Petra, Jordan. Instagram: @abercrombiekent

Increasingly businesses and professionals are using Instagram as a way of promoting their brand, but the app can also function as a modern-day diary. LUX contributor and Abercrombie & Kent Founder Geoffrey Kent explains why he’s a social media convert

Oscar Wilde wrote: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” Not many people have led as sensational a life as that of the Irish playwright, but keeping a diary or journal isn’t just for the outrageous, or the pursuit of Adrian Mole-esque teenagers.

A growing body of research suggests that recording your experiences is a good practice, not only for posterity, but also as a good mental-health practice. Other benefits include aiding memory. Oscar Wilde also wrote that “memory is the diary we all carry about with us” – but memory is a funny thing. Impressions can last for years but the minutiae can become lost quite quickly if not written down.

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I discovered this for myself in 1958, as a teenager. When I was 16, I rode a motorbike from Nairobi to Cape Town on a 3,000-mile journey of self-discovery along some of Africa’s most dangerous roads. In my saddlebags, along with my Shell Oil road map, a poncho, tarpaulin sheet and elephant hair bracelets, were a pencil and journal. Every day, I made notes: the route I took, how many elephant hair bracelets I had managed to trade at market, leopard tracks on my tails, that the giraffes that I saw had smaller and smaller spots, that my next challenge would be climbing Kilimanjaro. I also posed more existential questions, such as: who is Geoffrey Kent? What do I think is worthwhile? I usually wrote at midday whilst catching shade from the broiling heat, resting at the base of baobab trees.

Geoffrey Kent at the Abercrombie & Kent camp in the South Pole. Instagram: @geoffrey_kent

Upon arriving in Cape Town, I felt a profound sense of achievement, duly recorded in my journal‚ and then my thoughts turned immediately to my next challenge – how to get home. I didn’t fancy another 3,000-mile bike ride back to Nairobi. I needed to earn some money so I could go back by boat or train – anything but by two wheels. A friend in Cape Town suggested I write a story about my journey and try to sell it. Thank goodness for my journal and all the notes I had taken along my route. I managed to pull together a good piece, full of accurate, evocative details, and the Cape Argus newspaper agreed to publish the article along with photos of me on my bike.

Due to my scribblings in my journal I was able to get home in style – in first class, aboard the Africa, the best ship in the Lloyd Triestino line, from Cape Town to Mombasa. From that day to this, I have always kept a diary. My diaries were invaluable in researching and writing my memoir Safari: A Memoir of a Worldwide Travel Pioneer. In the pages of Smythson notebooks unseen for years (sometimes decades), I uncovered details that had been lost to time – that I had been granted the first license to take travellers into the Ngorongoro Crater; how dinner with David Niven led me to own my first boat on the Nile; how I got into China before any other travel executive travelling as an Ethiopian citizen (thanks to my sister’s birth in Addis Ababa) in a tour group organised by an Ethiopian pro-Communist group that I had read about in the East African Standard.

Read more: Get to know these 4 new Instagram aesthetes

Over the years however, an evolution has occurred in step with technology and my method of memory-keeping has changed. I now keep a visual diary. Upon opening my Instagram account (@geoffrey_kent), I fell in love with the platform and now use it to – yes, promote my businesses and brands – but also as a photographic journal. It’s my new diary. Social media is the easy, accessible way to record your life and experiences in a public forum (shared with the wide world or just a private, select few – your choice). I post religiously – even from the South Pole.

An Abercrombie & Kent expedition to the South Pole (Day 5). Image courtesy of A&K

Antarctica is never one to be underestimated, but it is amazing too. I will long remember seeing the Emperor penguins, exploring the ice tunnels, climbing and naming a mountain in the Drygalski mountain range, and making it to the South Pole. Despite what can kindly be called patchy internet access, I posted daily to my grid and look forward to scrolling through my feed in years to come to bring to mind this sensational trip with some new close friends.

7 steps to Instagram success

1. Start by thinking about what it is you like about your favourite account.

2. Try the Preview app – it’s a cool tool for testing out your posts before you commit an image to your feed.

3. Quality rather than quantity – only feature amazing images which are in line with your chosen aesthetic.

4. Be sure to edit – Android and iPhone have excellent built-in photo editing tools for cropping and levelling, but there are lots of apps that can help make your photos picture perfect.

5. Be smart about hashtags – you can add up to thirty hashtags in one post, but you shouldn’t.

6. Include the geotag to boost your post’s visibility.

7. When and how much you post matters – those in the know suggest posting at similar times every day, when your followers are active.

Discover Abercombie & Kent’s portfolio of luxury travel tours: abercrombiekent.co.uk

L’oscar is named after and inspired by writer Oscar Wilde. The hotel sits in the heart of London’s historic literary neighbourhood Bloomsbury

Jacques Garcia is the master of decadent design. His portfolio includes the likes of Hôtel Costes in Paris, La Mamounia in Marrakech and NYC’s NoMad. Now the French designer is bringing a touch of Parisian style to London with luxury boutique hotel, L’oscar. He talks to LUX about Oscar Wilde,  alluring atmospheres and the importance of low lighting

LUX: How did you come up with the concept from L’oscar? What’s your creative process like?
Jacques Garcia: Although I’ve had many proposals to do concept design projects in London, L’oscar is only my second public project in the city after Ronnie Scott’s. What particularly seduced me about this project is the fact that the building has a history, it was a former [Baptist Church]. I had to think of ways to work with the structure of the existing building and its history, whilst incorporating modernity through colours and fabrics.

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So for the decor, I imagined that I was Oscar Wilde. Twenty years ago, I created Hotel des Beaux Arts, where I imagined Oscar Wilde’s last bedroom when he was living in Paris. I imagined it as if he lived in a very nice apartment, although in reality he was very poor at the end of his life. I was interested in showing the paradox of the writer’s glory and achievements, and the way he was treated by people for his personal convictions at the time. I returned to the story of Oscar Wilde for this hotel because he is someone that I am continually drawn to – the name of the hotel, of course, is in his honour: L’oscar (the Oscar).

Jacques Garcia in L’oscar

LUX: Did the building present any design challenges?
Jacques Garcia: Yes, it was very difficult to work with and it took a long time. It was like doing a hotel in New York. London and New York are two of the most difficult cities to for hospitality projects, especially when you’re working with buildings that are listed or historical. But when I like a project, I’m like a kid and even if it takes 9 months, I still love it at the end.

Read more: Wandering Paris with Moynat’s Artistic Director, Ramesh Nair

LUX: Why do you think Parisian style is so desirable?
Jacques Garcia: For a very simple reason: no one ever speaks about the sexiness of the London girl, but everyone always talks about the sexiness of the Parisian girl. This is because the Parisian girl is an attitude, whereas there’s a certain rigidity to the English and also an elegance that the French don’t have. But the English, in my opinion, are missing the attitude. That’s the allure.

LUX: You once said that “before everything, I am a creator of atmosphere.” How do you go about creating an atmosphere?
Jacques Garcia: Personally, I am not a big fan of public spaces. I am very lucky to have an extraordinary house and friends who have extraordinary houses so in my personal life I have no real reason to go to public spaces like a hotel – unless it is to meet and to be seduced by people. People go to public places meet other people, and for me, that’s the starting point when considering atmosphere. I create places where people can meet and seduce. That begins with choosing comfortable chairs, the right lighting. People look better in dim light, always.

LUX: Your designs often incorporate opulent fabrics – where do you source your materials?
Jacques Garcia: I used a lot of fabrics in L’oscar particularly, but since the peacock was the emblem of Oscar Wilde, I wanted to utilise that pattern and used special fabrics sourced from England and France. Mixing colours, especially unusual colours, was very important for me in this project, which is difficult to do, if you do it wrong, you risk the design becoming kitsch. It’s a very thin line, much like a haute couture collection – sometimes it can just work, it can be incredible and sometimes it doesn’t.

Read more: Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar’s mesmerising art opening on Cap Ferrat

LUX: How much of a consideration is sustainability when designing?
Jacques Garcia: I recently went on a trip to Saudi Arabia. I was in the middle of the desert and there was air conditioning, but a natural system of air conditioning that was used in the old desert houses of 12th century: windows! And of course, the way the house was structured to keep it cool. The projects I work on are different to this. For example, I use a lot of fabrics. Think of my older hotels like the Costes or the NoMad. People are coming into those hotels from 7am to 3am, they are using the seats for working or socialising 20 hours a day and so the fabric wears out and you have to change the upholstery. In that way, it’s not really sustainable. I would love to be more sustainable, but there are also regulations I have to consider such as fire. Plastic treatment on silk is unfortunately mandatory. To use real silk or real corduroy would be more ecological, but unfortunately we have to have the fabrics treated. I hope that businesses will integrate sustainability into their day to day operations once the project is complete. L’oscar, for example, have started by avoiding the use of plastic straws.

The walls and ceilings of the Café L’oscar are lined with mirrors, gold panels, and original art.

LUX: Which hotel design(s) are you most proud of?
Jacques Garcia: As well as L’oscar, my favourites are The Mamounia and La Réserve in Paris. My house, the Chateau du Champ-de-Bataille, is also one of my favourites!

LUX: And can you tell us about your upcoming projects?
Jacques Garcia: I have a hotel opening soon in Singapore, a private house in Rome, there’s a hotel in Rome as well. There’s a very big hotel in Doha. Private residences in the Gulf. A new NoMad has recently opened in Los Angeles. There are a lot of projects going on!

LUX: What’s your favourite city in the world?
Jacques Garcia: Paris. Why? Because the Parisians.

L’oscar opens in Bloomsbury, London on 17th September. To make a booking visit: loscar.com
To view more of Jacques Garcia’s work visit: studiojacquesgarcia.com