Latest news with #luxury
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Millionaire Lowes heir and husband set to move into opulent villa near Monaco after deciding to pack up their life in Australia to give their children a 'European lifestyle'
After recently offloading his Sydney mansion for a whopping $23.5 million, Lowes clothing retail heir Joshua Penn is headed to France with his family. Joshua, 37, is planning to relocate to the French Riviera in 2026 with husband Ben Palmer and children Brooklyn, seven, and Blake, four. The couple have snapped up the stunning Villa Marisol on the sunny, coastal slopes of the Cap d' Ail. With pristine beaches and the town centre in walking distance, the luxurious pad is also located just minutes away from Monaco - the playground of the über-rich. The stunning villa was built in 1908 for the feminist writer Gabrielle Reval, co-founder of French literary prize the Prix Femina. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. The villa also has long history, hosting the likes of French aristocrat, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, and American born French actress and singer, Josephine Baker. Described as one of the property gems of the Cap d' Ail, Villa Marisol is surrounded by 1,000 square metres of landscaped grounds that lead to the main entrance porch. The entrance level is opulence personified, boasting the original mosaic hallway. The magnificent columned hallway on the garden level leads to the two grand master bedrooms opening onto a small private garden. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the couple described their new digs as a 'palace' adding that they were keen to relocate to expose their children to the 'European lifestyle'. It comes as Joshua recently sold his Sydney mansion for a whopping $23 million. The sprawling four-bedroom, five-bathroom property, located at Point Piper, was originally snapped up by Josh's mother and father - Linda and David Penn - in 2021 for a cool $16 million. Joshua who co-owns the home with Ben, first listed the 1905 era home for $28 million. The couple and their children have been living at the exclusive address for three years while renovating another property in nearby Double Bay, The Wentworth Courier reported on Wednesday. According to property records, the retail heir's parents have maintained a 70 per cent stake in the mansion, which is known as the 'Capri'. Still, Josh and Ben are listed as 'owners' of the land title on the beautiful two-storey sandstone and brick home. According to the publication, the couple snapped up a four-bedroom, two-bathroom 'Spanish influenced' home in Double Bay for $6.7 million in 2020 which they extensively rebuilt. Josh and his mother Linda were recently seen at the Gold Dinner charity event. The Lowes Menswear CEO, who, alongside her brother and Lowes co-owner Jeffrey Mueller is worth a cool $400 million, held court at the glamorous do earlier this month. Linda heads the Gold Dinner Committee alongside her son Joshua, and rules the charity event with an iron fist. Every year an influential mix of business and philanthropic leaders attend, and the gala was once also littered with A-listers before Josh and his mother banned them from the event. In the past, celebrities like Chris Hemsworth, Roxy Jacenko, Ian Thorpe, Hamish Blake and Karl Stefanovic made appearances on the red carpet. Gold Dinner co-chair Joshua revealed ahead of the 2024 gala that the event will shun celebrities going forward, as they 'don't seem to add much value'. He said that the attention is usually too much on the celebrities, rather than on the purpose of the event. The invitation-only gala is held annually at a secret location in Sydney and is given a unique theme every year.
Bloomberg
4 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags
By Dressed in a white lab coat, Mélissa B. slips on thin cotton gloves and gently places a Zanzibar blue Hermès Birkin bag, its iconic orange box, a cloth dust cover, and various documents on her desk. She steps back to eye the $18,000 purse, hunting for any bulges or bends. She runs her fingertips along the top, then picking up her pocket-size magnifying glass, she leans in to examine a palladium plate on the flap. The logo has evolved over time, but the engraved text has remained sharp and well-defined, with the characters evenly spaced. 'This is one of the key Birkin features to check,' she says. She shifts her gaze to the stitching, checking for consistency and uniformity. The four palladium feet on the bottom of the bag get a check to ensure they're made of the same metal as the rest of the hardware, and that they're hammered, not screwed, in place. Then she homes in on the zipper—ensuring it's one made by Hermès in-house, with its distinctive H-shaped stopper at the end.
Motor 1
14 hours ago
- Automotive
- Motor 1
The 2025 Audi Q5 Adds More Screens, More Power: Review
Quick Specs 2025 Audi Q5 / SQ5 Engine Turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4 / Turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 Output 268 hp, 295 lb-ft. / 362 hp, 295 lb-ft. Base Price $52,200 / $64,800 Pros: Roomier & Comfier, Engaging Feel, Sharper Transmission Tuning Cons: Costlier, Lackluster gauges, Capacitive-touch buttons 2025 Audi Q5 Overview: Same Tune, More Volume Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 The Audi Q5 is one of those SUVs that feels familiar even if you've never driven one before. As Audi 's best-selling model, they're easy to find in most parking lots, striking the right blend of inoffensive styling on the outside and aspirational luxury on the inside to deliver mass-market appeal. For 2025's Q5 , that fundamental concept doesn't change. Audi's tweaks to this compact SUV are subtle, adding a little more cargo space here and a bit more legroom there, plus a good bit more power and about an acre's worth of additional digital displays. The result is still very much the same recipe, but the result is sweeter yet sharper than before. Engine, Drivetrain, Horsepower: Bigger Boost Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 The engine that will drive the bulk of Q5 models sold remains the same, basic turbocharged 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder as before. It's been massaged a bit, though, now offering 268 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. That's up from 201 hp and 236 lb-ft from the former base Q5 40 TFSI, or a tick up over the former Q5 S line 45 TFSI, which made 261 hp and 273 lb-ft. Fuel economy is 25 mpg combined. Want more? Step up to the SQ5 and its 3.0-liter, turbocharged V6, now making 362 hp and 406 lb-ft. Its efficiency is 19 mpg city, 26 highway, and 22 mpg combined. That's right, no hybrid offerings nor fancy, high-voltage electric turbos or anything of the like. Those turbos are new, though, with a variable geometry design intended to minimize lag despite those higher output figures. The biggest change, though, comes on the other end of the crankshaft: The SQ5 gets a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, a nice upgrade over the former generation's automatic. Technology and Infotainment: OMG OLED Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 Slot into the driver's seat, and it becomes immediately apparent where Audi's engineers spent the bulk of their time and money on this 2025 rendition of the Q5. Like on the Q6 E-Tron , gauge cluster and infotainment duties are handled by a pair of OLED displays joined at the bezel to form a single sweeping pane. OLED technology means bold colors and luscious contrast, but most importantly, it delivers the kind of pure blacks at night that automotive-grade LCDs can only dream of. The panel behind the steering wheel measures 11.9 inches on the diagonal, while the new infotainment screen is a touch bigger at 14.5. Need more? Tick the right boxes, and you'll get a third display on the passenger side, one not nearly as crisp-looking but offering yet another way to interface with Audi's latest MMI software. Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 Premium Plus and Prestige models also get a new heads-up display, bigger and brighter than before. It works better with polarized sunglasses and offers multiple different views with enough telemetry data that even data-hounds will keep their eyes on the road. That's good because if your eyes should linger too long on a roadside hot dog stand or other culinary distraction, the standard driver-monitoring system will chime early and often. The HUD is a nice upgrade, but the software driving the gauge cluster disappoints. It offers plenty of pages of data to cycle through but isn't nearly as customizable or, frankly, as visually compelling as what you'll find in a new BMW or Mercedes-Benz. The lackluster design on such a beautiful display feels like a waste. Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 I also found myself hating the capacitive touch buttons on the steering wheel. By the end of the day, I'd lost count of the number of times I inadvertently turned up the volume when my right palm grazed the upper portion of the touch-sensitive area. Design: Hello Again Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 The fundamental shape and character of the Q5 haven't changed much in 2025, but the details are quite different. The grille up front is even bigger than before, and while the overall look is more stately and sophisticated, I have to say I prefer the svelte shapeliness of the previous generation. The headlights and taillights are the most significant change, keeping up with the modern trend of going as narrow as possible while featuring inordinate levels of complexity in pursuit of visual flair. That comes courtesy of a grid of LED-illuminated sections at the front and a crystalline-like structure of OLED panels at the rear, all of which can be customized in the car's app or infotainment center to deliver some degree of personalization. Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 On the inside, the biggest design change is the aforementioned faceful of OLED pixels, but other subtle revisions are here, too, including a switch to a much smaller shifter. That creates room for bigger cup holders and storage cubbies. There's more storage out back, 27.6 cubic feet worth with the seats up and 56.9 down. Legroom is up, too, all thanks to the inevitable increase in size over the outgoing model. The 2025 Q5 is about an inch and a half longer and a half-inch wider than before. Driving Impressions: More Feel, More Shove Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 Piloting the new Q5 through the urban sprawl is as effortless as it's ever been. That new DCT has been tuned by Audi, not for instant, rapid-fire shifts but to slip between gears much like an automatic. It eases itself gently up to speed, sliding from one cog to the next without so much as a nod from your passengers. Power delivery, too, is subtle and relaxed, requiring you to flex your foot hard on that accelerator to get the turbo working. Steering, however, is ultra-light, with U-turns requiring just one finger. The steering gains quite a bit of heft as you cycle through the drive modes, but there's a surprising amount of feel throughout. In Dynamic, the sportiest, the SQ5's throttle now becomes far more sharp and that transmission more eager, if still relaxed. Taps on the shift paddles behind the wheel are still handled on a delayed basis, a delay compounded by a noticeable amount of turbo lag. Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 The SQ5 delivers much the same experience when you're idling through town. But, find some more engaging roads (of which there are plenty in Colorado, where I tested these SUVs), dial it up to Dynamic, and the sportier of the two really does feel significantly different. The SQ5 adds more power and also more sound. Whether idling in traffic or swinging up to the redline, the exhaust note on the SQ5 is far more engaging. Likewise, the DCT here acts with far more intent, shifting quickly when you ask it to. There's even greater feel through the steering wheel, thanks in part to Audi using stiffer mounts to attach the front subframe to the chassis. That swap does result in a slight penalty in ride quality, especially over separation joints and other short, sharp impacts, but the optional air suspension on both Q5 and SQ5 offers remarkably good ride quality despite the larger wheel sizes. Sadly, I wasn't able to sample a version with steel springs. Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 Fuel Economy: Down a Bit The 2025 Audi Q5 is EPA-rated for 22 mpg in the city, 30 on the highway, and 25 mpg combined. That's down one from the old Q5's rating, but in my testing, I did slightly better, coming in at 25.8 mpg. On the SQ5 side, you're looking at 19 mpg city, 26 highway, and 22 combined. I again came in quite close to the official rating at 23 mpg. Photo by: Tim Stevens / Motor1 Pricing+Verdict: Splurge On the S The Q5 starts at $52,200, a big jump from the 2024 model's mid-$40,000 MSRP, and you'll need to drop another $8,400 for the Prestige package if you want niceties like the air suspension and the gratuitous passenger-side display. The Q5 Prestige model I drove stickered at $63,290, including the $1,295 destination. The SQ5 starts at a rather dearer $64,800, but for that, you at least get the air suspension standard. If you're thinking of Q5, the extra splurge on the SQ5 feels worthwhile. The changes to the chassis result in a noticeable improvement in feel, while the extra aggression from both engine and transmission make for a far more engaging drive without much in the way of compromise. Either way, the new Q5 is hardly a reinvention, but it does deliver enough new power and toys to keep up with the Joneses – or the Bavarians, as it were. 2025 Audi Q5 and SQ5 FAQs Is the 2025 Audi Q5 available as a hybrid? No, at least not for now. Your only choices are a 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder or a 3.0-liter V6. Is the 2025 Audi Q5 more powerful? Yes, both the base Q5 and the hotter SQ5 gain power, up to 268 on the former and 362 on the latter. The penalty, though, is some extra turbo lag, especially on the littler 2.0-liter. What are the Audi Q5's biggest competitors? BMW's recently refreshed X3 is definitely this thing's toughest competition. The Mercedes-Benz GLC is still worth your attention in the luxury crossover SUV crowd, too. More On Audi SUVs The 2025 Audi Q6 E-Tron Is Excellent, No Gimmicks Required: First Drive Review Audi Made an Electric Off-Roader With Portal Axles Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . 2025 Audi Q5 / SQ5 Engine Turbocharged 2.0-liter I-4 (Q5), Turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 (SQ5) Output 268 hp, 295 lb-ft. (Q5) / 362 hp, 295 lb-ft. (SQ5) Transmission Seven-Speed Dual-Clutch Transmission Drive Type All-Wheel Drive Seating Capacity 5 Weight 4,244 lbs. (Q5) / 4,400 lbs. (SQ5) Efficiency 22 city / 30 highway / 25 combined (Q5); 19 city 26 highway 22 combined (SQ5) Trim Base Price $52,200 (Q5) / $64,800 (SQ5) As-Tested Price $63,290 (Q5) / $74,740 (SQ5) On Sale Now Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Luxury's $1.7 trillion headache: The sector lost 50 million customers last year and is struggling with selfie-happy Gen Z
Luxury brands are retreating to exclusivity after years of trying to broaden their appeal, but they're now struggling to reconcile that elusiveness with younger consumers' desire to share and express identity online. With the luxury market shrinking—marked by a 3% dip in early 2025 and the loss of around 50 million customers—brands must urgently innovate to maintain relevance, exclusivity, and emotional connection in the social media era. Luxury brands have retreated back to their safe space of exclusivity, having explored new avenues to win customers during COVID. The only problem is, to win and retain the next generation of shoppers they must marry their need to remain elusive with a consumer who wants to share everything online. These companies have no time to waste. According to a spring update on the sector from Bain & Co, the industry is losing speed relatively quickly. The study released Thursday shows the sector's worth was €1.5 trillion ($1.7 trillion) in 2024, though for Q1 of 2025 estimates are shrinkage of 3% compared to last year. Even last year, personal luxury goods was one of the categories which marked the most notable slowdown, knocking from €369 billion in 2023 down to €364 billion in 2024. That marked its first contraction in 15 years—with the notable exception of the pandemic. And the gap between winners and losers in the luxury sector is also growing, added the author's writers Claudia D'Arpizio and Federica Levato. The gap between the top 75th percentile and the bottom 25th percentile performers increased by 1.5 times in Q1 2025 compared to a year earlier, with market leaders continuing to charge ahead while the bottom 20% to 30% of the sector continued to report a reduction in growth. Part of the problem is consumers are wrangling with what Bain & Co describes as the 'value equation'—basically, are they getting enough—be it experience, social and cultural kudos, or workmanship—out of the purchase for the elevated price they are paying? For a 'long period' luxury brands were trying to enlarge their customer base to be more inclusive, D'Arpizio tells Fortune. This was really reinforced in some categories with 'entry items like streetwear, sneakers, and even beauty—all the categories that could have been more relevant for young people, but also with people with less discretionary spending.' That strategy 'overcorrected' she added, with brands overly relying on iconic design or experiences, reducing their pace of innovation and hence, leading consumers to question if their spend is really worth it. 'So last year we had a big loss of customers—around 50 million less customers buying luxury product—in particular in the younger generation, and a big drop on customer advocacy,' D'Arpizio continued. 'What is happening now that the brands are trying to fix that, and trying to reignite this relationship with these customers without losing their exclusivity.' Shifting back to exclusivity is a more difficult ask when younger consumers are known as the social media generation for their propensity to post online. Gone are the days of galas with no cameras, of designer handbag back rooms with no filming allowed: It's all available on a For You Page within moments of ending. 'Luxury has always been about showing off,' D'Arpizio, who is Bain & Co's lead for the global fashion, luxury goods vertical, continued. 'The previous generation was showing off wealth and showing off accomplishments in life, now it's more showing off of your of your personality or your ability to choose your aesthetics, your quality of life. 'There is a big need, in particular in Gen Z, for sharing. This sharing means expressing their personality … but also a desire of conformity. These are two forces that are contradictory but in reality are a big driver for luxury consumption because luxury brands can provide this conformity, but then inside the luxury brand, mixing and matching, choosing your own style, developing your own style, creates your self-expression.' She continued: 'Social media has provided a huge impulse to luxury consumption because the potential of sharing with a larger audience has created both more customers but also in augmentation of their communication strategies and so they have a broader reach. 'So yes, they want to be exclusive, but they know the power of social media.' This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Oakley Capital Buys a Majority Stake in Fornasetti's Holding Company
MILAN — In a strategic move, Fornasetti heir Barnaba Fornasetti agreed to sell 60 percent of Immaginazione Srl, the holding company that owns and manages Fornasetti, to Oakley Capital. The private equity firm operates mostly in Europe and specializes in premium brands. Its portfolio includes luxury luggage firm Globe-Trotter and Italian design firm Alessi. More from WWD 10 Rustic Cottage Aesthetic Home Finds to Channel This Summer's TikTok 'Garden Girl' Vibe EXCLUSIVE: As Royal Copenhagen Turns 250, Its Creative Director, a Fashion Veteran, Has Fresh Ideas Alpargatas Inks Deal With The Eastman Group For Havaianas In North America 'This agreement marks a significant moment of transformation for Fornasetti. Our identity and our creative vision will always remain at the core of our project, strengthened by new energies and skills that will guide us through a phase of thoughtful, ambitious and value-oriented expansion,' Barnaba Fornasetti said in a statement. The son of the late Piero Fornasetti, the Milan-based artist runs the design and decorative arts house his father started in the 1940s and is credited with propelling it into modern times, expanding the product offering and geographic reach and through a variety of collaborations. Oakley Capital's operating partner Vicente Castellano said that Oakley plans to accelerate the company on a global level. 'We have a strong track record and have already enjoyed several successful partnerships with iconic brands, such as Globe-Trotter and Alessi. We are delighted to invest in another prestigious Italian brand… to fully realize its untapped potential and transform the brand into a global lifestyle company.' Best of WWD In the Hills of Kyoto, a Glassmaker's Magical Forest The Story Behind the Mysterious Face That Adorns Most of Fornasetti's Décor Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
