Luxury Marionette – a blog dropping some serious truth bombs

As our mothers’ always told us, honesty is the best policy. We all know it deep down, but sometimes a little white lie is far less painful to deliver.  It’s elementary, telling the sommelier that the wine is perfection and the waiter that the steak is just right.

But for some, brutal honesty comes far easier. We all have that friend, the one that says things exactly as she sees them, without so much as a quiver of an eyebrow or an apologetic shoulder shrug. The one that with one foul swoop has us changing that outfit, cancelling that date and hitting the gym. Call me a glutton for punishment but I have always appreciated the raw, unpolished truth. I think it’s best to keep the yes men close, but the unabated truth swindlers closer – they have your best interests at heart, honestly.

So, when it comes to picking my media, I consume it wisely. They can all bang on about hotel’s dreamy sea views and decadent decor, the new ‘it’ bag and must have eye creams. But will they tell me about the aloof concierge, the fact that advertising funded that bag feature and that they liked the eye cream, but wouldn’t fork out their own dollar for it? Ponder it.

It was a Sunday if I recall. Done with the weekend supps I was now aimlessly trawling through the web, desperately looking for a reason to stay in bed with my steamy lapsang souchong. And there it was: Luxury Marionette – the one and only guide to travel, lifestyle and leisure.

It had me at ‘hype in a bottle’. Presuming I had misread the headline I scrolled to the bottom of the page. I was expecting to find a starry-eyed synopsis of the latest cult serum, instructing me to instantly re-mortgage the house, hotfoot it to NET-A-PORTER and buy them out of the stuff. Instead, it announced the oil was overpriced, overhyped and was now relegated to the baby lotion cupboard to be forgotten forever (well, after shelling out £175 on the tiny bottle, I wouldn’t want to look at it either, would you?).

Intrigued I scoured the site for more ruthlessly honest reviews and hunkered down with my cuppa to a slicey piece on the much talked about Cheval Blanc resort in the long lusted after Maldives. An expose revealing the ‘achingly slow service and ‘sterile décor’ climaxed in orders to ‘avoid, avoid, avoid’. Controversial.

Amid the candid reviews, Venice’s Gritti Palace Hotel was met with approval – extortionately expensive, yes. Worth it? Oh, indeed. Likewise, Sorrento’s Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria was a hit. I also learned that it was in fact Gucci that I have to hotfoot it down to, in order to purchase the ‘fugly’ Marmont Mum shoe in every shade available. Just shy of £500 a pop, a re-mortgage would of course be necessary. But, would it be worth it? Of course, it would. As we all know, you keep the yes man close and Luxury Marionette closer. This marionette has no strings.

-Written by: Jess Gould.