ON A BRIGHT THURSDAY MORNING about two weeks ago, while browsing through our Instagram feed over coffee, happened upon a photo of the Mercado Colón by Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino's longtime partner, and wondered what he was doing in the city. Not only was he in our city, but he and Valentino were also right in our neighbourhood. Do you remember when we showcased a few behind-the-scenes glimpses of the new Sofia Coppola-directed classical Opera La Traviata? Well as it turns out, the production is by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti with the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Valentino, along with Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli designed all the costumes for the production, and everyone was in Valencia for the upcoming opening night, which would also include Plácido Domingo and Queen Sofía of Spain. The production was to play for seven nights only, with the final night being this past Thursday. Of course, by the time had found out, tickets had already sold out, and despite our disappointment in missing what was to be a stunning production, had realised yet again, as in Edinburgh, that we always seem to know, long before it becomes fashionable, which are the best cities to live ...

While in Edinburgh, we accomplished a great deal, launching Belgrave Crescent (January 2014), the redesign of This Is Glamorous (March 2014), and the launch of shop.thisisglamorous.com (April 2015). The year 2016 was a hallmark one for us, one of change and growth, and also one of letting go. We, P & I, have both been interested in the philosophy of David Hume lately, whose general thought was that all human knowledge is ultimately founded solely in experience. More on that later, but in hindsight, we can see that the experiences we've had in the past year have prepared us for our best year yet.

Back to Hume again, P began a new series in February, You Are What You Consume, based on the philosopher's notion that our concept of self is really nothing more than an illusion of perceptions and memories in a seemingly continuous narrative: "We are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement."

From this philosophical perspective, what we choose to consume from television, music, art and film influences our notions of who we are, the ideas we have, and our levels of creativity. In his new series, P will cover the books, music and films that have influenced successful artists, musicians, actors, directors and authors. You can read the first in the series here.

And finally, running three websites is no easy feat, so of course we have a great tech team to keep things operating smoothly and who we couldn't live without (we love you, Tarik!). The month of February has been particularly fraught with technical difficulties as we prepared for the relaunch of The Shop, and moved two of the three sites to a new server, but things are settling into place now and the month of March will be one of new beginnings. We can't wait show you all the things we've been working on.