“The look comes from a process of collaboration among Madonna, myself, the hairdresser and the other stylists,” Brooke said before Tuesday’s concert.

“Of course she has to have beautiful, glowing skin and a ‘full mouth’ because we felt that’s what really signifies a woman’s strength, as well as strong lashes and brows. She had to look like a rebel ready to stand up for what she believes in – love.”

Brooke has worked with Madonna on five world tours and numerous videos. “I don’t do the whole tour, but I train the makeup artists and set the looks. I come in for different countries and make sure everything is working.”

Brooke has decided she likes the final segment of the current show best. “It’s like the 1930s, because she wears a sort of flapper dress. So I made eye shadow out of real gold for her and apply it to her lips as well, with a bit of eight-hour cream on top to make it glossy. I love that era and she wears it very well.”

Brooke confirms that a concert tour is anything but glamorous. “It is very hard work, very demanding. Madonna is one of the hardest-working artists I’ve ever worked for. There is really no one like her. She’s very structured. She likes things a specific way, all the time, the same thing.

“She doesn’t meet people before show. She has the regimen she follows very rigidly. You really have to be professional – when she asks a question, you want to make sure you give her the answer right away, because if you take a minute away from her, it could cause you your job.

“Most artists show up just before the show and just perform,” Brooke said. “Madonna shows up hours before show time, checks the lights, goes through all the songs, makes sure the sound is working and so on. And what’s always amazed me is that, after all that and just before the show, she’ll sit with the head of each department, all of them with a notepad and pen. And she’ll say, ‘When I sing this song, this or that went wrong.’ She can remember every single detail of what happened at that moment and knows how it needs to be fixed. She’s a real perfectionist.”

There’s a big of magic involved in the quick costume changes, Brooke reveals.

“Underneath the stage is a small changing room, with two stylists, the makeup artist and the hairstylist, some chairs, a clothes rack and a mirror.” And every speedy change is practice-perfect. “We have to choreograph our movements for three or four weeks,” she laughs.

One of the major menswear brands to opt for not bringing its full collection to the recent CFDA New York Fashion Week: Men’s, Calvin Klein nonetheless compromised by showcasing Italo Zucchelli’s autumn 2016 eveningwear capsule during a special presentation.

The collection’s runway show, which debuted during Milan Men’s Fashion Week last month, offered formal men’s eveningwear that maintained the spirit and messaging of the brand.

The capsule consisted of tuxedos and outerwear exquisitely tailored and rendered in rich fabrics, sumptuous textures and unexpected accents. The lustrous silver, gold and rose gold metal foil that infused the runway collection with such a vibrant energy was also incorporated throughout the capsule, as well as in the presentation’s set. Calf-framed derby shoes were worn with each look, while earrings and necklaces mirrored after bolts and screws amplified the sense of masculine sensuality that permeates the season.

Notable guests in attendance and wardrobed in Calvin Klein Collection included independent hip-hop recording artist Joey Bada$$, who is currently featured in the Spring 2016 Calvin Klein global advertising campaign; actor Ben Walker; New York Jets’ Eric Decker; DJ Brendan Fallis and musician Mack Wilds, as well as men’s ambassadors New York Giants’ Victor Cruz and Johannes Huebel.

One of the world leaders in luxury cosmetics, French skincare brand Sisley recently introduced its new Sisleya L’Integral Anti-Age treatment that promises spectacular results.

“It is almost impossible for a brand to stop producing its best-selling product and our Global Anti-Age treatment, which we launched in 1999, has been our key success. Now thanks to our research into epigenetics, we have found something better,” Nicolas Chesnier, Sisley’s regional managing director for Asia Pacific, told XP during the recent launch at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which was attended by several of the brand’s loyal customers.

“Our extensive research has proved that behavioural ageing such as stress and the choices we make like smoking, overexposure to the sun or poor dietary habits mark the face even more than genetic ageing and are responsible for the majority of ageing overall.”

Combined with previously identified environmental factors such as UVA-UVB rays, pollution and free radicals, these factors deregulate the lifecycle of cells by modifying “cellular rhythm”, in which the cells protect themselves during the day, and repair themselves at night. Also affected are “cellular energy” which enables cells to function and renew correctly and “cellular longevity” which is determined by the length of the telomeres, the protective extremity of each chromosome, the length of which correlates with cellular life expectancy and preserves the integrity of the DNA. In a young person, this lifecycle is well organised and functional. However, in a more mature person or a person who has undergone various behavioural stresses, this cycle becomes “jammed,” and if only one of the three factors is affected, the whole cycle is disturbed. The consequences on the skin are premature visible signs of ageing including wrinkles, loss of radiance and firmness.

Among the many active ingredients added to the initial Sisleya formula, three major new ingredients now optimise the functioning of this lifecycle to protect the skin from the visible signs of behavioural ageing. These active ingredients target the three parts of the cells’ lifecycle to help compensate for their being weakened. Lindera extract helps to resynchronise the skin’s biorhythms, restoring the ideal rhythm of activity for younger skin to the cellular metabolism. Persian acacia extract promotes optimal energy production at the level of the cells (mitochondria) to protect against and repair skin damage caused by cellular fatigue while yeast and soya protein complex helps protect telomeres. It also helps to maintain the integrity of cellular DNA against behavioural stresses, for optimised cellular longevity.

Eight different clinical tests have been carried out with more than 300 women and the results show an improvement in the quality of the collagen network and the dermo-epidermal junction. This was examined using in vivo microscopy, which enables all of the layers of the skin to be viewed from the epidermis to the dermis so that all of major constituent parts can be measured and the quality of their structure characterised.

Mentally illness has affected countless artists over the centuries – Vincent van Gogh and Salvador Dali, to name just two – and all have used their art as their channel to reach out to society.

This therapeutic method was first used to expedite the recovery of trauma victims after World War II in hospitals in Britain, a method that was later adopted by the Americans because of its success.

In the US, this therapy was expanded by two art educators, Edith Kramer and Margareth Naumburg, and integrated with medical treatment in the Veteran Affairs New York Harbour Healthcare System.

Scientific studies on expressive therapy were soon initiated to examine the psychological nature of art.

“There have been questions as to how art could cut the time for healing. It was later found out that being in hospital added stress to the patient as a result of being away from family, work and the thought of paying the hospital bills. Art helped in relieving the tension,” says Monty P Satiadarma, the first certified Indonesian art therapist in clinical psychology, whose mentor was Robert E Ault, holder of a master of fine arts degree and co-founder of the American Art Therapy Association.

Satiadarma was educated in the leading speciality psychiatric hospital of the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, which developed inventive therapeutic methods.

The foundation has since moved to Dallas.

He explains that neuroscience has found evidence of a relationship between art and the human limbic system, the brain. “When we draw or visualise something, we actually recollect memories and re-experience emotions that connect to the hypothalamus.”

The hypothalamus is an important area of the brain that links the endocrines and the nervous system, helping to control the pituitary gland particularly in response to stress.

According to Satiadarma, art, especially the visual arts, trigger the association process between memories and emotions and the values the person believes in.

As a result art helps to release pleasant, calming serotonin and oxytocin hormones.

Even if the artistic results appear horrifying for others to look at, the therapist says they have the same metabolic effect on the painter, relieving the tension as the person shares memories and emotions.

But as the results rely on the kind of association coming out, can art always be therapeutic?

“Not always without clinical psychology intervention,” Satiadarma admits.

This is where art therapists step in to diagnose mental conditions and to alternate the way the person channels their emotions.

“If a patient tends to paint flames, an art therapist could suggest the patient paint candlelight instead,” says Satiadarma, explaining that different painting techniques also have different psychological effects.

“You cannot allow someone with an anxiety disorder to colour an object repetitively because it may increase stress.”

The professor of Tarumanegara University in Jakarta leads the teaching of art therapy in the postgraduate programme of psychology studies, in which students are required to master arts and to take on clinical patients.

The Tarumanegara Art Therapy Community is currently holding a series of exhibitions and seminars on different topics through to April at the Oasis Heritage Restaurant on Jl Raden Saleh, Central Jakarta.

The art therapists exhibited their works in January side-by-side with the works of their patients and of the community of Bipolar Care Indonesia.

Two paintings in particular on display, done by a patient in the early period of treatment, depicted his imagination of hell.

The painter was a Balinese who had adult schizoid personality disorder and was living at Panti Sosial in Kedoya, West Jakarta, the Jakarta administration’s official rehabilitation home for the homeless and other less fortunate people.

“I took him on as a patient and he now lives as a painter back home in Bali,” said Annisa Prameswari, who was completing her postgraduate degree.

Unlike other patients who hide their identity in their works, Anindhita Lakshmi Ardhanarishvara, 27, enjoyed seeing her works included in the exhibition.

While making the abstract series of paintings, titled “Cotton Candy and Flower Bursts”, she said she let go of the baggage she had carried.

“I didn’t plan the paintings to be like these. I splashed paints on the canvas and I felt calm afterward,” said the student of interior design and who has been diagnosed as bipolar.

For most clinical cases, the patients are required to take regular medication.

“Art therapy is not a curative method but it promotes the improvement of well-being and personal development,” Satiadarma says.

To some she’s just a plain white bunny, to others she’s a prime example of minimalist art. But for six decades Miffy has been delighting young kids around the world, and now she’s getting a museum of her own.

After a two-year renovation project, what was formerly known as the Dick Bruna Huis (house) in the Centraal Museum of the Dutch city of Utrecht, is reopening this weekend as a bright, playful space dedicated to Miffy herself and carefully re-imagined as a hands-on experience for her young fans.

The original space devoted to Miffy’s creator – Dutch artist, author and graphic designer, Dick Bruna, who was born in Utrecht – opened in 2006 and drew some 50,000 visitors a year from all over the Netherlands, but also largely from Japan where she is a huge star.

But it was primarily more of an adult museum, packed full of a permanent collection of Bruna’s original drawings. And the question on every child’s lips was “where’s Miffy?” says curator Yolanda van den Berg.

So now children are getting an invitation to visit Miffy’s house – divided into 10 rooms designed specifically with kids in mind, where they can play and learn, and find out a little more about the man who created their idol.

Although she celebrated her 60th birthday in 2015, Miffy has changed very little down the years. Bruna wrote more than 120 picture books of which 32 are devoted just to Miffy.

Small and square, designed to fit little hands, each book tells a simple tale such as a outing to the zoo, a day at school or playing in the snow. They have sold more than 85 million copies and been translated into more than 52 languages, including Russian in 2011.

It is her endearing simplicity, along with her friends like Poppy the kind pig lady and Snuffy the dog, which has cemented the books’ universal appeal to pre-schoolers down the decades.

Miffy is a white girl bunny drawn with thick black outlines, pointy ears (although in her early days they were slightly more floppy), two dots for eyes, and an X for her mouth. She is always drawn against a background of bold primary colours, especially mixed for Bruna, mainly blue, green, yellow and what is known as “Bruna red”.

“What he wanted to do with his books was to create a safe world in which children can explore by themselves,” says Van den Berg. “And that’s what we’ve tried to do in the museum as well.”

Absent from the museum though are the computer animations and games seen in many exhibits today. “If it’s not a real experience, but a virtual one, it’s different,” says Van den Berg.

Bruna, 88, was born in Utrecht in 1927, and had been expected to follow his father’s footsteps and join the family publishing company, which was once the largest in the Netherlands.

But drawing and art were his first love, and during a long study tour in Paris in the 1940s he became heavily influenced by the works of French painters Henri Matisse and Fernand Leger.

Returning to Utrecht, he started drawing book covers for the novels published by the Bruna company.

It was during a family holiday in 1955 on the North Sea coast that he spotted a white rabbit hopping around the garden, and turned it into a drawing for his young son Sierk. Thus Miffy was born.

The simple pictograms in the Miffy books “have room for imagination and fantasy. They’re very clear lines,” says Evaline Reeskamp, education officer with the museum.

Bruna himself retired in 2011, and now the Utrecht museum has faithfully preserved his fastidiously neat, light-filled top floor studio where he worked for 30 years, and opened it up to the public to visit.

A sampling of South Asia’s most avant-garde arts went on display last week as the Bangladeshi capital played host to the third Dhaka Art Summit (DAS), which is billed as the biggest event for contemporary arts in South Asia.

As the largest non-commercial and research-based exhibition platform for South Asian Art, DAS offered a cornucopia of diverse arts including paintings, video, installation, photography, performance, architecture, film, critical writing and panel discussion.

The event, which ran from February 5 through Monday, saw more than 600 global art connoisseurs, curators, researchers, critics and enthusiasts turn out for the event along with 300 leading artists, curators, and writers from across South Asia.

“To develop DAS as a research platform, we invited curators from different institutions like Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim, and the Kunsthalle Zurich to extend their work deeper into South Asia. Works from the National Gallery archive, the National Museum of Bangladesh, and various private collections are also on display at the exhibition,” said Nadia Samdani, president of the co-organiser, Samdani Art Foundation.

“Many enigmatic things happen around us and we don’t know the reasons for them. Some images simply evoke pure joy and a sense of beauty in our hearts,” said actor, entertainer and politician Asaduzzaman Noor,

“This inexplicable yet easily communicable feeling helps us understand art. We are proud to be a part of the world’s largest display of South Asian art in Bangladesh thanks to the noble initiative of the SAF. The DAS offers a unique opportunity for artistic exchange and interaction between our artists and the artists of the world. I think, this exchange will help our arts and artists reach beyond border,” he added.

The six curated exhibitions at DAS included 17 “Solo Projects”, curated by the SAF’s artistic director Diana Campbell Betancourt; “Rewind” (highlighting 12 South-Asian master artists active before the 1980s); “The Missing One”, curated by Nada Raza; “Mining Warm Data” curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt; “Architecture in Bangladesh”, curated by Aurlien Lemonier; “Performance Pavilion: Shifting Sands Sifting Hands”, curated by Nikhil Chopra, Madhavi Gore and Jana Prepeluh; and “Soul Searching”, curated by Md Muniruzzaman.

There were also durational performances, films, panel discussions, book launches, a children’s workshop and a critical writing ensemble held in collaboration with the Office of Contemporary Art Norway and Pro Helvetia-Swiss Arts Council.

“Through the showcase of art and its diverse facets in this platform, Bangladeshi art reaches the international arena, augmenting country’s image. I hope the number of foreign tourists will double at the 2018 summit,” said Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon.

DAS was organised in conjunction with Unesco’s celebration of February 21 as the International Mother Language Day, which was initiated in 1999. This year, a sculpture based on the Language Movement by Mrinal Haque is on a month-long display in front of the United Nations in New York.

“This is the best and the largest art summit of Asia and we take great pride in it. We will continue to support it all the way,” said Ama Muhit, the Bangladeshi finance minister who is also an art connoisseur.

Several British newspapers have nevertheless scented enough Buddhism (and monkishness) in the story to be covering the hearings in Scotland.

Santhong, born in Thailand and now living in Edinburgh, is suing Anong Yukitan, born in Thailand and now living in London, because she was driving a bunch of monks from her city to Santhong’s city on Christmas Eve 2012 and had a crash.

Anong admits being liable for losing control of the car but doesn’t think she should have to pay Santhong 250,000 pounds (Bt12.9 million). Santhong thinks she does because now he can’t sit down to do sitting meditation anymore. And that means he can’t teach people to do sitting meditation anymore, so he’s losing income.

The small matter of the three monks riding in the back seat being killed seems to have no bearing on their dispute. Nor does the 25 years Santhong spent as a monk, during which he patently failed to learn the wisdom of non-attachment.

Santhong – who shed the robes to further his academic studies – says he was asleep at the time of the crash and just kept on sleeping until he woke up in hospital with various fractures and head injuries.

He says the accident disrupted his PhD studies and – since he’s unable to sit, stand or walk for long and can’t bend or lift heavy items – he’s lost earnings as a translator and interpreter and for work in the prison service. He taught meditation to prisoners. He was used to sitting for up to three hours at a time.

Somewhere the Buddha is wincing along with him, but for other reasons.

Royal baby adds to GNH

Bhutan’s queen – Gyaltsuen Jetsun Pema – gave birth to a son on Friday, presumably much to the delight of her husband, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who’s so much admired in Thailand. And the infant boy has already contributed to the country’s famed “Gross National Happiness” index in more ways than one.

Presumably the queen chose to do so with the aid of an epidural injection and presumably she appreciated the painless method because now epidurals are being offered to all expectant mums in Bhutan for free. We say “presumably” a lot because the Bhutan newspaper Kuensel is unclear on the details, presumably out of deference to the monarchy.

What is clear is that two doctors and two nurses from Bhutan are now in Bangkok being trained to administer epidural labour analgesia, which relieves pain during delivery. Basically it’s a shot in the lower spine that deadens the nerves long enough for baby to slip out without infuriating the mum right off the bat.

Thimphu National Referral Hospital medical superintendent Dr Gosar Pemba says the epidural analgesia is “a gift from Queen Jetsun Pema”, according to Kuensel, and “its introduction in the country may coincide with the birth of the royal couple’s firstborn”.

Epidural analgesia isn’t actually new to Bhutan, but until now it’s only been administered on request and in cases where childbirth was proving unusually difficult.