Celebrity Life

There’s no doubt Alex Lam inherited his musical talent from his parents, his father being Cantopop legend George Lam Chi-Cheung, and his mother, Sally Yeh. Still, the singer-songwriter and actor hasn’t let privilege get to his head — he’s not afraid to explore other paths, from a stint in Los Angeles to discover yoga and becoming a yoga teacher, to dipping his toes in fashion.

Lam met Hiro Yoshikawa, founder and designer of Washi Jeans, a Japanese denim brand, a couple years back and was intrigued by the designer’s backstory. Now based in Hong Kong, Yoshikawa is the 18^th generation of a revered sake maker in Okayama, Japan, and the first to leave the family business to pursue his own passion in denim-making. By chance, Yoshikawa had found an old document that charted out his family’s history, written on washi paper. Inspired by this, he developed and patented the Washi No. 6 paper yarn, which he utilizes in his first solo collection launching this month.

Lam, who has always had an eye for detail, quickly became an ambassador and muse for Yoshikawa, and took it upon himself to bring the recognition Yoshikawa deserves by helping him stage his upcoming solo debut.

We sit down with Alex Lam and Hiro Yoshikawa at Washi Jean's studio to talk about style and the upcoming debut of Yoshikawa's solo collection Life on Earth.

Can you describe your style? What are your wardrobe essentials?

AL: My style has always been inspired by musicians. I grew up watching some of my favourite bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and today, I'm inspired by singers like Drake. For me, my summer essentials include a sleeveless vest, a good multi-functional blazer and a pair of high-quality designer jeans.

Have you always been passionate about fashion and did you want to work in fashion?

AL: I have always cared about how I look and my outfits since I was a kid. I remember there was one time when the collar of my t-shirt wasn't right and I wouldn’t wear it out until my parents fixed it for me. Having friends who are in the fashion industry allows me to execute and experiment my ideas during workshops, like the ‘marshmallow’ colourway of the t-shirt I’m wearing right now. 

How did the both of you meet?

AL: I met Hiro-san thought some of our mutual friends.

HY: have been making jeans for other brands for the past 30 years and it has always been my dream to have my own denim brand. I have always hung out with people from the fashion industry, and meeting Alex from the music and acting world has made my life more fun and exciting.

Can you tell us a bit about your project with Hiro-san?

AL: I was hanging out with a group of producers and we often talk about fashion shows, designer brands’ videos, installation art and music. Once we found out Hiro-san wanted to launch his own denim brand this year, we decided to catch this opportunity and put our ideas together. We are organising a VIP launch event with a fashion show on June 11, 2021.

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome with this project?

AL: I think the rules of the game changed after Covid started last year. We looked at online fashion shows last year, without the tradition styles, and we knew our team needed to do it in a cleverer way. The restriction for event gathering is 30 persons at the moment, so we were not able to invite too many friends and make the event as big as before. Plus the campaign and fashion show video shoot all in one day, that’s the biggest challenge in this project.

HY:  We have been staying in our studio almost every day is the past few months, meeting different parties like our PR team, models, videographers and producers.

What else are you up to this year that you can share with us?

AL: I have released a new song and I just finished a music video for another song. I have also been working on my YouTube channel and created a few series, but it’s been slightly slowed down because I was focusing in this project.

Has the pandemic affected the way you work or changed your priorities?

AL: Before Covid, I was busy working with clients, who often prepared everything. With changes and restrictions during this period, I am able to organise and create more content by myself.

What are you currently inspired by?

AL: There are many indie musicians and young kids out there who are doing their music in their unique styles. I admire them a lot as they can release songs as long as they think it sounds good. I used think good music requires the best studio and recording equipment, but turned out a lot of indie musicians are producing high quality songs just by working at home.

You have a YouTube channel, you're into fashion, music as well as classic cars. How did you get into each of those passions and how do you balance it all?

AL: Project by project. I’m now focusing more on quantity over quality and I'll keep learning from the progress and mistakes.

Do you have a motto you live by?

Stay healthy. As I was a yoga teacher, I still practice yoga for two to three hours each day. It’s a good way to reflect on myself and find peace.

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A staple in Hong Kong's art scene, Queenie Rosita Law has turned her eye in the last few years to discovering new artists in unexpected regions and growing her company, Q Art Group, to encompass all areas of the art business. She opens up about her activities and ambitions in a candid interview with Prestige.

A lot of people take pen to paper to express their thoughts through words, journaling self-reflections and daily entries to make sense of themselves and the world around them. Artists such as Queenie Rosita Law take to drawing.

“I grew up as a very shy child, and drawing and painting were the only ways for my parents to understand me,” says Law. “I used to be so quiet that they brought me to see a doctor to analyse my drawings… growing up I have always used art as a way to express.”

Now she’s in her mid-thirties, art is still her happiest medium. Although she’s no longer the shy child she once was, her creativity hasn’t waned and art continues to be her outlet through times of celebration, trauma and loss. But today, rather than focussing only on creating art that personifies her own struggles, she’s giving a platform to talented artists elsewhere, whose works speak to her but are yet to be discovered by the world.

Law comes from one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest and most well-known families. Her grandfather, Law Ting- Pong, was a textile tycoon and the founder of the Bossini clothing brand, while her father, Raymond, is a property developer who’s involved in some of the city’s most prominent developments.

In 2015, she was taken from her home, an ordeal that she wrote about in a memoir she published in 2017. Today, six years on, the experience is all but a distant memory for her, a closed chapter that she’s not keen to dwell on. But in the past, she’s spoken candidly about how the experience has changed her and set her on a path of self-discovery, and she’s channeled it into her art, as well as used her new-found courage to turn her passion projects into real businesses and evolve her artistic pursuits to fit her new agenda.

A graduate of graphic design at Central Saint Martins, Law hadn’t envisioned an exact career path for herself while she was still a student. “When I was in school, art was purely what kept me up every day and night. I never thought much about my future – it was all about the present,” she says. “After graduation, I struggled to find my own career path and I experimented with a lot of creative jobs, but none of them seemed to fit my character or my ambition.”

The City Book was Law’s first venture into creating something for herself, an idea that formed in her mind in 2013 during a job break, having been in Paris for two years working at a photography agency. “I was walking down the street,” she says, “and wondering how a city inspired different artists to create their works. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of seeing a city through the eyes of different artists.”

Although the City Book is no longer printed, it was significant because the book “was the beginning of my discovery artists and their stories,” says Law. “The book was the starting point for my wish to share my own discovery of new artists with the world.”

Law has always loved travelling and exploring new places and things, but Paris, Rome and London did not interest her. Instead, it was Serbia and Poland that captured her heart. Back from her travels, her friends would revel in the stories she would tell about the people she met, the artworks that she saw, living vicariously through her to experience these faraway destinations that were not yet on their radar. Soon after, Law found herself in Budapest, Hungary.

The city opened her eyes to the vast and rare opportunities offered by Central and Eastern European (CEE) art. The art scene in Budapest was “vibrant with rich cultures”, but long overlooked and underappreciated.
“The CEE art ecosystems in these countries are still quite underdeveloped. Some have great institutions but in general there’s little documentation, publications or catalogues about the artists,” explains Law, who since 2017 has travelled extensively around the region to build her own personal collection, visit artist studios and discover hidden talents.

Law wanted to emulate the late Peggy Guggenheim, the art patron she looked up to, who dared to work with artists who were nobodies at the beginning but later became major figures in the history and development of 20th-century art – people such as Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still and Max Ernst. “She saw in their works what others didn’t see,” says Law.

In CEE art, Law saw her opportunity. The huge sense of power and struggle in the artists’ works were what drew her in. At first, Law started by collecting works of younger artists – people of her own generation. But slowly, as she realised many artists from the older generation were still working, she shifted her attention towards them, too and delighted in the raw expression she saw in art created during the ’60s and ’70s.

“It’s so pure, because there wasn’t much commercial success in the market, as the whole of Eastern Europe was so closed off after the Second World War … but when you saw their art, you saw their struggle and how they kept going and creating. I really love that energy and I think it’s so powerful,” she says.

If CEE art was virtually unknown to Law up to this point, then so too was it uncharted territory for the rest of us. In each country she visited – Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic – everyone seemed focussed on their own art and participated in the local art scene only. An idea began to form in her head. It was a rare opportunity for her to develop an art space with an art collection, dedicated to showcasing the contemporary art from the whole CEE region and to the world. She grabbed the chance without hesitation.

With a new vision in mind, Law formed Q Art Group, presenting a new and unique approach to art in that it serves as a central hub, a point of connection, for distinct yet complementary enterprises. Q Art Group encompasses Law’s ambitions of increasing exposure for emerging and often under-appreciated artists.

Q Contemporary is a contemporary art museum and a hub of cultural education programmes in Budapest; Double Q is a Hong Kong gallery that’s still in the works; and Q Studio is a continuation of her business in luxury branding and bespoke art for commercial clients. It’s a huge undertaking, but Law is unfazed.

“I love art in all its forms and I inherited my father’s passion for starting businesses, so I want to continue growing my business around my love for art,” she says. “I want to build an art ecosystem [of elements] that can co-exist with each other and complement each other, like building a group with different entities under the same umbrella that share a similar mission and identity.

“I want to adopt the same format for my art business. I want to build a group that can create art, exhibit art and sell art – art that speaks to you and is a part of your daily life.”

Coming from a family of successful entrepreneurs, strong-minded individuals who are business-driven, has no doubt given Law tremendous foresight and courage. In fact, the biggest advice that her father gave her was to “just try, get out there, make the first move, and keep doing it again and again. If you fail, you’ll learn and you won’t make the same mistake again.”

Her family remains her biggest supporters. Indeed, Law says she not only never had any pressure from her parents to follow in any of their established businesses but was encouraged to forge her own path.

“My dad has been my number-one fan since day one. He pushes me and at the same time leaves me space and freedom to explore,” she says. Her first-ever drawing – of a supermarket, which she created as a child – still hangs in her parents’ bedroom.

My dad has been my number-one fan since day one. He pushes me and at the same time leaves me space and freedom to explore

Queenie Rosita Law

Within the Law family, business is never far from the dinner table. “Ninety percent of the conversation at dinner surrounds business, ideas and advice,” she says. And that’s perhaps why there’s probably no one who could have done what Law did in Budapest, which seemingly required a very precise combination of artistic foresight, business acumen and fearlessness, something in retrospect that she finds amusing.

“It’s kind of funny,” she says, “because looking back, it all started as a very naïve way of doing things. Naïve in the sense that I didn’t question things and I just did it. So when I first went to Budapest, it was really because of exploring the city. I was doing the City Book and I wanted to interview different artists over there. And then I met a lot of artists and I realised there’s a lot of artistic talent, but they don’t have opportunities.

“A year after that journey, I went back to Budapest and found and acquired this building. And it then took me another six months to a year travelling around the region to understand what really was missing. I had a vision and I went with it. I didn’t have any staff or friends or any connections in Budapest to get me there."

Her hard work has definitely paid off. Earlier this year, she successfully brought CEE art to Hong Kong for the first time via a collaboration with K11 Art Foundation on Q Contemporary’s first pop-up exhibition, Tracing the Fragments, which also drew on discernible ties between CEE art and Chinese contemporary art.

The show was extremely well received. “Our exhibition was visited by 16,500 people over seven weeks, and it’s an exciting outcome despite the pandemic,” Law says. It’s a taste of what’s to come when Double Q Gallery, the final phase of Law’s plan to define her art empire, opens in Hong Kong at the end of the year.

“Double Q Gallery will be powered by the discoveries of Q Contemporary,” says Law, who’s found her calling in representing the artists that she discovered during her travels, who had talent in abundance but until now, lacked opportunities.

“I started my company out of my own passion of creating my own art, and [my mission] has greatly evolved,” she says. “It used to be more about what I wanted to do, but now I’d consider how I’m going to do it effectively ... in five years, I want to continue to create this international platform that identifies, cultivates and promotes talented artists. I want to be a force that drives the discovery and appreciation of a whole new generation of artists."

PHOTOGRAPHY RICKY LO
ART DIRECTION AND STYLING ANSON LAU
HAIR JEAN TONG
MAKE-UP AMY LEE
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANTS ALSTON CHAN AND KELVIN SIM
STYLING ASSITANT EDDY CHU

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Few partnerships are as enduring as the one that Omega enjoys with Cindy Crawford. The model signed on with the Swiss watch brand in 1995, at a time when watch brands would more readily feature athletes and explorers in their campaigns. But Crawford's 25-year relationship with Omega has proved fruitful — she's launched new models with the brand, travelled the globe with them, and put in her all to promote its philanthropic work with Orbis.

Famous for saying modelling is a job she does, but not one that embodies her character, Crawford's landmark decisions have brought her to where she is today in terms of life, career and motherhood. We catch up with the supermodel and mega businesswoman on five choices she's made that defines who she is today.

Why did you choose to become a model?

I never even thought about modelling—I didn’t even know it was something to choose. I grew up in a small town in Illinois and met a local photographer.  He asked if he could take my picture for a local paper. Of course, my parents were very suspicious, so they insisted they accompany me to the photoshoot because they thought he might be a creepy guy.  He wasn’t and he just took some pretty photos of me. He really started me down a path to meeting with an agency in Chicago and modelling there and eventually to New York and being on the cover of Vogue and eventually having an OMEGA contract for over 25 years.

What choices in life are you most proud of?

We all make so many choices every day, but when I look back at my life, a few “choices” stand out.  As a young person, I’m proud of my choice to work hard.  Not just at school, but at any job I took on, like babysitting and even working in the cornfields.  I have a real appreciation for hard work and earning a dollar.  That work ethic translated in to how I approached modeling as a job, rather than a lifestyle.  I’m very proud that I was smart enough to choose my husband Rande Gerber.  He has proven to be a great father and partner.  Even though I always knew I wanted children, the choice to actually do it was the best decision of my life.  Being a parent has taught me so much about love and patience.  Now as a recently turned 55 year old woman, I am proud of all the ways I continue to evolve and work on myself.  Choosing to embrace where I am on my own life journey rather than wish for the past is something that takes work but helps me be present and find happiness every day.

Have you ever made a choice you later regretted?

I think we’ve all made choices that we’ve regretted, but the way that I choose to look at that now is not to regret it and just to look at it as a lesson, so if you ask me today if there are choices I’ve regretted, I would say no, because every decision I’ve made, whether it’s been bad or good and there have been some bad ones, that I’m not going to being up right now, they’ve been a lesson to me, so I don’t really believe in regrets. (However there are a few bad outfit choices I made in high school—ha!)

Have you ever found it impossible to make a choice?

I’m a very decisive person so I actually don’t really find it hard to make decisions and I also make a decision and I stick to it. And I move on.  I’m very consistent. I don’t torture myself over making choices.

What choices have you made in life that have defined you?

I definitely think the choice to have children was probably the most defining choice of my life. And also the fact that I chose to have them at home. Home birth is intense, but I loved that choice for me because, through the process and at the end of it, I felt so empowered.  I felt like “I am strong” and it set me up for feeling, "I’ve got this, I can be a mother. I will let my instincts kick in and I’ll know what to do.”

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Gwyneth Paltrow, the award-winning actress, author, and the founder of modern lifestyle and wellness brand goop, has partnered with Merz Aesthetics in the company's first global campaign for Xeomin. Merz Aesthetics is the world's largest medical aesthetics business, and the product Xeomin, is an FDA-approved anti-wrinkle injection targeting frown lines. Through her partnership with them, Paltrow hopes women and men can feel empowered to take control of their own minds and bodies and let their authentic selves shine despite ever-changing beauty standards.

There's often stigma linked to beauty procedures and invasive treatments, but Paltrow, who's no stranger to wellness and beauty procedures, has put her own weight behind this proven product, telling us that she's been a loyal user of Xeomin long before the company even approached her to become the global face for the brand. What's important and what matters the most is that products are proven safe and effective.

"It's really the cornerstone of my whole philosophy," she explains. "At goop, we also make products that we've tested rigorously and that don't have toxic ingredients in them. It's the same when you're sourcing food, anything you're going to put on or in your body, you want to know for sure that it is proven and it works, and also that it's as purified as possible."

One thing is for sure — body image and beauty standards affect each and everyone of us, and today especially, body dysmorphia is more rampant than ever in the age of social media. Celebrities feel this keenly too. Not too long ago, Khloe Kardashian posted a heartfelt plea on social media about her struggles with body image amidst constant judgment her entire life.

In her youth, Paltrow recalls when a producer came up to her, squeezed her waist and told her to stop snacking because she was gaining weight. Paltrow even jokes, "Robert Downey Jr. always tells me I'm too tall whenever he wants me to wear flat shoes. But you know, I think women actors, we get a lot of that. We have to be strong and just believe in ourselves."

"I think it took me into my 40s to feel like I really knew myself," the actress continues. "And really like myself and embrace myself in a different way. I hope women, young women my daughter's age, in their 20s, can start to cultivate this kind of self confidence at an earlier age and just know that they're beautiful, exactly as God made them."

In the latest campaign with Xeomin, Paltrow speaks about embracing your true authentic self — the key here is really not to change or hide the way you look, but to embrace yourself, find confidence in your own self by investing in the health and wellness of your body and mind.

This wasn't something Paltrow thought about until her mid-20s when her father fell ill. "It was catalysed by my father getting sick with cancer and that's when I really dove into researching about the body, its capacity to heal environmental toxins and the ways that eating can affect our health. I've been interested in wellness since," she says.

Paltrow started goop well before wellness was seen as essential rather than a privilege. "It was always a real passion of mine to provide information and tools for people so that they could really make the most out of their lives and understand that the power to optimise your life is within you. All you need is to give yourself the permission to do it," she says. "That can be just like a great recommendation, or it can be you know, a full wellness regime."

Paltrow compares getting beauty treatments a bit to self-indulgence — it's all about balance. "If you're sleeping well, eating well, and you're exercising, even meditating that's helpful," she says. "But at the same time, we want products that are really efficacious, and with Merz I found a product that I really loved. I'm always about balance. I'm a person who tends to be on the healthier living side, but then I love a good martini and French fries, you know?"

Paltrow adds: "Everybody has the right to do what's right for them and feels great for them. I don't think there should be judgment about it. If you're in your 20s and you feel like something bothers you and you talk to your doctor who recommends something, you know, I think you should feel empowered to do it. I didn't do anything until I started to really see the signs of ageing, but if your doctor says it's ok, then why not?"

At the end of the day, it's about discovering yourself and allowing yourself to live a better version of yourself, flaws and all. "It's about being the best that you can be," says Paltrow. "Sometimes I think our flaws are what makes us interesting and unique. I think the more self-acceptance you can have, the better."

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The Carlyle hotel-inspired bolthole -- slated to open on the uppermost floors of Rosewood Hong Kong later this year -- will offer a blueprint for the eponymous group's vision of "a new kind of international members' club". We venture north of the harbour to discover just what that entails...

Hitherto, the Hong Kong ecosystem of private members' clubs has been split broadly between two camps: at one end, you have venerable institutions catered to the needs of the city's professionals (the FCC) and those who surround them (the KCC); at the other, a burgeoning array of social haunts meant to profit from the growing number of Silicon Valley types -- hawkers of crypto, CBD cafes, and other speculative investment opportunities -- who reside here.

Call me Debbie Downer, but neither feels like an especially glam place to visit. After all, such clubs justify their patronage by way of mostly pragmatic considerations: a convenient location; access to business networking opportunities; affordable gym membership; and so forth. This, as Rosewood Hotels CEO Sonia Cheng well knows is where Carlyle & Co. can break the mould -- by conjuring a little glamour into Hong Kong's mostly comatose members' club scene.

Best thought of as a kind of pied-à-terre to the Rosewood Hong Kong (spanning the 54th-56th floor of the hotel) Carlyle & Co. is, in effect, Cheng's answer to the boutique members' clubs that have dominated pop culture these last 20 years. In Hong Kong -- where bureaucratic red tape is frequent; and decent-sized real estate scant -- her hotel group's latest venture feels especially impressive -- if for no other reason than the sheer audacity of it all.

In recent weeks, the first details of the club's leviathan 25,000 sq. ft. premises have begun to emerge, inspired in broad strokes by the "intriguing, inimitable and ultimately indefinable" style of The Carlyle in New York (incidentally also a brand owned by Rosewood Hotels). To orchestrate this vision of Hong Kong-via-Manhattan, Rosewood turned to British designer Ilse Crawford, whose approach has imbued the club's many rooms with a light, playful sensibility -- affording each a healthy dose of individual personality.

For fusty decadents like yours truly, the gentlemen's spaces -- including a barber, shoeshine, and capsule store by an award-winning haberdasher -- hold immense charm -- even though they espouse just one of many eclectic visual styles members will enjoy each time they navigate the club. The aforementioned differ significantly from spaces like the Cabaret Bar and Sitting Room, both of which employ the medium of painting (by artists Jean-Philippe Delhomme and Christina Zimpel respectively) to celebrate The Carlyle hotel's legendary Bemelmans murals.

Supper & Supping

In the spirit of its progenitor, the various dining venues at Carlyle & Co. seem to be accompanied by an august sense of occasion. The crux of the action happens at the brasserie, which (like any decent club restaurant in Hong Kong) serves a medley of Western, Chinese, and all-day delicacies. Here, the focus is on simply cooking the freshest produce the club can source -- various of the small plates are smoked, cured, or otherwise preserved in-house -- yet it's hardly the most theatrical outlet. That honour belongs to Café Carlyle, an intimate supper club intended as the local chapter of the eponymous tippling destination in New York. Members can expect this to be the repository of the club's live musical programming, which (consistent with the historic acts that have taken to the stage at the Carlyle hotel) will include an assortment of uniquely American artforms like jazz, funk, and blues.

Members craving a dose of sunshine can also take a selection of food and drink on the club's 55th-floor terrace, which (much like the Rosewood property at large) enjoys the sort of view that's conducive to sonnet writing or spontaneous tears of joy. Flanking one end of that terrace, you'll find the local chapter of Bemelmans Bar. Like its namesake, the menu here is split roughly equally between fine wines, punchbowls and classic cocktails; though, at the weekend, you can expect a certain frenetic atmosphere to take hold, as the space merges with the terrace for live DJ performances against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour.

Cosy quarters, brimming with personality

Though Carlyle & Co. members can easily book themselves into one of the 400-plus rooms at the surrounding Rosewood property, the entire 54th floor of the club is given over to eight themed suites -- all of which celebrate the history of The Carlyle hotel. More or less equal in size, each offers an inviting and distinctive interior personality. If you're retiring following an evening spent drinking (one too many) Martinis for instance, the 'Tommy' seems an apt choice -- named for and inspired by the legendary Bemelmans bartender Mr. Tommy Rowles. Other known personalities include Dorothy Draper, the original 'modern Baroque' decorator of The Carlyle's interiors; and Eartha Kitt, the renowned actress and Broadway musician. For dedicated students of café society, a stay in every single suite would seem like money well-spent.

A variety of membership packages are available at Carlyle & Co., with or without health club membership. To learn more about rates (or inquire about eligibility) visit Carlyle & Co. online.

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The Carlyle hotel-inspired bolthole -- slated to open on the uppermost floors of Rosewood Hong Kong later this year -- will offer a blueprint for the eponymous group's vision of "a new kind of international members' club". We venture north of the harbour to discover just what that entails...

Hitherto, the Hong Kong ecosystem of private members' clubs has been split broadly between two camps: at one end, you have venerable institutions catered to the needs of the city's professionals (the FCC) and those who surround them (the KCC); at the other, a burgeoning array of social haunts meant to profit from the growing number of Silicon Valley types -- hawkers of crypto, CBD cafes, and other speculative investment opportunities -- who reside here.

Call me Debbie Downer, but neither feels like an especially glam place to visit. After all, such clubs justify their patronage by way of mostly pragmatic considerations: a convenient location; access to business networking opportunities; affordable gym membership; and so forth. This, as Rosewood Hotels CEO Sonia Cheng well knows is where Carlyle & Co. can break the mould -- by conjuring a little glamour into Hong Kong's mostly comatose members' club scene.

Best thought of as a kind of pied-à-terre to the Rosewood Hong Kong (spanning the 54th-56th floor of the hotel) Carlyle & Co. is, in effect, Cheng's answer to the boutique members' clubs that have dominated pop culture these last 20 years. In Hong Kong -- where bureaucratic red tape is frequent; and decent-sized real estate scant -- her hotel group's latest venture feels especially impressive -- if for no other reason than the sheer audacity of it all.

In recent weeks, the first details of the club's leviathan 25,000 sq. ft. premises have begun to emerge, inspired in broad strokes by the "intriguing, inimitable and ultimately indefinable" style of The Carlyle in New York (incidentally also a brand owned by Rosewood Hotels). To orchestrate this vision of Hong Kong-via-Manhattan, Rosewood turned to British designer Ilse Crawford, whose approach has imbued the club's many rooms with a light, playful sensibility -- affording each a healthy dose of individual personality.

For fusty decadents like yours truly, the gentlemen's spaces -- including a barber, shoeshine, and capsule store by an award-winning haberdasher -- hold immense charm -- even though they espouse just one of many eclectic visual styles members will enjoy each time they navigate the club. The aforementioned differ significantly from spaces like the Cabaret Bar and Sitting Room, both of which employ the medium of painting (by artists Jean-Philippe Delhomme and Christina Zimpel respectively) to celebrate The Carlyle hotel's legendary Bemelmans murals.

Supper & Supping

In the spirit of its progenitor, the various dining venues at Carlyle & Co. seem to be accompanied by an august sense of occasion. The crux of the action happens at the brasserie, which (like any decent club restaurant in Hong Kong) serves a medley of Western, Chinese, and all-day delicacies. Here, the focus is on simply cooking the freshest produce the club can source -- various of the small plates are smoked, cured, or otherwise preserved in-house -- yet it's hardly the most theatrical outlet. That honour belongs to Café Carlyle, an intimate supper club intended as the local chapter of the eponymous tippling destination in New York. Members can expect this to be the repository of the club's live musical programming, which (consistent with the historic acts that have taken to the stage at the Carlyle hotel) will include an assortment of uniquely American artforms like jazz, funk, and blues.

Members craving a dose of sunshine can also take a selection of food and drink on the club's 55th-floor terrace, which (much like the Rosewood property at large) enjoys the sort of view that's conducive to sonnet writing or spontaneous tears of joy. Flanking one end of that terrace, you'll find the local chapter of Bemelmans Bar. Like its namesake, the menu here is split roughly equally between fine wines, punchbowls and classic cocktails; though, at the weekend, you can expect a certain frenetic atmosphere to take hold, as the space merges with the terrace for live DJ performances against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour.

Cosy quarters, brimming with personality

Though Carlyle & Co. members can easily book themselves into one of the 400-plus rooms at the surrounding Rosewood property, the entire 54th floor of the club is given over to eight themed suites -- all of which celebrate the history of The Carlyle hotel. More or less equal in size, each offers an inviting and distinctive interior personality. If you're retiring following an evening spent drinking (one too many) Martinis for instance, the 'Tommy' seems an apt choice -- named for and inspired by the legendary Bemelmans bartender Mr. Tommy Rowles. Other known personalities include Dorothy Draper, the original 'modern Baroque' decorator of The Carlyle's interiors; and Eartha Kitt, the renowned actress and Broadway musician. For dedicated students of café society, a stay in every single suite would seem like money well-spent.

A variety of membership packages are available at Carlyle & Co., with or without health club membership. To learn more about rates (or inquire about eligibility) visit Carlyle & Co. online.

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The Carlyle hotel-inspired bolthole -- slated to open on the uppermost floors of Rosewood Hong Kong later this year -- will offer a blueprint for the eponymous group's vision of "a new kind of international members' club". We venture north of the harbour to discover just what that entails...

Hitherto, the Hong Kong ecosystem of private members' clubs has been split broadly between two camps: at one end, you have venerable institutions catered to the needs of the city's professionals (the FCC) and those who surround them (the KCC); at the other, a burgeoning array of social haunts meant to profit from the growing number of Silicon Valley types -- hawkers of crypto, CBD cafes, and other speculative investment opportunities -- who reside here.

Call me Debbie Downer, but neither feels like an especially glam place to visit. After all, such clubs justify their patronage by way of mostly pragmatic considerations: a convenient location; access to business networking opportunities; affordable gym membership; and so forth. This, as Rosewood Hotels CEO Sonia Cheng well knows is where Carlyle & Co. can break the mould -- by conjuring a little glamour into Hong Kong's mostly comatose members' club scene.

Best thought of as a kind of pied-à-terre to the Rosewood Hong Kong (spanning the 54th-56th floor of the hotel) Carlyle & Co. is, in effect, Cheng's answer to the boutique members' clubs that have dominated pop culture these last 20 years. In Hong Kong -- where bureaucratic red tape is frequent; and decent-sized real estate scant -- her hotel group's latest venture feels especially impressive -- if for no other reason than the sheer audacity of it all.

In recent weeks, the first details of the club's leviathan 25,000 sq. ft. premises have begun to emerge, inspired in broad strokes by the "intriguing, inimitable and ultimately indefinable" style of The Carlyle in New York (incidentally also a brand owned by Rosewood Hotels). To orchestrate this vision of Hong Kong-via-Manhattan, Rosewood turned to British designer Ilse Crawford, whose approach has imbued the club's many rooms with a light, playful sensibility -- affording each a healthy dose of individual personality.

For fusty decadents like yours truly, the gentlemen's spaces -- including a barber, shoeshine, and capsule store by an award-winning haberdasher -- hold immense charm -- even though they espouse just one of many eclectic visual styles members will enjoy each time they navigate the club. The aforementioned differ significantly from spaces like the Cabaret Bar and Sitting Room, both of which employ the medium of painting (by artists Jean-Philippe Delhomme and Christina Zimpel respectively) to celebrate The Carlyle hotel's legendary Bemelmans murals.

Supper & Supping

In the spirit of its progenitor, the various dining venues at Carlyle & Co. seem to be accompanied by an august sense of occasion. The crux of the action happens at the brasserie, which (like any decent club restaurant in Hong Kong) serves a medley of Western, Chinese, and all-day delicacies. Here, the focus is on simply cooking the freshest produce the club can source -- various of the small plates are smoked, cured, or otherwise preserved in-house -- yet it's hardly the most theatrical outlet. That honour belongs to Café Carlyle, an intimate supper club intended as the local chapter of the eponymous tippling destination in New York. Members can expect this to be the repository of the club's live musical programming, which (consistent with the historic acts that have taken to the stage at the Carlyle hotel) will include an assortment of uniquely American artforms like jazz, funk, and blues.

Members craving a dose of sunshine can also take a selection of food and drink on the club's 55th-floor terrace, which (much like the Rosewood property at large) enjoys the sort of view that's conducive to sonnet writing or spontaneous tears of joy. Flanking one end of that terrace, you'll find the local chapter of Bemelmans Bar. Like its namesake, the menu here is split roughly equally between fine wines, punchbowls and classic cocktails; though, at the weekend, you can expect a certain frenetic atmosphere to take hold, as the space merges with the terrace for live DJ performances against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour.

Cosy quarters, brimming with personality

Though Carlyle & Co. members can easily book themselves into one of the 400-plus rooms at the surrounding Rosewood property, the entire 54th floor of the club is given over to eight themed suites -- all of which celebrate the history of The Carlyle hotel. More or less equal in size, each offers an inviting and distinctive interior personality. If you're retiring following an evening spent drinking (one too many) Martinis for instance, the 'Tommy' seems an apt choice -- named for and inspired by the legendary Bemelmans bartender Mr. Tommy Rowles. Other known personalities include Dorothy Draper, the original 'modern Baroque' decorator of The Carlyle's interiors; and Eartha Kitt, the renowned actress and Broadway musician. For dedicated students of café society, a stay in every single suite would seem like money well-spent.

A variety of membership packages are available at Carlyle & Co., with or without health club membership. To learn more about rates (or inquire about eligibility) visit Carlyle & Co. online.

The post Louis Vuitton Taps K-Pop Stars BTS as Ambassadors appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Forget swanky soirees. Jennifer and Omer Horev prove that when it comes to entertaining, breakfast is the new dinner.

The post Breakfast Bash with the Horevs appeared first on Palm Beach Illustrated.

A few of our favorite local millennials highlight their top picks for dining and drinking across the Palm Beaches

The post The Millennial’s Guide to Palm Beach County Dining appeared first on Palm Beach Illustrated.

A few of our favorite local millennials highlight their top picks for dining and drinking across the Palm Beaches

The post The Millennial’s Guide to Palm Beach County Dining appeared first on Palm Beach Illustrated.

The Carlyle hotel-inspired bolthole -- slated to open on the uppermost floors of Rosewood Hong Kong later this year -- will offer a blueprint for the eponymous group's vision of "a new kind of international members' club". We venture north of the harbour to discover just what that entails...

Hitherto, the Hong Kong ecosystem of private members' clubs has been split broadly between two camps: at one end, you have venerable institutions catered to the needs of the city's professionals (the FCC) and those who surround them (the KCC); at the other, a burgeoning array of social haunts meant to profit from the growing number of Silicon Valley types -- hawkers of crypto, CBD cafes, and other speculative investment opportunities -- who reside here.

Call me Debbie Downer, but neither feels like an especially glam place to visit. After all, such clubs justify their patronage by way of mostly pragmatic considerations: a convenient location; access to business networking opportunities; affordable gym membership; and so forth. This, as Rosewood Hotels CEO Sonia Cheng well knows is where Carlyle & Co. can break the mould -- by conjuring a little glamour into Hong Kong's mostly comatose members' club scene.

Best thought of as a kind of pied-à-terre to the Rosewood Hong Kong (spanning the 54th-56th floor of the hotel) Carlyle & Co. is, in effect, Cheng's answer to the boutique members' clubs that have dominated pop culture these last 20 years. In Hong Kong -- where bureaucratic red tape is frequent; and decent-sized real estate scant -- her hotel group's latest venture feels especially impressive -- if for no other reason than the sheer audacity of it all.

In recent weeks, the first details of the club's leviathan 25,000 sq. ft. premises have begun to emerge, inspired in broad strokes by the "intriguing, inimitable and ultimately indefinable" style of The Carlyle in New York (incidentally also a brand owned by Rosewood Hotels). To orchestrate this vision of Hong Kong-via-Manhattan, Rosewood turned to British designer Ilse Crawford, whose approach has imbued the club's many rooms with a light, playful sensibility -- affording each a healthy dose of individual personality.

For fusty decadents like yours truly, the gentlemen's spaces -- including a barber, shoeshine, and capsule store by an award-winning haberdasher -- hold immense charm -- even though they espouse just one of many eclectic visual styles members will enjoy each time they navigate the club. The aforementioned differ significantly from spaces like the Cabaret Bar and Sitting Room, both of which employ the medium of painting (by artists Jean-Philippe Delhomme and Christina Zimpel respectively) to celebrate The Carlyle hotel's legendary Bemelmans murals.

Supper & Supping

In the spirit of its progenitor, the various dining venues at Carlyle & Co. seem to be accompanied by an august sense of occasion. The crux of the action happens at the brasserie, which (like any decent club restaurant in Hong Kong) serves a medley of Western, Chinese, and all-day delicacies. Here, the focus is on simply cooking the freshest produce the club can source -- various of the small plates are smoked, cured, or otherwise preserved in-house -- yet it's hardly the most theatrical outlet. That honour belongs to Café Carlyle, an intimate supper club intended as the local chapter of the eponymous tippling destination in New York. Members can expect this to be the repository of the club's live musical programming, which (consistent with the historic acts that have taken to the stage at the Carlyle hotel) will include an assortment of uniquely American artforms like jazz, funk, and blues.

Members craving a dose of sunshine can also take a selection of food and drink on the club's 55th-floor terrace, which (much like the Rosewood property at large) enjoys the sort of view that's conducive to sonnet writing or spontaneous tears of joy. Flanking one end of that terrace, you'll find the local chapter of Bemelmans Bar. Like its namesake, the menu here is split roughly equally between fine wines, punchbowls and classic cocktails; though, at the weekend, you can expect a certain frenetic atmosphere to take hold, as the space merges with the terrace for live DJ performances against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour.

Cosy quarters, brimming with personality

Though Carlyle & Co. members can easily book themselves into one of the 400-plus rooms at the surrounding Rosewood property, the entire 54th floor of the club is given over to eight themed suites -- all of which celebrate the history of The Carlyle hotel. More or less equal in size, each offers an inviting and distinctive interior personality. If you're retiring following an evening spent drinking (one too many) Martinis for instance, the 'Tommy' seems an apt choice -- named for and inspired by the legendary Bemelmans bartender Mr. Tommy Rowles. Other known personalities include Dorothy Draper, the original 'modern Baroque' decorator of The Carlyle's interiors; and Eartha Kitt, the renowned actress and Broadway musician. For dedicated students of café society, a stay in every single suite would seem like money well-spent.

A variety of membership packages are available at Carlyle & Co., with or without health club membership. To learn more about rates (or inquire about eligibility) visit Carlyle & Co. online.

The post Mahnaz Lee: Breaking the Cycle appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

The Carlyle hotel-inspired bolthole -- slated to open on the uppermost floors of Rosewood Hong Kong later this year -- will offer a blueprint for the eponymous group's vision of "a new kind of international members' club". We venture north of the harbour to discover just what that entails...

Hitherto, the Hong Kong ecosystem of private members' clubs has been split broadly between two camps: at one end, you have venerable institutions catered to the needs of the city's professionals (the FCC) and those who surround them (the KCC); at the other, a burgeoning array of social haunts meant to profit from the growing number of Silicon Valley types -- hawkers of crypto, CBD cafes, and other speculative investment opportunities -- who reside here.

Call me Debbie Downer, but neither feels like an especially glam place to visit. After all, such clubs justify their patronage by way of mostly pragmatic considerations: a convenient location; access to business networking opportunities; affordable gym membership; and so forth. This, as Rosewood Hotels CEO Sonia Cheng well knows is where Carlyle & Co. can break the mould -- by conjuring a little glamour into Hong Kong's mostly comatose members' club scene.

Best thought of as a kind of pied-à-terre to the Rosewood Hong Kong (spanning the 54th-56th floor of the hotel) Carlyle & Co. is, in effect, Cheng's answer to the boutique members' clubs that have dominated pop culture these last 20 years. In Hong Kong -- where bureaucratic red tape is frequent; and decent-sized real estate scant -- her hotel group's latest venture feels especially impressive -- if for no other reason than the sheer audacity of it all.

In recent weeks, the first details of the club's leviathan 25,000 sq. ft. premises have begun to emerge, inspired in broad strokes by the "intriguing, inimitable and ultimately indefinable" style of The Carlyle in New York (incidentally also a brand owned by Rosewood Hotels). To orchestrate this vision of Hong Kong-via-Manhattan, Rosewood turned to British designer Ilse Crawford, whose approach has imbued the club's many rooms with a light, playful sensibility -- affording each a healthy dose of individual personality.

For fusty decadents like yours truly, the gentlemen's spaces -- including a barber, shoeshine, and capsule store by an award-winning haberdasher -- hold immense charm -- even though they espouse just one of many eclectic visual styles members will enjoy each time they navigate the club. The aforementioned differ significantly from spaces like the Cabaret Bar and Sitting Room, both of which employ the medium of painting (by artists Jean-Philippe Delhomme and Christina Zimpel respectively) to celebrate The Carlyle hotel's legendary Bemelmans murals.

Supper & Supping

In the spirit of its progenitor, the various dining venues at Carlyle & Co. seem to be accompanied by an august sense of occasion. The crux of the action happens at the brasserie, which (like any decent club restaurant in Hong Kong) serves a medley of Western, Chinese, and all-day delicacies. Here, the focus is on simply cooking the freshest produce the club can source -- various of the small plates are smoked, cured, or otherwise preserved in-house -- yet it's hardly the most theatrical outlet. That honour belongs to Café Carlyle, an intimate supper club intended as the local chapter of the eponymous tippling destination in New York. Members can expect this to be the repository of the club's live musical programming, which (consistent with the historic acts that have taken to the stage at the Carlyle hotel) will include an assortment of uniquely American artforms like jazz, funk, and blues.

Members craving a dose of sunshine can also take a selection of food and drink on the club's 55th-floor terrace, which (much like the Rosewood property at large) enjoys the sort of view that's conducive to sonnet writing or spontaneous tears of joy. Flanking one end of that terrace, you'll find the local chapter of Bemelmans Bar. Like its namesake, the menu here is split roughly equally between fine wines, punchbowls and classic cocktails; though, at the weekend, you can expect a certain frenetic atmosphere to take hold, as the space merges with the terrace for live DJ performances against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour.

Cosy quarters, brimming with personality

Though Carlyle & Co. members can easily book themselves into one of the 400-plus rooms at the surrounding Rosewood property, the entire 54th floor of the club is given over to eight themed suites -- all of which celebrate the history of The Carlyle hotel. More or less equal in size, each offers an inviting and distinctive interior personality. If you're retiring following an evening spent drinking (one too many) Martinis for instance, the 'Tommy' seems an apt choice -- named for and inspired by the legendary Bemelmans bartender Mr. Tommy Rowles. Other known personalities include Dorothy Draper, the original 'modern Baroque' decorator of The Carlyle's interiors; and Eartha Kitt, the renowned actress and Broadway musician. For dedicated students of café society, a stay in every single suite would seem like money well-spent.

A variety of membership packages are available at Carlyle & Co., with or without health club membership. To learn more about rates (or inquire about eligibility) visit Carlyle & Co. online.

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