The Monocle Minute

Singapore’s biannual airshow got off to a blazing start this week when a South Korean air force jet belonging to the Black Eagles demonstration group skidded off the runway and then burst into flames. The opening-day crash caused an unexpected spectacle for the assembled military personnel and representatives from more than 1,000 companies taking part in Asia’s largest airshow. Lockheed Martin’s F-35B fighter jet – with its short take-off and vertical landing capability – is one much-anticipated regional debut. Meanwhile Airbus is showing off its latest twin-engine A350-1000 to regional airlines bosses who are planning for a threefold increase in passenger traffic over the next two decades. This year’s edition is also welcoming smaller start-ups for the first time. A group of about 70 companies, working in fields such as robotics and artificial intelligence, are lining up alongside aerospace-industry heavyweights, hoping that their technological innovations will take flight.

’Tis the season for art in Mexico City, with two fairs underway in the capital featuring the contemporary world’s finest. Zona Maco, which opened yesterday, is the more established player. Then there’s Material – now in its fifth year and opening today – which has aimed to nurture upcoming spaces and be more affordable to galleries. “It’s our biggest edition; we have 20 more galleries than last year and the architecture – this temporary structure inside a jai alai court – is something I’ve never seen before in a fair,” says co-founder Brett Schultz, referring to Material’s build-out at the art deco Frontón México. Material may have started with young galleries but it’s also growing up with them.

This week several top menswear designers have been showing their wares on the runways of New York, including Todd Snyder, Raf Simons and Tom Ford. Now it’s time for the fairer sex: women’s fashion week begins today. Unsurprisingly there will be a host of women’s-only shows to look out for, including Jason Wu, Alexander Wang and Mansur Gavriel (the accessories label that recently branched out into clothing). But the biggest shows of the week are a couple of co-ed extravaganzas from Calvin Klein (now helmed by Raf Simons) and Bottega Veneta, the Italian luxury label that has left Milan for New York this season in order to celebrate the opening of its new Manhattan flagship.

The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, starting tomorrow, was supposed to be a showcase for the Shitamachi Bobsleigh Project (SBP). Formed in 2011, this group of more than 100 small workshops and factories in Tokyo’s Ota ward signed a deal to make handcrafted bobsleds, free of charge, for Jamaica’s Olympians. The Caribbean nation’s two-woman team had qualified for the Games on an earlier version of the SBP bobsled. But this week Jamaican officials called with bad news: the team has decided to race with a different supplier. SBP’s hopes of raising its brand profile have taken a tumble and its representative has even hinted at legal recourse. Despite this, the Japanese craftsmen should take inspiration from the Jamaican bobsledders of Cool Runnings fame, who shot to stardom in Calgary in 1988, and got back on their feet – after all, the next Olympics in Beijing is only four years away.

Alex Bec is the co-founder of the HudsonBec Group, a company which began in 2007 with a website called ‘It’s Nice That’. The mission of the website was, and still is, to “enable creativity to thrive” and it does this by giving exposure to great artists, designers and illustrators all over the world. The brand now encompasses a printed biannual magazine and an events programme – and has a loyal fanbase. Alex told us about the brand’s humble beginnings and how it has grown since then.

This vivacious Italian city, which has been booming since the 1950s, is a hive of activity. Monocle's travel guide will navigate you through the very best it has to offer, from rustic lunch spots to Europe's finest artwork.