Monday, July 22, 2013

Bentley Motors and Lalique Crystal get hitched



Bentley  Does it: Lalique Crystal and Bentley Motors get Hitched



A 2.30 am alarm call sweeps me out of the best dream possible: I’m driving an enormous, powerful and graceful car along beautiful tree-lined roads. Does this have any Freudian significance I wonder? Probably not- I’m just about to embark on my dream assignment...driving a Bentley Mulsanne from Strasbourg in France back to Mayfair in London, staying at stunning hotels, eating exquisite food and with an en route education in the history of Lalique crystal and perfume.
You could say that I’d been asked to bear witness to the union of two of the most quintessentially luxurious brands imaginable: the wedding of Lalique Crystal and Bentley Motors and the fruit of their union: Lalique for Bentley Crystal Edition Perfume (for Men). Their select issue of just 999 collectors’ pieces combines a freshly created and exclusive perfume, in a Lalique crystal flacon, embellished with the charismatic ‘Flying B’ Bentley mascot. The scent is an original concept of perfumier Mylene Alran from the French perfume house, Robertat, commissioned by Bentley motors. It combines top notes of select orris butter (one ton of iris root produces just 2 kilos of orris butter) with white cedar wood and patchouli, leaving the base notes to amber and musk. The resultant aroma is masculine and sensual. The combination of crystal artwork, legendary Bentley symbol and exquisite fragrance (all presented and preserved in a mahogany box) constitutes the one-off collector’s pieces: at £3000 a bottle.
Travelling business class from Heathrow to Strasbourg, and transferring to the hotel in a Bentley, Salomon, the chauffeur, explains to me that at least 80 Bentleys are usually employed for the purpose of MEPs at the European Parliament. Can I pick up a good deal on a second hand one I ask him? It appears that if I could, the mileage on the clock would be very reasonable: sometimes they only travel about 30km a day.
My first stop was the 4 star Cour du Corbeau Hotel, an historical gem of a building, originally constructed in 1580 and latterly patronised by European Royalty. A full renovation and lavish refurbishment has catapulted it in to the Best Hotel in France 2013 category.  A mere cassock’s throw from the impressive Gothic Notre Dame Cathedral of Strasbourg ( a great place to cool down in the heat) the hotel marries exposed stone and newly laid slate flooring with chic decor and timbered facade and interiors, with ease.
Evening arrived, and I found myself in a queue of journalists waiting to kiss a rather cute (and cashmere bedecked) French guy goodbye-should I take a chance and hope he hadn’t noticed that we haven’t even met? I decided to behave myself and  hobbled off to the Michelin starred Au Crocodile restaurant, with the rest of the crew, in my poor excuse for footwear in the 93 degree heat (a pair of fake snakeskin winklepicker slingbacks) for a sumptuous 5 course meal.
Morning saw the start of the Bentley/Lalique experience proper: asked to choose my drive colour preference (these were definitely my kind of guys) I plumped for the Windsor Blue. A little (Bentley) bird told me that it has been known for the Bentley paintshop in Crewe, England, to follow customer colour directives based on a showroom customer’s nail varnish-the sales guy going so far as to paint his own nail in that colour as a guide to the finished bodywork colour (which, in this instance, was cerise) Now that’s what I call customer service.
The Bentley, luxury choice of British monarchs, was now my dream car come to fruition. The Mulsanne packs the George Foreman punch of a 6.75 twin turbo V8 engine in to a supremely muscular body (complete with George Foreman smiling grille) and glides effortlessly from  0-60 in 5.1 seconds, the engine maintaining a low-key growl. In fact noise, or the lack of it, is very noticeable in top range luxury cars such as the Mulsanne. It’s easy to feel detached from the rest of the world in your own little bubble of peace and calm (a veritable Bubble Car) My fellow occupants hadn’t revealed the secret to their satisfied grins, until half way through the journey: integral back massage seats both front and rear to ease away those little niggles. The subtle curvature of the bodywork , and the vast bonnet up front gives a fabulous feeling of security (it doesn’t have a European NCAP rating but you can bet that it would be off the graph). The Mulsanne can achieve a top speed of 184mph-no mean feat for a car weighing in at 2.6 tonnes: as some background history to the car’s success, W.O.Bentley first used aluminium pistons in his engines in the 1920’s, which weighed lighter, were cooler and increased power output. 
Optional extras include a Naim for Bentley premium in-car audio system, voted clear winner in a recent Fifth Gear blind listening test, easily beating competition from Bowers & Wilkins in Jaguar, and Audi’s Bang & Olufsen system. The rear seats are adjustable and rear seat passengers can enjoy their own infotainment system, along with an optional integrated WiFi hotspot for constant internet access. The polished mahogany woodwork and deep pile Wilton carpets ooze class and comfort whilst I found the exterior look of the car (not liked by all-but, I’m sure, carved on the template of cupid’s bottom) curvy and sexy. Gliding along the motorway, as if on a waft of (speedy) air, we arrived at Wingen-sur-Moder for a fantastic tour around the Lalique factory.


Rene Jules Lalique (1860-1945) was initially a jeweller and then moved in to glassware and crystal glass design. He was elevated to notoriety partly by the patronage of stage stars such as Sarah Bernhardt and was iconic in the Art Deco movement of the 1920’s. The tour took us from the burning furnaces of the glass-blowing floor, to the delicate finishing off rooms, where the beautifully crafted glass sculptures are refined by hand. Two hundred and twenty craftsmen and women contribute to every stage of the manufacturing process. The crystal glass Bentley/Lalique perfume flacon alone has four finishing off processes in the latter stages to ensure the stopper is airtight. A tour of the Lalique museum uncovered yet more exquisite works of art and we emerged, blinking, in to the heat, to consume the 300km to Reims, home of champagne, in the cool comfort of the air-conned Mulsanne.
Nestling in the suburbs of Reims is possibly its best kept hotel and gastronomic secret: the Hotel A Lallement with its Michelin starred restaurant:  l’assiettechampenoise  (http://www.assiettechampenoise.com). I was becoming accustomed to travelling large, but when I opened the door to my suite, I couldn’t stop myself from bursting in to a loud guffaw; the room was palatial. My only regret was that I wasn’t spending much time in it: dinner was at 7 and with a 7 course meal, with 7 different types of champagnes and wines, A Lallement really did hit the jackpot.
The next day comprised the last leg of the Bentley/Lalique extravaganza, driving  up from Reims to Calais, through the Channel tunnel and on to Mayfair in London. Our destination this time was the Westbury hotel in Mayfair , old haunt of Jackie O and  just a gemstone’s throw away from Lalique’s London flagship store. I delivered the Mulsanne with a flouirish (and a small tear in my eye) to the awaiting doorman, happy to have escaped any untoward scrapes in the bustling London traffic.
Daniel, Lalique’s head of communication and PR, talked us through the delicate blending process of the select ingredients used in the Lalique for Bentley Crystal Edition Perfume (for Men). We saw the finished product, replete with Lalique Crystal Flacon and mahogany storage box, and whiffed the legendary woody perfume (and with a perfume this complex, it really is possible to smell the different layers of the perfume, over time).
Evening was upon us and we said our fragrant farewells, after yet another gastronomic dining indulgence in the Westbury Hotel.
It’s often not until you actually see the intense labour and detail to craftsmanship that go in to producing something of beauty that you are made aware of its intrinsic value: at once, the marriage of the two brands, Bentley and Lalique, made perfect sense:both are emblematic of prolonged processes of manual labour and craftsmanship and pure attention to detail. Both espouse values of heritage and artisanship. Their 999 offspring will surely be very highly prized collector’s pieces for both Bentley and Lalique aficionados.

Bentley Mulsanne OTR Price: £225,900 Model Test Driven: £260,000 www.bentleymotors.com
Lalique Crystal: www.lalique.com
Cour du Corbeau Hotel Strasburg : www.cour-corbeau.com
Hotel Restaurant: A Lallement Reims: www.assiettechampenoise.com
Westbury Hotel, Mayfair, London: www.westburymayfair.com

Originally published in Ohlala! magazine

By: Ruthie at Me-Mo

Labels:

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

First Love ( entry to First Car moneysupermarket.com Blogging Competition)




First Love

Betty the Beetle was my very first car: an old style Beetle with the engine at the rear and a lot of attitude up front. I loved that car. She drove me through the thick and thin of my life Up North-from beetling me around hospitals in my training as a physiotherapist to karate training sessions in all parts of Yorkshire. She once inadvertently raced a police car down a dual carriageway -thinking it was a boy racer trying to get the better of me-but I'm sure it was her cheeky looks (and a flash of my physio badge) that got me off a speeding ticket.






Betty could be quite a Sweaty Betty in the heat (air-con was for wimps-and gazillionaires) and knee-knockingly freezing in the cold, but she was one of the most dependable cars I have ever owned. She was an M reg (that's with the M after the numbers not before)-so she would be worth a mint if she was still alive today. But like M in the Bond movies, all old gals bite the dust in the end. She failed her M (OT). It was the rust that saw her off. The garage told me her case was terminal and so she was sent to the car graveyard, to the big dream-crushing machine.
I don't think I'd ever cried about an inanimate object before, but Betty was like a mate, so that sort of made sense. I missed her (sore) throaty engine growl and no-nonsense functional looks: she was true blue in colour and the loss of her made me blue in mood....
The only thing that could comfort me was the spanking brand new Fiat Panda waiting to be picked up from the garage forecourt round the corner......

Ruthie at Me-Mo


A Me-Mo Car Review

moneysupermarket.com

Labels: