Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i Esquire Singapore

You’ve heard it so often, that it’s too blandly obvious to be mantra-worthy: necessity is the mother of all invention. But every time someone says it, they unassumingly propogate necessity’s undeserved reign. What’s more pivotal than necessity? What drives something to become necessary? Which fire burns more richly and deeply than necessity itself? Desire. Ahhh, desire. It’s so fundamental that its foundational place in modern civilisation is too often overlooked. It remains relegated to the shadows and confined to life’s parameters, where physical pleasures dominate the discourse in the most tepid and uninspired ways. You shouldn’t have to be Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung or Beyoncé, to appreciate the profound power of that innermost call. The one that lights up body and mind as it winds you up-headily, definingly, and in…

PESCATO DEL GIORNO FIAMMA, CAPELLA SINGAPORE A few months ago, Italian-Argentinian Chef Mauro Colagreco, the guiding hand behind the three-Michelin-starred institution Mirazur, lifted the curtain on his newest opening, Fiamma. Italian for ‘flame’, Fiamma is an homage to the warmth of family dinners where star players were made. The Pescato Del Giorno (fresh fish of the day) is a palette-blessing revelation. Ocean-borne savouriness bolstered by carefully sourced nuts and vegetables. An exquisite dance of taste and texture. Read the full review here…

INSTA360 GO2 Insta360 hails its GO2 camera the “world’s smallest action camera”, adding that it “weighs about six times lighter than your old-action cam, with the same-sized image sensor, and fits perfectly on your shirt”. All those things are true. Coming in at 26.5g, it measures 2.08 x 0.93 x 0.81 inches—but this wee device is mythically overpowered. Whether you’re in the business of selfie-ing your way through your many exploits, submerging yourself in water up to four metres or, for whatever reason, wearing it as a body cam, it comes in clutch. With 32GB internal storage, you’d be able to capture a multitude of nine-megapixel photos and ultra-wide angle 1440-pixel videos. A hardened-glass (replaceable) lens protector keeps its all-seeing eye safe and ready for the next deployment. Retails for…

What do you need? We don’t mean ‘what do you want?’, ‘what do you desire?’ or ‘what do you wish for?’, inviting you to produce a long-cherished fantasy list of pretty consumer durables, or the Hollywood-meets-Instagram fiction of some ideal lifestyle. We mean, what do you really need to have a fulfilled, flourishing life? You may, as The Rolling Stones have it, not get what you want, but do you get what you need? THE BASICS Well, start with the basics. We all have physiological needs including sustenance, air and sleep. Next, we might think about safety and security—a place to live, employment, good health, social stability. We might then consider more psychological needs, the likes of affiliation with and the acceptance of others: friends, family and a sexual partner.…

IT’S IN THE WATER “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Mark Twain’s words are haunting. Especially now. When so much of the finite commodity that is life is spent online. When so much of what happens in real life is inherited from, circulated in and fed back into the online sphere. Where opinions flow free, inundating your feeds with an ubiquity so obvious, it washes over you like a breath you don’t notice you’re taking. On most days, you’re ambivalent. Until the moment it clicks-you latch on to some idea/thought/ad lib and the transformation begins. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Across the span of time, cultures and tongues, transcendence has been shown to be triggered…

There’s a popular saying: “Two’s a coincidence, three’s a trend”. And going by the number of runway appearances this season, exposed underwear is one to watch out for. Let’s assess the players. At classically elegant Dior Men, fine polos tucked into Charvet-style boxer shorts; at Louis Vuitton, shiny satin boxers peeking out over hip hop-inflected denim ensembles; at Prada, minimalist blacks and greys broken up by chilli red and mint green waistbands. Designer underwear itself is nothing new—Calvin Klein made certain of that when he essentially invented the category in the ‘90s. The difference these days, is a higher level of exclusivity. To wit, you’re only going to be able to find the likes of briefs, boxers and trunks from labels such as Celine, Bottega Veneta and Burberry (yes, they’ve…

‘Givrée’ translates to ‘frost’. What prompted you to explore that for the latest Terre d’Hermès? I started to experiment with juniper berries one day and discovered that I can explore this opportunity with Terre. I had a vision in my mind of frost on the ground. The beauty of the moment when the frost melts and becomes water that feeds and nourishes the Earth. How did juniper contribute to that sensation of coolness? Freshness in perfume-making is always associated with pleasure, and I think it’s really interesting to bring something light and vivifying. Juniper is the main ingredient of gin, and you get a cool feeling when you smell gin. I wanted an ingredient that had the strength to create this sensation. Your predecessor, Jean-Claude Ellena, was the creator of…

All by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. All by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.…

In the summer of 2020, as dormant sports leagues plotted their comebacks amid rising Covid rates, the NBA turned to an unlikely place for help: a Finnish jeweller, albeit one with a twist. Pioneering smartring start-up Ōura offered teams the ability to analyse their athletes’ heart rates, respiratory health and body temperature through a titanium band and dedicated app, potentially identifying early signs of the virus (at which point, players would get turfed out of the league-wide bubble). The lightweight rings are far less obtrusive than smartwatches, which convinced the NBA to purchase 2,000 of the sleek, sensor-packed devices. Following the restart, the season ended without a single Covid case. What began life in 2015 as a simple sleep-tracking tool had now earned a reputation as a public-health must-have. Sales…

Beyond profit and critical acclaim, surely the truest test of a product’s success is whether its name gets assimilated into a collective lexicon or, better yet, transformed into a verb. (If you have a question only the Internet can answer, you don’t use a search engine, you google it.) So, aside from the fact we are still using them 125 years later, that we reach for a Swiss Army Knife-rather than a multi-tool, or some other generic piece of hardware-is testament to the peerless design of Victorinox’s original Officer’s and Sports Knife. Designed by the Swiss inventor and Victorinox founder Karl Elsener, the knife was first patented in 1897 and featured two blades, a corkscrew, a can opener, a punch awl and, crucially, a screwdriver-the key selling-point in the late…

“I like to say that when I smell flowers,” Josh Kennedy-White says, “…when I smell roses, I think of funerals, not weddings.” And so it begins. The initial inference seems to be that Kennedy-White (JKW hereinafter) is a pessimist. At second glance, however, the 53-year-old Australian seems to be anything but, with a confident, almost exuberant energy that is quite affecting. He said he was going to turn up to our meeting wearing a beige linen suit and I didn’t believe him, but he was true to his word, and looked every inch the international man of mystery that I expected him to expect me to expect him to be. It’s often tricky to look shevelled in a linen suit, but JKW carries it off well enough. Come on! If…

The brand was founded in 1926, but the contemporary iteration of Tudor (the sister company to Rolex) has only really been around for a decade or so. That’s not to say Tudor wasn’t making great watches beforehand, but it has come to be defined by one brilliant timepiece: the Black Bay, a ‘50s diver that was relaunched to great acclaim in 2012. The masterstroke was to continue that success, gradually augmenting build quality and inhouse production, and periodically releasing watches that emanate the brand style but also say something you didn’t expect. In Geneva, at this year’s edition of the Watches and Wonders fair, Tudor presented a steel-and-gold Black Bay Chronograph with a bi-colour dial (available on a Bund strap-very cool), a Black Bay GMT with brown- and-black ‘Mars Bar’…

DEAR NEIL HUMPHREYS, AGED 18-AND-A-HALF, You have just been mugged inside an East London McDonald’s. The farcical crime was emasculating for several reasons. First, you are 18. Your mugger was 12. You dropped your wallet to an aggressor whose balls haven’t dropped yet. Second, he threatened to stab you with a weapon that was a cross between a Swiss Army knife and a nail file. And finally, he was part of a much larger gang, whose members were observing this surreal initiation ritual. He was, in effect, a virgin mugger. He was losing his cherry with your wallet. In the small hours, when the shock takes hold, you will be unable to sleep. So, in a melodramatic scene ripped from a Hallmark movie, you will scribble down your thoughts in…

CHA CHA DUET SMOKE & MIRRORS BAR, NATIONAL GALLERY The Real Art of Drinking is what Smoke & Mirrors christens the next iteration of its signature cocktail menu. The 16-drink payload is inspired by eight principles of art: Proportion, Contrast, Movement, Balance, Unity, Rhythm, Pattern and Focus. Unity, in particular, tantalises exceptionally. Its corresponding libation, the Cha Cha Duet, brings Roku gin, an in-house Haku vodka matcha distillate and Chivas Mizunara blended scotch into enthralling conversation that climaxes in a splendour of sweet and sour complexity. Read the full review here…

DIRTBAG, MASSACHUSETTS: A CONFESSIONAL BY ISSAC FITZGERALD It’s there in the title: this one’s personal. Not all memoirs are created equal. The format favours a colourful life—and Issac Fitzgerald’s has no shortage of hues. Depending on how sheltered you are or how many licks you’ve taken in the mean streets of your come-up, Dirtbag will either astound or reassure you. Resonance is an art that Fitzgerald deploys to potent effect. He tells you that he’s the result of a moment of weakness by two divinity students, that he’s been in porn, that he’s committed “low-level health insurance fraud”, and from it all, radiates a probing self-awareness that is as edifying as it is entertaining. Available on Amazon. DOGGEREL BY PIXIES “We’re trying to do things that are very big and…

1 I was inspired to start Ollie because of three reasons. I wanted a healthier option for drinking; I was tired of making PowerPoint slides; and I have a hard time working for other people. I think I can be a great teammate, but my vocally opinionated nature makes me a mess to manage. Sorry for that, boss. 2 The most enjoyable night of my life has been the first time I went to Bonnaroo, a major music festival in the US. You spend four days camping in the middle of nowhere, listening to music and dancing with your friends all day. It’s the dream for a music-loving, broke college kid. 3 The worst date I ever went on taught me that I should really be more intentional about who…

Brad Pitt. The haircut (any haircut), the jawline, the body, the effortlessly asseverated charisma, the insistently commanding aura that cemented his being-in-chargeness as the natural order of things. Brad Pitt the brand. Brad Pitt the guy. Brad Pitt, the gold standard of mainstream masculine desirability, is dead. Mortui vivos docent. I’ve been an attendee at his ongoing ‘funeral’ for years, without even knowing it. It wasn’t until a spontaneous conversation over a panoramic array of social lubricants took a whimsically contemplative turn-the kind that involves your female partners in conversation pondering over which male celebrity slakes their (loudly and willingly articulated) thirst-that I realised how out of favour (dead) Pitt, People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1995 and 2000, was. I couldn’t and can’t believe it. This perverse, sacrilegious revelation…

We’ve all heard the “It’s about the journey” thing, but let’s face it-it’s the destination. Shuffling through security and getting cracked in the elbow by the beverage cart feels worth it when you’re heading somewhere spectacular. So next time you’re preparing for a big trip, make sure you’ve got the gear to match. Ditch the hyperfunctional, many-pocketed backpack and opt for a bag that works on the plane and when you land. Prada’s leather carryall is large enough to hold your laptop, headphones, and every other in-flight essential, but sleek and stylish enough that you’ll want to bring it with you after checking in at the hotel. And if by some poor stroke of luck you’re going somewhere less than spectacular? Well, at least you’ve got a damn good bag…

If you’ve ever met Jake Gyllenhaal in person, the chances are high that you will not forget his eyes. Even when he’s nowhere next to you. Even when the room manages to be simultaneously overly-dim and overly-bright (as party venues tend to be) and the place is packed with people constantly shuffling around in droves, and your senses are pulverised by the ongoing loud music. Hot Chip has just finished their opening set and everyone’s waiting for Phoenix to come on, just as Sienna Miller arrives at the scene, and Lily Collins poses for the camera. Then Idris Elba, Frieda Pinto, Jason Momoa and dozens more celebrities walk through a specially commissioned Nonotak—designed light installation. Amid the hazy, tub-thumping frenzy that was Cartier’s annual international party in San Francisco—this was…

THE ONE THING THEY DON’T TELL YOU about being behind the bar, is the amount of alcohol you’ll be drinking! MY JOB HAS TAUGHT ME that resilience is the amazing ability and tenacity to push through anything that comes [my] way. MY BIGGEST LIFE LESSON from behind the bar has been figuratively, it is better to break one glass than lose an entire tray of glasses. THERE’S NO AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL THAT can save you from an unfortunate date; you can’t cover up a bad pairing. THE TRICK TO ORDERING the perfect first-date drink is to make friends with the bartender. How else will you impress your date? THE WORST ADVICE I’ve ever overheard from behind the bar, is from a co-worker who told me that we should go for…

It felt like cheating, but it was delicious. The early days of my relationship with the dirty martini were complex. I craved the easy sophistication that a martini conjured, but my postcollege self wasn’t ready for its stone-cold booziness. Few in their early twenties have dealt with enough adult life to appreciate the martini’s ability to make you forget that you now have to deal with adult life. A dirty martini, however? That wisp of olive brine alongside gin and vermouth made the drink downright quaffable and fun, even though it still looked like the thing that grown-ups who had a mortgage and a dinner jacket drank. It became a go-to when I felt the need to flex some faux refinement. But hang around too many serious bar folk and…

Tote. Carryall. Schlep bag. Take your pick and call it what you will, but it’s hard to argue against the sheer utility of a bag that simply holds a lot. Tiny novelty bags are scuttling away, and in their place this season come large, spacious and decidedly, more useful carriers that span a whole spectrum of style. Some examples: Dior goes sporty with space for not one, but two water bottles; Coach does camouflage by way of Pollock-style drip painting; Longchamp goes green with recycled canvas; and sardonically witty Balenciaga has a new one out, literally named the Trash Pouch.…

HUAWEI WATCH GT 3 PRO New frontier alert: this is so much more than just a nestle in the sweet spot between style and performance. This is an impeccable realisation of the best of both: alchemy you can wear; a revelation on your wrist. Inspired by the legacy of the automotive industry, Gran Turismo, the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro stands firmly with adventurers and boundary-pushers. Built for going the distance, its titanium casing houses a world of functionality. Develop a routine from 100 workout modes; keep tabs on health management with heart rate, blood oxygen, sleep, respiratory health and pressure monitoring-and enjoy the ease that comes with the extended 14-day battery life. Retails for SGD468 online and in-store. BEST FACE FORWARD The human face contains 42 individual muscles. This…

Known by the stage name AKA Sounds, Amanda Keisha Ang is no ordinary DJ. From frequently spinning at the genreagnostic Kampong Boogie at the Projector X, to playing at luxury brand events and an upcoming stint at the Singapore Grand Prix, she’s as much of a multihyphenated talent as they come. Ang is also the co-founder of all-girl music collective Attagirl! and part of the bass collective Baowbaow, focusing on music genres such as vogue, UK garage, grime, footwork jungle and UK dubstep. The 37-year-old opens up about music, her deepest desires and why that quiet confidence in a man, is the way to her heart. When and how did you pick up deejaying? I first started when I was 19, at a deejay studio called Frontallabs, but lost touch…

How’s your swipe-game coming along? Whether you’re running up matches like it’s you season or persisting through a prolonged dry spell, you can’t dispute the vehement new-normalness of online dating and the struggles that accompany it. You’re not alone. In the spirit of all things Desire, here’s six of popculture’s most lovable icons as the archetypes we imagine them to be, should they have to endure the old swipety-swipe merry-go-round that is modern romance. Go on. Have a laugh, then get inspired. Don Draper, 36 The Entrepreneur What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. You’re born alone and you die alone, and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget.…

We love to think of the ‘70s as the decade that style forgot. But the ‘70s begs to differ. The disco decade witnessed the transition from the sartorial certainties of the old-boy network to the elegant, casual possibilities of ready-to-wear. Things got sexy as designer brands like Yves Saint Laurent and Giorgio Armani took fashion out of the couture atelier and onto the street. At the same time, in watchmaking, storied brands shook off the gentlemanly trappings of the dress watch and began to play with modern expressions of sporty luxury, like with the groundbreaking Audemars Piguet Royal Oak (1972) and the Patek Philippe Nautilus (1976). In 1977, Vacheron Constantin was 222 years old. It could have marked that milestone with a gold pocket watch. Instead, it created the 222,…

There’s a touch of sweet irony built into the way Moncler’s down jackets (first created in the ‘50s for utility and protection against harsh cold) would in the ‘80s, become a fashionable symbol. It is in fact, a turn of events that Sergio Zambon, the Creative Director of 2 Moncler 1952, looks to for inspiration. “My first step in approaching a project is to understand the brand’s heritage and trademarks,” Zambon explains. That’s particularly important for 2 Moncler 1952, which is part of the brand’s Genius project launched in 2018. The crux of Genius is that it invites a host of guest designers to reinterpret the essence of the Moncler brand (the padded down jacket, in case there was any doubt). And where these guest designers are encouraged to apply…

It’s called decade daydreaming, and we’ve all done it. Living in the present but hankering after the past, even if we never actually lived through those times. Especially if we never actually lived through those times. Whether it’s the ‘50s, ‘60s or ‘70s—’80s if you’re Gen Z and younger—the pre-social media era is somehow even more inspiring to us these days than the future, particularly in areas such as music, style and design, where they’re most certainly no longer made like they were used to. That is, with the exception of the luxury timepiece industry, which in addition to being unabashedly soft on historical nostalgia, is also wilfully resistant to change. But even in this esteemed realm, few makers have achieved the holy triumvirate of good looks, good quality and…

Behind every sublime, life-elevating night out and every soul-kissing party, is a deejay who’s savvy and soulful enough to bring you the kind of euphoria that makes you smile years, and even decades after an event. In Singapore, and in the ever-growing niche that is new-school hip-hop, there’s Prav and.WAV(Y). The club night he co-founded isn’t just a good time; it’s a site of spiritual submission to the voices and beats leading culture into its latest and boldest frontiers. A tastemaker and torchbearer, 28-year-old Prav (whose real name is Pravin Naidu) weathered the Covid-19 storm and is poised to make a comeback where the bars and beats resound even more powerfully. Getting lit just got a whole lot better. How do you feel about the return of.WAV(Y)? It’s been twox-and-a-half…