Lotus Arts de Vivre

Of the partnerships that do not start with food, Lotus Arts de Vivre has a place no other house could take. BMW is engineering meeting the table. Lotus Arts de Vivre is quieter and more tactile: the Bangkok atelier whose fine jewellery, sculpted objets and rare collectibles for the home have honoured the natural world for forty years. On 2 October 2023 I welcomed them into my room at Shin'Labo. Their pieces became part of the dining room, and I composed the courses around them. The evening carried the work of Save Wild Tigers, the conservation initiative that has its own chapter on my Philanthropy page.

I do not pretend the conservation work is mine. It belongs to Lotus Arts de Vivre, to Save Wild Tigers, and to the partners who were working for tigers years before I plated a single course for them. What I did, on the evening of 2 October 2023, was offer my room and my cooking. The wild that the atelier has put at the centre of its decorative arts for four decades met the wild I try to honour through the indigenous gastronomy I learn from in Sarawak. The evening was that meeting.

The house

Lotus Arts de Vivre was founded in Bangkok in 1981 by Rolf and Helen von Bueren, a German-Filipina couple whose four decades of work have made the house one of Asia’s most respected decorative-arts ateliers. The house is now creatively led by their three sons, Sri, Reno, and Pojaman, who continue the family direction.

There are three things about the house I would point to if I were writing about it for someone else.

Asian craft at European luxury level. The atelier brings master craftsmen from across Asia (Thailand, Burma, China, India) into one house. They work in bronze, silver, mother-of-pearl, lacquer, semiprecious stones, exotic woods, and the rare materials the von Buerens have found over decades of travel in the region. The pieces sell at European luxury prices and through European luxury channels (Bangkok, Hong Kong, occasional touring exhibitions), yet the work itself is the labour of Asian master crafts that European luxury houses have rarely put first. That difference matters.

The animal kingdom as a recurring subject. Lotus Arts de Vivre has always put the natural world, and animals above all, at the centre of its work. Insects in bronze. Sea creatures in mother-of-pearl. Exotic birds in enamel. And, again and again, tigers. The tiger is a house signature that the atelier keeps coming back to, and it is the link to Save Wild Tigers.

A family house. Like Wm Grant & Sons (where I find The Balvenie), Lotus Arts de Vivre is owned and creatively led by one family, and the work carries the von Buerens’ continuity of vision. That sets it apart from the corporate luxury groups behind, for example, BMW or LVMH/MHD, and I write about each with that difference in mind.

Save Wild Tigers: the conservation work

I would not write this page without naming the conservation initiative at the centre of the evening. Save Wild Tigers is one of three named chapters on my Philanthropy page, alongside Be Kind (the pandemic chapter, 2020 to 2021) and Room to Read (the Singapore Gala). The Lotus Arts de Vivre evening of October 2023 is how that chapter appears in my archive.

Save Wild Tigers is a UK-registered conservation initiative that supports tiger habitats and populations across Asia: India, Thailand, Sumatra, Malaysia, Russia. It works with luxury houses on fundraising galas and exhibitions. Because tigers recur so often in the atelier’s work, Lotus Arts de Vivre has long been one of its natural partners.

When a luxury house takes up the wild as its cause, the work can earn a public place. On 2 October 2023, at Shin’Labo, that work came to one table.

The conservation work itself lives on the Philanthropy page, at /about/philanthropy/. This page is about the partnership with Lotus Arts de Vivre.

The Shin’Labo evening, 2 October 2023

One published piece records the evening: a 2:03 Metta Studio video, uploaded on 2 October 2023 and titled Shin’Labo X Lotus Arts de Vivre showcase #savewildtigers. Its description reads:

“When luxury and haute cuisine create a successful symphony of great sophistication. This collaboration bringing together precious objects of fine jewellery, rare home decor collectibles and haute cuisine between Lotus Arts de Vivre and Shin’Labo by James, was a statement of great beauty and taste converging into an unforgettable experience.”

The format was simple to describe and hard to deliver. Lotus Arts de Vivre’s fine jewellery, sculpted objets and rare collectibles were set alongside the food in the room itself, so the atelier’s pieces became part of the dining room. I composed my plates in answer to their craft. The video calls the result a symphony of great sophistication, and on the evening’s own terms I would accept that.

The host was Shin’Labo at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL, my flagship room from 2022 to 2025. By then the room had twenty months of service behind it, and the Lotus Arts de Vivre pieces stood in the same space that had hosted the Krug Chef’s Table, the Macallan Dining Experience, and the Louis XIII × T’lur cognac and caviar work.

The video closes with “Thank you for choosing Shin’Labo by James Won.” I would close this page the way I closed that evening. The details of the fundraising and awareness work are not mine to publicise; the work itself is what matters. The atelier and I shared one table in October 2023 with the wild between us, and that is all this page needs to record.

What I tried to honour

I have kept this page as restrained as one conservation evening deserves.

I do not set myself up as a voice for Save Wild Tigers. The conservation work belongs to partners who have been doing it for years. My part was one evening in October 2023, in one Kuala Lumpur fine-dining room, and I keep it to that size.

I give Lotus Arts de Vivre its full due because the atelier has earned it. Four decades of Asian decorative arts made to a European luxury standard deserve that recognition here.

I do not stretch the conservation argument on this page. That work sits on the Philanthropy page, beside Be Kind and Room to Read, and making the full case again here would repeat it and lose sight of what this page is for.

I link to BMW, the other house in this part of my work, and to the conservation page where the Save Wild Tigers chapter lives, and I keep the decorative-arts work separate from both.

Lotus Arts de Vivre and I do different work to the same standard. On one October evening in 2023 we shared a table. The video called it a successful symphony of luxury and haute cuisine. It earns its place here because the wild we were honouring sat at the centre of that table.