First looks, Giambattista Valli Haute Couture 25

Giambattista Valli moves as easily in the classical world of haute couture as in the contemporary world of social media and in the boardroom as CEO of his brand. Harriet Quick talks to the modern couturier as he prepares to take his maison to the next level

Environments have a way of seeping into the psyche of a designer and a brand. Rome-born designer Giambattista Valli is currently in the throes of bidding adieu to the wood-panelled, fresco-ceilinged lateral space in Paris that has been home to his brand since its inception in 2005. “It’s my historical space. When we first moved in, it seemed huge, a big undertaking and commitment. But now it feels small,” says Valli of the elegant, characterful HQ that lies on the rue Boissy d’Anglas in the 8th arrondissement, near Place de la Madeleine.

The office has witnessed the brand move in ebbs and flows since its inception, which was funded by Valli himself. The mid noughties were a volatile period in fashion, with extremes of bling and the highest of heels usurped by post-Lehmann brothers stealth wealth, as luxury brands clipped their wings and aesthetics to suit sober times. Now we are amid a new wave of financial crunches and the impact of the environmental crisis, triggering a new wave of quiet luxury.

Yet Valli is a deft hand at riding the waves and telling his own story in chapters that evolve and twist over time rather than chase hot trends. It means his company has been able to evolve and adapt, to the point where it is now time to upgrade and move his company of around 50 colleagues under one roof. Groupe Artémis, the Pinault family-owned company, has a stake in the brand, which in 2022 turned over an estimated $6.4 million. Valli himself has had an influence on fashion proportionately far greater than mere turnover numbers may indicate.

Portrait of Giambattista Valli

The new Valli offices are just up the road from the old, near Opéra, but offer two floors of light-filled space to house everything from the showrooms, atelier, PR and communications office, the commercial team and a VIP haute couture suite. “It is almost a townhouse, as we have our own entrance. The structure is good and there is beautiful stuccowork and frescoes,” says Valli of the interior, which features clean white “boxes” he has designed himself. “We always have so many prints, volumes and textures – I needed it to be neutral,” he explains.

With his dark thick hair, big eyes, fashionably deep yet sharply sculpted beard, Valli appears like a Renaissance artist transported into our times wearing a black T-shirt and chain necklace, instead of a doublet and ruff. He reserves his treasured 17th-century Mughal “good luck” pearl necklace for special occasions. “It is very rare,” he says. The pursuit of beauty in people, objects, environments and in fashion has been Valli’s lifelong pursuit. Soon he will be receiving VIP clients into his new showroom to choose from his latest haute couture offering, which was shown in Paris in early July 2023.

“I love to have the level of excellence that comes from pushing the boundaries of the atelier and the research required to propose new ideas of beauty. I approach haute couture in a classical-modern way, and each collection is like a new chapter of the same story,” says Valli, who frames himself as a romantic poet but is also CEO and an astute brand director, with a vision that appeals to a collective sweet spot.

The tradition of creating one-off gowns for an elite clientele who might attend three fittings before a garment is finalised might seem an anachronism in a click-and-produce era that can see whole collections turned around in a matter of weeks. But the experience offers an unparalleled luxury for both creator and client alike, a transcendental experience that sees centuries-old savoir faire reimagined for today. “Haute couture is the extreme side of this fantasy. It is also a practice that nourishes ready to wear, so what we see in the shapes, volumes and techniques filters through from a couture dress to a T-shirt or a knit piece,” says Valli of the osmosis. “When creating haute couture, ‘real’ time seems to stop and you float into another time zone.”

Look 09, Giambattista Valli Haute Couture 25. The maison describes the collection as “celebrating the modernity of classics and the timeless art of Atelier”

The 57-year-old couturier intertwines the many threads of his upbringing into his metier. Valli attended secondary school at a strict Vatican liceo near the Vatican Museum, took a degree in art, studied fashion at the Instituto Europeo di Design in Rome and in 1987 did an illustration course at Central St Martins in London. In 1988 he entered high fashion as an assistant for Roberto Capucci, the designer known for his opulent colour and sculpted gowns, who became a magnet for Roman high society during the 1960s and enjoyed a renaissance in the 1980s.

“From Roberto Capucci, I can say that I learnt the philosophy of not being trendy; I learnt to step a little bit out of the spot of the moment and also to keep the human side intact,” says Valli. He went on to Fendi, which had Karl Lagerfeld at the helm, then Krizia in Milan. In 1997, he moved to Paris and the haute couture atelier of Emanuel Ungaro where, as first assistant, Valli learnt about the arts of flou and tailleur and the rituals including passing the pins in complete hush. Ungaro was so impressed by Valli’s light, fresh work that he made him Creative Director of ready to wear and the stores adored what he did.

Valli channelled that love of volume, of light, fresh romantic designs into his own label and started making a name for himself attracting socialites, creative types, young women and older women into his fan-club circle. Count in there Priyanka Chopra, Marina Ruy Barbosa, Eugenie Niarchos, Bianca Brandolini, Giovanna Battaglia Engelbert (Valli made a macramé minidress with organza-chiffon cape for the party of her cliff- top Capri wedding in 2016), as well as more actors and royalty. They, in turn, became the best ambassadors for the brand and for its joyous, “go big or go home” dress-up daring.

“When I launched, all the houses had big stars, but we were independent and every cent counted. It’s almost like the Valli Girls chose us, We did not pay them to get dressed. They continue to be people who inspire me and they capture l’air du temps and I am nourished by that,” says Valli of his famously mercurial, nomadic, cultured muses and champions.

Giambattista Valli with muse Bianca Brandolini

In her 2013 book, Giambattista Valli, curator and fashion historian Pamela Golbin wrote of the designer, “Here is a story of duality, in which the exuberance of his Italian roots is artfully coupled with the formal rigour of the French.” She adds, “Complicity with women – through their body language and the gestures they adopt – is central to Valli’s practice because like a film director he directs his models as if they are actresses.”

In store and online that fantasy continues to seduce. “I have bought Giambattista Valli for most of my career. The brand consistently offers amazing and diverse occasionwear, from beautiful romantic floral gowns to tweed or bouclé suits and dress coats, which can be styled with a cute ballet pump or a sophisticated kitten heel depending on the occasion,” says Liane Wiggins, Head of Womenswear at Matches. “Giambattista Valli has a strong DNA and our customers continue to return for these well-cut, flattering pieces.” The store recently launched an exclusive capsule collection with the brand, which includes a floor-length silk fil coupé gown.

The current Giambattista Valli autumn/ winter 2023 line up finds raw-edge sleeveless tweed jumpsuits, semi-sheer tiered prairie dresses and a series of pieces including tunics and floral embroidered outsize jackets that were worn by men on the catwalk but are designed for every gender. “I do think there is fascination with beauty and how far one can push the fantasy,” says Valli of the zeitgeist. “The social-media message might be dreamy, critical or creative, but the platforms are a more democratic way to learn about this universe that was previously closed off and exclusive. It gives a chance for people to understand the work behind fashion.” He laughs as he adds, of his gowns that burst from the Instagram frame, “Image-wise, well, I have always loved big volumes, so that fits very well!”

Read more: Maryam Eisler’s photography series at legendary Parnham House 

From his new Paris HQ, Valli will lay the groundwork for the next chapter. “I would love the maison to sit alongside institutional houses like Dior and Chanel and to have that presence beyond my lifetime,” he says. “I want the brand to be coherent with a 100 per cent DNA that is about excellence and savoir faire. To do that, one has to move with consistency.”

With his 10-year-old son, Adam, Valli also has a young future to look after. “Right now, he is 100 per cent football! But he is very gentle, inquisitive, surprising, and I learn a lot from him,” says Valli. “How do I see myself age 70? Curious, still able to receive energy from beauty and wanting to share it. I hope I am going to surprise him, too.” This Roman in Paris knows his road.

Find out more: giambattistavalli.com

Works by Aiko Tezuka on display at Asia Now Paris in the Majhi International Art Residency booth

The Durjoy Bangladesh Foundation (DBF) continues its mission to bridge the art communities from the East and the West through the Majhi International Art Residency, this year taking place in Paris

The Majhi International Art Residency was started by DBF in 2019, with its first edition in Venice. Since then, the residency has taken place every year in different locations in Europe including Berlin, Eindhoven, Amsterdam at the renowned Rijksakademie, and now Paris.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

This year’s two-week residency programme saw three artists from Asia and the Asian diaspora creating new works for an exhibition curated by Ricko Leung. Ricko Leung was born and raised in Hong Kong but has lived in Paris since 2014. Her art and curation focus on topics including, fear and control, cultural identity, and post-colonialism, as well as eco-feminism.

The artists and curator involved at the residency, left to right: Aiko Tezuka, Ricko Leung, Raisa Kabir and Rajyashri Goody

The theme of this exhibition was textile and indigo, in particular, around the history and meaning of indigo, being a material very closely tied to the colonial history of Bengal. Indigo is a material also used very frequently in the textile industry, which coincided with the focus of the venue partner, Asia Now Paris. The artists selected for the residency were Raisa Kabir, Aiko Tezuka and Rajyashri Goody.

Raisa Kabir is an artist, textiles researcher and weaver based in London. Kabir’s creations cover the interwoven cultural politics of cloth, archives of the body and colonial geographies, by using woven text and textiles, sound, video and performance.

Works on display at Asia Now by Rajyashri Goody (right) and Raisa Kabir (left)

Kabir’s (un)weaving performances use queer entanglement to comment on structures of trans-national power, global production, and the relationships between craft and industrial labour. Her work speaks to cultural anxieties surrounding nationhood, textile identities and the cultivation of borders.

Aiko Tezuka was born in Tokyo but has lived in Berlin since 2011. Using different readymade fabrics Aiko produces unique works in which she unravels materials to create new structural forms using her own techniques.

Details of an artwork by Aiko Tezuka

Rajyashri Goody is from Pune, India and currently works between India and the Netherlands. She was also a residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam from 2021-2023. Goody’s practice has been heavily influenced by both her academic background and her Ambedkarite Dalit roots.

Read more: Mera Rubell on catalysing cultural change

She focuses on messaging around how basic needs of everyday life, including food, nature, language and literacy are actively used as tools to enforce caste rules for generations. She shows this messaging through various mediums incorporating text, voice, paper, pulp, ceramics, photography, printmaking, video and installation into her works.

Indigo not only has strong ties with the colonial history of Bengal, but its pigment is extremely prominent in textiles, which was a point of focus at Asia Now

‘Majhi’ can be translated into English as a ‘leader’ of a house or group of people. In some ways, the Majhi International Art Residency programme acts as a leader by bridging divides, connecting individuals and creating a vibrant channel for the exchange of ideas and experiences.

Find out more: majhi.org

The rocky desert coastline of the northern Red Sea. Sea levels around the world are rising and coral is being bleached by acidification due to increasing CO2 levels

Amid much scepticism about whether the global climate summit COP28, taking place in Dubai over the next few weeks, will actually bear any positive results, there are rays of hope. Ted Janulis, investor, entrepreneur and founder of Investable Oceans, outlines the reasons he is feeling cheerful in the run-up to an event that needs to change the way we think about and deal with climate change

In just a few days, 70,000 people will convene in Dubai to attend COP28 (the 28th annual “Conference of the Parties”), where delegates from countries all around the world will discuss how to address the climate crisis. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – tasked with finding ways to reduce emissions – will track member states’ progress on emission reductions and negotiate further collective action, alongside business leaders, climate scientists, journalists, and others in attendance. Major topics will include how vulnerable communities can adapt to climate change and how to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

We’re at a critical juncture for our climate and oceans, so this COP is particularly important. While increased commitments provide grounds for some optimism, our oceans and climate face continuing serious challenges. We’re not on course to stay within the 1.5C increase above pre-industrial levels scientists warn is required to avoid serious environmental and human consequences, and in addition we’re falling far short of the $150 billion per year cited by recent research needed to achieve the goals of Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water by 2030. The bottom line, as former president of Ireland Mary Robinson eloquently put it: “We cannot afford to have a bad COP”.

Desertification and coastal erosion are major issues facing the world

Despite these daunting circumstances, we’re looking forward to seeing oceans having a substantial presence at COP28. This is a continuation of a theme that has gained momentum throughout 2023: there is growing recognition that the oceans, the world’s largest carbon sink, will play a pivotal role in providing solutions for climate change.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

This year’s Climate Week NYC in September was a clear demonstration of this progression, as the number of events, announcements and real outcomes increased substantially from previous years. Amy Novogratz, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Aqua-Spark, asserted that: “Climate Week is feeling very Blue this year, finally!”

The Ocean Pavilion at the 2022 COP in Sharm el-Sheikh. The 2023 Pavilion features ten ocean themes

A substantial increase in investable opportunities has added to this marine momentum. At least 10 new blue economy dedicated funds have launched over the past year, bringing the total count to over 30. A major focus of these funds is how to measure the environmental impact of sustainable ocean investing. In other recent news, a variety of blue bonds have come to market that involve debt-for-nature swaps, sovereigns and corporations, and Rockefeller Capital Management and KraneShares now offer an ocean engagement themed Exchange-Traded Fund (KSEA).

On the investor side, oceans made their debut on the plenary stage at the GIIN’s annual conference in Copenhagen, where discussions covered the proverbial waterfront, from ecosystem conservation to coastal resilience to blended finance to nuclear sharks. We also saw increased interest in the ocean sector from “terrestrial” investors. For example, sustainable agriculture funds are beginning to look at aquaculture as an attractive adjacent opportunity to their core focus.

A towering Acropora coral, one of the hundreds of coral reef species that help support up to 25% of all marine life

The upcoming COP28 will seek to capitalise on this surge of ocean interest and activity. Notably, oceans will be included in the COP28 thematic programme for the first time, with a special focus on 9th December. Together with an array of ocean events, gatherings and presentations at different pavilions, this represents a substantial increase in the ocean’s presence in global climate conversations and solutions.

Read more: Baroness Scotland and Markus Müller: a call for action at COP28

One of the highlights of COP28 will be the return of the Ocean Pavilion, which will bring diverse stakeholders together in a dedicated space within COP’s “Blue Zone” for its second year. The organizing partners, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, will lead 32 partners through two weeks of events. The Pavilion programming is structured by ten themes organised under three tracks: Changing Ocean, Climate Consequences, and Future Ocean.

A pod of charismatic dolphins swimming in the shallows. Overfishing and bycatch are major issues for our oceans

The Pavilion is meant to inspire ocean-focused solutions through 70+ panel sessions, meetings and in-depth discussions. We are particularly excited about the “Blue Economy and Finance” theme, which explores the role that finance can play in ensuring that the ocean can continue to protect and provide for human societies in the coming decades. For example, Margaret Leinen, Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, will moderate a panel, Frontloading Equity in Financing Coastal Climate Resilience, exploring questions such as: How can we scale climate finance to reduce climate risks, speed recoveries, and reap the benefits of resilience? And how can our quantification of the financial costs of climate change be redesigned to yield equitable outcomes?

Despite all the headwinds, we are hoping for positive progress over the next weeks in Dubai.

Ted Janulis is Founder & Principal, Investable Oceans

Co-written with Helena Janulis, Business Development and Special Projects, Investable Oceans

All photos by Morgan Bennett-Smith

Find out more: www.investableoceans.com

Desertification is one of the key consequences of climate change

With COP 28 just days away, Commonwealth Secretary General Baroness Scotland and Deutsche Bank’s Markus Müller speak about the need to prioritise implementation of climate goals at the critical global conference. In a conversation moderated by LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai, the Secretary-General and Deutsche Bank executive underscore the need for collective action for climate reversal on the part of the international community to counter an increasingly urgent crisis

Baroness Scotland

LUX: What are your hopes and expectations for this COP?
Baroness Scotland: My hope is that this COP will be the implementation COP. If you look at the COPs which have preceded it, you will see that there has been an awakening of the understanding about how urgent the danger is.

We have been talking historically about the existential threat for many of the members of my Commonwealth family. But that threat is not a threat: it is here. It is omnipresent. The “1.5 to stay alive” slogan is not a slogan, it is a reality. At the moment, 1.5 is on life support. We must give it the oxygen it needs. It means the difference between whether some of our small island developing states will continue to exist, or whether they will disappear.

Although it is encouraging to hear Australia say that they will take the people from states which are subsumed by the sea, such as Nauru, this still means that their traditions and cultures will all be gone. Their graveyards will be at the bottom of the sea after thousands of years of existence.

My aspiration for COP 28 is that we will deliver on the promises we will make. The $100 billion a year by 2020 that we were promised in 2009 still has not been delivered. It has to be delivered.

LUX: The richest countries are good at words, not implementations. What needs to change in order for that to be delivered?
BS: One change that has already happened is that businesses and the private sector are now intimately involved in the delivery. If you look back at previous COPs, even in 2016 there was still a debate as to whether climate change was real. There was a debate as to whether we would go green and blue in terms of energy. There was a debate about loss and damage. Those questions have been answered. If you look at what happened in Glasgow, the idea that the private sector would not be intimately involved in order to deliver the solutions is now unthinkable.

Second, which I have been saying for a while, we must recognise that human genius got us into this mess, and will now have to get us out of it. If you look at the industrial revolution, it was amazing, but that brought more devastation climatically than anything else. Human genius will have to get us out again. Some of the extraordinary developments – such as geo-spatial data – will allow us to better understand what is happening, and therefore, perhaps, how we can reverse it.

Oases in North Africa are disappearing as the Sahara spreads northwards due to climate change

A third change is that we have accepted that this isn’t just about adaptation and mitigation. When I first said in 2016 that we needed a regenerative approach to development which would reverse climate change, people thought that I was crazy. Now, everybody accepts that we need a regenerative approach – one which adapts, rather than just mitigates.

Markus Müller

LUX: Markus, as an economist and also someone who has said things that some people might have considered crazy at the time, but end up being true, what is your perspective on this COP?
Markus Müller: I think that this COP will be crucial. I completely support what Baroness Scotland has said. If we do not recognise what it takes now, it will be very difficult further down the line.

First, the Global Stocktake, which will take place for the first time at this COP, will reveal some uncomfortable truths. We will hear, for the first time, how far we are behind our plans. I hope and I think that this will be an awakening moment.

Secondly, we need to get a better understanding of global finance. Perhaps I am biased, but if we do not give the global financial market a role to play in this transition, then it won’t happen. The states alone will not be able to do this; we need the capacity of global finance – be it through risk pooling, or through its distribution channels of money, location and distribution – so that we can work on these devastating aspects.

From the perspective of an individual country, their financial needs are huge. From a global financial market point of view, this is more manageable. We have been speaking about this for years, but no solutions have been delivered so far. We must listen to financial institutions. We have the tools. Together, we are powerful, but in terms of negotiation, business, and finance, the right angle is missing. In this COP, finance is crucial, and then – of course – the transition discussion.

LUX: Have the opportunities for financial institutions to work with Commonwealth nations and governments changed in the last couple of years?
MM: We have always had excellent relationships with the countries of the Global South and Africa. However, as we see real world climate changes, financial needs are changing too.

It’s no longer about financing the past, the traditional infrastructure and traditional energy supply. We now need to finance the future – and this is something which is still missing. The vision of how the future could look is not there. We should ask ourselves, “What should we have done in order to be healthy in 2050?” as if we are in 2050 already, so that we know which direction we should take.

This discussion should take place in financial institutions. President Macron said this very clearly. We have the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We have the World Bank. We have these huge international institutions. But we need to be ready for the 21st century.

BS: We must also help them better understand debt, and to view the whole thing as an ecosystem. Up until recently we have looked at each element as a hermetically sealed, self-contained issue. But they are absolutely not.

With global warming making desert margins unlivable, population flight is devastating communities and leading to refugee crises

When I started at the Commonwealth, we said that we needed a regenerative approach to climate change. That meant that we needed to do more on the ocean, so we began the Commonwealth Blue Charter. One of the things I really want is to increase the amount of money going to oceans, because it is absolutely unacceptable that about 0.01% goes to oceans. We are a blue planet, we’re not a land-based planet and to actually be putting almost nothing into what makes up the majority of the world is just crazy.

It is crazy that we are not using our intelligence better. Our Climate Finance Access Hub in Mauritius has mobilised $7.8 million dollars: we are talking about peanuts. We have deployed 19 climate finance advisors across Africa, the Pacific and Caribbean regions. We are working together with those advisors, and they have already delivered $316 million into the hands of the small states with more than $500 million in the pipeline. But I do not have the money to put a climate finance advisor in every country. I wish I did.

We have seen that these applications for international climate funds are taking too long to make. For some of our LEDCs (least economically developed countries), it will be two to four years before they get the application through. However, our most recent application for five countries, took less than a year, and we got $63 million. Why? Because in the last 7 years, we have honed the process. So when we look at loss and damage, we cannot put in the old-fashioned, useless system. We have to put in a speedy, effective system which will get people the money to make a difference. Bit by bit we are changing it.

But we need debt swaps. We need a good carbon market. We think we are within touching distance of doing that, because using satellites and geo-spatial data, we are within touching distance of understanding how much every tree on the planet can sequester. We will then have the granularity to have a real carbon market, based on real, concrete estimates.

That could be a gamechanger between the North and the Global South. The Global South still has the majority of the lungs of the world, which they are being asked to maintain – but nobody is paying them. If we can get a real carbon market, that means it will be possible for us to do the reversal in the Global South to keep us alive.

Water towers in Morocco bring together local people for their construction and maintenance and create a common community dedicated to their sustainable use. When the water dries up, due to desertification, community bonds are broken – a pattern repeated in climate-related environmental developments around the world

MM: I can agree. We have been starting to understand the nature topic better. Nature is a very valuable collateral, because it creates ecosystem services on which we all depend.

BS: It is remarkable how much has changed between when we started the Blue Charter Action Group and now. We worked with them on corals and, now, understanding the role that they play in restoration has improved globally. I have just returned from the Maldives, where I was looking at mangroves, which are huge in terms of sequestration,  for and protecting coastlines. That conversation was not even happening six years ago, but now it is critical. The Maldives want to restore their mangroves. But the degradation is already there and, unless we do this quickly, it is not going to change.

MM: We must convince those who retain traditional thinking about these areas. This is a big hurdle, but if we activate the right players to do this, the solutions are there. Two years ago, we joined the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA), and moved with speed. Perhaps we did not do enough with regards to concrete finance, but we wanted to understand the matter first, before unleashing the power of our balance sheet.

BS: The way in which I have been approaching this from the moment I came into the Commonwealth was to ask this: “Where do we want to be in 2030? What are the outcomes?” We’ve been saying, if that’s where we want to be in 2030, what do we have to do three months, six months, nine months, a year, two years, three years? Although other people thought it was crazy, we were right.

Those of us in positions of power now need to understand that we will all be on the same indictment. History will look back and say, “tell me their names. What were they doing? What were they thinking? Why did they not move at a time when it was possible?”

But the reason why I’m confident and determined is because humanity is always at its best and its most ingenious when our backs are against the wall. And right now, globally, our backs are against the wall.

MM: This is the interesting thing about development. You need to have a decent degree of scarcity for development to really kick off. It’s sad in one way, but it’s also a very convincing catalyst for change.

The aftermath of a August 2020, wildfire which burned houses, date palms, orchards, vegetable gardens and more than 400 heads of cattle in the oasis of Tighmert in Morocco.
The increase in temperature and water stress has a considerable impact on the vegetation of the oasis, which, dried out, becomes more likely to catch fire

I also think that this discussion that we are having is proof that we are anticipating what’s going to happen. All backlash against ESG or sustainability are, for me, a signal that ESG and sustainability are being seen as a priority – otherwise we would not be discussing them as intensively as we are now.

LUX: Are developments around the world down-grading consciousness of what needs to be done around sustainability and COP?
BS: I think we woke up and smelled the coffee during the COVID pandemic. There is almost no one I know who was not affected either directly or indirectly by COVID. Most of us know someone who died, someone who was badly affected and/or we ourselves suffered from the deprivation, the mental stress, etc. I think it made a lot of people wake up and think, “What is life all about? What do I value? Am I sure I’m going to have it tomorrow?”

The other thing it did was emphasise the fact that unless we make sure others are safe, we won’t be safe and the people we love won’t be safe. The madness that we’re going through globally at the moment, the fact that every region of our world seems to be under threat, is making this fact even more omnipresent. It’s a tangled web of interlocking crises, and that’s what makes this time so volatile, so dangerous. If we don’t have a world, all the other things are not going to matter because we’re not going to be here.

I think for those in the Global South, this has remained the number one priority. What’s interesting is the agenda is being raised in the Global North, because the number of climatic disasters in the Global North is finally rising. Before, people would say the crisis had nothing to do with them. But when your coastline has been battered, when countries that have never seen a hurricane are suffering them, when trees are falling and floods are happening, when ordinary people’s lives in western cities are being made conscious of climate change, now it’s something people want to talk about.

MM: We know that cooperation is a very shy and very sensitive creature. Not being collaborative is not the superior strategy, it is the naive strategy. The smartest strategy is collaboration, but collaboration only works if there is a mutual dependency on it. This is exactly what Baroness Scotland just described; we now have a mutual dependency which is becoming evident and measurable.

A global temperature rise of several degrees, which the world is on track to suffer over the coming decades, would make this land uninhabitable

How can we solve the biggest problem humanity is facing? I believe in nature. Nature is stronger than humans, and it is currently taking back what humanity has taken. We need to be humble, but also use this as a tool for prosperity, because we need prosperity in order to survive and to create social stability. This also goes back to the aforementioned human genius, and to nature’s genius. Let’s activate this and let’s get there.

BS: And just think about the technological changes we’ve gone through in the last year. AI and digital and machine learning is enabling us to do analytical work exponentially faster. Before, you would have to do computations, which would have taken you 5-6 years. We’re now able to do the same computations within the space of weeks.

In the Commonwealth we’ve created and launched an AI consortium to look at the needs of small and developing states in particular. There are 42 small states in the world and we have 33 of them; if we can address the needs of those small states, this becomes a microcosm that we can use to solve many other problems. This interconnection and understanding that what works for one of us could work for all of us, is particularly powerful and why I am so delighted that the Commonwealth of 56 is being used as a kind of petri dish. We’ve got all regions: rich ones, poor ones, landlocked, island states, developed, all faiths. Therefore, if we can work something out that can work for our 56 countries, it is likely that it could become a pathway for the rest of the world.

LUX: What would be a satisfactory, realistic COP?
MM: I think what would make me satisfied is, first of all, to come to a joint conclusion on how to phase out fossil fuels in a way that this transition provides further prosperity for our countries and societies.

Secondly, I would say that this COP would be a successful COP if we were to get an agreement on how to finance the inclusion of the Global South in the economic and sustainability transition processes. The Loss and Damage Fund was meant to be this tool, but there is no money behind it. We need to get this signed by all nations.

Finally, I would love to see that nature as a whole, be it the ocean or biodiversity, gets closer to the climate discussion this COP. We must use tools like carbon credits and biodiversity credits to transfer the money from the users to the object or subject to be financed. For example, rainforests are our common goods to sequester carbon, to really get the finance mechanism working.

Climate change means that in some areas, water resources have vanished, while other lands are disappearing under increasingly acidifying oceans due to rising sea levels and higher CO2 levels

BS: I agree, and that really means we will have created a regenerative model of sustainable change to deliver climate reversal at this COP. That’s what we need. We also need – and I think we will hopefully get it – an understanding that this is a multifaceted, multidimensional approach needed by everybody. It will be business, it will be foundations, it will be individuals, it will be governments, it will be led by all of us.

Markus is right. We’ve got to get the money right, and there is no point in making promises that are then not kept. We’ve got to focus on action and what that action is going to be and by whom. I think the most important thing is to be honest with ourselves and with each other as to what this quantum leap, this paradigm shift, is going to mean for each of us. And then we have to do it.

MM: I see this COP as a gym, as a fitness centre, where we all struggle and get ready for the next step. I don’t know how much weight I can lift, but at least I’m training, right?

BS: And instead of doing the hundred metre dash on our own, we’re on a relay and everybody knows which run they have to make, where the baton is and who to give it to. There’s an understanding now that unless we run as a team and we connect, we’re all going to lose. If anybody drops the baton, it’s over.

All photography in this article from the series ‘Before it’s gone’ by M’hammed Kilito, winner of the 2023 Photography Prize for Sustainability, as featured in LUX

The 28th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP) is set to take place between the 30th November and 12th December 2023

Baroness Scotland is the 6th Commonwealth Secretary-General

Markus Müller is Chief Investment Officer of ESG & Global Head of Chief Investment Office at Deutsche Bank’s Private Bank

Find out more: unfccc.int/cop28

The Cyclades Preservation Fund runs a campaign to protect the vulnerable Posidonia oceanica meadows from anchoring. Courtesy of the Cyclades Preservation Fund

Philanthropy has a key role to play in initiatives to support ocean conservation, and in empowering communities with the ability to make a difference. Here, Darius Sanai outlines the importance of philanthropy, while Chris Stokel-Walker showcases seven philanthropic projects that are making waves

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant liked to talk about the categorical imperative: moral actions that have to be taken and do not broach any argument. Saving the oceans from further harm by humans is a prominent current example of a categorical imperative, one that would also likely receive the approval of moral philosophers from another prominent school of thought, utilitarianism, which espouses acting for the common good.

And significant positive change can be made – or, if you are a follower of Immanuel Kant, must be made – by people acting to their abilities in support of categorical imperatives. Philanthropists, such as those outlined over these pages, use their considerable means to try to make a difference in support of environmental initiatives, particularly in areas where other forms of capital are not able to work.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

The opportunities to create positive change, and leave a positive legacy, are immense. Philanthropy plays a key role, but works most effectively when it is at its most informed. The links between the chains of planetary and ocean degradation are complex. A zero-emissions container ship can transport invasive species around the world on its hull; sailing yachts destroy carbon-capturing seagrass with their anchors; recycling plastics can produce significant carbon emissions. So it is philanthropists who are as educated on the issues as they are generous, working with carefully-chosen experts, who tend to be the most successful.

Ben Goldsmith

“All across the world, small groups of committed, passionate, effective people are making extraordinary things happen, often on a shoestring budget, and they are nearly always funded by philanthropists,” says Ben Goldsmith, the British environmental campaigner and founder and Chair of environmental charity Conservation Collective. “Philanthropy is the most potent kind of funding, as it comes without any requirement to produce a financial return and has the flexibility to pay for almost any kind of work, from grassroots action to societal movement building. In the right hands, philanthropy can move mountains. This is why it is so important that those with the means to do so give away some of their money – in the most thoughtful and strategic way possible – to those at the cutting edge of changing our world.”

Philanthropic capital is critical to ocean conservation and regenerative initiat

Jacqueline Valouch

ives, says Jacqueline Valouch, Head of Wealth Planning & Philanthropy at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management. “Money provided by philanthropic entities for ocean conservation and regenerative projects allows for early funding, innovation and alignment with the scientific community,” she explains. “By providing much-needed seed capital, philanthropic capital can help to de-risk projects and attract more funding. In these ways, it can help companies and others to restore, renew, conserve and make bigger change.

“Philanthropists are one group of the many stakeholders needed to move the dial on crucial areas of exploration, research (including through scholarship programmes) and innovation,” she continues. “These are initiatives that would not be possible without the dedication and patience of philanthropists.”

Seven Philanthropic Projects In Ocean And Coastal Conservation

1) Deutsche Bank Ocean Resilience Philanthropy Fund
Founder: Deutsche Bank Wealth Management
This Deutsche Bank fund was announced at COP26 in 2021 and launched in 2022. The fund enables philanthropists to engage with scientists on projects to counteract damage to ocean and coastal ecosystems by supporting projects that use nature-based, rather than man-made, solutions. An advisory council of expert scientists and Deutsche Bank personnel review and select grant recommendations for projects. The first such project, the Future Climate Coral Bank, managed by the non- profit Maldives Coral Institute, aims to identify corals that are resilient to bleaching caused by warming, and create a gene bank to support global reef restoration.

deutschewealth.com/oceanfund

2) Walton Family Foundation Oceans Initiative
Founder: Walton Family Foundation
Walmart founders Sam and Helen Walton knew all too well how much the earth’s waters contribute to their supermarket’s success, and the company’s foundation has sought to help ensure the health of the planet’s water for the future. Its Oceans Initiative is supporting 14 fisheries to adopt more sustainable practices, and has lobbied in Japan, the European Union and the United States to encourage buyers to purchase more sustainably sourced seafood. “We believe that the people closest to the problem are also critical to finding solutions,” says Teresa Ish, Head of the Walton Family Foundation Oceans Initiative.

waltonfamilyfoundation.org

Read more: Richard Spinrad on moving towards a blue planet

3) Salesforce ocean Sustainability Programme
Founder: Marc Benioff
Global cloud software company Salesforce has run its Ocean Sustainability programme since CEO Marc Benioff began it in 2021. At COP26, Salesforce committed to buying one million tons of blue carbon credits and is investing $100 million in grants to The Ocean Foundation, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Wetlands International over 10 years – as well as investing in 1t.org, including a Guatemalan project to support sustainable livelihoods for 400 families. “Ocean health translates to the safety of our family, loved ones and communities around the globe, and the ability for them to thrive,” says Dr Whitney Johnston, Director of Ocean Sustainability at Salesforce.

salesforce.com

4) Common Seas
Founders: Filippos and Andonis Lemos
The Lemos brothers are Greek shipping magnates – so they are aware of the biodiversity beneath the ocean surface. And they are conscious of the impact that plastics entering our waters have on the wildlife within. To help combat this, the Lemos siblings co-founded and are major donors to Common Seas, whose vision is to eradicate plastic from the oceans. Common Seas’ collaborative initiatives include partnering with governments to reduce plastic pollution; helping the tourism industry reduce its plastic use; and supporting education providers both to make their schools plastic free and to raise awareness among young people of the importance of keeping our oceans clean of pollution.

commonseas.com

Common Seas incorporates education as part of their strategy to remove plastics from the oceans

5) Galapagos Life Fund
Founder: Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project
The Galápagos Life Fund (GLF) is one of the crowning achievements of the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project, a joint initiative from the independent non-profit The Pew Charitable Trusts and investor and philanthropist Dona Bertarelli. It was set up with the shared goal of establishing the first generation of large, ecologically significant and effective marine- protected areas (MPAs) around the world. The GLF converts $1.6 billion in commercial debt into a loan, capitalised by a $656 million marine conservation-linked bond, generating more than $450 million to support marine conservation in the Galápagos Islands over the next 20 years.

pewtrusts.org/en

6) Cyclades Preservation Fund
Founder: Conservation Collective
Nearly 220 islets and islands make up the Cyclades in the Aegean, which are home to a range of natural habitats being harmed by modern life. The largely female-led team behind the Cyclades Preservation Fund is part of Conservation Collective, a global network of philanthropic funds helping to preserve the natural environment. CPF programmes focus on biodiversity, education, local identity and marine conservation – all with the participation of local stakeholders. Among its biggest wins is supporting the establishment of a grassroots fishing protected area around the island of Amorgos, sustaining a local industry while keeping the marine population healthy.

cycladespreservationfund.org

Cyclades Preservation Fund Supports the fishers of Amorgos towards their vision for seas with more fish and less plastic

7) Plastic Free Ibiza and Formentera
Founder: Ibiza Preservation
Ibiza is a major hub for tourism, which buoys up the economy but has significant environmental impacts. In the west coast, there are 4.5 million pieces of microplastics in every square kilometre of sea – 30 times more than elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Nearly three-quarters of the waste collected on Spanish Mediterranean beaches is plastic. Set up in 2018, Plastic Free Ibiza and Formentera, promoted by Ibiza Preservation, is made up of 14 main members including local non-profits, and aims to eliminate single-use plastic in the islands by supporting citizens, administrations and businesses to promote sustainable practices. Initiatives include the certification of local companies as plastic-free.

plasticfree.es/en

This article first appeared in the Deutsche Bank Supplement of the Autumn/Winter 2023/2024 issue of LUX magazine

Mera and Don Rubell in front of When You See Me Again It Won’t Be Me (from the “Broadwaybrätsch/ Corporate Abstraction” series), 2010, by Kerstin Brätsch

Mera Rubell and her husband Don were the driving force behind the revitalisation of the Miami art scene. Now the collectors aim to do the same for an underserved area of Washington DC, opening a new museum in the US capital. Mera Rubell speaks to Candice Tucker about catalysing cultural change

LUX: Can art promote cultural change?
Mera Rubell: I think art is at the heart of all communication. Art can bring us together emotionally, which is what we’re possibly lacking in this digital age. We’re probably in greater need of emotional contact with each other than ever. Art has the capacity, through the way in which artists communicate, to bring us together, physically. You’re standing in front of a painting and it is there. It is not flashing, it is not about noise, it is about deep reflection into yourself and into the meaning of the work.

A Natural Explosion! Afro Sheen® Blowout Creme Relaxer (from the “Unbranded” series B), 1973/2007, by Hank Willis Thomas

LUX: What most encouraged you and your husband to become involved in the art world?
MR: First, my husband and I have been married for nearly 60 years. There was no mission, art just became part of our life. My husband was a medical student and I was a teacher. We lived in Chelsea, New York, and artists were painting in empty storefronts and living illegally behind their artworks. We fell into that community. We were earning $100 a week and began to support the artists with a payment plan to buy their artworks. We wouldn’t have called ourselves collectors; we thought ourselves, in a very small way, patrons. So we engaged with artists, spent time in their studios and saw how invested they were. It became an obsession. We felt lucky to have found this amazing way to live our lives.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: Why did you choose Washington DC to set up your second museum?
MR: We loved the museums in DC and had bought a run-down 1960s hotel there. It was in a depressed neighbourhood that had been cut off from the rest of the city by a highway, but we fell in love with this building by, as it turned out, Morris Lapidus. Across the street was an abandoned school that had served African American children. It had been shut down years earlier and artists had moved in. We bought the school. When we got involved with the community, we found the school meant a lot to them as it represented a point of their history that was not torn down – Marvin Gaye was an alumnus. When they learnt we had a museum in Miami they encouraged us to do a neighbourhood museum in the school. We said, “Some of the greatest museums are in Washington, who are we to do this?” They said, “Those are national museums. We want to honour the legacy of this building.” It took 16 years to renovate it. Now we have a programme where any alumnus can return, pick a room with their favourite art in it and tell their stories.

Installation view of work by Vaughn Spann at the inaugural group exhibition “What’s Going On”, 2022, Rubell Museum DC

LUX: Do you work differently in each city?
MR: We’re not simply going to take work from Miami to DC. We’re going to find ways to connect with Washington’s history and connect art being made right now to the historical richness of its museums. We were surprised by the welcome all these museums gave us. They appreciate us bringing young kids to DC.

LUX: What factors make an art destination?
MR: Last week in DC, we had a call from the President of Ghana’s office saying they would like to visit. That’s Washington, you never know who will call. Politicians who normally don’t have time to engage with art are starting to. Let’s hope they find more time. You have an educated global crowd and every non-profit there – all people who affect the world. So you hope a contemporary museum with the voices of creative people has an impact. I trust it will. Miami is different. We have tourists from all over the world. It is an exploding metropolis that became a cultural destination. That is the miracle of Miami – and it happened with art. We’re proud to have participated. In DC, we are plugging a museum into an historic building that means a lot to the community. They have seen the demolition of so much of their history and are proud to keep whatever they can of their legacy. We are now part of that.

L’Incroyable Traversée d’Abdoulaye Le Grand, Troisième de la Lignée, 2022, by Alexandre Diop

LUX: Is it the artist, collectors or people in the community that shape an art community?
MR: All of the above. Hillary Clinton said it: it takes a village. It starts with having talent and giving it freedom and support. You have a lot of young people committed to that and to providing a living for artists. We talk about artists, but there are also writers, curators and teachers. You also need commitments across international borders to support artists. Even art fairs – don’t underestimate their power – and auction houses, they are all part of the mix.

Read more: Sophie Neuendorf’s predicted art trends for 2024

LUX: If there was one thing you could change about the art world, what would it be?
MR: I wish there were more affordable spaces for artists to work and live. The abandoned neighbourhoods were perfect places for artists to reinvent. Now populations are growing and it is hard to find neighbourhoods no one has discovered. That was what artists did. Those neighbourhoods have now been demolished or are occupied by people who are desperate, as seen with all this terrible homelessness.

Honi soit qui mal y pense, 2022, by Alexandre Diop

LUX: What new artists interest you today?
MR: So many! Our artist in residence last year was Alexandre Diop and, oh, what a talent. We pick one artist a year to live and work with us and it is amazing what they do. Alexandre is French – born in Paris to a Senegalese father and a French mother. He’s a dancer, a poet, a musician, and the work he makes is out of control.

Find out more: rubellmuseum.org

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

Adrian Bridge, opened Porto’s Cultural District, WOW, in 2020

Starting his career in the British Cavalry Regiment, Adrian Bridge moved to Portugal in 1994 and is now CEO of The Fladgate Partnership, which produces Taylor, Fonseca, Fonseca-Guimaraens, and Croft Ports. Here, Bridge speaks to LUX’s Leaders and Philanthropists Editor, Samantha Welsh about being a driving force behind wine tourism in Porto and developing the city’s new Cultural District WOW

Adrian Bridge

LUX: What do you think your training at Sandhurst taught you?
Adrian Bridge: The military teaches a great deal about leadership and confidence. You also learn to make decisions based on the available information, no matter how imperfect. However, in planning action it is in the details where success lies. That requires breaking down a problem to its parts and thinking through all of the details. I believe that all business is about the detail and that is where success lies.

LUX: How would you say this has influenced your dynamic style of leadership?
AB: The moto of Sandhurst is ‘Serve to Lead’ and I strongly believe in leading from the front. This creates a company culture where everything should be possible. I do not ask people to do things that I would not do myself. I think that this allows us to push forward, to take risks, to do things that others might not attempt.

Angel’s Share is the name given for evaporation process that takes place when wine is ageing in barrels. It is also the name of the WOW wine bar

LUX: Why is the house so good at innovating?
AB: To me, innovation is all about pushing boundaries. To remain at the top, you simply can’t sit still. You have to continuously question, push and evolve or someone will overtake you.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Established in 1692, we are one of the oldest companies in the world simply because we don’t sit still. We are continuously expanding and innovating to appeal to both new and existing audiences. We have a reputation for quality and excellence that has been built up over time and continues to be sustained through the generations.

One of our best examples of innovation has to be the creation of Croft Pink; the first ever Rosé Port. We launched this product in 2008 with the goal to introduce Port wine to a younger generation. In 2011 we continued to expand this concept and launched a canned “ready to drink”- Rosé tonic.

The Fladgate Partnership produces Taylor, Fonseca, Fonseca-Guimaraens, and Croft Ports

LUX: Oporto is already a UNESCO World Heritage City, so what was your vision for WOW?
AB: Porto is a beautiful city full of history, charm and culture – all of great significance to Portugal’s identity. The vision of WOW was to bring a totally new set of cultural concepts to Porto and in this way offer quality content to the region.

We wanted this to be a game-changing space for both locals and travellers that really celebrates the culture, gastronomy, history and industries of Portugal. WOW is as educational as it is fun. To achieve this, we needed to make sure this was a dynamic district that featured regular exhibitions, unique events and seasonal experiences.

The District is over 55,000sqm and includes 8 museums and experiences and 11 restaurants and bars

LUX: What does an immersive experience offer that can complement the traditional vineyard visit?
AB: One of the reasons WOW originally came to be was in response to the booming number of visitors coming to Porto – demand that we helped to create by building The Yeatman – and the lack of experiences that Porto had to offer. To appeal to this market, we continuously try to ensure that there is something new for people to do and see in the district. Technology really allows us to engage with guests in a more interesting and meaningful way.

After the traditional vineyard visit, I would definitely suggest spending a day at WOW. It’s a good idea to choose one or two museums, do a workshop at The Wine School or at The Chocolate Story – the chocolate museum, enjoy a typical dish in one of our restaurants, appreciate the sunset in our Angel’s Share bar while drinking a Port Tonic and stay to be amused by the video mapping in our main square.

The Chocolate Story Museum

LUX: What is a sustainable vineyard model and how are you working to secure the future of viticulture?
AB: We are committed to protecting the environment and the future of our vineyards and the Douro Valley where our family has produced Port wine for centuries.

Our sustainable model incorporates a number of techniques and strategies which work together to create a balanced, diversified and sustainable vineyard environment. The basis of the model is the construction of narrow terraces each of which supports only one row of vines.

The view from Angel Share’s Wine Bar

This model was awarded the prestigious BES Biodiversity Prize in 2009, which recognises achievement in the fields of conservation and environmental sustainability.

In order to encourage industry change on a global level we established the Porto Protocol – the wine industry’s climate action network. Since our first summit in 2018, we have brought together more than 230 wine and wine adjacent companies from 22 countries to share solutions to combat climate change in the wine industry.

LUX: This year you have opened a new museum with a ground-breaking exhibition from TATE at the Atkinson Museum, what was the strategy behind that?
AB: The vision of WOW is to bring a totally new set of cultural concepts to Porto. The new exhibitions, especially the Atkinson Museum, reinforce this destination as a “must visit” hub for international travellers.

At the centre of WOW is the Atkinson Museum. Originally built in 1760, we have meticulously restored and modernised the space to meet international museum standards and attract exhibitions from the international art pool.

Adrian Bridge has a private collection of 2,000 vessels and glasses which tell the story of  the evolution of drinking vessels from earliest civilisations to the present day with some of the collection dates back to 7,000BC

Our most recent exhibition, The Dynamic Eye was produced by the TATE Collection and featured over 100 works from 63 artists – this was the largest number of works travelling from TATE to Portugal. This is an amazing example of the quality of major exhibitions we are bringing to Gaia.

The idea is to bring new and different major international exhibitions, such as The Dynamic Eye, every year.

Read more: Italy Art Focus: Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

LUX: How can cultural philanthropy shine a light on the house values?
AB: As a family business, we are built on a set of strong shared values. We are continuously seeking opportunities that align with our core values. At the moment, one of my key priorities is sustainability in the wine industry and coming up with new ways to create new industry practices.

Porto Region Across the Ages Museum

LUX: What would you like to be remembered for?
AB: When I came to live in Porto in 1994, I came to into a Port Wine Trade that was very traditional. Our company helped to consolidate that industry and lead it forward, not least with the innovation of various new styles of Porto. This was an achievement and in doing this I hope that I will be remembered for helping to enhance one of the greatest wines and wine regions in the world. This also includes putting Porto on the map as a destination and through that work we have helped to stimulate the development of the town and create jobs and wealth. However, I will probably just be remembered for altering the city centre through the construction of The Yeatman and WOW.

Find out more: fladgatepartnership.com

A view of the Hotel Metropole’s grand exterior

In the heart of Monaco is a grand yet intimate hotel that offers fantastic dining, a world-class indoor/outdoor pool, one of the best spas in Europe and a mystique that makes it even more than the sum of its parts. Darius Sanai checks in

The arrival at a great hotel is a key part of its story. The Metropole is situated on the Casino Square of Monte-Carlo, one of the most celebrated public destinations in the (luxury) world. And yet your arrival is refreshingly discreet. Your car turns into a driveway, lined with supercars, away from the public gaze. You are ushered into the lobby as if arriving at a grand private home. The lobby itself is a visual feast, but a discreet one: no overbright lights and high ceilinged grandeur, but a dramatic floral display, tapestries on the walls and intriguingly lit corners and a segue into a bar area to the right. This is a place for insiders – those who really know Monaco.

The hotel lobby’s floral displays change according to the season

Our room, a Prestige Suite, was lavish and contemporary, a hard act to get quite right. Chandeliers and rich drapes, pale furnishings and walls, blonde wood loungers, floor-to-ceiling windows. A place of light, comfort and silence in a town that can sometimes be very hectic.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

The Metropole is famous for its food, and on the first evening we had a highly memorable meal, not at one of its celebrated restaurants but in the cosy heart of the bar, off the lobby. This is where Monaco residents go for casual dining. It’s comfort food, Monaco-style: a fabulous gazpacho, delicate artichoke with parmigiano, and a brilliant summation of Mediterranean cuisine: minestrone with monkfish, black beans and guianciale. Sublime yet simple.

The glamorous Hotel Metropole Bar was designed by architect and interior designer Jacques Garcia

The bar is a place to see friends as they swoosh back and forth to the lobby and the restaurants beyond: so we chose an excellent Pink Kiss, the house cocktail, gin-based, refreshing and balanced, to toast them.

The hotel recently opened its gastronomic restaurant, Les Ambassadeurs, by chef Christophe Cussac, who has overseen the food and beverage option at the hotel for almost two decades.

For LUX, though, the Metropole’s culinary piece de resistance is Yoshi, a small but exquisite Japanese restaurant situated in the courtyard, with a flower garden outside – a great indulgence considering the price of real estate here. The lacquered chicken – a delicious dish somewhere between teriyaki and yakitori – was memorable, the grilled black cod fleshy and fulsome with miso, and the miso soup refreshingly umami.

The Obento menu at the hotel’s Michelin Star restaurant Yoshi offers a light refreshing lunch option

Beyond the rooms and the cuisine is the spa, the hotel trying its hardest to ensure you never have to go anywhere in Monaco outside its domain. A wander down a corridor leads to a big terraced pool area, with views across town, a health food restaurant attached (with requisite, impossibly perfect men and women perched at the bar). The service at the pool is magnificent, intuitive and thorough without being overbearing. The pool miraculously turns into an indoor pool in winter, the walls of its pavilion swathed in Karl Lagerfeld frescoes.

Read more: Badrutt’s Palace St Moritz, Review

Just downstairs from the pool, we were wafted into the transformational world of the Bastien Gonzalez ‘Pedi:Mani:Cure’. If you ever wondered why women in Monaco have hands that look 20 years younger than they are, you now know the answer, although seeing a teenage girl emerging from the spa after us did beg the question of whether her hands disappeared altogether into a pre-natal state.

Designed by Karl Lagerfield, the ODYSSEY installation and heated pool is covered throughout the winter and al fresco during the rest of the year

But we digress. More than the magnificent hardware, any memory of the Metropole is dictated by the even more magnificent service. Not a given, even in this part of the world, it gives this uber-chic grand hotel in one of the world’s most iconic destinations the feel of a fantastic, extensive private home – albeit one with some of the world’s best chefs cooking for you, and a butler who can rustle up a fantastic club sandwich and cocktail if you just feel like chilling with your house guests in the drawing room. The Metropole is an absolute LUX favourite.

Find out more: metropole.com

Cooper Lake, Alaska. The creek draining the lake is coloured red by tannins from the surrounding vegetation. The 30 x 30 initiative to protect such sites is supported by The Nature Conservancy via the US government’s America the Beautiful initiative © Stuart Chape/TNC Photo Contest 2021

The oceans have an increasing potential to provide food for a global population. The challenge is how to do so without harming the planet or its people. Chris Stokel-Walker discovers ideas, organisations and investors helping aquaculture towards a sustainable future

The ocean is an essential pillar of planetary life, sustaining and feeding billions worldwide. Quite aside from its ability to capture and sequester harmful emissions, our planet’s waters are a major driver of keeping us alive – for drink and for food. Three billion of us depend on wild-caught and farmed seafood as a primary source of protein – which makes it vital that the ocean is kept as a bountiful natural resource.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Aquaculture is the breeding and harvesting in water of fish, shellfish and other marine life. It is underwater farming, in short, and it is crucial to humankind. “Aquaculture is an essential food source, especially in our changing climate,” says Danielle Blacklock, Director of the Office of Aquaculture at the United States’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “Globally, aquaculture supplies more than 50 per cent of all seafood produced for people to eat – a percentage that will keep rising. And expanding domestic aquaculture presents important opportunities to bolster climate– smart and resilient food systems.”

Making sure those food systems are resilient and impervious to climate issues is important – because the population keeps growing. “We must come together and problem- solve how to feed people within the sustainable limitations of our planet,” continues Blacklock. “Within that frame, aquaculture becomes a leading method for ensuring nutritious protein is available for families today and in the future.”

Seafood is incredibly nutritious. It is full of vitamins and minerals that can help promote healthy growth, with large volumes of protein, vitamins D and B12, and omega-3 fatty acids. Promoting the cultivation of seafood is certainly vital, but that cultivation needs to be done in the right way. Globally, humans’ appetite for seafood and fish has had negative impacts on the marine environment. So aquaculture needs to be practised sustainably from top to bottom. This includes looking at the types of feed used, tackling waste and making production methods more sustainable.

Karen Sack

This is a particularly urgent challenge when you consider that aquaculture is as big as the global beef industry. “We’ve been fishing out our oceans on an industrial scale since the end of the Second World War,” says Karen Sack, Executive Director of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA), which brings together different stakeholders worldwide to promote a sustainable and equitable blue economy. In the course of the past decade or so, says Sack, the proportion of our seafood farmed from aquaculture has outstripped that of wild-caught fish. “Part of that is because of industrial overfishing, which includes the wasteful and damaging discards that result from this,” she explains. “Part of it is because of the development and operation of agricultural techniques that have been pushed into the ocean and coastal space.”

Robert Jones

The latter can be a good thing – if done well. In terms of emissions and water use, the resource intensity of farming the oceans is more efficient than producing animal protein on land for human consumption. “When we look at the global challenge to 2050, we need to produce more food with fewer resources, and aquaculture offers that opportunity,” says Robert Jones, Global Lead for The Nature Conservancy’s Aquaculture Program. The problem is that, historically, the demand for more food more quickly has meant that industry has built many aquaculture projects to produce as much seafood as possible in as small a space and quick a time as possible – and damn the consequences. It’s a problem that’s out of sight, out of mind for many: 90 per cent of aquaculture farming occurs within Asia, meaning that many consumers do not see the harmful impact that intensive, industrial farming has on the environment.

Take, for instance, the early development in the 1950s and beyond of what the industry calls “carnivorous fin fish” – or what most of us would call salmon, tuna and other big fish that feed on other fish. That and shrimp farming was industrialised at scale, without considering the impact on broader marine life. Shrimp farming can be hugely destructive to coastal ecosystems, while any farmed-fish development can result in pollution and the overuse of antibiotics to try to prevent disease within stocks, causing wider harm.

Wetlands at Valles Caldera National Preserve. New Mexico’s Rio Grande and its tributaries supply water to more than half of New Mexico’s population. To maintain the clean water supply, The Nature Conservancy’s Rio Grande Water Fund is restoring forests upstream that have been lost to fires © Alan W Eckert/TNC

It doesn’t need to be that way. Aquaculture is necessary not only because it can be a sustainable food source, but because it can help prevent wild fishing from negatively affecting sea populations. “We need to protect those marine resources and ensure sustainability going forward,” says Jones. “There is a maximum amount that our oceans can provide, in spite of being so vast, covering 70 per cent of our planet and providing food for billions of people.”

While doing things right isn’t always easy, it is certainly possible. “We have seen an amazing growth in potentially sustainable aquaculture,” says Sack. “If we’re looking at mitigating risks, the key is the type of farming undertaken and where it’s undertaken. We need to ensure aquaculture isn’t at an industrial scale that requires antibiotics or nutrients that could harm both the species and the ecosystems where the farms are situated.”

Current developments in sustainable aquaculture include looking at healthy seaweeds and bivalves, such as nutrient-dense oysters and mussels. These can feed people and clean ocean waters without requiring any animal feed or antibiotics. It is also important to engage with the local community around which those more intensive farming activities are based, and make sure that any benefits brought about from sustainable alternatives are ploughed back into the area, protecting mangroves and stone buffers and seagrasses that make our oceans what they are.

Coastal and marine flora aren’t only important for maintaining marine biodiversity. They are also a food source in themselves. Seaweed production more than tripled between 2000 and 2018, with more than 35 million tonnes now being produced annually worldwide. According to the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United States, “increased cultivation and utilisation of seaweed are expected to be important pillars of sustainable food security and a robust aquatic economy in the coming years.”

Read more: Richard Spinrad on moving towards a blue planet

But making it a sustainable pillar of the blue economy is a challenge. Almost all seaweed production – which accounts for half of marine aquaculture production worldwide – occurs in just nine countries in Asia, where expertise to prevent disease among the crop is not always advanced. Making sure that seaweed farming takes place sustainably, harnessing the potential to diversify the submarine environment rather than bringing disease and industrial production to the seas, is critical.

The responsibility for ensuring that global aquaculture is viable lies not just with the companies doing the farming, but with those bankrolling them. Sack believes the opportunity for investing in sustainable aquaculture is just starting. “There are opportunities to make some money and do good, but you need to exercise some caution, do due diligence and look for impact funds with a firm track record, so that you don’t perpetuate a status quo that isn’t sustainable,” she says. We only have one planet, after all. And we need to make sure it stays around for all life to live on.

Find out more:
noaa.gov
oceanriskalliance.org
nature.org

This article first appeared in the Deutsche Bank Supplement of the Autumn/Winter 2023/2024 issue of LUX magazine

Kate MccGwire is a British artist whose childhood on the Norfolk Broads inspired her to create art around landscapes and wildlife. Often collaborating with fashion brands, MccGwire recently produced a limited edition scarf line with Co-Lab369. Here, Candice Tucker speaks with the artist about linking her nature focused art with the fashion world

LUX: How did you initially get involved with Co-Lab369 and what do you admire about them as a brand?
Kate MccGwire: I met Michelle Lindup, the cofounder of Co-Lab369, about 10-15 years ago in Paris. She was a collector and she bought some of my work at an exhibition. We have stayed in touch and every time I go to Paris, we have lunch together and this discussion about scarves happened during one of those lunches, and it evolved over a period of time.

LUX: You’ve worked on many collaborative projects, from ESKMO, to Iris van Herpen to Helmut Lang. What do you enjoy about collaborative work, and how have you found your latest collaboration with Co-Lab369?
KM: It’s really interesting. It’s a very fine balance, trying to get that ethos straight and we’ve managed to do that. We have worked together for a quite a long time now putting it all together. It’s been a labour of love because Michelle has a really strong background in printed textiles and doing all the sampling, so that was her area of expertise, and my work translates really well into cloth and fabric. The quality of the silk is such a high standard that the lustra of the feathers really come out so it has been really exciting to see it come to life.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

I did a project with Ann Demeulemeester, and my work was on their catwalk show in Paris in 2015 and one of my proudest moments was to see all of these garments which I had worked on, walking down the catwalk in the Palais de Tokyo; it was just such a pinch yourself moment.

LUX: Do you ever find it challenging making sure your vision aligns with the fashion house?
KM: It is always a discussion. There are things I am not prepared to do, I don’t want to change the colours of the feathers, for example. They are all the original colours of the feathers that I work with, and nothing is dyed. I wouldn’t die any feather on my work as I wouldn’t want the colours not to be original to the bird which I think is important.

LUX: You work in many mediums – from sculpture to film to drawing. How have you found incorporating fashion into your work?
KM: I love fashion. I am not a fashionista at all, but I really admire it. The thing I don’t like about fashion is it’s so seasonal. I like to buy something that lasts and is an iconic piece, like the dress I’m wearing now, an Issey Miyake dress. I know that it will be good for years, and I think that about the scarf. It’s not a seasonal thing, it’s not the seasons colour, it’s nature’s colour, it’s not going to go out of fashion, it is a limited edition beautiful aesthetic piece that will last for years.

There are a very small numbers of scarves. For some of them there are only 50 and for others, 200. It’s early days and at the moment, it’s a very small unique range. Someone who wants to buy one from me has already said “I want to frame it”. My work is very labour intensive and therefore quite expensive so it’s a way for people who love my work, to having something, enjoy the work, but not having to spend so much.

LUX: How do you feel about people wearing your art, and would you say that performance, or wearable, art is of particular importance now?
KM: I’m rather subversive in the fact that I love the idea of people wearing something they regard as ‘rats with wings’, pigeons, around their neck. It tickles my humour that that is a possibility, that you can transform someone’s opinion of something being disgusting to something beautiful.

LUX: The feather is something that features beautifully across your works. Why the feather?
KM: The feather is iconic. If you have a white feather, it is a symbol of defeat. Kids will pick up a feather and they will be Hiawatha, it’s a transformative object and they provide warmth and flight, and it also has a method of attraction and that all ties in with what we do to adorn ourselves, in fashion. The feathers do that to the bird; they attract a mate with their various colours.

LUX: In what ways does your art draw inspiration from, and connect, your current life and your childhood in Norfolk?
KM: My family had a boat, not a very smart boat, but every weekend we would go away on this boat and we would travel at reed height across very quiet waterways and I would be the one spotting the Bittern and the Marsh Harrier, like a tiny little vole or an otter if we were lucky and kingfishers if we were very lucky. Now, I live on the Thames, at Weybridge, and I see a kingfisher every single day and I feel like I could never leave that house because that’s such a special thing.

LUX: How do you incorporate sustainability into your work?
KM: My work is made with sustainable materials, they last a long time, although they are very delicate, provided they are looked after very well. We try and use recycled packaging; we are very conscious of that. We don’t use bubble wrap. We try and wrap as carefully as we can but it’s very difficult because the moment a piece leaves the studio it’s very difficult to insist things are done in the way you would do them in your studio, but we try.

LUX: Do you think contemporary art holds a political or fundamental duty to contribute to sustainable changes?
KM: I think so. Going to art shows and seeing them put down a carpet on a Monday and take it up on Sunday and put it in a bin is terrible. If they organised themselves properly they could find a homeless charity and they could use the carpet for 20-15 homes, but they don’t do that; they put it in the bin. Everyone has a duty. Art is a glamourous world, so some people aren’t interested in it.

Read more: Millie Jason Foster on supporting female artists

LUX: What next? Will you return to sculpture or continue in wearable mediums?
KM: Of course, this is very much a tiny fraction of my practice. I have an exhibition opening at the end of this month with Iris van Herpen and she has selected my work to go along with her grand retrospective. I also have work going to Miami at the Untitled Art Fair, with a two-person booth there with Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, I have loads of commissions and working very hard.

Find out more: katemccgwire.com

Stacey Gillian Abe, Whispers Of Sorghum, 2023

The renowned British curator behind the hit art show ‘In the Black Fantastic’, Ekow Eshun, speaks to Candice Tucker about his curatorial process and his most recent exhibition showing at Claridge’s ArtSpace, London, titled Like Paradise

LUX: Can you tell us about the inspiration behind Like Paradise?
Ekow Eshun: Really the inspiration for the show lies in the work of a number of the artists that are in the show. I was interested in the way an artist like Frank Bowling, who is a great senior figure in the art world, historically, has looked at landscape, and looked at that from a few different perspectives. Frank Bowling used to have a studio beside the River Thames, and was very inspired by the Thames to make works that are lyrical and abstract; that don’t look like water but feel like water.

I started to think about his work, some of the work of other artists, and I began thinking about how different artists, of colour, artists from the African Diaspora, artists of South Asian background, and how a number of them are working and thinking about the visual poetry and possibility of landscape, and how they’re using that as a way to think aloud and create different narratives about the position of people of colour in British society.

LUX: Historically people of colour have been excluded from narratives about the countryside. How does this pervade into perceptions of race in current day politics?
EE: I would say those histories remain part of our present day. Britain’s a fascinating place. It’s very invested and we’re very invested as a country in ideas of landscape and nature and ideas that the countryside is where the real Britain lies and so on. So, the question comes then, when, if you’ve been historically excluded from that, where do you stand in the present day? I would say, to some extent, you stand as a stranger.

Sometimes even walking through the countryside can feel alienating to some extent. I think, with this show, I found some real inspiration in the way that artists are working with those themes, but then creating work that is thoughtful, and also inspiring, and reflective, and expansive.

Shannon Bono, Surrendering to his will, 2023

I was really excited by how many different artists are reclaiming the countryside. Maybe even on behalf of all of us and as a consequence writing a different story about not just the relationship of people of colour to landscape, but also how we, as a country, as a nation, might understand and think about and explore our world.

LUX: Black and South Asian artists come together in the exhibition. In your view, what value comes from putting different cultures in dialogue with each other in this way?
EE: We live in a multicultural society. I think more voices, not less voices, seems to be a good thing. But also when you do that, you come out with different perspectives. So, Osman Yousefzada, who’s in the show, is an artist of South Asian background. We see his work, it’s a big textile piece, but it’s drawing on myth. It’s drawing on belief systems. It’s drawing on his roots and identity in South Asia.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

I guess one of the things that excites me is that you can think about or look at the work of almost any artist, and they might be from India or Pakistan, South Asia, African origin or Caribbean origin, and they’ll potentially be reaching into their personal histories, or they’ll be reaching out geographically to their familial connections. Consequently, you don’t know, really, what will come out of that.

The exciting thing for me, in terms of putting together a show, is that you invite different perspectives. It’s not just the fact of having artists of African diaspora origin and South Asian artists in the same space. The point is to have the conversation about different perspectives and points of view and the possibilities that might arise out of all of that. So, it’s the conversation between those artworks. It’s a conversation between cultures. It’s an intertwining of perspectives and identities and histories.

Sam Ross, Earth – interior – descend, 2023

LUX: Tell us about your curatorial process. How do you choose which artists to feature, and which works will complement each other best?
EE: I always look at the work of artists that I’m inspired by, that I admire, and I always have a running list in my head of artists that I would like to approach, artists that I would like to work with. So, doing a show is a good opportunity to reach out to some of those artists. But you’re also trying to put together a kind of mosaic. If I have one or two abstract artists, trying to measure those up, possibly with some figuration. Maybe I have some photography; it’s about trying to balance the whole thing.

Part of the skill of it, I like to think, or the challenge, let’s say, of putting on the show is, can you create an exhibition that works on different registers or tones at the same time? Thematically, can you find a connection across the artworks? But also, aesthetically, can you find ways that works speak to each other, perhaps in terms of their form, i.e. abstraction or vibration, but also, sometimes, just even the different colours that come to the surface when you start to gather the works together. The truth is, partly I’m working through guesswork, partly I’m working through these artists who are engaged in a similar set of exploration, so what happens when you put them together?

LUX: Are there any particular works that you think particularly complement each other?
EE: There’s more than a few of them! We have the work by Frank Bowling. It’s a large abstract work in pinks and blues and yellows and greens. Across, opposite from the space, there’s an abstract work by Samuel Ross, who’s known as a designer as much as he is a visual artist. It’s an abstract work in denser shades of reds and browns. It’s a heavier painting in some ways, but both of these are works that, again, are exploring the physicality or the possibility of landscape and light and Earth almost kind of in itself.

But then we can look over across the room. There are two paintings by an artist called Kimathi Donkor, which show black people in landscape, apparently enjoying themselves out in the sunshine. You see some of the same colours that are in Frank Bowling’s work echoed in those paintings and you start to see how from one work to another, the colour and tone start to replay itself. So, one work can mirror another in terms of its form, in terms of abstraction or in terms of its colour scheme. You hope overall there are enough threads and continuities that can take you through the space. A lot of that stuff, you don’t spell out, you just possibly see. I guess the satisfaction is if you know it’s there and it’s waiting to be discovered.

Frank Bowling, As Above So Below, 2020

LUX: Your recent exhibition In the Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery explored Afrofuturism, which is often associated with science, technology and urban areas. How has focusing on rural settings in this exhibition been different, and do you see the different areas interact?
EE: In a way, one of them I think leads into the other, in that one of the things I was trying to do in In the Black Fantastic was get away from notions of Afrofuturism that are just related to technology and so on. I was interested in water. I was interested in the visual poetry that comes from artists considering feeling like they are in a strange place, reckoning on the strangeness of the everyday.

In fact, I would say that In the Black Fantastic looks at speculation and myth, and so it’s actually really grounded in trying to think about how the ordinary in the everyday can actually itself be a site of strangeness and possibility. In a way, this show does something similar in that we take what’s perhaps is a more commonplace commodity, which is just the natural world, but actually we look at it with the capacity for wonder, the capacity for gazing into possibility that artists bring.

Read more: Italy Art Focus: Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

The great thing about putting an exhibition to work with artists is that they have an absolute capacity to render the everyday in astonishing tonalities. There’s a painting downstairs by Hurvin Anderson which shows a woman on a beach but it’s dazzling, perplexing, charismatic, and compelling. It doesn’t take for granted the ordinary and in that respect, I think I’d suggest there’s a linkage from one show to the other show.

LUX: What needs to change in terms of representation in the art world?
EE: I tend not to think too much, “oh, this should change” or “this needs to change.” I tend to think, “well, okay, what can I do in my own way?” In that way, I try to put together shows that reflect aspects of the world as I see it and perhaps, I think, as some of those artists see it. I’d like to think that the result of that is a show that has beauty and possibility at its core. I think maybe the role of a curator can be to open up the space.

Like Paradise is available to view at Claridge’s ArtSpace, London

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo

In the first part of our Italy art focus series, curated by Umberta Beretta, LUX speaks to Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo who founded her fondazione in Turin in 1995. Today, the extraordinary initiatives of Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo include transforming an abandoned Venetian island into a beacon for art and ecology

LUX: What was the first artwork you bought?
Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo: Anish Kapoor’s Blood Stone. It was on a trip to London in 1992 that changed my life.

LUX: What drives you to support art education?
PSRR: When we started in the 1990s, contemporary art received little attention in Italy. Education defines the fondazione’s identity and builds awareness of contemporary art in Italy. We offer a rich programme for schools, families and vulnerable people, and we train teachers. Our Young Curators Residency Programme sees three international graduate curators curate a joint exhibition from the work of artists they meet in Italy during a three-month stay. This develops curatorship and places Italian art in a global context. Campo is a similar course we have for Italian graduates.

A view of the Lucas Arruda exhibition at the Ateneo de Madrid

LUX: What are ArtColLab and Verso?
PSRR: ArtColLab is our non-profit project to produce collaborations between artists and designers in order to help widen engagement in art – for example, Nicholas Kirkwood and Paul Kneale created beautiful limited edition shoes. Verso focuses on empowering people aged 15 to 29 in democratic processes. It is an experimental, poetic pedagogical model of exhibitions, workshops and more, on themes of citizenship, inclusion and the collective construction of possible futures.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: Tell us about your philanthropy in Spain.
PSRR: I love Spain and we established the Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid in 2017. Madrid is a global capital and a bridge to Latin America. The fundación is now nomadic. We presented Lucas Arruda at the Ateneo in Madrid in 2023 and we’ve also brought the Young Curators Residency Programme to Spain.

1000 Pieces, 1983, by Anish Kapoor

LUX: Who are the artists exciting you today?
PSRR: Globally, they include the painters Michael Armitage and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and the work of Josh Kline, Marguerite Humeau, and Klára Hosnedlová. In Italy, works by Giulia Cenci, Giulia Andreani, Guglielmo Castelli and Ludovica Carbotta have joined the collection.

Installation view of Rough Rides, Police States, Broken Windows, 2015, by Josh Kline; Vandal Lust, 2011, and Slavs and Tatars, Mystical Protest, 2011, both by Andra Ursuţa, at the fondazione’s recent show, “Backwards Ahead”

LUX: What is the San Giacomo recovery project?
PSRR: This island, a military site abandoned for more than 60 years, will become an outpost of dreams, a place to produce and show art, and host research and discourse on contemporary culture.

Read more: Italy Art Focus: Umberta Beretta

With its delicate lagoon ecosystem, we will implement principles of sustainability and energy transition there. The fondazione will enable San Giacomo to become a meeting place for artists, environmentalists and the public.

The isola San Giacomo, which has been a pilgrim refuge, a place of quarantine and a military site, is being transformed by the fondazione in the name of art

LUX: What will be your legacy?
PSRR: I hope I am giving back to the community what I have been fortunate to learn during 30 years in contemporary art. Time passes and I think of my two sons, who are also passionate about art, so I am building something that will take on new shapes with future generations.

 fsrr.org

This article comes from a section of a wider feature originally published in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

The conservation of Cape Foulweather Headland on the Oregon coast, an initiative supported by the Biden-Harris administration through NOAA. © Shutterstock

Richard Spinrad is a pivotal figure spanning politics and academia in the US. As Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the veteran oceanographer has the demanding task of guiding policy around maritime sustainability. Michael Marshall speaks with him about challenges and opportunities

“An environmental intelligence agency” is how Richard “Rick” Spinrad describes it. He is referring to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US government agency (of which he is Administrator) that has responsibility for the oceans. The NOAA produces data and predictions around climate, atmospheric conditions, ocean health and protection for fisheries and marine animals – “environmental intelligence” that helps fuel sustainable economic development. One of the biggest challenges that Spinrad and NOAA face is helping to improve the way the oceans are managed so that marine resources are used sustainably. Spinrad’s goal is to maximise NOAA’s impact by ensuring its environmental intelligence reaches those who need it most, so they can respond to the challenge.

Spinrad has spent more than 40 years studying the ocean. He obtained a PhD in 1982 from Oregon State University, his early research tracking how light behaves as it travels deeper into the sea and encounters clouds of drifting sediment. Subsequently, he moved between academia and government. He held roles at universities including Oregon State and was NOAA Chief Scientist under President Obama. On Earth Day 2021, President Biden nominated Spinrad as Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of NOAA, putting him in charge of the agency.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Spinrad arrived at NOAA at a time when public awareness of the environmental crisis, including threats to the oceans, had become greater than ever before. “We are seeing much savvier consumers,” he says. “There’s an increased change in consumer behaviour around being green and trying to figure out products that are not doing harm to the environment.”

Dr Richard Spinrad, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator. Courtesy of NOAA

Alongside the shift in consumer behaviour is the intensifying political pressure to solve environmental problems. “There is a generational push right now,” says Spinrad. “The youth of the world are much better organised and much more active, in a very constructive manner, than I have ever seen in my career.” Activists including Greta Thunberg and Vanessa Nakate have driven climate change to the top of the agenda, pressuring governments to act.

On top of this, the impacts of climate change are increasingly evident. “What’s happening in the world is accelerating,” says Spinrad. “Whereas 10, 20 years ago, people tended to talk about what’s going to happen at the end of the century, now we’re starting to see impacts that are imminent and affecting market values and people’s attitudes today.”

In the United States, the result has been two landmark pieces of legislation passed by the Biden-Harris Administration: 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). NOAA has key roles to play in implementing both. The BIL, formally the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is a sweeping statute providing $1.2 trillion funding, $550 billion of which is new. The aim is to improve infrastructure in projects related to highways, railways, broadband access, clean water and electricity grids. The IRA is similarly ambitious. One focus is to support and boost domestic clean-energy production. Alongside such priorities, IRA provides much of the funding to support BIL programmes.

NOAAS Thomas Jefferson, an ocean survey vessel, at work. Courtesy of NOAA

Between them, BIL and IRA are providing more than $6 billion for NOAA. This will primarily support three initiatives: better climate data, preparing coastal communities for climate change and better stewardship of fisheries. Ongoing projects include the restoration of coral reefs at Maui Nui in Hawai’i, constructing a living shoreline on Ossabaw Island in Georgia and the conservation of Cape Foulweather Headland on the Oregon coast.

It is a big advance, but Spinrad emphasises that it is a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed. “We are already seeing roughly a 10:1 proposal pressure,” he says. “The demand far exceeds the supply with respect to resourcing.” That means the money to support ocean conservation can’t just come from the government: it also has to come from the private sector.

“There is an investment opportunity,” says Spinrad. To encourage that, in July 2022 Spinrad hired Sarah Kapnick as NOAA’s new Chief Scientist. Kapnick has a background in climate science: she has studied the impacts of climate change on snowfall, the North American monsoon and tropical cyclones. She also has extensive experience of economics and finance: she has been an investment-banking analyst for Goldman Sachs, and her previous role was Managing Director at JP Morgan, with responsibility for climate and sustainability strategy for asset and wealth management.

“Science has shown how important healthy oceans are,” says Kapnick. “We know that disruption to the oceans has knock-on effects for society, including business. It affects ports, it affects supply chains. As a result, investors are increasingly interested in trying to figure out how to invest in these things.” The scale of investment needed to protect the oceans requires “an all-hands-on-deck approach,” adds Kapnick. “In financial terms, there are different layers of financing to achieve all these goals.”

Dr Sarah Kapnick

It will sometimes require blended finance, in which governments, the private sector and philanthropists come together.

Philanthropists are stepping up. “We are seeing some extraordinary developments,” says Spinrad, referring to “major players” who are getting into ocean conservation. Some, such as Julie Packard, daughter of one of the founders of Hewlett Packard, have supported ocean sustainability initiatives for decades. Others, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, are more recent entrants. In 2020 Bezos founded the Bezos Earth Fund, which will spend $10 billion on protected areas by 2030. In July 2022 it announced $50 million of awards for marine conservation. This included $30 million to create a network of marine-protected areas off the coasts of Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama – linking biological hotspots over an area of 500,000 square kilometres.

Perhaps the most dramatic recent example of environmental philanthropy was the decision by Yvon Chouinard, founder of outdoor-clothing company Patagonia, to give away the company. In 2022, Chouinard announced that Patagonia would radically change its structure. It will continue to operate as a for-profit company, but its profits will go to a unique trust and non-profit organisation that will support environmental efforts, including ocean conservation. “Chouinard’s action with Patagonia would, I suspect, result in a lot of people opening their eyes to the vast proportions of what is needed for climate action,” says Spinrad.

The restoration of coral reefs in Maui Nui, Hawai’i, an initiative supported by the Biden- Harris Administration through NOAA. © Renee Capozzola

The challenge for NOAA, as Spinrad sees it, is to get more people and companies involved in ocean sustainability – and that, he says, means working with organisations whose priorities are, on the face of it, different to one another. “The burden, if you will, is on the scientific community to get out more,” says Spinrad. NOAA has started a series of engagements and partnerships with diverse groups including the public-health community, the medical community, real-estate companies and the insurance industry. “We are learning to communicate in their terms, rather than trying to force them to speak in ours,” he says.

For example, earlier in 2023 NOAA announced a project to help support the climate needs of insurance companies. In partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF), NOAA will create the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC), focused on modelling catastrophic impacts and risk assessment of climate change. The idea is to create decision-making tools for the insurance industry, enabling them to factor in risks from climate change, such as sea-level rise and increasingly intense tropical storms, when making financial decisions. NOAA is also conducting research to predict how sea-level rise will impact housing markets.

Such tools will help enable insurance companies to avoid investing in companies and infrastructure set to be threatened by climate change, or at least to charge higher premiums, thereby discouraging the building of non- resilient infrastructure. Working with such a varied group of players represents an ongoing challenge for NOAA. “We have more homework to do to understand how to better communicate these issues,” says Spinrad.

Read more: Enric Sala on working to protect vital areas of the ocean

“One of our pillars is maintaining scientific integrity and having people trust us,” says Kapnick. “We don’t tell you exactly what you have to do; we provide the facts that allow the decision-makers to make those decisions.” At a time when climate change and other environmental issues are reshaping the world in which we all live, being able to forecast, based on scientific evidence, is crucial. “At NOAA, prediction is at the heart of what we do,” says Spinrad. After that, it’s up to us all.

Find out more: noaa.gov

This article first appeared in the Deutsche Bank Supplement of the Autumn/Winter 2023/2024 issue of LUX magazine

YKK’s NATULON® Mechanically Recycled Zip is made with recycled yarn and post-consumer plastic bottles

The amount of zips produced by YKK each year far outstrips the number of people currently on Earth. So how can a company mass producing and growing at such scale stay true to values of circularity and sustainability? LUX speaks to Jim Reed, CEO of YKK America, about why he believes cost and speed need not be barriers to a sustainable business

LUX: Can you explain the cycle of goodness and how it relates to the YKK philosophy?
Jim Reed: The cycle of goodness – meaning that no one prospers without rendering benefit to others – was developed by our founder, Tadao Yoshida. One of his inspirations was Andrew Carnegie, a late 19th century early 20th century steel tycoon, who had a philosophy about a business’ obligation to society. As a young man, Tadao Yoshida got hold of a translated copy of Andrew Carnegie’s biography. He was inspired by Andrew Carnegie’s words and he decided that was the philosophy that should drive us. He was always entrepreneurial, but it wasn’t about how wealthy he could get, it was about how he could help. He wanted to contribute to society.

YKK is used by hundreds of major clothing companies including The North Face, Patagonia, Levi’s and Nike

LUX: Your president, Hiroaki Ōtani, said the company’s immediate vision is for ‘better products at a lower cost and greater speed, more sustainably’. How do you plan to chase growth while also racing towards carbon neutrality?
JR: President Ōtani is talking about getting the right materials for the right products to the right customer at the right time. If you think about those concepts, you’re not overproducing. We’re producing over 10 billion zippers in a year, but our objective is that, at the end of the day, every zipper has a perfect spot and nothing gets wasted. On top of that, he talks about better products, lower cost, greater speed, and more sustainability. If we can be more efficient, and some of the obstacles to sustainability – cost – can be reduced, then a sustainable product can match the price of the less sustainable cheaper product and you can match that substitution more easily.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

President Ōtani reorganised our company in a number of different ways five years ago. He created what we call the Technology Innovation Centre. He took all the smartest people in our company and put them in the Technology Innovation Centre, where they were working on pure research, not product development. Innovation and technology have always been an important part of YKK, and particularly now with climate change issues and sustainability, we all need to be making significant changes.

Beyond zips, YKK produces a variety of other products such as snaps, buttons, buckles, and textiles for apparel and industrial use

LUX: How far is the company’s adoption of renewables impacting carbon emissions?
JR: We’re doing very well in that area. We reported at the end of the last fiscal year that we had reduced scope 1 and scope 2 CO2 emissions by almost 47% against our base year. What’s even more significant is that we’re not talking about CO2 emissions per zipper – we’re actually growing our production. Even though our production is increasing, we know our CO2 emissions have to be reduced, and we were able to reduce them significantly. Our 2018 level of CO2 emissions is our base level, by 2030 we’ll cut that in half, and by 2050 we’ll be carbon neutral. Around the world we’re looking at about 32 facilities which are currently using 100% renewable electricity, and very actively working to change the others. That can be a challenge because every facility has a different footprint and has a different source of electricity. But we are continuing to try to find a variety of different mechanisms to employ this.

LUX: What are the pillars for sustainable strategies for textiles packaging and waste management?
JR: For textiles, the main thing is to switch over to recycled thread. We call that NATULON. YKK had been offering to use recycled thread for over 20 years, and we’ve probably had the product for 25 years. Now, the market desires it, and so now we are able to switch over to 100% recycled textile. 26% of our products last year were using it, and that’s going to grow rapidly. We hope that will get up to 41% by next year. We’re working on a complete switchover.

YKK produces more than 3 million kilometers of zips every year

When we talk about waste management, you think about inputs coming into the factory and products coming out, and waste as a by-product of that. You put that waste back into your process. The objective is to get inputs coming into your factory and the only thing that comes out is the product. ECO-DYE technology uses CO2 instead of water to colour the zipper tape. That removes water from the process, which removes the need to take dye out of the water. We also have something called AcroPlating. If you get rid of the need to apply the bad chemicals, then you don’t have to worry about managing the waste on the back end.

Read more: Salomon CEO Franco Fogliato on environmental responsibility in business

LUX: Can you tell us about the partnership between YKK and the Monitor for Circular Fashion? Do you think it could lead to systemic change within the fashion industry?
JR: These partnerships are really important because, just like the UN statement on climate change or the Sustainable Development Goals or the Fashion Charter, all of these statements and actions can really scope the objective to solve the problem. It gives us all targets, and then when we join the Charter, we make promises that we have to stand by. Those are extremely important, because we all need to be speaking the same language and talking about the same objectives. With those statements, the fashion industry can declare to the people of the world that we’re moving in an environmentally-friendly direction and can get the support of their customers, which gives us the inspiration to innovate into that change. Once those goals are clear, then industry can innovate towards it and solve the problem just like we’ve been able to solve any problem when we’re focused on it.

All images courtesy of YKK

Find out more: www.ykkfastening.com/sustainability

Italian art collector and philanthropist Umberta Beretta

Italy’s contemporary art scene is blooming. After decades of being perceived as a museum of the past, the home of the Renaissance is experiencing another rebirth under a new generation of philanthropists, curators and collectors. Guest editor Umberta Gnutti Beretta introduces and curates some of the key figures on the new Italian scene for LUX’s Italy Art Focus series

Art philanthropy has been a part of Italian culture since before the time of the Medici. It is a tradition that is not incentivised by tax breaks, as it is in countries including the US, but it is very prominent all the same. It is for this reason that we see the significant and powerful exercises of Italian philanthropy that we are showcasing in LUX.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Italian philanthropy happens among all generations including the young. We can see this in the case of Edoardo Monti, who was 26 and living in New York when, in 2017, he decided to move back to Italy, to a family palazzo in Brescia, to start the Palazzo Monti residency.

Umberta Beretta with Edoardo Monti at Spazio Almag

We are also seeing the increasing role of women. There is Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, who supports contemporary artists and whose team curates art for everyone to enjoy. There is Gemma De Angelis Testa, who created ACACIA, an association of friends of Italian art, and who has donated 105 works to Ca’ Pesaro Gallery in Venice from her private collection. Giovanna Forlanelli Rovati opened the Fondazione Luigi Rovati, named after her late father-in-law, recently adding an art museum showing Etruscan and contemporary art. Beatrice Trussardi runs the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi as a nomadic project that creates exhibitions in often forgotten spaces and places. L’Espresso magazine did a story on all of us: the mecenate, female patrons of the new Italian art revolution.

Umberta Beretta with artist Jenny Holzer

Despite its rich art history, Italy is not a leader in the contemporary art world in terms of money – most auction activity is in London, New York, Paris or Asia. But in terms of seeing art, everyone wants to come to Venice or Milan or Florence. The quality here is very high. We have artists such as Maurizio Cattelan
, who stands out in the contemporary art scene, and Lucio Fontana in modern art history, but there is so much more. Paola Pivi and Marinella Senatore are very interesting, and there are rising stars like video artist Diego Marcon, transspecies performance artist Agnes Questionmark and industrial artist Arcangelo Sassolino.

Umberta Beretta with Arcangelo Sassolino and Paolo Repetto

In addition to hosting foundations, Italian cities have become places for contemporary artists from around the world to live and work. Danish artist Leonardo Anker Vandal is in Brescia; Ignasi Monreal from Barcelona and
Thelonious Stokes from Chicago live and work in Florence; and Ukrainian artist Daria Dmytrenko is in Venice. As well as being the location of the Palazzo Monti residency, Brescia is the Italian Capital of Culture this year. And Florence has the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, where Arturo Galansino has created a world-class art museum. So artists can come to Italy and take a look at what surrounds them, old and new, and be inspired. It’s different, in my view, from going to a loft space in New York and taking a look around that.

Umberta Beretta with artist duo Gilbert and George

Our very strong commercial galleries include Massimo de Carlo, and kaufmann repetto by Francesca Kaufmann and Chiara Repetto, both in Milan. In my Brescia hometown, Massimo Minini opened Galleria Massimo Minini in 1973.

Read more: An Interview with Maurizio Cattelan

He is a great gallerist and has a long history of friendship with amazing artists, including artists of the Arte Povera of the 1960s. The art scene in Italy is very old, but it is also very new. It’s an exciting time both in Italian art and Italian art philanthropy.

Umberta Gnutti Beretta is a philanthropist who supports work in fields of medicine, women and children’s rights and the arts. Among many roles, she is on the governing council of the Fondazione Brescia Musei and is President of the Restoration Club of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli.

umbertagnuttiberetta.com

This article comes from a section of a wider feature originally published in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

Small Pacific island nations like Tuvalu are at most risk of rising sea levels due to climate change; COP27 last year created a Loss and Damage Fund to alleviate their plight, but no funding has yet been forthcoming

There is a major issue with meeting our sustainability goals: the financial and structural support is, in many cases, just not there. Deutsche Bank’s Markus Müller explains to Darius Sanai what needs to happen to close the gap

LUX: What is the sustainable financing gap and what is the biggest problem we face for bridging it?
Markus Müller: It is usually defined as the difference between the cost of meeting United Nations Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) and the amount of investment actually being delivered. Big numbers are common here but we need to put them in perspective – the latest OECD estimated the annual financing gap is 3.9 trillion USD, but this is much smaller than global GDP of around 100 trillion USD. The biggest problem isn’t the size of the gap, but making sure that investment projects and systems are viable. Bringing down borrowing costs and making sure there’s a level playing field for investments are big parts of this.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: Financing sustainable development should be a priority. But is short-term thinking still making it difficult?
MM: I wouldn’t blame the sustainable finance gap simply on short-term thinking. I think most people are rightly uncomfortable with how close we are to the planetary boundaries, and this is spurring action: we aren’t just leaving this to future generations. Fixing the finance gap now needs innovation, an ability to break free of current ways of thinking and a clear view of where we want to be. Returns and cost of capital remain key issues.

Houston, Texas is attracting new technological investment due to incentives created by the US Inflation Reduction Act, which is in effect a green subsidy

LUX: You have observed that our international social infrastructure for dealing with global collaborative action (the UN, and the economic institutions arising from Bretton Woods) are from another era. Do they need to be updated?
MM: Existing international institutions provide good framework to support transformation. They can cooperate in new ways with other bodies if necessary – note President Macron’s Global Financial Pact summit earlier this year. This is a matter of evolution, not replacement. Look at the discussions, for example, around how to repurpose IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR, invented back in 1969) to support biodiversity and other initiatives.

LUX: The climate crisis – or triple planetary crisis – requires global nations’ collaboration on a probably unprecedented scale. But is such collaboration now more difficult in our increasingly multipolar world?
MM: Collaboration is fragile by nature, but it is still possible in a multipolar world. We start from a base point where the world’s resources – financial, material, natural – are unevenly distributed. Developing economies have more physical resources (for example, metal and minerals deposits) so it may make sense for them to collaborate. But if developed economies want to participate in these discussions, they must deliver more real support. This is often lacking: for example, there have been no inflows into the Loss and Damage Fund agreed on at last year’s COP.

At COP27 in Egypt in 2022, world leaders agreed to take tangible steps towards alleviating the climate crisis, but it remains to be seen whether they will be executed

LUX: Are you optimistic that the US, EU, Russia and China (for example) will agree on and enact workable policy solutions to counter the climate crisis? What would be significant markers of progress?
MM: Yes, I am. We have seen one important, recent example of this: major technology disputes between the U.S. and China did not stop the two sides meeting for climate talks. This shows that environmental issues do not have to become a destructive bargaining chip in broader trade or investment disputes, although we should not ignore the fact that environmental operating standards do have an impact on competitiveness and thus trade tensions. For me, the key marker of progress is continued discussion and agreement to stay within overall multilateral environmental policy targets.

LUX: If we are indeed entering a more unstable era (in terms of global climate and related issues like biodiversity), do the fundamentals of policy making need to change in order to accommodate constant change?
MM: I think this is a matter of learning how to overcome unforeseen challenges, rather than simply accepting instability. As our understanding of environmental issues and how to tackle them gets better, policy will change. The fundamental shift may involve us stopping seeing policymaking as proceeding along an inflexible straight line. We need to be more flexible and accept that policy may zig-zag. Policymakers’ ability to adopt to changing knowledge to find optimum solutions should be seen as an indication of strength, not weakness.

China, one of the world’s biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, has recently cleaned up its urban pollution and has agreed to restart formal climate change talks with the U.S. as of November 2023

LUX: Past successes like the Montreal Protocol were one-time events. How can we ensure more sustained policy progress?
MM: I don’t think we should think of policy advances as one-time “successes”. In reality, we often don’t know the real impact of policy agreements for many years. Some agreements that are hailed as successes at the time – for example, the Aichi goals of 2011 – have subsequently proved insufficient to meet the challenge at hand. The importance of agreements is really that they drive us, one uneven step at a time, towards better environmental outcomes.

Read more: Marküs Muller on the economy and biodiversity

LUX: How important are subsidy and protection programmes for transition technologies, and can they be harmful?
MM: It’s important to distinguish between different sorts of policy support. There are good and long-standing arguments for the support of “infant industries”, in the economics jargon, but we have to be careful that this does not slide into protectionism as these industries mature. U.S. support via the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is giving us a good preview of transition policy support, and what really determines where new industries locate and thrive. (Consider why Houston is attracting new technologies and Miami is losing out, for example.) Ultimately, it’s all about kickstarting specific industries that will really work.

Markus Müller is Chief Investment Officer of ESG & Global Head of Chief Investment Office at Deutsche Bank’s Private Bank

Find out more:  deutschewealth.com/esg

The architectural intricacies of the Parnham House estate, with an almost hidden Stephanie Bolam. Photograph by Maryam Eisler

Human, natural and built landscapes, ancient and modern, come together in an ethereal photography series by Maryam Eisler in dialogue with poet thomas Paul

When LUX Chief Contributing Editor Maryam Eisler has an idea, beautiful and strange things happen, often in unison. Such was the case at Parnham House, a country estate in Dorset, southwest England, one chilly day this year, when Eisler descended on the ornamental grounds with her co-conspirator, author and producer Cavan Mahony, model Stephanie Bolam and poet thomas Paul.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Eisler has made her name as a photographic artist through her developing takes on the “Sublime Feminine”, the female form seen through the female camera gaze. Bolam offered a new interpretation: she is covered in body art (or, as she calls it, “body armour”), from head to toe, and has never allowed herself to be photographed naked before.

As she says, “I am a walking piece of art. I had to learn to become more powerful and resilient to handle people’s reactions. I chose the responsibility to do this.”

Stephanie Bolam, complemented by a Parnham House interior. Photograph by Maryam Eisler

While Eisler and co-creative Mahony created the shots, Paul composed verse. “There were a lot of challenges,” says Eisler, “but Stephanie was a great trooper and faced these head on. The most challenging, of course, was me asking her to take a deep dive into the murky cold waters of the pond at Parnham, which is green and slimy, and not exactly the most welcoming environment. But she did it and the result, in my view, is one of the most beautiful images of the day: painterly, ethereal, Ophelia-like.”

Read more: Artist Ricky Burrows: From the streets to the studio

The creatives played with the forms of space and place and drew focus to the detailed architecture of the Elizabethan house, its grounds and its storied history. “Everything at Parnham House is very intricate and ornate, and that has a dialogue with the patterns on Stephanie’s body,” says Eisler. “This worked so well because Stephanie is someone extremely contemporary, on the now, with the art she is adorned with, and here she is in dialogue with an evocative place of the past – one of the most beautiful houses of the West Country, in fact.”

Or, as the first lines from thomas Paul’s poem, composed on the spot, run:
“Elegance in form, beauties face
To overwhelm, blinding fears and scorn
In images of dreams, in fairytales
I hear your screams, your conversations within”

The exhibition “Ignis Avis Lineae”, by Maryam Eisler and thomas Paul, launched in October 2023 at Cricket Court in Somerset, home of fashion designer Alice Temperley. See maryameisler.com for details

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

The Beach House terrace at the Rosewood Le Guanahani

With its gleaming white sands and jet-set visitors, St Barths is known as the most exclusive and extravagant of the Caribbean islands. Candice Tucker discovers natural wonders, beautiful hotels and a party spirit

It may be an exclusive destination today, but it is possibly that the early Arawak communities of the tropical island of St Barths were never sufficiently impressed to put down roots – poor soil and water sources saw to that. St Barthélemy has always relied on imports- from food to fresh water and, for the past half century, the super-wealthy.

Restaurants, beach clubs, taxis, villas -all are expensive on the 25sqkm island. unlike other Caribbean destinations, there are no cheaper options. Only the best is available. An unexpected benefit is that local workers expect salaries high than those in London, New York and Hong Kong.

A view of Gustavia, capital of St Barthélemy on the west of the island

To enjoy the island’ delights, visitors must first arrive. This is slightly hair-raising as your six seater plane has to land between two mountains on one of the world’s shortest runways. not recommended for nervous fliers.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

My first stop was the Rosewood Le Guanahani, located on a private peninsula in the northeast and featuring 66 contemporary rooms and suites, each with a private terrace, in villas and cottages.My experience began by being escorted to a spacious yellow bungalow whose overlooked small green islands in the sea. The room was light and airy with pale walls, white wood-beamed ceiling and soft furnishings offset by dark wood floors and furniture.

The two-bedroom Lagoon Suite, situated directly on the beach, at the Rosewood Le Guanahani

The hotel, unlike many in St Barths, enjoys a calm sea and is ideal for families. Its spa features a serene adults-only pool and offers a variety of relaxing treatments. However, you might find simply lazing on a loungers at one of the hotel’s two beaches, being offered ice-cold mango sorbets and accras de morue (a delicacy of spiced salt-cod fritters), enjoying uninterrupted sea views, is relaxing enough.

In the evening, I joined the hotels live music barbecue. The ceviche stand offering a choice of sliced fish with limitless toppings of tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, and exotic fruit was a highlight, as was enjoying sunset overlooking the sea. Set in 18 acres, the resort is St Barths’ largest, and amenities include non-motorised water sports and a private gentle hike to the hilltop, from where you can view half of the island.

The hilltop bungalows and villas of Villa Marie

For a different but equally special experience, I stayed at Villa Marie’s Gyp Sea Hotel, a boutique hotel of 22 bungalows and villas in the northwest. As it is situated in the hills near the island’s highest point, there is no direct beach access, but Villa Marie cocoons you in a tropical paradise, with spectacular views from each room’s terrace.

The palm tree-shaded pool in the Secret Garden at Villa Marie

Hikes around the property give you various views of the island and beyond to Anguilla, 43 km away. A walk through a forest, surrounded by goats, down to Colombier Beach is not one to miss. The hotel’s own beach club, Gyp Sea on Pelican Beach, is a few minutes from the hotel and, whether you stay at Villa Marie or not, it’s a must-see – all white sand and turquoise waters.

Read more: Badrutt’s Palace St Moritz, Review

The menu offers rustic-chic specialties including albacore tuna on toast and heavenly platters of profiteroles. At 3pm the music starts and everyone dances on the tables, in true St Barths spirit.

The elegantly bohemian living room of the Pool Suite at Villa Marie

Another day, I enjoyed a massage at the hotel listening to the chirping rainforest sounds, followed by a dinner at the hotel’s Restaurant Dolce Vita. The aubergine parmigiana and tiramisu were as good as you would find on the Amalfi coast, and the live music that plays every night was the perfect end to this alluring escape.

Find out more:

rosewoodhotels.com/le-guanahani

gypsea-stbarth.com

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

Jacquesson Managing Director Jean Garandeau approaches the house on the Jacquesson estate

François Pinault, the French luxury titan, recently purchased champagne Jacquesson, one of the country’s hidden gems and a favourite of Napoleon Bonaparte. Darius Sanai pays a visit and speaks to the team

Champagne is an interesting phenomenon in the world of luxury drinks. For some, it is still an aperitif to be sipped before the real wine begins. For many others, a great champagne is a drink to be savoured and deliberated over. The production of champagne is more complex than that of still wine, giving ample opportunity for connoisseurs to debate and be fascinated. And a changing climate and more sophisticated farming and winemaking techniques mean that the best champagnes now are, arguably, the best champagnes that have ever been.

Into this mix, add the recent arrival of fevered discussions among collectors about size. Not size of bottle, which is still important (the common agreement is that a magnum has the perfect ratio of liquid to gas within the bottle for perfect ageing), but of producer. Unlike other fine wines, great champagnes can be produced by large corporate brands, but also by tiny farmers with small plots of land – the latter recently coming to the fore in public consciousness.

A view across the vineyards of what is one of France’s oldest champagne houses

Sitting amid this magnificent landscape (both figuratively and literally) is Jacquesson, an intriguing champagne house that has, for the past few decades, been a cornerstone of the cellars of many connoisseurs and collectors. Not big enough to be known as a Grande Marque, but not small enough to be a small grower, it made its modern-day fame by pioneering the creation of numbered, non vintage champagne (see The 700s below) and some incredibly complex single-vineyard cuvées made in tiny quantities (see The Tasting).

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

One of the oldest of all the champagne houses, with one of the richest of what the French call patrimoines (roughly translated as “heritage”, but, in fact, meaning much more), Jacquesson is often cited as having been a favourite of the Emperor Napoleon. After its founding by the eponymous family in 1798, and what was probably the most significant celebrity endorsement in the world to date by the Europe-conquering emperor, who awarded the maison a gold medal in 1810, it lost its way a bit after the family sold it in the late 19th century, and through much of the 20th, before it was bought by Jean Chiquet in 1974 and handed down in 1990 to his sons, Jean-Hervé and Laurent, who began its revival. The brothers rationalised the range, focused on quality, reduced the quantity produced, introduced single-vineyard cuvées (ahead of the current trend for such wines)and, finally, led the way in the creation of the numbered cuvées, first released in 2004.

The cellars hold the 700s and the late disgorgements, which are kept for longer

And now, Jacquesson is just entering a new and extremely significant chapter in its patrimoine. The house was acquired in 2022 by François Pinault’s Artémis Domaines, a division of Groupe Artémis. The Groupe also owns Christie’s auction house, and Kering, which includes Gucci and Balenciaga. Artémis Domaines also takes care of Château Latour and a small selection of jewel-in-the-crown wine estates in France and California. Upholding the promise of its imperial birth, Jacquesson is now firmly a member of a new French empire – that of high luxury.

Frédéric Engerer is the straight-talking Managing Director of Artémis Domaines; having first managed Château Latour on its acquisition by Artémis Domaines, and subsequently other estates including the celebrated Clos du Tartin Burgundy, acquired in 2018. Engerer is also something of an unspoken sustainability pioneer: Latour was the first of the First Growth Bordeaux estates – the most exclusive club, comprising Châteaux Latour, Lafite Rothschild, Margaux, Mouton-Rothschild and Haut-Brion – to be certified 100 per cent organic, in 2019. Engerer is, understandably, proud of the acquisition.

Jean Garandeau

“We have been following Jacquesson for many years,” he says. “The way the Chiquet brothers, Jean-Hervé and Laurent, modernised the brand and increased the quality level of each cuvée in such a short time is tour de force.

“Creating the Cuvée 700 was based on a very simple and understandable concept with a very recognisable label; and at the same time, focusing on quality rather than quantity of crops, keeping very traditional vinification methods, increasing the ageing of each cuvée and reducing– if not eliminating totally – the level of dosage [added sugar]. This led to cuvées 700 that are very balanced, elegant, refined and with very distinctive styles for each of the fourlieux-dits [single vineyards].

The antique estate doors

“Moreover, Jacquesson’s small size as a maison producing 250,000 bottles per year, its strong vigneron culture and its image as “champagne for the wine connoisseur” are all elements very much aligned with our philosophy at Artémis Domaines and are very compatible with our other domaines.”

“So these are Pinot Noir grapes,” I say, knowledgeably, looking at some hopeful young bunches on a vine on a slope with a spectacular view of what seems like the whole of the Champagne region. Above us is a thick forest, packed with dozens of different types of trees, bushes and other vegetation. Below us, in a bread bowl, are swathes of vineyards, dropping down into a series of villages, leading to the town of Épernay, centre of the Champagne region. Beyond, the vineyards rise, once again to forests, beyond which land stretches to the endless undulations of la France Profonde

A progress check on a batch of 2018 Dizy Terres Rouge

I am with Jean Garandeau, appointed Managing Director of Jacquesson in 2022, and Vineyard Manager Mathilde Prier. “No, they are Chardonnay grapes,” Prier replies with a smile. I raise an eyebrow. This hillside, above the village of Dizy, is famous among wine lovers for producing some of the best Pinot Noir wines to go into the greatest champagnes. “It’s true that most of this area is Pinot Noir,” says Garandeau, sensing my confusion. “But it just shows that very special grapes can grow where you don’t expect them to.”

The Chardonnay from this vineyard makes Corne Bautray, a tiny production wine that has become one of the estate’s most celebrated, and which we will taste later. We continue on our tour of the panoramic vineyard area, ducking down one bumpy unmade track after another until we get to another vineyard. “This is all Pinot Noir,” says Garandeau, pointing around an area around the size of a couple of tennis courts.

The vineyards stretching to the forested hillsides

Jacquesson is a rare producer in several ways. It produces very small quantities of these single-vineyard wines – to the extent that they are not so much cult wines as secret wines, each market just getting a few cases to be fought over by collectors. The maison also does not make a rosé wine, nor a standard vintage champagne, which typically is a blended champagne made out of grapes of a single year. Apart from the single vineyards, the accent is very much on the numbered releases, or 700s, and their distinguished cousins, the late disgorgements, which are simply the same wines but held in the cellar, maturing in their live creative process for years longer.

The Jacquesson estate itself is in Dizy, one of the villages we saw from the hillside up above. There is a handsome house with a lawn and a small vineyard next door, and a tasting room with a vaulted ceiling. The cellars, like that of any champagne house, are extensive. Sitting in the tasting room, Garandeau tells me there is no plan to make dramatic changes at Jacquesson. “We are starting at a very high level, but we can fine-tune. We are very focused on understanding the terroir of each vineyard and, if possible, sourcing some additional great grapes to complement what we have. We can invest in facilities, improve parts of the process and, after one or two vintages, be confident to take decisions because we know the process a little better. We can also work to increase awareness among international wine lovers.

The spectacularly situated vineyards contain Chardonnay as well as Pinot Noir grapes

”There are no plans to turn the boutique grower into a giant, along the lines of more famous houses. “We have a boutique approach at Artémis Domaines, which is part of our culture, and which helps build on the future for Jacquesson,” says Garandeau. “Boutique is the future as well as the past.” There are, he adds, no plans to bring in additional ranges, or a rosé (the latter was discontinued by the previous owners) – a shame, as I am sure Jacquesson would make a rosé to rival Dom Pérignon’s powerful offering and the curiously (in the context of its other wines) delicate offering by Krug, both from houses owned by LVMH (majority-owned, in the case of Krug).

Read more: A tasting of Schrader’s legendary Napa wines

Garandeau also points out that tastes for champagne are changing. “In the past, people would go into a restaurant and want to start with a bit of champagne, and take whatever was served by the glass and not really question it,” he says. “Now, people are focusing increasingly on taste. People will get the full wine list and choose a bottle of champagne to share before the meal. And even when you see the selection of champagnes by the glass in many places, where 20 years ago you would just have the big brands, now it’s changing and there is much more variety. Champagne is being treated much more like wine.”

Vineyard Manager Mathilde Prier

With that, the first cork is slowly released from its bottle by Cellarmaster Yann Le Gall, and our tasting begins – although not before I reflect that one of France’s most sophisticated luxury brands is beginning a new phase in its patrimoine that could be just as interesting as those of its first decades.

The 700s

Jacquesson gained instant credibility among wine geeks, many of whom had previously considered champagne a second-class drink, when it replaced its entry-level non-vintage champagne with its numbered Cuvées 700 in 2004. Almost all champagne houses had, until then, produced a “non-vintage” champagne as their primary offering, blending wines of different years together without indicating which – most still do. The 700s were different, declaring by their numbering exactly which year the wine in the bottles was based on. This arcane detail immediately transformed perceptions: a champagne house that was not trying to make a generic non-vintage blend, like a whisky, each year, but instead proud that different years produced different types of wine, and saying so on the label. The fact that the wines, starting with Cuvee 728 in 2004 and proceeding up by one number each year, were of such high quality, also helped.

Jean Garandeau and Cellarmaster Yann Le Gall at the tasting

The Tasting: Notes by Darius Sanai

Cuvee 746

The latest of the 700 series. A sultry, thought-provoking and sophisticated wine: Catherine Deneuve in a 1958 Lancia Flaminia Sport Zagato.

the Jacquesson estate house, which dates back to 1798, when the maison was founded

Cuvee 741 Dégorgement Tardif

Released after extended ageing on its yeast in the cellars. A serious champagne to be enjoyed over an extended meal at your riverside château in central France, with Jacques Brel playing on your turntable.

The process of making champagne is more complex than that of still wine

Champ Caïn 2013

Recently released after 10 years maturing in the cellars. All Chardonnay: pretty yet powerful at the same time, like Béatrice Dalle in vintage Balenciaga.

Corne Bautray 2013

Another Chardonnay-based single-vineyard wine, this is intense, deep, thought-provoking and quite serious, like sitting with Simone de Beauvoir in Les Deux Magots.

A bottle of Cuvée 746, the latest of the estate’s treasured 700 series

Terres Rouges 2013

Exclusively Pinot Noir, and with something complex and not yet fully detectable emerging under its perfectly polite manner, like the first part of a meal with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Vauzelle Terme 2013

If any of the Jacquesson champagnes resembles the maison’s most famous advocate, it is this, tiny production label. You take a sip and think you have mastered it, then it comes back at you from different directions. Like Napoleon, this will get ever better with age.

Photography by Brice Brastaad

Find out more: www.champagnejacquesson.com

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

Aurelie Cauchy and Leslie Ramos, founders of The Twentieth © Juan Cuartas Rueda

Leslie Ramos and Aurelie Cauchy are co-founders of The Twentieth, a pioneering art advisory that focuses on supporting the arts and culture. Following the launch of Ramos’ book, Philanthropy in the Arts: A Game of Give and Take, Samantha Welsh speaks to the founders of The Twentieth about the new generation of philanthropists emerging from around the world, with different motivations and priorities and what the future holds for arts philanthropy given the rapidly changing landscape

LUX: What compelled you to layer arts philanthropy onto traditional arts advisory?
Leslie Ramos: The simple answer is that we spotted a gap in the market. We saw more and more aspiring collectors coming to the art world eager to support the ecosystem they admired, but they would find that although there were many people helping them buy and sell, there was almost nobody actively encouraging them to give back and helping them to do it.

Aurelie Cauchy: Moreover, we also feel that the art world in general is becoming increasingly dominated by the art market, focusing very strongly on sales, sales, and more sales. We wanted to build something that tried to push back against that a bit and in a small way remind people that a good collector is someone who also cares about the art world ecosystem.

LUX: Does arts philanthropy today bear any resemblance to its origins?
LR: The basic system of the most privileged in society actively supporting something they care about hasn’t changed much. What does change all the time are the underlying dynamics, like people’s motivations. We are seeing a real shift today in the role status has in philanthropy, with younger philanthropists being much less keen to have their names carved above doorways, for example.

AC: The pandemic has also reinforced the desire to help locally, with a focus on causes such as health and poverty, at a moment when social justice became more prominent than ever. Without taking anything away from other extremely pressing causes, one of the missions that we feel we have is to show philanthropists how supporting the arts can be an effective way of addressing these other societal causes and something that should sit as part of their wider philanthropic portfolio.

The European Fine Art Foundation panel discussion on next gen collecting and philanthropy at the Art Business Conference in 2023 © David Owens

LUX: Why is arts-funding important amidst crises in education and healthcare provision?
AC: It is true that causes like poverty, health, and children will always, and perhaps should always, be more important causes for philanthropy than the arts, but that doesn’t mean the arts should be ignored. For one, art has incredible power within societies. As Leslie wrote in her book, ‘The power of art shows us that humans can dream and think about the world not only as it is, but as it could be’, and in this regard the arts are particularly powerful in conveying important messages about the world and society.

LR: One example that I think is quite potent and that I tell our clients, is to look at what the philanthropist Jeff Skoll has done with his film production company Participant Media. Almost every film in the past 20 years, that has spurred real conversation about important issues facing society, has been funded by Skoll. The collector and philanthropist Sarah Arison also described this very well when I interviewed her for my book. She said that, for her, we must change the way we think of the arts, not as siloed disciplines but collaborative and interconnected, and this is crucial to bringing awareness to all sorts of issues.

In the end, it is critical for people to really care about what they support. This is why the experiential and social part of the art world is actually quite valuable – the events, galas, previews, and perks offered to supporters are not only quite fun, but they help people learn and be more comfortable.

It is also why we guide (or drag!) our clients to artists’ studios, museums, and non-profits of all sizes to really understand what their money can do and reassure them that it will be well spent.

Jesus Rafael Soto, Penetrable, 1992. © Archives Fondation Maeght

LUX: You also advise museums and non-profits, artists, and some brands as well?
LR: Yes, we do a lot of work with museums and non-profits, advising them on all sorts of things, but mostly around improving their financial resilience or helping them execute their vision. Aurelie has been doing a lot of work with the Centre Pompidou, expanding its international circle of donors, especially throughout the US, to support the enrichment of its collections. At the same time, I have been working closely with the Fondation Maeght in the South of France, helping them build their first patrons’ scheme with supporters from across the world, and advising them on their capital campaign for a new extension due in 2024.

AC: Our work with artists and brands is not so dissimilar to what we do with collectors. Often successful artists get to a point when they want to give back and we help them build their philanthropic initiatives, like foundations and artist residencies. Likewise, many brands, particularly luxury brands, are looking for genuine engagement with the arts, whether it’s through strategic collaborations or philanthropic initiatives that resonate with their ethos and serve their client-centric strategy, corporate social responsibility, and branding.

LUX: How do you work with individual clients in terms of evaluating their intentions and guiding them?
AC: It varies slightly from client to client. One thing is enthusiasts taking their first steps in the art world, perhaps starting a collection, or beginning to get involved with institutions in a meaningful way. Theirs is more a process of discovery initially, seeing what resonates. Whereas long-term supporters who want to take their philanthropy to the next level and perhaps build their own foundation, for them it’s more about refining and executing their vision.

The common thread is that we view our role as a catalyst, helping our clients become respected forces in the arts and culture world. This means being independent, unbiased, and transparent, which is why, for example, we do not charge commissions on transactions like a lot of advisors do. We would rather that our clients can trust us and be sure our advice is completely independent than constantly feeling pressured to spend.

The other side of the coin is that we only work with clients who are, or want to be, philanthropic. We are very clear with that and we are different from most arts advisors in that regard.

Leslie Ramos at the launch of ‘Philanthropy in the Arts, A Game of Give and Take’, published by Lund Humphries in collaboration with Sotheby’s Institute of Art

LUX: Are there barriers and what is the approach to impact measurement?
LR: While measuring impact to some extent is valuable, it is much more so to identify non-profits who know what they are doing and whose mission aligns with the giver and then trust them to do what they do best. I think the best arts philanthropists instinctively understand the positive effect the arts can have. So many studies have shown the proven positive effects on mental health as well as the positive economic impact on communities.

LUX: How are newer players influencing codes and interactions?
AC: It’s difficult to summarise because there are new people coming to the arts from all over the place. Of course, a lot of the attention recently has been on the tech money, but although it might be a stereotype to say that tech millionaires have no interest in arts and culture, it does seem, for now, to be the case. There are exceptions of course, like Sean Parker’s Parker Foundation or Komal Shah and Gaurav Garg’s Shah Garg Foundation. Both are important collectors and philanthropists from that world doing truly wonderful work.

One of the most interesting areas of the world that we are keeping our eyes on is South-East Asia and the new generation of collectors in places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Taiwan. Indonesia especially is an incredibly charitable society with a high value placed on the arts. India has also recently seen the rise of its UHNW population, with first generation wealth and inter-generational givers alike showing great interest in strengthening the philanthropic culture and infrastructure.

LUX: Where is private philanthropy leading national conversations through art discourse?
LR: Private support can often act faster than governments and be more curious and less risk averse. This means that in countries where there is yet to be a state-backed cultural support system, philanthropists are often key to giving artists and non-profits the resources they need. After all, artists can be found everywhere, and thank goodness for that!

Eacheve, the independent non-profit organisation dedicated to creating new opportunities for Ecuadorian artists © Intemperie Studio

Take, for example, the work being done by the Ecuadorian arts foundation EACHEVE. For a few years now, the founder, Eliana Hidalgo, has been determined to give Ecuadorian artists global exposure and opportunities, supporting residencies, exhibitions, publications and soon a permanent exhibition space in Guayaquil. EACHEVE even published the first ever compendium of contemporary Ecuadorian artists, a book that has become a global reference and the first of its kind. This kind of work is where philanthropy can take a lead, and when done well, it can also be ‘contagious’, encouraging others to get behind a great cause and ultimately influence state decisions.

LUX: How can the State incentivise and direct giving?
LR: State support is critical in providing a supportive environment for philanthropy, and this doesn’t just mean providing tax incentives or funding matching programmes. Although they do work, it’s more about providing a framework and actively incentivising more philanthropists more holistically within your country.

Singapore is a great example of this. They have extended their (massive) 250% tax deductions for donations to 2026 to foster a culture of philanthropy, but it is combined with their SG Arts Plan (2023-2027), developed by the National Arts Council, which is designed to invigorate the art world more generally.

This is something I am hoping future UK governments will start improving because recently encouraging philanthropy in the UK has been neglected, in my opinion. In part, this is because it is viewed as a rather unfavourable thing to support politically. Having launched a successful £80m scheme to encourage more philanthropy in 2010, since then the current UK government has done very little. As things stand, the wealthiest in UK society only give a miserly 1% of their income to charity every year.

Centre Pompidou

LUX: Is there a downside to state intervention?
LR: Without wanting to get too caught up in a rather complex topic, there are obviously issues with censorship and oppression of artists and creatives in many parts of the world. Equally, there are many examples of populist governments taking control of museums and cultural organisations by putting their cronies in charge.

But I still believe that perhaps the most damaging thing a state can do is be ambivalent. This was often the case in Italy in the past, where especially state museums were resting on their laurels and simply stagnant. In 2014, the newspapers in Italy gleefully reported that the restaurant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made more money in a year than all of Italy’s museums combined. But since then, new government initiatives, the growth in corporate sponsorship from big Italian companies, particularly the luxury sector, and a general sense of key people wanting to put in more effort, means things are slowly going in the right direction.

LUX: How optimistic are you that arts philanthropy can catalyse a better world?
AC: Arts philanthropy is vital to fill the gaps, supporting artists, art education, and art institutions that struggle to secure adequate funding from just government and commercial sources.

Take arts institutions, from leading museums to small non-profits, who are the many beating hearts of the art world, it is important to allow them to continue their invaluable work and survive. The former Met CEO Dan Weiss wrote a wonderful book on the subject, saying that “museums have played a vital role in our culture, drawing on Enlightenment ideals in shaping ideas, advancing learning, fostering community, and providing spaces of beauty and permanence”.

Aaron Cezar, founding director of the Delfina Foundation in conversation with Leslie Ramos

Arts philanthropy is there for these institutions to ensure they can navigate a challenging landscape with financial resilience and be sustainable, relevant, and impactful in the long run, and in the end, it helps create a more vibrant and diverse society where everyone, regardless of background or financial means, can have access to art and culture.

LR: At the same time, I would like to finish on a sentiment that was shared by Darren Walker, the President of the Ford Foundation, in a recent interview. Walker, a great advocate for philanthropy, had come across something Martin Luther King Jr. had written, where King had pointed out that although commendable, philanthropists should recognise the economic injustice that makes philanthropy necessary. “King was saying that, yes, the work of philanthropy must be about charity and about generosity”, Walker said. “But it should also be about justice and dignity … It requires of the philanthropist an interrogation of our own complicity in the very problems we are seeking to solve.”

Find out more: thetwentieth.com

Sophie Neuendorf, Vice President of Artnet and Senior Contributing Editor at LUX

Sophie Neuendorf, Vice President of Artnet and LUX Senior Contributing Editor, turns her insider’s eye to emerging trends to bring us her art-world predictions for 2024

1. Online fine art sales will take up more market share
According to financial services company UBS, online fine-art sales made up 16 per cent of the $68 billion global fine-art market in 2022, up from six per cent in 2019. With the rise of a new tech-savvy generation and the desire for digital solutions and experiences, I predict online sales will continue to rise.

2. All eyes will be on Christie’s and Sotheby’s
It’s no secret that the art market has been volatile recently. Sotheby’s failed to consign several hot single-owner sales and Christie’s had the Fineberg sale disaster. But with a summer Sotheby’s sale that included a rare Klimt portrait with an estimate
of $80 million and Christie’s total sales outperforming Sotheby’s for the first half of 2023, the fightback is on. Will Christie’s finally emerge as the art-world auction powerhouse? The stage is set for 2024.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

3. There will be a consolidation of the market
A plethora of art-related companies have surfaced over the past few years. The question is, with online experiences and transactions increasing, which companies will take the lead in this hot segment? I predict that only a few companies will survive and take the lead in the market, especially because of socioeconomic pressures, and this will become apparent during 2024.

4. Art and fashion collaborations will expand
I recently spoke to a friend who works in one of the major haute fashion houses about the rapidly increasing collaborations in art and fashion. These are fruitful creative marriages with benefits on both sides. While the fashion industry gains depth and seriousness, fine art can gain new potential collectors. There have been controversies, such as the concerns over Louis Vuitton’s 2023 collaboration with Yayoi Kusama. At Saint Laurent, however, Creative Director Anthony Vaccarello is doing a remarkable job in supporting established and emerging artists, just like Yves Saint Laurent himself. There’s an exhibition space at the Rive Droite site and global pop-up shows including Sho Shibuya at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Christmas in California, 2022, by Guimi You. The Korean artist is a LUX favourite. Image chosen by our editorial team, not an endorsement by the writer

5. Museums will deaccession more works
The Whitney Museum of American Art recently deaccessioned seven works, including four by Edward Hopper, with proceeds from the sales said to be going to support new acquisitions. Hopper is indisputably one of America’s greatest artists and it strikes me that the action caused panic in the market – works by Hopper were predicted to take a tumble in value. This is the unfortunate side-effect of deaccessioning artworks. However, I personally feel that an artwork is far better served on an art lover’s wall than in a museum vault.

6. ESG will have a greater foothold in the market
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is a framework that is rapidly gaining in importance. It is not only an indicator of the sustainable health of an economy or company, it is also driving decision-making among the new generation of collectors. Where the baby-boomer generation was interested in how an artist draws from art history, the new generation of collectors is more concerned with asking about what drives the artist. What are they trying to communicate with their work? Does it represent the zeitgeist and discuss contemporary themes, such as #MeToo, Black Lives Matter or the war in Ukraine? In trying to captivate the new generation, galleries will have to engage with ESG reporting and initiatives.

Read more: Artist Ricky Burrows: From the streets to the studio

7. Expenditure in fine art as an asset will increase
I always advise to buy for passion, but with an investment view. According to cultural economist Claire McAndrew, investments in fine art are especially lucrative during inflationary and recessionary periods. I have noticed significantly increased movement over the past few months, especially on the private sales side of the market. From an eye-opening Lichtenstein to a rare Caravaggio, never have I been offered so many works for private sale and acquisition. With the impending transfer of wealth from the baby boomer to the millennial generation, I predict there will be many a marvellous work to hit the auction block in 2024 and, indeed, over the next few years.

Find out more: artnet.com

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2023/24 issue of LUX

Dana Estates is one of Napa’s most prized wineries

Dana is a cult collectible among California wines, made in tiny quantities at sky-high prices. Its owners are on a self-declared quest for perfection. Darius Sanai sat down with them for a tasting of their exceptional wines

The universe of fine wine, more than that of any other luxury good, is filled with contradictions. You say you don’t like Merlot, but you pay £2000 for a bottle of Château Petrus, which is made, mainly, from Merlot. You would never dream of drinking a wine made from different vintages all in one bottle, yet you collect Krug Grande Cuvée champagne, which has made its name on doing just that. You don’t like California wines because they are too strong, and prefer to stick to Bordeaux, yet many Bordeaux wines, in this time of climate change, are 14% or 15% alcohol, just the same as their California cousins.

Nowhere is this paradox more vivid than in Napa Valley itself, the heart of California’s great wines. “Napa Valley Cabernet” is considered even by many wine connoisseurs to be one particular style, which they may profess strong views about either way – particularly if they are French, or a little snobbish and British. And yet not only does this area make a spectrum of different styles – arguably, much broader than that made in the grape’s famous homeland, Bordeaux’s left bank – but, geographically, geologically, horticulturally, and meteorologically, it is one of the most diverse wine producing regions in the world.

The winery was re-designed by renowned architect Howard Backen, keeping the original stone walls as its centrepiece

This point was brought home during our tasting of Dana wines with the estates’ owners. Dana itself is situated on the west side of Napa Valley, in the shadow of the Mayacamas mountains (in reality, densely, wooded, and biodiversity rich, big hills, separating Napa from valleys to the west that run towards the Pacific Ocean).

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Dana’s wines are made from grapes grown on both on the sides of the valley, including two vineyards on the slopes of Howell Mountain to the east, part of the range which separates this fertile area from the arid central valley of California. (This geographical detail is essential, as wine is a product of its place).

In the Dana wines we tasted, we were tasting different identities, and personalities, with far more differentiation than the marginal differences in climate and soil in revered heartlands of France.

Dana Estates produces three single vineyard wines: Helms, Hershey and Lotus Vineyard

And here is another paradox. Because while France’s great wines, from Chateau Margaux to Château Petrus to Domaine de la Romanée Conti, are brands that almost any connoisseur worth their salt knows of, very few people indeed have heard of Dana. And this, you would think, would lead to it being undervalued, a kind of hidden gem of beautiful wine to discover and buy up.

And you would be wrong, for all the wines we tasted here are as expensive, and in the case of some vintages more expensive, than the great names of France mentioned above. Tiny production, and a cult following, and also, as we noted in our conversation, an owner and winemaker absolutely obsessed with making the best possible, no matter what the cost. Hi Sang Lee is a Korean entrepreneur who bought the winery because he just wanted to make the best of the best.

Like a few other top and California estates, a conversation and tasting with Dana is like a window into the creation of a future wine, superbrand. And as for those who prefer to dismiss “cult” California wines, as a fad, superbrands, are often only taken up, in the early stages, by the most discerning.

Dana Estates sits at the base of the Mayacamas Mountains in Napa Valley

The wines: Tasting notes by Darius Sanai

Dana Estates Helms 2019
This is pure, brilliant, Napa Cabernet – and for connoisseurs of the region, more specifically, has the wonderful hallmarks of a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Rutherford Bench, an area just below the mountains on the west of the valley. There is density, powerful fruit, balanced tannins and a balance – although we would put either put this wine in a cellar for 10 years, or drink it with a Kobe steak personally chosen and cooked by Wolfgang Puck in our home overlooking the Pacific.

The Helms Vineyard Cabernet displays the classic profile of the Rutherford Bench: dark fruit, richly layered with a hints of spice and earth

Dana Estates Hershey 2019
Hershey Vineyard is not in Napa Valley per se; it is up in the hillsides around Howell Mountain, to the east of the valley. Surrounded by forests, you can feel the freshness and lift in this wine. It’s more delicate, more precise, more defined, while still being a powerful wine. We would drink it with guineafowl in a wine jus cooked in our home in the high Alps by Yannick Alléno.

Dana Estates Lotus 2019
Rich, powerful, deep wine with many layers: creamy black fruit, savoury spice and anise, and velvety texture. We would drink this with Hélène Darroze herself, in a Mayfair townhouse, with an Auvergne-style beef casserole.

Dana is a Sanskrit term meaning “the Spirit of Generosity”

Dana Estates Lotus 2011
It was interesting to see how this wine aged; at twelve years, the muscularity of the previous wine has turned into something altogether more poetic. Still rich with power, but woven through with a silken grace, and the spice has a greater subtlety. With this one we would ask Yan Tak from Lung King Heen in Hong Kong to cook us a hotpot, and eat it in our Midlevels apartment looking out over Hong Kong harbour.

Read more: A tasting of Schrader’s legendary Napa wines

Dana Estates Helms 2005
This 18 year old Dana wine has aged more like a Burgundy than a Bordeaux, opening out into a fresh, fragrant, balanced wine with much subtlety and no trace of tannins. We would drink this by itself, in winter, in our house overlooking the turbulent sea off the coast of wintertime Mallorca.

Find out more: danaestates.com

Karen Sack aims to drive investment into coastal and ocean natural capital to combat climate change

Karen Sack

It is under three weeks until the start of one of the most important climate summits in history. At the end of November, world leaders gather in the UAE for COP 28, an ever-more urgent climate crisis looming amid growing geopolitical instability. Here, Karen Sack, head of a major organisation devoted to driving major finance to ocean-related sustainability initiatives, outlines what needs to happen – and what she fears may transpire instead

LUX: Speaking as Executive Director for the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) as well bringing in your own views, what do you think should happen at COP 28?
Karen Sack: This year we have seen the number of climate disasters ratcheting up. We are so close to that 1.5 degree increase of the world’s temperature. September has smashed all the records in terms of the amount of warming, with a 0.5 degree Celsius rate of change. From our perspective, there are five key focus areas for us at COP 28.

The first and most important is that we have to keep that 1.5 degree target alive. That is the Paris Agreement target, adopted at COP 21. It is absolutely critical on all kinds of scientific levels, in terms of tipping points as well the existential reality, particularly for small island developing states, and for the potential impacts on coastal communities in developing countries as well as everywhere around the world. That should be the absolute focus of this meeting and the intent should be on how to do that, in terms of outcome for the COP.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Secondly, and very importantly, is that as we look at the real need to scale down emissions to phase out fossil fuels, we also need to recognise that a liveable planet, particularly a liveable planet for humans, requires the regeneration of ocean environment. Nature needs to be at the heart of the story, in terms of addressing the biodiversity and the climate crises, because together we need to address those two issues.

The third key element is recognising that if we are going to address mitigation, adaptation and resilience – three of the core elements of the COP – as well as bring in nature, we have to focus on regeneration. We have to move beyond sustainability, which we predominantly focused on in the past. If what we do now is just sustainable, that is insufficient. We have to address mitigation, adaptation, resilience and regeneration. We need to significantly upscale sustainable finance and investment. From our perspective, that needs to be scaled into blue nature – into the ocean, as a critical carbon sink and biodiversity reservoir, as well as a key source of livelihood.

Open ocean carbon- capture is an emerging technology involving extracting and storing carbon dioxide by using nature or artificial solutions

The fourth thing we need to look for regarding our focus on maintaining resilient coastal communities, is to ensure that where investments are going to be made in coastal areas that there are high quality safeguards and guardrails for those investments, so that those communities can thrive and that investments made are made with the full consent and engagement of those communities.

Fifth and finally, what is really key to get out of COP28 is to establish that there are certain things which should not be investable propositions. In the ocean space, that means not investing into offshore oil and gas or emerging sectors like sea-bed mining that could be incredibly destructive, and for which the full suite of impacts are as yet unknown.

From our perspective, there should be an absolute, precautionary pause on any investment into this potential new sector until there is much more information, better controls and better safeguards in place. The question remains as to whether it should happen at all, but there should at least be a pause until 2030 for sea-bed mining. My view is that it should not happen at all.

LUX: You have said before that there is enough talk but not enough action. What needs to be done around sustainable finance to make that gap close?
KS: Fundamentally, there must be an agreement to move forward on the loss and damages fund. There have been ongoing negotiations, but this needs to be sorted out and settled so that funds can begin to flow into that loss and damages fund and then to the communities most affected.

Secondly, we have got to close the gap on adaptation finance; the UN Environment Programme released a report just this past week which showed that the finance gap, for adaptation finance, is 50% higher than it was previously thought. That means we have got to start looking at the hundreds of billions of dollars that have got a flow from the public as well as the private sector.

The biggest risk that we are all exposed to is inaction. The more we can do earlier in the process to drive financing into adaptation and resilience, as well as mitigation, the better, and the less costly that will be in the long term. That is key to closing those adaptation gaps. And in the ocean space, working with partners and the high-level climate champions, we have identified five ocean breakthroughs which need to be addressed.

LUX: Is there a danger of double-counting or under-counting?
KS: It is essential that governments start to work across treaties rather than keeping climate and ocean and finance treaties separate. We need to start to think about what is needed to address the issues across the climate and the nature space to prevent under-counting or double-counting.

LUX: What will incentivise governments to do that? What needs to happen?
KS: In part, it is putting numbers on the table: what is the need and what is needed to address it.  Finance ministries are starting to identify these numbers and address what these gaps mean. Hopefully that begins to draw the discussion out of ministerial silos and begin to bring an all of government approach to the table in addressing them. Once that begins to happen, then it also requires Ministerial level engagement and how key ministers can get together more informally to address those issues. I know that a couple of months ago in Vancouver, the Canadian Minister for Environment and Climate Change flagged the need for ministers to come together across these treaties to address some of these issues. This is just a starting point though, because the issues we are facing extend beyond what governments can do and have to involve development finance institutions and the private sector too.

Due to climate change, coastal communities are now more than ever under threat from flooding and severe storms which threaten their infrastructure and economy

LUX: Is there an issue of a big difference in policy between more progressive governments, such as Canada and the EU, and others with very large economies who are less close to enacting such change?
KS: Absolutely. There are also fossil fuel economies which are in the middle of all of this. One of the issues is that, since the UNFCCC started its work, countries have been – and remain – defined according to their different economic statuses. Yet there are countries which are large emitters now, and countries that historically have had a large carbon footprint. There are also economies that are fossil-fuel driven economies and have contributed to significant fossil fuel emissions, either by themselves or through selling their fossil fuels on the open market. The reality of the challenges that the world now faces is that rather than arguing over who has done what for how long, the focus needs to shift towards how each of these actors can play a role in building and financing resilience and adaptation, and mitigating harm. We have to think beyond the traditional brackets that different countries have been put into, because this is an existential crisis for all of us.

LUX: Do you see authentic intent among enough governments, or are some just talking the talk?
KS: This is part of the challenge. We have seen so many significant climate events this year which you would think would bring people to the table with urgency, focus and determination, but that is not happening across the board. This is where the private sector needs to come in to help move things forward. There has, of course, been push-back in some private sector quarters as well. But the reality is that if we project forward to revenue and growth impacts or profit margins, not just over the next quarter or few years, but to five and ten years down the track, the potential costs of inaction are staggering. These are no longer issues for the next generation, they must be addressed now. We have a choice as humans. The planet will be fine. It is us who are going to be harmed. We choose whether we act now or we delay but, as I said earlier, both cost and risk become exponential the more we delay. We should be focusing all of our attention on acting now.

LUX: Is there a risk that the more we innovate to offset, or capture, the more we have permission to emit?
KS: Absolutely, which is why we have really got to focus on reducing and phasing out fossil fuel emissions as quickly as possible, and we have got to think about the most cost-effective, efficient ways to invest in adaptation and resilience. Let’s shift those investments into sustainable, regenerative renewables, such as wind, solar and tidal power, and let’s focus on investing into nature and helping to build resilient, natural ecosystems which are also the most effective carbon sinks that are on Earth right now. These are incredibly effective both in the functions they fulfill, as well as the costs that they incur.

Karen Sack has previously led global efforts to create a new UN treaty for high seas biodiversity

LUX: Do you think that large-scale, open-ocean carbon-capture – which is currently unregulated, untested but has the potential for enormous scale – should be focused on, or it a diversion?
KS: I think that there will always be untested technologies and potential large-scale solutions, which will be put on the table as a panacea to resolve our issues. There is no harm in asking scientists to explore the viability of some of those mechanisms, to understand the costs, the potential collateral damage and impacts of them before we move forward with them, but thinking that we can chase rainbows or invent unicorns that will solve our problems, while letting everything else fall apart at the seams, does not seem like a sensible solution.

However, there are tried and tested approaches which we know will work. We know that not using fossil fuels is the most critical step that has to be taken to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We know that regenerating and restoring nature is very important for addressing elements of biodiversity as well as the climate crisis. We must work on these two things and build adaptation and resilience – as quickly as possible – by focusing on investing into renewables and investing into nature, and ensuring that government policies and investments from governments and the private sector enable this.

Read more: Jean-Baptiste Jouffray on the future of the world’s oceans 

LUX: What do you fear will happen at COP 28?
KS: There are a lot of initiatives which are being taken forward, and discussions happening, at COP 28. All of them are taking place in the face of significant geopolitical change and challenge. My biggest fear is that the international community does not move far and fast enough and as quickly as possible at this COP, and that the interests of the fossil fuel sector take hold. We cannot go there again. We do not have the time and we certainly do not have the space. We need – as we say in the ocean world – all hands on deck! We must move swiftly. We need action, and we need it now. That is what we need out of this COP: concerted action at speed and at scale.

The 28th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP) is set to take place between the 30th November and 12th December 2023

Karen Sack is Executive Director of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance

Deutsche Bank was the first bank to join the Ocean Risk and Resilience Alliance

Lower three images by Isabella Fergusson

Read more: oceanriskalliance.org

Badrutt’s Palace Hotel was first opened in St Moritz in 1896 by Caspar Badrutt

There’s a fairytale palace high in the Alps where everyone is a Royal – or feels like one

Hotel trends come and go. Some may remember the white cube rooms of the 1990s, the lobby-bar obsessions of the 2000s, the hotel-as-club revival of the 2010s, and the genericization of hotel bars into David Collins Blue Bar clones at some stage in between.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

Yet the greatest hotels, like the greatest luxury brands, remain effortlessly eternal while never seeming old fashioned, or not to anyone except the most craven and uninformed observer, in any case.

Views from the Tower Penthouse Apartment

We were collected from St Moritz station by Badrutt’s Palace in a 1960s Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. The two minute ride to the hotel was effortlessly majestic. It suited a palace hotel so entwined with royalty that the Shah of Iran, in his famously vainglorious attempt to recreate Darius the Great’s Persian empire at Persepolis in 1973, flew the Badrutt’s staff out to run the occasion. Nobody else would suffice for the King of Kings.

Breakfast at Badrutt’s is in some ways the encapsulation of the place. In many luxury Alpine hotels, you have a homely, nutty buffet. Here, you sweep down the stairs, past a harpist, into a vast grand dining room. The buffet stretches the length of the room on one side, with picture windows facing the lake and mountains on the other. People dress up for breakfast here, even though it’s not a requirement. The buffet itself starts with an intricacy of cut fruits, segues through a vast array of hot European foods, a forest’s worth of different seeds and berries, and finishes at the far end with “hausgemacht” miso soup, bao, and dim sum. Among all the other guests, it’s quite easy to spot the regulars and long-termers, looking like a Hollywood portrayal of European aristocracy.

The terrace from the Tower Penthouse Apartment looking over St Moritz’s mountains

Our rooms at Badrutt’s were outliers: the Tower Penthouse occupies the whole of the iconic top part of the hotel, and is effectively a three floor private residence, with a huge living area, private terraces, kitchen and dining room, and more bathrooms and bedrooms than we could count. The master bedroom was by itself at the top of a spiral staircase, with views across St Moritz and the lake and mountains.

St Moritz has an appeal as broad as the Palace: in winter you can ski, cross country ski, walk or simply socialise (assuming you know the right people, darling); in summer you have some of Europe’s best hiking to hand, as well as a variety of mountain sports.

Le Grand Hall

Generations of European aristos, meanwhile, have learned how to dive, belly flop or jump from the top of the rock garden that has been built into one end of the huge indoor pool; swimming lengths in the pool involves a constant view of the next gen wealthy adapting their jumping techniques; meanwhile the outdoor spa pool has full drinks and food service, so you can sip your aperol while gazing at the mountains and having a water massage.

The Tower Penthouse Apartment drawing and dining room

But while the hardware of the hotel has an eternal class, the software – the people hosting you – are even classier. This is where luxury hoteliers go to learn how to be luxury hoteliers. One efficient young chap serving at breakfast, who we vaguely recognised from our last stay four years previously, effortlessly remembered our coffee orders from last time and brought Tabasco sauce to the table unheeded, again a memory of the last stay.

Read more: Francis Sultana: The life of a leader in design

Does he have an astonishing memory or was he just very well briefed? It doesn’t really matter – and what is remarkable in this era of high staff turnover is that the staff at Badrutt’s are always there and always remember.

Views of the lake in summer time from the Tower Penthouse Apartment

In that, they feel like they are your personal staff; unlike many hotels, it’s a place you feel like you could move into and live in, because, despite its grandeur and array of offerings – as well as the restaurants inside the hotel, Badrutt’s also owns the wonderful and iconic Chesa Veglia pizzeria across the road – each guest somehow feels like the staff are just there for them. Quite a remarkable achievement.

Rates: From £1500 per night (approx. €1725/$1850) for double room.

During the winter months, the Tower Penthouse Suite starts at £13,580 per night (approx. €15,550/$16,625) 

Book your stay: badruttspalace.com/reservations

Darius Sanai

Ricky Burrows in a moment of pause © Maryam Eisler

Ricky Burrows, the Brooklyn-based artist originally discovered by Rashid Johnson, speaks to LUX’s Chief Contributing Editor, Maryam Eisler about how he made it from the streets to the studio, now opening a solo show at Harper’s, New York.

Maryam Eisler: How did Mr Ricky Burrows end up in this impressive building, the Brooklyn Army Terminal?

Ricky Burrows: Well, my parents are originally from Brooklyn and I was born here. I moved to Connecticut and I came back to Brooklyn after I got out of detention; I was separated from my Mom because she was on drugs. I started painting seriously in 2014, and I met one of the building owners, Mr Gunn; he came to an open studio. He liked my work and told me he had a studio for me, and that I could paint there and that I wouldn’t have to pay rent. When he said ‘no rent’, I said ‘send me the location’. To this day I don’t pay rent. From the start, he absolutely believed in me. He’s one of my earliest first supporters, for sure.

Scenes from the Brooklyn Army Terminal © Maryam Eisler

ME: Talk to me about this incredible building, and your studio space.

RB: This place (the Brooklyn Army Terminal) keeps me sharp. Everybody’s working here 24/7, and I’m a sponge. As soon as you walk into the parking lot, there are a thousand trucks going past you. As soon as you get into the elevators, five or six people from all different walks of life doing different things are saying hello to you, high fiving you … You’ve got the FBI and the FIT here, movie directors, students, sanitation, dialysis…It’s like a small city… a city within a city, and no one ever sleeps.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

ME: When did you start painting?

RB: Around maybe the age of sixteen.

ME: Was it something you had to do? Something you could not escape from … or, was it an actual escape from reality – your reality?

RB: I would say both. My inspiration came from my neighbourhood and the street. So, painting was actually weird. But I couldn’t help myself. I had to do it. I was drawn to it. I wanted to paint, but I was also influenced by my friends who had nothing to do. So, it was a bit of both. It was like ‘let me avoid it as much as I can, but let me also stick to it as closely as I possibly can …’ if that makes sense?

Burrows sitting on the floor with his works © Maryam Eisler

ME: Yes, it does. You mentioned drugs at some point in your life – which you’re clearly over now. What was the reason? Was pain at the source or was it just what street kids d0?

RB: For me, it was about not wanting to think about the stuff I was dealing with in my life or stuff I was going home to later at night. So the more loaded I was, the better it was for me … it helped me deal with whatever was coming my way when going ‘home’.

‘Goldfish don’t bounce’ referring to Jimi Hendrix’s song © Maryam Eisler

ME: Which leads me to Jimi Hendrix. Talk to me about ‘When Goldfish don’t bounce’.

RB: Well fish don’t bounce. And, I’m the goldfish.

Early career works by Ricky Burrows © Maryam Eisler

ME: You are. But you bounce. You bounced out of the bowl, it appears.

RB: Yes, I did. But I didn’t manage to go too far. That’s the scary part about it. Along my art career, I’m always that close to crashing out. I really don’t know how to talk to people outside of myself. So I’m only just learning how to be more social and to trust the public, because I’ve dealt with a lot of sh*t. It’s been hard. And I’ve only just started to see the light at 30.

The exterior of the Brooklyn Army Terminal © Maryam Eisler

ME: You win the biggest battle when you start believing in yourself. Are you there?

RB: THAT is the biggest battle right now. The fight with myself, you know. But I would say that maybe I’m doing a good job because it got me this far.

Looking out the studio window © Maryam Eisler

ME: Well, if you’re having a show at Harper’s, in Chelsea, New York in November, I would say you’re definitely over the 50% mark, wouldn’t you agree? More win than lose?

RB: Yes, but what am I supposed to do at night? When there is no art to make or no Harper’s shows? No girls to see? That’s the kind of stuff I try to escape. Because I don’t like being alone.

Inspirational objects around the studio © Maryam Eisler

ME: Comfort in and with yourself. You need to find that peace, wouldn’t you agree?

RB: I’m trying to. But it’s taking me a long time to get there.

In an around the studio © Maryam Eisler

ME: Patience is a virtue! I wanted to talk to you about street. You mention your street life and your street friends; I also see a lot of street style and influence in and around your studio – Supreme, Palace, AWAKE, Nike collaborations with Virgil … powerful brands where art, lifestyle, design and commerce have come together successfully. Are you personally interested in engaging in these types of commercial collaborations down the line?

RB: Yes definitely, yes. That is definitely of interest. As far as I’m concerned, I try to make as much art as possible so that my mind isn’t just limited to creating paintings, you know? I like to extend myself beyond the canvas.

Where art meets street, Nike collaboration with ‘Off White’ by Virgil Abloh, part of Ricky’s own personal collection © Maryam Eisler

ME: So it’s not just the esoteric and conceptual side of art which interests you? You actually see the application of the concept to a more utilitarian and more commercial environment ?

RB: Very utilitarian, 100 percent yes.

ME: Is your idea to take your art out to the crowds (with an S) as opposed to just ‘A’ crowd ? Do you want your art to be democratic and for the people, mixing highbrow and lowbrow?

RB: I want my art to be highbrow, but I also want it to be accessible to those on the street, where I came from and to people who are not even of the ‘art world’. Because a lot of people that I have met or who have helped me, couldn’t even tell you who Francis Bacon was to save their lives, you know! I really appreciate them just wanting to be here with me, for me, or just calling me to send me money for no reason other than just believing in me … ‘I know you need some paint, so go buy some paint. I know you need canvas? Here you go, go buy it ‘.

Ricky Burrows’ ‘signature’ © Maryam Eisler

ME: So, all that I see in your studio has just been given to you?

RB: Yes, all of it. So, I feel like I owe the public more than I owe the art world.

Ricky Burrows sitting on his work in the studio © Maryam Eisler

ME: Some of the greatest artists in America, the likes of Warhol and Basquiat, mixed high brow and low brow. Are you just continuing in that same direction?

RB: I would say that I’m actually really (even more) from the streets, you know… If I lose the studio today, I’m going straight back to the street…I ain’t going to nobody, calling no aunty that can come pick me up in her fancy car. No, no, no, no, no. So lowbrow, lowbrow, lowbrow, lowbrow…

ME: You’re having your first solo show at Harper’s this November. What did you say you were going to do with the money from Harper’s show?

RB: Well with the money from Harper’s show – because I know I’m going to sell out – I’m going to develop and start my own apparel company. I’m of course still learning how to manage my finances so I don’t crash out or run out of money. It’s all so new to me.

Works in progress © Maryam Eisler

ME: Please share with me the story behind your ‘big break‘ moment. From the street to Harper…how did that happen?

RB: I met Harper through Rashid Johnson.

ME: And how did you meet Rashid?

RB: Off the internet. At, like, 5 o’clock in the morning, March 6, 2023. I was here. I didn’t have as much stuff; it was a lot cleaner because I was broke. I had just broken up with this girl… she said either get a job or I’m leaving you. That instagram page which you follow me on (@presidentrickyburrows), well, I just made that, two or three days later. I was like, let me give it a shot, so I reached out to him (Rashid). Two hours later, he had his assistant Alex send me a list of paintings that he said he wanted. People tell me all the time ‘I’ll get this, I’ll get that’ so I kind of blew it off and went to sleep. But when I woke up, I had a message from his Alex: ‘I’ll meet you at your studio at 11 o’clock.’ I was like ‘Whatever man, whatever !’ I reread the message like ten times. I also checked the name ten times. That’s when I realised that this is a real page, Rashid’s page. Then his Alex called me and I was like, oh sh*t, this is really happening.

They actually came to see me and two days later, he brought Harper here. Harper lost his mind when he saw my work. He showed some of my work at Nada; it sold out. And, he’s been my best friend ever since.

A moment of reflection at the entrance of the Brooklyn Army Terminal where Ricky holds his studio © Maryam Eisler

ME: What is the inspiration behind your upcoming show with Harper?

RB: It’s a unified story. I say ‘unified’ because it includes all the people around me… friends, the streets and the Bible; I think the show will just be a nice introduction to my life.

Inspiration around the studio © Maryam Eisler

ME: The Bible?

RB: Yes, because I grew up with the Church. We’re Baptist.

Read more: An Interview with William Kentridge

ME: Do you work a lot with local churches?

RB: No, I work a lot with and in my mind. I haven’t been to the Church since I was fifteen. I don’t have a religion.

Burrows’ work-in-progress of Jesus coming off the cross © Maryam Eisler

ME: So is it the concept and the philosophy of religion that interests you?

RB: Yes, the concept. It’s really about the human stories. I think I only realised this maybe three months ago.

ME: Would you say you are the ‘Chosen One’ ?

RB: Yes, maybe I am!

The Brooklyn Army Terminal‘s (designed by Cass Gilbert) construction was originally approved in 1918, during World War I, and was completed after the conclusion of the war. The terminal was subsequently leased out and used for various purposes, including as a dock, a military prison, and a storage space for drugs and alcohol during the Prohibition. During World War II, the terminal was the United States’ largest military supply base. The site occupies more than 95 acres, on Brooklyn’s western shore.

Ricky Burrows’ show, Saved, will be on display at Harper’s from November 16-December 23

@presidentrickyburrows
@harpersbooks

All photography by Maryam Eisler

ArtOutreach public sculpture tour for students

Mae Anderson, serves as the chairman of Art Outreach, a non-profit organisation committed to promoting art appreciation and nurturing the connections within Singapore’s art community. Mae’s contributions extend to her role as the Head of Philanthropy Services Asia at BNP Paribas Wealth Management, where she collaborates with clients to bring their philanthropic visions to life

LUX: How has your personal philanthropy informed your corporate role?
Mae Anderson: My experiences in the philanthropic sector have reinforced for me the importance of aligning business values with social responsibility. This is essential to benefit the communities we serve and to enhance the reputation and sustainable values of the organisation. Corporate philanthropy is not just a matter of financial contributions; it is about creating meaningful, sustainable change by strategically leveraging resources and expertise. I prioritise building strong relationships with nonprofits, community leaders, and clients who share our commitment to making a positive difference. This collaborative approach has proven instrumental in developing effective philanthropic strategies that maximise our impact.

Mae Anderson, , posed against a mural by Singaporean artist, Chris Chai

LUX: Why was Art Outreach founded and what were the early successes?
MA: Art Outreach was founded to introduce art appreciation into Singapore’s education system, particularly in elementary schools where the focus was primarily on art making, and where there was a lack of emphasis on art appreciation, compounded by a shortage of trained art teachers and limited exposure to the humanities. 20 years on, there have been significant changes in the education landscape In the early stages, our volunteers were trained to deliver free art lessons to local classrooms and played a crucial role in enriching students’ visual literacy and cultural awareness. These early efforts successfully addressed the need for art appreciation, fostering a greater understanding of cultural diversity and societal dynamics among young learners, addressing a crucial need in the education system while adapting to the changing educational landscape.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: What is behind the wave of interest in cultural philanthropy in Singapore and the South Asia region?
MA: There are several interconnected factors. First, there is the desire to preserve and celebrate cultural heritage. In an increasingly globalised world, people recognise the importance of safeguarding and promoting their unique traditions, arts, and history, fostering a deeper connection to one’s roots and a sense of cultural pride. The region’s economic growth has played a pivotal role.

Level Up by curator, John Tung, one of a series of professional development workshops run by Art Outreach. In this workshop, participants learned the finer points of art installation

The rise of the middle class with disposable income opens doors, and as people become more financially secure, they seek meaningful ways to give back to their communities and support cultural initiatives that resonate with their values and aspirations, further fuelling the interest in cultural philanthropy. Governments in the region have introduced policies and incentives to drive private investment into cultural projects and institutions. Further, cultural attractions draw tourists , enhancing exchequers and soft power, Finally, the emergence of the mega-wealthy 1%, catalyses support for cultural initiatives and leads collaborations.

Benedict Yu, from 生 Rebirth as part of 醉生夢死 erosion, his solo exhibition at Art Outreach in August 2021

LUX: How has Art Outreach evolved an ecosystem for all stakeholders?
MA: As explained, we began by seeding art education within local elementary schools set about creating an art landscape. We extended our reach to communities through public programmes, discussions, and tours. This made contemporary art more accessible and relatable to local audiences. We support emerging artists through initiatives like the IMPART Art Prize to offer holistic support and foster the development of artists championing Singaporean art.

Artist, Berny Tan (left), and curator, Kirti Upadhyaya, against Berny’s artworks from Along The Lines Of – her solo exhibition at Art Outreach in August 2023

From 2024, our Art Outreach Summit will offer artists mentorship, networking opportunities, and a platform to showcase their work, as well as practical programmes such as installation and lighting. More strategically, we enter into public and private partnerships around events and activations. So we serve the range of stakeholders.

ArtOutreach primary school classroom programme

LUX: What is the role for private collectors of contemporary art in Singapore?
MA: Private collectors are custodians of cultural heritage, preserving and showcasing contemporary artworks that provide insights into the evolution of artistic expression and cultural trends. Through their acquisitions, they are patrons of emerging talents and established names, pushing the boundaries of artistic expression, opening their homes or private exhibition spaces to the public, elevating the profile of Singaporean art on the global stage and fostering educational and cultural exchange. Finally, the donation of artworks or funds to cultural institutions and nonprofit organisations, has a lasting impact on the sustainability of the arts ecosystem.

ArtOutreach Art In Transit Tour, Promenade Station. This is a walking tour of the artworks installed in Singapore subway stations

LUX: How should art philanthropists plan so they give effectively?
MA: Effective art philanthropy begins with a clear mission and values aligned with the art landscape and national priorities. Philanthropists should thoroughly research organisations, projects, or artists that match the mission, and then identify gaps and areas where their contributions can make a difference. Establishing clear, measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) can guide their philanthropic efforts and evaluate impact. Philanthropists can diversify their giving portfolio and consider strategic partnerships with like-minded organisations to amplify their impact and bring diverse perspectives.

Art Outreach children’s art workshop

They should assume longterm commitment to foster lasting change and address evolving needs within the arts community. It is critical to implement systems for measuring impact, remain adaptable, and be responsive to changing circumstances or emerging needs in the arts landscape.

Read more: Aliya and Farouk Khan on the Malaysian contemporary art scene

Actively engaging with artists, cultural institutions, and the broader arts community allows philanthropists to stay connected, and they must adhere to ethical principles, be transparent, and respect artists’ rights. You should consider legacy and tax planning and remember that public engagement can inspire others to support the arts.

Textile Artist,Tiffany Loy, against her artworks from Lines In Space, her solo exhibition at Art Outreach in January 2023

LUX: How can connectivity and data help in scaling the impact regionally?
MA: Data analysis empowers philanthropists to understand specific regional needs and priorities, to identify areas where their contributions can maximise impacts, and to connect with local organisations and initiatives. By collecting and analysing data in real-time, they decide where best to allocate resources. By collaborating, donors leverage their resources more efficiently, engage directly with regional communities, scale effectively, advocate, share experience, measure impact, and together drive long term change.

LUX: What is your personal advice to a client embarking on their philanthropy journey?
MA: Trust in your passion and purpose. Philanthropy is about making a positive impact on the causes that matter most to you. Sustainable change takes time so persevere. Finally, stay humble and open to learning and let that inspire your growth as a philanthropist.

Find out more: artoutreachsingapore.org

Pristine Seas team member, Alan Friedlander, sampling in the remote reefs in the northernmost region of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve

After a number of years writing about ocean conservation as an academic, Enric Sala decided he wanted to take a more active role in protecting our seas. Here he tells Trudy Ross about his Pristine Seas project, which combines exploration and research to conserve the world’s oceans

LUX: What inspired you to dedicate your career to researching and protecting marine ecosystems?
Enric Sala: As a little boy, I grew up dreaming to be an ocean explorer and swimming in the Mediterranean, which was pretty much devoid of life. But one day I dived in a marine reserve where fishing was banned, and there I saw all the abundance of life that was missing from the sea of my childhood. That day I understood that if we give nature space, it can heal itself – and decided to work on protecting the ocean.

LUX: You made the jump from working in academia to being a full-time conservationist 15 years ago, because you wanted to stop ‘writing the obituary of the ocean’ and instead start looking at solutions. What were the biggest challenges you faced when making this career change?
ES: The biggest challenges are several. First, there is a large lack of awareness that we are overexploiting the ocean to a dangerous point beyond which it may never recover. Second, entrenched interests with strong political connections, like oil companies and the industrial fishing lobby, oppose more ocean protection. But despite these challenges we’ve been able to show that marine protection benefits not only marine life, but also people and the economy.

Pristine Seas team assembling deep sea camera onboard the ROU 23 Maldonado, South Atlantic Ocean Uruguay

LUX: Can you tell us more about your Pristine seas project and share some of its primary goals?
ES: Pristine Seas works with local communities, Indigenous Peoples and governments to protect vital places in the ocean, for the benefit of humanity. To date we have helped to protect 26 areas across the ocean, from the poles to the tropics, covering a total area over twice the size of India. Our goal is to contribute to the global target of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: What criteria do you use to identify and select areas for the Pristine Seas project, and how do you assess their ecological importance and conservation potential?
ES: We always support local conservation efforts, which can be divided in two categories: areas that are still near pristine and need to be protected before it’s too late, and areas that are somehow degraded but, if highly protected, they would deliver big gains for marine life, food and climate. Our approach is science-based, using global databases on marine life, fishing and carbon, and our own data collected during our expeditions to these vital ocean places.

The Pristine Seas team was invited by the government of Niue and Tofia Niue to help the island community survey its underwater environment in an effort to ensure the long-term sustainable use of resources

LUX: Can you discuss any recent discoveries or achievements from your expeditions that have improved our understanding of the marine ecosystem?
ES: Coral reefs suffer from ocean heat waves, which kill enormous amounts of corals. But we found that coral reefs can bounce back from these warming events if they are fully protected and harbor large abundances of fishes. It is the fishes that keep the reefs clean and allow the corals to return. Without the big and abundant fishes, dead corals are smothered by seaweed forever.

LUX: How do you engage with local communities and stakeholders when establishing marine protected areas through the Pristine Seas project?
ES: We always support local efforts to create marine protected areas through our research, storytelling and economic analysis. We work with local scientists to assess the health of their marine environment, provide local communities with cost-benefit analysis of protection, and advise them on how to implement their desire to protect more of their waters.

Kiribati’s Southern Line Islands where Pristine Seas launched a three-week expedition in 2020
LUX: What role do you see technology playing in marine conservation, and are there any specific technological advancements that have greatly enhanced your research or conservation efforts?
ES: Technology is key to allow us to explore the deep sea and remote areas, including satellite monitoring of illegal fishing – these have been instrumental developments to enhance our work. But technology and data alone are not sufficient. We actually need people to care. This is why we use our films and storytelling first, to inspire people to fall in love with their ocean – and then we provide the scientific and economic data to support action.

Dr. Enric Sala, photographed at NG Headquarters in Washinton, DC

LUX: How can governments and policymakers be encouraged to prioritise the protection of marine environments, especially in areas beyond national jurisdictions?
ES: For governments and policymakers, the easiest encouragement comes from the fact that ocean protection is good business! If we protect an area from fishing and other damaging activities, marine life comes back spectacularly. Fish abundance increases on average by 500% within a decade. Fish grow larger and produce many more babies, which helps to replenish nearby areas and helps local fishers. And when the fish come back, divers come in, supporting jobs and bringing in more economic benefits. Therefore, highly protected areas are a triple win. That’s what happens in countries’ waters. Beyond national jurisdiction, it is not as easy because many countries have to agree to protect an area.

Read more: An interview with Blue Latitudes: can oil rigs help save the ocean?

LUX: Pristine Seas has helped to create 26 of the largest marine reserves on the planet. Can you tell us about three of these areas which you find most fascinating, and which you would encourage our readers to look into?
ES: This is like asking parents which of their children they love the most! There are many wonderful places we have explored and helped to protect. A few examples are the kelp forests off the southern tip of South America, the pristine coral reefs of the southern Line Islands, and the offshore islands of Cocos (Costa Rica), Malpelo (Colombia) and Darwin and Wolf (Ecuador).

In March 2012, Pristine Seas, in cooperation with the PEW Charitable Trusts, undertook a month-long expedition in the four Pitcairn Islands

LUX: In your opinion, what are the most significant threats facing our oceans today, and how can we effectively address these challenges on a global scale?
ES: Overfishing, global warming and pollution are the major threats to ocean life. Overfishing is the easiest to solve, through responsible management of fisheries and protected areas. Solving pollution will require society to develop a circular economy without waste. And global warming is the most difficult of all, but it all comes down to halving our carbon emissions every decade to 2050, and to protect and restore more of nature so it can absorb much of our excess carbon pollution in the atmosphere.

LUX: Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the future of marine conservation, and what would you like to see accomplished in terms of global efforts in the next decade?
ES: All the nations in the world agreed in December 2022 to protect 30% of the global ocean by 2030. We have a target. Let’s make it happen.

All images by Manu San Félix, courtesy of National Geographic Pristine Seas

Find out more: www.nationalgeographic.org/pristine-seas

Millie Jason Foster, co-founder of Gillian Jason Gallery

Whilst art has often been perceived as a feminine subject, particularly in schools, men are disproportionately more successful than women in the arts. Here, Candice Tucker speaks with  Millie Jason Foster, who along with her mother Elli, founded Gillian Jason Gallery to promote female-identifying artists from across the generations

LUX: What is the role of education in encouraging female artists?
Millie Jason Foster: I think that like most careers, but also like most people who are interested in exploration, education is really important. I think that when it comes to education in the arts, it’s an essential space to experiment and to learn. We have artists that we represent who have been painting for a long time and then have decided to go back and do a Masters and it’s that space of exploration on a residency or doing a Masters that their practice really takes off. They’re not just working in a vacuum in their own studio; they begin to be able to have a dialogue with other artists and see the world in a different way.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: Despite the fact art is pushed as a feminine subject in schools and most art students are female, the majority of longstanding successful artists are men. Why do you think this is?
MJ: It’s like that across a lot of industries. My background is in finance and investment banking, and you can see the same there. A lot of people at the younger or junior entry levels of the finance industry are women, and then as you get higher and higher up the ranks, there are fewer of us, and it’s really the same in the art world. 65 per cent of women take up art school positions, but in the marketplace, it’s 65 percent of male representation and I’m hoping that that will change over time, but that’s why the gallery exists and what our mission stands for.

I also think that there’s a history of art being a very male-dominated industry, and I think that takes time to change. Even looking at the Royal Academy, they didn’t let women in in the same capacity as men for a very long time, and that is a long-standing British institution for the art world. Only having men means that all those ripple effects go down the line even to today. Only today we had the first all-female retrospective with Marina Abramović. So, the tides are changing, but I think it takes a lot of time to alter such a dense patriarchal system.

Gillian Jason Gallery was founded in 1982 by Gillian Jason and later relaunched by her daughter and granddaughter Elli and Millie Jason Foster

LUX: Do you think the Gillian Jason Gallery, which operates from a feminist perspective, provokes a different kind of collecting?
MJ: I hope that we do but not necessarily a feminist stance on collecting. I think that we showcase the best of art by women, no matter what the theme or the concept of the artist might be. So, although it might be feminist art to do with female issues, it also might be to do with sustainability, other cultural issues, race or gender or anything at all. What we’re really looking for is something that is visually resonant, but also intellectually important and that needs to have some weight to it. What we’re looking at is trying to define the best of art by women in the marketplace. We want to present the best quality art, but also with a sustainable look at careers because we’re looking at creating career longevity for every artist that we work with. We hope that collectors will come back to us time and time again to support those artists.

LUX: How do you bring in issues around sustainability into the gallery?
MJ: That comes in lots of different ways. In our office on, an operational level, which aren’t always that interesting but really are important for us, we have put all our catalogues online and created QR codes, in order to save paper and reduce waste and plastic. In terms of sustainability in our approach, we work with a lot of female artists who tackle ingenious and intellectual themes. For example, we worked with an artist called Julia Bennett at the beginning of this year. She focuses on solely making canvases out of mycelium. She’s looking at how art can be created and then returned to the ground when we’re done with it.

LUX: You have set up a network for young collectors called New Vanguard Collectors. What are the biggest challenges for young collectors?
MJ: I think there are two challenges for young collectors. One is access, and two is understanding. I’ll start with understanding actually, because with understanding, it’s about trying to gauge what you want to buy and why. My background is in a corporate job and I found that I have a lot of corporate friends who are now earning a lot more money but they don’t know where they want to spend it or how. They’re coming to me and asking, “Where do I start?” It’s the same with anyone who doesn’t work in finance, where do I start? What do I invest in? What do I look at? And if you flip it on its head from that perspective, I think it can be really daunting.

Directors of Gillian Jason Gallery, Elli Jason Foster (left) and Millie and Jason Foster (right)

The point of New Vanguard is to help collectors explore the art world more, because collecting can be an investment but also a hobby. I think combining the two today is important for young collectors because we don’t have that much spare cash for anything so if you’re going to invest in something, you have to love it. You have to understand that you want to support the artist and what you’re paying towards it, but you also want to know that in five years time the work is at least going to be what you paid for it, if not more. I think that recognising the need to change collections over time is important, the same way we change our wardrobes, or we develop who we are in a five-year period. I think there has to be a nod to investment and sustainability that way.

Secondly then, access. New collectors don’t get a look in at art fairs or with other large galleries because they haven’t got a roster of other amazing art works that a gallery will say, “Yes, I’ll give you a piece that you love.” So, access is a really big sticking point and with New Vanguard I want to make sure that I help collectors acquire the art that they want to collect, whether it’s with my gallery or another one, because I can assist with access in the art world.

LUX: Gillian Jason Gallery has been around since the 1980s. How has the focus on female artists changed since then?
MJ: My grandmother started the gallery in the 1980s, and her background was a ballet dancer, and my grandfather was an actor, so they came from very theatrical backgrounds. When she stopped dancing, she decided to open a gallery on the ground floor of her townhouse in Camden. At the time, Gillian really became a frontrunner in modern British art, and was a very formidable dealer in that sector, but all along her career championing modern British art, there was always a focus on women. For example, she would always focus on the wife of the famous artist, who was also an artist in her own right. She would do a duo show between David Bomberg and his wife Lillian Holt, and she helped Lillian Holt have one of her pieces acquired by the Tate. Gillian always had this legacy of really focusing on art by women. So, when it came to taking over the gallery a few years ago, in 2019, we decided to take her legacy and found a gallery that solely represents art by women. We were the first to do it.

Works by Berenice Sydney, exhibited at Gillian Jason Gallery

LUX: Have you noticed a drastic change in the representation of female artists since you started?
MJ: No, and it’s been nearly half a decade. I have noticed that more people are waving the flag of supporting art by women, but not necessarily putting their money where their mouth is. At art fairs a third of representation is women and I don’t even want to talk about the prices because it doesn’t even match any of the men. Even at auction, in the top ten, I think there’s two female artists: Georgia O’Keeffe and Jenny Saville, and they don’t make the top five. Those kind of shifts still haven’t moved, and there are extraordinary female artists that just aren’t hitting any of the pricing that male artists are, and I think it’s going to be a long struggle to try and change that outlook.

Read more: Francis Sultana: The life of a leader in design

LUX: What’s the benefit of being a purely female or all female identifying gallery?
MJ: I love having an identifiable mission, and it really helps focus on the best of art by women. It shows collectors that we’re looking for the best of art by women, and it shows artists that we’re looking for the best of art by women. Having that strong network is really important to us, because it means that we’ve founded a community where everyone talks to each other about how they can best support one another. There’s no competition. It’s all about collaboration. We get calls from collectors sometimes saying, “I found this new, incredible female artist, I think you should work with her.” And the same with our artists. We put them all in touch to try and understand best practices. I think that community and safe space is really important, and there have always been safe spaces for art by women and I think that GJG allows that to continue.

LUX: Do you think there will be a point where it won’t be necessary for Gillian Jason Gallery to exist and do you hope that this will be the case?
MJ: I hope that there will be a time where it’s not necessary for Gillian Jason Gallery to only support art by women, and that time will exist when there is a minimum of 50/50 in the art market in terms of representation and pricing for women and men, but I don’t think I’ll see that in my lifetime.

Find out more: gillianjason.com

Francis Sultana in his apartment in Albany

World renowned interior designer Francis Sultana has been taking the world by a storm through his residential, hospitality and commercial projects. Here, he speaks to Samantha Welsh about how he went from designing his mother’s home in Malta to leading the design team at the Hotel Palma in Capri

LUX: What was your route into the design industry?
Francis Sultana: I come from a very small island off Malta called Gozo. Growing up in the 80s meant there was little access to the world of design and so I had to read magazines like House & Garden, and World of Interiors. I was lucky my mother was hugely supportive and so she let me start decorating her house, which in fact appeared on the front cover of World of Interiors – so I must have been doing something right!

When I was 19 I moved to London. I had read about David Gill and how he was establishing a gallery offering collectible contemporary design and art which was functional as well as beautiful. Many artists from the turn of the century had created collectible furniture as part of their work, but David really began to champion artists such as Jean-Michel Frank, Garouste and Bonetti and Donald Judd and so I began to learn from him. I also spent a lot of my time at the Victoria & Albert museum where I taught myself all about the history of design and furniture. It is why the V&A is still so dear to me now and why I sit on the museum’s Advisory Council, and why supporting museums like the Design Museum, the Serpentine Galleries and now MICAS in Malta is so very important to me.

In Francis Sultana’s palazzo in Valletta

LUX: Where have you most enjoyed living?
FS: I love London and I really owe my success to this city. However, my heart is still Maltese and several years ago I bought a palazzo in Valletta (the capital of Malta) and have lovingly restored it back to magnificence. I love interiors and I love travelling, so tying myself down to one place or location is very hard to do! I recently became custodian of King Henry’s Hunting Lodge, a National Trust property in rural England, that was once home to two legendary interior designers, John Fowler and then later, Nicky Haslam. I cannot wait to spend time relaxing, drawing, designing away from the hubbub of London.

LUX: What is your typical working day?
FS: I get up around 5:45am everyday and check my US and also my Middle Eastern/Asian emails and then go and do my work out – as one passes a certain age this becomes a necessary daily chore sadly, but I have a fabulous trainer Jack Hanrahan who keeps me on my toes. I get to the office and have a black coffee and Eloise, my EA, goes through my diary for the day, before my daily meeting with my teams. I then go downstairs to David Gill Gallery, of which I am also CEO, and check in with the team there as we will be planning new exhibitions. I usually have lunch meeting with artists or clients and am then often dealing with the architects and designers who are working on our projects that are based all over the world – so when one time zone ends, another wakes up, so it’s pretty relentless. However, luckily I do a job that I adore and get to work with amazing clients and artists who make all the hard work so worthwhile.

Part of the Chatterley Collection by Francis Sultana

LUX: You offer innovative solutions for large scale art installations, yet are renowned for the focus you bring to bespoke design and aesthetics. How do you take a brief and adopt your clients’ requirements?
FS: I am an editor, I am very lucky that my clients usually have a very advanced sense of aesthetics and often have collected their own works over many years. I also know many of my clients quite well, so I understand what they need to accommodate in their homes – from their family life, to socialising and entertaining, to their comfort and wellness. My clients all have very big personalities and so I design around them, to complement them and their lives. I bring an understanding of how to work with contemporary art and design for sure but I also love introducing clients to artisans and traditional skills and materials that really make their homes something very unique and elegant and not like anything they will see elsewhere. The word bespoke is rather overused these days but for me, each house or hotel is a special journey and I never create a one size fits all approach, I create homes and spaces that defy time, that will remain relevant. I do not do fleeting trends.

LUX: How can design also contribute to conserving heritage?
FS: One shouldn’t be scared of period houses but one should also honour the history of a house. I have worked on quite a few historic houses – my first commission was for a piece of furniture for Spencer House in London. My own apartment in Albany which was built by Sir William Chambers required meticulous attention to detail to get the correct colours and plaster work, recreating rooms, whilst not suspending them in aspic. It is important to make a property your home, to suit your needs but the history of it should always be sitting beside you. My work on Poston Court, an estate in Herefordshire (and another Chambers construction) was similar. We respected the past and paid huge attention to the details of the building but we also made sure it was a house fit for purpose for the 21st century. The Hunting Lodge is no different. We are taking huge pains to respect the house’s unique history with the work of both John Fowler and Nicky Haslam, but I am also making it a lasting home for me.

At Poston Court

LUX: In the Summer of 2023 you launched your first hotel project, for the Oetker, at ‘La Palma’, Capri; what was the appeal for you about this mandate, and how did your concept exceed expectations?
FS: I travel a lot. So I suppose I am my own perfect client – I know what works in hotels and what doesn’t – I also think a hotel must always reflect its location – what I would design for Capri would never be the same for London or Rome or Paris. Capri is about escape, about calm and peace and about going back to nature and this is what I did at La Palma. I created a beautiful home away from home, I looked at the hotel’s iconic history but also made it work for a new luxury traveller. The reviews have been amazing and I am thrilled that this project exceeded all expectations and will introduce the hotel to a new audience without alienating those who already love staying there.

LUX: Your passion for Italy is evident, where especially do you draw inspiration?
FS: Capri for me is inspirational which is why I created an entire collection of furniture and lighting entitled Capri – based on a white colour palette (with a touch of Verdigris) with materials like white plaster, white bronze and marble. It’s a big move for me to do an all white collection but people seem to love it. Earlier this year I collaborated with Italian brand Bonacina – who I have worked with for years. It is a large indoor/outdoor collection that we launched in Milan and really is all about summer living and La Dolce Vita which the Italians do so well. I also did a plate design for Ginori 1735 for David Gill Gallery which is rather pretty. I just love Italy and Italy seems to love me back, which is nice!

Hotel La Palma in Capri

LUX: Outside Europe, where would you say there is a tradition and appreciation for design, be it architecture, furniture, craft?
FS: Funnily enough I recently started several projects in the Middle East and I find that my clients there are incredibly knowledgeable on design matters – if you don’t care about good design then I am probably not the best designer for you as it’s really at the core of what I do! But luckily it seems that across architecture and furniture as well as crafts and artisanal skills, this is something that a growing coterie of clients across the region are really focusing on right now. It’s not about new new new, it’s about finding something more lasting.

LUX: Do the destinations for multiple home-owners such as Monte Carlo, St Moritz, Middle East and the US influence how design ideas mutate?
FS: Of course – groups of friends tend to know each other and go to the same hotels, restaurants etc and so there are styles that move from one country to the next for sure – however I feel with most of my clients with multiple homes, whilst they like some elements to remain consistent like quality of bathrooms and bedrooms, they really like to have a sense of place in each of the homes – there is no point creating the same look in New York as in St Moritz – the climate wouldn’t suit and the past times are completely different after all.

Francis Sultana’s drawing room in Albany

LUX: In 2018, you were appointed Ambassador of Culture for Malta; what is your cross-cultural vision for MICAS, Malta’s new museum space opening in 2024?
FS: When I was growing up I didn’t have anything in Malta to help educate me – I had to go to Paris and to London to learn. For MICAS we are really focused on creating an international space for art and design that will be for the Maltese people, not only in terms of the level of global exhibitions that can be hosted in a space that can truly accommodate large pieces of work, but also providing educational platforms for the young Maltese to learn and be inspired so they don’t have to leave their home country to achieve a career in the arts.

Read more: Winch Design’s Aino Grapin On Sustainable Yachting

LUX: How do you feel London will hold its own against the fast-evolving Paris art ecosystem?
FS: London is London and Paris is Paris. They are two very different places which both have their roles. London has always been about business. Paris has always been about desire. I think the cultural heart of London is still very much here and people love London and living here, so whilst Brexit caused shockwaves that still have consequences for us all, London will always have its place at the heart of many deals.

Find out more: francissultana.com

Thibaut Hontanx is the seventh Chief Blender of the historic Maison Courvoisier. Here, he speaks to LUX about the brand’s famous past, and the importance of celebrating the present

LUX: Can you start by telling us a bit about Maison Courvoisier’s history and why the heritage of the brand is so important to its identity?
Thibaut Hontanx: Courvoisier was founded by Félix Courvoisier in 1828. The brand was officially registered in 1843, and Félix then built the Maison in 1857, which still operates on the banks of the Charente River. He ultimately created the brand because he believed in celebrating the joy in the everyday, and this is something which still holds true for us.

When Félix passed away in 1866, he left Courvoisier to his two nephews, the Curlier brothers, who had lived in Jarnac their entire lives. They expanded the business internationally to London, and Courvoisier was awarded a gold medal at the 1889 Paris World Fair and its cognacs were then served at the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower.

LUX: Indeed, and Courvoisier has been served at many historical celebrations – it was also served at the opening of Moulin Rouge. Are there any upcoming landmark occasions in which you are planning to cement the presence of the brand?
TH: Next year will be a landmark year for Maison Courvoisier; we are thrilled to reopen our home in Jarnac in 2024 after more than a year of renovation work. Beyond our exciting Maison reopening, we will have more updates to share soon…

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: Can you speak to the Maison’s Foundation 1828 project and your vision to support small business owners and entrepreneurs?
TH: Foundation 1828 is Courvoisier’s philanthropic platform. It provides meaningful financial and educational support to empower small business owners and entrepreneurs in underserved populations across the world.

In the US, we have established a multi-year partnership with the National Urban League, which is a historic civil rights organisation dedicated to economic empowerment, equality and social justice. Since 2020, Foundation 1828 has also contributed to a $1 million financial commitment over five years to assisting Black and minority small business owners and entrepreneurs in the U.S. This year and beyond, our Maison is aiming to expand its support globally.

LUX: What would you say to someone who has an appreciation for luxury drinks and spirits, but who does not usually drink cognac?
TH: I would say that our Collection of cognacs have something to offer for every taste preference. For spirits drinkers who are looking for a sessionable, refreshing cocktail, I would recommend that they try the Courvoisier Gala cocktail. This drink is very festive and gives people from all backgrounds and taste preferences an opportunity to explore the rich world of cognac through an approachable experience.

If you prefer a neat or on the rocks style pour, I would suggest trying Courvoisier XO Royal from our prestige portfolio collection of cognacs. Courvoisier XO Royal really embodies the roots of Maison Courvoisier through the vision of our charismatic founder, as well as its rich history of revered cognacs that graced the royal tables of Europe. Our ultimate expression, L’Essence de Courvoisier, is also great to enjoy neat.

LUX: Could you describe the significance of terroir in the production of Courvoisier cognac, and how it influences the flavour profiles of your Cognac/Blends?
TH: The significance of terroir is paramount, as it has a huge influence on the flavour profiles of our cognacs and blends. The fruity and floral style of our Maison has been defined by the successive generations of Chief Blenders as Cognac in Blossom. We deeply respect the Cognac region, where our art of making is rooted in harnessing, liberating, and revealing the spirit found in our terroir, crus, and oaks. This philosophy results in an exuberant cognac infused with the vibrancy of the Cognac region.

LUX: In the world of luxury spirits, what are some of the key trends you anticipate in the near future?
TH: I think there will be a continued focus on premiumization and heightened enthusiasm within the cognac category. At our Maison, I expect more experimentation with blends of older, rarer eaux-de-vie to develop our prestige and ultra-prestige segments of the business.

Read more: Entering Veuve Clicquot’s Garden of Gastronomy

LUX: You have a lot of tradition and history behind you. How will you ensure that you continue to appeal to younger generations in today’s market?
TH: We will continue to innovate offerings, introducing new and exciting blends and cognacs that align with evolving preferences, emphasising inclusivity and approachability. Our goal is to continue to offer a cognac experience that is welcoming and accessible to all.

LUX: Why was British artist and designer, Yinka Ilori, the right person to be the Maison’s ‘Ambassador for Joy’?
TH: Yinka is committed to making art playful and community-driven. Likewise, we believe in making the cognac experience a joyful one that can be enjoyed by anyone. We are continuing to redefine the cognac category by placing Courvoisier in consumption moments that are vibrant and vivid. Our work with Yinka continues to bring to life our brand world that is about savouring life’s pleasures.

Find out more: www.courvoisier.com