Kim Jones Plans ‘Real Clothes’ For Fendi
“I want all my friends to go, ‘I want that straight away,'” says the designer.
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“It’s quite a neutral collection to start the ball rolling,” Kim Jones said of his hotly anticipated ready-to-wear debut at Fendi today during Milan Fashion Week. “It’s real clothes.”
Jones approached the fall 2021 collection with an extensive crawl through the Fendi archives, much reflection, and deep discussions with Silvia Venturini Fendi and his trusted inner circle of fashionable women.
He also applied his meticulous and methodical approach to revving up heritage brands, having racked up an impressive track record at Dunhill, Louis Vuitton and Dior, where he remains artistic director of men’s collections in addition to his new duties as artistic director of Fendi’s haute couture, ready-to-wear and fur collections for women.
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview in Paris, Jones spoke excitedly about his foray into women’s fashions, and the honour and challenge of taking up a role previously held for 54 years by fashion legend Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019.
It is understood Jones has harboured ambitions to design women’s wear for some time, and held discussions with Versace and Burberry in recent years. He closed his swan song show for Louis Vuitton in 2018 with Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell striding out in monogram trench coats.
Jones famously amassed an impressive collection of rare vintage fashions spanning some 500 pieces, which he recently donated to an undisclosed museum, and it includes seminal looks by Vivienne Westwood, Leigh Bowery, Rachel Auburn and others.
A preview look from Fendi’s autumn 2021 show, streamed during Milan Fashion Week. Simone Lezzi
“Women’s wear is something that I’ve always looked at because it was more interesting to research and look at women’s wear than it is for men’s wear,” Jones said, seated in his office at Dior. “And obviously, a lot of my friends are women, and they wear my clothes.”
His ambitions for the show do not include any grandiose artistic vision or revolutionary fashion statement.
He simply wants to make “clothes that women will want to buy. I’m not gonna lie. I think that’s what my job is. I want all my friends to go, ‘I want that straight away,’” he said.
Jones said he doesn’t like being compared to Lagerfeld, and who would, considering the German designer’s illustrious and unprecedented fashion career not only at Fendi, but also Chanel, Chloé, his signature fashion house and a staggering array of unexpected design projects, from pens and tableware to luxury hotels and condo projects?
“I think I have the same work ethic, you can ask Silvia at Fendi,” Jones said, allowing one commonality with a designer he respected and admired to the max. “He was always super nice to me.”
Yet Jones does echo Lagerfeld in his wholehearted embrace of the fashion industry’s furious pace, his just-shut-up-and-do-it ethos, and his acknowledgement that fashion, however creative and artistic, must always be at the service of a brand and its business imperatives.
“For me the customer is always number one. It’s something I learned from Yves Carcelle when I joined Louis Vuitton, and it’s something that’s always stuck in my mind,” he said, referring to the late Louis Vuitton chief executive officer who helped build the historic trunk maker into a global luxury powerhouse.
When some designers arrive at a house, they often erase what was done by their predecessor, wiping clean social media feeds and sometimes complete product lines. Not Jones, who enters a solid and sizable business, part of luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. He said he’s seen other designers “go into a house and completely change things around and then get stuck when nothing sells.”
“And that’s not my job,” he said, adjusting his face mask and occasionally taking a sip of Perrier. “I think it’s really important to respect what the house is, especially when you’ve got someone there whose name is actually across the door.”
Kim Jones Courtesy of Fendi
Jones comes into the role with immense respect and affection for Venturini Fendi, whom he met about a decade ago at a luxury goods conference, immediately striking up a friendship.
The British designer collaborated with Venturini Fendi, artistic director of accessories and men’s wear collections, and her daughter Delfina Delettrez Fendi, jewellery creative director, on his spring 2021 couture collection for Fendi, shown in Paris last month. He said it was equally important to have received positive feedback from Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, and his wife Hélène; as well as the past CEOs of Fendi, Michael Burke and Pietro Beccari, who attended the filming of the couture show in a modernist glass maze set in the Palais Brongniart.
“My two roles are to do my job for A, the brand, and B, for her. The value of the family is ever present, so I want them to be happy with it. You know, I guess that’s me. It’s not about my ego. It’s about doing a job.
“I’m sure Karl felt the same with brands that he did. Not that I’m referencing myself as Karl, but you know he did Chloé, Fendi and Chanel, all at the same time, and each had different signatures. And I think it’s possible to do that when you’ve got good teams at each house,” Jones said, recalling that when he operated his signature label from 2003 to 2008 after graduating from Central Saint Martins in London, he consulted with other brands to bring in more money. “You put on your different headset, something I’ve always been used to.”
Indeed, he declared that overseeing two luxury brands is “more fun. Doing three shows in two months is kind of great.” he said. “I’m not gonna lie, it’s been difficult doing it under lockdown. Because you know, I can’t go home for the weekend, or I can’t pop out somewhere for three days for a mini-break. You know, it’s just that you have to be in one place, and I’m not very good at doing that.”
Yet despite the trying circumstances, Jones insisted on readying a couture collection for spring — something Fendi had never done — because he had already masterminded his “Orlando” theme and preferred to get on with the job as quickly as possible.
“He knows how to blend his vision with the heritage of Fendi,” Venturini Fendi said in an interview, noting the Roman house is to mark its centennial come 2025. “His work at Louis Vuitton and Dior showed us that he knows how to respect and how to use this story as a starting point for his vision….It’s not just about Kim; it’s about the brand.”
In addition, “he’s also a voracious observer of the moment, of people, and what are people’s desires and what do people need,” she continued. “He’s very interested in knowing what they’ll want.”
When Jones arrived at the Roman house last autumn, Venturini Fendi accompanied him to the archive, and he settled on the oldest pieces: luggage, whose parchment and leather colours inspired the palette for his RTW debut. “It’s very elegant, it’s very neutral-toned, I would say very Fendi,” Venturini Fendi declared.
Although Fendi has enjoyed unprecedented consistency in its design office thanks to Lagerfeld, Jones said he sees the fashion image at the Roman house as “really malleable.”
A preview look from Fendi’s autumn 2021 show, streamed during Milan Fashion Week. Simone Lezzi
“They’re silhouettes that can be updated quite easily,” he said, also lauding its formidable legacy in leather goods. “When I look at all the houses, Fendi’s bags are the most unique across the group.”
For his debut RTW effort, Jones zeroed in on three groups of bags from the early ’90s — not including the Baguette, introduced in 1997 — to see how they are constructed, and he transferred elements from the hardware, stitching and details onto the clothes. That implies “lots of handwork” and “quite high price points,” but Fendi has customers who seek this, Jones noted.
While Jones is honoured and humbled to take on a design job previously held by Lagerfeld, he said he certainly doesn’t dwell on it.
“I just get on with my work, and I don’t think too much. I just think that it’s good to be really honest about that. Because, you know, if you do these jobs at this level, if you think about it too much, you could drive yourself crazy,” he said. “I think I’m doing really good work. And I’m not being arrogant by saying that, but I think anyone else that works in my position that’s doing as much would probably feel the same with themselves.”
Fendi is probably first and foremost known as a fur house, and Jones arrives at a time when Venturini Fendi was already grappling with a new way forward, given how fraught and complex the use of animal skins has become.
“We’re looking at ways of how we work that ethically and, you know, in a better way,” Jones said. “It’s too early for me to talk about.”
That said, expect some fur in the autumn 2021 collection “because there are customers that want it.”
Fendi is also known for tailoring, coats and dresses, which historically sell well, according to Jones. “I didn’t know a huge amount about the Fendi customer before, and I’m learning on the job,” he said. “But I’m surrounded by a studio full of women that are very passionate about clothing. And if every single woman in that studio wants the pieces that we’re designing, then that’s a good sign.
“It’s a funny brand, Fendi. You know it and you don’t know it,” he mused. “I’m looking at it in quite a commercial design aspect, really. And I wanted it to be a palate cleanser.”
When the British designer arrives at a brand, he likes to scope out new territory, and for Fendi he already spies opportunities in shoes, and a broader offering of dresses and clothing items.
“Just easy pieces,” he said. “It was very designed as a silhouette and now the modern market requires it be designed as singles.”
Knowing Fendi’s reputation for outerwear, something Jones loves designing, he felt it natural to create coats in double-face fabrics, of which he said Lagerfeld was not very fond. “So you know, really looking at things that are very Italian in their traditional craftsmanship, and playing around with those ideas.
“It’s nice to have a shift, but not a groundbreaking shift,” he said of his first collection.
Jones didn’t flinch when asked if Fendi is expected to grow under his watch.
“That’s my mission,” he said, while demurring to share any particular business targets. “I like to see people wear what I design, or the things I work on. I think there’s nothing bigger than the thrill of seeing a stranger buy and wear your product. And when I’m in the street and I see people head-to-toe [in Dior] in Japan, New York or L.A., I think it’s super nice. And it’s touching.”
Given travel restrictions that continue to shift, Jones has not settled into a schedule as he would in normal times, but he said he’s managed to effectively juggle demands at Fendi and Dior. “I have a core team that’s with me in both. And then I have two really good teams in both houses,” he said, describing both brands as having a “family” atmosphere.
“I feel like they’ve been taking me in as part of the family. I listen to what they say,” Jones said of Fendi. “I work for the brand. The brand is first.”
To be sure, he was thoroughly impressed with the capabilities of Fendi’s ateliers.
“It’s nice to see things be created in a different way in front of you. I think that’s probably what the beauty of women’s wear is,” he said. “The only thing that overwhelmed me a little was the sheer amount of embellishment and embroideries and all those things that you could possibly do. You know I’m very clear and concise in my work.”
For his new show, Jones plans to livestream a catwalk event at Fendi’s vast showroom space on Via Andrea Solari in Milan.
“I think people enjoy seeing the runway experience. I think it’s what they want to see, especially when you’re buyers buying clothes, virtually. Now they want to see how the pieces move and understand them,” he said.
That said, Jones is also eager to exalt the workmanship of his Fendi collections, which is why he released a dreamy 20-minute film about three weeks after the Jan. 26 couture show presenting the mood and detail of the clothes and accessories. “Because, you know, it’s quite easy for people to criticise things when they look at them online. When you see them in reality, you understand what goes into it. The savoir-faire and the techniques are really important.”
Jones has had a storied fashion career, with John Galliano snapping up his graduate collection. He initially launched a signature men’s wear label, and experimented with some women’s looks in 2004. Known for its sporty, streetwear edge, the Kim Jones brand lasted for eight seasons and attracted the attention of Dunhill, where he was creative director from 2008 to 2011.
Now a veteran of LVMH, Jones came on board in 2011 as men’s artistic director at Louis Vuitton, parlaying his zest for exotic travel into ultraluxurious collections with understated cool and sly functionality. He helped ignite the luxury streetwear phenomenon with the landmark 2017 collaboration with Supreme, the cult New York skate brand.
Since moving over to Dior Men in 2018, Jones has done collections with fine artists Peter Doig, Daniel Arsham, Kaws and Amoako Boafo, the surfwear maven Shawn Stussy, and Air Jordan. The latter yielded one of the most sought-after sneakers of 2020, the limited-edition Air Jordan 1 OG Dior.
Jones said some of the shapes from his debut couture collection will be felt in the autumn show, but he stressed that “the ready-to-wear is setting the pace for where it will go,” he said. “I think it’s always nice to start with a bang and then, you know, we’ll set a pace in a different way.”
Jones’ couture effort had a period flavour owing to the twin muses of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell, both members of the Bloomsbury Set. Yet multiple decades were referenced. Jones revealed that he looked at Lagerfeld sketches from the time when each of his all-ages models in the show were born.
But don’t expect anything retro or vintage-looking on the Milan runway. “The Fendi ready-to-wear I’m doing now is of our times,” he said.
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How the Most Rare and Valuable Watches Are Traded Among Elite Collectors
Some of the world’s most interesting watches spend decades being traded privately before we learn about them.
Before social media became the lingua franca of the watch world, there were forums. And on those forums, collectors—especially collectors of vintage Rolex—often traded timepieces amongst each other.
The advent of Instagram in the early 2010s, coupled with the explosion in interest in vintage timepieces, drew attention to this corner of the watch world, and with that attention came increased competition for the finest examples. In the case of six- and seven-figure watches, high-end dealers, like James Lamdin, founder and vice president of vintage and pre-owned watches at Analog:Shift, became trusted intermediaries, negotiating sales for pieces not once or twice but often multiple times as they made the rounds of the collector community.
“There are watches out there that may not be massively rare by reference, but are by example,” Lamdin tells Robb Report. “Tropical patina, ghosted bezel, or celebrity provenance—it’s that watch. When those watches go into a collection, usually it’s with the implicit understanding that they’re valuable and people will want them from you and will make you a profit when you sell them.”
The best dealers have built relationships with collectors around the world and often have first right of refusal when those pieces come back to market. But even still, the most coveted models can still slip through their fingers.
Eric Wind, of Wind Vintage in Palm Beach, Fla., has lost and found some of the world’s most storied watches. In 2015, when he was vice president, senior specialist at Christie’s in New York, Wind came across a “super rare” 1957 Audemars Piguet Ref. 5516 perpetual calendar that had languished in rural Florida until the nephew of the original owner consigned it to Christie’s. The first perpetual calendar wristwatch to feature a leap-year indicator, the piece was one of just nine made by Audemars Piguet in the 1950s. Wind considers it “the one in the best condition.”
He showed it to one of Christie’s better-known clients, Patrick Getreid, owner of the OAK Collection, who purchased it in 2015 for $545,000. In 2023, Getreid consigned it to Christie’s in Hong Kong. That’s when Wind decided to give the piece another shot.
“I had registered to bid on it but at the last minute, I got cold feet,” Wind continues. “It was starting kind of high compared with what Getreide had paid for it. I was bidding remotely from Florida, but when no one else is bidding, you’re kind of wondering if you’re a genius or a fool. Is there something everyone else knows that I don’t? The question was about market value. The watch ended up passing and I purchased it via private sale—or private treaty, as it’s known—after the sale. I had two clients who really wanted it. I offered it to both, but one was more ready to pull the trigger and he got it. It never saw the light of day.” That Audemars Piguet perpetual calendar, Wind says, “remains one of my top five watches on the planet.”
As he reflected on the piece’s winding journey, Wind considered his own role in its comings and goings. “It was fun to be part of the lifecycle of that watch, from when it was discovered in rural Florida and consigned to Christie’s, and then sold to a great collector, who sold it again,” he says. “I imagine it will come back to me at some point. I don’t know if it will be two years from now or 40 years.”
Another grail watch that Wind helped shepherd to a client was an exceptional Paul Newman Rolex Daytona Panda reference 2623 with a full set and a tropical dial that was sold by a small Swedish auction house just under a decade ago. “Another dealer got it,” Wind explains. “I was still at Christie’s, and I fell in love with the watch. This dealer who had it for a year then sold it to an Italian dealer, who then sold it to a collector in Asia. I was tracking the watch on Instagram and saw the collector post it. By that time, I had become a dealer.
“I made an offer to the collector to purchase it on behalf of my client,” he adds. “It had been owned by a Swedish boat captain and had been given to him by the family he worked for, the equivalent of the Rockefellers in Sweden. We had to arrange shipment to the U.S. by Malca-Amit armored transport. Whenever these high-value watches move around, you have to deal with armored shipments, customs, proper transportation, and a lot of paperwork. It takes some time but it’s well worth it.”
Both the AP perpetual calendar and Daytona were original and unpolished—“the kind of watches I look for,” Wind says. “It’s funny how watches circle around. Within the high-end watch world, we’re not talking about thousands and thousands of watches. We’re talking about a relatively small amount of great watches.”
Eric Ku, a high-end vintage dealer in Northern California, certainly knows the drill.
About 15 years ago, he was offered a first-of-its-kind 1996 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona “Rainbow” reference 16599 in white gold on a leather strap.
“I’ve been hunting jeweled Rolexes for a really long time, before it was a cool thing,” Ku, cofounder of the online auction site Loupe This, says. “The watch first surfaced to me around 15 years ago. It was offered to me by a dealer in the Middle East and was coming from, allegedly, a member of a royal family. At the time, the pricing was completely different than it is today. After going back and forth, I offered $130,500 and the seller wanted $136,462. I lost the watch. I was gutted. I’d been stalking the watch. But at the time, relative to the market, it didn’t make sense for me. It was a really tough time, might have been around the financial crisis. I felt confident it would come back to me, but it didn’t.
“Then, in 2012, Rolex introduced its new rainbow Daytona,” Ku says. “I had no doubt about the authenticity of the watch I’d lost out on, but seeing the new rainbow Daytona completely validated me and erased any scintilla of a doubt that I had about the watch. Fast forward a couple years: The watch was offered to me again privately, by a different person in the Middle East at a significant multiple of the original offering—let’s say in the mid six-figures. I bought it.”
In 2017, Ku sold the watch to an important collector based overseas, “a person of very high taste and connoisseurship who appreciated the rarity of that watch,” he says. The collector, by Ku’s reckoning, also appreciated the story of its journey. “Dealers and old collectors always like trading war stories,” he says. “What’s the one thing that got away and then it came back? The collector got sold on the story.”
Now, the watch is coming back to market on Nov. 8 at Phillips Geneva, where it’s being offered in a sale dedicated to neo-vintage timepieces (Reloaded: The Rebirth of Mechanical Watchmaking 1980-1999) and is estimated to fetch in excess of $5.93 million.
“It’s probably the sexiest watch of the season,” Ku says.
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Champagne Bollinger Just Released a Limited-Edition, James Bond–Inspired Bubbly
The Champagne Bollinger 007 Goldfinger Limited Edition comes with its own carrying case and glasses.
When it comes to drinks, James Bond may be best associated with a martini—shaken, not stirred, of course. But the secret agent has been known to enjoy a glass or two of bubbly as well.
Champagne Bollinger has long been the Champagne of choice for Bond, and now the house is honouring that relationship with a special-edition bottle that commemorates the 60th anniversary of Goldfinger.
Whether you’re a Bond fan or a Champagne connoisseur, the $5,950 Champagne Bollinger 007 Goldfinger Limited Edition package is meant to appeal to both sensibilities.
The star of the show is the Champagne, of course: Here, Champagne Bollinger is offering a 2007 vintage Magnum, made from hand-picked grapes and aged 17 years in the house’s cellars. Spicy aromas on the nose are contrasted with notes of fruit, brioche, and honey. The Champagne has been packaged in a bespoke Globe-Trotter Air Cabin Case and comes with four Champagne Bollinger 007 glasses in which to enjoy the bubbly. Limited to just 200 individually numbered pieces, it’s a true collector’s item.
Champagne Bollinger has enjoyed a lengthy relationship with the James Bond franchise, dating back to when Roger Moore popped the first bottle in 1973’s Live and Let Die. Since then, the two have become almost inseparable, and Champagne Bollinger is proudly being served at the very first official James Bond bar, which just opened in London. If you can’t snag the limited-edition set for yourself, you can at least imbibe in a glass of the good stuff at the 007 at Burlington Arcade.
That bar and the special Champagne Bollinger package are all part of the festivities celebrating 1964’s Goldfinger. The film and Bond’s ensuing legacy have established him as one of the biggest (fictional) names in the luxury world, with his love of expensive watches, fast cars, and fine spirits.
While it’s unlikely that many of us can channel the special agent when it comes to his escapades and hijinks, we should delight in the fact that we can embrace our inner Bond by sidling up to the 007 bar or throwing back a glass of the Champagne Bollinger 007 Goldfinger Limited Edition. It’s exactly how our favorite M16 agent would want us to honour him.
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Golden Touch
Discretion is the better part of glamour at the glittering Maybourne Beverly Hills.
Los Angeles does not want for star wattage, but for years now, the city’s hotel scene has been a little lacklustre. So news that the beloved Montage hotel has been completely redone under the Maybourne brand (the British powerhouse that operates Claridge’s, The Connaught, and Berkeley Hotels in London, and the recently opened Maybourne Riviera on the Côte d’Azur) should come as a boon to Australians looking for a new Tinseltown bolthole.
Situated within Beverly Hills’ famous Golden Triangle, just north of Wilshire Boulevard and Four Season’s Beverly Wilshire, and one block from the world-renowned luxury retailers, restaurants and celeb-spotting of Rodeo Drive, The Maybourne Beverly Hills offers a chic retreat from the designer flexing at its doorstep; a rare escape in the heart of this storied enclave that flies under the radar like a cap-wearing celeb dodging the paparazzi.
Set amid the manicured, Mediterranean-style Beverly Cañon Gardens plaza, which unfolds from the hotel’s west entrance, the new incarnation of Montage Beverly Hills (55 suites and 20 private residences, each with a balcony or patio with a courtyard or city view) still evokes the grand estates of Old Hollywood while feeling like you’re in a European mainstay.
Revealing a restrained new guestroom and suite design by Bryan O’Sullivan, a blue-chip art collection and some of the most solicitous staff in town, the Maybourne speaks in a laid-back Californian accent but still holds true to the luxury touchpoints of five-star service for which one of the world’s most exclusive neighbourhoods—and hotel brands—is known.
“It’s reassuringly British when it comes to service—it’s a culture of yes,” says Linden Pride, the Australian restaurant and bar owner behind the award-winning Caffe Dante in New York and Bobbie’s, the new speakeasy opening this month below Neil Perry’s new Song Bird restaurant in Sydney’s Double Bay (page 40). Pride should know; he lived at the Maybourne for almost a year while he and his partner, Nathalie Hudson, set up Dante, the stunning new restaurant and bar on the hotel’s ninth-floor rooftop. “Looking out from the roof onto lemon and olive trees, it’s easy to forget that you’re in Southern California, not Europe.”
Opened last year, Dante has quickly become one of the hottest reservations in town, luring in celebrities from Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin to the entire Real Madrid soccer team. Like its sister outposts in New York (besides the Greenwich Village original, a West Village location opened in 2020), the focus here is on non-threatening antipasti and aperitivi in a produce-driven menu of fresh familiar stalwarts, with the addition of wood-fired dishes from a giant pizza oven at the heart of the room. Just as it does in New York, a negroni cart does the rounds, and each afternoon is welcomed with a martini happy hour.
It’s all fittingly Cali-chill. The only drama in the place is a striking ceiling fresco by Los Angeles artist Abel Macias, which dominates the 146-seat room. “Nathalie and I had just been to Europe when we decided to open up here,” Pride recalls, “and the Sistine Chapel blew us away. When we saw the domed ceiling in this room it was a no-brainer.”
Dante joins a string of newcomers in the area, including New York transplants Café Boulud, Marea and Cipriani. Don’t look now, but with arrivals like the Maybourne and Dante, one of the world’s stuffiest cities—yes, Beverly Hills is its own 14.8 km² metropolis—might just be entering a new golden age.
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Hibiki 40 Year Old Resets the Bar for One of Whisky’s Most Exalted Names
The legendary blender reasserts itself in the industry’s uppermost pantheon with its oldest and rarest blended release ever.
Over the last decade, whiskies from Suntory’s famed Hibiki stable have gone from a top-shelf staple to the new byword for luxury in the increasingly rarefied world of Japanese whisky. As stocks of its famed age statement blends drew ever lower, the air of exclusivity around the distillery grew and grew – something that has stuck around even as the brand’s new flagship blend, Harmony, became more readily available once more.
It’s becoming clearer, however, that Hibiki still has a few exceptional tricks up its sleeves. Twenty-one and 30-year-old age statement whiskies have released in the past few years to critical acclaim, confirming that Suntory still has some particularly rarefied output yet to unveil. Now, in the brand’s boldest move yet, a 40-year-old blend is set to hit the market in extremely limited quantities, taking Hibiki’s already lofty benchmarks of rarity and lineage to new heights.
As with Hibiki’s other blends, Suntory’s Chief Blender, Shinji Fukuyo, has spent years perfecting a blend that brings some of Japan’s oldest and finest spirits into perfect harmony – achieving a smoothness and complexity that takes the brand’s hallmark qualities to a new plane. Single malts from Yamazaki, Hakushu, and Chita all feature, having been individually aged for four decades to form a true expression of the place they were made, before making their way into the final blend.
Truly a multi-generational blend, Hibiki 40 Year Old is designed not just as an expression of the skills and expertise passed down through generations of individual distillers, but that of Fukuyo’s forebears, legendary Suntory blenders Shingo and Shinjiro Torii.
The result is a final liquid rich with sweet fresh fruit, light citrus zest, and spice, supported by a luxurious undercurrent of acacia honey and dried fruit. Each crystal bottle is adorned with a mother-of-pearl inlay and decorated with a handcrafted label from Japanese washi artist Eriko Horiki.
While age statement single malts in the four- and five-decade category have become increasingly the vogue in recent years, never before has a blended whisky been attempted with such old stock—a unique challenge for its maker.
“Behind the elegance and bloom that is typical of Hibiki, there is a sense of subduedness,
like that of an old temple, and a wabi-sabi patina due to the long aging process,” says Fukuyo. “I would like people to enjoy the pure and pure aroma that has been sharpened over the years; the tranquility of old temples and storehouses and the nostalgic warm feeling that accompanies them.”
Limited to just 400 bottles, Hibiki 40 Year Old will release on October 4th, with bottles retailing at $75,000.
Australian fans of the brand will have the unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the Hibiki 40 Year Old experience, including a taste of the exalted liquid, at an exclusive event at Clare Smyth’s Oncore on October 24th, 2025. Tickets are available for $1,800 per person.
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White Lotus-ing? How Hit Films and TV Shows Are Inspiring Elite Travelers to ‘Set-Jet’ Across the Globe
It’s not just The White Lotus. Prestige TV and blockbuster films set in far-flung destinations are driving bookings like never before.
“As seen on TV” may have lowbrow connotations, but the recent glut of award-winning shows and films set in alluring, far-flung locations is causing an unprecedented run on the world’s best hotels. Call it set-jetting: planning your vacation around a destination featured in a popular series or movie. And while romantic suites and beloved characters have gotten people on planes since the golden age of film, what has changed is how central beautiful venues have become to plots.
“The way that The White Lotus used the destination to tell the story was really unique,” says Misty Belles, an executive at the global travel-adviser network Virtuoso. It also made its settings—the Four Seasons resorts in Maui and Taormina, Sicily—nigh un-bookable. And it’s hardly the only example: “Paris wasn’t hurting for eyes, but Emily in Paris showed the city in a more playful way,” Belles notes. “And people weren’t exactly flocking to Richmond before Ted Lasso.”
Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix
The trend is so strong that a property doesn’t even need to be connected to a show to benefit from its boom. Henley Vazquez, cofounder of the New York–based travel agency Fora, points to Bridgerton’s impact on English estate hotels.
“Heckfield Place [used to be] a hard sell,” she says of the five-star Georgian mansion in Hampshire. “Now, people are dying to go there. It wasn’t featured in Bridgerton, but it’s just that kind of place.”
Others insist on the real deal. Jennifer Schwartz, managing director of Authentic Explorations, works with one family to build trips based on the Game of Thrones universe.
HBO
“They went out of their way in Portugal” to visit Monsanto, the setting for Dragonstone in House of the Dragon, she notes. “It’s definitely a criterion on which they choose where they want to vacation.”
For travelers who want more than simply to follow in their favorite character’s footsteps, London’s Black Tomato takes things several steps further. Since 2023, it has planned high-octane itineraries based on the James Bond franchise and works with the films’ producers, Eon Productions, to make you feel like an MI6 agent. (Some trips even offer lessons with Daniel Craig’s stunt double, Lee Morrison.)
The 007 success has inspired more such trips. “We’ve just recently launched itineraries inspired by Yellowstone and Ripley, focusing on Montana and Wyoming and Italy, respectively,” says cofounder Tom Marchant.
Netflix
Still, it’s important to remember that sharp camerawork—and editing—accounts for a lot of the on-screen magic. Schwartz, of Authentic Explorations, notes that “the White Lotus hotel” in Sicily is “not super accessible, but it’s filmed as if the beach is right there.” In reality, the shore club from the show’s second season is 133 miles away. “People go to the place and they’re like, ‘You have to get in a car to go to the beach? What do you mean?’ ”
So where shouldn’t you go? Netflix’s The Perfect Couple will likely send hordes to Nantucket next summer, and The White Lotus’s third season, set on the Thai island Koh Samui, has already caused a local spike—and it’s not even on the air yet.
Bookings of Virtuoso’s properties in the region are up 38 percent since the show was announced. Luckily, Belles says, the effect doesn’t linger. “We typically see a good two-year impact on a set-jetting destination.”
