Features

By Dina Halaseh
Educational Psychologist

Spending too much time on screens? Many parents notice that their children are getting more and more attached to their screens and devices. What are the guidelines for screen use?

You might have heard that no screens are allowed before the age of two as well as a few more guidelines, but the new guidelines are a bit more specific. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AAP) divides screen time into four specific age groups:

•0-18 months: Only allow screen time for live video chatting with loved ones as a family. Because they allow your baby to have the kind of back-and-forth conversation critical to language development, the AAP says video chats are okay

•18 — 24 months: For this age group, kids are allowed a few hours per week to watch educational programmes with a parent present. The main idea is for the educational programme to supplement playtime and to compliment it rather than being the main focus where kids are glued to it

•2 — 5 years: Kids at this age are allowed to spend some time on educational screen time alone, but the time spent on non-educational shows should be limited to one hour per weekday and a maximum of three hours during the weekend

•Six years and older: Encourage kids to spend time on hobbies, activities and habits that don’t include screens. More time can be allowed on weekends but the limit remains for weekdays

For all ages

•Limiting the use of screens as substitute babysitters or distractions for your child while you get things done. Try colouring, crafts or any other activity

•Avoiding using screens while eating

•Modelling good behaviour; you can’t expect your child to stick to the “no screens” rule if you are constantly on your phone

•Enforcing the ‘no screens in the bedroom’ rule, or at least limit it as much as possible. Kids do NOT need a television in their rooms at all. Also, decrease phone use before bedtime by keeping the chargers in a common area such as the sitting room for older kids or just taking the screens away from younger ones

•Using screens to encourage movement and physical activity, try dancing shows or other educational shows that encourage kids to move too!

•Using parental control

We all know how entertaining screens can be, especially for our children, but too much screen time can lead to numerous problems, including exposure to violence, sexual content, unsafe and risk-taking behaviours, predators, bullies and much more.

And the list continues; spending too much time on screens can also lead to sleep problems, a decline in academic performance, poor self-image and many body image issues, weight gain, less reading, less exercising and so on… 

Positive screen time is possible by following guidelines. It is never too early to start with a plan and rules for your family. The right plan for your family may not suit another’s. 

So sit with your child, hear their concerns and comments and discuss how you, as a family, can manage the time you spend on screens and what alternatives exist for them to try!

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

PARIS — Say hello to ronnagrammes and quettametres: International scientists gathered in France recently voted for new metric prefixes to express the world’s largest and smallest measurements, prompted by an ever-growing amount of data.

It marks the first time in more than three decades that new prefixes have been added to the International System of Units, the agreed global standard for the metric system.

Joining the ranks of well-known prefixes like kilo and milli are ronna and quetta for the largest numbers — and ronto and quecto for the smallest.

The change was voted on by scientists and government representatives from across the world attending the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures, which governs the SI and meets roughly every four years at Versailles Palace, west of Paris.

The UK’s National Physical Laboratory, which led the push for the new prefixes, confirmed that the resolution had passed in a statement.

The prefixes make it easier to express large amounts — for example, always referring to a kilometre as 1,000 metres or a millimetre as one thousandth of a metre would quickly become cumbersome.

Since the SI was established in 1960, scientific need has led to a growing number of prefixes. The last time was in 1991, when chemists wanting to express vast molecular quantities spurred the addition of zetta and yotta.

A yottametre is a one followed by 24 zeroes. 

But even the mighty yotta is not enough to handle the world’s voracious appetite for data, according to Richard Brown, the head of metrology at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory.

“In terms of expressing data in yottabytes, which is the highest prefix currently, we’re very close to the limit,” Brown told AFP.

“At the bottom end, it makes sense to have a symmetrical expansion, which is useful for quantum science, particle physics — when you’re measuring really, really small things.”

New weight of the world

The new prefixes can simplify how we talk about some pretty big objects.

“If we think about mass, instead of distance, the Earth weighs approximately six ronnagrammes,” which is a six followed by 27 zeroes, Brown said.

“Jupiter, that’s about two quettagrammes,” he added — a two followed by 30 zeros.

Brown said he had the idea for the update when he saw media reports using unsanctioned prefixes for data storage such as brontobytes and hellabytes. Google in particular has been using hella for bytes since 2010.

“Those were terms that were unofficially in circulation, so it was clear that the SI had to do something,” he said.

However, metric prefixes need to be shortened to just their first letter — and B and H were already taken, ruling out bronto and hella.

“The only letters that were not used for other units or other symbols were R and Q,” Brown said.

Convention dictates that the larger prefixes end in an A, and the smaller ones in an O.

And “the middle of the words are very, very loosely based on the Greek and Latin for nine and 10”, Brown said.

The new prefixes should “future proof the system” and satisfy the world’s need for higher numbers — at least for the next 20 to 25 years, he added.

LAS VEGAS/NEW YORK — Uruguay’s top musical export Jorge Drexler overshadowed megastar Bad Bunny’s hype at the Latin Grammys, scoring seven trophies including Best Record during the gala that saw Spain’s Rosalia take home the coveted top album award.

The Puerto Rican reggaeton phenom Bad Bunny had been tipped as the favourite coming in with 10 nominations, though he was unable to attend the 23rd edition of the awards held in Las Vegas as he continues his massively popular world tour.

The 28-year-old — currently the highest-grossing and most streamed artist on the planet following the release of his album “Un Verano Sin Ti” — did nab five trophies but fell short of the night’s most prestigious prizes.

“Are you sure?” asked a surprised Drexler as he took the stage to accept the award for Song of the Year for “Tocarte”, a track that also featured Spanish rapper C. Tangana.

Along with Bad Bunny — whose smash “Titi Me Pregunto” ultimately scored two awards in the “urban” categories — the 58-year-old was up against stacked competition including Rosalia, who won four awards including for her critically acclaimed album “Motomami”, and Colombia’s Karol G. 

In his speech Drexler acknowledged the massive reach of Latin urban music including reggaeton, dedicating the award “to everyone who does urban music in Spanish because you’ve taken our music to places it was never in before”.

Drexler was the big winner but in some respects it was Cuban Angela Alvarez who stole the show: at 95 years old the singer scored a gramophone for Best New Artist.

“It’s never too late,” said Alvarez, bringing the auditorium to tears in accepting the award that she shared in a tie with the Mexican artist Silvana Estrada.

“I want to dedicate this award to God, and to my beloved Cuba, which I will never forget. And to those who have yet to make their dreams come true, know that although life is hard, there’s always a way out and with faith and love everything can be achieved,” Alvarez said. 

“With faith and love you can make it, I promise you.”

Anitta, Bad Bunny head to Grammys

Rosalia was visibly surprised in accepting the night’s top award for her genre-fusing masterpiece “Motomami”, telling the cheering crowd that it was “the album I had to fight the hardest to make.”

“But I put it out there and that has given me the most joy.”

Colombian crooner Sebastian Yatra — who made a splash last year with the Oscar-nominated song “Dos Oruguitas” from the film “Encanto” — notched two awards in the pop categories including Best Pop Song for “Tacones Rojos”, which he performed during the gala with John Legend.

Brazil’s Anitta left the show empty-handed — she was up for two awards for her booty-grinding reggaeton hit “Envolver” — but delivered a show-stopping performance of that hit and a twerk-heavy mashup of Brazilian dance tracks.

The 29-year-old is among the contenders for Best New Artist at February’s Grammys to be held in Los Angeles.

Bad Bunny’s work will also feature at the forthcoming Grammy gala, with “Un Verano Sin Ti” in the running for Album of the Year.

It’s the first time an all-Spanish album has a chance at that coveted award, and the Puerto Rican reggaeton megastar’s first time landing a solo nomination in the major Grammy categories.

PARIS — Around one billion young people worldwide could be at risk of hearing loss from listening to headphones or attending loud music venues, a large review of the available research recently estimated.

The World Health Organisation-led study called on young people to be more careful about their listening habits, and urged governments and manufacturers to do more to protect future hearing.

The analysis published in the journal BMJ Global Health looked at data from 33 studies published in English, Spanish, French and Russian over the last two decades covering more than 19,000 participants aged between 12-34.

It found that 24 per cent of the young people had unsafe listening practices while using headphones with devices such as smartphones.

And 48 per cent were found to have been exposed to unsafe noise levels at entertainment venues such as concerts or nightclubs.

Combining these findings, the study estimated that between 670,000 to 1.35 billion young people could be at risk of hearing loss.

The wide range is partly because some young people are probably at risk from both factors, said Lauren Dillard, an audiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina and the study’s first author.

Dillard told AFP the best way for people to lessen their risk of hearing loss from headphones is to turn down the volume and listen for shorter periods.

“Unfortunately, people do really like very loud music,” she admitted.

‘Big impact’ 

over lifetime

Headphone users should use settings or apps on smartphones to monitor sound levels, Dillard advised.

In loud environments, noise-cancelling headphones can help avoid “cranking up your music to try to drown out all that background noise”, she added.

Earplugs should be worn at loud events like concerts or nightclubs, she said, adding, “Maybe it’s fun to be in the front by the speakers, but it’s not a good idea for your long-term health.

“All of these behaviours, these exposures can compound over the course of your entire life, and then when you’re 67 years old, it can have a pretty big impact,” she said.

Dillard called on governments to comply with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on safe listening, including making sure venues monitor and limit music levels. 

She also urged companies that make devices like phones to warn listeners when the volume is too loud, and to include parental locks to restrict children’s exposure.

Limitations of the research included the varying methodologies across different studies and that none came from low-income countries. 

Stephen Stansfeld, an expert on noise and health at Queen Mary University of London who was not involved in the research, said it showed “the potential for serious population-wide hearing loss is very large”.

More than 430 million people — over 5 per cent of the world’s population — currently have disabling hearing loss, according to the WHO, which estimates the number will rise to 700 million by 2050.

PARIS — Scientists and government representatives meeting at a conference in France voted on Friday to scrap leap seconds by 2035, the organisation responsible for global timekeeping said.

Similar to leap years, leap seconds have been periodically added to clocks over the last half century to make up for the difference between exact atomic time and the Earth’s slower rotation.

While leap seconds pass by unnoticed for most people, they can cause problems for a range of systems that require an exact, uninterrupted flow of time, such as satellite navigation, software, telecommunication, trade and even space travel.

It has caused a headache for the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), which is responsible for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) — the internationally agreed standard by which the world sets its clocks.

A resolution to stop adding leap seconds by 2035 was passed by BIPM members and others at the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures, which is held roughly every four years at the Versailles Palace west of Paris.

The head of BIPM’s time department, Patrizia Tavella, said the “historic decision” would allow “a continuous flow of seconds without the discontinuities currently caused by irregular leap seconds”.

“The change will be effective by or before 2035,” she told AFP via email. 

“The connection between UTC and the rotation of the Earth is not lost, UTC remains related to Earth,” she said, adding that “nothing will change” for the public.

A leap minute?

Seconds were long measured by astronomers analysing the Earth’s rotation, however the advent of atomic clocks — which use the frequency of atoms as their tick-tock mechanism — ushered in a far more precise era of timekeeping.

The problem is that Earth’s slightly slower rotation means the two times are out of sync.

To bridge the gap, leap seconds were introduced in 1972, and 27 have been added at irregular intervals since — the last in 2016.

Under the proposal, leap seconds will continue to be added as normal for the time being.

From around 2035, the difference between atomic and astronomical time will be allowed to grow to a larger value than one second, Judah Levine, a physicist at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, told AFP.

“The larger value is yet to be determined,” said Levine, who spent years helping draft the resolution alongside Tavella.

Negotiations will be held to find a proposal by 2035 to determine that value and how it will be handled, according to the resolution.

The breakdown of which countries voted for the resolution was not yet known, but the United States and France have been among those leading the way for the change.

Levine said it was important to protect UTC time because it is run by “a worldwide community effort” in the BIPM, which has 59 member states and consults with other nations. 

GPS time, a potential UTC rival governed by atomic clocks, is run by the United States military “without worldwide oversight”, Levine said.

A possible solution to the problem could be letting the discrepancy between the Earth’s rotation and atomic time build up to a minute.

It is difficult to say exactly how often that might be needed, but Levine estimated anywhere between 50 to 100 years.

Instead of then adding on a leap minute to clocks, Levine proposed a “kind of smear”, in which the last minute of the day takes two minutes. 

“The advance of a clock slows, but never stops,” he said.

Introduced in 2015 as part of a revised Dodge Challenger coupe line-up, the SRT 392 is an evolution of the model line’s previous high performance variant. 

Positioned above the 5.7-litre Challenger R/T, the SRT 392 may have been more powerful than its predecessor, but was eclipsed by the even more brutal supercharged Challenger Hellcat, introduced in the same year. 

If the Hellcat stole the SRT 392’s thunder, the latter, however, proved to be the more focused, agile, accessible, affordable and ultimately more rewarding driver’s car.

Sinister style

With yet more powerful supercharged Challenger variants like the now retired Demon and the current Hellcat Redeye introduced under the SRT performance badge, the SRT 392 nameplate rebranded and demoted to non-SRT status as the Challenger R/T Scat Pack, with its naturally-aspirated 6.4-litre V8 beast living on for now. As the long-serving Challenger nears the end of the road and possible replacement by a less soulful electrified successor, the big and brawny SRT 392 and its re-named successor could well be a last hurrah for Dodge’s authentic muscle car tradition.

As dramatic and charismatic as when the low, long and wide reborn, retro-infused Challenger first appeared in 2008 with its Mercedes-Benz derived architecture, recessed quad headlamps and low roofline, the SRT 392 is among the most aggressively styled versions with its jutting lower lip and protruding bonnet scoop. With 2023 set to be the last year of Challenger production, updated and re-named 392 variants are now offered in optional widebody style, and are all the better for the extended wheel-arches and more sinister demeanour they lend.

Punchy and progressive

Dodge’s most powerful non-supercharged V8 engine, the SRT 392’s 6.4-litre V8 is enormous in displacement, but compact in size, with its 16-valve OHV design. The naturally-aspirated SRT 392’s output might pale next to supercharged 6.2-litre 717BHP Hellcat and 797BHP Hellcat Redeye Challengers, but is anything but modest with its massive, brutal and bass-laden output. A welcome slice of traditional charm next to modern forced induction high output engines, the SRT 392’s giant naturally-aspirated V8 is progressively eager and responsive to throttle input and lift-off.

Brutal yet linear in delivery, the SRT 392 draws on a vast rumbling torque reservoir, which is incrementally unleashed, and underwrites power accumulation with effortlessly muscular flexibility. Developing a punchy 485BHP as it reaches its 6,000rpm crescendo, the SRT 392 meanwhile produces 475lb/ft torque at 4,200rpm, and is capable of 0-100km/h in around 4.5-seconds. The SRT 392’s progressive delivery and accurate throttle response meanwhile allows one to feed the driven rear wheels with more confidence and precision when powering out of corners.

Quick and controlled

The SRT 392’s progressive naturally-aspirated engine allows it to more easily put power down than more powerful Hellcat sister models, and without the sudden break of rear traction, and electronic stability control overrides when re-applying power out of corners. Meanwhile, its’ slick 8-speed automatic gearbox features a wide and close range of ratios, for quick acceleration, mid-range versatility and cruising refinement and efficiency. That said, the 6-speed manual gearbox version of the SRT 392 promises a more engaging and rewarding driver experience.

More connected and composed – with tidier reflexes – than the 5.7-litre Challenger R/T, the SRT 392’s crisp responses and progressive delivery meanwhile makes it easier to control and more accessible and engaging than the mighty Hellcat. With quick, precise and meaty 2.56-turn lock-to-lock electric-assisted steering and well-balanced 55:45 front-to-rear weighting, the SRT 392 turns in eagerly and feels more alert and agile than its substantial heft and size would suggest. Meanwhile, an electronic limited-slip rear differential allocates power where needed for additional stability and agility. 

Composed comfort

Riding on double wishbone front and multi-link rear suspension with adaptive dampers, the viscerally charged SRT 392 delivers firm and committed body control through corners, but is smooth and forgiving in a straight line. Reassuringly stable and refined at high speed, the SRT 392 was meanwhile settled and composed in its vertical movement. Its wide 275/40ZR20 tyres provide plenty of grip, while huge ventilated, perforated brake discs with 6-piston front and 4-piston rear callipers reassuringly bring its hulking 1,945kg mass to halt.

Well-insulated inside, the SRT 392 features supportive seats and a well-adjustable driving position. With sporty style, decent materials and driver-oriented console, the Challenger has a distinctly hunkered down ambiance. Front visibility is fine, even over its long bonnet, but limited rear and over-shoulder visibility is well compensated by cameras and other assistance features. Front space is good and rear is better than most coupes, but not exactly spacious. Boot space is meanwhile generous at 459-litres, as is the SRT 392’s infotainment, convenience, assistance, safety and tech equipment.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: 6.4-litre, cast iron block/aluminium head, in-line V8-cylinders
• Bore x Stroke: 103.9 x 94.5mm
• Compression ratio: 10.9:1
• Valve-train: 16-valve, OHV, variable valve timing
• Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, rear-wheel-drive, electronic limited-slip differential
• Gear ratios: 1st 4.7 2nd 3.13 3rd 2.10 4th 1.67 5th 1.28 6th 1.0 7th 0.84 8th 0.67
• Reverse/final drive ratios: 3.53/3.09
• Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 485 (492) [362] @6,000rpm
• Specific power: 75.8BHP/litre
• Power-to-weight: 249.3BHP/tonne
• Torque lb/ft (Nm): 475 (644) @4,200rpm
• Specific torque: 100.35Nm/litre
• Torque-to-weight: 331Nm/tonne
• Rev limit: 6,400rpm
• 0-100km/h: approximately 4.5-seconds (estimate)
• Fuel consumption, city/highway/combined: 15.7-/9.4-/13-litres/100km*
• Track, F/R: 1,611/1,620mm
• Weight distribution, F/R: 55 per cent/45 per cent
• Aerodynamic drag co-efficiency: 0.356
• Luggage volume: 459-litres
• Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion
• Turning circle: 11.43-metres
• Suspension F/R: Unequal double wishbones/multi-link, adaptive dampers
• Brakes, F/R: Ventilated perforated discs 390 x 34mm/350 x 28mm
• Brake calipers, F/R: 6-/4-pistons
• Tyres: 275/40ZR20
• *Est. US EPA

By Rania Sa’adi
Licensed Rapid Transformational Therapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist

Have you reflected on how your childhood experiences have shaped your parenting beliefs and practices? Are you intentional about not repeating dysfunctional relational patterns with your child?

Traditional Parenting

Traditional parenting is based on the idea that we must fix our children. Discipline them until they meet our image of what our child should be. We tend to parent the same way our parents and grandparents raised their kids. We tweak and update a little, but the mainframe stays the same. 

Parents are masters of projection. We project onto our kids our fears, failed attempts and unattained opportunities and try to fulfil or prevent them, depending on the situation, through our children’s lives. It is as if we, parents, have a second chance, through their lives, to make it right.

Conscious Parenting

Conscious Parenting invites us to look inwards. What has shaped our parenting style and practices today based on our childhood and life experiences? Reflecting upon and resolving our issues is the first step toward a clean slate in parenting, without the excess baggage we unintentionally transfer to our kids.

Conscious parenting calls for complete and utter attunement to your child’s needs, embracing their talents, skills and strengths without our projection or judgement. It isn’t about allowing our children to do whatever they want or letting them walk all over us. Conscious parenting involves ongoing self-reflection so we can be aware of how our upbringing and inner state affect how we parent.

Assessing your level of self understanding

When we start looking inwards and are truthful with ourselves, we gain better insight into our parenting choices and sometimes mistakes. Start by asking yourself some questions: 

•Am I building unrealistic expectations in my children based on what society and culture dictate, or based on their skills, capabilities, talents and needs?

•Am I forcing my child to be part of a particular activity because it was my dream as a child and I never had the chance to do it, or because our child actually loves it?

•Am I pushing our child to pursue a specific career to take over the business I have established because it was my passion and I hate to see it go to waste, or because it is our child’s as well?

•Am I opposing our son or daughter’s marriage because of what I think might or might not make them happy?

No one denies the advantage of age and experience parents hold, but our experiences are not for our kids to live, but for us to learn from and use to influence and guide but not control their lives.

As parents, we feel the need to protect our children from going through the hardship we went through. We love them dearly and want to prevent any hurt or pain. But the truth is, ups and downs are a normal part of life. Plus, children do not learn from advice, but from doing and experiencing, just as we did.

Who are we to deprive them of that journey of growth and enrichment? They have the right to go through their own mistakes and learn from them, forging their identity and finding their personality while we are there for them, guiding, influencing, supervising and picking them up when they fall. That, in my view, is the highest form of acceptance and support.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

TOKYO — Scientists have successfully implanted and integrated human brain cells into newborn rats, creating a new way to study complex psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, and perhaps eventually test treatments.

Studying how these conditions develop is incredibly difficult — animals do not experience them like people and humans cannot simply be opened up for research.

Scientists can assemble small sections of human brain tissue made from stem cells in petri dishes, and have already done so with more than a dozen brain regions.

But in dishes, “neurons don’t grow to the size which a human neuron in an actual human brain would grow”, said Sergiu Pasca, the study’s lead author and professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University.

And isolated from a body, they cannot tell us what symptoms a defect will cause.

To overcome those limitations, researchers implanted the groupings of human brain cells, called organoids, into the brains of young rats.

The rats’ age was important: human neurons have been implanted into adult rats before, but an animal’s brain stops developing at a certain age, limiting how well implanted cells can integrate.

“By transplanting them at these early stages, we found that these organoids can grow relatively large, they become vascularised [receive nutrients] by the rat and they can cover about a third of a rat’s [brain] hemisphere,” Pasca said.

Blue light ‘reward’

To test how well the human neurons integrated with the rat brains and bodies, air was puffed across the animals’ whiskers, which prompted electrical activity in the human neurons.

That showed an input connection — external stimulation of the rat’s body was processed by the human tissue in the brain.

The scientists then tested the reverse: could the human neurons send signals back to the rat’s body?

They implanted human brain cells altered to respond to blue light, and then trained the rats to expect a “reward” of water from a spout when blue light shone on the neurons via a cable in the animals’ skulls.

After two weeks, pulsing the blue light sent the rats scrambling to the spout, according to the research published in the journal Nature.

The team has now used the technique to show that organoids developed from patients with Timothy syndrome grow more slowly and display less electrical activity than those from healthy people.

Tara Spires-Jones, a professor at the University of Edinburgh’s UK Dementia Research Institute, said the work “has the potential to advance what we know about human brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders”.

But she noted the human neurons “did not replicate all of the important features of the human developing brain” and more research is needed to ensure the technique is a “robust model”.

Ethical debates

Spires-Jones, who was not involved in the research, also pointed out potential ethical questions, “including whether these rats will have more human-like thinking and consciousness”.

Pasca said careful observations of the rats suggested the brain implants did not change them, or cause pain.

“There are no alterations to the rats’ behaviour or the rats’ well-being... there are no augmentations of functions,” he said.

He argued that limitations on how deeply human neurons integrate with the rat brain provide “natural barriers” that stop the animal from becoming too human.

Rat brains develop much faster than human ones, “so there’s only so much that the rat cortex can integrate”, he said.

But in species closer to humans, those barriers might no longer exist, and Pasca said he would not support using the technique in primates for now.

He believes though that there is a “moral imperative” to find ways to better study and treat psychiatric disorders.

“Certainly the more human these models are becoming, the more uncomfortable we feel,” he said.

But “human psychiatric disorders are to a large extent uniquely human. So we’re going to have to think very carefully... how far we want to go with some of these models moving forward”.

NEW YORK — Luxury beauty brand Estee Lauder said in a statement on Tuesday it had agreed to buy designer Tom Ford’s company for $2.3 billion.

The deal, which values Ford’s business at $2.8 billion, will see the US fashion superstar remain in his position as creative director until the end of next year, the statement said.

Bringing the brand under the “stewardship” of Estee Lauder Companies (ELC) “will allow for continuity and the further evolution of the Tom Ford brand as one of the preeminent global luxury brands of the twenty-first century”, New York-based ELC said in its statement.

The deal includes the Tom Ford Beauty cosmetics and fragrance collection, with which Estee Lauder already has a licensing agreement until 2030.

Estee Lauder also holds major brands such as MAC cosmetics, Clinique and La Mer facial products, and Aveda.

The group expects Tom Ford Beauty to hit sales of 1 billion dollars a year within two years, betting on the success of its luxury perfumes in the United States and China.

“We are incredibly proud of the success Tom Ford Beauty has achieved in luxury fragrance and makeup and its dedication to creating desirable, high-quality products for discerning consumers around the world,” head of Estee Lauder Companies Fabrizio Freda said in the statement.

“This strategic acquisition will unlock new opportunities and fortify our growth plans for Tom Ford Beauty,” he added.

The deal also includes licenses for the brand’s men’s and women’s fashion lines, eyewear label and accessories and underwear divisions, according to the statement.

Intellectual 

property rights 

The purchase of Tom Ford will grant Estee Lauder intellectual property rights to all of its lines.

The company will no longer have to pay royalties for Tom Ford Beauty and will be able to take advantage of new revenue sources by granting its own licenses.

The agreement notably provides for the extension and expansion of the license granted by Tom Ford to Ermenegildo Zegna for clothing, accessories and underwear lines.

The licence currently granted to Marcolin for Tom Ford glasses will also be extended.

“I could not be happier with this acquisition as The Estee Lauder Companies is the ideal home for the brand,” 61-year-old Ford said in the statement.

Domenico De Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International, will remain at the company as a consultant until Ford leaves at the end of 2023, the ELC statement said.

Ford, who first launched his brand in 2005, is the current head of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

He launched film production company Fade to Black in 2005, and previously worked as creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent in the 1990s and early 2000s.

According to the Wall Street Journal, other groups had been in the running to purchase Tom Ford, including French company Kering which holds the Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga brands.