The Face of the Future

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Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013
COLLECTING
WSJ.com/lifestyle
The Face of the Future
Luxury Watch Brands Are Moving Forward By Looking Back
[ INSIDE ]
GEAR
Auctions fly high with
iconic motors W11
STYLE Perfumer Frédéric Malle
and the seductive power of scent W5
GADGETS From shutterbug to filmmaker W9
Illustration by Matt Herring
FASHION
W2 | Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013
Passing Time
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
STYLE & FASHION
Michael Clerizo surveys the scene
at SIHH, the annual gathering
of luxury watchmakers in Geneva
T
he euro zone could crumble,
the Middle East explode,
China might sink into recession, and America may buckle under
the pressure of its debt ceiling, but
does any of this concern the highend watch industry, currently gathered en masse in Geneva?
“Of course we think about these
things,” says Alexander Schmiedt,
Montblanc’s managing director of
watches. “They are hovering around
and we have to prepare for them,
but they do not change our longterm strategy. Our long-term strategy is all about our watches.”
Watches from Montblanc and 15
other luxury brands have taken over
Geneva’s Palexpo this week for Le Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), which ends Friday.
Here, brands strut their newest stuff
for collectors, retailers and journalists. But there is little point in looking for trends. The watch world isn’t
the fashion world, where products
change every six months. Instead,
trends are measured in decades, even
for relatively new producers, and the
latest models tend to take inspiration
from brands’ own histories.
Take Montblanc, which unveiled
brand in 2001, Richard Mille has explored the connection between cars
and watches. “Cars,” he says via
email, “at their very heart, utilize
the very old technology of the combustion engine, combined with modern materials and concepts, today
with an added dose of electronics.
All advances made with car development are incremental and don’t really change the essence of the beast,
which is: you put fossil fuels in and
it moves, end of story.
“Look at the high-end watch:
totally mechanical, same as it
was more than half a millennium ago,” Mr. Mille continues. “Everything has been
discovered about watchmaking, yet, we are always able
to bring things another
step forward, each and
every year.”
This year, Mr. Mille
is powering his brand
with the Tourbillon GSensor RM 036 Jean
Todt Limited Edition,
which measures the
effect of G-forces on
a driver in a rapidly
decelerating car.
‘Everything has been discovered about
watchmaking, yet, we are always able
to bring things another step forward,
each and every year.’
its first watch in 1997. Five years
ago, the company used its history as
a pen producer as inspiration for its
Nicolas Rieussec Chronograph,
named for the man who patented
his stopwatch complication invention in 1822. Because Rieussec’s
chronographs employed a stationary
nib that inked elapsed time on rotating discs, Montblanc saw a natural link between his invention and
the company’s own history.
Until now, Montblanc’s chronographs have featured traditional
hour and minute hands on the main
dial and smaller rotating disk subdials with stationary hands to measure elapsed minutes and seconds.
Their newest model, Rising Hours,
pushes the no-hands design even
further. The minute hand remains
but hours are displayed on a main
rotating disc. The hour numerals are
blue at night and black during the
day. There are also windows displaying the day and the date.
This year, IWC Schaffhausen updates the Ingenieur collection
(launched in 1955 and retooled in
the ’70s) via its link with the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One
Team. The new watches, ranging in
price from €4,955 to €201,900, are
sleeker than their predecessors but
nod to history by retaining the five
visible screw-bores on their bezels.
Most of the new collection has racing-friendly complications: chronographs and tachymeters that measure speed over a set distance. The
Chronograph Racer also has an automotive-appropriate rubber strap
and flyback function stopwatch
ideal for recording pit-stop times.
Since founding his eponymous
For those enamored of esoteric complications and names
to match, Italian brand
Officine Panerai offers
the sure-to-lure Luminor 1950 Rattrapante 8
Days Titanio. One word
at a time: “Luminor” is
for a luminous substance
developed by Panerai that
makes numerals and hands
easier to read underwater;
1950 is the year Luminor was
introduced; “Rattrapante” is a
chronograph with two second
hands, enabling the timing of single lap times in a multilap race; “8
Days” refers to the time the watch
will run when fully wound; and “Titanio” is Italian for titanium, the
case metal.
A possible motto for Piaget is “A
watch can never be too thin.” This
year’s offering, the Emperador
Coussin Ultra-Thin Minute Repeater, chimes the hours and minutes inside an 18-karat pink-gold
case only 9.4 millimeters thick.
Fabled jewelry and watch brand
Cartier launched the Calibre de
Cartier Chronograph, its first inhouse self-winding movement with
chronograph—the fruit of a multimillion-euro investment in watchmaking. The watch has a dial with
oversized Roman numerals and
sword hands, Cartier mainstays
since the days of Art Deco. On the
case, different surfaces have different finishes: the chronograph buttons are polished to a smooth and
lustrous shine, while the sides and
lugs are brushed for a subtler look.
Ralph Lauren is one of the few
MONTBLANC
Rising Hours
€26,900
in red gold
IWC
Chronograph Racer
€5,000
RICHARD MILLE
Tourbillon G-Sensor
RM 036 Jean Todt
Limited Edition
estimated at
€336,000
PANERAI
Luminor 1950
Rattrapante 8 Days
Titanio
€13,125
PIAGET
Emperador Coussin
Ultra-Thin Minute
Repeater
€187,740
CARTIER
The Calibre de Cartier
Chronograph
€8,110
RALPH LAUREN
Sporting World Time
€7,135
Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013 | W3
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
STYLE & FASHION
lifestyle brands that has succeeded
in the luxury watch world. This year,
it adds Sporting World Time, a
blue-dial watch that keeps track of
time in 24 time zones, to the
brand’s Sporting collection.
One brand, Audemars Piguet, has
outdone its rivals by producing a
Royal Oak Offshore Grande Complication. The watch adheres to
horological tradition for grand complications with a rattrapante chronograph, a minute repeater, a perpetual calendar and moon phases.
Audemars Piguet plans to produce
only three titanium-cased examples.
“With the introduction of this
movement in the Royal Oak Offshore, not only do we master the
artistry of complicated movements
but have also broken the rules by
placing it in our most extreme
sports design,” says CEO FrançoisHenry Bennahmias.
Determining the best watch introduced at SIHH is a time-wasting
exercise. After all, how do you define
“best”? Selecting the most beautiful watch, however, is easy: Van
Cleef & Arpels’s Enchanted Ballerina, with a dial that features
a bejeweled ballerina. Push a
button and the ballerina’s
tutu becomes the wings of
a butterfly that flutter
along two arcs of numerals—one on the right of
the dial to indicate minutes and one of the left
to indicate the hour.
AUDEMARS PIGUET
Royal Oak Offshore
Grande Complication
€533,700
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS
Enchanted Ballerina
€105,885
H. MOSER
Meridian Dual Time
€27,700 in rose gold
JULIEN COUDRAY
Manufactura 1528
Miniature
€123,900
RGM
Caliber 20
€14,650
F. P. JOURNE
Chronomèter
Optimum
€64,885
in rose gold
CHRISTOPHE CLARET
Soprano
€375,475
MB&F
HM5
€47,310
Down the River
Running parallel to
SIHH, the fourth annual Geneva Time
Exhibition (GTE),
which ended Thursday, featured lesserknown brands.
Among the 34
exhibitors, H. Moser & Cie is a contrarian brand from
Schaffhausen. While
many
brands’
watches shout their
presence on a
wearer’s wrist, Moser’s give a silent
wink. Dials are smoky
shades of brown, blue
or gray, matched with
white- or yellow-gold
hands and markers,
large date windows and
moon-phase
displays.
The brand’s latest watch,
the Meridian Dual Time,
indicates the time in a second time zone with a dark
red hand. When not needed,
the red hand disappears beneath the regular hour hand.
New brands that keep production numbers low but design values, and consequently prices, high
have been drawing interest from investors. One example is Julien
Coudray 1518, based in the Swiss
mountain town of Le Locle, about
two hours northeast of Geneva. The
founder, 43-year-old French master
watchmaker Fabien Lamarche, was
an industry backroom boy producing exceptional watches for famous
brands but without any recognition.
In 2007, he launched his own brand,
named after a 16th-century French
watchmaker. Over the next five
years, Mr. Lamarche secured financial backing from luxury industry investors. Last year, the brand produced its first complete collection.
On show at GTE this year has
been a pièce unique, the Manufactura 1528 Miniature. The movement for this time-only watch is
fashioned from red gold and delicately decorated. The red-gold case
is set with 193 diamonds. Inlaid on
the dial are 11 separate enameled
lozenges for the hours. One lozenge
at eight o’clock is gold and engraved
with the brand logo. At the center
of the dial is a miniature enamel
painting of flowers. When the hour
and minute hands meet at 12
o’clock, they form a flower complete
with stem and leaves. “The design
on the dial was inspired by PierreJoseph Redouté, a Belgian painter
who lived at the time of the French
Revolution and worked for MarieAntoinette,” Mr. Lamarche says.
“Redouté was know as the Raphael
of Flowers because of his beautiful
paintings of nature. I want this image on the dial to be a way of escaping from everyday life.”
A surprise at GTE has been the
presence of an American brand: RGM
Watch Co., founded in 1992 in Mount
Joy, Penn., by watchmaker Roland G.
Murphy. The 52-year-old is celebrating the brand’s 20th anniversary with
a new watch, the tourneau (cushion)shaped Caliber 20. The in-house
movement is the third from RGM and
composed of 90% homegrown American parts. Caliber 20 features a seconds sub-dial positioned at two
o’clock, visually balanced by a moon
phase dial at eight o’clock.
Beyond the Shows
In 1996, François-Paul Journe, a
39-year-old French watchmaker
with a deep knowledge of his craft,
arrived in Geneva with a modus
operandi to tease out innovations
from the great inventions of watchmaking’s past.
At his workshop, the latest offering, the Chronomèter Optimum,
boasts a double-wheel escapement.
(Escapements regulate the flow of
energy in a mechanical watch.)
These escapements appear in 18thand 19th-century pocket watches but
are rare in wristwatches. Mr.
Journe’s brainchild improves on its
ancestors by functioning without lubrication, the Achilles' heel of those
earlier iterations. The Chronomèter
Optimum, part of the brand’s Souveraine collection, also features a remontoire, a device that aids the escapement in its energy-controlling
role. To his trademark off-center dials, Mr. Journe added a power-reserve gauge and exposed remontoire.
Another inventive Frenchman,
52-year-old Christophe Claret, based
in Le Locle, foregoes the classicism
and formality of Messrs. Lamarche
and Journe for a contemporary design—but one based around traditional components. His Soprano
rings the hours and minutes with
Westminster Chimes in imitation of
London’s Big Ben, the preferred
melody of watchmakers since the
mid-19th century. The watch also
has a tourbillon, an invention more
than 200 years old, and Charles X
bridges (stationary components that
hold moving parts) common in
pocket watches from the 1820s.
These horological mainstays are
surmounted by tradition-busting
black-on-black, black-on-red or
black-on-blue hands.
Watches from MB&F, founded in
2005 by Max Büsser, then 38 years
old, don’t so much sit on as appear
to orbit the wrist. Mr. Büsser runs
the brand as an artist collective,
with as many as 40 watchmakers,
designers and technicians contributing to the realization of each piece.
Debuting this year is the HM5, a
wedge-shaped digital display watch
conceived as a tribute to the 1970sera of quartz watches and tapered
supercars. The HM5, with its futuristic design, has a weirdly practical
feature: a drainage system that
comes to the rescue if the watch
gets wet. The watch, as well as
other carefully curated pieces, can
be found at MB&F’s Mechanical Art
Devices Gallery on rue Verdaine, Geneva. A visit here should live up to
the gallery’s acronym: M.A.D.
W4 | Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
EATING & DRINKING
Why Coya Is Zagat’s Hottest Restaurant
Chef Sanjay Dwivedi’s
Seabass Ceviche
TOTAL TIME: 30 minutes SERVES: 4
6 fillets of sea bass, skinned
4 limes, juiced
125 milliliter fish stock
½ peeled white onion
½ head celery
1 bulb garlic
1 de-seeded ají limo pepper
½ bunch coriander (keep 10 leaves)
5 grams of ginger
125 grams of sweet potatoes
1 star anise
100 grams of Peruvian white corn
½ de-seeded, finely chopped
long red chili
½ finely sliced red onion
[ Food ]
BY BRUCE PALLING
Ceviche at Coya Restaurant & Bar, above, and chef Sanjay Dwivedi, right.
Hyde Park Corner end of Piccadilly. It has been renovated in
what can only be termed distressed Hispanic/Inca style, with
cast-iron gates and shabby leather
banquettes, making it reminiscent
of a grand Havana nightclub
sometime during the tail end of
the Batista regime. The noisy
crowd are 30-somethings, with casually dressed men, and women in
vertiginous heels.
But what about the food?
There is the usual profusion of
ceviche dishes, such as a delicious
atún chifa (cubes of raw yellow fin
tuna soused in soy, sesame seeds
and shrimp cracker) offered in a
small glass bowl suspended over a
larger one full of crushed ice to
keep it arctically cool. There was
also a hint of chili and citrus
juice, which gave the ingredients a
tartness that always makes such
dishes refreshing. The other starters were gambas (crispy tiger
prawns with a different marinade
of chili and lime, which were
light, thanks to their tempura
cooking style), plus skewers of
ox heart with parsley and rocoto chili. There was a deftness
of touch about all these dishes
that was heartening, given how
relatively inexpensive they
were (£8 to £11).
The next two dishes were
astoundingly executed, though
neither was wholly authentically Peruvian. The first was
“papa seca con setas de invierno”
(Peruvian wild potatoes, wild
mushrooms and truffles), which
could best be described as a version of Peruvian risotto crossed
with gnocchi. Mr. Dwivedi cheerfully admits that there are no
truffles in Peru, but that hasn’t
stopped him adding them, ending
up with a wonderfully earthy dish.
The other plate that impressed
me was rodaballo (halibut, ají amarillo, Jerusalem artichokes and
chorizo). This succulent fish was
Danny Elwes; Coya
Perhaps it should
be no surprise
that, earlier this
month, the Zagat
Guide adjudged the
hottest restaurant
anywhere in the world to be in
London. What does raise eyebrows, though, is that it chose
Coya, the two-month-old, Peruvian-inspired basement restaurant
in Mayfair, whose head chef isn’t
Peruvian and has only spent a
couple of weeks in Peru. Still, the
end result is impressive.
So why has Coya Restaurant &
Bar—the latest addition to the
collection of Indian entrepreneur
Arjun Waney, who is also behind
Zuma, Roka, La Petite Maison and
the Arts Club—rocketed to fame
and fashion so rapidly? It is partially to do with Mr. Waney’s track
record, but it must also be said
that Coya delivers exciting and innovative cuisine for reasonable
prices, while ticking other boxes
for the fashionably thin brigade,
such as being low on carbohydrates, plus 95% gluten-free.
However, it is 45-year-old chef
Sanjay Dwivedi who deserves
most of the credit. He has cooked
at the Michelin-starred Zaika, an
innovative Indian restaurant, and
graced the kitchens of the Ivy, Le
Caprice and the Greenhouse, as
well as spent time as the touring
chef for the Rolling Stones. Mr.
Dwivedi says an early description
of him as a chef who cooks
“Around the World in 80 ways”
best describes his eclectic approach.
Coya is in the basement of a
large classical building that had
been empty for a decade, at the
grilled in his sturdy Josper oven,
which is fueled by charcoal and
can reach very high temperatures
with controlled smoke.
Mr. Dwivedi says the dish is
more Spanish than Peruvian,
which has more influence from
Japanese and Chinese cuisine, but
he makes no excuses. “To be honest, I have always loved blending
different cuisines,” he says. “I
want to give London something
that, while funky and trendy, is totally different.”
HOW TO PREPARE IT:
1. For the Leche de Tigre marinade,
use a blender to blitz onion, celery,
garlic, ají limo, coriander and ginger
with fish stock. This is to break down
the vegetables, not to purée them.
The idea is to simply release the
flavor of vegetables to the fish stock.
Pass through a sieve, add lime juice
and salt. Keep aside in the fridge.
2. Dice sweet potatoes into 1centimeter cubes. In a pan, add 1
liter of water, sweet potatoes, star
anise and gently bring to boil. Cook
sweet potatoes for 5 minutes, or
until done. Refresh in iced water.
Keep this aside.
3. Blanch Peruvian corn for 10
minutes in salted water. Refresh in
iced water and keep aside.
4. When ready to serve, dice sea
bass into 2-centimeter cubes.
Season with salt and lime juice.
Add Leche de Tigre and mix well.
Taste for seasoning. Now add
sweet potatoes, Peruvian corn,
chopped reserved coriander and red
chilies. Mix well, marinate for no
longer than a minute. Finish with
finely sliced red onions.
Note: When unavailable, swap sea
bass for salmon, sea bream,
scallops or prawns; ají limo for your
favorite chili; and Peruvian white
corn for fresh sweet corn.
The Joyful Restraint of 2011 Burgundy
[ Wine ]
In many ways, today’s fine-wine lovers have never had
it so good. Such
has been the improvement in modern winemaking techniques, the
adoption of measures to eliminate
cork taint and the opening up of
vast swaths of unexplored viticultural land, that we have been
blessed with better-quality and
more interesting wines than ever
before. Yes, prices have risen and,
in some cases, moved our favorites
beyond reach, but more often than
not, these have been replaced by
new wines coming onto the market.
It was a point I suggested to an
old friend, who worked briefly in
the wine trade after studying viticulture at the University of California, Davis. No longer involved
in wine, he says he is consistently
surprised at the quality on offer
compared with a decade ago: “It’s
actually very hard to buy a bad
bottle these days,” he says.
The trick is finding an interesting one, which brings us to perhaps the most interesting wine region of them all: Burgundy. Its
2011 vintage has just been pre-
Geordie Torr / Alamy
BY WILL LYONS
viewed in a plethora of tastings
held in London and is on sale now.
I can’t think of any other finewine region in the world that continues to mesmerize and fascinate
quite like Burgundy.
Its two principal grape varieties, Pinot Noir for red and Chardonnay for white—and the smattering of plantings of Gamay and
Aligote—find an expression when
planted in its network of villages
in the Côte d’Or, inspiring not just
the palate but the intellect, too.
In Burgundy, it is still possible
to overpay for mediocre wine.
Such is the complexity of the region that navigating its myriad
Pinot Noir grapes
on the vine,
Volnay, Burgundy.
villages and vineyards is akin to
solving a cryptic crossword. Consumers often complain that its
wines are inconsistent and too
complex. Burgundians believe a
wine’s character is derived principally from the plot of land the
vine is planted on, which is
graded by a classification system
based on the vineyard, village and
subdistrict. But a highly classified
wine can be expensive and not
very good. To compound the problem, Burgundy’s unpredictable
weather means every year tastes
slightly different. A good short cut
is to pick your producer wisely.
It may be too much of a leap to
say there are no bad vintages anymore, but certainly in Europe’s
classic regions, modern winemaking has made a huge difference.
British importer Caspar Bowes explains that many of today’s vintages are better described in
terms of style rather than quality,
arguing that those vintages that
have been rated “great” in the
past, such as 2009 and ’10, are
merely those that have had the
ripest fruit and the most power.
The 2011 vintage is a case in
point. It may not have the power
of the 2010 but what it lacks in
density and weight, it certainly
makes up for in charm.
Flowering was early in the
spring of 2011, which meant that
although the harvest date was
early—in some vineyards the earliest since the end of the 19th century—the grapes enjoyed a long
hang time on the vine. This allowed them to mature more
slowly, helping ripen the tannins
and fruit evenly.
The result is red wines that are
strongly aromatic, possessing an
attractive perfumed fruit and a
delicate floral character. This is
matched by a lacy elegance,
smooth tannins and a bright acidity that gives them power and
zing. In short, at this young stage,
judging from the dozens of cask
samples I sniffed and slurped my
way through in London, the wines
are a joy to taste.
The good news is that both the
2011 reds and whites have restrained alcohol, which gives the
wines a unique freshness. Quality
is even in both the Côte de Nuits
and Côte de Beaune. For reds, the
standout villages were Nuits-St.Georges and Volnay. For whites,
Pernand-Vergelesses continues to
produce scintillating Chardonnay.
The bad news is that, as in
2010, the crop was very small; and
it comes before 2012, which, due
to uneven weather, was even tinier. Coupled with demand from
European and U.S. collectors and
increased interest from Asia, this
will mean real pressure on prices.
As Louis-Michel Liger-Belair,
proprietor of Domaine du Comte
Liger-Belair, says: “Fill your cellars, as there will not be much
wine in 2012.” To which I would
add: don’t forget to stock up on
2010, a vintage where quality, particularly among the lesser village
wines, is even throughout. Stock
up before prices rise even further.
—Email Will Lyons at
[email protected] or follow
him on Twitter: @Will_Lyons.
Online>>
Read Will Lyons’s pick of 2011
Burgundy at WSJ.com/lifeandstyle.
Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013 | W5
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
STYLE & FASHION
Clockwise from
left, Frédéric Malle;
his store at 37 rue
de Grenelle; ‘Musc
Ravageur’ by
Maurice Roucel
Three great crimes of fragrance
Brigitte Lacombe (portrait); Jacques Giaume (2)
1. Creating a fragrance for the image
rather than the individual.
2. Trying to please everyone—when you
sell something this personal you simply
can’t expect universal approval.
3. Those individuals who create the
fragrances which permeate New York taxis.
For this I would bring back the guillotine.
Frédéric Malle: A Nose for Business
[ Style ]
BY TINA GAUDOIN
Frédéric Malle
grew up in Paris’s
fashionable 7th arrondissement on
rue de Courty,
where his bedroom was formerly the bedroom
of master perfumer Jean-Paul
Guerlain. His grandfather, Serge
Heftler-Louiche, founded Parfums
Christian Dior, and his mother,
as art director of the fashion
house’s perfumery, played a hand
in the creation of Dior’s legendary
men’s fragrance, “Eau Savage.”
With this kind of heritage, it
would be reasonable to presuppose that Malle might have something of an interest in perfume.
But even his grandfather might
not have expected that Malle
would, in the 12 short years he
has been in business, stand the
fragrance world on its head.
Malle created his company in
2000 after a career as a fragrance
consultant (he was trained at the
perfume laboratory Roure Bertrand Dupont). From its inception,
Editions de Parfums Frédéric
Malle has been dedicated to working with the world’s best perfumers, offering them financial and
creative freedom to construct
their fragrances.
Malle opened his first store in
Paris at 37 rue du Grenelle with
nine perfumes, among them the
first commercially produced version of Edmond Roudnitska’s “Parfum de Thérèse,” “Musc Ravageur” by Maurice Roucel and
“Vétiver Extraordinaire” by Dominique Ropion—all regarded as
modern classics.
Unlike most fragrance companies, there are no blockbuster advertising campaigns, no department store spritzings and, even in
Malle’s four stand-alone shops, no
overt bazaar-like displays of the
scents. Instead, his glass-bottled
fragrances sit somberly to attention in refrigerated cabinets, black
stoppers and white labels front
and center. Black-and-white portraits of the perfumers, or what
Malle calls his perfume authors,
adorn the walls. And unique fra-
A great fragrance is
not good on its own.
It has to be worn by
the right person.
grance chambers that Malle designed himself (think “Beam me
up”) suck out a fragrance after a
customer has “experienced” it,
thus eradicating the risk of olfactory overload. (You can fill in a
questionnaire at fredericmalle.com
to determine the fragrance that
would suit you best.)
When I ask Malle if he agrees
that his stores can be a little intimidating, in the manner of specialty jewelry boutiques, he is, he
says, offended. “I have never
heard that before,” he says. “I
have recreated my home in these
stores.” Oh dear. His mission, he
says, is not to patronize. “I want
people to feel at ease and uninhibited,” he adds.
Malle has a high-profile cult
following. He is far too discreet
to name names, but given that
Uma Thurman and her partner,
financier Arpad Busson, cohosted the Barneys New York
book-signing for “Frédéric Malle
on Perfume Making” (foreword
by Catherine Deneuve) in 2011,
it is safe to assume that they are
all no less than stellar.
When I set up my new company,
XXX par Frédéric Malle, I was
interested in the idea of a ménage
à trois. When I say that, what I
really mean is that I thought it
would be a great idea to create
fragrances for people who are famous because they are interesting
rather than the converse, which is
the case with celebrity fragrance.
[The first of his new fragrances
will be released on Feb. 20.]
If [former Fiat boss Gianni]
Agnelli were alive, I would love
to have created a fragrance for
him. He had such a face, such
style and such history that one
could imagine the perfect smell
for him.
We have a private joke in our
business that we have beautiful
trash. In other words, no matter
how beautiful the fragrance we
have created, we trash it unless
it works for the time and place.
Sometimes these things have
taken years of work. Ultimately,
one has to be ruthless to get it
just right.
Some fragrances are like an ancient ornate, exquisite dress—
perfect in a particular place at a
particular time, but if worn today
they would seem totally wrong.
Fragrance is ultimately about
seduction. When I was 8 years
old, I heard my mother say
“That’s a sexy fragrance.” I didn’t
know what sex was then, but by
the time I was 15, I was figuring
it all out. I understood the basic
principle, which I still apply when
I’m creating a fragrance: would
I want to sleep with a woman
who is wearing this scent?
I don’t use the sexy fragrances
for the candles we sell in our home
collection. You know why? I want a
comfy room, not a sexy room.
I never spend money for the
sake of spending money—none
of my fragrances are the same
price. And I will use whatever
it takes to get the scent right:
synthetic, non-synthetic, cheap
or expensive, it doesn’t matter.
The ends justify the means.
Fragrance is like home décor.
If you have little money but lots
of talent, you can make a very
pretty room; conversely, even with
limitless means, you will never
make a great fragrance without a
great artist attached to it.
We have a duty to the planet
as perfumers, even though no
fragrance pollutes as much as an
empty plastic water bottle or a
car. That said, I deplore political
correctness for its own sake.
Parabens, for example, have been
banned and replaced with other
constituents that we don’t know
enough about. I cannot sell my
hair fragrance over here [in
Europe] because it has 5% fragrance in it. In fact, women have
been spraying fragrance into their
hair for years at 25% concentration, so that’s just insane.
Most of the great noses are
still men, it’s true. I believe
this relates back to the idea
that fragrance is all about sex.
Part of our job is to create
something that generates the
excitement of other men.
I wanted my stores to have
a sense of luxury about them,
which is why they don’t look like
stores. It irritates me that stores
condescend to customers and
don’t treat them like adults.
This is not “Downton Abbey”
and we are not merchants.
It is possible to create a
great mass-market fragrance.
Dolce & Gabbana’s “Light Blue”
is that exactly.
A great fragrance is not good
on its own. It has to be worn
by the right person. A fragrance
is always a collaboration between
the wearer and the scent.
Often the big brands put
people in charge of perfume
who are used to selling diapers,
cat food and deodorant. How
can you expect these people to
be fragrance experts? A great
fragrance needs a good perfumer
and a courageous marketer.
—Email Tina Gaudoin at
[email protected] or follow
her on Twitter: @tinagaudoin
W6 | Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Photographs by Michel Joly for The Wall Street Journal
ADVENTURE & TRAVEL
Where’s the Boeuf ?
In Burgundy, Bien Sûr! We Went in Steaming Hot Pursuit of the Finest Version of France’s Classic Beef Stew
BY RATHA TEP
T
he classic French beef stew is back
en vogue.
Boeuf bourguignon—the dark,
rich, deeply flavorful concoction of beef
that’s been slow-simmered in red wine until
just shy of falling-apart tender—was showered with love in the 1960s, when it was a
regular on the dinner-party circuit. In recent years, as several high-end chefs have
opened casual bistros, the rustic dish has
resurfaced on restaurant menus across the
U.S. It’s also causing a stir in France, where
stellar tradition-bound versions share the
spotlight with innovative riffs that incorporate unexpected cuts of beef and eyebrowraising supporting players.
The beautifully complex beef stew takes
its name from the region in east-central
France whence it originated. With its beef,
wine and mushrooms—all abundant, local
ingredients—it is as much an expression of
Burgundy’s terroir as are the area’s famed
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes. While a
fish dish cooked in Burgundy wine and titled “a la Bourgogne” appeared in 1742 in
the third volume of the “Nouveau Traité de
la Cuisine,” the first printed recipe for a
similarly named beef stew whose sauce is
flecked with bacon, sautéed mushrooms
and butter-glazed onions is widely believed
to be the version presented in legendary
chef Auguste Escoffier’s seminal 1903 cookbook “Le Guide Culinaire.”
More elemental iterations of the stew
have been around for ages. “Simple versions of beef simmered in red wine go way,
way back, probably to the ancient Greeks,”
said Anne Willan, founder of renowned
California-based French culinary school La
Varenne, which used to have a Burgundy
location, and co-author with her husband
Mark Cherniavsky of, most recently, “The
Cookbook Library,” a survey on the history
of the cookbook. “In any wine-growing
area, it is a natural instinct to cook dark
red meat in red wine,” she said.
As for boeuf bourguignon, the dish is
commonly classified as a plat paysan, or
peasant dish. Lore has it that poor but resourceful French cooks used to braise tough,
cheap cuts of beef in wine to make them
tender and moist—a conceit whose accuracy
is up for question. “Before the 19th century,
farm laborers below the level of landowner
would have eaten meat of any kind very
rarely, except for a small amount of pork,”
Ms. Willan said. Beef and veal were rare indulgences typically reserved for grand occasions like patron-saint feasts or weddings.
More likely, it was winemakers with
some means, rather than destitute peasants,
who frequently ate boeuf bourguignon. “For
some time, vintners would put pots of the
stew over the fire while they worked the
vineyards,” said Eric Claudel, chef of Le
Chambolle, in Chambolle-Musigny, and a
boeuf bourguignon enthusiast. “But it
wasn’t until Escoffier came along that the
dish was codified with exact ingredients and
proportions.” And then came Julia.
Were it not for Julia Child, my happy
hunt for the region’s most satisfying iteration of the stew might never have transpired. America’s collective intrigue with
boeuf bourguignon can be nearly singlehandedly credited to the food legend whose
1961 tome “Mastering the Art of French
Cooking” held rhapsodic praise for the stew
that she encountered when living in France.
“Carefully done, and perfectly flavored, it is
certainly one of the most delicious beef
dishes concocted by man,” she wrote. Ms.
Child’s cooking show “The French Chef” debuted in 1963 with boeuf bourguignon as its
first subject, catapulting both Ms. Child and
the stew into the spotlight. The version
that she promoted is roughly the same as
the one encountered in cooking magazines
and at restaurants today, with sautéed
mushrooms and brown-braised onions prepared separately so they don’t lose their integrity from stewing.
Before it gained ground in America, the
stew had already been fairly ubiquitous in
the region of its origin since the early 20th
Beef bourguignon can now be
found at practically every turn
in Burgundy, where it is common
in casual spots.
century. Beef bourguignon can now be found
at practically every turn in Burgundy, where
it is more common in casual spots than
fine-dining restaurants. When chef David
Zuddas ran the Michelin-starred Auberge de
la Charme in the town of Prenois, in Burgundy, he never would have considered
serving boeuf bourguignon, he said. Now
the dish figures prominently on the menu at
his less formal restaurant, DZ’Envies, in Dijon, the region’s capital. The bistro offers
fall-off-the-fork-tender beef cheeks that
have been slow-cooked for five hours.
A more robust version appears on the
menu of Ma Cuisine, a tiny bistro in the
beautiful, walled city of Beaune. The estab-
lishment serves a boeuf bourguignon worthy of its sublime wine collection. Chef Fabienne Escoffier turns out a rich beef stew
studded with smoked bacon, pearl onions
and braised mushrooms enrobed in a chestnut-colored sauce whose flavor hints at the
full-bodied Burgundy she cooks with.
Ms. Escoffier (no relation to Auguste,
but daughter of celebrated local chef André
Parra), proves the art of perfecting boeuf
bourguignon to be a delicate balancing act.
Unlike her father, who marinated his beef in
wine for up to 48 hours, Ms. Escoffier said
she skips the soak but slow-simmers for
longer than her father did. “If you take 10
chefs, you get 10 different boeufs bourguignon,” she said.
Who wouldn’t want to verify such a
claim firsthand? I wound up and down the
roughly 65-kilometer Route des Grands Crus
through the Côte d’Or, bordered by Dijon to
the north and the town of Santenay to the
south. I stopped to taste several versions of
boeuf bourguignon, some of which seemed
lackluster, with ho-hum sauces and ingredients that didn’t jump out. I also found a
handful of unforgettable meals. I learned
that the best creators of boeuf bourguignon
respected tradition, but still played loose
with the foundation, using different cuts of
beef like ultra-tender cheek, omitting flour
or using wines other than Burgundy.
Hunting down the very best boeufs
bourguignon in Burgundy is a terrific excuse to soak up the region’s character as
well as glimpse some of the world’s most
fabled vineyards, including Chambertin,
Richebourg and Romanée-Conti. It’s also an
excellent gateway to pears poached in red
wine and crème de cassis, another local
specialty worthy of a whole other story.
Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013 | W7
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
ADVENTURE & TRAVEL
BURGUNDY’S FIVE BEST BOEUF BOÎTES
The Futurist
Boeuf bourguignon at DZ’Envies
has an intensely winey sauce.
The Gold Standard
MA CUISINE
This 16-year-old bistro, just off Beaune’s busy
Place Carnot, embodies the best of Burgundy.
Co-owner Pierre Escoffier takes care of the
front of the house, deftly offering suggestions
from the epic, well-priced 25,000-bottle
collection, while the chef—his wife (and Ma
Cuisine co-owner)—Fabienne darts in and out of
the kitchen. Her boeuf bourguignon is the
standard-bearer, with moist, succulent beef and
a lustrously thick sauce that benefits from four
to five hours of slow-simmering, liberal
heapings of bacon, pearl onions and mushrooms
and a side of buttery mashed potatoes.
Passage St-Hélène, Beaune;
! +33-03-8022-3022
DZ’ENVIES
Burgundy isn’t all bucolic vineyards and cow
pastures. In the case of DZ’Envies, outfitted
in an orange-and-white color scheme and
stocked with iPad wine lists, it can be
downright hip. Chef David Zuddas earned a
Michelin star at the inventive Auberge de la
Charme in Prenois—then chucked it all in
2008 to open this modern bistro, primely
positioned across Dijon’s covered market Les
Halles. Mr. Zuddas’s haute makeover of boeuf
bourguignon includes an intensely winey
sauce that’s less viscous than most, and beef
cheeks that practically melt in the mouth. The
super-sharp Opinel table knives were a
charming but unnecessary touch.
12 rue Odebert, Dijon; dzenvies.com
The dish is prepared with smoky
bacon and served with a tangle of
noodles at Le Chambolle.
The Twist
Auberge du Vieux Vigneron serves
its boeuf with potatoes ‘tournées.’
AUBERGE DU VIEUX VIGNERON
Sleepy Corpeau doesn’t have all that much
going for it besides its proximity to PulignyMontrachet—and third-generation winemaker
Jean-Charles Fagot’s boisterous restaurant,
housed in a 19th-century building that
belonged to his great-grandfather. Regarded
for his ridiculously thick entrecôte steaks
that he cooks over the dining room’s woodburning fireplace, chef Sylvain Férré serves a
classic boeuf bourguignon as well as what he
calls “Escarboeuf.” He tops the latter with
plump escargots—another food associated
with Burgundy—flambéed in cognac over
tender beef cloaked in a dark sauce made
with a 2010 vintage Burgundy from the
owner’s nearby estate, served with crisp
hand-cut fries and a zucchini and eggplant
ratatouille. It’s a luxurious take on the dish,
and the escargots added a pleasing element
of earthiness.
Route de Beaune, Corpeau;
aubergeduvieuxvigneron.com
The Cozy Charmer
The Elder Statesman
AUBERGE DE LA MIOTTE
Diners looking for a slice of old Burgundy
should make their way to this former hunting
lodge in the tiny village of Ladoix-Serrigny, set
behind an imposing archway and courtyard
lined with stacked wine barrels. The
restaurant’s atmosphere harks back to another
era: Seating is around long communal tables
and the floors are large stone slabs. Fully
aware that boeuf bourguignon is the type of
rustic stew that tastes even better the next
day, chef-owner Catherine Maratray cooks hers
over the course of two days before serving it
with roast potatoes. It’s a hearty, hefty affair,
with three huge pieces of beef and coarsely
chopped carrots bathed in a rich and deeply
flavorful sauce. The expansive wine list, created
by her wine-broker boyfriend, has surprising
finds and modest markups. 4 rue de la Miotte,
Ladoix-Serrigny; ! +33-03-8026-4075
LE CHAMBOLLE
On a narrow, winding path in the quaint
village of Chambolle-Musigny, Martine and Eric
Claudel’s cozy, split-level bistro is the kind of
place meant for stumbling upon on a cold,
drizzly evening. The large stone fireplace is
regularly stoked, and Ms. Claudel singlehandedly greets and serves all the patrons.
Mr. Claudel’s boeuf bourguignon adheres to
tradition and stars paleron, a French shoulder
cut that takes beautifully to braising. “It
maintains itself well, and doesn’t disintegrate
when cooked,” he explained. Intensely smoky
bacon flecks the stew, which is plated around
a tumble of noodles.
25 rue Caroline Aigle, Chambolle-Musigny;
restaurant-lechambolle.com
At Auberge de la Miotte, the stew is
cooked over the course of two days.
W8 | Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
MANSION
Singapore’s Seaside Hideaway
BY SHIBANI MAHTANI
F
or decades, the island of
Sentosa off the southern tip
of Singapore wasn’t much
more than a tacky tourist trap or
a weekend escape for bored residents. Highlights included manmade beaches, a musical fountain,
miniature golf and a giant outlet
of American fast-food chain A&W.
Now, the island is home to
some of the most desirable real
estate in the world, as billionaires
look to park their money in the investment darling of Singapore.
By design, that wealth is concentrated in Sentosa Cove, a gated
and guarded enclave that the government has designated as the
only residential area on Sentosa
Island. It’s also the only place in
all of Singapore where land and
landed private property are open
to foreign buyers. Even here,
property is acquired on
a 99-year leasehold, after which it reverts to
the government, meaning that property values are likely to depreciate after a few
decades. But that
hasn’t seemed to stop
many foreign investors
from buying holiday
homes here.
The result: soaring property prices and increasingly
extravagant homes.
On Sentosa Cove’s prestigious
Cove Drive, custom-built homes
reflect the residents’ peculiar
tastes. One home resembles an
ancient Egyptian tomb, its entrances guarded by two life-size
statues of pharaoh hounds wearing headdresses. Another is
shaped like an approaching sailing
vessel, with a wooden prow pro-
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Centre, Getty Images; left, Shibani Mahtani for The Wall Street Journal; below, Reuters
Foreigners Flock to Sentosa Cove,
Seeking Ritz and Returns;
Where to Park the Yacht
Clockwise from left: A footbridge links to resorts; a Caribbean-style bungalow
with a faux-thatched roof; a bird’s-eye view of Sentosa Cove.
truding into the yard. Three more
are modeled after tiki huts, with
faux thatched roofs.
Jasmine Png, a real-estate
agent specializing in Sentosa Cove
property, says the questions she
fields—“Where can I park my
yacht?” “Why is there only space
for one boat?” “How come there’s
no place to park my private
jet?”—tell a lot about who is
shopping there.
In August, Australian mining
magnate Gina Rinehart, one of the
world’s richest women, purchased
two units at the Seven Palms condominiums in Sentosa Cove for
€14.3 million and €20.7 million, respectively, according to brokers familiar with the deal. Seven Palms,
marketed as the only beachfront
condo complex on the island, has
41 units, including some with infinity pools overlooking the South
China Sea and roof terraces, all
enclosed in a coconut grove to ensure privacy. She joins mining tycoon and fellow Australian Nathan
Tinkler, who recently took up residence in Singapore and owns a
property in the enclave.
According to Ms. Png, some
potential buyers—particularly
newly wealthy shoppers from
mainland China—come to showings prepared to make huge down
payments in cash. Rich Chinese
citizens make up a growing share
of the affluent foreigners in Singapore, according to private-wealth
consulting firm Wealth-X, which
estimates that more than 400 Chinese nationals with net worths exceeding €22 million reside in the
small city-state.
Across Singapore, property values have risen almost without interruption since mid-2009, with
private home prices up 57% as of
early January. Singapore attracts
foreign investors who see it as one
of the world’s most stable markets. This month, the government
introduced a new set of measures
designed to cool the market, including higher stamp-tax duties
for foreign buyers and stricter
down-payment requirements.
Sentosa, the country’s designated tourist and recreation island, continues to draw middleclass Singaporeans to its public
beaches and scenic lookout
points, just a short drive away
from the city’s port areas. But
lately, the island has aimed to position itself as a glamorous waterfront playground and draw tourists with a bit more spending
power. The new attractions include a Resorts World casino and
a Universal Studios theme park.
Sentosa Cove, which was for
years a very quiet residential area
set off from the rest of touristfriendly Sentosa by multiple guard
posts and checkpoints, now has a
W Hotel on its premises. A stretch
of restaurants and boutiques
opened up in December, allowing
residents who once complained of
long treks to the city center a
chance to enjoy gourmet cuisine
nearby. For those unwilling to
leave their mansions, many of
these establishments will provide
free delivery, as will the W Hotel’s
gourmet restaurants.
Sentosa Cove first opened to
developers and individual buyers in
2003. The government-linked Sentosa Development Corp., the body
responsible for turning the island
into something more than a daytrip destination, offered buyers the
opportunity to build sprawling estates right by the waterfront and
enjoy a marina lifestyle.
Many of the early buyers who
acquired property in the enclave at
€1.2 million to €1.8 million are now
cashing in, as bungalows ranging
from 650 quare meters to 1,858
square meters fetch anywhere
from €11 million to €18.3 million.
Foreign buyers continue to
covet Singapore property. Even
with the introduction of a 10%
stamp tax on foreign home buyers,
sales of new private homes in Singapore reached a three-year record in September 2012, and
prices rose again in the last quarter of the year, prompting an increase in the tax to 15%. Well-off
Singaporeans taking advantage of
low interest rates to purchase second and third homes as investment also have to pay additional
taxes on them.
Not everyone has the stomach
for Sentosa Cove’s high prices.
Real-estate developer Chris Comer,
a former Dubai resident who is
bringing the Nikki Beach brand of
resort clubs to a site in Singapore,
chooses to rent a unit at the
Oceanfront condos on Sentosa
Cove. Though he’s appreciative of
the space, privacy and openness of
the property, Mr. Comer says he
“could never justify” spending the
money it would cost to purchase
property on Sentosa, worried that
it would take a significant hit in
value in a downturn, just as Dubai
properties did after the height of
real-estate exuberance there.
For other expatriates, Sentosa
Cove encapsulates all the benefits
of living in Singapore, including
seamless transportation to the
business district, sea views and
palm-tree-lined walkways, even if
it comes at a high cost. Cora Waterhouse, an American who has
lived in the Coast condominium
complex with her husband since
late 2011, says that while Sentosa
Cove was designed to guard residents’ privacy, the community has
evolved since she moved there,
with the grocery store nearby
turning the cove “into a village”
and neighbors greeting her by
name on bike rides along the waterfront. It is easy, she says, to
join yoga classes, book clubs or
art classes with other residents.
Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013 | W9
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
GEAR & GADGETS
LENS FLAIR
Stylish Cinematography
for Shutterbugs
BY JAMIE EWBANK
I
t may seem counterintuitive, but there’s a growing belief that the
best way to shoot video is on a camera intended for stills. The idea
first gained serious traction at the Sundance Film Festival,
currently enjoying its 29th edition in Utah. In 2011, the festival’s top
prize went to “Like Crazy,” a feature film by Drake Doremus with a
$250,000 budget and shot using a Canon EOS 7D—a digital camera
that goes for around £1,200 or €1,700.
“Like Crazy” went on to sell for $4 million to Paramount. Since
then, DSLRs have been used for everything from special-effects shots
in summer blockbusters like “Avengers Assemble” to the season finale
of Hugh Laurie’s “House.”
The secret is in the imaging chip that records the light coming
through the lens. We’ve been trained to think that, all things being
equal, the pixel count is the most important part of good imaging. But
all things are not equal: size matters. A 35mm, 12-megapixel CMOS chip
used in a DSLR is larger, and therefore more light-sensitive, than a 1/8inch, 12-megapixel CMOS in a traditional video camera. The great
advantage of a more light-sensitive camera is that you can make radical
adjustments to the aperture, allowing filmmakers to indulge in what’s
become known as “bokeh porn”—shallow depth-of-field shots in which
sharply defined subjects are placed against artily smeared backgrounds.
Using a DSLR also gives you the option of fitting the lens most
suitable to the shot, adjusting the shutter speed for a cinematic flicker
and adding an external mike for better dialogue recording. All for a cost
far more reasonable than a similarly capable video camera.
Canon EOS 7D
£1,200/€1,220
Paramount Vantage
Improvised indie-flick “Like Crazy”
turned DSLR video from a filmmaker’s
budget-saver into a serious tool when
it won the Grand Jury Prize at the
2011 Sundance Film Festival, and the
Canon 7D has had a creative cachet
ever since. It’s hardly surprising: the
camera has full manual control of
aperture and shutter speed, an array
of recording and output options that
match broadcast standards, and audio
inputs for an external stereo
microphone.
Nikon D600
£1,400/€1,600
Panasonic GH2
£820/€850
Although recently superseded by its bigger (and more expensive) brother,
the GH3, Panasonic’s GH2 still stands out as a great budget option for
filmmaking. It can’t claim any major films or TV shows, but it shows the
versatility that makes DSLRs ideal for shooting video: it can be used with
a number of Panasonic and Olympus lenses, has a full set of manual
controls for fine-tuning your depth of field and shutter speed, and an
input so that you can use a dedicated shotgun mike to significantly
improve audio recording.
Canon EOS 5D MARK III
£2,300/€3,000
This king of video-shooting DSLRs
has been on the throne for quite
some time now, and Canon continues
to provide firmware updates to keep
it there. The next update will add
uncompressed video output, freeing
you from memory-card limitations by
letting you record to an external hard
drive. The 5D records and reproduces
plenty of sharp detail and a fine range
of tones and contrasts. This camera
comes in several flavors, with the
MKIII’s timecode support and
headphone jack making it particularly
suited for video work.
While models such as the D5200
have held their own against Canon in
the sub-£1,000 market, Nikon hasn’t
been able to claim many famous films
for these more-expensive models.
Despite being the first camera
manufacturer to offer an HD-video
mode, Nikon hasn’t always been at
the cutting edge of this technology.
But the recently launched D600 might
change all of that. It shoots full-HD
footage at a choice of two different
bit rates, allowing you to trade card
capacity against picture quality. Audio
and video outputs allow an entire
crew to monitor the quality of the
footage—something a solo
photographer would never need,
but invaluable for filmmakers.
W10 | Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Berlin
Kai-Annett Becker
! NOT FORGOTTEN
Marking the 80th anniversary of the
Nazis’ rise to power on Jan. 30, 1933,
the city of Berlin has chosen to
remember its painful past throughout
2013 with events and exhibitions
centered around the theme “Diversity
Destroyed.” Among the 100 projects
planned, “From the Collection in
Berlin, 1933-1938: Berated, Banned
and Burned” will showcase rarely seen
works by artists who fell victim
to the Nazi Kulturpolitik, like Gottfried
Heinersdorff, Rudolf Jacobi, Lou
Albert-Lasard and Anne Ratkowski,
alongside more widely known pieces
by the likes of Max Beckmann, Otto
Dix and Raoul Hausmann.
Berlinische Galerie
Jan. 30-Aug. 12
www.berlinischegalerie.de
Otto Freundlich’s ‘Composition’ (1926)
Essl
! REALITY VS. REFLECTION
Like accidental explorers, the subjects
of Martin Schnur’s paintings seem to
fall, stumble and open doors into another dimension or reality, which often
appears to be just a reflection of the
world outside. “Martin Schnur: Vorspiegelung” explores the Austrian artist’s oeuvre with a selection of large
and small paintings rendered in a loving level of detail and photo-realistic
lighting reminiscent of Surrealist work.
Essl Museum
Feb. 1-June 9
www.essl.museum
Hamburg
E.W.K.
! GIACOMETTI AND SPACE
Alberto Giacometti’s inventive and
influential use of three-dimensional
space will be the focus of “Giacometti:
The Playing Fields.” Exploring the
Swiss artist’s work in the context
of sculpture as space, the exhibition
reveals the genius behind Giacometti’s
vision of life-sized sculptures and his
game-board statues. “Projet pour une
place,” which was intended to engage
viewers in a public location when
rebuilt in a larger scale, is accompanied
by 249 other pieces, including 120
sculptures and various oil paintings,
photographs and drawings from
different stages of Giacometti’s career.
Hamburger Kunsthalle
Until May 19
www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de
A sketch sheet with five sculptures
by Giacometti (1929-32)
From top, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo/Borre Hostland; The National Gallery, London. Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917
CULTURAL HIGHLIGHTS
Karlsruhe
! ART MEETS TECHNOLOGY
Otto Piene served as the first fellow
of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual
Studies, forever seeking correlations
and inspiration for his art in science
and technology. While best-known for
his post-World War II art collective
ZERO and work generated by natural
elements Mr. Piene has explored the
gamut of media, including broadcast
television, sculptures and installations.
“Energy Fields: In Celebration of Otto
Piene’s 85th Birthday” investigates the
German artist’s career with 50 works,
including inflatable sculptures, ceramics,
drawings and paintings.
ZKM
Until April 1
www.zkm.de
London
! LET THERE BE ART
In these dark days of winter, an exhibition exploring the visual stimulation of
light can only be a good thing. “Light
Show” will showcase works by 22
artists, submerging visitors in a variety
of colors and techniques, from
projections and oversized installations
to sculptures of fluorescent lights.
Works from the 1960s to the present,
by artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Dan
Flavin, Jenny Holzer, Anthony McCall
and Katie Paterson, will be on display.
Hayward Gallery
Jan. 30-April 28
www.haywardlightshow.co.uk
! SCHWITTERS IN EXILE
When Germany invaded Norway in
1940, Kurt Schwitters fled the Nazis
for a second and final time, settling in
the U.K. Previously a key figure of early
Dadaism and Cubism, the German
painter spent the final years of his life
cut off from the European avant-garde
and immersed in a more personal and
organic development of collages and
found art. “Schwitters in Britain” showcases 180 collages, assemblages and
sculptures from this late stage of his
career, revealing works that, though
subdued in color and format, inspired
some of today’s most influential artists,
like Richard Hamilton and Damien Hirst.
Tate Britain
Jan. 30-May 12
www.tate.org.uk/britain
Rotterdam
! SEEKING PEACE IN NATURE
Despite his background in the German
navy during World War II, the U.N.
forces in the Korean War and Doctors
without Borders in Cambodia, Thailand
and Myanmar, Jan Montyn creates
work that avoids depictions of war and
conflict. Instead, he explores the natural settings he has encountered on his
travels. Working primarily in etchings,
the Dutch artist has amassed more
than 3,000 works. A selection are on
display in “Tolerance without Borders.”
Kunsthal
Until April 21
www.kunsthal.nl
Turin
! A CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY
To coincide with the world premiere of
“Itali-ana, Mendieta in Rome”, a documentary film on Ana Mendieta’s work
during her residence at the American
Academy in Rome, the Castello di Rivoli
is mounting “Ana Mendieta: She Got
Love,” the first large European retrospective dedicated to the Cuban artist.
A pioneer in video, performance and
body art, Ms. Mendieta has developed a
distinct visual language that embraces
both a mystical and a political sensitivity. The film will be screened at the museum for the duration of the exhibition.
Castello di Rivoli
Jan. 30-May 5
www.castellodirivoli.org
—Thorsten Gritschke
Manet’s Different Strokes
BY PAUL LEVY
T
he installation of the big Manet show opening tomorrow
at the Royal Academy is more
about crowd control than aesthetics.
One vast gallery has only a single
picture; not, as you’d expect, the
Courtauld’s celebrated version of
“Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” (1863-68),
which hangs (in a pleasant surprise)
with other pictures featuring the
same female model. Instead, it features the painter’s most crowded
image, the National Gallery’s “Music
in the Tuileries Gardens” (1862).
This will help the traffic movement, as art-loving hordes descend
on London to see what the RA says
is “the first major exhibition in the
United Kingdom devoted to the
work of Edouard Manet.” “Manet:
Portraying Life” is also claimed to
be the first devoted to his portraits.
More than 50 paintings, plus pastels
and photographs, make it worth
anyone’s effort to see.
But the selection is puzzling, I
think, because the conceptual framework of the show is slippery. Galleries are organized thematically: “The
Artist and his Family,” including his
wife Suzanne and her illegitimate
son, Léon Koëlla Leenhoff; “His Artist Friends,” such as Berthe Morisot
and Claude Monet; “His Literary and
Theatrical Friends,” Émile Zola,
George Moore, Stéphane Mallarmé;
“Status Portraits” of Georges Clemenceau and other worthies; and finally a section on the artist’s models.
These arbitrary, narrow categories lead to some frustrating omissions. Why not also borrow the
Courtauld’s great “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” (1881-82)—a “genre”
picture that seems also to be a portrait? Or the 1867-69 series “The Execution of Emperor Maximilian,”
brought together for the National
Gallery in 1992 by Howard Hodgkin?
As you walk around the sparely
hung rooms, you see immediately
that Manet’s portraits rarely conformed to 19th-century practice. For
one thing, they all have an air of
spontaneity and freshness. This is
often achieved by a lack of finish:
even in the most highly polished,
conventional picture here, the 1880
portrait of Antonin Proust, the un-
From top, ‘Mme Manet in the Conservatory’ (1879); ‘Music in the Tuileries
Gardens’ (1862), both by Edouard Manet.
gloved fingers of the left hand are
swift strokes, lacking detail. Near it,
the figure of Clemenceau (1879-80)
is outlined in black and smudged in
places. This reflects the paucity of
sittings with the great man, but also
makes this one of the freest, most
impulsive works in the show.
The organizers say Manet translated “portrait sitters into actors in
his genre paintings.” This seems to
me a fudge to explain why many of
these paintings of people are not actually portraits. For example, “The
Luncheon” (1868) has the boy Léon
leaning against a table with wine, coffee, oysters and a spiral of lemon
peel. He doesn’t meet your gaze, but
is staring at something over the
viewer’s right shoulder. There is a
sword and some armor incongruously
perched on a chair to Léon’s right,
along with a black smudge, which is,
on inspection, a cat (there are several
feline smudges in the current show).
Of course, the search for a narrative that explains the image is hopeless, as is trying to explain Manet’s
relationship with the sitter. The
enigmatic Léon figures in several
pictures here. Manet married the
child’s mother; but it has even been
suggested that his own father sired
Léon. Like nearly every work in this
show, Manet’s real interest was the
brush mark—of the trousers, tablecloth, lemon zest, vase, coffeepot
and smudgy cat.
Even “The Railway” (1873), with
the young woman seated in front of
the railings, holding a book and a lap
dog and looking out, completely unengaged with the young girl looking
through the railings, defies narrative.
The economy of the brush strokes
that render the dog, the bold swipes
of white that constitute the child’s
dress, are as much what the picture’s
about as, in the depiction of Mallarmé, are the thick gold swooshes
that make up the poet’s mustache.
Portraits? Splendid as it is, the show
would better have been called “Manet’s People and Brushstrokes.”
Until April 14
www.royalacademy.org.uk
DON’T MISS
LONDON: David Hare’s “The Judas Kiss” includes a truly great performance
from Rupert Everett (whose recent memoir, “Vanished Years,” is a hoot) as
the twice-betrayed Oscar Wilde. He and Cal MacAninch (as loyal Robbie Ross)
keep their clothes on throughout, unlike Freddie Fox, who bares all as Bosie.
—Paul Levy
Duke of York’s Theatre, until April 6
www.thejudaskiss.co.uk
Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013 | W11
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
GEAR & GADGETS
Icons of the Road and Racetrack
[ Collecting ]
BY MARGARET STUDER
Eye-catching rare
cars, motorbikes
and even a famous
plane will be up
for sale in Paris
next month, during
the Retromobile classic and vintage motoring fair (Feb. 6-10).
Bonhams will hold its sale at the
Grand Palais on Feb. 7. Artcurial
will follow a day later at the Porte
de Versailles, the fair’s venue.
Last year was a bumper year
for auctions of rare cars, says
James Knight, who heads Bonhams’s motoring department.
Bonhams set an auction record
for a Bentley in 2012, when a
model from 1929-31 sold for £5.04
million (€6 million); and for a
Rolls-Royce limousine from 1912,
which went for £4.71 million.
Mr. Knight expects prices to remain high in 2013, underpinned by
demand from Europe and North
America. Unlike many areas of the
collecting market, he says, collectors in emerging markets have
played a small role so far, as they
prefer new models.
Artcurial’s sale will be led by a
Talbot T150C from 1936, valued
at €1.2 million-€1.6 million. The
car shone in endurance races,
participating in the Le Mans 24
Hour Race three times. And a
wonderfully glamorous 1962 Ferrari 250 Cabriolet is estimated at
€550,000-€850,000.
€2.5-€3.5
million
€150,000
!This 1929 de Havilland Gipsy Moth was flown
by Robert Redford in the Oscar-winning 1985 film
“Out of Africa.” The legendary biplane is being sold by
Bonhams. “It is exhilarating to fly in and it is one of
the most collectible prewar planes,” Mr. Knight says.
"The star lot in Bonhams’s sale, this Bugatti type
54 was raced by famed Italian driver Achille Varzi
at the Monza Grand Prix in 1931. Varzi initially led
the field in heats, but two burst tires left him in
third place in the final result.
€800,000€1 million
€20,000€35,000
!This 1938 Bugatti type 57 C coupe, on
sale at Bonhams, features coachwork
designed by Jean Bugatti, son of
company founder Ettore Bugatti.
!A 1911 Type 48 open-drive opera coupe by Delahaye
of France, on sale at Bonhams.
Artcurial’s sale includes this 1929 Model J convertible
by American luxury-car maker Duesenberg. The Model
J was a hit with movie stars and royalty throughout
the 1920s and ’30s.#
!Among the motorbikes in Bonhams’s sale is this 50cc racing model by
Italian maker Garelli. Two of this same model set eight world records at
Monza in 1963, including one that has yet to be broken. It features a second
set of footrests extending back toward the rear wheel, which allowed riders
to maintain a more aerodynamic position.
€850,000€1.1 million
Bonhams (5); Artcurial (Duesenberg)
€50,000€75,000
W12 | Friday - Sunday, January 25 - 27, 2013
TO BREAK THE RULES,
YOU MUST FIRST MASTER
THEM.
THE GRANDE COMPLICATION IS THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION
OF THE WATCHMAKER’S ART. NOW AUDEMARS PIGUET
PLACES THIS SUPREME HOROLOGICAL COMPLICATION IN
THE SCULPTURAL ROYAL OAK OFFSHORE.
ONE WATCHMAKER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR EACH WATCH IN
ITS ENTIRETY – THE 648 INDIVIDUAL PARTS, THE DETAILED
ASSEMBLY, THE FINE DECORATION. TO ACHIEVE THIS, THEY
HAVE MASTERED THE UNIVERSE OF THEIR CRAFT. FINALLY,
THEY MUST TUNE THE CONCENTRIC CHIMES OF THE
MINUTE REPEATER TO AN INTERVAL OF A PERFECT MINOR
THIRD. TECHNICAL MASTERY AND THE EAR OF A CONCERT
SOLOIST. THE VIRTUOSO HERITAGE OF LE BRASSUS.
ROYAL OAK OFFSHORE
GRANDE COMPLICATION
IN TITANIUM AND CERAMIC.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.