United Colors of Benetton: FW07/08

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Lanvin prepping denim line with Acne

Last months Lanvin announced that they have consulted Acne Jeans for a denim collection expanding their line of high-end clothing. Pioneers Acne Jeans revolutionized denim fashion with their skinny jeans. What makes Acne and Lanvin a perfect match is that both companies are minimalist. Acne’s Jean for example have no broidery or logos on the back pockets giving off a neutral and stealthy appearance.

Details are yet to be released about the partnership or whether Lanvin will use the denim line to go down market. Currently their line of clothing is highly premium with nothing for sale that a blue collar guy can buy and without swallowing a lot of water. If the shareholders are money hungry the denim line will be cheaper than Lanvin’s current line of products, if not exclusivity will be ensured using limited production and high prices.

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What's in the bag???

There are two things kicks off a cloudy Tuesday in a positive manner. One is waking up to a cute message on your phone for a soon-to-become mistress, and the other second one is “finding” money. Digging for dirty laundry in my wardrobe I pulled up a pair of trousers which had not been worn in a few weeks and was due to spend some times in the washing machine. Checking through the pockets I made a discovery in the front right pocket. Folded three times was a lonely legal tender in the form of a £20 note!! How awesome isn’t that, finding money you thought you never had?

With a £20 note to spare for what ever I want I walked the streets of London realizing that for the first time in my life, I’m in need of a calendar? Having always been the type who stores all his agenda in the head I finally realize that a calendar will help me manage my life a little bit better. When in stress I tend to suffer from Alzheimer and with important things on my agenda I cannot afford having negligence standing in my way. Hunting for a calendar my first pray was Smythson which is a manufacturer of fine stationary.

Horrified by the price of a highly luxurious leather 08/09 calendar priced at £210 avoiding the smell of leather became my first criteria. Lurking around various shops I stumbled across ORDNING&REDA which was a familiar brand name since it’s Swedish. Their wide variety of stationary in various colours had me trapped. Spotting a box filled with 2008 calendar in an array of colours I got even locked in place by the price sign stating “75% off all 2008 calendars”. Available for a just under £5 I knew that finding anything better at a competitive price would highly unlikely. Next up I had to battle with philosophical challenge of choice. With 6 different colours in different textures I contemplated for 10 minutes deciding over which to take with me home. Since the calendar was to spend most of it’s time in my bag I placed every single colour next to the bag to see how they paired together. In the end the navy blue one with a shiny luster became the choice since the dark, matte and gleamy texture makes it look more luxurious than the other colors which were white, lime green and bright lava orange. Alligator green and burgundy would be a great addition to their line of colours.

Replacing my worn out notebook the calendar in a happy home with all the other items I carry with me. I thought that I should attach pictures of what’s in my bag so that all guys who wonder what on earth I might need a bag for. Anyone with moderate IQ level can guess that the umbrella and sunglasses rarely leave together since rain and severe sunshine are two extremes. Water bottle is a necessity which I’m used to carrying with me after having lived in the very dry climate of Southern California. The wallet carries all the cards and cash, camera is very handy and is stored in the red case which look gorgeous next to the blue calendar and brown bag. Since cargo pants with big pockets aren’t going to be fashion anytime soon, I hope that you can now understand my need for a bag.

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Look of the month: May 2008

Dior Homme AW08

The white shirt is the common denominator of all wardrobes. It’s a piece that every man should posses. As a foundation for any proper wardrobe the white shirt is ironically our most “precious” piece of garments. There’s a holy aura around it which has every owner under the spell of protecting it at all cost. Many people only pull out their white shirts at special occasions and when they do it’s, unlike their other piece of clothing, perfectly ironed. Why do we give such a high level of care to our white shirts??

White shirts happen to be amongst the cheapest clothing money can buy and they tend to be significantly cheaper than any other coloured shirts. It’s such a basic element in our wardrobe and we should rock white shirts like a 2 year old rock diapers. Stain someone’s white shirt and they eyes will turn red with fury focusing on the stain for the rest of the day. Yes, white is more sensitive to dirt than other colours but white clothes are also very easy to wash. The first aid kit in any household is a stain remover, which should be applied ASAP after “disaster” has struck, after a few hours soak it in a bucket filled with detergent and water until it’s time for it to hit the washing machine. Follow those tips and rest assured, you shirt should remain whiter than cocaine. Obviously a white shirt is not to be worn if you have planed on eating spaghetti bolognese while participating in a paint ball war during a rainy day in the forest.

In conjunction with my outfit posted last week, shirts are optimal for warm climates. Unbuttoning allows ventilation and the same goes for rolling up the sleeves. As the sun set and temperature drop, rolling down the sleeves will protect you for any breeze. What’s critical when wearing a white shirt casually is that the fit is slim or else you’ll look like a sales guy on a 15:00 break playing hangman. Sadly cheap shirts are often of classic fit and highly non-trendy for use without a blazer or sweater on top. If laziness isn’t a problem taking a shirt to a tailor is worth the hassle and shouldn’t cost more than $/€10-20.

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CEO lifestyle: Part II final.

Juggling multiple businesses is a tough task and eventually time becomes money with your wishing a day had 30 hours instead of 24. You essentially live and breathe your empire of firms with no weekend to take off lying in the bed eating ice cream while watching TV all day. Quite similar to how a mother is occupied taking care of her toddler all day every day.

Handling the tough decisions you enslave an unpaid female intern as personal assistant to keep track of your schedule making sure you are at the right place, at the right time. As a respectable man having a watch on your left wrist is a good idea too. Most importantly a wrist watch is good for timing people boring you to death with weak business proposal, time them with you watch and cut them off if they have failed to trigger your interest within the first 15 minutes.

Timing obviously requires a fine wrist watch capable of measuring time with highest possible precision. The best of the best will only do and that includes manufacturers like Breguet, Vacheron Constantine, Zenith, Patek Phillipe and Jaeger Le' Coultre. A time piece from either of those manufacturers will make a Cartier or Tag-Heuer look as exclusive as codfish. They represent engineering at its absolute finest with thousands years of knowledge in gravity and physics baked into a time displaying instrument on your wrist. Only those who have seen one of these uncompromised time pieces in real life can appreciate the level of engineering complexity lying under the glass window. Some of these time pieces take as long as 4-8 months to piece together.

With time being scares as sun light in northern Sweden during winter, decisions sometimes have to be taken on the move. The Mercedes Maybach is the campervan for executives. Stuck in traffic you have a foldable table, internet access, satellite telephone and a fridge to keep you busy.

Sometimes you just want to relax and that’s were the Maybach shines offering the most comfortable seat seats on the market. The seats can be reclined and be customized in the same way as a first class seat. Maybach Landaulet(pictured) is the latest edition to the line up and comes with a foldable rag top for the rear for anyone with ambitions to look cooler than the Pope this summer.

A Maybach might be a triumph worth celebrating but the final destination of the career will be made in your very own private yet across 6 times zones. Dr. Vijay Mallya has reached his destination with his fully customized Airbus VT-VJM. Not only does a private aircraft save you tons of time but it allow you to do what ever frequent flyer want to do, which is to have intercourse at an altitude 2times higher than mount Everest.

Biggest ego project of them all is venture capitalist Tom Perkins’s yatch. He got a shipyard to commission the largest privately owned sail boat for him. Named “the Maltese Falcon”, it’s one extraordinary creation. More impressive is that he designed the controlling software himself. That illustrates that billionaire’s aren’t just indulging in obscene consumptions but are actually highly productive. Many of the worlds billionaire’s started from scratch like any average human. All the wealth they posses isn’t just a reward for their smartness or intelligence but most importantly for they risks they take. Business is not only about having a great idea but also being willing to go at it by accepting the risk of loosing every penny invested.

These people didn’t stop when they made their first 100 million but continued to flip their money over and over, like Russian business magnet Roman Abrahamovich who bought Chelsea soccer team and turned into one of the most competitive soccer teams in the world.

Hottest places to be every summer for any big hitter is in Monaco during the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The event of Formula 1 drivers racing on a street circuit completely overshadows the Cannes film festival. Small boats at the harbor leave and make space for the big yatch on where the rich and luxury will sit watching the spectacle. For Formula 1 fanatics the race is sadly the least watcher-friendly one on the calendar because of the nonexistent overtaking possibilities. Those on site at the events will killer time enjoying the spectacles and festivities that take place during the race weekend. The drivers love battling in Monaco for the glory, Monaco GP is after all the most prestigious races a driver can win. Tomorrow Ferrari and Mclaren will battle it out for the glamor and if there weather will be like predicted, rainy, then we will have one very entertaining race with cars sliding into the barriers and clogging up like rice poured into a kitchen sink.

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CEO lifestyle: Part I.

Hundred millions of people worship God, respect him and want to be him. Although we don’t have divine powers to create Adam and Eve in our backyards we dream of becoming a greater man than the neighbor living next door. Becoming an influential entrepreneur so high on the hierarchy that we can play basketball with the moon has been the life goal of many male two legged creatures on earth. The epitome of entrepreneurship is building an entire consisting of business spread across there different continents with you holding the control of all firms with an iron grip. It's time to examine life at the top.

Waving a business card as friend eating dinner with you on a Friday evening is a lost art. The business card has simply lost its status of giving people the perception that the owner is a big time hitter. With countless of internet site offering 100-250 business cards for a mere €/$4 a highly computer literate porn surfing 14 years old boy can order a batch tonight and have them in his bedroom on Monday morning.

In the midst of the business card left on the curb the pen is still left standing tall. Since the introduction of PCs handwriting is a lost art. Despite all the technology enabling us to live weeks without even touching a writing instrument, the pen is still one of the most powerful instruments in the world. All treaties, business contracts and marriages are still sealed with signatures using a good trust worthy pen. So what better way is there to awe fellow acquaintances and business partners by pulling out a silver 30 gram fountain pen out of your left chest pocket?

Premium writing instruments tend to be overlooked because people are content with the free pens they have collected from various banks, conventions and post offices. What the masses are missing out on is the efficiency of premium writing pens. Writing with some premium ball point pens is like ironing a silk shirt, 100% smooth with your soft hands barely having to apply any pressure because gravity and the weight of the pen does all the work for you. As a CEO you don’t want to do any unnecessary labor of pressing the pen hard against paper, slapping it or nudging the tip on your tongue just to get the ink flowing. Naturally the average man shouldn’t go off and buy a €8 000 Montblanc pen unless they are sitting behind a mahogany table with a banker's lamp on it like Hayden Christensen in the movie Awake.

Laying in the bed wrapped around in Egyptian cotton the morning begin with flicking through a news paper reading the headlines, latest acquisitions and scanning for any interesting news in the corporate world. After a breakfast drinking freshly pressed juice and eating croissants brought to your residence every morning by a catering company you jump into your standard attire, tailored suits.

With an appetite for three piece suits and double breasted suits you have an established relationship with a Savile Row tailor like Richard Anderson or Norton & Sons who served Winston Churchill back in the late/early 1900s. Naturally you don’t have to waste time visiting the store, instead, the store visit you at the office letting you browse through look books of new materials.

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California Love.

The latest prancing horse born in the stable of Maranello based car manufacturer is the Ferrari California. Developed to fill a void in the Ferrari Line up the California is a GT aimed to take on top selling sports cars like the Porsche 997 Turbo and Mercedes SL63 AMG. Powered by a 4.3L V8 the California will offer an exhilarating experienced with a roaring high pitched sound waves leaving the exhaust pipes.

Although the California will the typical sporty Ferrari experience with précis handling and a high sporty natural inspired engine, Ferrari have nurtured the California to be a tame horse. With a double clutch transmission the car will ensure fast but smooth gear changes as opposed to the sequential F1 transmission offered in the 599GTB and F430 Scuderia which use hydraulic pressure pushing gears for ultra fast gear changes. Additionally the 454hp California will come with a hard top folding roof making the car usable all year around. To make the car more appealing as a daily driver there are two backseats which sadly can only be used by hobbits…………….with detachable legs. Price is yet to be announced but has been said to land in the $/€165 000-180 000 region similar to the F430. As a bonus carbon ceramic brakes will be standard as opposed to being offer as a €/$12 000 option.

One might wonder why the car wasn’t named Ferrari Alaska or Tennessee. The name California wasn’t chosen because Ferrari fancies the accent of the current Californian governor nor because California account for close to 15% of Ferrari’s sales. Thought of as one of the most beautiful cars ever made the 250 California GT became the inspiration for Ferrari’s latest model. Instead of classy chrome details very chose the path of walking away from strict lines and have crafted the new California with free flowing organic lines. Radio DJ Chris for a record breaking $10.9 million.

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