Lotus Arts de Vivre

Of the partnerships that do not lead with food, Lotus Arts de Vivre holds a place I would not put anywhere else. BMW is engineering meeting the table. Lotus Arts de Vivre is something quieter and more tactile — the Bangkok atelier whose fine jewellery, sculpted objets, and rare home collectibles have honoured the natural world for forty years. On 2 October 2023, I had them in my room at Shin'Labo, with their pieces as part of the dining environment and the courses composed against them. The conservation initiative Save Wild Tigers — held as a named chapter on my Philanthropy page — was the work the evening carried.

I do not pretend the conservation work belongs to me. It belongs to Lotus Arts de Vivre and to Save Wild Tigers and to the partners who have been carrying tiger conservation for years before I plated a single course against it. What I did, on the evening of 2 October 2023, was offer my room and my cooking. The wild that the atelier has placed at the centre of its decorative arts for four decades met the wild that I have tried to honour through the indigenous gastronomy I learn from in Sarawak. The evening was that meeting.

Lotus Arts de Vivre — the house

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

Three things about the house I would name if I were writing about it for someone else.

Asian craft at European luxury weight. The atelier brings master craftsmen from across Asia — Thailand, Burma, China, India — into a single house, working in bronze, silver, mother-of-pearl, lacquer, semiprecious stones, exotic woods, and the rare materials the von Buerens have sourced on decades of travel through the region. The output sits at European luxury price points and in European luxury distribution (Bangkok, Hong Kong, occasional showcase tours), but the work itself is fundamentally the labour of Asian master crafts that European luxury houses have historically not centred. That distinction matters.

The animal kingdom as recurring subject. Lotus Arts de Vivre’s signature has always placed the natural world — and the animal kingdom in particular — at the centre of its decorative work. Insects in bronze. Sea creatures in mother-of-pearl. Exotic birds in enamel. And, repeatedly across the body of work — tigers. The tiger is a Lotus Arts de Vivre signature. A piece returned to. The bridge to Save Wild Tigers.

Family-house identity. Like Wm Grant & Sons (where I find The Balvenie), Lotus Arts de Vivre is family-owned and family-creatively-directed. The work carries the von Bueren continuity of vision. That family-house mark sits at a different place from the corporate-luxury-conglomerate identity that holds, for example, BMW or LVMH/MHD. The pages I write here honour that distinction.

Save Wild Tigers — the conservation work

I would not write this page without naming the conservation initiative that gave the evening its centre. Save Wild Tigers is one of three named chapters on my Philanthropy page — alongside Be Kind (the pandemic chapter, 2020–21) and Room to Read (the Singapore Gala). Save Wild Tigers is the third such chapter on the public record, and the Lotus Arts de Vivre showcase of October 2023 is its archived expression.

Save Wild Tigers is a UK-registered conservation initiative supporting tiger habitats and populations across Asia — India, Thailand, Sumatra, Malaysia, Russia. It partners with luxury houses for fundraising galas and showcase events. Lotus Arts de Vivre’s enduring tiger motif has made the atelier one of Save Wild Tigers’ natural collaborative partners over the years.

When luxury places the wild at the centre of its work — not as decoration, but as cause — what follows can earn the right to be held publicly. The Shin’Labo evening of 2 October 2023 is where that work was placed at one table.

The named chapter on the Philanthropy page is the home of the conservation work itself. This page holds the partnership with Lotus Arts de Vivre. The conservation argument lives at /about/philanthropy/.

The Shin’Labo evening — 2 October 2023

The evening is captured in one published reference: the Metta Studio video of 2:03, uploaded 2 October 2023, titled Shin’Labo X Lotus Arts de Vivre showcase #savewildtigers. The framing reads cleanly:

“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 weighted to deliver. Lotus Arts de Vivre’s pieces — fine jewellery, sculpted objets, rare home collectibles — were placed alongside the cuisine in the room itself. The atelier’s pieces became part of the dining environment. My plates were composed against the maison’s craft. What the video calls a symphony of great sophistication is the read I would accept on the evening’s own terms.

The host was Shin’Labo at Mitsui Shopping Park Lalaport KL — my flagship room from 2022 to 2025. The evening sat against twenty months of operating discipline; the Lotus Arts de Vivre pieces were held in the same architectural 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 — Thank you for choosing Shin’Labo by James Won. I would close this page the same way I closed that evening: the fundraising or awareness particulars are not mine to publicise. The work is at the centre. The atelier and I shared one table in October 2023 with the wild between us. That is what the evening was. That is what this page holds.

What I tried to honour

The work with Lotus Arts de Vivre is held with the restraint a single-evening conservation chapter asks for.

I do not position myself as Save Wild Tigers’ voice. The conservation work is held by the partners who have been carrying it for years. My contribution is one showcase, in October 2023, at one Kuala Lumpur fine-dining room. The proportion is honoured.

I name Lotus Arts de Vivre at full weight because the atelier earned it. Four decades of Asian decorative arts at European luxury standard is weight that this page recognises and holds.

I do not over-extend the conservation argument here. The work itself sits at the Philanthropy page, where Save Wild Tigers is held alongside Be Kind and Room to Read. To bring the conservation argument to its full weight on this page would duplicate the Philanthropy work and miss what this page is for.

I do cross-reference BMW (the other house in this part of the work) and the conservation page (where the Save Wild Tigers chapter lives) without merging the decorative-arts work into either of them.

What Lotus Arts de Vivre does and what I do are not the same. They sit on the same standard. On one October evening in 2023, they sat at one table. When luxury and haute cuisine create a successful symphony of great sophistication — and the wild they honoured that night was at the centre, not the edge — the work has earned its place here.