Glencoe, Scotland. Image by Max Hermansson

Scotland was recently crowned the most beautiful country in the world; it conjures up images of wild northern mountain rises, plunging cliffs and bottomless lochs.  The combination of Scotland’s bustling cultural hubs with its raw, breath-taking landscapes makes it seem only natural that artists and poets would gravitate towards this northern haunt. Rhiannon Williams turns the spotlight on Scotland’s best poetry nights and slams, and speaks to The Loud Poets collective about the poet’s role in contemporary society.

In both Glasgow and Edinburgh today there is a veritable traffic jam of poetry nights, collectives and slams all fuelled by furious creation. These include the regular Illicit Ink showcases which like to focus upon ‘the sinister, the witty and the weird’, or collective Inky Fingers who run writers’ workshops as well as incredibly cool performance nights in Edinburgh at the popular Fringe venue Summerhall.

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Poets and the poetry community alike meet to learn from each other, share ideas, and of course laugh and enjoy themselves – Edinburgh is not the capital of comedy for nothing, and a lot of the poems performed will jump over into being stand-up sets too. This is the case with Neu! Reekie! which often set up at the quirky Monkey Barrel Comedy club.  Whilst, Growing Underground at the Forest Café in Edinburgh is as unique as it gets. The radical arts hub hosts monthly nights, serves organic hot food, and has a basement gallery and venue space which is as mouth-wateringly atmospheric as it sounds.

Image by Perry Jonsson

Finally, there are the Loud Poets who, as with a lot of the poetry collectives, resist any concrete
definition. They’ve been together since 2014 and perform at Fringe shows, run club nights, create art  and music and now have a hub in Annexe Arts of Edinburgh. Popular in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, the appeal is in the idea of noise, empowerment to speak out and encouraging others to do the same.

Rhiannon Williams: What’s the best part about being in a collective?
Loud Poets: The best part about being in a collective is the ability to bounce ideas off of your fellow artists and brainstorm together. In Loud Poets we have not only writers and performers but also musicians and video artists, so any time someone wants to create new work, they can draw upon a range of talented folks for ideas and advice.

RW: How did the members of the Loud Poets meet? What is your creative process; do you ever write collaboratively for example?
LP: As a collective we’ve grown and evolved over time: what began as a small group of creative folks DIYing a monthly showcase has ballooned into a larger collective containing many different artists. One of Loud Poets’ aims has always been to foster a community around spoken word in Scotland, so we’ve always encouraged folks who are passionate about the art form to get involved in the collective. It’s hard to say there’s any one creative process – it varies for the different artists and it’s always changing!

The diversity of creative practices in Loud Poets is, I think, one of the things that makes it work so well – if one person is stuck, another person can jump in with a different strategy to help. We do write collaboratively – we have several partner and group poems that we’ve performed as part of our Edinburgh Fringe shows. Those are challenging but also loads of fun to compose, since the process involves balancing different styles to create the piece that will work the best in live performance.

RW: Your work spans all kinds of medium, from physical performance to live music and visual arts. Where would you say the roots of the poetry lie for you?
LP: I think each member of LP would answer that question differently, which again I think is a good thing! We each draw upon different creative practices: for example, Kevin is a trained actor, Katie a trained dancer/choreographer, and Doug plays multiple instruments. As a collective we perceive performance poetry as a multi-medium art form to be experimented with, and we’ve had a lot of fun innovating at the edges of the genre.

RW: Which poets/artists/musicians are you excited about right now?
LP: It’s so hard to just pick a couple! One artist who LP has admired for a long time is the Leicester-based artist Jess Green, who not only writes and performs poems but also works with a live band and has recently penned a play! Jess often targets political inequalities through her sharp, beautifully realised poetry. We’ve recently fallen in love with Glasgow artist Sarah Grant, an incredibly talented film-maker who came along to LP last year and performed her first poem there to great success. Since then, she’s won two of our slams and graced our stages many times, as we can’t get enough of her often hilarious yet always powerful work.

Read next: Brisk walks and autumnal evenings at Coworth Park Hotel & Spa

RW: What do you do to prepare for the performance, just before going on stage? Any quirks or
particular thought processes to get into the zone?
LP: Again, this is different for everyone – we’ve tried doing team push-ups before shows but that
tradition didn’t last long… For some of us, it’s essential to run the poems either in our heads or out loud before performing, whereas for others they trust that the material is in there from prior
rehearsal. Some of us have physical warm-ups that we like to do so we can use our voices fully
onstage. Sometimes performing a certain poem, especially if it’s emotional and personal to the
performer, means taking an extra moment to mentally prepare before walking onstage. It really
varies!

RW: What kind of role has Scotland played in the content and inspiration of your writing?
LP: Again, this will really vary! Catherine Wilson and Katie Ailes have both written directly about Scotland, Catherine from her perspective of living here her whole life and Katie as an immigrant.
One thing that I’d say for everyone is that it’s great being in such a vibrant spoken word scene in
Scotland today. Spoken word across the UK is currently booming, so it’s a great time to engage in the art form. Scotland also has a cultural devotion to literature, especially live literary traditions, which makes it a fantastic environment for writers. We’re lucky to have resources like the Scottish Poetry Library, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Scottish Book Trust, and more organisations devoted to this art forms to support our work.

Image by Perry Jonsson

RW: What would you say is one of the most difficult things about being a poet today?
LP: Unfortunately, I think a lot of the general public thinks poetry isn’t for them and so don’t engage with it: perhaps in school they were taught work that wasn’t relevant to them or had to analyse it past the point where that was any fun. To quote the brilliant Adrian Mitchell, ‘most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.’ Not to knock other writers at all, but if our work looks entirely inwards or is so experimental or reference-heavy as to be inaccessible, it’s not going to engage most folks.

Our core mission has always been to make work which is accessible and interesting to everyone: poetry which is exciting, which touches on issues in contemporary life, which is performed in a way that makes you sit on the edge of your seat. Our favourite thing to hear is someone admitting that they were dragged to one of our shows, swearing poetry wasn’t their thing, only to actually really enjoy it – or, even better, to enjoy it so much that they themselves were inspired to write a poem. So we want to change the assumption that poetry is an ivory tower by making work that encourages everyone to speak out.

Rhiannon Williams: Glasgow or Edinburgh?
Loud Poets: Ah, don’t ask us that! We’ve run monthly showcases in both cities for nearly three years now, and we love them both. The spoken word cultures in each city have slightly different flavours, Glasgow’s being more influenced by the fantastic Scottish rap scene and often quicker-paced than Edinburgh’s, which tends to have lots of international students and thus a wide pool of influences. We love booking artists from one city to perform in the other, not just with Glasgow and Edinburgh but across Scotland, to try to expose each city to the great artists and styles from elsewhere in Scotland and the UK.

RW: Highland Loch or a North Sea cliff face?
LP: Well, they say poets are narcissists, so I suppose the loch so we can stare at our reflections like Narcissus until we die? How’s that for a poetic answer… On the other hand, standing on a bleak cliff face with our hair tangling in the brutal wind sounds equally poetic… Tough choice. We’re going to have to go with Greggs. Whether it’s taking place in a pub, a club, beneath a café, in the streets or on the air, some of the most exciting and diverse poetry in the world is being created in Scotland right now, so head up whenever you can, open your ears, dig in with every sense. It’s a blast!

loudpoets.com

Autumnal colours at Coworth Park country hotel

Why should I go now?

Golden leaves, bright frosty mornings, log fires, long evenings – autumnal English country landscapes are hard to beat, especially when you can curl up in the drawing room of Coworth Park after a bracing walk.

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What’s the lowdown?

Coworth Park is an easy 45 minute drive from London, along winding country lanes through some of England’s prettiest pastoral scenes, close to Windsor Great Park. The main hotel building, a Georgian style Mansion House, is elegant and homely with cream fabrics, dark woods and a sweeping staircase leading up to bedrooms.

Restaurant Coworth Park, headed by Executive Chef Adam Smith was recently awarded a Michelin star

Sitting opposite the cosy drawing room and bar, is Restaurant Coworth Park (recently awarded a Michelin star) overlooking the rose garden and fields beyond. Adam Smith‘s menu follows a Best of British theme, using locally-sourced seasonal ingredients to create delicately flavoured dishes; we were especially delighted by the Cep Velouté (one of the best mushroom soups we’ve ever tasted) and the surprising combination of pink grapefruit, vanilla, white chocolate and ginger beer for dessert.

The Spa at Coworth Park

A rustic dining experience can be found at The Barn, close by to the converted Stables and Cottages (more bedrooms), where guests wander in for a hearty lunch in their muddy boots after a polo lesson with Guards Polo Club on Coworth Park’s professional polo field.

Read next: Fashion designer Markus Lupfer’s playful glamour

The award-winning Spa is partially submerged in the landscape with a live roof sprouting herbs, and huge windows on the upper floor at The Spatisserie restaurant, providing panoramic views of the parkland. There’s heated indoor swimming pool with underwater music and surrounding loungers, an aromatic steam room and high tech gym.

Getting horiztonal

The Drawing Room

Our room, a Stable Premium Suite, was spread across the entire top floor of a converted stable block with a large sitting room, slightly more compact bedroom and a spacious marble bathroom with two standalone, roll top copper bathtubs. Warm, earthy tones, equestrian themed artwork and underfloor heating create a homely atmosphere.

Nitpicking

Not all the bedrooms overlook the parkland, ours had huge windows but a view only onto the stable courtyard. Whilst they might be slightly less grand, the cottages or the Manor House front bedrooms are the ones to pick.

Rates: From £318 ( approx. $400/350€ )

dorchestercollection.com/en/ascot/coworth-park

Markus Lupfer’s womenswear SS17 collection

German-born, London-based Markus Lupfer is the man who gave us wearable and fun statement knitwear, not to mention some of the quirkiest accessories and outerwear. His creations are as at home in the bars of Hoxton as they are on the backs of chairs at La Soucoupe in Courchevel. His trademark witty glamour has earned Lupfer a following that includes Madonna, Cara Delevingne, Olivia Palermo and Rihanna. Kitty Harris catches up with him in between collections

Markus Lupfer

LUX: What sparked your interest in fashion?
Markus Lupfer: I wanted to be a fashion designer since I was 16 years old… It was my dream and it was all I ever wanted to do! I used to draw and sketch during maths and English classes to the annoyance of my teachers.

LUX: Where did the inspiration for your sequin embroidered sweaters come from?
ML: I developed the very first sequin jumper in 2007, which was actually our sequin lip jumper. The lip is a reference to my signature, which are two lips (kiss kiss) instead of an ‘xx’. The first time I saw the embroidery test of the lip I loved it and it has grown from there.

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LUX: Your designs always have a playful, uplifting element like your cherry and lip motifs. How much does your mood guide your designing?
ML: At the beginning of the season I try to create an overall mood and feel for the collection. The mood of the girl is important and varies from season to season… sometimes she is more glamorous, sometimes she’s got more attitude and is tougher, sometimes she is more romantic… however, there is always something light-hearted in our collections.

LUX: In your AW15 men’s collection, your hand-drawn prints resembled comics, while the following year’s collection incorporated the bear and birds again. How do you keep your illustrations fresh?
ML: Each season the inspiration comes with an instinctive idea, something that really excites me at the time. It could be art, or a place, a movie or music; it really varies. I always try to find a point of difference with our illustrations, something new, something unusual, something desirable.

LUX: Why did you decide on the phrase ‘Don’t question it – wear it’ for this year’s pre-Fall collection?
ML: It was all about unusual contrasts. For example, we had some studded high-gloss belts styled with pretty dresses – it was an unusual combination, so that’s why we used that phrase.

Markus Lupfer’s womenswear SS17 collection with Ecru Fruit Blossom design

LUX: What is the biggest challenge you face as a designer?
ML: We are now working on four womenswear collections a year, which means that there is a deadline every three months. It’s exciting but it’s also challenging.

LUX: Who is your ideal client?
ML: I am always so excited when I see someone wearing Markus Lupfer in the street. It really means a lot to me. I have been in the lucky position of dressing some of the most incredible girls, people like Rihanna, Beyoncé, Ellie Bamber and Maisie Williams.

Read next: Superchef Thomas Keller’s forward-thinking fine dining 

LUX: What lies ahead for the brand?
ML: This year we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of our lip design. We are working on a special project for autumn which is very exciting.

LUX: What is your proudest achievement in your career to date?
ML: Being able to be creative and do what I love most all of the time.

LUX: Are there any clothes you won’t wear?
ML: I don’t wear flip-flops.

LUX: If you had the chance to study again what would you learn?
ML: Astronomy – I would love to learn all about the stars and space.

LUX: What is your motto?
ML: Always enjoy what you do and try to make life more beautiful.

markuslupfer.com

Thomas Keller at pictured at his Napa restaurant, The French Laundry. Image by Deborah Jones

Ever since legendary chef Thomas Keller opened his restaurant The French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley more than twenty years ago, he has been inspiring diners – and chefs – with his forward-thinking food. Keller tells Emma Love about his latest plans for fine dining without the fuss

Three years ago, American chef Thomas Keller reached a milestone in his illustrious career. The French Laundry, the Napa Valley restaurant he opened in 1994 and which quickly garnered international acclaim as well as three Michelin stars, reached its 20th anniversary. Some might use an occasion such as that as an excuse for throwing a party but Keller decided to spend $10 million on completely re-designing the kitchen and restaurant grounds. “There is a time that comes in life to push the envelope and explore new methods to stay relevant,” he says, citing the new state-of-the-art kitchen equipment and the 15,000-bottle wine cellar as examples of the changes that were unveiled in April this year. “That quest for evolution and wanting to shake things up has always been part of my DNA.”

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This comes as no surprise: Keller is a chef who has spent years challenging the industry with his restaurants (as well as The French Laundry, he is also behind Michelin-starred outposts of Per Se and Bouchon) where his ‘law of diminishing returns’ philosophy of cooking means that tasting menus come with multiple tiny courses where ingredients are never repeated. “The less you have of something, the more you appreciate it,” he reasons sensibly. “For me, not repeating ingredients is a challenge. If you use corn more than once in a ten-course menu that’s kind of lame, don’t you think? There’s so much variety out there and so many vegetables, we don’t need to use something twice.”

His quest for evolution – and changing the way we think about food – seems to be at the heart of all his projects from his wine label Modicum, which is used as an educational tool for his sommeliers, to Finesse, the bi-annual magazine he publishes in place of a newsletter which focuses on themes he considers to be important, such as community and design. “Modicum was set up so the sommeliers could work with the winery to understand about harvesting, blending and the many different aspects that go into producing wine,” he explains. “With Finesse we are also trying to educate and inspire by giving people an insight into what we do and touching on those topics where we can tell stories. It’s another way of having an impact.”

The new kitchens at The French Laundry. Image by Michael Grimm

Then there’s Cup4Cup, which he began in 2010 in collaboration with his then research and development chef at The French Laundry, Lena Kwak. Initially offering a gluten-free flour blend which is a substitute for all-purpose flour, more recent products in the range (which is sold at Whole Foods in the US) include mixes for pizza, waffles and pie crusts. “I never thought I would produce flour,” says Keller. “When Lena started, her first task was to come up with a recipe for our signature salmon cornets. It’s the way people begin their meal at The French Laundry and they are iconic but the problem was that anyone who is food intolerant couldn’t eat them. We thought it was something that everyone should be able to enjoy so we created a gluten-free flour. The brilliance behind Cup4Cup is that you can literally replace a cup of regular flour with a cup of gluten-free flour and you can’t tell the cornets apart.”

Read next: Gucci’s Robert Triefus on how to create a sustainable fashion power house

Gluten free apple pie by Cup4Cup

As the Cup4Cup brand happened organically, so did his collaboration with friend and Italian olive oil producer Armando Manni, whose extra virgin olive oil is used at The French Laundry and Per Se. One day in 2010, the pair were in Keller’s Yountville backyard chatting about Manni’s idea for a chocolate bar made with olive oil (which preserves many of the natural antioxidants found in cocoa beans); Keller agreed to be his partner for the project on the spot. “Armando worked with the University of Florence and a laboratory in Paris on scientific trials to develop a new method that replaces cocoa butter with olive oil, but still retains the taste of chocolate,” recalls Keller. “At the eleventh hour, we realised that we couldn’t use a traditional factory because we required a fundamental change in the way the equipment was made.” Their solution? To modify the equipment and build their own factory, which added another two years to the development process. Finally, the K+M Extravirgin Chocolate bar launched in March.

Now he’s turning his attention to other projects, one of which is curating the restaurants at Hudson Yards, the largest retail, commercial and residential development in New York since the Rockefeller Center. “What we want is to create a community of neighbourhood restaurants. Not Michelin-star fine-dining necessarily, but places where you return again and again because you love their Dover sole or steak.” In other words, restaurants – such as Extebarri in Spain’s Basque country where he once ate what he described as “the most perfectly grilled sardine that I’ve ever had” – that create memories so people want to return. “If a chef executes a philosophy that gives you a positive, lasting memory, that’s what success is. That’s what we try and achieve at The French Laundry.”

thomaskeller.com

Actress, campaigner, wife of Kering owner François-Henri Pinault, Salma Hayek and CHIME FOR CHANGE co-founder, joined UNICEF to meet Syrian refugees in Lebanon in 2015

Gucci is the biggest Kering brand and, as a producer of leather and fashion garments, the one with the biggest sustainability challenges. In a candid exchange, Robert Triefus, Gucci’s EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, tells LUX how the label is tackling them.

LUX: Is there an awareness among all your staff of the broad Kering vision?
Robert Triefus: We are in luxury fashion. For some individuals, they will feel there is a contradiction in terms between sustainability and luxury fashion. But I think that you have to start from the premise that we are a business, a for-profit (not a not-for-profit) one that believes in its responsibility to lower its impact in terms of carbon footprint, waste management and social issues – how we can be responsible in our community. As the big picture, I think that this is the framework that we, as a group, work within.

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LUX: That big picture means not just reducing environmental impact but doing good in areas such as gender equality. Is this on the rise?
RT: It’s interesting because one of the impacts of the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States and his rather nationalistic approach has been that brands generally are looking at how they can contribute towards the debate on the promotion of certain rights. Equality as a whole is a significant topic in America and beyond because it has that kind of reach.

Going back to the mission of Kering, one of the key issues has always been the idea of gender equality, so when we launched CHIME FOR CHANGE [co-founded by François-Henri Pinault’s wife Salma Hayek, a leading campaigner on gender equality issues] three years ago, it was something we believed in both as a brand and as something that makes very good sense given the number of female clients we have. But also within the framework of Kering’s overall mission, it resided very well under that overall umbrella.

Today, I think the issue of gender equality is widely seen because it has built momentum and it has acquired much more engagement in the media for a lot of different reasons. So, I think that over the past three years we’ve been engaging in this campaign because we believed it was the right thing to do as a campaign, and as a topic.

LUX: In the Dining Issue of LUX we have an interview with Marc Glimcher of Pace Gallery who says that they are doing public art because the public sector doesn’t have the money. Likewise, is no one stepping in to do what you are doing?
RT: I think over the past 10 to 20 years, the private sector in its different manifestations has become much more active partly in the growth of understanding of the role that corporations, brands and wealthy, successful entrepreneurs can play. If you look at the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffets of this world and what they are doing today, you can see that they feel they have responsibilities and the capacity of a small country to carry them out.

Read next: Abercrombie & Kent founder Geoffrey Kent on the value of luxury travel

LUX: How does the responsibility element, the CHIME FOR CHANGE, link with the sustain-ability element of Kering’s strategy?
RT: Within Kering’s ten-year strategy there are pillars. One of them is focused on the environment, and all what we do goes with that. When you use the word sustainability, it’s immediately associated with the environment. But the second pillar is about social good with campaigns such as CHIME FOR CHANGE on gender equality and other philanthropic activities. The third pillar is more in the area of innovation. Kering looks at sustainability in a broad sense under the notion of responsibility to the environment and to humanity. This innovation is driving ways of doing business differently across the area of sustainability.

Gucci’s pre-Fall 2017 collection

LUX: Gucci and CHIME FOR CHANGE support women’s and girls’ causes and you partner with the action group Global Citizen. It’s a good ex-ample of a corporation taking responsibility for social campaigning. Is this continuing?
RT: Yes, the fact that equality is more under question than it was a year ago, certainly in the most developed country in the world [the US], means that we as a campaign movement are going to be busier than before, probably. We are always looking for ways we can be more effective in getting our message out there. Music as a convening force will be part of what we do. We will be having festivals in New York and Berlin. There will be another CHIME FOR CHANGE hackathon supported by Facebook. We are looking for something in the art community, and will continue to be active as we have in the past, and what we could do in the future.

LUX: Will consumers start to demand that luxury brands are responsible? Are you seeing this now or do they just not care?
RT: No, I think they assume that we are responsible and sustainable so I think it would become punitive if it becomes apparent that we have not been acting in that way. At the same time I think – and it’s a bit of a cliché now – the millennials and generation Z are definitely growing up much more aware because they are living in an environment that is more in question. Therefore, they are increasingly aware of the negative impact that companies can have. So, let’s say that the expectation that you are responsible is put at an even greater premium.

LUX: As we go forward, will you push Kering’s sustainability message forward more in Gucci?
RT: I think the point is that we are a for-profit, not not-for-profit, so we are de facto never going to be perfect. Now, we are not going to make this the unique selling point of our brand, maybe it’s different in the case of Stella McCartney as it is part of her DNA, but by and large it is something we believe companies and ourselves should be doing. We are not going to shout from the rooftops because frankly someone could justifiably say, “hang on a minute, you should be that way, so why are you shouting about it?”

gucci.com

Camping under the stars in the desert. Image by Wei Pan

Geoffrey Kent is a pioneer of luxury travel and the founder of the multi-award winning Abercrombie & Kent global travel operator. In his most recent column for LUX, Mr. Kent explains why the most luxurious travelling experiences are truly transformative.

Over the past decade the definition of luxury has changed. It has become much more flexible with an emphasis on experiences and personalised service, rather than the mere physical trappings of luxury. From the opulence of a palatial hotel to the serenity of waking up to a spectacular sunrise in a simple mountain refuge, I believe true luxury is the privilege of discovery, adventure, relaxation and insight, enjoyed in a context that perfectly suits the experience. Seamless service, safety and security are a given. But it is the unexpected that inspires a sense of wonder and elevates an adventure into a true luxury experience.

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There are some places that are just so exceptional that they have come to define luxury. These run the gamut, from African safaris to expedition cruises in Antarctica, but their commonality is that they are transformative experiences that do more than just take you to a new place, they challenge your understanding of the world. I have found that this kind of travel is a powerful way to induce the sort of shift in thinking in which creative breakthroughs spontaneously arise.

A man poses with his camel for desert polo in Jaisalmer, India. Image by James Houston

Guests define luxury as having an authentic experience – an encounter that is true to the place and its traditions, incorporating elements of the past and reflecting the local culture. Spending time on a tropical island is appealing, but luxury guests want more than that. They want to get out and explore, experiencing authentic cultural traditions that do not reflect Western values. Your life will change when you are immersed in a culture so dramatically different from your own and reach a new understanding of how life is lived in another part of the world.

African safari at dusk. Image by Sergey Pesterev

Recently I met a couple on the beach who recognised me. They told me that despite the money they spend on their holidays, they always feel richer when they get home.

Read next: Art auctioneer Simon de Pury on the rise of the online art market

For discerning travellers, it’s not about checking places off a list – it’s about making connections through unique local experiences not found in a guidebook. It might be a camelback safari to an Indian desert camp, enjoying a hotpot dinner in the home of a Tibetan family in China’s Yunnan province, or taking a private cooking class in the Mercato Centrale in Florence with a local chef. It will be these kinds of inspiring encounters you’ll share with friends and family when you return – not the gold-plated Corinthian capitals in your hotel suite.

Geoffrey Kent is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Abercrombie & Kent

Three paintings by Russian artist Erik Bulatov in his 2015 show ‘Bot’ at de Pury de Pury in London

The time is right for the art auction world to embrace the new digital technologies and take auctions online. That is the way to tap the vast reserves of potential new buyers, says our columnist Simon de Pury

Conceptually, I find myself fascinated by what is happening in the online world within the art market. This is a market that has been the most resistant of any to the digital revolution. And the likely cause of this is that it’s in nobody’s interest, in terms of the market’s key players, to make any changes to the way the system works.

But progress cannot be postponed forever. We have seen the rise of a number of companies that have focused on the online side of the art world. The pioneer of all of them, artnet.com, started 27 years ago with a price guide for artists’ works. For having information at your fingertips, they were the pioneer. Then you have companies in the auction space such as Artsy, Paddle8 (which recently merged with another online auction company, Auctionata) and Artspace which is also doing online auctions. The main auction houses also have an online side to their business.

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The difficulty that the main bricks-and-mortar houses have is that the minute they have a really exciting collection or group of works, their own specialists will fight to have it in their main sales rather than seeing it go to the houses’s online business. So already they effectively have internal competition built in.

Recently I teamed up with Arnaud Massenet, a co-founder with his ex-wife Nathalie Massenet of Net-a-Porter. Arnaud is a passionate collector with a strong interest in art, and so we have put on a number of auctions which we have held online with our company, de Pury de Pury. I also conducted the three first annual benefit auctions for the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. The first two were bricks-and-mortar auctions at which we raised $26m and $40m respectively. With the third one, which we did both live and with an online component, we raised $48m for the foundation. There were challenges such as having to develop a site that could handle the massive increase of traffic you can expect if you have a project involving a celebrity of the stature of DiCaprio. It was a good stress test for the online infrastructure. We have also used a mix of live and online sales for benefit auctions such as for the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.

Right now we believe in this hybrid model, but when you sell art works of quality, and when you put sales together that have been curated, you have to give the chance to potential buyers, if they wish, to see the works physically. You cannot just dispense altogether with offering that possibility to your potential purchasers. The approach is very much to have a stunningly staged physical exhibition, and at the same time, as enticing as possible an experience for the user who will participate solely online.

When you buy and sell artworks at a price range between $10k and $2m at auction with the main houses, you have to leave quite a considerable amount on the table in terms of the buyer’s premiums that need to be paid – 25% on top of the hammer price. Surely for works in that price bracket there must be a more efficient way of selling art, which should eventually put pressure on the commissions.

While the very top end of the market will always be about privileged personal relationships rather than internet sales, I believe that over the next two to five years we will witness a big transformation of the art market, involving a massive increase of its online component.

Read next: The greatest tasting of Masseto in history

At the moment, when you look at an auction online you have a very static image of the auctioneer and the experience is rather boring. This could quite easily be made to be much more lively, fun and animated to engage those who might bid from their office, home or swimming pool or from wherever they are following the sale. This will no doubt happen very soon. Online auctions will become a little more like some of the talk shows on American television, which are live and where you have a studio audience. Having an audience creates the atmosphere that comes across when you watch the programme, with laughing, cheering and clapping, so making it more of a show.

This is not so much of a radical transformation as some people may think. The big auctions now are packed with people filling the sales room, but as soon as you get above a certain price level most of the action takes place on the telephone. You just have the trade and some collectors who want to follow the market closely who remain in the room. So the challenge is to convey the atmosphere of what is happening and the mood of the room. The more successfully you can convey this, the easier it will be for people to get that feel without physically being there.

Photographs from Mario Testino’s show ‘Heat’ at the Dubai Design District, 2016

A key element is trust. The reason why some online auction companies have not been successful yet is that there is no trust in their expertise or track record. It is essential that such a record is established so that trust develops. A lot will be down to curating: at the moment online art and auction sites just have too much content, and need to have a clear curatorial vision. Once a track record for both buying and selling is established, it becomes much easier, because before that point is reached, you have to make ten times the effort for a tenth of the result. From my 16 years at Sotheby’s, I know that when you work for one of the main players of the duopoly [Sotheby’s and Christie’s], 80 to 90 per cent of the interesting works automatically cross your desk. You just have to make sure that you win slightly more often than you lose. What you lose gets sold by the other auction house. It is difficult for a newcomer in the online world to crack that.

Certain genres of work such as editions, prints and photographs lend themselves to online sales because, while you still need to get a condition report, you will likely have already seen works from that edition so know exactly what they look like. The minute you venture into genres where uniqueness plays a role, such as paintings or other one-off artworks, it changes. Also, the borders between various categories of contemporary culture are breaking down, so architecture, cinema, fashion and music now all cross over with art. We will have many more collaborations between these categories and the internet lends itself to this situation, as breaking down these barriers is done so much more easily online than in the bricks-and-mortar world.

The entry point of the internet is much less forbidding to those who fear crossing the threshold into the art world. It is much less intimidating than going into an auction house and brings many new potential buyers to the market. In one year, the number of individual clients at one of the big auction houses may be around 20,000 – that is an estimate, but in any case it’s a very small number and shows you how that the art market has a massive potential to grow. There is a very small group of individuals who are willing to pay $100m, or more, on a single work. There are slightly more people who are willing to pay $50m on a single work. Further down the scale, you have more people still who are willing to pay $10m, and many players at $1m. There is a huge number of people who do not collect or buy at all and who have no interest, to date, in spending part of their wealth on art. That suggests that the potential growth of the auction market is substantial, and new technologies are the best way to enlarge that art-buying public.

Simon de Pury is an art auctioneer and collector and the founder of de Pury de Pury
 depurydepury.com

The Masseto vineyard in the Maremma region of Tuscany

LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai was recently invited to a private tasting of Italy’s greatest wine, in a spectacular location. Masseto may now be a global superbrand, but it didn’t disappoint.

Italy makes many serious and famous wines, from the Barolos of Conterno to the Brunellos of Soldera. But there’s only one Italian wine which has crossed the Rubicon from the serious wine community – who examine vintage, vineyard, slope aspect and barrique ageing in exquisite detail – to what we call the general luxury connoisseur.

The latter is the category of wealthy people who live busy lives and, while immersing themselves in life’s pleasures, don’t have time to work out which Conterno makes the great Barolos (it’s Giacomo) or whether Brunelli is the same as Brunello (it isn’t). They know and consume the greatest things in the world: they might own a Ferrari F12 TDF, a house in St Moritz and another in Malibu, eat at Osteria Francescana and own a Heesen boat and a Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon. But they’re just too busy to sweat over the arcane detail of the wine world.

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That doesn’t mean they don’t know wine – they drink more fine wine than a Master of Wine could ever afford – and nor does it mean they only consume brands. Wine is a world where there’s nowhere to hide: if Chateau Pétrus really weren’t as good as it’s supposed to be, people wouldn’t buy it.

The wines that pass through the luxury connoisseurs’ lips are mainly French: Pétrus, Margaux, La Tache, Haut-Brion, Cheval Blanc. And only one Italian wine makes it into this highest echelon: Masseto. Masseto is made a grape’s throw from the Mediterranean, in a beautiful vineyard sitting on a slope between the coast and an ancient forested hillside, in the Maremma region of Tuscany. This rather unspoiled stretch of Italy, between Rome and Pisa, produces other rather good wines, like Sassicaia, Tua Rita and Guado al Tasso (among many others). But it’s Masseto that has the brand recognition.

EssZimmer: a sophisticated setting for a private tasting of Italy’s greatest wine

It’s made from Merlot, like Chateau Pétrus, and it’s rich, rounded, velvety and hedonistic. LUX had the privilege of being invited to a recent private tasting of no fewer than 15 different vintages of Masseto, held at the two Michelin starred Bobby Bräuer‘s EssZimmer restaurant at the BMW Museum in Munich, Germany. Hosted by winemaker Axel Heinz, and Burkard Bovensiepen, the owner of the BMW Alpina car company (and fine wine importer) and accompanied by such glorious dishes as ‘venison from the region, spice crust, onion ravioli’, it was beyond memorable.

Read next: President of LVMH Watches, Jean-Claude Biver on the popularisation of luxury

Vintages served were the 1989, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2015. Did we have a favourite? The 1989 is no longer available but had a gentle timelessness that we could drink every day. The 2010, we would splash on as the world’s most lavish cologne, before licking it from the belly of…let’s move on. The 2011 was a Roberto Cavalli gown of a wine. The 1997 was a Chanel couture creation in all its perfection. The 2015 should have been undrinkably young; but was like drinking the stars.

Only the most recent vintages are available now, and we recommend drinking them with your favourite person, even if, in some cases, that means sharing them.

masseto.com

Louis Vuitton’s strategy to overcome consumer inertia is to develop products, such as this from their 2017 pre-fall collection, which stand out as one-offs

The nature of luxury is evolving fast. Producers and consumers should wise up to the emerging multi-level landscape and never forget the power of the right kind of celebrity, says our columnist Luca Solca

Luca Solca

True luxury is about projecting the impression, or even the illusion, of exclusivity. That is what luxury is about. If you can do that from an accessible price point and if you can do it at a very high standard, that is good enough to be true luxury. What it takes to maintain this perception of exclusivity is interesting, because nothing in the modern luxury industry is really exclusive. If it were exclusive, it wouldn’t be an industry. We are talking about businesses that have to grow fast, and growth is the exact opposite of exclusivity. And true luxury is very subjective. True luxury for Bill Gates is buying a set of Leonardo da Vinci drawings, true luxury for middle class consumers is buying a Hermès handbag – there are a million shades of difference between one definition and the other.

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This is what I have previously referred to as the megabrand bathtub: we have a big bathtub and the tub is producing new consumers coming into the megabrand market. New consumers, especially if they are rich, stay in the megabrand bathtub to the point that they realise that middle-class consumers buy the same brands that they do. Then they either trade up within those brands, or they trade up to more expensive brands that they perceive to be more exclusive.

This is also going to be compounded by what I call the category spend shift in which rich new consumers will go through various categories and at some point, they will have so many products in their wardrobes that they will start spending money on something else. Which leads to the discussion about experiences – going on exclusive holidays and sending their kids to universities in England or colleges in Switzerland, buying second homes and holiday houses and then buying planes to reach them.

Louis Vuitton Autumn/Winter 2017

I think as consumers get closer to what an established rich person does and is, then they tend to spend less on luxury goods products, not more. There is a fundamental misunderstanding that luxury is for the rich. Luxury goods products are for people who get richer. They go through a time when they splurge and they have to buy their products necessary to fill their wardrobes and then they go into replacement mode. I think that many Chinese consumers, many of whom were early adopters, have now moved into replacement mode already. The reason why we are all talking about the shift from gold to steel in watches, and lower entry price points, is because luxury goods today are predominantly relevant for middle-class consumers. The bulk of the new growth is coming from middle-class consumers who may have a lot of ambition and desire but only limited spending power. They buy cheaper and less exclusive products than their earlier peers. The consumption of luxury goods does always penetrate down a market from the top, though. You start with the richest consumers, then you work your way down to the middle class, which is where we are today in China.

Read next: President of LVMH watch brands Jean-Claude Biver on luxury’s new culture

At the top, there is a small number of people who need to have very special services and products specifically for them. And new consumers have upped their learning curve. They buy more frequently than established consumers and therefore their experience grows faster. New consumers also have more sources to learn about their purchases, via social media and the internet, than used to be the case. Far from being a market where consumers are just shifting to high-end brands, which was the case three to four years ago, in today’s market even if you are in the high end, you are doomed if you stay static. If you just sell iconic products, consumers who have been in the market for a while will have already bought them. They will only part with their money if you give them something that they don’t have. That’s why there has been a race to replace directors; and why Gucci has totally thrown away the past and moved on to new aesthetics, taking a huge risk, which is proving successful. And this is why Louis Vuitton, by the way, is successful – because it developed cleverly isolated ‘in your face’ products that have infiltrated the market with capsule collections.

exane.com

The Hublot boutique in the IFC Mall, Hong Kong

Jean-Claude Biver was celebrated as the saviour of the luxury mechanical watch industry when it was threatened 40 years ago with virtual annihilation by the rise of battery-powered watches. Now head of watches at the world’s biggest luxury group, he explains how the melding of high and low culture is the best chance of the industry’s survival for the next decades.

Jean Claude Biver

The promotion of luxury goods using so-called low culture is a relatively new development. Nobody could have imagined this in the past. Fifty years ago, nobody would have believed that football could be an appropriate arena for luxury. And in some parts of the world it remains so; for example, in China, sport is still not considered a part of luxury. It is only recently, under the initiative of President Xi Jinping, that entrepreneurs are being encouraged to invest in sport.

This change towards the popularisation of luxury culture is not just in my sector, that of watches, it is across the luxury industry in general. Years ago, who would ever have conceived of jeans selling for more than $100? We have seen it in fashion, which is taking a lot of inspiration from the street, and in music. Look at rappers, with music coming from the street. Today, we really have a mash-up: luxury went down to the street, and street goes up to luxury. It’s like a shaker. Everything was previously stratified into classes but now they are being all mixed up and everyone takes inspiration from each other. It started a while back. The first people to do this were English musicians such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Animals in the 1960s, who dressed totally disruptively when everyone was making their children mini papas and mamas, going to church with their blazers and fine-wool trousers. Now the difference is that it’s not just the guys from Liverpool and Manchester changing everything, it’s the guys from the ghettoes, too. And it’s a global attitude.

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The most significant indication of this trend for me is that Hublot has become extremely successful with a very big turnover in China, where five years ago, we could barely sell one watch. Everyone was saying that in China they do not perceive sports watches as being part of luxury; they wanted wonderful dress watches like Vacheron Constantins and Patek Philippes instead. Zenith [Biver’s traditional watch brand] was outperforming other brands in China, and now Zenith is selling less than Hublot because young Chinese people refuse to wear the watches their parents were wearing. They don’t want to buy classical watches any more.

It’s the same with other goods; people don’t want classical furniture any more, they want modern furniture. People want contemporary art because a new generation brings with them new trends and influence. We are now in the middle of a change of generation and this movement will be very strong. By 2030, in just 13 years, those people who will be shaping the century will have been born between 1990 and 2000, they will be between 30 and 40 and will be bringing a huge change in culture and philosophy. You can see it happening now. Check how many 18 year olds drive cars – they are not interested anymore – and very few are wearing watches. Every generational change brings with it new trends into markets, and if a brand doesn’t get it, the brand will disappear.

Read next: The first comprehensive Jasper Johns exhibition in the UK in 40 years

Examine what is happening all around us now: Supreme surfboards have teamed up with Louis Vuitton, yet a few years back could you have imagined a luxury brand doing a partnership with a surf brand? Classical brands will shrink, though they will not disappear. A very classic car make such as Bentley, when it was in the hands of the British, was shrinking and slowly dying but then the Germans bought it and decided to modernise the brand. The old generation objected but whatever doesn’t evolve will die.

And while there are exceptions – for example, a Submariner or Daytona watch from Rolex – almost everything has evolved. And even if you take a look at those watches, you will see that they have undergone a subtle but significant evolution over the years. This happens even with contemporary brands – take Google’s first logo and its logo today; the evolution has been enormous.

The success of Hublot Boutiques, such as this one in Beijing, is down to the rise in interest of a young generation in the brand’s watches

We now have different luxuries which we didn’t have before. The idea of accessible luxury was previously inconceivable. This is because we have promoted luxury through marketing, rather than through prices, which blurs boundaries. For the super-rich now, luxury means uniqueness, something others cannot buy, which is why Lapo Elkann has started Italia Independent, creating bespoke cars which other people cannot get or buy. That is top luxury. And there is a scale. A young woman dreams of a Hermès bag in leather; the next step up is crocodile, then with a gold clasp, then with a gold clasp with diamonds, becoming more and more exclusive. Then you end up having something nobody else has.

The association of luxury with street culture, and the blurring of lines, is becoming stronger all the time. You have rappers who sing “F*** your mother” and they are invited by President Obama to have dinner at the White House – it is incredible. Similarly, designers don’t know where to find ideas. Punk hairstyles, tattoos all over your body: these are underworld or underground concepts that have become socialised. Forty years ago tattoos were for the criminal underworld, David Beckham socialised them, now every millionaire has one.

I can’t pass judgement on whether this is good or bad – it just indicates the socialisation of our society. And social media, a key vector in that change, makes life much more difficult for brands, because your brand is an environment which is much more competitive. On social media every brand has the same share of voice as yourself; and now the young generation has a lot of curiosity and much less loyalty to brands. So that makes it more difficult.

Read next: Meet the artists who blur the boundaries between words and pictures

Our greatest challenge is to see if we can seduce this young generation to wear watches. The biggest asset our industry had between 1980 and 2010 was the Swatch effect. It was a 50-dollar watch, but it was full of colour, innovation, joy of life; it was fashionable. People could wear it without it looking like a stupid cheap watch. So every child was suddenly wearing a watch. This young generation, born in the 1970s, have been wearing watches since they were 10. They graduated onto their next watch, an IWC, a Rolex, eventually a Patek Philippe, all started by that first purchase of a Swatch.

Now the question is, who promotes watches to children? We hoped Apple would have, but it doesn’t seem children are wearing Apple watches, and we might have a problem later, because this generation does not wear a watch now and may not do so later. For them, it doesn’t seem natural to wear one; people feel more comfortable having a tattoo on their wrist than a watch. It’s a big and educational challenge for the industry. We have to do some fundamental work which we never had to before. Once, it was normal to wear a watch; twenty or thirty years ago, 99 per cent of people were wearing a watch. Now few of this new generation think that a watch should be worn.

And so, bringing the argument back full circle, we try to make this young generation dream about us by entering their lifestyle, and when our brand starts to belong to their lifestyle, if we are considered part of it, we have a chance they will buy our watches. And we reach their lifestyle by following their influencers. If you go with Alec Monopoly, he’ll be an influence on them; when we associate ourselves with One Republic, that is another. It’s not about product, it’s about lifestyle and our brands being part of it. If you want to seduce them with gold watches, forget it; that’s not what attracts them. To seduce the new generation, we must understand their lifestyles.

Jean-Claude Biver is president of LVMH Watch Brands and chairman of Hublot.

Tom Davies is a British eyewear designer offering a truly bespoke service. Kitty Harris sits opposite the designer in his Royal Exchange shop to learn more about designing for the individual and the evolution of the luxury eyewear industry.

Tom Davies

Kitty Harris: You have had many design roles during your career. Why did you choose eyewear?
Tom Davies: When I was originally setting up my company, I set up in London to design frames for Tom Davies. But I was just starting out and I was doing contract design for other eyewear brands. For example, one of my big clients was Puma and I was designing their sports eyewear line under contract and also project managing the delivery. That was quite lucrative for me. But at the same time, I would take anything. I actually designed a popcorn maker, an MP3 player, a food mixer and so on. I set up companies just to qualify me for being able to take that particular job. For Aquascutum, I was designing websites and brochures. For Puma, I managed to weasel my way into their websites and brochures and before I knew it, I had twelve designers and a design company.

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But I wanted to pursue Tom Davies glasses, so I threw all of that away for what I truly wanted. All my other ventures were great but they were merely vehicles to make money; whereas eyewear defines the wearer. Human communication is through the face, so in terms of design, there is nothing more important. I think it is the number one design challenge and the most exciting. What really excited me was that nobody else knew that. It has been ignored by the world.

‘Specky four-eyes’ has haunted eyewear for thirty to forty years. It has been something that people haven’t wanted to wear, because it is seen as a medical device and a necessity. But the truth is, if you get to forty years old, 95% of people need some kind of correction for their vision. It is everywhere and everybody needs it. The challenge is to make something that somebody enjoys wearing – that makes them look good, that they are comfortable in and helps them. I get such satisfaction by making someone a really comfortable frame that will really suit them.

KH: How would you describe your design aesthetic?
TD: I am always looking at the person. It is the physical things. I have signatures in my frames – little touches that I like to put in there. Whilst a lot of eyewear brands have a certain hinge or style, which is how they define themselves; I am a bespoke brand, so I’m all about the person. If I was to make you a pair of glasses, I am looking at the shape of your eyebrows, your long eyelashes and your small nose and I think of how it will fit. I look at the shape of your hairline that frames your face, the earrings – how you accessorise yourself. I must design something that will bring all of that together and then match it. That is not easy, which is why people hate glasses. There is so much going on in your personality that you’re already outwardly projecting.

Read next: Visionary designer Bill Bensley on creating luxury dream worlds

The idea that you simply wear what I say and have to deal with it doesn’t really work. That is effectively what happens when you go to an optician. I take several aspects into account: your personal style and features, then we look at the delicacy and thickness of the rim, the tone of the colour, the finishing material (polished, matt or satin), how the frames are fitting. We must take all that into account and then have to consider the prescription requirements and what lens design will give you the optimum vision. You can squeeze any lens into a frame, but people can develop headaches and dizziness. It’s all about you – that is my design style. My products aren’t signature to a hinge, they are signature to the person, so you shouldn’t really be able to spot my frames.

KH: What’s wrong with a ‘one size fits all’ model?
TD: First of all, you must remember those funny caricatures that used to appear in newspapers and magazines where they had images of heart-shaped faces and square faces and they would state which shapes suited you. You don’t see those so much anymore, as they are nonsense and the consumers realised it. If you go into a normal optician, you tend to see a variety of different shapes that do generally work on people. Whether they fit them on the bridge or whether the arms are right is not clear. You will see a generic mix of shapes and if the opticians are good buyers, they will have bought enough to service most people in a generic sort of way. The reason people have used those devices in the past is because you had to buy off the shelf. There wasn’t really a bespoke service.

What I do is I take that same principle, as I have a fully functioning opticians here. You can walk away with a pair of glasses that fit you reasonably well, as with most opticians. But in actual fact, what we’ll do is say – we like this frame and then alter it in terms of shape and style. The principles are there in all opticians and everyone is trying to match face shape to frames as much as they can. But, I am taking that to the next level by starting with something you like and making it better. On my personal appointments, I will pretty much start with a blank piece of paper and sketch something. But generally speaking, if you come to my store, we will start with something the customer really likes and we then bring it on to the next level. It hasn’t necessarily been ignored, but the limits of normal business have prevented them from being able to cater for this.

KH: How would you say the industry has changed?
TD: It keeps changing faster and faster, almost every couple of months. It is now all about individuality in whatever brand you are looking at. There are many people now marketing a bespoke service, but it is generally offering their best-selling frame in twelve different colours. Often these bespoke services are also only offered in plastic, which is the easiest one to do and is often not that accurate and there is no designer behind it.

Read next: Jasper Johns’ alternative perspectives at the Royal Academy

If you come to us, there is a designer in-store and then a designer in my head office who is designing the frame on your face. It is then individually made for you to 0.1 of a millimetre. There is nobody doing anything like that, but there are lots of people in customisation and 3D printing who are coming into this sphere. I was at a trade show in January this year and two years ago, there were two other brands there. But this year, there were twelve other brands there offering some kind of customisation service. This boom is happening and you will see more and more customisation. It is the future of eyewear. You will then also see the big players, such as Luxottica, which owns most of the brands, trying to protect their system. They buy up the industry. For example, Luxottica and Essilor are merging at the moment to make the biggest retailer in the world. Between them, they will own over half of the industry. That is happening in eyewear as well. I think that will carry on happening.

The new Tom Davies store in Covent Garden

KH: Why did you decide to move your factory from China to Britain?
TD: There were many reasons for this. There is no eyewear industry in Britain. I think ten years ago, I would have been too threatened by the idea of training up the next generation of eyewear makers. But now at 42, I don’t feel threatened by that. I am going to be training people, we are bringing in a new generation and we have to create our own supporting industries for it in the UK. We will set up factories here and I find that an exciting challenge.

And also, I am 42 and it’s hard work to travel to China every six weeks. I live in perpetual jet-lag. I am now the master of upgrades, I know everything about everything on airplanes and I know the check-in people. But, I can’t keep doing that. The cost in China is also not what it used to be. Shenzhen is a fabulous place to do business, but it is actually more expensive than Hong Kong, and Hong Kong is as expensive as London. Therefore, economically there is not much of a financial benefit in being based there. Within three years, there will be no financial benefit at all.

‘Flag’ 1958, Jasper Johns. Courtesy: The Art Institute of Chicago.

‘Fool’s House’ 1961-62, Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns is one of the most influential artists in America’s contemporary art scene, known for his appropriation and defamiliarization of everyday objects, most notably the US flag, which Johns first painted in 1954.  ‘Something Resembling Truth’ at the Royal Academy, London is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s work to be held in the UK in 40 years. Spread across several large galleries, the exhibition confidently steers us through Johns’ career beginning with his iconic symbols, including several versions of his famous stars and stripes. Yet, more intriguing, as is so often the case, are the works that come later: dark, morbid collages with decapitated limbs and limp, inanimate objects that force us to recognise the paintings as objects themselves.

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‘Painting with Two Balls’ 1960, Jasper Johns. Collection of the artist.

In ‘Painting with Two Balls’, the canvases are prised open with small balls, resembling the googly-eyes of a rainbow coloured cartoon monster, to expose the wall behind, whilst ‘Watchman’ depicts the sawn off legs of a figure sitting upside down on chair with colours merging into a shadowy gloom. Johns challenges our perceptions by grabbing hold of the familiar, stretching, mutating, chewing it up and spitting it back out again. It’s an exhibition that deserves time and consideration.

Millie Walton

“Jasper Johns: Something Resembling Truth” runs until 10th December at the Royal Academy, London

On board Saffron, Spice Routes’ double-storey houseboat. Image by James Houston

Beyond Kerala’s humid, bustling cities lies a subtropical maze of secret waterways and verdant rice paddies. LUX discovers the singular beauty of the backwaters, aboard a luxury houseboat

We arrived in Fort Cochin, dusty and bleary-eyed from a long train ride down from Mumbai, into the thick humidity of an early Indian summer. Fort Cochin is the prettiest and oldest part of Kochi. It was once occupied by the Dutch and the Portuguese, and the cobbled streets and architecture retain the appearance of old-world Europe. The food is fresh with tropical flavours that differ from the rich, creamy sauces of Northern India. We ate best at the tables beside little huts which sit beneath palm trees along the waterfront, where the fish is caught practically before your eyes and served simply with fried spices and rice.

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Whilst this part of the town used to be busy trade port (there’s plenty to be discovered in various museums), the rhythm of life is now sleepy and tranquil, with tourists drifting between air-conditioned cafes, craft shops and independent art galleries. During our stay, we caught the last few days of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, stumbling across various installations and exhibitions hidden within courtyards and gardens as we wandered the streets.

Views over the rolling hills of Wayanad. Image by James Houston

Almost everyone we met was returning to the state for the second or third time, having fallen in love on their first visit. The top recommendations were to stay amongst the tea plantations in Wayanad (the north-eastern part of Kerala) and to go on a cruise through the backwaters. For many travellers, the word ‘cruise’ understandably conjures up images of massive five-storey monster ships, packed tight with tourists, but in Kerala, a cruise simply means a boat trip whether that’s on a fishing boat, houseboat, or in any other kind of floating vessel.

Most of the backwater tours depart from the coastal town of Alleppey (an hour and a half’s drive down the coast from Fort Cochin, or two hours in a tuk tuk if you prefer a slower, more scenic route). Spice Routes, unlike many of other cruise providers, offers exclusive use of their luxury houseboats, meaning that you get the whole thing to yourself. The company owns six boats varying from one-bedroom to five-bedrooms. We were booked on Saffron, an elegant double-storey boat with a large bedroom, ensuite bathroom and lounge area on the lower deck and a dining room and sundeck upstairs. The interiors paired traditional Keralan design with contemporary touches and an abundance of floor-to-ceiling windows.

Read more: Art dealer Tamara Beckwith on Rob Munday’s holographic portraiture

Rather than feeling like a floating hotel, the boat felt homely and private. The staff were there when we needed them, and not when we didn’t. We spent most of the time from our departure to nightfall, lying on the deck, sunbathing, watching the fishing boats and listening to the birds.

It is worth noting that the backwaters are by no means a secret and whilst there are, most likely, more secluded routes to navigate on smaller vessels, the main waterways tend to be busy with activity. By the evening though, when we moored up close to a bank to buy fish for our supper from a local fisherman, most of the other boats had returned home. We ate amidst silence and slept with the blinds up in a grand four-poster bed, waking with the sun.

The real luxury of the sailing through these waters, though, is the opportunity to see the landscapes and life beyond India’s urban environments. For most travellers, experiences of the country tend to be confined to the cities dotted along designated transport routes; self-drive cars are near impossible to hire and if you have a driver, it can be difficult to know exactly where to direct them unless there’s it’s to a tourist site. In the backwaters, life happens on the riverbanks: the washing of clothes, dishes, bodies, hair, swimming, chatting, playing. On the deck of a luxury boat, we became  voyeurs, made suddenly, acutely aware of the country’s wealth divide, of our privilege and other ways of existing in the world.

Rates from 25000 INR per night on-board Saffron, incl. all meals (approx. £250/ $350 / €300)

For more information visit: spiceroutes.in