Big Deal: Big Savings On Big Books At Taschen Stores

Taschen publishes smart, swanky, beautifully designed, large format books on art, photography, fashion, and pop culture. These are volumes to covet and treasure. They don't come cheap, yet which of you, beloved readers, does not want to own at least a few of them?

The Luxurist has his eye on several that are just out, especially Genesis, the sensational collection of Sebastiao Salgado photos which comes in a leviathan 18.4 x 27.6 in. two volume set for a mere $4,000 and a smaller, yet still highly desirable version that seems like a bargain at just $69.99.

The Complete Works of Hieronymus Bosch, with large fold-outs of The Last Judgement and  The Garden of Earthly Delights  ($150), and National Geographic Around the World in 125 Years (three volumes, $499) are two others that Santa did not have in his bag for The Luxurist.

(There's always next year, but I digress.)

On January 24-26 Taschen stores in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, New York, Miami and London are cleaning house by offering discounts of up to 75% on retired display copies, slightly dented specimens, and discontinued items.

The selection is different at each location and may or may not include The Luxurist's, or your, favorite titles. Taschen says that they will offer some of their reduced stock online, as well.

Look for bargains on the three-volume Julius Shulman Modernism Rediscovered ($300, Zaha Hadid Complete Works ($49.99), The James Bond Archives ($200), Caravaggio The Complete Works ($150), Modern Art 1870 to 2000 (2 vols., $59.59), Diego Rivera The Complete Murals ($200), any of the six books in the limited edition Fashion Design A-Z series on Akris, Etro, Stella McCartney, Missoni, Prada, and Diane von Furstenberg ($350 each).

You'll be lucky to snag any of these, but Taschen also publishes several hundred other titles, many of which sell for a more modest $9.99, $14.99, and $19.99. Even if you don't find a distressed treasure, you'll enjoy browsing through your nearest Taschen store. Each one is architecturally unique.

Again, the sale takes place on January 24-26. Start your countdown clock now.

The Artful Traveler: St. Petersberg's New Faberge Museum

Faberge eggs are having a moment just now.

This might not have come as a surprise to Tsar Alexander III who in 1885 commissioned the first ornately bejeweled egg as an Easter present for his wife. It became an annual tradition over the next 30 years, with prized specimens going not only to the tsaritza, but also to other matriarchs in Alexander's family.

(Yes, the wife of the Tsar is properly called tsaritza, not tsarina, which, though commonly used in some places is woefully incorrect. Trust me on this. But I digress.)

Forty-two eggs still exist. If you can get your hands on one – good luck! – it will set you back $8 - $10 million, perhaps more. 

Even if you cannot buy one to put on the mantle next to your Oscar, it is possible to see a good many of them this season.

Four will be on display at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum from February 18 to May 18.

You must travel to Russia to view two larger collections.

Moscow's Kremlin Armoury museum has ten eggs on display. Nine are to be found, along with another 1,000 pieces of jewelry and objects crafted by the Faberge workshops, in the much anticipated Faberge Museum set to open in St. Petersburg this winter.

The museum is owned by Viktor Vekselberg, purported to be the fourth richest man in Russia, and housed in the elaborately renovated Shuvalovsky Palace, described by The Telegraph as "a fabulous riot of 18th-century rococo."



As this is a privately owned institution,  admission is limited to just 15 people per hour, and then on only certain days of the week – after the museum finally opens, that is. While the museum held a gala society and press  event in November, it has yet to announce the date the public will be welcome.

Reports in the Financial Times, The Telegraph and other British papers indicate that it could be quite difficult to get in. (Would you expect anything less from Russia's fourth richest oligarch?)

Advance planning will be necessary, and it might be best to leave the arrangements to the several Russia travel specialists based in London who can guarantee admission to this and other coveted sites, whisk you through customs on our arrival, and arrange luxury accommodations for your trip.

The Artful Traveler: Unexpected Pleasures In Unlikely Places

Art actually is all around us.

 

It's in museums, of course, in plazas in front of rude public buildings and soul-crushing skyscrapers, and in the homes of well-heeled friends or business associates.

Occasionally it turns up in the least likely of places.

The Dutch chain Spar recently opened a supermarket in Budapest designed around a series of curvaceous wooden ribs that extend, not uniformly, from the ceiling to the floor so as to divide the  large space into a series of inviting, humanly scaled pods.

Curved counters are clad with similar wooden ribs for displaying wine and baked goods. Produce is displayed on curving white islands, and the forms of the checkout counters echo the same pleasing shapes.

Undulating white beams in the ceiling contrast with the warm wood and guide shoppers on one of several routes through the store – short for daily shoppers, long for those on a weekly shopping expedition.

The market opened in September in a mall in a wealthy suburb of Budapest and is the work of the local LAB5 architectural firm.

Let us hope that the Spar store is so successful that it spurs less progressive chains to think along the same lines.

Big Deal: Herman Miller On Sale At DWR

If you've ever wanted an Eames chair or Noguchi table, here's your chance to save some $$.

The Herman Miller sale at Design Within Reach offers 15% off all of their iconic designs. DWR is throwing in free shipping, too. That's a lot of exquisite contemporary furniture, designed principally by Ray and Charles Eames, George Nelson, and Isamu Noguchi.

A few of the most important pieces that Herman Miller has manufactured continuously since the 1940s and 1950s:

George Nelson Thin Chest

Eames sofa

Eames chairs

The popular Aeron chair also is included in this special event. Don't delay. DWR's offer is good only through December 15.

Make It A Double: Putting An End To Blah Booze

Who says the wine or whiskey you give to friends and business associates this holiday season has to be boring?

Certainly not The Luxurist – or anyone he knows or would care to know. But I digress.

Back to the subject at hand: haute hootch. By this we mean premium libations that stand out from the crowd of monotonous merlots and so-so champagnes – in other words, bottles with bling.

Here are two that The Luxurist recommends:

Absolut Elyx 

The first thing you notice about this super premium vodka is the distinctive shape of the bottle – it's not round! – suggesting that what's inside is something out of the ordinary, as well.

Absolut (and nearly all other) vodka is produced in large stainless steel vats. The entire process is controlled by computers. No humans allowed! Elyx is distilled by hand in a small, all-copper still at the original Absolut distillery in Ahus, Sweden. Simply distilling in all copper creates a vodka with unique flavor characteristics, one that is silky smooth, quite different, and more refined than vodkas you might be used to.

Also read: Scotch You Don't Know But Should

The wheat used to make Elyx is sourced from a single estate, introducing the concept of terroir to this category of spirits and further distinguishing the flavor profile.

Critics have called Elyx "a grand slam home run" and "one of the best vodkas" to come to market in ages. That's saying a lot when you consider how many fine vodkas you can find nowadays. Drink Elyx neat or with a single ice cube. About $50 per bottle.

Belvedere RED

It's what's on the outside of this eye-catching semi-transparent metallic special edition bottle that's important here. When you purchase Belvedere RED, half of the profits go to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Inside you'll find the same tasty vodka as in a regular bottle of Belvedere. And there's nothing shabby about that! About $35 for 750ML and $65 for the double-your-fun 1.5L bottle.

To purchase these and other premium wines and spirits in multiples for holiday gifting,  call Jasper & James at (310) 581-6710.

See more fine wine and premium spirits here.

The Artful Traveler: What to See Now

Whether you fire up the G5 or scan Expedia for a pair of inexpensive tickets, here are a few of the latest must-see exhibits, museums, and destinations for Artful Travelers:

Matthew Day Jackson's super-sized show in Switzerand

Attack of the Giant Art Galleries – "Driven by a booming art market and demand for oversize 'trophy' works, the world's top art galleries are opening vast new spaces, upending the economics of the business," reports the Wall St. Journal.

Three Quiet Museums in Rome – Even when the city is overrun with tourists and the summer heat is at its most intense, there are sites where you can enjoy Rome’s cultural riches in relative comfort. The New York Times offers three opportunities for contemplating art away from the masses.

Zaha Hadid's Riverside Museum, Glasgow, Scotland

Zaha Hadid's Greatest Buildings – A tour of the influential architect's most arresting, expressive designs around the globe, as selected by London's Telegraph.

The Enlightened Traveler: The Dorchester On My Mind

After having been stranded, treated no better than rubbish, then left to fend for himself for two nights in London in May by British Airways on an impossibly overcrowded holiday weekend – trust me, this was not a pleasure trip – The Luxurist longs to return to the land of Tennyson and Tesco for a more gratifying visit.

This was not a planned stopover. The Luxurist and his lovely Luxurista were simply transferring  through Heathrow en route from the Cannes film festival to Hollywood, where, like British Airways,  they do not bother even to try to fake sincerity.

British Airways wants you to think you'll enjoy flying with them. Don't you believe it!

Of course, even Hollywood has its virtues. Heads roll when executives fail to perform.

Not so at British Airways. On a day when Heathrow's runways were closed for four hours and some 225,000 passengers were flying in, out or through the airport, the world's largest airline managed to bring unimagined grief to many of them.

Passenger service failures were massive.

Flights were not automatically rebooked. Why, The Luxurist wonders, do they ask for your mobile phone number and e-mail address if they are not going to use them to notify you of your new flight information?

Instead, customers were made to wait in lines of up to nine hours, were given phone numbers for rebooking only to find that the airline hung up on them repeatedly ("Too many calls now. Goodbye!") and then closed the switchboard entirely at 8 PM.

Nine hour lines at Heathrow, courtesy of British Airways

Presumably this was done so that BA's employees could enjoy the start of their holiday weekend.

Never mind those pesky 225,000 paying passengers, who not only had no flights but no place to stay either. British Airways handed everyone a hastily reproduced piece of paper stating, bluntly, that they were not going to find hotels for anyone.

Apparently you have a better chance of being treated with care if you work for British Airways than if you buy a ticket from the company.

And they say that there is no justice in Hollywood!

But I digress. British Airways was guilty of many more depredations on this dreadful weekend. There will be much more to read on why The Luxurist will never, ever fly British Airways again in a future post.

Watch for it if you want to spare yourself unfathomable misery in the future.

Also read: Bellagio's New Caviar Buffet – A Good Value Or A Waste of Money?

Back to the topic at hand: London's fabulous Dorchester hotel.

The one and only Dorchester hotel

The Luxurist was amused to read in hotelchatter.com and elsewhere on the web that The Dorchester  is offering a side-by-side tasting of all four Remy Martin Louis XIII cognacs – Louis XIII, Louis XIII Black Pearl, Louis XIII Rare Cask 43,8 – for a mere $3,200 per person.

This is what you call a stiff drink, indeed.

It's not the cost that concerns The Luxurist. The cognacs are très rare. By all accounts they may well be worth every penny. And, after all, if you have it, what's money for?

The Luxurist simply wants to know why a great hotel like The Dorchester must resort to publicity gimmicks to promote itself.
 
Publicity is not necessarily a bad thing – unless, as Jane Russell opined, you don't have any.

That is not to say, as many do, that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Contrarian that he is, The Luxurist does not subscribe to this tired adage.

Same price. Which would you choose?

He also does not believe in pointless publicity.

Gimmicks, even high class ones, will not compel customers to stay at any hotel, or to return if they have found their stay lacking.

Enlightened travelers do not want stunts. They require friendly, unobtrusive, exceptional service, posh yet comfortable accommodations, good food, a bit of exclusivity, and, in general the feeling that they are being cared for at all times.*

This is exactly what The Dorchester has offered The Luxurist on his several stays there.

Let's do the math. Would you rather treat yourself to a round of costly cognac, or, for the same money enjoy a memorable five-night stay at one of the world's top hotels?

The choice is yours.

*None of these superlatives applies to British Airways. But, again, I digress. Watch this space.