Celebrity Life

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 15-piece boutique exclusive -- inspired by the Maison's mantra of 'Classic with a Twist' -- is built around an extremely thin split-second movement, cased in the noble metal of platinum.

From the so-called 'Cornes de Vache' to the iconic Ref. 4072, it's clear that Vacheron Constantin know a thing or two when it comes to the matter of 'gentleman's chronographs'. For this year's Watches & Wonders presentation, the brand affirmed its dedication to aesthetically refined design and sophisticated mechanisms with this new Traditionnelle chronograph: a rather rare execution that combines an all-platinum case construction with Vacheron's calibre 3500 (introduced half a decade prior in the similarly thin Harmony split-seconds).

As part of the Traditionnelle line-up -- Vacheron's exhaustive collection of heritage-inspired models, powered by complex in-house movements -- this new chronograph looks every inch at home on the wrists of those who venerate the Swiss watchmaking heritage (or alternatively, on the bonnet of an 'understated' 4-door saloon).

The watch's mouthful of a product description also makes clear that it's a part of the 'Collection Excellence Platine': incorporating a litany of platinum into nearly every external element of the watch you can think of. The case is machined from PT950 platinum (i.e. alloyed with 5 percent ruthenium) as are the crown, dial, and folding clasp. Even the brand's signature Mississippi alligator straps have been sewn using a combo of silk/platinum thread -- the final flourish in Vacheron's impressive, undoubtedly costly dedication to watchmaking's rarest metal.

All dressed up in its external layers of platinum and alligator, the calibre 3500 measures up at impressive 10.72mm -- thin, even by the standard of many contemporary time-only dress watches (though arguably, not quite 'ultra-thin'). The watch itself falls neatly into the 42mm bracket: a popular size for larg-ish, classically styled chronographs of the modern era in the mould of the Patek Ref. 5070 or 1st generation Datograph.

Though the calibre 3500 made its debut over half a decade prior -- at the time, to celebrate Vacheron's 260th anniversary -- it nevertheless remains a technically impressive take on a seminal complication. The alignment of the horizontal clutch and dual column wheels echoes Vacheron's previous forays into high-end chronograph manufacturing; and provide ample scenery against which the manufacture has been able to level jaw-dropping amounts of anglage. Further hand-finished details (e.g. the peripheral rotor in 22K gold) contribute to the calibre 3500's certification under the Geneva Seal -- awarded exclusively to those movements made and assembled in the eponymous Swiss canton that satisfy the rigours of an independently administered 12-point test.

The Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle split-seconds chronograph ultra-thin 'Collection Excellence Platine' is available in a limited edition of 15 pieces. Price available on request. To learn more, visit Vacheron Constantin online.

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This addition to the technically focused L.U.C collection celebrates 25 years of horological mettle, with a quadruple-barreled movement and 'jumping hour' display -- a first for Chopard.

Along with the release of its customary high jewellery novelties, Chopard is debuting its first 'jumping hour' wristwatch just in time for Watches & Wonders 2021. Dubbed the 'Quattro Spirit 25', this new release embodies the Maison at its most regal -- a visually and mechanically striking contrast to the growing line-up of Alpine Eagle sports watches.

On its face a simplistic, time-only dress watch, the Quattro Spirit 25 is in actuality a paean to the L.U.C manufacture: the specialist watchmaking studio founded by Chopard's president Karl-Friedrich Scheufele in 1996, tasked with the sole purpose of making "simple and pure designs [expressing] a high degree of mechanical sophistication". As you'd expect, Chopard won't be making many of these.

Cased in 40mm of Chopard's signature fair-mined 18k rose gold, the Quattro Spirit 25 is the epitome of a discrete dress watch -- ideal for enthusiasts of modernist clothing and design. Up close however, it's clear there's more going on than meets the eye: a sensation that's handily captured in the very open, whiter-than-white dial that seems to be punctuated only by an aperture and single minutes hand. Enthusiasts familiar with models like IWC's Pallweber or the Monsieur de Chanel will recognise this as a 'jumping hours' layout: by no means unusual in the realm of high-end watchmaking, but the first time that it's ever been offered by Chopard.

Aside from the frame of the jumping hour, the whole dial is decorated using a black-on-white aesthetic well-suited to the watch's combination of transferred decals (e.g. the numbers and minute track) and Grand Feu enamel. As one of the great classical metiers in decorative art, there aren't too many individuals remaining in the watch industry who specialise in Grand Feu enamel. Among a handful of other names, Chopard is fortunate to have its own dedicated enameller, who crafts these dials using a kiln-firing process in which temperatures frequently exceed 820°C. This leaves collectors with a white dial that is unrivalled in its luster and colour fast-ness -- the right kind of face for an elegant gold dress watch.

Naturally, watches with jumping hour displays always require a big reservoir of energy, and Chopard has seen to it that the Quattro Spirit 25 gets just that in the form of a new manually wound calibre. Explaining the connection to the 'Quattro' name, this new L.U.C movement relies on a series of four coupled barrels -- giving it an impressive 190 hours of reserve power. Even though most of the gear train's architecture is covered by a series of bridges, this new movement is a feast for the eyes: highlights include the copious amounts of Côtes de Genève finishing, finely polished bevels and a 'swan neck' style regulator -- equipped for very minute adjustments with a Phillips terminal curve.

The L.U.C Quattro Spirit 25 is available in a limited edition of 100 pieces, priced at HK$360,000. To learn more, visit Chopard online.

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