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The people who make the things, the places and the arguments worth reading about.
There are so many talented designers coming out of the Middle East these days, fashion design is practically a regional specialty, kind of like what hockey is to Canada or football is to Brazil. As a matter of fact, red carpets all over the world are routinely graced with the sultry gow…
Not all houses were created equal. In the pretty town of Monsef, on a particularly scenic stretch of Mediterranean coastline a few minutes’ drive north of Byblos, Villa Kali attests to that adage. Completed just last year, and often referred to as the El Khalil Beach House (after the fa…
Could it be the smoked salmon? The citizens of Norway are the happiest in the world – at least according to the index published in the World Happiness Report by the United Nations. Despite what we’ve heard about the benefits of Omega-3s, researchers in fact attribute the high level of h…
“Happiness is waking up and knowing,” Isaac Carew says, a little cryptically. Tall, chiselled, blessed with classical good looks, and at 29 years of age on the cusp of a successful television/YouTube career, little wonder the green-eyed chef-turned-model-turned-chef again is so confiden…
WHEN DID YOU GET INTO CLIMBING? I grew up in Saudi until I was 16 at which time I moved to the UAE to go to university. I then got a job in Dubai at an advertising agency and it wasn’t until I was 25 that I got into climbing. That’s considered pretty late yet, […]
WHY DID YOU BECOME A DESIGNER? I’ve always been an observer of things around me. It began naturally, exploring and investigating the objects in our home. It was second nature to look at and think about those products and decipher how they represented what people like and need. I’ve alwa…
ETIENNE SALOME WHY DID YOU BECOME A DESIGNER? I was attracted to the chalenge of combining technical restrictions and creative freedom; it’s an interaction that makes every day at work an experience. But there’s also a great responsibility, for just a single idea, a small sketch,…
GORDON CAMPBELL GRAY WHY DID YOU BECOME AN HOTELIER? I first considered becoming an hotelier when, as a young boy we visited as a family a supposedly grand hotel, and I was struck as to how ordinary I thought it was compared to our own home, and I thought: “I could do this better…
WHEN DID YOU REALISE YOU COULD BE A PROFESSIONAL SINGER? -I never realised I could be one, I just followed my heart and my intuition. I always loved music and the arts and it is something I grew up learning and nourishing culturally and technically. The turning point though was when I m…
You’d be hard pressed to find a truly unique prêt-à-porter piece of clothing these days. Between mass production and an insatiable thirst for the latest trend that pervades our modern world, retail fashion has become a gargantuan cookie-cutter industry. It’s also one of few sectors that…
It’s been nearly two decades since I first met Karl Lagerfeld, and over the years, I have come to realise that the only certainty in any conversation with him is that he’s likely to avoid the obvious, and there will be many diversions along the way. And so it is that when I met him [&he…
WHEN DID YOU REALISE YOU WANTED TO BE A JOURNALIST? I’ve always been that kid who asked questions, only to get answers that would prompt ten more questions. In the summer of 1990, my family flew from Kuwait to Berkeley, California for a summer vacation. A few weeks later, Saddam Hussein…