Looking At Luxury News. Issue 3 of Atlas Luxury News.
Atlas Luxury News. Issue 3.
The latest luxury watch, jewellery, fashion, automotive and travel news.
The luxury world has been particularly busy this week. Monterey Car Week brought some of the world’s most extraordinary cars together in California, IWC celebrated a major automotive anniversary with Mercedes-Benz, one of Britain’s best-known luxury department stores changed hands, and the worlds of jewellery and hospitality continued their shift towards experience, craftsmanship and exclusivity.
Here are some of the stories that caught our attention this week.
Watch News
IWC Celebrates 140 Years Of Mercedes-Benz
The relationship between watches and cars has produced countless collaborations over the years, but IWC’s latest release with Mercedes-Benz is considerably more interesting than simply putting two names on the same product.
IWC has unveiled the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz, created to celebrate 140 years since Carl Benz patented the Benz Patent-Motorwagen in 1886.
Limited, appropriately, to just 140 pieces, the watch features a 42mm stainless-steel case, black dial, solid-gold appliqués and gold-plated hands.
But the real story is what’s happening inside.
The watch introduces IWC’s Perpetual Calendar ProSet, allowing the calendar indications to be adjusted forwards or backwards through the crown. It also features an extraordinarily precise moon-phase display, which IWC says should deviate from the actual lunar cycle by just one day after 1,040 years.
Watchmaking Looks Back To Move Forward
Another theme emerging from recent watch releases is the industry’s continued fascination with its own history.
Seiko has introduced two additions to its Presage Classic Series Craftsmanship collection inspired by the Laurel of 1913, Japan’s first wristwatch. Rather than simply recreating an old design, Seiko has used traditional Japanese decorative techniques, including enamel and Urushi lacquer, to reinterpret that history for contemporary collectors.
It’s part of a wider trend we’re seeing across watchmaking. Brands increasingly appear comfortable looking backwards. Vintage proportions are returning. Historic references are being revisited. Traditional dial-making techniques are receiving renewed attention.
Perhaps that’s because in an increasingly technological world, one of the strongest arguments for buying a mechanical watch is precisely that it isn’t particularly modern.
Jewellery News
Sabyasachi Partners With The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
One of the week’s more unusual jewellery collaborations comes from Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, who has entered into a multi-year collaboration with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The collaboration begins with a high-jewellery collection inspired by objects and artworks within The Met’s collection.
It’s another example of the increasingly blurred boundary between jewellery and art. High jewellery has always involved extraordinary materials, but the conversation surrounding it increasingly goes beyond carat weights and gemstone values. History, culture, craftsmanship and storytelling are becoming part of the value proposition.
Fashion News
Frasers Group Acquires Harvey Nichols
One of the biggest British luxury-retail stories this week came from a name that has been part of London’s shopping landscape for generations.
Frasers Group has acquired Harvey Nichols after the luxury department-store business entered administration. The acquisition includes Harvey Nichols’ six UK stores and digital operations. Only days before the acquisition, reports had warned that Harvey Nichols required significant new investment to secure its future.
For luxury retail, the story raises a much bigger question. What is the future of the luxury department store? For decades, department stores were destinations. Customers could discover fashion, watches, jewellery, beauty and accessories from numerous luxury houses under one roof.
Today, the world’s biggest luxury brands increasingly want to control that relationship themselves. They operate enormous flagships, sophisticated websites, private-client services, restaurants, exhibitions, pop-ups and increasingly elaborate experiences. That doesn’t necessarily make the department store obsolete. But it does mean that simply putting expensive products from famous brands under one roof may no longer be enough. Harvey Nichols now has an opportunity to show what the luxury department store can become for a new generation.
Automotive News
Lamborghini Unveils The Revuelto SV
Monterey Car Week delivered plenty of automotive theatre, and Lamborghini arrived with something suitably extreme. The company unveiled the Revuelto SV at The Quail, describing it as the most powerful and fastest-accelerating production Lamborghini it has ever built.
Its naturally aspirated V12 works alongside three electric motors to produce a combined 1,065 CV, with 0–100 km/h taking a claimed 2.4 seconds and a top speed exceeding 345 km/h.
Ahead of its public premiere, the Revuelto SV also set a production-car lap record at Germany’s Hockenheimring. The figures are extraordinary. But they also raise an interesting question. How much faster do supercars actually need to become?
We’re reaching a point where the performance available from modern supercars vastly exceeds what almost anyone could realistically exploit on a public road. Which means manufacturers increasingly have to compete on something else. Design. Sound. Rarity. Personalisation. Emotion. And perhaps most importantly, experience. The next battle between supercar manufacturers may therefore be less about who can produce the biggest number and more about who can make their customers feel something.
Travel News
Amanvari Opens In Mexico
We mentioned Amanvari in the previous edition as one of the year’s interesting luxury-hotel arrivals. The property has now opened on Mexico’s East Cape of Baja California Sur, becoming Aman’s first resort in Mexico.
Its arrival reflects one of the strongest trends in contemporary luxury hospitality: the destination itself becoming part of the product. The new generation of ultra-luxury resorts isn’t necessarily trying to isolate guests from their surroundings behind marble lobbies and enormous gates. Instead, architecture, landscape, privacy, wellness and a genuine sense of place are increasingly central to the experience. The best luxury hotel should perhaps feel as though it couldn’t exist anywhere else.
Thankyou For Reading
Thank you for reading the third edition of Atlas Luxury News.
Each week, we bring together some of the most interesting developments from watches, jewellery, fashion, automotive and luxury travel alongside our own perspective on what those stories might tell us about the direction of the luxury industry.
This week’s stories may come from very different industries, but the same themes keep appearing: craftsmanship, experience, personalisation, community and time. Luxury continues to become less about simply owning expensive things and increasingly about the life surrounding them.
We’ll be back next week with another selection of launches, openings, collaborations and stories from across the world of luxury.
Atlas
