Toys

Toys

Range Rover SV Burford Edition

As unique as The Cotswolds

The Cotswolds is a bucolic picture postcard of fantasy English villages; gilded honey-stone hamlets with verdant greens where the vicar might umpire cricket matches, red telephone boxes, gastro pubs and cutesy cottages Farrow & Balled to within an inch of their life.

Which leads us to the long-wheelbase-only top-of-the-Range Rover SV, which is exactly the sort of vehicle you’d expect to see around here as Range Rover’s design direction, customer profile and price tags have evolved in parallel with the demographic of this Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire tranche – the golden triangle of Chipping Norton, Stow-on-the-Wold and Burford.

Now JLR has made it official by creating a very limited-edition car, the Range Rover SV Burford Edition, named after the eponymous town, which is considered the gateway to England’s largest Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The almost limitless personalisation options of the Range Rover SV Burford Edition are complemented by a state-of-the-art computer and latest generation infotainment system.

The Burford comes with 615bhp and a P615 V8 petrol engine and is described by the company as “the pinnacle of Range Rover personalisation” through its SV Bespoke department in…

Toys

Louis Vuitton Tambour Sapphire Frank Gehry

Liquid Architecture

Frank Gehry’s work, while unconventional, is considered one – if not the most – recognisable architect of our time. As a child, Gehry occupied much of his time experimenting with different materials in his grandfather’s hardware store, with his grandmother consistently encouraging his artistic leanings. He then spent his formative years putting himself through architecture […]

Toys

Stone dial watches

Hardcore beauty

Although one could argue that the use of a block of stone as a base on which to read the time goes back a few millennia (think sun clocks), in terms of horology worn on the wrist, it is not until the 1960s that we find dials made of hard minerals. The reasons are simple […]

Toys

Piaget Polo 79

The new gold standard

It was a symbol of its time, the decade of excess, the 1980s, when financial markets were uncoupled from national dictates, the world was simply not enough, and Wall Street was symbolic of everything the new finance world could offer. Gordon Gecko’s war cry of “Greed is good” was seen as the justification for unshackled […]

Toys

Enter the Dragon

The horological world celebrates Chinese New Year

The traditional Chinese calendar is a complex system, developed over millennia, according to astronomical phenomena and calculations of the correlation of the solar and lunar cycles. Typical features of early calendars included the use of the sexagenary cycles based on the rotation of 10 Heavenly Stems and 12 Earthly Branches (the animal zodiac signs). At […]

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Extra help on Santa’s wrist

Chronographs to time the annual sleigh ride

You probably know the fateful song, “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, with which Gene Autry topped the US Billboard charts in 1949. It tells the story of how the oddball reindeer with the bright shiny red nose got to lead all the others. The weather was terrible, there was hardly any visibility and Santa realised the […]

Toys

Bovet 1822 Récital 20 Astérium

Time in the heavens

Back in the 18th century, watchmakers were concerned with making timepieces that would not only measure average solar time – the one we apply in our everyday lives – but also sidereal time, which we use for the celestial map in the heavens, traditionally for navigation purposes. The Récital 20 Astérium (the sky seen from […]

Toys

Superyacht T52 by Baglietto

Bespoke luxury at sea

Almost 170 years ago, the oldest shipyard still in operation opened in La Spezia, Italy: Baglietto. The brand, which is synonymous with elegance and luxury, has had a renaissance. New from the brand’s T (for traditional) line is the T52, a hybrid electric-diesel propulsion superyacht, part of the company’s tailor-made production and the most historic […]

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BMW Z4 M40i

Serious Summer fun

A self-confessed convertible lover and not having driven one in quite a long time, I had felt the whole summer that something was amiss. My longing came to an end when I managed to get my hands on a 2023 BMW Z4 M40i. I’ve always liked the Z4. Its long bonnet, compact “derrière” and wide […]

Toys

Geneva Watch Days

Imagination, innovation and the shape of things to come

If it’s the end of August and watches are your passion or profession, then chances are you will be in Geneva. As the nighttime starts to encroach on the day, and the sun’s rays lose a little of their early morning heat, the Swiss city hosts Watch Days as a back-to-school field trip for most. […]

Toys

Rolls-Royce Amethyst Droptail

A desert gem

One could say that coachbuilding is to cars what haute couture is to fashion, the creation of exclusive, custom-made pieces developed from conception to completion working hand in hand with the patron. Today, coachbuilding reigns supreme in the world of automotive luxury. Rolls-Royce is leading the way this summer with the delivery of two stunning […]

Toys

Rolls-Royce Spectre

The spellbinding future of electrification

When a decade ago, the CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, announced they were working on a fully electric car, the cynics out there wondered if a Rolls-Royce could be a Rolls-Royce without one of their iconic V12 engines. Spectre proves not only that this was possible but that an electric Rolls-Royce is exactly […]