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Recent big acquisition news from Walmart and Amazon, ranked #1 and #3 in the Forbes list of the world’s largest retailers, confirmed rumors circulating since at least April that Walmart had its eye on online men’s fashion retailer Bonobos and Amazon was flirting with the idea of buying high-end grocer Whole Foods. While the deals differ markedly in size and scale, $310 million for Bonobos and $13.7 billion for Whole Foods, both represent a step beyond Walmart’s and Amazon’s mass-market roots and into the premium market where luxury consumers live. It’s a strategy that mid-market department store retail Hudson Bay...

The owner of the Net-a-Porter luxury fashion website is to hire at least 100 more IT experts over the next two years as it shrugs off the impact of the Brexit vote to open a tech hub in the UK. Designed by Nicholas Grimshaw, the architect behind the Eden Project domes in Cornwall, the hub, in west London’s White City, can house up to 650 IT experts. That is an increase from the 500 employed in the UK at present. The new building brings together the British teams from Yoox, the Italian luxury sales site, and Net-a-Porter, the group founded...

Former President Barack Obama is under fire from his Democrat base for taking never ending luxurious vacations since leaving office. Obama continues to embark on his endless mystery tour of millionaire and billionaire hotspots and retreats around the world. Ex-Presidents should go on vacation, but Obama seems to be flaunting a type of luxurious post-presidential lifestyle that would make the Kardashian’s blush. Democrat strategist, Pat Caddell, a former adviser to President Jimmy Carter, commented that Obama’s “trips are like the lifestyles of the rich and famous” and said that Obama’s vacations are “unprecedented, and a far cry from how Carter...

CHINESE consumers’ spending on luxury goods is set to double to 1 trillion yuan (US$147 billion) by 2025, or 37 percent of the overall global luxury market, McKinsey said in a report yesterday. Chinese consumers will account for most of this 2.7 trillion yuan growth in value of the global luxury goods market, with more sophisticated Chinese buyers being a major force behind the rise. Around 7.6 million Chinese households spent an average of 71,000 yuan on luxury goods per year, according to McKinsey. Most of the luxury shoppers are turning from affluent consumers to wealthy consumers with average annual...

AVOLA, Sicily — It was a far cry from the rotting fishing boats and overstuffed dinghies that carry so many thousands of migrants precariously to Italian shores. The family of six had paid about $96,000 (all figures US) to travel from Afghanistan to Turkey. The last leg of their journey, a cramped week's sail through the Aegean and Mediterranean seas aboard a cerulean 50-foot yacht, the Polina, piloted by three Ukrainian skippers, cost $7,000 a head. It dropped them in Sicily in relative style. As migrants go, this was luxury class. It was not the first time that Carlo Parini,...

The East Japan Railway company sent to the first journey of the ultramodern train Train Suite Shiki-shima, for which tickets are booked until March next year. Train Train Suite Shiki-shima called “boutique on wheels”. It is designed for only 34 passengers and consists of ten cars, which placed 17 of the compartment, restaurant and lounge. According to The Japan Times, the creation is invested 5 billion yen, equivalent to $44.5 million Train Suite Shiki-shima should be three tourist routes, beginning in Tokyo and passing through the various prefectures of the country. The interiors of the trains was developed by the...

Trend analysts have dubbed what they interpret as a new wave of feminism the "pluri-empowerment" factor, says Iza Dezon, a trend forecaster at Peclers Paris. "An empowered woman is no longer subject to a specific definition, nor must she live by a specific set of values," she explains. "We're seeing the opening up of what empowerment means, allowing women to create their own definitions." The modest movement has been gaining steam for a few years now and the hijab has become a recognized symbol. In 2014 DKNY launched a bespoke modest fashion collection. In 2016, Dolce & Gabbana released a...

Standing in the lobby of New York City's Trump Tower last month, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault told reporters that the Louis Vuitton brand will expand its manufacturing in the U.S., potentially setting up a factory in the Carolinas or Texas. Yet even as President Donald Trump pressures other businesses to ramp up their American-based production, experts agree that the "Made in the USA" movement is unlikely to take hold in the luxury sector anytime soon. Designer labels face several major headwinds when it comes to producing goods here, including inadequate infrastructure and a shortage of raw materials. "You've got so...

About 25 years ago, Starbucks Corp. decided to become a public company on the bold idea that customers across the country would pay more than $1 for a cup of coffee. Now, Starbucks is betting people will pay as much as $1 an ounce. Howard Schultz, who built Starbucks into a global brand with more than 25,000 shops, said last week that he was planning to step down as chief executive to work on a project within Starbucks to build high-end coffee shops charging as much as $12 for 12 ounces of coffee.

Please allow Barack, Michelle, Sasha and Malia to escape the hell of believing themselves the most important people in the world, no real friends, every deference, luxury, desire, new found vice....   dailymotion.com/video/x2h6qm0 Twilight Zone Season 1 Episode 28 "A Nice Place to Visit". A petty crook is killed during a robbery, is sent to a strange place where his every wish is granted by a blonde-haired Sebastian Cabot, who turns out to be the Devil. The crook is in the hell of getting everything he could possibly want. Please Pray this Prayer: Dear Lord, we thank you for...

Earlier today, the New York Times clucked its tongue over Marco Rubio’s “penchant for luxury,” embodied primarily in the purchase of an $80,000 “speedboat.” One man’s luxury is another man’s … fishing boat. The Rubio team sent Dylan Byers a link to the model of the boat Rubio bought, which ain’t exactly a yacht: But while Rubio did indeed spend $80,000 on a boat, the vessel in question is not the glamorous “luxury speedboat” the Times article portrayed. It is, in fact, an offshore fishing boat.On Tuesday, Rubio spokesperson Alex Conant sent POLITICO a link to a website showing...

Just 24 hours after President Obama sat down for five-star dinner with the first lady, he was back in another renowned Hawaii restaurant for a luxury meal. He took his family to Nobu, a Japanese restaurant inside the hip Waikiki Parc Hotel where meals cost around $180 per person. Images showed his motorcade parked outside the stylish eatery as hundreds crowded to get a glimpse of the Commander-in-Chief, Michelle Obama and their two children. The president first ate at the upmarket restaurant in 2012 on New Year's Day, enjoying a three-hour meal of butter-poached lobster, roasted duck, and seared foie...

President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, spent the first night of the new year at Vintage Cave, an upscale restaurant in Hawaii. "At Vintage Cave Honolulu, one can enjoy exceptional food and wine at the hands of gifted masters of the culinary arts. ‘Chef’s recommendation’ commands a gravitas guaranteed to satisfy the most discerning palate. Seasoned sommelier’s conduct the process of pairing wine and food with true finesse and style. Secure in the natural embrace of the cave-like environment, guests are encouraged to relax, ‘hit reset’ and escape the ordinary," Vintage Cave's description reads on its website. As...

Miami businessman Gino Bertuccio is one of the world’s luckiest flyers – and one of the most thoughtful as well. The 52-year-old became the first person to fly in Etihad Airways’ £14,000 ‘penthouse in the sky’ at the weekend, and he shared the one-of-a-kind experience with friends and strangers. While flying from London's Heathrow Airport to Abu Dhabi Mr Bertuccio opened the three-room private suite to first-class passengers, who were in an adjacent cabin, and invited a traveller from economy into the exclusive cabin, which boasts the world’s first in-flight butler.

Philip Rushton has been selling private jets to the global rich for more than three decades. In just about every economic cycle, sales of small jets and big jets tended to move together — rising and falling with financial markets and fortunes of the wealthy. Now, however, the jet market is splitting in two. Sales of the largest, most expensive private jets — including private jumbo jets — are soaring, with higher prices and long waiting lists. Smaller, cheaper jets, however, are piling up on the nation’s private-jet tarmacs with big discounts and few buyers. “The real demand is at...

Top 2% of Chinese account for third of global luxury sales Published: Thursday, 17 Oct 2013 | 11:37 AM ET By: Robert Frank | CNBC Reporter and Editor Is the luxury industry becoming too reliant on China? A new report from A.T. Kearney finds that just 2 percent of China's population accounts for about a third of the world's luxury consumption—everything from cosmetics and private jets to jewelry, watches and handbags. The report said that the country's importance to luxury is likely to grow in the next three to five years as China creates more wealthy consumers.

Germany's agressive and reckless expansion of wind and solar power has come with a hefty pricetag for consumers, and the costs often fall disproportionately on the poor. Government advisors are calling for a completely new start. If you want to do something big, you have to start small. That's something German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier knows all too well. The politician, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has put together a manual of practical tips on how everyone can make small, everyday contributions to the shift away from nuclear power and toward green energy. The so-called Energiewende,...

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — The housing market is on the rise again after...

In case you wanted some inspiring ideas for all that disposable income you’ve got just sitting around.

I'm not too big on snob appeal... but this one looks fun, dunnit? Currently under construction atop the soaring new 557-foot Tour Odéon (Odéon Tower) in the Principality of Monaco you'll find a dramatic, bright, multi-floored Maisonette (3000 square meters!) that surely surpasses anything I've ever seen... even on tee-vee. It's the first tall construction in the diminutive city-state since the 80s, due to strict architectural concerns- making the impressive penthouse atop it all the more desirable (and thus the eye-watering price). Designed by London's Candy & Candy, the home features a classy private lobby with full-time concierge... natural-light indoor pool, outdoor infinity pool with waterslide/waterfall treatment (+...