The Silent Luxury

Konstantin Chaykin’s Master of Days cufflinks move the calendar on each time the cuff closes, handing the wearer a power once held by popes, revolutionaries and railways.

Habsburg Kleidermanufaktur, a Salzburg house founded in 1992, makes loden and cashmere jackets with no prominent logo, and every buttonhole on its signature Johann Karl is sewn by hand. In conversation with The Silent Luxury, owners Markus Meindl and Michael Rumerstorfer explain how a name this grand stays quiet, from a cut refined by the millimetre to the store Habsburg opened in Vienna in November 2026.

INTIMAA: Sacred Threads, which opened at Abu Dhabi’s Cultural Foundation on 9 November 2026, presents new works by UAE-based artists, made together with Afghan master weavers. The exhibition marks the UAE’s Year of Family, and all proceeds go to FBMI’s programmes for children’s health and education.

Portugal’s footwear industry is betting its future on what a shoe is made of, as buyers begin to judge material ahead of brand. Luís Onofre, president of the manufacturers’ association APICCAPS, explains in an interview …

In conversation with The Silent Luxury, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) calls the phase-out of China’s tariffs on Swiss watches a long-term investment in competitiveness. Once the transition periods end, 99.8 per cent of Swiss exports to China will enter tariff-free. SECO also explains why ties with China come at no cost to those with Washington.

The revised China–Switzerland free trade agreement phases out China’s tariffs on Swiss watches over as many as ten years, while China’s luxury tax stays in place. In conversation with The Silent Luxury, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) puts the savings at more than SFr100m a year and calls the slump in Chinese demand largely cyclical. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) calls the tariff cut a long-term investment, and both are betting on buyers at the top of the market.

Botswana will double its stake in De Beers to 30 percent, President Duma Boko told parliament on 9 November, as part of the Global Diamond Consortium’s bid for Anglo American’s 85 percent. The country is buying at a fraction of the 2012 price, after two years in which diamonds pushed its economy into contraction, and the stake brings it a risk that royalties left to others: whether the world still wants a stone from the ground.

Chinese skincare brands have reversed the route of the Western beauty groups. They already hold their plants and their ingredient science at home, and they are now taking their laboratories to Paris. Proya, Botanee and Mao Geping show where the shift leads, and why an ingredient alone no longer sells.