Chanel showcased their Pre-Fall collection at their annual event, with an India-themed luxury show.

The collection was premiered in the Galerie Courbe at Paris’s Grand Palais on 6^th December. Models were bejewelled with accessories including turbans, head jewellery and jewel-encrusted Chanel bags – male models included.

The guests sat at banquet tables which outlined the runway and set the luxury mood with chandeliers and candlesticks. They also dined using gold-plated cutlery and were served by waiters throughout the show, a definite upgrade from the usual champagne and canapés at fashion shows.

The Metiers d’Art Show was launched in 2003 as a homage to French craftsmanship and Chanel’s seven workshops and despite the high prices, the Metiers d’Art lines are always a success amidst the economic crisis.

Previous shows have followed themes including Paris-Byzance, Paris-Shanghai and Paris Moscow, and the Paris-Bombay collection will be available in Chanel boutiques from May 2012.

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The city of Nice is world-renowned for its glamour, cosmopolitanism and wealth, yet is significantly less well-known for being an environmentally conscious city. Although this may be about to be changed as Nice is on the fast track to become one of the ‘greenest’ cities in Europe.

Nice’s race to a more environmentally-friendly existence is led by a host of new transport initiatives, which will eventually provide some of the greenest forms of transport in Europe.

The plan is to inaugurate a central station in Saint Augustin by 2016. The station will operate a multi-functional tram, train and bus network for Nice and its vicinity. The station, which will provide extensive public transport to both the north and south of Nice, as well as along the coast to the west  to the Var Valley and the Nice Cote d’Azur airport – France’s second biggest airport – to a predicted 10 million passengers each year by 2023, and 17 million travellers annually by 2030.

Eventually the Saint Augustin site will be connected to the LGV, France’s high speed train network which was introduced in 2009.

The boom in infrastructure on the Cote d’Azur will help to develop business in the area, with both Nice and the surrounding areas predicted to receive an economic boost, as the new Saint Augustin station will provide links to all the major cities in France and therefore create masses of new commuters and revenue.

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February 17 – March 4 2012

Having been dubbed as being the ‘main winter event on the French Riviera’, the Carnival de Nice really is an event not to be missed. Being one of the largest carnivals in the world, there is an abundance of unforgettable entertainment on display during this 15 day long festival.

The many parades that feature throughout the carnival are a hypnotic mix of colour, costumes and creativity. The largest of the parades is made up of 20 floats, marches through the streets of Nice by day and by night, features over 1,000 musicians and dancers from around the world, and has a different theme running throughout it each year.

This year the theme is to be the ‘King of Sport’, which is a reference to, not only the great sporting exploits and achievements of Nice and France as a whole, but also to this year’s London Olympics.

Each year the Nice Carnival has a guest of honour, and this year it will be Great Britain, a decision, given this emphasis on sport at the Nice Carnival 2012, based fundamentally on the 2012 Olympic Games being hosted by the UK.

The Nice Carnival roots date back to the Middle Ages, when the people of Nice, according to the Catholic tradition of Lent, enjoyed a rich, plentiful and flamboyant feast before fasting for forty days.

This ostentatious feast gradually escalated in merriment and grandeur, with the earliest mention of a carnival in Nice being in 1294, when the Count of Provence, Charles d’Anjou spent the “joyous days of Carnival” in Nice.

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Histrionically poised on the most southern tip on the Cap d’Antibes, having just completed a 45 million euro restoration project and having been a hotel hub for the rich and famous since it first opened its doors in 1870, the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc has had the making of an iconic hotel, in which only the wealthiest, most glamorous and elitist of guests would stay. And boy has it lived up to expectations!

Whilst most luxury hotels across the world can ‘name drop’ a celebrity or two amongst their guests who have stayed there, the Cote d’Azur’s Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc could win a competition amongst hoteliers of whose hotel has had the highest number, and highest calibre, of famous names rest their heads there hands down, if such a competition was ever to occur!

Alongside the Hollywood megastars such as Sharon Stone, who was reported to have ordered a traditionally Irish-dressed harpist to entertain her during her stay at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, socialite Paris Hilton, who, of course with a father who runs the Hilton Hotel empire is no stranger to luxury hotels, stayed here during the

Cannes Film Festival when a Vanity Fair party was held at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

Brad and Angelina, who were reportedly turned away during a film festival, the Windsors, Bushes, Clintons and Berlusconis are all regulars, hey even Pablo Picasso and Gary Cooper set up a shooting gallery in the gardens. Okay, okay we get the picture, the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc ten, the Marriot eight!

And being set in a plum position in 22 acres of pine trees and tropical gardens, overlooking the spectacular Cote d’Azur, it is easy to comprehend why the stars flock here in their droves.

The main part of the hotel was constructed in 1870 by the founder of Le Figaro newspaper. Picasso’s legacy lives on in the hotel, with an abundance of art works and tapestries adorning the reception’s walls.

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