The Man Who Made Cigars Cool The cigar affecianado A tribute to the publishing legend who turned cigar smoking into an international symbol of success, style, and the good life. Smoking a cigar was something your grandfather did after Sunday dinner. Then along came Marvin Shanken, and suddenly everybody wanted a humidor, a Cuban Cohiba, and a leather chair in which to contemplate life's finer things. Shanken, who passed away October 29 at 83, didn't invent the cigar. He did s

Spending The Day With 577 Horses Take It All In Most cars can get you from A to B with zero emotion, but what fun is that? Why not instead choose a car that makes you reconsider whether you actually need to arrive at B at all. Plow it all the way through the alphabet and enjoy every second. That’s the AMG GT 63 Coupe. We spent a day behind the wheel, and one thing became abundantly clear: Mercedes-AMG has created a machine that manages to be equal parts sophisticated grand to

Luxury's New power Color Purple is having a remarkable moment in luxury. From deep aubergine automotive paint and violet watch dials to amethyst jewelry and lavender leather goods, the color once associated with royalty is finding a new audience. What makes the trend interesting is the complete colorrange: plum, ultraviolet, lilac, amethyst, lavender and metallic violet all communicate different kinds of luxury. Six Primaries Auto makers Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce and Bentley a

Brands have over exposed themselves from coffee to condos Over Exposed When Designer Condos Run Out of Runway Bentley builds condos. Porsche builds condos. Mercedes builds condos. Ralph Lauren sells coffee. Apparently, nobody is satisfied doing what made them famous. Are these luxury brands losing their minds? Porsche built sports cars. Bentley built magnificent automobiles. Aston Martin made beautiful machines for James Bond. Mercedes-Benz engineered some of the world's fin

These Brands Can Take It To The Bank Without Robbing You Boggi, Faloni and Pini Pini Parma, Boggi Milano, Luca Faloni are the new generation of menswear brands making luxury labels look ridiculously overpriced. Typically, dressing like a gentleman required either a generous bank account or a very understanding divorce attorney. A beautiful Italian jacket, perfectly tailored trousers, a cashmere sweater and a decent pair of loafers could easily set you back several thousand do

Part of the Va Bene Style Circle, Giorgia Mondani Has The World On Her Wrist Born into one of the world's most respected watch-collecting families, Giorgia Mondani has carved out her own place in the fascinating world of haute horlogerie. The daughter of renowned collector and author Guido Mondani, she has become an internationally recognized authority, entrepreneur and influential voice in luxury watches. Combining Italian elegance, deep industry knowledge and a global follo

Your $15,000 Watch May Have The Same Movement As a $3,000 One Everyone In The Pool Welcome to the wonderfully incestuous world of Swiss watchmaking, where competitors share engines, luxury conglomerates own the factories, and the words "in-house movement" deserve a closer look. Here's a dirty little secret the luxury watch industry doesn't exactly advertise: that magnificent mechanical masterpiece on your wrist may have a lot more in common with a watch costing one-fifth as m

Country clubs are spending millions, developers are going bankrupt, and America's senior citizens are Emergency Room Regulars. Senior's Applying To The ER Well, well, well. Look what just landed in bankruptcy court. The Picklr, one of America's largest indoor pickleball franchise operations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 2026. Imagine that. A business built around hitting a plastic Wiffle ball with an oversized Ping-Pong paddle has discovered that enth

The Deep Blue Limited Release Makes a Splash! Exceptional Smoke Another limited-edition cigar? Spare me the marketing nonsense. But when Ernesto Perez-Carrillo is behind it, you might actually want to pay attention. The cigar industry has become a little like the luxury watch business. Every other Tuesday, somebody announces another “exclusive,” “rare,” “limited-edition” masterpiece, wraps it in a fancy box, slaps on an inflated price tag, and expects us to wet ourselves with

The Ralph Lauren Cable Cashmere Cables In Colors Fashion has a remarkable talent for reinventing things nobody asked to be reinvented. Lapels get wider, trousers get shorter, sneakers get uglier, and designers spend millions convincing us that last year's wardrobe is suddenly obsolete. With Ralph Lauren, he got it right over 50 yrs ago with the cashmere cable-knit sweater. An iconic piece for more than five decades, the cable-knit sweater has been part of the Ralph Lauren voc

And A $200,000 Initiation Fee Monticello Motor Club Forget golf, tennis, pickleball (ugh) and another afternoon discussing your handicap. The latest playground for the seriously wealthy involves 200-mph supercars, private garages, trackside villas and membership fees that make your local club look like a YMCA. It used to be joining the right country club meant you'd arrived. A handsome clubhouse, a decent golf course, a locker with your name on it and perhaps a waiter who kne

Next Time, We'll Skip It Chanel After several days of watching beautiful people march down runways wearing everything from spectacular clothes to upholstered headgear, enormous T-shirts, exposed bras, cone-shaped breasts and shoes that appear to require a building permit, we can confidently report one thing: Fashion may have finally lost its fucking mind. To be fair, there were some genuinely beautiful clothes. Hermès reminded everyone that luxury doesn't need to be loud. The

Beyond Repair? There was a time when Nike could put a Swoosh on damn near anything and we wanted it. Jordan. Agassi. Bo Jackson. Tiger. Kobe. Serena. Nike didn’t participate in sports culture. Nike owned it. Today, the Swoosh looks less like a symbol of athletic dominance and more like something hanging over the clearance rack at an outlet mall. So what the hell happened? Let’s Start with the stock. A Big Dunk Nike shares have collapsed roughly 80% from their pandemic-er

CIGARS, STYLE & THE LUXURY OF KNOWING WHO YOU ARE Delicia Silva Long before every person with an iPhone, a ring light and 10,000 followers decided they were an “influencer,” Delicia Silva was doing something considerably simpler: she loved cigars, knew something about them, and enjoyed talking about them. Cigar Vixen grew from there. Today, Delicia is one of the more recognizable female personalities in the premium cigar world, but what makes her interesting isn't simply that

Dressing for work used to be relatively simple. Suit. Shirt. Tie. Decent shoes. Done. No Matter Which Guy You Are, Look Good! Not anymore. Today we have two very different professional animals. Guy #1 is in the office five days a week. He sees senior management, sits through meetings, entertains at business lunches and occasionally goes straight from the office to cocktails. People see him…constantly. Impression matters. Guy #2 works primarily from home, appears in the office

Making The Expensive Guys Look Silly Quality Built To Protect I love beautiful things. I also love beautifully made things. And there is a difference. Enter TÜBR, a cigar storage tube that arrived on my desk looking more like it contained a serious timepiece than something designed to protect a cigar. From the packaging to the weight in your hand, TUBR immediately delivers that increasingly rare sensation: this thing is really well made. Opening It Is Part Of The Pleasure The

Watchmakers Saddled Up for 2026 Year of the Horse King of Equestrian Wear, Hermès The year is 3/4 finished, but its worth looking at how important The Year Of The Horse was to Swiss Watchmakers. The Chinese zodiac’s Year of the Fire Horse has given watchmakers a wonderful excuse to unleash engravers, enamellers, miniature painters and enough red and rose gold to make a Ferrari showroom look restrained. The results range from subtle little equestrian winks to watches that prac

Way Better Than A Sock Drawer The Curator 18 There comes a point in watch collecting when the little three-watch travel roll stops being charming. You’ve accumulated Rolexes, Omegas, Tudors, maybe something obscure enough that you enjoy explaining it to people who didn’t ask. Tucking these investments in the sock drawer doesn’t work either because we all lose socks! Let’s talk about the Billstone Curator 18 Watch Briefcase. Beautifully Finished The Curator 18 is essentially a

Alcohol Sales Are Falling. Maybe the $38.00 Martini Finally Did It. Sticker Shock Yes, us. The country that perfected the three-martini lunch, tailgating, bottomless brunch and the idea that bourbon somehow tastes better with a good cigar. According to IWSR, total U.S. beverage-alcohol volume fell 5% in 2025. Beer and wine each dropped 6%, while spirits fell 4%. Gallup reported in 2026 that only 54% of American adults say they drink alcohol, tied with 2025 for the lowest leve

Small Batch Watchmaking With Big Personality The Racing GCC Mechanical Collection There are enough new watches launched every month to make even the most obsessive collector stop paying attention. New dial. New color. New “limited edition.” New collaboration nobody asked for. And then there’s HOFFMAN. I’ve become a fan of this independent brand precisely because it doesn’t seem interested in flooding the market with watches simply to have something new to post on Instagram. H