The global luxury market will grow by a relatively modest 4-5 percent in turnover this year compared to the 10 percent expansion seen in 2012, a study released on Thursday by research consultancies Bain & Company and Fondazione Altagamma showed.

“We are seeing a more even distribution of global growth,” said Claudia D’Arpizio, a Bain partner in Milan and lead author of the study.

“In turn, brands are refocusing from short term, reactive hot spot thinking to long-term sustained growth strategies,” she said.

Turnover reached 212 billion euros ($273 billion) in 2012.

The study found that wealthy tourists were seeking out new destinations like Dubai, South East Asia and Australia, with a particularly marked drop in the numbers of Japanese visitors to Europe.

It also said the growth in luxury watch purchases were down in the booming Chinese market and sales in cosmetics had fallen off in mature markets.

While growth in the Chinese luxury market would stabilise at seven percent this year, the study found, it would explode by 20 percent in South East Asia — driven by new store openings.

“Europe remains a challenge for the industry,” the two research consultancies said in a statement.

“As tourism slows, as tourists spend less per visit and as Europeans, especially in southern Europe, curtail spending, Bain expects flat-to-two percent growth” in 2013, it said.

It also forecast a five-percent rise for the Middle East and a seven-percent increase for the United States, while Latin America would grow by 12 percent.

Andrea Illy, head of the Fondazione Altagamma, said the luxury market had a crucial importance for the Italian economy, accounting for 24 percent of exports and 2.0 percent of gross domestic product GDP.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president Ng Ser Miang from Singapore officially announced his candidacy for the organisation’s presidency on Thursday.

Ng, who is also the vice-president of his homeland’s Olympic Committee, made his announcement at Paris’s famous Sorbonne university after communicating his intentions to current incumbent Jacques Rogge.

The Belgian, who was elected in 2001, will not be standing for re-election.

“It’s a great honour and privilege to announce to you in this prestigious and symbolic location my candidacy for the IOC presidency,” Ng said Thursday.

An IOC executive committee member since 2005, Ng is the second person after Germany’s Thomas Back, also an IOC vice-president and the president of the German Olympic Committee, to announce his candidacy.

Others who are expected to stand for the post include Puerto Rico’s Richard Carrion, president of the IOC’s finance committee, Switzerland’s Rene Fasel, International Ice Hockey Federation president, former Moroccan athlete Nawal El Moutawakel, IOC vice-president, and Ukraine’s pole vault legend Sergei Bubka, a member of the IOC’s executive committee.

Switzerland’s International Rowing Federation president Denis Oswald and Taiwan’s International Amateur Boxing Federation president Wu Ching-Kuo are also thought to be in the running.

Candidates must declare themselves by June 10, three months before the election on September 10 during the IOC’s 125th session in Buenos Aires, where the host city for the 2020 summer Olympics will also be chosen, with Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid all vying for that honour.

Nicole Kidman and “Amelie” star Audrey Tautou kicked off 12-days of red carpet fashion at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival.

The prestigious Riviera movie meet provides both big fashion houses and up-and-coming designers with unparalleled opportunities to showcase their work before a global audience.

The race to dress the biggest names, who can attract maximum publicity, starts in mid-April straight after the official announcement of the films selected for Cannes.

Pictures of Hollywood A-lister Kidman, a member of this year’s festival jury who wore a strapless embroidered Dior gown to Wednesday evening’s opening ceremony, can be guaranteed to go round the world in minutes.

But other actresses in the spotlight this year such as “The Great Gatsby” star Carey Mulligan will also have been much sought after.

Some designers, however, have a policy of letting stars come to them.

At the fashion house of Lebanese couturier Elie Saab, a favourite with award ceremony regulars, staff never make the first move.

Last year Elie Saab dressed China’s Fan Bingbing and France’s Virginie Ledoyen.

“We don’t contact them: they have to want to wear our robes,” said Elie Saab’s Emilie Legendre, adding that a large number of fittings were done this year in Los Angeles, London and Paris.

Tautou, who shot to international fame in 2001 as the pixie-faced Montmartre waitress in “Amelie”, is this year’s maitresse de ceremonies at Cannes.

For Wednesday night’s opening ceremony, she opted for young French designer Yiqing Yin who spent 400 hours creating her frosted mint organza and chiffon silk gown.

“It’s an extraordinary gift” from Audrey Tautou, said Yin, adding that having Tautou wear her dress represented “a unique exposure”.

“Few actresses have confidence in young designers and turn instead to the big houses,” she said.

Young Belgian designer Cedric Charlier provided dresses for director Mia Hansen-Love and actresses Marine Vacth and Nathalia Acevedo.

But between the couturier’s fitting room and the red carpet anything can happen.

“They can change their mind at the last moment” and not wear the dresses, said a source at Cedric Charlier’s.

It is for this reason that some designers including Herve L. Leroux never disclose the name of those expected to wear their dresses before they actually appear in them.

“Two years ago Sarah Jessica Parker came with several dresses and chose ours at the last moment,” said Legendre.

The photo of her in Elie Saab appeared in newspapers and on television all over the world.

In the Elie Saab show room in a suite at Cannes’ Hotel Martinez around 60 dresses are stored ready for a turn on the red carpet.

“We pay attention to the dresses that we lend, so that they are not the same style or the same colour,” Legendre said.

“Sometimes we dress an actress at the last moment, for example, because she thinks her dress from another house doesn’t suit her,” she said.

The show room also means last minute alterations can be carried out.

Over the years, the number of photo opportunities at Cannes has mushroomed.

And at 12 days, the festival provides even greater opportunities to highlight a designer’s work than the one-night only Oscars.

Cannes is “better than an advertisement”, added Legendre.

“Clients identify more with an actress than with a model,” she said.

Italian jeans maker Diesel signed a deal with Venice city council on Tuesday to fund a five-million-euro ($6.5-million) project to restore and clean the floating city’s famous Rialto Bridge.

“Today a fundamental collaboration for the safeguarding of our common heritage comes to life,” mayor Giorgio Orsoni said after Renzo Rosso, founder and owner of Diesel, signed the contract.

The work on the centuries-old bridge will begin in early 2014 and last approximately 18 months, according to the city’s cultural officer Alessandro Maggioni.

“We’ve been lucky to find someone who believed in our idea of putting together public and private for the renovation of this important piece of architecture,” Orsoni said.

The deal will allow Rosso to cover 30 percent of the restoration site with advertising billboards.

The fashion entrepreneur famed for revolutionising the jeans sector said he thought “private entities should commit to cooperate with public institutions, to make this world a better place.”

One of four bridges to cross Venice’s grand canal, the 48-metre (157 foot) long Rialto was built between 1588 and 1591 and “is greatly in need of repairs,” Maggioni said.

The entire floating metropolis, which is visited by some 20 million tourists each year, “needs a lot of maintenance,” including restoring other key bridges and cleaning up the network of canals, home to the city’s trademark gondoliers, he said.

As the economic crisis drags on in a recession-hit Italy, the Rialto is not the only historic landmark to be restored thanks to private funding.

The refurbishment of the Colosseum, Rome’s ancient gladiator ground, is being funded by the Italian luxury shoe manufacturers Tod’s, while a Japanese businessman is paying to restore a large stone pyramid which was built as a mausoleum in the capital for a Roman dignitary.

More than a million Dutch children donned orange on Friday for a national sports day to officially start to celebrate the enthronement of Dutch king Willem-Alexander next week.

The king-in-waiting and his Argentine wife, soon-to-be Queen Maxima, opened the “Koningsspelen” (King’s Games) in the eastern city of Enschede. Around 1.3 million children are taking part in the national event — including the royal couple’s own three young daughters.

“We’re now in the final countdown to April 30,” Willem-Alexander, who turns 46 on Saturday, told the NOS national broadcaster four days ahead of his investiture as the first Dutch monarch in more than a century.

Now called the Prince of Orange, Willem-Alexander is to take over from his mother Queen Beatrix, 75, who will formally abdicate on Tuesday after which his own elaborate enthronement ceremony follows in the Dutch capital Amsterdam.

The royal couple, who are to become Europe’s youngest king and queen, admitted that they were getting a bit nervous ahead of the day.

“It’s creeping up a bit and you can feel it with the start of the King’s Games,” the Dutch future regent said.

The couple added that their own three daughters, heir to the throne Catherina-Amalia, 9, Alexia, 7, and Ariane, 6, were also participating in the King’s Games.

“They will be taking part in diverse sports according to their age groups,” Willem-Alexander said.

In an interview a few weeks ahead of the enthronement, Willem-Alexander said he wanted to be a “traditional king for the 21st century” but that he was not a “protocol fetishist”.

South Africa’s Paralympian sprint star Oscar Pistorius, who is charged with murdering his girlfriend on February 14, is still too traumatised to start training for competition, his family said on Thursday.

Pistorius last week succeeded in having his stringent bail conditions relaxed to allow him to travel abroad for competitions, but his uncle Arnold Pistorius said he was still battling to even step out of the house.

“Oscar is not back on any official training programme. This may change in future, but this will be a decision taken by Oscar.”

“At this point Oscar is still in an extremely traumatised state and has made it clear to all of us that he is not able or willing to even contemplate this issue at this stage,” the uncle said in a statement.

Pistorius’s athletics career has been on hold since the killing of 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day.

The double amputee known as “Blade Runner” is considering to resume training, his agent Peet Van Zyl told AFP on Wednesday, to get “some form of routine in his life”.

His family is also encouraging him to get back on the track to help him to “stabilise” emotionally.

Last week a judge eased his bail terms to allow him to move about inside the country and abroad for competition.

His uncle said he has since gone out to run on a number of isolated occasions, “but each time has been very difficult and he has ‘struggled immensely’ with the decision to even leave the house.”

Pistorius who faces a trial later this year on charges of pre-meditated murder, had appealed against the raft of bail conditions he said were unfair and unwarranted.

He claims he mistook Steenkamp for an intruder when he shot her several times through a locked bathroom door in the early hours of February 14.

People age 65 and older who eat fish may live an average of two years longer than people who do not consume the omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in seafood, a US study suggested on Monday.

People with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids also had an overall risk of dying that was 27 percent lower, and a risk of dying from heart disease that was 35 percent lower than counterparts who had lower blood levels, said the study.

The research was led by scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health and was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

While other studies have demonstrated a link between omega-3 fatty acids and lower risk of heart disease, this research examined records of older people to determine any link between fish-eating and death risk.

Researchers scanned 16 years of data on about 2,700 US adults aged 65 or older. Those considered for the study were not taking fish oil supplements, to eliminate any confusion over the use of supplements or dietary differences.

Those with the highest blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in fish like salmon, tuna, halibut, sardines, herring and mackerel, had the lowest risk of dying from any cause, and lived an average of 2.2 years longer than those with low levels.

Researchers identified docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) as most strongly related to lower risk of coronary heart disease death.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) was strongly linked to lower risk of nonfatal heart attack, and docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) was most strongly associated with lower risk of dying from a stroke.

The findings persisted after researchers adjusted for demographic, lifestyle and diet factors.

“Our findings support the importance of adequate blood omega-3 levels for cardiovascular health, and suggest that later in life these benefits could actually extend the years of remaining life,” said lead author Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.

“The biggest bang-for-your-buck is for going from no intake to modest intake, or about two servings of fatty fish per week,” said Mozaffarian.

Sante D’Orazio, a photographer at the heart of the supermodel era, said Friday the switch to digital cameras means greater detail than ever before, but the loss of something more important: beauty.

“The sense of emotion is gone. It creates a detachment from the subject. The character of the personality is gone,” D’Orazio said of the whole digital production chain and its torrent of perfect, heavily edited pictures.

“That’s the danger of post-production in digital. People kill anatomy. They have no sense of anatomy. The sense of realism takes away from the sensuality.”

D’Orazio, speaking at the opening of a sale in New York of some of his most famous fashion shots, knows a thing or two about beautiful women.

After getting his first job with Andy Warhol, the New York-born photographer went on to become famous for his late 1980s and 1990s pictures of models like Kate Moss, Helena Christensen, Christy Turlington and Eva Herzigova.

The pictures are variously poetic, even sculptural, often smoldering and sometimes borderline pornographic.

D’Orazio, 57, said the superm11odel era that he’s credited with helping to create is truly over.

“The term started with these girls,” he said, gesturing at the huge, provocative prints of models in the private sales gallery of Christie’s in Manhattan. “Everybody else is just usurping the title.”

His former muses are still world famous, but for the most part have moved on. “They’re busy with their kids and that,” he said.

But their now iconic images have become “collectible” — a development he hopes will fuel sales at his Christie’s exhibit, titled “Other Graces.”

According to D’Orazio, commercial fashion photography is not what it was and the abandonment of film has a lot to answer for.

In film, “there’s an emotional quality that the digital loses. Digital creates a facade. Film has depth to it,” he said.

“Thank God, I kept all my film cameras. Nobody wanted to buy them anyway.”

But a broader loss in quality comes in the shift from the likes of the ethereal Kate Moss to famous-for-being-famous celebrities like Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton.

It’s a “trash” world where “the new pop is porn,” said D’Orazio.

D’Orazio dropped out of the fashion frontlines for several years, but said he’s found a way to navigate this new terrain while maintaining his integrity: turning porn into art.

In his newest works, which he hopes collectors will discover after being lured in by his conventional fashion images, he took “old ’70s porn and scratched out the faces and their privates and what it did was make a moving abstract,” he explained.

“As an artist, you basically do a portrait of what you see,” he said, referring to Western society’s embrace of pornography. “That’s what our culture is.”

The Chinese fashion brand that designed bags and clothes for the country’s new first lady has turned down the chance to make a fortune from her endorsement, saying Wednesday no similar items will be on offer.

Peng Liyuan, long a household name in China as a military folk singer, has set off a media and Internet frenzy with her elegant style as she accompanies husband President Xi Jinping on a state visit to Russia and African countries.

Photographs of the couple were plastered across state media front pages. Picture slide shows on major Chinese web portals put the focus on Peng instead of her husband, an unusual approach to political news coverage in the country.

Her prominence is a marked contrast to recent first ladies, who were rarely seen, and commentators have proclaimed it a step forward for Beijing’s “soft power”.

Even though none of Peng’s apparel bore conspicuous logos, intrigued Internet users still managed to identify one manufacturer as Exception, a Chinese brand based in the southern city of Guangzhou.

For days the company kept silent despite its apparent publicity windfall, declining repeated AFP requests for comment.

Finally on Wednesday it confirmed in a statement posted on its verified weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, that it made some of Peng’s clothes, together with Wuyong, another Chinese label.

Her choice showed “trust and support for national brands”, it added.

But it had no plans to offer Peng’s admirers the opportunity to imitate her, it said.

“On this occasion the design and manufacturing are specialised and custom-made and the items are not for sale publicly,” it said.

But other business-minded Chinese vendors are cashing in on the enthusiasm. Imitations of Peng’s clothes were being offered on Taobao, China’s biggest online marketplace, within hours of her stepping off the plane in Moscow.

A trenchcoat resembling the one she wore then was available for 1,822 yuan ($290) in a Taobao shop Wednesday.

Winter holidays are a great time to reconnect with nature and indulge in a wide range of activities in breathtaking snowy landscapes. Many winter sports exist, from the easiest to the most extreme, providing fun and excitement for the whole family. A great quantity of ski areas in France are opened to visitors and provide facilities to practice numerous sports and activities involving snow and ice. While some of those require great physical condition and experience, others are quite easy and open to everyone, regardless of their age and level. What are the best winter sports to practice during a winter break?

Fun activities for the whole family

Parents bringing their children on winter holidays can practice many different sports with them, starting with Alpine skiing and Nordic skiing, two variations of one of the most popular of all winter activities. Most ski areas in France include slopes ranked by difficulty level, making it easy to choose the most appropriate depending on skills and experience. Dog sledging is also a favourite among children and parents alike, allowing them to discover snowy mountains in a new light. Another wonderful way to indulge in the beautiful scenery is to practice snowshoeing or skidooing.

Extreme winter sports for thrill-seekers

For those who prefer enjoying their winter holidays with fellow extreme sports enthusiasts, the vast majority of ski areas in France provides material and facilities that make it possible. From snowboarding to ski jumping or freestyling, among others, various winter sports are designed to increase adrenaline levels and enjoy yourself in entertaining but intense competitions with friends. While some of them are open to everyone, it is important to be prepared and stay safe at all times. Off-piste skiing is another activity favoured by adventurous individuals, but it needs to be done sensibly.

When going on winter holidays, visitors are provided with a great number of sports and activities, which sometimes makes it difficult to choose. Whatever the decision is, it is greatly helped by the fact that ski areas in France offer high quality facilities where professionals are always ready to help and inform.

Picture: akiebler – Fotolia