OMEGA has figured out something Hollywood learned years ago: people don’t just want a product anymore. They want lore. They want immersion. They want to feel like they’re buying a tiny piece of the fantasy, even if the fantasy involves a genetically blessed British spy blowing up trains while somehow keeping his cufflinks perfectly aligned.

So here comes the new OMEGA Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light, a watch that’s tied directly to the upcoming 007 First Light video game from IO Interactive and Amazon MGM Studios. And honestly? It makes more sense than most luxury collaborations these days.

The game launches globally on May 27, 2026, and instead of the polished Bond everybody knows – tuxedos, martinis, emotionally unavailable charm – this one rewinds the clock. Bond is 26. Less myth, more reckless recruit. Think bruised ego, unfinished instincts, and probably a lot more sprinting than smirking.

Naturally, OMEGA is there.

The Swiss watchmaker has been attached to Bond for decades at this point, which means the relationship now feels less like product placement and more like inherited DNA. But this release takes the whole thing somewhere slightly weirder, and smarter: gaming.

Inside the game, Bond wears a Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph loaded with fictional spy tech. There’s a hacking device built into it that disrupts electronic systems, plus a laser hidden in the strap because subtlety died a long time ago in the Bond universe. Instead of leaving it as digital eye candy for gamers, OMEGA decided to manufacture a real-world version. No lasers, unfortunately. Humanity still isn’t ready.

The bigger deal here is what the watch represents for the Bond collection itself. This is the first chronograph in the Seamaster Diver 300M 007 lineup. That matters because Bond watches usually lean cleaner and more restrained, whereas this one feels more tactical. More muscular. A little louder.

You can tell somebody inside OMEGA actually thought about how gaming changes the aesthetic language around watches. The chronograph subdials aren’t decorative filler here. They’re tied directly to gameplay mechanics in the fictional universe, which sounds absurd until you realize younger buyers grew up customizing loadouts in games long before they cared about Swiss calibers.

That overlap — luxury meets gaming culture — is where this whole thing gets interesting.

The watch itself comes in stainless steel with a 44 mm case, which means it’s got presence. Nobody’s calling this discreet. The polished black ceramic bezel carries a white enamel diving scale, while black ceramic pushers give it that glossy stealth-fighter vibe luxury brands can’t resist lately.

The dial is classic Seamaster territory, though with extra drama. OMEGA’s laser-engraved wave pattern stretches across the black ceramic surface, and under certain light it almost looks wet. The subdial ring at 3 o’clock comes in warm PVD bronze gold, which sounds overly technical until you see it against the black dial and realize, yes, that was the right call.

Little details carry the whole watch. The central chronograph seconds hand also arrives in bronze gold. The indexes and rhodium-plated hands glow with white Super-LumiNova. The Seamaster logo pops in red. Even the date window at 6 o’clock feels unusually restrained for a watch tied to a video game franchise, which is probably why it works.

Then there’s the NATO strap.

OMEGA created a brand-new striped design in black, grey, and beige specifically for First Light. Bond fans will immediately compare it to the strap from No Time to Die because Bond collectors can identify NATO straps the way birdwatchers identify endangered owls. Still, this version has its own arrangement and engraved hardware carrying both the 007 and First Light branding.

And because modern fandom always needs another layer of monetization, OMEGA also plans to sell six additional NATO straps separately. These mirror unlockable strap variations from inside the game itself. Somewhere, a marketing executive definitely high-fived another marketing executive over that idea.

Powering everything is OMEGA’s Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 9900, the company’s heavy-duty automatic movement built for precision, anti-magnetism, and general Swiss flexing. Through the sapphire caseback, owners can see the movement alongside the black-metallized 007 First Light logo underneath the crystal.

It’s technically impressive, sure. But watches at this level stopped being purely about technical achievement a while ago. People buying a Bond Seamaster already know their phone tells better time.

They’re buying the story.

That’s why OMEGA also packaged the watch in a presentation box modeled after the in-game suitcase used to transport watches during missions. Which means even the packaging now has lore attached to it.

Naturally, the entire thing feels less like a watch launch and more like a transmedia franchise rollout with Swiss finishing. And honestly, that’s probably the future of luxury marketing whether traditionalists like it or not.

The old model was craftsmanship first, storytelling second. Now the story comes first. The object just happens to cost several thousand dollars afterward.

The post OMEGA Just Dropped a James Bond Watch Straight Out of a Video Game appeared first on Luxatic.

There are luxury beds, and then there are luxury beds in the same way there are wristwatches that tell the time and wristwatches that require a man in Geneva to stare at a gear under a magnifying glass for six weeks. Savoir Beds has always belonged firmly in the second category. And now it has teamed up with Ozwald Boateng, the Savile Row tailor famous for turning suiting into something far more expressive than dull navy wool, to produce a bed called the Authenticity.

Which sounds a bit earnest, admittedly. But the thing itself is fascinating.

Savoir began making beds for the The Savoy back in 1905, and it has spent the last century quietly convincing wealthy people that mattresses deserve the same reverence as grand pianos and vintage Bordeaux. Boateng, meanwhile, built his reputation on tailoring that looked alive. Sharp cuts. Deep colours. Fabrics that somehow felt both traditional and rebellious at once. You could spot one of his suits from across the street, even in London rain.

So naturally someone decided the next logical step was a bed.

Oddly enough, it makes complete sense once you see how both worlds operate. Savile Row and handmade furniture share the same sort of obsessive mentality. Tiny details matter enormously to people involved in the craft, while normal people stare blankly and ask why any of it costs more than an Ikea divan. Then, years later, they sit on the thing and suddenly understand.

Boateng apparently spent time inside Savoir’s London Bedworks studying how these beds are actually made. And I do mean made. Not assembled. There’s a difference. Each Authenticity bed comes together entirely by hand by a single artisan, who signs it when finished, rather like an artist signing a painting or a mechanic writing his name inside the engine bay of an old Aston Martin after rebuilding the carburettors.

I like that enormously. We’ve lost a lot of that sort of ownership in manufacturing. Modern products tend to emerge anonymously from giant warehouses with the emotional warmth of airport security trays.

Boateng approached the project the same way he would a fashion collection, which explains why the bed has what designers insist on calling “architecture.” In fairness, this one genuinely does. The headboard has a sculptural shape framed in solid oak, and it’s upholstered in a bespoke woven leather developed with Alma. There’s also a nod to traditional Ghanaian Kente cloth woven into the overall design language, which has long been one of Boateng’s signatures.

And before anyone rolls their eyes at phrases like “design language,” the details here genuinely sound thoughtful rather than invented by a marketing department after three glasses of Sauvignon Blanc.

The base comes wrapped in embossed “Tangier Onyx” leather from Whistler Leather, the oak trim has been stained black, and the reverse side of the headboard features a vivid green finish that probably shouldn’t work but somehow does. Boateng even obsessed over the rear lining of the headboard, which is exactly the sort of thing Savile Row tailors do. Nobody sees the inside of a jacket except the owner. That’s the point.

It’s craftsmanship for the satisfaction of craftsmanship itself.

The Authenticity also takes more than 200 hours to complete, which means whoever builds one spends longer constructing your bed than many people spend choosing a university degree. Lead times run between 16 and 18 weeks, and underneath all the leather and oak there’s still proper Savoir engineering: a No. 2 mattress, an extended No. 2 box-spring base, and a topper filled with horsetail and wool.

The whole thing now sits inside Savoir’s Mayfair showroom looking less like bedroom furniture and more like the sort of object an architect buys after selling a holiday home in Tuscany.

Most collaborations between luxury brands feel desperately calculated. A logo here, a different colour there, everyone congratulating themselves while launching a £900 hoodie nobody needed. This feels more genuine because both parties care obsessively about the same thing: craftsmanship people can actually see and touch. A handmade suit and a handmade bed occupy surprisingly similar territory. You live inside both of them, in a way.

Price, unsurprisingly, is available only upon request. Which usually means if you have to ask, a man in a beautifully tailored coat will offer you mineral water while quietly escorting you back towards the door.

The post Ozwald Boateng Brings Savile Row Elegance to Savoir’s Handmade Beds appeared first on Luxatic.

Ferrari has finally pulled the covers off the Luce, which means the thing many tifosi quietly hoped would never happen is now sitting there in broad daylight wearing a Prancing Horse badge and four doors.

And honestly? I can’t decide whether it’s deeply impressive or faintly absurd.

Probably both.

This is Ferrari’s first fully electric production car. A 1,035-horsepower, four-motor EV weighing 2,260kg, seating five people and riding on 24-inch rear wheels. Somewhere, an F40 owner just spilled Barolo on a beige cashmere jumper.

The interesting thing is Ferrari hasn’t tried to disguise what this is. There’s no fake nostalgia exercise here. No attempt to make it resemble a Daytona or an F355. They’ve gone completely the other way and handed huge chunks of the design process to LoveFrom, which is the design firm created by Jony Ive and Marc Newson after Apple.

Yes. The iPhone bloke.

And once someone tells you that, you can’t unsee it.

The Ferrari Luce has that slightly eerie consumer-tech cleanliness modern industrial designers adore. Huge smooth surfaces. Minimal interruptions. Tiny details hidden inside bigger shapes. The whole thing looks as though somebody obsessed over the radius of every edge for six straight months while drinking sparkling water in a white room.

From certain angles it’s genuinely handsome. The proportions are unusual for a Ferrari because there’s no giant V12 dictating the shape, so the cabin sits further forward and the whole car has this very cab-forward stance. Massive wheels shoved right to the corners. Tiny overhangs. Huge glasshouse.

Then your eyes drift toward the nose and things get strange.

There’s this enormous black aerodynamic blade stretching across the front end like a Dodge Charger Daytona after finishing a degree in architecture. The lighting graphics are incredibly slim and technical-looking. Efficient, almost. Ferrari says the front and rear wings are “floating aerodynamic elements,” which sounds very lovely in a press release, but in person I suspect people will spend most of their time squinting slightly and wondering what it reminds them of.

Because it doesn’t immediately scream Ferrari.

The rear probably gets closest. The round-ish lighting signatures apparently reference the 360 Modena and 458 Italia, although I’d wager at least half the internet will mention Nissan Skyline within about seven seconds. There’s also a full hatchback rear opening with the glass integrated into the tailgate itself, which makes sense because wealthy people who buy £500k electric cars tend to carry things. Usually expensive things.

And yes, the rear doors are rear-hinged because apparently every ultra-luxury EV now requires one feature specifically designed for awkward arrivals outside hotels.

The detail work is fascinating, though. Tiny little things. Ferrari has always understood theatre better than almost anyone and the Luce still leans heavily into that instinct.

The key uses Gorilla Glass and E Ink technology because apparently even the key now needs firmware updates. Slot it into the dock and the cabin glows Ferrari yellow during startup. There’s also an actual overhead pull handle to activate Launch Mode because somebody at Ferrari clearly decided pressing a normal button felt too much like operating a microwave.

Good.

Cars need silliness. Especially expensive ones.

Inside, Ferrari resisted the temptation to bury every function inside one giant touchscreen, which immediately puts the Luce ahead of half the industry. There are physical switches and toggles mixed with OLED displays developed specifically for the car. The steering wheel itself is machined from recycled aluminium and works with a moving binnacle that follows the wheel adjustment so the important information always stays directly in your line of sight.

That sounds exactly like the sort of thing engineers spend four years developing only for owners to leave the wheel in one position forever.

Still clever, though.

There’s also a 21-speaker, 3,000-watt sound system because silence terrifies modern carmakers almost as much as emissions legislation. Massage seats. Rear passenger controls. Enough luxury kit to make a Range Rover owner feel vaguely insecure.

Then you arrive at the numbers.

Four electric motors derived from the F80. Combined output of 1,035 horsepower. 0-100km/h in 2.5 seconds. A 122kWh battery pack sitting within an 800-volt electrical architecture capable of charging at up to 350kW. Ferrari says you can recover 70kWh in 20 minutes if you find a charger powerful enough and currently unoccupied by a man in a Taycan reading emails.

The battery itself acts as a stressed structural component, increasing bending rigidity by 25 percent and torsional rigidity by 35 percent over previous four-door Ferrari applications. Which is engineering-speak for: “yes, we know it’s very heavy, so we’ve tried to make it feel less heavy.”

And that’s really the entire challenge here.

Because 2,260kg is colossal. There’s no dancing around it. That’s properly enormous mass for something wearing a Ferrari badge. An SF90 already feels like a large car when you really start leaning on it across a difficult road. This thing weighs roughly the same as a small detached house in Gloucestershire.

Ferrari says the low-mounted battery pack, torque vectoring and four-motor layout give responses comparable to a car around 400kg lighter. Which sounds ambitious. Then again, Ferrari engineers rarely deal in modest claims.

The interesting bit is how self-aware they seem about preserving emotional engagement. Most EV performance cars still feel like appliances trying desperately to cosplay as sports cars. Huge acceleration. Weird silence. Fake noises pumped through speakers. A sort of digital aggression.

Ferrari’s approach sounds nerdier and slightly more believable.

Instead of synthesising fake engine sounds, the Luce uses a precision accelerometer mounted inside the rear axle housing to capture real vibrations from the motors and rotating components. Ferrari then filters and amplifies those vibrations “like an electric guitar” to create something they insist is authentic and functional rather than artificial.

Which either sounds brilliantly obsessive or completely insane depending on your tolerance for Italian engineering philosophy.

Apparently there’s also a torque-shift engagement system specifically tuned to recreate the sensation of engine braking and load transfer you’d normally associate with a combustion sports car. That bit interests me more than the power figure, honestly. EV acceleration stopped being shocking years ago. Emotional nuance remains the difficult part.

And Ferrari absolutely knows it.

Because nobody spends over €520,000 on a Ferrari purely for transport. You buy one because it does something to you. The best Ferraris always feel slightly alive beneath you. Slightly temperamental. They fizz and chatter and move around. There’s texture in the controls. Tiny vibrations through the seat base. Mechanical nonsense everywhere.

An electric Ferrari has to somehow preserve that while weighing nearly two-and-a-half tonnes and carrying enough battery capacity to power a village.

European order books open later this year. American buyers wait until Q2 of 2027, which gives Ferrari plenty of time to decide how much extra to charge for carbon fibre cupholders and historic paint colours inspired by racing cars nobody under 60 remembers.

The post Ferrari’s First EV Is Here.. and It Looks Absolutely Nothing Like a Ferrari! appeared first on Luxatic.

Bang & Olufsen has spent decades selling beautiful sound to wealthy adults who want their speakers to look like sculpture and their headphones to whisper “tasteful” from across the room. Now it’s teaming up with Hiroshi Fujiwara’s Fragment Design again, because apparently the luxury tech-industrial complex still believes the future comes in matte black aluminum with impeccable branding discipline. In this case, they’re probably right.

The new Bang & Olufsen x Fragment Design collection takes four of the Danish company’s most recognizable products and strips them down to Fujiwara’s favorite language: monochrome restraint with just enough flex to make collectors lose their minds. You can already picture the Instagram posts. Dark interiors. Concrete walls. Expensive coffee table books nobody reads.

Still, this collaboration works because Fujiwara actually has history with the brand. Real history. Not the kind invented by marketing departments two days before launch. He’s been using Bang & Olufsen products for more than three decades, ever since he came across the Beocenter 2300 back in the ’90s, when sleek Scandinavian audio gear felt like technology from another planet.

That part matters. You can feel it in the collection. It doesn’t read like some random logo swap cooked up in a conference room between two executives who recently discovered the phrase “cultural relevance.” Fujiwara grew up around music, DJ culture, obsessive hardware people. Bang & Olufsen has always occupied a strange little corner where audiophile engineering meets interior design snobbery. There’s a reason architects love this stuff.

The lineup includes the Beoplay H100 headphones, the Beosound A1 3rd Gen portable speaker, the modular Beosound Shape wall speaker system, and the almost absurdly iconic Beosystem 9000c. If you know Bang & Olufsen, you know that last one. The CD changer still looks futuristic decades later, which is both impressive and slightly embarrassing for the rest of consumer electronics.

Everything arrives wrapped in Fragment’s signature black-on-black aesthetic, softened slightly by Bang & Olufsen’s polished aluminum surfaces. No loud graphics. No desperate attempts to look youthful. Just expensive materials treated like they matter. Honestly, that alone feels rebellious now.

The most interesting part may be the finish itself. Bang & Olufsen says it developed a specialized anodization and hand-polishing technique to create a glossy black aluminum surface for the portable products. Apparently the finish only worked when done by hand, which sounds exactly like the kind of thing luxury brands love to say right before charging you the price of a used Honda Civic for headphones.

But looking at the photos, you get it. The aluminum has this liquid sheen to it. Almost wet-looking under light. The sort of detail nobody technically needs and collectors absolutely obsess over anyway.

Fragment’s double lightning bolt logo appears throughout the collection in a surprisingly restrained way. On the Beoplay H100 headphones, it sits on the left ear cup beside glossy aluminum accents. The Beosound A1 hides the branding beneath the grille, which feels very Fujiwara. Quiet confidence. Or maybe just confidence expensive enough not to scream.

The Beosound Shape might be the sleeper hit here. Bang & Olufsen configured it as a seven-tile setup in black and gray fabric arranged in a flower-inspired pattern. Wall speakers usually drift into tech-bro territory fast, but this one feels closer to installation art. You buy it because you care about sound. You display it because you want guests to ask questions.

Then there’s the Beosystem 9000c package. This is the collector bait. Matte black finishes, glossy aluminum details, paired with Beolab 28 speakers and a Beoremote One. It looks like something a Bond villain with exceptional vinyl taste would install in a Tokyo penthouse.

Bang & Olufsen says the system will remain exclusive to Japan and available only as a made-to-order release. Which, naturally, makes it even more desirable. Scarcity remains the oldest trick in luxury retail, and people still fall for it every single time.

The rollout starts with a dedicated pop-up at Isetan in Shinjuku, Tokyo, from May 20 through May 26 before launching across Japan on May 27. Global availability follows on June 3 through select Bang & Olufsen stores and online.

Pricing lands exactly where you’d expect from two brands allergic to moderation. The Beosound A1 starts at $475. The Beoplay H100 headphones cost $2,400. The Beosound Shape climbs to $7,100. And the Beosystem 9000c setup? A cool $69,650.

The post Bang & Olufsen’s New Fragment Collaboration Is Peak Stealth Wealth appeared first on Luxatic.

Hublot’s latest Essential Series release takes the Hublot Spirit of Big Bang somewhere unexpected. Taupe, of all colours. A quiet, warm, and slightly dusty taupe. The kind of tone that’s usually reserved for cashmere interiors in old Bentleys or the suede lining of a Berluti shoe bag, not for a brand that built much of its modern identity impressing people with a “Bing Bang”.

Still, it works. Better than expected, actually.

The new Spirit of Big Bang Essential Taupe arrives in two sizes – 42 mm and 32 mm – both limited to 200 pieces and sold exclusively online. Hublot has done these annual “Essential” editions before, always centred on a single monochromatic theme, though earlier iterations leaned heavily into shades of grey. Grey felt industrial. Taupe feels more mature. Less eager to announce itself across the room.

The larger 42 mm model remains recognisably Spirit of Big Bang, with its elongated tonneau case, layered construction, exposed screws, and enough facets to catch every stray beam of light in a restaurant. The case is titanium throughout, including the side bumpers that Hublot usually renders in rubber. That detail matters more than it sounds; the metal bumpers sharpen the watch visually and give the case a cleaner continuity.

At 14.1 mm thick, it still has presence. You’ll know it’s there on the wrist. But the muted palette softens the architecture considerably. For once, the case shape takes centre stage rather than the colour.

The dial deserves a closer look too. Hublot borrowed the closed chequerboard motif first seen on the Coal Blue collection earlier this year, though here the execution feels richer because of the monochromatic treatment. The woven pattern alternates satin-brushed and polished squares, creating a texture that almost resembles carbon fibre viewed through soft focus. Under direct light, the dial shifts constantly. It’s surprisingly nuanced for a brand often accused of subtlety deficiency.

The chronograph registers sit deep within the dial, framed and snailed, while the peripheral track picks up matching grooves that tie the whole composition together neatly. Even then, legibility remains strong thanks to luminous numerals and broad hands. Hublot tends to over-style details occasionally, but this one feels disciplined.

Inside sits the HUB4700, essentially a modernised descendant of the Zenith El Primero. That alone gives the watch a certain credibility among collectors who still care about what powers the thing beneath the dial. The movement runs at 5 Hz, delivers 1/10th-second chronograph timing, and offers about 50 hours of power reserve. Through the sapphire back, the architecture still carries traces of the original El Primero layout, which enthusiasts will recognise instantly.

The more interesting release, oddly enough, may be the smaller 32 mm model.

For the first time, Hublot has omitted the diamond-set bezel on the smaller Spirit of Big Bang. A sensible decision. Diamond bezels tend to push watches into a very specific lane, and removing them opens the design considerably. The result feels cleaner, more architectural, and honestly more contemporary. Plenty of collectors — men included — will probably find this version more compelling than previous iterations.

The stainless steel case measures 10.8mm thick and retains the same tonneau silhouette, though the proportions work particularly well at this size. There’s a cleaner elegance here. The smooth taupe flange slopes inward while applied markers stretch outward across the dial, creating depth without unnecessary decoration.

Inside is the HUB1120 automatic calibre, based on the Sellita SW1000. Reliable, compact, practical. No fireworks, though nobody buying the 32 mm Spirit of Big Bang expects a high-frequency chronograph movement anyway.

Both watches come fitted with Hublot’s One Click strap-change system and include two interchangeable taupe straps in rubber and fabric. Naturally, everything matches. Hublot committed fully to the monochrome idea here, and credit where due — they resisted the temptation to add some unnecessary accent colour just to prove they could.

Each version is limited to 200 pieces and sold exclusively through Hublot. The 42mm chronograph is priecd at CHF 20,600 / EUR 24,300 and the 32mm automatic costs CHF 12,400 / EUR 14,600.

The post Hublot’s New Spirit of Big Bang Essential Taupe Is Surprisingly Refined appeared first on Luxatic.

Baz Luhrmann has designed a railway carriage for Belmond, which somehow makes complete sense once you’ve had a moment to think about it properly.

If you’ve ever seen one of his films – Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby, that Elvis one where everybody seemed permanently damp with emotion – you’ll know subtlety has never really been his preferred setting. So giving him an actual 1930s Pullman carriage and telling him to “do whatever you like” was always going to end one of two ways: either an extraordinary triumph of theatrical design, or something resembling Liberace’s conservatory after a small electrical fire.

The result is called Celia, and it’s the latest addition to Belmond’s British Pullman train. A private dining carriage for just 12 guests, due to launch in summer 2026, it sits somewhere between old-world railway glamour and the sort of fever dream you’d have after falling asleep halfway through a Noël Coward box set.

The British Pullman itself has always been gloriously unnecessary. That’s why people love it. Ten restored carriages from the 1920s and ’30s, all polished brass, absurd upholstery, and people serving cocktails while the English countryside drifts by outside as if it’s performing a show for you personally. The train leaves from London’s Victoria Station, which means your journey begins in one of the least romantic places imaginable before abruptly turning into an Agatha Christie fantasy about half an hour later.

Celia, though, takes things much further.

Luhrmann worked on this dreamlike carriage with Catherine Martin, his long-time collaborator and the woman responsible for making half of modern cinema look far more extravagant than real life has any right to be. Together they invented an entirely fictional backstory for the carriage, because apparently simply restoring a train wasn’t enough.

So Celia is named after an imaginary 1930s West End actress who, according to the tale, delivered such a magnificent performance as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that she was gifted her own Pullman carriage afterwards. That sounds exactly like the sort of thing Baz Luhrmann would say with complete sincerity while standing beside a velvet curtain.

Inside, the carriage looks less like transport and more like a theatrical set someone forgot to dismantle.

There are marquetry panels showing dreamy English pastoral scenes. Oak floors decorated with floral motifs. Pansies everywhere, because Titania apparently liked them. The colours bounce between rich greens, deep reds, yellows and purples in a way that ought to feel overwhelming but somehow doesn’t. Or perhaps it does, slightly, but deliberately so. Like stepping into a cocktail cabinet designed by Shakespeare after a week in Paris.

Even the ceiling fabric was engineered to improve acoustics for live performances onboard, which is one of those details that makes you pause and think: this is either wonderfully committed or faintly mad. Probably both.

And then there’s the scent.

Yes, Celia has its own bespoke fragrance, co-created by Luhrmann and Martin. Of course it does. You can almost imagine the meeting where someone said, “Should the carriage smell normal?” and Baz immediately replied, “Absolutely not.”

Still, there’s genuine craftsmanship underneath all the theatricality. Martin sourced tableware from British makers including Duchess China, with glassware from Tom Dixon and cutlery by David Mellor. Those details matter. Luxury tends to collapse when someone hands you a mediocre fork.

The food sounds reassuringly traditional too. Beef Wellington. Chicken liver parfait. Proper rich railway dining. The sort of meal that belongs on a train moving slowly through Oxfordshire while rain taps politely against the windows.

Guests will also have access to a cocktail menu created by Monica Berg of Tayer + Elementary, which means drinks are unlikely to involve blue syrup or dry ice theatrics. Thank heavens for that. You can apparently stock the bar with your own favourites as well, which opens the door to either refined elegance or complete disaster depending on your friends.

And really, that’s the point of Celia.

Belmond isn’t selling transport here. Nobody books this because they urgently need to reach Bath. They’re selling atmosphere. Escapism. A moving little pocket of unreality where people can spend a few hours pretending life still contains glamour and ceremony and dinners that last longer than a quick glance at a delivery app.

The itineraries themselves sound suitably eccentric. Day trips to Oxford or Blenheim Palace. Goodwood Revival weekends. Murder mystery lunches rolling through the countryside while someone in evening wear pretends to poison the viscount.

It all feels gloriously British in that very specific way where luxury becomes faintly absurd and therefore deeply charming.

Gary Franklin from Belmond described Celia as “creating your own world,” and for once that sort of corporate phrase actually seems accurate. Most luxury experiences today try far too hard to appear modern and effortless. Celia heads in the opposite direction entirely. It leans into fantasy. Into storytelling. Into the idea that perhaps dinner should occasionally feel like a scene from a film nobody would dare make anymore.

And perhaps trains, more than almost anything else, still allow for that.

Launching in early summer 2026, Celia will be available on all British Pullman journeys departing primarily from London Victoria Station, with routes winding through various parts of the British countryside. Which means you can now travel to places like Oxford or Bath inside what is essentially Baz Luhrmann’s imagination upholstered in velvet.

Exclusive hire of the carriage starts at £15,000 – about $20,500 at current exchange rates – which initially sounds faintly ludicrous until you remember people routinely spend half that amount flying privately to Ibiza in tracksuits.

And at least this comes with proper cutlery.

The post Baz Luhrmann’s New Belmond Train Car Looks Like a Film Set on Rails appeared first on Luxatic.

Lamborghini has made a 1,015-horsepower special-edition Revuelto for North America because apparently the standard Revuelto wasn’t already attention-seeking enough. It’s called the Revuelto NA63, only 63 examples will exist for the US and Canada, and every single one will almost certainly disappear into a temperature-controlled garage next to a Senna, a GT Black Series, and a pair of very white trainers.

The “63” references the year Ferruccio Lamborghini founded the company. Sant’Agata absolutely loves this stuff. Every number has meaning, every stripe tells a story, every badge arrives wrapped in mythology and expensive stitching. Still, North America buys a colossal number of Lamborghinis, so giving the region its own limited-run V12 hybrid halo car makes complete sense.

And to be fair, they’ve done more than throw a plaque at it.

The launch specification comes painted in Blu Marinus with matte white and red stripes running over the bonnet, roof, and rear deck. There are matching details on the splitter, side skirts and diffuser blades because modern Lamborghinis can never really leave anything alone visually. The whole thing nods toward American and Canadian colors without turning into a mobile fireworks display.

Just about.

You can also spec it in three other configurations if your local dealer knows your dog’s birthday and decides you’re worthy. One combines Grigio Serget with blue accents, another pairs Bianco Sideralis with Rosso Mars detailing, while the darker Grigio Acheso version gets black and orange highlights and looks exactly like the sort of thing someone would valet outside a restaurant in Beverly Hills while pretending not to notice people filming it.

What’s funny about modern Lamborghinis is that they should be completely absurd. The shapes are cartoonish, the names sound like rejected energy drinks, and the cabins resemble gaming laptops designed by an angry 14-year-old. Yet somehow they still have presence. Proper presence. A Revuelto parked next to almost anything else still looks like it escaped from five years in the future.

And underneath all the visual nonsense sits a genuinely fascinating car.

Because the Revuelto had a difficult job from day one. Lamborghini needed to electrify the V12 without sucking all the life out of it. Plenty of manufacturers have discovered that hybrid systems can flatten character faster than a speed hump in a rental Fiat. The fear was that the Revuelto would end up clinically fast but emotionally distant.

Instead, it’s completely mental.

The naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 remains the star of the show. Thank God. It still revs with that hard-edged violence Lamborghinis do so well, where the final couple thousand rpm feel less like acceleration and more like mechanical aggression. You hear the thing clear its throat behind your head and immediately forgive every lurid angle on the bodywork.

The hybrid system simply fills the gaps. There’s electric torque from low speeds, sharper response everywhere else, and enough combined output to produce 1,015 horsepower and 807Nm of torque. Which is obviously ridiculous. We’ve reached the point where family crossovers make 600 horsepower and two-tonne EVs launch harder than Le Mans cars from twenty years ago, so manufacturers keep pushing numbers into the stratosphere just to maintain shock value.

Even so, the Revuelto still feels dramatic in a way many fast cars don’t anymore.

Part of that comes from the engine itself. Turbocharged supercars often deliver speed in one enormous elastic shove. Efficient. Devastating. Slightly sterile. The Revuelto has texture to it. You work through the rev range and feel layers of vibration, induction noise, gearbox aggression, little pulses through the chassis. There’s an old-school savagery buried under all the computing power.

Which probably explains why people have responded to it so strongly.

Performance figures are predictably ludicrous. Lamborghini claims 0-100 km/h in 2.5 seconds and a top speed beyond 350 km/h. Numbers like that barely mean anything now because nobody experiences cars this fast properly outside a runway or the autobahn at sunrise, but the Revuelto still manages to feel special because it behaves like a Lamborghini should. Slightly intimidating. Slightly theatrical. A bit immature, honestly.

That matters more than outright speed.

The NA63 keeps all the technical hardware from the standard car — the carbon-intensive chassis, active aerodynamics, torque-vectoring wizardry and the rest of the engineering vocabulary every modern hypercar now arrives with. But realistically, nobody’s buying one because they’ve compared suspension geometries on a spreadsheet.

They want the noise. The rarity. The giant stupid theatre of it all.

And the truth is, Lamborghini understands its customers better than most manufacturers ever have. Buyers don’t want subtlety from a V12 hybrid wearing tricolour stripes and producing four-digit horsepower. They want an event every time they open the garage door.

The post Lamborghini Made a Special Revuelto for North America – And It Might Be the Craziest One Yet appeared first on Luxatic.

Tod’s has built a summer collection around Marlin, the 1930 yacht once owned by the Kennedys and now restored and sailed by Diego Della Valle, and the result has that polished ease Italians like to call sprezzatura – though here it comes with salt air and old-money Cape Cod associations. You can almost smell the varnished teak. Or maybe that’s the point.

The collection arrives wrapped in a certain fantasy, naturally. JFK in Hyannis Port. White polo shirts. Long weekends where nobody seemed to sweat, even in August. Yet Tod’s approaches the story with more restraint than costume. There’s no theatrical Americana here. No stars, no stripes, no heavy-handed nostalgia. Just fragments. Materials. Gestures. A mood.

And honestly, Tod’s knows this territory well. The company has spent decades selling a version of leisure that still carries discipline underneath it — the kind of luxury that prefers texture over logos and assumes you already understand the references.

The collection draws directly from the yacht itself, a 52-foot mahogany-and-oak vessel designed by naval architect Walter McInnis and purchased by Joseph P. Kennedy in the 1950s. It became part of Kennedy family life in Hyannis Port — not merely symbolic, but functional. JFK reportedly even conducted cabinet meetings aboard while sailing with Jackie. That detail alone says everything about the old Kennedy mystique: power delivered casually, preferably near water.

Della Valle bought Marlin in 1998 and restored it meticulously before bringing it into the slower rhythms of the Tyrrhenian Sea. You can feel that personal attachment throughout the collection. This isn’t branding wallpaper someone in marketing invented after a weekend in Nantucket.

Tod’s even included a leather playing-card case, which sounds faintly absurd until you picture Kennedy himself hunched over a bridge table below deck while the water knocks softly against the hull. Then it suddenly feels charming. Slightly eccentric, too, which helps.

The clothes stay close to that same rhythm. A cotton piqué polo with striped cuffs and collar carries a quiet Ivy League undertone without tumbling into prep parody. There’s a baseball cap with a leather back strap and hand-embroidered monogram that feels less “merchandise” and more something forgotten on the rear seat of a vintage woody wagon.

The palette comes directly from the yacht. Deep bottle greens. Oyster whites. Canvas creams. Browns that resemble sun-warmed decking after years of sea spray and polishing cloths. Fashion brands talk endlessly about storytelling through color, though usually it’s just a mood board taped to a studio wall. Here, the colors actually belong to something tangible.

The Marlin bomber may be the strongest piece in the collection because it avoids trying too hard. Technical cotton body. Soft nappa leather around the collar and pockets. A sailor’s knot attached to the zipper pull — one small detail, easy to miss, though exactly the sort of thing Tod’s tends to get right. Luxury often lives in those tiny decisions nobody announces.

Then there are the boat shoes, obviously. Tod’s practically owns that category at this point. The Marlin version comes in natural-grained calfskin with an image of the yacht printed inside the sole, alongside the signature Gommino pebbled outsole that has become synonymous with the house. In brown, they look understated and handsome. In the tricolor version — brown, cream, green — they suddenly resemble the yacht itself stretched into footwear form. Long lines. Low profile. Smooth curvature from heel to toe. Nautical design translated almost literally.

Some designers would’ve pushed the maritime theme until everyone looked ready to board a regatta in Saint-Tropez. Tod’s keeps things grounded. There’s a crisp cotton shirt with an airy weave that feels made for humid afternoons near the water, and a silk foulard printed with a stylized rendering of Marlin that lands somewhere between souvenir and collector’s object.

The accessories carry particular weight here. A canvas-and-leather shopping tote arrives with the sort of rigid construction Italians admire in both tailoring and boats. There’s also a Greca belt in elastic canvas with an interlocking leather buckle, plus a leather two-glass holder stamped discreetly with the Tod’s x Marlin insignia. That last item feels especially European — practical in theory, decadent in spirit.

Still, the collection works because Tod’s resists the temptation to romanticize too loudly. The clothes don’t scream “Kennedy summer.” They suggest fragments of a life: afternoons on deck, card games after lunch, polished brass catching late sunlight. Quiet rituals. Old habits. Expensive things used often enough to soften around the edges.

And perhaps that’s why the collection feels convincing. Della Valle didn’t borrow this mythology for a season. He bought the actual boat. He restored it. He lives with it. Fashion audiences can usually sense the difference between manufactured heritage and the real thing. This one has the reassuring weight of authenticity, even in something as simple as a leather card case lined in deep sea green.

You imagine JFK would’ve appreciated that detail most of all.

The post Tod’s New Collection Feels Like a Weekend With the Kennedys appeared first on Luxatic.

Auberge Collection has officially arrived in Africa, bringing its particular brand of understated luxury to the plains of Tanzania with a new portfolio of safari lodges and camps that feels far more thoughtful than a typical hospitality expansion. The new Auberge Safari collection spans nine properties across some of East Africa’s most extraordinary landscapes, from the Serengeti to Lake Manyara, and quietly positions the brand inside a category where authenticity matters far more than thread counts or marble bathrooms.

The move also marks a significant moment for Auberge itself. Until now, the Friedkin Group-owned hospitality brand had carefully built its reputation through intimate resorts in destinations like Greece, Mexico, Italy, and the American West. Safari changes the conversation entirely. Guests here care about migration routes, conservation corridors, and the instincts of a guide who can spot a leopard hidden in the trees from half a mile away.

That’s likely why Auberge chose to build this collection around operators already deeply embedded in Tanzania rather than arriving as an outsider attempting to reinvent safari culture. The new platform brings together Legendary Expeditions, part of the Friedkin Group’s conservation-focused safari business, and Chem Chem Safari, the quietly influential luxury safari company founded by Fabia Busch.

Together, the two brands map out a notably seamless route through northern Tanzania. The journey could start in Arusha among shaded coffee estates, continue into the Serengeti during the migration season and eventually slow beside Lake Manyara as elephants emerge at dusk along centuries-old wildlife paths. Safari, by nature, is about constant motion, though today’s travelers tend to prefer itineraries that feel considered instead of overpacked. Auberge understands the distinction.

Several of the camps sit directly along the Great Migration route, including Nyasi in Lamai, in the Northern Serengeti, where wildebeest crossings unfold with startling intensity during the season.

Nearby, Songa places guests beside the Mara River in Kogatende, an area famous for its dramatic herd movements and enormous crocodile populations waiting patiently below the surface.

In Nyasirori, Mila offers a version of the Serengeti that feels a touch more intimate and atmospheric. Lions dominate the landscape here and drives tend to revolve around watching them lounge beneath acacia trees as the light softens toward evening.

It all feels almost too cinematic to be real until you find yourself lingering over dinner outside, under an impossibly luminous sky, hearing unseen movement somewhere beyond the lantern glow.

Mwiba Lodge may ultimately become the collection’s defining property. Set within the Greater Mwiba Protected Wildlife Area, the lodge’s ten tented suites rest atop granite outcrops overlooking an enormous private reserve protected by the Friedkin Conservation Fund.

The setting feels intentionally removed from the busier safari circuits farther north. Guests spend their days on game drives, visiting local Datoga communities, or simply sitting on expansive private decks watching animals gather below in silence.

Closer to the grasslands themselves, Mwiba Plains offers a more intimate camp experience, particularly during calving season when newborn wildebeest and zebra begin appearing across the savannah in staggering numbers.

There’s a tenderness to this phase of the migration that often gets overlooked beside the spectacle of river crossings.

Back in Arusha, Legendary Lodge serves as the collection’s quieter counterpart to the bush camps. The property occupies a historic coffee estate framed by lush gardens and Mount Meru in the distance, with twelve cottages, a spa, and the sort of calm atmosphere that feels deeply restorative after several early mornings bouncing across dirt tracks in a Land Cruiser.

The Chem Chem properties bring a very different rhythm. Chem Chem Lodge, Little Chem Chem, and Forest Chem Chem all sit within the Burunge Wildlife Management Area, which connects Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks through one of the region’s most important wildlife corridors. The camps have long been associated with what owner Fabia Busch calls “Slow Safari,” a style of travel centered less around racing between sightings and more around spending time within the landscape itself.

“Slow Safari was never about doing less. It was about feeling more,” Busch said in a statement announcing the partnership.

That philosophy lingers throughout these camps. Little Chem Chem offers particularly strong opportunities to encounter the region’s famous Big Tusker elephants, while Forest Chem Chem places guests beneath a dense canopy where leopards occasionally emerge from the shadows with unnerving elegance. Days unfold at a gentler pace here. Long breakfasts stretch into late mornings. Wildlife appears unexpectedly rather than according to itinerary.

Conservation remains central to the entire venture, and Auberge has leaned heavily into that message from the outset. Every stay directly supports both the Friedkin Conservation Fund and the Chem Chem Association, organizations dedicated to preserving migration routes, wildlife habitats, and the communities surrounding them.

Christian Clerc, Auberge Collection’s President and CEO, described the partnership as part of the Friedkin family’s decades-long stewardship of Tanzania’s ecosystems and wildlife habitats, an area where luxury travel companies increasingly face pressure to demonstrate genuine environmental involvement rather than simply attaching themselves to conservation language.

The Auberge Safari collection is now open for bookings, with rates ranging from approximately $1,505 to $3,230 per night depending on the property, season, and accommodation category.

The post Auberge Collection Is Expanding Into Africa With 9 Extraordinary Safari Camps appeared first on Luxatic.

ER Yacht Design has unveiled a new 65-metre explorer yacht concept called Super-Expedition, a vessel designed to blur the line between luxury superyacht, expedition platform and floating operations base for owners who apparently find ordinary cruising a bit dull.

And unlike many explorer concepts we’ve seen lately, this one actually seems to have been designed by people who understand how ships work.

The main idea behind Super-Expedition is adaptability. The yacht uses a removable modular system that will allow owners to reconfigure the vessel depending on the purpose of the voyage. You can install or remove more guest accommodation, scientific laboratories, storage units, expedition support spaces and other specialist modules using the yacht’s onboard crane.

Which sounds complicated, but it’s surprisingly straightforward. The modules lock into dedicated mounting points built into the vessel, while plug-in connections handle electricity, plumbing and onboard services. So the yacht can shift from luxury cruiser to research platform without needing an entire rebuild every time the owner develops a new obsession with underwater archaeology or Arctic photography.

ER Yacht Design says the concept was created for people who want “the elegance of a superyacht” combined with “the practicality of a support vessel,” and that balance comes through quite clearly in the design itself.

Visually, Super-Expedition avoids the bloated look many explorer yachts suffer from. The profile is clean and angular, with a purposeful stance that feels more offshore-capable than floating hotel. There’s a slight industrial edge to it too, which helps. Some modern superyachts look so polished you suspect they’d panic at the sight of actual weather.

The modular approach also appears properly engineered rather than simply added for attention. ER Yacht Design says the removable units were positioned carefully around the vessel’s centre of gravity to maintain balanced flotation and stability, which is reassuring because modularity on boats usually sounds like the sort of idea that ends with somebody calling the coastguard.

The concept can operate in several configurations as well. One version carries a full set of modules across the deck, another uses only a partial arrangement concentrated on the main deck, while a cleaner module-free setup transforms the yacht into something closer to a traditional luxury explorer.

The aft deck is where the whole thing becomes particularly ambitious. Super-Expedition offers roughly 375 square metres of open space there, an unusually large amount for a yacht this size according to the studio. That area can accommodate removable accommodation units, expedition vehicles, support equipment, tenders up to 15 metres long, submarines and various owner-specific toys that wealthy adventurers inevitably collect.

There’s also a ten-by-five-metre infinity pool which converts into a helipad because modern yacht design now insists every object should perform at least two unrelated functions.

Accommodation is pretty restricted by current superyacht standards. But it’s an explorer yacht after all. The vessel can host up to 10 guests across four guest staterooms and a VIP suite, while the yacht itself carries a 12.3-metre beam and a 3.5-metre draft.

What makes the concept interesting isn’t necessarily the luxury side of it. Plenty of yachts already offer pools, helicopters and submarines. The more compelling part is that ER Yacht Design seems to have approached the vessel as a genuinely usable offshore platform rather than another glamorous render meant to sit on Instagram for a week before everyone forgets about it.

There’s a practical logic running through the entire project. You can see it in the open deck arrangement, the modular layouts, the engineering considerations and the overall profile. Even the aesthetics feel disciplined. Nothing appears overly theatrical.

That’s fairly rare in this corner of the industry, where concepts often resemble villain headquarters from a Bond film.

Super-Expedition could still deliver the extravagance expected from a modern superyacht, of course. You don’t build a 65-metre vessel with a convertible helipad-pool arrangement for modest weekends along the coast. But there’s enough realism behind the concept to make it feel plausible, which somehow makes the whole thing more interesting.

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