Issues

Raise a glass to the year ahead with our 12 wines of Christmas

Monocle’s wine expert Chandra Kurt has a useful skill: she can pick a wine for almost any occasion. With the festive season approaching, she shares a selection fit for any special gathering.

1.
The Trouble with Dreams 2021
Sugrue South Downs

British fizz from West Sussex. A blend of chardonnay and pinot noir with a chalky acidity and a fruity expression of Granny Smith apples, gooseberries and lime.

2.
Rosé Réserve Brut 2015
Sekthaus Raumland

This is Germany’s sparkling star. A blend of pinot noir and pinot blanc grapes seduces with freshness, juiciness and delicate fruitiness. A truly great alternative to champagne.

3.
Rosamati 2024
Fattoria Le Pupille

Pure syrah vinified as a rosé from a small plot in Maremma, Tuscany. Delicate, fresh and ideal with lobster or shellfish.

4.
Jaspis Unterirdisch
Weingut Ziereisen

A clay bottle containing one of Germany’s best orange wines – a pure gutedel (called chasselas in France) with enough skin contact to leave a blood-orange hue. Deep, structured and great with roast turkey.

5.
Grattamacco 2022
Grattamacco

The 40th vintage of this Maremma red is ideal for beef wellington or a complex stew. A blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and sangiovese with notes of black fruit.

6.
Savigny-lès-Beaune 2023
Domaine Chanterêves

A new-style burgundy by Frenchman Guillaume Bott and Japan-born Tomoko Kuriyama. Hard to get but well worth it.

7.
Arrocal Village 2023
Bodegas Arrocal

The best vintage of this pure tempranillo is marked by delicate tannins and an elegant structure that’s great with red meat.

8.
Cadran Blanc 2012
Château Monestier La Tour

This white bergerac shows a beautiful balance between fruit and structure with a hint of salt. A juicy, refreshing blend of sauvignon blanc, sémillon and muscadelle.

9.
Grüner Veltliner Smaragd 2023
Domäne Wachau

Organic and sustainable, this Grüner veltliner is full of tension and energy, with aromas of ginger and lime. Serve chilled with fish or vegetable dishes.

10.
Château de Vinzel 2024, Grand Cru
Château de Vinzel

Pure chasselas. Notes of honey, white flowers and apple seduce the nose and palate. Great with raclette or fondue.

11.
Cockburn’s 2019 LBV
Cockburn’s

Dense and full-bodied port with fruity notes of black cherries, raisin compôte and blackberries. Perfect with chocolate.

12.
Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey 2022
Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey

This blend of sauvignon blanc and sémillon is a pure nectar that improves sip on sip. A fine partner to foie gras or dessert.

Seafuture is the trade show racing to shape the blue economy with underwater power

Stimulating the so-called “blue economy” might not be a new idea but the geopolitical climate makes understanding, protecting and, yes, monetising ocean resources more important than ever. Indeed, attacks on underwater infrastructure, notably the Nord Stream explosion in September 2022, have upped the ante.

Seafuture, a biennial trade show in La Spezia, a coastal city in Italy’s Liguria region, brings together civilian and military outfits to focus on the great blue yonder. The show’s growth is a testament to the uptick in interest in this field: when the event debuted in 2009, it hosted about 40 companies; at the 2025 edition, it welcomed 370. An estimated 80 per cent of the world’s oceans remains unexplored and there are clearly business opportunities for those navigating and defending the aquatic realm.

“Often the sea is seen as a barrier,” says Cristiana Pagni, the president of Italian Blue Growth. “But we want it to be a bridge that unites.” Pagni’s company organises the conference based on the idea that the sea is not only a means to connect people but a “motor of economic development” that could and should be capitalised on. Given that visiting international naval delegations span countries from Tanzania to Mexico – and the show has attracted brands from India, the US and beyond – she might be on to something.

Defence heavy hitters such as MBDA, Leonardo, Fincantieri and Rheinmetall were all in attendance at the naval base this year. Pagni says that 80 per cent of the companies at the show service both civilian and military markets, with only 10 per cent dedicated solely to defence. Nonetheless, it’s the armed forces that are at the forefront of the blue economy, with their discoveries subsequently bobbing over to the private sector.

“Defence leads the industry in terms of adoption of technology,” says Martijn Wilbrink, business development manager for Europe at Kraken Robotics. Pagni agrees. “Military research results in innovations that are immediately transmitted to civilians,” she says. What’s not in doubt is the rising importance of the blue economy to both businesses and states. And, as host, Italy wants a piece of the action.

The 2025 Seafuture featured a prominent booth for Italy’s newly minted National Pole for the Underwater Dimension, which is based in La Spezia. By bringing together the event but also an ecosystem of SMEs, larger companies and research centres, Italy is seeking to develop underwater technologies and research, and give itself a competitive advantage for the sea change to come.

Three companies floating new ideas at Seafuture

1.
Italy’s Saipem showed off its Innovator 2.0, a remote-controlled submersible craft for oil and gas exploration.

2.
US-based Edgetech exhibited eBoss, which uses sonar for 3D imaging of the seabed. Nick Lawrence, its international business development director, jokes that it’s “an overnight sensation 20 years in the making”.

3.
Canada’s Kraken Robotics demonstrated its Katfish-180, a towbody (an object towed behind a vessel) that can be used for everything from mine detection to critical infrastructure monitoring.

How Europe’s airports must prepare for an increasingly drone-prone 2026

The past year was supposed to be one of soaring growth for Europe’s civil-aviation sector, with a post-pandemic bounce-back and plenty of innovation in sustainable travel, from cleaner fuel to electric flight. Sadly, things have stalled. Among the problems is the debilitating effect of drone activity near airports: as long ago as December 2018, Gatwick, the UK’s second busiest airport, had to close for two days for this reason, affecting more than 140,000 passengers. But the scale of this year’s disruptions in Oslo, Copenhagen and other cities has been on another level, with a spate of incidents lasting several months. It’s a worrying departure from business as usual.

Germany registered a more than 30 per cent increase in air-traffic disruptions caused by drones in 2025, while airports as far south as Spain’s Fuerteventura and Palma de Mallorca have also been targeted. In Poland, news of the national flag carrier Lot’s bid to muscle into the continent’s civil-aviation market was dampened after Russia’s September drone incursion shut down part of the country’s airspace for hours.

Airports and security chiefs are scrambling for solutions and many are pointing to bad actors, including Russia. One short-term suggestion is to empower the police to shoot down drones, something that Germany opted for after its cabinet approved new security legislation in October. Meanwhile, Munich Airport had a laser installed to measure the distance between drones and the airport to better assess the threat. The Danes and Poles have called in Ukrainian soldiers; well-practised in shooting down drones targeting civilian areas, they are now training Danish and Polish soldiers. But there are risks to this approach, from falling drone debris to stray bullets.

Ultimately, the long-term goal must be co-ordinated national air defence and better, less disruptive safety protocols. Beyond the economic impact, a broader problem is that these drones cause fear and uncertainty. Will hopping on a flight feel dangerous if Russia increases its use of hybrid-war tactics? Europe’s connectivity, economy and, yes, even its sense of freedom, relies heavily on civil aviation. Safeguarding it needs to be on the radar for everyone, from airline leaders to politicians and airport bosses.

Three ways to protect airports in 2026

1.
Radars
Used for detection rather than elimination, military radars can help security forces to distinguish between a threat and a wayward toy. Danish armed forces now use such radars at Copenhagen Airport.

2.
Anti-aircraft guns
Germany has snapped up a number of Rheinmetall’s Skyranger anti-aircraft guns, with a repeat order in play. The system can shoot down short-range missiles and cannon shells, as well as drones; for better mobility, it can be mounted on tanks, armoured vehicles or large trucks. But this is a military system for complex threats, rather than a day-to-day solution for the police force.

3.
Interceptor missiles
While most of the drones that we see are relatively flimsy, countries such as the US, Russia and China possess those with a wingspan of more than two metres. Ukrainian engineers have developed interceptor drones to counter the threat. The UK and Ukraine have committed to scaling up production.

Read next: EOS and DroneShield step up as European drone threats drive global demand for air defence tech

Can the rise of Contech mitigate the US housing crisis?

The US housing crisis has become structural: by some estimates, the country is short of more than five million dwellings, while the price of new homes has climbed by nearly a third in five years. Meanwhile, about 40 per cent of the workforce is expected to retire within the decade, leaving an industry trying to build more with fewer hands and under the growing stress of wildfires, floods and rising temperatures.

Enter “contech” (construction technology). A new generation of firms is using robotics, data and design automation to rethink how we make buildings. Some firms in this sector have already flown too close to the sun: remember Katerra, the Silicon Valley darling that tried to reinvent everything, everywhere, all at once? It raised $2bn (€1.7bn) but collapsed in 2021. Today, others are learning to play smaller and smarter, treating the housing shortage not as a mass-production problem but as one of mass customisation.

In Los Angeles, there’s Model Z, which provides prefab infill homes; in Chicago is the US office of Tel Aviv-based Buildots, which digitally manages construction progress using AI. Another Californian firm, Versatile, uses data about building sites to improve processes. In Massachusetts, you’ll find Reframe Systems, a venture founded by former Amazon roboticists. Its answer to the housing crunch is a network of AI-optimised micro-factories: compact, robotic workshops that can be deployed in under 100 days to produce energy-efficient, healthy and affordable homes suited to a changing climate. Reframe focuses on small homes, duplexes and multi-family residences. Its first micro-factory is in Massachusetts, with the second one running in Los Angeles to support post-wildfire rebuilding. “We want to act as co-developers,” says its CEO, Vikas Enti. “We’re working with communities to make resilience accessible, not aspirational.”

Automation, he says, isn’t about displacing labour but augmenting it. The company uses AI-powered work instructions to enable apprentices to perform complex tasks with precision and create accurate floor and roof systems. Just as Enti’s team once helped Amazon to unlock the economics of same-day shipping, Reframe now aims to use robotics to rethink the factory and bend the rules of construction along the way.

What Osaka’s 2025 Expo taught the world about temporary and sustainable greenery

Temporary greenery is everywhere, draped across shops, trade fair floors or pop-up restaurants. Yet most plants hauled in for the week share the same bleak fate. In Osaka, family-run landscaping company Ryokukou Garden showcased its green-fingered skills to an international audience when Expo 2025 rolled into town.

Responsible for overseeing greenery at the pavilions occupied by the UAE, the EU, Germany, Austria and Panasonic, Ryokukou Garden showed off a simple but effective philosophy that the wasteful trade-show and pop-up circuits should seek to cultivate. Namely it sees plants as living collaborators, not disposable decor, and lets them take root and survive when the trade shows shut.

“We’re not just landscape designers – we grow trees at our own nursery too,” Toshiki Tanisaki, who heads the company’s design work, tells Monocle. “That gives us a real understanding of what plants need to stay healthy.” Now joined by the fifth generation of the Tanisaki family, Ryokukou Garden assures its longevity through continuity. At 89, Toshiki’s grandfather remains involved in everyday maintenance at the nursery while his father manages construction. The three generations handle every stage of any given project, so each decision reflects a shared respect for the plants that they are working with.

At the Expo, the Tanisakis’ brief was simple: to create displays that would thrive throughout the event’s six-month run and be suitable for planting out afterwards. For larger plants, this meant making sure that they didn’t fully take root and could easily be craned out of the event space and replanted while avoiding undue stress. Their roots were wrapped in water-permeable landscaping fabric, preventing them from settling entirely in their temporary home. When choosing smaller plants, Toshiki prioritised perennials for longevity and ensured that they were extracted by hand once the Expo had run its course. “It’s very labour-intensive work,” he says. “You have to dig around very slowly and carefully so as not to disturb the roots.”

While Toshiki acknowledges that it’s common for healthy plants to be thrown out at the end of such events, Ryokukou Garden turned the process into a closed-loop system, one in which nature was not a prop but a partner. Crucially, he says that when a plant is designated for a temporary event, it doesn’t mean that we should treat it with less care. Instead, it’s an opportunity to plan for renewal – something that designers and architects the world over should consider when picking out greenery for their next event.

Monocle’s tips for a greener 2026

1.
Make a start.
Ryokukou Garden’s closed-loop system is admirable but there needs to be more than just one canny company pushing for temporary displays to be treated like an ongoing concern. Take a leaf from its book (or bush).

2.
Ditch the tree quotas.
Cities are blinded by big numbers and developers rush to plant saplings that offer no shade or cover. Context is everything.

3.
Get shaggy.
Keeping every lawn trimmed and weed-free might make sense at a royal residence but cities should leave spaces to go wild: grassy verges and unused railway lines can be left to develop into green corridors for flora and fauna.

4.
Avoid ‘green walls’.
These features can look appealing in renderings but they demand constant attention, care and cultivation to even stay presentable – which is why they often end up being left to wither.

5.
Go native.
Too many cities fall into the trap of planting what looks nice rather than what will thrive. Cities in the Gulf, for instance, should be looking at salt-loving halophytic plants or ghaf trees, rather than beautiful but thirsty and heat-sensitive species that wouldn’t last a day without the sprinklers.

Why an obsession with Big Tech is not progress

I have never owned a smartphone but my life doesn’t feel demonstrably worse as a result. I am not on Whatsapp; my friends tell me that it’s a time-sapping curse. From social-media-addicted teens to smouldering mountains of electronic waste, smartphones appear to be hastening our descent into dystopia in myriad ways. And it’s not just phones: the advent of AI heralds a future in which creative work is abolished, vast data centres consume ever more energy and water, and humanity might well be turned into paperclips (or so a thought experiment by Oxford professor Nick Bostrom on the single-mindedness of machine learning once suggested).

Yet, despite the ubiquitous anxieties about an impending technological apocalypse, being a Luddite still feels like a naive minority position. When people see me brandishing my “brick” of a mobile phone, they might assume that I’m being insufferably condescending to those with less willpower – but my refusal to update it is, in part, motivated by my own susceptibility to distraction.

One reason why it’s difficult to alter the course of technology’s onward march is a stubborn belief in automatic progress. We might have a degree of healthy scepticism towards the tech bros, suspecting that their ambitions to live for ever in pod cities on Mars are hubristic and far-fetched. Yet it’s hard not to retain an implicit faith – inherited from the Enlightenment – that not only is technology unstoppable but that it’s also always improving.

This assumption of linear progress can cause us to forget about what was actually much better in the past. From the mid-19th century onwards, UK travel retailer WHSmith ran a subscription library on train platforms; you could borrow a book from one station and return it at another. Residents of Victorian London enjoyed 12 mail deliveries a day. Take a stroll around the Made in Ancient Egypt exhibition at the University of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum and you’ll see a striking illustration of the sophistication of pre-modern artisanal cultures: a statuette of a woman’s head with individual strands of hair carved in glass; tiny turquoise faience frogs inlaid with gold; an elaborate collar made from turquoise and carnelian beads – all crafted more than 3,000 years ago. The screens that surround us serve to conceal historical ingenuity, so that we can comfort ourselves with the illusion that things are getting better all the time.

In The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900, historian David Edgerton demonstrates that technological change often runs in reverse. Ship-breaking is an example of this “low-tech future” – the process has regressed from specialised docks in Taiwan to beaches in Bangladesh where barefoot workers use axes and hammers. Sound quality has decreased on our single wireless speakers. Software updates provide only a simulacrum of advancement. As Cory Doctorow argues in his recent book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, the “development” of products and services is driven by market forces, not human desire.

It is a testament to our persistent faith in technological progress that this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to three scholars for explaining “innovation-driven economic growth”. In fact, as economist Carl Benedikt Frey has argued, not only is the pace of innovation slowing around the world but the most advanced and technologically innovative countries are suffering from economic stagnation too.

The buzz around AI suggests that we are finally about to witness a genuine game-changer. As Edgerton observes, however, this kind of futurism is itself unoriginal. People have been hailing the coming of a fourth industrial revolution since the 1950s, when it was thought that automation would do away with both blue-and white-collar jobs; despite the excitement around 3D printing in the 1990s and 2000s, its main use now is in art schools. An MIT report has shown that 95 per cent of AI pilots in companies are failing and there are increasingly widespread warnings of a major market correction in 2026 or beyond.

If the public and media commentary around new technology tends to forget past instances of technological optimism, we are often reminded, conversely, that techno-pessimism is not new: Socrates denounced writing for implanting “forgetfulness” in our souls and medieval scholars fretted that the invention of the index would dispense with the need to read entire books. But the fact that those concerns recur does not mean that they aren’t valid: James Marriott of UK newspaper The Times recently reminded us that after the introduction of smartphones in the mid-2010s, PISA scores – an international measure of the academic performance of 15-year-old students in reading, maths and science – began to decline.

There is a cognitive dissonance between the AI “revolution” that is perpetually around the corner and our everyday experience of technology, which remains obstinately dysfunctional – from my hours spent this week trying to connect a laptop to an external monitor to the unidentified items still languishing in the literal and metaphorical bagging area. Not only is new technology trashing the planet and ushering in a post-literate society, it is failing on its own terms too.

Resisting new technology feels futile. Whereas the advent of the internet in the 1990s was legitimised by utopian chatter about democratisation, the approaching AI revolution is announced with a grim realism; we are simply told to learn to live with it. Yet there is an ambiguity at the heart of this sense of inevitability: it’s not clear whether it refers to the implicit assumption that technology always moves forward or to the unstoppable power of those promoting it. It’s an important distinction.

This is related to the residual mystique of tech bros, even though the media now often pillories them – a niggling sense that their wealth and power are the consequences of their being geniuses ahead of the curve. Yet they appear to suffer the most catastrophic nightmares of us all, if their scramble to buy bunkers in New Zealand is anything to go by. And this pessimism serves to inoculate them against public critique, even as their greed brings about the end that they seem to fear.

State investment funds much of the innovation in the first place. Yet governments appear blinded by the hype, unable to exert what little powers they have to regulate Big Tech. As my ability to function without a phone illustrates, human requirements haven’t changed much over time. It’s important to interrogate our apparent need for the latest devices and to ask whether it’s necessity, compulsion or mere addiction. It is time to ask what progress means and who gets to define it. Can we dare to regard technology only as a means to an end? Let’s see what happens in 2026 – just don’t try and Whatsapp me with an update.

Read next: Used with consideration, smartphones can deepen our connection to the present

Three Mexican companies bridging the country’s offline workforce with global clients

Mexico has long been well known for its can-do attitude. Today there’s also investment to match the ambition and a talented workforce – not to mention the effects of US tariffs on countries such as China, which are creating fresh opportunities here. But here’s the rub: even people wanting to make things closer to home in the Americas have struggled to engage with Mexico’s informal, mostly offline system of factories and makers. We meet three companies trying to join the dots.

Prima
Connecting ideas with makers

Headquartered in Mexico City’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighbourhood, Prima identifies products with potential – from welded metal structures to other industrial components – then finds the factories to make them. Once selected, it sets up a joint venture with the plant and manages the production process. “Getting to work with Prima isn’t easy,” says co-founder Daniel Autrique. “We’ll audit you and look at working standards, safety and insurance.” Clients and factories communicate via a digital platform, with AI helping with everything from quality control to engineering.

Prima employs 70 people and raised $42.5m (€36.6m) by the end of 2024. It has been canny in realising that, though Mexico can’t compete in everything – electronics, for example, is out – it can forge ahead in metals, plastic assembly and welding, while ensuring high standards of production, traceability and sustainability. It is also tapping into the shift to near-shoring, making the US a key market. Autrique, who hails from a family of industrialists in San Luis Potosí, says that there’s “a forgotten system” in Mexico, with factories doing business via text messages with little banking credit. Prima is bringing that resourcefulness and work ethic into the 21st century.

Yumari
Harnessing the skills of Mexico’s workers

Andrés Díaz Bedolla is the CEO and co-founder of Yumari, an AI platform that links Mexican factories with companies – many of them in the US – that need any number of products, from clothing to home decor and furniture. According to Bedolla, interest in Yumari surged in April when Donald Trump unleashed his trade war.

As with Prima, a big part of the job is the standardisation and professionalisation of the vast, skilled but unregulated factories that already exist. In Yumari’s case, an app features a “buyer dashboard” where clients can view everything from ideas and sampling to manufacturing and logistics. “If anyone comes to our platform and says, ‘We used to manufacture in Asia but need a cheaper option,’ we say don’t come to Latin America,” says Bedolla, explaining that Yumari isn’t about offering low-cost substitutes for Chinese factories but rather about taking pride in where and how things are done.

Allie
The future-proof factory-builders

Allie uses technology to enhance efficiency and combine complex processes. It works with clients in F&B and packaged goods to make their machinery “smart”, rather than having a series of operations working independently of one another.

Through Allie’s FactoryGPT, clients can talk to their factory, which has become a “thinking, speaking entity”, says Allie’s co-founder Alex Sandoval, who is originally from Venezuela. AI and machine learning predict “deviations” to nip any issues in the bud, while the system suggests ways to optimise the production line. “We have a computer that connects to all the machines,” says Sandoval. “That’s every data point in the factory.”

Read next: Entrepreneurs to watch: the forward-thinkers making new paths in Mexican industries

Private mediation services matter. Here’s why.

Crisis creates opportunity – and 2026 is set to be a boom year for the private mediation sector. Disputes and emergencies are multiplying and resolving them calls for the skills, talents and attentions of seasoned negotiators. This once fell to traditional mediating powers such as the UN and countries including Norway and Switzerland.

Today, those erstwhile arbiters of fairness have lost some of their clout and moral authority. So private mediation firms, often founded by former diplomats and humanitarian workers, are filling the void. Maryna Domushkina, an independent mediator who began her career at the UN before joining the Geneva-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, explains.

Why is private mediation on the rise?
Conflicts have become more fragmented. It probably began about 10 years ago. We’re now in a landscape of multipolarity without multilateralism. We have moved from a rules-based order to a transactional one. Private mediators fill the gap between formal and informal actors in negotiations. They can help to build confidence where official channels are blocked, can operate more discreetly and, because they’re not constrained by institutions or public opinion like states are, can move faster.

What do you think will be the global flashpoints in 2026?
We’re in a period of sustained geopolitical instability. The Middle East will continue to be a flashpoint; some states are looking for fast solutions without addressing the root causes but they won’t work. The Ukraine crisis will continue; the challenge lies beyond the battlefield in how to build a lasting and just peace. There’ll be new flashpoints in the Indo-Pacific too: climate- and resource-driven instability are amplifying existing conflicts.

How might things change?
Mediators need to be able to integrate competing alignments and non-state actors. The global consensus mechanisms will weaken further and there will be more transactional diplomacy. That requires layers of engagement, with various interests and incentives. There will also be a new demand for state-to-state negotiation, with a third state as a mediator. There still needs to be someone guaranteeing agreements.

B-Quik: The automotive player keeping Thailand on the move

As Chinese electric vehicles challenge Toyota and other Japanese legacy brands for market share across Southeast Asia, a Thai company is racing through a gap in the middle by providing services that all automobiles need. B‑Quik fits tyres, fixes brakes and handles suspension – types of routine maintenance that are required regardless of whether there’s an engine or a battery under the bonnet. This agnosticism is one of the reasons why B‑Quik’s centres are becoming increasingly difficult to miss on Thai roads – something that’s aided by their striking yellow façades. But the brand’s success ultimately comes down to what it offers.

B‑Quik has more than 235 branches in its home market, a handful in neighbouring Cambodia and 40 in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, Indonesia, is home to some 284 million people and most still rely on two‑wheeled transport to get around. About one in 10 Indonesian households owns a four‑wheeled vehicle, compared to one in two in Malaysia. As the country’s growing middle class becomes more affluent and investment in public transport struggles to keep up, car ownership is expected to rise, which means a lot more wheels on the road.

Driving B‑Quik’s success is its 63‑year‑old Dutch CEO, Henk Kiks. A self‑proclaimed “farm boy”, he started as a tyre‑fitter in the Netherlands and now drives a hybrid Porsche to the company’s headquarters on the outskirts of Bangkok. His office is above an immaculate service centre in Nonthaburi. Customers drink coffee in the lounge, while B‑Quik staff examine the underside of cars elevated on four‑poster hydraulic jacks.

Kiks leads Monocle through the vast tyre warehouse and its rows of floor‑to‑ceiling rubber, sharing his expert knowledge of tyre brands, as well as his excitement about the prospect of an F1 road race in Bangkok in 2028. By that time, B‑Quik’s next milestone – 300 branches across the region – will be in the rear‑view mirror, with the number of branches accelerating towards 400. The bigger it gets, the more B2B opportunities arise to partner with car manufacturers, especially new entrants that want to offer countrywide after‑sales to their customers without building their own expensive network of service centres as well as showrooms.

“We are like the dentist,” says Kiks. No one wants to pay money to change their tyres so B‑Quik staff are trained to be truthful and never oversell – a sort of Hippocratic oath for mechanics. This strategy helps B‑Quik to sell more than 1.2 million tyres a year. In 2023 the company launched a membership programme in Thailand. Today you’re more likely to see a car in Bangkok with one of its yellow stickers on its rear window than a Liverpool badge (many Thais’ football team of choice). That’s a huge achievement: far more loyalty than the best dentist could ever dream of.

Asian start-ups to watch

1.
Highlands Coffee, Vietnam
With almost 800 coffee shops in its home market, Highlands is set to go global with a new brand identity and the distinction of using only Vietnam‑grown robusta and arabica beans.

2.
Plan B, Thailand
The outdoor advertising giant is taking over screens and digital billboards in key economic hubs across Southeast Asia. Keep your eyes peeled for Plan B on your next trip.

3.
Zeekr, China
Geely Auto Group, the owner of Lotus and Volvo, is gearing up to challenge Europe’s luxury marques with premium EV brand Zeekr. Hiring Bentley’s chief designer was a statement of intent. Models are now arriving in showrooms.

Beauty standards in the digital age are changing how we look at ourselves – and not just aesthetically

Boring online meetings might be one reason why people are increasingly drawn to cosmetic procedures. On these occasions, our gaze often wanders down to our own image in the corner of the screen and we start worrying about how pale, tired or old we look. This will be enough to motivate some people to have their nose straightened, seek Botox treatment or book an eyelid operation.

Ada Borkenhagen, a German psychoanalyst and professor of psychosomatic medicine, has been researching body image, cosmetic procedures and selfoptimisation for decades. Here, she explains why she believes that our digital appearance has become more important to us than how we look off-screen.

When you walk down a street and observe people, what do you notice?
In Berlin, I often see the so-called “Instagram face” among young women up to the age of 38 – full lips, high cheekbones, big eyes and a clear chin line. This look comes from beauty filters on social-media apps, which offer us a beautified version of our face when we film or take pictures of ourselves.

Do you mean that you see these online faces in real life too?
This kind of face has become a model for many beauty surgeries in what is now a global trend. It seems as though there are more women than ever with filled lips. Don’t be fooled: you probably only notice lip treatments in three out of 10 women who have had them.

So we only recognise interventions when they have been poorly implemented?
Yes. Beauty procedures reveal differences between social classes. If you can afford a good practitioner, they will do procedures that suit your face and will be more careful when it comes to fashion trends such as the Instagram face.

Are those inflatable-boat-like lips that you occasionally see the work of bad surgeons?
The heavily exaggerated duck snouts, the beaks, the ski-jump lips – these are part of fashion. Even a mediocre surgeon can do an Instagram face. But making me look how I did 10 years ago is the high art of aesthetic medicine. And you pay for that – but also for the surgeon who says, ‘We’d rather not do anything here.’

A director of a beauty clinic once said that women essentially get these inflatable lips for other women. He doesn’t know any man who finds them beautiful. What do you think?
I didn’t ask men about it but the fact is that behind this trend are beauty-filter algorithms that are based on universal beauty characteristics: the face should be symmetrical, the skin flawless and the proportions balanced. Women should have a heart-shaped face with large eyes and a narrow chin. Men are considered beautiful when they have a striking jawline. Their eyes might be a little deeper, their nose a little bigger and their eyebrows more pronounced.

When everyone is guided by these universal beauty ideals, don’t faces start looking more and more similar?
Yes. The Instagram face has prevailed. You will see women with it in Zürich, Tokyo, Cape Town, New York and beyond. Is there a difference between on-screen and off-screen beauty? Our virtual lives have become much more important. Today it’s crucial how you look in photos, on the internet and on video calls.

Is this something that you have noticed in your research?
Studies show that young people with high levels of social-media consumption have a greater tendency to have procedures done. Sometimes they come to the surgeon with a photo of themselves that has been beautified with a filter and say, ‘This is what I want to look like.’ In analogue [real] life, you might see yourself in the mirror two or three times per day. That’s different to those who are very active on social networks and constantly see each other through the selfie camera. So it’s only logical that a lot of people want to look better in photos and videos.

Selfies offer a wide-angle perspective, which makes you look different from in a mirror, so you adapt your face to a lens.
Yes. But this doesn’t mean that people don’t care about how they look in real life. It’s just that not everyone can afford a beauty style that looks good both on and off the screen. This reveals differences between social classes.

How does a good doctor deal with a patient who wants an Instagram face?
They would, for example, tell a patient who has quite pronounced cheekbones that if they inject too much, they’ll look like a hamster. But a patient of a cheaper doctor might end up with hamster cheeks because some are willing to simply exaggerate their features.

If it’s about wealth and class, why do so many Hollywood stars have operations done that look so obvious? Surely they could afford to hire the best surgeons?
In the US, different ideals of beauty prevail. Interventions are not really hidden there – they are viewed as a sign that you have money.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis recently caused a stir when she spoke in an interview about ‘the genocide of a generation of women by the cosmeceutical industrial complex’ and how the filter face had robbed them of their natural appearance. What do you think?
I see it that way too. But it must be said that these women voluntarily underwent their beauty procedures. That is why self-knowledge is important. Beauty ideals change. You have to understand that before you go under the knife. In the 1990s, for example, many women shaved their eyebrows and then tattooed on new ones. Today that seems completely old-fashioned.

The pressure to be beautiful has entered the intimate realm: today some men have their penis enlarged and women have their labia made smaller.
That’s right. The vulva, for example, has become far more publicly visible. Pubic hair has become increasingly scarce. If you only wear a little fabric, you don’t want a huge cloud of it.

What role does pornography play?
The first Playboy featuring a fully shaved woman appeared in 2000. A beauty ideal for a more intimate area emerged.

What is that ideal?
Male genitals should appear large and prominent, while female ones should appear as small and hidden as possible. This ideal has developed in parallel with the depilation imperative for the female body. The moment that areas are no longer covered by clothing, a beauty ideal arises for these body parts. When skirts became shorter, leg hair had to be removed; when armpits became visible, armpit hair had to go. And now that people wear swimsuits with very high leg cutouts, pubic hair has to go.

There is also a trend for intimate shaving among men.
Yes. But the reason for that is different. When a man removes his pubic hair, you can see the entire penis shaft so it looks bigger.

It’s interesting that women seemingly have the opposite impulse: the trend is to think that smaller is better, as the rise of labia reductions shows.
It is certainly the case that a very restrictive ideal of beauty has formed in this respect. But I also see the intimate shave as a form of liberation. Suddenly we are talking about the vulva again. When it comes to their appearance and function, you’ll find very little in gynaecological textbooks until the beginning of the 1990s. There’s a lot to catch up on. For example, we still don’t know what the vulvas of people across the globe look like.

What do you mean?
In the EU, people know exactly what the average cucumber looks like – what curvature it has, how big it is. The same applies to the penis: we have known what the average is like since the 18th century. But with women? In Europe, there have been only two major investigations: one involving just 50 women in the UK and another in Austria with 150 women. That’s a joke.

Does the fact that we don’t know what an average vulva looks like fuel an uncertainty that plastic surgery exploits?
Yes, then suddenly norms are established about the ideal female genitals without knowing whether it’s actually reflective of the truth.

All procedures, including those in intimate areas, are presumably based on a desire to comply with a supposed standard. But are people actually happier after having cosmetic surgery?
If the expectations for the procedure are realistic, a qualified plastic surgeon performs it and the healing process goes well, then most patients are satisfied afterwards. But there is also the repeat effect: if you start having beauty procedures, you want more. We have to distinguish between cases. If I decide to inject Botox in my fifties, the effect wears off after a few months and I have to inject it again. I would therefore be considered a repeater. It’s like hair colouring; for a good result, I have to refresh the roots every few weeks.

In which cases should a patient consult a psychologist rather than a surgeon?
When someone wants a completely different body or chases a Barbie-like ideal. These people won’t be satisfied even after numerous operations. Imagine, say, someone who wants to look like Claudia Schiffer because they want to have a life like hers. That’s an illusion. Ultimately we all have to accept that our bodies age. You can make someone look 10 or 15 years younger but the ageing process continues.

Most people who opt for these interventions claim that they only have them done for themselves – rather than to look more beautiful to others. Are beauty surgeries really acts of self-determination?
Think of it this way: our bodies are no longer our destiny. But we must also be aware that physical attractiveness is one of the greatest factors for inequality in Western societies. Attractive people earn more, get milder judgments on crimes and even get better school grades.

So it’s less about self-acceptance than getting a better deal because of your looks?
No, many people are interested in accepting themselves and I won’t deny them that. But I can imagine that women are more likely to undergo such procedures to please other women than to appeal to men because most men won’t even notice the embellishments. After I’ve been to the hairdresser, my partner will see that it looks good but he might not notice that I’ve streaked my hair.

Is it really an act of freedom to change your body surgically?
Optimising ourselves is our time’s promise of salvation. If you commit to this logic, you feel permanent pressure.

Some say that the upswing of the beauty industry also has to do with the higher number of single people today because they have to remain competitive. Is that true?
My investigations from 2015 on women between the ages of 35 and 60 who had hyaluronic acid and Botox injected in Berlin showed that most were in a relationship. Of course, separations often trigger a desire to change something but among the big reasons for the boom in the industry, in my opinion, are the rising importance of appearance and the fact that we are increasingly communicating with selfies.

But aren’t single people also likely to boost the beauty industry?
They are but this also has to do with how many of us have to present ourselves to the partner market several times in our lives. And what matters today in that context? The photo. Our appearance decides our relationship possibilities, so we try to look good for as long as possible.

You once said that beauty procedures allow a 50-year-old woman to participate in society. But that means women who don’t have anything done to them lose their social connection in old age.
The ageing woman has long been invisible in our society. With today’s procedures, a woman can now maintain a youthful appearance for longer. But the ageing woman nevertheless remains invisible. We see women who are ageing but only those who don’t look like they are. Unlike in men, grey hair and wrinkles are not considered sexy in women. They used to be considered old at 35 and no longer desirable. This has changed, with the effect that women no longer simply disappear from society.

In the future, will we have to make excuses for ourselves if we look 50 years old when we actually are 50?
Yes. But men also know this. The pressure also increases for them to have thick hair until old age and not have bags under their eyes. On the other hand, they can simply grow a beard over the hanging turkey neck.

On average, men perceive themselves as slimmer than women. Are they putting less pressure on themselves?
That’s right. And we must not forget that men can still compensate for a lower attractiveness with status, power and money. This isn’t possible for women to the same extent. Society judges them much more harshly on their appearance.

What will it do to a society when surgically beautified bodies become the norm?
Differences between social classes will become even clearer. To maintain the most attractive appearance, you’ll need knowledge and money over a long period of time. The middle classes already educate their children in this way: they teach them to eat healthily, to exercise, to apply sunscreen in the summer.

Aren’t those for health reasons?
Yes, but there is also a beauty factor. Another example is braces. In Germany, you hardly see any young people with crooked teeth because that’s paid for by health insurance and straight teeth have become an ideal of beauty.

Perfectly shaped breasts, a tight belly, no cellulite – what body image do children grow up with when their mothers are not allowed to look like mothers?
All of this increases the pressure on young women to look at least as good as their mothers. Let’s think of Heidi Klum: in her 50s, she has a more beautiful body than many women do at the age of 20. Of course, this triggers uncertainty.

What advice would you give an 18-year-old who comes to you with a desire for surgery?
First, I would explore with her what she expects to gain from it. If it’s really just about fixing a specific flaw – protruding ears, a hooked nose, crooked teeth – you can do something about that. But I would also emphasise that it will not suddenly solve all of her other problems.

Do you think that cosmetic surgery will one day be as normal as wearing braces?
I would say that it already is almost as normal. But there will be counter-movements with regard to these short-term ideals of beauty. Back to a more natural look? In a way, that might be happening already. But in terms of the ageing face, it will be more like a well-preserved vintage designer bag – you can see that it has been worn but it is high quality and well maintained.