Diana Carmichael – Contemporary luxury tableware at it’s most creative

Two weeks ago I got an invitation to dine with one of the most influential men in the Internet world. He invited me and my girlfriend to dine in his lush penthouse apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. His wife is a former model who also happens to be one of the most gracious hosts I’ve ever met. The night was definitely going to be memorable.

I was dressed in my usual Dunhill suit and Hugo Boss tie and dished a small fortune to buy my girlfriend a new dress for the occasion. I needed this night to be perfect: A lot of money was riding on this deal.

John and Cathy (not their real names) greeted us at the door and invited us into their beautifully furnished house. The penthouse is decorated in a wave of earthy tones with a dash of dark red ever so often. The dining room is spectacular: A dark mahogany table with the most interesting contemporary chairs. You could see they entertain quite regularly. We sat down for dinner at the table and I saw the one thing that was by far the most thought provoking…

The cutlery: With all the research that I do for this blog, I thought I’ve seen it all, but I was wrong. The cutlery was quite unique. My girlfriend then asked the question I was dying to ask: “What beautiful cutlery, where did you get it?” You could see Cathy beaming at the question, she was definitely proud of it. “Oh, it’s Diana Carmichael. I got the set as a gift from my sister-in-law as a birthday gift.” she said.

Now, I must admit, I’ve never heard of Diana Carmichael before, but it was such exquisite pieces, that I thought I had to do a posting on it for the blog.

I visited their website and actually saw the set Cathy had on the table (pictured below).

Diana Carmichael has some of the most creative contemporary tableware accessory designs I’ve ever seen. It definitely compliments any modern living environment. See the sets below.

Guess what happened… Apart from the contract I got, my girlfriend now wants a set of Diana Carmichael tableware as reward for being on her best behaviour when I scored the contract!

Club Sportiva - Partial Sportcar Ownership (Carsharing)

A business associate of mine, Markus, and I had a very good meeting yesterday. He owns his own printing and distribution company and usually makes a good impression in front of potential clients, tailored in Hugo Boss suits, Ralph Lauren shoes and the Breitling watch. He walks into every room with an aura of success: He owns the room.

But he usually does something in every meeting that makes it hard for me to fully concentrate: When he sits down, he takes his car keys out of his pocket and places it on the boardroom table in front of him. I cannot help to notice the keys... Yesterday it was Aston Martin keys. Strange thing is, at our first meeting back in January, the keys were those of a Ferrari and the time after that it was BMW. So obviously I started thinking the printing business must be doing reaaaaally good. Let's forget online, it pays to go offline!

But yesterday I walked him to the car. Yes, there stood a beautiful 2006 Aston Martin DB9 Vantage, its silver body gleaming in the hot sun. I said to Markus: "Beautifull car buddy. What happened to the Ferrari?" He smiled, slipped the Polo Sunglasses on his face and told me the secret... Carsharing. He was part of an exclusive carsharing club. The consortium owns a collection of cars and that both the Aston and the Ferrari were part of the collection. He reserves a sport car every time he wants to impress clients. He makes sure that he does not pitch up at a client with the same car twice! “Markus, Markus, Markus… The tailored suits are enough, buddy!” I thought to myself.

But if you would like to go Markus’ route; here is the phenomenon of carsharing consortiums.

Wikipedia describes carsharing as such:

“Carsharing is a system where a fleet of cars (or other vehicles) is
jointly-owned by the users in distinction from car rental or cars in private
ownership. The users are organized as a democratically-controlled company,
public agency, cooperative, ad hoc grouping. The fleet is made available for use
by members of the carshare group in a wide variety of ways. The costs and
troubles of vehicle purchase, ownership and maintenance are transferred to a
central organizer (the Carshare Operator or more familiarly CSO).”

I searched the net and came to site of Club Sportiva, the Bay area’s largest partial-ownership club. Instead of owning one sportscar and being responsible for all the maintenance of the car, you buy into the hassle-free consortium and instead of having access to only one sportscar, you can have a whole collection to choose from. On Monday you can drive the Lamborghini Gallardo to work, followed by the Porsche 911 Turbo on Tuesday, the vintage Ferrari 348 on Wednesday and so forth. Members do not have to worry about maintaining these bad boys, as they have a professional mechanic shop worrying about the cars’ well-being.

Club Sportiva has a $8 million car collection which includes brands like Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Lotus, Corvette, Jaguar, Bentley, Morgan, Maserati and Mercedes-Benz. The cars vary from new and vintage sport cars to luxury sedans. In some consortiums you car even drive away in the Muscle Cars of yesteryear.

The concept to me is sound. The benefits excellent, and the service that comes with these partial ownership worth the while. BUT, dear Markus, you do not NEED to drive a new car every day to make a deal, but it could help…