Monaco’s Top Marques was more than a runway for super car models. It was also an ‘off-piste’ – some might say off-the-wall – exhibition of strokes of genius. Take the series of levers, wheels, cogs, screws and ball bearings, scavenged from British scrap yards, that looked like Hollywood’s idea of a time machine: it turned out to be the world’s most intriguing bottle opener. The same ‘One-of-a-Hundred’ exhibit had a swooning, iron grandfather clock with a face inspired by Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’, a nutcracker half the size of the bottle-opener, and a taurean sculpture that opened like a budding flower into a conversation corner for four.
Further along, Germany’s Raumdesign Deluxe was showing a new use for leather: floors made of leather tiles - diamonds decorating the corners an option. Not for the wearers of spike heels.
Nor was something-to-wear neglected. Frederica Neri’s Fashion Soup was a statement of anything goes together: silk with t-shirts, satin with metal chains and even fine leather jackets made from frog skins. (For those interested, it takes 60 frog skins to make a normal sized jacket.)
Definitely something to lust after were La Piramide pearls, including the palest, natural, pink pearls – a tonality rarely seen - once worn only by emperors, according to Roberto Sciaguato who brought the collection to Monaco.
Finally, a pleasing, appeasing gift of Bacchus to end the evidence of thinking outside the box: Meregalli’s Luxury Lounge on Tour, a mobile opportunity to indulge in some vintage wine tasting.