Gstaad Guy on mountains, milestones — and the co-creation of The Chalet Edition

“The intention was to put a chalet on the road for the very first time…”

Sure, a private jet is nice, and a beach-side villa is lovely. But have you ever found a truly great bench? This, in the canon of Gstaad Guy’s considerable luxury, is the very top rung; the best of the best; the crème de la crème, as Constance, the creator’s most famous character, likes to say. (You will know Constance for his honeyed, spaniel hair, his famous patrician frown, his second-skin of Loro Piana cashmere — and his heartfelt life advice to his 1.7 million followers, which often ends with a plea to place something or other “à la poubelle”…)

We are driving — or floating, it sometimes seems — through the Swiss Alps in the very first Bentayga EWB Chalet Edition, winding up a mountain road from the placid shores of Lake Lucerne to the towering heights of the Bürgenstock, and Gstaad Guy is describing what he loves about the country laid out before us. “Switzerland is a nation of very good benches,” he says. A place which, for all its acclaimed industry, has its priorities straight — that knows when the time is right to sit, to stop, to look out and enjoy the beautiful view.

The Chalet Editon
Swiss inspired

“That’s the one thing in particular that I love about the Swiss: that they make sure to really enjoy Switzerland,” Gstaad Guy says. “I find that truly inspiring.”

And so, when the time came to sit down and design his very own version of Constance’s beloved Bentley Bentayga, Gstaad Guy knew exactly what details and features he wanted to conjure — beginning with the world’s most handsome (and mobile) bench.

“You can open the boot of the car, and we have a beautiful leather boot protector which slides out, so you’re never in direct contact with the car’s exterior,” he says. “And then you just reverse the car into a spot with a beautiful view — and you sit and you look out.”

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The Journey of Co-Creation
The origin story

It all started out pretty organically, right at the beginning of Gstaad Guy’s journey — back when the character’s creator was making his very first videos as little more than private jokes among friends; sharp, smart, exacting satires of a very specific type of cashmered persona.

“And this began during my typical archetyping exercises for that character,” he says now. “It was important to figure out exactly who the character was, and how that persona consumed. Because although the character is fictional, he is an ambassador for a very real type of person — a true connoisseur. The Gstaad Guy is someone who wants the best of the best in every single category,” he says. “He has been working with Audemars Piguet in watches, because that is what he believes to be the best; with Loro Piana in clothes and fibres, because that is what he believes to be the best. And I realised that the missing element was always what he drives…”

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Discovery Through Connoisseurship
Dream passengers

We pause on the edge of a mountain pass and look out through the great panorama of the windscreen, a vast green blanket of fields spread out before us, luminous in the sunshine. We can hear the calming clock-clock of cowbells as a small herd ruminates somewhere below. With the vast windows now open, you want to drink the mountain air in; flask it up and take it with you back to London. Who would Gstaad Guy most like to share this experience with, I ask? Who would his perfect road-trip companions be?

“My dream passenger to my right would be David Attenborough,” he says. “The king of exploration. If I could have the pleasure of meeting David Attenborough, and sitting by his side, and driving through the hills of Switzerland while he tells me how beautiful the Chalet car is and how beautiful the hills are — there’s nothing more I could ask for in this world,” he laughs. “I would then have Rowan Atkinson back left, and then maybe throw in Jeremy Clarkson, back right. So you have nature and exploration (very Swiss); Rowan Atkinson (very Gstaad); and Jeremy Clarkson (very car)…”

“What links them all is that they’re men of taste,” he says. “They’re connoisseurs. I think connoisseurship, and the process of becoming discerning, happens through time and knowledge. My three car guests have both by their side.”

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