A Floor For Every Season: Bricks: India

Family comes first, especially when it comes to our W4 Family at large. What better way to keep the family close knit (and under full control) than to build your own skyscraper for those who bare your similar DNA (or similar debaucheries). Forget the Rennert Hamptons monstrosity or the now seemingly petite Updown Court. India's wealthiest man, Mukesh Ambani has decided to build himself and his famiglia their very own 170 meter high building for a private residence. Each floor of his 27-story pad, to be named Antilla, will have enough space for half of India to live in for Christ or Allah's sake. The $1billion Antilla will feature 3 helipads, a full-floor health club, a full theater, and 6 floors of garage amongst many other goodies. We hope the peripheral zones of the building will contain the shadier activities of its architectural program, such as a fully-equipped opium den and at least one floor for a harem. The only downside we're pondering for Mr. Ambani is that with a proposed staff of 600 in this thing, he may have a mutiny to fear. Notwithstanding, we are looking forward to this type of residential hedonism on the island of Manhattan soon for we believe vulgarluxe architecture is just coming of age. Only the future knows who will be the first to construct their own skyscraper in the US. Maybe they should include a private airport. Who knows, the sky is quite literally the limit!

+Dream Home of India's Richest Man, BBC News 5 June 2007.
+Ira Rennert's Bridgehampton Home.
+Updown Court.
+Bovis Lend Lease.
+Hampton Domestics.

Dita: Eyewear: Los Angles: Suncrawler

There is a new lady in town and she is very naughty girl. Her name is Dita and she sells her wares with names such as Pusher, Drifter, Scandal, Wanderlust, and Bullet. As the new girl on the eyewear block Dita takes the place of the now mainstream Blinde as the lenses of choice for rockers and the flash bulb set. Thankfully Dita keeps her wares close and only has two locations (LA and Tokyo). A late morning visit to the sleek LA location (set on scruffy Melrose) had "Welcome to the Jungle" playing at full volume. It was unclear if the party had just started or if it was still going on from the night before. Either way, Dita is our kind of girl.

+Dita, 7625 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles +1 323 658-7078.

Damien's Diamond Death: Tango Alpha

Tango Alpha reflects on the $100,000,000 polished skull of death which has the London art world keenly awaiting the identity of its buyer:

"We here at W4 don’t like to talk about mainstream issues, but this diamond skull named “For The Love of God” by Damien Hirst needed to be posted. This piece links directly to our previous Vanitas article we posted in April (did W4 know of the skull’s arrival beforehand?). For those of you obsessed with death within a veil of hedonism like most of us here are, this one is a keeper. This will be the most expensive piece of art ever made as we are told by the NY Times and the Guiness Book of World Records. In addition to the roughly 8,600 diamonds embedded in this puppy and the 52-carat rock on his forehead, we would like to praise the guy for polishing the damn teeth and re-inserting them in his work o’ art. After all, who would want an 18th century man’s skull covered in diamonds with dirty teeth? We are waiting to see who is going to dump some coin on acquiring this one. We forsee a resident of Dubai or Russia as the purchaser of this piece de vulgarity, but you never know in this shady art trade world. Next up, a black diamond penis?"

+Bloomberg News: Damien Hirst Says $100 Million Diamond Skull Is `Almost' Sold (4 June 2007).
+BriteSmile