Catching carabao, Seoul searching, and sleeping with blue angels

[MM with store designer/planner Alex Cook (right) and an unnamed carabao (centre, though you probably realised that)] Sometimes you’ve just got to take the bull (or in this case the water buffalo, called a carabao in Guam) by the horns. I’m back in London following a whistlestop visit to Guam and South Korea. But brevity does

Read More

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

“Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas.” Charles Dickens Reader, I am that Mann. Christmas just doesn’t do it for me. I basically don’t have the

Read More

Pure Pacific beauty in glorious Guam

Hafa Adai from Guam. Now this is what I call a room with a view. I’m staying at the newly opened Lotte Hotel Guam overlooking the bluest, most transparent sea you ever saw. This is the Pacific at its purest. A perfect, pristine scene. It’s a busy work day for me on our weekly e-Zine so

Read More

Moving on down to the Marianas

I’m posting this Blog from Incheon International Airport just before I jump on my Korean Air flight to Guam. South Korea is known as the Land of the Morning Calm, but there’s probably not too much calmness here among the Lotte Duty Free team as they prepare for one of their most significant store openings

Read More

On century duty with Cataláns and Catamarans

I told you in my last Blog that I’d be all at sea today. I meant it literally. I was due to join Puig senior management and some of the company’s key retailers onboard one of several racing yachts commissioned by the company to coincide with  the Vela Classica, a sailing boat race organised by

Read More

Waiting for Godello and Delicioso from Galicia

I’m writing from the (very) interim Moodie Report Bureau in Madrid at the delightful Hotel Palacio del Retiro (don’t you just love the mural outside my window? I promise you it’s not an overly inquisitive local.). My Spanish is lousy but the hotel name kind of sounds like (but isn’t) ‘the palatial hotel where I shall retire’,

Read More

Adding some more bite to Paul & Shark in travel retail

This Blog comes to you after a brilliant couple of days in Varese, near Milan. I was there to get the know the compelling family story (and values) of one of Italy’s most distinguished luxury fashion names, Paul & Shark. The invitation came from Catherine Bonelli (above), the house’s new Global Travel Retail Director. There aren’t many

Read More

Hitting heady heights at Hamad International

This Blog begins about 50 minutes out of Doha just off the coast of Kuwait. Beneath me the perfect blue waters of the Persian Gulf sparkle like immaculately polished gemstones. I’m onboard a Qatar Airways flight way home to London after a whistle-stop visit to the Qatari capital and, more pertinently, the new Hamad International

Read More

A running story with a gory end

I’ve told you before I love the Moneycorp Daily Briefing. Here’s an excerpt from today’s edition to show you why: A chap from Chicago by the name of Bill Hillman co-authored a book entitled “Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona”. It deals with the practicalities of running through the streets of a Spanish

Read More

Love Story signals a new chapter for Chloé

Last week I limped to Paris to report on the reveal of the new pillar fragrance from the house of Chloé, called Love Story. Sadly, thanks to a nasty calf strain sustained in the gym the night before I left (reinforcing my view that the only acceptable form of exercise is shopping), the trip for

Read More

Destination Doha and a view from the top

Welcome to The Moodie Report Interim Qatar Bureau at the Oryx Rotana in Doha. It’s just turned 8.30a.m. and it’s already about 40 degrees outside. As you can see, Doha is a giant construction site, reflecting Qatar’s sustained rise as an economic powerhouse of the Middle East and the world. I’m here to get my

Read More