Monthly Archives: July 2011

st dupont karl lagerfeld pens

S.T. Dupont pens by Karl Lagerfeld

st dupont karl lagerfeld pens

Karl Lagerfeld, has designed a limited edition pen line called Prestige & Chic in collaboration with French house S.T. Dupont.

The pens have been designed as an asymmetrical triangular shape with bevelled corners, meaning that they do not roll and ensure comfort for the user.

Choose between two variations: “Prestige” in red lacquer or “Chic” in black with palladium “attributes.”
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porsche cayenne photo

Porsche increasing Cayenne production

porsche cayenne photo

Consumer demand for the Porsche Cayenne has prompted the automaker to increase production, the luxury brand said this week.

Global sales of the powerful SUV surged 37 percent in the first half of this year, prompting Porsche to boost the number of Cayennes it will produce from next year.

In the US alone, the number of Cayennes sold jumped from 2,605 in the first half of 2010 to 6,877 in the first half of this year.
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lenny kravitz

Lenny Kravitz to design new Miami hotel

lenny kravitz

Grammy-award winning musician Lenny Kravitz is to once again turn his hand to hotel design, according to reports from the US.

The singer-songwriter is said to be working on rooms for the SLS Hotel at South Beach, set to open next year in Miami, Florida as a sister property to the luxury SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills, California.

Kravitz, who runs a design studio called Kravitz Design Inc., has been given responsibility for putting together the decor of a bungalow and penthouse suite.
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Incheon airport

Incheon sales hit new record

Incheon airport

Seoul’s Incheon Airport has set a world record in duty free sales during the first half of this year, reports have suggested.

Passengers at the airport spent a whopping $727 million at the airport in the first six months of this year, a world record according to The Moodie Report.

The figure outstrips spending at Dubai Duty Free, the world’s most popular duty free outlets for the past three years, which managed $698 million in sales.
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YSL L Homme Libre

Benjamin Millepied for YSL L’Homme Libre

YSL L Homme Libre

Benjamin Millepied (Natalie Portman‘s finance, and father of her baby) is the newest face of L’Homme Libre, the men’s fragrance from Yves Saint Laurent.

The just-released campaign, shot by Patrick Demarchelier, depicts Millepied mid-pirouette against the New York City skyline.

L’Homme Libre — composed of bergamot, pink pepper, and patchouli — will be released in September.
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Lara stone Calvin Klein Underwear

Lara Stone stars in Calvin Klein’s new underwear ad

Lara stone Calvin Klein Underwear

Supermodel Lara Stone is the new face and body of the brand’s Naked Glamour campaign shot by Patrick Demarchelier.

Following in the footsteps of actresses Zoe Saldana and Eva Mendes, Stone is heating up print and video ads for Calvin Klein’s underwear even though her campaign seems softer and less raunchy than that of Mendes, for instance.

The model also recently bagged Tom Ford’s beauty campaign and covers the August issue of French Vogue.
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jeanpaulgaultier website

Jean Paul Gaultier revamps website

jeanpaulgaultier website

Following Balenciaga and Dolce & Gabbana, Jean Paul Gaultier is the third major fashion brand to present a new website this week.

JeanPaulGaultier.com unites all of the French designer’s creative actvities under one global roof, including ready-to-wear, haute couture, and perfumes.

The new online destination is divided into three sectors: LIVE! integrates social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, updates from bloggers, videos and photos from fashion shows as well as news surrounding the brand, while a digital showroom and an e-shop let you browse and buy all collections.
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ASUS Automobili Lamborghini VX7

ASUS-Automobili Lamborghini VX7

ASUS Automobili Lamborghini VX7

The ASUS-Automobili Lamborghini VX7 has come speeding onto the UK market.

Fans of the iconic Italian brand, especially those who can’t afford the cars’ million-dollar price tags, can bring a piece of grand touring tradition into their office.

The laptop offers a distinctive outer-casing design, a 15.6″ display, dual 750GB hard drives and quad-core 2nd generation Intel Core i7 processors and is the world’s first laptop with dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics.
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Tokyo most expensive city

Asia-Pacific most expensive for expats

Tokyo most expensive city

The cities of the Asia-Pacific region dominate the list of the most expensive places in the world for expats to live, accounting for 18 of the priciest cities on the planet.

The unwanted prize for the most expensive city in the world went to Luanda, the capital of Angola, for the second straight year.

Luanda sits atop the cost tree due to its high number of oil workers and the nation’s reliance on imports, according to the annual study by Mercer.
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bedroom New Hotel Athens photo

Campanas: a New Hotel in Athens

bedroom New Hotel Athens

Brazilian design duo the Campanas have unveiled their latest project, a boutique hotel in Athens.

Humberto and Fernando Campana, known for their Brazilian carnival-themed designs for everything from furniture to shoes, officially opened their first hotel earlier this month in the Greek capital.

The New Hotel, a 79-room property in the historical center of the Greek capital, is inspired by three traditional Greek themes — Karagiozis, a shadow puppet; the “evil eye” used to guard against ill-omen; and the Athens of years gone by.
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Karoline Herfurth

Jil Sander premieres new fragrance exclusively online

Karoline Herfurth

After Sun and Jil, the fashion house is hoping to deliver another instant classic with new perfume Eve.

Launched exclusively online on July 13, Eve is a fruity floriental that features top notes of grapefruit flower and redcurrant, a heart of wild rose, jasmine, and violet as well as a dry-down composed of cashmere wood and patchouli.
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Dolce Gabbana Sequined Pouch iPad Case

Luxury iPad case by Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce Gabbana Sequined Pouch iPad Case

Fans of luxury brands will be pleased to know that the Dolce & Gabbana fashion house has recently released an iPad case.

The Luxury case is made in Italy out of black leather and shimmery sequins, with gold hardware, a chain shoulder strap with star charms.

The D&G iPad case will set you back a pretty hefty sum of $1,175, which should be able to buy you at least two copies of the WiFi only version of the iPad 2.
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Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley for Burberry Body

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

Her gig as a Victoria’s Secret Angel bagged her a role in the new Transformers movie, several Vogue covers, and lucrative campaigns for British brand Burberry, which now has also made her the face of its upcoming Body fragrance.

Photographed by Mario Testino, Huntington-Whiteley can be seen wearing an open Burberry trench and nothing else in the just-released visuals.

Testino will shoot different models and personalities for Body, Burberry’s “most exciting launch that we have ever created,” according to creative director Christopher Bailey, over the course of the campaign.
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Korean Air Absolut celestial bar

Korean Air and Absolut launch A380 collaboration

Korean Air Absolut celestial bar

Absolut Vodka has teamed up with Korean Air in a deal that will see the unit launch Absolut bars on ten of the airline’s new Airbus A380s.

The onboard ‘Celestial Bars’ – two in Business Class and one in First Class – will also feature duty free Absolut products to purchase.

The first Korean Air Airbus A380 took off on 17 June. The next four will be delivered by the end of 2011 and an additional five by 2014.
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Santigold Spankrock Alexander Wang

T by Alexander Wang campaign

Santigold Spankrock Alexander Wang

After DJ Diplo, Alexander Wang hired rappers Santigold and Spankrock to star in his latest campaign clip.

Santigold has been increasingly venturing into the realms of fashion recently, having just designed a collection with urban shoe brand Vans.

As part of an ongoing trend of recording artists premiering their new tracks in advertising, the video is set against an exclusive remix of Santigold’s “Go.”
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Dolce Gabbana e-commerce

Dolce & Gabbana’s new e-commerce

Dolce Gabbana e-commerce

Dolce & Gabbana launched its e-commerce site today – together with e-tailer Yoox – with content in seven languages.

The site will display magazine-style catalog through which shoppers can “shop the look.” There are also links to videos of its runway shows and advertising campaigns.

DolceGabbana.com will sell all of the label’s collections, and in order to attract customers quickly, you won’t pay any shipping fees for the first three months.
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Luanda Angola

World’s most expensive city? Try Luanda

Luanda Angola

Angola’s capital Luanda retained the unenviable title of the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, narrowly edging out Tokyo, according to a new survey.

The Mercer group‘s study named the Pakistani port Karachi as the least expensive city, with living around three times cheaper than in Luanda.

Oil-rich Angola is a magnet for foreign workers who push up already high prices inflated by a reliance on imports.
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special welcome for Chinese guests

Traditional Chinese welcome coming to Hilton hotels

special welcome for Chinese guests

Hilton is to roll out a global welcome program for Chinese travelers as it seeks to capture a larger part of China’s outbound tourism pie.

A new “Hilton Huanying” package will debut this August in 30 properties around the world, including San Francisco, New York City, Vancouver, London, Tokyo and Sydney.

The aim of the scheme is to make the steadily-increasing number of Chinese road-warriors feel at home, offering what Hilton describes as “familiar comforts” on arrival, in the rooms, and at breakfast.

This includes providing a front desk team member fluent in Chinese, tea kettles and selection of Chinese teas available in rooms, dedicated Chinese television channels and a welcome letter written in Chinese.

dim sum

Participating hotels will also roll out specific breakfast offerings such as congee (rice porridge) with condiments, fried rice or fried noodles, a dim sum selection and fried dough fritters (crullers), along with Chinese tea.

Guests will also be offered Chinese cutlery utensils such as chopsticks, Chinese spoons and a soy sauce dish.

With the number of Chinese outbound tourists expected to reach a whopping 65 million this year, it’s somewhat unsurprising hotels are pulling out all the stops to attract them.

In April this year, French chain Accor announced a similar welcome package for Chinese and Indian guests would be offered by its brands in Australia, which include Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, ibis and Motel 6, with additional food, entertainment and staff training to be rolled out to select properties.