Christa D'Souza has found the answer to all her wellness prayers...
Ever joined a concierge service? No. Me neither. I’ve always figured if I live in a city then I should know it better than any concierge service. Pah. Concierge Services. They should make ME a concierge service. Or at least that’s always been the line until I had something called a moxibustion massage from an outfit that calls itself Ellidore Lifestyle , a wellness concierge for rich people who are poor on time, which means at least I’m half eligible to join.
Co-founder Of Ellidore Lifestyle, Simon Blackford.
I came home half dead as usual and dreading have to interact with anyone other than my bed when Yuki, one of their top therapists plucked from the Como Shambhala spa, arrived with massage table in tow. I’ve had a few massages in my time and I didn’t particularly want one anyway, to be honest, but goodness this woman was something else. And goodness was moxibustion, which involved burning a herb called mugwort and placing it on various points of the body to suck out all the cold and damp, something else too.
Just as you can tell a restaurant by its lavatories and a man by his shoes, I think you can tell a concierge company by its massage. And massage is by no means their USP. Wanna drop 10lbs to fit into your Vera Wang wedding dress for example? They’ll not only get you the personal trainer (they have Dalton Wong, Jennifer Lawrence’s guy, on their books) they’ll get him or her to go with you to the FITTING so they know exactly where it is you have to lose it! Want the perfect music to jog to? They’ve teamed up with Playlister, a group of top DJs whose clients have included Madonna, Tinie Tempah and Stevie Wonder. Sign up as a member and you get a complimentary playlist and a piece of Lucas Hugh (another partner of theirs) to boot.
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Oh, it gets better. They’ve got gluten free bakery Pear & Groove on their books and, if you don’t give a f*** about health and fitness, they can get you a table at Chiltern Firehouse, no problem. Not a table for ten, though, because there ISN’T a table for ten. They can’t do Peruvian bears wearing spectacles either, in case you were wondering. (A Russian client asked them to provide two for a party but they had to politely tell him no).
The icing on that gluten-free cake? Google their super friendly, super hands on co-founder Simon Blackford; 28, an ex-model and the former face of Yves Saint Laurent. Deary me. Ice. Eskimos. Coals. Newcastle. I’ll say no more.