Will Suits Make A Return To The Office?
Autumn runways saw the welcome return of tailoring – but where to from here after a lengthy and casual stint working from home?
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One year ago, the men’s retail community was all abuzz at the prospect of tailored clothing rebounding as streetwear started to wane.
Fast-forward to 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic stopped business in its tracks and left everyone working from home in tracksuit pants.
So when the situation finally normalises and men are able to return to their offices — whenever that may be — will the once-expected popularity of tailored clothing become a reality, or a lost opportunity?
Designers and retailers remain upbeat, expecting pent-up demand to spur sales of suits and sport coats as guys happily ditch their work-from-home attire and get dressed up when they can finally get back to the office.
“Guys inherently like to get dressed up,” said designer Joseph Abboud.
Dressing well helps men feel powerful, and considering how out of control the world has felt in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, a suit is an easy, but highly visible, statement.
But it won’t be his grandfather’s suit. Instead, the power suit of 2020 will be more comfortable with technical attributes such as stretch, antimicrobial properties, antiwrinkle and other performance features. The contemporary silhouette is often oversize, double-breasted and boxy with retro Nineties references, while some guys may pair it with everything from upscale T-shirts to sneakers.
Designers Dish on Tailored’s Return
For Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, today’s tailored clothing is much less formal than in the past.
“I believe that the sense of intimacy behind the art of tailoring is what matters,” he said. “I want to dismiss the idea of formalwear as a uniform by making it more sensitive and romantic. I think a man has to change his perspective and take away some formalities from the formal. Formalwear has evolved by eliminating the bossiness that has always characterised it.”
Alessandro Dell’Acqua, founder and creative director of No. 21, also sees a new reality for tailored clothing, particularly in light of the pandemic.
“I really think that after long days spent at home wearing super comfortable pieces, men will definitely be willing to return to wearing suits or more sartorial designs,” he said. But the suit is not traditional. Instead, he said, “I imagine a revisited formal suit influenced by feminine elements, as well as characterised by intentional mistakes. An example: the double-breasted blazer will be completely unlined and maybe paired with shorts or with slim-fit pants. In addition, coats will be deconstructed, striped shirts will be sleeveless and knitted tops will feature one-shoulder cuts. To sum up, I imagine a slim, elongated silhouette, not touched by streetwear and sportswear references.”
Sir Paul Smith said he is “already dreaming of the day I get back to work properly and I’m looking forward to getting dressed up in a suit, shirt, tie and proper shoes, in a way I haven’t done for years. So many people will have spent so much time trapped at home in their casual home clothes, I think we’ll see an interesting return to getting dressed up and feeling special. For me that’s definitely helped by the elegance of a good suit.”
For Smith, today’s suit “is definitely divided into two quite distinct categories. There is the suit as we’ve known it in recent years: it fits the body, it’s smart and elegant in a more traditional manner and it’s worn with a tie and leather shoes. Then there is the suit that everybody has been talking about this season: the more relaxed, softly constructed suit, sometimes in colour, with more volume and worn in a more alternative way whether with a T-shirt, trainers or otherwise. And so, the suit for me has an enormous relevance this winter but the choice is yours which one you select.”
Sander Lak, creative director of Sies Marjan, too, believes men will be itching to get dressed up again as soon as they can.
“We have actually been talking about this a lot, as many of my team members have joked about living in their sweats and I think we are all getting a bit sick of it. I think after we no longer have to social distance, everyone will be racing to the bars and restaurants and exploring the rest of their closets. I think that there is a way to still dress relaxed, and comfortably without having to live in your sweatsuit.”
Lak added: “In a way, part of the Sies Marjan uniform has been relaxed items such as our fluid cord pieces. You don’t have to sacrifice comfort to dress up, so I do think people will incorporate that idea into their day-to-day [lives] after this is over. I also think that we will embrace and appreciate those moments of getting dressed up for a dinner at our favourite restaurant or dressing up to go to a play or putting on our favourite suit to go to the office. The rest of our wardrobes are screaming, ‘Wear me!’”
Pierre Mahéo, founder and designer of the Paris-based Officine Générale brand, said he believes tailored clothing “has already taken over the momentum of streetwear. This was evident when some of the most iconic streetwear brands included suiting in their collections and on the runway during men’s fashion week last June.”
And even though he doesn’t believe everyone will immediately jump to wearing suits or jackets, he sees “a progressive curve.”
“When quarantine is over, I don’t believe we’ll be seeing sleepy zombies wearing sweats to work all the time. Going out and getting dressed is something we are all waiting for.”
But the tailoring will be different than in the past. “Tailored clothing was certainly a big trend on the runway. I think tailoring will be back, but not in the literal way. It will be in a much cooler, creative way. I think guys will play and mix up their tailored clothing — it’s the only way to make a suit cool again. I don’t think guys want to wear a suit in the Gordon Gekko way. It has to be dressed down, with a touch of nonchalance, getting rid of the serious part of it.”
Heron Preston, who has been a leader of the streetwear movement, said his most recent collection includes more tailoring. “I think that is because we’re experiencing the maturing of a generation of designers, creatives, and fans. We all grew up a bit and started to appreciate more than just T-shirts and denim, and the collection is a reflection of that real-life process. That process also presented an exciting opportunity to evolve my perspective by adding twists on conventional and traditional designs. It was a creative exercise to take what was meant for the office and envision it on the streets, to loosen up ‘formalwear’ and wipe it free of corporation through a filter of culture.”
Paul Smith Men’s Autumn 2020
Preston said he hopes that when the pandemic passes, “people come out of this with changed perspectives, and I think that fresh mind-set will be apparent in our approach to fashion. When we came out of the last recession, people went back to the basics and more practical clothing. I think when we come out of this time, people will be wanting to get behind brands that stand for something. I think tailoring will be important because we are hurting economically and people are looking for jobs, but I am hoping that we don’t all just replicate what we were doing before. I think we’ll be looking for creative ways to evolve the system, be it changing our buying habits, reprioritising elements of our lives or simply finding styles that deconstruct traditional.”
He believes that people are “realizing all the trivial things that we took for granted and we will hopefully come out of the other side with a new vantage point, a reset perspective toward the world. I think this can also be applied to fashion in that we will reset all this noise that we have been creating. This has been an equalizing experience, and going back to basics will make it easier for people to relate to one another once this is over.”
Willy Chavarria also believes the impact of COVID-19 will be long-lasting. “Going out in public is more precious to us. It will be from now on,” he said. “We will want to look better and feel better than we have throughout the duration of the crisis. For this reason, we will embrace tailoring, but it will be worn differently. We will have a more sensitive and relaxed approach in the way we present ourselves.”
Chavarria said that after experiencing loss, everyone will have “a new sense of values which I think will guide us away from opulence and more toward a gentler way of being. The mixing of casual with tailored will be more ever-present. Even now I find myself getting dressed to look good even if just to get Clorox wipes and pasta.”
Chavarria’s Autumn’20 collection consists of almost all tailored styles, he said, and uses recycled materials. “It is a eulogy for the world as we once knew it.” The presentation and video that he hosted to show the collection actually turned out to be a “foreshadowing of what was later to come,” he said. “When I designed it, I was sad for the world. I felt that in many ways man was a lost cause. But now, I actually find inspiration in the way that man is getting a slap across the face and being forced to wake up. Fashion will reflect this feeling.”
Patrick Grant, designer and owner of Norton & Sons, E. Tautz and Community Clothing, said: “I imagine people will be longing for an opportunity to get dressed up a bit, with a bit of distance. It might be that ath-leisure reminds them of lockdown wear. Trying to predict what people will feel is too tough of a question, but I do think this is an opportunity for everybody to reflect on the way we live. And in fashion, things move in cycles. The pendulum swings in one way, and then all the pioneers, the Virgil Ablohs and the cool kids were all into one thing. But when everyone else piles in, they go the other way.
“If you are a cool guy, you don’t want to be wearing the stuff everyone else is wearing. I’m a person who’s into clothes, and I know that I just get bored. I got bored with slim, fitted suits, that’s why we went to looser and baggier suits. Tailoring has moved on a lot, it feels very different now. It’s back to this really nice ‘Miami Vice’ vibe, which I really like. It feels fresh. Ath-leisure doesn’t feel fresh to me, it feels like every single teenage boy on the streets of England wearing black Nike trainers, black sweatpants, black top. It’s kind of boring.”
But not everyone thinks the pandemic will immediately boost interest in tailored clothing.
According to Palm Angels founder and creative director Francesco Ragazzi, “People will have a bigger desire to take care of themselves at all levels. I think this will also impact the way people will dress, but I don’t think that the sartorial suiting will be the answer to this crisis. I hope that consumers will rediscover quality, will look for beautifully crafted products, giving more attention to fabrics and yarns, one of Italy’s true excellences. I think this might be the answer.”
He said he hopes that fashion in the future “will be less driven by trends, but that it will be more connected to reality. I don’t think that suiting really reflects the moment we are living or what we will experience in the future. And I think this ‘future’ will last for many months.”
Mike Amiri, founder and designer of the Amiri label, weighed in: “Evolution of all things is natural and necessary. The spirit of curation within streetwear will simply evolve into finer things. Easy tailoring mixed with new fabrications, relaxed proportions, and novel details feels like a natural progression.” He added that the “relaxed nature of sweatpants and comfort clothing” guys are becoming so fond of during the virus, “will now be an addition to the elevated street wardrobe. However, it would be paired with a beautiful coat or leather jacket — a perfect mix between both leisure and luxury.”
Daisuke Obana, founder and designer of N. Hoolywood, also believes the pandemic will drastically change the way people think about clothes. “Even tomorrow is unpredictable,” he said. And while he showed a lot of tailored clothing in his last collections, he’s just not sure how it will all shake out. “In the first place, easy wear will be inevitable. I guess people will be creative and wear what’s in front of them for a while. And the stylish person will play with accessories and styling, Or they will have no interest in fashion at all. I have no idea.”
For Abboud, when things finally return to some sense of normalcy, he believes consumers will seek “comfort and safety” in both their lives as well as their wardrobes. And he’s not expecting tailored clothing to be the immediate beneficiary of this trend.
“When we came out of financial crisis of 2009, the last thing to come back was men’s wear,” he said. Guys were quick to take care of their children and their wives as well as responsibilities such as mortgages. Their wardrobes had to wait. “Clothing tends to be the last thing out.”
And custom clothing, a saviour of a lot of men’s wear manufacturers pre-COVID-19, is expected to have a particularly tough time. “The custom business will take a halt,” Abboud predicted, saying the category will be viewed as “conspicuous consumption,” a major no-no with all the unemployment and angst sweeping the world.
That being said, Abboud does expect the softer side of the clothing market — unconstructed sport coats, sophisticated pants with technical attributes, and shirts with stretch and antimicrobial features — to be the first place men gravitate when they do start shopping again. “The softer side of tailored clothing will thrive more quickly,” Abboud said.
Brands See Bright Future For Suits
Some of the more-traditional tailored clothing brands also — not surprisingly — claim to be optimistic about what the future holds in terms of the sector, but they too have evolved to meet the demand of a modern customer.
Tom Kalenderian, strategic adviser to Ermenegildo Zegna in the U.S., said “there will definitely be a change when we get back to reality.” And part of that change is that men will embrace getting dressed up again once they can retire their work-from-home sweatpants.
For him, even though many offices have relaxed their business dress codes, guys will still wear suits. “Men are going back to suits by choice,” he said. “They like the way it makes them look and feel. It has a serious and successful connotation.”
But instead of the uniform of the past, men are breaking apart the suit and pairing it with more casual shirts or pants, especially younger men.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis hit, 2020 “was poised to be a great year for tailoring,” Kalenderian said, and Zegna is prepared with options that range from high-end couture to wash-and-go suits. Its City suit project is targeted to younger guys with a slimmer silhouette and fabric and colour options that speak to the needs of a modern wardrobe.
“City suits can be worn with or without a tie or mixed with sophisticated leisurewear underpinnings for a ‘smart casual’ attitude that feels right both for business and leisure moments,” Kalenderian said.
Zegna is also embracing the sustainability movement, with more natural and technical fabrics that are intended to be reused as well as reusable, he said. That includes this Autumn’s introduction of regenerated suits from Zegna’s Achill Farm that are made from wool remnants discarded during the production process that are remixed and rewoven.
Roberto Compagno, chief executive officer of Slowear, said the brand has been moving toward a more comfortable way of dressing for some time now through the use of technology and performance fabrics that “need no ironing, that stretch, that are antibacterial, that don’t crease. This moment accelerates that process, and you can be informally elegant in a new way, wearing a suit that is comfortable and less traditional. It’s inevitable — look at what happened to hats and ties, which were considered musts in the past.”
Stefano Canali, CEO of the family-owned Canali company, agreed. “The pandemic is accelerating a trend that was already evident, a search for comfort, which derives from the materials, the construction of the clothes. When this is over, there will surely be a desire to buy less, but better, there will be more sobriety and a desire to turn to brands that are known for their authenticity, history and credibility, with high value for money, quality and durability with the right stylistic approach. The power suit will be represented by suits that are not rigid, more stretch and that have a lighter construction. The jacket will be increasingly important, but it will be lighter, thin, deconstructed. It will have a cocoon effect, responding to a need for comfort blended with quality. It will all be smart casual as the differentiation between formal and informal is increasingly less sharp.”
Hermès Men’s Autumn 2020
Anda Rowland, owner of Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard, has also seen a return to a more tailored aesthetic brewing for a few season. “What we have seen with some of our best dressed younger customers is a mixture of tailoring and streetwear. Customers are more adventurous with their cloth choices and may choose less formal materials such as heavy cottons, jerseys or corduroys and brighter colours rather than the classic worsted wool cloths. Flannels work well as they can be dressed slightly less formally.
“We believe that the general trend toward more structured men’s clothing and toward mixing streetwear/ath-leisure with tailoring will continue despite the current disastrous situation. Many of our customers wear their tailored clothing for social occasions and out of work as dress codes at the office are far more relaxed and they will continue to be when normal life resumes.”
Although Rowland expects men to be cautious in their spending when the crisis abates, she believes they will gravitate toward comfort, which she said is “very addictive, and we believe that the power suit will be more softly tailored than its Eighties ancestor — men are used to moving freely and are expecting their suit to work for them across a wide variety of occasions. Also, we expect materials to be harder-wearing given the technical improvements brought in by the woollen mills over the last few years.”
But on a more serious note, with so many millions now unemployed, when they are back out interviewing for jobs, they’ll need to look professional. “A great-fitting suit will undoubtedly help them stand out from the competition,” he said.
Retailers Expect Sales Bump
The retail community is hopeful that heightened demand for tailored clothing will help spur much-needed business for them as well. Face it, after months of their stores being closed and relying on whatever business they could get from their e-commerce sites, retailers — at least the ones that will survive the pandemic — will be desperately searching for any sector that can get consumers back into stores and generate revenues.
Sam Kershaw, buying director for Mr Porter, is bullish on tailored clothing for Autumn (our Spring).
“After several years of a streetwear-dominated runway, we saw such fantastic suiting in January,” he said. “From slim-cut silhouettes at Givenchy and Valentino, to classic Italian tailoring from Canali, it was clear that tailoring is back, and in a considered, varied way.
“At Mr Porter, we’ve gotten behind the classically relaxed styles from brands like Brunello Cucinelli and Loro Piana, as well as the Seventies-esque silhouettes from Tom Ford and Tod’s. Later in the year, we’ll also be launching our third ‘costume to collection’ collaboration for our own label Kingsman, which is inspired by the forthcoming film, ‘The King’s Man.’ What will be evident come Autumn is that we’ve made a commitment to tailoring, as well as the diversity on offer from our brands.”
That diversity will be evident through a number of different trends. “The power suit of 2020 is less about a specific style or block, and more about the wearability and swagger of the approach,” he believes. “Whether it’s sharp and structured or relaxed and unstructured, the new power suit is in the eye of the beholder.
“Look at The Row, whose modern approach to traditional tailoring has created a new standard in impeccable suiting; Ermenegildo Zegna, who is collaborating with streetwear brand Fear of God, and Ralph Lauren, whose double-breasted suits look like they were made for Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant. All three brands fall on different points of the suiting spectrum, and perfectly embody what’s exciting about today’s chop-and-change approach to wearing tailoring,” said Kershaw.
Federico Barassi, vice president of men’s wear buying for Ssense, said the company started seeing “an industry shift toward tailoring for a little over two seasons now. Styles that are emblematic of streetwear, like hoodies and T-shirts will always be relevant, but designers are moving the focus of their collections toward more tailored and timeless pieces. Ermenegildo Zegna and Jerry Lorenzo’s collaboration is an example of how tailored clothing can pull from streetwear codes in an unexpected way.”
He said that even during the stay-at-home orders, many men are “still maintaining an office wardrobe for meetings and video calls. That said, the tailoring focus will organically continue to grow season over season; I don’t think the current circumstances will impact future demand for tailored goods.”
Barassi said the Ssense customer has been “gravitating toward building their wardrobes with staples like a classic overcoat, and well-cut trousers for quite a few seasons. This Spring, they’ll continue to elevate through more tailored pieces such as double-breasted blazers and leather details. We saw a lot of tailoring on spring/summer ’20 runways and shows, like at Bottega Veneta, so that will definitely influence people’s buying behaviours as well.”
Bottega Veneta RTW Autumn 2020
So pairing a wide-leg trouser with a fitted jacket, for example, with detailing such as notch lapels on the jacket, layered over a hoodie or turtleneck, will define the power suit of 2020 for the Ssense customer, he believes.
According to Bosse Myhr, director of men’s and women’s wear at Selfridges, “The tailored approach that a lot of brands have been applying for their autumn/winter ‘20 show collections is going to have an impact on the way people style streetwear. I think the important thing to remember is that, yes, there was more tailoring in the shows, but it’s very far away from the uniformed suit, shirt and tie. I think the future of tailoring is in its relaxed attitude, be that in the styling or the cut. I do think there is a chance that casual Friday will be replaced by dress-up Fridays.”
Nelson Mui, merchandising director for fashion at Hong Kong’s Lane Crawford, believes, “Ath-leisure and streetwear will always have universal appeal — you can’t unlearn comfort — but designers and luxury brands have been exploring creative ways to do tailoring: part of an overall mood toward more polished dressing. We are particularly excited about the Fear of God x Zegna collaboration, the idea of melding a street sensibility to traditional tailored codes. This is a very fashion concept.”
Mui added that “Zoom parties notwithstanding, the pandemic certainly reduced a lot of occasions to wear tailored clothing. But in times of economic uncertainty, with a good number of people out of work or worried about losing jobs, there’s a security to dressing up. Most men feel more confident and authoritative when they are in a sharp-looking suit. There was a time when it seemed tailored clothing was obsolete: remember casual Fridays in the Nineties and the rise of corporate casual? But the rise of the slim fit suit gave a new generation of guys in the 2000s a boost of confidence and fashion/sex appeal. What favours this trend toward tailored again is that people are looking for more investment pieces and fewer micro-trends, hype, and steady stream of drops. It takes less effort and money to put on a suit that you can wear over two or three years.”
Chris Kyvetos, men’s wear buying director for MyTheresa, said that for the past 18 months, streetwear has been “getting tired” and the industry is “naturally gravitating back toward a more-classic luxury direction. As an industry, when we reach saturation, we crave freshness.”
He said when deciding to launch Mytheresa Men for spring/summer ’20, “we took the view of no streetwear, and it’s worked exceptionally well for us. Going forward we see a heavily tailored influence in post-streetwear luxury. However, we are not planning on selling suits instead of sweatshirts, so some of the runway [collections] and collaborations I’m seeing between the two worlds are a bit literal and won’t go very far.”
He believes that for Autumn, tailored clothing will need to be fresh and new, such as Bottega Veneta’s tailored nylon jackets or Kiko Kostadinov’s tailored outerwear. But if a brand has its roots in streetwear and is pivoting to tailoring to catch a trend, that’s an example of being “too literal and irrelevant,” he said.
During the streetwear years, he said, “men’s fashion lost context,” and when people resume their “normal” activities, “it stands to reason that they will crave something new. It could be a job, a holiday, a personal trainer, an apartment, a dog or a jacket.”
Of course, who knows what the male consumer — or any consumer — will want to buy coming out of the global crisis (beyond more toilet paper and disinfectant, that is)?
While brands and retailers are bullish about the suit for Spring, it must be remembered that their orders were placed in January, as the coronavirus was only just beginning to spread in China. Orders were based on those fundamentals and the idea that a male shopper who was already spending more than ever would continue to spend. Given that, they felt confident about moving away from baggy and roomy streetwear toward a more tailored look.
So men’s store floors and web sites come Spring will be heavily slanted toward suits and sport jackets, albeit 21st-century versions. All brands and retailers can hope is that in a world that will never be the same again, even post-COVID-19, men will still go back to feeling about fashion the way they did a mere four months ago.
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Home is Where the Art Is
Six standout Australian galleries to know now.
Australia’s gallery scene is booming. More galleries than ever before are going on the road to participate in art fairs in scene that is rapidly maturing. Meet the passionate local owners from around Australia who are energising the creative milieu with the abstract, the edgy, the Indigenous and the generally astounding.
Hugo Michell Gallery
The district may not roll off the artistic tongue like Paris’s Montmartre or London’s Shoreditch, and yet the prim hedges of Adelaide’s Beulah Park suburb provide cover to a stealth powerhouse of the Australian contemporary art movement, tucked away in a charming, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it converted Victorian workers’ cottage. Since 2008, the Hugo Michell Gallery has unflappably carried the torch for established and emerging acts with equal fidelity, across a broad sweep of mediums from photography to printmaking, textile to ceramic. “We try not to get caught up in the hype and handle each artist we represent with the nuance required for promoting their work,” says Michell, currently counting 28 artists on his books. One notable on this year’s busy docket is Melbourne-based Richard Lewer, a social realist—already snapped up by the National Galleries of Australia and Victoria, no less—who for a month from April 10th will probe the uneasy relationship between crime, sport and religion. While comfortable in the skin of his homely suburban bolthole, Michell is not averse to braving the rigours of the Australian art fair circuit (“They’re a bit of a circus, but who doesn’t love a circus?) and often undertakes house visits to acquaint himself with the whims of new customers. “One of the things that gives me the most joy is building a collection for a client,” he says. “We have worked with for 16 years, tailoring and sourcing works for them.” More proof that you don’t need a headline location to generate the biggest stories.
hugomichellgallery.com
Cassandra Bird Gallery
The art sphere often challenges the myth that married partners should not become gallerists—see Iwan and Manuela Wirth of Hauser & Wirth fame, among other examples. And so it is that Cassandra Bird and husband Fabian Jentsch are rapidly cementing a reputation as one the Australian art scene’s supercouples with their 2023-acquired Potts Point space, an expansive four-level heritage terrace fizzing with congeniality, making visitors feel like they have popped to a friend’s (expertly curated) home for elevenses. Which is no great shock: the property doubles as the duo’s own home. Bird brings a wealth of experience, and a hefty contacts book, thanks to long, respected stints in the Big Apple and Berlin, and nine years at Sydney’s RoslynOxley9 Gallery; Jentsch, meanwhile, is an experienced artist, exhibition maker and set designer. “We try to enthuse people, get them excited as we are about those we work with,” says Bird. Meander across the property’s wooden floorboards—perhaps diverting for a chat in the communal courtyard that doubles as a social hub and ideas-exchange forum—and you will enter the realm of Perth-born graphic painter Jedda Daisy-Culley, who has a hallway and wall dedicated to her work; venture upstairs and deep dive into locally based experimental photographer Laura Moore; head into the basement and peruse the collective works the Tennant Creek Brio, out of Warumungu Country in the Northern Territory. All 24 of the gallery’s artists unite under the theme of timelessness. “We are into investigating quality and showing transformational and breakout work from artists,” says Jentsch. “The work we choose must have something that is strong value for us.” Here’s to the sanctity of marriage.
D’lan Contemporary
It speaks volumes for the international reach of Indigenous art that D’lan Contemporary opened an outpost in New York long before expanding the gallery beyond its Melbourne roots to set up shop in Sydney. Then again, founder and director D’lan Davidson is not afraid of expanding his frontiers as a means of hawking Australia’s most vital cultural outpourings; in 2016, he left the Sotheby’s Australia auction house, where he was ensconced as head of aboriginal art, to launch D’lan Contemporary as the go-to gallery for secondary market First Nations art; and he recently travelled to Maastricht in the Netherlands for the prestigious European Fine Arts Foundation Art Fair, promoting a series of Western Arnhem bark paintings and works by Paddy Bedford, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas and other. Closer to home, Davidson has surrounded himself with a team brimming with the requisite Indigenous art smarts, including chief curator and gallery director Luke Scholes. From May 8th-July 4th, the Significant exhibition, a mainstay of the Melbourne gallery for the past ten years, will show across all three of D’lan Contemporary’s locations. “Our exhibitions and all our advocacy work seek to further support and develop the burgeoning global interest in Australian First Nations art and artists,” says Scholes. As if further proof were needed of its commitment, the gallery donates 30 percent of its profit back to artists and their communities. Bravo.
N.Smith Gallery
Enter Nick Smith’s compact office and you notice how the walls are studded by the artworks of those he represents; this is a man, you feel, who has a more intimate connection to his stable than the average gallery chief—an instinct confirmed upon discovering that he has invested his entire life savings into the Surry Hills space. When we meet, Smith’s whiteboard is teeming with collaborative projects, hinting heavily at the kind of edgy, thought-provoking artists that his outfit—comprised of five full-time staff—is renowned for nurturing. “It’s constant, but amazing,” says Smith in his typically reserved manner, more studious scientist than reengage gallerist. “I wanted to contribute to culture in my own way.” The gallery’s current ascension allays any empathetic fears of impending financial doom. This past February, Smith—who cut his teeth at Philip Bacon Galleries in Brisbane and Sydney’s Sullivan+Strumpf—collaborated with the Australian High Commission in India to represent Darrell Sibosado at India Art Fair ’25, and throughout the year will be partnering with the Sydney chapter of Soho House to host a series of private viewings and artist studio visits. Even so, he now splits his time equally between private and public projects, often mentoring artists at all stages of their creative journeys. “It’s that forward momentum. It’s that feeling of progressions and going somewhere that I love,” says Smith. Indeed, the only way is up.
Palas
It is hard—nay, almost impossible—to imagine Palas founders Tania Doropoulos and Matt Glenn frantically trying to scoop up whoever is flavour of the month on Sydney’s perennially shifting art circuit. Here are young gallery partners prone to a slower, more considered approach, instead recruiting a tight roster of internationally famed artists, and choosing to nurture relationships that have been years, sometime decades, in the making. Case in point: video performance maestro Shaun Gladwell, who represented Australia at the 2007 Venice Biennale (a 20-year affiliate), and Melbourne-based artist and noise-musician Marco Fusinato (15 years), who also flew the artistic green and gold at the same festival in 2022. Add to that list Canadian multi-media artist Tamara Henderson and Irish sculptor Eva Rothschild, currently working out of London, and it is clear Palas have a formidable roll call to lean on. “We’re investing a huge amount of time into their processes as art makers,” says Doropoulos. “And I think by extension, we’ve got really good working relationships with other galleries throughout the world.” For its founders, the Palas gallery—which opened in Sydney’s resolutely hipster Waterloo suburb just over a year ago with a silkscreen painting medley by the aforementioned Fusinato—is somewhat of a flag-planting endeavour on home soil: both earned a certain amount of their stripes overseas—Doropoulos as former artistic director of Frieze London and Frieze Studios, and Glenn at Sadie Coles HQ, also in the British capital. Australian art disciples will no doubt be praying for a long domestic residency.
Coma
If Sotiris Sotiriou’s consciously balanced ensemble of black Saint Laurent suit, single gold chain and flash of bare chest are anything to go by, the Coma gallery founder wields a sharp eye—a handy attribute to have when your career depends on identifying aesthetic clout, what hits and what doesn’t. From humble beginnings in 2016 in a subterranean road space next to Elvis Pizza on Sydney’s New South Head Road, his enterprise gradually flowered, first to East Sydney, then Chippendale, before fully blooming at his current space in up-and-coming Marrickville, in what was once a coffee factory. The predominantly light-industrial area has witnessed around half a dozen new gallery debuts in recent years, and Coma’s door-fling, filled as it was with hip young Inner West couples sourcing bold, ambitious art for their homes and offices, suggests Sotiriou has timed his arrival to perfection. February’s opening exhibition was hosted by Australian (but Santa Fe based) figurative painter Justin Williams, whose approach riffs on the folkloric traditions of Russian and Polish art, rich with symbolism and psychological details; this work forms a striking counterpoint to the abstract expressionism of other Sotiriou recruits, such as Zara June Williams and her partner Jack Lanagan Dunbar. The Coma head honcho, who had a spell selling to wealthy clients at Nanda Hobbs, says that private clients now make up most of his customer base. This year, as he prepares to attend three international art fairs, he estimates his artistic head count to increase by 30 percent. He can, no doubt, also point you in the direction of a fine tailor.
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By Mark Ellwood
04/07/2025
Car of the Year
Always an unmissable highlight of the automotive calendar, Robb Report ANZ’s annual motoring awards set a new benchmark among glorious Gold Coast tarmac.
Over two unforgettable days, our motoring sages and VIP guests embarked on an exhilarating journey from Surfers Paradise to Brisbane and back again—traversing an irresistible selection of terrain in our exotic rides, from deserted rainforest-lined b-roads to testing mountain switchbacks with dizzying—sometimes heart-in-mouth—views over the southern Queensland peninsula. And as befitting an event starring the crème de la crème of auto marques, we did so while savouring the best in luxury and gastronomy—capped off with an extraordinary superyacht experience at Sanctuary Cove.
The ten contenders for the Car of the Year were not the only dream machines on show. The first day’s adventure kicked off at the Langham Hotel and included a midday pit stop at the glorious Beechmont Estate, where our fleet of drivers were greeted by a stunning array of vintage cars exhibited in a concours d’elegance-style display.
The sumptuous feast for the eyes on offer at Beechmont, a quaint country village located between the Lamington Plateau and Tamborine Mountain, was followed by a meal for the ages prepared by executive chefs Chris and Alex Norman at the property’s hatted restaurant, The Paddock.
Then, itching to remount our steeds, it was time to hit the road again, with our drivers—all sporting Onitsuka Tiger’s new driving shoes—hightailing it to Brisbane and The Calile Hotel, a property which has been scooping accolades like Jay Leno collects supercars.
After some much needed relaxation by the pool, that evening the drivers and press were joined by local luminaries in the hotel’s private dining room. Over an extravagant banquet they got to compare notes on marvels of engineering and design that they’d had the chance to pilot all day. They were also treated to a showcase of spectacular Jacob & Co. timepieces and Hardy Brothers jewellery and an elegant sufficiency of 40-year Glenfiddich whiskey served in gold cups worth $60,000 a pop. It made for animated discussions and more than a little impromptu shopping.
And did we mention the luxury yacht experience? After a full itinerary of adventures on the road, the day ended with an invigorating late-afternoon of luxuriating aboard two new Riviera Yacht releases—the 6800 Sport Yacht and the 585 SUV—where our intrepid drivers and assorted press got to literally and figuratively take their hands off the wheel and make a case for their car of the year. As the forthcoming pages attest, they were more than spoiled for choice. But who would take centre stage on the winners’ podium?
OVERALL WINNER
BEST SPORTS CAR
BEST LUXURY HYBRID
BEST PERFORMANCE SUPERCAR
BEST ROADSTER
BEST CAR DESIGN
BEST ELECTRIC PERFORMANCE CAR
BEST SUV
Cruise along to robbreport.com.au/events for more supercars and luxury motoring.
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By Mark Ellwood
04/07/2025
By Mike Desimone And Jeff Jenssen
04/07/2025
Cool as Ice
Mercedes-Benz’s CEO Ola Källenius is expert at racing a nearly four-tonne truck across a frozen lake. Can he steer the marque’s EV-focused future as adeptly?
Ola Källenius is standing in a cold, bare workshop just south of the Arctic Circle in his native Sweden. A heavily disguised prototype of the new electric G-Class SUV—not yet launched when we meet—has just returned from high-speed, low-grip testing on tracks cut into the frozen lakes nearby and is being hoisted into the air on a hydraulic lift for inspection. As it drips meltwater onto the concrete floor, Källenius, CEO of the Mercedes-Benz Group, eats his lunch (today, a premade sandwich and a carton of juice) and speaks in fluent German to the mostly Austrian engineers who spend months in this bleak locale ensuring that the company’s new models can cope with the types of conditions in which vanishingly few customers will ever actually drive. They discuss the truck’s handling on ice and the progress of its test program. Källenius compliments them on the car’s dynamics—how stable it remained even at speed, how safe he felt driving it—and asks them how long they’re here.
“There are some harsh realities to this job, and to the car industry,” he tells me later. “But this is what I love doing: spending time with our designers, or driving with you on an ice-lake in Sweden, or talking to these engineers. I wanted to congratulate them on what they’ve achieved. We get to enjoy a nice couple of days here, but they’re here for a long time.”
At 193 cm, Källenius might tower over most of them physically, but there’s nothing in his demeanor that hints at the disparity in their corporate statuses. Nor is this the kind of place you’d expect to find the head of one of the world’s great luxury brands: a man paid roughly $22 million last year to lead the 166,000 employees of a company valued at around $75 billion, whose founder, Carl Benz, invented the motor car and whose genuinely iconic logo has graced the nose of everything from popemobiles and Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 racer to the most expensive automobile ever sold at auction. In a recent report, investment analysts Bernstein described Mercedes-Benz under Källenius’s reign as a “four-wheeled cash-generation machine”.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
But the celebrated car marques are not like luxury brands that make watches or couture or accessories or Champagne. Look beyond the alluring badge and bodywork for a moment: the objects Mercedes-Benz and its rivals produce are insanely complex, ever-changing and hugely capital-intensive—and must succeed in an utterly cutthroat market. Their impact on the environment and the economy has always made them perennial hot-button issues politically. But the electrification of the automobile has put these companies in the geopolitical crosshairs like never before, as governments swap tariffs and risk a global trade war to ensure that they keep their respective shares of the car industry, even as it undergoes an unprecedented transformation.
And of course, the cars need to be remade, too. Add the impact of electrification to Källenius’s own manifesto for Mercedes-Benz, and this storied marque is likely to change more in the next decade than it did in the previous 138 years. “It’s a once-in-a-century transformation,” he says. “We are reinventing our original invention.”
So who is the guy steering Mercedes through this tumult? What’s his plan? And what cars will he give us? Källenius has sat for plenty of interviews in his five years as CEO (his second five-year term is set to conclude in 2029), but this is the first time that he has offered anything more. Robb Report was invited to spend the weekend with him in Arjeplog, the tiny northern-Swedish town whose population swells fourfold each winter as the global car industry descends to test its secret new models on the area’s frozen lakes. Spy photographers abound, but to reduce the chance of its future lineup being scooped, Mercedes rents its own private expanse of sheet ice from a local landowner. I watch Källenius as he test-drives the electric G at his empire’s oddest and most northerly outpost, meets local staff and records social-media footage. He drives some other, more secret new electric AMGs that I am definitely not allowed to see, whose debuts are much further off and which, when not on the ice, remain hidden beneath their heavy covers outside the workshop.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
Källenius has a reputation for being fearsomely intelligent, rational and efficient, but also not the type of hyper-alpha asshole who too often comes to lead a carmaker. Over the weekend, I see that sharpness not just in the logic of his answers, but in the nuance of the English prose, as perfect as his German, in which he delivers them.
I’m not sure I’d want those piercing blue eyes and that high-wattage intellect turned on me in a meeting if I didn’t have my numbers straight, but his non-asshole character dominates. It comes through in the easy egalitarianism he displays with the engineers in the workshop, or how he notices and thanks waitstaff, or the way he’s enjoying a casual dinner and a beer with a long table of employees of all stripes when I first arrive at the unglamorous Silverhatten hotel where he’s staying—a glorified bunkhouse for the United Nations of engineers and test-drivers who flock here. This is clearly a leader who sees the obligations of his office as clearly as its privileges: an attitude underpinned by a natural Nordic modesty and reserve.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“I guess your personality is something that forms in younger years, and I’m not sure you can fundamentally change it,” he tells me over coffee one morning. “There is a Swedish core in the way I act, and maybe most Swedes are not kick-the-door-down types. I believe this should be true for anybody who is at Mercedes or has the privilege to lead Mercedes: We are custodians of that star for a brief moment. It’s my job to hand it over safe and in better condition. The person is not the brand.”
Perhaps not, but the brand will look very different by the time this person is done with it in 2029. And you can add loyalty to that list of his qualities: Källenius has never worked anywhere else, having joined Mercedes-Benz in 1993 straight out of the Stockholm School of Economics, where he founded an American football team called the Traders, for which he was captain of the offense. True to form, he studied tapes of the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots in order to write the team playbooks. At Mercedes, he was a finance guy at first; an early posting took him to Alabama, to help set up the Mercedes factory in Tuscaloosa, where he became—and remains—a Crimson Tide fan.
In 2003, at the age of just 34, he was put in charge of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren supercar project; two years later, he was given control of Mercedes-Benz High Performance Powertrains, the firm’s in-house Formula 1 engine-maker. After a year as vice president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz US International back in Tuscaloosa, he was recalled to Germany in 2010 to become vice president and managing director of AMG, Mercedes’s high-performance road-car division. Then came two board positions to prove his breadth of ability—sales and marketing, followed by research and development—before he ascended to the top job in 2019 at the age of 50.
The electric G-Class we’re about to drive together (now officially if awkwardly named the “G580 with EQ Technology”) is a neat encapsulation of many of the things Källenius has tried to do at Mercedes. First, it’s an EV, which fits his initial plan to make everything electric—“where market conditions allow”—by 2030. Second, it’s expensive, with a starting price in the US of $161,500 (around $257,000, though likely to cost more in Australia). Another critical if controversial part of his manifesto is to shift Mercedes upmarket; he spun off the truck business early and is currently in the process of dropping high-volume, low-margin models including the A- and B-Classes. And lastly, he wants new models to still feel like Mercedes vehicles, even if the design that underpins them is radically different from what came before. And the G-Wagen—with its gloriously anachronistic overengineering that you can feel and hear every time you clunk a door shut—epitomises the Mercedes ethos whether the vehicle is gas or electric.
Other new Mercedes EVs go much further in their innovation, gaining greater advantage from their electric drivetrains given that they were designed as EVs from the outset. They use Mercedes’s new MB.OS operating system with built-in AI and receive fresh design cues inside and out—not least the mad, vast, almost full-width hyperscreen user interface—rather than the same upright, rectilinear lines first sketched out to suit the needs of farmers and soldiers when the G-Class was introduced 45 years ago.
But as shorthand for old Merc meeting new, the electric G is perfect, and it’s pleasing to be driven in it by the CEO on whose watch it was conceived and executed. “Yes, this is an electric G,” he says as he drifts it across the glassy frozen lake, “but it’s 100 percent G. The most important box for any G-Class to tick is the Schöckl mountain in Austria, to earn that Schöckl-proven plaque they all have. I did five trips up and down it in the electric G in the autumn, and not only can it do the Schöckl, I felt it could do the Schöckl best of all.”
His stints at AMG, in Formula 1, and with McLaren have turned this “spreadsheet guy” into a skilled driver, though most Swedes seem to have the ability to safely slide a car on ice coded into their DNA. Even with the G sideways at around 110 km/h, a plume of snow and ice billowing high behind it, Källenius has enough spare mental-processing capacity to adjust the screen settings while telling a funny story about the very first time an electric G even crossed his mind.
He was at the Detroit Auto Show in 2018, when the company was first showing the revised G-Class. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the unveiling and asked Källenius’s predecessor, Dieter Zetsche, if an electric version was in the cards. “Dr. Zetsche said, ‘Yes, of course,’ Källenius recalls. “I was head of R & D at the time, and one of my colleagues turned to me and said, ‘Do we even have an electric G in the plan?’ I said that I guessed we did now.”
Those less keen on electric cars than Arnie and Ola might be pleased by the fact that the ambition to be battery-only by 2030 has fizzled fast. Mercedes now predicts that EVs and plug-in hybrids will account for only half of its sales by the late 2020s, and the company is refreshing its range of gas engines to keep them relevant and selling deep into the 2030s. This is a systemic issue and no reflection on Mercedes products; Källenius has always averred “where market conditions allow”, and market conditions currently don’t. But the retreat is still slightly awkward.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“The early adopter phase is over,” he tells me. “Now we need to convince every customer. I think it would be a mistake to say, ‘Okay, electric is growing a bit slower, let’s sit back, wait, and not do anything.’ Because if you put product into the market that is so convincing that most customers go, ‘Yeah, maybe I didn’t have iPhone 1, but iPhone 4 looks pretty good,’ you can get very quick, even exponential growth. And if you were the one that said, ‘I’m not going to set sail here; let’s wait and see what the weather does,’ all the other boats would be out on the ocean, and you’d miss the race.”
But if buyers are going to be sold on EVs by the technology rather than by brand power, what does Mercedes’ 138 years of history count for? With customers attracted to new EV marques that are able to innovate unconstrained by precedent—and one of those brands having a market cap 7.5 times that of Mercedes, despite selling a few hundred thousand fewer cars per year—does heritage become a liability rather than an asset?
“We also do unconventional things,” Källenius insists. “With blow-your-mind–type features like the crazy hyperscreen in the EQS and the EQE, a lot of people are looking at Mercedes who perhaps didn’t look before. We are one of the biggest automotive sponsors in e-sports. Formula 1 is off the charts; 53 percent of F1 fans are between 15 and 35, and 37 percent are women. When we do crazy things like the G-Class collaborations with Moncler or the late Virgil Abloh, you go beyond the traditional auto crowd to one that buys from other luxury brands. My test is if one of my kids sends me a picture and goes, like, ‘Dad, what is this?’ I got their attention.”
I wonder how the former finance guy now handles running one of the world’s great luxury brands and to whom he looks for inspiration. He acknowledges that he meets with Bernard Arnault at LVMH and Jean- Frédéric Dufour at Rolex but is coy about the nature of their discussions.
“We also reach out to people in other luxury businesses to understand how they think,” Källenius notes. “I had the good fortune to meet Brunello Cucinelli, and he invited me down to Solomeo, the hamlet which he has helped to restore. It’s one of the most beautiful villages I’ve ever seen. I learned a lot about fabrics, quality, stealth luxury, sometimes not emphasising the brand so much. A fine gentleman like that has a very clear understanding of what luxury means in his business. We brought some secret new-vehicle designs to show him and to get his input.”
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“Maybe you can’t compare a high-intensity, high-engineering, high-capital-investment good like a car to a piece of clothing,” he adds. “They are different businesses. But good chefs eat in each other’s restaurants even though they have a totally different style of cooking, just to see what the others are doing. But when you go back into your kitchen, you’re still the chef, and you put together the recipe.”
I sense a slight frustration from the hyperrational Swede—perhaps that he believes he has gotten the recipe right but has to wait a bit longer for diners’ tastes to catch up. In many cases, judged on any objective criteria, the new Mercedes EVs will be the best cars the company has ever made, including the electric G. The customers, though, are as busy trying to get their heads around this brave new world as the automotive CEOs are.
“This is definitely the most transformative decade since the inception of the company,” Källenius agrees. “But we’ve always done this. The Swabian engineers who founded Mercedes didn’t look at the horseshoe and think, ‘How do we make this lighter to make the horse run faster?’ They wanted to get the horse out of the equation and do something new. That attitude hasn’t changed. We’ve always looked through the windscreen, not in the mirror.”
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By Mark Ellwood
04/07/2025
Men at Play
Two restless entrepreneurs build a Belizean island paradise especially for those “aha! moments”.
Though he’s supposed to be in what he calls his “play years” now, Knoxville-based real-estate entrepreneur Steve Hall still finds himself working on vacation. After a trip to Belize, he got the itch to build something new and started meeting with developers. Hall hit it off with David Keener, CEO and owner of Vision Properties, and together they acquired an isolated tract on Placencia Caye, a private island just five minutes by boat from the mainland.
After two and a half years of work, they’ve recently started welcoming guests to Prana Maya, a secluded, wellness-focused retreat that enjoys expansive views of the Caribbean Sea, the island’s lagoon and the Maya Mountains. “We designed everything to inspire people,” Hall says of the property. “Every aspect of the resort is intentional. Every service we offer is designed to create that ‘aha! moment’ that will rock someone’s world.”
The property includes seven three- and four-bedroom villas featuring locally carved wooden doors. The breezy, secluded structures are sited to prioritise views of the water, and each has its own plunge pool. Rooms at the Inn—a collection of 10 airy, light-filled suites—face the ocean. Each guest has an assigned butler, and every bed at the resort is fitted with a custom grounding mat, designed to replicate a connection with nature; some studies suggest they promote mental and physical well-being.
Belize’s tropical landscape is the catalyst for getting outdoors. Its unique saltwater flats give sport-fishing aficionados a bucket-list opportunity: catching what the International Game Fishing Association calls the Grand Slam—permit, tarpon and bonefish—all in one day. So Hall and Keener recruited High Adventure Company, a global outfitter with 30 years of guiding expertise, to take guests on exclusive angling excursions. The resort will also offer cave-tubing, jungle-trekking, zip-lining and diving trips.
Courtesy of Prana Maya
If you’re in search of less rugged activities, head to the spa and wellness centre. The design team placed it on prime real estate: the Inn’s top floor, which has 360-degree water views and 5 m ceilings. Here, you’ll find a yoga studio, five private treatment rooms and a sound-therapy space. You can also enjoy Prana Maya’s private beach, the only sandy stretch on the island that isn’t shared with another property.
At The Grill, the open-air restaurant, executive chef Liesel Kirste cooks with indigenous ingredients—many sourced from the resort’s four-hectare farm. The menu includes elevated fare such as locally caught lobster, grilled and served over fresh pasta. Even components of more casual dishes are made from scratch: at the Island Club—with its outdoor kitchen, lawn games and forthcoming palapa-shaded pickleball court—the ketchup and mayonnaise are made in-house. That gives the culinary team the flexibility to design a bespoke menu, upon request, to suit your nutritional needs.
Ultimately, Prana Maya is the expression of a million small details (down to the reef-safe spa products, curated by a Belizean supplier) and the location’s natural majesty. “When you get out to the island site, see the spectacular views of the Caribbean, turn another direction and see the beauty of the Maya Mountains, it is such an awesome and almost overwhelming feeling,” Hall says. One he is determined to share with everyone who visits.
Top image: Benedict Kim/Courtesy of Prana Maya
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How to Use Your Dress Watch to Nail Casual Style This Autumn
The dress watch is back and more laid-back than ever. Here’s how to rock your Cartier and Piaget pieces with casual looks
After the seemingly never-ending hype around steel sports watches, dress watches have been making a comeback. But it’s not just the average 42 mm dress watch that’s sparking interest (although, those too, are in the running), but also funky vintage diamond-accented timepieces or small-sized, almost feminine pieces are trending. Recently, actor Paul Mescal was spotted on the red carpet of the Annual Academy Museum Gala wearing a Cartier Tank Mini with his tux, while sports legend Dwyane Wade wore a 28 mm diamond Tiffany & Co. Eternity watch with his black tie ensemble to the same event. While these guys were wearing dress watches in their intended setting, here we show you how to make a dress watch work for casual weekend wear too.
Try dabbling in unexpected pairings like an army green Ghiaia safari jacket with a vintage Chopard Happy Diamonds timepiece or Breguet Classique Ref. 7147 (the ultimate dressy timekeeper) with a Louis Vuitton sweatsuit and a Brioni overcoat. Anything goes these days and the more unexpected the timepiece, the stronger the statement. It’s good news all around—for your wardrobe and your investments in the vault.
Above: Blancpain 39.7 mm Villeret Ultraplate in 18-karat red gold, $69,675; Tod’s faux-shearling and denim jacket, $5,6859; Tom Ford cashmere and silk turtleneck, $2,535.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY MATALLINA. WATCH EDITOR, PAIGE REDDINGER. FASHION DIRECTOR, ALEX BADIA. STYLE EDITOR, NAOMI ROUGEAU.
Jaeger-LeCoultre 40 mm Reverso One Duetto Jewellery in 18-karat pink gold and diamonds, $79,560. Right: Chopard 32 mm vintage Happy Diamonds in 18-karat white gold and diamonds, $19,930, analogshift.com; Ghiaia cotton safari jacket, $1,426; Eton cotton T-shirt, 358; Hermès denim trousers, $1,674.
Audemars Piguet 34 mm vintage automatic ultrathin watch in 18-karat white gold and diamonds, $9,300, classicwatchny.com. Right: Cartier 41.4 mm Tortue in platinum, $35,600, limited to 200; Gabriela Hearst hand-knit cashmere sweater, $2,500; Officine Générale cotton-poplin shirt, $315.
Breguet 40 mm Classique Ref. 7147 in 18-karat white gold, $37,468; Brioni wool and cashmere overcoat, $12,233, and silk knit crewneck sweater, $2,224; Louis Vuitton wool track pants, $2,120, and wool hooded jacket, $5,002. Right: Patek Philippe 39 mm Calatrava Ref. 6119R-001 in 18-karat rose gold, $52,791.
Piaget 45 mm Andy Warhol in 18-karat rose gold, $69,198. Right: Rolex 29 mm vintage King Midas Ref. 4342 in 18-karat yellow gold, $28,301, classicwatchny.com; Brunello Cucinelli denim shirt, $1,586; Tom Ford cotton chinos, $1,259; Berluti leather belt, $1,132.
Model: Arthur Sales
Grooming: Amanda Wilson
Senior market editor and casting: Luis Campuzano
Photo director: Irene Opezzo
Photo assistant: Alejandro Suarez
Prop stylist: Elizabeth Derwin
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By Mark Ellwood
04/07/2025
