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Epicures Rejoice - UN Lifts Beluga Caviar Ban


The world's finest beluga caviar will be available once again following an agreement by five producer countries on export quotas for the luxe delicacy, the United Nations' watchdog on endangered species has announced. Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan agreed at a meeting in Tehran on new quotas which will be in effect through February 2011, the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species said in a statement. A temporary ban on wild caviar was imposed in 2001 due to a depletion of stocks amid high levels of poaching and illegal trade in the Caspian Sea. In 2002, countries sharing a stock of sturgeon automatically had zero quotas unless they reached a consensus on a sustainable level of exports. Trade in beluga was halted last year as the countries failed to agree on quotas. Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan still have zero quotas, but Iran can now produce 800 kg, Kazakhstan 1,500 kg, and Russia 700 kg. Expect it to cost a small fortune if you're lucky enough to get your hands on some.

"Million Dollar Listing's" Chad Rogers and The Chad Store

Holy ego, Batman! For fans who can't get enough of Chad Rogers and his hair, we have this exclusive: Soon, you will be able to purchase Chad's locks. No price has yet been posted for a clump of the real estate agent's shorn locks, but since he spends $600 every other week getting it conditioned and trimmed, you can be assured that it's been well-cared for and is in mint condition.

The Chad Rogers boutique was launched during Season 3 of the "Million Dollar Listing" show. Thus far, it's inventory has been limited to Chad's black shirts. When you pop the collar on the polo shirt, his trademark signature line "Talk is Cheap" appears, and the pocket is emblazoned with an embroidered Chad. Say, what's good enough for Ralph Lauren ... The collared polo shirt sells for $42; the V-neck T-shirt with the same Chad image and slogan, sells for $22.

Future items planned for sale include a Chad blow dryer and a Chad hairspray, and of course, the Chad locks. There is even a doggie sweater modeled by his co-star and partner Starla the chihuahua that says "Talk is Cheap." Starla modeled the sweater at an open house during last season's "Million Dollar Listing" show on Bravo. No price points have yet been set for this merchandise.

Chad says that his shirts actually played a big part in the "Million Dollar Listing" drama factor. In the final episode last season, co-star Josh Flagg threatened to throw Starla into the pool if Chad didn't "take off the shirt." Yup, the one and only.

Chad, while remaining mum on whether he will be returning for the show's fourth season which is currently filming, says he's been booked on a cruise as a guest lecturer on real estate and is continuing to work on a book. In the meantime, he's clearly mastered the idea that personal branding and the selling of ancillary products is a way to reap in money these days. Can we expect to see Josh Flagg's grandma offering tours to Poland?


Rockmeadow, Estate of the Day


Rockmeadow is a classic estate in Fairfield, Connecticut. The estate was once owned by legendary American composer Richard Rodgers. The Cameron Clark-designed Colonial sits on 21 acres on manicured green lawns overlooking a spring-fed pond. The property includes a gunite pool, har-tru tennis court, guest house with caretakers cottage and greenhouse.Clark built the home in 1929, and over the years it has been expanded and renovated to include three stories with six bedrooms, large open kitchen and a library with cherry paneling. For the most part the home still reflects classic New England style with only a few glaringly modern touches like the updated kitchen and a modern bathroom with a separate walk-in shower. A few years ago it was listed at $12.95 million but is now listed at $8.35 million.

Gallery: Rockmeadow

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Hamilton 'Lady Hamilton' Vintage Watches For 2010

Once, most ladies' watches use to look like this, delicate little things that felt like jewelry with watch movements in them. That was about 100 years ago, and while Hamilton was still American, it made lots of these. Today watches like this aren't common - at least not newly made ones. But with the throw-back kick that is so popular, Hamilton has decided to give it a shot. Maybe they will sell? There is always that post-modern flapper crowd to market to right?

'Lady Hamilton' was the name given to Hamilton watches... for ladies back them. So the new models are called the "Lady Hamilton Vintage" watches. Seems to make sense. Small, at 15mm wide by 28.55mm long, these watches are pretty true to their historic sizes. In steel, they come in either black or gold PVD coated tones as well. The dials come in black or white, complete with art deco inspired faces. Hamilton is even making a few of these available with diamonds on the case. Priced from $545.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

History of Food Event Includes Dinner Inside A Reptile

Earlier this month in passing I mentioned that Courvoisier and Bompas & Parr were hosting an event in London called the Complete History of Food, a walk-through dining experience and multi-course meal charting key revolutionary periods in food history held at 35 Belgrave Square in London. Daily Finance's blogger Lauren Cooper was on the scene and has reported back with details and a video.

Food and history lovers were gathered in a ritzy mansion in Belgravia to enjoy an unusual tour of food through the ages. Some English celebs including designer Anya Hindmarch and Tom Parker-Bowles, shown at right, also attended the unique event. Lauren had her "humors" diagnosed medieval-style and prescribed a diet of cabbage, capers and artichokes as well as a dose of Courvoisier cognac (of course). Other adventures included a visit to a model pirate ship and a trip back to a 1950s family room where guests watched old sitcoms and scratched and sniffed a picture of a TV dinner of roast chicken and minted peas (probably about as tasty as an actual TV dinner).

Perhaps the most interesting part of her story is the dining table inside the body of a replica dinosaur, the setting for 1853 and the Iguanodon Dinner, thrown on New Year's Eve by biologist Richard Owen, who coined the word "dinosaur." Guests dined on duck confit with lentils and beetroot and sipped a summer punch of green tea, apple and elderflower and cognac.

Read about the final stop on the tour and check out the video on Daily Finance.

Christmas in July - A Sneak Peek at the Tiffany & Co. Holiday Collection

Tiffany Necklace for Holiday 2010
Tiffany & Co., our favorite place to have breakfast, has unveiled their Holiday collection for 2010. The launch was a champagne and mini cupcake-fueled affair, and jewels sparkled at every turn, lit by the many flashbulbs and Blackberrys in constant use by the media attendees. It was Christmas (or your holiday of choice) in July at its finest.

The collection, undeniably Tiffanian, was full of geometric florals and art deco-inspired pieces, many of them looking like they could have come straight from the 1920s or 1930s. Colored precious stones glittered in decadent abundance, as did architectural golden wires and, of course, ice-white Tiffany diamonds, often contrasted with deep blues.

One of our top picks was the dazzling necklace above in Tiffany's signature turquoise-blue, designed by Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co. The necklace features meticulously selected turquoise and hundreds of glittering diamonds set in 18k yellow gold and platinum, and retails for $125,000.00.

Check out more of our favorites in the gallery below, and be sure and send your picks to your friends and family (so they can start saving up).

Peregrine Wines of New Zealand: Awards-Winning Wines, Architecture, Philanthropy



What is this? And where is it?

Actually, it is not a secret defense weapon in the US Air Force arsenal, but upon approaching it, it does look numinous and otherworldly. It is actually the Peregrine Winery, situated in Gibbstown, New Zealand, on the famous Central Otago Wine Road, a road that takes the oenophile 20 minutes outside Queenstown, NZ on a great tasting trip, beginning with Peregrine.

Before discussing the wine, it is important to mention this architecture's many awards, the most recent being the
New Zealand Supreme Architectural Award. Judges from UK magazine The Architectural Review like it too, placing it, in 2004, in the top five of its annual emerging architecture awards. The jury described the Winery as "an elegant blade of light [that] contrasts with the rugged and sublime natural landscape. But Chris Kelly, the architect, described the building in a more avian manner: "It was recognized early on that the building would be important in reinforcing the Peregrine wine brand, so the changing roof gradient was inspired by old images freezing the kinetic rotation of a bird in flight. The roof is evocative of the majesty the Peregrine or native falcon has as it glides on the thermal uplifts off the heated land." However it is interpreted, it is also on DesignCrave's 2009 list of the Ten Architectural Wonders Of The Wine World, for among other things, its inventive handling of space and light.

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Luxist Drives the 2011 Volkswagen Jetta, Approves of the New, Less Expensive VW



The Volkswagen Jetta is the company's best selling car in the U.S., and it has of late been revealed that the 2010 Jetta is the final branch in one evolutionary tree. The 2011 version is a thing apart, an all-new sapling pollinated by a rethinking of what the Jetta needs to be. The key words in that new philosophy are bigger, lighter, faster, with better fuel economy and better features. And for all that, it's also less expensive. This is not a connect-the-dots evolution of the Jetta. In truth, it should be called the Quantum Leap Edition.


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Luxist Guest Post: To Keep a Star Shining; the Challenges of Celebrity PR by Ronn Torossian

It has been hard to ignore the spate of celebrity disasters this summer. From Lindsay Lohan's turn in jail to Mel Gibson's infamous rants, it seems each day's news brings a new scandal. That means it has also been a busy summer for celebrity public relations. In a Luxist guest post, Ronn Torossian, the CEO of 5WPR, who has worked with celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Pamela Anderson and Nick Cannon, discusses the challenges of celebrity PR and why we need to remember that celebrities are human beings, like the rest of us, subject to the same frailties and foul-ups.

One of the most challenging parts of working in celebrity publicity is re-shaping an image which the world already thinks they know. Constant public scrutiny, the demand of hundreds of media outlets calling non-stop, and the immediacy of today's media make this even harder. The latest news from Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, Tiger Woods and other shining stars, makes one wonder about the differences between a celebrity and a "normal" human being.

After years of work with corporations and celebrities, I realize that the media often decides a story angle before they actually hear the facts. In "Bias" - probably the century's most significant media-criticism book - Bernard Goldberg, ex-CBS producer, states that a lie in media terms is not really a lie, "they would pass the polygraph test... they honestly believe what they're saying. And that's the biggest problem of all". Just last week, in an unprecedented rule in England, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt won their case over privacy against a gossip outlet that reported an upcoming divorce. The damages will be accounted for by the paper and offered to the intruded couple. And, all this because drama sells paper, whether it's true, false or exaggerated. I mean consider how many headlines were written on Tiger Woods, but what do we really know other than that he cheated on his wife?

The media simply feels compelled to respond to massive public interest, and human fascination. Celebrity representatives often can't respond quick enough to damaging news – and this lack of response, or failure to fix the issue, can often shape the story. In contrast to a company, brand or product, the "celebrity brand" stands alone. If something is perceived to go wrong you can't accuse production lines, 'industry trends' or forces of nature, like BP has tried to do. Instead, the individual celebrity is the only one who can break, or fix, his or her "brand."

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Galerie Harfa, Bringing Dinosaurs to A Mall Near Prague


A new East European mall has a unique draw, a dinosaur-themed amusement park. Bloomberg has a report on the Galerie Harfa, a shopping mall in Prague's Vysocany suburb. The article says that mall space has more than quadrupled since the former Soviet states joined the European Union in 2004. While once it was merely enough for these malls to offer access to popular and trendy brands now shoppers want the big wow, hence the dinosaurs. Like many malls here in the U.S., the Galerie Harfa will be more than just a place to shop but also a place to hang out. The rooftop park has life-sized replicas of dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops in a setting of palm trees and pathways. The 220-million-euro project will include tenants like Interspar, Marks & Spencer, Intersport, Esprit and Datart. It is located near the O2 Arena which hosts sporting and other events. The mall is set to open at the end of the year.
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