The Monocle Minute

Today marks the opening of the 2016 Cannes Yacht Festival, the first of three autumn get-togethers for the luxury-yacht industry (Genoa and Monaco will follow later this month). Like all luxury goods, boats – from sleek runabouts to giant superyachts – are having a tough time right now as sales are hit by sluggish emerging markets, China’s anti-corruption legislation and sanctions in Russia. Nonetheless, shipyards and industry commentators will find reasons to look on the bright side throughout the duration of the six-day event under the French Riviera sun. Worldwide premieres abound in Cannes this week and among almost 600 boats showcased we’ll be eyeing up two new yachts from Italian shipyards: the nifty Sea Top 13.90 from Blu Martin and the Oceanic GT 76 from Rome-based Canados.

The vast halls of Paris’s Maison & Objet are a haven of variety – from streamlined Danish chairs to dubious glass chandeliers – and as such attract a range of buyers from many different industries: even, it seems, beyond the realm of design and homeware. After the fair introduced a fashion division last year, owners of clothing boutiques are increasingly represented. Italian fashion brand B’Sbee has come to Maison & Objet to debut its home range – with throws and cushions made from the same fabric as its flowing, travel-inspired unisex shirts and trousers – and fashion buyers from the US, the UK and Japan can’t stay away. “For me homeware and clothes follow the same philosophy,” says Maurizio Pellegrini, founder and designer of B’Sbee. “The future of shops is in lifestyle: combining homeware and clothes is the natural direction.”

Turkey’s incursion into Syria has dominated headlines coming out of the country but the purge of civil society since its failed coup is not over. Ostensibly about hunting down supporters of the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, the purge has extended to the press and by the latest count about 150 journalists are in prison awaiting trial. Meanwhile, cases against journalists from before the coup – including writer Ahmet Altan (pictured), a former guest on Monocle 24’s Meet The Writers – are ongoing against a backdrop of extended detentions and travel bans in the state of emergency. Turkey’s government is undeterred by the outcry of international observers and yet this is exactly the moment when accountability is vital. Once again Turkish journalists are having to defend the essence of what they do.

Starting tomorrow São Paulo will play host to the largest exhibition in the southern hemisphere: the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo is a contemporary-art fair that draws more than 450,000 visitors every edition. Themed around the concept of uncertainty, the biennal is curated by Jochen Volz, Gabi Ngcobo, Júlia Rebouças, Lars Bang Larsen and Sofía Olascoaga and will feature about 340 works by 81 artists and collectives. Brazilian artist Jorge Menna Barreto’s “Restauro”, a work of art that functions as a plant-based and sustainable restaurant inside the Oscar Niemeyer-designed Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion – where the exhibition will be held until 11 December – will be one of the highlights. “Ever since it was founded, Bienal de São Paulo has played a decisive role in the history of Brazilian art,” says Luis Terepins, president of the Fundação Bienal. “With the debates it has provoked and the influences it has spread and absorbed, it has been one of the great propelling forces behind the work produced by the nation’s artists.”

Robert Bound is joined by Broadcast magazine’s news editor Peter White to look ahead at the trends and discuss the regions that are doing interesting things in television.

The Czech town of Zlín was transformed by a visionary shoemaker who wanted to house his workers in a garden city. We put our best foot forward to explore his functionalist masterpiece.