Celebrity Life

For newborns to toddlers, here's our pick of the best Christmas gifts for the new bundles of joy in your life.

If you're struggling to shop for new babies and toddlers in your life – be it your own, or your friends and families, this is the guide for you. Don't settle for yet another plastic toy or Barbie doll. Here are a few more ideas you might have missed.

Keep scrolling to shop our selection of best gifts for babies and toddlers during the holiday season.

The post Chunky Chains: Chokers & Cable Link Jewellery for Winter 2021 appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

As Chaumet's CEO Jean-Marc Mansvelt tells us, bringing the house's 240-year heritage into the modern era is an immense task that amounts to a "daily obsession". But if the new pieces in the Chaumet Joséphine collection are anything to go by, the Place Vendôme stalwart is heading in the right direction.

What kind of woman today does the Joséphine collection appeal to?

First, it’s about a woman with a certain character. Because when you choose to wear a tiara on your finger, you’re making a choice of distinction, a choice of character. You’re sending a message to say you’re not like everyone else and you have a certain strength and a certain personality. But also a sense of virtuosity, grace and beauty, because it’s not for women who want to be too provocative.

It’s a way to set your personality. And then of course, there are two major reasons to become a client of Joséphine. On one side, it remains one of the favourite pieces chosen for a bridal purpose. It’s connected to the initial history of Chaumet, the history of the power and love between Napoleon and Joséphine. And Napoleon is known everywhere, that’s incredible. There’s another type of client on the other side of the connection with the pearls, the coloured stones, something a bit easier and more accessible.

This year, Chaumet's creations have also incorporated sleeker, more modern takes on the tiara. Can you tell us a bit about the new high jewellery?

After many creations that were a bit more tiara-like, a bit more decorative, more visible, more baroque in a certain way, we wanted to enrich the collection with new ways to mix and match, and to go for designs that were slicker, with a more minimalist approach, because that’s also the style of today. We have a feeling that clients today are a little more understated, and we have the capacity to create beauty through a fine line, rather than an accumulation. So one of our high- jewellery pieces, which is sort of a V with a stone in suspension, doesn’t shout about its design. It’s all about balance.

This year is the 10th anniversary of the Joséphine collection...

But we don’t mark it that way for two reasons. I always feel that if you start doing anniversaries for everything, then at the end, what’s the meaning in it? Last year, when we did the 240 years of Chaumet, that was slightly different. For Chaumet, our heritage is much longer than a decade, it’s about centuries. Instead, this year, we’re celebrating our connection with the 200th anniversary of the death of Napoleon, which is significant in Europe and in France. We’ve done an exhibition at 12 Place Vendôme that was open to the public which tells the love story of Napoleon and Josephine through 150 different objects, beautiful loans from museums and private owners.

Which piece proved to be the most challenging piece in the collection?

The most discussed and the most debated one was the watch. Because we’re clearly a jeweller, and we’ve focused all our efforts and attention on jewellery. But since a few years ago, we’ve reassessed and repositioned what watches mean for Chaumet. It’s true that with the business of watches within Chaumet, we’ve really tried to be coherent with what the story of watchmaking for Chaumet is as a jeweller. One of our challenges was to look at the market – in the market, 90 percent of watches are round – and nobody’s waiting for Chaumet to create a round watch, because we already have thousands of beautiful options on the market.

We decided on a shaped watch, and it wasn’t very difficult to settle on the pear shape, like an illusion of a diamond. We also faceted the watch’s dial.

How do you balance 240 years of heritage behind a brand and stay relevant at the same time?

That’s really the obsession every single day. How do we continue the narrative, the link to the story? Since the pandemic, we’ve seen clients choose Chaumet because there’s longevity. And so it becomes a daily obsession of ours to convey this message to our clients through different means, including the digital approach, so we can speak to the needs of our audience today. We also go through the traditional channels and have books and exhibitions. I regularly write down on paper in two columns: on one side, how much do we tell the story of Chaumet, and on the other, how do we take a contemporary approach, either through the narrative or through using different tools? I take a step back and ask myself is there a balance? If we’re going too much in one direction, maybe it’s time to rebalance. It’s in everything we do.

The post View from the Top: The Best 2021 High Jewellery Selection appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Mother Nature has borne us two of the world's greatest treasures, one abundant yet fleeting, the other rare yet enduring — both eternally beautiful. Here, timeless high jewellery is showcased against ephemeral blooms in a study of our planet's most precious formations.

(Hero Image: ROUND DIAMOND NECKLACE (TOTALLING 89.18 CARATS) AND MULTISHAPE DIAMOND EARRINGS (TOTALLING 26.25 CARATS), BOTH SET IN WHITE GOLD GRAFF)

HIGH JEWELLERY PHOTOSHOOT

Photography Kauzrambler
Creative Direction Stephanie Ip
Styling Karen Siu
Photography Assistant Chu Mei Kwan
Flowers Flannel Flowers

The post 2021 High Jewellery: Earth’s Greatest Treasures appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Thirty years after Fred’s ruby and diamond necklace shot to fame on the neck of the beguiling Julia Roberts in the movie Pretty Woman, the jewellery piece has inspired a fully-fledged collection that embodies freedom, audacity, and young love. We speak to Valérie Samuel, artistic director at Fred, about the making of a new classic collection.

Of the many memorable moments in the 1990s movie Pretty Woman, one of the most successful romantic comedies ever to have graced the silver screen, one scene, in particular, has left a stronger impression than the rest. When Julia Roberts’ character Vivian Ward steps out in a floor-length crimson red gown and Richard Gere’s Edward Lewis presents her with a ruby and diamond necklace, it’s perhaps the moment when the world was introduced to Roberts’ vivacious, wholesome laughter for the first time. A child-like wonder and glee permeate her character as, wonderstruck, she reaches out for the necklace, Gere playfully snaps the box shut over her fingers and she bursts heartily into laughter.

A turning point in the movie plot, the scene is also pivotal as it also propelled not only Roberts to fame, but also the name of the jeweller who lent the necklace to the Pretty Woman production team: Fred.

The brand’s founder, Fred Samuel, had been a jeweller since 1936, but it wasn’t until 1966 that the name was established by Fred Samuel’s eldest son. With shops already in Paris and Monaco, Fred’s first US boutique in the United States opened 1977 in Los Angeles on Rodeo Drive in 1977, right in the heart of Beverly Hills and well within the reach of Hollywood celebrities, forging intimate bonds with many within the cinema industry.

It wasn’t, therefore, too unusual for Fred to received a visit from a movie production team seeking to borrow a piece of jewellery for a leading actress, but it soon surprised everyone how significant that piece of jewellery had became.

“We had no idea that the necklace of ruby and diamond hearts they chose would become a special part of the movie,” recalls Valérie Samuel, the granddaughter of Fred Samuel and the brand’s current artistic director, “but it’s unquestionably one of our house’s fondest memories.”

Inevitably, the necklace came to be named Pretty Woman, and it’s served as a major source of inspiration for the brand, reinterpreted many times over the years. But it wasn’t until two years ago that Samuel and her team considered designing a full collection as a tribute.

Making of the Pretty Woman high jewellery collection

To Samuel, the rubellite was an obvious choice for the important high-jewellery and jewellery collection, though it posed many challenges. “It brought many constraints,” says Samuel. “We had to find uncut stones that met all the Fred quality criteria, and we also had to find enough of them in the same intense pink-red hue that I picked, so as to provide jewellery for mixing and matching.

“The toughest constraint was that there were only three mines in the world producing rubellite. So, it took us more than two years to source and bring together the finest and purest of these stones.”

But perseverance paid off. The Pretty Woman collection is defined by the uniquely reddish-pink rubellite stones from the tourmaline family, which shift from magenta pink to purplish-red in the light.

The design is also distinctive. In the hollow of each open-worked diamond heart is a second heart-shaped rubellite, elegantly positioned slightly off-centre in an alternating fashion, evoking an unencumbered attitude and radiating youthful energy.

“Even though the collection is inspired by the necklace in the movie,” Samuel explains, “my vision was to capture a distinctive aesthetic – the heart within a heart – as well as by a mindset with Fred’s typical joie de vivre and sense of freedom.”

Samuel’s favourite piece from the collection is the Audacious necklace. The string of brilliant- and fancy-cut diamonds, to which eight rubellite and diamond hearts are attached, is six jewellery pieces in one. The transformative nature of the high-jewellery piece embodies her entire philosophy for the Pretty Woman collection. “It’s several jewellery pieces in one, with multiple ways of being worn and is a feat as technically advanced as it’s mischievously non-conformist,” she says.

“Six of them can be detached, one by one, to create as many different pieces and wearing options: earrings, a brooch, pin and chain necklace. Transformed in this way, the necklace, comprising 554 diamonds totalling 20 carats, and eight rubellites totalling 14 carats, forms a sophisticated and brilliant choker for daily wear.”

Since re-joining the company in 2017, Samuel has designed with the free spirit in mind. Her designs within Fred’s signature collections – which include Force 10, Chance Infinie, Pain de Sucre and Success – have opened up the brand to new silhouettes, styles and declinations, while always respecting Fred’s DNA. “I felt as if I were opening new territories of the brand’s expressions,” she says. “Jewellery to be worn every day, by the free spirit, thanks to the versatility in the pieces for mixing and matching.”

Everyday fine jewellery pieces

The Pretty Woman collection thus comprises not only important high-jewellery pieces, but also fine jewellery for everyday wear.

“I wanted to give this major new collection for Fred an energy that’s joyful, stylish and relaxed at the same time. And to allow women the scope to make it all their own, to experiment with it, to dare wearing multiple pieces at once,” says Samuel.

In the fine jewellery line, the striking heart-within-a- heart design is expressed in pink or white gold, in smooth, semi-paved or sparkling in a show-coloured setting, from necklaces sized from mini to XL, chains, ear studs and earrings, rings and bracelets.

Last but not least, the collection needed a muse, and who better to embody the new collection than the niece of the leading lady who captured the hearts of millions in the original movie. “From the beginning, it was our conviction that only the actress Emma Roberts, niece of Julia, could be our Pretty Woman ambassador today,” says Samuel. “It was an obvious choice: she captures perfectly the way of love that the Maison Fred wanted to portray: unconditional, spontaneous, audacious.”

The post Fred’s Pretty Woman Collection for the Pretty Strong, Independent Woman appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

The offspring of the rich and famous don't tend to have the best reputations. But not Sham Yuet, who's more your girl-next-door, studying hard and spending time with family. In our cover story this March, she opens up about life in the limelight, her supportive parents, career aspirations and doing what she does best — being her cheerful self.

In the public eye, Sham has lived a pretty glamorous, if slightly sheltered life. The eldest daughter of one of Hong Kong’s most well-known and powerful couples – Chingmy Yau, ’90s screen siren and the most sought-after actress of the decade, and fashion mogul Sham Kar-Wai – the 19-year-old is the spitting image of her mother and stepping out on her own. She made her grand entrance at the 2019 Le Bal Les Débutantes, the annual, by-invitation-only event in Paris that launches 20 of the world’s most promising and prestigious young women into high society. Earlier that year she walked her first runway show in London, wearing Bapy for Izzue under I.T. Group. It’s little wonder that all eyes are on Sham.

Sham is good-natured and endearing, and though she appears reserved at first and is a self-proclaimed introvert, she’s quick to warm up, opening up beatifically about her struggles and her career aspirations with an amiable smile. And despite her famous parents, the glamorous parties she’s attended and the runways she’s walked, when she arrives she tells me – chuckling a little sheepishly – that she’s nervous about the interview.

“Walking the runway was nerve-wracking, to be honest,” she says of the experience. “We only got one practice and I’ve never done this before. I’ll tell you a funny story. The first time I did the practice I was walking sideways. I wasn’t walking in a straight line. So, the lady was like, ‘OK, I’ll give you a tip. Just look at the ceiling. There’s a straight line on the ceiling.’ So, when I did the walk the second time – the official time – that’s what I did.

“If you look at the pictures, I’m like this,” she says, with her eyes rolled up and her lips ajar. “People were saying, ‘Oh my God, I love your expression. You look so blank.’ To be honest, I was just so focussed on following the line.”

The Le Bal experience, on the other hand, was a lot of fun. “I was so happy to meet different girls from all over the world. I made a lot of new friends and we actually still keep in touch, which I think is amazing. I wore haute couture for the first time and the dress was beautiful,” she says.

“At the ball, we helped charities and raised money for the Seleni Institute, which focuses on supporting the mental health of teenage mothers, and Enfants d’Asie, which promotes education for girls in Southeast Asia,” she recalls. “I thought it was super important because obviously we’re these 20 girls and we’re all there to help, like girls helping other girls.”

The debutante ball was also where she met a young woman who’s now one of her closest friends, Princess Carolina di Borbone, heiress to the house of Bourbon- Two Sicilies. Both of them have younger sisters, and the pair immediately clicked, exchanging school stories. Princess Carolina and her sister were both home- schooled, and Sham, though educated more traditionally, had a school life that was beyond normal.

Paparazzi dogged most of her high-school years so Sham grew up pretty much in the limelight, whether she asked for it or not. “I’d dread the end of school,” she tells me. “Because back in grade school, there’d be paparazzi waiting outside. These random men with big cameras, just waiting for me. That was really annoying. I hated it, like, I just wanted to be a regular kid.”

Her parents got her a bodyguard, but it didn’t help. “That just made me stand out. I had to tell them, ‘You need to stand a bit further away from me, pretend you don’t know me.’ I was bullied a little, to be very honest. The first two years of middle school, I definitely felt that I was different. I had two friends whom I was really close to, and I just stuck with them. But other people would be a bit nasty and say bad things about my family. I actually ended up moving schools.”

Sham is now in her second year of college in Canada, studying Japanese and psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She came back last year when her grandfather fell sick and has been stuck in Hong Kong ever since because of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise for Sham, who found online learning to be much more in her comfort zone. “I’m actually quite introverted, but I know some friends really miss the college experience and want to go back,” she says.

“But going to college was actually really scary for me,” she confides. “I’m introverted, so it was hard to make friends, and I didn’t know that people knew me, even there. So it made it harder to make friends. Canada has a huge Asian population, but I didn’t expect people to know me there. So when they did, it made things pretty awkward.”

It was like high school all over again. “There were rumours spreading,” she says. “Or people coming up to me asking to be best friends and then asking me questions about my family. That always made me uncomfortable.”

For Sham is fiercely protective of her family, as they’ve been to her. Her sister is her best friend, and her mother is her best teacher. Busy as both her parents are, her father would always be home for dinner. During our cover shoot with Sham, her mother paid her a surprise visit at the studio, stepping in to make adjustments to her daughter’s hair and make-up every now and then.

“My priority has always been my family,” says Sham, “it always comes first. After my grandpa passed away last year in 2020, I had more of a sense of time, that it’s really special. So now, my priority is spending that time with my family. Before that, I’d say I was a family person, but now, because I realise that time with them is limited, it’s more about spending time with them. I spend more time with my grandma, for example. Or my sister. I know in the future she might have to go back to boarding school in England, so I’m really treasuring this time I’m spending with her.”

Her sisters, Sham Yat and Sham Sing, are 15 and nine respectively. “My youngest sister is really into gaming right now,” Sham says with a little shake of her head. “But my other sister, she’s even more interested in fashion than I am. I think she might be planning to study that. That’s her forte and I’m so impressed by her. She’s so young and she already has so many ideas.

“We raid each other’s closets all the time. It’s like a sister thing,” she continues. “I like styling stuff. I don’t know if I’m good enough to become a designer, but I like putting things together and seeing how everything looks. My sister and I, we talk about fashion all the time. Like, ‘Does this go with this?’ or, ‘What if we add a dash of pink to that?’ I really enjoy doing that with my sister.”

“I don’t know if I’m good enough to become a designer, but I like putting things together and seeing how everything looks. My sister and I, we talk about fashion all the time”

Sham Yuet

Sham won’t say if she’ll become a stylist in the future, though, preferring to keep her options open. She likes fashion, but also has an insatiable curiosity for learning, languages especially. She’s fluent in Korean and is studying Japanese in college. She’s also taking psychology, saying that she wants to find out how the human brain works.

“I picked psychology, because I wanted to learn more about the human brain,” she explains. “I remember this study about babies. They used a good puppet and a bad puppet to act out some scenarios and afterwards they gave the two puppets to the babies to see which one they’d pick, and they picked the good one. So when people have this big debate about whether people are born evil or whether good people turn evil, this experiment showed that people are inherently good. That was interesting for me and it made me want to help children more, because children are our future,” she says.

Sham is not just saying this – she currently sponsors a child in Zambia and hopes to meet him one day. “He writes to me, asking, ‘How are you? How’s the Covid situation? We’re completely fine.’ And he’s really sweet, he says, ‘Thank you for being part of my family.’

“My mom taught me to always give back,” she tells me. “We’ve been taken to a lot of places in the world and I got to see a lot of different things. I’m very grateful for everything that I have and I love giving back. I hope to do more of that when I’m able to myself.”

When she was younger, though, one of her biggest aspirations was to become a performer in Korea. “When I was 13, I was really in love with K-pop – Girls’ Generation, EXO, I was their biggest fan ever. I wanted to go to Korea to learn singing and dancing,” she says. “But then my parents taught me to prioritise education. They said, ‘At least get to university first so you can create different paths for yourself.’ If I’d gone to Korea at 13, then becoming a singer or a dancer would have been the only path that I could take. But if I prioritise education, then I can slowly figure out what I want to do.”

She took her parents’ advice to heart. She hasn’t exactly figured out what she wanted to do with her life yet, but at 19 the possibilities are endless. “I really like singing and dancing, so that’s still a possible career path. And fashion as well – I really like styling my own clothes. I also hope to help children and I like volunteer work. So maybe I want to do something along all those lines,” she muses.

“To be honest, the best career advice I’ve been given is that I’m not just my career, because as a perfectionist, I like to do everything, like I try my best at all times,” she says. “And so, the best advice was actually that my career doesn’t define me. I have other identities as well. I’m a daughter, I’m a granddaughter, I’m a sister and a friend. I’m a student and I’m a learner. I’ve been kind of stressed out about what I should do, but the best advice is just to do you. And remember the other parts of yourself and not to limit yourself.”

For now, there’s no rush to define Sham as anything other than that she is wholly herself, young, carefree, and happy. Her parents have brought her up to embrace herself and try new things and that’s exactly what Sham is setting out to do. She still has some years left in university and that’s what she plans to focus on.

“I really like this quote from Audrey Hepburn,” says Sham, reaffirming the philosophy she lives by. “She’s one of my idols and inspirations. She loved children and she was a style icon, so I really look up to her. She said, ‘Nothing is impossible, the word itself says I’m possible.’

“Oh, and there’s another one: ‘Let your smile change the world, don’t let the world change your smile.’ That’s a good one too.”

Art direction / Sepfry Ng
Photography / Karl Lam
Stylist / Daniel Cheung
Make-up / San Chan
Hair / Winky Wong @ The Attic
All outfits / Ralph Lauren
Jewellery / Fred

The post Sham Yuet: Young, Mild and Free appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s notoriously sweltering summer is most definitely here, and so are the fun fashion ensembles you cannot wait to put on, but are not quite complete without the proper accessories.

From oversized statement pieces, shoulder-grazing earrings to stackable bracelets and bangles, we’ve put together some bold jewellery pieces that will complement this season’s outfits.

Panthère de Cartier

Cartier’s Panthère, with its wild and feline design, has always been a revered collection which continues to stand the test of time. It’s seen many iterations through the decades but right now, we’re loving this architectural and modern take. This Panthère de Cartier ring is made in 18K yellow gold, set with onyx and tsavorite garnets.

HK$151,000 | www.cartier.hk

Chopard Happy Spirit

Chopard’s new Happy Spirit collection is every bit the fun and chic accessory to wear this season, with its “dancing” diamonds and clean lines. These bangles, crafted in 18K white ethical gold, make a great addition to your arm candy.

HK$63,000 | www.chopard.com

Dior Joaillerie Rose des Vents

If run-of-the-mill amulets just won’t cut it, go big and aim for Dior Joaillerie‘s Rose des Vents. Wind rose motifs that decorate Christian Dior’s childhood home are featured on small medallion-like amulets made in a variety of precious hard stones such as mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli, malachite, onyx, turquoise, tiger’s eye, cornelian and pink opal, are punctuated with diamonds.

HK$430,000 | www.dior.com

Tiffany & Co's Tiffany T

In the latest evolution of the Tiffany T motif, Tiffany & Co -- while hoping to give the classic model a fresh take -- stays true to its identity and legacy. Tiffany T1 combines the clean lines and graphic forms that make the "T" distinct, with a bold, diamond-encrusted style with a bevelled edge, an angular surface and a multi-faceted finish. Make an impact this summer by wearing this bold piece of jewellery.

HK$ 145,000 | www.tiffany.com

Chanel Camelia hoops

Inspired by Coco Chanel’s favourite flower, the camellia, Chanel’s Camélia collection manages to strike that perfect balance between femininity and edginess, thanks to its geometric curves and perfect symmetry. These Extrait de Camélia hoop earrings are made in 18K pink gold and set with diamonds, and could very well be the jewellery piece to take you from day to night.

HK$44,900 | www.chanel.com

The post Go Bold with These 5 Statement Jewellery Pieces This Summer appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's ever-changing dining scene is constantly evolving.

So much so, that it can get a little difficult to keep track of it all, let alone remember to book and try the new restaurants that have caught your eye. From brand new concepts to fresh venues and additional locations, here is our guide to seven of Hong Kong's most promising new restaurants to try right now.

Well, what are you waiting for...

The post Most Coveted: Fred Jewellery, Portspure, Balmain and More appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.