Gifts

Luxury gifts and high-end, limited edition accessories.

Refik Anadol unveils Serpenti – the first ever digital sculpture and AI-imagined fragrance done for a luxury house

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Bvlgari celebrates Serpenti in sculpture artwork created using dynamic, three-dimensional AI data.

@Bvlgari Serpenti Metamorphosis

Italian luxury house Bvlgari continues the Serpenti Metamorphosis exhibition inaugurated during Milan Design Week, featuring a captivating installation by multimedia artist Refik Anadol, created using artificial intelligence. The digital sculpture – the fist ever done for a luxury house – is on display until October 31 at the Piazza Duomo in Milan before embarking on a world tour. Upon the completion of the tour it will be converted into a multisensorial and multidimensional NFT (Non-Fungible Token) and sold at an auction. Proceeds will be donated to a charity chosen by the Italian Maison and Refik Anadol.

The 3D sculpture celebrates the beauty of nature and the mythic Serpenti icon, the emblem of Bvlgari and the perfect symbol of metamorphosis. It was designed using algorithms to reproduce an image of nature generated by analyzing some 200 million pictures of nature and 160 million pictures of flowers, plus 120,000 images of snakes. Metamorphosis becomes both a source of inspiration and the creative method, since the machine is able to learn what a flower is – colors, patterns and shapes – and then conceive images of flowers that exist only in its digital memory, reconstituting them in a vibrant work of art. The installation proposes a striking aesthetic approach to the relationship between nature, art, technology and luxury.

@Bvlgari Serpenti Metamorphosis Launch Event

 

This approach was conceived by the mind of Refik Anadol. Born in Istanbul, the LA-based new media artist has won numerous awards for his innovative works.

Listen as he explains the concept behind ‘Serpenti Metamorfosi’ and how he turned data from our natural world into this three-dimensional and dynamic digital installation. In the future, Serpenti Metamorphosis artwork will become exclusive and unique in the digital world thanks to NFT (Non-fungible Token) technology.

To enrich this unique multi sensorial experience, Bvlgari Master Perfumer Sophie Labbe and fragrance creation firm Firmenich worked with Refik Anadol to create the first ever AI-imagined fragrance, “Rainforest Serpenti”. Thanks to Bvlgari’s expertise, the sculpture celebrates every dimension of nature, including its scent, awakening faculties of perception, sensation and smell.

This immersion into the Serpenti universe is completed by an exhibition of creations by the Roman Maison from the 1940s to the 1960s at the Bvlgari store in Milan until October 30, as well as the Bvlgari Serpenti Hub. This digital space dedicated to the Maison’s icon features exclusive content revealing the eternal metamorphosis that inspires Bvlgari creations.

@Bvlgari Serpenti Metamorphosis
@Bvlgari Serpenti Metamorphosis Installation at Milan Design Week 2021
@Bvlgari Serpenti Jewelry

 

 

 

Woman Made: Great Women Designers champions the work of pioneering women in product design from all over the globe

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    Kering and Phaidon partner to launch Woman Made: Great Women Designers. Kering and Phaidon unveiled Woman Made: Great Women Designers, a platform that celebrates women in the arts. This comprehensive new book spotlights women of the past, present, and future, and their contributions to furniture, textile, product, and lighting design. Aimed to inspire … Read more

Fashion is coming to the home collections. Six luxury brands making it happen

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    Six Home Collections by Designer Fashion Brands: Etro, Missoni, Versace, Louis Vuitton x Fornasetti, Emilia Wickstead. Louis Vuitton x Fornasetti capsule collection The Louis Vuitton-Fornasetti collaboration is a unique voyage crossing borders between experimentation and tradition. Fornasetti’s visionary depiction of the world meets the effective blend of Louis Vuitton’s forward-looking creativity and craft. … Read more

The Modern Artisan project: How artisans can train on small batch luxury production and heritage craftsmanship skills

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The Modern Artisan is a unique partnership between YOOX NET-A-PORTER and The Prince’s Foundation, the educational charity established by HRH The Prince of Wales, designed to create a sustainable luxury capsule collection of menswear and womenswear as part of a new training initiative to strengthen textile skills training.

@The Prince’s Foundation x @YOOX NET-A-PORTER

The Prince’s Foundation and YOOX NET-A-PORTER present new intake of trainee artisans for second edition of The Modern Artisan at launch event in Milan.

The Prince’s Foundation and YOOX NET-A-PORTER unveil the new artisans in training for the second edition of the responsible luxury training programme, The Modern Artisan project.

Selected from a competitive pool of applications, this year’s programme will bring together eight artisans, four British fashion and textiles graduates, along with four Italian graduates from the leading Italian design school, Politecnico di Milano. The trainee artisans will embark on a collaborative ten-month paid training programme, with design training guided by experts from YOOX NET-A-PORTER and industry mentors, and training on small batch luxury production and heritage craftsmanship skills to help build capacity in the UK delivered by The Prince’s Foundation.

The training programme, which commenced in September, focuses on responsible design and sustainable luxury textile craftsmanship. Together, YOOX NET-A- PORTER and The Prince’s Foundation will support the eight trainee artisans through the end-to-end process of designing, handcrafting and bringing to a market on a global scale a luxury collection with sustainability at its heart. The resulting womenswear capsule collection will debut to customers on NET-A-PORTER and YOOX in late Summer 2022. Profits from the sale of the collection will be donated to The Prince’s Foundation to support the charity in developing and delivering training programmes that will help preserve traditional textile skills.

The artisans are starting the programme by undertaking a four-month period of immersive design training guided by industry experts at YOOX NET-A PORTER headquarters in London and Milan for the British and Italian groups respectively. As they are supported through the design process, trainees will have the opportunity to explore designing for sustainability and circularity, including the application of data insights for customer relevance and to prioritise longevity of their final collection.

In January, the eight artisans will come together at The Prince’s Foundation’s Dumfries House headquarters in East Ayrshire, Scotland, where they will undertake six months of intensive training in luxury small batch production and gain the skills to handcraft the collection to the highest of standards.

Over the course of the programme, trainees will benefit from industry visits in the UK and Italy. Throughout the programme, they will receive ongoing mentorship from YOOX NET-A-PORTER, The Prince’s Foundation and brand partners, initial brand mentors include Gabriela Hearst, Giuliva Heritage, Nanushka, VIN + OMI, Johnstons of Elgin, Tiziano Guardini, Flavia La Rocca and ZEROBARRACENTO.

“We were absolutely delighted to gain places on The Modern Artisan programme. Our whole team feels so privileged to be part of such an exciting project. The collaboration across borders has opened us up to so many fresh ideas and ways of working. We have learnt so much already and look forward to all the opportunities the programme will bring. The future of our industry will be defined by the next generation of talent, so we are delighted to partner again with The Prince’s Foundation to support an ambitious group of graduates across Italy and the UK for the second edition of The Modern Artisan. The hands-on skills, experience, knowledge, perspectives and contacts that they are building will serve them well for years as they develop long-term careers and drive forward the sustainable solutions that will revolutionise fashion and luxury. Reflecting a shared heritage of innovation and craftsmanship in the UK and Italy, our YOOX NET-A- PORTER teams in Milan and London, in partnership with The Prince’s Foundation in Scotland, will support this group as together they define what it means to be a Modern Artisan in today’s evolving world. We cannot wait to see what they produce. ” – Geoffroy Lefebvre, YOOX NET-A-PORTER Chief Executive Officer.

“The first edition of The Modern Artisan project culminated with the launch of the YOOX NET-A-PORTER for The Prince’s Foundation collection in November 2020, which sold around the world and attracted global media attention for the artisans at the very beginning of their career. Since graduating from the programme, all the trainee artisans from the UK and Italy have used the experience as a springboard to secure employment in the industry or start their own fashion and manufacturing businesses. We are very much looking forward to working with this year’s intake of talented artisans and seeing where the project takes them. ” – Jacqueline Farrell, Education Director for The Prince’s Foundation.

The eight trainee artisans are:

  • Emma Rose Atherton, 28, from the Wirral in North West England. Emma is a graduate of the University of Chester and launched her own size-inclusive label at London Fashion Week.
  • Adam Benbarek, 21 from Turin, a graduate of Politecnico di Milano. Adam is passionate about art and literature, where he finds most of the inspiration for his designs.
  • Emily Dey, 23, from Middlesbrough. Emily is a recent graduate of Teesside University, and since graduating put her sewing skills to good use volunteering at a local charity to upcycle clothes.
  • Francesca Garrone, 22 from Turin, a graduate of Politecnico di Milano. Francesca hopes to one day build her own brand using only discarded materials.
  • Merie Macdonald, 49, from South Lanarkshire in Scotland. Merie has recently retrained and completed a HND in Fashion Technology at Cardonald College in Glasgow, having previously held various positions across the fashion sector including accessories designing.
  • Isabelle Pennington-Edmead, 24, from Cheshire. Isabelle is a graduate of Nottingham Trent University and Manchester School of Art, and during the pandemic volunteered to sew PPE for the NHS in her spare time.
  • Arianna Safayi, 22 from Perugia, a graduate of Politecnico di Milano. Following the programme she hopes to be able to use fashion to spark conversation on themes she deeply cares about such as sustainability, diversity and inclusion.
  • Zhenqi Weng, 26, from Milan. Zhenqi studied pattern making at the Istituto di Moda Burgo Milano and fashion design at Politecnico di Milano. He was born in China and moved to Italy at the age of 7, where he began to develop an interest in fashion and tailoring.
    photo source @YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP

Noma Restaurant Took over the No.1 position from Mirazur and becomes The World’s Best Restaurant 2021

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Noma is number one – Denmark’s game-changing destination crowned The World’s Best Restaurant 2021.

Top 8 Best Restaurants in The World’s Best Restaurant 2021; screen capture @The World’s Best Restaurant 2021 / @theworlds50best.com

On 5th October 2021 at Flanders Meeting and Convention Centre in Antwerp, Copenhagen’s Noma was announced as The World’s Best Restaurant. Chef and co-owner René Redzepi led 12 team members to the stage to collect the most important prize in global gastronomy.

For the first time since 2019, the leading lights of the global restaurant industry gathered to celebrate the grand reveal of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2021. The glittering show in Antwerp, Flanders concluded as Noma was announced as The World’s Best Restaurant.

In the first interview with 50 Best director of content William Drew after the win was announced, Noma’s head chef and co-owner René Redzepi said: “I feel electric. To be able to enjoy this moment after 18 years is our restaurant’s greatest achievement. The fact that we have been able to grow as a team, preserve each other and experience this is beyond words.”

The Danish chef was quick to pay tribute to his team and its collective strength throughout the pandemic. “If the pandemic taught us anything it’s how fragile our dreams can be. We want people to like us and we want people to like our restaurant. I can honestly say that I don’t think I would have made it through the past 18 months without our collective strength. Being together throughout the Covid period has been my rocket fuel.”

Noma’s accolade is a testament to Chef Redzepi and his team’s unerring focus on unusual seasonal ingredients – the menu is strictly seasonal, divided into three phases: seafood in the winter, vegetable in the summer, and game and forest in the autumn – foraged locally and brought to life in creative and complex ways on the plate.

Copenhagen’s Noma Restaurant; @Noma via @theworlds50best.com/

The World’s Best Restaurant 2021 – Copenhagen’s Noma

This new iteration of Noma (sometimes referred to as Noma 2.0) is eligible for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list due to three key changes from the original restaurant: its location, concept and ownership. As such, it is considered a new restaurant. The previous version of Noma topped the 50 Best list on four occasions, in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014.

Taking over the No.1 position from Mirazur, which has been elevated to the Best of the Best hall of fame, Noma climbed from the No.2 spot in 2019 when it was announced as the Highest New Entry in its fresh incarnation. Noma is joined in the top three by Geranium (No.2) also in Copenhagen, Denmark and Asador Etxebarri (No.3) in Atxondo, Spain.

Spain and the US lead the way with six restaurants each in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list with Spain boasting two in the top 10, with Barcelona’s Disfrutar (No.5), joining Etxebarri. Following close behind are Elkano (No.16) in Getaria and the evergreen Mugaritz (No.14) in San Sebastián. In the US, New York’s Cosme is No.22, San Francisco’s Benu No.28 and Single Thread No.37. Italy is also well represented with four restaurants in the list including Lido 84 in Gardone Riviera (No. 15), also the winner of the Highest New Entry Award, sponsored by Aspire Lifestyles.

Signing off in his address to the crowd, Redzepi said: “Remember your people. Through success and failure, friends, family and the people you value are the ones that matter.”

@theworlds50best.com/

Top 10 Best Restaurants in 2021, according to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants:

1. Noma Restaurant, Copenhagen, Denmark;
2. Geranium Restaurant, Copenhagen, Denmark;
3. Asador Etxebarri Restaurant, Atxondo, Spain;
4. Central Restaurant, Lima, Peru;
5. Disfrutar Restaurant, Barcelona, Spain;
6. Frantzen Restaurant, Stockholm, Sweden,
7. Maido Restaurant, Lima, Peru;
8. Odette Restaurant, Singapore;
9. Pujol Restaurant, Mexico City, Mexico;
10. The Chairman Restaurant, Hong Kong, China;

@theworlds50best.com/

The World’s Most Luxurious Poker Rooms

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  There is something about the game of poker that promotes images of luxury and wealth. Perhaps it is because of its depiction in many films, such as Casino Royale, where there are sharp suits around a table filled will valuable chips. Maybe it is because of items such as the Geoffrey Parker poker set, … Read more