KUALA LUMPUR (June 25): Driven by the desire to uphold the provenance of champagne, Ludovic du Plessis, the visionary and forward-thinking president of Telmont, is pushing for unprecedented innovations in the way grapes are grown, the wine aged and bottled, and even transported around the world. He talks about the maison’s new ultra-light bottles which weigh 800g, a good 35g lighter than traditional ones, and his desire to totally eradicate packaging and gift boxes from the luxury beverage’s equation.

The highly-anticipated Dioriviera pop-up and café has also opened at the One&Only Desaru Coast’s Ember Beach Club, a stylish initiative that will run until Aug 6. Touted as the biggest and most elaborate of its kind in the region (there are similar pop-ups running concurrently in Singapore and Bali), make a holiday out of it where you can dress head to toe in Dior, play mahjong or table tennis, or just sun-worship on a chaise lounge, all of which are completely kitted out in the fashion house’s iconic Toile de Jouy motif.

And just ahead of the announcement of the six regional winners of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize on June 27, Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia) 2019 winner Saras Manickam elaborates on her debut collection of fiction, how writers and non-writers alike stand to benefit greatly from creative writing classes, and how she has learnt the all-important lesson of not interfering with the story but instead, let the characters tell the story themselves.

Read all about it in the June 26, 2023 issue of Options, out with The Edge Malaysia weekly.

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