London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is currently hosting a rather decadent exhibition, of luxury lost called the Magnificence of the Tsars.
This exhibition illustrates Russia’s relationship with her past and with Europe through two centuries of men’s court dress.
It is curated and mounted by the Moscow Kremlin Museums. Together with the Armoury Chamber, they form Russia’s oldest national treasury, founded in 1806.
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While some people may obsess over the idea that every piece of clothing or accessory they own needs to come from a designer line, why not take that same idea and apply it to our home?
The Fendi Casa Home Collection is designed to « dress up » rooms in a way which is very similar to how Fendi designs its fur and precious leather coats, clothes, and accessories.
Part of the Fendi Casa real leather furniture collection, this tall and slim Leather Cabinet is the hottest new thing to jump off a Fendi Casa drawing board.
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Porsche Design have created a sled drawing inspiration from Porsche’s 911 sports car. Built for speed, the sled is made entirely of aluminum allowing it to be extremely light yet rigid.
It offers also functionality, thanks to its practical folding mechanism, and it is prepared for even the heaviest holiday dinner with a maximum capacity of 100kg.
The Porsche Design Sportster sled is available from Porsche Design stores worldwide. $490
Rolls Royce have created a special edition Phantom as part of their Bespoke Collection showcasing their extensive customization program. The Phantom Sapphire takes its name from the bodywork’s unique shade of Milori Sapphire which is a unique shade of navy blue.
The interior comes in a choice of two colour combinations either navy blue with seashell highlights or seashell with navy blue highlights, the the walnut burr veneer featuring inlaid diamond pattern marquetry.
A two-bottle cool box located beneath the rear lounge seat incorporates a drinks holder milled from a single billet of aluminium, which when not in use, can be concealed in the facia of the cool box.
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Nokia has announced yet another variation of its 8800 slider phone, the Gold Arte. This new entrant to Nokia’s Arte series of luxury phones comes decorated with 18-carat gold and white leather.
The tri-band GSM handset features a 2-inch OLED display with 240 x 320 pixels, 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus, 4GB of internal storage, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR support, and USB 2.0 connectivity.
Neither pricing nor release information has been released, but if Nokia’s last special edition 8800, the $1,649 Carbon Arte is any indication, it will be high.
First photo released from the upcoming Prada spring summer campaign shot by one of the top fashion photographers Steven Meisel, who just recently shot a Louis Vuitton campaign featuring iconic superstar, Madonna.
The clothes are front and center – the models have their heads turned away from the camera, the garments are on display in a way they have not been in ads for quite some time. The models are styled to look pulled together, chic, pretty.
Here’s the mannequin list: Nimue Smit, Giedre Dukauskaite, Sigrid Agren, Toni Garrn, Katrin Thormann, Viktoriya Sasonkina, and Ymre Stiekema.
Tonino offers a brand new collection of cigar lighters and cutters for those folks who own a Lamborghini or at least may want to look like they own one.
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If you guys have a golfer on your list, here’s a ball that eliminates hooks and slices.
The Caesar Featherie is the first dimple-less golf ball. It would be the perfect gift for ladies or beginners, or someone who just loves the game and wants to try something different.
The Caesar Featherie golf ball is designed for golfers more concerned about accuracy than distance. It keeps them out of the rough. 3 ball sleeve, $30.
Want a piece of jewelry that will turn heads?
Beverly Hills-based Master Jeweler Vin Lee has created the first-ever tennis earring, a revolutionary design that lines up 4, 6, 8 or 10 matching diamonds, rubies or emeralds in a row to create a stunner for the ear reminiscent of the tennis bracelet.
The perfect gift for a lady. Starting price $999 depending on quality and size of stones.
Cigar aficionados who want the very best selection, the finest lines the market has to offer and personal treatment from their own cigar concierge might want to check out Beverly Hills Cigar Club, an exclusive online club that offers more than 800 product lines, house brands; premium accessories for the smoker; and two levels of private membership that provide members with free, hand-picked cigars
Lines carried by the BHCC include Montecristo, Opus X, Davidoff, La Aurora and Oliva, specialty brands like Bahia, Cao and Acid and many small independent, hard-to-find brands from the finest tobacco houses, worldwide.
The club stocks a wide selection of Maduro cigars as well as Connecticut and Rosado leaf product. All ring gauge sizes and styles can be found on the site.
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The latest entrant to the SLR range is the Stirling Moss, a sports car inspired by the Mercedes 300 SLRs driven by racing legend Sterling Moss in the ‘50s. It might be the last SLR from the duo.
The Mercedes SLR Stirling Moss enjoys the same supercharged V8 engine that allows the roadster to achieve 0-62mph in 3.5 seconds and a top speed of 217mph.
The roofless Stirling Moss features smaller “swing-doors” with a two-piece tonneau cover that can cover either the entire cockpit or just the passenger side. A retractable air brake, like the one on the Veyron, automatically deploys during hard braking from speeds above 75mph.
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Forbes just came out with its first ever ranking of the most expensive houses in the world – that don’t actually exist. All the properties had to be primarily residences and they excluded castles.
The most expensive fictional house, according to Forbes, is Xanadu, the home of newspaper baron Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, at $160 million. The house is modeled on Hearst Castle (above), the real life San Simeon, Calif., estate of media mogul William Randolph Hearst.
Xanadu was supposed to have been built on a private mountain from 20,000 tons of marble and 100,000 trees. It contained enough art for 10 museums, and the grounds were home to the world’s largest private zoo.
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When the triple world champion decides to build the perfect pool table, you can expect something truly outstanding.
And when that champion is also a lover of good design, its likely to be a work of art. Which is exactly what Vincent Facquet has created – the worlds most expensive and most beautiful pool tables.
This unbelievable collection contains three unique models: the platinum detailed Majeste ; the etched platinum Royal pictured above; and the gilded Noblesse table.
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In Dubai you can find cars that you’ve never heard about like this Mansory-prepped Veyron called Bugatti Vincero, which is up for sale by Prestige Cars.
Though Mansory, the custom carmaker, has still not made any official statement about this new design, the Prestige Cars (Abu Dhabi) website has revealed that only 3 such cars will be built, making it an exclusive limited edition series.
From the pictures we can see that the Veyron-based Vincero features an awesome paint job complemented by a nice set of black alloy wheels and plenty of carbon fiber parts.
To celebrate her 50th birthday in style next year, Mattel Inc. has enlisted Christian Louboutin to design a special pair of pumps for Barbie.
Barbie needs to wear great shoes because every girl needs to wear great shoes.” The shoes will be made in the renowned Barbie Pantone 219 Pink and will be unveiled at Mattel’s runway show during New York Fashion Week in February.
Mattel has also enlisted 50 yet-to-be-named designers to create Barbie-inspired outfits for the show.
Chanel on Friday said it would pull the plug on its costly Mobile Art exhibition that was slated to travel to major cities worldwide in a Space Age prefab structure designed by architect Zaha Hadid.
The decision comes amid snowballing bad economic news and Wall Street scandals, and reflects a new sobriety for luxurious endeavors.
“Considering the current economic crisis, we decided it was best to stop the project,†said a Chanel spokeswoman. “We will be concentrating on strategic growth investments.â€
Conceived by Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld with Hadid, the Mobile Art exhibition was one of the most ambitious art-meetsfashion cohabitations embraced by the luxury and fashion worlds.
The project was born as luxury seemed invulnerable to downturn. But by the time it opened in Hong Kong in March, the cracks in the world economy had started to deepen.
The project subsequently traveled to Tokyo. By the time it landed in New York’s Central Park in October, the economy was crumbling at an alarming pace.
Plans have been scrapped to take the exhibit to London, Moscow and Paris.
Via wwd
The Lexus SC430 sports car pictured above looks almost like a dream. The Shi-crystal-like vehicle designed by the Zheng Zhiren is festooned with more than more than 300,000 Swarovski crystals.
Currently on display in Taiwan, the Lexus SC430 Shi-crystal-like vehicle is a showstopper at the show.
The crystals are everywhere on the car, on the front, the back, the inside and the wheels. The Swarovski-studded Lexus SC430 is worth more than NT 10,000,000 ($300,000).
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The very first BEDAT & Cº boutique was inaugurated last Saturday, December 13th in Kuala Lumpur.
During the opening gala, hosted by Viviane Fankhauser (CEO of BEDAT & Cº), Billy Tsang (Managing Director of Gucci Group Watches for South-East Asia) and Frank Low (CEO of LuxuryConcepts, BEDAT & Cº’s exclusive partner), the brand had the honour to indulge the presence of her Majesty the Queen of Malaysia as well as Dr. Francis Yeoh, Managing Director of YTL Corporation Berhad.
Located in the prestigious Star Hill Gallery, this space dedicated to the collections of the watchmaker will attract a great and qualitative traffic of connoisseurs; hence reinforce the positioning of BEDAT & Cº as a luxury brand.
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Got $30,000 to spend on a mobile phone ? Amosu luxury is now creating the new 3G diamond iphone in whatever colour diamond you want, and to match they will do the back in the same coulour.
So all you ladies who want a 3G Iphone with pink diamonds can now have the back in pink or any colour you want : )
Swarovski diamonds have taken every industry over. It seems that there is no product today that can escape the dazzling charm of a Swarovski diamond and being adorned by one. An excess or refined luxury?
These X-Sense limited edition faucets from Newform have been produced with Swarovski crystals embedded. The sparkle of the precious stones complements perfectly the gold finish of the taps though.
Kate Moss is not alone on the Longchamp campaigns anymore. She will now have company by Sasha Pivovarova for the upcoming spring/summer ads for their ready-to-wear collection along with their handbags.
The girls could have been twins in the pics taking by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot !
Focused on outerwear, the line ranges from a silk and cotton blouse to a sporty linen trench in the house’s iconic LM horse print. “The ideas is to create key items you can mix with everything,†said Sophie Delafontaine, Longchamps’ artistic director.
