Page 31 – Kanebridge News

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Quit Being a Cynic at Work. It’s Holding You Back.

We don’t want to be friends with our co-workers . We don’t want to help out with that project. We don’t trust the CEO…or our boss…or that guy in accounting.

Have we taken our cynicism at work too far?

In some ways, our bad attitude makes sense. Many of us made work our church, only to end up laid off , burned out or underpaid. Now we check out, do less, gossip and snark.

It isn’t getting us anywhere good, according to Jamil Zaki , a Stanford University psychology professor who runs the school’s social neuroscience lab.

“Cynicism, if it were a pill, would really be a poison,” he says.

Zaki has spent years researching sunny concepts such as empathy and compassion. One of his studies, for example, found that giving away money activates a similar part of the brain as eating chocolate. His forthcoming book, “Hope for Cynics,” explores the rise of our darker sides, our belief that other people are selfish, greedy and dishonest.

Betrayed once, we practice what Zaki calls “pre-disappointment,” always assuming others will let us down. The mindset feels productive and cunning, like we’ll be able to protect ourselves. But Zaki says it can actually stunt our careers in the long run, and hurt our mental and physical health.

“By never trusting, cynics never lose,” he writes. “They also never win.”

He assures that you don’t have to become the company cheerleader, or even an optimist, to grow your faith in other people. You do have to take a chance on them, examining your own assumptions and suspending your conviction that you already know how this is going to turn out (not well).

While the approach might initially seem blasphemous to the more negative, sarcastic and skeptical among us—like, say, me—anyone can become less cynical , he says.

You might even find you like it.

How we got here

Once upon a time, Americans were less cynical, Zaki says. A longstanding survey from research organisation NORC at the University of Chicago, which has examined American attitudes since 1972, shows we used to trust each other more. Around the middle of the last century, many hummed along on the rosy glow of plum benefits, robust job security and the knowledge that the chief executive was making, say, 20 times a worker’s pay, instead of 200.

It isn’t that we never complained about work, but Zaki says we repaid our companies’ loyalty with commitment, as part of an unspoken covenant.

Today, that employee-employer pact can feel like a relic of a bygone era. Workers have swapped pensions and equity in their companies for more meagre benefits that put the risk and onus on individuals. Instead of reporting to paternalistic employers, many people now operate under tenuous contracts and gig work.

Some of us work from home in isolation or spend lonely days in the office trapped on back-to-back video calls. There’s less chitchat, less interaction.

“We don’t like people when they’re abstracted,” Zaki says, “but we love people who we actually know.”

Zaki understands why, given all this, we might scoff at the notion that our company is a family, or roll our eyes at the prospect of joining in forced fun at the office happy hour.

Sometimes, I suspect, we also adopt a toughness because we don’t want to look like we’re trying too hard, only to fail or be rejected. Maybe it stems from perfectionism , or anxiety , or insecurity after being exposed to everyone else’s highlight reel on social media for the past 15 years.

Fighting our own worst tendencies

It might seem like all the office snakes are scaling the ladder, but Zaki says studies show cynics’ earnings and leadership potential level off with time. To do good work and attain success, you have to build alliances and share information. Translation: You have to trust someone.

Cynics are prone to poor health, from depression to heart disease, he says, adding that at an organizational level, cynicism can lead to pervasive backstabbing, higher turnover and even corporate corruption.

Cynicism is also a self-fulfilling prophecy, he says. People often mirror how we treat them. Micromanage your team—surveilling them and wresting away their ability to make decisions—and they’ll become the slackers you think they are, doing the bare minimum and buying mouse jigglers to mask time away from their home computers.

“Cynics tell a story full of villains and end up living in it,” he writes.

Resisting cynicism’s pull starts with being open-minded. Examine the data of your life like a scientist would, he says, instead of jumping to conclusions, positive or negative. Think everyone at your job is out for themselves? Ask 10 colleagues for a favour, and see if anyone agrees to help. Convinced every conversation with a co-worker will be painful? Spend a day rating your interactions with them on a scale from 1 to 10.

Challenging your assumptions will leave you pleasantly surprised, Zaki promises, because people often rise to the occasion when we let them. You can start by doling out what you hope to receive. Try engaging in “positive gossip,” speaking highly of others. Take a leap of faith in someone, and do it obviously.

“I trust you,” a manager might say to her direct report. “I really think you can do this.”

Calibrating our hope

Could all this make us too soft? Rejecting cynicism doesn’t mean you can’t hold workers to high standards, Zaki says. Just don’t pit them against each other, with practices like stack rankings, where collaboration is discouraged as workers try to claw above each other on a scoreboard.

Your humor can still be irreverent, even biting, he adds, but jokes should ultimately bring people together or improve something.

“Snark, in the absence of any hope, kind of curdles,” he says.

And don’t be blindly optimistic, he adds. If leadership isn’t giving you any reason to have faith in them, don’t. Find another group to trust—maybe your small team or a union. Band together to provide a buffer to the daily stress of working in your organisation, or enact change by fighting for something better.

“We often underestimate how much influence we have,” he says. “Own that power.”

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Ozempic Fuels Hunt for Smaller Clothes

Apparel retailers are discovering that weight loss is their gain.

While blockbuster drugs like Ozempic that lead to significant weight loss have dented demand for diet plans and caused food companies to prepare for people eating less, clothing sellers are finding that millions of slimmed-down Americans want to buy new clothes.

The newly svelte aren’t just restocking their wardrobes, many are also gravitating to more body-hugging shapes and risqué designs, according to industry executives and shoppers. Some brands are responding by replacing zippers with adjustable corsets and adding more sheer looks.

The nascent downsizing is happening across brands and types of garments. Industry executives said that they can’t be certain weight-loss medicine is the cause, but added that the shift is unlike anything they have seen. It is also an about-face from recent years, when many retailers rushed to add larger sizes to accommodate Americans’ growing girth.

About 5% of Lafayette 148’s customers are buying new outfits because they have lost weight, often replacing their size 12 clothes with size 6 or 8, according to Deirdre Quinn , the brand’s chief executive. The benefit is twofold; in addition to boosting sales, Lafayette 148 is saving money because smaller sizes use less fabric, Quinn said.

More customers of clothing rental company Rent the Runway are switching to smaller sizes than at any time in the past 15 years, said Jennifer Hyman , co-founder and CEO. These customers are also showing more of a willingness to experiment with different styles such as cutouts and other body-baring features. “When you are more comfortable in your skin, you are more willing to try edgier looks,” she said.

For Maggie Rezek, getting dressed used to be about hiding her extra weight in oversize shirts and baggy pants. Since she lost 60 pounds on semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic, the 32-year-old, who handles marketing for a beauty salon, has splurged on a new wardrobe. Now, her staples consist of crop tops and jean shorts. She has traded in her sneakers for kitten heels. She even documents her outfits on social media.

“Before, I was insecure about my body,” said Rezek, who lives in Indianapolis. “Now, I feel like I fit better in clothes. That gives me the confidence to dress up and be more stylish.”

Some 15.5 million people, or 6% of U.S. adults, say they have tried injectable weight loss drugs to slim down, according to a survey of more than 5,500 Americans conducted in March by polling company Gallup. Nearly three-quarters of current users said the drugs—a class known as GLP-1 that were originally developed to treat diabetes—are effective or extremely effective in helping them shed pounds.

Weight-loss drugs don’t work for everyone and the cost can sometimes exceed $1,000 a month, limiting the market. The full price isn’t always covered by insurance. Moreover, people struggle to keep the weight off once they stop using the drugs.

Still, some companies expect the market for these drugs will be big enough that they are shifting course. WW International , formerly known as Weight Watchers, acquired a subscription service that offers telehealth visits with doctors who can prescribe drugs like Ozempic. Nestlé is introducing a new food line this year designed for people taking weight-loss medication.

Clothing companies could use a boost. Apparel sales fell 4% in the 12 months that ended in April compared with the same period a year earlier, according to market research firm Circana, as people give priority to their spending on necessities.

Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, Amarra, which sells evening gowns and other formal wear in 800 retailers in the U.S., Canada and Australia, saw increased demand for larger sizes. Now, that trend has reversed.

“Over the past year, our retailers have been telling us they need smaller sizes,” said Abhi Madan, Amarra’s co-founder and creative director. Amarra, which is based in Freehold, N.J., has added sizes as small as 000. He says he is also selling more sizes in the 0-8 range and fewer in the plus-size range of 18-24.

Madan said the shift is changing the way Amarra designs dresses. It is replacing zippers with lace-up corsets, which can more easily accommodate shifting weights because the laces can be tightened or loosened. It is also adding more sheer side panels that give a figure-hugging look.

AllStar Logo, which sells polo shirts, fleece jackets and other gear to large companies, has seen demand for its largest sizes fall by half over the past year, according to Edmond Moss , its sales director.

“We used to sell a lot of fleece jackets in extra, extra large,” Moss said. “Now everything has gone down by at least one size.”

Sales of the three largest sizes of women’s button-down shirts fell 10.9% in the first three months of 2024 compared with the same period in 2022 at a dozen brands, according to Impact Analytics, which helps retailers manage their inventory and size allocations.

Sales of those same button-down shirts in the three smallest sizes grew 12.1% over that period. Impact Analytics analysed purchases in physical stores located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It focused its research on this area because it has the highest concentration of individuals in New York City taking these drugs specifically for weight loss, according to market research firm Trilliant Health.

A similar trend played out for women’s dresses and sweaters, as well as men’s polo shirts, sweatshirts and T-shirts, according to Impact Analytics.

Prashant Agrawal , Impact Analytics’ founder and CEO, said it wasn’t possible to know if the size changes resulted from people losing weight or a shift in clothing styles, but added that such a pronounced shift is unusual. “It’s not something we’ve seen before,” he said.

Some executives are worried that the shift could reduce demand for plus-size clothes.

“I’m trying to figure out what we have to worry about in the future,” said Doug Wood , the chief executive of clothing retailer Tommy Bahama, noting that as more people lose weight it could hurt sales of its “Big & Tall” collection designed for very large men.

Jillian Sterba went from a size 6 to a size 10 after the birth of her child. When the weight didn’t come off with diet and exercise, she started injections of semaglutide in October. Since then, Sterba, who is 36 and lives in Austin, has lost 35 pounds. She is now a size 4. “Almost half my clothes are not wearable,” she said.

She bought new jeans, tops, bras and underwear. “I had been wearing flowy tops before but now I’m wearing fitted shirts,” she said. Still, Sterba said she is keeping 80% of her old clothes just in case she gains back the weight.

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I.M. Pei’s Son Speaks of His Father’s Legacy of Creating ‘Places for People’ Ahead of a Retrospective in Hong Kong

I.M. Pei was the confident visionary behind such transformative structures as the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, but he was also humble, and for years resisted a retrospective of his work.

Pei, a Chinese-American architect who died in 2019 at 102 , would always protest any suggestion of a major exhibition, saying, “why me,” noting, too, that he was still actively at work, recalls his youngest son, Li Chung “Sandi” Pei. A decade ago, when Pei was in his mid-to-late 90s, he relented, finally telling Aric Chen, a curator at the M+ museum in Hong Kong, “all right, if you want to do it, go ahead,” Sandi says.

A sweeping retrospective, “I.M. Pei: Life Is Architecture,” will open June 29 at M+ in the city’s West Kowloon Cultural District. The exhibition of more than 300 objects, including drawings, architectural models, photographs, films, and other archival documents, will feature Pei’s influential structures, but in dialogue with his “social, cultural, and biographical trajectories, showing architecture and life to be inseparable,” the museum said in a news release.

As a Chinese citizen who moved to the U.S. in 1935 to learn architecture, Pei—whose full first name was Ieoh Ming—brought a unique cultural perspective to his work.

“His life is what’s really interesting and separates him from many other architects,” Sandi says. “He brought with him so many sensibilities, cultural connections to China, and yet he was a man of America, the West.”

Facade of the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong in a photograph commissioned by M+ in 2021.
© South Ho Siu Nam

Pei’s architectural work was significant particularly because of its emphasis on cultural institutions—from the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar—“buildings that have a major impact in their communities,” Sandi says. But he also did several urban redevelopment projects, including Kips Bay Towers in Manhattan and Society Hill in Philadelphia.

“These are all places for people,” Sandi says. “He believed in the importance of architecture as a way to bring and celebrate life. Whether it was a housing development or museum or a tall building or whatever—he really felt a responsibility to try to bring something to wherever he was working that would uplift people.”

A critical juncture in Pei’s career was 1948, when he was recruited from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (where he received a master’s degree in architecture) by New York real estate developer William Zeckendorf.

With Zeckendorf, Pei traveled across the country, meeting politicians and other “movers and shakers” from Denver and Los Angeles, to Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston, and New York. “He became very adept at working in that environment, where you had to know how to persuade people,” Sandi says.

During the seven-year period Pei worked with Zeckendorf, the developer fostered the growth of his architecture practice, supporting an office that included urban, industrial, graphic, and interior designers, in addition to architects and other specialists, Sandi says.

When Pei started his own practice in 1955, “he had this wealth of a firm that could do anything almost anywhere,” Sandi says. “It was an incredible springboard for what became his own practice, which had no parallel in the profession.”

According to Sandi, Chinese culture, traditions, and art were inherent to his father’s life as he grew up, and “he brought that sensibility when he came into America and it always influenced his work.” This largely showed up in the way he thought of architecture as a “play of solids and voids,” or buildings and landscape.

“He always felt that they worked together in tandem—you can’t separate one from the other—and both of them are influenced by the play of light,” Sandi says.

View of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on the mesa, in a photograph commissioned by M+ in 2021.
© Naho Kubota

Pei also often said that “architecture follows art,” and was particularly influenced by cubism, an artistic movement exploring time and space that was practiced in the early 20th century by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, among others. This influence is apparent in the laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, N.Y. “Those two buildings, if you look at them, have a play of solid and void, which are very cubistic,” Sandi says.

Yet Sandi argues that his father didn’t have a specific architectural style. Geometry may have been a consistent feature to his work, but his projects always were designed in response to their intended site. The resulting structure emerged as almost inevitable, he says. “It just was the right solution.”

Pei also intended his buildings “not only to be themselves a magnet for life,” but also to influence the area where they existed. “He never felt that a building stood alone,” Sandi says. “Urban design, urban planning, was a very important part of his approach to architecture, always.”

After he closed his own firm to supposedly “retire” in the early 1990s, Pei worked alongside Sandi and his older brother, Chien Chung (Didi) Pei, who died late last year, at PEI Architects, formerly Pei Partnership Architects. Pei would work on his own projects, with their assistance, and would guide his sons, too. The firm had substantial involvement in the Museum of Islamic Art, among other initiatives, for instance, Sandi says.

Working with his father was fun, he says. In starting a project, Pei was often deliberately vague about his intentions. The structure would coalesce “through a process of dialogue and sketches and sometimes just having lunch over a bottle of wine,” Sandi says. “He was able to draw from each of us who was working on the project our best efforts to help to guide [it] to some kind of form.”

The M+ retrospective, which will run through Jan. 5, is divided into six areas of focus, from Pei’s upbringing and education through to his work in real estate and urban redevelopment, art and civic projects, to how he reinterpreted history through design.

Sandi, who will participate in a free public discussion moderated by exhibition co-curator Shirley Surya on the day it opens, is interested “in the opportunity to look at my father anew and to see his work in a different light now that it’s over, his last buildings are complete. You can take a full assessment of his career.”

And, he says, “I’m excited for other people to become familiar with his life.”

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EV Trade War Could Spread to Luxury Cars

Europe’s politicians have no easy options for dealing with Chinese electric vehicles.

Slap a 100% tariff on them, as President Biden did last month , and China can easily retaliate against the more than 300,000 luxury cars it gets annually from the European Union. Let Chinese EVs into the EU with the current 10% tariff, though, and Chinese companies have an open road to take market share, given impressive technology and a roughly 30% cost advantage.

This week, the European Commission is expected to announce the results of a nine-month investigation into Chinese EV subsidies . Its most likely course of action is a cautious middle ground—a 25% to 30% tariff that would make European EVs broadly competitive with lower-cost Chinese imports. This could still trigger retaliation, but the EU’s executive body has to do something to protect an economically and strategically important industry.

This political reality only looms larger after this past weekend’s elections for the European Parliament, which rewarded right-wing populist parties in France and Germany. In the coming months a new European Commission will review the policy response to the EV investigation. Arguments for going easy on cheap Chinese EVs , because they help Europe’s climate goals, will presumably take a back seat to economic protectionism.

Just how much market share Chinese cars might take in Europe, at least in the short term, is debatable. After years of modest gains, they accounted for roughly one in 10 new EVs sold in Western Europe in the third quarter of 2023, according to Schmidt Automotive Research. But their share fell back in the final three months of the year, when France excluded China-made models from its subsidy program. High discounts on Chinese brands also point to stalling progress.

Many European consumers might not be ready for proudly Chinese brands such as BYD. The bestselling “Chinese” brand in Europe by far is MG, which is historically British but now belongs to China’s SAIC. Even it wasn’t one of April’s 10 bestselling EV models in the EU, according to data provider Jato Dynamics.

Many more Europeans would no doubt be converted to Chinese brands by the rock-bottom prices advertised domestically in China, which is in the throes of a vicious price war. But BYD launched its vehicles last year at surprisingly high prices, perhaps mindful of the EU’s investigation as well as the potential to juice its margins to compensate for a tough home market.

Still, the long-term threat posed by Chinese-made EVs in Europe is clear, and the EU won’t take any chances. One consequence of higher tariffs will be more local production. BYD is already building a factory in Hungary, while Volvo Cars will start producing its new EX30 in Belgium next year, rather than shipping it to Europe from China as it currently does. Tesla , which makes its Model 3 for Europe in its factory near Shanghai, will probably need to follow suit.

Other consequences will depend on China’s response. The China Chamber of Commerce to the EU said last month that Beijing was considering a 25% tax on imported cars with large engines. China’s current tariff on vehicle imports from the EU is 15%. This move would hit Porsche in particular as it makes about a quarter of its revenue in China and produces all its cars in Germany.

The irony is that investors previously assumed luxury cars were relatively insulated from the threat of Chinese EV imports. Last year, the market was instead worried about the competitive challenge to mass-market manufacturers such as France’s Renault . As politicians in Paris and Brussels responded, concerns shifted, contributing to a gaping divide in stock-market performance: Porsche’s stock is down 37% over one year while Renault’s is up 55%.

In the end, some kind of truce that keeps trade flowing is likely. The EU is more dependent on exports to China than the U.S., ruling out the kind of isolationism Washington is moving toward. That might be a reason to worry more about Renault again, though the French company appears to be making progress in cutting EV costs.

This points to the only sustainable European response to Chinese EVs: matching their technology and cost structure, at least as far as local differences allow. Higher tariffs can only buy a little time.

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To Find Winning Stocks, Investors Often Focus on the Laggards. They Shouldn’t.

A lot of investors get stock-picking wrong before they even get started: Instead of targeting the top-performing stocks in the market, they focus on the laggards—widely known companies that look as if they are on sale after a period of stock-price weakness.

But these weak performers usually are going down for good reasons, such as for deteriorating sales and earnings, market-share losses or mutual-fund managers who are unwinding positions.

Decades of Investor’s Business Daily research shows these aren’t the stocks that tend to become stock-market leaders. The stocks that reward investors with handsome gains for months or years are more often  already  the strongest price performers, usually because of outstanding earnings and sales growth and increasing fund ownership.

Of course, many investors already chase performance and pour money into winning stocks. So how can a discerning investor find the winning stocks that have more room to run?

Enter “relative strength”—the notion that strength begets more strength. Relative strength measures stocks’ recent performance relative to the overall market. Investing in stocks with high relative strength means going with the winners, rather than picking stocks in hopes of a rebound. Why bet on a last-place team when you can wager on the leader?

One of the easiest ways to identify the strongest price performers is with IBD’s Relative Strength Rating. Ranked on a scale of 1-99, a stock with an RS rating of 99 has outperformed 99% of all stocks based on 12-month price performance.

How to use the metric

To capitalise on relative strength, an investor’s search should be focused on stocks with RS ratings of at least 80.

But beware: While the goal is to buy stocks that are performing better than the overall market, stocks with the highest RS ratings aren’t  always  the best to buy. No doubt, some stocks extend rallies for years. But others will be too far into their price run-up and ready to start a longer-term price decline.

Thus, there is a limit to chasing performance. To avoid this pitfall, investors should focus on stocks that have strong relative strength but have seen a moderate price decline and are just coming out of weeks or months of trading within a limited range. This range will vary by stock, but IBD research shows that most good trading patterns can show declines of up to one-third.

Here, a relative strength line on a chart may be helpful for confirming an RS rating’s buy signal. Offered on some stock-charting tools, including IBD’s, the line is a way to visualise relative strength by comparing a stock’s price performance relative to the movement of the S&P 500 or other benchmark.

When the line is sloping upward, it means the stock is outperforming the benchmark. When it is sloping downward, the stock is lagging behind the benchmark. One reason the RS line is helpful is that the line can rise even when a stock price is falling, meaning its value is falling at a slower pace than the benchmark.

A case study

The value of relative strength could be seen in Google parent Alphabet in January 2020, when its RS rating was 89 before it started a 10-month run when the stock rose 64%. Meta Platforms ’ RS rating was 96 before the Facebook parent hit new highs in March 2023 and ran up 65% in four months. Abercrombie & Fitch , one of 2023’s best-performing stocks, had a 94 rating before it soared 342% in nine months starting in June 2023.

Those stocks weren’t flukes. In a study of the biggest stock-market winners from the early 1950s through 2008, the average RS rating of the best performers before they began their major price runs was 87.

To see relative strength in action, consider Nvidia . The chip stock was an established leader, having shot up 365% from its October 2022 low to its high of $504.48 in late August 2023.

But then it spent the next four months rangebound—giving up some ground, then gaining some back. Through this period, shares held between $392.30 and the August peak, declining no more than 22% from top to bottom.

On Jan. 8, Nvidia broke out of its trading range to new highs. The previous session, Nvidia’s RS rating was 97. And that week, the stock’s relative strength line hit new highs. The catalyst: Investors cheered the company’s update on its latest advancements in artificial intelligence.

Nvidia then rose 16% on Feb. 22 after the company said earnings for the January-ended quarter soared 486% year over year to $5.16 a share. Revenue more than tripled to $22.1 billion. It also significantly raised its earnings and revenue guidance for the quarter that was to end in April. In all, Nvidia climbed 89% from Jan. 5 to its March 7 close.

And the stock has continued to run up, surging past $1,000 a share in late May after the company exceeded that guidance for the April-ended quarter and delivered record revenue of $26 billion and record net profit of $14.88 billion.

Ken Shreve  is a senior markets writer at Investor’s Business Daily. Follow him on X  @IBD_KShreve  for more stock-market analysis and insights, or contact him at  ken.shreve@investors.com .

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Louis Vuitton Unveils Its Most Extravagant High-Jewellery Collection Ahead of Olympics

As the world turns its eyes to Paris for the start of the Summer Olympics next month, Louis Vuitton pulled out all the stops for its largest, most extravagant, and expensive high-jewellery collection with the title Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds.

Making its debut in St. Tropez on Wednesday night, the collection will encompass 13 themes and 220 pieces, some of which have yet to be unveiled. Of the 100 unique pieces that were exhibited as the first chapter, one overarching theme is clear: French pride and the celebration of the remarkably transformative period in 19th-century France, which witnessed an explosion of French influence and inventiveness.

“France in the 19th century was a phenomenal time of incredible change, and when Paris really became the centre of the world,” says Francesca Amfitheatrof, artistic director for watches and jewellery, in a news release. “The design language of Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds reflects that—all its intricacies, complications, and innovations—turned into incredible jewels.”

The collection explores a journey through that century, beginning with the end of royal court rule, which resulted in a surge of creativity and talent as France’s ateliers and master craftsmen explored and experimented without limits. Among those influenced by this vibrant zeitgeist was a 16-year-old Louis Vuitton, who arrived in Paris in 1837. The apprentice developed his own unique trunkmaking métier, devising a flat and stackable trunk specifically designed for travel.

“Craftsmanship becomes the currency of this country,” Amfitheatrof said. “It is the birth of France’s Art de Vivre —and the birth of what we know as luxury today.”

The masterpiece of the entire collection is the Cœur de Paris.
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

The collection’s Splendeur suite took inspiration from an imperial bed embellished with low-relief woodwork in lace-like floral patterns. But the luxury brand is looking to compete for consumers with more than just aesthetics: The jewels feature more than 110 perfectly matched rubies from Mozambique, all fully traceable through blockchain technology, making Louis Vuitton the first to offer traceability of coloured stones.

Louis Vuitton’s iconic LV Monogram Flower is the chosen theme. The symbol was designed by Louis Vuitton’s son Georges in 1896 in memory of his late father. The flower is portrayed in gold and diamonds with a large center ruby in earrings that complement a high collar, transformable necklace set with 52 rubies framed with an intricate, woven mesh of carved gold flowers. Among the collection’s most complex creations, the Splendeur necklace required the workmanship of 17 setters and 30 jewellers, who spent a total of 3,217 hours on its creation.

Louis Vuitton’s passion for travel is explored in the Vision necklace, which plays on the rivets of Louis Vuitton trunks. Crafted in platinum, yellow gold, diamonds, and yellow sapphires, the disruptive design interlaces V-shaped structures, highlighted with two octagonal-cut yellow sapphires measuring 13.47 carats and 11.79 carats. The piece occupied five jewellers, who mounted and set the necklace section by section over the course of 2,504 hours.

The masterpiece of the entire collection is the Cœur de Paris, the most expensive high-jewellery piece the maison has ever produced.

The collection’s Splendeur suite took inspiration from an imperial bed embellished with low-relief woodwork in lace-like floral pattern
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

The necklace pays homage to the Eiffel Tower, which was unveiled to the world at the 1899 Exposition Universelle as a beacon of modernity and ingenuity. The Cœur de Paris offers a new perspective on the structure, as if you are viewing it from underneath looking up. Pink gold rods embrace a grid of baguette settings and diamond-lit arrows, which frame the jewel’s centrepiece: a captivating 56.23-carat diamond christened the Cœur de Paris. The collection’s rarest and most important master stone radiates a unique colour with an intense pink hue complemented with unusual tones of orange and brown. It is set in a medallion that can be detached to wear as a brooch.

The centrepiece dangles from a 5.73-carat LV Monogram Star-cut diamond interlinked with 26 LV Monogram Star-cut diamonds in an opulent rivière creation that is a first for the house. A companion ring features a complementary 12.67-carat, museum-quality diamond that emanates a fancy deep, brownish pink and orange hue.

“Awakened Hands, Awakened Minds tells a story that’s very close to who we are,” Amfitheatrof said. “By showing this mixture of craftsmanship, engineering, invention, and bravery, we are really talking about Louis Vuitton. … we couldn’t celebrate in a better way.”

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Sylvester Stallone Sells His Knockout Watch Collection, Including the Most Valuable Modern Timepiece Sold in Sotheby’s History

Sylvester Stallone’s legacy as one of the most notable watch collectors of the 21st century was cemented in New York this week, as 11 of the actor’s timepieces sold for US$6.7 million—beating its presale estimate—at Sotheby’s.

The highlight of the sale was the Academy Award winner’s Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime, which sold for US$5.4 million (surpassing its pre-sale estimate of US$2.5 million to US$5 million), a result that set a pair of benchmarks for the auctioneer. It’s the third-most valuable wristwatch sold in Sotheby’s history, and marks a record for a modern watch sold by Sotheby’s, topping the US$4.5 million sale of a Richard Mille Reference RM53-02 last October.

“The sale of the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime was an unrepeatable celebration, not only of a masterpiece by the most revered Swiss-watchmakers of technical excellence, but also of the legendary icon that is Sylvester Stallone, who has been a deeply influential and admired collector for many decades,” Geoff Hess, Sotheby’s head of watches, Americas, said in a statement.

Stallone’s Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime sold for US$5.4 million
Sotheby’s

On Wednesday, more than 100 attendees filled Sotheby’s saleroom, and once the Grandmaster Chime (Reference 6300G-010) hit the block, a four-minute bidding war ensued among five bidders, according to the auction house. In the end, the watch was sold to a private collector from Asia. ( Stallone paid US$2.2 million for the watch in 2021. )

“To feel the pulse of collectors racing with excitement in pursuit of absolute top-caliber material was tremendous, and an homage to the art of collecting at the highest level,” Hess said.

Considered to be a holy grail among followers of haute horology, the Grandmaster Chime was the result of a project initiated by Philippe Stern in 2007 to create the most intricate wristwatch in the brand’s history. The development, production, and assembly spanned 100,000 hours, according to Sotheby’s.

Stallone’s Grandmaster Chime was the first example of the model to appear at auction, aside from one specifically created for, and sold at, a Christie’s charity auction in November 2019 for CHF 31 million (US$35 million) . It remains the highest price for a watch ever sold at auction.

Hess himself went home with one of Stallone’s watches, as the winner of a five-minute bidding battle for the actor’s olive green Patek Philippe Nautilus. The 2021 stainless steel watch featuring an olive-green dial and diamond-set bezel sold for US$492,000, exceeding its pre-sale estimate of US$400,000.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Tourbillon
Sotheby’s

Stallone’s collection, assembled over the course of more than 20 years, also included timepieces from Rolex, Audemars Piguet, and Piaget, as well as unique and screen-worn watches from Panerai.

Other highlights included the actor’s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Tourbillon (Reference 26730OR.OO.1320OR.01)—a gorgeous piece created for the 50th anniversary of the Swiss watchmaker’s Royal Oak collection in 2022. It sold for US$228,000, exceeding its pre-sale high estimate of US$200,000; and a Panerai Luminor Submersible (Reference PAM00382) worn by Stallone in the 2012 film The Expendables 2 that sold to an online buyer for US$96,000, blowing past its pre-sale estimate of US$30,000 to US$60,000.

“I enjoy the collecting process like so many others in this passionate community, who don’t just see watches as an accessory, but admire them for their history, craftsmanship, artistry—but most importantly—how they make them feel,” Stallone said in a statement when the sale was announced. “Looking at these watches, I feel truly lucky to have owned them; they serve as a reminder that hard work pays off.”

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Raw Milk and the Rise of ‘Food Freedom’

Dairy farms have been in decline for decades, but you wouldn’t know it looking at Mark McAfee’s. Based in Fresno, Calif., his business has grown substantially since 2020, he said, and is on track to hit $30 million in sales this year.

His company, Raw Farm, is the largest supplier of unpasteurised milk in California. Gwyneth Paltrow is a fan of the brand, whose products can be found at the specialty grocers Erewhon and Sprouts. Podcast hosts and social-media personalities have fueled demand, claiming that raw milk is creamier, more nutritious and easier to digest than pasteurised dairy.

“Influencers have really driven us in the last four years to new levels we never imagined,” McAfee said in an interview.

The Food and Drug Administration has long warned Americans against drinking unpasteurised milk, which can expose consumers to salmonella, listeria and E. coli, and has the potential to cause rare and serious disorders. The FDA has said raw milk is not healthier than pasteurised and, in fact, raises the risk for harm. Selling raw milk is legal in California and more than half of U.S. states, but its sale across state lines has long been banned by the FDA, which warns that drinking unpasteurised milk can cause bacterial outbreaks that have resulted in miscarriages, stillbirths, kidney failure and death. It can be particularly unsafe for children, the elderly, immunocompromised people and pregnant women, the agency says. This year, the FDA warned about the risk of bird-flu contamination amid an outbreak that has infected dairy cows. Twenty states have laws on the books prohibiting raw milk in some form.

But in many corners of the internet, raw milk is presented as healthy, wholesome and cool. Some people brag about obtaining it in states where retail sales are illegal. “I have a dealer,” said Texas-based influencer Lauryn Bosstick on her popular podcast, “The Skinny Confidential Him & Her.” In an email, Bosstick said “I love raw milk.” As a guest on the show, Paltrow , who lives in raw-milk-friendly California, said she drinks raw cream in her morning coffee and that Raw Farm is her favourite.

Others have turned their preference into a political stance, a way of rallying against what they see as government overreach. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has voiced support for “food freedom”—a term that has come to encompass everything from intuitive eating to diets that the FDA has deemed dangerous. He has expressed solidarity with Amos Miller, a Pennsylvania-based Amish farmer whose business has run afoul of raw-milk regulations and faced consequences as a result. Kennedy said he “only drank raw milk” while on a 2022 panel at a conference for anti vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, which he chairs. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan , recently posted a photo on Instagram in which she smiles while hugging two people at a farmers’ market selling raw milk.

“Mr. Kennedy believes that consumers should be able to decide for themselves what foods to put into their bodies,” a spokesperson for Team Kennedy said in an emailed statement.

Trust in the U.S. government and American media are at near-record lows, driving people to seek alternative authorities and information sources. For many, influencers and self-styled experts have filled the void. As a growing number of them tout products that could cause harm, people across the country are drinking it up.

Farmers Against Pasteurisation

The federal government set its first safety standards for dairies in 1924, introducing regulations that states could adopt on a voluntary basis. This followed many disease outbreaks linked to milk, including typhoid fever, scarlet fever and tuberculosis. Pasteurisation, a heating process that kills harmful bacteria such as E. coli, listeria and salmonella, became the norm as dairy farmers and sellers sought to prevent food borne illnesses.

But soon a group of dissenters emerged, arguing that pasteurisation stripped milk of its nutrients. That cohort included the owner of the Monrovia, Calif.-based farm Alta Dena, which would become a major supplier of raw milk.

Unpasteurised milk appealed to the counterculture and became linked with the growing natural and organic food movement of the 1970s. But following various outbreaks, legal challenges and a 1987 FDA ban on interstate raw milk sales that remains in effect today, Alta Dena stopped selling unpasteurised products and sold its farm. The Alta Dena brand exists today but sells pasteurised milk and other dairy products. McAfee’s farm, founded in 1998 as Organic Pastures, stepped up to grab its market share.

“That really helped us to establish our business,” McAfee said. But he has run into some trouble. In 2008, McAfee and the company pleaded guilty to misbranding raw milk as pet food in order to sell it across state lines. A court order two years later demanded that the company cease selling its raw-milk products for any purpose between states and stop making drug claims about its products, unless authorised by the FDA. In 2023, the Justice Department alleged that Raw Farm had violated the court order by selling raw-milk cheese across state lines and claiming it could cure, mitigate, treat or prevent disease. Raw Farm agreed to settle the dispute. Now, the Justice Department is seeking to enforce the settlement following recent outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli it says were linked to Raw Farm’s raw milk and cheddar cheese ; Raw Farm denies there was E. coli in its cheddar cheese product. Raw Farm’s raw milk is only available in California; its unpasteurised cheese is sold beyond California, as well as a raw-milk pet food kefir.

In the early aughts, Mary McGonigle-Martin started seeing raw milk at her local health-food store in Temecula, Calif., where signs framed the dairy product as a cure for asthma, allergies and other ailments. Skeptical at first, she went to Organic Pastures’ website to learn more. “They talked about how they tested every batch of milk and they never found a pathogen,” she said. She decided the milk was safe for her 7-year-old son to drink. “It was very naive of me,” she said.

McGonigle-Martin’s son Chris became severely ill after drinking the milk for a couple of weeks. He was hospitalised, required blood transfusions, put on a ventilator and diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a rare but serious kidney condition. Though Chris survived, McGonigle-Martin and another family whose child became sick sued McAfee and Sprouts for negligence and product liability, claiming that their children suffered from E. coli. The parties settled for an undisclosed amount in 2008. McGonigle-Martin has since become an activist, working to warn parents about the risks for children.

McGonigle-Martin said she believes that farmers who advocate for raw milk have good intentions but are ultimately spreading what amounts to misinformation.

Meanwhile, interest is way up. GetRawMilk.com, which aims to help consumers find local suppliers, has experienced a surge in views in recent months. Its creator said in an email that the site’s traffic has been “hitting new all-time highs,” with nearly 97,000 visitors in May.

The Influencer Effect

At the upscale Los Angeles grocery store Erewhon, a 64-ounce jug of McAfee’s Raw Milk retails for $11.99. Each bottle carries a warning: “Raw milk and raw milk dairy products may contain disease-causing microorganisms.” According to the label, those at highest risk of disease include “newborns and infants; the elderly; pregnant women.”

The pandemic brought “explosive” growth to the business, McAfee said. “People got smart and they said, ‘Well, what is the most immune-system-building food on earth?’” One study, published by the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal in 2017, found that unpasteurised dairy products were associated with roughly 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalisations than pasteurised products.

On social media, where “What I Eat in a Day” videos are popular, doctors, nutritionists and lifestyle personalities have praised raw-milk consumption. “This is why you should be drinking raw milk,” says Paul Saladino, a doctor who once sold people on his “Carnivore Diet,” in a video on Instagram, where he has two million followers. In an April TikTok , the “Skinny Confidential” host Bosstick describes the “bowl of meat” she eats “probably twice a day,” crediting it for weight loss and hair growth. “I also do raw milk,” she says.

Tieghan Gerard, creator of the popular food blog Half Baked Harvest, incorporated raw milk into an iced peach-lemonade matcha latte recipe. Hannah Neeleman , a pageant queen and influencer whose @BallerinaFarm Instagram account has nine million followers, posts videos of herself and her children drinking raw milk directly from the udders of their cows in Utah. The farm she shares with her husband is slated to open Ballerina Farm Dairy in the coming weeks, Neeleman said. It will sell raw milk, among other unpasteurised dairy products, in the state.

Meanwhile, commentators for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website Infowars have downplayed the risks of raw milk , chalking up warnings to collusion between the FDA and “Big Milk.”

McAfee says Raw Farm does not pay any influencers or celebrities to promote its products, but it ships free products to roughly 350 influencers a year. He says many more have been promoting products they paid for themselves. “They go crazy telling you how delicious it is,” he said.

Bill Marler, a personal injury attorney in Washington state focused on food borne illness cases, has sued McAfee on several occasions, including while representing McGonigle-Martin. “They’re a big player and Mark is a proselytiser,” he said.

Another big advocate is the Weston A. Price Foundation, an organisation founded in 1999 with the stated goal of bringing back “nutrient-dense” foods to Americans.

Sally Fallon Morell, its founding president, owns a farm in Maryland that sells raw milk for pets. Maryland state law prohibits the sale of raw milk for human consumption. She claims there is no scientific reason to oppose raw milk and offers alternative explanations for the few instances the FDA has said people died or became ill from drinking it. Through her Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and her website Real Milk, she advocates for the consumption of unpasteurised dairy and criticises federal food regulation and nutrition guidelines.

“We’re giving our children skim milk, processed foods, loaded with additives, industrial seed oils, lots of sugar,” she said. “We’re at the 11th hour, and things have got to change or there’ll be no people,” she added, calling it a “genocide” what children are being fed in school.

Her foundation made it a mission to make unpasteurised milk legal in every state . According to the foundation, raw milk can be obtained in 46 states, through retail or direct sales, herd share agreements or as pet food. According to the FDA, only 30 states can legally sell raw milk for human consumption.

On an October episode of the organisation’s “Wise Traditions” podcast, Fallon Morell spoke about Nevada, where raw milk for pets must be marked with dye. She shared a desire to “get them to lift that.”

Soon, McAfee said, he’ll be selling frozen raw milk labeled as pet food in all 50 states, using a label he said the FDA approved. The FDA did not confirm whether it had approved the label, but a spokesperson said that if the agency becomes aware of the diversion of raw milk labeled for pets into the human food supply, it will take the appropriate action.

“The influencers, all day long, they say, ‘I identify as an animal, get this stuff, this stuff is awesome,’” said McAfee. “They know that it’s exactly the same product they sell in California with a different label.”

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How to Keep Your Car From Spying on You

Your car is watching you. What can you do to stop it?

Many vehicles today and their related phone apps are packed with safety and convenience features, including digital maps, navigation linked to GPS and the internet, remote starting and vehicle locaters to find your car in a crowded parking lot. Many also have microphones for voice control and some have cameras that detect who is driving to adjust things such as the seat.

But those features and others can have a dark side: Many can track where you go and when, how fast you drive and how hard you brake, where you park and spend time, even what music or podcasts you listen to. Such information can be a gold mine for marketers and insurers—and a target for hackers.

Privacy researchers say car buyers may not realise they agree to have such data collected by the automaker when they sign the papers for a new vehicle or use the carmaker’s phone app.

The Mozilla Foundation, a technology-focused nonprofit, examined the privacy practices of 25 car brands. Its conclusion: “These are the worst of any [product] category we’ve reviewed,” says Jen Caltrider, director of the group’s Privacy Not Included program. Among its findings are that most carmakers collect personal information, give customers little control over it, and may sell or share it with others.

Privacy experts say they also are concerned about provisions in car-maker privacy policies that allow them to share driver information with law-enforcement authorities under certain circumstances—sometimes without a warrant.

On May 14, the Federal Trade Commission told vehicle makers that it was  monitoring their actions  regarding car data. “Cars are much like mobile phones when it comes to revealing consumers’ persistent, precise location,” the agency said in a blog post. It added that companies “do not have the free license to monetise people’s information beyond purposes needed to provide their requested product or service….”

The industry response

The car industry says that the combination of vehicle data monitoring, GPS and wireless communication—a field known as telematics—provides important features, some of them safety-related. Some systems can detect when you’ve been in an accident and call emergency services, or locate a car if it’s stolen. They can help you avoid a traffic jam or potential road hazards. Cars also can give you maintenance reminders, such as when a vehicle needs an oil change or new tires, and allow the carmaker to track the durability and function of certain components for future improvements.

A vehicle-industry trade group in 2014 issued  voluntary guidelines  for the collection and use of car data. The group, now called the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, says its members should give car owners and lessees choice in the “collection, use and sharing” of certain information and that this information should be collected “only as needed for legitimate business purposes.”

Some privacy groups, however, say the voluntary guidelines aren’t specific enough and aren’t always followed.

“It seems like an empty promise,” says Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy expert with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Car companies are becoming tech companies. Self-policing hasn’t been shown in other tech industries to be a reliable way for companies to operate.”

What is needed, according to these experts, is a federal privacy-protection law along the lines of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. The car industry, for its part, also  backs a federal privacy law , in part to have a nationwide standard as a number of states have adopted their own, differing laws.

Most carmakers issue their own lengthy privacy policies stating how they collect and disseminate car data. Some state that they can share or sell the information to third parties including marketers if the car owner agrees to it.

Among the six biggest sellers of vehicles in the U.S., Ford Motor says customers can turn off data and location sharing with the company. It says it “doesn’t sell any connected-vehicle data to brokers, period.”  General Motors says it is “fostering trust through responsible data practices, enhanced user controls and clear benefits for customers.” Toyota says it gives customers “transparency and choice” in how vehicle data is collected and used and that they can “turn off all data transmission.”

Stellantis, owner of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep, says any data it collects “is in accordance with applicable state privacy laws .  Accordingly, Stellantis provides customers with a way to opt out of data collection.” Honda says it is “very clear about what we collect and how our owners can opt out” and “when we might share collected data with third parties.” Hyundai declined to comment and deferred to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation for a response.

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THE EAST COAST CAPITAL SETTING THE PACE IN THE AUSTRALIAN REAL ESTATE MARKET

Australia has a new urban destination for those seeking a high quality of life — and it’s not Melbourne or Sydney.

A new report released by Deloitte Access Economics has revealed Brisbane as the best ‘city swap’ location to live and work. It follows on from the east coast capital being named as one of the 50 best places in the world by Time Magazine, the only Australian capital to make the list.

The State of the Cities Report by Deloitte Access Economics reported the city offers significant advantages to businesses and workers alike, with a $25 billion infrastructure pipeline in play to support the city’s rapid population growth as well as a track record of processing development applications 38 percent faster than other cities. Commercial rents are also appealing compared with the southern cities, averaging $450sqm less than similar centres in Australia and internationally.

For workers, commute times are minimised with less congestion on the roads and trains more likely to run on time compared with other Australian cities.

The report also found that Brisbane’s economy is set to grow by 68 percent to $275 billion in the 20 years to 2041.

An easily accessible city has made Brisbane an attractive option for Australians looking to make a change.

Clearly, it is not news to those seeking to enter the Brisbane market, with CoreLogic data released this week showing the Queensland capital is now the second most expensive residential real estate market in the country, second only to Sydney. Prices rose by 1.4 percent during May, bringing the median property price to $843,231. Only Adelaide experienced a higher growth rate in home prices in May at 1.8 percent.

Those price increases look set to continue as Brisbane experiences the fastest growing working age population among Australia’s major centres, growing 7.7 percent compared to an average of 4 percent across major cities. The Domain House Price Report released earlier this year predicted the median house price Queensland capital would hit $1 million in the next 12 months.

While demand for housing in the city is strong, it would appear the workforce is there to support it.

Moreton Island is just a 75 minute ferry ride from Brisbane.

Lead Partner at Deloitte Access Economics, Pradeep Philip, said Brisbane offered significant growth opportunities for businesses, innovators, and investors.

“Brisbane is the definition of a growth stock, with clear opportunities for innovators, investors and businesses across Australia and internationally in the years to come,” Mr Philip said.

“This is evident in Brisbane’s talent market, where it has the fastest growing working age population among Australia’s major centres, with 7.7 percent growth against an average of 4 percent across major cities.

“This, combined with Australia’s highest ranked university, a 32 percent increase in university graduates in the past five years, and the highest state-wide rates of technical and trades education attainment in the country, positions Brisbane with a highly competitive, skilled, and growing workforce.

Kanebridge MEDIA
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