point that the patient might not require surgery,’ says Dr Raul Cetto, medical director at Le Petit Saint, a beauty and wellness sanctuary that occupies an entire townhouse in Mayfair. ‘Aesthetic medicine has advanced a lot and that’s down to our understanding of the ageing process,’ he adds.

While the clinic does not offer surgery, Cetto likes to walk patients through all the options so that they are informed. Skin laxity, a common issue for patients who experience rapid weight loss following GLP-1 drug prescription, is a hot topic. There are two main technologies that help – HIFU (high intensity focused ultrasound) and radiofrequency microneedling treatments. Both methods penetrate into the dermis (SMAS layer) to cause micro injury and ultimately stimulate healing and a renewal of collagen fibres. While HIFU is a one-off treatment (best repeated annually), microneedling is received as a series. ‘With ageing anywhere in the body, the more layers you treat, the better the outcome you get,’ says Cetto. With HIFU, improvements could take six to eight weeks to start showing, while microneedling might see quicker results in tone and tightening. Both treatments cause minor discomfort and it’s important to opt for the latest gen machines, as well as take before and after images to track these subtle changes. The reality is that one needs to prepare before ‘shorts’ season arrives, months ahead. I tried HIFU back in April at a detox retreat in Turkey, costing £450 for the inner-thigh area. The zone is more lifted and looks smoother, but the effects might only be perceptible to my eyes.

While Le Petit Saint doesn’t have HIFU on its treatment list, it does offer microneedling – and biostimulator injectables. ‘Formulations like Radiesse, Juläine or Sculptra are effective in terms of collagen formation and are injected just underneath the skin with a cannula, [with the product] staying there for a number of months as a foreign body,’ says Cetto, who is all for a multi-pronged approach, alongside exercise and nutrition. ‘The slow release causes what your skin reads as a controlled inflammatory reaction and that leads to the production of collagen and elastin,’ he explains. It is a lot to take in. He starts me off with a restorative Triple Detox Light Therapy treatment using far infrared rays, plasma therapy and light therapy in a patented German structure called an iDome. It encourages a deep-tissue detox, a circulation boost (via sweating) and I emerge from this ‘tube’ with a glow and energy boost. It’s great for post-long-haul travel.

There are also topical creams to try. Vol.U.Lift (originally developed for sagging skin from GLP-1 medications) and Adipeau help boost volume, but there is no overnight ‘magic’ – prolonged application is required. However, if embarking on a holiday soon, I would recommend maxing out on lunges, squats and stretches – and booking lymphatic drainage. At Augustinus Bader’s lab on London’s Dover Street, therapist Carmen offers the top-to-toe Rose & Geranium Goddess Body Ritual. It might sound ‘light’ but Carmen starts with a full-body glove scrub, followed by a skilful lymphatic massage that involves feathery strokes to boost the body’s natural detoxification. ‘A light touch pumps the system but you don’t want to overload it as it leads to congestion,’ says Carmen. The 90-minute treatment is topped off by Theragun – a rapidly rotating device that stimulates the muscles. Emerging from the oval, white-and-blue pod-like room feeling lighter in limb, I drink a litre of water en route back to the office to help flush the system through.

I am heading to Tangier this month and, while of course there is always the Bermuda shorts option, I’m still gunning for shortish shorts, assured that leggy improvements are already underway.

These days it is easy to spend hours on the internet researching supplements and start believing that the key to perfect health is ingesting hundreds of different powders, pills and tinctures, each promising incredible benefits – boundless energy, youthful skin, perfect sleep, eternal calm – through a magical blend of ingredients that will transform your life. But a new breed of beauty brands is now entering the market that wants to eliminate the glut of these supposed miracle cures by stripping down your daily needs to a simple, highly effective daily regime.

First on the list is Nære, an all-in-one collagen and supergreens supplement you simply mix into water and drink in the morning. Designed to provide all the cellular nourishment you need for improved collagen production, skin hydration, energy and gut health, the green drink has a pleasant, fruity taste and claims to ensure results you’ll see on skin fast. According to co-founder Nadia Forde, the brand’s singular product, Nectar 01, was born out of frustration with the supplement market. ‘When we looked at the wellness space, we didn’t see clarity, we saw noise. Maintaining a supplement routine had become overwhelming, almost like a second job. That’s why we created Nære. We wanted something that simplified that experience without compromising on ingredient quality and integrity.’

Another new brand in the category is Inora, a line of three liquid supplements to be taken morning, afternoon and night to improve energy, immunity and sleep. Like Nære’s founders, Inora’s Sofia Downing was inspired to create the brand after becoming fed up with the abundance of products promising drastic results, but delivering on very few.

‘Despite taking countless capsules, powders and sachets, I often found the experience inconvenient, uninspiring and disconnected from modern life,’ she says. ‘I wanted something that felt effortless to take, delivered ingredients in a format designed for absorption and was grounded in scientific credibility.’ Developed alongside a medical advisory board of doctors and researchers, the brand’s tinctures are formulated with ingredients such as lion’s mane extract, botanical antioxidants, cherry extract and vitamin B12, and are designed to simply be dropped into the mouth with a pipette at the designated times of day.

Finally, there is Alexis Smart’s Flower Remedies, which are not new to the market, nor are they traditional ‘supplements’ per se, but their effects are so lauded and their method so simple that they deserve to be highlighted. For years, Smart’s flower remedies have a been a mainstay in the routines of thousands, including celebrities like Emma Roberts, Isamaya Ffrench and more, who swear by the powerful results of the brand’s wildflower blends, created by Smart to address everything from rosacea to better focus and self-love.

Smart blends the remedies in California, following the principles of the father of floral remedies, Dr Edward Bach, a British physician who discovered the healing powers of these tinctures after working as a doctor during World War One. Like Bach’s, Smart’s remedies are guided by the belief that homeopathic remedies can balance our emotions and, in doing so, improve our overall health.

For those who are doubtful about how such remedies can impact physical and emotional health, Smart says that, ‘Flower essences are not a New Age or “hippie” therapy. They were discovered by a medical doctor who saw, early on, what conventional medicine is finally recognising. There is a “mind/body connection”.’ Smart recommends taking only one remedy at a time, choosing the one that most aligns with your current needs.

In London, the remedies can be purchased at The Dream Of, a must-visit wellness studio in Shoreditch that’s an insider secret among the city’s most high-profile creatives. Offering healing treatments such as reiki, massage and more, a small edit of the best healing products from around the world is also available, including Smart’s drops and María Cacao from Mexico City.

A roughly one-hour car drive from Rome airport, the 102-key Palazzo Fiuggi is set within a private park, framed by hills, forests and the resort town for which it’s named. Since 2021, and following extensive refurbishment and restoration, the property has been operating as a luxury wellness resort, replete with a 64,000-square-feet spa, and a team of practitioners that includes doctors, personal trainers and physiotherapists. It’s a new era for the art nouveau-style edifice, and one that befits its illustrious history: opened in 1913 as the Grand Hotel Palazzo della Fonte, it was the first hotel in continental Europe equipped with a swimming pool. Its list of guests too stands out; among the names are King Vittorio Emanuele III and Pablo Picasso. Later, the stars of Cinecittà and Hollywood cinema stayed here, including Sophia Loren and Ingrid Bergman.

The retreat is part of a spa town built on Fiuggi water, a low-mineral water that is rich in fulvic and humic acids, calcium and magnesium. Fiuggi water is known to soften kidney stones and to be a natural diuretic, meaning it can be used to flush out metabolic waste, acids and heavy metals. Its use as a therapy can be dated back to the Renaissance, as reported by Michelangelo.

Cups of Fiuggi water are still drunk at Palazzo Fiuggi today; a daily ritual in between hikes up and across the surrounding mountains, exercise classes in a gym furnished with Technogym equipment and hand-blown Murano glass chandeliers, and other, mostly one-on-one, treatments from a menu of options that includes both holistic therapies and medical advancements, such as plasma light therapy, prescribed to invigorate skin.

Deep Detox, Regenerate, and Longevity are the names of some of the programmes to check in for, most of which require a commitment of at least seven nights. Wellness Break is slightly shorter – a three-night option exists – and its itinerary includes expert consultations, deep-tissue massage, a Kobido lifting facial massage, a hammam ritual and thalassotherapy. Three-step hydrotherapy appointments are a guest favourite: a Dead Sea mineral mud body wrap follows warm hydrotherapy bathing, with a massaging shower being the final phase. Each programme is dotted with dishes made from organic, locally sourced ingredients, and created by three-star Michelin chef Heinz Beck, who also trained in natural bioenergies and naturopathy.

‘At Palazzo Fiuggi, our goal is not simply to help guests feel better, it is to help them discover what feeling truly well can be. We want them to leave with renewed energy, mental clarity and a deeper understanding of their own health,’ says Dr Fabrizio Di Salvio, the property’s head doctor and co-creator of the Palazzo Fiuggi method, a special blend of nutrition, medical consultations, treatments and the famous natural spring water. ‘Most importantly, we want them to feel empowered, equipped with the knowledge, habits and motivation to continue investing in their wellbeing long after they have left our doors.’

palazzofiuggi.com

Think of British jewellery brand Boodles and a few things spring to mind: its Raindance collection (a piece sits in the permanent collection of the V&A); the pretty pink packaging; the annual garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show; and a light-filled store on London’s New Bond Street. But as the Boodles logo reveals, this is not jewellery in its infancy. Under the lettering is the year ‘1798’, the date that the original company was founded in Liverpool. At 228 years old, Boodles has a far larger (and longer) story to tell – and the brand is ready to share it.

Later this year, a new Boodles Townhouse will open at 23 Old Bond Street, with a dedicated space for an archive, filled with objects, documents, sketches, silverware and (of course) jewellery that charts the history of a house that’s impressively and unusually a sixth-generation business still owned and run by the Wainwright family.

The archive will comprise two spaces, in a neat division of the brand’s heritage. A library will chart the early years when the company started in Liverpool as a traditional English jeweller selling antiques, silver, clocks, watches and fine jewellery. A cabinet of curiosities will be filled with all things Boodles, including brochures, invitations, packaging and silverware from across the years. Sketches and designs for past Grand National trophies (Boodles has been involved with the historic race since the 1930s) will be shown, while more personal items, including a family photo album from the 1960s that documents Anthony Wainwright’s travels (and would later inspire a collection named A Family Journey), will be on display.

In another space, the focus will be on Boodles’ design heritage. It was only in 1990 that the company started designing jewellery in-house and the evolution of collections such as Raindance, Wonderland and The Poetry of Landscape – the last riffing on the patterns and shapes of the landscape of the British Isles – will be explained here. Alongside a dedicated archivist looking after around 25 pieces of jewellery and approximately 600 archive objects and documents, the company has also enlisted the help of the National Museums Liverpool to help curate and design the museum-standard display.

Anyone visiting the new townhouse will be welcome to experience the space, as marketing director Honour Wainwright explains: ‘In recent years, we have placed a greater emphasis on documenting, preserving and celebrating our history through this growing archive. Clients will now be able to discover and hear about the unique history behind the brand and the inspiration behind our collections.’ But, perhaps more importantly, it already serves an important purpose for the brand; as Wainwright says, ‘It’s a valuable source of inspiration. Looking back often sparks ideas for future creations and there are already discussions around developing a high-jewellery collection inspired by our heritage.’ Delving into the past to future-proof what lies ahead? Boodles has it covered.

GOOD TO KNOW

Comprising more than 30 diamond-and-platinum pieces, the 2015 high-jewellery collection Pas de Deux celebrated Boodles’ support and long-standing relationship with the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House. Pieces such as the necklace, bracelet and earrings photographed for these pages capture the shapes and shadows thrown by dancers on stage.

When is handwritten more suitable than typed? A letter over WhatsApp message? Best ask Rosie Huntington-Whiteley: the English model, actor and entrepreneur recently introduced Mémoire, a lifestyle brand she co-founded. The precise edit of products includes photo frames, journals and luggage tags cut from leather, while a scented candle comes in a hand-blown glass vessel. Then there is stationery: a quartet of sets comprise correspondence cards and matching lined envelopes made from fine Crane cotton paper. Stationery can be further personalised with initials or a full name rendered in the business’ own Mémoire Muse calligraphy script.

‘Writing letters has always felt like one of the kindest and most personal ways to express emotion,’ says Huntington-Whiteley. ‘In a world where so much communication happens instantly, receiving a letter shows a moment of time spent and consideration that is hard to replicate in a text message. For me, expressing gratitude through a handwritten note feels less fleeting and more meaningful, creating a lasting connection between the writer and the recipient.’

GOOD TO KNOW

Mémoire’s offering is grouped into four creative worlds. Among them are High Castle, Love Birds and Secret Garden. Seen above is a correspondence card and envelope from Huntington-Whiteley’s Glass Lake chapter, its lining printed with an artwork finished by the studio of French painter and sculptor Pierre Kittler.

ILIA Beauty was founded in 2011 by Sasha Plavsic, who pioneered 'clean makeup' after struggling with skin issues. Now her home-grown, award-winning brand has over a million followers on Instagram and is stocked in global behemoths such as Sephora. Here we meet the entrepreneur to find out what makes her tick, from music in the morning to her favourite foods.

What sound would you like to wake up to?

Tropical birds.

What gets you dancing?

Bad Bunny is definitely bringing out the dance moves in our home lately.

Which singer or song do you never tire of hearing and why?

California Dreamin’ by Bobby Womack. I spent so many years there and still visit often. The song has soul and makes me smile.

Which smell takes you back to childhood?

The smell of my mom’s Chanel N°19 perfume. It’s green, exotic, fresh and sharp in its top notes. These days, I prefer green notes in perfume and I believe it’s because of the association.

Describe a dish that’s always stayed with you.

I have Serbian heritage and there’s a traditional dish from the region, called Ćevapi. It’s a spicy sausage that’s hard to put into words unless you’ve tried it yourself, and one of those flavours that really stays with you after the first bite.

What is the taste of spring?

Fresh and floral.

Olive or a twist?

Twist.

What is a dish you love to cook for yourself?

A friend recently passed along her smash burger recipe and it was a hit.

What is your go-to dinner party dish?

For a dinner party, it’s all about effortless cooking like citrus-and-herb-marinated chicken on the grill. It’s simple, loved by everyone and perfectly suited to relaxed, al fresco evenings.

Silk or cashmere?

Silk in the summer and cashmere in the winter.

Marble or wood?

Wood.

Do you have a favourite piece of furniture at home?

I really love our yellow [Ligne Roset] Togo couch, which I bought a couple of years ago. It’s cosy and always makes me smile with its pop of colour.

What is the first thing you see in the morning?

My dog, at the foot of my bed.

Describe the view from where you are right now.

Serene. I’m in my living room in Vancouver on a rainy day with a fire going.

Is there a view you can’t quite forget?

The landscape on New Zealand’s North Island. It’s slightly tropical and full of colour. It’s been over 12 years since I’ve been, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

What sound do you wake up to?

My alarm clock in the morning.

In London, 16 New Bond Street is now home to Hermès. The sprawling site is made up of six Grade II listed properties, most dated to the 1770s, covering nearly 2,000 square metres. Realised with RDAI, a Parisian architecture agency, the firm’s new UK flagship is fully interconnected; its features include a freshly extended central spiral staircase designed by Norman Foster, a Victorian lift and terraced gardens.

Creations drawn from Hermès’ 16 métiers, or craft divisions, which range from tableware to belts, are on display in dedicated areas: flacons of in-house perfumer Christine Nagel’s Twilly scent can be found in a beauty space wallpapered with a bespoke floral design by London-based artist Katie Scott, while the walls of the equestrian department are clad in marquetry of straw and horsehair.

There are artworks throughout: roughly 50 pieces, many drawn from the collection of house founder Émile Hermès and his great-grandsons: Axel Dumas (CEO since 2013) and his cousin, the maison’s artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas, each of whom have been pivotal in the shaping of 16 New Bond Street.

In addition to silks, pieces from Nadège Vanhée’s womenswear collection and Hermès footwear authored by Pierre Hardy, other 16 New Bond Street ‘finds’ include a new framing of the Bolide bag. The dome-shaped bag was originally introduced in 1923, when it made fashion history as the first bag to be fitted with a metal zip closure. This year, a new interpretation is suitably industrial in inspiration: the bag can be worn on the shoulder, courtesy of an interwoven jewel chain assembled by hand from 23 metal links adorned with golden nail heads.

GOOD TO KNOW

Hermès has had a foothold in London since 1961 when it opened its first boutique in Piccadilly Arcade. Further London addresses followed, from Sloane Street (opened in 1987) to The Royal Exchange, a 2011 addition of bijoux dimensions. With the opening of 16 New Bond Street, London is now the location of both the smallest and the largest Hermès boutiques worldwide.

If Robert Redford’s on-screen contribution to men’s style is usually regarded as being period pieces The Sting (1973) or The Great Gatsby (1974), this is to allow the serious oversight of his more everyman role, just over 50 years ago, in the thriller Three Days of the Condor. There’s his combination of hiking boots, boot-cut jeans and tweed jacket. But the star of the show? That chambray shirt.

Sure, Redford’s CIA analyst wears his with loose-knitted tie. Yet it’s the very fabric of his shirt that resonates with a counter-cultural cool; that manages to be both orderly and relaxed in a way, say, neither a crisper, more formal poplin, nor the crumpled, floaty look of linen can pull off. If the former is somehow always at the office, the latter is always at the beach club.

‘That’s the thing about a chambray shirt – it’s soft but still looks sharp,’ agrees the menswear designer Oliver Spencer. ‘It’s the fabric’s balance of lightweight, slightly slubby texture and dryness that means it’s cool for the summer but hardy enough for the winter too. Chambray just makes for a really good blue shirt. And to my mind it has to be blue. That’s the traditional look.’

By ‘traditional’, Spencer is referring to chambray’s origins in workwear and the military – a history that helps make it shirting’s answer to denim, with the same touch of blue-collar machismo. Chambray, after all, may have originated as a light-blue linen fabric in the French town of Cambrai, way back in the mid-1500s, but three centuries later, and now made from cotton, it became the go-to choice for farm labourers.

They appreciated it for being hard-wearing but also breathable – in a chambray shirt you could stay as cool as if wearing just your undergarments, but had more protection from the sun. That same benefit would soon appeal to ranch hands – chambray would become a default choice for cowboys and, in fact, Redford’s shirt is all sawtooth pockets and pearl poppers – as it might to sailors. In 1901 the US Navy selected chambray as the shirting fabric of its standard-issue uniform, remaining as such for enlisted men right through to the end of World War Two. The officer class, of course, wore khaki.

It’s perhaps a little ironic then that, like so many workmanlike fabrics, it took upwards appropriation by the students of Ivy League universities during the late 1950s and 60s for chambray to be repurposed as something far more patrician – giving its wearer the effect of hard physical work without, you know, actually needing to leave the well-stocked library. Today, labourers wear polyester overalls and high-vis, while chambray is more Ralph Lauren or Lora Piana. Let’s just say that chambray still works very hard when it comes to looking good.

GOOD TO KNOW

The chambray shirt also dressed the workers of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression before becoming the definitive garment of America’s industrialisation. In fact, so closely associated with manual labour did chambray become that Elvis Presley would wear it for a film role but reportedly refused to do so off-set, so much did it remind him of his dirt poor sharecropper roots.

Walk through the doors of La Fabrique du Temps with your eyes tight shut and you’ll realise which brand runs it the second you open them.

If the Cocoon chairs suspended from the double-height ceiling don’t give the game away and the distinctive style of the modular sofa doesn’t ring any bells, then the monogrammed furniture and immaculately tailored reception staff are sure to do it – because this is where Louis Vuitton makes its watches.

From the outside, it’s just one of many modern, largely nondescript buildings on an industrial estate in the Geneva suburb of Meyrin; inside, it’s where the oldest and newest aspects of fine watchmaking come together to create technically brilliant, exquisitely finished and irresistibly covetable timekeepers.

Which is impressive, since Louis Vuitton only got properly serious about horology once the 21st century had well and truly turned.

The French maison first dabbled with time in 1910 with the Star travel alarm clock and followed it up with the Totem wristwatch designed in the 1930s by the founder’s grandson Gaston-Louis Vuitton – after which there was a half-century horological hiatus until the 1988 launch of the Monterey I travel watch, guided by Italian architect Gae Aulenti.

Following its limited-edition run (today an original typically trades for upwards of €250,000 due to its rarity) the Monterey I was succeeded in the early 2000s by the Tambour which, with its distinctive, drum-shaped case and multiple variations, proved that there was a place for Louis Vuitton in the world of serious watches.

Its success led the maison first to partner with haute horlogerie workshop La Fabrique du Temps in 2007, and then to buy it outright in 2011 before purchasing local dial maker Léman Cadran a year later.

Key to the Fabrique du Temps acquisition were the co-founders and watchmakers who founded it: Michel Navas and Enrico Barbasini agreed to stay on in order both to run it and to enable it to evolve into the renowned centre of horological excellence that it has become today.

In the early days, just 38 people worked at La Fabrique du Temps, but now there are 230 spread between the two ‘FDTLV’ buildings in Meyrin, where the operation was consolidated in 2014. It’s here The Blend discovered the oldest and the newest of watchmaking techniques operating in tandem to ensure the survival of ancient crafts and the development of new ones.

In a ground-floor room, for example, you’ll find five machines made from burnished wood, old steel and warm brass, the oldest dating from 1830 and the newest from 1935.

Installed at the behest of LVMH boss Bernard Arnault’s 27-year-old son Jean (Louis Vuitton’s director of watches), they are used to manually engrave components with exquisite, traditional finishes such as guilloché, Clous de Paris and perlage.

Such details help the brand’s creations to qualify for the prestigious Poinçon de Genève or Geneva Seal, a hard-won, independent mark of excellence only available to watches made within the canton.

‘The finishes from CNC [computer numerical control] machining or stamping are nothing like as good as you get with this old equipment,’ explains Anasse El Abid, who sources them from collectors and spends up to three years restoring them.

He and two other ‘guillocheurs’ who work on them consult with Fabrique du Temp Louis Vuitton’s creative director Matthieu Hegi when a new design is in the pipeline, in order to determine exactly which decorations can be created using the traditional machines – which feature only two concessions to modernity: a high-powered magnifier and a vacuum pipe to suck up gold shavings for recycling.

Ancient and modern come together, too, in the case-making department, where 3D printers are used to create prototypes in a day, compared with the several weeks it takes to do the same using conventional drawings and hard metal.

Once the shape is decided and the cases hewn by machine to tolerances of 10 microns, these are hand-polished and decorated or finished using state-of-the-art laser-engraving technology.

A clear emphasis throughout is on the importance of hand craftsmanship – both in terms of form and function and because anyone paying up to €4 million for a watch is likely buying it more as a work of art than an instrument with which to tell the time.

While the ‘entry-level’ Tambour wristwatch starts at around £19,000, such seven-figure sums are reserved for Fabrique du Temp. Louis Vuitton’s jewels in the crown: the remarkable automaton pocket watches conceived by Navas and Barbasini that debuted in 2021 with the skull-adorned Carpe Diem, winner of that year’s Audacity prize at the prestigious Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.

Two years later, the pair unveiled the Tambour Opera Automata, this time inspired by the Chinese Sichuan opera’s Bian Lian, a theatrical art involving the almost imperceptibly quick-changing of facial masks bearing multiple expressions – replicated using a 426-part movement to power five animations on the hand-enamelled dial.

These highly limited pieces are rarely available to see up close (they are either commissioned by VIP collectors or quickly snapped up by them) but they remain true masterpieces of watchmaking; a showcase for the engravers of Fabrique du Temp Louis Vuitton, the enamellers who work with more than 2,000 powders of different colours, the dial makers who require 200 kilos of mother-of-pearl to create just 10 dials, and the individual master watchmakers who spend two months assembling each such automaton piece by piece from start to finish.

GOOD TO KNOW

As part of its drive to preserve horological excellence, Louis Vuitton is collaborating with five top independent makers over a five-year period to create very small editions of very special watches. The first was Rexhep Rexhepi, the second Kari Voutilainen and the most recent, Denis Flageolet of De Bethune. All proceeds from sales of the watches go to support the biennial Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives, which was inaugurated in 2024. The first winner was Raúl Pagès, with the second being announced earlier this year as young French duo Alexandre Hazemann and Victor Monnin

In the medieval city of Bergamo, is a design store that creatives head to like pilgrims. They come to Daniela Gregis, who has been on Piazza Vecchia for almost 30 years, for her thoughtful interpretation of timeless style that bends like a willow in the hurricane of trends. Here, noble, simple fabrics – cotton, silk, linen and cashmere (often remnants or deadstock) – are wrought into playful, elegant shapes showing off their delicate hand finishing. Her silhouettes might have jettisoned into the current day from the 16th century.

‘Our style is supposed to be practical and feel-good – it is not about having to be “someone”. In the making, we have to like and love the item so that we can share that invitation to wear it,’ says Gregis. Over the decades she has gradually evolved the business, building out a lexicon of styles including patchwork cocoon skirts, high-waisted gathered dresses, voluminous trousers, snug wool jackets and tabard tops. ‘Some shapes are born from the fabric; we respect the material and want to cut it less,’ she adds.

Self-taught, Gregis grew up knitting, crocheting and sewing with her family circle. Experimentation, invention and the urge to emphasise the beauty of yarns and cloth is her drive and also an ethos. She became a pioneer of circular fashion long before the mood and necessity hit the mainstream. Yet, at the same time, she strives to move things forward, create new techniques, fabrics (working with historic Italian mills) and shapes. ‘We evolve every item because from the imperfect comes ideas for new items: the wish to have something better, so it is a natural process,’ adds Gregis. The acceptance of change being part of human nature, rather than enforced through trend cycles, is a compelling one.

A Bergamo native, Gregis showed her first collection at a local restaurant, creating looks for all the staff and inviting a few journalists into her world. Over the years, the brand has attracted a devout following. Marisa Lombardi’s boutique in Milan was one of the first stockists and the range can now be found at stores including Mouki Mou and Dover Street Market, in both London and Ginza. The brand was later accepted onto the official Camera Nazionale Milan Fashion Week calendar, where her seasonal shows always offer up a neat counterpoint to the bombast of ‘glamour’. For her AW26/27 collection entitled Briciole (crumbs), Gregis chose the Oratory of Passion, in the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio complex. One of the regular models in her sunny, lo-fi presentations is 82-year-old Benedetta Barzini. The Italian icon – journalist, author, feminist – is an ideal pin-up for these ageless designs.

Right now, Gregis is happy that she and her team (a small community including her daughter Marta) are able to grow and keep going. The work spaces are scattered around the city, which the team move around ‘like a house’. But you have to keep evolving to keep fashion slow. ‘When time is not running fast, it means there’s something wrong,’ she smiles.

In jewellery, tones of white are ever-present. Diamonds come in brown, grey, pink or yellow, but it is white that remains the most frequently set gem. White pearls, too, are seen more often than their anthracite or black Tahitian counterparts. What draws designers to the clean, icy hue? And as white remains popular, which new materials do makers embrace to move the needle?

‘I have always fostered the purity of white through my work, not only by using diamonds, but combining natural materials such as mother-of-pearl, tagua seed and white marble,’ the Brazilian jeweller Fernando Jorge writes in an email. At his London showroom, Jorge presents pieces such as his High Fluid Pebbles ring, made from white marble and rose gold, set with white diamonds. ‘White jewels become a true focal point, reflecting, refracting and bringing life and radiance to the wearer, as well as a very distinguished elegance,’ Jorge enthuses. ‘White earrings or necklaces have a unique ability to draw in light, enhancing and brightening facial features.’

At Boucheron, the Parisian heritage brand’s Écume ring is carved from clear rock crystal, matched with white gold and diamonds. Rock crystal, the most pure variety of quartz, also features in designs by Lily Gabriella. Her Ether ring is geometric and multifaceted. ‘Working with rock crystal is an exercise in precision, it reveals everything,’ says Gabriella. ‘A delicate interplay of transparency and reflection, it becomes a sculptural study in pure form, capturing light like frozen water.’

At Pomellato, a selection of Nudo rings, pendants and earrings are topped with quartz in a milky white shade. While it’s white mother-of-pearl with a smooth matte finish that makes the cut in the Athens workshop of Greek jewellery brand Lito. And elsewhere, pearls and diamonds, the two stalwarts of white-tone jewellery, have inspired innovative creations.

In the hands of jewellery designer Victoire de Castellane, the long-standing artistic director of Dior Joaillerie, pearls become playful accents to serious gems. For a ring from Milly Dentelle, a high-jewellery collection inspired by Christian Dior’s bucolic bolthole Milly-la-Forêt, outside Paris, white and warm yellow diamonds with lashings of small pearls appear placed by chance. More industrial in influence is a Biela chain-link bracelet by Brazilian designer Ara Vartanian. Here, white diamonds are framed in white gold. The result is minimal, yet eye-catching.

LOUIS VUITTON

Made up of 110 pieces grouped into 11 creative themes, Mythica is Louis Vuitton’s largest and most ambitious high jewellery collection to date. At the maison’s design studios in Paris, notions of transformation, triumph, challenges overcome and myth quests were all discussed and resulted in pieces such as the Totem necklace seen here. Expressed in white gold, yellow gold and white diamonds, the standout collier is graphic in design: look closer and spot a repeat chevron pattern of the arrow-like letter V for Vuitton.

HERMÈS

A new high jewellery collection by Hermès is titled HB9, for Haute Bijouterie 9. The Parisian maison’s heritage is famously anchored in all things equestrian – it is said that Hermès’ very first client was the horse. And so HB9 is rich in equine symbols. Other pieces draw from archival designs, such as belts, straps and buckles.

CHAUMET

Place Vendôme stalwart Chaumet, whose clients have included European monarchy, as well as royal households further afield, has long found creative inspiration in flora and in fauna. The maison’s 2026 thematic high jewellery collection is named A Journey Through Nature. Divided into three umbrella chapters, pieces interpret an array of plant life, from the flowers and pods of the vanilla planifolia orchid, to star anise, peppercorns and even the aroma of coffee. The collection’s opening chapter, Botanic Freshness, includes this white gold Tea Field ring.

DIOR JOAILLERIE

Dior unveiled Diorissima, a high jewellery collection of 141 small treasures, at a special event in Venice earlier this year. The collection is designed by Victoire de Castellane, creative director of Dior Joaillerie. Texturally influenced by the art of collage, Diorissima is divided into a trio of thematic worlds, including Lush Vegetation and Mysterious Constellations. Aquatic Depths includes a ring that stands out. Sculptural, the design nods to coral reefs and aquatic flowers found beneath the water’s surface; it shimmers and glistens with pavé-set diamonds and lacquer.

TIFFANY & CO

‘This work is, above all, a game of composition and freedom.’ So says Nathalie Verdeille, the senior vice president chief artistic officer of Tiffany & Co., describing how the US brand’s 2026 Blue Book high jewellery collection came to be. Entitled Hidden Garden, the collection’s pieces are anchored in the work of Jean Schlumberger, the design history-making French jewellery creative who closely partnered with Tiffany & Co. from 1956 onwards. It was Schlumberger who first conceived of the Tiffany & Co. Bird on a Rock brooch, a narrative gem that Verdeille, alongside the Tiffany Design Studio, revisited with this Blue Book collection. The result is a flock of Paradise Birds, wherein ‘each stone became the starting point for a story. Before us were all the colours of the rainbow: fire opals from Mexico, Australian boulder opals, spessartine from Madagascar’, she reminisces. ‘We looked at them like precious eggs, wondering what extraordinary birds might emerge from within.’

CINDY CHAO

The work of Taiwanese jewellery artist Cindy Chao features in museum collections. In London, a seven-petal peony brooch cast from titanium and set with rubies and diamonds is part of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s holdings. Peonies bloom in spring; a new brooch by Chao is decidedly more autumnal in inspiration, depicting a maple leaf.

BUCCELLATI

Serenissima, a group of high jewellery creations by Italian master maker Buccellati, is an ode to Venice, capturing the city’s visual splendour in precious metals and high carat stones. As is always the case at Buccellati, artisanal techniques lead the way; here, white gold is worked to appear as intricate lace, a seemingly featherweight bracelet frosted with 825 white diamonds.

CHANEL

Counting 85 pieces, Chanel’s new Signes & Symboles high jewellery collection is centred on motifs, good luck charms and mascots that were dear to Coco Chanel. Cue comets, lions, camellia flowers and stars. Meanwhile, rings from the collection’s Talisman Constrasté chapter play into another Chanel forte, the use of a colour palette that is elegantly minimal.

BVLGARI

Unveiled at the 17th-century Milanese Villa Arconati earlier this year, Eclettica, a new collection by Roman house Bvlgari, counts more than 150 high jewellery marvels. Named for the Italian word for ‘eclectic’, the collection draws from various epochs, geographies and stylistic movements. Here, the Eclectic Embrace High Jewellery necklace pays tribute to Moorish mosaics and arabesques.

VAN CLEEF & ARPELS

Ancient Egypt has been a creative influence for the designers and makers at Van Cleef & Arpels for more than a century, as the maison’s archive attests. There, pieces exist from the 1920s that drew from the art and culture of Ancient Egypt, created in the wake of the 1922 rediscovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Vice versa, the Van Cleef & Arpels pieces purchased by the Egyptian royal family inspire to this day, too. It’s this penchant that Fascinating Egypt, a new high jewellery collection of 180 creations, nods to. Research gave shape to figurative elements – pharaohs, details of temple architecture, Cleopatra or lotus flowers – colour combinations and shapes.

Collaged images by Parick Waugh

In the family of Hermès Birkin bags, the Shoulder Birkin is a rare species recognisable by its east-west proportions and sporty mien. Eschewing the bulk and volume of its predecessors, Jean Paul Gaultier (creative director of Hermès between 2003-2010) introduced the style in 2004. It went on to become a cult insider buy, handmade in small quantities until production ceased in 2013.

With a flurry of interest in the horizontal east-west style triggered by newcomers such as Alaïa’s Teckel design, Hermès reintroduced the style in 2024, giving it a new moniker: the Shoulder Birkin Light 29. The design team under Nadège Vanhéee recalibrated its dimensions and scale, making it easier to wear under the shoulder with its new span of 29cm (or alternatively in the crook of the arm or hand). Consider it a cabriolet of handbags – dynamic, sleek, light.

Currently up for auction at Christie’s is this immaculate version, which is in Grade I condition and in a lovely warm putty shade called Biscuit Evercolor. The generous strap drop, gleaming gold hardware and signature padlock emphasise the class of this bag, which would have been handmade in the Hermès workshops in Pantin, just outside Paris. It also boasts a leather lining and two interior pockets, and partners particularly well with lean, supple tailoring, but equally well with denim.

The elusive nature of the style (not many enter the secondary market as clients love to hang on to them) is reflected in the estimate of $18,000-$26,000. True connoisseurs order removable liners to protect the interior and massage the leather to keep it supple and fit. The Shoulder Birkin Light, like every Birkin, demands attention and care, but equally attracts admiration. Join the bidding?

The Dish is a monthly column that shines a light on London's most thrilling plates.

In the midst of a borderline apocalyptic heatwave that’s been regularly making central London hotter than coastal Spain, the only reasonable way to eat is as if you were on holiday. July is not a time for British stodge (unless it comes in picnic form). Instead, I’ve spent the last month ordering any variation of crudo on the menu, and dining like a Mediterranean.

Crudo, the Italian term for ‘raw’, covers a wide variety of specialities from carpaccio to tartare and ceviche, and London is brimming with exemplary versions of each. At Legare - a neighbourhood Italian tucked away on the cobbled streets of Shad Thames near Tower Bridge - make a beeline for their trout variation if it’s on the weekly rotating specials menu. Plump little cubes of pale pink fish with a light citrus dressing undercutting the richness of the fish, it’s the perfect foil to their plates of rustic pappardelle and olive oil-drenched panzanella.

At MAAI by Nikita, the recently opened Clapham restaurant from Great British Menu winner Nikita Pathakji, their cured sea bream could be hung in a gallery. Where many of their impeccable flavours - a mix of British ingredients and globally-influenced ideas - pack a punch, their sea bream is a light and mellow moment of subtlety. Studded with cubes of green apple and bathed in a citrus ponzu dressing with a smattering of nigella seeds, it doesn’t shout, but it makes its presence known amongst a truly standout menu.

On an almost intolerably hot Sunday afternoon, however, I found myself walking down Stoke Newington’s bustling Church Street and into Escocesa. Opened in 2015, with chefs from Barcelona and Bilbao via Soho’s Barrafina, it has managed that rarest of feats among an ever-changing east London and maintained its tenure for more than a decade. With a precise MO of taking Scottish seafood and fusing it with Spanish technique, there’s a charm to the space as soon as you walk through the door and take a high seat at the open kitchen bar. A clutch of oysters and fresh seafood sits on ice behind the counter; between 4pm and 5pm, they shut the kitchen so that staff can sit down together for a meal. It’s unpretentious but rings with authenticity.

Their tortilla, studded with fat, juicy prawns inside its oozing midst, levels up a classic dish. Hot fried slices of aubergine are drizzled with sugar cane honey and studded with walnuts. However it’s their tuna tartare, infused with sesame and accompanied by a fresh avocado mousse, that is Escocesa’s standout. Fresh, zingy with lime, and spiked with thin slivers of crispbread, they’ve not reinvented the wheel but honed in on the essence of its simple genius. Fresh, light fish balanced with nutty savouriness and citrus piquancy; under the blessed blast of a fan, for a brief moment I felt like I was on the continent rather than a few tube stops away from the City.

This month’s special mention - though not in London and not fished from the sea - must also go to Martin Carabott of Sussex’s Gravetye Manor, and his winning garden salad, picked as part of Chapel Down’s Taste of England menu. The most impossibly pretty plate I have possibly ever seen, showcasing a stunning mix of 25 vegetables, herbs and edible flowers, I’ve already booked to dine there properly as Carabott is clearly the Monet of the herbaceous world.

Escocesa, 67 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0AR. Book a table.

There are many aspects of hotels that can be labelled as offering added value, or, as they are more commonly known, ‘experiences’ – beehives, boat trips, Augustinus Bader facials, to name just a few. But when you need something that completely transports you, nothing can compete with a vintage-car collection as a truly immersive experience.

At Hotel Al Moudira in Luxor, it’s as if the Beatles song Drive My Car has come to life. Indeed, it’s a great song to blast as you cruise along in its 1968 stretch Mercedes 200, the wind blowing in your hair. A beautiful place, sprawling and lost in a time warp, Al Moudira is a haven of antiques, thanks to its owner, Florian Amereller, a keen collector of museum-worthy pieces salvaged from various palaces in Alexandria. His collection of treasures extends to the garage, which are filled with a svelte line-up of retro automobiles that includes two 1980s Land Rover Defenders and a 1960 VW Karmann Ghia, along with the aforementioned Merc – surely the most memorable airport pick-up imaginable.

While all the great and most celebrated hotels offer that glorious, dreamy feeling that you are somehow starring in your own personal movie, at Belmond’s Villa San Michele, just outside Florence, that feeling comes to life as you drive up to the sun-baked, collonaded entrance in an ice-blue 1965 Porsche. Here, a vintage-car moment allows you to really feel the cobbled landscape of this Renaissance city in the most wonderfully nostalgic way. The concierge, Adriano Pecoraro, is amazing at piecing together the most storied vintage rides, such as 1980s Ferraris and the classic Ape Calessino, not to mention the best addresses to seek out, from the nearby ruined temple dedicated to Minerva, to the statuary wonders of the Villa Bardini.

Meanwhile, not far away in Volterra, in the Tuscan countryside, lies Borgo Pignano, a divine eco retreat that houses a museum-quality collection of cars and Vespa scooters that celebrates the golden age of Italian design: included is a 1957 Fiat 500, alongside 1930s Gloria Garibaldina bicycles and a 1954 Ducati. You can’t take any out for excursions, but just to see them in such surroundings is enough (although you can explore the estate on horseback should you wish).

And while it’s a wrench to leave its loungers, the hairpin roads that surround the Maybourne Riviera in the South of France are made for a Jaguar 1969 E-Type or 1978 Rolls Royce Corniche, both of which can be magicked up by its concierge, working closely with Sunset Ride, suppliers of the most immaculate and lauded cars on the Côte d’Azur. Yes, the roads here still manage to conjure up scenes straight from Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief perfectly — especially when revving up to the hotel’s La Môme Riviera beach club, right down by the water’s edge in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.

GOOD TO KNOW

Another landscape made for epic road trips has to be Ireland and the Wild Atlantic Way, especially when you’re sitting in a 1936 Buick Roadmaster Convertible, the star attraction at Sheen Falls Lodge, a Relais & Châteaux wonder in Kenmare, Ireland, which has been part of the collection since 1992.

Since it was first used in Ancient Egypt, the hairbrush has barely evolved beyond some bristles on a stick. However, a number of new brands have recently launched brushes that offer a novel approach to the everyday item.

Most interesting is Killabrush, a new business that creates brushes with built-in antimicrobial technology to kill the bacteria that build up on brushes no matter how many serums, supplements or treatments you use. Killabrush is designed to support hair from the very first touchpoint, bringing a skincare-level approach to haircare.

Another new brand in the category is Orbit, a line of three pocket-sized combs – an afro comb, a wide-tooth comb for thicker hair and a fine-tooth comb – designed by London creative studio Forestalgia. Made from recycled acetate, the circular shape of Orbit’s lightweight combs, while aesthetically pleasing, also serves to reduce wrist strain and cover more surface area than traditional combs.

Finally, beloved French brush brand La Bonne Brosse celebrates summer with the launch of its Lagoon Blue colourway for five of its brush types: The Universal Brush, The Essential Daily Brush, The Indispensable Soft Brush, The Massaging Detangling Hairbrush and The Intense Brush. Each is designed for a different purpose, and the brushes are handmade at a small atelier just outside of Paris with keratin-rich boar bristles to keep hair looking healthy and feeling grease-free between washes.

Scented candles are all well and good, but in the summertime, incense really is the only way to go. After all, there’s something ritualistic and feel-good about lighting up a scented stick; there’s a satisfying sense of calmness and renewal that comes from watching a plume of floral smoke drift into the air.

Incense, in a word, is hot. Specifically Japanese incense, which has a much cleaner and lighter scent for summer than, say, Tibetan or Indian sticks, which veer more towards patchouli and muskier florals.

Take Le Labo, which has just launched its sultry and seductive Santal 26 scent into perfumed Japanese sticks, or Astier de Villatte, whose rarefied boxes of incense are made on the Japanese island of Awaji, and famed for a delicate scent of driftwood, resins, jasmine and immortelle. There are more options by Spanish powerhouse Loewe – scented with notes of ivy and delivered with a special terracotta vessel for burning – and by Perfumer H, who is inspired by niche smells such as ink, moss or ash. With its purple-hued Witchy Incense, Vyrao promises to impart courage and creativity, through a blend of orris, rose, frankincense, musk and nutmeg.

One of the most exciting launches of recent years, and another champion of the treasures from Awaji, is À La, a paean to Japanese crafts and culture that hones in on a zen purity that its founders, glamorous New York couple Karl Cyprien and Meg Cuna Cyprien, discovered having travelled around the country for 15 years before launching their brand.

The effect of À La is cerebral and subtle, with chic, stripped-back brown cardboard packaging tied up with string. As co-founder Kevin tells The Blend, ‘Restraint matters as much as the material. Ours is low-smoke by design, so it can sit in a home or travel with someone without taking over a room.’ He adds, ‘The intention was never a dramatic plume. It was a scent that stays close and lingers quietly.’

As for the scents, the Cypriens have created a range that is both evocative and earthy, particularly Aqualiria, which is described as like ‘hay drying in the sun’, thanks to agarwood as the main note. Kevin explains, ‘We always return to it. It has a warmth that feels almost alive, resinous and slightly animalic, closer to leather than to anything sweet.’ Yes, it seems À La is a total smoke show.

With the luxury world hotly competing to deliver untrammelled experiences, peek emotions and fan the flames of desire – Paris haute couture outperformed on all levels. From the hand calligraphy on invitations, to magical stage sets (fantasy garden at Chanel, tropical art house at Dior), to the hundreds of hours devoted to creating just one embellished design, couturiers poured their imaginations into the finest artistry, even plasma.

Where in seasons past, the haute couture offering might have appeared like an anachronistic museum piece catering to the social diaries of a seriously wealthy Middle Eastern clientele, today the leaders are inventing the zeitgeist and moving into scientific, artistic and even cosmic explorations that AI cannot reach.

Daniel Roseberry called his collection for Schiaparelli The Call of the Void and writes eloquently about his experience. “Formulas are antithetical to the magic of creation which can be found only in total surrender to the unknown. Naming things, defining things, is comforting. But in doing so, you’re stripping something of its infinite power and magic – you’re making it less terrifying but also less exhilarating,” he says. Elsa Schiparelli was as he describes like a "wrecking ball" to the polite genteel fashion world of the 1930s when couturiers fussed over pin tucks and pearl buttons. Roseberry like Elsa excels in going beyond convention and he did this in an extraordinary line-up of designs that were the sartorial equivalent of aquatic diving and astral travelling. Possible? A visit to Barcelona and to Gaudi’s marvels that drew from the organic architecture of undersea worlds was a starting point. Here were sculpted, glazed silicone corset dresses with a glow from within via tiny LED strip lighting positioned under the breast pieces, tulle gowns with hovering tentacles (can I tickle you?), and boleros covered with tiny petals, teamed with latex ruffle skirts. The deep-sea currents were explored in baroque pearl-embellished real sponge handbags, seashell embroidery and sea urchin ‘bubble’ pumps.

Indeed, the shooting star of the moment – Matthieu Blazy – has ignited a new fervour in fashion not just in the queues for correspondent pumps and soft pleat 25 bags at the Chanel stores, but also by reinforcing the beauty and life enhancing joy of the craft. On finding a book of fairytales in Gabrielle Chanel’s apartment he ventured into fantasy land – after all Chanel cloaked herself in myths and make believe to escape her humble origins. The upshot or should we say Jack and the Beanstalk upshoot, sidestepped cutesy for enchantment. Materials reigned supreme from raffia embroidered jackets featuring Goossens made buttons that ranged from seed to bud to sunflower on one knock out style that was teamed with a plaid shirt and denim look tweed frayed edge jeans. Blazy is a wizz at trompe l’oeil. Other fairy tales were retold in gold minaudieres in the shape of a bear; in three outfits that tracked the ugly duckling morphing into a swan (cue a stunning bugle beaded shift dress) and in a magpie dress covered with chains and buttons embroidered by Lesage. The shoes with painted 3D heels in the shape of eggs, pea pods and tropical flowers ensured the storytelling played out top to toe. Clients were treated to a private concert by Vanessa Paradis the same evening.

Hong Kong born London trained Robert Wun was accepted as a haute couturier three years ago. He too looked at elements of innocence in his collection, Childsplay. Here a grand gown was splattered with paint splashes like a walking Jackson Pollock and a ballooning choirboy smock dress topped with an antler headpiece. Wun charted the passage from childhood to adulthood and closed with a sculptural black dress with ginormous shoulders and tiny waist that appeared in a cloud of giant balloons. Wun said his intent was to keep wonder alive. He did.

How do you maximise cultural capital? Dior’s answer is to turn Jonathan Anderson’s collection into a public access exhibition at the show’s location, the delightful Musee Rodin. Entitled The Grammar of Forms, school children were enthralled, posing in the Dior branded pavilion and gazing into exhibits. Original Dior creations from the heyday of 1950s couture with their signature neat waists, bustle skirts and sculpted bodices were shown alongside Anderson’s much looser silhouettes where draping, pleating and texture shine. Interspersed are sculptures and works by American artist Lynda Benglis which inspired the collection. She channels her Indian origins into wild bricolage pieces, into abstract twisted metal sculptures and textile works covered with glitter and shimmer. Anderson’s corresponding bricolage skirts with exposed lattice framework resembling Benglis’ chicken wire pieces looked thrilling in dialogue, so too did his luminous pleated ensembles.

There are a lot of studies in glow and light this season with Iris Van Herpen scoring a 1st for Sonic Starquakes which grew out of a serious study of sonic vibrating stars and the spiralling geometries of galaxies. She worked with CERN’s particle physics laboratory for plasma research. In a feat of engineering she twisted handblown glass tubes filled with plasma (think wearable plasma lamp) that emanated strange crackling glows around a sculpted dress. Another, Helix Nebula, in sheer tulle was covered in thousands of tiny glass spheres that responded to the body’s electromagnetic field creating waves of luminosity. Elsewhere, diaphanous designs with vast floating wings of metallic organza emulated the spectrum of the aurora borealis.

“Around us and within us vast dimensions of reality remain undiscovered. I do not seek to explain them, instead they heighten the awareness of the unknown, reminding us of the mysteries that lie within the multiverse,” says Van Herpen. She is an extraordinary talent who consistently questions and pushes the boundaries of design at the nexus of science and spirituality. In our age of AI and instant explanations, the sense of magic and wonder is terrific to behold.

There is something seductive about nautical style. Not just because it evokes summer vistas and sea air, but because it walks that particularly pleasing line between elegance and ease. Few other genres of menswear allow a man to look simultaneously relaxed and entirely in control. Which perhaps explains why, every now and then, menswear drifts back towards the marina.

For Summer 2026, the tide is unmistakably turning. Boat shoes are back, as are Breton-striped sweaters. White trousers feel like they have a place again – especially when paired with a plaited belt or French blue blazer.

‘Like so many trending looks right now, nautical style speaks to stealth luxury,’ says Mr Porter’s style director, Benedict Browne. ‘Sailing has always been a pastime that the rich and famous enjoy.’ Think JFK in Hyannis Port, Jude Law’s Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr Ripley, with his striped piqué button-throughs and rolled-up hems, or Alain Delon brooding in a washed linen shirt in Plein Soleil.

This is worth noting because true nautical menswear has never really been about novelty anchor motifs or aggressively kitsch stripes. It’s rooted instead in naval tailoring, Riviera sportswear, Ivy League prep and the quietly aspirational world of sailing clubs and summer houses. ‘Nautical style introduced so many landmark garments to menswear – yachting blazers, fishermen’s sweaters, deck shoes, striped T-shirts,’ continues Browne. ‘It’s easily one of the most influential genres of clothing we’ve got to enjoy today.’

The newly launched Marlin collection by Tod’s, inspired by the legendary 52-ft power cruiser once owned by JFK (it was his unofficial presidential yacht), feels particularly well timed for this reason. Rather than leaning into obvious sailing tropes, the collection channels a softer kind of elegance; cream technical bombers trimmed with nappa leather, preppy two-tone deck shoes and canvas holdalls designed for long, Mediterranean-bound weekends.

The palette itself – off-white, leafy green and tan – borrows directly from the boat itself. Elsewhere, other brands are approaching nautical style with similar subtlety. Hermès’ SS26 collection is awash with playful knotted neckerchiefs, funnel-neck sweaters and tan-leather-meets-cream-canvas holdalls, while Margaret Howell’s combinations of layered-up polo shirts and voluminous tailored shorts feel utilitarian, but also nostalgic. For designer Oliver Spencer, nautical style’s enduring appeal lies firmly in a sense of nostalgia. ‘It’s really deeply romantic,’ he says. ‘You can look like you own a boat, even if you don’t.’ Spencer also points out that nautical dressing shares much of its DNA with old-school sporting attire – cream flannels, polo shirts and soft tailoring that came to be in an era when dressing for leisure still carried with it a certain sense of formality.

Not that you need to look formal in 2026. The trick, according to Sunspel’s design director David Telfer, is restraint. ‘Keep it to one nautical reference in an outfit,’ he says. ‘Choose a navy polo, a striped T-shirt or a white linen shirt, and let the rest of the look stay simple.’ Sunspel’s cotton mesh Riviera polos (first designed to wear on the French Riviera in the 1950s), are an easy place to start. Tuck into pleated shorts and throw a lightweight sweater around your shoulders if you feel so inclined.

Another tip? If in doubt, stick with navy. ‘Navy is so evocative of sailing and holidays by the sea,’ says Isabel Ettedgui, owner of Connolly. ‘Pair a navy jacket with crisp white trousers and a great mariner stripe T-shirt or sweater.’ Connolly’s La Mer half-sleeve crew neck is a great option here – knitted in an indulgent, lightweight blend of cashmere, silk and organic cotton – as is the brand’s bright white Port Trousers, which elevate the humble chino.

Perhaps this is why nautical style keeps washing back ashore. Not because most of us own yachts or spend August bobbing around Capri, but because nautical menswear still represents a fantasy: relaxed affluence, old-world glamour and the idea that summer might stretch on forever.

Art has had a profound impact on the world of beauty. Historical movements that embraced unconventional or exaggerated features continue to influence make-up artists, while contemporary painters also make their mark on beauty trends, with numerous artistic luminaries directly collaborating with or inspiring brands. We take a look at a group of movements and artists that have had a resounding influence on the beauty fashions of today. Some are direct references, such as the repeat polka dots that pay homage to contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama; others, such as the confident swipes of colour by make-up doyenne Pat McGrath, are less literal translations.

PRE-RAPHAELITE

A group of British painters working in the mid-19th century, the Pre-Raphaelites are a mainstay on beauty inspiration boards. Artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais took inspiration from literature and mythology, featuring women with alabaster skin, refined features and flowing hair. Singer Florence Welch encapsulates the romance of the Pre-Raphaelites, while gothic horror movies evoke the movement’s heroines. In 2025’s Frankenstein, hair designer Cliona Furey and make-up artist Jordan Samuel embraced a Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic for Mia Goth, complete with an unimaginably long deep-red wig.

ART NOUVEAU

Contemporary make-up phenomenon Isamaya Ffrench is famously influenced by art, from Salvador Dalí, to Francis Bacon and Dadaism. She regularly cites Art Nouveau, inspired by the trippy homage this late 19th-century movement played to the natural world and its ‘whiplash’ curve effect – an ‘S’ shape seen in art and architecture of the time that follows the organic curl of a vine, hair or flame. Make-up artist Thomas de Kluyver has also created art nouveau-styled beauty looks for brands such as Vivienne Westwood, with bespoke eyebrows drawn to mimic rose branches and fantastical, ornate details.

POP ART

The connection between pop art and make-up is deeply entangled: art imitates beauty; beauty imitates art. The mid-20th-century movement drew on bold graphics, bright colours and consumer culture. Artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein presented everyday women and celebrities including Marylin Monroe with expressive lips, abundant eyelashes and dramatically coiffed hair. The style is still ubiquitous in the fashion and beauty worlds, with major make-up artists such as Pat McGrath including intense graphics and riotous explosions of colour in their looks. The spirit of pop art is alive in the work and products of Isamaya Ffrench too; cue striking silver packaging and bold treatments.

Aside from wider movements throughout history, there have been some crucial creatives who have inspired beauty trends through their art. Below are some of the most catalytic examples.

Kerry James Marshall

A highly influential figure within contemporary painting, Kerry James Marshall is known for his stunningly rendered portraits of Black sitters, which celebrate the beauty of dark skin. His aesthetic is a challenge to historical suppression and neglect of Black sitters, which has led to collaborations with Wales Bonner and seen him on inspiration boards for brands including Valentino. In 2020, he painted a majestic fictional character wearing a formal evening dress by Off-White for the September cover of Vogue, painting her skin so dark that, in his own words, she was ‘at the edge of visibility... The point is to show that blackness is rich and complex'.

Yayoi Kusama

Few artists have combined such a personal, psychological practice with the world of commerce. Yayoi Kusama is famous for her immersive works, which cover interior spaces, graphic sculptures and her own body with dots and colourful repeated icons, originally inspired by her state of mind while hallucinating and experiencing OCD symptoms. Her instantly recognisable aesthetics have been applied to a host of famous faces, including Léa Seydoux, Naomi Osaka, in a global campaign for her Louis Vuitton collaboration. Kusama’s ubiquitous dot designs can also be found littered across experimental online make-up accounts.

Marilyn Minter

Marilyn Minter’s paintings and photographs are instantly recognisable for their thick, luminous use of make-up. Placing her models behind wet or steamed glass, Minter homes in on open mouths slathered with bold lipstick and sweat-stained, high-contrast eyeshadow. Pamela Anderson, Monica Lewinsky and Miley Cyrus have featured in her work, which takes a feminist approach to sexual expression. She describes make-up as ‘war paint’ and collaborated with beauty giant MAC, celebrating its loose glitters and punchy pigments. At the time she summed up her beauty aesthetic as what happens under the ‘party lights, it’s hot, you’re sweaty, you’ve got that slight perspiration on your brow, your eyelashes start coming off’.

After several summers dominated by oatmeal drawstring trousers and 50 shades of ecru, the return of a little colour and personality this season feels refreshing. Nothing too loud, mind. Just enough to suggest the wearer might occasionally enjoy himself. Which is where striped sports shirts come in.

A true modern classic, the polo has long occupied that sweet spot between sportswear and something more refined. Despite the name, the polo shirt as we know it emerged from the tennis court rather than the polo field, when legend-of-the-game René Lacoste introduced his soft-collared cotton piqué polos in the 1920s as a relaxed alternative to stiff sporting whites. Ralph Lauren later transformed the polo into a cornerstone of American prep – collar-popped and chino-tucked with a sweater around its shoulders – while mid-century style icons Paul Newman and Steve McQueen understood its particular magic: casual, but rarely scruffy. A plain polo shirt will seldom see you wrong, but this summer, sporty shirting feels most considered when rendered in stripes. Plenty of brands have played with multicoloured designs, from the bold, hoop-striped rugbys by Drake’s, to Celine’s confident block-striped polos with contrast collars and cuffs.

There’s a simple joy to be found in shirts like these – they are a supremely easy way to lift an otherwise muted outfit. A pop of green, crimson or cobalt blue set against classic chinos or washed denim jeans, layered beneath a dark suede blouson or trucker jacket, looks both low-key and intentional. Parisian brand A.P.C. has produced some particularly beguiling versions in organic cotton. You could go tonal with the chestnut-and-cream long-sleeve polo, paired with white jeans and a chocolate suede jacket, or opt for something poppier with the beige, red and white striped short-sleeve version – particularly good with faded blue denim. Designed with a straight fit, they’re not too slim, and work equally well tucked or untucked as the mood takes you.

The polo’s more boisterous cousin, the rugby shirt, carries with it the same sporting pedigree, but with a touch more swagger. Polo Ralph Lauren still does them brilliantly – see its version in bottle green, navy, red and yellow with a contrasting white collar – while designer interpretations from the likes of Versace push things somewhere more louche.

Either way, pieces like these make getting dressed feel pleasingly straightforward. Hymn their preppy roots and finish with neat deck shoes or soft, unlined suede loafers. Swedish footwear stalwart Morjas or British indie shoemaker Horatio both offer good options here.

There is, admittedly, one potential hazard to striped polos and rugby shirts alike – they can veer into spray-paint-tight Love Island territory if you’re not careful. Avoid anything overly fitted. We’re aiming for Riviera chic, not nightclub promoter. Don’t be afraid of a little bit of colour, either. The striped sports shirt is purpose-built to inject a little personality into your wardrobe, without tipping into full peacocking.

It works like this – on your FYP (For You Page), an image of an archive interior or artfully shot sculptural vase catches your eye. You tap through to the Instagram post and, before you know it, you’re shopping. This modern approach to ‘window dressing’ is now an established part of how a new group of antique dealers get the attention of passing trade. Sharpened design instincts and the element of surprise key to social media success have helped this new breed of entrepreneur build successful dealerships, some with online stores, others with appointment-only showrooms, their digital presences rendered IRL. These new-school sellers represent something fresh in a traditional trade, something recognised by the vanguards of the industry: BADA (The British Antique Dealers’ Association) reported a jump in new members aged in their 20s and 30s last year. And although there has been an obvious sea change in how antiques are sold on our streets, the china shop crammed full of chipped Chelsea is a rare sight nowadays. Rising rents, reduced footfall – it’s all the usual reasons cited for the closure of bricks-and-mortar stores. It doesn’t mean that enthusiasm for beautiful objects with provenance has passed, however: furniture, fabrics or objet d’arts - there is a dealer for every niche. Here are three of The Blend’s favourites.

Altar

‘Devotional, curious, artful; they are words that connect my objects,’ says Steph Wilson, founder of Altar. This figures; each of her pieces has the air of a sacred object, the brand’s moniker coming from ‘a shrine to showcase things that are both material and spiritual’ the dealer-cum-artist says. Working across multiple mediums, including painting, Wilson is known for her photography, the idiosyncratic qualities of her subjects mirroring the one-off pieces she offers under Altar. Nothing is alike. ‘I look for pieces of which there is only one: the handmade, the studio prototypes. Uncategorisable things with unusual proportions or something that is hard to place in time,’ Wilson explains. Thus the flowing lines of 1930s cabinetry sit alongside unexpected Victorian woodwork, and art deco and art nouveau designs, a love of Wilson’s. Currently in stock is a monastic Tage Andersen stained-glass cabinet and Edo-period Japanese Jingsa hats, hybridised into lamps. ‘If an object sings with narrative, I need to picture it in a space where it can continue to do that,’ Wilson says of her sourcing process. And what of her digital-first practice? ‘So much of social media’s success leans on “vibe”, doesn’t it? But beneath the surface, it’s about stirring feelings. The benefit of being online is that it opens the door to Altar in a non-confronting way. Come to the Brixton showroom, be introduced to the pieces – they can be loved in person without any pressure.’

@altar.london

Beau-Traps

Lifted from a book of Georgian-era slang, the name describes a loose paving stone, which, when stood on, sprays you with the water beneath. So something unexpected. ‘I look for the hard-to-find, those things rarely seen elsewhere, something that feels and looks misunderstood,’ says Maxime Fisher on what makes a Beau-Traps piece. His Instagram is an assemblage of beguiling throwbacks and oddly poignant stills from Bravo TV’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, a tone-setting exercise that fits together perfectly. ‘It allows the objects to be more playful, nostalgic and hopeful in a direction that feels authentic,’ Fisher explains. ‘They are emotional and genre-less.’

Some of his collection is drawn from recent history, other objects from much further back. Yet all have the same refined surreal quality, as if pulled from multiverse timelines. At once, human and alien: a 16th-century beribboned marble bowl, a curving chip-carved 1940s chair, a linear metal plant stand, so lightweight that it looks like a 2D doodle. ‘I couldn’t help how natural it felt to begin Beau-Traps, there’s nothing more to it than that,’ Fisher says of how it all began. This extends to a collection of Alexandre Noll woodworked pieces featured on his website. ‘They were sourced from my friend. The work feels childlike and effortlessly straightforward but they weren’t carved for no reason. I find understanding in how material is shaped and formed, it speaks to the longevity of time.’ A backstory is not always required though: ‘I think there’s something magical in the unknown,’ Fisher says.

@beau_traps

Old Old Woods

‘Bringing wood furniture back to life, I saw how forgiving it could be after neglect, making desirable something once unwanted. It mirrors the human mind for me,’ explains Tola Adefioye on the beginnings of OOW. ‘With the right care, one’s mental state can be improved, a once-lost person found.’ Initiated as an escape from his other vocation as a lab scientist, in 2016 he elevated furniture restoration from pastime to creative calling. Adefioye began rejuvenating mid-century pieces – broken tables, chairs and forgotten treasures. Global in scope, he often lands on Scandinavian and Italian handiwork, placing it alongside African art and textiles.

While not strictly searching for big-name designers, an interesting find does sometimes end up being by the hand of a famed maker. ‘It’s very instinctive, though, I don’t know what I’m looking for; I respond to pieces based on feeling, proportion, materiality and character,’ Adefioye says. ‘But it has changed the way I look at objects. Not just through their function, but as things that carry history and human touch. It shapes the way I source,’ Adefioye observes of his offering, which includes a pair of folding Trieste chairs by Aldo Jacober, a brutalist Sedes Armchair by Wim Mulder and matching flower-like Mario Bellini for Artemide table and pendant lights, all currently in his Leytonstone workshop. And what makes good design for Adefioye? ‘Connection,’ he concludes.

@oldoldwoods

Nestled atop roofs with ample space to bask in, or tucked away from the hubbub in their own secret oasis, as soon as summer settles in the city’s best hotels and restaurants throw open their patio doors and spill out onto the streets, opening up perfect areas for an afternoon aperitivo or a long and languorous lunch.

Here, we take you through a selection of London’s finest seasonal outdoor spaces to see you through the summer months.

Café Francois, Borough

If you’ve already consumed enough classic picky bits to last until 2027, head to Café Francois’ new Provençale terrace – bringing a slice of southern France to Borough Yards and offering regionally-inspired nibbles to broaden your al fresco dining options. Here, you can snack on snail croquettes, lamb brochettes, courgette fritti, gilda and more. To add to the European holiday feel, happy hour runs from 3pm-5pm daily, serving glasses of rosé for £8 or carafes for £30, plus any three items from their menu for a very reasonable £25.

cafefrancois.london/terracedining

Angler, City

Helmed by Roux Scholarship-winning chef Craig Johnston, Angler has maintained its Michelin star for 13 consecutive years, serving exquisitely plated seafood from its seventh floor spot at South Place Hotel, a stone’s throw from Liverpool Street Station. Its covered rooftop terrace is an extension of the restaurant space rather than a seasonal alternative, meaning that you can embrace the full dining experience with a sweeping view over the City all year round. From impossibly delicate savoury petit fours to sesame-infused tuna tartare, rich lobster bisques and stunning desserts (their caramelised pear pavlova with candied pecans is a knock out), in the summer, it elevates an already memorable experience even further.

anglerrestaurant.com

Bluebird, Chelsea

With a rich history dating back more than a century, Bluebird stands proudly as a King’s Road institution. Step outside of its Art Deco interiors, however, and Bluebird’s spacious outdoor terrace is a place to happily while away the summer hours – particularly if you’re a sports fan. A large screen showing everything from the World Cup to Wimbledon and Formula One is at the centre of their summer offering, served alongside Louis Pommery sparkling wine, Mirabeau rosé and a playful, tennis-themed cocktail and dessert menu courtesy of Lavazza coffee. Naturally, you can enjoy their regular bar offerings too, plus modern British classic fare.

bluebird-restaurant.co.uk

Upstairs at Langan’s, Mayfair

If the sight of a high street full of endless vapes leaves you cold, then Upstairs at Langan’s – the roof terrace hideaway perched atop the iconic Mayfair brasserie – has its sights on more traditional vices. Here, you can indulge in a curated cigar menu, to be enjoyed under its retractable roof no matter the weather. If that doesn’t take your fancy, they also have a dedicated caviar selection, oysters, and a cocktail list that’ll keep you sozzled long past dusk.

langansbrasserie.com/upstairs/

Royal Horseguards Hotel, Westminster

If you’re looking for a truly peaceful – and surprisingly inexpensive – rest stop near one of London’s most bustling boroughs, then the Royal Horseguards Hotel’s secluded summer enclave, tucked beside Whitehall Gardens, is worth your time. A stone’s throw from the Strand and just over the bridge from the South Bank, the space has no business feeling quite so calm, and yet its copious greenery and shaded awnings give it the feel of a charming English garden. In keeping with the tone, they serve a full spritz menu as well as pitchers of Pimms and various gins, while their dining menu is a comparative steal for the area, with gastropub-style mains and classic British puds.

royalhorseguardshotel.com

St. Pancras Terrace, King’s Cross

Tucked around the back of St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, their summer terrace – part of the Booking Office 1859 restaurant – is your perfect pre or post-travel moment of relief. Open until September in partnership with Laurent-Perrier, champagne and champagne cocktails are their priority, with Carlingford oysters, light bites and seasonal mains (shrimp brioche bun, crispy duck salad) to keep you fed. Head there for sundown for bubbles and balmy skies over the clock tower.

stpancraslondon.com

COYA

Where Peruvian eatery COYA’s main restaurant is a vibrant fiesta of sounds and smells, its summer terrace - tucked away down a quiet side street, with the Bank of England looming in full view - feels more like relaxed, European-style piazza dining. Surrounded by sunflowers to keep the bright spirit of the inside space alive, the flavours of South America are ripe for a warm summer’s evening, from light, fresh ceviche to guacamole served tableside. Prioritise their Chilean sea bass cazuela: a stunning dish of perfectly flaky fish served atop a local delicacy of risotto-esque bomba rice infused with chilli lime butter and sweetcorn pureé. On the terrace, glasses of champagne and Cotes de Provence rosé vie for top billing with their summer cocktails. A long, pisco-centric Lugo spritz would be our suggestion.

coyarestaurant.com

Orrery, Marylebone

Downstairs at Orrery, the fine dining restaurant helmed by chef Pierre Minotti (ex-of the two Michelin-star Hotel Café Royal), service is a firmly white-linen affair. Serving a trio of meticulously designed tasting menus rooted in seasonal British produce and precise French technique, dinner is a pleasingly formal and theatrical experience. Upstairs on their summer roof terrace, however, you can relax a little more and sink into the season. The space is filled with comfortable sofa areas that can seat groups of five, while their menu offers a taste of the spoils below, featuring inspired savoury bites including sea bream carpaccio and Oscietra caviar on a buckwheat crumpet. A dedicated terrace cocktail bar comes courtesy of Renais Gin.

orrery-restaurant.co.uk/terrace/

The Album to Buy: Confessions II

Wherever you’re dancing, and whatever you’re wearing, Madonna’s 15th album Confessions II could be part of the soundtrack to your summer. Teased by a track with Sabrina Carpenter and a six-song internet-stopping promo, in a world of collective ADHD, she certainly got our attention... Now about that biopic…

The Exhibition to See: A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting

Pay homage to David Hockney with his first-ever Serpentine show. Running till 23 August, A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting has posthumously become a moving celebration of his magic. It's free to enter and you can book, or join a short queue on the day to see some of his iPad works and a select few paintings in dialogue with the surrounding nature of Kensington Gardens. Even in the city, it’s a bucolic scene with which, as much as LA swimming pools, Hockney has become joyfully synonymous.

The Film to See: The Odyssey

After the summer of Barbenheimer led to his Oscars sweep, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey sails into in to cinemas. The cast is epic (Charlize Theron, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya) and the best place to appreciate the technical intricacies is the Imax. A BFI fellow and filmmaking God to many, Nolan’s new work has already broken their records for advance bookings. Soak it up and celebrate cinema from 17 July.

The Theatre to See: Oh Mary

Toast America 250 with irreverent presidential history at the Trafalgar Theatre in Whitehall. Oh Mary is the untold story of Abraham Lincoln’s misunderstood spouse Mary Todd Lincoln. Catherine Tate stars in the title role until 18 July. After that, the play’s creator and original Broadway star Cole Escola takes over for a four-week run, giving London audiences a great chance to see the show in its Tony winning form.

The Theatre to Book: Abigail’s Party

‘I like olives, Beverly, and I’m twenty five percent of the assembled company…’ See you there, for a brilliant revival of the Mike Leigh house party horror Abigail’s Party. After rave reviews on tour for Tamzin Outhwaite and Kevin Bishop, suburban meltdown shimmies into the West End at the Harold Pinter Theatre running from 12 August-19 September. This is new life for a cult classic and a guaranteed summer treat.

The Books to Read: The Correspondent & Frenzy

The Women’s Prize winner this year rewards the pleasure principle, celebrating the kind of compulsive literary novel not out of place in a beach bag, and that is a compliment. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is a celebration of the written word, telling a life through its letters. Evans has struck a nerve with readers hankering for a world where news travelled slowly. Alternatively, short stories are made for time poor readers. Reach for Joyce Carol Oates' new collection Frenzy, in which each short story is as psychologically diverting as a novel.

The Collaboration to Look Out For: The Burberry Beach Club at Hotel Belles Rives

Hotel Belles Rives on the water in Juan Les Pins, once the villa where F Scott Fitzgerald wrote, is flawless in my opinion, but Burberry have styled the beach club of this still sleepy spot for the summer season. As a connoisseur of great shirts (and indeed an astute observer of the art of shopping) would Fitzgerald approve of the best of British style taking over? Think about it on your lounger or over a glass of rosé on the beautiful terrace.

The TV Show to Stream: Westies & Lucky

The World Cup all the way but also some stellar performances for TV too. JK Simmons is reason alone to watch The Westies (from 12 July MGM+) which draws on real Irish mob power play in 80s New York. Alternatively, from the creator of Your Friends and Neighbours, Jonathan Tropper, Lucky stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening and Timothy Olyphant (from 15 July, Apple) It’s a high-style, high-octane heist drama set and filmed in contemporary LA.

If the mountains can’t go to the musicians, why don’t the musicians come to the mountains? So wondered a young Claude Nobs, just starting out in his career in local tourism, after he was charged with driving more US business to the lakeside city of Montreux, at the foot of the Swiss Alps. Combining his love of jazz with corporate America’s taste for international junketing proved a smart move: 60 years after Nobs staged the first three-day event, the Montreux Jazz Festival has grown to become a weeks-long linchpin of the international live circuit, its bill today less jazz-centric than in earlier years, but still aimed at audiences galvanised by artists of a more improvisational and/or searching bent.

Its continuing attraction to US musicians, however, remains unabated – beautifully documented in the many informal portraits captured by Tehran-born, Swiss-based photographer Anoush Abrar, the festival’s official photographer since 2018. Taking full advantage of the introduction of an outdoor stage built directly over the Montreux waterfront, Abrar follows in the footsteps of the festival’s founder in diligently documenting the artists who pass through (Nobs, who died in 2013, instigated a unique audio/visual record of festival performances maintained to this day).

Along the way, Abrar shares his stories of meeting many of the giants of 20th-century music; perhaps the most gigantic of all was Quincy Jones, the festival’s music director from 1991 to 1993, who returned each summer thereafter until shortly before his death in 2024. In 2019, the groundbreaking composer/arranger/producer was honoured with a gala evening on the festival’s closing night. This was his final appearance at the festival and one Abrar witnessed backstage, where he pictured Jones, trumpet in hand, surrounded by a cohort of musicians to whom he was effectively handing on the baton. This plus hundreds more images captured both on and off-stage reveal similar interactions between performers young and old, established and emerging, the presence of whom continues to underline the festival’s unique place in the global cultural calendar.

Since 2019 Audemars Piguet has served as Global Partner of the Montreux Jazz Festival, building on a relationship started in 2010 when the Swiss watchmaker supported the development of the Montreux Jazz Digital Project, focused on digitising, restoring and preserving the festival’s entire sound archives, recognised by UNESCO as part of its ‘memory of the world’.

The Elegance of Time is available at montreuxjazzshop.com

The South of France has spent a long time defined by its light and its coastline; this season, these openings suggest the region's cultural life can be found just as easily inland, on a river quay or a few minutes offshore, and none of it requires a gallery booking.

Five addresses, scattered between the Luberon, the Var coast, the Rhône, the heights above Cannes and a seven-hectare island off Bandol, make for a pleasingly varied cultural season. Paintings meet stained glass in a Romanesque priory; design takes over a Saint-Tropez house older than the resort town's reputation. Wicker returns to a Rhône village once sustained by willow. Ceramics inhabit a Couëlle landscape-house above Cannes and Bendor reawakens with a welcome residue of parties, ateliers and glass workshops beneath the hotel polish.

Les Davids, Haute-Provence

Les Davids sits high above the Luberon at 600 metres. The estate has been a working vineyard for some time, and earlier this year it opened a 2.5km promenade designed by Bas Smets, the Brussels-based landscape architect responsible for the Luma gardens in Arles and the surroundings of Notre-Dame de Paris. The route moves through eight distinct atmospheres, from oak forest and garrigue to lavender, olive grove and vineyard rows. Smets began with the territory already in front of him, drawing the path from the estate’s working ground, where vineyard rows give way to scrub and tree cover.

Newly installed works by Tomás Saraceno, David Nash, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy and Lionel Sabatté now punctuate the walk, giving this phase of the estate the feel of a collection dispersed through planting, agriculture and woodland. At its centre is the Théâtre de Verdure, a natural amphitheatre inaugurated in 2024 and used for Les Estivales du Haut Calavon, the summer programme of concerts and readings.

Yves Zurstrassen keeps a studio on the estate, and nine kilometres south, at the Musée de Salagon in Mane, his Variations rouges is installed until 14 December 2026. The Belgian painter made the series in dialogue with Salagon’s Romanesque church and Aurélie Nemours’s stained-glass windows, completed in 1998; his vertical reds meet stone, glass and southern light at close range.

lesdavids.fr

Une Maison à Saint-Tropez, Saint-Tropez

For a fourth edition of Une Maison à Saint-Tropez, Isabelle Castanier returns to her family house at 17 avenue Foch, on Place des Lices. The building dates to 1789, its front door opening straight onto the square. From 6 June to 31 July, the house becomes the setting for Souvenirs d’enfance, an exhibition shaped around four childhood scenes: the cabin, the afternoon snack, bath time and the bedtime story.

Axel Chay anchors the goûter with a low cast-aluminium table inlaid with semi-precious stones, a new development in his work that reads as precious and playful at once. Around it, Sarah Espeute's textiles, glassware by Nienke Sikkema and Bernard Heesen, and Lucie Sotty's ceramics fill out the table. Marianna Ladreyt, who transforms discarded beach inflatables into objects using leather-craft techniques, made the parasol for the outdoor cabin scene. Jorge Suárez Kilzi presents a flower-shaped bar with petals that open like a corolla, drawn from the chouchous-beignets carts that once worked the Saint-Tropez beaches.

It sounds playful because it is, though Castanier's touch keeps the sentiment in check. Objects sit close to daily life, rooms remain recognisably rooms, and Saint-Tropez appears through the rituals of a family summer. The exhibition is open daily from 10am to 1pm and 4pm to 8pm, with late openings on Thursdays until 10pm.

isabellecastanier.com

La Maison Vime, Vallabrègues

Vallabrègues is a good place to remember that wicker once had an economy of its own. In the 18th century, the Rhône-side village counted hundreds of wicker workers among its inhabitants, with willow from the river feeding a busy local trade. Atelier Vime now occupies the Hôtel Drujon, built in 1730 and later home to a workshop installed in 1878, complete with a courtyard and soaking ponds for fresh wicker.

On 23 May, Anthony Watson and Benoît Rauzy reopened La Maison Vime for the summer season. The shop runs until 12 September at 24 Quai du Rhône, with furniture, lighting, editions, vintage pieces, glassware and ceramics arranged through the house. It first appeared in 2022 as the atelier’s summer address, dedicated to the Vime world and its particular art de vivre; by now, its return has become part of the village calendar. Go for rattan, table linen, lamps, older pieces and the pleasure of seeing craft history still attached to an address.

ateliervime.com

Dragon Hill, Mouans-Sartoux

In the heights above Cannes, on Chemin de Castellaras in Mouans-Sartoux, Dragon Hill is the work of Jacques Couëlle, the French architect-sculptor who worked in clay and plaster maquettes, producing curved, cavernous interiors with no straight lines to speak of. His landscape-houses on the Côte d'Azur, and the resorts he designed for the Aga Khan on the Costa Smeralda in the 1960s, remain among the more singular pieces of 20th-century domestic architecture. The estate now operates as a residency and sculpture park, with permanent works by Antony Gormley, Tony Cragg, Claudia Comte, Thomas Houseago and Alicja Kwade, curated by Maxime Combot.

From 13 May to November 2026, the house hosts Inhabiting the Landscape House, a site-specific exhibition by ceramicist Olivia Cognet, open by appointment. From Nice and now based in Vallauris, where she has taken over Roger Capron's former studio, Cognet works across ceramic, lava, stone and metal at scale, from tables and lamps to monumental bas-reliefs. For Dragon Hill, she has made works for the cavities and curves of the Couëlle interior: a sculptural tapestry sofa produced with Lyon upholsterer Atelier Dégut for one of the living rooms, and an outdoor garden lounge of monolithic stone chairs and tables set among the planting. Brancusi, Noguchi and Gio Ponti are her stated reference points; Couëlle, this season, is the room she is in.

instagram.com/dragonhillresidence

Zannier Île de Bendor, Bandol

A few minutes by boat from Bandol, Île de Bendor reopened after a five-year transformation by Zannier. Paul Ricard bought the seven-hectare island in 1950 and treated it as a miniature Mediterranean republic, complete with theatre, gallery, diving centre, wine museum, sculpture garden and glassmaking workshop. Dalí came, as did Joséphine Baker, Fernandel, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Mireille Darc and Youri Gagarine; the old photographs are reason alone to visit.

The property reopens as a 93-key hotel, arts destination and wellness retreat, with Delos, Soukana and Madrague Houses forming separate addresses within the same small territory. The spa covers 1,200 sq m; the Rēsonance programme offers bioresonance, movement, vitality and beauty; restaurants and children’s programming make it open to all. In June, Bendor hosted a Fête de la Musique celebration, with boats running back to Bandol until 11.30pm. Bendor still has the charm of a place imagined in miniature: close enough to Bandol for an easy crossing, to witness the island returning to itself.

zannierhotels.com

It feels appropriate that Lisa der Weduwe is wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “TIME IS NONLINEAR”. As Archive Projects Manager at Camden’s newly opened Museum of Youth Culture, the 33-year-old is partly responsible for ensuring that this monument to youthful innovation is anything but a staid walkthrough where one historical event dutifully follows another. Instead, the colourful museum is vibrant and alive, with intermixed eras, cultures and formats all jostling for attention.

“One of our big arguments,” explains Lisa der Weduwe, holding court in the café on the museum’s ground floor just a few days after its grand opening, “is that the creativity and ingenuity of young people are what drives society forwards. That isn’t acknowledged, but I think it’s really important. Young people are so often at the forefront of social justice movements. Look at Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter: young people have really been pushing them forward, changing things and opening up new conversations.

“It’s a potent mix where you have a sense of independence, but you don’t have the responsibilities of being an adult. You’re looking at the world with new eyes because you’re trying to set yourself aside from the generation that’s gone before you. Because of your brain development, you’re also more likely to take risks and go into things head-first. That has led to so much positive change and creativity, and we should be celebrating that.”

Der Weduwe and the team have certainly risen to this brief – not least because their cultural hub has no permanent exhibition; rather, three temporary displays pay tribute to adolescent rebellion. Like youth culture itself, the museum has many guises. To ensure its accessibility, you’re invited to choose a price for entry. It’s capped at £10, but if your price happens to be ‘free’, so be it.

The world’s first youth culture museum dates back to 1997, when London-based photographer and Sleazenation magazine co-founder Jon Swinstead launched the Photographic Youth Music and Culture Archive (PYMCA), a library of images from youth culture that he collected and maintained in his garden shed. From 2015, with the help of curator Jamie Brett, it became a public digital archive consisting of more than 100,000 items. After a brief period at the sadly shuttered Printworks in south London, the latest site is the museum’s first permanent physical home.

Ahead of the move to Camden, der Weduwe and the team were in two minds about using the ‘M’ word at all. “We were discussing whether to be a ‘museum’ of youth culture or something else,” she says. “Young people don’t go to museums. They’re the least likely group of society to [do so] because museums don’t do a very good job of catering to young people – they’re very good at catering to children and families.”

With a laugh, she admits: “We’ve done ourselves a disservice by calling ourselves a museum when it comes to bringing young people through the door – but we needed to do that for the gravitas. It says, ‘This is such an important story.’”

Located on St Pancras Way, a short walk from the punks and goths who still congregate on Camden High Street, the new venue heralds itself with a multicoloured mural that boasts “100 YEARS OF YOUTH CULTURE UNDER ONE ROOF”. Inside the industrial-looking building, you’ll find the aforementioned café and possibly the world’s coolest museum gift shop, courtesy of Rough Trade. You’ll also find an exhibition space that’s currently displaying ‘Dancing Down The High Street: Club Culture in Camden 1988–2000’, a collection of photos and rave flyers that evoke the last pre-digital party days that shook the streets right outside the door.

In addition to this, there’s a small library of books that reflect the museum’s mission statement, including Emma Warren’s Up the Youth Club: Illuminating a Hidden History. As I’m chatting to der Weduwe, a group of teenagers wander over to the bean bags scattered about the library and each take a seat, chatting and mucking about, confidently making the space their own. According to joint research by the YMCA and the trade union Unison, more than 760 youth centres closed in England and Wales between 2010 and 2020. If you’re a young person in the UK, this kind of ‘third space’ – somewhere that isn’t your home, workplace or place of education – is in short supply.

“Post-austerity, with the closing of all the youth clubs and [the decline of] youth provisions,” says der Weduwe, speaking over Klaxons’ Day-Glo nu-rave cover of ‘Not Over Yet’ as it pulses from the museum’s speakers, “in the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of discussion of: ‘How can we better support young people?’ We want this to feel like a place where you can hang out. We encourage people to sit and have a read, and we have a foosball table.” Plans are afoot for the museum to host an actual youth club and various workshops, too.

Downstairs, the hangar-like main room is currently occupied by ‘Subculture Street Party’, a vast photography exhibition that depicts teenagers stepping out in parent-baiting outfits throughout the ages. From a cardboard cut-out of a 1920s flapper astride a motorbike to a young woman scoffing a burger and chips after a night out at Deptford Northern Soul Club, the whole story is right here. “We wanted it to be joyful,” explains der Weduwe. “We want to start with a really positive message about how young people come together, curate and shape things.”

A second downstairs space contains the venue’s most interactive and perhaps most fascinating exhibition, ‘Things I lied to my parents about’. This oral history was devised and produced by the museum’s youth collective of participants aged between 16 and 23, who’ve gathered visitors’ handwritten testimonies of fabulous – and sometimes poignant – fibs. One, signed by “Phil”, reads: “Bracknell, 1980: At 15, I told my parents I was dating a family friend’s cousin, Dawn. It was actually a family friend’s cousin, Steve.”

The exhibition is based around a recreation of a teenager’s bedroom, replete with a bed you can sit on as you take it all in; this isn’t the kind of museum to have a finger-wagging sign telling you to keep off. All in all, it sums up a mischievous enterprise with a healthy disregard for doing what you’re told.

Before I head back out to the streets of Camden, I get chatting to a group of teenagers gathered in the library on the ground floor. It turns out they’re students visiting the UK on a class trip. “We’re from East Germany,” explains 19-year-old Marlene, who notes that self-expression was “forbidden” in the repressive climate of the German Democratic Republic before the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. “It’s important to know what other countries’ youth cultures could do,” she says.

Sitting beside her, 18-year-old Eleni adds: “Youth culture is changing all the time. It’s a fight against rules, politics and the government.”

The Museum of Youth Culture reflects the kineticism and vitality of Eleni’s observation. Contrary to what the name might suggest, it’s not an exercise in nostalgia. This is a place where everything is always happening all at once – where 100 years of history, rebellion and youthful innovation dances towards the future, right before your eyes.

The 19th-century Château de La Colle Noire was Christian Dior’s Provençal bolthole, a world away from his busy dressmaking atelier on Paris’ central avenue Montaigne. The couturier bought the house and its surrounding gardens and orchards in 1951. Since 2013, the estate has been the property of Parfums Christian Dior.

A short drive away from Grasse – which since the 17th century has been known as the global capital of perfumery – Château de La Colle Noire has long had an affiliation with all things scented. In its gardens, Christian Dior cultivated fragrant flowers including jasmine, purple-petalled lavender and roses. The site’s grounds are also home to trees bearing fruits, almonds and olives. A horticultural Eden, the landscaped land surrounding the Château de La Colle Noire was also Christian Dior’s tribute to the gardens his mother planted in Normandy at Villa Les Rhumbs, his grand belle-époque childhood home.

It’s this mise en scène that inspired Francis Kurkdjian to create Dior Paradise, a new addition to the maison’s La Collection Privée Christian Dior line of prestige perfumes.

‘At Dior, everything begins and ends in a garden,’ says Kurkdjian. The French-Armenian perfumer, who grew up in Paris, joined Parfums Christian Dior as the business’ creative director in 2021, where he now gives olfactory expression to references, ideas and influences drawn from Christian Dior’s life and work. Dior Paradise, his latest release, sets a blend of citrus top notes (mandarin, lime, oranges) against a tonka bean base. For a middle note, the core of a perfume that unfolds once top notes have faded, Kurkdjian worked with bitter almond, a nod to Christian Dior’s orchards. ‘The bitter almond came first, the mandarin came after. The bitter almond is rarely highlighted in perfumery,’ he explains. ‘The heart of Dior Paradise offers a mouth-watering treat, like an irresistible almond biscuit.’

What is the first thing you see in the morning?

The only thing I can see first thing in the morning is my coffee. I make my own coffee. I like the whole ritual of it all – I’m not really in a rush. Often it’s iced espresso with a little bit of cold brew.

Describe the view from where you are right now

We are in a dimly lit – lit with a gilded, golden light – subterranean restaurant. It’s warm; it’s clubby; it’s vibey. It’s yet to open, so there’s a bit of anticipation in the air. I love this time of night – it’s just before the curtains rise on the stage.

Is there a view you can’t quite forget?

My fiancée’s face.

Which artwork could you see every day?

Francis Bacon’s Study for a Pope. It’s the most striking painting I’ve ever seen. When I first saw it in person I made, like, an an out-loud gasp. The colour of the Pope’s robe; the way that Francis manipulates the facial expressions. It’s haunting and emotional.

What gets you dancing?

Late-1990s hip-hop.

Which singer or song do you never tire of hearing?

Rags to Riches by Tony Bennett.

Which aroma takes you back to childhood?

The smell of breaded chicken that’s been freshly fried and is sitting out. I’ve got back from school, but I’m not allowed to have it yet. If I steal it I’ll get yelled at, but I want it very badly.

What do you smell of today?

I don’t know because I’m not wearing any cologne and I haven’t had a cigar yet. But I normally wear Tom Ford Tobacco Oud.

How does your home smell?

I have a big rosemary plant outside that I’m always snipping from – so some sort of combination of rosemary and the fancy candles that my fiancée leaves around the house.

Describe a dish that’s stayed with you.

I lived in Italy when I was much younger and, in the market, they made an elaborate seafood risotto. I’ve still never had anything that tastes like it.

What is the taste of summer?

Prosciutto with melon – usually cantaloupe melon.

Olive or a twist?

Olive, dirty.

What do you always have in your fridge?

A bunch of different kinds of spreads. Things such as pickled cauliflower and chopped-up veg. The Italians call it giardiniera.

Describe a dish you cook for yourself.

I enjoy making a really simple, nourishing pasta, like a spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino.

Silk or cashmere?

Silk.

Marble or wood?

Wood.

Do you have a favourite piece of furniture at home?

I have this amazing reproduction of a 1960s Italian record player in my living room that I’m obsessed with. I play only old records on it. The newest album I have is early- to mid-1970s.

Hunting out swimwear at the start of summer is a time-honoured ritual as embedded as a new white shirt in spring, or party shoes in November. The prospect of morning swims and sundowner dips, a cabana with a horizon view and games of bat and ball on the beach are often balm enough to shake down the actual ordeal of trying on styles. But try on, one must. Different body shapes require a panoply of designs that, this season, range from sporty, squared off-cuts, to plunging, high-legged goddess versions and, at the other extreme, embellished suits with pretty rosette twirls – not made with vigorous swims in mind.

Then there’s the destination/s to consider. Wild coastline vs architect-designed poolside; yacht deck vs beach club; Atlantic vs Med vs Aegean all impact choices. The designer’s background can often give clues to suitability. Where Italian brands like Versace and Pucci revel in prints that embrace the vivacity of Southern Italy, Chanel (white piped monotones), Alaïa (lace-up) and Courrèges (cut-out) champion the sporty simplicity of Biarritz and Cote d’Azur. Meanwhile, Colombian native Johanna Ortiz veers to tropical with ruffle details and palm-tree appliqués.

‘In Ibiza, life moves at its own rhythm between swims, slow afternoons on a lounger, long days at sea and lingering dinners as the light begins to fade,’ says interior architect Brigitta Spinocchia Freund, who holidays on the Spanish island. ‘For me, swimwear has to feel effortless and I am drawn to the sculptural and flattering: pieces that I can swim in, not simply pose. I return again and again to a Hunza G one-piece, layering it with a linen shirt, a sarong, a beautiful pair of sunglasses, a raffia bag and a little jewellery. That is the mood I love – sun-warmed and unstudied,’ adds Spinocchia Freund, who also favours Miu Miu triangle bikinis, Alex Eagle swimsuits and sustainable styles from Agora boutique at Six Senses Ibiza.

Just looking at images of treasured spots – the infinity pool at the Maybourne Riviera with views of Monaco, or pebbly coves on the Cycladic island of Schinoussa – is enough to trigger a yearning. The V-necked Icône suit by Eres, perhaps? Lou Stoppard’s book Pools (Rizzoli, 2020) is an excellent primer, bringing together imagery from greats such as Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Sølve Sundsbø to explore the lure of water.

‘For swimming, I rely on athletic silhouettes – usually a racerback or a minimal one-piece that feels unfussy and doubles as a body suit for evening,’ says Sarah Harris, editorial director of EE72, who rarely strays from black, chocolate and navy. ‘For lounging, it’s almost always a bandeau bikini. Halterneck triangle shapes are messy when you take the straps down for sunbathing. I’ll add a men’s shirt over the top, Uniqlo have some great ones, otherwise I borrow from my husband. Gold jewellery helps elevate and I recommend Tiffany hardware chains,’ says Harris, who adds a vintage silk scarf by Versace or Hermès as a sarong. All agree, it’s worth investing in great fabrics because they hold their shape and colour.

‘Swimming, like love, is hard to pin down,’ writes Stoppard in her book. Agreed – time to flirt with a new suit.

The Dish is a monthly column that shines a light on London's most thrilling plates.

Named after a sad 19th-century clown and centred around ‘shepherd’s food’ from the underappreciated Abruzzo region of southern Italy, Auguste is the recently opened space from chef Mike Bagnall and ex-Bambi GM Dylan Walter. Yes, of course it is in East London – sliding into the plot formerly occupied by trendy London Fields eatery Papi to be exact. Yet whilst its specificity and spotlighting of simple, rustic technique might not make for particularly ostentatious fare, Auguste digs deep into the age-old adage that you don’t have to shout the loudest to make a hefty impression.

At the centre of their offering are arrosticini, aka dainty skewers fired over a furnacella: a sort of long, thin grill designed specifically for accommodating charred sticks of meat in vast quantities, that sits in a tiny open-plan kitchen area at the back of the restaurant. A cornerstone of the region’s cuisine to which Auguste has nailed its flag, arrosticini are delightfully unfussy things. Originally, their function was a way to reduce food waste. With origins dating back to 1830, shepherds in the mountainous slopes of the Gran Sasso d'Italia would cut their mutton into purposefully small cubes to take it right to the bone. Threaded onto skewers, they would go on to remain the area’s signature culinary export almost two centuries later.

Auguste has given their arrosticini a suitably 2026 update for a hip crowd that are more likely to have spent their working hours creating content than toiling in the fields. There are £5 camparinos (a campari spritz, served long and tall). The staff all look like they could have fallen out of a Charli XCX video, which is handy as her creative director is sitting happily at a corner table the night I visit. There’s an undeniable frisson of cool to the atmosphere here, but the space is minimal and chic, with a pleasingly old-school taste for white linen that’s rare for the area.

As well as the grill, they offer a daily, changing menu of streamlined starters (a plate of fat-flecked Cobble Lane finocchiona salami; thick slabs of Pecorino Romano D.O.P.), and a fresh and enticing array of small plates designed for sharing. Glistening slithers of cured sea bream are topped with piquant, olive-y puttanesca. Sweet datterini tomatoes and smokey peperonata come muddled with a generous amount of creamy stracciatella. I’m told in advance by a friend in the know that their blue cheese-laden potato rosti is a must, but sadly word has clearly spread as it’s already sold out by 7.30pm.

Given the more colourful nature of some of their sharing plates, it’s surprising that it is indeed the arrosticini that shoulder their way to top billing. But such is the easy pleasure of simple things done well. The night we dine, they have a quartet on offer including rose veal liver and a more upmarket wagyu. We’re guided towards the Salt Marsh lamb, and the chicken hearts – one classic, one offaly. Despite being cut so small, the lamb (served in portions of six) is impressively tender and full of flavour. Maybe there’s a little salt on there but Auguste is letting the fire do the talking. It’s confident, and far more memorable than you might expect.

Five plump little chicken hearts nestle up on each of their two spikes. Here, they’re served with a silky bowl of bagna cauda, a punchy Italian dipping sauce made with anchovies and garlic. Hearts and anchovies – they’re not flavours for the weak. Pair it with one of their vesper martinis or a fulsome red and you’re firmly in Grown Up Dining territory. But if your palette leans that way, there is enormous pleasure to be found.

Only four-percent of Italy’s tourism, we’re told by our impossibly stylish waiter, comes from Abruzzo. It’s not a go-to destination by any means and, as such, its food remains fairly under the radar. Auguste might well help bump up their numbers. If you see a crowd of tasteful Londoners roaming the foothills this summer, you’ll know why.

Auguste, 1F Mentmore Terrace, London E8 3DQ. Book a table.

What was once an industrial hub known for its grit and gall has all but transformed into one of the UK’s brightest creative centres, which welcomes visitors with signature Scottish warmth. As part of its shape-shifting, Glasgow has gradually become Scotland’s most exciting restaurant city; more creative and nuanced than its more well-heeled cousin over to the east. The dining scene here feels refreshingly unconcerned with trends or theatrics, focusing instead on something far harder to manufacture: genuinely good food served in places people actually want to spend time in.

The city’s restaurants reflect Glasgow itself. They are warm, confident and sometimes a little irreverent. You will find Michelin-starred tasting menus that remain pleasingly unpretentious, neighbourhood dining rooms where chefs cook the sort of food they crave on their days off and independent restaurants run by people who care deeply about ingredients, seasonality and hospitality.

Much of this momentum has been driven by a new generation of chefs choosing to build their careers here rather than move south. The result is a restaurant landscape that feels collaborative rather than competitive, with kitchens championing Scotland’s exceptional produce, from west coast seafood and Highland game to vegetables grown on small farms across the country.

What makes Glasgow particularly compelling right now is the range of experiences available within a relatively compact city. One evening might involve an intimate tasting menu beneath a railway arch, while the next could mean candlelit pasta, exceptional cocktails or some of the country’s best pizza enjoyed with a bottle brought from the corner shop.

Cail Bruich

A standout of Glasgow’s restaurant scene, Cail Bruich earned the city’s first Michelin star in 2021 under the direction of chef Lorna McNee. Its unassuming frontage on Great Western Road hints at the overall experience, elegant in its restraint. Interiors are beautiful and fuss-free, service is polished but discreet and the cooking is irresistibly confident. You are firmly in tasting-menu territory here, with dishes served under calm, warm lighting in a dining room that looks onto the open kitchen at one end. The best seat in the house is the chef’s table for two tucked beside the pass, where you feel right in the thick of it as you eat to the background notes of ‘oui chef’. Despite the high standards and relentless demand (it is almost always booked out), the atmosphere never feels frantic. Begin with bubbles or a well-made cocktail before moving through canapés, snacks, bread, fish and meat courses, finishing with dessert and petit fours. Signatures include McNee’s crab Thai green curry tartlets in the opening snacks and warm butter madeleines to close proceedings. In between come dishes such as buttery pork belly cooked until sticky and caramelised with the first wild garlic of the season, chive butter-doused Japanese milk bread with foie gras and cured duck breast, smoky beef tartare infused with coal oil and an outrageously good rhubarb and custard dessert that tastes like the realisation of all your childhood dreams.

725 Great Western Road, G12 8QX, cailbruich.co.uk

Celentano’s

Celentano’s serves the kind of food you could never tire of. Hearty Italian cooking brightened with the best seasonal produce from Scotland’s exceptional larder. Owners Anna and Dean Parker are deeply committed to sustainability, making everything from the bread to cocktail syrups in-house and cleverly repurposing what might otherwise be waste into new ingredients. You will struggle to find a better spicy margarita in Glasgow, which pairs perfectly with the excellent bar snacks. The mushroom lasagne fritti are particularly good. Creamy mushroom sauce layered between pasta sheets, cut into bite-sized pieces and breadcrumbed before frying make for nibbles so good they often cause a little light mouth burning as you greedily stuff them in before they're quite cool enough. Equally memorable are the cod’s roe doughnut bites topped with spicy kimchi, which has the acidity to cut neatly through the richness of the fish. Order a pasta course if you are doing things properly, perhaps Dexter beef ragù on tagliatelle or ricotta-filled agnolotti, before moving on to barbecued steak or fish with the restaurant's famed potato strati: its crisp layers pressed firm, then cooked in beef fat until golden. Tiramisu appears seasonally, but the affogato is a dependable favourite for dessert. You’ll find this restaurant inside the newly opened Arthouse Hotel in the centre of town, where a creative crowd gathers to fill the stylish dining room with a good level of buzz. The easygoing but knowledgeable team perfectly judges the rhythm of each table too, making you feel immediately at ease against a background playlist of uber cool music.

129 Bath Street, G2 2SZ, celentanosglasgow.com

Big Counter

The restaurant that kickstarted Glasgow’s red table trend, Big Counter is effortlessly cool thanks to its laidback attitude. A friendly team ushers guests into a dining room filled with cookery books and culinary paraphernalia, lit by candlelight dripping from wax-covered wine bottles. You won’t find hard-to-pronounce ingredients or encyclopaedic wine lists here. Instead, the appeal lies in excellent ingredients handled with care and turned into deeply flavoursome plates with little fuss. It is the sort of place that pulls in most of Glasgow’s best chefs when their own night off rolls around. Drinks options are short and sharp with a couple of cocktails and a concise selection of wines and beers. The food follows a familiar rhythm. Thick hunks of sourdough arrive first, pleasingly already buttered, followed by starters such as grilled mussels with garlic butter. Mains usually include a beautiful piece of fish, a sharing steak and handmade pasta, all accompanied by towering plates of chips and salad. And if proof is in the pudding then cosy classics such as steamed syrup sponge or bright lemon meringue pie seal the deal here.

76 Victoria Road, G42 7AA, booking.resdiary.com

Gloriosa

Rosie Healey has a knack for creating flavour combinations that transport you straight to the sunshine. Meals here almost always begin with squashy focaccia and glossy olives before the unnervingly stylish team talk you through a daily changing run of Mediterranean plates. Produce sits firmly at the centre of the menu with simple combinations that play on texture and the holy trinity of flavours that is savoury, sweet and sour. Bright salads might combine black figs, almonds, pancetta croutons and bitter leaves with red wine vinegar or tomatoes, peaches and cucumbers topped with feta and oregano, dressed with moscatel vinegar and olive oil. Meat and fish receive similar treatment, from whole roasted pheasant to British tuna crudo. Then there is the pasta which is freshly made each day and consistently addictive with unusual yet simply sauces. In winter a small log burner at the back keeps things cosy while candlelight flickers year-round. Add a strong drinks list and a very strong playlist and a good time is almost guaranteed.

1321 Argyle Street, G3 8TL, gloriosaglasgow.com

Margo

Scoop Restaurants owns several of Glasgow’s most popular dining rooms but the jewel in its crown is undoubtedly Margo. Opening in 2024, it filled a long-standing gap for a reliably good restaurant in the centre of town. The two-floor dining room has been packed ever since thanks to its lively atmosphere and a team that greets you like a regular, even on your first visit. There is an open kitchen, an excellent cocktail list and a jazzy playlist alongside plates that sit comfortably between comforting and inventive. Crunchy potato chipsticks with taramasalata became an instant hit and have remained on the menu since day one. Other standouts include crab and crayfish cocktail with a Bloody Mary sauce and pickled celery or a half duck served as both cassoulet and farce, accompanied by bitter leaves and brandy prunes. Those keen to extend the evening can head to the sister bar downstairs, Sebb’s, which won Michelin’s Exceptional Cocktail Award in 2026. Here, DJs spin records beneath converted arches late into the night.

68 Miller Street, G1 1DT, margo.restaurant

Errol’s

Not all pizza places are created equal and there are a few reasons why Errol’s sits firmly at the top of the pile. First it focuses almost entirely on the pizzas themselves rather than crowding the menu with endless sides. Secondly it is BYOB which makes for a pleasantly affordable evening. Thirdly the staff are genuinely warm which makes it the sort of place you immediately want to return to. There are only a handful of topping options with a favourite being sausage and onion finished with unapologetically generous quantities of finely shaved Parmesan. The bases are thin and crisp and the pizzas large enough to share if you are so inclined. Those craving extras can choose from only two sides, a burrata of the day and a sharply dressed salad topped with even more cheese. It is small and walk ins dominate so expect a wait at busy times. Secure a table though and you will be rewarded with a fun dive bar aesthetic and some of Glasgow’s best slices.

379 Victoria Road, G42 8RZ, instagram.com

Outlier

Outlier has evolved from a small coffee shop in Glasgow’s East End to an all-day destination and community hub. On weekends it plays host to its eponymous run club, attracting many of the city’s keenest athletes, while the evenings bring calm with a candlelit dinner service. Its minimalist interiors contribute to the zen, with a background of toning mustard tiles and pale wood tables and chairs surrounding an open kitchen. The menus are in a constant state of flux, but can be roughly categorised as modern European without too much of a firm grip on any one cuisine. Oysters, sourdough and other snacky bits being proceedings, followed by plates like beef tartare with gherkins and truffle mustard or trout with pumpkin, mushrooms and black olive. The desserts are equally as accomplished thanks to the in-house pastry team, and there are regular theme nights too, that span everything from burgers to pastas, so there’s always a new reason to visit.

38 London Road, G1 5NB, instagram.com

Fallachan

Entirely unique, Fallachan is fine dining for people who are genuinely interested in the process behind the plates. Here, in this converted railway arch, chef Craig Grozier leads his team in turning out an intimate tasting menu experience. There’s just one table where you sit communally with other diners while you watch the food being prepared about two feet away from you by the startlingly relaxed-looking team. And it’s not your typical fine-dining combinations either, with Grozier finding his own groove via a foraging and technique obsession. Borrowing a lot of methodology from Japanese cooking, you’ll find a wonderful harmony of umami peppered throughout the menu, plus all sorts of preservation at play here, from the homemade charcuterie and pickles through to the salted rhubarb and Scottish black crowdie cheese. If you’re a bit of a jaded diner, the fresh approach here is sure to appeal, with the restaurant’s unique approach to flavour combinations. There’s also a vegetarian tasting menu available, making this the perfect place for mixed groups celebrating something special. To match the food, there’s an equally strong drinks pairing, with a welcome mix of non-alcoholic and alcoholic serves that strike the perfect balance.

8 Eastvale Place, G3 8QG, fallachankitchen.co.uk

Crabshakk

A stalwart of Glasgow’s dining scene, Crabshakk has become such an institution that a second site opened beside the Botanic Gardens a few years ago. Larger and a little glossier than the original Finnieston restaurant, it retains the same relaxed spirit. The joy of Crabshakk lies in its consistency. You always know what you are going to get, and it is always good. Start with a cold glass of bubbles before ordering the wildly addictive scallops in anchovy and crispy sage butter. Bread or chips are essential here for mopping up the sauce. From there, you might move on to a daily seafood special or a classic such as fish and chips. There is no wizardry beyond excellent ingredients and accomplished cooking, though the atmosphere certainly helps. The room is almost always busy with the pleasant hum of a full dining room. It works equally well for intimate dates perched at the high tables looking out onto the street or larger groups tucked into the banquettes at the back.

18 Vinicombe Street, G12 8BE, crabshakk.co.uk

Brett

From the same stable as Cail Bruich, Brett displays a similarly high standard but in a less formal setting. It’s recently had a bit of an interiors refresh, which sees its dining room given a bistro edge, with crisp white tablecloths and flickering candlelight. The combination of being tight on space and its vibe of a high-end continental wine bar creates a really upbeat, adult atmosphere that is ideal for smaller groups and dates. It’s a menu focused around beautiful local ingredients enlivened by the odd Asian ingredient here or there. As is nearly always the case, the snacks steal the limelight with a fat tempura scallop served with warm tartare sauce and a vinegar powder-dusted crispy potato. The mushroom XO linguine with anchovies, Parmesan and crispy leeks is mandatory and a masterclass in creating rich, umami flavours by layering ingredients. Once you’ve completed that, your reward comes via mains such as stuffed chicken hind with Thai herbs and brown butter or venison with salted apricot and kuri squash. All that is a long way round of saying it’s hard not to like Brett, with its easygoing charm and complex plates all served in a convivial setting, accompanied by a top-class wine list.

321 Great Western Road, G4 9HR, brettrestaurant.co.uk

Eleven Fifty Five

After more than a decade at the helm of The Gannet, Peter McKenna and Kevin Dow have returned with Eleven Fifty Five, a reinvention of the space that trades in the original’s fine dining polish for something a little more relaxed. The new restaurant, the pair say, draws inspiration from Irish snugs and Parisian bistros, resulting in a dining room that feels lively, convivial and built for long evenings. The space now incorporates more dining within the former bar area and a rebuilt mezzanine, which includes a private room. The menu follows a similar philosophy. Expect generous bistro cooking built around excellent produce and robust flavours. Even oyster haters might be convinced by the team’s iteration here, doused in a Vietnamese dressing, and the beef tartare with bone marrow is one of those dishes you think about long after the meal has ended. Daily changing mains include a whole fish on the bone, beautiful steaks or grilled spring cabbage with white bean and mushroom cassoulet and a seaweed emulsion. The overall feeling is relaxed but assured thanks to tip-top service, wonderful drinks and a confident menu, which all contribute to Eleven Fifty Five being the sort of restaurant where you settle in easily and find yourself staying longer than planned.

1155 Argyle Street, G3 8TB, bistroelevenfiftyfive.com

Corner Shop

Corner Shop brings a slice of Basque cooking to Glasgow and does so with a distinctly cool, unfussy confidence. The small restaurant has built a devoted following thanks to its lively atmosphere, an achingly cool team and a menu built around snacking and sharing plates that arrive steadily throughout the evening. The cooking draws clear inspiration from northern Spain. Jamón croquetas are a must-order, crisp on the outside and creamy within, while simple combinations such as sticky chorizo on toast deliver the sort of punchy flavours that pair perfectly with a glass of something interesting. The drinks list is part of the appeal too. Wines, aperitifs and cocktails change frequently, often leaning towards unusual or lesser-known bottles that keep regulars coming back to see what is new. The room itself is intimate and full of energy, a clashing combination of red Formica tables and buffed stainless steel, and the sort of place where tables quickly fill with friends passing plates back and forth while the team behind the bar keeps the drinks flowing.

45 Old Dumbarton Road, G3 8RF, cornershopglasgow.co.uk

To re-cap: in November 2024 Jaguar was facing an uncertain future. Production on its existing fleet – great cars such as the F-Type, F-Pace and i-Pace – was coming to an end but without a clear path forward for this iconic British brand. Unable to compete in a marketplace increasingly dominated by German brands with much greater economies of scale, Jaguar had become an unprofitable part of JLR and this was not sustainable. The uncomfortable choice was to close down or to re-invent the brand. A transformation into an electric-only brand was needed, and the following month, at an event held during Miami Design Week a prototype EV model was duly unveiled to the world… occasioning a great deal of coughing and spluttering.

The concept launch generated headlines around the world and a staggering amount of publicity for the brand, but not necessarily of the right kind. There was uncertainty about whether this project would ever actually happen. Since then, there has been upheaval at JLR – not least the departure of Gerry McGovern, the design supremo and Chief Creative Officer who led JLR to extraordinary success over 20 years – while a great deal has also changed in both the industry and the world.

So where is Jaguar now? There is an actual car – the Type 01. Over the last few weeks, production prototypes have been shown to select journalists, culminating in a ‘launch’ in Monaco with almost-complete camouflaged cars driving on public roads in and around the principality. More importantly, the new Jaguar brand is itself coming into sharper focus. Back in Miami the message was all forward-looking with no references to the past. But that has been revisited and for the Monaco event, Jaguar’s best-of-the-best – an XK120 from the 1950s, an E-Type from the 60s and an XJS from the 70s - were celebrated as inspiration. That is quite a philosophical reversal and once again founder Sir William Lyons’ ‘Grace, space and pace’ is back on the agenda, or as MD Rawdon Glover put it, “First and foremost a Jaguar should be really desirable, really distinctive and provoke an emotional response both in how it looks and how it feels.”

So how did it look? Rather extraordinary. Jaguar has said the Type 01 is the first of three models, and as a four-door coupé, it is not small. Although the original concept was a two-door version, the camouflage could not hide the fact that much of the muscular original proportions are still there. Seeing a prototype on the street, as opposed to the studio, really brings a car to life, and The Type 01 is much more subtle than the original concept images suggested. Furthermore, the cars were in constant use over a couple of days, much of it at (very) high speed around the closed Monaco Grand Prix circuit (the event coincided with the Formula E series in which Jaguar is a leading competitor) and they just looked… cool.

Run-of-the-mill electric cars are a depressingly soulless bunch - apart from looking faceless, they often deliver power in the on/off manner and handling tends to be non-existent. That is absolutely not the case with the Type 01. Evidently, a huge amount of effort has gone into capturing the essence of Jaguar in a vehicle that is – as they say – ‘drivetrain agnostic’. The V12 XJ, XJC and XJS are all cited as inspiration and with the Type 01 you could imagine you had a super-silent V12 under the long bonnet in front of you. Which begs the question: does it in fact matter whether it is powered by a V12 or a brilliant electric powerpack if the effect is the same? The car is astonishingly quiet to the point of it being described by some testers as second only to a Rolls-Royce Ghost. Praise indeed.

Speaking of other brands… a couple of very significant things have happened in the last few weeks that are highly relevant to the Jaguar story. Firstly, Mercedes-AMG unveiled its GT 4-door EV coupé. This is not an attractive vehicle, exaggerating design themes from the already aesthetically-challenged EQS range. But worse, it creates artificial petrol-engine noise and a simulated gear-change feel. This lack of authenticity has been met with widespread derision. But second and even more curious, is the new all-electric Ferrari Luce, designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, which has had the Ferraristi united in uproar. It is a 5-seat SUV that looks – ironically – rather like an enlarged Jaguar i-Pace. Inside, you are deep in Apple world – indeed possibly the Apple car that never was? As you’d expect, the interior is beautifully functional, but it is the exterior that is so challenging. The Ferrari brand has always been about Italian style, beauty and desire, but those qualities are extremely hard to find here. This car could just as easily have a mass-market badge on it. Oh, and did I mention it costs over half a million Euros?

Both approaches underline just what an existential crisis premium automotive brands are facing in the world and times we are in. Drastic times call for drastic measures and Mercedes, Ferrari and Jaguar have each chosen a different route. Cards on the table – I want Jaguar to succeed. Very much. It has an extraordinary heritage and is one of Britain’s great automotive stories. A few weeks ago, before seeing Type 01, I was hopeful but – I have to admit - concerned. Having now experienced it and, perhaps more importantly, having seen how not to do it, I am convinced Jaguar is roaring back.

Twenty years after the launch of its celebrated City Guides, Wallpaper* returns with a new series uniquely positioned to introduce design lovers to vibrant cities, cool escapes and emerging, design-focused destinations. Fully revised with one-of-a-kind intel for today’s global explorer, the series launches with guides to four of the world’s most stylish, culturally active and exciting hubs: Milan, Paris, New York City, London.

Each of these beautifully produced pocket-sized books has been curated by a Wallpaper* writer intimately familiar with their destination’s most exciting neighbourhoods, hotels, cafes, restaurants, bars, retail and wellness experiences – as well as ideas for culture-rich weekend excursions. And we are just getting started. Future Travel Guides will not only visit landmark cities, but also cultural capitals, island idylls and creative hotspots across the globe.

Available to buy on Amazon and online at wallpaper.com/wallpaper-travel-guides

‘Louis Vuitton is about fantasy,’ says Humberto Campana. ‘And I am a fantasy guy. I like to tell stories.’ Campana co-founded his company, Estúdio Campana, with his late brother Fernando in 1984. Their work, which centres on pieces of furniture but also includes smaller accessories for the home such as wall mirrors, is shaped from everyday materials. Creatively, they draw inspiration from Brazil, and more precisely the city of São Paulo, where Estúdio Campana is headquartered.

Estúdio Campana has been a collaborator with Louis Vuitton since 2012, the year that the maison first introduced its Objets Nomades line of limited-edition designs for house and home. ‘Everything is possible,’ says Campana of working with Louis Vuitton and its specialist workshops. It’s a creative to and fro that the Brazilian designer likens to ‘a game of ping-pong’.

Debuted in Milan in April, the most recent result of this exchange includes a limited-edition wooden box clad in marine leather, its shape and construction inspired by Louis Vuitton’s totemic travelling trunks. The leather has been dyed in vibrant shades and forms an impressionistic pattern that is Campana’s love letter to the nature of Brazil. ‘It comes from a drawing,’ he says of the multicolour scene. ‘I had been making a lot of drawings inspired by microorganisms, fungus, cell structures and plants. All from imagination. This design of mine was then transformed into the box.’

Sketching has long been a practice to Campana, who is seldom without a sketchbook to hand. ‘It’s a way to get my anxiety down, it’s therapeutic.’ He filled a whole book with new ideas on his flight from Brazil to Milan, he reveals. ‘I always try to find new stories to tell.’

Long before The White Lotus transformed Taormina into television's most coveted address, the town attracted a different kind of pilgrim. Artists, aristocrats and writers made their way to this sun-drenched corner of Sicily in search of beauty, inspiration and, occasionally, escape. Among them was Oscar Wilde, who arrived in 1898 after leaving England and found solace beneath the Sicilian sun. More than a century later, the allure remains much the same.

Dramatically positioned on a rocky terrace between the Ionian Sea and the slopes of Mount Etna, Taormina is a place of extraordinary contrasts. Ancient Greek ruins overlook designer boutiques. Baroque churches sit moments from glamorous beach clubs. Narrow medieval lanes spill into piazzas framed by bougainvillaea, and the sea views are so arresting they appear almost theatrical.

Yet Taormina's enduring appeal lies in more than its undeniable beauty. There is an effortless sophistication to the town. Mornings begin with granita and espresso on sunlit terraces; afternoons drift between hidden coves, historic palaces and elegant hotels; evenings are devoted to long dinners, local wines and golden-hour views across the bay.

Whether you're visiting for a romantic weekend, a grand Sicilian tour or because you watched that show, Taormina offers a compelling blend of history, culture, gastronomy and glamour. This is your guide to where to stay, eat, drink and explore in Sicily's most captivating coastal town.

Where to stay

By the sea: Belmond Villa Saint Andrea

Villa Saint Andrea has lived many lives. First built as a private home for an English family in 1919, it then opened as a glamorous boutique hotel in the 50s. In 2010, it was acquired by Belmond and transformed into a luxury hotel right on Taormina’s shoreline. The design is midcentury modern – a nod to its past – in pastel blues, pinks and olive greens. Pack a good book to enjoy in the bar’s cosy reading nooks or poolside, with expansive views. The rooms boast balconies overlooking the Ionian and in the summer months, you can dine right on the water’s edge – just one of three restaurants on site, serving Sicilian fare, fresh seafood and Etna wines. Be sure to pop by the bar for a paloma made with smoky, pineapple-infused Mezcal. Shuttles run into town on the hour or take the cable car.

In the town: San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel

Perched on a rocky promontory, San Domenico Palace, Taormina, A Four Seasons Hotel is arguably Sicily's most renowned address. Originally a 14th-century Dominican monastery, the property seamlessly blends centuries of history with contemporary luxury, its cloisters, terraced gardens and elegant suites all oriented towards breathtaking views of Mount Etna and the coastline below. While its starring role in The White Lotus introduced it to a new generation of travellers, the hotel's appeal runs far deeper than television fame. Impeccable service, exceptional dining and an unrivalled setting just moments from Taormina's historic centre make it the ultimate base from which to experience the town's timeless glamour.

Where to shop

Feliciotto

Taormina has no shortage of luxury stores along Corso Umberto but Feliciotto is a unique offering. The concept store is split across two sites for men and women, on opposite sides of the street, and boasts a great selection of sneakers, vinyl, fragrance and clothing. Issey Miyake’s Pleats Please collection sits alongside Margiela tabis, Bottega Veneta shades and Carhartt jackets. The store even produces its own zine.

Where to eat

Granduca

Hidden behind an unassuming entrance in the centre of town, Granduca occupies a beautifully restored 15th-century villa that opens onto one of the most spectacular dining terraces in Taormina. Set across a series of gardens and sea-facing terraces, the restaurant commands sweeping views over the Ionian coastline, the Bay of Naxos and the ancient Greek Theatre. The menu celebrates classic Sicilian cooking, with fresh seafood, local pasta dishes and wood-fired pizzas sitting alongside regional specialities, but the setting is undoubtedly the main attraction. Arrive before sunset and linger over dinner as the sky turns pink above Mount Etna – few restaurants in Taormina capture the town's blend of history, romance and old-world grandeur quite so effortlessly.

Milanese luxury maison Buccellati was founded in 1919, the year that goldsmith Mario Buccellati opened his first boutique. The business has since spread across the northern Italian city, from the neoclassical Palazzo Gavazzi on via Napoleone, home to a sprawling Buccellati boutique, to its temporary exhibitions during Milan Design Week. In 2020, the year that the family firm joined the Richemont Group, another Buccellati address was added on via Brisa, near Milan’s Duomo. A 1919 building designed by important local architect Piero Portaluppi is home to the Buccellati offices and workshop.

Buccellati currently operates six workshops; four are dedicated to jewellery, one to silverware and one creates watches. These are spread across Italy and beyond; a site near Como masters a particular twisted metal thread technique, silversmithing takes place near Bologna, while a Swiss workshop is charged with making jewellery watches – a category that was first presented in 2000. In Milan, Buccellati’s team of artisans focus on overall design and the making of unique high jewellery. Grouped on benches, there are specialists in stone setting, polishing and engraving, among others.

‘The workshop has always been our essential base, throughout the history of Buccellati. There is a very important connection between creativity and production,’ says Andrea Buccellati, the maison’s creative director. ‘When I create new pieces, it does not end with the initial design. There are many collaborations with the artisans, to explain a piece, to work out how we do it.’ Part of the founding family’s third generation, he first joined his father, Gianmaria Buccellati, as an apprentice aged 16. ‘When I was a kid, I loved to spend time in the workshop and work with the artisans. It was like a recreation for me! I learnt how to make the jewellery, I saw how they made it, and to understand this business.’

Much of what happens today inside the Buccellati Milan atelier is a type of material sorcery, or perhaps mimicry. Since Mario Buccellati first opened his boutique, his name has been linked to innovative techniques of working metal to echo the structure and surface of other materials. The intricate patterns of delicate Italian lace or airy tulle fabrics have inspired Buccellati creations cast and carved from precious golds and silver. Elsewhere, contemporary Buccellati designs nod to the Italian art of jewellery-making practised during the Renaissance. This includes the telato (cross-hatched lines that intersect at a right angle) and segrinato finishes, which give metals the look of linen and velvet respectively. Yet another technique, the lavishly textured ornato, is inspired by the damasks, laces and brocades of the Renaissance. ‘The connection between workshop and artist is most important,’ says Buccellati. ‘It’s a collaboration that has continued through generations. Without the artisans, there can’t be a Buccellati.’

At Buccellati, precious alloys are shaped to take on myriad forms and textures. The Eternelle line of pieces, for example, makes gold appear as spun lace. Seen left, a Rombi collection Eternelle ring in white and yellow gold, finessed with a total of 60 brilliant-cut diamonds.

The film to see…

The close friendship between Lucian Freud and Kate Moss is fascinating. Moss & Freud, it’s story on film, is written and directed by James Lucas and executive produced by Moss herself, after the director approached her in the script’s early days. Her commitment is testament to how much the relationship between the two of them meant, even if neither she nor Freud much cared for the resulting painting. Freud is played by Sir Derek Jacobi and

Ellie Bamber gets Moss’s mannerisms perfectly after spending time with her. As the nineties endures as a moment for vintage inspiration, it’s startling too to see early noughties Notting Hill (where Freud lived and worked) put on screen as a moment in very recent history. In cinemas from 29 May.

The exhibition to see

At Tate Modern Frida: The Making of an Icon runs from 25 June to 3 January. As well as gathering a huge once-in-a-lifetime collection of her own work, the show will include many works by artists she inspired. If you have the stamina it will also make for a fascinating double viewing with Dame Tracey Emin’s A Second Life which you can see concurrently until 31 August. And if it’s your own walls you’re thinking about, it’s time for the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition (16 June to 23 August). Members' preview days in early June give you the best chance to add a red dot and take something home. This year’s theme is Interconnectedness.

The theatre to see… 

Carrie Cracknell’s Old Vic production of Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece Arcadia moves to the West End with the Duke of York’s theatre being newly renovated into the round for this production, which runs for 12 weeks from 20 June. It’s a great way to toast a beloved intellectual giant of our time.

Meanwhile in Waterloo, The Old Vic’s winning streak continues with Glengarry Glen Ross reimagining David Mamet’s fast-paced real estate masterpiece for a snappy all-female cast, including Indira Varma. Directed by Patrick Marber, from 4 June to 18 July.

The collaboration to look out for…

After the thrill of sculpting a Kardashian, bringing a moment of true pop art mastery to the Met circus, closer to home see more work from the legendary British artist Allen Jones at Camden Arts Projects this summer (5 June to 30 August). Curated by his artist admirer Philip Colbert, this celebration of new and recent work is staged in collaboration with Almine Rech.

The event to attend…

Dalkey Literary Festival (18-21 June) overlooking Dublin Bay has speakers including local heroes Roddy Doyle, John Banville and Anne Enright alongside Sir Salman Rushdie and Charlie Mackesy. To do it in luxurious style, book into The Westbury, or at the very least head to the award-winning The Sidecar cocktail bar.

The album to buy …

What happens when you set out to write an album about being in love and then break up halfway through? Well, if you're Olivia Rodrigo you turn it into a concept album, starting with a first date and ending somewhere quite different. For third LP, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love, last year's Glastonbury headliner explores the complex spectrum of emotions that comes with being in and out of a relationship. Much of this album was written here and she promises a big dose of her own “London vibes".

The TV to watch...

Cape Fear takes inspiration from a classic 1991 Scorsese/De Niro collaboration (1991) and is retold for long-form TV, starring Javier Bardem in the De Niro role over ten episodes. The remake comes with Scorsese’s blessing – along with Steven Spielberg, he is an executive producer on the series. The stellar cast also includes Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson. Get yourself hooked, as a compulsive psychological thriller is a great heat wave aid for any British summer nights too hot to sleep. On Apple TV from June 5.

The book to read…

As the centenary of Marilyn Monroe is celebrated this month all over the world, with highlights including the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery ​(4 June to 6 September) and the BFI’s season, settle in with Andrew Wilson’s biography which is finally a life to do her justice at a 100. After decades of sensational – or at best variable – lives, I Wanna Be Loved By You: Marilyn Monroe A Life In 100 takes (Simon & Schuster) is a superb cinematic guide, told through a series of cumulatively revealing snapshots. A great companion to this is Marilyn and Her Books: The Literary Life of Marilyn Monroe by Gail Crowther (Corsair) which goes to Marilyn’s rich inner life through close attention to her library... Happy birthday Marilyn and here’s to these new, far more subtle appreciations of her unique place in the canon of 20th-century artists.

In watchmaking, precision and craftsmanship reign supreme. So it is perhaps no surprise that the skeleton watch is one of the biggest visible trends for 2026, showcasing the intricate mechanics of a timepiece as a symbol of innovation and artistry.

At the heart of the skeleton watch is transparency. It invites the wearer to witness the very essence of functionality. The movement – gears, springs, escapements and all – are stripped bare and displayed, allowing you to admire the marvels of engineering that lie within. You literally wear its heart on your sleeve.

The style itself can be traced back to the late 18th century. But it was not until the 20th century that the skeleton watch truly gained prominence and, today, brands such as Richard Mille, Zenith and TAG Heuer are producing handsome new pieces that blur the lines between watchmaking and art.

This new wave speaks in a quieter, more architectural language, too. Brands are increasingly stripping back their designs to emphasise structure rather than encourage embellishment. The result is less filigree, more framing device.

Equally important is wearability. Earlier skeleton watches might have been guilty of prioritising spectacle over practicality, resulting in pieces that were visually impressive but difficult to read, or rendered fragile by the reductive nature of the approach. The current trend balances openness with clarity; applied indices, floating hands and carefully considered contrasts ensure that time remains central.

Creating these pieces is no mean feat, requiring true technical skill to carve away material from the movement, ensuring that decoration doesn’t compromise functionality and reliability. These intricate processes can take weeks – even months – to complete and the result has to be striking while capturing the essence of timekeeping. To ensure that they deserve their ‘close-up’, each component, from the smallest gear to the grandest bridge, must be meticulously crafted and polished. The interplay of light and shadow across the exposed movement is a modern celebration of centuries-old mechanical ingenuity.

Collaborations between watchmakers and designers further fuel the trend. Creative voices from outside the industry bring architectural and industrial perspectives. Brands are encouraged to reconsider proportions and structural logic, a canvas for experimentation, bridging disciplines and expanding the usual visual vocabulary.

The result is an opportunity for makers to showcase creativity beyond the mere mechanical, while designers are experimenting with materials, shapes and colours to create unique pieces. Carbon fibre, ceramic and titanium, together with bold colour palettes, avant-garde designs and engravings, help make each watch a statement piece.

For collectors, skeleton watches offer the appreciation of mechanical artistry alongside investment potential. As interest in unique and limited-edition pieces grows, brands are responding by producing exclusive models. The rise of social media has also played a role, enabling collectors to share their prized possessions – each ‘like’ a tribute to the intricate dance of gears and springs, the delicate balance of engineering and art.

In a world where time is fleeting, skeleton watches invite us to pause and appreciate the marvel of a mechanism that keeps us on schedule. They are a reminder that timekeeping is not merely a measurement, but a craft that should be celebrated.

As the trend continues to evolve, one thing remains certain: the skeleton watch will always hold a special place in the hearts of enthusiasts and collectors alike. B

Photo assistant: Nick Clarke

Dior introduced its Grand Bal in 2011, as an ode to the French maison’s haute couture heritage, and the life and work of its founder.

Christian Dior, who established his eponymous business in December 1946 and made history just two months later with his New Look collection, had a penchant for fancy dress balls and served as couturier to guests of the 1951 Ball of the Century in Venice. Hosted by Charles de Beistegui, a wealthy art collector and interior decorator, at his then recently restored 18th-century Palazzo Labia, the Ball of the Century drew a high-society crowd that included Leonor Fini, Salvador and Gala Dalí, and Cecil Beaton.

Occasions such as these called for one of the many gowns that Christian Dior dreamt up during his career. Standout designs included Junon, a 1949 silk tulle confection in pale grey finished with blue-green sequin embroideries by master workshop Rébé, or Mozart, a 1950s dress with glass beads and knotted passementerie fringing that follows the wearer’s every move.

Occasions such as the Ball of the Century, and designs such as Junon and Mozart, inspired the creation of the Grand Bal. The watch is fitted with the Dior Inversé calibre, a movement co-developed by Les Ateliers Horlogers Dior, a specialist manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, with the oscillating weight placed on top of the dial. Driving the timepiece, this innovation creates a movement that recalls the swish and swirl of a ball gown mid-dance.

Over the past 15 years, the Dior Grand Bal has come in many guises. There have been timepieces finessed with cut gems, feathers, cuts of silk or delicate gold threads. Even scarab beetle wings have made the cut. Hardstone marquetry, realised in pieces-of-a-puzzle shapes of lapis lazuli and opal, in addition to pearlescent mother-of-pearl, feature in Grand Bal Jardin Parisien, a collection that made its debut earlier this year. With flowers – clematis, dahlias and peonies – imagined with brilliant-cut sapphires and growing from yellow gold branches, the collection is an ode to the winter garden Christian Dior planted at his Paris flat on boulevard Jules-Sandeau.

Amid the homogeneity of the modern airport, there is always one thing that cuts through – that person with the aluminium case. One can’t help but notice it – those bevelled edges, the riveted silveriness of it, those eerily quiet wheels. In a universe of tired plastic luggage, the aluminium case is a beautiful alien, one that is as coveted by short-haul business warriors as much as dedicated fashionistas, and that’s because neatly packed into its chiselled contours is status – and everybody wants it.

In 1938, oil man and serial entrepreneur Erle P. Halliburton had grown so fed up with his leather and canvas bags disintegrating in the Texas oilfields that he commissioned aircraft engineers to fashion cases from lightweight, corrosion-resistant aluminium – necessity, as always, the mother of ingenuity. Little did he know the result would become a style statement.

Almost 90 years later, Zero Halliburton is still going strong. Besides looking good, aluminium’s advantages are self-evident: feather-light (sub 5kg for most carry-ons) yet tough as they come, while hermetically sealing your belongings. In short, not just a pretty face. On these pages, the finest iterations that money can buy.

Cruise shows embrace extremes that ready-to-wear cannot touch: far-flung destinations; multi-layered film and outdoor catwalk extravaganzas, starry front rows plus parties galore. The small number of luxury brands that go big on cruise – namely Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, Fendi – means there’s more ‘space’ to make an impression and more ‘space’ to spend where it counts. Guests were flown and chaperoned around L.A. for Dior; to NYC for Gucci; to Biarritz for Chanel; back to NYC for Hermes early June its Chapter 2 collection. That’s a spike on air miles.

Where the logic behind Cruise collections was once to offer a timely delivery of winter sunshine vacay garms in November, now it’s less about climate and more about fuelling the high gifting season with collectibles and novelties. Why the focus on the U.S.? The answer lies in the nation’s 0.1% of superlatively wealthy individuals and a newly loaded generation of Nepo inheritors benefitting from the great wealth transfer.

Chanel

But the Cruise route started with Matthieu Blazy’s giddy line-up revealed at the Art Deco Casino Municipal in Biarritz, the chic seaside town where Coco Chanel first set up shop.

With a view over the Atlantic (and thoroughly scrubbed up sand beaches), Blazy rejoiced in the fruits of the sea including lace and crochet dresses that looked like coral; deck chair stripe skirt suits; Mariner knits and classic bathing caps reimagined by Chanel milliner, Maison Michel. Sea horses and shells were embedded into tweed weaves and appliqued into circle skirts – Blazy is a master at 3D.

Touché: we love the ‘neck deco’ featuring silk scarves and chain necklaces; the thigh split skirts worn with bunched-sleeve shackets exposing fanciful print linings.

Dior

Maverick JW Anderson will be involved as creative consultant on no less three forthcoming Hollywood movies including Luca Guadagngino’s AI drama Artificial. That’s A LOT but Anderson takes his ventures in his stride. So, he took Dior to L.A. and set up stage at the newly expanded David Geffen Galleries at LACMA (a $724m project by Peter Zumthor) creating a parking lot scene. Hollywood legends – watcha Al Pacino! and pop stars Cyrus and Carpenter were out in force.

He invoked Grace Kelly in curvy bar jackets worn with ripped jeans (yes, Couture denim is back); Gloria Swanson in feather-trimmed boudoir coats and Cary Grant in lounge suits.

Gifting season? A sequin Cadillac bag revived from John Galliano’s era and a plaid shirt emblazoned with Ed Ruscha’s word art would make a dream duo.

Louis Vuitton

With equal cultural heft, Louis Vuitton chose the just reopened Frick Museum in uptown New York as a venue where guests could admire the grace of Selldorf Architect’s $220m extension. The line-up was an explosive mash-up of downtown/uptown New Yorker style laced with that Patricia Field SATC wrong is right kookiness.

Ghesquiere had discovered a 1930s suitcase in the archive that had been given a Keith Haring doodle makeover back in the 1980s: cue punky pop art get-ups. There were swirling denim rara skirts and belted leather jackets; metallic sports shorts and Haring graffiti tops; jeans featuring a trompe l’oeil print of worn stained denims, flamenco frilled boleros topping bodysuits and Diane Keaton Derby hats aplenty. The show marked the beginning of a three-year patron partnership between Louis Vuitton and the Frick.

Takeaways? A sequinned Chinese takeaway carton shaped evening bag and a mini Haring doodle briefcase.

Gucci

Demna went for a democratic open-air show and launched Gucci Core at a Times Square takeover. It was teased with a hilarious billboard show of Gucci-fied products including Gucci chocolate, Gucci water, Gucci pets, cars and longevity drugs. The Core collection will be a year-round offer of Gucci ‘staples’ that sweep from exec pinstriped suits, fake fur capes, lacquered denim, revived Flora blouses and scarves (the print debuted in 1966) and diva evening dresses as worn by Cindy Crawford. The New York moment was set on fire by the appearance of New Yorkers such as Tom Brady, Paris Hilton and interior designer @eyeswoon, on the runway.

Gucci for all? Demna looked back to the Tom Ford heyday of lifestyle marketing (remember the black Gucci mask and flippers?) and put the house stripes on everything from yoga mat carriers to back packs and water bottles.

Fendi

A Roman in Rome: Maria Grazia Chiuri released cruise through a film and lookbook and propelled her take on pragmatic glamour seen at her Fendi debut in March. The film nodded to Histoire d’Eau, Jacques de Bascher’s 1977 short commissioned by Karl Lagerfeld to coincide with Fendi’s first ready-to-wear collection.

The fictional star is a German tourist named Suzie, who explores Rome through a series of mysterious encounters and a wardrobe of linear coats, long pleat goddess dresses and sequin-embroidered split pencil skirts.

The Souvenir? A parchment lined studded leather and suede Baguette.

I’m on the phone to Jago Rackham. He’s taking the call hands-free, as he’s in the middle of prepping a sea bass – and its accompanying roe – that he’s just bought from his local fish van in east London. The groundwork sounds grand, but it’s all for a solo supper, because the friends he’d invited over have just bailed.

He doesn’t mind. In fact, the news prompted a masterclass in how to use his new book To Entertain: Instructions for a Dinner Party. Part cookbook, part memoir and part hosting manifesto, it has a page dedicated to cancellations. ‘When I got the text, I just sent them a photo of that passage from the book,’ he says, which tells readers to give notice, be upfront and not to feign illness. ‘I’m now officially on the record for not caring if someone drops out.’

Rackham is a writer (he has a restaurant column in The Observer) and self-taught cook (‘I don’t call myself a chef as I’ve never worked in a restaurant’). Aged 31, he’s also behind the cult Instagram account @ecstacy_cookbook, which showcases his ‘baroque, over-the-top, messy, medieval’ approach to catering. His style of cooking – which he describes as ‘sort of beastly and rough’ – is often presented with the help of his artist partner Lowena Hearn, and meets the current appetite for food paired with fashion, as spearheaded by one of his culinary heroes, Laila Gohar. Rackham and Hearn made a multi-tiered monochrome cake for Vogue editor Tish Weinstock’s Halloween-themed wedding; he created a six-hour food performance called Greed during Frieze art fair; and recently delivered edible vegetable sculptures for an event at London’s Serpentine gallery.

If these creations sound intimidating, know that his book is altogether more stripped back, featuring everyday recipes such as a lamb shoulder with honey and wine that’s made to be transformed into a ragu the next day. Inspired by the word-first 1950s cookbooks of Elizabeth David and Patience Gray, there are no photos of dishes. Instead, recipes are interspersed with gorgeously vivid vignettes detailing post-party spillages on a tablecloth or the buying of wine glasses at a flea market in France. The book is also punctuated by pencil and charcoal sketches by the painter Faye Wei Wei.

‘She came round to my flat, I made dinner and she sketched.’ Based on photos of Rackham’s food and friends, they capture movement and merriment. The book is deliberately smaller than your average cookbook too: ‘I want people to be able to read it in bed or in the bath.’

As well as notes on choosing music and handling unexpected guests, the message behind To Entertain is to encourage anyone to feel comfortable hosting at home, regardless of income or space. His biggest piece of advice? ‘Remember, people are coming to see you and your friends, not to eat. So don’t panic about the food. And never make something you haven’t cooked before.’ We’ll raise a glass to that.

To Entertain: Instructions for a Dinner Party by Jago Rackham is out now, £22 (Robinson).