(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- In the Bloomberg Pursuits Gift Guide this year, we reached out to luminaries in the fields of style, sports, food, art, and home to ask them a simple question: How do you give? Here is their advice.
For an Item of Clothing
“Oh, that is hard. But you can’t go wrong if it comes from the heart. What I always tell anyone I give a gift to is, ‘Listen, if you need to return this, go ahead. Swap it for something you like more. I may not have gotten it right that time.’ And that is why we sell a lot of gift cards at this time of year. It’s less pressure. My dad used to say about money as a gift: ‘It’s always the right color, and it fits everybody.’ ” —Sid Mashburn, owner of his namesake upscale men’s boutique, Atlanta
For Sports Memorabilia
“Personalized stuff is really big. If you know someone is a big supporter of a particular team or, in my case, a race car, getting them that specific thing is good. But if you can get it personalized somehow, that’s even more special. If they like [my racing team] Penske, for example, and they like a particular car, reach out over social media and ask for something specific to be signed. Sometimes, in racing and motorsports, colleagues will send a die-cast of your vehicle—like a 1/60th scale version of your race car, just miniaturized but identical and very detailed—and those mean a lot to me.” —Josef Newgarden, 2017 Verizon IndyCar champion and driver with Team Penske, Nashville
For a Good Bottle
“If it’s a birthday for someone who’s not too old, I find a wine from the year of their birth. If the person is quite ‘mature,’ I recommend ports—you can find a very, very aged one and it’s still affordable, compared to an older bottle of Bordeaux. Some people drink bourbons or Scotch, so I try to get a rare one, or a year that is special to them. But if you want to make Anthony Bourdain smile, just find a bottle of Pappy.” —Eric Ripert, chef of seafood restaurant Le Bernardin, New York
For a Work of Art
“The most potent gifts are things you would miss yourself—to choose something that is, in a way, a loss to you. That is the real gift of giving. It goes for a work of art, too. If you know the person really well, a unique object can have incredible resonance. My advice is just to give the gifts you want to receive, so you don’t end up being the kind of person who gives socks and underwear at Christmas.” —Philip Hewat-Jaboor, chairman of the Masterpiece London art fair
For a Home-Décor Moment
“It’s not about brands. You have to believe in your object. It could be a story, a link with your own family. It could be new, it could be old, it could be expensive. It’s more about the experience. I gave the best gift to my son. It was a small, wooden box that my great-grandfather had given to my father, so when my son was 16, I gave it to him. It’s the link with family, with story, with savoir faire.” —Sophie Demaret, director of spa and boutiques at Hôtel Crillon, Paris
To contact the author of this story: James Gaddy in New York at jgaddy@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Emma Rosenblum at erosenblum2@bloomberg.net.
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.
