Indice dei contenuti per August 2022 in Robb Report

There’s a naturally psychedelic quality to Barzanji’s work, which has graced the pages of Architectural Digest, Vogue and Wallpaper. The Kurdistan-born, London-based artist credits this sensibility to “books and surreal movies” and their connections to his own dreams and experiences. This made him the ideal choice to create the cover for this issue, which envisions a solitary figure under the influence of psylocibin (aka magic mushrooms). “I explored the theme by focusing on the effect of nature on our mind and body,” he explains. “I wanted to take the viewer on a journey, through each element in the piece, and how they interlink.”…

FROM THE ANCIENT Romans to Tang dynasty royals, silk has long been prized as the most precious of all textiles. And yet, for much of modern history, silk has been relegated to the fringes of a man’s wardrobe, turning up as a tie or a pocket square, on the lapel of a tuxedo or blended into a summer suit. For most guys, the thought of wearing pure, 100 percent silk conjures images of Saturday Night Fever-era lounge lizards: more mafioso than Medici. But lately designers are making a case for reconsidering the material’s many pleasures—and not just for after dark. “Silk has taken over the menswear runways,” says Olie Arnold, Mr Porter’s style director, citing graphic resort shirts from Valentino and luxe tailoring by Dries Van Noten. “It blurs the…

Ardbeg’s distinctive, heavily peated single malts have earned the brand a huge worldwide following among Scotch whisky fans over the last quarter-century. Their limited-edition bottlings, featuring new and innovative experiments from legendary whisky creator Dr. Bill Lumsden, are exceptionally sought after by both whisky connoisseurs and novices around the world. But back in 1975, Scotch whisky was in the midst of a decades-long downturn, and Ardbeg’s fortunes looked bleak. Most of their small output was used in blends, and the distillery actually shut down intermittently in the 1980s and ’90s before the Glenmorangie Company bought it, and gave it a new lease on life, in 1997. The few surviving Ardbeg bottles from the dark days of the 1970s are highly coveted both for their quality and rarity. A surviving cask…

DREAM MACHINES A DEVOTION TO MOTION What’s happening in the high-performance automotive sector looks like a Top Chef challenge. Leading marques, operating under the same set of emissions restrictions, are picking from a common crate of power-train ingredients—a six-cylinder engine and electric motor—while trying to present the most tantalizing supercar du jour. Latest on the menu: McLaren’s 671 hp Artura. During the past few years, McLaren Automotive has seemed to favor frequent model releases over substantial advancements in engineering and drive experience, impacting the perceived collectability of some of its most recent cars. Enter the Artura, which signals a return to late racer Bruce McLaren’s penchant for reinvention and innovation. Touted as McLaren’s first seriesproduction hybrid, the Artura, starting at $233,000, represents a laundry list of firsts for the automaker…

WATER The heavily retro Golden Globe Race, which starts September 4 from Les Sables-d’Olonne, France, can claim to attract some of the world’s most eclectic die-hard racers. Pro sailors used to 80-day circumnavigations in multimillion-dollar carbon-fiber foiling hulls, with onshore teams and big-budget sponsors, probably need not apply. “It’s the loneliest race in any sport: six to 10 months alone, with no electronics or communication with the outside worldjust you, your boat and the ocean,” says organizer Don McIntyre, who views the GGR as the antithesis to today’s high-dollar, high-stakes round-the-world races. This year’s event has the same rules and technology as the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race of 1968-1969, a solo circumnavigation so extreme that, of the nine sailors who departed, one was rescued after his boat sank,…

THE EUROPEAN DETOX I’m covered in green mud and standing semi-naked in the hose-down room. A bespectacled attendant in white Crocs sprays me with a jet of water powerful enough to put out a five-alarm fire. Bridget’s not just rinsing me off: This procedure is designed to stimulate my body’s meridians, like an acupuncture session, but the pressure is so high it hurts. It’s only day two of my weeklong detox, and my patience is already waning. Perhaps my hunger-induced headache is making me paranoid. Maybe the smell of vegetal mud mingling with the barky earthiness of the dandelion-root tea still on my breath is causing hallucinations. Whatever it is, I think I see a glimmer of schadenfreude in Bridget’s eyes. Though at times I feel as if I’ve been…

After the earth seems to jump up and bite the right wheel on landing, wrenching the gear leg back on itself like some grotesque football injury, and after the wing slams the ground like a palm hitting a tabletop in anger, when the plane finally finishes its long shuddering slide through the gravel, I sit in the swirling dust and think back to a week before, in a Fairbanks hotel room, as Randy McKinney calmly explained all the many ways to die in the Alaskan bush. The list consisted, in part, of freezing, starving, injury, panic, getting lost, general stupidity and bears. Especially bears. “No one realizes just how dangerous bears are,” said McKinney, my pilot and guide for the next week as I went in search of the Western…

Back in 2016, as the country’s political divide cratered into an abyss against the backdrop of a bitter presidential contest, a quartet of art-world friends came together to found For Freedoms. Playing on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famed “Four Freedoms” speech and Norman Rockwell’s subsequent series of oil paintings celebrating the freedoms of speech and worship and freedoms from want and fear, the collective sought to promote more civic—and civil—engagement via art. For Freedoms continued its mission through another election cycle, and now one of the founders, conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas, has co-curated Another Justice: US Is Them, an exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, N.Y., on view until November 6. “We believe artists often are on the forefront of critical thought in our society and are…

As a second-generation jeweler, 33-year-old Nick Boulle, president of De Boulle Diamond & Jewelry, splits his time between his family’s sprawling 13,600-squarefoot retail empire in Dallas, just off the city’s prestigious Preston Road, and its recently opened second, 3,500-square-foot store in Houston’s posh River Oaks District. The retailer is known for exceptional diamonds and watches—Patek Philippe and Rolex have dedicated showrooms in the Houston location—and both boutiques have become go-to destinations. When he’s not working the floor and acting as gatekeeper to De Boulle’s coveted inventory, Boulle can be found strapping in behind the wheel at professional racecar competitions such as the Rolex 24 at Daytona and 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. Not surprisingly, both his vault and his garage keep pace with his life in the fast…

SOARING ABOVE DOWNTOWN Chicago’s landmark Navy Pier and Lakeshore Drive, this stunning 65th-floor, 7,500-square-foot penthouse in Robert A. M. Stern’s One Bennett Park tower is an exercise lover’s dream. The owner can take the private elevator—or perhaps the stairs—down to the building’s third floor, where a 7,000-square-foot state-of-the-art well-ness center features an expansive fitness club designed by New York’s acclaimed the Wright Fit group. In addition to a gym packed with cardio and strength-training equipment, there’s a separate Pilates studio, a low-impact “relaxed energy” studio and a full-service spa suite with a massage-treatment room. This level is also home to a 60-foot-long indoor lap pool, which should satisfy any swimmer wishing to channel their inner Michael Phelps. Out on the 10,000-square-foot recreational deck, there are cabanas, an outdoor kitchen, a…

THE $2 MILLION, carbon-fiber-bodied, tandem-seat Czinger 21C, hypercar astounds with specs—1,250 hp, zero to 62 mph in 1.9 seconds, a claimed top speed of 253 mph—and recently blew away the McLaren P1’s production-car track record at Circuit of the Americas by six seconds. But more impressive—seriously—is the hybrid’s build process: The main structural components are designed by Czinger’s proprietary AI software and then 3-D-printed. “These structures cannot be made more perfect for the requirements inputted,” says Kevin Czinger, who, along with his son Lukas, cofounded Los Angeles-based Czinger Vehicles. “You could have 1,000 engineers and they would never get to this solution.” Figuring out how to put these “perfect Lego blocks” together was tasked to Lukas, with a degree in electrical engineering from Yale, who invented a fixture-less assembly system.…

FINDING A DESIGN studio that matches the sophistication of the $75 million business jet you want to build can be a tricky proposition, since the designers are typically located inside aircraft manufacturing facilities and assembling a jet remains a noisy, industrial activity. But a number of bizjet manufacturers are looking to change that, investing big in an overlooked part of the design process: the client experience. Bombardier’s Laurent Beaudoin Completion Centre—a luxurious, purposebuilt wing across the hall from the bays of Globals in different stages of interior fitout—bridges the gap between the design and industrial worlds. “We had a delivery center before but decided to customize the visits for each client,” says Katie Papoutsis, head of Bombardier’s customer experience, strategy and operations. “We wanted to make sure the experience is…

Last summer, Gaetano, a 35-year-old financial adviser from New Jersey, traveled with his wife to the rainforest outside Sayulita, Mexico, near Puerto Vallarta, where they stayed in a well-appointed villa overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For five days they did what any couple might do on a wellness retreat. They practiced yoga with the handful of other guests and tried a sound bath, lying on the floor and feeling vibrations produced by a local healer. They watched the sunset from their balcony every evening and dined on five-star cuisine. But twice on their trip they also consumed something else: psilocybin, the hallucinogen more commonly known as magic mushrooms. No longer just a recreational drug favored by club kids and Grateful Dead fans, psilocybin and similar psychedelics are increasingly gaining acceptance by…

You’ve seen the headlines. Things like, THE 7 HABITS OF PEOPLE WHO NEVER get sick and THE 10 THINGS THIS 100-YEAR-OLD TRIATHLETE DOES EVERY MORNING. Whether you re scrolling on Instagram or catching up on the news, optimal-health clickbait has become a genre that’s impossible to avoid. Inevitably, there is some practical advice mixed with a wacky tidbit or two, along with shoppable links to supplements or fitness routines. So you make a mental note to remember one of the more resonant tips and move on with your day. But what if, rather than reading about the habits of highly effective and healthy superhumans on the Internet, you had something more to gain from them? Like their DNA. From probiotics to cosmetic treatments to, yes, fecal transplants, using the material…

THE GOODS THIS MONTH’S WHO, WHAT AND WEAR Given Mexico City’s population density, it’s no surprise that visitors and locals alike cite leafy, airy Polanco as their favorite neighborhood to escape to. Set near Chapultepec Park and the main Paseo de la Reforma thoroughfare, the elegant area is home to upscale shopping, diverse restaurants, intimate parks and quiet side streets lined with historic mansions and apartment buildings. And it’s these streets that real-estate investor and developer Octavio Aguilar, a 25-year resident of Polanco, walks when looking to spot his next project. Since the early 2000s, Aguilar has sought out buildings that have been historically designated and protected, which he then restores to their original glory while finding a new purpose—an office building, for example, or boutiques. So when Aguilar heard…

GENIUS AT WORK EVEN TO THE MOST robotic of players, golf is about feel. Mashies and niblicks, those clubs of yore, might feel like Iron Age artifacts in the hand now, but since the sport’s early days, club makers have sought to give players tools that send clear signals from their fingertips to their brains and make them better golfers. One of those driving club design and manufacturing forward is Parsons Xtreme Golf, known as PXG, an Arizona-based company set up in 2013 by the colorful GoDaddy founder, billionaire and golf fanatic Bob Parsons. The brand makes precision-engineered clubs to order. Parsons’s vision, backed up by former tour pro and expert club designer Mike Nicolette and former Ping director of engineering Brad Schweigert, is to make “clubs without compromise,” using…

TECH Whether you love them, loathe them or just don’t understand them, NFTs continue to be the most buzzed-about topic in the art world, with several examples fetching sums that put the priciest O’Keeffes and even some Rembrandts to shame. Each digital creation is tagged with a unique set of data that establishes proof of ownership and stored using blockchain technology, which verifies provenance and authenticity beyond a doubt—an obvious boon for any art investment. But how are you supposed to enjoy what you’ve bought? These four cutting-edge frames let you hang your virtual masterpieces in the real world. Blackdove Digital Canvas This digital viewing surface is currently offered in six screen sizes ranging from 49 inches ($1,512) to 98 inches ($14,700), plus four style choices, including a floating screen…

FOR THE LATEST craze keeping yacht owners on the edges of their helm seats, consider a trick that even world-famous illusionist David Copperfield would find challenging: instantly transporting a superyacht 1,000 feet under the sea, allowing guests to experience the ocean’s Twilight Zone without ever leaving the main salon. That stagecrafted experience, produced by London-based Berkeley Rand, requires underwater drones, high-definition cameras, augmented-reality technology and a host of digital-effects wizards to create. “West Coast tech titans are critical members of our audience,” says Berkeley Rand cofounder Andrew Grant Super. “The complexities around trying to entertain a three-generational power family who have seen it all is stifling, but they love what we do.” Priced between $350,000 and around $2 million, the company’s activations have included a trip through the lost city…

FIELD NOTES We’ve become very accustomed to seeing them on the road. You know, the “riders.” Wannabe Miguel Induráins (sorry, Lance—you blew it) wedged into heaving uniforms of fluorescent Grand Tour-branded Lycra, their, ahem, masculinity tokens protruding with all the elegance of a vacuum-packed pallet of bananas. But even so, there’s something about cycling that remains a bit, well, off. And it’s in the gear. Not just in those silly shoes, surely the world’s most dangerous footwear. Not even ski boots have the power to morph a person into a fleshycarbon-fiber hybrid like cycling shoes. No, it’s in the way cycling gear is transcending its original purpose—that is, to be used by bicyclists for bicycling. Since when did it become acceptable to traipse into the office or a cafe still…

The idea of an intimate Caribbean retreat where high net worth individuals take “trips” on magic mushrooms all week then sit around the pool sipping wine discussing their lives may sound like the premise for a bad movie, but it actually makes for a great, even profound, experience. MycoMeditations, which offers one of the world’s few legal psilocybin assisted therapy retreats, has been able to reimagine one of the hottest underground trends in the fast emerging field of psychedelics in mental health into a five star respite. Eleven of us met at Bluefields Bay, a boutique resort in Jamaica, where we ate family style at a long dining table between three psilocybin treatments or, in ‘60s parlance, “trips.” “We’re aiming to establish a gold standard for this type of experience,”…