Автор: karymsakov_qq4zn395

This new whiskey is solid, but not quite as special as previous releases. This new whiskey is solid, but not quite as special as previous releases.

The Mill Neck residence features nine bedrooms, a sunken great room, and semi-attached guest house. The Mill Neck residence features nine bedrooms, a sunken great room, and semi-attached guest house.

From Chanel to Bottega Veneta, the world’s top houses are betting on the next generation of artisans. 

Big-name brands are investing in high-level academies and educational programs dedicated to training the next generation of specialists – and preserving a legacy of craftsmanship in the process.

It can take a few days, involving a technically complex process and that elusive virtue of patience, for a Bottega Veneta tote to be handwoven in the house’s signature intrecciato style. At Accademia Labor et Ingenium, Bottega Veneta’s academy of craft and creativity near Vicenza (Veneto), students are trained in these leathercraft processes by master artisans with decades of expertise.

Established in 2023, the academy’s workshops and courses offer both classroom and practical atelier-based learning, with skills ranging from prototyping to production. Like most of these high-end training academies, entry is competitive; only 50 students are accepted annually.

“As a young apprentice at Bottega Veneta, I learned from the expertise, passion and precision of more experienced artisans,” said Ruggero Negretto, one of the academy’s program leaders and a long-standing Bottega Veneta master craftsman.

At Tod’s headquarters in Italy’s Marche region, meanwhile, Tod’s Academy is a mentor-led ‘laboratory of ideas.’ The focus is on creative collaboration and reinterpreting the house’s ‘Made in Italy’ heritage through a sustainable lens. Students from international fashion schools are tasked with reimagining Tod’s design codes and signature products – from the Gommino loafer to the T Timeless logo – in projects combining Italian manufacturing traditions, creative expertise, and environmentally conscious materials like vegan leather and recycled rubber.

The lucky few (you can count them on one hand) who are accepted into Chanel’s Métiers d’Art Fellowship programs learn centuries-old secrets of European haute couture embroidery, pleating, featherwork, and millinery. Mentored by craftspeople from Atelier Montex, Lesage, and Lemarié – whose handwork on Chanel’s haute couture and Métiers d’Art collections captivates each season – students undertake intensive training programs learning time-honored skills such as plumasserie (feather embroidery), felt shaping, and appliqué.

In the Italian town of Casperia, 30 miles north of Rome, the Massoli tailoring academy is empowering Italy’s future artisans, with Fendi’s support. Dedicated to reviving what it perceives as «a neglected and heavily undervalued sector,» the academy is preserving the skills and knowledge that underpin a longstanding ‘Made in Italy’ heritage. These include tailored drapery, corsetry, patternmaking, hand sewing, and material studies.

While Italy’s culture of high jewelry predates the Renaissance, an emerging generation is learning the importance of balancing traditional techniques with technological innovation. Established in 2025 in partnership with TADS (Tarì Design School), Scuola Bulgari in Valenza, Piemonte is the maison’s first publicly accessible training school offering courses in goldsmithing and gemstone setting. Practical training is enhanced by state-of-the-art laboratory equipment for refining processes like modeling, welding, laser cutting, and fretwork.

European luxury houses are declaring it: tomorrow’s artisans are not only the custodians of practical skills and knowledge that has been passed on for generations, they are also a vital part of the evolving dialogue between heritage and innovation.

Hospitality’s biggest ticket item, the signature suite, is in danger of feeling dated. Enough with the marble, bring on the fun. 

Such was the power of ‘the suite’ that that assumption of glamour and grandeur soaked into popular culture; witness Julia Roberts’s bubble bath scene in Pretty Woman or Macaulay Culkin’s shenanigans at The Plaza in Home Alone.

But as levels of wealth have exploded in the intervening decades since those 1990s blockbusters, fewer and fewer signature suites have kept pace with that elevated standard of living. Jaclyn India Sienna, founder of the members-only travel agency Sienna Charles, puts it bluntly: “Our billionaire clients might have five-plus $30m residences, and they know [when they travel] they can’t have anything close to the universe they’ve created at home. So, they don’t see the value in spending a ton of money on suites; they just view these spaces as rooms.”

For them, even ‘the world’s best hotel suite’ is a downgrade. For hospitality groups bent on continual growth (or at least wary of declining profitability), it’s an issue that needs addressing. While signature suites will likely always find receptive audiences who want to splurge on a one-night wedding-anniversary stay or milestone birthday celebrations, speak to hoteliers in London, New York and Paris and they’ll tell you the real revenue comes from the UHNW clients who have traditionally been happy to drop $30,000 a night on weeks- or months-long bookings. General managers will tell you they’re worried these customers are becoming increasingly elusive.

One potential stumbling block is the predictable approach taken to those premium offerings. Instead of creating a residence that serves as the ultimate expression of their brand identity, too many hotels are playing it safe with the same tired playbook of Carrara marble and chandeliers. Fancy, yes, but ultimately forgettable. Having designed signature suites for the likes of The Upper House and The Berkeley, André Fu feels it’s clear clients’ expectations have “evolved hugely in the past decade. [It’s no longer enough to] furnish decadent empty boxes with a grand piano.” Exacerbating the problem: Those same listless spaces are now facing increased competition – and not just from new hotels in their home city.

See also: The Top Wellness Suites in the World

Among a slew of exclusive-use properties that are enticing the likes of Sienna Charles’s clients with the promise of a more consistent home-from home experience, Ibiza’s exclusive-use retreat Isla Sa Ferradura sits on a private promontory and provides a staff of 24, two pools, two bars, a rooftop DJ deck, spa, exceptional catering – more or less a full private-resort experience from €250,000 (approx. $290,000) a week. During the pandemic, Mandarin Oriental launched its self-explanatory Exclusive Homes collection, a growing portfolio that includes Cotswolds manors and Los Angeles mansions. Accor has acquired onefinestay, a tightly curated, resolutely upmarket alternative to the likes of AirBnB and, tellingly, Rosewood Hotels now refers to its best suites as ‘Houses.’ At its new London hotel The Chancery, itself an all-suite property, Elizabeth House comes with an office, terrace and fully equipped kitchen – ideal for longer stays.

But still, for hotel designer Bill Bensley it’s a sense of fun and playfulness that is often the missing ingredient. Responsible for flagship properties for the likes of Capella Hotels and Four Seasons, his priority is to create surprising suites that deliver a narrative and sense of place, ones that “delight, not just accommodate.” Though his clients bring constraints – “developers love the idea of ‘wow’, but when it comes to reality, budgets and risk loom large” – his own dream suites of the future would serve as “little sanctuaries of surprise that break rules and surprise the senses, where maybe the shower sits in the middle of a tropical garden, or a hidden passage leads to a sketching nook.”

See also: The Top Family Suites in the World

It’s an ideal perhaps best expressed in his Heritage Railcar Two-bedroom Pool Villa at Thailand’s InterContinental Khao Yai. At 197-ft long and 8.2-ft wide, it comprises two upcycled, conjoined vintage train carriages, harking back to the romanticized era of cross-continental rail journeys with its polished brass and leather seating. (More broadly, the hotel’s design was inspired by the story of a fictional, historic train conductor; trinkets and heirlooms detailing his imagined life are laid out like Easter eggs to be discovered across the property.)

Some hotel groups seem to be following Bensley’s lead – embracing a greater sense of creativity to deliver suites explicitly conceived as settings for socializing and fun rather than chicbut-somber showpieces. Rocco Forte Hotels’ new Suites & Beyond program is reinterpreting its best rooms as adaptable stages, meaning terraces at Hotel de la Ville suites in Rome can now accommodate stargazing beds or host ‘sky tours’ led by astronomers, while local performers (such as pipers in Edinburgh or a jazz trio in Brussels) can be booked to deliver private shows through the brand’s Musical Room Service. Shangri-la Hotels is upping its game, too. At Shangri-la Paris, guests in the L’Appartement Prince Bonaparte, a protected residence with Versailles-style flooring and acres of gilt, can book the Bonaparte Dinner to feast on the same historic dishes once enjoyed by the 19th-century building’s eponymous original owner, a scion of the Napoleon family. Served by staff in period costume to parties of eight, it boasts a menu of crayfish bisque à la riche and Argenteuil white asparagus with maltaise sauce and adds €5,000 (approx. $5,800) to the suite’s €15,000 (approx. $17,400) lead-in rate.

Though Raffles Hotels is traditionally a little reserved, perhaps, its new The Butler Did It campaign depicts that hallowed Raffles representative helping suite guests kick up their heels. In London, Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding is shown enjoying a dip in a signature suite’s golden bathtub as a butler tops the water up with a golden kettle. Future guests may not follow Golding’s apparent predilection for taking dips fully clothed, but it does provide a reminder of the adage oft trumpeted to every VIP booking: You’re free to do with the space as you please without judgment, as long as it’s legal.

On a personal level I was impressed by two residences lately. At Taj Lake Palace Udaipur’s Grand Royal Suite, I sat in a nook, awash in gold and peppermint, and rested at eye level with the boats that chugged past. At Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo’s 10,581-sq-ft Princess Grace Suite, it wasn’t the granite Jacuzzi or Port Hercules views for me. Instead, I lingered over the humble, decades-old collages of pressed flowers. They were made by Princess Grace, an intimate, unexpected encounter with a pastime the royal clearly loved.

We all know how successful the wellness industry has been in becoming part of the tapestry of luxury lifestyle offerings, both at home and when we travel. President of luxury at Marriott International, Tina Edmundson, tells Elite Traveler that new Mindful Suites at JW Marriott will respond to travelers’ growing interest in that direction with dedicated meditation spaces, circadian lighting and biophilic design elements. Meanwhile, founder of travel-trend forecasting agency Globetrender, Jenny Southan, sees the pop-up Suite 1835 at Le Meurice in Paris, where bespoke furniture is automatically illuminated as guests thread through the place, and AI-generated art is created in situ in response to “their energy” (Le Meurice’s words, not Southan’s) as a precursor to the in-room opportunities promised by new technologies. Look out, she predicts, for suites that will serve as “sentient sanctuaries, sculpted to choreograph your emotional and mental state,” where nights in front of the TV will be replaced by virtual-reality, transcendental travel experiences.

That might sound fanciful for now, but future suite stays could be significantly more fun and engaging if designers like Bensley are given more leeway. As he says: “The best suites are a playground of delight, a place that teases the senses, sparks curiosity, breaks the rules and makes you think, ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like this.’ Play it safe, and it’s just another room with a bigger price tag.”

Deep within a biosphere in the Ecuadorian Amazon is a luxury sanctuary that offers a fully guided immersion into the rainforest, where every animal seems to be giant. Deep within a biosphere in the Ecuadorian Amazon is a luxury sanctuary that offers a fully guided immersion into the rainforest, where every animal seems to be giant.

Trust us on this one. Trust us on this one.

The first baseman’s modern farmhouse-style residence in Studio City has traded hands for nearly $1.4 million less than he paid in 2023. The first baseman’s modern farmhouse-style residence in Studio City has traded hands for nearly $1.4 million less than he paid in 2023.

Arrábida is the rare Portuguese escape that rewards those who don’t rush. 

Just 40 minutes’ drive south of Lisbon, Arrábida Natural Park flies incongruously under the tourist radar, despite having some of Portugal’s most gorgeous beaches, nestled below the lush mountains of the Serra da Arrábida. Its near neighbor, Comporta, is far more crowded with both people and mosquitoes, and the seas are colder there, too.

Arrábida’s state of blessed quiet seems likely to continue despite Unesco approving its application for Biosphere Reserve status in September 2025. Despite publicity about this alerting more people to the area’s charms, the certification is also expected to bring Arrábida additional environmental protections. Already, traffic is strictly controlled inside the 43,520-acre park, while development has been strictly limited since 1975.

So, too, are hotels – the best is Casa Palmela, an L-shaped, 17th-century manor house with 21 bright, traditional-style bedrooms (though a more-private annex hosts five additional apartments) and a formal restaurant championing regional specialties such as cuttlefish, tuna and pumpkin alongside home-grown greens. Rooms and facilities have been carefully installed around 300-year-old azulejo tiles that festoon the property and an original first-floor chapel.

Outside, beyond two pools and a bijou wellness studio, walking circuits traversing the bumpy, 175-acre estate pass aromatic banks of thyme, wild daffodils, orange trees and vineyards used to make rich Moscatel de Setúbal – one of Portugal’s most underrated fortified wines.

Tastings can be arranged here or at other nearby quintas, while private boat tours can be arranged for reliable bottlenose dolphin-watching in the Sado River estuary, followed by picnics on tidal sandbars.

Those voyages run from Setúbal, a weathered-looking city bordering the Natural Park. Setúbal’s ancient, indoor Livramento food market is a must – to taste re-introduced Sado river oysters, gawp at bizarrelooking toadfishes and admire a 5,700-tile mural depicting the past lives of fishermen and farmers.

Setúbal’s old defensive fort is a treat, too, chiefly for its vistas over the spindly Tróia peninsula, where a terrace cafe capitalizes on those views (try the Muscatel-spiked twist on pastel de nata tarts). Further west, in the cobbled settlement of Azeitão, São Simão Arte is an artisan tile-maker – Elton John is a fan. The nearby dairy of Fernando e Simões, which manufactures a version of Azeitão’s namesake buttery sheep’s milk cheese, is worth a visit, too.

Deeper inside Arrábida, the undulating ER379-1 road passes a series of ocean-facing viewpoints en route to the almost-500-year-old Nossa Senhora da Arrábida monastery – a pretty hillside complex whose flowery, whitewashed alleys recall Greek-island hamlets. Abandoned for more than a century but now restored, it opens for walking tours by appointment.

You’re also not far from the best of the region’s beaches. Figueirinha is bulbous and has its own vanishing sandbar below amber-hued cliffs. In high season, vendors here hawk custard-filled Bolas de Berlim donuts. To the west, the wilder Galapos has just one lonely house and a svelte beach bar. There are no facilities at all over at Galapinhos or Coelhos, both accessible only on foot (or by boat), yet both have the same powdery white sand. All face southwards, meaning calmer seas, and all captivate in a simple, undeveloped way – just like Arrábida as a whole.

This may be the only complete set of these whiskies currently available. This may be the only complete set of these whiskies currently available.

The French watchmaker is arming Defender drivers with its BR-X3 Black Titanium watch. The French watchmaker is arming Defender drivers with its BR-X3 Black Titanium watch.