Just the thing for tired trotters and shopper's shoulders
Bienvenue à Paris – the City of Light plays host to the nine final fashion-packed days of autumn/winter ready-to-wear, with house favourites Marant, McQueen, Margiela and Van Noten among others still to strut. Bonkers lineup, and after NY, London and Milan, you must be ready to collapse. Of course, beauty is pain and all that, but we’ve got just the thing to get you revved n’ revived – a spa sesh at Spa My Blend by Clarins in Le Royal Monceau hotel. The Starck-designed space features a 29-foot-long piscine, and uses customised and classic Clarins products for face and body treatments (plus hair, mani/pedi and makeup). A one-stop pamper nest sure to keep you tent-hopping till the 7th.
Le Royal Monceau, 37 Avenue Hoche, Paris. T: +33 142998800. W: leroyalmonceau.com
MK's silhouette is well worthy of a good strut
Welcome back to our weekly LUXE Links, in which we source some of the week’s best reads from around the web and around the world. This week, tea houses in Turkey, a Gehry-designed cultural centre, and a new breed of London pubs. Get clickin’, chickens!
Mary Katrantzou’s pretty prints galore make her our London Fashion Week winner [Garance Doré]
A tour of traditional Turkish tea houses steeped in Anatolian history [Eating Asia]
Starchitect Frank Gehry strikes again with new centre at NYC’s Signature Theatre [Travel and Leisure]
London’s first self-service pub offers DIY-drinking and iPad-controlled jukeboxing [Thrillist]
Chicago celeb chef Rick Bayless’ ambitious acting (while cooking) gig in Cascabel [Chicago Mag]
Get in bed with Giorgio
No sooner does one fashion week end, so another begins. We’ve hit New York and London and this week it’s off to bella Milano we go. You can drink with Donatella, fawn over Ferragamo, but you’ll find a string of beauties getting into bed with Giorgio at the new Armani Hotel Milano. With 95 sophisti-chic rooms and suites in his signature less-is-more beige and bronze aesthetic, plus soothing spa, complete with pool, all in the middle of designer retail land, it’s the ideal shop and flop spot this season.
Via Manzoni 31, Milan. T: +39 02 8883 8888. W: milan.armanihotels.com
The whole sea-bang at J. Sheekey
The leggy lovelies have arrived across the pond, strutting up a storm with non-stop fashion action at London’s Somerset House. When you need respite from the parade of new faces and willowy figures, there’s nothing quite like a glass of champagne and a half dozen oysters at nearby J. Sheekey Oyster Bar, a stiletto’s toss from the tents. It’s the perfect waistline-friendly pitstop to recharge between shows, and has proved season after season to be the chicest star on the circuit.
28-34 St. Martin’s Court, Covent Garden, London. T: +44 020 7240 2565. W: jsheekeyoysterbar.co.uk
Spa-tacular city views
Welcome back to our weekly LUXE Links, in which we source some of the week’s best reads from around the web and around the world. This week, a fashion show on ice, Mexico City’s best street food, and a rooftop thermal bath overlooking Zurich. Get clickin’, chickens!
Once a brewery, now a Zurich boutique hotel with an 11,000 square-foot spa and rooftop thermal bath. [Urban Daddy]
Why the Moncler Grenoble show was one of our New York Fashion Week favourites [Style Bubble]
A photo tour of the many delicacies at Noryangjin Fish Market in Seoul [Seoul Eats]
Zip-lining, jet-skiing, and good ol’ sunbathing at these 10 South American getaways [Huffington Post]
From tacos and nopales to Japanese shabu shabu, seven must-hit eateries in Mexico City [Eater]
Fillet de Sole Daumont from the first Next menu: Paris 1906
Missed your chance to try now-defunct El Bulli’s molecular marvels? Well, star Chicago chef Grant Achatz begins his tribute menu now until May 27 at Next. Yes, it sold out yonks ago, but up to 10 seats will be made available each day, on the day via their Facebook page, so good luck. For the rest of us, the teaser video is here. Drool…
Fashion crème de la crème lie just beyond the velvet rope
New York’s loveliest and leggiest will soon strut off the Big Apple’s runways for autumn/winter 2012, but the fashiony fun has only just begun with our European faves London, Milan and Paris next on the map. If you’re in the city that never sleeps however, cosy up to a supermodel for a chance to get into Chinatown hotspot Le Baron, where André Saraiva (ex-The Beatrice Inn and Kenmare) has brought Paris’ most fashionable party to NYC. Although photography is strictly forbidden, know that good times await inside this louche 70s-style Saigon lounge, just remember kittens – dress to kill.
32 Mulberry Street, New York, USA. W: clublebaron.com
An enLIGHTening experience, indeed. [Photo: Stijn Coppens/Huffington Post]
Welcome to our weekly LUXE Links, in which we source some of the week’s best reads from around the web and around the world. In our inaugural week, we bring you food porn, a light festival, and an outer-space themed hotel room. Get clickin’, chickens!
A peek inside the heavenly home of NYC-based jewellery maestro Eddie Borgo [The Coveteur]
The five best restaurants in Amsterdam, according to a Dutch foodie [Dutch Grub]
A fiber-optic ceiling of stars, a.k.a. the outer-space themed room at Singapore’s Wanderlust Hotel [Hotel Chatter]
LED cathedral in Belgium made from 55,000 lights is divine indeed. [Huffington Post]
Bourbon cheese balls, black truffle onigiri, and Dungeness crab arancini. Need we continue? [Foodspotting]
Yes, we know it is a Hallmark Holiday, but it’s also the perfect time to indulge in some romantic R&R and spoil your better half with something a little more original than a hastily bought, overpriced bouquet of red roses. Boring. Instead, why not gift one of our sleek and sexy box sets with all those cities you plan to visit together?
What’s in your little Black box? Ours is full of surprises and we let you decide!
To help you plan your mini break or major vacation, we’ve put together five hotels guaranteed to light your beloved’s fire, from palm-fringed hideaway to Venetian palazzo. And it couldn’t be easier, just a few clicks away online at the LUXE City Guides Hotel & Villa Booking Site.
Cambodia joins the international luxury resort circuit
Hello young (and old) lovers, wherever you are! Looking for a far-flung island retreat to celebrate V-day (and beyond) in style? Well, you’re in luck, just look to the new Song Saa Private Island, Cambodia’s first five-star luxury island getaway, spread across two previously untouched isles in the Koh Rong archipelago, just a half-hour boat ride from the coastal town of Sihanoukville. White sand, blue sky, crystal clear waters, plentiful marine life, and with Song Saa meaning ‘sweethearts’ in Khmer, it’s your ticket to some serious spoon ‘n’ cocoon time.
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