Luminara at sea; photo by Don Riddle, courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton
Yacht Collection.
Fashion never quite relinquished its fascination with the
voyage. Every year, houses release cruise
and resort collections still indebted to another era of travel:
clothes conceived for steamship decks, for trunks unpacked
somewhere warm, for the languorous period between departure and
arrival. The terminology survived even as the circumstances that
produced it largely vanished. We kept the clothes and dispensed
with the voyage.
This spring, somewhere between Tokyo and Kagoshima, I began to
wonder whether we had been too hasty.
I came to Japan to spend ten days aboard Luminara, the newest ship in The
Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s fleet, traveling from Tokyo
through Kobe, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Sasebo, and Kagoshima, with a
crossing to Busan, South Korea, along the way. It was my first time
in Japan, a country I had wanted to visit for years, and an
uncommon proposition for seeing it: not by racing between airports
and train stations, but by waking each morning to another city
coming into view off the bow.
The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s Luminara; photo by David Evan
Ruff.
There is, of course, nothing novel about discovering the world
by sea. What feels new is the degree to which luxury hospitality
has lately become interested in reviving it. The Ritz-Carlton is
among a growing number of hotel names expanding beyond the hotel
itself, betting that affluent travelers accustomed to suites, spas,
tasting menus, and highly individualized service might be persuaded
to take those expectations offshore.
I was intrigued by the proposition, partly because I had never
considered myself much of a cruise person. The word “cruise,”
fairly or not, came with baggage — and not of the Louis Vuitton
variety. A yacht, I discovered, makes a rather different
argument.
My introduction to Japan had begun one night earlier at The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo, 53 floors above
Roppongi, to be exact. It is a spectacular perch from which to
first encounter Tokyo. For years, I had assembled the city in my
head through films and photographs; now it sprawled beneath me,
dense and seemingly endless, buildings stretching toward the
horizon in every direction.
The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo; Photo by David Evan Ruff.
Lobby Lounge at The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo; photo by David Evan
Ruff.
By early evening, I had installed myself in the Lobby Lounge, a
sweeping room with panoramic views across the city. Tokyo does a
very good sunset from the 45th floor. The sky turned coral, then
lavender, while the buildings below began their nightly
illumination, eventually surrounding the room with light. The scene
inevitably summoned Sofia Coppola, though my version involved fewer
existential crises and considerably more gin.
Specifically, The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo Martini: No. 3 London Dry
Gin and Bobby’s Schiedam Dry Gin with Mancino Vermouth Sakura,
Saijou Shiro mirin, and yuzu Japanese bitters. It arrived alongside
Kobe beef sliders, an admittedly indulgent first meal in Japan and
an excellent one. Upstairs, my room was expansive yet warm, with a
king-size bed dressed in crisp white linens — a welcome sight after
a long day in transit. Tokyo could wait until morning.
The following afternoon, I boarded Luminara. My suite
opened onto a private terrace overlooking the water, while the
yacht’s decks offered enough restaurants, lounges, and quiet
corners that it never felt crowded. Over the next ten days, this
would be both my home base and my means of moving through
Japan.
Poolside on Luminara; photo by David Evan Ruff.
The view from my suite’s private terrace; photo by David Evan
Ruff.
Outdoor dining on Luminara; photo by David Evan Ruff.
Then there was More, my “Suite Ambassador,” and one of the great
pleasures of life aboard Luminara. The title is The
Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection parlance for a personal attendant,
though More quickly became more than that. Her kindness was one of
the highlights of my trip: she arranged dinner reservations, helped
with plans ashore, and somehow always seemed to appear when I
needed something.
Not long after we met, she offered to unpack my suitcases. I
hesitated. There are certain luxuries one understands perfectly
well in theory but feels ridiculous accepting in practice;
apparently, having someone unpack for me was one of them. I
eventually gave in. My clothes were soon hanging neatly in the
walk-in closet, my suitcase had disappeared from sight, and I began
to understand the appeal.
My suite with RIMOWA luggage; photo by David Evan
Ruff.
That familiarity extended beyond More. From the outset, crew
members I had yet to meet were already greeting me by name. Before
I knew everyone, everyone seemed to know me.
The real trick happened overnight. I would go to sleep in one
port and wake in another, the usual mechanics of getting there —
layovers, airport terminals, suitcases dragged over pavement —
having disappeared entirely. For someone who loves travel but not
always the getting there, it felt like cheating the system.
Along the Japanese coast; photo by David Evan Ruff.
Japan possesses perhaps the world’s most famous railway system,
and the Shinkansen is practically a destination unto itself.
Arriving by water, however, makes another geography visible. Japan
is an archipelago, a fact surprisingly easy to forget from land.
From the sea, its islandness becomes unavoidable: coastlines
approach slowly, and cities reveal themselves from the outside
in.
There was something fitting about approaching Japan slowly. Much
of what had drawn me there was its reverence for beauty, ritual,
and craft. I saw it in the ceremony surrounding matcha, in gardens
designed to reward prolonged looking, and in the care given to
objects both ordinary and exceptional. Even a purchase could become
an exercise in presentation, handled and wrapped with a degree of
consideration that made the transaction itself memorable. Meals
often asked you to notice a few ingredients more closely rather
than overwhelm you with twenty.
The Hanae Mori exhibition at The National Art Center, Tokyo; photo
by David Evan Ruff.
In Tokyo, an exhibition on
Hanae Mori offered another version of the idea. After
encountering couture on a trip to Paris in 1961, Mori returned to
Japan and began rethinking Western silhouettes through a Japanese
lens. She eventually took those clothes back to Paris, becoming the
first Asian woman admitted to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute
Couture. Travel had altered the clothes.
It once shaped entire wardrobes. Gabrielle
“Coco” Chanel opened her Biarritz boutique in 1915, dressing
her clientele in jersey and knitwear suited to life by the sea.
Resort clothes had a destination before they had a season. Today, a
cruise collection can appear almost anywhere. What began as clothes
for the voyage became a fantasy of one.
Aboard Luminara, I was living some version of that old
proposition. The days developed their own rhythm: mornings arriving
somewhere new, afternoons ashore, evenings back aboard, and nights
spent moving toward whatever came next. For once, getting there was
part of the pleasure.
Seta su Luminara; photo by David Evan Ruff.
Eating well was another pleasure. At Seta su Luminara, chef Fabio Trabocchi drew on
Venice’s history as a trading port, when spices arrived from Asia
en route to the rest of Europe. The menu played on those old
routes: miso-glazed lobster with stracciatella and tomato water,
and black-truffle milk bread with cultured seaweed butter. Italian
cooking met the flavors of the region we were sailing through,
neatly collapsing centuries of trade into dinner.
The temptations extended beyond the table. Cartier was among the
luxury boutiques onboard, alongside a rotating edit of vintage
designer handbags. One could return from a day in port and find
oneself contemplating a
Juste un Clou or Hermès
Birkin just before dinner at Mistral, mere steps away.
Cartier aboard Luminara; Photo by David Evan Ruff.
Chanel and Hermès bags; photo by David Evan Ruff.
Still, the best reason to be aboard was how easily it delivered
you ashore. The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection arranged the sort of
private experiences that usually require extensive planning: a
traditional tea ceremony, a sushi-making class, or a private guide
and chauffeur for the day. For someone accustomed to planning trips
within an inch of their lives, the ease was its own luxury.
Modern luxury travel is primarily built around the elimination
of friction. We pay to skip the line, shorten the transfer, secure
the reservation, and have the luggage appear upstairs. Travel may
be one of the few things we spend enormous amounts of money doing,
only to spend even more minimizing the traveling part.
At sea, there is no minimizing it. One afternoon, somewhere
along the Japanese coast, there was nowhere I needed to be. Land
appeared and disappeared in the distance. I could read, swim,
answer emails if I was feeling particularly masochistic, or simply
look outside. The hours between ports weren’t dead time. They were
the day. It made fashion’s century-long romance with travel by sea
easier to understand.
Sunset at sea; photo by David Evan Ruff.
By the final days, I had grown accustomed to the ease of it all.
My clothes stayed in the same wardrobe while Tokyo became Kobe,
Hiroshima, Sasebo, Kagoshima, and Busan. The Ritz-Carlton Yacht
Collection had removed most of the usual indignities of getting
from one place to the next. The most strenuous part of changing
cities was deciding what to wear.
Ten days later, I had seen Japan, eaten exceptionally, acquired
far too many things, and unpacked exactly once. Fashion, as usual,
may have been onto something.
topics:
The Ritz-Carlton,
The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection,
The Ritz-Carlton Tokyo,
Tokyo,
Japan, Kobe,
Kagoshima,
Busan,
South Korea,
Sasebo,
Fukouka,
Luxury Travel,
Luxury Hospitality,
Yacht,
coco chanel,
Chanel,
cartier,
Tokyo Japan
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