'We want the watch to be as readable as possible day or night, of course, but the point here is [this use of luminescent material] means that the watch looks totally different at night from during the day,' explains Carlos Rosillo, CEO of Bell & Ross, which has a track record in experimenting with luminescent effects, notably with its BR-X5 Green Lum, with a fully luminous case. 'There’s a wow effect. I don’t see why [watch design] tends to ignore this second, night-time life for a watch.'

The template for doing as much has, after all, long been there: one enduring appeal of quartz digital watches has been their ability to light up, Rosillo notes. But that idea is, slowly, spreading into the mechanical watch world too – and now not just for practicality’s sake but as a means of artistic expression.

Earlier this year, for example, Finnish watchmaker Stephan Sarpaneva released a limited-edition Moomin 80 watch – to mark the 80th anniversary of Tove Jansson’s Moomins characters – with dials fully illustrated in ‘lume’ (one edition in colour, another in black and white). And independent brand Arcanaut – whose ‘chief materials officer’ is James Thompson, a pioneer of artistic lume with his own Black Badger jewellery line – launched its Experimental ARC II line of watches with fully lumed, resin-injected aluminium foam dials.

Meanwhile, Kollokium’s sold-out Projekt 01 Variant F has a dial covered with 488 cylindrical pins – made from a proprietary Lichtblock material, a ceramic resin infused with violet-emission Super-Luminova (the industry standard luminescent material) – organised in a way to make hour markers. To get the desired effect, it used some 350 to 500 times the amount of lume that might be used on a more traditional dial.

'It was a very complex process to get the effect we wanted – and developing our own recipe was far more complicated than we expected, which may be one reason why the broader industry’s use of lume creatively has been rather restrained so far,' says Kollokium’s co-founder Amr Sindi. 'A lot of that creativity has come from smaller brands too, which arguably have smaller risks in exploring lume artistically, beyond the needs of time legibility.'

There are exceptions to this: in 2024, IWC unveiled Ceralume, a patent-pending luminescent ceramic material subsequently used to make a fully glow-in-the-dark case for a concept pilot’s watch. But, according to Giles Ellis, founder of the independent Schofield Watch Company – which was making creative use of luminescence back in 2013, with the Blacklamp model’s Tritium gas light – for many of the establishment watch names, there remains the challenge ‘of reconciling the idea of being a serious watch brand and the feeling that using luminescence artistically is some kind of gimmick, that’s it’s only something cheaper brands might do'.

'But surely there’s scope for lume to be fun and cool, for it to be used in alternative and not just practical ways,' adds Ellis, whose 2024 Obscura model uses a range of blue, red and green lumes to make for model that is, as he puts it, 'austere by day and “party!” by night'.

That Malaysian brand Ming, a regular experimenter with lume, in 2024 won the prestigious Grand Prix D’Horlogerie de Geneve Sports Watch award for its (currently sold-out) Bluefin – with its engraved, lume-filled secondary glass – perhaps points to growing interest in the expressive potential in lume. But Maximilian Büsser, founder of MB&F, is less sure of a wider take-up by the watch industry.

'There’s a balance to strike between elegance and the use of lume even just for readability, such that many watch designers opt for elegance and the resulting [night-time] readability is just OK,' he says. 'And while the industry is still [embracing the] trend for vintage and heritage-inspired watches, it’s hard to see lume being used creatively outside of the smaller, more design-led brands.'

A project by Stefan Hinteregger and Teresa Unterthiner, Forestis was conceived as a modern sanctuary that celebrates the four natural elements – air, water, sun and climate. Though larger than many Alpine hideaways, with 62 suites, it feels remarkably quiet and peaceful.

Wallpaper* checks in at Forestis, Dolomites

What's on your doorstep?

Forestis sits above the town of Bressanone in South Tyrol, surrounded by ski runs in winter and hiking trails in summer. Days begin with views over the Peitlerkofel massif and end with sunsets that turn the peaks rose-gold. Guests can step directly from the hotel onto the Plose ski slopes, or in warmer months follow spruce and larch forest paths.

This part of South Tyrol carries a strong blend of Italian and Austrian influence, evident in both its architecture and its cuisine. Villages nearby are worth exploring for their small markets and traditional craft workshops, though most guests find it hard to leave the hotel’s serenity once they’ve settled in.

Who is behind the design?

Designed by Brixen-based architect Armin Sader, Forestis reinterprets mountain architecture through natural geometry. The original stone house – once a historic sanatorium – now connects seamlessly to three slender timber towers that rise from the slope, their vertical lines inspired by the surrounding trees. Inside, the palette stays deliberately minimal with pale spruce, stone and glass layered with soft, tactile fabrics from a local weaving mill in Trentino.

Everything at Forestis feels quiet and purposeful. Light filters through the rooms in tones that change throughout the day, and balconies extend like ledges above the forest canopy. Sustainability underpins the project – from the CO₂-neutral construction to renewable energy sourced on-site – but it’s the integration with nature that defines its character.

The room to book

Each of the 62 suites is built around uninterrupted views of the Dolomites, with windows that draw the landscape directly into the room. Materials are simple – wood, stone and linen – but the proportions are generous and the atmosphere cocooning and restorative.

The Tower Suites are the showpieces, their covered terraces opening directly onto the peaks and their interiors defined by a calming sense of space and light. In the original building, the rooms retain their historic windows, which add a touch more character to the otherwise uniform interiors that run throughout the hotel.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Dining at Forestis takes its cue from the forest itself. At Panorama, the hotel’s main restaurant, dining feels like theatre, the room looking out towards the views of the Dolomites so that every seat faces the mountains. Each curved banquette is like a private cocoon, so even when the restaurant is full, it never feels busy. Mornings here are especially calm, sunlight streaming through the wide windows onto a breakfast that combines a meticulously curated buffet – complete with an extensive butter offering and a make-your-own juice station – as well as an à la carte menu of hot dishes.

For lunch and throughout the day, the recently renovated Garden Restaurant brings a lighter, more Mediterranean mood. Surrounded by meadows and mountain plants, the space opens to the landscape, making it an ideal autumn sunshine spot. The menu features regional classics such as Wiener Schnitzel sitting alongside dishes made from herbs, vegetables and roots foraged from the hotel’s own garden and neighbouring forest. As evening settles in, the bar with its cosy fireplace and wine cellar becomes a quiet gathering spot for a glass of wine, which has a strong South Tyrolean list at the centre of the selection.

The most ambitious dining experience, though, is Yera, the hotel’s new immersive restaurant built directly into the mountainside behind the main building. Conceived as a cave carved from the red earth, it’s centred around a fire pit where a 14-course tasting unfolds over the course of four hours. Each dish – from white fish with hawthorn berries and fermented horseradish to Jerusalem artichoke, sauerkraut and walnut ravioli – is made using ingredients foraged from the surrounding forest. The meal is paired with small-batch kombucha infusions crafted with the same precision, and in keeping with its ritualistic atmosphere, cameras are not allowed, highlighting the experience’s intimacy.

Where to switch off

At Forestis, switching off starts the moment you arrive. The stillness of the setting does most of the work; however, the spa takes it a step further. Centred on the healing power of the region’s four native trees – mountain pine, spruce, larch and Swiss pine – it spans several levels, with saunas, steam rooms and relaxation spaces that open directly to the forest.

Recently renovated, the spa now includes a series of new spa suites equipped with two treatment beds, a large round bathtub, a steam bath and a relaxation area. Treatments continue to follow the property’s nature-based philosophy – drawing on Celtic traditions and the energies of the surrounding woods – and new additions include the Healing Wood Massage, which uses intuitively selected wooden sticks.

The showstopper is the indoor-outdoor pool, divided by floor-to-ceiling glass, that looks out towards the same Dolomite peaks visible from the suites. After a hike or a day on the slopes, guests drift between the Tree Circle Ceremony, herbal rituals or Wyda yoga, while the saunas follow local custom and are clothing-free, which is just another reminder of how naturally life aligns here with the elements.

The verdict

Forestis is a benchmark for contemporary Alpine hospitality with its clarity of design, deep connection to place, and a sense of time slowed to nature’s flow, and though larger than many retreats, it still feels intimate and personal. Best experienced between seasons when mist drifts low through the trees and the light turns silver, it’s the kind of hotel that quietly reminds you why people fall in love with the mountains in the first place.

Forestis is located at Palmschoss 22, 39042 Bressanone, Italy.

‘[It’s an] approach that has worked really well for us in Amsterdam,’ Dijskre explains, noting that sales at the store have been buoyant despite the break with convention. ‘For us, service and personal connection are the most important. We want people to really experience the brand. By not displaying products on racks or shelves first thing as you walk in, we invite more interaction between our team and visitors – it creates room for conversation.’

Inside Extreme Cashmere’s New York store

A new store on New York’s Mercer Street, which opens this month (November 2025), follows this approach, with just a handful of garments on display (and none in the windows, which is typically prime marketing estate in the competitive SoHo neighbourhood). Instead, shoppers will enter a space reminiscent of a library or lobby, where vivid green carpeting – reminiscent of 1970s interiors – meets a bold assemblage of furnishings, shelves of books, flower arrangements, and product concealed in the brand’s signature cotton dust bags.

Designed by Dijskre’s nephew, architect and designer Hidde Dijkstra, the brief was to create a space that recalls a ‘luxurious home’. Set around two rounded high-gloss centrepieces – designed by Hidde and used as display cases or as a cash desk – the rest of the furnishings have a similarly space-age feel, from steel-frame chairs by Milo Baughman (here playfully upholstered in poppy-print fabric) and cloud-like ceiling lights by Molo, to a bright-pink Sabine Marcelis ‘donut’ transported from the Amsterdam office to New York. Other vintage pieces, such as a 1970s Italian coffee table, were sourced from Marché aux Puces in Paris.

‘It all reflects our love for design and the time and care we put into finding just the right pieces from all over the world,’ she says. ‘The design is inspired by our flagship in Amsterdam, where the concept of “home” is central. We’ve carried that same feeling over to New York, but because the space is larger, we were able to play more with layout and spatial design. It’s still not merchandise-forward, just like in Amsterdam, but instead focused on creating a calm, inspiring environment.’

The decision to open the brand’s second permanent New York store came after a series of pop-ups, including on New York’s Upper East Side (the brand also hosted an ephemeral store-cum-café in LA’s Just One Eye concept store, though for now, the East Coast has taken priority). ‘We’ve always loved New York,’ says Dijkstra. ‘Our pop-up on Madison Avenue last year was such a success, and a lot of fun too, so opening a permanent space here felt like the natural next step. We loved being uptown before, but SoHo has a completely different energy. I love that there are people from all walks of life passing through.’

As for her own perfect day in New York, Dijkstra prefers to keep things simple: ‘I love visiting museums, we went to Dia Beacon yesterday, which was amazing, but honestly, I mostly enjoy the everyday things,’ she says. ‘Going grocery shopping, cooking dinner back at the house, just walking around early in the morning... there’s something about this city that makes you feel like you’re part of it right away.’

Extreme Cashmere, 152 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012, extreme-cashmere.com

Our edit strikes a balance between function, comfort and design intelligence. True to Wallpaper*’s sensibility, it gathers the sharpest designs in tech and lifestyle. The categories may be familiar, but each pick brings a fresh, forward twist on the pieces we reach for time and again.

For more design-driven gifting ideas and aesthetically attuned stocking fillers, explore our other seasonal gift guides.

The Wallpaper* travel gift guide 2025

Analogue in-flight entertainment

Five-star treatment

A chic name-drop

Escape artist

Pleat elite

An order keeper

Mile-high comforter

Free roaming

Lights out

A mood mixer

A reset wash

A flight-mode facial

A pocketable friend

A power move

Do not disturb

He remembers how much his grandfather enjoyed his work, and wanted to be like him. Leafing through a monograph, he chanced upon Julius Shulman’s 1960 nocturnal photograph of Pierre Koenig’s Stahl House in the Hollywood Hills, depicting two women in white dresses, seemingly suspended in a capsule of steel and glass, floating above a carpet of lights. For Cano-Lasso, it ignited a dream of living in LA and, years later, he moved there, got his master’s degree at SCI-Arc and settled in the city.

Tour Cano House, a colourful Los Angeles hills dwelling

In 2019, he teamed up with SelgasCano, the Madrid firm co-founded by his aunt Lucia and her husband José Selgas, to construct the Second Home Hollywood co-working space (now operating under different owners as The Preserve). They also purchased a steep site on Mount Washington in north-east LA, and each designed a house for themselves, side by side, similar in construction, but radically different in appearance. SelgasCano indulged its love of colour, cladding the exterior in polychromatic recycled aluminium tubes, an echo of the pavilion it designed for the Serpentine Gallery in London in 2015.

Cano-Lasso’s incarnation is a lightweight, two-storey, post-and-beam structure with a narrow garden. The house cantilevers out from the hillside, with decked terraces at both levels offering views of the Elysian Valley and Hollywood Hills. Glass doors pivot open on both sides to capture the California breezes. ‘The idea behind this house was to create an environment conducive to the lifestyle LA offers: abundant natural light, a connection to nature, enchanting city views and tranquillity,’ says Cano-Lasso. ‘I feel most at home in the garden. It’s a sanctuary, looking out to the city through the living room, yet sheltered from it; surrounded by flowers, birds and the soothing sound of a fountain.’

The first structural engineer that the architect approached insisted the design wouldn’t meet the city’s tough building code. The second made adjustments to secure approval, and a team of skilled workers slotted 42ft-long glulam beams into steel tube columns by hand, tying them back to the fully-exposed concrete retaining wall. Meanwhile, lower-level rooms sport ribbed wood ceilings. Cano-Lasso finds a lyrical rhythm in the repetition of the joists and ribs, recalling Goethe’s definition of architecture as ‘frozen music’.

The floors are made of American red oak, while walls are lined in radiata pine plywood. Cano-Lasso had come to appreciate plywood while living in Rudolph Schindler’s Sachs apartments – it was one of the Austrian-born architect’s favourite materials. To block the intense heat of the westerly afternoon sun, louvred redwood planks on the terraces can be turned and wooden Venetian blinds lowered.

The floorplan, drawn up by SelgasCano, features an open-plan living and dining area, which opens onto the garden, and two bedrooms on the upper level, while a spiral staircase descends to another bedroom, an office and recreational areas on the lower level. Cano-Lasso’s brother, Alejandro, who sometimes works under the name Doctor Cato, created a mural of vibrantly coloured zellige tiles, imported from Morocco, to animate a concrete wall in the garden. The pivoting glass doors were brought from Spain, and ceramic downspouts were repurposed as wall lamps.

The house is sparsely furnished with a series of thoughtfully curated, custom-made pieces. Alejandro created several lamps, as well as some chairs inspired by the work of Wright and Schindler. Andrew Riiska, an artist whom Cano-Lasso met at SCI-Arc, contributed a bench and stool enriched with colourful upholstered blobs. Two massive boulders, found on site, were craned into the house before the windows were installed and double as side tables. At the outset, Cano-Lasso, his wife and brother moved things around to achieve a satisfying composition. ‘We were looking for pieces that were individually appealing and had a relationship with each other, but I didn’t want to lose the sense of open space,’ says Cano-Lasso.

Building this house was no picnic. It took seven years from design to completion, including a three-year shutdown during the pandemic, but it validated the skill of a fledgling architect whose website is full of speculative designs for fanciful hillside houses. Even if these go unrealised, Cano-Lasso has demonstrated that he can master the challenge of a difficult site, creating a home that is down-to-earth yet infused with poetry. It should serve as a springboard to many future commissions.

diegocanolasso.com

selgascano.net

This article appears in the December 2025 Entertaining Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Given the location and the wealth concentrated in the city, it’s no surprise that the exhibitor list is full of what you might call alt-Pateks, the brands to catch your eye before or after your number comes up for that coveted Nautilus or World Time Calatrava. Of note this year is the concentration of technically ambitious (and correspondingly pricy) makers such as Ferdinand Berthoud, Greubel Forsey, HYT and de Bethune, as well as more craft-focused makers such as Chopard, H Moser, Parmigiani and Laurent Ferrier.

Meanwhile, there’ll always be strong interest in the independent sector, however loosely defined, and Dubai Watch Week is a chance for those brands to get in front of the watch-buying public on more equal terms. What is notable is that the value range extends right through to the likes of Ming, Oris and Studio Underdog.

Dubai Watch Week 2025 highlights

Van Cleef & Arpels

The Brassée de Lavande is a new table-top automaton featuring a central lavender bouquet that opens to reveal a butterfly with orange plique-à-jour enamel wings, diamond accents, and black enamel contours. The butterfly’s body is crafted from tiger’s eye with amethyst cabochon eyes and diamond-tipped antennae. Detailed lacquered buds and an integrated carillon mechanism complete the piece

Chopard

The new L.U.C Grand Strike from Chopard is as technically ambitious as it comes: a highly complex chiming watch with a minute repeater and both grande and petite sonnerie functions, all using sapphire crystal gongs. Developed over 11,000 hours and protected by ten proprietary patents (five created specifically for this watch), it is the most intricate timepiece Chopard has ever produced – the culmination of a decades long adventure in sonnerie watches.

Parmigiani

Parmigiani are showing an ‘Arctic Rose’ edition of its PF Tonda Rattrapante, a sort of slow-food chronograph that unfussily allows you set a time interval with its extra minute hand. But it’s less about what it does and all about how beautifully it’s done–the subtlety of the finishes, (particularly theGrain d’Orge guilloché treatment on the dial) and the perfectly fluid shape of the case and bracelet take care of that.

Louis Vuitton

The Escale gets a gorgeously 70s makeover with two new stone dial editions that are being unveiled at Dubai. The new 40mm watches have dials and case rings in turquoise and malachite respectively, and are matched with platinum versions of the trunk inspired case that Louis Vuitton refreshed in 2024. Matthieu Hegi, Louis Vuitton’s Watch ArtisticDirector, promised at the 2024 launch, that a multitude of colours and materials would star in the new Escale and these two watches are that promise delivered.

Pérpetuel Gallery

Away from the Dubai Mall, the Pérpetuel Gallery will be hosting a stellar cast of top level makers including Roger Smith, Fiona Kruger and star of the future, Renaud Tixier. The Monday Watch, first seen last year, gets new dials to compliment the exceptional marriage of innovation and craftsmanship that Dominique Renaud and Julien Tixier have brought to the project.

The curatorial team were granted full access to Anderson’s prolific archive, creating vignettes for each film that form a chronological display. ‘There are so many aspects of his work that are connected with design and architecture,’ says Johanna Agerman Ross, who curated the show and catalogue alongside Matthieu Orléan and Lucia Savi in collaboration with La Cinémathèque Française. 'As a design museum, we wanted to make that a prominent part of the exhibition.'

The lived-in tactility of Anderson’s films is evident throughout. Costumes are made from sumptuous furs and bobbly felts, creating authentic textures and personalities for each of his characters. The Scout outfit worn by 12-year-old Sam (Jared Gilman) in Moonrise Kingdom (2012) is casually styled, with rolled-up cuffs and jaunty accessories, as a child – especially one as rebellious as this lead character – may dress themselves. Willem Defoe’s chilling family fixer in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), meanwhile, is brought to life with sinister intensity by his tailored leather costume and knuckledusters. Mr Fox’s tiny soft corduroy suit was not the simple creation of his puppeteer but designed by Savile Row tailor Scabal.

The props are equally evocative. While many films utilise props for background world-building, Anderson brings an at times obsessive depth to his creations. The young-adult fiction books featured in Moonrise Kingdom were all designed from scratch, with constructed plots, making the eventual titles and covers seem authentic. The show also features a miniature replica of Anderson’s own childhood copy of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. This movie and his other famous stop-motion film, Isle of Dogs (2018), are explored in highly technical detail, with skeletal inner workings highlighting the depth to which each character is articulated and considered, their intricate, kinetic facial features and unkempt fur adding a touch of realism and character.

The exhibition paints a view of the director as both compulsively precise and playful, refusing to cut corners when an original form of expression might be possible. 'I think he became keener about commissioning items as he went along,' says Agerman Ross. 'With his first film, Bottle Rocket (1996), he commissioned some things, but it was all returned to the prop house. With Rushmore (1998), he decided to keep everything because he was quite upset to find that when he needed to reshoot, things weren’t there. This became the starting point for the archive, and I think he got a taste for commissioning.'

The show highlights how Anderson’s process has evolved, from his early explorations of playful stop motion in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) to his recent work on Asteroid City (2023), which richly combines live action and more imaginative use of design. 'It’s a crescendo of all the techniques he has used, from puppets to miniature models and props and original costumes,' says Agerman Ross.

Anderson is now at a point in his career where he is trusted to fulfill his wildest ambitions. Agerman Ross hopes that this exhibition highlights the creative possibility that still exists in the film industry. 'Filmmaking is a deeply collaborative process. The world of design is vast and film is its own universe; we hope to make it intriguing for young people. How do you become a puppet maker or a set designer? When people see it played out through these objects, they can become more informed about these roles.'

‘Wes Anderson: The Archives’ at the Design Museum from 21 November 2025 – 26 July 2026, designmuseum.org

The opening marks a homecoming for the Langosteria group, a mainstay in the city’s culinary scene since its first opening in Via Savona eighteen years ago. Following a few years of international expansion, with the debut at Cheval Blanc Paris in 2021 and an anticipated opening in St. Moritz in 2023, the group is back in its cherished home turf. ‘This is a project that deepens its connection with the city and its most loyal guests,’ Enrico Buonocore, Founder and CEO of Langosteria, tells Wallpaper*.

Langosteria Montenapoleone, Milan

Like the transformation of the Lancia Palazzo, the design of this stately multi-level dining destination has been conceptualised by the Fendi Architecture Department, which sought to convey the warm feeling of slow, romantic travel. The overarching design language evokes the structure and symmetry of the building’s Rationalist past through the recurrent use of Venetian blinds and a hot-air balloon motif.

On the fifth floor, the Langosteria restaurant accommodates 120 indoor seats and 40 outdoors. Eighteen large windows bathe the interiors in natural light, while the brand’s signature lobster red punctuates the space. Teeming with tactility, canaletto and Italian walnut shape the woodwork of the bevelled floors, while travertine clads stone surfaces, and brass pops in accents. The dining area is kitted out in Murano-glass Venini wall lamps, custom ‘Limousine’ mahogany wood chairs, and leather banquettes.

The floor below will soon welcome Pepe, a new concept by the group centred on convivial counter-style Italian dining, while the one above houses Langosteria Ally’s Bar, equipped with a terrace overlooking the city skyline and a private dining room. Throughout, an open-kitchen layout draws guests into the rhythm of service.

According to the team, Langosteria Montenapoleone ‘speaks Milanese with an international accent.’ This resonates not only in the interior design but also in the menu. Beloved dishes such as Pappa al Pomodoro and Blue Lobster Nature headline the offerings, while new creations like Amberjack tartare in panzanella, Red tuna carpaccio with eggplant and candied tomatoes, and Smoked Rigatoni with Scorpion fish are poised to become new favourites.

Langosteria Montenapoleone is located at Corso Giacomo Matteotti, 9, 20121 Milan, Italy.

Pade established a fluid, dreamy style at her institutional debut at the Arken Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark earlier in 2025, and is now presenting a new group of paintings for her first solo UK exhibition. In their celebration of the body, the works continue to consider distortion and movement. Bodies in a crowd are caught in a choreographed dance of emotion, each figure displaying their own primal language.

Pade draws on classical references for her figures in a crowd, bringing them to life with violent brushstrokes. ‘I've always been inspired by history, but in different ways,’ she says. ‘I spend a lot of time looking at the German New Objectivity painters [who established a non-sentimental reality]. Not only do they have a very interesting way of depicting the figurative, giving it a sort of ugliness and an uncanniness to them, but they also express time in an interesting way – or not necessarily time, but what is going on between moments, or between wars. It’s waiting for the next thing to happen, and how they capture it.’

It is a pause the artist reflects in her own work, paying as much attention to the spaces between bodies as she does to the bodies themselves. Pade conducts a geometrical play of shapes and overlapping forms to bring the humanity of her subjects to the fore. ‘When I start the painting, I need to capture the movements especially, and that's why, for me, it becomes more about coordinates in the beginning. When I start, it's about finding the dynamic in the painting, in a movement. Because that's in the end result. There needs to be something that's moving in the painting, if that doesn’t sound completely ridiculous, but it needs to have a pulse. I think it’s especially true when you paint figuratively, because otherwise the characters die. They become frozen.’

Eva Helene Pade, 'Søgelys' is at Thaddaeus Ropac London until 20 December 2025

ropac.net

What’s now referred to as Miami Art Week has grown around Art Basel Miami Beach –the vast contemporary art fair held at the Miami Beach Convention Center since 2002 – and its sister exhibition, Design Miami, which launched in 2005 and is now a highlight of the collectible design calendar. This showcase of avant-garde work was co-founded by developer and collector Craig Robins and designer Ambra Medda, and has since taken place annually and concurrently with the art fair.

Over the years, more fairs and events have joined the fray, including Untitled Art, which occupies a huge tent erected on the beach; NADA; and Art Miami and Context, all of which take place across Biscayne Bay in Downtown Miami. Add to that a wide array of independent shows, museum exhibitions, brand activations, temporary installations, pop-up retail spaces and, of course, countless parties hosted across Miami and Miami Beach.

While the wider Miami Art Week has become increasingly commercial over the past decade, Design Miami remains a thoughtfully curated showcase of high-quality collectible furniture, objects and functional artworks. And although the event does invite brands to participate, these typically involve collaborations with international designers who create installations that range from ethereal to highly technical – and everything in between.

This year, Design Miami is open to ticket-holders from 3–7 December, with an invite-only preview day on 2 December. To mark the culmination of the fair’s milestone 20th anniversary year, renowned American design curator Glenn Adamson is using the theme ‘Make. Believe.’ to look both back and forward at the world of collectible design and guide the direction of the event – which includes a special-projects programme of satellite installations and partner activations.

What is Design Miami?

Design Miami showcases some of the most innovative, artful and avant-garde collectible design by global talents, presented by galleries from the US and around the world. Over 70 exhibitors – including more than 25 debuts – will participate in the 2025 edition, with notable returning galleries including the Future Perfect, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Friedman Benda, David Gill Gallery, Superhouse and many more.

Alongside the 30 large gallery booths, a series of ‘Curios’ spotlights smaller or emerging galleries and their designers, providing a platform for new talent, while several brand-sponsored installations activate the venue. In recent years, the show has expanded its international remit, with new editions in Seoul (September) and Paris (October).

Where is Design Miami?

Design Miami is located in Miami Beach’s famed South Beach neighbourhood, close to the Art Deco district of architectural gems from the 1920s and 30s, and just a couple of blocks from the beachfront. The event takes place in a large temporary structure set up in Pride Park, right beside the Miami Beach Convention Center in which Art Basel is held, making it easy to hop between the two.

Visitors arriving by car are dropped off at Convention Center Drive and 19th Street, but since traffic is notoriously gnarly during this week – even by Miami standards – consider arriving on foot from the nearby hotels on Collins Avenue.

Top things to see during Design Miami 2025

Gargantua Thumb by Katie Stout

For its 10th annual design commission, the Miami Design District has tapped artist Katie Stout to create a playful public artwork that visitors can interact with – and, in this case, sit on. Her series of large-scale sculptural benches, named Gargantua Thumb, will be installed throughout the pedestrian alleys that criss-cross the popular retail destination. The fantastical pieces began as miniature clay animals that Stout hand-sculpted with intentional irregularities, before they were digitally scanned, enlarged and milled from durable outdoor-ready materials. The benches will remain on view through spring 2026.

Perfume Transformation by Clive Christian Perfume and Crosby Studios

Designer Harry Nuriev’s Crosby Studios is partnering with fragrance house Clive Christian Perfume to create an immersive, monochromatic installation that interprets scent as a spatial experience. Visitors will be invited into the sensory environment to imagine what a scent might look like, free from literal association, with the journey beginning in a miniature cinema. The installation is intended to offer a first glimpse into the brand’s new creative direction ahead of its global flagship opening in London.

Design Miami 2.0 curated by Glenn Adamson

To mark the fair’s 20th edition, curator Glenn Adamson has selected eight ‘compelling voices in design’ to present works that align with his theme, ‘Make. Believe.’ Each designer will unveil a capsule collection that showcases their imaginative practices and underlines the continued importance of experimentation in contemporary design. Highlights include Steven Young Lee’s surreal ceramic forms; Stephen Burks Man Made’s translation of Kuba textiles into wooden works; and Jack Craig’s ‘moulded carpet’ sculptures.

Fonderia Fendi by Conie Vallese

Argentine designer Conie Vallese is celebrating fashion house Fendi’s 100th anniversary with a show exploring ‘feminine strength’ through Italian craft. Her collaborations with five ateliers specialising in bronze, ceramic, glass, carpet and leather have resulted in one-of-a-kind Fendi pieces in a Roman palette of rosy bronze, and shades of the brand’s signature sorbetto yellow and pale blue. The designs will be presented in a reinterpretation of a Roman saletto, or living room, alongside a limited-edition Fendi Peekaboo bag designed by Vallese.

Memories of the Future by Achille Salvagni Atelier

Amongst this year’s Design Miami debuts is Achille Salvagni Atelier, a collectible design gallery and studio with locations in Rome, London and New York. Its 'Memories of the Future' installation will pair Italian midcentury works by masters such as Gio Ponti and Renzo Zavanella with contrasting contemporary pieces by designer Achille Salvagni. Housed within a futuristic setting formed by metallic walls and a deep orange carpet, highlights include a 1951 cabinet marking the first collaboration between Ponti and Piero Fornasetti, as well as a sculptural Zavanella armchair.

In the years since, 16Arlington has become one of London’s most distinctive independent brands, its after-dark sensuality embodied by the it-girls and creatives who clad themselves in its sultry shapes on red carpets and in nightclubs. Never forgetting their first meeting, Capaldo got back in touch with Price just over a year ago, after discovering a vintage gown made by the designer that had belonged to Cavanti. She had sourced the piece to wear as maid of honour at her best friend’s wedding just before passing away (the designer died in 2021, aged just 28). ‘I reached out to Antony and said, “I would love to connect”,’ he says. ‘He emailed me back and said, “Call me tonight at 8pm.” And that was it. That first night, we were on the phone till four in the morning.’

While generations apart, the two designers’ connection makes perfect sense. Both have built careers around ideas of glamour, excess and beauty. A designer’s designer – deeply respected within the industry but less widely known outside it – Price’s career is the stuff of star-strewn legend. He dressed David Bowie and Duran Duran, collaborated closely with Philip Treacy, and became so instrumental to the aesthetic of Roxy Music that he was coined the band’s ‘invisible member’. His unrestrained work anticipated the louche, shoulder-padded, corseted silhouettes that would come to define the 1980s, and today Price stands as one of the era’s great architects of glamour. Decades later, Capaldo’s work at 16Arlington similarly impresses its own ideas of meticulously crafted, nocturnal dressing, with its own community of figures at the heart of its universe, from Adwoa Aboah to Lara Stone.

Yesterday evening (17 November 2025), the pair unveiled the product of their unlikely inter-generational friendship, a special collection they have been working on together over the past 12 months. The intimate one-off display was held within 16Arlington’s Hoxton studio, and was brought to life by 16 personalities in Capaldo’s orbit, including Lily Allen, Aboah and Lila Moss. Unfolding less like a traditional runway and more like a woozy 1970s salon, it was everything one would imagine from the blending of their worlds. Allowing guests to take in the designs up close, their ‘models’ slunk through the room in a sequence of evening gowns cut in midnight black velvet, chiffon, kink-leaning leather, and trompe-l’oeil animalier, rendered with an opulent attention to craft – crystal-encrusted, feather-strewn and exquisitely sculpted to the body. It was, of course, a study of glamour – treating it as more than a feeling, but a force that defies time, beguiles onlookers, and allows the wearer to become their most magnetic self.

The pair started by delving into Price’s archives alongside the help of writer and collector Alexander Fury. Among pleated lamé gowns worn by Paula Yates, Swarovski-covered sculpted busts made for Philip Treacy, and a jacket for Bryan Ferry crafted from women’s underwear, a theme among these treasures was Price’s gift for construction. ‘Something that really stuck out in the process with Antony is the way he references the body,’ says Capaldo. ‘He talks a lot about creating the heavenly body through clothing. If you were to take the linings out of some of these pieces, just seeing the detail and the padding that has gone into the inners of these garments is really incredible – they are like sculptures. To kind of be up close and personal with those pieces was amazing. The fact that they are still here and in perfect condition is a testament to Antony's work.’

When it came to designing the new collection, the process unfolded collaboratively over the months, with silhouettes coming into focus one by one. ‘We really focused on sculpting the body, whether that's with the jackets or the dresses,’ says Capaldo. ‘We have a few coats, which are really incredible because they have dress waist measurements on a piece of outerwear. Antony's really allowed me to go with it in the sense of trusting what I feel is right for today, whilst allowing us to fully explore his penmanship and apply that to the collection. There are pieces of his that I've reinterpreted. There are pieces of mine that he's reinterpreted. I say this with hand on heart, there hasn’t been a single moment we’ve butted heads. It’s been amazing.’

Capaldo knew he wanted to do something special for the show. It's something he’s gained a flair for now, after stepping away from the fashion week calendar in favour of more personal events (for A/W 2025, he hosted a candlelit dinner at Almine Rech gallery, which was transformed for the evening with an exhibition of 1980s-reminiscent studio photographs by Ethan James Green). Last night’s presentation, however, felt personal in a deeper way – not least of all because it was staged in the brand’s own studio, where the team work each day. ‘We wanted this show to be a really intimate affair,’ says Capaldo. ‘For people to be able to see the clothes up close, to experience them in the walls that they were made in. Bringing it into the space adds that level of grit, which is something that's so present in both mine and Antony's work.’

Worn by a cast of characters who have inspired Capaldo personally and creatively, the effect was as intended – a celebration of their shared ideas of beauty, individuality and craft. ‘Both Antony and I have been surrounded by these incredible individuals, people that stand for things and have a voice, who have naturally shaped and inspired our careers,’ says Capaldo. ‘Jerry Hall was somebody that was very close to Antony and his journey. My version of Jerry is somebody like Adwoa. I've really relied on my community and my friends to bring the show together and bring this collection to life.’

It was also, of course, a heartwarming celebration of their friendship – and of fashion as a language powerful enough to bridge generations. ‘I speak to Antony every day and I have for the past year, for hours on end,‘ says Capaldo at the end of our call. ‘He's a wonderful man, so talented, so unapologetically opinionated, who loves nothing more than bringing glamour to life and transforming people through clothes.’ Working on the collection with Price, the designer adds, has been one of the most rewarding efforts of his career. ‘I personally felt Antony never really received his flowers,’ he says. ‘To have been able to witness such a legend at work has probably been one of the most incredible and pivotal moments in my career. It's been really magical.’

'For the first time, we found ourselves simultaneously being the clients, the architects, and the contractors,' says Tsergas. 'Balancing all three roles at once was challenging, but also incredibly insightful. It gave us a deeper understanding of every layer of the process.'

Explore Block722's Athens penthouse

The home was the result of an intense and rewarding period of research and exploration by the two founders, who worked with local contractors Thekla Construction on the overall build. This investigation phase was followed by delicate and precise detailing and spatial planning, orchestrating an interior that would 'fit like a glove' to the lifestyle of its inhabitants.

At the same time, the space reflects the studio's ethos and overall approach of 'organic luxury'. This means using natural materials (here, marble, wood, and travertine) and maintaining a strong relationship with the outdoors, emphasising wellness and environmental health. To achieve this, the interiors are highly bespoke, as the architects worked with specialist craftspeople for lots of the fittings, fixtures and furniture, as well as designing a number of the products and built-in elements in-house.

'We don’t regret for a moment the countless hours we spent reflecting on how we live as a family – our needs, our habits, our routines, and our aspirations,' Tsergas explains. 'This type of self-observation proved invaluable, and it’s something we will encourage our clients to engage with more deeply. Understanding who they are inside their home and how they move through their day offers such rich information for the design. The aesthetics and spatial solutions that emerge from this process are inevitably more authentic, personal, and beautiful.'

The penthouse, titled Lumen Residence, was conceived as a duplex, spread across 230 sq m. The first level contains a flowing and carefully composed living area, while bedrooms are located upstairs. On the top level is also an expansive roof terrace, partially planted and partially paved and operating as an outdoor living room for resting and entertaining – as well as sports, as it also contains a half-size basketball pitch and a swimming pool. The Athenian skyline beyond becomes a key part of the experience.

'Designing a home so high above the city gave us a rare opportunity to work with natural light in a completely different way. With almost nothing obstructing our views, we were able to bring abundant daylight into every space – even those oriented northwards – and then soften and filter it through sheer fabrics, wooden jalousies, and the timber grille that channels light into the master bathroom through a skylight,' says Tsergas.

'We also knew from the beginning the type of qualities we wanted for our new home: a sense of seclusion and privacy, and a calm, grounding energy that would contrast with the vibrant pulse of Athens below. Although we didn’t intentionally set out to create a “resort-like” home within the city, that is exactly the atmosphere that emerged. The water element on the rooftop and the extensive planting across both floors contributed significantly to this feeling.

'Ultimately, what thrilled us most was achieving all the qualities you would expect from a single-family home – comfort, openness, connection to nature – but experiencing them in the sky, with a panoramic relationship to the city, the sunset, the stars, Mount Hymettus, and the entire Athenian landscape. That feeling is truly indescribable.'

The pair have been living in their tailor-made home for a few months already, but they say that it feels like they've always been there. Two comments keep coming up when friends and collaborators visit their new home, the couple add: 'This is so you!' and 'It’s clearly a Block722 home – but in a way that feels different and unexpected.' No doubt, the type of feedback that subtly signals a resounding success.

block722.com

Retrofit House is an initiative set in Birmingham's Ladywood and part of a nationwide programme promoting imaginative yet thoroughly accessible redesign solutions to 21st-century architecture problems – climate change's rising temperatures and waters, and declining biodiversity, coupled with the UK's urgent need to update and increase housing stock. Its aim? To invite everyone on board the architectural journey of home-building and future-proofing.

Explore Retrofit House and be inspired

The powerhouses behind Retrofit House are a trio of design, architecture and urban planning practices: Civic Square, Dark Matter Labs and Material Cultures. The project is the real, bricks-and-mortar result of the efforts of Immy Kaur, the founder and co-director of Civic Square, and her project partners, over the better part of a decade. It forms part of the UK-wide collective movement, Retrofit Reimagined.

So, what does it look like? The initiative takes over an entire Victorian terraced house in Ladywood, on a suburban, residential street. Using the building's fabric, the architects from the three organisations proceeded to dissect it, boring holes in walls, removing plaster and revealing the structure's bones, using the house as a showcase of what homes of that era –which are typical not only across Birmingham but throughout the UK – are made of.

At the same time, displays of an array of biomaterials in the home offer options for anyone interested in repairing, adapting and improving their own home using sustainable architecture methods and resources. Biomaterials are known for their kinder impact on the environment (when responsibly sourced), as well as on our health.

'People don't often understand [retrofitting],' says Kaur. 'And, over the last five years, we have had a number of government schemes that have done poor work, eroded trust, wasted money.' As a neighbourhood-based initiative, Civic Square, through Retrofit House, aims to inspire 'an uptake for better quality housing on streets that are cleaner, where communities are at the forefront of that work'.

'But it is really important to unlock all of the capacity that exists in neighbourhoods, and in civil society and all these community organisations that have huge amounts of social capital, to understand their places and make the story of retrofit less about just understanding the deep technical things that you need to do, but more about the fact that we've all got something to bring to this. Because it is about better quality homes that are better for your health, that are cheaper to run, that are better for your children, that create better health outcomes.'

The residence's rooms will be used for workshops – both hands-on labs, and idea discussions and debate panels – aimed at helping the local community, and others beyond, feel confident about the methods and skills needed. This includes not only the homeowners themselves – to whom the project presents agency and choice – but also architects, tradespeople and contractors who wish to enrich their skillset by working with biomaterials, as part of Re:Builders, a six-month learning programme for workers in the built environment.

The result? A boost to ecological and social architecture infrastructure as Retrofit House itself slowly gets retrofitted and used to show how it's done.

'It is important to see this as a space of imagination and possibility, not just for decarbonising, which is super important, but for something far greater, which is the revitalisation of our democracy, of our communities and of our neighbourhoods,' Kaur continues.

'For Civic Square, Retrofit House is connected to a larger plan. What is the infrastructure needed to put communities at the forefront of their climate transition, of their recovery? [We aim to show that] it's not a big, scary thing that they don't understand, but in fact, something that they feel liberated and excited by. And everyone's got something to share, and everyone's got something to learn.'

Retrofit House launched with an Open House week in November 2025 and will remain accessible to all via appointment and through its learning programme, serving as an important beacon for sustainable architecture action. It is one of three Retrofit Reimagined demonstrator projects currently in effect – the others are We Can Make in Bristol and Retrofit Balsall Heath in south Birmingham.

For more information, visit:

civicsquare.cc

darkmatterlabs.org

materialcultures.org

Retrofit Reimagined

Wallpaper*: What were the main considerations in bringing this world to life?

Nathan Crowley: I think the main consideration was being respectful of the stage show, Wicked, and of the great history of the film. I spent every Christmas watching it with my parents, who have nostalgia about it, as do my grandparents, but my kids also all have nostalgia for Wicked. So you are trying to find a look for Oz that tells the story of this epic journey. The considerations are treading lightly and finding a way through it all and re-designing it for us, because this is the first time that Wicked has been told cinematically, so that's a long journey and we have to really start to understand what Oz is, what our theories of Oz are and what best represents it.

W*: What were the challenges in creating worlds of good and evil in a non-literal way?

NC: We have to redefine the yellow brick road as a form of oppression. How do we visually tell you that story? This is one of the many things that Wicked brings – it says the yellow brick road isn't what you think it is. We tell that story by showing you how it's made. They have to enslave the animals to make it. The munchkins have to get all the yellow tulips we grew and turn them into a yellow dye and make bricks with them, rather than making all the colours of the rainbow for their clothes, it’s now enforced colour to make the bricks, and all their colour is taken away. Munchkin Land becomes monotone yellow. So even when the house lands and Dorothy goes on her journey, she's really becoming an agent of the wizard. She's now working for the wizard. So it's just a very different point of view. And I think that's where you start. What are the visual signatures of showing you that oppression?

W*: What references inspired you?

NC: For Emerald City, it was the Chicago World Fair in 1893, where the great modernists built the White City, that's now long gone. But they built a dream. Edison and his electricity lit it. You look at Sullivan and especially Burnham, who built the White City and is the father of American modernism. The underlying thing that I took to Emerald City was a dream and the White City was a dream. And because we're an American fairy tale, I needed something like the Chicago World Fair to give me that dream.

With Sullivan and Burnham, their architecture was so detailed, but yet because it was en masse, it became simplistic and modern. So that's what I had to do for the Emerald City. I've got to build my green city. But I took inspiration from America, and then I had to add the whimsicalness, taking architecture that feels like it's verticality [using height in architecture] and then twisting them together. I had to form a new type of architecture, which was very exciting actually.

W*: How closely did you work with the director and members of the production team in the design? How flexible were you required to be as the story took shape?

NC: We had many months of prep before we even started building anything. So we worked in this visual room, all together, with Jon [M. Chu, Wicked director] and the producers. You look at it as a whole. I do everything practically and I start building with my giant construction group: it's like a piece of sculpture and it develops, like the dancers. Then the choreographer Chris [Scott, Wicked choreographer] comes in and says; 'Well I've got this idea for this dance, but I need a bridge.' Things change halfway through filming. We always develop it. And Jon would come and say, 'Oh, for this scene I need a giant fountain that rotates.' And yes, I've got a great special effects team. I can build your rotating fountain – but maybe it could open, and flowers and a balloon could come out!

On our crew, we have all the people who can do that stuff. We have engineers and sculptors and artists and prop makers who get excited because it's a challenge. So I don't do it alone. I have this army of people. At one point, we were running a thousand people in my department. And it's the most wonderful thing when everyone is moving. It's so fluid.

Wicked: For Good is released on November 21

The partners in life and art have collaborated with Chanel and Louis Vuitton, and have shot for every top fashion and culture magazine you can think of, including their series on America’s top 50 creatives for Wallpaper* in 2024. Their early adoption of digital manipulation in the Nineties put them at the forefront of portraiture at a time when experimentation with computer technology in image making was in its emergence. The result is a 40-year body of work made with the declared intention of striking a balance between the moment and timelessness and to ‘destabilise the conventional promise of photography as a purveyor of truth.’

In a preview of work in their retrospective at Kunstmuseum Den Haag opening in March 2026, ‘Can Love Be a Photograph’ ,they are showing images from the project ‘Think Love' at India Mahdavi’s Project Room #21, in Paris. This project, which opened to coincide with Paris Photo, showcases Inez & Vinoodh’s series created with the iPhone 17 in Marfa Texas.

‘Think Love’, created as part of the project ‘Joy, in 3 Parts’ is a series of portraits of couple Charles Matadin and Natalie Brumley. Curated by ex-director of photography for The New York Times Magazine Kathy Ryan, the project also featured Mickalene Thomas and Trunk Xu.

The couple were shot simply, outside with a translucent piece of red fabric, in a series that explores both the intimacy and the euphoria of romantic love and desire. The landscape plays a role in some of the images as a stirring backdrop for the young lovers.

The collaboration with iPhone is a natural progression in Inez & Vinoodh’s use of tech throughout their career, who see it as a way of pushing the boundaries of art and portrait making. In the exaggerated elements of a portrait, they create insights into their subjects or their art, extending the influence of the photograph. They were the first to start using computers to alter the human body in ways that are very normal now, and used them to heighten meaning over a mythical human physical perfection.

Having worked together since 1986, they have an intuitive way of making images, with one taking photographs and the other observing. There is no fixed role and most of their shoots take only fifteen minutes, with the duo demonstrating an apt way of gaining the trust of their subjects that means the process is very fluid, they have said.

In trying to liberate photography from the moment, they have created timeless images with both avant garde and classic qualities featuring well-known figures of recent times. In putting together the large-scale show, previewed here in Paris, they have taken chronology out of the equation, taking their work out of the order in which it was made and focusing purely on the images.

Inez and Vinoodh’s legacy as image makers is set, but they are still seeking to explore photography, its limitations and its possibilities. Here we see a taster of what’s to come in March 2026, on view in Paris until 12^th December.

'Think Love’ is on view from 13th November – 12th December 2025, India Mahdavi’s Project Room #21

theravestijngallery.com

Explore the new Border Outlook in Naco, Mexico

‘Naco exemplifies the abandonment and scarcity of border towns in Mexico, which are considered mainly as spaces to transit, to cross to “the other side”,’ she says. ‘It is the place where drug dealer El Chapo Guzmán built the first tunnels from Mexico to the United States, and it is a place characterised by violence. It lacks public space and has had, until now, no civic spaces or cultural services. Naco is a place fragmented by two main elements: the border wall and the highway that runs parallel to the wall, making the city two strips defined by these strong physical and conceptual divisions.’

After winning a competition in 2020 to design low-income houses in Chiapas for the government, the Mexico City-based Canales was invited to help transform Naco ‘from a place of transition into a place of belonging’ by Mexico’s Secretaría de Desarrollo Agrario, Territorial y Urbano (SEDATU, the country’s ministry for urban development). Some of Mexico’s best contemporary architects, such as Gabriela Carrillo, Rozana Montiel and Estudio MMX, have worked on similar programmes.

The brief initially outlined a market for local craftspeople selling their wares, but this soon expanded to become a multipurpose social-activity structure, offering a platform for anything from graduations and concerts to community events. The design comprises a 4,000 sq m grid-based structure, composed of interconnected vaulted roofs and terraces, left open to the elements and free from furniture or spatial dividers, ‘so anyone can make use of it and everything is always visible’, notes Canales. A three-level tower on one end confidently marks its presence. Made of terracotta brick and exposed concrete, it is robust, almost brutalist; at the same time, its resulting earthy tones nod to the local soil colouring and the area’s architectural vernacular, both important references to Canales. This construction method also meant it could be easily built without the need for specialist skilled labour or expensive future maintenance, perfectly suited to a funds-strapped local municipality.

Beyond navigating difficulties arising from the scheme’s limited budget and resources, the architect also had to tackle travel obstacles as the development of the design took place during the height of the pandemic. ‘It was almost impossible to travel there and visit the sites, and throughout the building process, there was still a huge problem regarding safe working conditions and availability of materials,’ she says. ‘There were more problems than the usual scarcity issues in these very remote and marginal areas. Additionally, these are places that have never been safe for women, so that did not help either.’

The Border Outlook is part of a bigger architectural family, including four other projects designed by Canales for Naco (a sports facility, housing for older people, a community centre and a plaza), and two more for the nearby town of Agua Prieta (a sports and civic centre, and a public library with a park). All were commissioned through a SEDATU scheme addressing the need for safe public spaces and civic services in some of the most deprived areas in the country.

Within this context, the Border Outlook is a flagship feature, thanks to its textured minimalism, size (it is the only building in town with more than two floors) and location at the entrance to the city (visible to everyone driving towards the US, and to returning locals, signalling their arrival home). ‘It plays an important role in providing a sense of identity and pride for Naco residents,’ says Canales. ‘At night, it becomes a lantern for the city and a symbol of new public pedestrian space.’ As a bonus, its presence inspires passing cars to lower their driving speed, allowing for a pedestrian crossing, connecting the town to a baseball field that was previously hard to access.

The project is now fully operational and thriving, but its significance goes beyond its practical use. Canales says, ‘I have been told it’s the “tower of hope”, where people can look from above and gain a different perspective that was not available before – not only can they see “the other side”, but they also see their own side, and become more aware of their home.’

fernandacanales.com

Ichio Matsuzawa: Architecture at the edge of perception

He created the bar with a series of curved, three-millimetre acrylic sheets, each a two-by-four-metre panel with 94 per cent transparency. They hovered at the edge of consciousness, present only when they caught the light, distorted a likeness or, momentarily, eclipsed a moving body.

The panels were heat-formed in an industrial oven using steel moulds, a process as delicate as it was unpredictable, as the acrylic became almost liquid when heated, making the ultimate curves impossible to control. Matsuzawa embraced the risk, allowing ‘beautiful accidents’ to shape the final forms, discarding everything that felt too rigid, precise, or artificial. What remained was a series of ephemeral thresholds that appeared and dissolved as visitors moved through the space.

This is where Matsuzawa drew a line between architecture and sculpture. Objects, he commented, are static. Architecture is perpetual: it changes with people, climate, sound, and time. In the bar, nothing stayed still. From the street, shadows of trees rippled across the acrylic, and echoes bent and multiplied. The breeze pushed both surfaces and images out of alignment. ‘New, mirage-like spaces are constantly being generated,’ he explained.

The transparency also blurred the divide between inside and out, a deliberate strategy given the bar’s street-level site in central Tokyo, which became part of the architecture, not merely the backdrop. Nature, too, entered the framework: wind, branches, sunlight, passing cyclists, and the casual choreography of pedestrians.

To counter the coolness of the acrylic, Matsuzawa designed stools and tables wrapped in richly coloured Afghan textiles, introducing tactility, warmth, and cultural layering. A soundscape by composer Yusuke Nakano completed the multisensory environment.

Matsuzawa, who has quietly built up a reputation for projects that question material presence and spatial perception, saw the AWT Bar as part of a philosophical enquiry into architecture as experience rather than form. ‘Each visitor encounters a different space, depending on their movements, their timing, their sensitivity,’ he said. ‘The work isn’t complete until someone inhabits it.’

The bar served cocktails designed by artists, including Chim↑Pom from Smappa!Group and Tsuyoshi Ozawa, and snacks by chef Shinobu Namae, including Seaweed Jambon Beurre made with Suji-Aonori seaweed butter and two kinds of seaweed pickles, but the bar’s real takeaway was spatial. In creating architecture that existed only through perception rather than solidity, Matsuzawa inverted conventional notions of what a building should be.

Rather than defining space, his near-invisible acrylic panels dissolved it – making the architectural experience something visitors sensed rather than saw, felt rather than touched. For an architect committed to spaces that emerge from sensation rather than structure, the AWT Bar wasn’t simply a commission. It was a manifesto.

imoffice.net

Indeed, when Barringer and her creative partner Amanda McGowan first met, during orientation at NYU – taking cinema studies and journalism via pre-med, respectively – a bond was initiated almost before either had uttered a word. ‘Our outfits spoke to each other,’ recalls Barringer. A shared visual language was quickly affirmed and the pair soon began collaborating on various projects until 2015, when Women’s History Museum proper was established. ‘If we weren’t both wearing these very expressive things,’ adds McGowan, ‘we probably wouldn’t have connected. It was both a visual marker of “oh, this is what we’re interested in”, and a kinship.’

Speaking to Wallpaper* the day after Halloween, (they didn’t participate, instead heading to Metrograph to watch Juraj Herz’s 1972 gothic drama, Morgiana), the duo has spent the past decade building on that early instinct and refining how they share it with the world, producing garments, sculptures, print and videos, and putting on catwalk shows, setting up a vintage store, curating exhibitions and opening a physical shop space in Chinatown. Their first institutional exhibition, ‘Grisette á l'enfer’ (or ‘Grissett in hell’, so-called after a figure that emerged in France in the 17^th century, representing working class women behind the fashion industry) is on display now at the Amant in Brooklyn, through 15 February 2026.

‘I was shy when I was younger,’ says McGowan, reciting her own sartorial biography, ‘so [clothing] became a way to communicate with people, to express how I felt and not have to say anything.’ Coming of age before the internet’s grip on culture had reached its current fever pitch, both women were drawn to fashion magazines early on, and initially envisioned their practice would lean into the medium. ‘We grew up with computers, but before you had access to so much imagery. Print media was the way to access images of fashion or art,’ offers McGowan. ‘That was a very formative education on fashion and developing our own tastes and visual language.’

The first ‘official’ pieces of Women’s History Museum were produced for an exhibition by the artist Donna Hunaca, a friend and former colleague of Barringer’s, and the experience ultimately shaped their focus on making apparel in an art context. Pulling influences from a disparate range of sources, the 18^th and 19^th centuries are regulars on their mood board, while Vivienne Westwood’s 1984 ‘Hypnos’ collection is an evergreen reference; an interrogation of the more traditional fashion industry is central to everything they do. In practise, this has led to a singular, oftentimes sexy and typically provocative arrangement of working with textiles and adjacent materials, like a bra constructed from birds (‘Animam Agere’), wigs and shoes made from colourful plastic ‘pills’, or high heels stacked on secondary wooden platforms, as well as more conventionally ‘wearable’ pieces that include dresses printed with columns and leggings full of cut outs.

Until 2020, both Barringer and McGowan were working other jobs alongside and in support of Women’s History Museum. During the pandemic, they began receiving PUA, during which time they started the vintage business, which in turn informed how their wider practice has since unfolded. ‘Living in New York City and surviving off of a creative career is pretty difficult,’ shares Barringer. ‘We started selling vintage because we needed a way to make money, then we were able to direct our energies more intentionally.’ Working together – in addition to maintaining a friendship – is something they’ve had to navigate along the way, but McGowan wouldn’t have it any other way. ‘Collaborations aren’t easy, it took time. But working with someone I really respect and admire is exciting. We have this language which makes it fun and interesting, it’s endlessly generative.’

The Amant exhibition follows their first three consecutive fashion shows since joining the official NYFW schedule, and the pair are happy to be embracing a change in tempo, having sat out S/S 2026. ‘Shows are so ephemeral, it’s nice to have something that's going to stand for a long period,’ explains McGowan. In the space, a series of 18th-century mannequins on loan from the Met appear alongside others cast in wax and welded steel, adorned in pieces from past collections featuring old coins, porcupine quills and antique casino chips. ‘We're lucky to show in different contexts – we love the performative aspect of fashion shows, but it's also enriching for people to see the full scope,’ McGowan continues. ‘Everything feels terrible right now, in many ways, but aesthetically, there are lots of soulless things being made. So there’s a significance to creating things that make people happy, giving a reprieve from the world.’

Women’s History Museum: Grisette à l’enfir runs at Amant, Brooklyn until February 15, 2026

womenshistorymuseum.co

Maggie’s: a brief history

That such a centre now exists within over 27 major hospital sites across the UK and abroad is the legacy of writer, gardener and designer Maggie Keswick Jencks. Diagnosed with breast cancer at 47, and having experienced firsthand the complexities of cancer care, Maggie felt that more support could be offered, beyond medical treatment, to those living with cancer – a place in contrast to the often windowless sterility of a hospital consultancy room or corridor.

Before she died in 1995, Maggie, together with her husband, the landscape designer Charles Jencks, and her oncology nurse Dame Laura Lee LBE (who would become the charity’s Chief Executive), conceived the template for a different kind of healthcare premises, and the first Maggie’s opened its doors just a year later at Western General Hospital in Edinburgh.

The Maggie's centres and their architecture

‘In essence, Maggie’s is somewhere you can go as soon as you leave the consultant’s office’, explains Director of Properties, Siobhan Wyatt. ‘Our centres are run by oncology professionals and we provide practical, social and emotional support – we have benefits advisers, clinical psychologists and cancer support specialists, but also run things like art classes, relax and breathe sessions and offer nutritional support; it can be as little or as much as the visitor needs’.

Architecturally, Maggie’s buildings are atypical in their design, with leading architects such as Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid conceiving mixed-use spaces that promote human connectedness and wellbeing, where patients, carers and healthcare professionals can intermingle in buildings emanating a sense of sanctuary. The enveloping gardens at Maggie’s sites are every bit as integral to this outcome.

Maggie's gardens

‘When you are in a Maggie’s, and when you’re digesting information, the view beyond the window to the outside world is really important’, says Wyatt, emphasising the significance of seasonality that gardens impart. ‘If you’re sat in an environment where you are surrounded by seasons it can help you psychologically adjust: you see the beauty in a shrub coming to a natural end in autumn and then the regrowth in spring, for example. All of that, without saying anything out loud, supports the process of you accommodating this new world that you’re living in’.

Initially, interest in designing Maggie’s gardens came from Maggie and Charles’ circle of friends, Wyatt explains, which included landscape architects who offered their services. ‘But it soon became more structured. We’re very invested in matching the architect and landscape designer for each project, making sure the fit is right.

Maggie's gardens: key examples

At Maggie’s Southampton, for example, the architect was Amanda Levete and Sarah Price was the landscape designer, and there was 'a really beautiful relationship in their sharing of space,’ says Wyatt. The centre, which occupies a former car park within University Hospital Southampton, was designed to reflect the surrounding New Forest landscape. Wyatt continues: ‘Amanda Lavette was completely generous: the concept was a glazed box with little architectural definition, just surrounded by a slice of the New Forest. The landscape then banks up all the way around on all four sides, so you are nestled in.'

Wyatt gives the example, too, of how Marie-Louise Agius worked with Thomas Heatherwick on a ‘planters’-theme for Maggie’s Yorkshire, with raised roofs of verdant greenery; and of Maggie’s Northampton – a more recent project – where garden designer Arne Maynard has continued the indoor-outdoor architecture of Stephen Marshall’s ‘umbrella’ building with linear hedges that form outside rooms. Undoubtedly, the collaborative process yields hugely creative results. ‘Every time you do one of these projects, you learn that the relationship between architect and landscape architect is really important,’ says Wyatt.

By its nature, the space made available on hospital grounds for Maggie’s centres often tends to be awkward: a former carpark, a space between existing buildings, an inclined landscape, etc. Nonetheless, over the years, designers have risen to such challenges with remarkable ingenuity and beauty. At the Royal Marsden hospital in London, renowned Dutch designer Piet Oudolf envisioned four zones of differing plant communities to make productive use of varying light levels, its 12,000 plants selected for year-round seasonality.

At the Royal Oldham Hospital, garden designer Rupert Muldoon employed airy white birch trees to draw light into a garden space below dRMM’s column-raised Maggie’s building. ‘Designing a healing garden, for me, meant embracing as much nature as possible,’ Muldoon reflects. ‘I imagined a woodland garden of suggestive routes, inviting exploration. Working with Maggie’s is liberating – there is freedom to create what you are most passionate about.’

Wyatt remarks on a favourite space within the garden at Maggie’s Manchester, designed by Dan Pearson, which features raised beds for vegetable cultivation. ‘There’s a lot of activity – people having conversations over doing something practical with their hands, like shelling peas; that’s always magical to see. There’s a covered veranda, and you see people asleep in chairs with a sheepskin blanket over them – it might be raining, but they can still be outside’. Vital to all Maggie’s gardens is a carefully selected, highly skilled gardener, who continues the designer’s vision but also develops its unique character, often leading a regular group of volunteers in practical, accessible gardening activities.

In many cases, the gardens play a crucial role in softening the passage between the hospital consultancy room and the Maggie’s premises, particularly for patients immediately after diagnosis, Wyatt explains – something Maggie felt keenly. ‘As soon as you get out, the way-finding and the time it takes to get to the centre is really important. That’s why we insist on being as near to oncology as we can, and we insist on influencing as much of that surrounding landscape as we can’.

A good example can be seen in the extended garden at Maggie’s West London, where Dan Pearson conceived an intimate pathway weaving below the hospital’s large London plane trees, leading through lush seasonal planting – including scented sweet box, soft hellebores and Japanese anemones – to the centre itself. ‘Those meandering spaces give a person time to pause, time to digest; spaces where you can sit down, where you feel comforted and secure, before you get to the front door. That’s why the garden is so important – it’s that transition from the medical to the Maggie’s environment.’

Recommended: The Garden Design Confessional podcast. Presented by garden designer Darren Hawkes, the podcast features interviews with many of the garden designers behind Maggie’s gardens.

maggies.org

Wallpaper* dines at Monsieur Dior by Dominique Crenn, Beverly Hills

The mood: ladies who lunch

As the first Dior restaurant outside Paris, the mood embodies French art de vivre, woven with fashion and taste. From the moment you step into the lifts, engulfed in floral motifs, an enchanting experience unfolds. Designed by architect Peter Marino, the space blends the spirit of 30 Montaigne with laid-back Californian ease, including a large patio shaded by the quintessential palm trees of Rodeo Drive.

A curved bar crafted in ebony and onyx, overlooked by a ceiling of sculpted rose petals in shades of white and backed by a wall sculpture of faceted mirrored panels, almost cut like a diamond, offers signature cocktails such as the J’Adior, made with pear, elderflower and Champagne, alongside a menu of small bar bites. The main room features a full-wall canvas: Gardens of Courances (2025) by Nicole Wittenberg, a major site-specific commission created to immerse guests in an enchanted botanical cosmos. Dining chairs are swathed in chartreuse green and peach-coloured abstract fabrics surrounding round white tables, though you may prefer a seat along the banquette wall or one of the cosy side booths for prime people-watching.

The rainbow of colourful crystal-cut plates and glasses used during your meal can be purchased in a small Maison conveniently located between the bar and the main restaurant; a tempting prospect after a few fruity or Damask rose cocktails.

The food: light French fare with a Californian twist

Pardon the cliché, but every dish is a work of art. If you’re feeling decadent, the caviar service arrives in a tin layered with smoked crème fraîche textured to resemble tweed. Dig deeper and you’ll find egg-yolk jam and pickled shallot, intended to be spread on a fluffy herbed madeleine. The most-ordered dish so far is the confit salmon with fermented red pepper, clams and grilled spinach. Other hits include seared scallops with blood orange, beef tartare (again with egg-yolk jam), and abalone served with anchovy and pepper sauce.

Crenn’s signature has been reimagined for Beverly Hills as the Guinea Hen Rodeo with mushrooms, though her rich, creamy potato millefeuille remains unchanged. Desserts take the ‘couture cuisine’ theme to its peak and are almost too pretty to eat – from a coconut rosé cream tart with raspberries and pistachio to a chocolate mousse patterned after a quilted handbag. Get your camera ready: photographs are encouraged, and the dishes are crafted to be captured like A-list stars.

Monsieur Dior by Dominique Crenn is located at 323 N Rodeo Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, United States.

Everywhere you look, human hands and mechanical arms coexist in purposeful choreography. As well as mind-blowingly hi-tech machines, there are workers wielding the kinds of tools that shoemakers would have used hundreds of years ago: bread knives are used to trim the jute in one corner, whilst robotic cutters trace laser-sharp outlines across sprawling hides in another.

A tour of Birkenstock‘s Görlitz factory

‘In our production, some steps remain entirely manual, others are half-automated, and a few are fully automated,’ says Markus Baum, Birkenstock’s chief product officer. ‘For certain processes, we’ve even co-developed machines with partners to meet our standards. We introduce innovation where it makes sense, never for its own sake. Progress for us must always serve purpose.’

In Görlitz, we’re a world away from the cobbled streets of the founders’ 18th-century Frankfurt (once an epicentre of shoemaking), but the principles remain the same. Craftsmanship here is a mix of curiosity and continuity; knowing what can change, and what must always stay the same. ‘It’s all about balance,’ Baum adds. Some materials can only be worked on by humans, and some can only be done by machines.

Considering Birkenstocks all still have a handmade element, the scale of production is astonishing. Two football fields’ worth of leather – mostly from European suppliers in Italy and Spain – are cut each day. The brand’s famous cork ‘Fussbett’, or footbed, is still the beating heart of the operation, and even when Birkenstock have collaborated with brands like Dior, Rick Owens and Jil Sander, it’s the one thing that noone is allowed to change. The footbed has become the brand’s literal and philosophical foundation and is perfectly suited to today’s wellness-driven world.

In the factory, the footbeds are baked in steel moulds and emerge hot, pliable and aromatic, like loaves of bread from an oven. Every single one is still made in Germany, a point of pride that underscores the brand’s insistence on authenticity. ‘Birkenstock's shoemaking tradition dates back to 1774, and with that heritage comes a deep understanding of our craft,’ Baum explains.

Though Birkenstock has been around since the 18th century (when Johann Adam Birkenstock first registered as a shoemaker in a small Hessian village near Frankfurt), it’s remarkably contemporary. Laser systems map each hide like a topographical scan, tracing imperfections before slicing out the sandal’s familiar shapes. Though for the more experimental 1774 range, produced in smaller runs, everything is still hand-cut, especially for the Boston clog’s complex patterns or for selecting the softest part of the hide for a front strap.

After nearly 200 years of production, it was the 1960s countercultural wave of Birkenstock-wearing American hippies that made the shoes an iconic symbol of natural living. Since then, a series of high-profile fans have exploded the brand into what we know it as today: Steve Jobs photographed wearing them in 1973; fashion designer Andre Walker in the gladiatorial Athens in 1983; Kate Moss shot wearing them in The Face magazine in 1993.

But somehow Birkenstock is immune to fashion’s usual vagaries. They want it to remain that way. ‘We stay true to our purpose: empowering people to walk as nature intended,’says Baum. ‘A universal idea rooted in the belief that everyone deserves to walk naturally. And that’s timeless. We’ve never been much interested in or were ever defined by trends. We draw from a rich product archive of more than 700 silhouettes and from the cultural capital that comes with it.’

That archive acts as an internal guide and helps the brand navigate hype cycles. And much as they love to dip into the archive, they’re also all about innovating for the future. ‘We’re bringing newness to leather through design and texture and continue to lead the way in pioneering finishes and enhanced wearability,’ Baum says. ‘At the same time, we’re expanding production of our water-ready styles. We innovate wherever it genuinely adds value to the product, function is what drives us.’

Whether it’s with luxury houses or emerging designers, collaborations are approached with the same purpose. ‘Collaboration, for us, is a field of experimentation,’ says Baum. ‘We value the fresh perspective that brand outsiders bring to our products and to our core values of quality, function, and tradition.’

At the end of the factory line, a pair of Arizonas sits cooling on a steel rack – cork still warm, straps neatly pressed into place. Soon they’ll travel across continents, almost identical to those made centuries ago, but entirely new. That’s Birkenstock’s soft power: a shoe that’s barely changed, but still somehow feels like the future.

birkenstock.com

Favouring reuse over starting from scratch and working with natural materials - often predominantly wood - Oza Sabbeth Architects (and now, Oza Studio) has been carving its own, distinct niche within architecture and in its part of the world; which is also where its newest project, a bespoke haven for a couple who own a car repair outfit in the Bronx, is located.

Tour this Montauk house on Hither Hills

'The clients of Hither Hill are some of the most genuine and down-to-earth folks we've ever had, and one of our favourite clients ever. They own and operate an auto body paint shop in the Bronx. And they LOVE the house. It is a coming-of-age for them, a celebration of their lives so far... It is their lair,' Oza explains.

The couple approached him with a commission for a holiday home on Hither Hills, a stretch of sand with a long, southerly view of the Atlantic Ocean. Set on elevated ground, the site captures wide Atlantic views at both sunrise and sunset.

Right from the start of the project, Oza spotted an opportunity to bring his approach of radically reimagining existing building fabric for 21st-century needs to good use. He says: 'The clients wanted to tear down the house and start from scratch. There was no ambition to make it grand. The ambition was to make it theirs – more open, more light, yet still humble.'

However, the architect quickly established that the cost to demolish and start from scratch would be twice as much as that of a reuse. Additionally, ironically, by demolishing, 'less would have been possible – both in terms of size and proximity to the side lot lines.'

The tired, existing structure on site felt mundane and uninspiring, yet held lots of potential. Oza and his team reorientated the house to look out towards the water, ensuring there is expansive glazing in nearly every interior space. A new top roof deck and a terrace spilling out from the living spaces accentuate this connection between indoors and outdoors.

'The large ocean-facing deck anchors the home to its site, while the street-facing side is kept more reserved with screened windows that filter sunlight and shield the interiors from exposure,' says Oza. 'The result is a home that balances openness and retreat, transforming a once-static shell into a coastal dwelling that serves as both sanctuary and outlook, as well as refuge and prospect.'

The Montauk house on Hither Hills spans some 3,250 Sq Ft. The top level features the roof deck, which contains a viewing lounge, green roof, a powder room and kitchenette. Just below is the home's piano nobile, featuring the main entrance, and living spaces (sitting, kitchen and dining areas inside and out on the second deck), but also the primary bedroom. A lower level offers space for three guestrooms, a gym, a lounge, a secondary entrance and the garage.

'The design process felt like chiselling out a noisy form to excavate a quiet interior,' Oza explains. 'The constraints were many – structural limits, tight site slope, zoning, and budget. But we found answers by stripping back 'noise': we simplified the plan for better flow, we extended the roof deck to pull the horizon in, we used vertical siding to create rhythm and calm, and we carved in light, shielded privacy made the house breathe.'

Meanwhile, wrapping the structure with a single material - vertical wood planks - produced a visually consistent and bold overall volume. This timber skin goes around all facades and the entire body of the house, creating a gently dramatic, sculptural impression. 'The wood planks extend from the siding to the roof, visually simplifying and connecting the entire shell of the house,' Oza notes.

oza-studio.com

Wallpaper* dines at Bonheur by Matt Abé, London

The mood: tactile minimalism

Russell Sage Studio is behind the look of Ramsay restaurants, including Pétrus and 22 Bishopsgate, but here it’s Abé who has been heavily involved in the design process. Details such as the yellow leather tabletops reflect the chef’s vision for a tactile and comfortable space that matches his culinary ethos of approachable refinement (Bonheur is the French word for ‘happiness’). Dramatic flourishes include floral installations, sculptural waiter stations and horsehair wallpaper adorning illuminated recesses in the dining room.

‘The space is intended to feel soft, stylish and emotionally resonant,’ says executive creative director Russell Sage, ‘with discreet luxury that is crisp and elegant, without being over the top. The palette includes peach, rust, sandy walnut and ochre tones, subtly referencing Matt’s Australian roots without being literal, and reflecting the overarching concept of rich, warm minimalism.’

The basement dining room is unrecognisable from the glossy black-and-red Le Gavroche days, with the best seats in the house at Petit Bonheur, the six-seat chef’s table, which offers the opportunity to get up close and personal with Abé and his team.

The food: Abé unleashed

Bonheur is very much Abé’s, not Ramsay’s restaurant, but don’t come expecting a radical departure from the fine-dining playbook. There’s a three-course à la carte menu, but two tasting menus – the five-course Journey and the seven-course Dream – are the main attraction. The cooking, however, is no re-tread of what Abé was doing at Royal Hospital Road. Here at his first solo restaurant, the chef has total creative freedom, best exemplified by his choice of ingredients.

Bonheur is the only restaurant in the country to serve Cumbrian 125-day-aged Blue Grey sirloin, developed between Abé and Lake District Farmers as an experiment into the dry-ageing process and transformed by the chef into a butter-soft slice of pink meat encased in crisply seared fat with a half-moon of potato terrine on the side: the poshest meat and potatoes imaginable.

Other classic dishes given the contemporary haute-cuisine treatment include quiche Lorraine re-imagined as a cheesy tart of leek and pork belly with vin jaune sauce, and a sweet-toothed dessert of pecan mousse with cocoa ice cream and the grown-up addition of Pedro Ximénez gel.

Bonheur by Matt Abé is located at 43 Upper Brook Street, London, W1K 7QR, UK.

‘You enter the house, and in literally each corner there is a sofa,’ shares curator Michele Bertolino, sampling the upholstery the morning after the show opened to collaborators and contributors, press, family, and friends of the museum. ‘It's incredible because the sofas are always busy; it means being cosy and having the possibility to stay, to speak together.’ Gennaro’s friends still live in the same house in Palermo, where his work, tied to the idea of affection as recognition and care, remains, and which Bertolino visited often during the making of the show; each time, his hosts put him up in the artist’s old bedroom.

Gennaro’s is one of three monographic spaces that underscore the gravity of the wider show, each consciously developed by the curator’s friend, the architect and exhibition designer Giuseppe Ricupero (the other two rooms focus on Patrizia Vicinelli and Francesco Torrini). ‘These artists give a specific hint to the way in which the HIV-AIDS crisis was approached in Italy and I think, as a first show discussing this, sum up the issue,’ says Bertolino. The show’s moniker moreover, is direct in its communication: ‘vivono’ translates to ‘they live’, and the dates relay the earliest recorded case of AIDS in Italy, and the year HAART therapies were introduced, in Vancouver, at the XI International AIDS Conference.

A response to the silence Bertolino identified around HIV-AIDS in Italian culture – particularly amongst those championing foreign art made in a similar context – the show was constructed through discussions together with research the curator had begun for an earlier photobook project. ‘It came out of necessity,’ he explains today. ‘It's a conversation that is going on [globally], and in Italy we are not addressing the issue.’ Thinking communally, Bertolino worked with a committee that included the collective Conigli Bianchi, activists Valeria Calvino and Daniele Calzavara, and Ida Panicelli, the museum’s artistic director between 1993-94. ‘They took my hand and let me in, this guy coming from contemporary art, asking personal things about their life,’ recalls the curator. ‘They really helped me understand and navigate this history, as it’s not a history I lived.’

Consisting of nine rooms in total, the show is orchestrated primarily around Italian artists, while several British and American names also appear (Robert Mapplethorpe’s quietly brooding Coral Sea (1983) is surrounded by ample white space, while Derek Jarman’s Pontormo and Punks at Santacroce, from 1982, plays nearby to The Pope and the Penis, the bold text-based work previously exhibited at the 1990 Venice Biennale by New York collective, Gran Fury). A specially commissioned Roberto Ortu film introduces the show, and a vast collection of painting, illustration, sculpture, video, photography, and poetry follows. Paramount for Bertolino however, are a series of worktables made up of archival materials such as pamphlets, articles, posters, campaigns by Moschino and United Colors of Benetton, and recent works by Milan’s Tomboys Don’t Cry collective.

‘I wanted it to be meaningful and present, so we had conversations about what it means to collect and preserve, how we build a memory when there is no memory,’ says the curator. Formed around themes, as opposed to chronology, labels include stigma, care, time, shit and celebration; ‘shit’ was a suggestion from Calvino notes Bertolino, acknowledging the term’s complexity. In an essay from the show’s accompanying book, Reader, Calvino expands on the word’s significance, alluding to her own experiences and drug use amidst the social and cultural shift that occurred in the country in the late 20^th century, as Italy moved into neoliberalism. ‘The 1980s were shitty years,’ she writes. ‘Shitty in the sense that they digested and discarded everything that the 1970s had been…the years of marches, collectives, self-awareness groups, counterculture...’

Indeed, much of the work presented at Centro Pecci was made against this backdrop, and yet Bertolino and Ricupero were determined to foreground a sense of lightness within the show, honouring the desire to love and embrace joy that existed in tandem with the extreme grief and political landscape of the time. Writing after his own diagnosis in the 1980s, Gennaro once suggested that ‘it is never a personal matter,’ indicating the comfort sustained from the relationship between HIV-AIDS and creating a shared narrative.

The sentiment is partially echoed in the responsibility Bertolino felt while putting ‘Vivono’ together he says. ‘A lot of people trusted me in a very sincere and immediate way. Behind this work there were people, life experiences – for some people, it was years since they had gone back to the works, or talked about their partner or son,’ he shares. ‘The subtitle of the show is “art and feelings”, and I was really not sure about this, but it is a show about feelings – made through feelings, constructed because of love. And I would love it to be the opening up of a conversation that is not present in Italy. Luca Starita [who also contributed an essay to Reader] will publish in February, a book on literature and poetry and HIV-AIDS in Italy, so things are happening. It’s a collective effort.’

'VIVONO. Arts and Feelings, HIV-AIDS in Italy, 1982-1996' at Centro per l'Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, until March 1, 2026

felixgonzalez-torresfoundation.org

Bill Prince, editor-in-chief

On Thursday evening I presented the award for Best Men’s Watch (which went to Urban Jürgensen) at the 25th edition of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, otherwise known as the ‘Oscars of the watch industry’, held annually in the Swiss city. The event celebrates watchmaking excellence, whatever and wherever its source, and thus attracts a huge number of entries from across the globe. These are whittled down by the GPHG Academy and then adjudicated by a jury made up of industry insiders, collectors and journalists, of which I was one, and whose final decisions are recorded by secret ballot and revealed on the night. Among the evening’s big winners: Breguet, which picked up the ‘Aiguille d’Or’ (Grand Prize) for its Classique Souscription 2025 timepiece, recreated in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the company’s founding by the 'father of modern watchmaking’, Abraham-Louis Breguet, and Zenith, whose legendary Calibre 135 won the Chronometry prize for supreme accuracy in timekeeping.

A colourful collaboration

Anna Solomon, digital staff writer

Last week, I popped into Rixo’s sumptuously vintage-inspired Chelsea flagship to celebrate the brand’s new collaboration with Ruggable – makers of the machine-washable rugs I’m a little bit obsessed with (I have one in my living room, and honestly, I don’t think I could ever go back to stain remover and scrubbing). The collection, which has now launched and is available to shop, fuses Rixo’s playful, hand-painted prints with Ruggable’s life-proof tech. The result is a whimsical mash-up of vibrant florals, intricate geometrics and painterly motifs. These personality-packed pieces are every maximalist's dream, served with a side of nostalgia but sleek enough for the modern interior.

A riveting read

Ailis Bickford, digital project manager

This week, I welcomed the cold weather and the barrage of Christmas reminders by locking myself in my flat like Ebenezer Scrooge and finishing my book, Flesh by David Szalay – the winner of the Booker Prize for 2025. The story follows a man throughout his life – from growing up in Hungary and joining the army to marrying a wealthy older woman in London. At each stage of the narrative, he is desired for his body. As the story unfolds, the disconnect between his body and mind becomes increasingly, heart-wrenchingly apparent. A short but emotional read, this is definitely one to pick up this winter.

A drizzly drive

Jonathan Bell, transport and technology editor

A swift trip to the drizzly Midlands to visit RBW EV, a company that builds all-new bespoke electric sports cars infused with the spirit of the classic MGB. It wasn't quite top down weather but the driving experience managed to rekindle an authentic connection to the road, thanks to RBW's proprietary engineering know-how. These delightful machines are wrapped up in a finely crafted package and shipped around the world to enthusiasts who want a bit more emotional engagement from their EVs.

Relics in Rome

Hannah Silver, art, culture, watches & jewellery editor

I visited Rome this week to celebrate the opening of Cartier & Myths at the beautiful Capitoline Museums, which places Cartier showstoppers in context with ancient sculptures and artefacts, a celebration of how classical codes have always been an inspiration. A stop to see the exquisite new high jewellery collection at Palazzo Talia’s and a fun dinner at Pierluigi Restaurant made for a whirlwind 24 hours.

Innovation at an institution

Ellie Stathaki, architecture & environment director

A visit to the new Backstage at The Old Vic this week reminded me to book some nights out at the theatre. Beyond creating functional and joyful – much-needed – spaces for the South London organisation's own operations (from a marvellous green room to dressing rooms and a Writer's Room I’d love to book for myself one day), the building also has a new bar and café, open to all – conveniently just around the corner from the main stage. Warm crimson, terracotta, yellow and orange hues (I have always been partial to that colour palette) bring the interiors alive, beautifully complemented by a sturdy, exposed timber frame. An unexpected highlight is the façade’s sunshading screen, which is, in fact, ingeniously made of refurbished and painted old barn doors. You will find me at the bar, having a pre- or post-performance drink soon.

A Scotch sojourn

Anne Soward, production editor

I had a Brigadoon moment this week, lost in the magical mist and fog of the Scottish island of Islay with two Americans (designer Ini Archibong and his manager brother Archie). Known as the whisky island, the tiny Hebridean enclave (home to 3,000 people and a lot of sheep) hosts ten distilleries, but I was here to visit Port Ellen as it prepares to launch a new artwork by Archibong to welcome visitors (more on this to come in a few weeks). Founded in 1825 but closed for more than four decades, this ‘ghost’ distillery recently reopened after the discovery that some of its single-malt casks, left quietly maturing during the closure, had turned into some seriously palate-blowing Scotch. As a cult following clamoured for the liquid gold, the decision was made to rebuild the distillery in contemporary form, adhering to a Scandinavian aesthetic that both suits its setting and presents a fittingly cosy environment for savouring the whisky’s intense flavours. I’ve never been much of a whisky drinker but I was spirited away by the passions of the Port Ellen hosts, who attuned my palate to the amber nectar’s peaty smokiness, heavily imbued with notes of fruit and spices, conjuring up visions of autumn walks, crackling campfires, and Christmas.

In a similar vein, the Chronometry prize – celebrating excellence in timekeeping – was awarded to a recreation of Zenith’s Calibre 135, the most awarded movement in the history of chronometers. Represented this year as the ‘GFJ’ to mark the 160th anniversary of the company’s founding by Georges Favre-Jacot, the winning watch features a 39mm case with a striking lapis lazuli dial surrounded by a ‘brick’ guilloché motif inspired by the façade of the manufacture in Le Locle.

Among the other winners were Anton Suhanov, who took the Revelation prize for his tabletop world timer tourbillon clock; Audemars Piguet, recognised for the latest iteration of its Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, fitted with the new, fully crown-set Cailbre 7138; and Bulgari, which won a further prize for its groundbreaking series of Finissimo models, this time in the Tourbillon category.

Other prizes were distributed between Chopard (which took two, for Ladies Compilation and Sports), and Daniel Roth and Gérald Genta, both dial names recently revived under the auspices of the Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, honoured in the Time-Only and Ladies’ categories respectively.

The Special Jury Prize honoured Alain Dominique Perrin, president of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, for his visionary role in promoting high-quality watchmaking.

All 90 of the nominated timepieces, including the 19 winners, are on display at the Geneva Musée d'Art et d'Histoire until 16 November 2025.

The 2025 GPHG winners

‘Aiguille d’Or’ Grand Prix : Breguet, Classique Souscription 2025

Chronometry Prize: Zenith, G.F.J. Calibre 135

Horological Revelation Prize: Anton Suhanov, St Petersburg Easter Egg Tourbillon Clock

Audacity Prize: Fam Al Hut, Möbius

Iconic Watch Prize: Audemars Piguet, Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar

Mechanical Exception Watch Prize: Greubel Forsey, Nano Foudroyante

Chronograph Watch Prize: Angelus, Chronographe Télémètre Yellow Gold

Tourbillon Watch Prize: Bulgari, Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon

Sports Watch Prize: Chopard, Alpine Eagle 41 SL Cadence 8HF

Men’s Complication Watch Prize: Bovet 1822, Récital 30

Men’s Watch Prize: Urban Jürgensen, UJ-2: Double wheel natural escapement

Time Only Watch Prize: Daniel Roth, Extra Plat Rose Gold

Jewellery Watch Prize: Dior Montres, La D de Dior Buisson Couture

Artistic Crafts Watch Prize: Voutilainen, 28GML SOUYOU

Ladies’ Complication Watch Prize: Chopard, Imperiale Four Seasons

Ladies’ Watch Prize: Gérald Genta, Gentissima Oursin Fire Opal

‘Petite Aiguille’ Watch Prize: MAD Editions, MAD2 Green

Challenge Watch Prize: Dennison, Natural Stone Tiger Eye In Gold

Mechanical Clock Prize: L’Épée 1839, Albatross L’Épée 1839 X MB&F

Special Jury Prize: Alain Dominique Perrin

The Wallpaper* guide to party dressing

The dress appears as part of our ode to dressing up in the December 2025 issue of Wallpaper* – a guide to entertaining in style this festive season – envisaged by photographer Dham Srifuengfung and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes. This year, they embraced the dignified and debonair, selecting looks which saw designers twist aristocratic codes in contemporary fashion – from Jonathan Anderson’s first menswear collection for Dior, which featured oversized bowties and riffs on the morning suit, to classic Chanel tweeds, fronds of Gucci feathers and louche pyjamas courtesy of Burberry.

Largely in monochrome black, with flashes of white and gold – a surefire palette for eveningtime soirées – this is the Wallpaper* guide to how to dress for a decadent party season ahead.

Hunt out texture

The festive season is a time for embellishment and decoration, from tassels and sequins to fronds of feathers (to avoid erring towards the gaudy, we recommend that adornment is monochrome, and preferably black or white). This Dries Van Noten coat, decorated with delicate fringing evocative of ostrich feathers, is the perfect example – enough of a sartorial statement that you can keep it on once indoors.

Volumes should be dramatic

Like embellishment, this is the season when silhouettes can be exaggerated and dramatic. Make an entrance in this Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarrello gown – its dropped waistline and crinoline-effect skirt inspired by John Singer Sargent’s seductive and mysterious ‘Madame X’ – or select equally oversized silhouettes by way of faux fur or shearling, billowing feathers, or millefeuille layers of tulle.

Embrace the bow tie

A subversion of formalwear was at the heart of Jonathan Anderson’s debut menswear collection for Dior, from ceremonial military jackets to the bow tie, which appeared oversized and purposely skewiff. The latter also featured in his first womenswear collection for the house, cementing it as an accessory of the S/S 2026 season – expect it to be everywhere come next summer. Get ahead with a bow tie of your own: all the better when worn without the typical tuxedo.

Stick to black and white

In a season of sensory stimulation, a sartorial rule or two can help simplify the process of getting ready (particularly when playing host). We suggest restraining yourself to black and white when dressing for a soirée: there are few more elegant combinations, particularly when embraced in a multitude of textures and finishes – leave the typical festive hues of red and green to your guests.

Wear your pyjamas

The louche elegance of the pyjama has seduced designers in recent seasons, with iterations of sleepwear staple appearing on runways from Prada to Dolce & Gabbana. A set in silk makes for an intriguing alternative to more stuffy formalwear – case in point, this pair in piped-edge silk by Burberry. The best part? You can go straight from party to bed.

Lace is for celebration

Dolce & Gabbana has long reigned supreme when it comes to the little black party dress – this version (on left) comes in a glamorous melange of feathers and lace. The latter is a perennial material of the season, one long synonymous with celebration – from Christening to wedding gowns, or the intimacy of lingerie. As such, it strikes between the sweet and the sensual: the perfect balance when it comes to festive eveningwear.

Trust in tweed

Tweed might be synonymous with the great outdoors – the fabric was originally prized for its hardy, weather-resistant quality – though the house of Chanel has transformed it into a symbol of elegance with its seminal tweed two-set (Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel first introduced the style in 1924). This season, iterations came in black tweed – whether elongated into an overcoat or transformed into a gown.

Say it with feathers

Embrace the outré and say it with feathers this party season: after all, there are few more dramatic sartorial statements. This all-over feather coat by Gucci makes for a theatrical entrance, though more subtle fronds of feathers on cuffs and hems can be equally arresting.

Cocoon yourself in shearling

Faux fur and shearling – the latter cleverly manipulated to look like fur – were all over the men’s and womenswear runways for A/W 2025, speaking to an elemental desire for protection against the elements. But fur also comes with connotations of glamour: case in point, this shearling overcoat by Rabanne, complete with fluffy hanging ‘tails’ and gobstopper buttons.

A version of this article appears in the December 2025 Entertaining Issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Models: Precious at Story, Rohan and Harvey at Premier, Clara Wakonigg at Present, Lily Nova at Milk, Felix Cheong Macleod, Theodor Pal and Scarlett at Supa, Mani Adjaye at Next, Summer and Juju at Storm. Casting: Hien Le. Hair: Masa Fujita at Of Substance Agency using R + Co. Make-up: Faye Bluff at Of Substance Agency using Clé de Peau. Manicure: Abena Robinson at Agency 41 using Essie. Photography assistants: Pablo Gallegos, Sam Girdler, Oran Eggerton. Fashion assistants: Charlotte Ghesquiere, Meg Bundy, Claire McKinstry. Hair assistants: Chikako, Miyuji Sato, Kei Koshigoe. Make-up assistants: Natasha Tereshko, Francesca Quagliatti. Production assistants: Archie Thomson, Ady Huq, Indy Davy. Manicure assistant: Hayley Evans-Smith. Photographed on location at the ICA, London.

The building, a dress rehearsal for Harrison’s design for the Metropolitan Opera house in New York, reads as a theatre from the front but conceals 175,000 sq ft, making it one of the largest collegiate arts facilities in the USA at the time.

The main theatre, foyer and attendant spaces were superb, but much of the remainder was a confusing labyrinth. Dartmouth wished to preserve the former and tweak the latter and for this task turned to Snøhetta, a firm with more than a little experience in injecting light and clarity in woodsy and wintry locales. The project, which opened in late October 2025, was an expansion, although the added square footage totals a modest 15,000 sq ft. Snøhetta aimed to bring ample sense to the classroom jumble and inject multiple new performance spaces.

In its day, the Hopkins Center was an experiment that anticipated the Metropolitan Opera’s form, which Harrison was working out simultaneously. Harrison could build in highly modern forms – see his Brutalist Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York – but he did not shrink from traditionalist nods. In her monograph on Harrison, historian Victoria Newhouse wrote that the Hopkins Center ‘combined structural innovation with historic precedent in its allusion to the form of Florence's 14th-century Loggia dei Lanzi’.

The building has become treasured. Mary Lou Aleskie, executive director of the Hopkins Center, explained the college’s quest for an architect who would respect the original, while acknowledging that the arts have changed. ‘In the mid-20th century, art spaces were built for two kinds of people: makers and consumers,’ Aleskie says. ‘But in the 21st century, we know that our experience of art can be much more expansive than that. It can't really be contained in a room.’

Craig Dykers, co-founder of Snøhetta, admires the diffuse inspirations of Harrison’s original structure and compares it to choreographer George Balanchine, who mixed classical with contemporary forms. ‘It’s very heroic but it’s also very delicate,’ the architect says. ‘His work is filled with a range of architectural thinking and we try to work that way too.

‘I think if you're too monolithic with your architectural conceptualisation it becomes alien to most people and only comfortable to architects who are often in airplanes,' he adds.

Dykers stressed how slender the structural columns are in Harrison’s facade – ’you could put your hand around them’ – and sought to do something similar in their most visible addition to the centre, a recital hall.

The Snøhetta team designed a façade system resembling an array of divining rods. This woven mullion system is structural, holding up not just irregularly shaped floor-to-ceiling windows but the roof itself. The addition is canted, a measure of deference to the original, but also intended to channel pedestrian energy to a new main centre lobby. Aleskie compares the arrangement to ‘a set of open arms rather than a hard entryway.’

Circulation was the bane of the original building; Snøhetta addressed this with several interventions, the most prominent of which was a new skylit, oak-lined main lobby. ‘When you move inside, you're seeing wood that is welcoming and warm and delightful, but also reminds you of the natural conditions nearby,’ Dykers says.

Snøhetta punctuated the main corridors with clearer features and seating clusters, providing guidance through the building. Its largest additions aren’t very visible: there’s a new experimental theatre at the rear of the building. ‘It’s not a black box; we don’t design black boxes – they feel like you got locked in someone’s broom closet,’ Dykers jokes. It is, he stresses, an experimental room and is, in fact, a deep forest green. The architects also converted another lower-level room into a theatre, doubling the number of performance spaces in the building.

Their interventions within the original Spaulding Auditorium volume were limited. A terrazzo stairway leading from the foyer to an upper social space, The Top of the Hop, was removed for the sake of improved visibility and reducing acoustical bleeding. Dykers attested to hesitation: ‘It was absolutely gorgeous, and I was torn personally throughout the process.’

The Top of the Hop space, visible from its exterior, was repainted and its lighting improved, but interventions were minimal. A striking original terracotta fireplace remains (Dykers resisted the urge ‘to take it home in my luggage’) and Snøhetta incorporated green furniture and a bar near to the main windows. There's more lounge space outside via seating chiselled from boulders. The aim, per Dykers, was to fit into Dartmouth’s character, while having some fun doing it. The architect likens it to a night out at a fancy restaurant: ‘It's not a folded napkin at a dinner table. It's just a teacloth, but it has all of these features that help to tie into the surroundings in a very sophisticated way.’

What do you do when you own one of the Hudson Valley’s oldest houses and want to modernise it without losing its historic soul? For artist Michele Lobo, owner of Hyphen House, the answer was to turn to family: she commissioned her daughter’s design practice, NoNo Studio, co-founded by Susannah Stopford and Alejandra Murillo.

The house dates back to the 1700s, and was built for the Dutch Van Messler family on their then-flower farm. Originally divided into three separate apartments, the home has been transformed into a single, flowing residence. Its name, Hyphen House, reflects the reconnection of fragmented spaces, where the thick stone walls and inherited structural quirks required careful choreography. ‘The process was a high-stakes game of chess,’ say Stopford and Murillo.

At the heart of the project was preserving the house’s history while updating it for modern life. ‘The house carried the imprint of its past, which we were eager to preserve and amplify,’ the designers explain.

When Lobo first arrived, the property felt like stepping into a time capsule, steeped in the Van Messlers’ legacy. ‘Flowers covered everything: wallpaper in nearly every room, floral motifs on light switches, lampshades adorned with blooms. It was so charming, but just a little much,’ the designers recall. Some of this remains – the original wallpaper in the southern living room and downstairs powder room, for example – while elsewhere it was reimagined and elevated.

NoNo Studio also retained quirky, memorable details like the original wax melter for candle making, hidden behind a fireplace in the northern living room. ‘That mantle is also one of our favourite features, stripped back to the original wood after many hours of removing flecks of paint,’ Stopford and Murillo add.

Other preserved features include silk-screen wallpaper that even wraps the radiator pipes in the southern living room, a stone wall in the kitchen, a powder room tucked under the stairs, and a ‘wonky little bookcase tucked in and around the stair in the southern living room, filled to the brim with well-thumbed art books’.

Colour and material choices were guided by the home’s history and Lobo’s existing collection of art and objects, likened by the designers to ‘filling in a crossword puzzle’. Furnishings balance heritage and freshness, combining 18th-century antiques with pieces from Lobo’s globally sourced collection. The overarching question was always, ‘what defines the character of this place and what components of that identity can we preserve?’ say Stopford and Murillo.

The renovation had a practical goal: to create a home that could support Lobo’s artistic life. ‘We wanted to transform this disused flower farm into a vibrant and functional compound for a multi-hyphenate creative,’ continue the designers. After decades abroad, Lobo sought a space to settle near family while accommodating her work across multiple mediums and scales. Today, the plot hums with creativity, featuring a sculpture studio in the former flower shop and a barn converted into an art gallery and entertaining space.

The result is a home that is warm, slightly ‘unbuttoned’ and endlessly inspiring – an ‘incubator of creativity’, as Stopford and Murillo describe it. The designers embraced the building’s quirks, like parallel staircases and duplicate living spaces, turning them into opportunities rather than obstacles. ‘Anyone can build something new, but keeping the spirit of something old alive? That’s what we love to do the most.’

Yet, the experience stretches far beyond retail. Customers might drift between the Deli Bar for a lobster roll, the Lázaro Rosa-Violán-designed Jncquoi Avenida restaurant for white prawn carpaccio beneath its signature dinosaur, or Jncquoi Asia for grilled wagyu with ponzu.

The next chapter will arrive in spring 2026 with Jncquoi House, the group’s first hotel, occupying a separate townhouse and designed by Vincent Van Duysen. In the interim, on the building’s ground floor, the doors to new restaurant Jncquoi Fish are already open.

Wallpaper* dines at Jncquoi Fish, Lisbon

The mood: sophisticated, sexy and sea-centric

At this new outpost of the Jncquoi empire, dishes pay homage to the bounty of the Atlantic, the food taking centre stage, with many tables clustered around the open kitchen. But it is the design that sets the tone. Step through the neo-Moorish façade and a world crafted by Vincent Van Duysen opens up: a play of mirrors and white marble, ceramic and limestone.

Dark clay flooring is produced by Viúva Lamego, one of Portugal’s most historic ceramic factories, forming a perfect counterpoint to Lisbon’s local Lioz limestone and the ceramic wall tiles, whose palette and pattern draw inspiration from the kitchens of the National Palace of Sintra. The lighting fixtures – handmade in Portugal by Fátima Neto to Van Duysen’s design – are sculpted from Carrara marble, while the furniture was custom-made locally by Room2Fit. Bespoke tableware comes from Vista Alegre, founded in 1824 and one of Portugal’s most respected brands. And, in a gentle nod to the owners, quintessentially Portuguese cork – sourced from founder Paula’s Amorim Cork – appears as a salt cellar encasing glittering white crystals.

The food: Atlantic soul

With Jncquoi’s executive chef António Bóia and chef Filipe Carvalho (who earned a Michelin star at Lisbon’s 50 Seconds) at the helm, good food is a given. Equally assured are the ingredients, freshly sourced from the cold Atlantic waters that lap Lisbon’s shoreline. Carvalho has a deft touch, skilfully balancing traditional Portuguese flavours with the luxurious notes that 21st-century fine dining demands. Think cod fritters crowned with a spoon of tartare sauce and a generous dollop of caviar, or a hot starter of scarlet shrimps from the Algarve, served with garlic and fried quail eggs.

Main courses include Portuguese blue lobster rice with coriander, or oven-baked octopus à lagareiro, richly drenched in local olive oil. Sommelier Filipe Wang may reach for a prized Burgundy to pair with your choice, or a particularly compelling Portuguese bottle – do hear him out; he knows precisely what he’s talking about. Do save room – the chocolate mousse with olive oil and fleur de sel is impeccable, while the oven-baked pão de leite (a sweet, yeasted milk bread) served warm with custard and cream cheese, already seems to have gained a cult following.

Jncquoi Fish is located at Av. da Liberdade 189 1, 1250-096 Lisbon, Portugal

Explore Woodstock House, a new, sustainable Belgian vacation home

The house sits beside a river that often floods, within an isolated valley in the Ardennes in southern Belgium. 'Most people wouldn’t build here but there’s something beautiful about a landscape that’s constantly changing,' says BC Architects’ co-founder Wes Degreef.

He designed the project using the practice’s bioregional architecture philosophy: timber, stone and earth were largely sourced within a 30km radius and the project draws on vernacular building methods. 'In every project, we always take cues from local materials and crafts, while showing that you don’t need concrete to build a house.'

BC Architects demolished the existing stone ruins on the site, giving their components – windows, tiles, furniture and roofing – away to local housebuilders, neighbours and building merchants, but they reused some of the stone, crushing it to form gravel. This was compressed into layers on the schist bedrock, using an ancient building technique, to eliminate the need for concrete slab foundations.

Woodstock House’s three vaulted stone towers are built from a hard Belgian sandstone called Grès du Condroz from a local quarry, using a lime and sand mortar. The towers hold functional spaces (such as bathrooms) and spare bedrooms, which are insulated with hemp. Main living areas and family bedrooms are housed on a diaphanous glazed deck that bisects the towers and appears to float above the river.

'You enter on this level from the road behind, so it’s like you’re boarding a ship,' says Degreef. It is built from untreated larch from a local saw mill, which will change colour over time – the supporting pilotis echoing the trunks of the surrounding trees. Steel feet protect them from rising water levels, and the structure has a roof clad in thin stone slabs, recalling the local vernacular.

BC, which stands for Brussels Corporation, is a highly experimental hybrid organisation including BC Studies (a non-profit educational laboratory) and BC Materials, which transforms excavated earth into building materials. It is pushing for systemic change in the construction industry with what it calls ‘acts of building’ – each project being a prototype for challenging norms, reimagining what is possible with local materials and rethinking the architect’s role.

Past projects include Lot 8 at Luma Arles in France – a collaborative renovation of the Magasin Electrique with Atelier Luma and Assemble Studio, using earth and biomaterials from the local Camargue region – and Usquare Feder in Brussels, which used the city as a quarry.

Woodstock House draws on the hybrid practice’s material expertise: walls of the stone towers, for example, are lined with humidity-controlling rammed earth, made by mixing local clay with crushed waste from the quarry where the stone was sourced. ‘The project has given us added conviction in our bioregional approach,’ says Degreef. But the house – which is warmed by a ground source heat pump and will soon be powered by a water turbine – is more than a sustainability prototype: it's a richly textured, inviting and highly liveable one-off.

The high iron content in the local clay gives the rammed earth walls a warm, terracotta tone, and almost all of the furniture and cabinetry was made for the house from local oak – even the slender pendant lights, which were created by Degreef’s father-in-law. Woodstock House is born from the landscape, while being a finely crafted vessel from which to view the ever-changing surrounding scenery.

bc-asm.org

The winners for 2025 have just been revealed at a big bash in central London – and as always, a highlight of the event was the Activism Award, which was this year won by Narrative Practice.

Archiboo Awards 2025: Activism winner

Entries this year came from across the world, from as far as India and Australia. Judges praised Narrative Practice for its ‘bottom-up approach, driven by a personal connection to the cause’, calling its work 'vital if architecture is to achieve its stated goal of becoming more equitable and inclusive'.

The studio focuses on mentoring and research work, with the wider goal of opening up the field and spearheading diversity and equity strategies and representation.

Another highlight this year was the launch of a new category – flagging the use of AI in architecture. Best Use of AI and Immersive Technology was scooped by Foster + Partners.

Amanda Baillieu, founder of the Archiboo Awards, said: 'This year’s winners reflect the wider shift in how every creative business is having to adapt the way they tell their story in the age of AI and algorithmic feeds. This year's winners are those who've successfully navigated this shift, recognising the vital importance of a unique identity that people can truly connect with.'

Archiboo Awards 2025: more winners

Best Podcast: Duro Design Disruptors (Host: Suneet Zishan Langar, Creative Agency: Epistle, Producer: Duroply)

Best User Experience: BDP (Creative agency: Peter & Paul)

Best Brand (1–10): Whaleback (Creative agency: Ana Bea Studio)

Best Brand (11+): SD Engineers (Creative agency: TM Studio)

Best Use of Video (1–10): Intervention Architecture (Videographer: Dion Barrett)

Best Use of Video (11+): Multitude of Sins (Directors: Smita Thomas and Sohaib Ilyas)

Best Visual Design (1–10): Chris Romer-Lee (Creative agency: Linda Byrne)

Best Visual Design (11+): Tuckey Design Studio (Creative agency: A Common Purpose)

Best Written Content: Architextures (Writer: Vanessa Norwood)

archibooawards.com

A grape escape: Quinta de Adorigo

The client’s brief was refreshingly open, with the only stipulation being to design a hotel and a winery capable of producing 300,000 bottles. Mission accomplished; the property produces Port wines alongside a series of lush reds and perky whites from more than 40 grape varieties, spanning both heritage vines and new plantings.

Rebelo’s creative approach focused on honouring the past while embracing the future, a task complicated by the fact that the project sits in such a culturally and ecologically sensitive landscape. ‘How would we responsibly design a building that is both modern and iconic, and yet merged with this historic landscape?’ he asks. ‘The response was to develop a structure that is technically innovative, but expands the acquired knowledge of vernacular wine structures.’ To that end, Rebelo assembled a crack team of experts, including an oenologist and historian, to research how wineries and architecture have evolved in this region through the centuries.

A key challenge was to maintain perfect wine-ageing conditions year-round despite extreme temperature swings. ‘In the Douro Valley, temperatures range from -5 °C in winter to above 40°C in summer,’ he says. His solution was to bury most of the building, exposing only the north-facing façade for passive climate control, supplemented by geothermal systems. The result uses an eighth of the energy of a conventional winery. Elsewhere, water flows through the property in a cycle of collection and reuse, while native plants attract symbiotic insects to the vines.

The design follows the terroir, its gentle curves mirroring the patterns of surrounding vineyards, while avoiding direct mimicry so that the eye is drawn down the estate’s cultivated terraces. This harmonious progression shapes the building’s layout, a series of connected spaces that follow the existing slope, where each level plays a role in the grape-to-bottle journey. It’s a structural metaphor for the way wine flows through the production process by gravity – a practice as old as the way wine has been produced in this region since Roman times.

The soaring roof reimagines traditional Portuguese timber construction in a way that feels both grounded and ethereal, as the wooden frame turns into a sculptural canopy that seems to breathe with the surrounding hills. It’s easy to imagine that it will age beautifully, just like the wines it houses.

The material palette draws from the Douro landscape – warm pinkish browns, sage greens and soft greys through local schist and granite, while the façade uses specially crafted concrete panels made nearby. Choosing wood over concrete wherever possible cuts carbon emissions by 40 per cent.

Equally organic is the guest experience. From the welcoming entrance, with its curated wine shop, visitors ascend to a light-filled meeting room and spacious tasting gallery where floor-to-ceiling windows frame panoramic views of both the working cellars below and the vine-covered hills beyond.

The winery represents the first phase of Rebelo’s broader remit for the estate, which includes a 25-room hotel, adjacent to the winery, due for completion in December 2026. Rebelo envisions this as ‘a 21st-century monastery, a place of reconnection with the self, and with nature’, organised around a central courtyard with fragmented volumes that frame views of the striking Douro landscape between each building.

Quinta de Adorigo is located at Q.ta de Santo António, 5120-011 Tabuaço, Portugal.

This article appears in the December 2025 Entertaining Issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Located on the subtropical shores of Ishigaki Island, in Japan’s southernmost Okinawa region, Not A Hotel Earth is a private villa designed in the form of a tilted, plant-wrapped circle, overlooking the East China Sea. White, light and purist, with a hint of futurism, the seemingly wall-less structure hovers weightlessly in its setting. Infinity pools and glass walls create near-invisible boundaries between inside and out, while at its curved heart lies a wild meadow.

This is the latest addition to the rapidly growing Not A Hotel portfolio, an innovative Japanese company specialising in architect-designed spaces with fractional ownership. Properties are managed by Not A Hotel, with owners able to rent out their share when not in use, giving guests the chance to enjoy the rare experience of a hotel-like immersion in remarkable residential-style surroundings. More than 30 buildings now span six sites across Japan, from Tokyo and Nasu to Kitakaruizawa and Fukuoka, with four more in development – all brought to life by a star-studded roster of architects, including Suppose Design Office, Snøhetta and Nigo (who, alongside Pharrell Williams, is also a creative adviser to the company).

Hidden depths: Not A Hotel Earth

Not A Hotel Earth, a four-bedroom space sleeping up to ten people, is the new flagship of the Tokyo-based company, which is headed up by new-generation entrepreneur Shinji Hamauzu. ‘The Not A Hotel locations we choose are often not famous tourist spots, but we feel that they have potential,’ says Hamauzu. ‘We always trust the architects completely and don’t give them a brief. We just tell them how many rooms we would like, then let them create as freely as possible.’ Describing the allure of Fujimoto’s work, he adds, ‘Often when people see his buildings for the first time, they may think they’re a bit unusual. But with time, people can feel how his designs harmonise with the land and with nature.’

Arriving at Not A Hotel Earth, there is an immediate sense of being cocooned. A gently sloping walkway to the front door transitions visitors from the outer world to the inner sanctum – and after crossing the threshold and slipping off shoes, the journey continues along a curved white corridor, which flows into an airy living room.

Centre stage beneath high ceilings is a bespoke mahogany Cassina table, its softly curved lines mirroring the building’s form. Wrapped around it are a set of Carl Hansen chairs, while alongside is a sunken seating area. A minimalist unit by kitchen appliance brand Hoshizaki is home to a signature Not A Hotel ‘conbini’ (the name given to Japan’s ubiquitous convenience stores) packed with local treats, from mango juice and whisky to Cup Noodles. Nature, however, quickly steals the show. Along one side, the space opens out onto a 20m infinity pool, dissolving into an expanse of sea and sky; and on the inner side, glass walls flow into a circular courtyard garden.

The house’s green inner sanctum is by acclaimed landscape architect Taichi Saito, whose design company, Solso, creates green environments for a wide range of residential, commercial and urban ventures. This tilted, organic cosmos of vivid green vegetation, with an edge of untamed beauty, features leafy banyan trees, scattered cut-out circles (one containing a children’s pool, the other a sunken firepit), and lush planting flowing seamlessly all the way up to the roof, where views of sea and sky once again loom large.

For Fujimoto, the idea of creating a light circular structure arose soon after visiting the site – a spacious expanse of land, on which stood a private villa, surrounded by gardens. While the initial plan had been for several villas, the architect was struck by how well-maintained the original house was, and the project soon refocused on the idea of building a single property. From the start, Fujimoto was keen not to create a conventional rectilinear structure facing the sea. Instead, he maximised the depth of the land plot by making a circular structure. Its round shape also softly echoes gusuku, the ancient curved stone fortresses particular to Okinawa.

‘It’s not just about having an ocean view, but also a view to the sky,’ says Fujimoto. ‘We tested many ideas and eventually came up with a kind of huge open courtyard. Once you are in the courtyard, protected by its wall, you can only see the sky. You are surrounded by nature. It’s calm, but you can also feel a dynamic topography. It’s like being in the middle of a valley. That’s a wonderful feeling. You’re both open and protected.’

Back inside, several ocean-facing guest rooms flow off the main space, each white and minimalist, with light woods and high ceilings – one also features a library annexe with a desk placed distractingly in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass pane. The lower level is home to more guest rooms, a gym and an underwater sauna, illuminated by a skylight that captures light-reflecting ripples of water.

As with many Fujimoto creations, the idea of harmonising the structure with its natural setting ultimately shaped its creation. ‘The project name is Earth,’ says the architect. ‘If you look from above, it almost disappears into the ground. The circle itself also looks like a small Earth. It can make you feel like you’re the only human on Earth.’

Not A Hotel Ishigaki Earth is located at 120-92 Miyara, Ishigaki, Okinawa 907-0243, Japan.

This article appears in the December 2025 Entertaining Issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 6 November. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Tour a minimalist Portuguese house for two musicians

Located in Carnota, in the municipality of Alenquer, Portugal, the house was designed for two DJs, who wanted a simple design, but with a very important musical addition, as practice founder Matteo Arnone explains. ‘The clients’ brief was very simple. They needed two functional spaces: a living room and a bedroom; and two identical recording studios.’ Focusing on this duality, Arnone naturally leaned into a symmetrical approach to his design.

The architecture firm used an existing ruin, an old winery building originally used for storing large barrels, as the foundation for the new home. ‘From the very beginning, the main idea was to create voids that carve into the original volume, introducing internal patios to bring natural light and spatial depth that could embrace the two identical spaces,’ says Arnone.

‘Looking from the inside out, the absence of corners in the patio geometry creates a very calm feeling – almost a sense of infinity. The continuous, curved geometry gently precludes a direct view to vineyards, allowing the landscape to reveal itself gradually, with a harmonious rhythm that soothes the space.’

As a result, the long floor plan is perfectly symmetrical. The main living spaces are located on the ground floor, including a living room/kitchen area and a bedroom. The pair of identical recording studios are on the upper floor, nestled into the curvature of the building.

The integration of thick perimeter walls serves more than a structural purpose. It acts as the backbone for the mirrored layout and brings with it intriguing architectural features, such as the curved staircase and built-in furniture.

A key design element is the patio passageways, which weave through the house. For Arnone, this feature offers a quiet transition between architectural intimacy and nature, and offers a curated trajectory towards the pool. The curved aesthetic adds to the soothing nature of the home.

Says Arnone: ‘​By placing all the main functions within the thickness of the walls, the interior is left pure and open. Visitors experience a sense of calm as they enter – every space feels harmonious, balanced, and free from visual noise.’

matteoarnone.com

A roll call of celebrities from across art, music, fashion and culture were regulars – including Helmut Newton, Grace Coddington, Allen Ginsberg, Yves Saint Laurent, Francis Ford Coppola, Iggy Pop, Rei Kawakubo, Lou Reed, Yoko Ono, Madonna, Alexander McQueen and Kate Moss. They ignored the ‘Complet’ (full) sign that hung on the door to party in absolute privacy.

There every night was owner Tai ‘Davé’ Cheung, who captured it all with his Polaroid camera. How did his guests feel when he pulled it out? ‘They were delighted. With the Polaroid, they saw the result immediately – no surprises. You can’t take a bad picture of someone without them knowing,’ he says now.

Word of mouth drew in his guests, he says. ‘I liked the creatives, the designers, artists, musicians and writers, especially because they taught me things: they shared. The first ones through the door – Brion Gysin, Jean-Marie Rouart, Eduardo Arroyo, Francis Ford Coppola, Aurore Clément, Suzi Wis, Anne-Marie Deschodt, Helmut and June Newton – especially.’

Now – launching during Paris Photo 2025 – Davé’s Polaroids are the subject of a new book , A Night at Davé, conceived by Charles Morin and Boris Bergmann with Davé, which reveals what happened behind its doors. Sofia Coppola, who was a regular in the 1980s with her parents and their friends, was such a fan, she has written the book’s introduction. ‘Davé was the place to be,’ she says.

‘It wasn’t a bourgeois place,’ reflects Davé. ‘It was a place where people could be who they wanted to be.’

If that sounds somewhat pedestrian, it’s the fact watch movements require lubricants – necessary to stop certain of their moving parts abrading through contact with other parts – and that, over time and temperature shifts, even the most advanced synthetic lubricants eventually degrade, attract dirt or dry out, which means mechanical movements must be periodically serviced to correct, maintain reliability and accuracy. That’s the often considerable hidden cost of mechanical watch ownership.

Friction also increases the amount of energy required for a watch movement to operate at its maximum efficiency. Although now typically applied by robots, the very requirement for a movement to have oil - of differing kinds and precise quantities at differing points - adds to the complexity and cost of manufacture too.

The esteemed British watchmaker Roger Smith has been working with the university over the last couple of years to develop a 2D molybdenum disulphide-based nano material that can be used to coat certain watch parts to bring about a measurable reduction in friction. The team isn’t giving too many details, as patent applications are in play, but it has a proof of concept - a watch built by Smith - and believes its process will represent a marked step forward, especially when combined with the '99 per cent friction-free' co-axial escapement - designed by Smith’s tutor George Daniels and since improved on by Smith. He reckons his latest model - the recently-launched Series 6 - will go 15 years between servicing, against the industry standard of around five years, with watches that will do 25 years realistically achievable.

This isn’t to say there are not challenges. 'Understanding this nano material, being able to consistently replicate it and being able to say it will reduce friction and do so consistently too is still very hard,' concedes Dr. Samuel Rowley-Neale, who heads the Manchester Metropolitan University advanced materials department. 'But if we can crack its use in watches - at such a small scale - then we can also see it following the F1 model and trickling down to other industries the likes of aerospace and automotive.' He estimates they are just three years until they have an industrial-scale methodology.

Others have tried similar things before, of course: the last 20 years have seen the introduction of many friction-busting technologies, typically embodied in one-off, or limited production experimental watches, notably Cartier’s ID One, Jaeger LeCoultre’s Master Compressor Extreme LAB and Panerai’s LAB-ID. Ulysee Nardin, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Rolex and Sinn have also made various advances, among them escapements in silicon, ceramic ball-bearings and axels and various uses of diamond-like coatings or DLCs, as well as experiments using lighter alloys, galvanising and magnetic pivots.

But these bring step changes in the efficiency of parts - at some considerable increase in the cost of the watches they’re used in - rather than across the whole. Any claims made to have created a ‘lubricant-free watch’ are, as yet, exaggerated. And some watchmakers are of the belief that, friction being a matter of physics and the blight of all forms of engine, the best that can be hoped for is the greatest reduction in the use of oil, with complete elimination unlikely.

Besides, it wouldn’t just take a technological breakthrough to bring about the truly lubricant-free watch but, according to Smith, also a change in mindset across the watch industry. 'I don’t think there’s really any great interest [across the watch industry] in making these kinds of improvements,' he says (admittedly with some cynicism). 'I think the feeling is that it’s a huge business and we know watches work with current technology - so why bother trying to re-think the foundations?'

rwsmithwatches.com

In fact, in creating anything from clothing – a custom-fitted white T-shirt – to a strap-on sub-woofer, Stone has brought a fresh perspective to every design he has developed, while going for aesthetics that set his work apart from the current mainstream. His early career was spent overseeing architecture projects in Los Angeles while developing an art practice with gallery and museum exhibits in the US and Europe. Eventually, this journey led him back to architecture, offering a take that feels entirely unique to the field.

Robert Stone's new desert house case study

Stone’s architectural style looks different because he thinks differently about architecture. ‘Like all other architects, I am enamoured with the abstract qualities of form and spatial compositions, but I am also interested in creating new aesthetics from current culture and the meaning that we attach to buildings and materials.’ As he’s not interested in perpetuating a fake past or future, Stone found a vast unexplored realm to make architecture that connects to ‘who we are now.’

After building the highly praised Rosa Muerta house in Joshua Tree – which was the site for a campaign photo shoot by Saint Laurent – Stone’s new home in Palm Springs comprises a main dwelling and a guest house. His inspiration finds its roots in its locale and Southern California culture, from Chicano to modernist. ‘Dreamer / Lil’ Dreamer’ isn't about a client or the architect, but endeavours to address the current ethos of its territory, while creating connections that might resonate with a wider art and design audience.

Examining the sloping roof

Almost like an exaggerated A-Frame, the project's sloped roof with reflective tiles and the abstract stacking of breeze blocks in different sizes showcase how Stone works hard to challenge the norm of what a contemporary Palm Springs house might look like. ‘I want to get them past “Wow, this looks different”, to “this makes me look at things differently”.’

The first noticeable element is that the roof touches the ground, but the floors don't. The house's shape emerged from a new formal concept. ‘It is a modern glass box and a Spanish tract house re-spawned at the same coordinates and digitally edited together,’ he notes. ‘The roof sits on the dirt like a dropped lowrider, while the floors hover above the earth as cantilevered planes.

‘In most homes, nothing happens until you get four feet above a person's head. And I like to do things that engage the body at the ankle, knee, hip, shoulders, and head. So, by bringing the roof down to the ground, it gives it this entirely different relationship to the body and the ground.’

This desert house certainly wakes up the senses, which is one of Stone’s goals, along with reinventing formal and design relationships while creating dynamic spaces. ‘Here, we are doing this by reinvigorating the basic vocabulary of desert architecture,' he says.

Astroturf and breeze blocks

Born and raised in Palm Springs, Stone draws from all elements of this context: architecture from classic modernism to Spanish, abandoned tract houses to golf courses, the desert lifestyle, multi-cultural chic, art, music, design, and fashion aesthetics, all converge to help him produce something that feels ‘relevant here and now.’

‘Palm Springs has an amazing history of iconic houses, but I was always lost by its disconnect with contemporary culture,’ he says. ‘In my past work, I have gravitated toward raw desert areas where I can produce highly cultured architecture that is amplified by its contrast with nature.' While Stone aims to move beyond the borders of modern architecture, he’s not working in opposition to modernism. ‘I just want to make architecture that engages our time. We're alive now. I tell my clients that the audience is not them or me, it's the world.’

To that end, Stone decided to elevate the artificial astroturf lawn – an element that is here reframed as a key building material. ‘It intersects the house, pool, and landscape in ways that a real lawn couldn’t, and it flows into the living room interior to rethink our connection to nature with a candour that fits our time, and I think it's more interesting in those qualities than just a perfect lawn.’

Stone also redefined a cornerstone of Southern California's traditional handcrafted materials and architecture, the Spanish tiled roof. The pottery-made tiles on the Dreamer home glitter with new glazes and four shades of silver that suggest a new kind of ‘California Chicano futurism’.

Stone strives to find a new kind of truth and beauty in his work with everyday items that are not normally celebrated. Case in point, the air-conditioner units that were transformed into gold-coated cube sculptures set on prominent podiums and presented as ‘idealised representations of ubiquitous equipment’ that are usually hidden. These pieces are now put in the spotlight as the ‘jewellery’ of the house, and an ‘honest assertion of our relationship to nature’.

Stone also approaches the quintessential, often mass-produced, modernist breeze block more like an artist’s composition on a canvas or sculpture. The house features perforated walls in various patterns and configurations that express both the beauty and limitations of its machine aesthetics, blending them with handmade craft. ‘Each block placed in the wall is a decision made by a person – arranged to pull the eye along it, create open and dense areas, and to suggest a pictorial reading.’

Mirrored ceilings and Spanish fusion

In the stainless steel and green-coloured kitchen, Stone took inspiration from Japanese Tansu cabinets and Prada handbags. Crocodile-textured leather and custom-made stainless hardware help create a new domestic interior aesthetic.

He is also seeking fresh surface combinations and uses ‘tension between colours to find new and unique beauty’. Copper pink, metallic avocado, shades of silver, purple, and green hues are combined in a way that draws from contemporary fashion references. ‘I went to the Miuccia Prada school of colour,’ he says. ‘I love colours that kind of like work against each other, but then come together beautifully.’

Polished stainless wrought iron at the front of the house turns the ubiquitous indicator of perceived ‘bad neighbourhoods’ in Southern California into an abstract sculptural form of Spanish fusion. ‘What would California be without that stuff? Our culture is 50 per cent Mexican-American,’ he says.

‘There's a little bit of a strategy that runs through a lot of my work. If you can change the proportions of something – and fashion designers do this all the time – you can make something really connect differently and wake up your senses. Lowriders do that by taking a 1963 Impala that is stock height, but if you drop it five inches, everything about it changes, and it becomes kind of sinister.’

Along with ‘refreshing the roof-ground relationship’, Stone’s use of the square mirrored ceiling panels is recurrent in his practice. They blend inside and outside by reflecting the desert flora when you look at the ceiling, while bringing natural daylight into the room.

One element that Stone pointed out about the mirrored ceiling is that not all the panels are perfectly set, so it’s a little bit like a disco ball; when you walk around, everything moves, and the reflections jump a little bit from the panels. It's a bold move. ‘You think it's going to be kind of tacky, but if it's detailed and done right, it can be taken seriously. It feels like what California architecture should be, but it can also be sexy and kind of druggie. That is who we are.’

In the end, Stone wants to make architecture that inspires the audience to attach meaning to it. ‘And, rather than being above or outside of culture, I am right there alongside the audience, questioning and connecting this architecture to the world we live in.’

robertstonedesign.com

Architects Haworth Tompkins orchestrated the redesign of an existing structure containing some tired backstage areas and a pub on the ground floor into a thoroughly contemporary structure, complete with timber-framed sustainable architecture, oodles of natural light, and a powerful, yet somehow still relatively subtle use of colour.

Tour Backstage at the Old Vic

The building combines a range of facilities to cover many uses and needs across six floors (one underground). It aims to become a vibrant hub for the local creative community – and beyond, as the theatre regularly works with local schools and other communities in both Southwark and Lambeth (it sits on the border between the two boroughs).

To that end, there is a generous, open and accessible ground-floor café and bar, which spreads across two levels and includes a 'writers' room' for creatives to book and work in (The Old Vic regularly works with new plays). A central, triple-height void brings airy ceilings and affords a distinct sense of space, while a script library for visitors to peruse nods to the spirit of the place.

Upstairs from there is a new green room, the Clore Learning Centre, a flexible studio space created from a converted rehearsal room, and an event space that opens to a dedicated roof terrace. On top of that, there is a fully accessible stage door, upgraded dressing rooms, staff offices, toilets, showers and cycle provision.

The building's timber frame is visible throughout, becoming a distinct part of the new space's identity. It is complemented by textured, natural material panels tinted in a colour palette that draws on The Old Vic's signature crimson shade. Shafts help natural ventilation and cooling, and bring sunlight everywhere, supported by a glazed façade which, however, is carefully shaded by a rather unique installation. The team put in a call for donations of old barn doors (the typical type of stage lights), which were collected, refurbished, painted and mounted to the façade in a captivating installation-cum-sunshade screen.

'The launch of the Backstage building marks a bold new chapter in the theatre’s remarkable 200-year story. The brief called for a building that was ‘colourful and warm, a space that could host the Old Vic’s extraordinary outreach programme and where you feel at home at any time of the day’, the resulting building is a place for creativity, learning and for the community to come together. The new extension supports every part of the theatre’s life, from writing and rehearsal to education, outreach and performance,' says Lucy Picardo, director at Haworth Tompkins.

'Sustainability sits at the heart of the building’s ethos, prioritising the use of recycled materials, low embodied carbon structure and passive energy systems. Working closely with the theatre’s team has been a privilege, their vision and purpose shaped every detail and every decision reflects The Old Vic’s commitment to be welcoming, creative, accessible and forward-looking with a building built to serve artists, audiences and the community for generations to come.'

It’s the first space that the duo have designed and art directed, and the cocooning yet upbeat interior carries the mood through from early aperitivo to midnight. ‘A blend of contemporary design and vintage pieces echoes the contrasts of Marseille itself: historic façades facing bold modern lines, classical stone meeting industrial textures,’ says Axel.

Wallpaper* dines at Dévo, Marseille

The mood: sultry vermuteria

The stained Okoumé wood wall panels, varnished resin dusky burgundy floor, and sweeping lime-coloured satin curtains offset the sheen of the vintage zinc bar and tubular steel bar stools and chairs. ‘Our inspiration came from old cafés and vermuterias in Italy and Spain; timeless places where you feel the patina of life,’ explains Mélissa.

The cinematic atmosphere is enhanced by curiosities: mirrors designed by Marseille-based artist Aurélien Ciller are printed with mountains, referencing the landscape that surrounds the city, and the mirrored advertising panels of old bistros and classic train station restaurants.

Plaster seagulls, originally destined for a theatre set, soar across the walls. Axel discovered these in the workshop of his plaster craftsman in the Var: ‘I’m often drawn to shapes inspired by the sea: fluid, imperfect, alive.’

All of the lighting has been crafted by Axel’s brother Aimeric, in their family metal-working atelier in Marseille, inherited from their father. They work there together on prototypes and limited-edition pieces. The inverse pyramidal lamps are so new they haven’t even been named yet; their shape nods to the red hats worn by the Devo band members.

The food: comfort Provençal

Moving away from sharing plates, chef Fravega proposes lighter bites and mains that complement each other. Dishes such as salted anchovies, pissaladière and French onion soup occupy the former, while hearty options, such as Milanese risotto and coq au vin, feature on the latter. The extensive wine list boasts around 100 choices of independent and natural winemakers on menus designed by the local Flirt Studio, also behind the restaurant branding.

With its richly atmospheric décor, soft lighting, and curated music playlist, Dévo is a congenial spot with a distinctive mood – the result of its thorough art direction and creative team. ‘The goal with Dévo is, of course, to seduce the eye but also to awaken a sense of belonging and curiosity. It is the same feeling you get when you wander through the streets of Marseille, where every corner holds a new surprise,’ says Mélissa.

Dévo is located at 22 Bd Paul Peytral, 13006 Marseille, France.

The world's most important international photography fair, Paris Photo brings together big-name galleries and smaller ones, iconic photographers and emerging artists. If you're looking for gems by Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott, Lee Friedlander, Irving Penn, Seydou Keïta, William Klein, Weegee, Sally Mann, Sebastião Salgado or Hiroshi Sugimoto, you've come to the right place.

But you'll also find lesser-known surprises, such as Marine Lanier, one of the artists in the ‘Emergence’ sector of the fair and winner of the Prix Maison Ruinart for an enchanting series called Alchimia, shot in the fields and skies of the Champagne region.

In addition to art for sale, the fair offers conversations, performances and book signings from the likes of Todd Hido and Wolfgang Tillmans. And ‘The Last Photo’ is an exhibition of works from the collection of Estrellita B Brodsky, one of the most important private collections of Latin American photography.

All of this edition's curators are women, though Planas says this was not intentional. What was deliberate is an ongoing increase in the number of female artists on display, from 20 per cent in 2018 to nearly double that percentage this year.

Upon entering, visitors come face to face with the Poggi gallery's powerful installation by Sophie Ristelhueber, the French photographer who won the prestigious Hasselblad Award in 2025. A wall nearly 40m long displays works from throughout her career, revealing the scars that war and other disasters have left on landscapes, cities and human bodies.

Steps away, at Klemm's Berlin, Truth Table, by Adrian Sauer, is a project about digital manipulation, consisting of different images (a smiley face, a palm tree, an Eiffel Tower) made up of millions of coloured pixels in various combinations.

Thierry Bigaignon has an actual darkroom on his stand, complete with a photographer: Renato D'Agostin. When a collector acquires one of his silver gelatin prints, they can meet D'Agostin, who will reprint it on the spot, to show how the development process works. Setting up his chemicals before the fair opened, the Italian photographer laughed, ‘It's going to be strange, I feel like an animal in a cage.’

Vermelho from São Paulo presents Brazil's Claudia Andujar, who has reworked her 1975 archives, attaching a yellow acrylic panel to a photo of the Volkswagen that she drove to the Venezuelan border for her work covering the Yanomami people. Rosegallery, from Santa Monica, has come back to Paris Photo after an absence of a few years with a solo show by Mexican artist Tania Franco Klein (who is also currently part of MoMA's New Photography exhibition).

Magnum Gallery is featuring vintage prints by several of its stars, including Philippe Halsman's 1948 portrait of a floating Salvador Dalí and three cats. Galerie Nathalie has Un feu by Luc Delahaye (formerly of Magnum), a photo of migrants standing around a fire, also part of Delahaye's solo show now running at the Jeu de Paume museum. Fraenkel presents a new work by artist/sound composer Christian Marclay, a grid of vinyl record sleeves and covers. Martin Parr's French-fry-eating seagull from 1996 graces the stand of Clémentine de la Feronnière. And at Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve's stand, Juergen Teller is drinking a beer while standing naked on his father's grave.

But not everything is profane. Galerie Binome is presenting dark, ghostly images from Laurence Aëgerter's series on French cathedrals and churches. Aëgerter screen-printed them with thermo-chronic ink, which undergoes a chemical reaction when sunlight hits it, revealing the image underneath. Gallery director Valérie Cazin says, ‘When this happens, the revelation is so magnificent and surprising that the spectator can only observe. It's the same magic as when an image is revealed in a darkroom. In a society where we are all hyperactive, it provokes a moment of meditation.’

The ‘Voices’ sector of the fair features two guest curators. One, Devika Singh, says she approached the theme of landscapes in different ways, ‘from documentary perspectives to more speculative and personal takes’. Works include French painter/photographer Bernard Guillot's atmospheric photos of Cairo's City of the Dead, as well as Indian photographer Gauri Gill's The Village on the Highway, a quietly political statement set against a backdrop of plastic tarpaulins.

This is the third year that the fair has a dedicated ‘Digital’ sector, curated by Nina Roehrs. It includes an installation by conceptual artist Cole Sternberg for Giga – a partnership between Unicef and the International Telecommunication Union to address digital inequalities among the world's children. Called A Garden, the project is a large cube upon which a million images of generative artwork are projected, representing a network of interconnected schools.

In a rather different vein, the digital platform TAEX is showing the Irish artist Kevin Abosch, who trains AI systems with his own images, then ‘sculpts’ them into a kind of synthetic photography. The results can be creepy, such as a white cockatoo emerging from a high-tech apparatus. Two centuries after the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce turned a camera image into the first permanent photograph, Paris Photo is still exploring what defines the art form.

Paris Photo 2025 runs 13-16 November

The partnership is an interesting one, with the gloriously bold colours of Armstrong’s figurative style proving a vibrant foil for Axel Arigato’s clean minimalism. In Armstrong’s work, texture and colour are key in imbuing his subjects with a fluidity and power. When taken off the canvas and translated to a limited-edition capsule collection of sneakers, accessories and ready-to-wear, the work itself becomes a living entity.

For Armstrong, it marks the first time he has undertaken a collaboration of this kind, presenting a new host of challenges he was keen to embrace. ‘I wanted to explore how my creative process in the studio could translate to apparel, and I approached each piece with the same kind of examination and iteration process that I use to figure out a painting’s composition,’ he says. ‘How do I want things to feel, and what material helps me achieve that? What colours make sense for each garment, and how do the tones of each piece fit back into the capsule's overall colour story? Which shapes and lengths make sense to me, and how do things feel when draped on the body? I wanted the pieces to be a bit unexpected, for each piece in the capsule to complement one another, and I feel like we achieved that.’

Armstrong took the fiery colour of his 2023 painting, The Listening Skies, as a starting-off point, interweaving its distinct colour palette throughout the collection as a way of creating a uniform identity for the series. ‘My childhood memories that inspired the painting also played a role,’ Armstrong adds. ‘My dad’s side of the family is from Crenshaw, L.A., and was part of the Black gospel church—sharp in faith and fashion, always dressed to the nines in bold colour. I wanted the capsule to reflect that energy while exploring texture, shape, and how the pieces drape on the body.’

As well as ready-to-wear, the partnership also ushers in the new Squish sneaker, encompassing the sculptural lines and deep curves which run throughout Armstrong’s work. ‘I’ve always been interested in making work beyond the canvas, and I love fashion,’ he says. ‘Creating a capsule collection like this makes my work more accessible to folks who might not be able to afford a painting. It’s especially incredible to see The Listening Skies brought to life in this way - through the campaign and in this collection. Giving my ideas and creativity a platform to play, expand, and learn in new ways has been an experience I’ve deeply enjoyed. I’m grateful to Jens and Axel Arigato for the opportunity and for trusting me at every stage.’

The Axel Arigato x Alvin Armstrong collection launches globally on November 13, 2025. Available at axelarigato.com and select flagship stores

axelarigato.com

The best luxury gyms in London

Pillar Wellbeing

57 Whitehall, London SW1A 2BX

Pillar Wellbeing, the luxury health club located in Raffles at The OWO, is a full end-to-end wellbeing service provider, with a philosophy built on three pillars: movement, nourishment and recovery. From the moment you enter, the interior is calming and refined. The hallway opens up to an elegant foyer where staff greet you and show you to the changing rooms. These are fully equipped with all post-gym and -swim necessities (including decompression boots for speedy leg recovery). There’s a reformer Pilates studio, overlooking the 20m pool below. The gym, also with a view of the pool, is equipped with Technogym machines, and there is an area for cardio, lifting weights and plyometric movements. Resident personal trainer Matteo Massaini can guide you through a bespoke workout that is fun, while efficiently focused on your goals, from mobility to strength and endurance.

Pillar Wellbeing membership costs £6,250 per year plus a £2,000 joining fee, raffles.com

Surrenne and Tracey Anderson Studio

Located in The Emory hotel, Surrenne is a health club, wellness space and spa. The mirror-wrapped gym features equipment from Technogym, Woodway, Peloton and Hydrow, among others, while the Surrenne Studio, next door, is a space for a wide variety of classes. Centring the latter is a large screen that can be used for on-demand virtual classes – you might fancy being led through Yin Tibetan bowl meditation from a Japanese garden, or a yoga flow from the Agafay desert in Morocco. Recovery is at the heart of Surrenne. Perhaps wind down with a facial crafted by Dr Macrene Alexiades, sweat out toxins in speciality steam rooms, or get rid of delayed onset muscle soreness with Hypervolt massage machines. What sets Surrenne apart, though, is its Tracy Anderson Method classes. Taking place in a specially heated room with a springboard floor, workouts following the LA fitness guru’s principles are designed to balance, strengthen, and transform body and mind.

Individual membership rate £10,000 (plus £5,000 joining fee) surrenne.com

V

Berkeley Square House, London W1J 6BR

V is a health club in Mayfair built on five pillars: the physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of wellbeing. Focusing on these elements, the thinking goes, will help you achieve your fitness goals, create a sustainable routine, and keep your mind healthy too. Gym equipment includes Technogym, Watson, Rogue, and Therabody. There are also Pure Strength hip thrust and deadlift machines for targeted strength training for lower-body days, along with Watson’s stainless-steel dumbbells. Classes include a variety of yoga flows, and mat and reformer pilates. V also operates its own running club. The 5km runs, led by Naomi Heffernan, a Nike Trainer, performance coach, and 4x Hyrox World Championship competitor, go through Mayfair and Green Park – fun, social and a chance to refine your running technique. For recovery, choose from sweating out toxins in the sauna, jumping into an ice bath, or perhaps the Therabody Lounger, combining zero-gravity reclining and multisensory sound vibration therapy for total relaxation.

Membership is £250 per month and subject to a £200 joining fee, v-london.co.uk

The Lanesborough Club and Spa

2 Lanesborough Place, London, SW1X 7TA

Nestled in Hyde Park Corner is The Lanesborough Club and Spa. From an almost-hidden entrance, you head down a swirling staircase to get to the facilities. As you enter, the hallway is reminiscent of a home rather than a club, which adds an element of exclusivity and intimacy. There's a Technogym-equipped gym, as well as various fitness classes. These are offered for small groups (no more than four participants per class), and there are around 40 classes per week to choose from, including yoga, reformer Pilates, boxing, HIIT, TRX and conditioning, and circuits. Afterwards, freshen up in the sparkling gold changing room, created in partnership with design studio 1508 London, and enjoy a meal at the adjoining restaurant, which includes a menu of juices and low-calorie, high-energy options – perfect post-workout.

Membership starts from £6,000 per year, lanesboroughclubandspa.com

Studio Fix

42-44 Kensington High St, London W8 4PD

Located on Kensington High Street, Studio Fix is a class-only gym. Inside, the space is split into three studios. Studio 1 is a calming space enveloped by mirrors and a large window letting in natural light; it resembles a dance studio and is perfect for restorative yoga or a barre class, for example. Studio 2 is all red lights and moody atmosphere. This space offers high-intensity, low-impact Lagree Megaformer classes (a spring-based workout machine, similar to reformer pilates). HIIT and boxing classes are available in Studio 3, a vibrant, blue-lit area with lots of room to throw a mean left hook. Studio Fix also has spaces for wheelchair users in its adaptive boxing class. Note that the gym provides boxing gloves, but you need to bring your own hand wraps or gel wraps, and to take part in the barre class or Lagree Megaformer, grip socks are compulsory (all are for sale in the gym's shop).

Memberships start at £25 for one class up to £600 for 20 classes studiofix.co.uk

Equinox

99 Kensington High Street London W8 5SA;
Bishopsgate 8 Clerk's Place London EC3A 8AQ;
E by Equinox at 12 St James's Street, London SW1A 1ER

If you prefer self-guided training, then Equinox is a fitness fanatic’s playground. America’s leading high-end health club chain came to the UK in 2012, first opening on Kensington High Street, followed by an outpost in Bishopsgate. Its Kensington location boasts an art deco design with a marble lounge area, and changing rooms stocked with complimentary Kiehl’s products. The open-plan training floor is housed under a large skylight, drawing in natural light – a refreshing touch in comparison to many basement gyms, with their artificial lighting and nightclub energy. Accompanying the gym are three studio spaces: for yoga, boxing, and cycling, with a variety of classes on offer. There are also options for personal training. Both the Kensington and Bishopsgate locations are home to full-service spas and juice bars. To up the luxury further, St James’s E by Equinox offers a focus on one-to-one fitness. Of course, the gym is stocked with elite equipment not only for your workout but also for recovery, including a cryotherapy chamber, a regeneration room and a compression therapy area.

Memberships range from £185 to £400 a month www.equinox.com

BXR

Marylebone location: Chiltern Street, London W1U 5QY
City location: 22 Bishopsgate – Floor 25, London EC2N 4BQ

BXR opened in 2017 in Marylebone with much endorsement from boxer Anthony Joshua and a membership committee that includes record producer Mark Ronson, hotelier André Balazs, model and actress Sara Sampaio, and boxer Eddie Hear. The club’s principles are rooted in boxing and BXR offers a luxurious take on a garage gym, combining functional space with elite-grade equipment in an edgy, industrial setting. Large tyres, sled runs and climbing ropes are perfect for functional fitness to complement plyometric or calisthenic training. A designated boxing studio includes benches, weights and punchbags. The changing facilities are stocked with Malin + Goetz products, and you can rent a permanent locker. After a workout , relax at the café and lounge and choose from pre- and post-workout menus. BXR is also home to BXR Lab and Clinic, which offers access to a cold water plunge, an infrared sauna, as well as management plans such as clinical rehabilitation, physical therapy, nutrition and specialised strength and conditioning.

Membership starts from £1,800 per year or £180 per month, bxrlondon.com

KX and KXU

KX: 151 Draycott Avenue, Chelsea, London SW3 3AL
KXU:241 Pavilion Road, London SW1X 0BP

Pronounced ‘kicks’, KX is a private members’ health club in the heart of Chelsea, founded in 2002 and offering a holistic approach to health, fitness, nutrition, and wellbeing. It is opulently designed and features a club room, a restaurant and a juice bar. Classes range from Pilates and barre to dance and cardio conditioning. KX is all about creating long-term lifestyle changes rather than a quick fix. In 2017, KX launched its sister venue KXU, located two minutes from Sloane Square station. The pay-as-you-go boutique gym has three sleek studios with a focus on functional fitness, HIIT and strength training, with a designated Hyrox area with a 10m track, sleds, official Hyrox weight plates and kettlebells, along with wall balls and slam balls. The gym also offers yoga, barre and cycle classes. It doesn’t have to be all hard work, as there is also a medi-spa and a nutrition bar at which to enjoy a fresh smoothie or post-workout meal.

Membership starts from from £615 per month plus joining fees, visit kxlife.co.uk; KXU membership is £340 per year, visit kxu.co.uk

Blok

Shoreditch: Principal Place, EC2A 3BL or Clapton: The Tram Depot, E5 8BQ

While Blok is not a luxury gym by any usual measures (you can even pay as you go), we've included it in our round-up for its flexibility and the freedom this affords users (a cool east London crowd). Founded in 2016 by Max Oppenheim and Ed Stanbury, Blok was designed to step away from the ‘hustle’ and ‘gains’ culture of a typical gym, with a design that is the antithesis of a big-mirrored, dimly lit club. With two studios, one in Clapton and another in Shoreditch, a stone's throw from Liverpool Street station, Blok’s principle is to encourage a fitness routine you can sustain. At the Shoreditch location, the reception includes a drinks bar, and a refrigerator stocked with healthy meals and snacks for a post-workout refuel. The changing rooms are equipped with the basics (toiletries, hair dryers and straighteners). Blok is a class-only gym, and there are more than 20 options to choose from, spanning yoga, Pilates, boxing, and barre. In the Clapton studio – an industrial-style space beneath railway arches – Blok now also offers ‘Hot and Cold’, a sauna and cold water therapy to help aid recovery, regulate your nervous system and reduce inflammation.

Pay as you go available; three-month SuperCharge90 membership starts at £95 for the first month, including 10 classes; £110 per month for the next two months, bloklondon.com

Third Space

Locations are all over London

Finally, there is Third Space, perhaps London’s most renowned luxury gym. With sites across the capital – Soho, Canary Wharf, Mayfair, Marylebone, Islington, Moorgate, Tower Bridge, Battersea, Wimbledon and the City (with another opening soon in Paddington) – there’s no excuse to skip a workout. The locations offer an abundance of equipment to avoid overcrowding even at peak times, from treadmills and cardio equipment to strength-training machines, along with climbing walls, cycling studios, and swimming pools. To take your athletic performance to the next level, Third Space has a ‘Performance Lab’ offering a variety of assessments, from endurance tests to body composition, and even sweat analysis.

Membership starts from £210 per month, thirdspace.london

Ordinarily, oríkì is a Yoruba word meaning ‘praise poetry’, a form of oral literature used to celebrate, honour, and invoke the essence of a person, a place, a lineage, or even a deity. In Nifemi’s world, it is a merging of industrial design with cultural memory. His ‘Oríkì’ series of designs explores the intersections of material and identity. Comprising three parts or ‘acts’ – ‘Friction Ridge’; ‘Tales by Moonlight’; and ‘Whispers of a Trail’, each of which has been the subject of previous exhibitions as the series has evolved – draws on bronze, aluminium, and copper to reflect on Africa’s histories of making and transformation. Each material serves a purpose: bronze recalls the legacy of West African metalwork, aluminium speaks to Lagos’ informal economies of repair and reinvention, and copper captures the elemental forces of exchange and transformation.

Wallpaper* sat with Nifemi to discuss ‘Material Affirmations – Oríkì Acts I–III’, which unites the whole series of works, and the city of Lagos as his muse.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello on ‘Oríkì Acts I–III’

Wallpaper*: This is your first solo exhibition in Lagos; how do you feel about that?

Nifemi Marcus-Bello: It feels both grounding and expansive. Lagos is not just where I live and work, it’s the city and place that inspired this body of work. The conditions and histories of Africa are my greatest sources of inspiration: the solutions that are found, the histories that are hidden, the ingenuity and resilience that define everyday life. There’s an elegant, elemental beauty in that perseverance. The spirit of Lagos, its ability to adapt, create, and endure run through every piece in the series. Showing the beauty and sophistication within that reality is what this work is really about. And seeing how my family, friends, and local audience respond to it is nourishing and inspiring.

W*: Remind us how the whole ‘Oríkì’ series started and where you’ve presented its various acts?

NM: The series began in 2023 as a way to explore material, identity, and the unseen networks that shape how things are made. ‘Act I – Friction Ridge’ focused on repetition, touch, and the relationship between the maker and the surface of the object. ‘Act II – Tales by Moonlight’, presented at Design Miami 2023, looked outward – tracing stories of production and adaptation through Lagos’ informal industries, especially the auto-part casters who repair and reimagine what global systems discard. ‘Act III — Whispers of a Trail’, which opened this year at Marta in Los Angeles, turns its attention to copper, a single elemental material through which I’ve been examining the politics of extraction, refinement, and transformation. Across the three acts, the series maps an evolving conversation about material life; how design, craft, and survival are deeply intertwined across the continent.

I’ve always been drawn to the everyday objects that define how we live and move through the world. Beyond ‘Oríkì’, some of the other works I’m recognised for include the ‘LM Stool’ (2018), which came from working directly with a Lagos factory that produced metal casings for generators – we reimagined what could be made from that same sheet metal using subtraction rather than addition. The ‘Selah Lamp’ (2019) extended that thinking, designed to be quiet and adaptable – a single folded piece that could be a lamp, stool, or shelf.

All of this connects to my ongoing research platform, Africa – A Designer’s Utopia, which looks at the informal networks of production across the continent – how people design and build through necessity, with intelligence and ingenuity. That world of improvised systems and resilient solutions continues to be my biggest inspiration.

W*: Is the Lagos exhibition a continuation of your presentation at Marta, Los Angeles?

NM: Yes, but it’s also a return. The presentation in Los Angeles closed the ‘Oríkì’ trilogy, but this exhibition brings those ideas back to the place that first inspired them. The Lagos show doesn’t repeat what was shown at Marta; instead, it recontextualises it. It’s a way of seeing how those same ideas, about extraction, transformation, and the poetry of material, live and breathe within the environment that shaped them, and in conversation with one another.

W*: What made you want to use praise poetry as the idea behind this series?

NM: Oríkì is both praise and poetry, a way of naming that carries memory, lineage, and identity. The idea of it is so close to the heart of design. An oríkì is not just about describing someone or something, but invoking their essence. That felt very close to how I think about making: as an act of remembrance and affirmation. Each work in the series is its own kind of oríkì – a way of honouring the hands, histories, and materials that define our world.

W* You worked with bronze, aluminium, and copper – why those materials in particular?

NM: Each of these materials carries a different layer of meaning and history, and each is found here on the continent, and too often extracted and exported. Bronze connects to longstanding casting traditions across West Africa; it’s a material of memory and legacy. Aluminium speaks to the present, to the improvisational industries of Lagos where it’s constantly melted, reformed, and repurposed. And copper, which became the focus of ‘Act III’, is elemental; it embodies conductivity, transformation, and exchange.

W*: There’s a clear nod to the Benin bronzes and metal traditions across West Africa. How do those histories show up in your work?

NM: Those histories are part of the foundation of how I think about making. The Benin bronzes, and other metal traditions across West Africa, represent an advanced understanding of material, symbolism, and narrative; they were never just decorative – they were records of power, spirituality, and community. I’m interested in continuing that dialogue, not by recreating those forms, but by exploring how those same ideas of casting, storytelling, and transformation live in the present. In Lagos, metalwork is still everywhere, but now it exists in scrapyards, auto workshops, and foundries. My work tries to bridge those worlds. To show that the same spirit of invention and cultural memory persists, just in different forms.

W*: You mentioned that some of the aluminium pieces came from Lagos’ auto industry. How do you see the link between industry and craft in what you do?

NM: In Lagos, the line between industry and craft is very thin, sometimes it doesn’t exist at all. The same foundries that cast engine parts are often the ones helping me make these works. There’s a deep, intuitive understanding of material and process in those spaces, even if it isn’t formalised as ‘design’. For me, that’s where the most interesting ideas come from; the overlap between improvisation and precision, between survival and creation. Industry and craft here aren’t opposites; they’re part of one continuous system of making, shaped by necessity, resourcefulness, and care.

W*: The accompanying monograph features voices including Eames Demetrios and Glenn Adamson. How did those conversations shape how you see the project now?

NM: Those dialogues helped position this work, and African design more broadly, within the global context of design history. Eames and Glenn both brought perspectives that situate making in Lagos as part of a much larger lineage of design thinking, not outside of it. Their reflections underscored that the processes, materials, and problem-solving happening here are just as vital to the evolution of global design as what’s documented in Western institutions. That acknowledgment matters; it reframes African design not as peripheral or emerging, but as foundational, continuously innovating and redefining what design can be.

W*: This show covers ‘Acts I–III’; do you think there’ll be more acts to come or is this the full story for now?

NM: Honestly, I don’t know. The ‘Oríkì’ series feels complete in its current form, but the questions it raised, about material, place, and identity, are still very alive for me. I think of these acts less as an ending and more as a foundation. The work continues to evolve through new contexts, new collaborations, new materials. So while this chapter might be closed, the ideas will keep unfolding in different ways.

‘Material Affirmations: Oríkì Acts I–III’ is on view at Tiwani Contemporary until 10 January 2026

13 Elsie Femi Pearse Street
Victoria Island
Lagos

In the 1980s, Simpson constructed a makeshift studio on Wednesdays at the Roxy – a roller disco/nightclub hybrid in Chelsea, NYC – and set up backdrops and lighting in order to photograph the amazing ensembles sported by clubgoers. As Ethiopian-American artist Awol Erizku writes in ‘The Aesthetics of Defiance’ (his essay about her 'landmark body of work: one that celebrates the hip-hop aesthetic and preserves its essence for posterity'): 'Style is never just style: it’s history, it’s rebellion, and it’s self-definition.' The subjects were impertinent peacocks: 'They weren’t passengers blending into the flow of the city, they were curating a spectacle.'

Nonetheless, Simpson was inspired by the classicism of Richard Avedon’s black-and-white portraits from the series In the American West, in which coal miners, waitresses, and oil field workers were made to look iconic instead of ordinary. Simpson, too, wished to elevate Black citizens, as people worth scrutinising.

Meanwhile, on the sidewalks of New York, Simpson was also selling jewellery she’d made. The homespun endeavour reached a turning point when designer Carolina Herrera spotted her work and invited her to bring her collection to her studio. Thereafter, Simpson’s jewellery gained a following through word of mouth and influential figures who championed her work. Her cameo habillé, referencing an 1800s staple accessory but based on a more modern Chanel template, had no parallel when she decided to make one starring a Black woman in profile. In 1993, she licensed the acrylic and slate cameo to Avon (Elizabeth Taylor was working with the brand at the time, too). The piece was first stocked at Studio Museum in Harlem; it has been worn by a wide clientele of everyday Black women, but also by Rosa Parks and Rihanna.

The jewellery work supported Simpson’s photography work. Doing both concurrently was a pragmatic choice, but also reflects her very contemporary attitude that being a creative person means patching together different practices, rather than being beholden to one niche thing: multiple endeavours can nourish each other.

Her jewellery design process is always inspired by the materials available. 'I like it all: plastics, real metals, it just has to speak to me at the moment. I don't question what I like. I just buy it. And I may not use it for ten years but, eventually, it will be used,' she says.

She always designs with herself in mind, so much so that at first, when she started making jewellery, she didn't want to sell any of the pieces. 'I would keep them just for me. And then I said, you're not going to make any money doing this. You gotta sell it! And then I realised I could always make fabulous pieces. And those are the pieces that people want to buy.'

She gravitates towards extravagance: 'For my more glamorous customers, I just let myself go, because that's me. You want to own the room.' But simpler items sell more readily. At first, she had more white women as customers, from the fashion world. Then, when she came out with the cameo, a Black following blossomed.

Sometimes, clients will bring her broken pieces, and she'll take them apart and rework them to make something new. She likes going to a thrift shop, cutting up and repurposing something. 'I don't throw anything away. I just keep it and reuse it, because it's still valuable – but you have to rework it.'

It's a similar thinking that applies to her collages: she would reconceive test prints. 'I printed on paper that's expensive when I was in the dark room, so why throw it away? Make a new piece.' When she would get a photograph back from the printer, and the colour wasn't as intense as she wanted it to be, she would hand-paint it with nail polish to make it the way she envisioned it, a kind of do-it-yourself Photoshop before Photoshop. It’s an approach she cites from the famous Black photographer James Van Der Zee, who said, to paraphrase, that the trick is getting the camera to see it the way you see it.

Simpson’s first eponymous book is portrait-focused, though her archives are full of documentary and street photography too. The book, published by Aperture, is part of its Vision & Justice series. It makes sense as a categorisation despite not being explicitly about socio-politics: it is instead about a subtle gaze.

Simpson’s candid representation was inherently politically charged by privileging Black life, community, and style as beautiful, important, and worthy of careful consideration. 'It's when you look at it afterwards you think about these things,' Simpson notes of using this political framework through which to read her work. 'My whole feeling about taking these photographs over the years was just to give dignity to my subjects, who I felt didn't have the dignity that they should have.' She only came to photography in her mid- to late-thirties, and ultimately, her approach was: 'When you take a photograph, you're saying to the public, look at this. Look at how fabulous this is! And look at my fabulous life!'

Simpson embodies fabulousness. On our Zoom call, she was wearing a blue head-wrap, glasses, a gold necklace with her signature Black cameo, and a black dress with a colourful feather print. Fresh from a vacation in Puerto Rico ('Your problems could be solved when you're in the water, laying in the sunshine,' she advises), she had fittingly set a beach background with blue seas and palm trees as an overlay to her Brooklyn apartment.

Are stylish people easier to photograph because they are more aware of being perceived? 'In a way, because it's empowerment: someone took the time to get up, put themselves together, and that's no easy feat sometimes... anyone that took the time to do a self-presentation really likes the attention.' Even in the street today, she still pulls people aside. 'If I see something amazing – you have to be truly amazing to me to stop you – it's fun.' She recalls recently photographing a Black woman in head-to-toe bubblegum pink – her boyfriend was also wearing pink – 'and it makes your day when you see somebody like that! Because it shows the joie de vivre that you got up and did this, and presented yourself to the public like this.'

Simpson is 83 now, 'but I still want to work, so I still always carry my camera. It keeps you going and excited.' Simpson has always been a formidable doer. The performance artist Lorraine O’Grady once asked her how she could make money. Simpson’s advice was: 'If I were you, that picture with you all dressed up in the armour? Make a pin out of it, put it on a button or something, and sell it when you have signings of your books.' Simpson follows the Andy Warhol ethos of branding: people want a piece of you. 'They may not be able to afford a $25,000 photograph, but they can buy a cameo for $40.'

When Simpson went to an opening recently, she followed her own advice and brought some tiny pins, pinning them on different people and taking photographs of them to use for a National Gallery catalogue. 'I said, Coreen, you're brilliant. Because I [thought], I'm going out, wait a minute… there's going to be some beautiful people there. Let me put the pin on them and photograph them! And that's what I did!’ They kept the pins, and Simpson has fabulous photos to show for it.

Coreen Simpson: A Monograph is published by Aperture, 2025, available at amazon.co.uk

So why has this not caught on yet? Part of the reason might be misconceptions (that it's a finite resource, or more expensive, or difficult to work with), or red tape (often, the industry is missing appropriate guidelines for its use) or market forces and consumer demands. Architect Amin Taha, principal of Groundwork and the architect behind the Future Observatory's newest project, The Stone Demonstrator – a structure currently on display in West London, is on a mission to dispel the myths linked to building with stone and get the industry on the material's side.

Enter The Stone Demonstrator and explore building with stone

The Stone Demonstrator is a case study – a construction created as a showcase of how stone can be used, efficiently and sustainably, in every aspect of design and building, from foundations and floors, to walls and ceilings. Situated in Empress Place in Earl's Court, the project was created by the Design Museum's research arm focusing on green transition, the Future Observatory, together with the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), London-based architect and stone use pioneer Amin Taha, and specialist engineers Webb Yates and Arup.

'The idea is that people can come and study it and understand what the supply chains need to be, what the trade skills need to be, and that ultimately we're trying to move the construction industry away from steel and concrete because of the high carbon emissions associated with them, and fire clay bricks,' says Taha.

The structure spans three storeys tall and was designed as a sampling of different techniques and block sizes when building with stone. It uses pre-tensioned stone structures (both beams, slabs and columns) to a footprint of 6.5m x 6.5m and is surrounded by a garden that offers seating areas in further stone configurations - highlighting different shapes and sizes of stone bricks in a green setting by landscape designers Lyndon Osborn & Team.

Part of the point, Taha explains, is that it 'is not designed to look radical,' so that visitors - clients, architects or contractors - can see that existing skills and aesthetics can be used and achieved through stone construction as well, only with a fraction of the carbon emissions.

'It is a cost-effective, easy and normal way of constructing things,' stresses engineer Liam Bryant of Webb Yates. 'We have reached a point where it's somehow considered a complex and unusual, and high-risk construction method to build with stone, when it is in fact 1/3 of the process in all aspects,' compared to, say, building with concrete, which is a lot more labour-intensive. On top of this, 'it's also quite a local material, because everywhere you are in the world, you'll have a different stone,' Taha adds.

The results are impressive. 'The Stone Demonstrator is a prototype of an alternative way to build that reduces carbon emissions by approximately 70% compared to a reinforced concrete frame, and 90% compared to a steel frame,' reads the Future Observatory's report. And if the government plans to build 1.5 million homes in the near future are to be followed, then choosing the right material, one which doesn't burden the environment, feels more crucial than ever.

If you want to compare results, the team has numbers to back up its claims. A clay brick facade can emit around 40,000 kg of carbon dioxide; at The Stone Demonstrator, a similar structure produces some 3,000kg of CO2. Justin McGuirk, director of Future Observatory highlighted that 'it’s a building as a research tool, a 1:1 scale demonstrator of an ultra-low-carbon structure for the sector to study. And the accompanying design guide being produced by UCL [led by Professor Wendel Sebastian] is another key step in the adoption of structural stone.'

The Stone Demonstrator is set to stay on its West London site and remain open to the public for a few months at least. Its goal is to provide evidence and a powerful talking point for the building with stone – an often overlooked material, but one which its engineers here, Webb Yates and Arup, argue can be used a lot more widely and with impressive results. The self-supporting structural frame they have designed would be even suited 'for buildings up to 80 storeys tall,' and even in seismic areas, they say. It is hard to remain indifferent in the face of their facts and enthusiasm.

designmuseum.org

futureobservatory.org

Fresh from a recent commission to redesign the Italian ambassador’s residence in London, Vinson is well-versed in the creative needs of a diplomatic delegation. His shell was a five-storey listed building, facing Buckingham Palace on one side (it had originally been built as a police station for Queen Victoria), which he chose to adorn in a rich colour palette and art from some of Italy’s most relevant creative moments.

Guests entering Casa Italia are instantly in the thrall of a sophisticated curation that chronicles a rich visual history. ‘Italian lobbies are generally fabulous, so we needed to create something equally fitting,’ says Vinson, who enlisted design studio Formafantasma to create an impactful floor motif for the entrance. Studio founders Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin worked with mosaic specialist Fantini Mosaici on a design inspired by the floors in Luigi Caccia Dominioni’s Teatro Filodrammatici in Milan. Created with stones exclusively available in Italy, the mosaic embodies the spirit of midcentury Italian design while responding to the space and its use. ‘To design it, we imagined the flow from the entrance into the building, creating an infographic of the movements within the room,’ says Farresin.

Vinson’s vision for a grand entrance also included a pair of lifts, a collaboration between Martino Gamper and surface specialist Abet Laminati. Contrasting with the rationalist-style travertine trim from Marsotto and Formafantasma’s ‘Superwire’ pendants, Gamper’s burst of geometric shapes in a palette of blues and yellows both frames the lifts and leads guests inside.

‘I wanted the design to act like a host: to greet visitors, to invite them in, and to carry them gently from one area to the next,’ says Gamper. ‘The geometric compositions are not just decorative; they create a sense of flow and orientation, turning what might be a mere transitional space into a moment of visual pleasure and curiosity.’

The project was supported by art patrons Sian and Matthew Westerman, Valeria Napoleone, Nicoletta Fiorucci and Nathan Clements-Gillespie. ‘Their belief in experimentation creates the space for projects like this to exist,' shares Gamper. 'Nathan, with his curatorial insight, helped shape how the work fits into the larger context of the space and the visitor experience. It’s a collaboration built on trust and shared curiosity, and that makes all the difference.’

Opening this month, Casa Italia will house the Italian Trade Agency and the Italian Cultural Institute, and will include offices for the ambassador and his deputy, as well as workspaces for the economic and political delegation, and administrative and financial offices. Every interior element was painstakingly curated by Vinson, who worked closely with Italian cultural archives, institutions and foundations to put together an art collection that deftly depicts Italy’s artistic landscape, both historical and contemporary.

He also collaborated with manufacturing specialists such as Saporiti, who not only supported Vinson with some of the building’s furnishings, but also helped create architectural uniformity throughout, with rooms entirely clad in panels by Piero Lissoni for Alpi. Listone Giordano supplied the Michele De Lucchi-designed hardwood flooring for a bespoke stage for the main hall.

All the interiors are defined by a style language that blends a classic warmth with a contemporary utilitarian sensibility, as well as a bold and eclectic use of colour and art. The waiting room, a preamble to a library named after Italian 20th-century writer Eugenio Montale, features Vincent Van Duysen’s ‘Augusto’ sofa for Molteni & C and LSM’s ‘Andromeda’ table for UniFor, with a pair of Controluce sculptures by Pietro Consagra. ‘As Pietro Consagra’s heir, I am delighted to be part of an initiative that enhances a historic site with examples of modern and contemporary creativity, conveying a fascinating example of cultural diplomacy,’ says Gabriella Di Milia, who is also president of the artist’s archive.

A pair of sliding doors, designed by Franco Mirenzi and Vittorio Parigi for Citterio, separate this space from the adjoining library, which is fitted out with Dante Bonuccelli’s modular ‘Libreria CF’ bookcase for UniFor, a slim system that complements the room’s visual richness.

‘Supporting Italy and the institutional spaces that represent it around the world is a source of great pride for us: it is an opportunity to express Italian quality and design in some prestigious international contexts,’ says UniFor CEO Carlo Molteni. The space’s multilayered effect is conveyed by some intricately crafted Murano chandeliers, a 1960s Giuseppe Capogrossi tapestry, and furniture that includes chairs by Gio Ponti and Michael Anastassiades for Molteni & C.

Among the public locations within the building is also a small exhibition space, defined by a muted colour scheme. Sliding doors by Rimadesio divide the room, which will serve as a function space and gallery, making its debut in November with an exhibition of works by JMW Turner painted during his travels around Italy.

The work of avant-garde 1960s artist Paolo Scheggi defines the main hall, a room dedicated to talks and press conferences. Art historian Ilaria Bignotti, curator of the Scheggi Archive, explains the pieces in the space. ‘Made with coloured cardboard modules, appropriately folded and cut to form enchanting and dynamic patterns, the Inter-ena-cubi, created between 1967-1969 by Paolo Scheggi, are arranged in the environment as elements of plastic integration to architecture and design.’

The upper floors serve as workspaces for the embassy’s staff, and are characterised by a bold chromatic narrative. Each area is defined by a variation of a single shade, with palettes of red, yellow and green used for desks and cabinets by UniFor, as well as on the walls.

For the offices of the ambassador and his deputy, Vinson imagined two inviting spaces (one in blue, the other in red), with minimalist leather-clad desks by Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Mario Bellini chairs, Gianfranco Frattini ‘Kyoto’ tables and Luigi Caccia Dominioni lamps.

Among Vinson’s most compelling additions to the space is a commission of Italian artist Gianpaolo Pagni, whose work is often created using old scholastic textbooks to reflect what he calls a ‘collective cultural archaeology’. When Vinson and Pagni first met, the artist was working on a series of pieces using a textbook from his school days. ‘These pages bear traces of scribbles and notes; they are underlined in pencil or highlighter, all traces of the time spent studying,’ says Pagni. ‘It’s a curious feeling to find yourself standing before these pages 30 years later, painting on them and leaving another layer of memory.’ Vinson connected Pagni with textile company Rubelli, who recreated the textbook’s pages in canvas, on which the artist painted his motifs.

This quadriptych now hangs in the office meeting room, accompanied by a series of Etruscan sculptures on loan from Rome’s National Etruscan Museum at Villa Giulia (more Etruscan objects can be found elsewhere in the space, including in the waiting room).

But perhaps the most symbolic of the project is the Antony Gormley sculpture in the ambassador’s office, representing an aptly harmonious bridge between the British and Italian cultural landscape. ‘I credit the ambassador for his keen desire to have a showcase of Italian-made excellence merged with British creativity,’ says Vinson.

‘The great joy of having a new, purpose-designed building is that we had the opportunity to curate our spaces in direct alignment with our mission as the nexus for artists of African descent, locally, nationally, and internationally,’ says Golden. ‘This meant that we were able to make our mission visible wherever possible, including in our furnishings.’

To achieve this, the museum turned to designers working at the intersection of furniture, craft and cultural expression: Ini Archibong, Charles O Job, Stephen Burks, Mac Collins, Michael Puryear, Peter Mabeo, Marcus Samuelsson, and Sefako Ketosugbo and Tolu Odunfa Dragonë of Brooklyn-based studio Sefako Tolu. Their work now anchors communal spaces across the museum.

‘These incredible designers exist within, and have contributed to, an expansive definition of art – Black art, in particular – that includes furniture design,’ says Golden.

There is much to take in. An ‘Assemblage’ chair by Charles O Job greets visitors in the fifth-floor reception, while Ini Archibong’s ‘Iquo’ chair appears in both the café and the rooftop terrace designed by Harlem-based landscape architects Studio Zewde. In the trustees’ lounge, a chair by Michael Puryear sits alongside three works by Sefako Tolu. Peter Mabeo’s ‘Kalahari’ credenza anchors the conference centre, while Stephen Burks contributes chairs for both the lecture hall stage and the reading room.

The placement of each work reflects deliberate curatorial choices, shaping how people move through and gather within the museum. ‘All of the spaces in our building were designed with the public in mind,’ Golden says. ‘Areas like the stoop and the reading room were created intentionally for communal gatherings, leisure, reflection and conversation. These furnishings complete these spaces in various ways, in many cases inviting our visitors to rest or spend time with the museum and the artworks on view. They also signal that art extends beyond traditional expressions and materials.’ In practice, this translates into spaces designed to welcome people to sit, talk and spend time together. The museum is now not just a place to see exhibitions, but also a civic space where Harlem’s community can convene, converse or soak in a quiet moment of peace.

The Studio Museum has always served as a multifaceted platform for African artists, and this project now extends this ethos into design. ‘Since our inception, the museum has remained committed to artists from the African continent, whether they live on the continent or in the diaspora,’ notes Golden. ‘So it made sense that the decision-making around our furniture would remain within this institutional framework. Uplifting designers who are immersed in African and African diasporic traditions makes it possible for us to continue engaging in the ideas, conversations and influences that emerge from the continent, whether of past, present or future.’

This commitment is legible in each object. Mabeo’s Gaborone-based studio works with local artisans to realise furniture embedded in Botswanan culture, while Archibong’s practice draws from his Nigerian heritage, and Collins’ ‘Iklwa’ stool references the Zulu spear from which it takes its name.

If there is a through-line across these works, it is that they serve both form and function. They are made to be used, sat upon, leaned against or gathered around. Yet they also carry meaning and ancestral memory. For Golden, this is precisely the point: the Studio Museum has always sought to broaden definitions of art while, at the same time, presenting works that are grounded in lived experience.

The new furniture ensures that the museum’s history and mission are woven into its fabric. The furnishings are not secondary to the art on the walls – they are part of the same continuum. They connect the institution’s mission to its architecture, and its architecture to the daily lives of those who, from the grind of the Harlem streets, will now integrate it into their daily routines.

‘These furnishings invite visitors to rest or spend time with the museum,’ Golden says. In a city where cultural spaces can feel transitory, where visitors are often rushed along or kept at arm’s length, the Studio Museum’s new interiors suggest another model. Here, design is not just something to look at – it’s something to live with.

144 W 125th St, New York, NY 10027

As the name hints, Bardware was born out of Bard founders Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens’ love of hardware stores. 'There’s something heroically human about them,' reflects Macdonald. 'They have an underlying optimism that suggests we can still just about make, fix, build and repair our habitats – some of us, anyway.'

What particularly enamours the pair is that hardware shops are all about craft as a mindset, more than a fetishized practice – a message that Bard is keen to convey. 'This was the kernel of our idea for Bardware: let’s celebrate craft with the robust joy of a hardware shop. We wanted to celebrate craft’s capacity to result in useful things for domestic endeavour that are compelling for their sensory engagement.'

The show features works by 20 craftspeople, designers and artists from across Scotland, who Macdonald and Stevens asked to create objects that awaken and enliven the senses through daily use in the home – a brief they describe as a bit 'Frankenstein'.

The results, all displayed to be picked up and touched, are enchanting: James Rigler has cast bronze-glazed ceramic 'Greek Knobs' from an original ceiling rose by Glaswegian architectural theorist Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson; Juli Bolaños-Durman has created architectural toilet-roll holders made from salvaged wood and glass; Oliver Spendley has made bowls from polished shards of mountain rock; and All About Willow has hand-turned cherry porridge spurtles.

Elsewhere there are pocket knives made from whisky-barrel hoops by Clement Knives; baskets woven from sea plastic washed up on Shetland’s beaches by Eve Eunson; a coven of devotional ceramic characters in different glazes by Viv Lee; leather-wrapped boulder doorstops by Jess White; bent aluminium candelabra by David Taylor; and cosy alpaca hot-water bottle covers by Araminta Campbell. 'People really brought themselves, their skills and the extremities of their ideas to our doors,' enthuses Macdonald.

The showcase marks three years since Bard first opened its doors at Customs Lane in Leith and began selling craft in its own unique way – one that feels fun, engaging and meaningful. 'Humour, or at least mild irreverence with a bit of wit, is a good way of waking people up to craft – taking it out of the museum and into life, off the plinth,' says Macdonald. 'Craft is expensive, but it’s worth it when you take a moment to understand its value. Our greater societal ill is that everything else is so cheap.'

Since opening, Macdonald and Stevens report having seen a genuine and significant rise in people celebrating craft – buying it, using it and asking questions about practitioners, materials and skills.

'Craft is a life force – it adds whoomph to our human experience and makes us feel connected across time and culture,' reflects Macdonald. 'Maybe we’re finally waking up to the fact that craft is not regressive, or a counterbalance to the optimism and efficiency of design and technology – it runs very much in parallel and is powerful when it is interwoven.'

‘Dante is our Lakeland terrier,’ Laura explained downstairs in the rust-carpeted, steel-walled flagship store, which sits below the office where the show took place. Around her, guests, artists, and musicians like Steve Lacy and Celeste mill around with glasses of natural wine and shortbread biscuits shaped like dog treats, while Kostadinov chats to friends cradling the furry four-year-old dog in his arms.

Kiko Kostadinov host one-off show in the brand’s London HQ

‘He’s kind of like our mascot,’ she continued. ‘He’s from the north of England, the Lake District, so we played on ideas of the countryside. We also thought about the textures that he likes and how they could materialise in a wardrobe. It’s really fun and light-hearted, and I feel like all the designers in the studio really connected to the collection.’

Opening the doors to Kiko Kostadinov’s gleaming new multistorey headquarters, the show marked something of a homecoming for the Bulgarian designer and Australian twin sisters. Kostadinov launched his technically experimental namesake brand in London in 2016 after graduating from Central Saint Martins, bringing the Fannings into the fold to head up its womenswear offering in 2018. The trio have channelled their creative energy into other cities in the years since, becoming anticipated fixtures of the Paris Fashion Week calendar while opening two retail spaces in Tokyo and Los Angeles. As Kiko Kostadinov prepares to mark ten years in 2026, the brand is now putting down roots in the city where it all began.

To celebrate the occasion, the designers presented mens- and womenswear together for the first time on Friday evening. As a glitchy techno score pulsed through the office space, an unconventional cast of characters appeared in looks that explored eccentric British countryside dress, twisting heritage shapes and fabrics through the brand’s unmistakably off-kilter codes. Taking the rolling landscapes of their canine muse as a starting point, men wore dog-walker uniforms shuffled up with formalwear, mixing sturdy cardigans, corduroy blousons, and tailoring cut in Japanese tweed. Debuting denim and twill pieces from a new collaboration with Levi’s, the looks, said the brand, captured the joy of mixing the practical with the refined.

Their women, meanwhile, were clad in figure-hugging looks that riffed on ideas of British formalism in other ways. Striking a balance of awkward sensuality, riding suits came with leather patch detailing, jacquard tops clung to the body in soft cashmere, and slip dresses appeared in elegant double-faced wools. The affirming presence of Dante appeared throughout, from tufted-knit materials inspired by terrier fur to his four-legged figure cast in brooches and pins, a set of which were left on seats for guests to take home. Made by their studio, shown in their studio, it was a clever and original collection from the heart, celebrating everything the three designers have achieved as they open the doors to the brand’s new home.

Like many good things, the building where they are able to make this new start came to them by a stroke of timing. ‘The landlord of our old space sold the building, so we had three months to find something else,’ says Fanning. ‘We were fortunate enough to find this place. We came together and really thought about what it could be, how we could bring our work to people in a way that we felt more connected.’

As such, the store is designed to ‘pervert’ the classic retail experience, blending exclusive releases with an evolving exhibition space and surreal fittings by long-time collaborator Ryan Trecartin, who also worked on the Tokyo and LA stores. This time, a frenetic 2016 film by Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch, Stunt Tank, inspired pontoon-boat furniture and snaking chrome safety railings, while footage from the work plays in store for the opening this weekend.

While the brand is known for its intellectually charged collections, and the new HQ will no doubt offer more breathing room for its subversive ideas, the warm, human energy in the room last night was a reminder of the people, collaborators – and pets – behind it all. As Fanning states, they hope it will serve as a space to share their work in more personal ways. ‘We want to view it as a hybrid place, where we do events, have exhibitions, and customer appointments,’ she says. ‘We'll see the shape that it takes, but it’s exciting to meet the people who wear the clothes, to have that direct interaction with the customer. It makes everything feel more real.’

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