We start this Sunday with a warning or two or five. First, you’re in for a bit more from Portugal as our Quality of Life Conference approaches. Second, our stage is likely to introduce you to some amazing new voices. Third, I want to get you behind the wheel or in the passenger seat of Amble. Fourth, Na Praia is going to be a name that you need to know. And finally, it’s going to be an exciting dash to the year’s end with a host of new Monocle projects on the go.
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We’re less than two weeks out from the start of QoL in Lisbon and it will be our biggest, buzziest and chicest yet. Alongside lessons in retail big and small, there will be a discussion about the future of drones from a global leader in the space. You’ll even learn how to walk and we will be staging a very elegant auction of fine items. Most of this will take place at the Gulbenkian, with plenty of sideshows along the way. At the time of sending this newsletter, we have 10 seats left. Drop us a note and see you there.
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I just touched down in Zürich from Lisbon, en route to Tokyo. There is so much happening and the city just gets better and better – on almost all levels. There are still some kinks but the homegrown talent mixed with newcomers is a heady creative and entrepreneurial cocktail. I daresay that it’s globally unique.
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Did you catch our story on Amble? If not, it’s right here. On Thursday, I had the chance to sample this rugged four-wheeler and I’m lobbying hard for a special edition to mark Monocle’s 20th anniversary. You will want one for all your residences and short-range commutes.
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For coming on two decades, we’ve been following José António Uva on his ventures. Zé, as he’s known to his dearest, is behind São Lourenço do Barrocal in Alentejo, is a founder of Amble and will soon unveil Na Praia, an enclave north of Comporta. Full disclosure here, my colleagues at Winkreative did the brand work on both properties and I’ve had a Na Praia preview over the past few days. Yes, I’ve been very involved but it’s beyond anything that I could have imagined. We will reveal much more over the coming months but start planning for next spring. Opening is planned for May.
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A bumper October issue, new Konfekt, a Konfekt book, more newspapers, The Entrepreneurs and plenty of events. Clear the coffee table and the diary for the months to come. The season has officially started. Let’s start by playing in Lisboa.
Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.
One thing is certain this summer: hundreds of thousands of people in Italy will be finding a shady spot in which to leaf through the pages of La Settimana Enigmistica, pencil at the ready. Loosely translated as “The Week of Puzzles”, the magazine has been publishing weekly since 1932, minus two short interludes during the Second World War. Hitting shelves every week, it features crosswords, jokes, cartoons, spot-the-difference puzzles and rebuses – a game involving finding a phrase or word from a combination of letters and images – that have made it a household staple.
“Summer for a large part of Italians is about being under the beach umbrella with La Settimana Enigmistica,” says Alessandro Bartezzaghi, who has worked for the publication since 1982 and became its editor in June 2022. “It’s the same for young people, who see it as a way of socialising, with one person suggesting a solution and another something else. I always say that our magazine is for the solitary in winter and for the social in summer.”
It’s aperitivo time in Milan and Bartezzaghi is sitting in front of an alcohol-free fruit cocktail. Getting him to sit down with Monocle feels like a coup, given that he rarely gives interviews and the publisher, Bresi, is by Bartezzaghi’s own admission “reserved” when it comes to making public statements. Which is why we meet in a bar after work rather than at the offices a short walk away in Piazza Cinque Giornate, the publication’s home for more than 90 years. “Our effort has been to adapt [to the times] without exaggerating,” says Bartezzaghi. “Meaning that even if you knew about certain linguistic novelties, you’d introduce them slowly.” He talks about needing to have “one’s feet in two shoes” – ensuring that the magazine’s reassuringly consistent visual identity isn’t meddled with too much, while also guaranteeing that a 30-year-old solving the publication’s puzzles “doesn’t feel disorientated”.
Bartezzaghi refers to La Settimana Enigmistica as a family affair and it really is exactly that. His father, Piero, was involved with the magazine for a long time and built a fiercely loyal fanbase. He submitted a crossword at the age of 15, remaining a collaborator until in 1960 – a year after his son was born. Bartezzaghi Snr was then asked to join the editorial staff to help support a jump in pagination. He remained there until his death in 1989.
“I’ve been breathing La Settimana Enigmistica since I was one year old,” says Bartezzaghi. “There was a big room in the office where women worked looking after the archive. They’d sit me on top of a pile of phone books in a chair and have me bash away on the typewriter.” His father was famed for difficult crossword puzzles under the pseudonym Zanzibar. His son has adopted the name Zanzara, or mosquito, for his most stinging contributions. The magazine has been entirely advert-free since the 1960s, surviving and thriving on subscriptions and newsstand sales. All of the weekly prizes the publication gives away have been bought rather than gifted to it. “Because we want to be independent from everything and everyone,” Bartezzaghi says. “Which is why for a period we were careful to not insert words into crosswords that might seem like advertising, such as Coca-Cola or Fiat. Now the world we live in is so full of brands that we use them.”
Because the magazine doesn’t have commercial commitments, it has no obligation to report how many copies it sells, though it is known to generate revenues of about €50m a year. When Monocle speculates that weekly sales might be anything from 500,000 to two million, it provokes a chuckle. “In the 1980s and 1990s, we hit more than a million copies a week during the summer,” says Bartezzaghi. While he acknowledges that the audience might not be as captive as it once was, the fact that a printed puzzle magazine can sell six figures per week is still impressive. “Even young people want it on paper,” he says.
A quick glance at a Milanese newsstand reveals plenty of pretenders to the quiz-magazine crown. So what makes the 94-year-old publication, to borrow one of its taglines, “the quiz magazine first for foundation and circulation”? Bartezzaghi points to several factors, including being the original title in the field and the investment in quality that leading the sales charts has allowed – from the talent putting together the 150 to 160 games that pack every issue to the ink and paper used.
Alongside what Bartezzaghi sees as a superior product is what he calls the “spectacular planning” that goes into making the magazine. “You can’t put something that is incorrect,” he says. “If you betray the faith of people, they’ll stop playing.” The magazine works so far in advance that when the team goes away for the Italian summer shutdown, it will have already closed its mid-November issues. Each edition goes through fact-checking that includes drafts and three rounds of corrections. There will also be people who are tasked with solving the entire magazine.
Bartezzaghi compares his role to clearing a way through a jungle, machete in hand, as others follow. “There’s a job of shaping and refining the magazine,” he says. “To such an extent that it almost seems like the whole thing has been written by the same person.” So, this summer, Italians will hardly perceive any changes from one issue to the next.
‘La Settimana Enigmistica’ fact file
1. The first actor to be featured on the cover was Mexican Lupe Vélez, on the debut publication, dated 23 January 1932.
2. The magazine was forced to pause printing on two occasions during the Second World War: for a week during a bombing of Milan in 1943 and for three months during Italy’s liberation from fascism in 1945.
3. The magazine has only had four editors in its history.
4. Alessandro Bartezzaghi’s father, Piero, died in 1989 but had enough of a crossword backlog that his work continued to be published in the magazine until the following year. After that, different authors have taken on the most difficult crossword in the magazine on rotation – something that was previously Bartezzaghi Snr’s sole territory.
5. The holiday special, La Vacanza Enigmistica (pictured, above), which costs €5, features more colour pages than the regular magazine and more games aimed at all ages and abilities.
Here’s the scene. We’re spending the day in Mallorca with two friends from California before they set sail on a handsome yacht which they charter for one week every summer. It’s a proper sailing yacht, not a gin palace. Forty-metres long and with a crew of six. They take the same group of friends away each year but this time there’s a wrinkle. Ash from an erupting Mount Etna has closed Sicily’s Catania Airport and so two of their Italian guests are literally going to miss the boat.
“So why don’t you come for a night?” asks H.
Unfortunately, we already have plans, having promised to see people we love for dinner the next night at a cool beach club, so there can only be one answer. “What do we need to pack?” I ask a little breathlessly. Then I remember the other half once spent an entire 12-hour Greek ferry trip spewing into a supermarket carrier bag. But he’s already doing a hornpipe jig (that’s something to behold). So it seems that we are good to go.
I have been on boats before. Just this past Christmas I sailed to and from Mallorca, though it was on a Baleària car ferry and most of my fellow passengers were nice truck drivers. We still hang out together.
The plan is to meet at 09.00 sharp the following morning in Port Adriano and then sail to Menorca (having only lost my Menorca virginity the week before, I am delighted at the thought of having a second bash so soon). We get to the dock early – no risks to be taken – and I just pray all the time that Mount Etna is still doing its impersonation of my partner on a Greek ferry.
Off we go. The captain explains that there are some simple rules. No shoes – definitely no cha-cha heels on the teak deck. No oily suntan sprays (the teak again). And if you swim in the sea, shower at the back of the deck to avoid salty feet marking – you guessed it – the teak. Really, wouldn’t it make sense to put down some nice teak-print linoleum? Would save a lot of bother.
I think we prove to be good guests – I forget about the salty feet business only once and the captain gives me a bit of a look but somehow doesn’t make me scrub the deck.
H and her husband M are skilled at this yacht business. They have planned the menus weeks in advance, had the wines they love delivered to the boat, thought about at-sea entertainment. It’s the sort of meticulous preparation that makes it all look effortless. We sail around the coast of Mallorca and then, in the late afternoon, over to Menorca, dropping anchor as the light fades. In the softening glow the nearby cliffs look charcoaled onto the horizon. Above us the stars seem to be winking at me.
Then my dear friend Etna comes good again. Catania Airport is still closed. “Would you like to stay another night?” I think you know what I replied.
We end up spending three days on the boat, time for life to slow, for long and funny conversations. To find joy in such unexpected things. M encourages me to jump off the boat (in a friendly way), to slide deep into the dark water. He also gives me diving lessons (Tom Daley has nothing to fear). There’s something about jumping into the unknown that’s addictive. I go again and again.
When I was a child and jealous of a friend’s endless fancy holidays, I remember my dad helping me rethink the issue. “When you get to do these things one day they will feel very special. It’s OK to wait,” he assured me. I thought about his wisdom as the tender took me to shore in Mahon. I had had a blast. I had drunk in every moment. I was grateful to my dad and my hosts – but mostly Mount Etna.
Want to read more of Andrew’s columns? Click here.
Spend any time in an airport bookshop and you’ll see stacks of brightly coloured books promising to impart the secrets to success. These volumes – presumably, given their proliferation – do pretty well for their authors and publishers, but are of more debatable value to their readers. The success of other people is rarely that interesting or instructive. Failure, on the other hand, is often a better teacher and usually a more compelling story.
By most measures, Mike Grossman is a successful serial entrepreneur: he has been, among other things, a CEO of six venture-backed Silicon Valley technology companies, including Zetta, Inflection and Live Capital. As he cheerfully admits, he has also failed frequently and, occasionally, spectacularly. His latest venture is a contribution to the business shelves: Failure Is An Option: Reflections Of A Silicon Valley CEO.
The book is a collection of thoughts on what went wrong along the way, why it happened and whether there is anything useful to be learned from the experiences. One of its strengths is its humour; it shows that with any success, it is necessary to be able to laugh at your failures. Monocle Radio’s Andrew Mueller spoke with Grossman about the book, how to avoid taking setbacks personally and whether you can truly learn from others’ shortcomings.
Why was it important to write a book about failure?
I wasn’t interested in writing a book that was like everybody else’s. It seemed to me that when I looked at business books, they fell into two categories. The first is how to sell, how to market and how to raise money. The second is biographies or autobiographies, which are all very similar: business starts in great excitement, adversity strikes, people get through the adversity and then there is enormous success. My experience in Silicon Valley has been that there are ups and downs in random sequence. It’s a wild roller-coaster ride. It doesn’t always end in success and there is always failure along the way.
Is there a formative failure that you reflect on in particular?
I have run six venture-funded companies and we [began] experiencing failure from moment one. I started one company [on] the same day that my wife went into labour with our first [child] and we were incredibly excited. I say ‘we’ because I had a business partner and then [that became] two business partners. Within six weeks, it looked like we were going to successfully raise money but, for reasons that I describe in one chapter of the book, it fell apart very quickly. We spent two years in the wilderness, metaphorically, trying to build something [without being] able to raise any money. Eventually, we broke through and started making progress. Those first two years were fun but were more about failure than anything else.
That’s how I entered the entrepreneurial arena. What I found is the condition of doing entrepreneurship. The truth is: companies struggle mightily, even the ones that are successful in the end. You can’t avoid the struggle.
One of the more bracing lessons of the book is that you can do everything right – work hard, assemble a great team – and still fail. What can we take away from that?
Just because things often fail doesn’t mean that they will always fail, and companies can find a way forward. There are opportunities to pivot and pivot again, and eventually, you find a way. One of the things that I have learned is that when things are going well, you should [also] expect them to not go so well. But when things are going badly, if you have a committed team that works hard and is adaptable, you’ll eventually start doing better. Having a realistic view of the challenge is very useful. Once I accepted it as a working condition, I was able to ride the ups and downs much better.
How important is not taking failure personally?
People often identify the outcome with themselves. So if the outcome is good, they feel better about themselves, and if the outcome is bad, they feel worse. But the truth is that you can’t control the outcome, you can control how hard you work. You can control whether you have a great team. You can control whether you’re approaching a problem in a thoughtful way. One of the lessons I have learned is: don’t think of the company as connected to yourself. You’re not your situation, you’re not the company.
At the risk of undermining the premise of your book, can we really learn anything from other people’s failures? Isn’t it human nature that we have to learn everything the hard way?
That’s an interesting question. It reminds me of something that my father told me when I was younger. He said that when I was little, he wanted to teach me all sorts of things. [But] somewhere along the line, he concluded that I needed to experience it all myself or I wouldn’t really understand it. I believe that we ultimately learn the most when we experience things ourselves. Having said that, I thought that it would be interesting to reveal what it feels like to be in this type of entrepreneurial context, failures and all.
Here we round up five ways to spend your money this week, including a new collaboration, some summer tailoring and more. First up, a brand with a knack for designing clothes that can be worn as easily behind the scenes as they can front of house. Enjoy.
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The outfitter for a timeless uniform: Service Works
After Tom Chudley made the move from working in kitchens to fashion, he realised that the staid uniforms in which he had spent years cooking had been researched for a brand idea.
Launched in 2020, Service Works makes organic cotton workwear that’s breathable for hot kitchens and able to withstand countless washes. Its checkered chef trousers, designed to conceal stains, pay playful homage to the traditional version, while the seersucker suit jacket recalls traditional waiters’ tailoring. “It was never about making fashion inspired by kitchens – it was about making better products for the people working in them,” says Chudley. “A uniform doesn’t need to look intimidating. Comfort, personality and practicality can all exist together.”
Seals of approval from the likes of London restaurants Impala, St John and Wildflowers are a compelling sales pitch, while Service Works also weaves its utilitarian aesthetic into everyday wear. “Good uniforms shouldn’t just look good on opening day,” says Chudley. “They should work for their lifespan.”
serviceworks.xyz
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Get your wardrobe autumn ready with Aaron Levine’s new Zara collection
Now for something of a reality check: autumn is coming. Here’s how you can prepare for it in style. Before starting his label in 2024, US menswear designer Aaron Levine created high-quality, ready-to-wear collections for multi-billion-dollar brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, reviving their creative fortunes in the process. His latest collaboration – and his third with Inditex’s Zara – is yet another success.
The autumn/winter collection references vintage workwear and preppy styles. Items such as leather loafers with Vibram soles, checked trench coats, wool-silk ties and waxed-effect jackets make up a fraction of a capsule that could quite easily fill your entire wardrobe. Whether you’re in need of extra base layers or new staples, it’s all effortlessly wearable.
zara.com; aaronlevineny.com
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Bring the Barbican into your living room
Unless you have access to a resident’s key, London’s Barbican Estate can feel impenetrable. Its light-sapping concrete and labyrinth-like pedestrian system might feel disorientating but its verdant balconies, tranquil pockets and modernist forms offer captivating spaces to live and work, especially for the design-minded. Now, thanks to a collaboration between the Barbican and London-based interiors brand Made, you can purchase sculptural interior pieces for your own home.
The new range includes smaller furnishings from table lamps, rugs and plates to pieces that can elevate an entire room, including chairs, sideboards and sofas. If you want to take a closer look, the wares will be displayed in and around the Barbican during the London Design Festival from 12 to 20 September.
made.com; barbican.org.uk
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Suit up in a linen ensemble from Mohawk General Store
Such-and-such’s wedding is just around the corner. You have worn the same seersucker number to your past two summer soirées and you don’t have long to come up with a new ensemble. So, what are you wearing? Here’s a tip: Mohawk General Store, Los Angeles’s best spot for menswear, has a peerless in-house line called Smock.
The shop’s founders, Bo and Kevin Carney, have a good eye for buying great pieces but Smock is their more hands-on approach to showing their keen sense of style. We particularly like the brand’s Sun Dried Linen suiting in ivory. There are other options in silk or wool gabardine, as well hues such as tobacco, navy, black and emerald green.
mohawkgeneralstore.com
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Look after your skin and nature with Sol de Ibiza’s suncare
A day at the beach calls for a sunscreen that protects both your skin and the sea. Sol de Ibiza was co-founded by Linda Maroli after she struggled to find a product free from harsh chemicals, sticky formulas and plastic packaging – the sort of thing that picky porpoises tend to dislike.
The result is a sunscreen made from organic oils and non-nano zinc oxide (a mineral, reef-safe powder) that’s produced in Spain and Italy and packaged using sustainable materials. It’s a smart companion for long days in the sun, wherever the final days of summer take you. Your skin, as well as those porpoises, will thank you.
soldeibiza.com
When it comes to beachwear, fashion brands are missing a trick. Their summer collections for men focus almost exclusively on eyewear and swim shorts, leaving the entire top half of the male anatomy uncovered. Frescobol Carioca from Rio de Janeiro and Ripa Ripa from Milan rely on linen shirts and regular T-shirts to fill the gap. Orlebar Brown and Vilebrequin both have a rashguard range but these handful of items – compared with literally hundreds of pairs of shorts – can kindly be described as an afterthought designed to be hidden under a wetsuit. It’s high time that they smarten up. Sun protection has become a hot trend and there’s clearly a gap in the market for beautifully designed beach tops made from breathable materials that suit a languid day on the sand.
I speak from personal experience. I’ve been covering up for the past few years and my default top is a rashguard made by US diving brand Scubapro. I acquired it to report a Monocle story on kayaking in Hong Kong and I’ve been wearing it in the seas around Asia ever since. I also have a few Uniqlo Dry-Ex sports T-shirts on rotation. Not ideal but better than my poor back getting another roasting on the boozy beaches of Bali or while snorkeling in Lombok. Now that I have two kids to look after on the sand, I spend most of my time in Thailand standing in as a sunshade while slathering SPF50 onto the tiny slithers of young skin that are not covered by a waterproof hat or rashguard (which they wear like most other children as a matter of course).
The “dad bod” is another factor. A friend and fellow father in Dubai has started wearing a rashguard for this reason – getting in beach shape is one of the first things to go out of the window in parenthood. Two Western swallows with flabby tummies may not make a summer but how about a few hundred million Chinese, Japanese and Korean men? Both of us live in the East and this has certainly helped normalise our beach style choices. Since moving to Asia in 2014, I have been amazed by the lengths to which people will go to avoid getting a tan, protecting their faces and elaborate hairstyles with sun umbrellas and wide-brimmed golf visors. South Koreans lead the way. Beach parasols sit on street crossings in Seoul so that pedestrians waiting for traffic lights to change can stand in the shade. I once did a story about a surf town called Yangyang and the tiny amount of skin on display among the novice longboarders would make a Saudi Arabian beach look utterly debauched by comparison.
Some parts of the world will take more convincing than others – and there will be holdouts. I was recently back in Wales and the men in my hometown, Swansea, need little excuse to walk around with their tops off. But give it time. Fashion trends increasingly flow from east to west and this particular one taps into several major global shifts, including wellness and sustainability. Sunscreen is a smart choice for exposed skin but reusable hats, sleeves and rashguards are even better for our bodies and for the planet. They may even work out cheaper too, especially when factoring in all the lotion-damaged linen shirts and T-shirts hanging in wardrobes around the world.
Don’t get me wrong. Youngsters heading to the beach this summer can still flaunt their gym-sculpted torsos and reckless disregard for their skin health. Just spare a thought – and some fabric – for the rest of us.
James Chambers is Monocle’s Asia editor, based in Bangkok. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
In the past few days, the US president, Donald Trump, has turned his curious loathing for his country’s allies towards South Korea. He has complained that the nation free-rides on the US military presence on the peninsula and did not participate in the Iran war. He has also talked up his rapport with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. To date, Trump has focused his anti-ally ire on Western partners such as Canada and Denmark; this turn towards Asian allies is new.
It’s also risky. The US has fewer allies in East Asia than in Europe and faces higher stakes there. China is a far greater challenger to US power than Russia, which means that Asian allies are much more important than European ones. While Europe has the combined weight to resist Russian regional ambitions, Asian partners do not have the same power regarding China nor are they effectively co-ordinated through a multilateral body such as Nato.
More broadly, a decade into the Trump era, his entrenched loathing for US allies and comfort – even glee – while tearing down long-standing US relationships is still rather a mystery. There appears to be no strategic rationale. The reasoning seems nothing more than petulance.
Trump has long complained that allies take advantage of US security guarantees. His claims began as early as the 1980s when he was a New York businessman. He appears to see US alliances as protection rackets rather than embodiments of international liberal solidarity. Hence his constant refrain that allies “rip off” the US and his demand for cash payments – he says that he has just asked South Korea for $10bn (€8.6bn).
The US president has, to be fair, identified a genuine issue. Many allies, especially in Europe, underspent on defence after the Cold War (a complaint also raised by American secretaries of defence for the past three decades). Perhaps a blunt force such as Trump was necessary to compel change – Europe, for example, has the wealth and industrial base to fully support Ukraine in its war against Russia.
But South Korea’s defence spending is higher than most US allies: 2.6 per cent of GDP and trending upwards. It has a large army to defend itself against its northern neighbours and a modern, if small, air force and navy. Most of its American assistance is logistics, intelligence and command-and-control. And the East Asian nation does pay. The terms of the agreement that allows the US to have a presence in South Korea means that Seoul gives about $1bn (€860m) annually – a number that has been rising for years.
Trump’s complaints miss the obvious value of US alliances. In South Korea, the pact gives the US access to bases on the peninsula where the Americans can do mostly what they want. The Iran war has illustrated the importance of such friendly bases. After Iran bombed US sustainment sites in the Gulf early in the war, American ships could no longer use the sites and are now accruing a backlog of maintenance needs. Conditions on some ships have become so bad that crew members’ families have complained to Congress.
This lesson applies more broadly to US partnerships elsewhere. Canada maintains early-warning radar for North America to detect missile launches across the Arctic. Okinawa in Japan houses a huge American presence without which the US cannot contest rising Chinese naval power.
The bigger takeaway from all this is an unmoored US grand strategy. Since 1940, the US broadly pursued an internationalist posture of alignment with fellow liberal democracies against the world’s various tyrannies. Strains were always present but the notion that the US would defect to the other side was never entertained. Yet today, Trump seemingly prefers North Korea to South; Russia to Ukraine.
If Trump were not so chaotic and undisciplined, this would be a revolution in US foreign policy. But it probably is not. Although American administrations are required to produce a formal statement of their national security strategy – and the White House released one last year – it has been a useless guide to Trump’s actions. Since its release last December, US foreign-policy behaviour has rarely conformed to it. While it speaks of restraint and caution, Trump has recklessly used force.
What “strategy” there is appears to turn on Trump’s pique. Rather than drop both literal and verbal bombs, the US president should take note from his predecessors: alliances are a force multiplier. The US is lilting and Trump has neither the discipline nor desire to steady the ship.
Robert E Kelly is a professor of political science at Pusan National University.
Don’t sit next to me at dinner. It’s not that my table manners are that bad – it’s just that one minute you will generously be telling me some interesting fact about your life, then the next I will be suggesting that you should tell this story to Monocle’s readers. Perhaps pen a few hundred words or jump on Monocle Radio.
It’s a warning that I offer to my team at Monocle too. Earlier this year, when we were in Shanghai for our Entrepreneurs Live conference, I was able to spend time with our Asia editor, James Chambers. He happened to mention that he and his wife had decided to home-school their two children; more than that, they were “unschooling” them, letting their offspring help choose what they wanted to do and learn every day. James explained that it was going well – his children are inquisitive and already, instinctively, excelling in languages and mathematics (James’s wife is Chinese and they are based in Bangkok, so there are lots of linguistic opportunities).
So, of course, when we started planning this issue themed around knowledge, lifelong learning and education, James found himself swiftly commissioned to write an essay about the experience and how we should all question how children are taught. His is just one of many fascinating looks at education over the following pages but I am delighted that he has told you his story – one that challenges us all to question how we should teach young people.
And we definitely need some new thinking because AI is set to undermine many of the old certainties about work and life, forcing governments to scrub down their national curriculums as they think how to help young people gain skills that won’t be erased by machine learning. One of the big shifts that we are seeing is a re-embracing of the value of learning a manual trade, gaining craft skills. That’s why for this issue we also set out to find “masters and apprentices” in everything from shoemaking to boatbuilding to hear about the growing allure of making and building with your hands. I was struck by how, in Australia, an advertisement for a plumbing apprenticeship received 300 applications and also by the relationships between all these teachers and students. One skilled educator can reorientate a life.
I was diligent but slightly plodding at school and only found my footing once I reached university, where I could follow my own path more and teach myself. So, while I did all the prescribed reading for my course, I also lost myself in books about art and design, took myself to the theatre and to see arthouse films and started writing for the university paper. When I began looking for work, I knew that I had to find a way into journalism and somehow landed an internship at Time Out in London. There, I met Tony Elliott, the title’s founder, who was probably the first person to see in this awkward but keen young man someone who might be worth employing – and a long career in journalism commenced. Often, that’s all anyone needs: some mentoring, a few words that help focus a young mind. That’s why we have asked 25 successful people to tell us about the one life lesson that they most cherish; the one piece of advice that provided a ticket to a different future.
Among the answers are numerous nuggets of inspiring wisdom. Gildo Zegna, of the famous fashion house, says that he has been guided by his grandfather’s advice to “do what’s right, not what’s convenient”. Automotive CEO Klaus Zellmer urges you to “be bold enough to step into unfamiliar territory”. I also like architect Amanda Levete’s belief that you should “hold onto your passion. You can figure out the rest as you go.” Perhaps it resonates because I think that this has been my plan too.
I hope that you enjoy our September offering – and learn a few things along the way. And if you would like to send me a report card, perhaps even a gold star, you can always find me at at@monocle.com. Here’s to staying inquisitive.
Good advice is like gold dust: rare, hard to find and all the more precious for its scarcity. Hear the right words at the right time and they could alter the course of your life for the better. We all have stories of transformative nuggets of wise counsel received at pivotal moments of our careers – whether from strangers, family members or the pages of a book picked up by chance in a shop that we walked into on a whim.
But often what inspires us most is the hard-earned knowledge of those who came before us and used their passions to power their success. Whether you’re considering how to start your career or weighing up a radical pivot, we have collated some words of wisdom that might come in handy. Here, 25 leaders from all walks of life share what has helped them most and what they would like to pass on.
Some speak of the importance of building a trusted support network, while others cite specific role models to emulate. But most agree with Los Angeles-based Thai architect Kulapat Yantrasast, who tells Monocle that it’s crucial to constantly expose ourselves to ideas that differ from our own. “When we stop learning,” he says, “we stop living.” Read on for more pieces of gold dust.
1.
Yotam Ottolenghi
Chef and restaurateur
“Having a community around you is the ultimate source of support. It will help you to achieve whatever you seek. Trust and empower people, and remind them how good they are every day. A good education is primarily about building confidence; the rest hardly matters. In my experience, confidence has a lot to do with whatever is holding you back. You can learn everything else along the way. Education isn’t about setting impossible standards, which can be very demoralising. That doesn’t help anyone in the long run. And the skill that we all should have? Knowing how to make a really good tomato sauce.”
Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli-born restaurateur and the chef-patron of the Ottolenghi Group. His new book, ‘Simple Too’, is published in September.
2.
Tim Marshall
Journalist
“The best advice that I have ever received is that if you want to change the world, change yourself. Also, ‘Duck!’”
Tim Marshall is a journalist and the author of several books, including ‘Prisoners of Geography’.
3.
Masamichi Katayama
Interior designer
“Above all, you must enjoy what you do. Everything that you put into your work will ultimately come back to you. The secret to my success is that I found what I truly wanted to do and chose it as my work. I can continue doing it without growing tired of it. The best advice that I have ever received is, ‘If you want to create bigger ripples, throw the largest stone that you can into the very centre of the pond.’”
Masamichi Katayama is the founder and principal of Tokyo-based interior-design firm Wonderwall.
4.
Sarah Andelman
Creative consultant
“One thing that I wish I knew when I was younger? Practise sport. And my secret to success is to work relentlessly.”
Sarah Andelman is the founder of creative consulting company Just an Idea.
5.
Neville Brody
Graphic designer
“I wish that I had known earlier that trying and failing are vital steps towards greater knowledge and experience. The worst advice that I have ever received was to give up struggling as a designer and go into advertising instead. The key to a good education is to confront your own limitations and, with support, exploring new and unfamiliar ways of looking, thinking and responding. That creates skilled, independent minds. If the goal is to develop familiar and clichéd ways of thinking, the result is standardised minds. Trust yourself. You’re not there for the institution.”
Neville Brody is a professor of visual communication at the Royal College of Art in London.
6.
Hanna Stjärne
Journalist and media executive
“When you face a difficult decision, leave it until the next morning. Most things can wait and the solution will be more evident after a good night’s sleep. Also, value the success of your team and your colleagues more than your own.”
Hanna Stjärne is the executive director of the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm.
7.
Giuseppe Sala
Mayor
“The worst advice that I have ever received was not to enter politics because nothing would ever change. It’s important to be persistent. Believe in what you do and build a solid base on which your vision can become a reality.”
Giuseppe Sala is the mayor of Milan.
8.
Stefano Rabolli Pansera
Architect and curator
“The poems of [US modernist poet] Wallace Stevens taught me the most valuable life lesson that I have ever learnt: not to attempt to impose an order upon reality but to accept complexity and to inhabit it. Another important lesson is ‘to change nothing so that everything is different’ – a quotation from film director Jean-Luc Godard. Transformation isn’t about altering reality but about changing the way in which we perceive it. And the worst advice? To buy NFTs. Thankfully, I never followed it.”
Stefano Rabolli Pansera is the founding director of contemporary-art spaces Khao Yai Art Forest and Bangkok Kunsthalle in Thailand.
9.
Ruth Rogers
Chef
“Never hold a party without a margarita. And if I could live my life again, I would probably learn how to play the banjo. I have recently been listening to actor and musician Steve Martin play the instrument and he has inspired me. Meanwhile, one thing that I wish I knew when I was younger is that you don’t have to answer questions right away. You can say that you will think about it.”
Ruth Rogers is an American-born British chef and the founder of The River Café.
10.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied
Novelist
“A skill that everyone should have is the ability to change their minds. And we should also remember that no matter how awful or brilliant a particular experience is, it won’t last for ever. Time will pass.”
Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese diaspora writer and the author of literary thriller ‘At Sea’.
11.
Kim Ghattas
Journalist
“Perhaps the least helpful piece of advice that I have received is that I would never succeed as a journalist or make a living from it. It’s a good thing that I didn’t listen. Nothing is as definite or as final as you might think. When I was younger, I sometimes felt overwhelmed by the need for every choice or decision to be perfect. But I have learnt that you can always make amends or adjust course. I grew up during Lebanon’s civil war so I missed a lot of school. But reading avidly gave me a deep sense of curiosity about the world, which has been key to setting me up for success. People should know more than one language – it opens up your mind, your horizons and your heart. The most valuable lesson that I have learnt? It sounds like a cliché but I have come to believe that setbacks always have a reason. Eventually, they lead to something better if you learn from them and focus on creating your own luck.”
Kim Ghattas is a Beirut-based journalist and the author of ‘Black Wave’, about the origins of the Saudi-Iran conflict. Her forthcoming book, ‘The Best Kind of American’, is published in October.
12.
Fareed Zakaria
TV anchor
“Money, fame and career success aren’t the most important guiding forces in my life. Instead, it’s time. That’s what is most valuable to me and I work hard to manage it carefully and thoughtfully. The best lesson that I have learnt is a simple one and it’s still my golden rule: be nice and forgiving. In other words, give people a second chance. It’s good for the world but even better for you. It means that you don’t live with tension bottled up within you. Let it go.”
Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s weekly international-affairs programme ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS’.
13.
Peter Saville
Art director
“The best advice that I have ever received was from [former Pentagram design director] John McConnell. He told me, ‘The solution is the problem.’”
Peter Saville is a London-based graphic designer and art director.
14.
Benjamin Vuchot
Hotel group CEO
“Everyone should have the abilities to quieten their mind through daily meditation and to listen properly. In a fast-paced world, the best connection often begins with understanding what is not said, picking up on unspoken details and responding with empathy. I don’t think that there’s one great secret to success but I have always believed in staying close to people and to the details. True achievement is never a solo endeavour. Beekeeping is a hobby of mine; it has taught me to rely on a collective unity, where every individual’s contribution is vital to the harmony of the whole. The most interesting careers rarely follow straight lines. Some of my most valuable lessons have come from outside the boardroom – from interacting with customers on the shop floor, from moving countries and from learning about different cultures.”
Benjamin Vuchot is the CEO of Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels Limited, the parent company of The Peninsula.
15.
Gildo Zegna
Fashion executive
“When you’re young, you believe that everything has to happen quickly. But building a group that’s meant to last – and the team to drive it – is like being part of a family. It takes consistency, focus and a long-term vision. There’s a lot of value in patience too. When it comes to leadership, hard skills aren’t enough. You also need soft skills, so cultivate both. The classroom teaches you some things; life teaches you the rest. Do what’s right, not what is convenient. This is what my father and grandfather taught me, what I have taught my sons and what I will teach my grandchildren.”
Gildo Zegna is the CEO-turned-chair of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group.
16.
Andrea Trimarchi
Designer
“Uncertainty is an essential part of learning. The key to a good education isn’t a pyramidical structure. Learning should be as horizontal as possible. Stay curious and ask better questions. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ a lot of times.”
Andrea Trimarchi is a co-founder of Italian design studio Formafantasma.
17.
Klaus Zellmer
Automotive CEO
“Several of the defining steps in my career came through roles, projects or challenges that I hadn’t anticipated and initially might not have considered myself fully prepared for. There’s value in knowing your strengths and building on them. But if that becomes an excuse to remain in your comfort zone, it can limit both personal potential and organisational progress. For me, growth has often begun when I said ‘yes’ to something unfamiliar. Adaptability isn’t just about individual capability. It requires the ability to nurture followers who understand the need for change, trust the direction that you set and contribute their own energy and expertise. That’s how a group becomes a team and a team becomes one that wins. If I could share one secret to success, it would be to expand your role before someone else expands it for you – and be bold enough to step into unfamiliar territory.”
Klaus Zellmer is the CEO of Czech carmaker Škoda Auto.
18.
Tara Bernerd
Interior architect
“The moment when you think that you’ve learnt everything is the moment when you stop growing. So practise the art of staying interested. The world is full of extraordinary people, places and ideas, and I have found that curiosity has opened more doors than any grand plan ever could. So much of our work is about our relationships and the people we meet.”
Tara Bernerd is a UK-based designer and the founder of interior-architecture practice Tara Bernerd & Partners.
19.
Kulapat Yantrasast
Architect and designer
“The key to a great education is to be around curious minds that don’t necessarily agree with you. When we stop learning, we stop living.”
Kulapat Yantrasast is a Thai architect and a co-founder of Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary design practice Why Architecture.
20.
Ben Smith
Airline executive
“One thing that you learn as you grow older is that life goes by so quickly. You can choose to spend your time with a lot of people but bear in mind that you won’t ever get any of those days back. So make sure that you spend them with the ones who you truly care about and those who genuinely care about you. Also, try to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Not everyone is comfortable with that but I am.”
Ben Smith is the CEO of Air France-KLM.
21.
Amanda Levete
Architect
“One day you realise that you can learn as much from your younger self as you can from decades of experience. Hold on to your passion. You can figure out the rest as you go.”
Amanda Levete is a British architect and the founder of London-based studio AL_A.
22.
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Author
“The worst advice is to just be yourself. That is well-meaning but mistaken. Everyone can benefit by learning from and emulating what is excellent in others, often by reading about lives and perspectives other than their own. The best advice that I have received came from my father. He told me to read as much and as widely as possible while I was young because in adulthood, no matter your intentions or plans, life gets in the way. Though I’m now a writer and it’s part of my job to read, I see just how right he was and I’m grateful for those early years. Everyone should develop the ability to listen and not just be quiet until it’s their turn to speak. This is harder than it seems.”
Thomas Chatterton Williams is an American cultural critic and writer.
23.
Alain de Botton
Philosopher and author
“Every choice is painful. The only kinds of success that are worth measuring are serenity and the absence of anxiety.”
Alain de Botton is a Swiss-born writer and the founder of The School of Life.
24.
Roksanda Ilinčić
Fashion designer
“Learning is a lifelong conversation. Art, travel, literature, architecture and human encounters all become teachers if we are attentive. I wish that I had known when I was younger that uncertainty isn’t something to fear. It is often where imagination begins and where the most meaningful work takes shape.”
Roksanda Ilinčić is a Serbian-born fashion designer and the founder of label Roksanda.
25.
Arthur Person
Fashion executive
“Too often, France’s elite business and engineering schools, its grandes écoles, teach their students how not to listen to their own instincts and to fold themselves into narrow career templates. But the key to a good education is letting a child take an interest and open up. It’s about constantly widening the field of what’s possible for them, whether through concerts, exhibitions or discoveries – all with a real sense of pleasure. It should be an ongoing dialogue, involving them in every decision that concerns them.”
Arthur Person is the head of Parisian menswear label Octobre Éditions.
Quotes gathered by: James Chambers, Grace Charlton, Julia Jenne, Rory Jones, Tomos Lewis, Ed Stocker
Medicine, law and engineering have long been the holy trinity of Singaporeans’ career aspirations. But the city-state’s politicians hope that this won’t be the case for much longer. “The country would like students to have a broader definition of success,” says Vincent Chua, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Years of rote learning and high-pressure exams have laid the foundations for growth here but, as the economy evolves, education is refocusing on ways to foster entrepreneurship, risk-taking and resilience. So, while the world is worrying about engineering and STEM subjects, Singapore is building design schools and encouraging the study of the arts.
“In an industrial economy, there’s only one peak, which is the academic peak,” says Chua. “Going forward, we want to have multiple peaks: a mountain range where different people can excel in their respective areas.”
One peak has already been conquered. NUS, which sits at the apex of a world-leading education system, is the highest Asian institution in the 2027 QS World University Rankings. In 2022, Singapore’s students came top in mathematics, reading and science in the OECD’s prestigious Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) rankings. The following year, they finished first in the International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for the third time in a row. Alongside academic success has come government-level recognition of the fact that the old, hard-nosed education system undervalued the importance of creative and technical skills. “The old model has its limitations. It gets you far but it doesn’t always bring you to the top of the innovation chain,” says Chua.
When Singapore gained independence from Malaysia in 1965, the newly sovereign nation, which had no natural resources and little physical space, made education a priority. “There are two factors in the formative influences of a young man or young woman’s life: one is the home; the other is the school,” Lee Kuan Yew, the city-state’s founding prime minister, once declared. “We cannot do very much about the home but we can do something about the school.”
In 1979, the country rolled out the New Education System, which divided pupils based on academic ability. The goal was to build an elite workforce that would drive economic growth and attract foreign investment. It worked. Singapore’s economy grew by an average of 9 per cent annually in the first 25 years following independence, transforming what was little more than a poor fishing port into one of the world’s pre-eminent financial centres.
In 2019 the state announced that secondary-school streaming, a key facet of the New Education System, would be abolished. Signalling a change of focus, the Primary School Leaving Examination for 12-year-olds overhauled its scoring system to reduce grade comparisons in 2021. Its total numerical score was swapped for a rubric assigning “achievement levels” for individual subjects.
Then, in 2024, Singapore’s prime minister, Lawrence Wong, announced that the Gifted Education Programme – a learning path designed to nurture high-ability students – would be discontinued after 42 years amid concerns about elitism and judging children’s potential too early. It is expected to end in 2027. “It’s no longer just about technical competence,” says Chua. “You now need to be future-ready and global-ready too. That means being more creative and adaptable.” The challenges of today’s workforce, he suggests, aren’t the same as those faced by the successful students of the past.
Such moves represent a shift away from a model geared solely for academic achievement towards one that encompasses broader attitudes to citizenship, resilience and creativity. During a speech to parliament last September, Wong acknowledged the need to “reduce the stakes of single exams”, “broaden definitions of success” and “give every child the chance to discover and develop their strengths – be it in languages, science, sports, art or technical skills”.
A significant milestone in this new mission was the establishment of the University of the Arts Singapore (UAS), a state-supported private institution. Formed from an alliance between Lasalle College of the Arts and Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Nafa), it welcomed its first students in 2024. Besides offering an expanded range of programmes including fine art, design and performing arts, UAS now validates, confers and awards its own degrees. This represents a pivot away from Lasalle and Nafa’s long-standing degree partnerships with universities such as London’s Goldsmiths and Royal College of Music.
“We always aspired to become a fully fledged university and slowly built the capacity to run our own degree programmes,” says UAS’s deputy vice-chancellor, Venka Purushothaman. The founding of UAS was a response to rising demand for arts-based courses; between 2024 and 2026, undergraduate applications to Lasalle soared by 56 per cent. “People have started to realise that the arts aren’t peripheral to the economy,” says Purushothaman. “We shouldn’t accept a false dichotomy between the arts and the sciences.”
NUS has taken a similarly multidisciplinary approach. It has set up two new institutions: the College of Humanities and Sciences, and the College of Design and Engineering. The latter’s core curriculum states that it seeks to develop students with the critical skills to “meet the needs of a rapidly evolving and complex world”. Purushothaman, meanwhile, says that he is hoping to create a new “venture centre” for students at UAS. “Part of being an artist is fundamentally entrepreneurial,” he says. “We want to help our students to better articulate their value proposition for a changing world.”
Entrepreneurialism, which most Singaporeans previously saw as too risky, is also booming, supported by the city-state’s growing network of venture capital firms and accelerators. Singapore has the highest concentration of technology entrepreneurs in the region, says Caela Tanjangco, the head of Asia for New York-based non-profit Endeavor Catalyst, which set up its fifth global hub here in July. “To support the best founders from around the world, we need to be here.”
Mili Kale can attest to the strength of the nation’s startup scene. Despite not having a background in finance, the co-founder of Moom Health, which makes natural supplements for women, raised S$4.7m (€3.2m) across two funding rounds in order to expand her operation overseas. “Everyone says Singapore is small but the biggest benefit of [it] being small is that you can get a response,” Kale tells Monocle. “You can find the connections you need.”
A vital catalyst for such connections is NUS’s Overseas Colleges (NOC) programme, which finds internships for Singaporean students at start-ups in places such as Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, and has been running for 24 years. In that time, more than 1,200 start-ups, including three unicorns, have been founded by NOC alumni.
Singapore’s craft scene is finding fresh expressions too. In 2019, Matthias Yong, the son of one of the city’s few metalworkers, founded Baremetalco, which makes metal sculptures, furniture and accessories for clients including Adidas and the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Local makers can’t compete with China in terms of price; as a result, the likes of Yong and fine-jewellery brand State Property focus instead on artistry and quality.
The latter company’s founders, Afzal Imram and Ruiyin Lin, have carved out a niche by leaning into an eclectic mix of influences, from architecture to literature. State Property’s The Voyager collection, for example, drew inspiration from Carl Sagan’s gold-plated phonograph records that were attached to Nasa’s Voyager spacecrafts. Unlike legacy maisons with centuries of heritage, Imram and Lin have had the latitude to forge their own path. “There are no traditions or conventions to hold us down,” says Lin.
Timber specialist Ruben Chong has a similar strategy. What began as a playful exercise in sanding the teak parquet floors of his parents’ home soon matured into Calvary Carpentry. Founded in 2011, Chong’s woodworking business now employs more than 50 people. His burgeoning portfolio includes the 3.5km Marina Bay Sands boardwalk, the School of the Arts concert hall and wooden structures for Amanpuri’s luxury resort in Phuket, Thailand. Chong has also invented EZ-Rail, a proprietary clip-fastening system for wooden decking, and is one of the pioneers behind Onewood, a Singapore-made homogeneous reconstituted timber that is intended to help plug the gap amid a global hardwood shortage.
Singaporean technological innovation also abounds and the benefits are being felt around the world. The titanium fan blades that propel the Trent aero engines of the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner are manufactured at Rolls-Royce’s Seletar Campus in northeastern Singapore; UK-based fintech company Wise’s multi-currency debit card was designed here; and eyewear brand EssilorLuxottica’s Essilor Stellest Lens, which slows down myopia in children, was conceptualised in the firm’s Singaporean innovation centre. Then, of course, there’s Dyson.
Founded in 1991, the British electronics company moved its global headquarters from the UK to Singapore in 2019. Though the media attributed this to the city-state’s low taxes, the relocation wouldn’t have been possible without the presence here of a deep talent pool. “Singaporeans instinctively think globally and there is an openness to constant learning,” says John Churchill, Dyson’s chief technology officer. “There are excellent universities, which we work closely with, and a large number of engineers and scientists, as well as people of many nationalities and backgrounds.”
The city-state has become the command post for some of the firm’s biggest recent breakthroughs. The Hyperdymium 140k, Dyson’s smallest and fastest motor, was designed here; it powers the PencilVac, the world’s slimmest cordless vacuum.
Hunn Wai is a co-founder of Singapore- and Milan-based creative studio Lanzavecchia + Wai, and an adjunct associate professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He has had a front-row seat to his country’s creative and technological evolution. “Back in the day, Singapore was more of an auxiliary design market. When I graduated in 2005, we were supposed to work for companies such as Philips and Sony Ericsson – not designing the main product but working on the accessories,” he tells Monocle. “We have moved beyond that. We are now becoming self-made people, moving fast, prototyping and iterating.”
Having taught at SUTD for eight years and incubated young designers as the curator for DesignSingapore Council’s award-winning exhibition at Milan Design Week, Prototype Island, Wai sees how government reforms have mirrored a change in mindset. “Everyone today, by default, is well educated and these young people now have the space to dream,” he says. “My hope is that they will continue to grow in confidence and contribute original ideas to the world.”
Singaporean education at a glance:
- Ranked first place in the 2025 Global Talent Competitive Index
- Top for maths, science and reading in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment ranking
- First in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study
- Singaporean maths textbooks have been licensed to more than 60 countries
- Singapore’s literacy rate (aged 15 and over) is 98.6 per cent
- Nine in 10 literate residents under the age of 45 can read two or more languages
Three other smart cities
São Paulo
Higher-education hub
São Paulo is Brazil’s academic hub, with 22 universities and 92 degree-granting institutions. The country’s public universities charge no tuition fees. The Universidade de São Paulo frequently tops rankings of Latin American universities and it contributes significantly to a total student population of more than 500,000.
Boston
Best for biotech
Known for its proximity to world-beating research universities such as Harvard and MIT, Boston is also arguably the world’s biotech capital. The Kendall Square neighbourhood is home to several leading companies including Moderna and Biogen. More than 143,000 people work in the sector, the largest of any US city.
Warsaw
Best for learning a trade
Warsaw is Central Europe’s largest construction and logistics zone, partly thanks to Poland’s well-established two-track educational infrastructure (known as the Stage I and II schools). Students split their time between technical classrooms and paid apprenticeship schemes, allowing them to earn while also gaining on-site experience. Employers who take on vocational apprentices receive subsidies of up to €3,000 per worker if they train students in occupations deemed crucial by the state.
