| | Melina Keays, entertaining directorWe are standing at the junction between summer and autumn, and I’ve tasted the best of both seasons in a single week. I‘ve explored breathtakingly beautiful landscaped gardens at Stourhead, a National Trust estate in Wiltshire, complete with monuments, a grotto and a temple overlooking a lake – all resplendent in glorious late-August sunshine. |
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I’m not one to mourn the passing of the summer though, as September, among its many charms, beckons us back to the city and the indoor conviviality of restaurants, pubs and bars. In London, I enjoyed cocktails at one of my favourites: Scarfes Bar at The Rosewood Hotel in Holborn. Scarfe’s Bar regularly collaborates with other renowned bars from around the world, giving Londoners the opportunity to sample their potions. On the night of my visit, Singapore’s Cat Bite Club was in residence. I jumped at the chance to try a broccoli cocktail, (actually named ‘Hulk Splash’). It features tequila, cardamon, kiwi, pear and roasted broccoli – the perfect way to get your greens. Speaking of colour, in this edition of Weekendpaper*, we take a look at fashion’s ongoing fascination with brown hues. We also peek inside the Waldorf Astoria’s spectacular transformation in New York, relax at one of Vietnam’s most beautiful resorts and investigate how buildings might make us healthier. |
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Embracing the colour brown, fashion’s most underrated hue |
Dare to write off brown as drab at your folly. Its very majesty is in its sedate unobviousness and its warm earthiness. The fact that its charm can be found in a tree trunk, a Marni fringed sandal or a chocolate-coloured gown worn by Tilda Swinton in the 2018 remake of Suspiria underlines its breadth of character. Sure, it’s a beauty that is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Miuccia Prada sent out an infamous women’s collection for S/S 1996 that featured murky browns often credited as the beginning of fashion’s love for ‘ugly chic’. ‘The colour of water as it stagnates over a long, steamy summer’, was how one critic summarised the situation at the time. The designer has since made brown a recurrent theme in her own wardrobe and Prada collections. Prada is not alone. Brown is a total mood. Simon Chilvers investigates. |
Inside the Waldorf Astoria's dazzling restoration, from cigars to snowy owls |
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A great hotel should welcome its guests with thoughtful amenities and a timeless sense of style, but when you’re the Waldorf Astoria, New York's art deco grand dame, there’s no use in disguising a majestic history. Nowhere else in Manhattan can you meet a friend 'by the clock' and find yourself at the foot of a spectacular timepiece commissioned by Queen Victoria for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, or casually admire Cole Porter’s Steinway piano on your way to the bar.
The Waldorf has a complex origin story rooted in both the Gilded Age and the Machine Age, but thanks to a deft reimagining and exquisite restoration led by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, its newest incarnation is at once reverent of its heritage and attentive to the realities of travel, city living and hospitality in a changing world. Read on to discover how SOM and a group of art conservators brought this grand New York hotel back to its original splendour. |
Can design make you healthier? |
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In Cologne, Ferdinand Stahl and his uncle – architect Thomas van den Valentyn, known for his work on the renovation of the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl – have unveiled a new workspace: Valentyns. This is no ordinary office: it features lighting that mimics natural daylight, acoustic wall and ceiling panels to minimise noise, and swoon-worthy Le Corbusier and USM Haller furniture. Members have access to breath-work and yoga sessions, cold plunges, Finnish and infrared saunas, HydraFacials and IV drips. In short, Valentyns is reimagining the office as somewhere – well – pleasant, reflected in the fact that, since moving in, members have reported a 30 per cent drop in sick days. ‘We create spaces that actively support regeneration,’ says Stahl. ‘It’s not enough to eliminate stressors – we need to create spaces where stress can be discharged.’ In London, a $2 billion mixed-use development, The Round, is currently under construction. It aims to become the UK’s first to achieve the WELL Community Gold Standard – a benchmark for healthy communities. As such, it will feature more than 30,000 sq ft of wellness-focused facilities, including gyms, pools, hot/cold therapy rooms, napping pods, digital detox spaces, art therapy, and classes for breath work, meditation and movement. These projects reflect a shift sweeping through architecture and design. Wellness is big business: the Global Wellness Institute reported the market at $5.6 trillion in 2023, with growth expected to reach $8.5 trillion by 2027. Young people are largely driving the surge. McKinsey reports that while Gen Z and Millennials make up 36 per cent of the US adult population, they account for over 41 per cent of spending in the wellness sector. As a result, writes Anna Solomon, our built environments are starting to reflect their preferences and priorities. Here's how. |
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