Silversea launches dazzling cruise ship

Silversea Cruises launched its flagship cruise liner Silver Muse in an official ceremony in Monte-Carlo last month, in the presence of Prince Albert II of Monaco and Silversea’s ebullient Chairman, Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio, along with many other dignitaries and VIPs.

MJ Rabbit hopped onboard to celebrate this ultra-luxury vessel, which has capacity for 596 passengers. Like a small city on the high seas, Silver Muse seeks to offer comfort, culture – and plenty of retail therapy. Silversea has an agreement with LVMH-owned Starboard for its product selection. Fittingly for an Italian cruise company, passengers can find Bulgari branded beauty products both in their spacious cabins and in the large stores. Silversea logoed items are also a highlight of the mix.

Other brand names onboard include Joseph Ribkoff fashion apparel, Roberto Coin jewellery, Burberry handbags, and TAG Heuer watches. Interestingly, the company also offers handmade sandals from Capri, while renowned Italian fabrics supplier Faliero Sarti has created a selection of exclusive scarves to celebrate the launch of Silver Muse. The exclusive prints on each scarf have been designed to reflect the Silversea core values of exploration, luxury and uniqueness.

Silversea Cruises' new Silver Muse cruise ship

Connoisseur lounge for cigar aficionados

Cruising is all about offering an experience, according to Silversea’s Chief Marketing Officer Barbara Muckermann. To this end, artworks line the ship’s walls, spanning paintings, sculptures and installations. It took me a long time to walk through the plush corridors as I paused to admire these amazing pieces, many of which were created by up-and-coming artists. Silversea prides itself on hosting exhibitions, shows and other events onboard.

Silversea’s passionate and dedicated team have thought of everything. Silver Muse aims to cater to connoisseurs with a special lounge where cigars, Cognac and whisky can be savoured in luxurious, Armani Casa-esque surroundings. Do you love jazz? There’s a lounge created just for you. Love coffee? There’s a café serving Italian-style coffees and gourmet treats. And don’t get me started on the eight restaurants, as there are 26 different food offerings onboard… Japanese, Italian, French…

Lefebvre d’Ovidio cites “top comfort” and “top quality food” as among the priorities for his passengers. His definition of luxury is “unique, rare, and difficult to achieve”. Crucially, he wants to offer unique places to visit, and he quotes Monte-Carlo, where he’s lived for 40 years, as one example, reeling off the city’s evening entertainment, restaurants and shops as key features.

In a bid to specialise in experiential travel beyond luxury cruising, Silversea has expedition ships that visit far-flung locations such as the Antarctic, the Arctic and the Galapagos Islands. The list of unusual destinations also spans Bangladesh – Silversea was the first luxury cruise specialist to go to Bangladesh, according to Lefebvre d’Ovidio.

Muckermann reports that Silversea’s annual revenue was up 10% this year, and I foresee buoyant years ahead for this ultra-luxury operator. 

Time to celebrate with Greubel Forsey

Timepiece aficionados were treated to the time of their lives when they boarded a superyacht in Monte-Carlo to try on the world’s most coveted pieces from Swiss watchmaker Greubel Forsey.

Brand owner and founder Stephen Forsey gathered this merry band of serious watch collectors in April on the occasion of the company’s debut at Top Marques, the supercar show that spotlights ultra-luxury boys’ and girls’ toys.

Greubel Forsey's Quadruple Tourbillon

Added-value hand-finishing

This year’s event boasted the unveiling of the million-dollar-plus AeroMobil, the world’s first flying car. And for Greubel Forsey, the exhibition was the perfect location to highlight the patented Quadruple Tourbillon, which retails at a cool 700,000 Swiss francs without tax (around $700,000). Like all Greubel Forsey watches, this piece is handmade and takes some 600 hours to craft. It represents the very confluence of art, design and precision engineering.

The collectors onboard Curvelle’s Quaranta super-catamaran also admired the new Signature 1, a more accessibly priced watch that represents the essence of Greubel Forsey’s approach to watchmaking. This model, priced at around 155,000 Swiss francs (without tax), does not have any complications, and only 66 have been made with this calibre, in red gold, white gold and platinum versions.

This elegant piece was “a big challenge” to make for a company that’s so focused on added-value hand-finishing, Stephen Forsey tells MJ Rabbit. “It was difficult for us to make a hand-wound watch that tells the time only – just hours, minutes and seconds. There are no complications – it is the purest essence of a watch. It’s a tribute to traditional handmaking watch skills,” he enthuses.

Signature 1 Limited Edition USA

Surprising collectors with the unexpected

The Signature 1 was created by a “dedicated, passionate” team, notes Forsey, including watchmaker par excellence and longtime Greubel Forsey staff member Didier Cretin, whose name is stamped on the timepiece. Forsey promises more Signature watches in the future. Again, the team will take the time to explore ideas. Creativity is the most prized asset in this small, tightly-knit organisation, based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, near Neuchâtel in Switzerland. Above all, the company wants to surprise its collectors and provide them with the unexpected.

Forsey is a fascinating person to talk to for brand-watchers. A watchmaker by trade, he isn’t a fan of the big-noise branding favoured by the world’s luxury groups. Retailers of his timepieces – whom he calls “ambassadors” – include Marcus Watches in the UK, owned by the veteran watch lover Marcus Margulies, and other carefully selected retailers across the world where the passion for handmade watches runs deep and collectors congregate.

Stephen Forsey, co-founder of Greubel Forsey

Regular hospitality events in mainland China

Founded in 2004, Greubel Forsey only makes 100 timepieces a year, many sold to collectors who are personally known to the company. These collectors are evenly spread across the world, with one-third coming from Europe (including Russia), one-third from the Americas and one-third from Asia. The company has a good presence in Asia, in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau. The watches are not available for sale in mainland China due to the high domestic taxes, but Greubel Forsey holds regular hospitality events in the country to attract collectors.

Meanwhile, I will dream on...