The historic French jewelry house Van Cleef & Arpels is revealing some of its unique techniques in jewelry and watchmaking this summer, from July 17 to 31, in a series of hands-on courses at the Tokyo Station Hotel in Japan. Launched last year in Paris, the L’Écoleprogram was such a big success that the company decided to bring its jewelers, gemologists, and timepiece historians to transport the experience to Japan. The experts will work with just 12 students per class to inform them on gemstones, artisan …

Created by David Grapshi of Sazerac, Harlen Wheatley of Buffalo Trace, and the tequila master distiller Miguel Cedeño Cruz, the Expresiones del Corazón collection brings tequila to the forefront of the craft-spirits movement. This innovative trio has taken an experimental approach to producing premium tequila, using a blanco line with optimally balanced sweet and dry flavor components as the base for four more specialized bottlings. Made from hand-selected blue agave plants from the Los Altos region of Jalisco…

For his namesake firm’s first corporate project, the New York–based architect and interior designer Tony Ingrao (see Portfolio in the May/June 2013 issue of Robb Report Home & Style) has partnered with the forthcoming (late 2014) Baccarat Residences. Ingrao will create 61 luxury residences on floors 18 through 49 of the New York City building at 20 West 53rd St., which has been designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and will also include a Baccarat hotel on floors one through 17.
The residences will o…

An all-star design team combining the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, the Paris-based interior design firm PYR (Pierre-Yves Rochon), and the landscape architecture firm Raymond Jungles is creating Jade Signature, the newest condominium tower in the Jade series of luxury residences from the developer Fortune International. The 57-story project, to be located just north of Miami Beach, in Sunny Isles, is scheduled for completion by late 2016. Among the building’s notable design elements are enorm…

La Dolce Vita
Hawaii June 11–16, 2013
Hualalai Resort, the residential community associated with the nearby Four Seasons Resort Hualalai on the Big Island’s Kona-Kohala Coast, will host this six-day celebration of the sweet life with cooking classes, culinary demonstrations, and dinners. The event will be co-hosted by Steve and Chrystal Clifton, owners of Palmina winery in Lompoc, Calif., and partners of Brewer-Clifton wines. Tickets range from $39 to $135 for various events. Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, 8…

Combining cashmere, linen, wool, and silk with rich colors and abstract patterns, the Chicago-based architecture and design firm Soucie Horner brings a timelessly modern aesthetic to its SHIIR rug designs. For this year’s collection, the 13-year-old company, which has designed homes from the Midwest to Mexico and the United Kingdom, has partnered with the designer Holly Hunt to create four new cashmere rugs for Spring 2013 that will be available at Holly Hunt showrooms. Each of the designs—Acanthus, Bookbinder…

The Italian supercar marque Pagani, in collaboration with the Italian speaker maker Sonus faber, has introduced a new stereo enhancement for its flagship sports car, the Huayra. The twin-turbo, 720 hp Huayra—which debuted on American shores in 2012 and achieves an impressive zero-to-60 time of 3.3 seconds—is now offered with an audio upgrade appropriate to its exceptional road-going performance. Producing a bone-rattling 1,200 watts of power (about three times the power of the car’s stock stereo), the Sonus fa…

Of the 162 exhibitors at the fourth annual Masterpiece London art and antiques fair, held from June 27 through July 3 at the South Grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the 23 presenters showing watches and jewelry might steal the show. This year it is all about playful designs composed of oversize gemstones, colored diamonds, and other rare materials from estate jewelers and designers alike.
A case in point: asymmetric pear-drop earrings with matching pear-shaped yellow and white diamonds (50.81 and 40.12 c…

Aside from its sweeping views over the Amalfi coast, Palazzo Avino—the medieval-palace-turned-luxury-resort that was formerly known as Palazzo Sasso—is best remembered for its restaurant, Rossellini’s. Now, in tandem with its recent name change, the hilltop resort has enlisted the Italian chef Michele Deleo to run its prized Michelin two-star eatery.
Deleo—who has worked at Le Crillon des Gourmets and the Astrance in Paris, Le Gavroche in London, and more, and earned Michelin stars at two other restaurants e…

Easily mistaken for a purely decorative object, the Final Turn is actually an urn. The Seattle-based architect Tom Kundig, of Olson Kundig Architects, created the piece with the designer Greg Lundgren, of Seattle’s Lundgren Monuments, to give thoughtful design to a vessel that Kundig says is often overlooked. The piece stands roughly 8 inches high, comes in blackened steel ($3,300) or bronze ($3,850), and consists of two halves that are intentionally out of kilter when put together. Inside, the upper half incl…