Luxury Facts

Brands begin and end everyday. Yet, there are some that have withstood the trials of time, primarily due to their high-quality products and simple grit. With talk about three such brands and what they are doing today. By: Soumya Jain It’s never been easy to start and successfully run a luxury brand. It involves high investment, high-quality products, impeccable designs and gracious customer service. Some brands, however, have gone through all these trials and perfected their strategies, enabling them to exist more than decades! Here are three brands that have done just that and how they are faring today. GUCCI Luxury lifestyle brand Gucci was founded by Guccio Gucci in 1921 in Florence, Italy. Gucci began as a luxury leather goods shop initially, crafting handbags, shoes, and his iconic ornamented loafer, going on to silks and knitwear in a signature pattern. By 1953, Gucci had become an international sensation with celebrities and jet-set travelers. The brand left no ...

Women are complex creatures. While that makes them hard to understand for some people, it has its unique benefits also. We talk about two women who have turned around their lives, dabbling their hands in multiple things, which is completely different from how they started out probably! By: Soumya Jain Women are considered to be natural multitaskers. They are also more artistically inclined than the opposite gender. And well, they are adaptable too. These reasons make women extremely fluid. For some, these aspects work out in their favor very well. We talk about two such women who are in a very different place from where they were before… Anouska Hempel A regular in the London society, Anouska Hempel, also known as Lady Weinberg, started out her career as an actress in the 1960s and 70s. Her most notable movie was a James Bond film: ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. Her acting career didn’t really fly off or give her much applause. Since then, she has turned around to ...

Although there is much involved in the creation of delectable Japanese cuisine, Teppanyaki forms a large part of it, which many misunderstand to be same as hibachi or just grilled food. By: Soumya Jain Japan’s cuisine is as technically precise as it is creating a watch or jewelry. The fish has to be placed just the way and seaweed rolled with just enough pressure to be able to present a perfectly made sushi. Apart from the more popular sushi and sashimi, Teppanyaki also forms a part of Japanese cuisine. To put it in easy words, Teppanyaki uses an iron griddle to cook food. In Japan, ‘teppanyaki’ refers to dishes cooked using an iron plate, including steak, shrimp, vegetables, okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake), yakisoba (Japanese fried noodles), and monjayaki (also a kind of savory Japanese pancake). Modern teppanyaki grills are typically propane-heated flat surface grills and are widely used to cook food in front of guests at restaurants. Teppanyaki grills are commonly ...

Yes, the world now has four kinds of chocolates to nibble on. And each of them is exquisite in their own way. By: Soumya Jain There is hardly anyone I know in the world who doesn’t like chocolate. Even if you don’t have a sweet tooth, chances are, you’ll bend over backwards for a bar of your preferred chocolate. And while most chocolates either catered to the sweet or better – oops! I meant bitter – parts of your taste buds, there is a new variety which appeals to the tangy part of your palate. So, according to Wikipedia, chocolate is a range of foods derived from cocoa, mixed with fat (e.g., cocoa butter) and finely powdered sugar to produce a solid confectionery. The several types of chocolate are classified according to the proportion of cocoa used in a particular formulation. Here is the list of chocolates available in the world today: 1.       Milk Chocolate – This is solid chocolate made with milk added in the form of powdered milk,...

There are many women leaders in India, a country that had its first woman Prime Minister in 1966, where so many other countries haven’t seen even one. In the luxury industry, there is even more dominance of women. We list 5 such examples of inspiration By: Soumya Jain The luxury industry is a tough market. The product has to be exemplary, unique, handcrafted, and its rules for marketing are also much more sophisticated and unique as compared to those of mass or budget brands. It’s no wonder then, that with their innate love for design, style and hospitality, women have dominated luxury boardrooms in India. Here are five women leaders in the Indian luxury industry, according to Fortune India in 2018, who made headlines in luxury magazines in India for various reasons. 1.       Mira Kulkarni – Number 22 in Fortune India’s ‘Most Powerful Women in Business’ list, Mira Kulkarni is Chairman and Managing Director at Mountain Valley Springs. You woul...

Nothing stays forever. Change is inevitable. It is so in luxury as well. We discuss three brands that have changed their concepts to suit current times. By: Soumya Jain Change is important. As people change, so do their needs, desires and ideas. Brands and products need to accordingly reinvent themselves. Sometimes it happens by choice, sometimes by force. And with the current generation of Millennials, brands have had to walk a tightrope between tradition and innovation. The coming up Generation Z is going to change things again. We talk about three such brands and products that have molded themselves as per current times. 1.        InterContinental San Juan – One of the most popular hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico, like all other hotels in the city, InterContinental San Juan also faced the wrath of nature during Hurricane Maria in 2017. But kudos to the brand that it resurrected much more quickly than the other hotels in the area. The hotel ha...

With changes in the environment and lifestyle, how we consume water has also changed. Here are some products you need to think about. By: Soumya Jain The atmosphere is more polluted, we are drinking less water, we have more health and skin problems.  The water that we intake makes a huge difference in our lives. Decades before, water used to be purer, and so did the air. But with the industrialization came the contamination of water. To treat contaminated water, more chemicals are used to make it drinkable. A lot of these chemicals have changed our inner composition. And while the human body adapts, it is never too good to intake more chemicals than necessary. Here are two kinds of waters which you need to add to your lifestyle. 1. Micellar Water – This is water for your skin. Instead of using cleansing agents – which again have a huge amount of chemicals – for your daily skin routine, it’s better to switch over to micellar water.  Micellar water is made up of tiny b...