Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2024 i Robb Report

You could say John Pearson has benefitted from great jeans. The 58-year-old, regarded as the world's first male supermodel, was discovered at age 18 while managing a denim shop in his hometown of Hull, in northern England. Three years later, in 1986, he moved to New York, where he worked for everyone from Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein to Levi's and Gap, often shooting with photographers such as Helmut Newton and Mario Testino. A “good day in the office” moment: starring alongside Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, and Christy Turlington in the music video for George Michael's Freedom! 90. In the nearly four decades since coming to America, Pearson has appeared in over 100 commercials and countless magazines. But perhaps his most personal project is the one he cofounded…

1 Wajer 44 Wajer has greatly expanded its fleet since the Dutch yard was founded more than three decades ago. The new Wajer 44, which boasts a 40-knot planing hull, a functional cabin, and an outdoor layout that optimizes usable space, best demonstrates the line's evolutionary progression. Legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady is a fan, having purchased two other Wajers. 2 Frauscher 1017 GT The Frauscher family, who have overseen their eponymous Austrian yard since 1927, eschew the word “retro” in favor of “timeless”—though they freely admit to slipping “design cues from the past” (including vertical bows) into all their builds. The sleek 1017 GT is a forward-looking version of a 1920s Gentleman's Racer, with a top speed of 67 mph thanks to its stepped hull and twin 430 hp…

With the effect of seeing a grainy cinematic reel enhanced to high-def, the Cegga 002/60 roars into view, in living color, on a country road just outside London. The car is a tribute to a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa that lived a most improbable life: Raced, wrecked, then rebuilt and significantly customized, it went on to enjoy notable success on the European racing circuit during the golden age of motorsport—only to be sold and reverted back to standard spec some seven years later. A brief timeline, for clarity: In 1958, on the Freiburg-Schauinsland hill climb in Germany, owner Alfred Hopf lost control of his 250 Testa Rossa and ended up deep in the trees of the Black Forest. The following year, the wreckage was bought by brothers Claude and Georges…

FIELD NOTES If you appreciate the rich chocolate undertones found in a Padrón 1964 Anniversary No. 4 or the hint of espresso in a freshly lit Rocky Patel DBS Robusto, you may be enjoying the very qualities that could soon see those smokes, as well as numerous other popular premium cigars, pulled from the shelves—at least if the Food and Drug Administration has its way. This still-smoldering situation was first ignited by a 2009 government ruling in which, as part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, Congress gave the FDA authority to oversee all tobacco products, including high-end cigars. The FDA then proposed to classify even premium cigars—which is to say, individually handrolled by skilled craftspeople using all-natural tobaccos—no differently than mass-produced, additive-laden cigarettes. As part of…

The Slow Cyclist The reassuringly named Slow Cyclist was founded by British author Oli Broom, who spent 412 days riding—via 23 countries—from London to Brisbane, Australia, to watch a few games of cricket (and raise money for charity). The company is part of the “slow travel” movement, which aims to minimize your impact on local communities while maximizing your engagement with them— and what better way to do so than arriving by bike? The Slow Cyclist will put you on two wheels in locations you might never have considered, from the mountains of Transylvania to the volcanoes, lakes, and gorilla-filled wilds of Rwanda. Cycling for Softies As its name suggests, Cycling for Softies focuses unabashedly on the luxury hotels and Michelin-starred dining that punctuate its easy trips (e-bike optional)—“a gâteau…

How far would you travel to watch your next bespoke shirt being made? Some craft-conscious customers will hop over to London to visit Budd or Turnbull & Asser. Others fly to Naples to observe Luca Avitabile and other Italian makers in action. But a select group, it turns out, will journey as far as Amritsar, a city in northwestern India, near the country's border with Pakistan. “We get a lot of customers, actually. They like to come and see us,” says Varvara Jain, cofounder of 100Hands, the company she established with her husband, Akshat, in 2014. The couple previously worked in investment banking, but when Akshat began to crave a change from the corporate grind, he offered to take over a small shirtmaking workshop his family owned in Amritsar where…

The Goods | Watches Tucked away in a corner of the Dubai International Financial Centre, near the Ritz-Carlton, is Perpétuel Gallery, an unassuming 1,200-square-foot boutique displaying some of the world's most important independent watchmaking. During Dubai Watch Week—a biannual event run by the Seddiqi family, the most prominent watch retailers in the U.A.E.—the shop, just a few minutes’ walk from the fair in the DIFC, held its own exhibition that was filled to the brim with the watchmakers themselves, from Roger W. Smith to Simon Brette to Rémi Maillat of Krayon. There, holding court, was Hamdan Bin Humaid Al Hudaidi, a distinguished collector who founded Perpétuel in 2021, in the middle of the Covid pandemic. “I never thought I would take my passion professionally, ever,” he tells Robb Report. “Everyone…

You've just closed a megawatt deal and want to celebrate with something special. Like, rare special. Such as, say, Karuizawa 50 Year Old, a sherry-barrel-aged 1965 vintage single malt: At $150,000 a bottle, from a Japanese distillery that no longer exists, it's practically unobtainium—unless you happen to swing by the Double Barrel & the Whisky Shoppe on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. This elegantly rustic enclave, which combines the decor of a 19th-century hunting lodge with the wood-paneled ambiance of an Edwardian den, holds enough extraordinary whiskeys to fill its locker-lined walls, with more limited editions tantalizingly displayed around the space. For whiskey collectors, it might as well be Mecca. Here one will find such rarities as the Balvenie 40 Year Old ($6,900), the Yamazaki 18 Year Old Mizunara Single…

FOR GRAHAM THOMPSON, who has always been drawn to “old-world, well-made things,” watching classic film noir with his dad sparked a fascination with hats. At 16, the Chicago native was introduced to Johnny Tyus, a South Side master hatter whose felt fedora was worn by Robert De Niro in the 1987 movie The Untouchables. After college, Thompson studied under Tyus for seven years, learning the fundamentals of the craft until his mentor retired. Thompson bought Tyus's equipment, founded Optimo Hat Company in 1996, and now operates his own retail store in downtown Chicago's Monadnock Building. With the return to timeless dressing, Thompson says that the industry is “busier than it's been in decades” and the notion that only an older generation would wear anything other than a baseball cap “is…

At some point between the original Magnum, P.I. and its current reboot, helicopter travel went from loud and ruggedly dangerous to disarmingly smooth, quiet, and sophisticated-at least at the highest end of the market. Years of design and engineering improvements have imbued modern business choppers with levels of safety, luxury, and speed that make them increasingly viable alternatives to fixed-wing aircraft. And when Covid hit, the corporate whirlybird became even more appealing. “On the heels of the pandemic, customers found helicopters to be the most private way to travel, skipping airport terminals or FBOs altogether,” says a spokesperson for Bell Helicopters. The numbers bear this out: While a total of 27 corporate helicopters across manufacturers were delivered to U.S. customers in 2020, that number had nearly doubled to 50 just…

• Get Your Mind Right Classic Ferraris may have looked fast on your childhood poster, but their pace pales in comparison to modern cars. (It sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised by how many people want to hammer their 250 GT like an 812 Superfast.) Vintage exotics require patience when shifting, cornering, and stopping; learning to heel-and-toe will improve the car's rear-end stability under simultaneous braking and downshifting while matching engine revs between gears—and since a little mechanical sympathy goes a long way, the ability to double-clutch is another key skill when dealing with older unsynchronized manual transmissions. • Love What Makes Your Steed Unique Vintage machines are engineered with far more variability than mass-produced late-model cars, which means that not only are their driving characteristics quirkier and harder to…

After years of living in suburban New Jersey, an exacting music executive and her similarly high-achieving husband decided to try life in a Manhattan high-rise. But despite both being born-and-raised New Yorkers, their brief confrontation with the cacophony of downtown confirmed they required the kind of space and privacy they weren't likely to find in America's largest city. The pair craved a serene retreat where they could relax at the end of the day, but one replete with the kinds of pampering amenities that would make hosting their friends and adult children easy. Rather than give up the plush, hotel-like perks that the city's best buildings now offer—indoor and outdoor pools, kitted-out gyms and spas, movie theaters, and the like—they decided to search for them back across the Hudson River…

Travel THE GOODS THIS MONTH'S WHO, AND WEAR Locals in Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Paradise Valley are lining up for a chance to drink and dine at the Global Ambassador, the stylishly decadent new hotel bringing an international elegance to this sunbaked slice of the Southwest. But while guests and residents alike are eager for the chance to enjoy a cocktail in the 18,000-square-foot rooftop lounge (the largest in the state), dinner at one of the five restaurants, or a truly world-class spa treatment, a select few are ushered into the real inner sanctum: the hotel's members-only Global Ambassador Club. Both the Global Ambassador and the private Club within are the creations of prolific restaurateur Sam Fox, known for his obsessive attention to detail, whether it's the density of the ice…

DESPITE HIS ROSTER of the world's most in-demand independents, Al Hudaidi is always looking to showcase fresh talent, though his high standards mean that most hopefuls never make the cut. “I can show you timepieces by independent watchmakers that sell for $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000, and when you look at the quality, you would not pay $2,000,” he says. Philippe Narbel, on the other hand, caught the proprietor's discerning eye. Narbel, an Audemars Piguet alum, has only two pieces to his name so far—but what pieces they are. Consider his most recent, the Skel-1, a skeletonized watch executed entirely by hand, with a total of 211 internal angles. “When he asked if I would like to have one of his pieces, I said, ‘No—I would like to have seven,’” says…

ROBB RECOMMENDS WHICH CAME FIRST, the chicken or the Krug? That's the question after a delectable meal at Coqodaq, which recently debuted in New York City with the inspired—and, in retrospect, headslappingly obvious—conceit of pairing fried chicken with Champagne. But it's not just any chicken, or any Champagne. Coqodaq is the latest concept from Simon Kim, the man behind Michelin-starred Korean steak house Cote, located a short hop away across Fifth Avenue. “For me, a new concept always starts with the food,” Kim says, adding that, “when looking for the best fried chicken in New York City, there was no undisputed champion.” Well, there is now. Head chef (and Jean-Georges alum) S.K. describes a monthslong search for the world's best birds—pasture-raised in Pennsylvania Amish and Mennonite country and fed an…

On March 8, the Museum of Modern Art will open Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980, the first major museum exhibition in the United States focusing on mid-20th-century Latin American design. Organized by guest curator Ana Elena Mallet, a Mexico City–based art historian and Amanda Forment, MoMA's curatorial assistant in the department of architecture and design, the show will highlight six countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela— bringing together more than 100 objects to demonstrate how the industry can serve as a lens to examine wide-reaching political, social, and cultural issues in these regions. To get a better look at the subtleties of design happening in Latin America, and to celebrate the momentous exhibition, Robb Report brought Mallet together in conversation with Agnes Studio, a young, Guatemala City–based…

DREAM MACHINES A DEVOTION TO MOTION Viking grit still runs strong throughout Gotland. From medieval sailors buried beneath the cobblestone streets in Visby to the ruins of Norse shipyards where longboats were built 1,000 years ago, ancient maritime lore suffuses the island. The old walled community once thrived trading squirrel skins and beeswax, and to this day small fishing vessels make regular runs between the isle and the mainland, a distance of about 56 miles. “The people of Gotland have always made their living by the sea,” says Johan Hallén, who grew up here, renovated his first boat at the age of 15, served in the Swedish navy as a mine diver, and later spent three years as a training officer specializing in battleship management. These days, Hallén is the…

ROBB RECOMMENDS First delivered in 1977, Sikorsky's S-76 remains the grande dame of corporate helicopters. Accounting for head-of-state transportation in 10 countries, and with more than 178 other examples flown by major business enterprises and VIPs, the model was the first Sikorsky copter created for the civilian market and shares mechanical DNA with its military-purposed sibling, the UH-60 Black Hawk. Offering an alternative to regional business jets, the twin-turbine S-76 has a maximum range of 411 nautical miles (with no reserve) and a top speed of 178 mph. Plus, as it was designed in part to fly personnel to offshore oil rigs, it provides safe operation in a wide range of weather conditions. “The pedigree is unparalleled,” says Eli Flint, president of Flexjet's Vertical Lift division, a 15-chopper fleet that's…

It looks like a hulking, backless armchair, can feel like a medieval torture device (that's a feature, not a bug), and costs more than some new motorcycles. Meet the Remedy Roller, brainchild of Dr. Jonathan Leary, founder of the Remedy Place wellness clubs in Manhattan and West Hollywood, who got the idea for the machine while working with one of his chiropractic patients in Germany, where he encountered a similar device. “I've witnessed firsthand the remarkable impact of manual techniques and how they significantly improved range of motion,” Leary says, describing the types of therapies he's looking to replicate with this $11,900 restorative tool. Offered at Remedy Place's West Hollywood location and also available for purchase, the Remedy Roller features deeply ridged motorized discs at its center flanked by a…

It's a balmy afternoon, and I'm riding my bike around an idyllic island in the Mediterranean. I keep glancing at the cyclist next to me—partly to make conversation but also to check that he's really Geraint Thomas, winner of two Olympic gold medals, three world championships, and a Tour de France. I can't quite believe my luck: I'm wheel to wheel with one of the sport's greatest living athletes, and to top it off, he has a bruising hangover, enabling me to keep pace with him as if I were a pro. And yet, this extraordinary experience was not that hard to achieve. Want to shoot threes with Steph Curry, have a kickabout with Lionel Messi, or catch a pass from Patrick Mahomes? Get ready to write a sizable check.…