All posts tagged: RESORT

What are the Best Pieces in the New Resort Collections?

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

The 2017-18 luxury designer resort collections are now fully delivered, and available online and in-store. Resort (or “cruise,” if you like the old-school moniker) is one of our favorite seasons – the clothes tend to be less trendy and therefore a more sensible investment. The looks are usually polished, optimistic and versatile. Plus they evoke distant lands untouched by snow and ice: the desert, the tropics, the Mediterranean. What better way to dream a little dream than to browse the best of the resort collections? Whether you’re buying because you’ve already got an elegant trip planned, or just “window-shopping” and looking for inspiration, this is a great time of year. Our intrepid team here at Dandelion Chandelier has zeroed in on seven luxury brands we love, to see what’s on offer this resort season. We like to think of them as the “Magnificent Seven:” Gucci, Valentino, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior, FENDI and Prada. We’ve assessed apparel, shoes, sneakers and handbags. And we’ve got the one must-buy item of the season. Here’s our Style Editor’s resort …

Valentino Launches a New Exclusive Luxury Resort Line

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

Is this athletic wear? Are these party clothes? Can I wear them to the office? Or to the gym? Yes, yes, yes and yes – at least in a manner of speaking. Last week, Valentino launched a 4-weeks-only pop-up shop on Spring Street in SoHo to showcase its latest resort collection. And it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen from the house of Valentino. We were invited to the “VIC” (that’s Very Important Client, thank you very much) event last Thursday, so we got to see it firsthand. And we love it. It’s luxury sportswear with a more literal take than usual – fresh, vibrant, energizing colors; crisp silhouettes; an urban sensibility; and an explicit nod to sports – especially basketball and boxing. The ad campaign was shot on a basketball court, with the models shooting hoops. The vibe of the collection is femme and macho, practical and whimsical, relaxed and hard-charging. The pieces are smartly-priced, and as a result they’re flying out the door. You should get yourself to the pop-up store before it closes …

In Luxury Travel, Mystery is the New Transparency

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

In recent conversations, a new trend has become clear to us here at Dandelion Chandelier: for luxury travel experiences, word of mouth is the new social media. Analog is the new digital. Silence is the new shouting. How do we know this? Because some of the best luxury properties in the world have exited social media completely. We recently interviewed a devotee of ultra-luxury destination health and wellness retreat Vana in Dehradun, India. It’s a unique and highly exclusive spa for the jet set (frequent guests call themselves “Vanavasis,”) and it’s not well known amongst the hoi polloi. Hearing about its many wonders made us keen to visit: the property’s website is filled with images of a dreamy tropical paradise where serenity might actually be within reach. Eager to share our discovery, we published our post and then set to work on our usual social media promotion for the post. A curious thing happened on the way to social media, though. We went looking for the Instagram handle for the Vana retreat, and we couldn’t …

Where is the Best Luxury Wellness Retreat in the World?

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

Are you a Vanavasi? Should you be? These are pressing questions to ponder as we roll into the action-packed fall season. This time of year can bring stimulation, anxiety, excitement or stress – and sometimes all of the above, all at one time. As we head into the autumn, it seems fitting to take a look at a wellness retreat about which we’ve been hearing rave reviews from our jet set friends. A financier and close friend of our Paris Bureau Chief kindly agreed to share his inside views on Vana, an upscale wellness retreat located in North India at the foothills of the Himalaya. He shared his thoughts after returning from his third stay there.  Based on his report, we’re booking our visits right now. It is quite possibly the best luxury health and wellness retreat in the world.

Luxury Legends: Do Aman Resorts Live Up to the Hype?

Published by Pamela Thomas-Graham

The best luxury hotels and resorts in the world, in the most incredible locations. That’s how people who have visited them describe Aman properties. That is, if you can get someone to talk about them – Aman is still a bit of an insider secret. The hotels do not advertise, they have no loyalty program, and rates average $1,400 per night for a basic room (they can climb to $50,000 per night.) We’d traveled the world extensively for years, but we had never heard the Aman name until we started hanging around truly wealthy people a few years ago. Up until that point, we had fancied ourselves knowledgeable luxury travelers, well-versed in the nuances of the Four Seasons, the Ritz, the St. Regis, and the iconic grand dame hotels in major cities around the world. We thought we were totally in on whatever insider luxury hotel secrets there might be. We were wrong.