Inhaltsverzeichnis für July 2019 in Robb Report

Over the last few years, a throwback styling device has re-emerged as a sartorial essential. Pleats are back, and if you haven’t converted already you’ll love the extra comfort, not to mention elegance, they provide. Here are four fine examples, all showing slightly different takes on the theme. RUBINACCI There’s no need for a belt with these stylish high-waisted linen Gurkha trousers.($420, marianorubinacci.net) ZANELLA The Norman blends subtle pleats with a defining cummerbund-style waistband.($375, mrporter.com) MONCLER Pleats go casual in a drawstring gabardine model.($350, moncler.com)…

YACHTS ARE CHARTING new waters of use beyond pleasure and adventure cruising. Thanks to ever-improving network capabilities, the number of boat owners and charter guests choosing to do business on board keeps ticking up. The benefits are palpable, such as less time anchored to a land-based hub and the yacht itself becoming a fully efficient, multitasking work center. But it’s not just the remote office that’s lending itself to this trend. According to Paul Cook, CEO of technology integrator Fusion Marine Systems, yachts need to have multipurpose rooms, whether that’s a lounge with a cinema, a schoolroomturned-kids’-den or a beach-club-cum-media-room. And for owners looking to get the most out of their space, the primary focus is onboard technology. If the area is to be used for video conferencing or as…

The UK’s enigmatic Lotus Cars (lotuscars.com) has had a rough road the last few years, with shifts in leadership and financial backing. But now under new ownership by Chinese auto group Geely, and with industry veteran Phil Popham in the driver’s seat, the company looks like it’s about to turn the corner. What’s the plan? We are a sports car brand. That is our heritage, and that’s our short -term focus, but we have the potential to go beyond that and expand into different segments. How will you position the brand? It really is about not only returning Lotus to its former glory but taking it beyond that with model range, volume and market development. The awareness of Lotus around the world is pretty high. People remember Colin Chapman and…

NEW AIRCRAFT MODELS comearound rarely, but Brazil-based Embraer (executive.embraer.com) has a fresh one that’s about to take off. If the company’s right, and that’s a big if, the Praetor 600 business jet just might be “the best-performing super-midsize jet ever developed.” Embraer asserts that the Praetor 600 holds rank as the farthest-flying super-midsize jet because it can fly nonstop between London and New York, São Paulo and Miami, Dubai and London. With four passengers and significant fuel reserves, the jet has an intercontinental range of 4,018 nautical miles. And take-off airfield length for such a mission is only 4,436 feet, compared to 5,640 feet for the Bombardier Challenger 650, which has a similar size, range and passenger capacity. The Praetor 600 is the first in its category with full fly-by-wire…

Icon Aircraft (iconaircraft.com) is changing the world of private aviation to include sports flight. Inside the company’s newly opened showroom and test-flight facility at the Santa Monica Airport in Southern California, the region where much of aviation got its start, COO Thomas Wieners gave us the scoop on the A5 and its safety record. Danielle Cutler Icon was created when the FAA approved the light sports aircraft category. What does that even mean? The real focus for us is recreational flying. Not transportation. It’s all about having fun and discovering areas of the world that you can explore only through flying. We mean flying with friends to enjoy the views, with the wind in your hair and arms out the windows. How did you land at Icon Aircraft? After working…

Vintage watches are beautiful objects full of life and history, and collecting them is more popular than ever, but the field can be treacherous, especially for novices. In previous eras, watches were typically treated as tools, so many watchmakers changed and altered parts to improve their use for the owner, with no consideration for originality and future values. And while I know I’m likely talking to a knowledgeable audience here, I’ve seen relatively seasoned collectors lose money because they didn’t spot a restoration detail that changed the investment value of a watch. I have had to tell them the Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytonas they purchased for hundreds of thousands of dollars were previously relumed and worth less than half of their purchase price. So it’s imperative to inquire about the…

THE WINE in my first glass is inky, a dense, tooth-staining shade. As is the wine in the next glass, and the one after. I have more than 40 to “get through”—before lunch—a daunting task, if color can be trusted. It can: These are powerful wines. And to the last glass, they are all Malbec. I haven’t jetted south to Argentina, which for the past decade or so has been generally recognized as the world’s primary source of great Malbecs. I am in Cahors, France, a region probably not on the tip of most wine lovers’ tongues. But it’s about to be. Today’s lineup of beautiful reds is more than enough evidence that now is the right time to discover Cahors, where castles are casual scenery, Michelin-starred chefs are working…

Near the start of this year’s annual winter equestrian season in Wellington, Fla., a playdate for the under-five set is under way at Rushy Marsh Farm, one of the nicest properties in the Grand Prix Village, an exclusive area of luxuriously equipped stables. Since the lush, generous grounds of Rushy Marsh belong to Frank McCourt—a businessman who owned the Los Angeles Dodgers before selling the team in 2012 for a record $2 billion—and his second wife, Monica, this is not your ordinary playdate of Legos and grilled-cheese sandwiches. Members of the staff, who seem to outnumber the guests and their young children, wear Rushy Marsh polo shirts as well as tiaras fashioned from pipe cleaners. They pass red velvet bundt cakes from the nearby bakery Nothing Bundt Cakes and assist…

Go ahead, 911, sing to me. Let me hear that flat-six engine wail, keening from the rear, forever urging me to take the long way home. Like so many sports-car lovers over the last half century, I’ve answered the siren call again and again. But time remakes all things, and so it does once more for the 911, now entering its eighth generation with the 2020 model year. The prospect of an entirely new version is both exciting and fraught: We can all think of beloved items that were given the “new and improved” treatment and have failed miserably in the second category. The people at Porsche refer to this latest iteration as the 992, and there’s plenty new to talk about, including updated technology, more horsepower and a body…

The cabriolet version of the 911 didn’t officially begin until the 1980s, but the launch of the latest open-air option has become as much a tradition as the first day of summer, promising the same joys: sun, fun and wind-blown hair. I drove the 2020 Carrera S and 4S Cabriolet models in Greece, and found them to be the most capable 911 Cabs I’ve ever opened up. Thanks to the new adaptive shocks, which come as standard, both variants are far more comfortable on roads with bad pavement than previous editions. But the valves stiffen when the vehicle is placed into Sport mode, encouraging the driver to throw the car into curves with zeal. You can also option the Carreras with rear-wheel steering, adaptive sway bars and an even stiffer…

Galit  The American obsession with modern Middle Eastern cuisine may have already reached critical mass, but James Beard Award–winning chef Zachary Engel has just upped the Israeli ante with Galit. The new restaurant in the heart of Chicago—a city known for its fondness for meat—is making a case for vegetable-driven fare with wood-fired pita, silky hummus and dishes like carrots doused in a cumin-orange glaze with feta. But don’t forsake the flesh just yet: Our favorite of all of Engel’s brilliant hummus variations is topped with a hearty dose of cinnamon-accented brisket. galitrestaurant.com J.R.…

LORO PIANA HAS CULTIVATED superfans for its ultra-soft cashmere jackets, knits and scarves (the Italian brand even invented baby cashmere by convincing reluctant goat herders to shear the animals at just six months). But those tactile materials aren’t just for touchy-feely pleasure—they’re rooted in performance. To recognize this, the usually understated Italian label invited Robb Report to the annual St. Barths Bucket Regatta to cheer on Pier Luigi Loro Piana’s superyacht, My Song—which, as it turns out, also happens to serve as a testing ground for all of Lora Piana’s fabric innovations. “The best way to learn if what you make performs is to do an activity like sailing, using pure wool or wool-and-silk waterproofed fabric, instead of nylon,” says Pier Luigi Loro Piana, who has pioneered the company’s textile…

Nicola Andreatta grew up on the floor of his family’s watchmaking manufacture. He also founded his own watch brand, worked with mass timepiece brands in Asia and was a VP in Tiffany’s watchmaking division for almost six years. Now, as a newly minted Richemont CEO, Andreatta is returning to his roots at the high-end watchmaker Roger Dubuis. P.R. How does your history in watchmaking factor into your new role? I was born into watchmaking. The first cases made for Roger Dubuis were manufactured by my father. My first watch was one that I made myself the manufacture. I did the entrepreneurial thing with my own brand [called N.O.A.], which I think was one of the things that Richemont wanted, because Roger Dubuis is very entrepreneurial brand itself. What one word…

On board Riva’s new 90-foot Argo, the captain of its parent company examines the myriad ways Riva (riva-yacht.com) owners get value for their money. How do most of your clients use their boats? You could have 100 customers, and 100 different ways of using a Riva. The Italians like to cruise together with family and friends. It’s a villa on the sea. They would stay out three months if possible. The Greeks and French, even more. Generally speaking, those from China or Hong Kong don’t sleep on board and hardly swim, so it’s a place for entertainment, karaoke and business meetings. In America, on the East Coast, it’s to the Bahamas, full speed and back, for day use. On the West Coast, it’s Newport Beach to a barbecue on Catalina…

JUST AS SPRINTERS and marathoners are built differently—one made for speed and power and the other for longer measures of performance—sports cars and more genteel grand tourers tend to diverge according to body type and purpose. At least until now. The newly announced McLaren GT (cars.mclaren.com) takes the British marque’s track-focused pedigree and pairs it with a kinder, gentler drive experience for a result that stands alone in the company’s pantheon of Sports, Super and Ultimate Series models. “It’s a totally new categorization for McLaren,” says Rob Melville, McLaren Automotive’s design director. “A true interpretation of a grand tourer whilst remaining completely in line with our design language and heritage as a brand.” The McLaren GT, scheduled for delivery later this year at a starting price of $210,000, inherits its…

The GT-R has earned the nickname Godzilla because of its brutal performance and appetite for decimating far costlier competitors on road and track. HALF A CENTURY ago, it would have been impossible to conceive of a 600 hp sports car for the street, let alone one wearing a badge from Nissan, the company then known in the US as Datsun. But since 1969, the Nissan Skyline GT-R, while never officially available in North America, has been Japan’s most formidable sports car nameplate. In 2007, that model morphed into an all-wheel-drive monster and descended Stateside with a vengeance. Simply called the GT-R (no longer the Skyline), it has earned the nickname Godzilla because of its brutal performance and appetite for decimating far costlier competitors on road and track. To commemorate 50…

JET LAG is for real. Nobody knows this better than CEOs crisscrossing the globe for mergers, pow-wows and, well, lunch. Canada-based Bombardier (businessair craft.bombardier.com) has been keeping these clients in mind, working with scientists for years to develop its anti-jet-lag innovation: the Soleil lighting system, designed specifically for its new Global 7500 business jet and featuring the industry’s only Dynamic Daylight Simulation. The system uses specific combinations of red- and blue-light wavelengths that release or suppress melatonin to help travelers sleep better or remain alert and lively across time zones. The innovative illumination taps into passengers’ circadian rhythm to influence rest or exhilaration by the overall ambience. The innovative illumination taps into passengers’ circadian rhythm to influence rest or exhilaration by the overall ambience. Built into the “nice Touch” cabin-management…

CHECK OUT a spy movie from the 1960s or ’70s, and chances are the hero’s bachelor pad is furnished with an impressive stereo system featuring an analog tape deck. No other piece of hi-fi gear has as much sultry sex appeal as a slow-rolling reel-to-reel. The Sonorus Audio ATR10 Analog Tape Reproducer (sonorusaudio.com), with its two giant spools of quarter-inch magnetic tape and softly illuminated VU meters wagging to the music, is once again the preferred machine for delivering uncompromised music reproduction. While the digital revolution made the tape deck—and the LP turntable—nearly extinct, true believers have always known that no storage media rivals reel-to-reel for fidelity, dynamic range and pure realism. In fact, audiophiles are witnessing a sort of tape revival. And even though companies renowned for making the…

BAHA MAR bahamar.com Baha Mar debuts a new level of elegance. Find out what ownership at SLS and Rosewood Residences can bring: exquisite service and design that pay homage to the rich culture of The Bahamas. CAR OF THE YEAR BOCA RATON rr1.com/bocaraton This December, join Robb Report at Car of the Year Boca Raton. Test-drive and evaluate 10 of the top luxury and performance vehicles of 2020 during a heart-racing simulated track experience – and determine which car deserves the title. Enjoy luxurious accommodations and delectable wine-paired dinners at this annual signature event. BELGARD belgard.com Belgard paves the way for beautiful outdoor living spaces. Since 1995, Belgard’s locally made and nationally backed products have transformed thousands of residential properties, creating beautiful patios, pool decks, outdoor kitchens, fire features and…

Maybe I’m going to the wrong places, but the typical wine-by-the-glass list falls somewhere between uninspiring and an affront, even in restaurants that purport to be serious about wine. This state of affairs isn’t new: By-the-glass has always been a refuge for closeouts, distributor pay-to-play and general mediocrity. I’ve never understood why and always strove to do better on the wine lists I managed. But as I look back, I wonder how many people noticed, or cared. Not only are by-the-glass lists routinely bad but, as consumers, we’ve come to expect it—and pay a premium for it besides. As far as I’m concerned, a wine list—whatever its size—is only as good as its by-the-glass selection. It’s not too much to ask for diversity, some thought as to the wine’s compatibility…

WHEN GRUPO HABITA opened the Habita Hotel nearly 20 years ago in the Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City, founders Carlos Couturier and Moisés Micha hired the local firm Ten Arquitectos to transform a nondescript 1950s building into a floating glass box. They wanted the design-driven boutique hotel to offer guests sophisticated interiors with a sleek European sensibility. Some 14 hotels later, their design ethos has changed, and Grupo Habita properties are now a gateway for tourists to experience firsthand the Mexican design renaissance. “When we started, we wanted to bring international design to Mexico,” says Couturier, the managing partner. “Now we want to make our guests aware of the rich creativity that’s here in Mexico and express pride in our design heritage.” Grupo Habita shows off that heritage in bespoke…

NATIVE GRASSES AND PLANTS sprout from the facade of Ezequiel Farca and Cristina Grappin’s design studio in Mexico City’s Polanco neighborhood. The living green wall is an earthy nod to the holistic approach of their architecture practice, which not only prioritizes environmental sustainability but also takes pride in incorporating organic local materials, including volcanic stone, travertine and wood. With additional offices in Los Angeles and Milan, the business partners—Farca is trained as an industrial designer, and Grappin is an architect—have been working together for eight years and have developed a multidisciplinary practice offering turnkey service for clients in Mexico, Europe and the US. This fall, Rizzoli will publish the monograph Ezequiel Farca + Cristina Grappin by Philip Jodidio, which will highlight such projects as a 20,000-square-foot vacation home in Los…

“The easiest way to become a millionaire,” says the renowned hotelier Ali Kasikci, “is to start as a billionaire and buy a hotel.” But Alan Stenberg and Daniel DeSimone were not billionaires. The writer and orthopedic surgeon were out for a drive in Hastings, N.Y., when they discovered a crumbling beaux arts villa designed by Carrère and Hastings, architects of the New York Public Library and the Frick mansion. “We were in our fifties, and we wanted to semi-retire and do less,” says Stenberg. DeSimone proposed buying the pile. “We could do a little hotel,” he suggested. “How hard could it be?” Thirty million dollars later, Stenberg and DeSimone run the 18-room Glenmere Mansion. They oversee 75 employees, two restaurants, a spa with a hammam and 150 acres of meadows…

In 1976, the Judgment of Paris shocked the wine world. In a blind tasting, an all-French panel of experts rated a California Cabernet above four top Bordeaux, elevating Napa from backwater to world class. We’ve created a rematch of sorts to see how these legendary regions stack up against each other now. In terms of size, Napa plays David to Bordeaux’s Goliath, but it shows New World wine can more than stand up to the Old. Bordeaux VS. Napa WHICH MADE WINE FIRST 1st century A.D. 1861 (Romans introduced wine to the region, and Château Latour may go back to the early 1300s) (Charles Krug founded) NUMBER OF PRODUCERS 6,100 châteaux 475 physical wineries producing 1,000 brands VISITORS PER YEAR (IN MILLIONS) 6.8 3.85 MOST EXPENSIVE BOTTLE EVER SOLD $304,375…

Nicola Shepherd has been going to Africa for 30 years, exploring new destinations and taking clients on trips of a lifetime. Now she’s introducing the “off-piste safari,” a truly bespoke bush experience. While on a jaunt from South Africa to Rwanda to Kenya, she filled us in on the high-flying details. J.C. What is an off-piste safari? It’s doing things that nobody else is doing—or hasn’t done for 50 to 100 years. It’s feeling like the original pioneers of the early 20th century, going into pristine regions that are devoid of tourism and have a plethora of wildlife. And how do you do that? By private plane. When you have a Challenger 350 and a Pilatus 12 at your disposal, you can bypass a lot of the time-consuming issues that…

TAILORING AND THE heat can be difficult partners. A well-tailored warm-weather look can be tricky to pull off, and events such as an August wedding or garden party can cause more consternation than they should. So let’s fix that. At its best, a summer wedding suit can be a little more sophisticated, even glamorous, than your more sober business suiting, exhibiting the kind of polished, confident tailoring you’d want for a more formal affair. That means no outré colors or corporate stripes, please. Warm, dusty pinks, understated taupe or dove gray will all age well. Your look should also be as comfortable as it is sharp—but not too sharp, lest you detract from more important attendees (say, the bride). As a starting point, choose a suit cut in something crisp,…

ONE YACHT, six decks, 6,000 miles of range and more than 10,000 square feet of indoor space that accommodates 19 guests in seven staterooms. Enough said. Well, it’s too impressive a boat to leave it at that, actually. Best known for its refit and conversion projects, Icon Yachts’s (iconyachts.eu) latest design—the Icon 280—sees the innovative Dutch yard move into two new segments of the superyacht industry: both a new-construction project and a yacht built on spec. The Icon 280 is a show of strength for the relatively young company. At 276 feet, it is also Icon’s largest project to date. Sporting an exterior envisioned by rockstar designer Tim Heywood and selling through Burgess for more than $100 million, the Icon 280 offers a customizable interior that has the largest internal…

WHEN YOU OVERHEAR friends talking about the healthy competition at their country club, the hazards on the course’s back half, or the hefty initiation fee, you can no longer simply assume they’re talking about golf. A day at your very own track offers many of the same appeals—you test skills against friends, and then brag about it later. Familiar amenities include fabulous condos (built to spec, clearly), spas, fine dining and après-drive drinks. Here’s a look at a few of our favorite private race circuits around the country.…

“Dress for the slide, not the ride” is a well-worn maxim that addresses the inevitability of taking a tumble on two wheels.Dainese’s new $1,700 Tuono D-air jacket (dainese.com) is the latest technological salvo in the war on road rash. In addition to conventional armor, air chambers are embedded in the neck, chest and back and can fill with 4 liters of air in microseconds in the event of an unintended dismount. Consider it your own personal airbag. The hardware includes three gyroscopes, three accelerometers, one GPS unit and a processor that analyzes data 1,000 times per second. And it’s all wrapped in form-fitting, Italian, full-grain cowhide leather for a reassuring combination of stylish old-and new-school ride protection.…

LARGE NUMBERS of US business jets might just as well file a flight plan direct for the scrapyard, as recent mandatory upgrades and required repairs run the risk of pricing them out of the sky. In fact, two big rule changes—which take effect next year—threaten to ground as many as a fifth of the nation’s older private jets. One is an upgrade in required avionics to provide what is known as ADS-B Out ability. Standard on newer jets, the technology allows aircraft to automatically report their location. The rule takes effect January 2020. The problems don’t stop at the upgrade cost, which could easily run $90,000 and more. If operators have not already booked the work, they will struggle to find an avionics shop that can do it before the…

THE MOST FAMOUS loudspeaker of the 1970s was JBL’s L100, thanks to its widespread popularity and a unique foam grille made up of hundreds of tiny cubes. Testament to that reputation is the iconic Maxell tape ad featuring a long-haired, martini-drinking hipster in a Corbusier chair being blown backward by the JBL component. Even today, the L100 remains the company’s best-selling speaker, and while not inexpensive at the time (a pair cost $560 in 1971), it was the preferred choice of well-heeled rock-n-rollers, musicians and engineers who wanted a compact monitor that could shake the house. It was also a favorite of architects and design-conscious music lovers who appreciated its orange or blue egg-crate grill—JBL’s signature colors—as the ideal complement to contemporary interiors. Out of production since 1978, the originals…

Visit Cahors in the late spring through early fall, when the weather is beautiful and the most winery tasting rooms are open. Truffle lovers, however, take note: Your best months are January and February. The strategy: Fly into the Toulouse airport. Plan on several leisurely paced day trips, following the Lot River. While the distances aren’t especially long, the roads are windy and scenic, with tempting medieval villages (Douelle, Luzech, Albas, Puy l’Evêque) along the way playing a part in the adventure. Start at the Malbec Lounge, where you can taste multiple Malbecs, and get a jump on finding your style (and planning your wine routes). In the town of Cahors: stop in the 12th-century cathedral, follow the World Heritage path to the iconic 14th-century stone bridge and the best…

WITH THE MOTTO “The future is handmade,” Carla Fernández designs clothes in collaboration with a network of artisans throughout Mexico. Think the opposite of fast fashion. Everything is executed by hand: Textiles are woven, dyed, sewed and often embroidered in a slow process with limited output. The finished pieces, for both men and women, are striking and distinct, contemporizing traditional motifs from indigenous cultures. Fernández’s work is part folk art, part haute couture but always evolving with a complexity and attention to workmanship akin to that in a Paris atelier. Her collections include rebozos, traditional garments worn by women that are a cross between a scarf and a shawl, handloomed and colored using natural dyes such as the alluring shade of pink produced by cochineals, insects that live on cacti.…

WHEN GLORIA CORTINA grew frustrated looking for the perfect coffee table for her 1940s house—designed for her grandparents by famed decorator Arturo Pani in the smart Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood of Mexico City—she did what any resourceful interior designer would do: She created her own. The result was a hand-hammered brass table comprised of three interchangeable parts. She describes it as an inverted, cracked pyramid, an homage to the German-born Mexico City artist Mathias Goeritz, who is known for his massive concrete sculptures and collaborations with Luis Barragán. That table, which she makes in limited editions and is available at the Cristina Grajales Gallery in New York, inaugurated Cortina’s furniture line in 2014 and encapsulates her aesthetic. “In today’s Mexican design language there’s a complexity,” she explains. “For us it…

MONACO YACHT SHOW monacoyachtshow.com The 2019 Monaco Yacht Show is expected to break records with 16 megayachts over 70m. Considered to be one of the most unique yacht collections in the world, a grand total of 125 super and megayachts will be unveiled for charter or purchase. MY FATHER CIGARS myfathercigars.com My Father Cigars has released a very special brand named Garcia & Garcia after father and son Pepin and Jaime Garcia. This is the brand’s most exclusive cigar ever released, consisting of a medium to full body cigar. The special box of 10 Toro Deluxe (6 3/4 x 54) is being distributed at only a very select number of certified retailers. COLLECTIONSUITES collection-suites.com Conceived by car collector and enthusiast Juan Manuel Fayen, CollectionSuites is a collector’s paradise. The project,…