Billionaire Club

World's Most Expensive Umbrella is $50,000

This past summer we wrote about the battle over Sardinia's famed Billionaire club, which some felt was overly ostentatious in these straitened times. The club's owner, playboy Formula One mogul Flavio Briatore, blasted the criticism, defending the rich's right to luxury. Obviously Briatore has the courage of his convictions; his ultra-high end men's clothing line, Billionaire Couture, has just come out with the world's most expensive umbrella.

Made entirely of crocodile skin, the ultra-luxe umbrella (above) is available by special order for $50,000 from Billionaire Couture's London boutique. The brand, which is worn by the likes of Paul McCartney, David Beckham and Sean "Diddy" Combs, is founded on "a relentless search for original details that express quality, sophistication and eccentricity [that] at times goes intentionally overboard." We'd say a $50,000 umbrella falls into that latter category.

Gallery: Billionaire Couture

Tags: Billionaire Club, Billionaire Couture, BillionaireClub, BillionaireCouture, Crocodile, Flavio Briatore, FlavioBriatore, Sardinia, Umbrella

The Battle Over Sardinia's Famed Billionaire Club

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

One of the investors in Billionaire, the famed club for the megarich on Sardinia's swank Emerald Coast, says the club should be shuttered because of the current economic climate. Billionaire, a favored haunt of tycoons who come to frolic with the likes of Dolce & Gabbana, Kate Moss and Sean Combs, is controlled by rakish Formula 1 mogul Flavio Briatore (above), but Italian entrepreneur and politician Daniela Santanchè has a 10% stake.

Santanchè says that the ultra-exclusive club, where methuselahs of Cristal go for $50,000 a pop, is an offensive relic of a more wasteful age, the London Guardian reports. "With people struggling to get by, Billionaire should be consigned to history," Santanchè says. "I myself have put my Aston Martin in the garage and get around in a Fiat 500."

"Daniela has been in the sun too long," Briatore, who has dated the likes of Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, fired back. "What she's saying is absurd. If luxury is suddenly a problem let's close Bulgari and Cartier, or even all the discos, restaurants and the whole of the Emerald Coast." That may not be necessary, in any case. The New York Times recently reported that the hotspot has lost a lot of its exclusivity lately and that some recent visitors aren't even millionaires, let alone billionaires.

Tags: Aston Martin, AstonMartin, Billionaire, Billionaire Club, BillionaireClub, Cristal, Daniela Santanch, DanielaSantanch, Emerald Coast, EmeraldCoast, Flavio Briatore, FlavioBriatore, Formula 1, Formula1, Italy, Kate Moss, KateMoss, Naomi Campbell, NaomiCampbell, Sardinia