Putting a new gloss on Grossé

Meet the Fattedad family: father Benjamin (Benny), daughter Karin and son Kasim. Benny Fattedad is a well-known and much-respected figure in Asian retail circles and he and his family are currently driving the remarkable resurgence of costume jewellery brand Grossé. I had the pleasure of catching up with the family in Hong Kong last week at

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Lost in translation down under

I’ve arrived in Melbourne, capital of the Australian state of Victoria, and a beautiful and cosmopolitan city. I’m here to meet the board of Australian Pacific Airports Corporation (APAC), which owns Melbourne and Launceston airports, and to give a presentation about the trends and future of global travel retail. I’m no stranger to long haul

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Sunday too far away

If it’s Sunday,  it must be Hong Kong right? Or Melbourne? Or somewhere in between…? I’ve closed down The Moodie Report’s very temporary Hong Kong Bureau at the Regal Hotel at Hong Kong International Airport (along with Heathrow Airport my joint second home in recent weeks) with its wonderful view of planes swooping down on

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Welcome to planet earth Jake – Dad will be there soon

Hi Martin (writes Alex Cook of Lightfoot Marketing), I often read the blog articles you write onboard various forward-thinking airlines who have wifi – think you mentioned Hong Kong Airlines (?). Well… I’m now the world’s biggest fan of this innovation. Currently writing this email somewhere above Poland on a Singapore Airlines A380 from Changi.

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Jack Daniel’s turns up the brand power in Dubai

So who exactly is the man in the white shirt being mobbed for his autograph in the photo above? A rock star on a farewell tour maybe? Or a famous sportsman suddenly identified in a hotel by legions of adoring fans? Neither. In fact, it’s Jeff Arnett, Master Distiller of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, one of the

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Welcome to 1392

Today is Nowruz, or Noruz. Literally ‘the new day’, it is more commonly known as Persian New Year. It marks the beginning not of 2013 but of 1392. It is a day of great celebration around the world, including at The Moodie Report, not least because Mrs Moodie Report, as she has come to call herself in my

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‘Wales defeated England in a fast and open game’

And we were singing hymns and arias, ‘Land of my Fathers’, ‘Ar Hyd y Nos’. Gosh, my email is eerily quiet this morning, writes Rebecca Mann. It was inordinately busy last week, in the run-up to the final weekend of the Six Nations 2013. My phone was pretty busy with texts too, up to and

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Soaking up the atmosphere in Sanya

With China Duty Free Group and Hainan Provincial Duty Free Co Ltd (HNDF) both announcing huge duty free development projects on Hainan Island, industry attention is understandably focused on the extraordinary growth of shopping on the resort island. But Hainan has much else going for it. It’s a beautiful island with over 1,500sq k of

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Reflecting on the Asian travel retail juggernaut

I’m writing at 32,000 feet, equidistant between Batou, China and Ulan Bator, Mongolia, onboard Cathay Pacific 287 powering forward at 497 miles per hour to London Heathrow. In the distance I can see my old haunt of Novosibirsk looming an hour or so away. The flight map onboard is my favoured inflight entertainment while I

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A portrait of Busan

Despite hanging out with art-school girls during my university years I was never invited to ‘sit’ for a portrait, and there’s been a notable shortage of commissions ever since, writes Peter Dowling. So it was the fulfilment of an unrealised bit of egomania today when I got to pose for all of 30 seconds to

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From Asia’s hot spots to the big chill

I’m at Hong Kong International Airport, awaiting the long journey home after a fantastic two-week trip around the hottest of travel retail’s hot-spots. From Ever Rich’s magnificent new downtown duty free store in Taipei, and its grandly ambitious Kinmen Islands project to the energy and drive of Lotte and Shilla in Seoul as they continue

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CDFG’s high expectations on Hainan Island

Welcome to The Moodie Report’s temporary Sanya bureau on Hainan Island. Looking out at these early morning views from my room at the St Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort, I’m not so certain that I’ll ever leave. Hainan is often dubbed ‘China’s Hawaii’ but I don’t think it needs any such comparison. It very much

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Why it’s time to support a woman who supports so many others

Yesterday in Beijing I had the immense pleasure of catching up with Shell Xue, who heads cleft charity The Smile Train in China. Shell and her small, amazingly dedicated team, have changed the lives of over 270,000 Chinese children in recent years, including 28,447 cases last year. No child on this planet should have to

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