Life

Thursday

Simon Mills

Max Cooper: the billion-dollar man

Maximillion Cooper is the ringmaster of a 21st-century Wacky Races for a high-powered bunch of people who come together in a spirit of adventure On June 4 this year the annual Gumball 3000 rally will rumble out of Miami, beginning a 3,000-mile route from Miami to Mexico City, taking in Florida’s Amelia Island, New Orleans, Austin, and Monterrey. Running concurrent to the FIFA World Cup, the high-revving, tire-squealing, and donutting motorcade, part automotive concours, part luxe endurance, but mostly grand-flex event, will comprise multi-millions of dollars’ worth of vehicular exotica, piloted by superwealthy petrolheads, celebrity participants, professional drivers, and a whole lot of V12 cylinder hedonists.

James Gurney

The dram is in the details

Away from the hard-luxury world of Lalique bottles (sorry, “decanters”) art labels, and rare-wood boxes, the whiskey world has evolved a niche that focuses on data and details and speaks more directly to a younger audience. Independent bottling favors discovery and knowledge over branding or partnerships, and typically these whiskeys are from casks that the distillers use to adjust larger batches – achieving consistency across large volumes doesn’t happen by accident. The casks will be the same age and have the same water and malt but will have been matured in different conditions.

James Gurney

Hitting the bricks: Click by click, Lego has built its way to the apex of mechanical culture

Once upon a time, Lego was just a toy that we grew out of. Except that it never really was just a toy, and the generations that grew up with the clever building system never forgot the lessons it taught in mechanical thinking, or lost the fascination with structure, motion, and cause-and-effect that it engendered. More powerfully, Lego taps into the desire to create order and pattern (who doesn’t remember the frustration of right brick, wrong color?) that also drives the collecting impulse. Given all that, it was only a matter of time before Lego grew up, too. And grow up it has, with luxury car makers from Ferrari and McLaren to Porsche happy to actively collaborate on limited-edition models for Lego’s Technic Ultimate Car Concept series.

Mark Hooper

License to twill: Redesigned for 007, the Riviera Polo gets even smoother for its big 20

In a small town south-west of Nottingham in England’s East Midlands, lies one of the world’s true textile pioneers. Founded in 1860, Sunspel has been quietly revolutionizing the industry by developing ever-better quality fabrics. As a specialist in luxury underwear for men, having introduced the boxer short to Britain in 1947, it was ideally placed when the T-shirt evolved from under- to outerwear (thanks to its adoption by American G.I.s and Hollywood antiheroes such as Marlon Brando and James Dean). Sunspel’s trademark crew-neck style T-shirt, in its smoother finish, has since become the staple by which all others are measured.

Tracey Llewellyn

Oh buoy: Luxury watch brands and the emotionally loaded arena of sailing

There is something faintly absurd about a modern sailor checking the tide on a mechanical wristwatch before leaving the dock. It’s a defiant act of Luddism. Whether it is TAG Heuer’s new Seafarer – a revival of a sun-bleached Abercrombie & Fitch regatta chronograph – or IWC’s technical Portugieser Yacht Club Moon & Tide, the implication is that the information cannot be found on the GPS already blinking somewhere on the boat. The comedy sharpens when you remember that sailing, at the top end, has long since escaped the romance of canvas and teak. Today’s elite yachts are machines for people who find the wind a nuisance best managed by an algorithm. Foils hum with the clinical efficiency of a private equity firm’s server room.

Mark Hooper

A shoe in: The handmade British footwear that’s keeping pace with the times

An icon of British craftsmanship, Edward Green has been handmaking shoes in Northampton, the home of the UK’s shoemaking industry, for 136 years. The original Edward Green’s vision – to attract the best craftsmen, united under the slogan “excellence without compromise” – still holds true today, with 60 skilled artisans using techniques that have been passed down and honed through the generations. Supply is strictly limited to 350 pairs of shoes a week – the maximum it can create without compromising on the excellence that is ingrained in the brand’s DNA. Its illustrious list of clients includes Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter, and Edward, Duke of Windsor. Visiting the factory, I was struck by the sense of quiet, confident pride that pervades the building.

Kara Newman

Go Long: Why “long” martinis are the sessionable way to drink right now

Martinis remain one of the most popular cocktails of the moment – pristine and dry or filthy-dirty-hazy, vodka or gin, olive or twist, there’s one on every menu. But the iconic drink sure does pack a punch. In a moment where many – particularly younger consumers – are drinking less, even the classic martini is seeing some changes. Enter the “long” martini, which lengthens the basic martini build with soda water, tonic, etc., and serves it over ice. The end result: a less-strong, less austere version of the drink. “I don’t think the martini is going anywhere,” says Kevin Denton Rex, director of The Spirits Authority, a research organization that gathers data from bartenders. But the “long” martini drives “sessionability, that low-alcohol moment.

Joanne Glasbey

A murder-free cruise down the Nile on the 1920s steam ship that inspired an Agatha Christie classic

The actor David Suchet, who starred as Hercule Poirot in TV films and on the big screen, has recounted trying to perfect the Belgian detective’s fussy walk, as described by his creator Agatha Christie. In the end, Suchet placed a penny between his butt cheeks and shuffled like a penguin to keep it in place, thus recreating Poirot’s distinctive gait – a testament to his resourcefulness and acting chops. Author Agatha Christie, literary body count, prolific [Alamy/Associated Press] Well, fire up your little gray cells and oil your mustaches: here’s the opportunity to enjoy the inspiration for one of Christie’s best-loved books. With a legacy of more than 70 crime novels, 150 short stories and 25 plays, this year marks the 50th anniversary of her death.

Kitty Tucker

Richard Mille watches cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So why do athletes try so hard to break them?

Ester Ledecká, Tomoka Takeuchi, and Arthur de Villaucourt were all part of the Richard Mille “family” at Milano Cortina 2026, and while the first two competed in the Women’s Parallel Giant Slalom for snowboard, the latter attacked the Men’s Moguls and Men’s Dual Moguls. For athletes to have associations with watch brands might not be unusual, however there is one crucial difference here – where Richard Mille is concerned, those it invites to become part of its network are required to wear their watches while competing. Ledecká went into this Olympics chasing a fourth gold medal, having remarkably won the top gong at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in both the Parallel Giant Slalom (snowboarding) and the Super-G (alpine skiing).

Jackson Ford

For under-the-radar, innovative watches that retail for under $1,000, turn to Time+Tide

As the saying goes, “Time and tide wait for no man.” Perhaps this is why Australian Andrew McUtchen is in such a hurry to spread the word about what he calls watch “microbrands.” These are the product of young watchmakers who have developed small runs of interesting and innovative watches and are challenging the hegemony of the traditional Swiss horology titans. Typical is Studio Underd0g, a British outfit founded in 2020 with the aim of making quirky, colorful timepieces. Its Watermel0n chronograph is a striking creation, with a dial that replicates the look of the fruit.

Eric Walker

A 147-year-old British shoemaker from Northampton has designs on your loafers

Founded in 1879 in Northampton, Crockett & Jones sits at the center of British footwear. While other venerable shoemaking names have chased trainers and other youthful styles, marketing and e-commerce director James Fox says the family company (Fox is the son-in-law of managing director Jonathan Jones, fourth generation of the co-founding Joneses) preferred to “double down.” “We’ve stuck to our guns. There’s a lot to be said for being the shepherd and not the sheep,” says Fox. Trainers, he suggests, are not the inevitable end point of modern footwear. To illustrate this, he cites the company’s selection of Travel Loafers. “There’s not much between this and my gym trainers,” he says of a style called the Harvard 2.

Ivo Dawnay

Sending out an SOS

Even in my own hilly, albeit domesticated National Park of Exmoor in south-west England, you can easily get lost. And when the light fades and the clouds descend, the marshy bogland can be not just unpleasant, but lethal. Garmin’s inReach Mini 3 Plus is now not so much a luxury as a necessity for any outdoorsman, whether they be long-distance trekker, mountaineer, off-piste skier, scuba diver, or otherwise solo traveler. This tiny, satellite-connected tracking device has been around for some years, but its latest, just-released version, the Mini 3 Plus, pretty much completes any shortcomings of earlier editions.

Lucinda Bredin

Explore the intellectual side of the Renaissance’s softest boi at The Met

There can be resistance to Raphael. A bit unfair, really. Just as Renoir is considered the soft-edged Impressionist, Raphael (1483-1520), indisputably one of the three great artists of the Renaissance, is often eclipsed by his near contemporaries, Leonardo and Michelangelo. Is it because his works are just too beautiful, too ethereal, too perfect? This view is a relatively new phenomenon. In the 19th century, Raphael had pole position because his paintings were so otherworldly. His romance with La Fornarina (the baker’s daughter, sitter for one of Raphael’s greatest portraits) only boosted his reputation further. However, it turns out the 21st century is more inured to love’s dream. We prefer artists to be tortured souls.

Kitty Tucker

Montblanc proves the pen is mightier than the sword

In 1924, it is said, the company that became Montblanc – the Simplo Filler Pen Company – developed special pens for customers who wanted something more refined for use on a Sunday. Dubbed Meisterstück designs (literally “masterpiece”) these took a number of forms before settling on the 149 model, the iconic cigar-shaped style we know today, which appeared in 1952. So classically elegant in its looks, it has an almost childlike simplicity and is identified by a snow-capped lid – a white “star” motif referencing the frozen peak of the mountain that gives the brand its name.

Peter Howarth

This luxury Italian menswear house has a new not-so-fancy man

The decision by Italian clothing brand Corneliani to use American psychedelic folk musician and artist Devendra Banhart as its “face” for this season is a telling one. This firm from Mantua, which has been making sartorial Italian menswear for nearly a century now, made its name creating traditional style for professionals. But times change, and style with it. So, wisely, Corneliani has been developing modern menswear that uses its traditional tailoring and fabric knowledge but applies it to more casual designs. Style director Stefano Gaudioso Tramonte says, “Today’s Corneliani man is no less interested in quality, but the life he lives is less constrained by formal conventions. He still wants elegance, but not in an uptight way.

Joanne Glasbey

Delight in the discord of Cora Sheibani’s ‘unpredictable and contrarian’ (and very wearable) designs

Jewelry designer Cora Sheibani’s eye for detail and form was refined from a young age, having been brought up immersed in what sounds like an exciting epicenter of the art and design world during the 1980s and ’90s. Her father, the Swiss-based international art dealer Bruno Bischofberger, and her mother Christina, both collectors, invited guests – often well-known artists and designers – into a home full of intriguing art, furniture, and objects, be it a kitchen chair or walls hung with works by Warhol and Basquiat. Early on, Sheibani had an interest in collecting Roman bronze rings, attracted by their deceptively simple mechanics, and the way they aged through wear would later inform her interest in engineering as design.

Peter Howarth

These Italian-American jackets’ signature hardware will have you hooked

Firefighters are universally loved, right? Of course they are – heroic lifesavers rushing into danger in those big red engines… what’s not to like? Back in the 1980s Andrea Della Valle, a young Italian, was certainly fascinated when he encountered a bunch of ex firefighters who were wearing the garments of their former trade. “I met these guys when I was living in New York and they were all in these amazing jackets,” remembers Della Valle. “They looked so cool, I thought this could really work back in Italy.” At the time, the Italian casual wardrobe was still pretty formal, he says. What if he could introduce something that was really different. A jacket with hook-and-eye fastenings, for example?

Bridget Arsenault

A playwright who went from stage to screen, then set aside scripts to pen a novel. Its themes? Escape and reinvention

Lila Raicek likes a big swing. Just last year the New York-based playwright and screenwriter debuted My Master Builder in London’s West End – only a matter of months after the first draft landed on director Michael Grandage’s desk. Most writers wait a lifetime to catch even a whiff of a Broadway or central London staging (especially one starring Ewan McGregor and Elizabeth Debicki). But for Raicek, this warp-speed ascension is something of a pattern. “I wrote a play at Columbia,” says Raicek of her college days. “It was my senior graduate school thesis. And that play was seen by a couple of people in Hollywood.” Bang, that script gets optioned for the screen and lands Raicek in a Los Angeles writers’ room.

Eric Walker

A cup of gas station coffee that’s worth traveling for

In the early days of the motor car, if you wanted to cross the high-altitude Upper Engadin in Switzerland, your vehicle had to be pulled by horses. Because up to 1925, the townsfolk of St. Moritz had a ban on driving. When it was lifted, Shell opened a petrol station. It also funded the paving of the straight road between this and a sister Shell stop at Samedan. The head of the company, Henri Deterding lived at Suvretta, just outside St. Moritz, and staged speed trials along this three-to-four-kilometer stretch. There is still a Shell petrol station on the St. Moritz site. It functioned for years before slipping into disrepair.

Friday

Bill Kauffman

Reflections on the Moon

We Americans have been instructed to burst our buttons with pride over Artemis II’s drive-by of the Moon. But out here in cratering America, far from Mission Control, we remain buttoned-up. This is not due to our skinflint nature or lack of imagination; nah, it’s just that Big Science – “corporate socialism,” as the late parsimonious populist Democratic senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin termed the space program – is spiritless, mechanical and inhuman.