London has been pushed off its top spot by Monaco as the most expensive place to buy residential property, with the UK capital and surrounding counties suffering some of the biggest price falls in the world.
Monaco, where prime property is being sold for €50,000 ($68,000) per sq m (your average 1,500 square foot apartment would theoretically run you $10 million), is now followed by London, at €28,000 per sq m, then Manhattan, at €16,500 per sq m.
The Wealth Report, compiled by Citi Private Bank and Knight Frank shows that property values fell 17 percent in London and 25 percent in Hong Kong.
Source: Financial Times
Nubeo is a company known for jellyfish-shaped watches. In collaboration with the basketball star Kobe Bryant, this luxury watch brand creates a limited-edition line.
Composed by high-tech sport watches, the collection’s prices start at about $21,000 and topout at $285,000. The Black Mamba series, in honor of Mr. Bryant’s nickname, will be launched at Baselworld 2009, in Basel, Switzerland, and will go on sale this fall.
Ivan Castro, the jewelry designer who co-founded Nubeo in 2004, is a huge basketball fan and reached out to Mr. Bryant’s agent and marketing manager.
Indian carpet made of pearls and gems today fetched a record $5.5 million at the first series of auctions held by Sotheby’s in the Gulf state of Qatar.
The 5-foot-8-inch by 8-foot-8-inch Pearl Carpet of Baroda had been commissioned in 1865 by the Maharajah of the former Indian state of Baroda, possibly as a gift for the tomb of the prophet Mohammed at Medina, said Sotheby’s.
The carpet, with more than 1 million natural Basra seed pearls, had never been offered before at auction and was expected to fetch at least $5 million, said Sotheby’s.
Businessman Angelito Araneta Jr, 21, commissioned his catering service to create a chocolate cake topped with 15 African diamonds and covered with 24-karat gold leaf.
Mr Araneta says he plans to sell the cake in Manila at 124,000 pesos ($13,480) to men for use as a marriage proposal gift.
Source: MyPaper
A small brown leather armchair once owned by Yves Saint Laurent has reportedly sold for £19.4 million (nearly $28 million), making it the most expensive piece of 20th-century design to ever be auctioned.
The armchair, by Irish designer Eileen Gray was only expected to reach around £3 mllion at Christie’s in Paris. It was bought by specialist Paris art gallery Robert and Cheska Vallois.
The unique piece – known as the “dragons’ armchair because of the ornate sculptures on its sweeping armrests – was created between 1917 and 1919 by Miss Gray.
