From Private Parties To Paperwork: Here’s How The Luxury World Really Treats Its VIPs
There are very important clients, and then there are very, very important clients. Here’s how to know where you rank in the worlds of wine, watches, cars and jewellery.
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On a warm July evening, an intimate group of elegantly attired guests roamed the gilded halls of the Palace of Versailles, sipping Champagne while being serenaded by violins. The unforgettable party included a candlelit dinner prepared by Michelin-star chef Emmanuel Renaut, a display of rare diamond jewels and a fireworks display that illuminated the sky above the palace while an orchestra played in the famed gardens below. If not for the fact that many of the guests jetted in courtesy of their host, Van Cleef & Arpels, one could be forgiven for thinking they’d time-traveled back to the 17th century, when the merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier presented the Sun King, Louis XIV, with jaw-dropping jewels from his trip to India in the very same rooms.
This fairy tale was a quintessentially private affair (strictly no photos) for the company’s top clients, who were invited to celebrate the unveiling of the collection, the Legend of Diamonds—and to indulge in three days of meticulously organised culinary and wine experiences. Before the first cork popped at Versailles, the guests were ferried to private tours and specially prepared menus at Château Margaux one day, followed by lunches at Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte and Champagne Perrier-Jouët.
“The story behind the collection is always at the centre of the experience,” says Nicolas Bos, Van Cleef’s president and CEO. In this case, that story revolved around the 910-carat Lesotho Legend, the fifth-largest rough diamond ever mined, which the French jeweller had turned into a glittering array of high jewellery.
For big spenders, these money-can’t-buy experiences have become the norm: This past summer, Cartier flew its premier clients to Madrid for three days of carefully planned activities, including tours of art collections, Michelin-star meals, a gala in the 18th-century Liria Palace where Rita Ora performed and, of course, a first look at its Beautés du Monde high jewellery. Louis Vuitton unveiled its 125-piece jewellery collection at an extravagant dinner at the Dar el Bacha palace in Marrakech for clients, as well as Kylie Minogue and Chloë Grace Moretz. Gucci’s higjewelleryry took pride of place at the 18th-century Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome, which contains one of the world’s premier private collections of ancient and Renaissance art. At the dinner, British singer Sam Smith wowed the small group in the garden.
There have never been more millionaires and billionaires and, consequently, the global smorgasbord of luxury products has never been more in demand. But because what defines this increasingly attractive corner of the economy is a sense of exclusivity, the makers of high-end wines, cars, watches and other collectables have had to up the ante. Just as airlines have their silver, gold and platinum status, luxury houses employ similar, if more discreet, rankings for their most dedicated customers—and the kind of attention (and scrutiny) said clients get depends almost entirely on where they are in that VIP pecking order. In one industry, that might mean strolling down the red carpet for a once-in-a-lifetime event. In another, it may translate to being allowed to apply to purchase a new product, once it has been released.
In any luxury industry, though, the payoff for securing VIP clients, who can spend millions of dollars a year with a single company, is astronomical—and some sectors invest fortunes in wining and dining their heaviest hitters. From the upper echelons of wine collecting, for instance, Cardinale, the Napa Valley winery that produces a single (and much sought-after) Cabernet Sauvignon each year, takes a networking approach to VIP relations, hosting private dinners at the homes of its best customers. These insiders are encouraged to invite friends who may be interested in acquiring rare vintages for their own cellars—a little like a high-stakes Tupperware party.
The wine world is intrinsically convivial, so much so that executives sometimes open the doors of their own homes for private events, too. Jean-Charles Boisset, proprietor of a winery that produces bottles in Napa, Sonoma and Burgundy, has been known to invite his top collectors to dine at the California hilltop manse he shares with his wife and children. The house centres on an indoor pool illuminated by Baccarat chandeliers, and synchronised swimmers, aerialists and magicians have all been brought in as entertainment. At Boisset’s 50th birthday party in 2019, Joseph Minafra, the lead for innovation and technical partnerships at NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, presented the host with a meteorite. Boisset later had chunks of the space rock affixed to bottles of a wine called the Surrealist-Meteor, produced in an edition of just 250, which he offered first to members of his JCB Collectors society, who bought all but a handful of the available bottles, which then sold out in a JCB tasting salon.
So how does one make the journey to Boisset’s hilltop—or any other wine-world apex? Start by landing a coveted spot on a winery’s allocation list. That first rung of the VIP ladder itself requires a certain display of largesse, but once you’re on, you have the distinct privilege of buying cases of wines months before other customers—and at lower prices than you’d pay via your local agent. In some instances, it also means you have access to special bottles that are never made publicly available.
But in the jewellery world, a realm in which the biggest houses produce only dozens of unique pieces annually but the pool of serious collectors is likewise more limited, keeping the VIPs happy takes on heightened importance. “A small number of customers can have a major impact on a jeweller’s business,” explains Robert Burke, a New York–based luxury consultant.
“These houses are doing everything to make their customers feel special and be excited to buy their collections.”
-Robert Burke
“We are in the business of emotion,” says Mercedes Abramo, CEO of Cartier North America. The house’s elaborate high-jewelry presentations for VIPs in glamorous destinations around the world are designed to forge a far deeper connection with clients than a mere boutique visit might achieve. When a client purchases a piece at one of these events, Abramo explains, “they will remember the moment every time they wear it.” Put another way, a bracelet may be far more meaningful when it comes with a personal story—and bragging rights that you bought it as one of a handful of elite guests at a Spanish palace or a château in the South of France.
But what if you’re just getting started on your climb up the ladder of luxury shopping? An entry-level VIP experience might be an exclusive local party. Last fall, Tiffany & Co. took over a $75 million art-filled New York townhouse to showcase its new designs, loose gemstones and the trophies it creates for the NFL, the NBA and the US Open tennis championships. Even the historic Tiffany yellow diamond was on display—and the company invited many elite customers in the Americas to take a look.
You know you’re moving up when you get face time with a chief executive. In September, Tiffany CEO Anthony Ledru hosted around 65 VIPs in São Paulo, Brazil, where guests previewed the newest high jewellery in one-on-one meetings. It was there that Tiffany sold one of its most expensive Bird on a Rock brooches to date. Typically, these pieces, which follow a 1965 design by Jean Schlumberger, are set with large citrines or aquamarine stones—and as a result are relatively expensive (this fall, 1stDibs was offering one for $140,000). But as the São Paulo example featured a fancy intense yellow diamond, its price was in the seven figures.
“I believe the future is more about intimacy, and it’s very hard when you have a very large setting,” Ledru says of the smaller events he stages higher up the VIP food chain. “We believe in small groups where you can truly interact with the clients and really spend time with them.”
Those targeted individuals are treated not only to fabulous trips but also to claims on the most rarefied pieces, which never find their way to the boutiques; they’re presented only to clients with demonstrated buying power and interest. During a Tiffany trip to this year’s Venice Film Festival, one couple made a major purchase—which may be why they were subsequently invited to a high-jewelry event in Dubai, where they happened to acquire an extremely rare red diamond. While Tiffany wouldn’t reveal its price, a similar stone sold for nearly $4.5 million at Christie’s two years ago. The couple met with Tiffany’s design team to turn the stone into a bespoke piece.
The highest echelons of VIP treatment are often marked by this level of collaboration between customers and craftsmen—because there’s nothing quite so exclusive as a one-off you helped design. In most cases, there’s an expectation of privacy around these elite transactions. The automotive world, which generates breathless speculation about who may have commissioned its unique editions, is famously tight-lipped about how it treats its best customers. Bugatti, which produces some of the most expensive cars in the world, makes paying a visit to its headquarters in Molsheim, France, an exercise akin to a papal audience. “We are not a museum and don’t offer tours,” says Cedric Davy, COO for Bugatti of the Americas. “You are only able to visit the factory if you are a customer, and we only receive one customer per day.”
Rolls-Royce isn’t quite so rigid. In the past, it has brought groups of VIPs to its factory in Goodwood, England, where in early 2022 a small gaggle of customers was invited to place orders for its forthcoming electric vehicle, the Spectre, months before the public even knew it existed.
But its top rung is reserved for the likes of car collector Michael Fux. By some accounts, the Cuban-born, New Jersey–based mattress magnate owns over 120 rare cars and has purchased 15 from Rolls-Royce. That devotion has earned him a direct line to the company’s design department and an entire palette of proprietary colours named after him, from Fuxia—his own shade of fuchsia—to Fux Jade Pearl. According to Martin Fritsches, president and CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars North America, Fux and others of his ilk receiving their commissions warrants “special occasions like Monterey Car Week for public delivery.”
Some high rollers may shy away from such overt displays but still appreciate being courted in an ultra-personalised way that taps into their passions. Boucheron, the French jewellery firm that counts the British royal family among its customers, recently hosted a client and family with an affinity for astrology for a private dinner under the stars at the Côte d’Azur Observatory in France. “To me, there is no point of living a lavish life and dying rich,” says Hélène Poulit-Duquesne, Boucheron’s CEO. “It’s only about gathering extraordinary experiences and loving memories.” Another example in the house’s bag of tricks: an overnight stay in the apartment above Boucheron’s historic Paris flagship store (from the bathtub, you get sweeping views of the Place Vendôme), a privilege bestowed by invitation only five nights a year.
Intimacy on this order grew in relevance in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, when most big events had to be cancelled. In response, Cartier invited select groups of VIPs to Jackson Hole, Wyo., (with the option of flying in on your own plane) for three days in October 2021 to view its Sixième Sens par Cartier high-jewelry collection staged in a modern house. Guests stayed in nearby homes and hotels and followed personalised itineraries that included fly-fishing, a fancy picnic and a horse exhibition. “It was exclusive but still down-to-earth,” explains Abramo, the North America CEO, who spent one-on-one time with each guest. “We were able to engage with clients who don’t want to go to a black-tie gala because it’s not their style.”
These types of elite events are reserved for the VIPs, the ones who spend seven figures on a single piece—and Abramo’s team makes sure the guest list is a mix of people who will be open to meeting others on a similar level. Those not keen on socialising receive a private after-hours showing at their local boutique instead, or a curated selection of jewels brought to their home or office.
Some invitations may be too good to pass up. Earlier this year, Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin threw a serious celebration at the Italian Embassy in Paris. Oscar winner Anne Hathaway and Priyanka Chopra Jonas were there, and Carla Bruni sang. Babin says such events underline the house’s connection to stars of the silver screen, including Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor, who were notable Bulgari clients in their time. And having their contemporary counterparts at the dinner table with clients is akin to a live-action marketing campaign. When a celebrity “is wearing a high-jewelry necklace across from you,” Babin says, “you can identify yourself as a potential owner” of the same piece.
Jewellery houses are also adept at determining a client’s spending potential and will take pains to do what’s needed to facilitate the progression to the next level. Lucy Guo, a Miami-based start-up founder and venture capitalist, was a guest at Cartier’s jewellery exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art in May and said the trip gave her a deeper appreciation of the brand. “Cartier really takes care of you and makes you feels special,” she says. Guo and a guest were given a driver for two days to take them to personalised activities, including the gala museum dinner. She returned home having bought a new diamond animal bracelet. Win win.
But while many luxury industries go to significant lengths to cultivate relationships with their best clients, at least one tends to take a contrasting psychological approach: Rather than offering cushy perks or throwing lavish fetes to flatter their best customers, watch companies make them jump through hoops to land the most exclusive products—and convince those clients that the process is an honour. Thanks in part to extremely limited production and an exponential increase in the horologically inclined, very few can waltz into a boutique and skip back out again with something new on their wrists.
You have to work for it: For the crème de la crème of watchmaking, a cross between a college application and an IRS 1040 may also be required.
To get hold of the latest Patek Philippe complications, clients must submit applications. Even being asked if you would like to apply is something of a feather in one’s cap: To be considered for the gatekeeping form, one must start with the brand’s entry-level Calatrava model and climb the ladder to more important pieces over the course of years to prove one’s fealty. The questions on the application can range from why you want to buy the watch to your job title (aka your means of income), and there’s even said to be a contractual promise not to resell it within a certain period.
For its most coveted releases, Panerai goes so far as to evaluate a client’s personality and fitness. To get one of the brand’s five-figure Xperience timepieces, you have to go on the affiliated high-octane adventure trip. One recent model, which included a climbing excursion with renowned mountaineer Jimmy Chin, had collectors clamoring for the chance to pay its $60,000 price tag—but North American brand president Philippe Bonay played hardball.
“We knew that one element [for a successful trip] was a certain level of fitness,” he says. Hear that? It’s the sound of more doors shutting.
On the flipside, in a bid to lure in fresh clientele, Audemars Piguet in 2022 started promising a reserve of Royal Oaks, its best-known and most-coveted model, to newcomers only. But with demand ultra-high, who gets on the first-timer list? “The right way to do it is actually very simple: create and develop a relationship with us,” says outgoing CEO François-Henry Bennahmias, making the catch-22 sound laughably straightforward. “When you don’t know anyone, you have to get known by our people, and eventually things happen.”
So the answer to becoming a VIP seems to be… time. Well, time and connections and taste and money and…
Additional reporting by Mike DeSimone, Jeff Jenssen, Viju Mathew and Paige Reddinger
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About Last Night: ‘Culinary Masters 2024’ Celebration at Song Bird
Highlights from the gastronomic extravaganza honouring Neil Perry as our standout chef of the year.
Robb Report ANZ hosted hosted a glittering event last night, feting Neil Perry as the standout chef of the year, at his new Double Bay restaurant, Song Bird.
Editor-in-Chief Horacio Silva fronted a packed room of titans of industry, influencers and gourmands for a gastronomic extravaganza staged over three floors.
Esteemed guests included C-Suiters Michael Saadie (NAB Private Wealth), Maria Lykouras (JB Were), Nick Hooper (Jacob & Co.) and Gretchen (Aware Super), as well as ASX Refinitiv Foundation’s Gerard Doyle, dashing adventurer/philanthropist Luke Hepworth and Atomic 212 founder Barry O’Brien. They savoured an exotic menu crafted by Perry, while enjoying exquisite Petaluma Yellow Label wines. They also got to admire stunning Jacob & Co timepieces and sample chocolates graciously provided by Gaggenau.
The menu featured produce-driven Cantonese specialties, such as delectable Wollemi Peking duck paired with Hoisin sauce, various condiments and homemade pancakes, as well as Abrolhos Island sea scallops elegantly presented on the half shell with vermicelli noodles and a dressing of black bean, garlic, and ginger.
The chicsters in attendance were among the first to experience the buzzworthy new restaurant, with the evening made possible by our fantastic partners Gaggenau, Jacob & Co., Petaluma Wines, NAB Private and Codigo 1530 (with support from Kanebridge Media, The Royal Automobile Club of Australia, Citizen K and ASX Refinitiv).
To be a part of next year’s 2025 Culinary Masters and other coming events, sign up to our weekly newsletter or visit https://robbreport.com.au/events/
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Quiet Storm
Ibiza’s more chilled side—yes, there is one—makes for the perfect backdrop for the new generation of Rolls-Royce’s game-changing Cullinan SUV. Let’s get this peaceful party started.
Every sunrise is a party in Ibiza. Indeed, often it seems like unadulterated hedonism is actively encouraged on the most infamous of the four Balearic Islands, a sun-draped paradise where dusk-to-dawn dance parties segway into swanky beach-club afternoons (often involving more dancing), enjoyed by a melting pot of wealthy international pleasure seekers whose sole aim is to party, and party hard.
While everything you’ve heard about this Mediterranean Bacchanalia by night is likely true, during sunlight hours, the isle tends to move to a slower, more tranquil beat. The laneways around the main hub of Ibiza Town (or Eivissa in Catalan) are populated with pink-skinned tourists who drift from A to B in large, meandering groups. Some are boozing their hangovers away; some are on the deep-fried tapas road to recovery. When they’re not lizard-lounging beside hotel pools, the remainder appear to spend daytimes overindulging their credit cards, either in the endless strips of shops or waiting in queues at the ubiquitous beauty salons, ready to glam-up for the big night ahead.
Streetside, market stalls selling mostly Asia Pacific-sourced “spiritual” paraphernalia are juxtaposed by edgy clubwear stores and high-end fashion boutiques. It may have surface-level notoriety, but Ibiza also enjoys a rich dichotomy; a place where travellers cosplay billionaires, and the billionaires live like bohemians.
This is far from big news to locals and those in-the-know. Since the 1950s, when the island became a haven for avant-garde artists and free-thinkers—notably during the Spanish Civil War—Ibiza has lured a certain type of one-percenter who’s keen to live by the codes of modern luxury but doesn’t want to do so in a flashy, gauche way.
It’s exactly the kind of niche customer that Rolls-Royce claims to intimately know as it launches its new, second-generation Cullinan here during a two-day media jamboree, aiming to not only evolve alongside its clientele but set the tone of affluence itself. Since its 2018 launch, the SUV has remained the crown jewel of the Rolls-Royce stable, a global bestseller that has become a go-to daily driver for many, largely because the promise that came with the vehicle was simple: effortless everywhere. It presents a different profile to the marque’s more formal town cars and coupes—such as the Ghost and Phantom—and offers a Rolls-Royce package that is more social, spacious and adaptable for all of life’s needs and all the roads one may want to travel—including the ones we’ll drive over the next 48 hours.
Our adventure begins around 30 minutes’ drive north of Ibiza Town’s party district on the quieter side of the island, the preferred base of many HNWIs who now call Ibiza home. We’re staying at the secluded Six Senses Resort, situated on the northern tip of the peninsula at Cala Xarraca. The immediate area is surrounded by nature trails, sleepy villages and expansive views of the Mediterranean Sea, while the resort itself has a private, pueblo-like feel, its terracotta buildings engulfed by beds of charming wildflowers. In this corner of the isle, for the right price, world-class DJs who spin at iconic island clubs like Pacha and Amnesia are available for house calls and famed chefs create intimate culinary moments behind closed doors. Enrichment can also be found through spirituality and emerging wellness experiences, such as grounding cacao rituals, sobriety coaching, sustainability education sessions and longevity-focused health clubs.
If you’re currently wondering what place a Rolls-Royce has here, remember that privacy and serenity are hallmarks of this storied brand. And in terms of high-level bespoke offerings, craftsmanship and a real-world view of sustainability focused on things made to last, few automotive brands on the planet can match the expectations of those who inhabit this island.
The next morning, we hit the road. Our initial drive takes us towards the west coast, passing charming white-washed villages, pine forests and olive groves that grow out of red dirt. Cullinan’s torquey, 6.75-litre, V12 engine leaps into action when called upon, and combined with the instinctive feel of the steering, manages to hide its somewhat behemoth size. Though the scenery is divine, the tarmac is undulating, but on the cliff-lined curves and uneven surfaces, the plush underpinning of the Rolls-Royce’s signature “magic carpet ride” ensures we barely feel a bump.
Arriving at our first destination, the marina of Santa Eulària des Riu (where a local informs us that the yacht flying a Dutch flag belongs to F1 driver Max Verstappen), the Cullinan cuts a commanding presence. And here, as our steed’s vibrant paint glistens under the Spanish sun, and its lines nod to those found in the mid-size yachts and chic speedboats in the harbour, it starts to make sense why this car would feel so at home in Ibiza.
Cullinan’s new exterior design has a fresh and sharper sense of verticality, evidenced in the more upright lines, crisp edges, and a more powerful-appearing illuminated Pantheon Grille. As someone who wasn’t that much of a fan of Series I’s appearance, these additions give the car more attitude, making for a pleasant surprise. Some dazzling new paint options are on offer too, such as Emperador Truffle. This minimalist, solid grey-brown was inspired by richly veined brown marble, and when combined with the bespoke “Crystal Over” finish, a lacquer infused with glass particles, elicits a mesmerising sunlight-like shimmer.
Before long, we embark on the next leg of our journey, towards Cala Jondal on the far south of Ibiza, best known for its buzzy, upscale chiringuito (the Spanish word for beach bar), helmed by Sevillian chef Rafa Zafra, formerly of the celebrated El Bulli restaurant. This time, we take an inland route, passing bewildered locals not used to seeing a Spirit of Ecstasy statue close up.
As fun as it is to drive, being a passenger in the Cullinan is an experience in itself. The deep-pile carpet is particularly transcendent, likewise the 18-speaker Bespoke Audio system with its 18-channel, 1400-watt amplifier. Who needs Pacha and Amnesia.
Relaxing on the back pews also gives us a chance to run our eyes over the car’s other interior highlights, not least the cityscape-inspired illuminated facia panel, made using a technique which involves 7,000 dots being laser-etched at different angles and depths onto darkened security glass, leading to a striking, multidimensional effect. Naturally, there’s the option to create your own motif in collaboration with the marque’s bespoke design team.
Speaking to customers’ desires for more boldness, there’s a range of new interior textile options, including an artistic leatherwork technique for the seats, dubbed Placed Perforation, whereby tiny perforations are made in the material to create a custom artwork design; plus, an alluring embroidered rayon fabric textile made from bamboo, a modern reimagining of the type found in historic Rolls-Royce cars. Its development was inspired by the bamboo grove of the Côte d’Azur’s Le Jardin des Méditerranées, a beloved spot of the marque’s co-founder Sir Henry Royce.
Rolls-Royce’s pleasingly pedantic approach to sweating the small stuff can also be seen in its use of an open-pore veneer called Grey Stained Ash, which took four years and six specially trained craftsmen to develop and is individually stained and arranged in a pattern to best suit each car.
This hands-on, artisanal ethos, however, doesn’t come at the expense of contemporary digital elements. The relatively small footprint of Rolls-Royce means it’s able to stay more closely connected with its clientele, and in the Cullinan, via a customer-only app called Whispers, the brand can stay in contact with customers and share new bespoke offerings, relevant lifestyle content and events.
After a dazzling lunch at Rafa Zafra’s beachfront Cala Jondal—which certainly should be first on Whispers’ list of hot dining spots—it’s time to make our way back to the airport and say a regret-tinged adios to the Cullinan.
Details play a role in the meaningfulness of a personalised car, and the stories they allow an object to tell. This is a particularly true at Rolls-Royce, where every car model is handmade to order; where one can select a moment in time and have it mapped out in stars on the roof; where you can bring a box of crystal champagne flutes and have them crushed and mixed into paint; or where you can request a veneer made from your favourite backyard tree as a child. The possibilities are infinite.
As we’ve seen over the past two days, embodying the spirit of an Ibiza-based billionaire might just come down to the unwavering pursuit of personal optimisation. Maybe that’s the bigger ideology at play here under the Balearic sun: that the Cullinan represents a unique kind of private hedonism, a euphoric moment between driver and machine. For now, though, the exhaustion from all the driving is taking its toll. Or maybe, just maybe, we’re tired from dancing into the night to the DJ who came to our private villa the night before. In one way or another, this island always captures you.
The Rolls-Royce Cullinan will be available in Australia in late 2024, price on application; rolls-roycemotorcars.com
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Only The Good Die Young
In a future of floating billionaire summits, do we really want to live forever?
Two thousand tech moguls, shamans, CEOs and DJs packed together on a cruise ship for what organisers call “invitation only, one of a kind experiences where super humans make magic”. What could go wrong? That’s the pitch for Summit at Sea, an event billed as a “floating Davos” for millennial technocrats, staged in international waters off Miami. But even if the marketing lingo sometimes threatens to sink under its own weight (“Wherever your gravitational force takes you, our constellation offers wonder”), Summit at Sea captures something about the zeitgeist of what billionaires are looking for now.
They want woo-woo; they want to microdose mushrooms, ketamine and LSD (as championed by the likes of Sergey Brin and Elon Musk), and they most certainly don’t want to die. This issue is about those issues. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel are among the squillionaires bankrolling longevity initiatives—presumably to live long enough to be able to spend all their money. But as Alison Boleyn reports in her first story for Robb Report, even those outré efforts—Thiel is said to receive blood transfusions from people under 25—pale when compared to venture capitalist Bryan Johnson, who reportedly spends $2 million a year on anti-ageing methods. For those of us who can’t afford eternal life, however, the good news is the world is still full of earthly delights.
Take the healthful effects of the Greek island of Tinos or driving the new Rolls-Royce around Ibiza, for example. We also check into an integrated wellness clinic in Thailand and a luxury resort in Spain that focuses on gut health—miso soup and a side of algae, anyone?—and luxuriate in Guerlain’s stunning new day spa outside of Athens. And we spend time with Rory Warnock, a breathwork practitioner and ultra-marathon runner whose tips for curing anxiety and promoting wellbeing are being sought by everyone from CEOs and Olympians to companies like Google and Bupa. And like us, he’s also partial to a well-made negroni. Oh, waiter? Maybe we’ll let the ship sail without us.
Robb Report ANZ’s Issue #38 is now on sale. Pick up your copy of our September issue for an invigorating upgrade for the mind, body and wardrobe.
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Forever Young
You’re born, you live, you get old—right? Well, not according to a growing legion of death-dodgers who are prepared to pay any price to reverse the ageing process.
It is, by any estimation, a meeting of strange bedfellows. Gathered here tonight, at the table of a centi-millionaire venture capitalist living in Venice, California, are Kim and Khloé Kardashian, Kris Jenner and the manfluencer-neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. And the reason this hybrid crew has assembled? Part evangelism, part investment drive, and mostly to discuss how to never, ever die.
The menu that evening—black lentils over drifts of veg with berry-strewn nut pudding—nodded to what the head of the table eats every single day, albeit in separate sittings and all before 11.00 am. Bryan Johnson, who sold Braintree Venmo to PayPal for US$800 million (around $1.2 billion) in 2013, now devotes his life and fortune to winding back his biological age. What he calls his “Don’t Die Dinners” manifest a trend in health and wellbeing where the vision of living to 120, 150 and beyond, has moved from anti-ageing scientists, elite athletes and tech eccentrics to a whole new level of celebrity.
“The two futurist topics everyone is obsessed with right now are artificial intelligence and living forever,” says neuroscientist and futurist Joel Pearson. “Interest in longevity has exploded over the last eight months and that’s because of Bryan Johnson’s Don’t Die campaign.”
In March, when doctors injected 300 million young Swedish bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into Johnson’s knees, hips and shoulders, it was in a clinic in the Bahamian resort owned by Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods. The 47-year-old—that’s in chronological years; his heart has the biological age of 37—consumes 32 kg of vegetables monthly and more than 100 pills a day, hits bed strictly at 8.30 pm and will repeat the MSC therapy next year so his joints match his already youthful bone mineral density. Other biomarkers show he has the cardiovascular fitness, muscle mass and nighttime erections of a fit 18-year-old. Johnson’s waking hours are devoted to a regimen of therapies and exercises continually recalibrated by a team of more than 30 doctors, with one goal: to slow down the ageing process. Or as Johnson is fond of saying: “Is death no longer inevitable?”
One of Johnson’s July dinner guests, the charismatic Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, has helped propel this notion of extreme longevity. Huberman Lab is Apple Podcasts’ most popular health and fitness show, and the 16th most popular podcast across all categories. His self-optimisation ethos appeals to the acolytes of the show’s manly backer, former UFC fighter Joe Rogan.
“It’s that bro science,” says Pearson, who heads the Future Minds Lab at UNSW and himself adheres to a routine of saunas, kava and red-light therapy to improve sleep. “It’s the young guys in the gym with the ice baths and the hormones and the hunting.” (Because testosterone declines in men starting from their 30s, attempting to boost the hormone through abstinence has become an ideology of a particularly butch patch of anti-agers; getting good-quality protein by shooting your own is another.)
DJ Steve Aoki (46, but biologically 33) has equipped his Las Vegas home with ice plunge tubs, saunas, pulsed electromagnetic field mats, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and a tea bar . He has “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” tattooed across his neck and says he’s signed up for “the full-body freeze”—the cryopreservation of his body for future revival.
While US-based futurist Dr Divya Chander says this euphoria around stretching longevity has not extended to women—“I think they still feel limited by their biology”—Hailey Bieber has shown that the gender divide might be shifting. On an episode of The Kardashians, the 27-year-old model (biological age unknown) underwent an intravenous infusion of NAD with her friend Kendall Jenner. NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a compound in the body that supports cellular process. “I’m going to NAD for the rest of my life and I’m never going to age,” Bieber said on the show. She was visibly joking yet Jennifer Aniston, 55, told the Wall Street Journal last year that she’s also used NAD+ IV drips, and Kourtney Kardashian, 45, calls her liquid form of NAD “the genetic key to longevity”.
The Sydney-based founders of UAre, an app designed to increase longevity, say that in the early years of testing, men and women responded differently to the product. “The conversation with men was more about winning,” says co-founder Marc Pasques. “‘I extended my lifespan by a year by doing more exercise’, or ‘I extended it by two’. Women talked about hanging out with grandkids.” But he goes on to admit that gap in motivation is closing.
UAre has just opened a $1 million seed round and forecasts $10 million in revenue in 2025 and $30 million in 2026. There’s money to be made in extending youth, if not eternal life. Bryan Johnson sells Blueprint basics for US$333 (around $495) a month. The Harvard biologist and author of Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To, David Sinclair (chronologically 55; biologically 42), who controversially advocates for resveratrol—a plant compound found in red wine and grapes—as an anti-aging drug and who says there are no limits to how long we can live, has co-patented a skincare line with Caudalie.
Professional services giant PwC argues that the oft-used estimate of the global market value of longevity therapeutics at around $65 billion by 2030 does not take into account the potential for these to replace conventional therapeutics in healthcare. Australia’s first medical facility to offer personalised longevity programs, Longevity Medicine Institute, opened in Sydney’s Double Bay in July. “People are coordinating their aesthetic care with longevity doctors,” says New York-based celebrity cosmetic dermatologist Dr Paul Jarrod Frank, whose clients include Madonna. “They’re using supplements like NAD, newer peptides and various manipulative efforts to try and look younger and live longer.”
Similarly Don Saladino, the personal trainer who’s shaped up Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, emphasises age-extending practices in his star clients’ programs as strongly as any aesthetic goals. As Ryan Reynolds readied himself to assume a “tight-as-hell” costume for this year’s Marvel movie Deadpool & Wolverine, Saladino coached the 47-year-old through better sleep practices, walking and increasing dietary fibre. He reframes strength training as not just body-sculpting but as creating “body armour” for later life, to prevent the falls so catastrophic for the elderly.
And Chris Hemsworth, who plays another Marvel superhero Thor, included efforts to stave off the onset of dementia through meditation and exercise alongside Arctic ice plunges in his bid to increase longevity in the TV series Limitless.
The man who was Australia’s deputy chief medical officer during the Covid-19 pandemic questions the lure of many supplements and longevity interventions. As host of the 9Network’s Do you Want To Live Forever series, Dr Nick Coatsworth visits Okinawa, a “blue zone” where an astonishing number of inhabitants live past 100 in good health. There he watches some local elderly dance to hip-hop. “All that biohacking people do, it’s just a waste of time,” he says. “To live longer, you have to spend time with good friends, keep moving and have a good diet.”
Joel Pearson, who stopped taking resveratrol and NMN supplements years ago after research showed mixed results, agrees. “If there’s compelling evidence showing frequent sauna users can get a 40 per cent drop in all-cause mortality, then why would you spend time worrying about a molecule that has very small effect?”
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Breathing New Life
Ancient cultures have used it for thousands of years to cure anxiety and promote wellbeing; now everyone from CEOs to Olympians are discovering the health benefits of breathwork.
Rory Warnock is not your typical new-age guy. When we meet him, he’s sipping a negroni overlooking the ocean at Casa Amor in Saint-Tropez, dressed in an open-neck shirt, expensive sunglasses and a jaunty Hermès silk scarf tied around his neck; no kombucha teas or healing-crystal necklaces here. His relaxed posture is a far cry from 10 days ago when he was preparing to run a 200 km marathon through the Tian Shan mountain range in remotest Kyrgyzstan. “I carried everything I’d need for six days in the mountains. My pack weighed 10.8 kg on day one, excluding water. And I surprisingly ended up coming third,” he says.
According to Warnock, this staggering feat of endurance was mainly down to one thing: breathwork.
Proclaimed as an all-natural wonder drug by an ever-growing chorus of scientists, doctors and fitness enthusiasts, breathwork describes the act of inhaling and exhaling in a way that brings an overwhelming, sometimes euphoric, sense of calm and balance to your body. Though it dates back thousands of years—evidence has been found to suggest the practice was adpoted in ancient India, and shamanic cultures in South America, Africa and Australia—modern-day breathwork broadly falls into two different categories.
The first is the mindful breathing that forms an essential part of yoga and meditation: alternate nostril breathing, or box breathing, are taught as simple physiological tools to downregulate the nervous system and move the brain from fight or flight mode. It’s believed these simple methods re-tune brain chemistry, by reducing the amount of noradrenaline to the organ—akin to popping Valium or taking a perfectly safe mini-tranquiliser.
The second is holotropic breathing, which is deep, transformative breathwork. Devotees says it’s more like taking a mushroom trip. Pioneered by Dr Stanislav Grof in the ’70s, it invloves laying on your back in the dark and following a sequence of breathing patterns as you’re guided by a trained facilitator—and is often set to music. It’s claimed that this more intensive work can yield powerful results by connecting to the subconscious, releasing accumulated trauma and accessing inner wisdom.
Nine years ago, Scottish-born Warnock took a risk. He traded working for a successful packaged goods company in London for a career as a breathwork coach in Sydney—long before his passion was an internet buzzword. The move, however, was not necessarily driven by financial motives. “I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at a pretty young age, like 21 or 22 years,” he says, taking another sip of his negroni. “I was pretty much crying myself to sleep for about three years and I didn’t really understand what was going on.”
Dissatisfied with being prescribed “a little white pill” by his doctor and given a “pat on the back”, Warnock began to look for new ways to heal his condition. “I tried to do everything I could to improve myself in a more holistic way and so I got into running,” he says. “I changed my lifestyle.”
And more significantly, he discovered breathwork, giving him a new mission in life. “When I first heard about it, I thought ‘breathwork’, that sounds a bit ridiculous. Someone is going to tell me how to breathe in a certain way and it is going to change how I think and feel and ultimately perform day-to-day? But I went along to one session and that one hour changed the direction of my whole life. I was hooked on the feeling. I was hooked on the immediate effects, hooked on feeling joyful, happy, strong, empowered.”
In person, Warnock’s enthusiasm is infectious, but his testimonials are, increasingly, backed up by science. A 2014 study by the Stanford Research Unit found breathing exercises to be effective for treating PTSD in combat veterans; and by 2016, US Navy seals started using breathwork to achieve calm and focus before battle. British neuroscientist Professor Ian Robertson calls it the “the most precise pharmaceutical you could ever give yourself, side-effect free”, while some researchers claim breathing exercises are an effective, low-cost treatment for PTSD, bi-polar, insomnia, and can even help combat grief.
The general public are buying into the movement, too; according to a report by the Global Wellness Institute, breathwork has experienced a 400 percent uptick in popularity since 2019. And, unsurprisingly, billionaire technology titans, who are always looking for the next big health panacea, are buying in. “It’s all very steeped in Silicon Valley tech culture,” said Jag Gill, a New York-based banker turned tech CEO in a recent interview with The Washington Post.
Dr Smita Dsilva is an ayurvedic doctor (ayurveda being an ancient Indian alternative medicine) at the RAKxa Integrative Wellness in Bangkok, Thailand, a clinic that received celebrity patronage in July when supermodel Kate Moss passed through. “Breathing exercises have been used for centuries as a powerful tool to manage stress and anxiety, increase focus, and improve overall wellbeing. In the high-pressure business world, this is a simple yet effective practice, she says. “Giving attention to the breath promotes the purification of both the mind and body, while also raising the energy. It also frees the mind from unnecessary thoughts that promote anxiety… regular practice can release up to 80 percent of the body’s toxins through the breath.”
And breathwork is not just an elixir for various negative mood states. According to Dsilva, the practise can also help with aesthetic issues: “Kapalbhati pranayama is a specific breathing technique in yoga that involves forceful exhalations and passive inhalations, engaging the abdominal muscles throughout the practice. The vigorous breathing and abdominal contractions help reduce bloating and support the removal of toxins, potentially leading to reduced belly bloating and weight loss.”
These findings will not be news to the clients who flock to Rory Warnock’s breathwork school in Sydney’s Bondi suburb. Or to the Olympic athletes, AFL players and CEOs who are huffing and puffing his studio door down on a regular basis. Most likely due to his soft Scottish accent and self-effacing manner, Rory has been adopted by a raft of high-calibre companies, including Google, Amazon, BUPA and Energy Australia, eager to learn how mindful breathing can bring better productivity to the workplace. He’s an ambassador for Apple and Lululemon, and has evolved into a seasoned conference speaker. Warnock’s brave career-change gamble has clearly paid off.
When he’s not teaching the world’s movers and shakers how to harness the power of something that we all do around 20,000 times a day without even thinking, Rory has gotten into the habit of bookending his year with long-distance races; for him, breathwork and ultra-marathon running are intimately linked. But he insists that mental issues can be addressed on a more prosaic level.
“You don’t have to go for a 45-minute yoga class or a run,” he insists. “You can just do a few minutes or even a few seconds of breathwork and you can move from a low state, to a better mood state. And it is exactly the same with anxiety; if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, there are breathing exercises you can do in real time to shift how you feel.” Negronis are allowed, too.
Rory Warnock; and discover Warnock’s breath lessons on Spotify.
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