How the Quiet Island of Tinos Became Greece’s New It Destination
The sleepy Greek island has long drawn artists and religious pilgrims but has flown under the radar for the upscale traveller. That’s about to change, though. The Med’s new It destination is awakening.
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Just below the crest of a mountain on Tinos, in Greece’s Cycladic archipelago, sturdy oak trees are bent low to the ground, the near-constant northern wind sculpting their trunks and branches into bizarre, gravity-defying poses. Known as the Meltemi, these winds have occupied an outsize place in the Tinian psyche since antiquity, when a myth arose to explain them: Hercules, angry at Boreas for killing his friend, took revenge on the god of the north wind by killing Boreas’s children on Tinos. The grieving and enraged father, in turn, unleashed his fierce gales to blow on the rocky landscape for all eternity.
Today, the Meltemi make the scorching summer sun bearable and keep the grapes in the vineyards from overheating. They whip up surfable waves at Kolymbithra beach, in an Aegean Sea that is otherwise as placid as a swimming pool, and help deter cruise ships and superyachts from encroaching on this low-key haven where wild goats roam the unspoiled terrain and stray cats patrol the convivial public squares.
The island is increasingly a favourite spot for vacation homes among a creative set of Greeks and other Europeans—Poor Things filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, Greek National Opera artistic director Giorgos Koumendakis, along with fellow artists, architects, musicians and the like—looking to avoid the hubbub of the country’s more popular retreats and drawn to Tinos’s longstanding ties to the art world. For decades, though, most tourists here have been religious pilgrims, arriving by ferry and often crawling uphill from the port on their hands and knees to pray beneath a holy icon of the Virgin Mary inside the Church of Panagia Evangelistria. (The daily trickle of the devoted becomes a flood on August 15, the date celebrated as the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, when Greek Orthodox believe she died and her soul ascended to heaven.) But with the opening in May of Odera, the island’s first five-star resort, plus the growth of the luxury-villa operator Five Star Greece and the launch this year of Hoper, a commercial helicopter service connecting Tinos to Athens in under 45 minutes, the island is poised to become Greece’s new It destination.
Whether Tinians want to claim that title, however, remains an open question. As Maya Tsoclis, a summer resident with deep ties to the area, quips at the expense of a certain overbuilt, hard-partying neighbour island, “What’s the distance between heaven and hell? The distance between Tinos and Mykonos.”
Thomas Gravanis
Tinos has always been something of an oddity. For some 500 years, until 1715, it was part of the Venetian Empire, which rewarded Tinians who adopted the Roman Catholic faith with premium land. Today, while up to 90 percent of the country’s population identifies as Greek Orthodox, on the island the figure is only 60 to 65 percent, with the remainder Catholic. The whitewashed villages were historically one or the other, though intermarriage has come to modern-day Tinos.
Built high in the mountains—to guard against pirates—the villages connect via ostensibly two-lane switchback roads that at points are so harrowingly narrow, they feel more like glorified bike paths. Architectural artifacts dot the hillsides: hundreds of charmingly decorated dovecotes, where locals raised rock pigeons for food and rich fertiliser, even exporting the latter; abandoned windmills that once powered a lucrative grain-milling industry; and more than a thousand tiny white chapels, each constructed by a family as a shrine to a loved one. Low dry-stone walls built to terrace the mountains for agriculture still stand, one possible reason the renowned 20th-century philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, who lived on Tinos, dubbed it “the handmade island”.
The other explanation: Tinos’s abundant marble quarries, which have fed a centuries-old network of skilled carvers and inspired countless artists. Stroll through the village of Pyrgos and observe the door frames, balconies, even an elegant bus shelter fashioned from marble; or step into the house where the venerated sculptor Yannoulis Chalepas was held a virtual prisoner in the early 1900s by his mother, who thwarted her son’s artmaking until her death, blaming it for his shaky mental health. Since 1955, the nearby Preparatory and Professional School of Fine Arts has instructed new generations of sculptors from throughout Greece and beyond—and drawn more artists to Tinos in the process—and the hilltop Museum of Marble Crafts offers a fascinating look at how the stone is excavated and carved. (Amateur sculptors take note: a figure’s face should always be chiseled from the side that pointed toward the sun.)
Maya Tsoclis is sitting on the terrace of her 19th-century stone house in the tiny mountain village of Koumaros, sipping water infused with lemons from the trees in her garden. She has been coming to Tinos for nearly 40 years, ever since her father, the celebrated artist Costas Tsoclis, decided Hydra had begun to resemble an Athenian suburb. “We were looking for something rougher,” recalls Maya, herself a household name in Greece thanks to her long-running series of television travel documentaries, noting that Tinos felt dreamlike—almost medieval—by comparison. There was an authenticity to the place; people still worked with their hands.
Thomas Gravanis
The Tsoclis family found a house in the village of Kampos and became enmeshed in the fabric of the island. In 2011, the Costas Tsoclis Museum opened in a former school in the village, and this Northern Hemisphere summer it inaugurated a new wing, which connects to the original building via a modern amphitheatre. At 94, the compact and silver-haired Costas still works in his museum studio every day during his seasonal sojourns from Athens, painting six or seven hours to take advantage of the optimal light. “Unfortunately, I always consider creation an obligation,” he says.
When I visit him, a grid of hot-pink abstract paintings covers the wall, just some of what will be a monumental installation of 90 panels in Athens come September. “In these artworks, my theme is the miracle of technology and the danger and fear of technology,” he explains, sitting in the shade of a vine-covered trellis, where museum visitors are often happily surprised to find him. “There’s a huge space within this technology, which although I use, I don’t understand. So it would be inconsistent for everything I do to be understood. It should also be incomprehensible.”
Thomas Gravanis
When the Tsoclises acquired the Koumaros villa in 2006, Maya learned that her family had a poignant connection to it: in 1950, her father was a poor, young art student in Athens who had fallen in love, but the young woman’s disapproving parents spirited her away to an Ursuline convent on Tinos. Costas sold his possessions to buy a ferry ticket, then made his way to a monastery, where, pretending to be her cousin, he inquired after his lost love. The monks told him she’d gone to the nuns’ summer residence. Unable to find it in the rugged topography, he returned to Athens and never saw or heard from her again. This villa, it turned out, was the Ursulines’ summer retreat. “One of the reasons he bought the place is because this woman was here,” Maya says, as the church bells peal next door. (A subsequent search for any record of the woman turned up nothing.)
Thomas Gravanis
Maya, who is also a former fashion designer, renovated the house meticulously, preserving unique architectural details such as the rocks that protrude through the walls of the lower level. She built an amphitheatre, where she now hosts a month-long arts festival every August, converted a traditional dovecote into a small guesthouse, and added a sauna and pool. The six hectares are adorned with her father’s artworks and fragranced by hot-pink bougainvillea. Now she has decided to lease the property, on a very limited basis, through Five Star Greece—though she clearly has mixed feelings about tourism on the island.
“All Greeks know Tinos because of the pilgrimage. We forget now, but Tinos is the pilgrimage. It’s the soul of Tinos,” says Maya, who is not religious herself. “The Virgin Mary saved Tinos,” she adds, explaining that travellers who wanted to party were turned off by the ritual (and, perhaps, the lack of an airport or yacht berths) and flocked to Mykonos instead. By the time developers realised Tinos’s potential, “people were a little bit wiser. Tinos doesn’t have the superyachts; we have the thinkers. The problem now is that because Mykonos was so overwhelmed with tourism—and bad tourism—a new word that’s used is the “Mykonisation” of Tinos. This is what we’re trying to avoid.”
In 2012, she and her partner, Alexandros Kouris, started Nissos Brewery to help the island develop revenue streams beyond tourism. Its high-end potables have since won awards in beer strongholds Germany and Belgium, and the powerhouse Carlsberg Group recently bought a minority stake. US expansion is in the works. In addition to the craft brewery located in the main town, known as Chora, Nissos keeps a cellar beneath a former Catholic monastery on the outskirts of a village near the villa, where the couple have been experimenting with ageing beer like wine (the result is curiously akin to Cognac) and host candlelight tastings for friends and family.
Thomas Gravanis
The beer business was a bold choice on an island known for its wine. T-oinos, one of the leading wineries, has made a name for itself in the 21st century by producing a certified-organic lineup featuring Assyrtiko grapes grown in sandy soil shot through with granite and Mavrotragano grapes planted in shist and clay. The vineyards are some 450 m above sea level, where oregano, lavender, thyme and fennel grow wild and where the lower temperatures and the Meltemi combine to keep the grapes cool—preserving their acidity and freshness—and dry during the day, preventing disease.
Under the direction of big-name master vigneron Stéphane Derenoncourt, T-Oinos ages the wines in stainless steel, glass, amphorae and wood barrels—and sometimes a combination—producing about 20,000 bottles annually with an all-Tinian crew. About half the output goes to other islands in the Cyclades, including Mykonos, where purveyors often refer to it as the “local wine” because the island has no vineyards of its own. That designation has led more than a few bewildered tourists to book tastings at T-Oinos only to find out when they can’t locate the vineyard that they’re on the wrong island.
Thomas Gravanis
T-Oinos’s Clos Stegasta reds and whites complement a thriving gastronomic scene that evokes the ancient Greek seafaring tradition of philoxenia, the custom that you should be generously hospitable to guests, in part to ensure similar treatment when you travel. Tinian meals tend to be languorous affairs, with an abundance of dishes served on exquisitely crafted ceramics and shared around the table. There are Athenian imports, such as Svoura, known for its simple but well-executed menu, including addictive zucchini chips and fresh pasta. Diners park on the outskirts of the village of Komi—even a motorcycle would have trouble maneuvering down some of the stone paths—and stroll to a lively piazza, where the tables are set beneath a grand, leafy maple tree. There are also homegrown innovators, including San to Alati, Thalassaki and Marathia, the last of which Marinos Souranis opened in Chora more than 20 years ago as a taverna focused on local ingredients and old recipes. He has since increasingly delved into experimental dishes—think shrimp carpaccio with strawberry sorbet—and techniques, particularly in the realm of fish maturation.
“In the beginning, it was very primitive,” Souranis recalls on a warm evening, as the Aegean laps the beach across the road. Now, having built a research lab with a maturation chamber under his house, he consults with restaurants globally. The aim is to harness the process of decomposition, changing the fish’s collagen into sugars over days or weeks, akin to how beefsteaks are aged. The results are intriguing: tuna that bears a salty, chewy resemblance to prosciutto; amberjack soft enough to spread.
Thomas Gravanis
Souranis has also fostered the foraging trend on Tinos, collecting and preserving mushrooms for the menu’s hearty risotto, for example, during the winter months, when Marathia is closed. “We’re open eight months, but we work 12 months,” he says.
Tinos’s appetite for invention may have played a role in luring Dimitris Skarmoutsos, arguably Greece’s most famous chef. Skarmoutsos, whose Delta restaurant in Athens was the nation’s first to earn two Michelin stars, is the executive chef behind Eos at Odera, which offers a sophisticated take on Mediterranean cuisine.
Thomas Gravanis
From the approach on a rocky dirt road, Odera has a low profile that discreetly hews to the landscape, then hugs the steep hillside behind as it descends toward the private beach, giving each of the 77 guest rooms a magnificent view of the azure Aegean below. From the sunbeds and sofas on the private patios, wild goats can be seen scampering up the slopes that frame the resort in whimsical juxtaposition with Odera’s contemporary-chic style, which comes courtesy of Studio Bonarchi in Athens. The design feels carefully considered to blend in with the Tinian aesthetic: an abundant use of stone and marble; high stone-walled passageways that evoke the towns’ labyrinths. Granted, the facades aren’t painted white with brightly contrasting doors and shutters, the way they are in the villages, but the neutral palette harmonises with the arid landscape and is arguably less obtrusive than a stark-white luxury compound far from a settlement would be.
Thomas Gravanis
Other new construction, primarily in the form of private homes, is also attempting to meld with the cliffs and terraced mountains. Martha Giannakopoulou, an Athens-based architect who has been spending summers on Tinos with her musician husband for 11 years, is designing three homes on the island: one for a Greek family, the others for two Brits creating a compound together. The family house is being built from Tinian stone and will be “half hidden within the hill”, she says.
Giannakopoulou notes that the local government is determined to keep growth under control by strictly limiting the size and location of new dwellings, aiming to encourage development within village boundaries rather than allowing random villas to mar the countryside. “The construction has blown up quite a bit [in recent years],” she says. “The capacity of the island is not high: there’s a lack of water and electricity. And that’s one of the problems Mykonos has been having—the infrastructure is very weak. Very often in August, 10 or 15 days go by and you have minimum access to water.”
Thomas Gravanis
To be sure, in a place that thirsts for fresh water, ask locals about newcomers (whether individuals or hotels) and the first thing you’ll likely hear is a swipe at all the swimming pools, along with a rhetorical question: “Why do they need pools? We’re surrounded by the Aegean.”
At Odera, 24 rooms and suites have private infinity pools that jut toward the sea, and another 30 have shared ones. The resort accesses the water via a borehole and treats it with salt electrolysis, a natural disinfectant method that reduces the need for chemical chlorination. Other sustainability efforts include using biologically treated wastewater to irrigate its landscaping, geothermal energy for heating and cooling, and rock excavated on-site for wall cladding, dry-stone walls and gravel.
Thomas Gravanis
Maya Tsoclis, for one, understands Tinos’s appeal to those seeking a refuge, noting that no other island has so many beautiful villages. “It’s an open-air museum,” she says, adding that the pertinent development question is, “How far can you go without destroying what is unique?”
Thomas Gravanis
After all, she and her family chose Tinos, too. “We felt very at home here, as if there was an affinity,” she explains. “Sometimes it’s not just aesthetics. There’s something in a place that tells you that it can be right—for some reason you don’t know.”
Her father is of the same mind. His sculpture of Saint George slaying the dragon is installed in the courtyard of his museum, easily leading a visitor to assume that the creature’s scaly, undulating tail was intended to mirror the rough, rolling mountains in the distance. But Costas insists his physical surroundings impact only his body and mind, not the literal look of his art. “I get a lot of energy from Tinos—that’s why I’m here,” he says. “I’ve lived in different parts of the world, and I didn’t have a certain homeland that I carried with me. When I came here, this miracle made me creative. It’s as simple as that.”
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Radek Sali’s Wellspring of Youth
The wellness entrepreneur on why longevity isn’t a luxury—yet—and how the science of living well became Australia’s next great export.
Australian wellness pioneer Radek Sali is bringing his bold vision for longevity and human performance to the Gold Coast this weekend with Wanderlust Wellspring—a two-day summit running 25-26 October 2025 at the RACV Royal Pines Resort in Benowa. Sali, former CEO of Swisse and now co-founder of the event and investment firm Light Warrior, has long been at the intersection of wellness, business and conscious purpose.
Wellspring promises a packed agenda of global thought leaders in biohacking and longevity, including Sydney-born Harvard researcher David Sinclair, resilience pioneer Wim Hof, performance innovator Dave Asprey and muscle-health expert Gabrielle Lyon. From immersive workshops to diagnostics, tech showcases, and movement classes, Sali aims to make longevity less a niche pursuit for the elite and more an accessible cultural shift for all. Robb Report ANZ recently interviewed him for our Longevity feature. Here is an edited version of the conversation.
You’ve helped bring Wellspring to life at a moment when longevity seems to be dominating the cultural conversation. What drew you personally to this space?
I’ve always been passionate about wellness, and the language and refinement around how we achieve it are improving every day. Twenty years ago, when I was CEO of Swisse, a conference like this wouldn’t have had traction. Today, people’s interest in health and their thirst for knowledge continue to expand. What excites me is that wellness has moved into the realm of entertainment—people want to feel better, and that’s something I’ve always been happy to deliver.
There are wellness retreats, biohacking clinics, medical conferences everywhere. What makes Wellspring different?
Accessibility. A wellness retreat can be exclusive, but Wellspring democratises the experience. Tickets start at just $79, with options up to $1,800 for a platinum weekend pass. That means anyone can learn from the latest thought leaders. Too often in this space, barriers are put up that limit who can benefit from the science of biohacking. We want Wellspring to be for everyone.
You’re not just an organiser, but also an investor and participant in this field. How do you reconcile passion with commercial opportunity?
Any investment I make has to have purpose. Helping people optimise their health has driven me for two decades. It’s satisfying not just as an investor but as an operator—it builds wonderful culture within organisations and makes a real difference to people’s lives. That’s the natural fit for me, and something I want to keep refining.
What signals do you look for in longevity ventures to separate lasting impact from passing fads?
A lot of what we’re seeing now are actually old ideas resurfacing, supported by deeper scientific research. My father was one of the first in conventional medicine to talk about diet causing disease and meditation supporting mental health back in the 1970s. He was dismissed at first, but decades later, his work was validated. That experience taught me to look for evidence-based practices that endure. Today, we’re at a point where great scientists and doctors can headline events like Wellspring—that’s a huge cultural shift.
Longevity now carries a certain cultural cachet—its own insider language and status markers. How important is that to moving the field forward?
Health is our most precious asset, and people have always boasted about their routines—whether it’s going to the gym, doing a detox, or training for a marathon. What’s different now is that longevity practices are gaining mainstream recognition. I see it as something to be proud of, and I want to democratise access so everyone can ride the biohacking wave.
But some argue that for the ultra-wealthy, peak health has become a kind of luxury asset—like a private jet or a competitive edge.
That’s short-sighted. Yes, there are extremes, but most biohacking methods are accessible and inexpensive. Look at the blue zones—their lifestyle practices aren’t costly, yet they lead to long, healthy lives. That’s essential knowledge we should be sharing widely, and Wellspring is designed to do that in an engaging way.
Community is often cited as a key factor in healthspan. How does Wellspring foster that?
Community is at the heart of it. Just as Okinawa thrives on social connection, we want Wellspring to be a regular gathering place where people uplift each other. Ideally, it would become as busy as a Live Nation schedule—but for health and wellness.
Do you worry longevity could deepen class divides?
Class divides exist, and health isn’t immune. But in Australia, we’re fortunate—democracy and a strong equalisation process help maintain quality of life for most. Proactive healthcare, like supplementation and lifestyle changes, isn’t expensive. In fact, it’s cheaper than a daily coffee. That’s why we’re one of the top five longest-living nations. The opportunity is to keep improving by making proactive health accessible to everyone.
Some longevity ventures are described as “hedge-fund moonshots.” Others, like Wellspring, seem grounded in time-tested approaches. Where do you stand?
There’s value in both, but I’m more interested in sensible, sustainable practices. Things like exercise, meditation, and community-driven activities are proven to extend life and improve wellbeing. Technology can support this, but we can’t lose sight of the human elements—connection, balance, and purpose.
Finally, what role can Australia—and Wellspring—play in shaping the global longevity conversation?
The fact that we can put on an event like Wellspring, attract world-leading talent, and already have commitments for future years says a lot. Australia is far away, but that hasn’t stopped great scientists and thinkers from coming. We’ll be here every year, contributing to the global conversation and, hopefully, helping more people extend their healthspan.
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‘Continuum’ Opens to Rave Applause at Sydney Dance Company
Rafael Bonachela’s latest curatorial triumph premiered last night at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, dazzling audiences with its emotional range and fearless physicality.
Sydney Dance Company opened its latest season with Continuum, a triple bill that reminds audiences why the ensemble remains Australia’s most compelling cultural export. Receiving a standing ovation at its premiere last night at the Roslyn Packer Theatre, the program unfolds as an elegant meditation on movement and metamorphosis—three distinct choreographic visions held together by Rafael Bonachela’s curatorial precision and instinct for contrast.
Stephen Page’s Unungkati Yantatja – one with the other breathes land, sea, and sky into motion; Tra Mi Dinh’s Somewhere between ten and fourteen lingers in the tender light between day and night; and Bonachela’s own world-premiere Spell delivers the evening’s visceral heartbeat. Together they trace the continuum of life itself—fluid, volatile, and impossible to pin down. Running through 1 November, the production affirms Bonachela’s vision of dance as “an ever-evolving conversation between artists, audiences, and the world around them.” Robb Report ANZ recently caught up with Bonachela.
Continuum is described as “a bold exploration of the ever-shifting cadence that binds us to the world.” How did this idea of constant transformation influence your choreographic choices in Continuum?
I’ve curated this evening as an invitation for audiences to experience dance as an ever-evolving conversation—between past and present, between the individual and the collective, and between diverse artistic voices. My intention with this program is to spark connection, curiosity, and reflection, offering works that challenge, move, and inspire while revealing the transformative power of the body in motion.
Each choreographer brings a distinct perspective, yet all share a commitment to exploring the body in motion as a vessel for transformation. Through contrasting aesthetics, cultural resonances, and shifts in time, these works reveal how dance exists on a continuum—where moments build upon one another, find new meanings in fresh contexts, and affirm the enduring power of the human form to express what words cannot.
You’ve created the world premiere Spell within Continuum, which explores “the limits of emotional and physical expression.” What did you aim to conjure emotionally and physically through Spell, and how does it dialogue with the other works in the triple bill?
The title Spell itself suggests a duality—it can be something magical, but also something we fall under without even realising. Emotionally, I want to evoke an atmosphere that is at once intimate and volatile, where vulnerability and power exist side by side. There’s a ritualistic quality to the work, as if the dancers are caught inside a force they cannot quite escape—and it’s that tension which drives the movement and fuels the piece.
Within Continuum, Spell emerges as an intense, visceral heart—both contrasting with and speaking to the other works. While it shares the evening’s theme of transformation, it explores it through a lens of emotional ignition and fearless physicality.
In crafting Continuum, how did you balance moments of intimacy and expansiveness—especially when layering live elements like music and immersive lighting—to evoke that ebb and flow of life’s narratives?
In Continuum, each choreographer works with complete artistic freedom, without any direction from me. That independence brings out authentic contrasts and unexpected connections between the works. It’s this variety that invites audiences to engage on their own terms, discovering personal meanings and emotional threads that are unique to each viewer.
This triple bill seems to offer a journey through time and place—from twilight’s fleeting beauty to elemental breath. How do you want audiences to experience—and perhaps rethink—the relationship between movement, nature, and storytelling?
I always want audiences to come with an open mind and allow the experience to be unprescribed free to discover their own meanings and narratives. Dance has the unique power to be felt as much as it is seen, to resonate physically and emotionally in ways words can’t. I hope audiences leave with a renewed sense of how deeply movement is connected to the natural world, and how it can tell stories without language. Like nature, this evening is always in motion—emerging, transforming, and fading—so that each work becomes a landscape the audience can journey through, sensing their own place in the continuum of life
Looking ahead, does Continuum carve out a new direction or personal milestone for your artistic trajectory? What might this signal for your future choreographic explorations?
Continuum feels like both a culmination and a starting point. It gathers threads from my past work, my fascination with transformation, my love of collaboration, my search for emotional truth and weaves them into something that opens new doors.
Creating and curating this triple bill has changed how I see works interacting—how contrasting voices can strengthen shared themes. It’s inspired me to explore even more fluid boundaries between ideas, styles, and disciplines.
If it signals anything for the future, it’s that I’m interested in going further into that space where dance is not just movement, but an ongoing conversation—between artists, between forms, and between audiences and the world around them.
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Inside the $30 Billion Obsession Among the Ultra-Wealthy : A Race to Live Longer
The pursuit of an extended life has become a new asset class for those who already own the jets, the vineyards, and the art collections. The only precious resource left to conquer, it seems, is time.
If you want to know what the latest obsession is these days among the ultra-wealthy, listen in at dinner.
Once it was crypto, then came AI and psychedelics, now it’s longevity all the time. The talk is of biomarkers, NAD+ levels, and methylation clocks, of senolytics and stem cells. Guests compare blood panels like wine lists, and the most important name to drop is no longer your banker or contact at Rolex but your longevity physician. For those just arriving at the conversation, the new science can sound like science fiction—but it’s fast becoming the lingua franca of money.
The field has its own vocabulary—epigenetic reprogramming, which aims to reset cellular clocks; cellular senescence clearance, the removal of “zombie” cells that clog our systems as we age; precision gene therapies, designed to personalise interventions at the level of DNA—that sounds equal parts Brave New World and Wall Street pitch deck. But make no mistake: this is no longer a niche pursuit. The sector is already worth an estimated $30 billion globally and projected to surpass $120 billion within the decade, having attracted billions in investment from the likes of Altos Labs, Juvenescence and Google-backed Calico. Tech titans and old-money families alike are staking claims on the possibility of an extra decade or two. It’s a space where venture funds court Nobel laureates, hedge funds bankroll gene-therapy moonshots, and even wellness festivals in Australia draw rock-star scientists to the stage.
The Poster Child and the Pitch
David Sinclair, the Sydney-born Harvard geneticist who has become something of a poster child for the field, is quick to underline the stakes. “We’re not just talking about lifespan, we’re talking about health span,” he tells Robb Report. “Extending the number of years people live well—without frailty, without disease—isn’t just a medical breakthrough. It’s a social and economic one.” Sinclair, whose research ranges from NAD boosters to epigenetic age-reversal therapies, has calculated that adding a single year of healthy life to the US population, for example, could be worth $38 trillion in economic benefit—fewer years of costly aged care, less burden on hospitals, more years of productivity and compounding returns. In other words, the dividends of health are financial as well as personal. “That’s why governments and investors are paying attention,” he says.
Sinclair has become a fixture on the global circuit, drawing crowds that rival TED or Davos. As Radek Sali, the Australian entrepreneur behind the new Wanderlust Wellspring longevity festival taking place on the Gold Coast this October, where Sinclair is the keynote speaker, puts it: “Wellness has moved into the realm of entertainment.” At Wellspring, platinum-tier guests pay up to nearly $2,000 for the privilege of hearing scientists and investors share the stage over a weekend like headliners at Coachella.
Investing in Time
And then there are the sideshows. Bryan Johnson, the tech mogul turned human guinea pig, makes headlines with his open-source, organ-by-organ data tracking—his infamous “penis readings” have become cocktail-party fodder. While many dismiss him as a parody of the field, his multimillion-dollar project Blueprint has nevertheless made longevity impossible to ignore in the mainstream.
For the uninitiated, the science of longevity today is no longer about vitamin salesmen or fringe dietary regimes. This is the new frontier—one where biology is not just observed but engineered, and where investors smell opportunity on par with space travel. It’s little wonder that Altos Labs has raised billions to chase cellular rejuvenation, or that Juvenescence has secured more than $400 million to fast-track therapies. What was once the realm of eccentric tinkerers now attracts sovereign wealth funds.
“This body takes me to meetings, earns me money—why not invest time and money into it?”
The appeal to the One Percent is obvious. Longevity is a natural extension of portfolio thinking: diversify your assets, hedge your risks, and above all, maximise return on investment. Except in this case, the returns are measured in years of health, energy and cognition. As Andrew Banks, a Sydney-based entrepreneur and early investor in Juvenescence, explains: “This body takes me to meetings, earns me money—why not invest time and money into it?” His Point Piper home teems with contraptions—a Reoxy breathing machine, hydrogen therapy, red-light sauna, and he spends a few hours a day on maintenance, as if his body were a private equity stake.
Banks, like others in his cohort, is baffled that more wealthy men haven’t followed suit. “Entrepreneurs pride themselves on divergent thinking,” he says. “They expand, dream and create businesses with it. But when it comes to their bodies, they’re convergent—unimaginative. The lack of curiosity is astonishing to me.”
Medicine 3.0 and the New Rituals
Steve Grace, a Sydney-based entrepreneur and the proprietor of exclusive private networking club The Pillars, which is opening a longevity program, thinks there is a reckoning coming for those who do not take matters into their own hands. “As someone who has run a few recruitment businesses,” he says, “I can tell you that if you’re a man or woman in your 50s and working as an employee, even in a really good position, it’s time to get worried about job security and being aged out of the workforce. You have to make yourself as vital as possible and become the best version of yourself, or you’re toast.”
What was once fringe has now become a cultural necessity for those who can afford anything, with science finally catching up to ambition. Sinclair’s lab at Harvard recently published a study on the reversibility of cellular ageing—restoring vision in blind mice and setting the stage for human trials in conditions like glaucoma. In Boston, his company Life Biosciences will begin treating patients with blindness in a Phase I trial using partial cellular reprogramming early next year. “This isn’t science fiction anymore,” Sinclair says. “We’re at the point where we can reprogram cells, turn back their biological clocks, and restore function.”
Meanwhile, practitioners like Dr. Adam Brown of the Longevity Institute in the Sydney suburb of Double Bay are reinventing diagnostics. His “assessment menu” has been compared—only half-jokingly—to a Michelin Guide for medical testing: full-body MRI scans, continuous glucose monitors, polygenic risk scores. “What we do is proactive, not reactive,” he says. “Correct deficiencies first, then optimise health. That’s how you get peak performance in the short term and resilience in the long term.” Brown frames longevity in terms that would resonate with any investor: “There’s a short-term ROI—fixing glucose or sleep issues so you perform better tomorrow. And there’s a long-term ROI—functioning in your 70s as you would in your 40s. That’s extending your career, your income potential and your independence.”
“Once upon a time, male vanity meant injectables, veneers and a tan. Today, it’s VO2 max scores and continuous glucose monitor readouts.”
Peter Attia, the Canadian-American physician and podcast host who has helped popularise the concept of “Medicine 3.0”, echoes this emphasis. Medicine 1.0, according to him, was about surviving infections. Medicine 2.0 was about treating chronic disease. Medicine 3.0 is about staying ahead of decline: measuring, monitoring and intervening early. “The goal is not just to avoid disease but to lengthen health span,” Attia has said.
For those already converted, longevity is less about lab science than daily rituals. Sydney-based Chief Brabon, who trains CEOs like athletes, says: “These men are like Formula One cars—you don’t wait until the tyres are bald before swapping them. You keep everything tuned, precise, optimised.”
That tuning now involves more gadgets than ever: hyperbaric oxygen chambers, cryotherapy, sauna/cold-plunge circuits, peptide stacks, nootropics. And yes, a glut of supplements, some with evidence, others little more than wishful thinking. Once upon a time, male vanity meant injectables, veneers and a tan. Today, it’s VO2 max scores and continuous glucose monitor readouts. “Health is the new flex,” as Steve Grace quipped, glancing at his wrist-worn biometric tracker.
The New Flex: Health as the Ultimate Luxury
Still, there is plenty of scepticism. Some therapies are unproven, others prohibitively expensive. And there is the unavoidable fact that many leading scientists, including Sinclair, have stakes in companies producing supplements and therapeutics, raising eyebrows about conflicts of interest. “The difference,” Sinclair insists, “is whether it’s backed by peer-reviewed science and measurable biomarkers. If it can’t be quantified, it’s marketing, not medicine.”
Then there are the contradictions. It promises democratisation while often priced like a private club. It champions science but thrives on hype. It seeks to extend health span but risks deepening class divides. “Only if we let it,” Sinclair says when asked if longevity risks becoming the preserve of the wealthy. “Like antibiotics or aspirin, these advances should become widely available and affordable once they scale.” Sali agrees, but from another angle: “Biohacking doesn’t have to be expensive,” he says. “The blue zones prove that—community, diet, movement, purpose. Those are free. Wellspring is about making that knowledge accessible.”
And yet, for all its shortcomings, the movement is here to stay. Investment continues to pour in. Technology—like senolytic drugs that clear aged cells or AI-driven platforms that predict individual disease risk years in advance—is moving from speculation to clinical trial. Scientists are being recast as influencers. And the wealthy, always in search of the next advantage, have found in longevity a pursuit as old as alchemy, yet dressed in the language of venture capital. The truth is that health has always been an asset. What’s new is that it’s now being traded, optimised and measured like one.
In the end, longevity is less about a moonshot than about curiosity. Banks, Sali, Sinclair, Attia are all, in their own way, betting on time. Perhaps the most radical idea is also the simplest: that the best-performing asset in any portfolio is the body itself. Unlike Bitcoin, it carries you to meetings. Unlike art, it cannot be stored in a vault. Unlike real estate, it is non-transferable.
The new calculus of longevity is the recognition that the ultimate luxury is not wealth or status, but a few more decades of clear thought, strong bones and good company—and the ability to make money off it. Everything else, as one investor put it, is just a rounding error.
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How Sailing Shaped Loro Piana’s Most Iconic Designs
Pier Luigi Loro Piana grew his family textile business into a celebrated fashion house by following his passion for sports on land and at sea.
The Regatta Connection
The race village at Port de Saint-Tropez is awash with people in nautical navy and white, the de facto dress code for the Loro Piana Giraglia regatta. This is the second year the fashion house has lent its name to one of the Mediterranean’s most prestigious summer races. The course zooms from the French coast to Genoa, Italy, taking a sharp turn past Giraglia, a small island off Corsica’s northern tip. It’s the latest in a long line of marine events the brand has sponsored, dating back more than 20 years.
The link between sailing and the brand—and more consequentially the Loro Piana family—is exemplified by the man Robb Report is here to meet: Pier Luigi Loro Piana. An avuncular figure in his 70s with the physique of a man who has enjoyed life, Pier Luigi fell in love with sailing in his late teens, when a family friend took him for a cruise in a sloop.
“Using the wind to go faster or slower, driving the boat like it has an engine, it’s really fascinating,” he says. Inevitably, he started competing. “When you’re sailing, you’re always looking for other boats to go and fight with. It’s an instinct,” he says. And then, with considerable understatement, “I think it’s a nice hobby.”
A Life Under Sail
He currently owns two boats: My Song, which you can see on these pages, is a 25 m sailing yacht that competed in the Regatta. There’s also Masquenada, a comfortable 50 m explorer. It’s a commendable set-up befitting a man who shaped one of Europe’s most celebrated fashion houses.
A Family Business Turned Global Powerhouse
The textile and clothing company that bears his family’s name was launched by an ancestor, Pietro Loro Piana, in 1924. A few generations later, Pier Luigi and his brother, Sergio, would run it for four decades until LVMH acquired a majority stake for around $4 billion in 2013. Sergio passed away that year; his widow and Pier Luigi still own a share of the brand between them.
The brothers proved innovative custodians, moving the company upmarket with an insistence on ultra-fine materials and groundbreaking fabrications. And the connection with sports—specifically yachting, horseback riding, skiing and golf—is integral to how the brand positions itself. As Pier Luigi recalls, such associations often had self-serving origins.
“These are the sports my brother and myself were doing,” he says. “We were very committed in business in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, so we were like our customers: people that like to work hard but also play hard. And that meant sports.”
Innovation Born of Necessity
This affinity often led them to develop durable, yet elegant, materials and gear for their off-duty pursuits, eventually offering versions to their athletic clientele. “We engineered products with unusual properties, natural fibres like wool or cashmere with a membrane that makes it waterproof and windproof… For research and development, I was the first victim,” he says with a chuckle. Once, he wanted a ski jacket that was “warmer, lighter, softer and better” than nylon models, so he made a prototype to test on the slopes. It gave birth to the Loro Piana Storm System, launched in 1994. The line’s wind-resistant waterproof wool and cashmere has since been used by brands around the world. “I still have this jacket,” he says.
The same process happened on the water. A beloved reversible bomber, with knitted cashmere on one side and waterproof polyester on the other, was born from Pier Luigi’s need for a functional jacket to wear on his yacht. “It’s very light, doesn’t wrinkle, it’s warm, windproof,” he says. “It solves so many problems.”
He takes less credit for perhaps the brand’s most famous—and almost certainly most imitated—product, the white-soled suede Summer Walk loafers. “That was my brother,” he says. “When we were 20, 30 years old, we went sailing and there were only [Sperry] Top-Siders or Sebagos. But when the soles got worn, they got hard and slippery.”
The answer: a non-marking sole with grip—“like a tire you use in Formula 1 when it’s wet”—which Sergio got his bespoke shoemaker to sew to suede uppers. Eventually, they produced two versions: a loafer and the Open Walk, a model with a slightly higher top. “We discovered people were using them also for formal wear because they were so comfortable,” says Pier Luigi. “It’s really a successful story that started from product research.”
And if problem-solving can turn your family business into a giant of global style, clearly it pays to be a little selfish.
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The Supercar of Pool Tables
In a rare fusion of Italian design pedigree and artisanal craftsmanship, Pininfarina and Brandt have reframed the barroom game as aerodynamic high art.
In the rarefied realm where leisure meets design, the latest object of desire doesn’t purr down the autostrada—it commands the room from a single sculptural base. The Vici pool table, a collaboration between Italian automotive legend Pininfarina and Miami’s bespoke table-maker Brandt Design Studio, reimagines the game with the same aerodynamic poise and artisanal precision that have graced some of the world’s most beautiful vehicles.
Named for Julius Caesar’s immortal boast—“Veni, vidi, vici”—this limited-edition series transforms billiards from casual diversion into a declaration of style. Every curve is deliberate, from the ultra-thin playing surface clad in tournament-grade Simonis cloth to the seamless integration of Italian nubuck leather and precision-milled metals. The effect is more haute sculpture than barroom pastime—yet it meets exacting professional standards.
For the true connoisseur, the debut PF 95 Anniversario edition celebrates Pininfarina’s 95-year legacy in just 95 numbered pieces. Finished in dark-blue lacquer with rose-gold accents and a flash of red felt, each table is discreetly nameplated—a tangible claim to an heirloom in the making.
“It’s not just about how it plays—it’s about how it lives in a space,” says Dan Brandt, the master craftsman whose work has long graced the world’s most exclusive interiors. Whether anchoring a penthouse salon, a members’ lounge or the main deck of a superyacht, the Vici is designed to stir conversation before the first break.
For those accustomed to Pininfarina’s sleek automotive silhouettes, this is a chance to bring that same lineage of movement, form and Italian refinement into the home. Only now, the horsepower is measured not in engines—but in the geometry of a perfect shot.
From pool to midcentury to Ottoman, we’ve got all the table angles covered at Robb Report Australia & New Zealand —plus more home-worthy pieces.
