Why a bespoke tie is a sound investment April 2, 2014 By Aleksander Cvetkovic AFFORDABLE luxury is something everyone covets, particularly when dressing for work. A good quality off-the-peg suit will start at around £500 and you’ll be lucky to find a decent bespoke service for under £1,000. No surprise, then, that the bespoke, handmade tie is undergoing something of a renaissance. Luxury brands like Linkson [...]
Restaurant review: Big Easy, Covent Garden April 1, 2014 Big Easy, 12 Maiden Lane London WC2E 7NA Tel: 0203 728 4888 Food: ★★★★☆ | Value: ★★☆☆☆ | Atmosphere: ★★★☆☆ Cost for two with wine: £150 @steve_dinneen “Crab shack” evokes images of rickety seaside restaurants held together by Sellotape and folksy charm; mom-and-pop joints that only make $7 a day but put a big smile [...]
The Bottle Opener: How wine buffs should spend that bonus April 1, 2014 CHATEAU Pontet-Canet, a lovely domaine in Paulliac but normally overshadowed by its more famous neighbours, has been making the headlines recently. Last week it announced the price of its 2013 wines, €60 a bottle in bond, the same price as 2012. So what? you might ask. Well you see, this is the week the world’s [...]
Luxury watchmaker Bremont is set to become the first company to release a fully mechanical “smart watch” April 1, 2014 Wearable tech has become the latest fashion among early adopters but the gadgets have failed to move purists, who value the centuries-old tradition of mechanical movements. Bremont’s A1 smart watch hopes to bridge the gulf between the two worlds. The rotund device can be used as a music player, incorporating a miniature reel-to-reel tape system [...]
Rocking and rolling in Vienna March 31, 2014 The new Wraith has all the elegance you would expect from a Rolls-Royce but it packs quite a punch as well THERE’S a delightful moment in the recent C4 TV documentary, Inside Rolls-Royce, where a chap coming to collect his new car from the factory in Goodwood explains the extent of his purchase. “The base [...]
Not convinced? March 31, 2014 CHECK OUT THESE ALTERNATIVES… BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT V8 S PRICE: £139,000 0-62MPH: 4.5 secs TOP SPEED: 192mph CO2 G/KM: 246g/km MPG COMBINED: 26.8mpg THE VERDICT: DESIGN Three Stars PERFORMANCE Four Stars PRACTICALITY Three Stars VALUE FOR MONEY Two Stars FERRARI FF PRICE: £227,142 0-62MPH: 3.7 secs TOP SPEED: 208mph CO2 G/KM: 380g/km MPG COMBINED: 17.0mpg THE VERDICT: DESIGN Two [...]
Borneo to be wild March 30, 2014 Elizabeth Fournier treks to the home of the orang-utan and discovers honeymoon bliss BORNEO isn’t the sort of place people just go. The world’s third largest island, shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, is a Serious Destination; usually found on those top five lists that honeymooners browse, vying with African safaris or the Maldives for [...]
The Roux family take their culinary expertise to Epsom March 30, 2014 FINALLY, the greatest flat-race in the world has a world-class restaurant to match. Last week, French culinary legends Albert Roux and his son Michel Roux Jnr launched a new fine dining establishment that is to be at Epsom Downs Racecourse during the Investec Derby Festival. As official newspaper of the event, Morning Wire was on [...]
Top tip: Prep yourself with a day in Singapore March 30, 2014 SEEING as you’ll have used all of your savings and annual leave on this trip, and come so far, it makes sense to throw in a stopover to acclimatise yourself to the time difference. You could do worse than to pick Singapore, one of the original Asian tiger economies and now home to more than [...]
Perfecting the art of seduction with bespoke interiors March 28, 2014 Melissa York talks to Julia Reynolds, the saleswoman who makes every viewing a singular experience THE next time you walk into a show home, take a good sniff. It’s likely that a lot of thought has gone into what permeates your nostrils. The days of sales teams brewing coffee or arranging flowers at strategic intervals [...]