Timely luxury industry search

24+ min ago (677+ words) Last week, Sotheby's took over the ritzy St. Regis Island Resort on Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island, transforming two of its restaurants into showrooms'one touting handbags, diamonds, and watches, the other staging a non-selling display of $500 million worth of art. In the palm-shaded gardens overlooking the Persian Gulf, the auction house parked a fleet of rare and expensive cars. The week marked the inaugural Abu Dhabi Collectors' Week, a Sotheby's-branded event featuring workshops, talks, and several open-air luxury auctions held Friday night under a low-slung full moon." (All prices include fees unless otherwise noted.) Sotheby's also put two properties up for sale on Friday night. A huge villa in Cap Ferrat on the French coast listed for just over $40 million failed to find a buyer, but a property in Austria went for $20.1 million'more or less its estimate. Before the auctions on…...

27+ min ago (581+ words) It appears that something very strange happened on the set of "Wicked 2." Stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have shrunken to a very small size at the same time. It's a concerning example for girls and young women " and a reminder that there's a real social contagion when it comes to extreme weight loss. As "super skinny" comes back into fashion in the era of Ozempic, it's incumbent on parents and society to fight a resurgence of unrealistic standards and disordered eating before things get out of hand. A study of sororities from the 1980s revealed that disordered eating clustered within different houses, while a study of more than 15,000 high school students in 2008 found that it pops up in groups across the country. In the age of social media, this is especially concerning. Girls' mental health has already been battered enough…...

45+ min ago (516+ words) " " " | December 10, 2025 Avremel Raskin: Many feel that Chassidus is an endless field of topics beyond our scope of understanding, where every maamar or sicha adds more details and depth without ever giving a full picture, yet Chassidus Chabad was created so that we can internalize the message and not suffice with nice short passages of inspiration. Yud Tes Kislev is famously called Rosh HaShanah L'Chassidus. In many of the Yud Tes Kislev farbrengens, the Rebbe would quote the expression of the Rebbe Rashab, that Chassidus is "or vechayus nafsheinu," the light and energy of our neshamos. As Chabad chassidim, we celebrate the revelation of Chassidus, which brings us to a higher and deeper meaning in life, Torah and mitzvos. But Rosh HaShanah is also a day for reflection, and a time to reflect on the effect that Chassidus actually does affect…...

50+ min ago (995+ words) Welcome back to'Critical Materials, your daily source for the news driving the high-tech evolution of the car business.' On the menu today: BMW has a new CEO to steer it through the minefield that is electrification. Tesla is headed for a down year in the crucial Chinese market. And VinFast isn't having a great time scaling up its business in America. We'll break down why that matters.' BMW on Tuesday announced that a new CEO will take the reins next year.'Longtime top boss Oliver Zipse will step down in May, and Milan Nedeljkovi, BMW's head of production, will step up.' So let's take a step back and recap where BMW is right now and what sorts of challenges Nedeljkovi, a 32-year veteran of the automaker, faces going forward.' Electrification is tricky business for any legacy car company, but BMW…...

51+ min ago (190+ words) Published Dec 10, 2025 10:00 AM EST Earlier this fall, I lined up a family sightseeing trip as an excuse to get my folks out to see western Michigan. I had two Mercedes candidates to choose from for said trip: an E-Class wagon or a GLE SUV. My heart said longroof, but my head (contemplating the age and comfort of my baby-boomer passengers) said SUV. A 2026 Mercedes-Benz GLE580 it was. My father'a former software engineer who was only recently peer-pressured into purchasing a smartphone'used to joke often that he'd choose his retirement home by tying a computer mouse to his truck's antenna and driving until he encountered somebody who had no clue what it was. Perhaps partly out of rebelliousness, I went the other way, becoming a PC enthusiast and gadget aficionado. All the time spent waiting for those passing windows to open up…...

53+ min ago (1577+ words) Sotheby's Collectors' Week featured auctions, private sales, exhibitions and masterclasses hosted in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office. Courtesy of Sotheby's Although the final total ... Following the record-breaking November auctions that achieved $1.173 billion across the Modern & Contemporary marquee sales in New York and the HK$688 million ($88 million) from Japan's Okada Museum of Art auction in Hong Kong, Sotheby's closed its inaugural Collectors' Week in Abu Dhabi with a strong $133 million total. Across multiple auctions and private sales at the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort, a cross-category offering of luxury watches, handbags, high-performance bicycles, collectible cars and blue-chip real estate attracted robust interest'unsurprising in a region where luxury demand is accelerating at exceptional speed. The Gulf Cooperation Council luxury-goods market was estimated at $15.02 billion in 2025, with a projected rise to roughly $24.36 billion by 2030. The United Arab Emirates is one of…...

1+ hour, 17+ min ago (180+ words) Hilton is finally converting years of luxury planning into actual hotel openings, targeting gaps in markets that competitors have left open. Hilton is accelerating its luxury expansion into emerging markets like Malaysia and India, betting that rising wealth is fueling long-term demand that rivals have been slow to meet. Why it matters: Luxury hotels are one of the fastest-expanding sectors, as highlighted in one of Skift's 2026 Megatrends, "The Luxury Bubble Will Just Get Bigger.' Globally, the luxury hotel market is expected to more than double to $369 billion by 2032. Hilton needs more supply to meet that demand. As of September 30, Hilton had 106 open luxury hotels across its Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, LXR, NoMad, and Signia brands. Executives say years of strategic groundwork are now translating into openings and signed deals. "When you look at the trends that are coming out at the…...

1+ hour, 21+ min ago (1016+ words) Detailed study of light-emitting defects within hexagonal boron nitride reveals that their spin properties remain stable at very low temperatures, making them promising candidates for robust quantum sensing technologies. https://quantumzeitgeist.com/wp-content/uploads/Image_fx-60-10.jpg HBN Defects and Their Quantum Spin Properties Quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) exhibiting optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) signatures are attracting significant attention as a promising solid-state platform for quantum technologies. This work investigates the underlying spin dynamics and mechanisms determining the origin of these spin-active emitters, aiming to establish a fundamental understanding of their spin properties and potential for quantum information processing. The research focuses on identifying the atomic structure of the defects responsible for the ODMR signals, and characterizing their spin coherence times and interactions with the surrounding hBN lattice. Through a combination of advanced optical spectroscopy, including ODMR measurements at cryogenic temperatures, and theoretical modelling,…...

1+ hour, 21+ min ago (412+ words) The "Emily in Paris" actress paired woven stiletto sandals with a vintage Cavalli giraffe-print coat during her Season Five press run in New York. Lily Collins braved the cold in New York on Wednesday, combining a vintage Roberto Cavalli coat with a woven stiletto sandal for a pattern-and-texture mix as she continues her Season Five "Emily in Paris" press run. Her sandal came together through three straps: a woven band at the toe, another woven strap crossing the mid-foot and a smooth ankle strap that buckled at the side. The lower two carried a tight, braid-like texture, while the ankle strap stayed plain. With an open back and a slim stiletto heel, the shape kept a light profile. The shape tracks with classic evening sandals from labels like Manolo Blahnik and Roberto Cavalli, both known for working woven or braided…...

1+ hour, 23+ min ago (343+ words) Italy's antitrust regulator has launched two separate investigations into Swiss-based watchmaker The Swatch Group and Japan's Citizen Watch. The inquiries will examine whether the companies restricted competition on retail prices for watches sold in the country. The Italian Competition Authority has opened proceedings against Citizen Watch Italy and its parent company, Citizen Watch, as well as The Swatch Group (Italia) and its parent, The Swatch Group. The cases concern suspected breaches of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which prohibits anti-competitive agreements. The investigations focus on the alleged coordination of retail prices published online by authorised dealers, including jewellers and specialist watch retailers. According to the authority, Citizen, which distributes brands such as Citizen, Bulova, Vagary, Fr'd'rique Constant and Alpina, is suspected of directing members of its selective distribution network to adhere to specified…...