Lifestyle: Couple on a Mission: Cover shoot and Cover story: 2017

Tenniel Chu

Tenniel and Carmen Chu

Carmen Chu

Tenniel and Carmen Chu tell Lifestyle and Prestige how the Mission Hills golfing dynasty is bringing the game to a whole new audience in China. Cover story is up at PrestigeOnline here. 

Photography / Olivier Yoan  
Styling / Florent Thiébaut 

Styling assistant / Marco Chan  
Hair & Make-up / Reve Ryu    

Outfits / Brooks Brothers

This was the Lifestyle 2017 cover story. #ThrowbackThursday

Behind the scenes; the two were the most hospitable gorgeous couple to work with. Was a dreamy cover shoot day where for once, everything went as planned! Awesome team behind the scenes, and in front of the camera. 

Matters of the Art: Art Connoisseur Kate Bryan: Lifestyle

In conversation with Kate Bryan, Director of Contemporary at The Fine Art Society, P. Ramakrishnan takes a virtual roam at the hallowed gallery to discuss the Asian scene.

London’s oldest commercial dealership, The Fine Art Society is but a group of like-minded, passionate art collectors. Although it became best known for secondary dealing in Victorian and modern British material, since its founding in 1876 it has been very much about championing the artists of the day.

The former gallery director at The Cat Street Gallery in Hong Kong, Kate Bryan joined The Fine Art Society in 2011 and has reawakened its Contemporary Department. With her picture-perfect visage beaming out of art-based television programmes as a regular contributor and presenter, she’s easily one of the most well-informed and well-travelled art experts in the mix. She recently visited China to present a BBC Two The Culture Show special on Chinese painting, so we brushed up against her for a Q&A:

What’s happening in Asian art, and what makes it so interesting?
Kate Bryan: Contemporary Asian art was largely marginalised until around 2005, which marked a tipping point. Quite suddenly there was an active market for the work and very quickly this translated into big auction results and museum recognition on an international stage for a handful of artists, most of whom were Chinese. It was such a thrilling time for those involved and indeed for spectators because it was a completely new kind of art from a region the West still had little real experience of.
However, it took some time – and indeed it must be an on-going process – for this frenzied pocket of activity to settle into something more consistent and permanent. The emergence of contemporary Asian art was radical – I suppose that was its teenage phase, very hot and happening. Now that it’s an older market, it’s maturing into something more substantial that doesn’t need to rely on trends and fads. For great art to be created and understood, it needs institutional support and recognition at home. Thankfully these things are happening at a great pace now across the region.

Who are the Asian artists we should know? What makes them special?
Everyone ought to know the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, who is an artist of such clarity and integrity that he not only communicates truths and contradictions about life in China today, but he also taps into something much deeper about human behaviour that relates to every culture throughout history. He is China’s Picasso and will be known for centuries to come as one of the most important cultural forces in this century. It may take some time for China to fully comprehend their rebel son, but when they do I suspect he will be a national hero.

Everyone’s looking for the next art superstar. How do you spot his or her emergence?
Contrary to what most people might assume from reports in the papers and overzealous art dealers, the birth of a great artist is a very slow and unsteady process. That said, there are factors to consider when buying art which should give an indication of future status. How old is the artist? Have they got a notable mentor? Is this a solo show with a well-considered premise behind it? Is the standard of work good across the whole show? Where else have they exhibited? Who with? Have they got institutional support – are they being bought or shown at museums or private collections? Are they being written about in a serious fashion? If it’s affordable now and some of the above criteria are met, then it may well turn out to be a good investment. I just exhibited the work of a young Chinese artist called JS Tan in London and he ticked many of these boxes, which is why I gave him a show. But more importantly I think he’s a great painter.

Art as investment is not new in Hong Kong. From a non-financial point of view, is that a good or bad thing? Are the punters not appreciating the work itself as much as its resale potential?
There were a lot of people who tried to capitalise on the fast rise to fame of some of the first wave of contemporary Asian artists to be sold at auction, and ultimately they don’t do the market any favours long term. A small pocket of people pushed prices into absurd territory, and whilst some stars continue to shine brightly, others have faded, which is an alarming prospect for collectors. Thankfully we have a much broader and deeper range of people interested in the market now, who nurture it and sustain it for the future. Ultimately, art should be bought to nourish the soul, not the bank balance. If you buy something you love, you need not worry about it is an asset class, and more often than not if you bought it sensibly at a good price it will increase in value over the years while you enjoy it.

After your most recent visit to Beijing, do you find that people in China appreciate its art history and want to preserve centuries-old works, or is modern China less interested in its past as it grows into the largest economy in the world?
The fact that hundreds of regional museums have opened in the past couple of years in China is testament to an increased desire to preserve and collect cultural artefacts and artwork. It’s not all positive news, though, because for such a long time culture was neglected in the country and vast swathes of material have been destroyed, lost or taken overseas. But what I’ve always been impressed by in China and Hong Kong is that even when there’s a lack of government support, people find ways of showing art, creating pop-up spaces, taking art into an alternative realm, and it really seems to have flourished in the fringes. The same thing had to happen with the birth of modern art in Europe at the end of the 19th century. There is always a precedent.

You’ve worked in Hong Kong and the London art world. What are the differences?
The major difference is the number of artists living and working in each city. When I worked in Hong Kong, all my artists were based elsewhere. It was not a viable option in 2005 when we started to show local artists, and they were so few. In London there are countless artists – I can’t move for them! – probably more than at any other time in history. There are more opportunities to go to art school, to visit hundreds of museums, and being an artist is not considered a side-line career.
With a Basel Art Fair and a world-class museum opening soon, there are big signs of change in Hong Kong. I can name several artists from the city who are doing great things, including Kacey Wong, Stanley Wong and Nadim Abbas. It’s going to take some time for it to fulfil its potential. We have an art market in place but not an art world. It’s a mental gearshift that’s needed.

In previous conversations five or six years ago, you brought up the rise in interest in Korean art. Did that trend catch on?
Very much so. Korean art for me remains one of the most robust and diverse art markets in Asia. Many artists have found a place on the international stage, including two of my favourites, Doh Huh So and Nikki S Lee. Debbie Han, an artist I championed when I was gallery director at The Cat Street Gallery, has gone on to do great things and remains a vital force.

Finally, on a personal note, what pieces have you invested in? What artwork would we find at your house?
I have some beautiful celadon heads by Debbie Han. They are at once traditional in their material but inventive in their approach. I have an awesome neon work by the British artistic duo Rob and Nick Carter. When I started to show their work in Hong Kong a few years ago, they were selling for about HK$50,000, and we just recently sold their new work for HK$1 million. They also became the first living artists to exhibit at the Frick Collection in New York. A painting that has been in pride of place in all my apartments over the years is a great modernist night-time pool scene by the young Australian painter Paul Davies. He has sold out nearly every exhibition he’s ever had. I also have a few Peter Blake silkscreens, an affordable way to collect one of the UK’s greatest artists. 

The Business of Beauty: Cara Grogan: Australian Supermodel in Hong Kong

The folks in the ensuing pages have made the machinations of what’s considered inner and outer beauty their business, writes P. Ramakrishnan. Portraits by Until Chan

Cara Grogan-McIlroy, 

Genie Juicery

Tell us how you decided to launch Genie Juicery.

I’ve been modelling for 15 years now, but I always wanted to have my own business and I was always very healthy and doing cleanses and interested in health-related products, so it seemed like the perfect business to start. I felt there was a big gap in the market at the time I started Genie Juicery. There were no other

cold-pressed juices in Hong Kong when we launched.

What’s the lasting power of juicing? There are so many diets and trends that come and go each year, but this seems to have survived. 

Juicing is a simple way to get maximum nutritional benefits from fruits and vegetables. Your body easily absorbs them and much faster, and the amount of nutrients you get at one time is a lot bigger and a lot quicker than if you’re eating fruits and salads at a meal. So it’s the perfect way for people to get minerals,

vitamins and enzymes quickly. That being said, cold-pressed juicing isn’t anything new, it’s been going on for a long time now, but we here are just waking up to it now. I don’t think it’s a trend, I think it’s a lifestyle change as people want long-term health goals. 

What do you recommend from your menu?

It’s not one particular product but a combination of fruits and vegetables and ingredients in each drink that are beneficial to different parts of the body. Depending on what you’re looking for, a combination of

lemon, lime, ginger and turmeric is immune boosting because of all the vitamin C and anti-inflammatory properties. Drinks that contain chia seeds are great for weight loss, energy levels and cleaning out your colon. Look for the ingredients – which is true for all products. What are you putting inside you?

What’s been a really popular product?

People really love a drink called The Master as it’s fat burning. It has chia seeds and cayenne pepper. That helps to eliminate toxins, break down fat cells and helps you go to the toilet and poo-poo (can you tell I’m

constantly with kids now?)!

What’s your favourite?

My favourite might be Green Dream. I really like the green ones. I also like Smooth Operator in the morning as it’s a great smoothie – what I pick depends on what time of day you ask me. A smoothie when I’m really

hungry, when I haven’t had a chance to eat. 

Come on now, there must be one drink that’s difficult to swallow.

There’s none that I can’t bear – I came up with all the recipes so there’s not one that I don’t particularly love, but for first-timers to juicing, I might not recommend Hulk. It’s one I like but it’s spicy, it’s very green and it’s a bit harsh as it has no fruits.

Tell us about your beauty regime, and how you stay in shape after having children.

My regime at the moment is non-existent; I don’t have time to brush my own hair. But I am very diligent about moisturising, and making sure I use a lot of oils in their most organic form so they are really beneficial for your face, especially as I have really dry skin. I do a good scrub when I have time. Eating healthy, drinking lots of water and jucies, that’s pretty much it for now. 

What are your go-to products?

I have to say, I do love all Fresh products. I’d never heard of them before I started working

with them but I was lucky enough to get all these products from them, and now I’m completely obsessed. My skin’s been amazing since I started using them. I also love Estée Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair cream and Shiseido has a really great eye cream I really love.

What have you seen recently that made you go, wow, that’s really beautiful?

That’s easy – that would be my two daughters and how they interact together. My youngest is starting to get a little bit older now so she’s a bit more fun to play with for my older daughter India. I’m just blown away by how amazing India is with her so I’m constantly counting my blessings. It’s not the products that I own

that are beautiful, it’s the people in my life.


For this and more interviews, pick up Lifestyle, by PRESTIGE HK. On newsstands now. 

Read the Cover Story with Rosamund Kwan and Helen Ma here at Prestige Online.

Previous interview with Cara Grogan here

Lifestyle, 2016: Cover with Hong Kong icons Rosamund Kwan and Helen Ma

In the Eyes of
the Beholder

Stress and delight reared their heads in equal measure as we put together this year’s edition of Lifestyle, the annual tome published by Prestige Hong Kong. Though, with the theme of this year’s issue centred on our modern vision of beauty, both outside and in, we’ve tried our best to present to you only the glamorous final product, rather than the sweat, tears and deadline discussions endured in achieving it.

That said, it was a joy to interview and watch Hong Kong beauties Rosamund Kwan and Helen Ma at work in front of a camera. On the eve of Christmas Eve, as the skies showed us 50 shades of misery, the ladies brought their own brand of sunshine to our set. Former film star Kwan will be no stranger to cinephiles, and there are reels aplenty revealing her talent, none of which are able truly to capture her self-effacing demeanor in person. Ma, a charming presence on the society circuit, is such a picture of elegance that it’s a rare month we don’t see her within the pages of Prestige. Flip to page 66 for stunning portraits of the duo by our photographer Olivier Yoan. His French lilt applied to our leading ladies’ names had them in giggles, though his work is certainly no laughing matter – and neither is theirs. They tell us the story behind their brand, RK Beauty, in “The Power of Two”.

It turns out there’s no shortage of beauty-business entrepreneurs within Hong Kong society, though lining them up for “The Business of Beauty” (page 80) came with its own rewards and challenges – particularly over the Christmas season, with our subjects scattered around the world enjoying holidays in Aspen and Singapore, California and Sydney.

We have also, but naturally, the usual suspects lined across the pages: the ever-popular “A List”, our editors’ top recommendations for hotels, spas, bars and restaurants (page 132), our dreamy destination and travel features (page 168 onwards) and features highlighting the most glamorous of jewellery and watches, wheels and whisky. We also reminisce over the top events that we attended in 2015.

I hope you find the beauty we witnessed captured within our pages, and in the year ahead.


Read the cover story here: Prestige Online

This (A)Man is an Island: Review of Amanpulo, the finest resort in Asia

Ensconced in a serene private villa in paradise – renamed Amanpulo – P.Ramakrishnan is left pondering John Donne’s poetry and the lifestyle of the one percent.



Upon our arrival in Manila, we sail through immigration and into private cars waiting to take us to a mini-airport. It isn’t quite an airport per se, even though our luggage is thoroughly searched and we’re patted down. My companion, a fashion editor, and I are fresh off respective ill-fated relationships that ended in mild resentment and bitter Facebook feuds, and the pat-down is “more action than I’ve had all year”, I mumble en route to the private lounge. Her rejoinder haunts me still. “Speak for yourself, luv,” she says while tossing her mane. Tart...

…is served as we sit in the plush lounge: warm ones, accompanied by generous drinks with those toothpick-umbrellas found mostly on postcards of those dreamy holidays that celebrities have. And we’re about to have, too.

I’m a nervous and reluctant flier, but fortunately the short flight on a private plane isn’t unpleasant. A glorious day embraces us as we fly over sun-kissed seas. Escape from the smog of 852 is welcome. God the sky is blue. Photo-shopped by the Almighty, surely?

Often ranked among the world’s best tropical hideaways, Amanpulo (peaceful island) has to be seen to be believed. Occupying the private Philippine island of Pamalican, at the northern end of the Sulu Sea between Palawan and Panay, it’s a low-lying resort with nary a skyscraper in sight. Pamalican is covered with a sandy jungle of thickets and bush, amid seven square kilometres of pristine coral reef, and we’re looking at grand vistas of greens and blues – the antithesis of Central. The island is two-and-a-half kilometres long and only 500 metres across at its widest point, so when the plane lands, I heave a sigh of relief and gasp at the same time. Belinda Carlyle was right: heaven is a place on earth.

As we alight, my friend does her best impression of Jackie O. Large shades covering her face, her palms shading her forehead, she trots down three steps to the tarmac and likes what she beholds. “S’all right innit.”

Indeed. An island where Brad and Angelina may or may not have holidayed far from the madding crowd and prying lenses of the paparazzi. Despite our blandishments, the uniformed staff will neither confirm nor deny the names of celebrities or royals who have chilled in this very paradise before us mortals.

Soon after landing, we’re met by the couple who manage the resort, and pleasantries are exchanged – but our eyes are on a magical vehicle that will provide us with more joy than champagne and caviar dreams: a pristine white buggy (a polished golf cart really), the only mode of transport through the grounds of Amanpulo.

The island resort, opened in 1993, is studded with “casitas”, twin-roofed bungalows in hillside and beachfront settings, loosely modelled after the Philippine bahay kubo (native dwelling), and generously sized villas. Having been chauffeured to our separate villas, we’re left alone with our luggage. Beautifully decorated, the interiors reflect the islands: pebble-washed walls, coconut-shell tables, rustic Palawan baskets that double as objets d’art, king-size beds with rattan headboards, sliding glass doors that open to outdoor decks and his-and-her divans.

After a gleeful buggy run around the property, I call on my neighbour, who’s already changed into one of the terry-cloth robes that hang in the large Cebu-marble bathroom. Calling it a bath “room” would be false advertising, however. It is, quite frankly, a “bath-partment”, with twin vanities, separate changing areas, a shower and an elegant bathtub lit by large windows with wooden shutters. An orchid pot in the middle of the bath-partment is spawning something wickedly beautiful.

While some may choose a hillside-view private villa or one of Amanpulo’s 29 Beach Casitas, each linked via a path that leads onto a white-sand beach, we choose beach-view villas. Now, let me wipe away my tears of joy before I describe this beach. The softest white sand known to mankind, constantly encroached upon by the most serene, azure-blue waters that lap into the island. Water so clear, you can see deep into the ocean. A visual anomaly to Victoria Harbour, which is more of a muddy green carpet that only metal can perforate, the waters encircling the shores here reveal what lies beneath the surface of the ocean. Apparently there’s life in water – I am witness with wonder. Fish. Turtles. Cute ones. What lies beneath is glorious.

I turn left to find…no one as far as the eye can see. To the right, more of nothing. Just a strip of white sand that goes straight and curves somewhere in the distance to circumnavigate the island. Hmm. Alone at last.

In the distance are hints of other private Amanpulo villas, all a few metres from the sea, with private swimming pools (for those who care not for the private ocean!) and separate bedroom, living and dining pavilions, an outdoor lounge and a kitchen. For families of various sizes, one-, two- and four-bedroom villas come with a cook and housekeeper, and a number enjoy beautiful garden settings.

It takes more than a day to get used to the overwhelming visceral sensations of all the above. It takes me two days to discover a functioning hammock hanging between two palm trees next to my villa. Copious chapters of a crime-thriller are read on said hammock until I espy a vicious gecko eyeing my suspended toes. After several shrieks – I am not one for brevity of words or bravery of deeds – the hammock reading comes to an end.

As we’re not honeymooners, unlike the few other guests we spot infrequently, at mealtime we’re led to the restaurant at the clubhouse. No need for names; there’s only one of each on this island. With views of Manamoc Island across the channel, we have perfectly scrumptious Asian and continental cuisine for lunch and dinner. We don’t care how the fresh ingredients are brought in, because who worries about the nitty-gritty in heaven?

On the first morning, however, we eat breakfast alone, under a large umbrella, with trays of fresh food served by the staff. Looking out as the sun rises over the waters, shards of colour and light awaken us from our somnambular state of bliss. John Donne wrote:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

…and while biting into slices of honey melon and sipping a third cup of freshly brewed coffee, I resolve that life on that other island (where death and taxes awaited under the aegis of CY Leung) isn’t for me. I’ll sit here, tan gently under the shade of the swaying palms and write the great Asian novel. Give up my existence as a glorified typist, embrace my misanthropy and live the life of an artist and hermit. This man will be an island.

Sadly, though, my paycheck doesn’t match the reality check. Paradise will have to wait. 



Travel feature. Heaven on earth is somewhere here...! 
Rama 
(e-mail: ramakrishnanp  @ hotmail dot com)

Outtakes: A feature shoot with Lumen Kinoshita and model Lenka Oshry for a Jewellery Feature

For a shoot for Lifestyle magazine, my fav model in the Kong, the gorgeous Lenka (Dream models HK agency). These are outtakes from the shoot, shot by my cam (the pro shots taken by photographer Rose Conway are way better!).  Done one very cold afternoon at IFC, the saucy Ms Korbova killed it!

My lovely, lovely friend Lumen Kinoshita's designer bling (L.Luminous) and outfit from Maje.

PS: Above, can play a game of Spot the Difference! ha! 

Lifestyle: Feature on The Top Ten Models in Hong Kong

Having so much fun working on a feature for Lifestyle magazine as I do a Q&A with the most gorgeous gals in Hong Kong. Image selecting... talk about spoilt for choice!

Eg working with gorgeous Cara G