Rock Island
This tiny Caribbean island was beloved by ’80s musicians. Now it’s ready for a comeback.
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Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder and Elton John all flocked to idyllic Montserrat to relax and record albums.
The Caribbean island of Montserrat was a jet set getaway in the 1980s after music producer (and so-called “fifth Beatle”) Sir George Martin opened a recording studio there, AIR. The appeal of working with his team—and spending a few weeks or even months recording in a tropical paradise, too—was so compelling that the world’s most famous rockstars flocked there: Mick Jagger, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney all laid down tracks in Montserrat. The party ended abruptly when twin disasters struck the island, catastrophes from which it’s only just starting to recover. More than 25 years later, though, Montserrat is ready for a comeback.
Ebony and Ivory, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder Tug of War (1982)
When one of the Beatles arrived on the Caribbean island of Montserrat in 1981, he was mindful of security. Obviously—he was a Beatle. “Paul McCartney had bodyguards with cutlasses,” recalls local Cecil Wade, who now works as a guide and driver. “But he ended up giving them the money to go off somewhere else and just said, ‘Go ahead, enjoy yourselves.’ ” McCartney himself clearly planned to do much the same, installing his young family in a villa for several months while he worked; old pal Ringo Starr dropped in, making cameos in the home movies McCartney’s entourage shot then. His family, including daughter Stella, barely 10 then, frolic by the pool playing ping-pong, lark around on the balcony that overhangs it, and sit on the top of a cliff amid lush greenery.
The current owner of that villa, Providence Estate House, proudly points to one corner of the living room, which he has painstakingly renovated. Tony Glaser, an expat Briton who used to teach at the local university, notes there was once a piano where the bookcase sits. He indicates a framed colour photograph hanging on a nearby wall: McCartney and Stevie Wonder at that keyboard on the momentous visit when they recorded Ebony and Ivory.
McCartney came to Montserrat at the invitation of George Martin, the aristocratic, low-key producer nicknamed the Fifth Beatle. Martin had chanced upon the island in the late 1970s, when he was casting around for somewhere balmy to build another site for his studios, AIR. “George saw life in segments,” recalls David Lea, an expat American who knew the producer well and has lived here for decades. “First there was Abbey Road and the Beatles. Then AIR. Paul only came because of him.”
Give Me the Reason, Luther Vandross Give Me the Reason (1986)
McCartney wasn’t the only one. Name a chart-topping act, or an album, from the 1980s, and AIR Studios Montserrat will likely be part of the story: Elton John, Duran Duran, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, Eurythmics, Boy George and Sting all spent extended periods here. Martin, who died in 2016 at the age of 90, opened his state-of-the-art AIR Montserrat in 1979. He also bought a nearby home, Olveston House; it’s now run as a B&B and restaurant. For the studio, Martin converted an old water-storage facility on a hill into a place that the world’s premier rock stars would crave to come. It was named AIR, so the story went, as the recording room was built on ball bearings so it would float even when the supposedly dormant volcano that dominated Montserrat’s skyline would rumble, but, in fact, it’s an acronym for Associated Independent Recording.
There were guest rooms on-site where artists could stay, and a pool, too. Notoriously, many would use the roof as a diving platform, jumping off the top of the building into the deep end. “The real reason their albums turned out so good was that the studio had a pool,” recalls Danny Sweeney, a charmingly roguish surfing instructor who taught many musicians how to catch a wave. “It was a working vacation.”
The good times were not to last, as the rockstar playground of Montserrat was destroyed—not by fire and brimstone, but first by drenching rains, then by molten lava. Now, a quarter century after those twin catastrophes, the Caribbean island is making a comeback. This time, there’s no impresario to lure music’s biggest talents to the mountainous Eden, but the country is leaning into its singular place in rock history—as well as its own indigenous rocks and other natural beauty—to draw paradise seekers.
Walk of Life, Dire Straits Brothers in Arms (1985)
Today, Sweeney is rangy and flirtatious as he sits on the veranda of Olveston House. It’s easy, then, as he recounts a party almost 40 years ago, to picture him strutting around a dance floor for an entire evening, grabbing musicians’ wives and girlfriends to twirl until the early hours. He was always game to dance, but that particular night, he says, he never left the floor and was soaked with sweat when the nightclub closed. A few days later, Sweeney recalls, Mark Knopfler, the lead singer and guitarist of Dire Straits, called him into the studio while he played a snippet of a new song he’d written that Sweeney claims was inspired by his fleet-footing. “I used ‘Johnny’ instead of ‘Danny,’ in case you didn’t like being identified,” Knopfler told him. That tune was Walk of Life.
“I said to him, ‘Your album with this on it? It is going to sell 10 million copies or more,’ but he said the most he’d ever sold was 5 million,” Sweeney says now. “He promised to buy a new windsurfer if I was right.” He pauses, relishing the punchline to a story that he has clearly told many times before. “I am still waiting.” The album, Brothers in Arms, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, putting it comfortably in the top 50 best-selling albums of all time. Asked to comment for this story, Knopfler declined.
Turn It Into Something Good, Earth Wind & Fire Faces (1980)
Bassist Verdine White is a founding member of Earth Wind & Fire. He and his late brother, Maurice, the band’s front man, met George Martin during the filming of 1978’s flop movie adaptation of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. White tells Robb Report that he heard about the producer’s plans for AIR Montserrat then. “He invited us to come and record any time it was convenient for us, and it was perfect timing,” White says. “We chose to record our double LP Faces there, because it was a departure from what we had been doing. We needed to go back to basics, playing good tracks without trying to be commercial.”
White was smitten with Montserrat from the moment he arrived—mostly the friendliness of the locals. “The workers in the field dropped their tools and started applauding as we passed by,” he recalls. “As the only group of colour to record there, we were just honoured and happy.” He emphasises how the relaxed, welcoming vibe of the island was an ideal creative proving ground and how much the people there embraced the visiting musicians. “We didn’t get a chance to jam with the people, but the chef who prepared our meals was also a famous local DJ. He played our records during his time on the air and gave us tremendous shoutouts almost every day. We always listened to his show during mealtimes.”
I’m Still Standing, Elton John Too Low For Zero (1983)
James “Scriber” Daley, a local park ranger, has particularly fond memories of Elton John, who visited the island multiple times. “Lemme tell you, he would come hang out, and one Sunday, news got around he was in the village,” Daley recalls, noting that all the locals came down to say hello. Touched by the warm greeting, John told the bartender to put the entire afternoon’s tab on his check. (For John, Montserrat proved truly life-changing: he married AIR sound engineer Renate Blauel in 1984. They divorced four years later.)
Midge Ure of Ultravox fame loved Montserrat so much he bought a home here, though he’s reportedly called that purchase “the stupidest thing I did in the 1980s, because it was infested with termites.” Sting became smitten with the island, recording solo albums here after the Police split and renting a house for vacations with his wife and kids.
Not every rock star relished their time on Montserrat, though. One resident claims that Mick Jagger never seemed happy in Montserrat. “He hated it here, because nobody paid attention to him, so he’d walk back and forth to try and get noticed,” she says. But another disagrees, frowning. “Oh no, it wasn’t Mick. It was Duran Duran—they missed all the screaming girls.”
Looking at what remains of AIR now, though, one finds it hard to imagine those antics. There’s chain-link fencing across the driveway, featuring a KEEP OUT sign, erected by the Martin family. “We regret the need to restrict access… ” it says, almost apologetically. The site’s a ruin, festooned with wasps’ nests, its windows glassless and what remains of the roofs askew. It was pummelled not once, but twice, by those disasters that struck the country three decades ago.
Calm Before the Storm, Sheena Easton Take My Time (1981)
Hurricane Hugo punched first. The 1989 storm passed right over the country, the first such direct hit in decades. The devastation was widespread. One local estimates that 95 percent of the houses here were left without a roof. As for AIR, that bunker-like building was built to survive. The thick concrete walls, essential for a soundproof studio, withstood the winds well. The problem was power: the on-site backup generator, a fail-safe during the island’s regular brownouts to ensure that no rock star’s riff ever went to waste, was broken. “Poor maintenance,” says one local, grumbling about the lapse.
In the wake of the power loss caused by the storm, both heat and moisture wreaked havoc at AIR. When Martin arrived to inspect the damage a few weeks later, Danny Sweeney recounts, the impresario opened the piano to look at the keys. The ivories were already covered in green mould. There was no money to restore the studio—or rather, no point. As the 1980s ended, record-company budgets were shrinking. With improved technology, corporate studios became obsolete, and the penny-pinchers saw little reason to underwrite a three-month stint in the sun for Paul McCartney, Dire Straits or anyone else. “I asked him if Hugo hadn’t hit, whether it would still be open,” says David Lea. “And George told me, ‘Oh no, never. Digital was taking over.’ ”
Rock and a Hard Place, Rolling Stones Steel Wheels (1989)
Perhaps, though, Martin might have found a way to reboot his enterprise—AIR still operates a site in the UK, after all—had a second disaster not struck just six years later. The locals had long learned in school that the volcano here, Soufrière Hills, which dominated the southwest centre of the pear-shaped country, was a dormant relic despite the occasional burping rumble. In 1995, those lessons were proved wrong. Rumblings continued for two years, until a major eruption in summer 1997. Nineteen people were killed, and two-thirds or so of Montserrat’s land—including all of its most fertile farmland, as well as the thriving capital, Plymouth—became uninhabitable, buried beneath ash and lava like a Caribbean Pompeii.
It’s possible now to visit what remains of Plymouth, albeit with a guide, and wander around the rubble-strewn roads. Three-storey buildings sit, poking slightly out of the ground, their interiors full of once-molten lava. Entering the exclusion zone here—a no man’s land, a tropical DMZ—one notices the roads instantly become rougher, and the air starts to stink with sulfur. “When the eruption happened, it was so strong you had to hold your nose. It burned,” says guide Cecil Wade, standing in the centre of the former downtown. Now the only activity is the dusty thunder of trucks, which crisscross the land carrying sand mined from the volcanic ash—so much better for construction, as it’s salt-free, unlike a beachy supply. It’s commodity as apology, as if the volcano is trying to give back something after wrecking the locals’ lives.
The volcano is still considered active, and its seismic movement is closely tracked via an observation post manned by staff from the University of the West Indies. It’s deemed safe enough, however, for the authorities to open some sections on the northern edge of the exclusion zone to visitors to explore unaccompanied, including the area around AIR Studios, for example, or the once-upmarket district of Richmond Hill. Most of the homes there are half-hidden in the undergrowth, after 25 years of nature reclaiming the landscape. Occasionally, though, one shows through, gleamingly pristine—take the squat blue box, its window sills painted egg-yolk yellow nestled amid the ruins. “They can’t go back,” says Scriber Daley of the owners of these sentimental but futile renovations, which still lack electricity and running water. “But psychologically, in their minds? They have it that they might one day. Sometimes people now go and lie down there, sleep and rest themselves for a while. Just to reminisce about the past.”
Living in the Past, Midge Ure The Gift (1985)
It was a ruinous disaster for a place with such a storied history. In the aftermath, Montserrat’s population was offered free passage, and passports, to live in the UK. Three-quarters of locals took one-way flights out. A hardy contingent remained, though. “I wasn’t tempted to leave,” recalls David Lea. “When the last ferry leaves, I’ll be on the one after that.” Instead, he salvaged what he could—one dial from the old Plymouth clocktower, for instance—and created a shrine to that era in memorabilia, ranged among the tables of his bar, the Hilltop Coffee House.
Modern Montserratians may now have British passports, but the first Europeans here were Irish, mostly indentured workers banished to the otherwise uninhabited island from the plantations on nearby St. Kitts after one too many rebellions. Their culture is palpable even now: in places with names such as Cork Hill or Galway, the shamrock on the welcome stamp in every passport and even the national dish—squint a little at a bowl of goat water and it could be Irish stew. St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday on Montserrat, the only country other than Ireland proper. “We’re Afro-Irish,” adds Kenneth Silcott, a former champion calypso king who now runs the arts council. “At the St. Patrick’s feast, you’ll see some people in full green garb and others in African dress.”
Hot Hot Hot, Arrow Hot Hot Hot (1983)
Those Irish immigrants also brought music, which was a cherished part of the Montserratian life well before Martin and co. arrived. Their love for it commingled with the African traditions of the enslaved people who were shipped to the island to work on the sugar plantations. “Music for us is an integral part of our culture,” says Rose Willock, a longtime host at local radio station ZJB. Music here, she explains, combines Celtic and African traditions—the Oriole String Band, for instance, today plays a repertoire that ranges from soca to chanteys. Look closely at the carnival dancing, too, and you might recognise Irish toe-stepping in its movements.
Montserrat’s most famous homegrown musician, though, was Alphonsus Cassell, better known as Arrow. He and his brother wrote the worldwide smash “Hot Hot Hot” on the island, and Arrow carved out a path for a distinctive soca sound that incorporated merengue beats into its rhythmic fusion. Cody Greenwood was a regular visitor to Montserrat as a child and just 5 years old when the eruption happened; she produced the recent documentary Under the Volcano, about the AIR Studios era. “It was important for me to acknowledge local music in it—the soca, too. It’s been embedded in the culture forever, and Arrow is really the local hero down here, even now,” she says of the musician, who died in 2010. “The strong music culture meant when artists would come down, the locals would sing on a lot of the albums, like for Elton John or Dire Straits.”
Boat Drinks, Jimmy Buffett Volcano (1979)
Greenwood hoped that her film would pique viewers’ curiosity about Montserrat and tempt them to visit—she’d even intended to premiere it on the island with the goal of luring some of those rock-star icons to return for a nostalgic look. Pandemic lockdowns precluded any such celebrations. The local government does have concrete plans, though, to draw tourists. They’re centred on Little Bay, close to the northern tip of the island and near the country’s new commercial and political hub.
Little Bay became the emergency base for supplies after the eruption, but the waters here are too shallow for much commercial shipping or any superyacht. Dredging to rectify that problem has begun, and there’s a big patch of dusty scrubland on the waterfront ready for construction of a port that can harbour high-end cruise ships and private vessels by bolstering the jetty to 130 metres and the depth of waters from 3 to 8 metres. “Little Bay is one of the most sheltered harbours on the island,” explains Dion Weekes, the project manager. “And we want to have yachts calling there in 18 months.”
Spirits in the Material World, The Police Ghost in the Machine (1981)
Doubtless, many will come to make pilgrimages to AIR and Olveston House, a chance to connect with an overgrown corner of rock history. But there’s more to Montserrat than rubble. Much like neighboring Dominica’s, the countryside here is lush and quilted with trails.
Scriber Daley—he earned his nickname at school, because he was such a good describer—is the ideal guide for exploring. Walking under the forest canopy with him is like accompanying Dr. Doolittle. He holds a thumb to his lips, sucking and tutting simultaneously like a scolding kiss. In response, the tree up ahead starts filling with Montserrat orioles, the national bird found only on the island; they twitter noisily in reply, more and more gathering to answer his calls.
Daley relishes the chance to take folks hiking for hours over Hope Ridge or Katy Hill, looking for birds or the Montserrat orchid. But one animal no one ever sees or hears now is a cricket he calls the spoon-in-glass. “It would go ting-ting-ting, and it was a sign to drop everything and leave the forest, because night could come over very fast,” he recalls. After decades of its silence, though, Daley fears this insect was wiped out in the wake of the eruption. “I have slept over there in the forest to see if I could hear the sound. It was so lovely. I never have.” He remains hopeful, though, and he doesn’t stop trying.
Despite the natural disasters’ upheaval, little about the island’s culture has changed. “My mum always used to say to me, ‘You don’t lock up here—no one will rob you,’” says Greenwood. “We had over a million dollars’ worth of camera equipment, and we could never find a key for our villa, but people just said, ‘You don’t have to worry.’ On Montserrat, you don’t have to worry about a thing.”
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Chanel, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Breguet, and more make up quite a stellar list of French watches perfect for remembering the Paris Olympics for decades to come.
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Indeed, the Parisian horological roots run deep, but it’s not all Cartier. From Louis Erard’s whimsical collaboration with French interior-designer-turned-watchmaker Alain Silberstein to the dreamy, avant-garde designs of Paris-based Trilobe, there’s something for everyone in this mix.
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Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon “Quai de l’Horloge” 5345
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Trilobe Les Matinaux L’Heure Exquise Dune Edition
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Chanel Monsieur de Chanel Édition Superleggera Intense Black
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Louis Erard x Alain Silberstein Smile-Day
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Louis Vuitton Escale
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Bell & Ross BR 03 Diver Full Lum
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The Eiffel Tower’s latticed silhouette will serve as the backdrop for beach volleyball at Champs de Mars. Place de la Concorde, where more than a thousand people (including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette) had their heads lopped off during the French Revolution, will be the site of newly admitted Olympic sports such as skateboarding and breakdancing. And though Olympic swimmers have raced in pools since 1908, this year’s athletes are slated to compete in the river itself. (Competitions will also take place in cities across France, from Lyon to Marseille, and Tahiti in French Polynesia will host the surfing event.)
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For better or for worse, some of the credit for that renewed vitality belongs to the light-as-soufflé Netflix series Emily in Paris, which quickly became the collective escapist fantasy for viewers around the world who were grounded by the Covid-19 virus. Another part of that newfound energy, though, can be traced to the frenzied building of luxury hotels, restaurants, galleries, museums and boutiques over the past few years, including Montagut’s own Paris-themed shop, which he opened in 2020.
In the past three years alone, 25 new five-star hotels debuted across the city, bringing the total to 101. Noteworthy newcomers include Madame Rêve, Kimpton St. Honoré Paris, Château des Fleurs, Maison Proust, LVMH’s Cheval Blanc Paris, and Chopard’s first boutique hotel here, 1 Place Vendôme. The dual autumn 2023 openings of Le Grand Mazarin and La Fantaisie hotels marked the Paris debut of Swedish designer Martin Brudnizki, whose playfully modern, maximalist and flamboyant aesthetic injected colour and character into Paris’s elite hotel scene.
In parallel with the growth of traditional hotels, new players in the luxury rental market are emerging, joining the likes of Le Collectionist and Belles Demeures. Founded in 2020, Highstay rents out luxury serviced apartments equipped with kitchens and living spaces. The firm’s current portfolio includes 36 apartments in areas such as the Champs-Élysées and Saint-Honoré, and another 48 are under construction—all of which it owns. There is no check-in (guests are sent digital access codes) and all concierge requests, including housekeeping and travel reservations, are made via live chat on a dedicated guest portal. “The goal is that guests get the real Parisian experience and feel like an insider, like a city dweller,” says general director Maxime Lallement.
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Nico Therin
Montreal-born, New York–based interior designer Garrow Kedigian is one of those frequent visitors who decided to take the leap and buy his own pied-à-terre in Paris a few years ago, after a lifetime of travelling back and forth for both work and pleasure.
As a part-time resident, Kedigian says he too has noticed a palpable shift in the city’s vibe, which he attributes to a renewed appreciation for tourists following their absence during the pandemic, as well as an “international flair” that has given the city a fresh spark. “There’s a lot more cultural diversity than there was before,” he says. “In that respect it’s a bit like New York. And I think that now the interface between Paris’s unique flavour and the international populace is a little bit smoother.”
For Montagut, one of the best examples of this synergy can be found in Belleville, in the city’s east end, where independent artists, musicians and other urban creatives rub shoulders in Chinese, African, and Arab restaurants and businesses. “There’s a social and cultural diversity here, and for me this is really important,” Montagut says. “If Paris was just the 6th arrondissement, it would be boring.”
The eastern edge of Paris is also one of the preferred neighbourhoods of Michael Schwartz, the marketing and communications manager for Europe at French jewellery house Boucheron. A recent New York City transplant, he is drawn to the burgeoning number of gastronomic gems far from the madding tourist crowds.
Nico Therin
He points to sister restaurants Caché and Amagat (the names mean “hidden” in French and Catalan, respectively), discreetly located at the end of a cobblestoned cul-de-sac, as favourites. With backgrounds in fashion and advertising, the Italian duo who run them have attracted equally fashionable locals to this hitherto quiet part of town. Caché serves up fresh Mediterranean seafood dishes, while next door, Amagat specialises in Catalan tapas.
Then there’s Soces, a corner seafood bistro on rue de la Villette, where you might find Jean-Benoît Dunckel, who co-wrote the score to Sofia Coppola’s film The Virgin Suicides when he was part of the electronic-music duo Air (Dunckel’s recording studio is in the area), or the French designers behind the Coperni fashion line, Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant. “This is a really special restaurant,” says Schwartz. “It’s frequented by really cool creatives, designers and musicians, and it’s kind of a destination restaurant for most people because it’s not central.”
What makes Paris’s dining scene so exciting now, according to Stéphane Bréhier, editor in chief of French restaurant guide Gault& Millau, is a sense of fearlessness among younger chefs who reject the traditional trajectory that begins with a lowly stage in a Michelin-star kitchen. What’s more, visitors are likewise foregoing Michelin establishments in favour of newer, more experimental dining spots. “Over the last few years, there’s been a profusion of young chefs who don’t want to work for other people and are daring to set up their own shop,” Bréhier says. “The gastronomic scene is booming in Paris.”
Nico Therin
These bold, emerging chefs feel less bound not only to their elders but also to French cuisine itself. “It has changed a lot,” says Hélène Darroze, who opened Marsan, her first Parisian restaurant, 25 years ago. “The new generation travelled a lot—in South America, for example, in Asia—before opening a restaurant or being a head chef somewhere. They opened themselves to other cultures. This is why the culinary scene at the moment is very interesting in Paris; because it’s a mix of very famous chefs with Michelin stars but also young chefs who don’t care about Michelin stars—they just want to explore so many fields.”
The ever-growing importance of social media and its insatiable hunger for envy-inducing images is driving another major trend in the dining scene: rooftop spots, including Mun and Girafe in the Golden Triangle, the area bordered by avenues Montaigne and George V and the Champs-Élysées. “A lot of rooftops have opened in Paris, where before they were pretty much nonexistent apart from the Eiffel Tower and the Montparnasse Tower,” says Dimitri Ruiz, head concierge at Hôtel Barrière Fouquet’s Paris on the Champs-Élysées.
Five-star Right Bank hotels SO/ and Cheval Blanc Paris have watering holes that offer sweeping vistas of the Seine. But perhaps the most coveted perch during the opening ceremony will be the Champagne bar at La Tour d’Argent restaurant, which boasts unobstructed views of the Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Seine. (And yes, someone already had the idea to book it for a private event.) Famous for its signature pressed duck as well as for hosting monarchs and heads of state, the historic restaurant recently underwent a major renovation that included the addition of the aerie, which opened late last summer. “It’s only been in the last 10 years or so that Paris has been developing rooftops, and it’s really taking off like wildfire,” says third-generation owner André Terrail.
Paris’s venerated fashion industry has also found ways to innovate, with fresh faces keeping their fellow couturiers on their toes and the shopping options enticing. In 2022, for example, Simon Porte Jacquemus opened his first boutique in the city on avenue Montaigne—home to Gucci, Chanel, and Prada, among other venerable names—and in March, at the age of 34, became France’s youngest fashion designer to be named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the field. That kind of success has a ripple effect in the creative community.
“Almost every street has the name of an artist or a politician,” says Charaf Tajer, the Parisian-born creative director behind the London-based Casablanca sportswear line. “So the city reminds me always that the people who came before me, who walked those streets, created the future in a way. As much as [Paris] seems stuck in time visually, you can also feel the energy of people creating the present.”
Interior designer David Jimenez, whose 2022 book Parisian by Design compiles his Francophile projects, moved to the city in 2015 and spent his first few years living near the Champs-Élysées, which he says has undergone a noticeable revival. Along with Jacquemus’s arrival, new luxury openings or expansions—including Burberry, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Panerai—and city-led greening efforts are bringing Parisians back to the 8th arrondissement, long dismissed as an overcrowded tourist trap where fast-food and fast-fashion chains had colonised the once glamorously luxe avenue. Now, Dior’s captivating Peter Marino–designed museum draws legions of fans, while the city has been busy planting more trees, renovating gardens and repairing damaged sidewalks as part of a long-term embellishment plan. And on the first Sunday of every month, the entire length of the Champs-Élysées becomes a pedestrian-only promenade. “It’s an exciting evolution in a part of the city that seemed sleepy and perhaps lost its way a little bit,” Jimenez says. “Now there’s a thrust forward.”
Nico Therin
The thriving fashion houses are responsible for more than maintaining the city’s unparalleled reputation for chic. To a large degree, they have also helped revive its status as an art capital. The billions generated by LVMH (parent of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Berluti, among others) and Kering (Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Bottega Veneta, et al.) funded the extraordinary contemporary art collections amassed by their founders, Bernard Arnault and François Pinault, respectively. The rivals rewarded their hometown with two museums, Fondation Louis Vuitton and Bourse de Commerce, that have helped make it a leader in contemporary art.
Also lending a hand: Brexit, which persuaded many international galleries to brush up on their French. One of the most talked-about recent additions is the powerhouse Hauser & Wirth, which opened in a 19th-century hôtel particulier near the Champs-Élysées last year. David Zwirner arrived in 2019, Mariane Ibrahim in 2021, and Peter Kilchmann the following year, all joining long-established Parisian galleries including Perrotin and Thaddaeus Ropac. The City of Light even snagged its own coveted annual installment of Art Basel: Paris+, which now runs every October in the Grand Palais.
“Quite frankly, Paris has been putting up some of the most incredible exhibitions in institutions in Europe,” says Serena Cattaneo Adorno, senior director at Gagosian. “And a lot of private collectors have also decided to open spaces in the city, creating a great dynamic between public and private galleries.”
The always-savvy Gagosian, on rue Ponthieu, has hit upon an authentic tie-in with the Games: a summer exhibition featuring Olympic posters created over the years by celebrated artists from Picasso on up to Warhol, Hockney and Tracey Emin. “Once you start digging, you find that a lot of artists have reflected on sports and the engagement of the body,” Cattaneo Adorno says. “It’s just a really pure and beautiful message about how art and sports have dialogues that can be somewhat surprising.”
A few months out from the festivities on the Seine, interior decorator Jimenez sums up the mood of many locals, saying (only half-jokingly), “I think for most Parisians, there’s a sense of curiosity, optimism, excitement—and an exit plan, in that order.”
While polling shows that nearly half of Parisians intend to vacate the city during the games, Jimenez notes that he will be watching the opening ceremony with friends who live in an apartment overlooking the Seine. “I want to be part of the excitement. I want to see as much as I can and be energised by this very special and unique moment,” he says. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I am deeply grateful to be able to experience it first-hand as an American living in Paris.”
Additional reporting by Lucy Alexander and Justin Fenner.
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Watches & Wonders 2024 Showcase: Hermès
We head to Geneva for the Watches & Wonders exhibition; a week-long horological blockbuster featuring the hottest new drops, and no shortage of hype.
With Watches & Wonders 2024 well and truly behind us, we review some of the novelties Hermès presented at this year’s event.
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HERMÈS
Moving away from the block colours and sporty aesthetic that has defined Hermès watches in recent years, the biggest news from the French luxury goods company at Watches & Wonders came with the unveiling of its newest collection, the Hermès Cut.
It flaunts a round bezel, but the case middle is nearer to a tonneau shape—a relatively simple design that, despite attracting flak from some watch aficionados, works. While marketed as a “women’s watch”, the Cut has universal appeal thanks to its elegant package and proportions. It moves away from the Maison’s penchant for a style-first product; it’s a watch that tells the time, not a fashion accessory with the ability to tell the time.
Hermès gets the proportions just right thanks to a satin-brushed and polished 36 mm case, PVD-treated Arabic numerals, and clean-cut edges that further accentuate its character. One of the key design elements is the positioning of the crown, boldly sitting at half-past one and embellished with a lacquered or engraved “H”, clearly stamping its originality. The watch is powered by a Hermès Manufacture movement H1912, revealed through its sapphire crystal caseback. In addition to its seamlessly integrated and easy-wearing metal bracelet, the Cut also comes with the option for a range of coloured rubber straps. Together with its clever interchangeable system, it’s a cinch to swap out its look.
It will be interesting to see how the Hermès Cut fares in coming months, particularly as it tries to establish its own identity separate from the more aggressive, but widely popular, Ho8 collection. Either way, the company is now a serious part of the dialogue around the concept of time.
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Read more about this year’s Watches & Wonders exhibition at robbreport.com.au
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Watch This Space: Mike Nouveau
Meet the game-changing horological influencers blazing a trail across social media—and doing things their own way.
In the thriving world of luxury watches, few people own a space that offers unfiltered digital amplification. And that’s precisely what makes the likes of Brynn Wallner, Teddy Baldassarre, Mike Nouveau and Justin Hast so compelling.
These thought-provoking digital crusaders are now paving the way for the story of watches to be told, and shown, in a new light. Speaking to thousands of followers on the daily—mainly via TikTok, Instagram and YouTube—these progressive commentators represent the new guard of watch pundits. And they’re swaying the opinions, and dollars, of the up-and-coming generations who now represent the target consumer of this booming sector.
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MIKE NOUVEAU
Can we please see what’s on the wrist? That’s the question that catapulted Mike Nouveau into watch stardom, thanks to his penchant for highlighting incredibly rare timepieces across his TikTok account of more than 400,000 followers. When viewing Nouveau’s attention-grabbing video clips—usually shot in a New York City neighbourhood—it’s not uncommon to find him wrist-rolling some of the world’s rarest timepieces, like the million-dollar Cartier Cheich (a clip he posted in May).
But how did someone without any previous watch experience come to amass such a cult following, and in the process gain access to some of the world’s most coveted timepieces? Nouveau admits had been a collector for many years, but moved didn’t move into horology full-time until 2020, when he swapped his DJing career for one as a vintage watch specialist.
“I probably researched for a year before I even bought my first watch,” says Nouveau, alluding to his Rolex GMT Master “Pepsi” ref. 1675 from 1967, a lionised timepiece in the vintage cosmos. “I would see deals arise that I knew were very good, but they weren’t necessarily watches that I wanted to buy myself. I eventually started buying and selling, flipping just for fun because I knew how to spot a good deal.”
Nouveau claims that before launching his TikTok account in the wake of Covid-19, no one in the watch community knew he existed. “There really wasn’t much watch content, if any, on TikTok before I started posting, especially talking about vintage watches. There’s still not that many voices for vintage watches, period,” says Nouveau. “It just so happens that my audience probably skews younger, and I’d say there are just as many young people interested in vintage watches as there are in modern watches.”
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Nouveau recently posted a video to his TikTok account revealing that the average price of a watch purchased by Gen Z is now almost US$11,000 (around $16,500), with 41 percent of them coming into possession of a luxury watch in the past 12 months.
“Do as much independent research as you can [when buying],” he advises. “The more you do, the more informed you are and the less likely you are to make a mistake. And don’t bring modern watch expectations to the vintage world because it’s very different. People say, ‘buy the dealer’, but I don’t do that. I trust myself and myself only.”
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Read more about the influencers shaking up horology here with Justin Hast, Brynn Wallner and Teddy Baldassare.
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5 Lounge Chairs That Add Chic Seating to Your Space
Daybeds, the most relaxed of seating solutions, offer a surprising amount of utility.
Chaise longue, daybed, recamier, duchesse brisée—elongated furniture designed for relaxing has a roster of fancy names. While the French royal court of Louis XIV brought such pieces to prominence in fashionable European homes, the general idea has been around far longer: The Egyptian pharaohs were big fans, while daybeds from China’s Ming dynasty spurred all those Hollywood Regency fretwork pieces that still populate Palm Beach living rooms. Even Mies van der Rohe, one of design’s modernist icons, got into the lounge game with his Barcelona couch, a study of line and form that holds up today.
But don’t get caught up in who invented them, or what to call them. Instead, consider their versatility: Backless models are ideal in front of large expanses of glass (imagine lazing on one with an ocean view) or at the foot of a bed, while more structured pieces can transform any corner into a cozy reading nook. Daybeds may be inextricably linked to relaxation, but from a design perspective, they put in serious work.
Emmy, Egg Collective
In designing the Emmy chaise, the Egg Collective trio of Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis and Hillary Petrie, who met as students at Washington University in St. Louis, aimed for versatility. Indeed, the tailored chaise looks equally at home in a glass skyscraper as it does in a turn-of-the-century town house. Combining the elegance of a smooth, solid oak or walnut frame with the comfort of bolsters and cushioned upholstery or leather, it works just as well against a wall or at the heart of a room. From around $7,015; Eggcollective.com
Plum, Michael Robbins
Woodworker Michael Robbins is the quintessential artisan from New York State’s Hudson Valley in that both his materials and methods pay homage to the area. In fact, he describes his style as “honest, playful, elegant and reflective of the aesthetic of the Hudson Valley surroundings”. Robbins crafts his furniture by hand but allows the wood he uses to help guide the look of a piece. (The studio offers eight standard finishes.) The Plum daybed, brought to life at Robbins’s workshop, exhibits his signature modern rusticity injected with a hint of whimsy thanks to the simplicity of its geometric forms. Around $4,275; MichaelRobbins.com
Kimani, Reda Amalou Design
French architect and designer Reda Amalou acknowledges the challenge of creating standout seating given the number of iconic 20th-century examples already in existence. Still, he persists—and prevails. The Kimani, a bent slash of a daybed in a limited edition of eight pieces, makes a forceful statement. Its leather cushion features a rolled headrest and rhythmic channel stitching reminiscent of that found on the seats of ’70s cars; visually, these elements anchor the slender silhouette atop a patinated bronze base with a sure-handed single line. The result: a seamless contour for the body. Around $33,530; RedaAmalou
Dune, Workshop/APD
From a firm known for crafting subtle but luxurious architecture and interiors, Workshop/APD’s debut furniture collection is on point. Among its offerings is the leather-wrapped Dune daybed. With classical and Art Deco influences, its cylindrical bolsters are a tactile celebration, and the peek of the curved satin-brass base makes for a sensual surprise. Associate principal Andrew Kline notes that the daybed adeptly bridges two seating areas in a roomy living space or can sit, bench-style, at the foot of a bed. From $13,040; Workshop/ APD
Sherazade, Edra
Designed by Francesco Binfaré, this sculptural, minimalist daybed—inspired by the rugs used by Eastern civilizations—allows for complete relaxation. Strength combined with comfort is the name of the game here. The Sherazade’s structure is made from light but sturdy honeycomb wood, while next-gen Gellyfoam and synthetic wadding aid repose. True to Edra’s amorphous design codes, it can switch configurations depending on the user’s mood or needs; for example, the accompanying extra pillows—one rectangular and one cylinder shaped— interchange to become armrests or backrests. From $32,900; Edra
