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Campaigned extensively in period and one of only 20 examples made, this Maserati 200SI will be offered by Gooding Christie’s next month. Campaigned extensively in period and one of only 20 examples made, this Maserati 200SI will be offered by Gooding Christie’s next month.

Go inside Elite Traveler’s exclusive dinner with National Geographic Expeditions, where guests discovered the brand’s around-the-world private jet journeys. 

On a recent summer evening in Manhattan, the doors to the private dining room of New York’s most exclusive members club, Coco’s at Colette, opened to welcome an intimate group for an evening of discovery courtesy of a brand that’s become synonymous with the word over its storied 138-year history: National Geographic.  

The soaring skyline views from the 37^th floor of the General Motors building were particularly suited to the evening’s main topic of discussion, with the assembled guests gathering to learn more about National Geographic Expeditions’ flagship itineraries, in partnership with Elite Traveler, of around-the-world journeys by private jet. Even among the seasoned luxury travelers in attendance, the unique perspective of a continuous multi-week trip to the most fascinating, breathtaking, and historically significant destinations across the globe – including 12 UNESCO World Heritage sites – was a continuous source of wonder. 

See also: “Once in a Lifetime” Happens Every Day on National Geographic Expeditions by Private Jet 

“Most private jet programs sell access, whereas National Geographic Expeditions sells understanding, and I think that’s a key difference,” said Andrew Nelson, longtime travel correspondent and guide for the magazine as well as the evening’s featured speaker. “The guests we’re talking to understand luxury; it’s what they’re getting for their money that money can’t buy. That’s perspective shaped by more than 100 years of National Geographic’s engagement with the world and all that’s in it.” 

Befitting the event’s theme of An Evening of Exploration: Journeys Around the World, the food and beverage team at Coco’s at Colette developed a menu that ranged across continents, incorporating elements of Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian, Peruvian, and Moroccan cuisines, from sweet potato hummus with dukkha and tuna tataki canapés to an entrée of striped bass featuring turmeric beurre blanc, dill, mint, haricot verts, and Fresno peppers. Between courses, Nelson held forth on everything from the effects of social media on luxury travel to the common trait he notices in the explorers he most admires (hint: don’t be afraid to cut against the flow of the crowd). His role, as he sees it, is “teaching people how to see the world. Not simply where to go, but how to understand what they’re experiencing once they get there. We can stand before the pyramids, watch wildlife in Africa, or walk ancient streets in Asia, but proximity isn’t the same thing as connection. We provide context – historically, culturally, artistically.” 

See also: Three Globe-Circling Private Jet Trips that are Greater than the Sum of Their Destinations 

As desserts of mandarin orange givree were served, talk turned to the nitty-gritty, with National Geographic Expeditions SVP and general manager Nancy Schumacher stepping in to answer the type of detailed queries that can only come from an Elite Traveler-caliber audience, from relationships with celebrated local guides – try Explorers-in-Residence Maeve and Louise Leakey at Olduvai Gorge, in Tanzania – to contingency plans for unforeseen mechanical issues (a longtime partnership with Icelandic Air means a backup jet is always primed for delivery should the first become grounded). But again and again, discussion returned to the spectacular opportunity to weave together a singular, globe-spanning travel narrative unrivalled in its depth and access – particularly at a time when, according to Nelson, “the world has become easier to visit but in some ways harder to understand.” 

“The best hotels, cities, landscapes, and cultural experiences act as portals into larger stories – they help us understand a place, not merely visit it,” he explained. “Anybody 
can go somewhere, but far fewer people know what they’re looking at when they arrive and then return home with a deeper understanding of why places matter. The greatest travel object isn’t a souvenir; it’s a new way of seeing the world.” 

The newly launched GTX90 Sport Utility Yacht is at once powerful and comfortable. The newly launched GTX90 Sport Utility Yacht is at once powerful and comfortable.

A new ultra-luxury resort at the foot of Aspen Mountain introduces a new era for the iconic destination. Offering luxury residences and private membership, Chalet Alpina is redefining mountain living. 

There’s a buzz rippling through Colorado’s storied Aspen Mountain, and it’s not just from the adrenalin-fuelled skiers completing off-piste runs. The thrill is emanating from the new Chalet Alpina, which is responsible for ushering in a new era for the lauded Aspen community. For ski-lovers, culture-seekers, and homeowners alike, it is, perhaps, the most significant address to be built in the modern history of this iconic destination.

Found next to the historic Lift One, the pioneering ski lift at the base of the mountain, the new elite resort combines a luxury hotel, a full-scale private membership offering and beautifully designed residences with exceptional ski-in, ski out functionality. Offering a rare opportunity for homeowners to purchase property in this heritage destination, the new Resort Residences are the next milestone in the $350m project, debuting as part of this summer’s release.

The limited collection of full-service residences fully immerses homeowners in the glamorous mountain lifestyle and apres-ski culture that Aspen is renowned for. Priced from under $3m, there’s a line-up of two-, three- and four-bedroom Resort Residences, available for shared ownership. All will offer full access to all luxury amenities and covetable services available at the resort. A smaller collection of high-end Mountain Homes is also due to be available for those looking for full ownership and access to Chalet Alpina.

Interiors throughout Chalet Alpina, including the new residences, have been designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. The London-based designer is renowned for his vibrant signature style, seen most famously at Annabel’s in Mayfair, as well as at some of the world’s most beloved hospitality projects. Inspired by the legacy that is woven through Aspen, as well as a traditional Alpine ski chalet aesthetic, the result is a multi-layering of soft textures and materials drawn from the surrounding landscape. “Each space will flow into the next, with a quiet rhythm and a sense of narrative,” says Brudnizki. “The idea is that guests and residents have stepped into a beautifully told story.” 

As well as the prestigious address that comes with ownership, all residents will also receive a first consideration to membership at Chalet Alpina, which brings with it a 360° sense of belonging: with access to multiple restaurants, lounges, and bars reserved just for members and their guests. Chalet Alpina’s all-year resort amenities are also on tap – from a ski concierge to plan curated adventures to the rooftop pool that overlooks Aspen Mountain, as well as dedicated wellness and fitness areas.

The whole project is a collaboration between Irongate Group and HayMax, two developers whose focus has been to build a new Aspen icon as well as bringing a lasting contribution to the mountain’s story. Minutes from downtown, and at the very start of the mountain – it is, by every measure, Aspen at another level.

Discover more about Chalet Alpina.

Two tastemakers make their opposing cases. 

From Dior’s artistic experimentation and Balenciaga’s bioengineered textiles to Iris van Herpen’s sculptural masterpieces, Paris Haute Couture Week FW26/27 demonstrated that the future of luxury lies in fearless creativity. 

Every six months, Paris Haute Couture Week dreams up a whole new wardrobe for fashion’s top spenders while simultaneously displaying the latest ideas concocted by fashion’s greatest laboratory. This week, with clothes offered for fall/winter 2026/27 couture season, was ferociously more science- and art-driven than style led.

All week a flotilla of limousines ferried clients and movie stars between couture shows and VIC dinner parties staged by marques such as Dior, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga or Chanel. Couture, of course, remains the holy grail of the world’s richest and most filmed women – those in search of something unique and exclusive become, in a sense, privileged guinea pigs of these labels. And the results can be extraordinary.

See also: The Best of Paris Men’s Fashion Week: From Pharrell’s Wave to Dior’s New Masculinity

Dior

Few couturiers today are as experimental or exciting as Dior’s Jonathan Anderson. His inspiration this season was the American artist Lynda Benglis, who lived between Santa Fe, New Mexico and Ahmedabad, India.

The designer took Benglis’ metallic casting sculpture and use of gold leaf and zinc into remarkable metallic plissé silk fan-shaped dresses, and extended her 1970s gestural abstract sculptures in beeswax or polyurethane into magnificent suits – like a leaf shaped Bar jacket in knitted cashmere over a twisting beehive-like skirt.

An early visit by Benglis to India led to several peacock works that were the inspiration for a beguiling set of huge embroidered fans, attached onto twisting silk columns. Very much a feminist designer, Benglis – feeling underrepresented in the male-dominated art world – famously paid for her own ad pages in Art Forum magazine. These featured a nude portrait of herself posing with a double dildo. Anderson featured a smeared version of that image in several bold looks in this show, staged on the opening Monday of the four-day season.

“We obviously blurred the ad – that would have got us into trouble,” laughed Anderson in a preview with Elite Traveler, before a show where models marched in an open-sided tent decorated with huge ferns built in the garden of the Rodin Museum.

Dior had just dressed Taylor Swift in the most celebrated wedding of the decade, in Madison Square Garden, so it was fitting that the buzziest look was Dior’s bridal ensemble. Especially, as Swift has yet to release a photo of the wedding.

The Northern Irish-born couturier – normally a voluble figure – was demure when asked about Swift’s ensemble: “It’s been an honor to dress her for this special occasion,” he said. But his final outfit in this superb show was a suitably romantic wedding dress embroidered with fabric fern stems and leaves. The lushest of laboratory looks.

Schiaparelli

There was synthetic surrealist couture at Schiaparelli. American couturier Daniel Roseberry banished silks, satins, and wool in exchange for latex, silicone, and paint-baked sheets sculpted into a dramatic new boleros and jackets with bravura bows.

Roseberry continually tricked the eye with sculpted bustiers that morphed into clinker-built cocktails or phantasmagorical jumpsuits with tubular tentacles.

Daniel Roseberry is couture’s greatest image maker, renowned for his bowl shapes, suggestive ideas and technical audacity. Bad Bunny who turned up with a custom-made, cream-colored Schiaparelli zoot suit, complemented by a golden knit tie, while most of the rest of the front row was dressed in black with gold touches.

The collection itself was in lobster pink, blush porcelain, sea blues, tangerine and saffron, and even pale mint. The designer was given a standing ovation inside the Petit Palais, and rightly so – Schiaparelli is the most consistently coherent couturier in town this past decade.

Armani Privé

Couture houses compete for the most glistening front-row. Emma Corin wowed in a bird of paradise look at Schiaparelli; Chanel lured Michele Leo; Tilda Swinton wore French coup Catherine Deneuve, formerly a Yves Saint Laurent loyalist; Dior could boast Sabrina Carpenter, Josh O’Connor, and Naomi Watts.

But the classy quotient showed up at Armani Privé, where Cate Blanchett, Rosamund Pyke, Lou Doillon, Laura Harrier, and Cindy Bruna all looked sensational in black velvet tuxedo looks. Dotted among them was fashion’s favorite composer Ludovico Einaudi and dancer Etoile Hugo Marchand.

Since Giorgio’s passing last year, Privé has been designed by his niece Silvana Armani. The key here was classicism with experimentation, with a marvellous series of glistening masculine jackets in a dark palette of hunter green, burgundy, burnt amaranth, and scores of blacks. While for evening, a series of alligator pattern sequined columns cried out for an Oscar statuette as an accessory.

“It’s about how choosing an outfit becomes a ritual that reveals a woman’s inner world and a secret facet of her personality,” explained Silvana, who entitled the collection Boudoir.

Theoretically, according to Giorgio’s will, the Armani family are due to sell at least 15 percent of the brand by March 2027, and control within five years, yet Silvana and the house’s menswear designer Leo Dell’Orca – who sat front row – don’t seem in any hurry to depart the stage. And, given the polish and sophisticated brio of these clothes, a stylish future seems assured.

Chanel

A phantasmagorical, fairy tale from Chanel, served up to an audience perched among a comic book garden of poisoned ivy worthy of Jack and the Beanstalk or The Three Bears. This mood was reflected in the clothes: shaggy bird’s nest redingotes and cloche hats; shoes with vine heels; red pepper-shaped clutches. The classic four-pocket suit was constructed in icy guipure lace or russet or golden tweed, presented alongside mannish three-piece Prince of Wales suits worn with miniskirts, or cocktails made of delicate wisps of chiffon trimmed with gold strings and pearls.

However, the entire mood was juxtaposed by the soundtrack – a housewife bitterly recounting her banal duties, from washing dishes to arranging sweaters. And 35 years after Jean-Paul Goode shot Vanessa Paradis as a bird of paradise for Chanel, the singer performed at Chanel’s post-show after-party.

See also: The Standout Collections, Trends, and Moments From Milan Fashion Week

Balenciaga

It was a brilliant couture debut at Balenciaga by Pierpaolo Piccioli, in the house’s 55th couture collection since Spain’s Cristobal Balenciaga opened his house in Paris in 1937. There was artful experimentation, where 3D digital scans helped develop moulded leather carapaces, used as architectonic structures under enveloping gowns; and curvaceous silk gazar dresses or bulb-shaped gowns in densely packed fabric flowers.

Balenciaga’s tradition of textile innovation triumphed with Amsilk, an advanced bioengineered, fossil-free material with 2.5 times the tensile strength of steel. It also boasts a rare glimmering sheen, seen in some fab dresses – the mood enhanced by the blinding morning sun in the Cité Université campus.

Couture is “a territory for experimentation and engineering. It can be a prism through which to witness both the current moment, and the identity of Balenciaga,” philosophized Piccioli, who sportingly took his bow with 40 atelier staff – all dressed in lab coats.

Presented to the soundtrack of Anthony and The Johnson hits, it was a moment of grace amid the madding crowd of couture.

Rahul Mishra

The Delhi-based couturier Rahul Mishra unveiled a truly excellent collection, inspired by the Ajanta cave monuments. These second century BC Buddhist masterpieces led to a fantastic series of gray and black statuesque dresses, where hand embroidery

mimicked the surface of sandstone and the contours suggested basalt. Rahul tapped into the ancient Indian embroidery techniques of Zardozzi or Dabka, applying crystals and bugle beads to create truly unique trompe-l’oeil cocktails.

In places the collection was erratic, not aided by dressing several models in monumental fabric arches, before a finale of body stockings, jumpsuits and bridal gowns dusted in beads and crystals. But it was spectacular. In the front row Cardi B caused a paparazzi feeding frenzy, which was exceeded by a storm of flashing lights for Rahul’s ultimate major domo, Isha Mambani, the daughter of India’s greatest billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Isha’s key role in the Reliance – the Mukesh company that bankrolls Rahul – has led the Times of India to dub her The Fashion Baroness.

Staged inside the medieval College des Bernadins, this was a powerful reminder of India’s special source of inspiration in fashion.

Standing Ground

Fashion loves a debut, and we witnessed a highly accomplished inauguration by Standing Ground by Michael Stewart inside the Irish Embassy. After a quiet decade, this County Clare-born couturier seemingly sprung out of nowhere with a hit capsule collection in 2023 for Fashion East, the most important talent scout display in the industry. He then won a Savoir Faire award in the 2024 LVMH Prize.

Stewart crafts gowns of almost spiritual elegance, long pure mono-color robes finished with hidden beading and tubes. He drapes with aplomb and ruches with precision – creating twisting gowns in rivulets of fabrics in precise hues – Yves Klein blue, sinful crimson or burnt umber.

“I feel very welcomed in Paris and I really appreciate that,” explained the affable red-headed Celtic couturier inside the 18th century mansion off the Champs Elysées.

For his Paris debut, he broke new ground with a remarkable wedding dress in abstract handmade Carrickmacross lace. Supported by the Design & Craft Council of Ireland, it took 26 pairs of hands and 4,000 hours to create this experimental bride — unlike any seen before in Paris.

“I wanted to showcase Irish craft and enrich the heritage and skills in Ireland and bring them to a stage that I feel they deserve,” concluded the gentle giant.

Stéphane Rolland

One can always rely on Stéphane Rolland for a memorable show. On Tuesday he presented a homage to beautiful Dalida, the Egyptian-born Italo-French singer, who captivated France until her death in 1987. Staged inside the Olympia theater – where Dalida’s career first launched – the cast marched out before a massive video of her interpretation of lost love, Avec Le Temps.

Like the opening clip, the entire collection was in black and white – 90 percent the latter – in a sustained display of classy French glamor by Rolland, France’s last great Indie

couturier. Working with silk gazar, satin macramé or pleated crepe he sent out Zouave trouser jumpsuits; bustier dresses finished with ostrich feathers; and an exquisite long scarf dress, its arms and shoulders embroidered in onyx and gold silicone. Not so much experimentation but elegant refinement.

Iris Van Herpen

Couture at its most wilfully turbulent from the Dutch creator whose inspiration was the Victorian artist and inventor Margaret Watts Hughes’ experiments with materializing her own voice, long before scientists translated the oscillations of stars into music.

The result was metaphysical. Starting with fractal fashion – flowing chiffons and organzas hand-pleated into sweeping half-wheels and suspended within moon-curved bonings of laser-cut carbon fiber, before climaxing with a one-shoulder tulle dress covered with 10,000 hand-blown glass spheres.

These clothes are mostly to end up in a well-endowed fashion museum rather than in a wardrobe, but when it comes to innovation Iris hit a home run.

Boloria

Couture always attracts the odd avant garde ready-to-wear show and this season that role fell to Boloria, an unexpected project backed by the Beers brothers, founders of dance-music festival Tomorrowland, and designed by Belgian Olivier Theyskens.

This turned out to be an exhilarating return by Theyskens – one of the most talented designers of his generation. He reinvented his early Gothic ideas which so seduced Madonna into giant flowing dark goddess gowns made in acres of anthracite technical taffeta. And dreamt up a great series of slimline wool or lambskin redingotes and sexy governess dresses, before finishing this co-ed with a gang of piratical lads in britches and barely-on silk shirts ideal for an after-midnight summer rave.

Elie Saab

A masked moment and a dash of surrealism at Elie Saab, where a sweeping organza creation evoked the deft clouds of Magritte, and a floor-sweeping gown in silk was overprinted by Dali roses.

Working with consummate skill as a draper, Elie twisted and scrunched lilac metallic silk or Pacific blue shantung into organic dresses that seemed to suggest they bloomed naturally from nature. In a new direction for the Lebanese couturier, ball gowns soared with winged columns, justifying Saab’s title for the collection: The Ball of Untamed Dreams.

Jean-Paul Gaultier

Last but by no means least, Duran Lantink at Jean-Paul Gaultier staged the season’s last vital show, a bravura interpretation of the house’s codes. And structurally the most experimental show of all.

Proposing Jean-Paul’s famed bustiers – in blood-red Meccano leather; or upside-down blouse. Revolutionizing Versailles courtier jackets in faded denim and patchwork biker looks.

His most bizarre trick was switching the tulle trains of ball gowns to the front, as tuxedo jackets and satin blousons sprouted acres of fabric. The collection took on Chapman Brothers levels of shock, with a remarkable pink feathered column where a trio of swan’s necks all disappeared into the torso. Hallucinatory haute couture to the end.

Hypersail will be the first 100-foot foiler to achieve complete energy autonomy, according to the marque.  Hypersail will be the first 100-foot foiler to achieve complete energy autonomy, according to the marque. 

Ralph Lauren created more than just a fashion brand – Anna Murphy explores how he invented an entirely new way of dressing. 

It’s not the one who conjures the biggest catwalk splashes; who creates viral pieces and moments. It’s the one who has changed the very narrative of how we dress today, so much so that his achievements are hiding in plain sight. 

Ralph Lauren invented the language of the contemporary wardrobe. Right from the beginning – from the launch of Polo in 1967, and then womenswear in 1972 – he was all about a mix that was both irreverent and aspirational. In Lauren land – a realm that melds wearability and aspiration – and now in the world at large, it’s completely normal to pair, say, a tuxedo jacket with a pair of jeans. Yet to combine a tux with blue denim is to cross-fertilise two very different takes on the American dream. Jay Gatsby meets John Wayne. People didn’t do that before Lauren came along. 

It was he who first drew on multiple American dreams and coalesced them into a whole. Also in the mix was everyone from Sitting Bull to Amelia Earhart by way of Katharine Hepburn and Joe DiMaggio.  

See also: The Designer Behind Dior’s Wildest Shoes Is Breaking All the Rules

So-called code switching is at the heart of modern fashion, and this is the designer who began it all, as evidenced by the weighty new tome Ralph Lauren: Catwalk Collection, which covers over 100 women’s runway shows and contains over 1,000 images. People don’t want to be one thing anymore. They want to be several. They want to have their cake and eat it. To be polished yet cool. Preppy yet hip. Uptown yet downtown. Part of something yet also definitively themselves. 

Right from the start Lauren – who, in another manifestation of the American dream, is still working at 86 – wasn’t just creating clothes but casting a surround-sound world. His approach is akin to that of a film director, creating his own double takes on the movies he loved growing up as Ralph Lifshitz, the son of two Jewish immigrants, in the Bronx. His storytelling, like that of the other great American mythmaker, Hollywood, has captured the imagination of the world.  

The pictures in the book from the first collection, for fall/winter 72/3, show clothes that could be worn today, be that the then- newfangled notion of a tuxedo dress (backless and to-the-floor) or the natty tweed suiting that channelled the British aristocracy. (Because threaded into the American dream, and thus Lauren’s dream, were other origin stories from further afield.) 

See also: Why Has Chanel Bought Historic Shirtmaker Charvet?

The tropes of masculine dressing were feminised so definitively in this catwalk debut that onlookers at the time found it as confusing as they did beguiling. The New Yorker declared it “a phenomenon to bewilder anthropologists… [one] not only astonishing but handsome.” Like all truly great designers, Lauren is, in truth, akin to an anthropologist himself, looking at who people are, or want to be, and how they dress themselves to semaphor to other their identity, whether real or aspired to.  

In the early years Lauren still hadn’t visited Europe, incidentally. Nor had he yet been to Africa, from which he was inspired to recreate safari chic. He hadn’t even made it to a New England prep school, another aesthetic that was central to his oeuvre. It was his original outsider status – long vanished, of course – that made him so good at capturing the world of the insider, and at repackaging it in such a way as to appeal both to those who were already there and those who, like him, wanted to be. “If I had been born to it I might not have been… I wouldn’t have had the same dream,” he once told me. 

“I don’t like fashion,” he also said on that same occasion, the man who started out as a tie salesman, modeling to his then-customers the old-school-ish styles he had created with jeans, a leather bomber and cowboy boots. What? Ralph Lauren doesn’t like fashion? “No,” he continued. “It’s very changeable. It’s… It’s about time. I like style. Style is, in a way, who you are, and using your own sensibilities to present yourself. I never went to fashion school, but I do design clothes. I do come up with the dream. I want it to be good, and I want it to be timeless.” 

To flick through the pages of his new book – all 631 of them – is to see season after season, look after look, that would work just as well today as they did back in the year of their genesis. Timeless indeed.  

Perhaps it’s the perfect white shirt dress, from spring-summer 85, or the cut-to-kill monochrome tailoring from the Hollywood-inspired collection of fall/winter 95-6 or the kaleidoscope of floorsweeper frocks from spring-summer 2004 or the nautical chic of spring-summer 2016. I could go on. (And on.) 

See also: The Royal Family’s Secret Weapon? Fashion

And he is still nailing it, to wit the gloriously on-brand mash-up from this season, whether that’s the pairing of a simple white vest with a mindblowingly glamorous gold and silver beaded skirt or the multi-coloured ultra-cool-looking preppiness. And then there are next season’s deliciously operatic odd-couple pairings. A frothy white jabot collar toughened up by a black bomber jacket, a cream satin and lace gown with a Butch Cassidy belt. Heaven. 

“I had the vision,” Lauren told me. “I had the girl. I had the guy. I knew what they looked like.” And now we are that girl. We are that guy. And the whole world knows what they look like. 

With 275 feet of frontage on historic Blakely Harbor, walls of glass dissolve the line between indoors and out. With 275 feet of frontage on historic Blakely Harbor, walls of glass dissolve the line between indoors and out.

The model’s BMW-sourced mill has been depowered to meet European emissions standards. The model’s BMW-sourced mill has been depowered to meet European emissions standards.