Adventures in Art Takes Travel Retail to a New Level

Karen Stone Talwar has unwittingly created a whole new category of travel retail. While the term generally refers to the purchases people make in airports, train stations or cruise ships, Stone Talwar’s version brings luxury and art enthusiasts on destination experiences that offer adventure, fun, education, sightseeing, culture, gastronomy — and yes, shopping. 

Adventures in Art, which curates trips around the art, jewelry, music and fashion world, is the result of Stone Talwar’s extensive background in luxury and travel-planning, along with some major networking chops. 

An idea in the making 

Having gotten her start in the art world, Stone Talwar worked for Sotheby’s London in the late 1980s. In 2007, she was asked to be the international managing director of an Indian art gallery opening in New York, which she ran for a few years before taking a fundraising position in 2011 as director of development at the city’s Asia Society Museum. While she didn’t enjoy fundraising, she did love the other part of her job: planning their trips. 

That put the idea for Adventures in Art into her head, and she packed up and moved to Paris for what she thought would be a three-month trip. She opened a small table and started taking Asian clients on small outings in the French city. However, the business took a back seat when she got the call to be director of Christie’s Travel, a new venture the auction house was creating with luxury vacation company Abercrombie & Kent. During her time there, Stone Talwar took clients to the opening of the 2013 JAR exhibit at the Met, to the Geneva jewelry auctions, and to the TEFAF Maastricht show.  

When Christie’s closed the venture a few years later, she returned to New York with a head full of ideas and a contact list full of phone numbers, and Adventures in Art was reborn.  

Around the town 

A normal jewelry excursion involves meticulous planning and generally centers around a timely event. For instance, last year, Stone Talwar took her clients on a trip to London for the Cartier exhibition at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum. During their time there, they went to various local ateliers — including a visit to antique jeweler Andrew Prince, the specialist who provided all the pieces for the Downton Abbey TV series. They also made a trip to the Wallace Collection to see its Rococo-style jewels, and to the National Gallery to discuss the jewelry shown in master paintings. Jewelry designer Cora Sheibani served them tea at her home and spoke about how she created her pieces. To close out the trip, they made a stop at high jeweler Symbolic and Chase, and hopped over to Christie’s for a jewelry-handling session. 

Stone Talwar has positioned trips around events such as the 2022 exhibition of Danish Queen Margrethe’s jewels in Copenhagen, and has taken groups to Paris to visit the home of jeweler Emmanuel Tarpin, which overlooks the Rodin Museum. 

What’s on the agenda 

Adventure in Art trips can last from a simple weekend to a full 10 days, with prices running anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 per day. Although groups generally comprise 15 to 25 people, the sweet spot is 12 to 15 due to the need for security at jewelry-handling sessions, Stone Talwar explains. Her clientele tends to skew toward the 55-plus age range, but the odd teenager has managed to tag along here and there. About 10% of jewelry excursion-goers are male. 

Along with jewelry, Stone Talwar offers art and fashion trips. She has been to France’s Loire Valley, where groups spend time touring chateaus, gardens and museums, and she once took clients to the opening of a Balenciaga show. On occasion, she has also designed custom trips. 

Some of her excursions encompass a few pursuits at once and surround a particular place. In August, she will lead a trip to Munich, Germany, and Salzburg, Austria. The trip’s main focus will be a jaunt to the Salzburg Festival to hear a performance of Carmen, but a side expedition to Munich will see the group visit the Hemmerle family and their new atelier, as well as the Treasury of the Munich Residence museum — home of what many consider the most important jewels in Germany. 

On each trip, the group has an opportunity to purchase jewels or other items from the ateliers and shops they visit, but it is certainly not a requirement, and Stone Talwar says she couldn’t even disclose what percentage of her clients buy items from the design houses on the itinerary. 

“It’s a very private and personal thing when people buy jewelry and are spending money,” she explains. 

Now, that’s entertainment 

While the Adventures in Art trips are certainly luxurious and educational, Stone Talwar makes time for play as well. 

One trip included a black-tie dinner at Christie’s, where all the table centerpieces were jewels the auction house was getting ready to sell. The group got to play around with the jewelry, try it on, and have their photographs taken as keepsakes. 

During the visit with Prince in London, lunch included a dress-up session: The participants could put on clothes and tiaras from Downton Abbey and strut about like the characters in the show. 

Perhaps the trip Stone Talwar remembers best, though, was one particular tour at a top jewelry atelier. 

“We had a wonderful tour and talk, and we got to try on jewelry, and I tried on a fabulous piece,” she says. “Half an hour later, I was on the bus and realized I still had the jewelry on, and security hadn’t stopped me. I had to call them and ask them how I could return the jewels. That was a real adventure.” 

Main image: Karen Stone Talwar. (Adventures in Art)