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Found 12 results for “luxury”
Beijing Fashion Week AW2026
## The Eastern Color Wheel Beijing Fashion Week AW2026 brings together more than 120 events across the Chinese capital, with new product launches up 75% year-on-year. The opening show featured 80 models in a visual spectacle the organizers call the "Eastern Color Wheel" — a statement about China's fashion identity that goes far beyond imitation of European houses. The defining tension this season: quiet luxury versus conceptual design. Chinese Gen Z and millennials are rejecting logo-heavy branding in favor of authenticity, sustainability, and cultural connection. The result is a generation of designers who are fusing traditional Chinese craft — embroidered heritage, Hanfu-inspired silhouettes — with frontier technology: 3D-printed latticework, AI-assisted tailoring, and sustainable fabrication. This is the split personality of Chinese fashion in 2026. On one side, whisper-quiet luxury rooted in refinement and restraint. On the other, conceptual design that treats the runway as installation art. Beijing Fashion Week is where those two impulses collide, and the collections emerging from it are unlike anything coming out of Paris, Milan, or New York. ## Why It Matters China isn't just the world's largest luxury consumer market — it's becoming a design originator. The shift from consumption to creation mirrors the broader creator-class transfer: Chinese designers are no longer interpreting Western aesthetics. They're building their own design language, exporting it, and finding an audience that values cultural specificity over global homogeneity. Beijing Fashion Week is smaller and less hyped than its counterparts in Paris or Milan. That's the point. The work here is rougher, more experimental, and less concerned with commercial viability. If you want to see where fashion goes next, watch the edges, not the center.
The Brando
Tetiaroa is the island Marlon Brando bought because he believed paradise should be left alone. Decades later, The Brando proves him right — by building the most technologically advanced eco-resort on earth without disturbing a single coconut palm. The 35 villas, each with private beach and plunge pool, run entirely on renewable energy: deep seawater air conditioning, solar panels, coconut oil biofuel. LEED Platinum certified, this is luxury that has made peace with its environment. But sustainability is not the point. The point is waking up on a private motu, watching reef sharks patrol the lagoon from your deck, and understanding that isolation — real, geographic isolation — is the ultimate luxury. The Polynesian Spa uses monoi oil and local botanicals. The two restaurants serve French-Polynesian cuisine from the island organic garden. And the marine biology station, run by actual scientists, lets guests participate in coral reef research. The Brando attracts a specific kind of traveler: someone wealthy enough to go anywhere, wise enough to go nowhere.
Beijing Fashion Week AW2026 — China Chic and 120 Events
Beijing Fashion Week runs March 17-23 with over 120 events celebrating the collision of traditional Chinese craft and contemporary design. The headline theme is China Chic — ancient embroidery techniques, Qing dynasty silhouettes, and Song dynasty color palettes reinterpreted through modern tailoring. This isn't costume; it's a design philosophy that treats 5,000 years of textile heritage as living material rather than museum artifact. The tension between quiet luxury and conceptual design runs through every collection, reflecting China's broader identity negotiation between heritage reverence and global ambition.
Weaving, Embroidering, Embellishing -- The Crafts of Fashion
Palais Galliera presents over 350 pieces celebrating the invisible artisans of French haute couture -- from 18th-century lacemakers to Lesage, Chanel, Dior, and Vivienne Westwood. Weaving, embroidery, lace, textile printing, and flower creation. The techniques that built luxury, finally given the spotlight.
Mandarin Oriental Bangkok
Some hotels are old. The Mandarin Oriental Bangkok is historic — there is a difference. Since 1876, this white colonial building on the banks of the Chao Phraya has hosted Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, and every Thai king of the modern era. The Authors' Wing, where Maugham wrote, still operates as the most storied accommodation in Southeast Asia. But nostalgia alone does not sustain a hotel for 150 years. The Oriental succeeds because it evolves without forgetting. The Garden Wing rooms, renovated with quiet luxury, balance Thai silk with contemporary restraint. The riverside terrace — where breakfast unfolds to the sound of long-tail boats — remains one of Bangkok's great rituals. The spa, housed in a teak building across the river accessed by private shuttle boat, offers traditional Thai treatments that are worth the trip to Thailand alone. What distinguishes the Oriental from newer, flashier competitors is institutional memory. The staff knows regulars by name across decades. The concierge can arrange a private long-tail boat tour of the klongs at dawn or a table at Nahm with a phone call. This is hospitality as a living tradition.
Claridges London
There is a particular kind of confidence that comes with walking into Claridges. It is not the art deco lobby, though that helps. It is not the black-and-white marble floor or the Dale Chihuly chandelier overhead. It is the certainty that you are in the right place. Since 1856, Claridges has been the default address for anyone who requires discretion, service, and a postcode that needs no explanation. The rooms, redesigned by Thierry Despont, balance period detail with modern comfort — think cashmere throws on art deco furniture, rainfall showers behind Lalique glass. The suites on the upper floors offer views across Mayfair that make London look almost gentle. Downstairs, the Foyer and Reading Room serves what many consider London best afternoon tea. Davies and Brook, the restaurant from Daniel Humm, brings a plant-forward philosophy to the grand hotel dining room. And the Fumoir, the tiny cocktail bar behind a heavy curtain, remains one of London best-kept open secrets. The staff — trained in a tradition that predates every other luxury hotel in the city — anticipate rather than react. This is not a hotel that needs to try.
Caribbean Sailing Experience
The British Virgin Islands were designed for sailing — or rather, sailing was designed for the BVI. Protected waters, steady trade winds, and an archipelago of 60 islands spaced just close enough that you can reach a new anchorage every afternoon. This 24-meter sailing catamaran covers the best of the chain in a week: The Baths at Virgin Gorda, where granite boulders create cathedral-like sea caves. The floating bars of Jost Van Dyke, where Painkiller cocktails are served from a boat. The deserted beaches of Anegada, where the sand is so white it hurts. The crew of four knows these waters from a lifetime of sailing them. The captain plots routes by weather and mood — yours, not theirs. The chef provisions at Tortola market and cooks Caribbean-French fusion on deck while you watch the sun set behind Norman Island. Four cabins, each with ensuite, accommodate 8 guests in comfort that surprises on a sailing vessel. But the real luxury of a BVI charter is not the yacht — it is the pace. No itineraries, no reservations, no shoes. Just wind, water, and the understanding that tomorrow will take care of itself.
Aman Tokyo
There is a moment, stepping from the chaos of Otemachi into the Aman Tokyo lobby, when the city simply stops. Thirty-three floors above the Imperial Palace gardens, this is where Tokyo reveals its other self — the one that breathes. Rooms are vast and spare, framed by floor-to-ceiling windows that make the skyline feel like a living scroll painting. The ofuro soaking tubs, carved from camphor wood, fill the suite with a scent that lingers in memory long after checkout. The spa spans two floors of stone, water, and silence. The swimming pool is arguably the most beautiful indoor pool in Asia. What makes Aman Tokyo singular is its refusal to perform luxury. There are no chandeliers, no gold leaf. Instead, there is warmth, precision, and the feeling that every surface was considered by someone who understands restraint.
Six Senses Ibiza
Six Senses Ibiza opened in 2021 on the rugged northern coast near Portinatx and immediately redrew the map for luxury on the island. Built into the cliffs above Cala Xarraca, the property is designed as a village rather than a resort: scattered low-rise buildings connected by winding paths through native gardens, an organic farm that feeds the restaurants, and a social club atmosphere. The spa is the anchor and it is serious — a full wellness screening on arrival, personalized programs, and treatments that borrow from Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda without the pseudo-science. The cave bar, carved into the actual rock face, is one of those spaces you photograph and then put your phone away because it deserves your full attention. This is the hotel for the person who wants Ibiza's energy — the creative crowd, the long nights, the spontaneous connections — but filtered through intention and quality.
Marbella Club Hotel
Every luxury destination has an origin story and Marbella's begins here. In 1954, Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe transformed his father's coastal estate into a small hotel and began inviting friends — the Rothschilds, the Bismarcks, Audrey Hepburn, the Aga Khan. The guests came and never quite left. Seventy years later, the Marbella Club is still the address on the Golden Mile. The rooms have been updated thoughtfully — Andalusian tile, natural fabrics, terraces dripping with bougainvillea — but the bones are deliberately unchanged. There is no glass tower, no infinity pool cantilevered over nothing. The beach club serves grilled fish at tables in the sand, and the Thalasso Spa uses seawater in a way that feels medicinal rather than theatrical. What you are paying for is not a feature list — it is institutional memory. The staff have been here for decades. The regulars return every year, often to the same room. Marbella has added dozens of five-star hotels since 1954, but none of them have this.
Four Seasons Bali at Sayan
The approach alone justifies the trip. A wooden bridge arches over the Ayung River valley, landing on the rooftop of a lotus pond that doubles as your welcome. Below, the resort cascades down the hillside into the jungle canopy. Four Seasons at Sayan is the rare hotel that improves on its setting — and the setting is a sacred river valley in central Bali that artists and healers have claimed for centuries. Suites are studies in tropical modernism: teak floors, stone walls, open-air bathrooms where you shower under frangipani trees while listening to the river below. The one-bedroom villas come with private plunge pools that seem to hover over the rice terraces. But the real luxury is the rhythm the place imposes. Mornings begin with yoga in the riverside pavilion. Afternoons dissolve into Balinese massage at the Sacred River Spa, where treatments draw on local healing traditions without the usual resort pastiche. Evenings bring multi-course Indonesian dinners at Ayung Terrace, where the kitchen team cooks with ingredients from the resort's own organic garden. The staff here — many from the surrounding villages — navigate the line between attentiveness and invisibility with a grace that feels effortless. This is Bali at its most refined, without ever pretending it is anywhere else.
Mont Cervin Palace
Mont Cervin Palace is the grande dame of Zermatt and the flagship of Seiler Hotels, the family that has been running hotels in this village since the 1850s — before the Matterhorn was first summited. The hotel occupies a commanding position on the Bahnhofstrasse with the Matterhorn centered in the view from the south-facing rooms. Public spaces have the proportions and details of a Swiss grand hotel — coffered ceilings, parquet floors, the kind of wood paneling that takes a century to develop proper character. Rooms are traditional without being museum pieces: rich fabrics, mountain-facing balconies, deep bathtubs, and the particular silence that comes from thick walls and no car traffic. The Mont Cervin is for travelers who understand that luxury is not always about the newest thing. The Seiler family's institutional knowledge of Zermatt — the weather, the mountain, the guides, the seasons — is woven into every recommendation the concierge makes.