In this age of digital supremacy, it’s reassuring to know the pen is alive and well. And nowhere is it thriving quite like it is in Bassano del Grappa, a picturesque medieval village in Veneto, Italy, that has been home to Montegrappa, the country’s oldest pen company, since 1912. The firm specialises in rollerball and fountain pens for the discerning, and its products are still made in its original factory on the banks of the Brenta River. 

Notable actors, athletes, musicians and even popes have used its wares, but the seed for one of Montegrappa’s most significant endorsements came when a then-unpublished author encountered the brand in 1918. Ernest Hemingway, just 19 years old at the time, was serving as a volunteer ambulance driver for the American Red Cross when he was assigned to a station 100 m from the factory. The robust Elmo model, still produced by Montegrappa today, became his writing instrument of choice. 

More than a century later, Montegrappa pens remain renowned for their design and are still largely crafted by hand according to the company’s old-world manufacturing process. And while you can order a model off the shelf, varying levels of customisation are also available. Through the Extra Custom program, you can commission a uniquely hand-painted or burin-engraved style made from sterling silver or yellow, rose, or white gold and have the barrel decorated with an image or motif you select. Such pieces can require several weeks to complete, and prices range from around $2,400 to as high as $67,000—all to create a pen that’s a story in itself. 

Each pen requires at least 36 individually handcrafted components—some considerable, others tiny and delicate. 

As perhaps the most visible component, the pen clip is hand-polished to a mirror-like shine. You can opt to have it set with a small cubic zirconia, as with this sterling-silver example.

Mammoth ivory, ethically recovered from Siberian permafrost, is carefully machine-turned to create the cap. The company also offers celluloid for its caps and barrels, as well as exotic woods, marble, carbon fibre, various metal alloys and a house-made resin called Montegrappite.

The cap band is machine-engraved with the company logo. The process also allows for the back of the band to be similarly etched with your initials in a selection of three fonts.

A burin is used to inscribe a “leaves and scrolls” pattern on the pen’s barrel. The intricate technique can also be used to reproduce photographs or works of art.

Montegrappa uses ebonite, a vulcanised rubber, to make its feeds, which connect a pen’s nib to its reservoir. The material is more porous than hard plastic, allowing for better ink flow. A craftsman precisely cuts the feed’s fins to ensure the best performance.

Montegrappa

First there was Veyron. Then came Chiron. Now Tourbillon. Bugatti’s new 1,800 hp (1,342 kW) hypercar delivers even more shock-and-awe than its predecessors. Gone is the famed 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 engine. In its place is a new 1,000 hp (746 kW), 8.3-litre naturally aspirated V16 paired with a trio of electric motors delivering 800 hp (597 kW). That combination makes this the most powerful Bugatti ever.

While the design of the all-carbon-composite body is clearly derived from the signature lines of both the Veyron and Chiron, its roofline is lower, the body lighter and more aerodynamic, and that iconic horseshoe grille more imposing. Yet the likely headline feature will be the car’s all-new interior featuring a skeletonised, titanium-and-sapphire-glass instrument cluster inspired by Swiss watchmaking (for the uninitiated—“tourbillon” refers to the mechanical complication that increases accuracy in high-end timepieces).

“Beauty, performance, and luxury formed the blueprint for the Tourbillon. What we have created is a car that is more elegant, more emotive and more luxurious than anything before it,” stated Mate Rimac, Bugatti Rimac’s CEO, to Robb Report during an exclusive preview at the company’s newly opened design studio in Berlin.

He explained that, four years ago, when the Tourbillon concept was on the drawing board, there were multiple suggestions for what an all-new Bugatti might look like. Options included an SUV, a coupe-like crossover and a luxury four-door sedan. Then there was the choice of either a hybrid or all-electric power train. “The proposal to make it electric was the obvious choice. We had our [Rimac] Nevera, that we could easily transfer our technology and re-skin the body. But I felt it was wrong for Bugatti,” said Rimac. “I wanted a successor to the Veyron and Chiron, a true hypercar with a combustion engine. Our customers agreed.”

To create it, Rimac teamed with Cosworth, a renowned British engine builder, to help develop the naturally aspirated V16 mill. Designed to rev to 9,000 rpm, the engine offers a similar output as the original Veyron’s quad-turbocharged W16. To heighten the performance, Rimac and his team used their proven expertise in electric propulsion to pair the V16 with twin electric motors driving the front wheels, with a third at the rear. For battery power, a 25 kWh, oil-cooled 800-volt pack is integrated into the chassis and located behind the passengers. It’s powerful enough to give the Tourbillon a usable electric-only range of around 60 km.

As you would expect, the Tourbillon has been developed to be blisteringly fast. According to Emilio Scervo, Bugatti’s chief technical officer, early prototype tests suggest a rate of acceleration from zero to 100 km/h in 2.0 seconds, zero to 200 km/h in 5.0 seconds, and zero to 300 km/h in 10.0 seconds. Flat out, the max-speed target is 445 km/h, though with a speedometer that reads up to 550 km/h, we expect there’s more to come. “For us, it was important that the car retained the pure and raw analogue feel of a naturally aspirated combustion engine, while pairing it with the agility and ability provided by electric motors,” said Scervo.

The engine itself sits low in the Tourbillon’s new, super-stiff body structure, which is formed using next-generation T800 carbon composites. It features a forged-aluminium, multi-link suspension—front and rear—that replaces the previous double-wishbone steel setup used in the Chiron. The 3-D-printed aluminium suspension arms and uprights, and AI-developed, 3-D-printed hollow airfoil arm at the rear, are nothing less than pieces of art.

For the exterior lines, Frank Heyl, Bugatti’s director of design, explained that styling influences came from three landmark Bugattis of old: the Type 35 racer of the 1920s, the long Type 41 Royale built from 1927 through 1933, and the storied Type 57SC Atlantic from the 1930s. “The design focus was on Bugatti’s iconic horseshoe grille. It’s significantly wider and lower than in the Chiron, and it’s from which all lines of the car originate. It defines the car,” said Heyl, who added that another signature element is “the new central windshield wiper, which continues the line that starts on the hood and flows back along the roof. Just like on the Atlantic.” Set back from the grille are twin rows of wafer-thin LED lights. Between them is a narrow panel on the hood that raises up to reveal a “frunk” big enough for a set of custom-designed luggage.

In profile, the sweeping “Bugatti line” around the doors—a defining feature of both the Veyron and Chiron—looks even more striking with the car’s lowered roofline. At the rear, huge exhausts, a Le Mans–style carbon-fibre diffuser (twice the size of that on the Chiron), and a rolling wave of LED lights featuring illuminated “Bugatti” lettering, add to the visual drama. And to allow onlookers to gaze at that V16 power plant—and for cooling purposes—the engine sits open to the elements.

Upon opening the dihedral “scissor” doors and entering the cockpit, you’re presented with arguably the new Tourbillon’s most dramatic feature; a skeletonised instrument cluster inspired by the art of Swiss watchmaking. Made up of more than 600 components, it’s constructed from titanium with sapphire-glass faces and detailing that incorporates rubies.

The three-dial cluster is fixed in place, with the twin spokes of the flat-bottom steering wheel rotating around it. The unit is constructed, in-house, to remarkable horological tolerances of 50 microns—the average cross-section of a human hair. The entire cluster weighs just 709 g. Cascading down from the middle of the fascia is the centre console featuring crystal glass that’s formed over 13 separate stages to ensure strength and clarity. The aluminium elements are anodised and milled from a single block.

To add a little theatre to firing-up that big V16, there’s a prominent center-console aluminium knob that you pull to start, and push to turn off. It’s another nod to Bugatti models of yesteryear. What you won’t see, however, are any touchscreens. Heyl believes that the primary element that dates a car is an oversized screen. “What was state-of-the-art 10 years ago, is now ugly,” said Heyl. “The Tourbillon is designed to be timeless.”

In Bugatti tradition, the Tourbillon will also be highly exclusive. Only 250 examples are planned, each starting at around $6.3 million. The first customer cars are scheduled to be built at Bugatti’s atelier in Molsheim, France, starting in 2026.

“Yes, it is crazy to build a new V16 engine, to integrate it with a new battery pack and electric motors, and to have 3-D-printed suspension parts and a real Swiss watchmaker instrument cluster,” noted Rimac. “But it is what Ettore Bugatti would have done.”

Bugatti

Tucked away in a corner of the Dubai International Financial Centre, near the Ritz-Carlton, is Perpétuel Gallery, an unassuming 1,200 m² boutique displaying some of the world’s most important independent watchmaking. During Dubai Watch Week—a biannual event run by the Seddiqi family, the most prominent watch retailers in the UAE—the shop, just a few minutes’ walk from the fair in the DIFC, held its own exhibition that was filled to the brim with the watchmakers themselves, from Roger W. Smith to Simon Brette to Rémi Maillat of Krayon. There, holding court, was Hamdan Bin Humaid Al Hudaidi, a distinguished collector who founded Perpétuel in 2021, in the middle of the Covid pandemic. 

“I never thought I would take my passion professionally, ever,” he tells Robb Report. “Everyone was against the idea because they were very certain this would fail.” How wrong they were. Instead, Perpétuel has become one of the most significant global players in connecting and brokering deals between collectors and their indie idols. As a serious client himself, Al Hudaidi has unique relationships that allow him to create limited editions exclusive to the gallery—quite a feat when you consider the waiting lists for some of the watchmakers in question are a decade or more long. A recent collaboration of 15 limited-edition Krayon Anywhere watches with desert-orange accents sold out to clients—not just in the Middle East, but also in Australia, the US and South Africa. 

It’s proof positive of the area’s booming and influential watch scene. Many credit Dubai Watch Week—and by extension the Seddiqi family—for the fervent local interest in watch collecting. When the event launched in 2015, it was small, hosting just 15 brands, mostly independents. “It was really a project to give back to the industry,” says Hind Abdul Hamied Seddiqi, director general of the event and CMO and communications officer for Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons, “but also to educate the general public that the watch industry is not as intimidating as you think.” It’s a strategy that has paid off. Last year’s edition ballooned to 60 brands, including big-name players such as Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Van Cleef & Arpels, along with nearly 24,000 attendees, the largest crowd to date. 

Despite the draw, the five-day-long public event has an easygoing appeal that other watch fairs often lack. One can spot Philippe Dufour perched outside a pavilion smoking a pipe, Kari Voutilainen enjoying an alfresco lunch, or Rexhep Rexhepi in line for an espresso. It’s an exceedingly rare chance for collectors to mingle with the masters in a relaxed space where everyone is in a jovial mood thanks to the casual atmosphere and balmy weather—and Seddiqi plans to keep it that way. “I worry if we go bigger, we’ll lose this feeling of intimacy,” she says. “I have a lot of people asking me to commercialise the show, but it’s just going to ruin the whole vibe.” 

The explosion of interest isn’t just for new timepieces: vintage is also having its moment. Historically, the Middle East hasn’t been receptive to “used” goods, but recent years have reflected a shift in perspective. Tariq Malik, cofounder and managing partner of Momentum, also located in the DIFC, just a three-minute walk from Perpétuel, was an early pioneer in the area when he opened shop in 2011. In the beginning, he says, it would be common for someone to look at his wares and ask if he was selling “used” watches. “I said, ‘It’s vintage,’ and they said, ‘Oh, wow.’ When I would say ‘vintage’ they would start pulling out their camera and taking photos. We brought vintage to Dubai, so it was a new thing.” He’s now sought-after by clients both in the UAE and internationally for his allotment of rare Rolexes, with a specialisation in Day-Dates and hard-to-find Stella and stone dials. 

Al Hudaidi also dabbles in vintage, predominantly ultra-rare Pateks—one might walk into Perpétuel and find him casually pulling a full-set Ref. 2499 third series from a coffee-table drawer. Naturally, that watch has sold along with two other full-set 2499s, but a unique Patek Philippe Ref. 1491J chronograph from the ’40s is still up for grabs (at press time, anyway). It was made by the Stern family for Jimmy Powers, an American boxing commentator during the era. 

“I got goosebumps when I heard his voice on YouTube,” says Al Hudaidi. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God—that timepiece was his. And his name is engraved on the back!”

Within a decade, private-jet cabins could make even today’s cutting-edge interiors seem ancient by comparison. From digital skylights and smart seats to eye-tracking functionality and immersive soundscapes, the array of innovative amenities could transform even the longest flights into time well spent. Here, six areas in which technology will take the onboard experience to new heights.

Screen Time

Within three to five years, some private jets may have select windows replaced with curved, high-definition 4K OLED displays connected to live video feeds from the aircraft’s exterior. Imagine a cabin ceiling that morphs into a conservatory with a spectacular view of the moon, or full-height windows that present the landscape below with incredible fidelity. Information overlays are easy additions, but consider that these built-in visual portals could also double as insane gaming screens.

Seat Change

E-textiles will transform the next generation of jet seats into intuitive in-flight spa recliners. Sensors within the fabric will note your size, weight, pressure distribution, and body temperature, then rely on their A.I.-driven processors to, say, heat the seat before you realise you’re chilly or massage that kink in your back without being asked. Powering themselves by converting body heat into electricity, the chairs might also know to widen and recline when you nod off.

Seeing the Light

Chronobiological lighting to mitigate jet lag will comprise organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels, capable of creating 16.3 million different light combinations, to reset a passenger’s internal clock as they traverse time zones. Eventually, such panels will migrate from light fixtures to smart fabric on the ceiling, resulting in more diffuse illumination that allows for near-infinite options across the colour spectrum.

And there are many other applications. For example, OLED displays, as wide as a piece of paper, can be used to digitally transform the entire wall of the cabin’s colour, texture or scene. It is called projection mapping, and it will make changing the wall color from hot pink to a textured crocodile leather as easy as changing your computer screen saver. As Ingo Wuggetzer, vice president of cabin marketing for Airbus, explains, light literally creates spaces, giving cabin designers a highly versatile and easily customisable digital canvas.

Higher Management

The ability to access basic audio or video from your smartphone is here, but imagine faster, streamlined connectivity that lets you manage video conferencing, heating, mood lighting, window shades, service requests, even a steriliser—from a single app. According to Airbus’s Wuggetzer, next-gen digital architecture will turn personal spaces into individual “ecosystems” controlled by each passenger. Tim O’Hara, director of completions research and development at Gulfstream, notes that eye-tracking technology could allow you to interact with the app via virtual screen, meaning you don’t even have to lift a finger.

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Rosen Aviation has developed a new onboard audio system with Laurence Dickie, designer of the famed Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus loudspeaker. According to Rosen’s Lee Clark, the goal is to go from today’s audio equivalent of “a 1970s eight-track” to what he refers to as “Elvis, six feet away, singing to you”—a soundscape that only you will hear, delivered by headrest speakers and haptic drivers in the seat. Meanwhile, Bongiovi Aviation intends to employ transducers embedded in the jet’s interior side panels, eliminating the need for traditional speakers altogether. The advantages are numerous, and it allows airframers to reduce cabin weight and fully utilise space while eliminating traditional speakers from the design.

Bringing movie-theater audio quality to aviation is already available. Dolby Atmos puts you inside the movie or song as it is playing. In collaboration with Dolby, SkyCinema Aviation was the first to create an Atmos-enabled processor built for business jets to compensate for cabin altitude and jet noise. The result? You will clearly hear the car approaching from a half mile away in that famous scene of the 1959 Hitchcock classic North by Northwest, just as the director intended.

Hands Free

With full showers, skylights, and large vanities gracing the lavatories of the most luxe business jets today, what could be next? The smart lavatory is evolving into a nearly completely hands-free space by incorporating sensors to activate everything from faucets to showers. Using an AI algorithm, Diehl Aviation has taken it a step farther to add more functionality with voice-controlled commands for opening and closing the door, turning on lights, and activating water. Hologram light switches will eventually keep the lavatory completely hands free, while smart mirrors can multitask by providing an interactive display of digital content.

So riveting was my chat last week with George Hamilton and his tailor, Paolo Martorano, that I decided to continue my conversation with the actor in a second installment this week. Despite the grey sky and steady drizzle falling outside the windows of my New England home, Hamilton’s sunny demeanor had me feeling more like I was in Palm Beach, cool drink in hand and clad in a coral linen ensemble. And almost two hours later, it was apparent why he has earned the icon status he enjoys.

Hamilton is, by all standards, larger than life: a charming gentleman and a style legend who epitomises Hollywood at its most glamorous. Generously candid, his humour is rivalled only by his sincerity. Amid stories from his childhood, of his A-list costars and insights he’s gleaned throughout his life, Hamilton offers a masterclass in true masculinity, with a sharply attuned acuity for what women want and a practiced understanding of what makes a gentleman—with or without a bespoke tailor at one’s service.

“A man should look confident and capable, and those two things reside between the waist and the shoulder. Because if the waist is nipped in a little, it means he’s in good shape. If the shoulder is robust, he can handle the problem.”

George Hamilton

The Language of Suiting

The question is an all too common one: how does one define “gentleman?” It’s an elusive proposition and fodder for countless think pieces, none of which can rival Hamilton’s estimation: “I think a man should always look as though he’s able to handle the problem, if need be,” he says, though his mind can’t resist turning to tailoring.

“A man should look confident and capable, and those two things reside between the waist and the shoulder. Because if the waist is nipped in a little, it means he’s in good shape. If the shoulder is robust, he can handle the problem,” says Hamilton.

We joke about the scourge of skinny suits and discuss the value of a good tailor, though he was adamant that a man does not need a bespoke bank account to pull off bespoke style, suggesting that young men look to the prep aesthetic and pair a smart made-to-measure sport coat with a gray flannel trouser. “It makes a young man look incredibly well dressed and without too much study.” It’s the prerogative of an older man, too, he says to keep yourself looking good. “When you finally get your head together, your ass is falling apart,” he says with a warm laugh.

No matter the age, he insists the principles of good dressing remain the same. In addition to proper jacket proportions, pants should serve to elongate the leg and be complemented by well made shoes. “What is it you’re selling? You’re selling you,” he says. “Not the suit. Not the shoes. Not the socks. A great tailor doesn’t make you look like you’re wearing a costume. It blends into you, it makes you look great. That’s the whole trick. They have to subordinate their ego a little bit to make you look better. But when they do it right, it makes everyone want to look like that. And then the tailor becomes the one who’s the architect.”

“When you finally get your head together, your ass is falling apart.”

-George Hamilton

Well Groomed

Grooming is also paramount, a show of respect for yourself and the people around you. The cologne Hamilton wears is one he’s spent sixty years getting just right. From taxi drivers to female companions, everyone is completely intrigued by it—and its name is the one thing in our conversation he demurs on. According to Hamilton, a man’s grooming routine should fit in a dopp kit and tend toward restraint. “Whether it be a manicure, a pedicure, or the right haircut, it must be simple and to the point,” he says. “We’re meant to be out killing dragons while the woman’s getting ready. But it doesn’t mean that it needn’t be sophisticated.”

He credits his mother with much of his style instinct and one story in particular illustrates the precarious balance of intentional elegance and ease. “I remember the first time I was going out to dinner at a debutante thing in New York, and I got all dressed up. I stood at the door and she said, “What are you doing? You’re standing there like you’re a waiter.” You should get on the floor and play with the dog, with your tuxedo, with your dinner clothes.” So I got on and played with the dog. When I got up, she said, ‘Now, that’s the way you should stand. That’s the way you go.” I never forgot that.”

Manners Maketh the Man

It’s not just Hamilton’s style sense that hinges on balance. “Men can’t give up kindness to be strong,” he says. “Strength without kindness or kindness without strength—it won’t work. There’s a balance to it.”

Again, he attributes his upbringing for these values. “I was raised in an era that had manners, and those manners were the lubricant for all problems,” he says. “If you live long enough and you travel enough, and if you churn in the right company, civility is the ability to keep everything oiled and proper so that you don’t bump up against things.”

For Hamilton, manners are defined by what all people you encounter have to say about you once you’ve left their company: the compliments you pay people when you have nothing to gain, nothing transactional to incentivise you. “The way you treat people that the world might not deem important? That denotes or connotes who a person really is.”

Hamilton also says humour is imperative. “I don’t take myself seriously, or any of it seriously. And most people do,” he says. “But life is over so fast – and it’s hard to have a sense of humour, but if you have that, it saves you. It’s the shock absorber for everything.”

And critically, despite a man’s station in life, humility is a defining mark of character. Put simply: no one likes a show off. “You don’t have to flaunt it,” he emphasises. “We all have to learn the basic rules of life and you don’t have to go around explaining to everyone that you know and you are better. I don’t think that’s attractive for a man or a woman really. But I think a woman appreciates a kind of quiet confidence.”

What Women Want

Those glints of humanity, of fallibility, are imperative when it comes to romance and seduction. “You have to have a human touch to it all, I think. Not always being perfect, it’s sometimes the imperfect that makes it a human quality that makes it. And sometimes, you can’t display it, you have to betray it,” Hamilton says.

Just ask Elizabeth Taylor.

When Taylor was playing Cleopatra, Hamilton says, they were in England shooting. The weather was horrible and the studio had already sunk millions of dollars into the production. Finally, they cast Richard Burton to play opposite Elizabeth Taylor as Mark Antony. “They were working on a scene where she’s supposed to say, “I haven’t dismissed you,” Hamilton recounts. “And Richard had been drinking for two or three days, and was exhausted. He had no sleep.” He told Taylor he needed coffee. They brought it to him, but he couldn’t bring the cup to his mouth. “So he asked her if she would lift the cup to his mouth so he could drink. And she said that’s when she fell in love with him.”

Taylor sought security her whole life—a product of growing up a child actress with others always reliant on her. “She wanted someone to take charge, because she never had that as a child,” he says, noting that it was Mike Todd, who he believes was her most compatible match in that regard.

But not to be outdone, Hamilton and his gentlemanly ways left their own imprint on Taylor’s life. “Elizabeth was extraordinary,” he says. “But she was like a little girl, kind of lost. And she always had a list of things she needed, ten or twelve things.” The two were staying together at a hotel in New York when George asked her to write down her list of “necessities” for him. “She sat down and lingered over the list for an hour, getting it together and worrying about it. And I took it downstairs to the manager of the hotel, Bernard Lackner. And I asked Bernard, “Can you take this list of things that Elizabeth Taylor needs and get them done?’ “Of course,” Lackner said. “15 minutes later, everything would be done.”

Very modestly, George tells me he didn’t so much manage the list himself, but he knew how to delegate. Still, it impressed Taylor all the same. Hamilton returned to their room, list completed and delivered the good news to Taylor.

“I’ve never met a man like you who incredibly took charge and handled everything,” Taylor said. Here’s to men who can get the job done.