In our weekly series, we bring you the latest in luxury news around the world. This week’s highlights: Loewe’s new Earth perfume, Vollebak’s ‘invisibility’ jacket, and a Gathering in SoHo
Check out the world’s first NFT golf club
As part of Rhue Resorts, the exclusive 18-hole Aspen Lakes brings the sport to the metaverse with the world’s first NFT private luxury golf club. What this means is that you can now purchase your membership on the blockchain as an NFT.
Spanning 1,300 acres, Aspen Lakes is located in Sisters, Oregon, and boasts other impressive amenities like hiking and biking trails. A five-star hotel and 12-acre lake and campground will join the course in due time, and guests may look forward to yurts and cabins, private residences, top-tier restaurants, an indoor water park and more.
With only 10,000 Founding Family Memberships available, a lifetime membership goes for US$15,000 worth of Ethereum (based on current value).
IWC Schaffhausen’s Top Gun exhibition
IWC Schaffhausen is taking over the third level of Design Orchard this 22 to 30 October 2022 with the IWC Top Gun Exhibition. The show will come barreling in dark green, representing the “Woodland” as the latest hue in the luxury brand’s ceramic portfolio. The alluring shade draws inspiration from suits and uniforms worn by elite pilots from the Top Gun flight school, along with the verdant landscapes travelled by these professionals.
All 14 watches on display were engineered specially for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviation units. Even more special is the augmented-reality technology that allows participants to tour IWC’s environment in the metaverse. Blockchain aficionados can obtain a collectible Singapore NFT that grants special access to future events by the brand.
Enter the World of Wines and Spirits
The Changi Airport Group is partnering with Lotte Duty Free to bring together 200 of the world’s best wines and spirits. With selections across 75 brands, the inaugural World of Wines and Spirits (WOWS) event will feature an extensive range, including labels like Bowmore, The Macallan, The Singleton, Penfolds, and more—tax-free.
VIPs of Changi Rewards, other partners and Lotte will also gain exclusive access to an online auction from 14 to 24 October 2022. Hosted on the WOWS portal, two of the most prized spirits from Hennessy and more will also be up for bidding. Prizes start from S$225,000 and S$130,000.
Happening until 31 December 2022.
Vollebak wants to make things ‘invisible’
Introducing the world’s first Thermal Camouflage Jacket, Vollebak is bringing us one step closer to realising our Harry Potter dreams: it aims to make the human body undetectable to infrared cameras, like an invisibility cloak. By using graphene technology (we owe it to Nobel Prize winners Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov), the jacket can disappear entirely in infrared. Still in development, Vollebak does have the first successful prototype; each of the 42 graphene patches on the jacket’s front is made up of more than 100 pure graphene layers, all of which control thermal radiation without changing its temperature.
A new Gathering in SoHo
SoHo has no shortage of galleries, and Gathering is the latest addition to Warwick Street founded by Alex Flick and Trinidad Fombella. The two-storey space opened just in time for London Frieze Week (12 to 16 October 2022), fusing modern international art with important social messages—namely issues surrounding colonialism, the environment, gender, inequality, marginalisation and race. The launch also celebrates Turner Prize winner Tai Shani’s inaugural show, Your Arms Outstretched Above Your Head, Coding With The Angels (happening until 6 December 2022), which interrogates power structures and political ideology.
It doesn’t get earthier than this
With a penchant for harnessing the unorthodox, Loewe’s Botanical Rainbow collection welcomes Earth as its latest addition. A balmy blend of spicy elemi, powdery mimosa, sweet pear, truffle and violet, Loewe Earth is autumn-distilled into a tantalising mauve bottle. While its truffle accent pays creative homage to the underground delicacy, its fresh floral notes seal the deal in making it the perfect blend as autumn nears. From scents blending delicate peony and musk, to smoky red pepper berries and basil, Earth is as good on its own as it is with others in the collection, if you’re up for a more complex profile.
