Table of contents for October 2024 in Robb Report

Chiara Wettmann Splitting her time between Berlin and Beirut, Wettmann, a documentary photographer, didn’t have to go far to find Joelle Kharrat, the 46-yearold Lebanese fine-jewelry designer whose sculptural totem necklaces have captured the attention of tastemakers around the globe (p. 132). “The shoot with Joelle was wonderful,” she recalls. “At first she felt a little uncomfortable in front of the camera, which I found very endearing, because otherwise I perceived her as a very strong person. We laughed a lot.” Alex French It might surprise some people to learn that Gordon Ramsay, famous for his on-screen bluntness and brutally harsh critiques, is a different person outside the kitchen and away from the cameras. “When you think about him, the adjectives that appear in your brain are ‘tough’ and ‘driven,’”…

The Four Seasons resort on the East Cape of Baja California recently launched a trio of six-bedroom properties that range in size from 7,652 to 10,000 square feet and, based on the season, can cost up to $50,000 per night. But most people will never know they exist. There’s zero mention of them (or their private pools or on-call taco chefs) on the hotel’s website. Ditto booking apps. The only way to reserve them is to contact sales director Niamh Hartel directly by phone or email. If the stars align—and you’re deemed the right kind of guest—she’ll send you a hidden URL where you can fill out a detailed stay request. And these aren’t the only rooms you probably didn’t know you didn’t know about. Increasingly, hoteliers are keeping mum…

If you visited Dr. Joel Kahn’s Detroit home around nine p.m., he might answer the door wearing a red-light helmet. Kahn, a cardiologist practicing longevity medicine, is one of a growing number of people using such hair-growth-stimulating headgear and wears his every night before bed. “There’s pretty good data for it, and a lot of people are gravitating that way right now,” he says. Doctors have long used various forms of light to improve sleep disturbances, depression, and other conditions. But recent studies have focused on “a more specific wavelength, in the 600nm to 700nm range of red light, which is perhaps deeper than just the general white-light sort of [treatment],” says Dr. Samuel Lin, a Boston-based plastic surgeon and associate professor at Harvard Medical School. What those studies have…

BEHIND & BEYOND THE TRIGGER This mammoth, limited-edition, leatherbound book celebrates the artisans behind the hunt, from tweed manufacturers to gun engravers. About $125 SWAINE Oxford weekender in calf leather You weren’t going to carry all this stuff in your gym bag, were you? $2,989 TRICKER’S Corbett walking boot in water-resistant calf leather Corbett,* a uniquely Scottish geological term, is an apt name for these sturdiest of hiking boots, by England’s oldest shoemakers. $920 HOLLAND & HOLLAND Northwood field coat in weatherproof tweed Flashes of red—either in the tweed itself or as accents on garments— serve to distinguish hunters from wildlife in the field. Think of this jacket’s rich piping as an aristocratic forbear of safety orange. $1,333 PURDEY Marquetry box with sterling-silver cups Hunts start early, and things can…

If the skeptics are to be believed, the Porsche 911 has died a thousand deaths since it debuted at the 1963 Frankfurt Motor Show. Initially lambasted for being heavier and more complex than the 356 it replaced, the slat-tailed model was further accused of heresy when the first turbocharged option premiered in 1974, again when it transitioned to liquid cooling in 1999, and once more when turbos heavily infiltrated the lineup in 2016. Now, the latest 911 GTS inspires the biggest backlash to date, via a familiar trigger: hybridization. Yet naysayers denouncing this new model for merely being an efficiency play might be surprised to learn that it carries a turbocharged 3.6liter flat-six engine—overshadowing the base model’s 3.0-liter version—and that the octane-electron combination produces 449 ft lbs of torque and…

In June of last year, Larry Connor was among those transfixed by the news of OceanGates’s Titian, the submersible that imploded while descending to the wreck of the Titanic, killing all five people aboard. But unlike most viewers, the Ohio billionaire was moved to take the unlikeliest of actions: Having already journeyed into the Mariana Trench, the world’s deepest location, Connor decided to commission his own submersible and visit the remains of the famed ship himself. As he explained to The New York Times in May, “I’m concerned that people associate diving subs, especially new or different subs, with danger or tragedy.” (Connor has since stopped granting interviews on the subject.) “We’re not thrill-seekers. We’re not big risk-takers,” he added. Connor’s $20 million, two-person sub, the 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, is…

GORDON RAMSAY MAKES IT RAIN By the time Gordon Ramsay burst into the American consciousness in 2007 as the star of a restaurant-rescue reality-TV series called Kitchen Nightmares, he was already among the most successful restaurateurs in the world. At 40, he controlled a seven-site empire that included dining rooms at the Savoy, the Connaught, and Claridge’s in London. His eponymous establishment in Chelsea, then just a few years old, had developed a reputation as one of the best anywhere. At that moment, Americans were just waking up from a food coma induced by a decade of consuming astounding quantities of mediocre family-casual chow and realizing that cooking could be a vital part of culture. We were enthralled watching chef Rocco DiSpirito’s career implosion on The Restaurant, and “celebrity chef…

When media magnate Rupert Murdoch signaled he was ready to retire at 92, observers expressed shock. So soon? A decade younger, 81-year-old Joe Biden was only joking, we assume, when he quipped that he’s looking for another job to follow his presidency. After all, his generation is well represented at the White House, which political correspondent Andrea Mitchell is still covering at 77, and on Capitol Hill, where more than a third of the Senate is over 70. Across the Atlantic, Bernard Arnault continues to expand his LVMH luxurygoods empire at 75, a working age that is beginning to seem young by comparison. Spreadsheets, deadlines, shareholder demands: Ah, the golden years! What ever became of golfing, gardening, or kicking back with a juicy le Carré? Does anyone actually retire these…

There may be no idea more animating to modern life than that of success, the theme (for the second year running) of our October issue. As a society, we debate and dissect it constantlyhow it’s defined, who gets to enjoy it, the best ways to achieve it, and, of course, whether we’ve actually been thinking about it all wrong this whole time and should just retreat into the woods and make doe eyes at wildlife instead. Perhaps that’s because the concept itself is so malleable, so personal, so able to expand and contract and nimbly fill the contours of any idea: Success can be as small as making a perfect omelet or as large and consequential as curing a disease. Come to think of it, that’s probably why we spend…

George Rouy is lounging on his bed at home, a former church in Faversham, England. He’s surrounded by stained-glass windows, which obscure any views of the old brewery town that sits about 50 miles outside London, adding to an eerie sense of isolation. It’s a feeling that Rouy, who lives alone and paints by himself every day in his studio down the road, knows well. “It can be quite a lonely experience,” he explains, describing it as a “heaviness.” “I think that’s probably the hardest thing about being an artist sometimes.” Intensifying the solitude is the fact that he appears to be accompanied by a multitude of others: the figures who melt into one another in his turbulently expressive canvases. They’re just not very good conversationalists. “It feels like this…

On a recent trip to Bukhara, Uzbekistan, Lina Ghotmeh fell in love with the city’s 10th-century mausoleums. “The woven brickwork is mind-blowing,” says the Lebanese architect on a call from Paris, where her eponymous studio can be found in the 11th arrondissement. It’s the type of design—rooted in tradition, materiality, and memory—that Ghotmeh is most passionate about. Since completing her studies at the American University of Beirut, that dedication has made her one of the most sought-after architects working today: From an eco-conscious leather workshop for Hermès to last year’s Serpentine Pavilion to the upcoming contemporary-art museum of AlUla in Saudi Arabia, her projects span the globe. Given the demand, one could understand the pressure to do things faster. But for Ghotmeh, there are no shortcuts. “Sometimes a client thinks…

Originally presented as a concept in 2019, the all-electric Verge TS motorcycle caught the eye of the industry with its hub-less rear wheel. The Finnish start-up’s bike is now available in three variants—the $26,900 base model, the $29,900 Pro, and the $49,900 Ultra—with first U.S. deliveries planned for Q1 of 2025. Our introduction was on the TS Pro, with 737 ft lbs of torque (the Ultra has 885) available in its aptly named Beast mode. With that setting activated, the TS is a silent cruise missile. There’s obviously no cacophony of internal combustion or exhaust and no rattling of the chain— all the normal indicators of motorbike performance vanish, replaced only by the sound of wind buffeting your helmet. The hub-less carbon-fiber back wheel houses electromagnets that, when energized, spin…

Ready or not, artificial intelligence is here, and with it a host of wearable tech that promises to integrate itself into your life and make work, play, and even downtime more productive. Yet while many are just glorified Siri knockoffs, the $599 Even Realities G1 glasses deliver the goods. The sleek frames are designed specifically to help you navigate the world, with an impressive built-in display that projects text and simple graphics onto the lenses in a way that makes them appear to float above the objects you’re looking at. But what won us over is the real-time translation, a technology already available on your phone via any number of apps, though none allow you to maintain eye contact with the foreign-language speaker as their words, translated to English, hover…

“I love the idea of us growing, and it’s scary, but I can see how many more opportunities it would give us to play.” MEXICO OLIVIA VILLANTI “QUIET LUXURY” MAY be the catchphrase these days, but Olivia Villanti has been crafting her own timeless, high-quality, understated aesthetic since she founded her Mexico City–based womenswear label four years ago. After transitioning from dance to a career in fashion—which included stints at a PR agency and the now-defunct Lucky magazine—Villanti began working as a copywriter for J. Crew during the Mickey Drexler days and later became the editorial director at its Madewell offshoot. In 2019, the Rhinebeck, N.Y., native relocated to Mexico City, where her husband is originally from; the couple planned on staying only a year, but then the pandemic hit.…

From the late Anthony Bourdain’s name-making book, Kitchen Confidential, to the current streaming phenom The Bear, the inner workings of professional kitchens have long been a source of fascination. Now, some of America’s best restaurants have taken that idea a step further, blurring the line between the dining room and the kitchen to offer a front-row seat to the culinary action. The concept moves beyond the chef’s table by involving every diner in the room. Douglas Keane, of Michelinstarred Cyrus in Geyserville, Calif., says he designed his kitchen to be spacious enough for everyone to take a closer look, with “seven-foot aisles so guest and chef can make genuine connections over food,” adding that the layout makes for a more relaxed environment. Here, four dining destinations that invite you all…

“AS SEEN ON TV” may have lowbrow connotations, but the recent glut of award-winning shows and films set in alluring, far-flung locations is causing an unprecedented run on the world’s best hotels. Call it set-jetting: planning your vacation around a destination featured in a popular series or movie. And while romantic suites and beloved characters have gotten people on planes since the golden age of film, what has changed is how central beautiful venues have become to plots. “The way that The White Lotus used the destination to tell the story was really unique,” says Misty Belles, an executive at the global travel-adviser network Virtuoso. It also made its settings—the Four Seasons resorts in Maui and Taormina, Sicily—nigh un-bookable. And it’s hardly the only example: “Paris wasn’t hurting for eyes,…

In the cloistered world of classic menswear, Mark Cho has made himself increasingly indispensable. In 2010, the U.K.-born entrepreneur cofounded the Armoury in Hong Kong with Alan See, an old-school—in the best sense—men’s haberdasher; that same year, Cho also became the co-owner of Drake’s, the heritage English tie-maker that has since rolled out a full apparel line with stores in London, New York City, and Seoul. Through the Armoury, which now includes N.Y.C. locations in Tribeca and on the Upper East Side, Cho has become a prolific patron of tailors and artisans worldwide. The shops regularly host visits from bespoke tailoring greats such as Florentine Liverano & Liverano and the likes of revered Japanese shoemaker Koji Suzuki. The Armoury’s in-house label, meanwhile, is produced by an international network of craft-focused…

ALEXANDRA LLEWELLYN FELL in love with backgammon at the age of 9 on a trip to Cairo with her step-grandfather. Later in life, after training as a fine artist, she made that game—and many more—her career, designing over 400 one-off sets since launching her namesake company in 2010. Today, Llewellyn estimates that roughly 70 percent of her business comes from bespoke commissions, which she says help stoke her creativity. Via her online store, she also offers a small stock of backgammon sets, playing cards, and poker kits, all of which are as aesthetically pleasing as they are entertaining. “I started by making these backgammon boards partly because it’s the oldest recorded board game in the world,” Llewellyn says. “I love the idea of playing around with the format of it,…

As NASA plans to decommission the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of the decade, the next generation of orbital enterprise prepares to launch. Rocket-builder Blue Origin is aiming to have the first commercial space station-a solar-powered, “mixed-use business park” called Orbital Reef-operational by 2030. Floating 311 miles above the Earth, the 29,300-cubic-foot installation will be self-supporting and feature sleeping quarters, social areas, and research facilities. Its central Core structure, with a volume of 8,228 cubic feet, is connected to an inflatable Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) habitat from Sierra Space, a Colorado-based aerospace and spacetechnologies outfit. The initial version will accommodate a total of 10 scientists, international astronauts, and tourists, shuttled back and forth via multiple craft. As for the modular Tinkertoy design, it allows Orbital Reef to…

FIELD NOTES American whiskey has exploded in popularity over the past 20 yearsin 2023, more than 31 million nine-liter cases of it were sold in the U.S., according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States-but there has remained one dirty word that nobody really wants to talk about: the “blend.” Mention the term to any dedicated liquor aficionado and you’ll probably be met with a dismissive sigh, which is preferable to the more likely option, a pedantic lecture on why blended juice isn’t worth the plastic in which it’s most likely bottled. Yet these notions have been slowly and steadily evaporating, like the angel’s share, as a new wave of producers elevates the much-maligned American blend. In fact, some of those aforementioned whiskey snobs are now on the…

“It’s a once-in-a-century transformation. We are reinventing our original invention.” OLA KÄLLENIUS IS standing in a cold, bare workshop just south of the Arctic Circle in his native Sweden. A heavily disguised prototype of the new electric G-Class SUV—not yet launched when we meet—has just returned from highspeed, low-grip testing on tracks cut into the frozen lakes nearby and is being hoisted into the air on a hydraulic lift for inspection. As it drips meltwater onto the concrete floor, Källenius, CEO of the Mercedes-Benz Group, eats his lunch (today, a premade sandwich and a carton of juice) and speaks in fluent German to the mostly Austrian engineers who spend months in this bleak locale ensuring that the company’s new models can cope with the types of conditions in which vanishingly…